East Palestine residents remain “in constant contact” with toxic pollutants, a US scientist says

The pollutants in the air of East Palestine, Ohio, may pose long-term health risks, scientists from Texas A&M and Carnegie Mellon University claimed on Wednesday. Their assessment contrasts the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) assurance that the pollution does not pose an immediate health risk.

Dr. Albert Presto, an associate research professor at Carnegie Mellon University, told CNN on Wednesday that the situation in East Palestine was not an “immediate health concern” but that it could still pose long-term risks as the researchers had no way of telling how long the hazardous chemical concentration would persist. He added that the residents of the city were in “constant contact” with the pollutants and there was no clear understanding of what that level of exposure would mean for the population’s health.

The air in the Ohio city was contaminated in early February, after 38 cars of a Norfolk Southern freight train derailed and spilled out the hazardous materials they were carrying. The accident caused a fire that went on for multiple days and intensified the airborne spread of the chemical pollution, causing a mandatory evacuation of the nearby residents. The EPA has been conducting various tests and measurements in the affected area, claiming there was no immediate risk to the local population.

Another train derails after Ohio chemical spill

Texas A&M and Carnegie Mellon presented their independent assessment in a Twitter post last week. The scientists claim to have used data compiled by the EPA and found that nine of the 50 chemicals found in East Palestine’s air were above the norm for the region. In particular, the report singles out acrolein, a toxic substance used to control plants, algae, rodents and microorganisms.

The EPA responded to the claims in the report from the two universities by dismissing the perceived risks. A spokesperson for the agency told CNN on Monday that the report assumed “a lifetime of exposure, which is constant exposure over approximately 70 years” for the harmful effects to manifest. They added: “EPA does not anticipate levels of these chemicals will stay high for anywhere near that.”

Dr. Ivan Rusyn, the director of the Texas A&M University Superfund Research Center and part of the team that did the analysis, told CNN on Wednesday that “all sides were right” as both parties simply needed to keep monitoring the situation and “do a better job communicating the results.”

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Dutch seismologist Frank Hoogerbeets, who rose to international prominence after predicting the devastating earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria last month, has said that the world could be hit with another major quake in the coming days.

Hoogerbeets, who makes his forecasts based on the motions of celestial bodies, published a video on YouTube on Monday in which he warned that “the first week of March is going to be extremely critical.”

“A convergence of critical planetary geometry around March 2 and 5 may result in large to very large seismic activity, possibly even a mega-thrust earthquake around March 3 and 4 and/or March 6 and 7,” the description to the clip read.

In the video itself, the seismologist claimed that the power of the supposed impending quake “may be well over 8 magnitude.”

The affected area could stretch thousands of kilometers, from the Kamchatka Peninsula and the Kuril Islands in Russia’s Far East, all the way down to the Philippines and Indonesia, Hoogerbeets said.

Costs from Türkiye’s massive quake rising

“I’m not exaggerating. I’m not trying to create fear. This is a warning,” insisted the scientist, who works at the Solar System Geometry Survey (SSGEOS).

The head of the Kamchatka branch of the Geophysical Survey of Russia’s Academy of Sciences, Danila Chebrov, has questioned Hoogerbeets’ predictions and described him as an “amateur.” The connection between the movements of the planets in the solar system and seismic activity on Earth “is rather weak, and it’s problematic to use it as the main prognostic tool,” Chebrov explained.

On February 3, Hoogerbeets issued a tweet that read: “Sooner or later there will be a magnitude 7.5 earthquake in this region (South-Central Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon).”

Three days later, a 7.8 magnitude quake struck Türkiye and Syria. The disaster has caused the deaths of more than 50,000 people, with powerful aftershocks continuing in the region to this day.

Dutch seismologist Hoogerbeets has made predictions down the years which didn’t come true. Commenting on his work earlier this month, Susan Hough of the US Geological Survey insisted that no scientist has “ever predicted a major earthquake.” Hough told NPR that the spot-on forecast for the quakes in Türkiye and Syria was just a coincidence. “It’s the stopped clock that’s right twice a day, basically,” she said.

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The location of an ancient lake could further understanding as to whether the Red Planet ever hosted life

A snapshot from NASA’s Curiosity rover has revealed compelling evidence that a large body of water once existed in an area of the planet previously thought to have been a barren wasteland, the American space agency announced this week.

The rover, which has been exploring the planet for more than a decade, has vastly increased our understanding of the Martian landscape since it landed on the planet’s surface in 2012.

But a recent discovery at an area of the planet known as the ‘sulfate-bearing unit’ has NASA particularly excited, after they found the “clearest evidence yet” of signs that a significant lake likely existed in an area previously thought to have contained only small trickles of water.

“This is the best evidence of water and waves that we’ve seen in the entire mission,” said NASA’s Aswin Vasavada in a statement this week. “We climbed through thousands of feet of lake deposits and never saw evidence like this – and now we found it in a place we expected to be dry.”

A new panorama from @MarsCuriosity provides some of the clearest evidence yet that ancient waves once lapped Martian lakeshores—in a region that scientists didn't expect: https://t.co/kS4i8PWBgt pic.twitter.com/kzXtJRqLy6

— NASA (@NASA) February 9, 2023

It is hypothesized that if life – microbial or otherwise – ever existed on Mars, evidence of this could potentially be discovered near where water was once concentrated. Scientists also expect to find clues as to how the once watery planet transformed into the freezing wasteland it is today.

“Billions of years ago, waves on the surface of a shallow lake stirred up sediment at the lake bottom, over time creating rippled textures left in rock,” NASA added in its statement on Wednesday.

However, efforts to drill for samples at the foothills of Mount Sharp – a three-mile-high mountain which once contained streams and lakes – have been complicated by the rover encountering rocks too hard for its drill.

“Mars’ ancient climate had a wonderful complexity to it, much like Earth’s,” Vasavada added.

The discovery of water on Mars was first confirmed by NASA’s Phoenix Mars lander in 2008, with subsequent missions locating a large subglacial lake one mile below the southern polar ice cap in 2018.

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