University of Houston program addresses critical workforce gap in the US mineral industry

Program funded by NSF to attract young students, give the mineral industry a makeover

University of Houston

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University of Houston Associate Professor of Information Science Technology Xuqing (Jason) Wu is leading a $1 million initiative, funded by the National Science Foundation, to train the next generation of mining and mineral experts.

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Credit: University of Houston

Amid demand for critical minerals ever rising, the minerals industry, a sector integral to high-tech products, defense systems and sustainable energy technologies, is facing a shortage of trained professionals. To address the growing demand for skilled professionals, University of Houston Associate Professor of Information Science Technology Xuqing (Jason) Wu is leading a $1 million initiative, funded by the National Science Foundation, to train the next generation of experts.  

“Without targeted educational programs, the U.S. risks falling behind in securing a stable domestic supply of critical minerals," said Wu.  

Minerals and rare earth elements power the devices we use, the roads we travel, and the energy we rely on every day. Phones and computers use minerals like copper and lithium. Streets and houses are built with stone and cement. Coal and gas come from the earth, too. These valuable elements have become essential building blocks of modern life. 

The program unites UH with key industry partners to expand workforce development and drive research that fuels innovation. 

The mineral industry is not exactly a new sector   

During the stone age, cavemen were already rockhounding, digging into the earth searching for meteorites to use for their metal properties. Today it’s not much different. People are still digging, but now the mineral industry has become a key driver of the global economy.  

Despite how critical the industry is, its reputation has lagged, failing to reflect its rapid growth and innovation. Modern operations rely on cutting-edge advancements like autonomous machinery, AI, real-time data analytics and environmental monitoring systems. 

“The program aims to reshape public perception of the critical minerals industry, highlighting its role in energy, defense and advanced manufacturing,” said Wu. “Our program aims to showcase the industry's true, high-tech nature.” 

Showcasing it to younger students is the first order of business in preparing the next generation of mineral industry professionals.  

The project will directly sponsor approximately ten high school students and ten community college students in the Houston area each year. The students will have industry mentors and participate in a four-week training camp and immersive field-based learning experiences. 

“High school and community college students often lack exposure to career pathways in mining, geoscience, materials science and data science. This project is meant to ignite student interest and strengthen the U.S. workforce pipeline in the minerals industry by equipping students with technical skills, industry knowledge and career readiness,” said Wu.   

The initiative is an interdisciplinary collaboration with co-principal investigators at UH: Jiajia Sun, Earth & Atmospheric Sciences; Yan Yao and Jiefu Chen, Electrical and Computer Engineering; and Yueqin Huang, Information Science Technology.

How green infrastructure is revamping city storm sewers

Thoughtful design and upkeep can improve local water quality, researchers say

Ohio State University

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COLUMBUS, Ohio – Installing green infrastructure in residential areas can prevent stormwater from flooding sewer systems and significantly curb heavy metal pollution, suggests a new study. 

Findings showed that communities that added green infrastructure — systems designed to protect the natural water cycle, such as rain gardens or constructed wetlands — saw a notable reduction in cadmium, copper, nickel and zinc being sent into local waterways. All of these are heavy metals harmful to human health in large concentrations. 

Using these systems to manage stormwater flow at the source is imperative to preserving our environment, said Joseph Smith, lead author of the study and a researcher in food, agricultural and biological engineering at The Ohio State University. 

“Humans cause a lot of alterations to the environment,” said Smith. “So things like rain gardens allow nature to return to how it’s supposed to work.” 

The study was recently published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials. 

The project is part of Blueprint Columbus, a 30-year community effort to install green infrastructure into local neighborhoods. The goal is to address sanitary sewer overflows and reduce total suspended solids pollution in runoff by 20%.

After studying the performance of two watersheds in the Clintonville neighborhood of Columbus in managing stormwater pollution for about 3.5 years, researchers found that once installed, green infrastructure systems exceeded expectations, from mitigating peak storm flow rates and pollution to potentially improving residents’ well-being and altering local biodiversity. In one particular neighborhood, researchers noted that rain gardens worked to prevent a good amount of heavy metal pollution from entering downstream waterways. 

Additionally, because their results were compared to a control watershed – one without green infrastructure – the study was robust enough to determine that the changes the team saw in hydrology, water quality and heavy metals were due to the presence of rain gardens, not seasonal or annual fluctuations in climate, said Smith. 

In short, implementing more of these systems in urban areas could make the city’s ecosystems healthier and more resilient, said Smith. “Not only does green infrastructure improve water quality, but it also helps cities to be cooler because it adds more green space. The goal is to design spaces where people want to walk around and enjoy beautiful surroundings and experience the many ecosystem services created,” he said. 

According to the paper, many of these benefits can also be attributed to the design and continued maintenance of the city’s connected green infrastructure systems. 

“Ohio State’s been involved in this project from multiple angles,” said Smith. “But what made our study really special is that we could see changes that were happening at the pipe level leading to the stream.”

Their results also suggest that engaging with communities to improve public acceptance and functionality of these green measures is of the utmost priority, said Smith. Notably, the long-term success of the project may be achieved by educating homeowners about the benefits of having and maintaining these systems, as some citizens have opposed the addition of green systems to their neighborhoods, raising concerns over safety and convenience. 

“Being involved in this watershed-scale rain garden project has made me realize that while there are lots of benefits for the community, there’s also more we can do to explain how these projects help individuals who live there,” said Smith. 

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, investing in green infrastructure also helps create jobs and other lucrative economic development opportunities for the public. 

For the time being, Blueprint Columbus is expected to continue retrofitting more areas of the city with green infrastructure through at least 2043. Hundreds of rain gardens already exist across the city, but this work emphasizes how important and beneficial it is to protect the environment through proven, eco-friendly methods. 

“Columbus is becoming a leader and model for other municipalities that are facing similar problems,” said Smith. 

Other co-authors include Kay Bernard, Kathryn Boening-Ulman, Jay Martin, R. Andrew Tirpak, David Wituszynski and Ryan Winston, all from Ohio State. This study was supported by the City of Columbus, Ohio. 

Written by: Tatyana Woodall, Woodall.52@osu.edu

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Journal

Journal of Hazardous Materials

Article Title

Retrofitted watershed scale green infrastructure reduces heavy metals in urban stormwater from residential land use

CAPITALI$M 101

Reduction in costs of fentanyl production found to have long-term implications for illegal opioid supply industry

LEGALIZE DRUGS!

Analysis also explores repercussions for law enforcement

Carnegie Mellon University

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The spread of illegally manufactured fentanyl has driven overdose deaths to unprecedented levels in the United States and Canada. It has also changed the production function for drug traffickers, most notably by radically reducing the costs of raw materials for those producing illegal opioids.

In a new analysis, researchers explored the possible consequences of that reduction in costs through the eyes of those who make up the drug supply chain. The authors summarize potential long-term implications for the structure, conduct, and performance of the illegal opioid supply industry, as well as potential consequences for drug law enforcement organizations. 

The analysis was conducted by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, the University at Albany, the University of Arizona, and the University of Maryland. It is published in Global Crime.

The United States has had a substantial illegal opioid market for more than 50 years. Starting around 2000, a rise in prescriptions for opioids for pain management led to an additional market in diverted prescription opioids. And around 2015, illegally manufactured fentanyl entered the market, which spurred continued increases in fatal drug overdoses.

“Although there has been much research on these changes, few studies have considered the motivations for the rise in fentanyl from the perspective of the illegal drug traffickers,” says Jonathan P. Caulkins, professor of operations research and public policy at Carnegie Mellon’s Heinz College, the lead author.

The analysis begins by asking how fentanyl, a cheap, synthetic opioid, might affect supply and demand in a market previously dominated by heroin, a plant-based, semi-synthetic product that in North America is more expensive, less potent, and less lethal than fentanyl.

Fentanyl is much cheaper to produce than heroin, generating a supply shock in the market for illegal opioids that may have implications beyond the standard prediction that prices will drop and consumption will increase. In their analysis, the authors describe the shock of cheap production, showing why this might lead to proportionately smaller reductions in the retail price than in the import price of illegal opioids. Then they consider the implications for illegal opioid suppliers and supply, relying on knowledge about the idiosyncrasies of illegal drug markets.

The authors then assess effects on the demand side of the market; given the demand elasticities for illegal opioids, price reductions lead to only modest declines in expenditures and thus also in drug-related income-generating crime. They also consider possible implications for the ability of law enforcement to affect the market, addressing why high-level seizures of fentanyl become even less relevant than when heroin was the principal illegal opioid. Among the authors’ conclusions:
 

• The implications of fentanyl’s lower cost will be larger in Mexico’s high-level markets than in U.S. retail markets because the cost of the drug represents a smaller part of the cost of supply in U.S. retail markets. Hence, the market shift toward fentanyl may have less pronounced effects on crime, violence, and criminal incomes in the United States than on economic outcomes in Mexico.
• That asymmetric impact has implications for high-level interdiction and drug enforcement: Seizures at higher market levels are less valuable to law enforcement precisely because drugs are less costly for traffickers to replace.
• In Mexico, the shift to synthetic fentanyl represents a major loss of income for farmers who grew poppies.
• The health implications in the United States are enormous, with significantly increased rates of overdose.
• The spread of fentanyl has also led to changes in domestic markets beyond a drop in price, including more frequent adulteration of illegal opioids with other dangerous substances and the spread of counterfeit pills containing fentanyl. In addition, fentanyl has made the prospect of using illegal drugs scarier for drug consumers.

“In our analysis, we walk through potential implications for both the supply side and the demand side of the market,” notes Shawn D. Bushway, professor of public administration at University at Albany, who coauthored the article. “We believe our work is the first explicit economic analysis of potential effects of fentanyl on the illegal market for opioids.”

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Journal

Global Crime

DOI

10.1080/17440572.2025.2561658 

Article Title

Possible effects of cheap fentanyl on drug markets, use and harm: a theoretical analysis

Ar

 

Sleep trap: Many young adults use cannabis to fall asleep

University of Michigan

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Image of a marijuana joint being rolled          

 

More than 1 in 5 young adults reported using cannabis or alcohol to help them fall asleep.

 

According to new findings from the University of Michigan's annual Monitoring the Future Panel Study, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, 22% of U.S. young adults aged 19 to 30 reported using one or both of these substances to sleep. 

 

Cannabis was far more common than alcohol for this purpose: 18% said they used cannabis to sleep, compared to 7% who used alcohol to sleep. Among those who had used any cannabis in the past year, 41% said they did so specifically to initiate sleep.

 

"Using these substances to get to sleep can backfire because they can interfere with the ability to stay asleep and with the quality of sleep," said Megan Patrick, research professor at the Institute for Social Research and principal investigator of the MTF Panel Study. "They appear to actually disrupt sleep in the long term. The fact that so many young adults reported that they use cannabis to sleep is alarming."

 

Published in JAMA Pediatrics, the study analyzed data from 1,473 young U.S. adults and found gender and racial disparities in the use of these substances to sleep:

 

• Women were nearly twice as likely as men to use cannabis to help them get to sleep.

• Participants identifying as another gender were more than four times as likely as men to do so.

• Black young adults were three times as likely as white peers to use alcohol for sleep.

 

"Long-term, regular use of these substances to get to sleep may lead to worse sleep problems and increased risk for substance use disorder," Patrick said. "For example, frequently using a substance to get to sleep may lead to tolerance, or needing more of it to get the same effect. In other words, rather than resulting in better sleep, it may lead to additional sleep problems and escalating substance use."

 

The research is one of the first national examinations of how and why young adults use substances to manage sleep. The MTF Panel Study annually tracks substance use trends among nationally representative samples of U.S. students followed into adulthood.

 

"Unfortunately, there is a misconception that substance use can be helpful for sleep problems, but it can make things worse," Patrick said. "High-quality sleep is critical for mental health and regulating mood. Young adults told us that they are using cannabis to try to get to sleep, but doing so may make their sleep problems even worse. They need to know the potential risks."

 

Given the high co-occurrence of substance use and sleep problems in young adults, clinicians should be aware of this issue. The findings emphasize the necessity of effective, integrated screening and interventions. 

 

"Health care providers should understand how common both sleep problems and substance use are during young adulthood," Patrick said. "And that many young adults are using cannabis specifically to get to sleep. People who are trying to manage sleep problems should talk to their doctors or other providers." 

 

The study's authors also included Yuk Pang and Yvonne Terry-McElrath of U-M's Institute for Social Research. 

 

Study: Cannabis and Alcohol Use to Initiate Sleep Among Young Adults (DOI: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2025.3642) 

 

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Journal

JAMA Pediatrics

DOI

10.1001/jamapediatrics.2025.3642