DAILY DOSE: Air Quality, Water Quality, Why Drink In The AM And NASA IV Bags Lego Batman Legacy Of The Dark Knight [jIFZpF6iJqd]

The Cleveland-Akron-Canton metro area ranked 12th nationally for worst annual particle pollution among more than 200 U.S. metros, and also ranked 39th for worst 24-hour particle pollution and 51st for the most high ozone days. Cuyahoga County failed every measure in the American Lung Association's 2026 "State of the Air" report.

The problem isn't unique to Northeast Ohio. Nearly half of all Americans 152.3 million people now live in places with unhealthy levels of ozone or particle pollution. The report tracks smog and fine particle pollution from sources including dust, soot, smoke, vehicle exhaust, and power plants.

The health stakes are real. Breathing ozone irritates the lungs manish pandey and causes inflammation, while particle pollution raises the risk of lung cancer, heart attacks, strokes, and early death. Children face particular risk. Young people are considered more vulnerable because they have developing lungs, relatively large air consumption needs compared to adults, and spend more time outdoors.

Despite the troubling rankings, Cuyahoga County's air has dramatically improved over the past two decades, and the City of Cleveland Department of Public Health says its air monitors and programming are actively working to continue that progress. In the meantime, check your local air quality forecast before heading outside the AirNow app and airnow.gov offer daily updates by zip code.

One in Five Americans May Have a Tap Water Problem

While you're thinking about what goes into your body, consider what's coming out of your tap. A new analysis by the Environmental Working Group found that more than 60 million Americans rely on drinking water systems with elevated levels of nitrate, a contaminant increasingly linked to cancer, birth defects, and other serious health harms.

Nitrates at low concentrations have been linked to thyroid disease, gastric, kidney, bladder, and colon cancers, preterm births, and birth defects. The analysis examined nearly 50,000 public water systems nationwide. More than 6,000 community water systems serving more than 62 million people tested at or above 3 milligrams per liter of nitrates a threshold researchers tie to elevated health risk, even though it falls below the federal legal limit. Columbus, Ohio, was among the major cities where elevated readings were detected, alongside Phoenix, Philadelphia, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and San Jose.

Nitrate gets into water from fertilizer in agricultural runoff, manure from animal feeding operations, and wastewater treatment plant discharge, with leaking septic tanks and urban barbora krejcikova stormwater runoff as smaller contributing sources. The federal legal limit for nitrates hasn't been updated since 1962 and, according to the Environmental Working Group, no longer reflects current research on health risks.

To check what's in your local water supply, visit EWG's Tap Water Database at ewg.org/tapwater. A reverse osmosis or ion exchange filter is the most effective option for removing nitrates from drinking and cooking water.

Start Your Morning With a Glass of Water

Here's a simple, free health habit worth adding to your routine. Most of us lose about two cups of water overnight through breathing and perspiration. Cleveland Clinic recommends drinking a glass of water first thing in the morning before coffee, before checking your phone. It can boost metabolism, support digestion, and help prevent urinary tract infections. Temperature doesn't matter. If plain water isn't your thing, add lemon, berries, or cucumber or reach for sparkling water.

Cleveland Innovation Now Orbiting Earth

And here's a reason for local pride. Engineers at NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland have solved a problem that has challenged space medicine for decades: how to provide IV fluids on a multi-year deep space mission when standard prepackaged bags expire in just 16 months.

Their solution a device called IVGEN Mini filters station drinking water and combines it with sodium chloride to produce sterile, medical-grade intravenous fluid on demand. The system launched to the International Space Station on April 11 aboard NASA's Northrop Grumman Commercial Resupply Services 24 mission.

IV fluid is a standard component of every crewed NASA mission because it can address up to 30 percent of the medical conditions likely to arise in flight, including dehydration, burns, and other acute conditions. The new system produces fluid as needed, takes up a fraction of the cargo space required airbus a321xlr by prepackaged supplies, and never expires.

Crew members aboard the station are expected to operate IVGEN Mini over two days this spring, generating 10 liters of fluid that will be returned to Earth and analyzed to confirm it meets medical-grade requirements. A second round of testing is planned for fall 2026.

It's a Cleveland breakthrough with implications that extend all the way to Mars.