It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, August 01, 2025
Partisan hostility, not just policy, drives U.S. protests
Partisan animosity is a powerful driver of protest participation -- sometimes nearly matching or even exceeding concern about the actual issues, according to a new study published in the journal Social Forces.
The research, conducted by political scientist Seth Warner at the University of Connecticut, analyzed three nationally representative surveys fielded between 2014 and 2022. Each focused on a different protest movement: Black Lives Matter, the climate movement, and the Tea Party.
Warner matched survey questions to these movements’ core grievances - for example, beliefs about racial inequality for BLM and distrust of government for the Tea Party. He then collected survey responses about people’s feelings toward the major political parties.
In all three analyses, hostility toward the opposing party was a major factor, often as large or larger than issue concern. For climate protests, animosity toward the Republican Party was an even stronger predictor than concern about climate change itself.
“Partisan animosity isn’t just background noise, it’s a key reason people show up to protest,” says Warner. “People are mobilized by anger at the other side, not just by passion for an issue.”
The study also found that where people live matters. Americans in counties with higher overall partisan animosity were more likely to protest, regardless of their individual views. Interestingly, being exposed to hostility from out-party members seemed to motivate people even more than being surrounded by like-minded allies.
“Living in a politically charged environment shapes how threatened people feel, and that sense of threat pushes them to act,” Warner explains.
Warner’s work suggests that the recent surge in protests is linked not just to issues like police reform or climate change, but to a broader climate of partisan hostility. It offers a new way for scholars and the public to think about political participation in the U.S.
“This challenges the idea that protests are only about policy change,” Warner says. “In today’s polarized America, protesting can also be a way to stand against the other party.”
The full study, “Partisan Animosity and Protest Participation in the United States,” is published in Social Forces and available online at https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soaf066.
Journal
Social Forces
Method of Research
Data/statistical analysis
Subject of Research
People
Article Title
Partisan Animosity and Protest Participation in the United States
Pups in tow, Yellowstone-area wolves trek long distances to stay near prey
For the first time, a UC Berkeley-led research team has observed gray wolves outside of the Arctic migrating during pup-rearing season
In a new study, a UC Berkeley-led team of biologists observed gray wolves near Yellowstone National Park traveling 20 kilometers or more over rugged, mountainous terrain, with very young pups in tow. It is the first time gray wolves outside of the Arctic have been observed migrating, or shifting their territorial range, to be closer to prey during pup-rearing season. This photo from the Thorofare Wilderness on the southeast side of Yellowstone National Park shows the summer range of one of Yellowstone’s migratory elk herds.
Berkeley — Gray wolf pups are born nearly helpless: blind, deaf and lacking the acute sense of smell of their elders. They usually remain in the safe confines of their den until they are at least three weeks old.
That is why UC Berkeley biologists were surprised to observe gray wolves near Yellowstone National Park traveling 20 kilometers or more over rugged, mountainous terrain, with very young pups in tow.
“The first time I saw a camera trap photo of a wolf carrying its pup, I just cracked up because the pup is being carried by its butt,” said Avery Shawler, first author of a new study presenting the findings, which appeared online today (Aug. 1) in the journal Current Biology. “You can picture a squirming child and the mom just being like, ‘All right, we're doing this.’”
Shawler and the other researchers believe wolves undertook these risky journeys to move their packs closer to elk, their preferred prey, during the elk spring migration to higher altitudes. The study is the first time gray wolves outside of the Arctic have been observed migrating, or shifting their territorial range, to be closer to prey during pup-rearing season.
“Our findings counter years of assumptions by researchers that migratory hoofed mammals can escape predation in spring because [their predators] are tied to dens and immobile offspring,” said study senior author Arthur Middleton, a Berkeley professor of environmental science, policy and management.
Understanding how wolves are adapting to the movements of their prey is key to the conservation of both species, Shawler said. It can help land managers understand seasonal patterns of human-wildlife conflict in an ecosystem that includes both ranches and wilderness, where wolves may view livestock as a tasty alternative to elk.
“In the U.S., more wolves live outside of protected areas than within protected areas, and these wolves are going to overlap with humans and livestock,” said Shawler, who completed a Ph.D. at UC Berkeley in 2024. “Our research provides some insight into the behavior of wolves living on working landscapes and how they've had to adapt to an environment that is different from what wolves were dealing with 100 years ago.”
Gray wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in 1995, and researchers estimate that their population in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem has since grown to around 500. Tens of thousands of partially migratory elk also inhabit the region.
Climate change and shifts in land use are putting pressure on both species and leading them to adapt accordingly. Earlier research led by Middleton showed that the timing of annual elk migrations is currently in flux, with elk arriving at their winter ranges up to 50 days later in 2015 compared to 2001.
To explore how elk migration patterns impact wolf behavior, the researchers used GPS collars to track the movements of 19 gray wolves and 99 elk in the eastern Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem between 2019 and 2021.
They found that wolves are surprisingly adaptable to the movements of their prey. Some elk herds in Yellowstone only migrate short distances in the spring, and the wolf packs that tracked them generally stayed in the same territory where they first established their dens. Other elk herds travel much longer distances in the spring, and wolf packs that tracked them had to get more creative, engaging in behaviors the researchers called “commuting” and “migrating.”
The researchers used the term “commuting” to describe temporary forays taken outside of the wolves’ home territories, usually to track migrating elk herds.
Wolves “migrated” when they moved to an entirely new seasonal range, following migrating elk up to 50 km. Sometimes they carried small pups as far as 20 km from their original dens to new pack “rendezvous” sites.
“In Yellowstone, research has shown how a lot of wolf mortality can come from other packs coming in and killing pups, because there's a lot of packs competing for space and food,” Shawler said. “It's pretty wild that this risky behavior of moving young pups is even occurring when that's happening next door.”
The findings can inform conservation efforts and land management in any region that has gray wolves — including California, which is home to approximately 10 packs after wolves began recolonizing the state in 2011. Middleton is co-leading the new California Wolf Project, which aims to understand the social and ecological factors that are shaping these wolf populations.
“While it’s still early days, our partners in California have a strong hunch that the numbers and movements of deer and elk are playing into wolf behavior, including livestock predation,” Middleton said. “The work around Yellowstone sharpens our ideas and approaches as we grow the project in California.”
Additional study co-authors include Kristin J. Barker of UC Berkeley and Beyond Yellowstone Living Lab; Wenjing Xu of the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre in Germany; and Kenneth J. Mills and Tony W. Mong of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.
The study was supported by the National Geographic Society, Knobloch Family Foundation, George B. Storer Foundation, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, UC Berkeley, and the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, and conducted from a base at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming.
The open, sponge‑like network inside a porous transition‑metal oxide lets the larger, doubly- or triply-charged ions travel during a battery’s charge and discharge cycles.
Researchers from New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) have used artificial intelligence to tackle a critical problem facing the future of energy storage: finding affordable, sustainable alternatives to lithium-ion batteries.
In research published in Cell Reports Physical Science, the NJIT team led by Professor Dibakar Datta successfully applied generative AI techniques to rapidly discover new porous materials capable of revolutionizing multivalent-ion batteries. These batteries, using abundant elements like magnesium, calcium, aluminum and zinc, offer a promising, cost-effective alternative to lithium-ion batteries, which face global supply challenges and sustainability issues.
Unlike traditional lithium-ion batteries, which rely on lithium ions that carry just a single positive charge, multivalent-ion batteries use elements whose ions carry two or even three positive charges. This means multivalent-ion batteries can potentially store significantly more energy, making them highly attractive for future energy storage solutions.
However, the larger size and greater electrical charge of multivalent ions make them challenging to accommodate efficiently in battery materials — an obstacle that the NJIT team's new AI-driven research directly addresses.
“One of the biggest hurdles wasn’t a lack of promising battery chemistries — it was the sheer impossibility of testing millions of material combinations,” Datta said. “We turned to generative AI as a fast, systematic way to sift through that vast landscape and spot the few structures that could truly make multivalent batteries practical.
“This approach allows us to quickly explore thousands of potential candidates, dramatically speeding up the search for more efficient and sustainable alternatives to lithium-ion technology.”
To overcome these hurdles, the NJIT team developed a novel dual-AI approach: a Crystal Diffusion Variational Autoencoder (CDVAE) and a finely tuned Large Language Model (LLM). Together, these AI tools rapidly explored thousands of new crystal structures, something previously impossible using traditional laboratory experiments.
The CDVAE model was trained on vast datasets of known crystal structures, enabling it to propose completely novel materials with diverse structural possibilities. Meanwhile, the LLM was tuned to zero in on materials closest to thermodynamic stability, crucial for practical synthesis.
“Our AI tools dramatically accelerated the discovery process, which uncovered five entirely new porous transition metal oxide structures that show remarkable promise,” said Datta. “These materials have large, open channels ideal for moving these bulky multivalent ions quickly and safely, a critical breakthrough for next-generation batteries.”
The team validated their AI-generated structures using quantum mechanical simulations and stability tests, confirming that the materials could indeed be synthesized experimentally and hold great potential for real-world applications.
Datta emphasized the broader implications of their AI-driven approach: “This is more than just discovering new battery materials — it’s about establishing a rapid, scalable method to explore any advanced materials, from electronics to clean energy solutions, without extensive trial and error.”
With these encouraging results, Datta and his colleagues plan to collaborate with experimental labs to synthesize and test their AI-designed materials, pushing the boundaries further towards commercially viable multivalent-ion batteries.
Dustin Condren's research builds on his book on Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein, whose 1925 film Strike uses animal symbolism to portray human suffering and political violence.
University of Oklahoma Associate Professor Dustin Condren, Ph.D., has been named a 2025-2026 Fulbright U.S. Scholar by the U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.
Condren is among around 400 scholars selected nationwide for the prestigious international award. The Fulbright Scholars program aims to promote mutual understanding between the people of the U.S. and those from other nations. Candidates are chosen based on their academic achievements and the strength of their proposed project.
Condren is now based in Potsdam, Germany, just outside Berlin, at Film University Babelsberg – the country’s premier institution for film studies and home to the historic Babelsberg Film Studios, one of Europe’s oldest cinematic centers. He is conducting archival research focusing on a unique collection of Soviet films from the 1920s and 1930s, which are preserved as part of Germany’s historical ties with the former Soviet Union.
A scholar of Russian literature and culture, Condren’s research explores how animals were portrayed in early Soviet cinema, particularly during the era of collectivization. He is examining the ways filmmakers used animal imagery to convey emotional, symbolic or political messages, reflecting broader themes in the Soviet Union’s shift from private agriculture to state-run farming.
“I am especially interested in how these films helped justify the shift to mass production and factory-style farming,” Condren said. “Through images of animals – sometimes used benignly, sometimes used to shock – the films provide deep insight into how humans relate to the natural world and how cinema shaped public understanding of radical political change.”
The project builds on Condren’s previous scholarship, including his 2024 book on Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein. While working on the book, he returned repeatedly to Eisenstein’s 1925 film Strike, which includes symbolic uses of animals to depict human brutality, helplessness and mass suffering.
“Animal studies is a discipline that has become an important part of literary and cinema studies related to the West, but there’s a significant gap in how animals have been examined in Russian and Soviet film,” Condren said. “This project aims to fill that gap and offer a new perspective on Soviet industrial and agricultural transformation through cinema’s animals.”
Condren anticipates that the research will have a strong impact on his teaching at OU. “Even in preliminary discussions about the topic, students have been fascinated and eager to share their perspective,” he said. “I look forward to returning to OU with new insights that will enhance my courses and spark deeper conversations about film, history and our relationship with the natural world.”
Since 1946, the Fulbright program has provided more than 310,000 participants with the opportunity to engage in cutting-edge research and expand their professional networks, often continuing research collaborations started abroad and laying the groundwork for forging future partnerships between institutions. Fulbright alumni include 62 Nobel Prize laureates, 90 Pulitzer Prize recipients, and 44 who have served as heads of state or government. For more information, visit https://fulbrightscholars.org.
‘Shore Wars:’ New research aims to resolve coastal conflict between oysters and mangroves, aiding restoration efforts
The newly published research analyzes how the proliferation of mangroves affects soil acidity and the health of oysters, which are equally critical to protecting Florida’s coasts.
Oysters and mangroves are both essential to protecting and restoring Florida’s coastlines that they call home, including defending them against storms.
As mangrove populations are increasing due to successful restoration efforts and favorable weather, however, their strong comeback may pose unintended consequences for oysters, according to new research from UCF graduate student Katherine Harris and Pegasus Professor Linda Walters published in the Marine Ecology Progress Series.
To protect Florida’s coastlines, the researchers hope their new findings can initiate efforts to strike a balance within coastal ecosystems so both oysters and mangroves can flourish without harming each other. Otherwise, the mangroves could eventually dominate oyster reefs.
“Mangroves are great at changing their surrounding habitat to benefit more mangroves coming in,” says Harris, who is pursuing a doctoral degree in integrative and conservation biology. “Mangroves will naturally acidify surrounding sediment, which may not be great for oysters. Oysters, since they are a shell-forming organism, are prone to dissolution in acidic conditions. So, as the acidity increases, the oyster shells might degrade, which would impact the overall reef viability and the ability of those reefs to provide beneficial services such as filtration, storm surge reduction and wave attenuation.”
The research team found that mangrove populations have nearly tripled in areas where oysters also live over the past 20-30 years, leading to a significant acidification of oyster reef sediment. This acidification causes oyster shell dissolution, with shells losing 8% of their mass over two years in mangrove-dominated areas compared to 1% in oyster reefs without mangroves. Some extreme cases even showed as much as a 40% loss of shell mass.
Walters, who also is part of the UCF Coastal: National Center for Integrated Coastal Research faculty cluster, says that the mangroves’ encroachment on oyster reefs isn’t as much of an act of war as it is an advantageous opportunity for them.
“This is the primary question that we get: ‘should we now be removing mangroves from oyster reefs, including restored oyster reefs?’” she says. “It is important to share that the mangroves have done nothing wrong – they are simply being mangroves, trees that have hundreds of propagules that disperse in the water via currents.”
“It is important to share that the mangroves have done nothing wrong – they are simply being mangroves, trees that have hundreds of propagules that disperse in the water via currents.” — Pegasus Professor Linda Walters
So, what’s at stake if oyster reefs decline to critical numbers?
“Primarily, we’d lose water filtration capacity as well as some protection against storm surges and erosion,” Walters says. “Each oyster filters approximately 20 gallons of water per day. Oysters remove sediments and plankton to improve water clarity for species like seagrasses to get sufficient sunlight, and a decline in oyster reefs would cause food loss for birds, crabs and fish. Because oyster reefs also reduce the impact of waves on shorelines, a decline in reefs also may lead to coastal communities experiencing higher storm surges and more erosion.”
Ensuring that oyster reefs can safely navigate these changes and thrive along with mangroves is a crucial part of coastal restoration efforts, she says.
“We work on public lands, state and national parks, so our mission is to provide the science to the park resource managers to help them make decisions,” Walters says. “While both species benefit estuaries in numerous ways, tipping the balance so that mangroves dominate and have the potential to completely overtake oyster reefs is a very new concern.”
For the experiment, the research team did not use live oysters. They instead placed cleaned and emptied shells in mesh bags throughout areas with varying mangrove densities within Mosquito Lagoon and Indian River Lagoon to study the effects of acidification on the shells.
The results inspired researchers to explore ways to help mangroves and oysters coexist more effectively and continue protecting coastal ecosystems.
While comparing sediment pH, researchers found a dramatic difference in acidity between habitats. When comparing an oyster reef without mangroves to an oyster reef with mangroves, they observed an 85% increase in acidity while comparing an oyster reef without mangroves to a fully mangrove dominated area, there was 142% increase in acidity.
Live oysters may be able to protect against acidification and build their shell over time, but that may be a misappropriation of the animal’s limited energy, Harris says.
“Live oysters probably are going to be able to have some pushback against acidification,” she says. “However, it probably would negatively impact their health, because they’re no longer focusing on getting bigger.”
Harris suggests that future efforts might consider the balance between mangrove benefits and oyster reef viability, potentially altering restoration strategies to mitigate these impacts.
“It’s really important to understand that both of these habitat types are essential,” she says.
The university’s Coastal and Estuarine Ecology Lab (CEELAB), helmed by Walters, partners with local educators to help mangroves grow from seedlings until they’re ready to be planted in areas marked for restoration. In the past academic year, Walters estimates that 1,700 mangroves were grown in 35 classrooms to support coastal restoration. Walters’ CEELAB has been studying oyster restoration efforts for about two decades, and these new findings add crucial context for future research.
“We do understand the importance of mangroves for shoreline protection and along these shorelines the mangroves grow landward of the oysters,” she says. “There is something novel about mangrove encroachment on oyster reef islands and this requires further study.”
Harris led the project in collaboration with UCF biology undergraduate researcher Meghan Bradburn ’22 and with the guidance of Walters.
Researchers’ Credentials
Harris is a doctoral candidate in conservation biology at UCF, where she studies coastal ecosystem dynamics and effective methods of science communication. Her research explores habitat shifts and leverages visual storytelling through virtual reality to foster community engagement in restoration. Recognized for excellence in graduate teaching, mentoring and interdisciplinary research, Harris is passionate about bridging ecology, visual media and outreach to help coastal ecosystems.
Walters joined UCF in 1997 and was named Pegasus Professor in 2012. She is part of the coastal cluster and leads CEELAB. CEELAB’s work connects UCF biology students with firsthand experience, putting classroom learning into practice. Walters has received more than $19.7 million in grant funding, published more than 120 peer-reviewed journal articles and authored 11 children’s story books about marine conservation.
UCF doctoral candidate Katherine Harris collecting data within Mosquito Lagoon and Indian River Lagoon to study the effects of acidification on the shells.
