Public health measures aimed at slowing the spread of COVID-19 have also reduced transmission of flu — but this is not the year to blow off your annual flu shot A funny thing happened last year just as the COVID-19 pandemic began sweeping across the world — the flu disappeared. What had been a fairly […]
Canadian Geographic
Sailing around the world for ocean plastic
Canadian scientist Sheri Bastien discusses her involvement in eXXpedition, an all-female expedition to study ocean plastic. Sheri Bastien is a Canadian public health researcher at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences in Ås. Soon she’ll be setting sail as part of eXXpedition, an all-female around-the-world sailing expedition that aims to study and raise awareness of […]
Reducing e-waste recycling risks in Ghana
How researchers are working to help mitigate the effects of toxic pollution at Agbogbloshie, a notorious dump for the world’s e-waste. In the middle of Accra, the capital of Ghana, sits Agbogbloshie, one of the largest and oldest electronic waste recycling sites in Africa. The eight-hectare scrapyard takes in used electronics from Europe, the United […]
Designed in Canada, deployed in Mozambique
How a Mozambican expat in Saskatchewan designed a motorcycle ambulance to help improve maternal health in his homeland. It’s a problem that plagues Mozambique. The southern African nation has one of the world’s highest maternal mortality rates, at 489 deaths per 100,00 live births (compared to seven deaths per 100,000 live births in Canada), and […]
A decade of improving food security around the world
Five ways the Canadian International Food Security Research Fund transformed lives For almost 10 years, the Canadian International Food Security Research Fund has been supporting projects to improve food security in the developing world. Launched in 2009 in the aftermath of the food price crisis brought on by the 2008 recession, the $124.5 million program, which is […]
Working wonders with mine waste
How scientists in Morocco hope to turn huge slag piles of coal mining waste into bricks and transform the city of Jerada in the process. The city of Jerada in northeastern Morocco exists because of coal. The city grew up around a major coal mine that opened early last century. But when the mine closed […]
Stopping the rot
How a natural compound called hexanal is helping prevent India’s lucrative fruit crops from spoiling. India is the world’s second-largest producer of tropical fruit and vegetables, but a huge amount of the harvest — up to 40 per cent — is lost to spoilage on the farm, in the warehouse and in transit before it […]
A creepy-crawly food revolution
Long considered pests, insects are now on the menu for farmed fish and poultry in Kenya and Uganda, where scientists are looking for cheaper, healthier ways to boost animal growth and develop the local economy. Raising chickens or fish in Africa can be an expensive proposition. Most of the money goes into just keeping them […]
Maternal health enters the information age in Peru
How the Wawared project is using technology to collect and share health data that will improve the lives of women and, perhaps eventually, everyone in the nation. In much of the developing world, women suffer higher rates of maternal mortality and morbidity than necessary — most of the causes of ill health that lead to […]
Drones on the delta
In Ghana’s Volta River delta, the remotely-operated aerial vehicles are going where researchers can’t to help study coastal erosion, flooding and migration. River deltas are among some of the most densely populated places on Earth, especially in some developing African and Asian nations. They’re also some of the areas most vulnerable to climate change, with […]