This Week in EPA Science
By Kacey Fitzpatrick
It’s summer blockbuster season and you know what that means—get ready for action packed movies about superheroes, robots, and genetically-modified dinosaurs. What does that have to do with this blog? It all starts with science!
Before you head out to see the latest sci-fi flick, check out some EPA science that we’re highlighting this week.
- Visit a Unique Air Monitoring Bench this Summer
EPA has developed an air-monitoring system that can be incorporated into a park bench. The Village Green bench provides real-time air quality measurements on two air pollutants – ozone and particle pollution – and weather conditions. The data is also streamed to a website and can be obtained at the benches using a smart phone. There are several benches throughout the country that you can visit!
Read more about the project in the blog Visit a Unique Air Monitoring Bench this Summer.
- EPA-supported Research Featured in Environmental Health Perspectives
The journal Environmental Health Perspectives recently featured several papers presenting research supported by EPA Science to Achieve Results grants. These articles include:- Associations of Mortality with Long-Term Exposures to Fine and Ultrafine Particles, which looks at the significant associations between mortality, fine and ultrafine particulate matter air pollutants, and their sources.
- Markers of Inflammation and Coagulation after Long-Term Exposure to Coarse Particulate Matter, an investigation of long-term associations with inflammation and coagulation in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA).
- Effects of Ambient Coarse, Fine, and Ultrafine Particles and Their Biological Constituents on Systemic Biomarkers which observes the changes of blood and urinary biomarkers after controlled exposures to different particle sizes of air pollutants.
- Long-term Fine Particle Exposure in the Northeastern United States, the first study to answer questions about the effect of air pollution exposure on the nervous system.
- EPA Uses ToxCast program for Faster and Less Costly Screening
“This is the beginning of a new day for testing chemicals for safety,” said Jim Jones, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention when announcing EPA’s proposal to use to use the ground-breaking tools developed in the ToxCast program to rapidly perform tests on thousands of chemicals to predict hormone-related, endocrine activity. “These new technologies allow us to screen more chemicals in less time, use fewer animals and reduce costs for everyone.”
Read the full announcement in the press release EPA Uses Cutting-Edge Technology to Evaluate Chemicals for Human Hormone Impacts
Photo of the Week
EPA scientists developed innovative ways to use large outdoor “mesocosms” (pictured) that were originally designed for ozone exposure research to explore and model several other issues of concern for the Agency, including:
- The potential ecological consequences of gene flow from genetically-modified crops to non-agricultural plants.
- The effects of herbicide drift on plant communities.
- The potential impacts of escaped non-native grasses and other plants grown for use as biofuels on native plant and soil communities.
If you have any comments or questions about what I share or about the week’s events, please submit them below in the comments section!
About the Author: Kacey Fitzpatrick is a student contractor and writer working with the science communication team in EPA’s Office of Research and Development.