What the Science Says
Plenty of people with migraine will tell you they know when the weather is about to turn. The conviction is widespread, it is sincere, and it is worth taking seriously.
(more…)Blog
-
PM2.5 and the Blood-Brain Barrier
The Biological Origin of Air Quality Brain Fog
What Dirty Air May Do to the Brain
In Mexico City, pollution is measured hour by hour against a basin of mountains that can hold contaminated air over more than twenty million residents. The familiar warnings concern lungs and hearts. Yet inside the Instituto Nacional de Pediatría, physician and neuropathologist Lilian Calderón-Garcidueñas has spent years examining a less visible possibility: that prolonged exposure to polluted urban air may also leave traces in the brain.
(more…) -
The Chemistry of Ground-Level Ozone
Summer’s Invisible Respiratory Threat
The Chemistry of Ground-Level Ozone
On a July morning in 1943, Los Angeles residents looked out on a city reduced to three blocks of visibility. Eyes burned. Lungs hurt. Some people feared that the city had suffered a chemical attack. Officials blamed a synthetic-rubber plant, but closing the suspected facility did not clear the air. The haze returned, especially when sunshine settled over the Los Angeles basin.
(more…) -
Tracking Wildfire Smoke Across Borders
When Wildfire Smoke Crosses a Border
On the morning of June 7, 2023, New York City woke beneath an orange sky. The smell of burning wood hung between buildings, schools cancelled outdoor activities, and people improvised masks for walks that ordinarily required none. The fires were hundreds of kilometers away in Quebec. By the time their smoke reached Syracuse, monitors recorded the city’s highest concentration of fine particulate matter since routine measurements began there in 1999.
(more…)