"People who spend their evenings in relatively bright light run the risk of stressing their bodies by ratcheting down the production of melatonin. Produced in the brain's pineal gland, this hormone plays a pivotal role in setting the body's biological clock – and, potentially, in limiting the development of certain cancers."
"More than 30 years after Congress set a goal of clearing the pollution-caused haze that obscures scenic vistas at some of America's wildest and most famous natural places, progress is still slow in coming."
"A Cold War 'red scare' campaign against compulsory medication helped kill off five years of fluoridation in this northern Wyoming city in 1954. The federal government has long since called fluoridation one of the greatest public health achievements of the 20th century. But it was only a few weeks ago that Sheridan's City Council voted to resume fluoridating municipal drinking water."
"Legally required water systems at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia were not functioning properly before the April 5 explosion that killed 29 mineworkers, according to multiple sources familiar with the disaster investigation."
"In an emotionally charged meeting this week sponsored by the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, fishermen, Gulf residents and community leaders vented their increasingly grave concerns about the widespread health issues brought on by the three-month-long disaster."
"For the scientists aboard the WeatherBird II, the recasting of the Deepwater Horizon spill as a good-news story about a disaster averted has not been easy to watch. Over the past seven months, they, along with a small group of similarly focused oceanographers from other universities, have logged dozens of weeks at sea in cramped research vessels, carefully measuring and monitoring the spill's impact on the delicate and little-understood ecology of the deep ocean."
Evergreen Solar, which prospered from at least $43 million in aid from the state of Massachusetts, has decided to lay off 800 Massachusetts workers and move to China.
Members of Congress inclined not to regulate hydraulic fracturing for natural gas are getting about 19 times as much money from the gas industry as those who want to disclose the toxic chemicals in the fracturing fluid companies are pumping into the ground near people's drinking water supplies.
"If a company dumped the black goop behind a factory, it would violate all sorts of environmental laws and face an expensive hazardous-waste cleanup. But playgrounds, parking lots and driveways in many communities are coated every spring and summer with coal tar, a toxic byproduct of steelmaking that contains high levels of chemicals linked to cancer and other health problems."
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