This past year has been rough & I know I wouldn’t have been able to make it through everything without you. Your beauty shines through not just in your stunning appearance but also your grace, intelligence, good nature, caring heart, sense of humor, and artistic soul. No matter how impossible the hurdles in front of me might seem, having you at my side means I will be able to overcome them with flying colors. Happy Mother’s Day, mom. I love you.
These vegetated surfaces don’t just look pretty. They have other benefits as well, including cooling city blocks, reducing loud noises, and improving a building’s energy efficiency.What’s more, a recent modeling study shows that green walls can potentially reduce large amounts of air pollution in what’s called a “street canyon,” or the corridor between tall buildings.
For the study, Thomas Pugh, a biogeochemist at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, and his colleagues created a computer model of a green wall with generic vegetation in a Western European city. Then they recorded chemical reactions based on a variety of factors, such as wind speed and building placement.
The simulation revealed a clear pattern: A green wall in a street canyon trapped or absorbed large amounts of nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter—both pollutants harmful to people, said Pugh. Compared with reducing emissions from cars, little attention has been focused on how to trap or take up more of the pollutants, added Pugh, whose study was published last year in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
That’s why the green-wall study is “putting forward an alternative solution that might allow [governments] to improve air quality in these problem hot spots,” he said.Compared with reducing emissions from cars, little attention has been focused on how to trap or take up more of the pollutants, added Pugh, whose study was published last year in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
That’s why the green-wall study is “putting forward an alternative solution that might allow [governments] to improve air quality in these problem hot spots,” he said.
Today, the Supreme Court of the United States takes up the first of two high-profile cases on the issue of same-sex marriage, and thousands of people have turned out on the courthouse steps to make their opinions heard.
Today’s case, Hollingsworth v. Perry, involves a challenge to Proposition 8, a referendum passed in 2008 outlawing same-sex marriage in California. Tomorrow, the court will hear a case challenging the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), a 1996 law that prohibited the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriage for a host of federal purposes, including Social Security benefits, immigration and taxes.
