Mercury

While the US is using less coal than we have in the past, we plan to export more coal to Asia. That means transporting it by trains, as we’ve done for decades. But there’s very little research on the effects coal has on the environment when it escapes from coal hoppers bumping along the rails.

In the Philippines, families with children mine for gold in dark, muddy tunnels of water up to 60 feet deep — exposing themselves to grave danger in the process.In the Philippines, families with children mine for gold in dark, muddy tunnels of water up to 60 feet deep — exposing themselves to grave danger in the process.

Mercury builds up in fish over time, which can be dangerous to humans when they eat fish. For the longest time, we didn’t know how that mercury built up, but new research sheds a light on that process.

Colombia is a relatively large producer of gold on the global scale, but it has an out-sized role in the amount of pollution it produces. But a new group of miners, small now, is turning to a more earth-friendly, even historic, way of separating gold from ore.