A personal choice: smoking tobacco or your kid’s health?
Staff at Liverpool’s Alder Hey Children’s Hospital claimed in a BBC Panorama programme, (Spoilt Rotten? BBC One, Tuesday, 13 April ) that it was costing them over £1 million annually to treat preventable diseases in children. I picked up on this report via Radio 4: my ears pricked up as I had a pretty good…
The effects of the Icelandic volcano that didn’t make the news!
Image from National Geographic. Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano eruption on 12th April made the news yesterday (3 days later) mainly because of its effect on air traffic movement around the UK, Scandinavian countries and other European countries, with airports in many countries still being shut today. The particles of rock and silica in the volcanic ash…
Capturing and reusing rainwater in L A – it’s the law!
In a news item I read in the IWA publication online, Water 21, it was reported that the Los Angeles Department of Public Works has agreed a new law that will require the use of one of several means of capturing, reusing or redirecting rainwater runoff such as rain gardens, infiltration swales and rain storage…
Model building in Bournemouth saves lives
NO, not sandcastles, although if it could be said to improve your health then the 2010 annual meeting of UKPHA* (“Confronting the Public Health Crisis”) would have offered it in Bournemouth (alongside Nordic walking, Tai chi, handclapping exercises (I kid you not!) cycling and vegetarian food (see my colleague's blog Wot no conference bag?). NO what…
Wot no conference bag?
Leading by example is important in public health. How can you convince someone to change if you haven’t tried yourself? UKPHA was leading by example by reducing its carbon footprint this week in Bournemouth. Bag making workshop at UKPHA. (photo courtesy Wendie Norris)
World Water Day 2010 – Clean Water for a Healthy World
World Water Day is held annually on the 22nd of March and this year’s UN selected theme is “Clean Water for a Healthy World.” With over 1.1 billion people (around one sixth of the world’s population) in the world today lacking access to clean water and with less than 1% of the world’s freshwater being…
Too much tourism traumatising dolphins
Dolphin watching. Image: Zanzibar-island.com In many parts of the world, watching whales and dolphins in their natural habitat has become a vital and growing part of the tourist industry. Cetacean tourism is also often used in arguments for the protection and conservation of whales, dolphins and other iconic marine animals, by presenting a potentially…
Vitamin D and flu
Since my recent post on the growing health claims for vitamin D (see: Bring on the sunshine!), the 'sunshine vitamin' has continued to appear in the headlines. Of note is a study from Japan (just published in American Journal of Clinical Nutrition)1 suggesting that the risk of children contracting influenza A may be reduced if…
Invasive plant to meet its match
Today sees an important milestone in a CABI project, led by Dr Dick Shaw. Defra gave the go-ahead to release an insect, a psyllid, to stop the spread of the non-native invasive plant, Japanese Knotweed.
What killed the dinosaurs?
A new study presented this week at the 41st Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Texas, USA, gives compelling evidence, which shows the most likely cause of the dinosaurs’ extinction 65 million years ago. The two main theories up to now were that a giant asteroid hit Mexico and wiped them out or that…