pesticides

A state official in Arkansas who's led a national effort to limit damage from a controversial herbicide has recently found his tractors damaged and hay bales burned.

On Thursday the EPA ordered the e-commerce giants to stop selling a list of unregistered and misbranded products, some of which contained toxic chemicals like methylene chloride and chlorine dioxide.

Across the Midwest, millions of acres of farmland have been damaged by dicamba, an herbicide that can harm crops not engineered to withstand it. There are so many cases, regulators can't keep up.

New evidence from Japan's Lake Shinji suggests that the widely used family of pesticides called neonicotinoids, already controversial for harming pollinators, could pose risks to fish as well.

Alternative tests are emerging, the agency says, such as computer modeling and tissue studies of cells grown in the lab. Environmental advocates say the move is too quick, and disregards human health.

Studies are revealing new, unintended threats that neonicotinoid pesticides pose to insects. The chemicals, widely used by farmers, are difficult to control because they persist in the environment.

Vigilance and heat are currently your best weapons against bedbugs, exterminators say. But scientists are working on a way to give the bugs the hook with a strategy inspired by a Balkan folk remedy.

Scientists collected freshwater shrimp at 15 locations in Suffolk. Shrimp from all of the sites were found to have detectable amounts of cocaine, and many had other drugs or pesticides.

In the long-running war between farmers and weeds, it's advantage, weeds. Scientists in Kansas have found examples of the dreaded pigweed that are immune to the newest weed-killing technologies.

Chlorpyrifos has been linked to developmental delays in kids and other health problems. The EPA is fighting a lower court's ruling that it must ban the pesticide, which farmers say they need.

Cat lovers were very concerned about our story on permethrin. How risky is the pesticide for Kitty? By minimizing their pet's exposure, cat owners can use the chemical safely, veterinarians say.

Northwest farmers produce a quarter of the country's alfalfa seeds, but they get help from millions of alkali bees, thanks to one of the most unique agricultural partnerships in the country.