What is toxicology, and why might a toxicologist just turn out to be your best friend? Risk Bites takes a look in this brief introduction to the science of toxic chemicals that might harm you, and how it's relevant to risk assessment. Risk Bites was created by Andrew Maynard, and is supported by th
How do you know if the chemicals in the stuff you use and eat are safe? Only a small fraction of the thousands of chemicals in use today have been thoroughly tested for safety. Part of the problem is that how we test chemicals now is slow, expensive, and relies an awful lot on animal testing. How
Could alien blood be toxic to us? It may seem like a funny question, but it leads to some interesting scientific places! Not surprisingly, the chances that exo-toxicology (the toxicology of extraterrestrial life forms) becomes a critical issue in our lifetimes is small. But with rapid developments
What's the difference between a threshold dose response model, and a no-threshold model? And what are the limitations of each? This week Risk Bites tackles the basics of dose-response models. This week's Risk Bites team: David Faulkner (Animation concepts, editing, closed captions) Andrew Maynard
When something like the herbicide Glyphosate (Roundup) is labeled "probably causes cancer", what does this mean? This question was prompted by Grist, who asked us: "Hey Risk Bites guy, the WHO just said that the herbicide in Roundup probably causes cancer -- what's the deal with that? It seems lik
How do you work out how safe or dangerous a chemical or some other substance is? This week's Risk Bites takes a look at chemical safety, and estimating health risk from chemical exposure. This week's Risk Bites team: David Faulkner (post-production) Andrew Maynard (all the other stuff) Risk Bite
What's is dose response, and what's it got to do with hazard and health risk? This is the first of a series of Risk Bites videos on understanding what dose response is, and why it's useful! This is part of a series of Risk Bites videos that tackle dose response and response models. This week's Ri
What is a scientific model and what is it good for? As a prelude to talking about dose-response models on Risk Bites, this week's video is a primer on models -- what they are, and why they are useful. This is part of a series of Risk Bites videos that tackle dose response and response models. Ch
Carbon nanotubes, or CNT, are being used to make products stronger, lighter, faster, and more efficient. But are they safe? A growing body of research is raising concerns over the hazards presented by some forms of the material. As ever though, the risk to health depends on who is exposed to what
A California judge is requiring cancer warning labels on coffee. So we thought we’d take look at some of the other highly improbable risks associated with your cup of joe. We love a good cup of coffee at Risk Bites. So we were rather dismayed to discover that California judge William le Jeunesse ha
How worried should you be if 1,4-dioxane gets into your drinking water? 1,4-dioxane is an industrial chemical used as a solvent and a stabilizer -- and in areas where there's environmental contamination, safety is an important question, especially as the substance is a probable human carcinogen. T
Are green potato chips bad for you? Risk Bites takes a look at whether fears over green potato chips are just an urban myth, or whether there's more to them. RESOURCES Useful websites: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations: http://www.fao.org/docrep/x5415e/x5415e01.htm Interna
