Tag Archives: smog

Industry Approved Actions to Spare Your Air, Lungs, and Brain

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If only the air was this good all the time!

If only the air was in the blue range all the time!

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Sometimes summer air just plain sucks. It can and does cause all kinds of health problems. Here then are some tips from Air Quality Ontario on what we humans can do to reduce our exposure to harmful pollutants and our impact on outdoor air.
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Note that none of these suggestions are enforceable. They are entirely voluntary for those of us who manage to learn of their existence. Many of us only find out about these tips once we are so adversely affected by pollutants that we couldn’t do these things even if we wanted to, which means the tips are most useful for the people who aren’t personally affected enough (yet) to understand the need for them.
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(reducing industry impacts on air will just have to wait until enough of us demand it)
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During a Special Air Quality Statement, there are a number of actions that you can take to help spare the air:

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Your Brain Breathes Too

Pollution affects our brains!
Glad some neuroscientists are finally taking this more seriously!

Knowing Neurons

I live in Los Angeles and it’s unfortunate, but true, that the brown cloud of smog hanging over our city is as much an icon of LA as the Hollywood hills.  My morning bike commute is spent sucking on the tailpipes of my fellow Angelenos, and it turns out this doesn’t just make me cranky.  A recent article published in Neurotoxicology suggests that those of us who live in urban environments are much more likely to experience cognitive decline with age.  The culprit?  Air pollution.

Your Brain Breathes Too by Knowing Neurons

While air pollution is generally thought of as a modern problem, humans have evolved to handle polluted air from sources such as forest fires and volcanic eruptions.  Coughing removes large particles from the lung, while macrophages, a type of immune cell, are responsible for engulfing and degrading small particles.  However, some particles are so small that they can penetrate the lung wall, and gaseous…

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