Tag: environmental health
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Nation & World
A diet that’s healthy for people, and the planet
At a virtual event, global experts examined obesity and malnutrition in the context of global warming, zoonotic disease, and other agriculture-related threats.
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Science & Tech
Removing indoor pollution
A Harvard School of Public Health graduate and doctoral candidate in environmental health is one of the creative forces behind SolSource, a revolutionary, sun-powered grill designed specifically to reduce pollution inside rural houses.
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Science & Tech
Scientists expect wildfires to increase as climate warms in the coming decades
As the climate warms in the coming decades, atmospheric scientists at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and their colleagues expect that the frequency of wildfires will increase…
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Science & Tech
Are building environmental and health disasters result of climate change?
Disagreement over the public health impact of global warming emerged in a symposium this morning at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The colloquium,…
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Science & Tech
Forty percent of world lacks clean water, solutions sought
The pictures — of children with sunken eyes and shriveled skin; oxen being herded across a river where women clean their clothes and fill their pitchers; an African villager sipping…
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Campus & Community
Dust from Asia invades North America
On the dustiest days in the western United States, 40 percent of the grime blows in from Asia. And fine particles can travel all the way around the world from…
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Campus & Community
Hormones in milk can be dangerous
Ganmaa Davaasambuu is a physician (Mongolia), a Ph.D. in environmental health (Japan), a fellow (Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study), and a working scientist (Harvard School of Public Health). On Monday…
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Health
Study shows benefits of eating fish greatly outweigh risks
Many studies have shown the nutritional benefits of eating fish (finfish or shellfish). Fish is high in protein and omega-3 fatty acids. But concerns have been raised in recent years…
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Science & Tech
Study shows escalating climate change impacts
The Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, along with co-sponsors Swiss Re and the United Nations Development Programme, has released a study showing that climate…
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Campus & Community
Benefits of clean fuel in Africa would be enormous
A study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), finds that promoting cleaner, more efficient technologies for producing charcoal in Africa…
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Campus & Community
Harvard experts help sort out U.S. energy future
John F. Kennedy School of Government energy experts testified to the U.S. Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee this month (March 10) on ways to use clean coal technology to…
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Science & Tech
New busing controversy flares up
James Hammitt, professor at the School of Public Health, and his colleagues have spent the past three years doing risk analyses of buses with conventional diesel engines and emission-controlled diesel…
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Health
Study shows U.S. health care paperwork cost $294.3 billion in 1999
Researchers at Harvard Medical School and the Canadian Institute for Health Information, Canada’s quasi-official health statistics agency, analyzed the administrative costs of health insurers, employers’ health benefit programs, hospitals, nursing…
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Health
Researcher studies effects of terrorist attacks on office workers near WTC site
Since 1971, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has conducted 1,200 investigations into indoor air. Last fall, the agency undertook an investigation unlike all the others. Aided by…
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Science & Tech
Professor honored for ongoing environmental research
Harvard Professor Jack Spengler and MIT professor Mario Molina shared the $250,000 Heinz award, which recognized the independent bodies of work by Spengler and Molina, although coincidentally the researchers are…
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Science & Tech
Strong public support for spraying against mosquitoes
The opening study of the Project on Biological Security and the Public found that one-third (33 percent) of Americans who live in areas where there are a lot of mosquitoes…
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Health
Study of phthalate exposure in humans finds association with sperm DNA damage
Phthalates are a class of compounds used to hold color and scent in many cosmetics and personal care items such as soaps, detergents, skin preparations and aftershave lotions, and they…
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Science & Tech
Boston bike messengers experience very high injury rate
Bike couriers have become as a much a part of the urban landscape as sky-scrapers and traffic-clogged streets. Boston messengers collectively make between 3,000 and 4,000 deliveries on a given…
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Health
Strict enforcement of lead abatement policies saves communities money
Exposure to lead is determined by blood tests, and measured in micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has set a “level of…
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Science & Tech
McElroy says it’s time to stop seeing global warming as political issue
Michael B. McElroy, Gilbert Butler Professor of Environmental Studies and director of Harvard’s Center for the Environment, is among the scientists who since the 1970s have been using paleoclimatic data…
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Science & Tech
Putting bacteria to work
A nautical group of bacteria known as Prochlorococcus removes carbon dioxide from air and fixes it into the carbon content of their own tiny bodies. The more carbon dioxide they…
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Health
Ban on coal burning in Dublin cleans the air, reduces death rates
In the 1980s, Dublin’s air quality suffered as people switched from oil to cheaper and more available coal for home and water heating. On Sept. 1, 1990, the Irish government…
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Science & Tech
Report documents health effect of biodiversity
A new report catalogues the connections between biodiversity and human health. The interim executive summary was presented at the United Nations in late October 2002, following the U.N. World Summit…
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Science & Tech
Heinz Center report presents environmental indicators
Statistics and reports on environmental damage and progress routinely come from dozens — if not hundreds — of nonprofit, government, and other agencies. Often the information disagrees with previously published…
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Science & Tech
Battling toxic molds
Molds are found in all kinds of environments. Estimates of the number of kinds of molds range from tens of thousands to more than 300,000, with more than 1,000 species…
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Health
Maternal history influences risk of asthma in children exposed to cats
Recent studies have gathered evidence that cat exposure during infancy can be protective against asthma. Research at Brigham and Women’s Hospital confirmed these findings in all but one situation: when…
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Science & Tech
It’s easy being green
Eleven interns worked on seven projects across Harvard University for three months in the summer of 2001. The internships were sponsored by the Harvard Green Campus Initiative, in collaboration with…
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Science & Tech
Student investigates investing in Mother Earth
Managers of “green” mutual investment funds seek to invest their clients’ money in socially responsible and environmentally friendly companies. But those managers, and individual investors, are often hampered by a…
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Science & Tech
The skin’s the thing for conserving a building’s energy
It has been estimated that a third of the world’s energy is consumed by buildings, a third by transportation, and a third by industry. With gasoline prices rising and electrical…
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Science & Tech
National environmental policy during the Clinton years
Researchers at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government examined the environmental policy record of former President Bill Clinton. Environmental quality improved overall during the decade, the researchers found, continuing a trend…