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Massive power outages in Texas brought on by a historic freeze could be avoided in the future if the state no longer isolates its power grid from other states, among other steps, according to 91ÉçÇø¸£Àû experts.

The proliferation of pits and ponds created in recent years by miners digging for small deposits of alluvial gold in Peru’s Amazon has dramatically altered the landscape and increased the risk of mercury exposure for indigenous communities and wildlife, a new study shows.

The stringent lockdown imposed by the Chinese government to slow the spread of COVID-19 early this year significantly eased the strain on hospitals there. Admissions due to non-COVID respiratory illnesses decreased by nearly 5,000, a new study by an international team of scientists shows.

A new 91ÉçÇø¸£Àû-led analysis shows that during the early months of the COVID pandemic, the average number of new infections caused by an infected individual (i.e. the basic reproduction number, R0) was 4.5, or more than twice as many as the initial 2.2 rate estimated by the World Health Organization at the time.

91ÉçÇø¸£Àû researchers have developed a new online calculator that teachers, administrators and students can use to estimate the risk of airborne transmission of the COVID-19 virus in classrooms.

Governments might be able to prevent future pandemics by investing as little as $22 billion a year in programs to curb wildlife trafficking and stem the destruction of tropical forests, a new analysis by an international team of scientists and economists shows.

Man’s best friend may also be man’s best bet for figuring out how environmental chemicals could impact our health. Researchers from North Carolina State University and 91ÉçÇø¸£Àû’s Nicholas School of the Environment used silicone dog tags as passive environmental samplers to collect information about everyday chemical exposures, and found that dogs could be an important sentinel species for the long term effects of environmental chemicals.

Small-scale gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon poses a health hazard not only to the miners and communities near where mercury is used to extract gold from ore, but also to downstream communities hundreds of kilometers away where people eat mercury-contaminated river fish as part of their diet.

Reusing low-saline oilfield water mixed with surface water to irrigate farms in the Cawelo Water District of California does not pose major health risks, as some opponents of the practice have feared, a study led by 91ÉçÇø¸£Àû and RTI International researchers finds.

A new $2.44 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) will support a 91ÉçÇø¸£Àû-led initiative to help utilities and wholesale electricity markets improve their efficiency and reliability while reducing emissions and costs, at a time of needed transformations to tackle climate change.

Using a bedroom air filter that traps fine particles of pollution with diameters smaller than 2.5 micrometers can significantly improve breathing in asthmatic children, a new study by American and Chinese scientists shows.

Contaminants that occur together naturally in groundwater under certain geological conditions may heighten health risks for millions of North Carolinians whose drinking water comes from private wells, and current safety regulations don’t address the problem, a new 91ÉçÇø¸£Àû study finds.

Chronic exposure to microplastic fibers causes aneurysms, erosion of surface layers and other serious damage to fish gills, and increases egg production in female fish, a sign that chemicals in the fibers may be acting as endocrine disruptors, a new study by U.S. and Chinese scientists finds.

Tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz can decline for up to two years after a piracy attack, a new 91ÉçÇø¸£Àû study finds, but the adverse effects of the slowdown are far greater on some Persian Gulf countries than others.

A new study which combines measurements from nearly 1,400 drinking water wells across North Carolina estimates that more than half of the wells in the state’s central region contain levels of cancer-causing hexavalent chromium in excess of state safety standards.