BAD AIR

Mar 20, 2026

I’m currently reading (well, listening to) a book called Airborne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe by science writer Carl Zimmer. It traces the long struggle to understand that disease can spread through the air.

For centuries many people believed in the “miasma” theory — that foul smells themselves carried disease. The idea that microscopic organisms drift through the atmosphere and infect us is surprisingly recent, and it took decades for scientists to convince others it was real.

That’s what engineers in Quintana Roo, Mexico, are doing with the massive seasonal blooms of sargassum that wash ashore across the Caribbean. Instead of burning or burying the piles, researchers are turning the dried seaweed into structural bricks. The material can be sun-dried with little energy input and may offer useful strength and thermal performance for construction.

Here is a lecture Zimmer gave at Harvard about the history behind the book.