The story of glyphosate and glyphosate-based-herbicides is emblematic of the perspective we hold towards chemical safety and the tactics employed by the chemical industry to maintain that perspective. Here was a chemical that was initially used industrially and recognized as toxic but through the magic of marketing and intense lobbying, became ‘safe’ for human consumption. […]
Between 1940 and about 1980, millions of pregnant women were given high doses of the artificial estrogen DES in a misguided attempt to prevent miscarriages, a drug that’s been shown to cause female development in biological males across a wide range of animal species.While both the mothers given the drug and their daughters who were […]
What if there is no future? We have always assumed that there would be a future, that somehow no matter what we did to ourselves or to the environment, life would go on. What if we were wrong? What if the very actions we embrace to prolong life, the technologies and conveniences that make modern […]
In the recent news, it was announced that Key West, Florida will ban the use of sunscreens. This reflects how photosensitizers like oxybenzone in sunscreens can alter redox balance (the production and removal of reactive oxygen species) to inflict severe oxidative stress resulting in widespread DNA damage in living organisms like coral reefs. The world has lost […]
Increasingly, I am struck by the repetition of patterns across biological ecosystems. In my research on mitochondria and thiamine, I have learned that nutrient deficiencies cause a sort of molecular hypoxia; one that is due entirely to the failure of the requisite respiration enzymes to perform adequately. The hypoxia is not due to blockage or […]
The world has lost close to half of its coral reefs in the past 30 years. It is estimated that close to 90% of all coral reefs will be dead by the year 2050. Environmental stress is the main reason for the exponential decline of coral reefs. Scientists have identified various increases in environmental stress […]
Some people hydrate infrequently, drinking only frozen water surrounded by alcohol. Other people hydrate religiously but they jeopardize their weight, fertility, and hormone levels by naively drinking questionable water. Wait, questionable water!?Absolutely. A 2010 Great Lakes Basin water study revealed that “detectable concentrations of pharmaceutical compounds were present in 34% of the surface water samples”.“But […]
“Have we fallen into a mesmerized state that makes us accept as inevitable that which is inferior or detrimental, as though having the will or vision to demand that which is good? Such thinking, in the words of the ecologist Paul Shepard, ‘idealizes life only with its head out of water, inches above the limits […]