Pollution damages the brain.

Better late than never. But it's really late anyhow and it's a shame this had to be dug in hidden corner of the mainstream media, the BBC in this case (link to original article).

Ducth researchers have reproduced the kind of fume inhalation a traffic ward or any other urbanite, can suffer in any 30 minutes in any busy city. The result is stressed brains and a stress that does not go away until a lot after the toxic influence has been supressed (one hour for the 30 mins. experimental toxic session).

This in itself may not look too dangerous to the optimistic car-addict (i.e. almost everybody) and the study of brain diseases in humans is problematic. But another research on Mexican dogs found that those animals living in highly polluted Mexico City had large brain damage upon death, resembling the type of lesions found in humans with Alzheimer syndrome. Instead those living in rural areas had little or no such damage.

Have we finally found the source of such an epydemics of mental diseases?

When are we going to act and forbid or severely limit traffic in urban areas?