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afeelgoodblog · 6 months

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The Best News of Last Week - October 30, 2023

1. Bill to Ban Hidden Fees in California Signed into Law

California Attorney General Rob Bonta has released a statement regarding the signing of Senate Bill 478 (SB 478). SB 478, coauthored by Senators Bill Dodd and Nancy Skinner, will eliminate hidden fees, also known as 'junk fees,' in California starting from July 1, 2024. Hidden fees are deceptive charges that sellers include in transactions, either through obscured disclosures or later revelations, impacting consumers negatively.

2. New Portable Water Treatment System Vaporizes 99% of ‘Forever Chemicals’

A startup based Washington has devised a portable system capable of removing the vast majority of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, from water.

The system uses hydrothermal alkaline treatment, or HALT, to eliminate 99% of forever chemicals from water.

3. Tumor-destroying sound waves receive FDA approval for liver treatment in humans

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of sound waves to break down tumors—a technique called histotripsy—in humans for liver treatment. Technique developed at the University of Michigan provides a noninvasive alternative to surgery, chemotherapy and radiation treatments for cancer

4. Japan's top court says trans sterilisation requirement unconstitutional

Japan's Supreme Court has ruled that it is unconstitutional to require citizens to be sterilised before they can officially change genders.

The 2004 law said people could only change their gender if they have no reproductive capacity. Wednesday's ruling came after a transgender woman filed a petition challenging the law.

5. Abandoned golf courses are being reclaimed by nature

Golf courses, despite occupying large green spaces, are not necessarily good for the environment.

Conservation nonprofits and local authorities are looking to acquire golf courses that have been abandoned due to high maintenance costs, low player numbers or other reasons, and repurpose them into landscapes that boost biodiversity and build natural defenses against climate change.

6. NSW court allows health officials to give blood transfusion to Jehovah's Witness toddler

Regional New South Wales health officials have won a court order authorising them to give a blood transfusion to a Jehovah's Witness toddler if needed in surgery. The Supreme Court has been told the girl, three, who can only be referred to as JI, is in need of two surgical procedures.

On such an application, the overriding criterion to be applied by the court is the best interests and welfare of the child.

7. North Atlantic right whale population has steadied, scientists say

The population of critically endangered North Atlantic right whales appears to have levelled off after a decade of steep decline, according to updated data released this morning by Canadian and American scientists. Scientists in the consortium said Monday that the 2021 estimate of 340 North Atlantic right whales in existence has been recalculated to 365 primarily because of the number of calves born that year.

The estimate for 2022 is 356.

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That's it for this week :)

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#best news of last week

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hungwy · 1 year

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3M announced Tuesday that it will stop manufacturing a group of chemicals called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS) and work to stop using the chemicals in its products by the end of 2025. The company nets about $1.3 billion annually from the chemical sales — a fraction of its overall revenue, at 3.7%. The Maplewood company has made the so-called “forever chemicals” — called that because they accumulate in the human body and environment — in Minnesota since the 1950s. They’ve been used to make coatings and products that resist heat, oil, stains, grease and water such as Scotchgard stain repellent, Teflon cookware, fast food wrapping and fire retardants.

[…]

Making the chemicals produced millions of gallons of wet industrial waste in Minnesota, which 3M dumped in unlined landfills, polluting groundwater in the East Metro. The company’s chemical history was the subject of a two-part Reformer special report last week. 3M said in a press release that its decision was based on careful consideration of “the evolving external landscape, including multiple factors such as accelerating regulatory trends focused on reducing or eliminating the presence of PFAS in the environment and changing stakeholder expectations.”

[…]

And, [attorney Robert Bilott] said, it “has come only after the truth of what 3M has long known about the harm that these toxins pose was revealed to the world through litigation by the innocent victims of this massive cover-up.”

[…]

Internal 3M documents obtained through lawsuits show the company has known about the chemicals’ dangers for decades, but ignored, delayed, minimized and obscured research that raised red flags about the chemicals, stifling scientific research. In the 1950s, 3M scientists discovered the chemicals were accumulating in the bodies of humans and animals. By the early 1960s, 3M knew the chemicals didn’t degrade in the environment. And by the 1970s, the company knew its chemicals were widely present in the blood of most Americans. Now the chemicals can be found in the blood of nearly all people on the planet, and in animals from polar bears to eaglets.

[…]

What remains to be seen, Bilott said, is whether the company will ever accept responsibility and pay to clean up the “unprecedented global contamination” including contamination of drinking water supplies, soil, wildlife and people.

(emphasis mine)

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probablyasocialecologist · 2 years

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"Based on the latest U.S. guidelines for PFOA in drinking water, rainwater everywhere would be judged unsafe to drink. Although in the industrial world we don't often drink rainwater, many people around the world expect it to be safe to drink and it supplies many of our drinking water sources," Cousins continue.

The Stockholm University team have conducted laboratory and field work on the atmospheric presence and transport of PFAS for the past decade. They have noted that the levels of some harmful PFAS in the atmosphere are not declining notably despite their phase out by the major manufacturer, 3M, already two decades ago. PFAS are known to be highly persistent, but their continued presence in the atmosphere is also due to their properties and natural processes that continually cycle PFAS back to the atmosphere from the surface environment. One important natural cycling process for PFAS is the transport from seawater to marine air by sea spray aerosols, which is another active research area for the Stockholm University team.

[...]

"So now, due to the global spread of PFAS, environmental media everywhere will exceed environmental quality guidelines designed to protect human health and we can do very little to reduce the PFAS contamination. In other words, it makes sense to define a planetary boundary specifically for PFAS and, as we conclude in the paper, this boundary has now been exceeded," said Scheringer.

#PFAS #rainwater #forever chemicals #water #pollution #sorry for such grim news

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tailsandco · 8 months

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hey i didnt see anyone talking about this until i stumbled upon a video this morning on instagram, and this blog has more of a platform than my others, so im gonna talk about this here. feel free to scroll on if it doesn't apply.

thinx period underwear were found to contain PFAs, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances which are, "human-made chemicals that are found in many consumer and industrial products, do not easily break down and have been linked to adverse health effects." per this NPR article. One of the quotes in this article does go on to have a unnecessarily gendered quote so my trans and nb friends who experience periods, read on with caution.

I do want to say that the lawsuit isn't supposing these PFAs are linked to any known cases of harm or diagnosed issues and Thinx, but their prior marketing made them out to be a safe and environmentally conscious choice. they have since had to retract a lot of prior statements, and other studies have been done on PFAs that are linked to some scary health stuff in people.

as a result of this suit and just generally preferring this type of period product to others (i understand that corporations are leaders in pollution and that i as one person cannot change the world, but i can make better decisions for myself and my personal waste production), here's what i found for my period experiencing friends to continue to use these types of products:

here's an article i used to find multiple brands that do NOT have PFAs and their pros & cons.

im also going to single a couple of these out for my friends on here to weed through. i didnt do a suuuper extensive deepdive, but i checked out a couple of these that are worth listing out i feel.

the period company had the cheapest single pairs i found at $9. i was unable to order from them because they currently dont have my size, but hopefully yall will be more fortunate, since im a pretty popular size. these guys only come in black.

tomboy x is gender neutral and donates to trans people which i love. they're pretty competitively priced and you can get 6 in a couple different colors at $110 before tax and shipping, which was pretty fairly priced. if you have the money to spend a little extra on a great cause or want a gender neutral experience this place is great.

i ultimately ordered from ruby love because they had bundle options (which i really wanted since id love to replace my tampon usage at home altogether and only keep them for emergencies/guests) and they had a 10 pack for $90, which came out to $100 after taxes and shipping. ill warn my nb and trans friends that this site is pretty gendered so tread with caution, but it did have the best bundle price that i cross shopped.

anyway i know this blog is about snakes but i was kind of horrified to find this out this morning and want to make sure that yall are shopping safe and able to make informed decisions on your hygienic products. i love you and you matter. be safe and be well.

#period #period products #i dont rlly know what to tag this as so if there's tw or something feel free to anon me and ill add it on #tails rambles

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reasonsforhope · 1 year

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"The UK is looking to ban plastic wet wipes that clog up the country’s sewers.

Under a plan to tackle water pollution, the government is launching a public consultation on whether to get rid of plastic wipes. Some retailers like supermarket Tesco and health and beauty company Boots have already stopped selling them in favour of biodegradable alternatives.

Although these alternatives are available, most products still contain plastic which doesn’t break down, sticks together and can create something known as a fatberg. These rock-like masses of waste matter form in the sewer systems from non-biodegradable solids, oil, grease and fat.

Environment Minister Therese Coffey told the BBC that the proposal was to “ban plastic from wet wipes”. She added that the consultation was a “legal requirement” to make sure that they can go ahead with the ban.

The ban should come into force next year following the consultation.

The consultation on whether to ban wet wipes is part of the UK government’s Plan for Water which was published on Monday (3 April).

It is intended to improve water quality in the country and also includes measures like restrictions on some kinds of polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) - also known as ‘forever chemicals’ - in textiles, cleaning products and other items.

The government also announced earlier this week that water companies could face unlimited fines for releasing untreated sewage into waterways without good reason."

-via EuroNews.Green, 4/4/23

Note: If you're in the UK, you should be able to send in a comment as part of the public consultation on this!

#uk #united kingdom #england #wales #scotland #northern ireland #environment #plastic #plastic pollution #wet wipes #skincare #plastic ban #sewer #sewer backup #good news #hope

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clonerightsagenda · 9 months

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Sick

We're most of the way through disability pride month and I'm not sure if I'll ever finish this WIP because I'm stuck over how literal to make some of the elements. So, I am posting it because I am curious if any of the weirdness resonates with other people. Enjoy my magical disability cure codependent haunting thing, and also I am going to post a rambling author's note about it.

The morning after the surgery, your Sick is sitting at the kitchen table. It looks good, for a corpse. It’s wearing the ‘I love dying and being dead’ t-shirt you joked about buying two diagnoses ago, pulled over a laced-shut hospital gown.

“What?” it asks. “You had more of a sense of humor when you were sick.”

The doctors warned you that your neurochemistry might be out of balance. You’re adjusting to the sudden lifting of brain fog after moving through the world in a protective cocoon of pharmaceuticals. They didn’t mention hallucinations.

“Think of me like a phantom limb.” Your Sick sips one of those awful plant-based protein drinks that still lurk in the back of your pantry. “Why did you do it?”

Talking to hallucinations probably makes them worse. You do it anyway. “You were killing me.”

“This world is killing you. But you finished yourself off first.”

You sit down across from it in one effortless motion. “That’s not what happened.”

“Right. I’m the enemy. So it doesn’t matter if I’m rotting at the bottom of a biohazard bin.” It considers you. “What’s it like not to hurt?”

What is it like? You’d woken up and lain there for a while, waiting. “Like holding my breath.”

“You’re in charge of all that now.” It nods, the motion referencing the length of your body. “Need to stay on top of it.”

“Like I need advice from you,” you say, but you blink, and the phantom’s gone.

60,000 pieces of microplastic. 7.2 micrograms per liter of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. 1:640 antinuclear antibody titer.

That's what they peel you out of. A second nervous system of petroleum products and misfiring T cells, the stuff that's been running your life via mob rule for a decade. They tell you that you weigh five grams less now.

They tell you, don't be surprised if at first it feels like something is missing.

I thought that was just for rich people, your friend says. She messaged you to remind you to take your meds, and you told her that you would never have to take your meds again. Celebrities and politicians.

Work decided it was cheaper to fix me than replace me, you message back. Score one for being essential.

Perks of your top-secret job.

I promise it's boring. Critical infrastructure usually is.

Did you look?

Some people share post-op pictures. They’re usually underwhelming if you don’t know what to look for - the subtle swelling over an aggravated nerve, hints of boniness in the knuckles. Shadows of bruises that never go away. No. I should’ve, though. I asked for hospital socks when they were prepping me but then obviously after I didn’t have them anymore. Who knows if I’ll get another chance.

You might be finished with surgeries forever and you’re disappointed because you can’t get any more grippy socks.

I'll miss the warm blankets too.

Your Sick crawled inside you when you were nineteen years old. It wouldn’t let you get out of bed.

“Help,” it croaked.

Your roommate (only your roommate then) came the second time it called. She was in her pajamas, her hair a dark tangle. You never asked for her help, even when your hands got so sore you couldn’t open jars without five minutes of struggle. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t feel right,” it said.

Her face softened. “I thought you looked rough yesterday. I don’t have class this morning; do you want me to make something? Call anybody?”

No, you tried to say. I can handle it.

“I think I need to go to the doctor,” your Sick said instead.

You had been putting it off. The doctor meant admitting something was wrong, meant – most importantly – a $30 copay. But healthy people never understand when you try to tell them. At a certain point, your body stops being yours.

Your Sick turned up its nose at greasy slices of campus pizza. It politely but firmly refused invitations for a night out. It sanded the branching tree of your life into a wooden sphere it could cup in the palm of its hand.

“You’re ruining my life,” you told the mirror.

It tilted your head. You read your own confusion. “I’m protecting you.”

“Mask,” your Sick says from behind you. It looks worse today – skin gone gray and patchy, with a shimmer of microplastic shards risen to the surface like body glitter. The shine complements the sequined mask secured over its own face.

You scowl, bag swung over one shoulder. You haven’t gone out since the surgery – you can work from home, you haven’t canceled grocery delivery yet – and now that you’re venturing through your front door, the phantom is back. You had reached for one of the masks on the table by the door before dropping it back into the bowl. “I don’t need it now.”

“So respiratory diseases don’t exist anymore? Dumbass.”

The objection reminds you of your own aggrieved complaints: why don’t people plan events with us in mind, don’t they know how many people there are with immune systems one shove away from collapsing, the world’s not getting any safer.

That was your Sick talking. You don’t have to worry anymore.

“You weren’t doing a good job taking care of me before, and you’re not doing a good job of it now.”

Its eyebrows rise. Black liquid has seeped through the cloth of its mask. “And fuck everyone else like you?”

“Like you,” you say, and slam the door in its face.

Outside, the breeze brushes your cheeks. You don’t have to sit down because you miscalculated the balance of meds and breakfast. You start to scan your surroundings for bathrooms, just in case, and then dismiss the impulse because you’re fine.

You’re better than that.

Three hours in, you realize you’ve been curling your fingers into a fist and then opening them again. You only notice because the joints start to ache. It feels familiar.

Nothing else does.

A notification flashes in the corner of your screen. There’s new activity in one of the forum conversations you’ve been following.

It’s rich people doing what they always do. Wreck the planet? It’s fine, we can get a new one! Wreck your body? It’s fine, we can get a new one of that too. There’s no incentive to improve the situation if you can buy your way out of the problem.

I’d buy my way out too, but there’s no way I could afford it

Then you’d eat your first plastic salad and get sick again. See what I mean?

The new ones are supposed to be more resilient

But it’s not yours

Remember any theological debates go in the quarantine thread

I don’t mean it like that. I just think you’re interfering with your relationship with your body, and that’s a fundamental part of who you are, right? Whether or not a s*ul exists

There’s not a bot monitoring this thread. You don’t have to censor it.

Sorry, habit

Mod is human, asterisks don’t stop me. But they are a screenreader issue, so please edit your post.

You used to frequent disability forums. They had useful resources. Jokes, too, like the t-shirt your Sick wears over its hospital gown. But you can’t understand the people who embrace their disfunction. You took a time-honored approach to your medical misfortune. Cancer. Pregnancy. Demonic possession. Petrochemicals. There is something inside me, and I want it out.

These people helped you, but you don’t need them anymore. So instead of saying anything, you log off the forum for the last time.

You do tell your coworkers, who are excited for you. They pester you with questions over Slack: How long did it take? Did you look? Does it hurt?

Your boss messages you, When can you come back to the office?

You frown at the screen. The work you’ve been doing from home is good – better than what you’ve produced for years now that your head is clear. But your boss has always been old fashioned. Remote work was a concession that there’s no justification for now.

Monday, if you want, you type back.

That gets you an immediate thumbs up reaction, followed by, We’re all so glad you’re ok.

That chafes you in a spot rubbed raw. Everyone assumes once the problem they know about has been addressed, everything else must be resolved too. You must be ok.

Which you are, this time.

Your best friend comes to visit. She brings beers you couldn’t drink with your meds and a greasy pizza that settles in your stomach like a snake planning to strike later. It tastes amazing – you run your tongue over your teeth to capture the last traces of salty richness and tell yourself next time your body will recognize good food.

She’s spent the whole visit on your sofa. You have an air mattress from when she used to sleep on your floor while you were recovering from surgeries. She hasn’t asked you to bring it out, and you’re not sure how to ask if she’s staying. Instead you keep stealing glances at her, the curve of her cheek that’s the first thing you’d see when you looked over the side of your bed in the middle of the night, the hands that have held your hair back from the toilet bowl and now rest on her lap.

She keeps looking at you too. You wonder if she sees a difference.

After the silence and sidelong glances build into an itchy layer on your skin, you lean over, clutch the front of her shirt, and kiss her. She freezes and then kisses you back, gingerly, the way you'd investigate an unexpected bruise. There’s pizza grease on both your lips. Rich and unfamiliar.

You’re the one who pulls away. "I'm sorry," you say. "That's not what I want."

She’s stiff under her softness, like an examination table. "I didn’t think so. I didn't think you did that kind of thing."

You don’t. It’s the silence. Your empty floor. Her hands, resting on her lap. "I just thought…” you try. “That kind of closeness is enough for everyone else."

Your fingers are still clenched in her shirt. She looks at them until you untangle them, one by one. The knuckles don’t ache.

She shakes her head. "It's like you don't want to be better."

“That went well,” your Sick says after the door swings shut.

“It’s your fault.”

It tilts its head on a neck that’s looser than it should be. “I didn’t do anything.”

It’s right. When you were sick you could request a shoulder rub to loosen tight muscles or hike up your shirt, no seduction, no bullshit, to ask if that rash looked bad. You could open your mouth and let the truth of your predicament outweigh prudishness or shame.

You don’t know how to ask people to touch you anymore.

It leans in close. “You need me,” it says. Oil bubbles over its lips and slicks its chin. “I was always your excuse.”

That weekend you watch your phone sit silent on the table, no pings from forum posts or medication reminders. Your Sick drifts over. It’s no longer a rotting corpse leaking garbage. It looks dead in the way you used to whenever you looked in the mirror.

Wherever it is in the real world, it doesn’t look like that anymore. From what you remember from the booklets they gave you, it’s already gone.

“Not going to explain yourself, huh?” asks your hallucination. Your haunting.

You shrug. What would you say to her? I took away the foundation of my life and don’t know what’s underneath. You only started being my friend when I needed help, so what’s left for us? There was always another medication or appointment or symptom but now everything’s fine and I’m still holding my breath.

You’ve gotten used to letting someone else talk for you.

“I was killing you,” it says.

That’s what you said. You look at the lines around its eyes and imagine a billion tiny swords raised against invaders that poured in every time you took a breath to light your joints up with friendly fire. “You were protecting me.”

“I was the worst part of you.”

“You were.” You flex your perfect, painless fingers. “Do I miss it?”

It grins and leans against the back of your chair, wrapping chilly arms around your waist. “I just wanted to make you say it.”

The grip around your belly aches in a way you recognize. Dull pain that makes its home in you. Cozy as curling up in bed with a headache. You look back at your silent phone. “Which one of us did she come here for?”

“Only one way to find out.”

You could reach out, but you don’t move. You have never known how to ask for help.

Your Sick sighs. It loosens its grip and reaches over your shoulder to lace corpse-cool fingers between yours. Then it lifts your combined hands in a swoop like the first dose of anesthesia, when the orderlies wheel you away and everything is out of your control. “Come on,” she says. Her breath is a puff of disinfectant on your cheek. “Let’s do it like we used to.”

After you came out of the anesthesia, the surgeons asked if you wanted to see your old body. You said no. You’d spent long enough inside it – it was something you wanted to leave behind. Besides, even after all the pamphlets and counseling sessions, you worried seeing your vacant face would jar something loose. Convince you like those cranks on the disability forums that you’d severed a connection that was irrevocable.

If you could do it again, you’d say yes. Step inside the morgue – no, they wouldn’t have moved it to the morgue yet, they’d want you to have a better venue to say goodbye – and catalogue the subtle changes only you could see. The swollen knuckles, flushed cheeks. All the other differences locked inside.

You imagine bending down and lifting the body the way it lifted you once, cradling its head in the crook of your arm. Imagine kissing your Sick and feeling poisonous tendrils creep down your throat to coat your insides with grime.

You imagine saying, welcome home.

(Author's note)

#kat writes

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mindblowingscience · 2 months

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Scientists from the University of Rochester have developed new electrochemical approaches to clean up pollution from "forever chemicals" found in clothing, food packaging, firefighting foams, and a wide array of other products. A new Journal of Catalysis study describes nanocatalysts developed to remediate per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances known as PFAS. The researchers, led by assistant professor of chemical engineering Astrid Müller, focused on a specific type of PFAS called Perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), which was once widely used for stain-resistant products but is now banned in much of the world for its harm to human and animal health. PFOS is still widespread and persistent in the environment despite being phased out by US manufacturers in the early 2000s, continuing to show up in water supplies.

#Science #Enviroment #Materials Science #Pollution #Water #Plastics #Recycling

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rjzimmerman · 2 years

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After I posted this, I received a comment from a reader and a link to an article in Phys.org describing a similar approach and with a similar result at Northwestern University. Here’s the link. Excerpt from this story from the New York Times:

A team of scientists has found a cheap, effective way to destroy so-called forever chemicals, a group of compounds that pose a global threat to human health.

The chemicals — known as PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — are found in a spectrum of products and contaminate water and soil around the world. Left on their own, they are remarkably durable, remaining dangerous for generations.

Scientists have been searching for ways to destroy them for years. In a study, published Thursday in the journal Science, a team of researchers rendered PFAS molecules harmless by mixing them with two inexpensive compounds at a low boil. In a matter of hours, the PFAS molecules fell apart.

The new technique might provide a way to destroy PFAS chemicals once they’ve been pulled out of contaminated water or soil. But William Dichtel, a chemist at Northwestern University and a co-author of the study, said that a lot of effort lay ahead to make it work outside the confines of a lab. “Then we’d be in a real position to talk practicality,” he said.

Chemists first created PFAS compounds in the 1930s, and the chemicals soon proved to be remarkably good at repelling water and grease. The American company 3M used PFAS chemicals to create Scotchgard, which protects fabric and carpets. PFAS chemicals put the nonstick in nonstick Teflon pans. Firefighters began putting out fires with PFAS-laced foam. It’s easy to encounter PFAS in our everyday lives, including in the dental floss we thread between our teeth and the food wrappers used in restaurants.

They’re also harmful. Even low chronic levels of PFAS exposure have been linked to an increased risk of cancer, liver damage, low birth weight, and reduced immunity.

“Nearly every American has them in their bodies,” said Tasha Stoiber, a senior scientist at Environmental Working Group, an environmental advocacy group that conducts research on PFAS chemicals

#PFAS #forever chemicals #per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances

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materialsscienceandengineering · 3 months

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Wear and tear may cause firefighter gear to release more 'forever chemicals'

Last year, a study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) showed that the textiles used in protective clothing worn by firefighters often contain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, a class of chemicals that has been linked to an increased risk of cancer and other health effects. Now, a follow-up study from NIST shows that the textiles used in that protective clothing, called turnout gear, tend to release more PFAS when they are subject to wear and tear. Taken together, the two studies identified the PFAS compounds present in selected turnout gear textiles, how much of each was present, and whether simulated wear and tear increased the amount of PFAS that the textiles released.