Erin Brockovich is an American paralegal, whistleblower, consumer advocate, and environmental activist who was instrumental in building a case against Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) involving groundwater contamination in Hinkley, California with the help of attorney Ed Masry in 1993. Their successful lawsuit was the subject of the Oscar-winning film, Erin Brockovich (2000), starring Julia Roberts as Brockovich and Albert Finney as Masry. Since then, Brockovich has become a media personality as well, hosting the TV series Challenge America with Erin Brockovich on ABC and Final Justice on Zone Reality. She is the president of Brockovich Research & Consulting. She also works as a consultant for the New York law firm of Weitz & Luxenberg, which has a focus on personal injury claims for asbestos exposure, and Shine Lawyers in Australia. She worked as a consultant for the now-defunct California law firm Girardi & Keese.
Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. Pollution can take the form of any substance or energy. Pollutants, the components of pollution, can be either foreign substances/energies or naturally occurring contaminants.
The Chemical Brothers are an English electronic music duo formed by Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons in Manchester in 1989. They were pioneers in bringing the big beat genre to the forefront of pop culture. After attracting Virgin Records, the duo achieved further success with the second album Dig Your Own Hole (1997), which topped the UK charts. In the UK, they have had six No. 1 albums and 13 top-20 singles, including two chart-toppers.
Sodium chloride, commonly known as salt, is an ionic compound with the chemical formula NaCl, representing a 1:1 ratio of sodium and chloride ions. With molar masses of 22.99 and 35.45 g/mol respectively, 100 g of NaCl contains 39.34 g Na and 60.66 g Cl. Sodium chloride is the salt most responsible for the salinity of seawater and of the extracellular fluid of many multicellular organisms. In its edible form, salt is commonly used as a condiment and food preservative. Large quantities of sodium chloride are used in many industrial processes, and it is a major source of sodium and chlorine compounds used as feedstocks for further chemical syntheses. Another major application of sodium chloride is de-icing of roadways in sub-freezing weather.
Calcium oxide (CaO), commonly known as quicklime or burnt lime, is a widely used chemical compound. It is a white, caustic, alkaline, crystalline solid at room temperature. The broadly used term "lime" connotes calcium-containing inorganic materials, in which carbonates, oxides and hydroxides of calcium, silicon, magnesium, aluminium, and iron predominate. By contrast, quicklime specifically applies to the single chemical compound calcium oxide. Calcium oxide that survives processing without reacting in building products such as cement is called free lime.
BASF SE is a European multinational chemical company and the largest chemical producer in the world. Its headquarters are located in Ludwigshafen, Germany.
Castor oil is a vegetable oil pressed from castor beans. It is a colourless or pale yellow liquid with a distinct taste and odor. Its boiling point is 313 °C (595 °F) and its density is 0.961 g/cm3. It includes a mixture of triglycerides in which about 90% of fatty acids are ricinoleates. Oleic acid and linoleic acid are the other significant components.
Vinyl chloride is an organochloride with the formula H2C=CHCl. It is also called vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) or chloroethene. This colorless compound is an important industrial chemical chiefly used to produce the polymer, poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC). Vinyl chloride monomer is among the top twenty largest petrochemicals (petroleum-derived chemicals) in world production. The United States remains the largest vinyl chloride manufacturing region because of its low-production-cost position in chlorine and ethylene raw materials. China is also a large manufacturer and one of the largest consumers of vinyl chloride. Vinyl chloride is a flammable gas that has a sweet odor and is carcinogenic. It can be formed in the environment when soil organisms break down chlorinated solvents. Vinyl chloride that is released by industries or formed by the breakdown of other chlorinated chemicals can enter the air and drinking water supplies. Vinyl chloride is a common contaminant found near landfills. Before the 1970s, vinyl chloride was used as an aerosol propellant and refrigerant.
The Dow Chemical Company, officially Dow Inc., is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan, United States. The company is among the three largest chemical producers in the world.
Seymour Myron "Sy" Hersh is an American investigative journalist and political writer. He gained recognition in 1969 for exposing the My Lai massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War, for which he received the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. During the 1970s, Hersh covered the Watergate scandal for The New York Times, also reporting on the secret U.S. bombing of Cambodia and the CIA's program of domestic spying. In 2004, he detailed the U.S. military's torture and abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq for The New Yorker. Hersh has won a record five George Polk Awards, and two National Magazine Awards. He is the author of 11 books, including The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House (1983), an account of the career of Henry Kissinger which won the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Bashar Hafez al-Assad is a Syrian politician who is the 19th president of Syria, since 17 July 2000. In addition, he is the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces and the Secretary-General of the Central Command of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, which nominally espouses a neo-Ba'athist ideology. His father and predecessor was General Hafez al-Assad, whose presidency between 1971 to 2000 marked the transfiguration of Syria from a republican state into a dynastic dictatorship tightly controlled by an Alawite-dominated elite composed of the armed forces and the Mukhabarat, who are loyal to the Assad family.
CAS is a division of the American Chemical Society. It is a source of chemical information. CAS is located in Columbus, Ohio, United States.
Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defence or NBC protection are protective measures taken in situations in which chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear warfare hazards may be present. CBRN defence consists of CBRN passive protection, contamination avoidance, and weapons of mass destruction mitigation.
Han Zheng is a Chinese politician serving as the current Vice President of the People's Republic of China since 2023. He previously served as Senior Vice Premier of the State Council from 2018 to 2023. He has also been leader of the Central Leading Group on Hong Kong and Macau Affairs since April 2018. From 2017 to 2022, he served as a member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Han served as Deputy Party Secretary and Mayor of Shanghai between 2003 and 2012. In November 2012, he was promoted to become the Party Secretary of Shanghai, the top political post in the city, and also gained a seat on the CCP Politburo. On March 10 2023, Han Zheng who left the politburo standing committee in 2022, became the vice president of China.
My Chemical Romance is an American rock band from Newark, New Jersey. The band's current lineup consists of lead vocalist Gerard Way, lead guitarist Ray Toro, rhythm guitarist Frank Iero, and bassist Mikey Way, who is Gerard’s younger brother. They are considered one of the most influential rock groups of the 2000s and a major act in the pop-punk and emo genres, despite the band rejecting the latter label.
Benjamin Edward "Jamie" Muhoberac is an American session keyboardist with numerous credits. He is best known for his work with Seal and Was.
Bernard Beryl Brodie was a founding scientist in the area of biochemical and neurochemical pharmacology whose work in the 1940s and 1950s had great impact. He was a major figure in the fields of drug metabolism and drug therapy, studying how the absorption and interactions of drugs in the body. Brodie helped to found and lead the Laboratory of Chemical Pharmacology at the National Heart Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, one of the National Institutes of Health. He was a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences.
All-trans-phytoene synthase is an enzyme with systematic name geranylgeranyl-diphosphate:geranylgeranyl-diphosphate geranylgeranyltransferase . This enzyme catalyses the following chemical reaction
There have been numerous reports of chemical weapons attacks in the Syrian Civil War, beginning in 2012, and corroborated by national governments, the United Nations (UN), the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Human Rights Watch (HRW), and media organizations. The attacks occurred in different areas of Syria, including Khan al-Assal, Jobar, Saraqib, Ashrafiyat Sahnaya, Kafr Zita, Talmenes, Sarmin and Douma. The deadliest attacks were the August 2013 sarin attack in Ghouta, the April 2017 sarin attack in Khan Shaykhun and April 2018 Douma chemical attacks. The most common agent used is chlorine, with sarin and sulphur mustard also reported. Almost half of the attacks between 2014 and 2018 were delivered via aircraft and less than a quarter were delivered from the ground, with the remaining attacks having an undetermined method of delivery. Since the start of uprisings across Syria in 2011,Syrian Arab Armed Forces and pro-Assad paramilitary forces have been implicated in more than 300 chemical attacks in Syria.
On 7 April 2018, a chemical warfare attack was carried out by forces of the government of Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian city of Douma. Medics and witnesses reported that it caused the deaths of between 40 and 50 people and injuries to possibly well over 100. The attack was attributed to the Syrian Army by rebel forces in Douma, and by the United States, British, and French governments. Two-year investigation of the OPCW Investigation and Identification Team (IIT) concluded in January 2023 that the Syrian Arab Air Force perpetrated the chemical attacks during its military campaign in Douma.
