Environmental Pollution study guides
Most toxic synthetic compound
- Dioxin (Victor Yushcenko)
6 types of toxicants- define carcinogen, mutagen, teratogen, allergen, neurotoxin, endocrine disruptors
1. Carcinogens: cause cancer 2. Mutagens: cause mutations in DNA 3. Teratogens: cause birth defects 4. Allergens: cause an unnecessary immune response 5. Neurotoxins: damage nervous system 6. Endocrine disruptors: interfere with hormones
background and rise of synthetic chemicals
1. Many thousands have been produced and released. • 2. Some persist for long time periods or travel great distances. • 3. Of the 100,000 synthetic chemicals on the market today, very few have been thoroughly tested for harmful effects. • 4. 2002 USGS study: 80% of U.S. streams contain up to 82 wastewater contaminants, including antibiotics, perfumes, detergents, drugs, steroids, disinfectants, and so forth 1. There has been widespread synthetic chemical production since WWII. • 2. People were largely unaware of the health risks of many toxicants.
background and use of DDT/PCBs and concerns about use, legacy pollution and PCBs
1. Studies of PCBs in humans have found increased rates of melanomas, liver cancer, gall bladder cancer, biliary tract cancer, gastrointestinal tract cancer, and brain cancer, and may be linked to breast cancer. • DDT is persistent and fat soluble DDT concentrations increase from plankton to fish to fish-eating birds. (food higharchy
endocrinology terms
1. endocrine 2. disruptors, 3. hormone 4. mimics 1.Some chemicals, once inside the bloodstream, can "mimic" hormones. 2.If molecules of the chemical bind to the sites intended for hormone binding, they cause an inappropriate response. 3.Thus these chemicals disrupt the endocrine (hormone) system.
Importance of wetlands/estuaries. What is an estuary?
1. most productive biomes on earth and are home to diverse invertebrates and birds 2. a transition area between river and sea,Estuaries are nutrient rich and highly productive, An abundant supply of food attracts marine invertebrates
Photic zone, aphotic zone, benthic zone,, benthos, detritus, abyssal zone
1.Photic zone- surface layer of the ocean that receives sunlight 2.aphotic zone- the portion of a lake or ocean where there is little or no sunlight 3. benthic zone- It comprises the bottom—such as the ocean floor or the bottom of a lake—the sediment surface, and some sub-surface layers 4.Benthos- community of organisms that live on, in, or near the seabed, river, lake, or stream bottom 5.Detritus- is dead particulate organic material, as distinguished from dissolved organic material. Detritus typically includes the bodies or fragments of bodies of dead organisms 6.abyssal zone- At depths of 3,000 to 6,000 metres this zone remains in perpetual darkness. It alone makes up over 83% of the ocean and covers 60% of the Earth.
types of environmental health hazards humans may be exposed to and examples of each
1.Physical hazards (floods, blizzards, landslides, radon, UV exposure) 2.Chemical hazards (disinfectants, pesticides) 3.Biological hazards (viruses, bacterial infections) • 4.Cultural or lifestyle hazards (drinking, smoking, bad diet, crime in neighborhood)
Endemic Epidemic Pandemic
1.The constant presence of a disease or infectious agent within a given geographic area. 2.The occurrence in an area of a disease or illness in excess of what may be expected on the basis of past experience for a given population 3.A worldwide epidemic affecting an exceptionally high proportion of the global population.
infectious disease terminology
1.either directly or through a vector (e.g., a mosquito that transfers a malaria parasite to hosts) 2.• Is communicable or transmissible disease, a pathogen attacks a host
size 10 um or greater, and examples of 2.5 um or less
10- fog/coal dust 2.5 or less- oil smoke, tobaco smoke
Ecological effects of domoic acid
1991 Monterey Bay CA - >100 pelicans and cormorants were found dead or suffering from unusual neurological symptoms • Pseudo-nitzschia australis • Vector: Northern Anchovie
What is the half-life of Uranium?
4.5 billion years
Current atmospheric CO2 in parts per million (ppm)
411.29 ppm
US annual dose is _____mrem. Most of it is from ________.
44 mrem)/yr natural.
Biomes: definition and examples
A biome is a community of plants and animals that have common characteristics for the environment they exist in. wetlands estuarys
Vaccines and controversy
A vaccine is the deliberate stimulation of adaptive immunity. Work by mimicking what happens during natural infection without causing illness. Use altered versions of viruses or bacteria to trigger an immune response. Are the most effective means of controlling infectious diseases. Not only protect those who get them, but they also help keep diseases at bay in the community; this is called herd immunity
Factors influencing infectious disease transmission
Agent:Infectivity, Pathogenicity, Virulence, Immunogenicity, Antigenic stability, Survival Host:Age, Sex, Genotype, Behaviour, Nutritional status, Health status Environmental: Weather, Housing, Geography, Occupational setting, Air quality, Food
Climate change and coronavirus: habitat loss, air pollution, global trade
Air pollution makes people more vulnerable to respiratory infections Habitat loss, driven both by climate change and ecosystem changes, brings animals and humans into closer proximity Trade globalization all these help with the spread of disease
Non-ionizing radiation: α, β, γ, n (alpha, beta, gamma, neutron)
Alpha (α) radiation consists of a fast moving Helium-4 (4He) nuclei and is stopped by a sheet of paper (mimics He nucleus) Beta (β) radiation, consisting of electrons, is halted by an aluminium plate Gamma (γ) radiation, consisting of energetic photons, is eventually absorbed as it penetrates a dense material (x-ray / radioactive decay or nuclear reaction)
Destroying Angels, toxic mushrooms
Amanita virosa Amanita bisporigera Amanita phalloides
Most deadly compounds (note the top 3 are from bacteria, and are nonsyn-thetic)
Botulinum toxin A (from a bacteria) (LD50 mg/kg)= 3 x 10-8 Tetanus toxin A (from a bacteria) 5 x 10-6 Diphtheria toxin (from a bacteria) 3 x 10-4 Dioxin * 3 x 10-2 Muscarine (from some mushrooms) 2 x 10-1 Bufotoxin (from some toads) 4 x 10-1 Sarin * 4 x 10-1
Greenhouse gases, the importance of each discussed. Is water vapor a greenhouse gas?
CO2/ methane/ nitrous oxide water vapor is itself a greenhouse gas,
Cellular effects of NORM
Cell death • Cell repair damage • Cell change- neutral, good or bad change
Photosynthesis
Conversion of light energy from the sun into chemical energy.
Medical radiation (xray, treatments)
Diagnostic - X-rays • Av. U.S. dose: 0.39 mSv (39 mrem)/yr - Nuclear Medicine • Av. U.S. dose: 0.14 mSv (14 mrem)/yr • Therapeutic - Cancer treatment - Thyroid treatment
Diarrhetic Shellfish Poisoning
Dinoflagellates Toxins: Okadaic acids and dinophysistoxins Generally mild gastrointestinal illness FDA level in shellfish - 0.2 ppm okadaic acid plus 35-methylokadaic acid
Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning
Dinoflagellates • Alexandrium spp. • Gymnodinium spp. • Pyrodinium spp. • Northern Atlantic and Pacific coasts • Temperate and tropical • Toxin: Saxitoxins
dose-response curve
Dose-response curves allow us to predict the effects of higher doses
SC is 'trifecta' for which 3 natural disasters?
Earthquakes, hurricanes, and tornadoes
COPD (emphysema and chronic bronchitis)
Emphysema is a lung condition that causes shortness of breath. Chronic bronchitis is inflammation (swelling) and irritation of the bronchial tubes
Ciguatera Fish Poisoning- cause and toxins. Usually from consuming what fish? What kinds of location?
Gambierdiscus toxicus (a dinoflagellate) • Associated with weeds and coral reefs Red snapper, Grouper, Amber Jack, Sturgeon iguatera is common only in subtropical and tropical waters, particularly the Pacific and Caribbean, and usually is associated with fish caught in tropical reef waters.
NORM consumer products
Green Bathroom Tile Dentures Phosphate Fertilizer Cat Litter Smoke Detectors
______altitude, ______ cosmic radiation.
Higher
Radon in SC
Highest in the upstates
Methane impact relative to CO2
However, natural gas (methane) is about 70 times more powerful than CO2 as a greenhouse gas
What causes freshwater HABS?
Human interventions Runoff of waste farm run off!!!
transmission: Index/Primary/Secondary cases
Index - the first case identified Primary - the case that brings the infection into a population Secondary - infected by a primary case Tertiary - infected by a secondary case
Neurotoxic Shellfish Poisoning
Karenia brevis Florida, Gulf of Mexico • Toxins: Brevetoxins Early symptoms: Gastrointestinal Late symptoms Neurological • Tingling • Numbness • Loss of motor control • Usually not associated with human mortality FDA level in fish - 0.8 ppm brevitoxin-2 equivalent
Where does most of the Uranium mined in the world come from?
Kazakhstan, Canada and Australia
indoor health hazards such as radon and lead
Lead in paint and pipes
LD50- what does it mean on the dose-response curve
Leathal dose 50%
Brevetoxins
Massive fish kills • Harmful to birds (pelican, seagulls, cormorants) and manatees
Amnesic Shellfish Poisoning - how toxin domoic acid mimics glutamic acid
Mimics a neurotransmitter (glutamic acid) • Overstimulates and eventually kills neurons in hippocampus • Stimulates voltage-dependent calcium channels
synergy of compounds
Mixes of toxicants may cause effects greater than the sum of their individual effects
Nanoparticles- concerns- small enough to directly enter cells, thus pros and cons
Nanoparticules are small enough to directly enter cell thereby possibly leading to toxicity
Photochemical smog- LA type smog - define, what causes it
Photochemical smog: reaction involves sunlight, nitric oxides and VOCs • Directly related to automobile use •
Cellular Respiration
Process that releases energy by breaking down glucose and other food molecules in the presence of oxygen
Radiation around you: Know examples given, which are ionizing and nonionizing radiation, energy spectrum from high to low frequency
Radiation is the dispersion of energy (or atomic particles) into any type of medium. Radiation does NOT mean radioactivity (e.g. Heat from the sun is radiation) Radioactivity - an unstable nucleus loses proton or neutron to become more stable. Energy released (alpha, beta, gamma particles, and electrons *radioactivity occurs with an unstable isotope Electromagnetic radiation - The waves of the electromagnetic field carrying radiant energy through space Heat and Sound, as well as a few others
Radioactive food
Salmon Brazil Nuts Bananas
Premature deaths linked to air pollution
Studies such as the Harvard Six City Study and by the American Cancer Society show that exposure to particulate matter reduced life expectancy and this effect was predominantly associated with PM2.5 Recent data suggest that shortterm measures of exposure, not long-term measures, are associated with mortality
Sulfurous smog - London type smog- define, what causes it
Sulfurous smog: produced by the burning of coal or oil at large power plants.
Paracelsus- everything is a poison
Swiss physician and chemist Paracelsus expressed the basic principle of toxicology: "All things are poison and nothing is without poison; only the dose makes a thing not a poison."
Aquatic zones: definition and stratification
The basic types of aquatic life zones are the surface, middle, and bottom layers. The life in aquatic life zones is influenced by temperature, access to sunlight for photosynthesis, dissolved oxygen content, and availability of nutrients
Ocean conveyor belt
The global ocean conveyor belt is a constantly moving system of deep-ocean circulation driven by temperature and salinity
Radon: leading cause of lung cancer in nonsmokers
The number of alpha and beta decays are numerous. • Radio-isotopes can have long lives (up to 22 years), and can settle in the lungs, thus releasing small doses of highly energetic, ionizing radiation over many years.
wind patterns
This type of wind system forms when cool air, at the poles, and then transfers to the equator
U238 to Radon 222 series:
Uranium-238 4.5 billion years ->Radium-226 1600 years-> Radon-222 3.825 days-> Polonium-218 3.1 min. (RaA)-> Lead-214 27 min. (RaB) ->Bismuth-214 19.9 min (RaC)-> Polonium-214 163.7 us (RaC') -> Lead-210 22.3 y (RaD)
AIDS/HIV
Viruses related to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) have infected Old World monkeys as far back as 16 million years ago HIV crossed from chimps to humans in the 1920s in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. This was probably as a result of chimps carrying the Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV), a virus closely related to HIV, being hunted and eaten by people living in the area More direct contact with SIV or primates carring it
Coal ash- air and water pollution
Without proper management, these contaminants can pollute waterways, ground water, drinking water, and the air
brown tide
a large area of seawater discolored usually murky brown by the presence of large numbers of single-celled algae
thermohaline circulation
a part of the large-scale ocean circulation that is driven by global density gradients created by surface heat and freshwater fluxes
Red tide
a population explosion of certain marine dinoflagellates that causes the water to turn a red or red-brown color and to contain poisonous alkaloids produced by the dinoflagellates
Mauna Loa
a volcano-island of Hawaii that houses an observatory that has provided important data for atmospheric monitoring
How to reduce the spread of infectious diseases
accines Antimicrobial drugs (in an individual with a bacterial disease) Good personal hygiene (washing hands frequently and correctly, don't touch your face!) sanitation (clean water access, sewage disposal) Protection against mosquitoes Quarantine Social distancing Wearing masks. No don't wear a mask. No really we mean wear a cloth mask because we don't have enough medical masks (CDC) Testing, testing, testing during an outbreak, and screening to find where community spread is occurring Contact tracing. Must have good testing in place to then quarantine the individual and trace and isolate their contacts
difference between acute/chronic
acute: present symptoms immediately chronic: manifest at a later time which can be years
Epidemiologic triad
agent of infection host environment
Ebola:origins/transmission
animals/direct contact with blood or other body fluids
Groundwater uranium and cancer in SC
beta
understand and define bioaccumulation and biomagnification (with special attention to DDT)
biomagnification:DDT concentrations increase from plankton to fish to fish-eating birds biomagnification:If a larger organism consumes many of these small organisms, the dose (or concentration) of DDT that it experiences becomes larger than it was in the smaller organisms.
risk assessment
calculating risk, or the degree of likelihood that a person will become ill upon exposure to a toxin or pathogen.
atrazine use as a pesticide and its connection to water pollution and food. What agriculture product is it typically used on?
corn, sorghum, and sugarcane
Carbon 14, Hydrogen 3 (tritium) are _____ (cosmic/terrestrial) radiation
cosmic
Externalities of coal
cost that isn't included in the cost we pay for the energy- social, economic, environmental- air pollution, water pollution and effects on human and ecosystem health
Law of thermodynamics
energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but may be changed from one form into another
London smog disaster of 1952
he London Smog Disaster of 1952 and other smog events have shown an association between elevated levels of particulate matter and mortality from cardiovascular and pulmonary ailments • Sulfurous smog- coal burning, industry • Lasted 5 days • 12,000+ deaths, 150,000+ hospitalized
What is a low quality energy lost during respiration in the energy exchange cycle?
heat
Global natural disasters: Which accounts for largest loss of life? Which for number of events? Which for economic losses? Which 2 are most dangerous? Note significant increase in 10 vs.30 year averages.
loss of life- draught events- floods econ- windstorm most dangerous- Hurricanes, Earthquakes
______altitude, ______cosmic radiation.
lower
global infectious diseases, distribution. What is the leading infectious disease cause of death in the world
lower respiratory infection
From assigned simulation: What is R0 in epidemiology? To reduce disease spread should it be < or > 1?
mathematical term that indicates how contagious an infectious disease is <1
turnover
mixing oxygenated water from the surface with nutrient-rich water from the bottom
Zika virus. What fetal birth defect is it associated with it?
mosquito-borne flavivirus In most cases, there are no symptoms. In a few cases, Zika can trigger paralysis (Guillain-Barré Syndrome). In pregnant women, it may cause subsequent birth defects. Microcephaly
3 items present to make LA smog
moutains sea salt particles heavy pop
Harmful Algal Blooms (HABS)- what are they
occur when colonies of algae grow out of control and produce toxic or harmful effects on people, fish, shellfish, marine mammals and birds
How to reduce radon exposure, what are some things you can do?
outside ventilation/ sealant/ sheet metal vents/ slump
Particulate Matter (PM) definition, role in public health, based on size not the substance, size range that does the greatest damage to lungs = ____ micrometers
particles or droplets small enough to remain aloft in the air for long periods of time, 10 and lower micrometers
Earth's atmosphere and magnetic fields _______ cosmic radiation
reduces
Herd immunity
refers to reduced spread of a contagious disease within a population as a result of enough people being immune to the disease, especially though vaccination
thermocline
separates the warm upper layer from the cold deeper water
K40, U238, Th232 are ______(cosmic/terrestrial) and _____(longer/shorter) lived
terrestrial/ longer
PM influence on cardiovascular mortality
that PM2.5 exposure is a risk factor for cause-specific cardiovascular disease mortality via mechanisms that likely include pulmonary and systemic inflammation, accelerated atherosclerosis, and altered cardiac autonomic function.
Alveoli
tiny sacs of lung tissue specialized for the movement of gases between air and blood
importance of Lake Agassiz
very large glacial lake in central North America. Fed by glacial meltwater at the end of the last glacial period, its area was larger than all of the modern Great Lakes combined though its mean depth was not as great as that of many major lakes today.
Second law of thermodynamics
with every energy transformation there is a loss of usable energy
Global air circulation
world-wide system of winds by which the necessary transport of heat from tropical to polar latitudes is accomplished.
