Air pollution is more damaging to the cardiovascular health of adolescents living in poverty-stricken areas than to adolescents living in wealthier areas, according to a new study published in the journal Annals of Epidemiology.

A new, three-year study led by Associate Professor of Environmental Health Sacoby Wilson and Assistant Professor of Urban Planning Marccus Hendricks will analyze the impact that exposure to environmental contaminants associated with natural disasters has on vulnerable communities.

Plants have a unique ability to safeguard themselves against pathogens by closing their pores—but until now, no one knew quite how they did it. Scientists have known that a flood of calcium into the cells surrounding the pores triggers them to close, but how the calcium entered the cells was unclear.

Despite the development of largely effective warning systems, people routinely die from severe weather like tornadoes. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) recently awarded Drs. Anita Atwell Seate, Brooke Fisher Liu, and Ji Youn Kim a $368,675 grant to improve how forecasters communicate severe weather threats.

Hurricane Katrina, which struck the Gulf Coast and New Orleans on August 29, 2005, forced a rethink of the ways we protect against catastrophic weather events—but fifteen years later, some of these lessons have not been fully applied, say UMD engineering experts who have helped lead efforts to overhaul the system. Moreover, serious inequities are baked into flood protection systems nationwide, with poorer communities—including many with predominantly Black populations—receiving inadequate or in some cases zero protection.

Mitigation procedures put in place in response to COVID-19 have severely impacted the ability of agricultural agencies to perform routine data collection on the condition and productivity of crops, an unfortunate consequence that could negatively impact the stability of economic markets that rely upon this data.

NASA has awarded a research team including University of Maryland Astronomer Kyle Murphy $1.25 million to study the potential of a proposed mission to produce the first global view of space weather.

A new paper released today in Nature Energy evaluates the co-damages from air pollution and finds that on top of direct health risks, air pollution increases electricity consumption.

In an effort to understand why sea ice is rapidly disappearing in the Arctic, researchers from the University of Maryland Department of Geographical Sciences are utilizing the latest satellite-based technology to measure detailed changes on the sea ice cover such as individual melt ponds, ridges, cracks and floes.