To the list of air pollution's health effects, add another one: loss of sense of smell.

Mexico City residents can't detect subtle smells as well as residents of neighboring Tlaxcala, researchers at Mexico's National University (UNAM) have reported, though the regions are quite similar in both culture and climate. The primary difference: Mexico City has much higher levels of air pollution.

As the Olympic Games approach, China has come under fire for its environmental track record. Tales of Beijing and other cities' infamous pollution and images of highly polluted lakes and rivers have met with demands for action, both within China and internationally, and have produced some meaningful results. Yet another environmental crisis looms: biological invasions. Indeed, while perhaps not as overt as choking smog or pea-green water, the ecosystems of this vast nation are increasingly threatened by invasive species.

The global campaign to eradicate malaria in the 1950s and '60s successfully vanquished the disease from the United States and Europe and substantially reduced it in others – in India and Sri Lanka, for instance, malaria cases decreased by 99 percent. Malaria transmission was nearly wiped out in the subtropics, and it was significantly reined in in parts of the Soviet Union, Latin America, and Asia.

About the insecticide that served as a cornerstone of the campaign, the National Academy of Sciences wrote in 1970: "To only a few chemicals does man owe as great a debt." But the same insecticide has become one of today's most infamous chemicals. It is DDT.

The earthquake that struck Sichuan Province on May 12, 2008 was China's most damaging earthquake since the 1976 Tangshan earthquake disaster. Sichuan, a province in western China, has been historically known as the "Land of Abundance" (Tian Fu Zhi Guo), as it is one of the major agricultural production bases of China.

The most immediate concerns after such a disaster are human casualties, injury, and property destruction. However, earthquakes and other natural disasters wreak substantial environmental damage, with consequences for human health and economy as well as biodiversity and resource availability.

Economic accounts and social indicators have aided policymaking in both the public and private sectors for many decades. Here at EarthTrends, we catalogue information about more than 200 countries more than 700 different ways, with numbers showing population levels, energy consumption, economic growth, and ecosystem health.

However, some of the most critical data for good policymaking are not collected or reported in any meaningful or systematic way.

Trash is a pervasive but unnoticed part of our lives. The great irony of waste management is that even the most efficient and well-run waste collection programs remain out of sight, ignored by the public that they serve. Only with failure does the omnipresence of trash really come to light. Today, many nations face a looming waste management crisis, as their landfills reach capacity and continue to degrade the environment. But new and innovative waste-collection and construction techniques – far cries from the dirty incinerators and vast landfills of the past – can help to reduce waste volume and minimize environmental and health impacts.

Ecological resources have factored into many national conflicts--either through competition for scarce resources or greed to exploit plentiful ones. But some scholars see another role for the environment: fostering peace. Resources managed jointly can quell regional hostilities, or better, keep lines of communication open so that a conflict never starts, these scholars say, and it seems the idea is gaining traction.

One of the last untapped fisheries for human consumption may not remain that way much longer. Krill, shrimp-like crustaceans that grow about two inches long, are some of the most abundant marine life. They're regularly eaten by whales, seals, penguins, and sea birds, but so far not extensively fished for human consumption. However, fishery regulators say, that could change quickly, with high food prices and depleted fish stocks driving a new industry in krill oils.

But krill might yet be saved from the fate of its marine neighbors. Regulators are proactively aiming to prevent overfishing of krill, to stem off destroying a species fundamental to ocean food chains worldwide.

Environmental ministers from around the world are wrapping up two weeks of meetings in Bonn, Germany, as part of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. Today, delegates made some of the best progress of the meeting, establishing plans to create an independent scientific panel to do what the IPCC did for climate change--bring it scientific credibility and urgency. However, some of the conference's biggest challenges remain unresolved, including financial commitments to follow through on this plan.

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