April 3, 20255 min readHow Many Rogue Planets Roam the Milky Way?According to new simulations, many, even most, planets get ejected from their star early in their historyBy Phil Plait edited by Lee BillingsAn artists impression of a rogue planet in the depths of interstellar space. Pablo Carlos Budassi/Stocktrek Images/Alamy Stock PhotoAs J.R.R. Tolkien wrote in The Fellowship of the Ring, Not all those who wander are lost. But in the case of planets, its possible that most of them are.Rogue planetsplanets that are adrift in space, unmoored from any starhave been a topic of science fiction for a long time; both Star Trek and Space:1999 featured them in episodes. But they actually do exist in real life. Astronomers, who sometimes like to kill fun, call these worlds free-floating planets, which is not nearly as cool a term.Still, these interstellar drifters are pretty interesting. Most have been found via microlensing: their gravity acts as a lens that boosts the light of a background star in a measurable way. These worlds tend to be so small, dark and far away that theyre otherwise invisible to us. Some, similar to Jupiter in mass, have been glimpsed in images; these likely formed directly from the gas and dust in a nebula, much as a star does, and may have thus always lacked a home star. But others, much lower in mass, are expected to have formed around a star only to subsequently be ejected from their planetary system. Now these outcasts slip silent and cold through the sunless spaces between the stars.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.How are they ejected? While there are a handful of possible methods, the most common is likely via interactions with another planet around its host star. We know that planets dont just orbit their star in the same place forever. Over time, planetary orbits can shift because of the combined gravitational influences of other planets in a system. If two planets get too close to each other, the interaction can cause one (usually the less massive of the two) to gain a lot of orbital energy, causing it to be flung out of the system.A team of astronomers at the TechnionIsrael Institute of Technology examined this question and presented its results in a new preprint paper awaiting publication in the Astrophysical Journal. The researchers ran what are called N-body simulations, computer models that use the equations of gravity and motion to simulate the positions and orbits of planets over time. By running repeatedly while varying the input parameters, these models can give statistical estimates for how often certain events such as ejections can occur.The team ran simulations of 100 different planetary systems, each comprised of anywhere between three to 10 planets that, much like the worlds of our own solar system, were on near-circular coplanar orbits around a sunlike star. They then let the equations run for a billion simulated years.What they found was that encounters are quite common! There are lots of interactions between planets as some get nudged into elongated orbits that can cause one world to essentially cross the path of another. What can happen then is a direct collisionthat is, an actual colossal impact that can shatter the planets or at least do extreme damage. That outcome is more common than you might think, occurring, on average, 0.4 time per planetary system (so, in 100 systems, youd expect to see about 40 collisions). They tend to happen early on; most occur within a million years of a simulations start.But ejections are even more common: the team determined that on average as many as 3.5 planets are ejected per system after a billion years, and most ejections happen within the first 100 million years. That result surprised me; given that there were only three to 10 planets per system in the simulations, I wouldnt have thought there would be so many ejections. But this is exactly why scientists do these sorts of calculations; our expectations can be biased, whereas the math and physics isnt.The researchers also found that a planet at any given location was as likely as any other to be ejected over the course of their simulations, so neither inner nor outer planets could be considered safe, although an innermost planet tends to be ejected first. The ejected planets usually leave the system at a relatively leisurely velocity, about two to six kilometers per second. Earth orbits the sun at more than 30 km/sec, so these ejection speeds are fairly low.Very interestingly, they found that systems with fewer planets tend to exit their ejection phase after about 100 million years, but systems with 10 planets are still unstable even after a billion years. They also found that these more bountiful systems actually eject the majority of their planets, losing 70 percent after a billion years. Most of the ones ejected are lower-mass, as expected.The obvious question is, well, what about us, then? Our solar system has eight major planets and has been around for more than four billion years. If a system can be unstable after a billion years, are we safely past that deadline? Why are we still around?We could just be lucky. Thats possible. The results the team published are averages over many simulations, so some systems lose more planets than others. It could be that the simulations the researchers ran are incomplete and that more parameters need to be included. Its also possible that our solar system beat the odds for long enough to become stable and that, from here on out, well be fine.The team also found that to match the number of ejected free-floating planets detected by astronomers, every star in the galaxy needs to form five to 10 planets on average. Thats a lot but not out of the question. Some stars may have lots of planets, and some may only form a few (or none). TRAPPIST-1, for example, is a tiny, low-mass red dwarf star, and it has at least seven Earth-sized planets! Red dwarfs are the most common kind of star in the universe, so they alone could possibly explain all the low-mass ejected planets we see. Stars like the sun might eject many planets as well, but they only account for about 10 percent of all stars, so thats a molehill compared with the red dwarfs mountain.This work is still preliminary, and theres a lot left to explore. But the numbers do match observations pretty well, giving us good reasons to suspect there are more free-floating planets out there in the galaxy than ones orbiting stars.How many of them once circled our own sun? How many planetary siblings have we lost? None? One? Four? Well likely never know; our solar systems 4.6-billion-year history offers a long time for shedding worlds into the Milky Way. But there very well could be galactic nomads wandering in deep space that began their endless journey right here around our sun. If so, they have a lot of company.

April 4, 20256 min readMeet the Fluffy, Funky and Fabulous Native Bees That Call the U.S. HomeScientists estimate there are about 4,000 species of native bees in the U.S.and theyre both cooler and ecologically more important than honeybeesBy Meghan Bartels edited by Andrea ThompsonA Martinapis luteicornis bee found in the desert in Cochise County, Arizona. Amanda Robinson//USGS Bee Lab via FlickrSpring has finally arrived in the U.S., bringing its bright spectacle of budding trees and migrating birds, along with more subtle but equally important changesamong them, the first emergence of native bees.But native bees doesnt actually include the insect most of us picture upon hearing the word bee. That yellow-and-black-striped, hive-living, honey-making critterformally Apis melliferahails from Europe. Farmers rely on these tiny imports as, essentially, livestock animals that pollinate food crops and produce honey. But their wild, native counterparts are something completely different.An Agapostemon sericeus found in Prince Georges County, Maryland. The genus Agapostemon is full of bright blue or green, metallic-looking bees that are classified as sweat bees, even though, unlike their relatives, they are not attracted to human sweat.Wayne Boo//USGS Bee Lab via FlickrOn supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Take the majority of what you know about honeybees and throw it away, says Sydney Shumar, a biologist and manager of the U.S. Geological Surveys Bee Lab. It does not apply to our native bee friends. To celebrate spring, Scientific American spoke with Shumar about North American native bee species variety, differences from honeybees and importance in their ecosystem.[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]Do I have this right that there are more than 4,000 native bee species in the U.S.? How is that number so big?The reason why there are so many native bees is you have all these different little things evolving to pollinate groups or species of plants. So they all have very different characteristics. When you look at pictures of our native bees, they look totally different than a honeybee, and you have huge ranges of color, size, how they collect pollen and how they nest.A Melissodes desponsa found in Maine. The species is closely associated with thistles and can be found across much of the eastern U.S. and Canada.Dejen Mengis/USGS Bee Lab via FlickrWhat are they like, and how do they live?There are no native bees in North America that live in a hive or produce honey. Most of them live in very small family units, or you could think of it as more like an apartment where you might have families aggregating together.If you go anywhere in the United States, you are bound to find some native bees. Sydney Shumar, biologistNone of them produce honey; none of them produce wax; none of them make big structures like you would think of with a honeybee. Some are stem-nesting; most of them are ground-nesting, so when youre walking around in the winter, you are walking on top of millions of ground-nesting bees that are just laying low until its time for them to come out with spring.Is this true even in cities? Do they have preferences or types of ground that they need?A lot of our native bees are specialists, so they do like a particular type of soil; we have a couple that particularly like sand. In cities and more urban areas, you have a lot of impervious surfaces, so that is going to make it harder for them. But if you have loose soil, if you have native plants, youre most likely going to find native bees.A Melitta eickworti found in Rockingham, Va. The species is a type of blunt-horn bee that specializes in pollenating deerberry shrubs.Erick Hernandez/USGS Bee Lab via FlickrAre there any U.S. ecosystems that dont have native bees, such as deserts or something?No, we worked on a project on xeric habitat, and when you think of xeric, you think of dry; you think of nothing blooming, just aridand the researchers caught hundredshundredsof bees. If you go anywhere in the United States, you are bound to find some native bees.Are there any species or groups that you find particularly cool?Besides all of them? I am very fond of this group thats called squash bees. Theyre medium-sized; theyre very cute and fluffy. But as youd guess, they are squash specialists. They come out super early in the morning; you have to get there at first light. And if you have squash plants, then you most likely have them. The scientific name of the most widespread species is Peponapis pruinosa, and youll find them just relaxing in the big squash bloom, usually early in the morning.An Osmia atriventris found in Washington County, Maryland. The species is also known as the Maine blueberry bee, named for its special talent for accessing blueberry pollen. Blueberry flowers store pollen behind special pores that the bees vibrate open.Brooke Alexander/USGS Bee Lab via FlickrYou mentioned that ground-nesting bees are underfoot all winter. What does a year in the life of a native bee look like?With more than 4,000 species, they are not all coming out at the same time. You have some that are very early in the season, when the first spring ephemerals [long-lived plants that are only briefly active above ground each year] come out. In Maryland, thats typically around April. And then as you get the different blooms, you have this continuing crescendo of bees coming out.A Bombus rufocinctus bumblebee found in Yellowstone National Park. The species is fairly common and can sport a wide varieties of different color patterns, such as the red patch on this example, earning B. rufocinctus the common name red-belted bumblebee.Colby Francoeur/USGS Bee Lab via FlickrTypically youre only seeing a really small snapshot of a bees life. For the majority of the time, bees are existing as eggs and as little larvae, and then theyre in this weird grub form underground. And then they emerge as what we think of as bees, and thats where they are finding food, finding a mate and then just continuing that cycle over again.Typically a bee is only out for maybe a month or two. They are kind of fragilethey have very thin wings; they have very thin antennaeand so when you catch one, you can kind of tell if its been out for a little while. It looks a little battered, and you can tell its been flying around and bumping into things and damaging its wings. Or if it looks very pristine, then you can kind of guess that its recently emerged or its a little bit fresher than some of the other bees that are out there.A sand-dwelling Augochloropsis sumptuosa found in the bootheel of Missouri.Orr Uzan-Tidhar and Grace Schilling/USGS Bee Lab via FlickrThe larvae and grub phasesdo those look really different from an adult?They look more grublike, more caterpillarlike. If you were to see one, you definitely would not guess that its a bee larva. A lot of our native bees are very tinybut theyre not baby bees. Baby bees actually dont look anything like the bees that we think of. They dont have the three-segmented body; they dont have six legs; they dont have wings; they dont have antennae.A Bombus affinis queen bumblebee found in Racine, Wis. The historical specimen was collected in 1965, before steep population declines led the so-called rusty patched bumblebee to be declared an endangered species in 2017.USGS Bee Lab via FlickrWith honeybees, we only see females out and about. Is that the same with native bees?With native bees, there are very seldom queensbumblebees are the exception.But there are males and females. You do typically find more females than males, but you dont have the queens or [male] drones or those differences unless you are talking about the bumblebees. In general, most females and males do look a little bit different within the same species. Under the microscope, for males, you typically have a little bit more coloration in the face or a little bit more coloration in general. And then they typically have longer antennae compared to females. And then the biggest difference of all is, even in native bees, females have a stinger and males do not.An Augochloropsis fulgida bee found in Lincoln County, West Virginia.USGS Bee Lab via FlickrCan humans get stung by them, then?Technically yes. Now, the stinger is completely different than a honeybees. It is not a barbed stinger, which means, one, its not as painful, and two, the native bee would not die after you get stung by it. Thats the mechanism that kills the honeybee: the barbed stinger gets embedded. [When the honeybee flies away, the stinger detaches, and the bee dies.]A lot of the time, if people are stung by native bees, its because they were handling themactively netting them or trying to grab them. A lot of times that happens with our bigger native bees: bumblebees, carpenter bees, things of that size. Everything else, they have such minuscule stingers that youre lucky if it even breaks the skin, much less gets through clothing.A Coelioxys novomexicana found in Californias Central Valley. The species is a parasite that lays its eggs in the nests of another group of bees called Megachile.Erick Hernandez/USGS Bee Lab via FlickrAlso, theyre not very territorial. The main reason why honeybees would sting you is because youre encroaching on the hive or they are resource-guarding honey or flowers. Because native bees dont really have a hive to protect and they also dont resource guard, youre a lot less likely to get in their way.What do we know about how native bees are doing?In general, native bee species are decliningand that is a result of habitat loss, use of pesticides, more rural areas becoming urbanized, more impervious surfaces, and the like.An Andrena obscuripennis bee collected in Georgia.USGS Bee Lab via FlickrIf someone wants to start paying more attention to native bees, how easy is it to start learning to identify native bees in their area?Bumblebees are the easiest to get started with, and theres tons of resources online. Theyre bigger, and typically how youre identifying them is based off the coloration of the hair on the back of the bee. So if one of them is just sitting on a flower, you can go up to it and with decent certainty know which one it is, depending on your region. In terms of the other groups, its hard. You definitely need a microscope and access to a reference collection where someone who is an expert has already identified some groups.An Anthophora affabilis bee found in Badlands National Park in South Dakota. The species is common and widespread in the western U.S.USGS Bee Lab via FlickrIs there anything people can do to help native bees around them?The most well-researched and documented way of trying to introduce native bees to your area is to plant their habitat and plant their food source. It doesnt have to be anything crazy. Native bees are tinytheyre really small. So even if you have an apartment, if you have a little garden area or if you have a pot, put some native plants in there, and I think youll be astounded at what you wind up seeing coming to visit.

April 3, 20255 min readBonobos Complex Calls Share an Extraordinary Trait with Human LanguageBonobos grunts, peeps and whistles may share an advanced linguistic property with human languageBy Cody Cottier edited by Allison Parshall Anup Shah/Getty ImagesWe humans concoct never-before-heard sentences with ease, embedding phrases within phrases to express the wildest ideas we can dream up (the purple pangolin that waltzed across the ballroom had a flaming pineapple on its nose). Such abilities seem unrivaled in the animal world, but a new study suggests theyre not entirely absent: bonobos, our closest living relatives, create combinations of calls that seem to share key aspects of human language.In a new study published on Thursday in Science, researchers report that bonobo communication is rich in a feature that linguists call compositionality. This refers to the way we string words together to compose larger structures with more complicated meanings. Linguists divide compositionality into two categories, a simple version and a more sophisticated one, and researchers have long thought human language stands alone in the higher tier. Previous studies have found that some primates and birds are capable of trivial compositionality, in which words that each have a specific meaning on their own can be added together to create a fuller, more meaning-rich picture (bake pie).But the new study shows that bonobos, like us, seem to do something a bit more advanced than that. In nontrivial compositionality, certain parts modify others. An example is the sentence they baked a pumpkin pie. Here pumpkin and pie join to form a new composite idea. This strategy gets more bang for your communicative buck, according to the new papers co-senior author Simon Townsend, who studies comparative communication at the University of Zurich. Thats what we've evolved it for, he says, to add this important nuance and complexity to the meaning that we convey.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Townsend notes that nontrivial compositionality in bonobos is orders of magnitude less complex than what we see in human language. Still, he argues, it represents another layer chipped away from the apparent wall of human uniqueness that separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. And because this crucial capacity may be present in such a close evolutionary relative, it could add to our understanding of how language arose in Homo sapiens. Thats really exciting, Townsend says. It allows us to go back in time and work out what our last common ancestorwho was living seven million years ago in the forests of Africawas doing.To gather data for the study, lead author Mlissa Berthet, a postdoctoral researcher in Townsends group, turned to those very same forests. She spent five months recording bonobo calls in the Kokolopori Bonobo Reserve in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. These calls were labeled with categories that ranged from peeps and whistles to grunts and yelps. For each of the 700 recordings, Berthet took meticulous note of 300 different contextual details: Was another group of bonobos nearby? Was the caller feeding, grooming or resting? How did others react?These details allowed the researchers to infer the potential meaning of different calls based on context. Peeps, for example, seem to help coordinate activities with other bonobosI would like to ... may be a rough translation, Berthet says. Whistles seem to be used to maintain group cohesion, with the sounds expressing something like lets stay together. The scientists used these contextual data to plot each bonobo call on a five-dimensional map of meaning; calls that were closer to each other on the map had more similar meanings. Using this technique, which was borrowed from linguistics, Berthet and her colleagues built what she describes as a kind of dictionary of the seven most common calls in the bonobo repertoire.Then the team analyzed combinations of those seven calls. Thats where compositionality emerges: for example, a peep followed by a whistle makes a peep-whistle, a nontrivial composition that bonobos use in sensitive social interactions such as sex or dominance displays. By plotting the combinations on the meaning map, the researchers calculated that four showed compositionality and that three of these had a meaning beyond what would be expected by just adding the meanings of two calls togetherindicating that the three combinations were examples of nontrivial compositionality. Whats more, all seven of the common call types appeared in at least one combination, revealing more extensive compositionality in bonobos than in any other species that has yet been studied.Bonobospeak likely does not map neatly onto human concepts. Its not clear what the peep-whistle means or how its derived from the meanings of its component parts ( la pumpkin pie). But because the researchers method comes from linguistics, where it has been used to determine compositionality in human communication, theyre confident [the results] look like nontrivial compositionality, at least in the mathematical sense, Berthet says. We're just not sure yet what it means exactly.Shane Steinert-Threlkeld, a computational linguist at the University of Washington, who wasnt involved in the new paper, suggests another interpretation: the nontrivial combined calls could be more like idioms. Maybe their meanings arent a function of their parts at all, like when someone tells you to break a leg to wish you good luck (though the studys researchers think thats unlikely because their calculations indicate that the meanings of the nontrivial combinations are still related to the meanings of those combinations parts). Steinert-Threlkeld also notes that this linguistics-based method, while innovative, is a little bit too new to fully endorse. But he lauds the unprecedented scale of data collection, calling the study valuable in showing us what can be done and what more needs to be done [for the results to be] fully convincing.Thom Scott-Phillips, a cognitive scientist at Central European Universitys location in Hungary, who was also not involved in the study, found its enormous dataset and novel method impressive as well. But hes not sold on bonobo calls being comparable to language. He argues that even bacteriawhich signal to one another using combinations of moleculesseem to meet most of this methods criteria for nontrivial compositionality, raising the question of whether its actually measuring something else entirely. If they go and do the same work with [bacteria], and they dont find it, he says, that would be a challenge to someone like me.Townsend says nontrivial compositionality may indeed be more widespread than previously assumed, though he doubts it will be very extensive in nonprimates, let alone bacteria. He and his colleagues hope their new observational approachwhich is far more efficient than traditional callback experiments, in which a researcher plays a recording and uses animals reaction to it to determine meaningwill encourage other scientists to test nontrivial compositionality in a wide range of species. We dont know yet if bonobos are special, Berthet says. We developed this method, we used it on bonobos, and we found very cool results. But maybe you could do that on other animals.

April 3, 20252 min readJWST Delivers Best-Yet Look at That Worrisome AsteroidNew observations from the James Webb Space Telescope show that the potentially hazardous asteroid 2024 YR4 is a building-sized space rockBy Brett Tingley & SPACE.com This artists concept shows a small asteroid passing Earths moon. Mark Garlick/Science Photo Library/Getty ImagesFor a few weeks in January and February this year, asteroid 2024 YR4 had us all worried.Shortly after it was discovered, astronomers calculated that the asteroid had a 1-in-83 chance of hitting Earth in 2032 that's an impact risk of around 1%. Experts urged caution, though noting that the impact odds were likely to fall significantly. Sure enough, by late February, the probability of the asteroid hitting Earth fell to near zero.This asteroid, however, is still worth analysis in its own right. As such, scientists recently turned the James Webb Space Telescope's (JWST) powerful gaze towards 2024 YR4, capturing the object in both visible and thermal light. The team measured the asteroid to be around 200 feet (60 meters) in diameter. "That's just about the height of a 15-story building," Andy Rivkin of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory said in a statement.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.The JWST also helped scientists study how quickly the space rock heats up and cools down. According to Rivkin, these thermal properties in 2024 YR4 are "not like what we see in larger asteroids," likely due to the fact that it spins very quickly and that its surface is "dominated by rocks that are maybe fist-sized or larger," rather than fine grains of sand.NASAs James Webb Space Telescope recently captured these images of the asteroid 2024 YR4 using both its NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument). Data from NIRCam shows reflected light, while the MIRI observations show thermal light.NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Andy Rivkin (APL)Rivkin said studying asteroids like 2024 YR4 with the JWST is "invaluable" for helping scientists figure out how our space telescopes might aid planetary defense efforts if another "possible impactor" is found down the line."All together, we have a better sense of what this building-sized asteroid is like," Rivkin said."This will help us determine the best approach to use during a more urgent observing program should another asteroid pose a potential impact threat in the future."A study about the JWST's observations of asteroid 2024 YR4 were published in the journal Research Notes of the AAS.Copyright 2025 Space.com, a Future company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

April 3, 20253 min readThe Heard and McDonald Islands Are a Pristine Biological WonderlandTrumps tariffs put a spotlight on the uninhabited Heard and McDonald Islands, which comprise a remote volcanic refuge for penguins and seals and a UNESCO World Heritage siteBy Andrea Thompson edited by Dean VisserA handout photo taken on November 21, 2012 and released on October 8, 2024 by the Australian Antarctic Division shows a waddle of King penguins standing on the shores of Corinthian Bay in the Australian territory of Heard Island in the Southern Ocean. Australia's government moved on October 8, 2024 to protect a swathe of ocean territory by expanding an Antarctic marine park that is home to penguins, seals, whales and the country's only two active volcanos. Matt Curnock/Australian Antartic Division/AFP via Getty ImagesAmong the barrage of tariffs announced by U.S. president Donald Trump on Wednesday were those imposed (bafflingly to many) on a collection of remote, pristine and storm-battered islands with no human inhabitants: their main denizens are penguins and seals. Heard Island and the McDonald Islands, which were named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1997 and represent Earths only volcanically active sub-Antarctic islands, were slapped with a 10 percent tariff.Where are Heard Island and the McDonald Islands?These islands are located in the Indian Ocean, about halfway between Australia and South Africa and 1,700 kilometers north of Antarctica.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Heard Island was discovered by American sailor John Heard in 1853. William McDonald, also an American, discovered the McDonald Islands the following year.The islands are a territory of Australia, transferred from U.K. control in 1947, and cover an area about twice the size of Washington, D.C.What are the geography and geology of the Heard and McDonald Islands?The McDonald Islands are much smaller than Heard Island and are rocky. Heard Island is 80 percent covered by ice and features a large massif, or compact group of mountains, called Big Ben that has an active volcano called Mawson Peak at its summit.A volcano on the McDonald Islands emerged from a 75,000-year period of dormancy in 1992. And lava from a 1996 eruption doubled the size of McDonald Island, the largest of the McDonald Islands. The most recent eruption of this volcano was in 2005. Both volcanoes are fed by a plume of magma from Earths mantle, akin to the plume that formed the Hawaiian Islands.As the only volcanically active islands in the Antarctic regions, these islands open a window into the earth, according to their UNESCO entry, because they provide an opportunity to study how crustal plates form ocean basins and continents. They also allow researchers to study how glacial changes affect coastal and submarine environments, as well as the effects of climate change on the oceans and atmosphere.The islands receive frequent rain, snow and other precipitation, along with strong winds, because of their latitude. Cloud cover is common.Heard Islands glaciers are relatively shallow and fast-moving. They have responded to rising global temperatures more quickly than glaciers elsewhere, retreating significantly in recent years, according to UNESCO.What lives on the Heard and McDonald Islands?These are also the only sub-Antarctic islands that have remained nearly free of nonnative species and have seen minimal effects from humans. This means they have enormous conservation value. There are no human settlements on the islands, and they are managed as a nature reserve by the Australian government.The islands populations of marine birds and mammals number in the millions, according to UNESCO. They host major breeding populations of elephant and fur seals, petrels, albatrosses and penguins.The islands are also home to species that are found nowhere else. These include the Heard Island Cormorant and a sheathbill subspecies called the Heard Island Sheathbill.Do the islands have any exports that are now affected by the tariff or any other economic activity?In the mid-19th century, hunters harvested elephant seal oil on the islands, killing off most of their seals before the practice was ended in 1877.The first scientific expedition to the islands was made by a British ship called the HMS Challenger in 1874. Australia had a research station on Heard Island for a time, but it was closed in 1955, after the country opened a station on the Antarctic mainland. The Australian Antarctic Program is looking to do more research around the islands in the future.A very small number of private yachts and tourist vessels have visited Heard Island, but few have landed because of the harsh weather.No humans are known to have stayed on the islands for any substantial length of time since a winter research program in 1992, according to UNESCO. There are strict visitation and quarantine controls because of the islands nature reserve designation.Limited commercial fishing of mackerel icefish (Champsocephalus gunnari) and Patagonian toothfish (Dissostichus eleginoides) is currently permitted in some of the waters around the islands. And interest in fishing there and elsewhere in Antarctic waters is expected to increase. Australian Defense Force vessels help enforce fishery rules.

April 3, 20256 min readHow Might Aliens Communicate? The Answer Could Reveal the Point of LanguageStudying how extraterrestrials might communicate could help prepare for first contact and also hint at the point of language itselfBy Sarah Scoles edited by Clara Moskowitz peepo/Getty ImagesIn the 2016 movie Arrival, water-dwelling extraterrestrials make an appearance on Earth. The main human characters job is to learn how to communicate with the seven-tentacled extraterrestrials before tensions escalate into war. This character, played by Amy Adams, is a linguist, and she uses her earthly expertise to decode the language of and communicate back to the heptapods. Ultimately, she learns that their language is richer than it seemed and includes an embedded experience of time that is different from that of humans.Obviously, Arrival is a fictional movie, and Adams hasnt studied actual alien syntax (that we know of), though she did work with a linguist to prepare for the role. But there areresearchers who are trying to prepare for the kind of scenario Adamss character finds herself in: investigating, ahead of any cosmic contact, how hypothetical space aliens and humans might someday understand one another. Theyre part of a field called xenolinguistics.The field isnt large, with just 20 or 30 scholars participating in research, but it was the subject of a November 2024 workshop entitled Exploring Xenolinguistics: Next Steps in Exploring the Nature of Language and the Potential of Extraterrestrial Communication.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Workshop participants homed in on a key question relevant to life on Earth and communication with life beyond: What is the point of languagehere and out there? Investigating why aliens might communicate can also help scientists consider why humans, and the other animals on Earth, keep speaking to one another. But thats a difficult line of inquiryscientists dont even know if aliens exist, let alone how they might talk to one anotheror to us.Douglas Vakoch, president of METI International, an organization dedicated to messaging extraterrestrial intelligence (METI), has been pushing that line forward, though. Hes one of xenolinguistics biggest proponents and co-editor of the 2023 bookXenolinguistics: Towards a Science of Extraterrestrial Language.Vakoch didnt initially think that linguistics had much place in the astro-xeno world at all. I assumed, like other SETI [search for extraterrestrial intelligence] people, that language was really kind of irrelevant to communicating with aliens, he says. Our languages, he thought, were specific and contingent on our biology and history. The communications of beings born and raised in a different cosmic environment might not resemble language in the traditional sense at all.But as Vakoch, whose background is in clinical psychology, got deeper into METI, his mental orbit shifted: thinking about alien language was actually a catalyst for challenging our assumptionsabout what ETs may or may not have in common with us, yes, but also about what we have in common with one another, as well as the important ways we diverge. I have no clue if there are aliens out there, Vakoch says. I am confidentI have already experiencedthat when we ask these questions, they transform how we view ourselves, and they help us clarify whats valuable.That happens in part because a key xenolinguistic goal, according to philosopher of science Matthew Brown of Southern Illinois University, is Earth-centric: to improve terrestrial fields such as linguistics, human psychology or animal behavior by asking hypothetical questions about alien language that push the boundaries.In a way, this is science doing what science fiction has always done: using imaginary worlds, with different creatures and circumstances and civilizations, to shed light on our own.After being invited to speak at the 2024 workshop as an outside voice, Brown spent six months researching xenolinguistics and figuring out how it fit inand didnt fit inwith more traditional lines of scientific research. Right away a key difference emerged. Theres no data, he saysat least no direct data.To wit, no aliens, no languages.That situation is not without precedent, though. Astrobiologyxenolinguistics sister fieldis the study of life in the universe. Scientists know of no biology in the astro. But both data-poor fields involve applying insights from more concrete disciplines and using the astro and xeno what-ifs to propel them in new directions: chemistry, geology and regular biology in the case of astrobiology and linguistics, anthropology, psychology and animal behavior in the case of xenolinguistics.Take animal behavior researcher Irene Pepperberg, a workshop participant who has spent decades studying parrots, those famous speaking birds. Pepperberg dabbles in xenolinguistics, using her research to poke holes in its assumptions. One big takeaway from Pepperbergs winged subjects (and Earths other animals) is that nonhuman communication is more sophisticated and varied than people assumeand that it encompasses modes of interaction and expression humans dont even have access to. Dogs smell their world; dolphins and bats hear sounds at much higher frequencies than humans can; birds see ultraviolet light. Given that these animals evolved on the same planet as us, how could we possibly know how extraterrestrials might obtain and transmit information?We cant, but research such as Pepperbergs can give scientists a sense of their ignorance and perhaps humility and openness to new ideas about the forms that communication could take. We sort of sit there, [and] we go, Oh, its going to be some kind of flashes of light or something like that that theyre going to send to us in a pattern that were going to be able to recognize, Pepperberg says of potential transmissions from aliens. But who knows what theyre going to send us?And who knows why theyre going to send it? This question was central for Elin McCready, a research professor at the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies in Barcelona. McCready had never worked in xenolinguistics before she pitched a presentation for the conference. But inspired by her long-standing interest in science fiction, she wanted to shake up xenolinguists conceptions of the universe. I find it all really conservative in a specific way, she says. She thinks the field hovers around an assumption that might not be true.The assumption, she says, is very much that everybody in the universe would use linguistic or languagelike systems to do the same things that we do. But why? After all, the universe is famously big and typically stranger than we initially imagine.Linguists often assume that the primary goal of language is to transmit truth, to convey factual information from one being to another. But thats not even always true of humans or animals on Earth. Telling jokes, writing fiction, making art, performing religious rituals (or bullshitting, McCready says, which is now a technical term in philosophy) dont have truth-telling as their ultimate aim and, in fact, sometimes have the opposite goal.Humans, you may be aware, lie to avoid hurting your feelings when they dont think your dress looks nice or to get out of jail free or to manipulate you into doing that PowerPoint for them.In McCreadys view, xenolinguists have nonetheless upheld truth transmission in part because regular linguists have also tended to do so. And so, McCready says, this is what we know how to do.Another reason could be that if we didnt assume aliens were trying to give us information, it would be difficult for us to intuit what they were trying to do. A universe of possibilities would open up.It may turn out to be hard enough to determine whether a message from light-years away is intentional, structured and linguistic at all, let alone what its purpose might beespecially because alien communication might come embedded in, say, radio waves shot across the universe rather than a little green creature bleep-blorping in front of you.Given all that, McCready thinks xenolinguistics essentially has two subfields. The first is about pattern recognition: identifying and perhaps decoding a xenolanguage.The other is more like xenoanthropology, with a goal of crossing cosmic cultural divides. When were faced with a being that is doing something potentially quite different than we are, how do we try to interact and find common ground? she says. Its a difficult question, but fortunately, its a question that were faced with every single day of our lives. In other words, every day we have to talk to beings on Earth that have their own brain and personality and have developed in their own unique environment.Our assumptions creep in there, too, often to our detriment. When we interact with other species and with our own species, why do we assume that theyre like us and theyre trying to do the same thing as us?In that way, McCready says, xenolinguistics is a much larger project than simply studying hypothetical alien languages: its about coming to terms with lifes diversity, and its intentions, on Earth.

April 2, 20252 min readSecretive Russian Military Satellites Release Mystery Object into OrbitA trio of classified Russian satellites, called Kosmos, has sparked intrigue in space-tracking circles after an unidentified object was launched into orbitBy Andrew Jones & SPACE.com The Russian Aerospace Forces successfully launched a Soyuz-2.1v light-class carrier rocket with spacecraft for the Russian Defence Ministry in February 2025 from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in the Arkhangelsk region. Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation (CC BY 4.0)A trio of secretive Russian satellites launched earlier this year has released a mysterious object into orbit, sparking interest among space trackers and analysts.The three satellites, designated Kosmos 2581, 2582 and 2583, launched on a Soyuz-2.1V rocket from Plesetsk cosmodrome early on Feb. 2 (GMT). Since then, the satellites, whose purpose is unknown, have displayed interesting behavior, while in a near-polar orbit roughly 364 miles (585 kilometers) above Earth.In March, the satellites appeared to be conducting potential proximity operations, or maneuvering close to other objects in space, according to Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist and spaceflight activity tracker.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Following this, the U.S. Space Force cataloged a new object in orbit, which was possibly released by Kosmos 2581 on March 18.Russia has provided no details about the satellites and their mission. Many Kosmos missions are classified.The released object could be used for a number of objectives, including military experiments, such as satellite inspection or target practice, testing technology for docking or formation flying. It may also be a scientific payload or even the result of an unintentional fragmentation, though this would usually result in numerous pieces of debris.The Kosmos (or Cosmos) designation has been used by the Soviet Union and later Russia for a very wide range of military and scientific satellites since 1962. The satellites have covered a range of apparent uses, some of which are experimental, secret, or part of military programs, including early ASAT (anti-satellite) tests and satellite inspection, reconnaissance and electronic intelligence.Satellite trios flying in formation in orbit is not unusual. Both the United States (for example, the Naval Ocean Surveillance System) and China (Yaogan) have launched numerous sets of satellite triplets, many of which are thought to be for electronic intelligence purposes, along with other satellite series.However, it remains to be seen what the three Kosmos satellites and their new companion will get up to in orbit.Copyright 2025 Space.com, a Future company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

April 2, 20258 min readJWSTs Next Year of Amazing Science RevealedAs Funding Worries Loom LargeThe next year of science on the James Webb Space Telescope has been announced amid mounting budgetary uncertainty that could affect the unparalleled observatoryBy Jonathan O'Callaghan edited by Lee BillingsAn artists concept shows galaxies reflected in the large segmented primary mirror of NASAs James Webb Space Telescope. Mark Garlick/Science Photo Library/Alamy Stock PhotoLaunched in December 2021 after three decades of development and at a cost of some $10 billion, NASAs James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is one of the biggest investments ever made in astronomy. That investment has already paid off enormously: the telescope is revealing incredible new details of the early universe, distant galaxies, potentially habitable exoplanets and even familiar objects in our solar system. JWST is now on the cusp of its fourth year of operations, and researchers seeking to maximize the telescopes transformational science have unveiled its next planned swathe of groundbreaking observations. But this comes amid increasing budgetary uncertainty in the U.S. and concerns that NASA might be forced to slash its science fundingwhich could include significant cuts to JWST.Its up and running, its been fully commissioned, and its returning incredible science, says Paul Byrne, a planetary scientist at Washington University in St. Louis. Webb is a marquee flagship program. If we have to cut at all, it seems like an absolute own goal.JWST is located 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, well beyond the orbit of the moon. Here its giant gold-plated mirror can look unhindered into the cosmos, protected by a tennis courtsized sunshield that blocks our stars light and heat. All this gives JWST unprecedented sensitivity to some of the faint wisps of light reaching us from the first few hundred million years in which the first stars were kindled and galaxies coalesced. But not all the telescopes achievements have come from so far afieldcloser to home, it has captured the first views of the auroras of Neptune, taken images of planets around other stars and helped scientists study neighboring galaxies to probe the limits of dark energy.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Every year the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI)which runs the telescopeenlists hundreds of astronomers to help choose where JWSTs wandering eye should be pointed next. On March 11 the STScI announced the latest batch of programs it had chosen for JWSTs next year of observations, Cycle 4, which runs from July 2025 to June 2026. In total, the allocation committee selected 274 programs from 2,377 submitted proposals from 39 countriesan oversubscription ratio of about nine to one. About 8,500 hours of observing time were awardedthe most ever for JWST.That record-setting amount was possible this year because, unlike in the previous three cycles, Cycle 4 doesnt have a block of time reserved on the telescope for scientists that helped build JWST. In Cycle 3 we allocated around 5,500 hours of time [to the rest of the astronomical community], says Laura Watkins, head of STScIs science policy division. This time we were able to give away more.The telescopes time is split evenly across eight subcategories of astronomy, including exoplanet science, galaxies, the solar system and black holes. Most programs are awarded up to tens of hours of observing time on the telescope, but larger programs can be awarded more than 100 hours. Three solar system proposals were successful in the largest category this time, Watkins says. This was a good year for solar system [science].One of those programs will use JWST to hunt for small objects down to a kilometer in size that orbit beyond Neptune, giving us crucial information on the amount of material in the outer solar system. Another large program will take another look at Uranus and Neptune and try to give us a better understanding of their mysterious magnetic fields. It is going to actually map out the magnetic field, says Heidi Hammel, an astronomer and planetary scientist at the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy and a member of the program team. These will be the first magnetic maps made for these two planets in nearly four decades, after the flybys of each world by NASAs Voyager 2 spacecraft in the late 1980s.Also in our solar system, JWST will cast its gaze on Jupiter to perform a rather stunning piece of historical investigation. It will study the gas giant planet for signs of an impact that captivated the world in 1994, when Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashed into the planet after breaking apart. That event briefly marred Jupiters face with more than 20 giant dark spots, some of which were as large as Earth. Astronomers monitored them using telescopes including Hubble. JWST should be able to detect water, carbon dioxide and other comet-sourced compounds still swirling around the planet from the bygone impact, allowing researchers to better understand how the cometary debris was incorporated into Jupiter and how the giant worlds atmosphere has subsequently recovered.Shoemaker-Levy 9 is the gift that keeps on giving, says Hammel, who led Hubbles 1994 observations of the comets impact. Were still using it to understand the dynamics of Jupiter.Another big winner in Cycle 4 is white dwarf science, the study of stars like our sun that have exhausted all their fuel and left just a dense, dead stellar core behind. Eight programs on these interesting objects were chosen, and Mary Anne Limbach of the University of Michigan is involved with five of them. We had a great cycle, she says. Im really excited. One of her programs will investigate whether white dwarfs could support habitable planets. Experts think planets can endure the end-of-life phase when a sunlike star becomes a white dwarf, but its unclear if clement conditions could still persist upon rocky worlds like Earth in the stars shrunken habitable zone, where liquid water could exist. Limbach will use JWST to seek out rocky Earth-sized planets in the habitable zones of two white dwarfs by looking for telltale infrared glows around these stellar corpses that might indicate the presence of such worlds. If there is an Earth analog in either of those systems, we should be able to see it, she says. And if its on the larger side, we should be able to detect carbon dioxide and maybe even a hint of ozone.One of the most enduring mysteries discovered by JWST so far has been a strange class of unexplained galaxies in the early universe. Called little red dots (LRDs), they appear very red and compact, suggesting they might be extremely dense clusters of stars or perhaps burgeoning supermassive black holes that are growing into the behemoths found today at the centers of large galaxies. Such is the allure of LRDs that in Cycle 4 a half-dozen separate programs have been chosen to study them, one of which is led by Anthony Taylor of the University of Texas at Austin. He will use JWST to probe the light coming from LRDs to discern if it comes from stars or the white-hot accretion disks that surround feeding black holes. Theyve really grabbed everyones attention, he says. With JWST, we have the tools to attack these things.But perhaps the hottest research area for JWST concerns planets around cool, dim red dwarf (or M dwarf) stars, which are slightly smaller than our sun. In some respects red dwarfs are ideal planet-hunting targets because they make up the majority of stars in our galaxy, and the worlds they harbor tend to be easier to see through their relatively dim stellar glare. One such red dwarf planetary system, TRAPPIST-1, has seven Earth-sized worlds, several of which are in the stars habitable zone. Theres a catch, however: red dwarfs are also more prone than our sun to dramatic outbursts of stellar activity that might easily strip away planetary atmospheres to render otherwise Earth-like worlds essentially uninhabitable.Early observations from JWST have found fewer atmospheres on red dwarf planets than expected, perhaps a result of the volatile relationship between these planets and their star. In several Cycle 4 programs, JWST will study more of these worlds in search of their atmosphere. One of those programs, led by Jacob Lustig-Yaeger of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, will look at six planets around three red dwarfs in an attempt to define a cosmic shoreline of how big and far from its star such worlds must be to support an atmosphere. The first-order goal is to figure out which planets have atmospheres and which dont, Lustig-Yaeger saysbut the stretch goal, he adds, is to help identify targets to search for signs of life in future JWST observing cycles. Most if not all good candidates will be transiting, meaning that they cross the face of their star as seen from Eartha favorable backlit orientation that can allow more details about their atmosphere to be seen.Katherine Bennett of Johns Hopkins University, meanwhile, will use JWST to look for an atmosphere on a world called LTT 1445Ab, which at 23 light-years away is the closest known rocky planet transiting a red dwarf. The planet is likely too hot to support life but could still be an important test case for improving our understanding of which worlds can have an atmosphere. Well be able to tell both the composition and thickness if there is an atmosphere, she says, and perhaps even the planets surface pressure as well.In March JWST revealed snapshots of four gas giant planets around a larger star more similar to our sun. Such direct images are hard to come by because of how faint planets are against their star, but JWST can spot big, warm worlds that are sufficiently far from their stellar host. William Balmer of STScI, who led those observations, will lead another program in Cycle 4 to image another gas giant around a nearby star that orbits at a similar distance of Saturn around our sun. Balmer hopes to observe ammonia there, which could offer insights about how the planets atmosphere operates. Were really curious about how the chemistry works on these other planets in other solar systems, he says; JWST may also be able to possibly see water clouds on the planet.All these programs represent just a small fraction of JWSTs immense and diverse science. Although in human terms the observatory is only now a toddler in age, JWST is entering its prime. Engineers and scientists are finally feeling familiar with its unique abilities and limitationswhich is why rumors of looming budget cuts for the observatory have shocked the astronomical community. Its in its prime mission, says Casey Dreier, senior space policy adviser at the nonprofit science advocacy organization The Planetary Society. Cuts to JWSTs bottom line might reduce its operational capacity, Dreier says, something that seems unfathomable given the amount of time and effort that has gone into building and launching this incredible machine.Already the impacts of budgetary pressures are being felt as part of the Trump administrations sweeping shake-up of U.S. federal spending. Limbach says that scientists awarded observing time on JWST are given funding by STScI to run their programs that is equivalent to about $5,000 per hour. In Cycle 4, however, the amount of funding on offer is likely to be more constrained. Usually if you have a program where the science is particularly difficult, you can ask for more funding, she says. This year there is a hard limit. Without adequate funding, it would be hard to do the science to the quality we have been doing it because we wont have the manpower, she adds. Theres a lot of science that will get left out.In previous cycles, astronomers have found out by July or August how much funding they will receive for their programs. This year, more than ever, there will be an anxious wait for that to happen. This year no one knows, Limbach says. There is a lot of uncertainty.

April 2, 2025Go Inside a Mexican Wolf Recovery Project Whose Future Is Now UncertainThe critically endangered Mexican wolf was mounting a comeback, thanks to a conservation program that dropped fostered wolf pups into wild dens. Then politics happened.By Justin Grubb edited by Jeffery DelViscioWhile filming Operation Wolf Foster, I witnessed firsthand the immense coordination needed to transport critically endangered Mexican wolf pups into the wild. It took years of persistence to reach the point where I could document the work happening in the field and follow a single litter of pups from managed care to the wild.When I documented the pup swap just one year ago, I learned that the program had been going strong for a decade, following the first successful foster in 2014. But it had taken nearly 20 years to get to that first foster. Since 1998 the Mexican wolf recovery effort has been an extraordinarily complex initiative, spanning state and international borders and requiring the collaboration of local nongovernmental organizations, tribal leaders, and state and federal agencies.The decades of effort seem to be working. As of last year, nearly 300 Mexican wolf pups have been fostered into the wild.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Now that progress hangs in the balance.Severe funding cuts to the agencies that have been responsible for this work are putting the Mexican wolfand countless other endangered speciesat greater risk. And while the Mexican wolf recovery project may seem like an effort to save one isolated species, the reestablishment of ecosystem architects such as this wolf can have huge long-term effects on the health of our ecosystems.As Danielle Rosenstein of the Endangered Wolf Center said in Operation Wolf Foster, Mexican wolves play a key role in the ecosystem in Arizona, New Mexico and Mexico. Theyre whats known as a keystone species. And without them, that whole trophic cascade falls apart.As conservationists brace for an uncertain future, they are being forced to navigate the growing challenges left in the wake of the current administrations policies. And for the Mexican wolf, the future may be less bright.TRANSCRIPTSarah Holaday: Is everybody ready?Holaday: Okay.Danielle Rosenstein: This is what it's all about to save this endangered species.Pito Lopez: This is our annual Mexican Wolf population census, where we set out to get a minimum count and number of Mexican wolves in the wild.(...) To do this, we use a helicopter that goes out with a team to dart and catch wild wolves.Lopez: It's extremely hard to hit a small Mexican wolf out of a helicopter. So that takes a lot of training, a lot of knowledge of the wolves, a lot of knowledge of darting. Once they dart a wolf, they'll fly it back to us.Lopez: We'll have someone go out there, grab the wolf. We then bring them back to the processing station here and check their health, as well as put a radio collar on them to track their movements once released.(...)Susan Dicks: Do you know about what time the second dart went in?Dicks: 9:06? Okay.Dicks: Danielle, 9:06, 400 milligrams. All right.Dicks: The wolf was darted with some drugs so that we can safely work on the wolf. We do blood tests, we do vaccines, we stabilize the animal with IV fluids and subcutaneous fluids. We've kind of advanced in all our evaluation to doing some measurements, and so we get lots of data from the teeth, from the body length, the feet, everything.Dicks: After she recovers, we'll take her back to her territory and we'll release her back to the wild. And we found the radio collar will tell us where she is, so we will get to see that data that they rejoin. And we actually don't seem to ever have problems with that. They find their pack pretty quickly.Lopez: We're finishing up taping a collar right now. The red on the shoulders identifies that they're breeding. We also like to put some fun tape on the box so we can ID the wolf on trail cameras. You're good? You're ready? Yeah. That's all good to go.Lopez: The collar has both VHF and GPS.(...) On it, the GPS is how we're able to keep track of the wolves. The VHF is real time, so whenever we need to look for a wolf pack, that is how we track our wolf packs as we're out working out in the field.Lopez: So this individual is Alpha Female 2503. So she came from the Endangered Wolf Center and was a cross-foster. She is a product of the captive program. So cross-fostering is during the springtime, we'll bring pups out at about 10 days old, and we'll introduce them into a wild den. This helps get genetics into our population. It's very effective. And the wolves are like so family oriented that they'll take care of any wolf's pups. They're like, oh, there's pups. And they're excited, even if it's not theirs.Rosenstein: So this pup was fostered in 2020 and is now the Alpha Female in her pairing. And it's just really very exciting to get to see her kind of come to fruition and have her own pack out in the wild. Our sense is kind of the whole reason why we work at the Indian Wolf Center, doing what we do is getting to see these animals live their wild lives. I have a lot of feelings right now. I'm very happy. I'm a little bit emotional getting to see her here. And just really excited for her future out in the wild.Lopez: Our next step in this process is to release the animal back where her mate is. Eventually they're going to translocate each other through howling. By tonight they'll probably find each other again.Rosenstein: I'm feeling like pretty ecstatic that I got to be here for this. She has her feet under her. She's out back in the wild now, hopefully finding her mate really soon.(...) And to get to be out in the wilderness with wild wolves is just incredible.Maggie Dwyer: Mexican wolves once roamed all throughout southwestern United States and down into Mexico. And settlers moved west with their livestock that came into conflict. Mexican wolves were typically shot or poisoned to death.Dwyer: In the mid to late 1800s there was an anti-predator campaign that tried to get rid of wolves and bears and mountain lions from the landscape. By the 1970s there were no Mexican wolves left in the United States and only a handful existed in the wild in Mexico. In the late 1970s the last few remaining wild Mexican wolves were caught and brought into zoological institutions to help breed the animals for future recovery efforts.Dwyer: One of the biggest challenges left in Mexican wolf recovery is maintaining the genetic health of the wild population. And the safe population of being able to foster pups into the wild population is a great solution for that.Rosenstein: We are here at one of our Mexican wolf habitats getting ready to give them some fresh water and food for the day.Rosenstein: The Mexican wolves we take care of here at the Endangered Wolf Center are all potential release candidates for their wild counterparts. So we care for them as if each individual is going out to the wild.Rosenstein: Mexican wolves are a critically endangered species. Some of the reasons why include habitat loss and hunting. Over the years Mexican wolf population has declined drastically due to the misconception that wolves are dangerous.Rosenstein: Mexican wolves play a key role in the ecosystem in Arizona, New Mexico and Mexico. They're what's known as a keystone species. And without them that whole trophic cascade falls apart. They play a key role in maintaining that balance in the wild.Rosenstein: Caring for these critically endangered Mexican wolves is such a unique experience. We aren't able to train them like a typical zoo animal. So we have to use keen observation skills to make sure they are healthy and displaying appropriate natural behaviors.Rosenstein: We limit our time around the habitats. We give naturalistic enrichment. We want to make sure that their pack dynamics are as natural and healthy as possible. So our family groups consist of typically a mom and a dad, the offspring from last year and then the puppies. The way we can do that is by having large habitat spaces for that whole pack to live.(...) The way we're raising these puppies is to make sure that they are the most genetically healthy, well balanced, have great natural instincts and making sure that they can then go off to reproduce in the future.Rosenstein: Alright, so we scatter the sense around the front of the habitat and we're going to leave and get to watch and see if the wolves are curious and what they think about our sense.Rosenstein: Now that we've exited the habitat, we're able to watch the wolves come down and interact with the enrichment that we just gave out. One of them picked up a stick and ran off with it already. So I'd say we have a pretty good success on our hands.Rosenstein: So right now it's the beginning of April and we're just a few weeks away from experiencing hopefully a pup foster. We're watching moms very closely to see if they're having any kind of physiological changes associated with pregnancy. We're watching if her belly's growing, if she's starting to pull belly fur. We're watching if she's spending more time in the den. We're taking very careful notes and coordinating back with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to see if any of the wolves in the wild are experiencing some of the same things. The wolves in the wild will start localizing around the den as they're getting closer to giving birth and we'll start seeing a similar thing with our wolves here.Rosenstein: So it's about three in the morning. We just got down to the habitats at the Endangered Wolf Center and we're getting ready to head in to see how many puppies they have for us.Holaday: Come on through. Everybody stay clumped together.Holaday: People who have guard poles are on the outside.Tamara Smith: Its a maleRosenstein: So we've just started pulling the puppies out of the den. Tami's doing a really quick sex check.Smith: Its a maleRosenstein: So far we've got two boys.Smith: Male.Rosenstein: Three boys.Smith: FemaleSmith: Male, this guy's littleSmith: MaleSmith: Chunky little girl.Rosenstein: Alright, we have two females and five males.Rosenstein: And we'd like to leave a female and the smallest female, correct? Is this the only one? I think this one's the smallest one.Smith: Okay, let me just check this guy out real quick for a cleft palate just to make sure we dont have any issues. We look good there, okay.Smith: Alright well put this girl back.Holaday: Alright,(...) let's go.Rosenstein: Alright, so we've just got six puppies in this carrier. We're heading out of the habitat to begin their pup exams. We left one female in the den to stay here and help contribute to the managed care population. And the rest of these guys are going to head out to a life in the wild. (Music)Rosenstein: It's the first pup of the morning.(...) So the very first thing we're going to do for these exams today is whiz them. And whizzing is a very special talent. It's where mom would actually stimulate the genitals and make the puppy go to the bathroom. But because mom's not here, we have to do it for him. But we have them whiz before we weigh them to make sure we're getting an accurate weight on this puppy for all of the treatments it's going to receive today.Rosenstein: We're making sure that they look big and strong, that all their reflexes are appropriate, that they are going to be set up for success in a life in the wild.Rosenstein: We're going to be taking a little bit of blood on these puppies to do a health check-up. We are giving them a dewormer.Rosenstein: Our veterinarian is checking their heart rate to make sure that it's beating appropriately and checking their respiratory rate as well.Rosenstein: This left one's great. Good job, little one.Vet: Just the regular location?Rosenstein: Yep, yep, just between the shoulders.Rosenstein: We'll be inserting a microchip into these pups. This is going to be the first identifier when these pups grow up in the wild and they get caught again. This will be how we know that they were a foster puppy. This microchip number will stay with them for their whole life.Rosenstein: We're about to load up the pups and head to Spirit of St. Louis airport where we're going to meet a Lighthawk pilot and head out to the recovery area.Rosenstein: So right now we are getting ready to tube-feed these pups. We're about an hour away from landing and in order to help expedite everything once we get on the ground, we want the pups ready to go.(...) We are doing everything we can to prepare for the next step of the adventure.Rosenstein: Once we land, we're going to meet up with the field team and we're going to head out to the staging area where we're going to wait to hear if the field team has found the den location and how many puppies are out there.Rosenstein: They seem to be handling the journey super well.Rosenstein: Once we get the go-ahead from the search team, these pups are going to go on about an hour-long hike to that den. They're going to do a quick check on those wild puppies. They're going to mix all the puppies together, make them all smell the same, and then put them back in that wild den.Tessa McDonnell: So once we have our pups in a backpack, it's my job to get these pups to the den site. This is a pretty intense period.McDonnell: We're trying to get them there as quickly as possible and we're competing with rising temperatures. It's getting hot in the day. We've got hills to climb, so we're going over steep terrain. It's rocky hills. You're sliding down washes as you're going down into the den site in the canyon.McDonnell: It's hot. We're sweating. We're trying to make sure that these Mexican wolf pups that you're carrying on your back are healthy and in okay condition the whole time. I'm going to have to check these guys real quick. I'm checking on them periodically, making sure they're cool, making sure they're healthy while getting them there just as soon as possible.McDonnell: We're very close to the den and just kind of trying to stay quiet as we approach.Field Team: All right, we're reading your loud clear. We are a little past the location. So be careful coming in. There is an open face on the opposite side.McDonnell: Copy that.McDonnell: Ahead of us is another team currently locating the wild den. When they approach, the wild wolves often flush from the den and watch us from afar.McDonnell: Once we get out to the den site, we're going to pull the wild pups out of their natal den. We remove them over nearby the den to process them with the cross-fostered pups. We're going to mix them together and we take their saliva for genetic information.McDonnell: We try to make them all smell the same. That way it kind of tricks mom a little bit into thinking they're hers. And then we take them all back together and put them back into the den very carefully.Biologist: Im Santa Claus over here.McDonnell: It's a really exciting endeavor to carry them into the wild and be a part of their journey and to safely take them and place them into their new home.Dwyer: We started with zero wolves in the wild, so to go from zero animals in the wild to almost 300 is a great success story.(...) I'm excited for the future of Mexican wolf recovery. Our population is growing at a really healthy rate and I think we have a lot to look forward to.McDonnell: I think what excites me about the program is that this is a multi-use ecosystem and it's really reflective of natural environments that we see moving into the future and to be able to have wolves on that landscape is incredible.Lopez: When I first moved to New Mexico, I heard stories of wolves howling on the banks of the Gila and for decades that howl went missing.(...) Because of recovery efforts, Mexican wolf numbers are getting back up. I get to hear that same exact howl and preserve that howl for future generations.

OpinionApril 3, 20254 min readWhy Some People Follow Authoritarian LeadersAnd The Key to Stopping ItTo protect democracy and counteract the allure of authoritarianism, reduce people's sense of fear and insecurity, psychology research saysBy Danny Osborne Nikita John Creagh/Getty ImagesThe reelection of Donald Trump, perhaps more than any other event in modern history, has thrust authoritarianism into the spotlight. From media pundits to conversations held in coffee shops, people are talking about authoritarian leaders. And for good reasons. President Trump and his warning of being a dictator on day one, coupled with his attempts to consolidate power, eliminate government oversight and silence his opposition, poses a grave threat to our democratic institutions.Without downplaying the dangers of authoritarian leaders, studies from my research group and other labs from across the globe identify an equally serious threat to democracy: authoritarian followers who instinctively comply with a dictator. We need to understand this personality type so that we can find ways to encourage authoritarian followers to support democracy instead.For over 80 years, political psychologists like me have studied the authoritarian personalitya collection of attitudes and behaviors that increase a persons susceptibility to authoritarian leaders. We have found that authoritarian followers share three tendencies: they obey authority figures from their in-group (called authoritarian submission); they punish rule breakers (authoritarian aggression); and they rigidly endorse long-held traditions (conventionalism).On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Work from my lab and others reveals that authoritarian followers express a range of anti-democratic attitudes including anti-gay prejudice, anti-immigrant attitudes, generalized prejudice, nationalism and even the belief in conspiracies. Although peer-reviewed work on 2024 Trump voters awaits, authoritarian followers were more likely to vote for Trump than for either Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden in the previous two elections. Thus authoritarian followers are a powerful force within the MAGA movement.Why do people become authoritarian followers? Some research indicates that authoritarianism is heritable. For example, the correlation between twins authoritarianism is over five times stronger among monozygotic twins, whose genetic makeup is almost identical, relative to dizygotic twins, who share roughly half their genes. This strong genetic component to becoming an authoritarian follower does not, however, mean we are destined to obey dictators. Authoritarianism is also fostered by some of the personality traits captured by the so-called Big Five: openness to experience, conscientiousness (a preference for order and the tendency to follow norms), extraversion, agreeableness (the willingness to cooperate and empathize with others) and neuroticism (the tendency to feel anxious and insecure).Crucially, the social, economic and physical environment also matter. Low levels of openness to experience and high levels of conscientiousness, coupled with an insecure and threatening environment, lead people to chronically view the world as a dangerous and threatening place. When we think that the world is unstable and unsafe, we search for ways to regain control. Unfortunately for our democratic institutions, placing trust in a dictator and becoming an authoritarian follower is one way to reestablish a sense of control.Far-right politics seem to appeal to authoritarian followers desire to regain stability and extinguish perceived threats. For instance, fear and distrust of immigrants has been a core issue driving the recent return of far-right extremism. Movements including Brexit, the rise of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), Marine Le Pens successes in France, and Donald Trumps return to power in 2024 all gained momentum by stoking voters fears that our way of life is under threat. Attacks against transgender rights and DEI initiatives are similarly rooted in perceived threats to traditional values.What can people do to address the recent global surge of authoritarian leaders and followers? As an educator, my first instinct is to argue that we need to increase peoples political knowledge to instill democratic values of tolerance, pluralism and adherence to the rule of law. Yet this approach could backfire. Research on this topic shows that increases in education and political knowledge may make authoritarian followers more, not less, likely to express anti-democratic attitudes. For example, a study in the U.S. found that the relationship between authoritarianism and two core features of conservatism are stronger among those who are knowledgeable about politics.Alternatively, pro-democracy advocates could employ jiujitsu persuasion to target the motivations underlying anti-democratic beliefs. For example, because authoritarianism arises from the need to mitigate perceived threats in the environment, we can expose people to safer ones. Indeed a newly published study by my colleagues and me shows that the diversity of ones neighborhood correlates negatively with authoritarianism. Multicultural neighborhoods likely provide people with the chance to form close friendships with others from diverse backgrounds. In turn these experiences dispel worries that immigrants threaten deeply held cultural values or will take their jobs.Other work suggests that we can harness authoritarian followers impulse to submit to authority figures and conform to group norms for the social good. For example, research from Singaporewhere authorities endorse multiculturalismshows that authoritarian followers support cultural diversity. Other work from Poland indicates that authoritarian followers support prohibiting hate speech against minority groups including members of the LGBTQ community, Muslims and people of African descent, because this hostile rhetoric violates social norms. These studies show that, under some limited conditions, leaders can harness authoritarian followers destructive impulses for the social good.Although Trumps return to power has reignited popular interest in authoritarianism, social scientists have long wrestled with its origins. Their insights can help us predict what the next four years will look like, as well as identify ways to address the challenges that are likely to come. Democracy rarely falls at the hands of a single individual. Rather it dies through the complacency and obedience of otherwise well-intentioned authoritarian followers. We must help them follow their better angels. As the historian Timothy Snyder has warned, Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given.This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

April 2, 202516 min readPioneering Female Doctor Evangelina Rodrguez Faced a Dictators Reign of TerrorBeginning in the 1930s, the workand eventually the lifeof Andrea Evangelina Rodrguez Perozo, the Dominican Republics first female doctor, became threatened by the countrys then new dictator Lily Whear (composite)In 1930 Rafael Lenidas Trujillo seized power in the Dominican Republic and introduced a reign of terror. Andrea Evangelina Rodrguez Perozos controversial work brought her into conflict with the new regime. Her radical ideas about health care and women's rights, along with her refusal to kowtow to Trujillo, left her increasingly isolated. More and more people distanced themselves from her. Over the years, her mental health deteriorated, and she lost everything she held dear.LISTEN TO THE PODCASTOn supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.TRANSCRIPTLaura Gmez: Its 1929 in San Pedro de Macors. Despite facing criticism for her more radical ideas on family planning and treating sex workers, Evangelina continues to pursue her lifes work. Shes overseeing a maternity clinic that welcomes all women, regardless of income or class. Shes running a free milk distribution program for infants. And shes caring for society's most marginalized members... poor people, orphaned children, tuberculosis patients. Shes still controversial, and an outlier in the world of healthcare, but shes doing what she loves best. Shes following her passion and fulfilling her dream.Mercedes Fernndez Asenjo (Voiceover): When she becomes a doctor, that's when she achieves happiness.Milcades Herrera (Voiceover): She is known as a woman dedicated to her service through medicine. Thats where she found a way to serve the country she loved so much.Laura Gmez: But all this is about to change. Less than 50 miles away, in the capital, Santo Domingo, revolutionary forces are beginning to stir. And although Evangelinas work feels far removed from these rumblings, they will soon upend not just her life, but that of all her fellow Dominicans.This is Lost Women of Science. I'm Laura Gmez. This week, we bring you the fourth episode of our series on the Dominican doctor, Evangelina Rodrguez Perozo. In the last three episodes, we followed Evangelinas transformation from a poor, orphan girl to a brilliant and radical doctor. But now, at the peak of her career, dark forces are about to tear down everything shes built.This is episode 4: The Dictator and the Doctor.In February 1930, unrest hit the Dominican Republic yet again. The hope that had ushered in the latest president, Horacio Vsquez, had dissolved. Every day Dominicans struggled as the country suffered from the ripple effects of the financial crash of 1929 and the collapse in sugar prices. And Vsquez had flouted the countrys young constitution to stay in office past his term limit. So it wasnt entirely surprising that by 1930, rebel forces sought to overthrow Vsquez's government.What was surprising was how easily they did it. The National Army didnt lift a finger as the rebel leader, Rafael Estrella, marched on the capital. It turned out, Estrella had not been working alone. Hed cut a secret deal with the head of Vsquez's army a man named Rafael Leonidas Trujillo.Out in the Eastern Provinces, Evangelina was far removed from the scene. But she was all too familiar with the man whod let it happen.Evangelina first encountered Trujillo in the late nineteen-teens, when he was a young officer in the Dominican National Guard, trained by U.S. Marines. She'd witnessed his brutal displacement of farmers in the Eastern Provinces as U.S. sugar corporations took over. She knew well what kind of man he was.Trujillo had continued to rise through the ranks, until, in 1930, he was the head of the military.And when rebel leader Rafael Estrella launched his coup, Trujillo secretly promised him that the army wouldn't interfere if Estrella helped him, Trujillo, run for president.That's how, in May 1930, Rafael Trujillo was elected president with an implausible 99% of the vote.The election was a sham, marked by violence against opposition candidates and widespread intimidation of voters. In the end, no one dared to stand against the head of the army. Trujillo assumed power.Robin Derby: Trujillo is part of a wave of dictators who take over in Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua.Laura Gmez: This is Robin Derby, a historian we heard from in Episode 2. Across Central America, strong men were seizing control, using violence to subdue resistance. She explains that one of Trujillo's first acts in office was to make it clear -- in the most brutal of ways -- that he would accept no dissent. He made an example of a caudillo, a sort of regional chieftain, who had once defied him.Robin Derby: Desiderio Arias was one of the last caudillos to resist Trujillo Trujillo had him murdered, to let it be known that the struggle was over and Trujillo had taken command.Laura Gmez: Trujillo soon took full control of the island and its economy. He placed family members and cronies in key positions and basically turned the state coffers into his own personal coffers.Robin Derby: Everything that he did was done in the name of the nation but actually for him. So he renames the capital city, Ciudad Trujillo, and many national monuments and parks, and many busts were created of him, of his likeness. You knowwhen hes building a bridge, or when hes building a hospital, all of these were cast as the beneficence of Trujillo. And yet actually, at that time he established a kleptocracy and was personally becoming one of the wealthiest men in Latin America.Laura Gmez: It didnt take long. Within several years, the Generalsimo, as Trujillo liked to be called, was in complete control. And he established a cult of personality. All Dominicans were expected to express their absolute loyalty to him.Robin Derby: You had to have God y Trujillo in a little, you know, it was a little placard that you had to have in your home. People had to have images of Trujillo in their homes.Laura Gmez: And Trujillo made it clear from early on that he expected full allegiance. People who did not join his party and vocally express their support were blacklisted. They could lose their jobs, their livelihoods, or even be arrested. In later years, Trujillo founded a lethal secret service, called the SIM, which stood for the Military Intelligence Service in Spanish. It cracked down on any sign of dissent.Robin Derby: The SIM, the international intelligence, had these Volkswagen bugs. And they were moving around the city quite publicly, and doing abductions in broad daylight. So that was another one of his numbers. Sent a message of fear that, if you dont get with the program, this is whats happening to you.April Mayes: Historians will talk about the absolute culture of fear.Laura Gmez: This is April Mayes, a historian we heard from in previous episodes.April Mayes: People would whisper his name. You never really talked about him in public or even in your house for fear that someone was listening and would turn you in.Laura Gmez: Dominicans had every reason to fear Trujillo. His network of informers spanned the island. The campaign of fear he waged targeted anyone opposed to his policies even by association. But somehow, Evangelina remained uncowed.She refused to show allegiance to a man she knew was a murderer. She could see that even though Trujillo cast himself as the nations benefactor and promised to invest in the well-being of all Dominicans, he focused his attention mostly on developing infrastructure in urban areas. The places where Evangelina practiced medicine remained underfunded and neglected. Despite the risks, she refused to stay quiet. In a 1936 letter to the Secretary of State for Justice and Public Instruction, she complained that resources shed intended to put toward a school for tuberculosis prevention in a rural area never appeared.April Mayes: She begins calling out different social problems and social issues, and the problem is that the solution isnt just, And our Generalsimo Trujillo de Tal is going to resolve all of this for us. Shes really trying to call the people to say, What are we going to do about this? You know, our General Trujillo doesnt have just the solution and hes not paying attention to this. It is this kind of, you know, denunciation.Laura Gmez: And Evangelina would take her denunciation of Trujillo even further. Here's what her adopted daughter, Selisette, told historian Perdita Houston in an interview published in the 1990s. Her words are read by a voice actress.Selisette (Voice Actor): When we went to visit patients, she always talked about how bad Trujillo was, a dictator, a murderer, and a killer. It was a very repressive time, and people became afraid.Laura Gmez: According to Robin Derby, in the early years of Trujillos rule, Evangelina was truly an outlier in her open opposition to the dictator.Robin Derby: I think shes pretty outstanding, as a case. It would be interesting to think about who else is able to just speak out as she did. And to stand up to a regime as ferocious as Trujillo.Laura Gmez: Perhaps Evangelina felt that she had nothing to lose under Trujillos regime. Heres Mercedes Fernndez, who wrote her Ph.D. on Evangelina.Mercedes Fernndez Asenjo (Voiceover): During the Trujillo regime, the issue of race becomes very important again. And the regime does not want people of color as representatives of what it means to be Dominican.Milcades Herrera (Voiceover): Remember that Evangelina was Black. Her race was not white.Laura Gmez: This is Milcades Herrera. He runs a cultural center in Higey, the town where Evangelina Rodrguez was born.Milcades Herrera (Voiceover): Trujillo was a racist person. He had a delirium for the maximum, the best of society.Laura Gmez: And to Trujillo, the best in society meant those of European descent. According to the only census from that time, conducted in 1920 while the island was under U.S. rule, that description might only have fit about a quarter of the population. The vast majority were either mixed race or Black. But Trujillo promoted a policy of blanqueamiento, or whitening, of Dominican society. He encouraged the immigration of white Europeans to the island and offered refuge to Jews fleeing Nazism during World War II because they were considered white. Meanwhile, Black immigrants from neighboring countries like Haiti were brutally persecuted. And so were dark-skinned Dominicans.Milcades Herrera (Voiceover): And so, what he did to important people of color, was persecute them.Laura Gmez: It also didnt matter who you were or how accomplished you were. During Trujillos three decades in power, he killed or forced out anyone who stood in his path, from farm workers resisting exploitation to Dominican elites who posed threats to his authority.So perhaps, even if she'd said or done nothing else, Evangelina's crime in the eyes of Trujillo was simply being an accomplished, prominent woman who happened to have been born Black.Heres Mercedes Fernndez.Mercedes Fernndez Asenjo (Voiceover): So, it's a combination of elements that work against her. And that leads to the fact that in the end, she is stripped of all the advantages that she had before because she studied abroad. So she is no longer recognized as an important person.Laura Gmez: April Mayes.April Mayes: She finds herself afraid of being pursued by police, that shes under surveillance by the regime. And, I mean, just a lot of things begin to fall apart at the end.Laura Gmez: For 56-year-old Evangelina, it was the beginning of a tragic downward spiral. That's after the break stay with us.[Mid-roll]Laura Gmez: In 1933, Evangelina and Rafael Trujillo crossed paths at a congress of medical professionals in Santo Domingo. Trujillo opened the proceedings by proclaiming the advances his policies had made in healthcare. But the rest of the congress didnt proceed as he would have liked. He was immediately contradicted by the organizer, who said that more resources were needed and that the medical situation in the country was dire.And it likely didnt help that there was a delegation of Haitians presenting papers, along with non-white Dominicans like Evangelina. To make matters worse, when Evangelinas paper about social medicine was given an honorable mention, she pointedly failed to thank Trujillo in her acceptance speech.Something had clearly gotten under Trujillos skin because he declared that from then on, all submissions for congresses would have to be vetted.For a time, Evangelina carried on with her work in San Pedro. Then, two years later, she made another trip to Santo Domingo for a medical conference. But this time, things went very differently. Mercedes Fernndez.Mercedes Fernndez Asenjo (Voiceover): She was banned from participating in the 1935 congress, and from there all her problems began.Laura Gmez: They dont let her in. There she is, after a long journey, a highly regarded doctor, ready to participate in a conference about the health of her nation. And shes barred from entry.Mercedes Fernndez Asenjo (Voiceover): Its a kind of punishment, right? For not adhering to this dialectic of the Trujillato of saying, Oh, President Trujillo, you have modernized, you made it possible for so-and-so to have a new house, to build this thing, to build that other thing. She just doesn't say anything like that. And then Trujillo punishes her.Laura Gmez: Its possible that Evangelina got on the regimes radar when she failed to thank Trujillo in her 1933 speech. Its also possible that her very presence thereas an educated Afro-Dominican womanwas enough to anger the powers that be.That night, Evangelina returned to the home of the friends she was staying with in Santo Domingo. Her hair was disheveled, her eyes wild, her face twisted in fear. One of her hosts would later describe her to her biographer, Antonio Zaglul, as rambling incoherently, muttering about thugs chasing after her. She seemed to be hallucinating.Evangelinas adopted daughter, Selisette, was six at the time. She told the biographer, Perdita Houston, that this was the first visible sign of Evangelina's mental health troubles... troubles that would plague her for the rest of her life Mercedes Fernndez.Mercedes Fernndez Asenjo (Voiceover): She had a mental illness that was simply not treated, right? And this rejection by the regime, what it did was exacerbate her illness and it got worse.Laura Gmez: Evangelina began losing many of the things she held dear. The Trujillo government stripped her name from the National Registry of Doctors. One by one, Evangelina's patients started abandoning her practice. According to her biographer, Antonio Zaglul, she was left with only her poorest patients, those with no one else to turn to. To those people, Evangelina would always be their trusted doctor. But to most others, she became a social risk, a pariah, someone to avoid. And the final blow. La Casa Amarilla, her beloved maternity clinic in San Pedro, shut down.All of these losses deeply impacted Evangelinas mental health. She began neglecting her appearance even moresome days she appeared unkempt, even dirty. Reports of Evangelina's mental state got back to Selisettes father, and he decided to take the little girl back home with him. Years later, Selisette would remember how other adults tried to shield her from Evangelina's viewsviews they were convinced would put her in danger.Selisette (Voice Actor): I was taken to my father's house and kept away from other children so I couldn't say anything about where my mother was or what she had been saying or doing. The adults in the house tried to change my ideas about Trujillo; they told me he was a good man.Laura Gmez: With Selisette gone, so was Evangelina's last remaining tie with a person she truly loved. Mercedes Fernndez.Mercedes Fernndez Asenjo (Voiceover): All her friends, the Deligne brothers, Anacaona, Jos Ramn Lpez, had passed away, as well as her closest relatives, her aunts and paternal grandmother. By this time she is completely alone. She has no one to take care of her.Laura Gmez: It was around this time that Evangelina appears to have left San Pedro de Macors and moved to a village called Pedro Snchez, where she lived with a distant half-brother she barely knew. By then, her isolation was complete. Her dreams were shattered. Fear had taken over her world.The record on this next part of Evangelina's story is murky. For roughly a decade, theres very little trace of what shes doing. In the 1970s, Evangelina's biographer Antonio Zaglul traveled to Pedro Snchez to interview people there. Residents who remembered Evangelina said she alternated between periods of lucidity and bouts of madness. When she was lucid enough, she saw patients, in particular, mothers and childrenfree of charge, of course. Some of these patients described how Evangelina's mind seemed to slip in the middle of a consultation. One minute she would be talking, and the next, she'd stare fixedly at the ceiling, lost in thought.Isolated and unmoored, Evangelina lost touch with reality. She began wandering the countryside of the Eastern Provinces wearing mens shoes and carrying a basket of flowers on her head. She walked for hours on end. Sometimes days.April Mayes: People talk about, that shes just found wandering in the streets.Laura Gmez: Here's April Mayes.April Mayes: Theres just this something about her walking around, the descriptionmuttering to herself, she was very unkempt, and those shoes that she was wearing just kind ofyou could identify it was Evangelina.Milcades Herrera (Voiceover): She walked, walked, and walked.Laura Gmez: And Milcades Herrera again.Milcades Herrera (Voiceover): And that was perhaps a way of evading this treatment of the same society she had devoted herself to, which did not return her devotion.Laura Gmez: But as Evangelina wandered through towns and villages, some people took pity on her.Milcades Herrera (Voiceover): So in those walks, people always give her food. Because that was a typical thing to do back then. But what does she do? She passed it on to the first hungry person she found. She gave it to them instead of eating it. She cared more about others.Laura Gmez: Its heartbreaking to imagine this woman who had come so far and done so much good in her life wandering around the countryside, with her basket of flowers and mens shoes, muttering incoherently.This part of Evangelina's life isn't in any official record. It was passed down by Dominicans collective memory... generation after generation of people sharing the tale of this strange woman, who had once been a doctor.In 1946, around a decade after she moved to Pedro Snchez, Evangelina re-emerged in the official record. That year, Dominican sugar workers, tired of their meager pay and oppressive work conditions, finally dared to go on strike. Trujillo had been in power for 16 years by then, and he and his family controlled most of the island's sugar production.Trujillo responded with classic brutality. He sent his secret police to identify and arrest strike leaders. Several of them were captured, detained, and ultimately hanged in public, their bodies left dangling for days as a warning to others.The strike also kicked off a massive witch hunt for any enemies of the regime in the sugar-producing regions... and someone, somewhere, pointed a finger at Evangelina. Here's historian Elizabeth Manley.Elizabeth Manley: It seems likely that this was kind of a convenient way to wrap her into this, not necessarily fully believing that she was involved in this strike organizing, but just kind of a convenient coincidence.Laura Gmez: It wasn't long before Trujillo's men came for Evangelina. She was arrested during one of her walks between Pedro Snchez and a neighboring town. Her captors brought her to a prison in San Pedro de Macors, the town where she had spent most of her life. She was beaten and tortured for several days, and then released on a deserted road out in the countryside.The trauma of her arrest, imprisonment, and torture was something she could not survive. She fell silent and eventually stopped eating almost completely. Milcades Herrera again.Milcades Herrera (Voiceover): Little by little, her system became more and more deprived, until she died of starvation.Laura Gmez: On January 11, 1947, Evangelina was found dead on a street that bore the name of the man who had been her first mentor and friend, the poet Rafael Deligne. She was 68 years old. The cause of death listed on her death certificate was starvation.Milcades Herrera (Voiceover): Her giving attitude was so complete, so strong that she no longer valued her own life.Laura Gmez: Mercedes Fernndez.Mercedes Fernndez Asenjo (Voiceover): To me, it seems that life was very cruel to her. And when she finally got what she really wanted, the difficulties returned again. When I was doing my thesis, it really moved me. I felt a lot of rage, and I said, but why, I mean why, why are there people to whom destiny is so ruthless? I can't understand it, you know?Laura Gmez: Its hard not to feel that same rage. I feel it, too. That a woman of such extraordinary intelligence, who went so far and did so much for others in her lifetime, would end up dying of starvation. Its almost too much to bear.And it also hurts that many of Evangelina's accomplishments were erased from history.The Trujillo regime established its own initiatives aimed at helping mothers and children, including a milk distribution program, with no nod to Evangelina. And her dissertation was never saved in the national archives. Mercedes Fernndez suspects it may have been intentionally removed during the Trujillo years.But in our final episode of this season, we'll look at how some Dominicans, against all odds, have worked to keep Evangelina's memory alive. Testaments to her work and modest tributes to her are scattered around the country. We'll visit some of them.Most of all, I take some comfort in knowing that Evangelina was right about one thing. She told her adopted daughter, Selisette, again and again, that Trujillo's reign of terror would eventually end.Selisette (Voice Actor): She told me that the day that he died I would hear all the church bells ringing. She said that she herself probably wouldn't see it, but you will, for sure. And then, you will remember me.Laura Gmez: This episode of Lost Women of Science was produced by Lorena Galliot, with help from associate producer Natalia Snchez Loayza. Samia Bouzid is our senior producer, and our senior managing producer is Deborah Unger.David DeLuca was our sound designer and engineer. Lizzie Younan composed all of our music. We had fact-checking help from Desire Ypez.Our co-executive producers are Amy Scharf and Katie Hafner. Thanks to Eowyn Burtner, our program manager, and Jeff DelViscio at our publishing partner, Scientific American. Our intern is Kimberly Mendez.Lost Women of Science is funded in part by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Anne Wojcicki Foundation. We're distributed by PRX.For show notes and an episode transcript, head to lostwomenofscience.org, where you can also support our work by hitting the donate button.Im your host, Laura Gmez. Thanks for listening, and until next week!Host: Laura GmezProducer: Lorena GalliotSenior Producer: Samia BouzidGuests:Mercedes Fernndez AsenjoMercedes Fernndez Asenjo, PhD, is a foreign language educator at The Catholic University of America.Milcades HerreraMilcades Herrera is Director of Culture for the Province of Altagracia and Director of the cultural center Casa de la Cultura in Higey, Dominican Republic.Lauren (Robin) DerbyLauren (Robin) Derby is Professor and Dr. E. Bradford Burns Chair in Latin American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.April MayesApril Mayes is Associate Dean and Professor of Afro-Latin American history, Pomona College.Elizabeth ManleyElizabeth Manley is Chair of the Department of History and a professor of Caribbean history, Xavier University of Louisiana.Further Reading:Despreciada en la vida y olvidada en la muerte: Biografa de Evangelina Rodrguez, la primera mdica dominicana. Antonio Zaglul. Editora Taller, 1980Motherhood by Choice: Pioneers in Womens Health and Family Planning. Perdita Huston. The Feminist Press at The City University of New York, 1992Granos de polen. Evangelina Rodrguez. 1915The Mulatto Republic: Class, Race, and Dominican National Identity. April J. Mayes. University Press of Florida, 2014The Dictators Seduction: Politics and the Popular Imagination in the Era of Trujillo.Lauren Derby. Duke University Press, 2009The Paradox of Paternalism: Women and the Politics of Authoritarianism in the Dominican Republic. Elizabeth Manley, University Press of Florida, 2017

April 3, 20253 min readNew Plan for Particle Physics Megaproject Leaves out Funding DetailsA long-awaiting report from CERN explores the feasibility of building a supersized successor to the Large Hadron ColliderBy Davide Castelvecchi & Nature magazine The Future Circular Collider (artists impression) would initially smash together electrons and their antiparticles, positrons. Polar Media via CERNCERNs ambition to build an accelerator three times as large as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) took a significant step forward on 31 March with the release of a massive feasibility study for the project. But possible scenarios for how to fund the new machine will be presented at a later date.The European particle physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland, has not yet officially decided whether to endorse the 91-kilometre Future Circular Collider (FCC) project or other options for new colliders, but the study will feed into a review of CERNs long-term strategy that is due to conclude next year.This study is the result of an immense amount of work carried out by the international FCC collaboration, said Fabiola Gianotti, CERNs director general, in a presentation to reporters. If approved and implemented, the FCC could become the most extraordinary instrument ever built by humanity to study the laws of nature at the most fundamental level.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Grand designsThe three-volume feasibility study, to which around 1,500 physicists and engineers have contributed, estimates that it would cost 15.32 billion Swiss francs (US$17.4 billion) to dig a 91-kilometre-long circular tunnel and build a machine to smash together electrons and their antiparticles, positrons, by the mid-2040s. This would enable high-precision studies of the Higgs boson and other known particles.A second stage for the projectwhich would reuse the tunnel and collide two beams of protons, like the LHCwould would not come online until 2072 at the earliest, and would cost 18.8 billion Swiss francs to build. That estimate is based on the assumption that the proton collider will operate at 85 Tera-electronvolts (TeV)an energy six times higher than the LHC, but lower than the 100 TeV that was proposed initially. Gianotti told reporters that this was a conservative assumption based on using the high-field superconducting magnetsneeded to steer protons around the ringthat are available today. Ongoing research on advanced superconducting materials could put higher energies within reach for the 91 km tunnel, perhaps even 120 TeV.CERN Council president Konstantinos Fountas told reporters that the study will provide very solid ground to enable the Council to come to a well-informed decision on whether to go ahead with the project. Antonio Zoccoli, president of Italys National Institute of Nuclear Physics and one of countrys delegates to the CERN Council, agrees, saying that the group has done very solid work on the technical design and cost estimates.Vladimir Shiltsev, an accelerator physicist at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, says the cost estimates are broadly in line with those he and his collaborators made in a 2023 study that compared various collider proposals. He says the authors of the feasibility study wrote a very nice, solid, comprehensive document, although a few technical questions remain unanswered.A CERN map shows where a 91-km circular tunnel might be dug; the smaller LHC is to its left.CERNGianotti said that CERN could cover 65% of the construction cost for the first stage of the project from its existing budget. That would still leave a shortfall of more than 5 billion Swiss francs, which would need to be covered with additional contributions. The feasibility study had been asked to provide funding scenarios for the project, but this information will now be provided at a later date, she said.CERN initially budgeted CHF100 million for the feasibility study itself, and a CERN spokesperson told Nature that the final cost was CHF113 million (US$128 million).The FCC plan has its critics. Some physicists believe that the scientific goals of the first stage could be achieved with a smaller, cheaper linear collider, and many are put off by the timeline for the second-stage proton collider. Both the member states and the science community will feel that they are being locked into something like a 70-year mortgage, if they agree to go ahead, says John Womersley, a special advisor to the University of Edinburgh, UK, who is a former UK delegate to the CERN Council. Almost no one that I have spoken to thinks this is a good idea.This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on April 1, 2025.

April 2, 20255 min readAurora Scientists Enlist Private Astronauts on Unusual Space MissionThe commercial astronauts onboard SpaceXs Fram2 mission are flying closer to Earths poles than anyone has before, offering an intriguing opportunity for auroral scienceBy Meghan Bartels edited by Lee BillingsSTEVE (strong thermal emission velocity enhancement) is seen in the night sky over a house in southern Alberta, Canada. Alan Dyer/Stocktrek Images/Alamy Stock PhotoFour passengers that launched onboard a SpaceX rocket on Monday are bound for a new orbital destinationlooping from pole to pole, perpendicular to Earths equatoron a mission dubbed Fram2 in a nod to a Norwegian polar ship.Prior to Fram2, crewed missions only reached orbits of up to 65 degrees inclination to the equator. This means no astronauts have ever flown in space over Antarctic terrain or much north of Iceland. But interesting things happen in the atmosphere at higher latitudesmost famously, auroras. Especially during periods of increased solar activity, these displays are typically visible at northern and southern latitudes of around 68 degrees during the night and 78 degrees during the day, painting a glowing oval around each pole. Other astronauts, particularly those on the International Space Station, have seen auroras from space, but Fram2 crew member Jannicke Mikkelsen is hoping to bring more science to the observations.While planning Fram2s activities, Mikkelsen teamed up with Katie Herlingshaw, a space physicist at Norways University Center in Svalbard, who works with an aurora-observing, crowdsourced science project to understand brilliant atmospheric phenomena. People are pretty much everywhere, and theyve all got phones, so theyre making, really, the densest observation network ever, Herlingshaw says.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Herlingshaw built on that community to develop a network of skywatchers to track the Fram2 flight and look for auroras along its path in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. She hopes that Mikkelsen will be able to use these observations to capture unique footage of the displays from the spacecrafts windows. Scientific American spoke with Herlingshaw about the project and its goals.[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]How will these observations be different from satellite data? Whats the value of having actual people up there?The satellite images that we do have are usually focused on photographing the whole auroral oval in one wavelength type, such as ultraviolet. But what were really interested in is small features, things that come and go quite quickly. We dont really have a good way to capture these features from polar-orbiting satellites.We now have a human up there who can change the camera settings, change the pointing direction and be aware of whats coming up on her orbit. [Mikkelsen] is taking these very high-resolution videos, and we have full-color images as well. Its quite a unique setup because these are the first people who have ever been there.What phenomena are you hoping to see? And how do they relate to auroras?A lot of people use the term aurora for anything thats caused by charged particles coming in from space along Earths magnetic field lines, impacting particles in the atmosphere and causing some kind of light emission. So the idea is that these particles should come from space. But there are some light emissions that are caused locallyinside our own atmosphereby very fast-moving plasma, for example. Its a bit of a debate about whether to call those aurora or just auroralike.So were calling them weird aurora as an umbrella term. These are all relatively newly published findings about features that we don't completely understand.For example, weve noticed these fragmented auroralike emissionsI just call them fragments. They dont look like the nearby regular aurora, which is kind of lined up vertically in the magnetic field line direction; the fragments, theyre coming off almost perpendicularly. That also points to the fact that these things are not coming in from spacesomething local is happening.Sometimes near these fragments, we have something called continuous emission. Were trial naming this as ghost aurora because its white. Auroras are usually not whitethey can appear that way because your eyes are surprisingly bad at picking up faint colors. So a lot of people see a gray kind of smudge in the sky or something, but if you look at it with scientific instruments that can pick out these colors, usually youll see, like, a green or a red or a blue. White is unusual for us because it means all the colors [of visible light] are present and combined together to make the white. Thats weird for the aurora, and it suggests some kind of heating effect going on in the atmosphere that's managing to excite all of these different colors, but we dont yet fully understand the mechanism behind it.Those are at high latitudes. For the people who are a bit farther south, they often see this other type of aurora called STEVE. STEVE also can be whitish in color, and we also sometimes see, nearby, these other things called streaks, which look and behave a lot like fragments. Were interested in: Why do these things look like this? Why do they act like this? And why do we see similar things at completely different places?What do you hope that youll accomplish during the mission?Well be really happy if we even get just one set of nice observations. All we really need is just one time where [Mikkelsen] sees some of these weird auroras paired with some observations from the ground. Best case, then were having more than one, as many as possible. But its kind of like trying to thread a needle with these things. You need the spacecraft going over somewhere that is dark, and then we have to check that its not cloudy there and that the aurora is active over there and that people are actually awake and photographing it from the ground.We would like to make some triangulations to pinpoint exactly what altitudes these are happening at. Were hoping to maybe look at their three-dimensional structure, and that can also perhaps help us figure out the associated mechanisms and light emissions. Weve also got radars in place to tell us information about how hot it is up there, how fast things are moving, what the density of the particles is. We would like to be able to say what these weird auroras are caused by, but it really depends on what kind of data we get.What do people need to know if they might want to take part?People need to have the correct time set on their camera. We cant use the observation if its the wrong time, and clocks recently switched around in some parts of the world. Its good to have the accuracy down to the second if possible. And then, when youre out there, also collect a location for your observation. We need those two things.For real-time notification to the astronaut, were asking people to post on various Facebook groups. The project websites photography instructions include a map of all of the different ones. People should join the nearest group to them or one of the more global groups in each hemisphere.But we cannot use these social media posts for science because as soon as you upload something to Facebook, the resolution and all of the information about the time and the exposure just disappear. So we also ask people to submit to a platform called Skywardenand in the observation story, put #SolarMaxMission. Observations that are submitted here can win some prizes that have been to space as well[Mikkelsen] is flying some Fram2 mission patches to give away.

April 2, 20254 min readTrump Administration Attacks on Science Trigger Backlash from ResearchersThe risks of remaining silent at this defining time are far greater than the risks of speaking out, says one scientist regarding the Trump administrations attacks on scienceBy Dan Vergano edited by Jeanna BrynerSt. Paul, Minnesota. State capitol. Stand up for science rally. University of Minnesota researchers, scientists and other supporters protested against President Donald Trump's proposed scientific research funding cuts. Michael Siluk/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty ImagesSlashed funding, mass firings and political edicts over what can be studied or spoken recently prompted an open letter that was signed by a sizable swath of the nations leading researchers, all members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.The voice of science must not be silenced, read the letter, which was released on March 31. We all benefit from science, and we all stand to lose if the nations research enterprise is destroyed.So far about 1,900 members of the National Academies have signed the open letter. The National Academies themselves, which were chartered by Congress to provide scientific and technological advice, did not sign on. But a significant fraction of their overall membership of thousands of researchers, who were elected for their technical prowess and achievements, did so.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Across the three academies, theres widespread concern about the impact of executive orders and decisions, both on U.S. science and on the well-being of the public, on our ability to continue to have clean air and clean water, [on] the economy, says climate scientist Benjamin Santer, who was formerly at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and was one of 13 scientists who co-wrote the letter. All of that is imperiled.In its first two months, the Trump administration has targeted the U.S. research enterprise in numerous ways, including cuts to funding for the National Institutes of Health, firings at agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the National Science Foundation and threats to university funding over equal employment and diversity offices. President Donald Trump derided hormone health studies as making mice transgender in a March speech to Congress, and his administration has banned words connected to climate science and racial equality at federal agencies and labs. These institutions have included LLNL, where Santer published pioneering studies documenting humans effect on the climate in the 1990s.Think about it. We cant talk about reality, Santer says. We cant talk about what is actually happening in the real world that affects all of us.From Albert Einstein to J. Robert Oppenheimer, scientists have long braved dangerous political moments in public life. For example, many nuclear scientists championed arms control throughout the cold war. During the first Trump administration, members of the National Academy of Sciences, including Santer, released two open letters that decried the U.S.s withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement and wider government attacks on science. The March letter, however, represents a first in that it comes from members of all three National Academies and was aimed at the public and lawmakers under the new Trump administration.At the end of the day, the scientific community needs to convince Congress that attacks on science are an attack on Congresss regulatory authority. [Such attacks are] bad for their districts and a threat to members chances at earning reelection, says political scientist Matt Motta of the Boston University School of Public Health, who was not a signatory to the new open letter. I think that this letter helps sound that alarm and is likely a course of action worth takingdespite the potential risk of partisan backlash.In public surveys, confidence in scientists remains high compared with trust in Congress or Trump. There is a partisan split on views on science, however, with Republican voters being more critical of federal agencies. In fact, I would argue that the purpose of the administration efforts is to damage researchers, particularly those at universities, says economist David Card of the University of California, Berkeley, who has studied membership in the National Academies and also was not a signatory to the March letter. For many supporters, [the open letter] will be interpreted as evidence that the administration is doing the right thing.Concerns about the Trump administrations attacks on their institutions and on immigrant students dissuaded some scientists from signing the open letter, says Steven H. Woolf, director emeritus of the Center on Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine and one of the letters co-authors. Under the administrations demands, Columbia University acquiesced to cracking down on student protests and putting its Middle Eastern, South Asian and African studies department under new supervision in March. A Harvard Medical School researcher who has been on a scholar visa from Russia has been detained at an immigration detention center in Louisiana, and a Turkish student who was studying childhood development at Tufts University was grabbed off a street by immigration officials for writing an opinion piece that was critical of the U.S.s policy toward Gaza.There are risks associated with using your voice in the United States in the spring of 2025, Santer says. I strongly believe that the risks of remaining silent at this defining time are far greater than the risks of speaking out.*We respect our members point of view and their commitment to speaking out on these important issues, wrote the National Academies regarding the open letter in a statement to Scientific American. The academies are committed to impartial non-partisan scientific advice, the statement added.Beyond open letters, scientists need to reach Congress in person and through their scientific societies to push back against Trump, says Jon Miller of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. Patient advocacy groups need to hear from scientists to push lawmakers as well, he says. Campaign contributions and endorsements are far more effective than signing petitions, Miller adds.*Editors Note (4/2/25): This sentence was edited after posting to better clarify Benjamin Santers comments.

April 2, 20253 min readWhy the New Torpedo Bat Is Hitting It out of the ParkAfter a stellar Yankees win on Saturday, torpedo bats are in the spotlight. Is there science behind these baseball bats?By Stephanie Pappas edited by Dean VisserNew York Yankees' Austin Wells swings the new torpedo bat and hits a home run on Saturday, March 29, 2025, against the Milwaukee Brewers at Yankee Stadium. Mike Stobe/Getty ImagesThe New York Yankees 20-9 win against the Milwaukee Brewers last Saturday has put the spotlight on the odd, bowling-pin-shaped torpedo bat that many of the teams players were swinging. The bats peculiar new design could help explain how the team achieved nine home runs that night.Just whats so special about this bat? Researchers say the design isnt just about powering balls out of the park. Instead its a matter of accuracy and finesse, of letting players maneuver the bat better and turn foul balls into singles and pop flies into home runs.If there is a competitive advantage with the torpedo bat, its likely more due to an improved batting average than it is to an enhanced bat performance, says Lloyd Smith, a professor of mechanical engineering at Washington State University, who studies bat performance.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.What that means is that the bat probably isnt letting players smack the ball harder or faster. In fact, balls hit by the new torpedo bat may even go a bit slower on average, Smith says. But because of the shape, the bat feels easier to swing, and the ball is more likely to make contact with the bats thickest section, leading to a more solid hit.A traditional baseball bat has a skinny handle that flares into a barrel of about the same diameter in the middle and far ends of the bat. The new torpedo bat moves the mass down toward the players grip, with a thicker barrel in the middle of the bat and a tapered end.The key metric that this shift changes is something called swing weight, Smith says. When you swing a bat, it becomes a rotating object. That means that the weight thats closest to your hands will be the easiest to move and that the weight thats farthest away will be the hardest. A torpedo bat that weighs the same as a traditional one can thus feel lighter to swing. That means the batter can swing faster and make quicker split-second adjustments as the ball screams toward them.Because youre able to swing the bat faster, you have a little longer to watch the ball before you commit, Smith explains.The design change for the torpedo bat also results in a bigger diameter at the middle of the barrel, making it more likely that players will hit the ball dead-on. If youve got a bigger barrel, youve got a bigger chance of getting closer to the middle of the bat, so youre likely to get a solid contact, a more direct hit, says Daniel Russell, a teaching professor of acoustics at Pennsylvania State University, who also studies bats.The Yankees used high-speed cameras to determine the spot where each player was most likely to hit the ball and then designed the bats to match. These are things that are fine-tuned to the individual player, so there is a lot of room for innovation in this, says Alan Nathan, an emeritus professor of physics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, who studies the physics of baseball.What isnt clear is if the new design lets players transfer energy more efficiently from bat to ball. That happens best at the region of a bat called its sweet spot, which is usually five to seven inches from its tip. The torpedo bats shape might change the sweet spot, Smith says, but if such bats end up lighter than traditional ones, the bat-ball collision might actually transfer less energy and lead to slightly slower ball speeds.Another question involves the sensory experience of using the torpedo bat, Russell says. Its wider diameter could allow players to see the bat using peripheral vision, perhaps letting them line up their hits better. He, Nathan and Smith are all eager to test the new bat to answer such questions.Were all set up for it, Smith says. We just need to get our hands on some of these bats.

April 2, 20253 min readTiny, Injectable Pacemaker Runs on Light and then DissolvesThis temporary pacemaker, smaller than a grain of rice, could regulate the heart less invasivelyBy Payal Dhar edited by Sarah Lewin FrasierA pacemaker uses electricity to regulate heartbeats. Eugene Mymrin/Getty ImagesTemporary pacemakers can be used as a stopgap measure to regulate the heartbeat after surgery and in emergency situations. But the fact that they need to be surgically installed and removed also brings risk: moon walker Neil Armstrong famously developed fatal bleeding when surgeons removed his temporary pacemakers wires in 2012. Now researchers have developed a tiny temporary pacemaker that could eliminate some of that risk. Their device, just a few millimeters long, has no wires and needs minimally invasive placement. It can be injected into the body with a needle. And when its work is done, it simply dissolves.Conventionally, temporary pacemakers comprise electrodes that are implanted in the heart muscle. These electrodes are connected to an external battery that delivers a pulse to control the hearts rhythm and correct slow or irregular heartbeats. The new, less invasive pacemaker, which could be particularly useful in a newborn baby's tiny heart, consists of two electrodesconducting metal padsthat are designed to do two things, says Northwestern University biomedical engineer John A. Rogers, one of the co-authors of an April 2 paper in Nature that describes the device. One is that they inject current into the cardiac tissue to stimulate contractions that lead to an overall cardiac cycle.... [The other is that they] provide a power source for driving the operation of the pacemaker.A temporary pacemaker like this one, smaller than a grain of rice, could be injected into the body to regulate heartbeats.John A. Rogers/Northwestern UniversityOn supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.The mini pacemaker device does not have a separate battery. Instead its body functions as a simple type of battery called a galvanic cellthe two electrodes, made of different combinations of magnesium, zinc and molybdenum, react with the naturally occurring electrolytes in bodily fluids to produce an electric current.On the side opposite of the electrodes lies a tiny light-activated switch that controls the batterys operation. In the switchs on position, an electrical pulse is delivered to the cardiac tissue; in its off state, nothing happens. The pacemaker is paired with a soft, flexible skin patch above the heart that monitors heart rate. When it senses an irregular or slow heartbeat, it flashes a light on and off to dictate the correct pacing. The pacemaker responds to near-infrared lightwavelengths that can penetrate deeply into biological tissues.When the pacemakers job is done, it simply dissolves into the body. The device has a finite operating time of between a few days and about three weeks, Rogers says, depending on the choice of metals for the electrodes.The current study is an advance on an earlier dissolvable pacemaker by the same team. The previous iteration used a technology called near-field communication instead of a galvanic cell; it ran on power beamed to an antenna, which made it much bigger. The extreme miniaturization is one of the advances in the new model, Rogers says. What follows from that is that we can use multiple of these millimeter-scale pacemakers simultaneously at different locations of the heart [with the devices] operating in different wavelengths.The researchers are also looking at the possibility of integrating the devices with medical implants, such as replacement heart valves, that currently dont have any kind of cardiac control mechanisms.Thanh Nho Do, a biomedical engineer at the University of New South Wales in Australia, who wasnt involved with the study, calls this pacemaker a breakthrough in miniaturization. It gives reliable and sustained pacing without external energy inputs, he says, and could significantly reduce procedural risks and patient discomfort.Virginia Tech researcher Xiaoting Jia, who was also not involved in the project, says it has great potential for practical use in humans. The team has performed comprehensive tests in animal models and in ex vivo settings [experiments outside the body]. The next important step would be to thoroughly evaluate the safety for application in humans and obtain [Food and Drug Administration] approvals for clinical use. The researchers are working toward this via a new start-up company.One key challenge, Do adds, is selecting suitable materials to balance functionality and safe degradation without triggering excessive immune reactions such as inflammation.

April 2, 20253 min readShingles Vaccination May Help Protect People from Alzheimers DiseaseA natural experiment in Wales showed that a shingles vaccine might lower the risk of developing dementiaBy Rachel Nuwer edited by Tanya Lewis Arman Zhenikeyev/Getty ImagesIn 2013 public health officials in Wales faced a conundrum: they had just received a new vaccine for shingles, but the supply was not large enough to vaccinate all of the older people in the country. As a fix, the officials set a cutoff date based on data that suggested the vaccine was more effective in those younger than age 80: anyone born before September 2, 1933, was ineligible for the vaccine, and anyone born on or after that date was eligible for at least one year.This unusual public health policy inadvertently created a real-world experiment that has provided the strongest evidence to date that the shingles vaccine appears to have a protective effect against Alzheimers disease and other forms of dementia. According to findings published this week in Nature, people who received the vaccine were 20 percent less likely to develop dementia over the next seven years compared with those who remained unvaccinated.This study really shows that there seems to be a causal, protective effect of shingles vaccination preventing or delaying dementia, says Pascal Geldsetzer, an assistant professor of medicine at Stanford University and senior author of the study. We are really looking, here, at cause and effectnot just correlation.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Evidence has been building for years that certain viruses might contribute to some cases of dementia and that vaccinations against these viruses could lower that risk. Most previous research was conducted on cells or laboratory animals, though, or consisted of observational studies that compared people who chose to get vaccinated with those who did not in a given population. Such observational studies have fundamental limitations because researchers cannot easily control for other relevant behavioral differences, such as diet and physical activity levels, between the two groups.The beautiful data provided by the vaccination program in Wales get around this limitation, Geldsetzer says, because the only difference between those who were and were not vaccinated was a slight difference in when they were born. Birthdays were thus equivalent to a coin flip used to assign participants to one group or another in a randomized trial.For the new study, the researchers compared people whose 80th birthday fell within a week of the vaccine cutoffeither just missing it or just making it. Virtually none of those who had a birthday in the week prior to the cutoff received the shingles vaccine, while 47 percent of those who were eligible opted to get vaccinated.The researchers compared the health outcomes of both groups over the next seven years and found that one in eight people in total went on to be diagnosed with dementia. Those who received the shingles vaccine because they were eligible, however, were 20 percent less likely to develop dementia than those who didnt receive it because they were ineligible. All other factors that the researchers examinedincluding education level, rates of other vaccinations or diagnoses with common diseaseswere the same between the two groups.The findings suggest that the shingles virus might play a role in causing at least a subset of dementia cases, Geldsetzer says, and the vaccine may protect against that. Alternatively, it could be that certain vaccines, such as the one for shingles, lead to a broader immune system activation that lowers the risk of dementia developing.Geldsetzer and his colleagues now hope to raise funds to conclusively test these possibilities through a randomized controlled trial. If the findings hold up, they will be of huge importance for helping researchers better understand the underlying drivers of Alzheimers disease and other forms of dementia, he says. That would also suggest that vaccinations for shingles and certain other viral diseases could be an affordable and effective public health measure to delay or prevent dementia from developing in some people in the first place.This is a well-done study that provides novel evidence that the live-attenuated [shingles] vaccine might reduce risk of dementia, says Alberto Ascherio, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who was not involved in the research. The implications, he adds, go well beyond the particulars of this particular vaccine. It will be important to expand future research broadly on the potential role of infections and vaccinations in determining dementia risk, Ascherio says.

April 2, 20258 min readTrumps Tariffs Are Expected to Undermine the Clean Energy TransitionNew Trump administration tariff son imported goods could exacerbate a shortage of parts used by the energy industryPresident Donald Trump delivers remarks on auto tariffs and other topics on March 26, 2025 at the White House. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty ImagesCLIMATEWIRE | Its tariff day in America.What form the new levies take remains to be seen, but this much is clear: President Donald Trumps drive to impose tariffs on a broad range of imported products represents a new world order, one where America increasingly looks inward to make the goods it needs.That kind of transformation would almost certainly affect the global transition to green energy. One possible outcome: China might be forced to branch out and find new markets for its clean energy technology, accelerating their adoption. But major downsides are just as likely, analysts said, even as they acknowledged it is too early to predict the unintended consequences that could result from Trump's moves.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.It just seems like where we are headed is totally uncharted, said Noah Kaufman, a climate economist at Columbia Universitys Center on Global Energy Policy who served in former President Joe Bidens administration. I feel very ill equipped to predict what the consequences could be.Trump has labeled Wednesday Liberation Day, arguing tariffs are needed to drive investment in domestic manufacturing after decades of outsourcing U.S. industries and jobs. Many energy analysts say the move threatens to raise prices for electricity, automobiles and gasoline.Guessing the tariffs form has become something of a Washington parlor game. One source with knowledge of the administrations thinking said the president is gravitating toward a flat universal rate on a broad range of imports. But Trump also has publicly flirted with imposing reciprocal tariffs on America's largest trading partners.Theyre reciprocal, Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday night. Whatever they charge us, we charge them, but were being nicer than they are.Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told reporters Tuesday that the president had made his decision and would announce it at a Rose Garden press conference Wednesday.However they look, the new tariffs amount to the latest in a series of new duties Trump has imposed or threatened to impose on foreign goods since taking office in January.Twenty-five percent tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports are scheduled to take effect Wednesday after Trump last month postponed their implementation. They follow on the heels of a new 25 percent duty placed on foreign automobiles last week and a 25 percent levy on imports of steel and aluminum established in February.Trump sought to impose tariffs on foreign goods in his first term, many of which Biden kept in place as he looked to counter Chinas manufacturing dominance. But the duties proposed by Trump since he returned to the White House go far beyond that, upending the global economic integration the United States has championed for decades.The global approach has bled over into climate efforts and the energy transition. Americas booming solar industry, for instance, has largely been supplied by Chinese panel makers operating in southeast Asia.Predicting the impact of this round of Trumps tariffs is difficult because they deliver a hammer blow to both traditional energy industries, such as oil and gas, and relatively new ones, like renewables.When the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas released its quarterly survey of oil and gas industry executives last week, the word "uncertainty" was mentioned 13 times. That's the most since the first quarter of 2020 when Covid-19 began spreading around the world, according to an analysis by the American Petroleum Institute.The administrations tariffs immediately increased the cost of our casing and tubing by 25 percent, one executive told the bank.It was a similar story in the manufacturing sector, which contracted in March, according to a monthly survey released Monday by the Institute for Supply Management. Companies reported higher prices, fewer new orders and declining employment in large part due to uncertainties over the tariff environment.Energy industry already dealing with shortagesTariffs stand to exacerbate shortages of key components used by the energy industry, analysts said.A shortage of electrical components such as transformers, circuit breakers and switchgear has persisted for 54 consecutive months, according to ISM. And that's hampered efforts to keep up with rising electricity demand from data centers.Some utilities responded by sourcing equipment from overseas a strategy that looks increasingly risky, Wood Mackenzie wrote in a January analysis of the potential impact on tariffs.Transformer manufacturing might not seem like a big deal in the context of containing runaway carbon dioxide emissions or satisfying the energy demands of technology companies. But shortages of key electrical components have slowed the integration of renewables and other new power plants on the grid, limiting the number of data centers that can plug in, analysts said.This isn't a thing which is just good for renewables, bad for fossil fuels, or good for fossil fuels, bad for renewables, said Antoine Vagneur-Jones, head of trade and supply chains at BloombergNEF. It's a period of massive uncertainty, and that's difficult for businesses to navigate wherever you're sitting.The United States free trade agreement with Mexico meant that companies from a range of industries set up shop south of the border in an attempt to access the worlds largest economy while benefiting from lower labor costs.The U.S. imported $31.3 billion worth of wire and cable in 2024, and 52 percent came from Mexico, according to Ken Roberts, the chief executive of WorldCity, a data-tracking firm. Another $29.2 billion worth of power supplies and transformers came in last year, with 21 percent coming from Mexico and 13 percent from China. And $13.3 billion worth of electric motors and generators were imported, with 32 percent coming from Mexico and 13 percent coming from China.Automakers like General Motors, Honda and Ford, meanwhile, have spent decades building an interconnected supply chain that stretches across North America.The vehicles they assemble in the United States typically contain a large number of parts from Mexico, Canada and other countries, and they also build vehicles in Mexico and Canada with parts from the United States. Some American automakers most popular electric vehicles are assembled in Mexico, including Ford Mustang Mach-E, Chevrolets Equinox and Hondas Prologue.Trumps plan runs the risk of creating a spiral, where Mexico and other countries impose their own tariffs, prompting tit-for-tat responses, said Enrique Milln-Meja, a senior fellow for economic development at the Atlantic Council's Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.That's where, in reality, a trade war starts, and that's when everybody loses, he said.Trump and his allies say that tariffs are needed to reverse decades of outsourcing that decimated manufacturing communities across much of the United States. They contend new duties on imports will force companies to invest in U.S. manufacturing facilities in order to access the worlds largest economy. And they argue the approach is already bearing fruit.As evidence, the White House has touted investments such as Hyundais plan to invest $21 billion in U.S. automobile factories and Schneider Electrics plan to spend $700 million on expanding its U.S. operations. Schneider Electric, a French company, is one of the worlds largest makers of equipment for the power sector.When I think about what is the vision of the Trump trade and tariff agenda, it's bringing back American manufacturing, creating jobs and passing the tax policy that primarily benefits working class people, said Nick Iacovella, who worked as an aide to Secretary of State Marco Rubio when he was in the Senate and now serves as executive vice president at the Coalition for a Prosperous America.Tariffs would raise revenue to pay for the extension of Trumps tax cuts, Iacovella said. He expressed hope the president would impose a universal rate on imports rather than adopting a reciprocal approach.A reciprocal tariff strategy that is primarily focused on other countries lowering their trade barriers and prioritizing market access that's essentially a free trade agreement, he said. You know, we've done this policy for like three decades. It doesn't work.U.S. Rep. John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican who serves as chair of the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), said tariffs are needed to counteract years of unfair trade practices in China.There's nothing normal about our trade relationship with China, Moolenaar told an industry summit in Washington on Tuesday. They will subsidize, they will steal technology IP, they have all sorts of unfair trade practices. And so we need to recognize that, just acknowledge that, and then reset the relationship so there's a very different expectation, and I think that's what President Trump's tariffs are going to do, is to force this negotiation to reset this trading relationship.China may seek new buyers for clean energy techSome of Trump's actions could rebound in ways that could benefit the transition to clean energy.China, whose economy increasingly depends on the production of clean energy technology, will be motivated to find new markets as its shut out of others by tariffs, sparking a solar boom in Pakistan or a jump in EV sales in Brazil, analysts said.A growing share of Chinese exports of batteries, solar panels, wind turbines and EVs are going to countries the World Bank classifies as lower or middle income, said Vagneur-Jones, the analyst from BloombergNEF.So you start to see these sort of knock-on effects, and then you could conceivably see a world where the energy transition starts to accelerate slightly in some of those poorer countries where it was seemingly more of a rich country thing, he added.But most analysts took a dimmer view, saying it would take companies years to readjust their supply chains and push up prices on energy, automobiles and consumer goods.Tariffs could add 15 percent to the average cost of vehicles, and companies will have no choice but to raise prices, said Sam Abuelsamid, vice president of market research at Telemetry Insight, a research firm that tracks the auto industry. The higher prices could drive down sales and lead to factory closures and layoffs.You cant just move production from one factory to another in a matter of weeks, he said in an interview. Youre talking years of pain before you potentially get to a positive place.In the utility industry, it will take years for manufacturers to bring new factories online needed to make equipment such as transformers and circuit breakers, said Rob Gramlich, president of Grid Strategies, a Washington D.C.-based consulting firm.Expecting companies to bring enough manufacturing capacity online to keep up with growing electricity demand projections is just not a reasonable timeframe to plan more facilities, he said. I think the tariffs are mostly just raising the cost to U.S. utilities and then their rate payers.Even sectors that have traditionally viewed tariffs as a means of bolstering domestic manufacturing are feeling uncertain. U.S. solar manufacturers have been pushing for targeted tariffs combined with tax credits and other incentives like those contained in the Biden administrations Inflation Reduction Act.The U.S. has boosted its production of solar modules since the IRA went into effect, growing from 14.5 gigawatts of production in 2023 to 50 GW in early 2025, according to a Wood Mackenzie report conducted for the Solar Energy Industries Association.But those modules are still mostly made with imported components. Whether it will be cheaper to import entire solar modules rather than individual components likely will depend on the size of the tariffs and how theyre implemented. It also hinges on whether Congress maintains tax incentives for domestic manufacturers under the IRA.Tariffs can be a part of the solution set, but they're not necessarily dependable enough that you can invest against them, said Michael Carr, executive director of the Solar Energy Manufacturers for America Coalition, which advocates for policies that support a U.S.-based solar supply chain.Dan Anthony, president of Trade Partnership Worldwide, a trade and economic research firm, said the tariff impact on U.S. solar panel production, ultimately would depend on how high the new levies are and if American producers face higher costs for imported materials.Higher costs for imported finished panels dont help production if U.S. costs rise just as much due to tariffs on imports, he wrote in an email.Even if the final cost of U.S.-produced panels doesnt rise as much as imported ones, he added, Americans may still choose to install fewer solar panels due to higher costs for the panels themselves or other purchases, such as cars, that are affected by tariffs.Reprinted from E&E News with permission from POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2025. E&E News provides essential news for energy and environment professionals.

April 1, 20257 min readThe Hubble Tension Is Becoming a Hubble CrisisA long-simmering disagreement over the universes present-day expansion rate shows no signs of resolution, leaving experts increasingly vexedBy Anil Ananthaswamy edited by Lee BillingsAn artists concept of cosmic history, starting with a representation of the big bang (top) that progressively blossoms into our modern-day expanding universe (bottom). Mark Garlick/Science Photo Library/Alamy Stock PhotoOver the past decade, two very different ways of calculating the rate at which the universe is expanding have come to be at odds, a disagreement dubbed the Hubble tension, after 20th-century astronomer Edwin Hubble. Experts have speculated that this dispute might be temporary, stemming from subtle shortcomings in observations or analyses that will eventually be corrected rather than from some flawed understanding of the physics of the cosmos. Now, however, a new study that relies on an independent measure of the properties of galaxies has strengthened the case for the tension. Quite possibly, its here to stay.For some researchers, the word tension fails to convey the problems increasing severity.Weve been at this Hubble tension level for a long time. At some point the community needs to say, This is more serious, says physicist Dan Scolnic of Duke University, who was not associated with the new study. And the step up from tension is crisis.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Worsening these woes are the latest results based on observations of the large-scale structure of the universe: dark energy, which is thought to be causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate, may be changing with time. This only serves to aggravate the Hubble tensionor Hubble crisis, if you prefer.The tensions roots lie in the two differing values calculated for the Hubble constant, or H0the expansion rate of todays universe. One comes from measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the leftover radiation from when the universe was about 380,000 years old.The European Space Agencys Planck satellite mapped the CMB from 2009 to 2013, and cosmologists used that map to nail down the standard model of cosmology, also called LCDM. (L is for lambda, representing dark energy; CDM is for a hypothetical, slow-moving cold form of dark matter strongly supported by observations.) In LCDM, dark energy makes up 68 percent of the universe, dark matter 27 percent and normal matter the rest. The Planck team then used features in the CMB to calculate the expansion rate of the early universe; extrapolating that to present times using LCDM, the researchers arrived at an H0 of about 67.5 kilometers per second per megaparsec. (One megaparsec equates to about 3.26 million light-years.)Last month the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) collaboration, which created a more precise map of the CMB using a ground-based radio telescope in the Chilean Andes, released its latest findings. By combining the CMB measurements with the observed clustering of galaxies and measurements of the ages of stars and other aspects of the universe, the team got a value of about 68.22 km/s/Mpc for H0. While slightly higher than the Planck estimate, its very consistent with it, says astrophysicist and ACT team member David Spergel of Princeton University and the Simons Foundation.The other, more direct way of calculating H0 involves using the so-called cosmic distance ladder to make measurements in our local neighborhood rather than at the outer limits of the observable universe.Climbing the ladder is a laborious process that befits its name. Astronomers step onto the first rung using geometric measurements of distances to nearby stars called Cepheid variables. These stars are standard candles that vary in brightness with a periodicity thats correlated with their absolute luminosity. The distance and periodicity measurements are used to calibrate the intrinsic characteristics of Cepheids.The next rung of the ladder involves finding distant Cepheids and comparing their intrinsic luminosity (obtained using their periodicity) to their observed luminosity to estimate distances to their host galaxies. Astronomers then determine the velocities at which these galaxies are receding by looking at how much the universes expansion has stretchedor redshiftedtheir light toward the red part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Gauge the distances and velocities for a statistically significant sample of galaxies and youve arrived at an observed value of H0.But Cepheids can only take you so far.So astronomers also look for extremely bright exploding stars called type IA supernovae in galaxies that contain Cepheids. Such supernovae also function as standard candles whose absolute luminosity is correlated with their evanescent, varying brightness; the Cepheids, whose distances can be calculated, are used to calibrate the absolute luminosity of the supernovae. Astronomers then find type IA supernovae in other faraway galaxies to estimate their distances. The Supernovae, H0, for the Equation of State of Dark Energy (SH0ES) project, led by Nobel Laureate Adam Riess of Johns Hopkins University, has used such techniques to come up with an H0 value of about 73.5 km/s/Mpc.Using supernovae as standard candles comes with inherent difficulties, however, says astronomer Brent Tully of the University of Hawaii. For one, multiple ground-based telescopes might be used to observe the same supernova, which introduces an element of instrumental uncertainty. Also, we still dont know really how supernovae explode, he says. There are probably variations [relevant to] its use as a standard candleand people are aware of this.So, to reach even farther-flung galaxies, Tully and his colleagues opted to scale a different cosmic distance ladder that eschews supernovae. It involves starting with yet another standard candle: the tip of the red-giant-branch (TRGB) star. Such stars, with masses ranging from a large fraction of our suns to a few times that, are at the very end of their life and have grown ruddy and swollenthus the red giant name. More specifically, they have burned off almost all of their hydrogen, leaving behind a helium core. When the core crosses a precise mass threshold, the helium ignites, giving such stars the same intrinsic luminosity. To accurately calibrate the absolute brightness of such stars, astronomers needed an accurate estimate of the distance to them without using Cepheids. Thats where a galaxy called NGC 4258 became important.NGC 4258 hosts water-rich clouds called megamasers. (A maser is the microwave equivalent of a laser; mega refers to their copious, coherent emission of microwaves, which makes them appear conspicuously bright even across enormous cosmic distances.) Other teams had already measured the velocity of these clouds as they orbit the galaxys central supermassive black hole and worked out the geometric distance to NGC 4258. Tully and colleagues used this distance and observations made by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to calibrate the absolute brightness of TRGB stars in NGC 4258. Armed with this information, they then used the JWST to observe and calculate the distances to 14 other galaxies that host TRGB stars.These galaxies, however, are still relatively nearby, and their velocities are dominated not by the universes expansion but by the push and pull of other galaxies in their host clusters. To measure the Hubble constant, we have to measure distances to galaxies that are several 100 million light-years away, far enough that the influences of gravitational interactions between different galaxies doesnt get in the way of our measurement, says team member Gagandeep Anand of the Space Telescope Science Institute.This meant climbing still another rung of this new, supernovae-free distance ladder. The team used the previously derived TRGB distances to discern a property of aging galaxies full of TRGB stars known as surface brightness fluctuations (SBF). Because SBF is a statistical property that relies on measurements of ensembles of stars rather than individual ones (which are much harder to distinguish from further away), its well suited for deeper gazes into the cosmos. Anchoring measures of SBF to the TRGB technique allowed Tully and his colleagues to extract distances for galaxies from SBF observations previously made by the Hubble Space Telescope, out to a distance of about 100 megaparsecs. Finally, using those distances to calculate H0, they got a value of about 73.8 km/s/Mpc. The researchers posted their results to the preprint server arXiv.org in February.Its pretty clear there is a very strong tension between the local estimates of H0 and the CMB-and-LCDM routes estimates, Riess says.LCDM assumes that dark energy manifests in the form of the so-called cosmological constant, a sort of repulsive counterforce to gravity for which the energy density would not change over time. And the ACT teams CMB-based results suggest that LCDM is on very firm footing. Using the ACT data, we have tested many of the models that have been proposed that could make the Hubble constant larger by changing the physics, Spergel says. We constrain all of them and find no evidence for new physics or a higher Hubble constant.This contrasts with the latest result from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) team, which collected data about the motion of about 15 million galaxies and combined this with other data to reconstruct the universes expansion history. The DESI result suggests that dark energy has a density that evolves with time, which may be evidence for important new physics beyond the confines of LCDM. Also, the DESI analysis shows that allowing dark energy to vary over timeas may be required to explain the teams dataends up increasing the Hubble tension rather than easing it. This means physicists must get back to the drawing board, Riess says. With the DESI results, I imagine many folks will be looking for an idea that can explain both late-time evolution in dark energy and the Hubble tension, he says.Scolnic thinks that these odd resultsfirst the renewed Hubble tension, nay, crisis and now the worry about dark energys true natureare powerful hints that something is missing from our best models of the cosmos. When theres one thing, you could kind of rule it out as people making a mistake, he says. When theres a second thing, youre like, Okay, maybe something weird is going on.

April 1, 2025Unpacking the Mystery of Squirting: What Science Really SaysA mysterious and often debated aspect of human sexuality colloquially known as squirting sparks controversy. This episode explores what research reveals. Photo illustration: Scientific American; Image: Getty ImagesSUBSCRIBE TO Science QuicklyRachel Feltman: For Scientific Americans Science Quickly, Im Rachel Feltman. Just a heads-up, todays episode is about human sexuality. We talk about sex, sometimes using slang terms but without any profanity. Id probably give this episode a PG-13 rating. So if you usually listen with kids, maybe give this one a solo trial run to make sure youre comfortable with the questions it may raise. And if you just really dont like hearing people talk about sex, then this episode isnt for you! No hard feelings, well see you on Friday.Now that thats out of the way: the human body is capable of doing some pretty incredible thingsincluding things we dont yet understand. But few physical phenomena inspire as much speculation or debate as the one colloquially known as squirting.My guest today is Wendy Zukerman, host of the hit podcast Science Vs. You may remember her from her previous appearance on Science Quickly back in August. If not, Ill refresh your memory: we talked about anal sex. Shes back today to tell us how Science Vs tackled the surprisingly controversial science of squirting.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Wendy, welcome back to the show! Its so great to have you.Wendy Zukerman: Oh, thank you so much for having me!Feltman: So the last time you were on Science Quickly, you were talking about your deep dive into the science of anal sexthe very neglected science of anal sex. Tell me about your latest sexual-health research endeavor.Zukerman: I know! Rachel, I wanted to tell the audience: We cover other issues, you know [laughs]?Feltman: [Laughs] Science Vs is a great, extremely varied show, and you are ...Zukerman: [Laughs] We have a new season ...Feltman: Back here today to talk about more sex stuff [laughs].Zukerman: Exactly. While this season is gonna cover ADHD, fluoride, methamphetamine, creatine, I am here to talk about the first episode of this season, which is on squirting.Feltman: Incredible. So there may be listeners who are like, Whats that?Zukerman: Great question.Feltman: So [laughs] yeah, what is it?Zukerman: Well, yes, so it is this rather mysterious phenomena where folks who have a vagina, sometimes when theyre extremely aroused, about to orgasm, at the moment of orgasm, a large amount of fluid will gush out of them. And its this big mystery around: What is this fluid? Where is it coming from? Is it coming from the vagina, the urethra? Is it pee? Is it female ejaculate?And for many years on the Internet you see these sort of fights playing out, and they often have this kind of political-ish tone to it, where often sort of feminist websites will argue, It is not pee; we have a special ejaculate, and then you have these kind of other websites that are sayingyou know, theyre kind of downplaying the squirt and saying, you know, No, it is just pee. And then in the middle of that, you have a lot of people being angry.And so we just wanted to say, like, this is ridiculous. Were in 2025. How can a physiological phenomena, how can this thing cause so much drama and be so politicized? What is this liquid? We should be able to know [laughs]. We have very sophisticated science. We should be able to determine what this liquid is.Feltman: Absolutely. So what did you know about the concept going into making this episode?Zukerman: So I have squirted, just sort of at the beginning of my sexual encounters. And for me, when it happened, I really thought it was pee.Feltman: Mm-hmm.Zukerman: I was quite certain. I wasnt devastated or anything; I was just like, Oh, bodies are weird, but I dont wanna be cleaning the sheets every time that this happens, so Im gonna kind of train my body not to do that, and I was able to.Nowadays it sort of has this very powerful element. Its part of porn, and it has these exciting elements to it, and its sort of a real accomplishment that you have squirted. But I guess, still, to a lot of folks who do it, and we did this large survey of our listenerswho has squirted and how many times and how they felt about itand you still see this sort of real confusion around how people feel about it, which is often tied to this idea of: What exactly is this liquid? And so I was just very curious myself where people were getting their evidence from here and what we could know about it.Feltman: Yeah, well, I definitely wanna get into the survey itself, but first, with your episode on anal sex, you really found collaborators who were also mystified at the lack of research and who helped you, you know, make this very scientific. Were you able to do the same thing for squirting?Zukerman: Yeah, so with squirting we actually do have some data that has really probed this question of: What is that fluid? Theres still a lot missing in the dataso we have sort of a bunch of small studies that have been well-done, and so in this case, while our survey was really helpful to sort of capture how many folks this is happening to and how they feel about it, we were able to look at the peer-reviewed literature this time to really see whats going on here.Feltman: Well, what is going on? What [laughs]?Zukerman: Okay, so let me tell you about one of the studies that we found. It was done by a French gynecologist, and we spoke to him, Samuel Salama. It was very funnywhen I was chatting to him, I sort of asked him, Why did you do a study on squirting? And as youll hear, its very well-thought-out, and he started, hes likeI was gonna do a French accent, but I, I wont, save the listeners that; one accent will be enough. And he started going, Its an interesting phenomena. At the time we really didnt know what the fluid was. And I was like, Come on, Sam. Why did you do the study on squirting? And he says, Okay, okay, okay. When I was younger And Im like, Thank you. He said he had a lover, she squirted. They were both so curious what was going on. They tried to find out. They tried to ask friends and doctors, and no one gave them a credible explanation.And so years later hes studying sexology, he has a clinic that he can use that can really get to the bottom of this. I think he was askedeveryone needs to do a research project as part of his studies. And he says, Great, nows the opportunity. And so what he does is he gets seven what he called systematic squirters, which meant that these were folks who could squirt every single time they got aroused. Cause for some people it sort of happens every now and then, but if hes going to the trouble to do the experiment, he wants to make sure that these folks are gonna squirt when they need to squirt.So he gets the women to come into the lab, and whats really cool is that he does an ultrasound of their pelvis and bladder at various points of this squirting adventure. So first, he gets them to go to the bathroom and then ultrasounds their pelvis and bladder. And so he can see that after theyve gone to the bathroom, the bladder is empty. Thats what should happen. And then he says, Okay, go into this very sort of sterile-looking room in the clinic and go forth.But what he did, which was very insightful, is he said, Before you squirt, at the peak of arousal, get me to come back inIm gonna ultrasound your bladder again.Feltman: Mm-hmm.Zukerman: And sowhich I just imagine what it would be like for these folks to hold on to that aroused state while you get [an] ultrasound of your bladder [laughs]. And then the ultrasounds done, and then he says, Okay ...Feltman: Get back to it.Zukerman: Get to it. Now you can squirt. And he walks out of the room again. Then they squirt. He comes back into the roomyou can hear him on the tape, and hes sort of describing, This liquid is everywhere. Cause in some cases it can be quite a lot of fluid coming out; the world record for squirt is 1.35 literswhich dont make me translate that into gallons [laughs].Feltman: [Laughs] No, thats a lot, though.Zukerman: Its a lot of liquid. Its a lot of liquid. Think about ...Feltman: Yeah, Americans know that a big bottle of soda is 2 liters, so we have a frame of reference [laughs].Zukerman: Yes, okayI thought so!So then he does another ultrasound of the bladder after the squirt is done, and what is really curious is that he saw that at the peak of arousal, before they had squirtedso remember: their bladders were empty cause theyd peed ...Feltman: Mm-hmm.Zukerman: Before this whole process begins. Then he ultrasounds their bladder at peak of arousal, and he can see the bladder has filled up again.Feltman: Hmm.Zukerman: Yes, which is very curious and very interesting for anyone who has had the experience of going to the bathroom before a sexual activity, having sex, and then peeing straight after and wondering, Thats so crazyI just peed 15 minutes ago.But this is a very interesting phenomenon, and another study that got two folks, a straight couple, to have sex in an MRI, also noticed that the woman, their bladders filled up during arousal.Feltman: Hmm.Zukerman: So it must be something about, you know, heart rates going, bloods moving around, processes are moving faster. Were not exactly sure why this happens. Butso bladder fills up. Then the squirt happens. Rachel, you wanna guess whats going on with the bladder?Feltman: I would guess that it empties, probably.Zukerman: It did.Feltman: Yeah [laughs].Zukerman: The bladder was empty, telling us that the liquid was coming from the bladder.Feltman: Right.Zukerman: Yes. And Sam also looked at the chemicals inside the squirt cause he had all the liquid there, and he could see various chemicals that we tend to find in urine, so urea, uric acid, things like this. Other studies have found this as well, when theyve looked at the chemicals in squirt.Feltman: Mm.Zukerman: Its sometimesone study found that it was quite diluted.Feltman: Right, I was gonna say, it would make sense for it to be pretty dilute if the bladders sort of quickly filling up again.Zukerman: It would, although when I asked Sam about this, he said sometimes its dilute and sometimes its not ...Feltman: Mm.Zukerman: And soand he actually had a photo of the squirt, and it looked like yellow pee.Feltman: Mm-hmm.Zukerman: Maybe not the most concentrate pee one has ever produced, but it definitely did not look like water to me ...Feltman: Got it, yeah.Zukerman: And so from that studyits only seven women, but theres some very curious research that we also talk about in the episode thats also suggesting that the bulk of this fluid is coming from the bladder.Feltman: Right, so that mystery solved, but you also created this big survey that I think you said thousands of people responded to, so tell me a little bit about that.Zukerman: Although mystery solved, there is a tiny bit more mystery, which explains why you have this battle online. Because although the bulk of the fluid is coming from urine, in some cases there is a little bit of this sort of other substance ...Feltman: Mm.Zukerman: That ends up in squirt, which comes from the female prostate. And we discuss at lengththeres a lot of sort of mystery, controversy around this gland. But bothif you have a penis, a vagina, you do have sort of this prostate gland, although it looks quite different. And so that is where the bulk of this fight comes from, is thatsort of this idea that, Okay, the bulk of squirt might be pee, but theres a little bit that comes from the female prostate and that therefore makes it different. And so, in our episode, we sort of discuss what on earth the female prostate is, some interesting new findings in that area, and whether that does sort of change the substance.At that point that becomes a sort of philosophical argument ...Feltman: Yeah.Zukerman: You know, is this an Arnold Palmer situation? Is it a Shirley Temple? Is it a Manhattan with a dirty olive juice? You know, we had many chats around the office about: What does, what does this mean? Is it changing it? Is it not? And I think that just depends on your perspective. But to go back to the survey, and I think that is where sort of thatit all kind of comes to the fore, is that because we do see this patternand so our survey found this, but other research has as wellthat for those who tend to think its pee, they generally feel more negative about squirting ...Feltman: Mm-hmm.Zukerman: Which makes perfect sense. If you feel like you have just peed all over your partner or peed all over your bed, thats not necessarily a great thing, whereas if you feel like you have just ejaculated over your partner, well, you just had a sexy time. And so, in our survey, 45 percent of those with vaginas had squirted at least once in their lifetime. Other surveys show this as well. So that is a huge number of folks this is happening to. It tells us that this is a normal physiological process; you dont just get almost, you know, one and two of us. And I think you could feel good about it no matter what that substance is.Feltman: Yeah, were there any other surprising takeaways in the survey?Zukerman: The really interesting finding that I would loveI know science funding is in a tough spot right now, but perhaps in future days: so squirting is always talked about [as] a phenomena that just happens if you have a vagina. And theres sort of been this assumption that if you have a penis, you do not squirt because you ejaculate insteadthats the fluid coming out of you during sexy times. Because theres a lot of mysteries around the physiological process, we just thought wed ask people with penises, Have you squirted, too?We found that it was something like 7.6 percent of folks with penises said they squirted, too. And we explicitly said, you know, Were not talking about ejaculate ...Feltman: Mm-hmm.Zukerman: Cum, this kind of thing. And that, we asked around to urologists about what they thought of this, and some were quite skeptical it would be that high, some thought maybe because, you know, we know that theres some mechanisms around the penis that if you are erect, you really shouldnt be able to pee because it sort of blocks off that process, which isthank you, evolution; you dont want someone peeing inside you. Theres a lot of variation in the human spirit out there, and so sometimes that mechanism doesnt work that well, and so it makes sense thatyou know, one researcher we spoke to said its possible that after a penis ejaculates, maybe if they then continue to be aroused, maybe then what comes out next is a bit more like pee. We really dont know. There was one case study in the literature that we found of someone with a penis who did squirtso this was sort of, like, a verified, singular case study of a man squirting. And then we have our survey, but thats all we know.Feltman: Yeah, well, a lot still to learn. Thank you so much for coming on to talk about this with us. Im really excited to listen to the whole episode on Science Vs.Zukerman: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.Feltman: Thats all for todays show. You can check out an extended version of this episode over on our YouTube channel. And dont forget to check out Science Vs for an even deeper dive on the subject of squirting.Science Quickly is produced by me, Rachel Feltman, along with Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Naeem Amarsy and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Subscribe to Scientific American for more up-to-date and in-depth science news.For Scientific American, this is Rachel Feltman. See you next time!

OpinionApril 2, 20255 min readPsychologys Groupthink Helps Explain the Signal Chat FiascoAt the heart of the Trump administrations Signal scandal lies the familiar psychological pitfall of groupthinkBy Dan Vergano U.S. President Donald Trump, U.S. National Security Adviser Michael Waltz, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, on March 13, 2025 in Washington, D.C. Waltz, Vance, and Hegseth have faced criticism for communicating their plans and rationale for bombing Yemen via the encrypted messaging app Signal. Andrew Harnik/Getty ImagesKilling civilians. Endangering pilots. Gross negligence. Breaking the law. Take your pick which Signal group chat calamity is worse for the Trump administration. Listing all the scandals is almost as challenging as finding an explanation for them. But at its heart sits a familiar, dangerous, flawed peril of political psychology: groupthink.In March, Trump administration officials, including Vice President J.D. Vance, messaged over the cellphone chat app Signal their plans and rationale for bombing Yemen. They unintentionally included the editor of the Atlantic in this phone chat, and shared timing, details and targets of the bombing with him. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth denied that the classified plans had been shared, but the Atlantic released the transcript of the chat, proving him wrong. A subsequent Senate hearing further confirmed that the leak had happened. A federal judge has now ordered the preservation of these records, which seem destined to be part of a court case that will keep the scandal in the news.The political psychology of the cabinet members decision to bomb Yemen fits a familiar pattern. In the initial March 11 chat, Vance argued the bombing was inconsistent with Trumps messaging on letting Europe fight its own wars. But those objections were quickly shut down by presidential adviser Stephen Miller saying As I heard it, the president was clear: green light, ending any foreign policy debate or consideration of the objections. Agree, said Hegseth. His next message came a day later, tabulating the F-18s, Strike Drones and timing of the attacks.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.First of all, this conversation should not be happening by Signal chat, says Colgate Universitys Danielle Lupton, author of Reputation for Resolve: How Leaders Signal Determination in International Politics, an expert on civilian-military communications. In political psychology, what we are seeing here is most often described as groupthink, says Lupton. First described by Yale psychologist Irving Janis in 1972, groupthink leads to premature decisions, often bad ones, spurred by conformity within groups where any one person feels that disagreement is impossible.Most famously in the 1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco, groupthink led advisors to suppress private doubts that might have stopped the botched CIA-sponsored invasion of Cuba that nearly capsized the Kennedy administration. Similar group dynamics were seen in failures by presidential advisors in the Watergate scandal in 1972, and the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Groupthink likewise explains why the recollection of presidential consigliere Miller was enough to make a decision and end debate in the Signal chat scandal. Dissent simply isnt permitted when groupthink is operating.Groupthink might also explain why no one thought to ask why J.G., the initials of Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg, were in their conversation. Or why a principals groupwhich normally holds war planning in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, where personal cellphones are bannedviolated basic security rules by chatting about attack details on their phones. Thats despite many of the people in the chat, including Vance, Hegseth and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, having military backgrounds that would have included yearly secrecy training. The Pentagon this month posted an advisory against using Signal, NPR reported.The White House sees this differently, with President Donald Trump claiming the bombing plans were not classified, and calling complaints over the Signal chat screwup a witch hunt. (Fair to say, this is wrong: Its dumbfounding to even contemplate an argument that this would not be classified, national security attorney Mark Zaid told Task & Purpose in response to the leak. Leaking drone warfare details, not even battle plans, to a journalist netted one defense analyst 45 months in prison in 2021.)More recent scholarship has emphasized the political psychology at work in groupthink failures in government, rather than personal psychology, where appealing to voters or avoiding political losses explains group dynamics. That fits the Signal chat discussion, more focused on political messaging of the Yemen bombing than its wisdom. Lets make sure our messaging is tight here, said Vance at one point. Hegseth says, this leaks, and we look indecisive, at another, to justify the decision.Was it a wise decision? Trumps team called it highly successful. But its unlikely that Yemens Houthi militia will stop firing missiles at ships in the Red Sea over the bombing, says Dartmouths Jason Lyall, author of Divided Armies: Inequality and Battlefield Performance in Modern War. The U.S. has only bombed Yemen more since the Signal chat attacks. These strikes serve very little purpose other than signaling that the administration is doing something; its mostly theater, a privileging of kinetic action over meaningful diplomacy that might resolve the issue, Lyall says, by e-mail.Trust is the deeper psychological question at play in the Signal chat scandal, added Lupton, the international politics scholar. Trust is really fragile. And it can take just one event to really erode, she says. On the trust front, the released Signal chat should alarm the European allies of the U.S., as it is filled with attacks on their reliability and capabilities. I just hate bailing out Europe again, says Vance at one point. I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. Its PATHETIC, says Hegseth, a few minutes later.Such language explains why Europe is now planning for military self-sufficiency in five years, undermining U.S. efforts since the end of World War II to prevent militarization there. The U.S. famously heads a global Five Eyes intelligence sharing organization with Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the U.K. Its unclear why these nations would share any intelligence with a nation whose leadership invites random reporters into bombing meetings, setting a new watchword for sloppy, careless, incompetent behavior, in the words of Senator Mark Warner of Virginia.Domestically, theres already a recruiting crisis in the U.S. military, with nearly one quarter of soldiers leaving after their first two-year enlistment. How will those soldiers, and their families, react to learning that secrecy rules might apply to them but not to political figures? Or to news that those politicians might mistakenly endanger their lives without paying any price? The attorney general has indicated the Signal chat would not be investigated as an Espionage Act violation, and the administration has wishfully declared case closed on the scandal.Accountability is the only way to restore trust after such a fiasco, said Lupton. Otherwise, the geopolitical and domestic repercussions of the Signal chat scandal will only worsen over time, she says. Everyone on that group text should be fired, or resign, and thats clearly not happening.A dubious decision made after truncated debate on an insecure platform: It isnt groupthink to look over the scandal and agree with Luptons indictment.This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

April 1, 20254 min readNIH Director Removes Four Main Scientists amid Massive Staff PurgeThe Trump Administration has fired four leaders and thousands of employees at the National Institutes of Health in "one of the darkest days"By Max Kozlov & Nature magazine Jay Bhattacharya took office as director of the US National Institutes of Health on April 1, 2025. Andrew Harnik/Getty ImagesOn health economist Jay Bhattacharyas first day as head of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), the chiefs of four of the 27 institutes and centres that make up his agencyincluding the countrys top infectious-diseases officialwere removed from their posts. The unprecedented move comes amid massive cuts to research at the NIH.The directors of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) and the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) were informed late on 31 March that they were being placed on administrative leave. Together, these leaders were in charge of US$9 billion in funding at the NIH.At least some directors were offered reassignments to the Indian Health Service, a division of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that provides medical care to Indigenous people living in the United States. (The HHS is the parent agency of the NIH.) HHS proposes to reassign you as part of a broader effort to strengthen the Department and more effectively promote the health of the American people, reads an e-mail to the directors that Nature has obtained. This underserved community deserves the highest quality of service, and HHS needs individuals like you to deliver that service, it says, offering reassignment to locations such as Alaska, Montana and Oklahoma.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.These large-scale reassignments are unheard of for the NIH, the worlds largest public funder of biomedical research: although the director of the NIH and the director of one of its institutes, the National Cancer Institute, are political appointees chosen by the US president, the other 26 directors of the NIHs institutes and centres are not typically replaced when presidential administrations change. (NIMHD director Eliseo Prez-Stable, for example, had been in his role for nearly 10 years, under three different US presidents.) But US President Donald Trump, who took office in January, has not been following the norms of past administrations during his second presidency.This will go down as one of the darkest days in modern scientific history in my 50 years in the business, says Michael Osterholm, an infectious-diseases epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. These are going to be huge losses to the research community.When asked for a response, the NIH directed Nature to the HHS for comment. The NIHs top communications officer, Renate Myles, was also placed on administrative leave, according to an agency staff member, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the press. The HHS did not respond to Natures queries by publication time.A consolidation of powerThe removal of the directors follows an announcement last week by HHS chief Robert F. Kennedy Jr that his agency, which includes the NIH, would be reducing its workforce by 20,000 employees, or about one-quarter of its staff members. Layoffs have largely been targeted at administrative staff, but many scientists, including those that run HIV prevention programmes and research have also been affected.The layoffs will challenge the longstanding status that the NIHs institutes and centres have had within the agencyas semi-autonomous entities. Legislative, communications, IT and other administrative workers within each institute received termination notices early on 1 April, a move designed to consolidate power under the NIH director. NIH will cease to function after the RIFs [reductions in force]; it will take months to get things back online administratively, says another NIH official, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the press.In his first e-mail to agency staff members on 1 April, which was obtained by Nature, Bhattacharya wrote: These reductions in the workforce will have a profound impact on key NIH administrative functions ... and will require an entirely new approach to how we carry them out.Bhattacharya also wrote that he wanted the NIH to focus on reproducibility and rigour, transparency and academic freedom, even as the agency on 28 March scrapped its scientific integrity policy aimed at prohibiting political influence on government science.Meanwhile, in the past month, the NIH has terminated more than 700 research grants funding studies of an ever-growing list of topics: projects on transgender populations; gender identity; diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the scientific workforce; COVID-19; vaccine hesitancy; and environmental justice.Of these grant cancellations, a disproportionate number come from research funded at the NIAID, the NICHD, the NIMHD and the NINR. These institutes fund many projects that clash with Trumps political ideology, a possible explanation for why these directors were targeted.The NIAIDwhich was being led by infectious-disease physician Jeanne Marrazzo and, before her, by Anthony Faucihas been especially scrutinized by Trump and other Republican politicians for its alleged deficiencies in the oversight of grants funding research on risky pathogens and the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. Conservative policymakers introduced a bill in February that proposes dismantling the NIAID and splitting it into three separate institutes.The treatment of these directors is frankly unconscionable, says Monica Bertagnolli, former NIH director under Trumps predecessor, Joe Biden, a Democrat. These are all outstanding leaders, who were let go without accounting for the harm that could be done with the loss of research productivity and the loss of programmes delivering life-saving treatments.This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on April 1, 2025.

March 31, 20253 min readSpaceX Hits New Milestone with Fram2, the First-Ever Crewed Polar MissionThe privately funded Fram2 mission is the first ever to take astronauts into polar orbitand the latest sign of a new normal for human spaceflightBy Lee Billings edited by Dean VisserA SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Fram2 mission astronauts aboard soars into a polar orbit after lifting off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida on March 31, 2025. Gregg Newton/AFP via Getty ImagesIn some respects, the most notable thing about Fram2, the private four-person space mission that launched on Monday night on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, is its polar orbit. Named after the Norwegian polar-exploration vessel Fram, the Fram2 mission marks the first time humans have occupied this particular slot around our planet, a swooping ellipse that takes a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft between Earths North and South Poles in about 45 minutes. Especially when seen from a panoramic cupola attached to the spacecraft, the unique views offered by Fram2s 430-kilometer-high orbital perch are breathtakingly cooleven leaving aside the vast expanses of polar ice far below.But the notional noteworthiness of Fram2s three-to-five-day stay in polar orbit ironically belies something even more remarkable: privately funded human spaceflight is now considered so routine that any such mission seeking to make headlines desperately needs some attention-grabbing first.Why Did Fram2 Go to Polar Orbit?On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.None of the 22 life-science-focused experiments carried onboard Fram2 demanded that it reach polar orbit, which hadnt been attempted in previous crewed missions because of the increased amount of fuel required to get there. (Fram2 flew southward from its launch site, whereas most space missions have targeted more equatorial orbits and have launched toward the east to receive a fuel-saving boost from Earths rotation). Simply put, aside from the desire for some novel gimmick, there was no clear rationale for SpaceXs mission planners or Fram2s leader, cryptocurrency billionaire Chun Wang, to have chosen a polar orbit in the first place.Why This MattersNone of this means that sending humans into that orbit isnt a legitimately impressive feat. It isall the more so because SpaceXs Falcon 9 rocket not only safely delivered the Crew Dragon to polar orbit; it also had enough leftover fuel to still perform a pinpoint soft landing on an awaiting barge in the Atlantic Ocean. But Fram2s polarity overshadows the more mundane but no less astonishing new normal, in which private human spaceflight has rapidly shifted from the stuff of science fiction to a decidedly unexceptional reality.Two screen captures from the livestream of SpaceXs launch of the private Fram2 mission, showing the glowing nozzle of the Falcon 9 rocket (left) and the spacesuit-clad Fram2 crew in the Crew Dragon capsule (right).SpaceXConsider that this is SpaceXs 17th crewed mission, of which about a third have been privately funded. Wang and his three crewmatesfilmmaker Jannicke Mikkelsen, roboticist Rabea Rogge and polar explorer Eric Philipsall rode in Resilience, the Crew Dragon vehicle that has flown three other crews (two of them private) to space. Resiliences previous private missions were both commanded by billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, who has since parlayed his SpaceX-powered passion for spaceflight into a nomination to lead NASA on behalf of the Trump administration. And the Fram2 launch occurred scarcely two weeks after the liftoff of SpaceXs NASA-funded Crew-10 mission to the International Space Stationthe shortest gap yet between the companys crewed launches, all of which have taken place as SpaceX has maintained a frenetic record-setting pace of uncrewed commercial launches and has continued the wildly ambitious development of its potentially revolutionary Starship vehicle.Whats NextOne might be tempted to think this is merely a reflection of SpaceXs success, but the rising numbers of legitimate competitors for the companys launch-industry dominance suggest otherwise. Even if SpaceX somehow falters, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, United Launch Alliance and other launch providers all appear on track to offer broadly similar services in coming years, suggesting that this bold new era of spaceflight is here to stay.

April 1, 20253 min readTrump Administration Cancels NIH Scientific Integrity PolicyThe National Institutes of Health said it pulled the policy because of language on diversity and inclusion, in line with directives from the Trump administrationBy Ariel Wittenberg & E&E News Mark Wilson/NewsmakersCLIMATEWIRE | The National Institutes of Health has rescinded a scientific integrity policy intended to protect research and communications from political interference, citing the policy's commitment to diversity and inclusion.The policy was rescinded Friday evening to ensure alignment with the administrations priorities, according to a notice posted by NIH. The notice says NIH, which is the largest source of funding for medical research in the world, will now follow the Department of Health and Human Services' broader scientific integrity policy.NIH, the notice says, remains committed to upholding the principles of scientific integrity.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.The NIH policy, which was last updated during the final months of the Biden administration, included a commitment that diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) are integral components of the entire scientific process."Attention to DEIA can improve the success of the scientific workforce, foster innovation in the conduct and use of science, and provide for more equitable participation in science by diverse communities," the policy said.No such diversity language is included in the HHS policy NIH is now meant to follow.HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said the policy was pulled due to the diversity language. The NIH policy, he said, had been weaponized by the Biden administration to inject harmful DEI and gender ideology into research.Rescinding the policy, he said, will allow NIH to restore science to its golden standard and protect the integrity of science through the HHS policy.The move has alarmed scientists and public health experts who argue that the Trump administration has already politicized science by eliminating HHS offices focused on health equity and climate change, canceling research grants on racial health disparities and other topics the administration does not like, and removing health data from the HHS website.When someone rolls back a policy, the natural question is if they are doing that because they know they would be violating it were it to remain in place, said Liz Borkowski, director of health policy management at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University.The agency's rescission of its scientific integrity policy came during NIH Director Jay Bhattacharyas second week on the job.Bhattacharya himself has conducted federally funded research into racial health disparities, including authoring a 2012 paper that found black patients had higher mortality rates following heart transplants than white patients. During his confirmation hearing, Bhattacharya told senators that he would not allow NIH to be influenced by President Donald Trumps executive orders to restrict funding and communications for initiatives that promote diversity, inclusion and equity.The health needs of minorities in this country are a vital priority for me, he told Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.). I dont see anything in the presidential orders that contradict that.Environmental and climate health researchers who receive funding from NIH are already fearful that the Trump administration could target their grants. Many NIH grants for climate-related research examine how the health effects of climate change, like heat-related illnesses, can have outsize impacts on communities of color and marginalized communities.Rescinding the NIH scientific integrity policy puts all science at risk, said Jennifer Jones, director for science and democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.In the last week alone, she said, HHS cut 10,000 staff members and forced out the Food and Drug Administrations top vaccine official. In his resignation letter, Dr. Peter Marks accused HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of pushing misinformation about vaccine safety as measles continues to spread across the country.It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies, Marks wrote.Marks departure underscores the need for scientific integrity policies throughout each of HHSs agencies, Jones said, arguing that workers at NIH should be able to report accusations of political interference to integrity officials within their own agency.We need policies in place to protect the scientists who remain at the agency and who remain funded, and to protect us from this conspiracy-minded administration, she said.Reprinted from E&E News with permission from POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2025. E&E News provides essential news for energy and environment professionals.

April 1, 20254 min readFour-Year Olds Respond to Misinformation by Exercising Instinctive Skepticism MusclesChildren ages four to seven demonstrate natural fact checking skills when put to a test with zebras and space aliensBy Gary Stix edited by Dean Visser Sanjeri/Getty ImagesSocial scientists have long studied how children develop a sense of trust in others and how they judge whether someone they are talking to is telling the truth. Less attention has been devoted to how young children judge what is true or false in their early encounters with social media.That has started to change as the online world has become a routine fixture of childrens lives. By the time they reach the age of nine, one third of American children have come into contact with at least one social media platform. By the teen years, social media has become young peoples main source of news about the world around them. An immediate challenge for these neophytes is distinguishing between what is real and fake onlinea struggle exacerbated by AI-based chatbots that deliver relentless streams of untruths.One obvious solution is to isolate a child from such lies and distortions, but a safe refuge has proved elusive. The YouTube Kids channel faced parents outrage in 2017, when inappropriately sexual, lewd and violent content turned up after the platforms filters labeled it child-friendly. (YouTube Kids responded by increasing parental controls.) Another possible approach involves prebunking: inoculating kids to misinformation by letting them know that what they are about to see is false. Similar techniques are used to alert adults about falsehoods related to climate change or vaccinations.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.A different and perhaps more inventive tack entails accepting the inevitability of children spending time online and prodding them to become their own fact-checkers. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, tested such an approach by asking whether children could learn to recognize misinformationand to use that ability to develop their own fact-checking skills.Evan Orticio, a graduate student in the research group of Berkeley psychologist Celeste Kidd, and colleagues designed a study to investigate the natural fact-checking abilities of young children. The researchers went to parks near campus to interview families who might be willing to participate and recruited 122 children from four to seven years of age for a gamified fact-checking exercise. We were looking, Orticio says, at whether children can adjust their level of skepticism according to the quality of information theyve seen before and translate that into a reasonable policy for how much they should fact-check new information.The kids who joined the study were handed a tablet with content that was presented in the format of either an e-book or a search engine. They were shown a series of statements with accompanying images.Hippos swim in water, read one statement.Hippos swim in outer space, read another.For each statement, the kids were asked to indicate whether they thought it was factual while they inspected realistic images of, say, zebras or hippos.Then they were asked to look at a different page on the tablet that showed 20 space aliens called zorpies. One zorpie had its face exposed to reveal that it had three eyes. The kids then were asked to confirm whether the statement all zorpies have three eyes was, in fact, true. They were given the opportunity to tap on any number of the 20 zorpies to remove the aliens sunglasses and count their eyes before deciding whether the claim was factual.Children who had been exposed to more falsehoods when they were being quizzed about animals in the first part of the exercise removed the glasses from more zorpies, on average, to count the number of eyes. They were more careful to fact-check claims, so they spent longer and sought out more evidence before just accepting this claim about aliens, Orticio says. Kids who had less exposure to false claims did little fact-checkinga conclusion further bolstered by a computer simulation of the games. The results of this research were published in Nature Human Behaviour last October.The conclusions drawn from this research, Orticio says, suggest that oversanitizing childrens media consumptionallowing exposure only to sites labeled kid-friendlymay be a mistake. It can prevent the development of skills that allow a child to discriminate between true and false.Slowly but steadily, the need to teach children to identify misinformation at a young age is gaining recognition. Finlands public school system, for example, now incorporates lessons on media literacy (including how to spot fake news) that begin in preschool.Judith Danovitch, a professor of psychological and brain sciences at the University of Louisville, who was not involved in the research, called the studies methods clever. The results are a great starting point for solving the puzzle of how to help children become informed consumers of information, she says. But, she adds, more research is needed before the authors methods can be adapted into a practical intervention. As the authors point out, it has yet to be seen whether these effects last or extend into other domains.One way to achieve that goal, Orticio proposes, would be to distribute something like the researchers fact-checking game on social media or even on childrens websites such as YouTube Kids. Childrens skepticism is context-specific, Orticio says, so the key is to give them safe opportunities to practice critical thinking in the real, digital world.

OpinionApril 1, 20253 min readAs Happened in Texas, Ignoring EPA Science Will Allow Pollution and Cancer to FesterTrump administration plans to destroy EPA science will leave the air we breathe and the water we drink more pollutedBy Jennifer Sass Cows graze near the Oak Grove Power Plant in Robertson County, Texas, subject to EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) rules to reduce carbon emissions and mercury pollution under the Biden administration. Brandon Bell/Getty ImagesIve spent my scientific career asking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to set stronger, lawful public-health protections from toxic chemicals. I do not always agree with EPAs final decisions, but I respect the scientific process and am always grateful for the agencys scientistsour public brain trust.In one of the most dangerous acts against facts and science, the Trump administration announced in March that it will shutter the EPAs independent research office. This will cut more than 1,000 scientists and technical experts who help the agency determine if, for example, a chemical poses a cancer risk, or a factory is polluting a nearby river. At the same time, Trumps EPA has installed former oil and chemical industry lobbyists to write the rules to regulate those industries.Theres a lot of empty talk about making us healthy coming from this administration. Future generations will be even worse off.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.What is left unsaid by the Trump EPA is this: eliminating scientists from the EPA is kneecapping environmental safeguards. Every major environmental statutethe Clean Air Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Superfund law governing cleanup requirementsrelies on EPA scientists to calculate how hazardous chemicals are, how people and wildlife may be exposed and what health and ecological harms may occur. Questions critical to environmental and community protections are researched, such as: Will exposure to this chemical in my workplace increase my risk of breast cancer? Is the air quality from power plant emissions safe for the neighboring community? What is an acceptable standard for PFAS forever chemicals in our drinking water?A drone view of the Sulphur Bank mercury mine Superfund site in Clearlake Oaks, Calif., on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2024.Jane Tyska/Digital First Media/East Bay Times via Getty ImagesInstead, the Trump team is yet again swinging its chainsaw, this time against independent science to favor polluting industries. Consequent to gutting scientific inquiries by the government and decimating academic scientific research, only one type of scientific research will be available for setting environmental standards: polluter research. And thats trouble. The public is right to distrust polluter-sponsored science; see tobacco science and the myth of safe nuclear waste for starters.Just ask Texas. The state of Texass vigorous defense of ethylene oxide, a well-known carcinogen, provides an ongoing example of the perils to public health from science done by a polluting industry with a financial interest in the outcome and the support of a state government hell-bent on rewriting scientific facts about a cancer-causing chemical.In 2016, after nearly 10 years of research and analysis, the EPA determined ethylene oxide, a chemical widely used in facilities in Texas and Louisiana to sterilize medical equipment, was linked to cancerwith a 30 times greater risk than the EPA had previously found. EPAs new risk evaluation included a study of over 300 breast cancer cases in women working with the chemical and adjusted for added risks where children may be exposed.EPAs report was finalized after multiple internal reviews, and reviews from other government agencies, with public input including from Texas and the industry on many occasions. There were also two rounds of public review by the agencys science advisory board.Rather than accept that finding, the chemical industry and Texas regulatory agency issued its own alternative report in 2020 on ethylene oxide. In stark contrast with EPAs evaluation, the Texas assessment is a contractor product sponsored by the ethylene oxide industry with limited public review. It fails to account for the risk of breast cancer and could allow over 3,000 times more air pollution to be emitted, which would drastically increase illnesses and deathsincluding from cancerfor workers and nearby communities.In an effort to compel EPA to adopt Texas cancer-friendly risk estimates nationally, Texas requested a review of its findings by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the nations top source of high-quality trusted science and health advice.In March, the National Academies issued its final report, rebuking the foundations of the Texas analysis, finding it repeatedly deviated from best scientific practices and failed to offer a credible basis for its findings, specifically its determination that ethylene oxide was not associated with breast cancer.Texas efforts to rewrite the history of cancer-causing ethylene oxide as a benign, no-big-deal chemical, is just the beginning of the toxic mayhem and misinformation we can expect from the Trump team to support the financial interests of toxic polluters.Erasing cancer evidence, fudging data, and pretending wild claims are the truth will become the norm, undermining every environmental law and regulation in the nation, and compromising our right to health.All of us will suffer for it.This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

March 31, 20253 min readAs Measles Continues to Rise, CDC Muffles Vaccine MessagingBy burying an assessment with updates and recommendations about the U.S.s current measles outbreaks, the CDC has signaled an alarming shift in its public messagingBy Jen Schwartz edited by Jeanna BrynerA health worker prepares a dose of the measles vaccine at a health center in Lubbock, Texas, on February 27, 2025. Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP via Getty ImagesAs measles outbreaks have continued to spread in 19 U.S. states, leaders at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have buried a new assessment by their own experts that found there is a high risk of catching measles in areas where vaccination rates are low, according to an article published by ProPublica on March 28. The assessment had also called for a messaging strategy to encourage vaccination against the potentially deadly disease. But that plan was aborted, signaling a shift in how the agency may be responding to pressure from vaccine critic Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who is now secretary of health and human services.Why It MattersMeasles, caused by a highly contagious and dangerous virus, is very effectively prevented by the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine. But rates of vaccination in the U.S. have been declining in recent years. Historically, the CDCs messaging strategy for encouraging vaccination emphasized the importance of protecting both oneself and the community at large, especially vulnerable people who cannot yet get vaccinated such as young babies. Whats alarming about the CDCs recent inaction is not just its decision to bury the news, health experts say, but also the agencys justification for doing so: in a statement to ProPublica, a CDC spokesperson wrote, The decision to vaccinate is a personal one, a message that does not reflect long-standing scientific consensus but rather echoes the sentiment of vaccine critics such as Kennedy.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Why Vaccine Skepticism Remains a Big ProblemVaccines, especially the MMR vaccine, have been a target of rampant misinformation in recent years. A single fraudulent study had claimed a connection between the MMR vaccine and autism, but that link was debunked years ago. Many other studies have searched for a connection and failed to find one. But lack of trust in vaccine safety remains a big public health issue: A recent survey conducted by the University of Pennsylvania found that the percentage of people who believed that already-approved vaccines were unsafe jumped from 9 percent all the way up to 16 percent between 2021 and 2023. Measles was declared eliminated from the U.S. in 2000, which means it does not circulate on its own. But outbreaks are becoming more common. The total number of people who have tested positive for measles so far this year is already higher than any full year since 2019.What This means for the CDC and Public Health MessagingPublic health officials learned a lot from the COVID pandemic. Chief among those lessons was that frequent and transparent communication is key to establishing and maintaining trust with the public, say public health educators. Withholding essential updates and best practices undermines those goals. It can also prevent data and guidance from reaching local public health services in a timely manner.What You Can Do to Protect YourselfIf youre an adult who was vaccinated against MMR as a child, you can check to see if youre still protected with a simple blood test. If you were born between 1957 and 1975, you likely only got one dose of the vaccine instead of the standard two doses that are given today. The second dose boosts the efficacy of the vaccines protection against measles from 93 percent to 97 percent. If you had only received one dose and live in an area where an outbreak is occurring or work in certain environments such as health care facilities, you might want to talk to your health care provider about your risk and consider an additional dose.

March 31, 20252 min readWatch SpaceX Launch Historic Fram2 Crewed Mission over Earths Poles TonightFram2, a first-of-its-kind private mission to send four astronauts into polar orbit around Earth, is about to launchBy Mike Wall & SPACE.com A close-up view of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and a Crew Dragon spacecraft before a launch at NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The four-person Fram2 crew is set to ride similar hardware into polar orbit on the evening of March 31, 2025. Evgeniy Baranov/Alamy Stock PhotoSpaceX plans to launch the Fram2 astronaut mission over Earth's poles tonight (March 31), and you can watch the action live.Fram2's Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule are scheduled to lift off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida tonight at 9:46 p.m. ET (0146 GMT on April 1). If that timeline isn't met, there are three additional opportunities available over the next roughly 4.5 hours, at 11:20 p.m. ET (0320 GMT), 12:53 a.m. ET (0453 GMT) and 2:26 a.m ET (0626 GMT).SpaceX will stream the launch live via its website and X account, beginning about an hour before liftoff. Space.com will air the webcast as well.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Fram2 will send four people from four different nations to low Earth orbit for three to five days. Those crewmembers all of them spaceflight rookies are mission commander Chun Wang of Malta, vehicle commander Jannicke Mikkelsen of Norway, pilot Rabea Rogge of Germany, and Australian Eric Phillips, Fram2's medical officer and mission specialist.The quartet will circle our planet over both of its poles a trajectory no human spaceflight mission has ever taken before. Fram2 will also break ground with several of its 22 science experiments. For example, the mission will attempt to grow mushrooms and take X-rays of the human body in orbit for the first time."Additionally, after safely returning to Earth, the crew plans to exit from the Dragon spacecraft without additional medical and operational assistance, helping researchers characterize the ability of astronauts to perform unassisted functional tasks after short and long durations in space," SpaceX wrote in a Fram2 mission description.Fram2 will be SpaceX's 17th human spaceflight overall and the sixth conducted for private customers. Among the company's other commercial human flights were Inspiration4 and Polaris Dawn, both of which were funded and commanded by Jared Isaacman, President Donald Trump's nominee to be the next NASA chief.SpaceX's 11 other crewed missions to date have been voyages to and from the International Space Station for NASA.Copyright 2025 Space.com, a Future company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

March 31, 20256 min readIts Not in Your HeadWhy 50-Degree-F Days Feel Warmer in Spring Than in FallThere are real, physiological reasons why the same temperature feels different in April and OctoberBy Allison Parshall & Kelso Harper edited by Dean Visser Toshi Sasaki/Getty ImagesIn the first few weeks of spring, a 50-degree-Fahrenheit (10-degree-Celsius) day might call for a light jacket or no jacketor even short sleeves, depending on the person. But in the fall, the same weather might have you reaching for a parka.Its not just in your head. The relative warmth of spring is physiological as well as psychological; after a long, biting winter, your body has changed in ways that can make 50 degrees F seem downright balmy.I fully experience this on a regular basis with my work, says Cara Ocobock, an anthropologist at the University of Notre Dame, who studies how the human body adapts to cold. Her work often takes her to Finland, where she studies populations of reindeer herders who spend lots of time in extreme cold.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.The human body is very good at acclimatizing to different environmental situations that are not permanentand the changes that your body experiences during this time also arent permanent, she says. Some of these changes involve a heat-generating organ that was only recently discovered in adults.Scientific American spoke with Ocobock to learn more about the changes our bodies undergo during winterincluding to that strange, newfound organand how these changes affect us when the winter chill finally gives way to the warmth of spring.Have you personally experienced this 50 degrees feels warm phenomenon?Yes, I have a story from my last trip to Finland. I was 300 kilometers [185 miles] north of the Arctic Circle during what should have been the coldest time of the year. There were maybe four or five days where it didnt get above 20 degrees Fahrenheit [29 degrees Celsius]. But then five days later, it was in the positive 40s Fahrenheit [or five to 10 degrees C], which should not exist that far north that time of year. After those days of extreme cold, I started sweating [when it went] above freezing. I wouldnt even wear a coat. My body just kind of reversed courselike, We need to cool you down; this is not what we have been used to.How quickly do these physiological changes happen when someone is exposed to more extreme temperatures?Theres always going to be individual and populational variation, but we see the changes start happening pretty quickly. It can start within 24 hours, but they dont fully set in for about seven to 10 days. You will maintain those changes until you go and switch environments again, and then youll lose your acclimatization. This can be to heat, cold, humidity, dryness or high altitude as well. For example, when I [returned to sea level from] field work in the Rocky Mountains, I was able to do two full lengths of an Olympic swimming pool without breathing. Within two weeks, that was gone.So how do our bodies change when we are exposed to cold weather?Theres a constant balancing of several different systems going on here. One of the quick changes is an increase in your resting metabolic ratethe baseline number of calories your body burns in order to survive. Your body is kind of increasing its own thermostat to produce more heat because you are losing more heat to the environment.We also see changes in the way your blood vessels [tighten or expand] to respond to the cold. In the cold, [vessels constrict to] reduce how much blood is flowing through and the heat that can potentially be lost to the environment. And when youre cold, blood will be shunted more to the deep blood vessels that are further away from the surface, whereas in a hot climate, the opposite happens.We also see and increase in brown adipose tissue activitythis is an active area of research. Brown fat, as we call it colloquially, is a type of fat that burns only to keep you warm during acute cold exposure. In adult humans, its located [just above your clavicles], as well as along your major deep blood vessels. This organ, and we do consider it kind of its own organ, uses energy to produce heatnot energy to [activate your muscles] to go run a mile or anything like that. We used to think that human adults never have brown fat. We knew that babies have it [for the first few months of life], but we thought that once they burned through it, that was it. But we are now seeing brown adipose tissue everywhere we look in adult human populations.How is brown fat different from regular fat?Brown adipose tissue is very, very rich in mitochondria. Instead of being the powerhouse of the cell, those mitochondria are the furnace. It basically short-circuits the typical process so that this tissue produces heat rather than energy.In adults, to date, we have seen brown fat in populations in Russia and Finlandcold climates, which makes sense. Weve seen it in Albany, N.Y.temperate climate but cold winters. And weve also seen it in Samoaa tropical island climate. So were beginning to think that brown adipose tissue might be a very deeply ancient tissue and that it could have been around in our evolutionary history for a very long time.How does brown fat activity change during cold seasons?One study on seasonal changes in brown adipose tissue [was] conducted by my former graduate student, Alexandra Niclou. She looked at seasonal variation in a brown adipose tissue among folks in Albany. She found that people were able to maintain higher body temperatures from brown fat in the winter but at a reduced caloric cost. And so it seemed the brown fat actually got more efficient the more it was being used to maintain body temperature in the winter. So there does seem to be a physiological difference in how brown fat is responding between the seasons. Im going back to Finland this spring [to measure this further] among reindeer herders and indoor workers.Given all of those factors, what do you think is happening to our bodies on that first warm spring day?In the winter, youre going to have an increase in resting metabolism. You might see an increase in your brown adipose tissue activity in order to keep you warm. Then all of a sudden its 50 degrees Fahrenheit outside, but your resting metabolic rate is still going to be higher, [and your brown fat might be more active], which means your body is producing more heat than it typically would have been. Thats probably why you feel like its way warmer out and start sweating. That acclimatization process is going to take a week or more to get you used to this new, warmer temperature setting.Theres also a developmental aspect of thiswhere you grew up likely has a massive, massive impact on how your body responds to different extremes and changes in seasonal temperatures. Im a college professor [in Indiana], and walking around campus this time of year, you can tell the kids from the East Coast and the Midwest versus those from the South and the West Coast [by who is wearing] short T-shirts and sandals when its, like, 50 degrees and [who is] still in puff jackets. It always cracks me up. And we might actually see happening with brown adipose tissue as wellthat the more you are exposed to cold during critical developmental periods as a child, the more active and responsive your brown adipose tissue may be as an adult.Do these seasonal changes still impact you if you spend most of the winter indoors?They are definitely still impacting you. It might not be as much, obviously, and this is part of what were doing with our work in Finland with reindeer herders, who spend more time outside in the extreme cold, and indoor office workers in the same region. But because you still go outside, you still experience acute cold, [even if its not] for hours and hours on end.Why is it important to understand how our bodies acclimatize to extreme temperatures?Understanding how bodies rapidly respond [to changes in temperature] is going to be even more important in the face of climate change, when we have highly and dramatically variable environments where you get ice storms in Texas, for example. [Helping people acclimatize via what we know about] biology, behavior and technology is going to be critical, I think, because no matter what, our bodies are going to be physiologically limited in coping with both extreme cold and extreme heat. Our bodies are not limitless, so we have [to adjust our] behavior and turn to technology to make up for what our bodies cant do.

March 31, 20254 min readBig Banks Quietly Prepare for Catastrophic WarmingMorgan Stanley, JPMorgan and an international banking group have quietly concluded that climate change will likely exceed the Paris Agreement's 2 degree goal and are examining how to maintain profitsBy Corbin Hiar & E&E News PM Images/Getty ImagesCLIMATEWIRE | Top Wall Street institutions are preparing for a severe future of global warming that blows past the temperature limits agreed to by more than 190 nations a decade ago, industry documents show.The big banks' acknowledgment that the world is likely to fail at preventing warming of more than 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels is spelled out in obscure reports for clients, investors and trade association members. Most were published after the reelection of President Donald Trump, who is seeking to repeal federal policies that support clean energy while turbocharging the production of oil, gas and coal the main sources of global warming.The recent reports from Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and the Institute of International Finance show that Wall Street has determined the temperature goal is effectively dead and describe how top financial institutions plan to continue operating profitably as temperatures and damages soar.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today."We now expect a 3C world," Morgan Stanley analysts wrote earlier this month, citing "recent setbacks to global decarbonization efforts."The stunning conclusion indicates that the bank believes the planet is hurtling toward a future in which severe droughts and harvest failures become widespread, sea-level rise is measured in feet rather than inches and tropical regions experience episodes of extreme heat and humidity for weeks at a time that would bring deadly risks to people who work outdoors.The global Paris Agreement, from which the U.S. is withdrawing under Trump, aims to limit average temperature increases to well below 2 degrees Celsius. Scientists have warned that permanently exceeding 1.5 degrees a threshold the world breached for the first time last year could lead to increasingly severe climate impacts, such as the demise of coral reef ecosystems that hundreds of millions of people rely on for food and storm surge protection.Morgan Stanleys climate forecast was tucked into a mundane research report on the future of air conditioning stocks, which it provided to clients on March 17. A 3 degree warming scenario, the analysts determined, could more than double the growth rate of the $235 billion cooling market every year, from 3 percent to 7 percent until 2030."The political environment has changed, so some of them are conforming to that," Gautam Jain, a former investment banker who is now a senior research scholar at Columbia University, said of Wall Street's increasingly dire climate projections. "But mostly it is a rational business decision."The new warming estimates come as heat-trapping gases continue to rise globally and as international commitments to limit the burning of oil, gas and coal that's responsible for the bulk of emissions have stalled. Meanwhile, megabanks like Wells Fargo are backsliding on their previous climate pledges and exiting from the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, a United Nations-backed group that encouraged members to slash their emissions in line with the Paris Agreement.Morgan Stanley, which in October watered down its climate-related lending targets, declined to comment.Betting on potentially catastrophic global warming is both an acknowledgment of the current emissions trajectory and a politically savvy move in the second Trump era, according to Jain."Nobody wants to be seen as going against" the administration's pro-fossil-fuel energy policy, he said. "These banks are businesses, so they have to look at the risk that they have in their portfolio and the opportunities that they see in the most likely environment."'Recalibrate targets'Morgan Stanley's frank assessment of the air conditioning market follows a trade association briefing in February in which industry officials argued that the financial sector needs a coordinated messaging campaign to regulators, investors and the public that the Paris targets are no longer within reach and banks should not be expected to pursue them."The world is not on track to limit temperature rise below 2C and limiting warming [to] 1.5C is almost certainly unachievable," the Institute of International Finance wrote in bolded text, citing analyses from the energy research firm the Rhodium Group and the Climate Action Tracker, an environmental collaborative."Financial institutions need to recalibrate targets to reflect that 1.5C are no longer suitable as strategic goals," the briefing said. "Reputational concerns may arise in the absence of an aligned view amongst stakeholders on how such processes should be handled, and what criteria may need to be applied."The banking industry can support the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy but capital will only move "at scale when the economics make sense," Mary Kate Binecki, a spokesperson for the Institute of International Finance, said in an email. The institute represents about 400 members from more than 60 countries, including JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley.JPMorgan, the world's most valuable bank, has been describing to investors how it evaluates climate risks in a detailed report published annually since 2022.* At that time and in subsequent reports, the bank said it vets investments using "baseline" scenarios that assume global warming of 2.7 degrees to more than 3 degrees by the end of this century.In JPMorgan's most recent report, released in late November, CEO Jamie Dimon outlined the bank's commitment to financing a global transition to cleaner energy. But he also hinted at the role Trump and other political leaders could play in slowing climate progress."Constructive government leadership and policy is also necessary, particularly on taxes, permitting, energy grids, infrastructure and technological innovation," Dimon said in a foreword to the report.A JPMorgan spokesperson emphasized that, while the bank stress tests its investments using a variety of potential climate scenarios, it remains committed to zeroing out its emissions by 2050, in line with the Paris Agreement.Wall Street knows how to run the numbers, and right now the smart money expects warming to exceed 2 degrees, explained Jain, the former investment banker."These guys are not making assumptions out of the blue," he said. "They are following the science."Reprinted from E&E News with permission from POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2025. E&E News provides essential news for energy and environment professionals.*Editors Note (3/31/25): Our partners at E&E News have edited this sentence after posting to correct the description of JPMorgans climate report.