Hold your breath . . .

IF YOU DRIVE THROUGH NORTH DAKOTA, keep the windows rolled up, and maybe change the air filters in the HVAC system, if it has them. Why? According to Annalee Newitz at io9, those roads can kill. Her article, "The roads in North Dakota are giving people cancer" is worth checking out.

In Dunn County, North Dakota, the roads can kill you. In fact, anything you do to disturb rocks in the area, like driving or even sweeping, can kick up naturally-occurring particles that lodge in your body and give you a rare kind of lung cancer up to 30 years later. Dunn County, you see, is home to a lot of rocks containing erionite, an asbestos-like substance that's highly toxic. Unfortunately, nobody knew that until very recently. And so at least 300 miles of roads in North Dakota are paved with the stuff.

What do you do when you discover that you've built your county out of poison rocks?