Tag Archives: csa

Proximity to Coal-Tar-Sealed Pavement Raises Risk of Cancer, Study Finds

People living near asphalt pavement sealed with coal tar have an elevated risk of cancer, according to a study in the journal Environmental Science and Technology. Much of this calculated excess risk results from exposures in children, age six or younger, to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from the sealant.

“The increased cancer risk associated with coal-tar-sealed asphalt (CSA) likely affects a large number of people in the U.S. Our results indicate that the presence of coal-tar-based pavement sealants is associated with significant increases in estimated excess lifetime cancer risk for nearby residents,” said E. Spencer Williams, Ph.D., principal author of the study and Baylor University assistant research scientist at the Center for Reservoir and Aquatic Systems Research in Baylor’s College of Arts & Sciences. (more…)

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Making Farm Fresh Affordable

New Food Bank program makes local produce accessible to low-income community

“We want to make sure you have access to the best produce,” says University of Delaware anthropology senior Dan Reyes. “To locally-, naturally- and organically-grown fruits and vegetables. Pesticide-free. Herbicide-free. The kinds of food normally too expensive to buy in grocery stores.”

The kinds of food that low-income households can now — thanks to the Food Bank of Delaware’s Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, developed by two UD students — purchase using their federal food benefits. (more…)

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New Website Invites Public to Help Identify Seafloor Life and Habitats

The public is invited to help identify objects they see in images of the seafloor through a new interactive website called “Seafloor Explorer.” The result of a unique collaboration between oceanographers studying seafloor habitats, Web programmers and social scientists, Seafloor Explorer (www.seafloorexplorer.org) launches September 13.

The team has more than 40 million images, but are launching the site with a preliminary set of 100,000 – all of them taken by HabCam, a habitat mapping underwater vehicle. HabCam was developed and built by the HabCam group, which comprises marine biologists and engineers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) as well as fishermen and other scientists. The Seafloor Explorer interactive website was funded by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and built in collaboration with the HabCam Group by the Citizen Science Alliance (CSA), the developers behind interactive sites found on Zooniverse.org. (more…)

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