"Terra Daily" - Banana peels purify contaminated water

Terra Daily
Washington DC (SPX) Aug 16, 2011

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Banana_peels_purify_contaminated_water_999.html

topic of the latest episode in the American Chemical Society's (ACS) award-winning "Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions" podcast series.

It actually points out that minced banana peel performs better than an array of other traditional purification materials.

Gustavo Castro and colleagues note in the podcast that mining processes, runoff from farms, and industrial wastes can all put heavy metals, such as lead and copper, into waterways.

Heavy metals can have adverse health and environmental effects. Current methods of removing heavy metals from water are expensive, and some substances used in the process are toxic themselves.

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"ScienceDaily" - 2011 Gulf of Mexico 'Dead Zone' Could Be Biggest Ever

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110718141618.htm

ScienceDaily (July 18, 2011) — Researchers from Texas A&M University have returned from a trip to examine the scope and size of this year's "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico and have measured it currently to be about 3,300 square miles, or roughly the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined, but some researchers anticipate it becoming much larger.

Oceanography professor Steve DiMarco, one of the country's leading authorities on the dead zone, says the team of researchers journeyed more than 1,400 miles throughout the Gulf over a five-day period, the first ever focusing on the month of June.

DiMarco says the size of the dead zone off coastal Louisiana has been routinely monitored for about 25 years. Previous research has also shown that nitrogen levels in the Gulf related to human activities have tripled over the past 50 years. During the past five years, the dead zone has averaged about 5,800 square miles and has been predicted to exceed 9,400 square miles this year, which would make it one of the largest ever recorded, according to the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium.

Hypoxia occurs when oxygen levels in seawater drop to dangerously low levels, and severe hypoxia can potentially result in fish kills and harm marine life, thereby creating a "dead zone" of life in that particular area.

Because of record amounts of water flowing from the Mississippi River into the Gulf, there is keen interest in the dead zone areas this year, DiMarco explains, adding that the size of this year's dead zone could still change because large amounts of water are still flowing into the Gulf of Mexico from the Mississippi River.

DiMarco says he will examine the area again on Aug. 8 and will visit many of the same locations for additional data. In all, 10 researchers, including six graduate students, helped to collect data on the latest cruise, which was funded by the NOAA Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Research and Texas Sea Grant.

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Peak Water Has Already Come and Gone

Canadian Kevin Freedman is celebrating World Water Day Tuesday by living on 25 litres of water a day, instead of the North American average of 330 litres per day. And he has enlisted 31 others in his "Water Conservation Challenge" to go water - lean, using just 25 litres per day for cooking, drinking, cleaning, and sanitation for the entire month of March.

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World Water Day Report: African Cities Outgrow Their Water Supplies

Africa's cities are growing at a faster rate than anywhere else in the world, stressing drinking water supplies and sanitation services, says a new UN report released to mark World Water Day 2011.

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Republicans Are Using the Budget to Wage a Massive Assault on the Environment and Roll Back Crucial Protections

Water is our single most critical resource. Yet Republicans are using the latest budget bill as a weapon to strip away basic protections that help preserve the water resources we all depend on for survival, and they're also attacking our air, food, wildlands and health.

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Probable Carcinogen Hexavalent Chromium Found in Drinking Water of 31 US Cities

An environmental group that analyzed the drinking water in 35 cities across the United States, including Bethesda and Washington, found that most contained hexavalent chromium, a probable carcinogen that was made famous by the film "Erin Brockovich."

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Climate Change Could Cause Half the World to Lose Access to Clean Water

Almost half of humanity could lose clean water access due to climate change, according to a British report to be released tomorrow ahead of an international climate change conference in Mexico.

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Prevalence and Severity of Dental Fluorosis in the United States, 1999-2004

Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1999-2004 and the 1986-1987 National Survey of Oral Health in U.S. School Children * Less than one-quarter of persons aged 6-49 in the United States had some form of dental fluorosis. * The prevalence of dental fluorosis was higher in adolescents than in adults and highest among those aged 12-15. * Adolescents aged 12-15 in 1999-2004 had a higher prevalence of dental fluorosis than adolescents aged 12-15 in 1986-1987. Dental fluorosis refers to changes in the appearance of tooth enamel that are caused by long-term ingestion of fluoride during the time teeth are forming (1). Studies conducted in the 1930s showed that the severity of tooth decay was lower and dental fluorosis was higher in areas with more fluoride in the drinking water (2).

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Watch Out: The World Bank Is Quietly Funding a Massive Corporate Water Grab

Billions have been spent allowing corporations to profit from public water sources even though water privatization has been an epic failure in Latin America, Southeast Asia, North America, Africa and everywhere else it's been tried. But don't tell that to controversial loan-sharks at the World Bank. Last month, its private-sector funding arm International Finance Corporation (IFC) quietly dropped a cool 100 million euros ($139 million US) on Veolia Voda, the Eastern European subsidiary of Veolia, the world's largest private water corporation. Its latest target? Privatization of Eastern Europe's water resources.

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Parents Should be Warned: Fluoridated Water is Not Recommended for Infants

A new study confirms infants fed formula reconstituted with fluoridated water are at greater risk of developing discolored teeth (dental fluorosis). (1) The American Dental Association (ADA) warned dentists about this in 2006 but has done little or nothing to inform the nearly 200 million Americans who live in communities with fluoridated drinking water.

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