Tuesday, October 9, 2012

We're breathing this stuff in


From the Daily News:

Big Apple air is a bizarre brew of bacteria, pollen, clothing fiber, fungus, tire rubber, dead skin cells, cooking fat and carbon emissions.

The truth of exactly what New Yorkers breathe comes courtesy of air expert Bill Logan, who grabbed a “spore sucker” of his own design and joined the Daily News for a tour of the city.

The results might surprise you.

Yes, there’s the expected pollution in midtown and the South Bronx, and neighborhoods with lots of trees tend to have pollen and fungus in the air. But each breath you take — about 33,000 a day — also might include spores, bacteria, pollens, tiny bits of glass, starch and fat.

Queens’ famous diversity is mirrored by its air: Samples taked at 94th St. near 23d Ave. in East Elmhurst turned up a huge array of rust spores, a fungus. They could have come from grass, a nearby pine tree, or “something succulent and living,” Logan said.

Tiny bits of colorful glass, maybe from airplanes taking off or landing at nearby LaGuardia Airport, also appeared on Logan’s slides — and Elmhurst had its fair amount of carbon, tire rubber, starch and even teeny bits of insect exoskeleton.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

how about underground in the subway?
bet you find steel dust in the air.
some subway stations are horrible, humid while other ones have good ventilation. there's probably a lot of mold and animal feces in the subway air now that rats are living in the heating ducts on the trains.
glad I live where the air is fresh and clean.

Anonymous said...

No wonder we see Asians wearing face masks
around Floo-shing.

They're already wise to this. I might be doing the same.

Anonymous said...

Hmmmmm.....
I wonder how much aluminum oxide, barium, and strontium turned up in the mix!

Anonymous said...

"Rust" fungi produce aflatoxin, the most cancerous substance known to man.

Anonymous said...

We are poisoning our planet, in pursuit of "progress".

Think of what it's like living in over polluted China.
We live in a veritable paradise, by comparison.