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April 2011

How Do We Filter Risk Information?

April 28, 2011

Risk information is available from a huge number of sources.  We receive such information from newspapers, websites, TV and radio programs, social media, public service announcements, e-mails, instruction manuals, product labels, medication inserts, etc.  We also receive information about a number of risks every day with our senses of smell, taste, touch, sight, and sound. [...]

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Risk Science Center's April Newsletter Now Posted

April 28, 2011

Take a look at our April 2011 Newsletter to see a summary of this month’s blog postings and past events.  On April 14th the Risk Science Center hosted its second Unplugged event, Risk Science Unplugged Presents: Gulf Oil, with a lively panel discussion on the health implications and lessons learned from the Gulf oil spill.   Also in our newsletter, check out blogs [...]

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Health Impacts of the Gulf Oil Spill – Transcript of Unplugged Discussion Now Posted

April 26, 2011

We’ve just posted the transcript from Risk Science Unplugged Presents: Gulf Oil, which was held last Thursday April 14 at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.  We hope you enjoy reading the transcript — It’s a great way to take in the discussion.

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Presenting Risky Choices in Small Doses Makes For Better Decisions

April 21, 2011

One of the most difficult lessons I try to teach the students in my health communication course is that providing less information can often be more effective than trying to be “comprehensive.” This fact is I think clearly shown in a paper that I wrote with Professor Peter Ubel and post-doctoral fellow Andrea Angott of [...]

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The Gulf oil spill & its health impacts, 12 months on.

April 19, 2011

On April 20 2011, an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig in Gulf of Mexico led to catastrophic failure.  11 workers died as a result, and the world watched as a seemingly unstoppable plume of oil gushed out of the sea bed 5000 feet below the surface. The ensuing operation to cap the well and [...]

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How Clean Is Clean? Studying the transmission of hospital-acquired MRSA

April 18, 2011

Nottasorn Plipat is a doctoral student in the University of Michigan School of Public Health, Department of Epidemiology. She received a 2007-2009 scholarship from the Interdisciplinary Training Program in Infectious Disease at the Center for Molecular and Clinical Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases (MACEPID) and currently is a graduate student research assistant at the Center for [...]

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Regulating emerging technologies – Science & Public Participation top a new White House set of principles

April 16, 2011

Back in 2007 the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a set of “Principles for Nanotechnology Environmental, Health and Safety Oversight” (no longer available on the OSTP website it seems, but you can read them in this Nanowerk article). At the time, I was less than enamored with the “don’t mess [...]

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Why we don’t need a regulatory definition for nanomaterials

April 15, 2011

Engineered nanomaterials present regulators with a conundrum – there is a gut feeling that these materials present a new regulatory challenge, yet the nature and resolution of this challenge remains elusive.  But as the debate over the regulation of nanomaterials continues, there are worrying signs that discussions are being driven less by the science of [...]

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Making sense of radiation levels

April 15, 2011

Just over a month ago – as the events surrounding the Fukushima-Daiichi power plant in Japan began to unfold, we posted a quick rundown of what was known at the time about radiation levels and potential health concerns.  Since then, the situation has become increasingly serious, with the incident being classified as a Level 7 [...]

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Welcoming the Risk Science Center's Newest Blogger

April 12, 2011

The Risk Science Center is excited to introduce Lindsay Ward as our newest student blogger. Lindsay is a first year Master’s student in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences in the School of Public Health. As a Toxicology concentrator, her interests lie in the interaction of chemical exposures with human health outcomes—specifically developmental and ocular toxicity [...]

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BBC Lab Introduces The Big Risk Test

April 12, 2011

Jointly sponsored by Cambridge University and the BBC, a new online quiz called The Big Risk Test is aptly named: not only does it examine the public’s perception of risk magnitude but the test is casting a wide net for study subjects. By registering on the network’s website and undergoing nine sections of testing, anyone [...]

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US Schools of Public Health address the impacts of the Japan nuclear crisis

April 6, 2011

On March 16, I wrote a piece on 2020science.org asking where US Schools of Public Health were in providing information on the health implications of the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster.  Three weeks on, there’s been a marked increase in the information being made available.  Here’s a quick run-down on what is being provided by [...]

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Health impacts of the Gulf oil spill – plugging Risk Science Unplugged (April 14)

April 4, 2011

This is a shameless plug I’m afraid for the University of Michigan Risk Science Center Unplugged series of discussions (if you’ll forgive the pun) – and specifically the live/webcast event we’re having on the health impacts of the Gulf Oil Spill on April 14.  But no apologies – I’m really excited about this series, and [...]

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Larry Brilliant: Enabling sustainable humanity through getting serious about risk

April 1, 2011

[Transcript] I‘ve occasionally been accused of thinking big when it comes to Risk Science.  So I was rather chuffed to hear former Executive Director of Google.org Larry Brilliant out-big me on every point as he delivered the 10th Peter M. Wege lecture here at the University of Michigan a couple of weeks ago. Larry was [...]

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