If your cat is a hungry little guy who will eat whatever you put in front of them, you know the importance of portion control. Sure, chonky cats are cute, but obese cats are three times more likely to pass compared to lean cats. Going to the vet is expensive, so an automatic pet feeder is a worthwhile investment in your cat’s life and the length of your budget. This PETLIBRO feeder deal is part of Amazon’s Pet Day Deals—happening today and tomorrow online.

PETLIBRO Automatic Cat Feeder $54.98 (Was $89.99)

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This automatic pet feeder allows you to schedule up to 60 meals a day and 50 portions per meal. If your kitty deserves a little snack you can also hit the manual feeding button to give them their much-deserved extra portion. A rotor, secure twist-lock lid, desiccant bag, and sealing strip all ensure freshness and crunchy bites all the time. You can also record a 10-second message and play it while you’re away to calm your pet. And, built-in infrared detection suspends feeder operations to keep your cat safe and your feeder in great condition.

More automatic feeder and fountain deals:

• PETLIBRO Cat Water Fountain $54.99 (Was $69.99)
• PETLIBRO Automatic Cat Feeder with Alexa $74.99 (Was $89.99)
• PETLIBRO Automatic Cat Feeder, Multiple Pet Use $79.88 (Was $99.99)
• PETLIBRO App Monitoring Cat Water Fountain with Wireless Pump $67.99 (Was $79.99)
• PETLIBRO Automatic Cat Feeder with Camera $105.99 (Was $139.99)
• PETLIBRO Vacuum-Sealed Automatic Cat Feeders $109.99 (Was $199.99)
• PETLIBRO Automatic Cat Feeder with Camera for Two Cats $115.99 (Was $179.99)
• PETLIBRO 3L RFID Automatic Cat Feeder $127.49 (Was $149.99)

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Superyachts are notoriously dirty luxury toys, with a single billionaire’s boat emitting as much as 7,020 tons of CO2 per year. And while it’s unlikely uber-wealthy shoppers are going to forgo from their statement vessels anytime soon, at the very least there’s now a chance to make superyachts greener. That’s the idea behind the new Project 821, billed as the world’s first hydrogen fuel cell superyacht.

Announced over the weekend by Danish shipyard cooperative Feadship, Project 821 arrives following five years of design and construction. Measuring a massive 260-feet-long, the zero-diesel boat reportedly sails shorter distances than standard superyachts on the market, but still operates its hotel load and amenities using completely emissionless green hydrogen power.

Hydrogen cells generate power by turning extremely lightweight liquid hydrogen into electricity stored in lithium-ion batteries. But unlike fossil fuel engines’ noxious smoke and other pollutants, hydrogen cells only emit harmless water vapor. The technology remained cost-prohibitive and logistically challenging for years, but recent advancements have allowed designers to start integrating the green alternative into cars, planes, and boats.

There are still hurdles, however. Although lightweight, liquid hydrogen must be housed in massive, double-walled -423.4 degrees Fahrenheit cryogenic storage tanks within a dedicated section of the vessel. According to Feadship, liquid hydrogen requires 8-10 times more storage space for the same amount of energy created by diesel fuel. That—along with 16 fuel cells, a switchboard connection for the DC electrical grid, and water vapor emission vent stacks—necessitated adding an extra 13-feet to the vessel’s original specifications. But these size requirements ironically makes superyachts such as Project 821 arguably ideal for hydrogen fuel cell integration.

And it certainly sounds like Project 821 fulfills the “superyacht” prerequisites, with five decks above the waterline and two below it. The 14 balconies and seven fold-out platforms also house a pool, Jacuzzi, steam room, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, gym, pantry, fireplace-equipped offices, living room, library, and a full walkaround deck.

Such luxuries, however, will need to remain relatively close-to-harbor for the time being. Project 821 still isn’t capable of generating and storing enough power to embark on lengthy crossings, but it can handle an “entire week’s worth of silent operation at anchor or [briefly] navigating emission-free at 10 knots while leaving harbors or cruising in protected marine zones,” according to Feadship.

[Related: This liquid hydrogen-powered plane successfully completed its first test flights.]

“We have now shown that cryogenic storage of liquified hydrogen in the interior of a superyacht is a viable solution,” Feadship Director and Royal Van Lent Shipyard CEO Jan-Bart Verkuyl said in the recent announcement, adding that “additional fuel cell innovations… are on the near horizon.”

Of course, the greenest solution remains completely divesting from ostentatious, multimillion-dollar vanity flotillas before rising sea levels (and angry orcas) overwhelm even the wealthiest billionaires’ harbors. But it’s at least somewhat nice to see a new eco-friendly advancement on the market—even if it still looks like a Bond villain’s getaway vehicle.

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Sperm whales have their own unique cultures, accents, and potentially a phonetic alphabet. A team from MIT’s Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative) may have decoded this phonetic alphabet that reveals sophisticated structures within sperm whale communication that could be similar to human phonetics and other animal linguistic systems. 

“Sperm whale calls are, in principle, capable of expressing a wider space of meanings than we previously thought!” MIT computer science graduate student Pratyusha Sharma tells PopSci. Sharma is a co-author of a new study published May 7 in the journal Nature Communications that describes these findings. 

Sperm whale ABCs

With some of the largest brains of any species on Earth, sperm whales have complex social behaviors. They travel in pods and have various cultural groups that dive and hunt together and even take turns looking after younger whales. They do this all in almost complete darkness, so they need strong communication to coordinate their lives in the ocean’s deepest depths.

[Related: Science Says Sperm Whales Could Really Wreck Ships.]

Sperm whales use a complex system of codas–short bursts of clicks–to communicate. In this study, the team collected 9,000 codas from sperm whale families in the Eastern Caribbean sperm observed by The Dominica Sperm Whale Project. They used acoustic biologging tags, called D-tags that were deployed on whales. The D-tags captured details of the whales’ vocal patterns. 

The team found that these short groups of clicks vary in structure depending on the conversational context. With this data in hand, they used a mix of algorithms for pattern recognition and classification, and on-body recording equipment. It revealed that the communications were not random or simple, but more structured and complex. 

The sperm whale’s essentially have their own phonetic alphabet. Various auditory elements that the team call rhythm, tempo, rubato, and ornamentation work together to form a large array of distinguishable codas. Depending on the context of the conversation, the whales can systematically modulate certain aspects of their codas. They may smoothly vary the duration of the calls–rubato–or add in some extra ornamental clicks. The team also found that the building blocks of these codas could be combined in various ways. The whales can then build many distinct vocalizations from these combinations. 

“The sperm whale communication system is a combinatorial coding system,” says Sharma. “Looking at a wider communicative context allowed us to discover that there is fine-grained variation in the structure of the calls of sperm whales that are both perceived and imitated in the course of their exchange.”

Using AI

The team developed new visualization and data analysis techniques that found individual sperm whales could emit various coda patterns in long exchanges. Using machine learning is important for pinpointing the specifics of their communications and predicting what they may say next. 

[Related: How bomb detectors discovered a hidden pod of singing blue whales.]

Scientists are interested in determining if these signals vary depending on the ecological context they are given in and how much the signals follow any potential rules similar to grammar that the listeners recognize. 

“The problem is particularly challenging in the case of marine mammals, because scientists usually cannot see their subjects or identify in complete detail the context of communication,” University of Pennsylvania Psychology Professor Emeritus Robert Seyfarth said in a statement. “Nonetheless, this paper offers new, tantalizing details of call combinations and the rules that underlie them in sperm whales.” Seyfarth was not involved in this study.

Alien communication on Earth

In future studies, CETI hopes to figure out whether elements like rhythm, tempo, ornamentation, and rubato carry specific intentions when communicated. This could provide insight into a specific linguistic phenomenon where simple elements are combined to present complex meanings. This “duality of patterning” was previously thought to be unique to human language. 

Research like this also parallels hypothetical scenarios in which humans contact alien species and need to communicate. 

“It’s about understanding a species with a completely different environment and communication protocols, where their interactions are distinctly different from human norms,” says Sharma. “Essentially, our work could lay the groundwork for deciphering how an ‘alien civilization’ might communicate, providing insights into creating algorithms or systems to understand entirely unfamiliar forms of communication.”

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It’s baby Peregrine falcon season on a California island best known for its swift currents, cold water, and notorious prisoners. A new live webcam allows viewers to watch four recently hatched peregrine falcon chicks on Alcatraz Island. The camera was set up by the National Park Service (NPS) and Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy. The fixed-angle webcam provides high-definition images even at night. The livestream is also equipped with a 12-hour cache so that visitors can catch-up on allowing viewers to catch up.

The nest is the handiwork of a female falcon named Larry, short for Lawrencium. Larry hatched on the University of California, Berkeley’s bell tower in 2018. To track Larry’s progress in the wild, biologists placed a band on her leg when she was a chick. By 2020, Larry and her unnamed male partner were spotted breeding on Alcatraz Island. They were tucked away with their young in a natural cave called an eyrie on the western side of the island. According to the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, this was the first time that Peregrines had ever been recorded nesting on Alcatraz. The duo welcomed four chicks in April 2023, matching their four for this year. 

Biologists say that the goal of the livestream is to “share this incredible view of a wild peregrine falcon nest with the world.”

“I hope this livestream generates appreciation for Peregrine falcons and sparks viewers’ interest in the other bird life found on Alcatraz as well,” Alcatraz Island biologist Lidia D’Amico said in a statement.

[Related: Thriving baby California condor is a ray of hope for the unique species.]

While best known for its now-closed prison, Alcatraz Island has been a sanctuary for birds for years.  It’s home to loud Western Gulls, large Black-crowned Night-Herons, speedy Anna’s Hummingbirds, and more. According to the NPS, Peregrine falcons like Larry are the apex predators of the island who can be seen preying on other avians, including songbirds, shorebirds, ducks. This behavior is an important reminder that the falcons are wild animals. Parts of the popular island are closed from the months of February to September to allow for nesting and protecting the birds.

Peregrine falcons are the largest falcons in North America, with an impressive 39 to 43-inch wingspan. They are known for their spectacular dives called stoops. Urban-dwelling Peregrines fly high above their intended prey–usually pigeons–before they stoop and strike the bird in mid-air. This sharp blow is fatal and scientists estimate diving Peregrine falcons can reach speeds of over 200 miles per hour.  

[Related: Sadly, these live-streamed bald eagle eggs likely won’t hatch.]

Despite being such fearsome predators, their populations nationwide were once driven to the brink of extinction. They were federally listed as endangered in 1973. Organic pollutants, particularly the synthetic insecticide DDT, severely thinned their egg shells. DDT was banned in 1972 and Peregrine falcons were officially removed from the endangered species list in 1999.

“This impressive bird has long been noted for its speed, grace, and aerial skills,” the National Park Service says. “Now, it is also a symbol of America’s recovering threatened and endangered species.”

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Nothing prepares you for mating like a seafood buffet. Well, at least if you’re a sea lion.

A massive school of anchovy in the San Francisco Bay has lured approximately 1,700 sea lions to Pier 39 near the city’s Fisherman’s Wharf district. Not since the early 1990s has the area seen this many sea lions, Sheila Candor, Harbormaster at Pier 39, told the Associated Press. In recent decades, less than a thousand sea lions flopped onto the pier each spring.

Pier 39 is a sea lion rest stop of sorts, a place to fill up on anchovies and herring before heading south to the Channel Islands for mating season. The pier docks use three times the floatation support as normal docks to support the weight of the blubbery sea beasts.

If you’re planning to visit this year’s herd of sea lions, prepare for a chorus of loud barking and frequent displays of sun-basked lounging and fin-slap bickering. And if you can’t make it to San Francisco, enjoy these photos we collected.

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This article was originally featured on Undark.

By quirk of geography, the Orkney islands, located off the northern tip of Scotland, are unusually well positioned to bear witness to the ocean’s might. On the archipelago’s western shores, waves crash relentlessly against the rocks. And within its numerous channels, the tides push an enormous volume of water from the North Atlantic to the North Sea and back again, twice every day, squeezing between and around the islands of Rousay, Westray, Eday, and a myriad of other ones.

No wonder the European Marine Energy Center, one of the world’s leading agencies for developing and testing wave and tidal power technologies, chose to set up shop here; the nonprofit agency hosts both wave and tidal power testing facilities on Orkney.

EMEC’s wave-energy testing site is at Billia Croo, located on the western shore of Orkney’s largest island. On a relatively calm day last spring, Lisa MacKenzie, EMEC’s marketing and communications manager, surveyed the gray waters from the Billia Croo site. “We get an average of 2-to-3-meter wave height,” she said, or roughly 6.5 to 10 feet. “But we’ve had waves of over 20 meters”—more than 65 feet—during “really extreme conditions over the winter.”

The surrounding landscape is windswept and nearly treeless. Were one to sail directly west from this spot, “the first bit of land that you would hit is Canada,” MacKenzie said.

EMEC was founded in 2003 following a recommendation by the U.K. House of Commons Science and Technology Committee (now known as the Science, Innovation, and Technology Committee). To date it has received about $53 million in public investment; its funders include the European Union, the U.K. government, the Scottish government, and the Orkney Islands Council. More than 20 corporate clients have used EMEC’s facilities, and more ocean energy converters have been tested at the center than at any other site in the world.

The Billia Croo facility opened in 2004 on land rented from a local farmer. An array of transformers, housed in green bins each the size of a compact car, lines the perimeter of the site’s small parking lot. A modest stone-wall hut, which blends into the landscape, houses the facility’s control center and is filled electronic switching equipment. The testing berths are offshore, where EMEC’s clients can test all manner of wave-energy conversion devices, with cables running along the seabed to the control hut. Any electricity produced can also be fed directly into the U.K. national grid.

Waves, like the wind that produces them, are not a constant; both are inherently variable. And they are linked: Wind imparts energy to the ocean, which then dissipates as waves over a longer time scale. As MacKenzie puts it, waves are the aftermath of wind.

Harnessing the energy of waves is one way to draw power from the oceans; another is to exploit the energy of the tides. Of the two energy sources, tidal is more constant, given the tides’ regular-as-clockwork response to the push and pull of the moon and sun.

EMEC runs a grid-connected tidal energy test facility located off the southern tip of Eday. “We get a peak tidal flow over 4 meters per second, which is about 8 knots,” MacKenzie said. “So about half a billion tons of water passes through there, every hour, at peak tide.”

And that flow is comparatively predictable—far more so than, say, wind or solar, which are stymied by calm or cloudy conditions. “We can predict the tides 200 years into the future,” MacKenzie said. “Which means that we can predict how much power can be derived from the tides, 200 years into the future.”

There is no question that the planet’s oceans contain enormous amounts of energy. According to a 2021 study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society A, tidal stream energy alone could provide the equivalent of 11 percent of the U.K.’s annual electricity needs. Power from the oceans is “the largest untapped resource of renewable energy on the planet right now,” said Rémi Gruet, CEO of Ocean Energy Europe, the world’s largest network of ocean energy professionals.

The question is, can that energy be harnessed economically—or is the idea of pulling watts from the water doomed to be a mere sideshow in the quest for green energy? After decades of testing at tidal energy facilities like EMEC and other smaller-scale facilities around the globe, only a handful of commercial wave and tidal power facilities are online, and they contribute a miniscule amount to the world’s energy production. Even in Orkney, a leader in the quest to extract energy from the ocean, wave and tidal power account for just a fraction of the islands’ energy consumption.

Notably, wave and tidal lag behind other forms of renewable energy. “It’s fair to say that we’re nowhere near a wind or solar industry at this point,” says Carrie Schmaus, a marine energy technology manager at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Water Power Technologies Office.

Still, for the technology’s supporters, the ocean is seen as a virtually limitless source of energy waiting to be tapped, if only governments step up with the public investment needed to kick the industry into high gear. “There’s an energy resource there,” says Andrew Scott, CEO of Edinburgh-based Orbital Marine Power Ltd. “The question is, what are you prepared to pay to extract that energy?”

On paper, the power of the world’s oceans is indisputable: Tidal stream energy is estimated to represent a global resource of some 1,200 terawatt-hours (a terawatt is one trillion watts) per year, while wave power is even more abundant, adding up to almost 30,000 terawatt-hours per year—enough, in theory, to meet all of humanity’s energy needs 10 times over.

As promising as tidal and wave energy may seem, the list of obstacles to widespread adoption is significant: the formidable cost of scaling up the technology; bureaucratic hurdles; environmental concerns, including possible effects on fish and sea mammals; and, in the case of tidal power, geographical restrictions. There are also fears that rising sea levels could substantially alter ocean movements in a way that could impact current or planned tidal power facilities. In a 2022 paper published in the journal Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Danial Khojasteh and his co-authors noted that “long-term management decisions associated with harnessing the potential of tidal energy schemes within estuaries should be made with caution.”

The question of cost is paramount. Even though the cost of tidal and wave energy may be dropping, the cost of wind and solar are dropping even faster, said Brian Polagye, a University of Washington mechanical engineer who studies marine renewable energy. That means tidal and wave energy can be seen as succeeding and failing at the same time.

“Until your price comes down to the point where you’re competitive with other forms of generation—either because you’re directly competitive, or you’re being subsidized until you get to that point—the technologies really can’t take off,” Polagye said. Nonetheless, he added, “I do feel these are technologies that have a long-term role to play in our energy systems.”

Schmaus, at the Water Power Technologies Office, describes wave and tidal power as a nascent industry (as did others interviewed for this story). By way of comparison, she pointed out that in the early days of the wind power industry, all manner of turbine designs were tested. “And then at some point that technology converged,” she said. “Now we have the three-bladed turbine we all know and love. Marine energy is still in that ideation kind of area. We have not had technology convergence yet.”

One of her department’s goals, she says, is to learn from small-scale demonstration projects, scale up designs, and bring down costs. This scaling-up is just what Scott’s Orbital Marine is trying to achieve in Orkney. They’re the company behind the O2 tidal stream energy generator—the world’s most powerful such device—located in the Fall of Warness, south of Eday, and connected to the grid via EMEC’s tidal energy test site. (MacKenzie described the project as “one of our biggest success stories.”) The O2 is a 240-foot-long structure shaped like a submarine (though it stays on the surface), with two submerged arms, each supporting a twin-bladed turbine. In an interview in a cavernous exhibition hall at the annual All-Energy conference in Glasgow last spring, and later by email, Scott spoke of his vision for the company, and the potential of tidal stream power. He said that Orbital Marine hopes to add another six turbines to the Fall of Warness site over the next few years, and, in time, perhaps another dozen.

Scott acknowledges the forbidding technical challenges—especially the difficulty of designing machinery that can withstand seawater’s salt and grime for months or years on end. And he has seen his share of unrealistic proposals over the years. At times “it was a bit of a joke,” he recalled. People saw how much traction wind energy was getting, he says, and figured wind’s success could be readily duplicated beneath the waves.

“People would say, ‘Just go and ‘marinize’ it, and it will be equally successful in the tidal application,” he continued. “It was as naïve as that.”

But many of those early challenges have been overcome, Scott said. He noted that O2 is currently providing about 10 percent of Orkney’s electricity, enough to power about 2,000 homes. Because the islands are sparsely populated, and rich in wind energy, Orkney actually produces more energy than is needed locally, which means the islands are already a net contributor to the U.K. grid—and some of that energy comes from O2. Scott said he foresees Orbital Marine generating about $17.5 million from electricity sales per year, over the turbine array’s projected 20-year life. “We’re effectively at that critical stage where we start to grow commercial revenues and profits,” Scott said.

Of course, most parts of the world are not blessed with Orkney’s extreme tidal flows. “It is niche,” Scott acknowledged. “But where it does exist, it represents a phenomenally dense form of renewable energy. Because water is 800 times the density of air.”

While some regions have more powerful tides than others, waves can be found pretty much everywhere that ocean meets land. During a visit to the FloWave Ocean Energy Research Facility on the campus of the University of Edinburgh, a crew from a company called Mocean Energy tested a floating wave-energy converter in a massive circular water tank, some 80 feet across. Paddles along the perimeter of the tank create waves that strive to mimic the conditions of the open seas.

So far, there’s no one preferred way to extract energy from waves—just as there’s no one preferred way to build a tidal stream turbine—so various designs are being tested. The one Mocean was testing uses a simple electrical generator to convert the kinetic energy of the waves into electricity. As Mocean’s converter bobbed in response to the waves, Chris Retzler, the company’s technical director and co-founder, spoke of the path to commercialization, saying he hoped to have a product on the market in 12 to 18 months, and “a much larger-scale, grid-connected machine” in three to four years.

For now, both wave energy and tidal energy lag behind wind in terms of investment and commercialization, but the gap may be closing, Retzler said. “The wind industry, of course, has been phenomenally successful—but it started in much the same way, with small-scale experimentation, gradually building up,” he says. “And we’re following a similar pattern here. We learn by doing.”

Retzler also noted that there is a natural symbiosis between wave energy, with its long-term dependability, and wind and solar, which have much greater hour-to-hour and day-to day fluctuations. “The ocean is storing wind energy over time,” he said. “Waves take a while to build up, and then a long while to decay. That smooths out the production of energy. So wave energy can provide a more stable contribution, and therefore can fill in the gaps that are left by wind and solar.”

The United States has not traditionally been a big player in ocean power technologies, though that may be changing. An established testing facility known as PacWave North, located off the coast of Oregon, will soon be joined by PacWave South, a larger facility now under construction in deeper waters south of Newport. PacWave, funded by the Department of Energy, the State of Oregon, and other public and private entities, bills itself as the first pre-permitted, utility-scale, grid-connected, open-water test facility in the U.S.

Burke Hales, an oceanographer at Oregon State University and PacWave’s chief scientist, describes PacWave as conceptually similar to Scotland’s EMEC, which was one of PacWave’s design partners. “PacWave will be bigger, [with] more total power capability, more berths, more individual devices,” he says. Hales cites figures from the Department of Energy that suggest wave power could meet 15 percent of the nation’s electricity demand.

While the Oregon coast is synonymous with pounding waves, other locations may be better suited to small-scale projects that take advantage of the local geography. For example, in the village of Igiugig, in southwestern Alaska, there’s a demonstration project that draws energy from the estuary of the Kvichak River, via underwater turbines. That’s seen as a vast improvement on the current situation, in which the community trucks in diesel fuel at great cost.

And other U.S. projects may be on the horizon. In 2022, the Department of Energy pledged $35 million in funding “to advance tidal and river current energy systems” in a move that represents the largest such investment in the nation.

Back in Orkney, a company called SAE Renewables announced last winter that they’d hit the milestone of producing 50 gigawatt-hours of electricity with their tidal stream array in the Pentland Firth, the strait that separates Orkney from the Scottish mainland. Further north, in Shetland, Nova Innovation added a sixth turbine to its tidal array last year, which has been powering homes and businesses in the area since 2016.

Across Europe, some 2.2 megawatts of tidal stream capacity were added in 2021, up from just 260 kilowatts the year before. By comparison, Europe installed more than 17 gigawatts of wind power capacity in 2021 (87 percent of them on-shore). By 2022, wind accounted for well over a third of Europe’s energy consumption.

Tidal stream and wave power are not the only ways to extract energy from the oceans. In estuaries or bays with high tides, tidal barrages are another option, a practice dating back as far as 619 A.D. The idea is simple: Find an inlet with significant tides, and build a barrier with sluices that can open and close (similar to a traditional hydroelectric dam). Open the valves as the tide comes in, then direct the water through turbines as the tide goes out. So far, tidal barrages have historically seen more commercial use than tidal stream projects, notably in France (the world’s first commercial tidal power project, on the estuary of the Rance River, dates from 1966), and in South Korea.

As with tidal stream power, tidal barrages could be a natural fit in specific environments. For example, as low-lying countries like the Netherlands and Belgium look to build dikes and barriers to protect against rising ocean levels, tidal barrage generators may be a natural addition to already-planned projects. There is concern, however that tidal barrages can impact salinity and sediment levels and disrupt coastal ecology.

Interestingly, the spot with the world’s highest tides—the Bay of Fundy, which separates the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia—has also seen the most disappointment. The volume of water that whooshes through the bay twice each day could, on paper, generate up to 2,500 megawatts of power—roughly equivalent to two large nuclear reactors, enough to meet Nova Scotia’s electricity needs.

But efforts to harness those tides have been fraught. A tidal barrage power station opened on the bay in 1984, but ceased operations in 2019 following technical problems and concern over harm to fish in the bay. Tidal stream projects have been attempted in the bay as well, but have likewise struggled. Last year, a company called Sustainable Marine Energy Canada pulled the plug on its floating tidal turbine platform in the bay after five years of testing and $45 million in investment, citing bureaucratic barriers put in its way by the Canadian government. The company declared voluntary bankruptcy last spring, and in November one of its floating turbine platforms broke free from its mooring and ran aground on the bay’s south shore.

One thing industry insiders agree on is that, for all forms of wave and tidal energy, the path to commercialization requires significant public investment. A 2019 study pegged the cost of tidal energy for one commercial-scale project at $130 to $280 per megawatt-hour, compared to $20 to around $40 per megawatt-hour for wind. But according to Scott at Orbital Marine, it’s misleading to speak of tidal power as being expensive and wind and solar as being cheaper, because so much more investment has been pumped into the latter compared to the former. The green energy sector “has all this legacy background in terms of state intervention and subsidy,” he said. “And the whole thing is structured around taxation and subsidy.”

The path to commercialization for ocean energy projects can seem like a paradox, said Polagye. “Economies of scale occur because you’re building a lot of things,” and “you tend to build a lot of things because they’re the most cost-effective thing to build,” he said. “So it’s a chicken and egg problem, right?”

Gruet similarly sees the supposed lagging-behind of wave and tidal power as the result of a lack of public investment. “The industry has not received any subsidies in any shape or form in a similar way that the wind or solar industry have received in the early stage of their development,” he said. “And that has slowed down our development tremendously.”

He added that the cost of tidally generated power is already on par with that for floating offshore wind platforms. “So tidal and wave are not lagging behind,” he said. “It took the wind industry 20 years to get commercial and 40 years to get cheap, between the 1980s and today, so we are still well ahead of the curve.”

For EMEC’s MacKenzie, the latent energy of the world’s oceans represents a chance for her own country to make up for past mistakes in the race for renewables. She recalled an incident in 1987, when the U.K. secretary of state for energy, Cecil Parkinson, spoke in the House of Commons about the potential of wind power. Sure, it was a good idea in principle, he said, but he “cannot see the day when we shall be generating large quantities of electricity from wind.”

The U.K. hesitated—and Denmark jumped in. “Denmark absolutely won that race,” MacKenzie says. “And this is what we’re really keen to make sure doesn’t happen with wave and tidal.” (Today, wind power provides about one third of the U.K.’s electricity production. About 40 percent comes from coal, oil, and natural gas, while nuclear power and bioenergy provide about 15 percent and 11 percent respectively.)

For Scott, the power latent in the world’s oceans is an important resource in the fight against catastrophic climate change, even if its total contribution remains small compared to that of other renewables. “Inaction is not an option,” he says.

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Despite the reputation for being the trash pandas of the bird world, seagulls are kind of the masters of evolution. They can survive and thrive alongside humans, have a remarkable memory, and some have been observed using pieces of food to bait fish the way primates use tools. The seagull species that have bigger brains that are also more likely to nest on coastal cliffs may also be better adapted to breed in urban environments. 

A study published April 25 in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution found that more than half of cliff-nesting gull species that also nest in cities and towns have bigger brains. Species such as the Herring Gull, the Lesser Black-backed Gull, and the Black-legged Kittiwake potentially have a behavioral flexibility that allows them to nest in more challenging locations like rooftops.

“Many people will be familiar with gulls nesting and foraging in urban areas,” Madeleine Goumas, study co-author and a postdoctoral researcher specializing in herring gulls at the University of Exeter in England, said in a statement. “It’s not something you might expect from a seabird, so we wanted to try to understand why they do it.”

[Related: Seagulls hunger for food touched by human hands.]

In the study, the team combed through various research databases to find records of urban breeding and foraging among gulls and data on brain size by species. They then mapped a range of the different species present. 

Out of 50 gull species, 13 were recorded as using urban areas to breed, while 13 were recorded using urban areas to forage for food. Nine species bred and fed in more building-heavy environments. 

When they compared the figures for breeding with the birds’ known habits and brain size, they found that 10 out of the 19 cliff-nesting gull species (53 percent) also nested in urban areas. Only three out of 28 (11 percent) of generally non-cliff-nesting species nested in both spaces. 

[Related: The birds of summer patrolling Ocean City’s boardwalk.]

“We found that gull species with larger brains are more likely to be cliff-nesters, and cliff-nesting species are more likely to breed in urban areas,” study co-author and University of Exeter evolutionary biologist Neeltje Boogert said in a statement. “We also found that cliff-nesting is probably not something that was shared by the ancestor of gulls, so it is a relatively recent adaptation.”

They also point out that this is not a fixed or instinctive behavior in most gulls. The non-cliff-nesting gull species nest exclusively on the ground, most most traditionally cliff-nesting species can nest in both spaces. 

“This suggests that bigger brains enable these gull species to be flexible with regard to where they choose to nest, and this allows them to use unconventional sites, like buildings, for raising their young,” said Goumas.

[Related: Piping plovers are in trouble, but there’s some good news.]

In terms of foraging, the researchers found that neither brain size nor the shape of their wing were good indicators of seagull behavior in urban environments. The team also looked at the status of the gulls on the International Union on Conservation of Nature’s Red List. The gulls with stable or increasing populations were more than twice as likely to be observed using urban habitats than the species that are decreasing. Of the 10 Threatened or Near Threatened species, only the Black-legged Kittiwake was known to use urban spaces.

Observing how gull species function in populated areas with humans and buildings is important for conservation. Seeing what factors allow some to survive and thrive while others do not can inform why some aren’t faring as well. 

“Urbanization is a major problem for a lot of animals,” said Goumas. “It looks like some gull species have managed to overcome some of the challenges that prevent other animals from using urban areas, but we need more long-term studies as well as comparative studies on other taxa to fully understand the impacts of urban living.”

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Parrots, renowned for their impressive intelligence and charming vocal mimicry, have gained popularity as pets in recent decades. Those same traits that make the birds fascinating to observe, however, can also cause issues. A lack of socialization and proper stimulation can cause parrots to act out, or in some cases, even harm themselves. An estimated 40% of cockatoos and African Greys, two popular species of parrots, reportedly engage in potentially harmful feather destruction. Many of these stress-induced, destructive behaviors are a byproduct of parrots living in environments drastically different from their natural habitats where they fly free among fellow birds. New research suggests modern technology, specially Facebook Messenger video chats, could help these birds regain their social lives

“In the wild, they live in flocks and socialize with each other constantly,” University of Glasgow associate professor Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas said in a statement. “As pets, they’re often kept on their own, which can cause them to develop negative behaviors like excessive pacing or feather-plucking.”

Researchers from Northeastern University, MIT, and the University of Glasgow recently set out to see how several species of parrots interacted when placed on brief video calls with one another. Over the course of three months, the researchers trained 18 parrots and their human caretakers to learn how to operate touchscreen tablets and smartphones. The birds were initially trained to associate video calls with a bell. Everytime the bell was rung during the training phase, the bird would receive a treat. Caretakers, meanwhile, were trained to end calls any time the bird showed signs of stress or discomfort. Once trained, the birds were free to ring the bell on their own accord. Doing so would result in their caretakers opening up Facebook Messenger and connecting them with fellow birds around the country involved in the study.  associated video calls with a bell and fed the birds a treat every time they rang the bell. The parrots were then able to access Facebook Messenger to video call fellow birds around the country. 

The results were shocking. In almost all cases, the birds’ caretakers claim the video calls improved their well-being. Some of the birds even appeared to learn new skills, like foraging or improved flight, after observing other birds doing so. Two of the birds, a cockatoo named Ellie and an African Grey named Cookie, still call each other nearly a year later. 

“It really speaks to how cognitively complex these birds are and how much ability they have to express themselves,” Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas said in a statement. “It was really beautiful, those two birds, for me.”

Bird video-calls resulted in long-lasting friendships 

The research into the birds was split up into two phases. For the first 10 weeks, caregivers were instructed on how to introduce and train the birds to interact with the touchscreen devices. Though previous research has explored using touchscreen with cats, dogs, bears, and rodents, parrots are particularly well suited to using the devices thanks to their combination of high cognitive ability, impressive vision, and flexible tongues. Once trained on the devices, all of the birds involved took part in a “meet and greet” where they were briefly placed in video calls with each bird at least twice. The birds were trained using treats to ring a bell to signal their interest in hopping on a call.

Stage two of the research removed the treats to see if the birds would still have any interest in requesting a video call without a food reward. Every one of the birds continued to ring the bell, with some doing so many times. Once rung, researchers presented the birds with a tablet home screen featuring photographs of different birds in the study. The parrot would then use its tongue to click on the companion it wished to interact with. Once presented with a bird on the other side of the call, the parrots would hop towards the screen, let out loud squawks, and bob their heads. Researchers believe the vocalizations in particular may mirror the type of calls and responses parrots often engage in when they are in the wild. 

Researchers observed multiple instances of birds appearing to mimic each other’s behaviors. Some would begin grooming themselves after watching a bird on the other end of screen do so. Other times, the birds would “sing” in unison. In one video, a colorful parrot can be seen eagerly waiting for a call to connect. A large white bird eventually appears on the other end of the call, which results in the red bird banging its head and chirping in excitement. In another case, a male macaw video-calling with a fellow macaw would let out the phrase “Hi! Come here!” If the second bird left the screen, the vocalizing bird would quickly ring a bell, which the caretakers interpreted as the bird asking his friend to return to the screen.                   

“Some strong social dynamics started appearing,” Northeastern assistant professor Rébecca Kleinberger said in a statement. 

Parrots prefer calling real birds over pre-recorded video

Interestingly, parrots included in the study appeared substantially less interested in video calls if they featured pre-recorded video of other birds. A related study published by University of Glasgow researchers show the parrots strongly preferred to chat with other parrots in real time. Over the course of six months of observation, the parrots spent more time engaged in the calls with real birds than with the pre-recorded videos. Those findings suggest the birds weren’t merely being existed by the presence of a screen. Rather, the actual communication with another living bird plays an important role. 

Combined, the birds in the study spent 561 minutes in love calls with other birds compared to just 142 minutes interacting with the pre-recorded videos. The birds’ caregivers reinforced that point and told researchers they appeared more curious and engaged when a live bird was on the other end of the call. 

“The appearance of ‘liveness’ really did seem to make a difference to the parrots’ engagement with their screens,” Douglas recently wrote. “Their behavior while interacting with another live bird often reflected behaviors they would engage in with other parrots in real life, which wasn’t the case in the pre-recorded sessions.”

Researchers are hopeful these findings could one day be used to help parrots improve their socialization. And while some of the parrot caretakers surveyed noted the steep learning curve to train the parrots, every one of them said the project was worthwhile once concluded. An overwhelming 71.4% of the caretakers in the video calling study said their birds had a very positive experience. By contrast, none of them described the experience as negative. One caretaker in particular claimed her pet “came alive during the calls.” 

“We’re not saying you can make them [the parrots] as happy as they would be in the wild,” Kleinberger said. “We’re trying to serve those who are already [in captivity].”

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Animals have evolved all sorts of weird and wonderful methods of communication—everything from mantis shrimp bouncing pulses of polarized light to one another to birds-of-paradise gallivanting around the jungle to demonstrate their virility. Even so, there may well only be one animal that can claim to have a highly developed variety of expression that’s communicated entirely via a blob of fat on its forehead. Step forward—or, perhaps, swim forward—the beluga. 

Like all other toothed whales, these little Arctic-dwelling cetaceans have an organ on their foreheads that’s referred to as the melon. The melon has long been a source of fascination to scientists, who’ve proposed a variety of outlandish theories over the years to explain its presence. (The consensus today is that it’s used for sound generation and to assist in echolocation.)

In the beluga, however, the melon also seems to have another use. Belugas’ melons are strikingly large and, uniquely, they are also malleable, because belugas have facial muscles that can pull and push on the melon. Doing this essentially allows the animal to change the shape of its head. But  why do belugas do this? 

As ScienceNews reports, a March Animal Cognition study of four captive belugas in a Connecticut aquarium set out to categorize the different shapes the melon can take, and then trying to deduce those shapes’ meanings. The study’s authors analyzed a year’s worth of video footage of the belugas, and then compared their findings to observations of another, larger population of 51 belugas at an aquarium in Canada.

They found that while the melon can take any number of subtly different shapes, these all fall into five distinct categories—and they suggest that these shapes essentially constitute a form of visual communication unique to belugas.

It is commonly known that the motivation behind many of a given animal’s actions come down to feeding and/or mating. And unsurprisingly, at least two of the melon shapes seem related to the latter—or as the study authors put it, they are “primarily performed by males toward a female recipient in conjunction with courtship behavior.” (These shapes also occur during what the authors call “male-male sociosexual play,” a behavior that occurs in various cetaceans. One  study of killer whales describes it as “young males … practic[ing] courtship behaviors by engaging in sociosexual play with other males”; in this context “sociosexual” refers to behavior that is sexual but does not involve conception.) The three remaining shapes are harder to parse, although one common thread is that all are carried out more often by males: “Males performed shapes more than three times as frequently… as females.” 

There are important caveats here: studies of melon-based communication have so far been limited to belugas in captivity, and it’s certainly not out of the question that an intelligent, highly sociable animal might communicate differently in an aquarium than in the wild. The study also suggests that more research is needed into the interaction between the melon’s echolocatory and visual functions, not least because the video footage used for analysis lacked audio: “[Shapes] could serve both functions, [and] the lack of acoustic recordings during this study precludes these determinations… Simultaneous acoustic recordings and video observations in all lighting conditions are needed to resolve this question for the function of beluga melon shapes.” 

Nevertheless, the study goes some way toward explaining one of the animal kingdom’s most unusual behaviors.

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Observers have documented multiple animal species using plants for self-medicinal purposes, such as great apes eating plants that treat parasitic infections or rubbing vegetation on sore muscles. But a wild orangutan recently displayed something never observed before—he treated his own open wound by activating a plant’s medical properties using his own spit. As detailed in a study published May 2 in Scientific Reports, evolutionary biologists believe the behavior could point toward a common ancestor shared with humans.

The discovery occurred within a protected Indonesian rainforest at the Suaq Balimbing research site. This region, currently home to roughly 150 critically endangered Sumatran orangutans, is utilized by an international team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior to monitor the apes’ behavior and wellbeing. During their daily observations, cognitive and evolutionary biologists noticed a sizable injury on the face of one of the local males named Rakus. Such wounds are unsurprising among the primates, since they frequently spar with one another—but then Rakus did something three days later that the team didn’t expect.

After picking leaves off of a native plant known as an Akar Kuning (Fibraurea tinctoria), well-known for its anti-inflammatory, anti-fungal, and antioxidant properties, as well as its use in traditional malaria medicines, Rakus began to chew the plant into a paste. He then rubbed it directly on his facial injury for several minutes before covering it entirely with the mixture. Over the next few days, researchers noted the self-applied natural bandage kept the wound from showing signs of infection or exacerbation. Within five days, the injury scabbed over before healing entirely.

Such striking behavior raises a number of questions, particularly how Rakus first learned to treat his face using the plant. According to study senior author Caroline Schuppli, one possibility is that it simply comes down to “individual innovation.”

“Orangutans at [Suaq] rarely eat the plant,” she said in an announcement. “However, individuals may accidentally touch their wounds while feeding on this plant and thus unintentionally apply the plant’s juice to their wounds. As Fibraurea tinctoria has potent analgesic effects, individuals may feel an immediate pain release, causing them to repeat the behavior several times.”

[Related: Gorillas like to scramble their brains by spinning around really fast.]

If this were the case, it could be that Rakus is one of the few orangutans to have discovered the benefits of Fibraurea tinctoria. At the same time, adult orangutan males never live where they were born—they migrate sizable distances either during or after puberty to establish new homes. So it’s also possible Rakus may have learned this behavior from his relatives, but given observers don’t know where he is originally from, it’s difficult to follow up on that theory just yet.

Still, Schuppli says other “active wound treatment” methods have been noted in other African and Asian great apes, even when they aren’t used to disinfect or help heal an open wound. Knowing that, “it is possible that there exists a common underlying mechanism for the recognition and application of substances with medical or functional properties to wounds and that our last common ancestor already showed similar forms of ointment behavior.”

Given how much humans already have in common with their great ape relatives, it’s easy to see how this could be a likely explanation. But regardless of how Rakus knew how to utilize the medicinal plant, if he ever ends up scrapping with another male orangutan again, he’ll at least know how to fix himself up afterwards.

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Shrubbery, toolsheds, basements—these are places one might expect to find spiders. But what about the beach? Or in a stream? Some spiders make their homes near or, more rarely, in water: tucking into the base of kelp stalks, spinning watertight cocoons in ponds or lakes, hiding under pebbles at the seaside or creek bank.

“Spiders are surprisingly adaptable, which is one of the reasons they can inhabit this environment,” says Ximena Nelson, a behavioral biologist at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Finding aquatic or semiaquatic spiders is difficult work, Nelson says: She and a student have spent four years chasing a jumping spider known as Marpissa marina around the pebbly seaside beaches it likes, but too often, as soon as they manage to find one it disappears again under rocks. And sadly, some aquatic spiders may disappear altogether before they come to scientists’ attention, as their watery habitats shrivel due to climate change and other human activities.

What scientists do know is that dozens of described spider species spend at least some of their time in or near the water, and more are almost surely awaiting discovery, says Sarah Crews, an arachnologist at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. It also appears that spiders evolved aquatic preferences on several distinct occasions during the history of this arthropod order. Crews and colleagues surveyed spiders and reported in 2019 that 21 taxonomic families include semiaquatic species, suggesting that the evolutionary event occurred multiple independent times. Only a swashbuckling few—not even 0.3 percent of described spider species—are seashore spiders; many more have been found near fresh water, says Nelson.

It’s not clear what would induce successful land-dwelling critters to move to watery habitats. Spiders, as a group, probably evolved about 400 million years ago from chunkier creatures that had recently left the water. These arthropods lacked the skinny waist sported by modern spiders. Presumably, the spiders that later returned to a life aquatic were strongly drawn by something to eat there, or driven by unsafe conditions on land, says Geerat Vermeij, a paleobiologist and professor emeritus at the University of California, Davis—because water would have presented major survival challenges.

“Since they depend on air so much, they are severely limited in whether they can do anything at all when they are submerged, other than just toughing it out,” says Vermeij. Newly aquatic spiders would have had to compete with predators better adapted to watery conditions, such as crustaceans, with competition particularly fierce in the oceans, Vermeij says. And if water floods a spider’s air circulation system, it will die, so adaptations were obviously needed.

But spiders as a group already possess several water-friendly features, suggests Crews. They have waxy, water-repellent exteriors, often covered in hairs that conveniently trap air bubbles. Even having eight legs is helpful, says Nelson: Spiders can distribute their weight nicely while they skitter across a water surface, or use their octet of appendages to row along.

Some spiders take their aquatic adaptations to the next level, though. Consider the diving bell spider, Argyroneta aquatica, an overachieving arachnid that is the only one known to do it all under water: breathe, hunt, dine on insects and their larvae, and make spiderlings. Found in fresh water in Europe and parts of Asia, it spins a silken underwater canopy and brings air bubbles from the surface to its submerged home via its body hairs. When it goes out, it carries a smaller air bubble, like a little scuba tank, on its back.

Seashore spiders face particularly daunting conditions, says Nelson, who coauthored an article about adaptations of marine spiders for the 2024 Annual Review of Entomology. “There’s a splash zone,” she says. “It’s kind of a wild environment.” A spider might be baking in hot sun one minute, drenched in chilly saltwater the next. Some spiders migrate up and down their beaches with the tides; Nelson speculates that they might monitor lunar cycles to anticipate when to move.

Other seashore spiders spin watertight nests where they hide out for hours while the tide is in. M. marina, for example, seeks seashells with nice, concave spaces in which to spin safe tents. Another spider, Desis marina, hides in holdfasts where bull kelp attaches to rocks, lining the holdfast’s interior with silk to create an air-filled pocket and staying submerged for as long as 19 days. D. marina emerges only when the tide is going out, to hunt for invertebrates like shrimp.

A spider that’s even occasionally submerged in saltwater or eating briny seafood will also have to maintain proper internal salt levels. “Presumably, they will be able to concentrate the salt somehow and then poo it out,” Nelson says. Scientists don’t know how marine spiders pull this off. And at least one intertidal-zone spider, Desis formidabilis of South Africa’s cape, comfortably maintains an interior salt concentration much like the crustaceans it eats, according to a 1984 study. (Freshwater species also probably require adaptations because their insides must stay saltier than their surroundings or food, Vermeij speculates.)

When a spider hides out with a limited air supply for days or weeks at a time, oxygen levels also may become a critical issue. Intriguingly, researchers have identified gene variants within the oxygen-guzzling, energy-making mitochondria of aquatic spiders that may help them cope with low-oxygen environments. These changes mirror beneficial changes to mitochondrial genes in birds that live in high-altitude, low-oxygen environments.

In another study, researchers investigated the genes used in the silk glands of aquatic and land spiders. They found that water-spider silk seems to have a high proportion of the water-repelling amino acid pair glycine and valine—which might also be an adaptation, they suggest.

Creeping extinction

But all the adaptations in the world might not be enough to save some water spiders. Nelson’s M. marina, for example, seems to be very particular about the beaches it occupies. The pebbles must be just right, not too big or small. If sea level rise inundates M. marina’s beaches, it’s possible the spiders will have nowhere else to go, Nelson says. “So those spiders will be lost.”

Marco Isaia, an arachnologist at the University of Turin, Italy, investigated the wetland habitats of the diving bell spider and the fen raft spider, Dolomedes plantarius. As wetlands continue to disappear, the habitats available to each species will contract by more than 25 percent over a decade, and their ideal ranges will move northward, Isaia and colleagues predicted in a 2022 study. It would be difficult for the spiders to cross dry land for new wetlands, and north European winters might prove too cold anyway. “The loss and degradation of wetland habitats is expected to have serious impacts on their survival,” says Isaia, “and an increase in their extinction risk.”

Given these risks, some aquatic spiders might go the way of the dodo before science gets a handle on them. “I suspect in every rocky bed of beach or river, there are probably spiders that we just don’t know exist there,” says Nelson. “Because they’re hiding.”

This article originally appeared in Knowable Magazine, an independent journalistic endeavor from Annual Reviews. Sign up for the newsletter.

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NASA has big plans for space farms and there are plenty of ideas from astrobiologists for what the best crops to grow on Mars could be. To best optimize these future extraterrestrial farms, scientists are also exploring what planting methods could boost potential crop yields on the Red Planet. Some new experiments with tomato, carrot, and pea plants found that growing different crops mixed together could boost yields of some plants in certain Martian conditions. The findings could also have implications for life on Earth and are described in a study published May 1 in the journal PLOS One. 

A Martian greenhouse

In order for future humans to survive on Mars for long stretches at a time, nutritious food is going to be essential. While learning how fake astronaut Mark Watney grew potatoes in the sci-fi novel and film The Martian was entertaining and informative, real astronauts should have some helpful resources from planet Earth for growing food in future Mars settlements.

To learn how to best do this, scientists on Earth must simulate the unique conditions on the Red Planet here. Mars’ atmosphere is about 100 times thinner than Earth’s and is mostly made up of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and argon gasses. Entire Martian colonies in the future will need to be set up in controlled enclosures similar to greenhouses with an Earth-like atmosphere of the right mixture of oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide.

[Related: Why space lettuce could be the pharmacy astronauts need.]

“The best ‘Martian environment’ is actually simply a greenhouse with controlled conditions including temperature, humidity, and gasses,” Rebeca Gonçalves, a study co-author and astrobiologist at Wageningen University & Research in The Netherlands, tells PopSci. 

For this study, Gonçalves and the team used greenhouses at the university to simulate a growing environment on Mars. They tested how crops fare in a simulated version of Martian regolith–the loose and rocky material covering the planet. Pots of standard potting soil and sand were used as a control group. Bits of organic Earth soil and other nutrients was also added to the sand and Martian regolith samples to improve water retention and root holding. 

Picking plants

For the plants on this fake Martian farm, the team selected peas, carrots, and tomatoes. A 2014 study found that all three are able to grow in Martian regolith. According to Gonçalves, knowing that these plants could grow was key, since they were looking for an answer to a different question. They wanted to know how to use companion plants and intercropping–an ancient planting technique of growing two or more plants in close proximity–to boost crop yields. These three also could have an important nutritional role in the future. 

“They were chosen for their nutritional content, being high in antioxidants, vitamin C, and beta carotene,” says Gonçalves. “This is important because these nutrients are all completely lost in the process of food dehydration, which is the main process we use to send food to space missions. Therefore, the production of fresh food containing these nutrients is a must in a Martian colony.”

These crops are also companion species that share complementary traits. Peas are considered a main contributor to the intercropping system because they are legumes that can “fix” nitrogen. In nitrogen fixing, some plants and bacteria can turn nitrogen from the air into a form of ammonia that plants can use for nutrition. This, in turn, benefits other plants and diminishes the need for fertilizers to be added to the plant system. According to Gonçalves, it optimizes the resources needed for plants to grow on the Red Planet.

“Carrots were used to help aerate the soil, which can improve water and nutrient uptake by the companion plants, and tomatoes were used to provide shade for the temperature sensitive carrot and to give climbing support for the peas,” says Gonçalves.

Red fruit, red planet

All three species grew fairly well in the Martian regolith, producing just over half a pound of produce with only a minimum addition of nutrients. The tomatoes grew better when they were alongside the peas and carrots in an intercropping set up, than the control tomatoes that were grown alone. The tomatoes had a higher biomass and also had more potassium when grown this way. 

However, intercropping in this regolith appeared to decrease yields for the carrots and peas. These plants did better alone. In future experiments, the team hopes that some modifications to how the simulated Martian regolith is treated could help increase yields when intercropping is used, so that the carrots and peas can have similarly bigger harvests.

“The fact that it worked really well for one of the species was a big find, one that we can now build further research on,” says Gonçalves. 

[Related: Watering space plants is hard, but NASA has a plan.]

The team was also surprised by how intercropping showed an advantage in the sandy soil control group. It benefited two of the three plant species and this find could be applied to agricultural systems on Earth. Climate change is making some soils more sandy and this study is part of ongoing efforts to see how intercropping can help tackle this issue.

In future studies, the team hopes to figure out how to reach, “a completely self-sustainable system using 100% of the local resources on Mars.” This would help make these future colonies more financially viable and not as dependent on resupply missions. 

“If we can unlock the secret to regenerating poor soils while developing a high-yielding, self-sustainable food production system—exactly the goal of Martian agriculture research—we will have found a solution for a lot of the issues we are having here on Earth as well,” says Gonçalves.

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Climate scientists, for years, have urged governments around the world to switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. Wind and solar plants have increased in popularity in recent years but they both have a fundamental problem. Lapses in sunlight and wind caused by weather events can make it difficult to reliably capture and store all that energy, especially when attempting to supply power to large cities. The solution to the reliability issue are batteries, and lots of them. 

A new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) recently argued these hordes of batteries will play a critical role in determining whether or not ambitious climate goals established by international experts are ever met. Recent innovations in lithium-ion battery tech have significantly lowered their costs which in turn is helping make switches to renewable energy power sources more viable for communities around the world. Battery prices by 2030, the report notes, could fall by 40%. 

At the same time, increased demand for battery powered electric vehicles and energy produced from renewable sources means battery tech will need to get even cheaper in only a few short years in order to meet rising demands. All of this, according to IEA estimates, will require a six-fold increase in energy storage capacity by 2030. Cheap batteries will need to get even cheaper. 

“Reducing emissions and getting on track to meet international energy and climate targets will hinge on whether the world can scale up batteries fast enough,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol wrote. “Batteries are changing the game before our eyes.”

Lithium-ion battery costs have fallen more than any other energy technology 

Though lithium-ion batteries are typically associated with gadgets and other consumer electronic gizmos, that’s increasingly no longer their main use case. In 2023, according to the IEA, the energy sector accounted for 90% of all battery demand. The total lithium-ion battery market has increased nearly ten times the size it was just eight years ago. Costs associated with those batteries have plummeted by 90% in just the past 15 years, according to the report. Overall, the report notes, batteries have seen the sharpest price drops of any energy technology to date. Those falling battery prices have led to more affordable electricity vehicles and solar energy offered at price points comparable to fossil fuels. 

“The combination of solar PV (photovoltaic) and batteries is today competitive with new coal plants in India,” Birol said in a statement. “And just in the next few years, it will be cheaper than new coal in China and gas-fired power in the United States.”

As impressive as all those figures may sound, the IEA notes it still might not be nearly enough to support rising energy demands. In order to meet the United Nations’ goals of tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030, the IEA estimates global battery storage will need to increase by six times its current size. To do that, battery storage deployment will need to increase by an average of at least 25% every year. Batteries will need to have steep price drops while simultaneously maintaining or improving performance. The IEA estimates new innovations in battery chemistry and manufacturing could reduce lithium-ion costs globally by 40% between now and 2030. Battery manufacturing capacity is also currently limited to a select few countries, something the IEA says will need to change moving forward. 

“A shortfall in deploying enough batteries would risk stalling clean energy transitions in the power sector,” the report reads.

What cheaper batteries mean for consumers 

Increased adoption of electric vehicles and renewables power sources are playing a meaningful role in efforts to cut back on emissions. While EV adoption in the US has slightly slowed compared to previous years, the trend globally is up. EV deployment increased by 40% in 2023, a figure which translated to 14 million EVs hitting roads. The IEA estimates the continually growing fleet of electric vehicles could displace the need for 8 million barrels of oil every day by the end of the decade. In practical terms, lower costs associated with batteries will translate to cheaper electric vehicles in the near future. US drivers repeatedly cite pricing as one of the primary factors preventing them from switching to an EV. More affordable models driven partly by falling battery prices could encourage more drivers to make a switch and could even help make a dent in the Biden Administration’s goal of having 50 percent of all new vehicle sales be electric by 2030.

On the infrastructure side of the equation, cheaper energy storage prices means developing countries looking to create new power plants can choose more renewable options at prices comparable to non-renewable alternatives. Falling battery prices are also making it possible to deploy renewable microgrids in areas that are currently underserved by traditional energy grids. 

In places like the US, a more reliable energy sector buttressed by batteries would further improve the country’s energy independence and cut down on the need to purchase fossil fuels from other countries. Renewable energy sources accounted for just 19% of the US energy grid in 2020 but affordable, more reliable storage could alter that dynamic. Researchers from Stanford provided some evidence of that scenario by recently running a simulation showing the possibility of the US maintaining a 100% renewable energy grid by 2050.

Batteries have a critical mineral problem 

Cheaper batteries, at least how they are currently manufactured, aren’t a silver bullet. Today, the global battery market is largely dependent on critical minerals sourced from a concentrated handful of countries. China alone accounts for more than half of material processing for lithium and cobalt. Extracting these minerals from the Earth is dangerous work and can create its own source of damaging pollution. Massive mines can also radically alter the environment of entire communities. 

New types of batteries could offer some solutions to the mineral problem. Lithium ion phosphate (LFP) batteries, which are increasingly being used in new electric vehicles, rely on a different chemistry method which does not contain nickel or cobalt. Though more mineral intensive lithium-ion batteries still make up the vast majority of battery storage, (LFP) batteries accounted for 80% of new batteries made last year. Efforts to more effectively recycle aluminum, copper, and other resources found in mounding e-waste could also potentially help build out future batteries with less intensive mining. Less than 1% of rare earth metals found in e-waste are currently recycled. 

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This article was originally featured on Hakai Magazine, an online publication about science and society in coastal ecosystems. Read more stories like this at hakaimagazine.com.

Seaweed is versatile; it provides habitat for marine life, shelters coastlines, and absorbs carbon dioxide. But in the United States, scientists are setting out to see whether seaweed has another particularly valuable trick hidden up its proverbial sleeve: to act as a salty, slimy source of precious minerals.

Within the US Department of Energy is the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), a scientific branch devoted to tackling challenging, high-risk projects on energy technologies. ARPA-E takes big swings and looks for big rewards. And so far, the agency has awarded US $5-million to three ventures investigating whether seaweed can serve as a practical source of critical materials, such as platinum and rhodium, as well as rare earth elements, including neodymium, lanthanum, yttrium, and dysprosium.

These valuable elements, which can be captured and concentrated by seaweed, are essential to the green energy transition—and to technology more broadly. Seaweed could represent an alternative to conventional mining and other prospects, such as deep-sea mining.

“There are a lot of complexities in the entire process, and that’s why it’s in the category of ‘very exploratory,’” says Schery Umanzor, a seaweed expert at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and a lead researcher on one of the projects funded by ARPA-E. “The chances of success are low. But if we succeed, then the implications are huge.”

Two key principles underlie this research, Umanzor says. For one, seaweed grows quickly and sucks minerals out of the water to do so. For two, seaweed’s cell walls are structured from sulfated polysaccharides—compounds made of long chains of sugar molecules. Sulfated polysaccharides are negatively charged, meaning they attract positively charged minerals floating nearby. “It’s pure chemistry,” Umanzor says. “Positive with negative, and then it just collects.”

Several years ago, Scott Edmundson, at the US Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in Washington State, began digging into whether seaweed could store valuable minerals. He’d come across a paper describing how rare earth elements were accumulating in seaweed in polluted areas along Morocco’s Atlantic coast and was struck by the potential.

Reading about seaweed’s natural propensity to sieve minerals from seawater sparked a “wacky idea” to test how far the process could go, Edmundson says. So he and other PNNL scientists ran an experiment to see if they could deliberately grow seaweed to take up minerals. The project—which was also funded by ARPA-E—finished last year, though they’re continuing to dig into the topic. So far, the team’s work suggests that seaweed can be processed to produce a carbon-rich component used in concrete or biofuel manufacturing and a second mineral component containing elements such as phosphorus.

There are a lot of unknowns, says Edmundson. Different seaweeds appear to have distinct mechanisms for getting minerals out of seawater and unique ways of incorporating or concentrating them in their tissues. “There’s layers upon layers of variability that are unclear at the moment,” he adds.

Underpinning all of this research are important, unanswered questions, including why seaweed absorbs these minerals at all, whether it can do so in concentrations high enough to be useful, and whether the elements can be pulled out in a financially viable way.

The key to making all this work, says Umanzor, is figuring out how to extract metals and rare earth elements from seaweed without destroying it. For seaweed mining to make financial sense, the process needs to leave the algae in good-enough condition to still be used for other applications, including as fuel, food, or a component in bioplastic production.

Another crucial piece of the puzzle is finding the right spot to grow the seaweed. Despite their name, rare earth elements are not all that rare. These and other critical minerals are present throughout the ocean in tiny amounts. Yet there are areas where they likely exist in higher concentrations—like downstream from large deposits on land. That’s why Umanzor and her collaborators are examining if rare earth elements are sloughing off Bokan Mountain in southeast Alaska and ending up in the ocean, and whether growing seaweed in a nearby bay can snag what runs off. Bokan Mountain is being considered for conventional mining, but if it works, seaweed extraction could offer a more sustainable alternative.

Susete Pintéus, a marine biologist at the Polytechnic Institute of Leiria in Portugal, coauthored a 2022 review paper on seaweed’s role in the green energy transition. She says seaweed extraction alone—if it works—cannot completely eliminate conventional mining for these metals because the demand is so great. “[Seaweeds] can contribute,” she says, “but they will not solve the problem themselves.”

Even though seaweed collection can’t fully replace mining, Umanzor says that by extracting materials as they leach naturally out of the land—as they might on Bokan Mountain—algal mining offers a way to scoop up minerals that were going to be lost to the sea.

Umanzor never imagined that the humble seaweed could become a vessel to capture valuable materials. But in this role, it might support a more sustainable future.

“Metals have to come from somewhere, and extracting them is very destructive,” she says. “It’s worth exploring other possibilities that align more with our ideas of a greener world—or a bluer world.”

This article first appeared in Hakai Magazine and is republished here with permission.

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Boston Dynamics may have relocated the bipedal Atlas to a nice farm upstate, but the company continues to let everyone know its four-legged line of Spot robots have a lot of life left in them. And after years of obvious dog-bot comparisons, Spot’s makers finally went ahead and commissioned a full cartoon canine getup for its latest video showcase. Sparkles is here and like its fellow Boston Dynamics family, it’s perfectly capable of cutting a rug.

Unlike, say, a mini Spot programmed to aid disaster zone search-and-rescue efforts or explore difficult-to-reach areas in nuclear reactors, Sparkles appears designed purely to offer viewers some levity. According to Boston Dynamics, the shimmering, blue, Muppet-like covering is a “custom costume designed just for Spot to explore the intersections of robotics, art, and entertainment” in honor of International Dance Day. In the brief clip, Sparkles can be seen performing a routine alongside a more standardized mini Spot, sans any extra attire.

But Spot bots such as this duo aren’t always programmed to dance for humanity’s applause—their intricate movements highlight the complex software built to take advantage of the machine’s overall maneuverability, balance, and precision. In this case, Sparkles and its partner were trained using Choreographer, a dance-dedicated system made available by Boston Dynamics with entertainment and media industry customers in mind.

[Related: RIP Atlas, the world’s beefiest humanoid robot.]

With Choreographer, Spot owners don’t need a degree in robotics or engineering to get their machines to move in rhythm. Instead, they are able to select from “high-level instruction” options instead of needing to key in specific joint angle and torque parameters. Even if one of Boston Dynamics robots running Choreographer can’t quite pull off a user’s routine, it is coded to approximate the request as best as possible.

“If asked to do something physically impossible, or if faced with an environmental challenge like a slippery floor, Spot will find the possible motion most similar to what was requested and do that instead—analogously to what a human dancer would do,” the company explains.

Choreographer is behind some of Boston Dynamics’ most popular demo showcases, including those BTS dance-off and the “Uptown Funk” videos. It’s nice to see the robots’ moves are consistently improving—but maybe nice still is that it’s at least one more time people don’t need to think about a gun-toting dog bot. Or even what’s in store for humanity after that two-legged successor to Atlas finally hits the market.

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The saber-toothed cats that once prowled modern day California had more distinct dental features than even their sabers would suggest. Some of the complete skulls had a tooth socket occupied by two teeth–a permanent saber tooth and a baby tooth that would eventually fall out. These double-toothed sockets may have helped stabilize their signature front fangs and keep them from breaking off. The findings are described in a study published April 8 in the journal The Anatomical Record. 

Sharp, but easily lost teeth

The study looked at saber-toothed cat fossils found in the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles. There are at least five separate lineages of saber-toothed animals that have evolved around the world. The species Smilodon fatalis roamed widely across North America and into Central America, before going extinct about 10,000 years ago.

Paleontologists studying these fossils have been stumped by why the adult animals with two canines that are more like thin-bladed knives avoided breaking them. During periods of food scarcity, saber-toothed cats broke their teeth more often than they did during times of plenty, potentially due to altered feeding strategies and eating rocks. Paleontologists also still do not know how saber-toothed animals hunted prey without completely breaking these unwieldy teeth. 

In an earlier study, a team from the University of California, Berkeley speculated that a baby tooth helped stabilize the permanent tooth against sideways breakage as it emerged from the gums. The baby tooth–also called a milk canine–are the types of teeth that all mammals grow and lose sometime before adulthood. The growth data seemed to imply that the two teeth sat there together for up to 30 months into the animal’s adolescence. 

[Related: Mighty sabertooth tigers may have purred like kittens.]

To investigate this tooth stabilization theory for the new study, the team used computer models that simulate a saber-tooth’s strength and stiffness against the sideways bending that happens when the saber tooth grows outwards. They also tested and bent plastic models of saber teeth. They found evidence that while fearsome, the saber tooth would have been increasingly vulnerable to breaking off as they emerged from the gums. Having the baby or milk tooth behind it would have worked like a buttress to make it significantly more stable. 

The temporary baby milk canine remaining behind long after the permanent saber tooth erupted indicates that it would have stayed in until the maturing cats learned how to hunt without damaging them. 

“The double-fang stage is probably worth a rethinking now that I’ve shown there’s this potential insurance policy, this larger range of protection,” study co-author and Cal Berkley paleontologist Jack Tseng said in a statement. “It allows the equivalent of our teenagers to experiment, to take risks, essentially to learn how to be a full-grown, fully fledged predator. I think that this refines, though it doesn’t solve, thinking about the growth of saber tooth use and hunting through a mechanical lens.”

Applying some beam theory

Some of the double-fanged specimens found from the La Brea tar pits are considered rare cases of animals with a delayed loss of a baby tooth. This gave Tseng the idea that maybe they had an evolutionary purpose. He used  the beam theory engineering analysis to model real saber teeth.

“According to beam theory, when you bend a blade-like structure laterally sideways in the direction of their narrower dimension, they are quite a lot weaker compared to the main direction of strength,” said Tseng. “Prior interpretations of how saber tooths may have hunted use this as a constraint. No matter how they use their teeth, they could not have bent them a lot in a lateral direction.”

The beam theory combined with computer models that simulated the sideways forces of a saber tooth could withstand before breaking. As the tooth got longer, it became easier to bend, increasing the chance of breakage.

[Related: This tiger-sized, saber-toothed, rhino-skinned predator thrived before the ‘Great Dying.’]

When a supportive baby tooth was added to the beam theory model, the stiffness of the permanent saber kept pace with the bending strength. This baby tooth essentially reduced its chance of breakage. 

The study has implications for how saber-toothed cats and other saber-toothed animals like Africa’s Inostrancevia africana may have hunted as adults. They likely used their predatory skills and strong muscles to compensate for the more vulnerable canines. 

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From cities in the sky to robot butlers, futuristic visions fill the history of PopSci. In the Are we there yet? column we check in on progress towards our most ambitious promises. Read more from the series here.

Around the turn of the last century, more than 12,000 cannons were installed across Europe. This particular form of artillery was no prelude to World War I. Rather, the massive, cone-shaped barrels were pointed at a common ancient enemy: approaching storm clouds. Sometime in the 1890s, firing hail cannons at the sky overtook alternatives, such as ringing church bells, to ward off crop-damaging hail storms.

An October 1919 Popular Science story described hail cannons and similar technological efforts to alter weather patterns. At the time, the newest climate-fighting arsenal included “Electric Niagaras,” tall steel towers fitted with copper lightning rods to draw power from the sky and prevent hail formation; liquefied carbonic gas bombs detonated in the sky to induce rain; and balloons “equipped to produce electrical discharges” at high altitudes to ionize the atmosphere and “promote condensation.” Some of the proposed schemes outlined in the 1919 article went beyond local or regional aspirations, with enthusiasts setting their sights on planetary engineering ideas like altering the Jet Stream by igniting hundreds of fires across the western US to influence wind direction and steer weather to the east, or protecting the coast-warming Gulf Stream from polar water by building an enormous jetty between the US and Canada.

Humans have been trying to influence weather and climate since antiquity. Until the late 19th century, however, such attempts mostly took the forms of ritual dances, spells, and divine offerings. Hail cannons signified a pivot toward technology for its potential to offer a more reliable alternative. But technology’s track record has been spotty at best, despite a long succession of attempts, including significant cloud seeding trials that persist to this day but got underway in earnest in the 1950s and 1960s in the US, China, and former USSR.

In the 21st century, as evidence mounts that human activity has set the planet on a dangerous warming trend and that cutting greenhouse gas emissions may not be enough to avoid devastating effects from global warming, some scientists, engineers, and climate activists are increasingly promoting the familiar climate-intervention playbook. But are today’s proposals to manipulate Earth’s climate any better?

Taking climate control with technology

“Geoengineering is the intentional large-scale manipulation of the environment, particularly manipulation that is intended to reduce undesired anthropogenic climate change,” according to a 2000 report by David Keith, now a geophysical scientist at the University of Chicago, and Founding Faculty Director, Climate Systems Engineering Initiative.

Wake Smith, author of Pandora’s Toolbox: The Hopes and Hazards of Climate Intervention, and a Lecturer at the Yale School of the Environment, claims that there are lots of impractical geoengineering schemes circulating, like “painting deserts white, putting bubbles on the sea, and cirrus cloud thinning.” But Smith believes there are a couple of ideas, grounded in nature, worth considering. “The two sides of our toolbox are carbon capture on the one end, and sunlight reflection, which really means stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), on the other,” Smith says. He cites marine cloud brightening as another possible contender.

Other proposed geoengineering approaches for tackling climate change include (more) cloud seeding, cloud thinning, ocean salting, and ocean whitening. Besides carbon capture, however, none of these mitigation strategies are being implemented, and not even carbon capture, which involves sucking greenhouse gasses from the air or trapping them before they’re emitted, is being implemented widely.

Tinkering with scale

Even in the 21st century, planetary engineering still seems like the stuff of science fiction. But if, over the course of the next decade or so, climate scientists and engineers really do make significant progress toward such technology, it’s worth considering how it might be controlled. 

For instance, the first knob on a planetary Climate Control Mixer might be labeled “Scale.” Nineteenth century efforts, like hail cannons, would register in the low range as localized reactive measures. Dial up the knob to its midrange to achieve weather control on a regional level, like the cloud seeding trials started in the mid-20th century and still underway today. For 21st century planetary thermostat proposals, crank the knob all the way to its max setting—geoengineering. 

But to tune Earth’s climate efficiently, a well-oiled Climate Control Mixer would need at least a few more knobs, faders, and buttons. Which solution to deploy might be dictated by swiping up or down an “Interference” fader, whose settings range from passive to active. The more passive a solution, the lower the chances of it backfiring, but it also might be less effective.

Passive versus active control

For instance, direct air capture—sucking carbon out of the ambient environment and pumping it underground—represents one of the more passive forms of geoengineering. Several startups, like CarbFix, CarbonFree, and Climeworks, have already built direct carbon capture facilities and are piloting and deploying solutions. The catch is the timeframe and inefficiency. While Smith believes that carbon capture should be deployed widely—without delay—especially to filter emissions from factory flues, “it will take a century or two,” he says, “to capture from direct air, the amount of carbon that would be needed to return the climate to something like its pre-industrial state.” Even at scale, carbon capture is not an alternative to reducing GHG emissions.

SAI, a form of solar geoengineering, would be on the active end of the “Interference” range. SAI got its inspiration from naturally-occurring geological phenomena—volcanic eruptions. Very powerful eruptions, which have occurred once or twice a century, can belch sulfur-laden plumes all the way into the stratosphere, 4–12 miles above Earth’s surface, spreading a fine layer of particles that reflect sunlight into space. Following Mount Pinatubo’s 1991 eruption, Earth experienced a cooling effect of nearly one degree Fahrenheit for a year. 

“We’re pretty confident that [SAI] would really work,” says Smith, “because of Pinatubo, Krakatoa, and Tambora.” While such violent, sulfur-spewing eruptions are known to cool the planet, they can also have side effects like significant changes in global precipitation patterns, ozone depletion, and  causing acid rain and respiratory distress for some. Smith makes the case, however, that unlike other geoengineering suggestions, with SAI most of the consequences are known. “Volcanoes don’t eliminate all risks,” he notes, comparing SAI with naturally occurring eruptions, “but they dramatically reduce the likelihood of unintended consequences.”

Marine cloud brightening, another active solution, also takes its cues from nature. In some places on the planet, mostly over the ocean, natural aerosols like salts get tossed in with clouds, causing them to reflect more sunlight away from Earth. Ongoing trials in Australia to save the Great Barrier Reef from excessive ocean warming includes spraying aerosolized salt, pumped from ocean water, into clouds to brighten them. So far, the results have been inconclusive, with significant variation in effectiveness between reef locations. 

Cost and speed control

Of course, any proper Climate Control Mixer would have to include knobs for “Cost” and “Speed” along with a pair of high priority feedback gauges to monitor environmental and geopolitical impact. Ratcheting up investment in a passive technology like direct air capture might have negligible geopolitical impact but could take a century or more to begin having an environmental impact, delivering benefits too late to stem global warming. On the other hand, dialing up the dollars for active technologies like SAI might work quickly at much lower cost but the environmental pros and cons might be disproportionate across the globe, as some models already suggest, triggering widespread conflict. Plus, the cost would be recurring to maintain cooling effects.

Still, what distinguishes today’s geoengineering solutions from their 19th and 20th century counterparts are the advances in our science and tools—and our need. Scientists have the benefit of a century’s worth of meteorological data and climate studies, including unprecedented monitoring capabilities to track results. While no one has yet purposefully tried to alter weather patterns or climate globally, it’s more likely than ever that today’s technology, if deployed at scale, could make a difference. After all, we’re in this climate predicament because we’ve already deployed CO₂-emitting machinery—like cars, power plants, and factories—at scale and the result has led to rapid warming. In fact, there’s a growing sense that we may be compelled to deploy geoengineering solutions to mitigate the scale of disasters like coastal inundation, catastrophic storms and wildfires, epidemic outbreaks, and mass extinctions. 

But geoengineering science is still unproven and the ramifications of interfering with what Earth does naturally via its complex web of tightly coupled ecosystems is, perhaps, no less rash today than in the past.
 

Coming together for climate

As we continue to race toward the global warming cliff of 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temps, Smith and others are calling for geoengineering trials so that we at least have a sense of what it would take to intervene in Earth’s warming and what the ramifications might be. 

“There are no real efforts to develop the technology or to develop the governance infrastructure by which to legitimize the technology,” says Smith.  “There’s simply nothing happening.”

The problem is that just to run sanctioned trials requires international diplomacy efforts. A long-planned, small-scale SAI trial by Harvard University scientists (Smith was involved) was recently canceled because an international framework for negotiating geoengineering does not exist and enough groups objected to discourage the governing committee from allowing the trial to move forward.

Against the backdrop of intensifying climate disasters and international inaction, a handful of independent researchers and startups, like Make Sunsets, have already attempted their own non-scientific geoengineering trials. These small-scale, unauthorized trials don’t run the risk of creating widespread environmental fallout, but they do exemplify the fact that any rogue actor or nation unconcerned with diplomacy could take matters into their own hands. It suggests that any responsible Climate Control Mixer should be equipped with a prominent red button labeled, “Press in Case of Emergency”—an exit ramp for runaway initiatives. 

But halting geoengineering programs, especially long-running missions, would likely come with its own significant risk known as “termination shock.” Stopping efforts to cool the planet could result in a rapid rebound in temperatures that would shock Earth’s ecosystems, likely with devastating effect. 

With so much at stake, the problem with even starting serious geoengineering trials requires deciding who would get to manage a future Climate Control Mixer? Who gets to decide which knobs to turn, when to start turning them, when to dial them down, or when to push the red button? 

It would need to be “a multilateral, inter-governmental thing,” Smith says, adding, “it’s utterly impossible to imagine that happening in the real world [today].” That’s because even as climate disasters intensify, Earth’s climate is still relatively hospitable, especially for its wealthiest and most powerful inhabitants. We’ve experienced few climate events disruptive enough to drastically affect millions of peoples’ lives at once, and those that have, such as the 2022 floods in Pakistan, have largely impacted poorer people in the Global South. Meanwhile, the countries most responsible for pumping out the bulk of greenhouse gas emissions have gone comparatively unscathed.   

While achieving international unity around climate initiatives has eluded us for more than a quarter century, with failed treaties and only a tentative agreement in place, here’s the thing: When Earthlings get together, we’re able to do amazing things even on a planetary scale. In May 1985, scientists announced that they had discovered an ozone hole above Antarctica, and attributed it to noxious clouds of chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs (invented in the 1920s for refrigeration) that had been gathering in Earth’s stratosphere for half a century. Global governments rallied. 

Within two years, the Montreal Protocol treaty was signed by every country on Earth to rapidly reduce ozone-depleting substances like CFCs. It was the first treaty ever to receive such universal ratification. Since then, emissions of ozone-depleting substances have been reduced by 98 percent. And while the Antarctic ozone hole fluctuates year to year, affected by myriad factors such as seasonal temperatures and moisture, an improving trend has been consistent. Experts forecast full recovery by 2070.

After decades of foot-dragging and stymied diplomatic efforts, what will it take for the world’s leaders to rally again, this time to drastically and rapidly reduce carbon emissions, and to at least explore geoengineering options? 

“The world broadly still imagines we’re going to avoid climate change,” says Smith. “We are not going to avoid climate change,” he adds. It is already here and likely to get much worse.

Unfortunately—and fortunately—there will be no Climate Control Mixer to turn to in our need. It’s on us to work together to reduce emissions rapidly,  to test which geoengineering solutions might offer reasonable trade-offs, and to implement them if or when the time comes.

But as we consider such a course, it’s worth remembering that, to this day, hail cannons are still manufactured and used in isolated pockets, despite no scientific evidence to support that shelling storm clouds works. In at least one important sense, hail cannons offer a cautionary tale: let’s not turn to technology just because we can, let’s rely on science to guide us.

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This article was originally published on KFF Health News.

For decades, concerns about automobile pollution have focused on what comes out of the tailpipe. Now, researchers and regulators say, we need to pay more attention to toxic emissions from tires as vehicles roll down the road.

At the top of the list of worries is a chemical called 6PPD, which is added to rubber tires to help them last longer. When tires wear on pavement, 6PPD is released. It reacts with ozone to become a different chemical, 6PPD-q, which can be extremely toxic—so much so that it has been linked to repeated fish kills in Washington state.

The trouble with tires doesn’t stop there. Tires are made primarily of natural rubber and synthetic rubber, but they contain hundreds of other ingredients, often including steel and heavy metals such as copper, lead, cadmium, and zinc.

As car tires wear, the rubber disappears in particles, both bits that can be seen with the naked eye and microparticles. Testing by a British company, Emissions Analytics, found that a car’s tires emit 1 trillion ultrafine particles per kilometer driven—from 5 to 9 pounds of rubber per internal combustion car per year.

And what’s in those particles is a mystery, because tire ingredients are proprietary.

“You’ve got a chemical cocktail in these tires that no one really understands and is kept highly confidential by the tire manufacturers,” said Nick Molden, CEO of Emissions Analytics. “We struggle to think of another consumer product that is so prevalent in the world and used by virtually everyone, where there is so little known of what is in them.”

Regulators have only begun to address the toxic tire problem, though there has been some action on 6PPD.

The chemical was identified by a team of researchers, led by scientists at Washington State University and the University of Washington, who were trying to determine why coho salmon returning to Seattle-area creeks to spawn were dying in large numbers.

Working for the Washington Stormwater Center, the scientists tested some 2,000 substances to determine which one was causing the die-offs, and in 2020 they announced they’d found the culprit: 6PPD.

The Yurok Tribe in Northern California, along with two other West Coast Native American tribes, have petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to prohibit the chemical. The EPA said it is considering new rules governing the chemical. “We could not sit idle while 6PPD kills the fish that sustain us,” said Joseph L. James, chairman of the Yurok Tribe, in a statement. “This lethal toxin has no place in any salmon-bearing watershed.”

California has begun taking steps to regulate the chemical, last year classifying tires containing it as a “priority product,” which requires manufacturers to search for and test substitutes.

“6PPD plays a crucial role in the safety of tires on California’s roads and, currently, there are no widely available safer alternatives,” said Karl Palmer, a deputy director at the state’s Department of Toxic Substances Control. “For this reason, our framework is ideally suited for identifying alternatives to 6PPD that ensure the continued safety of tires on California’s roads while protecting California’s fish populations and the communities that rely on them.”

The U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association says it has mobilized a consortium of 16 tire manufacturers to carry out an analysis of alternatives. Anne Forristall Luke, USTMA president and CEO, said it “will yield the most effective and exhaustive review possible of whether a safer alternative to 6PPD in tires currently exists.”

Molden, however, said there is a catch. “If they don’t investigate, they aren’t allowed to sell in the state of California,” he said. “If they investigate and don’t find an alternative, they can go on selling. They don’t have to find a substitute. And today there is no alternative to 6PPD.”

California is also studying a request by the California Stormwater Quality Association to classify tires containing zinc, a heavy metal, as a priority product, requiring manufacturers to search for an alternative. Zinc is used in the vulcanization process to increase the strength of the rubber.

When it comes to tire particles, though, there hasn’t been any action, even as the problem worsens with the proliferation of electric cars. Because of their quicker acceleration and greater torque, electric vehicles wear out tires faster and emit an estimated 20% more tire particles than the average gas-powered car.

A recent study in Southern California found tire and brake emissions in Anaheim accounted for 30% of PM2.5, a small-particulate air pollutant, while exhaust emissions accounted for 19%. Tests by Emissions Analytics have found that tires produce up to 2,000 times as much particle pollution by mass as tailpipes.

These particles end up in water and air and are often ingested. Ultrafine particles, even smaller than PM2.5, are also emitted by tires and can be inhaled and travel directly to the brain. New research suggests tire microparticles should be classified as a pollutant of “high concern.”

In a report issued last year, researchers at Imperial College London said the particles could affect the heart, lungs, and reproductive organs and cause cancer.

People who live or work along roadways, often low-income, are exposed to more of the toxic substances.

Tires are also a major source of microplastics. More than three-quarters of microplastics entering the ocean come from the synthetic rubber in tires, according to a report from the Pew Charitable Trusts and the British company Systemiq.

And there are still a great many unknowns in tire emissions, which can be especially complex to analyze because heat and pressure can transform tire ingredients into other compounds.

One outstanding research question is whether 6PPD-q affects people, and what health problems, if any, it could cause. A recent study published in Environmental Science & Technology Letters found high levels of the chemical in urine samples from a region of South China, with levels highest in pregnant women.

The discovery of 6PPD-q, Molden said, has sparked fresh interest in the health and environmental impacts of tires, and he expects an abundance of new research in the coming years. “The jigsaw pieces are coming together,” he said. “But it’s a thousand-piece jigsaw, not a 200-piece jigsaw.”

This article was produced by KFF Health News, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation. 

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

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Americans consume an average of two cups of coffee daily, primarily using single-cup brewers, though drip coffee makers remain popular. Regardless of the brewing method, the question of what to do with used coffee grounds persists. These grounds are not merely waste but valuable for various practical, eco-friendly applications. They can enhance garden health, elevate beauty routines, and serve as natural cleaning agents, offering solutions to many household challenges.

How to use coffee grounds around the house

If you ever find yourself with a surplus of used coffee grounds, here are some clever ways to repurpose them.

Mild fertilizer

Coffee grounds contain essential minerals beneficial for plant growth, such as nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus. These nutrients can contribute to the fertility of the soil but won’t be enough to sustain the health of your plants over time. Just think of it as an inexpensive, mild, organic fertilizer that will give your plants a slight nitrogen boost. To use in the garden or potted plants, sprinkle the used coffee grounds around your plants and work it in a half inch to a depth of 4 inches. Don’t go overboard with it, though. Like other soil amendments, more isn’t always better.

Soil conditioner

Used coffee grounds are an excellent soil conditioner due to their nitrogen content and ability to improve soil structure. When incorporated into garden soil, they can help enhance drainage, water retention, and aeration, fostering healthier plant growth. Mix a thin layer of coffee grounds into the top few inches of soil to utilize coffee grounds as a soil conditioner. This can help feed soil microbes and improve the soil’s overall quality.

Compost booster

Balancing carbon (browns), nitrogen (greens), moisture, and air is essential to create high-quality compost. Fortunately, used coffee grounds are an excellent addition to compost because they contain nitrogen, a vital nutrient for the microorganisms that break down organic matter. When coffee grounds are added to compost, they help speed up the decomposition process, making the compost richer in nutrients essential for plant growth. Mixing coffee grounds with carbon-rich materials such as leaves, straw, or paper is recommended to maintain a healthy compost balance. This combination enhances the overall structure and aeration of the compost, facilitating faster breakdown and preventing the compost from becoming too wet and compacted.

Natural pest repellent

Due to its pungent odor and chemical properties, coffee grounds can be used as a natural repellent against various pests. To use coffee grounds as a pest repellent, sprinkle the dried grounds around plant bases or areas where pests are a problem, providing a barrier that pests are likely to avoid. However, it’s important to note that coffee grounds are not universally effective against all insects. They offer a simple, eco-friendly approach to pest control in certain situations.

Odor reducer

Used coffee grounds are more than just helpful in the garden; they’re a natural odor reducer. Their high absorbency and strong fragrance, combined with coffee’s acidity and potent aroma, create a powerful solution for freshening your home. You can effectively eliminate lingering smells by placing a small container of dried used coffee grounds in your refrigerator or a musty cabinet. You can also use coffee grounds in sachets to deodorize shoes or as a scrub to remove body odors.

Cleaning scrub

Used coffee grounds are an excellent option for eco-friendly cleaning. They have an abrasive texture that can effectively remove buildup from various surfaces without causing any damage. You can use this natural abrasive quality to clean hard surfaces like countertops, cooking ranges, and utensils. Mix some used coffee grounds with a little water or mild soap to create a simple scrub. This mixture can help you lift grime and residue efficiently from kitchen surfaces and appliances. Moreover, the natural oiliness of coffee grounds gives surfaces a slight polish, making them look refreshed and clean.

Rejuvenate wood furniture

Coffee grounds can give your wooden surfaces a deep and rich color, helping to rejuvenate them. To get started, you only need to brew some coffee and let it cool down. Then, strain out the coffee grounds or leave them in for a more textured finish. Next, apply the coffee solution onto the wooden surface using a brush or cloth, focusing on areas that need restoration. This will not only give your furniture a refreshed look but also help to hide minor scratches and blemishes, making it look as good as new.

Exfoliating skin care treatment

The natural chemical properties and abrasive texture of used coffee grounds make them perfect for removing dead skin cells, promoting smoother, more radiant skin. The caffeine content in coffee is also beneficial as it can increase blood flow, which helps to rejuvenate and tighten the skin, reducing the appearance of cellulite when massaged into the skin. Mix used coffee grounds with a carrier oil such as coconut, olive, or almond oil to create a homemade exfoliating scrub for your body. This mixture can be gently massaged into the skin using circular motions, then rinsed off, leaving the skin feeling refreshed and soft. Avoid using on thinner skin, like that on your face.

Under-eye care

Uncover the natural solution to under-eye puffiness and dark circles with used coffee grounds. Their caffeine content and anti-inflammatory properties make them a safe and effective choice. Caffeine can help constrict blood vessels beneath the skin, reducing swelling and the appearance of dark circles under the eyes. One popular method involves chilling the used grounds in the refrigerator, mixing them with a little water or honey, and applying the paste gently beneath the eyes. After letting it sit for several minutes, simply wash it off.

Flavor enhancer

People commonly use coffee grounds to brew coffee, but they can also employ them in cooking to flavor both sweet and savory dishes. Incorporating coffee grounds into meat rubs or marinades imparts a rich, earthy taste. Additionally, bakers can mix them into baked goods such as brownies and cakes to add a subtle coffee flavor that balances sweetness with a hint of bitterness. Coffee grounds can also enhance homemade sauces or stews by adding depth and complexity to the overall taste.

Are coffee grounds safe to consume?

Coffee grounds are safe to eat in moderation, offering health benefits like antioxidants and dietary fiber, similar to brewed coffee. However, excessive consumption can cause side effects including insomnia, nervousness, and digestive irritation due to their abrasive texture and high caffeine content. Additionally, coffee grounds are toxic to pets and should not be consumed by animals.

Can you reuse coffee grounds?

It is possible to reuse coffee grounds, but the quality of the coffee may not be as good as the first use. When reused, coffee grounds usually have a weaker flavor and strength because most of the essential oils and flavors are extracted during the initial brewing process.

The next time you brew coffee, remember that the grounds can do much more than make a great cup. Using spent coffee grounds in your garden, home, and beauty routines can benefit your plants and skin. This practice contributes to a more sustainable lifestyle, allowing you to reduce waste, save money, and take advantage of coffee grounds’ natural properties.

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This article was originally featured on Hakai Magazine, an online publication about science and society in coastal ecosystems. Read more stories like this at hakaimagazine.com.

For decades, the world’s commercial ships have depended on a fossil fuel so sticky and thick that it needs to be heated to around 150 °C just to get it to flow through a vessel’s innards. Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) is one of the dirtiest fuels out there. “It’s the last step of the [oil] refining process,” says Morten Bo Christiansen, head of the energy transition team at Danish shipping giant Maersk. “You could say, the bottom of the barrel.”

Yet now, as the International Maritime Organization (IMO)—the United Nations branch tasked with managing global shipping—implements new regulations intended to force the shipping industry to cut its sulfur and carbon emissions, HFO is on the chopping block. The new rules have decision-makers like Christiansen racing to figure out which of the myriad potential fuels of the future will ultimately replace it.

Part of Christiansen’s job, alongside dozens of colleagues, is to buy the fuel that powers Maersk’s hundreds of ships. HFO and other fossil fuels, he says, are already beginning to give way to cleaner alternatives.

In mid-2023, for example, a new container ship, the US $160-million Laura Maersk, began operating in the Baltic Sea. “It looks like any other container ship,” says Christiansen. But the Laura Maersk has never run on oil. Instead, it’s powered by methanol. There are lots of different ways of producing methanol, and not all are environmentally friendly. However, when sustainably sourced, such as by capturing gas produced at landfill sites or through various processes powered by renewable energy, methanol can be significantly less polluting than fossil fuels. The Laura Maersk is already plying the waters off northern Europe, and more than 200 other ships capable of running on methanol are currently on the order books of shipyards around the world.

To meet the IMO’s newest regulations—which it designed to put the shipping industry on a path to net zero by 2050—commercial vessels will have to cut their carbon emissions by at least 30 percent in just six years, says Simon Bullock, a shipping and climate change researcher at the University of Manchester in England. Should the industry take any longer than that, he adds, it will be next to impossible for shipping companies to reduce emissions aggressively enough to meet the most ambitious regulatory targets. In a paper published in 2023, Bullock and his colleagues showed how, if things don’t move fast enough, the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement would be in jeopardy.

To reach net zero, getting rid of HFO is a must. And, to have the greatest effect on carbon emissions, alternative fossil fuels currently being used by some ships, such as liquefied natural gas, ultimately need to go. But reengineering existing ships to use significantly cleaner fuels is not easy, and building new vessels is neither fast nor cheap. There’s also the issue of supply. For methanol, the global availability of this fuel is currently nowhere near enough to meet the shipping industry’s colossal demand.

The challenge for Christiansen and others like him, then, is to figure out how to transition vessels to alternative fuels without any major technological or logistical hiccups—and to do so in an incredibly short time.

For now, the only way forward is to diversify fuel inputs. Besides methanol, the shipping industry is exploring other non–fossil fuel options, such as hydrogen, ammonia, electricity, and nuclear power. Given how controversial the latter is—nuclear struggled to take off as a commercial-ship fuel and is used almost exclusively for military vessels—nuclear is unlikely to have any impact on shipping during the next few crucial years. Powering a large number of huge cargo ships with electricity using suites of on-board batteries is also unlikely because batteries can’t pump out enough power to compensate for their size and high price.

Ammonia, though, is a real contender. The big benefit of ammonia is that it’s an important commodity in many other industries—notably agriculture, in which millions of tonnes of it are used every year as a fertilizer. Ammonia has a solid supply chain, and the chemical is already stored at many of the world’s ports.

However, like methanol, ammonia is imperfect. For starters, it’s incredibly toxic, so accidents and spills could be ecologically disastrous. At present, no ports will allow ammonia-powered vessels to dock—a stance that forced the Green Pioneer, a proof of concept ship retrofitted to run on both ammonia and diesel, to use fossil fuels to power its visit to the COP28 conference in the United Arab Emirates last year.

And ammonia is also harder to burn than some of the alternatives. Designing more reliable, more efficient ammonia-burning engines is a huge challenge currently being tackled by companies like the Germany-based MAN Energy Solutions, which also built the methanol-burning engine on the Laura Maersk.

Lars Tingbjerg Danielsen, the promotion manager at MAN Energy Solutions, explains that ammonia has a high ignition temperature—it needs to be above 650 °C before it lights—and so must be burned alongside a secondary pilot fuel. Its flame is fickle, too. Compared with methanol, ammonia’s flame speed (how fast the flame expands as the fuel combusts) is six times slower. If the engine spins too quickly, combustion will falter, allowing ammonia to slip out of the engine. Given its toxicity, this would be a significant contamination risk.

Luckily, giant two-stroke ship engines turn relatively slowly compared with smaller engines, says Danielsen, so it’s easier to get ammonia to sustain combustion within them. His firm is currently using high-speed cameras to study the ignition of the fuel.

Danielsen adds that determining the most effective fuel depends, in part, on how a given ship is used. Methanol supply facilities are expensive to build, so methanol-fueled ships might be best suited to repetitive routes with fixed ports of call. According to research by the Maersk Mc-Kinney Møller Center for Zero Carbon Shipping, ammonia is and will likely remain cheaper than methanol, he says, so it may make sense to use it for the biggest ships, which require the most energy.

Maersk, for its part, is interested in burning ammonia. “We certainly expect it to be in the fuel mix in the future,” says Christiansen. However, neither Maersk nor any other major shipping company currently has ammonia-burning ships, and Christiansen declined to confirm whether Maersk has plans to announce any such orders this year. The Yara Eyde, the world’s first ammonia-powered cargo ship, is expected to be launched in 2026, and about a dozen ammonia-burning vessels are on order globally.

At present, the shipping industry is not overly keen on Stephen Turnock’s favorite alternative fuel: hydrogen. But Turnock, a maritime engineer at the University of Southampton in England, likes hydrogen because, as with ammonia, it can be created with renewable energy, yet burning it produces nothing but steam. (Ammonia combustion creates a mix of nitrogen gas and water—not too bad—while burning methanol yields carbon dioxide and water.)

Yet the industry is wary of working with something so hard to handle. Hydrogen evaporates at -235 °C—colder than the surface of the moon at night—so chilling it into a liquid to put into a ship’s fuel tank requires a lot of energy. And because hydrogen molecules are so incredibly tiny (even by nanoscopic chemical standards), hydrogen tends to leak through the smallest of cracks.

Maersk conducted a pilot study with hydrogen, says Christiansen, and found that using it would be more expensive than methanol and ammonia. And that’s saying something because methanol is itself three times more expensive than conventional ship fuels, he says.

Because ammonia actually contains hydrogen—ammonia is one nitrogen atom and three hydrogen atoms—there’s also the opportunity for a hybrid approach: pump a ship’s fuel tanks full of ammonia and then chemically convert it into hydrogen on board. It’s a conversion in which 60 percent of the available energy in the ammonia is lost, but this process would, ultimately, allow for propulsion with zero carbon emissions. Amogy, a start-up headquartered in New York, is working toward testing a tugboat powered by this hybrid approach later this year.

Yet in the rush to find cleaner fuels, Bullock, the shipping and climate researcher, cautions against overlooking all the other ways the industry can slash its emissions. “The sector has to put a greater focus on the other things it can do,” he says. For instance, so-called wind-assisted technology (a truly ancient ship propulsion method) can reduce the effort required from a ship’s main engine no matter what it’s burning.

Stricter regulations could also play a role in driving down shipping’s carbon emissions, Bullock argues. Ports could refuse entry to ships that don’t have a high enough energy-efficiency rating based on a scale introduced by the IMO last year, for example. Christiansen at Maersk says he backs proposals from some within the shipping industry for a Green Balance Mechanism that would raise the cost of polluting fuels to subsidize greener alternatives.

But there is hardly any time left for shipping companies to make big changes. The industry only has a few years to cut its carbon emissions by nearly one-third—largely because it has kept its “head in the sand” for too long, says Turnock.

Christiansen remains optimistic. If shipping can transform itself, it will be harder for other industries, such as aviation, to delay their own green transition. “Hey, if these shipping guys can get this done,” he says, “what’s your excuse?”

This article first appeared in Hakai Magazine and is republished here with permission.

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After a five-year reign, the world’s largest 3D printer located at the University of Maine has been usurped—by a newer, larger 3D printer developed at the same school.

At a reveal event earlier this week, UMaine designers at the Advanced Structures & Composite Center (ASCC) showed off their “Factory of the Future 1.0,” aka the FoF 1.0. At four times the size of their previous Guinness World Record holder from 2019, MasterPrint, FoF 1.0 is capable of printing 96-by-32-by-18-foot tall structures and objects. Such sizable creations also require an impressive amount of building materials, however. According to its creators, FoF 1.0 can churn through upwards of 500-pounds of eco-friendly thermoplastic polymers per hour.

[Related: 3D printers just got a big, eco-friendly upgrade (in the lab)]

Global construction projects generate around 37 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions, mostly from the carbon-heavy production of aluminum, steel, and cement. Transitioning to more sustainable architecture and infrastructure projects is a key component of tackling climate change, spurring interest in massive 3D printer endeavors like FoF 1.0.

But just because there’s a new printer on the block doesn’t mean UMaine’s previous record-holder is obsolete. Designers created FoF 1.0 to print in tandem with MasterPrint, with the two machines even capable of working together on the same building components.

ASCC researchers and engineers aim to utilize these industrial-sized 3D printers to help construct some of the estimated 80,000 new homes needed in Maine over the next six years. FoF 1.0’s predecessor, MasterPrint, has already helped build the surprisingly stylish, sustainable, 600-square-foot BioHome3D prototype a few years back. 

“It’s not about building a cheap house or a biohome,” ASCC director Habib Dagher said at this week’s event. “We wanted to build a house that people would say, ‘Wow, I really want to live there.’”

With FoF 1.0’s help, those plans could potentially expand to encompass whole neighborhoods. According to Engadget’s calculations, the new machine could make “a modest single-story home in around 80 hours.”

Of course, such biofriendly projects don’t only catch the eye of sustainable architects. Funding for FoF 1.0 came in part from contributors such as the Department of Defense, as well as the Army Corps of Engineers. UMaine’s announcement also notes these backers hope to harness such machines for other projects, including “lightweight rapidly deployable structures and vessel technologies.”

Going forward, ASCC researchers hope to experiment with additional bio-based polymer sources, particularly wood residuals from Maine—which just so happens to be the country’s most forested state.

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It’s long been known that mice can be trained to perform simple tasks in exchange for a reward. Bribe a hungry mouse with a morsel of food or a thirsty mouse with a drop of water and you can encourage it to navigate a maze or click a particular button. But sometimes, mice don’t act as expected, failing to complete the task at hand. Often, researchers have dismissed these actions as simple mistakes, resulting from inattention or disengagement. Yet, a study published April 26 in the journal Current Biology suggests, there’s more going on: mice can understand the rules of a task and still deviate in their behaviors, potentially testing their own hypotheses and attempting to learn more about their surroundings. 

It appears that the decisions mice make during behavioral tests are more complicated than just basic reward-seeking choices. During human-imposed trials in the lab, mice may be continually exploring and re-testing the rules of their environment and performing their own small experiments.

[ Related: Mice may be able to recognize their own reflections ]

The findings expand our understanding of what’s happening inside rodent brains and indicate mice and other non-verbal animals might know more than they let on. The research could eventually help shed light on the neurological underpinnings of human behavior as well. “These mice have a richer internal life than we probably give them credit for,” says Kishore Kuchibhotla, senior study author and an assistant professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University. “They are not just stimulus response machines. They may have things like strategies,” he adds.

Mice at the steering wheel

The work builds on previous research that tested mice on a simple licking task and adds a level of complexity with a two-choice test to parse mouse motivations. Kuchibhotla and lead study author Ziyi Zhu, a neuroscience PhD student, trained thirsty mice, restrained in place,  to spin a wheel with their front legs in a certain direction in response to a sound. One tone corresponded with turning the wheel to the right, a second tone with spinning it to the left. If a mouse responded to either of the sounds with the correct action, it would get a tiny cup of water. If it spun the wheel the wrong way or didn’t spin it at all, nothing happened. 

Throughout thousands of trials involving 13 mice, the researchers tracked mouse choice, response speed, and accuracy, and they noticed several patterns. For one, mice seemed to get more accurate in their decisions as the trials progressed, indicating they were mastering the task at hand. Individual mice also seemed to have quirks and preferences when it came to picking a wheel direction. And even when mice reached an expert level of wheel-steering competency, they would still display short bouts of wrong responses–often spinning the wheel in the same direction repeatedly, regardless of which sound was played. 

[ Related: How video game tech, AI, and computer vision help decode animal pain and behavior ]

To better understand what was happening during these bouts, Kuchibhotla and Zhu instituted “probe” trials, where they temporarily stopped rewarding the mice for correct answers. Very quickly, mice changed course, stopped exploring, and began to respond to the right and left sound cues more accurately, in accordance with the pattern they’d been trained on–indicating the mice understood what they were supposed to do to get the cup of water, and had been purposefully forsaking reward.

“As behavioral neuroscientists who work in animal models, the onus is on us to come up with more clever and rich ways to extract meaning from nonverbal animals’ [actions],” says Dr. Brian Sweis PhD, a neuroscientist and psychiatrist at Mount Sinai who conducts animal behavior research but was not involved in the new study. “I think this paper did a really nice job of that… it was a beautiful deep dive into a behavioral analysis,” he adds–pointing especially to the follow-up examination of the initial trial data and the ways the researchers varied their experiments. 

Using a computational model, Zhu and Kuchibhotla assessed how each trial outcome related to the ones before and after it and what factors seemed to be influencing mouse behavior. They found that reward played a big role, but so did a bias towards rotating the wheel in a preferred direction, which differed from mouse to mouse. Yet this bias wasn’t fixed–mice would switch it up, spinning to both sides over the course of many trials and when the researchers presented mice with sound prompts for exclusively their preferred direction, the mice would exhibit more periods of rotating the wheel to their non-preferred side. Taken altogether, these observations show a dynamic choice bias that the researchers hypothesize is a learning strategy. 

Learning without language

 “Mice are surprisingly using higher-order approaches to learn even simple tasks, which may seem maladaptive. It may look like the animal is making a ton of errors, but during those errors, it’s actually getting smarter,” says Kuchibhotla. “We put these animals in these bizarre situations. They don’t know when the environment may change. They don’t know when we may change the rules on them. There’s value in having this sort of continuous exploration.”

Where humans can rely on language to understand an assignment, non-verbal animals have to find out for themselves what the rules of a particular situation are. Kuchibhotla suggests this difference could account for why mice take on this continually shifting approach to a task. “Verbal or written instructions collapse the mental space of exploration. Once you know what you’re supposed to do, there’s no need to explore. That’s one of the hypotheses we have–that in the absence of instructions humans will [also] engage in continuous exploration.” He’s currently conducting follow-up research in human behavioral trials to determine if that’s true. 

Finding lessons in mouse mistakes

Other follow-up work includes tracking the mice’s neural activity as they engage in the wheel spinning task, training and testing the mice on multiple tasks at once to see how strategies change, and running cognitively impaired mice through similar tests which could ultimately reveal underlying patterns in human neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s.

There are limitations to what this single study proves. Despite all the researchers’ carefulness, something simpler than strategizing could still be at play, offers Sweis. For instance, maybe the mice changed the direction they spun the wheel in every so often because their front legs got tired. “I don’t think that negates anything [the study authors are] showing here, but physical factors could be a driver,” says Sweis. “We have to understand the brian in the context of the whole body.”

Still though, examining the choice process, he explains, “gives us insight into the many different ways the brain can work” and can clarify what’s happening when things start to go wrong. He suggests another follow-up project could look at how aging influences the exploration process and if task flexibility shifts or declines with age. There are many possible offshoots for interesting research, and the study “serves as a rich foundation for us to understand biology a little bit more.” 

It reframes decades of rodent behavior results, where errors were dismissed as uninteresting failures. “Animals need to make mistakes to learn,” says Sweis–and there’s lots we can learn from them too.

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Red squirrels living in Canada’s Yukon territory can have a pretty hard knock life. Bitterly cold winters, resource scarcity, intense competition for habitat, threats from large predators like the Canada lynx, and even take big reproductive risks for their genetic fitness. All of these stressors take their toll on these resilient rodents. Their early life struggles can also leave a lasting mark. The more challenges young red squirrels face in the year they’re born, the shorter their adult lifespan. The findings are detailed in a study published April 24 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences and could have some implications for humans. 

Food booms

Red squirrels are about 11 inches long and weigh just over half a pound on average. They are known for their rust colored fur and “scolding chatter” above the trees. The new study uses data collected by the Kluane Red Squirrel Project, a multi-university long-term field study. The project has tracked and studied thousands of wild North American red squirrels in the southwestern region of the Yukon for more than 30 years that individually tags and tracks individual red squirrels to learn how they deal with all that’s thrown at them  . 

The new study analyzing the observations found that red squirrels that survive past their first year go on to live about 3.5 years on average. However, early life adversity like food scarcity can cut their life expectancy by at least 14 percent.

[Related: A Medieval strain of leprosy is infecting squirrels in the UK.]

“The ecosystem red squirrels inhabit in this region is unique,” study co-author and University of Arizona ecologist and evolutionary biologist Lauren Petrullo said in a statement. “Every three to seven years, their favorite food–seed from cones of white spruce trees–is produced in superabundance during what we call a food boom.”

The team found that even though these food booms are rare, they can interrupt some biological processes for the squirrels and help shape their lifespans.

“If a squirrel had a harsh first year of life, if they were lucky enough to experience a food boom in their second year of life, they lived just as long–if not longer–in spite of early-life adversity,” said Petrullo.

Rodents as proxies

Rodents like squirrels, rice, and mats, are often used as models for humans in a lab setting. However, the laboratory environment often has limited relevance to the bigger pictures of what is going on at an ecological and evolutionary level. 

“It can be hard to really replicate the ecological challenges that animals have evolved to cope with in a lab setting,” said Petrullo. 

Wild red squirrels can offer scientists a chance to better study the role that early-life environment plays. Petrullo and her colleagues hope that continued observations in the wild can help them learn more about the biological mechanisms that link squirrels’ early developmental conditions with their later-life survival. This could have some insights into our understanding of human resilience. 

[Related: Nature wasn’t healing: What really happened with wildlife during pandemic lockdowns.]

“Our findings in red squirrels echo what we know about how early-life adversity can shorten adult lifespan in humans and other primates,” Petrullo said. “Humans vary widely in how vulnerable or resilient they are to challenges faced during early development. Our study demonstrates that future environmental quality might be an important factor that can explain why some individuals appear to be more, or less, susceptible to the consequences of early-life adversity.” 

‘Born with a silver spoon’

While growing up as a young red squirrel in the Yukon can be quite difficult, there are some things that can go right. 

“Some red squirrels have the luck of being born into gentler early environments, akin to being born with a silver spoon,” Petrullo said. “Because of this, we’ve got this really nice individual variation in early-life environmental quality across a natural ecological environment.”
However, as global temperatures continue to climb, this environment is expected to see a good deal of change. It’s possible that food booms and other ecological patterns could change right alongside the climate and the connections between early-life experiences and lifespan could also shift. According to Petrullo, these changes could offer more insight into how animals may continue to adapt to environments that are only getting more challenging to survive in. Future study could also help scientists learn more about what environmental factors can buffer these squirrels from ongoing environmental threats.

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Most grocery store patrons take for granted just what it takes to transport a humble sweet potato out of the ground and into a shopping basket. The slightly-sweet red root vegetable can come in various sizes and flavor profiles but consumers have come to expect a level of consistency. To meet that market demand, sweet potatoes are subjected to rounds of laborious and time-consuming quality assessments to root out undesirable batches that are either too firm, not sweet enough, or otherwise deemed unlikely to sell. This process is currently performed methodically by humans in a lab, but a new study suggests hyperspectral cameras and AI could help speed up that process.

In a study published this week in Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, researchers from the University of Illinois set out to see if data collected by a hyperspectral imaging camera could help narrow down certain potato attributes typically determined by manual inspectors and tests. Hyperspectral cameras collect vast amounts of data across the electromagnetic spectrum and are often used to help determine the chemical makeup of materials. In this case, the researchers wanted to see if they could analyze data from the potato images to accurately determine a spud’s firmness, soluble solid content, and dry matter content—three key attributes that contribute to the vegetable’s overall taste and market appeal. Ordinarily, this process requires tedious, sometimes wasteful testing that can include leaving test potatoes heated in a 103 degrees celsius oven for 24 hours. 

“Traditionally, quality assessment is done using laboratory analytical methods,” University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences assistant professor Mohammed Kamruzzaman said in a statement. “You need different instruments to measure different attributes in the lab and you need to wait for the results.”

The researchers gathered 141 defect-free sweet potatoes and took photos from multiple angles. Hyperspectral imaging produces torrents of data, which can be both blessing and curse for researchers looking for specific variables. To solve that problem, the researchers used an AI model to help filter down the noisy data into several wavelengths. They were then able to connect those wavelengths to the specific desirable sweet potato attributes they were looking for. 

“With hyperspectral imaging, you can measure several parameters simultaneously. You can assess every potato in a batch, not just a few samples,” Kamruzzaman added.

AI and hyperspectral cameras could speed up vegetable inspection

The researchers argue farmers and food inspectors could use their combination of hyperspectral imaging and AI to accurately and cost effectively scan sweet potatoes for key attributes while simultaneously cutting down on food waste created as a byproduct of traditional testing. And while this particular study focused on sweet potatoes, it’s possible similar tactics could be used to find desired features in a host of other vegetables and fruits as well. Kamruzzaman says he and his colleagues eventually want to create quickly and easily scan sweet potato batches. On the consumer side, the researchers envision one-day building out an app grocery store patrons could use to scan a potato and look up its particular attributes. Such an app, in theory, could cut down on patrons awkwardly fondling their produce. 

“We believe this is a novel application of this method for sweet potato assessment,” doctoral student and study lead author Toukir Ahmed wrote. “This pioneering work has the potential to pave the way for usage in a wide range of other agricultural and biological research fields as well.”

The agriculture industry is increasingly turning to AI solutions to try and ramp up efficiency and head off growing farm labor shortages. From autonomous Tulip-inspecting machines in Holland to self-driving John Deere tractors, farmers across the world are hoping these new innovations can eventually drive down food prices and increase their own profitability at the same time. How exactly that will all play out, however, remains to be seen. Agriculture gains derived from AI solutions may also take longer to benefit economically developing countries, where some farming is still done by hand.

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This article was originally featured on MIT Press Reader. This article is excerpted from James Lawrence Powell’s book “Mysteries of the Deep“.

When HMS Challenger set sail in 1872, some scientists still believed in the azoic theory: that life cannot exist below 300 fathoms, or 550 meters. Others thought that creatures lived in the abyss, but that the cold and dark prevented them from evolving. With no more than their dredges, the Challenger scientists soon disproved both ideas.

The exploration of life at and below the surface of the dark seafloor began with a 1936 article by Claude ZoBell and Quentin Anderson of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, who found abundant bacteria in the surface layers of sediment cores 40 to 75 centimeters long taken off the coast of Southern California.

The deep sea and its creatures became a subject of great interest in the 1930s, prompted by the invention of the deep-sea submersible, a sort of mini submarine built to withstand the great pressures of the abyss. The most notable of these early vessels was the two-person “Bathysphere” used by famed scientist and author William Beebe (1877–1962), whose books with their photos of bizarre deep-sea creatures fascinated and inspired youngsters of an earlier time. Engineer Otis Barton designed the vessel and he and Beebe used it to make a number of deep dives off the coast of Bermuda. In 1934, the two reached a record depth of 923 meters.

The successor to Beebe’s Bathysphere was the Alvin, named for its inventor, the eponymous Al Vine, and launched in 1964 by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. It was designed to carry two scientists and a pilot 4,500 meters down and allow them to stay at that depth for nine hours. Alvin made over 5,000 dives and fostered an estimated 2,000 research publications. But it had a rocky start, to say the least. Alvin’s first dive was in 1965 to 1,800 meters. In March 1966, Alvin was used in an unsuccessful attempt to recover a hydrogen bomb that had been lost in a midair accident and fallen to the seafloor at 910 meters depth off the coast of Spain. Then in October 1966, as Alvin was being lowered over the side of its support vessel, with crew members aboard and the hatch open, the two steel cables holding it broke. The crew was able to escape, but the vessel fell to the seafloor in 1,500 meters of water. The fortunate crew members had left their lunches behind, and when Alvin was hauled up, there the food was, intact and with no sign of attack by snacking microbes. This reinforced the view that the deep sea was inimical to significant bacterial life.

The Alvin’s most famous dive, however, was its 1986 exploration of the wreck of the ill-fated Titanic. After a complete overhaul, finished in 2014, Alvin was back on active duty at Woods Hole. In the summer of 2022, the submersible reached a record depth of 6,453 meters in the Puerto Rico Trench, meaning that Alvin could reach nearly any point on the seafloor.

Black smokers

One of the key concepts of plate tectonics is that underneath the center of the oceanic ridges lie chambers of molten magma. These heat the adjacent seawater, which rises and flows out via hydrothermal vents. In 1977, scientists made 24 dives in the Alvin to study these vents along the Galápagos Rift, an offshoot of the East Pacific Rise. They found that two-thirds of the heat lost at the rift escapes via these outlets.

Prior to these dives in the Alvin, scientists believed that photosynthesis was the ultimate and indispensable source of the energy needed to support life, meaning that living creatures could not exist in the blackness of the ocean depths. Yet the scientists aboard Alvin found abundant life in a variety of forms on the Galápagos Rift at a depth far below that to which sunlight can penetrate. Where did these creatures get the energy to sustain themselves if not from photosynthesis? Scientists had answered that phytoplankton, which consists of microscopic plants and lives near the surface, die and sift down as “marine snow,” a term coined by Beebe and a process recognized by the Challenger scientists. Rachel Carson described it in her book “The Sea Around Us”: “When I think of the floor of the deep sea … I see always the steady, unremitting, downward drift of materials from above, flake upon flake, layer upon layer—the most stupendous ‘snowfall’ the Earth has ever seen.” The dead phytoplankton fall to the dark, abyssal ocean floor and provide a food source for organisms living there. According to this theory, photosynthesis would still be the ultimate energy source for the creatures of the abyss.

But the hydrothermal vents on the Galápagos Rift held a concentration of organisms thousands of times greater than the seafloor around them. Some unrecognized process within the vents—not photosynthesis—was providing the energy on which the vent ecosystem depends. It turned out to be “chemosynthesis,” in which bacteria oxidize inorganic materials, primarily hydrogen sulfide, in chemical reactions that in turn provide the energy to sustain higher life forms. Black, irregular chimneys mark some vents where chemicals that had been dissolved in the hot water have precipitated as dark sulfides when the hot vent water meets the cold ocean. Scientists subsequently found these “black smokers” in many places in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, as well as stranded on land—for example, along the California coast where plate tectonics has lifted an old ocean floor well above sea level.

The creatures of the vent ecosystems ultimately depend on the sulfur-reducing bacteria—which we could almost say “breathe” sulfur—and include many strange denizens never before seen. None were stranger than the tube worms, which measure up to 3 meters long but are only 4 centimeters wide and live in clusters of thousands of individuals per square meter. They depend on the bacteria for energy and have no need for a digestive system. Their existence in such inhospitable conditions once again raised questions about what other life forms could exist at and below the seafloor.

Thomas Gold

If life can exist in the depths of the ocean, could a significant portion of all life on Earth be in those depths, rather than above them? That was the thesis of one of the most inventive and iconoclastic scientists of the second half of the 20th century. Thomas Gold was born in Austria in 1920 to Jewish parents who fled to England in 1938 after Hitler annexed Austria. Gold entered Trinity College at Cambridge, but when World War II broke out the British interned him as an enemy alien and deported him to a camp in Canada. After 15 months there, he was allowed to return to England, where he reentered Cambridge to study physics and worked on the all-important radar. Gold’s multifarious interests and accomplishments are enough to fill a book, or several. It is no surprise that he would be one of the first to explore the larger implications of the deep hydrothermal vents.

In a provocative 1992 article, “The Deep, Hot Biosphere,” and in a 1999 book of the same title, Gold extrapolated from the microbial life of the vents to propose that such life also existed in abundance beneath the seafloor. He went so far as to suggest that subsurface microbial life could be comparable in mass and volume to all life on the surface. Microbial life could be pervasive everywhere beneath Earth’s surface in the pore spaces between mineral grains—and not only on Earth but also on other bodies in the solar system: the Moon and Mars, for example. They have too little air and water to sustain life on their surfaces, but it could well exist below. Perhaps microbial subsurface life came first, protected from the surficial violence of the early solar system and using chemosynthesis, then evolved into photosynthetic life. Gold thought that microbial life might be widespread in the universe, a concept known as panspermia which goes back to the Greek philosopher Anaxagoras in the fifth century BCE. Many notable scientists have endorsed the idea, but with no way to test it, attention shifted to the possibility that the organic building blocks of life might have been present throughout the solar system at its beginning.

Drilling the abyss

The detection of life beneath the seafloor was the goal of one of the earliest Deep Sea Drilling Projects (DSDP) voyages, Leg 15 in 1970, led by chief scientist Wallace Broecker of Columbia University. The crew found methane, a byproduct of microbial activity, in sediments 800 meters beneath the seafloor and tens of millions of years old. In October 1986, the crew of DSDP Leg 96 drilled the Mississippi Fan, a submarine pile of sediment in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico. They found subsurface microbial activity down to 167 meters beneath the seafloor. By the end of the century, the Ocean Drilling Program had sampled 14 sites for evidence of bacterial activity. A summary of these studies found that although the number of microbes typically decreases with depth beneath the seafloor, living cells are still present down to 700 meters. The authors came to the remarkable conclusion that the biomass in the top 500 meters of seafloor sediments equals 10 percent of that of the total surface biosphere. These early results suggested that living bacteria likely exist at greater depths than drilling had yet reached. This led to the first expedition designed specifically to study subsurface life.

In the spring of 2002, Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 201 drilled in two locations, one on the continental margin off Peru and the other in the equatorial Pacific. The subsurface ecosystems turned out to have a great diversity of microbes, including not only the sulfate-reducing bacteria found at the vents but a new type that got its energy from carbon reactions. The microbes were “alive” in that they engaged in metabolic activities such as repairing DNA and undergoing cell division. They included all three domains of life: archaea (one-celled organisms), bacteria, and eukaryotes (cells that have a nucleus). By this time, scientists estimated that subsurface bacterial life could amount to one-third that of Earth’s total living biomass. In 2003, ODP Leg 210 drilled the seafloor off Newfoundland and upped the ante once again. It found living bacterial cells 1,626 meters below the seafloor, in rocks 111 million years old, at temperatures of 113 degrees Celsius. This led the authors to estimate that bacteria in subsurface sediments may make up as much as two-thirds of total bacterial biomass.

In October 2010, expedition 329 of the Integrated Ocean Discovery Program (IODP), which followed the ODP, drilled in the South Pacific Gyre, some of the deepest water on Earth. It is the largest of the five giant oceanic systems of rotation that move enormous volumes of seawater. The South Pacific Gyre rotates counterclockwise, bounded by the equator to the north, Australia to the west, South America to the east, and the Antarctic Circumpolar Current to the south. Its center is the “oceanic pole of inaccessibility”: the location farthest from any continent. The South Pacific Gyre has one of the lowest sedimentation rates in the oceans and its bottom sediments have the lowest cell concentrations and the least metabolic activity of any. To discover the most extreme conditions under which life can exist on Earth, this is the place to go.

Aboard the JOIDES Resolution, still hard at work after all these years, in water nearly 6 kilometers deep, the scientists drilled 100 meters into the seafloor. They found microbes all the way to the bottom of the cores, albeit not as many as in the richer areas closer to the surface. The scientists estimated that the deepest microbes were at least 100 million years old, making it seem they could only be fossils. Surely nothing could “survive,” whatever that means exactly, for 100 million years. But when brought back to the lab and offered nutrients, the microbes began to grow and multiply.

This seemingly fantastic discovery raised the question of what the microbes beneath the gyre had been doing for 100 million years. Perhaps the cells had too little food to divide, but enough to repair damaged molecules. But that “seems insane,” said Steven D’Hondt, one of the leading authorities on microbial life in the seafloor, who wondered whether there is not another undiscovered source of energy—possibly radioactivity—that could support slow cell division.

On Expedition 337 of the IODP, the Japanese drilling ship Chikyū (Earth), designed for deep-sea drilling, cored to a depth of 2,466 meters beneath the seafloor off Japan’s Shimokita Peninsula. It found microorganisms in coal and shale that resemble those in the soil of modern tropical forests. These microbial communities are thought to be relics of those that inhabited soils about 20 million years ago, rather than more modern microbes that might have migrated into the coal layers from elsewhere. To explore the upper temperature limit at which microbes can survive, on Leg 370 of the IODP, Chikyū drilled in the Nankai Trough subduction zone off Cape Muroto in south-central Japan. The drill reached 4,776 meters and the deepest core was collected at 1,177 meters, where the temperature measured 120 degrees Celsius. Microbial life was detected all the way to the bottom of the sediment column. The cells at that depth appeared to spend most of their energy repairing the damage caused by the high temperature. Several authorities had written that the temperature limit to life in the subsurface was 80 degrees Celsius, but Gold had predicted that the upper temperature limit on bacterial life would be in the range of 120 to 150 degrees Celsius—and he turned out to be right.

Martians

These findings from scientific ocean exploration suggest that microbial life may be pervasive everywhere beneath Earth’s surface under conditions long thought to be inhospitable, if not fatal. This raises the possibility that, as Gold postulated, bacterial life may have existed and may still exist on other bodies in the solar system, including Mars. This despite the Red Planet’s hellish surface conditions, continually blasted by lethal radiation from the Sun and the cosmos. The surface temperature of Mars averages negative 60 degrees Celsius and is so dry that a cup of water would vaporize instantly. A group of scientists experimented with a terrestrial bacterium called Deinococcus radiodurans, said to be the toughest on Earth according to Guinness World Records, to test whether it could survive on Mars. This creature thrives in nuclear reactors. They found that if buried 9 meters underground, D. radiodurans could withstand Martian levels of radiation for 280 million years.

Later this decade, the European Space Agency plans to send a spacecraft to Mars that will drill more than 2 meters below the surface and analyze the organic molecules found there. How will we humans react if, when life is discovered on another planet, it looks nothing like us, nor even little green men, but is microbial? If evidence of microbial subsurface life is found on Mars, it may have been the first lifeform in the solar system, where, protected from the surficial violence and using chemosynthesis, it could indeed have evolved into photosynthetic life and eventually, us. If Earth and Mars harbor subsurface bacterial life, why not other planets as well?

James Powell is a retired geologist and university administrator. He is the author of several books, including “The Inquisition of Climate Science” (Columbia University Press), “The 2084 Report: An Oral History of the Great Warming” (Simon & Schuster), and “Mysteries of the Deep,” from which this article is excerpted.

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About five million years ago, the North American Pacific Northwest was teeming with some pretty big fish that would have made the continent’s biggest salmon runs look small. An eight to 10-feet-long prehistoric salmon species called Oncorhynchus rastrosus stalked the seas and streams of the Miocene. It weighed upwards of 400 pounds and was almost twice as long and three times heavier than today’s largest salmon species–the Chinook/king salmon. 

Oncorhynchus rastrosus also sported a formidable pair of front teeth that projected out from the sides of their mouths like tusks, but not like fangs as scientists previously believed. This major dental update is detailed in a study published April 24 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.

Oncorhynchus rastrosus was first described in 1972. At the time, scientists believed that its large oversize teeth pointed backwards into the month like fangs. This largest known member of the Salmonidae family was commonly called the “saber-toothed salmon” due to the position of its teeth. However, CT scans of some newer Oncorhynchus rastrosus fossils and analysis in the study confirmed that these two-inch long curved chompers were more similar to a warthog’s tusks. This makes the species more of a “spike-toothed salmon.”

“This is all part of the scientific process. You have an idea and you get new information,” study co-author and University of Oregon paleobiologist Edward Davis tells PopSci. “It’s a good reminder of the humility you need to have as a scientist.”

[Related: A gator-faced fish shaped like a torpedo stalked rivers 360 million years ago.]

Scientists are not exactly sure what these signature tusks were used for, but believe they were primarily used to fight off other salmon or predators. They also may have been a way for female fish to dig nests for their eggs or even to help both sexes swim upstream to spawn.

“When they’re swimming upstream, they could maybe hook the spikes on something and take a rest without having to use any energy,” says Davis. “It’s sort of like if you’re holding on to the side of the swimming pool.”

With these tusks, they would have been as “equally fearsome” as their male counterparts, according to study co-author and professor and curator of fishes at Oregon State University Brian Sidlauskas.

Their teeth likely weren’t used for catching prey. The spike-toothed salmon may have been a filter-feeder that dined on tiny organisms called plankton. This filter feeding may have been one of the reasons they reached such titanic sizes. Their relatives the sockeye salmon as well as baleen whales and basking sharks have bony features called gill rakers that they use to filter out oxygen and microorganisms from the water. According to Davis, Oncorhynchus rastrosus have an unusually large number of gill rakers. Filter feeding with these gill takers possibly helped them grow since it could consume larger organisms like jellyfish and get more nutrients. 

They also lived in an environment with the food and water resources that could support their large bodies. In this way, studying the spike-toothed salmon can also give clues about what might be in store for the planet as temperatures continue to rise. They lived at the end of the Miocene, when the world’s oceans were much warmer than today. Global carbon dioxide levels were also near what Earth could see in the year 2100. Like today’s salmon, they hatched in freshwater, went into the ocean, and then returned back into the freshwater to spawn and die. 

“But these fish were huge,” says Davis. “That means there had to be a lot more water in those ancient rivers than we see today, to give them the space to be able to swim all the way up into eastern Oregon.”

[Related: The salmon of 2100 will have new habitat: the remains of melted glaciers.]

Oncorhynchus rastrosus went extinct as the Earth began to cool towards the end of the Miocene. This change in climate likely depleted them of the resources that they needed to sustain such large bodies. 

In future studies, Davis and his colleagues plan to do a closer analysis of some

spike-toothed salmon specimens. While a complete skeleton has yet to be found, a number of fossils belonging to this enormous fish have been uncovered in recent years. They also hope to come up with new models to study how these tusk-like teeth were used and better understand what extinct ecosystems can teach us. 

“Cool extinct animals get people excited about science and the ancient world. But it’s important to understand that ancient world because it gives us a window into what the world could be like in future scenarios,” says Davis. “By looking at how the giant salmon lived on this much warmer Earth, we can think about what resources are going to change over the next 80 years if our Earth is returning to that warmer state.”

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Modern robotics is awash with human-made machines mimicking the animal world. From stadium-surveying robot dogs to daddy long-legs-inspired exploration bots and just about everything in-between, there’s no shortage of mechanized animal doppelgängers roaming the world. Advancements in AI systems, new synthetic materials, and 3D printing have greatly improved these machines’ ability to run, climb, and shimmy their way around obstacles, often in the name of scientific exploration or public after. 

But even with those technical advances and billions of dollars worth investment poured into the robotics industry in recent years, mechanized machines by and large still still lag behind against their biological equals in a head-to-head race. That basic observation underpins a new study by an interdisciplinary group of researchers published this week in the journal Science Robotics. 

The researchers looked at five different “subsystems” associated with running and compared how they stack up better between animals and their robot counterparts. Animals, which rely on a tapestry of delicate bones and tissues, initially seem worse than machines on almost every individual component level. Their true advantage, the researchers discovered, actually lies in their complex and interconnected control over their bodies. That fluid interoperability makes animals greater than the sum of their individual parts. 

“The way things turned out is that, with only minor exceptions, the engineering subsystems outperform the biological equivalents—and sometimes radically outperformed them,” SRI International Senior Research Engineer and paper co-author Tom Libby said in a statement. “But also what’s very, very clear is that, if you compare animals to robots at the whole system level, in terms of movement, animals are amazing. And robots have yet to catch up.”

Animals benefit from biological complexity and generations of evolution 

Each of the five researchers focused on one specific subsystem associated with running in both animals and machines. These systems were broken down into power, frame, actuation, sensing, and control. Individually, machines beat out animals in almost all of these categories. In the case of frames, for example, robots with lightweight but strong carbon fiber bodies could support larger mass structures without buckling compared to animal bones. Similarly, the researchers concluded a robot’s computer-aided control system outperforms an animal’s nervous system in terms of overall latency and bandwidth. 

But even though robots seemingly have stronger, more robust individual parts, animas are nonetheless more adept at making them work seamlessly together as a cohesive “whole.” That difference plays itself plainly when animals and robots are tested in real-world environments. While newer robots can certifiably accelerate quickly and even perform some acrobatic feats they pale in comparison to their biological counterparts in terms of fluidity and adaptability. Robots sometimes navigate tough terrain, but animals can effortlessly overcome obstacles like mud, snow, vegetation, and rubble without thinking twice about what they are doing. 

[ Related: Can this robot help solve a guide dog shortage? ]

“A wildebeest can migrate for thousands of [kilometers] over rough terrain, a mountain goat can climb up a literal cliff, finding footholds that don’t even seem to be there, and cockroaches can lose a leg and not slow down,” Simon Fraser University Department of Biomedical Physiology and Kinesiology professor Max Donelan wrote. “We have no robots capable of anything like this endurance, agility and robustness.”

Animals also have another huge leg up: time. Unlike advanced robots which have only really made strides in the past few decades, animals have had millions, or in some cases, billions of years of evolution on their side. Animals, the researchers note, have a “substantial headstart over engineering.” On the flip side, robots have done an admirable job of closing that gap with staggering speed. The researchers say they are “optimistic” that robots will someday outrun animals.

“It [advances in robots] will move faster, because evolution is undirected,” University of Washington Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering Associate Professor Sam Burden said. “There are ways that we can move much more quickly when we engineer robots than we can through evolution—but evolution has a massive head start.”

Researchers hope these findings could help future development of running robots. Armed with these findings, robot makers could decide to focus more of their time and effort on component integration rather than simply building ever better and stronger hardware. 

“The lesson we take from biology is that, although further improvements to components and subsystems are beneficial, the greatest opportunity to improve running robots is to make better use of existing parts,” the researchers wrote.”

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What’s the weirdest thing you learned this week? Well, whatever it is, we promise you’ll have an even weirder answer if you listen to PopSci’s hit podcast. The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week hits Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and everywhere else you listen to podcasts every-other Wednesday morning. It’s your new favorite source for the strangest science-adjacent facts, figures, and Wikipedia spirals the editors of Popular Science can muster. If you like the stories in this post, we guarantee you’ll love the show.

Check out Weirdest Thing’s new page on Reddit to meet fellow Weirdos!

FACT: These birds help humans hunt for honey, but it’s not as sweet as you might think

By Rachel Feltman

The greater honeyguide is a sub-Saharan bird that engages in a behavior that’s so fascinating to people that its entire genus and its entire family is named for it, even though they’re the only species in the bunch that definitely acts this way.

These birds literally guide humans to sources of honey. Humans call to the birds for help, the birds recognize the request and start leading the way, and the humans follow them straight to a big honeycomb. Hunter-gatherers are almost six-times more likely to find hives with a honeyguide assist than they are without. 

The people in question are The Hadza of Northern Tanzania. Even if you don’t recognize their name, you’ve almost certainly heard of or read research about them. If you’ve read an article about, for example, how eating a modern diet versus a traditional hunter-gatherer diet changes our microbiome, it was almost certainly based on research on the Hadza. 

Speaking of research on Hadza diets: Scientists have found that honey makes up a surprisingly large percentage of their caloric intake. It can make up around 20% of the calories they consume. 

That’s where the honeyguide bird comes in with a big assist. Some researchers estimate that up to 10% of the Hadza’s total diet is foraged with the help of these birds.

Incredible, right? But a lot of popular media on the subject takes things a little too far in the Disney Princess direction.

A lot of depictions of this process—including some documentaries—suggest that this is a mutually-beneficial partnership between birds and humans. Humans ask for help, birds provide it, and humans pay the animals for their services with chunks of honeycomb full of wax and grubs for them to eat. 

But as this feature in Atlas Obscura by Cara Giaimo explains, that isn’t quite true—and the sunnier portrayal of this relationship can cause trouble for the Hadza. Check out the article—and this week’s episode—for more on the (still very awesome) truth behind the misinformation. 

FACT: A barber may have come close to launching a massive revolt—until the Civil War got in the way

By Joel Cook

On this week’s episode of The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week, I’m sharing one of my favorite stories from my own show, Rogue History. It’s the story of a traveling barber named Moses Dickson. This jack-of-all-trades (seriously, he opened a fine dining restaurant at one point) may have laid the groundwork for a major insurrection. Dickson claimed to have recruited a vast network of enslaved people and free allies who were gearing up to revolt against their oppressors. He said the only reason it didn’t happen was that the Civil War started brewing, and he figured he’d let actual armies do the legwork instead. 

That might sound like a convenient claim for some random barber to make, but there’s some evidence that Dickson really had been about to light the fuse on a huge insurrection. Learn more in this week’s episode. You can also check out the Rogue History episode that inspired this fact.

FACT: Rats love taking selfies, too 

By Sara Kiley Watson

What’s not to love about a selfie? Millions are taken every single day, though the reasons why we snap so many pics of ourselves are still up in the air. Some folks guess it’s for vanity, but research has also shown that capturing a quick selfie can help us remember deeper meanings of those day-to-day events or big moments. 

One recent project from a Paris-based professional photographer and grad student shows that humans might not be the only animals that love a cheeky self-portrait. 

A Skinner box-inspired experiment showed that rats got a kick out of pressing a button that snapped selfies. They also enjoyed viewing the resulting images—even if they weren’t lured by a treat to do so. Of course, the psychological significance of rat selfies is still a mystery, and we’ll need to do a lot more research to truly understand our shared love of self-portraits (and/or button-pushing). But in the meantime, the photos produced by these curious little critters are still cute as can be. You can see them here. 

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Many marine organisms–including sea worms, some jellyfish, sea pickles, and more–can emit ethereal glow through a process called bioluminescence. The evolutionary origins of this light production remain a mystery, but an international team of scientists have found that bioluminescence may have first evolved in a group of marine invertebrates called octocorals at least 540 million years ago–nearly 300 million years earlier than they previously believed. This new timeline could help scientists unravel bioluminescence’s origin story. The findings are detailed in a study published April 23 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

What is bioluminescence? 

Bioluminescent organisms produce light via chemical reactions. This ability has independently evolved at least 94 times in nature. Bioluminescence is involved in multiple animal behaviors including communication, courtship, camouflage, and hunting. Fireflies, glowworms, and even some species of fungi on land are also considered bioluminescent organisms. 

“Nobody quite knows why it first evolved in animals,” Andrea Quattrini, a study co-author and the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History’s curator of corals, said in a statement. 

The earliest dated example of bioluminescence in animals was believed to be roughly 267 million years ago in small marine crustaceans known for a mucus-filled synchronized mating dance called ostracods, until this new research turned back the clock. 

An octocoral evolutionary tree

In the study, the team looked back into the evolutionary history of octocorals to search for clues to when it first appeared in animals. Octocorals are an ancient and frequently bioluminescent group of living animals that includes sea fans, sea pens, and soft corals. Just like hard corals, octocorals are tiny colonial polyps that build up a reef structure, but they are primarily soft bodied and not stony. The octocorals that glow generally light up when they are bumped or otherwise disturbed. According to the team, this makes the precise function of their ability to produce light a bit of a puzzle  

[Related: These newly discovered bioluminescent sea worms are named after Japanese folklore.]

“We wanted to figure out the timing of the origin of bioluminescence, and octocorals are one of the oldest groups of animals on the planet known to bioluminesce,” study co-author and  Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History postdoctoral scholar Danielle DeLeo said in a statement. “So, the question was when did they develop this ability?”

They turned to a detailed evolutionary tree of octocorals that was built in 2022. This map of evolutionary relationships–or phylogeny–used the genetic data from 185 different species of octocorals. The team then placed two octocoral fossils of known ages within the tree based on  their physical features. They were able to use the fossils’ ages and their respective positions in the evolutionary tree to determine roughly when octocoral lineages split apart to become two or more branches. The team ultimately mapped out the evolutionary relationships that featured all of the known bioluminescent species alive today.

With this evolutionary tree and branches that contained bioluminescent species labeled, the team used a statistical technique called ancestral state reconstruction to analyze the relationships between the species.

“If we know these species of octocorals living today are bioluminescent, we can use statistics to infer whether their ancestors were highly probable to be bioluminescent or not,” said Quattrini. “The more living species with the shared trait, the higher the probability that as you move back in time that those ancestors likely had that trait as well.”

Multiple different statistical methods all reached the same result. About 540 million years ago, the common ancestor of all octocorals was very likely bioluminescent. This is about 273 million years earlier than in the ostracod crustaceans that were previously considered the earliest evolutionary example of bioluminescence in animals.

According to the team, the octocorals’ thousands of living species and relatively high incidence of bioluminescence suggests that glowing played a role in the group’s evolutionary success. While this does not exactly answer what octocorals are using bioluminescence for, the fact that it has been retailed for so long shows how important this form of communication has become for their survival. 

Conservation implications

Now that the team knows that the common ancestor of all octocorals likely could already produce its own inner glow, they are interested in conducting a more thorough count of which of the group’s more than 3,000 known living species are still bioluminescent and which have lost the trait over time. This may have them pinpoint a set of ecological circumstances that correlate with bioluminesce and potentially shed some light on its function. 

The team is also working on creating a genetic test to determine if an octocoral species has functional copies of the genes for luciferase–an enzyme involved in bioluminescence. Future studies could even show that bioluminescence is even more ancient and embedded in coral’s evolutionary history. 

[Related: Surprise! These sea cucumbers glow.]

The study also points to evolutionary insight that could help monitor and manage octocorals in today’s oceans. They are currently threatened by mineral mining, fishing, oil and gas extraction and spills, and human-made climate change. 

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recently confirmed that the planet is currently experiencing the fourth global coral bleaching event on record and the second in the last 10 years due to heat stress from increasingly warming oceans. Octocorals can bleach the way that hard corals can under extreme temperatures. Understanding more about how they use bioluminescence could help scientists better identify their habitats and monitor their behaviors. Better knowledge of their genetics and what they need to survive can also inform better conservation policies for these marine organisms. 

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Subjecting hospital staff and patients to the snake that bit you won’t help your treatment–and it might even obstruct your care, doctors told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) earlier this month.

Australia is home to some of the most venomous snakes on Earth, including the inland taipan and eastern brown snakes, yet reports of fatal snake bites are relatively rare on the continent, with bites documented only a couple times per year. Still, there are around 3,000 reported snake bites per year in Australia and as many as 500 of those cases require antivenom treatment, as noted by Business Insider.

After any snake bite, Australian health officials say victims should immediately seek medical care; but trying to catch, kill, or photograph the snake after a bite “just puts people at risk,” said Dr. Adam Michael, the emergency medicine director at Bundaberg Hospital in the north-eastern state of Queensland. 

“We want people to be able to get seen and assessed quickly and having a live snake in the department slows up that process,” the director told ABC. He spoke to the news outlet after a patient brought in a “not very well secured” eastern brown, which he said had frightened staff and ultimately caused delays.

Hospital staff aren’t trained to identify snakes, said Dr. Geoff Isbister, who leads clinical toxicology research at the University of Newcastle near Sydney. Still, the researcher told ABC that he’d heard of multiple incidents in which victims brought snakes along with them to the hospital after a bite. “If that snake gets out in an emergency department, that becomes a huge disaster,” Dr. Isbister said.

Instead of inspecting the snake itself, medical staff assess if victims need anti-venom “based on clinical signs, blood tests and also the snake venom detection kits that we keep here at the hospital,” Dr. Michael added. 

Neither doctor spoke to the exact number of incidents they’d observed in which a snakebite patient brought their assailant in tow. However, local snake catcher Jonas Murphy told ABC that he’s personally “relocated several snakes brought into the Bundaberg Hospital,” the outlet wrote. Murphy echoed the doctors’ reasoning in a comment to ABC.

“You are risking a follow-up bite and you’re putting everyone around you in danger as well,” the snake catcher explained.

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Lots of stuff we throw away could easily go into compost. But getting started with composting can be tricky. Do it wrong, and you’ll stink up your whole kitchen. Vitamix’s Food Cycler makes it easy, and right now, it’s down to $299, which is $100 off of its regular price at Amazon.

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Many of Madagascar’s charismatic lemurs are in big trouble. Slash and burn agriculture has destroyed their habitat and made most of its subspecies vulnerable to extinction. Now, critically endangered diademed sifaka lemurs (Propithecus diadema) are being attacked by another vulnerable species, a cat-like carnivore called the fosa (Crytoprocta ferox, also spelled fossa). 

A study published April 9 in the journal Ecology and Evolution details very rare observations of how diademed sifaka lemurs at Madagascar’s Betampona Strict Nature Reserve have been attacked by fosas. Fosas are reddish brown animals with slender bodies and long tails. They are excellent climbers and are often compared to cougars. However, they are actually part of the weasel family. 

The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources also categorizes the fosa as vulnerable and at risk of extinction. Nearly all of the lemurs that fosas have now been observed eating are also at risk of extinction. The fosas also prey on birds and rodents. 

The impact of this new predation by the fosa combined with low reproductive rates and a potentially high inbreeding in the lemur population of Betampona could affect the survival of this species at this site. Betampona is Madagascar’s first protected reserve. It includes roughly 5,400 acres of rainforest on the island’s east coast, surrounded by agricultural land. This makes it difficult for the lemurs and other animals in the reserve to find other eligible animals to mate with. 

[Related: Giant beasts once roamed Madagascar. What happened to them?]

In this new study, a team from Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Antananarivo in Madagascar came across one fosa preying on diademed sifaka lemur during the team’s daily behavioral observations.

“What we saw was very rare. There are other small carnivores in Madagascar, but they are not big enough to be able to prey upon an adult diademed sifaka [lemur] because they are among the biggest lemurs,” study co-author and Washington University in St. Louis biological anthropologist Giovanna Bonadonna said in a statement. “There are not so many predators that could actually get them.”

The team found that this dynamic can be particularly complex when the predation occurs in an isolated or poor-quality habitat without enough resources to go around. Also, fosas are rarely caught in the act since they are stealthy hunters. Previous studies could only gleam what they eat by examining the bones and other evidence left behind in their droppings. 

“We noticed that a female diademed sifaka [lemur] that we were following after the first attack didn’t run away very far,” study co-author and University of Antananarivo PhD student Onja Ramilijaona said in a statement. “Instead she stayed still and remained vigilant, looking at the fosa.”

Ramilijaona also documented the remains of another lemur that they presumed was killed by a fosa. Hair was scattered around the site and its abdominal contents were found near several bones. The tree branches nearby also indicated signs of a struggle between animals. The study describes other instances over 19 months of observations when the fosa appeared to stalk lemurs, but did not manage to take one of them down. 

[Related: Dams are hurting this enigmatic Australian species.]

While the Betampona reserve itself is protected, the forest’s relatively small size and isolation from other eligible mates can make it difficult for animals like the diademed sifaka lemurs to continue to breed and survive there.

“This population of diademed sifakas is already in bad shape,” Bonadonna said. “There is a huge predation pressure that was underestimated until we did this behavioral study. We were able to highlight inbreeding and other factors that may be behind the fact that this population cannot thrive at Betampona.”

Bonadonna stresses that fosas are not “the bad guy.” They are also in need of conservation and face threats from habitat loss, competition for food resources, and a bad reputation among humans who can often consider them pests. The study highlights just how difficult conservation can be. Human activities and behaviors can lead to changes within ecosystems and cascading effects on at-risk species, such as more inbreeding and lack of genetic diversity. 

“Despite the effort to conserve one species, it’s really the ecosystem and the balance of that ecosystem that is at stake once the habitat is compromised,” said Bonadonna.

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Dyhia Belhabib’s journey to becoming a marine scientist began with war funerals on TV. Her hometown, on the pine-forested slopes of the Atlas Mountains in northern Algeria, lies only 60 miles from the Mediterranean Sea. But a trip to the beach was dangerous. A bitter civil war raged across the mountains as she was growing up in the 1990s; the conflict was particularly brutal for Belhabib’s people, the Berbers, one of the Indigenous peoples of North Africa. As she puts it: “We didn’t go to the ocean much, because you could get killed on the way there.”

The ocean surfaced in her life in another way, on state-run television. When an important person was assassinated or a massacre occurred, broadcasters would interrupt regular programming to show a sober documentary. They frequently chose a Jacques Cousteau film, judged sufficiently dignified and neutral to commemorate the deaths. Whenever she saw the ocean on television, Belhabib would wonder who had died. “My generation thinks of tragedies when we see the ocean,” she says. “I didn’t grow to love it in my youth.”

By the time she was ready for university, the civil war had ended. The Islamists had lost the war, but their cultural influence had grown. Engaged at 13 to a fiancé who wanted her to become a banker, Belhabib chafed at the restrictions. Her given name, Dyhia, refers to a Berber warrior queen who successfully fought off invading Arab armies over a thousand years ago; Queen Kahina, as she is also known, remains a symbol of female empowerment, an inspiration for Berbers and for the thousands of Algerian women who took up arms in the war of independence. In a society where one in four women cannot read, Belhabib realized she didn’t want to go to university only to spend her life “counting other people’s money.

One day, her brother’s friend visited their house. He was a student in marine sciences in the capital city, Algiers. When he described traveling out to sea, Belhabib felt a calling for an entirely unexpected path. “It was,” she recalls, “a career I had never heard of, and one that challenged every stereotype of women in Algerian society.” Soon after the visit, she moved to Algiers to study at the National Institute of Marine Sciences and Coastal Management, where she was one of the only women in her program. She also broke off the engagement with her fiancé, so that she could focus full-time on studies. She still vividly remembers her feelings of freedom, fear, and unreality on her first trip out to sea. While other students dove for samples, she floated on top of the water, trying to survive. “I never learned how to swim, and I still don’t know how,” she admits.

Belhabib graduated at the top of her class, but was repeatedly rejected when she applied to universities overseas. Her luck turned when she met Daniel Pauly, one of the world’s most famous fish scientists, at a conference. Unintimidated by the fact that Pauly had just won the Volvo Prize—the environmental equivalent of a Nobel—she introduced herself and told him she wanted to study with his team. Although she did not yet speak fluent English, Pauly accepted her as a student. When she began her doctoral research, over 90 percent of the world’s wild fisheries had been eradicated, and Pauly was sounding the alarm about a new, global surge in illegal fishing that was decimating marine food webs and depriving coastal communities of livelihoods. He wanted her to work on Africa, where illegal fishing had reached epidemic proportions.

Belhabib spent the next few years in West Africa. When her research uncovered the extent of illegal fishing to feed Chinese and European markets, she made the front page of the New York Times. “Being African myself, I was able to bring people together to openly share data in a way they never had before,” she explains. It’s not hard to imagine her corralling government officials: Disarmingly frank and engagingly energetic, the whip-smart, hijab-wearing Belhabib stands a little over five feet tall and talks a mile a minute, with a self-deprecating laugh and a talent for gently posed, bitingly direct questions.

Her startling findings touched a nerve. Tens of thousands of boats commit fishing crimes every year, but no global repository of fishing crimes exists. A fishing vessel will often commit a crime in one jurisdiction, pay a meager fine, and sail off to another jurisdiction, thus operating with impunity. If a global database of fishing vessel criminal records could be created, Belhabib realized, there would be nowhere left to hide. She suggested the idea to a variety of international organizations, but the issue was a political hot potato; national sovereignty, they argued, prevented them from tracking international criminals. Undeterred, Belhabib decided to build the database herself. Late at night, while her infant son was sleeping, she began combing through government reports and news articles in dozens of languages (she speaks several fluently). Her database grew, word spread, and her network of informants—often government officials frustrated with international inaction on illegal fishing—began expanding. She moved to a small nonprofit and began advising Interpol and national governments. The database, christened Spyglass, grew into the world’s largest registry of the criminal history of industrial fishing vessels and their corporate backers. But the registry, Belhabib knew, was useful only if the information made its way into the right hands. So in 2021 she cofounded Nautical Crime Investigation Services, a startup that uses AI and customized monitoring technology to enable more effective policing of marine crimes and criminal vessels at sea. Together with her cofounder Sogol Ghattan, who has a background in ethical AI, she named their core algorithm ADA, in homage to Ada Lovelace—the woman who wrote the world’s first computer program.

Belhabib is attempting to tackle one of the most intractable problems in contemporary environmental conservation: illegal fishing. Across the oceans, the difficulty of tracking ships creates ideal cover for some of the world’s largest environmental crimes. After the end of World War II, the world’s fishing fleets rapidly industrialized. Wartime technologies that had been developed for detecting underwater submarines were repurposed for spotting fish. The size of nets grew exponentially, and offshore factory ships were outfitted so they could spend months at sea, extending the reach of industrial fishing into the furthest reaches of the ocean. As the world’s population grew, fish protein became an increasingly important source of food. But warning signs soon appeared: crashes in key fish populations, an alarming trend of “fishing down marine food webs,” and a series of cascading impacts that rapidly depleted marine ecosystems.

In the wake of depleting stocks, fishers should have responded by reducing their take. Instead, they redoubled their efforts. After the world’s leading fishing nations—China and Europe are the largest markets—overfished their own waters, they began exporting industrial overfishing to the global oceans. China’s offshore fishing fleet of several hundred thousand vessels, which received nearly $8 billion in government subsidies in 2018, is now the largest in the world.

Governments of wealthier nations subsidized massive fleets of corporate-backed vessels to fish the high seas, using bottom trawling and drift nets stretching for dozens of miles, killing everything in their path. Artisanal fishers were squeezed out, and as fish stocks collapsed, rising food insecurity generated protests and political unrest. In West Africa, for example, fishing boats from the world’s wealthiest nations have depleted local fisheries to such an extent that waves of migrants—faced with food insecurity and uncertain futures—have begun fleeing their homes in a desperate, risky attempt to reach European outposts such as the Spanish Canary Islands; thousands of migrants have died at sea. The smaller fishing fleet, meanwhile, has struggled to remain solvent; impoverished fishers are increasingly vulnerable targets for criminal organizations seeking mules for hire to transport drugs, or boats to serve as cover operations for human trafficking.

Over 90 percent of the world’s fish stocks are now fished to capacity or overfished. Despite this, scientists’ calls for reduced fishing have largely fallen on deaf ears. Conventional attempts to manage fisheries are stymied by the limits of logbooks and onboard human observers, and local electronic monitoring systems. Fishing boats that exceed quotas or fish in off-limits areas are rarely caught, operating with impunity in front of local fishermen’s eyes; and even if caught, they are even more rarely punished.

Marine panopticon

The world’s oceans are experiencing an onslaught: As fish have become scarcer, illegal fishing has surged. Rather than merely document the decline of fish stock, Belhabib decided to do something about it. Her solution: to combine ADA, her AI-powered database of marine crimes, with data that tracks vessel movements in real time. She began by tracking signals from the marine traffic transponders carried by oceangoing ships—also known as automatic information systems (AIS). AIS signals are detected by land transceivers or satellites and used to track and monitor individual vessel movements around the world. AIS signals are also detected by other ships in the vicinity, reducing the potential for ship collisions. Belhabib and her team then built an AI-powered risk assessment tool called GRACE (in honor of the pioneering coder Grace Hopper), which predicts risks of environmental crimes at sea. When combined with vessel detection devices such as AIS, GRACE provides real-time information on the likelihood of a particular ship committing environmental crimes, which can be used by enforcement agencies to catch the criminals in the act. Belhabib’s database means that criminal vessels—which often engage in multiple forms of crime, including human trafficking and drug smuggling, as well as illegal fishing—now find it much harder to hide.

The high seas are one of the world’s last global commons, largely unregulated. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea provides little protection for the high seas, two-thirds of the ocean’s surface. The adoption of a new United Nations treaty on the high seas in 2023 will create more protection, but this will require years to be implemented. Even within 200 nautical miles of the coast, where national authorities have legal jurisdiction, most struggle to monitor the oceans beyond the areas a few miles from the coast. And beyond the 200-mile limit, no one effectively governs the open ocean.

So Belhabib hands her data on human rights and labor abuses over to Global Fishing Watch, a not-for-profit organization that collaborates with the national Coast Guards and Interpol to target vessels suspected of illegal fishing for boarding, apprehend rogue fishing vessels, and police the boundaries of marine parks. The observatory visualizes, tracks, and shares data about global fishing activity in near real time and for free; launched at the 2016 U.S. State Department’s “Our Ocean” conference in Washington, it is backed by some of the world’s largest foundations. Its partners include Google (which provides tools for processing big data), the marine conservation organization Oceana, and SkyTruth—a not-for-profit that uses satellite imagery to advance environmental protection.

Global Fishing Watch uses satellite data on boat location, combined with Belhabib’s data on criminal activity, to train artificial intelligence algorithms to identify vessel types, fishing activity patterns, and even specific gear types (tasks that would require human fisheries experts hundreds of years to complete). The tracking system pinpoints each individual fishing vessel with laser-like accuracy, predicts whether it is actually fishing, and even identifies what type of fishing is underway. Their reports have revealed that half of the global ocean is actively fished, much of it covertly.

Fred Abrahams, a researcher with Human Rights Watch, explains that this approach is just one example of a new generation of conservation technology that could act as a check on anyone engaged in resource exploitation. His team at Human Rights Watch uses satellite imagery to track everything from illegal mining to undercover logging operations. As Abrahams says: “This is why we are so committed to these technologies . . . they make it much harder to hide large-scale abuses.” Abrahams, like other advocates, is confident that the glitches—for example, AIS tags are not yet carried by all fishing vessels globally, poor reception makes coverage in some regions challenging, and some boats turn off the AIS when they want to go into stealth mode—will eventually be solved. Researchers have recently figured out, for example, how to use satellites to triangulate the position of fishing boats in stealth mode—enabling tracking of so-called dark fleets. These results can inform a new era of independent oversight of illegal fishing and transboundary fisheries. Meanwhile, researchers are developing other applications for AIS data, including assessments of the contribution of ship exhaust emissions to global air pollution, the exposure of marine species to shipping noise, and the extent of forced labor—often hidden, and linked to human trafficking—on the world’s fishing fleets.

It’s a herculean task for one organization to police the world’s oceans. And Global Fishing Watch’s data is mostly retroactive; by the time the data is analyzed and the authorities have arrived, fishing vessels have often left the scene. What is still lacking is a method for marine criminals to be more effectively tracked in real time, and apprehended locally. This is where Belhabib’s next venture comes in. She is now working with local governments in Africa—where much illegal fishing is concentrated—to provide them with trackers and AI-powered technologies to catch illegal fishing and other maritime crimes in the act. As she notes: “When you ask the Guinean Navy how much of their territorial waters they can actually monitor, it’s only a fraction of a vast area. They simply don’t have the resources.” Belhabib’s system pinpoints vessels that may be committing infractions, and assesses the risk live on screen. This allows the Coast Guard and other agencies such as Interpol to more easily find illegal fishers, while reducing the costs of deployment, monitoring, and interdiction.

She cautions, however, about the use of similar digital technologies to track illegal migrants. The European Union, for example, has strengthened its “digital frontier” through satellite monitoring, unmanned drones, and remotely piloted aircraft, in some cases relying on private security and defense companies to undertake data analytics and tracking. But these technologies are often focused on surveillance rather than search and rescue of migrants stranded at sea. As Belhabib relates: “Recently I spoke with the Spanish Navy and they told me they watched over 100 people die when a boat full of migrants capsized and they could only save a few people. They told me, ‘We take their fish away, they risk their lives to have a better and decent life.’ It’s heartbreaking and avoidable.” In Belhabib’s view, Digital Earth technologies should prioritize ecological and humanitarian goals, rather than surveillance and profit.

Digital Earth technologies enable more rapid detection and, in some cases, prediction of marine crimes. Digital monitoring, combined with artificial intelligence, allows precise analysis of fishing vessel locations and movements at a global scale. Although this does not guarantee enforcement, it could enable more efficient policing of the world’s oceans. The use of digital technologies enables conservationists to tackle two common flaws that lead to failures in environmental enforcement. First: data is scarce; if available, there is often a time lag, geographical gaps, or data biases. This makes evidence-gathering difficult or impossible. Second, enforcement often comes too late. Environmental criminals can be prosecuted, but legal victories are uncertain, and happen after the damage has been done. These shortcomings of contemporary environmental governance—sparse data, unenforceable regulations, and patchy, sporadic enforcement that punishes but fails to prevent environmental harm—can be overcome by digital monitoring, which mobilizes abundant data in real time to gather systematic evidence and enable timely enforcement.

These techniques appear to be achieving some success. In Ghana, for example, there has been a long-standing conflict between industrial fishing boats and small-scale, artisanal fishers using canoes and small boats to fish near the shore. Satellite data has helped the government’s Fisheries Enforcement Unit track and reduce the incursions of larger fishing boats into near-shore waters. In Indonesia, the world’s largest archipelago country with the second-longest coastline in the world, the government has entered into an agreement with Global Fishing Watch data to monitor fisheries and share the data about vessels’ movements publicly online, a major step forward in transparency in fisheries enforcement. The Indonesian partnership is an example of the longer-term aim of Global Fishing Watch: to share its geospatial datasets and online mapping platform with governments around the world.

Despite these recent gains to combat illegal fishing, digital tech is also exacerbating the underlying problem, as fishers themselves have started taking advantage of digital strategies. One example is the growing use of fish aggregating devices, which use acoustic technology, combined with satellite-linked global positioning systems, to better spot schools of fish. Fishers can effectively assess location, biomass, and even species, allowing them to aggregate and fish more efficiently. Digitization is ratcheting up the already intensely competitive fishing industry and accelerating the overfishing of endangered species.

Even if conservationists can win this digital arms race, there is a more fundamental problem: The underlying structural drivers of overfishing—consumer demand, particularly in Asia and Europe, and a lack of adequate governance for the high seas—are not solvable by digital technologies alone. Governance reform and digital innovation must work in tandem. For example, in the absence of government regulation, digital monitoring of fishing on the open ocean would be unlikely to scale up. But the adoption of the new UN treaty on the high seas in 2023 included a significant commitment to creating new Marine Protected Areas, aligned with Global Biodiversity Convention’s commitment to protect 30 percent of the Earth’s land and oceans by 2030.

These new developments create an impetus for digital monitoring; and, in turn, digital monitoring will increase the likelihood that Marine Protected Areas will be effective at protecting fish populations. This illustrates two key points about environmental governance in the 21st century: the interplay between digital and governance innovation, and the fact that planetary governance of the environment is possible only with planetary-scale computation.

Karen Bakker was a Guggenheim Fellow, a Professor at the University of British Columbia, and the Matina S. Horner Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. She was the author of “The Sounds of Life” (Princeton University Press) and “Gaia’s Web,” from which this article is excerpted. Karen Bakker died on August 14, 2023.

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Lampreys look like something out of a horror movie, with their sucky mouths chock full of teeth, eel-like bodies, and parasitic behaviors. These “water vampires” represent a bit of an evolutionary fork in the road between vertebrates and invertebrates, and the scientific debate about just how closely related we are to these carnivorous fish has taken yet another turn. 

Scientists found some evidence that lampreys have a rudimentary sympathetic nervous system–which is believed to control the fight-or-flight reaction in vertebrates. The findings are detailed in a study published April 17 in the journal Nature and could prompt a rethink of the origins of the sympathetic nervous system.

Lampreys are the closest living organisms scientists have to studying the fish ancestors that vertebrates evolved from some 550 million years ago. They belong to an ancient vertebrate lineage called Agnatha–or jawless fish. Some scientists believe that they represent the earliest group of vertebrates that is still living and can give us an evolutionary window into all vertebrate ancestors. Other scientists question the theories due to a lack of lamprey evidence in the fossil record. 

[Related: Giant prehistoric lamprey likely sucked blood—and ate flesh.]

Scientists previously believed that lampreys did not have sympathetic neurons. These neurons are part of the sympathetic nervous system, a system of nerves that target the internal organs throughout the body including the gut, pancreas, and heart. The system works together to respond to dangerous or stressful situations. It also helps an organism’s body maintain homeostasis, making sure that the heart keeps pumping, the digestive system keeps moving, and more. 

In this new study, a team used lampreys to look at how developmental changes may have promoted the evolution of vertebrate traits like fight-or-flight. They found evidence of the types of stem cells that eventually form sympathetic neurons. The presence of these cells in lampreys could revise the timeline of when the sympathetic nervous system began to evolve. 

“Over a hundred years of literature has suggested that lamprey lack a sympathetic nervous system,” study co-author and California Institute of Technology biologist Marianne Bronner said in a statement. “Surprisingly, we found that sympathetic neurons do, in fact, exist in lamprey but arise at a much later time in lamprey development than expected.”

Bronner and her team studied neural crest cells. These are a kind of stem cells that are specific to vertebrates and give rise to the multiple cell types found throughout the body. Scientists previously believed that lampreys lacked the neural crest-derived precursors, or progenitors, that ultimately build the sympathetic nervous system.

According to Bronner, researchers previously looked for evidence of a sympathetic nervous system too early in lamprey development compared to other animals. For example, the sympathetic nervous system forms in the first two to three days of development in birds. 

[Related: You might have more in common with the sea lamprey than you realize.]

Study co-author and Cal Tech evolutionary biologist Brittany Edens looked at the neural crest–derived progenitor cells in lampreys that ultimately give rise to sympathetic neurons. She found that in lampreys, the neural crest–derived progenitors appear much later than other animals. They can appear as long as one month after fertilization. The cells also do not fully mature into neurons until about four months of development, during the fish’s larval stage.

It is still not known whether the sympathetic nervous system of lampreys controls fight-or-flight-like behaviors similar to other vertebrates. According to the team, these findings suggest that the developmental program that controls the formation of sympathetic neurons remains across all vertebrates, from lamprey to mammals. 

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The Central California coast is proving to be a playground for baby sharks. Earlier this year, we caught a glimpse of what could be the first images of a newborn great white shark. Now, we’re learning more about where they like to live during their formative years. Juvenile great white sharks select warm and shallow waters and congregate about half a mile from shore. These findings are described in a study published April 19 in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science and could have crucial conservation implications.

This water column is too cold

After they’re born, baby great white sharks–called pups–do not get any care from their parents. This new study looked at one of these populations of young sharks off Padaro Beach near Santa Barbara in Central California. Here, pups and juveniles gather together in ‘nurseries’ and are unaccompanied by adults in a sort of shark never, neverland, except these fish will eventually grow up.

“This is one of the largest and most detailed studies of its kind, because around Padaro Beach, large numbers of juveniles share near-shore habitats, we could learn how environmental conditions influence their movements,”study co-author and California State University, Long Beach marine biologist Christopher Lowe said in a statement. “You rarely see great white sharks exhibiting this kind of nursery behavior in other locations.”

[Related: This could be the first newborn great white shark ever captured on camera.]

In 2020 and 2021, the team tagged 22 juveniles with sensor-transmitters. Great white sharks can live for up to 40 to 70 years and the younger sharks in this study were all females and males between one and six years old. The sensor-transmitters measured local water pressure and temperature in real time. They also tracked each shark’s position by sending out “pings” to several receivers spread out over roughly two miles along the shoreline. 

When the juveniles temporarily left for offshore waters in the winter, the tracking was stopped. The team gathered more information on the temperature distribution with an autonomous underwater vehicle. With this data in hand, they used artificial intelligence to generate a 3D model of the juveniles’ temperature and depth preferences.

The juveniles dived to the greatest depths around dawn and dusk. This is likely when they were foraging for rays, skates, and schooling fish. They moved closer to the surface–between zero and 13 feet deep–during the afternoon when the sun was warmest. This shift towards the warmer water was potentially to increase their body temperature. They directly altered their vertical position within the water column to stay between 60 degrees and 71 degrees Fahrenheit. Their sweet spot also appeared to be between 68 and 71 degrees. 

“This may be their optimum to maximize growth efficiency within the nursery,” study co-author and California State University, Long Beach research technician Emily Spurgeon said in a statement. 

Keeping to the shallows

The temperature distribution in the water changes quite frequently, which means that the juveniles must constantly be on the move to remain within optimal range. They believe that this is why juvenile great white sharks spend more time in shallow water than adults tend to. Additionally, adult sharks were rarely observed in the nursery.

[Related: With new tags, researchers can track sharks into the inky depths of the ocean’s Twilight Zone.]

According to the team, the results show that the temperature distribution across three dimensions strongly impacted how the juvenile sharks were distributed. They spread out at greater depths when seafloor temperatures were warmer, and moved closer together towards the surface of the water when deeper water was cooler.

However, the team is still not sure what benefits the pups and juveniles have from gathering in nurseries in the first place. It could potentially help them avoid predators like some whales.

“Our results show that water temperature is a key factor that draws juveniles to the studied area,” said Spurgeon. “However, there are many locations across the California coast that share similar environmental conditions, so temperature isn’t the whole story. Future experiments will look at individual relationships, for example to see if some individuals move among nurseries in tandem.”

Great white sharks are considered vulnerable, with their populations decreasing in some parts of the world. Knowing where baby and juvenile sharks like to hang out can help inform better conservation laws to protect them as a species. It can also help protect the public from negative shark encounters. 

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Another day in science, another massive, ancient snake discovery. Paleontologists in India have unearthed fossilized vertebrae from a snake that slithered around the sub-continent about 47 million years ago and may have grown as long as nearly 50 feet. The newly discovered, extinct species is named Vasuki inidicus, after the mythical serpent coiled around the neck of the Hindu god Shiva, and is described for the first time in a study published April 18 in the journal Scientific Reports. 

“Vasuki is an important piece of an ancient puzzle. It contributes to our understanding of this extinct group, and also to our understanding of large, apex, top-of-the-foodchain snakes in general,” says John Jacisin III, a paleontologist at the University of Texas at Austin who researches reptiles but was uninvolved in the new study. Beyond reptiles, the fossil find carries broader clues to India’s climate tens of millions of years ago. “It’s also just a cool snake because it was so big,” he says, comparing its length to longer than that of a yellow school bus. 

Sunil Bajpai, co-author of the study and a vertebrate paleontologist at the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, first discovered the fossilized snake remains in 2005 at a coal mine in western India. Over the course of a slow and careful excavation, 27 vertebrates–all likely to be from the same individual–were uncovered. By analyzing the size ratios of various parts of the vertebrae and the fossils unique shapes and protrusions, Bajpai and his co-researcher established the remains were that of a new species in the extinct family of Madtsoiidae, which were primitive snakes similar to boas and pythons. 

The fist-sized fossils are second only in girth and width to those of Tintanoboa, another giant snake estimated to have lived about 58 million years ago in what is now present-day Colombia. Based on the age of the rock the newly described vertebrae were found in, the researchers date Vasuki to about 47 million years ago, just a few million years after the Indian tectonic plate began colliding with Eurasia. According to the new study, the timing supports the idea that Madtsoiids originated in India, and later moved to North Africa and southern Eurasia, where other, later fossil specimens have been found. 

It’s a challenge to accurately deduce total species body size from a single individual’s incomplete skeleton. But using model equations incorporating data on current, living snakes and the known fossil record, Bajpai and his colleague, Debajit Datta–another vertebrate paleontologist at the same institution, estimate that V. indicus was somewhere between about 36 and and 49.9 feet (10.9 and 15.2 meters) long. The only known snake of comparable size was Titanoboa, currently the record-holder for the largest snake to have ever lived. Titanoboa clocked in at an estimated 35 to 50 feet long, with the mean estimate around 42 feet in length. The relative vertebrate sizes indicate that Titanoboa was a heavier, thicker-bodied snake than V. indicus, yet it’s impossible to know exactly which snake species would’ve won the measuring contest. 

“Based on the data at hand Vasuki was only slightly smaller in length than Titanoboa,” Bajpai and Datta write in a joint email to PopSci. “However, we cannot entirely rule out the possibility of Vasuki being slightly larger than Titanoboa, because the fossil vertebrae in our collection may not have come from the largest individual of Vasuki. The same, however, can also be said for Titanoboa. Since neither of these snakes are known from complete skeletons, we cannot say with certainty whether one was longer or wider than the other.”

Exact size estimates are liable to change as more fossils are found and more analysis is done. “Everything shrinks when the tape measure comes out,” says Alexandra Howard, a paleobiologist and herpetologist at Texas A&M University who was not involved in the new research. “It’s a running joke [in paleontology], everyone always finds the biggest thing,” she adds–and with more discovery and scrutiny the biggest size estimates tend to scale down. Nonetheless, Howard says the new discovery includes some very well-preserved fossils and is an interesting addition to our knowledge of ancient reptiles. “The past was full of giant snakes. That’s really cool,” she says.

And, either way, second place in size isn’t so bad, especially when you’re separated from your closest competitor by about 10 million years. Vasuki was probably a slow-slithering ambush predator that constricted its prey like a python, according to Bajpai and Datta. Based on morphology and the location it was found in, the researchers believe the monstrous snake was either terrestrial or semi-aquatic–living in marsh or coastal swamp. It was found in rock that also contains fossils of rays, sharks, bony fish, turtles, crocodiles, and primitive whales, Bajpai and Datta note–though what it ate is unclear. 

Beyond its massive size, the new paleontological discovery is notable for what it can tell us about our planet 47-50 million years ago. “It’s an important discovery because it shows us another example of extreme gigantism in snakes… and because you can use snakes as a thermometer to reconstruct climates of the past,” says Jason Head, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Cambridge in England who was one of the primary researchers involved in discovering Titanoboa. 

We know from geological and paleontological research that the time period, part of the Eocene Epoch, was warm, but Vasuki offers another data point indicating exactly what the climate may have been like where it was found. Snakes are ectotherms (commonly known as “cold-blooded”), so their body temperature and size is closely linked with the ambient temperature. The larger a snake is, the slower its metabolic rate, and so the warmer the climate must be for it to survive, Head explains. Estimates from modeling equations indicate that Vasuki’s habitat averaged around 28 degrees Celsius (82.4 degrees Fahrenheit), which is slightly warmer than the average annual temperature in the same region today. 

The ancient climate data can aid in understanding the present and where we’re headed under current climate change, says Head. “Those are the hottest latitudes and the hottest intervals, that’s going to tell us a lot about what those places might be like in the future.”

As paleontologists continue to dig into the past, predictions of the future may become clearer. And also, massive, ancient snakes are liable to keep appearing. “We understand so little about the past diversity of life on Earth,” Head notes. “I think there are probably more giant snakes to come.”

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Glistening in the dry expanses of the Nevada desert is an unusual kind of power plant that harnesses energy not from the sun or wind, but from the Earth itself.

The site, known as Project Red, pumps water thousands of feet into the ground, down where rocks are hot enough to roast a turkey. Around the clock, the structure sucks the heated water back up; it is then used to power generators. Since last November, this carbon-free, Earth-borne power has been flowing onto a local grid in Nevada.

Geothermal energy, though it’s continuously radiating from Earth’s super-hot core, has long been a relatively niche source of electricity, largely limited to volcanic regions like Iceland where hot springs bubble from the ground. But geothermal enthusiasts have dreamed of sourcing Earth power in places without such specific geological conditions—like Project Red’s Nevada site, developed by energy startup Fervo Energy.

Such next-generation geothermal systems have been in the works for decades, but they’ve proved expensive and technologically difficult, and have sometimes even triggered earthquakes. Some experts hope that newer efforts like Project Red may now, finally, signal a turning point, by leveraging techniques that were honed in oil and gas extraction to improve reliability and cost-efficiency.

The advances have garnered hopes that with enough time and money, geothermal power—which currently generates less than 1 percent of the world’s electricity, and 0.4 percent of electricity in the United States—could become a mainstream energy source. Some posit that geothermal could be a valuable tool in transitioning the energy system off of fossil fuels, because it can provide a continuous backup to intermittent energy sources like solar and wind. “It’s been, to me, the most promising energy source for a long time,” says energy engineer Roland Horne of Stanford University. “But now that we’re moving towards a carbon-free grid, geothermal is very important.”

A rocky start

Geothermal energy works best with two things: heat, plus rock that is permeable enough to carry water. In places where molten rock sizzles close to the surface, water will seep through porous volcanic rock, warm up and bubble upward as hot water, steam or both.

If the water or steam is hot enough—ideally at least around 300 degrees Fahrenheit—it can be extracted from the ground and used to power generators for electricity. In Kenya, nearly 50 percent of electricity generated comes from geothermal. Iceland gets 25 percent of its electricity from this source, while New Zealand gets about 18 percent and the state of California, 6 percent.

Some natural geothermal resources are still untapped, such as in the western United States, says geologist Ann Robertson-Tait, president of GeothermEx, a geothermal energy consulting division at the oilfield services company SLB. But by and large, we’re running out of natural, high-quality geothermal resources, pushing experts to consider ways of extracting geothermal energy from areas where the energy is much harder to access. “There’s so much heat in the Earth,” Robertson-Tait says. But, she adds, “much of it is locked inside rock that isn’t permeable.”

Tapping that heat requires deep drilling and creating cracks in these non-volcanic, dense rocks to allow water to flow through them. Since 1970, engineers have been developing “enhanced geothermal systems” (EGS) that do just that, applying methods similar to the hydraulic fracturing—or fracking—used to suck oil and gas out of deep rocks. Water is pumped at high pressure into wells, up to several miles deep, to blast cracks into the rocks. The cracked rock and water create an underground radiator where water heats before rising to the surface through a second well. Dozens of such EGS installations have been built in the United States, Europe, Australia and Japan—most of them experimental and government-funded—with mixed success.

Famously, one EGS plant in South Korea was abruptly shuttered in 2017 after having probably caused a 5.5 magnitude earthquake; fracking of any kind can add pressure to nearby tectonic faults. Other issues were technological—some plants didn’t create enough fractures for good heat exchange, or fractures traveled in the wrong direction and failed to connect the two wells.

Some efforts, however, turned into viable power plants, including several German and French systems built between 1987 and 2012 in the Rhine Valley. There, engineers made use of existing fractures in the rock.

But overall, there just hasn’t been enough interest to develop EGS into a more reliable and lucrative technology, says geophysicist Dimitra Teza of the energy research institute Fraunhofer IEG in Karlsruhe, Germany, who helped develop some of the Rhine Valley EGS systems. “It has been quite tough for the industry.”

New momentum

Solutions exist for both safety and technological problems. There are, in fact, robust protocols for avoiding earthquakes, such as by not drilling near active faults. Long-term monitoring of the operating EGS plants in France and Germany has documented only minor tremors, building confidence in the safety of the technology. Importantly, drilling and fracking methodology has improved by leaps and bounds, thanks to the boom in oil and gas extraction from shale rocks that began in the 2010s. “Since then, we’ve seen a renewed interest in EGS as a concept, because the techniques that are central to EGS were perfected and brought down significantly in cost during that time,” says Wilson Ricks, an energy systems researcher at Princeton University.

In 2015, for instance, the US Department of Energy launched a research site in Utah dedicated to advancing EGS technologies. Several new North American startups, including Sage Geosystems and E2E Energy Solutions, are developing new EGS systems in Texas and Canada, respectively. The most advanced is Fervo Energy, which has applied several techniques from the shale industry at its Nevada site; the electricity now supplies a local grid that includes energy-sucking data storage centers owned by Google. (Google partnered with Fervo to develop the plant.)

Engineers drilled almost 8,000 feet downward into the Nevada rock, reaching temperatures of nearly 380 degrees Fahrenheit, and then, at the bottom, drilled another 3,250-foot horizontal well to expand the area of hot rock that the system touches—a technique used in oil and gas extraction in order to maximize yield. The company also fractured the surrounding rock at several sites along the horizontal well to create a more extensive web of cracks for water to trickle through. Technologically speaking, compared to earlier EGS efforts, “they are, in fact, a big step forward,” says Horne, who is on Fervo’s scientific advisory board.

It remains to be seen how these new EGS systems perform in the long term. One advantage of systems like Fervo’s is that they can be made more profitable by taking advantage of energy price fluctuations, according to recent research by Ricks, a Princeton colleague and several experts at Fervo Energy. Operators could plug the exit wells, causing water to accumulate inside the system, building up pressure and heat. Then the energy could be extracted during times when it is most valuable—such as during cloudy or windless periods when solar or wind aren’t working.

Still, such systems would have to be significantly scaled up to be commercially viable, Ricks says. Although Project Red provided enough steam to generate 3.5 megawatts more any other EGS plant, it’s still relatively small; a nuclear or coal plant can easily have an output of 1,000 megawatts, while large solar or traditional geothermal plants often produce several hundred megawatts.

What the EGS field needs right now, Ricks says, is the funding to build and test more such systems to inspire investor confidence. “This all needs to be very well proven, out to the point where the perceived risk is low,” he says.

A turning point for geothermal?

To that end, the US Department of Energy recently awarded $60 million in funding to three demonstration projects for EGS and related technologies as part of a broader initiative to speed up EGS development. One 2019 report from the agency estimated that, with advances in EGS, geothermal power could represent around 60 gigawatts (60,000 megawatts) of installed capacity in the United States by 2050, generating 8.5 percent of the country’s electricity—a more-than-20-fold increase from today.

Even an increase of a few percent could aid in a global energy transition that’s aiming to get to net zero carbon emissions by 2050. “If in fifteen, twenty years, EGS is viable, I think it could play a huge part,” says Nils Angliviel de La Beaumelle, who recently coauthored an article on the global outlook for renewable energy in the Annual Review of Environment and Resources.

Other geothermal technologies may also help. Some companies are exploring the feasibility of “super hot rock” geothermal—essentially, a young, extreme variant of EGS that involves drilling down even deeper into Earth’s crust, to a depth where water reaches a “supercritical” vapor-like state that allows it to carry much more energy than either steam or liquid. In southern Germany, the energy company Eavor is building the world’s first “closed-loop” geothermal system: Once pipes funnel water into the deep rock, the system fans out into a network of parallel boreholes, without water ever penetrating the rock. That’s a more predictable—albeit less efficient—way of warming water, as it doesn’t involve uncertainties around fracturing the rock in the right way, Teza says. “I’m really excited to see that there’s investment into these technologies,” she says. “I think it can only help.”

On the whole, it’s an important moment for geothermal energy—and not just for providing carbon-free electricity, Robertson-Tait says. Geothermal brines hauled out of the Earth are rich in lithium and other critical minerals that can be used to build green technologies like solar panels and EV batteries. There’s a growing push to use direct geothermal heat to warm buildings, either through shallow heat pumps for residential buildings or larger systems designed for entire districts—like Paris and Munich already have.

Some oil and gas companies, recognizing that a change is coming, are increasingly interested in building geothermal systems of various kinds, says Robertson-Tait. “Our Earth is geothermal,” she says, “and so I think we owe it to ourselves to do everything we can to use it.”

This article originally appeared in Knowable Magazine, an independent journalistic endeavor from Annual Reviews. Sign up for the newsletter.

Editor’s note: This story was updated on April 22, 2024, to correct a mischaracterization of Project Red as a power plant. In fact, Project Red includes only the EGS infrastructure. The electricity itself is generated by a power plant under ownership of another company. A caption was also updated to correct the spelling of Larderello in Italy.

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Paleontologists already know that the extinct marine reptile ichthyosaurs were enormous. Some newly described jawbone fossils uncovered in England represent a new ichthyosaur species. The bones indicate that the ocean titan may have been over 82 feet long, and even pushed the possible limits of vertebrate size. The new find is detailed in a study published April 17 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.

“This research has been ongoing for almost eight years. It is quite remarkable to think that gigantic, blue whale-sized ichthyosaurs were swimming in the oceans around what was the UK during the Triassic Period,” study co-author and University of Manchester paleontologist Dean Lomax said in a statement. “These jawbones provide tantalizing evidence that perhaps one day a complete skull or skeleton of one of these giants might be found. You never know.”

Meet the ichthyosaurs

Ichthyosaurs are an extinct group of reptiles that are distant relatives of today’s lizards and snakes. They had long fins and were potentially ambush predators like today’s great white sharks and wolves, feeding on fish and other marine dwellers. Ichthyosaurs also may have followed migration patterns that are similar to today’s whales. 

[Related: These ancient, swimming reptiles may have been the biggest animals of all time.]

They lived 228 to 112 million years ago and they were most abundant during the Triassic and Jurassic eras. There are over 100 known ichthyosaur species. Their remains have been found in parts of Asia, North America, and Europe. A fossil deposit in present day Nevada may have even been an ichthyosaur birthing ground. 

Solving a prehistoric jigsaw puzzle 

Over several years, a team from The University of Manchester has discovered and pieced together individual fragments of an ichthyosaur jawbone. A jawbone uncovered in 2016 at the Westbury Mudstone Formation in Somerset was similar to one collected from the same rock formation just a few miles away. The team believe that both of these jawbones belong to a previously undescribed species of ichthyosaur.

In 2020, a father and daughter from Devon named Justin and Ruby Reynolds found the first pieces of the second jawbone to be found in May 2020. Ruby was 11 years-old at the time and found the first chunk of giant bone before searching for more pieces. The family contacted Lomax and fossil collector and study co-author Paul de la Salle, who found the first jawbone in 2016. 

“I was amazed by the find. In 2018, my team studied and described Paul’s giant jawbone and we had hoped that one day another would come to light,” said Lomax. “This new specimen is more complete, better preserved, and shows that we now have two of these giant bones–called a surangular–that have a unique shape and structure. I became very excited, to say the least.”

Over time, several members of the Reynolds family, Paul, and Lomax’s research team visited the site to hunt for more pieces of this rare discovery. They found more pieces of the same jaw which happened to fit together perfectly.

[Related: Why kids make the best amateur fossil hunters.]

“It was so cool to discover part of this gigantic ichthyosaur. I am very proud to have played a part in a scientific discovery like this,” Ruby Reynolds said in a statement. Ruby and her father are both listed as co-authors of the new study. 

A new ichthyosaur species

The final piece of bone was recovered in October 2022. The research team found that the jaw bones belong to a new species of giant ichthyosaur they named Ichthyotitan severnensis, or “giant fish lizard of the Severn.” It was likely the size of the blue whale–today’s largest living organism. Comparing the two examples of the same bone with the same unique features from the same geologic time zone helps support the idea that it is a new species. 

The bones are about 202 million years old and date back to the end of the Triassic Period called the Rhaetian. During the Rhaetian, gigantic ichthyosaurs swam while dinosaurs walked on land. However, this was when ichthyosaurs’ time on Earth came to a close. They went extinct during the Late Triassic global mass extinction event some 200 million years ago and these bones represent the very last of their kind. Dinosaurs would not go on to live another 134 million years. 

While this new discovery is not the first giant ichthyosaur, these findings are unique among those known to science. These two bones appear about 13 million years after their latest geologic relatives. These include Shonisaurus sikanniensis from British Columbia, Canada, and Himalayasaurus tibetensis from Tibet, China. A closer examination of the bones’ internal structures also confirmed that the animal was likely still growing at its time of death.

“The anomalous periosteal growth of these bones hints at yet to be understood bone developmental strategies, now lost in the deep time, that likely allowed late Triassic ichthyosaurs to reach the known biological limits of vertebrates in terms of size,” Marcello Perillo, a study co-author and a paleobiology master’s student at the University of Bonn in Germany, said in a statement. “So much about these giants is still shrouded by mystery, but one fossil at a time we will be able to unravel their secret.”

The ichthyosaur bones will soon be on display at the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery.

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Robotic engineers are no stranger to turning to nature for inspiration. In recent years, birds, dogs, extinct sea creatures, and even humans themselves have all served as jumping off point for new mechanical designs. Now, researchers from Stanford are citing the Harvestman spider, better known as a daddy long-legs as inspiration for a new robot design they believe could be better equipped at navigating uneven rocky caverns and lava tubes. One day, they hope this spider-like design could even help robots navigate the icy caverns of the moon and Mars. 

How does the spider robot work?

The researchers introduced their new machine called the “ReachBot” in a paper published today in the journal Science Robotics. ReachBot features multiple extendable boom limbs which it can use to reach out for rocks and propel itself forward. Each limb comes attached with a three finger gripper that grabs onto the rocks and uses them as anchor points. The long-legged design means the robot’s limbs can potentially access the floor, ceiling, and walls of a lava tube or cave, which in turn provide increased leverage. This unique positioning, the researchers write, lets the ReachBot “assume a wide variety of possible configurations, bracing stances, and force application options.”

ReachBot attempts to fill in a form-factor gap among existing exploration robots. Small robots, the researchers argue, are useful for navigating through tight corridors but typically have limited reach. Larger robots, by contrast, might be able to reach more area but can get bogged down by their heft mass and mechanical complexity. ReachBot offers a compromise by relying on a small main body with limbs that can expand and reach out if necessary. 

The robot utilizes a set of onboard sensors to scale the area ahead of it and look for concave rocks or other signs suggestive of a graspable area. Like a physical spider. ReachBot doesn’t immediately assume rock surfaces are flat, but instead seeks “rounded features that the gripper can partially enclose.” Researchers say they tested the robot in simulation to help it improve its ability to correctly identify grippable surface areas and aid in footstep planning. Following the simulation, ReachBot was tested in the real-world in an unmanned lava tube near Pisgah crater in Mojave Desert. 

“Results from the field test confirm the predictions of maximum grasp forces and underscore the importance of identifying and steering toward convex rock features that provide a strong grip,” the researchers write. “They also highlight a characteristic of grasp planning with ReachBot, which is that identifying, aiming for, and extending booms involves a higher level of commitment than grasping objects in manufacturing scenarios.”

ReachBot could help researchers explore deep caves and caverns on other planets

Researchers believe ReachBot’s arachnid design could have extraterrestrial applications. Lava tubes like in the Mojave Desert where the robot was tested removes some of the area on the surface of the moon and Mars. In the latter example, researchers say ancient subsurface environments on the Red Planet remain relatively unchanged the time when some believe the planet may have been habitable. These sheltered cavern areas, they write, “could provide sites for future human habitation.” 

In theory, future exploratory space robots could use a design like ReachBot’s to explore deeper into areas contemporary robots could find inaccessible. Elsewhere, researchers are exploring how three-legged jumping machines and four-legged, dog inspired robots could similarly help scientists learn more about undiscovered areas of our solar system neighbors. 

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Life may “find a way,” but how living things evolve is not a neat and orderly process. Instead of a tidy family tree with straight lines added for each new generation, the birth of a new species is much more tangled in reality. New research into one butterfly genus found in the Amazon shows just how entangled those evolutionary lines may be. Hybrids between some species can produce new butterfly species that are genetically distinct from both parent species and their earlier ancestors. The findings are described in a study published April 17 in the journal Nature. 

A third hybrid

In the study, the team focused on the brightly colored Heliconius genus of butterflies found in Central and South America. They are a common model for studying how butterfly wing patterns evolved due to the wide variety of wings within the group. In an 1861 letter to Charles Darwin, naturalist Henry Walter Bates referred to the Heliconius butterflies found in the Amazon as “a glimpse into the laboratory where Nature manufactures her new species.”

For a deeper look into Heliconius’ evolution, the team on this new study harnessed the power of whole-genome sequencing. All living organisms have DNA that is made of four nucleotide bases–adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine. If you know the sequence of bases, you can identify the organism’s unique DNA fingerprint called a pattern. Sequencing determines these patterns and whole genome sequencing in a lab can determine the orders of these bases in one process.  

[Related: You might have more in common with the sea lamprey than you realize.]

The whole-genome sequencing indicated that a hybridization event occurred about 180,000 years ago between Heliconius melpomene and the ancestor of today’s Heliconius pardalinus butterflies. This event produced a third hybrid species called Heliconius elevatus. While it is descended from hybrids, H. elevatus is also a distinct butterfly species and has its own individual traits. These include color pattern, wing shape, flight characteristics, how they choose mates, and more. All three of these distinct species now fly together across a wide area of Amazon and indicate more evidence that hybrids are not always sterile as sometimes previously thought. 

“Historically, hybridization was thought of as a bad thing that was not particularly important when it came to evolution,” study co-author and Harvard University biologist Neil Rosser said in a statement. “But what genomic data have shown is that, actually, hybridization among species is widespread. Over the last 10 or 15 years, there’s been a paradigm shift in terms of the importance of hybridization and evolution.”

An evolutionary surprise

According to the team, this may alter how we view species and speciation. Scientists had generally believed that hybridization inhibited the generation of new species. Hybrid organisms are often born unhealthy or sterile and can’t reproduce, particularly when they are born with two different sex chromosomes. Most species are not perfectly intact tight units, but instead exchange a lot of DNA and can be considered “quite leaky.” The species that are evolving are actually exchanging genes constantly and it can trigger the evolution of new lineages. 

“Normally, species are thought to be reproductively isolated. They can’t produce hybrids that are reproductively fertile,” study co-author and Harvard University biologist James Mallet said in a statement. 

This is a different case for Heliconius  butterflies. They show that hybridization is not only occurring, but has driven the evolution of a new species in itself. While there is now evidence of hybridization between species, confirming if hybridization is involved in speciation has been difficult. 

[Related: Butterflies can remember specific flower foraging routes.]

“The question is: How can you collapse two species together and get a third species out of that collapse?” said Mallet.

This new research provides scientists with a next step in understanding how hybridization and speciation work in evolution. It could also help play a role in the planet’s biodiversity crisis, since fully understanding the question of what we really mean by “species” on a genetic level is important for conservation. It may also help in understanding the carriers of certain diseases. Multiple species of mosquitoes carry malaria, and while they are closely related, we still do not know how they interact or create new hybrids the way Heliconius butterflies do. 

As with evolution itself, this area of study will only continue to untangle as biologists learn more about what really makes a species a species. 

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This article was originally featured on Undark.

For two years, Erica Walker routinely wore ear plugs to dampen the sound of stomping footsteps penetrating her basement apartment ceiling. Still, the noise from her upstairs neighbors, undetected by sound level meters, rumbled in her chest day and night.

“The funny thing about it was that the noise wasn’t loud,” she said. But it bothered her, this unwelcome sensation she couldn’t control.

The pleasant and unpalatable sounds that envelop daily life travel through the air in different frequencies perceived as pitch. In bustling cities, the high-pitched sounds of chirping birds, and emergency sirens mix with the low-pitched thrum of traffic and hum of fans in the still of night.

Low-frequency, or low-pitched noise, like what Walker experienced, is among the most elusive: Traditional measurement tools don’t capture it well, and it’s mostly absent from official consideration outside occupational contexts. Unlike high-frequency sounds, low frequency waves can penetrate walls more easily and carry farther distances, which is why a neighbor might only hear the heavy bass from a party down the street.

But even sounds that aren’t audible to everyone have inspired complaints of headaches, anxiety, heart palpitations, and sleep troubles. And some question whether such symptoms are physiological or psychological. One thing is clear: Low-frequency noise is less studied and less understood than other sounds. And exactly what effects it may—or may not—have on humans is far from settled.

“We’re not at the point yet where we can make causal inferences about how it’s impacted our health,” said Walker, whose experience with her neighbors—which she said contributed to stress, increased blood pressure, and stomach problems—helped inspire her to research noise, now as an assistant professor of epidemiology and founder of the Community Noise Lab at Brown University. But, she added, scientists need to learn how to measure it and “look at its associations with individual and community health.”

Most cities and towns have ordinances that regulate noise under nuisance standards focusing on time-of-day violations, such as the blasting music from a neighbor’s late-night party. In instances when noise is measured, a challenge lies with the most common standard used, which fails to fully capture the low-frequency noise that the World Health Organization has identified as an environmental problem.

In fact, much of the noise that people encounter in their everyday world is concentrated in the lower pitched frequencies, said René Gifford, a professor of hearing and speech sciences at the Vanderbilt School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee. If lower frequency noise is negatively affecting a critical mass of people, said Walker, then it is worth deciphering its complexities.

Meanwhile, “by definition, noise is called unwanted sound,” Walker said. “And so that unwanted definition in sound is very much subjective.” While low-frequency noise may bother some people, the same sound can lull others to sleep.

“It just depends on the individual,” she said. “But I know that there are communities that are inundated with low-frequency sound, and it’s something that we as a country haven’t really grappled with yet.”

Sound ripples from its source like a wave, and its effect depends on various factors: frequency, duration, the environment in which the sound is heard, and the human ear’s subjective perception of its intensity.

Frequency refers to how many times that wave of sound repeats itself over a particular time, and it “gives you the character of the sound that is a little bit different than how loud it is,” Walker said. “So low frequency and high frequency noises can be very loud or they can be very quiet.” (Decibels, meanwhile, measure loudness; most city noise ordinances are based on decibels.)

Low-frequency noise is typically perceived as a low-throbbing or deep rumble. When a freight train moves, for example, it produces vibrations that travel through the ground, moving long distances until they are perceived as both a shaking sensation and low pitch. And then there is infrasound, which is usually set below the human hearing threshold.

In those lower frequencies, the normal variations in human hearing mean that this type of noise can be perceived as vibrations. “The vibratory effects can still impact various physiologic systems within our body,” Gifford said. “It’s just that we’re not processing them through our hearing mechanism.”

The deep rumbling sound of thunder from a distant lightning bolt, for example, can cause vibrations in the chest and throughout the body as the frequency changes from high to low while traveling. “That would be a combination of the feeling that you feel, and you also have the auditory stimulation,” she said.

Infrasound generally doesn’t even audibly register. For example, some of the sound produced by natural events, such as earthquakes, avalanches, and tsunamis, along with human inventions such as distant aircraft and machinery, can be below the human hearing threshold. But some evidence suggests that those extremely low pitches can still be felt in the body.

“Prior to an earthquake, there tends to be infrasound that some research has shown some people can actually feel it or start feeling a little strange, off balance, maybe even nauseated,” Gifford said.

David Woolworth, an acoustic engineer in Oxford, Mississippi, hears a lot of complaints about booming music, often emitting from cars. The advent of inexpensive, low-frequency amplification has changed the sound of music that spills into the environment since The Beatles first performed in 1960s New York, Woolworth said. “They had a tiny little system,” he said of the legendary English rock band. “The people were louder than the band.” Since then, “low frequency amplification became much more efficient, and the amplifiers became lighter and smaller. And now you can have cars driving around that shake a whole neighborhood.”

And while barriers can filter out middle and higher frequencies, those in the lower ranges in general have “thresholds at which windows, walls, and floor ceiling assemblies start to vibrate,” he said.

Meanwhile, the standard way to measure for environmental noise is through a system known as the A-weighted decibel metric, which de-emphasizes low frequencies over higher frequencies, making it harder to measure. Other variables also can interfere in the lower frequencies, both audible and inaudible. “The sound waves propagate further, penetrate building envelopes more easily, and other factors such as topography, wind, location and the sensor you are using can come into play,” Woolworth said.

Various studies, some using animals as subjects, suggest a link between frequencies at the lower end of the spectrum and a negative impact on health. But many of those studies include a limited number of participants. And after many years, much of the research on how and to what extent harm can occur continues. “It’s just that the magnitude of the effects is quite varied across studies,” Gifford said.

Research on the health impact of noise, mostly focused on occupational exposure, dates to the early 20th century. But it wasn’t until the 1970s and 1980s that scientists trained their collective lens on the health impact of environmental noise; low-frequency noise didn’t emerge as a focal point until the ’90s and early aughts, when a number of studies emerged on its impact on quality of sleep. Later research focused exclusively on low-frequency noise have linked it to discomfort, stress, sleep disorders, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular diseases.

In one of Walker’s early experiments, for example, ten healthy men were exposed to short-term, low-frequency and high-frequency noise in an acoustics laboratory and then had their acute cardiovascular and stress responses measured. The results showed decreases in heart rate variability, the variation in time intervals between beats, with exposure to low-frequency rate, in particular. A lowered heart rate variability is associated with the body’s reduced ability to cope with stress.

One of the most notorious sources of low-frequency noise that stirs health-related complaints are electricity-generating wind farms. Researchers have investigated whether exposure to the giant, three-pronged turbine blades rotating contributes to sleep disturbances, dizziness, high blood pressure, and chronic health conditions, such as heart disease. And even though wind farms and their potential connection to health harm are among the most studied in the field, results are inconclusive.

Wind turbines produce a combination of some audible noise and infrasound that some people may be more sensitive to than others, Gifford said. “That’s probably why—and again, this is speculation because we just don’t know why—some people are experiencing issues and reported problems and others don’t,” she said.

Indeed, some studies point to an association between wind turbine noise that puts people who live nearby at higher risk for ill health, like insomnia and nausea. One couple in France even sued for—and won—more than 100,000 euros for symptoms they said were caused by living near a windfarm. But such claims are contentious, and other research suggests that there is no connection.

Robert McCunney, a physician and environmental health expert in Boston, is among those who have concluded that the evidence doesn’t support claims that the low-frequency noise component of wind farms cause direct health effects. He is the main author of a 2014 review of scientific literature on wind turbines and health that found low-frequency noise was more related to annoyance than unique health risks. “As far as I’m aware, the conclusions we drew in that paper are applicable today,” said McCunney, who teaches at Harvard Medical School.

McCunney’s findings were echoed in another study that the Canadian government published in 2014 on the safety of wind farms. The research, which involved residents living in more than 1,000 dwellings near turbines, found that noise exposure annoyed people but was not associated with sleep disruption, stress, and self-reported health effects.

Gas-powered leaf blowers—which operate at a lower frequency than their electrical counterparts—are another common nuisance. In several communities, their sound has become so undesirable that their use is being restricted or outright banned. In a 2017 analysis of leaf blowers, Walker found that the noise the lawn equipment produces can persist at high intensity levels up to 800 feet away.

“The thing about low-frequency noise is that it travels very long distances, it’s hard to abate, and it can penetrate through walls and structures,” she said. “So not only is it ubiquitous, it is insidious.”

However, controversy persists over the sources of low-frequency sounds and whether they actually harm health. A 2022 review of the literature found that some people who are chronically exposed to low-frequency noise can develop significant health conditions. Research on chronic exposure, including in aircraft technicians, has found effects such as changes in the inner ear, depression, mental health disfunction, cellular and tissue damage, and numerous health complications linked to the circulatory system.

In other studies, exposure to low-frequency noise from different sources has shown some effects on the health of both animals and humans. In a 2017 study, researchers put nearly 100 rats into chambers where some were exposed to short sessions of low-frequency sound for 13 weeks below 250 hertz and sound pressure levels of up to 150 decibels. Its findings suggested that low frequency noise “may have possible mutagenic effects and cause massive cell death.”

Meanwhile, a 2014 study involving humans exposed 21 volunteers with normal hearing to 90 seconds of deep, vibrating sound of about 30 hertz in a sound booth. Afterward, fluctuations that recordings captured from the faint sounds flowing from their healthy ears—known as otoacoustic emissions—suggested that the very low frequency sound could be damaging, but reversible, in the short term. It did not show evidence of permanent damage.

A more recent systematic review of studies published in January explored low-frequency noise exposure and cognitive function, which allows thinking, learning, and remembering, found no evidence that low frequency noise affected memory or attention levels. However, the findings suggested that it may reduce “higher-order cognitive functions” such as logical reasoning and mathematical calculations.

Despite the lack of scientific consensus, complaints about low-frequency noises persist. And the most contested of such sounds might be what’s known commonly as the “Worldwide Hum”: For decades, people from North America to Europe and Australia have heard a mysterious, low-pitched noise they describe as a hum, low rumble, or vibration that can annoy them, keep them up at night or induce ill feelings.

In Taos, New Mexico, low-frequency noise has frustrated a small part of the population for years. Theories about the origin of the hum range from industrial equipment to seismic activity and even outer space phenomena. But some speculate that the answer lies within the complexity of the human hearing system. A 2022 study that builds on previous research linked the hum to tinnitus, a condition that fills the ears with ringing, roaring, or buzzing sounds heard only by the sufferer.

Glen MacPherson, a high school science teacher who said he first heard the hum in the spring of 2012 while living in the British Columbia coast of Canada, doesn’t buy the study’s findings. “I’ve got a big problem with that,” he said.

MacPherson, who was the only member of his family to hear the hum, created the World Hum Map and Database Project to document the phenomenon. He has tracked numerous reports from people who are able to hear it—an estimated 2 to 4 percent of the world population. Among them are those with tinnitus who also hear the hum, he wrote in an article, and they have described both as distinct sounds.

While the impact of low-frequency noise from various sources need further exploration, it’s long been well known that prolonged exposure to certain noises, such as leaf blowers, can be hazardous to health, said Jamie Banks, the president of the nonprofit advocacy Quiet Communities.

“There’s a level at which noise can become excessive and harmful, and that’s what we’re concerned with,” Banks said. “We’re concerned with noise at the point where it becomes harmful to health.”

Noise pollution, particularly low-frequency noise, has long received far less attention than air or water pollution. The task of regulating environmental noise is largely left to states and local governments, which set limits that often go unenforced.

A growing movement against the ever-increasing noise of all types in daily life is pushing for the federal government to declare it a public health problem. In June 2023, Quiet Communities filed suit against the Environmental Protection Agency in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., over the lack of noise pollution regulation.

Banks said communities are overwhelmed by low-frequency noise and noise in general. The job of ensuring noise stays within healthy levels belongs to the EPA, she said.

“The EPA has basically turned its back on an entire set of public health problems,” she said. “There are people suffering from noise. Noise is a public health problem and it’s an environmental problem.”

And while it’s known that low-frequency noise may affect health, she said, it’s vital that its long-term implications be fully explored. “It’s chronic noise that can affect non-auditory health.”

Woolworth, the acoustic engineer, said it also would take resources—and time—for communities to incorporate additional metrics that capture a wider range of frequencies. The current technique downplays low-frequency sounds over higher frequencies.

People who are affected by low-frequency noise may not so easily dismiss those unwanted sounds. Even noise-induced annoyance is a factor that “can and does” set up a stress reaction known as the “fight-or-flight” response, Walker said. “If that stress response is constantly being stimulated, can we honestly say it doesn’t cause harm to health?”

And without regulation, Walker said communities are left to handle noise and raise awareness about how people can shield themselves from the impact of low-frequency noise. Her own experience living with the incessant muffled sounds from her upstairs neighbors and finding few resources to deal with the situation, was the catalyst that changed her career path. Now, through her work, she helps communities find ways to manage noise that is affecting their lives.

“As a researcher, if somebody tells me that noise is bothering them, I’m not going to take it lightly,” she said. “That is information that needs to be investigated.”

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Microscopic tardigrades have fascinated scientists for their incredible toughness since they were first discovered back in 1773. They can sense when it’s time to go dormant and enter a tun state under harsh conditions. Tardigrades can even withstand dangerous levels of radiation and a surprising mechanism in the DNA may be why. The process to repair DNA goes into overtime when exposed to the deadly radiation to fix the damaged DNA. The findings are described in a study published April 12 in the journal Current Biology.

“What we saw surprised us,” study co-author and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill biologist Bob Goldstein said in a statement. “The tardigrades are doing something we hadn’t expected.”  

Among the many dangers of excessive radiation exposure is its ability to damage DNA. In humans, the DNA damage from excessive radiation is linked to diseases including various cancers and cardiovascular disease. Tardigrade aka “water bears” can withstand an incredible amount of radiation. In 1963, researchers first discovered that they can survive 1,400 times more intense radiation than humans are known to live through. Now, scientists are getting a glimpse into how their bodies correct the radiation damage in DNA. 

[Related: What you need to know about the tardigrade cannon.]

In this new study, a team at UNC Chapel Hill used lab methods developed over the past 25 years to identify the internal genetic mechanisms tardigrades use to survive radiation exposure. They looked at a species of tardigrade called Hypsibius exemplaris that are not immune to DNA damage from radiation. Instead, they can repair this type of extensive damage. When they are exposed to radiation, tardigrade cells harness the power of hundreds of genes to create new proteins used to repair DNA. These proteins then ramp up the level of DNA repair to levels study co-author and biologist Courtney Clark-Hachtel called “ridiculous.”

“These animals are mounting an incredible response to radiation, and that seems to be a secret to their extreme survival abilities,” Clark-Hachtel said in a statement. “What we are learning about how tardigrades overcome radiation stress can lead to new ideas about how we might try to protect other animals and microorganisms from damaging radiation.”

[Related: We’ve seen how tardigrades walk, and it’s mesmerizing.]

As the UNC-Chapel Hill scientists completed the work, a team from France found similar results in their experiments. Museum of Natural History Paris researchers Jean-Paul Concordet and Anne de Cian and their colleagues found that while gamma rays shattered the DNA of the tardigrades, it didn’t kill them. They also discovered a new tardigrade protein called TRD1 that protects DNA. When it is put into human cells, the protein seems to help them withstand the damage. Concordet told The New York Times that TRD1 may grab onto the chromosomes and keep them in their correct shape, even as the chromosome strands start to fray. Understanding proteins like these can potentially lead to new treatments for cancer and other medical disorders where DNA is damaged. 

“Any tricks they use we might benefit from,” said Concordet. Concordet’s  findings were published as a reviewed preprint in the journal eLife in January. 

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Ever worry that you will run out of places to explore in America? Lucky for you, there are 63 national parks and 429 national park sites across the country—it will take a long time to work your way through the 85 millions acres they encompass. And with additional sites being earmarked for conservation (West Virginia’s New River Gorge was just designated as a national park in 2021, for example), the list of destinations keeps growing and growing.

Remember, it takes some planning to visit the national parks, though the journey you make of it will be worthwhile. One way to optimize the experience is by targeting the lesser-known parks. Avoid the snaking lines at the Grand Canyon and take in the wrinkly sandstone at Capitol Reef. Skip the tortuous campsite-booking system at Acadia and sleep on the sands of Indiana Dunes. Smaller parks might mean fewer amenities and tour outfitters, but that’s where the real beauty of wilderness shines through.

In 2024, National Park Week runs April 20 to April 28. On April 20, entrance fees will be waived to kick off this year’s celebration and encourage people to sign off of screens and visit a national park in person.

Voyageurs National Park, Minnesota

Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Texas

North Cascades National Park, Washington

Lassen Volcanic National Park, California

Capitol Reef National Park, Utah

Biscayne National Park, Florida

Congaree National Park, South Carolina

Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska

New River Gorge National Park and Preserve, West Virginia

Indiana Dunes National Park, Indiana

Haleakalā National Park, Maui, Hawaii

Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona

Bonus National Lakeshore: Picture Rocks, Michigan

This story was originally published in 2023 and updated in 2024.

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As we wait for this spring and summer’s “cicadapocalypse,” when trillions will emerge across the Southern and Midwestern United States, some of the bugs may face a predicament that sounds straight out of science fiction. A sexually transmitted fungal pathogen exclusive to these periodical insects called Massospora cicadina can control them like “a puppet master.” It causes the infected cicadas to act hypersexual and infect other bugs before they eventually die.

Abdomens pierced open by a fungus

Massospora cicadina can affect both broods of periodical cicadas set to emerge in the coming weeks and months. Brood XIII–the Northern Illinois Brood–will emerge for the first time since 2007 and stretches across parts of Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, and northern Illinois. Some of Brood XIX–the Great Southern Brood–will overlap with Brood XIII. The Great Southern Brood last emerged in 2011 and is primarily located in Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Alabama, George, North Carolina, South Carolina, and southern Illinois.

When they emerge, the cicadas molt into adults. Within a week to 10 days, this fungus opens up the backs of their abdomens. Scientists are still not sure when in their life cycle cicadas can initially become infected with Massospora cicadina, but the prevailing hypothesis is that they are infected on their way up from the ground. 

[Related: This parasite deploys mucus slime balls to make ‘zombie ants.’]

According to West Virginia University mycologist Matt Kasson, the infected cicadas look like they have “a gumdrop that’s gotten wet and dropped in chalk dust,” on them.

“If you look at a fungus infected cicada, you’ll see that basically, the backside of the body has been replaced by this chalky white fungal plug,” Kasson tells PopSci. “Now, if you or I had our abdomens pierced open by a fungus or a third of our body was replaced by some parasite, we probably wouldn’t feel well. We probably wouldn’t attempt to mate. We would just feel awful, lay down, and die.”

However, infected cicadas continue to fly around as if nothing is wrong with them even as their genitalia have been consumed by a fungus. They can do this because the fungus has sent them into a period of prolonged wakefulness–a time of increased stamina.

“A hypothesis for that prolonged wakefulness is that the fungus is producing an amphetamine called cathinone,” says Kasson. Kasson says it is similar to one of the synthetic stimulants commonly found in “illegal bath salts that were banned because of the aggressiveness that [they] would cause.” 

A quiet fungal ‘puppet master’

It makes the cicadas act hypersexualized, where males will continue to try to unsuccessfully mate with females and also mimic female behaviors to attract other males to mate with them. This then doubles the number of cicadas that will eventually become infected and is why it can be considered sexually transmitted. 

Massospora cicadina’s ability to keep the host alive long to maximize the number of cicadas infected makes it a biotroph. It does not work like the Ophiocordyceps unilateralis fungus that takes over ants and makes them act like zombies or the fictional fungi from the television show and video game The Last of Us that pops out in a dramatic fashion. 

[Related: The Cicadapocalypse is nigh. 7 cicada facts to know before it hits.]

“It’s a trick of the fungus and it’s like a puppet master,” says Kasson. “It’s pulling the strings to maximize its own survival.”

Infection rates can reach 20 percent of a cicada if the environmental conditions are perfect, but some older studies suggest that it affects about five percent of cicadas in a given brood. 

Optimizing its genome

Massospora cicadina was first discovered in the mid to late 1800’s. Since periodical cicadas only emerge every 13 or 17 years, studying this fungus is difficult. It also can’t be cultured on a petri dish, so mycologists have a limited window to study them and are still not really sure where it comes from. 

In 2016, Brood V emerged near Kasson’s office in West Virginia and some of his graduate students suggested they look for signs of this fungus. They were able to sequence parts of its genome to see what makes it special. What they found was the largest genome ever sequenced for a fungus at about 1.5 billion bases.

“It’s about 20 times bigger than the average human genome and it’s mostly filled with these repetitive sequences called transposable elements,” says Kasson.

They indicate that Massospora cicadina has essentially spent millions of years optimizing its genome right alongside the cicada. The fungus and insect appear to have coevolved so that it can manipulate its host in a specific way to not kill it, but ensure its own survival. According to Kasson, their data on this coevolution hasn’t been published yet, but shows some interesting evolutionary dynamics. 

“What we see is a pattern where basically cicadas evolved in parallel to the fungus all together,” says Kasson. 

Massospora cicadina is not transmissible to humans, but  it would be smart to avoid eating any cicadas that have the white, chalky plugs on their abdomens. The infected bugs will not come with any sort of high or buzz, but do have several toxins that could be dangerous if eaten. 

“We found 1,000 other chemical compounds, some of which are known mycotoxins,” says Kasson. “So proceed with caution if you’re thinking about consuming one of these cicada fungi.”

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Only you can prevent wildfires. It’s a phrase nearly everyone who grew up in the U.S. is familiar with, uttered by a friendly shirtless bruin in blue jeans and a ranger hat: Smokey Bear, who celebrates his 80th birthday this year.

It’s the longest-running PSA campaign in U.S. history, but even after 80 years, “Smokey’s focused prevention message always remains incredibly relevant and important,” says Tracy Danicich, vice president and campaign director at Ad Council. That’s the national nonprofit—in partnership with the USDA Forest Service and National Association of State Foresters (NASF)—that helped bring Smokey to life in the 1940s to educate and raise awareness about wildfire prevention.

Here are a few often overlooked ways to be fire safe and help prevent human-caused forest fires this season. Do Smokey proud this year. 

Wildfire facts

While wildfires can be devastating, it’s important to understand that some fire is beneficial for many landscapes. In fact, many areas around the country implement prescribed burns in parks or natural areas to maintain the health of native plant species, promote biological diversity, and curb the disastrous effects of uncontrolled and unplanned wildfires. Prescribed burns also help eliminate excess downed wood and leaf litter, which not only make for excellent fuel for wildfires, but can make it difficult for healthy forests to flourish.

When these prescribed burns aren’t implemented, if a wildfire does start, often catastrophic loss of entire swaths of forest, homes, and lives can be suffered, and woodland can take decades to recover.

In the U.S. in 2023, there were 3,036 individual homes destroyed by wildfire, an annual average of 7.7 million acres burned over the last 5 years, of which 8 out of 10 were caused by humans. And while year-to-year numbers may fluctuate, climate change leads to longer, drier weather patterns, which in turn open the door for longer and more severe wildfire seasons and more fire-prone wilderness areas.

Fortunately, agencies like the forest service and state foresters are getting better about predicting when and where fires will start that are caused by natural events like lightning, but human-caused occurrences are impossible to predict. What’s more, “It’s surprising how quickly and unintentionally they can happen,” says Kacey KC, Nevada state forester, NASF fire committee vice chair and former NASF president. Fortunately, many are preventable with an extra dose of caution.

Keep campfires under control

Wildfires are often the result of improperly managed campfires. So when starting a blaze at the campground to roast marshmallows for s’mores, do so carefully. And if there’s a burn ban in effect, follow posted rules and do without.

If you are allowed to build a fire, clear an area at least 10-feet in diameter around the fire pit of excess debris like leaf litter, twigs, and wood. Have enough water on hand to fully drown the fire and any stray embers, then ensure there are no low-hanging branches that could catch. Store flammable items away from open flame, and keep your blaze to no more than a few feet high.

After it’s lit, never leave a fire unattended. And when you’re ready to turn in for the night or are heading away from the campsite for the day, Leave No Trace principles dictate that you should thoroughly extinguish the fire so that the coals are soupy and cool to the touch. “If it’s too hot to touch, it’s too hot to leave,” Danicich says, repeating Smokey’s sage advice. KC agrees: “Even the tiniest ember can start a fire.”

If you don’t have enough water, bury what’s left of the embers under a thick layer of dirt. Neglecting to do so could result in one warm coal easily reigniting and starting the fire back up or sending up rogue embers, which can travel up to five miles if caught by the wind.

Be careful when you burn backyard debris

If you live in a place that permits the backyard burning of yard waste and natural debris like leaves and vegetation, check to see if you need a permit before doing so. If you’re allowed, proceed with your burn on a non-windy day, preferably not long after a rain when the landscape won’t be dried to a crisp, making it more likely to ignite with your burn pile. Select a spot—ideally on a durable surface like gravel—far from power lines, tree limbs, vehicles and other equipment where there’s at least three times the clearance of the pile on all sides, including above.

Then clear the immediate area of other flammable debris and loose vegetation and have plenty of water or a garden hose within reach. Water, in conjunction with a shovel for burying the remaining coals and ashes later, helps ensure no embers will reignite the fire. As with campfires, don’t leave your debris pile unattended while it’s burning.

Grill smart

One lesser known wildfire cause: improper disposal of hot coals. If you’re grilling with charcoal briquets, when the cookout is over, don’t throw them in the garbage can right away. Drown the briquets in enough water to fully cover them, then let them soak for several minutes to ensure they’re completely cool before you dispose of them.

Similarly, if placing hot ash or coals from your living room fireplace outside, wait to do so until they’re completely cool to the touch.

Be careful where you put your butt

Smokers should be cautious when smoking outdoors or disposing of smoked cigarettes, tobacco, and joints. Use an ashtray or bare dirt, not dry grass or logs, to put out smoking butts and never toss a lit cigarette into the grass or out a car window. Even the act of smoking while hiking or camping can result in an errant ember catching the wind, landing on dry debris, and igniting. 

Use caution with equipment and maintenance

There are plenty of ways heavy equipment, machinery, and maintenance tools can cause wildfires. Sparks can easily fly from dragging tow chains, hot exhaust pipes can catch dry grass on fire, and lawn mower blades that hit rocks can do the same.

So make sure nothing metal is dragging from your car while driving; avoid mowing when it’s excessively hot, dry, and windy; and if using grinding or welding equipment or other tools that send sparks flying, it’s a good idea—and sometimes required—to have at least 10 feet of clearance between you and anything flammable. Also avoid parking a vehicle with a hot exhaust pipe on dry grass or foliage.

Take it to an indoor range

According to KC, target shooting was one of the biggest causes of accidental fires in 2023. They’re often caused when bullets hit metal or ricochet and cause sparks near dry foliage. So when it’s dry, take it to an indoor range instead.

However you’re enjoying the outdoors as fire season approaches, recreate responsibly, and do your part to prevent forest fires. Call it a birthday present for Smokey.

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Tropical fruit-eating birds are so much more than just eye candy. These wildly colored avians are also a vital part of regenerating tropical forests. Data gathered on the ground in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil indicates that if birds like the red-legged honeycreeper, palm tanager, and toco toucan can move around more freely, carbon storage can increase by up to 38 percent. The findings are detailed in a study published April 15 in the journal Nature Climate Change. 

A crucial, but fragmented landscape

The Atlantic Forest in Brazil is one of the most biologically diverse regions in the world. It’s home to nearly seven percent of the world’s plant species and five percent of all vertebrates. This region is also one of Earth’s most fragmented tropical forests, due to deforestation, agriculture, and other human activities. Roughly 88 percent of its vegetation has been lost in the last 500 years, with only 12 percent of the original forest remaining in a patchwork of micro-forests. Many of these widely scattered forests are too far apart from one another to support bird movement.

Wild birds that eat a variety of fruits–or frugivores–can play a vital role in forest ecosystems by eating, excreting, and spreading seeds as they move around. Between 70 to 90 percent of the tree species living in tropical forests depend on seed dispersal from animals, as it allows the forests to grow and function.  

To combat this, 12 million hectares of land are targeted for restoration and natural recovery under the Atlantic Forest Restoration Pact. New data from this study is helpful for determining how to proceed. 

[Related: Three nations pledge to reverse decades of destruction in the rainforest.]

“This crucial information enables us to pinpoint active restoration efforts–like tree planting–in landscapes falling below this forest cover threshold, where assisted restoration is most urgent and effective,” Daisy Dent, a study co-author and naturalist at ETH Zurich, a public research university in Switzerland, said in a statement. 

Bigger birds, bigger seeds

In the study, the team compared the carbon storage potential that could be recovered in landscapes with limited forest fragmentation to the more splintered landscapes. They found that the  more fragmented landscapes restricted the bird’s movement and more tree cover was needed.

According to the team, a minimum of 40 percent forest cover is critical across the Atlantic Forest region for species diversity and also maintain and restore ecosystem services needed to maximize forest restoration efforts. These ecosystem services include carbon storage and seed dispersal.

Different bird species also have differing impacts in terms of seed dispersal. 

The smaller birds can spread more seeds around, but they can only carry the smaller seeds that have lower carbon storage potential. 

Larger larger birds like the toco toucan or the curl-crested jay can disperse the seeds of bigger trees with a higher carbon storage potential. However, the larger birds are less likely to move across more highly fragmented landscapes.

“Allowing larger frugivores to move freely across forest landscapes is critical for healthy tropical forest recovery,” study co-author and ETH Zurich ecologist and biologist Carolina Bello said in a statement. “This study demonstrates that especially in tropical ecosystems seed dispersal mediated by birds plays a fundamental role in determining the species that can regenerate.”

What can be done

Preventing the poaching of tropical birds is one strategy, as more birds flying around can translate into more trees.

“We have always known that birds are essential, but it is remarkable to discover the scale of those effects,” study co-author and ETH Zurich ecologist Thomas Crowther said in a statement. “If we can recover the complexity of life within these forests, their carbon storage potential would increase significantly.”

[Related: Songbirds near the equator really are hotter, color-wise.]

Earlier studies suggest that recovering these forests could capture more than 2.3 billion tonnes of carbon. Natural regeneration could also be more cost-effective than planting more trees, but both should be done. This enhances animal movement in the areas where a more passive restoration is more likely. In highly fragmented landscapes, active restoration like planting more trees is necessary. In order for these tree planting methods to be ecologically effective, ensuring that the trees actually belong in the area and not are not being planted in grasslands is important. 

[Related: When planting trees is bad for the planet]

“By identifying the thresholds of forest cover in the surrounding landscape that allow seed dispersal, we can identify areas where natural regeneration is possible, as well as areas where we need to actively plant trees, allowing us to maximize the cost-effectiveness of forest restoration,” study co-author and nature based solutions project manager Danielle Ramos, said in a statement. Ramos is affiliated with the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom and the Universidade Estadual Paulista, in Rio Claro, São Paulo, Brazil.

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Get ready. Trillions of chirpy, red-eyed periodical cicadas are getting ready to emerge from underground in a rare double emergence event. These specific types of cicadas crawl out from below the ground every 13 or 17 years and can make as much noise as a jet engine.

While there are 3,400 known species of cicadas, only nine of them have the tendency to disappear underground then reemerge all at the same time. Seven of these nine periodical cicada spears are found in the United States. Even though it is not happening all across North America, it is still a huge natural event that’s worth keeping an eye on. 

[Related: This gnarly fungus makes cicadas hypersexual.]

“I would put the periodical cicadas as a natural phenomenon in the same category as April’s total solar eclipse,” Penn State University entomologist Michael Skvarla tells PopSci.

What is a brood of cicadas?

A brood is another term for a group of periodical cicadas that emerge every 13 or 17 years. Scientists use roman numerals to differentiate between various broods in North America. This year, Brood XIII (aka the Northern Illinois Brood) and Brood XIX (the Great Southern Brood) will emerge at the same time. 

The Northern Illinois Brood is a 17 year group and stretches across parts of Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, and northern Illinois. The Great Southern Brood emerges every 13 years and is primarily located in Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Alabama, George, North Carolina, South Carolina, and importantly, southern Illinois.

[Related: Cicadas pee in jet streams like bigger animals.]

“This year is kind of special because we have the emergence of two broods,” says Skvarla. “ We have one 13 year brood and one 17 year brood emerging. Because they’re coming out every 13 or 17 years, they don’t sync up very frequently.”

When will they emerge?

They will start to emerge as soon as the surrounding soil has reached 64 degrees Fahrenheit. That usually occurs anytime between late April and June and the cicadas will stay around through July.

These cicadas hatched from eggs that were laid in 2011 and 2007. They fell from the trees as newborns and burrowed into the ground where they hunkered down and fed on xylem sap and tree roots as they grew. 

Where will the broods overlap?

The real “cicadapocalypse” will primarily affect the unlucky few in parts of Illinois where both broods will emerge simultaneously. 

Even though it is not happening all across North America, it is still a huge natural event. “I would put the periodical cicadas as a natural phenomenon in the same category as April’s total solar eclipse,” says Skvarla.

This type of overlap is also incredibly rare and has not occurred since 1803, when Thomas Jefferson was president and had just purchased the Louisiana Territory from France.

[Related: Fiber optic cables can pick up cicadas’ droning din.]

What do they do when they emerge?

Cicadas come up to mate for several weeks and then die. The males send out their mating song by vibrating the small flaps on their abdomen called tymbals. Females will respond by flicking their wings. Eggs will be laid in trees and the hatchlings will burrow under the ground, beginning the whole process over again. 

Why do cicadas emerge on these strict schedules?

“The 13 and 17 year lifecycle is interesting, because both are prime numbers. We aren’t really sure why they’ve hit upon these prime number years,” says Skvarla. “There’s speculation that it might be because it’s harder for the broods to sync up the way that they’re doing this year.”

More synching up between broods could lead to less genetic diversity if interrelated bugs are mating with one another. Since they don’t emerge very often, it is difficult for scientists to study their peculiar calendars.

“You can spend your entire career and only see the same brood emerge two or three times,” said Sklarva. 

[Related: Baby Brood X cicadas are headed underground. What lies ahead is still a mystery.]

What do cicadas eat?

They spend their time underground munching on tree roots. They will not be destroying plants or crops when they emerge. 

Can you eat cicadas?

Yes, and there are several recipes that you can try.

“Cicadas kind of taste like shellfish like shrimp or lobster. It’s got kind of a crunchy, shrimpy flavor,” says Skvarla. “It doesn’t have the same consistency because cicadas have more shell and most recipes typically fry up the shell. With lobster or shrimp, you typically take the shell off.”

It is also not dangerous if your dog eats a few of them while out on a walk. 

The post The Cicadapocalypse is nigh. 7 cicada facts to know before it hits. appeared first on Popular Science.

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This article was originally featured on Hakai Magazine, an online publication about science and society in coastal ecosystems. Read more stories like this at hakaimagazine.com.

Douglas Wallace was on a research ship in the middle of Canada’s Gulf of St. Lawrence when he heard the news: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had met with Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, in nearby Stephenville, Newfoundland. At their meeting in August 2022, the two leaders locked in Canada’s commitment to supply Germany with hydrogen gas. They chose to declare the “Canada-Germany hydrogen alliance” in Stephenville because the town is the site of the proposed World Energy GH2 project, a facility that will use wind power to produce hydrogen gas.

The announcement allowed the world leaders to demonstrate the shared goals of increasing the availability of so-called green hydrogen and of reducing Germany’s reliance on Russian oil. But for Wallace, the news triggered a different idea.

At sea, Wallace, an oceanographer at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, was tracking how dissolved oxygen moves from the Atlantic Ocean through the gulf into the St. Lawrence River, and how the dearth of oxygen in some places can lead to the development of low-oxygen dead zones. In particular, he was concerned with one extra big and persistent dead zone that had taken up residence near Rimouski, Quebec, along the outlet of the St. Lawrence River. So when he heard that Canada was set to ramp up hydrogen production—achieved by electrically splitting water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen—he wondered: could all of that spare oxygen help bring the dead zone back to life?

For those who live on land, it’s easy to take abundant oxygen for granted. But underwater, persistent patches of low oxygen are “a fundamental control on habitat,” says Wallace.

As the world warms, the oceans are losing their oxygen. Since the 1950s, they’ve already lost about two percent—a figure that could hit four percent by the end of this century. The loss can be caused by excess nutrient runoff, as with the vast dead zone at the mouth of the Mississippi River in the Gulf of Mexico, and by changes in ocean circulation driven by climate change—the likely culprit in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Too little oxygen in the water can reduce the diversity of marine life as animals either leave the area or die. In the Gulf of St. Lawrence—where the size of the dead zone has grown nearly sevenfold since 2003 to encompass roughly 9,000 square kilometers—dropping oxygen levels are already affecting many commercially important and at-risk species, such as cod, halibut, and northern shrimp, Wallace says. “About 15 percent of the deeper parts of the Gulf of St. Lawrence are getting close to the threshold where a lot of marine animals will struggle to live,” he says.

Currently, scientists can do little to fix oceanic dead zones. In smaller bodies of water, such as lakes and reservoirs, managers can pump oxygen-rich water from the surface into oxygen-poor deep areas. But the ocean is way too big to be artificially churned. Maybe, thought Wallace, he could take the oxygen created during hydrogen production and somehow pump it into the gulf.

His calculations suggest that it could work. The proposed Stephenville plant would produce more than enough oxygen to replace what the gulf loses each year. And Wallace’s experiments tracking how oxygen moves through the region show that oxygen pumped into the gulf near Stephenville would reach the Rimouski dead zone several hundred kilometers away within a few years.

Sean Leet, CEO of World Energy GH2, says the company is actively investigating uses for the oxygen produced by the hydrogen plant and that he’s met with Wallace to discuss the idea. The company would support further research and discussions around how it might work in practice, he says.

Even with Leet’s interest, however, the viability of Wallace’s oxygenation scheme is far from certain.

For starters, Wallace’s plan relies on the existence of large-scale hydrogen production. While the Stephenville plant seems to be on track to be built, Mark Winfield, who studies sustainable energy and climate change at York University in Ontario, says that, in general, the hydrogen market has an iffy future. The market “is smaller than some think, and the transition to hydrogen will be harder than they think,” he says.

Hydrogen fuel cells are still extremely expensive, Winfield says, and in many ways—such as the rush to decarbonize transportation—hydrogen has already lost the race. Hydrogen as a fuel makes the most sense for large industrial applications that cannot easily be electrified such as cement and steel production. But at present, no hydrogen-powered steel plants have been built. “The market is not at all mature, and there has been no increase in demand,” says Winfield.

In many cases, he says, rather than using renewable electricity to produce hydrogen, it’s probably better to just send that power to the grid.

Leet, however, counters that there is potentially a big market for hydrogen in Europe—particularly in Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium—with applications in steel manufacturing, heavy industry, aviation, and marine fueling. “Their demand for clean fuels far exceeds what Canada and other countries will be able to supply,” he says.

Beyond the big questions about the future of hydrogen manufacturing, pumping dead zones full of oxygen would also require overcoming many lingering engineering challenges and environmental concerns, says Wallace. This includes figuring out how exactly to capture the oxygen and deliver it to the deep ocean. But Wallace says these are not insurmountable challenges; companies already do something similar in lakes on a much smaller scale.

Wallace also wants to determine what effect pumping large amounts of oxygen into the water would have on the local ecosystem and figure out how to fine-tune a process with a years-long lag between adding the oxygen and having it arrive at the dead zone. “We’d really want to do a small, controlled pilot before rushing in,” says Wallace.

And while the companies producing hydrogen would likely welcome a market for oxygen, a potentially valuable byproduct with no clear buyers, it’s unclear how it could generate revenue for them. Wallace suggests some form of credit, similar to carbon credits, but all the details would need to be worked out.

Despite the uncertainty, Wallace thinks it’s an avenue worth pursuing. “There are risks, but there are also risks to parts of the ocean becoming uninhabitable,” he says. “These are difficult questions, but we can’t avoid asking them, especially if there is a chance we can do something about it.”

This article first appeared in Hakai Magazine and is republished here with permission.

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Earth used to be absolutely crawling with more megafauna. The fossil record is full of enormous birds like New Zealand’s Heracles inexpectatus, giant lemurs from Madagascar, large marine reptiles that would put today’s sea snakes to shame. Paleontologists have now found evidence of three unusual new species of giant fossil kangaroo in present day Australia and New Guinea. The creatures are described in a study published April 14 in the journal Megataxa and indicate that these species were likely much more diverse in terms of shape, range of habitat, and hopping method. 

“Living kangaroos are already such remarkable animals, so it’s amazing to think what these peculiar giant kangaroos could have been getting up to,” study co-author and Flinders University PhD student Isaac Kerr said in a statement.

Meet the giant kangaroos

The three new species belong to an extinct genus of giant kangaroos called Protemnodon that lived from five million to about 40,000 years ago. They would have looked somewhat similar to modern gray kangaroos, but were generally more squat and muscular. Some species were roughly 110 pounds, but others were up to twice as large as today’s biggest living kangaroos.

Protemnodon fossils are fairly common across Australia, but they have historically been found as individual bones instead of in complete skeletons. This has made it difficult for scientists to determine just how many species there were and how they differed in geographic range, movement, and size. 

[Related: What prehistoric poop reveals about extinct giant animals.]

“The fossils of this genus are widespread and they’re found regularly, but more often than not you have no way of being certain which species you’re looking at,” study co-author and Flinders University paleontologist Gavin Prideaux said in a statement. 

For this study, the team was able to use multiple complete fossilized kangaroo skeletons from Lake Callabonna in South Australia, which may help give scientists a more clear picture of these giant kangaroos. Researchers also reviewed all known species of Protemnodon and found that they were all quite different from one another. The animals also adapted to live in different environments and even had different methods of hopping. 

One very heavy, wayfaring kangaroo

One of the new species is named Protemnodon viator. The word viator means ‘traveler’ or ‘wayfarer’ in Latin. This wandering marsupial was also much bigger than other known giant kangaroos at weighing up to 374 pounds. According to the team, this is roughly twice as much as the largest living male red kangaroos. 

Protemnodon viator was also likely well-adapted to its arid central Australian habitat. It lived in a smaller geographic area than the red kangaroos of today. It was also long-limbed and could hop quickly and efficiently. 

A ‘robust’ creature and a swamp wallaby-like kangaroo

Another of the new species is named Protemnodon mamkurra and it connects the paleontologists of today with a famous scientist of the past. British paleontologist and naturalist Sir Richard Owen famously coined the term ‘dinosaur’ in 1842, but also described the first species of Protemnodon in 1874.

When he first found these giant kangaroo fossils, he followed a common scientific approach at the time. He mainly focused on fossilized teeth, seeing slight differences between the teeth of his specimens. He ultimately described six species of Protemnodon and further study chipped away at some of Owen’s early descriptions. He also suggested that some or all Protemnodon have four legs, While not all of them do, this study agrees that one of his species–Protemnodon anak–likely did have four legs. 

[Related: Giant beasts once roamed Madagascar. What happened to them?]

“However, our study suggests that this is true of only three or four species of Protemnodon, which may have moved something like a quokka or potoroo–that is bounding on four legs at times, and hopping on two legs at others,” Kerr said. “The newly described Protemnodon mamkurra is likely one of these. A large but thick-boned and robust kangaroo, it was probably fairly slow-moving and inefficient. It may have hopped only rarely, perhaps just when startled.”

The best of these fossil species comes from the Green Waterhole Cave in southeastern Australia, on the land of the Boandik people. The species name mamkurra, means ‘great kangaroo’ and was chosen by Boandik elders and language experts in the Burrandies Corporation.

According to Kerr, it is unusual for a single genus of kangaroo to live in such varied environments. “For example, the different species of Protemnodon are now known to have inhabited a broad range of habitats, from arid central Australia into the high-rainfall, forested mountains of Tasmania and New Guinea.”

The third new species is named Protemnodon dawsonae. It is known from fewer fossils than the other two, so it is more of a mystery. The team believes it was likely a moderate speed hopper and potentially similar to the living swamp wallaby. It was named in honor of Australian paleontologist Lyndall Dawson.

While most species became extinct about 40,000 years ago on mainland Australia, they potentially lived longer in New Guinea and Tasmania. Future studies could shed more light on their extinction, as it is still an enduring paleontological mystery. 

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The black sands of Iceland, snow-packed peaks of Chile, and burnt-orange sand dunes of Namibia: The natural scenery images from the 2024 Sony World Photography Awards document the wild, extraordinary, and intimidating beauty of Earth.

Photographer Liam Man nabbed top honors in the landscape category for an otherworldly drone-lit shot snapped in the Isle of Skye in Scotland. The photo (seen below) required precise timing and coordination to pull off. “Blizzards howled for the majority of the night,” Man said, “leaving mere minutes to execute this photograph before the moon became too bright.”

The overall winner from all categories will be announced on April 18 in London. More than 395,000 images from photographers around the globe were submitted as part of this year’s competition.

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For a moment, things weren’t looking great for the newest California condor chick. But thanks to some quick thinking and CT scanning technology, the San Diego Zoo welcomed its 250th hatchling in conservationists’ ongoing species recovery program. To celebrate, the wildlife park has released images and video of the moments leading up to the arrival of Emaay (pronounced “eh-my”), including a fascinating look within the egg itself.

When the California Condor Recovery Program began in 1982, only 22 of the critically endangered birds could be located. Since then, that number has grown over 560, with more than half of all California condors living in the wild. A big part of that success is thanks to the recovery program’s first adoptee, a three-month-old abandoned male named Xol-Xol (pronounced “hole-hole”). Xol-Xol, now 42, has fathered 41 chicks over his life, but his latest addition needed some extra care.

Zoologists placed the egg of the new chick in an incubator ahead of hatching, but noticed what appeared to be a malposition—a bodily angle that could have produced complications. The condor egg was then moved to the Paul Harter Veterinary Medical Center and placed in a computed tomography (CT) imaging machine.

CT scanning takes a series of X-ray readings of an object from different angles, combining them through computer programming to create “slices,” or cross-sectional scans. The scans allow for far more detailed results than a basic X-ray image. Thankfully, subsequent CT scans of the condor egg confirmed a false alarm, allowing the team to return it to its incubator. 

[Related: California condor hatches after bird flu deaths.]

Upon pipping (a chick’s initial cracking of its shell), conservationists transferred the egg into the nest of Xol-Xol and his partner, Mexwe, who helped complete the hatching process. On March 16, Emaay greeted the world, with Xol-Xol and Mexwe caring for it ever since.

Emaay is one of about 50 California condor hatchlings now birthed every year—around 12-15 of which occur in the wild. But as San Diego Zoo’s 250th newcomer—and whose father was the program’s first adoptee—Emaay is particularly special to the team.

“Reaching this milestone feels incredible,” Nora Willis, senior wildlife care specialist at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, said. “There’s still a long way to go but being part of this and helping the species recover is life changing.”

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From a human perspective, chimpanzees and bonobos often represent two sides of our very nature. Chimpanzees are seen as more conflict ready. Bonobos are considered more peaceful, even demonstrating cooperation between groups. Some new research into both great ape species paints a more nuanced picture of both species and their behavior. Bonobos appear to be actually more aggressive than researchers previously thought within their own communities. The findings are described in a study published April 12 in the journal Current Biology.

“Chimpanzees and bonobos use aggression in different ways for specific reasons,” study co-author and Boston University anthropologist Maud Mouginot said in a statement. “The idea is not to invalidate the image of bonobos being peaceful—the idea is that there is a lot more complexity in both species.”

Pushing, biting, and chasing

In the study, the team focused in male aggression, which is often tied to reproduction. They analyzed three bonobo communities at the Kokolopori Bonobo Reserve in the Democratic Republic of Congo and two chimpanzee communities at Gombe National Park in Tanzania. Researchers observed the behavior of 12 bonobos and 14 chimpanzees with a method called focal follows. This involves tracking one individual animal’s behavior for an entire day and noting how often the animal engaged in aggressive interactions, who they acted aggressively with, and whether or not they were physical. In great apes, these physical engagements included pushing, biting, or chasing an adversary. 

[Related: Popular chimpanzees set hand-holding trends for the whole group.]

“You go to their nests and wait for them to wake up and then you just follow them the entire day—from the moment they wake up to the moment they go to sleep at night—and record everything they do,” said Mouginot.

They found that the male bonobos aggressive more frequently than chimpanzees. Overall, bonobos engaged in 2.8 times more aggressive interactions and three times as many physical aggressions than chimpanzees.

Bonobo males were also almost exclusively aggressive towards other males, while chimpanzees were more likely to be aggressive towards females. Chimpanzees were also more likely to use “coalitions” of males, with 13.2 percent of chimpanzee aggression and only one percent of bonobo aggressions featuring these groupings. 

The altercations involving groups of males can also cause more injuries and community infighting can potentially weaken the group’s ability to fight off different groups of chimpanzees. Bonobos do not appear to have this issue since most of their disputes are one on one. They have never been observed to kill one another and are not believed to be territorial, which leaves their communities more free to fight amongst themselves instead of outsiders. 

Male ‘coalitions’

The more aggressive males in both species also had greater mating success. The team was surprised to see this in bonobos because they have a co-dominant social dynamic where females often outrank males and can be more decisive with mates. Chimpanzees have male-dominated hierarchies, where these male coalitions coerce the females into mating.

“Male bonobos that are more aggressive obtain more copulations with females, which is something that we would not expect,” said Mouginot. “It means that females do not necessarily go for nicer males.”

The team notes that female bonobos and chimpanzees are not exactly passive, but that female aggression warrants its own future research.

The self-domestication hypothesis

These new findings of higher rates of male-male aggression in bonobos contradict a prevailing hypothesis in primate behavior called the self-domestication hypothesis. This idea that goes back as far as Charles Darwin posits that evolution has selected against aggression in bonobos and humans, but not chimpanzees. 

[Related: Primates have been teasing each other for 13 million years.]

Some of the findings do support some parts of the self-domestication hypothesis, specifically related to aggression towards females. Compared to chimpanzees, male bonobos direct less aggression towards females. According to the team, this aligns with earlier findings that male bonobos rarely use coercive mating strategies, even if they are physically larger.

The team could not assess the severity of aggressive interactions in terms of whether they caused wounds or injuries. They hope to collect this type of data in the future, along with comparing aggressive behavior that varies between communities and subspecies.

“I’d love to have the study complemented with comparable data from other field sites so we can get a broader understanding of variation within and between species,” said Mouginot.

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This article was originally featured on Knowable Magazine.

Alethal, incurable malady similar to mad cow disease is sweeping across deer species in North America and starting to spread around the world. First identified in a single herd of captive mule deer in Colorado in 1967, chronic wasting disease—CWD—has now been found in captive and wild mule deer, white-tailed deer, elk, moose and reindeer. It’s been found in 32 states and has crossed international boundaries into Canada, South Korea and Norway, among other countries.

The disease—caused by a rogue protein known as a prion—has not yet been shown to infect humans, though fears remain. But even if that never happens, CWD could kill off large numbers of deer and possibly wipe out individual populations. Wildlife management agencies may, in turn, introduce stricter hunting rules, and the fear of contaminated meat could scare away potential hunters, affecting the United States’ roughly $23 billion deer hunting industry.

Since CWD’s emergence, scientists have been working to understand the disease and how it might be brought under control. Over the years, three potential mitigation strategies have emerged, but each has significant challenges. Nicholas Haley, a veterinary microbiologist at Midwestern University in Arizona, coauthored an overview of chronic wasting disease in the 2015 Annual Review of Animal Biosciences and has been working on the problem ever since. Knowable Magazine spoke with Haley about the options and whether we can ever contain the disease.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

What’s a prion disease?

CWD isn’t caused by a bacterium or virus, but by a naturally occurring protein in our cells twisting out of shape.

The Kurt Vonnegut novel Cat’s Cradle describes the discovery of a new form of ice, ice-nine, which is solid even at room temperature. In the book, when ice-nine touches water, it forces all the other water to crystalize in the same way, until all the water on Earth is frozen. That’s kind of what’s happening in the body. An animal gets exposed to the prion, usually through ingesting it, and anywhere in the body that the prion encounters the normal version of itself, the abnormal protein convinces the normal protein to take this misfolded shape.

This is particularly dangerous in the central nervous system, because these proteins can build up into plaques that kill the cell. Eventually, enough cells die that you get nervous system disorders. The animal begins to behave oddly and eventually dies.

In the meantime, the sick animal can spread the prions to other animals through things like its saliva, urine or feces. The prions are very hardy and can stick around on plants or in the soil until another animal comes along and eats them.

Could we just kill all the sick animals before they can spread the disease further?

Unfortunately, that only really works if it’s done early enough. It’s like a wildfire—the sooner you can put it out, the more chance you have of keeping it from spreading. But if you let CWD fester for any length of time, then culling probably won’t work.

New York State, for example, did a huge culling operation in Oneida County back in 2005 after they identified five or six CWD-positive deer for the first time. That seems to have worked, and the state still tests animals for the disease to try to catch those outbreaks early.

But when wildlife managers tried localized culling in Colorado, it didn’t seem to affect CWD over the long term, possibly because the infectious protein had been in the area for so long that it essentially became baked into the landscape. The protein is incredibly stable and can exist in the soil for years. Or new, sick deer may have moved into the now vacant area from nearby populations. Deer aren’t symptomatic until the later stages of the disease, but they’re likely shedding the prion into the environment some time before then.

So if culling is really effective only early on, are there other strategies that can help in places where CWD is already “baked in”?

My work is largely focused on breeding CWD-resistant animals—not curing the disease, but trying to find animals that don’t get sick as easily. We’re working with a deer farm used for hunting. They have a few properties, representing about 600 to 800 deer, where CWD has become common. We first identified CWD there in 2014, and within a few years a deer on one of those properties had about a 60 to 70 percent chance to be positive for CWD.

We also did genetic testing on the animals. We found that something like 80 to 90 percent of the deer had one particular genetic variant, or allele, of the prion protein that seems incredibly susceptible to infection. But that’s only one allele out of about five possible ones in deer. And it seems like some alleles are more resistant to CWD than others.

Why?

It’s like a lock and key. The infectious CWD prion is a very good key for that one really common lock, but with different alleles, the lock is subtly different, and the key doesn’t work as well. We’re still learning exactly how it all interacts, though.

Over time, we started to focus on two different “good” alleles. I think our end goal is to use artificial insemination and other breeding practices until we have a population of animals with just the good alleles, eliminating the one we know is terrible.

Would having only animals with good alleles stop the spread?

It could make it manageable. The animals with those good gene variants are significantly less likely to get CWD, but they’re likely not completely immune. We’ve been putting more of the animals with good variants out into the farm and can see that fewer of them seem to be getting infected by the time they’re hunted—on one property where we’ve introduced a lot of selectively bred deer, we haven’t found a positive case in the past two, if not three, years.

So selective breeding might work like the Covid vaccine: It’s still possible to get a breakthrough infection, but it’s had a huge impact on slowing the disease down and minimizing transmission. And at that point, there may be management tools we could use to keep it at essentially zero. If it takes these highly resistant animals five years to get sick, but they’re all being hunted by the age of three, then eventually we won’t have any CWD, for example.

Could selective breeding work for wild animals as well, not just captive ones?

That’s a really good question. This kind of selection is happening naturally in wildlife—natural selection will favor resistant animals over time—but it’s much slower. I could see the release of captive-raised animals happening in controlled situations, such as where CWD has completely wiped out a local population. But just putting one or two bucks out onto the landscape—their genes would get diluted pretty quick.

And while there are precedents for breeding animals on a farm and releasing them into the wild, a lot of wildlife professionals are heavily against that. They want to keep wild populations wild. To introduce farm deer would taint it, in a way. And it’s something you can’t walk back. I understand that perspective. A lot of wild animal folks are putting more hope into vaccine research instead.

I know we have vaccines against viruses, but is it possible to make a vaccine against a protein?

We already do. The Covid vaccine is specifically against the spike protein of the Covid-19 virus, for example, not the virus as a whole. And prions are just other proteins. So a vaccine could theoretically work, creating antibodies that can bind to the prion protein, helping the body recognize and eliminate it.

But the problem with chronic wasting disease is that, unlike Covid, a healthy version of the problem protein already exists naturally inside our bodies. Trying to develop a vaccine that can target the unhealthy version of the protein while not attacking your healthy cells, that’s the challenge.

The way the disease works in the body might also make creating a vaccine harder. Researchers in Wyoming did some vaccine trials and found that when elk were injected with a particular experimental vaccine, they got sick faster.

What we think might have happened was this: White blood cells will naturally kill invaders and take the remains back to lymph nodes to teach the body what they saw, and activate defenses. Getting a vaccine can speed up this process by making the white blood cells better at detecting and picking up invaders.

But the problem is, in this case, that the white blood cells couldn’t destroy the prion after they picked it up. It was still infectious. So all they did was more quickly bring the prion to somewhere where it could spread, like ants bringing poison back to the nest and spreading it to others.

That isn’t to say it’d be impossible for vaccines to work, and there are groups working on the problem. I want to be optimistic. I just have reservations about it.

Also, even if we get an effective vaccine, we’d also need to figure out a good way to distribute it. It’d be impractical to use an injection on wild animals. There is a baited rabies vaccine that’s been used in the eastern United States that can be dropped out of a plane. Hypothetically, something like that could work for CWD. But there’s a lot of things that we’d have to overcome.

So overall, what do you see as the outlook in terms of managing and containing CWD?

It depends a lot on how people react. Unfortunately, states’ responses have been varied. Some take it very seriously, but some states try to sweep things under the rug. I’m expecting that, within our lifetime, it’ll be in every state in the United States except for Hawaii.

And then what? Do you think this will eventually go away? Or are we just going to have to live with it?

I think it’ll be like Covid. It won’t ever go away. It may not be as big of a deal in 100 years, but it’ll still be there.

And fingers crossed it never jumps into humans?

Yeah, well, cross your fingers harder.

This article originally appeared in Knowable Magazine, an independent journalistic endeavor from Annual Reviews. Sign up for the newsletter.

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As droughts continue to deplete the Panama Canal’s water levels, the maritime trading hub’s operators are planning a workaround. On Wednesday, Panama officials announced a new Multimodal Dry Canal project that will begin transporting international cargo across a “special customs jurisdiction” near the 110-year-old waterway.

The Panama Canal, which connects Atlantic and Pacific trading routes, has been in dire straits for some time. To function, ocean vessels pass through a series of above-sea-level “locks” filled with freshwater provided by nearby Lake Gatún and Lake Alajuela. Older Panamax locks require about 50 million gallons of freshwater per ship, while a small number of “Neo-Panamax locks” built in 2016 only require around 30 million gallons.

[Related: When climate change throws the Pacific off balance, the world’s weather follows.]

But the canal’s upgrades can’t keep up with climate change’s cascading effects. Lake Gatún and Lake Alajuela are replenished with rainwater, and a lingering drought compounded by El Niño has resulted in the second-driest year in the Panama Canal’s existence. To compensate, the daily average number of ships allowed to pass through the lock system has been reduced from 38 to 27, while each vessel is also now required to carry less cargo. Operators hope to soon raise that average to pre-drought levels, but likely at a cost to local marine ecosystem health and local drinking water supplies. Meanwhile, as the AFP reports, marine traffic jams routinely see over 100 ships waiting to pass through the 50-mile passage.

The new Multimodal Dry Canal project announced this week will attempt to further alleviate a global trade problem that particularly affects the Panama Canal’s most frequent users—the US, China, Japan, and South Korea.

Ship crews shouldn’t need to wait for a yearslong engineering process before seeing some relief to the passage’s congestion. During a presentation of project plans this week, Panamanian representatives said no additional investment or construction is needed. Instead, the dry thoroughfare will function as a complement to the canal by employing “existing roads, railways, port facilities, airports and duty-free zones,” according to the AFP on Wednesday.

Speaking with the BBC earlier this month (before the dry canal’s reveal), a shipping company general manager said such landbased detour routes could be costly—expenses that are “usually passed onto the consumer.”

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The Earth’s octopuses have been around for at least 330 million years. While they evolved before dinosaurs roamed the planet, their present day descendents don’t live for very long. They generally die soon after mating or laying eggs, with some octopus species living only six months and the average living about two to three years. Some species like the giant Pacific octopus can live up to five years at most. 

To keep fish populations sustainable, fisheries must ensure that enough breeding individuals are either left alone or released back into the wild. Government agencies can enforce catch laws, while scientists can inform laws by understanding the breeding lives of various fish. For octopuses, their short lifespans have been okay on an evolutionary level. However, as human taste for these cephalopods grows, it’s become a problem to meet demand. 

In an effort to protect the longevity of this incredibly old and smart sea creature while ensuring that octopus fisheries remain sustainable, a team of scientists in Australia have created the first known step-by-step guide for determining the age of an octopus. The guide is detailed in a paper published April 11 in the Marine and Freshwater Research Journal and offers a first step in creating guidelines for fishers to follow and ensure that they are catching octopuses that are not of breeding age.

There are a few ways to tell how old an organism is–a process called aging. Trees famously have rings that indicate how many years they have been living. Examining teeth and bone structure in mammals also can reveal similar information about age. That process has been a little bit tricky for octopuses. In the new paper, the team looked at their beaks and stylets–internal shells located near their gills. They pinpointed the growth rings similar to tree’s are located here and are a useful tool to validate the age of an octopus.

[Related: Octopuses rewrite their own RNA to survive freezing temperatures.]

“Over the past 30 years, various studies have explored different methods to age octopus, but only a small number of researchers worldwide have the hands-on knowledge to execute these methods in the laboratory,” study co-author and University of South Australia marine ecologist Zoe Doubleday said in a statement. “It’s critical that we don’t lose this practical scientific knowledge because by determining their age, we can understand the impact of different rates of fishing on the population.”

The team explains how scientists can examine an octopus’ beak, stylets, and growth rings in the lab to determine how old the animal is. In the future, these methods could then be applied in the wild to get a sense of how old octopuses living in the ocean are.

“Understanding an octopus’s age helps to keep fisheries sustainable,” study co-author and University of South Australia PhD student Erica Durante said in a statement. “If you know a species’ age, you can estimate how fast they grow and reproduce and how much you can catch to keep a fishery sustainable.”

[Related: Eating seafood can be more sustainable and healthy than red meat.]

Age data can also tell scientists how long it takes for an animal to mature. This way, octopuses that have not matured enough to breed can be avoided when fishing. According to Durante, age is important for the general conservation and management of a species, whether or not it is commercially fished. 

One tricky part is that while growth rings on trees represent years, the growth rings on octopus represent days. According to the team, these methods will need to be customized for each of the roughly 300 known species of octopus. The team also acknowledges that these guidelines will continue to evolve as we learn more about the lives of these multi-legged creatures.

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A green sea turtle believed to be up to 95 years young was given a clean bill of health this week. Myrtle the ancient green sea turtle has been at Boston’s New England Aquarium for more than 50 years and shows no signs of slowing down, despite being in the upper levels of her life expectancy.

[Related: Endangered sea turtles build hundreds of nests on the Outer Banks.]

Turtles and tortoises are well known for their longevity. Depending on the species, they can live anywhere from 25 to 200 years. In December 2023, a tortoise named Jonathan celebrated his 191st birthday and is currently the oldest known tortoise. According to Guinness World Records, the previous oldest known tortoise was a radiated tortoise named Tu’i Malila. British explorer Captain James Cook presented Tu’i Malila to the royal family of Tonga sometime around around 1777. Tu’i Malila died in 1965 at the estimated age of 188.

Myrtle still has a ways to go to live up to the standards set by Jonathan and Tu’i Malila, so physical exams like this one can help veterinarians keep her healthy. To perform this semi-annual reptilian check-up, veterinarians first had to get Myrtle into an underwater crate and hoist all 500-plus pounds of her from her home in the aquarium’s Giant Ocean Tank. Once she was safely removed from the tank, a team of trained veterinarians, vet technicians, and aquarists drew blood, checked her flippers, and made sure her mouth, nose, and eyes were all working properly. She then received an ultrasound, hopped on the scale, and was returned to her tank. 

All of this was done while the aquarium was open to visitors, who assured onlookers that the veterinarians were trained professionals safe from Myrtle’s powerful jaws. Her serrated teeth are  likely strong enough to crush grass and some small hard shelled organisms.

According to ocean tank manager Mike O’Neill, she is “in robust condition,” despite her age. Myrtle is thought to be up to 95 years old, which would place her just beyond the upper boundaries of the species’ longevity. 

“There’s every reason to believe Myrtle will stick around for years to come,” O’Neill told the Associated Press. “She is iconic. One of the really special things we see is parents with their kids who say, ‘This is Myrtle, she has been here since when I was a kid.’ She has this multigenerational impact, which is really special.”

Since first arriving from an aquarium in Provincetown, Massachusetts in 1970, Myrtle has been visited by roughly 50 million patrons. According to the New England Aquarium, she has gotten quite used to humans in that time and enjoyed having her schell scratched and eats up to six and a half pounds of food per day. She currently shares her space with tankmates Carolina and Retreat. These loggerhead sea turtles are about half her age and size. The loggerheads also received physicals and are also doing well, according to O’Neill.   

[Related: Safely share the beach with endangered sea turtles this summer.]

The second-largest species of sea turtle, green sea turtles live in tropical and subtropical oceans all over the world. The United States is home to six species of native sea turtles–green, hawksbill, Kemp’s ridley, leatherback, loggerhead, and olive ridley. They primarily feast upon algae and seagrass. 

All six sea turtle species in the US are protected by the Endangered Species Act, with green sea turtles listed as endangered and decreasing in population by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recommends reducing marine debris, not releasing balloons that often end up polluting the ocean, leaving turtle nests alone, and keeping these areas dark at night as some small steps to better protect sea turtles. 

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What’s the weirdest thing you learned this week? Well, whatever it is, we promise you’ll have an even weirder answer if you listen to PopSci’s hit podcast. The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week hits Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and everywhere else you listen to podcasts every-other Wednesday morning. It’s your new favorite source for the strangest science-adjacent facts, figures, and Wikipedia spirals the editors of Popular Science can muster. If you like the stories in this post, we guarantee you’ll love the show.

Heads up: The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week has been nominated for a Webby! You can vote to help us win the Webby People’s Voice Award. Click here to vote by April 18! 

FACT: ADHD may have evolved to make us better at picking berries 

By Rachel Feltman

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania recently released a study on the potential evolutionary benefits of ADHD. They analyzed data from 457 adults who played an online foraging game, where the objective was to collect as many berries as possible within an eight minute span.

Players could choose to either keep collecting berries from the bushes in their original location, or move to a new patch. (By the way, this sounds an awful lot like a game I used to play on Neopets!) Moving would cost them a brief time out, and there was no guarantee that the patch would have as many berries as their current location, but the number of berries you could get from each bush went down each time you foraged it again. 

Along with the game, subjects also took a survey designed to assess whether they had symptoms of ADHD. This didn’t constitute a full or formal diagnosis, but it screened for traits like having difficulty concentrating. 

When the researchers compared the survey results with the game play stats, they found that people with ADHD symptoms played differently—and more effectively—than their peers. They were more likely to move on to another bush, and collected an average of 602 berries compared with 521. 

I probably don’t need to tell you that this isn’t exactly a perfect model for actual foraging. The researchers do hope to do a similar experiment in the future involving in-person foraging, where they’d use people with formal ADHD diagnoses as their experimental subjects, but that would obviously be a much more complicated experiment to run. 

But this isn’t the first research to suggest that ADHD traits and other types of neurodiversity might have evolved to help our ancestors survive. Other studies have examined the differences in how people with ADHD search for information or objects and found that we spend more time in the “explore” phase of foraging versus the “exploit” phase. There’s even ongoing research to suggest that kids with ADHD are less susceptible to inattention bias.

In 2008, researchers found that members of a nomadic group in Kenya who had gene mutations associated with ADHD were in better health than average, while those same mutations were associated with malnourishment in closely related people who lived as farmers. There’s a broad idea known as the hunter versus farmer hypothesis that covers this phenomenon. The idea is that the hyperfocus associated with ADHD was actually a really useful trait back when humans spent their days hunting and foraging. It’s much less useful useful in agrarian and industrialized life. One 1998 study found that adults with self-reported ADHD were much better able to postpone eating, sleeping, and other personal needs to absorb themselves in an urgent task, like a last-minute deadline. That’s a mindset that would have come in handy for unpredictable food acquisition, like the sudden appearance of a herd of mammoths or an unexpected bounty of berries.

Some researchers have even suggested that sugar can trigger hyperactivity symptoms because the fructose makes our brains think we’ve come across a foraging bounty and should search for more berries.

While there’s a lot more research to be done on this subject, this study is an important reminder that our current sense of what’s “good” and what’s “normal” is pretty arbitrary—and that reframing these ideas can unlock really cool insights into why humans actually are the way they are. And at least according to some foragers, these findings are no surprise at all. 

FACT: Venus is Earth’s evil twin

By Knimbley

Join me as I embark on a fascinating journey into the depths of Venus’s mysteries. From Elden Ring’s DLC to Venus’s mythological allure and its longstanding status as a scientific enigma, my contribution to this week’s episode dances between realms of curious tangents, genderfluid anatomy, and fantasy. As we explore Venus’s dual nature and delve into the origins of stories both factual and fictional, listeners are invited to ponder the cosmic wonders that await us beyond Earth’s confines (and hopefully are unveiled within the Shadow of the Erdtree). With warmth and perhaps too much matcha, we navigate the intersection of myth and science, embracing the magic of exploration.

If you’re hungry for some more Venus-related science after this week’s episode, check out NASA’s content on the subject:

FACT: People think this lotion attracts spiders en masse—but the truth is more complicated than that 

By Jess Boddy

At the end of last year, people were all in a tizzy because of the lotion spiders. Yes, the lotion spiders. Someone left a review on Sephora’s website about a specific kind of lotion: the Delícia Drench body butter made by the company Sol de Janeiro. Here’s that review.

This wasn’t the only review that said this lotion attracted spiders—there were a handful. And then, the unspeakable happened… People posted the reviews to Reddit. Word of lotion spiders spread like wildfire. Folks started doing their own home “experiments,” putting the lotion on tissues and watching to see if spiders appeared. Pretty much everyone came to the same conclusion: this lotion attracts wolf spiders. 

However, scientists aren’t so sure. Listen to this week’s episode to find out the scientific truth about this potentially spider-attracting beauty product—and if there are others to avoid if you have a fear of arachnids. (Spoiler: It’s complicated.)

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Best overall		TUG 360°		SEE IT	This leash offers a solid value with all the necessary features.
Best tape		Flexi Comfort		SEE IT	Having more than one dog doesn’t have to mean lugging more gear, with two color-coded leashes in one.
Best for large dogs		KONG Ultimate		SEE IT	For bigger breeds, this leash can support up to 150 pounds.

There’s nothing quite like going on a jaunt with your pooch, and the right retractable dog leash can strike a perfect balance between security and freedom. A trusted lead maximizes the safety of your dog-walking experience. We curated this list of the best retractable dog leashes to help make the most of your adventures with the pooch and something durable, dependable, and comfortable in your hand. 

We chose models popular because you can release your dog’s distance up to 26 feet in some cases (the most common length is about 16 feet). This allows your dog less confinement and more freedom of movement to sightsee as they get their daily steps in. However, because they allow more freedom, you must ensure the brake-and-lock system is up to par. A lock button on the handle controls how much of the leash is extended or retracted at any given time. Some even come with reflective stitching for low-light conditions. There are many leashes to choose from, but for those who love the freedom of a retractable design, here are five of the best retractable dog leashes to get the most out of your daily strolls. 

• Best overall: TUG 360°
• Best tape: flexi New Comfort
• Best chew-proof: PUPTECK Retractable Dog Leash with Anti-Chewing Steel Wire
• Best for large dogs: KONG Ultimate

How we chose the best retractable dog leashes

To find the best retractable dog leashes, we considered dozens of models from several manufacturers. We relied on research, published reviews, and some hands-on experience to find leashes that were both safe and reliable over a long period of time. We looked for models that have solid reputations above all else because failure out in the real world can be catastrophic for you and your pooch. We favored models that can accommodate many breeds with the necessary features for controlling a pup’s movements on the street. Added features like a hook for carrying bags provide nice touches to round out the offerings.

The best retractable dog leashes: Reviews & Recommendations

There are a lot of dog leashes, including these lengthy tethers, out there. And one thing is for sure: There’s nothing worse than a leash that snaps or breaks, so we’ve collected trusted brands known for their durable, long-lasting products. Beyond the actual retractable dog leashes being sturdy, our top picks ensure you get a burly handle that won’t fall apart if it’s dropped or bangs against a hard object.

Best overall: TUG 360° Tangle-Free Retractable Dog Leash

SEE IT

Why it made the cut: This extremely durable retractable dog leash is both lightweight and strong for a wide range of dog sizes and strengths and clocks in at under $20, making it the best retractable dog leash overall. 

Specs

• Length: 16 ft
• Sizes: Tiny, Small, Med, Large
• Tangle-free: Yes

Pros

• Lightweight yet extremely durable
• Ergonomic grip handle
• Consistent positive customer feedback
• Safety features
• Range of sizes

Cons

• Not chew-proof

With tons of positive user reviews, a thoughtful set of features, and a very affordable price, the Tug Tangle-Free won us over for the best retractable dog leash overall. A 16-foot, tangle-free, 360-degree movement tape leash with their signature Quick Lock and Brake System ensures your dog follows your lead. 

Reviewers note that the handle is comfortable and wide enough for larger hands, and the wider strap is more durable than previous models for pullers or hyperactive pups. Sizes range from Tiny to Large, for tiny dogs to hefty fur-babies. 

Best tape: Flexi New Comfort Retractable Tape Dog Leash

SEE IT

Why it made the cut: Flexi has been making a version of this leash for 50 years, which speaks to its success.

Specs

• Length: Up to 26 ft
• Sizes: XS-XL
• Tangle-free: Yes

Pros

• 50-year history in dog leashes
• Customizable (LED lighting, multi box, etc)
• Safety features 
• Extra long tape that won’t jam

Cons

• Some reviewers report snapping
• Not the cheapest option

Looking for the best Petsmart dog leash for your next trip to the store? This Flexi leash is one of the best in the market for tape models, featuring an adjustable handle, brake and lock buttons, and an ergonomically designed handle for comfortable walking. 

It can also be customized with its own LED Lighting System for added safety and protection in low light. Sixteen feet of tape is protected by the tape guidance system, which ensures that your tape won’t get jammed during walks or as it retracts.

One of the main reasons to choose a Flexi leash is the brand name itself. Flexi invented the retractable lead 50 years ago and has been refining it ever since.

Best chew-proof: PUPTECK Retractable Dog Leash with Anti-Chewing Steel Wire

SEE IT

Why it made the cut: With 15 inches of chew-proof steel wire, this retractable dog leash promises to keep your munch-happy pups from chewing through their lead.

Specs

• Length: 16 ft
• Chew-Proof: Yes
• Weight: Up to 110 lbs

Pros

• Lightweight chew-proof wire 
• Reflective strip for low visibility conditions
• Can handle up to 110 lbs
• Ergonomic handle

Cons

• Some reviewers wished for more wire coverage
• Retraction mechanism is slow

For dogs who will munch on anything, this 16-foot chew-proof retractable dog leash from Puptek features 15 inches of detachable chew-proof steel wire rope. Compared to alternative stainless steel rope, the wire design rope is overall lighter making it a more user-friendly experience when going for long walks and the best chew-proof retractable dog leash.

The tangle-free rope can bear up to 110 pounds and features black webbing with a reflective strip attached to it, so night walks are safer and more visible to passing cars. The only downside here is some reviewers wished the chew-proof steel covered more of the leash. This would, indeed, create a heavier lead but would ensure that your pup couldn’t chew through any part of the tape. 

Best for large dogs: KONG Ultimate Retractable Dog Leash

SEE IT

Why it made the cut: Extra durable, extra rugged, and extra powerful dog leash for dogs up to 150 lbs, suitable for most large dog breeds like Pit Bulls, Mastiffs, and Rottweilers. 

Specs

• Length: 16 ft
• Reflective: Yes
• Weight: Up to 150 lbs

Pros

• Very durable
• Suitable for up to 150 lbs
• Reflective stitching for safety
• Dependable; long-lasting

Cons

• Some reviewers don’t like the forward placement of the lock button
• More expensive end of models
• No keyring slot or holder for poop bags

You shouldn’t have to lift heavy weights to be able to walk your Pitbull or another strong breed. This dog leash is for those hefty pups that require super durable and extra-strength leashes. The Ultimate Kong leash—made by the trusted manufacturer of some of our favorite dog toys—may be rugged and sturdy, but the ergonomic and soft grip handle with added grip support keeps it easy and breezy for the pet owner to maintain total control of their large dog. 

You can use this Kong leash for dogs up to 150 pounds, comparable to a Mastiff, American bulldog, or Leonberger. It also comes color-coordinated with reflective stitching for added safety, which you’ll need with those heavy pullers in low-light conditions. We would have liked a keyring slot for a baggie holder, but that’s not a dealbreaker.

What to look for in the best retractable dog leashes

Type 

There are a few types of retractable dog leashes: nylon, tape, and chew-proof designs with steel wiring. It depends on your needs, but we don’t recommend nylon for tough or heavy dogs as they can more easily snap or break. Go for a chew-proof with wiring if your dog is prone to chewing.

Brake settings

Ensure you can easily brake or lock to have optimal control over your dog while walking. Since the lead can be up to 26 feet, this is supremely important for safety. Plus, most leashes recommend you don’t let the dog hit the end of its range because that puts excess stress on the mechanism.

Weight limit

This is very important so your leash doesn’t snap or break, especially with pullers. Be sure to read the product information to ensure your leash can handle your dog’s weight capacity.  Most will offer a weight range that the product can withstand. 

Comfort

An ergonomic grip handle is important for your comfort, especially for long walks. 

Tangle-free design

Most good brands will have tangle-free designs to ensure you’re not spending precious walking time untangling a lead. Leashes typically achieve this feat by shaping the opening through which the leash comes out of the mechanism and attaching to the dog’s collar with rotating hooks that spin freely. 

FAQs

Final thoughts about the best retractable dog leashes

• Best overall: TUG 360°
• Best tape: flexi New Comfort
• Best chew-proof: PUPTECK Retractable Dog Leash with Anti-Chewing Steel Wire
• Best dual leash: Wigzi Dual Doggie
• Best for large dogs: KONG Ultimate

Finding the best retractable dog leash for you depends on various factors: your dog’s weight, strength, and habits (like chewing through everything in their path). Choosing the wrong one can end in disaster, and your best friend deserves better than that. Plus, if you have a leash you and your pup enjoy, you’re more likely to get out there and have adventures. 

Why trust us

Popular Science started writing about technology more than 150 years ago. There was no such thing as “gadget writing” when we published our first issue in 1872, but if there was, our mission to demystify the world of innovation for everyday readers means we would have been all over it. Here in the present, PopSci is fully committed to helping readers navigate the increasingly intimidating array of devices on the market right now.

Our writers and editors have combined decades of experience covering and reviewing consumer electronics. We each have our own obsessive specialties—from high-end audio to video games to cameras and beyond—but when we’re reviewing devices outside of our immediate wheelhouses, we do our best to seek out trustworthy voices and opinions to help guide people to the very best recommendations. We know we don’t know everything, but we’re excited to live through the analysis paralysis that internet shopping can spur so readers don’t have to.

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New data indicates a once-in-a-generation eclipse is a pretty surefire way to convince people to finally log off the internet—at least for a few minutes. According to estimates from cloud-computing provider Cloudflare, yesterday’s online traffic dropped between 40-60 percent week-to-week within the April 8 eclipse’s path of totality. In aggregate terms for the US, “bytes delivered traffic dropped by 8 percent and request traffic by 12 percent as compared to the previous week” around 2:00pm EST.

According to NASA, yesterday’s path of totality included a roughly 110-mile-wide stretch of land as it passed across Mazatlán, Mexico, through 13 states within the continental US, and finally over Montreal, Canada. In America alone, an estimated 52 million people lived within the eclipse’s path of totality. And it certainly seems like a lot of them put down their phones and laptops to go outside and have a look.

[Related: What a total eclipse looks like from space.]

As The New York Times highlights, Vermont saw the largest mass log-off, with an estimated 60-percent drop in internet usage compared to the week prior. South Carolinians, meanwhile, appeared to be the least compelled to take a computer break, since their traffic only dipped by around four percent.

Interestingly, you can also glean a bit about weather conditions during the eclipse from taking a look at Cloudflare’s internet usage map of the US. While most of the states within the event’s trajectory showcase pretty sizable downturns, Texas only experienced a 15 percent reduction. But given a large part of the Lone Star State endured severe weather conditions, it’s likely many people remained inside—maybe even online to livestream the views of the eclipse elsewhere.

[Related: The full sensory experience of an eclipse totality, from inside a convertible in Texas.]

So what were people doing if they weren’t posting through the eclipse? Well, snapping photos of the moment is always pretty popular, while NASA oversaw multiple volunteer research projects.

Judging from Cloudflare’s data, it didn’t take long for people to log back online once the eclipse ended above them. Usage appeared to spike back to pretty standard levels almost exactly in time with the event’s ending in any given state. No doubt most people rushed to post their reactions, photos, and videos… but maybe yesterday will still serve as a nice reminder that there’s a lot more to see when you take a break and go outside for a bit.

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Dolphins and other toothed whales–or Odontocetes–use their heads to create sounds that help them communicate, navigate, and hunt in their murky marine world. These sometimes vocal-fry-like sounds reveal information about their murky marine world that is critical for survival. Some new genetic analysis suggests that the collections of fatty tissues that enable echolocation in toothed whales may have evolved from their skull muscles and bone marrow,changing how these animals eat and sense the world around them. The findings are described in a study published in the April 2024 issue of the journal Gene. 

Toothed whales include numerous dolphin species as well as orcas, sperm whales, belugas, and narwhals. Echolocation produced by a bulbous mass of fat tissue inside of their heads called the melon. 

Alongside of the jawbone of dolphins and toothed whales is a group of sound producing extramandibular fat bodies (EMFB). Another set of acoustic fat deposits called the intramandibular fat bodies (IMFB) are located inside the jawbone. The evolution of the melon, the extramandibular, and intramandibular fat bodies was critical for echolocation to develop in these marine mammals. However, little is known about how these fatty tissues themselves originated genetically. 

“Toothed whales have undergone significant degenerations and adaptations to their aquatic lifestyle,” Hayate Takeuchi, a study co-author and PhD student at Hokkaido University in Japan,  said in a statement. 

One of these adaptations was the partial loss of their sense of smell and taste, alongside the gain of echolocation. To look closer at this and other adaptations at a genetic level, the team from Hokkaido University studied DNA sequences of genes that are expressed in these acoustic fat bodies. They measured the gene expressions in harbor porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) and Pacific white-sided dolphins (Lagenorhynchus obliquidens). 

[Related: This dolphin ancestor looked like a cross between Flipper and Moby Dick.]

They found that the genes which are normally associated with muscle function and development were active in the melon and EMFB’s on the outside of the jawbone. There was also evidence of an evolutionary connection between this fat and a muscle called the masseter muscle. In humans, the masseter muscle connects the lower jawbone to the cheekbones and is one of the the key muscles used in chewing.

“This study has revealed that the evolutionary tradeoff of masticatory muscles for the EMFB—between auditory and feeding ecology—was crucial in the aquatic adaptation of toothed whales,” study co-author and genome scientist and evolutionary biologist Takashi Hayakawa said in a statement. “It was part of the evolutionary shift away from chewing to simply swallowing food, which meant the chewing muscles were no longer needed.”

[Related: We finally know how baleen whales make noise.]

When the team analyzed the gene expression in the intramandibular fat on the inside of the jawbone, they found active genes related to some elements of immune response and regulation of a group of white blood cells that fight infection called T cells. The team believes that this is due to its proximity to bone marrow–which helps produce T cells–and requires more study.

The team also credited the Stranding Network Hokkaido as another important aspect of the research, as the samples used in this study were collected by them. The organization has  collected specimens of stranded whales along the seashore and river mouth in Hokkaido. Performing necropsies on stranded marine mammals have been critical for sampling and research to learn more about the potential causes of strandings and death, but also anatomy, physiology, and evolution. 

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Worm bodies might not seem all that interesting. However, a closer look can also reveal how some worms use extra appendages to move through the water like “magic carpets,” while others detach their butts to procreate. Scientists have now discovered that a type of bristle worm is equipped with a complex vision system dominated by two really big eyes.

The Vanadis bristle worm’s eyes can potentially use ultraviolet (UV) light to communicate and find mates and/or food, which has not been well documented or studied in nature. The worms could also be among the only known bioluminescent animals that use UV light to glow. The findings are described in a study published April 8 in the journal Current Biology. 

Meet Vanadis bristle worms

The Vanadis bristle worms in this study are found around the island of Ponza, in the Mediterranean Sea west of Naples, Italy. It is a member of a family of large-eyed bristle worms called polychaeta. They are about six inches long and primarily eat plankton, algae, and bits of organic matter from dead organisms. As a pair, the worm’s eyes weigh about 20 times as much as the rest of the worm’s head, and appear like two giant red orbs are strapped to its body. If human eyes are as proportionally large, we would need to carry around roughly 220 extra pounds.  Since the worms are nocturnal and disappear when the sun is out, scientists wondered what they do with their eyes after and what they are used for.

[Related: How do animals see the world?]

In the study, a team from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, Lund University in Sweden, and Tuscia University in Italy examined three species of bristle worms that they collected by hand in shallow water. They brought them back to a lab, where they analyzed their eyes in close detail. The team found that Vanadis’ eyesight is better and more advanced than previously believed. Its eyes can see very small objects and track their movements, despite having a more simple nervous system.

A ‘secret language’–for mating

The team is still trying to figure out how they evolved such sharp eyesight. The worms’ bodies  are transparent, except for their eyes that need to register light to work properly. This means that they can’t be inherently transparent, so their eyes becoming visible must come with some evolutionary trade-offs. Some aspects about having a transparent body with visible eyes must have had evolutionary benefits that outweigh the consequences.

What the worms gain remains unclear partially because they do not come out during the day, when eyes typically work best. 

“No one has ever seen the worm during the day, so we don’t know where it hides. So, we cannot rule out that its eyes are used during the day as well,” University of Copenhagen marine and neurologist Anders Garm said in a statement. “What we do know is that its most important activities, like finding food and mating, occur at night. So, it is likely that this is when its eyes are important.”

[Related: Microscopic worms use electricity to ride bumblebees like EVs.]

The team believes that part of the explanation is that these worms can see different wavelengths of light than humans can. Like many birds, reindeer, and other more complex organisms, the worm’s vision can see UV light that is invisible to the human eye. This could indicate that the purpose of the eyes is to see bioluminescent signals in the pitch-black night time sea. Bioluminescence occurs when organisms can produce light on their own. Glow-worms are a famous example that use certain chemicals to produce light within their bodies. 

“We have a theory that the worms themselves are bioluminescent and communicate with each other via light. If you use normal blue or green light as bioluminescence, you also risk attracting predators,” said Garm. “But if instead, the worm uses UV light, it will remain invisible to animals other than those of its own species. Therefore, our hypothesis is that they’ve developed sharp UV vision so as to have a secret language related to mating.”

The worms also may need to be on the lookout for UV bioluminescent prey. Regardless of what it is used for, the Vanadis worm could become the first animal proven to naturally create UV bioluminescence to communicate, according to Garm.

Robotics research and evolutionary debates

The team has begun working with robotics researchers from the University of Southern Denmark to investigate how to better understand the mechanism behind these eyes well enough to translate it into technology.

“Together with the robotics researchers, we are working to understand how animals with brains as simple as these can process all of the information that such large eyes are likely able to collect,” said Garm. “This suggests that there are super smart ways to process information in their nervous system. And if we can detect these mechanisms mathematically, they could be integrated into computer chips and used to control robots.”

Beyond robotics, their eyes could also help settle a heavy debate around evolutionary theory. Did eyes only evolve once into every form we know today or have they arisen several times in evolutionary history?

Vanadis has eyes that are built relatively simply, but have very advanced functions. They have simultaneously evolved in only a few million years–a relatively short span of time in terms of evolution. These worm eyes likely developed independently of more complex eyes like humans, and could help prove that the development of vision is possible over a relatively short time.

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A team of international researchers have developed an adaptation to potentially help with 3D printing’s polymer problem. 

For quick prototyping jobs, designers often turn to fused filament fabrication (FFF) 3D printers. In these machines, molten polymers are layered atop one another using a heated nozzle. This process is underpinned by what’s known as slicer software, which informs the device of all the little details like temperature, speed, and flow necessary to make a specific desired product, instead of an amorphous blob of congealed goo. But a slicer only works for a reliably uniform material—that wouldn’t be too much of a problem, except most of those materials are often unrecyclable plastics.

But thanks to engineers collaborating between MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA), the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the National Center for Scientific Research in Greece, a little computational fine-tuning can now allow an off-the-shelf device to analyze, adjust, and successfully utilize previously unrecognizable printing materials in real-time to create more eco-friendly products.

3D printers often rely on unsustainable materials, but you can’t simply swap out those polymers for potentially more sustainable alternatives. Unlike artificial polymers, eco-friendly options contain a mix of various ingredients that result in widely varying physical properties. Plant-based polymers, for example, can change based on what’s available season-to-season, while recyclable resins fluctuate depending on its source materials. Those can still be used, but a device’s software parameters would need tweaking for each and every batch. And considering how a 3D printer’s programming usually contains as many as 100 adjustable parameters, this makes recyclable workarounds a difficult sell.

[Related: A designer 3D printed a working clone of the iconic Mac Plus.]

In a new study published in Integrating Materials and Manufacturing Innovation, engineers detailed a newly designed mathematical function that allows off-the-shelf 3D-printer’s extruder software to use multiple materials—including bio-based polymers, plant-derived resins, or other recyclables.

First, researchers took a 3D printer built to provide data feedback while it is working, then outfitted it with three new tools to measure various factors such as pressure, filament thickness, and speed. Once installed, the team created a 20-minute test during which those instruments measured varying flow rates as well as their associated temperatures and pressures. After some trial-and-error, engineers realized the best approach to this was to set the hottest temperature possible for a 3D printer’s nozzle, also known as a “hotend,” for obvious reasons. In this case, the hotend’s maximum temperature lived up to the name—290 degrees Celsius, or about 554 Fahrenheit. They then set it to extrude filament at a steady rate, turned off the heater, and let it run.

“It was really difficult to figure out how to make that test work. Trying to find the limits of the extruder means that you are going to break the extruder pretty often while you are testing it,” CBA graduate student and study first author Jake Read said in a statement on Monday. “The notion of turning the heater off and just passively taking measurements was the ‘aha’ moment.”

Read and their collaborators then entered the information gleaned from their test into a new mathematical function that automatically computed workable printing parameters and machine settings depending on material. Once those were available, the team simply entered the parameters into the 3D printer software and let it run normally.

To test their system, researchers used six different materials to 3D print a small toy tugboat. Even including eco-friendly options derived from algae, wood, and sustainable polylactic acid, engineers reported no “failures of any kind” in their small model vessels—although from an aesthetically standpoint, the wood and algae resins did make for rather stringy-looking final products. 

But while the new alterations may not yet offer a “complete reckoning with all of the phenomenology and modeling associated with FFF printing,”  the team believes the system shows that “even simple methods in combination with instrumented hardware and workflows that connect machines to slicers can have promising results.”
Next up, researchers hope to expand on their computational modeling efforts, as well as design a way so testing parameters can automatically apply to a 3D printer instead of requiring manual entry. In the meantime, they have made their mechanical and circuit designs, as well as firmware, framework, and experiment source codes available online for others to try for themselves.

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Amphibians are known for their bright colors and their low and bellowing croaks that often announce when it is going to rain. Other frogs may make sounds that humans can’t even hear. These sounds are also potentially pretty violent. A study published April 4 in the journal Acta Ethologica describes how some amphibians in South America potentially emit sounds on the ultrasound spectrum to defend themselves against predators. 

Ultrasound in nature are sounds that are created at an ear-piercingly high frequency that is inaudible to the human ear. Humans can’t hear frequencies over 20 kilohertz (kHz). Ultrasound is used by some marine mammals, bats, and rodents for communication and to locate food. Some amphibian predators can also emit and hear sounds at this frequency. 

“One of our hypotheses is that the distress call is addressed to some of these, but it could also be the case that the broad frequency band is generalist in the sense that it’s supposed to scare as many predators as possible,” Ubiratã Ferreira Souza, a study co-author and ecologist at the State University of Campinas’s Institute of Biology (IB-UNICAMP) in São Paulo, Brazil, said in a statement. 

[Related: New proto-amphibian species named after Kermit the Frog.]

Another hypothesis is that this amphibian scream is meant to draw another animal to attack the predator threatening the amphibian. The leaf litter frog (Haddadus binotatus) that lives in the Brazilian Atlantic Rainforest deploys this sonic tactic against potential predators, including bats, rodents, some snakes, and small primates.

In the study, a team of researchers recorded the amphibian’s distress call on two separate occasions. They used software to analyze the sound and found that it had a 7 kHz to 44 kHz. 

When emitting the distress call, the leaf litter frog makes a series of movements that are similar to defense positions. The frog raises the front of its body, opens up its mouth, and jerks its head backwards. It then will partially close its mouth and send out a sound that ranges from audible to humans (7 kHZ to 20 kHz) to an ultrasound band (20 kHz to 44 kHz) that humans can’t hear. 

“In light of the fact that amphibian diversity in Brazil is the highest in the world, with more than 2,000 species described, it wouldn’t be surprising to find that other frogs also emit sounds at these frequencies,” said study co-author and IB-UNICAMP PhD student Mariana Retuci Pontes said in a statement. 

Pontes may have discovered the use of this sonic strategy by another species accidentally. In January 2023, pontes saw a rock and an animal that was likely a Hensel’s big-headed frog (Ischnocnema henselii) in the Upper Ribeira State Tourism Park in Iporanga, São Paulo. When she tried to take a photo of the frog, she held it by the hind legs and found that the defensive moment and distress call was similar to the leaf litter frog. Pontes also noticed that a landhead pit viper (Bothrops jararaca) was only a few feet away, which she believes confirms that this behavior is a response to predators. While Pontes was able to record a video, she couldn’t analyze the sound to confirm if ultrasound bands were created. 

[Related: These clams use poop to dominate their habitat.]

“Both species live in leaf litter, are similar in size [between 1.8  and 2.3 inches], and have similar predators, so it’s possible that I. henselii also uses this distress call with ultrasound to defend itself against natural enemies,” study co-author and IB-UNICAMP zoologist Luís Felipe Toledo said in a statement. 

Researchers have also obtained recording of ultrasound calls by three Asian amphibian species, but the frequencies are used for communication between species and its not known if they are deployed when a predator is around

The team plans to address the numerous questions that arose from this discovery. These include which predators are sensitive to the frog’s distress call, how these other animals react to it, and if the call is intended to scare them or attract their natural enemies. 

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Caroline Chaboo’s eyes light up when she talks about tortoise beetles. Like gems, they exist in myriad bright colors: shiny blue, red, orange, leaf green and transparent flecked with gold. They’re members of a group of 40,000 species of leaf beetles, the Chrysomelidae, one of the most species-rich branches of the vast beetle order, Coleoptera. “You have your weevils, longhorns, and leaf beetles,” she says. “That’s really the trio that dominates beetle diversity.”

An entomologist at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Chaboo has long wondered why the kingdom of life is so skewed toward beetles: The tough-bodied creatures make up about a quarter of all animal species. Many biologists have wondered the same thing, for a long time. “Darwin was a beetle collector,” Chaboo notes.

Of the roughly 1 million named insect species on Earth, about 400,000 are beetles. And that’s just the beetles described so far. Scientists typically describe thousands of new species each year. So—why so many beetle species? “We don’t know the precise answer,” says Chaboo. But clues are emerging.

One hypothesis is that there are lots of them because they’ve been around so long. “Beetles are 350 million years old,” says evolutionary biologist and entomologist Duane McKenna of the University of Memphis in Tennessee. That’s a great deal of time in which existing species can speciate, or split into new, distinct genetic lineages. By way of comparison, modern humans have existed for only about 300,000 years.

Yet just because a group of animals is old doesn’t necessarily mean it will have more species. Some very old groups have very few species. Coelacanth fish, for example, have been swimming the ocean for approximately 360 million years, reaching a maximum of around 90 species and then declining to the two species known to be living today. Similarly, the lizard-like reptile the tuatara is the only living member of a once globally diverse ancient order of reptiles that originated about 250 million years ago.

Another possible explanation for why beetles are so rich in species is that, in addition to being old, they have unusual staying power. “They have survived at least two mass extinctions,” says Cristian Beza-Beza, a University of Minnesota postdoctoral fellow. Indeed, a 2015 study using fossil beetles to explore extinctions as far back as the Permian 284 million years ago concluded that lack of extinction may be at least as important as diversification for explaining beetle species abundance. In past eras, at least, beetles have demonstrated a striking ability to shift their ranges in response to climate change, and this may explain their extinction resilience, the authors hypothesize.

Complicating the mystery of beetle diversity is the fact that some branches of the beetle family tree have many more species than others. For example, dung beetles, which spend their lives rolling deftly crafted balls of excrement, are only modestly diverse. “This family is around 8,000 species, so it’s not a huge group,” says community ecologist Jorge Ari Noriega at Universidad El Bosque in Bogotá, Colombia.

By contrast, Chrysomeloidea—a superfamily containing longhorn and leaf beetles—includes 63,000 species, while Brupestoidea, a group of metallic wood- and leaf-boring beetles also known as jewel beetles for their glitzy iridescent colors, includes about 15,000 species.

This large variation in species richness among beetle lineages means that “no one explanation holds very well for any one group,” says McKenna. Still, among plant-eating beetles—which make up roughly a quarter of all beetle species—a clear pattern is emerging. Based on genetic analyses of different beetle lineages, McKenna and his colleagues have found evidence that a major factor spurring beetle diversity was the diversification of flowering plants during the Cretaceous period.

During the Cretaceous period, which started around 145 million years ago, an explosion of new flowering plant species spread across the Earth’s surface, colonizing many different habitats. Today, plants make up about 80 percent of the mass of Earth’s life. Making the most of plants as food is an ecological strategy that has helped fuel the radiation of not only beetles but also herbivorous species including ants, bees, birds and mammals.

In the case of herbivorous beetles, their most species-rich lineages carry a fascinating assortment of genes that permit the digestion of plants, McKenna has found. Many of these genes code for enzymes that help to break down plant cell walls, allowing access to sugars stored in hard-to-digest compounds like cellulose, hemicellulose and pectin. “The lineages that have these genes were the ones that are so incredibly successful,” McKenna says.

These genes were ingenious adaptations that turned indigestible plant parts into food. They allowed herbivorous beetles to eat more and different kinds of plants, which in turn enabled the insects to move into new habitats and occupy new ecological niches. As plant-eating beetles spread out geographically and adopted different diets and lifestyles, the genetic differences between them grew, resulting in new species.

For reasons unclear, some species of plant-eating beetles lost their digestion-aiding genes as they evolved, including a gene coding for pectinase, an enzyme that enables the breakdown of pectin. Evolutionary ecologist Hassan Salem at the Max Planck Institute for Biology in Tübingen, Germany, explains that to compensate, some beetles evolved a different strategy for eating plants: They forged relationships with bacterial partners—called symbionts—that also aid plant digestion.

For some beetles, these special symbiotic microbes became an alternate tool for keeping plants on the menu, expanding the number of habitats where new species could evolve and thrive. For example, in the vast majority of tortoise leaf beetle species, the group Salem studies, it’s not a genetically encoded enzyme that breaks down pectin, but a bacterial symbiont. The beetles get the bacteria from their mothers: Every time a female deposits an egg, she also leaves behind a capsule containing the microbes. The tortoise beetle embryo develops inside the egg, then burrows into the capsule to digest the symbiont about a day before it emerges.

“It’s the first thing it encounters in life … so it’s a very intimate association,” says Salem. When Salem and his team have experimentally removed the microbe caplets from developing larvae, the adult, germ-free beetles that emerge have a high mortality rate because they can’t access pectin in the plant cell.

In addition to making plants easier to digest, some plant-associated microbes may have paved the way for beetle diversification because they provide beetles with predator protection. In the tortoise leaf beetle Chelymorpha alternans, for example, a fungus called Fusarium—often found in crops like bananas and sweet potatoes—grows on the surface of beetle pupae during metamorphosis. “We’ve demonstrated that if you remove the fungus, then ants readily find them and feed on them,” says Aileen Berasategui, an evolutionary biologist at the Amsterdam Institute for Life and Environment in the Netherlands. Fusarium, in other words, may be shielding the beetles from harmful predators, further expanding beetle territory and enabling diversification.

Berasategui adds that plenty of bark beetles, like ambrosia beetles, also benefit from Fusarium fungi, but in a different way. The beetles carry the fungi from tree to tree in specialized pockets called mycangia. Once the tree’s fungal infection is underway, the beetles indulge in a fungi feast.

Adapting to conduct this kind of agriculture—sowing spores that will grow into food—has also helped beetle species to exploit new habitats. “From their own nest, they take a little piece, and then … fly to a new tree where they start their own nest, they sow the new fungus, they generate this new garden,” says Berasategui. Called fungiculture, the approach has independently evolved in ambrosia beetles seven times. The evolution of new beetle species is thought to have been shaped by mutually beneficial relationships with these fungi—part of a 50-million-year history in which insects such as ants, termites and ambrosia beetles have independently evolved to farm fungi, according to a 2005 article published in the Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics.

Plant-eating beetles have evolved other innovations that may have allowed them to speciate more than other beetle groups. In the leaf beetles that Chaboo studies, for example, the emergence in the fossil record of defensive fecal shieldsstructures built from a beetle’s own excretions and sloughed-off skin—“coincide with massive species radiations,” she says. Most beetle shield-users are solitary species, but some live in groups, arranging themselves in formations that protect them from predators. Fecal shield protection may have helped the beetles move into more open habitats, Chaboo says.

Whether they eat plants or dine on other fare such as carrion, beetles from all groups have evolved an impressive array of tools to solve many different problems. In that sense, beetles are a microcosm of the tree of life, McKenna says.

Resilient as beetles are, however, we can’t take their survival for granted. Insect populations are in decline in many places—“and, yes, beetles are part of that,” says Beza-Beza. How they’ll survive the impacts of humans is “one of the core questions right now,” he adds, though he’s betting there will be beetles on Earth “longer than there will be humans.”

Beetling away on scientific puzzles in the Central American cloud forest sky islands where he works, Beza-Beza has a special affinity for Ogyges politus, a beetle species that lives and feeds on rotting logs. “It only occurs in the mountains next to my hometown,” he says. “So it reminds me where I’m from … and that there are these jewels everywhere.”

This article originally appeared in Knowable Magazine, an independent journalistic endeavor from Annual Reviews. Sign up for the newsletter.

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On April 3, renowned ethnologist Dr. Jane Goodall celebrated her 90th birthday. Goodall’s impactful work studying chimpanzees spans more than 60 years and inspired generations of scientists, conservationists, and photographers. To celebrate Goodall’s birthday and her lasting influence, Vital Impacts and the Jane Goodall Institute have launched a joint campaign highlighting 90 trailblazing female photographers.

“There’s no one else in the world who has done more to shape humanity’s perspective on the planet, its wildlife, and our interconnectedness than Jane Goodall,” photographer and Vital Impacts founder Ami Vitale said. “Her legacy literally spans continents, generations, and cultures, and she has created a global movement of stewardship and compassion. Jane’s legacy isn’t just about studying chimpanzees; it’s about breaking down barriers, fostering empathy, and fostering a deeper connection with nature. Her spirit lives on in every one of us who has been touched by her words.  She inspires us all to make a positive difference in the world.”

As part of the “The Nature of Hope: 90 Years of Jane Goodall’s Impact” campaign, Vital Impacts will host a photography sale featuring the work of female photographers inspired by Goodall. Proceeds for the sale will benefit the Jane Goodall Institute’s global chapter.

“Photographers in the conservation landscape are a window to the world; and women who come together are a force—the combo is a great way to create awareness about the beauty of the planet we live on,” photographer Karine Aigner said. “This project not only supports, empowers and uplifts female creatives, it allows the public to participate in hope, and it gives back to conservation—what better way to celebrate a birthday and a cause?!”

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Sharks and owls are evolutionarily optimized in surprisingly similar ways. When it comes to the ocean’s apex predator, their skin’s textured patterns, known as riblets, help cut down on drag. With owls, their tiny feather ridges called serrations allow them to fly silently while hunting prey.

Although the naturally-occurring aids have inspired biomimicry-based aeronautic designs in the past, a collaborative team of researchers from the University of California, Berkeley and MIT Lincoln Laboratory recently investigated if these same principles could also apply to underwater tools. Their findings, published in a new study in Extreme Mechanics Letters, indicate the designs could be adapted to improve the towed sonar arrays (TSAs) utilized by ships and submarines.

TSAs are vital for marine vessels engaged in underwater security or exploration projects. But if ships start cruising at decent speeds, the ensuing drag around the equipment can generate extra noise that interferes with sonar capabilities.

[Related: Did sonar finally uncover Amelia Earhart’s missing plane?]

Utilizing computational modeling, researchers tested various riblet shapes and patterns interacting with simulated water environments. From calm currents to the more commonly unpredictable flows seen in oceans, the team observed how smooth, triangular, trapezoidal, and scalloped riblets might affect fluid dynamics and acoustics.

Of these variations, the rectangular form showed the most promising results in choppy water—reducing noise by over 14-percent alongside a roughly 5 percent reduction in drag. When the riblets were finer and closer to one another, drag could be reduced by as much as an additional 25 percent.

These simulations not only showcased potential riblet patterns for sonar casings, but also illuminated new fluid dynamics that underpin noise reduction during turbulent water flows. In a process researchers call “vortex lifting,” flows are elevated and redirected away from the textured surfaces while also lowering their rotational strength.

“This elevation is key to reducing the intense pressure fluctuations that are generated by the interaction between the water flow and the array wall, leading to noise production,” Zixiao Wei, a mechanical engineering graduate student and study first author, said in a recent statement.

The team also noted that adding the animal-inspired textures to TSAs and other underwater vehicles wouldn’t just help humans—it could improve habitat conditions for marine wildlife, as well. Systems reliant on riblet patterns could make for quieter operating, thereby reducing the chances of artificially disturbing their surrounding ecosystems.

That said, it’s one thing to simulate shark skin—actually replicating it has proven extremely difficult. But with additional testing and deployment, Wei believes the new designs will showcase “the vast potential of biomimicry in advancing engineering and technology.”

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Imagine this possibility. In a not too distant future, humans have improved weather modification tools like cloud seeding technology to the point where weather itself is not just predictable, but controllable. In these scenarios, corporations with lax governmental oversight maximize their control over their environment, essentially turning weather itself into a luxury good. Glitzy ski resorts use that control to offer customers snowy vacations year round. Rainfall, once left up to forces of nature, can now be purchased on demand. 

Those are just a few of the data informed science fiction scenarios experts drafted as part of a recent paper released in the journal Global Sustainability. The paper, led by Colorado State University Assistant Professor Patrick Keys, asked international experts in global water topics to analyze research he and his team compiled about the ways humans may be impacting atmospheric water cycles today and bring them to life through science fiction narratives and essays. They believe the descriptive, narrative approaches help provide a clearer picture into a too often drowned in data and quantitative literature. 

The experts created 10 different scenarios with striking title names like “We are as gods” and “Too much rain in paradise.” In that first example, the authors focused around a speech provided by a future scientist speaking of the hypothetical dangers of weather modification. Another scenario imagines a world where a politician, struggling to maintain an edge during an election season, invokes weather management as a way to garner electoral favor. Other scenarios conjure a future where weather itself is privatized and rainfall can be sold to the highest bidder. 

In the privatized rain example, a fictionalized rain provider going by the name “AnyWeather” sends a note to a customer informing them that their request for a “Spring Rains Service” was denied because it conflicts with another, presumably wealthier client who took priority over them. A separate scenario focuses on a fictionalized history podcast which described a strange, off-putting haze appearing over the Lagos, Nigeria skyline. The haze, according to the podcast, was the byproduct of a geoengineering approach called cloud condensation nuclei. 

“Stories are everywhere and are an integral part of human life,” Keys said in a statement. “They tell you something different from a graph in a research paper. They allow you to explore how people may feel or react to these kinds of changes.”

Researchers used narratives to bring data to life 

Humans are already affecting weather patterns in ways that can be difficult to visualize. Land use, pollution, and climate change, the researchers note, are all affecting where clouds form and the amount of rain that falls. Keys and his fellow researchers combined data gleaned from real journal entries and the speculative curiosity of science fiction to generate a variety of different senators exploring what the world might look like following years of human efforts to modify the atmosphere. 

The researchers first gathered text of abstracts from journal articles discussing humans’ effect on water cycles. Ideas from those abstracts were then broken up into themes based on common economic principles. Experts in global water topics were then presented with the themes and instructed to come up with hypothetical scenarios. The narratives varied in format, with some remaining like typical science fiction stories and others coming by way of fictionalized journals and speeches.

Keys then reached out to an artist named Fabio Comi to create illustrations accompanying the stories. In one of the images, an employee at a cloud seeding company near a ski resort appears to take measurements and gather data. Another image shows a four-legged robot the size of skyscrapers walking through a field firing cloud seeding missiles into the sky. An assortment of smaller drones buzz around as scientists observe from a distance. Though evocative, the stories and images aren’t only intended to stir readers’ curiosity. Keys believes their descriptive power could help inform public policy debates. 

“These scenarios have an ability to raise interesting questions about policy, regulation and enforcement–what those all may look like,” Keys said. “This approach can also help us recognize some of the aspects we may not be paying attention to and make better sense of it all.”

Cloud seeding and other climate manipulation tactics are already being deployed to promote rainfall and, in some cases, to combat smog. At least eight US states are exploring cloud seeding in particular as a potential tool to respond to years worth of extreme drought. These efforts are still in their early stages though. The data-informed, fictionalized scenarios presented in the Global Sustainability paper offer a glimpse into the notably divergent paths governments and private industry using these tools can take. Each of those scenarios are determined in part by policy decisions and economic frameworks decided many years before the sci-fi tinged senators ever play out. 

For now, critics argue relying only on geoengineering tricks to address changing weather platforms remains closer to fiction than science. Cloud seeding currently only provides modest results and is possible only when a specific, narrow set of environmental conditions are met. Continued warming resulting from climate change could risk reducing the odds those conditions will be met. Some scientists have similarly pushed back against other efforts like marine cloud brightening, citing limited research on the technique’s long term limited effects. Even if these measures do prove useful, others warn they still won’t work as a quick-fix substitute for radically reducing greenhouse gas emissions and our reliance on fossil fuels.

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The quest to harness the holy grail of clean energy is potentially moving a step in the right direction thanks to the same principles behind refrigerator magnets. Earlier this week, researchers at the Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) revealed their new stellarator–a unique fusion reactor that uses off-the-shelf and 3D-printed materials to contain its superheated plasma.

First conceptualized over 70 years ago by PPPL’s founder, Lyman Spitzer, a traditional stellarator works by employing electromagnets precisely arranged in complex shapes to generate magnetic fields using electricity. Unlike tokamak reactors, stellarators do not need to run electric current specifically through their plasma to create magnetic forces—a process that can interfere with fusion reactions. That said, tokamaks still effectively confine their plasma so well that they have been the preferred reactor choice for researchers, especially when factoring in a stellarator’s comparative costs and difficulties. Because of all this, Spitzer’s design has remained largely unused for decades.

[Related: The world’s largest experimental tokamak nuclear fusion reactor is live.]

Engineers behind the new stellarator known as MUSE, however, say their workaround could solve these barriers. Instead of electromagnets, the device uses permanent magnets—albeit much more powerful and finely tuned than ones found in everyday novelty and souvenir collectibles. MUSE requires permanent magnets made using rare-earth metals that can exceed 1.2 teslas, the unit of measurement for magnetic flux density. In comparison, standard ferrite or ceramic permanent magnets usually exhibit between 0.5-to-1 teslas.

“I realized that even if they were situated alongside other magnets, rare-earth permanent magnets could generate and maintain the magnetic fields necessary to confine the plasma so fusion reactions can occur, and that’s the property that makes this technique work,” Michael Zarnstorff, a PPPL senior research physicist and MUSE principle investigator, said in a statement.

Building a stellarator with permanent magnets is a “completely new” approach, PPPL graduate student Tony Qian added. Qian also explained that the stellarator alteration will allow engineers to both test plasma confinement ideas and build new devices far more easily than before.

Atop the promising design alterations, MUSE reportedly manages what’s known as “quasisymmetry” better than any previous stellarator—more specifically, a subtype called “quasiaxisymmetry.”

In extremely simplified terms, quasisymmetry is when a magnetic field’s shape inside a stellarator isn’t the same as the field around the stellarator’s physical shape. Nevertheless, the overall magnetic field strength remains uniform, thus effectively confining plasma and increasing the chances for fusion reactions. According to Zarnstorff, MUSE pulls off its quasisymmetry “at least 100 times better than any existing stellarator.”

From here, the researchers intend to further investigate the nature of MUSE’s quasisymmetry, while also precisely mapping its magnetic fields—all factors influence the odds of achieving stable, net positive fusion reactions.

Whether or not scientists will discover the breakthroughs necessary to make green fusion energy a reality anytime soon remains to be seen. But thanks to some creative problem-solving using what are ostensibly very heavy duty fridge magnets, the long-overlooked stellarator could prove a valuable tool.

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For centuries, taxonomists have cataloged every living thing they could find. Expeditions have traveled the globe, searching for unknown species; museums and universities maintain entire departments devoted to classifying specimens.

But there exists no single, unified list of all the species on Earth.

The lack of consistency in taxonomy has always bothered Stephen Garnett. Every 10 years, the conservation biologist has assessed the extinction risk of Australian birds. But he repeatedly ran into inconsistencies between lists: A single species might have multiple scientific names, or, conversely, a single name could refer to different organisms. The problem, he found, extended far beyond birds. Taxonomists in different fields didn’t define species the same way, and classification systems were largely inefficient and poorly governed.

Eventually, Garnett spoke with an ornithologist friend, Les Christidis, who shared his concerns. “And then we wrote this thing in Nature that got people stirred up,” recalled Garnett.

Their 2017 commentary in the prestigious science journal was inflammatory from the opening salvo: “For a discipline aiming to impose order on the natural world, taxonomy (the classification of complex organisms) is remarkably anarchic.”

Garnett and Christidis proposed tidying things by creating a universal set of rules for classifying all life on Earth and assigning governance to a single organization: the International Union of Biological Sciences, a nonprofit comprising international science associations.

The notion of imposed authority enraged taxonomists, a fastidious bunch who even Garnett concedes are the opposite of anarchists. In the most prominent rebuttal, 184 people from the global taxonomy community warned in the journal PLOS Biology that the proposed bureaucracy was not only unnecessary and counterproductive, but also a threat to scientific freedom. Such governance would result in “science losing its soul,” wrote a smaller group of Brazilian and French scientists in another journal, raising the specter of Joseph Stalin and his political rejection of established science in the early 20th century.

For their part, Garnett and Christidis politely acknowledged the criticism and conceded that the problem of differing species definitions may be insolvable. But at the very least, there “is a need for legitimised global checklists of species that conservation authorities can follow,” they wrote.

The dust could have settled there, into a heap of perpetual disagreement. But Garnett wasn’t satisfied. “When it was over, I thought, ‘Well I actually want to get some change here,’” he said. So, Garnett and Christidis struck up a dialogue with some of the PLOS Biology paper’s authors, including ichthyologist Richard Pyle.

The scientists shared a sense of urgency about the need for a common language to describe biodiversity. The approximately 2 million complex organisms that humans have identified so far represent only a fraction of life on Earth. And the rate of species loss is accelerating at an alarming pace. Up to 1 million species are now threatened with extinction, according to a 2019 United Nations report.

While the taxonomists made clear that different disciplines would never submit to a central authority telling them how to define species, the group could agree on the need to compile one universally accepted list. That way, when people discuss the fate of an endangered salamander, for example, everyone can be sure they are referring to the same creature. “We need to have a common shared understanding of that,” said Pyle, “in order to communicate between what the taxonomists are discovering about the diversity of nature and the conservation biologists are doing to prioritize what limited resources we have to protect it.”

In February 2020, those discussions culminated in a three-day workshop at Charles Darwin University in Australia, where Garnett is a professor. There, an international group of scientists hammered out set of principles to guide the creation of the global species list. The group hopes to get universal buy-in—something previous efforts to create a global inventory have lacked.

Today, their vision appears to be taking shape. Although the devil is in the details, a recent survey found strong support for the idea of a catalog comprising the most accurate, up-to-date species lists from each discipline. If all goes according to plan, the initial version should be available by 2030.

“It was one of those little nice opportunities for science to work the way it’s supposed to work,” said Pyle.

Taxonomy is more than just naming things; it is the art and science of classification. Frank Zachos, who helped develop the principles at the workshop in Australia, describes taxonomy as perhaps the most fundamental biological science because it reflects how humans think about and structure the world. “We will always put things in drawers,” he said. (Zachos was speaking figuratively but also literally; as head of the mammal collection at the Natural History Museum Vienna, in Austria, Zachos noted that he actually files specimens in drawers.)

An integral part of classifying organisms is giving them a scientific name—generally a two-part name, in Latin, using a system that dates back to the 18th century, and that now extends to everything from Canis familiaris (a dog) to the Ophiocordyceps unilateralis (a parasitic fungus that hijacks ants’ minds).

At least in theory, anyone can name a new species: For example, to name a new animal species, you need to publish the name, along with a description of the species and some additional details, in a scientific journal or book chapter. You also need to designate the location of a specimen—in a museum, for example—that others can refer to. The rule, according to the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature—which sets the standards for scientific nomenclature of animals—is one organism, one name. If a species is mistakenly named twice, the oldest published name is considered valid. Similarly, if two species wind up with the same name, the first one named gets to keep it.

But with approximately 18,000 new species identified every year, the ICZN, which comprises 26 volunteer commissioners and one full-time staff member, can only check that a name conforms to its rules. They don’t weigh in on how to define or identify species. “We keep entirely out of science,” said Thomas Pape, the ICZN’s current president.

While the ICZN occasionally does rule on naming disagreements—a decade ago it famously settled a two-century-old dispute regarding a giant tortoise—they leave it to scientists in individual fields to work out what constitutes a species. The issue is that while nature is usually continuous, our classifications, like our language, are necessarily discrete, said Zachos: “If you draw lines along a continuum, ultimately there is some level of arbitrariness if you are talking about gray areas.”

One of the frustrations that led Garnett to co-author the Nature commentary is that criteria differ by field. Mammal taxonomists, for example, list two populations as different “species if they have a common ancestor but differ physically or genetically,” he wrote. Bird taxonomists, on the other hand, favor the more conservative criterion that differing species can’t produce fertile offspring together. If ornithologists followed mammalian criteria, research suggests that the number of bird species would more than double.

As Garnett has discovered inventorying Australian birds, even within a field, scientists don’t always agree where to draw lines. There are at least four major international lists of birds, for example, each reflecting several points of disagreement on species identification.

And while birds, mammals, reptiles, flowers, and ferns are well cataloged, much of life on Earth lacks a taxonomic champion: someone willing to spend months and years sifting through online databases, scientific journals, and ancient texts to create databases of identified species.

In addition to his work for the ICZN, Pape, a professor at the Natural History Museum of Denmark, has also taken on the task of cataloging the world’s flies. Over the last two decades he and collaborator Neal Evenhuis, an entomologist at the Bishop Museum in Hawaii have devoted much of their free time to the fly database, scouring references dating back to a 1758 text written by Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus and resolving countless cases where names for an insect differed. To date, they have cataloged 250,000 names for species and groups of species, representing nearly 10 percent of all animals on Earth.

With the advent of the internet and the ability to share lists online, people began to envision compiling such efforts into a master list of species. Catalogue of Life, an international collaboration, has been working on one for the last two decades. But it’s a Herculean task, said Donald Hobern, a software engineer who chairs the organization’s taxonomy group. An amateur naturalist, Hobern also volunteers his time cleaning up species lists for moths and butterflies. Those and some other sections of the Catalogue of Life databases, he said, are still “very patchy.”

But the biggest stumbling block for Catalogue of Life—or any organization that tried to assemble a global list—is that until now, scientists haven’t been compelled to resolve disputes within disciplines to create one consensus list for each field, said Hobern. “There’s no single, completely uncontroversial frame of reference that says ‘this is the right view.’” And unless the global scientific community accepts the component lists, the Catalogue of Life is just another inventory, not the authoritative list of life on Earth.

For Garnett, the problem was simple: A decentralized system of species lists has left scientists unable to talk about nature in a way that everyone understands. And that communications gap, Garnett and others suspect, has led to real-world problems.

One issue is that international treaties to conserve and protect species don’t always work from the same lists. For example, white-naped cranes are listed as Grus vipio on one conservation agreement and Antigone vipio on another. Countries also don’t always agree on how to identify a species or its protective status. In his Nature commentary, Garnett pointed out that China’s outdated official wildlife lists have left some two dozen now-endangered species exposed to illegal trade. He and his colleagues hope that the availability of a global list would help the world’s governments in keeping checklists and regulations up to date.

In a paper published after the workshop, several of the attendees highlight how disagreement over names and identifications can pose grave risks to humans as well. Taxonomy is a dynamic process: As scientific knowledge evolves, taxonomists modify species definitions and names. But changes can take years to trickle down through various bureaucracies. Currently, plants and animals that could harbor pests or disease sometimes clear customs because the name on the quarantine list doesn’t match the name on the cage or seeds, said Garnett. It “can have devastating economic effects if diseases get through.”

Garnett and others also expect that the need for one consensus list from each discipline will spur people in those fields to fill gaps and work out discrepancies. The bird folks are already talking with one another to produce a single global list, he told me in a follow-up email.

And those vetted lists will no doubt weed out spurious entries from “taxonomic vandals,” people who name things without the support of scientific peers. In one recent notable case of alleged vandalism, members of the herpetology community accused amateur Australian herpetologist Raymond Hoser of using suspect science in naming (and, in some cases, renaming) scores of snakes, geckos, skinks, and crocodiles after himself, family members, pets, or whatever else strikes him, bestowing names like Dannyleeus rayhammondi, Ctenophorus sharonhoserae, Funkichelys funki, and Hosmeria shuddafakup.

It sounds comical, but the wrong taxonomy can have deadly consequences, said Garnett. He pointed to a paper citing case studies in Africa and Papua New Guinea where confusion over snake taxonomy led to people dying of snake bites after receiving the wrong antivenin.

But perhaps most important to the group that traveled to the workshop in Australia, a global species list represents a shared language for communicating about our world.

I caught up to ichthyologist Richard Pyle while he was on an expedition to record fishes around Wake Island, a tiny coral atoll in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, about 1,500 miles northeast of Guam. He and his crew were taking a baseline inventory of shallow reef fishes to be able to see how populations change over time.

Pyle likens biodiversity to the world’s greatest library, an information storehouse containing 4 billion years’ worth of wisdom shaped by evolution. In this age of mass extinction, the library is on fire. Losing a species is like the last copy of a book going up in flames, said Pyle. For each identified species that goes extinct, five or 10 more disappear that humans never knew existed, he said. “What secrets are lost when we burn the last copies of those books?”

Conservationists are doing a valiant job as firefighters, but they can’t work efficiently because they are only familiar with 10 to 20 percent of the library, said Pyle. “What taxonomy does is we try to build the card catalog of that library, as quickly as we can, to help guide the efforts of conservation biology.” A continuously updated global species list ensures that everyone has the key to what we know about life on Earth.

Mammal taxonomist Frank Zachos arrived at the Australian workshop extremely jetlagged, after traveling 30 hours from his home in Vienna. But the group’s collaborative attitude and laser focus was a bracing tonic. “People put everything on the table saying: ‘Okay, this, this, and this—where do we agree?’” said Zachos. They quickly found consensus around key points, he said.

One point was clear from the start: Despite Garnett and Christidis’ original vision of universal rules for defining and naming species, bureaucrats would have no authority over taxonomic science. “We are not telling the insect guy how to do insect taxonomy. That’s up to the entomologists,” said Zachos. “What we want is a certain quality management for a final insect or bird list.”

During their 2020 meeting, the group settled on 10 principles that spell out the criteria that individual lists must meet to be included in the master inventory of species. The individual lists must be based on science, rather than optimized for political or even conservation considerations, for example. And the groups creating them must record and report on their methods.

In addition, the group emphasized that lists should be built with local expertise. As it stands, says Zachos, too often people from the Global North are talking about biodiversity in the Global South without including the perspective of people who live there.

In 2021, members of the group published a series of papers that justified the need for a global list and detailed how it would work. The goal is to get people who create and use species lists on board, said Zachos. “All the authority that we will have comes from the quality of the work.”

So far, the idea seems popular. A 2022 survey of more than 1,000 people, mostly taxonomists and other scientists, found widespread enthusiasm, with more than three-quarters of respondents supporting the development of a governance system to create and maintain a single list of life on Earth.

“We did not expect to see as much agreement as we did,” said lead author Aaron Lien, an environmental scientist at the University of Arizona. Because of the early controversy, he said that he was pleasantly surprised that so many taxonomists backed the global list—though respondents were still divided over who, precisely, should oversee the project.

Catalogue of Life seems like an obvious home for the global list. “Not taking Catalogue of Life on board would be, in many regards, also reinventing the wheel and also probably disrespecting all the work that has gone on to into that,” Zachos said. “So, I think it makes a lot of sense to team up with them.” Currently, most of the financial support for the organization has come from short-term grants, particularly from the European Commission and the National Science Foundation in the U.S. But it would likely need additional funding, possibly from international conservation and scientific organizations, to take it on. 

Ichthyologist Lynne Parenti, who’s listed as an author on the PLOS Biology comment criticizing the original proposal by Garnett and Christidis, but who was not involved in crafting the principles, thinks that there is great value in a global list and is also cautiously supportive of putting Catalogue of Life in charge of it. Wherever the list lives, it must be updated regularly, said Parenti. “Our understanding of the world is not static.”

As for how to handle disputes, Garnett envisions a separate organization comprised of taxonomists and users of taxonomy that could act as an arbitrator.

These days, Pape, the entomologist and ICZN president, is feeling optimistic. His database of fly species is nearly complete, so he and his colleague are mostly focused on housekeeping tasks such as fixing misspellings and inserting references as well as adding the 1,000 or so new species identified every year. After we first spoke, I followed up to ask Pape why he has devoted his life to cataloging insects. He is driven, he said, by the words of his taxonomic predecessor Carl Linnaeus: “If you do not know the names of things, the knowledge of them is lost, too.”

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Nature comes in wild colors, like the electric blue tarantulas and brightly spotted poison dart frogs. Named after bull fighters, matador bugs (Anisoscelis alipes) are known for vibrant flag-like red decorations on their hind legs. These insects are native to Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama, Venezuela, and Mexico, and scientists have been stumped as to what their signature red flags on their legs are used for. A study recently published in the journal Behaviors Ecology found that this fancy leg waving is actually part of the matador bug’s elaborate defense strategy.

In animals, some of the most obvious and showy traits are usually expressed by males, like an elk’s large antlers or a peacock’s loud plumage. A 2022 study suggested that matador bugs’ leg movements were not a sexual display. Both male and female matador bugs like to flaunt their removable hind legs and the waving behavior did not change if there were potential mates around or not. It led researchers to question if their leg waving warns predators about a potential chemical defense and bad flavor or divert attacks towards their removable hindlegs to increase their chances of getting out alive.

[Related: Cicadas pee in jet streams like bigger animals.]

To try to answer what is going on with their legs, the team on the new study worked in Gamboa, Panama, a small town near the Panama Canal. They attached red flags that mimicked the matador bug’s accessories to the legs of crickets, and observed how predatory birds called motmots responded to the red flags. Motmots are large birds with iridescent feathers, long tails, keen eyesight, and a strong taste for crickets. The team spent about a month just catching the birds for the experiment.

“We placed the nets in areas of the forest where we saw that the birds moved the most and, when an individual was captured, it was immediately taken to the cages and tested,” study co-author and a research associate at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) Jorge Medina said in a statement. “When the birds were finished with the tests, we released them back in the same area where they were captured.”

They found that the strikes from the birds were not primarily aimed at the hind leg flags. This indicated that the flags were not used as a way to deflect predator attacks. However, it supported the idea that some sort of chemical defense was potentially being used by the bugs as self-defense. 

The regular crickets were always attacked, but the ones with flags got fewer hits. Matador bugs themselves were actively avoided by the bird, whether they had flags or not. According to the team, this indicates that the flags are just one component of their defense strategy.

[Related: Bug-munching plant turns insect nurseries into death traps.]

To further test the idea that the birds didn’t like the taste of matador bugs, they offered both crickets and matador bugs to baby birds that had never seen them before. With or without their flags, the matador bugs seemed to warn the predators to stay away. When the chicks attacked, they demonstrated that the bugs were distasteful by shaking their heads and often refusing to eat more matador bugs. However, the crickets were readily attacked and eaten. 

“I was fascinated to see that when we outfitted tasty crickets with the matador bug flags they immediately became less appealing to their bird predators,” study co-author and STRI post-doctoral fellow Juliette Rubin said in a statement. “It seems like this warning signal is enough to make the birds cautious, but bugs themselves are so well equipped with ‘don’t eat me!’ signals that even without the flags, experienced birds wouldn’t touch them.”

The team believes that the flags appear to signal to birds that matador bugs are not a tasty or safe choice of a snack. These flags also collaborate with other parts of the bug’s characteristics to emphasize that message. This indicates that they are part of a complex defense strategy that likely evolved to protect them from birds. 

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The living mammal family tree is full of diverse species–big blue whales, great apes, bats, rodents, and humans, to name just a few. The early evolution of mammals is a little bit murky, with some placental mammals even likely living alongside dinosaurs and others arising much later. 

Now, some teeth and ear bones uncovered in present day Inner Mongolia are offering some fresh insight into early mammalian evolution. The findings are described in two studies published April 3 in Nature that feature the work of scientists from the United States, Inner Mongolia, China, and Australia.

Keeping up with the shuotheriids–and their teeth

In the first study, scientists focused on the shuotheriids. This family of mouse-sized mammals from the Jurassic period had molars that are different from those in any living mammal. Their molars had a pseudotalonid– or a basin-like structure in their lower molars more similar to reptiles. By comparison, living mammals have a tribosphenic pattern that interlocks with upper molars when chewing food.  

“This unique tooth pattern has hindered our comprehension of shuotheriid relationships and the first steps in the evolution of mammaliaform species,” study co-author and Monash University paleontologist Patricia Vickers-Rich said in a statement.

With these unique back teeth, where these animals fit in the timeline of mammal evolution has been puzzling. Shuotheriids have previously been linked to a group called australosphenidans. This group includes living mammals that lay eggs like the platypus called monotremes. However, this relationship has been a bit controversial among scientists and leaves more questions that aren’t explained by some features seen in later mammals like different molars.

The team analyzed two newly uncovered and well-preserved skeletal fossils of shuotheriids. They lived in the Middle Jurassic between 168–164 million years ago in what is now Inner Mongolia. The team found that the molars of these animals were more similar to another extinct mammal group called the docodontans and not the australosphenidans. The two specimens also belong to a new genus and species named Feredocodon chowi.

[Related: A boiling hot supercontinent could kill all mammals in 250 million years.]

“When you look at the fossil record, both for mammals and many other sorts of animals, teeth are the part of the body that you are most likely to recover,” study co-author and curator in the American Museum of Natural History’s Division of Paleontology Jin Meng said in a statement. “Yet since the 1980s, the perplexing tooth shape seen in shuotheriids has been a barrier to our efforts to understand early mammal evolution. These new specimens have allowed us to solve this longstanding problem.”

The team believes that some common mammal ancestor independently gave rise to major groups of mammaliaforms: Docodontiformes, Allotheria, and Holotheria.

Listen up!

The second study focuses on the fossilized skulls of Feredocodon chowi and second new species named Dianoconodon youngi. It lived in the Early Jurassic between 201–184 million years ago. It was similar to an extinct rat-like animal called Morganucodon that is widely regarded as one of the first mammals. 

The team looked at the structure of Dianoconodon youngi’s middle ear, which helps give modern mammals their sharp hearing. In the middle ear, the spot inside the eardrum that turns vibrations in the air into ripples in the inner ear’s fluids has three bones. These bones called auditory ossicles are a feature that is unique to mammals and birds and reptiles only have one middle ear bone. At some point during the early evolution of mammals, the bones that formed the joints of the jaw separated and became associated with hearing. 

[Related: A new evolutionary theory could explain the mystery of shrinking animals.]

Both Feredocodon chowi and Dianoconodon youngi specimens show some fossil evidence of this evolutionary transition in action, as mammals evolved from a group that includes lizards, crocodilians, and dinosaurs. The team believes that this transition began from an ancestral animal that had a double jaw joint. It likely had the joint of a mammal on the outside and a more reptilian joint on the inside.

Analyses on the older fossil (Dianoconodon youngi) show that one of its two joints, the reptilian one, was already beginning to lose its ability to handle the forces created by chewing. The younger fossil (Feredocodon chowi) had a more mammalian middle ear that was formed and adapted exclusively for hearing.

“Scientists have been trying to understand how the mammalian middle ear evolved since Darwin’s time,” said Meng. “While paleontological discoveries have helped reveal the process during the last a few decades, these new fossils bring to light a critical missing link and enrich our understanding of the gradual evolution of the mammalian middle ear.”

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Rare earth elements touch almost every aspect of modern life. Elements and minerals including copper, lithium, nickel, and cobalt support the technology that can power clean energy, electric vehicles,  telescope lenses, and computer screens, and more. Since they are stored deep within the Earth, extracting these elements can be ecologically damaging.

The demand for rare earth elements in countries in Africa is driving the destruction of tropical rainforests, as it is home to over half of the world’s cobalt and copper. Now, the continent’s great ape population is more threatened from mining than scientists originally believed. A study published April 3 in the journal Science Advances estimates that nearly 180,000 gorillas, bonobos, and chimpanzees are at risk.

[Related: A deep sea mining zone in the remote Pacific is also a goldmine of unique species.]

“There has been an increase in mining in Africa to satisfy the demand from more industrialized countries and linked to the ‘green revolution’. This requires [a] significant amount of critical minerals to build electric cars, wind turbines, etc.,” Genevieve Campbell, a study co-author and primatologist with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and conservation nonprofit re:wild, tells PopSci. “Unfortunately the location of these minerals often overlap with ape habitat, but people are not aware of the impact of their consumption patterns on apes. This study aimed to quantify this impact and bring awareness to this issue.”

Looking at west Africa

In the study, an international team of scientists used data on operational and preoperational mining sites in 17 African countries and defined 6.2 mile wide buffer zones to account for direct impacts from mining, including habitat destruction and light and noise pollution. They also defined 31 mile buffer zones for the more indirect impacts linked to increased human activity near mining sites, including new roads and infrastructure to access formerly remote areas and more human presence. More human activity generally puts more pressure on the animals and their environments due to increased hunting, habitat loss, and a higher risk of disease transmission. 

“Mining often exacerbates existing threats by, for example, building roads to remote areas that in turn facilitate access for hunters,” says Campbell.

Integrating the data on the population density of great apes allowed the team to pinpoint how many African great apes could be negatively impacted by mining activities and mapped out areas where high ape densities and heavy mining overlapped. 

They found that more than one-third of the great ape population–180,000 animals–is in danger. The west African countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone, Mali, and Guinea had the largest overlaps of high ape density and mining areas. The most significant overlap of mining and chimpanzee density was found in Guinea, where more than than 23,000 chimpanzees (80 percent of the country’s ape population) could be directly or indirectly impacted by mining activities. The most sensitive areas are also not generally protected.

“I expected the spatial overlap between mining projects and ape habitat to be large and I suspected that previous estimates had underestimated the potential impact of mining-related activities on great apes,” study co-author and IUCN and re:wild conservation biologist Jessi Junker tells PopSci. “The results of this study thus didn’t really come as a surprise since no assessments at this spatial scale had been done previously.”

‘Critical Habitat’ zones

The study also explored how mining areas intersect with areas that could be considered ‘Critical Habitat.’  These regions have unique biodiversity and plant life that is crucial to a species’ survival. They found 20 percent overlap between proposed mining areas and Critical Habitat zones. When a region is designated this way strict environmental regulations can be implemented. These regulations particularly apply to any mining projects looking for funding from groups such as the International Finance Corporation (IFC) or other money lenders adhering to similar standards. 

According to the team, previous efforts to map Critical Habitats in African countries have overlooked large portions of ape habitats that would qualify under international benchmarks.

“Companies operating in these areas should have adequate mitigation and compensation schemes in place to minimize their impact, which seems unlikely, given that most companies lack robust species baseline data that are required to inform these actions,” Tenekwetche Sop, a study co-author and manager of the great ape population database at the Senckenberg Museum of Natural History in Germany, said in a statement. “Encouraging these companies to share their invaluable ape survey data with our database serves as a pivotal step towards transparency in their operations. Only through such collaborative efforts can we comprehensively gauge the true extent of mining activities’ effects on great apes and their habitats.”

What can be done

In future research, the team hopes to quantify the direct and indirect impacts of mining activities in a different range of African countries and different ape species. Currently, these risks are not considered often and mitigated by mining companies. The study’s authors also urge mining companies to avoid their impacts on great apes and for more data collection to create a more accurate picture of where apes live in relation to where mining activities may take place. 

[Related: How can we decarbonize copper and nickel mining?]

The general population also has a responsibility to ensure a shift away from fossil fuels does not come at the expense of biodiversity. 

“We can all do something to help protect great apes and their habitat. It is crucial for everyone to adopt a mindset of reduced consumption,” says Junker. “Moreover, policymakers must enact more effective recycling policies to facilitate sustainable reuse of metals.”

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At archaeological sites around the world, a certain subset of remains is usually overlooked: rodent bones. Rats have lived (and died) alongside people for thousands of years, leaving small skeletons behind throughout history. Few researchers have examined these diminutive bits of the past, in favor of more charismatic finds. But a new study digs into details of rat bones unearthed at settlement sites and collected from shipwrecks across eastern North America. It uncovers evidence that one hyper-invasive rat species arrived decades earlier than previously thought and rapidly dominated over another to colonize U.S. and Canadian cities.

In the new paper, published April 3 in the journal Science Advances, a team of biomolecular archaeologists, zooarchaeologists, and other scientists analyzed remains from more than 300 rodents previously found at 32 locations along the U.S.’s Eastern and Gulf coasts and the Maritime and St. Laurence regions of Canada. The sites, spanning in age from 1559 to the early 1900s, include early ports and settlements as well as seven shipwrecks explored through damming, dredging, and diving. 

“So little work has been done with archaeological rats,” says lead study author Eric Guiry, a biomolecular archaeologist at Trent University. As a result of this vacuum of information, Guiry says he and his colleagues were able to make several surprising finds about the types of rats present throughout time. The research could better inform our scientific understanding of one of history’s greatest pests.

“It’s a really interesting combination of data,” says Jonathan Richardson, an integrative biologist uninvolved in the new research who studies urban rats at the University of Richmond. Black and brown rats behave differently, carry different zoonotic diseases, and have different impacts on people, he adds, so knowing how and when each species emerged in North America is relevant for understanding urban ecology and human development. “It’s interesting biologically and also historically,” Richardson says.  

Rat fight

The term “rat” encompasses 56 known species, but two are more widespread than any other: the black rat (Rattus rattus) and the brown rat or Norway rat (Rattus norvegicus)—both originally native to different regions of Asia and both now invasive worldwide. Through historical records, it’s long been known that black rats were the first to arrive in North America, stowing away on the ships of Columbus and other European colonists to the Caribbean in the 15th Century, and spreading from there. Brown rats showed up in the Americas later, though exactly how much later has gone unresolved. 

Many historical accounts indicate an arrival date sometime around U.S. independence in 1776, says Guiry. Yet the new research suggests brown rats were in North America much sooner than that. It can be difficult to accurately date brown rat remains at archaeological sites because the rodents burrow (in contrast, black rats climb), and so more recently living brown rats can end up infiltrating older sites. Plus, radiocarbon dating isn’t particularly precise for things less than 300 years old. But the shipwreck data provides clear proof that brown rats were being carried across the Atlantic by 1760 at the latest. Numerous findings from the terrestrial sites further suggest the species established in North America as early as 1731.

Once here, brown rats rapidly took over black rats’ turf, dominating in just a few decades, per the study. 

To distinguish between the historical remains of black and brown rats, the researchers used a molecular analysis protocol called ZooMS that identifies different species based on the amino acid makeup of collagen proteins inside bone. They found that, by the mid-1700s, black rats went from the sole or dominant species in site samples to rare compared to their brown counterparts. Only five black rat specimens were identified from samples after 1760, and just two samples out of 108 showed black rats occuring after 1800. Meanwhile, brown rat samples proliferated over the same time period. The findings provide firm scientific support for anecdotal evidence brown rats had become dominant, outcompeting black rats in most early North American coastal cities by the 1800s. Today, brown rats account for the vast majority of rats in North American cities, with few exceptions

Dietary differences

Brown rats are generally larger and more aggressive than black rats. In many parts of the world, they displace black rats. Though this doesn’t hold true everywhere, and local ecology plays a role. In New Zealand, for instance, black rats reign supreme, says Richardson. What accounts for the different outcomes in different locations is an “ecological mystery”, he adds. 

In North America, Guiry and his colleagues hypothesized that differences in diet and competition for food could be part of why brown rats so quickly won the territory battle. Using carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis, they sketched a rough picture of what rats across their study sites were eating, and found variation by location and species. 

Farther north, the rat bones had lower delta-C-13 ratios, an isotope signature associated with consuming corn and other plants evolved to resist drought. In mid-Atlantic and farther south, rat remains contained relatively higher amounts of ¹³C on average, indicating a diet heavier in corn or warm-weather plants and following human agricultural trends.

Between the species, brown rat bones had a higher delta-N-15 ratio than black rats across sites, suggesting the brown rats were eating more animal protein than their smaller competitors. This difference in protein preference could be part of the reason why black rats failed to hold their ground. 

“It’s possible that where there was overlap between the two [species], it involved the animal protein in the black rats’ diet,” says Guiry. Black rats seemed to eat less meat, eggs, and dairy overall, and when faced with fighting aggressive brown rats for those resources, they likely ate even less, he explains. “That portion of their diet could have been particularly important for reproductive success,” he adds. Maybe, where they had to fight for their protein, black rats were simply able to produce fewer offspring. 

Likely, the brown rats’ victory was the result of a combination of factors. Competition over nest space, human changes to the landscape, and even inter-species predation may have also played a role, suggests Guiry. More research and more sample analysis is needed to know for sure, he says. But thankfully for science, the archaeological record is full of still un-studied rat remains. Guiry and his colleagues are continuing to untangle what this cache of rodent bones can tell us.

Rats past and present

“Archaeology represents a big trove of potential information for ecology, and information that has potential relevance to people today,” says Guiry. “It’s more than just understanding what people did in the past, it [informs the present].”

Richardson agrees. He studies the gene flow of the rats that live alongside humans in cities currently, to track how the pests move between places. The new archaeological work provides clearer context for parsing some of the patterns he’s observed in his work. “We really need that [historical] baseline to be able to understand what’s happening today,” he says. 

The story of rats is also the story of human civilization. From food security to disease risks, rodents play a big role in history and the modern day. “We’re never going to completely exterminate rats. They’re always going to be in and outside of cities,” says Richardson, “so we better do everything we can to understand them.”

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Transitioning towards sustainable clothing practices is a must for combating climate change, so researchers are turning to bacteria for their fashion inspiration. As detailed in the research journal Nature Biotechnology, a team at Imperial College London has genetically engineered new microbial strains capable of being woven into wearable material, while simultaneously self-dyeing itself in the process. The result is a new vegan, plastic-free leather that’s suitable for items such as wallets and shoes—although perhaps not the most fashionable looking shoes at the moment. 

As much as 200 million liters of water is consumed across the global textile industry every year, and 85 percent of all used clothing in the US winds up in landfills. Meanwhile, the particulates shed from washing polyester and other polymer-based fabrics already make up 20-and-35 percent of the oceans’ microplastics. Then there’s all the pesticides used in industrial cotton farming. And when it comes to animal leather production, the statistics are arguably just as bad. Basically, from an ecological standpoint, it costs a lot to dress fashionably.

Sustainable, microbial-based textile alternatives haven increasingly shown promise for greener manufacturing, especially the utilization of bacterial cellulose.

[Related: A new color-changing, shape-shifting fabric responds to heat and electricity.]

“Bacterial cellulose is inherently vegan, and its growth requires a tiny fraction of the carbon emissions, water, land use and time of farming cows for leather,” Tom Ellis, a bioengineering professor at Imperial College London and study lead author, said in a statement on Wednesday. “Unlike plastic-based leather alternatives, bacterial cellulose can also be made without petrochemicals, and will biodegrade safely and non-toxically in the environment.”

Unfortunately, synthetically dyeing products like vegan leather remains some of the most toxic stages within the fashion industry. By combining both the manufacturing and dyeing processes, researchers believe they can create even more environmentally friendly wearables.

To harness both capabilities, Ellis and his colleagues genetically modified bacteria commonly used in microbial cellulose to self-produce a black pigment known as eumelanin. Over a two-week period, the team then allowed their new material to grow over a “bespoke, shoe-shaped vessel.” Once completed, the leather-like cellulose was loaded into a machine that gently shook it for about 48-hours at roughly 86-degrees Fahrenheit, which stimulated the bacteria to begin darkening from the inside out. Finally, the material was attached to a pre-made sole to reveal… well, if not a “shoe,” then certainly a “shoe-shaped vessel.” Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, of course. But if the bulbous clogs aren’t your style, maybe the team’s other example—a simple bifold wallet—makes more sense for your daily outfit.

According to their study, the team notes they still want to cut down the cellulose’s water consumption even further, as well as engineering their bacterial cellulose to allow for additional colors, materials, and even patterns.

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This article was originally featured on Hakai Magazine, an online publication about science and society in coastal ecosystems. Read more stories like this at hakaimagazine.com.

John Ford still recalls the first time he heard them. He’d been puttering around the Deserters Group archipelago, a smattering of spruce- and cedar-choked islands in Queen Charlotte Strait, between Vancouver Island and mainland British Columbia. He was piloting a small skiff and trailing a squad of six killer whales. Ford, then a graduate student, had been enamored with cetacean sounds since listening to belugas chirp while he worked part-time at the Vancouver Aquarium as a teenager. Now here he was, on August 12, 1980, tracking the underwater conversations of wild killer whales through a borrowed hydrophone.

Ford had spent the previous two summers painstakingly recording the sounds made by other groups of these iconic black-and-white marine mammals, known as resident killer whales. In summer and fall, the residents traveled in noisy, tight-knit pods that often hugged the shorelines of British Columbia and Washington State, breaching in spectacular aerial displays that delighted tourists, scientists, and other bystanders. They emitted rapid overlapping clicks and thumps, along with squeals, honks, and bleats that could resemble seal barks or, occasionally, human flatulence.

Yet to Ford, the vocalizations he captured on his reel-to-reel that August day sounded nothing like the resident killer whales he’d recorded in previous years. They were coming from a gang of whales researchers had taken to calling “the oddballs,” because they appeared to scientists to be social outcasts who had left or been driven out of the resident group. Their calls were tonal, more alien, and far louder, sometimes sounding like a rusty hinge on a closing gate. Clicks were infrequent when they came at all. “I was amazed,” Ford says now.

While Ford spent the rest of his career studying whales, eventually leading the cetacean research program for Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s Pacific Biological Station before retiring in 2017, he never forgot his reaction that day: these must be different creatures.

More than 40 years later, science is poised to agree.

A new study published last week in the journal Royal Society Open Science by a team of top whale experts argues that across the North Pacific, resident killer whales and the oddballs—long since renamed transient, or Bigg’s, killer whales—aren’t just different ecotypes. They’re entirely distinct species. The researchers contend that both are separate from a third species that encompasses the rest of the world’s killer whales.

Ford, who was not involved in the study, calls the research thorough and definitive, drawing from data collected across disciplines and over decades. “There’re just pieces of the story that have fit together to build, I think, a compelling case,” he says.

By proposing to split Orcinus orca into three separate species—residents, transients, and everything else—scientists aren’t only changing the taxonomic record to more accurately reflect what it means to be a killer whale. They’re also acknowledging the ways that communication, behavior, and even culture can help shape speciation as surely as genetics and physiology do.

Killer whales traverse all the world’s oceans, from polar waters to the tropics. They are the seas’ apex predators, described in scientific literature in 1869 as “wolves of the ocean,” who swim “in small companies” while “living by violence and plunder.” That’s true. Some killer whales eat birds or baby whales or balls of herring. Others prey on manta rays or sea turtles. In Antarctica, they work together to wash seals off ice by swamping floes with waves. In both hemispheres, killer whales have been seen surging onto beaches to pluck seals right off land.

There have long been signs that such hunting behaviors and dietary differences might be more than mere preference. In 1970, whale rustlers herded several killer whales into Pedder Bay, southwest of Victoria, British Columbia, with the intent of capturing them for marine theme parks. For more than 11 weeks, two of the whales refused to eat the fish that handlers served them, becoming more and more emaciated. What no one knew then was that these captives were transients, not the resident killer whales who were known to specialize in chinook salmon as prey. Scientists didn’t yet understand that transients even existed, or that they’d eat seals, porpoises, dolphins, even humpback calves—but not fish.

“These prey specializations aren’t just choices that orcas make on a daily basis—they are hardwired,” says Bob Pitman, a marine ecologist and affiliate of Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute. In fact, both populations are so set in their ways that researchers have spied resident fish-eating whales slaughtering harbor porpoises for sport without consuming them.

For decades, scientists misunderstood these behaviors, which are consistent everywhere residents and transients are found, from California, British Columbia, and Alaska to Japan, Russia, and beyond. “We didn’t recognize that as being evolutionarily significant,” says Phillip Morin, a marine mammal geneticist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Southwest Fisheries Science Center who led the Royal Society Open Science study.

By 2003, the population of one subsection of residents—the southern residents, often spied in and around the Salish Sea, which stretches from BC’s Strait of Georgia to Washington’s Budd Inlet—had plummeted to 83 individuals from an estimated high in the 19th century of more than 200. Scientists in the United States trying to advise the government on how to offer federal protections to these particular whales struggled to describe how they fit in with the rest of the world’s killer whales, and vice versa. Nor did scientists know how long members of a group struggling to survive had gone without breeding with other killer whale groups in the same area.

So Morin spent years coordinating with fellow experts, amassing evidence about the peculiarities of residents and transients across the North Pacific. Some elements had been known for decades. For instance, transients don’t just eat differently than residents, they hunt differently, too. Unlike their chatterbox neighbors, transients use stealth, and stalk meals in silence (likely because their prey use sound too). And while residents live in stable pods for decades, transients travel in looser groups with shifting alliances.

Furthermore, killer whales often live in communities with their own rituals, which get passed down from one generation to the next through social learning. Even subgroups of resident whales that are nearly genetically identical and overlap geographically can behave quite differently, their dialects as unalike as Spanish and Japanese. Northern residents, for example, frequently zip into shallow waters to scratch their bellies on the gravelly seafloor. Southern residents, who frequent similar waters, have never been documented doing that. Instead, they hold multi-pod gatherings and occasionally push baby salmon with their snouts—neither of which is a popular pastime with northern residents.

Alone, none of these differences is enough to classify different communities or ecotypes as distinct species. But for some groups of killer whales, what started out as behavioral traits handed down through generations may have ultimately helped lead to something more. “Most people tend to think [something is] either a different species or it’s not,” Pitman says. But “you have to understand: evolution is a slow change over time. It’s not a black-and-white situation.”

Over several decades, Morin’s compilation of research helped illuminate differences both subtle and extraordinary, through methods as diverse as finding and studying whale skulls and using cameras attached to drones. Transients, compared to residents, are longer and fatter, with more triangular dorsal fins. Their jaws are more robust and curved—a necessity, perhaps, for wrangling a half-tonne dinner of Steller sea lion.

But some of the most compelling distinctions come from work by Morin and colleague Kim Parsons, a research geneticist at NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center. When studying tissue samples, Parsons found that whenever whales look, act, feed, and sound like transients, they have DNA that’s noticeably distinct from residents. In fact, Morin’s work showed that the two whale types, even when swimming in nearby waters, are so genetically removed from one another that they haven’t interbred for at least several hundred thousand years. As Parsons puts it: “They’ve obviously been on very separate, very divergent, and independent paths of evolution for a very, very long time.”

This pattern remains true across the North Pacific. Andrew Foote, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Oslo who has studied killer whales but wasn’t part of this study, says that this speaks to how robust the barriers to gene flow are between residents and transients.

Morin’s best guess is that as ice ages came and went, groups of whales became isolated by changing geography and were forced to specialize. “There was this physical separation, which is the normal way that speciation starts to occur, and the cultural variation was overlaid on top of that,” Morin says. When the environment shifted again and whales came back together, “cultural differences reinforced the separation.”

Other animals that separated for millennia then reunited might not have a problem reintegrating, Morin adds. But killer whales have such cohesive family bonds and distinct dialects that “this cultural aspect helps drive their divergence—or at least helps maintain it.”

For the moment, killer whales globally will remain a single species. The Society for Marine Mammalogy’s taxonomy committee will debate the findings of Morin and his colleagues, maybe later this spring, and many experts suspect they will eventually accept the proposed partitioning of killer whales into three species: transients (Orcinus rectipinnus), residents (Orcinus ater), and everything else, including the offshore whales that also call the North Pacific home. All of those would still go by Orcinus orca—at least for now. This research may eventually pave the way for further divisions among the rest of the planet’s killer whales.

In the meantime, Ford looks forward to being able to finally settle a longstanding argument. “What this paper is going to do is resolve a problem I’ve had for years,” he says, chuckling. When he talks to the public highlighting differences between these whales, or tells someone at a dinner party how he spent his career, he invariably faces a question: “Why aren’t they different species?”

Now he can say, “I think they will be soon.”

This article first appeared in Hakai Magazine and is republished here with permission.

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Each day an estimated 95 percent of the world’s data travels across the roughly 900,000 miles of submarine fiber optic cables criss-crossing the ocean floor. Modern life as we know it—from internet communications to video calls to streaming services—would look significantly different without this massive infrastructure. To keep up with the world’s insatiable data needs, construction could soon begin on a new cable located within a once-inaccessible environment.

Politico reports that a consortium of companies intends to move forward with the Far North Fiber project—a deep sea cable that would stretch over 9,000 miles through the Northwest Passage, connecting Europe to Japan, alongside additional landing sites in Alaska, Canada, Norway, Finland, and Ireland. Ironically, the potential endeavor is only possible due to one of the most pressing threats facing humanity.

As our digital lives travel along these submarine cables, they devour gigantic amounts of energy and further exacerbate climate change. The Arctic, for example, is currently warming almost four times faster than the rest of the planet, causing its sea ice to shrink by roughly 13 percent per decade. According to one Far North Fiber developer, however, all that terrifying environmental decimation creates a new business opportunity.

[Related: A 10-million-pound undersea cable just broke an internet speed record.]

The Arctic’s previously unthinkable thaws will present a “sweet spot where it’s now accessible and allows us a time window when we can get the cable safely installed,” Ik Icard, chief strategy officer at Far North Digital, told Politico.

Far North Fiber’s backers claim that, once constructed, their cable would also be better protected compared to similar lines elsewhere in the world. An estimated 100 to 150 lines are damaged every year globally, be it from accidental encounters with boat anchors and fishing equipment, or due to intentional sabotage.

The threat of sabotage is an increasing concern to the telecom companies overseeing deep sea cable systems. More than 90 percent of all Europe-Asia data traffic travels along cables within the Red Sea trading corridor. Thanks to a recent increase in the region’s geopolitical unrest and violence, cable lines face greater risk of damage. Just last month, three such lines were cut during ongoing Houthi rebel attacks on nearby shipping vessels.

Company representatives believe establishing a new route through the Northwest Passage could avoid similar issues in the future—at an estimated cost of €1 billion ($1.08 billion). That’s about four times the cost of laying a cable across the Atlantic Ocean, and around three times as much to do so in the Pacific. But despite the exponential price tag, the European Union has signaled its interest with a €23 million investment in Far North Fiber. The project’s developers also hope to convince the US and Canada to get involved. 

“Nobody wants to cut a cable under the ice, it’s really hard to do,” Far North Digital co-founder Ethan Berkowitz said.

A study published in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment estimates the Arctic could experience seasonally ice-free waters as soon as 2035—less than a decade removed from Far North Fiber’s proposed 2026 launch date.

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Arachnids are born dancers. After millions of years of evolution, many species rely on fancy footwork to communicate everything from courtship rituals, to territorial disputes, to hunting strategies. Researchers usually observe these movements in lab settings using what are known as laser vibrometers. After aiming the tool’s light beam at a target, the vibrometer measures miniscule vibration frequencies and amplitudes emitted from the Doppler shift effect. Unfortunately, such systems’ cost and sensitivity often limit their field deployment.

To find a solution for this long-standing problem, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln PhD student recently combined an array of tiny, cheap contact microphones alongside a sound-processing machine learning program. Then, once packed up, he headed into the forests of north Mississippi to test out his new system.

Noori Choi’s results, recently published in Communications Biology, highlight a never-before-seen approach to collecting spiders’ extremely hard-to-detect movements across woodland substrates. Choi spent two sweltering summer months placing 25 microphones and pitfall traps across 1,000-square-foot sections of forest floor, then waited for the local wildlife to make its vibratory moves. In the end, Choi left the Magnolia State with 39,000 hours of data including over 17,000 series of vibrations.

[Related: Meet the first electric blue tarantula known to science.]

Not all those murmurings were the wolf spiders Choi wanted, of course. Forests are loud places filled with active insects, chatty birds, rustling tree branches, as well as the invasive sounds of human life like overhead plane engines. These sound waves are also absorbed into the ground as vibrations, and need to be sifted out from scientists’ arachnid targets.

“The vibroscape is a busier signaling space than we expected, because it includes both airborne and substrate-borne vibrations,” Choi said in a recent university profile.

In the past, this analysis process was a frustratingly tedious, manual endeavor that could severely limit research and dataset scopes. But instead of pouring over roughly 1,625 days’ worth of recordings, Choi designed a machine learning program capable of filtering out unwanted sounds while isolating the vibrations from three separate wolf spider species: Schizocosa stridulans, S. uetzi, and S. duplex.

Further analysis yielded fascinating new insights into arachnid behaviors, particularly an overlap of acoustic frequency, time, and signaling space between the S. stridulans and S. uetzi sibling species. Choi determined that both wolf spider variants usually restricted their signaling for when they were atop leaf litter, not pine debris. According to Choi, this implies that real estate is at a premium for the spiders.

“[They] may have limited options to choose from, because if they choose to signal in different places, on different substrates, they may just disrupt the whole communication and not achieve their goal, like attracting mates,” Choi, now a postdoctoral researcher at Germany’s Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, said on Monday.

What’s more, S. stridulans and S. uetzi appear to adapt their communication methods depending on how crowded they are at any given time, and who was crowding them. S. stridulans, for example, tended to lengthen their vibration-intense courtship dances when they detected nearby, same-species males. When they sensed nearby S. uetzi, however, they often varied their movements slightly to differentiate them from the other species, thus reducing potential courtship confusion.

In addition to opening up entirely new methods of observing arachnid behavior, Choi’s combination of contact microphones and machine learning analysis could also help others one day monitor an ecosystem’s overall health by keeping an ear on spider populations.

“Even though everyone agrees that arthropods are very important for ecosystem functioning… if they collapse, the whole community can collapse,” Choi said. “Nobody knows how to monitor changes in arthropods.”

Now, however, Choi’s new methodology could allow a non-invasive, accurate, and highly effective aid in staying atop spiders’ daily movements.

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The mystery of what came first, the chicken or the egg has generally been solved–it was the egg. However, some questions remain about how well chickens were dispersed in the ancient world, as some wild bird bones have been misidentified as domesticated chicken bones. 

With the help of new technology, a recent analysis of eggshell fragments from Central Asia suggests that raising chickens for egg production was likely common in the region from about 400 BCE to 1000 CE. The domestic chicken’s ability to lay eggs outside of a traditional breeding season was potentially the primary driver for the dispersal of these birds across Eurasia and northeast Africa. The findings are described in a study published April 2 in the journal Nature Communications and helps explain how they became such a critical economic and agricultural resource.

An international team of archaeologists, historians, and biomolecular scientists studied eggshell fragments from 12 different archaeological sites in Central Asia spanning about 1,500 years. They were likely dispersed along the central corridor of the ancient Silk Road, a vast Eurasian trade network spanning from present day China to the Mediterranean Sea. The network was used from the second century BCE through the mid-15th century and facilitated religious, cultural, economic, and political interactions between Asian and European countries. 

[Related: Humans have been eating hazelnuts for at least 6,000 years.]

To identify the source of the egg fragments, they used a biomolecular analysis method called ZooMS. It can identify a particular species from animal remains, including bone, skin, and shells. ZooMS also relies on protein signals instead of DNA, which makes it a quicker and more cost-effective option than genetic analysis, according to the team.  

“This study showcases the potential of ZooMS to shed light on human-animal interactions in the past,” Carli Peters, a study co-author and archaeologist at Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology in Germany, said in a statement.

The technique identified the shell fragments as pieces of domestic chicken egg, which is a key finding. The team believes that the amount of chicken egg shells present throughout the layers of sediment at each archeological site means that the birds must have been laying eggs more frequently than their wild ancestor–the red jungle fowl. These colorful tropical birds are still found throughout Southeast Asia and parts of South Asia, and only nest once per year, laying about six eggs per clutch. Domestic chickens lay eggs much more frequently, with some hens able to lay one egg per day, so ancient peoples must have taken advantage of this egg laying ability that was not beholden to a specific season. 

The abundance of the eggshells suggests that the birds were laying eggs out of season. Having this access to eggs that were not dependent on a particular season likely made the domestic chicken a particularly useful animal.

[Related: Finally, a smart home for chickens.]

“This is the earliest evidence for the loss of seasonal egg laying yet identified in the archaeological record,” study co-author and Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology paleoecologist and paleoeconomist Robert Spengler said in a statement. “This is an important clue for better understanding the mutualistic relationships between humans and animals that resulted in domestication.”

The study suggests that at least in Central Asia, the domestic chicken’s ability to lay several eggs made it the important agricultural species that it is today. The team hopes that work like this demonstrates how using new cost-effective analysis methods like ZooMS and interdisciplinary collaboration can be used to address long-standing questions about our past. 

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When a winter storm lies on the horizon, the salt trucks spring into action. By spreading salt—regular old sodium chloride, the same kind we put on our food—over every inch of our roads, we’ve figured out how to make them safe for drivers even as slick snow and ice coat the asphalt, turning hazards into mere inconveniences.

But that salt doesn’t just disappear after a storm. Slowly, the salt trickles down off the road and into the water system while filling up rivers, lakes and wetlands—and massively boosting the salinity of these freshwater bodies. And for freshwater wildlife, living in a salty pond can lead to things like stunted growth, increased susceptibility to disease and even death, says Rick Relyea, a biologist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. 

But Relyea and his colleagues have now found evidence that at least one freshwater species, the wood frog, might be able to adapt to saltier water within just a few generations. Exactly how this adaptation happens still isn’t clear, but this finding is a small bit of tentatively good news for efforts to protect wildlife from the dangers of road salt.

“It’s a great example of how evolution through selection can happen really quickly,” Relyea tells PopSci. “And on the upside, buy us some time until we fix some of these problems.”

Road salt can have a profound impact on the chemistry of some freshwater bodies of water. While a pristine lake would probably have less than five milligrams of chloride per liter of water, Relyea says, he’ll find some wetlands with hundreds of milligrams per liter. (For reference, that’s still not anywhere near salt levels in the ocean, where water has about 35 grams of chloride per liter, but still a big change for freshwater wildlife.)

Some freshwater bodies can end up saltier than others, depending on how shallow they are and how much inflow and outflow they have. In April 2022, Relyea and his colleagues collected wood frog eggs from nine different ponds in upstate New York. Each of the ponds was near a road but varied in salt content—ranging from one milligram of chloride per liter to a whopping 744 mg/liter. After collecting the eggs, the team raised each clutch into tadpoles at the lab in freshwater.

Once the tadpoles were swimming around, the researchers undertook what’s called a “time-to-death” experiment, which is exactly what it sounds like—they placed 15 tadpoles from each pond into a cup of water with a lethal dose of salt and tested to see how long they lived. They published their results on March 12 in the journal Ecology and Evolution.

Tadpoles from the eight ponds with the lowest salt concentration all died at about the same rate, with none still living after about two days. But tadpoles from the pond with the highest salt concentration survived much longer. By hour 30, when about half of the other tadpoles had died, around 90% of the saltiest-pond tadpoles were still swimming. By hour 50, when all of the other tadpoles were dead, more than 60% of the saltiest-pond tadpoles were still alive. Even on day three, long after the other tadpoles had passed on to the froggy afterlife, a few of the saltiest-pond tadpoles were still kickin’ it.

That saltiest pond is probably especially salty because it’s been surrounded by a large parking lot for around 25 years, Relyea says. And the remarkable survival of its frogs may not be coincidental. Relyea notes that wood frogs return to the same ponds and wetlands each year to lay eggs—meaning the eggs they collected may stem from a micro-population of frogs that has bred in that same parking lot-adjacent pond for more than two decades, or roughly 10 generations. With little genetic mixing between populations, this process could have driven the frogs to adapt to saltier conditions.

Theoretically, that would apply to the frogs from all the other ponds, too–and the second-saltiest pond in their study was still very salty, with more than 400 mg of chloride per liter. So was the third-saltiest pond, with around 300 mg/liter. Yet despite these still-very-high salt levels, tadpoles from the frog populations at these ponds performed no better than tadpoles from ponds with almost no salt in the time-to-death experiment.

The study authors said this might indicate that there is some threshold beyond which the frogs may start to adapt to high salt conditions, though Relyea also notes there might be some other factor at play here instead. “We don’t know how they did it,” he says, “we just know that they did it.”

For one, it’s also possible that the frog populations in the other ponds just haven’t had enough time to show any adaptations to salt, he says–if you came back and studied the frogs again in five or 10 years, maybe the frogs from the second-saltiest and third-saltiest ponds would also show some kind of adaptation.

Adaptations to new environmental conditions may often come with drawbacks, too. For example, Relyea has also found that zooplankton seem capable of adapting to high salt content—but when they do, they lose all sense of their circadian rhythm, or internal clock.

“They have no idea what time of day it is,” he says.

But these salt-tolerant frogs seem to be doing ok. In addition to seeing how long these tadpoles could survive in salty water, the team also tracked their growth, development and activity. They didn’t find any significant difference between the populations, though they did notice that saltier water seemed to make all of the tadpoles slightly less active.

This study adds to the growing collection of research on wood frogs and salt tolerance, which has yielded some contrasting results. For example, the new paper noted that while researchers in Connecticut have found that wood frogs from high-salt ponds were less likely to survive and slower to develop, researchers in Vermont have found that wood frogs from high-salt ponds might actually be larger and better at moving around.

Future research could tease out exactly how salt is affecting wood frogs and other wildlife. But Relyea notes that some of those other freshwater species, like plankton, can be way more sensitive to salt than the frogs seem to be. So, he adds, it’s important to work on limiting how much of that salt makes it to these ponds and wetlands in the first place–which not only helps to protect the environment, but also saves taxpayer money.

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This article was originally featured on The Conversation.

Solar cars exist. The best place to see them is the World Solar Challenge, a race that’s held every two years in Australia. Competitors have to drive about 1,870 miles (3,000 kilometers), from Darwin on the country’s north coast to Adelaide on its south coast, using only energy from the Sun.

Many cars that compete in this race look more like amusement park rides or science fiction vehicles than the cars you see on the road. That tells you something about why solar cars aren’t an option for everyday travel, at least not yet.

Collecting enough sunlight

While a lot of sunlight falls on Earth during the day, the light becomes scattered as it travels through the atmosphere, so the amount that hits any given surface is fairly low. Averaged out over a full year to remove the effects of different seasons, it’s about 342 watts per square meter, an area equivalent to about 10 square feet. That’s approximately enough power to run a standard refrigerator.

Car sizes vary a lot, but a full-size car in the U.S. is about 18 feet long and 6 feet wide, so it has about 100 to 110 square feet (9 to 10 square meters) of horizontal surface. That would collect roughly 3,420 watts–enough to run a refrigerator, a dishwasher and a microwave oven.

Large solar farms that send electricity to cities and towns compensate for the fact that sunlight is spread across such a large area by putting up millions of solar panels across thousands of acres. Some, mainly in desert areas, use fields of mirrors to concentrate the Sun’s energy. But a standard car doesn’t have enough surface area to collect a lot of solar energy.

Turning sunlight to energy

Another issue is that today’s solar panels aren’t very efficient at converting sunlight into electricity. Typically, their efficiency is around 20%, which means they convert about one-fifth of the solar energy that reaches them into electric current.

This means that 3,420 watts of solar power falling on an average car covered with solar panels would yield only about 684 watts that the car could use. In comparison, it takes about 20,000 watts for an electric vehicle to drive at 60 miles per hour (100 kilometers per hour).

Vehicles that compete in the World Solar Challenge tend to be large and have designs that maximize their horizontal surface area. This helps them collect as much sunlight as possible. As a concept vehicle, that’s fine, but most models don’t have many windows, or space for anything except a driver.

Highlights from the 2023 World Solar Challenge show that solar cars are designed very differently from conventional models.

When the Sun doesn’t shine

Yet another challenge is that geographic locations, daylight hours and weather conditions all affect how much solar energy can be generated.

The Earth is tilted on its axis, so not all areas receive equal amounts of sunlight at any given time. When the Northern Hemisphere tilts toward the Sun, the upper part of the globe gets more Sun exposure and observes spring and summer, while the Southern Hemisphere is colder and darker. When the southern half of the planet tilts toward the Sun, areas on Earth’s southern half get more Sun and the upper half gets less.

Areas near the equator get consistent sunlight year-round, so zones closer to it–such as Southern California or the Sahara desert–have more intense solar power than places closer to Earth’s poles, such as Alaska.

Solar cars would also struggle to collect enough sunlight on overcast or rainy days. Even big utilities with huge solar farms have to plan for times when the Sun doesn’t shine.

And drivers need their cars to operate at night. In order for a solar car to run after dark, it would need to use extra energy that it collected during the day and stored in a battery. Solar panels and batteries increase the weight of the car, and heavier cars need more power to run.

Researchers are working to design solar cars that are more suitable for everyday use. For this to happen, designers will need to make solar panels more efficient at converting sunlight to energy and design solar panels that are more suitable for cars. It also will be critical to make solar systems for cars cheaper, so average buyers can afford them.

For now, the closest option to a solar car is an electric vehicle that’s charged at home or at a charging station. Depending on how that electricity is generated, some of the energy that flows into these cars is likely from solar panels, wind turbines, hydropower dams or other renewable sources. And that share will rise as states work to switch to clean energy over the next several decades. If you’re driving or riding in an electric car, you might be traveling on solar power right now.

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Imagine walking down the street and encountering a real-life Squirtle. Can you picture how much it would weigh? Are you running away or stopping to pet the turtle-like creature? Well, before you answer, consider that a real-life Squirtle would weigh about the same as a koala—about 19.8 pounds (or 9 kilograms).

In our latest video, we used the Pokédex to find the exact weights of 11 of our favorite Pokémon, and then match them up in a 3D comparison with real animals that share the same weights.

Want more Popular Science videos? Check out “The $15,000 A.I. From 1983” and “The Buried Treasure That Took Us To The Moon.” And don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube.

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An enormous asteroid crashed into the Earth about 65 million years ago. While terrestrial dinosaurs like the famed Tyrannosaurus rex were wiped out, many avian animals really began to flourish. Considering that there are more than 10,000 species of birds on Earth, flourish may even be an understatement. Keeping birds organized in a neat family tree is a bit of a Herculean task, since there are so many species and their evolution has been a little unclear. However, some advances in genomic sequencing and analysis are beginning to create a more lucid picture of how the planet’s living dinosaurs evolved.

In two studies published April 1 in the journals Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and Nature, scientists reveal that a genetic event about 65 million years ago has misled them about the true history of avian evolution. A section of one chromosome hasn’t mixed together with nearby DNA as it should have. This section is only tiny fraction of the bird genome, but was enough to make it difficult for scientists to build a more detailed bird family tree.  

A sticky chunk of DNA

In 2014, advances in computer technology used to study genomes helped scientists piece together a family tree for the Neoaves. This group includes the majority of bird species. Using the genomes of 48 species, they split the Neoaves into two major categories. Doves and flamingos were in one group and all the other bird species belonged to the other group. 

When a similar genetic analysis was repeated using 363 bird species for this new study, the team saw a different family tree emerge. This one points to four main groups and reveals that flamingos and doves are more distantly related and it all came back to a specific spot in the chromosomes.

[Related: Birds are so specialized to their homes, it shows in their bones.]

Within these two family trees, the team looked for explanations that could tell them which one was correct. They found one spot on the genome, where the genes were not as mixed together as they should have been over millions of years of sexual reproduction. 

“When we looked at the individual genes and what tree they supported, all of a sudden it popped out that all the genes that support the older tree, they’re all in one spot,” a co-author of the study published in PNAS and University of Florida biologist Edward Braun said in a statement. “That’s what started the whole thing.”

Birds combine genes from a father and a mother into the next generation, but they first mix the genes they inherited from their parents when creating sperm and eggs. This process is called recombination and it is also something that occurs in humans. Recombination maximizes a species’ genetic diversity by ensuring that no two siblings are exactly the same.

One section of one chromosome did not mix with DNA nearby like it should have and has basically spent millions of years frozen in time. This chromosomal section makes up only two percent of the bird genome, but was enough to convince scientists that most birds could be grouped into two major categories–Passerera and Columbea. This new and more accurate family tree takes into account that  misleading section of the avian genome and identifies four main groups of birds.

The team also found evidence that this spot on the bird chromosome has suppressed the recombination process since around the time the dinosaurs disappeared. It is not clear if the Cretaceous-tertiary Extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs and these genomic anomalies are related.

The result of this genetic suppression is that the flamingos and doves looked similar to one another in this one sticky chunk of DNA, but two groups are actually more distantly related when looking at their entire genomes. Flamingos and doves can now be considered more distantly related genetically. According to the team, this kind of stuck genetic mystery could be lurking in the genomes of other organisms. 

Building a better bird family tree

The study published in Nature details an intricate chart detailing 93 million years of evolutionary relationships between 363 bird species, or about 92 percent of all bird families. This updated family tree revealed patterns in the evolutionary history of birds following the Cretaceous-tertiary Extinction.

[Related: Dinosaurs may have evolved into birds, but early flights didn’t go so well.]

The researchers noticed sharp increases in effective population size, substitution rates, and relative brain size in early birds. These evolutionary changes shed new light on the adaptive mechanisms that drove the diversification of bird species in the aftermath of this planet-altering extinction event. 

To do this, they harnessed the power of a suite of computer algorithms known as ASTRAL. This program helps infer evolutionary relationships quickly and accurately and enables the team to integrate the genomic data from more than 60,000 regions in bird genomes. They then examine the evolutionary history of individual segments across the genome and pieced together several gene trees to build out a larger species tree. 

“We found that our method of adding tens of thousands of genes to our analysis was actually necessary to resolve evolutionary relationships between bird species,” study co-author and University of California, San Diego computer engineer Siavash Mirarab said in a statement. “You really need all that genomic data to recover what happened in this certain period of time 65-67 million years ago with high confidence.”

These computational methods also helped the team shed light on that same particular section of one chromosome in the bird genome that has remained unchanged over millions of years and made it difficult for scientists to study these changes. 

“What’s surprising is that this period of suppressed recombination could mislead the analysis,” said Braun. “And because it could mislead the analysis, it was actually detectable more than 60 million years in the future. That’s the cool part.” 

In future studies, similar computer models could help reconstruct evolutionary trees for a variety of other animals. The team is hoping to continue their efforts to build a more complete picture of bird evolution. Biologists are also continuing to sequence the genomes of other bird species in an effort to expand their family tree even more. 

The work is part of the international Bird 10,000 Genomes (B10K) Project, a multi-institutional effort with the goal of generating draft genome sequences for about 10,500 living bird species.

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After a particularly mild winter in most of the United States, which followed a record warm summer for the planet, seasonal allergy season is kicking into high gear. According to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, more than 80 million Americans suffer from sneezing, itchy eyes, runny nose, and other symptoms of seasonal allergies.  

Climate change is making allergy season worse

A 2021 study found that spring allergy season is beginning about 20 days earlier in North America due to human-caused climate change. Pollen concentrations have risen roughly 20 percent across the country since 1990, with the Midwest and Texas seeing the largest increases. A combination of warmer temperatures, higher concentrations of carbon dioxide, and more precipitation can all contribute to plants producing more pollen longer. 

This year, the pollen count started particularly early, according to allergist and director of the Loyola Medicine Allergy Count Dr. Rachna Shah. She typically looks at pollen counts in Chicago in April, but saw that tree pollen was already at a moderate level in the middle of February. 

[Related: Climate change is pumping more pollen into allergy season.]

“This season has been so nuts,” Shah told the Associated Press. “Granted, it was a pretty mild winter, but I didn’t expect it to be so early.” 

Shah also believes that this season will be longer than other years, if the weather remains unseasonably warm. 

What are some triggers for seasonal allergies?

Pollen from growing trees and other plants is one of the most common triggers of seasonal allergies. In the early spring, tree pollen tends to be the biggest allergy trigger, with grass and weed pollen following. 

Ragweed, goldenrod, dust, and mold can also trigger allergies for some. 

Is it a cold or allergies?

Since allergies typically come with sneezing, coughing, itchy eyes, and sore throat, it can be hard to tell them apart from the common cold. According to Dr. Rita Kachru, chief of clinical allergy and immunology at UCLA Health, muscle pain, joint aches, fatigue, and fever is a sure sign that these symptoms are from a cold and not allergies.

Symptoms flaring up around the same time every year and having a family history of seasonal allergies are also helpful in determining what’s causing the symptoms.

How to manage symptoms

According to the Mayo Clinic, one of the first things to do is reduce exposure. This can mean avoiding going outside on windy days when pollen is blowing around, changing clothes and showering after coming inside, and even rinsing out your nasal passages. The best time to go outside is after a good rainfall, when some pollen has been washed away. You can also monitor pollen counts in your area online or during weather forecasts. 

[Related: It’s time you really understood what allergies mean.]

There are also several over-the-counter remedies available in both oral and nasal spray form that can help with symptoms when taken correctly. These include fexofenadine (Allegra), loratadine (Claritin), levocetirizine (Xyzal), and cetirizine (Zyrtec). Some common steroid nasal sprays include budesonide (Benacort), fluticasone (Flonase), triamcinolone (Nasacort) and mometasone (Nasonex).

Medical professionals do caution against using products that have pseudoephedrine, such as Sudafed, for more than a day or two. These medications can increase heart rate and blood pressure. A task force of physicians also issued guidelines in 2020 that did not recommend using Benadryl to treat allergies. The medication can have sedative effects and cause confusion in some patients.

If symptoms are severe and last for several months, it is important to speak with a medical professional and potentially get tested to see exactly what the body is reacting to. There are also long term allergy shots avaialbe that can help with more severe reactions.

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This article was originally featured on Hakai Magazine, an online publication about science and society in coastal ecosystems. Read more stories like this at hakaimagazine.com.

In the North Sea, nearly 100 meters underwater, the seafloor is littered with more than 40,000 shallow pits in the sand. The pockmarks, sometimes spanning more than 10 meters, come in a variety of sizes and odd shapes. While some look like long furrows, half-moons, or concentric circles of sand, others are ringed by mounds of sediment.

When he first saw the pockmarks, Jens Schneider von Deimling, a marine geophysicist at the University of Kiel in Germany, wondered whether they were evidence of methane seeping from the sediment. Methane seeps are often sites of unique seafloor communities that live off the gas the way plants live off sunlight. Methane is also a short-lived but potent, climate change–inducing molecule: over just 20 years, the greenhouse gas can trap 84 times more heat than carbon dioxide. So if a lot of methane were bubbling out of the North Sea, scientists would want to know about it.

But the physical appearance of these seafloor marks weren’t like those seen at typical methane seeps. Gas burping out of the seafloor and into the water tends to leave a distinctly circular pit with a conical bottom. Schneider von Deimling was puzzled. “The [pockmarks] looked really peculiar,” he says. It looked as if someone had disturbed the sand from above.

Schneider von Deimling’s team investigated by analyzing millions of preexisting scans of the area made with a multibeam echo sounder, a piece of equipment that shoots out sound waves and measures how they bounce back—much like how sonar works. The approach gave the scientists highly detailed images of the curious cavities, confirming the pits’ unusual shapes. And when the researchers filmed the seafloor, they couldn’t find any methane-reliant organisms living nearby. The team also made new scans to see how the area changed over a year: not only did new pits appear, but old ones widened or merged with neighbors, a change not usually seen with gas seeps.

Schneider von Deimling was stumped. But his colleagues who study marine mammals offered what is now the scientists’ most likely explanation for the seafloor pits: hungry harbor porpoises.

In previous research, scientists have found grains of sand in the stomachs of stranded harbor porpoises. They’ve also found the remains of sand eels, small fish that bury themselves in the seafloor. Perhaps porpoises are grubbing in the sand to scare sand eels out of hiding, creating these strange pits as they vacuum up their quarry?

So far, it’s just an idea. Researchers know harbor porpoises feed during their long dives, and they’ve seen captive porpoises digging in the sand. But no one has actually caught a wild harbor porpoise in the act of disturbing the seafloor.

Magnus Wahlberg, who studies cetacean biology at the University of Southern Denmark and wasn’t involved in the research, says harbor porpoises are skittish, hard to identify, and difficult to follow. But Wahlberg has seen harbor porpoises poking into stones and algae, likely to reveal small fish, and says the cetaceans change their foraging techniques depending on the available food.

The North Sea is home to many porpoises and many sand eels. “If I were a porpoise, I would definitely spend my time poking around in the sand for them,” says Wahlberg.

Schneider von Deimling says researchers have found similar pits around Ireland’s Aran Islands and in the English Channel, other places with harbor porpoises and sand eels but no underwater gas seeps. He’s now continuing his research studying the seafloor off Canada and New Zealand.

If this foraging behavior is as common as harbor porpoises—there are roughly 700,000 spread around the planet—then identifying porpoise habitat could be as simple as looking for the holes they dig.

This article first appeared in Hakai Magazine and is republished here with permission.

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Scientists have discovered a new species of gecko named for post-impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh. A team of scientists from the Thackeray Wildlife Foundation were exploring the Southern Western Ghats in southern India when they came across this unusual lizard. The back of Cnemaspis vangoghi reminded them of one of the world’s most famous paintings. The new species is described in a study published March 27 in the journal ZooKeys. 

“Cnemaspis vangoghi is named for Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) as the striking colouration of the new species is reminiscent of one of his most iconic paintings, The Starry Night,” study co-author and biologist Ishan Agarwal said in a statement. 

The males of this species boast a yellow head and forebody, with light blue spots on their back. They live among the rocks in this mountainous and rainforest covered region and occasionally are found on buildings and trees. Scientists don’t currently know what Cnemaspis vangoghi eats, but other geckos eat crickets, earthworms, waxworms, mealworms, moths, fruit flies, or grasshoppers. Some geckos will also eat fruit, including papaya, pineapple, and grapes. 

[Related: This tiny robot grips like a gecko and scoots like an inchworm.]

Genetic sequencing helped the team determine that this is a new species of gecko. There are roughly 1,500 known gecko species around the world. These lizards are found on every continent except for Antarctica, but are especially prevalent in warmer climates. Ishan Agarwal and colleagues Akshay Khandekar and Tejas Thackeray found the new species during an April 2022 expedition in Tamil Nadu, India. 

“Tamil Nadu is an exceptionally biodiverse state and we expect to name well over 50 new species of lizards by the time we are done [with our expeditions]!,” said Agarwal. “I also had more than 500 tick bites during that summer trip, with the highest densities in the low-elevation, dry forests of Srivilliputhur, where the new species are found.”

Cnemaspis vangoghi is a small gecko that can get up to only one to two inches in length. The largest known gecko in the world is the New Caledonian gecko. They are exclusively found on the islands of New Caledonia in the South Pacific and can grow up to 14 inches long. 

[Related: This 6-inch-long Jurassic creature does a great lizard impersonation.]

Cnemaspis vangoghi was described as new to science with another species in the same genus named Cnemaspis sathuragiriensis. This other gecko is named for its locality the Sathuragiri Hills.

“The two new species are distributed in low elevation [820 to 1,312 feet], deciduous forests of Srivilliputhur, and add to the five previously known endemic vertebrates from Srivilliputhur-Megamalai Tiger Reserve, Tamil Nadu, India,” said Agarwal.

Both species are also diurnal, meaning they are primarily active during the cool hours in the early morning. They have only been found in very restricted locations, which makes them an  “an interesting case of micro-endemism in low-elevation species,” according to Agarwal. 

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The brain’s ability to create and store memories is pretty mysterious. Memory can’t always be trusted, and yet it is crucial to survival. Remembering where food is stored during lean winter months is a necessity for many animals, including black-capped chickadees. New research suggests that these birds with impeccable memories use a system similar to something you’ve probably seen at the grocery store. They appear to memorize each food location using brain cell activity that functions similar to how a barcode works. The findings are described in a study published March 29 in the journal Cell.

“We see the world through our memories of objects, places and people,” study co-author and Columbia University neuroscientist Dmitriy Aronov said in a statement. “Memories entirely define the way we see and interact with the world. With this bird, we have a way to understand memory in an incredibly simplified way, and in understanding their memory, we will understand something about ourselves.”

‘Memory geniuses’

Scientists have long known that the brain’s hippocampus is necessary for storing episodic memories like where a car is parked or food is kept. It’s been more difficult to understand how these memories are encoded in the brain, since it’s hard to know what an animal might be remembering at a particular time. 

To work around this problem, the new study looks at black-capped chickadees. Arnov calls these birds “memory geniuses” and masters of episodic memory. Most chickadees live in colder places and don’t migrate in the winter like other birds. Their survival hinges on remembering where they hid food in the summer and fall, with some birds making up to 5,000 of these stashes every day.

[Related: Dogs and wolves remember where you hide their food.]

“Each cache is a well-defined, overt, and easily observable moment in time during which a new memory is formed,” said Aronov. “By focusing on these special moments in time, we were able to identify patterns of memory-related activity that had not been noticed before.”

A hippocampal ‘barcode’

In the study, the team built indoor arenas in a lab that were inspired by the birds’ natural habitats. During the experiments, a black-capped chickadee instinctively hid sunflower seeds in the holes in the arenas, while the team monitored the activity in the bird’s hippocampus, using an implanted recording system. This device allowed the team to monitor the brain while the birds moved about freely and was removed between recording sessions. At the same time, six cameras recorded the chickadees as they flew and an artificial intelligence system that automatically tracked them as they stashed and retrieved seeds. 

“These are very striking patterns of activity, but they’re very brief—only about a second long on average,” study co-author and postdoctoral research fellow Selmaan Chettih said in a statement. “If you didn’t know exactly when and why they happened, it would be very easy to miss them.” 

They saw that the hippocampal neurons fired in a unique pattern each time the chickadees stored food in a certain location. Each memory was tagged with a unique pattern in the hippocampus that lit up when the bird retrieved the cached food. The team referred to these patterns as barcodes since they are very specific labels of individual memories. 

“For example, barcodes of two different caches are uncorrelated even if those two caches are right next to each other,” said Aronov.

These barcode-like patterns also occur independently from the other activity of hippocampal neurons called place cells. These cells encode memories of locations in the brain. Each of these pseudo barcode stayed distinct, even for the stashes that were hidden at the same place, but at different times, or at nearby stashes that were made in quick succession. 

“Many hippocampal studies have focused on place cells, with the Nobel Prize awarded for their discovery in 2014,” said Aronov. “So the assumption in the field was that episodic memory must have something to do with changes in place cells. We find that place cells don’t actually change when birds form new memories. Instead, during food caching, there are additional patterns of activity beyond those seen with place cells.”

What this could mean for humans

According to the team, the question of whether and how these patterns are being used by the brain to drive behavior remains. It is not fully clear whether the chickadees activate the ‘barcodes’ and use those memories to make decisions about where to go next. 

[Related: Do cats and dogs remember their past?]

In future studies, the team hope to see if the birds activate these barcode-esque patterns when looking for caches in more remote spots or in more complicated environments. They also plan to record brain activity while the birds make choices about which cache to visit. 

The team is also eager to know if this barcoding tactic is in widespread use among other animals–ourselves included, since memory is a critical part of the human experience. 

“If you think about how people define themselves, who they think they are, their sense of self, then episodic memories of particular events are central to that,” said Chettih. “That’s what we’re trying to understand.”

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Nature’s brutality is as jarring as its beauty, and nowhere is that on display more than in the 2024 World Nature Photography Awards.

Photographer Alexander Brackx was in Kenya when he witnessed a wildlife encounter that will remain seared into his memory forever. “That morning, we decided to follow four cheetahs on the hunt,” Brackx said. “We followed them for hours. We passed herds of topis, gazelles, and zebras. We knew something was going to happen. When, five hours later, our Maasai guide whispered, ‘they are going for the zebras,’ I was convinced they would attack the topis or gazelles dotted across the valley. Seconds later, the cheetahs burst into a small group of zebras. One cheetah ran towards us, clinging onto a foal. In those seconds, I took this picture of the mother zebra launching a last attempt to push her foal away from the attacking cheetah. She failed. I will remember those last seconds for the rest of my life.”

[Related: New tiny gecko species named after Vincent van Gogh]

The resulting photograph (seen below) took home first prize in the Behavior-Mammals category.

Tracey Lund took top honors overall, being named World Nature Photographer of the Year for her underwater image of two gannets battling for a fish in the Shetland Islands. Lund’s riveting image also offers a reminder that capturing the perfect shot requires persistence, with Lund saying, “An unbelievable spectacle to witness, let alone photograph. I took 1800 images on that day but only had 2 that I could use.”

All the honored photographs from this year’s competition are also available to purchase as wall art.

The post 18 beautiful and jarring wildlife photos that remind us nature is fierce appeared first on Popular Science.

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This article was originally featured on Hakai Magazine, an online publication about science and society in coastal ecosystems. Read more stories like this at hakaimagazine.com.

Human technology has long drawn inspiration from the natural world: The first airplanes were modeled after birds. The designer of Velcro was inspired by the irksome burrs he often had to pick off his dog. And in recent years, engineers eager to explore the world’s oceans have been taking cues from the creatures that do it best: fish.

Around the world, researchers developing robots that look and swim like fish say their aquatic automatons are cheaper, easier to use, and less disruptive to sea life than the remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) scientists use today. In a recent review of the technology’s advances, scientists claim only a few technical problems stand in the way of a robotic fish revolution.

Over the past few decades, engineers have designed prototype robotic fish for a variety of purposes. While some are built to carry out specific tasks—such as tricking other fish in a lab, simulating fish hydrodynamics, or gathering plastics from the ocean—the majority are designed to traverse the seas while collecting data. These robotic explorers are typically equipped with video cameras to document any life forms they encounter and sensors to measure depth, temperature, and acidity. Some of these machines—including a robotic catfish named Charlie, developed by the CIA—can even take and store water samples.

While modern ROVs can already do all these tasks and more, the review’s authors argue that robotic fish will be the tools of the future.

“The jobs done by existing [ROVs] can be done by robotic fish,” says Weicheng Cui, a marine engineer at Westlake University in China and a coauthor of the review. And “what cannot be done by existing ROVs may [also] be done by robotic fish.”

Since the invention of the first tethered ROV in 1953—a contraption named Poodle—scientists have increasingly relied on ROVs to help them reach parts of the ocean that are too deep or dangerous for scuba divers. ROVs can go to depths that divers can’t reach, spend a virtually unlimited amount of time there, and bring back specimens, both living and not, from their trips.

While ROVs have been a boon for science, most models are large and expensive. The ROVs used by scientific organizations, such as the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the Schmidt Ocean Institute, and OceanX, can weigh nearly as much as a rhinoceros and cost millions of dollars. Such large, high-end ROVs also require a crane to deploy and must be tethered to a mother ship while in the water.

In contrast, robotic fish are battery-powered bots that typically weigh only a few kilograms and cost a couple thousand dollars. Although some have been designed to resemble real fish, robotic fish typically come in neutral colors and resemble their biological counterparts in shape only. Yet, according to Tsam Lung You, an engineer at the University of Bristol in England who was not involved in the review, even the most unrealistic robot fish are less disruptive to aquatic life than the average ROV.

Unlike most ROVs that use propellers to get around, robotic fish swim like the animals that inspired them. Flexing their tails back and forth, robotic fish glide through the water quietly and don’t seem to disturb the surrounding marine life—an advantage for researchers looking to study underwater organisms in their natural environments.

Because robotic fish are small and stealthy, scientists may be able to use them to observe sensitive species or venture into the nooks and crannies of coral reefs, lava tubes, and undersea caves. Although robotic fish are highly maneuverable, current models have one big downside: their range is very limited. With no mother ship to supply them with power and limited room to hold batteries, today’s robotic fish can only spend a few hours in the water at a time.

For robotic fish to make modern ROVs obsolete, they’ll need a key piece that’s currently missing: a docking station where they can autonomously recharge their batteries. Cui envisions a future where schools of small robotic fish work together to accomplish big tasks and take turns docking at underwater charging stations powered by a renewable energy source, like wave power.

“Instead of one [ROV], we can use many robotic fish,” Cui says. “This will greatly increase the efficiency of deep-sea operations.”

This potential future relies on the development of autonomous underwater charging stations, but Cui and his colleagues believe these can be built using existing technologies. The potential docking station’s core, he says, would likely be a wireless charging system. Cui says this fishy future could come to fruition in under a decade if the demand is great enough.

Still, getting scientists to trade in their ROVs for schools of robotic fish may be a tough sell, says Paul Clarkson, the director of husbandry operations at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California.

“For decades, we’ve benefited from using the remotely operated vehicles designed and operated by our research and technology partner, MBARI,” says Clarkson. “Their ROVs are an essential part of our work and research, and the capabilities they provide make them an irreplaceable tool.”

That said, he adds, “with the threats of climate change, habitat destruction, overfishing, and plastic pollution, we need to consider what advantages new innovations may offer in understanding our changing world.”

This article first appeared in Hakai Magazine and is republished here with permission.

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As dairy alternatives such as almond, oat, and soy milk continue to grow in popularity, an centuries old question regarding cow’s milk still remains. How does today’s dairy differ from what previous generations consumed? 

Some clues are now emerging in the form of some 117-year-old whole milk powder that was transported on Sir Ernest Shackleton’s British Antarctic Expedition in the early 20th Century. A study published in the March 2024 issue of the Journal of Dairy Science found that despite advancement in selective cow breeding and changes to farm practices, milk from the present and past have more similarities than differences. 

The Nimrod expedition

The powdered milk in the study was made by New Zealand’s Defiance brand in 1907. On New Year’s Day in 1908, Shackleton and his crew aboard the ship Nimrod set sail on a quest to be the first to set foot on the South Pole. The Nimrod was well stocked with dairy, including 1,000 pounds of dried whole milk powder, 192 pounds of butter, and two cases of cheese. The crew would make it farther south than any known human had been before and made it within 100 nautical miles of the South Pole and left their base camp and its supplies behind. 

About a century later, one remaining container of Defiance whole milk powder was uncovered during a restoration project by the Antarctic Heritage Trust restoration project. The milk powder had been frozen in time and ice at Shackelton’s base camp for 100 years.

“The Shackleton dried milk is possibly the best-preserved sample manufactured during the pioneering years of commercial milk powder production, and its discovery gives us a once-in-a-lifetime chance to understand the similarities and differences between a roller-dried milk powder manufactured over 100 years ago with modern spray-dried counterparts,” Skelte G. Anema, a study co-author and chemist at Fonterra Research and Development Centre in New Zealand, said in a statement. 

[Related: Ancient milk-drinkers were just fine with their lactose intolerance–until famine struck.]

According to Anema, before vacuum-assisted evaporation, milk powders were made by a roller-drying process. Boiling-hot milk was poured between two steam-heated revolving cylinders so that the water evaporated. A thin sheet of dried milk was left behind that was then milled and sieved. While scientists knew that these early milk powders were not as sophisticated as those available today, they were not sure what other differences existed. 

Analyzing milk powders

In the study, the team analyzed a few hundred grams of the 100 plus year-old Defiance milk. They set out to compare it with two modern-day commercial, non-instantized and spray-dried whole milk powder samples. They compared the composition of the milk’s major and trace components, proteins, fatty acids, and phospholipids. They also looked at the microstructural properties, color, and volatile components in the different whole milk powder samples.

“Despite more than a century between the samples, the composition of bulk components and detailed protein, fat, and minor components have not changed drastically in the intervening years,” said Anema.

The fatty acid composition, phospholipid composition, and protein composition of the samples were generally similar. The major mineral components between the samples were also relatively alike, except for higher levels of lead, tin, iron, and other trace minerals found in the Shackleton whole milk powder. These minerals likely came from the tin-plated can the powder was stored in and the equipment and water supply used during that time period. Using stainless steel and better water has eliminated that issue from modern milk powders, according to the team.

Another notable difference in the Shackleton milk samples was the presence of oxidation-related volatile aroma compounds.

[Related: Tending Sir Ernest’s Legacy: An Interview with Alexandra Shackleton.]

“Perhaps from less-than-ideal collection and storage of the raw milk before drying, but it’s much more likely that—even in frozen conditions—being stored in an open tin for a century is going to result in continued oxidation,” said Anema.

Despite the remarkable similarities between the milk samples, the team points out that modern spray-dried whole milk powders are substantially superior in terms of the powder quality. They look better and dissolve in water more easily. 

This unique Antarctic time capsule still provides a glimpse into dairy food production methods of the past and its evolution over time. 

“The Shackleton samples are a testament to the importance of dairy products—which are rich in protein and energy as well as flexible enough to be powdered for easy transport, preparation, and consumption,” said Anema. 

The post Cracking open a 117-year-old Antarctic milk time capsule appeared first on Popular Science.

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Everybody poops, as the saying goes. So it’s easy to think of poop as a class unifier that brings animals together across divides. Scientifically speaking though, it’s not–at least when it comes to hyenas. Spotted hyenas of high and low social status have acquired epigenetic differences, detectable in their scat, according to new research. In other words: Biologists can discriminate between high and low ranking hyenas through feces analysis, finding “molecular signatures of social status,” per a study published March 28 in the journal Communications Biology.

In hyena society, some individuals dominate over others. The resulting ranks determine how animals interact and acquire food. Higher status hyenas can be seen as more popular, engaging in more frequent and successful social contact. They also have to put in less work to eat. The new study shows these social norms have far-reaching effects, even altering how an animal’s DNA is expressed.

When the environment affects genes

These DNA alterations come in the form of epigenetic changes, or shifts in how genes are expressed in response to environmental conditions. At 149 epigenetic sites within gut cells extracted from scat samples, high status and low status hyenas show significant differences.  Between the two groups of animals, consistent variations in DNA methylation–a process where methyl groups bind to regions of the genome within a cell, and silence certain genes–are detectable. 

Lots of things influence DNA methylation–much of it is inherited, but some of it is acquired throughout life. Things like food availability, activity level, stress, competition, or exposure to pollutants can all prompt changes in methylation, and thus gene expression. Once epigenetic changes have occurred, some can be passed down to the next generation.

In hyenas and a few other species of animals, prior research has hinted that social status can lead to epigenetic shifts. The new study builds on that previous work, confirming the phenomenon in a clan of wild hyenas with novel methods, identifying the genes modulated by methylation, and showing changes in both cubs and adults. The study adds to the growing body of evidence that the social environment plays a significant role in animal and human health and physiology, leaving a long-term mark on DNA. 

It’s a “well done study” that improves on past work with more sensitive techniques, says Christopher Faulk, an associate professor of genetics at University of Minnesota who was uninvolved in the new research. Faulk previously contributed to research on DNA methylation in spotted hyenas, but he says that, thanks to advances in genetic science and the clever idea of turning to scat instead of blood or organ tissue, the new study represents “an impressive technical feat.” 

“If we were to re-do our study today, we would have done it exactly this way. I think it [uses] excellent methods,” he adds.

Molecular traces of social order

Hyenas live in female-dominated clans organized under a strict social hierarchy. Higher-status individuals subordinate lower-status ones, and rank is passed down from mother to daughter. The social order determines things like how conflicts are resolved and also how far an individual has to travel to forage–higher status animals have priority to closer food sources, while low-status hyenas have to commute longer distances.

It’s these differences in resource access that the scientists hypothesize are triggering epigenetic changes, even for young cubs. Low-status mothers traveling for food spend less time nursing their offspring than mothers that get to stay closer to the den, explains senior study author Alexandra Weyrich, head of wildlife epigenetics at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin, Germany. “It’s a very early imprint” of social status, she says. 

Weyrich and her co-author’s findings support that idea. The biologists collected and analyzed fresh scat samples from 42 different hyenas, 18 high-ranking females and 24 low-ranking females–both cubs and adults. They extracted DNA from gut epithelial cells in the poop piles and identified 149 regions of differential methylation between the high and low status groups. Much of epigenetic work relies on more invasive methods, like drawing blood or taking tissue samples. By using feces, the researchers were able to avoid stressing or endangering the study subjects. “We didn’t have to interfere with the animals,” Weyrich says. “This [method] has never been done before [in the wild]…it opens up a big way forward for other researchers that work on wild species as well.”

Many of the genes the researchers homed in on through their analyses are related to energy conversion, the immune system, and gut-brain communication–signaling that the food access and other status differences have long-term effects on hyena metabolism and health. They further found methylation differences in both cubs and adults, with new epigenetic changes emerging in maturity. In a complementary series of tests performed on samples from the same clan, the study authors were able to identify whether a hyena was high- or low-ranking from methylation signatures alone with 80% accuracy. Though compelling, the study relies on a small sample size of associated hyenas. “It’s a nice result,” says Weyrich, “but it needs to be tested on other populations” to prove the pattern, she adds.

From hyenas to humans

“Wild hyenas actually serve as a fantastic model for humans,” says Faulk, because of their nuanced social dynamics and behavioral complexity. He conducts lots of epigenetic studies in laboratory mice, but says hyenas offer a different level of insight. “They’re not under the artificial manipulation of either a laboratory or domestication.” 

Lots of research in humans and rodent studies indicates that early life experiences can lead to epigenetic shifts. Though it’s not a direct one-to-one comparison, the new study “can be extrapolated” to people, says Weyrich. “We have to be a bit cautious,” she adds–noting that more research would be needed and that the exact gene regions under epigenetic pressure may differ, but the study does suggest social rank and resource access have significant bearing on mammal gene expression. Despite the specifics of different species’ social hierarchies, if it’s happening in hyenas, it could be happening in humans too. 

“This hyena research directly contributes to our understanding of how the human social environment might impact our health and risk of disease,” says Faulk. “It’s a very useful and important line of study.”

Update 03/28/2024 1:29PM: Some terminology has been adjusted to clarify the difference between epigenetic and genetic change and more accurately describe hyena social structure.

The post Hyenas’ social status shines through in their poop appeared first on Popular Science.

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Best overall		Jackery Explorer 2000 Plus		SEE IT	This is a solid all-around mix of features and affordability.
Best for camping		Goal Zero Yeti 1000 Core		SEE IT	This powerful pack is easy to transport to a site.
Best for homes		EcoFlow Delta Pro		SEE IT	This is the pick if you need lots of scalable capacity.

You don’t want to wait until you need a solar generator to buy one. Whether you’re trying to live the van life, prepare for emergencies, or just bring some creature comforts with you when you go camping. Whatever the case, few things are as useful in today’s tech-driven world as a source of reliable, renewable power. The best solar generators can reliably and sustainably meet various energy needs, and we have tested and compared the best models to find which one fits your needs.

• Best overall: Jackery Explorer 2000 Plus
• Still great: Jackery Explorer 2000 Pro
• Best high-capacity: Jackery Explorer 3000 Pro
• Best for frequent use: Anker 767 Portable Power Station Solar Generator
• Best for camping: Goal Zero Yeti 1000 Core
• Best for off-grid living: Bluetti AC200 Max
• Fastest charging: EcoFlow Delta 2 Max
• Best for homes: EcoFlow Delta Pro
• Best budget: Jackery Explorer 300

How we chose the best solar generators

As an avid outdoorsman, I’ve had the opportunity to test an extremely wide range of outdoor gear, including mobile and off-grid electrification equipment like solar-powered generators, as well as inverter and dual-fuel generators. These became particularly essential when the pandemic forced my travels to become domestic rather than international, which prompted me to outfit a van for long-term road-tripping. 

To bring my work along for the ride, I needed a constant power source to charge my laptop, a portable fridge, lighting, and a myriad of devices and tools … even the best electric bikes. As a result, I’ve tried all the leading portable power stations (and plenty that aren’t leading, too), so I know precisely what separates the best from the blah. I’ve written all about it (and other outdoor tech) for publications, including the Daily Beast, Thrillist, the Manual, and more. There were cases when my own opinion resulted in a tie, and I, therefore, looked to reviews from actual customers to determine which solar generators delivered the most satisfaction to the most users.

The best solar generators: Reviews & Recommendations

The solar generators on this list span a wide range of budgets, from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand. They span several use cases, from camping to a backup for your home. Only you know all the factors that make one of these the best solar generator for you, but we think that one of these will get the job done.

Best overall: Jackery Explorer 2000 Plus

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Why it made the cut: It offers just about everything from our previous best overall pick with the added benefits of LiFePO4 battery power.

Specs

• Storage capacity: 2,042.8Wh (expandable up to 24,000Wh)
• Output capacity: 6,000w
• Dimensions: 18.6 x 14.7 x 14.1 inches
• Weight: 61 pounds
• Price: $2,199

Pros

• Charges quickly
• Very high output that can run power-hungry devices
• Built-in wheels and handle
• Clear display
• Four AC outlets
• Expandable with extra batteries
• Long life batteries

Cons

• Heavy
• Slightly less capacity than our previous pick

As new solar generators hit the market, many come toting new lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) batteries instead of the familiar lithium-ion batteries that came before. LiFePO4 offers a few advantages, including a much longer lifespan as you charge and discharge them. They’re also safer and often faster to charge. They do typically add some weight, however. Just about all of those modifiers apply here in the form of the Jackery Explorer 2000 Plus.

The Jackery Explorer 2000 Plus can power current-hungry devices at up to 6000w, so even if you want to power a welder, you can. The battery will only last you about a half hour doing this (we tried it), but it does work, and that’s more than many other models can say. I also got to test the Explorer 2000 Plus during a real power outage. It kept our router running for several hours to maintain connectivity.

This model has 2kWh of storage built-in, but you can expand that capacity with extra external daisy-chained batteries. It gives a total max storage of up to 24kWh—enough for a serious off-grid job. The optional solar panels charge the battery quickly and efficiently. Jackery claims roughly two hours of charging time via the optional solar panels, and I found it took more like 2.5 hours, but that includes battling some passing clouds. With two straight hours of direct sun, it could likely get the job done.

At 61 pounds, this is considerably heavier than the Jackery Explorer 2000 Pro, which weighs nearly 20 pounds less. But, the integrated wheels, handle, and chunky grips to either side of the box make it very easy to lug around. Everyone in my family could easily set it in the back of my wife’s Honda Civic.

The switch to LiFePo4 also means that this unit will last a long time before the battery degrades beyond its usable range. The company claims it will take 4,000 cycles before the battery life degrades to 70 percent. We obviously haven’t had time to test that yet, but that is the nature of LiFePo4, so it will almost certainly last longer than a lithium-ion model at least.

Still great: Jackery Explorer 2000 Pro

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Buy it used or refurbished: eBay

Why it made the cut: This Jackery solar generator delivers the best blend of capacity, input/output capability, portability, and durability.

Specs

• Storage capacity: 2,160Wh
• Input capacity: 1,200W
• Output capacity: 2,200W (4,400W surge)
• Dimensions: 15.1 x 10.5 x 12.1 inches
• Weight: 43 lbs
• Price: $2,498

Pros

• Fast charging and outstanding capacity
• Durable and easy to use
• Plenty of ports
• Can connect to six 200W solar panels

Cons

• Heavy for its size

The biggest portable power station from Jackery, a leading solar generator manufacturer, the Explorer 2000 Pro offers a tremendous 2,160 watt-hours of power, making it capable of charging a full camping setup for a few days. When plugged into six 200W solar panels, an upgrade over the four-panel setup available on the Jackery Explorer 1500, you can fully charge this portable power station in just 2-2.5 hours. That’s less than half the time of the smaller model.

On top of all that, it’s extremely user-friendly. Numerous output ports ensure that you can plug in a wide range of devices and electrical equipment. Its functions are highly intuitive, and the digital display is easy to understand. Like other Jackery generators, it’s incredibly durable, too. The one potential downside is its weight: At 43 pounds, it’s a bit heavy for its size. Even so, for all the power you can store, and the rapid-charging time, the Jackery Explorer 2000 Pro will keep the lights on wherever you need power.

For more on the Jackery Explorer 2000 Pro, check out our full review.

Best high-capacity: Jackery Explorer 3000 Pro

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Specs

• Storage capacity: 3,024Wh
• Output capacity: 3,000W
• Dimensions: 18.6 x 14.1 x 14.7 inches
• Weight: 63.9 pounds
• Price: $2,799

Pros

• Ample power storage for long trips or outages
• Sturdy handles and wheels make it easy to move
• Smooth design makes it easy to load and unload
• High peak output for power-intensive tasks
• Lots of ports for connectivity

Cons

• 200W solar panels can be klunky
• Relatively pricey

This is the big sibling to our best overall pick. Inside the Jackery Explorer 3000 Pro, you’ll find 3,024Wh of power storage, which is enough to power even large devices for extended periods of time. It can charge a high-end smartphone more than 100 times on a single charge. It can also power full-on appliances in an RV or emergency situation.

Despite its large capacity, we learned firsthand that the Jackery Explorer 3000 Pro is relatively easy to move around. Sturdy handles molded into its case make it easy to pick up, while an extending handle and wheels make it easy to roll around at the campsite or any other location.

It can charge in less than three hours from a standard outlet or, under optimal conditions with the 200W solar panels, it can fill up as quickly as eight hours. That full solar array can get large and unwieldy, but a smaller setup can still provide ample charging if you don’t need to max out the capacity daily.

This portable power station offers the best of everything we loved about the Explorer 2000 Pro, there’s just more of it. When you’re living the van life, powering an RV, or trying to ride out a power outage, more is definitely better if you can justify the extra cost.

Best for frequent use: Anker 767 Portable Power Station Solar Generator

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Why it made the cut: High capacity and fast charging make this long-lasting battery a solid everyday driver.

Specs

• Storage capacity: 2,048Wh
• Output capacity: 2,400W
• Dimensions: 20.67 x 9.84 x 15.55 inches
• Weight: 67.3 pounds
• Price: $1,999

Pros

• Charges up to 80% in less than two hours
• Solid output and storage capacity
• Optional battery pack doubles capacity
• LiFePO4 batteries survive more charge cycles than traditional models
• Plenty of ports
• Built-in handle and wheels for transport

Cons

• Heavy for its capacity
• No USB-C in for charging

Anker has equipped its massive portable power station with LiFePO4 batteries, which stand up much better to repeat charging and discharging over the long term than common lithium-ion cells. Anker claims it can charge and discharge up to 3,000 times before it reaches 80% battery health compared to 500 in a similar lithium-ion setup. While I haven’t had the chance to run it through 3,000 cycles, LiFePO4 batteries have a well-earned reputation for longevity. 

Regarding overall performance, the Anker 767 does everything you’d want a unit with these specs to do. The bad weather has given me [Executive Gear Editor Stan Horaczek] ample chances, unfortunately, to test it in real-world situations. 

The built-in battery offers a 2048Wh capacity and pumps out up to 2,400W. It does so through four standard AC outlets, an RV outlet, two 120W car outlets, two 12W USB-A ports, and three 100W USB-C ports. 

I used it during a blackout to keep our Wi-Fi running while charging my family’s devices. Filling a phone from zero barely makes a dent in the power station’s capacity, and it ran the router for several hours with plenty of juice left. 

In another instance, it powered our small meat freezer for four hours before the power came back on with some juice still left in the tank. It does what it promises. 

There are a few nice extra touches as well. Built-in wheels and an extendable handle allow it to roll like carry-on luggage. Unfortunately, those are necessary inclusions because it weighs a hefty 67.3 pounds. It’s manageable but definitely heavy compared to its competition. 

The Anker 767 is compatible with the company’s 200W solar panels, which fold up for easy transportation. I mostly charged the unit through my home’s AC power, a surprisingly quick process. The 767 Portable Power Station can go from flat to more than 80% charge in less than a half hour with sufficient power. It takes about two hours to get it fully juiced. 

Anker also offers a mobile app that connects to the power station via Bluetooth if you want to control it without actually going over and touching it.

Best for camping: Goal Zero Yeti 1000 Core

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Buy it used or refurbished: eBay

Why it made the cut: Thanks to its outstanding portability, high storage capacity, and Yeti’s famous durability, the Goal Zero Yeti 1000 Core is great for packing along for camping or van-living. 

Specs

• Storage capacity: 983Wh
• Input capacity: 600W
• Output capacity: 1,200W (2,400W surge)
• Dimensions: 9.86 x 15.25 x 10.23 inches
• Weight: 31.68 lbs
• Price: $1,198.95

Pros

• Highly portable
• Incredible durability
• Rapid recharge rate
• Plenty of plugs

Cons

• Expensive for its size/capacity

Yeti is long-renowned for making some of the best outdoor gear money can buy, so when the company launched its Goal Zero line of solar generators, it was no surprise that they turned out to be awesome. While the whole line is great, the 1000 Core model’s balance between capacity and portability makes it perfect for taking on the road and going camping.

While the 1000 Core has a third less capacity than our top pick, it charges up faster, making it a great option for rapid solar replenishment. That said, its capacity is no slouch, offering 82 phone charges, 20 for a laptop, or upwards of 15 hours for a portable fridge (depending on wattage). Suffice to say, it’s more than capable of powering your basic camping gear.

Beyond its charging capabilities, the Goal Zero 1000 Core excels at camping thanks to its hearty build quality. Built super tough—like pretty much everything Yeti makes—its exterior shell provides solid protection.

The biggest issue it presents is the cost. Like pretty much everything Yeti produces, its price tag isn’t small. While there are other 1000-level solar generators for less, this one offers a great balance of power storage and portability.

For more on the Goal Zero Yeti 1000 Core, check out our full review.

Best for off-grid living: Bluetti AC200 Max

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Buy it used or refurbished: eBay

Why it made the cut: Thanks to its high solo capacity and ability to daisy-chain with additional batteries, the Bluetti AC200 Max is perfect for bringing power off the grid.

Specs

• Storage capacity: 2,048Wh standalone, expandable up to 8,192Wh
• Input capacity: 1,400W
• Output capacity: 2,200W (4,800W surge)
• Dimensions: 16.5 x 11 x 15.2 inches
• Weight: 61.9 lbs
• Price: $1,999

Pros

• Massive capacity
• Daisy-chain capability
• Lightning-fast input capacity
• 30A RV plug and two wireless charging pads
• Surprisingly affordable for what it offers

Cons

• Pretty heavy
• Fan can get loud, especially in hot weather

You’ll be hard-pressed to find a solar generator better suited for living off the grid for an extended period than the Bluetti AC200 Max. It boasts a substantial 2,048Wh capacity, allowing you to power your whole life off it longer than most portable generators. Even better, you can daisy-chain multiple Bluetti batteries, expanding its capacity to a massive 8.192Wh. That’s flat-out enormous and translates into the ability to power a full-sized fridge for over a day or several hours of air conditioning. For the more modest needs of people who are used to living off a generator, it will last for a very long time.

At the same time, the AC200 Max has an outstanding input capacity of 1,400W. That means you can plug in a pretty hefty array of solar panels to replenish its stores quickly. This allows you to keep your off-grid setup going with little to no interruption. It also features some specialty charging options, including a 30A plug, which lets you plug it directly into an RV, and multiple wireless charging pads for smaller devices.

Fastest charging: EcoFlow Delta 2 Max

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Why it made the cut: Whether it’s solar or AC power, you can get 80% of a charge in an hour or less.

Specs

• Storage capacity: 2048Wh (expandable to 6,000Wh)
• Output capacity: 3,400W
• Dimensions: 19.8 x 9.5 x 12.01
• Weight: 50.71 lbs
• Price: $2,000

Pros

• Very fast charging over solar or mains
• Relatively compact
• Not as heavy as we might have expected
• Long-lasting batteries
• Scalable by connecting two extra batteries
• Advanced temperature management for safety

Cons

• Solar panels are pricy
• Still heavier than non-LiFePo4 models

Plug this 2048Wh battery pack into up to 1,000 watts of solar panels, and you can get an 80 percent charge in just 43 minutes. That’s blisteringly fast compared to other models. Plug the unit into the wall and you’ll go from zero to 80 percent in just 1.1 hours, which is still fairly speedy when it comes to soaking up electricity. That extra time can make a huge difference if you only have limited opportunities to top off your solar generator. We managed to get above 80 percent in just under an hour without perfect sun conditions here in Upstate New York.

In addition to its quick charging skills, the EcoFlow Delta 2 Max offers an impressive array of connectivity, including six AC outlets, which is more than many larger models offer. That’s good if you want to run many devices or chargers simultaneously. If you need more capacity, you can add two extra external batteries to give it a total storage of 6Wh.

At 51 pounds, this isn’t the lightest solar generator in its category, but like the other EcoFlow generators, it has chunky handles on top that make it easy to lug around. Everyone in my family could easily get it in and out of the back of our Honda CR-V without issue. Though, it doesn’t have wheels, so you will have to actually carry it around or put it on a cart.

Ultimately, this feels like a very high-end device. The fast charging is wonderful. The display is clear and relatively bright (though it could be brighter). And it offers a wide array of connectivity.

Best for homes: EcoFlow Delta Pro

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Buy it used or refurbished: eBay

Why it made the cut: The EcoFlow Delta Pro delivers the standalone and expandable power capacity necessary to power your entire home.

Specs

• Storage capacity: 3,600Wh standalone, expandable up to 25,000Wh
• Input capacity: 6,500W
• Output capacity: 3,600W (7,200W surge)
• Dimensions: 25 x 11.2 x 16.4 inches
• Weight: 99 lbs
• Price: $3,699

Pros

• Enormous capacity
• Daisy-chain capability
• 30A RV plug
• Lightning-fast input capacity
• Wi-Fi and Smartphone connectivity

Cons

• Very heavy
• Expensive

If you’re looking for the best solar generator for home backup in the event of a power outage, the EcoFlow Delta Pro stands apart from the pack, thanks to an unrivaled power and output capacity. The Delta Pro alone packs a 3,600Wh wallop, and you can expand that to 25,000Wh by chaining it to extra EcoFlow batteries and generators. That’s a ton of power and it has the substantial output capacity necessary to power an entire house worth of electronics when you need it to.

The Delta Pro also offers a companion app for iOS and Android that allows you to monitor energy usage, customize its operation, and monitor and manage a number of other elements.

While it’s not overly large for what it does, the Delta Pro is a heavy piece of equipment. It has wheels, so it is technically portable, but this is meant to be put down in a home or other semi-permanent site. Given its size and power, it’s also a much more expensive device, especially if you’re springing for the add-ons. As the best solar power generator to provide backup power for your entire home, however, it’s worth every penny. 

Best budget: Jackery Explorer 300

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Buy it used or refurbished: Amazon

Why it made the cut: With its reasonable capacity, compact size, and solid build quality at a low price, the Jackery Explorer 300 is a great budget pick.

Specs

• Storage capacity: 293Wh
• Input capacity: 90W
• Output capacity: 300W (500W surge)
• Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.2 x 7.8 in
• Weight: 7.1 lbs
• Price: $250

Pros

• Affordable
• Durable
• Portable
• Reasonable capacity

Cons

• No flashlight
• Slower input capacity

Though it isn’t quite as impressive as our top picks for best overall and best high-capacity, Jackery’s smaller Explorer 300 solar generator is super compact and lightweight with a decent power capacity for its price. Less a mobile power station than an upscale power bank, the 7-pound Jackery Explorer 300 provides plenty of portable recharges for your devices when you’re camping, on a job site, driving, or just need some power and don’t have convenient access to an outlet. Its modest 293Wh capacity isn’t huge, but it’s enough to provide 31 phone charges, 15 for a camera, 6 for the average drone, 2.5 for a laptop, or a few hours of operation for a minifridge or TV. A built-in flashlight would have upped its camping game somewhat, but at $300 (and often considerably less if you catch it discounted), this highly portable little power station does a lot for a little.

We tested this portable power station for several months, and it came in handy numerous times, especially during the winter when power outages abound. At one point, we had it powering two phones, a MacBook, and a small light.

The built-in handle makes it very easy to lug around. It feels like carrying a lunch box. The screen is easy to read, and the whole package seems fairly durable. Our review unit hasn’t taken any dramatic tumbles yet, but it has gotten banged around in car trunks, duffle bags, and other less-than-luxurious accommodations with no issues. If you catch one of these on sale, get it and stick it in a cabinet. You’ll be extremely glad to have it around when the need arises.

What to consider before buying the best solar generators

Over the past few years, solar generators have exploded onto the market. There are now dozens of different brands that largely look more or less the same at a glance. The fact is there are only a few standouts amidst a sea of knockoffs. Here’s what to look for to ensure you’re getting a great one:

How much power can it store?

A portable solar generator comes in an extremely wide range of sizes, but a generator’s size doesn’t automatically make it capable of storing a lot of power. In fact, most are disappointingly limited and unable to store much more juice than a portable charger.

To properly check a generator’s storage, you must look at its capacity, measured in watt-hours (Wh). One watt-hour is the equivalent of 1 watt flowing over the course of an hour. The best solar generators offer capacities of several hundred and sometimes several thousand watt-hours. That doesn’t mean, however, that it will provide power for several hundred or several thousand hours. Any generator will ultimately last a different amount of time, depending on what’s plugged into it.

It’s easy to predict how long a generator will last when you use it to power one thing. For example, if you were to power a 100-watt bulb using a power station with a capacity of 500 watt-hours, it would stay lit for five continuous hours. Add a portable fridge that requires 50 watts per hour, your phone which uses 18, a mini-fan that uses three … you get the picture. The more capacity, the better.

Charging capability

No solar generator will hold a charge forever, so you want one capable of charging as quickly and easily as possible. This is where we put the “renewable” into “renewable energy.”

All of the power stations included in this roundup can be charged by connecting them to solar panels (hence the designation “solar generators”). Still, you also want to look for the ability to charge via other sources like wall outlets and your vehicle’s 12-volt plug. This ensures that you can charge up whether you’re off-grid in the sun, plugged in while preparing at home, or using your dash socket on the go.

You must also monitor a model’s charging input capacity, measured in watts (W). For example, a solar-powered generator with a max input of 100W can take in a continuous flow of up to 100 watts, which is about the minimum that you’ll reasonably want to look for. Most of the generators below have input capacities of at least a few hundred watts when charging via solar, so a few 50- to 200-watt solar panels will max them out.

Output capability

Solar generators need to keep the power coming in and going out. The best solar generators can simultaneously charge all your intended devices via whatever plugs are necessary.

Any portable power station worth your money will have a high output capacity so you can charge many devices, even if they require a lot of juice. A generator’s maximum output should be much higher than its max input. While a particular model might only be capable of taking in a few hundred watts at any given moment, it will usually put out exponentially more. At a minimum, you’ll want a generator that can put out 300 watts at a time, though you’ll want at least 500 for larger tasks.

The best solar generators should also offer a variety of output plugs, including AC outlets, USB-A, USB-C, and even 12-volt DC outlets like the one in your vehicle dash. This ensures you can charge several devices simultaneously regardless of their plug. The number of ports you’ll need will vary depending on how many devices you need to power, but it should have at least a couple of AC outlets and a few USB-A ports.

Portability

While portable battery sources have been around for a while now, over the past several decades, they’ve been pretty heavy, unwieldy things. One of the most exciting aspects of the latest generation of solar generators is that they’ve become much more physically compact. 

Suppose you plan on taking a generator camping or working it into a van conversion where every square inch matters; well, size and weight become major considerations. All of the products we’ve recommended are about the size of one or two shoeboxes—three at the most. The lightest is about the weight of a 24-pack of soda, while the heaviest is 100 pounds. Most fall somewhere between 30-60 pounds.

If you’re using your generator as a more or less stationary source of backup power at home, portability isn’t a huge issue. Still, we generally recommend keeping weight and size in mind; You never know when you’ll need it for something other than a backup. (Plus, who wants to lug around something heavy and awkward if they don’t have to?) 

Another consideration regarding portability involves the necessity for accessories, which can impact how easy it is to move and use your generator. Some generators, for example, require a lot of removable battery packs, which can be a hassle when you’re on the go or packing a vehicle. All of the inclusions on our list require some accessories—you can’t get solar power without connecting cables and solar panels—but they work well with minimal add-ons.

Durability

As with any product you expect to last, durability and all-around quality craftsmanship are essential. This is especially true if you plan on lugging your generator around on camping and road trips. Many subpar power stations are made from cheap components and flimsy plastic that doesn’t feel like it will hold up under the rigors of the road.

Durability isn’t something you can determine by reading a spec sheet off the internet. You’ve actually got to take the generator out, use it a bunch, and see how it holds up. I’ve verified the durability of these recommendations via a combination of my own actual field tests and reviews culled from countless real product owners.

Related: Best electric generators

FAQs

Final thoughts on the best solar generators

• Best overall: Jackery Explorer 2000 Plus
• Still great: Jackery Explorer 2000 Pro
• Best high-capacity: Jackery Explorer 3000 Pro
• Best for frequent use: Anker 767 Portable Power Station Solar Generator
• Best for camping: Goal Zero Yeti 1000 Core
• Best for off-grid living: Bluetti AC200 Max
• Fastest charging: EcoFlow Delta 2 Max
• Best for homes: EcoFlow Delta Pro
• Best budget: Jackery Explorer 300

We’re living in a “golden age” for portable solar generators. When I was a kid, and my family was playing around with solar gear while camping in the ‘90s, the technology couldn’t charge many devices, so it wasn’t all that practical. 

By contrast, the solar generators we’ve recommended here are incredibly useful. I’ve relied on them to power my work and day-to-day needs while road-tripping nationwide. They’re also great when the power goes out. When a windstorm cut the power at my house for a couple of days, I was still working, watching my stories, and keeping the lights on. 

We haven’t even scratched the surface in terms of the potential offered by portable, reliable, renewable, relatively affordable power. What we can do now is already incredible. The potential for what may come next, though, is truly mind-blowing.

Why trust us

Popular Science started writing about technology more than 150 years ago. There was no such thing as “gadget writing” when we published our first issue in 1872, but if there was, our mission to demystify the world of innovation for everyday readers means we would have been all over it. Here in the present, PopSci is fully committed to helping readers navigate the increasingly intimidating array of devices on the market right now.

Our writers and editors have combined decades of experience covering and reviewing consumer electronics. We each have our own obsessive specialties—from high-end audio to video games to cameras and beyond—but when we’re reviewing devices outside of our immediate wheelhouses, we do our best to seek out trustworthy voices and opinions to help guide people to the very best recommendations. We know we don’t know everything, but we’re excited to live through the analysis paralysis that internet shopping can spur so readers don’t have to.

The post The best solar generators for 2024, tested and reviewed appeared first on Popular Science.

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Avian influenza or bird flu has been detected in milk from dairy cows in Kansas and Texas for the first time. Officials from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Texas Animal Health Commission confirmed that the Type A H5N1 strain of bird flu virus was present in some samples of unpasteurized milk. This particular strain is known to cause devastating outbreaks in wild and commercial birds and can occasionally infect people. H5N1 is also affecting older dairy cows in New Mexico and causes decreased lactation and low appetite in the animals.

“At this stage, there is no concern about the safety of the commercial milk supply or that this circumstance poses a risk to consumer health,” the USDA wrote in a statement.

The commercial milk supply is still safe and the risk to people is low, according to the USDA. Dairies must only send the milk from healthy animals into the food chain, with milk from infected or sick animals diverted. The pasteurization process also kills viruses and other bacteria and this process is required for milk that is sold through interstate commerce.

[Related: Seal pup die-off from avian flu in Argentina looks ‘apocalyptic.’]

The tests on the cattle did not find any changes to the virus that indicate it would make it spread more easily to people. Texas dairy farmers first became concerned about three weeks ago when their cattle began falling ill. It is likely related to the current outbreak of a highly pathogenic avian influenza strain called H5N1 that has killed millions of birds and been detected in mammals including elephant seals and a polar bear in Alaska. 

“It’s important for people to know that at this point, there are still a lot of unanswered questions,” influenza pathologist Richard Webby tells PopSci. “It’s still a very unusual and interesting finding. These cows are not hosts we typically associate with avian influenza viruses.” 

Webby is the Deputy Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Studies on the Ecology of Influenza in Animals and Birds and faculty member in the Department of Infectious Diseases at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. According to Webby, the risk to the general population still remains low and studying the cattle is providing scientists with an opportunity to learn more about how the virus spreads, as domestic cows are easy to sample and track in studies.

“In the whole gamut of influenza viruses that make their home in birds, most don’t cause a whole lot of disease,” says Webby. “There are two groups within that (H5N1 and H7N1) that have this ability to make mutations in one of their proteins that makes them much more able to cause a systemic infection.”

These highly pathogenic forms make it easier for the virus to move away from just the lungs and infect other organs and tissues in the body. Webby also points out that as far as viruses go, influenza can be fairly weak, so pasteurization should remain a strong line of defense. Consuming raw or unpasteurized milk is dangerous, no matter what the internet says. Scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) say that raw milk has no added nutritional benefits and it can be contaminated with harmful germs. The CDC even considers raw milk one of the riskiest foods you can consume. 

“It doesn’t survive long under heat. So from that perspective, it’s a good thing that it’s pretty easy to kill flu viruses,” says Webby. 

University of Texas Medical Branch epidemiologist Gregory Gray, told Science that the new detections in cows across multiple states was a “worrisome” development. Gray said it may be a sign that the virus is spreading between cattle instead of from birds alone and has mutated in ways that could make the virus easier to spread among humans. However, the National Veterinary Services Laboratories said that the preliminary studies on the affected cows show no evidence that the virus has changed.  

Bird flu spreads through air droplets and bird feces. According to the Wildlife Conservation Society, it is exacerbated by alterations to bird migration schedules due to human-caused climate change and repeated re-circulation in domestic poultry. There have also been outbreaks of the virus at mink farms in France and Spain and the USDA banned poultry imports from France in October 2023. Scientists confirmed that this virus jumped to wild mammals in May 2022.

[Related: Thriving baby California condor is a ray of hope for the unique species.]

According to USDA and Texas officials, the cows likely contracted the virus from infected wild birds. The infected livestock appear to recover on their own within seven to 10 days, which is very different from how this illness affects commercial poultry. Entire bird flocks must be culled to get rid of the virus. About 82 million wild and commercial birds in the United States have been affected since 2022. 

While the risk to humans is still low, the World Health Organization has urged public health officials to prepare for a potential spillover to humans in the future. Scientists initially thought that mammals could only catch the virus through contact with infected birds. While cases of humans getting infected and seriously ill from bird flu are rare, the more it spreads among mammals, the easier it will be for the virus to evolve to spread.

Since this situation is evolving quickly, the USDA and other health agencies will continue to share updates. More information on biosecurity measures can be found here.

UPDATE April 2, 2024 9:57 a.m. EDT

According to Texas health officials, at least one person has been diagnosed with bird flu after interacting with infected cows. The CDC said there are currently no signs that the virus has evolved methods that help it spread more easily among humans, but the situation is continuing to evolve.

The post Bird flu detected in dairy cow milk samples appeared first on Popular Science.

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Humans are not the funniest members of the animal kingdom. Absolutely not.

Sure, we have knock-knock jokes and Netflix specials, but it’s our feathered and furry friends that really bring in the laughs. Nowhere is that on display more than with the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards. The annual competition has been celebrating the goofy antics of animals for nearly a decade. And to celebrate a new partnership with Nikon for the 2024 edition, they’ve shared 10 never-before-seen images from last year’s entries.

Professional photographers Paul Joynson-Hicks MBE and Tom Sullam founded the competition in 2015, determined to share the hilarious joy of wildlife and bring attention to much-needed conservation efforts. Entries for the 2024 Nikon Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards are open until July 31.

The post 10 delightfully silly, never-before-seen images from Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Best for large rooms		Mila Smart Air Purifier		SEE IT	This all-purpose smart air purifier adapts to room size and comes with a carbon monoxide detector and sleep and white noise modes.
Best for smoke		Alen BreatheSmart 75i		SEE IT	This model detects smoke particles and kicks into automatic overdrive to mitigate it.
Best for allergies		InvisiClean Aura II Air Purifier		SEE IT	Certified to keep you safe from pollen and not contribute to dangerous levels of ozone gas.

Air purifiers suck in pollen, dust, smoke, other allergens, and even viruses—pummeling them and then circulating clean, filtered air. It sounds simple enough, but not all purifiers are created equal, and there isn’t one that’s right for every person. Your particular environment and the size of your home are huge factors in choosing the best option for you. Is allergy season wreaking havoc on your sinuses? Do you live in a smoggy city? Has wildfire smoke been wafting through, blanketing everything in an unnatural haze? In short, even the finest filters aren’t guaranteed to fix all that ails you and your home. But if you’re wondering whether air purifiers are really worth it … we think so. They can help distribute cleaner air, and that’s always a good thing, considering the link between air quality and health. So, read on as we clear the air on what we think are the best air purifiers.

• Best overall: Dyson PH04 Purifier Humidify+Cool Formaldehyde
• Best for large rooms: Mila Smart Air Purifier
• Best for small rooms: LEVOIT Air Purifier for Home Bedroom
• Best for quiet: Blueair Blue Pure 311i Max
• Best HEPA: Coway Tower True HEPA Air Purifier
• Best with UV light: Germ Guardian True HEPA Filter Air Purifier
• Best for allergies: InvisiClean Aura II Air Purifier
• Best for smoke: Alen BreathSmart 75i Purifier  
• Best for mold: PuroAir 400 HEPA 14 Air Purifier
• Best for pets: LEVOIT Core P350 Air Air Purifier
• Best budget: LEVOIT Air Purifier for Home, Core 300

How we chose the best air purifiers

As pet owners and parents, we’ve experienced our fair share of smells and toxins—and that’s just from inside the house. And whether allergy or wildfire season is upon us, there’s always something environmental to consider. With all this in mind, we compiled peer recommendations, critical reviews, online research, user impressions, and plentiful personal testing to create this list of the best air purifiers. We also examined what each air purifier claims to eliminate from the air, its HEPA square footage, and the filters’ MERV (minimum efficiency reporting values) rating ratings.

The best air purifiers: Reviews & Recommendations

Pollen, pet dander, smells, smoke, germs, and other airborne goblins are no match for the best air purifiers. This list includes quiet air purifiers, ones that double as humidifiers, and even ones that claim they can help with a majority of airborne pathogens.

Best overall: Dyson Purifier Humidify+Cool Formaldehyde

SEE IT

Why it made the cut: This three-in-one smart device automatically adapts to changes in air quality and humidity.

Specs

• Recommended room size: 400 square feet
• Dimensions: 36.66 x 11.02 x 12.23 inches
• App connectivity: Yes
• Max decibels (dB): 59.8 dB

Pros

• Connectivity with Siri and Alexa
• Three products in one
• Air quality reporting

Cons

• Expensive

Between its TikTok- and Insta-famous Airwrap multistyler to its line of powerful vacuums, Dyson has made a name for itself in sucking—which we don’t mean negatively. The Dyson PH04 Purifier Humidify+Cool Formaldehyde proves yet again that Sir James Dyson really knows what he’s doing when it comes to pushing air out and in. This air purifier uses an intelligent sensing system and Air Multiplier technology to purify, humidify, and cool the air. You don’t even need to touch the stylish, distinctive unit—it automatically senses and reacts to changes in air quality and humidity (we’ve watched one enthusiastically spring to life time and time again after a particularly aggressive sauté session in the kitchen). It even features a solid-state sensor to detect and destroy formaldehyde emitted by household items—a boon if you’re in a newly renovated/refurbished space, as fresh carpet and new mattresses are emitting odd things.

You don’t have to worry about airborne baddies getting re-released into the air since the entire purifier-humidifier is fully sealed to the HEPA H13 standard. If you love numbers, neat tech, and data, this machine will tickle your brain when it reports your air quality in real-time on the LCD screen and DysonLink app (which you can use to tweak/schedule usage). The filters are low-maintenance and easy to replace, and the machine features a deep-clean cycle to get rid of mineral build-up and bacteria that may be lurking in the water system. Although it’s almost $1,000, you’re getting three devices for the cost of one. Talk about smart.

Best for large rooms: Mila Smart Air Purifier

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Why it made the cut: This mold- and carbon monoxide-detecting air purifier comes in different filter configurations for custom air purification.

Specs

• Recommended room size: 1,000 square feet 
• Dimensions: 12 x 12 x 15 inches
• App connectivity: Yes
• Max decibels (dB): 62 dB but lowers to 24 dB while in room

Pros

• Stylist
• Small
• Carbon monoxide, mold detection, and white noise machine built-in

Cons

• Reviews note excessive air quality notifications

This classy, app-controllable large room air purifier adapts to the size of whatever room it’s placed in. It also looks great in any room it’s placed in. The filter has 45 square feet of HEPA, and with 447 CADR, it’s effective in rooms up to 1,000 square feet. Additional features include a sleep mode and white noise so that it won’t interfere with your sleeping habits. The device also features a carbon monoxide detector. It will monitor your room’s humidity and let you know if it detects any mold. If you’re not a fan of notifications, disable them if you go with the Mila—reviewers note that the Mila app sends lots of alerts.

Best for small rooms: LEVOIT Air Purifier for Home Bedroom

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Why it made the cut: Take this lightweight, compact air purifier from room to room to experience dual-filter, three-stage filtration in your entire home.

Specs

• Recommended room size: 161 square feet
• Dimensions: 6.69 x 6.69 x 10.43 inches
• App connectivity: No
• Max decibels (dB): 52 dB

Pros

• Aromatherapy
• Dual-filter, three-stage filtration
• Specifically targets hay fever

Cons

• Not for large homes

The Levoit promises to help relieve allergies, congestion, and sneezing and is our pick for the best small air purifier. Although we can’t vouch for the unit’s specific efficacy against rhinitis, we can vouch for the fact that it has three filters (one more than most other units): HEPA for dust, pollen, and dander; carbon for odors; and polyester for lint and hair. One fun additional feature is that this one has an aromatherapy option if you’d like a little lavender to help lull you to sleep at night.

Best for quiet: Blueair Blue Pure 311i Max

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Why it made the cut: Particles down to .1 microns are no match for this quiet-but-powerful air purifier.

Specs

• Recommended room size: Up to 929 square feet
• Dimensions: 19 x 12.5 x 12.5 inches
• App connectivity: Yes
• Max decibels (dB): 50 dB

Pros

• Removes particles down to .1 micron
• Stylish
• App connectivity

Cons

• Reviews note occasional problems with auto-sensing

Blueair makes svelte cylinders with Scandinavian style packed with highly effective electrostatic and mechanical filtration. The Blue Pure 311i Max is HEPASilent but deadly … against microbes in the air. This stylish, small air purifier features five fan speeds and a one-touch auto mode with a fine particles (PM 2.5) sensor to monitor concentration and adjust speed according. This air purifier can clean a 387-square-foot room in 12.5 minutes and a 929-square-foot space in 30 minutes (there are both larger and smaller models, so something for every home). And, it snags all those particles (99.97% of them down to 0.1 micron) all nearly undetected, clocking in at 23 dB on low/night mode—louder than a quiet natural area with no wind but softer than a whisper. And it never runs above 50dB, which makes it QuietMark certified and perfect for a bedroom, TV room, any room … plus it’s only 8 pounds, so it’s easy to move around while you decide between your study and your yoga studio (or realize it’s easiest to buy two).

Is it working? We barely hear it. But we also don’t hear ourselves sneezing and wheezing and complaining about our watery eyes, so we’re going with yes. If we need more confirmation, we can look at a five-color LED that changes according to Air Quality Index (AQI), or we can reference an app that gives insight into indoor vs. outdoor pollution and lets you control mode, tweak LED Brightness, set a schedule, and more (assuming the 311i Max and your phone are connected to WiFi). And if we don’t want it to be working, Google Assistant and Alexa compatibility let us turn it off with voice commands if our phone isn’t convenient (hooray smart-home devices). While some reviews note that the auto-sensing feature is not as accurate as they hoped, we’ve observed the Blue Pure 311i Max react firsthand thanks to a low smoke-point cooking oil incident or two. It was lively even from across a loft apartment—and helped with the post-coming odors. And the washable pre-filter fabric cover (shown above in “Stockholm Fog” color, quietly complementing some audio-video gear) meshed effortlessly with the decor to boot.

Best HEPA: Coway Tower True HEPA Air Purifier

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Why it made the cut: Stylish-meets-powerful with this True HEPA air purifier that features four levels of filtration.

Specs

• Recommended room size: 330 square feet
• Dimensions: 10.5 × 32.7 × 10.7 inches
• App connectivity: No
• Max decibels (dB): 52 dB

Pros

• Real-time air sensing
• Washable pre-filter
• Air quality indicator

Cons

• Noisier compared to other air purifiers

Multiple fan speeds, a timer, an air-quality assessor, and a filter-replacement indicator light make this the best HEPA air purifier—not just quiet and effective, but user-friendly. At just under $200, it’s neither cheap nor exorbitant for an air purifier, and it’s also aesthetically pleasing. Reviewers note that this air purifier is noisier than most.

Best with UV light: Germ Guardian True HEPA Filter Air Purifier

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Why it made the cut: This quiet air purifier uses CARB-compliant UVC light and titanium dioxide to reduce airborne bacteria, viruses, and mold spores.

Specs

• Recommended room size: 153 square feet
• Dimensions: 10.25 x 6.75 x 21.5 inches
• App connectivity: No
• Max decibels (dB): 61.2 dB