Center Pierre-Louis: For scientific American‘S science quicklyI’m Kendra Pierre-Louis on behalf of Rachel Feltman. You’re listening to our weekly science news roundup.
First, earlier this month the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency published a new rule that signals a major change in the way some air pollutants impact human health. Many health experts say this change is likely to increase air pollution – and have poor health consequences.
Andrea Thompson, ScienceThe senior editor of Life Sciences is here to give us a clearer understanding of what the agency is doing and what it means for the air we all breathe.
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Hello, Andrea. Thanks for joining us today.
Thompson: Thanks for having me.
Pierre-Louis: So my understanding is that, in general, EPA uses a type of cost-benefit analysis to understand the impact of environmental regulation. Can you talk a bit about how, before this rule change, EPA measured these costs and benefits?
Thompson: Yes, so in general the science of how you calculate how much a regulation will cost versus what kind of economic benefit it will bring you has been pretty well established over many decades.
So, at least for the benefit part, it starts with health studies that compare areas where, say, a certain pollutant is high and areas where it’s low, and look at the differences in hospitalizations and premature deaths and other health indicators, and control for other factors that might affect them, and come up with a model that you can use to see, “Okay, if this pollutant goes up or down.” goes down, how much do those health indicators change?” And then it has to do with economic studies that look at what they call the “statistical value of life” – so it’s not a moral judgment about how much a life is worth (laughs); This is a statistic. And it’s married together to figure out, “Okay, what’s the economic benefit if we control this pollutant.”
And on the cost side, you know, what is the cost to the industry to implement whatever technological changes would be needed to limit that pollutant? And then you look at the balance.
Pierre-Louis: So how does this change finalized earlier this month change that calculation?
Thompson: So it’s a bit vague, as the EPA isn’t very specific on this point. From the language cited in A. new York Times The story that has emerged is not at least calculating a dollar value for health benefits. And they said they wouldn’t count it for the Prime Minister2.5which are small particles that can penetrate deep into the bloodstream, into the lungs; It has been linked to a number of health effects, from asthma to cancer and low birth weight babies.
Pierre-Louis: Well, these are the things we encounter when we burn gasoline for fuel or during wildfire smoke events.
Thompson: Correct.
Pierre-Louis: So in the old days, let’s say, I had a plant, and it was polluting, and I don’t know, it would cost $100 to put a scrubber on my plant so it had less particulate pollution, and the government could say, “Okay, yes, it’ll cost you $100, but it’ll save $1,000 in human health costs.” But now they’re still looking at $100, but they no longer have that $1,000 to compare it to.
Thompson: Yes, basically. They said they are not going to calculate it for PM2.5 And ozone.
Pierre-Louis: And when news of this change first broke, the reaction of many health advocates was, “This is likely to lead to higher levels of these pollutants.” Have you heard something similar?
Thompson: Yeah, so the experts I’ve talked to, you know, that would mean that whatever falls under the umbrella of regulations where this new policy is, you’ll probably have higher levels of air pollutants than you otherwise would because it’s hindering this important tool to figure out, you know, whether the regulations will be worthwhile.
Pierre-Louis: If changing the rules in this way is likely to increase air pollution, why do it? Like, who benefits from this?
Thompson: So the obvious answer is that companies that have to comply will incur those costs. And this has been the tension behind imposing any kind of environmental regulation: the cost of regulating – if you’re a power plant to put in scrubbers, that’s easy to calculate, whereas the cost to society is broader and much harder to calculate. And you’re not considering how that pollution is affecting thousands of people.
Pierre-Louis: I know some people listening at home may be wondering: do they have a point State For example, what could be done to enforce stricter air pollution regulations than the EPA?
Thompson: Okay, so states often have special environmental regulations. The problem with something like air pollution is that you can have a polluting plant in Pennsylvania, and those pollutants will be blown into New Jersey and New York. So you-there may be limits to what a state can do. The reason the EPA is there is because this is a problem that doesn’t follow these kinds of political boundaries, and you really need this national regulation.
Pierre-Louis: For more information on this visit here ScientificAmerican.com To read Andrea’s excerpt.
Turning to some news on cancer, according to the most recent annual report, 70 percent of cancer patients now survive for at least five years after diagnosis. American Cancer Society. The organization says this is a record high.
Rebecca Siegel, the organization’s senior scientific director for surveillance research, said in a statement“This astonishing victory is largely the result of decades of cancer research that provided physicians with the tools to treat the disease more effectively, transforming many cancers from a death sentence to a chronic disease.”
The report found that the biggest increases were among cancers with higher mortality rates and those with advanced diagnoses. The five-year survival rate for myeloma, a type of blood cancer, increased from 32 percent in the mid-’90s to 62 percent from 2015 to 2021. Similarly, the five-year survival number for regional stage lung cancer, which is typically stage 3, increased from 20 percent to 37 percent over the same time period.
Researchers cite improved screening and cancer treatment as well as a decline in smoking for these positive results. But the authors also warned that recent changes in federal policy could undo this progress. The report concluded that “Pending federal cuts to health insurance and cancer research will inevitably reduce access to life-saving drugs and halt progress at a time when the incidence of many common cancers is increasing.”
Speaking of illnesses, NASA astronauts Mike Fincke and Jenna Cardman, Russian astronaut Oleg Platonov and Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui, also known as Crew-11, splashed down off the coast of California after medical evacuations on Thursday. Crew-11 was expected to remain on the International Space Station until mid-February, but NASA ordered the departure after one of the astronauts developed what the agency administrator called a “serious medical condition.” Due to medical privacy rules, NASA has not disclosed which astronauts fell ill or what conditions they developed. The agency stressed that it was not an emergency, but the situation was beyond the station’s medical capacity.
This is the first time a space agency has ordered a medical evacuation from the International Space Station. Lessons from this evacuation may help prepare for upcoming human spaceflight missions, including Artemis II. The mission, scheduled for sometime this year, will be the first manned Moon mission since Apollo 17 in 1972.
And now on to some animal news. Researchers have known for some time that same-sex sexual behavior is common in animals. But in a study published last Monday, a team of scientists provided more information about the possible evolutionary underpinnings of this behavior in primates. Researchers at Imperial College London looked at data from 491 non-human primate species and found same-sex sexual behavior in 59 of them. The team then looked at the relationships between those behaviors and 15 environmental, life history and social traits.
Scientists discovered that species with certain characteristics were more likely to have same-sex sexual contact. For example, primates living in dry places are more vulnerable to food shortages and hunting pressure. or those that have longer life spans and substantial differences in size between the sexes, and groups whose social structures and hierarchies show greater complexity.
Vincent Savolainen, senior author of the study, told Guardian The results show that same-sex sexual behavior, “enhances bonding, reduces stress and aggression, and allows any given species and their particular environment and society to seamlessly cope with the challenges they face.”
While the researchers stressed that we can’t extrapolate the sexual behavior of the primates in the study to humans, fans of the Breakout TV show heated rivalry They might themselves wonder whether those gay hockey players were perhaps engaged in team building.
That’s all for today’s episode. Tune in Wednesday, when we delve deeper into the scientific quest to define consciousness.
But before you go, we’d like to ask for your help with a future episode—it’s about kissing. Tell us about your most memorable kiss. What makes it special? how did it feel? Record a voice memo on your phone or computer and send it to scienceQuickly@sciam.com. Be sure to include your name and where you’re from.
science quickly It is produced by me, Kendra Pierre-Louis, with Fonda Mwangi, Sushmita Pathak, and Jeff DelVisio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Scheana Poses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. agree scientific American For more latest and in-depth science news.
For scientific American, This is Center Pierre-Louis. have a great week!
