The Researcher's Perspective Podcast Series

Rice-based ingredients can add an unexpected element to foods.
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Landscape fires have been a fact of life — and a cause of death — probably for as long as humans have been on the planet.
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Although soft plastic items are perhaps the best known source of phthalate exposure, the timed-release coatings on certain pharmaceuticals and dietary supplements may also contribute.
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The controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") raises concerns that the natural gas boom is proceeding too fast, before we understand the human health impacts.
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Many metals are neurotoxic on their own, but their effects in combination may be especially harmful, particularly for children.
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Undernutrition is already a serious problem in many developing countries. A new report predicts climate change will reduce cereal crop yields, potentially worsening undernutrition.
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Controversy over cell phone safety is as ubiquitous as the devices themselves.
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Studies are showing a trend of girls developing breasts and going through puberty earlier than they did in years past. Do environmental exposures play a role?
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Unusual weather patterns attributable to climate change are translating into human health effects.
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Globalization has made it possible to produce clothing at increasingly lower prices, prices so low that many consumers consider this clothing to be disposable. Some call it "fast fashion," the clothing equivalent of fast food.
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Damage to Japanese industries during the March 2011 tsunami and earthquake raised the potential for extensive chemical exposures.
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Air pollution in one of the world's oldest civilizations reflects a combination of traditional and modern-day factors. 采访文稿已译成中文。
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Researchers face ethical and logistical dilemmas in communicating biomonitoring study findings to study participants and to the general public.
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Although many countries have banned asbestos, production or importation is on the rise in others.
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On its 50th anniversary the Society of Toxicology recognizes people and events that shaped the history of toxicology.
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Similarities in the way different species metabolize bisphenol A (BPA) may offer important clues to understanding potential human health effects of the compound.
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An international group of scientists has drafted a statement calling for action on brominated and chlorinated flame retardants.
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Researchers are exploring how environmental exposures may contribute to attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, one of the most frequently diagnosed neurobehavioral problems in children.
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The same disinfectants used to sanitize pools for swimmers can also combine with organic matter in the water to produce potentially toxic disinfection by-products.
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Many of the artificial food colorings in products sold today have been shown to cause cancer in animals and are strongly suspected of causing neurologic problems such as attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder in children.
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The collapse of the World Trade Center buildings on 11 September 2001 generated massive amounts of dust. What was in that dust, and what made it different from traditional air pollution exposures?
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As many as 70,000 volunteers and rescue workers responded to the 11 September 2001 World Trade Center attacks. How did working at Ground Zero affect the health of these responders?
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Although dispersants have been used to help clean up oil spills since the 1960s, it wasn't until the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico that these chemicals made their way into the public consciousness.
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Exposures in utero can cause immediate health problems for fetuses and babies, but what about diseases that typically arise later in life, such as heart disease and cancer? Could some of these also result from prenatal exposures?
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The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences has enrolled more than 50,000 women in the Sister Study to explore environmental and genetic factors behind breast cancer.
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Flame retardants known as polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are added to products such as furniture, car seats, textiles, and electronics. Now they are also showing up in the food we eat, the dust in our houses, and the bodies of possibly the entire U.S. population.
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In the 1950s biologists began noticing unusual behavior and various reproductive health problems in wild animals. Environmental health analyst Theo Colborn was one of the first to start asking what those trends might mean for humans.
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Figuring out how a chemical might affect human health involves lab studies that can cost millions of dollars and take years to complete. The U.S. EPA ToxCast^TM project uses existing toxicity knowledge as a blueprint for broad-scale chemical assessment.
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Some research suggests environmental factors play a role in autism, while other findings point to a genetic basis. More recently there's been a heated public debate about whether autism is caused by the mercury in vaccines commonly given to children.
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DDT is unique among the "dirty dozen" compounds banned under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants because specific exceptions are made for the indoor spraying of this pesticide to control the mosquitoes that spread malaria.
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Industrial-scale farms known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) have become an increasing focal point for environmental health research because of their emissions and concerns they may contribute to antibiotic resistance, adverse community impacts, and zoonotic disease outbreaks.
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A number of recent studies have reported finding measurable levels of persistent organic pollutants in human milk, and many daily activities expose nursing women to toxic chemicals that can end up in their milk.
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Heat waves kill more people in the United States each year than any other natural hazard, and many regions worldwide are experiencing more frequent and more severe heat waves. But not all people and not all places have the same vulnerability to heat-related health effects.
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A new rodent study suggests arsenic may contribute to immune suppression, a finding that could help explain why certain populations have been hit harder by pandemic novel H1N1 flu.
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Incidence of acute lymphocytic leukemia, the most common childhood leukemia, is highest in industrialized countries and rose significantly between 1975 and 2004, suggesting environmental agents may play some role.
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The global population is undergoing sweeping changes that are shifting the balance toward an older and more urbanized population that experiences more chronic disease and a greater gap between rich and poor.
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Cities and states across the United States, as well as other nations abroad, are banning bisphenol A (BPA) due to concerns about adverse health effects of low doses of this widely used industrial compound, particularly among fetuses, infants, and young children.
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In 2005 Shanna Swan and colleagues published groundbreaking research [EHP 113:1056-1061 (2005)] linking mothers' phthalate levels with altered genital development in their baby sons. This paper later became EHP's 2009 Paper of the Year.
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Children are generally more vulnerable to environmental insults because their bodies are still developing, but just as early exposures can cause lifelong adverse effects, so can early interventions produce lifelong benefits.
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In 2004 Günter Oberdörster and colleagues and colleagues published a seminal review on the emerging discipline of nanotoxicology, which was later selected as EHP's 2008 Paper of the Year [EHP 113:823-839 (2005)].
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In January 2009 Linda Birnbaum took the reins as the new director of NIEHS and the National Toxicology Program.
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How do you visualize something you've never seen? That's the question facing policy makers who are charged with preparing for the potential public health effects of a warming climate.
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