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Rocket Launch Pollution

BBC Inside Science

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The Influence of Infectious Diseases on Our Lives

In 1521, Hernan Cortes managed to defeat the Aztec or the Mexico Empire. This was a vast polity that stretched all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Smallpox arrived and it killed between a third and a half of the indigenous population. You then had all sorts of other old-world infectious diseases. The impact of this was so massive that the levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide fell.

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