In a letter to The New England Journal of Medicine, publishing online September 1, 2021, an interdisciplinary team of physicians and public health experts at University of California San Diego measured the effectiveness of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines among health workers at UC San Diego Health, most notably during the emergence of the highly transmissible delta […]

California bars kids from cannabis dispensaries and shields them from cannabis marketing, but those statewide restrictions aren’t working as well as policymakers had hoped. That’s according to a new study in JAMA Pediatrics that evaluates how these regulations designed to protect minors have held up five years after voters legalized cannabis. The study looked at 700 licensed […]

Trickling down over rocks, surrounded by wildflowers and ferns, Appalachian mountain streams are chock-full of life. They hold some of the world’s greatest diversity of freshwater animals, including many species that can’t be found anywhere else in the world. But this biological diversity is severely threatened by mountaintop coal mining, whose downstream pollution impacts many […]

A new USC study finds that a class of environmental pollutants known as “forever chemicals” may increase the risk of type 2 diabetes in Latino girls. The pollutants, called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), are a group of man-made chemicals used across the United States in a wide range of industrial and consumer products, including cookware, […]

Years of meticulous experimentation have paid off for researchers aiming to unify the physics that defines materials that transition from solids to liquids. The researchers said a new theoretical model could help develop new synthetic materials and inform and predict civil engineering and environmental challenges such as mudslides, dam breaks and avalanches. The study, led […]

Researchers say the high salt content of whey – the watery part of milk left behind after cheesemaking – helps make it one of the most polluting byproducts in the food processing industry. In a new study, chemists demonstrate the first electrochemical redox desalination process used in the food industry, removing and recycling up to […]

Commercial planes burn hundreds of gallons of jet fuel per hour of flight, which can be costly for both airlines and the environment. But if planes were made of carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) instead of the heavier material aluminum, they could go greater distances with less fuel. Researchers in the Penn State College of […]

­In most countries, traffic accidents are the leading cause of death for teenagers, with risky driving accounting for a large fraction of those deaths. Driving restrictions have been implemented by many governments to reduce risks among teens, with varying degrees of success. New research by Purdue University’s Tim Moore finds that a ban on new […]

A much-anticipated investigation into the origins of the virus that causes Covid-19 by US intelligence agencies, launched by President Biden in late May, has failed to reach any firm conclusions. While the US intelligence community agrees that Sars-CoV-2 wasn’t developed as a biological weapon, they remain divided on its origins. ‘All agencies assess that two […]

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given its first full approval of a Covid-19 vaccine to Pfizer and BioNTech. It will be marketed under the brand name Comirnaty. Since December 2020, the Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine has been available in the US under Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for those aged over 16. EUA requires a […]