The Namib desert of south-western Africa can be extremely hot – the surface temperature can be over 50°C. But a surprising number of around 200 beetle species live on its bare, inhospitable-looking sand dunes.
Scientists studying them were perplexed by the astonishing behaviour of one of the beetle species – a darkling beetle, Onymacris plana.
Like most desert darkling beetles, it is black – a colour that absorbs heat. And it has a flattened body, a big surface area exposed to heat. Scientists didn’t expect to find it active on the sand surface in the dangerous heat of the day. But it sprints in the sun, sometimes pausing in the shade of a desert shrub.
In fact, it’s the fastest of all the invertebrates of the Namib desert sands. This tiny beetle can run as fast as a human can walk.
When humans and other animals run, the fuel burning in our muscles produces heat. The faster we run, the more oxygen we use and the hotter we get.
But not so these beetles.
In an astonishing discovery, we established that the beetle in fact gets cooler when it exercises. This is the first land animal to have been found with this capability (and the first research of its type on a pedestrian animal).
Their cooling system enables them to move around to find their wind-blown food before it’s covered by sand. And they can be active when other animals (predators and competitors) are not. Finally, males can spend more time looking for mates. So we believe they are adapted to move in the sun because it’s good for survival.
The hunt
In the early 1980s, entomologist Sue Nicolson and her co-workers from various universities and research institutes went out on the dunes in the hot sun to measure the temperature of the beetles. They used a thermometer in a fine hypodermic needle to measure each beetle’s temperature without harming it. The needle went into the beetle’s thorax, from underneath. They looked for beetles that had just finished a sprint and others that had rested for the same time in the shade of a shrub. The beetles that had finished a sprint were no hotter than those that stayed in the shade.
In the 1980s, comparative physiologist George Bartholomew and his co-workers from various universities measured how much oxygen the beetles used while running on a treadmill. Running fast took hardly any more oxygen than running slowly. So, running faster would not make the beetles much hotter.
So, we knew how hot the beetles were after a sprint (not very hot), and how much oxygen they used while running (not much). But what no-one had done was to measure the temperature of the beetles while they were running.
We’re a team of scientists who work on how animals’ bodies cope with heat. Much of our desert research is done in the Namib Desert. We wanted to know how the beetles achieved something that looked impossible physiologically: run in the Namib sun.
We attached a fine thermocouple thermometer fed through the end of a fishing pole.
One of our team followed the beetle while it was running in the sun, keeping the weight and drag of the thermometer off it. But the beetles did not get hotter when they ran – they got cooler.
Run like the wind
We calculated what should have happened to the temperature of the beetle. Because it was black, we could estimate how much of the sun’s radiation it would have absorbed. The Namib’s sun is so intense that the radiation falling on a tabletop would boil a kettle.
We measured how far the beetles had run and in what time, so we knew their speed. We could calculate how much heat they were generating in their muscles. Adding the sun’s heating to the heat coming from the muscles, we calculated that, in the hottest Namib sun, the beetles’ temperature should have risen by 5°C per minute. That should have killed them.
The Namib desert’s sand can be burningly hot but its air, blowing in off the Atlantic Ocean, is cool. Running generates a wind over the body. We concluded that the heat from the sun and from the muscles must be carried away by that cool wind.
The males have an especially flattened body shaped like the wing of an aircraft so that they almost float, clear of the hot sand.
We needed to confirm that what we had observed on the sand dune did not conflict with what engineers know about heat transfer (moving thermal heat from one object to another). So, we took beetles into the laboratory. We put them under a lamp which heated them as much as the sun would have done.
Then we blew cool air over them from the front at the speed at which they would have run. So, we mimicked the cool wind they would have felt when they were running on the dune. Switching on the fan dropped the temperature of the beetles by as much as 13°C.
Our laboratory experiments confirmed that the wind generated by running could carry away all the heat that the beetles absorbed from the desert sun. But to survive on the dunes, they had to run. Standing still in the sun in windless conditions would have meant death by overheating.
So evolution has delivered an animal that is cooled by running. This is unique for a pedestrian animal so far, though we think that some desert ants may also be able to do it. Many aquatic animals do cool by swimming and some insects cool by flying.
Carole S. Roberts, Mary Seely, Liz McClain and Victoria Goodall of the Gobabeb Namib Research Institute, Walvis Bay, Namibia, contributed to this research and article.
Duncan Mitchell has received funding from South African National Research Foundation, South African Medical Research Council, Oppenheimer Memorial Trust, Australian Research Council.
Academics today, around the world, are confined by the way their research output is measured. Indicators that count the number of times their work is cited by other academics, and the relative prestige of journals that publish their papers, determine everything: from career development to research funding.
What does this international system mean for African scholars like ourselves? Our work has found that metrics for measuring excellence are instead acting as a disadvantage for academics who seek to generate knowledge relevant for their communities.
The higher the traditional indicators like citation counts and impact factors are for African scholars, the lower their score for local relevance and community impact. The globally accepted metrics punish what matters most, while blocking African scholars’ career progress.
Our findings show that there’s a need for a philosophical and practical alternative to the existing system. Ngotho’s work towards a PhD in educational management offers one: an assessment framework built on the African ethical principle of ubuntu – “a person is a person through others”. The PhD work suggests a practical, quantifiable assessment tool to create an ubuntu score for academic output.
Taking an academic’s measure
The doctoral study first looked at the evaluation mechanisms being used across all African Research Universities Alliance member universities.
It found that the indicators used as the basis for academic assessment across the globe appear objective in design, but they are not. They foster a deep bias against African scholarship.
The h-index measures both publication productivity and citation impact. This inherently disadvantages collaborative scholarship, particularly community-based work, which is essential for social transformation. Our research indicates that 73% of faculty who are engaged in participatory research have h-indices that fail to reflect their true impact. The index has other flaws: it can be artificially inflated through self-citations, and its value changes depending on which database calculates it.
Journal impact factors favour journals from the global north. Western Europe and North America dominate academic publishing, contributing 74% of indexed public health journals. Africa represents just 2%. This forces scholars to bypass excellent regional journals that their peers and policymakers actually read. In effect, it silences locally important conversations.
Citation counts reinforce negative tendencies against African scholarship in fields like public health and agricultural development. The constant pressure for high publication counts values quantity over quality. According to the PhD research, 61% of African faculty report excessive pressure to publish, leaving insufficient time for the deep contextual analysis that our communities need.
Even altmetrics, designed to track broader societal impact, are calibrated for global north social media ecosystems. They typically ignore how knowledge is transmitted in African contexts, for example through community radio programmes, speaking and local workshops. This means promotion committees, focused on social media mentions and blog citations, overlook how African academics actually engage with their communities.
Many African scholars suffer from geographical bias before their work is even read. As the study contends, abstracts have even been rejected if reviewers have low regard for the authors’ institution or country of origin.
Ubuntu: an African alternative
The PhD thesis research provides a philosophical and practical alternative to this dysfunctional system. It’s an assessment framework founded on the African ethical principle of ubuntu, “I am because we are”, which means that any individual’s identity is fundamentally connected to collective wellbeing.
An “ubuntu score” allows for traditional measurement, complemented or surpassed by a collaborative impact quotient. It measures co-creation of knowledge with communities, interdisciplinary teamwork, custodian partnerships, and similar cooperative efforts in forming indigenous knowledge. Ubuntu metrics invert assessment from individual prestige to collective wellbeing, placing value on:
research disseminated in regionally relevant venues like the African press.
From theory to practice: early successes
Preliminary trials carried out in Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia and the University of Nairobi in Kenya revealed that 68% of faculty disadvantaged by the traditional journal impact factor rated highly on the ubuntu-based evaluation, which measured their contribution to society.
Pilot stakeholder panels were conducted at the University of Pretoria (South Africa) and echoed this finding. High-impact scholars who were overlooked by promotion committees wedded to citation counts were identified by community residents. Their excellence, embedded and serving their communities, was erased by conventional metrics.
This is in line with the growing realisation that African universities must shift from being research institutions to innovation engines.
The issue is far bigger than just creating new measures; it involves an entire transformation of academia’s culture.
Ranking systems should come from the African universities themselves. Encouraging citations of relevant articles from one’s region could build up the presence and influence of African publications.
Beyond alternative metrics, a total recomposition of academic values is what ubuntu-style assessment buys into. It does not ask “How visible is this scholar to the world?” but “How has this scholar’s work strengthened their community?” It measures not citations in far-away journals but solutions in local contexts.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Alors que l’attaque sur le Venezuela vient de confirmer la détermination des États-Unis à user de la force pour contrôler l’ensemble du continent américain, au détriment du droit international, l’avenir du Groenland, également dans la ligne de mire de Washington, requiert une attention accrue de la part de l’Europe.
« L’attaque contre le Venezuela est l’exemple effrayant d’un scénario où la politique de puissance prend le dessus. Nous ne savons pas encore ce qui se passe et où nous allons. Mais nous devrons tous réfléchir à notre vision du monde et prendre position. » Ce message posté sur LinkedIn (en danois) par la ministre groenlandaise de l’économie, du commerce, des minéraux et de la justice Najaa Nathanielsen traduit bien l’inquiétude qui règne à Nuuk, et qui s’est encore amplifiée depuis les événements du 3 janvier 2026 à Caracas. De son côté, la première ministre danoise Mette Frederiksen s’est alarmée :
« Si les États-Unis choisissent d’attaquer militairement un autre pays de l’Otan, alors c’est la fin de tout. »
Les menaces états-uniennes sur le Groenland, exprimées dès le retour au pouvoir de Donald Trump il y a un an, se sont nettement intensifiées au cours de ces dernières semaines, notamment avec la nomination, le 22 décembre 2025, d’un « envoyé spécial pour le Groenland » en la personne du gouverneur de Louisiane Jeff Landry. Celui-ci décrit ouvertement sa mission comme étant l’annexion du Groenland aux États-Unis (« make Greenland a part of the U.S. »).
La nomination témoigne, sans surprise, de la ténacité du président états-unien en ce qui concerne son projet d’annexion du territoire danois. L’accent mis par Donald Trump et par Jeff Landry sur l’histoire de la Louisiane, vendue par la France en 1803 aux États-Unis, dont elle représentait alors plus de 22 % de la surface, reflète – là aussi sans surprise – la logique transactionnelle de la politique promue par l’administration Trump, une logique de marché qui s’immisce sans complexe dans le domaine de la sécurité internationale.
Mais le Groenland est-il réellement, pour les États-Unis, une affaire de « sécurité nationale et internationale » qui justifierait son annexion ? Et si non, quelles sont les ambitions réelles de Washington ?
Créer la division entre le Groenland et le Danemark
Lorsque, le 7 janvier 2025, Mette Frederiksen répond à la proposition américaine d’achat du Groenland que l’avenir de l’île appartient aux Groenlandais, la réponse ménage le Groenland mais elle est incomplète. Le Groenland est toujours danois, et un vote du Parlement danois, le Folketing, est notamment requis pour une éventuelle accession à l’indépendance. Donald Trump joue à dessein de l’histoire coloniale entre le Danemark et le Groenland pour écarter un acteur clé de la situation – qui plus est, État membre de l’Union européenne.
De même, il est faux de prétendre que le gouvernement danois n’a engagé aucune dépense pour la défense du Groenland, comme le Trump l’affirme. Certes, jusqu’à récemment, la participation danoise était modeste (présence du Joint Arctic Command à Nuuk, de patrouilleurs et frégates et de la patrouille en traîneau à chiens Sirius couvrant la côte nord du Groenland). « Nous pouvons faire plus dans le cadre qui existe aujourd’hui », assurait en 2025 le ministre danois des affaires étrangères Lars Løkke Rasmussen. Deux programmes de défense ont été approuvés en 2025 par le Danemark pour un montant total avoisinant 6 milliards d’euros, et Copenhague a également approuvé une commande de 16 avions de combat américains F35 : la bonne volonté danoise ne suffit pas visiblement à calmer les ardeurs conquérantes de Washington.
La guerre de récits engagée par les États-Unis en soutien du projet d’annexion du Groenland n’est pas anodine. Elle cherche à ancrer dans les esprits le doute sur la légitimité de la souveraineté du Danemark et, en jouant sur son passé colonial, à créer la division entre le Groenland et le Danemark. Un autre aspect du discours de Washington est la surestimation de la menace militaire russe et chinoise au Groenland.
Des risques surdimensionnés pour justifier l’annexion du Groenland
Sur le plan de la sécurité, Donald Trump a, à plusieurs reprises, mentionné la présence de navires militaires russes et chinois autour du Groenland. Il s’agit d’une contre-vérité : les navires en question ont été repérés au large des côtes de l’Alaska.
La projection de puissance de la marine russe dans la zone d’étranglement GIUK (zone maritime entre le Groenland, l’Islande et le Royaume-Uni) est problématique et motive notamment les opérations Northern Viking de l’Otan. Elle est également redoutée au Groenland en ce qui concerne les infrastructures critiques (notamment les câbles sous-marins de télécommunications). Les risques en matière de sécurité ne sont donc pas nuls, d’autant que la Chine renforce sa puissance militaire dans le monde et, notamment, sa capacité en porte-avions.
Pour autant, s’il est important d’exercer un contrôle du territoire groenlandais, il n’y a pas de risque militaire significatif immédiat pour le Groenland qui justifierait son annexion par les États-Unis. Le risque est volontairement exagéré par Donald Trump afin de légitimer l’appropriation du Groenland, à laquelle le Groenland et le Danemark s’opposent.
Au-delà de la rhétorique et des fausses allégations, répétées à l’envi, les menaces de Washington sont à prendre au sérieux, car elles s’accompagnent de mesures concrètes et plus discrètes.
Dans leur rapport annuel de 2025, les services de renseignement danois ont, pour la première fois, fait état d’inquiétudes concernant les États-Unis. Le Danemark, historiquement l’un des plus atlantistes des pays européens, prend ses distances avec Washington.
Un expansionnisme au service d’intérêts bien pensés
En réalité, l’administration Trump est moins concernée par les questions de sécurité (même s’il s’agit de son argument officiel) que par un expansionnisme réactivant la doctrine Monroe, qui revendique un contrôle américain exclusif de l’« hémisphère occidental ». La nouvelle stratégie nationale de sécurité des États-Unis remet clairement au goût du jour cette doctrine (« Nous appliquerons un “corollaire Trump” à la doctrine Monroe », y est-il indiqué).
Cet expansionnisme de circonstance à l’approche des élections de mi-mandat promet de frapper fort. Annexer le Groenland est sans doute plus flatteur pour les ambitions du locataire de la Maison Blanche que renforcer des partenariats de défense pour des besoins non avérés, d’autant qu’il a clairement affirmé que les Européens devraient, dans le futur, assurer leur sécurité eux-mêmes.
Or, si la stratégie nationale de sécurité de 2025 peut très bien être « la plus longue note de suicide de l’histoire des États-Unis », pour reprendre les termes de l’historienne Anne Applebaum, elle n’en représente pas moins un danger immédiat pour l’Europe où, dans un renversement surréel, la démocratie et le supranationalisme sont non seulement décrits par l’administration Trump comme des menaces, mais plus encore comme des périls plus dangereux que les régimes autoritaires de la Russie ou de la Chine.
Contrairement aux affirmations de Trump, qui prétend que les États-Unis ne sont pas intéressés par les richesses minérales de l’île (« Nous avons tellement de sites pour les minéraux, le pétrole et tout le reste »), les investissements américains se développent au Groenland. Ronald Lauder, l’héritier milliardaire d’Estée Lauder qui aurait été le premier à avoir suggéré à Donald Trump l’idée d’« acheter » le Groenland, a pris des participations dans des entreprises groenlandaises et a manifesté son intérêt pour la construction d’une centrale hydroélectrique sur le plus grand lac du Groenland, Tasersiaq, afin d’alimenter en énergie une fonderie d’aluminium.
Des responsables de l’administration Trump seraient en pourparlers pour que le gouvernement états-unien prenne une participation dans l’entreprise américaine privée Critical Metals Corp, qui détient l’un des plus grands projets d’exploitation de terres rares au Groenland, Tanbreez. Cette opération donnerait aux États-Unis un accès direct à l’extraction de terres rares au Groenland, alors que la Chine détient le quasi-monopole mondial de leur extraction et raffinement.
Enfin, des rétorsions économiques visant des industries danoises ont déjà été mises en place : des contrats pour cinq projets éoliens offshore sur la côte est des États-Unis ont été suspendus, dont deux sont développés par la société danoise Ørsted.
Une réponse groenlandaise, danoise et européenne
Il est donc urgent d’adopter des mesures groenlandaises, danoises mais aussi européennes. Le premier ministre du Groenland Jens-Frederik Nielsen a clairement exprimé à Strasbourg, le 8 octobre 2025 devant le Parlement européen, son ouverture à une coopération plus approfondie avec l’UE :
« Nous avons besoin de coopération et de partenariats avec des pays et des institutions qui partagent nos valeurs. »
Le 6 janvier 2026, dans un message posté sur son compte Facebook, il remercie plusieurs États européens de leur soutien face aux menaces de Washington : les dirigeants de la France, de l’Allemagne, de l’Italie, de la Pologne, de l’Espagne, mais aussi du Royaume-Uni, ont déclaré qu’« il revient au Danemark et au Groenland, et à eux seuls, de décider des questions concernant le Danemark et le Groenland », et que « la sécurité dans l’Arctique doit donc être assurée collectivement, en coopération avec les alliés de l’Otan, y compris les États-Unis. »
Trois points sont donc saillants. Premièrement, sur le plan narratif, l’affirmation de la souveraineté du Danemark sur le Groenland ne se fait pas au détriment de l’autodétermination du peuple groenlandais, mais elle protège pour l’instant le Groenland d’une OPA américaine sur un territoire qui a bien, selon le droit danois, et en conformité avec le droit international, la capacité de décider de son futur selon les termes de l’accord d’autonomie de 2009.
Deuxièmement, sur le plan économique, une interdépendance trop forte avec les États-Unis peut déboucher sur une vulnérabilité politique et mettre en péril la démocratie au Groenland. Les Groenlandais ont déjà adopté des mesures claires de protection : le Parlement (Inatsisartut) a notamment voté en urgence en février 2025 une loi sur le financement des partis politiques, qui interdit les dons étrangers ou anonymes aux partis et aux candidats, et qui plafonne les contributions privées à l’échelle locale. Le Parlement examine en ce moment un projet de loi sur le filtrage des investissements directs étrangers visant à permettre aux autorités d’examiner, d’approuver, de conditionner ou de bloquer les investissements étrangers susceptibles de constituer une menace pour la sécurité nationale ou l’ordre public. L’UE s’est dotée d’un instrument similaire en 2019.
Troisièmement, en matière de sécurité, il est essentiel de penser une coopération européenne au bénéfice du Groenland et en accord avec le Danemark, une coopération qui peut dans un premier temps prendre la forme d’un dialogue stratégique régulier sur la sécurité et la résilience dans l’Arctique entre l’UE, le Groenland et le Danemark – et ce, sans attendre les résultats des élections de mi-mandat aux États-Unis.
Ce dialogue stratégique aurait pu commencer dès le début de l’année 2025. Mais les menaces de Washington n’ont pas été prises au sérieux, et un retard considérable a été pris. Il n’est pas sûr que la proposition des pays européens d’une réponse dans le cadre de l’Otan soit suffisante pour convaincre les États-Unis de renoncer à la force pour annexer le Groenland. Il est donc urgent de comprendre que l’UE doit avoir le courage de repenser sa relation avec les États-Unis, et de se penser et de s’affirmer sans détour comme puissance.
Cécile Pelaudeix ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.
L’échec de la commission mixte paritaire sur le projet de loi de finances pour 2026 place le gouvernement face à un choix délicat. Le premier ministre entend déposer un projet de loi spéciale, comme en décembre 2024, après le renversement du gouvernement de Michel Barnier. Ce choix soulève d’importantes questions de conformité constitutionnelle et de portée juridique. Décryptage.
Après l’échec de la commission mixte paritaire (CMP), vendredi 19 décembre, qui n’est pas parvenue à proposer un texte de compromis, le premier ministre se retrouvait avec trois options : donner le dernier mot à l’Assemblée nationale et tenter de forcer l’adoption par l’article 49 alinéa 3 de la Constitution, attendre l’expiration du délai de soixante-dix jours pour mettre en œuvre le projet de loi de finances (PLF) par ordonnance, ou déposer un projet de loi spéciale. C’est cette dernière voie qui a été choisie. Pourquoi ? Et est-ce conforme au droit ?
Les trois options qui s’offraient au premier ministre
L’option de l’article 49 alinéa 3 de la Constitution
Cette option pouvait être écartée assez facilement. D’abord, le premier ministre Sébastien Lecornu l’avait lui-même écartée en début de procédure. Ensuite, c’est une voie très risquée. C’est celle qui a fait chuter le gouvernement de Michel Barnier, le 4 décembre 2024, sur l’adoption du projet de loi de financement de la Sécurité sociale pour 2025. Certes, contrairement à Michel Barnier, Sébastien Lecornu est parvenu à obtenir le vote du PLFSS 2026. Mais, au regard des débats tendus sur le projet de loi de finances, le premier ministre prendrait un très grand risque en recourant à cette procédure. De toute façon, en cas de renversement, il aurait été contraint, en tant que premier ministre démissionnaire, de procéder exactement comme l’a fait Michel Barnier en décembre 2024, c’est-à-dire de déposer un projet de loi spéciale.
L’option d’une mise en œuvre du projet par ordonnance
L’article 47 alinéa 3 de la Constitution prévoit que « si le Parlement ne s’est pas prononcé dans un délai de soixante-dix jours, les dispositions du projet peuvent être mises en vigueur par ordonnance ». Le PLF a été déposé à l’Assemblée nationale le 14 octobre 2025. La fin de la période de soixante-dix jours calendaires est le 23 décembre, à minuit. En conséquence, si le Parlement « ne s’est pas prononcé », et seulement dans ce cas (ce qui exclut un rejet du PLF), le gouvernement peut se passer du Parlement complètement. Cela signifie que l’État fonctionnerait en 2026 sur la seule base du projet initial du gouvernement, en retenant éventuellement les amendements votés par les deux assemblées (ce point a prêté à discussion entre spécialistes. A priori, rien n’empêche le gouvernement d’admettre des amendements votés par les deux assemblées).
La possibilité d’une mise en œuvre par ordonnance dépend donc de deux conditions : l’écoulement du délai de soixante-dix jours et l’absence de rejet définitif par l’Assemblée nationale.
Cependant, comme pour l’article 49 alinéa 3, Sébastien Lecornu a annoncé qu’il n’aurait pas recours aux ordonnances. Cette position, qui peut être critiquée dans la mesure où un premier ministre se prive ainsi de pouvoirs que la Constitution lui donne, a une certaine logique, puisque les deux procédures s’apparentent à un passage en force. En effet, dans les deux cas, le PLF est mis en œuvre sans vote formel du Parlement. Dans le premier, il est considéré comme adopté sauf si une motion de censure est votée ; dans le second, le PLF est mis en œuvre par ordonnance sans que le Parlement n’ait pu se prononcer.
Sébastien Lecornu privilégie donc la concertation et l’approbation du Parlement, en excluant tout passage en force. Le vote positif du projet de loi de financement de la Sécurité sociale (PLFSS) le conforte dans cette direction. Après l’échec de la commission mixte paritaire, le premier ministre choisit donc de déposer un projet de loi spéciale.
L’option de la loi spéciale
Sans l’épisode mouvementé de 2024, cette option paraîtrait extraordinaire puisque deux situations seulement avaient donné lieu à des lois de finances spéciales.
En 1962, après le renversement de son gouvernement, le premier ministre Georges Pompidou avait fait adopter, le 22 décembre 1962, un projet de loi de finances partiel comportant la seule première partie du PLF. Un autre projet de loi de finances spéciale comportant la deuxième partie avait été adopté le 26 janvier 1963.
La deuxième situation s’est produite en 1979. Par une décision du 24 décembre 1979, le Conseil constitutionnel a invalidé le PLF 1980 pourtant adopté par le Parlement. Pris au dépourvu, le gouvernement s’est alors inspiré des textes existants en faisant adopter une loi spéciale, le 27 décembre 1979. Saisi une nouvelle fois, le Conseil constitutionnel avait validé ce choix en constatant que, comme les textes n’avaient pas prévu cette situation, « il appartenait, de toute évidence, au Parlement et au gouvernement, dans la sphère de leurs compétences respectives, de prendre toutes les mesures d’ordre financier nécessaires pour assurer la continuité de la vie nationale ; qu’ils devaient, pour ce faire, s’inspirer des règles prévues, en cas de dépôt tardif du projet de loi de finances, par la Constitution et par l’ordonnance portant loi organique, en ce qui concerne tant les ressources que la répartition des crédits et des autorisations relatifs aux services votés » (décision du 29 décembre 1979).
En 2024, après le renversement du gouvernement Barnier, le président de la République Emmanuel Macron avait annoncé le dépôt d’un projet de loi de finances spéciale. Après un vote à l’unanimité par les députés et les sénateurs, la loi spéciale a été promulguée onze jours avant la fin de l’année (20 décembre 2024).
En décembre 2025, si la situation est comparable, elle présente tout de même quelques différences.
Les conditions sont-elles remplies pour le dépôt d’un projet de loi de finances spéciale ?
L’article 47 de la Constitution et l’article 45 de la loi organique relative aux lois de finances (LOLF) posent chacun une condition pour une loi de finances spéciale. Aucune des deux n’est remplie par Sébastien Lecornu.
La condition de l’absence de dépôt « en temps utile » du PLF
L’article 47 alinéa 4 de la Constitution, qui prévoit la possibilité d’une loi de finances spéciale, pose la condition de l’absence d’un dépôt « en temps utile de la loi de finances pour être promulguée avant le début de l’exercice » (le 1er janvier 2026). Cela renvoie à la situation dans laquelle le PLF a été déposé avec un retard tel que le Parlement n’a pas pu disposer du temps d’examen prévu par la Constitution, c’est-à-dire soixante-dix jours. Or, si Sébastien Lecornu a déposé le PLF en retard, le 14 octobre 2025, le Parlement a bien, théoriquement, disposé de soixante-dix jours calendaires, le délai s’achevant le 23 décembre à minuit. En conséquence, la condition n’est pas remplie pour déposer un projet de loi spéciale
(ce point a été confirmé par le rapporteur de la commission des finances de l’Assemblée nationale dans son rapport sur le projet de loi spécial de 2024).
Qu’à cela ne tienne, le premier ministre le fera quand même, comme Michel Barnier en décembre 2024. Cette petite entorse de la Constitution semble implicitement assumée par le gouvernement. Il faut dire que, pour respecter la lettre du texte, le premier ministre devrait retirer le PLF qui est à l’Assemblée, en redéposer un autre, constater que le dépôt n’a pas été fait en temps utile et déposer un projet de loi spécial. En 2024, Michel Barnier ne le pouvait pas, car étant démissionnaire, il n’en avait pas le pouvoir. En 2025, Sébastien Lecornu en a le pouvoir, mais le temps presse et, surtout, cela revient au même.
La condition d’un dépôt du projet de loi spéciale avant le 19 décembre
L’article 45 de la LOLF prévoit que le projet de loi de finances spéciale doit être déposé avant le 19 décembre. Or, l’échec de la commission mixte paritaire est intervenu le 19 décembre, justement. Pour déposer un projet de loi spéciale, le gouvernement doit d’abord recueillir l’avis du Conseil d’État puis l’arrêter en Conseil des ministres.
Sébastien Lecornu, même en allant très vite, n’est pas en mesure de respecter ce délai. Le dépôt intervient donc avec quelques jours de retard. Est-ce problématique ? La LOLF n’est pas respectée, mais de peu. Ce n’est problématique que si le Conseil constitutionnel est saisi et que s’il applique strictement la règle du 19 décembre. Il y a des raisons pour le premier ministre de ne pas être inquiet. En décembre 2024, le projet de loi spéciale avait été adopté à l’unanimité et le Conseil n’avait pas été saisi.
Même si le Conseil est saisi en 2025, il est fort probable qu’au regard de sa jurisprudence antérieure il considère que le premier ministre a bien tout mis en œuvre pour assurer la continuité de la vie nationale et, par surcroît, avec l’aval du Parlement.
Le contenu de la loi spéciale
En 1979, le gouvernement s’était contenté de prévoir le strict minimum prévu par l’article 47 alinéa 4 de la Constitution, c’est-à-dire la perception des impôts existants. En décembre 2025, le gouvernement s’est montré plus audacieux.
Partant du principe que la Constitution se contente de prévoir ce contenu obligatoire, il a considéré que d’autres dispositions pouvaient être ajoutées. Le Conseil d’État a confirmé cette lecture dans son avis sur le projet de loi spéciale de 2024. La loi spéciale de 2024 comportait quatre articles. Le premier portait sur la perception des impôts existants. Le deuxième prévoyait le prélèvement sur recettes au profit des collectivités territoriales. Le troisième portait autorisation pour le gouvernement d’emprunter. Le quatrième a permis aux organismes de sécurité sociale de percevoir leurs ressources non permanentes.
En 2025, le gouvernement est parvenu à faire adopter le PLFSS. Par conséquent, il n’a pas besoin de prévoir le quatrième article. Comme il n’y a pas de raison qu’il en prévoit d’autres, le projet comportera sans doute les trois premiers articles.
Le Parlement devrait rapidement voter le projet de loi spéciale. Si, comme en 2024, il le fait à l’unanimité, il n’y aura vraisemblablement pas de saisine du Conseil constitutionnel.
Le 1er janvier 2026, le gouvernement fonctionnera avec le minimum, comme début 2025. Il restera alors à faire à adopter par le Parlement un PLF complet. François Bayrou y était parvenu, le 5 février 2025. La voie du compromis choisie par Sébastien Lecornu lui permettra-t-elle de le faire comme ce fut le cas pour le PLFSS ?
Alexandre Guigue est membre de membre de la Société française de finances publiques, association reconnue d’utilité publique réunissant universitaires et praticiens des finances publiques.
Perhaps no one outside of Venezuela or Cuba should care more about the U.S. capture of nominal President Nicolás Maduro than the Islamic Republic of Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.
Khamenei and his regime are in trouble, and it’s not clear how they would survive should the Trump administration decide to support the millions who want a new government system without Khamenei and his ilk.
Iran has no state allies that would be willing to intervene militarily on its behalf. Further, its once-powerful network of partner and proxy militias – Lebanese Hezbollah, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, and other members of the Axis of Resistance – has been rendered incapable or reluctant to get involved. And Iran’s economy is in shambles in the midst of an ongoing water crisis with no relief in sight.
Further, the Iranian people have again taken to the streets to air their grievances against harsh economic conditions as well as government corruption, mismanagement and hypocrisy, echoing similar conditions to Venezuela in recent years.
Trump’s warning and show of solidarity will likely embolden protesters, which will almost certainly cause Iran’s internal security to crack down harder, as has happened in the past. Such U.S. intervention could lead to the overthrowing of the ayatollah, intended or not. Furthermore, Maduro’s fate demonstrates that the Trump administration is willing to use military force for that purpose if deemed necessary.
As an analyst of Middle East affairs focusing on Iran, I believe that these conditions place Khamenei’s regime under greater threat today than perhaps any other time in its 46-year history.
Protesters and security forces clash in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar in a video released on Jan. 6, 2026.
Growing threats, internal and external
If Khamenei hopes to survive politically or mortally, I believe he has three options.
In hopes of restoring deterrence, Khamenei could also continue rebuilding his country’s military capabilities, which were significantly degraded during the June 2025 12-day war in which Israel and the U.S. aimed to destroy Iran’s nuclear capability.
Khameini’s problems aren’t his alone. The revolutionary theocratic system of government that he leads is in danger of falling. And his military and internal security apparatus may not have the time or ability to address its growing and interrelated internal and external threats simultaneously.
There are two fundamental factors analysts like me consider when assessing enemy threats: offensive capability to inflict damage and hostile intentions to use these capabilities to harm enemies.
Determining offensive capability involves evaluating the quality of a country or organization’s complete arsenal – air, ground, maritime, cyber and space capabilities – and how trained, disciplined, integrated and lethal their forces might be. Determining intentions involves evaluating if, when and under what conditions offensive capabilities will be used to achieve their goals.
If states hope to survive when they come under such pressure, their defense strategy should account for differences between their own military capability and the enemy’s, especially if enemies intend to attack. Or states need to convince enemies to be less hostile, if possible.
Maduro’s mistake was his inability to defend against a far superior U.S. military capability while believing that U.S. leaders would not remove him from office. Maduro gambled and lost.
Bad choices
Iran’s supreme leader faces a similar conundrum: First, there is no foreseeable path that allows Tehran to produce or acquire the military capabilities necessary to deter Israel or defeat the United States, unless Iran develops a nuclear weapon.
But as the clear weaker party, it is in Tehran’s interest to change Trump’s mind about Tehran’s hostile intent. The way to do that would be by abandoning nuclear enrichment.
In terms of threat analysis, the regime’s oft-repeated chants of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” perhaps have sent an easily misinterpreted message: that Iran’s hostile leaders intend to destroy the U.S. and Israel. But they simply lack the capability, for now.
President Theodore Roosevelt famously said “speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.” Today, he might say that Khamenei is unwise for speaking with such vitriol considering the size of Iran’s stick. The United States and Israel possess military capabilities far superior to Iran’s – as demonstrated by the 12-day war – but they did not then share the same intent. Though both Israel and the U.S. operations shared the objective of neutralizing Iran’s nuclear capability, Israel’s objectives were more broad and included targeting senior Iranian leaders and destabilizing the regime.
To Khamenei’s momentary personal and institutional fortune, Trump immediately called for a ceasefire following U.S. B-2 strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, delineating the United States’ narrower objectives that at the time did not include regime change in Iran.
But that was before U.S. forces removed Maduro from Caracas and before the outbreak of protests in Iran, both of which coincide with Israel’s signaling preparations for Round 2 against Iran.
During Trump’s Dec. 29 press conference at Mar-a-Lago with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he warned that the U.S. could “knock the hell” out of Iran if the country reconstitutes its nuclear facilities.
This is separate from the ominuous warning that the U.S. could intervene on behalf of Iranian protesters; it would almost certainly differ in scale.
Nevertheless, a potential U.S. intervention could embolden protesters and further undermine and destabilize the Islamic Republic regime. Khamenei has predictably scoffed at and dismissed Trump’s warning.
I believe this is a serious mistake.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned on Jan. 3, 2025, that Khameini should not “play games” as Maduro did. Khamenei, Rubio said, should take Trump’s warnings seriously. I agree.
If Iran refrains from violent crackdowns on protesters, there is a chance that anti-government protestors overthrow the government. But the supreme leader’s chances of surviving a popular uprising are probably greater than surviving an unbridled U.S. or Israeli military intent on ushering in a new – post-Islamic Republic – Iran.
Otherwise, Khamenei has to address superior U.S. and Israeli military capability, quickly. But Iran is broke, and even if sanctions were not continuously strangling Iran economically, the country could probably never purchase its way to military parity with the U.S. or Israel.
Alternatively, Iran could determine that it must move quickly to develop a nuclear weapon to mitigate U.S. and Israeli military capabilities and deter future aggression. However, it is extremely unlikely Iran could do this without U.S. and Israeli intelligence discovering the project, which would immediately trigger an overwhelming military campaign that would likely expedite regime change in Iran.
And like Maduro, the supreme leader is utterly alone. None of Maduro’s closest partners – China, Russia, Cuba and even Iran – were willing to fight in his defense, despite weeks of forewarning and U.S. military buildup near Venezuela.
Under these circumstances, it may be impossible for Khamenei to address overwhelming U.S. and Israeli military capabilities. He could, however, reduce the threat by doing what is necessary to ensure the United States’ objectives for Iran remain narrow and focused on the nuclear program, which may also keep Israel at bay.
However, Khamenei would have to demonstrate unprecedented restraint from cracking down violently on protesters and a willingness to give up nuclear enrichment. Due to historical animosity and distrust toward the U.S., both are unlikely, increasing, I believe, the probability of a forthcoming Iran without Khamenei.
Dr. Aaron Pilkington is a U.S. Air Force Senior Analyst of Middle East affairs and a Fellow at the University of Denver’s Center for Middle East Studies. The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Department of War, the Department of the Air Force, or any other organizational affiliation.
With Congress back in session, legislators will take up a set of issues they haven’t comprehensively addressed since 2018 – the year the last farm bill passed.
Farm bills are massive pieces of legislation that address a diverse constellation of topics, including agricultural commodities, conservation, trade, nutrition, rural development, energy, forestry and more. Because of their complexity, farm bills are difficult to negotiate in any political environment. And as the topics have expanded since the first iteration in 1933, Congress has generally agreed to take the whole thing up once every five years or so.
However, the most recent farm bill’s provisions expired in 2023. They have been renewed one year at a time ever since, but without the comprehensive overhaul that used to accompany farm bills.
As former federal employees handling agriculture policy who now study that topic, it’s unclear to us whether a comprehensive, five-year farm bill can be passed in 2026, or ever again.
The July 2025 enactment of the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” the Trump administration’s budget priorities in the tax and spending bill, revised funding levels for many programs that were historically handled in the farm bill. For instance, that law included a 20% cut in funding to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, which helps low-income families buy food. And it doubled support for the largest farm subsidy programs.
Those changes and current divisions in Congress mean the nation’s food and agriculture policy may remain stuck in limbo for yet another year.
For decades, political conventional wisdom has held that sweeping federal farm bills are able to pass only because farmers seeking subsidies and anti-hunger advocates wanting increased SNAP dollars recognize the mutual advantage in working together. That’s how to build a broad, bipartisan consensus strong enough to garner the 60 votes in the U.S. Senate to avoid a filibuster and actually pass a bill.
But the One Big Beautiful Bill Act tax and spending law did not create a compromise between those competing interests. It slashed SNAP spending by US$186 billion over the next decade. At the same time, it boosted price support for farmers who grow key crops like corn, soybeans and wheat by $60 billion, in addition to a $10 billion economic relief package passed at the end of 2024 to address high costs of seeds, fertilizer and other farming supplies.
Supporters of anti-hunger programs are furious that these funds for farmers are being paid for by cutting SNAP benefits to families.
In addition, about one-third of the SNAP cuts came by shifting the program’s cost to state budgets. States have always carried some of the costs to administer SNAP, but they have never before been required to fund billions of dollars in benefits. Many states will be unable to cover these increased costs and will be forced to either reduce benefits or opt out of SNAP altogether, dramatically cutting the help available to hungry Americans.
Groups that support SNAP are unlikely to help pass any bill relating to food or farm policy that does not substantially reverse the cuts to SNAP.
Farmers have repeatedly said they would prefer federal farm policies that support markets and create conditions for stable, fair commodity prices. And evidence shows that spending more money on farm subsidies does little to actually improve underlying economic conditions affecting the costs of farming or the prices of what is grown.
And yet, in early December 2025, the Department of Agriculture released an additional $12 billion to help offset losses farmers experienced when Trump’s tariffs reduced agricultural exports. In mid-December, the National Farmers Union said that money still wasn’t enough to cover losses from consistently low commodity prices and high seed and fertilizer costs.
A regular five-year farm bill may be out of reach
The success of any bill depends on political will in Congress and outside pressure coming together to deliver the required number of votes.
In September 2025, Politico reported that instead of a complete five-year farm bill, the House and Senate committees on agriculture might take up a series of smaller bills to extend existing programs whose authorizations are expiring. Doing so would be an effective declaration that a permanent five-year farm bill is on indefinite hold.
Prospects for sustainable farm policy
By using financial incentives cleverly, Congress has shifted farming practices over time in ways that lawmakers determined were in the public’s interest.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act tax and spending law cut those funds and repurposed them for traditional Agriculture Department programs for farmers who want to implement conservation practices on their land.
But unexpectedly, the Trump administration’s “Make America Healthy Again,” or MAHA, agenda contains some ideas that climate-smart advocates have previously advanced. These include scathing indictments of the effects of conventional agriculture on Americans’ health, including concerns over pesticide use and the so-far-undefined category of “ultra-processed foods.”
The MAHA agenda could be an opportunity for organic farmers to secure a boost in federal funding. In December, the Agriculture Department committed $700 million toward “regenerative” practices, but that’s a trifling amount compared with the billions commodity farmers received in 2025.
Overall, in this new political environment, we believe advocates for changes in agriculture and food aid will likely need to rethink how to advance their agendas without the promise of a farm bill coming anytime soon.
Neubert was previously staff on the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry (2023-2025) and on the Senate Committee on the Budget (2021-2023).
Merrigan was USDA deputy secretary and COO (2009-2013) and staff on the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry (1987-1992).
Smoke rolls up a hillside from the Palisades Fire on Jan. 11, 2025, in Los Angeles.AP Photo/Eric Thayer
When wildfires began racing through the Los Angeles area on Jan. 7, 2025, the scope of the disaster caught residents by surprise. Forecasters had warned about high winds and exceptionally dry conditions, but few people expected to see smoke and fires for weeks in one of America’s largest metro areas.
Environmental health scientist Yifang Zhu studies air quality at UCLA and began collecting samples from inside and outside homes the day after the fires began. In this Q&A, she describes findings by her team, a consortium of universities and local projects, that are painting a picture of the health risks millions of Los Angeles-area residents faced.
Their research offers both a warning and steps people everywhere can take to protect their homes and themselves from wildfire smoke in the future.
What made the LA fires unusual?
Urban fires are unique in a sense that it’s not just trees and other biomass burning. When homes and vehicles catch fire, plastics, electronics, cleaning chemicals, paints, textiles, construction material and much more burns, releasing chemicals and metals into the air.
One thing we’ve found that is especially important for people to understand is that the concentration of these chemicals and metals can actually be higher inside homes compared with outside after a fire.
A composite of satellite images from January 2025 shows outlines, in red, of the largest fires in the Los Angeles area. Altadena is on the right, and Pacific Palisades is on the lower left. MMGIS, Caltech/JPL
What are your health studies trying to learn?
To understand the health risks from air pollution, you need to know what people are exposed to and how much of it.
The LA Fire HEALTH Study, which I’m part of, is a 10-year project combining the work of exposure scientists and health researchers from several universities who are studying the long-term effects of the fire. Many other community and health groups are also working hard to help communities recover. A local program called CAP.LA, or Community Action Program Los Angeles, is supporting some of my work, including establishing a real-time air quality monitoring network in the Palisades area called CAP AIR.
During an active wildfire, it’s extremely difficult to collect high-quality air samples. Access is restricted, conditions change quickly, and research resources are often limited and take time to assemble. When the fires broke out not far from my lab at UCLA, my colleagues and I had been preparing for a different study and were able to quickly shift focus and start collecting samples to directly measure people’s exposure to metals and chemicals near and around the fires.
Wildfire smoke, like this during the Palisades Fire on Jan. 7, 2025, can get into a home under doors and around windows. AP Photo/Ethan Swope
My group has been working with people whose homes were exposed to smoke but didn’t burn and collecting samples over time to understand the smoke’s effects. We’re primarily testing for volatile organic compounds off-gassing from soft goods – things like pillows, textiles and stuffed animals that are likely to absorb compounds from the smoke.
Our testing found volatile organic compounds that were at high levels outdoors during the active fire were still high indoors in February, after the fires were contained. When a Harvard University team led by environmental scientist Joe Allen took samples in March and April, they saw a similar pattern, with indoor levels still high.
Mike Kleeman, an air quality engineer at the University of California Davis, found elevated levels of hexavalent chromium in the nanometer-size range, which can be a really dangerous carcinogen. In March, he drove around collecting air samples from a burn zone. That was testing which government agencies would not have routinely done.
Fires have a long list of toxic compounds, and many of them aren’t being measured.
Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows emergency room visits spiking during the fires in early January 2025. The bold line shows the daily percentage of emergency department (ED) encounters that were associated with wildfires, and the dashed line shows the outdoor air quality index (AQI) values. CDC
What do you want people to take away from these results?
I think that’s a big public health message from the LA fires that people really need to know.
In general, people tend to think the outdoor air is worse for their health, particularly in a place like LA, but often, the indoor air is less healthy because there are several chemical emission sources right there and it’s an enclosed space.
We often hear from people who are really worried about the air quality outside and its health risk during fires, but you need to think about the air indoors too.
Thick smoke from a wildfire spreads over homes in Pacific Palisades, as seen from the Venice Beach section of Los Angeles on Jan. 7, 2025. AP Photo/Jae C. Hong
What are some tips for people dealing with fires?
The LA fires have given us lots of insights into how to restore homes after smoke damage and what can be cleaned up, or remediated. One thing we want to do is develop an easy-to-follow decision tree or playbook that can help guide future fire recovery.
When the fires broke out, even I had to think about the actions I should take to reduce the smoke’s potential impact, and I study these risks.
First, close all your windows during the wildfire. If you have electricity, keep air purifiers running. That could help capture smoke that does get into the home before it soaks into soft materials.
Once the outside air is clean enough, then open those windows again to ventilate the house. Be sure to clean your HVAC system and replace filters, because the smoke leaves debris. If the home is severely impacted by smoke, some items will have to be removed, but not in every case.
And you definitely need to do testing. A home might seem fine when you look at it, but our testing showed how textiles and upholstery inside can continue off-gassing chemicals for weeks or longer.
But many people don’t have their homes tested after wildfires. They might not know how to read the results or trust the results. Remediation can also be expensive, and some insurance companies won’t cover it. There are probably people who don’t know whether their homes are safe at this point.
So there needs to be a clear path for recovery, with contamination levels to watch for and advice for finding help.
This is not going to be the last fire in the Los Angeles area, and LA will not be the last city to experience fire.
Yifang Zhu is working with CAP.LA (Community Action Project Los Angeles), which is funded by the R&S Kayne Foundation, and the LA Fire Health Study, which is funded by private philanthropists, including the Speigel Family Fund. Her work has also been partially funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Danhakl Family Foundation, and the California Air Resources Board.
When a grizzly bear attacked a group of fourth- and fifth-graders in western Canada in late November 2025, it sparked more than a rescue effort for the 11 people injured – four with severe injuries. Local authorities began trying to find the specific bear that was involved in order to relocate or euthanize it, depending on the results of their assessment.
The attack, in Bella Coola, British Columbia, was very unusual bear behavior and sparked an effort to figure out exactly what had happened and why. That meant finding the bear involved – which, based on witness statements, was a mother grizzly with two cubs.
Searchers combed the area on foot and by helicopter and trapped four bears. DNA comparisons to evidence from the attack cleared each of the trapped bears, and they were released back to the wild. After more than three weeks without finding the bear responsible for the attack, officials called off the search.
Recent advances in computer vision and other types of artificial intelligence offer a possible alternative: facial recognition for bears.
As a cultural anthropologist, I study how scientists produce knowledge and technologies, and how new technology is transforming ecological science and conservation practices. Some of my research has looked at the work of computer scientists and ecologists making facial recognition for animals. These tools, which reflect both technological advances and broader popular interest in wildlife, can reshape how scientists and the general public understand animals by getting to know formerly anonymous creatures as individuals.
New ways to identify animals
A facial recognition tool for bears called BearID is under development by computer scientists Ed Miller and Mary Nguyen, working with Melanie Clapham, a behavioral ecologist working for the Nanwakolas Council of First Nations, conducting applied research on grizzly bears in British Columbia.
It uses deep learning, a subset of machine learning that makes use of artificial neural networks, to analyze images of bears and identify individual animals. The photos are drawn from a collection of images taken by naturalists at Knight Inlet, British Columbia, and by National Park Service staff and independent photographers at Brooks River in Katmai National Park, Alaska.
BearID uses an algorithm to locate bear faces in pictures and make measurements between those key features. Each animal has a unique set of measurements, so a photograph of one taken yesterday can be matched with an image taken some time ago.
Measuring the distance between a bear’s facial features can help identify individual animals. BearID Project
In addition to helping identify bears that have attacked humans or are otherwise causing trouble for people, identifying bears can help ecologists and wildlife managers more accurately estimate bear population sizes. And it can help scientific research, like the behavioral ecology projects Clapham works on, by allowing individual tracking of animals and thus better understanding of bear behavior.
Miller has built a web tool to automatically detect bears in the webcams from Brooks River that originally inspired the project. The BearID team has also been working with Rebecca Zug, a professor and director of the carnivore lab at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, to develop a bear identification model for Andean bears to use in bear ecology and conservation research in Ecuador.
Animal faces are less controversial
Human facial recognition is extremely controversial. In 2021, Meta ended the use of its face recognition system, which automatically identified people in photographs and videos uploaded to Facebook. The company described it as a powerful technology that, while potentially beneficial, was currently not suitable for widespread use on its platform.
When used on humans, critics have called facial recognition technology the “plutonium of AI” and a dangerous tool with few legitimate uses. Even as facial recognition has become more widespread, researchers remain convinced of its dangers. Researchers at the American Civil Liberties Union highlight the continued threat to Americans’ constitutional rights posed by facial recognition and the harms caused by inaccurate identifications.
For wildlife, the ethical controversies are perhaps less pressing, although there is still potential for animals to be harmed by people who are using AI systems. And facial recognition could help wildlife managers identify and euthanize or relocate bears that are causing significant problems for people.
Mourners in Wyoming honor Bear 399, a bear who became well-loved in the community but was killed when hit by a car in October 2024. Natalie Behring/Getty Images
A focus on specific animals
Wildlife ecologists sometimes find focusing on individual animals problematic. Naming animals may make them “seem less wild.” Names that carry cultural meaning can also frame people’s interpretations of animal behavior. As the Katmai rangers note, humans may interpret the behaviors of a bear named Killer differently than one named Fluffy.
Wildlife management decisions are meant to be made about groups of animals and areas of territory. When people become connected to individual animals, including by naming them, decisions become more complicated, whether in the wild or in captivity.
When people connect with particular animals, they may object to management decisions that harm individuals for the sake of the health of the population as a whole. For example, wildlife managers may need to move or euthanize animals for the health of the broader population or ecosystem.
But knowing and understanding bears as individual animals can also deepen the fascination and connections people already have with bears.
For example, Fat Bear Week, an annual competition hosted by explore.org and Katmai National Park, drew over a million votes in 2025 as people campaigned and voted for their favorite bear. The winner was Bear 32, also known as “Chunk.” Chunk was identified in photographs and videos the old-fashioned way, based on human observations of distinguishing characteristics – such as a large scar across his muzzle and a broken jaw.
In addition to identifying problematic animals, I believe algorithmic tools like facial recognition could help an even broader audience of humans deepen their understanding of bears as a whole by connecting with one or two specific animals.
Emily Wanderer receives funding from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research and the National Science Foundation.
Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Kristen Marie Beavers, Research Professor of Health and Exercise Science, Wake Forest University
Jannelliz Barragan, center, wears a weighted vest during a workout class in New York on Aug. 13, 2025AP Photo/Shelby Lum
Health and fitness trends come and go, and many fads don’t deliver on their promises – remember vibrating belts or sauna suits? Today, weighted vests, made from sturdy fabrics like nylon and filled with iron sand or small weights, are gaining widespread use. Here’s what to know about them:
Weighted vests have been around for centuries, but they have recently surged in popularity in response to a broader shift in thinking about exercise. No longer confined to the gym, physical activity is increasingly about maximizing health benefits of the movements people already do — things like walking, climbing stairs or cleaning their homes.
Weighted vests fit squarely into this philosophy. They offer a simple, manageable way to add resistance to everyday activities. And they don’t require additional time, complex equipment or major changes to established routines.
I study health and exercise science and have analyzed the effects of exercising with weighted vests. In my view, they represent a low-tech, high-impact opportunity to sneak resistance training into everyday activities. Research has shown that adding weight can help with building muscleand bone, as well as losing weight and keeping it off.
As with any tool, however, the results depends on how you use it.
Weighted vests can improve muscle strength, which helps protect against falls, and make your heart work harder. But they need to be worn properly to be effective and avoid injuries.
The physiology behind the practice
The human body has great capacity to adapt to environmental stress. Weighted vests add mechanical stress, or load, to the body, requiring muscles and bones to withstand more force than usual.
Many parts of the body respond to this challenge. The brain learns to “recruit,” or activate, muscle fibers more effectively. This can help prevent injury and increase strength and performance.
Reacting to greater stress can improve muscle power and agility, which are vital for preventing injuries. Carrying a heavier load also makes your heart work harder, which improves cardiac health.
Over 10,000 people in the U.S. turn 65 every day, and the number of falls and fall injuries will increase as the population of older adults grows. Medical care costs for falls are about US$50 billion yearly. CDC
Several lines of research – especially in aging, obesity and mobility science – have found that weighted vests provide meaningful benefits. They include:
Potential for bone health benefits: A 1993 study showed that bone density modestly increased in older women wearing a weighted vest during a weekly low-level exercise class. A 2003 study in which subjects wore weighted vests during 32 weeks of walking and strength training found significant improvement in hip bone density.
Metabolic improvements: In a 2025 study, my research group found that older adults who wore weighted vests for 10 hours per day while dieting ended up regaining less weight in the following year than older adults who dieted without wearing a weighted vest. These findings seem to be driven by metabolic improvements associated with weighted vest use.
Mixed benefits for bone health
Weighted vests are not a panacea, and there are limits to what wearing one can accomplish. My research, including a recently completed randomized clinical trial called INVEST in Bone Health, has sought to answer whether weighted vests can protect bone health during weight loss in older adults.
As we lose weight, we also tend to lose bone – a particular concern for older adults whose bones are already more fragile. Bone loss can increase the risk of fractures, threatening independence, mobility and overall quality of life.
In the INVEST in Bone Health study, we enrolled 150 older adults with obesity whose average age was 66. Of the group, 75% were women. We assigned them to three groups for a 12-month weight loss program that included meal replacement products and behavioral counseling.
The first group focused on weight loss alone. The second group engaged in the same weight loss program and also wore adjustable weighted vests for eight hours a day, with weight added to match the weight they lost, so that their bodies carried a constant load. The third group took part in weight loss activities and in supervised exercise using weight training machines.
After 12 months, we found that all participants had lost about 10% of their body weight, which was a positive outcome. However, they also had experienced significant declines in hip bone density, ranging between 1.2% and 1.9%. Wearing a weighted vest did not prevent bone loss at the hip compared with weight loss alone. Neither did resistance training.
Both the weighted-vest and resistance-training groups did show increased markers of bone formation compared with weight loss alone. In other words, weighted vest use and resistance exercise showed some evidence of bone growth, which may translate into skeletal benefits over time.
In addition, we recently presented findings at a national aging conference suggesting that weighted vests are more likely to benefit bone health in women than in men, which may be due to sex differences in bone sensitivity. We also found evidence that standing more while wearing the vests positively influences bone health. These findings reflect a growing understanding that weighted vests work more effectively in some people and situations than others.
Getting started
In adopting any new weight-bearing activity, it’s important to “start low and go slow” to avoid injury. Consult with your doctor, especially if you are new to exercise.
For continuous gains, you will need to progressively increase the amount of exercise that you do. In our clinical trials, we add a weight equal to one-eighth of an ounce for every eighth of an ounce a participant loses, to keep the muscles and bones under a consistent load.
Weighted vests are not one-size-fits-all, despite what the tag may say. Vests should not interfere with posture, breathing or your stride. Red flags include hunching, a clipped walking stride and, most importantly, low back pain or hyperextension.
Above all, listen to your body. If you start experiencing pain while wearing a weighted vest, take it off and consider seeing a clinician or physical therapist for guidance.
Kristen Marie Beavers receives funding from the NIH and serves in an advisory capacity for Novo Nordisk, Haleon, and Radius Health.
As an infectious diseases physician and researcher, I’ll be keeping an eye on a few viruses in 2026 that could be poised to cause infections in unexpected places or in unexpected numbers.
Influenza A – on the cusp of a pandemic
Influenza A is a perennial threat. The virus infects a wide range of animals and has the ability to mutate rapidly. The most recent influenza pandemic – caused by the H1N1 subtype of influenza in 2009 – killed over 280,000 people worldwide in its first year, and the virus continues to circulate today. This virus was often called swine flu because it originated in pigs in Mexico before circulating around the world.
In 2026, scientists will continue to look for any evidence that H5N1 has changed enough to be transmitted from human to human – a necessary step for the start of a new influenza pandemic. The influenza vaccines currently on the market probably don’t offer protection from H5N1, but scientists are working to create vaccines that would be effective against the virus.
Mpox – worldwide and liable to worsen
Mpox virus, formerly called monkeypox virus, was first discovered in the 1950s. For many decades, it was seen rarely, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa. Contrary to its original name, the virus mostly infects rodents and occasionally crossed over into humans.
Mpox is closely related to smallpox, and infection results in a fever and painful rash that can last for weeks. There are several varieties of mpox, including a generally more severe clade I and a milder clade II. A vaccine for mpox is available, but there are no effective treatments.
In 2022, a global outbreak of clade II mpox spread to more than 100 countries that had never seen the virus before. This outbreak was driven by human-to-human transmission of the virus through close contact, often via sex.
Most people with the virus experience fever, headache and muscle aches. The illness usually lasts just a few days, but some patients have weakness that can persist for weeks. The illness can also recur after someone has initially recovered.
There are many unanswered questions about the Oropouche virus and the disease it causes, and there are no specific treatments or vaccines. For decades, infections in people were thought to occur only in the Amazon region. However, beginning in the early 2000s, cases began to show up in a larger area of South America, Central America and the Caribbean. Cases in the United States are usually among travelers returning from abroad.
In 2026, Oropouche outbreaks will likely continue to affect travelers in the Americas. The biting midge that carries Oropouche virus is found throughout North and South America, including the southeastern United States. The range of the virus could continue to expand.
Around the world, people, animals and the wider environment are dependent on each other. Vigilance for known and emerging viral threats and the development of new vaccines and treatments can help keep everyone safe.
Patrick Jackson has received funding from the National Institutes of Health, Pfizer, Clarametyx, First Light Diagnostics, and Moleculin Biotech. He is affiliated with Indivisible Charlottesville.
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