EHN Originals

Brain function, especially in children, is often evaluated by intelligence tests resulting in an Intelligence Quotient or “IQ.” IQ scores, after having increased for most of the 20th century, have been going down since the mid-1990s. The decline is well documented across Europe, the U.S. and Australia. Is this trend for real? Some technical issues…

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The recent 6-3 U.S. Supreme Court decision in West Virginia v. EPA was an exercise of raw political power. The anti-regulation, conservative majority did it with a highly contrived, legally threadbare argument simply because they could. Notably, the dispute was about a regulation — the Clean Power Plan (CPP) — that was no longer in…

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Jimmy Carter’s one-term presidency is mostly remembered for bad things: Iranian hostages, energy “malaise,” and more. But in addition to his exemplary post-White House life, Carter’s Oval Office stint was an extremely busy one for environmental politics. The nation’s first acknowledged toxic waste disaster was discovered on his watch in the Love Canal neighborhood of…

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When Dr. Rob Sargis sees a patient struggling with obesity, his recommendations go beyond diet and exercise. He may advise them to stop heating things in plastics, or to avoid congested roads during rush hour. Sargis, a practicing doctor and professor of medicine at the University of Illinois, is one of a number of doctors…

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Dr. Diana Hernández joins the Agents of Change in Environmental Justice podcast to discuss how housing and energy impact our health and well-being. Hernández, a tenured associate professor of sociomedical sciences at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, also talks about “social impact real estate” and how she’s investing in her South Bronx neighborhood.…

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EHN reporter Kristina Marusic recently discussed the mental health impacts of pollution on an episode of “Mad in America,” a podcast about science, psychiatry, and social justice. Marusic talked about emerging research showing that pollution in air and water can affect our minds and emotions, and that children are especially vulnerable, both while they are…

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As bees continue to decline, scientists have found many contributors, including climate change and landscape transformation. Now they’ve added another one: glyphosate. Over the past few years, glyphosate, an herbicide most known as the active ingredient in Roundup that’s used to regulate plant growth and kill off unwanted plant species, has become a subject of…

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In the year 2000, I was overseeing CNN’s science and environment coverage. One day in our daily editorial meeting, one of the top bosses asked me why there seemed to be such scientific doubt about climate change. I told him there was little doubt among credentialed scientists, but that news organizations tended to cover science…

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A recent global study found almost 90% of free-range egg samples from contaminated sites in developing nations exceeded the European Union (EU) maximum food limits for toxic pollutants. Plastic waste is a major contributor to the pollution. Dioxins and dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls, commonly known as PCBs, are persistent organic pollutants, or POPs, that spread easily…

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EHN.org, in partnership with the website Mamavation.com, spent the bulk of 2022 finding PFAS in scores of everyday products. Our findings suggest these troublesome chemicals are on our shelves, in our bodies, and almost impossible to avoid. Surprisingly, many brands that tout clean and green credentials – like Lululemon, Burt’s Bees, Trader Joe’s – are…

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