Science & Technology Archives - The World from PRX

The World's Carol Hills spoke to Anne Nejs, an urban ecologist for the city of Utrecht, who worked on creating the doorbell back in 2021. She says mid-April is the best time of the season to go fish-doorbelling.

The Moors, who ruled in Spain, had a network of canals 800 years ago that moved water from the Sierra Nevada down into cities and farms. Archaeologists today are trying to uncover those canals, and put the ancient wisdom about irrigation to use today.

The “greenhouse-in-a-box” is part of a solution designed to help smallholder farmers cope with the vagaries of a changing climate. The design, essentially a low-cost, scaled-down version of a standard greenhouse, is the brainchild of an Indian startup called Kheyti.

Garbage segregators in India often have to migrate in search of work. Many in Bangalore, India, also face constant harassment from the police and local residents, often facing eviction from informal settlements if they can't afford to pay bribes.

​​​​​​​Two months after devastating earthquakes killed more than 57,000 people in Turkey and Syria, survivors are living in tent camps and shipping containers outside the ruins of their former homes. As mobile businesses and streetside kebab shops return to the city of Antakya, some people are determined to stay in their hometown to grieve and rebuild.

The Anthropocene Working Group is voting on a so-called Golden Spike, a sedimentary layer somewhere on Earth that best exemplifies the global impact of humans on planet Earth. It's the last, big task in formally defining the Anthropocene, which is being proposed as a new age in geologic time.

The international nonprofit Global Witness has ranked the Philippines at the top of its list of deadliest countries to be an eco-activist. Dozens of environmentalists and land defenders also die each year or end up on government watch lists.

At Spain’s Institute of Science and Concrete Technology, engineers are trying to find ways to keep buildings and bridges from falling down. The lab is getting attention after the deadly earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria in February.

​​​​​​​Kolkata's 150-year-old tram system is limping along. It's down to just two lines and there is little political will, or room in the city's crowded streets, to bring the streetcars back to their former glory days. The tram does have a small but loyal band of supporters who want to keep it alive.

Along the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia sits Lake Kariba, where low water levels have interrupted power supply to both countries — profoundly impacting the economy.