A handheld sensor and innovative technique developed by Texas A&M AgriLife Research scientists could one day offer a noninvasive alternative to food diaries and blood tests when monitoring diet and health.

A Potential Cure for Paralysis: The First Human Spinal Cord Repair using The Patient Own Cells The surgery is expected to soon take place in Israel, in which a personalized engineered human spinal cord will be implanted in a paralyzed patient, with the goal of enabling the patient to rise from a wheelchair and walk again. Behind this medical advance stands Prof. Tal Dvir, Head of the Sagol Center for Regenerative Biotechnology, Head of the Nanotechnology Center at Tel Aviv University, and Chief Scientist of the biotech company Matricelf.

Tereza Magalhaes, Ph.D., is living an old, oft-used adage: “Science saves lives, one discovery at a time.”

Magalhaes, a vector biologist in the Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Department of Entomology, grew up in Brazil in a family of scientists and academics, and she developed her natural interest in biology from an early age. Her aunt would tell Magalhaes she would be a detective one day.

It’s Tuesday morning in early June and the Idaho National Laboratory’s (INL) Transient Reactor Test Facility (TREAT) control room is crawling with visitors. Men in fatigues thumb through logbooks, monitor radiation levels, and consult data and images on laptop computers. These visitors are members of the U.S. Army’s Nuclear Disablement Team (NDT), participating in a new Nuclear Infrastructure, Assessment and Disablement (NIAD) field exercise that validates and certifies training received during INL’s annual NIAD course. The annual course is designed to improve the soldier’s proficiency and knowledge of nuclear fuel cycle processes, hazard mitigation and successful characterization and disablement of nuclear facilities.

In many electricity markets, hydropower operators earn a significant portion of their revenue from the day-ahead market. In this market, utilities buy electricity based on expected demand for the next day, while power producers offer to sell electricity at prices based on forecasted production and demand. This process ensures that enough electricity is available to meet demand and helps stabilize prices by balancing supply and demand ahead of time.

Retail pork prices hit record high levels this summer and are expected to remain elevated heading into the holiday season, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service experts said.

In July, average retail pork prices reached the highest point of the year, $5.01 per pound, up from $4.92 a year ago, said David Anderson, Ph.D., AgriLife Extension livestock and food marketing economist and professor in the Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Department of Agricultural Economics, Bryan-College Station.