West Lafayette, Indiana - Researchers have solved a key obstacle in creating the underlying technology for miniature optical sensors to detect chemicals and biological compounds, high-precision spectroscopy, ultra-stable microwave sources, and optical communications systems that transmit greater volumes of information with better quality.

Washington, DC - International Youth Day takes place on Wednesday, August 12th to celebrate youth and their ability to help create a better world. The theme of this year’s event is youth civic engagement to encourage young women and men to engage politically, economically, and socially in their communities.

Baltimore, Maryland - Forests worldwide are vulnerable to growing risks of drought- and heat-induced tree mortality and forest die-off because of a rapidly warming Earth, according to just-published research in the scientific journal Ecosphere.  The paper is an invited “ESA Centennial Paper” to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Ecological Society of America.

Los Angeles, California - Researchers at USC have developed a yeast model to study a gene mutation that disrupts the duplication of DNA, causing massive damage to a cell’s chromosomes, while somehow allowing the cell to continue dividing.

Washington, DC - Five recent U.S. college graduates have been selected to participate in the 2015-16 Fulbright-mtvU Fellowship to explore the power of music to influence culture and engage audiences overseas on topics of global importance. Through this joint effort by the U.S. Department of State and mtvU, MTV’s 24-hour college network, fellows will pursue academic projects on international contemporary or popular music, focusing on music and social activism, music in learning, music and the community, and musical performance.

Berkeley, California - UC Berkeley physicists have cooled a gas to the quietest state ever achieved, hoping to detect faint quantum effects lost in the din of colder but noisier fluids.