Microsoft and IBM Get Profit Out of Air Pollution in China - http://clapway.com/2015/12/31/microsoft-and-ibm-get-profit-out-of-air-pollution-in-china-123/

Microsoft and IBM are getting great benefits out of the crippling air pollution in China, as it is bringing in quite a bit of business. Both businesses, some of the largest in the world, are looking to tap the air quality forecasting business.

Air Pollution in China: Beijing Suffers Two Red Alerts in December 2015

When red alerts for air pollution are issued in Chinese cities, they’re expected to be shut down for more than three days. This limits the amount of people on the street and the amount of cars allowed to operate. In essence, the city is dead and citizens are confined to their homes.

These alerts rely entirely on pollution forecasting. This is becoming very important politically, and Communist Party leaders are looking for better ways to accurately predict pollution readings to better protect Chinese citizens.

How Will Beijing Host the Winter Olympics?

This is of particular concern since Beijing is set to host the Winter Olympics in 2022. Microsoft has their eye on this business, already setting gears to design an air quality forecast service.

If predicting the weather has already been advanced to be handled from anywhere, predicting air pollution readings cannot be too difficult. It’s a matter of bringing in a few more variables and re-submitting all the information.

Cognitive Computing Will Design Air Pollution Index Predictions

Microsoft and IBM can help China through their advances in cognitive computing. These are composed of machines that are programmed to make advances to modeling on their own. It could even predict air quality indexes 10 days in advance, as regular weather forecasts do. This computer would use data from the weather, traffic and land use, real time pollution levels and wind readings. The data would rely on outlets from social media posts and government controlled monitoring stations.

This can be of wonderful help to the Chinese people. It can help local governments pinpoint which areas to close off and which schools and airports within them. It would also help restrict car movement in certain areas.

IBM and Microsoft Protect China

Microsoft and IBM are making wise moves in moving in on this business, but it will take some time to work out the exact measures that need to be taken to get there. Helping China get cleaner air is more important than ever, since the country still hasn’t peaked their emissions. Hopefully these two companies can give them a valuable helping hand.

 

Microsoft and IBM Get Profit Out of Air Pollution in China

Carbon Nanotubes Discovered in Children"s Lungs - http://clapway.com/2015/10/21/carbon-nanotubes-discovered-in-childrens-lungs/

Carbon nanotubes are present in a lot of places around us. They’re a part of the manufacturing of golf clubs, car parts, solar cells, batteries, textiles and even human tissue engineering. It’s generated in labs by material researchers, and recently, it’s been revealed that plentiful amounts of it could be found in vehicle exhaust.

This week, however, it was found in a much less likely place: the lungs of 64 Parisian children.

Carbon nanotubes are a sort of miracle material. It’s strong, very elastic and make for good conductors of temperature and electricity.

A team of scientists from Rice University in Texas working with fellow researchers in France discovered carbon nanotubes in liquid from the airways of the French children during customary asthma treatment; the same kind of carbon nanotubes found in exhaust pipes in Parisian cars and in smog from around the city.

The complete report can be found in a paper published in EBioMedicine. According to Lon Wilson, chemist from the Rice University team and co-author of the paper, the way that scientists create nanotubes in labs is somewhat similar to the process of turning a car’s toxic carbon monoxide emissions into safer exhaust, through a catalytic converter. The chemist added that it’s likely that everyone in the world as some carbon nanotubes in their lungs from breathing air laced with car exhaust. It’s slightly ironic that everyone walking around may be breathing the air they mask themselves to avoid in their labs.

They Were Never Found in Humans Before

This is the first time nanotubes have been detected in humans. The investigation, carried out by Fathi Moussa and colleagues at the University of Paris-Saclay, took samples from the 64 children, and carbon nanotubes were found in every single sample. Five of them even had them in their lung’s macrophages, which are immune cells that clear unwanted particles from the airways.

More Studies Should Be Made to Find Any Adverse Effects

Asthmatic people have weakened macrophages, which makes them more sensitive to particles in the air, and the fact that these nanotubes have latched onto those cells makes it even more difficult to filter good particles from bad ones. However, the amount found is not enough to be conclusive.

Though the nanotubes aren’t directly toxic, they are large in terms of surface, and they’re sticky, making it much easier for pollutants to get deep into the long and even cross membranes, as Moussa adds, but further research is needed to see how damaging these carbon nanotubes are, and in what concentrations they linger in people’s lungs as well as any relation to respiratory diseases or malfunctions. Carbon nanotubes have similar components to asbestos, and could be very harmful if these findings are not followed up.

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Carbon Nanotubes Discovered in Children"s Lungs

The United States is proud of its agricultural heritage, but what if you were told that the industry’s pollution killed over 16,221 people in just one year? #airpollution #animalagriculture #cowspiracy - http://clapway.com/2015/09/28/cowspiracy-air-pollution123/

Air pollution is killing 3.3 million people a year worldwide, according to a new study, but there’s an exterminator that is often overlooked by mainstream media: farming.

When farming kills

Scientists in Germany, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia and Harvard University have calculated the most detailed estimates to date of the toll of air pollution, looking in particular at the causes behind it.

In Northeastern U.S., all of Europe, Russia, Japan and South Korea, agriculture is the No. 1 cause of soot and smog deaths, according to the study. Worldwide, it’s No. 2.

Yet, in spite of the huge amounts of animal waste that factory farms produce, they have largely escaped pollution regulations; loopholes in the law and weak enforcement share in the blame, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

Air pollution and agricultural emission

Lead author of the study, Jos Lelieveld of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Germany, reinforced this point, stating that agricultural emissions are becoming increasingly important, but are very little regulated at the national and global level. Giant livestock farms, which can house an army of pigs, chickens, or cows, produce vast amounts of manure, often generating the waste equivalent of a small city, according to NRDC.

The United States is proud of its agricultural heritage, but what if you were told that the industry’s pollution killed over 16,221 people in just one year?

Cowspiracy: The Sustainable Secret

A recent documentary, Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret, now available on Netflix, asks why most leading environmental organizations are ignoring one of the leading causes of environmental damage.

Growing food organically, making homes more water efficient, driving electric cars and installing LED lights will not make a difference unless we also confront the nightmares of animal agriculture.

According to the movie, animal agriculture uses 55 percent of the water in the U.S. and is responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, while all forms of land, air and ocean transportation total only 13 percent.

Everyday, 144 million animals are killed for food worldwide. U.S. farm animals produce 7 million pounds of excrement every minute and the average American consumes 209 pounds of meat each year. This means that ammonia from fertilizers and animal waste is becoming a leading killer of ecosystems, wildlife and humans, while too many environmental groups are keeping their mouths shut.

Going Vegan

Ranchers reacted to the documentary stating that the industry needs to “beef” up on their production facts “to help balance out the conversation about sustainability and animal agriculture”.

But this hasn’t stopped the film from triggering major behavioral change among young adults. The Cowspiracy Facebook page has almost 94,000 likes and a good number of people have declared an instant conversion to veganism after watching the documentary.

What do you think of Cowspiracy and the air pollution generated by animal agriculture? Share your views in the comments section below.

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FOR TECHNOLOGY RELATED NEWS AND PRODUCT REVIEWS, CHECK OUT CLAPWAY TRENDS:

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Cowspiracy: Air Pollution We Don"t Talk About

Miss the smell of #cleanair? #Pollution affects our environment, but also the #health of our bodies over the long term. We must do something before it"s too late. - http://clapway.com/2015/09/18/breathing-in-air-pollution123/

It’s 2050. Six million people are already dead due to air pollution. The ozone is shot and civilians need to carry around oxygen canisters and wear masks just to stay alive. Most are packing up and heading to Mars, where the air is more breathable.

Okay, okay…that seems a little farfetched, but 6 million is not a number that has been pulled out of thick, polluted air. Research conducted by the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Germany has shown that the environment is not the only thing affected by pollution; it also greatly influences the people immersed in it.

In studying air pollution, researchers examined health statistics of different areas in the world and related those numbers to contamination factors, which have led to the prediction that 6 million people per year will succumb to pollution’s deadly effects starting in 2050. Even within the past few years alone, 3 million annual deaths were either directly or indirectly related to pollution.

Where in the world is pollution is the worst?

China has a notorious reputation when it comes to pollution. The country attributes 1.5 million of the 3 million deaths that occur annually. Moreover, about half a million people die in Pakistan, as well as in India per year, mainly due to pollution that is caused by heating and cooking. By contrast, pollution related deaths in United States are caused mostly by power plants, although northeastern U.S. is also affected by agricultural pollution related to the spread of ammonia. Similarly, Europe and Russia have to deal with agricultural pollution.

How is pollution slowly killing us?

Pollution is dangerous due to the tiny particles that are floating in the air. These particles are inhaled and shortly enter our lungs and bloodstream. Because they are extremely small in size, only measuring about 2.5 micrometers, they do not always get removed or filtered from our bodies. This eventually makes us more susceptible to many diseases, including strokes and heart attacks.

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MINIMIZE YOUR IMPACT AND APPRECIATE NATURE FOR WHAT IT IS SO THAT WE CAN ALL ENJOY CLEAN AIR ONCE AGAIN:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vD63kwQuZ2I

Breathing in Air Pollution May Cost Your Life

Lower Air Pollution in the Middle East is Sad #middleeast #airpollution #oil - http://clapway.com/2015/08/24/lower-air-pollution-in-the-middle-east-is-sad-242

Reductions in air pollution tend to be a cause for rejoice, but how can it be when its heroics are nothing short of barbaric? Reductions in air pollution in the Middle East mean that the region has been decidedly cursed with cleaner air. The air was clarified not by any bettering, social, green movements, but by conflict. In this case, the decrease is no sign of progress but a sign of unwavering misery.

Visualizing Air Pollution in the Middle East

Researchers consisted of a team of atmospheric scientists led by Jos Lelieveld. His team uncovered that in the region, nitrogen oxide emissions were experiencing a steady rise until 2010. What happened next is the exact opposite.

NASA’s Aura research satellite had a hand in obtaining atmospheric data for the scientists with its Ozone Measurement Instrument, hovering 700KM above Earth’s surface. With it, scientists were able to actually visualize nitrogen oxide emissions over cities within the Middle East and compare them with economic data from the World Bank. They were also able to compare these data sets with a timeline of major political events over the region.

The results of their study revealed something blatant, yet disturbing all the same: As war tore life in major Middle Eastern cities apart, air pollution in the Middle East was reduced. Why? Pollution is normally blamed on fossil fuels–driving, power plantations and industrial technologies. When war is all a region knows, how can life continue?

This Time, Reductions in Air Pollution is not a Pro

“It is tragic that some of the observed recent negative NO² trends are associated with humanitarian catastrophes,” researchers opined in their paper.

While it is not exactly accurate to call this reduction of air pollution in the Middle East harmful, the outcome of the study has taken another kind of centerpiece. It has given us a more emotional picture, tugging at shirt folds of human brutality, disheartening to say the least.

What was the Impact of the Quest for Oil in the Middle East?

What was the impact of UN and US sanctions on Iranian Oil? Mobilizing Syrian refugees? The interference of the Islamic State (IS) on Iraq? Though this may not sound commendable, the average advancing nation will see increases in air pollution (e.g. Asia). The Arab Spring’s, beginning in Tunisia, moving haphazardly through the nation, have seen overthrown governing bodies, civil warfare, and a decline in nation’s needs for modern advancement rather than nuclear artillery. Electrical energy was no longer a necessity but something closer to a luxury.

The air pollution in the Middle East declined so greatly due to a combination of air high quality management as well as political elements.

This study was published this week in Science Advances.

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News of the air pollution in the Middle East reveal the damage we are doing to our environment. Mother nature protests:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vD63kwQuZ2I

Lower Air Pollution in the Middle East is Sad

Your Dirty Windows Destroy The Environment - http://clapway.com/2015/08/18/your-dirty-windows-destroy-the-environment123/

Scientists have discovered what many of us have been suspecting: the sun aggravates air pollution and smog levels in cities and your dirty windows do not help at all.

MY DIRTY WINDOWS? YEAP.

Dr. James Donaldson, a University of Toronto chemistry professor and lead author of the study, states that when the sunlight hits overlying dust and grime on surfaces like buildings, statues or dirty windows, it can cause nitrogen gases to discharge and turn into smog.

Related post: China: Air Pollution Kills 1.6 Million People Every Year

“The current understanding of urban air pollution does not include the recycling of nitrogen oxides and potentially other compounds from building surfaces,” Donaldson states. “But based on our field studies in a real-world environment, this is happening.”

HOW DID THEY DO THAT?

On Monday, the team of researchers stated that their experiments verified a hypothesis developed some time before. For their tests, they shined artificial sunlight onto grime samples in order to determine the grime’s effect on chemical output.

The researchers were also able to determine the truth behind the rumor that nitrates in urban filthy areas are inactive. In actuality, they are being removed very quickly: “The lifetime of the nitrates is very, very short,” Dr. Donaldson stated at the conference for American Chemical Society.

The scientists are still working to quantify the extent of sunlight-fueled smog: “It may be quite a significant, and unaccounted for, contributor to air pollution in cities,” Dr. James Donaldson said. He also noted that if his research comes to a suspected conclusion, the understanding of air pollution today would be incomplete: “If our suspicions are correct, it means that the current understanding of urban air pollution is missing a big chunk of information.”

THE EXPERIMENTS IN SHANGAI

Dr. Donaldson announced that he and his team of scientists are in discussion about the commencement of a real-life experiment in Shangai, in an effort to study the influence of varying pollution levels across the world – specifically “in someplace that is ‘really grubby’ and someplace that is ‘really clean.”

Of course, Donaldson is going to take into account weather and climate conditions, in order to discover the various factors that lead sunlit grime to create smog. According to him, what he has found so far in the laboratory experiments indicates that “there could be very different sorts of chemistry happening in dry climates.”

FOR MORE ECOLOGY NEWS, CLICK HERE!

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Air pollution and climate change can rid the world of the beautiful nature that exists around us:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vD63kwQuZ2I

Your Dirty Windows Destroy The Environment

China: Air Pollution Kills 1.6 Million People Every Year - http://clapway.com/2015/08/14/china-air-pollution-kills-1-6-million-people-every-year123/

Breathing in China has become an increasingly dangerous activity. The country’s toxic air problem is responsible for 4,000 deaths a day, mounting up to a staggering 1.6 million every year. This equates to 17% of the total deaths in China.

You Need To Breathe To Survive, But It Can Also Cost You Your Life

Richard Muller, a physicist at the University of California-Berkeley has described the hazardous levels of pollution while he was in Beijing in a recent press release. Every hour of outdoor exposure reduced his life expectancy by 20 minutes. In his own words: “it’s as if every man, woman, and child smoked 1.5 cigarettes each hour.”

Richard Muller, along with physicist and co – worker Robert Rohde have authorized a new paper in the journal PLOS that takes on the pollution problem in China and explores the deadly eventual consequences for human health.

Is There A Solution To The Pollution?

Since China gets about 64% of its primary energy from coal, the country’s authorities have increased public pressure to adopt air quality standards building monitoring stations and shuttering some of its most polluting coal power plants.

The 2022 Winter Olympics, which will be held in Beijing, have led the country’s officials to speed up the fight against pollution taking old vehicles off the streets of Beijing and closing two coal-fired power plants.

Concerns For The U.S?

In the U.S, the highest level of particle pollution is located in Fresno-Madera, California. The American Lung Association claims that the area hits unhealthy heights 47 days a year, but as Rohde told the Associated Press (AP), “99.9 percent of the eastern half of China has a higher annual average for small particle haze than Madera.”

According to a 2013 study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 200,000 early deaths are caused by air pollution in the U.S, which is thought to be the tenth most problematic risk factor for early death, after causes such as smoking and a poor diet.

In China, air pollution is only the fourth most common risk factor for death after diet, high blood pressure and smoking.

Why Should I Care?

China’s air pollution problem is causing citizens to be at an increasingly great heath risk. They may or may not live in the same country as you, but they matter. What’s more, a study published this week in the Nature Geoscience journal says that ozone from China has been traveling towards the western U.S. This is a global concern that requires everyone to help, before it’s too late.

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China: Air Pollution Kills 1.6 Million People Every Year

NASA Invests Millions in Green Supersonic Travel - http://clapway.com/2015/06/08/nasa-invests-millions-in-green-supersonic-travel-567/

Interesting0

NASA has recently announced that it will be spending over $6 million on research meant to look into cheap, eco-friendly supersonic travel. The administration hope to produce an airplane sort of like the Concorde, but much less damaging to the environment. NASA has stated that if the research goes well, we should see supersonic commercial planes by 2030, with business-size supersonic jets coming in as early as 2025.

 

Research has a number of goals in mind.

 

There were many problems that plagued the last supersonic commercial jet, the Concorde, which had its last flight in November, 2003. One of them was the fact that they were extremely noisy machines, especially when heard from the ground near their flight paths. That’s why part of the upcoming research will be dealing with new ways of making a much quieter plane, including the reduction of sonic boom sounds. NASA claims to have already had success with past sonic boom reduction research.

 

One important goal is keeping the new plane environmentally friendly.

 

 

A more alarming problem with the Concorde was its air pollution. Since it flew higher and burned more fuel (though for a shorter period of time) than other aircraft, the Concorde polluted the upper parts of the atmosphere and threatened the ozone layer more than a typical commercial jet. So, predictably, a lot of the research money is going towards the goal of making this Concorde successor greener.

 

New jet will need to be cheaper in order to be viable.

The commercial jet that will be spawned from this project will likely have to cost less than the Concorde did. The Concorde’s flights, though more expensive than regular commercial flights, were still costing more money than Air France could make from them. The Concorde was essentially kept going more or less as a source of national pride for France. This will not be an option for the upcoming supersonic commercial jet, as it will need to be economically viable. Hopefully, all goes according to plan, and we will see a brighter future in commercial flying. Much faster flights with as little environmental impact as possible is something we can all look forward to.

Interesting0

NASA Invests Millions in Green Supersonic Travel