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"Once we get more than about a quarter inch of ice on those lines, the lines either start sagging and failing, or more likely, you actually get the vegetation above it, the trees, to fall on the lines, and that causes potentially a larger number of outages," said Thomas Overbye, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Texas A&M University.

After more than two centuries, penny production has come to an end in the United States. CBS News New York's Adi Guajardo reports on the demise of the copper coin.

"This has, unfortunately, happened on dairy farms across the country," said David Douphrate, a dairy farm safety expert and associate professor in the Texas A&M University School of Public Health.

Andrew Dessler, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, studies the impact of climate change on consumers. His research has determined that climate change is increasing the cost of electricity.

Climate change likely played a role in the deadly Texas floods that have killed over 120 people, according to Texas A&M climatologist Jay Banner.

Over the last three years, retail electricity prices have gone up faster than the rate of inflation, and new research from Texas A&M shows climate change is making it more expensive to cool homes. CBS News' David Schechter reports on the impact.

The problem that scientists like Dr. Patrick Shamberger are trying to solve isn't an overall lack of energy — it's when too many energy consumers are trying to use electricity at the same time, which puts stress on the grid. "We don't want to build a whole bunch of excess power plants to just sit around, never turned on until that hot, hot day in August," said Shamberger, an associate professor of materials science and engineering at Texas A&M. "It's a lot of capital investment that doesn't get used."

In the years that followed, Aria searched for ways to make sense of what happened — and to make sure other families wouldn't face the same kind of loss. Now 20, she is studying meteorology at Texas A&M University. She wants to predict the very storms that changed her family's life.

Juliana Rangel, an entomologist at Texas A&M University, has been studying bee hives in her lab. There are a few potential explanations, she said, including changing habitats and weather patterns. But there's no certain answer, she said.