The R-Pur Nano mask has lights that change according to surrounding air quality. Read more…More about Mashable Video, Lights, Air Pollution, Cyclist, and Ces 2019
View More This mask uses lights to alert you to polluted airCategory: air pollution
California cities now have the worst air pollution on Earth as smoke blows into town
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Oakland, a Northern California city with a population of over 425,000, had the worst air quality in the world Saturday morning.
Wildfire smoke wafting over from the still-growing Camp Fire — by far the deadliest wildfire in state history — had inundated many heavily-populated California cities and towns with small bits of pollution thinner than the width of a human hair, called Particulate Matter 2.5, or PM 2.5.
Berkeley Earth, a scientific climate organization, keeps tabs on air pollution around the globe. As of Nov. 17 at 9:30 a.m. ET, Oakland topped the global list with particle concentrations of 167 μg/m3 (meaning micrograms per cubic meter) — which are levels deemed “Very Unhealthy” by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Coming in a distant second is Kanpur, India with particulate levels of 132. Read more…
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View More California cities now have the worst air pollution on Earth as smoke blows into townThe air quality in India is horrendously bad right now. Here’s why.
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Apocalyptically horrendous air has descended upon India’s sprawling capital territory, Delhi.
According to November 4 measurements taken by the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, the Air Quality Index (AQI) hit 534. For perspective, the scale only goes up to 500, wherein levels are described as “Hazardous.”
“534 is higher than your highest value — which is insane,” Anthony Wexler, the director of the Air Quality Research Center at the University of California, said in an interview.
But, come early November, terrible air quality becomes the norm in northern India. This time of year, farmers burn off bounties of crop waste to clear fields. Read more…
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View More The air quality in India is horrendously bad right now. Here’s why.Google Street View cars will be roaming around the planet to check our air quality with these sensors
Aclima, a San Francisco-based startup building Internet-connected air quality sensors has announced plans to integrate its mobile sensing platform into Google’s global fleet of Street View vehicles. Google uses the Street View cars to map the land for Google Maps. Starting with 50 cars in Houston, Mexico City and Sydney, Aclima will capture air quality […]
View More Google Street View cars will be roaming around the planet to check our air quality with these sensorsWildfire smoke from California has reached New York City, 3,000 miles away
Anthony Wexler, the director of the Air Quality Research Center at the University of California, Davis, packed his bags and drove his family out to the coast.
They’re escaping the smoke.
Davis, California, sits amid a layer of wildfire smoke in…
Photos show Yosemite National Park choked by wildfire smoke
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The burning forest just outside of Yosemite National Park in California has choked the air inside the park’s iconic valley marked by imposing granite walls that stretch hundreds of feet into the polluted sky.
The West’s fire season is now well underway, and it has been further stoked by heat waves and especially parched land. As a result of the now over 36,000-acre Ferguson fire, Yosemite — one of the most heavily-visited national parks in the country — has been inundated with tiny bits of particulate pollution, covering the park in a thick haze.
SEE ALSO: California hit with two heat waves in less than a month. Here’s why it matters. Read more…
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View More Photos show Yosemite National Park choked by wildfire smokeWestern wildfires are so bad that they’re reversing decades of air quality improvements
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The consequences of America’s swelling wildfire problem are traveling well beyond blackened, ashy forests. They’re now tainting the air in cities and towns over vast regions of the western U.S.
Since the mid-1980s, fine bits of air pollution that have been repeatedly linked to heart and lung diseases have diminished in a good portion of the United States — except in an expansive zone of the western part of the country.
In this region, which extends north from Utah to Montana and west from Oregon to Wyoming, the most polluted days — when the air quality is at its most harmful — are getting even worse. Read more…
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Aclima sucks in $24M to scale its air quality mapping platform
Aclima, a San Francisco-based company which builds Internet-connected air quality sensors and runs a software platform to analyze the extracted intel, has closed a $24 million Series A to grow the business including by expanding its headcount and securing more fleet partnerships to build out the reach and depth of its pollution maps. The Series […]
View More Aclima sucks in $24M to scale its air quality mapping platformNo, it’s not just you — allergy season is worse this year and that’s exactly why you need an air purifier
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Allergies are more annoying than usual this year, right?
No really, it’s not your imagination — pollen season is getting worse every year, and air purifiers are making their way to the must-have list of home appliances.
A recent segment on ABC News detailed that climate change is a huge factor that’s contributing to the worsening pollen seasons. Among the culprits are high temperatures and raised levels of carbon dioxide, both of which can affect the proteins in the pollen grains that cause these allergies.
In the story, Dr. Jeffrey Demain, a board-certified allergist and immunologist, is quoted saying, “It’s been shown that in rising carbon dioxide, the allergenic peptide of each pollen grain goes up.” He also points out that carbon dioxide levels have been “shown to increase the amount of biomass and pollen production by a plant,” as quoted in the article. Read more…
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View More No, it’s not just you — allergy season is worse this year and that’s exactly why you need an air purifierIn a surprise to scientists, gains in tackling dirty air have stagnated
In the 1950s, Los Angeles residents raised signs protesting the region’s filthy air. One woman’s sign, at an anti-smog committee meeting in 1954, mocked that Los Angeles’ San Gabriel Valley had been transformed into the inhospitable “Death Valley.”&#…
View More In a surprise to scientists, gains in tackling dirty air have stagnatedMexico City’s highway pillars are vertical gardens that help fight air pollution
Via Verde is a project in Mexico City that strives to turn 1,000 highway pillars into vertical gardens. Different kinds of plants are planted inside the “pockets” of felt to make the city greener and its air cleaner. The hydroponic system collects ra…
View More Mexico City’s highway pillars are vertical gardens that help fight air pollutionDyson’s new Pure Cool fans are better at both purifying and communicating
Dyson has a few new products it’s revealing today, including the latest Pure Cool line of purifying fans. These fans have built-in air purifying technology, which can detect and weed out pollutants, particulate matter and more of the nasty stuff we sometimes breathe in that we probably should not be breathing in. The new fans have a new built-in LCD display that actually shows you a graph… Read More