Ramadan presents a challenge to Covid-19 vaccination programs

From April 12, Muslims observe the holy month of Ramadan.They fast from sunrise to sunset—this includes drinks and other substances, such as tobacco and non-essential oral medicine. For almost 2 billion people around the world, this raises the question of whether they should postpone getting a Covid-19 vaccine injection during the daytime till after...

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The countries with the highest concentrations of air pollution

When it comes to the air you breathe, your location matters. While no city, state, or country is completely free of air pollution, some have better air quality than others. The quality of the air outside affects that inside, which is where most people spend 90% of their time.The best way scientists know to gauge how harmful air can be to the people...

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Five ways to improve the quality of the air in your home

If you’re one of the many people spending a lot more time at home these days, spare a thought for the air you’re breathing there.Compared to other indoor settings, many homes have few “air changes per hour,” a metric engineers use to assess ventilation, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). As a result, air pollutants can pile up....

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Do we have a right to clean air?

Ella Kissi-Debrah was only nine when she died in London in 2013. The cause was respiratory failure, but it’s pollution that killed her.That is what the coroner determined in a landmark case, which explicitly linked the girl’s death to levels of nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter higher than the World Health Organization (WHO) says are safe. Vehicles...

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Does moving somewhere with clean air improve your health?

Where industrialized humans live, air pollution follows. That’s bad news for your lungs, which, in exchanging the gasses necessary to keep us alive, encounter particles that can make the body function less well.Though scientists know that chronic exposure to air pollution is toxic to several organ systems, the exact mechanism of how our bodies accrue...

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Could Covid-19 usher in the age of clean indoor air?

Take your age and multiply it by 0.9. That’s your indoor age, or the number of years that you’ve spent inside your home or office, according to Joseph G. Allen, director of the healthy buildings program at Harvard’s T. H. Chan School of Public Health. For most people, it’s equal to about 90% of their life.These days, the amount of time people spend...

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How much money does Nigeria owe China?

Nigeria and China mark their golden jubilee of official relations in 2021, having established diplomatic ties in 1971.As trade and investment have grown, so has lending, leading to an increased focus on the balance of the bilateral relationship. Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari has at times had to deny that his country was too reliant on Chinese...

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Fintech scams, Akon’s crypto ambitions, hot whales

Hi Quartz Africa readers!Solar power is invaluable for households and businesses across Africa that lack access to reliable electricity from the grid. It can keep lights on, phones charged, and small businesses afloat, and is even helping to expedite the delivery of vaccines for Covid-19 and other infectious diseases.But solar has its limits. Without...

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The US has a chance fix its broken climate risk disclosure system

Government and investors are quickly moving to quantify the risks posed by climate change and make that part of their financial decision-making. But many companies remain unsure how to measure the threat of climate change to their business, and whether or how to report those risks to investors and the public.Financial regulators in the US are grappling...

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Oatly’s offbeat marketing turned boring alt-milk into a $10-billion business

“Oatly has crossed the line from hip to basic,” Bloomberg food reporter Deena Shanker recently declared on Twitter. That may be a diss, but it’s also a testament to the 27-year-old Swedish oat-milk company, which counts Oprah, Jay-Z, and Natalie Portman among its investors. When you’ve got an upcoming IPO with a rumored valuation of $10 billion, who...

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