In the fall of 2024, Hurricane Helene made landfall in the southeastern U.S., later downgrading to a tropical storm causing strong winds, flooding and major destruction throughout Appalachia. Now, researchers and public health officials in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology Letters provide a debrief about how their mapping of key locations, including private wells, septic systems and service facilities, helped distribute disaster relief in North Carolina — a part of Appalachia hit particularly hard by the hurricane.

Most of Earth’s water is in the oceans and too salty to drink. Desalination plants can make seawater drinkable, but they require large amounts of energy. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Energy Letters have developed a sponge-like material with long, microscopic air pockets that uses sunlight and a simple plastic cover to turn saltwater into freshwater. A proof-of-concept test outdoors successfully produced potable water in natural sunlight in a step toward low-energy, sustainable desalination.

Opioids like fentanyl, morphine and oxycodone are the drugs most linked to overdoses in the U.S. Typical screening methods for drug usage involve collection of blood, saliva or urine samples. Now, in ACS’ Analytical Chemistry, researchers demonstrate a pen-like tool that can quickly and non-invasively collect molecules from the skin’s surface to be screened for opioids with mass spectrometry.