Study finds banning energy disconnections shouldn’t destabilise markets
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 24-Jun-2026 06:15 ET (24-Jun-2026 10:15 GMT/UTC)
Approaches by some European countries and Australia to protect energy consumers could help countries worldwide phase out harmful electricity disconnections without destabilising power markets, new research has found.
In Bangladesh, programs targeting ultra-poor, rural households can help families escape extreme poverty. However, the programs may have the unintended consequence of reinforcing gender gaps, a new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign finds.
Young adults in Sweden feel significantly worse than older people in almost all areas of life. While older Swedes rank among the happiest in the world, young adults struggle with loneliness and psychological distress. These are the findings of a new large-scale study on flourishing in Sweden, published in the International Journal of Wellbeing and conducted by researchers at the Stockholm School of Economics, Lund University, Oslo Metropolitan University and Harvard University.
Most African countries have in-use steel stocks below 1 tonne per capita—less than one-twentieth of industrialised levels. Meanwhile, €10 billion in European subsidies for domestic green iron has yielded only one project reaching final investment decision. A new article in Technology Review for Carbon Neutrality argues these are not separate problems: they share a solution. Green iron produced in developing country "sweetspots" could supply European steelmakers at 27% lower cost—delivering a competitive decarbonised EU steel industry while providing the bankable anchor investment that developing countries need to build their own steel industries and infrastructure in parallel.
A new study examined whether providing financial vouchers to offset medication costs, conditional on improved blood sugar levels, could enhance glycemic control. The results demonstrated that participants receiving these performance-based incentives achieved a significantly larger reduction in HbA1c levels compared to a control group, an improvement clinically comparable to adding a new pharmacological treatment. Based on these findings, the authors conclude that incorporating financial incentives into health insurance plans could serve as an effective, optional tool to improve health outcomes and equity for low-income populations.
Many promising drug molecules fail to reach patients because they do not dissolve well enough in water, limiting their effectiveness when taken orally. Now, researchers from Japan investigated an innovative method that uses sublimation to load drugs into a mesoporous silica carrier without relying on organic solvents. Using ibuprofen as a model compound, they showed that this approach can produce formulations with significantly enhanced solubility, offering a cleaner and more sustainable strategy for drug development.