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, August 17, 2026
UH research reveals how to maximize the impact of US federal transit funding
Study finds strategic investments in smaller and midsize cities can generate greater ridership gains
Kailai Wang, University of Houston assistant professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering, is reporting that transit funding can have a bigger impact on ridership in smaller and midsize cities, where new or expanded service may give more people a practical alternative to driving.
Federal transit funding doesn’t have the same effect everywhere: A University of Houston study found that each additional dollar of funding generated about one-third as much new ridership in the largest metropolitan areas as it did in small and midsize cities.
Smaller, growing transit systems may have more room to attract new riders: In many Sun Belt communities, adding a route or expanding service can give people an alternative to driving where few practical options existed before.
The findings could be useful as Congress considers future transit funding: The research suggests that policymakers should look at where additional investments are most likely to bring in new riders, while continuing to support large systems that already carry a significant share of the nation’s transit passengers.
Billions of federal dollars are invested in public transportation each year, but those investments may have bigger ridership gains in smaller and midsize transit systems, particularly in the South and West, rather than in the nation’s largest metropolitan areas, according to a new study co-authored by a University of Houston researcher. The findings come as Congress works on the next federal surface transportation bill.
"In the largest metropolitan areas, an additional dollar generates roughly one-third as much new ridership as it does in a small or midsize city,” reports Kailai Wang, assistant professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering, in the journal Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice. “The reasons are fairly intuitive; smaller transit systems often still have considerable room to grow.”
Despite its potential to reduce traffic congestion, lower emissions and provide affordable transportation, public transportation remains underused in the United States, with only 5% of commuters relying on it as of 2019.
The Federal Transit Administration currently distributes roughly $20 billion a year to help transit agencies expand fleets, maintain infrastructure and improve service. The study found that while all levels of government funding matter, federal funding has the biggest impact on transit growth, largely by fueling capital investment and fleet expansion, but the same dollar does not have the same effect everywhere.
A new route in a fast-growing Sun Belt city, for example, may give residents their first practical alternative to driving and can therefore attract new riders quickly. In cities such as New York and Chicago, the core transit networks are already extensive, so additional funding is more likely to strengthen existing service than to open entirely new travel opportunities.
Wang's study tracked 417 U.S. urbanized areas from 2010 to 2019, the decade before the pandemic, to better isolate the effects of transit funding without the unprecedented disruptions caused by COVID-19.
While the findings suggest that future federal investments may have greater impact on transit systems with room to grow, Wang says the findings don't suggest taking money away from or providing less support to large transit systems.
“The New York region alone carries a very large share of the nation’s transit trips, and maintaining those systems remains critically important,” he said.
Journal
Transportation Research Part A Policy and Practice
Article Title
Public transit funding and transit use: a panel study of U.S. urbanized areas 2010–2019
Article Publication Date
17-Aug-2026
How childhood trauma increases vulnerability to apathy
Childhood trauma can weaken how people experience pleasure later in life by interacting with brain pathways related to motivated behavior.
Experiencing trauma in childhood can lead to a lack of motivation and less pleasure from rewards—or anhedonia—later in life. In humans, childhood trauma is linked to changes in the activity of reward-related brain pathways stemming from an area called the hippocampus. Preclinical work in animals suggests that hippocampal changes may contribute to anhedonia. But do hippocampal changes linked to childhood trauma make people more vulnerable to developing anhedonia? New in JNeurosci, a research team led by Kathleen O’Brien at Temple University and Vishnu Murty at the University of Oregon sought to answer this question.
A large cohort of human participants took questionnaires probing childhood trauma and the ability to experience pleasure. The researchers then used fMRI to examine hippocampus interactions with motivation-related brain areas. Individuals with childhood trauma and disrupted hippocampus pathways experienced more anhedonia than those with childhood trauma and no disruption to hippocampus pathways.
According to the researchers, this work suggests that childhood trauma interacts with disrupted motivation-related pathways in the brain to contribute to the onset of anhedonia. Murty emphasizes that this work is among the first to link the hippocampus, a brain region typically associated with memory, to apathetic behavior in humans. The research team hopes to identify a target in the hippocampus that can increase pleasure in people with childhood trauma and to continue exploring the relationship between memory and anhedonia.
JNeurosci was launched in 1981 as a means to communicate the findings of the highest quality neuroscience research to the growing field. Today, the journal remains committed to publishing cutting-edge neuroscience that will have an immediate and lasting scientific impact, while responding to authors' changing publishing needs, representing breadth of the field and diversity in authorship.
About The Society for Neuroscience
The Society for Neuroscience is the world's largest organization of scientists and physicians devoted to understanding the brain and nervous system. The nonprofit organization, founded in 1969, now has nearly 35,000 members in more than 95 countries.
Baturité porcupine (Coendou baturitensis), collected in the Serra de Baturité in the municipality of Aratuba, Ceará state, by Hugo Fernandes-Ferreira and described in 2013 by Anderson Feijó and Alfredo Langguth (UFPB)
According to a study conducted by Brazilian scientists and published in the journal NPJ Biodiversity, most of the new mammal species described over the past 35 years are housed in institutions in countries of the so-called Global North, even though the vast majority of them were discovered in poor or developing countries in the Southern Hemisphere.
The study analyzed 1,116 new mammal species described between 1990 and 2025. It concluded that 95% of the species were native to the Global South, a group of emerging countries in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean with similar socioeconomic characteristics. This group includes Brazil. However, 60% of the species’ holotypes (the name given to the specimens that serve as references for the scientific description of the species) are housed primarily in wealthy countries in Europe and North America. Conversely, only 22% of species native to the North described during the same period have their holotypes stored outside their country of origin, and even then, they are stored in institutions within the same geopolitical domain, which may include countries such as Australia and New Zealand.
According to the authors, these results demonstrate the impact of geopolitical and socioeconomic inequalities on scientific activity and biodiversity knowledge.
More than 90% of all mammal holotypes stored in the Global North are specimens collected in a different country. In the Global South, by contrast, less than 8% of mammal holotypes are deposited in countries other than where they were collected.
These figures are significantly higher than those for less “charismatic” groups, such as freshwater fish, where 30% of species described after 2000 have holotypes outside their country of origin, and reptiles, where 50% of species described after 1990 are housed outside the country where the animals were discovered.
“The mammal figures surprised us. Even though early colonists collected biological material from their former colonies, we didn’t expect to see such high numbers in recent decades. The problem of scientific neocolonialism is more pronounced in mammals than in other animal groups,” says Mario Moura, a professor at the Federal University of Paraíba (UFPB) and the first author of the study.
Moura is an alumnus of FAPESP’s Young Investigator Program and received a fellowship at the Institute of Biology at the State University of Campinas (IB-UNICAMP).
Brazil is one of the best countries in the group. The country led in the number of mammal discoveries during the period analyzed, with 133 new species described. Of all these holotypes, 108 (more than 80%) remained in national institutions. Nevertheless, according to the authors, the results provide new evidence of the persistence of the practice known as “parachute science,” whereby foreign scientists, primarily from the Global North, collect biological materials or fossils in countries of the Global South and take them back to be deposited and researched in their home countries, often without involving local researchers in the work based on that material.
In a previous study, Moura and his team found that “parachute science” was responsible for most descriptions of terrestrial mollusks (read more at agencia.fapesp.br/56702). Another study supervised by Moura showed that, despite having far fewer native species described between 1990 and 2025, Northern countries published more robust studies on this biodiversity. This is partly because they have more advanced analytical techniques and equipment (read more at agencia.fapesp.br/57687).
This study is being published at a time when Brazil is seeking to repatriate other scientific materials, including dinosaur fossils taken to foreign institutions.
After successfully repatriating one set of fossils, negotiations are underway to return at least one more.
Inequality
Anyone describing a potential new species, whether plant or animal, must have access to the holotype of the most closely related species in order to compare the two and confirm that the specimen is indeed a new discovery. For this reason, holotypes are essential to documenting biodiversity.
“Accessing material from one’s own country that’s held at a foreign institution requires resources that aren’t always available, which delays the generation of knowledge,” says Jhonny Guedes, co-author of the study. Guedes conducted the study during his postdoctoral fellowship at IB-UNICAMP with funding from FAPESP. He is currently completing an internship at the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales in Spain, also with a FAPESP fellowship.
Additionally, some new species are described as a result of taxonomic revisions. During these revisions, specimens held by institutions in different countries are compared. Sometimes, state-of-the-art genomic analysis techniques are used that were unavailable when the specimens were originally collected.
“Since these specimens are scattered across different natural history museums and biological collections at foreign universities, European and North American researchers have much more material at their disposal to conduct their studies, even when it comes to species from South America, Africa, or Asia,” adds Matheus Moroti, another co-author and postdoctoral fellow at IB-UNICAMP who is currently completing an internship in Spain.
Causes and solutions
Madagascar ranks second only to Brazil in the number of species discovered during the period analyzed. However, the country faces a very different situation. A total of 90 new species were discovered on the African island during this period, but only 14 of them remain in the country.
Meanwhile, researchers from the United States described 324 new species during the same period, but only five were native to their territory. The rest were imported. Of the 53 countries analyzed in the study, 20 (17 of which are in the Global South) have only holotypes of native mammals within their territory. Another 17 countries, mostly in Europe, have only foreign mammals in their collections.
The researchers cross-referenced the data with various socioeconomic indicators. A country’s chances of retaining the holotypes of its native species increase with the amount of skilled labor, even if investment in science and technology is not particularly high relative to GDP. The presence of scientific institutions and stricter environmental legislation also positively contribute to retention, as is the case in Brazil.
To mitigate the problem in the short and medium term, the researchers propose several measures divided into three categories: governance, infrastructure, and access. Each category has different levels of priority and cost. However, the repatriation of all this material remains the most important measure, though it is unrealistic in the short term, according to the authors.
One high-priority, low-cost governance measure would be for scientific journals to adopt mandatory specimen deposit plans similar to current editorial policies for making data and codes available.
In the proposed version of these plans, authors of articles describing new species would be required to specify where the holotypes from their studies are deposited. They would give priority to institutions near the species’ location, ensuring accessibility to local scientists.
Another measure proposed by the authors is the creation of mobility funds. Through these funds, institutions in the Global North would issue calls for proposals to fund trips by Global South researchers to access their collections.
Another structural measure would be for institutions in the Global North to invest a percentage of their major research project budgets in partner institutions in the Global South located near sites where specimens are collected. These funds would strengthen infrastructure for storing and studying biodiversity and would also fund fellowships and support staff.
“Meaningful intellectual partnerships – ones that are mutually beneficial and respect the historical and socioeconomic differences between countries – are a one-way path for scientists in both the Global North and the Global South. The benefits extend beyond a more just and inclusive science, strengthening the Global South’s autonomy and accelerating our documentation of biodiversity,” Moura concludes.
About São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) The São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) is a public institution with the mission of supporting scientific research in all fields of knowledge by awarding scholarships, fellowships and grants to investigators linked with higher education and research institutions in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. FAPESP is aware that the very best research can only be done by working with the best researchers internationally. Therefore, it has established partnerships with funding agencies, higher education, private companies, and research organizations in other countries known for the quality of their research and has been encouraging scientists funded by its grants to further develop their international collaboration. You can learn more about FAPESP at www.fapesp.br/en and visit FAPESP news agency at www.agencia.fapesp.br/en to keep updated with the latest scientific breakthroughs FAPESP helps achieve through its many programs, awards and research centers. You may also subscribe to FAPESP news agency at http://agencia.fapesp.br/subscribe
Cambridge, August, 17, 2026 — Doctors and patients confronting high-risk pregnancies have always faced profound and life-altering decisions. But after the 2022 Dobbs decision overturning Roe, many of these decisions seem impossible. As a firsthand witness to this convulsion, David Hackney, a leading physician in maternal fetal medicine, offers knowledgeable, thoughtful guidance to patients and practitioners contending with high-risk pregnancies in our new reality.
Impossible Choices focuses on the practical implications of high-risk complications for people who are pregnant or considering pregnancy—including conditions such as preeclampsia, premature membrane rupture, or birth defects—especially in states now under abortion bans. And because maternal fetal medicine overlaps with other medical fields as pregnant patients struggle with, for instance, kidney disease, lupus, diabetes, and cancer, the book also addresses a wide array of medical questions and complications.
How do we make decisions when thrown into extreme and uncertain circumstances? The author answers this question and more by painting a nuanced and clear-eyed picture of obstetrics after Dobbs, illustrating his reflections with stories from his own practice, as well as those of his wife, in pediatric oncology. Without being partisan or polemical, the book offers the informed compassion and way forward that this fraught moment in maternal medicine calls for.
ENDORSEMENTS
“Impossible Choices is a sharp and compelling exploration of the human cost for both patients and doctors of politically-driven medical care. A deeply necessary read.” —Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD; author of When We Do Harm
“In a post-Roe world, it’s more important than ever to hear directly from physicians about how their work, and their patients’ lives, are being affected. Impossible Choices is for anyone who wants to better understand how laws shape the most complex moments in reproductive health care.” —Nicole Karlis, award-winning staff writer at Salon; author of Your Brain on Altruism
“In this invaluable book, David Hackney gives lay-readers a highly readable account of the many ways a pregnancy can go wrong and how the Dobbs decision has created unacceptable conditions for physicians and patients alike.” —Carole Joffe, coauthor of After Dobbs
"A heartfelt and compelling read for anyone wanting to understand the diverse challenges and devastating consequences of restricting reproductive rights." —Jay Baruch, MD; author of Tornado of Life
“Hackney expertly guides the reader through the challenging terrain of high-risk pregnancy, deftly navigating the medical, political, and emotional aspects of obstetrical care and abortion. A great read.” —Mikkael A. Sekeres, MD, MS; author of When Blood Breaks Down and Drugs and the FDA
“As an experienced provider, Hackney explores how the Dobbs Supreme Court decision has changed care for patients. His is an important voice, anchored in science and actual clinical practice, offering a clear-eyed view of what it's like to do this crucial and emotional work today.” —Chavi Eve Karkowsky, MD; author of High Risk
“Hackney provides a critical perspective on high-risk pregnancy in the post-Roe era, offering singular insight into the intersection of medicine, law, and bodily autonomy.” —Merle Hoffman, author of Choices; Founder and President of Choices Women’s Medical Center, Inc.™
About the Author
David N. Hackney, MD, MS is Professor of Reproductive Biology at Case Western Reserve University and Division Chief of Maternal Fetal Medicine. He is currently District Legislative Chair of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and was the Section Chair for Ohio at the time of the Dobbs decision.
Hardcover ISBN: 9780262054706 Pub date: August 18, 2026 208 pp., 6 x 9 in. $29.95
While Great Lakes ice cover is slipping, a 'temporary respite' may be on the way
Recent declining ice trends could be headed for a rebound, but that doesn't mean the lakes and the winter activities they support will escape the consequences of climate change
The annual ice cover of Lake Michigan between 1900 and 2020 is shown as a spiky black line on this chart. The values prior to about 1970 were determined using a new model developed by a collaboration led by the Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research at the University of Michigan. Two methods of finding the trends in this highly variable data result in smoother red and blue lines that show a gentle wave in ice cover that's heading toward a trough in 2020, but could rebound after.
Credit: D. Cannon et al. Commun. Earth Environ (2026). https://doi.org/ 10.1038/s43247-026-03866-5
There's good news and bad news for folks who love a good coat of ice on the Great Lakes for the activities and businesses it supports.
The good news is that, after decades of dipping annual average ice cover, there's reason to believe that trend could slow or even, temporarily, turn around. That's according to new research from the Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research, or CIGLR, at the University of Michigan.
"We may anticipate a pause in ice cover decline, or even a moderate (short-lived) increase in average ice cover," the team wrote in its study. "This contradicts most existing literature on this subject."
The research, supported in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation, suggests that the Great Lakes' ice cover is synced to strong but slow-churning natural global cycles that drive regional weather patterns. Currently, we're in a trough, but we could be heading out of that toward a crest that would mean more ice cover, even against a backdrop of global warming. Which is not to say the lakes are out of hot water with respect to climate change.
"It is important that we do not interpret these changes as climate recovery, but rather a temporary respite from the background warming that has continued over the last 125 years," the authors wrote.
The researchers also found further concerning news in that, especially with warmer temperatures, the year-to-year swings in ice cover can be massive. This makes forecasting ice cover for future coming winters more challenging. That, in turn, makes it more difficult for Great Lakes residents, businesses and the shipping industry to prepare for and adapt to what may be in store.
"If you look at the last 50 years, the highest ice year and the lowest ice year we have on record are back to back," said David Cannon, senior author of the new study and an assistant research scientist with CIGLR. "So as we continue seeing these changes in the lakes, maintaining our observations and long-term records is really important."
A song of data and ice
Building a better long-term record of ice cover was actually the basis for this new study, published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, which began as part of the Great Lakes Summer Fellows Program.
In partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, or NOAA GLERL, the fellows program offers undergraduate students hands-on, real-world research experience while strengthening our scientific understanding of the lakes. This particular opportunity appealed to Elleanna Viere.
"I have always loved Lake Superior growing up in Minnesota," Viere said. "By the time I was off to undergrad, I knew that I wanted to go to Northland College on the south shore of Lake Superior, where I further fell in love with snow and the Great Lakes. When I was looking for summer internships, I stumbled upon CIGLR and got very excited to have the opportunity to expand my knowledge and skills in the region."
During her time at Northland, she noticed the ice bridge to nearby islands in Superior forming later and later each season. In 2024, poor ice conditions forced Ashland's "Book Across the Bay" 10K ski and snowshoe crossing of the frozen Chequamegon Bay to reroute closer to the shore to boost safety.
"With changes in ice cover and major events in the region, many people stated how the ice has been becoming more unpredictable in recent years," Viere said.
Her project with CIGLR aimed to assess one metric of those changes—the average annual ice cover of each lake—not just in recent years, but diving much further into their history to plumb for new insights. Researchers have access to satellite data to determine Great Lakes ice cover going back to the 1970s. Prior to that, though, they have to rely on estimates and simulations that have known limitations.
Viere, Cannon and their colleagues coupled this ice cover data with air temperature records to develop a model that linked the two observables. With air temperature data stretching back more than a century, they then used the model to look backward and "hindcast" the lakes' average annual ice cover back to 1898. The team also dug up newspaper articles and captains' logs from the pre-satellite era to help vet their model's outputs.
The model showed that, for about the first 40 years of the 20th century, average annual ice cover experienced a downward trend, similar to what the lakes have been experiencing since the late 1970s. But for the better part of four decades between those two declines, ice cover rose. That means, if history repeats itself, we could see increasing average annual ice cover within the next decade or so.
"I think this is a reminder that our memories are pretty short," Cannon said. "Our parents and grandparents can tell us that there used to be more ice on the lakes, and there definitely was. But we've kind of lost what happened before that, and that timescale is important."
Moving forward, Cannon said it would be helpful to build models to hindcast other ice attributes on the Great Lakes, such as its thickness and spatial patterns, over time. Both he and Viere also stressed the importance of measuring and preserving this data now to help current and future generations of researchers better forecast Great Lakes ice.
"The Great Lakes are a precious resource and ecosystem to the region," said Viere, who has started a graduate program at Northern Michigan University. "Knowing how factors such as annual average ice cover have been fluctuating can eventually help us understand how future years can be influenced, and how to adapt to these changes."
CIGLR is a partnership between NOAA and regional universities, businesses and nongovernmental organizations and is housed in the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability, or SEAS. The research team also included Hazem Abdelhady, an assistant professor at Texas A&M University; Meena Raju, a CIGLR postdoctoral fellow; Ayumi Fujisaki-Manome, an associate research scientist with CIGLR and SEAS; Jia Wang, a NOAA GLERL climatologist; James Kessler, a physical scientist with NOAA GLERL; and Khush Bafna, a CIGLR undergraduate researcher.
A new study is underscoring the importance of studying microbes in their natural setting, rather than relying solely on laboratory research. Researchers found that a set of corn root bacteria behaved completely differently when grown on the plant rather than in a lab, with thousands of proteins changing when placed in their natural habitat.
“Historically we’ve been reliant on in-vitro experiments and experiments in the lab, and they’re still very powerful,” said Anna Garrell, first author of a paper on the work and a postdoctoral researcher at North Carolina State University. “But I think this is a good reminder that what you find in the lab is not necessarily what’s going to be happening in the real environment.”
For the study, researchers grew seven corn root bacteria both in a lab setting (in vitro) and on the plant (in planta) to measure the differences in their behavior. While all the bacteria acted differently on the plant, the specifics varied from species to species.
“The biggest surprise we found was that all these bacteria interacted with the plant very differently,” said Garrell. “Some, when they got to the root, became more motile and seemed to upregulate functions that would help them move and swim. Others did the exact opposite, where they would attach to the root and become much more stationary. Not all bacteria are made the same, nor do they interact with the plant the same.”
Microbes on the plant showed a range of behaviors, from activating various secretion systems to solubilizing phosphate to consuming different sugars. The sheer magnitude of the behavior shift was notable, said principal investigator Manuel Kleiner, an associate professor of plant and microbial biology at NC State.
“Comparing the microbe growing on the plant to outside of the plant, the most mind-blowing thing was that these microbes completely changed their programming,” Kleiner said. “It’s not just ten or so genes, it’s thousands that completely shift as soon as they start interacting with the plant.”
The seven bacteria used in the study come from what is known as a defined community, a group of microbes with specific known parts that scientists can rely on as stable test subjects. These microbes were chosen because they colonize consistently, have known genomes and are known to come from corn roots, making them reliable for testing on the plant and in the lab.
“This research will help scientists improve our understanding of how those microbes react to their host plants,” Garrell said. “Further research can build off this work by studying how multiple microbes interact and influence each other when on their host plant, and how they work together to colonize plants. This will be important for developing real products to use in sustainable agriculture”
The paper, “Differential proteomics of bacteria grown in vitro and in planta reveals functions used during growth on maize roots,” is published in mSystems. This work was funded by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture under awards 2021-67013-34537 and 2022-67013-36672, the Novo Nordisk Foundation InROOT project (NNF19SA0059362) and the National Science Foundation (IOS-2120593 and IOS-2421771). Co-authors include John Cheadle, Nathan Crook and Gaurav Pal, NC State University; Alecia Septer, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Maggie Wagner, University of Kansas; and Ashley Beck, Carroll College and NC State University.
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Note to Editors: The study abstract follows.
“Differential proteomics of bacteria grown in vitro and in planta reveals functions used during growth on maize roots”
Authors: Anna Garrell, Manuel Kleiner, John Cheadle, Nathan Crook and Gaurav Pal, NC State University; Alecia Septer, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Maggie Wagner, University of Kansas; and Ashley Beck, Carroll College and NC State University.
Abstract: Microbes are ubiquitous in the rhizosphere and play crucial roles in plant health; however, the metabolisms and physiologies of individual species in planta remain poorly understood. In this study, we examined microbial gene expression in response to the maize root environment for seven bacterial species originally isolated from maize roots. We grew each species individually, both in vitro in a minimal medium and in planta, and used differential proteomics to identify functions upregulated specifically when bacteria are grown on maize roots. We identified between 1,500 and 2,100 proteins from each species, with 20%–60% of these proteins being differentially abundant between the two conditions. While we found that transporter proteins were upregulated in all species in planta, all other differentially abundant functions varied greatly between species, suggesting niche specialization in root-associated microbes. Indeed, in vitro assays confirmed that Curtobacterium pusillum likely degrades plant hemicellulose, Enterobacter ludwigii may benefit the plant by phosphate solubilization, and Herbaspirillum robiniae colonizes maize roots more effectively when both of its type VI secretion systems are functional. Together, our findings highlight both conserved and species-specific bacterial strategies for growth in the root environment and lay a foundation for future work investigating the mechanisms underlying plant-microbiota interactions.
