UC Davis researchers have received a nearly $4 million grant NIEH to develop the world’s first standardized method for measuring and describing the neurotoxicity of airborne nanoplastics.

The supply of lithium – the battery material that keeps digital devices humming, EVs racing and renewable energy on the grid – will not meet even half the expected demand by 2040. But ramping up production using current methods is costly and environmentally damaging. In new research published in Nature Communications, a team from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (UChicago PME) has applied electrochemistry to the problem, adapting a technique from the world of supercapacitors to pull lithium - and only lithium - directly from water. They used electrochemical intercalation to extract 99% pure lithium from a solution where the ratio of sodium to lithium was 1,000 to 1.

Gas giant orbits its dead star so closely that it takes just 1.4 days to complete a full revolution. At this proximity, planet shouldn’t have survived its star’s red giant phase. Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astrophysicists measured the planet’s atmosphere, mass and temperature. They found the planet orbited at a safe distance when its star died and migrated closer billions of years after its death.

Gentle purchase incentives can lead customers to choose groceries with higher animal husbandry standards more often. A recent study at the University of Bonn at least suggests this. The researchers used two different animal welfare label posters as “nudges.” Each poster itself changed the consumer behavior of participants shopping in a virtual supermarket. The share of products with higher animal welfare standards in the shopping cart was highest when both posters were combined. Further studies have yet to clarify the extent to which the results can be transferred to real shopping situations. The study has been published in the Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics. 

In a study published in Solid State Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Florida State University researchers showed how a high-magnitude magnetic field can improve the accuracy of measurements that show the chemical composition of amyloid beta fragments, small pieces of proteins that have been shown to play a critical role in Alzheimer’s disease. They were able to analyze amyloid proteins even when they were structurally complex and mixed with lipids, creating conditions that more closely resemble the human brain than traditional laboratory samples.