Golf’s popularity continues to grow throughout the world, but its environmental impact remains significant. In order to reduce costs, improve public relations, and simply be a better steward of the environment, course designers and superintendents are now adopting more sustainable practices. Are recycled water, native plants, and integrated pest management enough to make an impact, or is this industry just too resource intensive?
I spend my workdays reading, writing, and talking about the health impacts of poor air quality, so when the Canadian wildfire smoke hit Pittsburgh this summer, I took a cheap and simple step to clean the air in our home. This DIY air filter is something I actually put in other people’s homes for my last job, which is why I know it works.
The equator is a cool place to encounter physics: you’re moving faster, you’re farther from the center of the earth, and you weigh less. It’s also a common place to encounter pseudoscience: from the Coriolis force to balancing eggs, tourists may be told things they never knew were true… because they’re not. Skepticism is a healthy skill we could all use more of these days.
For this Seventh Anniversary post, we will be looking at a very important piece of copper equipment. Approximately 10% of American women of childbearing age use “long-acting reversible contraceptives,” including IUDs. While the copper (non-hormonal) kind is less common, it’s the kind I’ve had for almost a decade. I even participated in a clinical study to test a smaller “more comfortable” model for FDA approval.
Just about one century ago, airships were rising to prominence as the luxury option for long-haul travel. Today, some companies are touting airships as a climate-friendly alternative to airplanes. We may be set to see a renaissance for this slower, more intentional means of travel, but we also need to consider unseen and upstream costs that can still contribute significantly to its carbon footprint.
We were a little late in getting our COVID vaccines this fall because we caught it over the summer. In all reality, I actually enjoy getting my shots to justify a day of guilt-free loafing around the house. But with vaccine skeptics in the highest levels of government, I worry about the rise of misinformation and ever-dropping rates of vaccinations in the US and abroad.
A friend recently warned me against using my electric blanket. While there are established risks (including burns and fires), she was talking about health conditions that could be caused by electromagnetic fields. Hypothesizing about health impacts from environmental exposures can walk a fine line between conscientious public health research and pseudoscience. The difference between the two lies in what we do with answers we get.
We use AI for countless tasks in our daily lives, but different activities have different carbon footprints. Analyzing and creating content uses a lot more energy than a simple internet search, and we’re relying on AI for more of that over time. That isn’t good for our brains or the environment, especially since we’re building more fossil fuel-powered data centers to meet growing demand.
The extra energy required for Artificial Intelligence to process pleasantries, such as “please” and “thank you,” apparently costs tens of millions of dollars, to say nothing of the environmental impact of generating that energy. Whether the query results are improved or the AI will deign to spare kind humans in the upcoming revolution, it seems there are some arguments in favor of being polite.
While there is still very much we don’t know about the impacts of cannabis on human health, there are some clear indications of health benefits in specific situations. However, the questions we ask of the world are inherently influenced by our biases. What if some of the impacts we see on brain activity are not “bad” but simply a “different” way of using our brains?