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.

March 31, 20253 min readTop U.S. Scientists Speak Out against Climate of Fear Wrecking U.S. ResearchDespite fears that speaking out will make them targets, top researchers warn that the Trump administrations wholesale assault on U.S. science will harm the nationBy Dan Vergano edited by Dean VisserDemonstrators take part in a "Stand Up For Science" rally at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, on March 7, 2025. Alex Wroblevski/AFP via Getty ImagesIn an SOS to the public, about 1,900 top U.S. scientists are warning that the Trump administrations moves against researchers imperil the nations health, economy and national security. In this open letter, released on Monday, the signatorieswho are all members of the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and include Nobel Prize winnerscall on the administration to cease its wholesale assault on U.S. science.The letter notes that its signatories are speaking out as individualsnot as representatives of the National Academies or their home institutions.The full text of the letter is below.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.TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLEWe all rely on science. Science gave us the smartphones in our pockets, the navigation systems in our cars, and life-saving medical care. We count on engineers when we drive across bridges and fly in airplanes. Businesses and farmers rely on science and engineering for product innovation, technological advances, and weather forecasting. Science helps humanity protect the planet and keeps pollutants and toxins out of our air, water, and food.For over 80 years, wise investments by the US government have built up the nations research enterprise, making it the envy of the world. Astoundingly, the Trump administration is destabilizing this enterprise by gutting funding for research, firing thousands of scientists, removing public access to scientific data, and pressuring researchers to alter or abandon their work on ideological grounds.The voice of science must not be silenced.The undersigned are elected members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, representing some of the nations top scientists, engineers, and medical researchers. We are speaking out as individuals. We see real danger in this moment. We hold diverse political beliefs, but we are united as researchers in wanting to protect independent scientific inquiry. We are sending this SOS to sound a clear warning: the nations scientific enterprise is being decimated.The administration is slashing funding for scientific agencies, terminating grants to scientists, defunding their laboratories, and hampering international scientific collaboration. The funding cuts are forcing institutions to pause research (including studies of new disease treatments), dismiss faculty, and stop enrolling graduate studentsthe pipeline for the next generations scientists.The administrations current investigations of more than 50 universities send a chilling message. Columbia University was recently notified that its federal funding would be withheld unless it adopted disciplinary policies and disabled an academic department targeted by the administration. Destabilizing dozens of universities will endanger higher educationand the research those institutions conduct.The quest for truththe mission of sciencerequires that scientists freely explore new questions and report their findings honestly, independent of special interests. The administration is engaging in censorship, destroying this independence. It is using executive orders and financial threats to manipulate which studies are funded or published, how results are reported, and which data and research findings the public can access. The administration is blocking research on topics it finds objectionable, such as climate change, or that yields results it does not like, on topics ranging from vaccine safety to economic trends.A climate of fear has descended on the research community. Researchers, afraid of losing their funding or job security, are removing their names from publications, abandoning studies, and rewriting grant proposals and papers to remove scientifically accurate terms (such as climate change) that agencies are flagging as objectionable. Although some in the scientific community have protested vocally, most researchers, universities, research institutions, and professional organizations have kept silent to avoid antagonizing the administration and jeopardizing their funding.If our countrys research enterprise is dismantled, we will lose our scientific edge. Other countries will lead the development of novel disease treatments, clean energy sources, and the new technologies of the future. Their populations will be healthier, and their economies will surpass us in business, defense, intelligence gathering, and monitoring our planets health. The damage to our nations scientific enterprise could take decades to reverse.We call on the administration to cease its wholesale assault on U.S. science, and we urge the public to join this call. Share this statement with others, contact your representatives in Congress, and help your community understand what is at risk. The voice of science must not be silenced. We all benefit from science, and we all stand to lose if the nations research enterprise is destroyed.The views expressed here are our own and not those of the National Academies or our home institutions.Here is a link to the signatories.

OpinionMarch 31, 20256 min readIs There a Plus Side to Mental Labor?Women shoulder most of the work in managing a family and tell us its exhausting, but some also say it has benefitsBy Julie Holliday Wayne Willie B. Thomas/Getty ImagesIts Monday, and my alarm buzzes at 6:00 A.M. I groggily get up, already running through the day in my head. I am a business professor, so I have a full schedule of classes to teach, e-mails to answer, and research deadlines to meet, but before I can start working, there are 100 other things I have to think aboutDid my son pack his gear for his lacrosse game tonight? Hell be starving when he gets home. What do we have in the fridge? I make a mental note to check before I leave.Then theres my daughter, knee-deep in college applications. Weve scheduled campus visits and spent weeks talking about applications and reviewing financial options. Shes stressed, which means Im stressed.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.And my oldesthes doing well in college classes, but I can tell somethings off. Is it just the normal pressure of being a young adult, or is something more going on? Whens the last time we had a real conversation? I need to check in with him.By the time Ive made coffee, Ive already thought through my kids schedules, their needs and well-being. Isnt parenting supposed to get easier as they get older? Now it is less about the physical caregiving tasks that consumed me in their younger years, and it is more about the emotional labor, planning and problem-solving.This is what is sometimes called the invisible family load, the mental labor, invisible labor or mental load. It is the behind-the-scenes, keep you up at night work that is crucial to the smooth functioning of families. Yet it is work that often goes unnoticed and unappreciated, and it is disproportionately shouldered by women.The conversation around mental load became more prominent in 2017 because of a cartoon depicting the invisible and exhausting nature of mom as household project manager. Since then, the many popular discussions paint a disheartening picture of the invisible family load as a never-ending, energy-zapping, exhausting burden that causes struggling and suffering, ranging from depression and anger to substance abuse and divorce.But is it true?At the time, there hadnt been much scientific research, so my colleagues and I decided to extensively research the topic. What we learned confirmed popular assumptions in some ways but turned them on their head in others. The bottom line: running a household is unsung and frustrating work that can bleed into our professional lives, but it can also be rewarding.Our research identified three types of invisible family load. Managerial load involves organizing, planning, and scheduling family activities or appointments, such as college visits, parties or vacations, or managing the day-to-day family activities. Cognitive load is the mental effort required to keep track of tasks, remember important dates, make decisions and anticipate future needs, such as keeping up with every family members academic, social, emotional and/or physical needs, all while remembering to buy eggs and toilet paper. Emotional load involves worrying about the needs and well-being of family members, such as worrying about your childrens health, well-being or futures, resolving sibling disputes, or being the emotional anchor for your family.Our research found some not-so-surprising news. Women disproportionately report higher levels of each type of invisible family load than do men; and carrying a higher invisible load than ones partner strains the relationship and decreases satisfaction in it. People, particularly mothers, commented that they felt frustrated, angry and resentful at the chronic imbalance of the mental load in their relationships, and this may be a warning sign for relationship trouble.We also found that carrying high levels of emotional load, such as worrying about family needs, is particularly problematic because it is associated with a host of harmful outcomes, including poor sleep, feeling exhausted and burned out, and being less satisfied in ones family and with ones life overall.One thing that really surprised us is that having a lot of emotional family load doesnt just affect people and their families, but it also spills over to work. Parents who carry high levels of emotional load are more likely to report that their family interferes with work and that they are more exhausted while at work. Importantly, we saw these negative effects after controlling for peoples general tendency to worry.There is good news, though. Contrary to the popular belief that managing the invisible family load is entirely negative, we found potential benefits. Some people told us that they enjoy and get benefit from being the leader of their family, find joy in caring for their families in these ways, and that it brings them closer to their family members. Our survey research confirms that, on average, people find a sense of meaning and purpose when taking on more of the remembering and deciding work of cognitive load, fostering a sense of enrichment in their family and greater satisfaction with their family lives. This doesnt mean the emotional load is not hard or frustrating, but people may also experience benefits from doing the cognitive load.So how can you experience more of the positives of the invisible family load?Curb excessive worry: Instead of dwelling on endless "what-ifs," create a worry list, writing down concerns and reviewing them for a set, limited time daily to prevent constant rumination. Embracing a good enough mindsetacknowledging that a happy, well-adjusted family doesnt require perfectionhelps reduce unnecessary emotional load.Reframe the load as leadership: Recognize the invisible work you do as leadership, where you are anticipating needs, making and communicating decisions, organizing family work, and empowering and growing others, within one of the most important teams of which youll ever be a part. Pause to appreciate the moments, even small ones, when your efforts lead to growth, joy or a sense of security for your family members.Delegate strategically: Great leaders dont do everything themselvesthey set priorities, empower others, and focus on the highest-impact tasks. Rather than trying to do it all, look for ways to delegate and teach, such as kids scheduling things for themselves when age-appropriate or empowering decision-making to a partner. Results wont happen instantly, so this will require patience and a mindful focus on the benefits to others from their new responsibilities.Communicate and appreciate: If you are in a partnered relationship, weekly check-ins about responsibilities, particularly the invisible ones, can prevent resentment. Make the invisible visible. Write down each invisible task on notecards, and physically sort them so that each partner has approximately the same number of cards. Acknowledge and express appreciation for each others efforts, noting progress over perfection. Children can also benefit from this transparency by learning that managing a household is a shared responsibility rather than a one-person job in a two-parent household.Use technology to plan and organize: Using a shared digital calendar keeps everyone on the same page with appointments, events and activities, reducing the mental strain of keeping track of everything.Avoid decision fatigue: Parents make countless decisions every day. To reduce mental overload, streamline routine choices by setting defaults (e.g., a weekly meal rotation such as Taco Tuesday or a regular meal planning/grocery shopping day) and making important decisions at your best time of the day.Prioritize self-care: Taking even small moments for a favorite hobby, a short walk, prayer/meditation or quiet time with a book can restore energy that might be depleted from the invisible family load. Building a support networkfriends, family or parenting groupscreates an outlet for sharing challenges and solutions. Modeling self-care also teaches children the importance of health and well-being.Recognizing and addressing the invisible family load is crucial for maintaining mental and emotional well-being, fostering positive family dynamics and even enhancing the workplace. By acknowledging these invisible tasks and taking proactive steps to manage them, you can create a more balanced and fulfilling life for yourself and your family.Julie Holliday Waynes research on this subject was conducted with Maura Mills, Russell Matthews and Marilyn Whitman , all at the University of Alabama, and Yi-Ren Wang of the Asia School of Business .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, 20254 min readTime Spent in Nature Can Be Goodand Sometimes Bad for Your BrainA Goldilocks measure of green space might help stave off dementia, but an excess could lead to cognitive declineBy Teresa Schubert edited by Gary Stix Bob Pool/Getty ImagesThere's nothing like a good walk through your local park to unwind and release stress from a busy day. Taking some time in nature is undeniably good for you, with well-documented benefits to physical and mental health. But new research suggests that when it comes to the risk of dementia and Alzheimers disease, easy access to nature can sometimes help but, at other times, can be too much of a good thing.The causes of dementiaa broad category of conditions that can affect memory, language and other brain capacitiesare multifaceted and complex. There is often a genetic component, but there are also contributions from health risk factors that arise throughout life. In 2024 the Lancet Commission on dementia identified 14 such factors that reliably increase the risk of developing dementia. These include physical health factors such as cardiovascular disease, high LDL cholesterol, diabetes, and obesity and traumatic brain injury, as well as psychological factors such as depression and social isolation.Thousands of studies provide solid evidence about the dangers of these risk factors, but researchers are far from having all the answers about dementia. In the past 10 or so years, researchers have begun looking beyond these established risks to the effect of an individuals physical and social environment, which might be more under our control than factors such as genetic predisposition. You might not be able to change your genes, but in some cases, you can change where you live or your hobbies or habits. According to Marco Vinceti of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia in Italy, there is growing and convincing evidence that risk of neurodegenerative disease, including cognitive impairment and dementia, can be substantially reduced by environmental and behavioral factors, and this may even be true in individuals having high genetic susceptibility. Studying the role of environmental factors has led to the recent discovery that exposure to air pollution (such as from wildfire smoke or heavy traffic) increases your chances of developing dementia. This is also the line of questioning that led researchers to discover the positive effects of green space.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 benefits of green space for mental and brain health are numerous. Living near and spending time in green space (including parks, wooded areas and even farmland) can decrease the risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes and is associated with a lower risk of Alzheimers disease and other forms of dementia later in life. According to Anjum Hajat, an epidemiologist at the University of Washington School of Public Health, access to green space is important because it provides people with an easy, low-cost option to improve their health. Spending time in nature may have other benefits, too, like increasing physical activity or increasing time spent with friends and family; both of these things have many health benefits.Based on this research, you might be ready to give up city life. You might presume that more green space is better, and that living on a few wooded acres with nothing but trees for miles around will lead to the lowest possible chance of dementia. It turns out this is not so simple. A 2022 research study led by Federico Zagnoli of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia revealed that more green space is not always better. The researchers found a U-shaped association between exposure to green space and dementia risklow levels of green space were associated with a higher likelihood of developing dementia, and medium levels were linked to a lower risk. But the highest level of green space exposure didnt reduce dementia risk relative to the medium leveland in some cases even increased it! In other words, too little green space has an adverse effect, but so might too much of it.Why might more of a good thing be bad? Living out in nature can mean lower access to medical and social services, fewer places to socialize and higher chances of social isolationcircumstances that would otherwise support brain health and reduce dementia risk. Although research on some of these factors is still ongoing and not yet certain, there is solid evidence for the risks of social isolation. As Vinceti puts it, The higher risk of dementia associated with extremely high green spaces around the place of residence is likely attributable to social isolation and socioeconomic disadvantage in certain rural areas. Rurality may also be correlated with other risk factors, such as lower socioeconomic status or high pesticide exposure. So the conclusion is that green space itself is not bad for your brain health, but living on a few acres of land surrounded by forest and farmland might increase your risk of dementia in other ways. Although trees have a positive effect, they are no substitute for a nearby hospital, local community center and a walkable neighborhood with friendly neighbors. Aiming for the lowest possible dementia risk is all about a balance: enough neighborhood density to have easy access to services and social support but plenty of trees for a walk in the park..

March 31, 20259 min readDoes Intermittent Fasting ImproveHealthBeyond Weight Loss?Intermittent fasting has gained a following, in part because of tantalizing hints that it can boost cognition, fend off cancer and even slow agingBy Nic Fleming & Nature magazine TanyaJoy/Getty ImagesAs anyone seeking to lose weight knows, diets come in and out of fashion. The Sexy Pineapple diet, launched by a Danish psychologist in 1970, never really took off. Kelloggs no longer promotes the Special K diet, which swaps out two meals a day for a bowl of the breakfast cereal of that name. These days, you dont hear much about eating according to blood type, cutting out acidic foods or following the potato diet.Intermittent fasting has, however, had unusual staying power for more than a decadeand has grown even more popular in the past few years. One survey found that almost one in eight adults in the United States had tried it in 2023.The enduring popularity of intermittent fasting has been fed by celebrity endorsements, news coverage and a growing number of books, including several written by researchers in the field. More than 100 clinical trials in the past decade suggest that it is an effective strategy for weight loss. And weight loss generally comes with related health improvements, including a reduced risk of heart disease and diabetes. What is less clear is whether there are distinct benefits that come from limiting food intake to particular windows of time. Does it protect against neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimers disease, enhance cognitive function, suppress tumours and even extend lifespan? Or are there no benefits apart from those related to cutting back on calories? And what are the potential risks?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.Neuroscientist Mark Mattson at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, and author of the 2022 book The Intermittent Fasting Revolution, has been studying fasting for 30 years. He argues that, because ancient humans went for long periods without food as hunter-gatherers, we have evolved to benefit from taking breaks from eating. Were adapted to function very well, perhaps optimally, in a fasted state, he says.Fastings deep rootsFasting is far from new. Periodic abstentions from food have long been practised in many religions. In the fifth century bc, the Greek physician and philosopher Hippocrates prescribed it for a range of medical conditions.Recent scientific interest in fasting has its roots in questions raised by research on calorie restriction. Since the 1930s, studies have shown that putting rodents on low-calorie diets can increase their lifespans. Hypotheses proposed to explain this effect include that calorie restriction slows growth, lowers fat intake or reduces cellular damage caused by unstable free radicals.But an observation made in 1990 by researcher Ronald Hart, who was then studying ageing, nutrition and health at the US National Center for Toxicological Research in Jefferson, Arkansas, highlighted another intriguing possibility. Calorie-restricted rodents fed once daily consumed all their food in a few hours. Perhaps the calorie-restricted rodents lived longer because they repeatedly went for 20 or so hours without eating.In the immediate aftermath of a meal, cells use glucose from carbohydrates in food as fuel, either straight away or following storage in the liver and muscles as glycogen. Once these sources are depletedin humans, typically around 12 hours after the last mealthe body enters a fasted state during which fat stored in adipose tissue is converted to ketone bodies for use as an alternative energy source.Intermittent fasting generally refers to various diets that include repeated periods of zero- or very low-calorie intake that are long enough to stimulate the production of ketone bodies. The most common are time-restricted eating (TRE), which involves consuming all food in a 4- to 12-hour window, usually without calorie counting; alternate-day fasting (ADF), whereby people either abstain from food every other day or eat no more than around 500 calories on that day; and the 5:2 diet, which stipulates a 500-calorie limit on 2 days per week (see Three forms of fasting).Some researchers say the resulting shift between sources of energy, called metabolic switching, triggers key adaptive stress responses, including increased DNA repair and the breakdown and recycling of defective cellular components. Those responses, the thinking goes, provide health benefits beyond those from reduced calorie consumption alone. Observational studies have suggested that some religious fasters who fast long enough for metabolic switching to occur see such health benefits, although these studies have a lot of limitations.Getting slim fastControlled diet trials are notoriously difficult to conduct. Peoples diets and behaviours, together with their genetic inheritance and baseline health, make for a lot of variables. Often, people dont stick with the study, and getting participants to track calorie intake accurately is a known challenge.Still, the weight of the evidence suggests that intermittent fasting can help people to lose weight. In 2022, for example, Courtney Peterson, who researches nutrition at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and her colleagues reported results from a trial involving 90 adults with obesity who also received counselling to help them lose weight. She found that those who followed TRE for an average of 6 days per week over 14 weeks lost an average of 6.3 kilograms, compared with the 4 kg lost by participants who ate over 12 or more hours. Peterson says that many people find following a rule about when to eat and when not to eat easier than counting calories or eating healthier. We and others have found that TRE also makes people less hungry, so they tend to naturally eat less and lose weight, says Peterson.Also in 2022, nutritionist Krista Varady at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and her colleagues reviewed 22 randomized trials looking at the effects of ADF, the 5:2 diet and TRE on body weight. ADF and the 5:2 diet produced 48% weight loss after 812 weeks in those with obesity, whereas TRE helped people to lose 34% of their body weight over the same period.Varady has a long-standing interest in fasting. The cover of one version of her 2013 book The Every Other Day Diet features pizza, a doughnut and a burger to illustrate that those doing ADF dont need to cut out unhealthy foods. In the book, Varady argues that restricting intake to no more than 500 calories every other day is a more effective way to lose weight than conventional calorie counting and cutting out fatty and sugary foods.Although most researchers who study intermittent fasting agree that it can help people to lose weight, theyre split on whether there are any benefits beyond those that come from simply eating less. Michelle Harvie, a research dietitian at the University of Manchester, UK, sought to address this question in collaboration with Mattson in a 2010 trial. They found that overweight women who followed a 5:2 diet for 6 months had larger reductions in fasting insulin and insulin resistance than did those on a reduced-calorie diet. Both groups had the same weekly calorie intake and lost an average of around 6 kg. But the difference in insulin levels was small, and the researchers relied on participants to track consumption by keeping food diaries.In a 2018 study, Peterson and her team carefully monitored the diets of prediabetic, overweight men, matching their diets to energy consumption. The participants ate all their food either within 6 hours before 3 p.m. daily, or over 12 hours, for 5 weeks before switching to the other eating schedule. Although both regimes resulted in equivalent small weight loss over the study period, when men were on the more time-restricted diet, they had improved insulin sensitivity, lower blood pressure and reduced oxidative stress, a form of molecular damage.We showed for the first time that intermittent fasting has health benefits and effects beyond weight loss in humans, says Peterson. But the study was relatively small: only 12 adults started the trial, only 8 completed it, and all were male and overweight.Adding to the uncertainty is that other trials have reached seemingly contradictory conclusions. Nisa Maruthur, a physician at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and her colleagues asked 41 obese adults with pre-diabetes or diabetes to consume diets that matched their energy needs, eating either during a 10-hour daily window or according to their normal schedule. After 12 weeks, there was little difference between the two groups in the average changes to weight, glucose regulation, blood pressure, waist circumference or lipid levels. Weight loss seen in prior studies of TRE was probably the result of eating fewer calories, says Maruthur, whose study was published in 2024. If so, metabolic switching might not come with added health benefits.Peterson, a co-author of that study, disagrees and suggests that the 10-hour eating window might have been too long to achieve the results seen in trials of shorter TRE windows.Even though Varady thinks that intermittent fasting can help people to lose weight, she remains unconvinced that it has effects independent of calorie restriction. Based on current human evidence, I dont think that there are any benefits of intermittent fasting beyond weight loss, she says.Mattson is equally sure of the opposite: There is considerable evidence of benefits of intermittent fasting that cannot be explained by reduction in calorie intake.Mattson and others have looked to animal research in their efforts to understand the physiology of fasting, and to identify mechanisms that could underpin any extra health benefits.Beyond the waistlineAs early as 1999, Mattson and his team began finding evidence that ADF protects rodents against damage linked to neurodegenerative diseases and acute brain injuries such as stroke. Fasting has been shown to increase production of -hydroxybutyrate, a ketone body that protects neurons from damage in rodent models of Alzheimers and Parkinsons disease. Studies in rodents show that intermittent fasting can improve cognitive functions, such as working memory, spatial learning and memory retention. It can also reduce tumour occurrence as the animals age and increase their sensitivity to chemotherapy.Other results have come from Satchin Pandas lab at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California. Panda became interested in fasting almost by accident, through his research on circadian rhythms. In a series of experiments beginning in 2009, he and his team found that changing the feeding times of mice had more effect than light cycles did on circadian rhythms in liver gene expression. When mice on high-fat diets were restricted to feeding during eight hours at night (the natural feeding time of mice), they were protected from obesity, elevated insulin levels, fatty liver disease and inflammation, compared with mice that ate the same number of calories but fed whenever they wanted during both day and night.I realized these mice didnt have diet-induced obesity as others had concluded; rather, they had circadian-rhythm-disruption-induced obesity, says Panda.Eating in time with circadian rhythms also seems to affect longevity in mice. In a 2022 study, neurobiologist Joseph Takahashi at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, and his colleagues reported that whereas calorie-restricted mice that fed during the day lived 20% longer than did controls that fed as much as they liked, those on calorie-restricted diets fed at night lived 35% longer, on average.There are hints of a circadian effect in humans, too. In a 2024 review of TRE trials, Peterson found that study participants who ate before 6 p.m. had improved blood-sugar and insulin control, but she did not see the same effect in those who adopted later eating windows. Most peoples blood-sugar control is best in the mid- to late morning, so eating early, in alignment with these circadian rhythms, results in lower overall blood-sugar levels, she says.Research into the physiology of intermittent fasting also suggests that its effects might not be simply a function of calorie restriction. Stem-cell biologist mer Yilmaz at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, and his colleagues have shown how stem-cell activity increases in the intestines of both calorie-restricted and fasted micean effect triggered by the breakdown of fatty acids. Both caloric restriction and fasting improved intestinal stem-cell activity and health, but the mechanisms involved are very different, he says. If the mechanisms are different, the health implications might vary, too.The work in animals also points to possible downsides of fasting. Because intestinal stem cells can divide frequently, they are a source of precancerous cells. In mice with cancer-gene mutations, there was more tumour development in those that fasted and then ate for a day than in mice that did not fast, Yilmaz and his colleagues reported in 2024. Other animal work suggests that long fasts could blunt immune responses.Researchers say there needs to be more work to understand the implications of animal experiments for humans. For now, doctors caution that fasting could cause blood-sugar levels to drop dangerously in those with diabetes; affect milk supply in people who are breastfeeding; harm growth in children; and increase the risk of complications for those on blood-pressure and heart-disease medications.Although researchers remain intrigued by the physiology of fasting, would-be dieters probably care more about whether intermittent fasting works than why it does so. In her job as a primary-care physician, Maruthur advises people to try it even though she thinks its effects are entirely the result of eating less.If you restrict the window of time in which you eat, then youre likely to consume less, she says. If youre the kind of person whos going to eat fewer calories as a result, it might be worth giving it a go.This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on March 25, 2025.

March 30, 2025Shark Sounds, Molecules on Mars and Continued Federal CutsCuts to federal health and science agencies continue. Plus, we discuss the sounds of sharks, the meaning of Martian molecules and one big dino claw. Anaissa Ruiz Tejada/Scientific AmericanSUBSCRIBE TO Science QuicklyRachel Feltman: Happy Monday, listeners! For Scientific Americans Science Quickly, Im Rachel Feltman. Lets kick off the week and wrap up the month with a quick roundup of the latest science news.[CLIP: RFK Jr. announces the planned cuts on Thursday in a HHS video: We're gonna eliminate an entire alphabet soup of departments and agencies.]Feltman: Last Thursday the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced plans to cut 10,000 full-time jobs across the department. Another 10,000 individuals have already accepted voluntary retirement and buyouts. The layoffs will hit the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.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.[CLIP: RFK Jr.: Twenty-eight great divisions will become 15. The entire federal workforce is downsizing now, so this will be a painful period for HHS as we downsize from 82,000 full-time employees to around 62,000.]Feltman: HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement that the aim of these cuts is to save money and boost efficiency.Meanwhile, last week the Trump administration also moved to cancel more than $12 billion in federal grant funding to state and local health departments. Axios reports that the main targets are grants for COVID testing, initiatives aimed at tackling health disparities, and vaccinations. As of last Thursday those cuts had reportedly already led to layoffs at the Virginia Department of Health.Well, of course, be watching these developments and keeping you posted. But for now, lets move on to some exciting news from Mars. According to a study published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, NASAs Curiosity rover has found the biggest carbon-based molecules ever seen on the Red Planet. The long-chain alkanes are thought to have come from fatty acids, which are the building blocks of cell membranes in living organisms on Earth.Now, these long molecules arent necessarily a smoking gun for Martian life. We know that fatty acids can form by way of chemistry instead of biology. In fact, some scientists think we first got fatty acids on Earth thanks to the interaction of water and minerals in hydrothermal vents. So while fatty acids are necessary for life as we know it, its possible they formed on Mars without life ever finding a way. Still, this finding is another point for Mars in the quest to determine potential past habitability. Plus, since these compounds were found preserved in a 3.7-billion-year-old rock, the discovery gives scientists hope that if microbial life once existed on Mars, we might still be able to find signs of it.Speaking of size superlatives: paleontologists are showing off a really freaking big dinosaur claw in pristine condition. It belongs to a new species of therizinosaur, which was described in a study published in the journal iScience last Tuesday.Writing for National Geographic, Riley Black explained that therizinosaurs were, generally speaking, a weird bunch. The dinosaurs were descended from carnivores but had come to eat plants. They were kind of slothlike, apparently, down to their three giant clawsexcept that they were also giant and covered in feathers. But a specimen found in Mongolia's Gobi Desert back in 2012 has revealed a new species that stands out for having just two fingers instead of three.One of the fingers still has a sheath of keratin that would have protected the actual bone of the claw. This protective covering also added length, creating a talon nearly a foot long. Scientists think the new species likely lost its third digit as a result of evolution. While the creatures sharp claws look like something a raptor would use to tear at prey, these oddballs probably used them to hook branches while foragingwhich the authors of the new study think could have been done more efficiently with a two-fingered grasp than a three-fingered one.Well keep the animal theme rolling to wrap us up with a couple of new papers on animal behavior under the sea. First, a new study on sharks. The predators are known for their stealth, but research published Wednesday in the journal Royal Society Open Science is absolutely blowing up their spot. While the study authors note that sharks and other elasmobranchs, which is a group that also includes rays, are not historically viewed as active sound producers, the researchers managed to catch rig sharks making little clicking noises.The studys lead author reportedly heard some unusual sounds while working with sharks back in grad school but wasnt able to investigate further until recently. In the new study she and her colleagues observed 10 rig sharks in tanks tricked out with underwater microphones. They caught the sharks making extremely shortlike, shorter-than-a-human-blink short so literally blink and youll miss it stuff. And those noises reached a maximum of 156 decibels, on average. The sharks made a lot more noise when handlers first touched them, and the noises tended to subside as they got used to being held. That could mean these are deliberate sounds, like a whats the big idea or a guys, heads-up, these humans are pretty handsy. But well need a lot more research to be sure.And in case youre wondering those clicks sound like this:[CLIP: Rig sharks make clicklike sounds.]Feltman: Sharks lack the swim bladder that most fish use to make noises, but researchers suspect the rigs make these clicks through the forceful snapping of their teeth. As a habitual tooth grinder I can certainly relate. Since sharks are, generally speaking, a pretty toothy bunch, it stands to reason that other species could be producing sounds similar to these.And while sharks are potentially using sound to communicate, cuttlefish are apparently using visual tricks to mesmerize their prey. Cuttlefish are known for having specialized skin cells that allow them to rapidly change color and create patterns for camouflage. Last month a group of researchers published examples of different visual displays that one cuttlefish species might use to trick prey. The scientists recorded broadclub cuttlefish seemingly mimicking floating leaves and branching pieces of coral, as well as generating some pulsing patterns, an effect that makes it look like a dark stripe is moving down a cuttlefishs body. That's kind of a surprising tactic because to human eyes its like a flashing sign that says cuttlefish incoming. But in a new study published last Wednesday in Science Advances, the same researchers argue that this passing-stripe display helps a cuttlefish hunt by overwhelming a prey animals senses. From the perspective of a crab, for example, these fast-moving stripes could distract from the actual movements of the approaching cuttlefish. So its all very pay no attention to the cuttlefish behind the striped curtains!Thats all for this weeks news roundup. Well be back on Wednesday with special guest Wendy Zukerman from Science Vs to talk about the science behind a big debate surrounding a certain sexual phenomenon.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. Have a great week!

March 28, 20254 min readCOVID Research Funding to Be Slashed, NIH Documents ShowStudies on COVID, climate change and South Africa are on the latest list of terminated grants by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, according to updated documents obtained by NatureBy Max Kozlov & Nature magazine Colorized scanning electron micrograph of an apoptotic cell (greenish brown) heavily infected with SARS-COV-2 virus particles (pink), isolated from a patient sample. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH/FlickrThe US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have begun cancelling billions of dollars in funding for research related to COVID-19.COVID-19 research funds were issued for a limited purpose: to ameliorate the effects of the pandemic, according to an internal NIH document that Nature has obtained and that provides the agencys staff members with updated guidance on how to terminate these grants. Now that the pandemic is over, the grant funds are no longer necessary, the document states. It is not clear how many of these grants will be ended.The crackdown comes as the NIH, under US President Donald Trump, has halted nearly 400 grants in the past month. An earlier version of the documents, obtained by Nature on 5 March, directed staff to identify and potentially cancel projects on transgender populations; gender identity; diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the scientific workforce; and environmental justice.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, which is the worlds largest public funder of biomedical research, has awarded grants to nearly 600 ongoing projects that include COVID in the title, worth nearly US$850 million. Together, these projects make up nearly 2% of the NIHs $47-billion budget. And the CDC plans to cancel $11.4 billion in funds for pandemic response, NBC News reports.SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has killed more than 7 million people globally, including more than 1.2 million in the United States, and continues to infect and kill people. Studying the virus, its mode of infection and the governments response to the pandemic is crucial to preventing the next one, say scientists.Among the terminations at the NIH is a $577-million programme to identify and develop antiviral drugs against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and six other types of virus with pandemic potential.These terminations are clearly shortsightedwe desperately need new treatments against viruses, says Jason McLellan, a structural virologist at the University of Texas, Austin, whose project to develop broad-spectrum treatments that work against several types of virus was part of the programme and terminated on 24 March. To cancel the entire grant because a small portion involved SARS-CoV-2 is going to be dangerous for future pandemic preparedness.The NIH did not respond to Natures queries about the grant terminations or scientists concerns about them. Its parent organization, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), told Nature that the COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago.Updated guidanceThe updated documents that Nature obtained (see Supplementary Information below) were sent on 25 March to grants-management specialistsNIH staff members who oversee the business side of awarding funding. This document includes COVID-19 on a list of research activities that NIH no longer supports, in addition to research on China, DEI, transgender issues and vaccine hesitancy. The latest guidance also says that grants related to South Africa and climate change should be terminated.The document also outlines a new category of research that should be terminated: any project on a list sent by the NIH director or the HHS, which is currently helmed by long-time anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.Such large-scale grant terminations are unprecedented; the agency typically cancels only a few dozen projects each year in response to serious concerns about research misconduct or fraudand does so only as a last resort, after taking other actions such as suspension.Grants-management specialists will be tasked with identifying and terminating projects, because the NIHs current leadership considers its scientific staff members too biased to make these determinations, says an NIH official who requested anonymity because they werent authorized to speak to the press.But some scientists fear that the guidance for NIH employees is too vague and that any research project associated with certain keywords could be on the chopping block without consideration of its merit. Theyve been taking a chainsaw to grants and not a surgical laser, says Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada, who studies SARS-CoV-2.Long COVIDUnder the new directive, its unclear whether the NIH plans to shut down long-COVID research, including its $1.6-billion RECOVER initiative, which aims to find the root causes and treatments for the disease. The Trump administration seems to be deprioritizing long COVID: this week, the HHS will close its Office of Long COVID Research and Practice, which coordinates the US governments response to the disease, according to e-mail correspondence that Nature has obtained.This is a real slap in the face of the many patients struggling with the long-term health effects of COVID infections, says Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist and director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.Kennedy has vowed to make America healthy again, in part by overhauling US health agencies to focus on chronic diseases. This wholesale crackdown on COVID research is not in the spirit of the campaign, Nuzzo says. We should be studying how infections cause some of the worst diseases that society endures, she says, adding that research has linked infection with a common herpesvirus called EpsteinBarr to the development of multiple sclerosis.Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, who studies immune responses in people with long COVID and other post-viral conditions, says: If we dont figure this out now with this pandemic, Im afraid we will be much less prepared for future pandemics.This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on March 26, 2025.

March 28, 20254 min readClimate Researchers Wait for the Ax to FallClimate experts whose research is funded by federal grants hide, whisper and wait for their jobs to disappearThe Trump administration has slashed jobs and funding at the National Institutes of Health. Mark Wilson/Newsmakers/Getty ImagesCLIMATEWIRE | The National Institutes of Health has canceled grants for research on diversity, Covid-19 and vaccines. Climate scientists are hoping their work wont be next but fear it could be.We are holding our breaths because we know we are on their list of targets, said Marsha Wills-Karp, chair of the Johns Hopkins University Department of Environmental Health and Engineering. It feels like its been slash and burn. We are hopeful they wont get to climate, but we know its not likely.Researchers in her department have received NIH grants to study the effects of wildfire air pollution on preterm birth rates and how hotter weather is affecting the health of babies at birth, measured by their weight and potential complications. Theyre also studying how climate change is affecting nutrition.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.At the University of Washington, Kristie Ebi is fearful that NIH could cut grants that fund studies about which populations are more vulnerable to extreme heat a project that the team is planning to expand to include the dangers of wildfire smoke.Were working to provide information that departments of health, communities and individuals can use, Ebi said. The more you know, the more of those lives you can save.None of those programs havent been cut yet. But theres reason to think they could be, and soon.Earlier this week, ProPublica reported on an internal NIH memo that outlined how the agency will no longer fund research on the health effects of climate change. It followed a story in Mother Jones showing that NIH had ended three climate-related programs, including the Climate Change and Health Initiative. The program was created in 2022 and has had annual congressional appropriations of $40 million, according to a December NIH report that was taken offline by the agency earlier this year.HHS is taking action to terminate research funding that is not aligned with NIH and HHS priorities, said Emily Hilliard, a department spokesperson.As we begin to Make America Healthy Again, its important to prioritize research that directly affects the health of Americans, she added. We will leave no stone unturned in identifying the root cause of the chronic disease epidemic as part of our mission to Make America Healthy Again.She did not respond to questions about whether HHS believes that research into the health effects of heat and other types of extreme weather are aligned with agency priorities or whether HHS believes that heat waves affect the health of Americans. NIH did not respond to a request for comment.Heat is the No. 1 weather-related killer in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an agency within HHS. Heat caused or contributed to at least 2,300 deaths in 2023, CDC records show.In addition to turbocharging temperatures, climate change can affect people's health by increasing the prevalence of vector-borne diseases and the number of wildfires, whose smoke has been shown to increase asthma and cause cardiovascular problems.Those connections have long been studied with funding from the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences. Then in 2022, NIH broadened the scope of federal funding for climate health research, directing each of the agencys 26 centers and institutes to study the dangers of climate change. At the time, the agency said a mounting number of assessments and reports provide undeniable evidence that climate change is resulting in direct and indirect consequences for human health and well-being.Most of the climate researchers contacted by POLITICO's E&E News declined to talk publicly about their funding, citing concerns about their grants being rescinded if they spoke to the media.One researcher who was awarded federal funding said some experts in the climate and health field are pausing work related to their grants, like hiring.Others have turned down speaking requests because they're concerned about attracting attention from the Trump administration. Their work often focuses on how extreme weather has disproportional effects on the health of communities of color, according to several researchers who were granted anonymity for fear of retribution. One said that they declined a speaking invitation to avoid accidentally us[ing] language we are not supposed to and then be told our language is not compliant with various executive orders on diversity and equality.Weve been told we need to comply with those executive orders as federal grantees, but its hard to do if you are funded for something that the name is something you are not allowed to say, the researcher said. No one wants to do a social media post or a webinar or an event that might get them in trouble.An annual conference hosted by NIH, Boston University and the Harvard School of Public Health was postponed earlier this month.Linda Birnbaum, who led the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences until 2017, said that during the first Trump administration, researchers were able to circumvent directives by wording grant applications as climate and health rather than climate change.It worked then. I dont think that will work anymore, 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.

March 28, 20254 min readWhy Was the Earthquake in Myanmar and Thailand So Devastating?A magnitude 7.7 earthquake in Myanmar caused widespread shaking and likely considerable damage because of a lack of buildings built to withstand temblorsBy Robin George Andrews edited by Andrea ThompsonA resident carries belongings over debris next to a damaged building in Naypyidaw on March 28, 2025, after an earthquake in central Myanmar. Sai Aung MAIN/AFP via Getty ImagesOn March 28, at around midday local time, tens of millions of people in Southeast Asia felt the earth below their feet violently rupture. A magnitude 7.7 earthquake, centered just 12 miles away from Mandalay, Myanmar, shook the regioncausing streets to buckle, ancient pagodas to crumble, bridges to shatter and houses to collapse. Entire neighborhoods were devastated in a matter of seconds.The earthquakes energy release was comparable to that of several hundred nuclear weapon explosions. The magnitude of this event was so high that it was felt in neighboring countries, says Amilcar Carrera-Cevallos, an earthquake scientist at the Vicente Rocafuerte Secular University of Guayaquil in Ecuador. A 30-story skyscraper under construction in Bangkok600 miles from the quakes epicenterdisintegrated. According to estimates by the U.S. Geological Survey, there will be thousands, if not tens of thousands, of casualties, as well as tens of billions of dollars of economic damage.Many factors conspired to make this earthquake a disaster, including a lack of quake-proofing measures in buildings across the region. Few of the structures could withstand this monster of a temblor, which was a really big, shallow earthquakemeaning it occurred relatively close to the Earths surface, says Judith Hubbard, an earthquake scientist at Cornell University.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 caused the Myanmar earthquake?Around 45 million years ago, the Indian tectonic plate collided with the Eurasian plate before the former started to descend beneath the latter. The crumbled crust in the middle is what we refer to as the Himalayas today. This mountain range, and the entire region, is filled with faults generated by that epic geological pileup. The Indian plate is still very slowly running into Eurasia, and those myriad faults take on a lot of stress as a result. From time to time, they rupture.The March 28 event was an especially gargantuan rupture along one specific schism. All available data so far strongly suggest a rupture on the Sagaing Fault, says Robin Lacassin, an earthquake scientist at the Paris Institute of Earth Physics. This is a major north-south strike-slip fault, one in which two blocks of the crust slide past each other (a bit like the San Andreas Fault in California). The Sagaing Fault is the main strike-slip boundary on that side of the Indian plate, Lacassin says. And it has been responsible for many strong and destructive earthquakes in the past.Cars pass a damaged road in Naypyidaw on March 28, 2025, after an earthquake in central Myanmar.Sai Aung Main/AFP via Getty ImagesHubbard points out that, just in May 2023, the very same fault ruptured and generated a magnitude 5.8 temblor, causing a modest degree of destruction. Its a particularly perilous fault, not least because Nay Pyi Taw, the capital city of Myanmar, lies directly atop it.Todays magnitude 7.7 rupture was exponentially more powerful than the 2023 event. Earthquakes are measured on the modified Mercalli intensity scale, which gauges the shaking intensity based on surface observations. Close to the epicenter, nearly a million people felt this quake as IX, or violent, on the scale: many buildings werent just damaged but also thrown about, with some literally shifted off their foundation.Slightly farther from the epicenter, the shaking ranked as severe or very strongand onlookers in Thailand were shocked to see buildings there receive damage as well. Preliminary data suggest that seismic waves traveled so far from the source because they were channeled along the southern section of the Sagaing Fault. This would explain the damage in Bangkok and reports that it was felt far away, Carrera-Cevallos says.Why was the Myanmar earthquake so damaging?Earthquakes like this are a horrific reminder of why disasters cannot purely be referred to as natural. Todays quake was powerful, yesbut the cities in the blast zone didnt stand a chance because of a decidedly human factor. This earthquake occurred in an area with no earthquake-resistant buildings and inadequate building codes, Carrera-Cevallos says.Although you cannot design a building to guarantee that it will hold up against the mightiest of earthquakes, you can fit dampeners into their architecture to allow them to safely sway in the event of a temblor. Even older structures can be retrofitted to include various forms of quake-resistant technology.The damage in Thailand is shocking but is unlikely to be too severe. The shaking there was less intense than in Myanmar, and the high-rise skyscraper that collapsed in Thailand was under construction, so it is probably an outlier. We can expect much worse in Myanmar, Hubbard says.Myanmars political situation will work against its recovery efforts. A military coup in 2021 and an ongoing civil war had already displaced millions of people from their homes. This quake is going to dramatically inflate that number, exacerbating an already extensive humanitarian crisis. Strong aftershocks will shake cities, towns and villages for several weeks to come, also impeding the likely chaotic recovery efforts.

March 28, 20253 min readNearly Half of People in the U.S. Have Toxic PFAS in Their Drinking WaterNew data released by the EPA show that nearly half of people in the U.S. have drinking water contaminated by toxic forever chemicals, or PFASBy Andrea Thompson edited by Dean Visser Jacob Wackerhausen/Getty ImagesNew data recently released by the Environmental Protection Agency indicate that more than 158 million people across the U.S. have drinking water contaminated by toxic forever chemicals, scientifically known as perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).Drinking water is a major source of PFAS exposure. The sheer number of contaminated sites shows that these chemicals are likely present in most of the U.S. water supply, said David Andrews, deputy director of investigations and a senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a nonprofit advocacy organization, in a recent press release.What Are PFAS?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.There are more than 9,000 known PFAS compounds, and more than 600 of them are used in a wide range of common products, from cookware to cosmetics to pesticides.These compounds have a very strong carbon-fluorine bond, which means they are extremely stable and are useful for repelling grease and water. But the strength of that bond is also part of what makes them a dangerous pollutant.Why Are PFAS Dangerous?The stability of PFAS molecules means they do not readily biodegrade in the environment and can linger and build up over years and decadeshence the moniker forever chemicals.Several PFAS compounds have been linked to a significant variety of health issues, including several cancers, reproductive disorders, thyroid disease and a weakened immune system. Testing by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that 99 percent of people in the U.S., including newborn babies, have PFAS in their bloodstream.Where Did the EPA Find PFAS?The EPA is requiring U.S. water utilities to test for 29 PFAS compounds. The latest results from that work show that 15 million more U.S. residents are exposed to these compounds in their drinking water than had been reported in the previous update. More data are expected to be released in the coming months because only 57 percent of water systems had reported full test results by March.The currently available results bring the known number of people in the U.S. exposed to PFAS through drinking water to 158 million, which is nearly half of the nations total population of about 340 million. PFAS contamination has been found in drinking water in locations in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and four U.S. territories.How Do PFAS Get in the Environment?PFAS can enter the environment from pollutants discharged into rivers and lakes by industrial facilities, as well as firefighting foam that seeps into the ground. Experts are also concerned that pesticides containing PFAS are a growing contributor to the problem.Does the EPA Regulate PFAS?In 2024 the EPA finalized a rule to set limits for six PFAS compounds in drinking water as part of a PFAS Strategic Roadmap laid out under the Biden-Harris administration. The rules provide for three years of testing and two years to remove PFAS from drinking water. This action will prevent thousands of deaths and reduce tens of thousands of serious illnesses, said then EPA administrator Michael Regan during a call with reporters when the rules were announced last April.In another rule, two of the most harmful PFAS, PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) and PFOS (perfluorooctanesulfonic acid), were labeled hazardous substances. This designation has allowed the agency to use Superfund money to clean up contaminated sites.It is unclear whether the current Trump administration might try to rescind or weaken those rules as part of a broader deregulatory campaign at the EPA. Some states had PFAS regulations prior to the limits that the EPA implemented that would still be in place if the agencys standards were rescinded. But the testing underway shows that 53 million people in states without PFAS regulations would be exposed to levels above current EPA limits.How to Avoid PFASSome utilities already treat water for PFAS by using filters that contain granulated activated charcoal or reverse osmosis membranes. Some home filters are also designed to reduce PFAS levels, but regular filter replacement is key, the EWG, which has tested several filters, says.

March 28, 20255 min readSafe, Cheap and Non-Invasive: Ultrasound Could Treat Cancer, Psychiatric Disorders and MoreA bioengineer highlights the potential of low-intensity ultrasound for multiple uses, from enhanced drug delivery to the brain to combating cancerBy Rachel Nuwer edited by Gary Stix Naeblys/Getty Images.If you are a parent, then you probably first laid eyes on your child through an ultrasound procedurethe technology that uses high-frequency sound waves to view soft tissue. It is undeniably one of the most popular imaging tools. But its uses now extend far beyond just prenatal care.One of the best examples is low-intensity focused ultrasound, or LIFU, which delivers sound at lower energetic intensities than traditional ultrasound. It is quickly emerging as a safe, low cost and non-invasive approach for a range of treatments. Researchers are most excited about three promising uses for LIFU that are currently being studied: getting drugs past the blood-brain barrier, improving treatment for some cancers and addressing certain psychiatric conditions.Scientific American talked to Elisa Konofagou, a biomedical engineer at Columbia University, about promising current research and the direction the field is headed. Konofagou designs ultrasound-based technologies for better image and signal processing, and she also specializes in measuring changes to tissues that have been subjected to therapeutic ultrasound. She frequently collaborates with physicians to conduct clinical investigations and to translate the technologies she develops in her lab to real-world settings.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.[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]When did scientists begin to realize that low-intensity focused ultrasound had potential for a broader range of health applications? Theres a paper in Science from 1923 where scientists used focused ultrasound waves to destroy bacteria and red blood cells in frogs. So they knew that there was something happening with ultrasound and biological tissues. By the 1930s, they had started to try to treat nerves with therapeutic ultrasound, and in the 1950s, the brain.What attracted you to the field and made you want to dedicate your career to studying this? The fact that its completely non-invasive, and the fact that you can actually focus it down to a millimeter-size region. It's almost like science fiction to me, because usually if you want to treat somewhere deep in the body, you will have to perform surgery. In this case, you're able to go into a very small region deep in an organ without surgery. This includes the brain. Its a bit difficult to fathom, but LIFU does go through the skull.Your lab is studying how LIFU can be used to get drugs past the blood-brain barrier. Can you tell me more about that work? Some of our work focuses on temporarily opening the blood-brain barrier, a structure that is almost like a filter in the brain and doesnt allow drug molecules to go through. We are partnering with drug companies that have products that arent as efficacious as they are expected to be because theyre stopped by the blood-brain barrier. We have these small micro-bubbles that we inject into the bloodstream. Theyre designed to resonate at the frequencies of ultrasound. We use them in combination with LIFU to mechanically engage the blood vessels at the blood-brain barrier. This relaxes the vessels so the drugs can go through.Were trying to apply this method for Alzheimers treatment, for example. Others have opened the blood-brain barrier to allow an antibody that is aimed to reduce beta amyloid, the plaques that form in the brains of people with the disease, with the objective to increase both the dose of the antibody and the volume of the brain that receives treatment. It was found that the volume of beta amyloid reduces with the volume of opening, and thus the dose of the antibody received. But even without an antibody treatment, our group has found that opening the blood-brain barrier with focused ultrasound alone induces an intrinsic immune response in the brain that reduces beta amyloid and tau. So there are multiple avenues to harness ultrasound for Alzheimers that are worth investigating further.Ive heard that a similar approach can also be used for more targeted cancer treatments? Yes, thats also a very interesting aspect of how you can use LIFU. Very similar to the way that drugs for Alzheimers, Parkinsons and other neurodegenerative diseases do not penetrate the brain in a sufficient therapeutic dose, cancer drugs cant adequately reach tumors in the brain.Our group was the first, for example, to apply LIFU for opening the blood-brain barrier and delivering drugs for the treatment of Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Gliomas, a rare type of brain tumor that is 100 percent lethal within a year in pediatric patients. We treated six patients aged six to 17 years old in a soon-to-be-published safety study.The patients were initially debilitated because of the tumors occurrence in the area of their brains responsible for mobility. Although we werent able to demonstrate tumor control, we were able to show that the patients exhibited higher ease and comfort with movement immediately after treatment. This is important, because it improves quality of life for these patients. Theyre able to feed themselves, play on their iPad and hug their family members. Were starting a second study next month pairing LIFU with a generic drug to determine whether this combination results in better tumor control.Are you familiar with much of the psychiatric work thats going on with LIFU? Yes, the psychiatric applications seem even more like science fiction! You just have ultrasound reaching into the brainso no bubbles, no drugs, just sound itself. The ultrasound activates neurons and other types of brain cells such as microglia and astrocytes, which are basically there to keep the brain healthy. The cells respond to these mechanical waves, and their connectivity changes. In very layman terms, the ultrasound rewires the brain temporarily. More research is needed on how this works, but we think the rewiring helps by either stimulating or inhibiting brain circuits, which are known to have beneficial effects in treating such conditions.Some psychiatric disorders seem to respond to this. Obsessive-compulsive disorder is the one we know of that responds the most. Some people are also looking at anxiety disorders by focusing the ultrasound on the amygdala. .Weve also seen that, by opening the blood-brain barrier, you can stimulate the brain itself and have whats called neuromodulatory consequences. Were looking at this for treating depression and pain sensation. Our lab is also looking at using LIFU to treat pain by peripheral nerve stimulation outside the brain and spinal cord. Instead of treating the brain, you treat the region of the nerve that causes the pain sensation. Working with neurosurgeons at Columbia, weve shown that LIFU can relieve pain in carpal tunnel syndrome patients for a few days. Were also working with people with neuropathy and nerve tumors.Aside from the fact that this technology is non-invasive, what are some of the other advantages for patients? It is very portable. This means we can take the treatment to the patient, as opposed to taking the patient to the treatment. This is a big advantage especially for elderly patients and those with Alzheimer's. Being portable also means its much less costly, because you dont have to have technicians who maintain it.In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges for moving the field forward? The biggest challenge is convincing the FDA that LIFU is safe, and then getting practitioners to use it more readily. The good news is that high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) has been approved and gotten reimbursement in the U.S. for treating prostate cancer and essential tremors. [HIFU uses higher energy levels to destroy targeted tissue, like tumor cells.] LIFU just stimulates tissue so its safer than HIFU, which ablates tissue. But its newer, so we need to get the FDA to embrace it.Where do you hope the field will be going forward with LIFU? In the future, I think hospitals will have a therapeutic ultrasound suite where you can get treatment for whatever application you needwhether its facilitating and increasing a drug dose in the targeted area, or treating mood and psychiatric disorders.

March 28, 20258 min readIn a Sky Full of Satellites, Astronomers Find Creative Ways to Observe the StarsSwarms of satellites launched by SpaceX and other companies are disrupting astronomical observations. Here's how scientists are copingBy Alexandra Witze & Nature magazine Satellite streaks appear in a photograph taken above the Pinnacles in Nambung National Park, Western Australia. Joshua RozellsIn the next few months, from its perch atop a mountain in Chile, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory will begin surveying the cosmos with the largest camera ever built. Every three nights, it will produce a map of the entire southern sky filled with stars, galaxies, asteroids and supernovae and swarms of bright satellites ruining some of the view.Astronomers didnt worry much about satellites photobombing Rubins images when they started drawing up plans for the observatory more than two decades ago. But as the space around Earth becomes increasingly congested, researchers are having to find fresh ways to cope or else lose precious data from Rubin and hundreds of other observatories.The number of working satellites has soared in the past five years to around 11,000, mostly because of constellations of orbiters that provide Internet connectivity around the globe (see Satellite surge). Just one company, SpaceX in Hawthorne, California, has more than 7,000 operational Starlink satellites, all launched since 2019; OneWeb, a space communications company in London, has more than 630 satellites in its constellation. On paper, tens to hundreds of thousands more are planned from a variety of companies and nations, although probably not all of these will be launched.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.Satellites play a crucial part in connecting people, including bringing Internet to remote communities and emergency responders. But the rising number can be a problem for scientists because the satellites interfere with ground-based astronomical observations, by creating bright streaks on images and electromagnetic interference with radio telescopes. The satellite boom also poses other threats, including adding pollution to the atmosphere.NatureWhen the first Starlinks launched, some astronomers warned of existential threats to their discipline. Now, researchers in astronomy and other fields are working with satellite companies to help quantify and mitigate the impacts on science and society. There is growing interest in collaborating and finding solutions together, says Giuliana Rotola, a space-policy researcher at the SantAnna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa, Italy.Timing things rightThe first step to reduce satellite interference is knowing when and where a satellite will pass above an observatory. The aim is to minimize the surprise, says Mike Peel, an astronomer at Imperial College London.Before the launch of Starlinks, astronomers had no centralized reference for tracking satellites. Now, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) has a virtual Centre for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky from Satellite Constellation Interference (CPS), which serves as an information hub and to which researchers, including Peel and Rotola, volunteer their time.One of the centres tools, called SatChecker, draws on a public database of satellite orbits, fed by information from observers and companies that track objects in space. Astronomers can use SatChecker to confirm what satellite is passing overhead during their observations. The tool isnt perfect; atmospheric drag and intentional manoeuvring can affect a satellites position, and the public database doesnt always reflect the latest information. For instance, the BlueWalker 3 satellite from telecommunications firm AST SpaceMobile in Midland, Texas, launched in 2022 and was sometimes brighter than most stars; yet uncertainty of its position was so great at times that astronomers had difficulty predicting whether it would be in their field of view for their night-time observations.Starlink satellites leave streaks in a 2019 image taken by a 4-meter telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile.CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/DECam DELVE SurveyTools such as SatChecker help telescope operators to avoid problems by allowing them to target a different part of the sky when a satellite passes overhead or by simply pausing observations as it flies by. It would aid astronomers if SatChecker had even more accurate information about satellite positions, but there are constraints on improving the system. SatChecker data come from the US Space Force, which draws on a global network of sensors that tracks objects in orbit and issues updates on satellite locations as often as several times a day. The frequency of these updates is limited by factors such as how often a sensor can observe an object and whether the sensor can distinguish what its looking at.Currently, satellite streaks are a relatively minor issue for telescope operators. But the problem will grow as satellite numbers continue to increase drastically, meaning more observation time will be lost, and this issue will be magnified for Rubin.Fixing the streaksRubin, which cost US$810 million to build, is a unique case because it scans large swathes of the sky frequently meaning it can detect rapidly changing phenomena such as incoming asteroids or cosmic explosions. Astronomers dont want to be fooled by passing satellites, as happened in 2017 when researchers spotted what they thought was a -ray burst high-energy flashes of light from a distant galaxy but turned out to be sunlight reflecting off a piece of space junk.Rubins powerful camera, coupled with its 8.4-metre telescope, will take about 1,000 nightly exposures of the sky, each about 45 times the area of the full Moon. Thats more wide-field pictures of the sky than any optical observatory has ever taken. Simulations suggest that if satellite numbers in low Earth orbit rise to around 40,000 over the 10 years of Rubins survey a not-impossible forecast then at least 10% of its images, and the majority of those taken during twilight, will contain a satellite trail.SpaceX took early steps to try to mitigate the problem. Working with Rubin astronomers, the company tested changes to the design and positions of Starlinks to try to keep their brightness beneath a target threshold. Amazon, the retail and technology giant based in Seattle, Washington, is also testing mitigations on prototype satellites for its planned Kuiper constellation. Such changes reduce, but dont eliminate, the problem.To limit satellite interference, Rubin astronomers are creating observation schedules to help researchers avoid certain parts of the sky (for example, near the horizon) and at certain times (such as around twilight). For when they cant avoid the satellites, Rubin researchers have incorporated steps into their data-processing pipeline to detect and remove satellite streaks. All these changes mean less time doing science and more time processing data, but they need to be done, astronomers say. We are really looking forward to getting data from Rubin and seeing how it turns out, Peel says.For other observatories, the IAU CPS is working on tools to help astronomers identify and correct satellite streaks in their data. One is a new database of crowdsourced observations of satellite brightnesses called SCORE, which is currently being beta tested and is planned for wider release in the coming months. This will help scientists to work backwards they might see something puzzling in their past observations and be able to work it out, Peel says.The database is definitely a very valuable tool because its one of few that have data freely available, says Marco Langbroek, a space-tracking specialist at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. As a beta tester, Langbroek has added a number of entries to SCORE, including measurements of a NASA solar sail that changes in brightness as it tumbles through space. Going forwards, he says, SCORE will be most useful if a lot of astronomers contribute high-quality observations to the database, thereby building up a resource over time.Tuning things outAstronomers who work in the radio portion of the electromagnetic spectrum face extra challenges when it comes to satellites.Big radio telescopes are typically located in remote regions, to be as far as possible from mobile-phone masts and other technological infrastructure that leak radio emissions. But satellites cant be avoided. If signals are coming from the sky, theyre always there, says Federico Di Vruno, an astronomer at the Square Kilometre Array Observatory in Jodrell Bank, UK, and co-director of the IAU CPS.When satellites transmit signals, the electromagnetic interference can overwhelm faint radio signals coming from the cosmos. One solution is to re-direct or temporarily turn off satellite transmissions. The US National Radio Astronomy Observatory and SpaceX have been working on ways to accomplish this, and the company now momentarily redirects or disables transmissions when Starlinks pass above sensitive telescopes including the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia. The method requires voluntary buy-in by all partners, plus a lot of data sharing and intensive programming by the companies and by the astronomers, but it does reduce interference. It has been successful enough that small group of radio astronomers visited China last month to discuss the strategy with satellite operators and scientists there.An image made from multiple exposures shows streaks from Starlink satellites, the International Space Station and other satellites over a site in Wales.Max AlexanderBut as soon as one solution is found, fresh challenges appear. One is the rise of direct-to-cell satellites, which function like mobile-phone towers in space and can transmit to areas on the ground that otherwise dont have coverage. Optical astronomers worry about these because they are physically large and therefore bright, and they are a big problem for radio astronomers because direct-to-cell transmissions are extremely powerful. If one of those hits a radio observatory, the telescope might be blind for a little bit, Di Vruno says. So astronomers and satellite operators are discussing how they can share information about these as well, to avoid each other when a satellite passes over an observatory.Another emerging challenge is unintended emissions which happen when satellites leak radiation in wavelengths far outside the bands typically used for transmissions and other tasks. Early tests for the Square Kilometre Array radio telescopes, which are under construction in Australia and South Africa, discovered such leakage coming from Starlinks and other satellites.Many of these unintended emissions are at the low frequencies that are used in some studies including those of the early Universe. So far, astronomers havent come up with a good solution, other than scheduling telescopes to not record data when a satellite passes through the part of the sky being observed. In the future, it is possible that authorities such as the International Telecommunication Union might be able to issue regulations on this, as it already does for other shared uses of the electromagnetic spectrum.Cleaning up the atmosphereAstronomers arent the only researchers concerned about the impacts of satellite constellations. In the past few years, a growing number of atmospheric scientists have been warning that these fleets will pollute Earths upper atmosphere during launches and then when their orbits decline and they burn up. Researchers are just starting to get to grips with the scope of this pollution, says Connor Barker, an atmospheric chemist at University College London (UCL).The point of satellite constellations is to have lots of satellites in orbit, but refreshing them when new technology comes along means that the pace of launches and re-entries will accelerate. In February alone, an average of four Starlink satellites a day re-entered the atmosphere and burned up.Each re-entry adds chemicals to the upper atmosphere. In a 2023 study, researchers reported that measurements made during high-altitude aeroplane flights detected more than 20 chemical elements in Earths upper atmosphere that probably came from satellite re-entries, including aluminium, copper and lead. Other work has found that satellite constellations contributed around 40% of many types of carbon emission from the space industry in 2022, including black carbon particles and carbon dioxide that could contribute to warming the atmosphere. Its not yet clear how much this warms the planet or contributes to other environmental problems. Some early analyses suggest that satellite launches could contribute a small but measurable amount of ozone destruction.There are no regulations on satellite atmospheric pollution. Barker and his colleagues at UCL say a good first step towards a solution is to get better estimates of the scope of the problem. They have been building an emissions inventory for rocket launches and satellite re-entries, carefully tallying up the contaminants involved and estimating the altitudes at which they enter the atmosphere. Even though this is currently a relatively small industry thats having a relatively small impact on the atmosphere, we should still be aware of it, says Eloise Marais, an atmospheric chemist at UCL.Researchers are trying to raise the profile of these and other concerns linked to satellite fleets. Some of these issues were discussed in February in Vienna, at a meeting of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. It was the first time that the committee formally discussed the impacts of satellite constellations on astronomy.No major actions were taken, as expected for these early discussions. But now all of the member states know of dark and quiet skies, Di Vruno says. That in itself, he says, is a success.This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on March 18, 2025.

March 28, 20253 min read76 Ways Pregnancy and Giving Birth Change a Person's BodyData from 300,000 births reveal how essential biological measurements are altered by carrying and delivering a babyBy Celeste Biever & Nature magazine Womens bodies undergo vast physiological changes during pregnancy that can last for more than a year after birth. Catherine Delahaye/Getty ImagesBiologists have built up one of the most detailed pictures ever of the changes that occur in womens bodies before and after pregnancy, by pooling and studying around 44 million physiological measurements from more than 300,000 births.The gigantic study1, which used the anonymized results of blood, urine and other tests taken before, during and more than a year after pregnancy, reveals the scale of the toll that carrying a baby and childbirth take on the body from the myriad changes made to support a fetus to the effects of its abrupt departure from the body during birth. The research was published in Science Advances on 26 March.The study suggests that the postnatal period in the body is much longer than people tend to assume, says Jennifer Hall, who researches reproductive health at University College London. Theres a societal expectation that you bounce back quickly after childbirth, she says. This is like the biological proof that you dont.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 results also suggest that it might be possible to identify women at risk of certain common complications of pregnancy including the blood-pressure condition pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes before conception. Currently, these conditions are diagnosed during pregnancy.The power of dataThe researchers used anonymized data from medical records supplied by Israels largest health-care provider, and spanning the period from 2003 to 2020. To build up a picture of a typical pregnancy, they used test results only from women aged 2035 years who were not taking medication or experiencing chronic disease.NatureThe team gathered results from 76 common tests including measures of cholesterol, immune cells, red blood cells, inflammation and the health of the liver, kidneys and metabolism taken up to 4.5 months before conception and up to 18.5 months after childbirth. This allowed them to establish average values for each test for every week in that period.It took my breath away to see that that every test has this dynamical profile that is so elaborate, week by week, and has never been seen before, says Uri Alon, a systems biologist at the Weizmann Institute for Science in Rehovot, Israel, who led the study.The researchers found that, in the first month after birth, 47% of the 76 indicators stabilized close to their pre-conception values. But 41% of the indicators took longer than 10 weeks to stabilize. These included several measures of liver function and cholesterol that took around six months to settle, and an indicator of bone and liver health, which took a year (see The bodys slow recovery from childbirth). The remaining 12% took 410 weeks to stabilize.Several measurements including a marker for inflammation and several indicators of blood health settled but did not return to their pre-conception levels even after 80 weeks, when the study ended. Whether such long-lasting differences result from pregnancy and birth themselves or from behaviours changing after the arrival of a child is a question for future research, say the scientists.The researchers classed the indicators into four groups according to their trajectories. Some measures rose during pregnancy, then dropped post-partum; others did the opposite. Others still didnt just drop or rise to meet pre-conception levels: they over- or undershot their pre-pregnancy values at delivery, before settling at roughly their pre-conception levels. That could be explained by the body overcompensating for changes.Pre-conception changesThe scientists found distinct changes in the body that began even before conception. Some of these including a reduction in a marker of inflammation and increases in folic acid were beneficial. The researchers attribute this to the tendency for people to take supplements and live more healthily when trying to conceive.The researchers also isolated tests from women who developed complications that are currently not diagnosed until pregnancy, including gestational diabetes and pre-eclampsia, a condition that results in high blood pressure and can be life-threatening. They found that these women had different profiles for certain markers compared with tests from healthy pregnancies, and in some cases, the differences were most significant before conception.This finding is exciting, says Hall, because it raises the possibility of being able to identify and help women at risk of these conditions before they conceive.The findings show the power of anonymized biomedical information to uncover fresh insights, says Alon. His team is now taking a similar approach to studying menopause. We can ask any statistical question we want, he says. It's like paradise.This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on March 26, 2025.