Columbia researchers identify how harmful tau filaments may first form, opening potential path toward developing new treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, which affects millions of people worldwide.

U.S. is developing lithium mines to reduce reliance on foreign supply chains. New study assessed whether U.S. subbasins can support water-intensive lithium mining. Team combined water, climate and socioeconomic models to project water supply and demand between 2040 and 2060. Under every scenario, most western subbasins struggled to meet existing water demands, let alone support additional lithium mining.

MIT researchers developed a low-temperature process for extracting battery-grade lithium from the common mineral spodumene. The closed-loop process could help the U.S. tap into its own abundant sources of lithium, a critical element that is currently refined primarily in China.