Life Changes
Healing Through Storytelling: Lessons from The Odyssey
The journey of Odysseus in Homer's 'The Odyssey' offers profound insights into healing...
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- Written by: Mike Williams, Rice University
"It's kind of ironic. In our laboratory, working with carbon nanotubes, we wear facemasks to prevent exactly what we're seeing in these samples, yet everyone walking around out there in the world probably has at least a small concentration of carbon nanotubes in their lungs," says Lon Wilson.
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- Written by: Gemma Paech, Washington State University
We all suffer from too little sleep from time to time, some more than others. There are many possible reasons, depending on our age, genes and sleep habits; but another possible culprit is using technology before going to sleep.
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- Written by: Elizabeth Grossman
Environmental chemicals are wreaking havoc to last a lifetime. 10 to 15 percent of all babies born in the U.S. have some type of neurobehavorial development disorder. Still more are affected by neurological disorders that don’t rise to the level of clinical diagnosis.
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- Written by: Brian Zikmund-Fisher, Univ. of Michigan & Laura Scherer, Univ. of Missouri
Purchase a plastic water bottle, and there’s a good chance that it will feature a “BPA-free” label. You might be seeing it more often because the industrial chemical Bisphenol-A has now been removed from a wide array of products.
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- Written by: Elizabeth Grossman
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Recent analyses raise disturbing questions about the health and environmental effects of the stuff that encases our edibles.
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- Written by: Ed Brown
Today, chemicals comprise the backbone of our modern lifestyle and are the largest sector of our economy. We generate 300 billion pounds of synthetic chemicals each year in the U.S. alone, and an average American uses more than 1,500 pounds of chemical products. Synthetic chemicals are poisoning our bodies...
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- Written by: Brian Palmer, OnEarth
Toxicologists have a saying: “The dose makes the poison.” In other words, there is no such thing as “toxic” or “non-toxic” — it always depends on how much of a substance you consume.
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- Written by: Carrie Arnold, Environmental Health Perspectives
On a low, windswept rise at the southeastern edge of the Navajo Nation, Jackie Bell-Jefferson prepares to move her family from their home. A mound of uranium-laden waste the size of several football fields, covered with a thin veneer of gravel, dominates the view from her front door...
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- Written by: InnerSelf Staff
It would seem, and particularly for mothers, fathers, and grandparents everywhere, that using plastics for anything other than decorations is not at all wise. Just what would be your decision if you knew that what you were feeding your children, or your grandchildren, might one day lead to...
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- Written by: Michael Behar, OnEarth
The health risks of leaded gasoline are a thing of the past, right? Wrong. When the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality surveyed the airport in 2005, it found a lead cloud hovering above Hillsboro, a circular plume spanning 25 square miles. At its center lead levels were twice as high as the National Ambient Air Quality Standard threshold...
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- Written by: David J. Tenenbaum
Many older people in the U. S. population were chronically exposed to lead from paint and gasoline prior to the 1980s. To date, most of the research on lead and cognitive functioning in older age has focused on men, despite the fact that women live longer on average and therefore may be more likely to develop dementia over the course of their life span.
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- Written by: Carol Torgan, Ph. D.
Bacterial communities called biofilms can quickly clog medical devices such as stents and catheters by forming 3-dimensional streamers that block flow. The finding will inform future approaches to prevent these deadly clogs....
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- Written by: Winifred A. Bird and Jane Braxton Little
The idle fields are illuminated by lights from his house, where several men bend intently over a low wooden table as they pore over satellite photographs and contour maps.
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- Written by: National Institute Of Health
A low-cost vaccine against the dengue virus showed promise in an early-stage clinical trial. With further development, the vaccine may help ease the burden of dengue fever in developing countries....
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- Written by: John Robbins
There are legitimate questions about soy. To my mind, by far the most disturbing one stems from the fact that 90 percent of the U.S. soybean crop today is genetically engineered. Because so much Roundup is used on these crops, the residue levels in the harvested crops greatly exceed what, until very recently, was the allowable legal limit...
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- Written by: Deanna Duke
(Do you think your tap water is only water? Think again.) The major contaminants that the EPA requires testing for include benzenes, vinyl chloride, BPA, triclosan, DEET, mercury, cadmium, perchlorate, phthalates, DDT, PCBs, atrazine and other pesticides, E. coli and fecal coliforms. Other contaminants...
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- Written by: Deanna Duke
Back in the 1980s, NASA reported some research it did on the value of indoor plants in cleaning up air quality. Over the years, researchers looked at more than 30 different plants to find the ones that are best at cleaning indoor air...
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- Written by: Sondra Kornblatt
Women show more susceptibility to toxins. On one hand, women’s bodies have more fat, where toxins accumulate, so women are four times more likely to exhibit symptoms of chemical sensitivity than men.
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- Written by: InnerSelf Staff
BPA is in many of the products we eat and drink regularly. It is so common that the CDC estimates that 93% of Americans have BPA in their bloodstream. One of the most common products containing BPA and the one of most concern is canned food.
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- Written by: R Jennings
Last week, the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards was finalized and will protect millions of families and, especially, children from air pollution. Before this rule, there were no national standards that limited the amount of mercury, arsenic, chromium, nickel and acid gases power plants across the country could release into the air we breathe.
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- Written by: InnerSelf Staff
We are living in a world where environmental pollution has become part of life. Civilized humans today must live in cramped urban areas, drink contaminated water, take in polluted air, eat contaminated foods, and endure loud, disturbing noises. What can we do?
