Science

Living within one mile of a golf course doubles the risk of developing Parkinson’s, a new study suggests.

US researchers believe pesticides used to keep greens and fairways in immaculate condition could be triggering the condition by leaching into water supplies or becoming airborne.

In new research, a team from the Barrow Neurological Institute, Arizona analysed health data from people living near 139 golf courses in southern Minnesota and western Wisconsin.

They discovered that living within one mile of a golf course was associated with a 126 per cent higher risk of developing Parkinson’s compared with individuals living more than six miles away.

The study also found a linear relationship between the chance of developing Parkinson’s and distance from the greens, with each mile away reducing the chances of diagnosis by 13 per cent.

Writing in the journal Jama Network Open, Dr Brittany Krzyzanowski said: “These findings suggest that pesticides applied to golf courses may play a role in the incidence of Parkinson’s disease for nearby residents.

“Public health policies to reduce the risk of groundwater contamination and airborne exposure from pesticides on golf courses may help reduce risk of Parkinson’s disease in nearby neighbourhoods.”

The overall chance of developing Parkinson’s is small, with about 0.005 per cent of people in their 30s diagnosed, rising to about 1.7 per cent of people in their 80s.

Previous studies have suggested that exposure to pesticides such as organophosphates raise the risk of the condition, and in 2011 the US National Institutes of Health warned that rotenone and paraquat in particular multiply the risk of Parkinson’s by 2.5.

That study found the pesticides can inhibit the function of the mitochondria, the structure responsible for making energy in the cell, as well as causing oxidative stress that can harm cellular structures. Seven pesticides in groundwater

There is also evidence that pesticides from golf courses can pollute groundwater. A study of water courses surrounding four different golf courses in Cape Cod, Massachusetts discovered that they were contaminated with seven different pesticides including those linked to Parkinson’s.

But although there has been anecdotal evidence that living near golf courses may increase the chance of Parkinson’s and cancer, there have been no major studies until now.

The latest research looked at nearly 4,500 people who lived in the vicinity of golf courses, including 418 Parkinson’s patients.

It found a clear link for those living within three miles of a golf course, with the risk decreasing as people moved farther away. The effects were strongest in residential areas that shared their groundwater with a golf course.

Britain has traditionally used fewer pesticides on golf courses than the US, and recently banned the most harmful chemicals.

Experts at the charity Parkinson’s UK also pointed out the disease starts in the brain 10 to 15 years before diagnosis, so the seeds may have been planted long before people moved near a golf course.

Dr Katherine Fletcher, the research lead at Parkinson’s UK, said: “Parkinson’s is complex. The causes of the condition are unclear and are likely to involve both genetic and environmental factors.

“Many studies have investigated whether pesticides increase the risk of developing Parkinson’s in different populations around the world. The results have been varied, but overall suggest that exposure to pesticides may increase the risk of the condition.

However, the evidence is not strong enough to show that pesticide exposure directly causes Parkinson’s. In Europe and the UK, the use of pesticides is strictly controlled, and some – like paraquat – are banned, due to concerns about their wider health and environmental impacts.

“So, the risk of exposure to these for most people is extremely low.”

A Cambridge team studying the atmosphere of a planet called K2-18b has detected signs of molecules which on Earth are only produced by simple organisms.

This is the second, and more promising, time chemicals associated with life have been detected in the planet's atmosphere by Nasa's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

But the team and independent astronomers stress that more data is needed to confirm these results.

The lead researcher, Prof Nikku Madhusudhan, told me at his lab at Cambridge University's Institute of Astronomy that he hopes to obtain the clinching evidence soon.

"This is the strongest evidence yet there is possibly life out there. I can realistically say that we can confirm this signal within one to two years."

K2-18b is two-and-a-half times the size of Earth and is 700 trillion miles, or 124 light years, away from us - a distance far beyond what any human could travel in a lifetime.

JWST is so powerful that it can analyse the chemical composition of the planet's atmosphere from the light that passes through from the small red Sun it orbits.

The Cambridge group has found that the atmosphere seems to contain the chemical signature of at least one of two molecules that are associated with life: dimethyl sulphide (DMS) and dimethyl disulphide (DMDS). On Earth, these gases are produced by marine phytoplankton and bacteria.

Prof Madhusudhan said he was surprised by how much gas was apparently detected during a single observation window.

"The amount we estimate of this gas in the atmosphere is thousands of times higher than what we have on Earth," he said.

"So, if the association with life is real, then this planet will be teeming with life," he added.

Prof Madhusudhan went further: "If we confirm that there is life on K2-18b, it should basically confirm that life is very common in the galaxy."

He told BBC Radio 5Live on Thursday: "This is a very important moment in science, but also very important to us as a species.

"If there is one example, and the universe being infinite, there is a chance for life on many more planets."

Dr Subir Sarkar, a lecturer in astrophysics at Cardiff University and part of the research team, said the research suggests K2-18b could have an ocean which could be potentially full of life - though he cautioned scientists "don't know for sure".

He added that the research team's work will continue to focus on looking for life on other planets: "Keep watching this space."

There are lots of "ifs" and "buts" at this stage, as Prof Madhusudhan's team freely admits.

Firstly, this latest detection is not at the standard required to claim a discovery.

For that, the researchers need to be about 99.99999% sure that their results are correct and not a fluke reading. In scientific jargon, that is a five sigma result.

These latest results are only three sigma, or 99.7%. Which sounds like a lot, but it is not enough to convince the scientific community. However, it is much more than the one sigma result of 68% the team obtained 18 months ago, which was greeted with much scepticism at the time.

But even if the Cambridge team obtains a five sigma result, that won't be conclusive proof that life exists on the planet, according to Prof Catherine Heymans of Edinburgh University and Scotland's Astronomer Royal, who is independent of the research team.

"Even with that certainty, there is still the question of what is the origin of this gas," she told BBC News.

"On Earth it is produced by microorganisms in the ocean, but even with perfect data we can't say for sure that this is of a biological origin on an alien world because loads of strange things happen in the Universe and we don't know what other geological activity could be happening on this planet that might produce the molecules."

That view is one the Cambridge team agree with. They are working with other groups to see if DMS and DMDS can be produced by non-living means in the lab.

"There is still a 0.3% chance that it might be a statistical fluke," Prof Madhusudhan said.

Suggesting life may exist on another planet was "a big claim if true", he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme, adding: "So we want to be really, really thorough, and make more observations, and get the evidence to the level that there is less than a one-in-a-million chance of it being a fluke."

He said this should be possible in "maybe one or two years".

Other research groups have put forward alternative, lifeless, explanations for the data obtained from K2-18b. There is a strong scientific debate not only about whether DMS and DMDS are present but also the planet's composition.

The reason many researchers infer that the planet has a vast liquid ocean is the absence of the gas ammonia in K2-18b's atmosphere. Their theory is that the ammonia is absorbed by a vast body of water below.

But it could equally be explained by an ocean of molten rock, which would preclude life, according to Prof Oliver Shorttle of Cambridge University.

"Everything we know about planets orbiting other stars comes from the tiny amounts of light that glance off their atmospheres. So it is an incredibly tenuous signal that we are having to read, not only for signs of life, but everything else," he said.

"With K2-18b part of the scientific debate is still about the structure of the planet."

Dr Nicolas Wogan at Nasa's Ames Research Center has yet another interpretation of the data. He published research suggesting that K2-18b is a mini gas giant with no surface.

Both these alternative interpretations have also been challenged by other groups on the grounds that they are inconsistent with the data from JWST, compounding the strong scientific debate surrounding K2-18b.

Prof Chris Lintott, presenter of the BBC's The Sky at Night, said he had "great admiration" for Prof Madhusudhan's team, but was treating the research with caution.

"I think we've got to be very careful about claiming that this is 'a moment' on the search to life. We've [had] such moments before," he told Today.

He said the research should be seen instead as "part of a huge effort to try and understand what's out there in the cosmos".

Prof Madhusudhan acknowledges that there is still a scientific mountain to climb if he is to answer one of the biggest questions in science. But he believes he and his team are on the right track.

"Decades from now, we may look back at this point in time and recognise it was when the living universe came within reach," he said.

"This could be the tipping point, where suddenly the fundamental question of whether we're alone in the universe is one we're capable of answering."

The research has been published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Serial Number: 50

Issue Time: 2025 Apr 16 2054 UTC

ALERT: Geomagnetic K-index of 8, 9-

Threshold Reached: 2025 Apr 16 2055 UTC

Synoptic Period: 1800-2100 UTC

Active Warning: Yes

NOAA Scale: G4 - Severe

NOAA Space Weather Scale descriptions can be found at

www.swpc.noaa.gov/noaa-scales-explanation

Potential Impacts: Area of impact primarily poleward of 45 degrees Geomagnetic Latitude.

Induced Currents - Possible widespread voltage control problems and some protective systems may mistakenly trip out key assets from the power grid. Induced pipeline currents intensify.

Spacecraft - Systems may experience surface charging; increased drag on low earth orbit satellites, and tracking and orientation problems may occur.

Navigation - Satellite navigation (GPS) degraded or inoperable for hours.

Radio - HF (high frequency) radio propagation sporadic or blacked out.

Aurora - Aurora may be seen as low as Alabama and northern California.

The whale pump

A 2010 study from this same team dove into their poop, more specifically the whale ‘pump.’ Whales will feed deeper in the ocean and then come up to the surface to digest, rest, and poop. Their downward excrement then pumps critical nutrients and resources for plankton growth and into the water.

“But we soon realized that was only part of the story,” Joe Roman, a study co-author and conservation biologist at the University of Vermont, tells Popular Science. “Baleen whales are ‘capital breeders,’ feeding for part of the year in high-latitude productive areas, such as Alaska, and having calves and nursing during the winter in areas like Hawaii, where [they] typically fast.”

Similarly, humpback whales in the Southern Hemisphere migrate more than 5,000 miles from their foraging grounds near Antarctica to mating sites off Costa Rica. They burn off about 200 pounds each day, all while urinating vast amounts of nitrogen-rich urea.

The great whale pee funnel When the team took a closer look at the ecological impacts that this extreme feast-or-famine adaptation has, they found that the whales will break down energy stores in their blubber and muscles and then release those excess nutrients into the water. The nutrients often benefit coastal areas with low nitrogen and coral reef ecosystems. Fin whales in Iceland may produce more than 250 gallons of urine per day when they are feeding. By comparison, humans pee less than half a gallon daily.

This new study quantifies the energy transfer from all of that urine, which the team calls the “great whale convertor belt” or “great whale pee funnel.” “We looked at the movement of nitrogen and carbon, but surely many nutrients, such as phosphorus also move in the process,” says Roman. “Nitrogen is commonly found as urea in pee. Nitrogen in this form can be readily available to marine algae and presumably corals and other invertebrates.”

When whales are around, it can more than double the amount of nitrogen in coastal areas and around reefs. This process rivals natural upwelling, where currents bring nutrients from deeper waters up to the surface. The whales also serve as ocean ocean connectors.

“One big difference is that whales are often traveling thousands of miles across ocean basins–great whales undertake the longest migration of any mammal,” says Roman. “So they connect areas close to the poles to tropical areas that are often nutrient-limited.”

The team calculates that these migratory whales transport about 4,000 tons of nitrogen each year and bring more than 45,000 tons of biomass.

The whale pump A 2010 study from this same team dove into their poop, more specifically the whale ‘pump.’ Whales will feed deeper in the ocean and then come up to the surface to digest, rest, and poop. Their downward excrement then pumps critical nutrients and resources for plankton growth and into the water.

“But we soon realized that was only part of the story,” Joe Roman, a study co-author and conservation biologist at the University of Vermont, tells Popular Science. “Baleen whales are ‘capital breeders,’ feeding for part of the year in high-latitude productive areas, such as Alaska, and having calves and nursing during the winter in areas like Hawaii, where [they] typically fast.”

Similarly, humpback whales in the Southern Hemisphere migrate more than 5,000 miles from their foraging grounds near Antarctica to mating sites off Costa Rica. They burn off about 200 pounds each day, all while urinating vast amounts of nitrogen-rich urea.

The great whale pee funnel When the team took a closer look at the ecological impacts that this extreme feast-or-famine adaptation has, they found that the whales will break down energy stores in their blubber and muscles and then release those excess nutrients into the water. The nutrients often benefit coastal areas with low nitrogen and coral reef ecosystems. Fin whales in Iceland may produce more than 250 gallons of urine per day when they are feeding. By comparison, humans pee less than half a gallon daily.

This new study quantifies the energy transfer from all of that urine, which the team calls the “great whale convertor belt” or “great whale pee funnel.”

“We looked at the movement of nitrogen and carbon, but surely many nutrients, such as phosphorus also move in the process,” says Roman. “Nitrogen is commonly found as urea in pee. Nitrogen in this form can be readily available to marine algae and presumably corals and other invertebrates.”

When whales are around, it can more than double the amount of nitrogen in coastal areas and around reefs. This process rivals natural upwelling, where currents bring nutrients from deeper waters up to the surface. The whales also serve as ocean ocean connectors.

“One big difference is that whales are often traveling thousands of miles across ocean basins–great whales undertake the longest migration of any mammal,” says Roman. “So they connect areas close to the poles to tropical areas that are often nutrient-limited.”

The team calculates that these migratory whales transport about 4,000 tons of nitrogen each year and bring more than 45,000 tons of biomass.

It can be thought of as a funnel because whales mostly feed over large areas, but need to be in a more confined space to mate, breed, and give birth. The calves at first don’t have the energy to make it these long distances the way that the moms can and will stay in more shallow or sandy water to muffle their sounds.

“Moms and newborns are calling all the time, staying in communication and they don’t want predators, like killer whales, or breeding humpback males, to pick up on that,” says Roman.

In future research, the team plans to look inside the gut microbiome of these whales. Various microorganisms help them survive their incredible journeys and Roman’s team is curious how they lend this support.

0:11

The whale pump A 2010 study from this same team dove into their poop, more specifically the whale ‘pump.’ Whales will feed deeper in the ocean and then come up to the surface to digest, rest, and poop. Their downward excrement then pumps critical nutrients and resources for plankton growth and into the water.

“But we soon realized that was only part of the story,” Joe Roman, a study co-author and conservation biologist at the University of Vermont, tells Popular Science. “Baleen whales are ‘capital breeders,’ feeding for part of the year in high-latitude productive areas, such as Alaska, and having calves and nursing during the winter in areas like Hawaii, where [they] typically fast.”

Similarly, humpback whales in the Southern Hemisphere migrate more than 5,000 miles from their foraging grounds near Antarctica to mating sites off Costa Rica. They burn off about 200 pounds each day, all while urinating vast amounts of nitrogen-rich urea.

The great whale pee funnel When the team took a closer look at the ecological impacts that this extreme feast-or-famine adaptation has, they found that the whales will break down energy stores in their blubber and muscles and then release those excess nutrients into the water. The nutrients often benefit coastal areas with low nitrogen and coral reef ecosystems. Fin whales in Iceland may produce more than 250 gallons of urine per day when they are feeding. By comparison, humans pee less than half a gallon daily.

This new study quantifies the energy transfer from all of that urine, which the team calls the “great whale convertor belt” or “great whale pee funnel.”

“We looked at the movement of nitrogen and carbon, but surely many nutrients, such as phosphorus also move in the process,” says Roman. “Nitrogen is commonly found as urea in pee. Nitrogen in this form can be readily available to marine algae and presumably corals and other invertebrates.”

When whales are around, it can more than double the amount of nitrogen in coastal areas and around reefs. This process rivals natural upwelling, where currents bring nutrients from deeper waters up to the surface. The whales also serve as ocean ocean connectors.

“One big difference is that whales are often traveling thousands of miles across ocean basins–great whales undertake the longest migration of any mammal,” says Roman. “So they connect areas close to the poles to tropical areas that are often nutrient-limited.”

a chart showing whale migration from their summering grounds in alaska to their wintering grounds in hawaii. they transport important nutrients from along the way The great whale pee funnel. CREDITL A. Boersma & Nature Communications, The team calculates that these migratory whales transport about 4,000 tons of nitrogen each year and bring more than 45,000 tons of biomass.

It can be thought of as a funnel because whales mostly feed over large areas, but need to be in a more confined space to mate, breed, and give birth. The calves at first don’t have the energy to make it these long distances the way that the moms can and will stay in more shallow or sandy water to muffle their sounds.

“Moms and newborns are calling all the time, staying in communication and they don’t want predators, like killer whales, or breeding humpback males, to pick up on that,” says Roman.

In future research, the team plans to look inside the gut microbiome of these whales. Various microorganisms help them survive their incredible journeys and Roman’s team is curious how they lend this support.

“They couldn’t do it without their microbes,” says Roman.

The team also believes that in the days before industrial human whaling these long-distance nutrient outputs may have been three or more times larger than they are today. Maintaining and increasing the whale population globally could help boost ocean health.

“We often think of plants as the lungs of the planet. Animals are the circulatory system,” says Roman. “Whale populations were cut back by commercial whaling by more than two thirds, with some species like Antarctic blue whales reduced by 99 percent. By restoring these populations, we can restore the planet’s circulatory system. I am sure there will be lots of surprises.”