12 ms·

Air pollution causes ‘huge’ reduction in intelligence: study

283 points by neverminder 8y ago

snarfybarfy 8y ago
Reminds me of the studies that claim that putting lead in our petrol for decades also decreased the average IQ globally by 2-3 points.
OnlyRepliesToBS 8y ago
airborne metals cause brain autophagia
dzdt 8y ago
It is interesting to me that they use years of education as a measure of intelligence. As an American I am more used to thinking of intelligence as an innate, almost fixed characteristic (IQ). In that view education increases knowledge and skills but isn't expected to much affect general intelligence. But to this article's authors, "intelligence" is increased by education, so harmful effects of pollution can be measured in years of education lost. Is there a general cultural difference in how intelligence is thought of in China as opposed to the US?
- code_duck 8y ago
  Are IQ tests truly generalized and accessible enough that education doesn’t affect one’s performance? Personally, I’ve been exposed to years of standardized testing in the educational system and developed skills specifically at taking tests.
  - informatimago 8y ago
    The fact that you developed those skills shows that you've got a few IQ points... Some other may not have them.
    - lihaciudaniel 8y ago
      But the point isn't to develop skill but see your brain natural talent of resolving complex problems, mastery of one own psychology is advantageous also.
    - Filligree 8y ago
      Which is besides the point. Yes, having higher intelligence often means you'll benefit more from practice, but GP was asking of the tests were good enough that there's no practice benefit at all. Which is false.
  - arethuza 8y ago
    Yes, as a young kid I had an older sibling who was studying educational psychology so I spent a lot of time doing "intelligence" tests - I just thought they were interesting puzzles and didn't realise I was being continually tested.
- Tharkun 8y ago
  What gave you the impression that IQ is fixed or innate? It's neither nature nor nurture, it's both.
  - informatimago 8y ago
    It's both fixed and innate. Education can stretch it a little, but it benefits more high IQs than low IQs. (It's fixed, but stretchable, and you can squeeze it, with stress, hunger, poverty, etc).
    - sametmax 8y ago
      I'd like 20cc of study with that statement, given that brain plasticity can change radically the way your brain works all your life. Also, accidents can alter the brain and lower your IQ, so are you saying you can go down but not up ?
      - mockingbirdy 8y ago
        > so are you saying you can go down but not up You have a specific amount of neurons and a lot of them die every day. The body doesn't produce them like other cells after a certain age threshold (age 21 IIRC, also depends on the individual). - Although this theory is currently on the edge of being disproved, it's clear that adult brains are not producing many of them. Training and experience can compensate this loss, but the general cognitive capacity gets reduced each day. Pretty depressive to think about it, but maybe we'll be able to use stem cell research to change this in the future. edit: I don't want to state this as definitive facts. The field of neurogenesis is currently heavily researched and there are some hints that adult brains might be able to produce new neurons. See https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-the-adult-brain-really-grow-new-neurons/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-the-adult-br... for a discussion. What I think is most likely is that we lose 10x times the amount of neurons that we create each day, so even if it's producing new ones, the rate of death is higher.
      - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
        Heritability of IQ is the term you're looking for. Wiki has a page on it here [1]. The numbers have not been pinned down and it was previously thought to be as low as 57%, but recent studies tend to show heritability rates upwards of 80%. There are a lot of complex issues that make study difficult. For instance there's the paradoxical issue that childhood IQ can be somewhat meaningfully influenced by environment, yet that notwithstanding, as children approach adolescence and especially adulthood their IQ becomes ever more a product of genetics. That said environment obviously does play some role, but that role is already a minority player and seems to be getting smaller as we learn more about genetics. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ
- informatimago 8y ago
  No, not really: they're using genetic engineering to breed higher intelligence. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3721991/China-develop-genetically-enhanced-superhumans-experts-predict.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3721991/China... I guess it's more an expression of the point of view of the society, who doesn't care about persons, but about what they can bring to the enterprises. Education is formating workers, and if pollution makes you lose one year of education, that's a lot of money lost.
- arethuza 8y ago
  I must admit that from perspective of the someone from the UK I've never really understood the US obsession with the desire to represent intelligence as a single number.
  - bloak 8y ago
    It's an interesting phenomenon, perhaps worthy of study by propagandists or advertisers. If you tried to claim that a person's physical strength could be measured with a single number people would think you're mad, and probably most people in the world would think the concept of "IQ" is mad, and yet, in some countries, so many people believe in it.
    - throwawaymath 8y ago
      Eh... > If you tried to claim that a person's physical strength could be measured with a single number people would think you're mad I wouldn’t think you’re mad. Many others wouldn’t either. Powerlifting competitions are already close to this. Take your performance across the four major lifts (benchpress, squat, shoulder press, deadlift) and devise a formula to combine it into a total number measuring the “general” strength of a person. You can compete on individual lifts, and if you break out that score some will be better than others at individual lifts, but the larger number remains indicative of well-rounded achievement in orthogonal areas. That being said, I don’t think physical strength is comparable in any case. > probably most people in the world would think the concept of "IQ" is mad, and yet, in some countries, so many people believe in it. I think most people either “believe” in IQ or don’t think about it often enough to have an opinion. In fact skepticism about IQ is, in my experience, a distinct phenomeon on message boards and not at all representative of society in general.
      - deleted 8y ago
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    - madeuptempacct 8y ago
      "If you tried to claim that a person's physical strength could be measured with a single number" Its consistently measured as a single number by the US military - it's just a combination of your performance on several exercises - traditionally pull ups, distance run times, swim times, number of crunches, etc. So, again, fitness is consistently measured as a single number by one of the world's largest organizations. Don't postulate it's absurd. The same aggregation can be done for intelligence.
- Double_Org 8y ago
  Most psychologists wouldn't operationalize intelligence as years of schooling but its common practice in economics and some other fields. In social science research there is often a tradeoff between measurement quality and sampling quality. Do you want to measure your variables really well in a small sample, or measure them crudely in a large sample.
  - taway_1212 8y ago
    > In social science research there is often a tradeoff between measurement quality and sampling quality. Do you want to measure your variables really well in a small sample, or measure them crudely in a large sample. Wouldn't it be honest to just accept the fact that both methods don't provide data that's relevant and trustworthy enough for the research at hand? It sound irresponsible to draw conclusions (that will be picked up by newspapers and eventually policy makers) based on data that does not merit them, only because no beter data is available.
- jackpeterfletch 8y ago
  IQ tests are not generalised measures of innate intelligence at all and your IQ absolutely increases with education. My girlfreind is currently doing a doctorate psychology study, of which a small part is a standardised IQ test (though I dont know which standard; there are several). She asked if she could practice the process on me. There are several sections, but to pick 2. For language acuity, I scored OK. This section basically asked you to define a series of given words. Your knowledge here absolutely would change depending on your environment, job and education. For pattern recognition, I scored fantastically. But I know this is because of years of studying geometry in math classes. I know exactly what my thought processes were, "Count the vertexs, count the edges, count the bisections, are some things odd, are some things even, do some things add together, do the shapes mirror once/twice, are they rotated". I know exactly where I picked those ideas up. In the UK you can drop Maths and English/Creative Writing at 17. If you finish a pHD at 26 you havent regularly explored those ideas in near on 10 years, but you absolutely could still achieve it, so I do think its a better measure.
  - sixstringbudha 8y ago
    > your IQ absolutely increases with education. Then I am not sure if it is actually measuring intelligence.
    - yorwba 8y ago
      Only if you want "intelligence" to be a fixed characteristic of a person. Which would be a strange requirement, since other characteristics can and do change a lot, especially with a targeted effort to change them.
      - sixstringbudha 8y ago
        > since other characteristics can and do change a lot, especially with a targeted effort to change them. Some attributes can be changed, some, on the other hand, not so much.
- emiliobumachar 8y ago
  "The new work [...] analysed language and arithmetic tests conducted as part of the China Family Panel Studies on 20,000 people across the nation between 2010 and 2014. The scientists compared the test results with records of nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide pollution." While I admittedly did not read the science paper, the newspaper indicates that they used test scores as the actual number, and the "cognitive drop equivalent to one year of education" phrase is just a way to explain the results, presumably anchored by how people in different school grades score in those tests.
- emiliobumachar 8y ago
  > First, on a population level IQ is very stable with age. Over a study of 87,498 Scottish children, age 11 IQ and adult IQ correlated at 0.66 [1], about as strong and impressive a correlation as you’ll ever find in the social sciences. But “correlation of 0.66” is also known as “only predicts 44% of the variance”. On an individual level, it is totally possible and not even that surprising to have an IQ of 100 at age 11 but 120 at age 30, or vice versa. Any IQ score you got before high school should be considered a plausible prediction about your adult IQ and nothing more. Quoted from http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/27/against-individual-iq-worries/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/27/against-individual-iq-w... Ref [1] is https://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-barry-kaufman/intelligence-is-still-not_b_1078112.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-barry-kaufman/intellige...
  - chrisweekly 8y ago
    34, not 44, right?
    - learnstats2 8y ago
      The parent is using the common definition of R^2, i.e. 0.66^2 = 0.44
    - umanwizard 8y ago
      Does a correlation of 1 mean it predicts none of the variance?
- Scarblac 8y ago
  I think the thinking is that getting many years of education is desirable for almost everybody (it generally leads to better careers later in life, etc), but that only those who possess sufficient intelligence get the chance to pursue higher education. So there's a high correlation, and it's much easier to measure than IQ.
- sixstringbudha 8y ago
  > It is interesting to me that they use years of education as a measure of intelligence. I had a similar reaction when I read that line. I mean how does one correlate number of years of education to intelligence, which is already a somewhat abstract concept. That is like saying "If you wear this makeup, your partner will love you as if they were married to you twice as long"..
- sophistication 8y ago
  According to this study, one year of education translates to 1 to 5 IQ points: https://psyarxiv.com/kymhp/ https://psyarxiv.com/kymhp/
  - madeuptempacct 8y ago
    I read the abstract - supposedly they are aware of, and try to eliminate correlation, but I am unconvinced: We know that maintenance keeps intelligence from declining, could be what's happening here.
    - sophistication 8y ago
      It does not matter here whether it is correlation because whatever the pollution study is referring to, it will likely involve the same correlation.
- another-cuppa 8y ago
  Yeah that struck me as odd too (and I'm not American). I think a year of school makes me more educated, but not more intelligent.
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black_puppydog 8y ago
> The study followed the same individuals as air pollution varied from one year to the next, meaning that many other possible causal factors such as genetic differences are automatically accounted for. That's already much better than what I had feared. Not perfect, of course, but better than the usual "corellation == causation" journalism.
stochastic_monk 8y ago
This is no surprise to people who have lived in Salt Lake City. During the winter, as a consequence of inversion (pollutants being trapped in the mountain basin), it becomes the most polluted city in North America. During this time, resident IQs also drop. [0] [0] http://health.utah.gov/enviroepi/healthyhomes/epht/AirPollution_PublicHealth.pdf http://health.utah.gov/enviroepi/healthyhomes/epht/AirPollut...
- mockingbirdy 8y ago
  > During this time Do they perform on the normal level after the pollution? That would be a hint that the results of the IQ tests just temporarily drop (I would be careful to say that the intelligence dropped).
  - stochastic_monk 8y ago
    Correct. To be clear, this is a reversible and temporary response to the air quality.
    - mockingbirdy 8y ago
      This puts the article in perspective. If people leave the polluted area, they'll restore their normal intelligence. When I hear "reduction in intelligence", I immediately think that they talk about permanent reduction (because a big part of fluid intelligence is genetics, the efficiency of synapses and the amount of neurons - although some research [1] indicates that nurture and training can have significant effects on fluid intelligence). It's unclear if they talk about permanent and irreversible damage IMO. For me it seems like they want to frame it that way which could be a bit clickbait-y depending on the matter of facts. [1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2383939/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2383939/
      - yorwba 8y ago
        From the study TFA is based on (on Sci-Hub: https://sci-hub.tw/http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/08/21/1809474115 https://sci-hub.tw/http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/08... ) First, in general, air pollution inhibits respondents ’ test performance. Except for the effects of 1-d and 7-d air pollution exposure on math test scores (first and second columns in panel B), all of the coefficients for mean APIs over a longer period are negative and statistically significant. Second, the damage of air pollution on cognitive performance is more sizable when using longer window of exposure measure. As shown at the bottom in panel A, an increase in the 7-d-mean API by 1 SD lowers verbal test scores by 0.278 point (0.026 SD), while a 1 SD increase in average API over 3 y before the interview is associated with 1.132 points (0.108 SD) drop in verbal test scores. Third, air pollution exposure appears to exert a more negative effect on verbal test performance than math test performance. That doesn't imply that the effect is irreversible, but it does mean that there are long-term changes which accumulate with longer exposure to air pollution.
geomark 8y ago
There was a recent large scale study that claims PM2.5 levels present in cities have a significant effect on healthy children's lung capacity, that by the age of eight children who live within 100 meters of a busy street have a 6% reduction in lung capacity compared to those who don't. Now this study. Jeesh. I am particular interested in these studies because my family lives in a very clean rural mountainous area in Thailand and my son is attending a pretty good international school here. But I am considering moving him to a bigger and better school in Bangkok - a dirty, polluted, congested city. If this study is true then am I really gaining anything? The difficult tradeoff was health impact for improved educational opportunity. But if the pollution equates to a one year loss of education then maybe there is little to no gain.
- semi-extrinsic 8y ago
  Neglecting the air quality etc., is there any specific reason to believe you would gain anything by moving your son to another school at this age? Personally, I think that a much better move is to stay where you are and instead save up to fund a one-year exchange to a prestigious international university when he's been at some national university for a couple of years. AFAIK many prestigious universities accept almost an unlimited number of international exchange students, as long as they can pay the tuition fees.
  - geomark 8y ago
    I've been wrestling with this for a while. First issue with the school is the quality of classmates. It is a small school with small classes, which is good, right? Except there are only six students in his class this year and his classmates are generally low achievers, poor English speakers, and pretty lousy friends. I want him to be surrounded by high achievers and have some choices when it comes to friends. Seems unlikely that will ever happen at this school. Second issue is that the school is pretty stagnant. At a time when international schools in Thailand are booming, adding new campuses and programs every year, this school is just plodding along with its old tired facilities and pathetic extracurricular offerings. I've been trying to make up for that with lots of after school activities like having our own little Maker Space, doing robotics, and visiting the museums and children's activity centers in Thailand which are very good. But he doesn't get to do that stuff with kids his age because of issue number one. I was a volunteer judge earlier this year at a robotics competition held at one of the international schools in Bangkok. I got to see what a number of schools are doing and it is pretty impressive. One of the schools I particularly like has a STEM program in association with MIT, and a performing arts program in association with Juilliard. They are also introducing robotics into the primary curriculumn this year. Impressive stuff. I'm planning to do as you suggested but that is still a number of years away. Need to figure out what I'm going to do near term. And moving to Bangkok just seems so painful. Ok, enough of this long winded personal issues rant.
bobbyadamson 8y ago
> Chen said air pollution was most likely to be the cause of the loss of intelligence, rather than simply being a correlation. Why? You can't just say that and expect people to trust you. The fact that they followed the same people may reduce the chances of certain DNA traits having an effect but how does that rule out other commonalities in environmental conditions. If you're in a polluted city it seems likely that you're in a large city. So do all the common traits of a large city also reduce your intelligence? I want to read the study but I don't want to subscribe. If there is logical proof in the study that this is not simply a correlation, the guardian piece does not represent it.
- carlmr 8y ago
  The Guardian is headquartered in London, which is a major polluted city, maybe the effects are becoming visible.
  - contingencies 8y ago
    London is really not that polluted. It rains too much to be very polluted. AQI is currently 88 in the worst areas. In China many cities are often 150-200 range. India is off the charts, my friend who makes commercial air quality sensor arrays said most sensor tech maxes out way below ambient Indian levels and readings cannot therefore be trusted - nobody knows how bad it is. http://aqicn.org/map/london/ http://aqicn.org/map/london/ http://aqicn.org/map/jiyuan http://aqicn.org/map/jiyuan http://aqicn.org/map/delhi http://aqicn.org/map/delhi
  - throwawaymath 8y ago
    That’s vastly insufficient as far as empirical evidence is concerned. There are many things that coincide with pollution, which is what the commenter is saying. You need to demonstrate how you picked out pollution from everything comingled with it. That’s what’s being asked about here. EDIT: Disregard this stuffy reply, my humor detector was off.
    - Vinnl 8y ago
      The response was tongue-in-cheek: the commenter implied that the article was insufficient due to the journalist being less intelligent due to living in a polluted city.
stupidcar 8y ago
What's really amazing to me is when you realise that the UK executive and legislative branches are based in London. MPs, Lords, and often their partners and children are all living and working in an extremely polluted environment for years on end. Even so, with the knowledge that they are seriously harming their own health and the health of their closest relatives, they persist in resisting and blocking attempts at actions to improve air quality in London. Whenever somebody defends the quality of democratic representation in the UK, I just remind myself that these are people who would rather they and their own children suffered illness and premature death than take action that might piss off business and motorist lobbying groups.
- Al-Khwarizmi 8y ago
  I think you're overthinking this a bit. I don't think politicians prefer seeing their children suffering illness and premature death rather than pissing off lobbies. The real problem is that most people see the results of studies like this as something abstract, not as something that affects them directly. It's clearly visible with smokers: it's not that they are especially tolerant of dying a horrible death from lung cancer or a stroke (no one is), it's mostly that they don't really think it will happen to them (yes, I know it might be an imperfect analogy because physiological addiction also factors in... but I also know a smoker that found quitting "physically impossible" until he had a stroke, and survived. Once he had saw death's face, and the risk turned from abstract to very concrete, he quit smoking overnight).
  - antt 8y ago
    It doesn't help that studies like this are also usually wrong. Don't change anything in your life until something has been replicated a dozen or more times.
    - dmschulman 8y ago
      Or maybe take the information as a sign that perhaps caution is warranted in some areas and it might be worthwhile to consider how you might change your behaviors based on the evidence. I agree that scientific conclusions are sometime editorialized to convey the pressing nature of the findings (the evidence is what it is), but 100% wrong or 100% right I don't think it would do you much harm to reduce the amount of pollution you're exposed to on a daily basis.
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agumonkey 8y ago
Any tricks to improve the air around and in your house ? without resorting to air filtering machinery if possible.
- steve_musk 8y ago
  I didn’t do much research into this but there are a number of house plants that NASA says improve air quality.
  - trukterious 8y ago
    There's a list of some of these plants here: https://learn.allergyandair.com/houseplants-indoor-air-quality/ https://learn.allergyandair.com/houseplants-indoor-air-quali... One minor trick I use when walking down the street is to rapidly exhale if I've breathed in a particularly bad volume of exhaust pollution, like concentrated diesel fumes, walking on a few paces before re-inhaling. I expect it takes ~1s to detect the bubble of bad air and the surrounding air is polluted too. So just mitigation.
- trentmb 8y ago
  Fill every room with Peace lilys or Florist's chrysanthemum. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Clean_Air_Study https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Clean_Air_Study
- adrianN 8y ago
  Small particulates are difficult to get rid of. They're so light that they don't settle, so anything other that a HEPA filter won't do you much good.
- cameldrv 8y ago
  Resort to air filtering machinery. You can buy a HEPA filter for $100-200. If you drive much, buy a HEPA cabin air filter for your car (https://www.boschautoparts.com/en/auto/filters/hepa-cabin-filters https://www.boschautoparts.com/en/auto/filters/hepa-cabin-fi...). Your exposure to particulates while driving is many times higher than while at home.
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liftbigweights 8y ago
Sigh. Average IQs have significantly increased as pollution has significantly increased. We have objective data on this. https://ourworldindata.org/intelligence https://ourworldindata.org/intelligence https://ourworldindata.org/air-pollution https://ourworldindata.org/air-pollution We have decades of data to show this positive correlation. Now I'm wondering how the study measured intelligence and of course who funded this study. Edit: Seems like a lot of people are misunderstanding my point. I'm not saying air pollution is good. I think air pollution is bad. I'm just pointing out raw objective data which contradicts the study.
- dignick 8y ago
  Perhaps IQs would have increased more without pollution?
  - liftbigweights 8y ago
    Sure. The objective data I provided shows a correlation and not a causation. But it contradicts the study of a "huge" reduction in intelligence due to air pollution. If air pollution causes reduction in intelligence, IQs would not have increased so much in the past 100 years as air pollution skyrocketed. Can't say air pollution causes huge reduction in intelligence while IQs have drastically increased in an increasing air pollution environment. The study claims a causal relationship - air pollution causes huge reduction in intelligence. The objective data of the last 100 years clearly shows that's not true.
- fishtank 8y ago
  You have shared two sources of broad, country-level data. The study tracked localized effects on individuals. These are not necessarily in contradiction! Though whatever you're inferring with your broad correlation (air pollution has no negative effect on intelligence? air pollution improves intelligence?) is much weaker than the study, which clearly has made attempts to isolate variables.
- nopinsight 8y ago
  Have you considered that the educational level in the developing world has increased dramatically from a low base, while pollution had so far been manageable in most cities until the most recent couple of decades? When one increased the average education level by something like 5-10 years, as was the case in many Asian countries in the last century, it is not surprising there was a significant increase in intelligence. Thankfully the effect of pollution has not been drastic enough to negate all of those gains. It still does not mean we should neglect its likely significant negative impact. From the paper: > Cutting annual mean concentration of particulate matter smaller than 10 μm (PM10) in China to the Environmental Protection Agency’s standard (50 μg/m3) would move people from the median to the 63rd percentile (verbal test scores) and the 58th percentile (math test scores), respectively.
majjam 8y ago
Discussed on reddit here https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/9as5p3/air_pollution_causes_a_huge_reduction_in/e4xvev4/ https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/9as5p3/air_pollu... in particular /u/gen_0 looked into if/how the study controlled for poverty, household income and other factors (they do).
nopinsight 8y ago
From the paper: > Cutting annual mean concentration of particulate matter smaller than 10 μm (PM10) in China to the Environmental Protection Agency’s standard (50 μg/m3) would move people from the median to the 63rd percentile (verbal test scores) and the 58th percentile (math test scores), respectively. It seems like HEPA air purifiers should help quite a bit if one spends on a lot of time indoor. At least having one in the bedroom would reduce exposure time by at least one-third, which should be useful. It also sounds like by investing modestly in air purifiers, most offices in polluted cities could even net productivity gains from healthier employees who suffer less from allergy and congested airways, in addition to long-term maintenance of their cognitive function.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 8y ago
  Why spend money in air purifiers when you can invest in things that reduce the emissions of pollutants at the source? Doesn't the production and usage of air purifiers contribute to air pollution over its entire product life cycle?
- rcMgD2BwE72F 8y ago
  Why spend money in air purifiers when you can invest in things that reduce the emissions of pollutants at the source? Don't production, usage and waste treatment of air purifiers contribute to air pollution over their entire product life cycle?
  - nopinsight 8y ago
    That is an ideal situation most of us do not have much influence on. We can help lobby/advocate at the margin but check out who we are up against esp in developing countries, where the problems are most acute. In the meantime, air purifiers reduce the extent that our health deteriorates. The effect of air purifiers production is relatively tiny compared to pollutants from the rest of the economy.
nerdponx 8y ago
As usual, the actual scientific results are paywalled [0]. I guess we just have to make informed opinions based on science journalism, which is pretty much impossible. [0]: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/08/21/1809474115 http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/08/21/1809474115
- gruez 8y ago
  sci-hub?
- ShorsHammer 8y ago
  May I introduce you to my bird friend? https://sci-hub.tw/http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/08/21/1809474115 https://sci-hub.tw/http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/08...
  - nerdponx 8y ago
    The only reason I posted this in the first place is that I was having trouble verifying the captcha on my phone, and it made me think about how this site shouldn't even need to exist.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
0xcde4c3db 8y ago
There are also studies hinting at a potential pathway involved in this: exposure to particulate air pollution appears to reduce the activity of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). [1] [2] [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21708224 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21708224 [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25816123 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25816123
stephengillie 8y ago
Based on the amount of carbon monoxide and other pollutants that enter a car's cabin at highway speeds, this is likely a huge cause of road rage, speeding, and other reckless driving behaviors. These strong emotional states don't always end when we exit our vehicle, and so may affect us through our day. Our commuting time becomes a divisor of our overall daily intelligence, and quality of life.
- acct1771 8y ago
  I speed in reverse out of my drive, friend; how do you account for that?
paraschopra 8y ago
As an Indian living in India, this saddens me a lot. India has perhaps the world's biggest share of most polluted cities [1], and there are next to none measures taken. PM 2.5 in Delhi regularly shoots beyond 200 (while general guidelines for good quality air is <50). The sad part really is that the pollution is more of a political and enforcement problem than a technological one. And none of the wonders of our technology will help us solve the "messy" problems that occur in a democracy of heterogeneous people (of India).
- cheeko1234 8y ago
  What does heterogenous have to do with it? U.S. is by far more of a melting pot than India.
  - claytoneast 8y ago
    This may be true on the surface, but India is an incredibly diverse mix of people. There are a ton (talking 60-70+) of groups of people with different cultures who speak different languages and often different religions. They make look the same to you; they are not the same. Go there and see it for yourself. It is incredible.
  - jvanderbot 8y ago
    I don't know OPs original intent, but I would have interpreted that as heterogeneity of socio-economic status. India has a very wide income disparity from the poorest to the richest.
  - umanwizard 8y ago
    > U.S. is by far more of a melting pot than India. What do you mean? Basically the only reason India is one country is because the British ruled it as one country. It is about as culturally and linguistically diverse as all of Europe.
    - _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
      Not exactly the same entity (British India ended up stretching further east) but Mughals ruled it as one country too, and the East India Company kept up the fiction that the Mughals were still in charge for as long as possible.
rooam-dev 8y ago
Educated guess #1 - more toxins + less oxygen = bad for your brain, body and adds distraction (can you study/focus when you have health issues?) Educated guess #2 - less pollution = better environment, country side and/or nature rich + less stress
JohnClark1337 8y ago
The US must be way more polluted than China and India then.
Illniyar 8y ago
A conclusion like that seems very prone to data misinterpretation and bad methodology. Skimming the article I couldn't find any mention of the method used to reach the conclusion. Can anyone shed a light on the method used in the study?
alexandercrohde 8y ago
The crazy thing is, as far as I'm aware, it wouldn't be a difficult engineering feat to get standard air-filters on exhaust pipes. Most air filters are merely a sac of activated-charcoal.
- jhpankow 8y ago
  I don't even know where to start. Activated charcoal stuck in a car exhaust would not filter PM2.5 and wouldn't even do what was intended once it becomes saturated.
  - alexandercrohde 8y ago
    Maybe you should start with a little bit of humility, and citing sources? Once it became saturated, you'd obviously replace it, likely at an annual exhaust inspection. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0016236189903141 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0016236189... [2] https://university2.taylors.edu.my/EURECA/2014/downloads/46.pdf https://university2.taylors.edu.my/EURECA/2014/downloads/46....
- cameldrv 8y ago
  For particles, this already exists on all new diesel vehicles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_particulate_filter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_particulate_filter). They use filters made out of materials that can stand up to very high heat, and then when the filter gets clogged up, the vehicle injects some fuel and burns off the accumulated particles. This may start to get used in gasoline cars as well -- the new direct injection gas engines produce a lot of particulates, but this is not yet well regulated.
dunpeal 8y ago
> Impact of high levels of toxic air ‘is equivalent to having lost a year of education’ Since when is education equivalent to intelligence? I thought that the current definition of intelligence is a relatively stable performance measure that is entirely independent of education (though it does predict academic performance).
growlist 8y ago
In hindsight, European car makers' decision to go all out for diesel was a spectacular blunder, with horrendous consequences for health. Looking forward to the day they finally ban this filthy, choking fuel.
JTbane 8y ago
Hopefully electric vehicles can alleviate at least some of the air pollution in major cities- I applaud efforts to restrict ICE cars and trucks.
nnain 8y ago
If this was absolutely true, China and India would stop having any maths/science/arts/medicine/CS people. Pollution control is on my mind constantly, and I hope we get a hold on pollution soon. But to be honest, the western media is after it a bit like how they were after Salt or Egg yokes earlier. I don't know why but the press constantly needs a target to pile everything on.

283 points by neverminder 8y ago

Reminds me of the studies that claim that putting lead in our petrol for decades also decreased the average IQ globally by 2-3 points.

OnlyRepliesToBS 8y ago

airborne metals cause brain autophagia

dzdt 8y ago

It is interesting to me that they use years of education as a measure of intelligence. As an American I am more used to thinking of intelligence as an innate, almost fixed characteristic (IQ). In that view education increases knowledge and skills but isn't expected to much affect general intelligence. But to this article's authors, "intelligence" is increased by education, so harmful effects of pollution can be measured in years of education lost. Is there a general cultural difference in how intelligence is thought of in China as opposed to the US?

code_duck 8y ago
Are IQ tests truly generalized and accessible enough that education doesn’t affect one’s performance? Personally, I’ve been exposed to years of standardized testing in the educational system and developed skills specifically at taking tests.
- informatimago 8y ago
  The fact that you developed those skills shows that you've got a few IQ points... Some other may not have them.
  - lihaciudaniel 8y ago
    But the point isn't to develop skill but see your brain natural talent of resolving complex problems, mastery of one own psychology is advantageous also.
  - Filligree 8y ago
    Which is besides the point. Yes, having higher intelligence often means you'll benefit more from practice, but GP was asking of the tests were good enough that there's no practice benefit at all. Which is false.
- arethuza 8y ago
  Yes, as a young kid I had an older sibling who was studying educational psychology so I spent a lot of time doing "intelligence" tests - I just thought they were interesting puzzles and didn't realise I was being continually tested.
Tharkun 8y ago
What gave you the impression that IQ is fixed or innate? It's neither nature nor nurture, it's both.
- informatimago 8y ago
  It's both fixed and innate. Education can stretch it a little, but it benefits more high IQs than low IQs. (It's fixed, but stretchable, and you can squeeze it, with stress, hunger, poverty, etc).
  - sametmax 8y ago
    I'd like 20cc of study with that statement, given that brain plasticity can change radically the way your brain works all your life. Also, accidents can alter the brain and lower your IQ, so are you saying you can go down but not up ?
    - mockingbirdy 8y ago
      > so are you saying you can go down but not up You have a specific amount of neurons and a lot of them die every day. The body doesn't produce them like other cells after a certain age threshold (age 21 IIRC, also depends on the individual). - Although this theory is currently on the edge of being disproved, it's clear that adult brains are not producing many of them. Training and experience can compensate this loss, but the general cognitive capacity gets reduced each day. Pretty depressive to think about it, but maybe we'll be able to use stem cell research to change this in the future. edit: I don't want to state this as definitive facts. The field of neurogenesis is currently heavily researched and there are some hints that adult brains might be able to produce new neurons. See https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-the-adult-brain-really-grow-new-neurons/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-the-adult-br... for a discussion. What I think is most likely is that we lose 10x times the amount of neurons that we create each day, so even if it's producing new ones, the rate of death is higher.
    - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
      Heritability of IQ is the term you're looking for. Wiki has a page on it here [1]. The numbers have not been pinned down and it was previously thought to be as low as 57%, but recent studies tend to show heritability rates upwards of 80%. There are a lot of complex issues that make study difficult. For instance there's the paradoxical issue that childhood IQ can be somewhat meaningfully influenced by environment, yet that notwithstanding, as children approach adolescence and especially adulthood their IQ becomes ever more a product of genetics. That said environment obviously does play some role, but that role is already a minority player and seems to be getting smaller as we learn more about genetics. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ
informatimago 8y ago
No, not really: they're using genetic engineering to breed higher intelligence. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3721991/China-develop-genetically-enhanced-superhumans-experts-predict.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3721991/China... I guess it's more an expression of the point of view of the society, who doesn't care about persons, but about what they can bring to the enterprises. Education is formating workers, and if pollution makes you lose one year of education, that's a lot of money lost.
arethuza 8y ago
I must admit that from perspective of the someone from the UK I've never really understood the US obsession with the desire to represent intelligence as a single number.
- bloak 8y ago
  It's an interesting phenomenon, perhaps worthy of study by propagandists or advertisers. If you tried to claim that a person's physical strength could be measured with a single number people would think you're mad, and probably most people in the world would think the concept of "IQ" is mad, and yet, in some countries, so many people believe in it.
  - throwawaymath 8y ago
    Eh... > If you tried to claim that a person's physical strength could be measured with a single number people would think you're mad I wouldn’t think you’re mad. Many others wouldn’t either. Powerlifting competitions are already close to this. Take your performance across the four major lifts (benchpress, squat, shoulder press, deadlift) and devise a formula to combine it into a total number measuring the “general” strength of a person. You can compete on individual lifts, and if you break out that score some will be better than others at individual lifts, but the larger number remains indicative of well-rounded achievement in orthogonal areas. That being said, I don’t think physical strength is comparable in any case. > probably most people in the world would think the concept of "IQ" is mad, and yet, in some countries, so many people believe in it. I think most people either “believe” in IQ or don’t think about it often enough to have an opinion. In fact skepticism about IQ is, in my experience, a distinct phenomeon on message boards and not at all representative of society in general.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - madeuptempacct 8y ago
    "If you tried to claim that a person's physical strength could be measured with a single number" Its consistently measured as a single number by the US military - it's just a combination of your performance on several exercises - traditionally pull ups, distance run times, swim times, number of crunches, etc. So, again, fitness is consistently measured as a single number by one of the world's largest organizations. Don't postulate it's absurd. The same aggregation can be done for intelligence.
Double_Org 8y ago
Most psychologists wouldn't operationalize intelligence as years of schooling but its common practice in economics and some other fields. In social science research there is often a tradeoff between measurement quality and sampling quality. Do you want to measure your variables really well in a small sample, or measure them crudely in a large sample.
- taway_1212 8y ago
  > In social science research there is often a tradeoff between measurement quality and sampling quality. Do you want to measure your variables really well in a small sample, or measure them crudely in a large sample. Wouldn't it be honest to just accept the fact that both methods don't provide data that's relevant and trustworthy enough for the research at hand? It sound irresponsible to draw conclusions (that will be picked up by newspapers and eventually policy makers) based on data that does not merit them, only because no beter data is available.
jackpeterfletch 8y ago
IQ tests are not generalised measures of innate intelligence at all and your IQ absolutely increases with education. My girlfreind is currently doing a doctorate psychology study, of which a small part is a standardised IQ test (though I dont know which standard; there are several). She asked if she could practice the process on me. There are several sections, but to pick 2. For language acuity, I scored OK. This section basically asked you to define a series of given words. Your knowledge here absolutely would change depending on your environment, job and education. For pattern recognition, I scored fantastically. But I know this is because of years of studying geometry in math classes. I know exactly what my thought processes were, "Count the vertexs, count the edges, count the bisections, are some things odd, are some things even, do some things add together, do the shapes mirror once/twice, are they rotated". I know exactly where I picked those ideas up. In the UK you can drop Maths and English/Creative Writing at 17. If you finish a pHD at 26 you havent regularly explored those ideas in near on 10 years, but you absolutely could still achieve it, so I do think its a better measure.
- sixstringbudha 8y ago
  > your IQ absolutely increases with education. Then I am not sure if it is actually measuring intelligence.
  - yorwba 8y ago
    Only if you want "intelligence" to be a fixed characteristic of a person. Which would be a strange requirement, since other characteristics can and do change a lot, especially with a targeted effort to change them.
    - sixstringbudha 8y ago
      > since other characteristics can and do change a lot, especially with a targeted effort to change them. Some attributes can be changed, some, on the other hand, not so much.
emiliobumachar 8y ago
"The new work [...] analysed language and arithmetic tests conducted as part of the China Family Panel Studies on 20,000 people across the nation between 2010 and 2014. The scientists compared the test results with records of nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide pollution." While I admittedly did not read the science paper, the newspaper indicates that they used test scores as the actual number, and the "cognitive drop equivalent to one year of education" phrase is just a way to explain the results, presumably anchored by how people in different school grades score in those tests.
emiliobumachar 8y ago
> First, on a population level IQ is very stable with age. Over a study of 87,498 Scottish children, age 11 IQ and adult IQ correlated at 0.66 [1], about as strong and impressive a correlation as you’ll ever find in the social sciences. But “correlation of 0.66” is also known as “only predicts 44% of the variance”. On an individual level, it is totally possible and not even that surprising to have an IQ of 100 at age 11 but 120 at age 30, or vice versa. Any IQ score you got before high school should be considered a plausible prediction about your adult IQ and nothing more. Quoted from http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/27/against-individual-iq-worries/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/27/against-individual-iq-w... Ref [1] is https://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-barry-kaufman/intelligence-is-still-not_b_1078112.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-barry-kaufman/intellige...
- chrisweekly 8y ago
  34, not 44, right?
  - learnstats2 8y ago
    The parent is using the common definition of R^2, i.e. 0.66^2 = 0.44
  - umanwizard 8y ago
    Does a correlation of 1 mean it predicts none of the variance?
Scarblac 8y ago
I think the thinking is that getting many years of education is desirable for almost everybody (it generally leads to better careers later in life, etc), but that only those who possess sufficient intelligence get the chance to pursue higher education. So there's a high correlation, and it's much easier to measure than IQ.
sixstringbudha 8y ago
> It is interesting to me that they use years of education as a measure of intelligence. I had a similar reaction when I read that line. I mean how does one correlate number of years of education to intelligence, which is already a somewhat abstract concept. That is like saying "If you wear this makeup, your partner will love you as if they were married to you twice as long"..
sophistication 8y ago
According to this study, one year of education translates to 1 to 5 IQ points: https://psyarxiv.com/kymhp/ https://psyarxiv.com/kymhp/
- madeuptempacct 8y ago
  I read the abstract - supposedly they are aware of, and try to eliminate correlation, but I am unconvinced: We know that maintenance keeps intelligence from declining, could be what's happening here.
  - sophistication 8y ago
    It does not matter here whether it is correlation because whatever the pollution study is referring to, it will likely involve the same correlation.
another-cuppa 8y ago
Yeah that struck me as odd too (and I'm not American). I think a year of school makes me more educated, but not more intelligent.

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black_puppydog 8y ago

> The study followed the same individuals as air pollution varied from one year to the next, meaning that many other possible causal factors such as genetic differences are automatically accounted for. That's already much better than what I had feared. Not perfect, of course, but better than the usual "corellation == causation" journalism.

stochastic_monk 8y ago

This is no surprise to people who have lived in Salt Lake City. During the winter, as a consequence of inversion (pollutants being trapped in the mountain basin), it becomes the most polluted city in North America. During this time, resident IQs also drop. [0] [0] http://health.utah.gov/enviroepi/healthyhomes/epht/AirPollution_PublicHealth.pdf http://health.utah.gov/enviroepi/healthyhomes/epht/AirPollut...

mockingbirdy 8y ago
> During this time Do they perform on the normal level after the pollution? That would be a hint that the results of the IQ tests just temporarily drop (I would be careful to say that the intelligence dropped).
- stochastic_monk 8y ago
  Correct. To be clear, this is a reversible and temporary response to the air quality.
  - mockingbirdy 8y ago
    This puts the article in perspective. If people leave the polluted area, they'll restore their normal intelligence. When I hear "reduction in intelligence", I immediately think that they talk about permanent reduction (because a big part of fluid intelligence is genetics, the efficiency of synapses and the amount of neurons - although some research [1] indicates that nurture and training can have significant effects on fluid intelligence). It's unclear if they talk about permanent and irreversible damage IMO. For me it seems like they want to frame it that way which could be a bit clickbait-y depending on the matter of facts. [1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2383939/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2383939/
    - yorwba 8y ago
      From the study TFA is based on (on Sci-Hub: https://sci-hub.tw/http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/08/21/1809474115 https://sci-hub.tw/http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/08... ) First, in general, air pollution inhibits respondents ’ test performance. Except for the effects of 1-d and 7-d air pollution exposure on math test scores (first and second columns in panel B), all of the coefficients for mean APIs over a longer period are negative and statistically significant. Second, the damage of air pollution on cognitive performance is more sizable when using longer window of exposure measure. As shown at the bottom in panel A, an increase in the 7-d-mean API by 1 SD lowers verbal test scores by 0.278 point (0.026 SD), while a 1 SD increase in average API over 3 y before the interview is associated with 1.132 points (0.108 SD) drop in verbal test scores. Third, air pollution exposure appears to exert a more negative effect on verbal test performance than math test performance. That doesn't imply that the effect is irreversible, but it does mean that there are long-term changes which accumulate with longer exposure to air pollution.

geomark 8y ago

There was a recent large scale study that claims PM2.5 levels present in cities have a significant effect on healthy children's lung capacity, that by the age of eight children who live within 100 meters of a busy street have a 6% reduction in lung capacity compared to those who don't. Now this study. Jeesh. I am particular interested in these studies because my family lives in a very clean rural mountainous area in Thailand and my son is attending a pretty good international school here. But I am considering moving him to a bigger and better school in Bangkok - a dirty, polluted, congested city. If this study is true then am I really gaining anything? The difficult tradeoff was health impact for improved educational opportunity. But if the pollution equates to a one year loss of education then maybe there is little to no gain.

semi-extrinsic 8y ago
Neglecting the air quality etc., is there any specific reason to believe you would gain anything by moving your son to another school at this age? Personally, I think that a much better move is to stay where you are and instead save up to fund a one-year exchange to a prestigious international university when he's been at some national university for a couple of years. AFAIK many prestigious universities accept almost an unlimited number of international exchange students, as long as they can pay the tuition fees.
- geomark 8y ago
  I've been wrestling with this for a while. First issue with the school is the quality of classmates. It is a small school with small classes, which is good, right? Except there are only six students in his class this year and his classmates are generally low achievers, poor English speakers, and pretty lousy friends. I want him to be surrounded by high achievers and have some choices when it comes to friends. Seems unlikely that will ever happen at this school. Second issue is that the school is pretty stagnant. At a time when international schools in Thailand are booming, adding new campuses and programs every year, this school is just plodding along with its old tired facilities and pathetic extracurricular offerings. I've been trying to make up for that with lots of after school activities like having our own little Maker Space, doing robotics, and visiting the museums and children's activity centers in Thailand which are very good. But he doesn't get to do that stuff with kids his age because of issue number one. I was a volunteer judge earlier this year at a robotics competition held at one of the international schools in Bangkok. I got to see what a number of schools are doing and it is pretty impressive. One of the schools I particularly like has a STEM program in association with MIT, and a performing arts program in association with Juilliard. They are also introducing robotics into the primary curriculumn this year. Impressive stuff. I'm planning to do as you suggested but that is still a number of years away. Need to figure out what I'm going to do near term. And moving to Bangkok just seems so painful. Ok, enough of this long winded personal issues rant.

bobbyadamson 8y ago

> Chen said air pollution was most likely to be the cause of the loss of intelligence, rather than simply being a correlation. Why? You can't just say that and expect people to trust you. The fact that they followed the same people may reduce the chances of certain DNA traits having an effect but how does that rule out other commonalities in environmental conditions. If you're in a polluted city it seems likely that you're in a large city. So do all the common traits of a large city also reduce your intelligence? I want to read the study but I don't want to subscribe. If there is logical proof in the study that this is not simply a correlation, the guardian piece does not represent it.

carlmr 8y ago
The Guardian is headquartered in London, which is a major polluted city, maybe the effects are becoming visible.
- contingencies 8y ago
  London is really not that polluted. It rains too much to be very polluted. AQI is currently 88 in the worst areas. In China many cities are often 150-200 range. India is off the charts, my friend who makes commercial air quality sensor arrays said most sensor tech maxes out way below ambient Indian levels and readings cannot therefore be trusted - nobody knows how bad it is. http://aqicn.org/map/london/ http://aqicn.org/map/london/ http://aqicn.org/map/jiyuan http://aqicn.org/map/jiyuan http://aqicn.org/map/delhi http://aqicn.org/map/delhi
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  That’s vastly insufficient as far as empirical evidence is concerned. There are many things that coincide with pollution, which is what the commenter is saying. You need to demonstrate how you picked out pollution from everything comingled with it. That’s what’s being asked about here. EDIT: Disregard this stuffy reply, my humor detector was off.
  - Vinnl 8y ago
    The response was tongue-in-cheek: the commenter implied that the article was insufficient due to the journalist being less intelligent due to living in a polluted city.

stupidcar 8y ago

What's really amazing to me is when you realise that the UK executive and legislative branches are based in London. MPs, Lords, and often their partners and children are all living and working in an extremely polluted environment for years on end. Even so, with the knowledge that they are seriously harming their own health and the health of their closest relatives, they persist in resisting and blocking attempts at actions to improve air quality in London. Whenever somebody defends the quality of democratic representation in the UK, I just remind myself that these are people who would rather they and their own children suffered illness and premature death than take action that might piss off business and motorist lobbying groups.

Al-Khwarizmi 8y ago
I think you're overthinking this a bit. I don't think politicians prefer seeing their children suffering illness and premature death rather than pissing off lobbies. The real problem is that most people see the results of studies like this as something abstract, not as something that affects them directly. It's clearly visible with smokers: it's not that they are especially tolerant of dying a horrible death from lung cancer or a stroke (no one is), it's mostly that they don't really think it will happen to them (yes, I know it might be an imperfect analogy because physiological addiction also factors in... but I also know a smoker that found quitting "physically impossible" until he had a stroke, and survived. Once he had saw death's face, and the risk turned from abstract to very concrete, he quit smoking overnight).
- antt 8y ago
  It doesn't help that studies like this are also usually wrong. Don't change anything in your life until something has been replicated a dozen or more times.
  - dmschulman 8y ago
    Or maybe take the information as a sign that perhaps caution is warranted in some areas and it might be worthwhile to consider how you might change your behaviors based on the evidence. I agree that scientific conclusions are sometime editorialized to convey the pressing nature of the findings (the evidence is what it is), but 100% wrong or 100% right I don't think it would do you much harm to reduce the amount of pollution you're exposed to on a daily basis.

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agumonkey 8y ago

Any tricks to improve the air around and in your house ? without resorting to air filtering machinery if possible.

steve_musk 8y ago
I didn’t do much research into this but there are a number of house plants that NASA says improve air quality.
- trukterious 8y ago
  There's a list of some of these plants here: https://learn.allergyandair.com/houseplants-indoor-air-quality/ https://learn.allergyandair.com/houseplants-indoor-air-quali... One minor trick I use when walking down the street is to rapidly exhale if I've breathed in a particularly bad volume of exhaust pollution, like concentrated diesel fumes, walking on a few paces before re-inhaling. I expect it takes ~1s to detect the bubble of bad air and the surrounding air is polluted too. So just mitigation.
trentmb 8y ago
Fill every room with Peace lilys or Florist's chrysanthemum. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Clean_Air_Study https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Clean_Air_Study
adrianN 8y ago
Small particulates are difficult to get rid of. They're so light that they don't settle, so anything other that a HEPA filter won't do you much good.
cameldrv 8y ago
Resort to air filtering machinery. You can buy a HEPA filter for $100-200. If you drive much, buy a HEPA cabin air filter for your car (https://www.boschautoparts.com/en/auto/filters/hepa-cabin-filters https://www.boschautoparts.com/en/auto/filters/hepa-cabin-fi...). Your exposure to particulates while driving is many times higher than while at home.

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liftbigweights 8y ago

Sigh. Average IQs have significantly increased as pollution has significantly increased. We have objective data on this. https://ourworldindata.org/intelligence https://ourworldindata.org/intelligence https://ourworldindata.org/air-pollution https://ourworldindata.org/air-pollution We have decades of data to show this positive correlation. Now I'm wondering how the study measured intelligence and of course who funded this study. Edit: Seems like a lot of people are misunderstanding my point. I'm not saying air pollution is good. I think air pollution is bad. I'm just pointing out raw objective data which contradicts the study.

dignick 8y ago
Perhaps IQs would have increased more without pollution?
- liftbigweights 8y ago
  Sure. The objective data I provided shows a correlation and not a causation. But it contradicts the study of a "huge" reduction in intelligence due to air pollution. If air pollution causes reduction in intelligence, IQs would not have increased so much in the past 100 years as air pollution skyrocketed. Can't say air pollution causes huge reduction in intelligence while IQs have drastically increased in an increasing air pollution environment. The study claims a causal relationship - air pollution causes huge reduction in intelligence. The objective data of the last 100 years clearly shows that's not true.
fishtank 8y ago
You have shared two sources of broad, country-level data. The study tracked localized effects on individuals. These are not necessarily in contradiction! Though whatever you're inferring with your broad correlation (air pollution has no negative effect on intelligence? air pollution improves intelligence?) is much weaker than the study, which clearly has made attempts to isolate variables.
nopinsight 8y ago
Have you considered that the educational level in the developing world has increased dramatically from a low base, while pollution had so far been manageable in most cities until the most recent couple of decades? When one increased the average education level by something like 5-10 years, as was the case in many Asian countries in the last century, it is not surprising there was a significant increase in intelligence. Thankfully the effect of pollution has not been drastic enough to negate all of those gains. It still does not mean we should neglect its likely significant negative impact. From the paper: > Cutting annual mean concentration of particulate matter smaller than 10 μm (PM10) in China to the Environmental Protection Agency’s standard (50 μg/m3) would move people from the median to the 63rd percentile (verbal test scores) and the 58th percentile (math test scores), respectively.

majjam 8y ago

Discussed on reddit here https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/9as5p3/air_pollution_causes_a_huge_reduction_in/e4xvev4/ https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/9as5p3/air_pollu... in particular /u/gen_0 looked into if/how the study controlled for poverty, household income and other factors (they do).

nopinsight 8y ago

From the paper: > Cutting annual mean concentration of particulate matter smaller than 10 μm (PM10) in China to the Environmental Protection Agency’s standard (50 μg/m3) would move people from the median to the 63rd percentile (verbal test scores) and the 58th percentile (math test scores), respectively. It seems like HEPA air purifiers should help quite a bit if one spends on a lot of time indoor. At least having one in the bedroom would reduce exposure time by at least one-third, which should be useful. It also sounds like by investing modestly in air purifiers, most offices in polluted cities could even net productivity gains from healthier employees who suffer less from allergy and congested airways, in addition to long-term maintenance of their cognitive function.

rcMgD2BwE72F 8y ago
Why spend money in air purifiers when you can invest in things that reduce the emissions of pollutants at the source? Doesn't the production and usage of air purifiers contribute to air pollution over its entire product life cycle?
rcMgD2BwE72F 8y ago
Why spend money in air purifiers when you can invest in things that reduce the emissions of pollutants at the source? Don't production, usage and waste treatment of air purifiers contribute to air pollution over their entire product life cycle?
- nopinsight 8y ago
  That is an ideal situation most of us do not have much influence on. We can help lobby/advocate at the margin but check out who we are up against esp in developing countries, where the problems are most acute. In the meantime, air purifiers reduce the extent that our health deteriorates. The effect of air purifiers production is relatively tiny compared to pollutants from the rest of the economy.

nerdponx 8y ago

As usual, the actual scientific results are paywalled [0]. I guess we just have to make informed opinions based on science journalism, which is pretty much impossible. [0]: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/08/21/1809474115 http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/08/21/1809474115

gruez 8y ago
sci-hub?
ShorsHammer 8y ago
May I introduce you to my bird friend? https://sci-hub.tw/http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/08/21/1809474115 https://sci-hub.tw/http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/08...
- nerdponx 8y ago
  The only reason I posted this in the first place is that I was having trouble verifying the captcha on my phone, and it made me think about how this site shouldn't even need to exist.
deleted 8y ago
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0xcde4c3db 8y ago

There are also studies hinting at a potential pathway involved in this: exposure to particulate air pollution appears to reduce the activity of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). [1] [2] [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21708224 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21708224 [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25816123 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25816123

stephengillie 8y ago

Based on the amount of carbon monoxide and other pollutants that enter a car's cabin at highway speeds, this is likely a huge cause of road rage, speeding, and other reckless driving behaviors. These strong emotional states don't always end when we exit our vehicle, and so may affect us through our day. Our commuting time becomes a divisor of our overall daily intelligence, and quality of life.

acct1771 8y ago
I speed in reverse out of my drive, friend; how do you account for that?

paraschopra 8y ago

As an Indian living in India, this saddens me a lot. India has perhaps the world's biggest share of most polluted cities [1], and there are next to none measures taken. PM 2.5 in Delhi regularly shoots beyond 200 (while general guidelines for good quality air is <50). The sad part really is that the pollution is more of a political and enforcement problem than a technological one. And none of the wonders of our technology will help us solve the "messy" problems that occur in a democracy of heterogeneous people (of India).

cheeko1234 8y ago
What does heterogenous have to do with it? U.S. is by far more of a melting pot than India.
- claytoneast 8y ago
  This may be true on the surface, but India is an incredibly diverse mix of people. There are a ton (talking 60-70+) of groups of people with different cultures who speak different languages and often different religions. They make look the same to you; they are not the same. Go there and see it for yourself. It is incredible.
- jvanderbot 8y ago
  I don't know OPs original intent, but I would have interpreted that as heterogeneity of socio-economic status. India has a very wide income disparity from the poorest to the richest.
- umanwizard 8y ago
  > U.S. is by far more of a melting pot than India. What do you mean? Basically the only reason India is one country is because the British ruled it as one country. It is about as culturally and linguistically diverse as all of Europe.
  - _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
    Not exactly the same entity (British India ended up stretching further east) but Mughals ruled it as one country too, and the East India Company kept up the fiction that the Mughals were still in charge for as long as possible.

rooam-dev 8y ago

Educated guess #1 - more toxins + less oxygen = bad for your brain, body and adds distraction (can you study/focus when you have health issues?) Educated guess #2 - less pollution = better environment, country side and/or nature rich + less stress

JohnClark1337 8y ago

The US must be way more polluted than China and India then.

Illniyar 8y ago

A conclusion like that seems very prone to data misinterpretation and bad methodology. Skimming the article I couldn't find any mention of the method used to reach the conclusion. Can anyone shed a light on the method used in the study?

alexandercrohde 8y ago

The crazy thing is, as far as I'm aware, it wouldn't be a difficult engineering feat to get standard air-filters on exhaust pipes. Most air filters are merely a sac of activated-charcoal.

jhpankow 8y ago
I don't even know where to start. Activated charcoal stuck in a car exhaust would not filter PM2.5 and wouldn't even do what was intended once it becomes saturated.
- alexandercrohde 8y ago
  Maybe you should start with a little bit of humility, and citing sources? Once it became saturated, you'd obviously replace it, likely at an annual exhaust inspection. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0016236189903141 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0016236189... [2] https://university2.taylors.edu.my/EURECA/2014/downloads/46.pdf https://university2.taylors.edu.my/EURECA/2014/downloads/46....
cameldrv 8y ago
For particles, this already exists on all new diesel vehicles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_particulate_filter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_particulate_filter). They use filters made out of materials that can stand up to very high heat, and then when the filter gets clogged up, the vehicle injects some fuel and burns off the accumulated particles. This may start to get used in gasoline cars as well -- the new direct injection gas engines produce a lot of particulates, but this is not yet well regulated.

dunpeal 8y ago

> Impact of high levels of toxic air ‘is equivalent to having lost a year of education’ Since when is education equivalent to intelligence? I thought that the current definition of intelligence is a relatively stable performance measure that is entirely independent of education (though it does predict academic performance).

growlist 8y ago

In hindsight, European car makers' decision to go all out for diesel was a spectacular blunder, with horrendous consequences for health. Looking forward to the day they finally ban this filthy, choking fuel.

JTbane 8y ago

Hopefully electric vehicles can alleviate at least some of the air pollution in major cities- I applaud efforts to restrict ICE cars and trucks.

nnain 8y ago

If this was absolutely true, China and India would stop having any maths/science/arts/medicine/CS people. Pollution control is on my mind constantly, and I hope we get a hold on pollution soon. But to be honest, the western media is after it a bit like how they were after Salt or Egg yokes earlier. I don't know why but the press constantly needs a target to pile everything on.