Sooty air makes city folk look older

leaf surface, opening and closing in response to desiccation. In some species they may be highly responsive to changes in water status and less so in others.”

He said that how plants responded could help predict which species would survive a drought. “It highlights the importance of biodiversity for landscape resilience. Having species of each functional type respond differently to drought may allow a community to be more resilient in the face of change.”

Skelton shared his findings in the wake of government announcements that KwaZulu-Natal is facing its worst drought since the early ’90s. DIESEL fumes from cars in cities can seriously damage your skin, new research has found.

Particulates, the microscopic sooty specks emitted mainly by diesel engines, can not only damage lungs and cause asthma, but also make skin come out in blotches. As a result, city dwellers can look older than country folk because their skin ages more quickly.

Researcher Jean Krutmann said: “The blemishes (can be) very visible. People exposed to high urban air pollution have more pigment spots because the pollution makes their skin age faster than those living in the country.”

Professor Krutmann, of Leibniz Research Institute for Environmental Medicine in Dusseldorf, analysed the effects of pollution in five studies – two in Germany and three in China, chosen because air pollution there is often at high levels.

He said: “We found that people living in cities have skin that ages faster, with many more pigment spots over their faces.

“Someone working in the middle of cities with high pollution levels, will be at risk of all the same effects of air pollution, including skin-ageing and pigmentation.”

As well as particulates, which can be tinier than one thousandth of a millimetre, nitrogen dioxide (NO2) can also damage skin.

The findings show even small rises in pollution levels can accelerate skin-ageing.

Krutmann said: “We found that a long-term increase in NO2 of just 10 micrograms (millionths of a gram) per cubic metre of air was associated with a 25 percent increase in pigmentation spots.”

Both NO2 and particulates are highly toxic. European rules stipulate the level of each should not be above 40 micrograms per cubic metre of air each year.

It is thought particulates are tiny enough to penetrate the skin’s outer layer.

Underneath the skin, they cause a growth in the number of melanocytes, which release the pigment melanin into the skin. As well as creating blotches, particulates and NO2 can cause skin inflammation and exacerbate eczema, the researchers found.

Ultraviolet light can act together with air pollutants to make skin damage even worse. – Daily Mail