Increasing numbers of children around the world are suffering from respiratory problems – coughing, wheezing and asthma attacks. Although the key external causes of these diseases were identified a long time ago (traffic and industrial air pollution), it had not previously been possible to distinguish clearly between these two factors so as to have a targeted impact on them.

Particulate air pollution during the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing constantly exceeded levels considered excessive by the World Health Organization, was far worse than other recent Olympic Games, and was about 30 percent higher than has been reported by Chinese environmental experts – even though some favorable weather conditions helped reduce the problem.

We are used to thinking of heart disease as a product of genetic factors or lifestyle choices, such as what we eat and how much we exercise. There is another road to heart disease: breathing.

The American Public Health Association’s (APHA) new Fluoridation Position Statement is based on many documents that neither support nor evaluate fluoridation’s safety and/or effectiveness as it claims (1).

Researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the National Institutes of Health, and Duke University have discovered a cause of airway irritation and wheezing after exposure to ozone, a common urban air pollutant.

Cloaked in the clouds of emissions and exhaust that hang over the city are clues that lead back to the polluting culprits, and a research team led by the University of Houston is hot on their trails.

Could there be a link between high levels of air pollution and the risk of appendicitis? New research presented at the 73rd Annual Scientific Meeting of the American College of Gastroenterology in Orlando, suggests a novel connection.

Scientists have found lichens can give insight into nitrogen air pollution effects on Sierra Nevada and San Bernardino mountain ecosystems, and protecting them provides safeguards for less sensitive species.

Researchers in Iran are publishing what they describe as the first study on a fungus that can remove sulfur — a major source of air pollution — from crude oil more effectively than conventional refining methods.

A new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder reveals that air quality regulations may not effectively target a large source of fine, organic particle pollutants that contribute to hazy skies and poor air quality over the Los Angeles region.

Drought or deluge - scientists working with Meinrat O. Andreae, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, have now discovered how aerosols affect the when, where and how much of rainfall.

An international team of scientists, headed by Prof. Daniel Rosenfeld of the Institute of Earth Sciences at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has come up with a surprising finding to the disputed issue of whether air pollution increases or decreases rainfall. The conclusion: both can be true, depending on local environmental conditions.