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Margay Rescued in Costa Rica After Backyard Sighting

A young margay wandered into a residential backyard here, prompting a swift rescue by environmental officials who found the wildcat in an oddly calm state. The incident unfolded on November 5 when a local resident noticed the small feline resting on a low branch in their yard. Concerned about potential risks to a child or […] The post Margay Rescued in Costa Rica After Backyard Sighting appeared first on The Tico Times | Costa Rica News | Travel | Real Estate.

A young margay wandered into a residential backyard here, prompting a swift rescue by environmental officials who found the wildcat in an oddly calm state. The incident unfolded on November 5 when a local resident noticed the small feline resting on a low branch in their yard. Concerned about potential risks to a child or nearby farm animals, the family contacted the National System of Conservation Areas (SINAC), part of the Ministry of Environment and Energy (MINAE). Officials from the Tortuguero Conservation Area arrived quickly and identified the animal as a margay, known scientifically as Leopardus wiedii and locally as caucel. The cat’s docile demeanor stood out—it appeared asleep and showed no fear of people, which raised questions about its background. For the safety of both the community and the animal, the team captured it without incident. They placed the margay in a secure carrier and moved it to an approved wildlife rescue center for assessment. Veterinarians at the center sedated the margay for a thorough check. They reported the animal in solid health overall, with no major wounds. However, they removed several porcupine quills from around its mouth, signs of a recent failed hunt in the forest. Experts now observe the young margay over the coming days to check for any human habituation, which could suggest prior captivity. If tests confirm it retains wild instincts, authorities plan to release it back into a protected natural area. SINAC used the event to stress proper handling of wildlife encounters. Residents should avoid contact and report sightings to officials or emergency services at 9-1-1, allowing trained teams to step in safely. Margays rank among Costa Rica’s six native wildcat species, sharing forests with jaguars, pumas, ocelots, oncillas, and jaguarundis. These agile climbers can descend trees headfirst and grip branches with a single hind paw. Yet they face ongoing pressures from shrinking habitats and illegal pet trade captures. This rescue highlights how human expansion brings wildlife closer to homes, calling for balanced conservation efforts in regions like Pococí. The post Margay Rescued in Costa Rica After Backyard Sighting appeared first on The Tico Times | Costa Rica News | Travel | Real Estate.

Animals
Conservation
Energy

‘Environmental catastrophe’ fears as millions of plastic beads wash up on Camber Sands

Southern Water is being investigated amid concerns the spill could have dire impact on rare sea lifeSouthern Water is investigating after millions of contaminated plastic beads washed up on Camber Sands beach, risking an “environmental catastrophe”.The biobeads could have a dire impact on marine life, the local MP has said, with fears rare sea life, including seabirds, porpoises and seals, could ingest them and die. Continue reading...

Southern Water is investigating after millions of contaminated plastic beads washed up on Camber Sands beach, risking an “environmental catastrophe”.The biobeads could have a dire impact on marine life, the local MP has said, with fears rare sea life, including seabirds, porpoises and seals, could ingest them and die.Helena Dollimore, the MP for Hastings and Rye, suspects the beads may have been spilled by a local water treatment centre and has written to the Southern Water chief executive, Lawrence Gosden, demanding an explanation.Camber Sands, in East Sussex, is one of England’s most beloved beaches, with rare dune habitat and vast stretches of golden sand.Volunteers have been racing against time to clear the beads, filling dozens of bags with the plastic waste, but the scale of the pollution spill is vast and it is unlikely they will be able to remove all of them.Andy Dinsdale, from the plastic pollution campaign group Strandliners, said on Saturday: “This is the worst pollution event I have ever seen. It is contaminated plastic. Marine animals will ingest small plastic items once they are in the sea, they will attract algae, they will smell like food, effectively.“Once they’ve eaten it, that’s it: they can’t get it out. They will float on the surface. It will create a slick which attracts plunging seabirds.”He said the clean-up efforts have been exhausting. “Yesterday I was out there cleaning it up. We are trying to really piece together the timeline and the story for this horrendous event. It’s terrible.Camber residents joined the giant hoovering machine, Rother district council, Rother coastal officers and Strandliners for the cleanup effort. Photograph: Strandliners“They are so small that from a very long way off, the beach looks normal. But as soon as you get close up you see there are millions of black pellets, nestled under seaweed. It’s an impossible task – volunteers have been raking for days, and they will continue to rake, but we won’t be able to get rid of them all. It is the worst I have ever seen of a polluted beach.”Dollimore, the Labour and Co-operative MP who joined the clean-up efforts, said: “The huge number of plastic beads that have washed up here risks an environmental catastrophe. These biobeads are deadly to marine life and wildlife, and we are already seeing more dead seals, fish and porpoises on the beach.“Local residents are working tirelessly to remove as many beads as possible, but it’s a race against time. Southern Water must urgently establish if their local wastewater plants could be the source of these biobeads, and I’ve asked them to dedicate all available resources to supporting the clean-up operation in the meantime.”The beads are also dangerous to dogs as they contain a high number of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are known to have carcinogenic properties, and they often contain toxins including lead, antimony and bromine.A Southern Water spokesperson said: “We are working closely with the Environment Agency and Rother district council to investigate the source of plastic beads which have washed up on Camber Beach. This investigation work is ongoing.“Rother district council is leading the clean-up of the beach, using specialists with a vehicle with suction equipment to remove the beads. We are also supporting with the clean-up.“We’ve conducted water-quality sampling on the beach, which has shown no impact to environmental water quality. This data has been shared with Rother district council and the Environment Agency.”The Environment Agency has been contacted for comment.

Water
Animals
Pollution

When Scarcity Blurs the Line Between Right and Wrong

Megha Majumdar’s second novel imagines how climate disaster might scramble our sense of morality.

Whenever I read a novel about immigration, I recall a scene from the 2006 Italian film Nuovomondo (released as Golden Door in English). At the turn of the 20th century, a young Sicilian woman who will soon marry a “rich American” presents two postcards, supposedly from the United States, to a village elder. The first depicts a man holding a wheelbarrow that contains a massive onion, so large that it dwarfs both the wheelbarrow and the man. The second postcard displays a tree that is bursting with coins, as if money is sprouting from the branches. Convinced that these images faithfully represent America, a group of villagers sets off for the New World.Many immigrant novels contain similar scenes, in which hapless characters embrace improbable visions of America, only to be chastened upon arrival. These passages reflect how divided the planet once was, how easily myths about the United States could become rooted in other countries. Yet these images also contained a kernel of truth: America once seemed to be a place where hard work inevitably yielded prosperity; where, with time and effort, you could eventually purchase as many onions as you pleased.Immigration tales tend to adopt a hybrid form—part elegy for life in the home country, part hymn to the promise of the new. A Guardian and a Thief is not an immigrant novel in the traditional sense, though its protagonist hopes to leave India for America. (Majumdar’s best-selling debut novel, A Burning, takes place in contemporary India.) Set in the near future, when an environmental crisis has decimated India’s economy and landscape, A Guardian and a Thief unfolds as a mesmerizing morality play that demonstrates how categories like “victim” and “thief” collapse under conditions of scarcity. Yet the novel suffers from what feels like a mismatch between the conditions it depicts and the worldview of the people who populate it. Majumdar’s characters are contending with intractable 21st-century problems while adhering to the stories of an earlier era. In a novel that is so alert to where climate change is leading the world, a narrative frame that illustrates migration as linear and largely redemptive feels anachronistic.[Read: A new kind of immigrant novel]A Guardian and a Thief begins promisingly, offering nuanced portraits of its main characters. On the first page, the reader meets Ma as she fetches eggs and rice from a hidden room in her home. Standing before the stove, she watches a young man whistling as he cycles past her house. Majumdar continues: Thief, thought Ma. Who else but a person who had chanced upon fresh vegetables or fruit would wander the city of Kolkata in this ruined year, the heat a hand clamped upon the mouth, the sun a pistol against one’s head, and recall a song? But the reader soon learns that Ma, who manages a homeless shelter, has for the past year been skimming donations for her own family as food grows scarcer in Kolkata. Soon after, a desperate man named Boomba, who witnessed Ma stealing from the shelter, breaks into her home and swipes her food, her phone, and a purse containing her family’s invaluable travel documents.Throughout the book, Majumdar provides devastating details about Ma’s and Boomba’s lives. Ma cares for her young daughter and elderly father, and has gone months without seeing her husband, who is waiting for her in the U.S. Boomba’s family, in a nearby village, has endured a series of catastrophes, leaving them in dire straits. Ma and Boomba desire the same things—love, food, shelter, security—and they are fearless and unapologetic in pursuing them. Each comes to understand that the rules that prevailed during calmer times no longer hold, that to cling to them is to willingly accept privation and defeat. Majumdar lavishes her characters with careful attention, and so the reader comes to regard their most troubling actions as justified, if not inevitable. And because the world she conjures is so similar to our own (her characters complain about economic inequality and have smartphones; among them is a social-media influencer with 600,000 followers), a persistent question pulses beneath the story: What would you do if you were in their shoes?In a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, Majumdar said that her novel was prompted by asking herself: “Are there good people and monsters or do we contain elements of both?” This idea animates every encounter between Ma and Boomba until the distinction between good and bad, right and wrong, begins to dissolve. Ma imagines herself as a guardian—of her daughter, her father, her fragile home—yet she steals from the shelter she manages. Boomba, young and rootless, takes essential provisions from Ma’s family, yet his act is also one of guardianship, because he does so to secure his own family’s survival. The novel offers no clean resolutions; it shows how scarcity makes every action double-edged.Majumdar’s psychological precision is what makes the novel’s geopolitical weaknesses feel so pronounced. Her depiction of everyday human interaction is rich and persuasive, but the larger world her characters inhabit feels underdeveloped. Ma’s vision of the U.S., for instance, is described in these clichéd terms: She knew plenty about America. Who didn’t, given Hollywood? It was a country of grocery stores as large as aircraft hangars, stocked with waxed fruit and misted vegetables and canned legumes from floor to ceiling. It was a country of breathable air and potable water, and, despite a history of attempts to cultivate a poorly educated electorate, functioning schools and tenacious thinkers. It was a country of encompassing hope, sustained by the people despite the peddlers of fear and pursuers of gain who wore the ill-fitting costumes of political representation. Ma’s assertion that she knows plenty about America “given Hollywood” might have been understandable in an earlier era, before the internet was ubiquitous. But Majumdar has created a world that is recognizably continuous with our own—her characters scan social media and inhabit a culture saturated with real-time information; as a result, this statement feels curiously old-fashioned. Ma’s description of enormous, glistening grocery stores could be explained as the musings of a person who longs for stability and plentitude, or of a naive character who thinks of America as a land of boundless riches. But Ma has been deftly drawn as a canny realist and problem solver—not the kind of person to indulge in daydreams.[Read: No one is prepared for a new era of global migration]Majumdar’s inconsistent world building ultimately undermines the reader’s ability to invest in the story. She reveals that crops have failed and hunger grips India, but the scope and texture of the climate crisis remain unclear. At one point, Ma’s husband does provide a glimpse of how the climate crisis has affected the U.S. (“fields of corn, cucumber, and asparagus withering, rivers depleted, cacti where there had once been broad-leafed trees”). Yet its brevity is telling: This is the sum of Majumdar’s engagement with the international scale of the disaster. The vagueness might be deliberate—an attempt to present the story as a parable about morality under duress. But invoking climate change invites readers to think in global terms. Without that examination, the moral argument becomes unmoored. A novel about planetary collapse retreats into the contours of a fable, one that asks what people will do to survive without fully confronting the systems that endanger them.Majumdar’s most compelling insight—into collapsing social categories during a time of crisis—speaks to a broader global condition, in which the will to survive can obscure the line between right and wrong. Yet the novel also shows that moral imagination cannot thrive in isolation. Majumdar’s characters’ choices would carry greater weight if the conditions constraining them were rendered with equal depth. In the end, A Guardian and a Thief is a story that comprehends hunger more deeply than the world that produces it.

Climate
Culture
Food

L.A. air officials approve port pollution pact as skeptics warn of 'no clear accountability'

Southern California air officials voted overwhelmingly Friday to give themselves the power to levy fines on the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach if they don't fulfill their promises to transition to cleaner equipment.

Southern California air officials voted overwhelmingly Friday to give themselves the power to levy fines on the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach if they don’t fulfill their promises to transition to cleaner equipment. The ports remain the largest source of smog-forming pollution in Southern California — releasing more emissions than the region’s 6 million cars each day. The South Coast Air Quality Management District’s governing board voted 9-1 in favor of an agreement that commits the ports to installing zero-emission equipment, such as electric truck chargers or hydrogen fuel pumps, to curb air pollution from the heaviest polluters. The plans will be submitted in three phases: heavy-duty trucks and most cargo-moving equipment by 2028; smaller locomotives and harbor crafts by 2029; and cargo ships and other large vessels by 2030. If the ports don’t meet their deadlines, they would be fined $50,000 to $200,000, which would go into a clean-air fund to aid communities affected by port pollution. The AQMD, for its part, forgoes imposing new rules on the ports for five years. Many environmental advocates voiced disappointment, saying the agreement doesn’t contain specific pollution reduction requirements. “I urge you not to sign away the opportunity to do more to help address the region’s air pollution crisis in exchange for a pinky promise,” said Kathy Ramirez, one of dozens of speakers at Friday’s board meeting. “This is about our lives. I would encourage you to think about why you joined the AQMD board. If not for clean air, then for what?” Port officials and shipping industry officials lauded the decision as a pragmatic way to transition to a zero-emissions economy.“The give and take of ideas and compromises in this process — it mirrors exactly what a real-world transition to zero emissions looks like,” said William Bartelson, an executive at the Pacific Maritime Assn. “It’s practical, it’s inclusive and it’s grounded in shared goals.”The vote answers a long-standing question over how the AQMD intends to reduce pollution from the sprawling trade complex, a focus of environmental justice efforts for decades. The twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, known as the San Pedro Port Complex, is the largest container port in the Western Hemisphere, handling 40% of all container cargo entering the United States. Despite years of efforts at reducing pollution, the vast majority of heavy machinery, big rigs, trains and ships that serve the region’s bustling goods movement still are powered by diesel engines that emit toxic particles and nitrogen oxides, a precursor to smog. For nearly a decade the AQMD has vacillated between strict regulation and a pact with the ports with more flexibility. Several negotiations over a memorandum of understanding failed between 2017 and 2022. The board was prepared to require the ports to offset smog-forming pollution from trucks, trains and ships through clean air projects, like solar panels or electric vehicle chargers. Instead, the ports presented the AQMD with a proposed cooperative agreement, prompting the agency to pause its rulemaking. The AQMD doubled the penalties in that proposal and agreed not to make new rules for five years, not the 10 the industry wanted. Perhaps the most important details of the agreement — the types of energy or fuel used; the appropriate number of chargers or fueling stations — won’t be published for years. The lack of specifics prompted skepticism from many environmental advocates.“It’s just a stall tactic to make a plan for a plan in the hope that emission reductions will come sometime in the future,” said Fernando Gaytan, a senior attorney with environmental nonprofit Earthjustice.The contract also includes a clause that the AQMD or ports could terminate the agreement “for any reason” with a 45-day written notice. Wayne Nastri, the AQMD’s executive officer, said this gives the agency the option to switch back to requiring zero-emission infrastructure at the ports. “If we report back to you and you’re not seeing the progress being made, you can be confident knowing that you can pivot and release that [rulemaking] package,” Nastri said to the board. At the end of public comment, opponents of the agreement broke into loud chants. The AQMD cleared the gallery as the board discussed the proposal. Board member Veronica Padilla-Campos, the lone “no” vote, said the agreement lacked the necessary emission reductions and offered “no clear accountability” to local communities.Fellow board member Nithya Raman acknowledged many criticisms of the agreement but ultimately voted for it. “I really have come to believe that the choice before us is this cooperative agreement or no action at all on this issue — continuing a decade of inaction,” Raman said. “I will be voting to support it today, because I do think that it is our only pathway to take any steps forward toward cleaner air at the single largest source of air pollution in the region.”The plan still must be approved by commissioners at the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach Harbor Commission at meetings this year.

Pollution
Crisis
Energy

How a Historic Meeting Between Pope Leo and King Charles Might Shift the Narrative on ‘Creation Care’

From our collaborating partner “Living on Earth,” public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by host Steve Curwood with Tony Juniper, the chairman of Natural England, a government conservation agency. The serene music of the choirs of Windsor Castle, the Sistine Chapel and children from the choir of Saint James Chapel, floated up to the […]

A longtime advisor to King Charles offers perspective on the value of the leaders coming together on climate and environmental concerns ahead of COP30, the upcoming global climate conference.Interview by Steve Curwood, Living on EarthFrom our collaborating partner “Living on Earth,” public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by host Steve Curwood with Tony Juniper, the chairman of Natural England, a government conservation agency.

Conservation
Government

England facing drastic measures due to extreme drought next year

Government and water companies are devising emergency plans for worst water shortage in decadesWater companies and the government are drawing up emergency plans for a drought next year more extreme than we have seen in decades.Executives at one major water company told the Guardian they were extremely concerned about the prospect of a winter with lower than average rainfall, which the Met Office’s long-term forecast says is likely. They said if this happened, the water shortfall would mean taking drastic water use curtailment measures “going beyond hosepipe bans”. Continue reading...

Water companies and the government are drawing up emergency plans for a drought next year more extreme than we have seen in decades.Executives at one major water company told the Guardian they were extremely concerned about the prospect of a winter with lower than average rainfall, which the Met Office’s long-term forecast says is likely. They said if this happened, the water shortfall would mean taking drastic water use curtailment measures “going beyond hosepipe bans”.Droughts are usually multi-year events. While much of England went into drought this summer, with hosepipe bans across large swathes of the country, things were not as bad as they could have been because it had been a rainy autumn and winter the year before. This meant reservoirs were full and that groundwater – storage of water under the soil – was charged up.But months of record dry weather meant a lot of that water was used, and it has not been replaced, despite roughly average September and October rainfall. Average reservoir storage is at 63.3% compared with the average of 76% for this time of year. Ardingly, in West Sussex, and Clatworthy and Wimbleball in Somerset, are below 30%.Groundwater takes significantly longer than reservoirs to recharge, and the situation in England is still fragile despite recent rainfall; South East Water has applied for a local water restriction order, which would ban some businesses from using water for certain things, such as cleaning buildings and equipment or filling hotel pools.Alastair Chisholm, the director of policy and external affairs at the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management, said: “In UK drought management terms, a second dry winter is when things start to get serious. So Met Office warnings of increased risk of dry spells through an important time of year for recharge of our water resources will ring alarm bells. This, coupled with dry weather next spring and summer will mean more drought orders – more abstraction from rivers when they’re at low levels, more hosepipe bans and likely restrictions on some business water use.”England has a lack of water resilience, with a growing population, higher risks of hot, dry summers and the fact no new major reservoir has been built in more than 30 years. This means that the country is reliant on consistent rainfall to keep taps running, and when we do not get it, rivers have to be sucked dry and hosepipe bans imposed.Chisholm said building new reservoirs was not enough, and that water efficiency measures for businesses and homes could be taken very quickly, for example by stopping leaks, more widespread smart metering and ensuring water-efficient appliances were installed in new homes.He said: “Whilst government has been fixated on announcing new reservoirs it’s been far less proactive or ambitious on its water efficiency policies. Reservoirs will take decades to build whilst water users can be supported to reduce their consumption quickly. This is nonsensical. It’s not an either-or question on these. We’re a densely populated nation facing increasingly extreme and variable weather, with growing water demand to support new homes, datacentres, food production and more. Without new reservoirs and leakage reductions alongside ambitious water efficiency and domestic or development-level rainwater harvesting and reuse, droughts are likely to become a growing problem for the UK.”The drought is expected to continue into next year. If that happens, and we have a spring and summer with below-average rainfall, England runs a risk of running out of water.The Met Office’s chief meteorologist, Dr Will Lang, said: “This year has been characterised by notable rainfall deficits across much of England. By 28 October, provisional data shows England had only 61% of its expected annual rainfall, when we’d normally have about 80% at this time of the year (based on 1991–2020 average).“Looking ahead, there is an increased risk of dry spells through late autumn and early winter and regional differences in rainfall continue to be likely. Without sustained and widespread precipitation, a consistent recovery from drought remains uncertain.”Water minister Emma Hardy said: “We are closely monitoring all regions – especially those still experiencing drought – and working with the National Drought Group and water companies to maintain supplies. We face increasing pressure on our water resources. That is why this government is taking decisive action, including the development of nine new reservoirs to help secure long-term water resilience.”Hydrologists are alarmed by the extent of the drought and the very real possibility it could cause problems next summer. The strategy of waiting for significant rain carries big risks.Prof Hannah Cloke, a professor of hydrology at the University of Reading, said: “We now need exceptional rainfall all winter just to recover. Even with recent improvements in some areas, many drought orders and hosepipe bans are staying in place. That tells you how serious the water resource deficit really is. Some reservoirs are sitting at less than a third of their capacity, which is alarming at this point in the year.“With climate change drying Britain out for longer periods in the future, we need to adapt to the climate we have now. Building new reservoirs will help, but we also need much more management of demand, and a more ambitious plan for water resilience.”Dr Megan Klaar, associate professor in the School of Geography at the University of Leeds, said: “We know that climate change is making rainfall patterns more variable, with longer dry periods and more intense wet periods. This growing volatility makes it harder to plan or foresee with certainty making the reliance on rain to arrive ‘just in time’ an unreliable strategy.”There are actions the country could take now, she said: “Nature-based solutions including restoring wetlands, reforesting catchments and improving soil health all help retain water in the landscape and slow its movement through river systems. Households can also help by reducing water use, especially during dry periods, and slowing and storing water during high rainfall by replacing impermeable surfaces like concrete and installing water butts to collect rainwater from roofs which stores water locally and reduces runoff during heavy rainfall.”

Government
Water
Climate

This November is COPD Awareness Month: Take Action in Texas to Improve Health, Policy, and Lives

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) affects an estimated 30 million Americans, yet half remain undiagnosed. In Texas, the burden is especially high — both in human and economic terms. As November marks COPD Awareness Month, the COPD Action Alliance urges Texans to not only raise awareness but also advocate for stronger policies that improve prevention, diagnosis and treatment

BY COPD ACTION ALLIANCE COPD impacts Texas in a Big Way Texas ranks among the states most burdened by COPD. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the age-adjusted adult COPD prevalence in Texas is 5.6 percent, representing roughly 1.3 million Texans living with the disease. The economic toll of COPD in Texas is significant. The state spends over $2.35 billion annually on medical costs associated with COPD. Additionally, absenteeism due to the condition costs the state approximately $3.7 million each year.  Prevalence is highest in rural and Gulf Coast counties, where access to pulmonologists and pulmonary rehabilitation remains limited. State surveillance data from the Texas Department of State Health Services show that Texans living in rural areas and those with lower incomes or less education face significantly higher rates of COPD. What Is COPD? COPD is a progressive lung disease that causes inflammation and airflow blockage, making breathing a daily challenge. It includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema and is now the sixth leading cause of death in the United States, claiming more than 130,000 lives each year. While smoking is a leading cause, one in four COPD patients have never smoked. Environmental exposure, occupational hazards, asthma, and genetic factors like Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency also contribute. The good news: COPD is highly treatable — particularly when caught early. Today’s options range from inhalers and pulmonary rehabilitation to breakthrough biologic therapies recently approved by the FDA. Suzi Media – stock.adobe.comThe Changing Faces of COPD The image of COPD as a “smoker’s disease” no longer holds true. The COPD Action Alliance’s 2025 survey found that 14 percent of respondents with COPD had never smoked, and many cited workplace and environmental exposure as key factors.  Veterans are more likely to be diagnosed with COPD than civilians. Over 1 million U.S. veterans live with COPD, which is about 25 percent of the veteran population. COPD rates are rising, especially among those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Firefighters and first responders face increased risk from smoke and airborne toxins. Retired firefighters were 7.4 times more likely to have COPD than those still on active duty. Women are 35 percent more likely to have COPD than men, possibly due to smaller airways that are more prone to inflammation. “There’s a stigma around COPD. Many people assume I have it because I smoked cigarettes, but I’ve never smoked. I grew up in a smoker’s home and worked in jobs that contributed to my COPD,” one survey participant shared. COPD Action Alliance: Advocating for a Better Future The COPD Action Alliance is a leading advocacy coalition dedicated to improving outcomes for people living with COPD. The Alliance brings together stakeholders to push for patient-centered policies at both state and federal levels. Through their efforts, they aim to: Encourage Policies that Elevate the COPD Community: By collaborating with policymakers, the Alliance seeks to ensure COPD is recognized as a public health priority. Improve COPD Awareness and Education: The Alliance works to increase public understanding of COPD, addressing stigma and empowering patients with knowledge. Ensure Access to Appropriate Care: Advocating for better access to screenings, treatments, and clinical resources is central to the Alliance’s mission. Prioritize the Clinician-Patient Relationship: The Alliance emphasizes the importance of communication and trust between healthcare providers and patients, leading to more effective and personalized care. Yuri Arcurs peopleimages.comWhat COPD Looks Like Across America Nationwide, COPD remains one of the most under-recognized chronic diseases—yet its human and economic toll is profound. A 2024 study published in Chest and available through the National Institutes of Health estimated that from 2016 to 2019, COPD accounted for roughly $31 billion per year in direct medical costs, with total national costs projected to reach $60.5 billion by 2029. The researchers found that COPD-related medical spending averaged $4,322 per patient annually, underscoring the significant financial burden on families and the health-care system alike.  Despite these figures, COPD continues to receive limited research funding and policy attention. Nearly one in three patients recently surveyed by the COPD Action Alliance reported facing barriers to obtaining medications or equipment due to prior authorization or high out-of-pocket costs. Meanwhile, 79 percent said navigating the health-care system is difficult, and nearly half believe current U.S. policies are failing to improve COPD care. COPD is both a medical and economic challenge—and addressing it will require a stronger national commitment to prevention, early diagnosis, and equitable access to treatment. Policy Priorities for a Healthier Future The COPD Action Alliance recommends targeted policy actions that could improve care for Texans and millions nationwide: Increase Awareness and Education Launch public health campaigns that address COPD stigma and encourage early diagnosis. Improve Access to Treatment Eliminate prior authorization barriers and expand telehealth and pulmonary rehabilitation in rural communities. Fund COPD Research Direct more federal and state funding toward biomedical research and data collection to close diagnostic and treatment gaps. Implement the National COPD Action Plan Fully realize the 2018 NIH blueprint for reducing the burden of COPD through education, data tracking and research coordination. Doctor or nurse caregiver showing a tablet screen to senior man and laughing at home or nursing home Lumos sp – stock.adobe.comThe Path Forward COPD is the third leading cause of death worldwide and the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. It is twice as common in rural areas as in large cities, pointing to the need for targeted awareness and healthcare interventions in rural communities. The COPD Action Alliance, in collaboration with policymakers, healthcare providers, and community leaders, aims to create a future where patients have the support and resources they need to manage their condition effectively. With increased awareness, expanded research, and improved healthcare access, Texans living with COPD can look forward to better outcomes and a higher quality of life. To learn more about COPD and the COPD Action Alliance’s efforts, please visit copdactionalliance.org. For additional resources, check out the COPD Fact Sheet, watch a video introduction to the Alliance, or read about the latest breakthroughs in biologic treatments for COPD. The COPD Action Alliance is an advocacy coalition that helps to increase awareness, support grassroots advocacy and improve COPD policy.

Health
Education

James Watson, Co-Discoverer of DNA's Double Helix, Dead at 97

(Reuters) -James D. Watson, the brilliant but controversial American biologist whose 1953 discovery of the structure of DNA, the molecule of...

(Reuters) -James D. Watson, the brilliant but controversial American biologist whose 1953 discovery of the structure of DNA, the molecule of heredity, ushered in the age of genetics and provided the foundation for the biotechnology revolution of the late 20th century, has died at the age of 97.His death was confirmed by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, where he worked for many years. The New York Times reported that Watson died this week at a hospice on Long Island.In his later years, Watson's reputation was tarnished by comments on genetics and race that led him to be ostracized by the scientific establishment.Even as a younger man, he was known as much for his writing and for his enfant-terrible persona - including his willingness to use another scientist's data to advance his own career - as for his science.His 1968 memoir, "The Double Helix," was a racy, take-no-prisoners account of how he and British physicist Francis Crick were first to determine the three-dimensional shape of DNA. The achievement won the duo a share of the 1962 Nobel Prize in medicine and eventually would lead to genetic engineering, gene therapy and other DNA-based medicine and technology.Crick complained that the book "grossly invaded my privacy" and another colleague, Maurice Wilkins, objected to what he called a "distorted and unfavorable image of scientists" as ambitious schemers willing to deceive colleagues and competitors in order to make a discovery.In addition, Watson and Crick, who did their research at Cambridge University in England, were widely criticized for using raw data collected by X-ray crystallographer Rosalind Franklin to construct their model of DNA - as two intertwined staircases - without fully acknowledging her contribution. As Watson put it in "Double Helix," scientific research feels "the contradictory pulls of ambition and the sense of fair play."In 2007, Watson again caused widespread anger when he told the Times of London that he believed testing indicated the intelligence of Africans was "not really ... the same as ours."Accused of promoting long-discredited racist theories, he was shortly afterwards forced to retire from his post as chancellor of New York's Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL). Although he later apologized, he made similar comments in a 2019 documentary, calling different racial attainment on IQ tests - attributed by most scientists to environmental factors - "genetic."James Dewey Watson was born in Chicago on April 6, 1928, and graduated from the University of Chicago in 1947 with a zoology degree. He received his doctorate from Indiana University, where he focused on genetics. In 1951, he joined Cambridge's Cavendish Lab, where he met Crick and began the quest for the structural chemistry of DNA.Just waiting to be found, the double helix opened the doors to the genetics revolution. In the structure Crick and Watson proposed, the steps of the winding staircase were made of pairs of chemicals called nucleotides or bases. As they noted at the end of their 1953 paper, "It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material."That sentence, often called the greatest understatement in the history of biology, meant that the base-and-helix structure provided the mechanism by which genetic information can be precisely copied from one generation to the next. That understanding led to the discovery of genetic engineering and numerous other DNA techniques.Watson and Crick went their separate ways after their DNA research. Watson was only 25 years old then and while he never made another scientific discovery approaching the significance of the double helix, he remained a scientific force."He had to figure out what to do with his life after achieving what he did at such a young age," biologist Mark Ptashne, who met Watson in the 1960s and remained a friend, told Reuters in a 2012 interview. "He figured out how to do things that played to his strength."That strength was playing "the tough Irishman," as Ptashne put it, to become one of the leaders of the U.S. leap to the forefront of molecular biology. Watson joined the biology department at Harvard University in 1956."The existing biology department felt that molecular biology was just a flash in the pan," Harvard biochemist Guido Guidotti related. But when Watson arrived, Guidotti said he immediately told everyone in the biology department – scientists whose research focused on whole organisms and populations, not cells and molecules – "that they were wasting their time and should retire."That earned Watson the decades-long enmity of some of those traditional biologists, but he also attracted young scientists and graduate students who went on to forge the genetics revolution.In 1968 Watson took his institution-building drive to CSHL on Long Island, splitting his time between CSHL and Harvard for eight years. The lab at the time was "just a mosquito-infested backwater," said Ptashne. As director, "Jim turned it into a vibrant, world-class institution."In 1990, Watson was named to lead the Human Genome Project, whose goal was to determine the order of the 3 billion chemical units that constitute humans' full complement of DNA. When the National Institutes of Health, which funded the project, decided to seek patents on some DNA sequences, Watson attacked the NIH director and resigned, arguing that genome knowledge should remain in the public domain.In 2007 he became the second person in the world to have his full genome sequenced. He made the sequence publicly available, arguing that concerns about "genetic privacy" were overwrought but made an exception by saying he did not want to know if he had a gene associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer's disease. Watson did have a gene associated with novelty-seeking.His proudest accomplishment, Watson told an interviewer for Discover magazine in 2003, was not discovering the double helix - which "was going to be found in the next year or two" anyway - but his books."My heroes were never scientists," he said. "They were Graham Greene and Christopher Isherwood - you know, good writers."Watson cherished the bad-boy image he presented to the world in "Double Helix," friends said, and he emphasized it in his 2007 book, "Avoid Boring People."Married with two sons, he often disparaged women in public statements and boasted of chasing what he called "popsies." But he personally encouraged many female scientists, including biologist Nancy Hopkins of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology."I certainly couldn't have had a career in science without his support, I believe," said Hopkins, long outspoken about anti-woman bias in science. "Jim was hugely supportive of me and other women. It's an odd thing to understand."(Editing by Bill Trott and Rosalba O'Brien)Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.Photos You Should See – Oct. 2025

Chemicals
Health
Science

Radioactive pollution still haunts Hunters Point in San Francisco

Last week, residents were informed by the San Francisco Department of Health that a test taken in November 2024 at the former site of Hunters Point Naval Shipyard showed radiation levels of airborne Plutonium 239 had exceeded the Navy's "action level."

San Francisco — More than a half century after the U.S. ignited 67 atomic weapons in the the central Pacific Ocean, a former Navy base in the Bay Area continues to carry that nuclear legacy.Last week, residents were informed by the San Francisco Department of Health that a test taken in November 2024 at the former site of Hunters Point Naval Shipyard showed radiation levels of airborne Plutonium-239 had exceeded the Navy’s “action level,” requiring the military to further investigate. The city and the residents were not informed until 11 months after that initial reading. Hunters Point, a 500-acre peninsula jutting out into San Francisco Bay, served as a military laboratory to study the effects of nuclear weapons from 1946-69 following World War II. Although the research largely focused on how to decontaminate U.S. warships and equipment targeted with atomic bombs, the experimentation left much of the shipyard laced with radioactive contaminants and toxic chemicals.For the last 30 years, the Navy has sought to clean up the area — now a U.S. Superfund site — with the long-term goal of redeveloping it into new housing and parkland. But some Bay Area community leaders say haphazard remediation work and lackluster public outreach have endangered the health and safety of residents of the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood that sits beside the former shipyard. And they point to the Navy’s nearly year-long delay in informing them of the elevated Plutonium-239 reading, taken in November 2024, as just the latest example.Plutonium-239 is a radioactive isotope and byproduct of nuclear bomb explosions. The elevated readings from November 2024 came from a 78-acre tract of land on the northeast portion of the shipyard, known as Parcel C.“The City and County of San Francisco is deeply concerned by both the magnitude of this exceedance and the failure to provide timely notification,” wrote San Francisco Health Officer Susan Philip in an Oct. 30 letter to Navy officials. “Such a delay undermines our ability to safeguard public health and maintain transparency. Immediate notification is a regulatory requirement and is critical for ensuring community trust and safety.”Navy officials and some health experts insist the radiation levels detected at the site, while above the Navy’s action level, did not pose an imminent or substantial threat to public health. Exposure to this level of Plutonium-239 every day for one year would be less than one-tenth the dose of radiation from a chest X-ray, according to a Navy spokesperson. “The San Francisco Department of Public Health’s letter references a single outlier air sample that detected Plutonium-239 above the regulatory action level,” a Navy spokesperson said in a statement to The Times. “Regulatory action levels are deliberately and conservatively established below levels of health concern, and a single detection of Pu-239 at this level does not pose a risk to human health or public safety.”The Navy said it has collected more than 200 ambient air monitoring samples from Parcel C since it began performing fieldwork there in 2023. The November 2024 sample was the only reading with elevated Plutonium-239, the Navy spokesperson told The Times. Plutonium isotopes emit alpha radiation that is relatively benign outside the body, because it cannot travel through solid objects. However, if these radioactive particles are inhaled, they can damage the lungs and increase the long-term risk of developing certain cancers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “What we generally are concerned about for alpha emitters is if you get them into your body, and either through inhalation, ingestion, inadvertent injection — like somebody gets a cut and it gets into their body,” said Kathryn Higley, a professor of nuclear science at Oregon State University. But it’s the lack of transparency and the 11-month delay in reporting the reading that has fomented community mistrust and raised questions regarding the military’s competency to safely clean up the polluted shipyard. In 2000, the EPA admonished naval officials for neglecting to inform residents that a fire had broken out at a hazardous landfill at Hunters Point. In 2017, two employees of the consulting firm Tetra Tech, who were hired by the Navy to assess radiation levels at Hunters Point, pleaded guilty to falsifying data in an effort to avoid having to perform additional cleanup on some areas of the shipyard. The presence of radioactive air contaminants — at any level — compounds the health risks of the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood, which already faces high exposure to toxic diesel particles from big rigs traveling on nearby freeways and cargo ships visiting the Port of San Francisco. Hunters Point Biomonitoring Foundation, a local nonprofit, has found concerning levels of toxic substances in urine screenings it has provided to several residents of the neighborhood, especially among older individuals and those living closer to the former Naval shipyard.“Now, you’re talking about adding one of the most devastating radionuclides known to the human cardiopulmonary system to the chemical burden,” said Dr. Ahmisa Porter Sumchai, the foundation’s medical director and principal investigator. “The particulate load is enough to kill people,” Sumchai added. “But you add ... a little Plutonium-239, and it’s a recipe for death.” Philip, the San Francisco health officer, said in a statement that she met with Navy officials Oct. 31 and received assurances that air and dust monitoring is “ongoing” and that the military agency is “reviewing their duct control methods to ensure they are fully protective of public health.”As a result, “no immediate action is required from a public health safety standpoint,” she said, adding that her office will continue to closely monitor the situation.Other experts argued the situation was overblown. Phil Rutherford, a radiological risk expert and corporate consultant, called the delayed notification “unacceptable” but said the San Francisco health department’s letter was “a storm in a teacup” considering the low levels of radioactive material.Higley, the Oregon State professor, said the site’s long history of delays and scandals likely added to backlash from community members. “I understand [residents’] frustration that they want to see this place cleaned up so that they can safely use it,” Higley said. “And there’s been a lot of reasons for why this process takes so long. But, from a radiological perspective, the actual residual radioactivity at the site is pretty modest.”In November 2024, a Navy contractor was grinding asphalt on the site — a construction project that, while unrelated to the site’s historical contamination, triggered the Navy to monitor for any air quality issues. One of its air samplers, in Parcel C — collected 8.16 times 10‐15 picocuries per milliliter of Plutonium-239 — twice the established action level — according to a Navy spokesperson. Navy officials sent the sample to a lab for analysis, and the initial results came back in March 2025, showing high radiation levels. In April, they ordered the lab to reanalyze the sample. In the follow-up analysis, radiation levels of Plutonium-239 were below action levels.Between May and September, the Navy “further investigated the test results and conducted a methodical review of the laboratory’s procedures and practices to ensure they complied with standards,” according to the Navy spokesperson. “A third party also conducted an analysis of the lab’s performance.”Later that September, the Navy told the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and several California state agencies about the elevated airborne radiation from Plutonium-239, in preparation for an upcoming community meeting. That information later trickled down to the San Francisco health department. At some point, the Navy published some air quality data for Parcel C gathered between October and December 2024 on a website where it curates several environmental monitoring reports. That report only showed the lower Plutonium-239 radiation levels from the reanalysis were below the action level.A Navy spokesperson told The Times that it was “mistakenly uploaded.”“As soon as the Navy realized an incomplete report was uploaded, it was removed from the website,” the spokesperson said, while the Navy worked to verify the results. All that has contributed to the confusion and concern among locals and advocates alike. Navy officials are expected to attend a Hunters Point Shipyard Citizens Advisory Committee Meeting on Nov. 17. When fieldwork is occurring at the shipyard, the Navy monitors for Plutonium-239 and several other radioactive elements that may have resulted from historic fallout from atomic weapons testing. Acquired by the Navy in 1940, Hunters Point was initially a base where ships were built, repaired and maintained during World War II. After the war ended, it became home to the Navy Radiological Defense Laboratory, a military research facility dedicated to investigating the effects of nuclear weapons and radiological safety.The Navy bombarded a fleet of U.S. warships with nuclear weapons as a part of atomic testing in the Marshall Islands. The irradiated vessels were towed to Hunters Point, and used as the material and hardware upon which scientists tested decontamination methods. In 1974, the shipyard was deactivated. Hazardous chemicals and low-level radiological contamination were identified, prompting the U.S. EPA to place the site on its Superfund list in 1989. The Navy has led cleanup efforts, excavating contaminated soil and demolishing buildings. A largely residential parcel of the base, Parcel A, was turned over to San Francisco and has been redeveloped with new town houses and condos. A collective of 300 artists live and work in former naval buildings. But dangers continue to emerge during ongoing remediation work. In recent years, the Navy has recovered radioactive objects, including dials and deck markers coated with paint containing Radium isotopes to provide a glow-in-the-dark effect. Sumchai, medical director of the biomonitoring foundation, said she has observed large stockpiles of contaminated soil held in areas without any protective fencing to prevent contaminants from spreading off site. “I view this as a local public health emergency,” Sumchai said. “I think that everything should be done to contain it and to remove people safely, if necessary, from documented areas of exposure.”But to the casual observer the site looks unremarkable.Hunters Point juts out into the San Francisco Bay just north of where Candlestick Park, the former home of the San Francisco 49ers, used to stand. Beyond the abandoned barracks and drydocks, the site is now mostly an empty expanse of grass and reeds, with an unobstructed view of the bay. The cleanup sites, including Parcel C, are still fenced off, and only those with authorized credentials are allowed onto the property.On a recent weekday afternoon, ravens flew and cawed over the long-vacant shipyard buildings, while construction crews and trucks ferried building equipment up and down Hill Drive — a steep road leading to brand new homes standing sentinel over the former shipyard.And beyond waiting for a new batch of Navy reports, there was no way of knowing what’s in the air.

Health
Chemicals
Science

Having children plays a complicated role in the rate we age

The effort of reproducing may divert energy away from repairing DNA or fighting illness, which could drive ageing, but a new study suggests that is only the case when environmental conditions are tough

Some say children keep you young, but it’s complicatedJavier Zayas/Getty Images For millennia, we have tried to understand why we age, with the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle proposing it occurs alongside the gradual drying up of the internal moisture necessary for life. In modern times, a leading idea known as the disposable soma hypothesis suggests that ageing is the price we pay for reproduction, with evolution prioritising the passing on of genes above all else. This creates a fundamental trade-off: the immense energy devoted to having and raising offspring comes at the cost of repairing DNA, fighting off illness and keeping organs in good shape. This may particularly apply to women, who invest more in reproduction than men via pregnancy and breastfeeding. However, when scientists have tested this hypothesis by checking if women with more children live shorter lives, the results have been mixed: some studies support the idea, while others have found no effect. “It is very difficult to disentangle what is just correlation [between having more children and a shorter life] and what is the underlying causation, unless you have a good, big dataset that covers several generations,” says Elisabeth Bolund at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, who wasn’t involved in the study. Euan Young at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and his colleagues hypothesised that the inconsistency between studies exists because the cost of reproduction isn’t fixed – it depends on a mother’s environment. “In good times, this trade-off isn’t really visible. The trade-off only becomes apparent when times are tough,” says Young. To investigate this idea, the researchers analysed the parish records of more than 4500 Finnish women, spanning 250 years. These included the period of the Great Finnish Famine from 1866 to 1868, providing a means to gauge how hard times affect reproduction and longevity, says Young. They found that among the women who lived before or after the famine or who didn’t have children during it, there was no significant association between the number of children they had and their lifespan. However, for the women who did have children during the famine, their life expectancy decreased by six months for every child they had. The study builds on research published last year that used a dataset from a pre-industrial population in Quebec, Canda, monitored over two centuries, which showed this trade-off in mothers who were probably in poor health or under great stress, but didn’t explore how this was affected by specific environmental conditions. In contrast, Young’s team points to a specific, catastrophic event as the driver that exposes the trade-off for mothers. “This very large dataset makes it feasible to account for confounding factors [such as genetics and lifestyle factors],” says Bolund. “The study gets us as close as we can to identifying causation without running a controlled experiment in the lab.” The study also confirms the energetic demands of pregnancy and breastfeeding, which require hundreds of extra calories per day. During a famine, women can’t get this energy from food, so their bodies pay the price, “lowering basal metabolism [the minimum number of calories your body needs to function at a basic level] and thus slowing or shutting down other important functions, resulting in a decline in health and shorter lifespans”, says Young. It also explains why previous studies sometimes found the trade-off only in lower socioeconomic groups, which were effectively always living in relatively resource-scarce environments, he says. According to Bolund, the fact that this trade-off seems to occur in particularly tough circumstances, and when women typically had many children, may partly explain why women generally live longer than men today, with girls born between 2021 and 2023 in the UK expected to live four years longer than their male counterparts. The costs of reproduction are now fairly low in Western societies, where the average number of children women give birth to has reduced considerably over the centuries, says Bolund. As a result, few women today will probably reach the threshold where the cost to their lifetime becomes obvious. Bolund and her colleagues’ research on a historical population in Utah, for instance, found this only appeared when women had more than five children – well below the 1.6 births that the average woman in the US is expected to have in her lifetime. Other environmental factors may therefore become more significant in explaining the lifespan gap between men and women. Men tend to be more likely to smoke than women and also drink more alcohol, which affect lifespan, says Bolund. The current longevity gap between men and women is probably a combination of the latter’s reduced reproductive costs compared with other times in history and lifestyle differences between the sexes. Research also suggests that sex chromosomal differences are involved. “Sexes differ in a multitude of ways, beyond reproductive costs, so we need to conduct more research into how different factors contribute to sex-specific ageing,” says Young.

Energy
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