Author: engeladmin

Disparities in potential nitrate exposures within Iowa public water systems

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Author: Mantey, Emmanuel Padmore; Liu, Lu; Rehmann, Chris R. Description: Nitrates (measured as nitrate-nitrogen) in drinking water exceeding the maximum contaminant level (MCL) of 10 mg L-1 can cause significant health risks, such as methemoglobinemia. Even long-term exposure to concentrations below the MCL can also increase the risks of cancer. Iowa, a major agricultural producer, has grappled with decades-long nitrate pollution in its water systems due to intensive farming practices and animal feeding operations. To help in developing interventions and policies to protect public health, this study delves into long-term…

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Nitrate-nitrogen patterns in the Raccoon River Basin related to agricultural practices

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Author: Hatfield, J. L.; McMullen, L. D.; Jones, C. S. Description: Nitrate-N concentrations in the Raccoon River have increased beginning in the early 1970s. Since this river is the predominant water supply for the City of Des Moines in Iowa, there is concern about the potential long-term impacts of these trends. Improvements in water quality from agricultural watersheds are critical to protect the water supply, and understanding the factors affecting water quality will lead to potential changes in agricultural management to improve water quality. The historical database of nitrate-nitrogen (NO3-N)…

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‘Cropaganda’: Mythology of Corn Belt agriculture

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Author: Hall, Anaya L. Description: Even as scholars have increasingly recognized the role of industrial agricultural practices in contributing to non-point source pollution, drinking water in the Corn Belt remains perilously contaminated with excess nitrates, which pose a significant risk to human health and the environment. A recent lawsuit filed by the city of Des Moines, Iowa against three upstream counties over chronic nitrate pollution sparked heated debate around the roles and responsibilities of agricultural production. Drawing on Barthes’ theory of mythology, this paper explores how three core myths influence…

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Drinking water source and exposure to regulated water contaminants in the California Teachers Study cohort

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Author: Spaur, Maya; Medgyesi, Danielle N.; Bangia, Komal; Madrigal, Jessica M.; Hurwitz, Lauren M.; Beane Freeman, Laura E.; Fisher, Jared A.; Spielfogel, Emma S.; Lacey, James V.; Sanchez, Tiffany; Jones, Rena R.; Ward, Mary H. Description: BACKGROUND: Pollutants including metals/metalloids, nitrate, disinfection byproducts, and volatile organic compounds contaminate federally regulated community water systems (CWS) and unregulated domestic wells across the United States. Exposures and associated health effects, particularly at levels below regulatory limits, are understudied. OBJECTIVE: We described drinking water sources and exposures for the California Teachers Study (CTS), a…

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Are declines in insects and insectivorous birds related?

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Author: Tallamy, Douglas W.; Shriver, W. Gregory Description: A flurry of recently published studies indicates that both insects and birds have experienced wide-scale population declines in the last several decades. Curiously, whether insect and bird declines are causally linked has received little empirical attention. Here, we hypothesize that insect declines are an important factor contributing to the decline of insectivorous birds. We further suggest that insect populations essential to insectivorous birds decline whenever non-native lumber, ornamental, or invasive plant species replace native plant communities. We support our hypothesis by reviewing…

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Insect decline in the Anthropocene: Death by a thousand cuts

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Author: Wagner, David L.; Grames, Eliza M.; Forister, Matthew L.; Berenbaum, May R.; Stopak, David Description: Nature is under siege. In the last 10,000 y the human population has grown from 1 million to 7.8 billion. Much of Earth’s arable lands are already in agriculture, millions of acres of tropical forest are cleared each year, atmospheric CO2 levels are at their highest concentrations in more than 3 million y, and climates are erratically and steadily changing from pole to pole, triggering unprecedented droughts, fires, and floods across continents. Indeed, most…

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Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

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Author: Rigal, Stanislas; Dakos, Vasilis; Alonso, Hany; Aunins, Ainars; Benko, Zoltan; Brotons, Lluis; Chodkiewicz, Tomasz; Chylarecki, Przemyslaw; de Carli, Elisabetta; Del Moral, Juan Carlos; Domsa, Cristian; Escandell, Virginia; Fontaine, Benoit; Foppen, Ruud; Gregory, Richard; Harris, Sarah; Herrando, Sergi; Husby, Magne; Ieronymidou, Christina; Jiguet, Frederic; Kennedy, John; Klvanova¡, Alena; Kmecl, Primoz; Kuczynski, Lechoslaw; Kurlavicius, Petras; Kalas, John Atle; Lehikoinen, Aleksi; Lindstrom, Ake; Lorrilliere, Romain; Moshoj, Charlotte; Nellis, Renno; Noble, David; Eskildsen, Daniel Palm; Paquet, Jean-Yves; Pelissie, Mathieu; Pladevall, Clara; Portolou, Danae; Reif, Jiri­; Schmid, Hans; Seaman, Benjamin; Szabo, Zoltan D.; Szep,…

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Acceleration hotspots of North American birds’ decline are associated with agriculture

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Author: Leroy, Francois; Jarzyna, Marta A.; Keil, Petr Description: Human activities might have accelerated declines of population abundance, but this acceleration remains underexplored. Using 1033 North American Breeding Bird Survey routes, we analyze abundance change and its acceleration for 261 bird species, 54 avian families, and 10 habitats from 1987 to 2021. We show an average continent-wide decline of abundance of all birds per local route, with hotspots of decline in southern and warm parts of North America and hotspots of accelerating decline in the Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, and California, matching…

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The Pareto Effect In Tipping Social Networks: From Minority To Majority

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Author: Everall, Jordan P.; Tschofenig, Fabian; Donges, Jonathan F.; Otto, Ilona M. Description: How do social networks tip? A popular theory is that a small minority can trigger population-wide social change. This aligns with the Pareto principle, a semi-quantitative law which suggests that, in many systems, 80% of effects arise from 20% of the causes. In the context of the transition to net-zero emissions, this vital 20% can be a critical instigator of social tipping, a process which can rapidly change social norms. In this work, we asked whether the…

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Learning the Wrong Lessons: Syntactic-Domain Spurious Correlations in Language Models

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Author: Shaib, Chantal; Suriyakumar, Vinith M.; Sagun, Levent; Wallace, Byron C.; Ghassemi, Marzyeh Description: For an LLM to correctly respond to an instruction it must understand both the semantics and the domain (i.e., subject area) of a given task-instruction pair. However, syntax can also convey implicit information. Recent work shows that syntactic templates — frequent sequences of Part-of-Speech (PoS) tags — are prevalent in training data and often appear in model outputs. In this work we characterize syntactic templates, domain, and semantics in task-instruction pairs. We identify cases of spurious…

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