SCIENCE SCENE.

• Position: Energy and fuel issues

Diesel technology plays a key role in every aspect of agriculture, from the planting and harvesting of crops, their bulk transport to processing and market, to getting the fresh and finished foodstuffs into grocery stores, says Allen Schaeffer, executive director of the Diesel Technology Forum, Washington, D.C. Moreover, "consider that for an average row crop tractor, it would take as many as 25 recent models to equal the same emissions as just a single tractor that was made in the year 2000."

With wildfires in the U.S. on the rise, the team at Move.org dug into the data: in the last three years, Alaska, California, Oregon, Texas, and Utah have had the most acres burned by wildfires; California lost more than 11,000,000 acres due to wildfires in 2020 --nine percent of the state's total acres; lightning is the leading cause of wildfires in California, Texas, and Utah. Statistically, the following sources cause wildfires in these states more than any other state: Colorado (arson); New Mexico (campfires); Texas (debris burning, powerlines, and smoking); Utah (fireworks); California (children and lightning); Wyoming (railroads).

The process to make the commonly used cement in concrete, called Ordinary Portland Cement, accounts for about seven percent of carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. and can account for 10% of emissions for some countries. Jialai Wang, professor of civil, construction, and environmental engineering at the University of Alabama, has shown capturing the gas and reinserting it into the slurry that forms the cement can store the carbon dioxide in chemically stable minerals--the process results in concrete richer in calcium carbonate, which improves performance.

With a pivotal shift from brick-and-mortar hospital care to virtual care at home, an accompanying upsurge in innovative technology is a must, stresses Stuart Long, CEO of InfoBionic. "If the last couple of years of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us one...