An international team of scientists is using porous, sponge-like materials that can trap carbon dioxide in their cavities while allowing other gases such as nitrogen to pass through. The materials are made from sugar and low-cost alkali metal salts, so they would be inexpensive enough for large-scale deployment, and they could be particularly effective for limiting the environmental damage of coal-fired power plants.

Today, ILSI, formerly known as the International Life Sciences Institute, announced it has rebranded. The effort includes a new logo, a refreshed visual identity and an updated website, which all reflect the organization’s evolution and its aspirations for the future.

A special issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry, released today at the American Psychiatric Association’s Annual Meeting, highlights the pervasive negative consequences of structural racism on mental health and the importance of community and system-wide interventions and proposes mental health inequity research priorities.

The University of Minnesota has received $66 million from NIAID to establish a Midwest center to develop antiviral drugs for pandemic-level viruses, including SARS-CoV-2.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health awarded the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health a $65 million grant establishing an Antiviral Drug Discovery Center to develop oral antivirals that can combat pandemic-level viruses like COVID-19. The center builds upon and is tightly affiliated with UNC’s Rapidly Emerging Antiviral Drug Development Initiative.