Mark Zondlo, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Princeton University and its Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, develops tools to measure air pollution in more sophisticated and nimble ways than previously possible.

His specially engineered laser sensors and drones help reveal the impact of greenhouse gases and air pollutants on the climate, where pollutants come from, and how clouds of air pollution — such as smog — form. The ultimate goal is to inform policy that will clear the air and our lungs and slash air pollution’s staggering impact on human mortality. Severe air pollution causes the premature death worldwide of more than 5.5 million people per year, according to news reports based on data compiled for the Global Burden of Disease project.

It was once one of Europe’s largest coal-burning power stations. Now, after replacing coal in its boilers with wood pellets shipped from the U.S. South, the Drax Power Station in Britain claims to be the largest carbon-saving project in Europe. About 23 million tons of carbon dioxide goes up its stacks each year. But because new trees will be planted in the cut forests, the company says the Drax plant is carbon-neutral.

A University of Victoria molecular biologist has gained new insights into how environmental contaminants may disrupt thyroid systems, discovered while assembling the genome of the North American bullfrog.

Caren Helbing’s findings could help explain the mechanisms of early development and metamorphosis, as well as how environmental contaminants cause thyroid-related diseases and malfunctions.

As cars become more fuel-efficient, less heat is wasted in the exhaust, which makes it harder to clean up the pollutants that are emitted. But researchers have recently created a catalyst capable of reducing pollutants at the lower temperatures expected in advanced engines. Their work, published this week in Science magazine, a leading peer-reviewed research journal, presents a new way to create a more powerful catalyst while using smaller amounts of platinum, the most expensive component of emission-control catalysts.

Carbon capture could help the nation’s coal plants reduce greenhouse gas emissions, yet economic challenges are part of the reason the technology isn’t widely used today. That could change if power plants could turn captured carbon into a usable product.

Human emissions of the potentially harmful trace metal vanadium into Earth’s atmosphere have spiked sharply since the start of the 21st century due in large part to industry’s growing use of heavy oils, tar sands, bitumen and petroleum coke for energy, a new Duke University study finds.

Human emissions of the potentially harmful trace metal vanadium into Earth’s atmosphere have spiked sharply since the start of the 21st century due in large part to industry’s growing use of heavy oils, tar sands, bitumen and petroleum coke for energy, a new Duke University study finds.

“Human emissions of vanadium to the atmosphere now exceed those from all natural sources combined -- by a factor of 1.7,” said William H. Schlesinger, James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of Biogeochemistry at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment, who led the study.

“Less than two decades ago, the ratio of human to natural emissions was 0.59 to 1, or less than half the current level,” Schlesinger said. “Our analysis suggests that much of this rapid rise can be traced to the increased use of unconventional heavy-petroleum fuels.”

Researchers at The Johns Hopkins University report statistical evidence that children exposed to airborne coarse particulate matter — a mix of dust, sand and non-exhaust tailpipe emissions, such as tire rubber — are more likely to develop asthma and need emergency room or hospital treatment for it than unexposed children.

A team of researchers from Environment Canada and Climate Change Canada and McMaster University have found that fish living downstream from a wastewater treatment plant showed changes to their normal behaviour—ones that made them vulnerable to predators—when exposed to elevated levels of antidepressant drugs in the water.

The findings, published as a series of three papers in the journal Scientific Reports, point to the ongoing problem of prescription medications, personal care products and other drugs that end up in the watershed and the impact they have on the natural environment.

Right now, a handful of motivated Fort Collins citizens are doing something a little out of the ordinary. They’re collecting cutting-edge scientific data from their backyards that may soon help NASA create maps of global air pollution.

The volunteers are part of a network of citizen scientists for a Colorado State University-led project called CEAMS: Citizen-Enabled Aerosol Measurements for Satellites.

The goal of CEAMS is to improve understanding of local air quality through dispersed, ground-based measurements. Data on this scale could eventually help NASA satellites provide higher-resolution air quality data than is possible today.