#toxic-particles

#toxic-particles

The UK Health Security Agency reported around 1,504 heat-associated deaths in England during summer 2025, roughly half the predicted 3,039, despite the season being the warmest on record.

We created Earth in Action to provide a lens into what's happening on our planet, as it happens. Whether it's something typical, like the current air temperature, or an extreme event like a major dust storm, we wanted to provide an opportunity for people to see them.

Corpus Christi's two main reservoirs are just 8.4 percent full, while the backup reservoir is 55 percent full. Without drastic cuts, the water supply could run dry by early next year.

"What surprised me is we are still seeing so many visits to emergency departments associated with very common household cleaning products," Lara McKenzie, Ph.D., stated, emphasizing the ongoing issue despite safety advancements.

In 2019, scientists found that balloons eaten by seabirds are more likely to kill them than other kinds of plastic yet they do not seem to have been earmarked in the same way as, for example, plastic straws.

Blood testing conducted as part of a new ITV documentary has revealed that residents and former workers at the factory have alarming levels of these chemicals in their blood.

Midlife is a sensitive biological window where the body becomes more susceptible to age-related stressors, which may explain why this group responds more strongly to chemical exposure. We suspect that men may be at higher risk because the aging markers we analysed are heavily influenced by lifestyle factors such as smoking, which can compound the damaging effects of these pollutants.

A potent neurotoxin capable of causing lifelong damage to the lungs, brain, skin and other organs, mercury is strictly regulated worldwide. Children, in particular, can suffer severe developmental impairment when exposed. A trace element that occurs naturally in rocks such as limestone, as well as in coal and crude oil, mercury remains locked underground for millions of years, largely entering the ecological cycle through human activity.

Many human activities - from improper disposal of waste to the degradation of car tyres - release small plastic particles, which have infiltrated the atmosphere, oceans and other ecosystems. These include nanoplastics - particles measuring less than 1 micrometre across - and microplastics, which range from 1 micrometre to around 5 millimetres. They've entered our bodies and brains, and scientists are still working to understand their effects on people's health.

The household burning of plastic for heating and cooking is widespread in developing countries, suggests a global study that raises concerns about its health and environmental impacts. The research, published in the journal Nature Communications, surveyed more than 1,000 respondents across 26 countries. One in three people reported being aware of households burning plastic, while 16% said they had burned plastic themselves.

Plastic is everywhere. Inside the human body, in the depths of the ocean and the far reaches of the Arctic. Now a new study warns that, unless the world changes course, plastic could more than double its damage to human health within the next two decades. The culprit is not plastic litter in the environment or microplastics, but the emissions released across plastic's entire life cycle from fossil fuel extraction and manufacturing to transport, recycling and disposal.

The remaining question, though, was where all this methane was coming from in the first place. Throughout the pandemic, there was speculation that the surge might be caused by super-emitter events in the oil and gas sector, or perhaps a lack of maintenance on leaky infrastructure during lockdowns. But the new research suggests that the source of these emissions was not what many expected. The microbial surge

The conventional approach to evaluating the impact of air pollution is to focus on a single exposure during a fixed period of time. But evidence suggests that contaminants work together, magnifying the damage to people's lungs. Conventional studies fail to probe synergistic effects. They also ignore the cumulative effects of lifelong exposures to pollutants, known as the exposome. Researchers need to shift away from single-pollutant studies and towards those involving a broad range of exposures.