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News tagged with pollutant

Kitchen exhaust fans vary in effectiveness in reducing indoor air pollution

(Phys.org) -- Cooking exhaust hoods designed for home kitchens vary widely in their ability to capture and vent away the air pollutants generated by the gas burners on cook stoves, according to a study by ...

Chemistry / Other

created May 31, 2012 | popularity 2 / 5 (1) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

A genetic alternative to fertilizer

Several studies have shown that a lack of nitrogen in soils adversely affects crop yields. The modern use of nitrogen fertilizers has improved yields to meet expanding global food demand, but in some cases ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Jun 01, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Winds of change for pollution sensing

(Phys.org) -- The Great Smog of London is often upheld as a time when pollution reached appalling levels: over a four-day period in December 1952, the capital came to a standstill, cars were abandoned, airports ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created Jun 01, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 1

Silkmoth inspires novel explosive detector

Imitating the antennas of the silkmoth, Bombyx mori, to design a system for detecting explosives with unparalleled performance is the feat achieved by a French research team. Made up of a silicon microcantilever ...

Chemistry / Analytical Chemistry

created Jun 01, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 0

Farm ponds cut agricultural water pollution

The reintroduction of farm ponds could significantly reduce agricultural pollution in our streams and rivers, according to new research.

Space & Earth / Environment

created Jun 01, 2012 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (3) | comments 0

Light pollution transforming insect communities

(Phys.org) -- Street lighting is transforming communities of insects and other invertebrates, according to research by the University of Exeter. Published today in the journal Biology Letters, the study shows ...

Biology / Ecology

created May 23, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Using graphene, scientists develop a less toxic way to rust-proof steel

(Phys.org) -- University at Buffalo researchers are making significant progress on rust-proofing steel using a graphene-based composite that could serve as a nontoxic alternative to coatings that contain hexavalent ...

Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials

created May 18, 2012 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (6) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Beetle-infested pine trees contribute more to air pollution and haze in forests

The hordes of bark beetles that have bored their way through more than 6 billion trees in the western U.S. and British Columbia since the 1990s do more than damage and kill stately pine, spruce and other trees. ...

Space & Earth / Environment

created May 23, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Americans support national clean-energy standard: study

The average U.S. citizen is willing to pay 13 percent more for electricity in support of a national clean-energy standard (NCES), according to Yale and Harvard researchers in Nature Climate Change.

Technology / Energy & Green Tech

created May 13, 2012 | popularity 3.2 / 5 (9) | comments 34 | with audio podcast

Mercury in dolphins: Study compares toxin levels in captive and wild sea mammals

Amid growing concerns about the spread of harmful mercury in plants and animals, a new study by researchers from The Johns Hopkins University and The National Aquarium has compared levels of the chemical in ...

Biology / Ecology

created May 21, 2012 | popularity 3.3 / 5 (4) | comments 0

Food crops damaged by pollution crossing continents

(PhysOrg.com) -- Man-made air pollution from North America causes Europe to lose 1.2 million tonnes of wheat a year, a new study has found.

Biology / Other

created Jan 30, 2012 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (17) | comments 21 | with audio podcast

Shake, rattle and ... power up? A new MEMS device generates energy from small vibrations

Today's wireless-sensor networks can do everything from supervising factory machinery to tracking environmental pollution to measuring the movement of buildings and bridges. Working together, distributed sensors ...

Physics / General Physics

created Sep 14, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

'Warming hole' delayed climate change over eastern United States: study

Climate scientists at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have discovered that particulate pollution in the late 20th century created a "warming hole" over the eastern United States—that ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Apr 26, 2012 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (24) | comments 197 | with audio podcast

Rising air pollution worsens drought, flooding, study shows

Increases in air pollution and other particulate matter in the atmosphere can strongly affect cloud development in ways that reduce precipitation in dry regions or seasons, while increasing rain, snowfall ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Nov 13, 2011 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (9) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

How to see the best meteor showers of 2012: Tools, tips and 'save the dates'

(PhysOrg.com) -- Whether you're watching from a downtown area or the dark countryside, here are some tips to help you enjoy these celestial shows of shooting stars. Those streaks of light are really caused ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Jan 02, 2012 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (15) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Pollutant

A pollutant is a waste material that pollutes air, water or soil, and is the cause of pollution.

Three factors determine the severity of a pollutant: its chemical nature, its concentration and its persistence. Some pollutants are biodegradable and therefore will not persist in the environment in the long term. However the degradation products of some pollutants are themselves polluting such as the products DDE and DDD produced from degradation of DDT

For more information about Pollutant, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.