Fungal infections kill around 2.5 million people worldwide each year, more than tuberculosis and malaria combined, yet few health systems track them. Most fungi are harmless, but a few cause serious disease in people with weakened immune systems, for example after cancer treatment, an organ transplant or intensive care. The World Health Organization has published a list of priority fungal pathogens needing better surveillance, as a warming climate and more vulnerable people raise the risk. Researchers argue the sewer is a good place to start: testing wastewater could show where drug-resistant fungi are spreading, as it already does for viruses.

In 1909 D. W. Griffith made a 14-minute film about a speculator who corners the wheat market and doubles the price of bread. A farmer sows his field while a 'Wheat King' gambles in the Chicago wheat pit; bakers raise the loaf from five cents to ten and the poor line up for bread. Griffith cut back and forth between the farm, the feast and the breadline, a technique called parallel editing, so audiences saw both ends of the economy at once. The film drew on Frank Norris's stories and on a real scheme: months earlier Chicago financier James Patten had cornered wheat, sent bread prices up and made about $5 million, roughly $185 million today.