WHEN a Victorian gentleman was escorting a lady, he would always walk between her and the traffic to save her from the hazards of the road. Today there’s less mud to worry about, but the idea holds good: people should stay away from the kerb to reduce exposure to car exhaust pollution.
Surbjit Kaur and her colleagues at Imperial College London kitted out 11 volunteers with pumps that sucked in air as they took 20-minute walks along London’s busy Marylebone Road. She measured the various polluting particles that were caught in the pumps’ filters and found that people walking nearer…
