The Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii recorded the highest annual jump in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels since its records began in 1958. Alexandros Maragos via Getty ImagesEarth has broken another greenhouse gas emissions record: The levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere above Hawaii made an unprecedent jump in 2024, according to a new analysis by the Met Office, the United Kingdoms national climate and weather service.Between 2023 and 2024, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rose by 3.58 parts per million (ppm), to reach a total of 427 ppmthe largest increase between calendar years, as measured by Hawaiis Mauna Loa Observatory, since records began 67 years ago.Scientists say that a safe concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide is 350 ppm and that keeping this number below 430 ppm is essential for limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, as directed in the Paris Agreement.The new numbers signal that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations are not only risingtheyre doing so faster than ever, as the scientists involved in the analysis write in Carbon Brief.Were still going in the wrong direction, says Richard Betts, a climate scientist at the Met Office who worked on the analysis, to New Scientists Michael Le Page.The Mauna Loa Observatory is one of the longest-running carbon dioxide monitors in the world. While its data reveal trends in global atmospheric carbon dioxideover long time periods, the scientists note that its year-to-year measurements can fluctuate as a result of localized phenomena, such as fires. Case in point: Satellites calculated the annual rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide to be 2.9 ppm over the same perioda lower number than Mauna Loa recorded, but still the second largest jump on record, after 2015 to 2016. The Mauna Loa atmospheric baseline observatory in Hawaii Susan Cobb / NOAA ResearchScientists suggest the rise is the result of a year filled with major wildfires, record-breaking fossil fuel emissions and ongoing deforestation. Wildfires alone released billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmospherea study published in October found that carbon emissions from forest fires increased by 60 percent globally between 2001 and 2023. An El Nio event was also in progress for part of the year, bringing warmer and drier weather to an already warming planet.These trends are not compatible with any of the pathways set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit), the team writes in Carbon Brief. In fact, 2024 was the first calendar year warm enough to cross that threshold. Though a single year above that marker does not mean the world breached the Paris Agreement, many top climate scientists predict temperatures will rise to at least 2.5 degrees Celsius (4.5 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.The Met Office analysis also forecasts a further rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations for 2025. You could regard [these findings] as another nail in the coffin of 1.5C, says Betts to New Scientist. Thats now vanishingly unlikely.Still, scientists say the work underscores the need to take climate action. Countries have agreed to the 1.5C global warming limit not out of convenience but out of necessity to limit harm and suffering of people, Joeri Rogelj, director of research at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment who was not involved in the analysis, says in a statement. Even if we are on track to surpass 1.5C, these reasons dont change and only make a stronger case for focused action on reducing greenhouse gas pollution.Betts offers some hope to the Guardians Damian Carrington: Even if it looks like we wont meet the ambitious Paris goal of 1.5C, it is still worth making every effort to limit the rise. 1.5C is not a cliff-edge after which all is lost. There are lots of solutions already available without any new inventions. This must be extra motivation to work even harder.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Climate Change, Fossil Fuels, Global Warming, New Research, Weather, Wildfire

Bob Dylans Drafts of Mr. Tambourine Man Lyrics Sell for $508,000 at AuctionThe rare papers were part of a larger collection from rock journalist Al Aronowitz, a close friend of Dylans in the 1960sElla JeffriesStaff ContributorJanuary 21, 2025 4:25 p.m. The two sheets of yellowed paper contain three typewritten drafts of the iconic song. Julien's AuctionsBob Dylans legendary Mr. Tambourine Man, one of the defining folk-rock tracks of the 1960s, has once again captured the spotlightbut this time, its not through a song recording.The original drafts of the songs lyrics, which offer a rare glimpse into Dylans creative process, have been sold for $508,000 at a recent auction. The sale, held by Juliens Auctions in Nashville, adds to the heightened interest in Dylans legacy, especially after the recent release of A Complete Unknown, a biopic chronicling Dylans rise to fame in 1960s New York.The two sheets of yellowed paper that sold for over half a million dollars contain three typewritten drafts of the iconic song. These drafts are not the final version, but offer unique insights into Dylans songwriting methods. Handwritten notes and changes in the margins show the evolution of the lyrics, with one draft even nearing the final version, though still featuring significant variations. For fans and experts alike, these drafts present an opportunity to see how one of the 20th centurys most influential songwriters shaped his work.Its absolutely mind-blowing, and confirmation that this is how genius works, Richard Thomas, a Harvard University classics scholar who also teaches a course on Dylans writing, told Ali Watkins of the New York Times.Bob Dylan - Mr. Tambourine Man (Official Audio)Watch on The drafts were part of the personal collection of Al Aronowitz, a renowned rock journalist who was a close confidant of Dylans in the 1960s. Dylan wrote Mr. Tambourine Man in early 1964 at Aronowitzs home in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, where he spent a night at the journalist's breakfast bar, writing away on a portable typewriter while listening to Marvin Gayes Can I Get A Witness.Aronowitz later recalled that, after Dylan left, he found a wastebasket filled with crumpled pages, the discarded drafts of the song. But after Aronowitzs death in 2005, his family couldnt locate the lyrics and believed the drafts were lost. His son, Myles Aronowitz, who played a key role in finding the lyric pages, said the discovery came after years of searching through family archives.This was family lore, Myles told David Browne of Rolling Stone in December. My father talked about it, but he had no idea where they were. He thought he lost them or someone stole them. It took us years going through the archives folder by folder to find them.In total, the Aronowitz archive sold for $1.5 million, with other items fetching impressive sums. Among the highlights were a 1983 Fender Telecaster owned by Dylan, which sold for $222,250, and an original 1968 oil painting by Dylan, which went for $260,000.My family and I are thrilled with the auction, Myles said in a statement, per Daniel Kreps of Rolling Stone. These items were evidence of the unique and intimate place my father had in musical and cultural history with his good friend Bob Dylan, and all the other iconic artists of his day.Myles and his wife hope to organize another auction, and eventually place the entire collection in a library or museum, according to Ali Watkins of the New York Times.Dylans Mr. Tambourine Man, which was eventually released in 1965 on his album Bringing It All Back Home, became a landmark song in the folk-rock genre. While the Byrds 1965 cover of the song was a chart-topping hit, Dylans version would go on to be one of his most celebrated tracks.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Auctions, Music, Musicians, Pop culture, Rock and Roll, Rock Musicians

For Chimpanzees, Peeing May Be ContagiousJust Like Yawning Is for Humans, Study FindsScientists suggest captive chimpanzees engage in socially contagious urinationthat is, when one primate starts peeing, others quickly follow suit A new study on "contagious urination" only looked at captive chimpanzees, but researchers suspect the phenomenon may also exist in the wild. Kumamoto SanctuaryIf you see or hear someone yawn, you might suddenly feel the urge to do the same, thanks to a well-studied phenomenon known as contagious yawning. Now, new research suggests urination may function in a similar way: Captive chimpanzees that saw their peers peeing were more likely to take a tinkle themselves.Scientists describe their evidence for this socially contagious urination in a new paper published Monday in the journal Current Biology.Study co-author Ena Onishi, a primatologist at Kyoto University, first became interested in chimp urination in 2019. While researching captive chimpanzees at the Kumamoto Sanctuary in Kyoto, Japan, she noticed that the animals all tended to pee at the same time.This observation reminded her of certain human behaviorsincluding contagious yawning and the tendency for people to go to the bathroom in groups.In Japan, my home country, there is a specific term called Tsureshon, which refers to the act of urinating in the company of others, Onishi tells Science News Gennaro Tomma.In addition to Tsureshon, the researchers also point to an Italian proverb that says whoever doesnt pee in company is either a thief or a spy.So, Onishi decided to conduct an experiment to learn more. She and her colleagues recorded the sanctuarys 20 chimpanzees for more than 600 hours, capturing 1,328 urination events in their footage.After analyzing the videos, the team confirmed their suspicions: When one chimp started peeing, others quickly followed suit.Their data also revealed more nuanced findings: For instance, chimpanzees with a lower social rank were more likely to urinate when they saw their peers peeing. Physical proximity to the initial urinator also increased the likelihood that other chimps would follow suit.Social closenessor how tightly bonded a pair of chimps seem to be, based on how much time they spend grooming or hanging out with each otherdid not appear to influence the contagious urination. Thats a departure from contagious yawning in humans, which does seem to be affected by social closeness.Since humans are known to visit the restroom together, the findings suggest contagious urination may have a deep evolutionary origin, study co-author Shinya Yamamoto, also a primatologist at Kyoto University, tells Live Sciences Olivia Ferrari. The behavior may even trace back to a shared ancestor. (Chimpanzees, along with bonobos, are humans closest living relatives.)In humans, we know that our decision to urinate is influenced by social contexts that lead us to urinate simultaneously with others, and that this simultaneous urination could also promote further social bonding, Yamamoto adds. Our study with chimpanzees clearly shows that they share some similarities in this phenomenon.Though the study only included captive chimpanzees, researchers suspect contagious urination probably exists in the wild, too. Future studies might investigate the behavior among wild chimps, as well as among other social species.If you walk with great apes in the wild, you often see that group members really coordinate what theyre doing, says Martin Surbeck, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University who was not involved with the paper, to the New York Times Annie Roth.Why do chimps seem to pee at the same time? The study doesnt answer that question definitively, but the researchers have developed a few theories. Contagious urination might help reinforce social bonds and boost cohesiveness, or it might be a defensive move to prevent predators from tracking the groups movements.Humans and non-human animals share many social phenomena linked to group livingwere all influenced by the presence of others, even in everyday activities, Onishi tells Salons Matthew Rozsa. For instance, behaviors like yawning, walking, rhythmic tapping and even changes in pupil size are contagious in both humans and chimpanzees. Our study fits into this framework by showing that urination, a seemingly simple physiological act, can also spread socially within a group.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Animals, Evolution, Human Evolution, Human Origins, Japan, Mammals, New Research, Primates, Social Sciences, wildlife

President Donald Trump holds up an executive order. He signed dozens of executive orders on his first day in office, undoing many of his predecessors policies. Christopher Furlong / Getty ImagesPresident Donald Trump signed a slew of executive orders on the first day of his second term in office on Monday, and among them were motions to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization (WHO). Climate and public health experts have expressed concern about these actions, which they say will endanger the nations ability to shape the global response to climate change as well as its fight against infectious disease.During Trumps first term as president, he issued similar executive actions. His decision to exit the Paris Agreement took effect in late 2020 and was quickly overturned when Joe Biden entered office months later. Because U.S. law requires one year of notice before exiting the WHO, the country had not fully withdrawn from the agency before Biden was sworn in and reversed that motion, too. This time, by issuing the orders on his first day of presidency, Trump will be able to see these decisions through, writes USA Todays Eduardo Cuevas.The president has been vocal about his frustrations with the international climate pact, which aims to limit long-term global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levelsa threshold scientists say is necessary for avoiding the more extreme effects of climate change. In previous remarks, Trump has called the Paris Agreement unfair to Americans.His executive order regarding the Paris accords says that international agreements the U.S. has joined in recent years do not reflect our countrys values or our contributions to the pursuit of economic and environmental objectives. Moreover, these agreements steer American taxpayer dollars to countries that do not require, or merit, financial assistance in the interests of the American people.Trump also signed an executive order expressing intent to withdraw from the WHO, a United Nations agency that he has accused of being owned and controlled by China. He has said the group mishandled the COVID-19 pandemic, while the WHO has denied the presidents allegations, report Reuters Patrick Wingrove, Jennifer Rigby and Emma Farge.The U.S. is currently the WHOs largest financial backer, contributing around 18 percent of the groups funding. Removing this support from the organization will leave the WHO with fewer resources for its programs, including its work on fighting Zika and Ebola. The executive order says the WHO asked for unfairly onerous payments from the U.S.We hope the United States will reconsider, the WHO said in a statement on Tuesday. We look forward to engaging in constructive dialogue to maintain the partnership between the USA and WHO, for the benefit of the health and well-being of millions of people around the globe.Trumps order to exit the Paris Agreement comes just after 2024 became the hottest year on record and while wildfires continue to wreak havoc around Los Angeles. Iran, Yemen and Libya are currently the only countries not signed onto the Paris Agreement.President Trumps decision to withdraw once again the United States from the Paris Agreement is extremely disappointing, if not unexpected, Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, says in a statement. It means that the worlds second largest emitter of greenhouse gases will be turning its back on the landmark agreement in a year when all countries are due to come forward with more ambitious pledges for action ahead of the next United Nations climate change summit in Brazil in November.Critics also say the U.S. will be negatively impacted by exiting the WHO. Withdrawing is really bad for the U.S. [in terms of] access to data, to surveillance, to being at the table negotiating and holding other countries accountable when there is an epidemic or pandemic, says Elisha Dunn-Georgiou, president and CEO of the Global Health Council, a nonpartisan group that advocates for global health, to NPRs Gabrielle Emanuel.Recently, conservatives have criticized an effort by the WHO to create a pandemic treaty that would require member countries to conduct surveillance of pathogens, share data and support vaccine manufacturing, per the New York Times Sheryl Gay Stolberg.Brett Schaefer, a researcher at the Heritage Foundation, the D.C.-based think tank that published the Project 2025 Presidential Transition Project, tells NPR that other global health groups, such as UNAIDS and the Vaccine Alliance, could lead the fight against health crises like pandemics.In the next pandemic, Lawrence Gostin, a global public health expert at Georgetown Universitys ONeill Institute for National and Global Health Law, tells USA Today, we might find ourselves at the back of the line, on the outside looking in.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: American Presidents, Climate Change, Disease, Disease and Illnesses, Global Warming, Government, Health, Politics, US Government

Spanish settlers knocked down all but the foundations of the Temple of the Sun, then built a church atop the Inca walls. Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia CommonsIts long been rumored that a network of old, underground tunnels lies beneath Cusco, Peru, the capital of the ancient Incan empire. Now, thanks to archival texts and ground-penetrating radar, researchers say theyve confirmed the tunnels existence.Archaeologists Jorge Calero Flores and Mildred Fernndez Palomino, leaders of the research project, recently announced their findings at a press conference, according to a translated Facebook post by the Association of Archaeologists of Peru. Flores said the team found an underground passage connecting two of Cuscos key Inca monuments: the Temple of the Sunwhich conquistadors ruined and covered with a Catholic church in the 16th centuryand the Sacsayhuamn fortress, a 15th-century Inca monument of stone walls more than a mile away.The Inca dominated Perus Andes Mountains and jungles for centuries. They established their capital of Cusco in the 12th century, then conquered swaths of land between the early 15th and 16th centuries, after which the empire controlled some 12 million people. It was during this century of expansion that the Inca built Machu Picchu, the famed lost city perched on a mountaintop 50 miles from Cusco. In the mid- to late-16th century, the Inca empireweakened by internal strifefell to the rule of invading Spanish colonizers.The Inca left no written records of their underground constructions in Cusco, but Spaniards did. A 1594 text by an anonymous Spanish Jesuit describes a tunnel that begins at the Temple of the Sun, runs beneath the bishop housing behind Cusco Cathedral and ends at Sacsayhuamn, reports IFL Sciences Benjamin Taub. Another text, written by Jesuit chronicler Juan Anello de Oliva, alludes to several tunnels beneath Cuscoaccessible from a cave in the Sacsayhuamn fortressand says construction workers took care to avoid the tunnels during work, per Popular Mechanics Tim Newcomb. As Flores said at the press conference, these records gave his team an idea of where to look. An illustration shows the tunnel's location near the fortress. Association of Archaeologists of PeruAt the sites, researchers used acoustic prospectingdirected sound wavesto discover hollow areas underground. They then employed ground-penetrating radar to make a map of the tunnel. According to the Association of Archaeologists of Peru, the team identified a mile-long stretch of tunnel between the fortress and temple.Flores said the passage is about 8.5 feet wide and just over 5 feet tall, per El Pas Renzo Gomez Vega. Inca builders constructed the so-called Chincana by digging a ditch, lining it with stone walls and covering it with beams and ceiling. According to IFL Science, researchers say these dug-out passages probably ran directly under Cuscos aboveground streets and walkways. Inca people built Sacsayhuamn with enormous rocks. Esoltas, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsThe Chincanas purpose remains a mystery. Palomino said the research team plans to explore the tunnels themselves to learn more about them. Per IFL Science, she told reporters, Now we have to excavate at key points to be able to enter the Chincanaperhaps in March or April. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Incas, Peru, Peru Travel, South America, South American History, Spain

On This Day in HistoryOn This Day in 1793, Revolutionaries Executed the King of France by Guillotine, a Deadly Machine They Saw as a Symbol of EqualitySupporters of the French Revolution killed Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette, with the same apparatus used to execute common criminals The guillotine became Frances official method of capital punishment in spring 1792. Public domain via Wikimedia CommonsThe execution of Louis XVI on January 21, 1793, is one of the French Revolutions most iconic moments. That morning, the French king made his last procession to the Place de la Rvolution. An hour-and-a-half-long coach journey through the streets of Paris brought the monarch to the guillotine and a raucous crowd of thousands of spectators.When his executioners led him up the stairs, according to one republicans account, Louis declared, I die innocent. I pardon my enemies, and I desire that my death should serve the French people and appease the wrath of God.It was a dramatic scenemany artists, both for and against the revolution, would depict that fateful day. And the machine that brought about Louis death would ultimately become just as iconic as the revolutions act of mob violence.The guillotines story in France had begun just a few years prior. In late 1789, during a discussion about reforming the French penal code, physician Joseph-Ignace Guillotin proposed a standard system of capital punishment for all. At the time, execution methods tended to vary based on the class or rank of the criminal in question, which also led to marked differences in suffering.Highwaymen were broken on the wheel, witches burnt at the stake and thieves hung, wrote Eamonn Carrabine, a sociologist and criminologist at the University of Essex in England. Aristocrats, on the other hand, were usually beheaded with a sword, a privilege that was not extended to most commoners, who were decapitated by an unwieldy heading axe that bludgeoned its way through the neck, often requiring several attempts.History of the GuillotineWatch on Guillotin, himself opposed to capital punishment, proposed a decapitation machine that would kill its victims as quickly and painlessly as possible. Though the device was named after Guillotin, he was not its inventor; similar machines had already been employed in Europe.The guillotine became Frances official method of capital punishment in spring 1792. Its first victim was a common thief, Nicolas Jacques Pelletier.As revolutionaries geared up for the execution of the king at the end of 1792, Maximilien Robespierre, the revolutionary who would soon go on to play a key role in the Reign of Terror, proclaimed that the kings punishment necessitated the solemn character of a public vengeance.Employing the same machine that hadliterally taken the lives of common criminals proved to be an important symbol for the revolution.The death of the king thus invested the guillotine with a solemnity and grandeur commensurate with its function as the instrument of the peoples justice, wrote historian Daniel Arasse in The Guillotine and the Terror.By destroying the sanctity and inviolability of the king, the guillotine had become sacred in its own right, Arrasse explained.The machines grisly status as a king-killer lived on. Representations of events like the October 1793 execution of Louis wife, Marie Antoinette, and British counter-revolutionary propaganda in the 1790s and 1800s helped popularize the idea that aristocrats were martyrs and the main victims of revolution executioners, wrote historians Claire Rioult and Romain Fathi for the Conversation. Even today, the guillotine is a common symbol at protests against inequality.However, these narratives often overlook a crucial fact. Though the guillotine claimed the life of Frances king and queen, the majority of its estimated 15,000 to 17,000 victims werent aristocrats, but rather commoners.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Teresa Nowakowski|| READ MORETeresa Nowakowski is a print and multimedia journalist based in Chicago. They cover history, arts and culture, science, travel, food and other topics.

On This Day in HistoryOn This Day in 1993, Production Began on This Groundbreaking Movie That Transformed Hollywood ForeverWith Toy Story, computer animation began its rise to dominanceToy Storywas the firstfull-length feature film to be produced entirely with computer animation. PS Photography via Getty ImagesWith a To infinity and beyond! Toy Story captured the hearts of kids and adults alike when it reached theaters in 1995. But when the movie began production on January 19, 1993, its makers didnt know it would rake inand spawn a successful franchise.They did know that they were attempting something groundbreaking: the first full-length feature film to be produced entirely with computer animation.Toy Story was shot entirely on locationin cyberspace, Wireds Burr Snider wrote in 1995.How Toy Story Changed Animation History | Pixar's First CGI Animated MovieWatch on Prior to Toy Story, animated movies were largely hand-drawn. At that point, the contribution of computer animation to feature films was measured in seconds or minutes, wrote a group of Pixar employees in a paper for an international computer conference in 1996.Pixar had put out several computer-animated short films during the 1980s, including Tin Toy, which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film and caught the eye of Walt Disney Pictures. Its plot of toys coming to life also provided the basis for Toy Story. In 1991, Disney made a big bet, signing a deal funding a full-length film from Pixar. Toy Storys creative development phase began that year.They essentially made a commitment to the film before we had all the software ready to do it with, Ed Catmull, then president of Pixar, told Wired. It was nuts when you think about it, but we knew we could do it.Computer animation offered higher visual complexity than hand-drawn animation, from a new 3D style to details like the pattern of the plaid shirt worn by cowboy doll Woody or the precise timing of action hero Buzz Lightyear waving his hand.It was a movie. It was lit, it was dimensional, we had cameras moving around through things. It felt like a movie, Pixar co-founder John Lasseter said in 2015. Yet, they were cartoony, and they were moving like cartoons. They were plastic.The new approach also made animation less time- and labor-intensive. Hand-drawn animation could require up to 30 people to complete one shot. Meanwhile, a team of just 30 total animators completed Toy Storys more than 1,500 shots.Pixars subject matter matched the mediumthe animation style rendered geometric shapes well, but struggled with more organic shapes, making them look plastic. Toys were the perfect central characters.Though Pixar had spent years developing animation tools, still plenty more was left to be figured out on the fly.Id always say, Hey can we do this? Theyd say, No, but lets try, Lasseter told Time magazine in 2015.Despite the technological innovation and ingenuity involved, the Toy Story team didnt want the animation to be the star of the film. Instead, they wanted the story to be the priority.There are more PhDs working on this film than any other in movie history, and yet you dont need to know a thing about technology to love it, Lasseter told Wired.That dedication paid off. Lasseter received a Special Achievement Academy Award for the films technological prowess, and Toy Story also became the first animated feature ever to be nominated for Best Original Screenplay. The movie launched Pixars longstanding commercial success and movies that continued to push the bounds of what was possible in animation.Its the ugliest picture we will ever make, but you dont care because you get wrapped up in the story to this day, Andrew Stanton, who co-wrote Toy Story and many subsequent Pixar films, told Time.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Disney, Film, Movies, On This Day in History

On This Day in HistoryThe Ridiculous Reason Why the U.S. Enacted a Wartime Ban on Sliced Bread Salesand Why It Didnt Last LongDesigned to keep prices low and conserve wax paper, the ban, enacted on this day in 1943, only succeeded in making Americans furious A 1943 banprohibited bakeries from selling ready-sliced bread, among other directives regarding the baked goods manufacture and sale. Sujalajus via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 3.0On January 18, 1943, the Associated Press advised readers on a lost art: bread slicing.Bakers advise housewives to keep their eye on the loaf and not bear down on the knife, the wire service declared.Food Distribution Order 1, which took effect that day, prohibited bakeries from selling ready-sliced bread, among other directives regarding the baked goods manufacture and sale. The order was a wartime move meant to keep increased flour costs from reaching the consumer. Officials also hoped it would shore up the nations supplies of wax paper, since sliced bread required more wrapping to remain fresh.Claude R. Wickard, the secretary of agriculture and head of the War Food Administration, said he was sure housewives wouldnt mind slicing their own bread at home if thereby they can contribute toward preventing a bread price increase and at the same time contribute to the war effort.But consumers soon proved Wickard wrong.Bakery clerks reported that some of the housewives were resigned, the Chicago Daily Tribune wrote on January 19. Others, still uncomprehending, stalked out of stores and a few flexed their cutting arms in a manner one proprietor described as trouble, and plenty of it.During World War II, rationing measures hit meat, sugar, gas and even shoes as officials tried to conserve crucial resources. Trips to the grocery store required ration books, and families had to get creative, whether it meant concocting meatless dinners or planting their own garden. Even though the commercial bread slicer had only skyrocketed in popularity about a decade earlier, Americans were loath to give up the newfound convenience of sliced bread on store shelves.Indeed, from the bans outset, critics were doubtful that the measure would achieve its aims. The Tribune reported that retail and wholesale bakers didnt expect any actual time or labor savings. The newspaper also contended that a loaf of sliced bread was known to outlast an unsliced one. (A sliced loaf could remain safe in its packaging, while unsliced bread needed to be opened completely for cutting, making it likely to grow stale sooner.)Shortly after the ban went into effect, the New York Times wrote that American citizens were fed up with irregularly cut bread burning in the toaster and ending up in the trash.By mid-February, the Harrisburg Telegraph reported that the ban hadnt saved bakers any money, either. In some cases, the order actually made bakers jobs harder, since it was incompatible with machines that combined wrapping and slicing equipment.The ban was unpopular with elected officials, too. New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia argued that the order wasted bread and created demand for steel knives, even as other government agencies declared a steel shortage. La Guardia said hed watched his own wife struggle to cut bread with a dull knife.On March 4, Forest Harness, a congressman from Indiana, called the ban wasteful and injurious on the floor of the House of Representatives, saying there were better approaches that didnt involve wasting bread. He described the ban as a dictatorial abuse of power.Harness and other detractors soon got their wish. Less than two months after instituting the ban, rationing authorities rescinded it. In a statement, Wickard didnt address the measures unpopularity directly. Instead, he simply said it hadnt saved as much as expected and that the nation had sufficient wax paper.On March 8, sliced bread went back on salea boon, the Times wrote, to housewives who have risked thumbs and tempers slicing bread at home.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: American History, Food, Food History, On This Day in History, World War II

The exhibition includes a recreation of Mount Vesuvius' eruption in 79 C.E. National Museum of AustraliaToday, Pompeii is famous for being the site of a natural disasterthe deadly 79 C.E. eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which left the ancient city frozen in time.But before the volcano unleashed its torrent of rock, ash and toxic gases, Pompeii was just another Roman town on the coast of the Mediterranean. What was daily life like for the residents of Pompeii before the eruption? Where did they live, what objects did they use, and what sights did they see as they walked down the street?An immersive new exhibition at the National Museum of Australia in Canberra aims to answer these and other questions. Called Pompeii, the multi-sensory experience uses digital projections and sounds to recreate the ancient city, with a goal of whisking visitors back in time to the moments before Mount Vesuvius eruption.It features more than 90 artifacts, such as statues, sculptures, frescoes, cookware, funerary objects and jewelry. Visitors will also be able to see replicas of casts of some of Mount Vesuvius victims.The exhibition is focused on the real, lived human experience in Pompeii in an effort to help modern museumgoers connect with the people of the past, says Lily Withycombe, the museums lead coordinating curator, to theAustralian Broadcasting Corporations Emmy Groves. Visitors can see replicas of casts of some of Mount Vesuvius' victims. National Museum of AustraliaWe wanted to display objects that people will recognize and relate tofrom cooking wear to tweezers to bowls, glass bottlesbut then also have these items that really astonish people and allow them to think about artistic innovation and some of the extraordinary artworks that have come out of Pompeii, Withycombe adds.The show is divided into four Roman domus (houses). Museumgoers will also be able to stroll down a roughly 115-foot-long corso (a main avenue) that ends at a 20-foot-tall, floor-to-ceiling replica of Mount Vesuvius.While much of the exhibition focuses on life in Pompeii before the eruption wiped out the city, it also includes a dramatic recreation of the disaster itself.It starts with a low rumble, then an explosion and a deafening roar, writes theGuardians Kelly Burke. A pyroclastic flow bursts from the volcano and hurtles towards us at a frightening speed. Showers of ash appear to pummel the space around us. More than 90 artifacts are included in the multi-sensory experience. National Museum of AustraliaThe exhibitiondebuted at the Grand Palais in Paris in 2020, after being delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic. Now, Pompeii is making its first appearance in the Southern Hemisphere. Its being offered through a partnership between the National Museum of Australia, Grand Palais and GEDEON Experiences in France and thePompeii Archaeological Park in Italy.Gabriel Zuchtriegel, an archaeologist who serves as the director of the archaeological park, hopes the exhibition will offer a taste of Pompeii thats akin to what one might encounter when visiting the excavations at Pompeii today, he says in astatement.The exhibition comes amidnew daily visitor limits at Pompeii Archaeological Park, which has been grappling with record-breaking crowds and occasional incidents ofvandalism.Archaeologists continue to excavate the preserved city, unveiling new discoveries all the time. In recent years, theyve unearthed ashrine with blue walls,childrens graffiti, apregnant tortoise, a painting of aflatbread resembling a pizza and theremains of more Mount Vesuvius victims. Outside the park, scientists are alsousing DNA to learn more about some of the estimated 2,000 Pompeiians who perished in the disaster.Pompeii is on view at the National Museum of Australia through May 4, 2025.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Ancient Rome, Archaeology, Australia, European History, Exhibitions, Exhibits, History, Museums, Natural Disasters, Pompeii, Volcanoes

Starship lifts off on January 16, before undergoing a "rapid unscheduled disassembly" roughly eight and a half minutes into the flight. SpaceXOn Thursday, observers in the Turks and Caicos Islands region witnessed a stream of fireballs light up the evening sky. No, it wasnt aliens or even meteorsit was the remains of SpaceXs Starship spacecraft, which came apart during its seventh test flight.Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly during its ascent burn, SpaceX wrote in a post on X. Thats a rather understated engineering term to describe an explosion or breaking apart of a spacecraft.Teams will continue to review data from todays flight test to better understand [the] root cause, the company continued. With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and todays flight will help us improve Starships reliability.At 5:38 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday, the Super Heavy booster successfully lifted a redesigned and upgraded Starship from its Texas launch pad in the spacecrafts first flight test of the year. The booster then separated from the spacecraft as planned, and headed back to the launch site.To loud cheers and applause, Super Heavy safely landed in the mechanical arms of the catch tower, dubbed chopsticks. This marks the second time the maneuver was executed successfully, after the company made the catch on its first try back in October. (SpaceX chose to abort another catch attempt in November.)Meanwhile, Starships six engines gradually shut down during its ascent, reports the Associated Press Marcia Dunn, and SpaceX lost contact with the spacecraft about eight and a half minutes into its flight.The companys initial data suggesta fire developed in the rear section of the ship, which led to the explosion over the Atlantic Ocean and a consequent rain of debris.Preliminary indication is that we had an oxygen/fuel leak in the cavity above the ship engine firewall that was large enough to build pressure in excess of the vent capacity, billionaire SpaceX founder Elon Musk wrote on X. Apart from obviously double-checking for leaks, we will add fire suppression to that volume and probably increase vent area. Nothing so far suggests pushing next launch past next month.SpaceX will carry out an investigation with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to determine what went wrong with the vehicle.According to CNNs Jackie Wattles, regulators are looking into reports of property damage from falling debris in Turks and Caicos. Pieces of the broken-up spacecraft also disrupted airspace over the Gulf of Mexico, as Joey Roulette reports for Reuters. Dozens of commercial flights altered their paths to avoid potential debris, and some departures in Florida experienced delays.The FAA briefly slowed and diverted aircraft around the area where space vehicle debris was falling, agency officials explain to Space.coms Mike Wall.SpaceX spokesman Dan Huot tells the AP that it was great to see a booster come down, but we are obviously bummed out about ship. He emphasizes, however, that its a flight test. Its an experimental vehicle. Starship was only carrying ten mock Starlink satellites, which engineers had planned for it to release as practice.In addition to executing a second booster catch, Starships most recent test flight also achieved the successful restarting of a Raptor engine used in a previous test flight, according to CBS News William Harwood. This is a small but crucial step for SpaceXs goal of building a fully reusable transportation system, because it shows that the engines can fly on multiple missions.Early Thursday morning, SpaceXs competitor, Jeff Bezos Blue Origin, saw its New Glenn rocket lift off for the first time. The maiden voyage had, in a way, almost opposite results to Starships recent test flight: While New Glenns spacecraft reached orbit as planned, the separated booster was unable to maneuver to its landing platform.And on Wednesday, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket sent two commercially built lunar landers to space. The spacecraft are intended to touch down in the moons northern latitudes, conduct science experiments and test equipment.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Elon Musk, Engineering, Innovations, Space Travel, SpaceX, Technology

Archaeologists and Masai landowners conducted excavations at Engaji Nanyori in Tanzania. Julio MercaderOur early human ancestors might have been more adaptable than previously thought: New research suggests Homo erectus was able to surviveand even thriveafter its home in East Africa shriveled up and became a dry, barren landscape.H. erectus is a now-extinct species of early human that experts say arose some two million years ago in Africa. Walking upright, they had longer legs and shorter arms than previous hominins, which gave them a distinctly modern human-like appearance. They also had bigger brains than earlier species, though not quite as large as the brains of todays humans, Homo sapiens.H. erectus persisted for more than 1.5 million years before going extinct around 100,000 years ago. It was one of the first early human species to migrate out of Africa, traveling to distant locales like China and Indonesia.In all, the species existed on Earth for far longer than todays humans have so far, with H. sapiens appearing a mere 300,000 years ago.Homo erectus had longer legs, shorter arms and bigger brains than earlier hominin species. Tim Evanson via Flickr under CC BY-SA 2.0But how was this species able to survive for so long and inhabit such a wide geographic range? Researchers have long puzzled over these questions.Now, it turns out that ecological flexibility may be the answer, according to a new paper published Thursday in the journalCommunications Earth & Environment.That success came down to their ability to survive over a long period marked by many changes to the environment and climate, says study lead author Julio Mercader, a paleoecologist at the University of Calgary in Canada, in a statement.An international team of scientists reached this conclusion after studying a site in northern Tanzania called Engaji Nanyori. The site is rich in H. erectus fossils, as well as stone tools and fossilized grains of pollen. Researchers carefully analyzed these artifacts, as well as rocks, butchered animal bones and other types of archaeological evidence, to reconstruct what the past environment looked like.This type of study is an immense amount of work, as Elke Zeller, a climate scientist at the University of Arizona who did not participate in the project, tells the New York Times Carl Zimmer.Through these painstaking efforts, the research painted a picture of Engaji Nanyori as a dry, semi-desert environment, with little water and few plants. But the landscape hadnt always been that wayin fact, it was previously an open woodland for hundreds of thousands of years, the team found. Roughly a million years ago, the climate shifted drastically, and Engaji Nanyori went from a relatively hospitable habitat to a hyper-arid shrubland.Somehow, H. erectus was able to adjust to this new landscape. The early humans visited water holes that popped up after it rained and hunted the animals that congregated to drink. And across millennia, they repeatedly inhabited the same sites near rivers and streams, strategically taking advantage of the resources they offered. Researchers studied stone tools, fossilized pollen grains and other artifacts from a site known as Engaji Nanyori. Mercader et al. / Communications Earth & Environment, 2025H. erectusalso made their stone tools sharper, presumably for butchery, per the paper, and began bringing tools with them when moving to new locations. These advancements would have helped themThey may have had strategies where they basically say, This is a good tool. I should bring it with me and be ready if we find food, says study co-author Paul Durkin, a geologist at the University of Manitoba in Canada, to the New York Times.This adaptability could help explain why H. erectus was able to move out of Africa and successfully spread to other parts of the world, the researchers add.The findings offer new insights into the lifestyle and behaviors of one of our ancient ancestors, building on other recent research that foundH. erectus lived at high altitudes in present-day Ethiopia. But, more broadly, they also help refute the long-held belief that only H. sapienswith its massive, complex brainwas capable of inhabiting extreme environments.Homo sapiens is often considered to be a species that could deal with all ecological circumstances thrown at themand, indeed, it is impressive what our species was, and has been, able to cope with, study co-author Michael Petraglia, director of the Australian Research Center for Human Evolution at Griffith University, tells Haaretzs Ruth Schuster. However, this does not mean that earlier members of our genus were not also capable of occupying difficult habitats. Our article demonstrates this very clearly and at an early age.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Africa, Archaeology, Environment, Evolution, Human Evolution, Human Origins, New Research, Tools

An elite resident of Pompeii used these baths to entertain guests. Pompeii Archaeological ParkA lavish thermal bath complex has been unearthed in Pompeii, the ancient city that was frozen in time following Mount Vesuvius eruption in 79 C.E. Archaeologists say it may be one of the largest discoveries of its kind.The luxurious spa is at the heart of a grand household in Regio IX, a large district at the center of the city, according to a statement from the Pompeii Archaeological Park.We have here perhaps the largest thermal complex in a private house in Pompeii, Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the archaeological park, tells theAssociated Press, adding: It was an opportunity to show the wealth in which they lived and also to have a nice thermal treatment. The cold room in the ornate bath house Pompeii Archaeological ParkDue to the size of the home, researchers think it was owned by an important figure in the community. The bath could host up to 30 people and was likely used to impress guests.The complex contains three rooms that were heated to different temperatures. Guests entered the calidarium first, which was filled with hot water, according to BBC News Rebecca Morelle and Alison Francis. Then, in the tepidarium, they would rub oil into their skin and immerse themselves in warm water. Bathers would then continue on to the frigidarium, which was filled with cold water. They also had access to a apodyterium, or changing room, with a beautiful mosaic floor.Not everyone had this level of luxury, Zuchtriegel tells the New York Times Elisabetta Povoledo.The owner could have invited guests to the complex for a number of reasons, such as closing business deals or securing votes for politicians, adds Zuchtriegel. Perhaps this individual was hosting team building activities, much like a CEO of an important company would today. Archaeologists also found large clay pots used to transport oil or wine. Pompeii Archaeological ParkArchaeologists have been excavating the grand household for two years. Over the summer, they uncovered the remains of two victims. One was a woman between 35 and 50, while the other was a young man in his teens or early 20s. The pair had tried to take shelter in a small room, but the rush of volcanic gas and ash brought their lives to a violent end. The man had died beneath a fallen wall, and the woman was found rolled up on a bed.The pyroclastic flow from Vesuvius came along the street just outside this room and caused a wall to collapse,Sophie Hay, an archaeologist at Pompeii, tells BBC News.The thermal baths are also connected to a banquet room decorated with elaborate frescoes that was discovered last spring. The colorful artworks depict mythological characters connected to theTrojan War.Officials say that excavations at the complex likely wont continue anytime soon, per the Times. After experts restore the site, it will eventually open to the public.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Ancient Rome, Archaeology, Artifacts, Cool Finds, History, Italy, leisure, Pompeii, Wealth

A view of the Palisades fire on January 9. The strong Santa Ana winds that fueled much of the L.A. wildfires destruction are expected to relax for a few days. Tayfun Coskun / Anadolu via Getty ImagesThe fires around Los Angeles continue to rage on, after scorching some40,000 acres of drought-parched land. The Palisades and Eaton fires have together killed at least 27 people and displaced tens of thousands more, making them some of the deadliest fires in California history.In recent days, however, the regions powerful Santa Ana windswhich have been fanning the flameshave begun to slow down. This lull has offered firefighters a reprieve and a key opportunity to make progress against the blazes, but forecasts suggest the Santa Ana will return next week. What are these gusts, and how have they become so strong?This is not a typical Santa Ana, but this is the time of year when you expect it, Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California Los Angeles, said in a livestream, per Voxs Umair Irfan.The Santa Ana winds are a seasonal occurrence in Southern California. They push inland air from the desert over Californias mountains, making it grow warmer and drier as it reaches the coast. As the winds funnel through canyons and valleys toward L.A., they gather speed.This year, ocean heat has likely made the winds even stronger. Warming oceans can cause the jet streama narrow, high-altitude current of fast-moving air that influences weather across the continentto move off course. This can create a patchwork of high- and low-pressure systems over California that supercharge the Santa Ana winds. Last week, gusts were as high as 100 miles per hour.These ocean heat waves are becoming stronger and larger because of heat trapped by increased human-generated greenhouse gases, so these persistent and unusual weather patterns will probably become more common, says Jennifer Francis, a senior scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center, to Bloombergs Lauren Rosenthal and Brian K Sullivan.The Santa Ana winds are a natural part of the states weather and have exacerbated wildfires beforebut when these gusts are paired with abnormally dry conditions fueled by climate change, it can make them especially destructive.These winds come every year, Crystal Kolden, a fire scientist at the University of California, Merced, told National Geographics Alejandra Borunda in 2020. The question is: Are they going to come when its wet or when its dry?For 2025, its the latter: Winter usually brings rainfall to Southern California, but that hasnt been the case this year. We havent had any substantial rain for hundreds of days, says Max Moritz, a wildfire specialist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, to NBC News Denise Chow.The regions current dry spell follows two wet winters, which led to exceptional vegetation growth, as Swain tells Elizabeth Kolbert at Yale Environment 360. Then, the rain stopped, in what Swain has called hydroclimate whiplash, or a sudden shift between wet and dry weather. After months without rain, all that vegetation has become fuel for fire. The winds then contributed to the fires fast-moving and erratic spread, helping them blaze through a heavily populated area, leading to a lot of destruction.While the region is currently getting a break from the Santa Ana, meteorologists expect the winds to pick back up early next week.Next week is a concern, wrote the National Weather Service Los Angeles in a post on X on Wednesday. While confident that we will NOT see a repeat of last week, dangerous fire weather conditions are expected.As of today, the Eaton fire has reached 65 percent containment and the Palisades fire is 31 percent contained, according to Cal Fire.The long-term effects of the wildfires remain to be seen. Once the health impacts from exposure to smoke, which contains pollutants and dangerous fine particles, are fully understood, the eventual death toll is likely to rise dramatically, writes Jeff Masters for Yale Climate Connections.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: California, Climate Change, Death, Global Warming, Natural Disasters, Weather, Wildfire

Can You Read This Cursive Handwriting? The National Archives Wants Your HelpAnyone with an internet connection can volunteer to transcribe historical documents and help make the archives digital catalog more accessible A Revolutionary War pension and bounty land warrant application submitted byJames Lambert National ArchivesThe National Archives is brimming with historical documents written in cursive, including some that date back more than 200 years. But these texts can be difficult to read and understand particularly for Americans who never learned cursive in school.Thats why the National Archives is looking for volunteers who can help transcribe and organize its many handwritten records: The goal of theCitizen Archivist program is to help unlock history by making digital documents more accessible, according to the projects website.Every year, the National Archives digitizes tens of millions of records. The agency uses artificial intelligence and a technology known asoptical character recognition to extract text from historical documents. But these methods dont always work, and they arent always accurate.Thats where human volunteers come in. By transcribing digital pages, volunteers make it easier for scholars, genealogists and curious history buffs to find and read historical documents.Getting started is easy: All you need to do is sign up online. The free program is open to anyone with an internet connection.Theres no application, Suzanne Isaacs, a community manager with the National Archives, tellsUSA Todays Elizabeth Weise. You just pick a record that hasnt been done and read the instructions. Its easy to do for a half hour a day or a week.If youre not confident in your cursive deciphering skills, the National Archives has other tasks available, toosuch as tagging documents that other volunteers have already transcribed. Tagging helps improve the searchability of records.Already, more than 5,000 volunteers have joined the Citizen Archivist program. Many are hard at work on missions, or groups of documents that need transcribing and tagging. For example, current missions include Revolutionary War pension files and employee contracts from 1866 to 1870.The Revolutionary War mission, which kicked off in June 2023 in partnership with the National Park Service (NPS), includes files connected to more than 80,000 veterans and their widows.The pensions are revealing the stunningfrequently heartbreaking and sometimes funnycomplexity, nuance and previously unknown details about the American Revolution and the nation in the decades after, says Joanne Blacoe, an interpretation planner for the NPS, in astatement. Its rich content that will benefit [national] parks and inspire artists, researchers and families connecting to ancestors.Volunteers can spend as much or as little time as they want transcribing and tagging. Some participants have dedicated years of their lives to the programlike Alex Smith, a retiree from Pennsylvania. Over nine years, he transcribed more than 100,000 documents, asWTOPs Kate Ryan reported in March 2024.I was looking for something to give purpose, and could give some structure to my retired life, he said. It was just perfect.For Smith, the transcription work is also a chance to peer back in time and connect with Americans of the past. Hes been surprised by some documents, like a note inviting Gerald Ford to join the Green Bay Packers, and moved by others, like Civil War pension records.Youre seeing people in desperate straits, Smith told WTOP. Theyre trying desperately to get some reasonable pension paid to them, and you think, These are individual tragedies.Though cursive instruction was once standard, todays educators and lawmakers are divided: Should schools emphasize penmanship or keyboard skills? But even as laptops, tablets and other devices become more ubiquitous, cursive is making a comeback. More than 20 states now require schools to teach cursive, according to Education Weeks Brooke Schultz.In California, a law mandating cursive instruction took effect in January 2024.For some students, its a great alternative to printing, and it helps them be more accurate and more careful with the writing, Erica Ingber, principal of Longfellow Elementary School in Pasadena, told theLos Angeles Times Howard Blume last year. And then for others, its just another thing that is difficult for them.A few months later, another law requiring cursive instruction passed in Kentucky.We dont want this to become a lost art, Sean Howard, superintendent of Kentuckys Ashland Independent School District, told WSAZs Abbey Lord in August 2024. There is research that connects the ability to read and fluency to the ability to write cursive.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: American History, American Writers, Archives, Digitization, Historical Documents, History, National Archives, Writers

The dye, chemically known as erythrosine, has been used since 1907 to give candies, drinks and other foods their vibrant red color. Andia/Universal Images Group via Getty ImagesAfter decades of debate, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced a ban on Red Dye No. 3, a synthetic food coloring thats been linked to cancer in male lab rats.The decision comes after a petition filed in 2022 by advocacy groups, including the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), and follows mounting state-level legislation, most notably a ban in California. The federal ban will take effect in 2027, giving manufacturers time to reformulate their products.This is wonderful news and long overdue, Melanie Benesh, vice president for government affairs at the Environmental Working Group, tells Andrew Jacobs and Teddy Rosenbluth of the New York Times. Red Dye 3 is the lowest of the low-hanging fruit when it comes to toxic food dyes that the FDA should be addressing.The petroleum-based dye, chemically known as erythrosine, has been approved for use since 1907 to give candies, drinks and other foods their vibrant red color. While its cosmetic use was banned in 1990 under the Delaney Clausea federal rule prohibiting additives that have been found to cause cancer in humans or animalsit has remained in food and ingested drugs.Now, the FDA is using the same rule to eliminate the dye from beverages, food and drugs. However, the agency noted that the findings tying Red Dye No. 3 to cancer are specific to male rats and not directly translatable to humans.Relevant exposure levels for humans are typically much lower than those that cause the effects shown in male rats, the agency writes. Studies in other animals and in humans did not show these effects.But consumer safety advocates have long criticized the use of Red Dye No. 3 in food while it has been banned in cosmetics and topical drugs. The dye is prohibited or severely restricted in many countries, including the European Union, Japan and Australia, yet it has remained a staple in several U.S. products.Red 3, like every food dye, only serves as a marketing tool for the food industry, Thomas Galligan, principal scientist for food additives and supplements at CSPI, tells NPRs Allison Aubrey. Its just there to make food look visually appealing so that consumers want to spend their money on it.Red Dye No. 3 is found in more than 9,200 U.S. food products, including popular candies, cereals and sodas, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture cited by CSPI. Companies like Ferrara, which produces Brachs candies, and Just Born, the maker of Peeps, have already begun removing the dye from their products, while other companies have turned to alternatives like Red Dye No. 40 or natural colorants, from beets to turmeric.The FDAs decision follows a wave of state legislation targeting synthetic dyes. California banned Red Dye No. 3 in October 2023, alongside three other additives linked to health risks, and it has barred artificial dyes including Red Dye No. 40 from public school meals.California assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, who introduced the states 2023 bill, credited state-level efforts with spurring federal action.To me, this is a clear indication that our strategy of putting pressure on Washington and putting pressure on the FDA to look at these issues more closely, to step up to the plate and take their regulatory responsibility seriously, is working, Gabriel tells Berkeley Lovelace Jr. and Elizabeth Chuck of NBC News.But concerns about synthetic dyes extend beyond cancer risks. In 2012, a study concluded that, while such dyes are not a primary cause of hyperactivity and attention-related behaviors, they could exacerbate these symptoms in children. Then, in 2021, a study by the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment found that legal exposure limits for artificial dyes might not adequately protect childrens behavioral health.Despite these concerns, the FDA maintains that most children are not affected.The totality of scientific evidence indicates that most children have no adverse effects when consuming foods containing color additives, but some evidence suggests that certain children may be sensitive to them, the agency wrote in a 2023 consumer update.For now, consumers worried about synthetic dyes can check product labels for ingredients like FD&C Red #3, red 3 or Red Dye No. 3. Highly processed foods, which are more likely to contain artificial colorings, may also warrant a second look for those aiming to reduce their exposure.Revoking the authorized use of Red No. 3 is an example of the FDA using its risk and science-based authority to review the safety of products in the marketplace, Sarah Gallo,senior vice president of product policy and federal affairs at the trade groupConsumer Brands Association, says in a statement to NBC News. Food and beverage companies will continue to follow the latest science and comply with all food safety regulations to ensure safe and available choices for consumers.Advocates hope the FDA will adopt a more proactive approach to regulating additives. Speaking to CNNs Kristen Rogers, Galligan suggests the case of Red Dye No. 3 reflects broader challenges in food safety oversight. The FDA has a long way to go to reform the broken system that allowed Red 3 to remain in foods decades after it was shown to cause cancer when eaten by animals, he tells the publication.But the decision, Galligan adds, ends the regulatory paradox of Red 3.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: California, Cancer, Food, Government, Health, Law, Medicine, US Government

MAFBI agents (right) escort Vincent James Costa (center) and Michael Vincent Geegan (left) from Federal Court 1/12. The two men together with four others were arrainged before UC commissioner for the $1,219,000 Brinks robbery on January 17,1950. Bettmann / Contributor via Getty ImagesThe newspapers called it the crime of the century. It became the basis for four different films. And at the time, it was the biggest cash robbery in the history of the United States.On the evening of January 17, 1950, thieves entered the building of the Brinks security company in Bostons North End. They entered smoothly, seven armed men quickly tying the hands and taping the mouths of the five employees working to close up for the day.In roughly 20 minutes, they made their way out again, carrying $1,218,211.29 in cash and another $1,557,183.83 in checks and securities.Everything went off so well that the police superintendent was convinced the theft involved someone on the inside. There is no doubt it was an inside job. It was probably planned for weekseven with blueprints and rehearsals, Edward W. Fallon told the papers.The Infamous 1950's Brinks Robbery: A Meticulously Planned Heist | Yore Town Podcast EP. 73Watch on He was partly right: Though none of the thieves was a Brinks employee, they had planned the robbery meticulously. They cased the building for months, methodically removing the lock cylinders from each door to copy keys for them. They repeatedly practiced their approach and getaway. When the day came, they all wore peacoats, gloves, chauffeurs caps and Halloween masks to conceal their identities and avoid leaving traces behind.Most important, they made a clean getaway. Of the few items that remained at the scene of the crime were the rope and tape used to bind and gag the employees and a chauffeurs cap. Soon after, Brinks announced it would pay $100,000 for any information about the crime (and that the company would be changing its locks). The police also appealed to the public, prompting slew of fruitless, and often false, tips.With little to go on, investigators pursued almost any potential lead, only to find dead ends. They looked to Bostons criminal underworld but couldnt find enough evidence to indict any suspects.The watershed moment came several years later, when Joseph Specs OKeefe, a member of the robbery gang, confessed. By then, OKeefe was in prison for a different crime, and he had been upset with the other members of the gang for years. Hed been shortchanged on his share of the loot, and in 1954, a hitman hired by the group attempted to kill him.In January 1956, OKeefe told investigators everything. The group had been organized by Anthony Pino, who had no equal and was very energetic when it comes to stealing, as another member of the gang later told the Boston Globe.The night of the robbery, most of the gang hid outside the building, waiting for a signal from another man on a nearby rooftop. When the all-clear came, sevenincluding OKeefewent in to pull off the heist while Pino and the getaway driver remained in the car. The eleventh man, who wasnt present during the robbery itself, met them later that night at a safehouse. They split the loot, taking roughly $100,000 apiece, and went their separate ways.Within a week of OKeefes confessionand just days before Massachusetts six-year statute of limitations expireda grand jury issued indictments for the 11 men involved in the Brinks robbery. That fall, eight surviving members of the gang went on trial. (Two members of the group had died in the intervening time, and OKeefe pleaded guilty before serving as the prosecutions star witness.)After three-and-a-half hours of deliberation, the jury determined all the men were guilty. Still, one question would never be answered: More than $1 million of the cash they stole was never unaccounted for.Almost 30 years after the holdup, John Adolph Jazz Maffie, who did almost 14 years in prison for his role, told the Washington Post that though the Brinks job was an adventure, he wouldnt try it again. However, Sandy Richardson, another of the Brinks gang, maintained it was well worth the trouble.Sure it was worth it, he said. Hey, have you ever had a hundred grand all your own for six years?Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Crime, Money, On This Day in History

A baby rusty-spotted cat, born at a French zoo in 2010. The newly discovered fossil is thought to belong to the same genus as modern rusty-spotted cats, which are among the smallest felines in the world. Catherine Gugelmann / AFP via Getty ImagesScientists in China have uncovered a fossilized jaw fragment of a newly identified, extinct cat species that was so small it would have fit in the palm of your hand. The discovery was detailed in the journal Annales Zoologici Fennici in November and could represent the tiniest cat ever found.This cat is clearly smaller than a domestic cat, lead author Qigao Jiangzuo, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, tells Live Sciences Emma Bryce. It is comparable to the smallest living cat, [at around] 1 kilogram [2.2 pounds].The researchers identified the new species as a member of the genus Prionailurusin other words, it was an ancient leopard cat, a type of small wild cat thats still native to parts of Asia. Leopard cats include four or five living species, per the study, and the littlest among them is the rusty-spotted cat (Prionailurus rubiginosus) in South Asia. Along with the tiny-but-deadly black-footed cat (Felis nigripes) in Africa, these are the smallest cats that exist anywhere on Earth today. But the prehistoric felines size would have been akin toor even smaller thanthese modern miniatures.From the jaw fragment, which includes two surviving teeth, Jiangzuo and his colleagues inferred the extinct creatureto be between 13.7 and 19.7 inches long. They named the speciesPrionailurus kurteni.Because early leopard cats had small, fragile bones and mostly lived in habitats that were conducive to rapid bone degradation, their remains are rarely uncovered, according to the study. But the researchers discovered this specimen in the Hualongdong Cave of eastern China, which is known for its paleontological finds. There, archaeologists have previously revealed the remains of humans dating back hundreds of thousands of years. The cat fossil was found in a geologic layer dated to between 275,000 and 331,000 years ago, suggesting Prionailurus kurteni prowled the Earth alongside early humans.The food scraps these archaic humans left at the Hualongdong site might have attracted rats and small leopard cats as well, Jiangzuo tells the Chinese news agency Xinhua. Its unclear whether these cats constituted part of the cave dwellers diet, due to the absence of butchery marks on the fossils.The angle of one of the teeth on the jaw fragment is the first fossil evidence to link leopard cats to a common ancestor of both domestic cats and the grumpy-looking Pallas cat, reports Live Science.Overall, the fossil also provides insight into the diversity of prehistoric leopard cats. According to the paper, many small cat fossils had historically been assigned to the genus Felis, which includes modern domestic cats, without careful study. But this finding paves the way for researchers to get more detail about the cats of the late Middle Pleistocene.Moving forward, we plan to systematically survey the fossil cats in China and around the world, which were not well studied in the past, Jiangzuo tells Live Science. We hope to trace the origins and past diversity of the cat family.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Animals, Bones, Cats, China, Cool Finds, Fossils, New Research, Paleontology, Teeth

New ResearchScientists Discover Celtic Society Where Men Left Home to Join Their Brides CommunityDNA extracted from 57 individuals buried in a 2,000-year-old cemetery provides evidence of a matrilocal community in Iron Age Britain, a new study suggests Researchers analyzed DNA from a rare Iron Age burial site in southwest England. Bournemouth UniversityIn 2008, archaeologists discovered a large cemetery in southwest England. Located near the village of Winterborne Kingston in Dorset, the burial ground contained human remains dating back to Britains Iron Age, which lasted from around 800 B.C.E. to 43 C.E. The bodies belonged to a Celtic tribe known as the Durotriges.Since intact remains from this period are rare, the researchers were happy to have discovered the cemetery in the first place. But when they began to sequence DNA from dozens of bodies buried at the site, they were in for an even bigger surprise.The DNA analysis showed that many of the individuals in this community shared the same mitochondrial DNA, which gets passed down from mothers to children. They were related through the female line.This indicates that the group was whats known as a matrilocality, in which newly married men left their families to join their brides community. Matrilocalities are relatively rare in prehistoric Europe: After marriage, women typically left their community to join their new husbands village in an arrangement known as a patrilocality.The Durotriges who lived in southwest England are thought to be among the first recorded matrilocal systems in European prehistory, reports theNew York Times Becky Ferreira. The researchers reported their findings in a new study published this week in the journalNature.In total, the team studied the genomes of 57 individuals buried at the site between 100 B.C.E to 100 C.E. Many of the Durotriges could be traced back to the same shared female ancestor, including an adult woman, her daughter, her granddaughters and potentially her great-grandson. Most of the individuals who did not share the same matrilineal DNA were male, which suggests they married into the group.My jaw dropped, says lead author Lara Cassidy, a geneticist at Trinity College Dublin, toNew Scientists James Urquhart. This was a clear signature of matrilocality, or husbands moving to live with their wives familiesa pattern wed never seen before in prehistoric Europe.Armed with these results, the researchers began to look for other traces of matrilocality across prehistoric Britain. They investigated human remains from more than 150 archaeological sites covering a period of roughly 6,000 yearsand found several other examples of matrilocal communities in Britain.The results are intriguing because they show a very, very different scenario in comparison to other regions of Europe," saysMarta Cintas Pea, an archaeologist at the University of Seville who was not involved with the research, toNPRs Ari Daniel.Its still not clear exactly how prevalent matrilocal communities were in Iron Age Britain, but future studies might help answer that question. Additional research might also take a closer look at the unrelated men buried at the site, investigating where they grew up and how far they traveled to join their wives.Given the paucity of Iron Age bodies, its really quite hard to say whether this covers the whole country, says Lindsay Allason-Jones, an archaeologist at Newcastle University who was not involved with the research, to theWashington Posts Carolyn Y. Johnson.Women living in matrilocal communities likely had more influence than women living in patrilocalities. They also had the benefit of staying with their families and support networks. But even in matrilocalities, men still typically held positions of power.They tend to be the village chief more often, but they might not get elected without the help of their daughters, sisters and wives, who have soft power and a lot of influence, Cassidy tells the Times. [Women] arent just confined to the domestic sphere.After theRomans invaded Britain during the first century C.E., they wrote about British women with high levels of power and multiple husbands. But scholars are divided as to whether the Romans actually observed these women or were merely spinning cautionary tales.Is that propaganda, to make them seem wild and untamed, and not like good Roman women? Cassidy tells the Washington Post. Julius Caesar wasnt a trained anthropologist, and how much you can trust him is up for debate.But the new DNA evidence seems to suggest there was at least some kernel of truth in the Roman depictions, writesGuido Alberto Gnecchi-Ruscone, an archaeogeneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, in an accompanyingperspective article.The new findings echo Roman-period written sources describing Celtic women as empowered figures, Gnecchi-Ruscone writes. Although Roman writers often exoticized these societies, the genetic evidence validates some of their claims about the special role that women had in Celtic Britain.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Archaeology, British History, DNA, European History, Family, Genetics, History, New Research, Rituals and Traditions, Women's History

Maayan Margulis and Shira Lifshitz clean the mosaic. Emil Aladjem / Israel Antiquities AuthorityArchaeologists have uncovered an ancient complex of ruinedByzantine-era buildings in Israel. The structures include a winepress, a large warehouse and what may be a monastery boasting a colorful mosaic floor. The floor features a Greek inscription from Deuteronomy: Blessed are you when you come in and blessed are you when you go out.The ruins were discovered during excavations ahead of construction for a new neighborhood near the city of Kiryat Gat. According to astatement from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), the monastery dates to the fifth or sixth century C.E., when the region was part of theByzantine Empire.This is the largest and most significant site discovered in the region from the Roman and Byzantine periods, say excavation managersShira Lifshitz andMaayan Margulis in the statement. The site was found near the city ofKiryat Gat. Emil Aladjem / Israel Antiquities AuthorityThe researchers think the site was continuously occupied from the early Roman period (around the first century C.E.) until the end of the Byzantine period (in the late sixth century C.E.). However, as Margulis tellsHaaretzs Ruth Schuster, the sites first human occupation may have occurred some 6,000 years ago, during theChalcolithic era, or the Copper Age.During the first few centuries C.E., Christianity slowlyspread through the Roman Empire. In the 300s, the emperor Constantine I converted to Christianity, and a new Byzantine capital was founded in his name:Constantinople, which heralded the beginning of Byzantiums golden age.One of the ruined buildings at the newly discovered site may have been a monastery. Among its remains, archaeologists found imported wares, metal and glass containers, coins and marble artifacts. In the buildings main aisle, they also unearthed a decorative mosaic floor featuring crosses, lions, doves, flowers, geometric patterns, an amphora (an ancient jug) and the Bible verse. The mosaic contains clusters of small stones. Emil Aladjem / Israel Antiquities AuthorityThe monasterys mosaic floor contains clusters of very small, delicately placed stones, Lifshitz tells Haaretzwhich arent common in Israeli archaeology.The mosaic discovered in Kiryat Gat is one of the most unique ever found in Israel, says Mark Avrahami, the IAAs head of artistic conservation, in the statement. The team plans to put the tiled design on public display, but transferring mosaics is a complex process that requires great skill and precision.The mosaic will first be taken to a workshop for conservation, then placed in an open area of Kiryat Gat where the public can view it, says Svetlana Talis, the IAAs southern district director, in the statement.The discovery of the site highlights the historical richness of Kiryat Gat and its surroundings, shedding light on the centrality of the region in antiquity, Talis says.The sites other treasures include a very sophisticated wine press, complete with fermentation rooms and collecting vats. Its development and upkeep likely required significant financial resources, time and a range of professional work and effort, per the statement. Pottery artifacts and fragments suggest that the settlement may have included a ceramics factory.The excavation has revealed the remains of ten buildings so far, and the settlements true size remains to be seen. As Margulis tells Haaretz, We just began to excavate the site.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Ancient Civilizations, Ancient Rome, Archaeology, Artifacts, Byzantine Empire, Christianity, Cool Finds, History, Israel, Middle East , Religion, Roman Empire

Homeowners found star-shaped debris outside their home on Prince Edward Island, Canada, after a meteorite strike in July. Laura Kelly via University of AlbertaA homeowner on Prince Edward Island in Canada has had a very unusual near-death experience: A meteorite landed exactly where hed been standing roughly two minutes earlier. Whats more, his home security camera caught the impact on videocapturing a rare clip that might be the first known recording of both the visual and audio of a meteorite striking the planet.The shocking event took place in July 2024 and was announced in a statement by the University of Alberta on Monday.It sounded like a loud, crashing, gunshot bang, the homeowner, Joe Velaidum, tells the Canadian Press Lyndsay Armstrong.Velaidum wasnt home to hear the sound in person, however. Last summer, he and his partner Laura Kelly noticed strange, star-shaped, grey debris in front of their house after returning from a walk with their dogs. They checked their security camera footage, and thats when they saw and heard it: a small rock plummeting through the sky and smashing into their walkway. It landed so quickly that the space rock itself is only visible in two of the videos frames.The shocking thing for me is that I was standing right there a couple of minutes right before this impact, Velaidum tells CBC News Stephen Brun. If Id have seen it, I probably wouldve been standing right there, so it probably wouldve ripped me in half.Meteorite strike caught on P.E.I. home security cameraWatch on The couple initially collected 0.25 ounces of fragments from the grass surrounding the impact site, and they later returned wielding a vacuum and magnet to recover more pieces. Suspecting something (literally) astronomical, they reported the event through the University of Albertas Meteorite Reporting System.As luck would have it, Chris Herd, curator of the universitys meteorite collection, had already planned a vacation to Prince Edward Island just ten days later. So, he made a detour to check out the report.My wife and I went over, we actually took our son and his girlfriend to help, we used a kitchen scale (to measure the sample) and documented everything the whole thing was really cool, Herd tells the Canadian Press. At Velaidum and Kellys home in Marshfield, they collected additional samples and measured the small, 0.79-by-0.79-inch divot the meteorite impact left in the walkway.In total, the homeowners, Herd and his family recovered around 3.35 ounces of meteorite fragments, per CBC News. Further analysis confirmed the newly named Charlottetown Meteorite to be an ordinary chondrite, which is the most common type of meteorite. The meteorite left a small divot left on the homeowners' walkway. Laura Kelly via University of AlbertaAs the first and only meteorite from the province of PEI, the Charlottetown Meteorite sure announced its arrival in a spectacular way. No other meteorite fall has been documented like this, complete with sound, Herd says in the statement. It adds a whole new dimension to the natural history of the island.He tells CBC News that the meteorite came from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and it would have been traveling at least 125 miles per hour right before the impact.Interestingly, no one reported seeing a fireball over that area around the time of the impact. According to the Weather Networks Scott Sutherland, this could be because the meteorite landed hours before sunset, making it difficult to spot a bright streak in the daytime sky, in addition to the fact that it was a cloudy day. This makes the recording of the event all the more special.To see a meteorite from hundreds of millions of miles away that enters our atmosphere and hits our tiny little province, and a tinier little community within that province, and then my doorstep. Its just unbelievable, Velaidum says to the Canadian Press. I have been thinking about it a lot because, you know, when you have a near-death experience it kind of shocks you.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Astronomers, Canada, Cool Finds, Discoveries, Meteors, Outer Space

Archaeologists unearthedroughly 1,500 decorated stone blocks that once made up part of Hatshepsut's valley temple. Ahmad Hasaballah / Getty ImagesAncient Egypt was primarily ruled by men, with only a handful of women successfully coming to power. One of them was Hatshepsut, the sixth pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty, who reigned during the 15th century B.C.E.Hatshepsut was by far the most successful woman to rule Egypt as pharaoh, as Smithsonian magazines Elizabeth B. Wilson wrote in 2006. She insisted on being portrayed with male features, including the broad, bare chest of a man and the pharaonic false beard, though scholars dont know exactly why. Another mystery: After Hatshepsuts death around 1458 B.C.E., many of her monuments and statues were destroyed or defaced.Now, archaeologists in Egypt have unearthed roughly 1,500 stone blocks that once made up part of Hatshepsut's valley temple, which is located near her funerary temple in the city of Luxor. The blocks are decorated with colorful scenes and likely made up the temples foundation wall, reports Reuters Sayed Sheasha.These remarkable blocks retain their vivid colors and offer a glimpse into the artistry of the period, says Mohamed Ismail Khaled, secretary-general of Egypts Supreme Council of Antiquities, in a statement.Archaeologists also found a variety of tools, including chisels, a wooden hammer, an adz and a wooden cast for making mud bricks, according to Live Sciences Owen Jarus. They think these items were buried as the temple was being built. Over the past three years, archaeologists have made several discoveries while excavating the area around Hatshepsut's valley temple in Luxor. Ahmad Hasaballah / Getty ImagesExcavations also revealed a limestone tablet featuring the name Senmut, who was Hatshepsut's architect and managed the temples construction, per Reuters.Experts are still in the process of studying the artifacts, which they hope will offer new insights into the life and legacy of Hatshepsut.For me, the most important is the discovery of the blocks from the valley temple of Hatshepsut, Aidan Dodson, an Egyptologist at the University of Bristol who was not involved with the research, tells Live Science. Her main temple has been extensively excavated and studied since the mid-19th century, [but] the valley temple was only briefly examined by Howard Carter some 120 years ago.During their three-year excavation on the western bank of the Nile River, archaeologists also found burial shafts and pits that held wooden coffins dating back to between 1580 and 1550 B.C.E., reports theAssociated Press. One of the coffins contained the remains of a young child, who was likely buried roughly 3,600 years ago. Additionally, they found weapons that may have been used to battle the Hyksos, a group that invaded parts of ancient Egypt.Researchers also unearthed the tomb of Djehuty Mes, who was an overseer of the palace of Queen Tetisheri. Queen Tetisheris grandson, Ahmose I, expelled the Hyksos in the 16th century B.C.E. Live Science reports that archaeologists found several artifacts inside the tomb, including a limestone offering table, a commemorative stone slab and a cosmetics vessel.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Ancient Egypt, Archaeology, Artifacts, Cool Finds, Egypt, History, New Research, Queens, Women's History

On This Day in HistoryIvan the Terrible, the Czar and Grand Prince of Russia, Wouldnt Earn His Violent Nickname Until Years After His ReignWe all know Ivan IVs sobriquet, but the story is more complicated than it might seemThe OprichnikibyNikolai Nevrev(1888). The painting shows the last minutes of one of the aristocratic elite taken out by Ivan IV. Wikimedia CommonsIvan IV Vasilyevich was just a teenager when he was crowned czar and grand prince of all Russia on January 16, 1547. Today, Ivan is better known as Ivan the Terrible, though the name wouldnt be attached to him until much later.Ivan ruled as Russias first-ever czar for nearly four decades. He transformed Russia, centralizing it administratively and culturally. Early on, Ivan instituted several reforms, strengthening the church and reorganizing the military. And during his reign, the Russian Army also successfully secured the Volga River, and thereby the trade route to the Caspian Sea.However, Ivans policies would also cost many lives, and he brought Russia to economic crisis through an unsuccessful war before setting it up for the Times of Troubles.A large part of what earned Ivan his brutal reputationand later his nicknamewas his bloody oprichnina, which he wouldnt enact until relatively late in his reign. The oprichnina was the creation of a state within a state under Ivans direct control. Theoprichniki,members of the new court largely picked from the lower, carried out the executions of thousands of people, a violent act on the upper echelons of the aristocracy of the time. Their brutal actions, meted out under Ivan's direction. were meant to quash dissent in the country, allowing the czar to remain in control. Ivans use of mass terror against his own people lasted from 1565 to 1572. During the period he drowned Russia, or Muscovite Rus as it was then known, in blood, as historian Michael Khodarkovsky tells How Stuff Works.Despite his well-known nickname, Ivan did not take on the terrible moniker during his lifetime. Indeed, historian Edward Keenan notes that it took until almost two centuries after his death in 1584 for the name to stick, though even by the early 17th century Ivan is well-established in native sources as an unpleasant fellow.The retrospective nickname grew out of the convergence of this dynamic with several others, writes Keenan, including an anti-Ivan bent in sensationalist 16th-century pamphlets and the 18th-century practice of assigning bynames to dynasts.Though Ivan has become commonly known as Ivan the Terrible, there has never been total agreement about his legacy. Some argue that the moniker is not as derogatory as it would seem, since the original Russian word translated as terrible comes closer to meaning inspiring awe or fear.Either way, writes historian Charles J. Halperin, who has authored three books about the sovereign, Ivan was the most controversial ruler in Russian history, surpassing Peter the Great, Lenin, even Stalin.Not long after his death, some held a positive impression of his rule, thinking of him as a just ruler who allied himself with the people rather than the aristocracy. Joseph Stalin lauded Ivan as a strong ruler, which he used to justify his own harsh policies. Not long ago, the debate sprang back up again when the Russian town of Oryol erected a statue of Ivan in 2016 though there was significant backlash. The decision to erect the statue could convey as much about the current regimes views of national power and state control, observers suggested at the time.His reign was politicized in his own time and has been ever since, Halperin writes.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

The eye on the coin does not have lashes and is designed to resemble a camera lens. Royal MintThe United Kingdoms Royal Mint is releasing a new coin honoringGeorge Orwell on the 75th anniversary of his death. The 2 (roughly $2.45) piece pays homage to Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwells famous dystopian novel exploring themes like totalitarianism, propaganda, surveillance and freedom.He was a writer concerned with poverty, class and power, writes theGuardiansDesigned by artistHenry Gray, the coins reverse features a large eye with the words Big Brother is watching you circling the iris. Orwells name is inscribed underneath. On its edge is another quote from the novel, There was truth and there was untruth.With phones and cameras being everywhere in your house, and being listened to by advertisers on your phone, you are really aware of how youre being surveyedand thats what Nineteen Eighty-Four is all about, says Gray in a statement from the Mint.Thats why the eye in Grays design isnt a realistic eye; it doesnt have eyelashes and things like that because I wanted it to be monocular, he adds. Its almost like a camera lens staring at you all the time, unblinking. Orwell is known for his fiction examining themes liketotalitarian and control. Royal MintBorn in 1903, Orwell spent his early career working with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma. With time, however, he became increasingly ashamed of his role as a colonial police officer, as Encyclopedia Britannica writes. He drew on these experiences for his first novel, Burmese Days (1934).About a decade later, Orwell made a name for himself with Animal Farm (1945). The political fable, which uses anthropomorphic animals to tell a story about power and corruption, would become one of his most celebrated works.Nineteen Eighty-Four followed soon after. Published in 1949, the novel follows Winston Smith, a worker at the Ministry of Truth, as he secretly rebels against a totalitarian government and its leader, Big Brother.Orwell died at age 46 on January 21, 1950just a few months after Nineteen Eighty-Fours publication. He joins a group of celebrated British authors with commemorative coins from the Royal Mint, including William Shakespeare, Jane Austen and J.R.R. Tolkien. (Other recent coins not linked to literature have featured David Bowie, Paddington Bear and Winnie the Pooh, per Londonists Matt Brown.)For those interested in collecting the new 2 piece (which features Charles III on the obverse), it is now available for purchase on the Royal Mints website. Those who want a closer look can visit the Royal Mint Experience in Wales to strike their own Orwell coin.The works of George Orwell have influenced generations, and his most famous works are still being studied todaydecades on from their first publication, says Rebecca Morgan, director of commemorative coins at the Royal Mint, in anotherstatement. I am delighted to share this unique design with collectors and fans of Orwells work, paying tribute to one of the most world-renowned authors of the 20th century.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Books, British Writers, Coins, Collecting, Designers, Fiction, Literature, Writers

Experts are concerned that artifacts and bootprints on the moon might be affected by lunar landing missions, space tourism and space junk. NASAEvery two years, the nonprofit World Monuments Fund releases a list of cultural heritage sites it deems most at risk of disappearing because of threats like war or climate change. The line-up of landmarks usually includes historic temples, cemeteries and neighborhoods. But this year, a surprising new locale made the list: the moon.The moon seems so far outside of our scope, Bndicte de Montlaur, the organizations president and chief executive officer, tells the New York Times Zachary Small. But with humans venturing more and more into space, we think it is the right time to get ourselves organized.Case in point: On Wednesday, the same day the group released its2025 World Monuments Watch report, a SpaceX rocket blasted off from NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida to launch two private robotic landers to the moon.More broadly, NASA plans to put humans back on the moon during this decade through its Artemis missions. The space agency also wants to build a permanent base on Earths natural satellite to help prepare for possible human missions to Mars. And thats just the United Statesother countries are also pursuing lunar missions.The moon is further imperiled by the growing mass of space junk floating in its vicinity, as well as the emerging space tourism market. Advocates of protecting human heritage on the moon have raised concerns about vacationers in the future damaging lunar historic sites, or robotic spacecraft inadvertently destroying them when landing.More specifically, the World Monument Fund says such disturbances could threaten more than 90 sites on the moons surface that reflect some of humankinds most extraordinary feats of courage and ingenuity.One such location is Tranquility Base, the name given to the place where astronauts first walked on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission in July 1969. There, they left behind 106 artifacts, from Neil Armstrongs boot print to the descent stage of the landing module itself.Places like Tranquility Base represent remarkable science and engineering milestones rooted in millennia of astronomical study and remain a source of growing scientific knowledge, according to the World Monuments Fund.These landing sites also mark moments that stirred the collective imagination and inspired a sense of global wonder and shared accomplishment, the group adds.Protecting the moon will be tricky, since it doesnt belong to any one nation or government. But experts are optimistic that international cooperation is possible.You have some precedents and the main, most interesting one is Antarctica, where monuments were nominated like Shackletons Hut, de Montlaur tells the London Times Jack Blackburn. You have a treaty in Antarctica recognizing heritage and protecting it.Fifty-two countries, including the United States, have already signed the Artemis Accordsa non-legally binding set of statements that describe best practices for exploring the moon, Mars, comets and asteroids. Among theirmany goals, the accords are meant to protect shared outer space heritage, but they dont include specific guidelines for how countries nations do that.The moon is just one of the 25 sites on this years list of at-risk areas, selected from more than 200 nominations. Others include places threatened by climate change, such as heritage sites on the Swahili Coast of East Africa.This region faces pressing threats like storm surges and rising sea levels, de Montlaur tells the Art Newspapers Allison C. MeierMaines 66 historic lighthousessome of which are more than 200 years oldare also grappling with sea-level rise and increasingly intense winter storms.They are now facing a threat level not anticipated or seen before, says Ford Reiche, whose private Presumpscot Foundation owns two Maine lighthouses, to the Bangor Daily News Troy R. Bennett. Some will likely be lost.Human conflicts are devastating other landmarks on the list, including the Teachers House in Kyiv, Ukraine, where the nations parliament began meeting after the Ukrainian Peoples Republic declared independence in 1918. Its dome was damaged and its windows and doors knocked out by a nearby Russian missile strike in October 2022. The World Monument Fund says it supports efforts to rehabilitate the building as a national symbol of resilience and enduring identity in times of conflict.Gaza also made the list. Much of the area has been destroyed by Israels military since October 7, 2023, in response to a surprise invasion of southern Israel by Hamas militants. The Church of Saint Porphyrius in Gaza City, for example, has sustained at least two strikes. Its believed to be the third-oldest church in the world, and its an important place of worship for the few Christians in Gaza, most of whom are Greek Orthodox.On Wednesday, Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire deal.As we all know, the Middle East is a cradle of civilization, de Montlaur tells NPRs Neda Ulaby. And in Gaza, you have examples of those various communities and their heritage that have lived there.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Artifacts, Astronauts, Climate Change, Cultural Heritage, History, Monument, Moon, NASA, Outer Space, Religion

The Approach to Venice or Venice From the Lagoon,J.M.W. Turner, circa 1840 Christie'sWhen art expert Rosie Jarvie glimpsed a photo of a painting submitted to Christies onlineappraisal service, she knew it may be something special.The [submitted] image was poor, and the painting was behind old glass, which had a greenish tint, Jarvie, the auction houses specialist in British drawings and watercolors, tells theArt Newspapers Melanie Gerlis. Still, she had an instinct, from the strong brushstrokes, economy of line and the palette, that we really needed to see this properly.The painting turned out to be a watercolor by the English artist J.M.W. Turner. Born in 1775, Turner is perhaps the best-loved EnglishRomantic artist, as LondonsNational Gallery writes. He painted landscapes and seascapes with a unique attention to light and color, and experts say his worklaid the foundations forImpressionism later in the 19th century. A self-portrait by J.M.W. Turner Public domain via Wikimedia CommonsChristies will auction off the recently identified watercolor, titled The Approach to Venice or Venice From the Lagoon, at itsOld Master and British Drawings sale in New York on February 4. Dated to around 1840, the painting is expected to fetch between $300,000 and $500,000.The Approach to Venices current owner is a descendent ofHaddon C. Adams, a 20th-century engineer and art connoisseur who fastidiously collected the work ofJohn Ruskin, a 19th-century English writer and artist. He admired Ruskin throughout his life, saying once that collecting Ruskin is my one luxury, per Artnets Jo Lawson-Tancred.When Adams acquired The Approach to Venice around 1930, the painting was correctly attributed to Turner. Though the artist had bequeathed most of his work to the United Kingdoms national art collection, some pieces were left to his dealer,Thomas Griffith, including The Approach to Venice. Sometime after Adams purchased it, the painting was misidentified as a Ruskin piece, according to the Art Newspaper.The misidentificationand Adams purchase of the paintingmay be related to the fact that Ruskin actually knew and admired Turner. In fact, Ruskin and his father were regular patrons of Turners: They commissioned paintings, and Ruskin got intimate access to Turners work. As art historianRobert Hewison told theArt Newspapers Ben Luke in 2019, Turner would show him the sketches, and say: What do you think of this, would you like me to work this up into a finished painting? And Ruskin would see the imaginative processes. A portrait of art critic John Ruskin byHenry Sigismund Uhlrich Public domain via Wikimedia CommonsThough Ruskin did make art, he devoted the majority of his career to writing about itwhich included championing the work of Turner. Per Artnet, Ruskin once called Turner the greatest painter of all time, a man whose supremacy of power no intellect of past ages can be put in comparison for a moment.When Christies received the watercolor, Turner expertPeter Bower concluded that its paper matched other Turner paintings of Venice. Another Turner scholar,Ian Warrell, confirmed the paintings origins.The works new attribution makes it significantly more valuable: Jarvie tells the Art Newspaper that a Turner painting is worth about ten times more money than a Ruskin. In 2023, a Turner watercolor sold for more than$1 million. Jarvie says the estimate on The Approach to Venice should invite competition.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Art, Art History, Artists, Arts, Auctions, British History, Impressionism, Painters, Painting

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center on January 15, carrying two lunar landers built independently by private companies Firefly Aerospace and Ispace. NASA / Frank MichauxA SpaceX rocket carrying two commercial lunar landers took off toward space early Wednesday morning.This carpool to the moon is transporting Blue Ghost, a lander built by Texas-based Firefly Aerospace, and Resilience, built by Japanese firm Ispace. The pair launched together on a Falcon 9 rocket from NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 1:11 a.m. Eastern time. Once the two spacecraft reach the lunar surface, they will conduct independent explorations to collect data and test new technologies.Blue Ghost is carrying ten scientific instruments from NASA in an agreement under the agencys Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. Through this initiative, the agency works with private companies to send lunar devices into space at a lower cost, with the aim to inform NASAs Artemis missions, which plan to return humans to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years.Before we can send our humans back to the moon, we are sending a lot of science and a lot of technology ahead of time to prepare for that, says Nicola Fox, head of NASAs science mission directorate, to CBS News William Harwood.The United States is the only nation that has landed humans on the moon, but five countries have achieved robotic lunar landings: the former Soviet Union, the U.S., China, India and Japan. It wasnt until last year, however, that a private company joined their ranks: Houston-based Intuitive Machines Odysseus spacecraft reached the moons surface in February 2024, though it landed on its side.Now, Blue Ghost and Resilience have the potential to become the second and third private landers to touch down on lunar soil.Blue Ghost is expected to take about 45 days to reach the moon, where it will collect soil samples, test various instruments and monitor X-rays in the Earths magnetic field. Its slated to touch down in Mare Crisium, a volcanic plain. The Blue Ghost lunar lander, as seen at Firefly Aerospace's headquarters in Texas on December 3, 2024 Raquel Natalicchio / Houston Chronicle via Getty ImagesResilience has a longer path ahead. In order to save energy and fuel, it will take four to five months to reach a lunar plain called Mare Frigorisin the moons northern region. Once there, it will collect soil samples, conduct experiments and test technology, such as a water electrolyzer that splits water molecules to form hydrogen and oxygen.This launch marks Ispaces second go at a moon landingits previous landercrashed into the moon in 2023.The newly launched spacecraft will both have a full lunar dayaround two weeks on Earthto conduct their research after landing. Thats because they would not survive the harsh lunar nights, when temperatures can plummet to minus 208 degrees Fahrenheit.Both companies say they have contacted their spacecraft post-launch, and the landers appear to be operating normally, notes CNNs Jackie Wattles.2025 is poised to be a big year for space exploration. Intuitive Machines, in a follow-up to its 2024 success, is set to launch its second lunar mission in February. That lander, called Athena, is intended to take a more direct path to the moon than both Blue Ghost and Resilience, meaning it might beat both of them there, per the New York Times Kenneth Chang.More moon missions are on the schedule for later in the year, and many are meant to help NASA prepare for sending human astronauts to the lunar surface within this decade.This [Blue Ghost] mission embodies the bold spirit of NASAs Artemis campaigna campaign driven by scientific exploration and discovery, says Pam Melroy, NASA deputy administrator, in a statement. Each flight were part of is [a] vital step in the larger blueprint to establish a responsible, sustained human presence at the moon, Mars and beyond.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Artemis, Innovations, Moon, NASA, Outer Space, Space Travel, SpaceX, Technology

A new crayfish species calledCherax pulverulentus has a bright blue color. Ji PatokaScientists have described a new species of colorful crayfishand it might already be sitting in your aquarium. The researchers detailed their discovery in the journal Zootaxa last week.Though crayfishalso called crawdads or crawfishmay not be everyones idea of the perfect animal companion, scientists in the Czech Republic found the newly named Cherax pulverulentus in a shipment of Indonesian pet crayfish theyd purchased for their lab in March 2023.The lobster-like crustacean is a burrowing freshwater crayfish endemic to the Indonesian part of New Guinea, according to the study. Specimens have large eyes and claws, as well as smooth bodies. The species comes in two color forms: Blue form crayfish are a dark hue with orange joints and tails, while purple form crayfish are turquoise with purple spots and white along their joints and tails. ACherax pulverulentuscrayfish raises its claw toward the camera. Ji PatokaLike the other members of this genus, this crayfish is aggressive, strictly freshwater (inhabiting streams and maybe also lake ecosystem), probably moderately burrowing, omnivorous and gonochorist, meaning it has distinct male and female individuals,Ji Patoka, a zoologist at the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague and a co-author of the study, tells Popular Sciences Laura Baisas. They grow more than four inches long and might live between five and ten years.Despite the fact that Cherax pulverulentus has been sold as an aquarium pet for more than two decades in places including Europe, Japan, Indonesia and the United States, it was never differentiated from similar species. It was referred to as Hoa Creek, Irian Jaya or Blue Moon crayfish, names that were also used for other types of crayfish, according to the study.The new formal name, Cherax pulverulentus, means dusty crayfish in Latin, in homage to the crustaceans dotted exoskeleton. The crayfish's dotted exoskeleton gave it its Latin namepulverulentus, which means "dusty." Ji PatokaThis recent find coincides with another crayfish discovery: Two other species were newly described in North Carolina this month. Like thedusty aquarium crayfish, they had been mistakenly lumped together with another species, as Frank Graff reports for PBS North Carolina.Taxonomy is essential for conservation, Bronwyn Williams, a research curator at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, tells PBS. If a unique creature does not have a formal name, it is not eligible for the resources needed to manage and protect it.The New Guinea crayfish discovery has also been tied to conservation. It highlights the need for better management and identification in the aquatic pet trade as well as recognition and protection for the creatures in their natural habitat, writes Micah Hanks for the Debrief.To confirm their finding, the researchers conducted morphological and genetic analyses of six specimens. Broadly, however, not much is known about the species, since it has been mostly observed in captivity. One exception is a blue form specimen discovered in a Hungarian thermal spring, which the researchers suspect was previously a pet, dumped there by its former owner.They now aim to study the newly identified species in its natural environment.Crayfish are just one group of awesome animals native to New Guinea, the island facing many environmental risks. In this regard, we believe that our findings will help to highlight the importance of this island from a biodiversity perspective, and more conservation activities will apply there, Patoka tells Popular Science. Last but not least, I would like to alert aquarium owners: Do not release your pets outdoors!Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Animals, Biology, Cool Finds, DNA, Genetics, New Research, Pets, Weird Animals

On This Day in HistoryHow Archaeologists Discovered Europes Oldest-Known Book, Revealing Never-Before-Seen Insights Into Ancient Religion and PhilosophyCharred by the flames of a funeral pyre, the Derveni Papyrus has proved to be a fascinatingand confoundingartifact The Derveni Papyrus, named for the location where it was found, is believed to date to between 340 and 320 B.C.E. Public domain via Wikimedia CommonsOn January 15, 1962, archaeologists in Greece were excavating the tomb of a Macedonian nobleman near Thessaloniki when they uncovered something incredible. Amid the ashes of a funeral pyre, encased in burnt mud, was a papyrus scrollthe first to be found in mainland Greece. Dating of the document and the discovery its literary nature subsequently led UNESCO to declare it Europes oldest book.The Derveni Papyrus, named for the location where it was found, is believed to date to between 340 and 320 B.C.E. In the manuscript it copies, which was likely written near the end of the fifth century B.C.E., the author discusses religious practices related to the fate of the soul after death and delivers a treatise on a poem ascribed to Orpheus, the hero poet and musician of Greek mythology.Richard Janko, a classicist at the University of Michigan, has called the papyrus the most important new piece of evidence about Greek philosophy and religion to come to light since the Renaissance. But, he adds, It is also the hardest to understand, and all work on it is inevitably work in progress. This is largely due to the fact that the fire that preserved the papyrussaving it from the deterioration usually caused by the humidity of Greek soilalso destroyed it. A Roman mosaic of Orpheus surrounded by animals Public domain via Wikimedia CommonsThere were pieces that were completely blackened, and nobody could make out whether there were letters on them, archaeologist Polyxeni Adam-Veleni, then-director of the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki, which houses the papyrus, told the Associated Press in 2006.When researchers carefully peeled apart the scroll, they collected approximately 266 fragments. They ultimately pieced the fragments into 26 surviving columns of text, all with their bottom halves burned away. A relatively complete version of the text would not be published until nearly 50 years later.Scholars disagree on the potential author of the work, but the mystery author seems to have been a follower of the philosopher Anaxagoras. The books audience seems to be prospective religious initiates of Orphism, the cult that followed the teachings of Orpheus.Though many of their practices remain unknown, Orphics are believed to have been monotheistic. They abstained from eating meat and focused on purity, reflecting Anaxagoras teachings that the soul survives after death and only the pure will be saved. Orphisms parallels with Christianity make the papyrus an especially interesting window into the spiritual practices emerging in the area at the time.Philosophy of the Orphic Mysteries - The Derveni Papyrus - Myth of Orpheus and Ancient Greek ScienceWatch on In addition to the religious insights the papyrus offers, the authors interpretation of a now-lost Orphic poem reveals information about Greek philosophical thought of the era. In the treatise, the author writes that the poem, which pertains to the birth of the gods, should be taken as an allegory rather than literally. The anonymous authors argument includes references that show how several Greek philosophers understood the physical world.As technology improves and allows better reading of the manuscript, scholars continue to debate the content of the document and how the fragments should be put together in the hopes of gaining even more insight into Hellenic religion and philosophy of the time.As Janko writes, There is much at stake in attempting to solve the puzzle of this papyrus.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

An artists concept of a white dwarf orbiting a supermassive black hole and shedding matter NASA / Aurore Simonnet, Sonoma State UniversityA supermassive black hole in a distant galaxy is once again surprising scientists.In 2018, a black hole called 1ES 1927+654, located about 270 million light-years away from Earth, showed its first signs of mysterious behavior. Its coronathe billion-degree cloud of plasma that envelopes itsuddenlydisappeared and reappeared. Now, a team of scientists at MIT have observed another novelty: X-ray radiation is emanating in pulses from the black hole with increasing frequency.Between 2022 and 2024, these flashes shifted from happening roughly every 18 minutes to occurring every 7.1 minutes. Just as its 2018 disappearing act was unprecedented at the time, the black holes current behavior marksIt was exciting in and of itself just to find these oscillations, because its only one of a handful [of supermassive black holes that do this], says lead researcher Megan Masterson, an astrophysicist at MIT, to New Scientists Alex Wilkins. But I think the most exciting thing to us was that the oscillation periodhow fast these oscillations were happeningwas changing on human-observable timescales, which is not usually what we see around supermassive black holes.The researchers presented their work on Monday at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society. The findings are set to be published in Nature in early February, and a pre-print paper, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, is currently available. Radio images show the black hole seemingly emitting pulses of plasma from both sides. NSF / AUI / NSF NRAO / Meyer at al. 2025The scientists say the most likely culprit behind the mysterious pulsing is a white dwarfa dense stellar remnant about the size of the Earththats teetering precariously close to the black hole. The white dwarf could be shedding matter and triggering the pulses observed by the researchers. As it circles closer and closer to the black hole, they hypothesize, those pulses speed up.Now, the white dwarf might be orbiting within millions of miles of the black holes event horizonthe point beyond which no matter or light can escape.This would be the closest thing that we know of around any black hole, Masterson says in a statementTo skirt so closely around the black hole without being swallowed up is a feat that other cosmic objects, such as a small black hole or a regular star, would not be able to achieve, per a statement from NASA. This helped give the team confidence that they were dealing with a white dwarf.As the black hole pulls the stellar remnant inward, the white dwarf loses matter from its outermost layer. The shedding of that material, the researchers say, provides a kick-back force in the opposite direction, preventing the white dwarf from falling into the black hole.While there could be other explanations for the mysterious X-ray patterns, such as oscillations in the black holes corona, those are less understood. But to confirm their white dwarf hypothesis, the MIT team will need to detect gravitational waves emanating from the black hole. To do so, theyll have to wait for the 2035 launch of LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna), the first space-based observatory dedicated to detecting the gravitational waves produced by black holes and other powerful phenomena in the universe.But if astronomers determine a white dwarf is indeed causing the pulses, it could make the site more desirable for LISA to observe. Everyone really wants to see a white dwarf get eaten by a black hole with LISA, Matt Nicholl, an astrophysicist at Queens University Belfast in Northern Ireland who was not involved with the work, tells New Scientist. It helps tremendously if we have a few candidates.In the meantime, astronomers will keep their telescopes pointed on the black hole. The one thing Ive learned with this source is to never stop looking at it, because it will probably teach us something new, Masterson says in the statement. The next step is just to keep our eyes open.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Astronomers, Astronomy, Black Holes, New Research, Outer Space, telescope, universe

U.S. Dementia Cases Are Poised to Rise to One Million Each Year by 2060, According to New ProjectionsAs the American population ages, a new study finds the average lifetime risk of dementia for adults over 55 is around 42 percenta higher rate than previously thought Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia. Robert Alexander / Getty ImagesBy 2060, roughly one million Americans may develop dementia each yeararound double the current rateaccording to a new study published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine.Researchers found adults over the age of 55 have a 42 percent average risk of developing dementia within their lifetime, which is much higher than previously thought. Past studies have put the risk at up to 14 percent for men and up to 23 percent for women.I knew the total lifetime risk would be higher than previous 20-year-old estimates, says study senior author Josef Coresh, an epidemiologist at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, to Scientific Americans Jocelyn Solis-Moreira. But I didnt expect that it would land at 42 percent.Dementia is an umbrella term for a variety of neurological conditions that hamper cognitive functioning and memory. Alzheimers disease is the most prevalent form of dementia, accounting for 60 to 80 percent of dementia cases in the United States. An estimated 6.7 million Americans ages 65 and older have Alzheimers disease.The increased risk is largely due to the aging American populationand in the coming years, Baby Boomers will reach older age. By 2040, for instance, all members of that generation will be at least 75 years old, and the risk of developing dementia rises with age.Even if the actual rate of dementia cases ends up being lower than the new prediction, were still going to have a big increase in the number of people and the family and societal burden of dementia because of just the growth in the number of older people, both in the United States and around the world, says Kenneth Langa, an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan who was not involved in the study, to the New York Times Pam Belluck.In addition to the aging population, researchers say the higher dementia risk can be partially explained by the studys inclusion of diverse participants. Past research on dementia has focused primarily on white participants, whereas the new study also included Black Americans.The study finds that Black Americans have a greater overall risk of developing dementia within their lifetime, though researchers havent fully figured out why. Black participants were also more likely than white participants to develop dementia at a younger age.The number of Black Americans suffering from dementia is expected to triple by 2060, in part because the proportion of that population living to old age is growing faster than among white adults, per the New York Times. The team expects the number of white Americans suffering from dementia to nearly double by 2060.Racial disparities in dementia may reflect the cumulative effects of structural racism and inequality throughout the life course, the researchers write in the paper. For instance, poor access to education and nutrition may contribute to earlier differences in cognitive reserve, and socioeconomic disparities and limited access to care may lead to a higher burden of vascular risk factors at midlife.Women also have a higher overall lifetime dementia risk than men: The study finds a 48 percent risk for women, compared to 35 percent for men. Thats largely because women tend to live longer, but researchers are investigating whether hormonal or genetic factors might also be at play.To conduct the research, scientists analyzed three decades of data from more than 15,000 people who had enrolled in a separate, long-term health study. They looked at participants between the ages of 45 and 64 who did not have dementia when they enrolled. Around 27 percent of participants identified as Black, and more than half of the participants were women.Even though the new numbers may seem daunting, less than half of people who make it to age 95 will have dementia, says Andrea Bozoki, a neurologist at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine who was not involved with the new research, to NBC News Kaitlin Sullivan and Jessica Herzberg.Dementia is not an inevitable part of aging, no matter how old you are, Bozoki adds.Some factors that contribute to dementia risk are out of an individuals control, such as whether they inherit a genetic variant known as APOE4, which has been found to increase the risk of Alzheimers disease. The new study found that individuals with two copies of the APOE4 variant had a 59 percent lifetime risk of dementia, while participants with one copy of APOE4 had a 48 percent lifetime risk. Those without the variant had a 39 percent lifetime risk of dementia.Still, other risk factorsfor cognitive decline are more manageable. Doctors recommend wearing helmets to avoid head injuries, staying socially and cognitively engaged, eating a healthy diet, getting high-quality sleep and taking steps to control vascular conditions like high blood pressure and diabetes.All of the things that we know are good for health in general are good for preventing dementia, says Christine E. Kistler, a geriatric medicine expert at the University of Pittsburgh who was not involved with the new research, to the Washington Posts Marlene Cimons. Quitting smoking at any age is good for you. Starting to exercise at any age is good for you. We need to keep our brains working and that helps keep our brains healthy.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Aging, Brain, Cognition, Disease, Disease and Illnesses, Health, Medicine, New Research