FRI visiting researcher Maya Weeks attended “From Durham to Santa Marta and Beyond: Equitable Pathways to Fossil Fuel Phase Out conference in March 2026. Read about how she applies her training as a f...

A dwindling sight showed a microplastics researcher that a vision for our future was never only about the evidence in front of our eyes.

Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology - Sociodemographic characteristics of populations living near industrial land disposals of known and suspected carcinogens across the...

Meet the senior fellows that will hone their communication and public engagement skills.

The lag in funding extends far beyond D.E.I. initiatives, affecting almost every area of science: chemistry, computing, engineering, materials and more.

Socio-oceanography is an emerging field which mobilises insights from natural and social sciences to explore the inter-connectedness of societal relationships with the ocean and to adopt a holistic approach to solving key oceanographic and societal challenges. It is within this specific context that we explore and reflect upon diverse communities in relation to engaging with plastic pollution in the ocean, one of the foremost socio-environmental challenges of our time. We establish definitions of ‘community’, arguing that communities are not ‘out there’ waiting to be engaged with but are dynamic and (re)constituted in four key contexts - geographical, practical, virtual, and circumstantial. We outline some ‘rules of engagement’ and draw upon several international case studies in the context of plastic pollution to evidence and emphasise the value of working with members of diverse communities to better address socio-oceanographic challenges. In the context of plastic pollution, communities have a vital role to play in terms of co-creating knowledge, lived experience, diverse expertise, and agency to bring about social change. Given the ubiquity of plastics in our day-to-day lives, and subsequently as an environmental pollutant, no community is unaffected by this issue. Relating to socio-oceanography, we argue that structural power imbalances in terms of how diverse communities and natural scientists are traditionally positioned within academic research mean that ‘formal’ scientific knowledge is frequently privileged, and members of communities risk being positioned as ’empty vessels’. Moving away from this ‘deficit’ model where knowledge is simply transferred or alternatively extracted from communities allows us to progress towards an inclusive ‘socio-oceanography in society’ approach, where members of communities are valued as vital in prioritising and addressing socio-oceanography issues which affect everyday life. Accessibility, openness, ethics and fairness in data are also essential in ensuring that research outcomes can be applied widely outside the academic community. Graphical Abstract

Cutting down on the production of virgin plastics is essential, campaigners say, in the face of such low reuse rates.

White House aims to end NOAA’s research office; NASA also targeted

Though disproportionately affected by plastic pollution, Indigenous Peoples are struggling to shape a global treaty on it

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 20, 2025 CONTACT: EDGI’s experts are available to answer media questions. For media inquiries, please email Shannan Lenke […]

"This is not about defending our paychecks. This is about protecting the health of our communities."

More than 1,000 chemists, biologists and other scientists could be laid off under a plan to dismantle the Office of Research and Development.

Congressman Jared Huffman and a group of House Democrats are pressing the Department of Commerce for details on the Trump administration’s plan to shut down 34 NOAA offices nationwide…

Understanding how ecosystems respond to ubiquitous microplastic (MP) pollution is crucial for ensuring global food security. Here, we conduct a mul...

YouTube video by NBC News

Ingredients that can cause cancer were found in 10 synthetic hair products marketed to Black women, according to Consumer Reports. Nine of the products also contained lead.

Burning plastic as fuel for cooking and heating releases toxic chemicals into the air and contaminates food. Yet this is common in many parts of the world.

In the UK, thousands of people are still dying every year from exposure to the asbestos fibres in our homes, schools and workplaces. My dad was one of...

A former climate scientist called layoffs ‘malevolence’ and ‘utter cluelessness’

Rainwater is the primary water source with which terrestrial plastic pollutants interact. Not only could active substances in rainwater generate additional reactive oxygen species but water could also react with the photoaging intermediates of plastic. Precipitation and evaporation lead to repeated shifts between the solid–liquid and solid–gas interfaces during photoaging. To investigate the impact of these interfaces on photoaging, polyvinyl chloride, polypropylene, polystyrene, and polyethylene microplastics were exposed to UVA, UVB, or UVC radiation in common rainwater (CR), rainwater residue (RR), or rainwater-free (RF) treatments. Seasonal field exposure to the corresponding commercial plastics was also conducted. FT-IR spectroscopy was utilized to analyze the chemical changes in both microplastics and commercial plastics. Compared with RF and RR, CR exposure advanced the relative time of carbonyl production in the photoaging process. A model based on local precipitation and radiation data successfully predicted the carbonyl index of field-exposed commercial plastics and highlighted the importance of alternating interface transitions. The increase in the carbonyl index due to each wet–dry cycle was 1.013–5.460 times greater than that of plastics not exposed to rainwater. These findings indicate that plastics undergo different photochemical reactions on different interfaces, and alternating interface transitions can accelerate the photoaging of plastic.

Many participants are from groups underrepresented in science

Uncertain funding, government firings, and distressed universities hit vulnerable groups especially hard

Since its founding over twenty five years ago PLOS has been dedicated to advancing open science, ensuring that knowledge is accessible to…

Robert Taylor recently lost his wife to a long-term illness he linked to chemicals produced by a nearby plant, and now the Trump administration is preparing to scrap pollution reforms in the area

President Trump’s executive order is altering scientific exploration across a broad swath of fields, even beyond government agencies, researchers say.

Exxon's proposal for a plastics factory on the Gulf Coast raises alarms for a community already dealing with pollution.

From the production of plastics to their fates as waste or microplastics in the environment, marginalized communities are disproportionately impacted by them.