No data, no risk?

How the monitoring of chemicals in the environment shapes the perception of risks

23-Jun-2025 - Several hundred thousand chemicals are considered as potentially environmentally relevant. Scientists from the RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau in Germany show that monitoring data for surface waters are only available for a very small fraction of these chemicals. In their article, published in the ...

Evaluating the link between chemicals and declining insect populations

Using a library of 1,000+ agrochemicals, scientists saw significant changes in behaviour and long-term survival of different insect populations

29-Oct-2024 - Few people are fans of stink bugs, mosquitoes, or boll weevils, but insects play a key role in the circle of life that makes up the planet’s environment. In fact, world-renowned biologist E. O. Wilson famously declared that if insects vanished, our environment would collapse. Scientists have ...

Bee-friendly protection for plants

New types of sensors could help to develop plant protection products that are safe for bees

17-Oct-2024 - The increasing global demand for plant-based foods makes the use of pesticides necessary in order to protect crops from pests and ensure crop yields. However, there is one major disadvantage: among others, the widespread use of pesticides has led to a considerable reduction in insect populations ...

Mapping chemical footprints in European streams

Analysis shows a mix of chemicals that endanger invertebrate organisms in particular

11-Mar-2024 - It is well known that if chemicals from domestic sources enter water bodies via sewage treatment plants, agriculture, and industry, this can endanger freshwater ecosystems. In order to find out more about the pollution of European rivers, a research team from the Helmholtz Centre for ...

BUND Christmas tree test 2023: Over two thirds of trees contaminated with pesticides

Environmental association calls for pesticide reduction and glyphosate restriction

22-Dec-2023 - The Christmas tree is indispensable for many people. It is often in the living room before December 24th. But how has the tree grown in recent years? The German Federation for the Environment and Nature Conservation (BUND) has had Christmas trees tested for pesticide residues by an independent ...

Hundreds of toxic chemicals in recycled plastics

The scientists judge recycled plastics unfit for most purposes

14-Nov-2023 - When scientists examined pellets from recycled plastic collected in 13 countries they found hundreds of toxic chemicals, including pesticides and pharmaceuticals. The results are published in a study led by scientists at the University of Gothenburg. Because of this, the scientists judge recycled ...

The weight of pollution: exposure linked to obesity

Chronic exposure to environmental pollutants found to increase risk of cardiovascular disease

08-Nov-2023 - In an era where exposure to commonly used pollutants present in our environment, in our homes and in our food, is virtually inevitable, ground-breaking research conducted by Professor Brice Appenzeller of the Luxembourg Institute of Health has unveiled a profoundly surprising health outcome of ...

Plants transformed into detectors of dangerous chemicals

Scientists engineer plants to speak in color

26-Oct-2023 - What if your house plant could tell you your water isn’t safe? Scientists are closer to realizing this vision, having successfully engineered a plant to turn beet red in the presence of a banned, toxic pesticide. To achieve this, UC Riverside researchers had to solve an engineering puzzle: how ...

Microbial Toxins: A New Link to Parkinson's Disease?

Researchers uncover a potential environmental trigger for Parkinson's disease

13-Oct-2023 - Published in Environment International, a groundbreaking study from the Institute of Biological Chemistry and Centre for Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science (CeMESS) at the University of Vienna, in collaboration with the University of Konstanz and the Albert Einstein College of ...

Insecticides affect aquatic insects in unexpected ways

24-Aug-2023 - Pesticide pollution of streams in agricultural areas has adverse effects for stream organisms. A new study, led by researchers from the Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change (LIB), provides evidence that aquatic insect larvae respond to insecticide exposure with alterations of ...