HW2:2391

From Environmental Technology

Current revision as of 17:22, 3 February 2006

• • endrcrine disrupter**

http://www.epa.gov/endocrine/ This is a research initiative site. The EPA is previewing a number of classes of chemicals suspected of causing endocrine disruption. Even thuogh there is a lot of information reguarding endocrine disruptors, many scientific uncertainties still remain. In 1996 the EPA Office of Research and Development [ORD] identified endocrine disruptors as one of its top six research properties and developed a risked based research approach to adress some of these uncertainties.

• • ecotoxicology**

http://www.imprc.com/expert/ecotox/index.shtml This resource is an overview of Ecotoxicology in Pest Management. It is both a basic guide to the subject and an information resource for scientists, policy makers and commercial companies on who is doing what, and where in Ecotoxicology.

• • ecological risk assessment**

http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/yourenv/consultations/60718/?version=1&lang=_e This web site explains what an Ecological Risk Assesment is a framework and methods for assesing harm to ecosystems from contaminants in soil. The EPA invited anyone with expertise in performing Environmental Risk Assesments [ERA's] to take part in a public consultation on a proposed framework and methods for assesing how chemical contaminants in the siol pose rishs to ecosystems.

• • bioaccumulation**

http://toxics.usgs.gov/definitions/bioaccumulation.htm This is a Toxic Substances Hydrology Program site. This site explains that bioaccumulations is a general term for the accumulation og substances, such as pesticides [an example is methylmercury or other organic chemicals in in an organism or part of an organism. The accumulation process involves biological sequestering of substances that enter the organism through respiration, food intake, epidermal [skin] contact with the substance, and/or other means.

• • emerging disease**

http://www.medicalcenter.osu.edu/patientcare/healthinformation/otherhealthtopics/Travelmedicine/EmergingInfectiousDisease5082/ This web site is The Ohio State University Medical Center. This site states according to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, emerging infectious diseases are commonly defined as: diseases that have newly appeared in a population and diseases that have existed in the past but are rapidly increasing in incidence of geographic range. It goes on to explain in detail more about emerging diseases and what the risks are, and travel-related infectious diseases on the rise and how travelers can minimize their risks from these diseases.

• • pollution**

http://www.epa.gov/air/ This is the Office of Air and Radiation. It tells what the EPA plans to do or has done to prevent pollution. Examples are that the EPA removed Methyl Ethyl Ketone from the list of Toxic Air Pollutants after extensive Analysis, Proposing to reduce air toxics risks from Dry Cleaners. The EPA also celebrates the Nation's Cleaner Environment on its 35th anniversary.

• • biological magnification**

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/plants/glossary/indexb.shtml On this web site you can search with-in the site that has anything to do with plants. You will find the definition and exactly what the specific word means. It says that biological magnification is the phenomenon in which toxins[poisons] are more and more concentrated in living organisms that are higher up in the tropic levels of the food web. For example, if a small amount of toxins are in plants, the animal that eats the plants have a higher cosentration of the toxins, and the maet-eaters that eat those plant-eaters have even higher levels of toxins. The toxins are from pesticides [bug killing chemicals], herbicides [weed-killing chemicals] and waste materials.

• • carcinogen**

http://www.scorecard.org/health-effects/explanations.td?short_hazard_name=cancer This is a pollution information site that tells health effects for humans. It says that hundreds of chemicals are capable of inducing cancer in humans or animals after prolonged or excessive exposure. There are many well-known examples of chemicals that can cause cancer in humans. The fumes of the metals cadmium, nickel, and chromium are known causes of lung cancer. It lists more examples of chemicals and what kind of cancer they cause. It also states that chemical-induced cancer generally develops many years after exposure to a toxic agent. A latency period of as much as 30 years has been observed between exposure to asbestos.

• • environmental stressors**

http://www.epa.gov/nheerl/ This web site is through the US Environmental Protection Angency. The health and environmental effect research program serves as the EPA's focol point for scientific research on the effects of contaminants and environmental stressors for both human health and ecosystem integrity. This research helps the Agency identify and understand the process that affect our health and environment, and helps the EPA to evaluate the risks that pollution poses to humans and the ecosystem. It also tells what kinds of programs the EPA came up with that people can sign up for to get grant money so that locally people would be able to put their part in helping.

• • red tides**

http://www.botany.uwc.ac.za/Envfacts/redtides This site explains that the term, red tide is often misleading bacuase discolourations of the water may be brown, orange, purple, or yellow, as well as red. These discolourations are caused from the microscopic plants of the sea, Phytoplannkton. The discolouration varies caused from the different species of phytoplannkton, its pigments, size and concentration, the time of day and the angle of the sun all play a part in the color. This site also explains what the triggers are, the consequences, physical damage, oxygen depeltion, and the poisionings from the red tides.