Tag: Issue 10.2: Spring 2025

BY NIDA KHAN It only took two weeks to forget what a lifetime of health felt like. Three years ago, I developed nerve pain in my hands and feet—one of the most challenging symptoms of having hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. Once my baseline for pain changed, so did my ability to conceive of having ever felt … Continue reading Climate Change and Chronic Conditions: Disability and Inequality in a Warming World

BY JOSHUA CHEN A 2022 study found that over 300 million people worldwide were administered anesthesia for surgery procedures every year1. With life-saving surgical procedures on the rise and the ever-present desire to keep them as painless as possible, the number of patients administered anesthesia every year is also rising2. While anesthetics can be administered … Continue reading From the Operating Room to the Atmosphere: The Climate Impact of Inhaled Anesthetics

BY MIIGIS CURLEY Recognizing that colonial activity is not limited to the past but rather a consistent factor dictating Indigenous life is critical to understanding how climate change creates communal displacement from homelands and cultural genocide. Various Indigenous communities in America and Oceania experience attest to the contemporary navigation of colonial violence. Who are leading … Continue reading Settler Colonialism Conspiring as Climate Change

BY GRACE UDOH The United States is facing a healthcare workforce shortage projected to reach a crippling 3.2 million by the year 2026¹. These numbers are not expected to decrease anytime soon, with an average of 1.8 million job openings in various areas of the US healthcare system every year². International Medical Graduates have been … Continue reading Doctors Given Borders: The Causes and Costs of US IMG Concentration in Primary Care

BY SAM OBIOMA According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), over 430 million tons of plastic are produced every year. Via ultraviolet (UV) radiation, fragmentation, and even bacteria, plastic is broken down from everyday products into smaller fragments which, over time, have been found in our air, food, and water. Microplastics have … Continue reading Microplastics and Infertility: An Invisible Crisis

BY PAIGE MAHONEY For Europeans, the middle of the 1300s was marked by cold and death. What scientists and historians have now deemed the Little Ice Age started at the beginning of the century, bringing with it famine as crops failed due to poor growing conditions. At the same time, the plague was devastating the … Continue reading Plague and the Little Ice Age: A Harbinger of What is to Come?

BY SHARNA SAHA Concrete is everywhere—our roads, bridges, buildings, and even sewage systems depend on it. But do we ever stop to consider its true impact? The construction industry uses 30 billion metric tons of concrete annually—equivalent to six Pyramids of Giza—yet its production is one of the largest contributors to global carbon emissions. Cement, … Continue reading The Future of Construction: Living, Self-Healing Concrete

BY ESSEY AFEWERKI 57,000 acres of land in Los Angeles were razed in the span of 3 weeks from January 7th to 27th at the start of this year. The scorched earth across the Palisades and Eaton regions swallowed more land than exists in the whole of Manhattan or Washington DC 1. The immediate destruction … Continue reading The Invisible Scars of Wildfires

BY CONSTANZA BINEY What if the greatest threat to your brain wasn't genetics or aging, but rather the changing climate? Climate change has long been recognized for its impacts on physical health, heightening respiratory conditions and the spread of infectious disease. However, its effects on the brain remain an underrecognized crisis. Emerging research reveals that … Continue reading The Climate Crisis in Your Mind: How Air Pollution and Heat are Rewiring our Brains