Top scientists and officials from government, academia, Alaskan Native communities, and industry are heading to Alaska to focus on driving energy technologies for a more sustainable Arctic region.

Life circumstances during childhood — including having fewer friends and siblings, low-quality relationships with parents, bad health and growing up in a poorer household — are all correlated with a higher rate of loneliness in older age, according to a new study published this week in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Sophie Guthmuller of Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria.

A multi-institutional contract with the United States Agency for International Development will dedicate $15 million toward the creation of the Peru Extension and Research Utilization (PERU-Hub) to support sustainable agricultural, economic and social improvement in the San Martin region of the Peruvian jungle. The overall project is led by Peru’s Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina. The University of Oklahoma received nearly $1.5 million to support the project, coordinated through its Institute for Resilient Environmental and Energy Systems. Additional partners include Utah State University, Purdue University and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, as well as 10 regional and national government bodies, Peruvian universities, and food and agricultural companies, both foreign and domestic.