News: April 2019

Identifying the grass pollen that gets up your nose

Scientists could be a step closer to providing more precise pollen forecasts to the 25% of the UK population who live with either asthma or hay fever. This follows the first results of a major three-year project to analyse airborne grass pollen. The first year’s findings, published in Nature Ecology & Evolution , have shown that it is not just the overall ‘load’ of grass pollen in the air that could cause those particularly bad days for asthma and hay fever sufferers. Days which see increased asthma attacks or intense hay fever could be related to the release of pollen from particular grass species.

Publication date: 8 April 2019