Portugal seeks EU help as wildfire threatens UNESCO-listed forest
Portugal on Wednesday appealed to EU partners for assistance in fighting a wildfire on the Atlantic island of Madeira that has raged for a week and threatened a UNESCO-listed forest.
Portugal on Wednesday appealed to EU partners for assistance in fighting a wildfire on the Atlantic island of Madeira that has raged for a week and threatened a UNESCO-listed forest.
Environment
Aug 22, 2024
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Cigarette smoke has been studied for years, revealing a multitude of contaminants, including toxic metals. But exactly which of those metals can be traced to secondhand or thirdhand smoke?
Environment
May 21, 2024
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Having more education has long been linked to better individual health. But those benefits are also contagious, say the co-authors of a new working paper.
Social Sciences
May 14, 2024
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During their 10-minute walk to school in Malang, a city in East Java, Indonesia, where Marina Welker was conducting research in 2015–16, her children passed dozens of cigarette advertisements attached to small shops and ...
Social Sciences
Apr 2, 2024
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Our pets share our homes, lifestyles, and sometimes even our food and beds. For many pets, this close contact with humans can include exposure to secondhand smoke from cigarettes and other air pollutants. This may have serious ...
Veterinary medicine
Feb 6, 2024
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A new publication featured in Veterinary Sciences will guide future wildlife rescue and rehabilitation after Australian bushfires. These findings provide critical information for improving koala care during subsequent fire ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 9, 2024
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Dogs are humans' best friends. Need to quickly locate a bomb? There's a dog for that. Can't see very well? There's a dog for that. Searching for a lost hiker in the mountains or survivors in an earthquake, diagnosing illness, ...
Veterinary medicine
Jan 3, 2024
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The Pantanal wetlands in western Brazil are famed as a paradise of biodiversity, but these days they have enormous clouds of smoke billowing over them, as raging wildfires reduce vast expanses to scorched earth.
Environment
Nov 15, 2023
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Epigenetics, the chemical mechanisms that control the activity of genes, allows our cells, tissues and organs to adapt to the changing circumstances of the environment around us. This advantage can become a drawback, though, ...
Cell & Microbiology
Nov 2, 2023
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When wildfire smoke turns the air brown and hazy, you might think about heading indoors with the windows closed, running an air purifier or even wearing a mask. These are all good strategies to reduce exposure to the particles ...
Analytical Chemistry
Oct 21, 2023
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Smoking is a practice where a substance, most commonly tobacco, is burned and the smoke tasted or inhaled. This is primarily practised as a route of administration for recreational drug use, as combustion releases the active substances in drugs such as nicotine and makes them available for absorption through the lungs. It can also be done as a part of rituals, to induce trances and spiritual enlightenment. The most common method of smoking today is through cigarettes, primarily industrially manufactured but also hand-rolled from loose tobacco and rolling paper. Other smoking tools includes pipes, cigars, hookahs and bongs.
Smoking is one of the most common forms of recreational drug use. Tobacco smoking is today by far the most popular form of smoking and is practiced by over one billion people in the majority of all human societies. Less common drugs for smoking include cannabis and opium. Most drugs that are smoked are considered to be addictive. Some of the substances are classified as hard narcotics, like heroin and crack cocaine, but the use of these is very limited as they are often not commercially available.
The history of smoking can be dated to as early as 5000 BC, and has been recorded in many different cultures across the world. Early smoking evolved in association with religious ceremonies; as offerings to deities, in cleansing rituals or to allow shamans and priests to alter their minds for purposes of divination or spiritual enlightenment. After the European exploration and conquest of the Americas, the practice of smoking tobacco quickly spread to the rest of the world. In regions like India and Subsaharan Africa, it merged with existing practices of smoking (mostly of cannabis). In Europe, it introduced a new type of social activity and a form of drug intake which previously had been unknown.
Perception surrounding smoking has varied over time and from one place to another; holy and sinful, sophisticated and vulgar, a panacea and deadly health hazard. Only recently, and primarily in industrialized Western countries, has smoking come to be viewed in a decidedly negative light. Today medical studies have proven that smoking tobacco is among the leading causes of many diseases such as lung cancer, heart attacks and can also lead to birth defects. The well-proven health hazards of smoking have caused many countries to institute high taxes on tobacco products and anti-smoking campaigns are launched every year in an attempt to curb tobacco smoking.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA