Polar climate change could amplify global health risks, study warns

University of Exeter

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Climate change in Earth’s polar regions is emerging as an under-recognised driver of global health risks, with consequences reaching far beyond the Arctic and Antarctic, researchers argue.

A study by an international team of scientists led by Professor Gail Whiteman from the University of Exeter Business School presents a comprehensive framework mapping the complex connections between physical changes in the Arctic and Antarctic which could amplify climate impacts to human health worldwide.

The researchers reviewed a wide range of scientific literature across climate science, public health and other fields. They found that current models underestimate the direct and indirect impacts of changing polar regions on global health issues – from chronic disease to mental health challenges, and pregnancy complications.

They call for these amplified health risks to be integrated into health planning and policy.

“Polar change is not a distant crisis,” said Netra Naik, Research Fellow at Arctic Basecamp and lead author of the paper. “Our review of the research shows that melting ice sheets, rising sea levels and shifting weather patterns have complex consequences that extend far beyond the Arctic and Antarctic – affecting food security, disease burden and health infrastructure. This is not just an environmental issue, but a global health emergency.”

The study outlines how the polar regions, which are warming faster than the global average, are likely to trigger feedback loops and tipping cascades, reshaping global health risks in complicated and interlinked ways.

As rising temperatures weaken the jet stream and disrupt ocean currents, extreme weather is expected to drive up rates of severe injury, fatalities, and mental health disorders.

A seasonally ice-free Arctic is likely to contribute to a rise in the frequency and severity of El Niño episodes, worsening heatwaves, especially in tropical areas. Rising temperatures are expected to increase diseases including kidney and cardiovascular disease.

Sea level rise, driven by ice-sheet melt, could increase the salinity of ground water, and contaminate drinking water – potentially leading to increases in pre-eclampsia in pregnancy, infant mortality, and various types of cancer.

Polar warming could affect agricultural productivity indirectly– via disrupted precipitation and temperature patterns – increasing malnutrition-related disease.

Meanwhile, the warming climate is pushing insect and animal-borne diseases such as vibriosis, dengue fever, and Lyme disease into northern regions previously unaffected.

Flooding, intensified by polar ice melt, is increasing the spread of waterborne diseases such as cholera and typhoid, while also exacerbating respiratory conditions.

In the Arctic itself, melting permafrost and sea ice threaten vital infrastructure and risk releasing long-trapped pollutants, and even ancient pathogens, such as the 1918 influenza virus.

Ocean ecosystem shifts are also undermining traditional food sources, heightening rates of malnutrition, miscarriages, kidney failure, and cardiovascular disease among Arctic communities with fragile healthcare systems.

The study also highlights the risks to traditional food sources due to ocean ecosystem changes, contributing to rising rates of malnutrition, miscarriages, kidney failure, and cardiovascular disease among Arctic communities already facing fragile healthcare systems.

The new framework sets out the link between polar physical changes, and direct and indirect, regional and global health risks, and calls for greater integration of the health risks amplified by physical polar changes into human health impact assessments.

“Ignoring these potential drivers of disease and death is not an option,” said Professor Whiteman, Hoffmann Impact Professor for Accelerating Action on Nature and Climate. “We need stronger international collaboration between climate scientists, health professionals, and data experts to prevent harm and prepare our systems for the challenges ahead.”

The study, published in Ambio: A Journal of Environment and Society, forms part of a research project conducted jointly by the University of Exeter, Arctic Basecamp and the World Economic Forum that looks at the effects of polar climate change on global health and healthcare by building new impact assessment tools. The “Effects of Polar Climate Change on Global Health and Healthcare” project, funded by the Wellcome Trust, aims to highlight the under-reported risks posed by polar tipping points to global health and the healthcare sector.

It will enrich existing climate health analyses to support the creation of resilience strategies for the most vulnerable regions by taking into account the impact of polar tipping points.

“A framework for assessing global health impacts of polar change: An urgent call for interdisciplinary research” is published in Ambio: A Journal of Environment and Society.

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Journal

AMBIO

DOI

10.1007/s13280-025-02255-0 

Method of Research

Systematic review

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

A framework for assessing global health impacts of polar change: An urgent call for interdisciplinary research

Article Publication Date

7-Nov-2025

 

Fractal-based metamaterial improves sound fields in car cabins

Utilizing the unique properties of fractals, researchers developed a speaker add-on that equally diffuses sound in a car

American Institute of Physics

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image: 

The prototype of the fractal metasurface was molded and then tested in a car speaker.

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Credit: Li et al.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 11, 2025 — Car enthusiasts will pay hundreds of dollars for stereo systems that will improve the sound quality in their cars. However, the inherent directionality of speakers and complex shapes of car cabins can exacerbate sound disparities between the drivers and passengers, no matter how advanced a speaker system.

In the Journal of Applied Physics, by AIP Publishing, researchers from a collaboration of institutions in China created a prototype using a fractal to mitigate the sound differences.

Fractals are unique shapes that can be split into infinitely smaller pieces, each of which resembles the fractal’s original shape. The famous Koch snowflake fractal resembles a six-pointed flake and can be built iteratively beginning with an equilateral triangle. The researchers used this shape to create a wave-bending metamaterial that can be placed in front of a loudspeaker to manipulate sound.

“When sound waves interact with obstacles comparable in size to their wavelength, diffraction effects occur, particularly at the edges,” said author Ming-Hui Lu. “Fractal structures, whose perimeter and morphology evolve with increasing fractal dimension, offer a promising solution to manage these diffraction effects.”

As the Koch fractal dimension increases, the area remains constant while the perimeter can grow significantly, allowing increased edge diffraction — the bending of the sound waves around the fractal — without increasing the metamaterial’s size, which would make it too clunky for car speakers. This creates broadband wavefront control, which ensures a more even spread of acoustic energy. In a car, this translates to a better sound field for all riderss.

To create their metamaterial, the researchers used precise molding to shape the fractal and then placed it over a car speaker. They measured the sound pressure levels at different seats in the car and found their disparity significantly decreased, including at higher frequencies, something many speakers struggle with.

“These results demonstrate that the fractal metasurface successfully contributed to a more uniform high-frequency sound field, leading to a noticeable improvement in the auditory experience for passengers,” said Lu.

To Lu’s surprise and satisfaction, both the laboratory and in-car tests showed robust results for sound-field control.

“The in-vehicle test results were remarkably consistent with the laboratory findings, indicating that the performance of the fractal metasurface was both reliable and stable across varying conditions,” said Lu.

While the researchers plan to expand the operation bandwidth of the metamaterial, they are also currently in touch with their automotive partner, Chery Automobile Co., for potential opportunities to bring it to market.

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The article “Koch snowflake-inspired acoustic metasurface for broadband sound diffusion in automotive loudspeaker systems” is authored by Zhi-Han Li, Long-Xiang Xie, Xinhua Gao, Weichun Huang, Youzhong Xu, Jin Yang, Ming-Hui Lu, and Xu Zhong. It will appear in the Journal of Applied Physics on Nov. 11, 2025 (DOI: 10.1063/5.0277003). After that date, it can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0277003.

ABOUT THE JOURNAL

The Journal of Applied Physics is an influential international journal publishing significant new experimental and theoretical results in all areas of applied physics. See https://pubs.aip.org/aip/jap.

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Journal

Journal of Applied Physics

DOI

10.1063/5.0277003 

Article Title

Koch snowflake-inspired acoustic metasurface for broadband sound diffusion in automotive loudspeaker systems

Article Publication Date

11-Nov-2025

 

Maternity care access and infant mortality

JAMA Network Open

About The Study: 

In this population-based cross-sectional study, infant mortality risk was inversely associated with county-level access to maternity care, with the highest risk in counties with no access. When examined by race and ethnicity, differences in mortality risk between living in a full access and no access county were observed among white infants only, indicating that unmeasured barriers may limit the protective effect of access for some racial and ethnic groups. 

Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Ripley Lucas, MPH, email RLucas@marchofdimes.org.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.42831)

Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

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About JAMA Network Open: JAMA Network Open is an online-only open access general medical journal from the JAMA Network. On weekdays, the journal publishes peer-reviewed clinical research and commentary in more than 40 medical and health subject areas. Every article is free online from the day of publication. 

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Journal

JAMA Network Open

 

Moving past the mouse – genetic advances inspire new frontiers

Michigan State University

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Electric eels (top), sea lamprey (lower left) and sulfur-crested cockatoos all hold promise to move research forward. 

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Credit: Michigan State University

Recent epic leaps in genetics have created a biodiversity library. As the genetic make-up of animals, plants, fungi, bacteria, and viruses has been mapped, researchers racing to develop solutions to today’s global challenges run into a question:

Why be limited to a mouse?

Electric eels, octopi, birds, sponges, and plastic-gobbling bacteria are amongst the new stages on which discovery is unfolding. The challenge is to refine the theater to optimize performance.

In today’s Nature Reviews Biodiversity, Michigan State University evolutionary biologist Jason Gallant presses a case for research – from classrooms and laboratories to funding agencies and patent offices – to take full advantage of a supersized research toolbox.

Conventional research models, most notably mice, frogs, zebrafish, flies, roundworms, and yeast, were go-to models. Their genetic makeup was best understood, they were easy to keep in a laboratory, and scientific communities rallied around them with support and powerful databases. While successes have been robust, more than 80% of potential therapeutics developed via mouse models fail when tested in people. And neither mice nor fruit flies offer tempting pathways to answer questions about environmental or changing climate.

“We have been given amazing tools and opportunities to tailor research models to specific questions,” Gallant said. “These exciting developments mean we have to do things differently – how we train scientists so they can be faster and smarter as they look for discoveries and inventions.”

The nervous system of an octopus may hold answers to controlling prosthetic limbs, and sea sponges have already pointed to life-saving drugs. Birds’ rapid adaptations harbor lessons in coping mechanisms. Bacteria have shown an appetite to “eat” plastic to help clean up oceans.

Relying predominantly on traditional models, Gallant argues, overlooks enormous biological innovation that can be found among the roughly 8.7 million species estimated to be alive today: life has evolved innovations—disease resistance, novel metabolic pathways, unique symbioses— that can offer solutions to urgent problems.

“So many exciting doors have been opened,” Gallant said. “It would be unconscionable not to stride through them to a new future.”

Already at Michigan State University and universities across the country, scientists exploring biodiversity and its potential are creating supportive channels, notably in organizations under the umbrella of ecology and evolution.

“The crowdsourcing of support and wisdom is invaluable in science,” said Professor Elise Zipkin, director of MSU’s Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior graduate program. “Creating multi-disciplinary groups is a great start, but to truly advance discovery and strengthen educating the next generation of scientists, it is crucial that specific investments in infrastructure be made."

Gallant’s Electric Fish Lab explores nervous-system proteins by studying electric eels. He has colleagues across the East Lansing campus with an unconventional army of plants, animals and microbes. They have ‘bottled evolution’ by studying bacteria. Devised innovative solutions to invasive species using lamprey pheromones. Identified how rough-skinned newts produce potent neurotoxins without poisoning themselves.

It's time, he argues, for science to shift with the seismic changes – starting with the silos that often physically separate researchers into different buildings, academic pathways, and different funding streams. A researcher today who chooses to explore with an unconventional model picks a lonelier path as they wrestle with figuring out how to keep the models thriving and affordable.  

“We don’t need to leave the mouse behind,” Gallant said. “We just need to invite the rest of life into the lab.”

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Journal

Nature Reviews Biodiversity

DOI

10.1038/s44358-025-00098-x 

Article Title

Biologists should embrace Earth’s biodiversity as a library of solutions

Article Publication Date

10-Nov-2025