Science & Technology Archives - The World from PRX

Many Indigenous communities who depend on the Ecuadorian Amazon’s Coca River are seeing the impact of the oil spill — even hundreds of miles away.

The nonprofit investigative newsroom ProPublica recently created an interactive map that highlights the EPA’s failure to account for cumulative cancer risk for Americans who live near several industrial facilities.

Lead contamination in drinking water can have serious impacts on growing brains, including cognitive issues in the short term and mental illnesses years after the exposure ends.

A new book teaches that the Zen Buddhist practice of mindfulness can help us break out of a destructive cycle of consumption and live in harmony with the planet.

Three deaths have been confirmed by Tongan authorities. The eruption was so powerful that people as far as 2,000 miles away could hear it, and volcanic ash plume grew to 180 miles across the island in less than an hour.

Nearly 60 million homes in the United States are within a mile of a wildfire zone, but most people are unaware of the risk. This risk was made clear in the suburbs of Boulder, Colorado, on Dec. 30, 2021, when the Marshall fire torched close to a thousand homes.

We remember E.O. Wilson, one of the world’s leading naturalists who died on Dec. 26, 2021. “I like to call it, ‘one Earth, one experiment,'" he once said. "We’ve only got one shot at this. Let's be careful.”

Tom Lovejoy, along with his colleague EO Wilson, shaped humanity’s understanding of biodiversity and the importance of keeping vital ecosystems intact.

The year 2021 was once again one of the hottest on record. And what may seem like a slight temperature increase has actually caused devastating effects across the globe, with natural disasters becoming stronger and deadlier.

The recent uptick in sinkholes is largely attributed to rapid groundwater loss as farmers tap deep underground wells to irrigate fields during a nearly three-yearlong drought.