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'Zombie' Hormone Disruptors Rise From the Dead
ananyo writes "Hormone-disrupting chemicals may be far more prevalent in lakes and rivers than previously thought. Environmental scientists have discovered that although these compounds are often broken down by sunlight, they can regenerate at night, returning to life like zombies (abstract). Endocrine disruptors — pollutants that unbalance hormone systems — are known to harm fish, and there is growing evidence linking them to health problems in humans, including infertility and various cancers 'Risk assessments have been built on the basis that light exposure is enough to break down these products,' adds Laura Vandenberg, an endocrinologist at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst who was not involved in the study. 'This work undermines that idea completely.'"
I assume that there simply weren't as many endocrine disruptors in the wild, so it was less of an issue over evolutionary time; but for (modestly complex) chemicals to be photosensitive enough to degrade; but suitably structurally favored to have more than a remote probability of being created by the recombination of their breakdown products is rather interesting...
Would it be in any way adaptive for hormones themselves(which disruptors are often very similar to, hence the ability to neatly disrupt the endocrine system) to have this level of durability, or is it much more likely that it's mere chance, biologically irrelevant until we started pumping the things out on an industrial scale?
Chemicals are your friends. Untested chemicals are your untested friends.
Anyone else getting tired of zombies? They're starting to appear in bad corporate cell-phone ads now.
It was cute for awhile, but there seem to be people taking it seriously enough that they're changing their lifestyles based on the idea. It's silly.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
There a lot of serious problems with doing risk assessment for endocrine disruptors.
The first is that there is no known mechanism for most of the effects reported in the literature. Without this mechanism a real science based approach is impossible.
The second issue (and a general problem for that matter) is that many of the studies reported turn out not to be reproducible.
The following articles give some insight into this, relative to BPA which has been (possibly without justification a cause celebre):
http://munews.missouri.edu/news-releases/2013/0102-previous-studies-on-toxic-effects-of-bpa-couldn%E2%80%99t-be-reproduced-says-mu-research-team/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21438738
If these things which are "broken down by sunlight, they can regenerate at night," then it's also possible that they are, to some extent, naturally occuring (most of these aren't large compounds) instances will also self-assemble, and therefore the assumption that there should be none at all present in nature may be flawed.
Skinny-dipping bad for reproduction, scientists say.
I like L4D and Resident Evil as much as the next person but this is an article about growth hormones, the cattle industry and how the byproducts don't dissipate as once believed. I guess if you want hits, just add the word zombie to a page.
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In all seriousness though, this is something that demands further investigation. Going skinny dipping, only for her to later turn over and say "no, I've got a headache" is a PITA at best.
I can think of two really simple solutions right off the top of my head. Pour lots of bleach in the water, or place bright full-spectrum lights around the lake to shine all night. Duh!
Better known as 318230.
Kind of makes you wonder if the breakdown products from this stuff can get into your body separately, and then combine there. Well, it makes me wonder. Maybe that's because I'm not a biologist, or maybe it's because I'm a pessimist.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Well here is what gets me... if they break down in sunlight, but then recombine without the light, well.... natural bodies of water tend not to be terribly clear. You don't have to go down far to not find all that much light, especially if the area itself isn't in direct sunlight....
So its likely that in many place, it doesn't even take "night", breakdown is likely only happening within a short distance of the surface.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Just like with pesticides that are known to wipe out bees, nothing will be done about this problem either. The corporate lobbyists own too many of your politicians.