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The world’s smallest sea turtle lives in a noisy ocean
For the world’s smallest sea turtles, life in the ocean is getting pretty noisy. These relatively little turtles (on average they’re still 75 to 100 pounds) mostly found in the Gulf of Mexico already face fishing gear accidents, seacraft collisions, plastic pollution, and habitat deterioration, and now excess noise may be harming the critically endangered and rare Kemp’s ridley sea turtles (Lepidochelys kempii).
We say might because even though these sea turtles share waters with extremely busy shipping lanes, scientists know very little about their underwater hearing. As such, a team of researchers set out to understand what, exactly, these animals can perceive in terms of sound.
“Understanding hearing ability is a fundamental step in determining whether human-generated noise could affect a species,” Charles Muirhead, the co-author of the recent study published in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America and a researcher at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Sensory Ecology and Bioacoustics Lab, tells Popular Science. “Our goal was to provide a more robust and representative understanding of their hearing sensitivity so that future research and conservation efforts can be built on stronger scientific foundations.”
This notion is particularly significant given the fact that Kemp’s ridleys are the world’s most critically endangered sea turtles.
Muirhead and his colleagues put sensors on Kemp’s ridley sea turtles’ heads and recorded the electrical signals that passed through their auditory nerves as they played sounds from 50 to 1,600 hertz. In the spectrum of human hearing, 50 hertz is on the lower side.
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This approach revealed that the turtles’ greatest hearing was at about 300 hertz, and that they began to struggle with higher frequencies. It appears that Kemp’s ridleys’ best hearing aligns with the low-frequency band that hosts a significant amount of sounds, presumably from industrial operations in the ocean like oil and gas drilling and vessel traffic, according to Muirhead.
“This is significant because we’ve known that their movements and distribution overlap with industrial and boat noise sources both in space and time—and we’ve now confirmed that the turtles are capable of detecting these sounds,” Muirhead says. “However, detecting sound does not automatically mean it causes harm or disturbance. Whether noise ‘bothers’ turtles depends on several factors, including sound level, duration, distance from the source, and the behavioral or ecological context in which the exposure occurs.”
Now that we know what these turtles can hear, future research can investigate just how human sounds impact them and what that means for conservation efforts.
More broadly, Muirhead explains that, “understanding how animals perceive their environment is essential for effective conservation.Hearing is only one piece of the puzzle.”
The post The world’s smallest sea turtle lives in a noisy ocean appeared first on Popular Science.
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The Myth of Libertarian Vs Authoritarian
Many have long described variation in political opinion in terms of two key dimensions, described either as economic freedom and personal freedom, or via rotated axes as left vs right and libertarian vs authoritarian. 2.5 years ago I posted on The Myth Of Left And Right, a book correctly arguing that while abstract thinkers have often proposed coherent concepts of what could be meant by left vs right, and political parties who are out of power sometimes embrace such concepts, political parties that hold substantial power use such labels with far less coherence. As a result, the positions widely seen as left or right have varied so randomly across space and time that the labels “left” and “right” offer little predictive power for the positions of future parties in other times and places.
It occurs to me that a similar situation likely also holds for the other libertarian vs authoritarian distinction. While abstract thinkers have often proposed coherent concepts of what this could mean, and while political parties out of power sometimes embrace such concepts, political parties that hold substantial power probably have positions that are far less predictable or coherent in terms of such abstract ideological concepts.
The modern world often sees itself as “liberal” and “tolerant” in the sense that some choices and areas of life are considered out of bounds for governments, firms, and widely shared social norms to intrude on, while other more “foundational” issues are seen as more appropriate for such collective choices. Initially it was just particulars of Christian religion that were seen as out of bounds, but over time freedoms in other areas have been variously seen as central to the “liberal” concept.
However, for the actual political parties in power and their policies, we have seen wide variations which which are the choices and areas for which we are to be tolerant, and which are the other areas where it is okay for a majority to impose its views and wills on minorities. We should expect to continue to see such variations, re both of the key dimensions of variation in political opinion. Abstract thinkers will continue to paint their clean pictures of principles that could organize policy positions, while people actually in power will more opportunistically do what they want, sometimes justifying those choices in terms of such abstract principles as convenient.
Florida euthanizes 5,195 frozen iguanas
To state the obvious, it’s been a particularly frigid winter across most of the eastern United States. Winter’s icy grip has not even spared the Sunshine State, where a total of 5,195 frozen green iguanas—an invasive species—have been removed from the ecosystem and euthanized.
Green iguanas (Iguana iguana) are considered an invasive species in Florida. They were introduced in the state during the 1960s and can harm native fish and wildlife, cause damage, and may pose a threat to human health and safety. According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), nonnative reptile species like green iguanas and Burmese pythons are only protected by anti-cruelty laws and “can be humanely killed on private property with landowner permission.”
Cold weather can make things interesting when it comes to iguanas, and Florida has had no shortage of cold this winter. Miami saw its coldest February 1 on record at 35 degrees Fahrenheit, with wind chills down to 26 degrees. Reptiles like iguanas are cold-blooded and rely on external environmental conditions to regulate their body temperature. Since the outside temperature has such a drastic effect on their bodies, cold-blooded animals often adapt their behavior as a response. When air temperatures get below 50 degrees Fahrenheit, the reptiles will get stunned (or freeze), lose their grip, and fall from trees. After they fall from a tree, they may appear to be dead, but their body functions remain intact.
In response to the record-breaking cold, the FWC implemented Executive Order 26-03, which temporarily allowed people to remove live, cold-stunned green iguanas from the wild without a permit and transport them to wildlife officials. As a result, residents brought in 5,195 frozen iguanas between February 1 and 2. The iguanas were then euthanized.
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“As an invasive species, green iguanas have negative impacts on Florida’s environment and economy,” FWC Executive Director Roger Young said in a statement. “The removal of over 5,000 of these nonnative lizards in such a short time span was only possible thanks to the coordinated efforts of many staff members in multiple FWC divisions and offices, our partners, and of course the many residents that took the time to collect and turn in cold-stunned iguanas from their properties.”
Frozen iguanas are also a uniquely Florida problem, since green iguanas primarily live in climates that are warmer. At up to seven feet long and weighing upwards of 30 pounds, a falling iguana can be dangerous, so pedestrians should exercise caution when walking under palm trees in colder weather. If you see a frozen iguana on the ground, do not rush in to warm them up. In normal circumstances, you may be fined for moving it somewhere else. Instead, it’s best to just leave the iguana alone since it should bounce right back once the temperatures hit 50 degrees again.
The post Florida euthanizes 5,195 frozen iguanas appeared first on Popular Science.
The toddler who survived a 54-degree body temperature
Winter is not for the faint of heart. In Moscow, January temperatures hover in the low teens. In New York City, skyscrapers turn Manhattan into a series of freezing wind tunnels. In Sapporo, Japan, the average snowfall is almost 200 inches each winter.
Even so, humans have developed plenty of clever ways to wait out the cold. But what would happen if instead of bundling up inside with a hot chocolate, you were left in the frigid cold—just how cold can humans get and recover? Well in a new episode of Popular Science’s Ask Us Anything podcast, we explore just that.
Ask Us Anything answers your most outlandish, mind-burning questions—from the everyday things you’ve always wondered to the bizarre things you never thought to ask. So, yes, turbulence is like jello and no, cracking your knuckles won’t cause arthritis. If you have a question, send us a note. Nothing is too silly or simple.
This episode is based on the Popular Science article “The coldest body temperatures humans have survived.”
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Full Episode TranscriptSarah Durn: We’ve all been there. You get all bundled up in a long winter coat and scarf, throw on a hat and gloves, and brace yourself to go outside into the frigid winter weather. But then the moment you step outside, the air stings your face because it’s fricking cold.
Immediately your body gets to work. Blood vessels constrict to keep blood around your core.
You start to shiver and your muscles get really tense. Then you finally make it to your destination and blissfully step inside. The air is like a warm bath. And you think, “just three more months of this.”
But what would happen if you had stayed outside? Just how long can the human body survive in the extreme cold?
Welcome to Ask Us Anything from the editors of Popular Science, where we answer your questions about our weird world. From “Why cats lick you,” to “How pilots avoid thunderstorms,” no question is too outlandish or mundane.
I’m Sarah Durn, features editor at PopSci.
AC: And I’m editor-in-chief, Annie Colbert.
SD: Here at Popular Science, we love obsessing over strange, weird questions.
AC: And this week our curiosity has led us to the chilling question: just how cold can humans get and still survive? Sarah, you recently edited a story about the lowest survivable body temps, so how cold can us humans go?
SD: So in some wild cases, people have survived a core temperature as low as 53 degrees Fahrenheit.
AC: Ugh.
SD: I know! That’s 45 degrees colder than our normal body temperature of 98.6.
AC: Ugh. Bur. When we were talking about this episode, I was thinking about the coldest I’ve ever been, and I think it was in Poland in January many years ago.
I had stepped into a slushy puddle at the beginning of this two-hour, outside-only tour in Gdansk, and I should have just stepped into a coffee shop or something to warm up, but I was very, very cold.
SD: Oh, no, that sounds awful. Especially for something you’re like choosing to put yourself through.
AC: Yes.
SD: Yeah. I think for me, I just remember getting so fricking cold skiing growing up.
My dad would always say, “one more run, guys, come on!” And we’d just be so cold and shivering. Especially going up the lift and just getting pummeled with wind and snow.
AC: Yeah. Sometimes dads, they’re pushing you to push through and it’s too cold.
SD: It’s too cold.
AC: So cold. And so these cases we’re gonna talk about where people survived core temps in the fifties are rare, right?
SD: Oh yeah, definitely. Many people have died from hypothermia after their internal body temperature has dropped, even just below 90 degrees.
AC: Oh, wow.
SD: Yeah. And crazier still the person who actually survived a 53 degree body temp was only a toddler.
AC: Oh my God. As the parent of a toddler, I feel terrible for those poor parents. How on earth did this child survive?
SD: I’ll tell you all about it after a short break.
AC: Aw man, cliffhanger.
SD: I know! Sorry.
AC: But before we take that break, we wanna know: what questions are keeping you curious? If there’s something you’ve always wanted to understand better submit your questions by clicking the “Ask Us” link at popsci.com/ask.
Again, that’s popsci.com/ask and click that “Ask Us” link.
SD: We can’t wait to hear your questions!
AC: And with that, we’ll be right back after a short break.
Welcome back. Okay. Before we get into the science of just how cold humans can get, I wanna zoom out for a second because hypothermia might seem like a modern medical term, but humans have been dealing with extreme cold for basically forever.
SD: Yeah, this is not a new problem.
AC: Not at all. Ancient writers describe soldiers freezing sailors perishing, quote “by reason of cold,” armies collapsing during winter campaigns, but there wasn’t a diagnosis.
There wasn’t even a word for hypothermia until the late 1800s.
SD: Yeah. And even then, doctors didn’t always recognize it, right?
AC: Correct. During Antarctic exploration in the early 1900s, think Sir Ernest Shackleton, Robert Falcon Scott, hypothermia wasn’t even mentioned, but descriptions of hypothermia symptoms are there: confusion, poor judgment, people wandering off in storms, what one explorer called “a half thawed brain.”
SD: Huh. Why did it take so long for the condition to be defined?
AC: One big reason is thermometers.
SD: Okay, tell me more.
AC: So thermometers weren’t really used in medicine until the late 1800s, and even then doctors were much more focused on fevers than dangerously low temps.
That starts to change around the 1900s.
SD: So once we could accurately measure body temperature, we started understanding just how low the human body can get.
AC: Precisely. So Sarah, can you tell us what exactly is hypothermia?
SD: Yeah. Hypothermia is a condition that occurs when your body loses heat faster than it can produce it, causing your core body temperature to drop below 95 degrees Fahrenheit.
AC: So just a bit below normal body temperature of 98.6.
SD: Right. Humans are considered homeotherms, which just means we’re built to keep our core body temperature steady, right at that 98.6 degree mark.
AC: So how exactly does hypothermia affect the body?
SD: Yeah, so mild hypothermia can make people confused, clumsy, and (this one surprised me a bit) hungry. Because your body is using so many calories to try and stay warm.
AC: Mm-hmm.
SD: Usually at that point, if you just move inside and start to warm up, you’ll be okay. But if your body temperature continues to drop further, heart rate and breathing slow, and in some severe cases, below an 82 degree body temp, the body starts shutting systems down.
AC: Which makes it all the more unbelievable that anyone survives below that.
SD: Right. And yet there are a few extraordinary cases where people did.
AC: Hmm. All right. Let’s talk first about the adult record holder for surviving low body temperatures.
SD: Yeah, let’s do it. So that would be Anna Bågenholm. In 1999 she was skiing in Norway, fell through the ice, and became trapped in near freezing water for about 90 minutes.
AC: Huh.
SD: I know. By the time rescuers reached her, she was clinically dead. No heartbeat, no breathing.
AC: Oh, that’s terrifying.
SD: Her core body temperature had dropped to about 56 degrees Fahrenheit, the lowest ever survived by an adult outside a hospital.
AC: Ah, so how did she survive that?
SD: Yeah. Well, a few things just lined up perfectly.
She was trapped in an air pocket so she could still breathe as her body cooled. And as her temperature dropped, her brain’s need for oxygen dropped too. Doctors hooked her up to a heart lung machine, and warmed her very slowly over several hours. She spent weeks in intensive care, but made a full recovery.
AC: Oh, I can’t believe that really happened.
SD: I know, me neither.
AC: But then there’s a case that beats even that record.
SD: Yeah, so this toddler.
AC: Oh no.
SD: I know. In 2014, there was a 2-year-old boy in Poland who wandered outside, wearing only a pajama top and socks. He was missing for several hours in temperatures around 19 degrees Fahrenheit.
When rescuers found him, his body temperature was just over 53 degrees Fahrenheit.
AC: That number is still so shocking to me.
SD: Yeah, same. His body was so stiff, they couldn’t even intubate him at first. Like Anna, he was connected to life support and rewarmed very gradually. And after two months in the hospital, he survived with no lasting physical damage.
AC: So intense. So what’s actually happening inside the body at these extreme temperatures? Why doesn’t everything just kind of stop forever?
SD: Yeah. The key thing is that cold slows everything in your body. This includes harmful processes like inflammation and cell death. Also at normal temperatures, the brain needs a constant supply of oxygen.
But as the body cools, that demand drops dramatically. So in very specific situations, especially cold water or rapid cooling, the brain can survive much longer without oxygen than it normally could.
AC: Hmm, fascinating. So do doctors ever use hypothermia on purpose?
SD: Yeah, they do. By the mid 20th century, surgeons realized they could cool patients during heart or brain surgery to protect vital organs.
Today induced hypothermia is sometimes used after cardiac arrest to reduce brain damage.
AC: Ah, so cold went from being the enemy to a medical tool.
SD: Yeah. Though a very carefully controlled one.
AC: Yes. Of course.
SD: Hypothermia is still very bad, very dangerous.
AC: Yes.
SD: Outside of a hospital, most people don’t survive these conditions. The takeaway is not humans are secretly freeze-proof.
AC: Yes. It’s more like under extremely rare circumstances, cold can buy the body a little bit more time.
SD: Exactly.
AC: This has made me feel even colder and even more paranoid about forgetting my mittens at home.
SD: Me too. And all this got me thinking, you know, “what are the coldest places humans choose to live on earth?”
AC: Hmm. Oh man. I might need more than mittens for this.
SD: I think you might. That’s coming up after this quick break.
Welcome back! To wrap up, let’s shift gears a bit and take a look at some of the planet’s coldest places.
AC: Okay, I’m already cold just thinking about this. Hit me.
SD: Yeah. So the coldest, inhabited place on Earth is generally considered Oymyakon in Eastern Siberia. Hopefully I’m saying that right. It’s a village where people live year round and winter temperatures regularly drop below minus 60 degrees fahrenheit.
AC: Nope. No thank you. That’s not for me. I will say I genuinely enjoy winter, but nope, that’s definitely not for me.
SD: Yeah, me neither. When it’s that cold, cars can’t be turned off or they won’t start. Kids still go to school unless it’s colder than about minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit. And people almost entirely rely on meat and fish because nothing grows there in winter.
AC: Oof. I thought taking my kid on the New York City bus to school in single digits was hard, but you know what? Good on them.
SD: I know it’s pretty badass. And then if we’re talking uninhabited places, Antarctica takes the crown, obviously.
AC: Mm-hmm.
SD: The coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth was minus 128 degrees Fahrenheit.
AC: Brr!
SD: I know. That was measured in 1983 at the Vostok Russian research station.
AC: That number doesn’t even feel real, and it’s making my soul feel cold.
SD: I know, mine too. Ugh, at that kind of temperature, exposed skin can freeze in seconds. And the human body cannot survive without serious protection.
AC: Which really puts all these survival stories we talked about today into perspective.
SD: Yeah, totally. Our earth is wonderful, but it can also be terrifying, and humans are surprisingly resilient and innovative when it comes to surviving the planet’s extremes.
AC: That feels like a good note to wrap up on today.
And that’s it for this episode, but don’t worry, we’ve got more fabulous Ask Us Anythings live in our feed right now. Follow or subscribe to Ask Us Anything by Popular Science, wherever you enjoy your podcasts. And if you like our show, leave a rating or review.
SD: We care what you think. Our theme music is from Kenneth Michael Reagan, and our producer is Alan Haburchak.
This week’s episode was based on an article written for Popular Science by RJ Mackenzie.
AC: Thank you team, and thank you to everyone for listening.
SD: And one more time. If you want something you’ve always wondered about, explained on a future episode, go to popsci.com/ask, and click the “Ask Us” link. Until next time, keep the questions coming.
AC: Stay warm out there, everyone.
SD: Yeah. Bundle up.
AC: Woo. Bundle up so you don’t freeze.
The post The toddler who survived a 54-degree body temperature appeared first on Popular Science.
$13 thrift store camera hid 70-year-old undeveloped film
An offhand purchase at a secondhand shop has revealed itself to be an unexpected time capsule—and is steeped in its own mystery. Recently, a customer near Salisbury, England paid around $10 for an antique film camera that was manufactured during the 1930s called a Zeiss Ikon Baby Ikonta. But when he got home, the man (who wished to remain anonymous) discovered a bonus inside the camera itself: an undeveloped roll of film dating back to 1956.
The racing bibs indicate the skiers were in the Cow & Gate Sky Trophy event. Credit: Salisbury Photo CentreThe new owner hoped the photos were salvageable, but didn’t want to risk damaging them himself. Instead, he contacted a camera specialist at the Salisbury Photo Centre named Ian Scott to examine the find. Speaking with PetaPixel, Scott explained that he spent 60 minutes carefully developing the delicate film. The results were a collection of black and white photographs taken about 70 years ago showing skiers in the Swiss Alps. While some were action shots of people speeding down the slopes, others showcased a family outside Badrutt’s Palace Hotel in St. Moritz. One photo also showcases what appears to be a garden tea party at a home in the United Kingdom.
Surviving relatives may be able to recognize and identify the photo subjects. Credit: Salisbury Photo CentreAlthough the subjects’ names remain unknown, certain details in the pictures help fill in the story’s gaps. Several skiers in the pictures are wearing numbered racing bibs sponsored by a baby milk brand called Cow & Gate, which sponsored a Cow & Gate Ski Trophy event during the 1950s. Given that the specific type of film (Verichrome Pan 127) was released in 1956, Scott believes the images were likely taken towards the end of the decade.
“It’s so incredible that history was literally sitting there on a charity shop shelf,” Scott recently told The Daily Express.
While the family and skiers in images remain unidentified, Scott hopes someone may recognize some of the faces. Scott encourages anyone who spots a familiar face to reach out to Salisbury Photo Centre. Although most, if not all, of the people in the pictures are deceased by now, their children or grandchildren may soon have new additions to their family’s scrapbook.
The film itself was manufactured in 1956. Credit: Salisbury Photo Centre Some of the photos show the Badrutt’s Palace Hotel in St. Moritz. Credit: Salisbury Photo Centre. Most of the pictures were taken on a ski trip, but at least one showed what appears to be a garden party in the UK. Credit: Salisbury Photo CentreThe post $13 thrift store camera hid 70-year-old undeveloped film appeared first on Popular Science.
The lobstermen teaming up with scientists to save endangered whales
It was a cold and windy week last January, when a group of Maine lobstermen couldn’t haul in their traps from Jeffrey’s Ledge. The reason why surprised everyone. Over 90 critically endangered North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) had gathered at the ledge, a 62-mile-long underwater ridge about 25 miles off the coast of Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
“This was the first time we’ve known of an aggregation showing up there, I assume they were following their feed pattern,” lobsterman Chris Welch tells Popular Science.
After following all state and federal regulations, using breakaway ropes, setting longer trawls to reduce the number of endlines, and adding purple tracers so any entangled gear could be traced back to Maine, the lobstermen called an emergency meeting.
“We had to do something more to lower the risk. No fisherman wants to harm a right whale, so we’re willing to bend over backwards to make this work,” Welch explains
And that’s what they did.
The lobstermen went against fishing protocol by dropping their northeast endlines to reduce the number of ropes in the water. Whales can get tangled in the endlines that connect trawls—a series of traps tied together by rope and linked by two buoys on either end—of their lobster traps.
This choice ensured the whales’ safety, and it was a voluntary act by the fishermen. Had they known the whales were going to be there ahead of time, they could have made other arrangements.
Illustration of how North Atlantic right whales get entangled in fishing gear. Entangled whales sometimes tow fishing gear for hundreds of miles. Image: WHOI Graphic Services, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution via NOAA. In search of planktonIt’s hard to protect what you can’t find. That’s why research scientist Camille Ross and her team from the New England Aquarium, Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Science, Duke University, and University of Maine are working to improve the predictive models used to find elusive North Atlantic right whales.
“It’s possible that we could have predicted that aggregation out on Jeffreys Ledge in advance,” says Ross.
The team’s study, published in the journal Endangered Species Research, used prey location data to track down these whales. And with a population hovering around 380 and with only 70 reproductively active females, the stakes are high.
“What we did was incorporate right whale food directly into right whale habitat models to help improve the prediction, and it appears it did, which is really exciting,” shares Ross.
Essentially, they found the whales by finding their favorite food first: a krill-like zooplankton in the genus Calanus that are smaller-than-a-grain-of-rice. Calanus’ location and livelihood is dramatically affected by small changes in ocean temperature.
“As the ocean has been warming, and the system has been changing, it has become increasingly harder to know where the bulk of the population is at any given time,” Ross explains. “When observers saw about 25 percent of the right whale population on Jeffrey’s Ledge in January [of 2025], that was just not at all something we would have expected.”
While the right whales themselves may not be thrown off course by a degree or two change in ocean temperature, the tiny critters they eat are dramatically affected by small temperature changes. As the food, which Ross says resembles the character Plankton from Spongebob Squarepants, adapts and moves around, so must the whales. And the tools scientists use to track them.
“This study was proof that prey does improve the right whale models and does increase or decrease predicted densities in areas that we might not have expected.”
Lobstermen’s game of telephoneSo,what could have been different out on Jeffreys Ledge in January of 2025 if these better predictive models were up and running? Ross says that after prey was included in the predictive model, they found that Jeffreys Ledge had “increased right whale density from November through January,” critical data that could have been relayed to the fishermen.
That kind of information sharing is what makes collaboration possible and the cornerstone of successful outcomes. It was the Maine lobstermen, for whom fishing is a way of life, who called the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) out of concern for the whales’ safety.
“We would not have known about it had those fishermen not brought back that information,” Ross says. “So many of them are such stewards of the ocean, and they care so deeply about these animals.”
As a result, zero entanglements were reported on Jeffrey’s Ledge in January 2025 because of concern, communication, and cooperation from all sides. Yet without efficient systems, that concern can be lost. And keeping lobstermen informed about right whale locations isn’t always simple.
A North Atlantic right whale mother and calf as seen from a research drone called a hexacopter. Hexacopters allow researchers to conduct right whale photo identification and photogrammetry studies. Photogrammetry techniques allow scientists to get body measurements from aerial photographs. Image: NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center/Lisa Conger and Elizabeth Josephson.“The problem with communication with the state is they don’t have a way to text a group of lobstermen,” Welch explains. “Basically, we just went into a phone chain.”
The process is similar to parents texting about their kids, but these lobstermen are alerting each other when they see right whales—not snowflakes. While the seafood industry and conservationists have been at odds in the past, these fishermen are now voluntarily going out of their way to care for these endangered mammals.
“We want to do everything we can to coexist with these whales in harmony,” says Welch. “And we’re doing our best to stay current with information and fish as our livelihood, as well as keep these whales safe, and everything else in the ocean safe.”
Other programs have already shown that science and the fishing community really can go hand in hand. Programs such as NOAA’s Cooperative Research in the Northeast have enabled several collaborations between scientists and fishermen. Fishermen from Maine to North Carolina partner with NOAA in the Study Fleet program by collecting detailed data for scientific research, including environmental conditions, fishery footprints, and developing models.
In terms of what’s next for Ross and her team, she’d like to focus on using more recent data in their predictive models. “What happened the previous year will give us a lot of power in predicting where the right whales might show up the following year, that will give us a lot of really interesting insights, especially as the ocean continues to change.”
One certainty is that many of those who make their living off of the ocean will continue to play a role in protecting those who call the ocean home.
The post The lobstermen teaming up with scientists to save endangered whales appeared first on Popular Science.
SpaceX Authorized to Increase High Speed Internet Download Speeds 5X Through 2026
Yes, eating carrots can help your eyesight. But it’s not a cure-all.
In a British propaganda poster from World War II, an illustration in shadowy tones captures a dramatic nighttime scene: a woman and young girl peer around a black automobile, as if looking for a quick escape. In the woman’s hand is…a basket with carrots?
“CARROTS,” the poster blares, “keep you healthy and help you to see in the blackout.”
The poster, a creation of Britain’s Ministry of Food, was one part of a wartime nutritional propaganda campaign that had all kinds of goals during the war. Amid rations and food shortages, one aim was to encourage the consumption of an oversupply of carrots.
Another was to trumpet the success of John Cunnigham, an ace Royal Air Force fighter pilot nicknamed “Cat’s Eyes” who was known for his nighttime prowess, according to the Battle of Britain London Monument. News stories credited his success with his carrot consumption. In reality, he was using a new radar technology.
“It would have been easier had the carrots worked,” Cunningham later said. “In fact, it was a long, hard grind and very frustrating. It was a struggle to continue flying on instruments at night.”
But even if carrots didn’t help Cunningham, the idea that carrots help your eyes persists nearly a century later—perhaps because there is some level of truth to it. Carrots do support eye health and even our nighttime vision, tells Popular Science Dr. Jonathan Rubenstein, chair of the ophthalmology department at Rush University Medical Center. But there’s a limit to what carrots can do for our eyes.
“People shouldn’t think, ‘I’m going to load up on carrots and I’ll see better,’” Rubenstein says. “That’s not true.”
During World War II, carrots were touted for their ability to improve your eyesight, but the reality is more complicated. Image: Public Domain How do carrots help our eyes?
Carrots are a rich source of beta-carotene, a pigment that gives carrots and other orange colored produce their color. Leafy greens like spinach and kale also are rich sources of beta-carotene, but the green chlorophyll that they contain hides that orange color.
Our bodies are designed to turn beta-carotene into vitamin A. When we eat food rich in beta-carotene, the pigment travels to our intestines where an enzyme breaks it down and converts it into vitamin A.
“Vitamin A is a useful vitamin to have in the body for overall health, but specifically for retina health,” Rubenstein says. Our retinas are thin layers of tissue in the back of our eyeballs that turn light into electrical signals, which travel through the optic nerve to our brains where they’re interpreted as vision.
Retinas include two kinds of cells that detect light—rods and cones. Cones help us to read and see colors, while rods help with night and peripheral vision.
Both rods and cones need vitamin A to function normally, but rods, in particular, are more affected by a vitamin A deficiency, Rubenstein says. Without vitamin A, the rods can’t produce enough rhodopsin, a light-sensitive protein that requires vitamin A as a key component. Without enough rhodopsin, rods can’t work as well. If the rods don’t work well, then your night and peripheral vision suffers.
“The metabolism of how the rods in the retina work can be altered by a lack of vitamin A,” he says.
In fact, night blindness can be a first sign of a vitamin A deficiency, according to the NIH. And a lack of the nutrient is an issue globally. A vitamin A deficiency is a leading cause of preventable blindness, impacting as many as 30 percent of children under age five, research shows.
A vitamin A deficiency also can lead to other issues, including severe dry eyes and scarring of the eye, Rubenstein says. “But we only tend to see a true vitamin A deficiency in underdeveloped countries or in people that are on some sort of very unorthodox fad diet that’s not monitored by healthcare professionals.”
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What should we eat to improve our eyes?For most of us, a typical balanced diet that includes foods rich in beta-carotene is sufficient to protect our retinas’ rods and cones. “In a normal American population, we get enough vitamin A in our diet that we probably don’t have to eat extra carrots,” Rubenstein says.
In fact, increasing your carrot intake to “super levels,” he says, doesn’t help either. It can lead to carotenemia, a reversible and harmless condition that turns your skin a yellow-orange color after you’ve consumed too much beta-carotene.
What’s more, if you’re focused on eye health, vitamin A isn’t the only nutrient your eyes need. Omega-3 fatty acids from fatty fish, such as salmon, and vitamin E, such as from nuts, could provide some preventative effect for macular degeneration, a common eye disease for older adults, Rubenstein says.
Cataracts is another age-related eye condition that can cause vision loss. There’s some evidence that vitamin C from oranges and other fruits could provide some protection against them, along with not smoking, and, for those who spend a lot of time in the sun, wearing sunglasses that protect against ultraviolet light, Rubenstein says.
In other words, Rubenstein says, the best diet for eye health is a balanced one. He recommends the Mediterranean diet because it’s rich in all kinds of vegetables, fruit, fish and nuts and provides a range of nutrients that can support good eye health. Carrots play just one role.
“Eating carrots doesn’t cure anything. It doesn’t make your eyesight better,” Rubenstein says. “It’s one of the food sources that adds to eye health.”
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MIT professor designs 2026 Winter Olympics torch
Every Olympic Games has a torch. Every torch has a designer. For the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, that designer is MIT engineer and architect Carlo Ratti.
A winter sports enthusiast, Ratti owns the architectural firm Carlo Ratti Associati and is originally from Turin, Italy—which hosted the Winter Games in 2006. His firm’s work has been featured at numerous international expositions, including the French Pavilion at the Osaka Expo (World’s Fair) in 2025. The Cloud, a 400-foot tall spherical structure, was also a finalist for a special observation deck at the 2012 Olympic Games in London.
Olympic organizers invited Ratti to design this year’s torch, and he used several of his teaching principles when approaching the project.
“It is about what the object or the design is to convey,” Ratti said in a statement. “How it can touch people, how it can relate to people, how it can transmit emotions. That’s the most important thing.”
“Essential” was designed to perform regardless of the weather, wind, or altitude it would encounter on its journey from Olympia to Milan. The torch “aims to combine both past and future,” says designer Carlo Ratti, a professor of the practice at MIT who hails from Turin, Italy.Image: Photo courtesy of Milano Cortina 2026.
The official name for the 2026 Winter Olympic torch is “Essential.” Importantly, it was built to work no matter the weather, wind, or altitude the torch would encounter on its over 7,000-mile-long journey from Olympia, Greece to Milan, Italy. In total, the design process took three years to complete with collaboration from several researchers and engineers.
“Each design pushed the boundaries in different directions, but all of them with the key principle to put the flame at the center,” said Ratti, adding that he wanted the torch to embody “an ethos of frugality.”
Credit: Milano Cortina 2026As for the ever important flame, a high-performance burner powered by bio-GPL produced from 100 percent renewable feedstocks by energy company ENI is at the core of the torch. Previously, the torches were only used once, but “Essential” can be recharged 10 times so fewer torches needed to be built.
“Essential” also boasts a unique internal mechanism that can be seen through a vertical opening along its side. This means that audiences can peek inside and see the burner in action. From a design perspective, that reinforces Ratti’s desire to keep the emphasis on the flame itself and not the object.
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At just under 2.5 pounds, “Essential” is the lightest torch created for the Olympics and is primarily made from recycled aluminum. The body is finished with a PVD coating that is heat resistant. This special finish allows the torch to shift colors by reflecting the environments it is carried through, whether that be Milan’s bright city lights or the peaks of the Dolomites.
The Olympic torch is a blue-green shade, and the Paralympic torch is gold. It also won an honorable mention in Italy’s most prestigious industrial design award, the Compasso d’Oro.
Professor of the practice Carlo Ratti with his design: the 2026 Winter Olympic Torch. Image: Photo courtesy of Milano Cortina 2026.Throughout the process, the flame was the most fundamental aspect of the torch. The flame was considered sacred in ancient Greece and it will stay lit throughout the entire 16 days of competition.
A recurring symbol in both the Summer and Winter Olympic Games, the torch gets attention long before the first puck drop or downhill run. Its journey for the 2026 Olympics began in late November and will have covered all 110 Italian provinces before it arrives in Milan in time for the opening ceremony on February 6. Ratti carried the torch for a portion of its journey through Turin in January. He hopes that the torch and games showcase the Italy of today and of the future.
Ratti carried the torch he designed through the streets of Turin, Italy in January. Image: Photo courtesy of Milano Cortina 2026.“When people think about Italy, they often think about the past, from ancient Romans to the Renaissance or Baroque period,” he said. “Italy does indeed have a significant past. But the reality is that it is also the second-largest industrial powerhouse in Europe and is leading in innovation and tech in many fields. So, the 2026 torch aims to combine both past and future. It draws on Italian design from the past, but also on future-forward technologies.”
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Termites are swarming Florida even faster than predicted
Termites have plagued southern states like Florida for decades, but a new study indicates that the problem is even worse than researchers previously believed. After reviewing over 30 years of monitoring data, entomologists at the University of Florida (UF) now say both the Formosan and Asian subterranean termites (Coptotermes formosanus and Coptotermes gestroi) are expanding their range of destruction. And it gets worse. They’ve already traveled farther north than scientists initially predicted.
Formosan and Asian termites are almost entirely restricted to tropical climates, but the invasive insects have consistently arrived to newly habitable regions due to warming temperatures caused by climate change. Since its accidental introduction into the United States around the mid-20th century, Formosan termites have spread to at least 11 states. While biologists only identified the presence of its Asian subterranean relative in Florida in 1996, the species is making up for lost time. Today, termites in the U.S. annually cause an estimated $1–7 billion in structural damages.
Tracking them is also a difficult job. The insects spend the majority of their lives hidden away inside their colonies, and generally only emerge to mate and migrate during swarming seasons in the spring and early summer. This means it requires a concerted effort to keep an eye on their spread across communities. Often, they’re only confirmed after significant damage is done to homes and other buildings.
“Subterranean termites have a cryptic lifestyle, where early detection of their activity is challenging,” Thomas Chouvenc, a UF urban entomologist, explained in a university profile. “Not only are they hard to detect without regular professional inspections, but they are also rarely reported, making the tracking of their spread much more difficult.”
Chouvenc and his colleagues recently analyzed all available data amassed between 1990 and 2025 by the University of Florida Termite Collection to more clearly understand their continued spread.
“Because the spread of these invasive termite species was underestimated for decades due to inconsistent reporting across the state, it has been unclear which communities are currently experiencing damage from these species and which communities are about to experience them,” said Chouvenc.
The news isn’t great, judging by the conclusions of their study recently published in the Journal of Economic Entomology. They can confirm that Formosan termites are no longer only living in a few locations in Florida. By now, the insects are well established throughout most of the state’s coast and most of its largest urban centers. Trends also indicate that Formosan termites will be found everywhere in Florida by 2050.
As for the Asian termites—they’re doing even better than entomologists feared. Researchers have long assumed the bugs were mostly relegated to South Florida due to their need for particularly warm climates. Instead, the study’s data shows the termites are now found well into central Florida, including Brevard County along the Atlantic Ocean coast and Hillsborough County, which includes the Tampa metropolitan area. By the year 2040, Asian termites will likely reside in all of the state’s 24 southernmost counties.
If there’s any silver lining, it’s that some past projections remain accurate. For example, a 2016 analysis estimated half of all structures in the South Florida metropolitan area will be at risk from at least one or both species by 2040. This still seems to be the case, which at least makes it easier for urban planners to anticipate. The study’s co-authors hope increasing use of Florida’s open-source termite distribution map will generate stronger, more accurate datasets that both researchers and conservationists can utilize. Their work is also being integrated into a recently created North American Termite Survey, which helps with detection and identification projects far beyond the state.
“With increasing participation of [pest control] companies, we have improved our understanding of where and when these invasive species are establishing in new localities,” said Chouvenc.
In the meantime, the North American Termite Survey offers plenty of tips for identifying, managing, and documenting the invasive insects. The Environmental Protection Agency also has an entire website dedicated to the issue, as well as information on safely handling the bugs.
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Fire may have altered human DNA
Humanity’s relationship with fire is unique across all of evolutionary history. Learning to harness the power of flame is arguably our most monumental technological breakthrough as a species—one that allowed Homo sapiens to flourish across the planet.
But fire is not without its inherent dangers. A team of evolutionary biologists and medical experts now suggests its most painful consequences are so powerful that they actually reshaped our genetic makeup. In a study recently published in the journal BioEssays, researchers at Imperial College London argue that increased exposure to burns influenced our DNA enough to separate us from all other mammals and primates. While many of these adaptations help humans heal from many burns, they also make it harder to survive more serious encounters with fire.
“Burns are a uniquely human injury. No other species lives alongside high temperatures and the regular risk of burning in the way humans do,” study co-author Joshua Cuddihy of Imperial’s Department of Surgery and Cancer said in a statement.
Humanity’s chances of burns has only increased over time. Credit: Imperial College LondonBurns are classified as first, second, and third degree based on a wide range of severity. Lighter damage often heals easily on its own, but deeper burns destroy both surface and deeper tissues. Prolonged skin damage greatly increases risks of bacterial infections that can quickly turn lethal. According to the American Burn Association, there is an almost 18 percent mortality rate for hospital burn patients who require surgery and prolonged ventilation.
But while nearly every other animal on Earth works to avoid encountering fires, humans actively seek it out.
“The control of fire is deeply embedded in human life—from a preference for hot food and boiled liquids to the technologies that shape the modern world,” explained Cuddihy. “As a result, unlike any other species, most humans will burn themselves repeatedly over their lifetime, a pattern that likely extends back over a million years to our earliest use of fire.”
Cuddihy and his colleagues theorized that these regular encounters with fire—and their unwanted consequences—would inevitably have a profound effect on any species over tens of thousands of years. To investigate, the team compared genomic data across primates , and their findings appear to support their suspicions. Compared to our relatives, humans have genes that are linked to an enhanced evolution towards burn injury recovery. Specifically, these genes are tied to inflammation and immune system responses, as well as wound closure. These abilities would have been especially lifesaving prior to the development of antibiotics.
“Our research suggests that natural selection favoured traits that improved survival after smaller, more frequent burn injuries,” said Cuddihy.
At the same time, these developments offered certain trade-offs. The same healing processes that ensure recovery from lighter burns also can cause intense scarring, inflammation, and even organ failure in more severe cases. Cuddihy said this might explain why humans are still “particularly vulnerable” to worse burns.
Beyond a better understanding of humanity’s origins, the study could help direct our species’ future. Additional research may lead to new treatment approaches for burns as well as novel ways to deal with their complications. This evolutionary background may also explain why it has remained so difficult to translate burn studies involving animal models to humans.
“What makes this theory of burn selection so exciting to an evolutionary biologist is that it presents a new form of natural selection—one, moreover, that depends on culture,” added study co-author and evolutionary biologist Armand Leroi. “It is part of the story of what makes us human, and a part that we really did not have any inkling of before.”
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