How extreme weather events affect agricultural trade between US states

University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences

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URBANA, Ill. –  The U.S. is largely self-sufficient in agricultural food production, supported by a well-developed storage and interstate trade system. However, extreme weather events put increasing pressure on agriculture, potentially impacting the country’s ability to provide food for its growing population and underscoring the importance of maintaining a resilient food supply chain. 

A new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, looks at U.S. interstate trade for agricultural products, analyzing how weather events in one area can have wide-ranging effects on food production.

“With climate change, we're going to experience more intense and more frequent extreme weather events such as drought and flooding, which impact agricultural output. It’s important to prepare for ways to mitigate climate shocks to food manufacturing,” said lead author Hyungsun Yim, a doctoral student in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics (ACE), part of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at U. of I.

Sandy Dall’erba, professor in ACE and founding director of the Center for Climate, Regional, Environmental and Trade Economics (CREATE), is co-author on the paper.

“Our work is the first to map how extreme weather shocks in any given state affect the local yield and, in turn, propagate to any food manufacturing state in the country,” Dall’erba stated. “For example, a severe drought in Midwestern grain-producing states will transmit along the supply chain and affect the largest food manufacturing states such as California, Texas, Illinois, and New York.”

The U.S. produces 80% to 85% of domestic food for consumption, so adaptation strategies depend on domestic crops, national weather conditions, and a reliable transportation network. About 57% of grains and 77% of livestock in the U.S. are used as inputs for domestic food manufacturing, while a smaller share is sold directly to households, and the rest is exported to other countries.  

Yim and Dall’erba obtained data from the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics about state-to-state trade flows for crops, livestock, and fruits and vegetables over two decades. They combined this information with weather data on temperature, precipitation, and extremes (drought and wetness) to compute their results.

They investigated climate shocks such as the 2012 drought that took place in the Midwestern grain-producing states and had significant impacts on domestic trade flows. Iowa, Illinois, and Nebraska typically produce 34% of grains traded in the U.S., but in 2012 their production share dropped significantly. 

As a result, Nebraska had to increase its imports of agricultural commodities to feed its livestock, and Texas shifted parts of its grain imports to new sources such as Kansas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana. The price of wheat, corn, and soybeans increased by up to 20%, affecting food manufacturers across the country.

Overall, the researchers found that a 1% increase in drought in the states producing agricultural commodities reduces their domestic exports by 0.5% to 0.7%, and this in turn reduces food manufacturing production by an average of 0.04%.

“The latter figure, which indicates the size of the effect on food production, is rather small, showing the resilience of the agrifood supply chain,” Dall’erba noted.

The findings can help states bolster their preparations to mitigate the effects of climate shocks on food production, guiding investments in infrastructure and strategic crop reserves.

“If we can project future drought intensities, we can estimate critical trade corridors that would be impacted by those events,” Yim said. “For example, if there is a production shock in Nebraska, California might have to shift quickly to source grains from other places. That kind of planning involves multi-state coordination to manage storage facilities and transportation infrastructure such as railroads, highways, and riverways.”

Dall’erba added that the interstate transportation system needs to adapt to climate-driven shifts in production.

“Future agricultural production is expected to take place northward and closer to the Colorado Rockies compared to current locations. The process is already ongoing as growing crops in higher latitudes and altitudes is a way to mitigate the increase in temperature induced by climate change,” he said. 

The interstate dependence highlighted in this research also has implications for crop insurance and disaster relief programs, the researchers said. 

Yim and Dall’erba produced a short video presenting the paper.  They also developed a freely available tool that anyone can use to map the domestic agrifood supply chain at the county level.

 The paper, “Impact of extreme weather events on the US domestic supply chain of food manufacturing,” is published in PNAS [DOI:10.1073/pnas.2424715122].

Research in the College of ACES is made possible in part by Hatch funding from USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

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Journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2424715122 

Article Title

Impact of extreme weather events on the US domestic supply chain of food manufacturing

 

Canadian wildfire smoke worsened pediatric asthma in US Northeast: UVM study

First study of wildfire smoke’s effects on children with asthma in the Northeast reveals growing health risks for the region as climate change fuels more smoke-filled summers.

University of Vermont

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image: 

In this photo of Lake Champlain, take on June 23, 2025, wildfire smoke has turned the sky orange. 

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Credit: University of Vermont's Spatial Analysis Lab

New research from the University of Vermont reveals exposure to smoke from Canadian wildfires in the summer of 2023 led to worsening asthma symptoms in children in Vermont and upstate New York. 

The study, published today [12/11] in the journal Environmental Health, is the first to examine the relationship between wildfire smoke and asthma in the Northeast—which in recent years has seen a marked increase in poor air quality days due to wildfires. 

“In 2023 when we couldn’t see New York across the lake, a lot of Vermonters began to worry about wildfire smoke,” says Anna Maassel, a Ph.D. candidate at the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, graduate fellow at the Gund Institute for Environment, and lead author of the paper. “A lot of people think of Vermont as a relatively safe place to live when it comes to climate change, but we found that smoke coming from hundreds of miles away affected children here.” 

Wildfire smoke contains tiny particles known as PM2.5, along with other toxic pollutants that can damage the lungs and worsen respiratory conditions such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). 

Nationwide, 6.5% of children and 8% of adults have asthma. Vermont’s rates are higher with 7% of children and 11% of adults diagnosed with the disease. 

To assess if wildfire smoke from 2023 affected children in the area, the researchers accessed electronic health records for about 900 youth, ages 3-21, who were receiving treatment for asthma in Vermont and upstate New York through University of Vermont Health.  

The team analyzed three different clinical measures that assess how well-controlled a patient’s asthma is for the summers of 2022-2024. Then, they overlaid air quality data onto the region and estimated smoke exposure within each zip code. 

Compared with the relatively smoke-free summer of 2022, children’s asthma was significantly less controlled during the smoke-heavy summer of 2023, when plumes from Quebec blanketed the region. 

“In the summer of 2023, my pediatric pulmonology team received a high volume of phone calls from concerned parents saying, ‘My child is having trouble with asthma symptoms,” says Dr. Keith Robinson, a pediatric lung doctor at Golisano Children’s Hospital at UVM and co-author of the paper.  

The researchers didn’t find the same signal when they compared 2023 with 2024, which was surprising, and the team hopes future research could shed light on why. Still, Robinson says it’s clear that wildfire smoke is affecting Vermont’s youth.  

“I think our findings suggest that there is potential for wildfire smoke, even hundreds of miles away, to impact a child's health,” he says.  

Across the country, pollution from wildfire smoke is increasing. A study published earlier this year estimated climate change is projected to exacerbate the problem, leading to roughly 70,000 premature deaths each year by 2050. Without action, wildfire smoke could become one of the country’s worst climate disasters, the authors write.  

Robinson says there are steps clinicians can take to help families reduce exposure to wildfire smoke, including closing windows, avoiding outdoor activities and using air purifiers when air quality is poor.  

“Clinicians need to make sure that parents and patients understand how to check for air quality, especially when there are wildfires in the area,” he says. “We also need to make sure that patients and families who do not have the means to mitigate the effects of wildfire smoke have support from public health agencies.” 

The study was funded by UVM’s Planetary Health Initiative and brought researchers together from across UVM, the Robert Larner M.D. College of Medicine and UVM Health.  

“When you’re able to work with researchers that have a different area of expertise, it brings the impact to another level.  Personally, I learned a lot from my teammates about climate change and environmental health.  This project demonstrates the impact of collaboration across UVM departments,” Robinson said.   

The research also reflects the university’s commitment to Vermont.  

“This study is another example of how UVM researchers can engage with our state and our region to connect the dots between climate change and human health,” said Taylor Ricketts, director of UVM’s Gund Institute for Environment and co-author of the paper. “Understanding emerging threats to children’s health is a first step toward anticipating and reducing them.”  

The research team also included: Paige Brochu, a research assistant professor in the Rubenstein School, director of UVM’s Spatial Analysis Laboratory and a Gund Institute affiliate; Valerie Harder, with the Vermont Child Health Improvement Program and a professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the Larner College of Medicine; and Dr. Stephen Teach, a pediatric emergency medicine physician at University of Vermont Health and the Larner College of Medicine.  

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Journal

Environmental Health

DOI

10.1186/s12940-025-01245-9 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Wildfire smoke and pediatric asthma control in the Northeastern United States: a cross-sectional study

Article Publication Date

11-Dec-2025

 

Sea reptile’s tooth shows that mosasaurs could live in freshwater

Uppsala University

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image: 

The Hell Creek Mosasaur, reconstruction by Christopher DiPiazza. Please note that more images and a short video are available at this link: https://springernature-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/p/bnv4004/IgA54BMrgK_2QY1-lakhr316ARcr0GOgTVMsVXxFS2MhVfw?e=5nE0Yj

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Credit: Christopher DiPiazza

Mosasaurs, giant marine reptiles that existed more than 66 million years ago, lived not only in the sea but also in rivers. This is shown by new research based on analyses of a mosasaur tooth found in North Dakota and believed to belong to an animal that could reach a length of 11 metres. The study, conducted by an international team of researchers led from Uppsala University, shows that mosasaurs adapted to riverine environments in the final million years before they became extinct.

In 2022, palaeontologists found a large tooth from a mosasaur in North Dakota. It was discovered in a fluvial deposit, together with a tooth from a Tyrannosaurus rex, and a crocodylian jawbone in an area known for remains of the duck-billed dinosaur Edmontosaurus. The fact that land-dwelling dinosaurs, river-dwelling crocodylians and giant marine reptiles were found together raised the question: how did a mosasaur tooth end up in a river, when this reptile was assumed to live in the sea?

An international team of researchers from the United States, Sweden and the Netherlands has now answered the question using isotope analyses of the mosasaur’s tooth enamel. 

Isotopes show how they lived and what they ate

Since the mosasaur tooth, the T. rex tooth and the crocodylian jawbone are of similar age, around 66 million years old, the researchers were able to compare their chemical composition by means of isotope analyses. The analysis, carried out at the Vrije Universiteit (VU) in Amsterdam, studied the ratio between different isotopes of the elements oxygen, strontium and carbon. The mosasaur teeth contained more of the lighter oxygen isotope (¹⁶O) than is usually seen in marine mosasaurs, indicating that they lived in freshwater. The ratio between different strontium isotopes also suggests a freshwater habitat. 

“Carbon isotopes in teeth generally reflect what the animal ate. Many mosasaurs have low ¹³C values because they dive deep. The mosasaur tooth found with the T. rex tooth, on the other hand, has a higher ¹³C value than all known mosasaurs, dinosaurs and crocodiles, suggesting that it did not dive deep and may sometimes have fed on drowned dinosaurs,” says Melanie During, one of the study’s corresponding authors. 

“The isotope signatures indicated that this mosasaur had inhabited this freshwater riverine environment. When we looked at two additional mosasaur teeth found at nearby, slightly older, sites in North Dakota, we saw similar freshwater signatures. These analyses shows that mosasaurs lived in riverine environments in the final million years before going extinct,” says During.

When seas became rivers 

The discovery sheds light on an interesting chapter in the Earth’s history. The influx of freshwater into the Western Interior Seaway, an inland sea that then stretched from north to south across today’s prairies and divided North America in two, increased over time. This gradually transformed the sea water from saltwater to brackish water and eventually to mostly freshwater, rather like in the Gulf of Bothnia. The authors believe that this led to the formation of a ‘halocline’, in which a layer of freshwater sat on top of heavier saltwater. This theory is borne out by isotope analyses. 

“For comparison with the mosasaur teeth, we also measured fossils from other marine animals and found a clear difference. All gill-breathing animals had isotope signatures linking them to brackish or salty water, while all lung-breathing animals lacked such signatures. This shows that mosasaurs, which needed to come to the surface to breathe, inhabited the upper freshwater layer and not the lower layer where the water was more saline,” says Per Ahlberg, coauthor of the study and promotor of Dr During.

Adapted to new living conditions

The researchers argue that the mosasaur teeth analysed clearly came from individuals that were adapted to these changing environments. Such a transition is not an unknown phenomenon among large predators. 

“Unlike the complex adaptation required to move from freshwater to marine habitats, the reverse adaptation is generally simpler,” says During.

Modern examples of such adaptation can be seen in river dolphins, which live in freshwater rivers despite being descended from marine ancestors. The estuarine crocodile, known in Australia as the saltwater crocodile, is another example. It moves freely between freshwater rivers and the open sea, hunting in both environments depending on what prey is available.

Could be as big as a bus 

Mosasaur fossils are abundant in North American, European and African marine deposits that are 98–66 million years old. However, they are only rarely found in North Dakota, which makes the new discovery particularly noteworthy. The size of the tooth testifies to an impressive creature that could grow up to 11 metres long, about the size of a bus. This estimate is corroborated by a handful of mosasaur bones found earlier at a nearby site in North Dakota. The tooth comes from a prognathodontine mosasaur, though the genus cannot be determined with certainty. Mosasaurs of the genus Prognathodon, closely related to the animal that lost this tooth, had bulky heads with sturdy jaws and teeth. They are widely regarded as opportunistic predators that posed a significant threat to other large aquatic animals.

“The size means that the animal would rival the largest killer whales, making it an extraordinary predator to encounter in riverine environments not previously associated with such giant marine reptiles,” says Ahlberg. 

The study was conducted by researchers from Uppsala University in collaboration with Eastern West Virginia Community and Technical College, Moorefield, West Virginia, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the North Dakota Geological Survey. The article is based on a chapter of Melanie During’s thesis, which she presented at Uppsala University in November 2024.

The mosasaur tooth that was found in 2022 in the Bismarck Area, North Dakota. 

Please note that more images and a short video are available at this link: https://springernature-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/p/bnv4004/IgA54BMrgK_2QY1-lakhr316ARcr0GOgTVMsVXxFS2MhVfw?e=5nE0Yj

Credit

Melanie During

Melanie During, PhD, Uppsala University, now Junior Docent in Earth Sciences at Vrije Universiteit (VU) in Amsterdam.

Credt

Richard Terborg

Journal

BMC Zoology

DOI

10.1186/s40850-025-00246-y) 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Publication Date

12-Dec-2025

Brazil police ID suspect in Matisse theft


By AFP
December 8, 2025


Robbers walked out the main exit of Sao Paulo's Mario de Andrade Library with eight Henri Matisse engravings - Copyright AFP Nelson ALMEIDA

Police in Brazil have identified one suspect behind the theft of eight Henri Matisse engravings from a Sao Paulo library and found the robbers’ getaway car, authorities announced Monday.

A pair of gunmen stole the late French master’s works, as well as five pieces by the Brazilian painter Candido Portinari, from a library in the center of the Brazilian mega-city on Sunday.

Police say the thieves held up a security guard and an elderly couple visiting the Mario de Andrade Library, grabbed the engravings and other items from a glass dome where they were kept, put them in a canvas bag and fled through the main exit.

Sao Paulo’s security department said investigations were ongoing to identify the second suspect.

“The escape vehicle was also located” and sent for forensic analysis, it said in a statement.

Brazilian news site G1 aired a video apparently showing one of the thieves carrying several of the artworks through the street in broad daylight, then leaving them propped against a wall next to a pile of trash and running away.

Sao Paulo has a sophisticated surveillance system that uses security cameras and facial recognition technology.



– Stolen on final day –



Authorities have yet to disclose the value of the stolen pieces, which were part of a modern art exhibition entitled “From the Book to the Museum,” highlighting a collaboration between the library and the Museum of Modern Art of Sao Paulo.

The theft came on the last day of the exhibit, which opened in October.

Newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo said the pieces on display included cut-paper collages from Matisse’s limited-edition 1947 art book “Jazz,” of which only 300 copies exist worldwide.

Works by Matisse (1869-1954), a towering figure of 20th-century modern art, can sell for millions of dollars.

A series of around 60 of his drawings sold for more than $2.5 million at auction house Christie’s in October, according to specialty site artnet.

The record price for a Matisse was $80.8 million in 2018, for his “Odalisque Couchee aux Magnolias.”

The five engravings by Portinari (1903-1962), one of Brazil’s most celebrated painters, were illustrations from the 1959 book “Menino de Engenho” (“Plantation Boy”), according to Sao Paulo city hall.

The art heist comes nearly two months after a group of thieves broke into the Louvre museum in Paris, stealing jewelry valued at around $100 million within a matter of minutes.

The high-profile break-in renewed focus on security protocols at museums around the world.


Eight Matisse engravings stolen from Brazil library


By AFP
December 7, 2025


Eight engravings by the French artist Henri Matisse were stolen from Mario de Andrade Public Library in downtown Sao Paulo, Brazil - Copyright AFP Ian LANGSDON

Eight engravings by the French artist Henri Matisse were stolen from a library in Sao Paulo, the Brazilian city’s government said Sunday.

News reports said two armed men stole the works from the Mario de Andrade Library and also took five works by the Brazilian painter Candido Portinari.

“The pair held up a security guard and an elderly couple who were visiting the library,” police said in a statement sent to AFP.

“They both went into the glass dome where the documents were kept. The put the documents and the eight engravings into a canvas bag. The pair then fled through the main exit,” police said.

Authorities have yet to disclose the value of the stolen pieces, which were part of a modern art exhibition entitled “From the Book to the Museum” highlighting a collaboration between the library and the Museum of Modern Art of Sao Paulo.

According to the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper, the stolen work included collages printed in Matisse’s 1947 art book “Jazz.”

The exhibition was scheduled to end Sunday.

The Sao Paulo mayor’s office said in a statement that law enforcement were on scene gathering evidence at the library, which is equipped with security cameras.

The art heist comes nearly two months after a group of thieves broke into the Louvre museum in Paris, stealing jewelry valued at around $100 million within a matter of minutes.

BRAVE NEW WORLD

AI tools help choose best embryos for IVF

By AFP
December 8, 2025


The American Hospital of Paris carries out more than 2,300 IVF procedures each year - Copyright AFP/File Alain JOCARD

Anne Padieu

Artificial intelligence tools can now help choose the most promising embryos for in vitro fertilisation (IVF), although experts have warned of some ethical concerns.

Procedures such as IVF allow millions of children to be born across the world each year to parents who have otherwise struggled to conceive.

However the success rate of the procedure, which involves creating an embryo by fertilising an egg with sperm in the lab, can vary widely and declines with age.

Now, almost 50 years after the first IVF child was born, “artificial intelligence is here to help us select better embryos or at least help determine their potential for implantation”, Nathalie Massin, the head of the clinical unit of an IVF centre at the American Hospital of Paris, told AFP.

The facility in the French capital carries out more than 2,300 IVF procedures every year. It is equipped with an embryoscope, which works as a time-lapse camera that continuously films the development of the embryos.

The data recorded by the camera — such as the shape, symmetry and cell division of the embryo — had previously only been used to a limited extent.

But tools using AI such as machine learning have been shown to help doctors select the embryos that have the best chance of being successfully implanted or frozen for later.

This would reduce the number of costly IVF attempts for hopeful parents by ruling out the embryos most likely to have abnormalities which lead to miscarriages.

AI tools can do this without manipulating the embryos, so it is not related to concerns about genetically engineered “designer babies”.



– ‘Avoid the emotional rollercoaster’ –



Frida Entezami, co-leader of the IVF department at the American Hospital of Paris, emphasised that “humans will continue to make the decisions but with this additional tool”.

The hospital acquired its AI from Israeli start-up AIVF. The tool is currently being tested internally with the aim of “halving the number of cycles needed to achieve pregnancy”, Entezami said.

“AIVF will offer a 70-percent probability that the embryo it recommends will not have genetic abnormalities,” Entezami said.

That is a “significant improvement” given that currently around half of pre-implantation embryos have such abnormalities, she added.

Tools harnessing AI can also help adjust the timing and dosage of hormone injections before collecting eggs, and increase the chance of finding sperm in a sample with a low number.

Anne-Claire Lepretre, head of the assisted reproductive technologies (ART) unit at France’s Biomedicine Agency, told AFP that the algorithms are tested to ensure they are using the correct data.

Because “unfortunately ART does not always work the first time”, lots of information from a failed attempt can be fed into AI models to increase the chances of success in the future, she added.

Such “personalised” assistance for hopeful parents could “avoid the emotional rollercoaster” of these “long, complex and often psychologically difficult” journeys, Lepretre said.



– Opt out option for AI sceptics? –



However other researchers have urged caution.

“The use of AI in embryo selection means that computer algorithms are beginning to make decisions about who is brought into the world,” said Julian Koplin, a bioethicist at Australia’s Monash University who led a recent review of the practice.

“We argue that since some patients may have genuine moral objections to the use of AI to make decisions about which children they have, they should be informed about its use, and should ideally be able to opt out,” Koplin said in a statement.

The review, published in the journal Human Reproduction earlier this year, called for more scrutiny but found that the “ethical concerns do not amount to arguments against the use” of AI tools for embryo assessment.

“There is a lot of talk about AI,” Michael Grynberg, a French obstetrician-gynaecologist specialising in IVF, told AFP.

“We need more relevant markers because those related to the morphology of an egg or sperm are not sufficient,” he added.