Summer Recap: Sunshine and STEM
By Bela Koganti
~ 3 minutes ~
This summer, I hope you’ve gotten some much needed rest and a couple months without stress! As we ease back into the school year, I’m here to help you exchange your doomscrolling for reading about some of the coolest STEM from this summer!
June 3: AI’s Energy Effects
Cooling systems, land, mineral supplies, water, data centers, and high-tech chips. Maybe you’d associate data centers and high-tech chips with some kind of technology, but the rest feel more like basic environmental needs. However, all of the aforementioned materials make up just some of the resources necessary for artificial intelligence (AI) to function.
The United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment, and Health (UNU-INWEH) recently published a report on the environmental consequences from the energy that powers AI. They looked at water, carbon, and land footprints caused by the electricity used for AI. After their studies, the UNU-INWEH concluded that the locations of generated electricity and which energy sources AI uses are just as important as the amount of electricity used.
They also found that the model used, response length, and generation of texts, images, and videos affected AI’s environmental footprint. Additionally, UNU-INWEH highlighted how AI helps consumers all over the world, but its environmental consequences only burden specific regions. To battle this, they hope to continue advancing AI but stay transparent about its problems to protect the affected communities.
June 25: Irregular Exoplanets
The ASTEP (Antarctic Search for Transiting ExoPlanets) presented their discovery of two giant exoplanets that uniquely have extraordinarily low densities. They found these planets passing through an F7 star. By analyzing TTVs (Transit Timing Variations), which are the tiny changes in each time a planet passes through a star, the ASTEP measured their masses and found them to be around as low as existing super-puff planets from other star systems.
The ASTEP plans to continue examining the two exoplanets to better understand how giant planets form.
July 13: Sugar in Space
Nature Academy recently reported their finding of erythrulose, a type of sugar, in the interstellar medium (ISM). Previously, scientists had wondered how monosaccharides formed on early Earth because, although the nature of them suggested they’d been born in space, no sugar had been found in the ISM.
However, by using spectral surveys of the Galactic Centre molecular cloud through telescopes, scientists detected the erythrulose, revolutionizing the question of how sugar was born. Quantum models presume that a mix of simple two-carbon aldehydes (organic compounds of carbon double-bonded with oxygen and single-bonded with hydrogen) and alcohols create erythrulose on interstellar dust.
With their discovery, it’s now possible to predict that the erythrulose found in the ISM might have made up some of the sugar used for early metabolic processes.
August 5: Reduced Colorectal Cancer Deaths
In a study from Spain, scientists found that screening using fecal immunochemical tests (FIT) correlated with an ongoing reduction in deaths from colorectal cancer (CRC). For 20 years (2004-2024), age-adjusted CRC deaths declined from 32.8 to 23.1 per 100,000 people.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommends yearly FIT screening after age 45 to reduce the risk of CRC mortality, and this Spanish study just backed up their claim.
References
Bassett, M. (2026, August 5). FIT-based screening linked to drop in colorectal cancer mortality.
MedPage Today.
https://www.medpagetoday.com/hematologyoncology/coloncancer/122494
Detection of a four-carbon sugar in interstellar space. (2026, July 13). Nature.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-026-02905-7
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. (2026, June 25). ASTEP confirmation of a
pair of long-period Jupiter-sized planets with extremely low densities transiting TOI-791.
Oxford Academic. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stag864
UNU-INWEH. (2026, June 3). Environmental cost of Artificial Intelligence: Carbon, water, and
land footprints.
https://unu.edu/inweh/collection/environmental-cost-of-AIs-Enrgy-Use-Carbon-water-an
d-land-footprints
