Microbiology & Environmental Toxicology
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Residents near Moss Landing fire provide samples to measure health impact
UC Santa Cruz toxicology professor Donald Smith says hair samples submitted by the Moss Landing community will contribute to a growing body of toxicology research. Smith’s lab will analyze the hair samples for manganese concentrations, but cannot yet interpret those results to connect exposure to symptoms without more long-term data.
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An Ocean View, Pollution Included: Scientists at Rio Theatre Warn of Microplastics
UCSC adjunct and environmental toxicologist Dr. Myra Finkelstein spoke of her research on Midway Atoll in the South Pacific, which revealed dangerous amounts of plastic in the eggs and digestive tracts of seabirds such as albatross. “There is also a lot of evidence that humans are also ingesting microplastics,” she said.
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These Lizards Have So Much Lead in Their Blood, They Should Be Dead. Instead, They’re Thriving
“The fact that they show no measurable signs of toxicity is surprising, because in other vertebrates I’m familiar with, blood lead above 500 micrograms per deciliter is associated with obvious illness or even death,” says Donald Smith, a microbiologist at the University of California Santa Cruz who was not involved with the research, to the…
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Bay Area universities reel from cuts in research funding from National Institutes of Health
“I think the big concern is, if this goes on too long, then we’re just going to lose a generation of researchers who are going to have to go find other jobs,” UC Santa Cruz biology professor Grant Hartzog said. “I’ve got a 21-year-old son who’s a biochemistry major and has been thinking about whether…
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Plastic is harming seabirds even more than we realized
A new study co-led by researchers at UC Santa Cruz shows that ingested plastic can release hormone-altering chemicals in northern fulmars, a species of seabird that inhabits the North Atlantic and North Pacific.