Codename: Pigeon Air PatrolLast week I wrote about the Peruvian government’s use of vultur
Codename: Pigeon Air PatrolLast week I wrote about the Peruvian government’s use of vultures to combat illegal dumping in Lima (see story here: http://bit.ly/1UZXRkN). Earlier this month, London took a leaf out of their book and employed pigeons to monitor air pollution.Big cities equal big pollution, and London is pretty bad. It’s made headlines historically, with the Great Smog of 1952 (which resulted in over 4000 deaths). The problem just keeps growing alongside our burgeoning population. Last year it was reported that an estimated 9,400 people die each year from London’s air pollution. The successful ingenuity of Lima’s vulture team made the pigeon air patrol initiative seem extra promising.For a few days, the pigeons were equipped with tiny backpacks able to monitor levels of nitrogen dioxide and other ozone gases. The pigeons - or, okay, their backpacks - then responded to requests on Twitter with local pollution readings. If you were headed to a particular place in the city, all you had to do was send a tweet to @pigeonair, and a pigeon would respond with a reading. Awesome.The pigeons are back at their roost for now, but Pigeon Air Patrol is part of a larger project which aims to create a live air map of London. Beta testing is currently underway for a wearable device (for humans) that performs in much the same way as the pigeons’ tiny backpacks. You can find out more (and participate!) here: http://bit.ly/1Uzb2sz and here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AioUbxrAyaA.VPReferences: http://bit.ly/1Uzb2szhttp://pigeonairpatrol.com/Image: http://cnn.it/1RpG8C8 -- source link
#science#pigeon#air pollution#research#london#chemistry#nitrogen#ozone#twitter