ScienceDaily: Science & Society News

What are the most important factors to consider for developing effective drug use prevention programs? Many current programs for adolescents focus on elements including peer and family relationships, school connection, and youth's self-confidence and self-assertion. However, a new study suggests another factor may be equally -- or even more -- influential: whether the youth believes drug use is wrong.

A series of studies on endangered species that make their homes on the border of Vietnam and China underscores the growing importance of transboundary conservation efforts in the face of climate change. As the world warms, many plant and animal species migrate from their traditional habitats, increasing the likelihood of local and global extinctions.

New research suggests that a novel, short-term forecasting method, using machine learning and vast, anonymized datasets from social media accounts, significantly outperforms conventional models for projecting COVID trends at the county level.

A recent study looked at the direct and indirect effects of the global pandemic on U.S. seafood workers by tracking cases and outbreaks and found seafood workers were twice as likely to contract COVID-19 as workers in other food industries.

From the Murray-Darling system to Great Artesian Basin, 'invisible' underground groundwater is often the only water supply available across the vast majority Australia where its annual contribution to GDP is estimated at more than $6.8 billion a year. However, overuse of groundwater during droughts and aquifer depletion has already seen water crises, including in Australia's 'food bowl' the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB), California and Cape Town in South Africa, with more likely to follow with groundwater management largely reactive and unlikely to avert more crises as climate change accelerates and populations grow.