Given Pennsylvania’s abundant natural resources, it’s no surprise that the Commonwealth has become a mecca for hydraulic fracturing. Researchers, however, have recently discovered that releasing millions of gallons of treated hydraulic fracturing wastewater each year into area surface waters may have longer-lasting effects than originally thought.

There is considerable uncertainty surrounding emerging contaminants in aquatic ecosystems and groundwater, and a recent Penn State study of compounds from pharmaceuticals and personal care products didn't add much clarity. But it did provide insight into the transport of the chemicals, according to researchers in the College of Agricultural Sciences.

Examining conditions within the Earth’s interior is crucial not only to give us a window back to Earth’s history but also to understand the current environment and its future. This study offers an explanation of carbon’s descent into the deep Earth. “The stability regions of carbonates are key to understanding the deep carbon cycle and the role of the deep Earth in the global carbon cycle.” says Leonid Dubrovinsky, from the University of Bayreuth. “The intense X-rays from the ESRF allow us to access the extreme conditions within the entire Earth’s mantle.” underlines Valerio Cerantola, lead author, former PhD student at the University of Bayreuth and now postdoctoral scientist at the ESRF.

Tropical Storm Don didn't live long before it weakened to a remnant low pressure area in the North Atlantic Ocean. Before it weakened NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite captured a visible image of the storm on its approach to the Windward Islands. The GPM satellite analyzed the storm's rainfall as it developed and moderate to heavy rainfall is expected to accompany the remnants in the Windward Islands on July 19.

The hunting of pangolins, the world’s most illegally traded mammal, has increased by 150 percent in Central African forests from 1970s to 2014, according to a new study led by the University of Sussex.

A tabletop water filter demo designed to remove phosphorus from waste water has in five-years grown into a fully functional water treatment system capable of filtering more than 100-thousand gallons per day.

Designed by a small U.S. Geological Survey team, this cost-effective and environmentally friendly water filter system uses discarded mining byproducts, called mine drainage ochre, as the primary filtering agent to remove phosphorus from municipal and agricultural waste waters.

PhD chemistry student Leila Dehabadi has developed a new way to separate water from ethanol, the key component in alcoholic beverages and biofuel, using starch-based materials such as corn. The method could reduce costs because it doesn’t involve using additional energy to isolate the ethanol.

“Compared to distillation, this new approach based on green chemistry and engineering will be a significant saving to biofuel and alcohol production in Saskatchewan and globally by changing the way water is separated from ethanol mixtures,” said Lee Wilson, U of S chemistry professor and Dehabadi’s supervisor. 

Researchers have demonstrated how a non-toxic alternative to lead could form the basis of next-generation solar cells.

Understanding how dietary essential fatty acids work may lead to effective treatments for diseases and conditions such as stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, age-related macular degeneration, Parkinson’s disease and other retinal and neurodegenerative diseases. The key is to be able to intervene during the early stages of the disease. That is the conclusion of a Minireview by Nicolas Bazan, MD, PhD, Boyd Professor and Director, and Aram Asatryan, PhD, postdoctoral researcher, at the Neuroscience Center of Excellence at LSU Health New Orleans School of Medicine published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry’s Thematic Minireview Series: Inflammatory transcription confronts homeostatic disruptions. The paper is available online.

NASA's Aqua satellite passed over newly formed Tropical Storm Don gathering temperature data from the compact storm's clouds.