Damaging fragrances

They give us that oh so smelling fresh feeling but synthetic fragrances added to perfumes, soaps, and shampoos could be damaging marine life. In a National Geographic News article, John Roach explains how these nontoxic fragrances overwhelm an organism's cellular transporter eventually allowing unwanted toxins to slip in and contaminate the cell.

Scientists are testing mussel cells which share properties with some human cells. Stanford post doctoral fellow Till Luckenbach said he isn't sure if human cells react the same way to these synthetic fragrances.

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