The Pulse · Interactive Narrative
Invisible risks,
made physical.
Air pollution is the largest environmental risk to human health on Earth — and the one you can't feel until it's too late. The Pulse translates it into things you can.
Biological Strain Translator
Enter an AQI.
See what it's actually costing you.
Three ways to feel a number that most of us learned to ignore.
Sources: Berkeley Earth (Muller et al., 2015) for cigarette equivalence · EPIC AQLI (University of Chicago) for life-expectancy cost · U.S. EPA for AQI→PM2.5 conversion. Values are estimates for awareness — not a medical diagnosis.
The lifespan cost
Air pollution is a time thief.
According to the EPIC AQLI 2024 report, the average person globally loses 1.9 years of life expectancy to fine particulate pollution. In South Asian megacities, the number is far worse.
Why now
The gap that keeps widening.
Indoor is worse than you think
Volatile organic compounds are typically 2–5× more concentrated indoors than outdoors. Your home is not a shield.
U.S. EPA ↗The city average is a lie
Government monitors are kilometres away, averaged over hours. On a single Bengaluru commute, Securio pinned readings from 71 to 320 — within minutes and a few kilometres of each other.
Your posture changes what you breathe
"Text-neck" posture has been shown to reduce forced vital capacity — how deeply you can breathe — by up to 30%. Environment isn't the only variable.
NIH / PubMed ↗