Rodents of Unusual Size: A new study using Ancient DNA reveals the origins of the remarkable Caribbean giant rodents

PRESS RELEASE
First published 12 October 2020

A new study by scientists from the Natural History Museum and the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) has found that the incredibly diverse Caribbean caviomorph rodents, which range in size from 0.1kg-200kg, evolved into radically different species across the islands of the western Caribbean following a single colonisation event


The research used ancient DNA techniques to obtain the first genetic data from several extinct species, including the completely extinct Caribbean spiny rats and “giant hutias”, to reconstruct the origins and evolutionary history of this enigmatic group.

Caviomorphs include living South American rodents such as guinea pigs, chinchillas and capybaras. There used to be over 30 species of Caribbean caviomorphs, the largest of which were the size of bears. However, nearly all of these species are now extinct due to human activities – hunting, habitat loss, and the introduction of invasive species to Caribbean islands. This study is the first to compare genetic data from across this largely extinct group of rodents – using data from living Caribbean rodents called hutias, together with data from five extinct Caribbean species ranging from mouse-sized to dog-sized animals – to resolve their evolutionary history and biogeographic origins. Understanding the mechanisms behind how these animals diversified across the Caribbean provides unique new insights into how species adapt and react to new environments.

The Caribbean represents an important system to study evolutionary patterns and processes. Dr Roseina Woods, who worked on this study as part of her PhD at the Natural History Museum, said: 'Islands are brilliant for studying evolution for several reasons. They are often remote, meaning that only a few select groups of organisms reach islands in the first place. Mammals rarely colonise islands, but rodents did make it to the Caribbean, so this archipelago is a perfect place to study colonisation events and island evolution. Our ancient DNA analyses produced the first molecular data for several extinct Caribbean rodent species, allowing us to uncover when and how they arrived in the Caribbean.'

Despite their wide range of ecological niches and diverse morphologies, all of these rodents evolved from a single overwater colonisation event around 18 million years ago. These findings provide an important new example of adaptive radiation, where a single colonising mainland lineage evolves into novel forms across a group of islands. This evolutionary event represents the greatest increase in body size ever recorded in rodents, and possibly the greatest for any mammal lineage. Co-author Dr Selina Brace from the Natural History Museum said: ‘It’s amazing to think that a single colonisation led to such extreme rodent gigantism. These mighty rodents became more than thirty times larger than their mainland relatives.’

Co-author Professor Ian Barnes from the Natural History Museum noted: 'The Caribbean is a fascinating region to study, but its hot, wet environment quickly degrades DNA, making it very difficult to obtain data from ancient bones. Combined with the very rapid changes in shape and size that animals often undergo when they colonise islands, it’s often difficult to reconstruct the evolutionary relationships of extinct species from the region.'

Most of the Caribbean’s surviving rodent species are highly threatened with extinction. Co-author Professor Samuel Turvey from the Zoological Society of London said: 'The last few survivors of the Caribbean rodent radiation – the hutias of Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, and the Bahamas - are global priorities for conservation. Their incredible evolutionary history means that we cannot allow these neglected species to become extinct – we need urgent conservation action to protect what’s left of this remarkable group of mammals.’



ENDS

The paper was published in Molecular Biology and Evolution on Monday 12 October 2020.

Notes for editors

Media contact: Tel: +44 (0)779 969 0151 Email: press@nhm.ac.uk


About the Natural History Museum:

The Natural History Museum is both a world-leading science research centre and the most-visited natural history museum in Europe. With a vision of a future in which both people and the planet thrive, it is uniquely positioned to be a powerful champion for balancing humanity’s needs with those of the natural world.

It is custodian of one of the world’s most important scientific collections comprising over 80 million specimens. The scale of this collection enables researchers from all over the world to document how species have and continue to respond to environmental changes - which is vital in helping predict what might happen in the future and informing future policies and plans to help the planet.

The Museum’s 300 scientists continue to represent one of the largest groups in the world studying and enabling research into every aspect of the natural world. Their science is contributing critical data to help the global fight to save the future of the planet from the major threats of climate change and biodiversity loss through to finding solutions such as the sustainable extraction of natural resources.

The Museum uses its enormous global reach and influence to meet its mission to create advocates for the planet - to inform, inspire and empower everyone to make a difference for nature. We welcome over five million visitors each year; our digital output reaches hundreds of thousands of people in over 200 countries each month and our touring exhibitions have been seen by around 30 million people in the last 10 years.

About ZSL

ZSL (Zoological Society of London) is an international conservation charity working to create a world where wildlife thrives. From investigating the health threats facing animals to helping people and wildlife live alongside each other, ZSL is committed to bringing wildlife back from the brink of extinction. Our work is realised through our ground-breaking science, our field conservation around the world and engaging millions of people through our two zoos, ZSL London Zoo and ZSL Whipsnade Zoo. For more information, visit www.zsl.org

A lack of funding - as a result of the current pandemic - has put ZSL’s world-leading expertise in science and conservation in serious jeopardy. ZSL needs urgent support to keep its scientists investigating wildlife diseases such as Covid-19, and its conservationists working in the field to protect the wildlife and ecosystems on which we rely. Find out more at www.zsl.org/donate.

Media trust correlated with COVID-19 prevention behaviors

Whether someone takes proper precautions to fight COVID-19 may be linked to whether they trust right- or left-leaning media outlets, according to a new USC study.

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Research News

 

Whether someone wears a mask, practices physical distancing or performs other behaviors to prevent COVID-19 infection may be linked to what media outlets they trust.

In 2020, individuals' behavior in response to the pandemic has closely correlated with the kinds of mass media outlets they trust, according to a study authored by USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology PhD students Erfei Zhao and Qiao Wu. The article was co-authored by University Professor Eileen Crimmins, holder of the AARP Chair in Gerontology, and Associate Professor of Gerontology and Sociology Jennifer Ailshire and appeared online in the journal BMJ Global Health on October 8, 2020.

Zhao, Wu and colleagues analyzed response data from the Understanding America Study's COVID-19 panel on how often more than 4800 participants performed five virus-mitigating behaviors during the coronavirus pandemic: (1) wearing a face mask, (2) washing hands with soap or using hand sanitizer several times per day, (3) canceling or postponing personal or social activities, (4) avoiding eating at restaurants, (5) and avoiding public spaces, gatherings or crowds. In addition, the team also looked at risky health behaviors, including going out to a bar, club or other place where people gather; going to another person's residence; having outside visitors such as friends, neighbors or relatives at one's home; attending a gathering with more than 10 people, such as a party, concert or religious service; or having close contact (within six feet) with someone who doesn't live with the respondent.

Using CNN as an example of a left-leaning news source and Fox News as a news source on the right side of the political spectrum, the study identified the relative amount of trust participants reported in either news source with the risky or positive behaviors they engaged in. Around 29% of respondents said they trusted CNN more than Fox News; roughly half (52%) expressed no preference between the two, and one in five (20%) said they trusted Fox more than CNN.

Risky behaviors were highest among participants who reported more trust in Fox News with an average of 1.25 risky acts in a 7-day period, followed closely by those who reported trusting neither outlet, while CNN viewers reported an average of .94 risky behaviors during the same time period. Positive behaviors were more frequently reported among those who trusted CNN (an average of 3.85 preventive actions in a 7-day window) more than those who trusted Fox News (3.41 positive behaviors on average).

The results imply that behavior sharply differs along media bias lines, indicating that partisan narratives are likely getting in the way of solid health messaging that encourages healthy behavior change.

"In such a highly partisan environment, false information can be easily disseminated. Health messaging, which is one of the few effective ways to slow down the spread of the virus in the absence of a vaccine, is being damaged by politically biased and economically focused narratives," said Zhao and Wu.

###

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health grant P30 AG017265 (Crimmins) for the USC/UCLA Center on Biodemography and Population Health. The UAS COVID National Sample dataset is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, NIH, and Social Security Administration.

CONFRONTING MISINFORMATION

Eight Persistent COVID-19 Myths and Why People Believe Them

From a human-made virus to vaccine conspiracy theories, we rounded up the most insidious false claims about the pandemic

October 12, 2020

Credit: Hanna Barczyk

THE CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK

AUTHOR

Tanya Lewis is an associate editor at Scientific American who covers health and medicine. Credit: Nick Higgins

○ 1 THE VIRUS WAS ENGINEERED IN A LABORATORY IN CHINA.

Because the pathogen first emerged in Wuhan, China, President Donald Trump and others have claimed, without evidence, that it started in a lab there, and some conspiracy theorists believe it was engineered as a bioweapon.

Why It’s False: U.S. intelligence agencies have categorically denied the possibility that the virus was engineered in a lab, stating that “the Intelligence Community ... concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not man-made or genetically modified.” Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli—who studies bat coronaviruses and whose lab Trump and others have suggested was the source of COVID-19—compared the pathogen’s sequence with those of other coronaviruses her team had sampled from bat caves and found that it did not match any of them. In response to calls for an independent, international investigation into how the virus originated, China has invited researchers from the World Health Organization to discuss the scope of such a mission.

Why People Believe It: People want a scapegoat for the immense suffering and economic fallout caused by COVID-19, and China—a foreign country and a competitor of the U.S.—is an easy target. Accidental lab releases of pathogens do sometimes occur, and although many scientists say this possibility is unlikely, it provides just enough legitimacy to support a narrative in which China intentionally engineered the virus to unleash it on the world.

○ 2 COVID-19 IS NO WORSE THAN THE FLU.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Trump has lied about the disease’s severity, saying it is no more dangerous than seasonal influenza. Trump himself admitted to journalist and author Bob Woodward in recorded interviews in early February and late March that he knew COVID-19 was more deadly than the flu and that he wanted to play down its severity.

Read more from this special report:
Confronting Misinformation

Why It’s False: The precise infection fatality rate of COVID-19 is hard to measure, but epidemiologists suspect that it is far higher than that of the flu—somewhere between 0.5 and 1 percent, compared with 0.1 percent for influenza. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the latter causes roughly 12,000 to 61,000 deaths per year in the U.S. In contrast, COVID-19 had caused 200,000 deaths in the country as of mid-September. Many people also have partial immunity to the flu because of vaccination or prior infection, whereas most of the world has not yet encountered COVID-19. So no, coronavirus is not “just the flu.”

Why People Believe It: Their leaders keep saying it. In addition to his repeated false claims that COVID-19 is no worse than the flu, Trump has also said—falsely—that the numbers of deaths from COVID-19 are exaggerated. In fact, reported deaths from COVID-19 are likely an undercount.

○ 3 YOU DON’T NEED TO WEAR A MASK.

Despite a strong consensus among public health authorities that masks limit transmission of coronavirus, many people (the president included) have refused to wear one. Georgia’s governor Brian Kemp went so far as to sign an executive order banning city governments from implementing mask mandates. He even sued Atlanta’s mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms when she instituted one, although he has since dropped the lawsuit. Nevertheless, as coronavirus cases spiked around the U.S. during the summer, even states that were once staunch holdouts implemented mask orders.

Why It’s False: Masks have long been known to be an effective means of what epidemiologists call source control (preventing a sick patient from spreading a disease to others). A recent analysis published in the Lancet looked at more than 170 studies and found that face masks can prevent COVID-19 infection. It has also been widely established that people can be infected with and spread COVID-19 without ever developing symptoms, which is why everyone should wear a mask to prevent asymptomatic people from spreading the virus.

Why People Believe It: Early guidance on masks from the CDC and the WHO was confusing and inconsistent, suggesting that members of the general public did not need to wear masks unless they had symptoms of an infection. The guidance was in part driven by a shortage of high-quality surgical and N95 masks, which the agencies said should be reserved for health care workers. Even though face coverings are now mandated or recommended in many states, some people refuse to wear one because they consider it emasculating or a violation of their civil liberties.

○ 4 WEALTHY ELITES ARE USING THE VIRUS TO PROFIT FROM VACCINES.

In a book and in the conspiracy theory film Plandemic, Judy Mikovits, who once published a high-profile but eventually retracted study on chronic fatigue syndrome, makes the unsubstantiated claim that National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates could be using their power to profit from a COVID-19 vaccine. She also asserts without evidence that the virus came from a lab and that wearing masks “activates your own virus.” An excerpt from the film was widely shared by anti-vaxxers and the conspiracy theory group QAnon. The video was viewed more than eight million times on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram before it was taken down.

Why It’s False: There is no evidence that Fauci or Gates has benefited from the pandemic or profited from a vaccine. In fact, Fauci has sounded alarms throughout the pandemic about the risks of the virus, and Gates has a long history of philanthropy geared toward eliminating communicable diseases. Mikovits’s claims about the virus’s origin and the efficacy of masks also have no scientific support.

Why People Believe It: Wealthy or influential figures such as Gates and Fauci are often the target of conspiracy theories. Trump has at times attacked Fauci, a member of his own coronavirus task force, calling him an “alarmist.” Some of the president’s followers may find it more palatable to believe that Fauci is exaggerating the severity of the outbreak than to acknowledge the Trump administration’s failure to contain it.

○ 5 HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE IS AN EFFECTIVE TREATMENT.

When a small study in France suggested the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine might be effective at treating the disease, Trump and others seized on it. The study is now widely criticized, but some people have continued to tout the medication despite growing evidence that it does not benefit COVID-19 patients. In a tweet, Trump called the hydroxychloroquine treatment “one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine,” and he has mentioned it repeatedly in his public coronavirus briefings, continuing to hype the drug. In late July he retweeted a video featuring Stella Immanuel, a Houston, Tex.–based physician (who has made questionable assertions in the past, including that doctors had used alien DNA in treatments and that demons cause certain medical conditions by having sex with people in their dreams), claiming that hydroxychloroquine is an effective treatment for COVID-19. The video was viewed tens of millions of times before social media companies took it down.

Why It’s False: Several studies have shown that hydroxychloroquine does not protect against COVID-19 in those who are exposed. The Food and Drug Administration initially issued an emergency use authorization for the drug, but the agency later warned against its use because of the risk of heart problems and ultimately revoked its authorization. And in June the National Institutes of Health halted its clinical trial of the medication, stating that although it was not harmful to patients, it did not provide any benefit.

Why People Believe It: Initial reports suggested hydroxychloroquine might be a potentially promising drug, and people are most likely to believe the first things they learn about a topic, a phenomenon called anchoring bias. And because Trump has repeatedly claimed that the drug is effective, his supporters may be more likely to believe reports that confirm their views rather than those that challenge them.

○ 6 INCREASES IN CASES ARE THE RESULT OF INCREASED TESTING.

As coronavirus cases surged in the U.S., Trump frequently claimed that the spikes were merely the result of more people being tested. He has tweeted that “without testing ... we would be showing almost no cases” and has said in interviews that the reason numbers appear to have gone up is that testing has increased.

Why It’s False: If this scenario were true, one would expect the percentage of positive tests to decrease over time. But numerous analyses have shown the opposite. The rate of positive tests rose in many states (such as Arizona, Texas and Florida) that had big outbreaks this past summer, and it decreased in states (such as New York) that controlled their outbreaks. In addition, hospitalizations and deaths increased along with cases, providing more evidence that the national increase in positive tests reflected a true increase in cases.

Why People Believe It: There was a severe shortage of tests in the U.S. early on during the pandemic, and their availability has increased (although actual testing remains far short of what is needed). It is logical to wonder whether more cases are simply being detected—if you look only at total cases and not at the proportion of positive tests or the rates of hospitalization and death.

○ 7 HERD IMMUNITY WILL PROTECT US IF WE LET THE VIRUS SPREAD THROUGH THE POPULATION.

Early on in the pandemic, some speculated that the U.K. and Sweden were planning to let the coronavirus circulate through their populations until they reached herd immunity—the point at which enough people are immune to the virus that it can no longer spread. (Both nations’ governments have denied that this was their official strategy, but the U.K. was late to issue a full lockdown, and Sweden decided against widespread restrictions.)

Why It’s False: There is a fundamental flaw with this approach: experts estimate that roughly 60 to 70 percent of people would need to get COVID-19 for herd immunity to be possible. Given the high mortality rate of the disease, letting it infect that many people could lead to millions of deaths. That tragedy is what happened during the 1918 influenza pandemic, in which at least 50 million people are thought to have perished. The U.K.’s COVID-19 death rate is among the world’s highest. Sweden, for its part, has had significantly more deaths than neighboring countries, and its economy has suffered despite the lack of a shutdown.

Why People Believe It: They want to get back to normal life, and without a widely available COVID-19 vaccine, the only way to achieve herd immunity is to let a substantial number of people get sick. Some have speculated that we may have already achieved herd immunity, but population-based antibody studies have shown that even the hardest-hit regions are far from that threshold.

○ 8 A COVID-19 VACCINE WILL BE UNSAFE.

Worrying reports have emerged that many people may refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine once it is available. Conspiracy theories about potential vaccines have circulated among anti-vaxxer groups and in viral videos. In Plandemic, Mikovits falsely claims that any COVID-19 vaccine will “kill millions” and that other vaccines have done so. Another conspiracy theory makes the ludicrous assertion that Gates has a secret plan to use vaccines to implant trackable microchips in people. Most Americans still support vaccination, but the few voices of opposition have been growing. A recent study observed that although clusters of anti-vaxxers on Facebook are smaller than pro-vaccination groups, they are more heavily interconnected with clusters of undecided people. One Gallup poll found that one in three Americans would not get a COVID-19 vaccine if it were available today and that Republicans were less likely to be vaccinated than Democrats.

Why It’s False: Vaccines save millions of lives every year. Before a vaccine is approved in the U.S., it must generally undergo three phases of clinical testing to show that it is safe and effective in a large number of people. The top COVID-19 vaccine candidates are currently being tested in large-scale trials in tens of thousands of people.

Why People Believe It: There is good reason to be cautious about the safety of any new vaccine or treatment, and the politicization of the fda under the Trump administration has raised legitimate concerns that any vaccine approval will be rushed. Nevertheless, previous safety trials of the top vaccine candidates did not find major adverse effects; larger trials for safety and efficacy are now underway. Nine pharmaceutical companies developing vaccines have pledged to “stand with science” and not release one unless it has been shown to be safe and effective.

CONFRONTING MISINFORMATION

When a Journalist Becomes a Disinformation Agent

Simulation games help newsrooms prepare for covering a chaotic election season


October 12, 2020

AUTHOR

Jen Schwartz is a senior features editor at Scientific American. She writes about how society is adapting (or not) to a rapidly changing world. Credit: Nick Higgins


I am not the editor in chief of a propaganda farm disguised as a far-right breaking news outlet. But one day last February, just before the world shut down, I got to play one.

About 70 journalists, students and digital media types had gathered at the City University of New York to participate in a crisis simulation. The crisis at hand was the 2020 U.S. presidential election. The game was designed to illuminate how we, as reporters and editors, would respond to a cascade of false and misleading information on voting day—and how public discourse might respond to our coverage. The exercise was hosted by First Draft, a research group that trains people to understand and outsmart disinformation.

After a morning workshop on strategies for reporting on conspiracy theories and writing headlines that don’t entrench lies, the organizers split us up into groups of about 10 people, then gave each “newsroom” a mock publication name. Sitting around communal tables, we assigned ourselves the roles of reporters, editors, social media managers and a communications director. From our laptops we logged into a portal to access the game interface. It looked like a typical work desktop: There was an e-mail inbox, an intraoffice messaging system that functioned exactly like Slack, a microblogging platform that worked exactly like Twitter and a social feed that looked exactly like Facebook. The game would send us messages with breaking events, press releases and tips, and the feeds would respond to our coverage. Several First Draft staffers at a table were the “communications desk,” representing any agency, person or company we might need to “call” to answer questions. Other than that, we received no instruction.


My newsroom was mostly made up of students from C.U.N.Y.’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism and other local universities. The organizers gave us a few minutes to define our newsrooms’ identities and plan our editorial strategies. The room filled with nervous murmurings of journalists who wanted to fight the bad guys, to beat back misinformation and safeguard election day with earnest, clear-eyed coverage. But I had a different agenda, and I was the one in charge.

Read more from this special report:
Confronting Misinformation

“Sorry, team,” I said. “We’re going rogue.”

Simulations should include extreme scenarios if they are to properly scare people into preparing for the unexpected—into updating protocols and rearranging resources or tripping certain automated processes when things go awry. Yet journalists and scientists tend to resist engaging with the outlandish. We dismiss sensational outcomes, aiming to wrangle expectations back into the realm of reason and precedent. In recent years that strategy has often left us reeling. A Nature article published this past August explained why the U.S. was caught flat-footed in its response to COVID-19: despite the fact that government officials, academics and business leaders have participated in dozens of pandemic simulations over the past two decades, none of the exercises “explored the consequences of a White House sidelining its own public health agency,” wrote journalists Amy Maxmen and Jeff Tollefson.

The success of any scenario game, then, depends on the questions it raises. The game doesn’t need to predict the future, but it does need to pry players away from the status quo, to expand their sense of what is possible. And to stress-test the preparedness of a newsroom on November 3, 2020, things needed to get weird.

Disinformation scholars often warn that focusing on the intent of influence operations or the sophistication of their techniques overestimates their impact. It’s true that many disinformation tactics are not robust in isolation. But the targeted victim is fragile; pervasive anxiety and a deep social divide in America make us vulnerable to attacks from afar and within. And because it’s cheap and easy for bad actors to throw proverbial spaghetti at social feeds, occasionally something sticks, leading to massive amplification by major news organizations. This was my goal as an editor in chief of unreality.


The simulation started off slowly. A tip came in through e-mail: Did we see the rumor circulating on social media that people can vote by text message?

As other newsrooms began writing explainers debunking SMS voting, I assigned a reporter to write a “tweet” that would enhance confusion without outright supporting the lie. After a quick edit, we posted: We’re hearing that it’s possible to vote by text message. Have you tried to vote by SMS? Tell us about your experience! It went up faster than any other content, but the social Web reacted tepidly. A couple of people called us out for spreading a false idea. So we dug in with another post: Text message voting is the way of the future—but Democrats shut it down. Why are elites trying to suppress your vote? Story coming soon!

We continued this pattern of baseless suggestions, targeted at whatever people on the feed seemed to already be worried or skeptical about. Eventually some of the other newsrooms caught on that we might not be working in good faith. At first they treated our manipulations as myths to debunk with fact-laden explainers. But our coverage kept getting dirtier. When an editor from a respectable outlet publicly questioned the integrity of my senior reporter, I threatened to take legal action against anyone who maligned her. “We apologize to no one!” I yelled to my team.

My staff was having fun wreaking havoc. The social platforms in the game were controlled by First Draft organizers (who, I later learned, meted out eight “chapters” of preloaded content), as well as manual input from the simulation participants in real time. We watched the feeds react with more and more outrage to the “news” we published. Our comms director stonewalled our competitors, who kept asking us to take responsibility for our actions, even forming a coalition to call us out.

Then a new tip appeared: someone on social media said there was an active shooter at her polling place. Everyone’s attention shifted. The first newsroom to get a comment from the “local police” posted it immediately: At this time, we are not aware of any active shooting threat or event. We are investigating. While other teams shared the message and went to work reporting, I saw a terrible opening in the statement’s inconclusiveness. “Let’s question the integrity of the cops,” I whispered maniacally to my team.

We sent out a post asking whether the report could be trusted. In a forest of fear, the suggestion that voters were at risk from violence was a lightning bolt. Social media lit up with panic. A celebrity with a huge following asked her fans to stay safe by staying home. My newsroom quietly cheered. We had found an editorial focus, and I instructed everyone to build on it. We “tweeted” a dozen times, occasionally promising an in-depth story that never arrived.

Once we were on a roll, I paused to survey the room. I watched the other teams spending all their energy on facts and framing and to-be-sures, scrambling to publish just one article debunking the misleading ideas we had scattered like dandelion seeds. We didn’t even need to lie outright: maybe there was an active shooter! In the fog of uncertainty, we had exploited a grain of possible truth.

Abruptly, the organizers ended the game. Ninety minutes had somehow passed.

I took stock of myself standing up, leaning forward with my hands pressed to the table, adrenaline rippling through my body. I had spent the previous year researching digital disinformation and producing articles on its history, techniques and impact on society. Intellectually I knew that people and groups wanted to manipulate the information environment for power or money or even just for kicks. But I hadn’t understood how that felt.

I scanned the faces of my “colleagues,” seeing them again as humans rather than foot soldiers, and flinched at the way they looked back at me with concern in their eyes.

Our debrief of the simulation confirmed that my newsroom had sabotaged the media environment on Election Day.“You sent the other newsrooms into a tailspin,” First Draft’s deputy director Aimee Rinehart later told me. She said I was the first person to co-opt the game as a “bad steward of the Internet,” which made me wonder if future simulations should always secretly assign one group the role of wily propagandist.

It took hard alcohol and many hours for my nervous system to settle down. The game had rewarded my gaslighting with amplification, and I had gotten to witness the spread of my power, not just in likes and shares but through immediate “real-world” consequences.

Playing the bad guy showed me how the design of platforms is geared toward controlling minds, not expanding them. I’d known this, but now I felt why journalism couldn’t compete against influence operations on the high-speed battlefield of social media—by taking up the same arms as the outrage machine, we would become them. Instead we could strengthen our own turf by writing “truth sandwich” headlines and service articles that anticipate the public’s need for clarity. Because ultimately the problem wasn’t about truths versus lies or facts versus falsehoods. It was about stability and shared reality versus disorientation and chaos. And in that day’s simulation of the 2020 election, chaos had won by suppressing the vote.

Sustainability culture and rebuilding consensus on environmental policy

by Steve Cohen, State of the Planet

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

As bad as things are this year, I confess that I remain an optimist and believe we will figure out the crises we now confront and make the world less bad than it is today. COVID-19, climate, equity, racism and poverty are real and daunting public policy problems. There are crazy people in the world that want to kidnap governors, kill a man with a relentless knee to his neck, party without masks, and don't think that COVID-19 and climate change are real. But most people see the world as it is, and I find people generous and typically willing to help those in need. A growing number of people worry about our planet becoming contaminated and want to ensure their behavior doesn't make things worse.


The importance of protecting our air, land and water is a shared value. Polluters develop elaborate excuses and rationalizations to defend their pollution because they know that harming the environment is a bad thing and most people see the world that way. The polluters themselves see the world that way- they can't help sharing those values. There is this nagging feeling in the back of our mind that the world is getting more crowded and the resources we once relied on are not always available. The well we dug when we first moved into our home is now contaminated and we need to pay to pipe in filtered "city water." The quiet country road we drove on when we were kids is now a highway. The woods we used to camp in were ripped out to build a strip mall. The Not in My Backyard syndrome or "NIMBY" comes from a desire to preserve current land uses and prevent new ones that might change a status quo we are often eager to maintain. We are told that there is a trade-off between economic wealth and environmental protection, but if there is a trade-off, we don't feel good about it. I should note that I consider this a false trade-off and that economic development that damages the environment brings short-term benefits at the expense of much greater long-term costs. And the costs can be avoided with ingenuity, scientific analysis and carefully considered actions.

We don't want to be regulated and told what to do but we also don't want other people to contaminate the air, land and water we rely on. We don't want to do without modern conveniences like autos, jets and air conditioners, but we sure wish we could have that stuff without damaging our planet. The ethical value of environmental protection is one that is widely shared. At the start of the environmental movement in the 1960s, the issues were easier to understand. Residents of Los Angeles could see and smell the smog. Orange rivers that caught fire were obviously not clean or safe. The toxic waste from the landfill oozing into your basement seemed like an invasion by something alien and evil.


But then the issues became more subtle and complicated. We always had forest fires and hurricanes but somehow climate change made them worse. Viruses were always with us, but as in the case of COVID-19, they cannot be seen or smelled. These forms of damage require the interpretation of environmental and medical experts. We have to trust them to be honest and correct. Some people refuse to make that leap of faith, but most people know what they don't know and are willing to trust experts. We put our lives in the hands of medical doctors not because we like it, but because we come to realize we have no choice. We live in a complicated, high-tech world, and we rely on experts to make it work.

We think about the issues that experts call to our attention- from COVID-19 to climate change and it challenges us to identify behaviors we could modify to address them. Some of these behaviors are under our control: social distancing, wearing masks, installing solar panels or LED lights, and support for public policies that enable us to collectively address these issues. Some are behaviors not under our control, like finding yourself standing next to a person who refuses to wear a mask and is an asymptomatic carrier of COVID-19. People's values favor the freedom to move about freely in society and go mask-less whenever they want, but their values also cause them to want to protect their loved ones from harm.

Similarly, more and more people are thinking about their carbon footprint, but think about it when they turn on their air conditioner or are driving their car to work. Their values could and sometimes do, result in changed behaviors. They may look for a mass transit method of commuting, find a place to live that is closer to work, work more often from home, and purchase a more energy efficient auto and air conditioner. These values are based on a shared perception of how the world works and our current environmental conditions. It does not lead to a uniform response, but it does represent a cultural shift from the way we lived half a century ago, at the dawn of the environmental era. Fifty years ago, no one even knew they had a carbon footprint.

The culture and values of sustainability cut across ideological lines in America, but unfortunately, many of our environmental policy proposals are not designed to take advantage of that common understanding. The environmental policy of the 1970s and 1980s was largely command-and-control regulation: a necessity in a time that required new rules of the road. But despite recent attacks by the Trump Administration, those rules are hard-wired into America's legal system. They may be weakened but no Congress will legislate their end. In fact, the administration sought to weaken regulations because they knew Congress would never weaken our environmental laws. But perhaps the command-and-control model is not appropriate for decarbonization. In my view, our approach to climate change policy adheres to that same model and does not build on our shared understanding of environmental conditions. Instead, it focuses on punishing those who use fossil fuels by charging them more to use them. A more practical approach would seek to transform the fossil fuel and electric utility industry into a renewable energy business. It would use public resources to ease the impact of that transition on fossil fuel workers and owners and make decarbonization a national project built on the shared value of building a modern, sustainable energy system.

Climate change and our pattern of land use development have exacerbated the impact of extreme weather on our energy system. People now routinely experience blackouts. Generator sales have increased dramatically. A decentralized, smart-grid system based on renewable energy has a lot of appeal when compared to getting by without electricity for a few weeks. A broad consensus could be built: homeowners get reliability, environmentalists get decarbonization, workers get jobs and owners are able to be compensated for their now less valuable fuels and infrastructure.

The ideological environment in politics today favors those at the extremes. Power is achieved and maintained by defining those you disagree with as enemies and as bad people. We feel this polarization and see it every day, and yet I believe that this presidential campaign has demonstrated the desire for a return to normal political discourse characterized by mutual respect and compromise. The need for environmental sustainability and global efforts to mitigate climate change is obvious to about 70% of all Americans. We disagree on policy methods but not policy objectives. We need to avoid spiking the ball in the endzone and start talking to each other about our shared values and develop environmental policies that reflect those values. The funding model of many interest groups is based on scaring people into believing that the enemy is at the city gates: "Only giving us access to your credit card can avert disaster." The danger is reinforced by social media and has resulted in the dysfunctional policy paralysis we now live within. The only way out is by learning to listen to each other and forging compromises. The alternative is too dire to contemplate.


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COVID-19 is a dress rehearsal for entrepreneurial approaches to climate change

Provided by State of the Planet

 

Sapphires show their true colors: Not water-loving

SCIENCE CHINA PRESS

Research News

 

IMAGE: MACROSCOPIC WETTABILITY DIFFERENCES OF DIFFERENT Α-AL2O3 CRYSTAL FACES AND SCHEMATIC DIAGRAMS TO ILLUSTRATE THE MECHANISM AT THE MOLECULAR LEVEL. (A) POLYCRYSTALLINE ALUMINA IS HIGHLY HYDROPHILIC, WHILE Α-AL2O3 CRYSTAL FACES WITH... view more 

CREDIT: ©SCIENCE CHINA PRESS

In 1805, Thomas Young took the mechanical equilibrium at the solid/liquid/gas three-phase contact line into consideration (the balance of forces acting on the contact line formed by the intersection of the liquid-gas interface and the solid surface), and introduced the macroscopic concept of "contact angle" and Young's equation. Based on the assumptions of isotropic, homogeneous, and smooth surface, Young's equation gives the relationship between the intrinsic contact angle of the solid surface and the interfacial free energy at the solid/liquid/gas three-phase contact line.

However, it is difficult to obtain such a perfect surface in reality, and surfaces are usually heterogeneous. Although the macroscopic surface is smooth, the microscopic surface tends to be chaotic. The contact angle obtained in this way cannot be called the intrinsic contact angle.

To explore the intrinsic wettability of materials, the team of Prof. Xiaolin Wang from the Institute for Superconducting and Electronic Materials, Australian Institute for Innovative Materials, University of Wollongong and Prof. Lei Jiang and Prof. Tian Ye from the Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences jointly studied the wettability behavior of different crystal faces of sapphire (α-Al2O3) single crystals. Related results were published in the National Science Review (NSR) with the title "Crystal Face Dependent Intrinsic Wettability of Metal Oxide Surfaces".

¯1¯As we all know, the surface of alumina is hydrophilic, and the contact angle of the polycrystalline surface of alumina is about 10°. During the experiment, researchers were surprised to find that the intrinsic contact angles of all four α-Al2O3 single crystals with different crystal faces are far greater than 10°, and the contact angle of the (1-102) crystal face is very close to 90°. The previous study in our group had proven that the intrinsic hydrophilic and hydrophobic boundary of the surface material is about 65°, so the (1-102) crystal surface is hydrophobic.

Through DFT simulation of the structures of the adsorbed interfacial water molecules at different crystal faces, it was found that compared with hydrophilic (11-20), (10-10) and (0001) crystal faces, the adsorbed water molecules at (1-102) crystal face is in a standing state; that is, the hydrogen atoms of the hydrophobic crystal face are at the highest point of the first layer of adsorbed water. Therefore, water molecules from water droplets at the three-phase contact line can only form one hydrogen bond with one hydrogen atom. Since one hydrogen bond interaction is relatively weak and then the three-phase contact line is easily anchored. But on the hydrophilic crystal faces, the oxygen atoms of the adsorbed interfacial water molecule are at the highest point. In this case, there are two lone pairs of electrons of one oxygen atom to form two hydrogen bond interactions with water molecules of water droplets at the three-phase contact line. Hence, the three-line contact line is easier to spread.

So far, this work started from the atomic-level flat alumina crystal interface and proved that the orientation of adsorbed interfacial water molecules has a huge impact on macroscopic wettability of solid surfaces with the similar chemical composition (aluminum and oxygen) and almost no topographic structure (atomically flat). This work focuses on the study of intrinsic wettability of the solid interface, which may provide inspirations to improve the catalytic efficiency, prepare excellent functional materials, and improve the performance of composite devices.

###

See the article:

Zhongpeng Zhu, Zhenwei Yu, Frank F. Yun, Deng Pan, Ye Tian*, Lei Jiang, and Xiaolin Wang*
Crystal Face Dependent Intrinsic Wettability of Metal Oxide Surfaces
Natl Sci Rev; doi: 10.1093/nsr/nwaa166
https://doi.org/10.1093/nsr/nwaa166

The National Science Review is the first comprehensive scholarly journal released in English in China that is aimed at linking the country's rapidly advancing community of scientists with the global frontiers of science and technology. The journal also aims to shine a worldwide spotlight on scientific research advances across China.

Scientists show more proof Far-UVC light will kill coronavirus without hurting humans

by Chris Melore

HIGASHIHIROSHIMA, Japan — Ultraviolet light continues to be an effective weapon against the coronavirus pandemic. The problem is standard UV light can damage human cells, making it hard to clean rooms with people in them. Luckily, a study from Japan is adding further evidence that less potent forms of UV rays can do the job. Researchers say their experiments prove Far-UVC light will destroy COVID-19 without harming anyone exposed to it.

A team at Hiroshima University finds Ultraviolet C light with a wavelength of 222 nanometers offers a safer but still effective way to kill SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing COVID-19. A nanometer equals a billionth of a meter.

Hiroshima University researchers show Ultraviolet C light effectively kills SARS-CoV-2, without harming human cells. (Credit: Hiroshima University Department of Public Relations)

Regular UV light is widely used to eliminate germs on surfaces, but has a wavelength of 254 nanometers. Study authors say this kind of intense UV exposure can actually penetrate the human body.

“It is well known that 254-nm UVC is harmful to the skin and eyes. Previous reports demonstrated that 222-nm UVC light, belonging to far-UVC (207-222 nm), has the same highly effective germicidal properties as 254-nm UVC; however, it is less harmful to the skin and eyes,” researchers write in the American Journal of Infection Control.

The study adds that 254-nm light can break through the outer layer of dead cells on the skin and eyes, irradiating human tissue. Far-UVC light cannot penetrate human skin or eyes.

How well can Far-UVC light stop COVID-19?

The Japanese team uses Ushio’s Care222 krypton-chloride excimer lamp against viral cultures of SARS-CoV-2 in an in vitro experiment. After just 30 seconds of exposure, researchers find 222-nm light kills 99.7 percent of the virus. The team says this offers hospitals safer ways to sterilize work areas while keeping staff and patients out of danger.

In June, a Columbia University study also showed evidence Far-UVC light works against several strains of coronavirus and other pathogens. That report reveals UV lamps set between 207 and 222 nanometers can kill 90 percent of airborne virus particles in just eight minutes.

Both studies see the possibility for governments to start hanging “overhead far-UVC lamps” in public spaces. This technology may help lower the spread of seasonal illnesses like the flu, as Hiroshima University adds Far-UVC can also destroy the H1N1 influenza virus.

The Japanese study cautions that while there is now proof Far-UVC light can destroy COVID-19, they still need to test these rays against real-world surfaces outside of the lab.

Scientists call for serious study of 'unidentified aerial phenomena'

You don't have to be an alien truther to be curious about recent UAP events


By Leonard David


An unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAP) caught on a U.S. Navy jet's Forward-looking Infrared (FLIR) camera system in 2004.
(Image: © DOD/U.S. Navy)


The U.S. Navy recently admitted that, indeed, strangely behaving objects caught on video by jet pilots over the years are genuine head-scratchers. There are eyewitness accounts not only from pilots but from radar operators and technicians, too.

In August, the Navy established an Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) Task Force to investigate the nature and origin of these odd sightings and determine if they could potentially pose a threat to U.S. national security.


The recently observed UAPs purportedly have accelerations that range from almost 100 Gs to thousands of Gs — far higher than a human pilot could survive. There's no air disturbance visible. They don't produce sonic booms. These and other oddities have captured the attention of "I told you so, they're here" UFO believers.

But there's also a rising call for this phenomenon to be studied scientifically — even using satellites to be on the lookout for possible future UAP events.

Wanted: high-quality evidence

Philippe Ailleris is a project controller at the European Space Agency's Space Research and Technology Center in the Netherlands. He's also the primary force behind the Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena Observations Reporting Scheme, a project to facilitate the collection of UAP reports from both amateur and professional astronomers.


There's a need for the scientific study of UAPs and a requirement to assemble reliable evidence, something that could not be so easily ignored by science, Ailleris told Space.com.

It is necessary to bring scientists objective and high-quality data, Ailleris said. "No one knows where and when a UAP can potentially appear, hence the difficulty of scientific research in this domain."

New tools

Recent years have seen rapid advances in information and communication technologies — for example, open tools and software, cloud computing and artificial intelligence with machine and deep learning, Ailleris said. These tools offer scientists new possibilities to collect, store, manipulate and transmit data.


Ailleris points to another potent tool. "The location over our heads of satellites is the perfect chance to potentially detect something," he said.


Working in the space sector, it occurred to Ailleris that Earth-observation civilian satellites could be used to search for UAPs. One avenue is tapping into free-of-charge imagery collected by the European Union's Copernicus satellites, an Earth-observing program coordinated and managed by the European Commission in partnership with ESA.


Also, there are more and more Earth-scanning spacecraft being launched to take the pulse of our globe. Such work is no longer limited to major countries or powers, Ailleris said; private actors have also entered the planet-viewing scene.

"This evolution will stimulate forward-thinking ideas across different domains, including controversial topics," Ailleris said. "And why not the UAP research field?"

UAP expedition

Working with Ailleris to employ satellite imagery to detect and monitor UAPs is Kevin Knuth, a former scientist with NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley. He is now an associate professor of physics at the University at Albany in New York.

"We are looking into using satellites to monitor the region of ocean south of Catalina Island where the 2004 Nimitz encounters occurred," Knuth said, referring to UAP sightings reported by pilots and radar operators based aboard the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz.
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That area will also be the target for a 2021 UAP expedition carried out by Knuth and other researchers. The goal of the outing is "to provide unassailable scientific evidence that UAP objects are real, UAP objects are findable and UAP objects are knowable," according to the website for the project, which is called UAPx.


The UAPx team includes military veterans and physicists, as well as research scientists and trained observers that will use specialized gear to observe any would-be UAP.


"We are hoping to detect UAPs, determine their characteristics, flight patterns and any patterns in activity that will allow us to study them more effectively," Knuth told Space.com. "In addition to monitoring a region for UAPs, we are also looking into using satellites to obtain independent confirmation of prominent UAP sightings and to obtain quantifiable information about those UAPs."

https://www.space.com/unidentified-aerial-phenomena-scientific-scrutiny?jwsource=cl
The "GoFast" UAP, observed by a U.S. Navy jet in 2015. (Image credit: DOD/U.S. Navy)

Science problem

"I certainly think that UAP deserve to be studied, just like we would do with any other problem in science," said Jacob Haqq-Misra, an astrobiologist with the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science in Seattle, Washington.

In August, Haqq-Misra helped organize a NASA-sponsored interdisciplinary workshop, called TechnoClimes 2020, that sought to prioritize and guide future theoretical and observational studies of non-radio "technosignatures" — that is, observational manifestations of technology, particularly those that could be detected through astronomical or other means.

Haqq-Misra said his knowledge regarding UAPs stems from the public domain, such as the recently released Navy videos and Department of Defense comments. But otherwise, he has not conducted any of his own investigations into the problem.

"I also remain agnostic as to any particular hypothesis that might explain UAP, at least until we have more data to consider," Haqq-Misra said. "The non-human intelligence hypothesis is a popular one, but I don't necessarily have any indication that it is more probable than any other hypothesis at this point."

Logo of the UAPx expedition, which involves military veterans, physicists, as well as research scientists and trained observers. They want to provide unassailable scientific evidence that UAP objects are real, findable and knowable. (Image credit: DOD/U.S. Navy)

'Outlaws' of physics

Ravi Kopparapu is a planetary scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland who studies planetary habitability, climate modeling and chemistry in the context of exoplanet atmosphere characterization. He views the UAP/UFO phenomena as a scientifically interesting problem, driven in part by observations that seem to defy the laws of physics.

That said, Kopparapu said he's wary of bringing the term "extraterrestrial" into the conversation. "That's because there is absolutely no concrete evidence that I know of that points to them as being extraterrestrial," he said. 

"There's a fundamental problem that we have right now to scientifically study UAP," Kopparapu said. "We do not have proper data collection of this phenomena that can be shared among interested scientists to verify claims and filter out truly unexplainable events."

Also, the entire UAP topic has been much maligned by being associated with ET, Kopparapu added. This association prevents a thorough scientific investigation by the science community, he feels, essentially because of a taboo surrounding ET claims.

"I think people immediately think about 'aliens' when they hear UFOs/UAPs, and I want scientists to not fall for that," Kopparapu said. "Be strictly agnostic and don't let preconceived ideas cloud judgments. Have an open mind. Consider this as a science problem. If it turns out these have mundane explanations, so be it."

Kopparapu and like-minded colleagues are proposing a completely unbiased, agnostic approach to study UAP, he said: "Let the data lead us to what they are."


Leonard David is author of the recently released book, "Moon Rush: The New Space Race" published by National Geographic in May 2019. A longtime writer for Space.com, David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. This version of the story published on Space.com.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY UNCLE AL

MAGICK and the right comprehension and right application thereof. I) DEFINITION. Magick is the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will. (Illustration: It is my Will to inform the World of certain facts within my knowledge.

Magick in Theory and Practice - Introduction and Theorems

sacred-texts.com/oto/aba/defs.htm

A FEAST

 BOOK OF THE LAW

CHAPTER II

34. But ye, o my people, rise up & awake!

35. Let the rituals be rightly performed with joy & beauty!

36. There are rituals of the elements and feasts of the times.

37. A feast for the first night of the Prophet and his Bride!

38. A feast for the three days of the writing of the Book of the Law.

39. A feast for Tahuti and the child of the Prophet--secret, O Prophet!

40. A feast for the Supreme Ritual, and a feast for the Equinox of the Gods.

41. A feast for fire and a feast for water; a feast for life and a greater feast for death!

42. A feast every day in your hearts in the joy of my rapture!

43. A feast every night unto Nu, and the pleasure of uttermost delight!

44. Aye! feast! rejoice! there is no dread hereafter. There is the dissolution, and eternal ecstasy in the kisses of Nu.

Drought once shut down Old Faithful—and might again

Petrified wood suggests Old Faithful's regular eruptions went quiet 800 years ago.

YINYANG/ISTOCK.COM By Colin Barras Oct. 12, 2020 , 9:55 AM

Old Faithful, it turns out, wasn’t always so faithful. The geyser, in Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park, is famous because it blasts hot water tens of meters into the air at regular intervals—every 90 to 94 minutes, on average. Now, geologists examining petrified wood from the park have found evidence that 800 years ago, Old Faithful stopped erupting entirely for several decades, in response to a severe drought. With climate change making drought more common across the western United States, the researchers say a similar shutdown might happen again.

The world’s 1000 or so geysers typically occur in areas that are volcanically active, like Yellowstone. Water percolating down through the ground reaches the boiling point as it approaches the heat of a magma chamber. But because the water is deep underground it is also at a high pressure that prevents it from becoming steam. Eventually, the superheated water becomes hot enough to vaporize, triggering an explosive eruption of water and steam at the geyser’s vent.

Many geysers erupt randomly, but when Henry Washburn and his fellow explorers traveled through Yellowstone in 1870, they noted the regularity of Old Faithful and named it to reflect its predictability.

Shaul Hurwitz, a geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey, and his colleagues wondered whether it was always so dependable. Today, the area around the geyser is barren because vegetation can’t survive the blasts of hot, alkaline water. Back in the 1950s, however, a researcher found chunks of ancient wood near the geyser, mineralized and preserved by Old Faithful’s silica-rich waters. The wood suggested there was a time when trees could grow because there were no eruptions. To investigate, Hurwitz and his colleagues persuaded the National Park Service to let them date 13 such specimens.

“When I submitted the samples for radiocarbon dating I didn’t know whether they would be hundreds or thousands of years old,” Hurwitz says. “It was an ‘aha!’ moment when they all clustered within a hundred-year period in the 13th and 14th centuries.”

Three of the wood fragments were lodgepole pines, still common in Yellowstone today, the team reported on 7 October in Geophysical Research Letters. One specimen—a 2.4-meter-long section of trunk—came from a tree the researchers estimate grew for 80 years, which suggests Old Faithful failed to erupt for almost a century.

The researchers turned to the scientific literature in search of an explanation for the eruption hiatus. They found that all their samples fell at the end of the Medieval Climate Anomaly, a warm and dry period felt across the Northern Hemisphere thought to have been caused, in part, by changes in ocean circulation. It began in 950 C.E. and in the western U.S. was still causing droughts in the late 1200s. The researchers argue a lengthy drought would have starved Old Faithful of the water it needs to erupt, paradoxically allowing some drought-tolerant trees to grow.

Jamie Farrell, a geophysicist at the University of Utah who studies Yellowstone and who wasn’t involved in the study, says the analysis makes sense. “If you have prolonged drought and there isn’t enough water to feed these systems, then features like Old Faithful might sometimes stop erupting,” he says.

Broxton Bird, a geologist at Indiana University–Purdue University, Indianapolis, who specializes in climate change, agrees. He says the Medieval Climate Anomaly was severe enough to make it happen. “Water tables would be getting lower and lower, and right at the end of that Old Faithful shuts down,” he says. The droughts would have made farming in the western U.S. difficult, he adds. This may help explain why the Pueblo dwellings of ancestral Native Americans in the southwest U.S. were abandoned at the time.

Hurwitz and his colleagues say that with climate change making megadroughts more likely across the western U.S., Old Faithful might erupt less frequently in the future–and might even stop altogether.

Maxwell Rudolph, a geophysicist at the University of California, Davis, says that would be tragic for the millions of people who visit Old Faithful. “The extinction of this natural treasure would be a profound loss.”

doi:10.1126/science.abf1912