Flu vaccine effectiveness has been about 50% for the 2025 Southern Hemisphere season, according to the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, researchers at the Pan American Health Organization and other collaborators. The CDC recommends that all eligible individuals aged 6 months and older receive the seasonal influenza vaccine, as the 2025-26 Northern Hemisphere vaccine has the same composition as the one used in the Southern Hemisphere, with researchers highlighting the vaccine's role in reducing outpatient visits and hospitalizations.

Nitrogen content in Permian Basin natural gas, especially from the Midland Basin, has increased to as high as 7%, well above the 1% to 1.5% threshold for liquefied natural gas production. The trend lowers heating value and raises safety, commercial and reputational risks for LNG exporters. Measures such as adjusting plant operations, procuring low-nitrogen gas and installing nitrogen rejection equipment can help operators manage the challenge, though each strategy involves balancing capital intensity, operational flexibility and midstream fees.

Researchers have developed a method to recycle Teflon into sodium fluoride using mechanochemistry. The process involves grinding Teflon waste with sodium metal in a ball mill, breaking the polymer's strong carbon-fluorine bonds and producing sodium fluoride, which can be used in toothpaste and water fluoridation, according to the study in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Chemical engineers are defending the importance of stirring in chemical reactions after a study suggested it might be unnecessary for certain organic reactions. "Once you scale up, introduce multiple phases, or deal with fast or exothermic reactions, mixing is absolutely decisive," said Timothy Noel of the University of Amsterdam. "To suggest otherwise risks misleading chemists into overlooking a critical experimental parameter and, in some cases, creating hazardous situations." Noel and colleagues have posted a preprint on the fundamentals of diffusion, convection and poor mixing, but Zhong-Quan Liu, an author of the original paper, stands by the study's conclusions.

The EU is reportedly reviewing the use and safety of ethanol in biocidal products such as hand sanitizers because of its possible associated increased cancer risk, according to the Financial Times. The European Chemicals Agency's Biocidal Products Committee is set to meet in late November. Alexandra Peters of the University of Geneva and the Clean Hospitals network highlighted the key role of alcohol-based hand rubs in preventing infection.

At a recent workshop sponsored by the FDA and the Center for Research on Complex Generics, FDA officials, including Robert Lionberger, emphasized the necessity of high-quality data for the effective use of AI and machine learning in generic drug development. The FDA's Office of Research and Standards has been leveraging AI tools like BEAM and pyDarwin to enhance product quality assessments. The agency's new AI tool, Elsa, has been praised for improving efficiency in regulatory processes. However, officials stress that reliable data is crucial for these technologies to provide accurate results.

The FDA has approved Bayer's Lynkuet, a hormone-free drug to treat moderate to severe hot flashes and night sweats in menopausal women. The drug, elinzanetant, works by blocking brain chemicals responsible for vasomotor symptoms and will be available in the US in November.

Pigs that were gene-edited by scientists at the Roslin Institute in Scotland resist the virus that causes classical swine fever, a disease that has resulted in the culling of 75,000 pigs in the UK since the 1960s. The study, published in Trends in Biotechnology, involved editing a gene that produces the DNAJC14 protein, which is crucial for pestivirus replication. The gene-edited pigs showed no signs of illness after exposure to the virus, while control pigs showed signs of disease.

Senators and industry leaders have expressed concern about the slow and unpredictable pace of the Environmental Protection Agency's review of new chemicals, with Peter Huntsman, CEO of Huntsman, warning that the US could become as dependent on foreign nations for new compounds as it is for critical minerals if the EPA does not prioritize and improve its review process. "It's an international race that we're in right now," Huntsman said.

Answer: Aerosol -- Ice cream, a food that uses chemical engineering principles to maintain its unique texture, is considered a complex food colloid and contains three different colloidal dispersion types. It exists simultaneously as a solid (ice crystals), a liquid (milk and sugar solution), and a gas (air bubbles). A colloid is a mixture that has particles range between 1 nm and 1,000 nm in diameter but remain evenly distributed throughout the solution. The fat droplets are an emulsion, the ice crystals are a sol, and the air bubbles are a foam.

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