“It’s not every day we get to paint a roof in Midtown,” said Special Projects Manager for the New York City Service Wendy Dessy to a group of volunteers assembled in the basement of the David H. Koch Theater in Lincoln Center. As she distributed buckets filled with paintbrushes and gloves, an audible hum of [...]

Prior to his dropout from the University of Colorado, Aurora theater-shooter James Holmes had been seeing a mental health specialist at the University. However, school specialists, trained mostly to treat academic anxiety, were ill equipped to address Holmes’s condition. New evidence indicates he may have also called his psychiatrist just minutes before he entered the [...]

By Paul Tae Yang In the past couple of weeks, I’ve been helping my friend on some search engine optimization (SEO) work for WiserEarth, a non-profit dedicated to fostering collaboration among individuals from other non-profits and government and civic organizations around the world. WiserEarth does this through its online social network platform at Wiser.org. After [...]

Few foresaw the direction that the Supreme Court would take the decision on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as PPACA or Obamacare. Immediately after the decision, public focus was still on the retention of the individual mandate. Though the Court’s change in the Medicaid expansion was unexpected, Health and Human Services [...]

As I write this, a single piece of legislation with the greatest potential to improve America’s health sits in limbo in our nation’s capital. As soon as a few weeks from today, the government will release its final decision on a bill with roots in the beginning of the 20th century. Contrary to popular opinion, [...]

According to the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation, almost 80% of Americans currently live in a municipality that bans smoking in the workplace, local bars, restaurants, and other public and private spaces. The smoking ban campaign aims to address health concerns associated with cigarettes by achieving cleaner indoor air. Some cities, like Belmont, California, have even [...]

Shrimp farming, an industry that supplies the world with over 5 million metric tons of shrimp each year, is known throughout the environmental community as one of the world’s most destructive coastal industries. Aquaculture, the type of industry utilized by shrimp companies in areas like Southeast Asia, dramatically reduces biological diversity, degrades habitats, reduces genetic variability, [...]

Despite the passing of laws forbidding organ sales, socioeconomically vulnerable people in the global south continue to sell parts of their body to survive. In 1994, India’s Parliament passed the Transplantation of Human Organs Act (THOA) to make organ sales illegal. Although superficially beneficial, the lived outcomes of this action were anything but advantageous. After [...]

Headlines in late August 2011 were quick to announce the results of a UN Report declaring a 20% decrease in the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the Asia and Pacific Region. While the decrease is no doubt a wonderful feat, it is difficult to diagnose it as a direct result of international medical programs (rather than [...]

On January 28, 2011, the UK agreed to develop formal partnerships with China to accelerate the development of low-carbon technologies in both countries. In a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by UK climate change secretary Chris Huhne and Chinese Vice-Premier Li Keqiang, the governments outlined plans for a Low Carbon Cooperation (LCC) initiative designed to facilitate the [...]