Environment
Chris Perani: The Art of Delicate Beauty
Chris Perani is a photographer who specializes in seeing the unseen. Known for his extreme macro photography, he captures butterfly wings and other minute natural subjects at a level of detail invisible to the naked eye. His images reveal dazzling mosaics of iridescent scales and textures that appear more like stained glass, sequins, or cosmic landscapes than fragments of an insect’s anatomy.
To overcome the razor-thin depth of field inherent in microscope lenses, Perani employs a meticulous stacking process. Using a 10× microscope objective mounted on a 200 mm lens, he shifts his camera forward in microscopic increments—sometimes as little as 3 microns per exposure. Each section of a wing might require 350 individual images, and a complete final work can demand more than 2,000 separate shots. These frames are then digitally merged into a seamless whole, revealing a complexity that even scientists rarely view in such clarity.
Dr. Gosia Domagalska: Outwitting Leishmania
In the quiet corridors of the Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM) in Antwerp, Belgium, Dr. Malgorzata “Gosia” Domagalska is leading the fight against one of the world’s most neglected yet devastating diseases: leishmaniasis. As head of ITM’s newly established Unit of Experimental Parasitology, she has dedicated her career to understanding how parasites adapt, survive, and outwit medicine.
Domagalska’s path to parasitology was anything but straightforward. Trained as a geneticist, she earned her PhD in Plant Genetics at the Max Planck Institute in Cologne, followed by a Marie Curie Fellowship at the University of York. Early on, her research focused on plant development and hormones. But a shift came when she joined ITM in 2015: “This work is compelling not just scientifically, but socially,” she has said.
Leishmaniasis – Plain and Simple
Leishmaniasis is a parasitic disease that few people have heard of, but one you definitely don’t want to catch. Caused by Leishmania parasites and spread by the bite of female sand flies, it can silently linger in the body for years or surface in devastating ways, from painful skin sores to organ damage that can be fatal. The disease affects both humans and dogs, with our canine companions often acting as unwitting reservoirs that keep the infection circulating.
As climate change expands the habitat of sand flies into new regions, the threat of leishmaniasis continues to grow. With no reliable cure and limited vaccine options, prevention is key. Protecting yourself and your pets with repellents, protective gear, and vigilance is the most effective way to guard against this serious but often overlooked disease.
Sand Flies: The Silent Biters Spreading A Deadly Disease
Phlebotomine sand flies are notorious biters. They not only cause great irritation but are also capable of spreading a deadly disease – visceral leishmaniasis.
While the World Health Organization states that currently 1 billion people live in areas endemic for leishmaniasis and at risk of contracting the disease, a recent study using a statistical model, predicted that visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is undergoing geographic expansion and 5.3 billion people could be at risk of acquiring the disease in the future.
Leishmaniasis currently occurs in approximately 90 countries. These countries are located in the warmer climates where sand flies thrive: in the tropics, subtropics, and in Southern Europe. Climate change and other variations in the environment have the potential to expand the geographical range of where sand flies can live and therefore where the disease can infiltrate the human population.
Epidemiology of Leishmaniasis
Leishmaniasis is a parasitic disease spread by the bite of infected female sandflies. It can affect the skin, mucous membranes, or internal organs. The most serious form, visceral leishmaniasis (VL), damages the liver, spleen, bone marrow, and kidneys, and is caused mainly by Leishmania donovani and Leishmania infantum.
Every year, 1–2 million people are affected, with over 90% of cases concentrated in just 13 countries. While many infections show no symptoms, untreated VL is usually fatal. Malnutrition, HIV co-infection, genetics, and young age (especially under 5) increase the risk of severe disease.
Bryan David Griffith: Art Born from Fire, Fueled by Purpose
Bryan David Griffith tackles big questions with simple materials. His art examines the tension between nature and culture, chaos and control, and life and loss. His engineering background brings a problem-solver’s mindset to his creative process, often inventing new techniques to serve each concept.
Griffith didn’t take a typical path into the art world. While studying at the University of Michigan, he found a beat-up photo manual, built a darkroom, and started experimenting. Later, disillusioned with a consulting job and its environmental impact, he quit, bought a van, and hit the road to become an artist.
Dr. Mark Finney: Changing How We Fight (and live with) Fire
Dr. Mark Finney is a Senior Scientist and Research Forester with the U.S. Forest Service at the Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory. With a Ph.D. in wildland fire science from UC Berkeley, Finney has spent decades exploring fire as both an ecological force and a physical process. His work has laid the foundation for many of the wildfire behavior models used today across the country.
Finney is a strong advocate for rethinking traditional fire suppression strategies. He emphasizes the need to let “good fire” play its role in the landscape, using tools like prescribed burns and targeted fuel treatments to prevent more extreme fires down the line. His research has revealed that long-held beliefs about how fires spread, such as the role of radiant heat, are often incorrect.
A New Kind of Urban Firestorm
Everything around Walker Savage was smoke. Smoke and embers and broken tree limbs and the relentless roar of the wind. Wearing a respirator and goggles from his woodworking studio, he sprayed his garden hose into the gale, hoping to wet the walls and porch of his 99-year-old adobe house enough to keep them from igniting.
But then he saw the flames come surging down the mountain above his home in east Altadena, California: “It was like an avalanche,” Savage said. “But not of snow — it was of fire.”
More than a week later, Savage is still trying to wrap his mind around the Eaton Fire, which killed at least 16 people, destroyed an estimated 7,000 structures and is still only 45 percent contained. The flames moved faster than firefighters could fight them, reaching deep into the suburb to scorch houses well outside the state-designated risk zone.
The Age of Firestorms
Dr. Roslyn Prinsley never imagined that stepping outside her home in Canberra would feel like walking into a smoke-filled abyss. But during Australia’s devastating bushfire season in 2019-2020, even in places untouched by flames, the air was so thick with smoke that breathing felt impossible.
“I asked myself, what are we doing here in the 21st century? We can’t actually go outside and breathe fresh air in one of the cleanest countries in the world,” she remembers thinking. “We can’t let this keep going.”
Dr. Roslyn Prinsley is the Head of Disaster Solutions at the Australian National University’s Institute for Climate, Energy & Disaster Solutions (ICEDS). Finding innovative ways to fight wildfires is part of her daily work – a task that has become more urgent than ever as wildfires grow increasingly frequent in Australia and across the globe due to climate change.
Wildfires are projected to rise 30% by the end of 2050, according to a report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and its partner GRID-Arendal.
One of the recent wildfires in California became the most destructive in Los Angeles history, killing at least 29 people—a number expected to rise—and reducing over 10,000 homes to ash. A perfect set of environmental factors such as long-term drought, preceding heavy rainfall, and hurricane-force Santa Ana winds combined at the worst possible moment.
All of this turned the regular wildfire into what’s called a firestorm.
Inside the L.A. Firestorm
The 2025 LA Wildfires were among the most destructive and costly in U.S. history, driven by a combination of shifting climate patterns and growing development in fire-prone areas. As these types of fires become more common, it raises important questions about how we prepare for and respond to future risks. In this PBS video, experts explore the factors behind the firestorm and what can be done to reduce the impact of similar events going forward.