Research Briefs
2002
2001

Center Updates
2002
2001
2000

August 30, 2001

Interdisciplinary team explores fractures in ice and rock

The cracking, splitting and crushing events occurring constantly just beneath the earth's surface can now be linked to similar activity taking place in floating sheets of ice in the polar regions. Two Dartmouth researchers offer a theory about how these brittle substances break under compression. Erland Schulson, the George Austin Colligan Distinguished Professor at Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering, and Carl Renshaw, Associate Professor of Earth Sciences at Dartmouth, believe that most brittle materials, like rocks and ice, crumble or fail in the same manner. MORE>>

[Full Text] Universal behaviour in compressive failure of brittle materials

Contact: Erland Schulson or Carl Renshaw

Arsenic, a ubiquitous metalloid, is a known human carcinogen specifically linked to the occurrence of skin cancer at high levels of exposure. Most of the epidemiologic data regarding the relationship between drinking water arsenic and skin cancer come from research conducted in southwest Taiwan where well water concentrations of arsenic are as high as 1,220 parts per billion (ppb). These studies indicate an etiologic link between water arsenic and skin cancer. Risk assessments based on these and other data suggest that there may be effects below the current Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) of 50 ppb. MORE>>

March 1, 2001

Arsenic: A New Type of Endocrine Disruptor?

A team of Dartmouth Medical School investigators has uncovered what may be a unique mechanism for the way chronic exposure to low levels of arsenic increases the risk of certain diseases. The work is described in the March issue of the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. Arsenic at high doses has been known as the poison of choice since ancent times. Recently, it has become clear that decades of exposure to very low doses of arsenic - such as levels found in drinking water in many areas of the United states - may substanially increase the rixk of vascular disease, diabetes and several types of cancer.MORE>>