Bathrooms

More than half of women in Mumbai, India don’t have indoor toilets. On average, women hold their bladders for 13 hours each day.

Women in India agitate for their right to pee

Development

About 600 million Indians live without toilets, and women and girls bear the brunt of that shortage. While men can and do relieve themselves almost anywhere, many women must choose between scarce, dangerous public facilities or expensive pay toilets when they need to pee.

How the Hunger Games salute is inspiring Thai protesters

Global Scan
"I've had a lot more experience with really lo-fi toilets abroad - I'm talking about latrines, outhouses," like this one in Siberia.

Why I don’t like bidets, but Iove the washlet

"I've had a lot more experience with really lo-fi toilets abroad - I'm talking about latrines, outhouses," like this one in Siberia.

Why I don’t like bidets, but Iove the washlet

Cheng Imm Tan at home in Boston.

First Days: She went to bed hungry on her first night in the US

Lifestyle & Belief

Pharmaceutical flushing

Environment

Americans flush a quarter of a billion pounds of drugs down the drain every year — what this means for the environment and our drinking water.

Nanotechnology hits store shelves

Environment

Nanosilver can be found in toothpaste and even baby pacifiers — a look at the safety of products produced with nanotechnology.

Inventing a Job: Advice from a Doer to a Dreamer

Yesterday, we talked with two people who stopped applying for jobs, and invented their own jobs instead. And we asked you, if you could invent a perfect job, what would it be? A lot of you wrote and called in with some fun ideas. A listener in Oregon said: I’d be a beer taste tester. […]

Finding Safety at a Public Bathroom in Nairobi’s Kibera Slum

A group of women in Nairobi’s Kibera slum spent the last year operating a public bathroom. It was built to offer a safe place to shower and counter the gender violence that erupted following the 2007 election.

Does Banning Bilingual Education Change Anything?

The World in Words

In this week’s World in Words podcast, what happens after a state bans bilingual education? And toilet talk with a US vs UK English expert.