Impacts of fossil fuels on fish and people

Scientist John Incardona will tell a scientific detective story that uncovers a previously unrecognized threat to human health from a ubiquitous class of air pollutants.

Incardona

Certain PAHs were recognized as carcinogenic more than a century ago, but a class of PAHs with a different structure was ruled out as a carcinogen and was largely ignored. What Incardona learned was that this class of PAHs, also found in oil, is toxic to the developing hearts of fish.

This same class of PAHs is found in emissions from the burning of gasoline and other petroleum products; emissions that are ubiquitous in urban air.

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