Air quality data on Whitefield residents’ fingertips

When residents of Whitefield felt the government had not done enough to record pollution in the area and formulate remedial plans accordingly, they took matters into their own hand Now 13 low-cost monitors have been set up in various locations, and the air quality is measured every five minutes. 

Since monitors available in the market were expensive, costing more than Rs 15,000 even, Shankar, along with Varun Ramakrishnan, a Class 12 student, developed a low-cost system using monitors that cost Rs 6,000-7,500 Resident welfare associations of different housing societies bought monitors for themselves, as did a few individuals. All the data recorded is uploaded to the cloud, allowing us study the data, and see which areas record the worst air quality and during which time of the year,” Shankar said. 

Carcass of blackbuck found in Kabisurya Nagara forest range

The carcass of a blackbuck was found on Friday in Ganjam district, the only habitat of the endangered animal in Odisha, forest officials said. Forest officials recovered the carcass of a three-year-old female blackbuck at Kandha Kharida under Kabisurya Nagara forest range, about 50 km from here.

With this at least 11 blackbucks have died in Bhetanai area of the forest range in the last two months.

At least 28 blackbucks have died in the area since March this year. As many as 18 and 21 blackbucks had died in 2016-17 and 2015-16 respectively.

High levels of previously unsuspected pollutant uncovered in homes, environment

• Scientists have found high levels of a previously unsuspected pollutant in homes, in an electronic waste recycling facility and in the natural environment. People are likely to be exposed to this pollutant by breathing contaminated dust or through skin contact.
• The researchers studied dust samples from an e-waste dismantling facility in Ontario, Canada. Chemicals similar to TDTBPP are often used in the production of plastics, wires, printed circuit boards and electronic equipment, making e-waste recycling facilities an important place to search for previously undetected pollutants.
• The researchers also studied dust from 20 residential homes in Ontario and analyzed outdoor samples from southwestern Lake Michigan to measure the amounts of TDTBPP in ambient air, water and sediment. 
• They found that levels of TDTBPP were particularly high in house dust.

SOURCE : SCIENCE DAILY

Climate change may harm male fertility

Researchers from the University of East Anglia in the UK found that heatwaves damage sperm in insects -- with negative impacts for fertility across generations.

The study showed male infertility during heatwaves could help to explain why climate change is having such an impact on species populations, including climate-related extinctions in recent years. A warmer atmosphere will be more volatile and hazardous, with extreme events like heatwaves becoming increasingly frequent, intense and widespread, researchers said. Heatwaves are particularly damaging extreme weather events. Local extinctions are known to occur when temperature changes become too intense

99 per cent of air pollutants can be stopped with this new method

Scientists just found that freezing air pollutants can help cut down the dangerous effects of air pollution to a great extent!

Outdoor air pollution causes three million premature deaths worldwide every year. But scientists have now discovered a novel method that could stop these dangerous pollutants from coming indoors where they cause even more prolonged harm. The study involved understanding the use of cryogenics for purifying air indoors so that the gaseous pollutants and tiny particulates caused by haze can be removed. The research team found that as they circulated haze-polluted air through a cryogenic condenser, the finer particles stuck together in the condenser tube before dropping out by gravity, and emerging as clean air. The study on freezing air pollutants was conducted by scientists from Nottingham Trent University in the UK and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

How can this technology be used in our homes?

The new-found technique to clean air pollutants simply by circulating polluted air through a small freezing chamber to remove most of the fine particles and gas pollutants can help common people by making their homes pollutant-free.

Delhi-NCR air quality severe, no improvement for a few days

The air quality further deteriorated on Tuesday, with national capital and the areas around seeing "severe" level air quality with no improvement due to weather conditions over the next few days.

The air quality Index (AQI) of Delhi at 4 p.m. was 409 or severe against 399 at the same time on Monday. The air quality of Gurugram on Tuesday dropped to very-poor on Monday.

The major pollutant PM2.5 or particles with a diameter less than 2.5mm, were well above severe levels across Delhi-NCR

Brazil's oil sale plans prompt fears of global fossil fuel extraction race

The government proposal to give tax relief for offshore oil would increase emissions and contradicts the nation’s progressive stance in Bonn.

Brazil is planning a fire-sale of its oil resources before shrinking global carbon budgets push down demand and prices, environmental groups have warned.

The focus of concern is a government proposal for up to $300bn in tax relief to companies that develop offshore oilfields that opponents claim would use up 7% of humanity’s emission budget if global warming is to be kept below 2C.

Climate Observatory, WWF, Greenpeace and other groups say the subsidies could spark a get-it-out-of-the-ground race with fossil fuel rivals such as the US, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Norway and the UK.