Air pollution causes ‘huge’ reduction in intelligence, study reveals

Impact of high levels of toxic air ‘is equivalent to having lost a year of education’

Air pollution in China is three times above World Health Organisation limits. Photograph: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

Air pollution causes a “huge” reduction in intelligence, according to new research, indicating that the damage to society of toxic air is far deeper than the well-known impacts on physical health.

The research was conducted in China but is relevant across the world, with 95% of the global population breathing unsafe air. It found that high pollution levels led to significant drops in test scores in language and arithmetic, with the average impact equivalent to having lost a year of the person’s education.

“Polluted air can cause everyone to reduce their level of education by one year, which is huge,” said Xi Chen at Yale School of Public Health in the US, a member of the research team. “But we know the effect is worse for the elderly, especially those over 64, and for men, and for those with low education. If we calculate [the loss] for those, it may be a few years of education.”

Previous research has found that air pollution harms cognitive performance in students, but this is the first to examine people of all ages and the difference between men and women.

The damage in intelligence was worst for those over 64 years old, with serious consequences, said Chen: “We usually make the most critical financial decisions in old age.” Rebecca Daniels, from the UK public health charity Medact, said: “This report’s findings are extremely worrying.”

Air pollution causes seven million premature deaths a year but the harm to people’s mental abilities is less well known. A recent study found toxic air was linked to “extremely high mortality” in people with mental disorders and earlier work linked it to increased mental illness in children, while another analysis found those living near busy roads had an increased risk of dementia.

The new work, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 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.

They found the longer people were exposed to dirty air, the bigger the damage to intelligence, with language ability more harmed than mathematical ability and men more harmed than women. The researchers said this may result from differences in how male and female brains work.

Derrick Ho, at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, said the impact of air pollution on cognition was important and his group had similar preliminary findings in their work. “It is because high air pollution can potentially be associated with oxidative stress, neuroinflammation, and neurodegeneration of humans,” he said.

Chen said air pollution was most likely to be the cause of the loss of intelligence, rather than simply being a correlation. 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.

The scientists also accounted for the gradual decline in cognition seen as people age and ruled out people being more impatient or uncooperative during tests when pollution was high.

Air pollution was seen to have a short-term impact on intelligence as well and Chen said this could have important consequences, for example for students who have to take crucial entrance exams on polluted days.

“But there is no shortcut to solve this issue,” he said. “Governments really need to take concrete measures to reduce air pollution. That may benefit human capital, which is one of the most important driving forces of economic growth.” In China, air pollution is declining but remains three times above World Health Organisation (WHO) limits.

According to the WHO, 20 of the world’s most polluted cities are in developing countries. China, home to several of those cities, has been engaged in a “war against pollution” for the past five years.

A migrant worker listens to the radio on his tricycle cart. Photograph: Andy Wong/AP

The results would apply around the world, Chen added. The damage to intelligence was likely to be incremental, he said, with a 1mg rise in pollution over three years equivalent to losing more than a month of education. Small pollution particles are known to be especially damaging. “That is the same wherever you live. As human beings we have more in common than is different.”

Aarash Saleh, a registrar in respiratory medicine in the UK and part of the Doctors Against Diesel campaign, said: “This study adds to the concerning bank of evidence showing that exposure to air pollution can worsen our cognitive function. Road traffic is the biggest contributor to air pollution in residential areas and the government needs to act urgently to remove heavily-polluting vehicles from our roads.”

Daniels said: “The UK’s air is illegally polluted and is harming people’s health every day. Current policies are not up to the scale of the challenge: government must commit to bringing air pollution below legal limits as soon as possible.”

Source: theguardian.com

Ukraine on Fire Google's censorship

Once people get a hold of something that does not fit the 'corporate' agenda, and draw attention to it, the technocrats swing into action censoring it.

The latest being a documentary film by Oliver Stone from 2016 called Ukraine on Fire.

Google have already taken it down from YouTube a few times.

Google even knows that people have put it up elsewhere.

'Normally' when one types in a website name followed by the searched variable, Google points to it, but in this case, no mention of that website anywhere.

In any event, here is the link to the 2.1GB download that is active at the time of this post:

https://www.transfernow.net/en/dltransfer?utm_source=20220315mFEMnmSb

No Jab No Social Security?

Social Security is a polarising topic for many Australians at the best of times, where these days it can be more contentious.

Once it was called the Department of Social Security, then Centrelink and now Services Australia.

What's in an name change, right?

Well, a lot more than what people are led to believe, but that's another topic altogether.

We've obtained information from within, with regards as to what the #ScottyFromMarketing administration is planning to enact in approximately 5 months from now, that being August 2022.

Many people should be aware that in pop culture, the (United States) constitution is mentioned or rather emphasised as lot, when it comes to the actions of authorities against the citizen population.

In Australia, the story could not be more different, where even if one actually refers to the legal founding document of the colony Australia, then one gets ridiculed by e.g. police, or even other administration staff.

People should be aware now of the 'tricks', enticements, blackmail and most importantly unlawful 'requests' used on persons in order for them to succumb to a medical service.

There's No Jab No Play, No Jab No Job, No Jab No Pay catch phrases that people are being forced into.

What the federal government is planning to employ in August is that a person will not receive social welfare payments unless that person has succumbed to a particular medical service.

There are a fair few problems with that.

One is that Section 51 (xxiiA) of that 'law' called the Constitution, forbids the Australian Government from providing medical and dental services in such a way as to oblige persons to accept those services.

The so called medical service that one must accept cannot be called what it is, as it does not provide the functions of what it's referred to as.

Proof does not exist that the follow up medical services that have been cleverly labelled as 'up to date' are factually effective.

Social modelling shows that when the safety net of welfare is taken away from the general population, criminal activity increases.

Therefore if/when this is enacted the people in government want more criminal activity to occur.

The authorities e.g. the police within the continent, in Western Australia and across the Tasman, in New Zealand are challenging the so called mandates and are having them nullified, whereas the general population must succumb to that unlawful request.

The general population do not comprehend the reality they live in on this continent.

While people are told that they live in a 'democracy' here, they certainly do not live in a 'free' society, as alleged elsewhere.

The actions are what's important, as opposed to what is being 'advertised' to you.

Australia, still being a colony enforces 'penal colony policies' where now during the events of the past two years have put the government into a totalitarian régime.

The very thing that the police have fought for, the general population is being beaten and assaulted for.

Grandmother being assaulted by Victoria Police during a peaceful Melbourne march.

Make no mistake Australia is a police state.

Can The FBI Hack Into Private Signal Messages On A Locked iPhone? Evidence Indicates Yes

The FBI appears to have a tool that can access Signal messages, even if a device is locked. (Photo Illustration by Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images 

Signal has become the de facto king of secure messaging apps of late, stealing users from WhatsApp and gathering millions of others looking for private forms of communication. That means the police and governments will be wanting, more than ever, to ensure they have forensic techniques to access Signal messages. Court documents obtained by Forbes not only attest to that desire, but indicate the FBI has a way of accessing Signal texts even if they’re behind the lockscreen of an iPhone.

The clues came via Seamus Hughes at the Program on Extremism at the George Washington University in court documents containing screenshots of Signal messages between men accused, in 2020, of running a gun trafficking operation in New York. (The suspects have not yet entered a plea and remain innocent until proven guilty). In the Signal chats obtained from one of their phones, they discuss not just weapons trades but attempted murder too, according to documents filed by the Justice Department. There’s also some metadata in the screenshots, which indicates not only that Signal had been decrypted on the phone, but that the extraction was done in “partial AFU.” That latter acronym stands for “after first unlock” and describes an iPhone in a certain state: an iPhone that is locked but that has been unlocked once and not turned off. An iPhone in this state is more susceptible to having data inside extracted because encryption keys are stored in memory. Any hackers or hacking devices with the right iPhone vulnerabilities could then piece together keys and start unlocking private data inside the device.

Signal messages accessed in an investigation into a gun trafficking scheme, from a government filing in the case. Metadata between the messages indicates the phone was locked. Screenshot from Department of Justice file 

For police to access private Signal messages from an iPhone, there are some other caveats besides a device needing to be in AFU mode. The iPhone in question appears to be either an iPhone 11 (whether Pro or Max) or a second generation iPhone SE. It’s unclear if the police can access private data on an iPhone 12. It’s also not clear what software version was on the device. Newer iOS models may have better security. Apple declined to comment, but pointed Forbes to its response to previous research regarding searches of iPhones in AFU mode, in which it noted they required physical access and were costly to do.

A Signal spokesperson said: “If someone is in physical possession of a device and can exploit an unpatched Apple or Google operating system vulnerability in order to partially or fully bypass the lock screen on Android or iOS, they can then interact with the device as though they are its owner.

“Keeping devices up-to-date and choosing a strong lock screen passcode can help protect information if a device is lost or stolen.”

Counsel for the defendant in the New York case didn’t respond to messages. The Justice Department said it couldn’t comment.

GrayKey vs. Cellebrite

Forensic exploitation of devices affects any encrypted communications app, from WhatsApp to Wickr, not just Signal. What is apparent is that the government has a tool that can bypass encryption to get into what most people would assume are private messages. The question remains: What is that tool? It’s likely to be one of two popular iPhone forensics tools used by the FBI: the GrayKey or the Cellebrite UFED.

GrayKey, a tool created by Atlanta-based startup Grayshift, has been an increasingly popular choice for the FBI. The agency has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on acquiring the devices, which start in price from $9,995. When Forbes obtained a leaked recording of Grayshift CEO David Miles talking in mid-2019, he said that his company’s tech could get “almost everything” on an iPhone in AFU mode.

Vladimir Katalov, founder of Russian forensics company ElcomSoft, said he believed GrayKey was the tool in use in the New York case. “It uses some very advanced approach using hardware vulnerabilities,” he hypothesized. Grayshift hadn’t responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.

Cellebrite, an established Israeli forensics tech provider, has long served American law enforcement, as well as global police agencies. A spokesperson said it was Cellebrite policy “not to comment on specific customers or uses of our technology,” but added that “law enforcement agencies are seeing a rapid rise in the adoption of highly encrypted apps like Signal by criminals who wish to communicate, send attachments and make illegal deals they want to keep discrete and out of sight from law enforcement.”

In December, Cellebrite indicated it had developed “advanced techniques” to bypass Signal encryption, though Signal issued a statement lambasting not just the company but media reports that had repeated Cellebrite’s claims. In a blog post, Signal said all Cellebrite had done was “parse Signal on an Android device they physically have with the screen unlocked.

“This is a situation where someone is holding an unlocked phone in their hands and could simply open the app to look at the messages in it. Their post was about doing the same thing programmatically (which is equally simple).”

When Signal cofounder Moxie Marlinspike commented on the Cellebrite claims in December, he called it “amateur hour.” Whatever tools the FBI used in the New York case, they’re far from amateur.

Source: forbes.com