In 1993, the Four Corners region of the Southwestern United States experienced an unknown virus outbreak that killed its victims within 48 hours. While the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) turned to biomedical science to understand the mysterious virus, the affected Indigenous community turned to their own history. Ultimately, Navajo oral history offered answers that streamlined the research process and …
This article is part of the following series: Decentering Metabolism: Peripheral and Southern Diffractions
Life comes apart on the reef. Changes to ocean chemistry and temperature—generated by the fossil-hunger of militarism, extractivism, and industrialism—break open coral worlds on Australia’s northeast coast. Encountering death’s ascendency on the Great Barrier Reef, scientists seek to track coral life by descending within: to study limestone structures, the tiny polyps that build them, and the microscopic symbiotic algae that …
This article is part of the following series: Decentering Metabolism: Peripheral and Southern Diffractions
The metabolism of a city is perhaps nowhere more apparent than in its archaeology. Decades of excavations triggered by cultural heritage management legislation in Melbourne, Australia reveal a city honeycombed with rubbish pits. Disused cesspits (old-fashioned long-drop toilets), purpose-dug holes and localised dumps filled to the brim with rubbish remain below the factories, office buildings and car parks we see …
Breathtaking: Asthma Care in a Time of Climate Change
University of Minnesota Press, 2018. 236 pages.
Asthma is thought to affect an estimated 339 million people around the globe, with a prevalence rates as high as 20% of adults in some nations (Global Asthma Network 2018). It is one of the most common chronic conditions, impacting people across …
This article is part of the following series: Dispatches from the pandemic
In December 2019, a new respiratory virus outbreak began in the Chinese city of Wuhan, Hubei Province. A new strain of coronavirus, designated COVID-2019, belongs to a large family of viruses, causing illnesses ranging from the common cold to more severe cases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). The circumstances around the …
Before I began graduate school, I worked in water-related public health, and have continued to follow the news around water. This month, some stories (mostly) about water.
Trump signed an order last week to “expedite” the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, which jeopardizes the water source for the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, and for many others who drink water …