Can public health experts make a forecast for the flu or another infectious disease as accurately as a computational model? 

Thomas McAndrew, assistant professor, Department of Biostatistics and Health Data Science in Lehigh University’s College of Health, has received an award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to research and develop a novel approach to forecasting. His project, “IHBEM: Enhancing Influenza Forecasting Through an Integrated Platform for User-Generated Temporal Forecasts,” will help improve evidence-based public health decision making for infectious diseases.

In 1962, when environmentalist and author Rachel Carson penned "Silent Spring," alerting the world to the dangers of the pesticide DDT, it was the reproductive threat to birds – the bald eagle in particular – that spurred people to action.

Six decades later, Rutgers University–New Brunswick researchers are taking the measure of another global environmental pollutant by drawing parallels to the crisis Carson identified. This time, the pollutant is mercury, and the sentinels are penguins living in the farthest reaches of the Antarctic Peninsula.

“With mercury, there’s an analogy to DDT,” said John Reinfelder, a professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences at the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, and co-author of a study published in Science of the Total Environment examining mercury levels in the flightless, aquatic birds.

A Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) researcher is developing a new class of medical adhesives by bringing together hydrogels and glue-like polymers to safely and reliably connect human tissues to therapeutic devices implanted in the body, such as pacemakers, insulin pumps, and artificial joints.