Dodging the Toxic Bullet presents workable strategies that show how we can live longer, healthier lives by breathing clean air, eating healthy food, drinking safe water, and using non-toxic products. Author David R. Boyd provides accessible background on a range of hazards including mercury in fish, carcinogens in cleaning products, lead in toys, and lethal E. coli in ground beef. His clear directions for reducing risk include growing lots of houseplants,...

What’s Gotten Into Us? is much more than a wake-up call. It offers numerous practical ways for us to regain some control over our lives, to make our own personal worlds a little less toxic. Inside, you’ll find ideas to help you make informed decisions about the products you buy, and to disentangle yourself from unhealthy products you don’t need-so that you and your family can start living healthier lives now, and in the years to come. Because,...

As World War I raged across the globe, hundreds of young women toiled away at the radium-dial factories, where they painted clock faces with a mysterious new substance called radium. Assured by their bosses that the luminous material was safe, the women themselves shone brightly in the dark, covered from head to toe with the glowing dust. With such a coveted job, these "shining girls" were considered the luckiest alive -- until they began to fall...

Discovering a series of antique paintings containing hidden glowing images, a young thrift-store aficionado investigates their origins and discovers the haunting true story of a group of young women artists, the Radium Girls, who used dangerous radioactive paint to create the world's first glow-in-the-dark products.

Almost everything we encounter--from soap to soup cans and computers to clothing--contributes to a chemical load unique to each of us. Scientists studying the phenomenon refer to it as "chemical body burden," and in The Body Toxic, the investigative journalist Nena Baker explores the many factors that have given rise to this condition--from manufacturing breakthroughs to policy decisions to political pressure to the demands of popular culture. While...

It’s falling from the sky and in the air we breathe. It’s in our food, our clothes, and our homes. It’s microplastic and it’s everywhere—including our own bodies. Scientists are just beginning to discover how these tiny particles threaten health, but the studies are alarming. In A Poison Like No Other, Matt Simon reveals a whole new dimension to the plastic crisis, one even more disturbing than plastic bottles washing up on shores and grocery...

Following the trail of the synthetic molecules in our environment and our food, Robin traces the ugly history of industrial chemical production, as well as the shoddy regulatory system for chemical products that still operates today. Using scientific studies, expert testimony, and interviews with farmworkers suffering from acute chronic poisoning, Robin demonstrates how corporate interests-and our own ignorance-may be costing us our lives.

Was Napoleon killed by the arsenic in his wallpaper? How did Rasputin survive cyanide poisoning? Which chemicals in our environment pose the biggest threat to our health today? Chemist Emsley offers an account of five of the most toxic elements--arsenic, antimony, lead, mercury, and thallium--describing their lethal chemical properties and highlighting their use in some of the most famous murder cases in history. Emsley also shows which toxic elements...