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Lina Zeldovich

Lina Zeldovich

Lina Zeldovich grew up watching her grandfather fertilize the family’s organic orchard with composted sewage and thought that the whole world did the same. Thirty years later, she had won four awards for covering the science of poo and focused her book on the novel solutions to the world’s oldest problem—keeping humans free from their own excrement. In writing The Other Dark Matter, she toured a slew of smelly sewage plants, hopped over many stinky street gutters, stuck her nose into a stool bank—and lived to tell the story. When she isn’t digging into humanure in India, Madagascar or North America, she lives in New York City and tends to a compost pile in her backyard.

Oil spill clean up worker

Epic Cleanups: Hurricane Sandy, Nuclear Waste, and Oil Spills

From oil spills to nuclear waste, humans are good at making epic messes. Sometimes we come up with clean up ideas and sometimes we neglect repairs entirely.
injection on raw chicken

Is Our Food Supply Toxic?

Yum. Scientists, policymakers, and journalists find that our food is polluted with pesticides, overdosed with antibiotics, and yet teeming with pathogens.
sulfur vent naples

Raging Seas, Blazing Smoke, and (Maybe) a Supervolcano

Have humans angered the planet? Smothering air pollution in California, rising seas in Oceania, and supervocanos that could cause global catastrophe.
Hypsilurus papuensis Papua Forest Dragon

Reptiles Need Your Love, Especially Now

A new study from Oxford and Tel Aviv universities found reptiles are underrepresented in conservation efforts, just in time for Reptile Awareness Day.
Indian Chicken Shop

Is Human Mistreatment of Animals Killing Our Planet?

Most people treat animals as tools for improving human lives. But recent reports reveal (mis)treatment of animals is harming the planet as a whole.
Mating Mallard Ducks

Unveiling Nature’s Mysteries: Mutant Sea Stars, Junk Jellyfish, and Duck Sex

Confront nature's mysteries, scientists find mutant sea stars surviving in warming waters and that sexual competition forces ducks to grow longer penises.
Scientists working in lab

To Save the Threatened, Scientists Clone Cacao, Fertilize Mollusks, and Hunt Porpoises

All over the world, researchers are trying to better understand a world in constant flux and to prevent species from extinction as they battle for survival.
India Campbell and Child

The New Victims of Climate Change: Plants, Parasites, and Pregnant Women

The recent series of hurricanes has demonstrated, climate change is no longer a nebulous futuristic menace, but an existential threat.
Smokestacks with pollution

Plastic in Your Beer, Toxins in Your Air, and Heavy Metals on Your Doorsteps

From household plastic to industrial waste, anthropogenic activity has created compounds that poison ecosystems from water to air.
Zika virus kills some cancer

Meet Zika’s Lifesaving Side: It Kills Cancer

A new study suggests the Zika virus may kill some cancer cells. It can destroy the stem cells of glioblastoma, the most common type of brain tumors.
flooded houston hurricane harvey impact

Natural and Man-Made Disasters, from Atom Weather to Fire Ants

Mother Nature’s wrath can be unpredictable and random, but history shows that humankind is ultimately responsible for many "natural disasters."
NOAA image of Irma Jose and Katia

Is This Triple-Hurricane Image the Sign of the New Norm?

There are currently three hurricanes swirling over the Atlantic Ocean, and meteorologists are saying they have never seen anything like.
virtual farming

New Farming Frontiers—Heat, Pesticides, and Virtual Reality

As climate change pushes agriculture into the unknown realms, farmers develop new methods of farming and organic sustainable farming takes hold.
Restoration of an American mastodon herd by Charles R. Knight

This Week in Sustainability: From Ice Age to Internet Age, Scientists Look for Clues to Species’ Extinctions

Scientists explore the causes--climate change, habitat destruction, and more--that decimated animals and humans alike, from Ice Age to Internet Age.
dead fish float in a polluted river

A Dead Fish “Vitamin Pill,” Microbes that Put Dinner on the Table, and a Truck that Runs On Cow Manure

From microbial biochemistry to recycling dead fish to manure-to-energy converters, here’s this week’s most surprising sustainability news.
wildfires are getting worse

West Coast Infernos, Midday Mudslides, and the Little Cool Beans that Might Save the World

Wildfires and public health, predicting floods, and substituting beans for beef were top stories in environmental news this week.