Business editor for the University of Toronto student newspaper, The Varsity.

Connecting the dots between sex, gender, and chemicals

CHEMISTRY FOR HEALTH

Environmental contaminants can have different effects on women and men. The International Pollutants Elimination Network recently connected the dots between sex, gender, and chemicals with its report about the distinct effects of chemicals on women. It found women are disproportionally impacted by exposure to chemicals and have less access to participation in decision making.

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Sampling the Salt Lake smog

CHEMISTRY FOR HEALTH

For all of the majestic, mountain-ringed landscape that Utah’s Great Salt Lake region embodies, local residents can encounter a threat to their health each winter as the atmosphere succumbs to a thick smog. To help local officials develop mitigation strategies, Dr. Alexander Moravek and his collaborators wanted to pin down the composition and source of...

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Notorious killer yields a life-saving toxin

CHEMISTRY FOR HEALTH

The death-cap looks much like any harmless variety of mushroom and is rumoured to have a pleasant flavour, but as its gruesome name suggests, tasting comes with serious consequences. Known formally as Amanita phalloides, this particular fungus can synthesize various families of toxins, like phallotoxins and amatoxins. One compound in particular gives the death-cap its...

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