Pollution News

June 17, 2025

Top Headlines

Atmospheric Chemistry Keeps Pollutants in the Air

June 3, 2025 — A new study details processes that keep pollutants aloft despite a drop in ...

Rising Soil Nitrous Acid Emissions, Driven by Climate Change and Fertilization, Accelerate Global Ozone Pollution

May 30, 2025 — Ozone pollution is a global environmental concern that not only threatens human health and crop production, but also worsens global warming. While the formation of ozone is often attributed to ...

2021's Hurricane Ida Could Have Been Even Worse for NYC

May 30, 2025 — Hurricane Ida wreaked an estimated $75 billion in total damages and was responsible for 112 fatalities -- including 32 in New Jersey and 16 in New York state. Yet the hurricane could have been even worse in the Big Apple, find ...

Does Outdoor Air Pollution Affect Indoor Air Quality? It Could Depend on Buildings' HVAC

May 30, 2025 — Researchers determined how much outdoor particulate pollution affects indoor air quality. Their study concluded pollution from inversion and dust events is kept out of buildings, but wildfire smoke ...

A Cheap and Easy Potential Solution for Lowering Carbon Emissions in Maritime Shipping

May 29, 2025 — Reducing travel speeds and using an intelligent queuing system at busy ports can reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from oceangoing container vessels by 16-24%, according to researchers. Not only ...

New Study Analyzes Air Quality Impacts of Wildfire Smoke

May 28, 2025 — With wildfires increasing in frequency, severity, and size in the Western U.S., researchers are determined to better understand how smoke impacts air quality, public health, and even the weather. As fires burn, they release enormous amounts of ...

Climate Change May Make It Harder to Reduce Smog in Some Regions

May 26, 2025 — A modeling study shows that global warming will make it harder to reduce ground-level ozone, a respiratory irritant that is a key component of smog, by cutting greenhouse gas ...

Southeast Asia Could Prevent Up to 36,000 Ozone-Related Early Deaths a Year by 2050 With Stricter Air Pollution Controls

May 24, 2025 — A study has found that implementing robust air pollution control measures could mean Southeast Asian countries prevent as many as 36,000 ozone-related premature deaths each year by ...

Scientists Invent Breakthrough Device to Detect Airborne Signs of Disease

May 22, 2025 — If you've ever sat waiting at the doctor's office to give a blood sample, you might have wished there was a way to find the same information without needles. But for all the medical breakthroughs of the 20th century, the best way to detect molecules ...

A New Approach Could Fractionate Crude Oil Using Much Less Energy

May 22, 2025 — Engineers developed a membrane that filters the components of crude oil by their molecular size, an advance that could dramatically reduce the amount of energy needed for crude oil ...

Fool's Gold: A Hidden Climate Stabilizer

May 21, 2025 — Researchers look to extremes in the past to study how the system reacts to imbalances. They detail an overlooked mechanism for how the ocean can help stabilize massive releases of carbon into the atmosphere following volcanic ...

Personal Space Chemistry Suppressed by Perfume and Body Lotion Indoors

May 21, 2025 — In 2022 a team discovered that high levels of OH radicals can be generated indoors, simply due to the presence of people and ozone. This means: People generate their own oxidation field and change the indoor air chemistry around them within their ...

Latest Headlines

updated 3:13am EDT

Study Reveals Healing the Ozone Hole Helps the Southern Ocean Take Up Carbon

May 16, 2025 — New research suggests that the negative effects of the ozone hole on the carbon uptake of the Southern Ocean are reversible, but only if greenhouse ...

Summer in the City: Urban Heat Release and Local Rainfall

May 13, 2025 — Stifling heat and sticky air often make summertime in the city uncomfortable. Due to the heat island effect, urban areas are significantly warmer than nearby rural areas, even at night. This, ...

Bacterium Produces 'Organic Dishwashing Liquid' to Degrade Oil

May 9, 2025 — The marine bacterium Alcanivorax borkumensis feeds on oil, multiplying rapidly in the wake of oil spills, and thereby accelerating the elimination of the pollution, in many cases. It does this by ...

Urine, Not Water for Efficient Production of Green Hydrogen

May 9, 2025 — Researchers have developed two unique energy-efficient and cost-effective systems that use urea found in urine and wastewater to generate hydrogen. The unique systems reveal new pathways to ...

Cutting Greenhouse Gases Will Reduce Number of Deaths from Poor Air Quality

May 6, 2025 — Up to 250,000 deaths from poor air quality could be prevented annually in central and western Europe by 2050 if greenhouse gas emissions are drastically reduced, say ...

Urban Rats Spread Deadly Bacteria as They Migrate, Study Finds

May 5, 2025 — Urban rats spread a deadly bacteria as they migrate within cities that can be the source of a potentially life-threatening disease in humans, according to a six-year study that also discovered a ...

Biological Particles May Be Crucial for Inducing Heavy Rain

May 5, 2025 — Atmospheric and climate scientists show that biological particles may induce rain events that could contribute to flooding and snowstorms, owing to their ability to precipitate ice formation in ...

Artificial Oxygen Supply in Coastal Waters: A Hope With Risks

May 5, 2025 — Could the artificial introduction of oxygen revitalise dying coastal waters? While oxygenation approaches have already been proven successful in lakes, their potential side effects must be carefully ...

International Experts Lead Calls to Embed Nature in City Infrastructure for Better Health and Climate Resilience

May 3, 2025 — Trees, parks, wetlands and green roofs can no longer be seen as a 'nice-to-have' aesthetic enhancement but a vital component for creating ...

Electricity-Generating Bacteria May Power Future Innovations

May 1, 2025 — A team has discovered how certain bacteria breathe by generating electricity, using a natural process that pushes electrons into their surroundings instead of breathing on oxygen. The findings could ...

'Scratching' More Than the Ocean's Surface to Map Global Microplastic Movement

Apr. 30, 2025 — An international team of scientists has moved beyond just 'scratching the surface,' to understand how microplastics move through and impact the global ocean. For the first time, scientists ...

Micro-Nano-Plastics Found in Artery-Clogging Plaque in the Neck

Apr. 23, 2025 — A small study found that fatty buildup in the blood vessels of the neck (carotid arteries) may contain 50 times or more micronanoplastics -- minuscule bits of plastic -- compared to arteries free of ...

Oil Cleanup Agents Do Not Impede Natural Biodegradation

Apr. 22, 2025 — Biodegradation is an important natural process during oil spill cleanup. A new study revealed that using spill treating agents does not negatively impact naturally occurring ...

Harmful Microplastics Infiltrating Drinking Water

Apr. 21, 2025 — Despite advances in wastewater treatment, tiny plastic particles called microplastics are still slipping through, posing potential health and environmental hazards, according to new ...

How Safe Is the Air to Breathe? 50 Million People in the US Do Not Know

Apr. 21, 2025 — Across the United States, 58% of counties have no active air-quality monitoring sites, according to a new study. Rural counties, especially those in the Midwest and South, are less likely to have ...

Early-Life Exposure to Air and Light Pollution Linked to Increased Risk of Pediatric Thyroid Cancer

Apr. 18, 2025 — A new study suggests that early-life exposure to two widespread environmental pollutants -- small particle air pollution and outdoor artificial light at night -- could increase the risk of pediatric ...

Researchers Warn of a Threat to Water Safety from Wildfires

Apr. 17, 2025 — The consequences of wildfires in or near urban areas go beyond the damage to buildings and ecosystems, to the threat of contamination of drinking water according to water quality and treatment ...

Microbes in Brooklyn Superfund Site Teach Lessons on Fighting Industrial Pollution

Apr. 16, 2025 — Using advanced DNA sequence analysis, a research team has discovered that tiny organisms in Brooklyn's highly contaminated Gowanus Canal have developed a comprehensive collection of ...

Growing Wildflowers on Disused Urban Land Can Damage Bee Health

Apr. 15, 2025 — Wildflowers growing on land previously used for buildings and factories can accumulate lead, arsenic and other metal contaminants from the soil, which are consumed by pollinators as they feed, a new ...

Deep-Sea Mining Risks Leads Study to Urge Shift to Circular Solutions

Apr. 14, 2025 — Deep sea mining operations are expected to increase the negative impact on environmental indicators by up to 13 per cent, a change categorized as having 'great' significance, relative to ...

Europe's Population Is Adapting Better to Cold Than to Heat

Apr. 9, 2025 — A study has shown that Europe has adapted better to low temperatures than to high temperatures over the last two decades. The relative risk of mortality at the coldest temperatures has decreased by ...

Colourful City Birds

Apr. 9, 2025 — Bird species that do well in urban areas are more colorful and less ...

Mapping Mercury Contamination in Penguins of the Southern Ocean

Apr. 9, 2025 — In 1962, when environmentalist and author Rachel Carson penned 'Silent Spring,' alerting the world to the dangers of the pesticide DDT, it was the reproductive threat to birds -- the bald ...

Multi-Virus Wastewater Surveillance Shows Promise at Smaller, Site-Specific Scales

Apr. 9, 2025 — In a new study, wastewater surveillance for multiple pathogens at five different sites identified local trends that were not captured in larger surveillance programs, and some sites used the data to ...

Serendipitous Discovery Could Lead to More Efficient Catalysts

Apr. 9, 2025 — Preparing catalysts by sending hot, steamy car exhaust over them could improve their efficiency and reduce the amount of rare and expensive metals required in vehicle catalytic converters and many ...

Rain Barrel Basics: Conserving Water but Not Mosquito Habitats

Apr. 7, 2025 — Researchers surveyed residential rain barrels to determine how often mosquitoes took up residence in rain barrels and what preventative measures would most effectively keep mosquitoes out. Taking ...

Exposure to Air Pollution May Harm Brain Health of Older Adults

Apr. 7, 2025 — Long-term exposure to high levels of air pollution may harm the brain health of older adults in England, finds a new ...

Electrochemical Method Supports Nitrogen Circular Economy

Apr. 3, 2025 — Imagine a world where industrial waste isn't just reduced, it's turned into something useful. This kind of circular economy is already in the works for carbon. Now, researchers in energy, ...

Researchers Recycle Wind Turbine Blade Materials to Make Improved Plastics

Apr. 3, 2025 — A new method to recycle wind turbine blades without using harsh chemicals resulted in the recovery of high-strength glass fibers and resins that allowed researchers to re-purpose the materials to ...

Plant Doctor: An AI System That Watches Over Urban Trees Without Touching a Leaf

Apr. 2, 2025 — Monitoring urban plant health traditionally requires extensive manual labor and botanical expertise, creating challenges for cities facing expanding green spaces, higher population densities, and ...