UAlbany researcher partners on $1.2 million NSF grant to explore tropical monsoon rainfall patterns

University at Albany, SUNY

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Sujata Murty displays a crushed coral sample that is ready for testing.

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Credit: Patrick Dodson

ALBANY, N.Y. (Oct. 30, 2025) — A University at Albany researcher is teaming up with scientists from five institutions on a $1.2 million National Science Foundation project to better understand monsoon rainfall patterns across Asia, Indonesia and Australia over the last millennium — and how they might look in the future under a changing climate.

For decades, scientists have studied natural records around the Eastern Hemisphere tropics to reconstruct past changes in monsoon rainfall. These records, which include stalagmites, corals, lake sediments, and tree rings, help track how and when monsoon rains changed over the past decades and centuries. The new grant provides the opportunity to integrate all of these records together.

Sujata Murty, an assistant professor in UAlbany’s Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, is among six researchers leading the project.

“Climate records from individual stalagmite, coral, lake or tree ring sites are a great first step in understanding climate change for a specific site,” Murty said. “Combining the perspective of all sites together, on the other hand, allows us to take a step back and examine the bigger picture.”

“This project is an exciting opportunity to bring together an expansive network of scientists across all career stages to leverage paleoclimate, oceanographic, atmospheric and climate modeling perspectives.”

Coral Clues to Climate Change

The Australian, Maritime Continent and South Asian summer monsoons provide the majority of freshwater for the billions of people in the Eastern Hemisphere tropics, impacting about 40 percent of the global population.

Yet many of these regions, especially the Southern Hemisphere, are data sparse, which limits the ability to understand how the monsoon systems have changed in the past and to predict how they will change in the future.

Murty is an oceanographer who collects and analyzes coral samples. Corals have annual growth layers, similar to tree rings, that can offer valuable information on how environmental conditions have changed over time, along with insight for future climate modeling.

For this project, Murty will use a public database (which she helped create) of coral records that span the Indian Ocean, Maritime Continent and Pacific Ocean. Her analysis will focus on how monsoon precipitation has changed spatially over time, and what aspects of our climate system are driving those changes.

“This research is exciting because it allows me to take the next steps with my coral paleoclimate research,” said Murty, who co-directs UAlbany’s Paleoclimate Lab. “With this project, we are leveraging the growing number of published records from the entire coral paleoclimate research community to better understand global changes in our monsoon systems.”

Once the research team has assembled and integrated the data from all of the natural records, they’ll link everything together using climate models. Their hope is to better understand the mechanisms driving changes in monsoon rainfall patterns over the last 1,000 years, from medieval times before human-driven climate change, up to present day.  

“Our findings will improve decadal predictions, climate projections and risk management for societies in this region that are highly vulnerable to climate change,” Murty said.

Training Future Climate Scientists 

Beyond research, the grant will fund 17 undergraduate student researchers from the partnering institutions, UAlbany, Cornell College, Iowa State University, University of New Mexico, Occidental College and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

UAlbany students will assist Murty in compiling and analyzing coral data and explore techniques to understand past changes in the behavior across the Australian to Asian monsoon systems.

The project research team is also partnering with Nord Anglia Education to deliver age-appropriate science presentations to K-12 students in Iowa, Los Angeles, Albuquerque and northern Australia, and will directly engage with university students and faculty in the Philippines, Nepal and Australia.

 

Checkup time for Fido? Wait might be longer in the country

Study highlights differences in access to care in rural areas

Ohio State University

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COLUMBUS, Ohio – Most people can get their pets in for veterinary visits relatively quickly, but access to care could use improvement in rural areas, suggests a recent study.

“Access to veterinary care appears to be generally pretty good and the wait times aren’t too long, particularly if you compare it to how long people often have to wait to establish primary care, but there’s clearly room for improvement in less populated areas,” said Simon Haeder, the study’s lead author and an associate professor in Ohio State’s College of Public Health. The research appears in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association.

Using a “secret shopper” survey approach, members of the research team posed as dog owners, calling more than 5,000 randomly selected veterinary practices in six states (California, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington) in early 2025.

The team was able to secure an appointment 67% of the time. When they didn’t, it was typically because they couldn’t connect with staff or were on hold for excessively long periods – more than five minutes was the cutoff in the study. In almost 4% of cases, veterinarians didn’t have the capacity to accept new patients.

The “dog owners” who were able to make an appointment were told they’d have to wait an average of 6.4 days. Average travel distance for an appointment was 6.4 miles.  

But when it came to rural areas, the barriers to care grew more substantial. The research team was able to make an appointment less than 62% of the time when calling rural practices. The average wait time jumped to 8.6 days, and the average travel distance increased to 13 miles.

Current efforts to increase the number of veterinary students nationwide, and at Ohio State, could help remedy this disparity, Haeder said.

Through a new Ohio initiative called Protect One Health in Ohio, Ohio State’s College of Veterinary Medicine aims to strengthen Ohio’s veterinary workforce, protect public health and advance the agricultural economy.

In another recent paper in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, that college’s leadership detailed plans to educate more Ohio veterinarians with a specific aim of increasing veterinary care in rural areas.

After costs associated with care, access has been consistently identified as the most pressing concern among pet owners, Haeder said.

“When pets don’t receive prompt preventive care, diagnoses and treatment, both the pets and their owners suffer, and we know that living with a beloved pet can be good for health, both mental and physical,” he said.

“And gaps in access can pose broader public health threats, especially if animals aren’t protected against vaccine-preventable illnesses like rabies.”

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Journal

Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association

Method of Research

Observational study

Article Title

Secret shopper survey reveals generally reasonable access to preventive veterinary appointments for dogs, with notable gaps in rural areas and for other outliers

New molten salt method gives old lithium batteries a second life

Biochar Editorial Office, Shenyang Agricultural University

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Molten salt regeneration of single-crystal LiNi0.8Co0.1Mn0.1O2 from end-of-life cathodes

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Credit: Fangshu He, Yuelin Lv, Jingyuan Wu, Qi Zhang, Shuaipeng Hao, Lixia Yuan, Haiping Yang & Yang Yang

As electric vehicles become more common, the number of used lithium-ion batteries is soaring. These batteries contain valuable metals such as nickel, cobalt, and lithium, but current recycling methods often destroy the complex crystal structure that makes them work efficiently. Now, researchers from Huazhong University of Science and Technology have developed a new molten salt technique that restores the structure and performance of used high-nickel cathode materials, offering a greener and more efficient route to battery recycling.

The study, published in Energy & Environment Nexus, introduces a direct regeneration strategy that uses a special molten salt mixture to repair the degraded cathodes found in end-of-life batteries. Instead of breaking the materials down into metal components as conventional methods do, this approach restores the material itself so it can be reused in new batteries.

“Traditional recycling can recover metals, but it cannot bring back the original atomic structure of the material,” said corresponding author Yang Yang. “Our method allows the degraded cathode to be reborn, regaining its crystal order and high capacity.”

The team focused on LiNi0.8Co0.1Mn0.1O2, or NCM811, a high-performance material widely used in electric vehicles for its high energy density. Over time, NCM811 loses lithium and develops structural defects that reduce its ability to hold charge. To repair these defects, the researchers designed a ternary molten salt composed of lithium hydroxide, lithium nitrate, and lithium salicylate. When heated, the molten salt becomes a liquid that allows lithium ions to move freely and penetrate the damaged material, while also helping the atoms reorganize into their original structure.

Microscopic and spectroscopic analyses showed that the regenerated material had regained a uniform single-crystal structure, with the unwanted surface “rock salt” layer completely removed. The regenerated cathode achieved an initial discharge capacity of 196 milliamp hours per gram and maintained 76 percent of that capacity after 200 charge–discharge cycles, outperforming most existing recycling methods.

“This process effectively heals the internal and surface damage of the cathode material,” said first author Fangshu He. “It not only replaces the lost lithium but also restores the ordered layered structure that is key to long battery life.”

Because the molten salt system works at relatively low temperatures and avoids the use of strong acids or toxic solvents, it is both energy efficient and environmentally friendly. The researchers believe their method could serve as a foundation for closed-loop recycling, where used batteries are directly converted back into high-quality materials for new ones.

Although the current experiments were carried out at the laboratory scale, the team plans to optimize the process for industrial applications and conduct a full life cycle assessment to evaluate its environmental impact. The approach could help reduce both the environmental burden and the cost of recycling, bringing the world closer to sustainable battery production and energy storage.

 

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Journal reference: He F, Lv Y, Wu J, Zhang Q, Hao S, et al. 2025. Molten salt regeneration of single-crystal LiNi0.8Co0.1Mn0.1O2 from end-of-life cathodes. Energy & Environment Nexus 1: e007  https://www.maxapress.com/article/doi/10.48130/een-0025-0004   

 

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About Energy & Environment Nexus:
Energy & Environment Nexus is an open-access journal publishing high-quality research on the interplay between energy systems and environmental sustainability, including renewable energy, carbon mitigation, and green technologies.

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DOI

10.48130/een-0025-0004 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Molten salt regeneration of single-crystal LiNi0.8Co0.1Mn0.1O2 from end-of-life cathodes

 

Leg, foot amputations increased 65% in Illinois hospitals between 2016-2023

Growing prevalence of diabetes and peripheral artery disease among patients

Northwestern University

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• 
  

• Men, Black Americans, those living in areas with low socioeconomic status more affected
•  
• The Illinois data from a diverse population (ethnic/racial, rural/metropolitan) likely reflects national amputation trends 

• ‘Unless we make changes in how we care for marginalized communities, I don’t anticipate this getting better’

CHICAGO --- Rates of leg and foot amputations in Illinois hospitals increased 65% between 2016 and 2023, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study. 

Men, Black patients, and those living in areas with low socioeconomic status were disproportionally affected, the study found. The dramatic spike is largely attributed to a growing prevalence of diabetes and peripheral artery disease (PAD), two chronic conditions that often lead to lower extremity amputation, the study authors said. 

“Unfortunately, by the time a patient with diabetes and/or PAD presents with a foot wound or ascending leg infection, their disease might be just too advanced and amputation may be the only treatment option,” said first author Dr. Maggie Reilly, a vascular surgery resident at McGaw Medical Center of Northwestern University. “The patient population with both diabetes and PAD had the biggest increase in amputation rates.”

Rates of smoking have gone down in recent decades, and improvements in medical therapies, such as greater utilization of statin therapy, should theoretically improve limb salvage, she said. Those positive changes, however, are outpaced by the quickly increasing rates of diabetes and PAD, Reilly said. 

“Despite our medical advances, we’re not reaching all the communities that need it,” Reilly said. “It’s creating this bigger divide between people who are getting the necessary preventive care and those who aren’t. Unless we make changes in how we care for marginalized communities, I don’t anticipate this getting better.” 

The study was published today (Oct. 30) in the journal Diabetes Research and Clinical Practice.

Amputation burden: Shame, blame, months of healing

“The things that make a leg amputation necessary (diabetes and PAD) can also make it harder to heal,” Reilly said. “The effects of those diseases don’t stop with the amputation, which is really unfortunate.”

Patients undergo at least three months of post-operative care that includes medical appointments to ensure proper healing, followed by months of physical and occupational therapy to learn how to walk on a prosthetic leg. Some patients need to wait six months before getting their prosthesis, Reilly said.

“Going six months without walking can really make patients debilitated,” Reilly said. “It takes a big medical team to make sure patients get back to a level of independent functioning.”

The mental burden of losing a limb also weighs on patients. 

“People feel shame or they’re looking for someone to blame. They can feel really disenchanted with the medical system and failed by their providers, but sometimes given the progressive nature of the disease, we’ve done everything we can do,” Reilly said. “Patients generally have a poor understanding of diabetes and PAD, which makes it hard for them to come to terms with this life-changing procedure.”

Illinois data likely reflects national rates of amputations

Approximately 150,000 non-traumatic leg amputations occur annually in the U.S. Although this study focused only on Illinois patients, the study authors said dramatic increases in leg and foot amputations are likely happening nationally. 

“Using Illinois as a proxy for understanding amputation rates in the U.S. is helpful because Illinois has both metropolitan and rural areas, so it’s a good snapshot of different communities,” Reilly said. “We have a lot of racial and ethnic diversity, especially within Chicago, so we thought our data could be generalized nationwide.”

What can be done? 

Some data suggest that 50% of patients who undergo an above-knee amputation will die in the next 12 months because of the nature of systemic disease, Reilly said — which is why prevention and appropriate management of cardiovascular disease is of dire importance. 

“We know from previous studies that PAD is underrecognized, underdiagnosed, and undertreated, especially for patients from marginalized populations,” Reilly said. “Health systems and community partners should emphasize aggressive prevention including screening, early diagnosis and intensive risk factor management.”

Breaking down the study findings

Between 2016 and 2023, there were 30,834 amputation admissions from 193 Illinois hospitals, with a 65% increase in annual amputation rate. Rates of diabetes and hospital stays that extended past 20 days also increased significantly. Amputees were disproportionately men, with only 28.8% of patients being women. The cohort included 20.2% of patients who were 75 years or older, and 25% of patients were non-Hispanic Black (as compared to an Illinois population with only 13.9% Black residents in 2020). During the study period, 81.5% of amputations occurred in patients with diabetes. The largest percent increases in amputation rates were for males (+76.1%), non-Hispanic Black patients (+67.5%) and residents aged 65 to 74 years old.

The study is titled, “A population health analysis of trends in lower extremity amputation secondary to diabetes and peripheral artery disease, 2016-2023.” Other Northwestern study authors include Isabel Cohen, Samantha Watson, Dr. Karen Ho and Joe Feinglass. 

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Journal

Diabetes Research and Clinical Practice

DOI

10.1016/j.diabres.2025.112963 

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

A population health analysis of trends in lower extremity amputation secondary to diabetes and peripheral artery disease, 2016–2023

Article Publication Date

30-Oct-2025