When ethanol prices at the pump rise for whatever reason, it becomes economically advantageous for drivers of dual-fuel vehicles to fill up with gasoline. However, the health of the entire population pays a high price: substitution of gasoline for ethanol leads to a 30% increase in the atmospheric concentration of ultrafine particulate matter, which consists of particles with a diameter of less than 50 nanometers (nm).

In 2011 a team of researchers led by Vasilii Petrenko, an assistant professor of Earth and environmental sciences at the University of Rochester, spent seven weeks in Antarctica collecting and studying 2,000-pound samples of glacial ice cores that date back nearly 12,000 years. The ancient air trapped within the ice revealed surprising new data about methane that may help inform today’s policymakers as they consider ways to reduce global warming.

Study on U.S. Glacial Aquifer and 3 Asian countries suggests officials should monitor manganese as a possible public health threat.

The research shows that an additional road built within five kilometres increases the probability that a mother experiences an infant death by three percentage points from 8.5 per cent to 11.5 per cent The research team also found that children under the age of five living near a recently built road have a lower level of haemoglobin in the blood and are more likely to suffer from severe anaemia.

French researchers have patented an eco-friendly liquid mixture that could help trap harmful pollutants from the air. The non-flammable solvent contains urea and choline salt, a common ingredient in chicken feed, says Leila Moura of the Unité de Chimie Environnementale et Interactions sur le Vivant in France. She is the lead author of a study in Springer’s journal Environmental Chemistry Letters. 

In recent decades, change has defined our environment in the United States. Agriculture intensified. Urban areas sprawled. The climate warmed. Intense rainstorms became more common. But, says a new University of Wisconsin–Madison study, while those kinds of changes usually result in poor water quality, lakes have surprisingly stayed the same.

In the megacities that are home to nearly 10 percent of the world's 7.5 billion people, trees provide each city with more than $500 million each year in services that make urban environments cleaner, more affordable and more pleasant places to live.

In a recent study published in the online journal Ecological Modelling, an international team of researchers reported that in the 10 megacities they studied, tree-based ecosystem benefits had a median annual value of $505 million, which is equivalent to $1.2 million per square kilometer of trees. From another perspective, the value was $35 per capita for the average megacity resident.

Pollution is a greater global threat than Ebola and HIV, according to warnings by the World Health Organisation. 

According to its recent report, one in four deaths among children aged under five are now due to environmental hazards such as air pollution and contaminated water.

Previously this year, air pollution levels in London were worse than those in Beijing for a brief period - with the UK capital's pollutants frequently breaking UK limits. 

Researchers have discovered a new reaction mechanism that could be used to improve catalyst designs for pollution-control systems to further reduce emissions of smog-causing nitrogen oxides in diesel exhaust.

Bumblebees are less able to start colonies when exposed to a common neonicotinoid pesticide, according to a new University of Guelph study.

Prof. Nigel Raine has discovered that exposure to thiamethoxam reduces the chances of a bumblebee queen starting a new colony by more than one-quarter.