
Urban Air Pollutants Can Damage IQs before Baby's First Breath - jacquesm
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=urban-air-pollutants-can-damage-iqs-before-babys-first-breath
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jacobolus
_“Instead, she tries to empower herself. She avoids walking through exhaust,
doesn’t use pesticides, buys organic foods, shuts her windows to keep air
pollution outdoors and uses air filters in her home.”_

Does it seem to anyone else like maybe this woman should move somewhere else,
instead of trying to isolate her house from its immediate surroundings?

As for the study, isn’t it likely that IQs of children from different parts of
a city are likely to be shaped by many factors other than just air quality?

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maukdaddy
Even worse:

A lot of household items are made from chemicals that off-gas. Shutting your
home might actually make the indoor air quality WORSE than if you opened
windows to ventilate.

See: <http://www.epa.gov/iaq/>

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adzp
Why are people voting this up? This article makes no mention of a control
group and many factors can contribute to low iq. I am basically echoing
several comments made on the article itself because they are valid.

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ars
Is it me, or has the quality of Scientific American gone down significantly in
the last year?

This is not the first article with problems like this I've read there. Maybe
it's just the blog postings?

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ars
Why do they call them fossil fuels? They are hydrocarbons.

If I burn plant derived ethanol the same hazards exist.

The term "fossil fuel" should be made obsolete.

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Alex3917
"If I burn plant derived ethanol the same hazards exist."

You are claiming that burning alcohol releases fine particulates?

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ars
Of course. Why wouldn't it?

Remember you are not burning it with a nice flame, you are exploding it. You
don't always have complete combustion.

And fine particulates are not the only hazard, there is also ozone which is
catalyzed by VOC in the air, and ethanol is a VOC.

You also get NOx which is caused simply by high temperatures in an engine, and
ethanol is no different.

