We sometimes think of environmental pollution as a modern scourge, but recent research shows that man-made pollutants have been with us much longer. The plague known as Black Death ravaged Europe between 1347 and 1351, when it killed around 20 million people.
In those five short years, the population took an enormous hit. According to information gleaned from ice cores, in which layers have formed over thousands of years, those dates coincide with a sudden drop in lead in the air.Lead pollution is typically considered a hallmark of industrial society, but a growing body of research suggests human…
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