Wherever you're watching around the world, we thank you for taking 10 minutes off our show this Tuesday.

We're starting in Southern Asia.

Of the 30 most polluted urban areas on the planet, 22 of them are in India, the world's second most populated country.

In fact, the nation's capital, New Delhi, is ranked as the world's most polluted city, and right now the smog is at its worst.

Record.

Levels of pollution are expected for atleast the next week.

Government officials have declared a public health emergency, and they've taken steps to try to get a handle on the pollution.

They're stopping work at construction sites, which sends dust into the air.

They're limiting the number of cars that are allowed on the road, encouraging people to carpool and reducing traffic by four million vehicles each day.

But experts say this isn't likely to have a major effect on the smog, because a lot of it comes from outside New Delhi around the time of year when temperatures drop, India's farmers light fires to get rid of leftover crops and eliminate stubble on the ground that produces a lot of the pollution that settles over New Delhi.

The government has tried to address that problem in the past.

One way was by providing farmers with discounted equipment that could keep them from having to burn the unwanted leftovers.

But nothing is really worked, and it may take a change in the weather for the problem to improve.

That's especially concerning to residents of New Delhi, because researchers have compared living in a place with heavily polluted air to smoking a pack of cigarettes every day.

The air in the Indian capital is toxic, the air pollution so bad that authorities have declared a public health emergency, canceling school, diverting flights and urging residents to stay indoors.

The city's chief minister, taking to social media to sound the alarm from blame game the way we do not want to blame anyone.

This is an issue of our health, an issue of breathing in air, the health of our Children, our families, the people of Delhi.

That's what's at stake.

You bad Smog is an annual problem in New Delhi, but this year the pollution has hit record levels.

Thermal satellite imagery from NASA reveals one contributing factor to the smog.

Thousands of suspected fires burning up wind from the Indian capital in the neighboring state of Punjab, farmers in India typically burned their fields this time of year after the harvest weather patterns, then trap that smoke up against the Himalayas around northern cities like New Delhi.

But experts say the capital city also creates much of its own pollution There.

Four types of sources You've got industries and power plants.

You have transport emissions, particularly trucks, but also private vehicles.

You have waste burning off various kinds on you have road dust in construction dust.

All of them are major contributors off Evolution Day on Those are the sources that we need to be targeting better within the city.

The government imposed an odd even policy aimed at reducing cars on the road.

It's also issued millions of masks to Children, but doctors say they've seen a surge of patients suffering respiratory problems.

Sunday, demonstrators protested against the pollution, the concern about our futures and about a health.

But we're also fighting this on behalf off Children and the elderly who bear the biggest brand off the problem.

Your New Delhi is one of the most polluted cities in the world, and forecasters say there are no signs the air will improve anytime soon.

Ivan Watson, CNN You Second Trivia.

Where would you find about 20% of the world's surface?

Freshwater, Great Lakes, Greenland Ice sheet, Caspian Sea or Lake Victoria?

Together, it's the Great Lakes that contained about 20% of the world's fresh water.

A lot of that water flows over Niagara Falls, and back in 1918 boat, known as the Iron scow, almost flowed with it.

During a dredging operation, the vessel became detached from its tugboat and started drifting toward the falls.

Two men were aboard, and they intentionally opened up compartments at the bottom of the boat to flood it and slow it down.

The scow grounded on some rocks and shallow rapids.

The men were eventually rescued the next morning and because it was too dangerous to try to remove the scow itself.

It's been a rusting.

They're less than 2000 feet from Horseshoe Falls ever since.

But last Thursday there was a storm.

High winds and heavy rains dislodged the boat and moved it 100 and 50 feet closer to the Canadian side of the falls.

It was the first time it had noticeably moved in 100 and one years, and the Niagara Park's commission says it's anyone's guess whether the Iron Scow will remain there for days or for years.

Back on land, we're taking a look at how one application is helping people get from A to B in South Africa, Go Metro was started in 2012.

Its original goal was to help people keep track of trains, what their schedules are, what their fares are when there were problems with them, or service stops its expended to recommend Maur efficient routes for minibus taxis.

People rely on them for most of the transportation to work in school across South Africa.

But one obvious drawback tomb or efficiency is that many buses wouldn't go to his many different places.

People may want them to.

Writers who might need door to door service, for instance, could have trouble getting to a designated stop.

But the company is one example of how virtual information is changing physical transportation.

Some public transport is formal, like a bus that follows a schedule and arrives at each stop on time.

Others are informal where the root always changes and you can get on and off whenever you want.

Like South Africa's minibus taxis, which account for nearly 70% of all public transport trips in the country in 2013.

In the informal sector, there is no requirement with lyrics to safety labor on other legislative norms.

In fact, these are only the ones that industries sacrifice in order to be sustainable.

That's Justin Coat.

See who start up go Metro is using big data to help authorities begin to regulate informal public transport in South Africa is an enormous amount of inefficiencies ous to how these roots have sprung up on how they create being created over time.

And so our data is able to consolidate them into a magical, rational plan for the entire city, too.

So this this Matt book is on example, off work.

We've just finished for the city of Cape Town, where we rode every single taxi roots in the city.

Go Metro begins by tracking things like root distance, number of stops and when passengers get on and off, then the company collect all that data into a model of the network event, suggest changes to make and optimize the network more efficiently.

Finally, the company deploys monitoring devices to make sure the network operators stick to the new plan.

We're standing here at the Caravel Interfere Tex Association Q or Coulter.

So it's up to every passenger to decide where he wants to stop.

Very inefficient, because driver will stop and start all the time.

What we found was that your doing about 3000 riders in the morning.

Some of your operations are extending a little bit further than necessary for maybe one or two pickup.

So when we formalize, we're going to stop a lot of the special deliveries and the special door to door under percent.

Because that's that's wasting.

Did mileage networks that we and laws.

We think we can generally find between 50 and 50% efficiencies, either by introducing bigger vehicles by changing the route, changing the schedules, Transit systems across the world are looking to use big data to improve their service is and go metro now maps in Argentina, Kenya, Mexico, the USA and India to name but a few, helping less formal networks take steps towards official recognition while bow hunting from his kayak in Michigan's Grande River, an outdoor sportsman recently came across an old Coke bottle and thought it was later on closer inspection, though he found a message in the bottle dated April 4th, 1976.

It had a name and an address on it in more than 43 years.

After Troy Bremen tossed it into the water, he got his response on Facebook.

The center in the finder of the message found they have a lot in common course.

After so many years had floated by.

The nostalgia might have left the center a little glassy eyed, but it shows how time is a bridge between past and present, and a river runs through it.

So next time you're out in a boat and you get a message whose text is in pencil from days of yore, Don't keep it all bottled up.

It could end your day on.

We hope today's show did.