A new underwater research facility is making waves. Deep, a U.K. ocean engineering company, has installed a subsea human habitat almost 60 feet underwater in the Tennessee Reef, part of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Called Vanguard, the habitat allows for four aquanauts to live in a dry environment underwater for five days without needing to resurface. And Vanguard is just the first of a proposed network of underwater habitats by the company.

Aquanaut in the ocean

Deep’s Vanguard is “providing extended access to the ocean for research, conservation and training,” said Deep’s website. The habitat is the “first open-ocean human habitat built, tested and deployed in the United States in four decades,” said Vice.

To install Vanguard on the sea floor, engineers “first needed to install a base foundation and then lower the habitat onto the platform using a boat crane,” said Popular Science. The habitat is “tethered to a surface buoy,” which is a “bright-yellow structure” that “holds multiple vital support services, such as communications arrays, breathable air and power.” Aquanauts are expected to be able to safely use the facility, as it has received the “green light from Det Norske Veritas, an internationally recognized accreditation institution used by oceanographic organizations and companies.”

Vanguard is a precursor for another habitat the company is working on called Sentinel. This habitat would be an “underwater station with direct ocean access, individual suites with showers and toilets, and configurable workspaces, as well as social spaces and communal rooms for meetings and dining,” said Oceanographic magazine. Sentinel will be “complemented by a revolutionary range of submersibles” with “dive and scientific research equipment to cover the full range of ocean depths.” Deep hopes to enable permanent underwater living by as soon as 2027.

Previous dives

Living underwater exploits a “strange loophole in human biology,” said Vice. “It’s like you have been scuba diving for a really long time and your tissues and your blood get saturated with nitrogen, the inert gas that you are breathing,” said Dawn Kernagis, the director of scientific research at Deep, to Science Alert. “Essentially, once you are saturated, you could stay down there for weeks, months at a time.” Those in the facility can leave the habitat using a cord connected to Vanguard’s air supply, allowing for hourslong dives as opposed to the 60-minute limit of recreational scuba dives.

Underwater facilities are not new. They have been used for professions such as underwater welding and in energy and defense industries. The Florida Keys are home to another underwater research habitat, Florida International University’s Aquarius Reef Base.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has designated the Tennessee Reef as a “research-only zone.” The goal of Vanguard is to allow scientists to conduct marine science research, mainly related to “coral reef restoration, long-term monitoring, climate impact studies, human performance research, and training for extreme environments,” said Deep in a statement. And the deployment of the Vanguard habitat within the marine sanctuary “creates additional opportunities for marine science and builds on research infrastructure.”

As the US and Iran continue to trade blows in the Middle East, the consequences of the intense bombings threaten Iran’s already “fragile biodiversity”, said The Associated Press.

Historically, Iran has had a “deep connection” with its wildlife, being one of the first countries to form an environmental protection agency, although “decades of mismanagement and years-long drought” had already put a strain on conservationist work.

Unique biodiversity

Iran’s geographical location gives it a “wide range of climates” that host an “astounding diversity of life”, said the AP. The country is home to at least 86 species at risk of extinction, including the “Asiatic cheetah, Persian fallow deer, brown bear, leopard, black bear, Persian onager, the great bustard and various birds of prey”, according to a 2024 report by Iran’s Environment Department. “Ironically”, military zones had been considered “one of the few areas where falcons can breed safely”, out of reach of smugglers and poachers.

US and Israeli strikes on remote military facilities in deserts and mountain ranges are “causing habitat degradation”, leading to “water and land pollution, soil contamination” and “destruction of land cover”, US-based Iranian wildlife expert Jamshid Parchizadeh told the AP. And an animal population driven away from its habitat, like mountain-dwelling Persian leopards and brown bears, “forever leaves that area from fear”.

Land ecosystems are not the only ones at risk. The “highly contested” Strait of Hormuz is home to the “most diverse” coral population in the region, said CNN. Greenpeace researchers have been able to “regularly detect oil slicks” in the water, following attacks on tankers passing through the strait.

“Many of the compounds found in crude oil will target heart function and respiration,” Martin Grosell, a professor of biology and ecology, told the outlet. Prolonged exposure also “suppresses immune function, rendering animals more susceptible to infections”.

Invisible victims

While most of the attention has been on the urban and economic consequences of the war, the country’s animal species are “less visible victims”, said Iranian news agency Wana.

While there have been “no official reports” on widespread casualties of animals in “natural habitats”, experts warn that a “lack of reporting does not equate to an absence of damage”. And the war’s impact “extends far beyond direct fatalities”: the “intense” noise pollution of bombardments also inflicts “devastating” physical and psychological trauma.

At the Lavizan Bird Garden in Tehran, it was reported that the “deafening noise” caused several birds to lose “behavioural control” due to “severe stress” and to collide with enclosure walls, resulting in injuries and some fatalities.

There are also lasting “indirect” ecological impacts for Iran’s biodiversity. International studies have shown animals exposed to conflict zones develop “disrupted migration, feeding, and breeding patterns” and show signs of “severe aggression or depression”.

“The war has caused serious environmental degradation in a country reeling from a range of climate-related crises, water stress, and air quality issues”, and Iran’s “fragile” ecosystems now face an uncertain future, said non-profit US news organisation Truthout. When it comes to “post-conflict reconstruction”, environmental rehabilitation “often doesn’t take priority”.

There’s a whale of a problem off the U.S. West Coast. Gray whales are undergoing a “catastrophic mortality event,” said the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), with close to 150 carcasses found on beaches along the Pacific Ocean just this year. The loss is largely due to human-caused climate change, and action is needed to protect the species.

Blood in the water

Gray whales are under stress due to “multiple threats, including ship strikes and reduced food sources,” said PEER in a statement. Between 2019 and 2023, their population declined by almost 30% from 20,500 to 14,526.

The statistics are even worse between 2025 and 2026. An estimated 2,500 to 8,000 whales died during that time frame. “Determining an exact number is difficult because marine biologists can only count the whales that are stranded,” said The Guardian. The ones that “wash ashore are only maybe 10% of the whales that are dying,” said Rick Steiner, a marine ecologist in Alaska and the chair of PEER’s board of directors, to KTOO.

Because of climate change, the marine animals are “starving” as “Arctic sea ice decline is reducing their Arctic seabed prey resource,” said Steiner in the PEER statement. The West Coast population travels approximately 10,000 miles between Baja California, Mexico, and its feeding grounds in the Arctic, where the whales “feed on crustaceans called amphipods,” said Smithsonian magazine. Climate change is reducing the amphipod population, so “some hungry whales are detouring into dangerous places like San Francisco Bay, where they are being fatally struck by ships or becoming entangled in fishing gear.”

Gray whales were once protected under the Endangered Species Act because of commercial overfishing but were removed from the protection list in 1994 after populations recovered. So it may be necessary to “relist them on the Endangered Species Act” and “provide the management tools that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) needs" to "give these guys the best chance of making it through this climate bottleneck,” said Steiner to KTOO.

Where to next

Along with anthropogenic climate change, other human actions are threatening gray whale populations. Reducing emissions is necessary to protect the whales and other species, but “shorter-term threats to these whales must also be reduced, including ship strikes, oil spills, entanglement in fishing gear, harmful algal blooms, microplastic pollution, ocean noise, disturbance, and the harvest in Russia,” said Steiner in the PEER statement.

NOAA has yet to relist the gray whale under the Endangered Species Act or take action to protect the species. Individual states, however, have enacted protective policies.

California has “ship-speed reduction zones in areas known to have higher gray whale concentrations,” and, though voluntary, “many ships do reduce their speed,” and some ships have people assigned to look out for whales, said The Guardian. Other states are advocating for similar measures. “The loss of thousands of whales in just two years,” said Steiner in the statement, “should be of concern to us all.”

A recent study conducted by Anthropic, the creator of Claude, analysed the AI chatbot’s responses across different languages. It found that if you want a friendlier tone, you may want to switch your language settings.

Results may vary

Anthropic compared data from more than 300,000 anonymised conversations in a two-week period during May 2026, said The Decoder. The company looked into samples from the top 20 languages of Claude.ai and their three models: Sonnet 4.6, Opus 4.6 and Opus 4.7. The results showed Claude “emphasises different values” when producing responses in different languages.

The study used the technique “dimensionality reduction” to measure the responses across four separate axes: warmth vs. rigour, depth vs. brevity, candour vs. execution and deference vs. caution. Anthropic “explicitly states” this study does not “imply that Claude intrinsically holds values”, but instead the term “values” refers to “values reflected by Claude’s behaviour and outputs”.

The warmth vs. rigour axis that studies “whether Claude leans towards expressing positivity and care for the person or emphasising accuracy and precision” saw the most fluctuation in results, said The Indian Express.

The results showed the “systematic differences” in Claude’s responses. For example, Arabic responses were shown to have “greater warmth”, meaning they contained more “polite phrasing, humour, playfulness, and affirmation”, said The Decoder. On the candour vs. execution axis, Dutch responses showed a more “honest appraisal of potential shortcomings”, said The Register.

Anthropic “isn’t yet sure” what properties caused these “linguistic differences”, said Techbrew on Instagram.

Proceed with caution

Despite the interesting results, there are some “limits” to the "explanatory power” of the study, said The Decoder. Some languages had “far more data than others” and were more “overrepresented in professional writing”, making the data not “evenly distributed”, said Anthropic.

The main point was “addressing hidden biases and language-specific gaps” when training the AI model, said The Indian Express. However, the subject “deserves further exploration” because of the “important implications” for how people use such AI products, said The Register.

Anthropic gave the example of two people using Claude to give feedback on the same business plan, one in Hindi and the other in Russian, and saw that “Claude expressed different values in how it framed its assessment”.

The study also showed the response differences across Claude’s models. Sonnet 4.6 appeared to be more affirming towards users’ ideas and “offers comfort without passing judgement”, while Opus 4.7 “openly critiques” and “questions assumptions”, said The Decoder. Sonnet 4.6 is the default free model on the Anthropic platform. Opus 4.7 is the premium paid model of Claude.

These differences remain an “open question” as Anthropic said it is “making sense of this variation” and using what it learns to “improve Claude’s behaviour”.

Several contenders have tried to depose Benjamin Netanyahu, who has led Israel nearly uninterrupted since 2009, and now a man who “lost his son in Gaza” is “coming for” Israel’s prime minister, said The Telegraph.

Gadi Eisenkot has been described as “gruff”, “uncharismatic”, a “stocky newcomer” and a “teddy bear with a steel spine”. Israeli politics is a complex web but if the pundits and polls are correct, he could also be called PM by the end of October.

Working-class roots

Eisenkot was “born into the Israeli working class” from which the right-wing Likud has “traditionally garnered so much support”. He was one of nine children in a Jewish family of Moroccan descent, part of a “historically marginalised minority” in Israel, said the Times of Israel.

He joined the military as a private soldier in the Golani infantry brigade and became the most senior officer. Eisenkot’s “most controversial moment” came in 2016 when a combat medic killed a Palestinian terrorist who had already been wounded and didn’t pose a threat. In a “politically charged tribunal”, the Israeli military, backed by Eisenkot, tried and convicted the medic for manslaughter.

After retiring from the military, Eisenkot entered politics in 2022, and briefly held a role in Netanyahu’s coalition, before forming his own party, Yashar, which means “honest” in Hebrew.

His youngest son, Gal, 25, was killed in Gaza in 2023. He also lost two nephews during the invasion that followed the 7 October attacks.

Dangerous challenger 

He has “emerged as the most dangerous challenger to the veteran prime minister”, said The Telegraph, after his party became the largest in the opposition bloc hoping to replace Netanyahu ahead of elections that will take place by 27 October.

A poll in the Maariv newspaper put Eisenkot ahead of Netanyahu for the first time, another found that 41% of voters thought Eisenkot would make a more suitable prime minister, against 40% for Netanyahu.

A razor-thin lead but commentators “increasingly believe that he could be the one to break” Netanyahu’s “voodoo-like grip” on the premiership with an attack from the “security-orientated centre”.

His “lack of showmanship gives many the impression he would be an authentic and strategic leader”. Dr Maoz Rosenthal, a Jerusalem-based political analyst, told The Telegraph that many of those who are “fed up” with Netanyahu “kind-of like this old general who hesitates before he speaks and who wants to be sure of what comes out of his mouth”.

Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, the spiritual leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party and an influential figure in Israeli politics, suggested that Shas could “be open” to joining a government led by Eisenkot, said The Jerusalem Post.

“We are in a secular country ... There are those whom I don’t believe will repent,” said Yosef in a filmed speech. “There’s no chance [Netanyahu] will repent. Eisenkot might repent.”

Australia and Fiji have agreed a new defence alliance, the latest in a series of regional pacts that could significantly alter the Pacific’s defence landscape.

In a “surprise move”, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his Fijian counterpart, Sitiveni Rabuka, elevated diplomatic ties between the two countries to a “formal treaty”, said The Guardian. The Ocean of Peace alliance, which will in the future be open to other Pacific nations to join, aims to bolster regional security and “limit China’s influence”.

The Vuvale Union

For 75 years, Australia had just two formal alliances – with the US and New Zealand under the ANZUS Treaty, signed in 1951. But recently, it has been “racing to shore up defence ties with its Pacific neighbours”, said the BBC, to counter China’s “military expansion”.

In October, Canberra signed a defence deal with Papua New Guinea – the most populous South Pacific nation – granting it access to PNG’s military facilities and troops.

At the end of June, after “months of negotiations”, Albanese also signed Australia’s long-awaited treaty with the South Pacific island of Vanuatu. Called the Nakamal Agreement, it “recognises Australia as Vanuatu’s primary policing partner”, and prevents any other nation from establishing a military base there.

The latest Australia-Fiji pact, the Vuvale Union, is more significant than previous deals because it includes a mutual defence agreement, committing each country to come to the other’s aid should there be the threat of an armed attack. It also offers closer military cooperation, including planning, exercises and intelligence sharing.

It is open for other Pacific nations to join, although at first Australia would “likely only look to extend the treaty to Pacific nations which maintain a standing military”, said ABC News: New Zealand, PNG and Tonga.

New Zealand will consider joining, Prime Minister Christopher ‌Luxon said on Thursday. The country has only one formal ally, Australia ​, although it is part of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing group (Australia, UK, US and Canada are the others) and it is “a key partner of Nato”, said Reuters.

Has Fiji picked a side?

China has “sharply criticised” some of Australia’s recent agreements, accusing Canberra of using them as a “geopolitical tool” to keep Beijing out of the Pacific, said ABC News. But Rabuka said he did not believe that either Australia or Fiji would have to deal with “severe pushback” from China, but that they will “welcome the understanding that is between Australia and Fiji", he said.

Those remarks were “telling”, said The Conversation. Rabuka stressed that the alliance threatens neither country’s relationship with Beijing, but a leader “does not repeatedly reassure a country that a treaty is not aimed at it unless everyone understands it is”, and is to some degree a sign to the region to see whether “Fiji has picked a side”.

Hours after the pact was signed, China test-launched a long-range ballistic missile with a dummy warhead into the Pacific Ocean. Beijing described it as “routine”, part of the country’s annual programme, but the launch provoked an angry response in Canberra, which accused China of destabilising the region. Ultimately, the test “underscored the need for Pacific Island countries to collectively think through their defence and security arrangements”.

Astronomers have detected a type of sugar that’s found in raspberries and self-tan lotions near the centre of the Milky Way. A study published this week in the journal Nature Astronomy revealed evidence of erythrulose, a simple sugar, in interstellar gas and dust clouds between stars.

The discovery may conjure up images of a “civilisation of pale, safety-conscious frugivores” in outer space, said The Guardian science editor, Ian Sample, but for astronomers it is significant because “it shows that compounds important for life can form in the frigid expanse between the stars”.

Erythrulose is a monosaccharide (simple sugar) like glucose and fructose, but it is the “most complex sugar spotted beyond our Solar System”, said Nature. Two-carbon simple sugars have previously been detected on meteors and asteroids, but this is the first time a four-carbon “true sugar” has been spotted in interstellar space.

‘Exceptionally sensitive observations’

Using radio telescopes in Spain, researchers collected data from a dust cloud called G+0.693-0.027 near the centre of the Milky Way. After comparing these signals to samples in the lab, they detected traces of erythrulose. The discovery was enabled by “the combination of exceptionally sensitive observations, extensive frequency coverage, and highly accurate laboratory spectroscopic data”, study co-author Izaskun Jiménez-Serra told Live Science.

The findings indicate that erythrulose was probably produced by chemical reactions on tiny interstellar dust grains, which then “rained down” on nearby objects, including planets, or were incorporated into comets. It’s thought that “Earth underwent a period of heavy bombardment from asteroids and comets” around the time that the earliest signs of organic life began to emerge “about four billion years ago”, said Nature. This might have been how sugar molecules were brought to our planet’s surface.

Origin of life

“Sugar does more than sweeten tea and powder doughnuts”, said The Associated Press. “Different varieties fuel our cells and even make up DNA,” so scientists are “itching to know how sugars form because they’re a key ingredient for life as we know it”. Erythrulose itself “isn’t essential for life, but can easily convert to a form that’s thought to be crucial to kick-starting life on Earth”.

It is “especially tantalising” to think that erythrulose might have acted a “feedstock” for the more complex sugars that evolved into nucleic acids – the “building blocks of modern-day DNA and RNA”, said Nature.

“That’s why the detection of erythrulose is so relevant for the origins of life,” said Jiménez-Serra. And, if we could discover even more complex sugars in the Milky Way, more light could be shed, astrophysicist Anthony Remijan told Nature. “An actual building block of RNA and DNA: that would be the next big thing.”

Australian beaches are seeing a higher-than-usual number of shark bites. There were two attacks in the span of 48 hours in January, and since then, at least four people have been killed and almost two dozen others injured in encounters. Extreme rainfall and warming ocean temperatures due to climate change are driving the uptick.

Water weather

While shark attacks remain very rare, they have been increasing. In Australia, there has been a “gradual rise in encounters,” said Reuters. The country has been “averaging nearly 29 incidents per year over the last decade, up from an average of roughly 16 per year in the 2000s.”

Australia is not the only country seeing more of the aquatic predators. South Korea “counted 46 large sharks in Korean waters by late June, nearly four times the number recorded at the same point last year,” said The Independent. There have also been an increased number of shark sightings in the U.S., even though summer has just started.

The January attacks were predicted to be caused by a deluge “which broke January daily rainfall records for Sydney” and “flushed sewage and other waste into the nearby coastal waters, attracting baitfish, which in turn lured sharks closer to shore,” said Scientific American. Heavy rain also causes increased sediment, especially on coasts. The sediment “reduces water visibility, making it more difficult for sharks to see and avoid people.”

Along with increasing rainfall, climate change is warming the oceans, which changes shark behavior. Fatal shark attacks are usually because of bull sharks, tiger sharks or white sharks. All three species tend to prefer warm water and stay longer in those waters during summer.

The sharks’ range is growing as the ideal water temperature is encompassing a larger region. There may be increased shark sightings this year in the Pacific Ocean as well because of the super El Niño bringing warmer-than-usual water temperatures. Sharks that bite people have “often mistaken a human for a seal” or the bites “can be exploratory” or to “ward off imagined competition for food, such as a school of fish,” said The Guardian.

Spotting and culling

To prevent human-shark interactions, Australia has used aerial surveillance to spot the marine animals. “Once drone pilots spot a potentially dangerous shark, they will alert lifeguards, who can sound the shark siren and clear the water,” said The New York Times. The country does currently have a shark culling program, but some are calling for the program’s expansion in light of recent attacks.

However, others have objected. If sharks are removed from a certain area, that “habitat does not cease being suitable,” said The Sydney Morning Herald. “Other sharks will swim in and colonize that area.” Therefore, to be effective, “you would have to remove all the sharks, driving them to extinction or close to it,” which is “not a cull, it’s ecocide.”

“Human-shark encounters are extremely rare” despite the increased number of shark attacks, and “you’re statistically more likely to be killed by lightning,” said Scientific American. Instead, “beachgoers should be ‘shark smart,’” and avoid swimming when the sharks are most active, at dusk and dawn. Environmental factors play a part, but an increased human population along with the growth of water sports and recreation in the ocean have also increased human-shark interactions.

Sharks are not simply deadly killing machines. Their presence may be helping fight climate change. Sharks in coastal waters “ultimately protect and enhance what is known as ‘blue carbon,’ which is “carbon stored in oceans,” said the World Wildlife Fund. “When sharks target plant-eating fish, they can positively impact the marine carbon cycle.”

All over the world, a growing number of late-in-life mothers are facing overlapping symptoms as they deal with postpartum challenges while also entering the perimenopause period. With so little research available on either condition, women are turning to each other to parse their experiences.

Fighting two battles at once

Last year in the United States, the number of births among women ages 35 to 39 was up by 90% since 1990, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2023, births among women ages 40 and older exceeded teen births for the first time in the country’s history. As these numbers increase, more women are confronting the “bewildering convergence of two mind- and body-altering hormonal events,” The Washington Post said: the postpartum period and the transitional years of perimenopause marked by “hormonal instability” that can “wreak havoc for up to a decade before menopause occurs.”

There are specific struggles as more women experience postpartum and perimenopause simultaneously, Jessica Shepherd, an OB-GYN and the chief medical officer at the telehealth platform Hers, said to Self. Postpartum symptoms “can take upward of a year to resolve” following pregnancy. Meanwhile, perimenopause can arrive as early as your late 30s. With women waiting to have kids later in life because of “changing cultural norms and a boom of fertility medicine,” it is “no wonder even first-time moms” are becoming “more likely to hit perimenopause while postpartum.”

The symptoms can overlap because post-childbirth, estrogen and progesterone drop to their pre-pregnancy levels. In perimenopause, those same two hormones “tumble downward, often on a zigzagging path,” which can trigger “similar mental symptoms, like anxiety or a short fuse,” said Self. The picture “gets fuzzier in moms over 35,” who are both “more likely to be heading toward menopause” and may be at greater risk for postpartum depression.

Breastfeeding, which can cause prolactin and oxytocin levels to soar, also complicates the issue. When women are nursing, it can “create this pseudomenopausal state” due to low estrogen, which may cause “symptoms like vaginal dryness, low libido, hot flashes and night sweats,” OB-GYN Stacey Silverman Fine said to Self.

Women owed the ‘respect of more research’

In the medical community, there is a “dearth of knowledge” about the intersection of the postpartum and perimenopausal stages, Suzanne Fenske, an OB-GYN who specializes in perimenopause and menopause, said to the Post. This is only made worse by the fact that the United States “offers minimal postpartum care,” the outlet said. Women’s health concerns are often “systemically dismissed,” and “women have been socialized to downplay their experiences.” Thankfully, that is shifting, in part because physicians are more outspoken on social media and awareness is spreading to “mainstream pop culture.” Every time you turn around, there’s a “book that’s out about perimenopause or menopause” or a “popular TV show alluding to these changes,” said Fenske.

Within the “maelstrom of hormonal chaos,” many women point to one “meaningful bright spot,” the Post said. Postpartum and perimenopausal mothers are “finding one another” and “building a sense of connection around their shared experience.” Online forums and group chats can be a “lifeline for postpartum and perimenopausal moms” who might “otherwise feel alienated in spaces dominated by younger parents.”

With so much gray area in our knowledge of the overlap, it is of paramount importance to listen to and believe patients, OB-GYN Talat Uppal told the Australian Financial Review. Before we can help patients navigate these intersecting life stages, we have to listen to their concerns. With more women birthing after 40, “we need to really give them the respect of more research.”

The supply of one of the world’s “hottest commodities” is suffering a “huge disruption”, said Javier Blas in Bloomberg: the “humble anchovy”. The tiny fish may sound “utterly mundane”, but it’s at “the bottom of a crucial supply chain”.

Anchovies are the main ingredient in fishmeal, used to feed farmed seafood like salmon and prawns. But a drop in the catch has caused global fishmeal production to plummet an estimated 40% in a year. Prices are now up 80% since last year to “an all-time high”, threatening a knock-on effect on the global aquaculture industry – and food prices. The culprit? This year’s El Niño.

The ‘Saudi Arabia’ of anchovies

Most of the tinned anchovies we buy in Britain come from Mediterranean fisheries. But fishmeal is primarily made with the South American species, anchoveta. Peru is “the Saudi Arabia of anchovies”, said Blas. Combined with Ecuador and Chile, the catch accounts for nearly a third of the world’s fishmeal production.

Around Peru, the “unusually warm waters” in the Pacific, linked to El Niño, have dramatically reduced the population, said The Times. The naturally occurring weather pattern “reduces the nutrient-rich upwellings on which the fish depend”.

“It’s easy to say, ‘Oh, well, anchovies, who cares? I don’t particularly like them,’” food economist Mike von Massow said on Global News. But they are “a critical part” of the global food supply chain. About two-thirds of the fish and seafood we consume is farmed using fishmeal.

Manufacturers are trying to substitute anchovies with plant-based proteins, like soy or insect protein. “The problem is the profile of that protein isn’t the same,” said Von Massow. It “changes the nutritional makeup of the feed”, and therefore, the fish that consume it. We can do “small degrees of replacement”, but yields are lower, with lower levels of omega-3. It’s not “the same kind of fish product”.

The interconnected supply chains

Peru has imposed increasingly severe restrictions on anchovy fishing this year to protect the remaining population and allow the stocks to recover. That has caused the “unprecedented surge” in the price of fishmeal, said The Times, as buyers “compete for dwindling supplies”. Producers are “trying to absorb” some of the hikes, but “analysts say the pressure is building”. The “real impact” will likely be felt “much higher up the food chain”, on supermarket favourites such as salmon. If shortages continue, companies “may have little choice but to pass on higher costs to retailers”.

Industry executives are “tight-lipped about how much prices could increase”, said Blas, but 20% to 25% seems a “reasonable expectation”. Once, this would have been “a first-world problem”. But since the last powerful El Niño in 1997-1998, the aquaculture industry has “exploded”. The average fish consumption per capita has also “jumped” to nearly double the levels of the 1990s. So fishmeal is “crucial”. And because El Niño typically “peaks” at the end of the year, the problem is “likely to get worse before it gets better”.

The “anchovy crisis” is a reminder of “the surprising ways in which the world is wired today”, in which weather in Peru can increase fish costs in European supermarkets. It’s also “a warning sign that El Niño will have significant impacts on global food prices – far greater than those from the war in Iran”.

Retired Americans who worked all their life while paying into Social Security may assume that both men and women are entitled to the same amount. But that belief doesn’t appear to align with reality, as according to recent studies, women may receive significantly less in Social Security benefits than their male counterparts. Looming benefit cuts could widen the gap even more.

How big is the Social Security gender gap?

Women receive $4,800 a year less than men in Social Security benefits on average, said AARP. The disparity is largely because women “still tend to earn less than men,” said CNBC. Over half of caregivers, 61%, are also women, said AARP, and as a result they are “more likely to take time out of the workforce or reduce their working hours to make time for those caregiving responsibilities,” said CNBC. Both of these factors “tend to leave women with less retirement savings.”

Other data from the personal finance website FinanceBuzz claims that there is an even larger gap in Social Security pay. According to FinanceBuzz’s research, women “receive an average of $1,760 per month in Social Security, 19.9% less than the $2,198 men receive, a gap of $438 every month or $5,254 per year.” Women make up about 55% of all Social Security recipients, but the “total monthly payout to men is higher ($54.4 million vs. $53.5 million), meaning women collect far less per person.”

How does this impact retirees?

While the pay gap has been improving in recent years, the “median earnings for American women working full-time are only 83% of those of their male counterparts,” and the financial consequences may be “felt long after women have retired from the workforce,” said FinanceBuzz. The “result is a retirement income system that faithfully mirrors the inequalities of working life.”

The ongoing disparity also means that Social Security cuts, which are slated to occur in 2032, would “more deeply impact women,” said USA Today. Elderly women are “far more likely than men to rely on Social Security to meet their basic needs,” Courtney Anderson, a social insurance legal fellow at the National Women’s Law Center, said to the outlet. Her organization is pushing for policymakers to “strengthen and expand — not weaken and cut — Social Security.”

These cuts would come at a time when women, especially elderly women, are already more likely to live in poverty than men. Between 2023 and 2024, the national poverty rate “significantly increased from 15.0% to 16.2% for older women while remaining unchanged for older men,” according to a National Women’s Law Center report. But these rates “would be far higher without Social Security, which has protected millions of older women from falling into poverty.”

Some “potential solutions are in the mix,” though they would require congressional intervention, said Fast Company. One recent proposal from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget “would cap Social Security payments to $100,000 per couple, reducing the amount paid out to wealthy retirees who rely on the monthly benefits the least.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) have also “floated the idea of lifting the payroll tax cap to make the Social Security program’s math work once again,” said Fast Company. This plan would “replenish the Social Security trust by collecting more for Social Security withholding” above the current income cap — a “limit that only benefits the highest earners.”

The Byzantine city, in the Dakhla oasis region, was a “remarkably preserved secret”, said the Egypt Independent. Eighteen tombs were also uncovered from the Marina el-Alamein archaeological site near Egypt’s northern coast.

Aside from the historical knowledge gained from these sites, the discoveries could also attract more tourists to the country.

A ‘thriving’ city

The Dakhla oasis site could offer a “detailed glimpse” into urban development and economic activity in Byzantine Egypt, said The Independent. The ancient city had a “meticulously planned layout” that allowed for open and public spaces.

Key structures discovered include a basilica church and the remains of two watchtowers, said head archaeologist, Mahmoud Massoud in The Guardian. Archaeologists also observed “heavily fortified structures” and homes, including the house of Tisous, a church deacon from the second half of the fourth century

Other artefacts found included kitchen tools, bronze coins, and more than 200 pottery fragments. The pottery fragments were used to record daily transactions and correspondence, according to Diaa Zaharan, head of the Islamic, Coptic and Jewish antiquities department at the Supreme Council of Antiquities. These artefacts offer a “direct window into the past”, said The Independent.

The Dakhla oasis is on the Unesco tentative list, but now could be a “step away” from being added to the official list, said The Guardian. Unesco’s world heritage list recognises cultural and historic landmarks for their “outstanding universal value to humanity”.

Tombs and tongues

The second archaeological discovery was of 11 rock-cut tombs and seven surface limestone-built tombs at the Marina el-Alamein site, west of Alexandria, said The Associated Press.

Archaeologists found gold pieces inside the mouths of some of those buried there, a funerary practice known as the “golden tongue”. In addition, they found a 2.5-metre-long granite sarcophagus containing skeletal remains, and remains of a plaster sphinx statue, said mission chief, Eman Abdel-Khaliq.

This brings the total tombs uncovered at the Marina el-Alamein site to 48, said The Guardian. The site was discovered in 1986 and archaeologists believe it to be part of the ancient port city of Leukaspis.

As well as providing insight into life in fourth-century Egypt, these sites will also be “simultaneously bolstering” the nation’s crucial tourism sector, said The Independent.

Over the past decade, the country has been rebuilding its tourism appeal after years of political turmoil, violence, and the pandemic. Last year, Egypt saw a record 19 million visitors, said the AP, a 21% increase from 2024.

The matriarch of one of Thailand’s richest families has finally dropped a lawsuit against her son just days before it was scheduled to come to court. Chiranuj Bhirombhakdi was suing her son under the 1908 “ungrateful child law”, claiming his actions had caused material and reputational damage to the family.

In May, Siranudh “Psi” Scott, heir to the Singha beer dynasty, caused a “firestorm of controversy” when he made allegations that he had been sexually abused by his older brother and a babysitter, said The Japan Times.

Thailand is not the only country to have a law demanding filial support, with similar legislation in existence and in development across the continent.

Allegations ‘stunned’ the public

Psi’s allegations “sparked a crisis” in the Bhirombhakdi family, owners of the Singha beer company and one of the wealthiest families in Thailand, said the South China Morning Post. He had “stunned” the public two months ago after claiming he was sexually abused by his older brother, Sunit. Despite “strenuously” denying the allegations, Sunit was removed from executive roles at Singha’s parent company, Boon Rawd Brewery, soon after the allegations were made.

“Matriarch” Chiranuj Bhirombhakdi said that her decision to withdraw legal action was an act of “opening the door to dialogue about everything that has happened and to discuss how we should move forward”. “As a mother, it deeply pains me that I have had to rely on the court process. This is never something any mother would wish for,’’ she said in a statement last week.

Psi reportedly first told other family members of the alleged abuse about three years ago, but “accepted financial compensation from them to keep quiet”, said the Taipei Times. However, after his mother sued him this year over a property dispute, he decided to speak out.

Some experts believe that this case “marks an unprecedented shift in Thailand”, providing an opportunity for Thais to discuss sexual abuse cases more openly. Patinya Kuantrakul, scion of one of Thailand’s best-known golf courses, and influencer Taylor Srirat, have since shared their own personal experiences.

‘More on the way’

This “bitter” legal case was centred around a “century-old law reinforcing traditional values of obedience and hierarchy”, said The Telegraph. Known as the “ungrateful child law”, the 1908 legislation is used to “protect parents from neglectful children”, enabling them to withdraw gifts or financial donations if their children are deemed “ungrateful, physically abusive, neglectful in old age, or responsible for serious reputational harm”.

The “closest English translation would be ‘ingratitude’”, said Jiraporn Laocharoenwong, an anthropology professor at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok. But the Thai term “carries a much stronger moral meaning”.

Cases invoking the law “rarely reach the public eye”, often resolved via court-mediated negotiations. An exception to that rule came in 2021, when an elderly couple in Bangkok sued their son and his wife, after they were told to leave the family home. Ruling in the parents’ favour, the judge also ordered other properties that had previously been transferred to their son to be returned to the older couple .

Some of Asia’s biggest countries have similar laws, and “more are on the way”, said Asia editor Richard Lloyd Parry in The Times. China, Singapore and Taiwan all place “varying legal obligations on children under civil or criminal law”. Officials in the Philippines are considering pushing for a Parents Welfare Act, which would punish neglectful offspring with 10 years in prison”. Malaysia is also considering introducing a law that would “oblige children to care for their ageing parents”.

At their core, such laws “codify an assumption that was common in most pre-modern societies”: whatever joy they bring to their parents’ lives, “children are a form of investment”, delivering “returns” as financial support when they start work, and as “physical care when their parents become feeble in body”. Yet, as the Singha beer dynasty case demonstrates, such statutes and penalties may be “crude tools for dealing with the fraught emotional dynamics of families”.

New medicine can be found even in the iciest of locations. During an expedition to Antarctica, scientists discovered a species of sea squirt that may promise a new cancer treatment. The marine organism contains bacteria capable of producing a toxin that could eventually become a widely available drug. However, research still needs to be done on the species and bacteria before it can be tested on humans.

The dive

The cancer-fighting sea squirt, also called an ascidian, was first discovered 20 years ago and identified as a potential cancer therapy. The bacterium in the organism, Candidatus Synoicihabitans palmerolidicus, can “produce the metabolite palmerolide A, which kills melanoma cells without causing too much harm to healthy human cells,” said Discover.

Scientists have now conducted a second expedition to Antarctica to “better understand the compound and explore whether it could someday contribute to new therapies for patients battling melanoma,” said a news release by the University of South Florida. “Our expedition focused on determining where the ascidian’s melanoma-killing bacterium occurs and how widespread it is,” Sam Afoullouss, a postdoctoral researcher who participated in the dive, said in the release. “We also wanted to understand how it lives inside the organism and how that connects to the compounds linked to melanoma research.”

Sea squirts are “sac-like marine invertebrates that tend to live on sloped sea beds,” said the BBC. The ascidians found in Antarctica have “evolved over millions of years to cope with the harsh conditions there, producing chemical defenses that can deter predators and disease.” The discovered species was found at “depths between 60 and 80 feet, often along sloped or vertical seafloor surfaces where water currents are strong,” said the release. These “currents help deliver nutrients that sustain the organisms.” Such conditions allow for the organisms to be highly specialized.

The test

The researchers tested the sea squirt’s bacteria on melanoma cells in mice. “The good news is it didn’t kill the mice,” Bill Baker, a chemistry professor at the University of South Florida who led the first expedition and advised the second one, said to The Guardian. “It did kill their cancer, so we know it has the physiological properties to act like a drug.” The scientists are also analyzing the “quantity and distribution of palmerolide A, the bacterium, and the molecular target of palmerolide A,” Baker said to Discover. “These analyses will help us determine, for example, whether the ascidian and bacterium are working in concert, whether the bacterium is detrimental to the ascidian, or one of several other potential relationships between the two.”

Most FDA-approved drugs originated in nature, and Antarctica could be a rich source of new possibilities. While the sea squirt shows promise, the “pathway to producing a safe and effective anti-melanoma drug, with approval for use in humans, is long,” said The Guardian. It would “require a succession of strictly regulated and ever-expanding trials even after a drug was formulated.” Still, the knowledge gained from this expedition “could significantly advance the timeline.”

The ancient Moa Eggshell Cave in New Zealand contains the remains of several extinct animal species lost approximately a million years ago. This finding sheds light on an understudied period of ecological history and hints at more environmental factors that could have driven the extinction of species over time.

Birds of a feather

Scientists discovered the fossils of 12 ancient bird species and four frog species in the Moa Eggshell Cave, according to a study published in Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology. Of the fossils found in the cave, “about 33-50% of species went extinct during the million years before humans arrived,” said a statement about the study. These extinctions were likely “driven by relatively rapid climate shifts and cataclysmic volcanic eruptions.” Some of the notable species found include a “now-extinct ancestor of the takahe (a flightless swamphen native to New Zealand) and an ancient pigeon species closely related to Australia’s bronzewing pigeons, which were not around in the million years before humans arrived,” said The Economic Times.

The most surprising discovery was a parrot species called the Strigops insulaborealis, which is an ancient relative of the kakapo, the “only flightless parrot in the world, the heaviest parrot alive and critically endangered,” said The Economic Times. As of 2026, there are “only 235 known kakapo in existence, and all of them are on islands free of predators.” This is a “newly recognized avifauna for New Zealand, one that was replaced by the one humans encountered a million years later,” Trevor Worthy, the lead author of the study, said in the statement. “This remarkable find suggests our ancient forests were once home to a diverse group of birds that did not survive the next million years.”

Between a rock and a hard place

The findings fill in a period of New Zealand’s evolutionary history that was largely unknown. Researchers “know a lot about its really ancient past (circa 18 million years ago) and its more recent past (around 10,00 years ago), but the bit in the middle is less well understood,” said the BBC.

The fossils were found “trapped between two layers of volcanic ash,” said Earth.com. The older ash layer “fell during the Ngaroma eruption about 1.55 million years ago,” while the younger layer “came from the Kidnappers eruption right around 1 million years ago.” Having the two layers clearly defined in time gave the team “something rare: a fossil deposit with a firm age, pinned between two natural clocks.”

These discoveries also change the way researchers consider extinction. “For decades, the extinction of New Zealand’s birds was viewed primarily through the lens of human arrival 750 years ago,” Worthy said in the statement. But this study “proves that natural forces like super-volcanoes and dramatic climate shifts were already sculpting the unique identity of our wildlife over a million years ago.” This “isn’t a missing chapter in New Zealand’s ancient history,” study coauthor Paul Scofield said in the statement. “It’s a missing volume.”

A “durian tsunami” has crashed the price of the notoriously smelly tropical fruit, with some sellers in Singapore giving them away completely free, said the BBC.

The glut is the result of a “decade-long boom” during which Malaysian farmers “flocked to durian farming to cash in on growing Chinese demand”.

‘Turpentine and rotten onions’

Beloved by large parts of Asia, the prickly fruit is known for its distinctive smell that has been compared to “sewage, turpentine and rotten onions”, said The Times. The novelist Anthony Burgess famously described his durian experience as like “eating strawberry blancmange in an unspeakably foul public lavatory”.

Due to this pungent smell, the fruit is “commonly banned” on public transport and in hotels in southeast Asia. But the global durian trade has gone from strength to strength; last year it was worth £5.5 billion, with 90% of exports going to China where a “newly affluent middle class is discovering a taste for the exotic”.

Prized varieties like the Musang King – known as the “Hermès of durians” – have proved particularly popular, as Chinese consumers become more “selective and sophisticated”. A single durian can sell for “up to 200 yuan (£21.50), and they are often presented on special occasions as luxurious gifts”.

To help meet this “insatiable appetite”, freight trains have been kitted out with “specially refrigerated cars” which allow durians to travel all the way from Thailand and Vietnam to China “with their flavour unimpaired”.

Tumbling prices

But now a “bumper harvest” has caused durian prices to “tumble”, said The Star. “It feels like a rare chance to enjoy a Musang King without paying a bomb”, said engineer Kelvin Tan, who travelled the 46 miles from Kuala Lumpur to Raub in Malaysia to enjoy the lower prices.

Customers are “swarming fruit stalls” to pick up bargains, said the BBC. A lot of the durian trees planted in the last decade to meet soaring demand from China are “now starting to bear fruit”, Lu Yuee Thing, owner of several durian farms near Raub, told the publication.

Some farmers, however, had been “grappling with poor harvests” due to uneven rainfall across the country when the glut arrived. While “durian lovers feast”, some growers of the tropical fruit in Malaysia are “chagrined”.

Malaysia’s Federal Agricultural Marketing Authority has stepped in to support the industry and help “manage surplus durian supply as the season begins to ramp up”, said Asiafruit. As well as preparing 142 cold rooms for preserving the extra stock, the authority has been buying durians from farmers at a base price to protect their incomes.

For fans of the pungent fruit, however, prices will “remain low until August” before “gradually recovering”, said The Star.

Until then, shops are taking “creative measures” to shift their extra stock, said the BBC. Viral videos have emerged of customers leaving a stall in Malaysia’s Pahang state with all-you-can-fit sacks filled “beyond the brim” with the spiky green fruit.

Prediction markets have already made their mark on Americans, but right now they are especially persistent about attracting a particular audience: women. Social media campaigns are popping up online, urging women to place their bets on sites like Kalshi and Polymarket. Instead of sports, though, women are wagering on their knowledge of pop culture.

Gambling is in its #girlboss era

Up until recently, prediction markets have had a “dude problem,” said The Atlantic. Despite hosting all kinds of wagers, including celebrity gossip like Taylor Swift’s possible bridesmaids, the user base has skewed mostly male. They have largely become “yet another place for men to bet on football and March Madness.” Now, Polymarket and Kalshi are trying to lure more women to their sites using “social media campaigns that parrot the language of female empowerment and girlish memes.”

Some posts are company advertisements, while others are paid influencer partnerships. These are “either undisclosed partnerships” or made by “women who are just super excited to post a suspicious amount of links to Polymarket,” the Atlantic added. When the markets attempt to entice women, they “especially tend to lean into the idea that all of this is investing, not gambling.” Kalshi, in particular, has been “ramping up its efforts with women.” The fact that one of the company’s co-founders, Luana Lopes Lara, has become the youngest self-made female billionaire only adds to the #girlboss appeal.

A campaign that seems to be gaining particular steam appeals to the fanbase of the popular dating reality show “Love Island USA.” The massive fandom, which includes a large proportion of women, is “already doing the forecasting work of analysts,” so the “pipeline from group chat guesswork to prediction markets” is “evidently short,” said Time. Kalshi is capitalizing on the cultural phenomenon by “showing up where the fandom already lives,” sponsoring influencer posts that are “turning episode recaps into market analysis.”

In the first two weeks of the latest season of “Love Island USA,” the show’s markets “amassed more than $20 million in trading volume on Kalshi,” said Time. For context, the latest Oscars race for Best Picture “drew $25 million in trading volume.” The show is testing whether “social-media dominance” can translate into “record trading volume for a television show” and whether the show’s “female-skewing audience can reshape who trades on prediction markets.”

The value of women traders

Prediction markets “operate on a simple premise”: Prices get “smarter when a more diverse public participates,” and a “crowd dominated by one kind of trader can only be so wise,” said Time. The “significance in the marketplace” of “Love Island USA” may have “little to do with forecasting the winner of a reality dating show,” and everything to do with “bringing prediction markets closer to the wisdom of crowds they promise to harness.”

Simply put, women are “50% of the population,” Elisabeth Diana, Kalshi’s head of communications, said to The Atlantic, noting that 26% of Kalshi account holders are female — up from 13% just 10 months ago. The more women there are betting, the “closer these sites get to their stated goal of forecasting the future,” said the outlet. If they want to be able to predict the “Fed’s next interest rate, the winner of The Bachelor or whether or not it will rain tomorrow in Poughkeepsie,” a market “made up only of male sports fans won’t cut it.” If women start “using them en masse,” prediction markets will “burrow into American life even more deeply.”

Regardless, the threat of gambling addiction looms over the growing popularity of prediction markets. There is “going to be an absolute epidemic,” Kitty Martz, the executive director of Voices of Problem Gambling Recovery, said to The Independent. It is worrying that companies are targeting Gen Z and young millennials because they are at a stage of life when they are “trying to have some equity in getting into the workforce, [buying] homes and paying off tuition.” Women have these “very specific concerns,” and the prediction markets’ strategy seems to be to “convert that concern into contracts.” There need to be “actual, robust warnings” that the “more you do it, the more you’re going to lose.”

Desperate to soothe symptoms caused by unbalanced hormones, women are turning to a TikTok trend that recommends combining allergy medication and antacids to treat conditions like PMS or menopause. Despite a lack of clinical evidence, experts say there may be a reason the cocktail is helping some people keep persistent symptoms at bay.

OTC relief

People who feel “extra rotten in the days leading up to their period” are finding relief from this TikTok-approved concoction, said NPR. The over-the-counter combo “helps to combat premenstrual blues,” leading participants to feel “less irritable and more energetic.” Others going through perimenopause and menopause reported that it “helps to lessen similar symptoms.” The drugs also went viral last year amid claims they helped manage symptoms of premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), where patients “experience depression and anxiety caused by premenstrual hormonal shifts.”

Some women struggling with “conditions marked by hormonal fluctuations” swear that the blend finally provides some relief, said People. It helps with “hot flashes, mood swings and sleeplessness often associated with these disorders.” The specific drugs most often “touted in this hormonal cocktail” are Allegra and Pepcid AC.

To date, there have not been any clinical trials testing the safety or efficacy of this trend. Those who are using the combo are operating in an “evidence-free zone,” Leigh Frame, the executive director of the Office of Integrative Medicine & Health at George Washington University, said to NPR. There is “no evidence that it does or doesn’t work."

However, experts agree there is a “plausible biological mechanism” for why some may be seeing benefits, said NPR. It has to do with histamine, a chemical released when you come into contact with an allergen, which triggers an inflammatory response. There is evidence that suggests “histamine also fluctuates with your menstrual cycle.” Estrogen, which stimulates the release of histamine, “ebbs and flows throughout the month,” while progesterone acts as a “sort of natural antihistamine.” But in the days leading up to your period, progesterone “takes a nosedive.” In perimenopause, too, the levels of both hormones “rise and fall rapidly, often erratically.”

Both allergy medication and antacids are histamine blockers that interact with different receptors throughout the body, said Mara Rivera, a psychiatrist who specializes in reproductive health challenges, to NPR. The theory is that this combination may help keep histamine in check, basically replacing the effect of progesterone. In some ways, the trend is a modern-day example of an old wives’ tale. Women have been “doing this forever, just talking to one another, and seeing what works,” Rivera said.

Feeling unheard

The popularity of the “DIY Allegra and Pepcid AC cocktail” stems in part from “women feeling like they are not being heard by their doctors,” said People. Women are “hungry to know more and to help themselves,” and they often “feel like they’re not being listened to,” Soma Mandal, the medical director of women’s health at Jersey Shore University Medical Center at Hackensack Meridian Health, said to People. It is important to “find someone who will listen,” who will “take complaints seriously” and who also understands that this is a “physiologic part of life and deserves the appropriate treatment.” If you are not getting that level of care with your current practitioner, “then it’s time to move on."

Experts are not against open discussion and the sharing of symptoms and potential remedies over social media. It is “great that we are asking these questions and bringing up these ideas,” because we “desperately need more research in midlife women’s health,” gynecologist Amy Voedisch said to Everyday Health.

On the small Caribbean island of St Lucia, a crisis is brewing. For “more than a decade”, residents have lived with an “intermittent water supply”, said The Guardian. But the most recent emergency has upended day-to-day life for thousands, turning everything from “normal hygiene” practices to “food preparation” into a struggle.

And despite “millions of dollars of investment”, including $80 million (£60 million) from World Bank financing, funds have merely “scratched the surface” when it comes to tackling the water supply issues pushing islanders “to the brink”.

‘Complex mix of challenges’

Water supply is among St Lucia’s “most politically contentious issues”, with the two major political parties, Labour and the United Workers Party, “routinely trading accusations” that resources have been “mismanaged”, said The Guardian. The island has a sole water company – the Water and Sewerage Company (Wasco) – which therefore has the monopoly on supply.

Wasco’s provision of water to homes and businesses is hampered by service issues including leaks, blockages “and damage to key transmission lines”, said the St. Lucia Times. But there is also a “complex mix of challenges” at play, ranging from climate change to the island’s “ageing infrastructure”. Rainfall patterns are now far “less predictable” and the island grapples with “drier years alternating with wetter ones”.

The “severe” water shortage even led the island’s government to consider the “unprecedented” measure of importing water from nearby Dominica at the peak of its tourist season, said Caribbean National Weekly. While the return of rainfall in May ultimately tackled the issue, many fear the implications for future supply issues.

The ‘new norm’?

While the “popular imagination” may lend itself to believing the “paradise” islands of the Caribbean would not struggle with supply, “water scarcity may become the new norm” in the region, said PreventionWeb in 2024. In fact, the Caribbean as a whole is “one of the most water-stressed regions in the world”. Trinidad and Grenada have grappled with drought, St Vincent and St Kitts have both had to ration water, and Barbados has previously implemented “water bans” to curb usage.

In the meantime, “urgent but carefully planned intervention” is required to keep the island’s water system afloat, said the St. Lucia Times. As a temporary solution, citizens have been urged to “engage in rainwater harvesting”. In the longer term, the government has already promised “significant investment” along with a “dedicated committee” to examine Wasco’s future. The supplier’s slogan declares that “water is life”, said the newspaper. If that is the case, it is also true that “clearly the company and its systems are gravely ailing”.

If a hacker steals your password, you can create a new one, but if someone gains access to your fingerprint or iris data, you can hardly replace your fingers or eyes. But a new study has shown promise with a technique that allows users to “update” their fingerprints, which could make us all safer online.

Spy novels

Concern about the security of using fingerprints instead of passwords has grown this month amid reports that scammers could extract close-ups of fingerprints from social media photos and “enhance them with AI”, said Moneywise. The criminals could then use the victim’s unique fingerprint ID to gain access to their accounts, or launch identity theft and phishing attacks, although they would still need access to a physical scanner, like a smartphone unlock key, to use the cloned fingerprint.

It “sounds like the stuff out of spy novels or ‘Mission Impossible’”, Vyas Sekar, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, told CBS News, but “in theory, it’s possible, especially if people are posting high-resolution images”. In 2014, a hacker claimed to have cloned a fingerprint of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, then Germany’s defence minister, using close-up photos taken at a press event.

‘Scrambled and compressed’

A study in the International Journal of Computational Vision and Robotics has found that “irreversible identity theft” can be “largely avoided” by giving users a chance to “reset” fingerprints and other biometrics, said TechXplore.

The method is “similar to changing a password”, said Knowridge. Rather than storing a person’s original fingerprint or other biometric information directly, it transforms their data into a protected version. To do this, it identifies unique features in a fingerprint image, such as distinctive patterns and points, and “uses mathematical methods to convert these features into a different form that is difficult to reverse-engineer”. The data is then “further scrambled and compressed” into a secure digital version.

In this form, it can still verify a person’s identity, but the original biometric data is hidden. If the protected version is ever compromised, it can be “cancelled and replaced”. Even if hackers gained access to the stored information, the user would not be permanently exposed.

While postpartum depression is widely known as an issue that affects mothers, researchers are increasingly finding that it can be experienced by fathers too. Postpartum depression is often used as a shorthand for any perinatal mood disorder, which can include anxiety and OCD. Understanding how that manifests differently across genders could be key to getting men the help they need.

New parenting stress

Fathers are “at risk for the same things that mothers go through,” said Sheehan Fisher, a perinatal clinical psychologist, to The New York Times. About 10% of fathers develop symptoms like depression and anxiety during the perinatal period, which lasts from pregnancy through the first year after childbirth. That is about half the proportion of mothers who develop similar symptoms. Conditions in fathers could be more prevalent than assumed because “men may be less likely to seek help than women are and often have different symptoms,” said the Times.

Depressed dads are more prone to expressing aggravation, annoyance or even rage, Daniel Singley, a psychologist who founded a therapy center for men, said to the Times. Beneath those emotions, they are likely “feeling hurt, sad, afraid, ashamed, helpless, hopeless,” but “what we see externally is anger and irritability.” These feelings can also present with physical symptoms such as muscle tension or stomach pain.

Evidence suggests a relationship between “paternal employment, psychological status, history of maternal mental illness, first pregnancy, marital relationship” and paternal postpartum depression, researchers said in a 2021 study. Another major risk factor is a “prior history of depression in the man,” said Psychology Today. Men also “typically experience a decrease in testosterone levels during the woman’s pregnancy,” which can contribute to a higher risk of depression.

Postpartum depression in fathers is “real and affects a substantial number of fathers,” said Psychology Today. It can have “deleterious effects for the father, the mother and the baby.” Screening for PPD in men is “important and yet is underutilized.”

Seeking help

Men can go undiagnosed because they prioritize the mother’s concerns over their own symptoms, or because they have a “hesitancy to admit” that they are struggling, Fisher said to the Times. Nearly half of PPD cases in women start during pregnancy, with the first postpartum weeks considered a high-risk period. For men, the riskiest window is three to six months after babies are born, possibly related to the “infants’ growing needs and activity or to the mothers returning to work.”

The number one risk factor for paternal postpartum depression, though, is “maternal postpartum depression,” Singley said to the Times. There is “a lot of stress” because men “want to be supportive, want to be caregivers,” and the “system is set up, really, to support women,” Brett Biller, a psychologist, said to CBS News. As paternal PPD becomes more widely recognized, the availability of resources should increase as well. Whether it's “medication, talk therapy or both,” there is “nothing wrong with that,” Biller added. “Mental health difficulties are the same as physical difficulties, and there’s a correlation between the two.”

Men are sometimes taught that “seeking support for their mental health is a sign of weakness,” psychologist Adam Borland said to the Cleveland Clinic. “But it’s not.” If you’re living with male postpartum depression, “it’s the best step you can take to best care for yourself and your family.” Adjusting to a baby can be trying, but if your depressive symptoms persist for weeks, don’t hesitate to reach out for guidance.

There is “nothing shameful or embarrassing” about the condition, Borland said. Fatherhood is a “huge new job, with long hours and no pay and you deserve support.” Asking for help means you are “doing what you need to do so you can be the best man — and best dad — you can be.”

Alzheimer’s disease, a progressive brain disorder that gradually degrades a person’s cognitive and memory functions, is the No. 1 cause of dementia. There’s currently no cure, but according to a study published in the journal ACS Chemical Neuroscience, a new copper-based treatment may be on the horizon.

Clearing out

Alzheimer’s is “driven by the buildup of toxic proteins called amyloid beta,” said a release about the study. These proteins are usually flushed into the bloodstream through the blood-brain barrier. However, in those with Alzheimer’s disease, the “pumps doing the heavy lifting, called P-glycoprotein (P-gp), weaken significantly, clogging the drain and trapping the toxic proteins in the brain.”

A buildup of these proteins in the brain leads to memory loss and cognitive decline. But the copper-based compound Cu(ATSM), which has “anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective properties,” can clear them from the brain, said senior study author Joseph Nicolazzo in the release. It does so by “increasing the number and activity” of the P-gp pumps, said Newsweek.

The study is the first to show that Cu(ATSM) can boost the amount of P-gp pumps “by 24.1%, effectively linking the repair of the blood-brain barrier to a reduction in toxic proteins and improved cognitive function,” said lead study author Jae Pyun in the release. “Over 56 days, the treatment reduced toxic amyloid-beta by 42% and improved spatial learning by nearly 44%.”

Not just yet

Alzheimer’s disease is the No. 1 cause of dementia, accounting for about 60% to 80% of cases, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. The condition also worsens over time. In its early stages, “memory loss is mild, but with late-stage Alzheimer’s, individuals lose the ability to carry on a conversation and respond to their environment,” said the association. “On average, a person with Alzheimer’s lives four to eight years after diagnosis but can live as long as 20 years, depending on other factors.”

Cu(ATSM) improved the long-term spatial memory of mice, showing promise for future human clinical trials. The compound has also “already progressed to clinical testing for conditions like Parkinson’s and ALS,” said Nicolazzo in the release. However, “despite its promising results in animals, a pilot comparative analysis found that Cu(ATSM) provided no significant benefit to humans with ALS,” said Science Alert.

More than 7 million Americans 65 and older are estimated to be living with Alzheimer’s. By 2050, that number is projected to rise to close to 13 million, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. A drug that could prolong cognition and lifespan would be a game changer for patients and their families.

The disease itself is still full of unknowns. Alzheimer’s “involves the biological environment of the aging brain, including membrane biology, inflammation, vascular function, lipid metabolism and cellular resilience,” said neuroscientist Dayan Goodenowe to Newsweek. “So any single mechanism still has to be validated before we know whether it produces meaningful clinical benefit.”

California is tense, or at least its fault lines are. The southern part of the state is at risk of experiencing a devastating earthquake as stress levels along both the San Andreas and San Jacinto faults are at a peak. While researchers cannot predict when the earthquake will occur, understanding the state of these two fault lines and their associated risks can help to better prepare civilians and municipalities.

Tension at the gate

Stress levels along the San Andreas and San Jacinto fault lines have “now reached high levels,” and the “two fault systems may interact when their stress levels become similar,” leading to a massive earthquake, said a study published in the journal JGR: Solid Earth. After analyzing 1,000 years of paleoseismic data, researchers found that “stress along multiple portions of the faults is the highest it has been in at least a millennium,” said The Washington Post.

Earthquakes occur when a slip along a fault line “releases energy built up over time,” said CNN. Stress “accumulates as tectonic forces move the crust, but parts of the fault are locked and unable to slip freely.”

While the Los Angeles area has seen its share of small earthquakes over the years, its last devastating quake was in 1857. The “violent magnitude-7.9 tremor ruptured a 225-mile stretch on the southern part of the San Andreas fault,” said the Post. Since then, that portion of the fault has “remained largely dormant, with stress continuing to build elsewhere along the fault, as well as along the neighboring San Jacinto fault.”

The two fault lines meet at a point called the Cajon Pass that could serve as an “earthquake gate.” A gate can “either stop or transmit large ruptures between the two faults,” said CNN.

“The conditions that determine whether the earthquake gate at Cajon Pass opens or stays closed appear to be related to how closely the stress levels on the two fault systems are aligned with each other at the time of rupture,” said lead study author Liliane Burkhard in a news release. “Right now, with stress at historically high levels across the region and more than 160 years elapsed since the last major rupture, the system is in a critically loaded state.”

Magnitude prediction

Because of the comparable stress levels, the Cajon Pass could “facilitate a joint rupture of both the San Andreas and San Jacinto faults simultaneously — a scenario that could be significantly more damaging than a single-fault event,” said the release. The resulting quake would affect “densely populated areas including Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside and the Coachella Valley.” Researchers predict the tremor would be between a 7.4 and 7.8 in magnitude and cause significant damage to “critical infrastructure such as major highways, railways and energy corridors over several cities simultaneously,” said CNN.

Major earthquakes have occurred in other parts of California. There was a devastating 7.9-magnitude earthquake along the San Andreas fault in 1906 that affected San Francisco and the Bay Area. However, earthquakes in “one part of the fault network do not relieve pressure elsewhere,” said the BBC.

This research does not predict when the next giant earthquake will happen, but it does “improve our understanding of earthquake interactions in Southern California,” said the study. And knowing the risk can “help refine regional hazard assessments.”

The US military will include Australia in a global pre-positioning programme for weapons, ammunition and vehicles for the first time, according to reports.

There is a “growing US footprint in Australia”, said Defence Minister Richard Marles, which is “important in terms of building our own military capability” but critics have asked if Australia is “acting like America’s 51st state”.

Rotating force

Although Australia does not permit foreign military bases on its soil, it hosts US Marines for exercises for six months of the year in the northern city of Darwin, and a “rotating force” of US-commanded submarines will arrive in Western Australia next year, reported France 24.

If the US and China “come to blows over Taiwan”, the naval base in Western Australia “offers a berth” that would bring American nuclear-powered submarines “close to the fight” – and provide a “haven if things go wrong”, said The Wall Street Journal.

In 2023, as part of a trial of pre-positioning US military equipment, the US Army left trucks at Bandiana, Victoria, after war games with Australia, which are held every two years. A separate US Marines storage facility in Australia is expected to reach full capacity by 2028, with a global defence contractor employing around 110 engineers and specialists.

The US Navy has allocated $30 million (£23 million) to build warehouses and offices in the state of Victoria in 2027. The “hugely significant American presence” in the Asia-Pacific is a counterbalance to China’s “very significant military build-up”, said Marles.

Trump whirlwind

Experts are divided over whether Australia should respond to Beijing this way. A report from the Lowy Institute warned that China has the capability to strike northern Australia with “ballistic missiles deployed to its South China Sea outposts”.

The think tank’s director of international security, Sam Roggeveen, told Agence France-Presse that this was a “relevant consideration” in locating a stockpile in Australia’s southeast because “once these facilities are operational, they would be obvious targets for China”.

There is “little political appetite” for a “massive increase in Australian defence expenditure”, said Australian National University professor of international security John Blaxland, so “facilitating greater US investment in Australian real estate is widely considered to be the most prudent approach to take”.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s “wholehearted embrace” of an “enhanced strategic relationship” with Japan “surely” confirms that Labor has “signed up totally to the United States and its regional policy in the teeth of the Trump whirlwind”, wrote international affairs expert James Curran in the Financial Review last month.

There is a growing “acceptance” that Aukus, the security partnership between Australia, the UK and the US, is “cannibalising the defence budget”, yet ministers “believe the problem only needs to be managed, not addressed”. There are “precedents” for close US allies withdrawing permission for US access to jointly operated military bases and airspace.

Spain “point-blank denied” Washington the use of two of its critical bases for Iran-related missions, while Saudi Arabia and Kuwait appeared to restrict Washington’s use of joint facilities that were critical to Trump’s mission in the Strait of Hormuz.

So Australia “could, if it so chose, do the same” – but is the country “even considering this might be an option in the future”?

While the world’s oceans have generally been heating up, one patch of the Atlantic located south of Greenland has been dropping in temperature. Dubbed the “cold blob,” the region’s cooling is likely tied to the growing unsteadiness of one ocean current system due to climate change. The collapse of the system could lead to disruptions in global weather patterns.

Current problems

The Atlantic cold blob has cooled by nearly one degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) since 1900. The region is also the “only part of the world” that has “cooled significantly since the 19th century, both in the atmosphere and ocean,” said a study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. Scientists believe that the climate anomaly is happening because of shifts in a network of ocean currents called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC).

Researchers analyzed decades of North Atlantic temperature and heat flux data going back as far as 1870. They found that the cold blob had “shown a marked decrease in the amount of heat escaping to the atmosphere over the last half-century, especially since 1993” and that the “largest drop in heat content has been in the top 1,000 meters — coinciding with the AMOC’s location,” said Science News. The decrease in heat content indicates that the heat supply provided by the AMOC has been declining over the past few decades.

The AMOC “works like a vast ocean conveyor belt, pulling warm water from the tropics to the Northern Hemisphere, where it cools, sinks and flows back south,” said CNN. Over time, the system has been “weakening as human-driven global warming melts ice and causes a surge of freshwater into the ocean, disrupting the AMOC’s delicate balance of heat and salinity.” Eventually, the current system may “become so weak” that it can “no longer distribute heat around the world,” said USA Today. The collapse of the AMOC has been deemed a climate tipping point after which there will be irreversible ecological damage.

Future problems

The cold blob and resulting disruption of the AMOC have been taking a toll on various regions of the planet. The Indian summer monsoon rainfall pattern has “shifted dramatically since 1999,” said a study published in the journal AGU Advances. “Northwest India receives 24.6% more rain during the monsoon season, while the Indo-Gangetic Plain has decreased by 4.4%, experiencing drought conditions.” Upon investigation, researchers found that the cold blob had “shifted the Indian monsoon by creating a strong temperature gradient over the North Atlantic,” which affected “jet stream winds and pressure systems in the atmosphere above Eurasia,” said Live Science, a sister site of The Week.

Similar effects are likely to occur around the world. While scientists do not know when the AMOC tipping point will be reached, it could “trigger dramatically cold winters in northern Europe” when it does, said Euronews. An AMOC collapse would also cause sea levels on the east coast of the U.S. to “rise rapidly since the current normally drives water away from the land,” and “storms in the Atlantic would increase in intensity.”

Summer is “a boom time for ice cream makers”, said Agence France-Presse – but in Japan, some of the country’s biggest firms are feeling the heat.

Officials from the Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) have raided six firms on suspicion of colluding to hike prices in a cartel. Staff are believed to have “sent emails or met up for years to coordinate the timing and size” of the increases, said an anonymous source, violating anti-monopoly laws.

The anti-trust watchdog searched the head offices of Meiji, Morinaga Milk Industry, Lotte, Ezaki Glico, Morinaga & Co and Akagi Nyugyo, company officials have confirmed.

Prices ‘jumped in lockstep’

Since 2022, ice cream prices in Japan have risen every year around the same time, as heat and inflation climb. In the fiscal year ending in March, ice cream sales hit a record high of 663 billion yen (about £3.1 billion), according to the Japan Ice Cream Association, as the country sweated through its hottest summer since records began.

Now, the commission is investigating whether major manufacturers colluded to take advantage of inflation and raise their prices above the increase in the cost of raw ingredients, according to Kyodo News.

Sources say the six companies are “suspected of raising the suggested retail prices of ice cream” in increments of 10 yen, according to The Japan Times. The aim seems to be “securing profits for each company”.

Public broadcaster NHK used a graph to show how “the price of two flagship frozen delights” – Meiji’s ice cream and Morinaga Milk’s choco-ice bites – “jumped in lockstep four times” between 2022 and 2025, said The Guardian. Sources say this is the first JFTC investigation into a “suspected ice-cream-related price cartel”. The case has provoked anger among “frozen snack aficionados as they face a cruel summer ahead”.

Japan’s “sweltering and sweaty summers” are being intensified by the climate crisis. In April, authorities announced a new term for days reaching more than 40C – kokusho, meaning “cruelly hot”.

The ice cream ‘boom’

The case “threatens to undermine the reputations” of some of Japan’s largest food companies, said The New York Times. The ice cream industry has “boomed in recent years”. Last year, it was valued at more than $4 billion, up 3% from 2024.

But rising prices have “stoked public anger” in Japan, which is battling inflation for “the first time in decades”, fuelled by higher energy costs from the war in the Middle East.

The companies have issued statements saying the commission had raided their offices and that they “would cooperate with the investigation”. Natsuyo Suzuki, of Akagi Nyugo, said the firm would work with investigators following an “on-site inspection”.

The JFTC will analyse seized materials and interview individuals to investigate the suspected violation of antimonopoly laws. But if the commission “concludes that there was a cartel”, said AFP, the antitrust watchdog will “order the firms to improve their business practices and pay a fine”.

The new mayor of Paris, Emmanuel Grégoire, has promised to treat the alleged abuse of children in dozens of state nursery and primary schools in Paris as an “absolute priority” amid growing outrage from parents and the public.

Child protection officers carried out a wave of arrests last month, “dramatically accelerating the authorities’ response to a scandal that has shaken the French capital and undermined faith in its schools”, said France 24.

‘It’s a massive scandal’

The focus of the police investigation are so-called “monitors” in the capital’s after-school care system. They are not employed directly by schools or the education ministry but recruited by city or local authorities “often without training or professional diplomas and increasingly on a casual basis, with many paid by the hour”, said The Guardian.

Prosecutors have been examining more than 100 allegations of mistreatment, physical violence and rape of children as young as three by monitors during lunch breaks, nap times and after-school activities.

“We have investigations under way in 84 pre-schools, about 20 primary schools and about 10 daycare centres,” said Paris’ top prosecutor, Laure Beccuau. The number of institutions being investigated represents roughly one in six of such places in the French capital.

In late May, a 35-year-old man became the first person to go on public trial related to the after-school abuse scandal. He is accused of sexually assaulting five children aged between three and five at the Alphonse-Baudin pre-school in Paris’ 11th arrondissement.

“It’s a massive scandal,” said Florian Lastelle, a lawyer for three Parisian families who have filed police complaints over the alleged abuse of their children. “The state school system is a source of pride in this country, but unfortunately in France today it’s not possible to say that the public service guarantees children’s safety.”

#MeTooEcole

While the authorities are only now taking action, parents’ groups have been fighting for years for the allegations to be taken seriously.

Leading the charge is the #MeTooEcole collective, set up to support families who “found themselves faced with protocols that were deemed non-existent or inadequate, blurred responsibilities between institutions, schools and extra-curricular activities, and a profound sense of abandonment”, said Euronews.

Grégoire, the city’s new Socialist mayor who suffered sexual abuse in primary school during an after-school swimming club, has struck a “more conciliatory tone” than his predecessor Anne Hidalgo, acknowledging a “systemic” problem and apologising to parents on behalf of the city, said France 24.

As well as announcing dozens of suspensions and vowing better vetting of people who apply to be after-school monitors and improved training for recruits, he has also agreed to set up a cross-party inquiry and convene an assembly of parents tasked with exploring ways to improve child protection and rethink after-school hours.

“I know there is a clear breakdown of trust in the state school system,” he told the municipal council. “But we will get there; we have no choice.”

Relaxed scientific protocols and standards within the Department of Health and Human Services have led to an increase in clinics offering experimental stem cell treatments to parents of children with severe autism. Despite being technically unapproved by the Food and Drug Administration, parents are shelling out tens of thousands for treatments that claim to improve language and social skills and reduce problem behaviors.

Operating ‘beyond the bounds of FDA approval’

Although there is a lack of FDA approval and little evidence of its efficacy, stem cell treatments for autism are being steadily provided across the country. Children with autism “as young as 18 months old” are getting “unapproved stem cell treatments” at clinics in Florida, Texas and elsewhere, “part of a growing market operating beyond the bounds of FDA approval,” said The Guardian.

The procedure involves sedating a child before administering intravenous doses of millions of stem cells, “commonly derived from human umbilical cords harvested at birth,” said The Guardian. Sometimes the doctors providing the treatment have “no scientific expertise in autism or child development.” Instead, they have “entered the booming stem cell sector,” billing the procedures as “regenerative medicine” for children, “some of whom have severe disabilities.”

As stem cell clinics “multiply across America,” they are “finding an influential ally in the U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,” said The Guardian. Kennedy’s influence could lead to new policy, said Paul Knoepfler, a stem cell biologist and unofficial watchdog of stem cell clinics, to the outlet. The FDA has not taken action in the last 18 months. This could mean a “big change coming from the FDA very soon, backing off oversight of birth-related stem cells.”

Several clinics prominently cite an early Duke University study involving 25 autistic children that “suggested possible improvements following umbilical cord stem cell infusions,” said Trial Site News. But a “larger and more rigorous follow-up trial” involving 180 children failed to “demonstrate significant improvements in core autism symptoms compared with placebo controls.” Similar results emerged from a “placebo-controlled study conducted by Sutter Health.” This has led researchers to conclude that the “evidence does not currently support routine use of stem cell therapies for autism outside formal clinical research settings.”

Up until now, Americans seeking stem cell therapies for autism have looked abroad to places where they are approved and federally regulated or operating in grey areas. There is a flourishing multibillion-dollar industry of “stem cell tourism” in places such as “Mexico and Panama” and “as far afield as Abu Dhabi,” said The Guardian.

But most European countries limit the use of stem cell injections to clinical trials, and they are not an approved treatment for autism. In January, the Indian Supreme Court ruled that stem cell therapy cannot be used as a clinical treatment for autism spectrum disorder, making it clear it is “not only unethical but amounts to medical malpractice,” said Indian network NDTV.

When ‘hope outpaces evidence’

The biggest lesson from this story is “not political,” said Trial Site News. “It is human.” Parents seeking unsanctioned stem cell therapies are “not irrational.” Most are “navigating difficult realities” with “limited options and enormous responsibility.” The danger emerges when “hope outpaces evidence.” The appropriate response is “neither unquestioning enthusiasm nor reflexive dismissal” but rather “rigorous clinical research, transparent reporting, long-term safety monitoring and honest communication with families.”

After RFK promised to find a cure for autism last year, some people were “appalled and fearful,” clinical social worker Jennifer Cork said at Psychology Today. Plenty of families whose children require substantial support, however, were “relieved that someone in a position of power was finally talking about their struggles.” The issue is that these families “don’t need untried, expensive treatments.” They need “affordable therapies, respite care and adequate accommodations that they don’t have to fight for.” They also need Kennedy to “remember that autistic people are human beings, not lab rats.”

Infecting yourself with internal parasites doesn’t sound like the best way to feel better but scientists have “engineered” the genes of hookworms to deliver medicine – and “it’s just crazy enough to work”, said ZME Science.

US researchers have genetically modified hookworms to produce and secrete specific antibodies. This is a “first step” towards creating “living pharmaceutical factories” that can deliver therapeutic proteins “directly inside the host”, they said in their study, published in Nature Communications.

Internal leeches 

The hookworm has “spent millions of years perfecting how to assure long-term survival inside a human host, and how to get molecules out of its body and into ours”, said senior author Makedonka Mitreva, from Washington University in St Louis, on EurekAlert.

They are like an “internal leech”, infecting upwards of 400 million people globally, mostly in tropical regions, said LiveScience. As they latch on to the inner wall of the gut to feed on blood, they release “anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressant compounds to prevent the body from flushing them out”.

Scientists have already noted that this “cocktail of compounds” produced naturally by hookworms could help treat some metabolic disorders. But the new study takes things further – by engineering in an extra molecule for the worm to secrete.

Mitreva and her team used CRISPR gene-editing technology to insert into a hookworm egg genome “a gene coding for an antibody known to counteract” the pufferfish poison tetrodotoxin, a lethal, weaponisable neurotoxin with no known commercial antidote. They then infected hamsters with the modified parasites, and samples taken later showed the hamsters had antibodies to tetrodotoxin circulating in their blood.

“It was like the perfect moment,” Mitreva told R&D World. Now “we can start embarking on hookworms being a two-in-one platform” because we’ve shown they “can not only deliver a drug, but produce that drug and deliver it”.

‘Internal allies’ 

The goal now is to use this technology on humans. In the future, we “could see these worms engineered to produce a variety of other medications and excrete them inside the human body”, said LiveScience. They could potentially provide long-term treatments for chronic conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease, or even protective treatments for military personnel exposed to chemical or biological threats. Mitreva’s study was, in fact, funded by the US Department of Defense with a view to developing a treatment for tetrodotoxin poisoning.

This is an “exciting” approach that “paves the way for all sorts of injection-free biologic drug delivery”, said ZME Science. It’s “tantalising” to think that “engineered hookworms could one day” be our “internal allies, providing continuous therapeutic benefits while living safely within a human host”.

If you have ever felt like you couldn’t stop eating your favorite sweet treats and savory snacks, that’s by design. The tobacco industry had a heavy hand in the growth of ultraprocessed food in the U.S. And despite no longer being involved, its marketing tricks remain.

A new addiction

Big Tobacco employed its tactics in marketing cigarettes to also market ultraprocessed food, according to a series of papers published in the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH). In the 1980s, U.S. tobacco giants Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds made a “major entrance into the food industry” when they had “strong cash flows yet experienced growing scrutiny regarding their tobacco products,” said one of the AJPH papers. Investing in food and beverages was an attempt to improve their corporate image, so the team acquired several major brands, including Del Monte Foods, General Foods, Kraft, Nabisco and 7UP.

Tobacco companies “spent decades amassing research on how to make cigarettes more pleasurable and addictive with chemical additives” and “deliberately applied this knowledge to food manufacturing,” according to “internal company records,” said NPR. Thus came the rise of added sugars and artificial flavorings in food and beverages. These additives are known to be “hyperpalatable,” activating the same part of the brain as cigarettes or other drugs.

Along with changing the composition of the products, aggressive marketing tactics became the norm. Big Tobacco “applied the same strategies to developing light and reduced food products with the express goal of retaining customers who might otherwise stop consuming some of their products,” said lead paper author Tera Fazzino, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Kansas, to NPR.

The companies “divested from the food system from 2000 to 2007,” said the papers. However, their impact has been long-lasting. Ultraprocessed foods “now account for 70% of packaged foods in the U.S. and 62% of the calories in children’s diets,” said Fast Company. These foods have been linked to a variety of health problems, including obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

“Children are really, really vulnerable to this kind of messaging,” said paper author Laura Schmidt, a professor at the University of California at San Francisco, to The Washington Post. “The goal is to hook the consumer at the youngest possible age because, as you grow up, they have instilled brand loyalty in you.”

Trying to quit

There have been growing calls for regulating the production and sale of ultraprocessed foods, notably as part of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again agenda. Last summer, for example, federal agencies “began a joint effort to define ultraprocessed food,” said Bloomberg. This definition could be “used on product labels in an effort to nudge consumers to reach for healthier items.” The ultimate goal is to implement labeling on the front of packaging that indicates what foods are ultraprocessed. But creating such a definition is not so simple, as it could “inadvertently ensnare some healthier items like yogurt.”

While Kennedy may be pushing back against ultraprocessed food, the Trump administration has made “policy changes that could exacerbate the problem,” said The Guardian. The administration also “failed to direct policy changes that could help, like redirecting government corn subsidies toward whole fruits and vegetables.”

But better monitoring could lead to needed changes. Countries might “consider establishing a baseline of ultraprocessed or hyperpalatable food availability in their food environments to monitor food system health,” said the papers. There may also be a “global need to consider regulation of multiple addictive products disseminated by tobacco companies.”

The Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of bemotrizinol (BEMT) in sunscreens. The chemical has been used in European and Asian brands of sunblock for decades. BEMT can provide better sun protection and last longer while being less greasy on the skin.

New kid in the block

Sunscreens are supposed to protect against both ultraviolet A (UVA) and B rays (UVB). UVB is “high-energy radiation that is typically associated with sunburns and can cause genetic mutations that lead to skin cancer,” said Scientific American. UVA rays have also “increasingly become recognized as relevant for skin health,” and their “longer-wavelength radiation” can “penetrate deeper into the skin than UVB, breaking down the skin’s structure and creating harmful, skin‑aging molecules.” Unfortunately, while most U.S. sunscreens are effective against UVB radiation, they “provided significantly lower UVA protection with the average unweighted UVA protection factor just 24% of the labeled SPF,” said a 2021 study.

BEMT, though, is capable of ”protecting against both ultraviolet A and B rays while not leaving white streaks associated with mineral-based sunscreens,” said The Associated Press. The ingredient is “generally recognized as safe and effective for use in sunscreens by adults and children 6 months of age and older,” said the FDA. “For too long, American consumers have been applying sunscreen and believing they were fully protected, not knowing that their product was delivering far less UVA protection than the label implied,” Alexa Friedman, a senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group, said in a statement.

Screening issues

There have been many efforts to get the government to approve new sunscreen ingredients, but they were “bogged down for decades by the FDA’s bureaucratic system for updating its lists of safe nonprescription drug ingredients,” said the AP. Bemotrizinol’s approval marks the “first ingredient to go through a streamlined process authorized by Congress in 2020.”

Sunscreen is an important step in preventing skin cancer, but there has been a mounting anti-sunscreen movement “amid an increasing distrust of the medical establishment and a desire by some for natural alternatives,” said The Washington Post. Much of the concern has surrounded chemical sunscreens, which get absorbed into the skin. In 2019, scientists from the FDA found that these sunscreens’ ingredients can stay in the body at unsafe levels after just one day of use. Bemotrizinol is “broad-spectrum and far more stable, so it doesn’t break down in the sun,” said NBC News. It “also has low levels of absorption into the body.”

Nearly half its customers paid nothing for their food and drink after a cafe in the US stopped charging customers and asked instead for voluntary donations.

But since it switched to this curious model, the Post Modern Times cafe in Minneapolis is making a profit after mostly posting losses for years.

Defying ‘fascists’

In a statement shared on Post Modern Times’ Instagram account in January, the cafe’s owner, Dylan Alverson, said he had decided to move to a donations-only model in response to a “government occupation” in Minneapolis.

The restaurant is just four blocks from where Renée Good was killed in January by Ice agents and six blocks from the site of George Floyd’s murder in 2020. “Effective tomorrow we are done making money for the fascists that occupy our city,” he said. “We refuse to generate taxes under the guise of a functioning for-profit capitalist business aligned with government strategy.”

What was “surprising” is “what ensued in the weeks and months that followed”, said The New York Times. Post Modern Times “thrived”, even as the number of customers who don’t pay for food “hovers between 40 and 50%”. Running on donations means the cafe doesn’t have to pay tax on sales and the staff are volunteers working for shared tips and community donations.

Alverson’s cafe generated $1.3 million (£960,000) in sales last year but still lost $18,500 (£13,800), “in spite of cost-conscious measures” like paying himself just $23,000 (£17,000) a year as “manager, chef and fix-it man”.

After “fighting to make a profit for 15 years”, he had concluded that it’s not “possible” without “taking advantage of people”. But since making the change, he has “succeeded more than I ever did when I was running a conventional business employing 22 people”.

Some 42% of restaurant owners said their businesses weren’t profitable last year, according to the National Restaurant Association. So, “what started as a workaround to paying sales tax” might “offer a solution to a broken industry-wide business”.

Establishing trust

“Pay what you wish”, or “PWYW”, is a “well-known, if not exactly common”, pricing strategy whereby the buyer sets the price of a given commodity, said The Guardian.

Although paying nothing is “always a popular option”, the “underlying idea” is to “establish trust” between a seller keen to provide value or expand market share, and a “fair-minded buyer”.

The fashion retailer Everlane held a PWYW sale in 2015 and when Radiohead self-released their 2007 album “In Rainbows”, it was as a PWYW download. Although 62% of fans paid nothing for the download, and the average overall price per download was just $2.26, this was still more than the share the band would have got by selling at full price through iTunes (about $1.40).

For the people of Gaza, “fear is no longer linked only to what falls from the sky”, but also to “what crawls from below”, said Prospect.

Rats and other rodents have “taken over everything in a frenzy” and, with summer approaching, their numbers are expected to soar even higher.

Physical and psychological threats

A “plague” of rodents is “terrorising” the area, said the Financial Times, as rats and weasels “chew their way into tents, biting children and contaminating food”. A Unicef spokesperson who visited Gaza this month said rodents are becoming “a huge, huge problem because of accumulated rubble everywhere”.

The threat they pose is more than psychological. Rats transmit diseases through urine and waste, causing fever and other illnesses. Diabetic patients are particularly vulnerable to rodent bites, as they may not feel it happening and serious complications can occur.

More than 72,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s war in Gaza, and rats began “eating human bodies under the rubble”, Samah al-Dabla, who was displaced from Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, told Al Jazeera.

Rats are now appearing in the tents where many Gazans live. Al-Dabla has tried to buy rat poison but the prices are too high and she already struggles to afford enough food for her family. Any food she manages to obtain tends only to attract more rats.

Mounting problem

Dr Ayman Abu Rahma, director of preventive medicine at Gaza’s Ministry of Health, told Al Jazeera that the problem has three main causes: damage to sewage systems, decomposing bodies under the rubble, and the amount of rubbish building up in the territory. Gaza City’s main landfill site is a “breeding ground for rodents in a densely populated area”, said Al Jazeera.

Local officials want to convert waste into organic fertiliser, but the war has destroyed much of the equipment needed for such a process.

The urgency is clear: rubbish dumps are located close to tents in displacement sites, creating serious “health hazards that will increase as summer temperatures rise”, humanitarian officials and residents told the Financial Times.

Cogat, the Israeli Ministry of Defence body that monitors aid access to Gaza, said that “nearly 170 tons of pesticides and thousands of traps for rats, mosquitoes, and other pests have been brought into the Gaza Strip in recent weeks”.

But Salim Oweis, the Unicef spokesperson who visited Gaza, said the amount allowed in is “barely enough for a few weeks” and “the whole of Gaza” is affected.

“Just happy to be here.” That is the category assigned to a host of footballing nations, including Haiti, Panama and newcomers Curaçao and Cape Verde, by the San Francisco Chronicle ahead of the men’s 2026 World Cup.

Unlike the established national teams coming into the competition with “high expectations”, these unlikely contenders have spent decades on the fringes of international football.

“One of the most topsy-turvy weeks in World Cup qualifying history” saw a handful of heavyweight footballing nations fail to qualify, while several “tiny nations reached the finals for the first time”, said ESPN.

Punching above their weight

Fifa’s decision to expand the World Cup finals from 32 to 48 teams has created more pathways for smaller countries to qualify, including first-timers Curaçao, Cape Verde, Jordan and Uzbekistan. Many of these nations have spent years building a footballing infrastructure that punches well above their demographic weight.

Despite having a “land mass smaller than the Isle of Man” and a population of 156,000, the southern Caribbean island of Curaçao has relied on “well-drilled organisation” to help its team reach the finals, said the BBC. The team – nicknamed the Blue Family and led by “vastly experienced” Dutch coach Dick Advocaat – is “hard to break down and dangerous in transition”.

Meanwhile, “the Blue Sharks of Cape Verde are swimming in uncharted waters”, but “you wouldn’t want to bet against them” either, said The Guardian. “Physical and happy to defend”, this “eclectic” group of players has worked together “for the best part of half a decade”. Two years ago, they were joined by Rotterdam-born forward Dailon Livramento, who has proven “the missing piece for a team who have a host of talented wide players, but lacked a central presence up front”. Racking up four goals in the qualifying stages, he “has already cemented his status as a legend”.

There is cause for optimism even among the smallest participating nations, said The Athletic: when the women’s World Cup expanded its own group stage in 2023, there were predictions of drubbings, but “the underdogs fared much better than expected”.

Most of the “minnows” are likely to focus on defence against the stronger sides in their group and aim to “keep the scorelines respectable”, before taking a more aggressive stance against their weakest rival, “in the knowledge that a single win in the group stage may take them through”.

‘Real hope’

“For the football-mad boys of Port-au-Prince, the next month promises to be one of unparalleled excitement,” said ITV. Haiti have qualified for first time since 1974, long before the majority of its citizens were born.

Haiti is the poorest country in the tournament and its citizens are the subject of a US travel ban, so attending matches in person is out of the question for most of them. But regardless the nation “is entering the tournament in a spirit of optimism”. For many Haitians, the tournament is a chance to show the world that, “despite its profound challenges, this country can compete on a global stage”.

In Cape Verde, there is a sense of “real hope” that is “widely shared” among the islanders, said Reuters. Bars, restaurants and cafes are “gearing up” for the tournament of a lifetime. One bartender said the World Cup would help Cape Verde gain “more visibility in the world”.

The tournament also presents a significant earning opportunity: “about $10.5 million” (£7.85 million) for getting to the finals, said NPR. Such a cash injection could strengthen “youth development” opportunities and expand “scouting across the diaspora”.

And football is, perhaps “more than most sports”, known for its “shocks”, including when Saudi Arabia beat Lionel Messi’s Argentina, the eventual champions, in a 2022 group match, said Joshua McLeod and Hunter Fujak, sports lecturers at Deakin University, on The Conversation. “Could we see Cape Verde or Curaçao produce an even greater World Cup upset?”

Artificial intelligence systems can now convince you they are human. Two large language models have passed the Turing test, which determines if a machine can “show the same intelligence as a human being,” said The Independent. This significant development in AI is troubling, as anthropomorphizing LLMs can lead to deception and raise questions about what’s real and what isn’t.

Man or machine

In the test, a person “engages in text-based conversations with both a human and a machine without knowing which is which," said Stanford University. If the individual cannot tell them apart, the machine is considered to have passed the test. Researchers tested four AI systems and found that newer LLMs can “effectively imitate people in short interactions,” said a study published in the journal PNAS.

“Given the right prompts, advanced LLMs can exhibit the same tone, directness, humor and fallibility as humans,” study author Cameron Jones said in a release. “While we know LLMs can easily produce knowledge on nearly every topic, this test showed that it can also convincingly display social behavioral traits, which has major implications for how we think of AI.” The four tested AI models were GPT-4.5 and Llama-3.1-405B, which were state-of-the-art models, as well as the older baseline models GPT-4o and ELIZA, a simple chatbot from the 1960s.

Of the models, “GPT-4.5 was judged to be the human 73% of the time, meaning interrogators selected it as ‘human’ significantly more often than they selected the real human participant,” said the release. Llama-3.1-405B, “given the same prompt, was judged human 56% of the time,” making it “statistically indistinguishable from the humans it was compared against.” The baseline systems performed significantly worse, with ELIZA being mistaken for human only 23% of the time and GPT-4o being mistaken 21% of the time.

No man’s land

AI models passing for humans is a concerning development. The Turing test is a “game about lying for the models,” Jones said in the release, and “one of the implications is that models seem to be really good at that.” A big risk of the existence of AI models with this ability is the rise of “counterfeit people.” Thanks to the ease of deception, we “need to be more alert,” and “people should be much less confident that they know they’re talking to a human rather than an LLM.” Still, AI is not yet at a level where it can be deceptive on its own.

While the bots did pass the Turing test, they also required specific instructions to do so. Each of the systems was “instructed to adopt a persona, or a specific character and communication style,” said The Independent. These prompts “worked partly by leading the systems to make mistakes in the same way a human would.” When the models were not prompted, they were much less likely to be mistaken for humans, and GPT-4.5 fell to a 36% win rate and Llama-3.1-405B to a 38% win rate. The models “have the ability to appear humanlike,” study co-author Ben Bergen said in the release, “but maybe not as much the ability to figure out what it would take to appear humanlike.”

“As pervasive as ketchup” on chips, hot pepper sauce is an “obligatory accompaniment” for Caribbean cuisine, said the BBC. But a shortage of the fiery-flavoured condiment is “stifling supply” – both in the Caribbean, and in countries like the US, the UK and Australia, where consumers have developed a taste for its sweet, smoky punch.

It’s all about the main ingredient: Scotch bonnet, a scorching hot chilli pepper with an intense, fruity flavour. Susceptible both to “heavy rain and viruses”, and “walloped” by recent hurricanes, harvests have become devastatingly poor.

‘Confluence’ of issues

“From Jamaican jerk chicken to Haitian beef stew,” the Scotch bonnet pepper is a “foundational element” of Caribbean cuisine, said Chowhound. Not only does it pack a punch, it also adds “sweetness and an unmistakable scent”. It has a “smoky, recognisable spiciness” that has been successfully marketed the world over.

But now it’s “particularly hard to source”, said the BBC. Sauce and seasoning manufacturers such as Jamaica-based Walkerswood have cited a “confluence” of issues, including extreme weather and pests, just when global demand for hot sauce is skyrocketing; Walkerswood now exports “more than 95% of its products”.

It isn’t the first time a hot sauce shortage has had a global impact. Sriracha aficionados felt a “not so pleasant sting” four years ago, said The Guardian, as drought in Mexico resulted in a scarcity of the sauce’s “key ingredient”: red jalapeños.

Too ‘temperamental’

The Scotch bonnet shortage, blamed by many on climate change, “may be lasting” said Semafor. That’s not only a blow to the hot sauce industry but it could also change the landscape of plant growth in the Caribbean altogether. Continually disappointed by the “temperamental” Scotch bonnet, many producers are now turning to “hardier crops”, including sweet potatoes, to make a living instead.

Some parts of the Caribbean do seem to have escaped unscathed, though The island of Barbados has been “marked ‘safe’” from the hot pepper shortage, said Barbados Today. Its crops remain “resilient, pest-free, and available for production”.

The bees of the United States are in trouble and so is their honey. Disease and budget cuts have put bee populations in peril across the country even as honey demand has skyrocketed. The government is also planning on closing an important agricultural research center, risking further loss of both bees and their beloved nectar.

Honey, I shrunk the output

The U.S. demand for honey has grown significantly during the past three decades, mostly due to population growth and “consumers’ association of honey as a ‘superfood,’” said the USDA. However, as more people seek honey, the country is producing less. The U.S. has seen “staggering honeybee colony losses,” said the bee research nonprofit Project Apis m. Between June 2024 and March 2025, 1.6 million colonies were lost, with commercial beekeepers sustaining an average loss of 62%.

There are several reasons for the reduced honey production. The parasitic mite called the varroa destructor has “decimated hives ever since its appearance in the late ’80s,” said Bloomberg. More than 60% of honeybee colonies in the U.S. that died from June 2024 to January 2025 were “infected by mites resistant to the industry’s most widely used pesticide.”

For the bees that survived the mites, “it’s generally more lucrative for beekeepers to put them to work pollinating crops, rather than dedicating the insects to honeymaking.” As a result of the growing demand and reduced supply, “near-record imports are flowing in to fill that widening gap, with India, Argentina, Brazil and Vietnam emerging as some of the top suppliers.”

A bad place to bee

Alongside the ecological issues, the government is perpetuating the honey dearth. The USDA is planning to close the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, a “6,500-acre agricultural research station in Maryland that is home to the nation’s premier bee research and disease diagnosis hub,” Jennie L. Durant, a research affiliate in human ecology at the University of California, Davis, said at The Conversation. Beltsville researchers “have helped beekeepers respond to varroa mites” and is now “helping them prepare for a deadlier mite that is infesting honey bees in Asia: Tropilaelaps mercedesae.”

The USDA has claimed that its reason for decommissioning the Beltsville center is that “building maintenance and renovations would cost an estimated $500 million,” said Durant. However, the price, experts argue, is well worth it. “The lab is $3.2 million a year for 20-plus scientists,” Zac Lamas, a researcher at the bee lab within the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, said to The Associated Foreign Press. “We responded to a $600 million problem,” so the “idea that we’re redundant and expensive isn’t a good way to generalize the value of this lab.”

In addition to the Beltsville center, the Trump administration has “proposed eliminating the U.S. Geological Survey’s Ecosystems Mission Area, a move that could defund the USGS Bee Lab, an essential resource for research on native bees,” said Durant. The honey industry “has never been this stretched to keep healthy bees,” Jeff Pettis, who worked as a bee researcher at Beltsville from 1996 to 2016, said to Wisconsin Public Radio. And maintaining bee health is “what Beltsville was all about.”

The authorities in China have banned a prizewinning film because nationalists and the manosphere “resented its portrayal of their country”, said The Economist.

The movie, “Her Heart Beats in its Cage”, is a prison drama based on real killing, centering on Zhao Xiaohong, who may be perceived as a “star in the making”, a “feminist icon”, a “murderer” or “part of a calculated deception”, said The Times.

Deeply conflicted 

Zhao killed her husband with a fruit knife during an argument that “spilt over into a violent altercation” about the wider division of domestic chores. A court found her guilty of intentional killing in 2009 and sentenced her to 15 years in prison.

She was preparing for release from jail when Xiaoyu Qin, a film director, “discovered” her. He visited her prison, and was surprised to find “marginalised individuals full of personality and complexity, intense clashes between notions of good and evil” and “deeply conflicted stories”, he told China Newsweek.

For the film, Qin blended documentary-style footage of Zhao’s time in jail, filmed with the approval of the government, with scripted performances by her and her family, including her husband’s relatives. Critics claimed that Qin had “lured” the grieving family into participating and “feigning forgiveness”, said The Economist.

When the film was shown last year at the San Sebastian Film Festival in Spain, it “caused an immediate stir” and “made headlines back home in China”, said The Times.

It was quickly criticised online for allegedly whitewashing a convicted killer. Some argued that the film was “condoning violence” and “rewarding a criminal”, while others “questioned whether she was a victim of domestic violence at all”, noting that the judge had “rejected” her claim of self-defence.

There were also “the usual claims” on China’s “highly nationalistic internet” that the movie depicted the country in a “bad light”, which is the “sort of issue” on which censors “tend to agree with popular opinion”.

The film’s release in China was hotly anticipated, but as controversy raged, it disappeared from schedules less than a fortnight before its release. No explanation was given.

Meanwhile, the film’s cast and crew are not responding to requests for interviews, so “even finding out their defence to the accusations and counter-accusations” aimed at the film has “become more and more difficult”, as reports and reviews are “ruthlessly scrubbed”. Zhao’s social media accounts have also been blocked, according to reports in state media.

Touchy nationalism 

Chinese “propaganda” is “full of distortion and deception”, said The Economist, but much of the reaction online “reflected a touchy nationalism”, claiming the film was a “Western plot to undermine party rule by spreading liberal, pro-feminist values”.

China is undergoing its own “version” of the “West’s culture wars”, said The Times, with feminists “calling out the patriarchy and sexual harassment”, while men, particularly young men, are “crying foul”.

But “more informed online debate” about the movie has focused on reforms to the justice system. The law has been altered to allow judges assessing a self-defence claim to take into account any previous history of domestic violence.

Spinal-cord injuries are “notoriously difficult to treat,” said Rhys Blakely, science editor of The Times. But Zurich-based researchers think a solution may be in sight: injectable microrobots.

When the spinal-cord is damaged, recovery is often limited: nerve-fibre regrowth can be hampered by scarring, and the nerve cells usually cannot regenerate on their own. But studies by a team at the Multi-Scale Robotics Lab at ETH Zurich suggest that microrobots, made from stem cells with magnetic nano-particles, could “coax” these nerve cells to repair and regenerate.

The studies were carried out in a lab on zebrafish and mice, so there is “still a long way to go” before the microrobots can be tested on humans. But the results are promising, and scientists the world over are intrigued by the idea of “microscopic repair crews, guided by magnets”.

‘Near-complete recovery’

The decision to build this “fleet of living machines” came after other experimental treatments had fallen short, said Blakely. Attempts to inject immature nerve cells into the injured area, then implant electrodes to stimulate them to develop, had failed.

So the Zurich robotics team engineered microscopic machines about six micrometers wide – smaller than a red blood cell. Each one combines a neural progenitor cell (a spinal stem cell) with a cluster of customised nanoparticles. These nanoparticles have two layers: one is sensitive to magnetic fields, so the microrobot can be guided by a magnet; the other turns magnetic signals into electrical pulses. This “lets scientists steer the cells and then coax them, electrically, into maturing into new nerve tissue”.

Millions of these microrobots were needed during the animal trials. First, they were injected into injured zebrafish larvae and, in three days, the larvae were exhibiting “near-complete recovery of swimming and exploratory behaviours”, according to the study published in Nature Materials. Then, when tested on mice with severed spinal cords, the microrobots “promoted neural differentiation, and resulted in substantial improvements in motor function within four weeks”.

‘Reproducible and scalable’

Further research is needed before these microrobots can be tested on humans but the Zurich team is already thinking about ways they can be used in other medical settings. “The reproducible and scalable production of microrobots using our lab-on-a-chip system demonstrates” that there is a great deal of “application potential”, said study leader Salvador Pané i Vidal. With adaptations, the microrobots could be used in wound healing, and to make cardiology and oncology treatments “safer, more controllable and more effective”.

Different microrobots have already been shown to be successful in other areas of medicine, said Healthcare in Europe. Formed in droplets, they are effective at “precision-targeted drug delivery”, outperforming IV-delivery on the amount of drug than reaches the target tissue.

“When a river is alive, it has a sound”, Angela Ortigara, a senior adviser at WWF Netherlands, told CNN. “You hear it trickling down the rocks. You see vegetation around it. It is this flow of life.” And, said the broadcaster, “across Europe, that sound is now beginning to return.”

Environmental coalition group Dam Removal Europe has calculated that a record-breaking 603 dams were removed across the continent last year, as countries embark on a “broader reassessment of how rivers function in an era of climate extremes”.

Natural course

A dam is a large barrier built across a river or stream to block, control or redirect the flow of water. They help with water storage, generate electricity, control floods and aid navigation for boats.

Dam Removal Europe found that the number of dams dismantled in 2025, along with other water-flow controls like weirs, culverts and sluices, grew by 11% from the year before. In the US, an estimated 100 dams were dismantled last year, while conservation projects in China have resulted in the removal of hundreds of dams on the Yangtze River in recent years.

The removals allow waterways to “resume their natural course” as part of a “global trend to restore rivers to help wildlife thrive”, said The Guardian. The damming of rivers “disrupts ecosystems, hinders the transport of sediments” and is believed to have contributed to a 75% fall in Europe’s freshwater migratory fish population in the past 56 years.

The 2,324 miles (3,740km) of European rivers that were reconnected through barrier removals last year bring the European Union a “step closer to its goal of restoring 15,500 miles to their natural state by 2030”.

Connectivity conundrum

The process is “rarely as simple as tearing down concrete”, said CNN. There can be “years of environmental assessments, engineering studies” and careful “negotiations with dam owners and local authorities”. Sediment levels must be “managed”, riverbanks need to be “stabilised” to prepare for the restored waterway, and ecosystems need to be “monitored after demolition” for unforeseen negative impacts.

The wide-scale dismantling of dams and water barriers has been criticised by some farming groups and policymakers who have raised concerns about potential impacts on land use and rural livelihoods. A study published last year found that the presence of dams could slow the spread of invasive species, while barrier removals may also allow new threats to travel from one part of a river to another.

But “with careful preparation, monitoring and long-term management, these risks can be minimised”, Ellen Dolan, a biologist at Queen’s University Belfast and lead author of the study, told The Guardian.

A class of synthetic drugs called orphines is throwing a new wrench into the ever-evolving opioid crisis in the United States. These drugs have tenfold the potency of fentanyl and have led to numerous overdose deaths in 2026. Experts say removing them from the streets, or even identifying them, could be extremely difficult.

What are orphines?

They are a “class of opioids that was created in the 1960s,” said The New York Times, as part of a project to find “rapid, safe pain relievers for surgery.” Orphines were developed by Paul Janssen, a Belgian doctor, the same man who originally synthesized fentanyl. It was soon discovered that “orphines had life-threatening side effects such as acute respiratory depression and were highly addictive,” which halted their development.

Orphines are generally considered to be at least “10 times more powerful than fentanyl, even in quantities no greater than a few sand-size grains,” said the Times. Like fentanyl, orphines can be “lethal with stunning speed, with victims slumping over abruptly, respiration shutting down, chest walls rigid.” Naloxone, a drug that reverses the effects of opioids, is effective against orphine, but “numerous doses may be required, many more than the one or two doses typically needed for fentanyl.”

Why are they prevalent now?

Orphines started to become ubiquitous among street drugs in the “wake of global crackdowns on fentanyl,” said the Times. The “emergence of orphines appears to follow regulatory actions targeting fentanyl analogues,” said the industry outlet Pharmacy Times, forcing dealers and users to pivot to new drugs. Most experts “believe the drug is produced at scale by international, multilevel drug distribution networks, likely originating from regions like South Asia or China,” and is then funneled to the U.S., said The Independent.

By the end of January 2026, orphine usage had been “detected in New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Illinois, Louisiana, Texas, Washington, Nevada and California,” said The Hill. Overdose deaths from the drug have been reported in nearly all these states. At least 41 deaths from an orphine called cychlorphine occurred in Tennessee alone between July 2025 and February 2026, according to the Knox County Regional Forensic Center.

What next?

Doctors and researchers are trying to find ways to stem the flow of orphines. Doing so is difficult because it is “not hard for labs to pump it out,” said The Hill. The drug isn’t simply coming from a bathroom brew made “from a couple of products or in the U.S.,” Timothy Wiegand of the American Society of Addiction Medicine told The Hill. It is coming from international “drug distribution networks, some of the cartels or other isolated networks.”

As orphines continue to plague U.S. cities, medical examiners have “become frontline drug detectives, pressing to identify the new substances causing deaths,” said the Times. Many are “coordinating with law enforcement and local health departments to swiftly warn communities about the latest killer in their midst,” though local medical examiners’ offices are often chronically underfunded.

These drugs represent a “dangerous shift in the opioid crisis,” Dr. Rachel Wirginis, an addiction medicine and family medicine physician at the Oklahoma State University Addiction Recovery Clinic, said in a press release. Physicians are “seeing increasingly powerful synthetic opioids that require rapid recognition and aggressive intervention to prevent fatal outcomes.”

RCP8.5, a high-emissions climate scenario deemed to be the “business-as-usual” model under which no efforts are made to curb climate change, has been removed by scientists. This model represented what was thought to be the worst climate change could get. But thanks to strides in renewable energy and emissions reductions, it is now largely considered improbable.

Lowering the ceiling

It is difficult to determine how climate change will affect the future “because how much the planet will warm depends in large part on what humans do,” said Vox. So scientists build scenarios or “structured guesses about how the next century might unfold under different assumptions about energy use, growth and climate policy.” These scenarios get updated approximately every seven years. In a new paper published by an international team of researchers, the worst-case scenario was scrapped.

Under RCP8.5, “nations would make no effort to cut emissions and expand fossil fuel use,” Andrew King, an associate professor of climate science at the University of Melbourne, said at The Conversation. By 2100, “carbon dioxide levels would almost triple, to 1,135 parts per million and the world would be around 4.5°C (8.1°F) hotter than the preindustrial period.” Instead, the “new high-emissions scenario projects about 3.5°C (6.3°F) of warming by 2100,” said The Times.

Scientists have been positing that the worst-case scenario for climate change was becoming less likely over time. Despite this, the “use of RCP8.5 in climate modeling has remained, in part, as a way to study what might happen under a ‘baseline’ scenario in which the world does nothing to tackle climate change,” said The Washington Post. Using this model, however, has also “provided fodder for attacks,” with skeptics arguing that “scientists, activists and the media have overstated the risks that actually exist and given outsized attention to the most extreme scenario.”

Raising the floor

President Donald Trump claims that climate activism has been used to “scare Americans, push horrible energy policies and fund billions into their bogus research programs,” he said in a Truth Social post. But these recently updated scenarios are a “sign the expansion of solar, wind, electric vehicles and batteries have slowed emissions growth,” King said. “Taking RCP8.5 off the table is a sign of progress.”

Making progress does not mean all is well. Along with RCP8.5, the updated scenarios “discarded some very low-emissions scenarios because nations are unlikely to slash their fossil-fuel use as deeply as many world leaders had urged,” said The New York Times. Essentially, the “scenarios are becoming less pessimistic but also less optimistic.” The new models show that it is no longer possible to limit global warming to the recommended 1.5°C (2.7°F) above pre-industrial levels.

The new worst scenario of a temperature increase of 3.5°C (6.3°F) “would still be a very much worst-case scenario with considerable climate ­impacts,” Detlef van Vuuren, a senior researcher at the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and lead author of the updated climate scenarios, said to The Times. “The brutal math of climate change is this,” climate scientists Zeke Hausfather, Glen Peters and Piers Forster, said in a commentary about the updated scenarios: “As long as CO2 emissions remain above zero, the world will continue to warm.”

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell last year to its lowest level since 2019, according to a report from the MapBiomas monitoring network.

The findings are “good news” for President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva who made the “fight against deforestation” a “central tenet” of his reign, said France24. But how good is the news overall?

Breathtaking destruction  

South America's biggest country lost 985,000 hectares (2.4 million acres) of native vegetation in 2025, down 20.6% from 2024, the report found. Deforestation in the Amazon alone fell by 23.5%, while reductions were recorded across Brazil’s six major ecosystems.

“Even so”, said France24, the “rate of destruction” remains “breathtaking”. In the Amazon, the world's largest rainforest, five trees are still chopped down every second.

The “hardest-hit” biome last year was once again the Cerrado, a “vast, biodiverse savanna” south of the Amazon, which accounted for more than half of the deforestation.

The Amazon is the largest tropical rainforest on the planet and it absorbs more than a billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, helping to offset the effects of human-caused emissions. But agriculture, wildfire, logging and mining are stripping it of its powers. Agriculture accounted for 99% of vegetation loss across the country.

If deforestation and global warming “continue unchecked”, the Amazon could “begin a gradual transition” to a “degraded, grassland-like ecosystem” in “just a few decades”, said the New York Times.

The “consequences” of an “Amazon tipping point” are “catastrophic for the entire planet,” Bernardo M. Flores, an ecology researcher at the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain told the broadsheet, so “we need to be careful not to get anywhere near those risks”.

Reality on the ground

Part of the problem with protection is the region is the chasm between theory and reality. A “protected area” may “exist in law” and “appear on maps, in international pledges, and in official counts of how much of Brazil is under protection”, said Mongabay.

But “on the ground” the reality depends on “staff, fuel, boats, radios, boundary markers, fire brigades, monitoring, community work”, and “the ability to respond when illegal miners, loggers, poachers, or land-grabbers arrive”.

Brazil has created of the world’s “most important protected-area systems”, but the most federal protected areas are still underfunded, with the largest shortfalls in the Amazon.

The Amazon’s protected areas are “expensive to manage” because “many are vast” and “some are difficult to reach”, so a field visit can “require a river journey, a flight, or both” and enforcement could involve “long patrols” with a single manager “responsible for an area larger than some countries”.

The line between gamer culture and traditional storytelling is being blurred, one quest notification at a time, as readers get addicted to novels that combine sci-fi and fantasy narratives with features from video games.

These “gamified novels”, which are based on video games, are “going mainstream” and selling in their millions, said The Economist.

Cosmic octopus 

Standing for “literary role-playing game”, LitRPG is a genre of fiction that combines a traditional story with mechanics from role-playing games and video games. Although a Russian publisher insists that it coined the term in 2013, versions of the genre had been popular in Asia since the turn of the century.

The books “borrow the tropes of video and tabletop games”, and the characters “face challenges and grow stronger” as they “go on quests to obtain rewards”.

For instance, in the novels of Matt Dinniman, whose books have sold over six million copies, the hero “gets tougher as he punches goblins” and “defeats a monster” that is a mix of a “cosmic octopus” and “your average, suburban, anti-vax, let-me-talk-to-your-manager mom”.

The reader is regularly “updated on his character stats, health bar, XP [experience points] and special skills”. “Video-game vernacular” offers a “useful shorthand” – “minor figures” in the story are called “NPCs: non-playable characters”.

“Unlike choose-your-own-adventure tales”, readers don’t “make narrative choices”, but they “often interact with their favourite authors and leave comments on chapters, which then shape the stories”. This means the authors are “thinking strategically on and off the page” and many “self-publish their work online, chapter by chapter”. Some writers are particularly “prolific, posting new material daily”.

Foot-shaped sex toys

The adulation of readers is quite something. Dinniman “knew things were getting out of hand” when “rabid” fans “started asking him to sign their feet”, said The New York Times last year. When he put out a statement drawing the line at signing feet, his “undeterred” fans brought “foot-shaped silicone sex toys”, “heart-patterned boxers, pink Crocs, ‘Gilmore Girls’ DVDs, stuffed cats and severed doll heads” – all objects that feature in his novels.

The money is impressive, too. His series is in development for television and is being adapted into graphic novels, a multi-cast audio drama and a tabletop game. Dinniman has a merchandise range that includes sweatshirts, baseball caps, phone cases, wall tapestries, action figures and plush toys.

“Quantity has been trouncing quality,” said The Economist, so the genre is “not going to win any prestigious awards”, but readers “looking for escapist thrills are often forgiving”. Although the core readers are “gamers in their 30s”, its “biggest audience” is audiophiles, ranging from “truckers to stay-at-home mothers”, because the novels “often have only one perspective, and are usually narrated in the first person”, making them “easy to follow”.

Many of the readers “grew up gaming or playing tabletop games like Dungeons & Dragons”, said USA Today. Brandon Dwane, a 28-year-old from Massachusetts, “never considered himself a reader”, but “that changed” when he began reading LitRPG. Now, he’s a “junkie” for the “dopamine” hits the novels give him.

Colossal Biosciences, a Texas-based biotech company known for its de-extinction agenda and previous claims about genetically engineering dire wolves, has successfully hatched 26 chicks from artificial eggs. The company now hopes to use the technology to bring back extinct birds, including the dodo and the giant moa. But skeptics say de-extinction is not possible and the company may be overstating its claims.

A whole new bird

Eggs are a biological wonder. They are the “largest single cell of any species” and a “self-contained engine of incubation, doing away with the need for a living womb to keep a growing organism safe,” said Time. Because of eggs’ unique properties, artificially engineering them is a difficult task. However, Colossal Biosciences has managed to 3D-print artificial eggs with a “semi-permeable, silicone-based membrane housed inside a rigid hexagonal support cup,” said the company in a release. The membrane was “engineered to replicate the gas-exchange function of a natural eggshell — allowing oxygen to pass through while retaining moisture and blocking contaminants.”

The company released a video showing the hatching chicks. Researchers “took recently laid chicken eggs and carefully poured their contents into the artificial shells, where they continued growing,” said MIT Technology Review. A “window on top lets researchers peek inside.” To “see them all moving around in their artificial eggs was absolutely mind-blowing,” said Andrew Pask, Colossal Biosciences’ chief biology officer, to the outlet. “You really feel you can grow life outside of the womb.”

“Artificial egg” may be a misnomer, according to some. “You’ve poured in all the other parts that make it an egg. It’s an artificial eggshell,” said Vincent Lynch, an evolutionary biologist at the University at Buffalo, to CBS News. In addition, “producing a chick from an artificial vessel is not necessarily new,” said Nicola Hemmings, who studies bird reproductive biology at the UK’s University of Sheffield, to CBS News. In the past, scientists “used cruder technology to create transparent eggshells that hatched chicks from plastic films or sacks,” mainly to “study chicken development and glean insights that can also be applied to other mammals and even humans,” said CBS News.

A crack at de-extinction

The company’s artificial shell is just a first step in larger de-extinction plans. Colossal Biosciences’ ultimate goal is to bring back extinct birds like the giant moa or dodo. The egg’s design is “variable in size” and “scalable from hummingbird-egg dimensions down to the soccer-ball-sized eggs of the South Island giant moa, which once stood nearly 12 feet tall,” said the release.

Before the company can resurrect an extinct species, “scientists will need to genetically engineer bird DNA at a much earlier stage,” said National Geographic. “Once the fertilized egg is laid, the embryo already has around 50,000 cells — that’s way too many cells to bioengineer,” Hans Cheng, a retired molecular geneticist who teaches at Michigan State University, told the outlet.

Colossal Biosciences previously claimed it revived the extinct dire wolf and hopes to resurrect species like the woolly mammoth and the Tasmanian tiger. The company has also suggested its technology could support conservation efforts but included “no data or peer-reviewed scientific publications” in its release about the hatching chicks, “making it difficult to independently assess the claim,” said Nic Rawlence, an associate professor in ancient DNA at the University of Otago, at The Conversation. “If the technology lives up to the hype, it won’t be a silver bullet or panacea to stopping species declines, but it might just help.”

Cuba is rapidly growing its solar infrastructure due to the U.S. oil blockade. With the help of China, solar farms have popped up all over the country. But renewable energy access is unequal across the island, and Cuba still has a long way to go before it can survive without oil.

Looking to the skies

Cuba’s “energy crisis is chronic,” and the United States’ blocked fuel shipments have “pushed an already fragile system to the brink,” said El País. The country, which ran out of oil in the middle of May, has been experiencing 24- to 30-hour-long blackouts regularly. In the last four months, “only a single oil tanker has reached Cuban ports, that of the Russian Federation,” said Juan Antonio Fernández Palacios, Cuba’s representative to Belgium and the European Union, to Jacobin. Cuba “requires, at a minimum, eight tankers per month simply to sustain the basic functioning of the country.” The situation is “critical, harsh” and “approaching the contours of a humanitarian emergency.”

But where one door closes, another opens. Cuba is “currently pulling off one of the fastest solar revolutions on the planet, with help from China,” said CNN. “Imports of Chinese solar panels and batteries have soared over the past year.”

Chinese exports of solar equipment to Cuba “skyrocketed from about $5 million in 2023 to $117 million in 2025 and show no sign of stopping,” said The Washington Post. Beijing “pledged last year to help Cuba build more than 92 solar parks by 2028, and more than half of these projects have come online.” Along with providing materials, Chinese companies have also been “facilitating installation” and “working directly in Cuba to build solar farms.”

Because of the U.S. blockade and Cuba’s longstanding energy crisis, the Cuban government announced plans to move completely to renewable energy by 2050. The “installation of 52 solar photovoltaic parks has been completed, contributing more than 1,000 MWp and generating, at peak output, 38% of the energy consumed during daylight hours,” said Granma, the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party. Renewable energy “now accounts for some 10% of the island’s electricity, up from 3.6% in 2024,” said The Associated Press. However, “distribution remains limited, and few Cubans can afford such a system.”

Far to go

While solar power and renewable energy in general have ramped up in Cuba, it is “highly unlikely that, considering their current situation today, Cuba could achieve the goal of 100% renewables by the year 2050,” said Jorge Piñon, a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin’s Energy Institute, to NBC News. The “surge may be rapid, but solar power is not yet available at scale,” said CNN. Cuba’s solar parks are “small and scattered.” And solar power is “only generated when the sun shines, meaning it cannot meet peak evening demand.”

To make solar power work at all hours, batteries would be necessary. But much of the country does not have the necessary infrastructure. “You are talking about a major overhaul of a system that is old, is broken, is tired,” said Piñon to CNN. This overhaul is not cheap, and historically, the country’s energy problems have “disproportionately affected rural areas and provincial hubs,” said Bloomberg. Havana, the “wealthiest part of the island, would see greater uptake of solar panels,” as “battery systems that charge while the electric grid is on, to then power appliances when it’s not, are also commonly used in the capital.”

What started as online satire has spiralled into a mass movement for India’s disaffected youth.

The parody Cockroach Janta Party launched earlier this month and quickly amassed more than 22 million followers on Instagram – more than twice that of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the world’s largest political party.

Rotten places

The Cockroach Janta Party, or CJP, was created by Abhijeet Dipke, a public relations student at Boston University in the US. The 30-year-old launched the CJP via social media accounts and a website, inspired by comments from India’s Chief Justice Surya Kant, in which he compared unemployed young people to cockroaches.

While Kant later clarified his remarks, saying they only referred to some people acquiring fraudulent degrees, his comments drew “considerable ire”, said Al Jazeera, “mainly from Gen Z internet users, as they battle large-scale unemployment, inflation and bitter religious divides” following 12 years of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government.

“Those in power think citizens are cockroaches and parasites,” Dipke told the news site. “They should know that cockroaches breed in rotten places. That’s what India is today.”

With a cockroach as its symbol, the CJP has exploded across social media fed by “memes and short videos mocking corruption, joblessness and political dysfunction” that turned “absurdist humour into protest”, said The Associated Press. One million people have signed up to join the movement in the past week with “its tongue-in-cheek membership criteria” including “being unemployed, lazy, chronically online and capable of ranting professionally”.

“I don’t expect CJP to become a functioning political party, but its rapid growth sends a message to the ruling party that many, especially the youth, are unhappy with corruption and the economy”, 29-year-old digital marketer Oindrila Mohinta told The Telegraph India.

Neither side listening

After the CJP’s X account was blocked as a result of a “legal demand”, supporters flooded social media with claims the Indian government was behind the suspension, suggesting the movement had “rattled” the “establishment”, said The Times of India. Dipke has accused the government of trying to take down the movement’s official website, and claimed his personal Instagram account had also been hacked.

However, “the opposition should be careful before celebrating the CJP as a ready-made, anti-BJP youth wave”, said Rasheed Kidwai for NDTV. “Gen Z’s irritation with the ruling establishment is real” but “it does not automatically convert into faith in the opposition”.

“The viral success of the Cockroach Janata Party should not be seen only as a dissent against the ruling party but also a mirror to the opposition,” poll strategist Naresh Arora wrote on X. “India’s Gen Z youth feel neither side is listening to them.”

The CJP as an entity “may disappear within months”, said Vivek Surendran in The Indian Express. “Internet movements often burn intensely and collapse without consequence”. However, the message to the political establishment is that “inspirational” messaging is no longer cutting through with cynical younger voters: “what large sections of young Indians want is recognition of their exhaustion”.

A hypothetical doomsday for quantum computing could be on the horizon, computer scientists have warned for decades. But cybersecurity experts are now racing against the clock after Google announced that this “Q-Day” could be here much sooner than originally anticipated.

What is ‘Q-Day’?

It is the hypothetical day that quantum computers will acquire “enough resources and stability to crack conventional cryptography,” said CNN. When that day arrives, it could spell disaster for millions of people’s private information, as “every financial transaction, medical file, email, location history and crypto wallet protected by today’s commonly used algorithms could be unlocked.”

Unlike conventional computers, quantum computers utilize “quantum-mechanical phenomena” that allow them to “perform calculations that are practically impossible for even the most powerful supercomputers today,” said Forbes. Experts believe these computers could eventually crack RSA cryptography, the algorithm of prime numbers that helps to safeguard encryption. Some fear this could be accomplished “not in billions of years but in hours or days.” Others believe some “bad actors may already be collecting encrypted data” in secret, said CNN.

It was previously believed that Q-Day was still far into the future, giving the tech world plenty of time to prepare new safeguards. But Google recently announced it believes the day could arrive as soon as 2029, and the “new estimate means that governments, companies and other entities may have far less time to prepare,“ said CNN. Many are comparing Q-Day with “Y2K, or the millennium bug, a computer flaw that programmers thought might cause severe systemic problems after Dec. 31, 1999.”

What can be done?

Many companies are being urged to boost their cybersecurity initiatives as the potential for Q-Day looms. Google is also creating guidelines it hopes will “provide the clarity and urgency needed to accelerate digital transitions not only for Google but also across the industry,” the company said. To accomplish this, Google “specifically is pushing for a transition to post-quantum cryptography, or the use of new, quantum-resistant algorithms to secure data against future attacks,” said Barron’s.

Even if the 2029 date doesn’t come to pass, there is still a 10% chance Q-Day will occur by 2032, Justin Drake, a bitcoin security researcher who published a paper on the matter, said on social media. No matter the date, other precautions are being taken. For example, cryptographers “have devised new encryption algorithms that rely on problems that quantum computers don’t have an advantage over classical computers in solving,” said Ars Technica. The National Institute of Standards and Technology has also “advanced several algorithms that have yet to be broken and are presumed to be secure.”

Government entities have been weighing in too. In 2022, the National Security Agency (NSA) announced a plan to boost Q-Day readiness by the 2030s. But recently, the deadline “has been in flux as both the Biden and Trump administrations have issued executive orders prioritizing quantum readiness,” said Ars Technica. The NSA is currently “adhering to a 2031 deadline.” Despite these plans, experts remain worried, as encryption is “not a permanent state of protection,” said Forbes. It is a “time-locked safe that someone may already be holding, waiting for the combination.​”

Colombia is home to 1,900 identified bird species, a whopping 20% of all known bird species, said The Bogotá Post. And on May 9, Colombia won this year’s Global Big Day, an annual worldwide birdwatching event in which citizen scientists document the birds they have seen. Over the course of the day, 1,566 bird species were recorded by observers in the country, making Colombia the world’s most bird-diverse nation.

This avian supremacy is the result of geography and a complicated history of political violence. Today, the birds’ presence both promotes ecotourism and emphasizes the importance of conserving ecosystems.

Flying colors

Colombia’s Global Big Day triumph puts the South American country in a five-year winning streak. “This achievement confirms the Country of Beauty as a global benchmark for biodiversity and nature tourism,” said Carmen Caballero, the president of the promotion agency ProColombia, in a release. Birdwatching has become a “powerful platform to showcase Colombia’s extraordinary ecosystems, promote sustainable regional development and attract travelers seeking authentic and responsible experiences.”

Colombia is home to the “highest number of identified bird species on the planet: 1,900,” which is a whopping 20% of all known bird species, said The Bogotá Post. It’s also a “temporary home to over 200 migratory species each year.”

Colombia’s “global ranking is opening doors for regions that were once isolated but still hold incredible natural resources,” said Luisa Aguirre, a technical director at the Colombian environmental authority Regional Autonomous Corporation of Cundinamarca, a department in Colombia, said to The Bogotá Post.

Colombia’s biodiversity has given rise to “avitourism,” said The New York Times. Visitors come to see the birds and “generate needed income,” making it more “profitable to protect, rather than destroy, habitats.” The country “stands out as a destination where biodiversity, conservation and community-driven tourism converge to define the future of travel,” said Caballero in the release.

Nature vs. nurture

Colombia is only the 25th largest country in the world by land mass, but it “contains immense ecological diversity, from the Amazon rainforest to glacier-topped Andean peaks to palm-fringed Caribbean beaches,” said the Times. These geographic features have allowed myriad bird species to thrive.

Decades of political conflict have also contributed. The “conflict between the government, left-wing guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and narco-traffickers made many parts of Colombia too dangerous for development,” said CBS News. “Many bird habitats were preserved as a result.”

There being “illegal armed groups in this area for so long prevented” people from “coming and slashing and burning the habitats,” said Diego Calderón Franco, a researcher and birding guide, to CBS News. Thanks to the country’s troubled past, you can “look at that isolated mountain range and you might find a new species of bird for science.”

These unique species have turned birdwatching into a “great opportunity to support local businesses and promote the country’s biological heritage fairly and responsibly,” said Aguirre to The Bogotá Post. Colombia’s Global Big Day win is a “huge recognition of the hard work that local communities, guides and researchers do for nature conservation.”

The Naegleria fowleri amoeba can cause a rare but fatal brain infection that progresses quickly and can’t be cured. It has been found in several recreational locations in the U.S., with the number of cases likely to increase as global temperatures rise.

Unwelcome inhabitant

Scientists tested 185 water samples from 40 recreational waterways across five National Park Service sites. N. fowleri was found in 34% of the samples, according to a study published in the journal ACS ES&T Water. The amoeba was “detected in well-known and previously untested hot springs, including sites with high recreational use,” including Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park and Lake Mead National Recreation Area, said the study.

The single-celled organism is “very widespread” and “not just in national park hot springs,” said study author Brent Peyton, a professor at Montana State University, to Outside. The amoeba “thrives in soil and warm freshwater lakes, rivers, ponds and hot springs all over the globe,” said USA Today. It flourishes in “warm pools up to 115 degrees Fahrenheit,” as “water across western national parks is getting warmer,” said Outside.

Brain infection most often occurs when someone “goes swimming or diving in a lake, river or other fresh water during summer months” and the amoeba enters the nasal cavity, said the CDC. A few infections have occurred when people “used tap water that contained Naegleria fowleri to rinse their sinuses or cleanse their nasal passages.” However, you cannot get an N. fowleri infection from “swallowing water containing the amoeba,” get it “from someone else” or “pass it on to others.”

The infection, primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM), advances quickly, destroying brain tissue and causing massive cerebral swelling, with most people dying “within one to 18 days after symptoms begin,” said USA Today. The amoeba can “infect their brain with a fatality rate of 98%.”

PAM symptoms include “headache, fever, nausea and vomiting,” said the CDC. And as the disease progresses, it can cause a “stiff neck, confusion, lack of attention to people and surroundings, loss of balance and hallucinations.”

Domain expansion

There’s “no need to be alarmed,” said Peyton. Infection can be “prevented by keeping water out of one’s nose.” Experts suggest people “hold their nose or wear a nose clip if they are jumping or diving into fresh water,” keep their “head above water in hot springs,” and avoid splashing around in shallow water, as the amoeba is more likely to be found there, said Fast Company.

Other bodies of water may also become more hospitable to N. fowleri due to warming temperatures. The findings “indicate that N. fowleri is present in thermally impacted areas across the western United States,” said the study. The amoeba’s presence underscores the “use of enhanced monitoring, public awareness and risk management strategies in thermally influenced recreational waters.”