Science Advocacy
Science Advocacy
Once the social symbol of sailors and jail-hardened individuals, tattoos have surged in popularity among the global youth, with around 40% of adults between the ages of 18 and 29 sporting some ink. Tattoo artists spend years training and a lifetime honing their craft, often specializing in one of many forms of skin-based expression ranging anywhere from portraits to calligraphy to watercolor. Whether you’re a fan of the “I-Love-Mom” classics or elaborate Monet-esque mosaics, the practice of tattooing seems almost magical in nature – and like many other tattoo-lovers out there, you’ve probably found yourself wondering: how in the world do tattoos even work?
Welcome to “chemicals and society”, where we highlight the current understanding of the biological effects and safety of some of the most common chemicals in today’s society.
MSG is monosodium glutamate. “Glutamate”is the salt of glutamic acid, which you may remember from biology class as one of the 20 amino acids that make up the proteins in our body. “Monosodium” means there is a single sodium ion associated with each molecule of glutamic acid. Glutamic acid is the 6th most common amino acid in vertebrates – it makes up about 5.8% of the proteins in your body and the meat that you eat. Sodium is also very common in the diet and inside your body. Another sodium salt, Sodium chloride (table salt) is used in cooking throughout the world.
MSG is used as a flavor enhancer, which means that while it doesn’t have a particularly strong taste on it’s own, it brings out the flavors of other foods – particularly meats and savory foods. It is most commonly used in flavor-enhancing meat tenderizers and Chinese cooking, though you’ll find it in many, many prepared foods like chips, snacks, and soups. It’s in Doritos, Kentucky Fried Chicken, most canned soups, processed meats, Chick-Fil-A sandwhiches, Cheetos, Pringles, and ramen noodles. You get the point.
Welcome to “chemicals and society”, where we highlight the current understanding of the biological effects and safety of some of the most common chemicals in today’s society.
What is fluoride?
Fluoride is the anion of fluorine, the element with an atomic number of 9. An anion is a negatively charged particle (represented as F‾), and fluoride occurs naturally when it is released from fluorine-containing minerals like calcium fluoride. Fluorine is pretty common on earth – it’s the 13th most common element, and people are exposed to it mainly in their food and water. However, we are most familiar with fluoride from it’s use in toothpastes, mouthwashes, dental treatments, and as a drinking water additive.
What is fluoride used for?
Fluoride is used to prevent or delay the development of dental caries (commonly known as cavities). Cavities occur when bacteria build up on your teeth and acidify (lower the pH of) the enamel around them. This acid slowly eats away at your teeth. Luckily, your teeth can counter-act this demineralization to some degree, and that’s where fluoride comes in. It aids in the remineralization and in the process also makes teeth more resistant to future demineralization.
So how and why did people start putting fluoride in drinking water?
Fluoride occurs naturally in all water – seawater, lake water, river water, groundwater, literally all water. The actual levels of fluoride depends on the geology of the area, and it can vary widely. These different levels of fluoride in different areas of the world helped people figure out that fluoride could protect against cavities. They noticed that people living in areas with higher levels of fluoride had fewer cavities, and this eventually led to the idea that adding fluoride into water that didn’t have much in it might reduce cavities in those that drank it. The first city to fluoridate it’s drinking water was Grand Rapids, MI in 1945. Since then, much of the United States and many countries around the world have introduced fluoridation, including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, and Canada.
Welcome to “chemicals and society”, where we highlight the current understanding of the biological effects and safety of some of the most common chemicals in today’s society.
What is glyphosate? Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Roundup, a herbicide which happens to be one of the most widely used in the world. There are several reasons why Roundup is so popular. It’s a very good herbicide, killing actively growing plants quickly with a single application. It also is relatively safe, because it targets an enzyme that plants have but animals do not (5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase, say that ten times fast!), and it doesn’t accumulate in the environment like many earlier generation herbicides. Another reason it’s popular is that many GMO crops are engineered to resists it’s effects, rendering it an ideal herbicide for control of weeds when growing these crops.
Glyphosate and Cancer. If you have heard of glyphosate recently, it probably because of reports that it causes cancer. So let’s start with this. Here’s the story:
When it was first approved for use, the data suggested that glyphosate posed no carcinogenic (cancer-causing) risk. As is always the case, scientists kept an eye on the data as the use of this chemical increased dramatically over the years. Some data seemed to indicate some cancer risk, while most did not. Health authorities in the United States, Japan, Canada, most of Europe, and many other countries do not consider glyphosate to be linked to cancer.
Welcome to “chemicals and society,” where we highlight the current understanding of the biological effects and safety of some of the most common chemicals in today’s society.
What is radon?
Radon is an element with the atomic number of 86. Radon is always radioactive, which means it is unstable and releases energy in the form of alpha decay radioactivity (other types of radioactive decay include beta and gamma decay). Usually, in terms of human health, alpha decay radioactivity is the least concerning, because the alpha particles generally cannot penetrate through clothes or skin. Radon, unfortunately, is a gas, and that makes it dangerous, because you can breathe it in, and once inside you, the radioactivity can damage your lungs.
How are people exposed to radon?
Radon doesn’t hang around very long; it has a half-life of less than 4 days. However, it is a breakdown product of uranium and thorium, which are two of the most common radioactive elements in the Earth’s crust. This means that if there is any uranium or thorium in the soil, radon will always be present, because it is constantly being generated by the decay of these other radioactive elements. Radon is actually just one stop on a long chain of “daughter” elements in the stages of decay for uranium and thorium, as they eventually decay into lead, but it is the one we are most concerned with because it is the only one that is a gas, while all the rest are solids.
Welcome to “chemicals and society” a new feature at UYBFS where we highlight the current understanding of the biological effects and safety of some of the most common chemicals in today’s society.
What is Mercury? Mercury is an element with an atomic number of 80. While mercury is a metal, it is a liquid at room temperature, which makes it both really cool and really useful. Mercury exists in many different forms, and the form that it’s in makes a big difference: the different forms are used for different things, and their chemistry and toxicity varies greatly. Here are the major forms of mercury and their uses:
How are people exposed to mercury?
Welcome to “chemicals and society” a new feature at UYBFS where we highlight the current understanding of the biologic effects and safety of some of the most common chemicals in today’s society.
What is vitamin A and how are people exposed to it?
“Vitamin A” is technically a group of very similar chemicals. The main forms in the body are retinal, retinol, retinyl esters, and retinoic acid. Vitamin A is required for normal development and function in all vertebrates (animals with a backbone) and some non-vertebrates (like worms and bugs). Since animals can’t make vitamin A from scratch, they require dietary sources – either from plants containing carotenes (you’ve probably heard of beta-carotene, but did you know there were alpha and gamma forms too?) or by eating other animals who had already produced vitamin A from a plant source. several forms of vitamin A (tretinoin, isotretinoin, and alitretinoin) are also FDA-approved drugs, used to treat severe acne and some rare skin cancers.
Welcome to “chemicals and society” a new feature at UYBFS where we highlight the current understanding of the biologic effects and safety of some of the most common chemicals in today’s society.
What is Nicotine and how are people exposed to it?
Nicotine is an alkaloid produced naturally by a number of plants in the night shade family, most notably the tobacco plant. People are mainly exposed to nicotine by smoking (cigarettes, cigars, pipes, smokeless tobacco), but also via vaping or e-cigarettes. Some people may be exposed to nicotine or related chemicals when using them as insecticides on crops.
What does Nicotine do?
Plants produce nicotine as an insecticide to keep insects from eating their leaves. Nicotine binds to nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) in the central nervous systems of insects, causing paralysis and death. In mammals, the nAChR receptor subtypes are different, and as a consequence, nicotine binds more weakly and stimulates the nervous system, causing the characteristic addictive “high” that people seek out by smoking.
Nicotine itself (sold as nicotine sulfate) can be used as a pesticide, though it is not currently sold in the U.S. Nicotine derivatives (known as neonicotinoids) are widely used as insecticides across the world. They have come under quite a bit of scrutiny lately because these insecticides are very good at killing bees – and could be one of the contributors to colony collapse disorder.
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