Mind the Science Gap: It Came from the Black (Manure) Lagoon!

March 4, 2012

This article is Cross Posted from Mind the Science Gap. Under the guidance of the Risk Science Center’s director Andrew Maynard, for ten weeks between January and April 2012, Ten Masters of Public Health students from the University of Michigan will post weekly articles, translating complex sciences into accessible science communication for a broad audience. [...]

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Mind the Science Gap: What’s that smell? Worker exposures in nail salons

February 28, 2012

This article is Cross Posted from Mind the Science Gap. Under the guidance of the Risk Science Center’s director Andrew Maynard, for ten weeks between January and April 2012, Ten Masters of Public Health students from the University of Michigan will post weekly articles, translating complex sciences into accessible science communication for a broad audience. [...]

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Mind the Science Gap: Oil and Water…and Dirt

February 24, 2012

This article is Cross Posted from Mind the Science Gap. Under the guidance of the Risk Science Center’s director Andrew Maynard, for ten weeks between January and April 2012, Ten Masters of Public Health students from the University of Michigan will post weekly articles, translating complex sciences into accessible science communication for a broad audience. [...]

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Mind the Scienge Gap: Beach Bums! Gastrointestinal Distress from Sand?

February 22, 2012

This article is Cross Posted from Mind the Science Gap. Under the guidance of the Risk Science Center’s director Andrew Maynard, for ten weeks between January and April 2012, Ten Masters of Public Health students from the University of Michigan will post weekly articles, translating complex sciences into accessible science communication for a broad audience. [...]

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RSC Member Shobita Parthasarathy’s Influential Book Now Out In Paperback

February 20, 2012

Shobita Parthasarathy is an Associate Professor at University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy. She is also a member of the Risk Science Center and sits on our Internal Advisory Board. Dr. Parthasarathy is currently on sabbatical as a Visiting Scholar at the American Bar Foundation. Building Genetic Medicine: Breast Cancer, Technology, and the Comparative Politics of [...]

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Mind the Science Gap: Why Don’t More Kids Get Flu Shots?

February 16, 2012

This article is Cross Posted from Mind the Science Gap. Under the guidance of the Risk Science Center’s director Andrew Maynard, for ten weeks between January and April 2012, Ten Masters of Public Health students from the University of Michigan will post weekly articles, translating complex sciences into accessible science communication for a broad audience. [...]

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Mind the Science Gap: The Science Influencing the CDC Panel Recommendation for the HPV Vaccine for Boys

February 15, 2012

This article is Cross Posted from Mind the Science Gap. Under the guidance of the Risk Science Center’s director Andrew Maynard, for ten weeks between January and April 2012, Ten Masters of Public Health students from the University of Michigan will post weekly articles, translating complex sciences into accessible science communication for a broad audience. [...]

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Planned Parenthood (lowercase): The Cure for Poverty

February 4, 2012

“There is a cure for poverty.  It is a rudimentary one, it does work, though.  It works everywhere, and for the same reason.  It’s colloquially called ‘the empowerment of women.’  It’s the only thing that does work.  If you allow women control over their cycle of reproduction, so that they are not chained by their [...]

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Infrasounds, Annoyance and Anecdotes: The Debate over Wind Turbine Safety

January 31, 2012

 The controversy over adverse health effects from wind turbine installations is an interesting one: both sides of the debate present compelling scientific evidence in favor of their particular perspective on the issue. A recent entry on the New York Times’ Green blog describes metastudies carried out by the state EPA branches of Massachusetts and Oregon, [...]

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National Academy publishes new nanomaterials risk research strategy

January 26, 2012

Cross posted from 2020 Science The US National Academy of Science today published its long-awaited Research Strategy for Environmental, Health, and Safety Aspects of Engineered Nanomaterials. I won’t comment extensively on the report as I was a member of the committee that wrote it. But I did want to highlight a number of aspects of [...]

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Mind the Science Gap – Helping science students connect with a non-science audience

January 21, 2012

Cross-posted from the Scientific American Incubator blog: Studying for a Masters degree in Public Health prepares you for many things.  But it doesn’t necessarily give you hands-on experience of how to take complex information and translate it into something others can understand and use.  Yet as an increasing array of public health issues hit the [...]

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Identification of Environmental Survival Factors For A. baumannii and Risk Assessment of Exposure

January 19, 2012

The following post is by  Christine Greene, one of our 2011 Risk Science Fellows, Christine has an MPH and is a Doctoral Pre-candidate in the Department of Environmental Health Science. You can read the abstract of her research project here. Most people have not heard of Acinetobacter baumannii.  A. baumannii is an emerging nosocomial pathogen [...]

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Going to Pot: A dangerous concoction of science journals, media and publicity

January 13, 2012

Since the cold of the winter months have come upon us once again (Every year?), I have been inundated with the second-hand marijuana smoke of my neighbor.  Let me try to explain.  The house where I live has a forced-air central heating system through which all of the apartments are connected.  I have returned to [...]

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Fungicides in orange juice – quick facts

January 12, 2012

On December 28, the US Food and Drug Administration learned that a juice company had detected very low levels of the pesticide carbendazim in some of its products – specifically orange juice concentrate – and those of its competitors. While both FDA and the US Environmental Protection Agency have stressed that the reported levels do [...]

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2012 World Economic Forum Global Risk Report and its relevance to public health

January 11, 2012

The World Economic Forum Global Risks Report is one of the most authoritative annual assessments of emerging issues surrounding risk currently produced. Now in its seventh edition, the 2012 report launched today draws on over 460 experts* from industry, government, academia and civil society to provide insight into 50 global risks across five categories, within [...]

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Scientific Triumph Meets Political Nightmare: H5N1 Raises Issues of Fear and Free Speech

January 10, 2012

As 2011 drew to a close, controversy was brewing in the offices of some of the most prominent scientific journals in the field: both Science  and Nature received manuscripts in the last quarter of the year describing research on the highly-pathogenic influenza virus A subtype H5N1. This virus is historically very highly lethal, but barely transmitted [...]

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2012 Risk Science Summer Fellows announced

January 9, 2012

Each year the University of Michigan Risk Science Center awards a small number of fellowships to support research students in their research over the summer.  This year the standard of the applications was exceptionally high – the highest I’ve seen.  It was exciting to see such a high caliber of risk-related research amongst School of [...]

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A decade after anthrax, scary white powders still arrive by mail

January 7, 2012

Five people died in the anthrax mailings of 2001.  Since then, anyone receiving mail containing white powder, or a “suspicious package” of any kind, is automatically on high alert. At the Florida state attorney’s office in West Palm Beach on Wednesday, three employees felt ill after an envelope in the mailroom released a white powdery [...]

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Spare a comment – student science writers need your help!

January 5, 2012

In a little over a week, ten of my University of Michigan Masters of Public Health students will embark on an intensive science blogging course – and they need your help! Every week for ten weeks, each student will take a recent scientific publication or emerging area of scientific interest, and write a public blog [...]

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The Quiet Emergency of Hazardous Medical Waste in Developing Countries

December 24, 2011

This past semester, I set my second year Masters of Public Health students a deceptively simple task: Write an opinion piece for a lay audience on a topic related to environmental health sciences and public health.  Deceptive, as anyone who has attempted to write an op ed will tell you, it’s fiendishly difficult to find [...]

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