Environmental Health Featured Science Activities

Scientists performed laboratory studies with American kestrels and zebra finch to determine the effects of brominated flame retardant exposure on hatchlings. They found evidence that exposure while in the egg disrupted thyroid function in female American kestrel hatchlings and affected nestling body condition in zebra finch hatchlings, but no other effects were detected.

Results from a 3-year study indicate there was support for the use of open- and deep-water treatment pools at the downstream end of seasonal wetlands to reduce methylmercury concentrations in water exported from the wetlands, but the treatment had no measurable effect on wetland fish. Questions remain about the long-term potential for mercury removal using this wetland management strategy.

Human activities can enrich toxic trace elements like uranium and arsenic in the environment, but these elements also are from natural sources and occur at background levels. Scientists utilized a technique that identifies the background and the elemental fingerprint of human-caused enrichment and tested the new technique on data collected near uranium mines in Arizona.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) assessed the effect of sediment chemistry, food web structure, and diet on mercury bioaccumulation in black rails in the San Francisco Bay watershed. Differences in mercury accumulation in the birds were related to differences in sediment chemistry in the wetlands.

Scientists determined the risk factors associated with smallmouth bass melanistic skin lesions on smallmouth bass in the Susquehanna and Potomac Rivers, in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. A new virus, which appears to be a member of an emerging viral family, the Adomaviridae, was identified in the lesions. Questions remain about the full characterization of the virus and the role of environmental...

Drinking water in the United States rarely is tested for contaminants and pathogens at the tap, where human exposure can occur. In this special issue, we present the science to help understand contaminants and pathogens in drinking water at business and residential taps.

A conceptual model, based on contaminant properties and ecotoxicological principles, was developed to understand the transfer of contaminants from aquatic to terrestrial ecosystems and the effects of various classes of contaminants on terrestrial insectivores living near contaminated freshwaters.

The current state of knowledge on the modes of action, production, fate, and occurrence of the freshwater cyanobacterial neurotoxins, anatoxin-a and saxitoxin, was reviewed and synthesized to identify gaps and critical research needs to better understand the health effects of algal toxins.

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Scientist Dana Kolpin was presented the International Environmental Award by Reciphram celebrating his research on the occurrence, sources, fate, and effects of environmental contaminants such as pharmaceuticals and pesticides.

Mercury concentrations were measured in dragonfly larvae across more than 450 sites in 100 national parks and protected places as part of a partnership among Federal agencies, academic researchers, and more than 4,000 citizen scientists. Mercury concentrations in dragonfly larvae were positively correlated with mercury concentrations in fish and amphibians living in the same aquatic environments...

As a component of ongoing research with a coalition of partners, including the U.S. Geological Survey U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Colorado School of Mines, University of Illinois Chicago, and University of South Carolina, water was collected from the taps of 45 Chicago-area residences and analyzed for 540 organic and 35 inorganic...

Dale Warren Griffin, a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) environmental public-health microbiologist, was selected as a Waksman Foundation Distinguished Lecturer for the 2020–22 American Society for Microbiology (ASM) Lecture Series.