This bunker of blood and urine holds the key to how chemicals change us

Thursday, September 29, 2022

In today’s newsletter, we explore the wartime bunker that may protect us from contamination, investigate why dolphins keep dying at a Las Vegas casino, discover COVID’s latest variants … and track the Viking raiders who sought to plunder Rome.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY ESTHER HORVATH

How do we know how dangerous chemicals accumulate and affect the body? How do we know if regulations to stop such contamination are working?

The answer comes from behind a plain green door, inside a wartime bunker in a placid German forest. Inside sit 400,000 samples of blood and urine from more than 17,000 people.

The repository may be the world’s best kept memory of environmental pollution—and it is increasingly important in solving urgent health questions.

Read the full story here.

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The samples: Above, Dominik Lermen takes out frozen dummy samples to demonstrate the storage conditions in the bunker. At top, Lerman shows how such samples used to be frozen and stored in larger volumes. Read more. Related: Your tap water.

STORIES WE’RE FOLLOWING

PHOTOGRAPH BY JOHN LOCHER, AP

Dolphins keep dying mysteriously at a Las Vegas casino (pictured above)

A fossil fish discovery adds insight to evolution

What comes after Omicron? Many, many, many COVID variations

A setback for North America’s rarest canine

Who is behind a 1,500-year murder in Sweden?

These Viking raiders set their sights on Rome

How hurricane storm surges form and why they’re so dangerous

Treasure from London’s luxurious past is being unearthed

IN THE SPOTLIGHT

PHOTOGRAPH BY FRITZ POLKING, VWPICS/AP

What’s up, Chicago? A museum is supposed to preserve endangered objects. Construction at the Chicago History Museum in 2021 drove away black-crowned night herons (pictured above) from their annual breeding grounds. The birds haven’t been back, Nat Geo reports.

WHERE ARE THEY?

PHOTO OF THE DAY

PHOTOGRAPH BY KARINE AIGNER, @KAIGNER

The rainy season: That’s when photographer Karine Aigner found these furballs in Botswana. For safaris, the rainy season “offers a completely different landscape—one of technicolor green backgrounds, flowers, and golden light,” she writes. This image got more than 277,000 likes on our Instagram page. See other trends that may transform the traditional safari experience.

SAFARI, ANYONE?

This newsletter was curated and edited by David Beard, Sydney Combs, Jen Tse, and Heather Kim. Do you have an idea or a link for the newsletter? Let us know at david.beard@natgeo.com.

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This bunker of blood and urine holds the key to how chemicals change us

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