PODCAST · science
The Researcher's Perspective
by EHP: The Researcher's Perspective
In this original podcast series, researchers from across the environmental health sciences offer insights into the motivation and vision driving their work. They also explore the implications of their findings for human health.
Episodes
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The Art of the Algorithm: Machine Learning in Environmental Health Research, with Nicole Kleinstreuer
We live in a time when investigators have overwhelming amounts of health-related data at their fingertips. In this podcast, Nicole Kleinstreuer explains how environmental health scientists are using machine learning to make sense of the information in those data—for example, predicting...
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The Global Burden of Mercury Exposure, with Niladri Basu
Methylmercury, the most toxic form of mercury, is found in seafood around the world, and it can cause severe health effects in people who are exposed to it. Governments are working to reduce the amount of mercury that finds its way into the environment. Dozens of countries have pledged to…
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Green and Serene? Exploring the Relationship between Vegetation and Mental Health, with Rachel Banay
Can living in green surroundings make you healthier and happier? It’s a tantalizing idea. In this podcast, guest Rachel Banay discusses her recent EHP study on depression in older women in relation to the amount of greenness near their homes. The study is part of a growing body of research that...
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Key Characteristics: A New Approach to Identifying Potential Toxicants, with Martyn Smith
It would be nearly impossible using current methods to test all the chemicals in use for toxic effects. So how do we prioritize which ones to study? In this podcast, Martyn Smith describes how he and his colleagues are developing lists of “key characteristics” shared by toxicants that cause...
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Wind Turbines and Health: The Noise Connection, with Aslak Harbo Poulsen
For some people, the whoosh of wind turbines is the sound of clean energy. For others, it is the sound of an environmental exposure that could possibly cause adverse health effects. Wind turbine noise has been studied in relation to diabetes, hypertension, preterm birth, and more. In this…
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A Regrettable Substitute: The Story of GenX, with Jane Hoppin
DuPont introduced GenX almost 10 years ago as a chemical substitute for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). Although GenX was intended to be less environmentally persistent than PFOA, it has turned out to be what is known as a “regrettable substitute,” whose effects may be as bad as or even worse than...
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Arsenic and Obesity: A Compound Risk Factor for Diabetes? with Mirek Stýblo
Although obesity is a major risk factor for diabetes, certain environmental agents, such as arsenic, also appear to contribute to the disease. There is evidence that an individual’s risk of arsenic-related disease depends on how efficiently he or she metabolizes arsenic. But what if that…
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Phthalates and Childhood Asthma, with Randi Bertelsen
Several studies have reported links between asthma in children and the presence of phthalates in dust from the children’s homes. But the presence of a chemical is not the same thing as exposure, so Norway’s Environment and Childhood Asthma Study has taken the research a step farther by measuring...
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An Unlikely Duo: Air Pollution’s Link to Low Birth Weight, with Tracey Woodruff
When you think about the health effects of air pollution, what comes to mind? Lung disease? Cancer? One health effect you might not immediately think of is low birth weight, a risk factor for a variety of other health problems later in life. Yet a growing body of evidence indicates that birth...
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The Secret Life of Fat, with Michele La Merrill
Your bulges are busier than you may think…Many people see adipose tissue—fat—as nothing more than lumpy extra baggage. But fat serves several important functions in the body. It helps us store energy and endocrine hormones that can affect behavior, energy regulation, immune and vascular…
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Leaded Aviation Gasoline and Child Blood Lead Levels, with Marie Lynn Miranda
Despite dramatic decreases in atmospheric lead levels over the past few decades, lead exposure remains a problem, especially for children. In this podcast, Marie Lynn Miranda discusses one remaining, albeit relatively minor, source of lead exposure: leaded aviation gasoline. Visit the podcast...
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Exploring Links between Arsenic and Diabetes, with Ana Navas-Acien
Arsenic is a problem in communities around the world, from Bangladesh to New Hampshire. It’s one of the environmental chemicals the National Toxicology Program explored at a recent workshop as possibly contributing to the worldwide rise in diabetes. In this podcast, Ana Navas-Acien talks about a...
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Post-Katrina Asthma in the Children of New Orleans, with Patricia Chulada
New Orleans is already known as a hot, moist place—ideal growing conditions for mold. Now factor in Hurricane Katrina, which hit the city in August of 2005, leaving behind even more indoor mold and other asthma-causing allergens. Host Ashley Ahearn talks with Patricia Chulada about research to...
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Epigenomics and Maternal Smoking, with Bonnie Joubert and Stephanie London
Children whose mothers smoked during pregnancy are more likely to have problems like low birth weight, asthma, and possibly obesity, cancer, and high blood pressure. For clues into the mechanism behind these effects, scientists are looking to the epigenome, the personalized set of directions that...
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Climate Change and Migration, with Celia McMichael and Jon Barnett
Over the past million years humans have migrated in response to food shortages, droughts, ice ages, and many other reasons, but in the coming decades, migrations related to climate change are expected to increase, perhaps dramatically. Different circumstances—be it forced displacement, a planned...
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What Do We Know about Obesogens? with Bruce Blumberg
Human beings, as a species, are putting on weight. Obesity rates are rising in rich and poor countries alike for a variety of reasons, from changing dietary habits and activity levels to exposure to artificial nighttime light. Mounting evidence from over the past decade suggests that certain...
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Low-dose Effects of Endocrine Disruptors, with Laura Vandenberg
Reproduction, growth, behavior, and sleep patterns are just a few of the bodily functions controlled by hormones. Researchers around the world are examining what happens if chemical substances we’re exposed to in our daily lives interrupt or imitate natural hormonal messages. The body of…
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Bite of Arsenic, with Kathryn Cottingham
Many organic foods and high-energy products are sweetened with brown rice syrup as an alternative to high-fructose corn syrup. Consumers who eat these products may be avoiding high-fructose corn syrup, but they also may be exposed to arsenic that's been absorbed by the rice plants from which the...
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Global Mortality from Outdoor Smoke, with Fay Johnston and Sarah Henderson
Burning forests, grasslands, and fields have been part of the landscape probably for as long as humans have been on the planet. But it's only in recent years that we've begun to explore the health effects of exposure to landscape fire smoke, which is now known to exacerbate preexisting disease…
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Phthalates in Medicinal Products, with Katherine Kelley
Americans are widely exposed to phthalates in soft plastic products from toys to medical equipment. A perhaps lesser-known potential source of exposure is the timed-release coatings on certain pharmaceuticals and dietary supplements, which enable active ingredients to reach the correct part of…
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Managing Wastewater from Fracking, with Robert B. Jackson
Hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") is a controversial practice used in natural-gas drilling. Fracking makes it much more feasible to free the vast reserves of natural gas locked underground, but the practice comes with concerns that the natural gas boom is proceeding too fast, before we understand...
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Mixed Metals Exposures in Children, with Robert O. Wright
In our daily lives we're rarely exposed to just one chemical at a time. Metals, for example, are ubiquitous in the environment, and most of us are exposed to different combinations of metals each day through air, water, and food. Simultaneous exposures to different metals may have synergistic...
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Climate Change, Crop Yields, and Undernutrition, with Sari Kovats
With more than 1 billion people estimated to not have enough to eat, food security is a pervasive problem. An estimated one-third of the global burden of disease afflicting children under the age of 5 is caused by undernutrition. Climate change is anticipated to reduce cereal yields, further...
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Assessing the Science of Cell Phone Safety, with David Savitz
Cell phones have become an integral part of many people’s lives. But could our constant contact with these devices be affecting our health? That question has been the subject of international debate and intense study in recent years. In this podcast, David Savitz of Brown University discusses...
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Early Influences on Mammary Gland Development, with Suzanne Fenton
Studies are showing a trend of girls developing breasts and going through puberty earlier than they did in years past. Now researchers are investigating the role environmental exposures may play in this trend and the potential long-term health effects of earlier development. In this podcast, host...
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What Does Climate Change Have To Do with Human Health? with John Balbus
Climate change is not just a problem for rivers and reservoirs that are running dry, or forests and grasslands that are seeing an increased incidence of wildfire, or Arctic wildlife stressed by rapidly changing ecosystems. It’s a problem for human health, too, as John Balbus discusses with host...
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The Legacy of Waste Couture, with Luz Claudio
In the 2007 news feature "Waste Couture: Environmental Impact of the Clothing Industry," EHP explored the environmental and occupational health implications of producing cheap—indeed, virtually disposable—clothing. This story has gone on to become the journal’s most popular article of all time....
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Chemical Contamination in Tohoku, with Lizzie Grossman and Winnie Bird
The Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of 11 March 2011 devastated entire swaths of the Japanese coastline and killed thousands of people. Much of the attention following the disaster has focused on radiation exposures from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Now public health officials...
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Air Pollution in China, with Junfeng (Jim) Zhang
Air pollution in China, one of the world’s oldest civilizations, reflects a combination of traditional and modern-day factors. Severe air pollution in Chinese cities is the result of rapid industrialization, urbanization, and growth in vehicle use. At the same time, traditional indoor burning of...
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Communicating about Chemical Body Burden, with Tracey Woodruff and Rachel Morello-Frosch
Biomonitoring studies reveal what we've been exposed to, but the significance of these exposures is not always clear—and when the participants in such studies are children or pregnant women, this lack of certainty can be especially unnerving. Reporting body burden findings back to study...
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Asbestos Trends Worldwide, with Richard Lemen
The International Agency for Research on Cancer, the National Toxicology Program, and the Environmental Protection Agency all declared asbestos a known human carcinogen decades ago. Yet U.S. imports of crude chrysotile asbestos fibers rose by 235% between 2009 and 2010, and use is also on the…
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Benchmarks of Toxicology, with Peter Goering
In honor of its fiftieth anniversary the Society of Toxicology teamed up with the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the National Toxicology Program, and Environmental Health Perspectives to produce a poster celebrating some of the foremost "benchmarks" of the field. In this...
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A Better Understanding of BPA Metabolism, with Frederick vom Saal
Bisphenol A (BPA) is used in a wide variety of consumer products, and biomonitoring studies indicate widespread exposure to the compound. Much of the hesitation to regulate BPA up to now has stemmed from uncertainty about whether health effects reported in laboratory animals—which include heart...
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The San Antonio Statement, with Åke Bergman
Brominated and chlorinated flame retardants are widely used in upholstered furniture and foam products. These compounds have been found to accumulate in the bodies of humans, and although more information is needed on health effects, the available toxicity data are troubling. In this podcast, Åke...
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ADHD and Environmental Risk Factors, with Susan Schantz
Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, is one of the most frequently diagnosed neurobehavioral problems in children and is thought to be largely hereditary. But only a small number of cases have been linked to specific genes, leading many researchers to explore the impact of...
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Risks and Benefits of Pool Chlorination, with Manolis Kogevinas
Chlorine is one of the most common disinfectants used to kill microbes in water and make it safe for humans to swim in and drink. But when chlorine and other disinfectants combine with organic matter in pools such as sweat, urine, and skin cells, the results are disinfection by-products (DBPs),...
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Neurobehavioral Effects of Artificial Food Dyes, with Bernard Weiss
In the past several decades there has been a sharp increase in the amount of artificial dyes and flavorings children encounter daily in foods, beverages, medicines, and toiletries such as toothpaste. Over the same period there has been a marked increase in the number of diagnoses of…
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Nine Years Later: Exposures after the World Trade Center Attacks, with Paul Lioy
The collapse of the World Trade Center buildings on 11 September 2001 created a massive cloud of dust that blanketed lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn. That dust comprised a complex mixture of building materials, office equipment, jet fuel, and combustion by-products. In this podcast, Paul…
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Nine Years Later: Health Effects in World Trade Center Responders, with Philip Landrigan
As many as 70,000 volunteers and rescue workers responded to the 11 September 2001 World Trade Center (WTC) attacks, many toiling for months to clear mountains of debris containing a range of toxic compounds. Health effects seen since that time in WTC responders include respiratory,...
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Dispersants in the Wake of the Deepwater Horizon Spill, with Dana Wetzel
Although dispersants have been used to help clean up oil spills since the 1960s, it wasn't until the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico that these chemicals made their way into the public consciousness. Use of dispersants always involves an environmental tradeoff, but the Deepwater...
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Delayed Reaction: The Fetal Basis of Adult Disease, with Deborah Cory-Slechta
Exposure to certain chemicals or stressors in utero can cause immediate health effects for fetuses and babies including lowered birth weight, birth defects, and impaired neurodevelopment. New lines of research are now showing that prenatal exposures may also contribute to health problems that...
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Fifty Thousand Strong: The Sister Study, with Dale Sandler
In the United States more than 40,000 women die of breast cancer each year, and almost 200,000 women develop the disease. Although survival rates have improved and risk factors have been identified, the causes of breast cancer remain unclear. In 2004 researchers at the National Institute of...
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Human Exposure to PBDEs, with Heather Stapleton
Flame retardants known as polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are added to products such as furniture, car seats, textiles, and electronics. These chemicals improve safety by giving consumers more time to react if a fire breaks out. But now they are also showing up in the food we eat, the dust...
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Reflections of a Pioneer, with Theo Colborn
In the 1950s biologists began noticing unusual behavior and various reproductive health problems in wild animals. Environmental health analyst Theo Colborn was one of the first to start asking what those trends might mean for humans. In this podcast marking the 40th anniversary of Earth Day,...
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Toxicity Forecast, with Robert Kavlock
Every year about 2,000 new chemicals are submitted to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for safety approval. Figuring out how a chemical might affect human health involves lab studies that can cost millions of dollars and take years to complete. Now a team of researchers at the EPA…
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Studying Autism and Mercury, with Irva Hertz-Picciotto
An estimated 1-1.5 million Americans live with autism, a neural disorder characterized by impaired social interaction and communication. Some research suggests environmental factors play a role in autism, while other findings point to a genetic basis. More recently there's been a heated public...
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DDT: The Good, the Bad, and the Unknown, with Brenda Eskenazi
DDT is unique among the "dirty dozen" compounds banned under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants because specific exceptions are made for the indoor spraying of this pesticide to control the mosquitoes that spread malaria. DDT is a cheap, effective weapon against the spread…
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Industrial Farming: Implications for Human Health, with Peter Thorne
Industrial-scale farms known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) have become an increasing focal point for environmental health research because of their emissions and concerns they may contribute to antibiotic resistance, adverse community impacts, and zoonotic disease outbreaks....
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Breastfeeding: An Ancient Paradigm in Today’s World, with Lynn R. Goldman
A number of recent studies have reported finding measurable levels of persistent organic pollutants in human milk, and many daily activities expose nursing women to toxic chemicals that can end up in their milk. Although many of these chemicals can cause adverse health effects in humans, studies...
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Who's Hit Hardest by Heat Waves? with Colleen Reid
Heat waves kill more people in the United States each year than any other natural hazard, and many regions worldwide are experiencing more frequent and more severe heat waves. But not all people and not all places have the same vulnerability to heat-related health effects. Identifying those who…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
In this original podcast series, researchers from across the environmental health sciences offer insights into the motivation and vision driving their work. They also explore the implications of their findings for human health.
HOSTED BY
EHP: The Researcher's Perspective
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How many episodes does The Researcher's Perspective have?
The Researcher's Perspective currently has 59 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is The Researcher's Perspective about?
In this original podcast series, researchers from across the environmental health sciences offer insights into the motivation and vision driving their work. They also explore the implications of their findings for human health.
How often does The Researcher's Perspective release new episodes?
The Researcher's Perspective has 59 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
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You can listen to The Researcher's Perspective on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts The Researcher's Perspective?
The Researcher's Perspective is created and hosted by EHP: The Researcher's Perspective.
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