In the world’s coldest capital, the effort to stay warm also helps make it the most polluted. In Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia’s fast-industrializing capital, temperatures can hit -40 degrees (C and F) in the winter. Toxic particles from unrefined coal, used for heat, fills the air…
The WHO and the International Telecommunication Union released new guidelines aimed at saving the hearing of people at risk due to excessive noise exposure —including through personal audio devices. A full half of people aged 12-35—1.1 billion—risk hearing loss despite…
“Bomb trains” are another potentially disastrous consequence of fracking—the process of extracting oil from rock layers. Trains hauling highly explosive crude are one derailment away from causing unthinkable damage in the typically low-income and minority neighborhoods cut…
In the early 2000s, development groups threw energy into helping poor households worldwide clean their own water—using cheap, easy technologies from sunlight to ceramic filters and boreholes. But what seemed promising in the lab didn’t pan out in practice. In Ghana, Gambia…
A dearth of cleaner alternatives and infrastructure improvements underscore worries that North Korea’s Kim Jong Un will continue to push coal as the country’s primary power source despite swelling air pollution. North Korea’s 2012 air pollution mortality rate topped those…
Scientific evidence has been the foundation of landmark laws like the Clean Air Act and air pollution regulations designed to protect Americans. But from the get-go, the Trump administration has had it in for science, argues Jacob Carter, of the Center for Science and…
Marc Edwards, a civil and environmental engineering professor at Virginia Tech, was widely regarded as a hero for helping expose dangerously high lead levels in Flint, Michigan. But when Edwards began reporting that Flint’s lead levels were improving, activists and…
Could a $350 worm-powered toilet that doesn’t flush be the future of sanitation? The Tiger Toilet resembles a standard pit latrine. But it doesn’t stink, thanks to a built-in colony of tiger worms deployed to feast on feces. When the worms have done their work, a much…
Traditional Chinese medicine has been around for over 2,500 years—and now for the first time, its diagnoses will be included in the WHO’s International Classification of Diseases. The influential document guides global health statistics and insurance reimbursement decisions.
Kilis—a Turkish border city whose population doubled with the arrival of Syrian refugees—is giving away thousands of bicycles to children. Recipients must maintain good grades, pledge to cycle for at least 1 hour a day and convince a relative to quit smoking. The bikes are…
