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Strange Mars Rocks Could Hold Clues to Ancient Life

NASA’s Perseverance rover has uncovered strange chemical and mineral patterns in Jezero Crater’s Bright Angel formation that may be the strongest hints yet of ancient Martian life. The rocks contain organic carbon, iron, sulfur, and phosphorus arranged in ways eerily similar to microbial processes on Earth. Possible Martian Biosignatures in Jezero Crater A recent study [...]

Rocks in the Bright Angel Formation. NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image using its Right Mastcam-Z camera. Mastcam-Z is a pair of cameras located high on the rover’s mast. This image was acquired on May 29, 2024 (Sol 1164) at the local mean solar time of 12:40:40. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASUNASA’s Perseverance rover has uncovered strange chemical and mineral patterns in Jezero Crater’s Bright Angel formation that may be the strongest hints yet of ancient Martian life. The rocks contain organic carbon, iron, sulfur, and phosphorus arranged in ways eerily similar to microbial processes on Earth. Possible Martian Biosignatures in Jezero Crater A recent study led in part by Texas A&M University geologist Dr. Michael Tice points to chemical clues in Martian rocks that may signal traces of ancient microbial life. The evidence comes from samples analyzed by NASA’s Perseverance rover. An international group of researchers reported their results after examining a section of Jezero Crater called the Bright Angel formation. The name was inspired by places in Grand Canyon National Park and refers to the pale color of the rocks in that region. Bright Angel lies within the Neretva Vallis channel and contains mudstones packed with oxidized iron (rust), phosphorus, sulfur, and most importantly, organic carbon. While organic carbon has been detected on Mars before, often from sources like meteorites, this particular mix of elements could have provided an energy supply for primitive organisms. Perseverance rover reached the Bright Angel site on Mars by navigating through a dune field, bypassing large boulders. The rover is now investigating this area’s unique geological features to understand Mars’ past environmental conditions and support future human exploration. Credit: NASA/JPL-CaltechStrikingly Different Rocks in Bright Angel Formation “When the rover entered Bright Angel and started measuring the compositions of the local rocks, the team was immediately struck by how different they were from what we had seen before,” said Tice, a geobiologist and astrobiologist in the Department of Geology and Geophysics. “They showed evidence of chemical cycling that organisms on Earth can take advantage of to produce energy. And when we looked even closer, we saw things that are easy to explain with early Martian life but very difficult to explain with only geological processes.” Tice went on to explain that “living things do chemistry that generally occurs in nature anyway given enough time and the right circumstances. To the best of our current knowledge, some of the chemistry that shaped these rocks required either high temperatures or life, and we do not see evidence of high temperatures here. However, these findings require experiments and ultimately laboratory study of the sample here on Earth in order to completely rule out explanations without life.” The team published its findings in Nature. Texas A&M University astrogeologist Dr. Michael Tice. Credit: Texas A&M UniversityAncient Water-Shaped Sediments The Bright Angel formation is composed of sedimentary rocks deposited by water, including mudstones (fine-grained sedimentary rocks made of silt and clay) and layered beds that suggest a dynamic environment of flowing rivers and standing water. Using Perseverance’s suite of instruments, including the SHERLOC and PIXL spectrometers, scientists detected organic molecules and small arrangements of minerals that appear to have formed through “redox reactions,” chemical processes involving the transfer of electrons. On Earth, those processes are often driven by biological activity. Among the most striking features are tiny nodules and “reaction fronts”— nicknamed “poppy seeds” and “leopard spots” by the rover team — enriched in ferrous iron phosphate (likely vivianite) and iron sulfide (likely greigite). These minerals commonly form in low-temperature, water-rich environments and are often associated with microbial metabolisms. “It’s not just the minerals, it’s how they are arranged in these structures that suggests that they formed through the redox cycling of iron and sulfur,” Tice said. “On Earth, things like these sometimes form in sediments where microbes are eating organic matter and ‘breathing’ rust and sulfate. Their presence on Mars raises the question: could similar processes have occurred there?” Organic Carbon in Apollo Temple The SHERLOC instrument detected a Raman spectral feature known as the G-band, a signature of organic carbon, in several Bright Angel rocks. The strongest signals came from a site called “Apollo Temple,” where both vivianite and greigite were most abundant. “This co-location of organic matter and redox-sensitive minerals is very compelling,” said Tice. “It suggests that organic molecules may have played a role in driving the chemical reactions that formed these minerals.” Tice notes it’s important to understand that “organic” does not necessarily mean formed by living things. “It just means having a lot of carbon-carbon bonds,” he explained. “There are other processes that can make those besides life. The kind of organic matter detected here could have been produced by abiotic processes or it could have been produced by living things. If produced by living things, it would have to have been degraded by chemical reactions, radiation or heat to produce the G-band that we observe now.” Life or Geochemistry? Two Competing Scenarios The study outlines two possible scenarios: one in which these reactions occurred abiotically (driven by geochemical processes) and another in which microbial life may have affected the reactions, as it does on Earth. Strikingly, although some features of the nodules and reaction fronts could be produced by abiotic reactions between organic matter and iron, the known geochemical processes that could have produced the features associated with sulfur usually only work at relatively high temperatures. “All the ways we have of examining these rocks on the rover suggest that they were never heated in a way that could produce the leopard spots and poppy seeds,” said Tice. “If that’s the case, we have to seriously consider the possibility that they were made by creatures like bacteria living in the mud in a Martian lake more than three billion years ago.” While the team emphasizes that the evidence is not definitive proof of past life, the findings meet NASA’s criteria for “potential biosignatures” — features that warrant further investigation to determine whether they are biological or abiotic in origin. Rock Sample for Future Return to Earth Perseverance collected a core sample from the Bright Angel formation, named “Sapphire Canyon,” which is now stored in a sealed tube carried by the rover. This sample is among those prioritized for return to Earth in a potential future mission. “Bringing this sample back to Earth would allow us to analyze it with instruments far more sensitive than anything we can send to Mars,” said Tice. “We’ll be able to look at the isotopic composition of the organic matter, the fine-scale mineralogy, and even search for microfossils if they exist. We’d also be able to perform more tests to determine the highest temperatures experienced by these rocks, and whether high temperature geochemical processes might still be the best way to explain the potential biosignatures.” Earth-Mars Parallels in Ancient Microbial Life Tice, who has long studied ancient microbial ecosystems on Earth, said the parallels between Martian and terrestrial processes are striking — with one important difference. “What’s fascinating is how life may have been making use of some of the same processes on Earth and Mars at around the same time,” he said. “We see evidence of microorganisms reacting iron and sulfur with organic matter in the same way in rocks of the same age on Earth, but we’d never be able to see exactly the same features that we see on Mars in the old rocks here. Processing by plate tectonics has heated all our rocks too much to preserve them this way. It’s a special and spectacular thing to be able to see them like this on another planet.” Explore Further: Reference: “Redox-driven mineral and organic associations in Jezero Crater, Mars” by Joel A. Hurowitz, M. M. Tice, A. C. Allwood, M. L. Cable, K. P. Hand, A. E. Murphy, K. Uckert, J. F. Bell III, T. Bosak, A. P. Broz, E. Clavé, A. Cousin, S. Davidoff, E. Dehouck, K. A. Farley, S. Gupta, S.-E. Hamran, K. Hickman-Lewis, J. R. Johnson, A. J. Jones, M. W. M. Jones, P. S. Jørgensen, L. C. Kah, H. Kalucha, T. V. Kizovski, D. A. Klevang, Y. Liu, F. M. McCubbin, E. L. Moreland, G. Paar, D. A. Paige, A. C. Pascuzzo, M. S. Rice, M. E. Schmidt, K. L. Siebach, S. Siljeström, J. I. Simon, K. M. Stack, A. Steele, N. J. Tosca, A. H. Treiman, S. J. VanBommel, L. A. Wade, B. P. Weiss, R. C. Wiens, K. H. Williford, R. Barnes, P. A. Barr, A. Bechtold, P. Beck, K. Benzerara, S. Bernard, O. Beyssac, R. Bhartia, A. J. Brown, G. Caravaca, E. L. Cardarelli, E. A. Cloutis, A. G. Fairén, D. T. Flannery, T. Fornaro, T. Fouchet, B. Garczynski, F. Goméz, E. M. Hausrath, C. M. Heirwegh, C. D. K. Herd, J. E. Huggett, J. L. Jørgensen, S. W. Lee, A. Y. Li, J. N. Maki, L. Mandon, N. Mangold, J. A. Manrique, J. Martínez-Frías, J. I. Núñez, L. P. O’Neil, B. J. Orenstein, N. Phelan, C. Quantin-Nataf, P. Russell, M. D. Schulte, E. Scheller, S. Sharma, D. L. Shuster, A. Srivastava, B. V. Wogsland and Z. U. Wolf, 10 September 2025, Nature.DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09413-0 Never miss a breakthrough: Join the SciTechDaily newsletter.

Chemicals

Nature

Water

Green Tea Shows Promise in Fighting Obesity and Diabetes

A plant extract altered muscle metabolism in guinea pigs, improving glucose-related processes. Green tea has long been valued for its medicinal and antioxidant qualities. It has been extensively investigated for its role in metabolic health, particularly in conditions such as obesity and type 2 diabetes. Recent research supported by FAPESP (19/10616-5, 21/08498-4 and 23/11295-3) has [...]

Studies in obese mice suggest green tea extract can reduce weight gain, improve glucose regulation, and protect muscle health. Credit: ShutterstockA plant extract altered muscle metabolism in guinea pigs, improving glucose-related processes. Green tea has long been valued for its medicinal and antioxidant qualities. It has been extensively investigated for its role in metabolic health, particularly in conditions such as obesity and type 2 diabetes. Recent research supported by FAPESP (19/10616-5, 21/08498-4 and 23/11295-3) has provided new insights into how green tea works and showed that treatment with the beverage lowered body weight and markedly improved glucose sensitivity and insulin resistance in obese mice. These findings highlight its potential use as a supportive strategy in managing obesity in humans. The studies were led by Rosemari Otton from the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Health Sciences at Cruzeiro do Sul University in São Paulo, Brazil. Otton, who has spent more than 15 years researching green tea, explained that her initial interest arose from questioning whether the common belief in its weight-loss benefits was scientifically valid. Her recent findings were published in the journal Cell Biochemistry & Function. Dietary experiments with a Western-style diet To investigate the effects of green tea on obesity, the research team placed mice on a high-calorie diet for four weeks. This diet included both excess fat and what they described as a “cafeteria diet,” designed to replicate typical Western eating habits. “We give them chocolate, filled cookies, dulce de leche, condensed milk… In other words, the same type of food that many people consume on a daily basis,” said Otton. Following this phase, the animals entered a 12-week treatment period. They remained on the high-calorie diet, but some were also given a standardized green tea extract at a dose of 500 mg per kilogram of body weight. The extract was delivered intragastrically (via gavage) to ensure precise dosing. Laboratory of Cellular Physiology and Molecular Biology of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Health Sciences at Cruzeiro do Sul University. Credit: Laboratory of Cellular Physiology and Molecular Biology of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Health Sciences at Cruzeiro do Sul University“It’s a method that ensures they all receive the exact dose we want to study. If we put it in water, for example, we’d have no way of knowing how much the animal actually ingested,” says the researcher. For humans, this amount would be equivalent to consuming about 3 grams of green tea per day, or three cups. Importance of standardized extracts However, according to the researcher, not all commercial green tea meets the necessary quality standards. “Ready-made tea bags do not always guarantee the quantity or quality of the compounds. The ideal for consumption would be to use standardized green tea extract, like those found in compounding pharmacies. This is a concentrated way of using the plant, with a guarantee of the presence of flavonoids, which are the health-beneficial compounds present in the green tea plant,” Otton points out. A notable feature of the study was its strict control of room temperature. Throughout the experiment, the animals were housed in a thermoneutral setting (28 °C). By contrast, standard animal facilities typically maintain a temperature of about 22 °C, which for mice constitutes a state of chronic cold. “Excessive cold activates compensatory regulatory mechanisms in the animals’ bodies, causing them to expend more energy to stay warm. This can mask the real effects of any substance,” explains the researcher. “If the animals are in a colder environment, the effect of the tea is enhanced by the activation of energy expenditure due to the cold. But by maintaining thermoneutrality, we were able to see the effects of green tea in a ‘clean’ way, without environmental interference,” she explains. A previous study published in August 2022 in the European Journal of Nutrition found that obese mice treated with green tea experienced a reduction of up to 30% in body weight. “If a person loses 5% to 10% of their body weight, that’s already a lot. So this result in animals is very significant,” says the professor. Gene expression and metabolic improvements Another highlight of the most recent study was the preservation of muscle morphology. Obesity typically causes a reduction in muscle fiber diameter, but green tea prevented this muscle atrophy. “One way to assess muscle function is to look at fiber diameter. If it increases, we have more active muscle components. Green tea managed to maintain this diameter, showing that it protects muscle against the harmful effects of obesity,” Otton explains. In addition to morphological data, the researchers evaluated the expression of genes related to glucose metabolism. Treatment with green tea increased the expression of Insr, Irs1, Glut4, Hk1, and Pi3k – genes that are important for glucose uptake and use in muscles. The activity of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), an enzyme that is essential for glucose metabolism, was also restored. According to Otton, there is evidence indicating that green tea does not affect the weight of lean animals, suggesting that it acts selectively against excess body fat. “It makes obese animals lose weight but keeps lean animals at a balanced weight. This shows that the tea seems to need an environment with excess nutrients to act, which supports the hypothesis that it acts directly on fat cells.” Another aspect investigated by the team was the action of the compounds in isolation. “Green tea is a complex matrix with dozens of bioactive compounds. We’ve tried to separate these compounds and study their effects individually, but the whole extract is always more effective. There’s a synergy between the compounds that we can’t reproduce when they’re isolated,” she says. According to the scientist, one hypothesis explaining the mechanism by which green tea affects obesity involves adiponectin, a protein produced by adipocytes that has anti-inflammatory and metabolic regulation functions. “We conducted a study with adiponectin-knockout mice, meaning they don’t produce it. And in these animals, green tea had no effect. This suggests that adiponectin is a key player in the mechanism of action of the tea,” she comments. Looking toward human applications Despite the encouraging results of the mouse study, Otton points out that it is not yet possible to determine a safe and effective dose of green tea for humans. This is mainly due to the variability of the extracts and the fact that each person behaves differently. “The ideal is chronic consumption, as we see in Asian countries. In Japan, for example, people consume green tea every day, throughout their lives, and obesity rates are low. But this is different from drinking tea for five months and expecting a miraculous weight loss effect,” she ponders. The researcher argues that natural and accessible treatments should gain ground in the fight against obesity, especially as alternatives to expensive medications that often have side effects. “The idea is to have safe, natural, effective, and high-quality compounds. The Camellia sinensis plant offers this. We’re still studying all the compounds involved, but there’s no doubt that green tea, as a plant matrix rich in flavonoids, has important therapeutic potential.” The researcher emphasizes that science always seeks to develop practical solutions. “What we see in animals doesn’t always reproduce in humans. But if we want to make this translation to real life, we need to think about all the details, such as ambient temperature. It’s these precautions that increase the validity of our data. We’re far from having all the answers, but we’re getting closer and closer.” Reference: “Does Green Tea Ameliorate Obesity in Mice Kept at Thermoneutrality by Modulating Skeletal Muscle Metabolism?” by Celso Pereira Batista Sousa-Filho, Marcus Vinicius Aquino Silva, Victória Silva, Kauan Lima, Allanis Valon, Isabela Fiorentino Souza Nascimento, Maria Angélica Spadella and Rosemari Otton, 16 June 2025, Cell Biochemistry and Function.DOI: 10.1002/cbf.70094 Funding: Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo Never miss a breakthrough: Join the SciTechDaily newsletter.

Health

Animals

Food

EPA Will Keep Rule Designating PFAS as ‘Hazardous’

September 23, 2025 – Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin announced last week that the agency will keep in place a Biden-era policy change that enables the agency to make companies pay for the cleanup of harmful “forever chemicals.” Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are chemicals that can persist in the environment for centuries, accumulate in the human body, and are associated with a range of health harms. “EPA’s reaffirmation of this rule is a win for environmental justice, giving communities poisoned without their knowledge a long-overdue path to relief,” Melanie Benesh, vice president of government affairs at the Environmental Working Group (EWG), said in a statement. In April 2024, Biden’s EPA designated the two forever chemicals associated with the most harm and widespread environmental contamination—perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS)—as “hazardous substances” under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, the country’s “Superfund” law. That meant the agency could then prioritize the cleanup of sites contaminated with those chemicals and hold companies responsible for the remediation. Since then, agricultural industry groups, including the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, National Pork Producers Council, and American Farm Bureau Federation, have challenged the rule in court, arguing that farmers who spread contaminated fertilizer on their land could be on the hook for the cleanup costs. Last week, a broader coalition of farm groups, among them the National Farmers Union, National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, and American Farmland Trust, released federal policy recommendations for addressing PFAS contamination on farms. In addition to provisions related to assisting farmers with cleanup and the reduction of future contamination, the groups included a section recommending the EPA further clarify and confirm that farmers will not be held responsible for contamination caused by fertilizers. Zeldin put that issue—referred to as “passive receiver liability”— front and center in the EPA’s Sept. 17 announcement. “When it comes to PFOA and PFOS contamination, holding polluters accountable while providing certainty for passive receivers that did not manufacture or generate those chemicals continues to be an ongoing challenge,” he said. “EPA intends to do what we can based on our existing authority, but we will need new statutory language from Congress to fully address our concerns.” But some experts say those concerns have already been addressed. “The 2024 enforcement discretion policy resolved the situation, clarifying that EPA would focus enforcement only on polluters—not farmers and municipalities that received PFAS chemicals,” said Betsy Southerland, the former director of the EPA’s Office of Science and Technology in the Office of Water, in a statement released by the Environmental Protection Network. Southerland welcomed the announcement that the EPA will keep the designations in place. She also warned it will offer little relief to people worried about forever chemicals in drinking water, because of Zeldin’s earlier decision to roll back limits on four other PFAS. The EPA also recently approved four new pesticides that qualify as PFAS based on an internationally recognized definition the EPA does not use. “Let’s be clear,” Southerland said. “Our drinking water is still at risk because Trump’s EPA is recklessly allowing more toxic chemicals in Americans’ drinking water.” (Link to this post.) The post EPA Will Keep Rule Designating PFAS as ‘Hazardous’ appeared first on Civil Eats.

Chemicals

Agriculture

Health

In 1909, Theodore Roosevelt Embarked on an Ambitious Expedition to East Africa. Here’s Why His Trip Still Matters Today

The 26th U.S. president is both lauded as a conservationist and condemned as a big-game hunter. A new book recounts the historic journey on which he helped form a significant collection of animals at the National Museum of Natural History

In 1909, Theodore Roosevelt Embarked on an Ambitious Expedition to East Africa. Here’s Why His Trip Still Matters Today The 26th U.S. president is both lauded as a conservationist and condemned as a big-game hunter. A new book recounts the historic journey on which he helped form a significant collection of animals at the National Museum of Natural History Roosevelt stands between the Sister of Rev. W.F. Bumsted, at that time mother superior of the convent, and the young King Daudi of Uganda, and is surrounded by members of the king's court at St. Mary's Convent, near Kampala, December 22, 1909 Unidentified photographer / Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University On a frigid day in March 1909, President Theodore Roosevelt rode slowly through the streets of Washington, D.C., his horse-drawn carriage navigating nearly a foot of snow and slush on the way to the inauguration of his successor, William Howard Taft. The short trip marked Roosevelt’s exit from the White House, but his thoughts were already on the next great journey of his life. Before the month was over, Roosevelt again found himself surrounded by cheering throngs at another historic departure. This time, in New York, Roosevelt was boarding the Hamburg to embark on an adventure that captivated people all over the world: the Smithsonian expedition to British East Africa. Eager to escape the responsibilities of the presidency and give Taft space to govern, Roosevelt longed to get away, enjoy camp life and take to the field with his gun. Roosevelt and his son Kermit would bag elephants, rhinoceroses and lions—but theirs was no simple big-game safari. The 1909-1910 expedition, through parts of what is now Sudan, South Sudan, Uganda and Kenya, included leading scientists. It produced a written and photographic record of an Africa that few in the West had seen, and it diligently described and preserved hundreds of African animals that became a foundational collection for the newly minted National Museum of Natural History. In a new title from Smithsonian Books, Theodore Roosevelt and the Smithsonian Expedition to British East Africa, 1909-1910, readers can experience the expedition in Roosevelt’s own words, written during evenings in his camp tent. The book features 28 excerpts from his chronicle of the trip, African Game Trails: An Account of the African Wanderings of an American Hunter-Naturalist. It’s illustrated with more than 100 fascinating expedition photographs, many taken by Kermit Roosevelt, that capture East Africa’s landscapes, fauna and people. Author Frank H. Goodyear III provides thoughtful historical context and commentary on the expedition’s enduring scientific significance, while exploring how the endeavor reflects the era’s colonial imperialist attitudes toward Africa and its people. “He saw a long tradition of exploration and seeking out new knowledge, and trying to connect worlds together,” Goodyear says. “Of course, exploration is also part of empire building, so that’s a part of the legacy here as well. But I think he very much saw himself as participating in this history of Western exploration.” Accompany Theodore Roosevelt on his Smithsonian safari to East Africa with new context and perspectives. Key takeaways: Theodore Roosevelt's trip to East Africa In 1909, just after his presidency ended, Roosevelt and his son Kermit journeyed to East Africa to collect specimens for the Smithsonian's new National Museum of Natural History. The museum opened to the public in 1910, and the many animal and plant species that Roosevelt and fellow naturalists brought back from the trip helped form a significant collection for the museum of today. It was a crucial time for such a trip. Roosevelt saw how railroads and settlers had forever altered the wild landscape of the American West. In Africa, such change was happening quickly. Roosevelt knew it, as did many others who were scrambling to collect and document African species and ecosystems that were on the brink of radical transformation or extinction. “It’s a real transitional moment in the history of East Africa,” Goodyear says. “Colonization is really beginning to take hold. You have the construction of the Uganda Railroad that literally opens up the territory; you have the beginnings of large-scale ranching and farming; you have colonial settlements being established throughout the land. So it was clear that the impact on indigenous ecosystems was going to be profound.” Roosevelt presents Kermit to King Daudi of Uganda, December 21, 1909 Charles W. Hattersley / Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University Roosevelt’s environmental legacy remains complex. He’s been celebrated as a conservationist and criticized for being a big-game hunter, especially by those who had recently witnessed the destruction of the buffalo and the native ecosystems of the American West. “It was controversial in its own day, and it remains controversial. What some perceived as the wanton destruction of wildlife offended many people,” Goodyear says. But Roosevelt was aware of this criticism and determined that this trip would not be an exercise in “game butchery.” “I would a great deal rather have this a scientific trip, which would give it a purpose and character, than simply a prolonged holiday of mine,” he explained in a letter to his friend Henry Cabot Lodge. Roosevelt’s passion for the natural sciences was real and lifelong, notes Darrin Lunde, mammals collections manager at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. “Yes, he liked big-game hunting,” Lunde says. “But he was so much more than a hunter. It genuinely was a scientific expedition led by a former president who himself could hold his own as an ornithologist and a mammalogist.” He was an eternal naturalist who collected specimens and started his own museum as a child. “He was one of those guys who liked to get out with his gun, collect things, do taxidermy, describe new species,” Lunde says, noting that Roosevelt originally went to Harvard University to be a naturalist, a part of him that always remained. He kept correspondence with leading naturalists and curators throughout his life. For Roosevelt, this trip “started out as a hunt and very quickly became a museum expedition,” Lunde says. “Because this was a chance to live that boyhood dream of being this great, classical kind of museum naturalist.” Roosevelt on his favorite horse, Tranquillity, in Nairobi, Kenya, July 26, 1909 Paul Thompson / Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University Planning the trip in the White House, Roosevelt proposed an intriguing partnership to Secretary of the Smithsonian Charles Doolittle Walcott. If Walcott would provide naturalists who could identify, describe and catalog the species of Africa, and prepare specimens for transport, Roosevelt would donate them as a collection for the new National Museum of Natural History. “Now, it seems to me that this [trip] opens the best chance for the National Museum to get a fine collection not only of the big-game beasts, but of the smaller mammals and birds of Africa; and looking at it dispassionately, it seems to me that the chance ought not to be neglected,” Roosevelt wrote, asking to except only “a very few personal trophies of little scientific value which for some reason I might like to keep.” The deal also had a financial angle. Roosevelt was adamant about paying for his own expenses, but the extensive scientific aspects of the expedition needed funding. Walcott, thrilled at the prospect of securing a landmark collection for the museum and publicizing it by partnering with a former president, was willing to help. The Smithsonian pledged $30,000, all raised by private subscription, avoiding the need to ask Congress for funds, which Roosevelt found ethically and politically distasteful. The museum got more than its money’s worth. Three naturalists—Edgar Mearns, co-founder of the American Ornithologists’ Union and a former military surgeon; Edmund Heller, an expert in large mammals and African game; and J. Alden Loring, a small mammal specialist with experience on Smithsonian scientific expeditions—worked tirelessly collecting mice, bats, birds and shrews, as well as pressing plants and stockpiling interesting insects. Roosevelt’s Life-Histories of African Game Animals chronicled the collection—which includes thousands of mammal, bird and plant specimens. Each one was measured, cataloged and painstakingly preserved for travel. Many were photographed, and expedition members recorded the time and place of collection habitats, the subjects’ behavior in the field, and other details. The effort produced a collection of enduring value. “All of those Roosevelt specimens, for the most part, are still here,” Lunde says. “We have the best collection of East African mammals anywhere, in large part because of the contributions of the Roosevelt expedition.” The collection is irreplaceable, he notes, because it occurred at a time when scientists could get not just the little mammals still collected today, but the elephants, rhinos and other megafauna still prevalent at the time. Even now, Lunde notes, scientists study the collection: “It’s all represented here, and people are coming in all the time and using those specimens, to this day, and publishing on it.” Mammals Exhibits, Natural History Building, Square-Lipped Rhinoceros Group, 1913 Unidentified photographer / Smithsonian Institution Archives Because Roosevelt was one of the world’s most famous people, countless reporters hoped to accompany the expedition and scoop its stories of African adventure. He rejected them all, preferring to control the narrative and tell the story himself—while earning cash to help fund his personal expenses. Scribner’s paid $50,000 for Roosevelt to write 12 articles from the field, set to appear in Scribner’s Monthly, and the publishing house also agreed to print African Game Trails, which would bring the series together in one volume. Kermit, who had trained as the expedition’s primary photographer, and others supplemented this with an incredible array of pictures. These had scientific value; showing African fauna in their native habitats gave a fuller picture of Africa’s ecosystems. They also helped to promote the trip abroad and enhance Roosevelt’s hale and hardy image. “The photography is what first drew me into this project,” says Goodyear, a former curator of photography at the National Portrait Gallery. “They are absolutely extraordinary: extraordinary in the story they tell and extraordinary in their depth. There are more than 1,000 of these photos, and they comprise an incredible record of the people, places and fauna of East Africa.” (Though not part of the expedition, British photographer and filmmaker Cherry Kearton was also in Africa at the time and crossed paths with Roosevelt at several points, shooting footage that would become the 1910 film Roosevelt in Africa.) A herd of elephants in an open forest, 1909 Kermit Roosevelt / Smithsonian Institution Archives Kenyan entomologist Dino Martins has written a valuable afterword to Goodyear’s book. In it, he stresses that, like other African expeditions and collecting trips, Roosevelt’s group depended on support and knowledge from a wide range of individuals and communities, including traders, local leaders, porters and guides who knew how to travel and survive in a challenging landscape. “Though often unacknowledged, that local knowledge and support made it possible for Western explorers to undertake these journeys, for without them their expeditions would certainly have failed,” Martins writes. Despite their importance to the journey, African people are largely absent from Roosevelt’s narrative in African Game Trails. “Outside of himself, Kermit and a few heads of game, nearly all other figures in the book are shadowy, and even Africa itself does not stand out very clearly. The book is avowedly Rooseveltian,” a reviewer from the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote of Roosevelt’s work in 1910. Although the critic dubbed this trait the “greatest charm” of African Game Trails, today, this narrow focus seems like a lost opportunity. “Some of the Kikuyu assistants and guides did become really close to Roosevelt,” Goodyear says. “But you can only kind of tease out the nature of these relationships by a few passing comments.” Tohan with a Marabou stork, 1909 Kermit Roosevelt / Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University The expedition has also contributed a lasting scientific legacy in Africa; it was one of the first to extensively collect and document animals and plants beyond the classic big-game species. In 2015, a “Roosevelt Resurvey” expedition included Kenyan scientists and naturalists co-leading fieldwork and research programs that retraced the footsteps of the Roosevelt expedition. It found a rodent species on Mount Kenya that had been described by the Smithsonian naturalists during the original expedition, then “lost” for more than a century afterward. “Two data points on this little rat, over a century apart: a lesson on how much we still need to learn about the world around us,” writes Martins. And while the Roosevelt expedition literally put a site called Rhino Camp on the map by shooting white rhinos there, its work studying the many smaller species and their interactions has since proved very valuable. “They documented the fauna of that region when it was intact, when it still had white rhino roaming around, so we have an accurate picture before it was perturbed in any serious way,” Lunde explains. More than a century later, that landscape has changed dramatically, with rhinos and other animals wiped out and people moved in. But the Uganda Wildlife Authority is working at the Ajai Reserve to restore the ecosystem and its megafauna, including the iconic white rhino. Doing so successfully is a complicated endeavor, but it’s being informed by the time-machine-like snapshot gathered by the early 20th-century expedition. “Without it, efforts to create these parks would just be guesswork,” says Lunde, whose team at the museum is aiding the effort by surveying existing species to contrast with the past. “Now, the Ugandans are actually doing it, and thanks to the Roosevelt-Smithsonian expedition they are able to refer to a record of what these habitats were like in their natural state.” From left to right: Theodore Roosevelt, R.J. Cuninghame and Edgar A. Mearns, on the way to Kijabe, Kenya, June 3, 1909 Unidentified photographer / Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University Get the latest on what's happening At the Smithsonian in your inbox.

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A Simple Test Strip That Reveals the Invisible Nanoplastic Threat

Researchers at the University of Stuttgart have created an “optical sieve” capable of detecting minute nanoplastic particles. Functioning much like a test strip, this innovation is designed to provide a new analytical tool for environmental and health research. Researchers from the University of Stuttgart in Germany and the University of Melbourne in Australia have introduced [...]

Nanoplastic particles made visible: the newly developed test strip from the University of Stuttgart allows dangerous nanoplastic particles to be detected under a light microscope. Credit: University of Stuttgart / 4th Physics InstituteResearchers at the University of Stuttgart have created an “optical sieve” capable of detecting minute nanoplastic particles. Functioning much like a test strip, this innovation is designed to provide a new analytical tool for environmental and health research. Researchers from the University of Stuttgart in Germany and the University of Melbourne in Australia have introduced a simple way to analyze very small nanoplastic particles in environmental samples. The approach relies on a standard optical microscope and a newly designed test strip called the optical sieve. The findings are reported in Nature Photonics. “The test strip can serve as a simple analysis tool in environmental and health research,” explains Prof. Harald Giessen, Head of the 4th Physics Institute of the University of Stuttgart. “In the near future, we will be working toward analyzing nanoplastic concentrations directly on site. But our new method could also be used to test blood or tissue for nanoplastic particles.” Nanoplastics as a danger to humans and the environment Plastic waste ranks among the most urgent global challenges of the 21st century. It contaminates oceans, rivers, and beaches, and microplastics have been found in living organisms. Until recently, researchers have mainly examined larger fragments of plastic. Evidence now points to an even more concerning threat: nanoplastic particles. These particles are far smaller than the width of a human hair, form as bigger pieces of plastic break down, and cannot be seen with the naked eye. At sub-micrometer sizes, they can also pass through biological barriers, including the skin and the blood-brain barrier. Color changes make tiny particles visible Because of the small particle size, their detection poses a particular challenge. As a result, there are not only gaps in our understanding of how particles affect organisms but also a lack of rapid and reliable detection methods. In collaboration with a research group from Melbourne in Australia, researchers at the University of Stuttgart have now developed a novel method that can quickly and affordably detect such small particles. Color changes on a special test strip make nanoplastics visible in an optical microscope and allow researchers to count the number of particles and determine their size. The optical sieve nanoplastic particles fall into holes of the appropriate size in the test strip. The color of the holes changes. The new color provides information about the size and number of particles. Credit: University of Stuttgart / 4th Physics Institute“Compared with conventional and widely used methods such as scanning electron microscopy, the new method is considerably less expensive, does not require trained personnel to operate, and reduces the time required for detailed analysis,” explains Dr. Mario Hentschel, Head of the Microstructure Laboratory at the 4th Physics Institute. Optical sieve instead of expensive electron microscope The “optical sieve” uses resonance effects in small holes to make the nanoplastic particles visible. A study on optical effects in such holes was first published by the research group at the University of Stuttgart in 2023. The process is based on tiny depressions, known as Mie voids, which are etched into a semiconductor substrate. Depending on their diameter and depth, the holes interact characteristically with the incident light. This results in a bright color reflection that can be seen in an optical microscope. If a particle falls into one of the indentations, its color changes noticeably. One can therefore infer from the changing color whether a particle is present in the void. “The test strip works like a classic sieve,” explains Dominik Ludescher, PhD student and first author of the publication in “Nature Photonics”. Particles ranging from 0.2 to 1 µm can thus be examined without difficulty. “The particles are filtered out of the liquid using the sieve in which the size and depth of the holes can be adapted to the nanoplastic particles, and subsequently, the resulting color change can be detected. This allows us to determine whether the voids are filled or empty.” Number, size, and size distribution of particles can be determined The novel detection method used can do even more. If the sieve is provided with voids of different sizes, only one particle of a suitable size will collect in each hole. “If a particle is too large, it won’t fit into the void and will be simply flushed away during the cleaning process,” says Ludescher. “If a particle is too small, it will adhere poorly to the well and will be washed away during cleaning.” In this way, the test strips can be adapted so that the size and number of particles in each individual hole can be determined from the reflected color. Synthesized environmental samples examined For their measurements, the researchers used spherical particles of various diameters. These are available in aqueous solutions with specific nanoparticles. Because real samples from bodies of water with known nanoparticle concentrations are not yet available, the team produced a suitable sample themselves. The researchers used a water sample from a lake that contained a mixture of sand and other organic components and added spherical particles in known quantities. The concentration of plastic particles was 150 µg/ml. The number and size distribution of the nanoplastic particles were also determined for this sample using the “optical sieve.” Can be used like a test strip “In the long term, the optical sieve will be used as a simple analysis tool in environmental and health research. The technology could serve as a mobile test strip that would provide information on the content of nanoplastics in water or soil directly on site,” explains Hentschel. The team is now planning experiments with nanoplastic particles that are not spherical. The researchers also plan to investigate whether the process can be used to distinguish between particles of different plastics. They are also particularly interested in collaborating with research groups that have specific expertise in processing real samples from bodies of water. Reference: “Optical sieve for nanoplastic detection, sizing and counting” by D. Ludescher, L. Wesemann, J. Schwab, J. Karst, S. B. Sulejman, M. Ubl, B. O. Clarke, A. Roberts, H. Giessen and M. Hentschel, 8 September 2025, Nature Photonics.DOI: 10.1038/s41566-025-01733-x Never miss a breakthrough: Join the SciTechDaily newsletter.

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The Fight to End Childhood RSV in Indian Country

American Indian and Alaska Native infants experience the highest rates of RSV-related hospitalization in the U.S., but a breakthrough immunization is helping to close the gap

This article is part of “Innovations In: RSV,” an editorially independent special report that was produced with financial support from MSD, Sanofi and AstraZeneca.At first, Ethel Branch thought her two-year-old son, Patro, had a cold or maybe the flu. But on a chilly day in November 2022, a seemingly common childhood ailment took a hairpin turn that nearly sent him into respiratory failure.That day, fever, congestion and lethargy set in to the point that Branch took Patro to an emergency room in Winslow, Ariz., where he was diagnosed with croup, given steroids and released.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.But the following day, his temperature climbed and his chest began to cave in with each breath. Frantic, Branch rushed Patro to the larger Flagstaff Medical Center, where he was diagnosed with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), placed on oxygen and admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit.“My son got COVID, and it was not that bad,” Branch recalls. “In fact, he didn't even really present symptoms. But with RSV, I couldn’t have waited any longer before taking him into the ER because his chest was depressed.”Patro left the hospital after four days, but his recovery was far from over. Three years later, he still goes to the emergency room for oxygen and breathing treatments every winter.For Branch, a Harvard-trained lawyer and former attorney general of the Navajo Nation, her son’s encounter with RSV was eye-opening. She realized that the dangers of RSV were largely unrecognized—not just by her or the health care workers who initially misdiagnosed him but across her tribal community as well.Over time, she also learned that her son’s experience was shockingly common among Native Americans, especially those on reservations, where lack of infrastructure and multigenerational households make them uniquely vulnerable to this and other illnesses. As a result, American Indian and Alaska Native infants bear the tragic distinction of experiencing the highest rates of RSV-related hospitalization in the country.After Patro contracted RSV, he spent four days in the pediatric intensive care unit at Flagstaff Medical Center in Arizona in 2022.But one year after Patro’s RSV scare, scientific breakthroughs emerged that have begun to bend the RSV curve among young children in Native communities: a monoclonal antibody and a maternal vaccine that can dramatically cut RSV-related hospitalizations among infants.Disease and Resilience on Navajo LandsWith a population of more than 400,000, the Navajo Nation (whose people are known as the Diné, pronounced Din-EH, in their language) is the largest federally recognized tribe in the U.S. And its reservation—home to more than 165,000 residents—is the largest in the country, encompassing roughly 27,000 square miles in northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico and southeastern Utah. With a rich heritage, a distinct language and cultural traditions rooted in family and ties to their land, the Diné remain one of the strongest, most vibrant Indigenous communities in the world.Throughout their history, the Diné—like many other tribes—have endured devastating epidemics, including smallpox, mumps and pneumonia in the 17th and 18th centuries, which decimated their population. Their forced removal from their lands in 1864, known as the Long Walk, led to deadly outbreaks of measles, dysentery and pneumonia at the Bosque Redondo internment camp at Fort Sumner, N.M. The 1918 influenza pandemic killed an estimated 3,000 Diné, roughly one quarter of the tribe, according to the Navajo Times.In his seminal history on the pre-Columbian Americas, author Charles C. Mann noted that none of the major infectious diseases—including smallpox, measles, typhoid, leprosy, bubonic plague, tuberculosis, scarlet fever, diphtheria, influenza and cholera—existed in the Western Hemisphere prior to European contact.Recognizing the lethality of these diseases, the Europeans turned to biological warfare to destroy and subjugate Native communities by giving them smallpox-infected blankets, clothing and other “gifts,” deliberately spreading the deadly illness among Indigenous populations, according to medical researchers at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in Greece.Because of their lack of exposure and immunity to these pathogens, scientists and geographers estimate that by the beginning of the 1600s, infectious disease brought to the Americas killed more than 56 million Indigenous people, representing roughly 10 percent of the entire global population at the time. This was one of the deadliest demographic collapses in human history. In some cases, entire tribes became extinct, and their languages, histories and cultural ways died with them.When COVID arrived in early 2020, tribal nations across North America immediately understood the threat and implemented strict prevention measures, including lockdowns, checkpoints, temperature checks, masking and other methods to protect their communities.When vaccines became available, tribes became national public health leaders by testing and vaccinating their own members and opening their clinics and hospitals to the general public.Despite these efforts, tribal communities from Alaska to Maine still experienced some of the highest rates of COVID infection and death in the country. As of January 1, 2025, the Navajo Nation has recorded 93,980 confirmed cases and 2,334 deaths, according to the Navajo Epidemiology Center, and at one point it claimed the highest per capita infection rate nationwide.But even as COVID captured global attention, a quieter but relentless virus continued to stalk tribal communities, striking Native American infants and toddlers with unmatched severity: RSV.Battling RSV amid Social ChallengesRSV hospitalization rates among Indigenous infants and toddlers are up to 10 times higher than the rate in the general population.RSV has been a persistent threat among all tribes. Among them, its effect has been devastating in Alaska’s Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, the Navajo Nation and the White Mountain Apache Reservation in Arizona, where pediatric hospitalization rates are among the highest in the world.RSV spreads rapidly through droplets, which can be transmitted from person to person via coughing or sneezing, direct human contact such as touching or kissing or contact with a contaminated surface. RSV can survive on hard surfaces for hours.The virus’s spread is often accelerated by living conditions and other socioeconomic factors on Native lands, such as overcrowded housing, limited access to health care and clean water, environmental hazards and barriers to transportation.These stark disparities have been driven largely by generations of displacement, broken treaties and systemic neglect. As tribes were forced by the federal government into isolated and under-resourced reservations in the late 1800s, these conditions became the norm.The legacy of those policies continues to shape the health of their communities, resulting in higher rates of infectious diseases such as RSV, according to public health experts and tribal epidemiologists.“Water alone is a huge public health issue for us because roughly 30 percent of the households on our reservation have no running water,” Branch says. “And it’s very expensive for our people to haul their own, and they have to ration, which has had a direct impact on the health of the Navajo Nation.”Access to basic resources and challenging living conditions have created environments where infectious diseases thrive—which highlights how health outcomes are tied to social inequities, says Laura Hammitt, director of Infectious Disease Programs at the Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health.Laura Hammitt, director of Infectious Disease Programs at the Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health, guided the Indigenous research portion of a worldwide nirsevimab study. American Indian and Alaska Native children have some of the highest rates of RSV transmission, hospitalization and mortality in the country.“Social determinants of health are really the root cause of the elevated RSV disease burden among Native American children,” Hammitt says. “This is a disease of poverty.”Even though the disparity has been well documented in medical research over many years, that information has rarely reached Native families themselves. That’s partly because the symptoms of RSV are similar to those of other respiratory illnesses, such as the flu and the common cold. And there haven’t been culturally relevant public health campaigns about RSV on Native lands, according to public health experts.“I was doing a lot of advocacy relating to COVID at the time [of the pandemic], because I was leading the Navajo and Hopi Families COVID-19 Relief Fund, a mutual aid nonprofit,” Branch explains. “So I had a hyperawareness of things like this. But even so, I had no idea what RSV was.”After her son’s hospitalization, Branch began researching RSV and was shocked to learn that high transmission rates on the Navajo Nation reservation had been a serious problem for years.As COVID cases began to decline and lockdowns eased on the reservation, she realized a public health crisis was emerging as people began to gather again, spreading germs. RSV surged among the tribe’s children, so Branch penned a column in the Navajo Times about her son’s experience and began educating other parents and caregivers about the risks and warning signs of RSV.Meanwhile frontline health workers, armed with experience from COVID, were building better systems to track and fight infectious diseases, laying the groundwork that continues to shape the Navajo Nation’s response to RSV and other medical threats.How COVID Shaped the RSV ResponseWhen pediatrician Amanda Burrage arrived at the Tuba City Regional Health Care Corporation on the Navajo Nation reservation in 2018, the facility had no coordinated effort to track and monitor RSV cases and admissions. But the emergence of COVID served as a catalyst for transforming the public health apparatus.Burrage led the efforts at Tuba City’s hospital by organizing a comprehensive response, including data collection, contact tracing, community outreach, disease surveillance, testing, vaccination campaigns and staff training. Once that infrastructure was in place, Burrage and her team could apply these same tools to other infectious diseases such as RSV.“Prior to COVID, we did not have anybody on staff at Tuba City focused on the data or tracking the RSV tests that were positive and cases that were hospitalized,” says Burrage, who serves as the facility’s medical director of public health. She splits her time between her clinical practice and public health efforts aimed at improving disease surveillance, prevention and response across the region.Amanda Burrage, a pediatrician and public health expert, is leading the efforts at Tuba City Regional Health Care Corporation on the Navajo Nation reservation to ensure children receive nirsevimab immunizations against RSV.As COVID cases began to recede, RSV transmission and hospitalizations started to spike at Tuba City, signaling the virus’s aggressive return after people stopped isolating.RSV primarily attacks the respiratory tract, inflaming the small airways and making it difficult for infants and children to breathe. The virus can cause a severe buildup of mucus that blocks airflow, reducing oxygen levels in the blood. For some children, this can quickly spiral into pneumonia or bronchiolitis, requiring hospitalization and sometimes intensive care. Because young children have more fragile immune systems and lungs, RSV can overwhelm their bodies quickly, making it one of the most dangerous respiratory viruses for infants and toddlers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.“Once RSV is present, there is only supportive care,” Burrage says. “There is really no treatment, and it becomes about management of symptoms and monitoring for complications.”A Breakthrough Years in the MakingIn 2019, before COVID emerged in the U.S., a multidisciplinary team of physicians, epidemiologists, public health professionals and national research institutions joined forces in a monumental global effort to study the efficacy of a new immunization that helps to prevent severe RSV infections in infants and children.Nirsevimab, under the commercial name Beyfortus, is a monoclonal antibody that provides infants passive immunization from RSV. Developed jointly by AstraZeneca and Sanofi, it’s not technically a “vaccine” but an immunization that works by delivering antibodies that target the RSV-F protein, offering the strongest protection in the weeks after it is administered.Native Americans played a small but crucial role in a clinical trial of nirsevimab known as the MELODY study. Hammitt, who served as the lead investigator for the Indigenous portion of the trial, worked closely with the Navajo Nation to recruit participants and monitor the outcomes, ensuring the research was conducted in a culturally respectful and collaborative way.The initial phase of the trial was postponed during the first year of the pandemic but started again in 2021, according to Hammitt. Out of 1,490 global participants in that phase, approximately 83 Navajo infants were enrolled at Fort Defiance, Ariz., and at Shiprock and Gallup in New Mexico.The study’s integration of Indigenous communities provided critical data on the immunization’s efficacy in a high-risk group. The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices subsequently endorsed nirsevimab for all infants under eight months born during or entering their first RSV season. The committee made a special recommendation that American Indian and Alaska Native children aged eight months to 19 months receive a second dose for their second RSV season.When the trial began, prior to COVID, “we had pretty comprehensive data on what RSV looked like in a prepandemic setting,” Hammitt says. “We found that the Navajo Nation’s rate of serious RSV infection and hospitalization was about five times higher than the general U.S. numbers.”The results from the first phase of the trial were dramatic and immediate and showed that nirsevimab was about 75 percent effective at preventing RSV illness that required medical attention, says Hammitt, who has spent decades partnering with tribes in the U.S. Southwest and Alaska to study the impact of infectious disease on their communities.“We were a small but important part of the MELODY trial because of the need to really demonstrate that immunizations that are licensed and recommended work in the populations that need them the most,” she explains.After nirsevimab’s approval in 2023 by the Food and Drug Administration, public health officials at the Navajo Nation set their new public health apparatus in motion, reaching out to parents with eligible babies. Pfizer’s RSV vaccine for pregnant people, Abrysvo, was also approved that year and offered parents another option to protect their babies. A single dose administered between 32 and 36 weeks of gestation confers protection to the fetus through the placenta and lasts for about six months after birth.“We were very proactive in reaching every family who had a child that was eligible,” says Burrage, whose staff worked overtime on parent outreach at Tuba City. “We sent letters, made phone calls. And whenever a parent is in for a well-child visit or at prenatal checkups, we certainly offer it.”Burrage reports there has been a small increase in the number of parents who are hesitant to accept the shot because of the influence of antivaccine groups and misinformation. But given the risks and high prevalence of RSV among Navajo children, she says, the vast majority are choosing to immunize their children. A second antibody injection, Enflonsia, was approved by the FDA for infant use in June 2025. “We certainly recognize this to be a game-changer for us in our community,” Burrage says. “Many people know somebody who’s had severe illness that was admitted [to a hospital] with RSV—an older sibling, a niece or nephew. People recognize that it can be severe for young children and have almost universally accepted it.”After Patro’s hospital stay, Branch began educating other parents and caregivers about the risks of RSV in the Navajo Nation. She encourages all Indigenous parents to get their children immunized against the virus.Branch, who now serves as deputy county attorney for the Coconino County Attorney’s Office in Flagstaff, Ariz., hopes her son’s story will serve as a wake-up call regarding the dangers of RSV.Patro fell ill before any prevention measures were available. Every winter she has to whisk him to the emergency room if he shows signs of wheezing or labored breathing, a vestige of his serious brush with RSV in 2022.“You don't want your kid to get RSV—ever,” Branch says. “So get that vaccine so you can save yourself and your child the trauma of having it in the first place, which is a horrible experience for everyone. There are long-lasting effects, and you don’t want to have to go into the ER every winter with your child.”

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Food

California’s marijuana industry gets a break under new law suspending tax hike

California's legal weed industry is still overshadowed by the larger black market. A new state law gives businesses a break by delaying a tax increase.

In summary California’s legal weed industry is still overshadowed by the larger black market. A new state law gives businesses a break by delaying a tax increase. Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday signed a bill to roll back taxes on recreational weed in an effort to give some relief to an industry that has struggled to supersede its illicit counterpart since voters legalized marijuana almost 10 years ago. The law will temporarily revert the cannabis excise tax to 15% until 2028, suspending an increase to 19% levied earlier this year. The law is meant to help dispensaries that proponents say are operating under slim margins due to being bogged down by years of overregulation. “We’re rolling back this cannabis tax hike so the legal market can continue to grow, consumers can access safe products, and our local communities see the benefits,” Newsom said in a statement, and that reducing the tax will allow legal businesses to remain competitive and boost their long-term growth. An excise tax is a levy imposed by the state before sales taxes are applied. It’s applied to the cannabis industry under a 2022 agreement between the state and marijuana companies. It replaced a different kind of fee that was supposed to raise revenue for social programs, such as child care assistance, in accordance with the 2016 ballot measure that legalized cannabis. For years, the cannabis industry has lobbied against the tax, arguing that it hurts an industry overshadowed by a thriving illicit drug market. “By stopping this misguided tax hike, the governor and Legislature chose smart policy that grows revenue by keeping the legal market viable instead of driving consumers back to dangerous, untested illicit products,” Amy O’Gorman, executive director of the California Cannabis Operators Association, said in a statement. Since its legalization, the recreational weed industry has struggled to outpace the illegal market as farmers flooded the industry and prices began to drop. Taxable cannabis sales have slowly declined since their peak in the second quarter of 2021 of more than $1.5 billion to $1.2 billion four years later, according to data from the state Department of Tax and Fee Administration. Legal sales make up about 40% of all weed consumption, according to the state Department of Cannabis Control. Several nonprofits that receive grants through the tax opposed the bill, arguing that it will threaten services for low-income children, substance abuse programs and environmental protections. In the Emerald Triangle, where the heartland of the industry lies nestled in the northern corner of the state, conservation organizations said they were disappointed in the governor and that it was a step backwards for addressing environmental degradation caused by illegal growers in years past. “All this bill does is reduce the resources we have to remedy the harms of the illegal market,” said Alicia Hamann, executive director of Friends of the Eel River in Humboldt County. Many nonprofits supported spiking other fees in agreement with lawmakers and industry groups that the excise tax would be increased three years later, Hamann said. “It feels a little bit like a stab in the back,” she said.

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Understanding Lupus: Symptoms, Risks and New Advances in Treatment

By Michael R. York, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine HealthDay ReporterTUESDAY, Sept. 23, 2025 (...

TUESDAY, Sept. 23, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), often simply called lupus, is a chronic autoimmune disease in which the body's immune system malfunctions and mistakenly attacks its own healthy tissues and organs.Lupus can involve almost every organ system, but it most commonly affects the skin, kidneys, joints and the linings of the heart and lungs. Types of lupusLupus can affect almost every organ system. Some patients only have skin disease, and this can be an intermittent rash that often flares during the summer months, as lupus is very sensitive to the rays of the sun. The rash of lupus can look like a sunburn on the face and upper chest, but can also be a deep, scarring rash (discoid lupus). The rash of discoid lupus can lead to permanent hair loss. SymptomsLupus can affect almost every organ system and, therefore, is often hard to diagnose. Additionally, lupus often isn’t the first condition that comes to mind with any of the symptoms a patient may have. It would be unusual for someone to present to a doctor suspecting lupus as a diagnosis, as it is more of a condition that explains multiple different symptoms and signs. It is a very difficult diagnosis to make without laboratory studies, as so many other conditions can cause similar symptoms, such as fatigue or heart or lung inflammation. Rash: The most obvious symptom is a rash, usually worsened by sun exposure. The rash can cause scarring, so it is important to avoid sun exposure, even in the winter months. It could present as a severe sunburn in someone who hasn’t had sunburns in the past or as deep scars in the scalp, ears or face. A fever and rash could be many diseases, and infection should be ruled out before considering lupus. Inflammation of the kidney, heart or lung: Inflammation of the lungs and heart is usually something that brings patients to an emergency room. Kidney involvement is usually found with lab testing, and patients are often asymptomatic. Blood clots: Blood clotting issues are usually dramatic and life-threatening, such as losing a pregnancy near term or developing blood clots to the lungs. These episodes are not usually diagnosed at home, but with special tests and imaging. Joint pain: Some patients have a pattern of disease that overlaps with rheumatoid arthritis and is mainly swollen, tender joints and morning stiffness. Many patients are referred to rheumatologists with “pain all over,” and this is very unlikely to be due to lupus. The morning is usually the worst time of the day, with pain and stiffness improving as the day proceeds. Mental health: Lupus causes issues with mental health and thinking, due to a cognitive impairment commonly known as “brain fog.” Symptoms include difficulty concentrating, struggling with complicated tasks like schoolwork and increased rates of depression and anxiety. This effect of lupus is not well understood. Blood disorders: Lupus can make the blood cell counts for red cells (anemia), white blood cells and platelets lower than expected. These are usually asymptomatic, but an important laboratory finding in making the diagnosis of lupus. When to see a doctor about lupusLupus can cause a wide variety of symptoms. Rash is the most obvious sign, but it is not present in most patients. Other symptoms may include chest pain from inflammation in the heart or lungs; unexplained blood clots; arthritis at a young age; or unexplained kidney failure.It can be difficult to diagnose lupus, since these symptoms have more common causes, and lupus is usually not the first diagnosis considered. How is lupus diagnosed? Lupus is often diagnosed after laboratory testing. Tests showing kidney problems, low blood cell counts and signs of inflammation are helpful clues. A test called the anti-nuclear antibody (ANA) is invaluable.This antibody is found in many other diseases such as autoimmune liver disease, thyroid conditions and sometimes even healthy individuals, but it is always present in patients with active lupus. As such, a negative ANA excludes lupus as a diagnosis. Skin and kidney biopsies are also helpful for diagnosis. Not all patients will have all the symptoms and test results related to lupus, making diagnosis a challenge. Lupus can often be mistaken for an infection such as the flu, mononucleosis (“mono”) and pneumonia. The presence of a typical lupus rash often helps with making the diagnosis sooner, but the rash is not always present.How is lupus treated? Several recent medical advances in lupus research have occurred, especially in drug development. Hydroxychloroquine is an important medication that almost every patient with lupus should take regularly.It is safe and effective at treating many aspects of lupus such as arthritis, skin disease, hair loss and kidney disease. It can be taken during pregnancy and even during breastfeeding. One notable advancement is the development of anifrolimumab, a medication that targets the type I interferon pathway, which is overactive in many individuals with lupus. Anifrolimumab is a monoclonal antibody, a lab-created protein designed to mimic the body’s natural antibodies. This medication has shown promise in treating the skin manifestations of lupus.Another exciting area of research involves CAR-T cell therapy, which uses a patient's immune cells (T cells) to fight disease. This innovative approach, which has shown some success in certain blood cancers, is now being explored for autoimmune diseases like lupus. Multiple clinical trials, including one at Boston Medical Center, are underway to evaluate the safety and efficacy of CAR-T cell therapy in patients with severe lupus who haven't responded adequately to conventional treatments.While still in the experimental phase, CAR-T cell therapy represents a potentially transformative treatment option for individuals living with lupus.Causes of lupus The exact cause of lupus is unknown, but a combination of genetic, hormonal and environmental factors are thought to trigger the immune system to attack itself. However, a study in the journal Nature showed that one cause is a genetic mutation in a gene called “toll-like receptor 7.”This mutation increased the chance that the immune system would be easily activated to attack healthy organs, even in the absence of infection. Risk factors Sex: Women between the ages of 15 and 45 are much more likely to develop lupus and make up about 90% of all cases. Family history: Having a sibling with lupus increases a person’s risk by about 20-fold compared to the general population. Race: People who are African American/Black, Inuit and Native American have triple the risk of lupus compared to white people, and their disease severity is often worse, especially kidney disease and the risk of death. Non-white Hispanic and Arab patients have about double the lupus risk compared to white patients in Canada and the United States. Living with lupus Living with lupus can be challenging, but with the proper care and lifestyle adjustments, many people can lead full, active lives. Symptoms like fatigue, joint pain and skin rashes have treatments available to help manage discomfort and prevent flare-ups. It's important to work closely with your health care team, take medications as prescribed, and protect your skin from the sun. Even patients with dark skin who have never had issues with sunburns in the past need to use sunscreen regularly.Sun exposure can trigger flares of the disease (including kidney disease) and cause scarring skin and scalp lesions (discoid lupus). Does lupus increase the risk of other diseases? Lupus can affect many body parts including the heart, kidneys and lungs. It can also raise the risk for infections, osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease. Some of these risks are related to the inflammation caused by lupus itself, while others may be linked to medications used to control the disease.Michael R. York, MD, is a rheumatologist at Boston Medical Center (BMC). Dr. York is also an assistant professor of medicine in the Department of Rheumatology at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine. He has over 20 years of experience and is an expert in caring for patients with scleroderma (scleroderma), systemic sclerosis, morphea, lupus and psoriatic arthritis. Dr. York's research focuses on the role of the immune system on the development of systemic sclerosis, and other vascular and fibrotic diseases.Copyright © 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

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Nature

How a Housing Skirmish in NYC Revealed a Secret Truth About NIMBYism

Fights over housing in New York City are nothing new, but this month the political antagonism to increasing housing stock and making the cost of living more affordable in general escalated to a whole new level. Instead of the usual lawsuits and procedural slow-walking that usually grind pro-housing efforts to a halt, opponents tried something far bolder: erasing a set of pro-housing ballot initiatives before voters could even see them.The proposals in question aim to rewrite the City Charter to confront New York’s housing crisis head-on, cutting through the maze of delays that makes building new homes nearly impossible. They’re broadly popular, curbing the power of individual council members to block projects and shortening drawn-out land-use reviews. But opponents found a powerful ally in Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, who pressed the Board of Elections to strike the measures from the ballot altogether, despite the fact that the board had no such power.The gambit failed, thanks to significant public backlash, but it was striking in how starkly it broke from the usual playbook. Anti-housing forces usually cloak themselves in process: lawsuits, appeals to democracy, endless environmental reviews. As New Republic contributor J. Dylan Sandifer described, it’s a type of proceduralism that provides a “performance of forward motion that, in reality, preserves the status quo.” But in this case, the well-worn pretense was dropped entirely. It was a brazen attempt to subvert both the law and the will of the voters—one that exposed something essential about NIMBYism’s true character.The standard arsenal of the anti-housing crowd is familiar to anyone who has waded into the land-use wars: Faced with a new housing proposal in their neighborhood, local residents organize a series of delay tactics and clever rhetoric. They hide behind lengthy land-use processes, stressing the importance of community input and control. They weaponize environmental review laws in court. They pack rooms at community meetings, creating a veneer of popular support.In recent years, especially with the rise of the “abundance” movement, more attention has been paid to the ways these political and legal processes are weaponized to block growth. In turn, the popular discourse has centered around a convenient narrative: Pro-housing activists are the enemies of process and community control, while their opponents are its defenders.There’s some truth in that, but it misses the deeper reality. As the Board of Elections fight revealed, anti-housing forces aren’t committed to process at all; they’re committed to outcomes. The moment procedure no longer protects the status quo, they abandon it, laying bare how process is not so much a principle as it is a tool of power, to be discarded whenever it fails to deliver the intended results.Take the saga over Haven Green in Nolita, a plan for 100 percent affordable senior housing on a city-owned vacant lot that city agencies had been pursuing for over a decade. Opponents threw up every obstacle they could, converting the lot into a quasi-public garden, and filing a string of lawsuits, including one that bizarrely claimed the lot qualified for protection under federal laws meant to safeguard historic works of art. They lost at virtually every level. And when the courts and regulators failed to deliver the outcome they wanted, they sought to short-circuit the process altogether, eventually securing a last-minute backroom deal, on the eve of election night, with a scandal-plagued Mayor Eric Adams.A similar story played out in the Seaport. A parking lot was slated for mixed-income housing, and opponents pulled every lever they could: environmental challenges, landmarks objections, lawsuits that climbed all the way to New York’s highest court. They lost at every turn. Yet instead of accepting the outcome, they pivoted to protests and began accusing local officials of orchestrating a corrupt conspiracy. Having failed within the system, they simply tried to delegitimize it.These episodes are hardly outliers. When the rules stop protecting the status quo, opponents routinely abandon them without hesitation, escalating the fight beyond law or normal politics. What was once defended as a sacred process, indispensable for democracy and community control, suddenly becomes disposable, swapped out for more audacious, often extra-procedural, tactics.Pro-housing advocates are often caricatured as market zealots, eager to bulldoze every safeguard in the name of unfettered growth. But this framing fundamentally misunderstands the reality of how these fights play out in real time. Again and again, it is their opponents who lose within the very procedures they celebrate—and then, unwilling to accept the outcome, they turn against the system itself.This is how power operates in local governance, whether the fight is over housing or any proposal that threatens the current state of affairs. Lawsuits, community meetings, environmental reviews; it’s not that these are inherently democratic or antidemocratic. They are merely instruments, and their meaning comes from how they’re used. Anti-housing forces use them not to ensure valuable deliberation but to obstruct it; rituals of legitimacy that mask the exercise of raw power. Let us take note: These episodes reveal an essential phoniness. Adherence to the rules has become, for NIMBYists, nothing more than a performance undertaken in the name of preserving scarcity and protecting the status quo by any means necessary.This is a convenient moment to take note of the true colors of those who’ve been standing athwart progress, citing procedure. As our nation’s intellectuals enter the national debate on abundance and growth, we need to reframe the discussion to match what’s happening at street level in our cities and towns. Because there, you won’t find a technocratic dispute over rules and processes, or a clash between defenders of democracy and free-market deregulators. Rather, you will find a struggle over power between those who bend laws and institutions to protect the wealthy and well-connected, and those who demand those laws be put to the use of serving the common good.

Activism

Crisis

Land Use

Amid a data center boom, California lawmakers pass a bill to track water use

The AI-driven data center boom is adding strain on the West's water. New legislation in California would require data centers to report how much water they use.

Companies that run data centers are facing increasing scrutiny for guzzling water in the dry western U.S. as artificial intelligence fuels a boom in the industry. California legislators passed a bill this month that would require the facilities to report their projected water use before they begin operating and thereafter certify how much they use annually. The bill is now awaiting Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature.“Data centers are popping up all over the place,” said Assemblymember Diane Papan (D-San Mateo), the bill’s author. “And they demand so much water.”The large buildings packed with equipment typically use water to cool their servers and interiors.The International Energy Agency said in a recent report that a 100-megawatt data center in the U.S. can consume approximately 500,000 gallons of water per day. But it said innovations in cooling systems can significantly reduce that.The California legislation requires companies to submit water information for both new and existing facilities.“It’s very important that localities be able to plan for what’s next, whether that’s building more housing or building data centers, and data centers happen to be incredibly thirsty,” said Papan, who chairs the Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee.Much of the nation’s data center construction boom is taking place in arid states, including California, Arizona and Texas, where strains on water have been mounting amid dry conditions and rising temperatures. The ongoing water shortage on the Colorado River, where reservoirs are approaching critically low levels, is expected to force additional reductions in water use in the Southwest in the coming years.A key goal is to prevent problems, Papan said, “so that we don’t end up with a data center without sufficient water, and we don’t end up with a community that has a data center that takes too much water away from the community.”Assembly Bill 93 was opposed by business groups including the Data Center Coalition. Newsom has until Oct. 12 to sign or veto it.In a report released this week, researchers with the nonprofit group Ceres analyzed current and projected water use for data centers in the Phoenix area, where, as of May, there were 75 of the facilities and 49 more planned. It found that water for cooling, as well as water consumption linked to electricity generation, is expected to dramatically increase in the coming years as more facilities come online.The group projected that cooling water alone in the area could increase to more than 3.7 billion gallons per year, enough to supply a city of about 80,000 people for nearly two years — a change they said could increase water stress in a region that is already grappling with scarcity. “This needs to become a consideration in those areas,” said Kirsten James, senior director of Ceres’ water program. “If companies and their shareholders do not address these sustainability risks, then that could leave them open for financial loss, and so they really need to be proactive.” Experts say California has more than 300 data centers, with many more planned.Some major tech companies already disclose their data centers’ water use in other parts of the country, so it makes sense for the state to collect this information, especially since California is known for both leading on innovation and for having long droughts, said Shaolei Ren, an associate professor at UC Riverside who studies data centers’ use of resources. “We ask California residents to switch to artificial turf and display ‘water conservation’ stickers in public places, yet data center water use remains hidden,” Ren said. “Disclosure doesn’t hurt the industry or add costs; it simply helps us track and manage a vital resource more responsibly as we build the next generation of data centers.”Inside data centers, servers generate heat as they run, and are typically cooled by systems that circulate either liquid or air through them. Many data center buildings have industrial-scale cooling towers where water evaporates and helps cool the interior environment.Some use much less water than others. Facilities with closed-loop dry coolers may use virtually no water on-site, while those that rely on evaporative cooling are more water-intensive, Ren said.Notably, the types of systems that require little water are generally more energy-intensive and costlier, Ren said.The rise of artificial intelligence as well as growing investments in cloud computing are driving the data center construction boom. While some companies don’t report their water use, others do.Google, for example, listed water data for three dozen data centers around the world in its latest annual environmental report, saying a single site can use anywhere from nearly zero water to more than 3 million gallons per day, depending on its cooling design and size.It said some of its more water-intensive centers, including two in Iowa and Oklahoma, require five to six times as much water as an average golf course, while various other facilities use less than a typical golf course. None of the data centers the company listed are in California.Google said it is focused on “advancing responsible water use,” and that last year, 72% of its water “came from sources at low risk of water depletion or scarcity.” Michael Kiparsky, director of the Wheeler Water Institute at the UC Berkeley School of Law, said requiring data on water use is a good first step, but local officials may not know what to do with that number alone.For example, he said, it won’t let them know if there is a more conserving option, or another location with more water available.

Water

Business

Energy

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