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)
Monday, June 22, 2026
Changes in wildlife activity patterns in response to war in Ukraine
Summary author: Meagan Phelan
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Researchers in Ukraine used camera traps to investigate the impact of armed conflict on wildlife, comparing what they saw in 2022 (after the Russian occupation) to the same period in 2021 (pre-conflict). They report that mammal species responded to armed conflict through behavioral adjustments, including reduced activity during the night. The results provide valuable insights into the immediate responses of wildlife to such events and underscore the potential of camera trapping to quantify the ecological effects of war. Armed conflicts are horrific for the human beings involved; they are also bad for wildlife. Understanding the impacts of such conflicts is challenging, however, given the limited access for, and danger to, researchers. Here, Svitlana Kudrenko et al. were able to take advantage of camera traps already in operation to understand the impacts on wildlife of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, specifically of the Russian occupation of the Chernobyl exclusion zone. They found clear effects of conflict on mammals in the region, including reduced activity, especially during active conflict. Such impacts confirm that political instability does not just harm humans directly involved.
For reporters interested in research integrity-related priorities, Kudrenko told SciPak: “Increasing recognition for local researchers in less developed countries [is a priority].”
While modern amphibians start life in a larval stage, a new fossil study suggests these tadpole-like stages were not present in earlier times. In studying the origin of tetrapods, including the transition from water to land, an important hypothesis has been that early tetrapods may have exhibited gradual metamorphosis – including an aquatic larval stage. The larval stage was characterized by transient organs that were lost in a later transition to adulthood, and it has been hypothesized that this transition may have facilitated the larger transition from water to land. To seek evidence for this larval stage, Jason Pardo et al. looked at many fossils of stem tetrapods from the Mazon Creek Lagerstatte in Illinois. Their soft tissue was especially well-preserved. In these tissues, the authors found no evidence of larval morphological change. Instead, both before and after the fin-to-limb transition, growth from hatchling to adult proceeded through a direct development model, say the authors. Their findings suggest that acceleration of limb development may have been a prerequisite for completing the transition to land in early tetrapods.
For reporters interested in research integrity-related themes, Pardo told SciPak: “Research integrity is a critical part of the work we do. For us, our work relies on ensuring our interpretations of fossils are replicable by other researchers. We achieve this by ensuring our specimens are in public museums and research collections. We have worked closely with amateur collectors to ensure that the scientifically important fossils we report here will always be available to any researcher by making certain that they have been donated to public museums. We would like to see more partnerships like this.”
Direct development of stem tetrapods across the fin-to-limb transition
Article Publication Date
18-Jun-2026
Fossilized babies of ancient crocodile-like predators uproot scientists’ understanding of how animals adapted to the land
Baby fossil tetrapods show that the common ancestors of amphibians, reptiles, and mammals did not evolve from animals with amphibian-like tadpoles, as previously thought
Baby crocodile-like early tetrapods called embolomeres. New fossil evidence suggests that these embolomeres did not undergo a metamorphosis the way that modern amphibians do when growing up, which challenges a long-standing scientific belief that amphibians, reptiles, and mammals evolved from animals that had a tadpole stage. Illustration by Berit Goding.
Life on our planet began in the water. Eventually, one branch of the fish family tree developed legs and came up on land. These early four-legged animals, the tetrapods, were the forebears of today’s mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. Scientists have long thought that the earliest of these occasional-land-dwellers were like modern amphibians, in that they hatched from eggs, underwent a tadpole phase, and then transformed into their adult bodies. But in a new study in the journal Science, researchers announce the discovery of fossilized baby early tetrapods, which skipped the tadpole metamorphosis scientists had expected to see. The finding means that the first land-dwelling vertebrates were less like modern amphibians than had previously been thought— upending scientists’ understanding of how animals conquered the land.
“When a lot of us were in high school, we were taught this simplified story of evolution: that some fish evolved into amphibians, and some of those amphibians evolved into reptiles, and some of those reptiles evolved into mammals. And our study shows that this basic underlying premise, that the first four-legged vertebrates grew up like amphibians, is wrong,” says Jason Pardo, a research associate at the Field Museum and the study’s co-lead author.
“This is the first time we’ve had these early, early hatchling animals. This discovery is really a testament to the power of Mazon Creek, the site where these fossils came from,” says Arjan Mann, the Field Museum’s Assistant Curator of Early Tetrapods and the study’s other co-lead author. “It’s an hour’s drive southwest of Chicago, and it’s one of the best fossil sites in the world, especially for soft tissues and delicate little fossils like these baby tetrapods. Mazon Creek fossils are time capsules that capture the impossible.”
The study makes use of dozens of Mazon Creek fossils representing the evolutionary transition between fish and four-legged animals, or tetrapods, but two “centerpiece” fossils are babies of an animal called an embolomere. Embolomeres were crocodile-like early tetrapods that were among the top predators in rivers, lakes, and swamps from 350 to 280 million years ago. As adults, they could reach lengths of over ten feet, but the specimens found at Mazon Creek are babies that were just a few centimeters long.
“I first saw the baby embolomere fossil about ten years ago, when I was working on my PhD,” says Mann. “It’s in the collections at the Field Museum, and the curator of tetrapods at the time, John Bolt, pulled it out of a drawer and showed it to me when I was visiting. At the time, it hadn’t yet been identified as an embolomere, but I was really drawn to it, and John loaned me the fossil to study.”
Mann and Pardo, who were both PhD students in Canada at the time, spent years puzzling over the strange fossil. “We had so many conversations over the past decade about what the heck this thing was,” says Mann. “Every night, we’d go back and forth saying, what’s this feature? What could this thing be?” Eventually, analysis with scanning electron microscopy at the Canadian Museum of Nature confirmed the fossil’s identity as an embolomere. But that led to even more questions.
The baby embolomere, despite being an early tetrapod, didn’t show the amphibian-like tadpole features that scientists assumed an early tetrapod tadpole would have. While the juvenile tetrapod did indeed grow limbs over the course of its development, it was missing key amphibian tadpole traits like frilly external gills. The same held true for another smaller embolomere that the team analyzed, as well as for other species of fossil baby tetrapod relatives. Even when the larval stages did undergo big changes on their way to adulthood, they did not show signs of true amphibian metamorphosis.
“We looked at a number of different species that represent different lineages in the transition from fish to tetrapods, and what we found is that none of them have anything that looks remotely like a tadpole. And if you don't have a tadpole, then you don't have a metamorphosis,” says Pardo. “These early tetrapods’ life cycles are more like ours, or like those of fish, than they are like amphibians.”
And if animals like embolomere didn’t have a tadpole form or a true amphibian metamorphosis, that means that the widely-accepted hypothesis that reptiles and mammals evolved from amphibian-like animals is incorrect. “The story was that metamorphosis is the tool by which animals made the transition from fossil to land. That story doesn’t work anymore, it’s dust in the wind,” says Pardo.
Mann notes that this discovery, which rewrites decades of scientific understanding of early tetrapod evolution, would not have been possible without the collaboration of many people. “Every single specimen in this paper was a joint effort with the Earth Science Club of Northern Illinois, the Lauer Foundation for Paleontology, Science and Education, and the Field Museum. We could not have done this without the help of lots of scientists, including citizen scientists and volunteers,” says Mann. “People like Paul Demkovich, Ben Riegler, Rich Rock, and Tom Testa allowed us to study specimens that they found, and these specimens have changed the course of our understanding of how tetrapods evolved. This is a monumental discovery, and it could not have happened without citizen science.”
###
Caption
Fossil baby embolomere, showing that young embolomeres did not undergo a full amphibian-like metamorphosis.
Credit
Arjan Mann
Caption
Illustration showing a baby embolomere, with an adult in the background.
Microscope view of a pterosaur fossil section showing carbon coating and mineral layers. Microscope view of a pterosaur fossil section showing carbon coating and mineral layers.
An international study led by Curtin University has revealed new insights into how an ancient flying reptile was preserved in extraordinary detail for 113 million years – offering a rare glimpse into a vanished world.
That the fossilised wing phalanx of a prehistoric pterosaur, found in northeastern Brazil, was so remarkably preserved in three dimensions - even retaining chemical traces hinting at its diet – is thanks to the action of special bacteria and a unique ancient marine environment.
Lead author Kliti Grice, a John Curtin Distinguished Professor and founding Director of the Western Australian Organic and Isotope Geochemistry Centre at Curtin, said the findings open a new window into fossil formation.
“This fossil is a true time capsule — not only is it beautifully preserved, but for the first time we’ve detected traces of steroids in a pterosaur, providing further evidence that these creatures likely fed on fish or squid,” Professor Grice said.
“It also marks the first time molecules have been recovered from a pterosaur fossil, revealing new clues about its diet and highlighting the growing potential of molecular palaeontology to unlock secrets from deep time.
“Steroid preservation in fossils is exceptionally rare but what’s even more fascinating is that our findings challenge long-held ideas about fossil preservation itself. Rather than being destroyed by oxygen, some fossils are preserved because of it, through oxidative processes carried out by ancient microbiomes.
“After this pterosaur died and sank to the seabed, a perfect storm of chemistry, biology and the environment worked to seal its story in stone. Microbes, including sulfur-oxidising bacteria, began breaking down the soft tissue and fats and triggered mineralisation around the body - a process that, over time, helped preserve its structure in incredible detail for more than 100 million years.”
Pterosaurs were flying reptiles that lived alongside dinosaurs and were the first vertebrates to master powered flight, with some species reaching wingspans of up to 12 metres. Like modern birds, they had hollow bones, which in certain environmental conditions increased the changes of exceptional fossil preservation.
Professor Grice said the team’s research reveals a new pathway for remarkable fossil preservation, offering fresh insights into ancient life and the unique environmental conditions that enable such remarkable fossilisation.
It adds to the growing evidence that tiny microbes played a big role in this process - something we are now identifying at other fossil sites - presenting a new global Lagerstätten mechanism - the special conditions that make exceptional preservation possible,” Professor Grice said.
The study, conducted in collaboration with researchers from Brazil, Germany and the USA, including colleagues from the Regional University of Cariri and Museu Nacional / Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, used advanced imaging and geochemical techniques at Curtin’s John de Laeter Centre and WA-Organic and Isotope Geochemistry Centre to unravel how the pterosaur lived and how it was preserved in such remarkable detail.
The paper, ‘Multi-staged mineralization and biomarker preservation in a 113-million-year-old pterosaur bone via local redox shifts in diagenesis’, is published in Iscience: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2026.116199
This research was supported by a prestigious ARC Laureate Fellowship awarded to Professor Grice.
A short video explaining the research and including animated vision of the pterosaurs can be viewed here.
Multi-staged mineralization and biomarker preservation in a 113-million-year-old pterosaur bone via local redox shifts in diagenesis’
Sunscreen misinformation attracts high engagement on TikTok, study finds
An analysis of nearly 1,000 TikToks on sunscreen found that the vast majority promoted sunscreen use, but the small fraction that critiqued or disparaged sunscreen generated, on average, more likes, shares, and comments
Credit: Sara Ghassimi (CC-BY 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Sunscreen is overwhelmingly promoted in popular TikTok videos, but content containing health misinformation about sunscreen attracts disproportionately high audience engagement, according to a new study published June 18th in the open access journal PLOS Digital Health by Alessandro Marcon of the University of Alberta, Canada, and colleagues.
Skin cancer rates are rising globally, and sunscreen is among the most accessible and effective tools for prevention. However, public health organizations have raised concerns about a trend of sunscreen misinformation on TikTok—one of the world’s most-used social media platforms, especially among young people—including claims that sunscreen is toxic, cancer-causing, or unnecessarily blocks the health benefits of sun exposure.
In the new study, researchers conducted a content analysis of 971 of the most-viewed TikTok videos across the five most popular sunscreen-related hashtags (#sunscreen, #sunscreenviral, #spf, #sunscreenreview, and #sunprotection). Videos were coded for sunscreen promotion, health-related critique, and audience engagement metrics including views, likes, shares, and comments.
The vast majority of videos included in the study promoted sunscreen use (86.8%), with only 6% containing health-related critique such as claims that sunscreen causes harm (1.5%) or prevents health benefits such as vitamin D absorption (1.2%). Despite that small fraction, critique-focused videos generated, on average, significantly higher audience engagement in likes (p=0.0069), shares (p=0.0028), and comments (p=0.0012) compared with promotion-only videos, a pattern the researchers attribute to the outsized viral potential of contrarian and shock-provoking content. Notably, even the promotional majority represented a missed public health opportunity: sunscreen content on TikTok was heavily focused on cosmetic benefits and product promotion, with only 6% of videos explicitly mentioning cancer risk reduction.
“Sunscreen misinformation may attract disproportionate attention,” the authors say. “Sunscreen misinformation on TikTok constitutes an area of concern not for the total sum of overarching influence in terms of content production but rather in how strongly some sunscreen misinformation ideas resonated among particular audiences.”
The authors note, “Our analysis showed TikTok is not necessarily flooded with sunscreen misinformation, but TikToks which dangerously claim that sunscreen is harmful or unnecessary receive comparatively high levels of audience engagement. TikTok content creators commonly promoted sunscreen as part of skincare regimens where sunscreen benefits were more commonly related to beauty rather than health.”
The authors add: “It was surprising to see so many TikToks promoting sunscreen use without specifically mentioning the important role it plays in cancer prevention. Only 6% of the TikToks analyzed explicitly mentioned the benefits of reducing the risk of skin cancer.”
In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available paper in PLOS Digital Health: https://plos.io/3Smhhan
Citation: Marcon A, Zenone M, Boniface V, Peters CE, Caufield T (2026) Sunscreen is overwhelmingly promoted on TikTok, but content with misinformation exhibits proportionally high levels of audience interaction. PLOS Digit Health 5(6): e0001440. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pdig.0001440
Author countries: Canada
Funding: CEP and TC acknowledge funding support from the Canadian Cancer Society Challenge Grant [#708169]. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
