A new study has found the strongest link yet between air pollution and autism, which experts now say affects one in 50 U.S. schoolchildren. Pregnant women who lived in areas with high levels of diesel exhaust and airborne mercury were found to be twice as likely to have a child with autism as those living in places with the lowest […]
Read more
Rio de Janeiro Dirty games: Brazilian officials had conceded weeks prior that the disgustingly polluted Guanabara Bay wouldn’t be cleaned up in time for the 2016 Olympics, but said sailing events could still be held there. Some Olympic sailors had protested holding their events in the bay, saying they feared becoming sick from the contaminated water or ramming their […]
Read more
The amount of plastic garbage in the North Pacific Ocean has risen a hundredfold since the 1970s, and the floating debris is now so abundant that marine life is adapting to its presence. Researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography sampled an expanse of the sea between Hawaii and California, where currents tend to deposit flotsam from around the Pacific […]
Read more
It seemed like a good idea at the time. In 1972, Broward County, Fla., organized more than 100 boats to dump an estimated 700,000 tires into the Atlantic Ocean in hopes of sparking the growth of an artificial reef. Ultimately corals never grew on the bundles of tires, and over time the bundles became loose, causing damage to nearby natural […]
Read more
On the mountainous outskirts of Shenzhen, a fast-growing mega-city in China, the largest waste-to-energy plant in the world is on the horizon. You can bet that this disk-shaped trash-burning plant isn’t going to do any wonders for China’s notoriously bad air quality. It’s projected to burn 5,500 tons of trash per day — one-third of the waste Shenzhen produces. But the alternative […]
Read more
A floating island made out of plastic the size of Hawaii made entirely from plastic bottles could become the hottest postcode on earth, and is part of an incredible environmental vision for the future. CGI images show how a team of Dutch scientists plan to take 44 million kilos of plastic waste currently bobbing around in the Pacific Ocean and […]
Read more
The European Union’s environmental agency said targets to curb pollution and climate change by 2050 would he missed without “profound changes” in technology, lifestyle and policy. The agency said poor air quality in Europe causes hundreds of thousands of early deaths a year.
Read more
Red lights may prevent deadly auto accidents, but waiting at one poses a different kind of hazard to your health. Car exhausts emit harmful pollutants, known as nanoparticles, which have been linked to heart and lung disease. When researchers from the University of Surrey in England analyzed drivers’ exposure to these pollutants at various points in their typical daily commutes, […]
Read more
The oil released during the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster may damage fish populations in the Gulf of Mexico for years to come. New research from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found that exposure to crude oil can cause heart defects in fish embryos—abnormalities that will likely kill many developing fish and shorten the lives of others. The study looked […]
Read more
The Seabin marine waste collector shows how often the simplest solutions are the most effective. The rubbish collector, designed to float in marinas, inland waterways, residential lakes and harbors, collects floating debris and liquids by sucking water from the surface and letting if flow out through the bottom of the structure, trapping waste in a filter bag. The inventors have […]
Read more