World Development News

December 25, 2025

Top Headlines

What You Eat Could Decide the Planet’s Future

Dec. 24, 2025 What we put on our plates may matter more for the climate than we realize. Researchers found that most people, especially in wealthy countries, are exceeding a “food emissions budget” needed to keep global warming below 2°C. Beef alone accounts ...

Deaths of Despair Were Rising Long Before Opioids

Dec. 20, 2025 Long before opioids flooded communities, something else was quietly changing—and it may have helped set the stage for today’s crisis. A new study finds that as church attendance dropped among middle-aged, less educated white Americans, deaths ...

A Hidden Climate Shift May Have Sparked Epic Pacific Voyages 1,000 Years Ago

Dec. 15, 2025 Around 1,000 years ago, a major climate shift reshaped rainfall across the South Pacific, making western islands like Samoa and Tonga drier while eastern islands such as Tahiti became increasingly ...

Scientists Uncover a Volcanic Trigger Behind the Black Death

Dec. 8, 2025 A newly analyzed set of climate data points to a major volcanic eruption that may have played a key role in the Black Death’s arrival. Cooling and crop failures across Europe pushed Italian states to bring in grain from the Black Sea. Those ...

Global Surge in Ultra-processed Foods Sparks Urgent Health Warning

Nov. 24, 2025 Ultra-processed foods are rapidly becoming a global dietary staple, and new research links them to worsening health outcomes around the world. Scientists say only bold, coordinated policy action can counter corporate influence and shift food systems ...

Ancient DNA Reveals the Deadly Diseases Behind Napoleon’s Defeat

Oct. 26, 2025 Researchers have uncovered microbial evidence in the remains of Napoleon’s soldiers from the 1812 Russian retreat. Genetic analysis revealed pathogens behind paratyphoid and relapsing fever, diseases likely contributing to the army’s massive ...

When Men Drink, Women and Children Pay the Price

Oct. 11, 2025 Men’s heavy drinking is fueling a hidden crisis affecting millions of women and children worldwide. The harms, from violence to financial instability, are especially severe where gender inequality is high. Experts warn that alcohol policies must ...

AI Has No Idea What It’s Doing, but It’s Threatening Us All

Sep. 7, 2025 Artificial intelligence is reshaping law, ethics, and society at a speed that threatens fundamental human dignity. Dr. Maria Randazzo of Charles Darwin University warns that current regulation fails to protect rights such as privacy, autonomy, and ...

Maui’s Fires Drove a 67% Jump in Deaths. Most Went Uncounted

Aug. 25, 2025 Researchers uncovered that the Maui wildfires caused a spike in deaths far higher than reported, with hidden fatalities linked to fire, smoke, and lack of medical access. They warn that prevention rooted in Native Hawaiian ecological knowledge is ...

Scientists Reveal How Just Two Human Decisions Rewired the Great Salt Lake Forever

Aug. 19, 2025 Scientists found that Great Salt Lake’s chemistry and water balance were stable for thousands of years, until human settlement. Irrigation and farming in the 1800s and a railroad causeway in 1959 ...

Mexican Cave Stalagmites Reveal the Deadly Droughts Behind the Maya Collapse

Aug. 16, 2025 Chemical evidence from a stalagmite in Mexico has revealed that the Classic Maya civilization’s decline coincided with repeated severe wet-season droughts, including one that lasted 13 years. These ...

Unwanted Pregnancies Surge with Alcohol, but Not with Cannabis, Study Finds

Aug. 1, 2025 Women who drank heavily, even though they strongly wished to avoid pregnancy, were 50% more likely to become pregnant than those who drank little or not at all, according to new research. Surprisingly, cannabis use didn t show the same ...

Latest Headlines

updated 2:12pm EST

A Lost Amazon World Just Reappeared in Bolivia

Nov. 30, 2025 Researchers exploring Bolivia’s Great Tectonic Lakes discovered a landscape transformed over centuries by sophisticated engineering and diverse agricultural traditions. Excavations show how ...

New Evidence Shows the Maya Collapse Was More Than Just Drought

Nov. 26, 2025 Researchers studying Classic Maya cities discovered that urban growth was driven by a blend of climate downturns, conflict, and powerful economies of scale in agriculture. These forces made crowded, ...

Why Did Ancient People Build Massive, Mysterious Mounds in Louisiana?

Nov. 24, 2025 Hunter-gatherers at Poverty Point may have built its massive earthworks not under the command of chiefs, but as part of a vast, temporary gathering of egalitarian communities seeking spiritual ...

Most Americans Don’t Know Alcohol Can Cause Cancer

Nov. 5, 2025 Most U.S. adults don’t realize alcohol raises cancer risk, and drinkers themselves are the least aware. Scientists say targeting these misbeliefs could significantly reduce alcohol-related cancer ...

Ancient Tides May Have Sparked Humanity’s First Urban Civilization

Oct. 27, 2025 New research shows that the rise of Sumer was deeply tied to the tidal and sedimentary dynamics of ancient Mesopotamia. Early communities harnessed predictable tides for irrigation, but when deltas ...

Why Gen X Women Can’t Stop Eating Ultra-Processed Foods

Sep. 29, 2025 Researchers found that middle-aged adults, especially women, are far more likely to be addicted to ultra-processed foods than older generations. Marketing of diet-focused processed foods in the 1980s ...

Scientists Win Ig Nobel Prize for Cracking the Code to Perfect Cacio E Pepe

Sep. 19, 2025 What started as a frustrating kitchen challenge turned into award-winning science: Fabrizio Olmeda and his colleagues scientifically decoded the secret of creamy cacio e pepe and earned the Ig Nobel ...

Scientists Modeled Nuclear Winter—the Global Food Collapse Was Worse Than Expected

July 26, 2025 What would happen if a nuclear war triggered a climate-altering catastrophe? Researchers have modeled how such a scenario could devastate global corn ...

Three-Person DNA IVF Stops Inherited Disease—eight Healthy Babies Born in UK First

July 18, 2025 In a groundbreaking UK first, eight healthy babies have been born using an IVF technique that includes DNA from three people—two parents and a ...

Cognitive Collapse and the Nuclear Codes: When Leaders Lose Control

July 17, 2025 A shocking study reveals that many leaders of nuclear-armed nations—including US presidents and Israeli prime ministers—were afflicted by serious health problems while in office, sometimes with ...

This Sun-Powered Sponge Pulls Drinking Water Straight from the Ocean

July 3, 2025 In a leap toward sustainable desalination, researchers have created a solar-powered sponge-like aerogel that turns seawater into drinkable water using just sunlight and a plastic cover. Unlike ...

Farming Without Famine: Ancient Andean Innovation Rewrites Agricultural Origins

June 26, 2025 Farming didn t emerge in the Andes due to crisis or scarcity it was a savvy and resilient evolution. Ancient diets remained stable for millennia, blending wild and domesticated foods while cultural ...

Collaboration Can Unlock Australia's Energy Transition Without Sacrificing Natural Capital

June 3, 2025 Australia can reach net-zero emissions and still protect its natural treasures but only if everyone works together. New research from Princeton and The University of Queensland shows that the country ...

Still on the Right Track? Researchers Enable Reliable Monitoring of the Paris Climate Goals

June 2, 2025 Global warming is continuously advancing. How quickly this will happen can now be predicted more accurately than ever before, thanks to a method developed by climate researchers. Anthropogenic global ...

Attachment Theory: A New Lens for Understanding Human-AI Relationships

June 2, 2025 Human-AI interactions are well understood in terms of trust and companionship. However, the role of attachment and experiences in such relationships is not entirely clear. In a new breakthrough, ...

Researchers Use Deep Learning to Predict Flooding This Hurricane Season

June 2, 2025 Researchers have developed a deep learning model called LSTM-SAM that predicts extreme water levels from tropical cyclones more efficiently and accurately, especially in data-scarce coastal regions, ...

The EU Should Allow Gene Editing to Make Organic Farming More Sustainable, Researchers Say

May 30, 2025 To achieve the European Green Deal's goal of 25% organic agriculture by 2030, researchers argue that new genomic techniques (NGTs) should be allowed without pre-market authorization in organic ...

Save Twice the Ice by Limiting Global Warming

May 29, 2025 A new study finds that if global warming exceeds the Paris Climate Agreement targets, the non-polar glacier mass will diminish significantly. However, if warming is limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius, at ...

Anthropologists Spotlight Human Toll of Glacier Loss

May 29, 2025 Anthropologists have examined the societal consequences of global glacier loss. This article appears alongside new research that estimates that more than three-quarters of the world's glacier ...

Living Libraries Could Save Our Food

May 29, 2025 Scientists have pioneered a new way to breed climate-resilient crops faster by combining plant genebank data with climate and DNA analysis. The method, tested on sorghum, could speed up global ...

Breakthrough AI Model Could Transform How We Prepare for Natural Disasters

May 22, 2025 From deadly floods in Europe to intensifying tropical cyclones around the world, the climate crisis has made timely and precise forecasting more essential than ever. Yet traditional forecasting ...

May 21, 2025 Hurricane winds are a major contributor to storm-related losses for people living in the southeastern coastal states. As the global temperature continues to rise, scientists predict that hurricanes ...

Thinking Peers Drink More Drives Risky Behavior

May 20, 2025 The study explores how social influences, particularly peer pressure, impact substance use -- and misuse -- among young adults. A confidential online survey on alcohol use was given to 524 students ...

Landmark Report Reveals Key Challenges Facing Adolescents

May 20, 2025 Poor mental health, rising obesity rates, exposure to violence and climate change are among the key challenges facing our adolescents today, according to a global ...

Household Action Can Play Major Role in Climate Change Fight

May 20, 2025 Encouraging people in North America and Sub-Saharan Africa to adopt a low-carbon lifestyle could help to cut global household emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide by up to two-fifths, a new ...

Thousands of Animal Species Threatened by Climate Change

May 20, 2025 A novel analysis suggests more than 3,500 animal species are threatened by climate change and also sheds light on huge gaps in fully understanding the risk to the animal ...

With Evolutionary AI, Scientists Find Hidden Keys for Better Land Use

May 19, 2025 Using centuries of land-use data, scientists have trained an AI system that evolves policy ideas the way nature evolves species—testing, mutating, and keeping only the best. The result? Smarter ...

What Behavioral Strategies Motivate Environmental Action?

May 14, 2025 A collaborative study tested 17 strategies in an 'intervention tournament.' Interventions targeting future thinking, such as writing a letter for a child to read in the future, are the most ...

New Global Model Shows How to Bring Environmental Pressures Back to 2015 Levels by 2050

May 14, 2025 A new study finds that with bold and coordinated policy choices -- across emissions, diets, food waste, and water and nitrogen efficiency -- humanity could, by 2050, bring global environmental ...

Addressing Hearing Loss May Reduce Isolation Among the Elderly

May 12, 2025 Providing hearing aids and advice on their use may preserve social connections that often wane as we age, a new study shows. Its authors say that this approach could help ease the loneliness epidemic ...