{"id":273912,"date":"2010-02-03T10:30:39","date_gmt":"2010-02-03T15:30:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.epa.gov\/blog\/?p=1305"},"modified":"2010-02-03T10:30:39","modified_gmt":"2010-02-03T15:30:39","slug":"science-wednesday-onair-tunneling-for-air-pollution-answers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/273912","title":{"rendered":"Science Wednesday: OnAir: Tunneling for Air Pollution Answers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 3px 0px 5px 5px\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.epa.gov\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/07\/sw3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"97\" height=\"150\" \/><em>Each week we write about the science behind environmental protection. <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.epa.gov\/blog\/category\/sciencewednesday\/\">Previous Science Wednesdays.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Lately, John Godleski has spent a lot of time underground.<\/p>\n<p>When I visited Harvard in December though, he surfaced for a chat with me about his unique research.<\/p>\n<p>Along with colleagues at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hsph.harvard.edu\/epacenter\/\">Harvard Particulate Matter Research Center<\/a>, Godleski has set up air pollution monitoring equipment inside a busy tunnel in the Northeast.<\/p>\n<p>Part of the <a href=\"http:\/\/cfpub.epa.gov\/ncer_abstracts\/index.cfm\/fuseaction\/display.abstractDetail\/abstract\/7771\">Toxicological Evaluation of Realistic Emission Source Aerosol<\/a>, his study aims to assess differences between the health effects of exposure to particles directly from car exhaust (primary), and particles from exhaust that have transformed in the atmosphere (secondary).<\/p>\n<p>The underlying hypothesis of the project is that breathing in particles that come directly from a vehicle might induce different health effects than breathing in particles that have spent time in the atmosphere, where they come into contact with sunlight.<\/p>\n<p>To test the hypothesis, Godleski and his colleagues developed a photochemical aging chamber that essentially mimics real-world atmospheric conditions with simulated sunlight.<\/p>\n<p>Exhaust from cars is fed into the chamber first with the artificial sun-lights switched to \u201coff\u201d and to then to \u201con.\u201d This produces two types of output: exhaust with just primary particles (lights off), and exhaust with both primary and secondary particles (lights on).<\/p>\n<p>Project scientists then conduct lab studies to look for differences in resulting health outcomes.<\/p>\n<p>Preliminary findings suggest that the \u201clights on\u201d particles, representing particles that have come into contact with sunlight, cause more lung inflammation and more potentially harmful oxidative activity in the body.<\/p>\n<p>Since secondary particles in the air are ubiquitous, understanding their health impacts is extremely important.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThough some people are involved in what directly comes out of a vehicle or a power plant, everybody is exposed to what happens to those particles once they are in the air,\u201d Godleski explained.<\/p>\n<p>Collection of exhaust particles directly from the tunnel makes this study especially representative of real-world particle exposure.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf we go to a tunnel,\u201d he continued, \u201cwe can get a mixture of vehicle output\u2014we can get cars, we can get trucks, and we can get something very representative of what people ultimately may breathe. It gives us access to a mixed vehicle effluent in a way that nothing else does.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This research is a critical step toward understanding the health effects of real-world airborne particle exposure. We will continue to report findings as Godleski continues to dig for answers.<\/p>\n<p><em>About the Author: Becky Fried is a student contractor with EPA\u2019s National Center for Environmental Research. Her OnAir posts are a regular \u201cScience Wednesday\u201d feature.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Each week we write about the science behind environmental protection. Previous Science Wednesdays. Lately, John Godleski has spent a lot of time underground. When I visited Harvard in December though, he surfaced for a chat with me about his unique research. Along with colleagues at the Harvard Particulate Matter Research Center, Godleski has set up [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-273912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273912\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}