polluted

India has emerged as the world’s third most polluted country. In 2023, India’s air quality, with an average annual PM2.5 concentration of 54.4 micrograms per cubic metre, was better than only two countries…

Credit: Marcia Wright, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons The legacies of California's 1849 Gold Rush and the relentless search for gold that continued decades later are well known: the rise of San Francisco, statehood, Wells Fargo, Levi's jeans, and a Bay Area football team named after the fortune-seeking miners. But along the shores of Clear Lake,…

Cambridge researchers have created a solar-powered device that converts contaminated water into clean hydrogen fuel and drinkable water, offering a sustainable solution to global energy and water crises. Credit: Chanon Pornrungroj/Ariffin Mohamad AnnuarA team of researchers at the University of Cambridge has created an innovative floating device that harnesses solar power to convert contaminated water or seawater into clean hydrogen fuel and purified water.This device is particularly beneficial for areas with limited…

Researchers analyzed data from eight US cities, from 2009 to 2018, which included 69,525 dog bite incidents, noticing that incidents rose by eleven percent on days with higher UV levels, four percent on hotter days, and three percent on days with elevated ozone levels.A recent study suggests dog bites may increase by up to 11% on warmer, sunnier days, and those with high air pollution. The ten-year data showed increases with higher UV, temperature, and ozone levels, but decreased slightly on rainy days. However, as the…

The rise of always-on streaming threatens to reduce ambient to a genre of convenience: palliative soundscapes to study and relax to. Tim Hecker has other ideas. Rather than distract or soothe, the veteran laptop composer’s latest reflects our jaundiced reality – full of aural pollution, oil splatter and other nasty stuff. Like the most wholesome ambient works, No Highs is immersive and oceanic. Unlike them, it is not somewhere you would want to bathe.The artwork for No HighsThe record opens with a warning – an arrhythmic…

A controversial tactic for slowing climate change is picking up steam in Texas: capturing carbon dioxide emissions from smokestacks. While that might reduce CO2 emissions heating up the planet, it could pose new problems for communities already saddled with industrial pollution. Oil giant Occidental announced late last week that it leased 55,000 acres along the Gulf Coast of Texas to build out a hub for carbon capture technologies. The idea is to capture carbon dioxide emissions from nearby chemical plants, refineries,…

University of Cambridge researchers have found that the London Underground is contaminated with ultrafine metallic particles that are small enough to enter the human bloodstream. These particles are so tiny that they may be underestimated in pollution surveys of the world’s oldest metro system.The London Underground is polluted with ultrafine metallic particles small enough to end up in the human bloodstream, according to University of Cambridge researchers. These particles are so small that they are likely being…

Kolkata is the second most polluted city in the world, according to a recent report of HEI SoGA, second after the national capital Delhi. In the report, based on the quantity of PM2.5 and nitrogen dioxide in the air, it has been said that population congestion in these two cities has been the major contributing factor behind Indias two top cities figuring in this negative-quality list. The only other Indian city to figure in the list is the country’s commercial capital of Mumbai, which ranks 14th among the 20 most…

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Carrie Jennings flits around the South Fork Crow River like a water bug in the old one-seat canoe she bought years ago for $100, then pauses midstream to peer down at the brown water. …

In an attempt to clean oceans of microplastics, Chinese scientists have developed robot fish that would "eat" the tiny plastic particles. Chinese…