The amount of plastic chemicals in 300 everyday Bay Area foods

More than 130 nations have enacted bans or restrictions on plastic items

Several US states have enacted similar restrictions on plastic bags, straws, food containers, and other single-use plastics, while others have prohibited plastic bans. Despite this, California’s plastic bag ban cut usage by more than 70%, showing the potential of these policies.

BPA-free plastics often contain other harmful 'forever chemicals'

These molecules are widely used in single-use plastics, may leach into food, resist breakdown, and can build up in the human body. They have been linked to obesity, heart disease, and neurological issues, particularly when heated.

See where and how many microplastics are in the average human body

This diagram maps the extent to which microplastics have been found across human organ systems, tissues, and fluids. Beyond the locations shown, microplastics have also been found in the stomach, brain, and sex organs.

The five most common chemicals found in modern food

Most modern processed foods rely on a number of preservatives to stay fresh from production to our plates. The most common include citric acid (preservative and flavor), sodium benzoate (preservative), xanthan gum (thickening and stabilizing), carrageenan (thickening), and red dyes 3 and 4 (for color).

An investigation suggests a Scottish island became awash in forever chemicals via seafoam and seaspray—raising questions about what that means for the safety of other coastal areas.

The challenges of trying to study microplastics in microplastic-abundant labs

The presence of microplastics in instruments, surfaces, and air has made accurate measurement of their levels in lab samples difficult, given the high likelihood of contamination. While the use of stainless steel tools in a sealed, clean lab may reduce accidental exposure, existing methods can misidentify biological substances, such as fat, as plastics, further complicating research.

Visualizing the enormity of plastic waste compared to global landmarks

The team at Reuters Graphics visualizes the world’s addiction to plastic bottles. Around the world, almost 1 million plastic bottles are purchased every minute. The illustrations included in this visual explainer show what that pile of plastic would look like if it was collected over longer periods of time and how large the piles would be compared to famous landmarks.

After swallowing 23 pieces of plastic, seabirds experience a 90% death rate

Researchers found that this threshold is also met when marine mammals ingest 29 pieces and when sea turtles consume approximately 405 pieces. Almost half of the sea turtles, a third of the seabirds, and one in ten of the marine mammals studied had eaten plastic.

The history of natural and synthetic plastics

From cheap toys to woolly jumpers, plastic can be found in more products than many people realize. From a chemist's perspective all these things are made of the same class of materials: Polymers. And the distinction between which ones we happen to call "plastics" and which ones we don't is fairly arbitrary.

A step-by-step guide to the plastic recycling process

Everything you wanted to know about how plastic is recycled, the companies that collect and recycle plastic, where you can recycle, and much more.

How a Scottish island became awash in forever chemicals—and what it means for other coastal areas

Utility data from 2024 indicates that Fair Isle, Britain's most remote inhabited island, has Scotland's highest level of toxic PFAS—forever chemicals—in its public drinking water. The level is still below Scotland's safety threshold, yet the high levels have confounded scientists and communities because there are no obvious industrial sources on the island. An investigation by The Guardian suggests those chemicals are arriving from thousands of miles away via seaspray and foam. PFAS are persistent pollutants that are chemically attracted to the interface between water and air—meaning there will likely be more of them in seafoam than there may be in the seawater itself.

The world's largest garbage patch, explained

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the largest accumulation of ocean plastic in the world and is located between Hawaii and California. Scientists of The Ocean Cleanup Foundation have conducted the most extensive analysis ever of this area.

Explore the water footprint of producing various proteins, fruits, and vegetables

This interactive gallery highlights the various types of water behind the production of biofuels, foods, and materials such as cotton. Diets high in bovine meat, whose production requires 15,415 liters of water per kilogram (1,847 gallons per pound), are among the most water-intensive, whereas every kilogram of vegetables uses 322 liters of water (39 gal/lb) to produce.

Look up where your generic prescription drugs are made

This project from investigative journalism outlet ProPublica compiled source data for most generic prescription drugs in the US. Roughly 90% of drugs on the market are generic, and in rare cases investigators have noted issues with compliance or safety at some plants. Using your drug's name and the company on the label, find out any issues with your drugs here.

Washing clothes is a significant source of global microfiber pollution

Synthetic fabrics shed millions of plastic microfibers during washing, which pass through wastewater treatment and end up in oceans, soil, and food chains. A single wash load can release several million microfibers, but washing with cold water can reduce this.

Find fracking wells where you live and what chemicals operators are using

Fracturing fluid recipes are largely proprietary, but FracFocus has maintained a database of chemical disclosures since 2011. Today, the Department of Energy-affiliated nonprofit has more than 240,000 disclosures, along with a searchable database of fracking wells by state, county, and city.

25 million pounds of beads are distributed every Mardi Gras, leading to environmental concerns

The necklaces—which are mostly made from cheap, often toxic, plastic—are believed to be harmful to New Orleans and its residents. Dr. Howard Mielke, an environmental scientist at Tulane University, found that the majority of lead in the city's soil can be found along Mardi Gras parade routes.

Modern conveniences may be contributing to allergy increases

A combination of genetics and how the environment changes our genes are likely contributing to the rise in allergies. But daily conveniences, such as dishwashers and packaged baby food, also change the level of bacterial exposures in early life, with potential implications for allergy development, experts from Mount Sinai Health System state in this video discussion.

A Bay Area lab was supplying MLB players with steroids

The Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative, also known as BALCO, began as a modest vitamin shop, but by the 1990s it was at the center of a doping scheme that rocked Major League Baseball and other professional sports.

An interactive investigation into drugs and migration in San Francisco

This interactive article investigates the connection between the boom in US migration from Honduras and drug dealing in San Francisco. A high concentration of Hondurans are fleeing Siria Valley, where poverty and national murder rates run high...

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young men ate standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—as part of government research to better understand food safety.

Revelations that apples were sprayed with the chemical Alar led to its ban in the 1980s

Almost three decades after Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring,” a “60 Minutes” segment on the use of Alar, a chemical sprayed on apples, drew national attention and inspired supermarkets and schools to remove apples from their shelves and cafeterias. That same year, the Environmental Protection Agency took action against the use of the chemical in food.

The sewage of New York City

Residents of the five boroughs of New York produce 1.3 billion gallons of wastewater everyday. Seventy miles of sewer pipes, first built in the mid-1800s, feed the sewage to 14 wastewater treatment and recovery plants where the waste is treated back to viable, drinkable water. See what shouldn't go down the toilet here.

Before Silicon Valley became the largest tech hub in the world, it was an agricultural area known for its flowers and fruit

It was called the “Valley of Heart’s Delight.” This video by Vox explains how the area went from growing prunes to producing computer chips. It also explains how Stanford University had a big impact on the area’s development.

See how much daily sugar substitute intake the FDA considers to be safe

The agency states in this PDF graphic that a person weighing about 132 pounds would have to consume roughly a couple dozen sweetener packets daily—or more—to reach unsafe levels of consumption. The accumulated consumption would be across all sources, including diet beverages, sugar-free candies, and actual packets added to coffee.

Food poisoning investigations have led to more than 1 billion pounds of food recalls

PulseNet is the US government’s real-time foodborne illness tracking system for leading causes of food poisoning. There, a network of labs and scientists share DNA sequences for pathogens collected from contaminated food and also from sickened individuals, looking for patterns in the pathogens’ genome sequences that will help them hopefully finger a certain food, warehouse, producer, or restaurant.

Explore Santa Barbara County's biodiversity

As part of one of the world's most biodiverse hotspots, Santa Barbara County is home to thousands of unique species, the majority of which are not found anywhere else in the world. This database compiles facts, photos, and more for each species, sortable by plants, animals, and more.

The use of fungi to detoxify land and water—a process known as mycoremediation—has been used to clean up natural resources affected by the 2025 California wildfires.

Louisiana's 'Cancer Alley' is infamous for having some of the highest industrial pollution, toxic air emissions, and cancer risks in the US.

Read a deep dive on the 'all-purpose healing' peptide BPC-157.

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

See how fireworks are made and learn how metals like magnesium and copper are responsible for different colors.

Explore an interactive map built from more than 100,000 survey responses on where people find joy in their lives

Use this tool to calculate the dollar value of your parental mental load, from meal planning to coordinating after-school care, then see resources that help generate solutions.

Explore fun facts from the USPS, including unique post office buildings, a stamp that traveled past Pluto, and more.

The price of gas is a composite made up of several different factors, with the federal gas tax making up less than 20% of what drivers pay at the pump.

Poison ivy is in the same family as mangoes, cashews, and pistachios—and they all produce oily urushiol in their raw, unprocessed state—but they are typically prepared in ways to avoid causing human discomfort.

The most expensive ad of all time was for Chanel No. 5 perfume and cost roughly $33M to produce in 2004—about $57M in today's dollars.

Up to a million Girl Scouts sell about 200 million cookie boxes every spring, generating $800 million, largely because refusing a child is frowned upon

The Nasdaq's 'Magnificent 7' companies are responsible for roughly 40% of the Nasdaq 100 index's gains, while the remaining 93 companies account for the other 60%.

When you complete a CAPTCHA on a website to prove you are human, you may be unknowingly training algorithms for self-driving cars, whose systems require training data to help identify crosswalks, bicycles, and other outdoor objects.

Massive 3D printers have been used to build homes by stacking layers of 'concrete toothpaste,' a fire-resistant material that effectively insulates against outside noise.

Alzheimer's can lead to brain shrinkage, with an average of around 2% of volume reduction per year

See how each of the more than two million known species relates to each other—and to common ancestors—in this zoomable tree of life.

Lesser-known phobias include turophobia, or the fear of cheese, and nomophobia, the fear of being without your cell phone.

About 2,000 US babies are born annually without some portion of their limbs, potentially leading to a lifetime of pricey prosthetics.

Discover the catastrophic consequences of a failure of the US electrical grid—something that is more likely than many Americans think.

One disco producer saw 'Star Wars' four times on its opening weekend and was so inspired that he recorded the album 'Star Wars and Other Intergalactic Funk,' which produced a chart-topping single.

See 33 images that became central to huge scandals, including a young Charles and Camilla, Michael Jackson's baby on a hotel balcony, and Hugh Grant's mugshot.

The animatronic shark from Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws,' the first modern blockbuster, was a complex underwater apparatus called 'Bruce.'