
Words – and worlds – were shared in celebration of the second annual World Read Aloud Day, organized by LitWorld, on March 9, 2011. As part of LitWorld’s much larger celebration of reading, literacy and learning, students from across the Millennium Cities connected with students in the United States via Skype, to share stories and…

By Matt Berg, ICT Director, Millennium Villages Project To demonstrate the critical role technology can play in achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals to reduce poverty, the Earth Institute, Columbia University has partnered with Microsoft’s Unlimited Potential Community Technology Skills program to establish a computer programmer training center at the Millennium Villages project (MVP) office…

As the mid-Pacific trash island grows, forces are at work to change people’s minds about how they may be adding to it.

We are driving back to Khulna at 10:30 after our third excellent day in a row. However, there were still a lot of hiccups along the way. Yesterday, we were set to install the deep well, but when we arrived they were just starting to pull the pipe from the deep well. We had hoped…

Researchers at the University of Cambridge recently found that elephants understand and can display complex levels of cooperation to reach a common goal.

It occurred to me while reading noted historian Douglas Brinkley’s new book The Quiet World: Saving Alaska’s Wilderness Kingdom 1879-1960 that some things don’t seem to change. Brinkley’s book chronicles the efforts of the Federal government to save wild Alaska from the extraction industries, mining, timber and fisheries primarily. The notion over one hundred years…

On February 18, 2011, the Earth Institute hosted about 20 South Korean delegates for a presentation given by the health team at the Center for Global Health and Economic Development. Their trip was an extension of their participation in a Health Emergencies in Large Populations (HELP) course that was developed through a joint effort of…

An article in the New York Times has prompted debate over the effects of hydrofracking, a means of obtaining natural gas, on drinking water supplies.

Days here seem to be coming in pairs. In the morning, we redid the 40m well, remeasuring, doing a dry run with no cement, mixing and putting in cement, lowering the fiber and everything went as planned. Then came the 60m well. It already had a history. It caved in twice when they pulled the…