Salmonella, What it Actually is and How You Can Avoid Getting Sick
photo: Sara Novak
You’ve likely heard about the latest salmonella scare. This time it revolves around eggs, 550 billion of them in all. Nearly 2,000 people in 17 states have already gotten sick as a result of the recent outbreak. Experts are saying that the outbreak is caused by rodents or tainted feed. But what exactly is salmonella and how does it get into our food, or in this instance, our eggs?…Read the full story on TreeHugger
Trolls Die Young: Nasty People Have Higher Risk of Heart Attack and Stroke
Cave Troll from Lord of the Rings via Wikipedia
Dan Blankenhorn of Smart Planet was thinking of his commenters when he suggested that “trolls die young”, based on a study researchers of the US National Institute on Aging. They looked at 5,614 Sardinians from four villages, and found that “those who scored high for antagonistic traits on a standard personality test had greater thickening of the neck…Read the full story on TreeHugger
How Bad Is Overfishing & What Can Be Done to Stop It?
photo: Jim G via flickr
By now you’d have to have been living on a desert island by yourself with an imaginary coconut companion to not know that overfishing is a serious problem for all the world’s oceans. The good news is, though the future for fish looks pretty dire if we keep up how we’ve been fishing, we already have seen conservation successes to show the way forward and stop overfishing….Read the full story on TreeHugger
Poultry, Beef More Likely to Make You Sick, CDC Says
Credit: VirtualErn via Flickr.
If you want to reduce your chances of foodborne illness, go veggie. That’s one take away from a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report linking types of food to illness outbreaks in the U.S. Of course, you can’t blame the poultry or beef. And even vegetables can make you sick if they’re not properly handled or prepared. Maybe another take away is the need for stricter enforcement of health codes. …Read the full story on TreeHugger
New York’s Community Gardens Lose Protect Status, Threatened With Development Under New Rules
all photos: Matthew McDermott
If you’re a New Yorker or just a fan of community gardening no matter where you live, pay attention: Under newly proposed rules from the New York City Parks and Recreation Department and Department of Housing Preservation and Development, many of the Big Apple’s thriving community gardens are again under threat of being turned over to private developers. Here’s why:…Read the full story on TreeHugger
How Much Oil is in the Water at Gulf Coast Beaches? (Video)
The BP Gulf spill (or whatever we decide to call it) has already done plenty of damage to wildlife, the local economy, and people’s livelihoods. Images of oiled birds and turtles, crude-covered marshlands, and shuttered businesses are now sadly commonplace. But what about that which we can’t see so clearly? After all, people are still taking to the beaches all around the Gulf — it’s summer, and there’s a record heat wave on, who can blame them? Though those beaches may appear to be oil-free, most are anything but. This video investigates the surprising …Read the full story on TreeHugger
Weekday Vegetarian: Fingerling Potato Salad with Green Chili-Cilantro Salsa
Photo: Kelly Rossiter
When I was a kid potato salad was a fixture at every barbeque, picnic and family party. It was all pretty much the same stuff, lots of mayonnaise and green onions. Believe it or not, at a party of the extended family, there might be three or four bowls of potato salad on offer. The burning question was always whether I was going to be forced into eating my aunt’s potato salad that had hard boiled egg in it, or get to eat my mom’s which did not, but had a daring dash of paprika on top. …Read the full story on TreeHugger
Zebra-Scented Collars On Cattle Prevent Sleeping Sickness – Impacts On Land Use Are Good & Bad
Tanzanian Zebra. Image credit:National Geographic, excerpted.
Researchers at the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology have developed a cattle collar which will be tested on Masai herds subject to the biting tsetse fly, and hence prone to catching sleeping sickness — “up to three million cattle die each year from the disease.” SciDevNet reports that there could be conservation benefits if the collar is found to be cost effective….Read the full story on TreeHugger
How to Grow an Edible School Garden
Image credit: Good
Planting, tending, and harvesting a garden teaches young students the value of the soil, the delicacy of plants, and the joy a few hours of dirty work can bring. It can also help supplement those woefully unbalanced school lunches everyone has been talking about.
In this vein, Good offers a quick guide to starting an edible school garden….Read the full story on TreeHugger
Amazon Deforestation Increases Malaria Rate by 50%
photo: Wikipedia
A new report in the Center for Disease Control’s journal Emerging Infectious Diseases highlights one more bad consequence of Amazon deforestation: In areas that have been cleared of trees incidence of malaria increase nearl…Read the full story on TreeHugger
