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Three Ways to Improve Your Indoor Air Quality Naturally

By Guest PostApril 28, 2015Environment, Small Businessconsumers convenience, epa, humidity, hvac, indoor air quality, michelle patterson, mobile friendly sites, multiple myelom, online store, pollutants, shopping videos, skin treatments, ventilation

While outdoor pollution always seems to be on the forefront of all of our minds, many people don’t stop to consider the quality of the air indoors and inside their own home. It is a little known fact that indoor air quality can be up to five times worse than outdoor air quality. Additionally, the EPA has ranked indoor air pollution as one of the top five environmental concerns that we face on a daily basis and that up to 50% of illnesses are caused or made worse by inadequate indoor air quality. When you stop to think about these statistics, it is concerning that we spend most of our time in our homes being exposed to these pollutants. This article will discuss some simple ways to improve your indoor air quality in your home naturally so that you and your family can remain safe and healthy.
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Hazy days of summer: Southeast U.S. field work measures mercury, smog

By Guest PostJuly 16, 2013Environmentair quality, ben lee, birmingham, c 130, central pennsylvania, claudia mohr, clean sea air, climate, coal fired, colored aerosols, dan jaffe, eastern texas, felipe lopez hilfiker, field work, ground-level ozone, gulf of mexico, hazy days, Houston, joel thornton, lyatt jaegle, measure, mercury, military transport plane, nashville, natural vegetation emission, ohio river valley, pollutants, power plant, smog, southeast us, summer, university of washington, vegetation particles, very exciting data

Dozens of atmospheric scientists, including three University of Washington faculty members, are taking part in what’s being described as one of the largest atmospheric field campaigns in decades.

The six-week Southeast Atmosphere Study, through July 15, includes scientists from more than 30 different institutions. Together they are studying how pollutants combine with natural vegetation emissions to affect climate and air quality in the Southeastern U.S. (more…)

Boat noise stops fish finding home

By Guest PostJuly 2, 2013Environment, Natureacoustic cues, andy radford, background noise, boat noise, bristol, coastal environment, coral reef fish, french polynesia, human activities, invertebrate, larval, liege, orientation behavior, pollutants, protected areas, sophie holles, steve simpson, traffic noise, universities of exeter, university of bristol

Boat noise disrupts orientation behaviour in larval coral reef fish, according to new research from the Universities of Exeter, Bristol and Liège.

Reef fish are normally attracted by reef sound but the study, conducted in French Polynesia, found that fish are more likely to swim away from recordings of reefs when boat noise is added.

Co-author, Dr Steve Simpson, a marine biologist at the University of Exeter, said: “Boat noise may scare fish, affecting their ecology. Since one in five people in the world rely on fish as their major source of protein, regulating traffic noise in important fisheries areas could help marine communities and the people that depend on them.” (more…)

Unchecked Antibiotic Use in Animals May Affect Global Human Health

By Guest PostFebruary 20, 2013Healthabsorbed by animals, animal health, animal production, animals, antibiotic resistance genes, antibiotics in china, args, bacteria, China, china alone, chinese, commercial pig farms, consumer of antibiotics, downstream, fend off diseases, fertilizer, global human health, global risk, groundwater, impact on environment, james tiedje, largest producer, management of wastes, michigan state university, microbes carrying args, multidrug resistance, pollutants, production, rivers, unchecked antibiotic use, united states, use of antibiotics, veterinary antibiotic, world organization, yong guan zhu

The increasing production and use of antibiotics, about half of which is used in animal production, is mirrored by the growing number of antibiotic resistance genes, or ARGs, effectively reducing antibiotics’ ability to fend off diseases – in animals and humans.

A study in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that China – the world’s largest producer and consumer of antibiotics – and many other countries don’t monitor the powerful medicine’s usage or impact on the environment. (more…)

Berkeley Lab Study Assesses Residential Cooking Exhaust Hoods’ Ability to Vent Pollutants

By Guest PostJune 4, 2012Environmentair pollutants, airflow, berkeley lab, brett singer, capturing pollutants, carbon monoxide, cook stoves, cooking exhaust hoods, energy star, fine particulates, formaldehyde, gas burners, home ventilating institute, nitrogen oxides, pollutant capture efficiency, pollutants, soot, sound level, vent pollutants, woody delp

Cooking exhaust hoods designed for home kitchens vary widely in their ability to capture and vent away the air pollutants generated by the gas burners on cook stoves, according to a study by two Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) scientists. Of seven representative devices they tested, the capture efficiency varied from less than 15 percent to more than 98 percent.

The study, by Woody Delp and Brett Singer of Berkeley Lab’s Environmental Energy Technologies Division, measured their pollutant capture efficiency, sound level generated by their fans, and airflow. Cooking exhaust hoods vent such pollutants as carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, formaldehyde, and fine particulates such as soot generated during cooking. (more…)

UA Engineer Launches Robotic Planetary Lake Lander

By Guest PostMarch 18, 2012Environment, Scienceair propellers, alex jacobs, autonomous, big sky, daiichi, debris, environmental research, fukushima, garbage patches, gyres, hazardous environments, internet connection, liquid hydrocarbon, moon, NASA, nuclear plant, pete brown, planet, planetary exploration, plastic, pollutants, radioactive element, robotic lake lander, rovers, saturn, styrofoam hulls, tex ii, tier scalable reconnaissance, titan, tokyo electric power, tucson explorer ii, university of arizona, wolfgang fink

Wolfgang Fink of the University of Arizona department of electrical and computer engineering has developed an autonomous robotic lake lander that could be used to explore this planet and others.

Fink unveiled the lake lander, named Tucson Explorer II, or TEX II, in a paper titled “Robotic Lake Lander Test Bed for Autonomous Surface and Subsurface Exploration of Titan Lakes,” which he presented March 8 at an aerospace conference organized by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in Big Sky, Mont. (more…)

Air Quality Worsened by Paved Surfaces

By Guest PostJune 11, 2011Environmentair pollution, atmospheric measurements, brad smull, china meteorological administration, coastal cities, computer simulations, emissions, fei chen, ground-level ozone, Houston, houston area, Japan, land and sea temperatures, los angeles, national center for atmospheric research, national science foundation, ncar, nsf, pavement, petrochemical facilities, pollutants, sea, shanghai, smog, traffic jams, unhealthy air, united states, university of tsukuba, urban areas on air pollution, urban development, urbanization, warm summer weather, weather patterns, wind patterns

*Widespread urban development alters weather patterns*

New research focusing on the Houston area suggests that widespread urban development alters weather patterns in a way that can make it easier for pollutants to accumulate during warm summer weather instead of being blown out to sea.

The international study, led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), could have implications for the air quality of fast-growing coastal cities in the United States and other mid-latitude regions overseas. (more…)

Biodiversity improves water quality in streams through a division of labor

By Guest PostApril 7, 2011Environmentbiodiversity, biologically diverse streams, bradley cardinal, chesapeake bay, darwin, Environment, flow conditions, great lakes, model streams, molded plastic, natural streams, nitrate, nutrient pollutant, pollutant filters, pollutants

ANN ARBOR, Mich.— Biologically diverse streams are better at cleaning up pollutants than less rich waterways, and a University of Michigan ecologist says he has uncovered the long-sought mechanism that explains why this is so.

Bradley Cardinale used 150 miniature model streams, which use recirculating water in flumes to mimic the variety of flow conditions found in natural streams. He grew between one and eight species of algae in each of the mini-streams, then measured each algae community’s ability to soak up nitrate, a nitrogen compound that is a nutrient pollutant of global concern. (more…)

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