Sure, air pollution might make for particularly stunning sunsets. But have you ever thought about the toll it takes on your body? You won’t have a choice after wearing RTI International’s MicroPEM — or personal exposure monitor — which measures the adverse affects of breathing in all that poison.
Providing a direct correlation between pollution levels and how it affects a person’s health, the MicroPEM continually measures both the levels of pollutants in the air, as well as an individual’s physical activity using acceleration and motion sensors. Essentially, it provides a first-person account of how air pollution affects our health, instead of having to draw conclusions from general health trends in a particularly polluted region.
Using the data collected from the sensor, researchers are even able to calculate a person’s varied breathing rates as they perform different levels of physical activity, from using a treadmill, to just taking a stroll. And that data will help reinforce findings that all the poisonous crap we keep pumping into the air just isn’t good for us. [RTI International via Gizmag]
