This summer, surfers and swimmers will risk more than sunburn — the ocean could make them sick. UCI researchers are testing the waters and working to improve the detection, identification, measurement and elimination of coastal pollutants. Sunny Jiang, a UC Irvine researcher studying pollution in Orange County’s coastal waters, recently got a graphic look at how swimming and surfing in the ocean can make people sick. She and a team of graduate students charted incidents of poor water quality...

By Jyllian N. Kemsley C&EN, Chemical & Engineering News Researchers delve into the unknowns of airborne particulates that affect health and climate When it comes to the quality of Earth’s atmosphere and the overall temperature of the globe, much of the discussion focuses on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, such as methane and nitrous oxide. But another component of the atmosphere, suspended particles known as organic aerosols, plays a similarly important role. Ranging...

Steve Baragona | Washington, DCVOANews.com New research suggests agriculture has greatly increased the amount of dust blowing off of West Africa, the world’s largest source of atmospheric dust, and may have been one factor driving the decrease in rainfall in the region over the past several centuries. Dust is more than a housekeeping nuisance. To climate scientists, dust is a force of nature. It’s the most abundant particle in the atmosphere, and it reflects sunlight and heat.  The...

By Lauren DiPerna, Orange County Register Gulf oil spill is bubbling up and polluting the air with fuel-vapor contaminants, according to UC Irvine researchers who captured air samples as their plane flew above the disaster zone. While scientists are still assessing the chemical concentrations in their samples, they have found traces of  the material that makes up crude oil — long-chain hydrocarbons, as well as aromatic compounds, such as benzene, toluene, and xylene, all known...

By David Walsh, http://www.wsws.org For 75 days now, crude oil has been gushing into the Gulf of Mexico from the wreck of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. While BP and the US government have done everything possible to downplay and obscure the amount of oil that has spilled out, estimates range as high as 150,000,000 to 200,000,000 gallons. The consequences will be incalculable. The BP spill is one of the worst ecological catastrophes in history, and yet now it barely makes the front pages...

UC Irvine professor William Cooper follows the trail of plastic debris that’s spreading from the coast to the deep sea. Kathryn Bold, University Communications On a clear spring day at Crystal Cove State Park, UC Irvine professor William Cooper and undergraduate Tova Handelman sift though a mound of seaweed and sand, oblivious to the curious stares of beachgoers. They’re too busy studying trash. “Look at all this plastic!” says Cooper, picking out a pellet no bigger than a grain...

By Margot Roosevelt, LA Times Public outrage over the BP oil spill fouling the Gulf of Mexico has focused on water pollution. But an air pollution health threat may also be serious, according to UCI researchers. A team of UCI scientists, including Nobel laureate F. Sherwood Rowland and Chemistry department Chairman Donald Blake, has detected concentrations of toxic chemicals such as alkyl nitrates, methane, hexane and butane compounds that can irritate or burn skin and eyes or cause dizziness,...