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chemicals

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    Dear Old Spice Man, will using your product make me, um, less manly?

    Dear Old Spice Man, I see you a lot on TV lately, running around with your shirt off telling me that I won’t be a man if I don’t use Old Spice Body Wash. I hate commercials that blatantly play at gender stereotypes. But I’m not gonna lie, these ads (and your response videos) do […]

    Tyler Falk Technology

  • Taking the petro out of petrochemicals

    Genomatica’s pilot green chemical plant.Photo courtesy of GenomaticaYou can buy green jeans, green greens (at the farmer’s market), and green beer. But the reality is that many, if not most, products in our industrial society contain some petroleum-based chemicals. In fact, up to a quarter of the oil consumed in some regions of the United […]

    Todd Woody Technology

  • Endocrine disruptors really do suck

    U.S. manufacturers and agribusiness are addicted to endocrine disruptors — dangerous chemicals that alter the natural function of the body’s hormones. They are frequently used in plastics, in pesticides, and in personal care products and act in the human body as a “false” version of estrogen. They appear to be linked to a variety of […]

    Tom Laskawy Food

  • Industrial meat comes with antibiotics and endocrine disruptors

    A few years ago, scientists released one of the first studies to examine how diet can affect your exposure to toxic substances. In that case, researchers had a group of Seattle schoolchildren eat an organic diet for five days a week. Almost immediately, pesticide levels in the children’s bodies dropped to almost undetectable levels — […]

    Tom Laskawy Food

  • Does America cause cancer?

    (Grist/iStockphoto)A new government report [PDF] suggests that comedian Bill Maher was on to something when he joked in an interview last year with EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson that “America causes cancer.” The report, released today, says that thousands of industrial chemicals in our environment are indeed making Americans sick, and its findings cannot be easily […]

    Tom Laskawy Culture

  • What are we dumping into the Gulf to ‘fix’ the oil spill?

    A 2006 oil-dispersant-spraying test run by the Air Force Reserve Command’s 910th Airlift Wing, currently deployed to the Gulf to support the oil spill recovery effort. (U.S. Air Force file photo) In addition to the indignity of oil oozing into its depths at a rate of at least 5,000 barrels per day, the Gulf of […]

    Tom Philpott Food

  • Not aging fast enough? Drink a soda!

    American as apple pie. But how bad for us is soda?Hoo boy. The American Beverage Association isn’t going to like this news one bit. Food companies now add significant amounts of phosphates to soda and other processed foods. And now researchers have found evidence that phosphates may accelerate aging (via Science Daily): High phosphate levels […]

    Tom Laskawy Food

  • USDA downplays own scientist’s research on ill effects of Monsanto herbicide

    Sure, the crops are genetically engineered to withstand Roundup; but what about the soil? What would happen if a USDA scientist discovered that one of the most commonly used pesticides on the planet with a reputation for having saved millions of tons of US soil from erosion was — rather than a soil savior — […]

    Tom Laskawy Politics

  • Scientists: BPA has widely contaminated the oceans

    BPA leached from plastic: not just a problem for landlubbers.It’s looking more and more like the chemical industry’s idea to make the endocrine-disrupting chemical bisphenol A ubiquitous in the environment was a terrible, and terribly dangerous, idea. Having successfully tainted the food supply with its presence, BPA has now has put the world’s oceans at […]

    Tom Laskawy Technology