Use of deicing agents may sometimes raise sodium levels in drinking water beyond healthy limits for people on salt-restricted diets.
salts & sodium
Posted inENGAGE, Research Spotlights
ENGAGE article: Secondary blue bug
Use of deicing agents may sometimes raise sodium levels in drinking water beyond healthy limits for people on salt-restricted diets.
Posted inENGAGE, Research Spotlights
ENGAGE article: Blue bug
Use of deicing agents may sometimes raise sodium levels in drinking water beyond healthy limits for people on salt-restricted diets.
Posted inNews
Lipids from Europa’s Ocean Could Be Detectable on the Surface
A super salty spring in the Canadian Arctic provides insights key to detecting life on a distant ocean world.
Posted inResearch & Developments
Doge bros up to no good
When snowstorms hit, deicing agents such as road salts and brine help keep streets and walkways open. However, some deicers release sodium and chloride into the surrounding environment. Links between elevated sodium intake and human health risks, such as high blood pressure, are well established. The effects of deicers on drinking water, however, have been less clear.
Now, evidence reported by Cruz et al. supports a link between deicers and elevated sodium levels in drinking water, with concentrations in the Philadelphia region sometimes surpassing recommended limits for people on sodium-restricted diets. The new study adds a public health perspective to research that has focused primarily on the harmful effects of deicers on freshwater aquatic animals, including amphibians and benthic macroinvertebrates.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Atmospheric Turbulence May Promote Cloud Droplet Formation
Turbulence causes local variations in relative humidity, which can push particles past a critical saturation threshold for droplet nucleation.
Posted inNews
An Exoplanet with Evolving Clouds of Salts
Clouds form and dissipate on a gas giant orbiting a Sun-like star.
Posted inNews
Mmm, Salt—Europa’s Hidden Ocean May Contain the Table Variety
Hubble Space Telescope observations suggest that sodium chloride exists in young, geologically active regions on Europa, likely fed by upwelling from the moon’s subsurface ocean.
Posted inNews
Chemical Patterns May Predict Stars That Host Giant Planets
Stars with giant planets tend to have a few key elements in abundance. A new algorithm used these patterns to predict hundreds of stars that will likely have exoplanets if we go looking for them.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Local Heat Source Needed to Form Liquid Water Lake on Mars
Thermal modeling suggests that active magmatism in the past few hundred thousand years could account for the presence of a large lake previously hypothesized beneath the Red Planet’s southern ice cap.