Linda Poon

In places where fresh water is hard to come by, how do you come up with clean drinking water?

Easy — get the water from poop.

It's a scientifically sound idea, and Bill Gates has a video to prove it. In the video, released this week, he stands in front ...

Ou Ning used to hate the countryside.

He had a comfortable life in Beijing where he worked as an artist. Yet in 2013, the 45-year-old packed his bags and traded his apartment for a centuries-old house in Bishan, a small village in China's Huizhou region. He brought with him ...

Adebisi Alimi is the first person ever to come out as gay on Nigerian television. But that wasn't what the 29-year-old wanted to be known for back in 2004.

Alimi's acting career was just starting to take off when his sexuality stole the spotlight. The student newspaper at University of ...

Their smiles may captivate the audience, but beauty alone won't be enough to win the crown at this year's Miss World competition in London on Sunday.

"Beauty with a Purpose" is what the Miss World organizers say is at the heart of the competition. That's the portion ...

After you've seized all the deals on Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday, it's giveback time.

Today is Giving Tuesday, the day that asks people to donate to a good cause. This online campaign was created three years ago by the 92nd Street Y, a cultural ...

Inflated home appraisals appear to be on the rise, according to the Wall Street Journal, in what industry executives see as a comeback of practices that were common leading up to the financial crisis.

An estimated one in seven home appraisals between 2011 and early 2014 inflated home ...

What can you do with human waste? Besides flushing it?

That's a question that came to mind when we read about the United Kingdom's first-ever "Bio-bus." It's a tour bus that runs between the cities of Bristol and Bath. The tank is filled with biomethane gas generated from food waste ...

What does it mean to have a toilet?

We in the West don't spend much time pondering that question (on or off the toilet).

"It's something that's always in the background that keeps everything else moving," says Sam Drabble of Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP), a ...

Jack Sim's career is in the toilet — literally.

The 57-year-old Singaporean made his fortune in the construction industry when he was in his 40s. And he wanted to make a meaningful contribution to the world.

Sim tried his hand at saving historic buildings and answering phone calls from people ...

As part of UNMEER, WHO — along with GoL, GoSL and NGOS like IMC and MSF — has been fighting the EVD crisis, making sure doctors correctly put on PPEs according to CDC guidelines. Meanwhile WFP is sending in food and DETT from JFC-UA are training health workers who will ...

When Rebecca "Mama" Barclay died in the summer of 2011, hundreds gathered for her funeral at a small Baptist church a few miles outside Liberia's capital, Monrovia. Men came in suits, women in black outfits or church robes and children in white to honor the 69-year-old woman, who was a ...

Following on a pledge to use his office's discretionary powers to adjust the U.S. approach to immigration, President Obama reportedly plans to remove the threat of deportation for up to 5 million people who entered the U.S. illegally.

The administration's shift in approach was reported by The New York ...

It's the biggest Ebola song yet.

Just as stars like Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder came together in 1985 to sing "We Are the World" and raise money for Ethiopian famine relief, 12 acclaimed African musicians have united to marry music and message.

The reggae song is called "Africa Stop ...

If there's one thing college kids do best, it's thinking creatively. Often operating with limited resources and tight deadlines, they're used to coming up with ingenious solutions to life's everyday problems (usually on little sleep). So it's no surprise that experts are turning to students for help in battling one ...

For the past 25 years, Jill Andrews has been making extravagant dresses for brides and whimsical costumes for actors. But this past weekend, the 47-year-old wedding gown designer from Baltimore used her sewing skills to create a different kind of garment: an anti-Ebola protection suit.

Andrews was one of ...

This is a week for reflecting on lessons learned from those who've survived Ebola.

Morning Edition aired a report on the experience of medical personnel at Emory Hospital, which has cared for four Ebola patients: three evacuees from West Africa (including Dr. Kent Brantly) and one of the Texas ...

Public health student Robert Snyder says he's been back and forth between U.S. and Brazil at least six times. While some trips were for fun, others were to study how diseases affect some of the country's poorest communities.

Snyder, 28, who's pursuing a doctorate in epidemiology at University of ...

What's for dinner on World Food Day?

How about a humble meal of dried termites stirred into a sukuma wiki stew? With a side of sorghum couscous?

World Food Day was invented by the United Nations in 1979 and first celebrated the next year. One goal is to promote ...

Officials in Cleveland are tracking down those who may have come into contact with Amber Joy Vinson, the second Dallas nurse to be diagnosed with Ebola.

Vinson flew on a Frontier Airlines flight from Cleveland to Dallas on Monday while she was running a 99.5 degree fever. Vinson had told ...

Tomorrow marks the third International Day of the Girl Child, designated by the U.N. to highlight the need to create a better world for adolescent girls.

It's a day when activists ramp up efforts to make the public aware of issues like child marriage, violence against girls and the lack ...