Mary Ochsenhirt Amdur studied the effects of which historic air inversion that killed 20 people?
Mary Amdur Mary Ochsenhirt Amdur (February 18, 1921 – February 16, 1998) was an American toxicologist and public health researcher who worked primarily on pollution. She was charged with studying the effects of the 1948 Donora smog, so she specifically looked into the effects of inhaling Sulfuric acid by experimenting on guinea pigs. Her findings on the respiratory effects related to sulfuric acid led to her being threatened, to her funding being pulled, and to her losing her job at the Harvard School of Public Health in 1953. Undeterred by the setback, she carried on her research in a different role at Harvard, and subsequently at MIT and New York University. Despite the early controversy related to her work, it was used in the creation of standards in air pollution, and towards the end of her life she received numerous awards and accolades.
Winter 1985 cold wave The Winter 1985 cold wave was a meteorological event, the result of the shifting of the polar vortex further south than is normally seen. Blocked from its normal movement, polar air from the north pushed into nearly every section of the eastern half of the United States and Canada, shattering record lows in a number of areas. The event was preceded by unusually warm weather in the eastern U.S. in December 1984, suggesting that there was a build-up of cold air that was suddenly released from the Arctic, a meteorological event known as a Mobile Polar High, a weather process identified by Professor Marcel Leroux.