TheConversation

You might be old enough to remember the famous “Where’s the Beef?” Wendy’s commercials. This question may be asked in a different context since U.S. regulators approved the sale of lab-grown chicken meat made from cultivated cells in June 2023. Growing animal cells in the lab isn’t new. Scientists have been culturing animal cells in artificial environments since the 1950s, initially focusing on studying developmental biology and cancer. This technique remains one of the major tools in life science research, especially for drug development. The USDA approved cell-cultivated chicken on June 21, 2023. What are cell cultures? Cell cultures are typically grown using either natural or artificial growth media. Natural media comprise naturally-derived biological fluids, whereas artificial media comprise both organic and inorganic nutrients and compounds. Both contain the necessary ingredients to foster the growth and...

The Navajo Nation, the largest Native American reservation in the U.S., covers 27,000 square miles (70,000 square kilometers) in the Southwest – an area larger than 10 states. Today it is home to more than 250,000 people – roughly comparable to the population of St. Petersburg, Florida, or Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Unlike those cities, however, 30% of households on the Navajo Reservation lack running water. Hauling water can cost 20 times what it does in neighboring off-reservation communities. While the average American uses between 80 and 100 gallons (300-375 liters) of water per day, Navajo Nation members use approximately seven. Since the 1950s, the Navajo Nation has pressed the U.S. government to define the water rights reserved for them under the 1868 treaty that created their reservation. These efforts culminated in a U.S. Supreme Court case, Arizona v. Navajo Nation, which posed this question: Does the treaty between the Navajo Nation and the United S...

Bornean orangutans are one of three orangutan species, all critically endangered. They thrive in carbon-rich peat swamp forests on the Indonesian island of Borneo. These habitats are also the sites of massive wildfires. Indonesian wildfires in 2015 caused some of the worst fire-driven air pollution ever recorded. The fires were driven by an El Niño climatic cycle, which caused especially dry weather in the region. Compared to other wildfires, peatland fires smolder underground and produce exceptionally high levels of hazardous gases and particulate matter – a leading cause of global pollution-related deaths and illnesses. Orangutans are well known as an “indicator species” – one that can serve as a proxy for the health of an ecosystem. Changes in their environments often cause conspicuous changes in the apes’ health and behavior. Frequent and persistent exposure to toxic smoke could have severe consequences for orangutans and other wildlife....

Ocean temperatures have been off the charts since mid-March 2023, with the highest average levels in 40 years of satellite monitoring, and the impact is breaking through in disruptive ways around the world. The sea of Japan is more than 7 degrees Fahrenheit (4 degrees Celsius) warmer than average. The Indian monsoon, closely tied to conditions in the warm Indian Ocean, has been well below its expected strength. Spain, France, England and the whole Scandinavian Peninsula are also seeing rainfall far below normal, likely connected to an extraordinary marine heat wave in the eastern North Atlantic. Sea surface temperatures there have been 1.8 to 5 F (1 to 3 C) above average from the coast of Africa all the way to Iceland. So, what’s going on? Sea surface temperatures are running well above the average since satellite monitoring began. The thick black line is 2023. The orange line is 2022. The 1982-2011 average is the middle dashed li...

PFAS chemicals seemed like a good idea at first. As Teflon, they made pots easier to clean starting in the 1940s. They made jackets waterproof and carpets stain-resistant. Food wrappers, firefighting foam, even makeup seemed better with perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances. Then tests started detecting PFAS in people’s blood. Today, PFAS are pervasive in soil, dust and drinking water around the world. Studies suggest they’re in 98% of Americans’ bodies, where they’ve been associated with health problems including thyroid disease, liver damage and kidney and testicular cancer. There are now over 9,000 types of PFAS. They’re often referred to as “forever chemicals” because the same properties that make them so useful also ensure they don’t break down in nature. Facing lawsuits over PFAS contamination, the industrial giant 3M, which has made PFAS for many uses for decades, announced a US$10.3 billion settlement with public w...