BiotechMashup

In a surprise with implications for air quality, researchers have found that chemistry involving airborne chloride, thought to be restricted to sea spray, occurs at similar rates in air above Boulder, Colo., nearly 900 miles away from any ocean.

A search team has located the wreckage of Air France Flight 447 some 3,900 meters, or nearly 2.5 miles, below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean off Brazil's northeastern coast.

(University of Colorado at Boulder) Bacteria from fecal material -- in particular, dog fecal material -- may constitute the dominant source of airborne bacteria in Cleveland's and Detroit's wintertime air, says a new University of Colorado Boulder study.

(University of Nevada, Reno) A new air-quality measuring instrument invented by Pat Arnott and Ian Arnold of the University of Nevada, Reno that is more economical, more portable and more accurate than older technologies has been licensed for commercial development by Droplet Measurement Technologies of Boulder, Colo.

A new mobile air research laboratory will help a team of researchers better understand the damaging health effects of air pollution and why certain airborne particles -- emitted from industrial plants and vehicles -- induce disease and illness.

(University of Utah) At times this winter, the greater Salt Lake City area has harbored the most polluted air in the United States. Now, researchers from the University of Utah and other institutions are starting a three-year, $1.3 million study to better understand the winter weather "inversion" conditions frequently associated with poor air quality.

(Michigan State University) A new mobile air research laboratory will help a team of researchers led by a Michigan State University professor better understand the damaging health effects of air pollution and why certain airborne particles -- emitted from plants and vehicles -- induce disease and illness.

(University of Colorado at Boulder) It's no secret that the emissions leaving a car tailpipe or factory smokestack affect climate and air quality. Even trees release chemicals that influence the atmosphere. But until now, scientists have struggled to know where these organic molecules go and what happens to them once they leave their source, leading to models for predicting climate and air quality that are incomplete or less than accurate.

(National Science Foundation) Vegetation plays an unexpectedly large role in cleansing the atmosphere, a new study finds.The research, led by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., uses observations, gene expression studies, and computer modeling to show that deciduous plants absorb about a third more of a common class of air-polluting chemicals than previously thought.