In the News
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February 25, 2021
Preventing another energy crisis like the one that devastated Texas will require a lot of work and might require rethinking the way we treat energy, says Tony Reames, assistant professor of environment and sustainability: “Energy is a basic right and so instead of treating it like a commodity, how can we think about it as something that people should have access to, especially when they need it the most?”
The Verge -
February 25, 2021
A passenger jet that lost large chunks of one of its engines over Denver shortly after takeoff could have made the remainder of the flight with its remaining engine. “One engine has to have enough thrust to keep the airplane going, and even climbing if it needs to” and that applies to losing an engine while in the process of taking off, says Ella Atkins, professor of aerospace engineering.
WIRED -
February 24, 2021
After the pandemic forced thousands of clinical trials to shut down, researchers found clever ways to conduct human studies remotely. Lesli Skolarus, associate professor of neurology, and colleagues — forced to stop enrolling emergency room patients for a hypertension trial — kept the trial going by asking participants to use take-home blood pressure cuffs and to send photos of the readings via text message.
The New York Times -
February 24, 2021
“The back of the skull has a lot of information and a lot of distinct features as do the vertebrae. … There’s three-dimensional information there that you can use to find unique attributes,” said Jeffrey Wilson Mantilla, curator of the Museum of Paleontology and professor of earth and environmental sciences, whose research recently reclassified a fossil discovered in the American West in 1883 as a dicraeosaurid.
Smithsonian Magazine -
February 24, 2021
Lola Eniola-Adefeso, professor of biomedical and chemical engineering, says if research review boards aren’t diverse, then members might not have connections to diseases that disproportionately affect Black people and won’t feel relevant research needs as much funding: “NIH and other agencies need to understand that their lack of training of their reviewers and their lack of prioritization of research dollars to diverse researchers is the inherent issue.”
STAT -
February 23, 2021
Ongoing research by Rick Neitzel, associate professor of environmental health sciences, shows noise pollution during shutdowns last spring in California, Texas, New York and Florida dropped an average of 3 decibels — substantially reducing the risk of hearing loss: “If we can keep noise at a conversation level, below a daily average of 70 decibels, we can completely eliminate noise-induced hearing loss.”
U.S. News & World Report -
February 23, 2021
Michael Craig, assistant professor of energy and sustainability, says power grid operators can plan only for peaks and surges they see coming, a task of analyzing past trends and extrapolating predictions that is only growing more difficult: “We are in a nonstationary world. Climate change means that it is not stationary. The last 40 years might not be reflective of what’s coming down the pike the next 40 years.”
NBC News -
February 23, 2021
Certain foods can elicit “addictive-like” eating behaviors, such as intense cravings, loss of control and inability to cut back despite experiencing harmful consequences, says Ashley Gearhardt, associate professor of psychology: “It’s … highly processed foods that are engineered in a way that’s so similar to how we create other addictive substances.”
The New York Times -
February 22, 2021
Research by Lesly Dossett, assistant professor of surgery, found two surgical procedures for breast cancer that yield no meaningful clinical benefit continue to be utilized and have even increased: “This suggests that formal efforts to reduce low-value care through dissemination of guidelines, education of patients or providers, or alignment of incentives will be necessary to achieve full deimplementation.”
Medscape Medical News -
February 22, 2021
Jonathan Overpeck, dean of the School for Environment and Sustainability, says that while Elon Musk’s $100 million commitment to use carbon capture technology to zap carbon dioxide out of the air is great, he believes the money could be better spent protecting what we already have: “That’s a much bigger job. We could use some money to figure out technological carbon capture, but we’ve got to protect the biological natural carbon capture first.”
Popular Science
