Every animal with a brain needs sleep — and even a few without a brain do, too. Humans sleep, birds sleep, whales sleep and even jellyfish sleep.
Sleep is universal “even though it’s actually very risky,” said Paul-Antoine Libourel, a researcher at the Neuroscience Research Center of Lyon in France.
When animals nod off, they’re most vulnerable to sneaky predators. But despite the risks, the need for sleep is so strong that no creature can skip it altogether, even when it’s highly inconvenient.
Animals that navigate extreme conditions and environments have evolved to sleep in extreme ways — for example, stealing seconds at a time during around-the-clock parenting, getting winks on the wing during long migrations and even dozing while swimming.
For a long time, scientists could only make educated guesses about when wild animals were sleeping, observing when they lay still and closed their eyes. But in recent years, tiny trackers and helmets that measure brain waves — miniaturized versions of equipment in human sleep labs — have allowed researchers to glimpse for the first time the varied and sometimes spectacular ways that wild animals snooze.
“We’re finding that sleep is really flexible in response to ecological demands,” said Niels Rattenborg, an animal sleep research specialist at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence in Germany.
These penguins mate for life and share parenting duties — with one bird babysitting the egg or tiny gray fluffy chick to keep it warm and safe while the other swims off to fish for a family meal. Then they switch roles — keeping up this nonstop labor for weeks.
Penguin parents face a common challenge: getting enough sleep while keeping a close eye on their newborns.
They survive by taking thousands of catnaps a day — each averaging just 4 seconds long.
These short “microsleeps,” as Korea Polar Research Institute biologist Won Young Lee calls them, appear to be enough to allow penguin parents to carry out their caregiving duties for weeks within their crowded, noisy colonies.
When a clumsy neighbor passes by or predatory seabirds are near, the penguin parent blinks to alert attention and soon dozes off again, its chin nodding against its chest, like a drowsy driver.
The naps add up. Each penguin sleeps for a total of 11 hours per day, as scientists found by measuring the brain activity of 14 adults over 11 days on Antarctica’s King George Island.
To remain mostly alert, yet also sneak in sufficient winks, the penguins have evolved an enviable ability to function on extremely fractured sleep — at least during the breeding season.
Researchers can now see when either hemisphere of the brain — or both at once — are asleep.
Poets, sailors and birdwatchers have long wondered whether birds that fly for months at a time actually get any winks on the wing.
In some cases, the answer is yes — as scientists discovered when they attached devices that measure brain-wave activity to the heads of large seabirds nesting in the Galapagos Islands called great frigatebirds.
While flying, frigatebirds can sleep with one half of the brain at a time. The other half remains semialert so that one eye is still watching for obstacles in their flight path.
This allows the birds to soar for weeks at a time, without touching land or water, which would damage their delicate, non-water repellent feathers.
Frigatebirds can’t do tricky maneuvers — flapping, foraging or diving — with just one half of their brain. When they dive for prey, they must be fully awake. But in flight, they have evolved to sleep when gliding and circling upward on massive drafts of warm rising air that keep them aloft with minimal effort.
Back at the nest in trees or bushes, frigatebirds change up their nap routine — they are more likely to sleep with their whole brain at once and for much longer bouts. This suggests their in-flight sleeping is a specific adaptation for extended flying, Rattenborg said.
A few other animals have similar sleeping hacks. Dolphins can sleep with one half of the brain at a time while swimming. Some other birds, including swifts and albatrosses, can sleep in flight, scientists say.
Frigatebirds can fly 255 miles (410 kilometers) a day for more than 40 days, before touching land, other researchers found — a feat that wouldn’t be possible without being able to sleep on the wing.
On land, life is easy for a 5,000-pound (2,268-kilogram) northern elephant seal. But at sea, sleep is dangerous — sharks and killer whales that prey on seals are lurking.
These seals go on extended foraging trips, for up to eight months, repeatedly diving to depths of several hundred feet (meters) to catch fish, squid, rays and other sea snacks.
Each deep dive may last around 30 minutes. And for around a third of that time, the seals may be asleep, as research led by Jessica Kendall-Bar of Scripps Institution of Oceanography revealed.
Kendall-Bar’s team devised a neoprene headcap similar to a swimming cap with equipment to detect motion and seal brain activity during dives, and retrieved the caps with logged data when seals returned to beaches in Northern California.
The 13 female seals studied tended to sleep during the deepest portions of their dives, when they were below the depths that predators usually patrol.
That sleep consisted of both slow-wave sleep and REM sleep. During REM, or rapid eye movement sleep, the seals were temporarily paralyzed — just like humans during this deep-sleep stage — and their dive motion changed. Instead of a controlled downward glide motion, they sometimes turned upside down and spun in what the researchers called a “sleep spiral” during REM sleep.
In the span of 24 hours, the seals at sea slept for around two hours total. (Back on the beach, they averaged around 10 hours.)
Scientists are still learning about all the reasons we sleep — and just how much we really need.
It’s unlikely that any tired human can try these extreme animal sleep hacks. But learning more about how varied napping may be in the wild shows the flexibility of some species. Nature has evolved to make shut-eye possible in even the most precarious situations.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
A former manager of the Harvard Medical School morgue in Boston was sentenced to eight years in prison for stealing and selling body parts “as if they were baubles.”
Authorities said Cedric Lodge was at the center of a ghoulish scheme in which he shipped brains, skin, hands and faces to buyers in Pennsylvania and elsewhere after cadavers donated to Harvard were no longer needed for research.
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NEW YORK — The last major meteor shower of the year, known as the Ursids, peaks soon, bringing glowing streaks to nighttime and early morning skies. Compared to other meteor showers, it’s more subdued, but experts say it’s still worth a glimpse.
Meteor showers happen when space rocks hit Earth’s atmosphere at extremely high speeds and burn up, gaining fiery tails — the end of a “shooting star.” Random meteors are visible from Earth on any given clear night, but more predictable meteor showers happen yearly when Earth passes through streams of cosmic leftovers from comets or asteroids.
The Ursids peak Sunday night into Monday morning and will be visible until Dec. 26 from the Northern Hemisphere. Skygazers usually see five to 10 meteors per hour during the height and there’s a possibility for outbursts of up to 25 meteors per hour, according to the American Meteor Society.
How active a shower will appear from Earth depends on the amount of debris and the moon’s brightness, which can blot out glowing meteors. The Ursids feature less space debris than other showers like the Geminids, but the narrow crescent moon won’t be much of an obstacle when they peak.
No special equipment is needed to view a meteor shower. To see the Ursids, which hail from a comet called 8P/Tuttle, bundle up and get away from city lights.
“The darker your sky, the better the shower is going to be,” said astronomer Peter Brown with Western University in Canada.
The meteors can be seen over the whole sky, but all the streaks will seem to come from a central point near a constellation for which the shower is named. In this case, that’s the constellation Ursa Minor, also known as the Little Dipper.
Once it gets dark, avoid bright lights from cellphones, which will make it harder for your eyes to adjust.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Yes the darkest day of the year is here, but that means brighter days are ahead.
Sunday is the shortest day of the year north of the equator, where the solstice marks the start of astronomical winter. It’s the opposite in the Southern Hemisphere, where it is the longest day of the year and summer will start.
The word “solstice” comes from the Latin words “sol” for sun and “stitium” which can mean “pause” or “stop.” The solstice is an end of the sun’s annual march higher or lower in the sky. The winter solstice is when the sun makes its shortest, lowest arc. The good news for sun lovers: It then starts climbing again and days will get a little longer every day until late June.
People have marked solstices for eons with celebrations and monuments such as Stonehenge, which was designed to align with the sun’s paths at the solstices. But what is happening in the heavens? Here’s what to know about the Earth’s orbit.
As the Earth travels around the sun, it does so at an angle, making the sun’s warmth and light fall unequally on the northern and southern halves of the planet for most of the year.
The solstices mark the times when the Earth’s tilt toward or away from the sun is at its maximum. This means the hemispheres are getting very different amounts of sunlight — and days and nights are at their most unequal.
At the Northern Hemisphere’s winter solstice the upper half of the Earth is at its furthest lean away from the sun — leading to the shortest day and longest night of the year. The winter solstice falls can fall between Dec. 20 and 23 — this year it’s the 21st.
The opposite happens at a Northern Hemisphere summer solstice: The upper half of the Earth is leaning toward the sun, creating the longest day and shortest night of the year. This solstice falls between June 20 and 22.
During the equinox, the Earth’s axis and its orbit align so that both hemispheres get an equal amount of sunlight.
The word equinox comes from two Latin words meaning equal and night. That’s because on the equinox, day and night last almost the same amount of time — though one may get a few extra minutes, depending on where you are on the planet.oo
The Northern Hemisphere’s fall — or autumnal — equinox can land between Sept. 21 and 24, depending on the year. Its spring — or vernal — equinox can land between March 19 and 21.
These are just two different ways to carve up the year.
While astronomical seasons depend on how the Earth moves around the sun, meteorological seasons are defined by the weather. Meteorologists break down the year into three-month seasons based on annual temperature cycles. By that calendar, spring starts on March 1, summer on June 1, fall on Sept. 1 and winter on Dec. 1.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
WASHINGTON — The Senate on Wednesday confirmed billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman to be NASA administrator on Wednesday, placing him atop the agency after a monthslong saga where President Donald Trump revoked his nomination as part of a feud with tech billionaire Elon Musk.
Isaacman, who has promised to bring a business-minded approach to the space agency, was confirmed in a bipartisan vote, 67-30.
He will take over after an unusual confirmation process upended by the Republican president’s oscillating and at times tumultuous relationship with prominent tech leaders who backed his campaign, most notably Musk, the Tesla CEO who is a close ally of Isaacman.
Trump picked Isaacman last year but withdrew the nomination in May after feuding with Musk over the administration’s policies on issues such as electric vehicles and the performance of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
Musk was the largest contributor of donations to Trump’s 2024 campaign and after the administration took office, he assembled a team for DOGE that blitzed through the federal government’s departments, contracts and critical infrastructure. The monthslong operation led to major cuts to federal contracts focused on foreign aid, global health and mass layoffs of federal workers.
But the effort did not lead to significant reductions in the federal budget deficit, the stated goal. Musk also feuded with some senior Cabinet officials and, eventually, Trump himself. Musk is also CEO of the space flight company SpaceX and has ambitions for humans to colonize space.
Trump nominated Isaacman for the job again in November. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy had been serving as NASA’s interim administrator until a permanent head was in place.
Isaacman is the founder of Shift4 Payments, a payment processing and technology solutions company based in Pennsylvania. He is also the co-founder of Draken International, a Florida-based aerospace company. He has done business with Musk’s Starlink and other ventures tied to the fellow billionaire.
During Isaacman’s second confirmation hearing in December, Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., pressed Isaacman to “explain what happened to make President Trump reconsider the decision to pull your nomination and what assurances you may have provided with Elon Musk and SpaceX would not create a significant conflict of interest in this role.”
Isaacman replied that he “wouldn’t even want to begin to speculate why the president nominated and then renominated me.” He said he pledged to be free of conflicts of interest in his role. In a June letter, Isaacman had promised to resign from his private sector posts should he be confirmed as NASA administrator.
Republicans have welcomed some of Isaacman’s proposals and some new senators strongly advocated for his confirmation. But many Democrats balked at Isaacman and Trump’s plans, including the proposed costs of some projects and overall priorities for the agency.
“For nearly 70 years, the United States has been at the forefront of space exploration. President Trump knows how critical it is to reinvigorate NASA as we aim to reach new heights in the greatest frontier ever known, and that’s why he chose exactly the right man for the job,” Sen. Tim Sheehy, an aerial firefighter, former Navy SEAL and close ally of Isaacman, said in a statement.
Sheehy, R-Mont. added that he was confident Isaacman “will work tirelessly to ensure America wins the 21st century space race.”
Authorities are searching for a suspect in the killing of Nuno F.G. Loureiro, a prominent physics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was shot at his home near Boston. Loureiro, a married 47-year-old from Portugal, was shot Monday night and died Tuesday at a local hospital.
Authorities have not disclosed a possible motive, and no suspects were in custody as of Wednesday morning, the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office said.
The shooting in Brookline, Massachusetts, comes days after a deadly attack at another prestigious school in the region, Brown University, where police also haven’t identified the suspect who killed two students and wounded nine others. The FBI said it knows of no connection between the two crimes.
Loureiro joined MIT in 2016 and was named last year to lead the school’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, one of its largest laboratories. The center has around 250 researchers working across seven buildings and focuses on advancing clean energy technology and other research.
The professor grew up in Viseu in central Portugal, studied in Lisbon and earned a doctorate in London, according to the university. Before moving to MIT, he worked at a nuclear fusion research institute in Lisbon.
Loureiro studied the behavior of plasma and worked to explain the physics behind astronomical phenomena such as solar flares. His research, according to his obituary on MIT’s news site, “involved the design of fusion devices that could harness the energy of fusing plasmas, bringing the dream of clean, near-limitless fusion power closer to reality.”
“It’s not hyperbole to say MIT is where you go to find solutions to humanity’s biggest problems,” Loureiro told the school’s news site when he became head of the plasma lab. “Fusion energy will change the course of human history.”
“He shone a bright light as a mentor, friend, teacher, colleague and leader, and was universally admired for his articulate, compassionate manner,” Dennis Whyte, an engineering professor who previously led MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, told a campus publication.
Deepto Chakrabarty, the William A. M. Burden professor in astrophysics and head of the Department of Physics, described him as a “champion for plasma physics,” a valued colleague and an inspiring mentor to graduate students.
MIT President Sally Kornbluth said the “shocking loss for our community comes in a period of disturbing violence in many other places.”
The Portuguese president’s office also put out a condolence statement calling Loureiro’s death “an irreparable loss for science and for all those with whom he worked and lived.”
The investigation into Loureiro’s killing unfolds as Brown University, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) away in Providence, Rhode Island, continues to reel from Saturday’s campus shooting. As the search for the suspect entered its fifth day Wednesday, authorities urged the public to review security or cellphone footage from the week before the attack, saying they believe the gunman may have cased the area beforehand.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Saturn’s giant moon Titan may not have a vast underground ocean after all.
Titan instead may hold deep layers of ice and slush more akin to Earth’s polar seas, with pockets of melted water where life could possibly survive and even thrive, scientists reported Wednesday.
The team led by researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory challenged the decade-long assumption of a buried global ocean at Titan after taking a fresh look at observations made years ago by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft around Saturn.
They stress that no one has found any signs of life at Titan, the solar system’s second largest moon spanning 3,200 miles (5,150 kilometers) and brimming with lakes of liquid methane on its frosty surface.
But with the latest findings suggesting a slushy, near-melting environment, “there is strong justification for continued optimism regarding the potential for extraterrestrial life,” said the University of Washington’s Baptiste Journaux, who took part in the study published in the journal Nature.
As to what form of life that might be, possibly strictly microscopic, “nature has repeatedly demonstrated far greater creativity than the most imaginative scientists,” he said in an email.
JPL’s Flavio Petricca, the lead author, said Titan’s ocean may have frozen in the past and is currently melting, or its hydrosphere might be evolving toward complete freezing.
Computer models suggest these layers of ice, slush and water extend to a depth of more than 340 miles (550 kilometers). The outer ice shell is thought to be about 100 miles (170 kilometers) deep, covering layers of slush and pools of water that could go down another 250 miles (400 kilometers). This water could be as warm as 68 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius).
Because Titan is tidally locked, the same side of the moon faces Saturn all the time, just like our own moon and Earth. Saturn’s gravitational pull is so intense that it deforms the moon’s surface, creating bulges as high as 30 feet (10 meters) when the two bodies are closest.
Through improved data processing, Petricca and his team managed to measure the timing between the peak gravitational tug and the rising of Titan’s surface. If the moon held a wet ocean, the effect would be immediate, Petricca said, but a 15-hour gap was detected, indicating an interior of slushy ice with pockets of liquid water. Computer modeling of Titan’s orientation in space supported their theory.
Sapienza University of Rome’s Luciano Iess, whose previous studies using Cassini data indicated a hidden ocean at Titan, is not convinced by the latest findings.
While “certainly intriguing and will stimulate renewed discussion … at present, the available evidence looks certainly not sufficient to exclude Titan from the family of ocean worlds,” Iess said in an email.
NASA’s planned Dragonfly mission — featuring a helicopter-type craft due to launch to Titan later this decade — is expected to provide more clarity on the moon’s innards. Journaux is part of that team.
Saturn leads the solar system’s moon inventory with 274. Jupiter’s moon Ganymede is just a little larger than Titan, with a possible underground ocean. Other suspected water worlds include Saturn’s Enceladus and Jupiter’s Europa, both of which are believed to have geysers of water erupting from their frozen crusts.
Launched in 1997, Cassini reached Saturn in 2004, orbiting the ringed planet and flying past its moons until deliberately plunging through Saturn’s atmosphere in 2017.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
The Trump administration intends to dismantle one of the world’s leading climate research institutions over what it said on Tuesday were concerns about “climate alarmism,” despite opposition to the plan.
The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), established in 1960 as a federally funded research and education hub in Boulder, Colorado, will be broken up, White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought said on social media.
Any of its operations deemed “vital,” such as weather research, will be moved “to another entity or location,” he said.
“This facility is one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country,” Vought said.
The National Science Foundation will be breaking up the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado. This facility is one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country. A comprehensive review is underway & any vital activities such as weather…
The plan was first reported by USA Today. It said moves to dismantle NCAR will begin immediately.
Kevin Trenberth, a distinguished NCAR scholar, told The Washington Post breaking up the laboratory would result in a major loss of scientific research.
Trenberth, an honorary academic in physics at New Zealand’s University of Auckland, said the center was crucial to the search for advanced climate science discoveries.
Antonio Busalacchi, the president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, which oversees NCAR, told the Post that, “Any plans to dismantle NSF NCAR would set back our nation’s ability to predict, prepare for, and respond to severe weather and other natural disasters.”
Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said in a statement on Tuesday that he hadn’t been briefed on the plans by White House officials.
However, he said part of the NCAR’s work provides data on severe weather events “that help our country save lives and property, and prevent devastation for families.”
“If true, public safety is at risk and science is being attacked,” Polis said. “If these cuts move forward we will lose our competitive advantage against foreign powers and adversaries in the pursuit of scientific discovery.”
President Trump has sought in his second term in office to roll back clean energy and climate initiatives established under his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden.
Mr. Trump has referred to climate change as a “con job” and, in a speech to the United Nations in September, called it the “biggest hoax ever perpetrated” against the world.
HARRISBURG, Pa. — Fernando Moreno has been on dialysis for about two years, enduring an “unbearable” wait for a new kidney to save his life. His limited world of social contacts has meant that his hopes have hinged on inching up the national waiting list for a transplant.
That was until earlier this year, when the Philadelphia hospital where he receives treatment connected him with a promising pilot project that has paired him with “angel advocates” — Good Samaritan strangers scattered around the country who leverage their own social media contacts to share his story.
So far, the Great Social Experiment, as it was named by its founder, Los Angeles filmmaker David Krissman, hasn’t found the Vineland, New Jersey, truck driver a living kidney donor. But there are encouraging early signs the angel advocate approach is working, and there’s no question it has given Moreno new optimism.
“This process is great,” said Moreno, 50, whose own father died of kidney failure at 65. “I’m just hoping there will be somebody out there that’s willing to take a chance.”
Moreno is part of a pilot program with 15 patients that began in May at three Pennsylvania hospitals. It’s testing whether motivated, volunteer strangers can help improve the chances of finding a life-saving match for a new kidney — particularly for people with limited social networks.
“We know how this has always been done, and we’re trying to put that on steroids and really get them the help that they need,” Krissman said. “Most patients are too sick to do this on their own — many don’t have the skills to do it on their own.”
The Gift of Life Donor Program, which serves as the organ procurement network for eastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and Delaware, is supporting the pilot program with a grant of more than $100,000 from its foundation.
So far, two of the five patients in the program through Temple University Hospital have found kidney donors, and one is preparing for surgery, according to Ryan Ihlenfeldt, the hospital’s director of clinical transplant services. One of the five patients at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in Harrisburg has also undergone a transplant.
The approach Krissman has developed is something new, said Richard Hasz Jr., Gift of Life’s chief executive, and may help identify the types of messages that attract and motivate potential live kidney donors.
“This is the first of its kind that I’m aware of,” Hasz said. “That’s why, I think, the foundation was so interested in doing it — studying it and hopefully publishing it — so we can create that blueprint, if you will, for the future.”
Gift of Life agreed to fund a broader test and helped Krissman identify five patients each at Temple, UPMC-Harrisburg and Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia.
Hasz said the pilot program’s approach combines social media outreach with Krissman’s storytelling talents and aggressive efforts to mobilize the patients’ own connections.
“We know that patients who are waiting don’t always have the energy or the resources to do this themselves,” Hasz said.
There have been other ways for patients to set up “ microsites ” where they can tell their stories and seek a donor match. But the pilot program currently underway in Pennsylvania aims to connect patients with a wide universe of potential donors and produce videos and other ways to spread their message.
Krissman’s bout with an illness about two decades ago inspired him to tackle the sticky challenge of increasing live kidney donations. He was debilitated for more than a year before medication helped him recover, explaining, “It gave me my life back. And I never forgot what it’s like to be chronically sick.”
After producing a podcast on kidney transplantation, Krissman recruited four patients through Facebook who were waiting for kidneys. He was able to help two of them. A second effort, a pilot program with three patients in North Carolina that ended last year, helped match all three with living donors.
Becca Brown, director of transplant services at UPMC-Harrisburg, thinks it might be a game changer.
“There’s potential for this to really snowball,” Brown said. “I’m anxious to see what happens and if we can roll it out to other patients.”
Some 90,000 people in the United States are on a list for a kidney transplant, and most of the roughly 28,000 kidneys that were transplanted last year came from deceased donors. Living kidney donations are hard to come by — about 6,400 were transplanted last year. Thousands die each year waiting for an organ transplant in the United States.
Living kidney donations can be a better match, reducing the risk of organ rejection. They allow for surgery to be planned for a time that is optimal for the donor, the recipient and the transplant team. And, the foundation says, living donor kidneys, on average, last longer than kidneys from deceased donors.
The National Kidney Foundation says living donors must be at least 18 years old, although some transplant centers set the minimum age at 21. Potential donors get screened for health problems and can be ruled out if they have uncontrolled high blood pressure, diabetes or cancer, or if they are smokers.
Many living donors make “directed donations” to specify who will get their kidney. Nondirected donations are made anonymously to a patient.
Francis Beaumier, a 38-year-old information technology worker from Green Bay, Wisconsin, came into contact with the angel advocate program after being a double living donor — a kidney and part of his liver.
He sees the program as “a great little way for everyone to make a small difference.”
Another angel advocate, Holly Armstrong, was also a living donor. She hopes her efforts will plant a seed.
“Some people might just keep scrolling,” said Armstrong, who lives in Lake Wiley, South Carolina. “But there might be someone like me, where they stop scrolling and say, ‘This boy needs a kidney.’”
A study released last year found that people who volunteer to donate a kidney are at a lower risk of death from the operation than doctors had previously thought. Tracking 30 years of living kidney donations, researchers found fewer than 1 in every 10,000 donors died within three months of the surgery. Newer and safer surgical techniques were credited for dropping the risk from 3 deaths per 10,000 living donors.
Temple serves a large cohort of poorer patients who can have difficulty understanding health issues and who suffer from uncontrolled hypertension and diabetes, Ihlenfeldt, who works there, said.
“What David’s trying to do is coalesce a network of support around these patients who are sharing the story for them,” Ihlenfeldt said.
At a kickoff event in a Harrisburg meeting room for kidney patient Ahmad Collins, a couple dozen friends and family listened with rapt attention as Krissman went over the game plan, answering questions and describing the transplant process.
Collins, a 50-year-old city government worker and former Penn State linebacker, has needed 10 hours a night of dialysis since a medical procedure left him with damaged kidneys late last year.
His mind was on the strangers who might decide to pitch in.
“They can be a superhero, so to speak,” Collins said. “They can have the opportunity to save somebody’s life, and not too many times in life do you have that opportunity.”
TEXAS — Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’ space exploration company, will launch New Shepard mission 37, or NS-37, on Thursday, Dec. 18.
The mission is set to launch at 10 a.m. CDT and will send six new astronauts into space.
Blue Origin has also released the mission patch, which includes a nod to each of the travelers.
According to the Blue Origin website, a few of the symbols embedded include:
The DNA symbolizes the importance and impact of science to Neal Milch.
The hippo represents Michaela (Michi) Benthaus’ favorite animal. Her plush hippo, which comforted her in the hospital after an accident, will join her in space. The tennis ball symbolizes another of Michi’s competitive passions.
A baobab tree, iconic to South Africa, represents Adonis Pouroulis’ roots.
A spiral galaxy symbolizes Joey Hyde’s astrophysics research.
A dog-bone shape, stars in the crew capsule windows represent the number 201 and “K” are in memoriam of Jason Stansell’s brother.
The shards represent Blue Origin’s commitment to breaking down the barriers to accessing space, including cost, nationality and ability.
Mission NS-37 will mark the first manned mission since Oct 8.
The New Shepard spacecraft, named for pioneering Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard who was the first American in space, is a fully reusable, suborbital rocket system that takes passengers on an 11-minute journey to the Kármán line, the internationally recognized boundary of space.
BAYAHIBE, Dominican Republic — Oxygen tank strapped to his back, Michael del Rosario moves his fins delicately as he glides along an underwater nursery just off the Dominican Republic coast, proudly showing off the “coral babies” growing on metal structures that look like large spiders. The conservationist enthusiastically points a finger to trace around the largest corals, just starting to reveal their vibrant colors.
Del Rosario helped plant these tiny animals in the nursery after they were conceived in an assisted reproduction laboratory run by the marine conservation organization Fundemar. In a process something like in vitro fertilization, coral egg and sperm are joined to form a new individual.
It’s a technique that’s gaining momentum in the Caribbean to counter the drastic loss of corals due to climate change, which is killing them by heating up oceans and making it more difficult for those that survive to reproduce naturally.
“We live on an island. We depend entirely on coral reefs, and seeing them all disappear is really depressing,” del Rosario said once back on the surface, his words flowing like bubbles underwater. “But seeing our coral babies growing, alive, in the sea gives us hope, which is what we were losing.”
The state of corals around the Dominican Republic, as in the rest of the world, is not encouraging. Fundemar’s latest monitoring last year found that 70% of the Dominican Republic’s reefs have less than 5% coral coverage. Healthy colonies are so far apart that the probability of one coral’s eggs meeting another’s sperm during the spawning season is decreasing.
“That’s why assisted reproduction programs are so important now, because what used to be normal in coral reefs is probably no longer possible for many species,” biologist Andreina Valdez, operations manager at Fundemar, said at the organization’s new marine research center. “So that’s where we come in to help a little bit.”
Though many people may think corals are plants, they are animals. They spawn once a year, a few days after the full moon and at dusk, when they release millions of eggs and sperm in a spectacle that turns the sea around them into a kind of Milky Way. Fundemar monitors spawning periods, collects eggs and sperm, performs assisted fertilization in the laboratory, and cares for the larvae until they are strong enough to be taken to the reef.
In the laboratory, Ariel Álvarez examines one of the star-shaped pieces on which the corals are growing through a microscope. They’re so tiny they can hardly be seen with the naked eye. Álvarez switches off the lights, turns on an ultraviolet light, and the coral’s rounded, fractal shapes appear through a camera on the microscope projected onto a screen.
One research center room holds dozens of fish tanks, each with hundreds of tiny corals awaiting return to the reef. Del Rosario said the lab produces more than 2.5 million coral embryos per year. Only 1% will survive in the ocean, yet that figure is better than the rate with natural fertilization on these degraded reefs now, he said.
In the past, Fundemar and other conservation organizations focused on asexual reproduction. That meant cutting a small piece of healthy coral and transplanting it to another location so that a new one would grow. The method can produce corals faster than assisted fertilization.
The problem, Andreina Valdez said, is that it clones the same individual, meaning all those coral share the same disease vulnerabilities. In contrast, assisted sexual reproduction creates genetically different individuals, reducing the chance that a single illness could strike them all down.
Australia pioneered assisted coral fertilization. It’s expanding in the Caribbean, with leading projects at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the Carmabi Foundation in Curaçao, and it’s being adopted in Puerto Rico, Cuba and Jamaica, Valdez said.
“You can’t conserve something if you don’t have it. So (these programs) are helping to expand the population that’s out there,” said Mark Eakin, corresponding secretary for the International Coral Reef Society and retired chief of the Coral Reef Watch program of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
But the world must still tackle “the 800-pound gorilla of climate change,” Eakin said, or a lot of the restoration work “is just going to be wiped out.”
Burning fossil fuels such as oil, gas, and coal produces greenhouse gases that trap heat in the atmosphere, driving up temperatures both on Earth’s surface and in its seas. Oceans are warming at twice the rate of 20 years ago, according to UNESCO’s most recent State of the Ocean Report last year.
And that’s devastating for corals. Rising heat causes them to feel sick and expel the algae that live in their tissue and provide them both their striking colors and their food. The process is known as bleaching because it exposes the coral’s white skeleton. The corals may survive, but they are weakened and vulnerable to disease and death if temperatures don’t drop.
Half the world’s reefs have been lost since 1950, according to research by the University of British Columbia published in the journal One Earth.
For countries such as the Dominican Republic, in the so-called “hurricane corridor,” preserving reefs is particularly important. Coral skeletons help absorb wave energy, creating a natural barrier against stronger waves.
“What do we sell in the Dominican Republic? Beaches,” del Rosario said. “If we don’t have corals, we lose coastal protection, we lose the sand on our beaches, and we lose tourism.”
Corals also are home to more than 25% of marine life, making them crucial for the millions of people around the world who make a living from fishing.
Alido Luis Báez knows this well.
It’s not yet dawn in Bayahibe when he climbs into a boat to fish with his father, who at 65 still goes to sea every week. The engine roars as they travel mile after mile until the coastline fades into the horizon. To catch tuna, dorado, or marlin, Luis Báez sails up to 50 miles offshore.
“We didn’t have to go so far before,” he said. “But because of overfishing, habitat loss, and climate change, now you have to go a little further every day.”
Things were very different when his father, also named Alido Luis, started fishing in the 1970s. Back then, they went out in a sailboat, and the coral reefs were so healthy they found plenty of fish close to the coast.
“I used to be a diver, and I caught a lot of lobster and queen conch,” he said in a voice weakened by the passage of time. “In a short time, I would catch 50 or 60 pounds of fish. But now, to catch two or three fish, they spend the whole day out there.”
Del Rosario said there’s still time to halt the decline of the reefs.
“More needs to be done, of course … but we are investing a lot of effort and time to preserve what we love so much,” he said. “And we trust and believe that many people around the world are doing the same.”
The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER — For anyone hoping to see a morning launch, your Christmas wish has come true. SpaceX is planning to launch another batch of Starlink satellites Wednesday morning.
What You Need To Know
Starlink 6-99 mission will take off from Launch Complex 39A
SpaceX stated it is going to send up its Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center for the Starlink 6-99 mission.
The launch window opens at 7:19 a.m. ET and it is set to close at 11:19 a.m. ET. This means the California-based company has during that time frame to send up its Falcon 9 rocket.
The 45th Weather Squadron has given a 95% chance of good liftoff conditions.
The only concern against the launch is the cumulus cloud rule.
The Falcon 9’s first-stage booster for this mission, called B1094, has two crewed launches in its young career.
After the stage separation, the first-stage rocket is expected to land on the droneship Just Read the Instructions, which will be in the Atlantic Ocean..
About the mission
SpaceX owns the Starlink company, which will see its 29 satellites go to low-Earth orbit.
Once deployed and in their orbit with the thousands of other Starlinks, they will provide internet service to many parts of Earth.
Dr. Jonathan McDowell, of Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, has been documenting Starlink satellites.
Have you ever watched as a child stares into an aquarium with awe? Whether it’s the song “Baby Beluga” or the movie Finding Nemo, kids love all things ocean! So you know they’ll be eager to dive into this collection of ocean activities and crafts. Whether it is a science experiment to learn how acid affects seashells, an art lesson where students create their own underwater scene, or a writing prompt about the ocean, students will learn all about our watery planet. Come on in … the water’s fine!
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Ocean Experiments and Learning Activities
FEATURED PICK
1. Learn about sea turtles and marine ecosystems
Make a splash with Wild Classroom’s free Sea Turtles and Oceans Toolkit. This ready-to-use resource helps students learn about ocean ecosystems by providing an educator’s guide, presentation, and fun, cross-curricular activities. You will also get bonus resources like quizzes and a video playlist, offering diverse ways to enrich your lessons. It is a great way to build critical thinking skills and inspire a love for ocean conservation.
2. Make an ocean in a bottle
Turn an old water bottle into a mini-aquarium. Fill it about a third of the way with sand. Then drop in some small shells and plastic fish and other sea creatures. Finally, top the bottle off with water (it’s up to you whether you want to dye it light blue first) and screw on the lid. (Avoid spills by adding a few drops of glue to the threads of the cap first.) Now kids can explore the ocean anywhere they go!
All you need for this science experiment is a shallow dish, hot and cold water, and some food coloring. Fill the dish about halfway with cold water that’s tinted light blue. Add some ice and stir so your water becomes very cold. Bring a few cups of water to a boil, adding food coloring to make it very bright red. Slowly (and carefully!) pour some hot water into one corner of the dish. Watch as the warm and cold water swirls and mixes, simulating the ocean currents that are formed the same way!
5. Assemble ocean zone bottles
Learn the zones of the ocean with this simple ocean activity. Round up four empty bottles and label them, one for each zone: sunlight, twilight, midnight, and abyssal. Use food coloring to dye the water in each deeper shades of blue to represent the amount of sunlight that reaches each zone. Finally, drop in a marine animal toy or fish that’s appropriate for each zone.
6. Watch an ocean documentary
Every streaming service is loaded with nature documentaries. Disney+ has an especially robust collection that’s perfect for kids. On Amazon, try Wildest Places or Ocean Mysteries. Netflix’s Our Planet series has episodes on coastal seas and high seas. So many options!
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7. Assign an ocean-themed writing prompt
Adrienne Hathaway for We Are Teachers
Use ocean-themed prompts for daily writing, journal entries, essay topics, bell ringers, or exit tickets. Some possible prompts:
If you were a marine animal, which zone of the ocean would you prefer to live in?
What would it be like to live in a coral reef?
Tell the story of a female sea turtle, from the time she hatches on the beach until she returns to that same beach years later to lay eggs of her own.
Write about a journey in a submarine to explore the deepest parts of the ocean.
Describe a day in the life of a marine biologist. What are they studying, and how do they go about it?
8. Turn paint sample strips into ocean layers
You’ll need paint sample strips in at least four deepening shades of blue; you can also add a beige color for the sandy bottom if you like. (Contact your local paint store for donations if you need more than just a few strips.) Label each paint color with one of the four zones, using deeper colors to represent deeper zones. Kids can write in descriptions of the zones, or add drawings and stickers of marine animals to each.
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9. See ocean waves in action
Adrienne Hathaway for We Are Teachers
Oil and water don’t mix, which makes them the perfect way to observe wave action up close. You’ll need a glass jar with a tight-fitting lid, plus water, oil, and blue food coloring. Fill the jar with water about halfway, add a few drops of food coloring, and mix. Fill the container the rest of the way with oil, getting as close to the top of the jar as possible, and put the lid on tightly. Turn the jar on its side and tilt it back and forth. Watch as the waves ripple and react to one another.
10. Host a marine animal fair
Let kids choose their favorite marine animal, then spend time teaching them how to research using trusted sources (see below for a list of kid-friendly ocean resources). Let them choose how they’ll present their animal—posters, dioramas, slideshows, presentations, etc. Then, set up your classroom as a “marine animal fair” and invite other classes and parents to come see what they’ve learned!
11. Draw a life-size whale
Did you know that blue whales are the largest creatures ever to have lived on Earth? They’re even bigger than dinosaurs! Head to the playground with some sidewalk chalk and a tape measure to measure out and draw a life-size blue whale. Kids will be astonished at the results. Find blue whale info from National Geographic here.
12. Explore saltwater density
Adrienne Hathaway for We Are Teachers
Use this easy ocean experiment to show that items float more easily in salt water than fresh. Fill two clear glasses with water about three-quarters of the way. Add 2 tbsp. of salt to one cup, 2 tbsp. of sugar to another, and mix thoroughly. Ask kids to predict what will happen when you drop grapes into each glass, then drop them in to see if they’re right. The grapes should float in the salt water. (Add more salt if they don’t.)
13. Sculpt an ocean floor relief map
Start by learning about Marie Tharp and her groundbreaking work mapping the ocean floor. (She proved plate tectonics with her meticulous work!) Then, use play dough, salt dough, or another medium to represent the depths of one or more of the world’s oceans. It’s an amazing world down there!
14. Put together an ocean animal notebook
Adrienne Hathaway for We Are Teachers
Turn a blank notebook into an ocean reference manual. Draw or paste a picture of an animal on each page, then write in interesting facts about them. This is an ocean activity that will appeal to kids of any age, since you can vary the level of details you include.
15. Discover how ocean acidification affects seashells
One consequence of climate change is the increasing acidification of the world’s oceans. Learn why this matters so much with a simple experiment using seashells and vinegar. Add a shell to a jar, then cover it completely with vinegar. Observe what happens—before long, you’ll see carbon dioxide bubbles form as the vinegar begins to dissolve the calcium in the shell. Leave it long enough and the shell will become fragile and eventually dissolve completely.
16. Dive into an ocean-themed sensory bin
Adrienne Hathaway for We Are Teachers
Make a bigger version of an ocean in a bottle so kids can splash around a bit. Round up shells, toy sea animals, and maybe even a boat or two, then drop them into a bin of water. Every kid will enjoy splashing around while they learn!
17. Simulate and clean up an oil spill
Oil spills at sea are major disasters, affecting life both in the water and on land. Learn about some of the more famous oil spoils in history, then try this experiment. Fill a shallow baking dish about halfway with water. Drop in some small toy fish and sea creatures. Then, add food coloring to some oil and “spill” it into the water. Now, experiment with different methods to clean up the oil. Is it even possible to fully restore the water to its pristine condition?
Ocean Crafts and Art Projects for Kids
18. Download free ocean coloring pages
Adrienne Hathaway for We Are Teachers
Our octopus, whale, and jellyfish coloring pages are perfect for when you need a quick and easy activity for kids. Keep them on hand for early finishers or use them as bell-ringer activities, or display a collection of them for a no-stress bulletin board.
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19. Create an ocean in an egg carton
Give each child an egg carton to paint blue like the ocean. After they’re dry, they can decorate the inside of the lid to look like a reef or sandy floor. Then, they can keep shells, rocks, or fish and marine animal toys in each compartment.
20. Upcycle an ocean zones container
For this ocean craft, you’ll need a tube-shaped container like an empty sanitizing-wipes tub or even a Pringles can. You’ll also need four shades of blue tissue or crepe paper: light, medium, dark, and midnight blue. Spread some glue on the container and wrap the crepe paper around it in an ombre effect, with the lightest blue at the top. Label each layer and add stickers representing the animals that live in each. Now you’ve got an upcycled storage container for your shells or ocean-themed toys.
21. Build LEGO sea creatures
Adrienne Hathaway for We Are Teachers
Pull out the tub of LEGO and set kids free to create. The whole class can work together to set up an ocean-themed diorama, using LEGO bricks to make coral, seaweed, fish, whales, jellyfish, and more.
22. Paint a coral reef with sponges
Here’s another surprisingly easy ocean craft for kids. Cut disposable sponges into coral shapes, then stamp an underwater scene onto blue paper. Use markers, paint, or stickers to add fish and other marine animals to complete the picture.
23. Illustrate inspirational ocean quotes
Have kids choose a quote they love from our big collection of ocean quotes, then turn that quote into a poster. These make perfect hallway displays that will educate and inspire other students!
Starfish, more properly known as “sea stars,” come in a wide variety of sizes and designs, but they all live in salt water. That makes salt dough the perfect medium for this ocean craft. To make it, just mix 2 cups of flour, 1 cup of salt, and 1 cup of water. Mix and knead until the dough is smooth, then store in an airtight container until you’re ready to use it.
25. Hang paper plate jellyfish
Adrienne Hathaway for We Are Teachers
Cut paper plates in half to create the bell-shaped body of a jellyfish, and let kids paint or color them any way they life. Then, show them how to use a hole punch to create a row of holes along the bottom flat part of the bell. Tie ribbon or yarn to each hole to create dangling tentacles, then hang your ocean crafts.
26. Make a cereal box aquarium diorama
The hardest part of this ocean craft is trimming one large side of the box to form a frame. After that, kids can use construction paper, paint, shells, rocks, and other art supplies to create their own undersea scene. They’ll love the creative aspect of this project.
27. Mix up ocean-themed slime
Use one of our foolproof recipes to show kids how to make their own slime. Then, provide mix-ins like glitter, sequins, and small fish or ocean animals to add to the fun. You know they’re going to love this ocean craft!
This easy ocean craft is a great way to use up old magazines. Kids choose a specific theme, like coral reefs, deep-water creatures, beaches, marine mammals, ocean pollution, and so on. Then, they cut out and paste pictures and words that match their theme. Making collages is a simple art activity that every kid loves.
Resources for Learning About the Ocean
29. Ocean Books for Kids
Adrienne Hathaway for We Are Teachers
Whether you’re looking for picture books or chapter books, fiction or nonfiction, our list of terrific ocean books has got you covered!
Our big list of reliably sourced facts will fascinate and amaze your students! You can even download a free set of Google Slides to share in the classroom.
Looking for online ocean activities? Try the Marine Life Encyclopedia. Kids will get in-depth information about all their favorite sea creatures, from sharks to otters and beyond.
Here’s another website full of online ocean activities. It simulates the thrill of joining actual underwater explorations, from coral reefs to deep-sea trenches.
Just as you’d expect from the Smithsonian, this website is full of information, photos, and more ocean activities. You’ll even find free lesson plans for teachers—score!
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has a whole page full of ocean activities, articles, and videos just for kids! There’s a lot here to explore, including plenty of hands-on experiments and exploration ideas.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A stray comet from another star swings past Earth this week in one last hurrah before racing back toward interstellar space.
Discovered over the summer, the comet known as 3I/Atlas will pass within 167 million miles (269 million kilometers) of our planet on Friday, the closest it gets on its grand tour of the solar system.
NASA continues to aim its space telescopes at the visiting ice ball, estimated to be between 1,444 feet (440 meters) and 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometers) in size. But it’s fading as it exits, so now’s the time for backyard astronomers to catch it in the night sky with their telescopes.
The comet will come much closer to Jupiter in March, zipping within 33 million miles (53 million kilometers). It will be the mid-2030s before it reaches interstellar space, never to return, said Paul Chodas, director of NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies.
It’s the third known interstellar object to cut through our solar system. Interstellar comets like 3I/Atlas originate in star systems elsewhere in the Milky Way, while home-grown comets like Halley’s hail from the icy fringes of our solar system.
A telescope in Hawaii discovered the first confirmed interstellar visitor in 2017. Two years later, an interstellar comet was spotted by a Crimean amateur astronomer. NASA’s sky-surveying Atlas telescope in Chile spotted comet 3I/Atlas in July while prowling for potentially dangerous asteroids.
Scientists believe the latest interloping comet, also harmless, may have originated in a star system much older than ours, making it a tantalizing target.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
CAPE CANAVERAL SPACE FORCE STATION — United Launch Alliance is getting ready to launch 30 Amazon Leo internet satellites early Tuesday morning.
What You Need To Know
The Atlas V 551 rocket’s first-stage booster does not land on a droneship or landing zone, like SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket
Formerly known as Kuiper satellites, Amazon made the name change last month. In fact, this will be the first launch under the new name for the satellites.
ULA’s Atlas V 551 rocket will leave Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, stated the Colorado-based company.
The very short launch window will open at 3:28 a.m. ET and close at 3:57 a.m. ET.
The LA-04 mission was originally set to launch on Monday morning, but it was pushed back due to poor weather conditions.
At the moment, the 45th Weather Squadron is giving a 95% chance of good liftoff weather for the Tuesday morning mission, with the only concern being the cumulus cloud rule.
The Atlas V 551 rocket’s first-stage booster does not land on a droneship or landing zone, which is what the better known SpaceX rocket — the Falcon 9 — does. Instead, it will separate and fall into the Atlantic Ocean, where it will get picked up.
About the mission
The Atlas V rocket sent up 27 of Amazon’s Leo satellites.
Like the SpaceX-company Starlink and its satellites that orbit Earth, the Leo satellites will have their own low-Earth orbital satellite network.
The Leo satellites will provide internet service to customers around the world.
Before this launch, there were 153 Kuiper satellites in orbit, with Amazon planning more than 3,200, once all is said and done.
Managing diabetes already brings stress from medications and long-term health risks. Regular glucose checks only add to the weight. Most people test with finger pricks or wear a patch that needs a sensor under the skin. If you dislike needles, this part can feel like the hardest task of the day.
Researchers at MIT are working on a new option. They developed a device that shines near-infrared light on your skin and reads your blood sugar without breaking the surface. It works through Raman spectroscopy, a method that looks at how light scatters when it hits molecules in your tissue.
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MIT’s light-based scanner reads blood sugar through the skin without a single prick.(iStock)
The current setup is about the size of a shoebox. You rest your arm on top for a 30-second scan. A small beam shines through a glass window onto your skin. The light returns with tiny shifts in wavelength that reveal what molecules are present.
Earlier Raman systems pulled in about 1,000 spectral bands with plenty of noise. The MIT team discovered that they only need three bands to calculate glucose levels. With fewer signals to process, the device becomes smaller, faster and more affordable. This boost also improves speed since the system no longer sorts through redundant data.
In a four-hour study, a volunteer drank two glucose drinks while researchers took readings every five minutes. The new scanner matched the accuracy of two commercial glucometers the participant wore. That result surprised the team since the device is still in early development.
Progress toward a wearable
After perfecting the shoebox version, MIT engineers built a prototype the size of a cellphone. That unit is now in clinical testing with healthy and prediabetic volunteers. A larger trial with people who have diabetes is expected next year.
The long-term goal is even more exciting. Researchers believe they can shrink the hardware to a watch size. They also want to confirm that the system reads accurately across many skin tones. If these steps succeed, a wrist-based glucose monitor could be possible.
A quick 30-second scan can match the accuracy of today’s commercial glucose monitors.(iStock)
How this compares to other needle-free attempts
This light-based method joins other ideas that try to move past needles. A recent chest strap used ECG signals to predict glucose levels. It looked promising, but it still needs time before it reaches consumers. Interest in noninvasive monitoring keeps growing since so many people want relief from the pain of repeated skin punctures or adhesive patches.
If you or someone you love manages diabetes, fewer needle sticks could change your routine. A quick scan may replace the stress of drawing blood or inserting a sensor. The accuracy seen in early testing shows that noninvasive tools are not a distant dream. They could help you catch swings in your levels faster and bring more comfort to a daily task that often feels overwhelming.
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Kurt’s key takeaways
A handheld or watch-sized glucose scanner would mark a major shift in diabetes care. MIT’s work brings that future closer with a design that reads your chemistry through light. The next few clinical trials will show how well it performs in real conditions.
Researchers are already testing a smaller wearable design that could shrink to watch size.(iStock)
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Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson is an award-winning tech journalist who has a deep love of technology, gear and gadgets that make life better with his contributions for Fox News & FOX Business beginning mornings on “FOX & Friends.” Got a tech question? Get Kurt’s free CyberGuy Newsletter, share your voice, a story idea or comment at CyberGuy.com.
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Loons are on the mend in Maine, filling more of the state’s lakes and ponds with their haunting calls, although conservations say the birds aren’t out of the woods yet.
Maine is home to a few thousand of the distinctive black-and-white waterbirds — the East Coast’s largest loon population — and conservationists said efforts to protect them from threats helped grow the population. An annual count of common loons found more adults and chicks this year than last, Maine Audubon said this week.
The group said it estimated a population for the southern half of Maine of 3,174 adult loons and 568 chicks. Audubon bases its count on the southern portion of Maine because there are enough bird counters to get a reliable number. The count is more than twice the number when they started counting in 1983, and the count of adult adult loons has increased 13% from 10 years ago.
“We’re cautiously optimistic after seeing two years of growing chick numbers,” said Maine Audubon wildlife ecologist Tracy Hart. “But it will take several more years before we know if that is a real upward trend, or just two really good years.”
Maine lawmakers have attempted to grow the population of the loons with bans on lead fishing tackle that the birds sometimes accidentally swallow. Laws that limit boat speeds have also helped because they prevent boat wakes from washing out nests, conservation groups say.
It’s still too early to know if Maine’s loons are on a sustainable path to recovery, and the success of the state’s breeding loons is critical to the population at large, Hart said. Maine has thousands more loons than the other New England states, with the other five states combining for about 1,000 adults. The state is home to one of the largest populations of loons in the U.S., which has about 27,000 breeding adults in total.
Minnesota has the most loons in the lower 48 states, with a fairly stable population of about 12,000 adults, but they are in decline in some parts of their range.
While loons are not listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, they are considered threatened by some states, including New Hampshire and Michigan. The U.S. Forest Service also considers the common loon a sensitive species.
The birds migrate to the ocean in late fall and need a long runway to take off, meaning winter can be a treacherous time for the birds because they get trapped by ice in the lakes and ponds where they breed, said Barb Haney, executive director of Avian Haven, a wildlife rehabilitation center in Freedom, Maine.
“We’re getting a lot of calls about loons that are iced in,” Haney said, adding that the center was tending to one such patient this week.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
NATIONWIDE — A company that was contracted to give a fleet of electric vehicle vans so NASA could use them for its Artemis astronauts has filed for bankruptcy.
What You Need To Know
The three EV vans were supposed to transport Artemis astronauts to the launch pad before going to the moon
Canoo Technologies Inc. filed for bankruptcy earlier this year
NASA tells Spectrum News the company was “no longer able to meet our mission” needs
The space agency will use another transport vehicle, which was built by Boeing and Airstream
In 2022, Canoo Technologies Inc. was contracted to supply three EV vans, listed as “Artemis Crew Transportation Vehicles.”
These fully electric vans were supposed to be environmentally friendly and would not produce emissions as they would take Artemis astronauts to the Space Launch Systems rocket to the moon.
However, the California-based company filed for bankruptcy at the start of 2025.
In 2023, Canoo Technologies delivered three EVs to NASA, which the U.S. space agency called Artemis astronauts’ “… final Earth-bound leg of their journey to the Moon before boarding their rocket and spacecraft,” in a press release.
NASA has stated that it will be going with Boeing’s Astrovan instead.
“As of October, NASA is leasing Boeing’s Astrovan to transport crew to the launch pad for the agency’s associated training exercises and Artemis II launch. This change in providers was necessary as Canoo Technologies was no longer able to meet our mission requirements. NASA will evaluate future transportation options,” Artemis Public Affairs specialist Tiffany Fairley stated to Spectrum News in an email.
The Airstream-Boeing Astrovan is seen taking the Starliner crew to the launch pad during the second launch attempt in 2024. (Spectrum News file photo/Anthony Leone)
Spectrum News reached out to Boeing, Airstream and Canoo for comment, with Boeing being the only one who replied, but stated any questions about the Artemis mission should go to NASA.
LONDON — Scientists in Britain say ancient humans may have learned to make fire far earlier than previously believed, after uncovering evidence that deliberate fire-setting took place in what is now eastern England around 400,000 years ago.
The findings, described in the journal Nature, push back the earliest known date for controlled fire-making by roughly 350,000 years. Until now, the oldest confirmed evidence had come from Neanderthal sites in what is now northern France dating to about 50,000 years ago.
The discovery was made at Barnham, a Paleolithic site in Suffolk that has been excavated for decades. A team led by the British Museum identified a patch of baked clay, flint hand axes fractured by intense heat and two fragments of iron pyrite, a mineral that produces sparks when struck against flint.
Researchers spent four years analyzing to rule out natural wildfires. Geochemical tests showed temperatures had exceeded 700 degrees Celsius (1,292 Fahrenheit), with evidence of repeated burning in the same location.
That pattern, they say, is consistent with a constructed hearth rather than a lightning strike.
Rob Davis, a Paleolithic archaeologist at the British Museum, said the combination of high temperatures, controlled burning and pyrite fragments shows “how they were actually making the fire and the fact they were making it.”
Iron pyrite does not occur naturally at Barnham. Its presence suggests the people who lived there deliberately collected it because they understood its properties and could use it to ignite tinder.
Deliberate fire-making is rarely preserved in the archaeological record. Ash is easily dispersed, charcoal decays and heat-altered sediments can be eroded.
At Barnham, however, the burned deposits were sealed within ancient pond sediments, allowing scientists to reconstruct how early people used the site.
Researchers say the implications for human evolution are substantial.
Fire allowed early populations to survive colder environments, deter predators and cook food. Cooking breaks down toxins in roots and tubers and kills pathogens in meat, improving digestion and releasing more energy to support larger brains.
Chris Stringer, a human evolution specialist at the Natural History Museum, said fossils from Britain and Spain suggest the inhabitants of Barnham were early Neanderthals whose cranial features and DNA point to growing cognitive and technological sophistication.
Fire also enabled new forms of social life. Evening gatherings around a hearth would have provided time for planning, storytelling and strengthening group relationships, which are behaviors often associated with the development of language and more organized societies.
Archaeologists say the Barnham site fits a wider pattern across Britain and continental Europe between 500,000 and 400,000 years ago, when brain size in early humans began to approach modern levels and when evidence for increasingly complex behavior becomes more visible.
Nick Ashton, curator of Paleolithic collections at the British Museum, described it as “the most exciting discovery of my long 40-year career.”
For archaeologists, the find helps address a long-standing question: When humans stopped relying on lightning strikes and wildfires and instead learned to create flame wherever and whenever they needed it.
TOKYO — Japan on Friday issued a tsunami advisory after a 6.7 magnitude earthquake shook the country’s northeast, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.
The quake occurred off the east coast of Aomori prefecture, in the north of Honshu, the main Japanese island, at a depth of 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) at 11:44 a.m. local time, JMA said.
The Pacific coast of Hokkaido, Aomori, Iwate and Miyagi prefectures could see a tsunami of up to 1 meter (3.2 feet), the agency added.
Damage and injuries weren’t immediately clear.
An advisory is a lower level of caution than a warning.
Friday’s quake followed a 7.5 magnitude earthquake earlier this week in the north that caused injuries, light damage and a tsunami in Pacific coastal communities.
At least 34 people were injured in that quake on Monday off the coast of Aomori, the northernmost prefecture of Japan’s main Honshu island. A tsunami more than 2 feet (0.6 meters) above tide levels was measured in Kuji port in Iwate prefecture before all tsunami advisories were lifted. Power was knocked out for hundreds of homes but was mostly restored Tuesday morning.
Authorities had warned of possible aftershocks.
Officials said after Monday’s quake there was also a slight increase in risk of a magnitude 8-level quake and possible tsunami occurring along Japan’s northeastern coast from Chiba, just east of Tokyo, to Hokkaido. The agency urged residents in 182 municipalities in the area to monitor their emergency preparedness in the coming week, reminding them that the caution is not a prediction of a big one.
The quakes occurred in the coastal region, where a magnitude 9.0 quake and tsunami in 2011 killed nearly 20,000 people and destroyed the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
