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Discarded plastic bottles could one day be used to build stronger, more flexible concrete structures, from sidewalks and street barriers, to buildings and bridges, according to a new study.

Research by a USDA Forest Service scientist and her partners may solve a longtime problem in bat research by demonstrating that bats’ wings are as reliable a method of identifying individual bats as fingerprints are for human beings.

As more and more adults face old age alone, society needs to rethink its approach to health and elder care before this demographic shift puts further strain on an already taxed system, according to one Western researcher.

For most of human history, adults have generally been part of dense family networks who cared for them as they aged. But increasingly, adults are facing their ‘golden years’ without a spouse or children. This new living condition portends millions facing an absent support system in old age when care is generally assumed by one’s immediate family.

When Typhoon Lan made landfall in Japan on Oct. 22, the Global Precipitation Measurement mission core satellite or GPM analyzed the storm and added up the high rainfall that it generated. By Oct. 24, Extra-tropical cyclone Lan moved east into the Bering Sea and generated storm warnings.

“The current methods of restoring these sites are not as cost efficient or energy efficient as they could be, and can cause more environmental disruption,” said Susan Kaminskyj, a professor in the Department of Biology. “Our biotech innovation should help to solve this type of problem faster and with less additional disturbance.”

Kaminskyj led a research team that included three biology students and a post-doctoral fellow in the U of S College of Arts and Science. Results from their work, funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, were published in the journal PLOS ONE.