In Brazil, black COVID-19 patients are dying at higher rates than white patients. Worse housing quality, working conditions and health care help to explain the pandemic’s racially disparate toll.
Brian Allan, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Chris Stone, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Holly Tuten, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Jennifer Kuzma, North Carolina State University, and Natalie Kofler, Harvard University
Release of GM mosquitoes in Florida is imminent. But a multidisciplinary team of scientists believe that more studies are needed first. They encourage a publicly accessible registry for GM organisms.
Maids were among Brazil’s earliest COVID-19 victims, infected by employers who had been to Italy. Now 39% of Brazilian ‘domésticas’ have been let go, most without severance or sick leave.
Robert Muggah, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio) and Richard Florida, University of Toronto
COVID-19 is spreading fast through not only the world’s richest cities but also its poorest, ravaging slum areas where risk factors like overcrowding and poverty accelerate disease transmission.
In a Latin American country hard hit by COVID-19, an agricultural collective is stepping in to help where government won’t, mounting an astonishing national pandemic response.
Brazil’s Valley of the Dawn faith is often dismissed as a cult. But many of the group’s fantastical rituals are a recognizable reaction to this harsh world of inequality, loneliness and pandemics.
Jair Bolsonaro has ignored and openly challenged the advice of health authorities, sacked his health minister and tried to use the pandemic for political gain.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has been called the South American version of Donald Trump. His behaviour during the coronavirus pandemic shows why.
Criminal gangs, insurgents and terrorist groups seek to protect the people in the areas they govern, when a central government’s power is weak or nonexistent.
A new study finds 70% of Amazonian dung beetles were killed by the severe fire and droughts of 2015 to 2016. By spreading seeds and poop, dung beetles fertilize forests and aid regrowth of vegetation.
Native Brazilians are among the Amazon’s most effective defenders against logging and mining, because they’re fighting not just for the environment but for their people’s very survival.
Dams built to hold enormous quantities of toxic mining waste have a long history of spills. Decisions in the Pacific Northwest threaten three free-flowing rivers there.
If Brazil can find an efficient, pragmatic way to welcome, protect and integrate hundreds of thousands of forced migrants arriving at its border, so can more affluent states.