Technological solutions, like improved equipment and logistical tools, have been trumpeted as keys to finally ending preventable maternal and child deaths. “But it’s not just technology innovation that we need; it is systems innovation,” says Dr. Harshad Sanghvi in this week’s podcast.

Food aid is one of the most common humanitarian interventions, but it has come under increasing scrutiny from some observers who charge it may not be an effective means of addressing food security and may actually make matters worse. Two recent studies examine the relationship between food aid and conflict, shedding light on both sides of an ongoing debate.

As the UN General Assembly begins charting a course toward sustainable growth, population projections will likely undergird many of their most important assumptions about the future. As two new papers released last week demonstrate, however, there are differing opinions about how much the world’s population will grow and when it will stabilize.

In a tiny village called Chepuwa in the Sankhuwasabha district of Nepal, high in the Himalayas and almost four days’ trek from the nearest road, Mikmar Bhote has been growing and selling medicinal and aromatic plants for five years.

The U.S. military has historically relied on its capacity for technological innovation to respond to new risks and crises. But, as Sharon Burke explains in this week’s podcast, the Pentagon has had to invent a new role for itself in response to a changing world.