Europe must adopt the World Health Organization (WHO) standard on fine particulate matter pollution if it is to significantly curb needless premature deaths, concludes research in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

European Union wants smaller, cleaner cars. Car makers will in the future be made to pay if they fail to slash the vehicles' emissions of carbon dioxide. Brussels has unveiled controversial proposals to impose fines on all new cars sold in Europe that exceed a set limit for CO2. The fines will start in 2012 and rise sharply every year.

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) has issued an Air Pollution Health Advisory through Friday due to elevated levels of fine airborne particulates for most of Minnesota, with the worst air quality occurring in the Twin Cities and Rochester. Stagnant winds overnight are helping trap fine particles and allowing them to build.

Detecting pollution, like catching criminals, requires evidence and witnesses; but on the scale of countries, continents and oceans, having enough detectors is easier said than done.

Scientists in Pennsylvania are reporting development of a fuel cell that uses pollution from coal and metal mines to generate electricity, solving a serious environmental problem while providing a new source of energy.

A new NASA study estimates that most ground-level particulate pollution in the United States stems from regional sources in North America and only a small amount is brought to the country from other parts of the world.

Some alternative vehicle fuels such as liquid coal can cause more harmful greenhouse gas emissions than polluters such as petrol or diesel, scientists warned in a US study.

Pollution from marine shipping causes approximately 60,000 premature cardiopulmonary and lung cancer deaths around the world each year, according to a report scheduled to appear in the Dec. 15 issue of Environmental Science and Technology, the journal of the American Chemical Society.

Heavy pollution in coal mining regions of China led to sad results –there are soaring levels of defects in newborn babies. Results from eight main coal mining areas in Shanxi province show levels far higher than the national average, according to a Xinhua News Agency report carried by the Beijing News.

Gerhard Ertl of Germany won the 2007 Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday for studies of chemical processes on solid surfaces, a key to understanding the effects of pollution on the ozone layer.

It was a murder mystery playing out in major cities across the country and perplexing scientists. Thousands of people were dying from strokes and heart attacks within 24 hours of a spike in microscopic pollution -- tiny particles that spew from the exhaust of diesel trucks, buses and coal-burning factories.

London Authority (GLA) takes radical steps, one of which could be the removal of all cars from both inner and outer London, according to a report published today.