The ongoing quest to help the blind see has been a long, arduous endeavor that’s embarked innovation in physics and biology for centuries. Age-related blindness is a problem on the rise – the federal government spent four billion dollars on related remedies in 2005. Ten million Americans face macular degeneration – a figure that is only expected to grow. But we may be on the brink of a breakthrough; researchers are now in the final steps of constructing a wireless microchip to insert in the eye that would ultimately transmit visual information to the brain.

The Boston Retinal Implant Project was founded in the 1980s as a collaboration of the Harvard Medical School, the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Its initial goal aimed to better understand retinal transmission of information to the brain. As time passed, BRIP focused on a new goal: to develop a prosthetic eye. A new optic implant developed by the consortium aims to achieve just this.

Experiments done with pigs have sometimes failed because their bodies rejected the foreign prosthesis.
Thinner than a strand of hair, the elastic microchip contains 30,000 stimulating transistors that receive wireless information from a coil on a pair of eyeglasses. Meanwhile, a camera on the glasses records its surroundings. Using radiofrequency transmission, the coil converts visual data into a specific pattern of electrical impulses that it sends to a corresponding coil implanted behind the eye. This small electrical current passed on by electrodes transmits stimulation to retinal ganglion cells, which process input to the brain, thus creating the perception of vision.

The BRIP has yet to receive full approval from the Federal Drug Administration and carry out successful implants in humans. So far experiments involving people have been limited to low electrical stimulations of the retina for a few hours at a time. Consequently, blind subjects have reported spotting glimpses of light. Due to the invasive nature of the surgery, researchers are aiming to create the most long-lived prosthesis that utilizes the lowest voltage necessary to reach the stimulation threshold of nerve cells without harming any surrounding tissue.

The delicate retina also contains fluid that could interfere with the positioning of the microchip. Biocompatibility is another point of difficulty – experiments done with pigs have sometimes failed because their bodies rejected the foreign prosthesis. The current vitreoretinal approach involves an ab externo procedure – to create space for the implant, fluid is injected into a pore behind the eye to separate the retina from its surface. Then, the implant is wedged into this spot from the external side of the eye where the flap has been made.

The development of this device is far from completion. Human testing experiences a lag behind the experimental tinkering on the bleeding edge of technology. Research is still needed on how blindness affects neural pathways and brain plasticity – the development and reorganization of the brain in the wake of trauma or disability. It may be a while before blind patients can experience normal vision, but progress is being made at an astonishing rate.

The PATRIOT act has long faded from popular consciousness and Google seems to be a bigger threat to the concept of privacy. Paranoid speculation is leaning more towards corporate espionage dystopian theories than government-run ones. RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) technology can accomodate both, and as 2007′s incorporation of RFID chips into U.S. passports demonstrated, it seems to be mostly following the trend. 

Radio Frequency Identification refers to cheap, ubiquitous tags attached to objects that emit a distinct radio wave. Businesses use them frequently for tracking various products along the supply line, but their use has expanded drastically. These tags can not be read from anywhere; whatever reads them has to be relatively close, yet privacy concerns are largely focused on how easy it is for anyone to design a reader. For instance, RFID chips in passports usually contain the passport’s information, meaning anyone who can receive an RFID signal can counterfeit a passport.

However, its full potential remains untapped, and the Vice President of Systems Architecture for Sony Ericsson, Hakan Djuphammar, expects every mobile phone sold in 2010 to contain an RFID chip. From there, it’s not difficult to envision corresponding developments. RFID may be embedded in keys for cars or homes, or the use of IP (Internet Protocal) mapping combined with mobile user location data to prevent credit card fraud by determining card location at all times. Real-time traffic mapping using RFID could also be sold to GPS companies to provide detailed dynamic information. Djuphammar, who describes these scenarios as “win-win” made no comments about the possibility of opting out of having an RFID-enabled phone. 

American Express, which is designing an “ExpressPay” system using RFID tags in its credit cards, so the card just has to be tapped against a reader for a purchase to be made, has also speculated about RFID applications. According to Spychips.com, an advocacy website against the proliferation of RFID tags, an American Express patent application suggested using the technology to monitor consumer movements within a store- what items they picked up, how long they spent in certain aisles, whether or not they paused to observe specific promotions. American Express met with one of the most prominent anti-RFID groups, CASPIAN, and agreed to review their patent application about this technology, and to take more steps to ensure consumers are aware if they have an RFID-enabled card and could opt out of it.

It seems hard to argue that they should. The Vice President of InformationWeek blogged about RFID technology, “In a world jammed with surveillance cameras, cell phone cameras and imminent smart-grid brains that will scold you for using more electricity than some bureaucrat thinks you should, this paranoia over RFID goes beyond silly to absurd.” While this could be an overstatement, we do live in an era where companies continue to blur the lines between market research and invasive voyeurism. RFID technology has too much unexplored potential to simply be ignored -both for simple curiousity as well as profit-driven utilizations.

«Planned Obsolescence» refers to several paradigms of product and market design that came to prominence at the end of the twentieth century. On the material side of things, it is a conscious and candid effort by manufacturers to restrict the usable lifespan of consumer products. From a marketing perspective, it refers to the ever-expanding marketing barrage bent on convincing consumers of the premature inadequacy of the products they already use in their daily life. While consumer advocacy groups have made incremental progress in curtailing flagrant instances of this design philosophy, the prevalence of tech gadgets in recent decades is a textbook example of the principle involved. Now, with the public’s line of credit largely slashed regardless of spending habits, how will newfound frugality influence buyers’ choices looking forward?

Some industries are more immune to consumer backlash than others. American auto manufacturers, for example, were arguably done in because they consciously produced an inferior product than foreign competitors. Warranty information is increasingly verbose and difficult to navigate in products of all sectors. In modern iterations, ensuring rapid obsolescence can be as simple as denying access to the workings of a product with standard, non-proprietary tools. Companies like Apple, Inc. have long been cited for their proprietary hardware practices – in essence leveraging their products’ customizability with intangibles such as a consumer’s relative demand. They are not alone, obviously: the centerpiece of «hi-tech» plans for obsolescence is the lithium ion battery. 

Lithium batteries are ubiquitous and cheap enough that they can be tailored to virtually any hardware configuration. They are light in weight and recharge quickly. They also require a near-constant supply of AC power if their chemical lattice is to be kept intact. Other battery mixtures may favor total discharge before optimal recharge, but these batteries lose their charging potential rapidly when they are used batteries-only. Since each battery is more or less tailored to the specific shape of its hardware, replacement is either very expensive or simply impossible. On top of this, there are forces in advertising media that may prompt a consumer to ditch their old devices prematurely. Consumer usage patterns fuel the perpetuation of marginal design, and it comes to a point where literally every consumer product has been tailored for a quick and orderly demise.

Has this changed in the wake of the worst economy in eighty years? It’s difficult to say. Advertisers have made a marked point of returning to old-timey, unsubstantiated claims about mileage. The rise of Twitter and blogs has provided a new outlet for consumer advocacy and feedback. The axioms of a world without scarcity have been put on hold for re-evaluation for the time being. Consumer culture has some serious soul-searching to do. While it may be unreasonable for a company’s bottom line to design products with flexibility and encouraged consumer workarounds to failure, it may be worth considering some kind of industry standard. Consumer spending may be cyclical, but where there is a tangible product involved, there will be tangible waste. Eventually there won’t be anything left to re-brand for consumption.

Anyone who self-identifies as a futurist carries a burden: virtually every future prediction made has fallen somewhere on a scale from “wrong” to “very wrong.” Most predictions can be proven patently absurd after the smallest lapse of time. There is an extensive list of technologies that were hyped far beyond their ultimate practicality: virtual reality, flying cars, human space travel, artificial organs, Scramjets, et cetera. It seems that the proliferation of technology never progresses along the same timeline or direction as predicted. One prominent contemporary futurist, inventor, and author, Ray Kurzweil, has a laundry list of bold claims so extensive that online editors have seen fit to grant them their own Wikipedia page.

Kurzweil has penned several books, notably 2005′s The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. An interesting 650 page read, Kurzweil has framed a steppingstone for fresh debate and a manifesto for a line of thinking known as Transhumanism. Adherents to this line of thought believe humanity will reach a “singularity” of innovation—a point at which each new technological boundary is overcome by an even newer technology. In a nutshell, it is that “good tools beget better tools.” The ultimate goal of this is the physical supplantation of the human body itself.  Kurzweil has recently claimed that every person alive who is under 40 can expect to live for hundreds of years, due to advances in nanotechnology and tissue fabrication.

Criticisms of Kurzweil are easy to synthesize. Even the uninitiated will observe that technology has done very little, so far, to address the core of human aging. Advances in world life expectancy are primarily centered around the elimination of life-threatening conditions, rather than any proven assault on the vague parameters governing “natural aging.” Modern agriculture, septic systems and antibiotics are among advances that have minimized traditional causes of mortality in humans. A victory for statistics rather than fundamental overcoming of natural boundaries. The bottom line: even under ideal conditions, human quality of life tapers off around 80 years of age.

The assertion that humanity will overcome its lifespan asymptote seems like a lofty prediction. Advances in tissue fabrication and biological “reprogramming” are cited, but heretofore unproven. At worst, it’s an idealistic pipe dream of a man who clings to the possibility of his own immortality, even at odds with empirical evidence. This is the burden of the futurist. As technology accelerates societal absorption, bold claims have come and gone as their authors’ biologically normal lifespans remain unchanged. Technology has continued to “zig” when its vanguards expected it to “zag.”

The driving force of recent advances has been profit, and it seems absurd to assume that technologies such as artificial tissue generation or programmable, biologically-driven nanomachines will be deployed in any way that clashes with increasingly constricted intellectual property rights. In short, the process by which future life-extending technologies will become ubiquitous cannot be predicted, and those alive today cannot expect to reap the benefits of a scientific arms race that has not yet come to pass.

Turritopsis nutricula, a type of jellyfish, is gaining notoriety for its uncanny and unprecedented capacity to de-evolve instead of dying.  These jellyfish are the first evidenced metazoan, or multi-celled creature, to demonstrate the ability to revert back to a colonial stage after reaching sexual maturity. After sexually reproducing, most animals inevitably die. Turritopis nutrricula, however, undergo a transformation in which they return to a stage of sexual immaturity after reproducing, only to mature and reproduce again, then return to sexual immaturity, and so on. What does this mean? Turritopis nutricula do not die, by nature, and are believed to have an indefinite potential lifespan.

When sexually mature, these jellyfish are about 5 mm in diameter, or about as big as a human pinky nail. They have anywhere from eight to twenty-four tentacles when they are young and up to 90 tentacles as mature adults. Shaped like a bell, their external walls are transparent and their stomachs are large and have a distinctive red color.

Turritopsis revert from sexually mature to colonial though two processes: cell transformation and cell transdifferentiation, or the ability of one cell to transform into a completely different type of cell. By transdifferentiating, these cells are able to change their entire make-up, much like the much-publicized stem cells. After sexually reproducing, the jellyfish reabsorbs all of its external parts and turns into a cyst, which looks like an ameba-esque blob. The cyst then attaches to the ground and grows into a stalk-shaped polyp colony. These polyps begin a new cycle, where they form into mature jellyfish – all genetically identical. They then break away to perpetuate this cycle again and again, ad infinitum.

The application of a study of the Turritopsis nutricula could be boundless, as stem-cell research appears at the forefront of many medical studies on organ reproduction, cancer treatments, and brain injury treatments to name a few. By using the cells of the jellyfish, which transdifferentiate, scientists can continue to research solutions for these problems without mucking about in the moral dilemmas that come with researching embryonic stem cells. The jellyfish’s cells are also similar in make to cancer cells, which are able to affect the order and process of genetic systems. By studying these cells, scientists may be able to gain insight in the never-ending search for a cure for cancer. These jellyfish, rumored to be plotting world-domination, are in fact spreading in droves. What some scientists now refer to as a “widespread invasion” could affect the structure and functionality of the oceanic ecosystem. It is believed that they spread when the jellyfish stow away in the ballast tanks of large ships and are carried from place to place. This is a major pathway for the global spread of “invasive” species. Native to the Caribbean, these jellyfish are now being found in waters surrounding Italy and Spain, Japan, Panama, and even Florida. It’s anyone’s guess where they end up next.

The Hubble Space Telescope was in sad shape, facing both obsolescence, a lack of public awareness and a failing backup unit that would have turned it into a very complicated piece of space debris. NASA’s Service Mission Four, however, has changed all that, rejuvenating the Hubble’s existing instruments and outfitting it with six new operating instruments.

Topping the list of new views are colorful pictures of far-flung galaxies, a densely packed star cluster, a “pillar of creation,” a “butterfly” nebula, and other super-metal formations in space, which is already super metal. Hubble’s suite of new instruments allows it to study the universe across a wide light spectrum, from ultraviolet all the way to near-infrared. In addition, scientists released spectroscopic observations that slice across billions of light-years to probe the cosmic-web structure of the universe and map the distribution of elements that are fundamental to life as we know it.

“This marks a new beginning for Hubble,” said Ed Weiler, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The telescope (…) is significantly more powerful than ever, well-equipped to last into the next decade.”

“I fought for the Hubble repair mission because Hubble is the people’s telescope,” said Mikulski, chairwoman of the Commerce, Justice and Senate Appropriations Subcommittee that funds NASA. “I also fought for Hubble because it constantly rewrites the science textbooks. It has more discoveries than any other science mission.”

Regardless of your scientific interest, the new Hubble means, first and foremost, awesome images to admire. Enjoy.

For more, check out hubblesite.org.

The electric car has haunted the dreams of the self-described “forward-thinkers” for over a century. The rapid boom in electrical devices in the last quarter of the 19th century saw the creation and exhibition of untold dozens of electric carriage prototypes and production models. Electric motors dominated the fledgling market before the arrival of diesel and other combustion engines, so why do electric cars maintain such a small market share?

Simply put, electric cars sputtered and died because the technology was completely outpaced by advances in internal combustion engines. The latter produce forces unrivalled in electric motors to this day, and the burgeoning commercialization that accelerated consumer absorption only sealed the stall of this power source. Battery technology just had too many barriers to remain competitive, and oil derivatives were relatively cheap and easy to grow in a network. If the history of technology has taught us anything, it’s that rapid change doesn’t always recognize externalities such as the toxic auto emissions we are saddled with today.

In all fairness, cars have cleaned up their act a great deal – simultaneous advances in materials production, engine design, auto profile, and emissions sequestration have ensured that today’s cars bear only a thematic resemblance to the cars of yesteryear. However, the same technological advances have placed electric cars in a better position than ever to finally make an impact in the American market. The advent of lighter materials and lithium ion batteries have ensured more forgiving allowances and specifications for design, and a range of diverse-use electric cars are poised to take up the lost market-share of conventional cars.

Despite the weight of history, electric cars have been increasing at a rate of nearly 30 percent every year over the last decade. While electric cars seemed much more certain to become commonplace when crude oil was pushing $150 per barrel, there is a larger movement which is propelling massive growth in this sector. It is tied in with other popular initiatives and has become a potent cultural force, although it still exists largely in advertising campaigns and private discourse. However, all trends seem to lead to an increase in this particular set of infrastructure, and it is worthwhile to profile emerging trends in the market.

Chevrolet, and by extension General Motors, has a decades-long history of promising prototypes and concept cars which quickly die along with consumer demand. In fact, most major car companies have made forays into this territory. Chevrolet, however, publicly staked its future on the release of the Volt, a much-hyped production sedan set to arrive in 2010. The Volt pushes the limits of what can be called an electric car, since it maintains a battery-only range of only 40 miles, and supplements the rest of its functionality with an internal combustion engine. This is hardly uncommon or a strike against GM if one is an advocate of all-electric vehicles, however. The drawbacks of electric cars are well documented, and so numerous that they promoted the rise of fossil-fuel cars in the first place. Hybrid cars bridge the gap and can operate within the massive extant fuel infrastructure. While lithium ion batteries maintain larger capacities and recharge-ability for longer than ever before, they remain at best a refinement of traditional problems. Hybrids seem likely to remain dominant as a transitional element, and their greatly increased fuel efficiency will bring a compromise in every sense of the word. Hybrid technology – for its part – has attained rapid absorption among those who see it as a personal statement of character, as well as transit lines around the world who wish to reach out to a cynical public.

The most important media darling start-up company in the electric car market is undoubtedly Tesla Motors. The company has run an aggressive marketing campaign and is targeting wealthy urban dwellers as its core demographic. Since electric car functionality on highways can be difficult to deliver, sale models of electric autos run the gambit across various uses and price ranges. Most feature less space than traditional cars, and two-seater models are commonplace. All seem to be tailored to inner city residents, and often include restrictions from freeway use. Tesla Motors’ main drive in the marketplace was the production of attractive, full sedans with battery ranges of more than 200 miles, rapid acceleration capabilities, and ostensibly many of the same features to which drivers have become accustomed.

Most, if not all, automakers today have a wide range of electric-capable cars; which have stalled in various stages of production. The old reasoning is still in effect. In fact, electric cars cannot perform the same tasks as those with fossil fuels. Without the use of internal combustion engines, the landscape of the world would be shockingly different from today, and would undoubtedly demand a decrease in the amount of materials we could transport over land. Fearing reliance on often-unreliable electric cars, the American public would not have expanded as it has, geographically or numerically. A denser style of living such as the cities of one hundred years ago would dominate the landscape, and suburbs would not exist as we know them.

Without upholding specifications catering to our new demographic layout, any change in technologies will be stilted at best. As relevant inputs remain cheap, it preserves “old” technology in a realm devoid of the necessity to change. Will electric cars ever become truly mainstream and stop being status symbols for the wealthy? Only time will tell. Looking at the history of technological development, it seems that any change will require a catalyst to provide disincentives to alternatives. The span of history is littered with “good” ideas and technologies that never found relevance. Technological absorption is not judgmental or cognizant of externalities before they are made glaringly obvious, and the same will hold for electric cars. The only sure thing is that people will not back down to lesser amounts of creature comforts – assign that prediction accordingly.

There appears to be no limit to which facets of life are infiltrated by the ecological mindset. Consumers are in a market that targets this mindset by “greenwashing” products. “Greenwashing” is branding an unsustainable product in a fashion that boasts an earth-friendly image. Think images of landscapes on laundry detergent, forests on drawing pads, or perhaps on a larger scale, British Petroleum’s adoption of a green and yellow sunflower logo in 2000. Consumers are slowly questioning their products with a keen eye and mind. Greenwashing, however, has been drawn to new levels outside of general advertisement: think of an entire industry being greenwashed.

Sex is typically viewed as a low carbon dioxide emitting activity. In lieu of some heavy breathing, which equates to about the same carbon dioxide output of an average American scaling a couple flights of stairs, sex doesn’t appear to be an industry that requires reinvention to be sustainable. Nonetheless, every market seems to have potential for a sustainable-revamp.

This revamping has taken numerous forms for the sex industry. From natural lubricants and vegan condoms to solar-powered vibrators and hemp rope for bondage play. While some of these items may seem extraneous, the ideas that support the green sex movement are the same ideas of improved human and environmental health that founded the encompassing green movement.

Common sex toys are known to contain potentially toxic chemicals known as phthalates. These chemicals are used to soften plastics such as PVC for bedroom use. Because phthalates are not chemically bound to PVC, they can break apart from one another with use. Other toys may contain blends of silicone that can degrade under a similar process. While it is unlikely that any of the degradation would be harmful enough to cause adverse health effects, studies of high concentrations of phthalates presented to animals has shown potential for negative side effects.

In response, the European Union has banned many phthalates from children’s toys. Many sex toys are sold for “novelty purposes only,” which allows companies to bypass many regulations and continue to manufacture and distribute their products. Even though there are methods of softening plastics without the use phthalates, manufacturers maintain their current production methods because the alternative is more costly.

While much of the industry is avoiding health-related concerns, non-toxic products have been continuously available for the conscious consumer. With regard to sex toys, the industry is being driven by consumer-oriented advertisements from green organizations. These organizations encourage buyers to seek alternatives and purchase toys made from glass or materials that have not undergone the softening process by use of phthalates.

Is there even a market for sustainable products in the sex industry? The carbon footprint reduction achieved when replacing a battery-powered vibrator with one powered by the sun is trivial compared to choices in transportation or heating a home. Even with companies such as Dreamscapes, which sponsors a sex toy-recycling program, there is little opportunity for the business of business to be business-worthy. There exists, more likely, a market for items that are naturally replaced in the course of sex-related activity, such as lubricants or condoms.

Natural and organic lubricants are promoted by eco-groups while simultaneously advising consumers to avoid petroleum-based products and those containing parabens, glycerin, hormones or silicon. Conventional lubricants contain toxins that have been associated with proliferation of cancerous cells. Condoms are offered free of animal-derivatives for vegan lovers. The availability of natural lubricants feels like a more legitimate attempt at propagating the idea of healthy societies and environments in the sex market. The greening of the condom, on the other hand, seems excessive when the product already helps prevent reproduction – a felony in the world of eco-crimes.

The revamping of the sex industry is just one example of “green” spinning out of control. While some choices may be useful in preventing harmful side effects, the idea that ecologically sound sex paraphernalia mitigates burning oil to power a daily routine is senseless. Even if change were required in every aspect of one’s lifestyle, a market that exploits a trend should be approached with caution. As with many other aspects of sex, it boils down to a personal choice: Is the hemp rope really necessary or will your old rope do the trick?

We live in the comforts of electricity, connectivity and water treatment. We’re spending more time than ever in front of screens, denying the presence of Mother Nature in our lives. Retribution seems to be coming in multiple forms – melting glaciers, hurricanes, wild fires and tsunamis. The next to add to the list may be the sun. As the next solar maximum approaches, the industrialized world may not be able to control the damage.

Solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are explosions of energy on the Sun, usually from regions called sunspots, that produces radiation that bombards the Earth’s magnetosphere. The frequency of this bombardment increases and decreases with the sun’s magnetic activity or solar cycle, fluctuating between solar maximums and minimums on average in 11-year cycles.

NASA expects the next solar maximum to take place around 2012. Some solar research physicists believe the next solar maximum will be stronger than more recent maximums – rivaling in intensity of a CME that took place more than 50 years ago. The Earth’s magnetosphere protects the planet from these streams of energy by rerouting them to the poles of the planet. The connection of the stream on the night-side of the earth is responsible for auroras observed near the Northern and Southern poles. In the case of the CME taking place in 1956, the aurora borealis was visible as far south as Florida.

While the beauty of the auroras baffle anyone who has had the opportunity to witness them, it seems the Sun has a greater agenda than merely mesmerizing those at high latitudes. Solar weather can cause disruption in communications satellites and is capable of knocking out electric power grids. In 1989, the city of Quebec was forced into darkness for several hours by a solar storm. While Quebec was the only city that faced a blackout, power grids across the United States were affected. Over 200 power grids were interrupted or encountered problems from the solar storm.

Storms of this intensity are relatively infrequent and must be must be in alignment with the Earth to produce power or communication problems. In efforts to predict these events, solar physicists have several facilities that monitor and measure the sun’s activity. While there is a still much to be discovered about the origins of solar flares to the point of accurate prediction, these monitors are capable of informing physicists of the arrival of a powerful CME hours before. Whether this is enough time to prepare for the potential failure of GPS navigation satellites, cellular phones and all things that depend on the power grid for power (most homes, water and sewage treatment, financial markets, electric transportation, et cetera) is yet to be determined.

The media runs in synchrony with the solar cycle – every few years before the approaching solar maximum – highlighting our unpreparedness in a technology-driven society for a large-scale solar flare. The 1859 Carrington event, consisting of eight days of severe solar weather, is frequently referenced as the storm powerful enough to shut down electric power grids and communications. However, the upcoming solar cycle is separated from other in that it coincides with the ill-conceived 2012 apocalyptic hysteria.

Give into the hype. We’re all going to die.

What, exactly, is in our water? That ages-old mystery may have some disturbing answers. A study by CHEM trust has found that the presence of feminizing, or gender-bending, chemicals in the water supply may be altering U.S. wildlife populations.

These chemicals are also referred to as endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) or “hormone disruptors” because of their ability to “de-rail the body’s chemical messenger system.” Effects of exposure include altered hormone levels, reduced sperm count, and genital deformities, among others. In egg-laying species, males are seen to produce Vitellogenin, the protein that precedes the laying of eggs.

The bottom-line effect for most of these species is reduced reproduction and, thus, risk of extinction. Affected species include birds, amphibians, fish, reptiles, otters, deer, bears, antelopes and others. The report also cites “several laboratory studies” that suggest effects of these feminizing chemicals across different generations.

While the extent of water pollution and the various mixtures it produces make it hard to identify exactly which chemicals are the culprits, the report urges that greater caution is taken with all varieties of EDCs that could end up in the water supply. One interesting chemical singled out by the report is bisphenol A, a chemical found in numerous household product and food containers. It also suggests that more time and resources should be dedicated to monitoring wildlife at risk for feminization.

The study does not directly reference the effect of EDCs on humans but does state that since, “All vertebrates have similar sex hormone receptors… observations in one vertebrate wildlife species may serve to highlight pollution issue concerns for other vertebrates, including humans.”