Diseases once thought to be rare or exotic in the United States are gaining a presence and getting new attention from medical researchers who are probing how immigration, limited access to care and the impacts of climate change are influencing their spread. Illnesses like schistosomiasis, Chagas disease and dengue are endemic in warmer, wetter and poorer areas of the world, often closer to the equator. According to the World Health Organization, almost 1 billion people are afflicted with more than one tropical disease. Go to story #1

Climate change poses a threat to the operation of power plants by reducing their ability to cool down with river water, a new study warns. Specifically, higher average river temperatures, combined with lower river flows because of climate change, could decrease the average power capacity of nuclear and fossil-fuel fired plants by 4.4 to 16 percent in the United States between 2031 and 2060 in the summer, according to the study, published yesterday in Nature Climate Change. Go to story #2