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Chemophobia
Chemophobia (or chemphobia or chemonoia) is an aversion to or prejudice against chemicals or chemistry. The phenomenon has been ascribed both to a reasonable concern over the potential adverse effects of synthetic chemicals, and to an irrational fear of these substances because of misconceptions about their potential for harm, particularly the possibility of certain exposures to some synthetic chemicals elevating an individual's risk of cancer. Consumer products with labels such as "natural" and " chemical free" (the latter being impossible if taken literally, since all consumer products consist of chemical substances) appeal to chemophobic sentiments by offering consumers what appears to be a safer alternative (see appeal to nature). Definition and uses There are differing opinions on the proper usage of the word ''chemophobia''. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) defines chemophobia as an "irrational fear of chemicals". According to the American C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jon Entine
Jon Entine (born April 30, 1952) is an American science journalist. After working as a network news writer and producer for NBC News and ABC News, Entine moved into print journalism. Entine has written seven books and is a contributing columnist to newspapers and magazines. He is the founder and executive director of the science advocacy group the Genetic Literacy Project, and a former visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He is also the founder of the consulting company ESG Mediametrics. Early life Entine was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania into an Ashkenazi Jewish family from eastern Europe and was raised in Reform Judaism. He graduated from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1974 with a B.A. in philosophy. Television In high school, Entine worked as a weekend copyboy for the CBS owned-and-operated TV station then known as WCAU. In 1975, Entine was hired to write for the ABC News program '' AM America'', which was renamed ''Good Morning Americ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phobia
A phobia is an anxiety disorder, defined by an irrational, unrealistic, persistent and excessive fear of an object or situation. Phobias typically result in a rapid onset of fear and are usually present for more than six months. Those affected go to great lengths to avoid the situation or object, to a degree greater than the actual danger posed. If the object or situation cannot be avoided, they experience significant Distress (medicine), distress. Other symptoms can include fainting, which may occur in Blood phobia, blood or injury phobia, and panic attacks, often found in agoraphobia and emetophobia. Around 75% of those with phobias have multiple phobias. Phobias can be divided into specific phobias, social anxiety disorder, and agoraphobia. Specific phobias are further divided to include certain animals, natural environment, blood or injury, and particular situations. The most common are fear of spiders, fear of snakes, and fear of heights. Specific phobias may be caused by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chemical Free
''Chemical free'' is a term used in marketing to imply that a product is safe, healthy or environmentally friendly because it only contains natural ingredients. The term is a misnomer, as all substances and objects are composed entirely of chemicals and energy. The term ''chemical'' is roughly a synonym for ''matter'', and all substances, such as water and air, are chemicals. The use of the term ''chemical free'' in advertising to indicate that a product is free of synthetic chemicals, and the tolerance of its use in this fashion by the United Kingdom's Advertising Standards Authority, has been the subject of criticism. A study on American undergraduates' understanding of the term ''chemical'', conducted by chemist Gayle Nicoll in 1997, noted that "People may hold both a scientific and layman's definition of a chemical without linking the two together in any way. They may or may not consciously distinguish that the term 'chemical' has different connotations depending on the sit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BBC News
BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online news coverage. The service has over 5,500 journalists working across its output including in 50 foreign news bureaus where more than 250 foreign correspondents are stationed. Deborah Turness has been the CEO of news and current affairs since September 2022. In 2019, it was reported in an Ofcom report that the BBC spent £136m on news during the period April 2018 to March 2019. BBC News' domestic, global and online news divisions are housed within the largest live newsroom in Europe, in Broadcasting House in central London. Parliamentary coverage is produced and broadcast from studios in London. Through BBC English Regions, th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genetically Modified Food Controversies
Consumers, farmers, biotechnology, biotechnology companies, governmental regulators, non-governmental organizations, and scientists have been involved in controversies around foods and other goods derived from genetically modified crops instead of Plant breeding#Classical plant breeding, conventional crops, and other uses of genetic engineering in food production. The key areas of controversy related to genetically modified food (GM food or GMO food) are whether such food should be labeled, the role of government regulators, the objectivity of scientific research and publication, the effect of genetically modified crops on health and the environment, the effect on pesticide resistance, the impact of such crops for farmers, and the role of the crops in feeding the world population. In addition, products derived from GMO organisms play a role in the production of ethanol fuels and pharmaceuticals. Specific concerns include mixing of genetically modified and non-genetically modifi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dihydrogen Monoxide Parody
The dihydrogen monoxide parody is a parody that involves referring to water by its unfamiliar chemical systematic name "dihydrogen monoxide" (DHMO, or the chemical formula H2O) and describing some properties of water in a particularly concerning manner — such as the ability to accelerate corrosion (rust) and cause suffocation (drowning) — for the purpose of encouraging alarmism among the audience to often incite a moral panic calling for water to be banned, regulated strictly or labeled as a hazardous chemical. Occasionally, reports also reference its widespread contamination of rivers or municipal water supplies. The parody has also involved other uncommon chemical nomenclatures for water such as "hydrogen hydroxide", "dihydrogen oxide" and "hydric acid", used in many prank shows to scare people into thinking that it is a lethal or corrosive substance. The motivation behind the parody is to play into chemophobia, and to demonstrate how exaggerated analysis, information ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natural Food
Natural food and all-natural food are terms in food labeling and marketing with several definitions, generally denoting foods that are not manufactured by processing. In some countries like the United Kingdom, the term "natural" is defined and regulated; in others, such as the United States, the term ''natural'' is not enforced for food labels, although there is USDA regulation of organic labeling. The term is assumed to describe foods having ingredients that are intrinsic to an unprocessed food. Diverse definitions While almost all foodstuffs are derived from the natural products of plants and animals, 'natural foods' are often assumed to be foods that are not processed, or do not contain any food additives, or do not contain particular additives such as hormones, antibiotics, sweeteners, food colors, preservatives, or flavorings that were not originally in the food. In fact, many people (63%) when surveyed showed a preference for products labeled "natural" compared to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Organic Food
Organic food, also known as ecological or biological food, refers to foods and beverages produced using methods that comply with the standards of organic farming. Standards vary worldwide, but organic farming features practices that cycle resources, promote ecological balance, and conserve biodiversity. Organizations regulating organic products may restrict the use of certain pesticides and fertilizers in the farming methods used to produce such products. Organic foods are typically not processed using irradiation, industrial solvents, or synthetic food additives. In the 21st century, the European Union, the United States, Canada, Mexico, Japan, and many other countries require producers to obtain special certification to market their food as ''organic''. Although the produce of kitchen gardens may actually be organic, selling food with an organic label is regulated by governmental food safety authorities, such as the National Organic Program of the US Department of Agricu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Persistent Organic Pollutants
Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are organic compounds that are resistant to degradation through chemical, biological, and photolytic processes. They are toxic and adversely affect human health and the environment around the world. Because they can be transported by wind and water, most POPs generated in one country can and do affect people and wildlife far from where they are used and released. The effect of POPs on human and environmental health was discussed, with intention to eliminate or severely restrict their production, by the international community at the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants in 2001. Most POPs are pesticides or insecticides, and some are also solvents, pharmaceuticals, and industrial chemicals. Although some POPs arise naturally (e.g. from volcanoes), most are man-made. The "dirty dozen" POPs identified by the Stockholm Convention include aldrin, chlordane, dieldrin, endrin, heptachlor, HCB, mirex, toxaphene, PCBs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hazardous Chemicals
A hazard is a potential source of harm. Substances, events, or circumstances can constitute hazards when their nature would potentially allow them to cause damage to health, life, property, or any other interest of value. The probability of that harm being realized in a specific ''incident'', combined with the magnitude of potential harm, make up its risk. This term is often used synonymously in colloquial speech. Hazards can be classified in several ways which are not mutually exclusive. They can be classified by ''causing actor'' (for example, natural or anthropogenic), by ''physical nature'' (e.g. biological or chemical) or by ''type of damage'' (e.g., health hazard or environmental hazard). Examples of natural disasters with highly harmful impacts on a society are floods, droughts, earthquakes, tropical cyclones, lightning strikes, volcanic activity and wildfires. Technological and anthropogenic hazards include, for example, structural collapses, transport accidents, acciden ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Appeal To Nature
In law, an appeal is the process in which cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of clarifying and interpreting law. Although appellate courts have existed for thousands of years, common law countries did not incorporate an affirmative right to appeal into their jurisprudence until the 19th century. Terminology American English and British English have diverged significantly on the topic of appellate terminology. American cases go up "on appeal" and one "appeals from" ( intransitive) or "appeals" ( transitive) an order, award, judgment, or conviction, while decisions of British courts are said to be "under appeal" and one "appeals against" a judgment. An American court disposes of an appeal with words like "judgment affirmed" (the appeal is without merit) or "judgment reversed" (the appeal has merit), while a British court dispose ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opportunity Cost
In microeconomic theory, the opportunity cost of a choice is the value of the best alternative forgone where, given limited resources, a choice needs to be made between several mutually exclusive alternatives. Assuming the best choice is made, it is the "cost" incurred by not enjoying the ''benefit'' that would have been had if the second best available choice had been taken instead. The '' New Oxford American Dictionary'' defines it as "the loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen". As a representation of the relationship between scarcity and choice, the objective of opportunity cost is to ensure efficient use of scarce resources. It incorporates all associated costs of a decision, both explicit and implicit. Thus, opportunity costs are not restricted to monetary or financial costs: the real cost of output forgone, lost time, pleasure, or any other benefit that provides utility should also be considered an opportunity cost. Types Expl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
