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Otty Original Hybrid mattress review: the best hybrid mattress you can buy – and also one of the cheapest

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Sunday, March 16, 2025

I’ve been reviewing mattresses for about four years and suffering from broken sleep for three times as long. The right mattress can markedly improve sleep quality, but switching between them so regularly seemed to feed my insomnia. Then I met the Otty Original Hybrid and I was blissfully dead to the world.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more.The Original Hybrid is the flagship “bed-in-a-box” mattress from UK company Otty Sleep. It combines thousands of pocket springs with multiple layers of memory foam – some soft, some thumpingly firm – to offer robust ergonomic support without sacrificing comfort. At less than £680 for a double, it’s among the cheapest bed-in-a-box hybrids (meaning a combination of memory foam and springs) you can buy, and after testing several I’m confident that it’s the best buy.The Otty is one of only two mattresses that I tested – along with the more expensive Simba Hybrid Pro – that resulted in an excellent sleep from night one. After weeks of marvellous kip, a mattress-scoring family session and rigorous lab-style tests later, it replaced the Simba as the mattress I was most reluctant to give up. Here, I explain why.View at OttyHow I testedDumbbell weights helped me measure any sinkage of the mattress. Photograph: Jane HoskynI slept on a double Otty Original Hybrid for several weeks, alongside my husband, on our robust slatted wooden bed base. As with all the mattresses I tested, I tracked the Otty’s impact on our sleep quality and other factors, such as body aches, night sweats and disturbances from tossing and turning. I also ran tests to measure factors including sinkage and heat retention, and I enlisted the help of my locally based family to assess its firmness, comfort and value for money.What you need to know, from price to firmness‘At the firmer end of medium firm.’ Photograph: Jane HoskynView at OttyThe Original Hybrid is one of Otty’s slate of nine mattresses, all but two of which are hybrids. As with all hybrid mattresses, it combines pocket springs with various densities of foam to strike a balance of support (mainly from springs) and cushioning (mainly from foam). Topping off these layers is a soft cover that you can unzip and machine wash.Prices for the Original Hybrid start at £499.99 for a single and rise to £874.99 for an emperor size (200 x 200cm), with a double costing £674.99 (a double Simba Hybrid Pro is £1,149, although it is on offer for £942.18). Indeed, none of Otty’s mattresses is wildly expensive. The cheapest Aura Hybrid costs £474.99 for a double, while the priciest hybrid double is the Pure+ Hybrid 4000 (£874.99).The Otty was delivered vacuum-shrunk and encased in metres of sturdy plastic to stop it from expandingAt 25cm deep and with six layers, there’s less of the Otty than the 28cm eight-layer Simba Hybrid Pro. Its 2,000 spring count lands midway between the Simba (which has nearly 5,000) and the budget Ikea Valevåg (fewer than 300), although the Otty’s springs are particularly tall at 16cm.The Otty also includes a couple of layers of high-density foam to enhance the support from the springs. Its largest foam layer is a dense base for support and durability, and there’s another robust layer just above the springs to limit bounce and improve motion isolation. Other memory foam layers include a heat-regulating layer below the washable cover, which I found gave the mattress a lovely breathable feel.Otty describes the Original Hybrid as “medium firm”, but that term is a movable feast so I used a set of weights to find out where it really ranked. During my first month of testing, it sank a maximum of 25mm under 7.5kg of weight – closer to the firmest mattress I’ve tested (the Origin Hybrid Pro, which sank 18mm) than the softest (the Eve Wunderflip Hybrid, 40mm). According to that, and the impressions of my family, the Hybrid Pro is at the firmer end of medium firm. All memory foam softens over time, however, so you should rotate the mattress from head to toe once a month to avoid indentations where you sleep. You’re not supposed to flip the mattress.As with all bed-in-a-box mattress companies and their lack of showrooms, you can’t try the Original Hybrid before you buy it. But if it doesn’t hit the spot for you, you have 100 nights to sleep on it (using sheets to protect it) before deciding whether to keep it for good. During that time, Otty will collect it for free and give you a full refund. I tried this service five years ago with an Otty I’d bought, and it worked as promised, no questions asked.You also get a 10-year guarantee that covers manufacturing defects but excludes damage you may have caused by “standing on or jumping on the mattress”. How Otty would know you’d done this, I’m not sure. It makes me wonder about the solidity and durability of a mattress if you’re banned from standing on it, but this is a common warranty condition for hybrids.SpecificationsType: hybridFirmness: advertised as medium firm, panel rated as 8/10Depth: 25cmCover: unzip to wash at 40CTurn or rotate: rotate once a month for first 12 months, then every three monthsTrial period: 100 nightsWarranty: 10 yearsOld mattress recycling: £40Sustainability credentials: foam is CertiPUR- and Europur-approved for environmental standardsDeliveryOtty charges £10 for delivery to a room of your choice. Photograph: Jane HoskynAs with all the mattresses I’ve tested for the Filter, the Otty was packaged and delivered in bed-in-a-box fashion. That means it’s vacuum-shrunk by machines in the factory, encased in metres of sturdy plastic to keep it from expanding, and then delivered to your home in a big cardboard box.Delivery of all my test mattresses was a near-identical experience. The Otty, like most, was handled by third-party couriers (ArrowXL in this case; only the Ikea Valevåg was delivered by a manufacturer-branded team) and took less than a week. I had to be at home, but I was kept fully in the loop by text alerts from Otty the day before and of delivery, with a pleasingly tight two-hour window and a link to track the driver on a map.Otty charges £10 to deliver your mattress to a room of your choice, but I plumped for having it left in the hallway. I then needed my husband’s help to remove the frankly insane amount of packaging (standard for bed-in-a-box mattresses, sadly). Otty does make it easier than most, though, with a special plastic-slicing tool that helps avoid nicking the mattress.I wouldn’t sleep on the expanding Original Hybrid after a few hours as Otty says is possible – it just won’t be comfortable – but ours had fully expanded after about a day and a half. This was faster than the more sumptuous Simba and slower than the cheaper pocket-sprung Ikea Valevåg, which suggests that a higher memory foam content requires a longer expansion time.What we loveEven the cat was a fan of the Original Hybrid. Photograph: Jane HoskynSleep doesn’t always come easily to me – I’ve been known to need two baths and several bowls of soup to help me nod off – but the Otty worked like a sleeping pill in mattress form. The sleep tracker on my smartwatch also revealed that I woke up briefly in the night (microarousals) less often than usual. I put this down to the Otty’s outstanding balance of ergonomic support, cushioning and breathability.skip past newsletter promotionGet the best shopping advice from the Filter team straight to your inbox. The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link.Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionThe Otty doesn’t completely lack bounce, but its foam layers absorb movement beautifully to help me sleep in peacePre-sleep, I’d asked my panel (otherwise known as my family) to come over and rate the Otty alongside five other mattresses. They rated it as less firm than I did, putting it at 8/10 – near the middle of the pool for mattress firmness. For overall comfort, however, they ranked it the best, with an average score of 8.3/10.“Can we have this one?” asked my sister, noting that the Otty is surprisingly light and manoeuvrable for such a robust mattress, and would be relatively easy to transport across town to her house. Having designated myself lead tester, I had to put my foot down. The Otty was ours, at least until testing was over and it was collected for charity.My husband, Alan, and I slept on it for two months and both found its supportiveness to be a relief after some more challengingly soft and inconsistent sleeping surfaces. It’s not too firm for comfort, though. As a petite side sleeper, I need a bit of cushioning to accommodate my shoulders and hips, and I get lower back pain on very firm mattresses – but this didn’t happen with the Otty.The mattress’s foam layers absorb movement beautifully. Photograph: Jane HoskynIts motion isolation is also excellent. Sharing my bouncy old sprung mattress with a fidgety sleeper was less fun than it sounds because the springs seemed to amplify his (and my) tossing and turning. The Otty doesn’t completely lack bounce, especially on my bed’s slatted base, but its foam layers absorb movement beautifully to help me sleep in peace.A big downside of memory foam is that it can trap heat, but I don’t find this to be true for the Original Hybrid – at least not any more. A previous iteration of the Otty Hybrid, which I tried in 2019, felt … clingy. There was no breathing space between the fabric and my skin. Today’s Otty Original Hybrid rectifies this with a cosy-but-cooling feel. Asked for their impressions of its breathability, my family awarded 8.3/10: less airy than the pocket-sprung Ikea Valevåg, but more than the Simba.I’ve yet to try it out in summer, but my lab tests suggested that the Otty works well to stop you from overheating at night. Using a heat pad, a thermometer and my husband’s bottom, I discovered that the Otty cooled down faster than rivals that contain more foam, including the Simba and the Eve Wunderflip Hybrid.Another gold star for the Otty was its snug fit for my fitted sheets. At 25cm deep, it’s not a thin mattress, but it’s slim enough for a secure fit. As a fan of a perfectly flat cotton sleep surface, I regard this as an absolute must. The 28cm-deep Simba is a tighter squeeze, and the 31cm Origin Hybrid Pro is so big you can’t use standard-depth fitted sheets.What we don’t loveEdge and corner support could be much improved. Photograph: Jane HoskynThere’s little I don’t love about the Otty. The only other mattress that felt as instantly comfortable, the Simba Hybrid Pro, costs much more and didn’t seem to retain its consistent supportiveness as well as the Otty over the months of testing.Otty’s foam is made in line with EU legislation to minimise any health and environmental impactSome people will find the Otty too firm for comfort, though. My 84-year-old dad was alone in our testing panel to find the Otty too hard on his joints – a sensation I experienced with the firmer Origin Hybrid Pro. Memory foam softens over the months, however, and I noticed a slight sinkage in the sleeping surface over my two months of testing. The sinkage was less pronounced than with the Simba, and it didn’t stop me from sleeping and waking in comfort.The Otty betrays its relative cheapness in a few ways. Edge and corner support could be much improved. “Do the springs even go right to the edge?” asked Alan, alarmed by the way the mattress flattened beneath him when he sat on the side.Its relatively nimble weight also gives the Otty a less extravagant feel than the Simba, Eve or Origin, and may point to more limited durability. Two months is long enough for me to test its impact on my sleep but it’s too short to judge its stamina, and I suspect that its less sophisticated construction will see the Otty retain its consistent supportiveness for less time than its more expensive rivals. Bear that in mind if you’re trying to spend more wisely by investing in homewares that will last many years.SustainabilityEvery foam batch is tested to ensure it’s non-toxic and hypoallergenic. Photograph: Jane HoskynThe metal springs and polyester fabric used in the Otty are easily and widely recycled, but memory foam is another matter. The memory foam used in mattresses is viscoelastic LRPu (low-resistance polyurethane foam) – polyurethane that’s been chemically treated to make it elastic and dense in various degrees – and its energy-intensive manufacture is more complex than its pronunciation. It is not biodegradable and, despite the best efforts of industry bodies, it’s hard to paint it as sustainable.To its credit, Otty has striven to make its mattresses as sustainable as possible given the materials used. All its foam is certified by Europur and CertiPur and made in line with EU legislation to minimise any health and environmental impact. No ozone depleters, TDCPP, mercury or lead are used in manufacturing and every foam batch is tested to ensure it’s non-toxic and hypoallergenic.Otty runs a mattress recycling service, charging £40 (plus £20 for each additional one) to take away your old mattress and recycle it, whether it’s an Otty or not. This is cheaper than rivals, with Simba charging £50. I haven’t tested Otty’s recycling service and can’t confirm what actually happens to collected mattresses, but the company says “they are responsibly recycled, with materials like foam, fabric and metal springs being repurposed to minimise waste and protect the environment”.Otty Original Hybrid: Should I buy it?The Otty Original Hybrid is a comfortable and wonderfully supportive mattress that improved my sleep from the first night. It’s less heavy and less expensive than some rivals, but it outclassed them in my tests. It may prove to be less durable than them, but its 10-year warranty reassures me that it’s good for thousands of superb sleeps.View at OttyJane Hoskyn is a freelance consumer journalist and WFH pioneer with three decades of experience in rearranging bookshelves and ‘testing’ coffee machines while deadlines loom. Her work has made her a low-key expert in all manner of consumables, from sports watches to solar panels. She would always rather be in the woods

This ‘bed-in-a-box’ mattress gave our tester her best sleep in years and it’s hundreds of pounds cheaper than some of its rivals• The best mattresses: sleep better with our six rigorously tested picksI’ve been reviewing mattresses for about four years and suffering from broken sleep for three times as long. The right mattress can markedly improve sleep quality, but switching between them so regularly seemed to feed my insomnia. Then I met the Otty Original Hybrid and I was blissfully dead to the world.The Original Hybrid is the flagship “bed-in-a-box” mattress from UK company Otty Sleep. It combines thousands of pocket springs with multiple layers of memory foam – some soft, some thumpingly firm – to offer robust ergonomic support without sacrificing comfort. At less than £680 for a double, it’s among the cheapest bed-in-a-box hybrids (meaning a combination of memory foam and springs) you can buy, and after testing several I’m confident that it’s the best buy. Continue reading...

I’ve been reviewing mattresses for about four years and suffering from broken sleep for three times as long. The right mattress can markedly improve sleep quality, but switching between them so regularly seemed to feed my insomnia. Then I met the Otty Original Hybrid and I was blissfully dead to the world.

The Original Hybrid is the flagship “bed-in-a-box” mattress from UK company Otty Sleep. It combines thousands of pocket springs with multiple layers of memory foam – some soft, some thumpingly firm – to offer robust ergonomic support without sacrificing comfort. At less than £680 for a double, it’s among the cheapest bed-in-a-box hybrids (meaning a combination of memory foam and springs) you can buy, and after testing several I’m confident that it’s the best buy.

The Otty is one of only two mattresses that I tested – along with the more expensive Simba Hybrid Pro – that resulted in an excellent sleep from night one. After weeks of marvellous kip, a mattress-scoring family session and rigorous lab-style tests later, it replaced the Simba as the mattress I was most reluctant to give up. Here, I explain why.

View at Otty

How I tested

Dumbbell weights helped me measure any sinkage of the mattress. Photograph: Jane Hoskyn

I slept on a double Otty Original Hybrid for several weeks, alongside my husband, on our robust slatted wooden bed base. As with all the mattresses I tested, I tracked the Otty’s impact on our sleep quality and other factors, such as body aches, night sweats and disturbances from tossing and turning. I also ran tests to measure factors including sinkage and heat retention, and I enlisted the help of my locally based family to assess its firmness, comfort and value for money.

What you need to know, from price to firmness

‘At the firmer end of medium firm.’ Photograph: Jane Hoskyn

View at Otty

The Original Hybrid is one of Otty’s slate of nine mattresses, all but two of which are hybrids. As with all hybrid mattresses, it combines pocket springs with various densities of foam to strike a balance of support (mainly from springs) and cushioning (mainly from foam). Topping off these layers is a soft cover that you can unzip and machine wash.

Prices for the Original Hybrid start at £499.99 for a single and rise to £874.99 for an emperor size (200 x 200cm), with a double costing £674.99 (a double Simba Hybrid Pro is £1,149, although it is on offer for £942.18). Indeed, none of Otty’s mattresses is wildly expensive. The cheapest Aura Hybrid costs £474.99 for a double, while the priciest hybrid double is the Pure+ Hybrid 4000 (£874.99).

At 25cm deep and with six layers, there’s less of the Otty than the 28cm eight-layer Simba Hybrid Pro. Its 2,000 spring count lands midway between the Simba (which has nearly 5,000) and the budget Ikea Valevåg (fewer than 300), although the Otty’s springs are particularly tall at 16cm.

The Otty also includes a couple of layers of high-density foam to enhance the support from the springs. Its largest foam layer is a dense base for support and durability, and there’s another robust layer just above the springs to limit bounce and improve motion isolation. Other memory foam layers include a heat-regulating layer below the washable cover, which I found gave the mattress a lovely breathable feel.

Otty describes the Original Hybrid as “medium firm”, but that term is a movable feast so I used a set of weights to find out where it really ranked. During my first month of testing, it sank a maximum of 25mm under 7.5kg of weight – closer to the firmest mattress I’ve tested (the Origin Hybrid Pro, which sank 18mm) than the softest (the Eve Wunderflip Hybrid, 40mm). According to that, and the impressions of my family, the Hybrid Pro is at the firmer end of medium firm. All memory foam softens over time, however, so you should rotate the mattress from head to toe once a month to avoid indentations where you sleep. You’re not supposed to flip the mattress.

As with all bed-in-a-box mattress companies and their lack of showrooms, you can’t try the Original Hybrid before you buy it. But if it doesn’t hit the spot for you, you have 100 nights to sleep on it (using sheets to protect it) before deciding whether to keep it for good. During that time, Otty will collect it for free and give you a full refund. I tried this service five years ago with an Otty I’d bought, and it worked as promised, no questions asked.

You also get a 10-year guarantee that covers manufacturing defects but excludes damage you may have caused by “standing on or jumping on the mattress”. How Otty would know you’d done this, I’m not sure. It makes me wonder about the solidity and durability of a mattress if you’re banned from standing on it, but this is a common warranty condition for hybrids.

Specifications

Type: hybrid
Firmness: advertised as medium firm, panel rated as 8/10
Depth: 25cm
Cover: unzip to wash at 40C
Turn or rotate: rotate once a month for first 12 months, then every three months
Trial period: 100 nights
Warranty: 10 years
Old mattress recycling: £40
Sustainability credentials: foam is CertiPUR- and Europur-approved for environmental standards

Delivery

Otty charges £10 for delivery to a room of your choice. Photograph: Jane Hoskyn

As with all the mattresses I’ve tested for the Filter, the Otty was packaged and delivered in bed-in-a-box fashion. That means it’s vacuum-shrunk by machines in the factory, encased in metres of sturdy plastic to keep it from expanding, and then delivered to your home in a big cardboard box.

Delivery of all my test mattresses was a near-identical experience. The Otty, like most, was handled by third-party couriers (ArrowXL in this case; only the Ikea Valevåg was delivered by a manufacturer-branded team) and took less than a week. I had to be at home, but I was kept fully in the loop by text alerts from Otty the day before and of delivery, with a pleasingly tight two-hour window and a link to track the driver on a map.

Otty charges £10 to deliver your mattress to a room of your choice, but I plumped for having it left in the hallway. I then needed my husband’s help to remove the frankly insane amount of packaging (standard for bed-in-a-box mattresses, sadly). Otty does make it easier than most, though, with a special plastic-slicing tool that helps avoid nicking the mattress.

I wouldn’t sleep on the expanding Original Hybrid after a few hours as Otty says is possible – it just won’t be comfortable – but ours had fully expanded after about a day and a half. This was faster than the more sumptuous Simba and slower than the cheaper pocket-sprung Ikea Valevåg, which suggests that a higher memory foam content requires a longer expansion time.

What we love

Even the cat was a fan of the Original Hybrid. Photograph: Jane Hoskyn

Sleep doesn’t always come easily to me – I’ve been known to need two baths and several bowls of soup to help me nod off – but the Otty worked like a sleeping pill in mattress form. The sleep tracker on my smartwatch also revealed that I woke up briefly in the night (microarousals) less often than usual. I put this down to the Otty’s outstanding balance of ergonomic support, cushioning and breathability.

skip past newsletter promotion

after newsletter promotion

Pre-sleep, I’d asked my panel (otherwise known as my family) to come over and rate the Otty alongside five other mattresses. They rated it as less firm than I did, putting it at 8/10 – near the middle of the pool for mattress firmness. For overall comfort, however, they ranked it the best, with an average score of 8.3/10.

“Can we have this one?” asked my sister, noting that the Otty is surprisingly light and manoeuvrable for such a robust mattress, and would be relatively easy to transport across town to her house. Having designated myself lead tester, I had to put my foot down. The Otty was ours, at least until testing was over and it was collected for charity.

My husband, Alan, and I slept on it for two months and both found its supportiveness to be a relief after some more challengingly soft and inconsistent sleeping surfaces. It’s not too firm for comfort, though. As a petite side sleeper, I need a bit of cushioning to accommodate my shoulders and hips, and I get lower back pain on very firm mattresses – but this didn’t happen with the Otty.

The mattress’s foam layers absorb movement beautifully. Photograph: Jane Hoskyn

Its motion isolation is also excellent. Sharing my bouncy old sprung mattress with a fidgety sleeper was less fun than it sounds because the springs seemed to amplify his (and my) tossing and turning. The Otty doesn’t completely lack bounce, especially on my bed’s slatted base, but its foam layers absorb movement beautifully to help me sleep in peace.

A big downside of memory foam is that it can trap heat, but I don’t find this to be true for the Original Hybrid – at least not any more. A previous iteration of the Otty Hybrid, which I tried in 2019, felt … clingy. There was no breathing space between the fabric and my skin. Today’s Otty Original Hybrid rectifies this with a cosy-but-cooling feel. Asked for their impressions of its breathability, my family awarded 8.3/10: less airy than the pocket-sprung Ikea Valevåg, but more than the Simba.

I’ve yet to try it out in summer, but my lab tests suggested that the Otty works well to stop you from overheating at night. Using a heat pad, a thermometer and my husband’s bottom, I discovered that the Otty cooled down faster than rivals that contain more foam, including the Simba and the Eve Wunderflip Hybrid.

Another gold star for the Otty was its snug fit for my fitted sheets. At 25cm deep, it’s not a thin mattress, but it’s slim enough for a secure fit. As a fan of a perfectly flat cotton sleep surface, I regard this as an absolute must. The 28cm-deep Simba is a tighter squeeze, and the 31cm Origin Hybrid Pro is so big you can’t use standard-depth fitted sheets.

What we don’t love

Edge and corner support could be much improved. Photograph: Jane Hoskyn

There’s little I don’t love about the Otty. The only other mattress that felt as instantly comfortable, the Simba Hybrid Pro, costs much more and didn’t seem to retain its consistent supportiveness as well as the Otty over the months of testing.

Some people will find the Otty too firm for comfort, though. My 84-year-old dad was alone in our testing panel to find the Otty too hard on his joints – a sensation I experienced with the firmer Origin Hybrid Pro. Memory foam softens over the months, however, and I noticed a slight sinkage in the sleeping surface over my two months of testing. The sinkage was less pronounced than with the Simba, and it didn’t stop me from sleeping and waking in comfort.

The Otty betrays its relative cheapness in a few ways. Edge and corner support could be much improved. “Do the springs even go right to the edge?” asked Alan, alarmed by the way the mattress flattened beneath him when he sat on the side.

Its relatively nimble weight also gives the Otty a less extravagant feel than the Simba, Eve or Origin, and may point to more limited durability. Two months is long enough for me to test its impact on my sleep but it’s too short to judge its stamina, and I suspect that its less sophisticated construction will see the Otty retain its consistent supportiveness for less time than its more expensive rivals. Bear that in mind if you’re trying to spend more wisely by investing in homewares that will last many years.

Sustainability

Every foam batch is tested to ensure it’s non-toxic and hypoallergenic. Photograph: Jane Hoskyn

The metal springs and polyester fabric used in the Otty are easily and widely recycled, but memory foam is another matter. The memory foam used in mattresses is viscoelastic LRPu (low-resistance polyurethane foam) – polyurethane that’s been chemically treated to make it elastic and dense in various degrees – and its energy-intensive manufacture is more complex than its pronunciation. It is not biodegradable and, despite the best efforts of industry bodies, it’s hard to paint it as sustainable.

To its credit, Otty has striven to make its mattresses as sustainable as possible given the materials used. All its foam is certified by Europur and CertiPur and made in line with EU legislation to minimise any health and environmental impact. No ozone depleters, TDCPP, mercury or lead are used in manufacturing and every foam batch is tested to ensure it’s non-toxic and hypoallergenic.

Otty runs a mattress recycling service, charging £40 (plus £20 for each additional one) to take away your old mattress and recycle it, whether it’s an Otty or not. This is cheaper than rivals, with Simba charging £50. I haven’t tested Otty’s recycling service and can’t confirm what actually happens to collected mattresses, but the company says “they are responsibly recycled, with materials like foam, fabric and metal springs being repurposed to minimise waste and protect the environment”.

Otty Original Hybrid: Should I buy it?

The Otty Original Hybrid is a comfortable and wonderfully supportive mattress that improved my sleep from the first night. It’s less heavy and less expensive than some rivals, but it outclassed them in my tests. It may prove to be less durable than them, but its 10-year warranty reassures me that it’s good for thousands of superb sleeps.

View at Otty

Jane Hoskyn is a freelance consumer journalist and WFH pioneer with three decades of experience in rearranging bookshelves and ‘testing’ coffee machines while deadlines loom. Her work has made her a low-key expert in all manner of consumables, from sports watches to solar panels. She would always rather be in the woods

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Trump’s public health cuts are meanwhile imperiling a program that gives free vaccines to children. So far, I haven’t even mentioned children outside the United States. Trump has not only continued Biden’s policy of mass infanticide in Gaza—at least 100 children there have been killed or injured every week by Israeli forces since the dissolution of the ceasefire in March—he has vastly surpassed that shameful record by dismantling USAID. (The Supreme Court demanded that the government restore some of the funding to the already-contracted programs, but it’s unclear what the results of that ruling will be.) Children across the globe will starve to death due to this policy. The cuts to nutrition funding alone, researchers estimate, will kill some 369,000 children who could otherwise have lived. That’s not even counting all the other children’s lives imperiled by USAID funding cuts to vaccines, health services, and maternal care, or the children who will go unprotected now that Trump has cut 69 programs dedicated to tracking child labor, forced labor, and human trafficking.Natalist or exterminationist? Pro-child or rabidly infanticidal? It’s tempting to dismiss such extreme contradictions within the Trump administration as merely chaotic and incoherent. But the situation is worse than that. Trying to boost births while actively making the world less safe for children is creepy—but not in a new way. The contradiction is baked into the eugenicist tradition that Vance and Trump openly embrace. Vance said at an anti-abortion rally in January that he wanted “more babies in the United States of America.” Vance also said he wanted “more beautiful young men and women” to have children. Notice he doesn’t just say “more babies”: the qualifiers are significant. Vance was implying that he wanted the right people to have babies: American, white, able-bodied, “beautiful” people with robust genetics. Children dying because of USAID cuts aren’t part of this vision, presumably, because those children are not American or white. As for infected milk, environmental toxins, or measles—here too, it’s hard not to hear social Darwinist overtones: In a far-right eugenicist worldview, children killed by those things likely aren’t fit for survival. In a more chaotic and dangerous environment, this extremely outdated logic goes, natural selection will ensure that the strongest survive. It’s also worth noting that this way of thinking originates in—and many of these Trump administration policies aim to return us to—an earlier era, when people of all ages, but especially children, were simply poisoned by industrial pollution, unvaccinated for diseases, and unprotected from industrial accidents. In such an unsafe world for children, people had many more of them; the world was such a dangerous place to raise kids that families expected to lose a few. That all-too-recent period is the unspoken context for natalist and eugenicist visions. That’s the world Trump and Vance seem to be nostalgic for, one in which women were constantly pregnant and in labor, and children were constantly dying horrible deaths. Doesn’t that sound pleasant for everyone?

“I want a baby boom,” Trump has said. His administration is indeed exploring a range of approaches to boost the birth rate, including baby bonuses and classes on natural fertility. Yet his focus is entirely on the production of babies. When it comes to keeping these babies alive, this administration is leaving parents on their own, facing some horrifying and unprecedented challenges. It’s common for right-wing American governments, whether at the state or federal level, to be only half-heartedly natalist: restricting abortion, birth control, and sex education, while also failing to embrace any policy that makes it easier to raise a family, like universal childcare, robust public education, school lunch, cash supports for parents, or paid family leave. But the Trump-Vance government has taken this paradox to a new level, with natalist rhetoric far surpassing that of other recent administrations, while real live children are treated with more depraved, life-threatening indifference than in any American government in at least a century. Due to brutal cuts at the Food and Drug Administration, where 20,000 employees have been fired, the administration has suspended one of its quality-control programs for milk, Reuters reported this week. Milk is iconically associated with child health, and this is not a mere storybook whimsy: Most pediatricians regard it as critical for young children’s developing brains and bones. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends two cups a day for babies between 1 and 2 years old. While some experts—and of course the administration—are downplaying the change, emphasizing that milk will still be regulated, a bird flu epidemic hardly seems like the right time to be cutting corners. A government so focused on making more babies shouldn’t be so indifferent to risks to our nation’s toddlers.This reckless approach to child safety is not limited to food. Also this week, The New York Times reported that the Environmental Protection Agency was canceling tens of millions of dollars in grants for research on environmental hazards to children in rural America. These hazards include pesticides, wildfire smoke, and forever chemicals, and the grants supported research toward solutions to such problems. Many focused on improving child health in red states like Oklahoma. Children are much more vulnerable than adults to the health problems that can stem from exposure to toxins. That makes Trump’s policies, for all his baby-friendly chatter, seem pathologically misopedic; he is reversing bans on so-called “forever chemicals” and repealing limits set by the Biden administration on lead exposure, all of which will have devastating effects on children’s mental and physical development.And of course there’s RFK Jr.’s crazy campaign against vaccines. This week, the health secretary said he was considering removing the Covid-19 vaccine from the list of vaccines the government recommends for children, even though to win Senate confirmation, he had agreed not to alter the childhood vaccine schedule. Even worse, RFK Jr. has used his office to promote disinformation about extensively debunked links between vaccines and autism, while praising unproven “treatments” for measles as an outbreak that has afflicted more than 600 people and killed at least three continues to spread. Trump’s public health cuts are meanwhile imperiling a program that gives free vaccines to children. So far, I haven’t even mentioned children outside the United States. Trump has not only continued Biden’s policy of mass infanticide in Gaza—at least 100 children there have been killed or injured every week by Israeli forces since the dissolution of the ceasefire in March—he has vastly surpassed that shameful record by dismantling USAID. (The Supreme Court demanded that the government restore some of the funding to the already-contracted programs, but it’s unclear what the results of that ruling will be.) Children across the globe will starve to death due to this policy. The cuts to nutrition funding alone, researchers estimate, will kill some 369,000 children who could otherwise have lived. That’s not even counting all the other children’s lives imperiled by USAID funding cuts to vaccines, health services, and maternal care, or the children who will go unprotected now that Trump has cut 69 programs dedicated to tracking child labor, forced labor, and human trafficking.Natalist or exterminationist? Pro-child or rabidly infanticidal? It’s tempting to dismiss such extreme contradictions within the Trump administration as merely chaotic and incoherent. But the situation is worse than that. Trying to boost births while actively making the world less safe for children is creepy—but not in a new way. The contradiction is baked into the eugenicist tradition that Vance and Trump openly embrace. Vance said at an anti-abortion rally in January that he wanted “more babies in the United States of America.” Vance also said he wanted “more beautiful young men and women” to have children. Notice he doesn’t just say “more babies”: the qualifiers are significant. Vance was implying that he wanted the right people to have babies: American, white, able-bodied, “beautiful” people with robust genetics. Children dying because of USAID cuts aren’t part of this vision, presumably, because those children are not American or white. As for infected milk, environmental toxins, or measles—here too, it’s hard not to hear social Darwinist overtones: In a far-right eugenicist worldview, children killed by those things likely aren’t fit for survival. In a more chaotic and dangerous environment, this extremely outdated logic goes, natural selection will ensure that the strongest survive. It’s also worth noting that this way of thinking originates in—and many of these Trump administration policies aim to return us to—an earlier era, when people of all ages, but especially children, were simply poisoned by industrial pollution, unvaccinated for diseases, and unprotected from industrial accidents. In such an unsafe world for children, people had many more of them; the world was such a dangerous place to raise kids that families expected to lose a few. That all-too-recent period is the unspoken context for natalist and eugenicist visions. That’s the world Trump and Vance seem to be nostalgic for, one in which women were constantly pregnant and in labor, and children were constantly dying horrible deaths. Doesn’t that sound pleasant for everyone?

Chemicals
Education
Food

The greater Pittsburgh region is among the 25 worst metro areas in the country for air quality: Report

PITTSBURGH — The greater Pittsburgh metropolitan area is among the 25 regions in the country with the worst air pollution, according to a new report from the American Lung Association.The nonprofit public health organization’s annual “State of the Air” report uses a report card-style grading system to compare air quality in regions across the U.S. This year’s report found that 46% of Americans — 156.1 million people — are living in places that get failing grades for unhealthy levels of ozone or particulate pollution. Overall, air pollution measured by the report was worse than in previous years, with more Americans living in places with unhealthy air than in the previous 10 years the report has been published.The 13-county region spanning Pittsburgh and southwestern Pennsylvania; Weirton, West Virginia; and Steubenville, Ohio received “fail” grades for both daily and annual average particulate matter exposure for the years 2021–2023.The region ranked 16th worst for 24-hour particle pollution out of 225 metropolitan areas and 12th worst for annual particle pollution out of 208 metropolitan areas. Particulate matter pollution, which comes from things like industrial emissions, vehicle exhaust, wildfires, and wood burning, causes higher rates of asthma, decreased lung function in children, and increased hospital admissions and premature death due to heart attacks and respiratory illness. Long-term exposure to particulate matter pollution also raises the risk of lung cancer, and research suggests that in the Pittsburgh region, air pollution linked to particulate matter and other harmful substances contributes significantly to cancer rates. According to the report, the Pittsburgh metro area is home to around 50,022 children with pediatric asthma, 227,806 adults with asthma, 173,588 people with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), 250,600 people with cardiovascular disease, 1,468 people with lung cancer, and around 25,746 pregnant people, all of whom are especially vulnerable to the harmful impacts of particulate matter pollution exposure."The findings help community members understand the ongoing risks to the health of people in our region," said Matt Mehalik, executive director of the Breathe Project and the Breathe Collaborative, a coalition of more than 30 groups in southwestern Pennsylvania that advocate for cleaner air. "These findings emphasize the need to transition away from fossil fuels — in industry, transportation and residential uses — if we are to improve our health and address climate change." Allegheny County has received a failing grade for particulate matter pollution from the American Lung Association every year since the "State of the Air" report was first issued in 2004. The region is home to numerous polluting industries, with an estimated 80% of toxic air pollutants in Allegheny County (which encompasses Pittsburgh) coming from ten industrial sites, according to an analysis by the nonprofit environmental advocacy group PennEnvironment Research & Policy Center. The Ohio River near Pittsburgh Credit: Kristina Marusic for EHN In the 2024 State of the Air report, which looked at 2020-2022, Pittsburgh was for the first time ever not among the 25 cities most polluted by particulate matte, and showed some improvements in air quality, some of which may have resulted from pollution reductions spurred by the COVID-19 shut-down in 2020.The region earned a grade D for ozone smog this year, but its ranking improved from last year — it went from the 50th worst metro area for ozone smog in 2024’s report to the 90th worst in this year’s. Ozone pollution also comes from sources like vehicle exhaust and industrial emissions, and occurs when certain chemicals mix with sunlight. Exposure to ozone pollution is linked to respiratory issues, worsened asthma symptoms, and long-term lung damage.Each year the State of the Air Report makes recommendations for improving air quality. This year those recommendations include defending funding for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), because sweeping staff cuts and reduction of federal funding under the Trump administration are impairing the agency’s ability to enforce clean air regulations. For example, the report notes that EPA recently lowered annual limits for fine particulate matter pollution from 12 micrograms per cubic meter to 9 micrograms per cubic meter, and that states, including Pennsylvania, have submitted their recommendations for which areas should be cleaned up. Next, the agency must review those recommendations and add its own analyses to make final decisions by February 6, 2026 about which areas need additional pollution controls. If it fails to do so due to lack of funding or staffing, the report suggests, air quality might suffer.“The bottom line is this,” the report states. “EPA staff, working in communities across the country, are doing crucial work to keep your air clean. Staff cuts are already impacting people’s health across the country. Further cuts mean more dirty air.”

PITTSBURGH — The greater Pittsburgh metropolitan area is among the 25 regions in the country with the worst air pollution, according to a new report from the American Lung Association.The nonprofit public health organization’s annual “State of the Air” report uses a report card-style grading system to compare air quality in regions across the U.S. This year’s report found that 46% of Americans — 156.1 million people — are living in places that get failing grades for unhealthy levels of ozone or particulate pollution. Overall, air pollution measured by the report was worse than in previous years, with more Americans living in places with unhealthy air than in the previous 10 years the report has been published.The 13-county region spanning Pittsburgh and southwestern Pennsylvania; Weirton, West Virginia; and Steubenville, Ohio received “fail” grades for both daily and annual average particulate matter exposure for the years 2021–2023.The region ranked 16th worst for 24-hour particle pollution out of 225 metropolitan areas and 12th worst for annual particle pollution out of 208 metropolitan areas. Particulate matter pollution, which comes from things like industrial emissions, vehicle exhaust, wildfires, and wood burning, causes higher rates of asthma, decreased lung function in children, and increased hospital admissions and premature death due to heart attacks and respiratory illness. Long-term exposure to particulate matter pollution also raises the risk of lung cancer, and research suggests that in the Pittsburgh region, air pollution linked to particulate matter and other harmful substances contributes significantly to cancer rates. According to the report, the Pittsburgh metro area is home to around 50,022 children with pediatric asthma, 227,806 adults with asthma, 173,588 people with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), 250,600 people with cardiovascular disease, 1,468 people with lung cancer, and around 25,746 pregnant people, all of whom are especially vulnerable to the harmful impacts of particulate matter pollution exposure."The findings help community members understand the ongoing risks to the health of people in our region," said Matt Mehalik, executive director of the Breathe Project and the Breathe Collaborative, a coalition of more than 30 groups in southwestern Pennsylvania that advocate for cleaner air. "These findings emphasize the need to transition away from fossil fuels — in industry, transportation and residential uses — if we are to improve our health and address climate change." Allegheny County has received a failing grade for particulate matter pollution from the American Lung Association every year since the "State of the Air" report was first issued in 2004. The region is home to numerous polluting industries, with an estimated 80% of toxic air pollutants in Allegheny County (which encompasses Pittsburgh) coming from ten industrial sites, according to an analysis by the nonprofit environmental advocacy group PennEnvironment Research & Policy Center. The Ohio River near Pittsburgh Credit: Kristina Marusic for EHN In the 2024 State of the Air report, which looked at 2020-2022, Pittsburgh was for the first time ever not among the 25 cities most polluted by particulate matte, and showed some improvements in air quality, some of which may have resulted from pollution reductions spurred by the COVID-19 shut-down in 2020.The region earned a grade D for ozone smog this year, but its ranking improved from last year — it went from the 50th worst metro area for ozone smog in 2024’s report to the 90th worst in this year’s. Ozone pollution also comes from sources like vehicle exhaust and industrial emissions, and occurs when certain chemicals mix with sunlight. Exposure to ozone pollution is linked to respiratory issues, worsened asthma symptoms, and long-term lung damage.Each year the State of the Air Report makes recommendations for improving air quality. This year those recommendations include defending funding for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), because sweeping staff cuts and reduction of federal funding under the Trump administration are impairing the agency’s ability to enforce clean air regulations. For example, the report notes that EPA recently lowered annual limits for fine particulate matter pollution from 12 micrograms per cubic meter to 9 micrograms per cubic meter, and that states, including Pennsylvania, have submitted their recommendations for which areas should be cleaned up. Next, the agency must review those recommendations and add its own analyses to make final decisions by February 6, 2026 about which areas need additional pollution controls. If it fails to do so due to lack of funding or staffing, the report suggests, air quality might suffer.“The bottom line is this,” the report states. “EPA staff, working in communities across the country, are doing crucial work to keep your air clean. Staff cuts are already impacting people’s health across the country. Further cuts mean more dirty air.”

Chemicals
Climate
Health

New, 'Living' Building Material Made From Fungi and Bacteria Could Pave the Way to Self-Healing Structures

Researchers are developing the biomaterial as a more environmentally friendly alternative to concrete, but any wide-scale use is still far away

New, ‘Living’ Building Material Made From Fungi and Bacteria Could Pave the Way to Self-Healing Structures Researchers are developing the biomaterial as a more environmentally friendly alternative to concrete, but any wide-scale use is still far away Microscopic images of the bacteria and mycelium scaffolds. The circles indicate the likely presence of S. pasteurii bacteria. Viles, Ethan et al., Cell Reports Physical Science 2025 Concrete is a crucial construction material. Unfortunately, however, producing it requires large amounts of energy—often powered by fossil fuels—and includes chemical reactions that release carbon dioxide. This intensive process is responsible for up to 8 percent of humanity’s carbon dioxide emissions. As such, finding more sustainable building materials is vital to lessening our global carbon footprint. And to help achieve this goal, scientists are studying methods that might replace concrete with biologically derived materials, or biomaterials for short. Now, researchers have developed a building material made of mycelium—the tubular, branching filaments found in most fungi—and bacteria cells. As detailed in a study published last week in the journal Cell Reports Physical Science, the living bacteria survived in the structure for an extended amount of time, laying the groundwork for more environmentally friendly and self-healing construction material down the line. The researchers grew mycelium from the fungus Neurospora crassa, commonly known as red bread mold, into a dense, scaffold-like structure. Then, they added Sporosarcina pasteurii bacteria. “We like these organisms for several reasons,” Chelsea Heveran, a co-author of the study and an expert in engineered living materials at Montana State University, tells the Debrief’s Ryan Whalen. “First, they do not pose very much threat to human health. S. pasteurii is a common soil microorganism and has been used for years in biomineralization research, including in field-scale commercial applications. N. crassa is a model organism in fungal research.” They also liked that both organisms are capable of biomineralization—the process that forms bones and coral by creating hardened calcium carbonate. To set off biomineralization, the team placed the scaffold in a growing medium with urea and calcium. The bacteria formed calcium carbonate quickly and effectively, making the material stronger. Importantly, the bacteria S. pasteurii was alive, or viable, for at least a month. Live organisms in building material could offer unique properties—such as the ability to self-repair or self-clean—but only as long as they’re alive. This study didn’t test those traits specifically, according to a statement, but the longer lifetime of this material “lays the groundwork for these functionalities.” “We are excited about our results,” Heveran tells New Scientist’s James Woodford. “When viability is sufficiently high, we could start really imparting lasting biological characteristics to the material that we care about, such as self-healing, sensing or environmental remediation.” This month-long lifespan marks a significant improvement over previous structures. In fact, a major challenge in the development of living biomaterials is their short viability—other similar materials made with living organisms have remained viable for just days or weeks. Plus, they don’t usually form the complex internal structures necessary in construction projects, according to the statement. In the new study, however, “we learned that fungal scaffolds are quite useful for controlling the internal architecture of the material,” Heveran explains in the statement. “We created internal geometries that looked like cortical bone, but moving forward, we could potentially construct other geometries, too.” Ultimately, the researchers developed a tough structure that could provide the basis for future sustainable building alternatives. As reported by New Atlas’ Abhimanyu Ghoshal, however, scientists still have other challenges to tackle on the path to replacing concrete—for instance, scaling the material’s production, making it usable for different types of construction projects and overcoming the higher costs associated with living biomaterials. These materials, so far, “do not have high enough strength to replace concrete in all applications,” Heveran says in the statement. “But we and others are working to improve their properties so they can see greater usage.” To that end, Aysu Kuru, a building engineer at the University of Sydney in Australia who did not participate in the study, tells New Scientist that “proposing mycelium as a scaffolding medium for living materials is a simple but powerful strategy.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Chemicals
CO2
Energy

New electronic “skin” could enable lightweight night-vision glasses

MIT engineers developed ultrathin electronic films that sense heat and other signals, and could reduce the bulk of conventional goggles and scopes.

MIT engineers have developed a technique to grow and peel ultrathin “skins” of electronic material. The method could pave the way for new classes of electronic devices, such as ultrathin wearable sensors, flexible transistors and computing elements, and highly sensitive and compact imaging devices. As a demonstration, the team fabricated a thin membrane of pyroelectric material — a class of heat-sensing material that produces an electric current in response to changes in temperature. The thinner the pyroelectric material, the better it is at sensing subtle thermal variations.With their new method, the team fabricated the thinnest pyroelectric membrane yet, measuring 10 nanometers thick, and demonstrated that the film is highly sensitive to heat and radiation across the far-infrared spectrum.The newly developed film could enable lighter, more portable, and highly accurate far-infrared (IR) sensing devices, with potential applications for night-vision eyewear and autonomous driving in foggy conditions. Current state-of-the-art far-IR sensors require bulky cooling elements. In contrast, the new pyroelectric thin film requires no cooling and is sensitive to much smaller changes in temperature. The researchers are exploring ways to incorporate the film into lighter, higher-precision night-vision glasses.“This film considerably reduces weight and cost, making it lightweight, portable, and easier to integrate,” Xinyuan Zhang, a graduate student in MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE). “For example, it could be directly worn on glasses.”The heat-sensing film could also have applications in environmental and biological sensing, as well as imaging of astrophysical phenomena that emit far-infrared radiation.What’s more, the new lift-off technique is generalizable beyond pyroelectric materials. The researchers plan to apply the method to make other ultrathin, high-performance semiconducting films.Their results are reported today in a paper appearing in the journal Nature. The study’s MIT co-authors are first author Xinyuan Zhang, Sangho Lee, Min-Kyu Song, Haihui Lan, Jun Min Suh, Jung-El Ryu, Yanjie Shao, Xudong Zheng, Ne Myo Han, and Jeehwan Kim, associate professor of mechanical engineering and of materials science and engineering, along with researchers at the University Wisconsin at Madison led by Professor Chang-Beom Eom and authors from multiple other institutions.Chemical peelKim’s group at MIT is finding new ways to make smaller, thinner, and more flexible electronics. They envision that such ultrathin computing “skins” can be incorporated into everything from smart contact lenses and wearable sensing fabrics to stretchy solar cells and bendable displays. To realize such devices, Kim and his colleagues have been experimenting with methods to grow, peel, and stack semiconducting elements, to fabricate ultrathin, multifunctional electronic thin-film membranes.One method that Kim has pioneered is “remote epitaxy” — a technique where semiconducting materials are grown on a single-crystalline substrate, with an ultrathin layer of graphene in between. The substrate’s crystal structure serves as a scaffold along which the new material can grow. The graphene acts as a nonstick layer, similar to Teflon, making it easy for researchers to peel off the new film and transfer it onto flexible and stacked electronic devices. After peeling off the new film, the underlying substrate can be reused to make additional thin films.Kim has applied remote epitaxy to fabricate thin films with various characteristics. In trying different combinations of semiconducting elements, the researchers happened to notice that a certain pyroelectric material, called PMN-PT, did not require an intermediate layer assist in order to separate from its substrate. Just by growing PMN-PT directly on a single-crystalline substrate, the researchers could then remove the grown film, with no rips or tears to its delicate lattice.“It worked surprisingly well,” Zhang says. “We found the peeled film is atomically smooth.”Lattice lift-offIn their new study, the MIT and UW Madison researchers took a closer look at the process and discovered that the key to the material’s easy-peel property was lead. As part of its chemical structure, the team, along with colleagues at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, discovered that the pyroelectric film contains an orderly arrangement of lead atoms that have a large “electron affinity,” meaning that lead attracts electrons and prevents the charge carriers from traveling and connecting to another materials such as an underlying substrate. The lead acts as tiny nonstick units, allowing the material as a whole to peel away, perfectly intact.The team ran with the realization and fabricated multiple ultrathin films of PMN-PT, each about 10 nanometers thin. They peeled off pyroelectric films and transfered them onto a small chip to form an array of 100 ultrathin heat-sensing pixels, each about 60 square microns (about .006 square centimeters). They exposed the films to ever-slighter changes in temperature and found the pixels were highly sensitive to small changes across the far-infrared spectrum.The sensitivity of the pyroelectric array is comparable to that of state-of-the-art night-vision devices. These devices are currently based on photodetector materials, in which a change in temperature induces the material’s electrons to jump in energy and briefly cross an energy “band gap,” before settling back into their ground state. This electron jump serves as an electrical signal of the temperature change. However, this signal can be affected by noise in the environment, and to prevent such effects, photodetectors have to also include cooling devices that bring the instruments down to liquid nitrogen temperatures.Current night-vision goggles and scopes are heavy and bulky. With the group’s new pyroelectric-based approach, NVDs could have the same sensitivity without the cooling weight.The researchers also found that the films were sensitive beyond the range of current night-vision devices and could respond to wavelengths across the entire infrared spectrum. This suggests that the films could be incorporated into small, lightweight, and portable devices for various applications that require different infrared regions. For instance, when integrated into autonomous vehicle platforms, the films could enable cars to “see” pedestrians and vehicles in complete darkness or in foggy and rainy conditions. The film could also be used in gas sensors for real-time and on-site environmental monitoring, helping detect pollutants. In electronics, they could monitor heat changes in semiconductor chips to catch early signs of malfunctioning elements.The team says the new lift-off method can be generalized to materials that may not themselves contain lead. In those cases, the researchers suspect that they can infuse Teflon-like lead atoms into the underlying substrate to induce a similar peel-off effect. For now, the team is actively working toward incorporating the pyroelectric films into a functional night-vision system.“We envision that our ultrathin films could be made into high-performance night-vision goggles, considering its broad-spectrum infrared sensitivity at room-temperature, which allows for a lightweight design without a cooling system,” Zhang says. “To turn this into a night-vision system, a functional device array should be integrated with readout circuitry. Furthermore, testing in varied environmental conditions is essential for practical applications.”This work was supported by the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

Chemicals
Energy
Nature

President of Eugene wood treatment plant gets 90-day prison term for lying to DEQ inspectors

"There has to be some accountability," U.S. District Judge Michael J. McShane said.

A federal judge Tuesday sentenced the president of Eugene’s J.H. Baxter & Co. wood treatment plant to 90 days in prison for lying about the company’s illegal handling of hazardous waste at the site.U.S. District Judge Michael J. McShane called Georgia Baxter-Krause, 62, an “absent president” who took little responsibility for what occurred.“The fact that you lied when confronted suggests you knew the practice was not ‘above board,’” McShane said. “There has to be some accountability.”He also ordered Baxter-Krause and the company to pay $1.5 million in criminal fines. The plant is now a potential cleanup site under the federal Superfund program.J.H. Baxter & Co. Inc. pleaded guilty to illegally treating hazardous waste and Baxter-Krause pleaded guilty to two counts of making false statements in violation of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act governing hazardous waste management.The company so far has paid $850,000 of its $1 million share of the fine, and Baxter-Krause has paid $250,000 of her $500,000 share, their attorney David Angeli said.Much of the debate at the sentencing focused on whether Baxter-Krause should go to prison for lying to investigators.According to court documents, J.H. Baxter used hazardous chemicals to treat and preserve wood. Water from the process was considered hazardous waste. The company operated a legal wastewater treatment unit, but for years when there was “too much water on site,” the company essentially would “boil” off the wastewater, allowing discharge into the air through open vents, according to court records.Photograph sent to Georgia Baxter-Krause on July 8, 2019, depicting the inside of a J.H. Baxter container after weeks of boiling hazardous waste, according to federal prosecutors.U.S. Attorney's OfficeAngeli argued that the violations at the Eugene plant were “less egregious” than other criminal environmental damage cases and that “everyone” on the premises thought the hazardous waste handling was OK. He sought probation for Baxter-Krause.“Every person said she never directed or managed this activity,” Angeli said. “She was rarely even in Eugene.”But Assistant U.S. Attorney William McLaren said Baxter-Krause blatantly lied when inspectors from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality requested information about the company’s practice of boiling off the wastewater.Baxter-Krause provided false information when questioned about the extent of the illegal activity and failed to disclose that the company kept detailed logs that tracked it, according to prosecutors.The plant illegally boiled about 600,000 gallons of wastewater on 136 days from January to October 2019, McLaren said.The government didn’t seek the maximum fine for the environmental violations, which would have been $7 million for each day a violation was found, he said. A separate civil class-action suit is pending against the company filed by people living near the West Eugene plant. They allege gross negligence that allowed “carcinogenic and poisonous chemicals’’ to be regularly released into the air and groundwater. Baxter-Krause told an investigator that the company didn’t keep records on the boiling dates and claimed it occurred only occasionally during the rainy season, records said.“Those were not minimal or immaterial slip-ups,” McLaren said. What the company was doing was “known for years on end” and it was occurring every month, he said.“Despite alerts about equipment failure and the need for capital upgrades, the evidence reflects those warnings went unheeded by J.H. Baxter’s leadership for years,” McLaren said. “And by early 2019, this illegal boiling became the company’s sole method for treating their hazardous wastewater.”Baxter-Krause, who took over the company in 2001 after her father’s death, apologized to the community around the plant and to her friends and family. She now lives in Bend but had lived in California throughout her tenure as company president and visited the Eugene facility about three times a year, according to her lawyers.“I should have been honest,” she said. “To the West Eugene community who was impacted by my careless actions, I apologize. Not a day goes by that I don’t feel remorse. I am ashamed of what I have done. I feel I have truly let you down.”She acknowledged that as president, “the buck stops with me. I should have been more proactive in fully understanding the facility’s permits, the day-to-day operations and ensuring full compliance with environmental laws.”J.H. Baxter treated wood products at the plant from 1943 to 2022. Chemicals used to treat wood, such as creosote and pentachlorophenol, also known as “penta” or PCP, have contaminated the soil and groundwater and are an ongoing concern for surrounding neighborhoods, according to the government.The chemicals remain in tanks at the site and the environmental contamination has not been addressed, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.The company has spent more than $2 million since the plant’s closure to secure the facility and work on complying with environmental regulations, but it has been unable to sell the property because of the historical contamination, according to court records.The judge said it will be up to the Federal Bureau of Prisons where to send Baxter-Krause to serve the sentence. The defense said it would request that she be placed in a community corrections setting.Baxter-Krause was ordered to surrender on July 17. She wondered aloud in the courtroom after her sentencing how she would maintain the compliance reports.Her lawyers explained that the Environmental Protection Agency is on site daily working to fully shut the property down.The EPA is still working to determine how to handle and remove chemicals from the site. It collected soil, sediment, and water samples in May 2023 from both the facility and the surrounding areas. These samples will determine the environmental and potential public health impacts of chemicals that have migrated from the site and from air pollution from its operations.-- Maxine Bernstein covers federal court and criminal justice. Reach her at 503-221-8212, mbernstein@oregonian.com, follow her on X @maxoregonian, on Bluesky @maxbernstein.bsky.social or on LinkedIn.

Chemicals
Conservation
Government

Suggested Viewing

Bag It

Bag It examines our society’s use and abuse of plastic. The theme of the film focuses on plastic as it relates to our society’s throw away mentality, our culture of convenience, and our over consumption of throwaway products and packaging—things that we use one time and then, without another thought, we throw them away. Bag It offers a candid view of the disturbing realities of our culture. And, it suggests concrete solutions to our plastic addiction. The film will raise public awareness on the many issues related to plastic and inspire change, both on the individual level and on the public policy level.

Chemicals
Waste
Culture

928 The Threat Continues...

Since the 1950s deadly nuclear fallout has threatened millions of Americans from nuclear fallout carried east in the atmosphere across the United States, from the Nevada Test Site. “928 The Threat Continues...” tells the story of massive contamination from concentrated nuclear fallout that rained down during heavy storms, on communities and major cities for 40 years. Hundreds of thousands of cancer cases and deaths were the result. The Atomic Energy Commission and the Department of Energy knew the truth, but covered it up. Multiple generations may still face the long-term affects. Through current interviews with scientific experts and surviving victims across the country, plus footage from historic interviews with victims, whistle-blower scientists and journalists, we tell the devastating story of those affected by the deadly radioactive fallout. In Act 3, obscure government videos from US government websites reveal that the threat of cancer death to Americans from Nevada Test Site contamination continues even today! NTS has been renamed, the Nevada National Security Site or NNSS. Presidential administrations from Harry Truman to the present day have kept the highly contaminated former Nevada Test Site operating. Donald Trump while in office ordered the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy to start testing newly designed battlefield nuclear weapons at the NNSS despite the existence of The Non-Proliferation Treaty – 1970. Not withstanding the treaty, the extremely reckless aboveground testing area at the NNSS called Big Explosives Experimental Facility or B.E.E.F. tests non-nuclear bombs that send tons of highly contaminated nuclear dirt 10,000 feet into the atmosphere where the winds carry it east. It needs to be stopped now! The film asks viewers to inform their congressman and vote.

Chemicals
Crisis
Government

Toxic Business

A documentary on the profits international chemical companies are gaining in Africa at cost of the health of small-scaled-farmers and consumers.International chemical companies sell high toxic agro-chemicals in Kenya, which are banned since long in Europe. They are banned because their ingredients cause cancer and have a major negative impact on the nature and environment. Anyhow – in developing countries like Kenya those toxic chemicals are sold without any regulations through small agro-shops all over the country. The small scaled farmers do believe in the promises of better and safer harvest those companies give. Today, the use of pesticides even inside the villages is already a daily business. Furthermore many of them already depend on hybrid seeds, old and resistant seeds supplants. Most of the consumers do not have the knowledge, how dangerous those agro-chemicals are: the WHO announced that annually 346.000 people die, caused by accidentally poisoning with those chemicals, 2/3 of them within developing countries.In the face of world food, industry is trying to push its way into the markets. On the contrary, statistics and alternative farming methods in East Africa show that it no longer needs chemicals and hybrid seeds to feed the world, but a general rethinking.

Agriculture
Chemicals
Business

Unacceptable Risk: Dr. Margaret Kripke on Cancer and the Environment

Unacceptable Risk tells the story of a prominent cancer researcher who rethinks her assumptions about the causes of cancer and the true burden of environmentally-induced cancers.

Chemicals
Science
Health

Lead in the Land

Lead in the Land is a documentary focusing on the harsh reality and far-reaching effects of lead poisoning, an invisible and insidious threat afflicting thousands of children in the United States. The film sheds light on the circumstances around lead poisoning, examining its causes, effects and potential solutions.

Chemicals
Social Justice
Health

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