In Case You Missed It

By Jeff Pierce

Will switching to electric vehicles contribute to significant reductions in particulate matter?

A recent study showed that most particulate-matter mass emissions from internal-combustion vehicles comes from brakes, tires, and road dust in countries with regulated emissions from engines. Thus, moving to electric vehicles may only lead to small reductions in particulate-matter mass emissions from the vehicles.
http://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/electric-car-particulate-matter/

 

Funding for research on climate geoengineering via aerosols is being debated in US congress.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/04/fight-global-warming-senate-calls-study-making-earth-reflect-more-light

 

A large wildfire near Ft. McMurray, Alberta, Canada released a large amount of particles into the atmosphere, impacting large regions of North America. Here is a collection of images from space showing the magnitude of the smoke.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/canadian-wildfires-as-seen-from-space-1462898835

 

Aerosol physics underlies research on the spread of airbornecommunicable diseases.
http://www.nature.com/news/the-snot-spattered-experimentsthat-show-how-far-sneezes-really-spread-1.19996