On Aug 31, 1665, Samuel Pepys noted dolefully in his diary: “Thus this month ends, with great sadness upon the public through the greatness of the plague, everywhere through the Kingdom almost. Every day sadder news of its increase. In the City died this week 7496; and of them 6102 of the plague.

A limited literature base suggests that ambient temperature contributes to suicide, with studies typically focused on a single nation using temporal and spatial aggregated data. The researchers evaluated an association between ambient temperature and suicide in multiple cities in three East Asian countries.

The causes of declines in bees and other pollinators remains an on-going debate. While recent attention has focussed upon pesticides, other environmental pollutants have largely been ignored. Aluminium is the most significant environmental contaminant of recent times and we speculated that it could be a factor in pollinator decline. Herein we have measured the content of aluminium in bumblebee pupae taken from naturally foraging colonies in the UK.

The city of Kolkata is one of the most urbanized and densely populated regions in the world and a major industrial and commercial hub of the eastern and northeastern region of India. In order to classify the seismic risk zones of Kolkata we used seismic hazard exposures on the vulnerability components, namely land use/land cover, population density, building typology, age and height.

As cities continue to expand and ever more people migrate to urban areas, current unsustainable patterns of urbanisation and ineffective policies are no longer acceptable. The typical approaches that maintain the separation between rural and urban neglect all of the ways that connect both worlds. And nowhere else are rural and urban areas more linked than within the food system.

Original Source

Climate change in Ethiopia is occurring against a backdrop of rapid population growth and urbanization, entrenched poverty and a heavy burden of disease, and there is little information on specific health risks with which to approach adaptation planning and strengthen adaptive capacity.

Greenhouse gases (GHGs) are the prime cause of climate change, to which India is a significant party. International Energy Agency, in its World Energy Outlook report estimates that 70% of the GHGs are produced within the cities. But there is limited empirical evidence to substantiate such claims in the Indian context. India being a developing country with a large rural population base, the general perception is that cities hardly have any carbon footprint. This article is an empirical study of urban contribution of carbon dioxide emissions.

Sexual violence is a major public health issue, affecting 35% of women worldwide. Major risk factors for sexual assault include inadequate indoor sanitation and the need to travel to outdoor toilet facilities. We estimated how increasing the number of toilets in an urban township (Khayelitsha, South Africa) might reduce both economic costs and the incidence and social burden of sexual assault.

Original Source

Just as modern nation-states struggle to manage the cultural and economic impacts of migration, ancient civilizations dealt with similar external pressures and set policies to regulate people’s movements. In one of the earliest urban societies, the Indus Civilization, mechanisms linking city populations to hinterland groups remain enigmatic in the absence of written documents. However, isotopic data from human tooth enamel associated with Harappa Phase (2600-1900 BC) cemetery burials at Harappa (Pakistan) and Farmana (India) provide individual biogeochemical life histories of migration.