International

As AI Data Centers Expand, New Cooling Chemicals Raise PFAS Concerns

"The artificial intelligence race is creating demand for more than data centers and electricity. It is also creating a new market for the chemicals needed to keep increasingly powerful computer chips from overheating. Some of those cooling technologies rely on PFAS, a broad class of fluorinated compounds already responsible for widespread drinking water contamination in North Carolina."

Source: WRAL, 08/27/2026

Living With Drought Has Taught Pastoralists Lessons The World Needs

"Half a billion pastoralists draw on generations of knowledge to thrive on rangelands. They say protecting their way of life would help others prepare for a hotter, drier world."

Source: Grist, 08/26/2026

In A Global First, Mexico Approves Use Of RNA-Based Fungicide

"Grape growers in Mexico have a new tool to fight powdery mildew, a common fungal disease, after the country became the first in the world to approve the commercial sale of an RNA-based biofungicide." "Oifirax, created by GreenLight Biosciences, uses RNA molecules to kill the fungus responsible for powdery mildew on grapes"

Source: Science, 08/26/2026

At Least 35,000 Excess Deaths Recorded In Europe’s Back-To-Back Heatwaves

"At least 35,000 more people died during Europe’s four record-breaking, back-to-back heatwaves this summer than would normally be expected, according to incomplete figures from barely half the continent."

Source: Guardian, 08/26/2026

Leaked Memo Shows US Aims To Weaken Global Limits On Plastic Pollution

"The United States has doubled down on its opposition to plastic production limits in global treaty talks, according to a diplomatic memo reviewed by The Washington Post, pushing to create a broad loophole to disregard the treaty on national security grounds."

Source: Washington Post, 08/25/2026

Rare South American Diseases Offer Clues on the Next Pandemic

"Ebola virus, hantavirus and the pathogen that causes Covid-19 likely jumped from animals to humans. So do these viruses — and scientists say climate change is speeding their spread." "By the time colleagues called Dr. Matías Lahitte, an Argentine infectious disease specialist, it was too late."

Source: New York Times, 08/24/2026

World’s Breadbaskets Are Getting Pounded by War, Weather and Trade Spats

"Heat and drought have diminished harvests in some of the biggest wheat-producing countries, including the United States, which is expected to have its worst wheat harvest in a half-century, spiking prices. Poor countries that agreed to buy American wheat under the threat of Trump tariffs could be stuck paying abnormally high prices."

Source: New York Times, 08/24/2026

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