Green Options » pollutants

Robot Fish to Better Monitor Water Quality

Zachary Shahan — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:32:10 +0000

An ecologist and an engineer at Michigan State University are working together to create robot fish that can better monitor various factors in aquatic environments.

Combining the brilliance of nature with some top-notch engineering, these two scientists are on to something and getting the funding for it.

The researchers are breaking ground with this and looking to raise water monitoring to another level.

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SCORE: A Cookstove That Generates Electricity

Ariel Schwartz — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 01:21:02 +0000

Those of us who don’t live in developing countries might not always remember that the majority of the world still uses biomass-fired cookstoves that produce smoke and other toxins. It’s a serious problem–indoor air pollution kills 1.6 million people yearly. Enter the SCORE (Stove for Cooking, Refrigeration, and Electricity), a $33 cookstove developed by researchers at the University of Nottingham that doubles as an electrical generator.

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Breaths of Fresh Air: Bush-Era Pollution Waivers Rejected By Courts

Ruedigar Matthes — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 00:04:14 +0000

Power plants play a huge role in emitting pollutants that make up the ozone. This pollution browns and blackens our horizons. We call it smog. Smog has been linked to premature deaths, thousands of emergency room visits, and tens of thousands of asthma attacks each year. Pollution in the ozone is particularly dangerous to small children and the elderly, who are often warned to stay indoors on days with poor air quality due to pollutants.

Not only are the pollutants spewed out by power plants bad for our health, but they contain greenhouse gases that have been linked with climate change; thus they are killing the world as we know it as well.

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Genetically Engineered Bacteria to Measure Water Quality

Amiel Blajchman — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 20:59:58 +0000

Researchers at Tel Aviv University have developed a laboratory the size of a microchip that can be used to measure water quality. Using genetically engineered bacteria that light up when in contact with pre-determined pollutants, this water quality lab will detect and communicate “contact” with monitoring systems. It’s a nano sized version of the robot fis h that we recently looked at.

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Toxic Chemicals in Wal Mart’s Bottled Water

Derek Markham — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:21:14 +0000

Myth: Drinking bottled water is safer than drinking tap water.

Truth: You are being ripped off, and then poisoned, by drinking bottled water from unknown sources.

Recently found in bottled drinking water: Trihalomethanes, Haloacetic acids, Nitrates, Ammonia, Acetaldehyde, Hexane, Toluene, bacterial contamination, Arsenic, radioactivity contamination (and more…)

Not the sort of chemical cocktail you had in mind when you bought bottled water at the grocery store, now is it?

The results of a two year study by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) were recently released, detailing the lab tests of 10 brands of bottled drinking water from 8 different states in the US.

The report is shocking.

38 different chemical pollutants were detected, with an average of 8 contaminants per brand. One-third of the chemicals they found are not even regulated in drinking water. Some brands, like Sam’s Choice (Wal Mart) and Acadia (Giant) contained cancer-causing chemicals at levels exceeding the standards for safety set by the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986.

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Discovered: Nature Segregates Dirty, Rich Nations From Clean, Poor World

Sam Aola Ooko — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 15:16:38 +0000

Nature has finally confirmed it: the industrialized nations may be rich but the air that people breathe in poorer nations in the Southern Hemisphere is cleaner four times over.

A chemical equator - an atmospheric line - discovered by scientists suggests the existence of a 50 kilometer-wide boundary between polluted air of the Northern Hemisphere and the largely uncontaminated atmosphere of the Southern Hemisphere.

In a model, the red that represents high levels of carbon monoxide present in the air in the Northern Hemisphere gives way to blue that reflects clean air of the South; in between, a white-colored ‘chemical equator’ separates them.

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