While previous research has revealed the presence of microplastics in human lungs, a new study confirms that microplastics are making their way into bird’s lungs as well.

The study, published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials, is the first to confirm microplastic presence in birds’ lungs. The researchers focused on analyzing potential microplastics in birds, as bird health can provide insights and warnings about potential impacts on the surrounding environment.

“Birds serve as important indicators of environmental conditions,” Shane DuBay, co-author of the study and an assistant professor of biology at University of Texas at Arlington, said in a statement. “They help us understand the state of the environment and make informed decisions about conservation and pollution control.”

To complete the research, the team, including collaborators from Sichuan University and Chengdu Tianfu International Airport, collected lung samples from 56 individual birds representing 51 different species. The birds were collected from the Chengdu Tianfu International Airport.

In testing the lung samples, the scientists used laser direct infrared technology to count the microplastics present along with pyrolysis gas chromatography-mass-spectrometry to detect for nanoplastics. The team was also able to use these two methods to determine what types of plastic particles were present in the birds.

They found microplastics present in all 51 species. The results showed an average of 221.20 microplastic particles per species and 416.22 microplastic particles per gram of lung tissue, revealing an alarming amount of plastics in the birds’ lungs. In the study, the scientists detected 32 different types of plastics, with the most common types being chlorinated polyethylene (CPE) and butadiene rubber (BR), a pollutant found in vehicle tires. The particles found in the lungs were mostly in film or pellet form.

The identification of butadiene rubber particles adds to growing research on the pollution coming from vehicle tires. In a separate study published in February 2025, researchers revealed that vehicle tires were the top source of nanoparticle pollution in the Alps. An analysis published in 2022 determined that particle pollution from vehicle tires was even worse than tailpipe exhaust pollution.

The researchers warned that the high levels of microplastic and nanoplastic particles in the lungs of birds could be a canary in the coal mine for environmental and public health. The team concluded that their findings show that birds can be a bioindicator of the level of airborne plastic particle pollution, which could affect other wildlife and humans.

With increasing plastic and plastic particle pollution, scientists are concerned over how these pollutants could impact human health. According to the American Lung Association, the amount of plastic waste is expected to triple by 2040, and research has suggested that inhaling plastic particles and their related chemicals can damage lungs, although research is ongoing to determine how long-term exposure affects lung health.

“Our research highlights an urgent need to address plastic pollution in our environments, as these contaminants can have far-reaching impacts on ecosystem health, as well as human health,” DuBay said. “Our findings call for further research, funding and action to mitigate the harmful effects of plastic pollution and ensure a healthier environment.”

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With increasing concerns regarding per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and their potential impacts on human health, scientists from the Department of Environmental Science at Stockholm University have compiled a comprehensive database with potential alternatives to these “forever chemicals.”

According to the European Environment Agency, PFAS exposure has been linked to risks of liver damage, thyroid disease and certain types of cancer. It may also impact reproductivity, the immune system and fetal and child development, as reported by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

However, these chemicals are particularly effective for waterproofing, stain-proofing, grease-resistance and durability, which is why PFAS are commonly used in food packaging, outdoor recreational gear, firefighting foam and equipment, electronics, non-stick cookware, industrial equipment and more.

To reduce the risks associated with these chemicals, a new study published in Environmental Science & Technology compiles information on potential alternatives to different types of PFAS that could help lead the way to safer substitutions with similarly beneficial properties.

As part of their research, the authors developed a public database called the ZeroPM alternative assessment database that lists out all known uses of PFAS, from cookware to clothing to pharmaceuticals, alongside at least 530 alternative substances that could replace PFAS for specific uses. 

“Our new online database of alternatives for the uses of PFAS highlights 530 potential alternatives and reveals where more innovation is needed,” Ian Cousins, co-author of the study, said in a statement.

So far, the authors have found promising alternatives for 40 use cases, such as for food packaging coatings, and industries can use the database to guide updates to industrial processes using alternatives. Each listing includes the availability for switching to the alternative, making it easier to find the most suitable substitutes for certain applications.

But the authors noted that there are still 83 PFAS applications, namely for plastic- and rubber-related industrial processes, without known safer alternatives, so more research is needed for these cases. Some alternatives currently have no known concerns but will also require further research to confirm there are no safety or environmental risks.

“At this point, the main goal of the database is to provide an open platform on which information on the availability of PFAS-free alternatives is freely available,” the authors wrote. “Such efforts could be useful for companies willing to phase out their uses of PFAS by providing them with information on the types of alternatives that are already in use. Furthermore, the information in the database can help the authorities to identify uses of PFAS where alternatives are still lacking and should be the focus of their time and resources for further research.”

“Proper alternative assessments for specific uses should still be performed to evaluate the potential trade-offs of phasing out PFAS,” they concluded.

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The U.S. Energy Information Administration has released predictions for 2025 in its latest Preliminary Monthly Electric Generator Inventory report. The organization announced that new utility-scale electric-generating capacity in the U.S. will reach 63 gigawatts (GW), led by additions to solar and battery capacity.

The latest report noted that in 2024, utility-scale solar capacity made up 61% of capacity additions in 2024, and this year, there will be about 32.5 GW added. 

In total, new solar projects in 2025 are expected to make up more than 50% of the planned added utility-scale electric generation for 2025. Combined with planned battery storage capacity, the share is 81% of total capacity additions.

Last year, Texas and Florida led the country in new solar additions. This year, Texas will again lead with 11.6 GW of planned new utility-scale solar capacity, followed by California with 2.9 GW. Indiana, Arizona, Michigan, Florida and New York will each add at least 1 GW, totaling about 7.8 GW of new solar capacity across these five states.

In October 2024, EIA reported that battery storage capacity was expanding rapidly in the U.S., and that trend is also expected to continue into 2025. According to the latest report, U.S. battery storage capacity increased by 10.3 GW last year and could reach a record high if the planned 18.2 GW of battery storage capacity begins operations this year.

“This growth highlights the importance of battery storage when used with renewable energy, helping to balance supply and demand and improve grid stability,” EIA explained. “Energy storage systems are not primary electricity sources, meaning the technology does not create electricity from a fuel or natural resource. Instead, they store electricity that has already been created from an electricity generator or the electric power grid, which makes energy storage systems secondary sources of electricity.”

According to the report, wind capacity is expected to increase slightly after a decline in 2024. Last year, wind capacity additions reached 5.1 GW, the lowest amount since 2014, but new wind capacity is expected to reach 7.7 GW this year. This is primarily because of two major offshore projects, including the 800 megawatt (MW) Vineyard Wind 1 in Massachusetts and the Revolution Wind project, with 715 MW capacity, in Rhode Island. Texas, Wyoming and Massachusetts are expected to lead wind capacity additions for 2025.

While renewables are set to take a large share of new utility-scale electricity generation capacity for 2025, fossil fuel-based capacity retirements are simultaneously expected to decline this year. EIA reported that 8.1 GW of coal-fired electricity generation capacity is expected to retire this year, up from the 4 GW retired in 2024. Petroleum power plants, which make up less than 3% of total electric-generating capacity in the U.S., is expected to retire 1.6 GW.

Natural gas retirements are expected to reach 2.6 GW and will primarily include retirement of the less-efficient, simple-cycle natural gas turbine power plants. However, 4.4 GW of newly added natural gas capacity — including half from less-efficient plants and 36% from more-efficient, combined-cycle plants — is planned for 2025.

Although the report of renewables leading the way for new utility-scale electricity generation for 2025 is hopeful, concerns remain over how renewable energy will fare with challenges from the current administration. Already, officials have sued over inaccessible Inflation Reduction Act funding, some of which was dedicated to renewable energy projects. 

As Utility Dive reported, investors have also become cautious, potentially because of uncertainty with how clean energy will fare with the current administration along with high interest rates. Still, there have been investments in energy storage, and larger solar projects (those above 1 MW) actually saw a 21% increase in funding for 2024 compared to 2023.

“That says more about solar as an asset class. A mature asset class that is an attractive investment,” Raj Prabhu, CEO and co-founder of Mercom Capital Group, told Utility Dive.

“I see much more aggressive forecasting when it comes to energy storage installations in 2025,” Prabhu added. “So growth is a little faster in energy storage, and they are key to a lot of energy deals right now.”

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Researchers have determined multiple ways that harvested fog could help meet water demand in arid cities, particularly those within the driest area on Earth, the Atacama Desert. From providing drinking water to irrigating landscapes to supporting hydroponic gardening, the new research shows promise in fog-harvesting technology.

In the study published in Frontiers in Environmental Science, scientists investigated the potential of fog collection in Alto Hospicio, Chile, an area threatened by water scarcity. The region receives less than 0.19 inches, or 5 millimeters, of rain per year, the BBC reported. Further, the Alto Hospicio region relies on underground aquifers for drinking water, and those aquifers have not been replenished in 10,000 to 17,000 years.

While fog harvesting for water has been considered previously, the study authors noted that this method is typically considered for rural areas. However, the scientists found that fog harvesting could also supplement the water supply in larger urban areas.

“This research represents a notable shift in the perception of fog water use — from a rural, rather small-scale solution to a practical water resource for cities,” Virginia Carter Gamberini, co-author of the study and assistant professor at Universidad Mayor, said in a statement. “Our findings demonstrate that fog can serve as a complementary urban water supply in drylands where climate change exacerbates water shortages.”

Fog harvesting in Chile's Atacama Desert shows potential as a supplementary urban water source, collecting up to 10 liters per square meter daily, aiding water-scarce regions with sustainable solutions.

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— Science X / Phys.org (@sciencex.bsky.social) February 20, 2025 at 12:32 AM

Researchers used Standard Fog Collectors (SFC), originally described in a 1994 study, to capture fog and measure the water harvested from it. The SFC is a mesh device suspended between two posts and attached to a metal channel with a coating to protect from corrosion. The metal channel then funnels that water into storage tanks with rain gauges that could measure the amount of water harvested from the fog every 10 minutes.

The team conducted their observations from October 2023 to October 2024 and coupled the results with modeling to further determine the fog collection potential.

They found that they could harvest an average of about 0.2 to 4.9 liters of water from fog per square meter per day within a total area spanning 100 square kilometers. During peak fog times of the year, the SFCs collected up to 10 liters of water per square meter each day. In December, fog water collection was zero.

They found that early mornings, between midnight and 9 a.m., yielded the most fog, with about 140 milliliters per square meter collected every 10 minutes.

“By showcasing its potential in Alto Hospicio, one of Chile’s most stigmatized yet rapidly urbanizing cities, this study lays the groundwork for broader adoption in other water-scarce urban areas,” said Nathalie Verbrugghe, co-author of the paper and a researcher at Université libre de Bruxelles.

These insights allowed the researchers to explore potential use cases for this water, especially if governments place the SFCs in areas with higher fog potential. The authors determined that about 17,000 square meters of mesh would be necessary to meet 300,000 liters of water demand. While this option wouldn’t be a sole solution to water scarcity, the authors emphasized it could offer an additional source of water to help meet demand.

In addition to providing potable water to households, the authors found that this collected water would be useful for irrigating farms and hydroponic gardens because it typically doesn’t require much treatment. With an average collection of 2.5 liters of water per square meter each day, this water could yield about 15 to 20 kilograms of hydroponically grown vegetables per day in Alto Hospicio, according to the study.

However, the authors wrote that the fog water quality will be dependent on air quality, so testing will be important in evaluating the potability of the harvested water. Further, cities would need to invest in infrastructure to collect, store and distribute the collected water.

“We hope to encourage policymakers to integrate this renewable source into national water strategies,” Carter said. “This could enhance urban resilience to climate change and rapid urbanization while improving access to clean water.”

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In a new study, researchers have made a promising discovery: a compostable material that can serve as an alternative to plastic. The material is made from a combination of used coffee grounds and spores from Reishi mushrooms that are made into a paste, then 3D printed.

The idea started when Danli Luo, corresponding author of the study and doctoral student of human-centered design and engineering at University of Washington, noticed the amount of coffee grounds that accumulated from making espresso at home.

Luo, along with co-author Junchao Yang and senior author Nadya Peek, explored how coffee grounds could serve as an ideal growing base for the strong mycelial network that precedes mushroom growth. The team set out to explore a way to use up the spent coffee grounds and make them into a strong, lightweight material that would be a more sustainable alternative to plastic.

First, they turned the coffee grounds into a Mycofluid paste by combining them with the spores of Reishi mushrooms, brown rice flower, water and xanthan gum to act as a binder. This created a promising material that would work with a 3D printer. 

From there, Luo developed a bespoke printer head to print the paste into more intricate and complex designs that could mimic the versatility of plastic without a need for molds. The researchers made multiple objects using the design, including shipping packing materials that could be a substitute for plastic foam (or Styrofoam), a vase, a small statue and a miniature coffin.

“We’re especially interested in creating systems for people like small businesses owners producing small-batch products — for example, small, delicate glassware that needs resilient packaging to ship,” Luo said. “So we’ve been working on new material recipes that can replace things like Styrofoam with something more sustainable and that can be easily customized for small-scale production.”

After printing, the team kept the objects moist and in a sealed plastic tub for 10 days to allow the mushroom spores to develop into a mycelial skin. Then, they removed the objects and dried them to prevent mushroom development. The team published their method in the journal 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing.

From the upper left to bottom right: the 3D printer creates a design; three printed pieces of a vase; the partially set vase pieces are put together; the mycelium grows on the coffee paste; the vase grows together; the finished vase holds flowers and water. Luo et al./3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing

According to the authors, their method costs $1,700 for hardware for the experiment, and the 3D printer could hold up one liter of paste at a time. By comparison, they noted that other similar solutions cost more than $7,000. However, they did note that the Mycofluid paste was dependent on uniform coffee grounds, which would limit scaling ability.

Moving forward, the researchers behind the coffee-and-mushroom material also hope to explore other food waste materials that could be developed into paste for 3D printing that may have better scaling opportunity.

“We’re interested in expanding this to other bio-derived materials, such as other forms of food waste,” Luo said. “We want to broadly support this kind of flexible development, not just to provide one solution to this major problem of plastic waste.”

More and more scientists are looking into ways to make use of the estimated 60 million tons of spent coffee grounds that are wasted globally each year. For instance, New Atlas reported that RMIT University researchers found a way to incorporate spent coffee grounds into concrete to make the concrete up to 30% stronger. 

Other coffee waste, such as the husks, have also been valuable to a Colombian company called Woodpecker, which has used coffee husks combined with recycled plastic to build low-cost, prefabricated buildings.

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