An interdisciplinary team of scientists from the Universities of Leicester and other institutions has played a pivotal role in research investigating a possible link between air pollution and the rise in type 2 diabetes.

New research, published in the journal Environment International, examined data from 10,443 participants from diabetes screening studies in Leicestershire, UK.

The exposure to air pollution, the number of cases of type 2 diabetes and the impact of demographic and lifestyle factors were all considered.

New research from Michigan State University has shown for the first time that activated carbon – a substance widely used in water purification – can help eliminate the health risks associated with soils, sediments and surface water polluted by highly toxic dioxins.

Stephen Boyd, a University Distinguished Professor in the MSU Department of Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences, led the study, which is published online in the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. The research looked specifically at soil and freshwater ecosystems that had been contaminated mainly through the industrial manufacture of pesticides and other chemicals.

As China struggles to find ways to remedy the noxious haze that lingers over Beijing and other cities in the winter, researchers from Georgia Institute of Technology have cast serious doubt on one proposed cause: high levels of ammonia in the air.

The wintertime air pollution has gained attention in the scientific community in recent years, prompting some scientists to propose that ammonia, emitted into the air from agricultural activities and automobiles, could be a precursor that strongly promotes the formation of the haze.

Georgia Tech researchers countered that theory in a study published September 21 in the journal Scientific Reports. The study was sponsored by the National Science Foundation.

Motor vehicles are a major source of air pollution in urban areas, and for decades municipal and regional governments have used various traffic management strategies in an effort to reduce vehicle emissions, alongside advancements like cleaner fuel and greener cars.

A study led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), an institute supported by the ”la Caixa” Banking Foundation, has demonstrated that exposure to air pollution on the way to school can have damaging effects on children’s cognitive development. The study, published recently in Environmental Pollution, found an association between a reduction in working memory and exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and black carbon during the walking commute to and from school.

Mayfly nymphs are prominent insects in freshwater ecosystems worldwide and an important food source for fish, amphibians, birds and mammals. Unfortunately they are also very sensitive to pollution.

Researchers in the Faculty of Science have been interested in better understanding why mayfly nymphs are so vulnerable to environmental insult. They believe that the answer lies in the insects’ gills, which help them acquire oxygen from the surrounding water. But little is known about the physiology of these organs.

A University of Windsor engineering professor is leading the way on an industry-academia collaboration that aims to improve drinking water quality in the capital of India.

Rajesh Seth has obtained funding through the India-Canada Centre for Innovative Multidisciplinary Partnerships to Accelerate Community Transformation and Sustainability (IC-IMPACTS) — a Canadian Network of Centres of Excellence dedicated to the development of research collaborations between Canada and India.

If farmers could no longer control weeds with existing herbicides, Americans would take notice pretty quickly

The panel of leading water science experts is charged with identifying America’s highest-priority water science and resource challenges over the next 25 years, and making recommendations on the strategic water science and research opportunities to address those challenges. It will report its finding in 2018.

“The loss of life and $180-billion damage from Hurricane Harvey is a wake-up call to the U.S. for the need to better manage water-related threats, including risks from climate change. And the hurricane’s effect on rising gas prices in Canada shows the far-reaching impacts of extreme events on the global economy,” said Wheater who attended the panel’s first meeting in Washington this week.

Scientists have found a previously unsuspected place where radioactive material from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant disaster has accumulated—in sands and brackish groundwater beneath beaches up to 60 miles away. The sands took up and retained radioactive cesium originating from the disaster in 2011 and have been slowly releasing it back to the ocean.

“No one is either exposed to, or drinks, these waters, and thus public health is not of primary concern here,” the scientists said in a study published October 2 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. But “this new and unanticipated pathway for the storage and release of radionuclides to the ocean should be taken into account in the management of coastal areas where nuclear power plants are situated.”