You may have heard on a news station that “the bees are disappearing.” This is referring to something called Colony Collapse disorder (CCD) which is a relatively new disease in bees. What happens is that a beekeeper’s beehives will seem perfectly normal for weeks, and then all of sudden when a beekeeper goes back to check their hives the hives are empty except for maybe a few bees. Currently losses in the US equate to about one third of all bee hives kept. If a whole county’s farmers were losing one third of their cattle stock, then this would be all over the news and be declared a disaster. Bees for some reason are not attracting as much attention. Let’s take a look at why they should and what they do for us.

The respiratory system is unique such that it is directly linked to the external environment. Because of this, it is particularly susceptible to injury caused by inhaled toxicants including environmental ozone. In the environment, ozone is generated through a series of complex photochemical reactions and perpetuated cyclically by three main reaction mechanisms: photoactivation (solar radiation at wavelengths between 295 and 430 nm), photodecomposition and free radical chain reactions [1].

Those of you who love sushi and love the planet face a gustatory challenge. The oceans are in trouble. Big trouble. Overfishing and habitat degradation have decimated populations of marine species, from whales to sea urchins, from the Arctic to the tropical reefs. When one who is informed about marine conservation issues decides to splurge (it is increasingly expensive) and partake of sushi, one has to navigate a complex set of personal limits of guilt and indirect consequences to marine ecosystems and human societies. For those of you who wish to minimize your impact on threatened marine biodiversity and ecosystems, here are some guidelines to follow, best practices, rules to live by, or suggestions (whatever you are most comfortable with) that may help.