Mosquito terminators are a type of jumping spider. Fiona Cross, CC BY-NC-ND
As a child, the mere glimpse of a spider used to send me screaming and running for cover. I was convinced that spiders were my enemies. I thought they were out to get me.
These days, I run towards spiders, not away from them. I can partly thank a spider for helping me with that. This is a special spider affectionately known as the mosquito terminator.
Mosquito terminators (Evarchaculicivora) are small spiders, about 5mm long. They are a species of jumping spider from the family Salticidae, the largest family of spiders. Like all jumping spiders, these little predators have good eyesight and they hunt for their prey like stealthy cats.
Jumping spiders live almost everywhere around the world (even on Mount Everest) and they are found in a variety of shapes, sizes and colours. The quickest, most convenient way to identify a jumping spider is simply by looking at it: if it looks back at you with two big eyes in front of its face, it’s a jumping spider.
Most jumping spiders mainly eat insects. Mosquito terminators are no exception, eating a wide range of insects. But they do have a distinct prey preference. Just like Arnold Schwarzenegger of The Terminator fame, these little predators are on a mission to seek and destroy — in their case, they target mosquitoes.
The mosquito terminator spider. Fiona Cross, CC BY-NC-ND
Mosquito terminators take this preference to an extreme. They particularly like the mosquitoes they eat to be full of blood. If they are presented with a blood-carrying mosquito alongside another kind of insect, even a mosquito not carrying blood, they will choose the blood-carrying mosquito nine times out of ten.
Blood-carrying mosquitoes are an important part of this spider’s diet. They can also help mosquito terminators attract mates. After dining on a blood-carrying mosquito, these spiders acquire a blood perfume that then attracts the opposite sex.
An antidote to malaria?
These spiders are found in the Lake Victoria region of Kenya and Uganda. Mosquito-transmitted diseases, such as malaria, are prevalent in this part of the world. These diseases kill hundreds of thousands of people each year.
Anopheles mosquitoes, which can transmit malaria, are known to be anthropophilic – they like being in the company of people. They are attracted to our breath and the smell of our feet. Being near us helps these mosquitoes to find blood meals.
Mosquito terminators also live near people, and it turns out they like the smell of our feet, too. Just like Anopheles, these spiders are more attracted to our previously-worn socks than to unworn socks. Mosquito terminators are currently the only spiders known to be anthropophilic. Being near us might help these spiders to find their favourite prey.
My research has further investigated this prey preference and how these spiders use their tiny brains. Amazingly, they can identify a blood-carrying mosquito by either smell or sight, even if they have never eaten or seen a mosquito before. This suggests that their penchant for blood-carrying mosquitoes is hard-wired or innate.
My research has also explored whether the colour red is of special importance to these spiders. The redness of a blood-carrying mosquito darkens over time as the blood gets digested. This darker colour becomes less attractive to these spiders.
The importance of redness extends to the spiders’ bodies too. A female mosquito terminator is mostly brown in colour, but the males have little bright red faces. Cover that bright red face with black eyeliner, and males are less certain that they are encountering a potential rival. Females are also less inclined to choose a male with a concealed red face, preferring those with bright red faces instead.
Mosquito terminators are not harmful to people and nor are they vampires – they cannot bite us directly to drink our blood. They also cannot rid the world of malaria. For one thing, releasing mosquito terminators in different habitats will not work. Yet these and other jumping spiders play an important role in nature. So, next time a spider turns and looks back at you, watch closely – your new eight-legged friend may be a jumping spider.
Fiona Cross receives funding from the Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fund.
Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Santiago Zuluaga Castañeda, JdlC Researcher, Departamento de Ecología Evolutiva, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (MNCN-CSIC)
Birds of prey and vultures (raptors) play a vital role in ecosystems, both as top predators and key scavengers. However, compared to many other bird species, raptor populations are declining faster. This is because they need large areas to live in, have low population densities, and reproduce slowly. For these reasons they are vulnerable to human impacts like farming with pesticides, electrocution, collision with wind turbines, or poaching.
In many cases, by the time scientists and conservationists fully understand how bad the declines are, it may be too late to act. Thus, having good population monitoring is vital to act as an early warning system of declines. Many countries in the global south host important populations of raptors but lack effective monitoring programmes.
Africa is an important continent for raptor diversity. Several studies across Africa have used road counts (counting birds from repeated transects across routes) to monitor how raptor populations have changed over time. A recent study went one step further, combining trends from these different surveys from across Africa to better understand these changes at a pan-African scale. Unfortunately, no data from South Africa were available to be incorporated into this analysis.
In our recent study we took advantage of data that was collected by one dedicated fieldworker, Ronelle Visagie, who drove nearly 400,000 km (the distance from Earth to the moon) across the central area of South Africa (see map) between 2009 and 2025, while she worked for the Birds of Prey Programme of the Endangered Wildlife Trust.
During these 16 years, Ronelle counted all the raptors and large birds that she saw on these work trips. Comparing how the rate of these observations (numbers of individuals per 100km driven) changed over time allowed us to explore species population trends. We had enough data to examine trends for 18 raptors and eight other large bird species over this period. Unfortunately, we did not find a good news story.
These road counts revealed that 50% of the species (13 out of 26) declined significantly, while only three species (12%) showed significant increases. The remaining ten species (38%) showed no significant trends (see Figure 2).
The declining trends raise serious concerns about the conservation status of several species in a region known to host important raptor populations. Thus, urgent conservation actions are needed, especially for species declining by more than 50%. Given that several of these species are not currently listed as threatened either globally or regionally, their conservation status may need to be reassessed.
Trends in raptor populations
According to our results, 42% of the assessed species declined by more than 50% in the last 16 years.
Notable declines included all of the three migratory species assessed (lesser kestrel, amur falcon and steppe buzzard). These trends match other studies from their breeding grounds in the northern hemisphere, which also suggested declines. Protecting migratory species is especially challenging because action may be needed in breeding areas, non-breeding areas, and along migration routes, where the threats they face may differ.
We also found declines of several resident raptors, including jackal buzzard, Verreaux’s eagle and secretarybird. Populations of these species declined by over 50% in our study region.
In contrast, populations of white-necked raven, greater kestrels, and white-backed vulture increased. The latter is a critically endangered species, but seems to be increasing within our study area.
Some of the trends we detected were similar to a recent study that explored raptor population trends from across Africa using similar approaches to our study. For example, our findings of large declines for secretarybird and lesser kestrel were very similar to those reported in Kenya and Botswana. Additionally, similar population changes for secretarybird were detected during winter (but not summer) using road counts in the Nama Karoo (a major part of our study area) during the period just before our study (a 61% decline between the late 1980s and early 2010s). This suggests that the decline detected earlier may have continued into the mid-2020s.
We compared the direction of trends (whether species numbers were going up or down) from our road counts and the Southern African Bird Atlas Project (SABAP2). But only about half of the trends agreed between the two methods (road counts and the bird atlas). Species with consistent trends between the methods included amur falcon and lesser kestrel – both showing declines – and greater kestrel and white-backed vulture – both showing increases. Species with inconsistent trends all showed decreases according to our road counts but increases according to the bird atlas project. These included Ludwig’s bustard, blue crane, secretarybird, black-winged kite, and southern pale chanting goshawk.
If we assume that our road counts trends are reliable, these findings suggest that although the bird atlas project data can provide valuable information on the changes in distribution of birds, atlas data may be less well suited to capture changes in abundance at large spatial scales and across multiple species.
Across Africa, declines in birds of prey are often linked to human population growth, agricultural expansion and climate change. In our study area, there have been no major recent changes in land use or population density, but more subtle or long-term human impacts may be driving these changes.
Conflicts between people and raptors, including illegal killings, could play a role. Climate change and infrastructure like power lines and wind farms are adding further pressure by fragmenting aerial habitat and affecting survival and reproduction.
Human populations in Africa are expected to grow significantly over the next three decades, which will increase pressure on biodiversity.
Given the projected human population growth in Africa (79%), and a corresponding rise in demand for resources and energy, threats to vulnerable bird species are likely to get worse.
It is therefore essential that we have reliable tools to monitor species trends and better understand the impacts of these pressures.
This is crucial for understanding the current biodiversity crisis and preventing severe wildlife loss.
Santiago Zuluaga Castañeda received funding from The ABAX Foundation and a Juan de la Cierva postdoctoral contract from the Spanish government.
Arjun Amar receives funding from The ABAX Foundation.
Megan Murgatroyd does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
I wouldn’t say that I’m afraid of heights. I can stand on a cliff path or look out from a tall building without the rush of panic people often associate with vertigo. What I really dislike is something much harder to explain: the peculiar feeling in my feet.
It’s a sensation that’s difficult to describe. It isn’t numbness, it isn’t tingling either. The closest I can come is a strange awareness in the soles of my feet – a kind of buzzing.
For a long time I assumed this was just an odd personal quirk. But many people report something similar when standing near a drop. Around one-quarter of people describe some level of discomfort at height, and in experimental settings most participants show measurable changes in balance and posture when exposed to a drop. Far from being irrational, it reflects a remarkably elegant piece of neurological engineering.
At height, the nervous system shifts balance control. Sensory input from the feet is “upregulated” (dialled up), postural muscles (muscles that help you stay upright, balanced and stable) stiffen slightly, and movements become more cautious. This is part of normal proprioception – the body’s internal sense of where it is in space.
Unlike vision, which tells you where things are around you, proprioception tells you where you are.
Near a drop, the brain begins to rely more heavily on signals from the feet, effectively turning up their volume. Small shifts in pressure and sway are amplified, and control of movement becomes tighter and more deliberate. This is quite different from vertigo. Vertigo arises from disturbances in the inner ear or its connections, creating a false sensation of movement, often described as spinning.
The feeling at height is not that the world is moving, but that the body is being held more carefully in place.
What’s striking is that this response is not unique to those who notice it. The nervous system makes these adjustments in almost everyone. For most, it remains in the background. For others, it rises into awareness as a peculiar sensation.
As the body’s primary point of contact with the ground the feet are one of its richest sources of sensory information. The soles contain a dense population of specialised receptors, including Merkel cells, Meissner corpuscles and Pacinian corpuscles, each tuned to different aspects of pressure, stretch and movement.
Merkel cells respond to sustained pressure, giving a continuous readout of how weight is distributed across the foot – whether you are leaning slightly forward, back, or to one side.
Meissner corpuscles are more sensitive to light touch and subtle changes, detecting the small shifts that occur as the body sways.
Pacinian corpuscles, deeper in the tissue, are exquisitely sensitive to vibration and rapid changes in pressure, allowing the nervous system to detect even the smallest disturbances in contact with the ground.
Under ordinary conditions, these receptors work quietly in the background, allowing you to stand, walk and shift your weight without conscious thought. But near an edge with a drop, their importance is suddenly elevated. The margin for error narrows. Small changes in pressure – the subtle sway of the body, the shifting of weight from heel to forefoot – carry greater consequence.
The nervous system responds by increasing the gain on these signals. In effect, it listens more closely to the feet.
That heightened input does not feel the same for everyone. Some people describe a buzzing or tingling in the soles. Others report a sense of heaviness, as though their feet are being drawn more firmly into the ground. Some feel an urge to grip with their toes, or to widen their stance. Others notice a faint unsteadiness, a need to hold still, or a curious reluctance to move forward. Why is it that some people experience this so vividly, while others are unaware?
Part of the answer lies in how we process sensory information. The signals from the feet are being generated in almost everyone standing near an edge, but not all of them reach conscious awareness. The brain continuously filters incoming information, prioritising what seems most relevant.
In some people, that filter is more permissive. Subtle changes in pressure, sway and muscle activity are allowed through, registering as a distinct sensation in the soles. In others, the same information is handled automatically, without ever rising to conscious notice.
Attention plays a role too. Once a sensation has been noticed, the brain becomes more likely to detect it again.
There are also differences in sensory sensitivity. Some people are simply better at detecting fine changes in touch and position – a heightened form of proprioception. For them, the shift in balance control near an edge may feel more pronounced.
Context matters as well. Fatigue, stress, or unfamiliar surroundings can all make the system more noticeable. What this means is that the sensation itself is not unusual. What varies is the degree to which it is perceived. The same neurological adjustment is taking place either way – quietly in the background for some, and vividly, almost curiously, present for others.
Michelle Spear does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
When earthquakes struck Turkey and Syria in February 2023, more than 50,000 people were killed and thousands more were injured.
One month after the disaster, a bank employee named Efe Demir died by suicide in İstanbul. Before his death, he had sent an email to colleagues questioning the actions and motivations of his employer, saying he felt that the organisation prioritised profit over caring for clients who were victims of the tragedy.
The bank strongly denied the allegations, but Demir’s accusation highlights a broader, and often invisible, problem: how a corporate approach, especially in times of crisis, can cause employees to experience psychological harm.
Sometimes referred to as “moral injury” or “ethical suffering”, it often involves feelings of distress that arise when workers are compelled to act solely in the interest of profit.
The psychiatrist Christophe Dejours, who specialises in work and mental health, has argued that the complexities of work require employees to constantly expend emotional and cognitive energy navigating moral dilemmas.
Those dilemmas could be to do with a company’s environmental record for example, or how it relates to a country engaged in a military conflict. Moral injury does not arise only from what workers are required to do.
It can also take the form of intense feelings of isolation when an employee feels what a company is doing is wrong, but nobody is doing anything about it.
Eventually, moral injury can become a deep crisis, with workplace suicide as its most tragic manifestation.
Disasters amplify moral harm
Moral injury is commonly used to describe the experiences of workers in care-giving professions such as medicine or nursing, where decisions can carry life or death consequences. But moral injury can appear in many occupations, especially during disasters, when individuals suddenly feel a heightened responsibility for others.
For employees like Demir, the earthquake in Turkey was not only a national tragedy – it was a moment when the employer’s values were put to the test. For Demir, among other allegations was an accusation that the bank had not looked after customers who have been affected by the earthquake, in terms of their ability to repay loans or be given credit.
The 2023 earthquake in Turkey and Syria was the worst to hit the region in decades and left more than 50,000 people dead. Doga Ayberk Demir/Shutterstock
Such cases are rarely publicised. Employers often move quickly to protect their reputation, while colleagues fear retaliation and families hesitate to link suicide to work.
The connection can be difficult or even impossible to prove. There research which suggests that employee suicide can serve as a final attempt to expose injustice.
Modern work often involves tasks that are legal but morally questionable, whether it’s carefully manipulating clients, competing unfairly or remaining silent about harm. Employees may become unwilling participants in practices that violate ethical standards – and this is precisely what makes these experiences difficult for the employee to talk about.
Even though physical dangers in the workplace are recognised, psychological dangers such as ethical conflict and feelings of loss of integrity often remain unacknowledged. Long-term exposure to ethically ambiguous environments can reshape someone’s character, moral sensibilities and sense of self. Over time, Dejours argues, workers numb themselves to others’ suffering – and eventually, to their own.
In countries such as France and Japan, work-related suicides are part of public debate, thanks to labour activists. In France, unions such as the CFE-CGC actively fight workplace bullying and at a global level, the International Trade Union Confederation Ituc named work-related suicide as a priority issue in a campaign on psychosocial hazards.
To confront moral injury at work, especially in an era of overlapping crises, whether it’s environmental, geopolitical or natural, research suggests that many organisations need to pay more attention to the ethical integrity of their employees. Professional dignity is not just about the terms of work – the hours, the pay and conditions – but also what we produce at work.
This also means expanding occupational safety to include not just physical risks but moral and psychological hazards – and talking more openly about the ethically questionable tasks that people may be asked to commit at work.
If you’re struggling with suicidal thoughts, the following services can provide you with support:
In the UK and Ireland – call Samaritans UK at 116 123.
In the US – call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or IMAlive at 1-800-784-2433.
In Australia – call Lifeline Australia at 13 11 14.
In other countries – visit IASP or Suicide.org to find a helpline in your country.
Ebru Işıklı does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The first ever avian influenza vaccine recently started trials in the UK. This marks a milestone in the prevention of bird flu infections in humans.
The vaccine targets the H5N1 flu strain, which causes severe infections in bird populations worldwide. However, this strain of bird flu virus is also able to spread to humans in rare cases through direct contact with infected birds or poultry products.
This latest trial hopes to test the vaccine in people who are most at risk of acquiring bird flu. This includes people who work in poultry industry and people who are above 65 years of age.
Bird flu vaccine
This new bird flu vaccine is an mRNA-based vaccine. This is the same technology that was used in some COVID vaccines.
Messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) acts as a messenger between the genes and the microscopic factories inside human cells that produce proteins. It carries a message from the genes to these cellular factories to produce proteins with specific structures.
For instance, mRNA plays a role in producing the enzymes that regulate our metabolism, the haemoglobin that carries oxygen to our tissues and the antibodies that protect us against infections.
Vaccines that use mRNA technology deliver instructions to cellular protein production factories, telling them to produce certain proteins that are normally present on the surface of a specific virus.
By doing so, these vaccines generate a fake disease which is less severe than the actual disease caused by the virus. The immune system sees the viruses or any parts of them (such as proteins) as intruders and tries to destroy them.
Once the fake disease has been suppressed, the immune system will hold a memory of this particular virus. That way, if a person contracts the virus in the future, the immune system will respond very quickly and very strongly to destroy the viruses and stop the spread of the disease.
But in order for an mRNA vaccine to be effective, it needs to be efficiently transported from the site of administration to the blood and immune cells. Like a letter that needs an envelope to be delivered from sender to recipient, the mRNA also needs the right carrier so it can be delivered to the immune cells.
Similar to the COVID vaccines, this new bird flu vaccine uses microscopic fatty spheres called lipid nanoparticles to carry the mRNA. These microscopic envelopes are around 100-200 manometers in size (that’s almost 100,000 times smaller than a penny).
They’re made of a combination of different fats (lipids) that form a microscopic sphere inside which the mRNA is enveloped. Different combinations of fats are used to customise the lipid nanoparticles to the cargo they carry. This maximises the mRNA load they can carry and ensures they don’t fall apart before delivering their cargo.
Before the introduction of mRNA-based vaccines and lipid nanoparticle technology, most influenza vaccines were developed by genetically modifying or chemically inactivating the viruses. While these live attenuated or inactivated viruses couldn’t induce a full scale infection, they still triggered an immune response.
But this process was very costly, time consuming and had varied success. So it was only reserved for the viruses that were on the World Health Organization’s priority list. As bird flu has historically posed a low infection risk to humans, there hasn’t been an incentive to develop a vaccine for it.
But advances in mRNA technology and lipid nanoparticles have now provided us with the tools for developing effective vaccines against a greater number of viral infections in a fast and cost-effective manner – including lower priority diseases, such as bird flu.
Preventing the next pandemic
Although bird flu currently poses a very low threat to humans, it does have the potential to cause a pandemic if its spread is not controlled.
There are some key reasons for this. In birds, H5N1 is highly virulent and new strains evolve rapidly. It also has the potential to crossover into a variety of mammalian species – including humans.
Infection with bird flu can cause severe illness that is hard to treat in vulnerable people. This includes those over the age of 65 and people with a compromised immunity (such as cancer patients and people who have received organ transplants). Therefore, it could have serious repercussions if the virus was able to spread more readily between birds and humans.
The vaccine trial is a proactive attempt to protect people against the possibility of a future pandemic and to protect those who are more vulnerable to severe bird flu infections.
The lipid nanoparticle technology the bird flu vaccine uses also has broader health applications beyond infectious diseases. One application is in developing cancer vaccines, where they will be used for treating an existing cancer in patients.
I lead a research group at the University of Portsmouth that works on developing new mRNA-based vaccines against different types of cancer including breast, cervical and colorectal cancers using lipid nanoparticles. The same technology is used in Moderna’s mRNA vaccine against melanoma that is currently in trial in the UK.
The mRNA that is used in cancer vaccines instructs a type of immune cell called dendritic cells to produce the same proteins that are expressed on tumour cells. The lipid nanoparticles act as envelopes to carry this mRNA to these cells.
These cells produce and present the cancer proteins to the other members of immune system, including T cells. As a result, the body will see the tumour cells as an intruder and will try to destroy them just as it does with the viruses.
Advances in mRNA synthesis and lipid nanoparticle technology mark a new era in vaccination. These new technologies enable us to produce new vaccines more quickly and to customise them to achieve higher effectiveness. This is of paramount importance for preventing pandemics in the future.
Roja Hadianamrei does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – in French – By Geoffrey Wood, Professor, Co-Director, Institute for Comparative Cancer Investigation, University of Guelph
Les chats ont un taux de cancers similaire à celui des humains et développent souvent les mêmes types de cancer.(Unsplash/Andy Quezada)
Les chats vivent dans nos maisons, boivent notre eau et dorment même dans nos lits. Ils sont des membres à part entière de nombreux foyers et partagent notre vie.
Ils présentent également de nombreuses similitudes biologiques avec nous. Les chats ont un taux de cancers similaire à celui des humains et développent souvent les mêmes types de cancer. Comme pour les humains, l’amélioration des soins de santé et de l’alimentation leur permet de vivre plus longtemps, ce qui augmente leur risque de souffrir d’un cancer au cours de leur vie.
Les chats sont des membres à part entière de nombreux foyers et partagent notre vie. Ils présentent également de multiples similitudes biologiques avec les humains. (Geoff Wood)
Avec mes collègues, nous nous sommes demandé si les cancers félins ressemblaient aux cancers humains sur le plan génétique ? Nous avons mené la plus grande étude jamais réalisée sur le séquençage de l’ADN des tumeurs des chats. Nos recherches ont révélé des similitudes frappantes entre les cancers félins et humains, et les résultats laissent entrevoir des retombées positives tant pour les chats que pour nous.
Notre collaboration internationale a permis de publier récemment une étude portant sur les tumeurs de 500 chats et couvrant 13 types de tumeurs. Nous avons isolé l’ADN de ces tumeurs et cartographié la séquence de 1 000 gènes qui présentent souvent des mutations dans les cancers humains.
Cancers félins et humains
Dans l’ensemble, le gène qui a le plus souvent muté est le gène TP5, un gène de protection contre le cancer, qui est également le plus fréquemment muté dans les cancers humains. Un autre exemple est le gène PIK3CA, qui comporte une mutation dans environ 40 % des cancers du sein chez l’être humain et dont on a constaté qu’il était altéré dans environ 50 % des cancers mammaires chez le chat.
Il existe des médicaments spécialement conçus pour les cancers humains présentant certaines mutations, comme celles du gène PIK3CA. Maintenant que nous connaissons les mutations courantes dans les cancers félins, il est possible de tester ces médicaments sur les chats.
Comment étudions-nous le cancer chez les chats ? Depuis 2009, la biobanque vétérinaire du Collège vétérinaire de l’Ontario, qui fait partie de l’Institut de recherche comparative sur le cancer de l’Université de Guelph, conserve des échantillons de tumeurs provenant de chats traités au Centre de cancer animal.
Avec le consentement du propriétaire, une partie de la tumeur prélevée lors de l’intervention chirurgicale est préservée et congelée en vue d’études futures. De plus, des échantillons sanguins sont conservés afin de servir de ressource pour mettre au point des tests de dépistage moins invasifs, en utilisant des molécules associées à la maladie présentes dans le sang.
Récemment, la biobanque vétérinaire s’est jointe au consortium Biobanques Ontario afin de faciliter les études sur le cancer entre espèces. Des essais cliniques sur le cancer sont également menés chez des chats et des chiens, dans le but d’utiliser les résultats de la recherche pour concevoir de meilleurs traitements pour les animaux de compagnie, mais aussi pour nous permettre de mieux comprendre les cancers humains.
Les chats peuvent nous en apprendre beaucoup sur les cancers humains. Il existe plusieurs cancers ou sous-types de cancer qui sont courants chez les chats, mais rares chez nous. Le cancer mammaire « triple négatif » — caractérisé par l’absence de récepteurs d’œstrogènes et de progestérone, et du récepteur du facteur de croissance HER2 — est de loin le sous-type le plus courant chez les chats. Il ne représente toutefois que 15 % des cancers du sein chez l’humain.
Ce sous-type touche principalement les femmes jeunes, les femmes noires et celles présentant une prédisposition génétique héréditaire (mutation du gène BRCA1). Il est particulièrement agressif et difficile à traiter.
Le cancer du pancréas est un autre exemple. Le sous-type acineux, le plus fréquent chez les chats, est relativement rare chez l’être humain. Il est donc plus facile de mener des études sur ce type de cancer chez les chats.
Notre étude sur le séquençage génomique chez le chat a également révélé quelques différences dans les profils de mutation entre les cancers humains et félins. Environ 25 % des cancers humains présentent des mutations des gènes RAS, alors que ces mutations sont rares chez les chats. L’étude de ces cancers chez le chat pourrait nous aider à mieux comprendre le rôle de ces gènes dans le développement de la maladie.
Génomes de souris et de chats
Les associations caritatives de lutte contre le cancer et les organismes qui octroient des subventions pour la recherche en santé humaine soutiennent régulièrement des études utilisant des modèles de cancer humain chez les rongeurs, mais l’étude du cancer chez d’autres espèces animales est plus difficile à faire accepter.
Les rongeurs servant de modèles sont génétiquement modifiés pour développer un cancer ou pour présenter un système immunitaire gravement déficient, de manière à pouvoir héberger des cellules cancéreuses humaines.
Ces modèles sont très efficaces pour étudier les mécanismes moléculaires du cancer, mais leur bilan en matière de médicaments anticancéreux est médiocre. En effet, plus de 90 % des nouveaux traitements anticancéreux mis au point à partir de ces modèles échouent lors des essais cliniques humains et ne sont jamais autorisés à des fins thérapeutiques.
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En revanche, le cancer se développe souvent spontanément chez le chat dans le même environnement que chez les humains. Ces animaux présentent également de nombreux troubles sous-jacents ou concomitants similaires aux nôtres, tels qu’obésité, maladies auto-immunes, maladies rénales, diabète et divers autres troubles endocriniens.
Le génome des chats ressemble davantage à celui des humains que le génome des souris, et l’organisation du génome félin (l’ordre des gènes sur les chromosomes) est plus proche de celle de l’être humain que ne l’est celle du chien.
L’Atlas du génome du cancer est une immense base de données en libre accès qui répertorie les mutations observées dans différents types de cancer chez les humains. Aucune ressource de ce type n’existe pour les chats.
Les données issues de notre récente publication sont désormais disponibles via le Wellcome Sanger Institute. Elles constitueront une ressource fondamentale et gratuite pour les chercheurs qui étudient le cancer chez les chats et les humains, au bénéfice des deux espèces.
Geoffrey Wood bénéficie d’un financement du Conseil de recherches en sciences naturelles et en génie du Canada, du Pet Trust et de l’Institut ontarien de recherche sur le cancer.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, Amherst College
In 1986, the Supreme Court barred prosecutors from striking jurors solely because of race.Bloomberg Creative/Getty Images
On April 30, 2026, Texas executed James Broadnax, a Black man who was sentenced to death for the robbery and murder of two men in 2008.
Before the jury was seated, the prosecutor moved to dismiss each of the seven Black people from the jury pool. Citing court documents, CNN noted that he “(utilized) a spreadsheet during jury selection that bolded only the names of every Black juror” and none of the white or Latino people. After defense objections, the judge reseated one Black juror, citing the otherwise all-white jury.
The trial proceeded with 11 white jurors and one Black juror.
James Broadnax was executed in Texas on April 30, 2026. Associated Press/Texas Department of Criminal Justice
A jury with that racial composition is likely to deliberate in a different way than one that is more racially diverse. According to Duke University law professor James Coleman, “Juries with two or more members of color deliberate longer, discuss a wider range of evidence, and collectively are more accurate in their statements about cases, regardless of the race of the defendant.”
A 2012 Duke University study of two Florida counties found that juries “formed from all-white jury pools convicted Black defendants 16% more often than white defendants, a gap that was nearly eliminated when at least one member of the jury pool was Black.”
Broadnax was executed on the 40th anniversary of Batson v. Kentucky, in which the Supreme Court ruled that prosecutors cannot exclude jurors solely on account of their race.
But Broadnax’s case is not an outlier. Similar efforts to “whiten” juries in capital cases regularly occur in states that authorize the death penalty. A 2025 analysis of Alabama’s death row by the Equal Justice Initiative found that across 122 capital cases – involving Black and white defendants in roughly equal numbers – more than one-third were decided by juries with no Black jurors or, like Broadnax’s case, only one.
As a death penalty scholar who has tracked the role of race in the death penalty system, I believed Batson was a step forward in the effort to address a long history of excluding Black people from jury service. But 40 years have shown that Batson merely scratched the surface of the problem.
Before the Civil War, one way this was done was by limiting eligibility for such service to those who could vote. Some states went further, saying only whites could serve on juries. A Tennessee law dating from 1858 is a good example: “Every white male citizen who is a freeholder, or householder, and twenty-one years of age, is legally qualified to act as a grand or petit juror.”
It was only after the Civil War and the passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution that Black people were entitled to serve on juries nationwide – at least in theory.
Some states resisted. For example, West Virginia law specified that “all white male persons who are twenty-one years of age and who are citizens of this State shall be liable to serve as jurors.”
In 1880, 12 years after the ratification of the 14th Amendment – which guarantees equal protection of the law – the Supreme Court struck down that West Virginia law. It did so in the case of a former slave who was convicted in a capital case by an all-white jury and given a death sentence – a preview, I believe, of the kind of thing that happened to Broadnax.
The court held that the West Virginia law that “denies to colored citizens the right and privilege of participating in the administration of the law as jurors because of their color … is, practically, a brand upon them, and a discrimination against them which is forbidden by the [14th] amendment.”
Despite the court’s unequivocal ruling, the door to jury service remained closed to Black people. As legal scholar Sarah Claxton argued in 2022, “States across the country enacted vague and subjective standards for juror eligibility – requiring good moral character, honest and intelligent men, persons having educational qualifications – whose discriminatory application excluded Black citizens from juries.”
In 1965, the Supreme Court refused to remedy the exclusion of Black people from juries that its 1880 decision was supposed to have ended. It held, in Swain v. Alabama, that “a defendant in a criminal case is not constitutionally entitled to a proportionate number of his race on the trial jury or the jury panel.”
Two decades passed before the court again took up the glaring problem of racial discrimination by prosecutors seeking to keep Black people off juries.
In Batson v. Kentucky, the court considered a case in which the prosecuting attorney “used his peremptory challenges to strike all four black persons” in the jury pool and managed to seat an all-white jury. And on April 30, 1986, it reaffirmed that “a State denies a Black defendant equal protection when it puts him on trial before a jury from which members of his race have been purposefully excluded.”
The court then created a process for challenging jury selection. First, the defendant must point to evidence – based on how the prosecutor used their strikes – that suggests racial discrimination. If they can, the prosecutor must then come forward with “a neutral explanation for challenging Black jurors.” Finally, the trial judge weighs all the evidence to decide whether the prosecutor’s stated reason is genuine or a cover for bias. In practice, this means a Batson challenge will fail as long as the prosecutor can offer any nonracial reason for excluding Black jurors, however thin.
When Batson v. Kentucky was decided, Justice Thurgood Marshall warned that the decision would not end racial discrimination in jury selection. Bettmann/Getty Images
When Batson v. Kentucky was decided, Justice Thurgood Marshall, drawing on his years of experience as an NAACP Legal Defense Fund lawyer, warned that the decision would not end racial discrimination in jury selection. “Merely allowing defendants the opportunity to challenge the racially discriminatory use of peremptory challenges in individual cases will not end the illegitimate use of the peremptory challenge,” he explained.
He predicted that “any prosecutor can easily assert facially neutral reasons for striking a juror, and trial courts are ill-equipped to second-guess those reasons.”
In the Broadnax case, prosecutors claimed that their efforts to remove Black jurors had nothing to do with their race. They suggested that they were dismissed because they could not be impartial or they had reservations about the death penalty, disqualifying them from service on a jury in a capital murder trial.
The Batson test has not been much of an obstacle for prosecutors in other capital cases either. In fact, in 2025 the Death Penalty Information Center reported that in the years after Batson, “prosecutors soon learned how to successfully defend race-based challenges, and courts generally accepted even the flimsiest excuses.” That’s why defendants rarely win Batson challenges “despite powerful evidence of racial bias.”
In the 40 years since Batson was decided, the Death Penalty Information Center has identified only 68 cases across 16 states in which a capital defendant succeeded in getting a conviction or death sentence reversed because of racial discrimination in jury selection.
The picture is similar in California, where more comprehensive data exists. According to a 2020 Berkeley Law report, the California Supreme Court reviewed 142 cases involving Batson claims over 30 years and found a violation in only three. At the time the report was published, it had been more than three decades since that court found a Batson violation involving the strike of a Black prospective juror.
Looking at what has happened since Batson v. Kentucky, Elisabeth Semel, a UC Berkeley law professor and co-director of the school’s Death Penalty Clinic, said in an interview with the Death Penalty Information Center that she would give Batson a grade of “F.” As she explained, “It certainly has failed to achieve its promise.”
Austin Sarat does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Henry David Thoreau investigated the Sudbury River as America’s first river scientist.Robert M. Thorson
The steam locomotive chugged its way toward Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Aug. 15, 1859. On board was an impatient young scientist wanting to understand the math and science governing how river channels should behave. After disembarking at Harvard College and searching the stacks of its library, Henry David Thoreau checked out “Principes D’Hydraulique,” a three-volume tome of hydraulic engineering.
Once he translated and transcribed 17 pages from the original French, he finally discovered what he was looking for: an equation for the equilibrium velocity of a stream, given its shape, slope, volume of flow and bed roughness.
This theoretically minded, quantitative side of Thoreau is nearly invisible in the cultural zeitgeist. There, his other side dominates: the famous 19th-century transcendental nature writer, philosopher, social critic and abolitionist who lived for two years in a small house in the woods above Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts.
This literary-minded, qualitative Thoreau is canonized and mythologized for “Walden,” a foundational text for America’s environmental movement, and for “Civil Disobedience,” which describes a model of nonviolent political protest later adopted by Emma Goldman, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and many others.
Removal of this low factory dam across the Concord River in Billerica, Mass., was the center of contention for what may have been America’s first major environmental assessment. Robert M. Thorson
The nearly invisible Thoreau – the compulsively quantitative and analytically rigorous physical scientist – emerged from my research as a geologist interested in the history of 19th-century science. With two decades of scholarly books and articles behind me, I’m now featuring this less well-known Thoreau in my upcoming book, “The Walden Experiments: The Science of Henry David Thoreau.”
Footnote to fame
Thoreau rose to fame as an original American thinker. He’s now the star of an award-winning video game. The Thoreau Alliance, an organization dedicated to educating about his life and legacy, is international. A recently released and highly acclaimed Ken Burns-Ewers brothers biopic, “Henry David Thoreau,” focuses on the usual side of Thoreau as a writer and activist, emphasizing his focus on environmental justice, sustainable living and the power of nature to heal our increasingly technological and frenetic lives.
I served as an adviser for and appear in the film, which touches on Thoreau’s science. These touches are limited mainly to his work as a biological naturalist. Examples include his pioneering insights on the dispersal of seeds, his anticipation of Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection and his study of the seasonal manifestations of natural phenomena, such as plants’ flowering times and bird migrations.
Physical science
“I keep out of doors for the sake of the mineral, vegetable, and animal in me.”
Thoreau wrote this entry in his journal on Nov. 4, 1852, when he was busy researching the lake at Walden Pond. His words remind readers that any search for meaning must ultimately begin with the bedrock roots of their lives on which all plants, animals and cultures depend. My way of saying the same thing is, “No rocks, no ecosystems, no cultures.”
During his research on the lake and nearby streams, Thoreau made an original discovery in fluid mechanics. On June 4, 1854, he wrote the first known technical description of a standing capillary wave: a small water wave that, instead of rippling outward, stays in a fixed position.
This phenomenon, which he later made a technical drawing of, is now known as the Thoreau-Reynolds Ridge. His co-discoverer, Osborne Reynolds, was a pioneering Irish-British hydraulic engineer.
Limnology and geology
Thoreau also pioneered limnology, the science of lakes. He studied how light passed through the water of Lake Walden in liquid, solid and vapor phases, how the lake stored heat in stable layers during the summer and winter, how the water chemistry affected its clarity, and how lakes eventually fill to become dry land.
Thoreau correctly interpreted that his New England landscape had been shaped by a colossal ice sheet that had flowed southward from Canada. At the time, the state geologist of Massachusetts and the American science establishment were incorrectly attributing the same landscape to an iceberg-laden catastrophic flood. He also correctly reasoned that his beloved Walden Pond was born when a buried remnant of that ice sheet melted downward to create a groundwater-filled sinkhole called a kettle.
He kept a growing reference collection of rocks and minerals in his attic garret that was later exhibited for decades at the nearby Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, Massachusetts. His journal entries are peppered with geological insights related to these specimens. His final journal entry is a geological interpretation of rain splash erosion.
Thoreau’s river science
The most analytically rigorous science of Thoreau’s life culminated with his 1859 research trip to the library stacks of Harvard College. At the time, he was investigating how the Concord River watershed had changed in response to the construction of a downstream factory dam a century earlier.
Thoreau’s research was a clandestine part of a protracted legal case involving four acts of the state Legislature between 1859 and 1862. Potentially, this was America’s first major environmental assessment because it examined alternative actions to dam removal and weighed environmental protection against socioeconomic costs.
During a span of 18 months, Thoreau carried out nearly 50 discrete research tasks to create dozens of tables of numerical data and a detailed compilation map of the Concord River Valley that’s over 7 feet long. His river science predates that of the United States’ first recognized river scientist by 18 years.
The boldest claim of my latest book is that Thoreau’s sharp swerve toward science in 1851-52 led to the rescue of “Walden,” his most famous work. Specifically, his field research led to an understanding of its namesake place as a natural system of water, air, land, aquifer and life that included humanity. This more complex and inclusive vision transformed what had been an abandoned draft of social critique into the nature writing that became a foundational text for America’s environmental movement.
The Thoreau who built literary castles in the air put the solid foundations of physical science beneath them.
Robert M. Thorson was an unpaid scholarly advisor for the film project described here and appears in the film.
But Epstein’s death is only one facet of the convicted sex offender’s story to spawn and sustain conspiracy theories.
The Department of Justice has released more than 3 million publicly available documents related to the shadowy sex-trafficking networks surrounding Epstein. Journalists and researchers are working to make sense of the massive trove of data, but it is going slowly, and the interface built by the Department of Justice to the documents is unwieldy.
In response, some Americans have taken it upon themselves to dive into the archive. They are using artificial intelligence to develop platforms to make navigating the Epstein files easier and to conjure up new assessments of all the information.
Because the Epstein files are a massive, unstructured dataset made up of PDF files, videos, photographs and other materials, these platforms make it easier for people to see connections where none exist.
Some of the platforms are intentionally masquerading as neutral, data-driven AI research tools but are actually designed by conspiracy theorists to encourage and amplify conspiracy thinking, leading to what I call “platform conspiracism.”
Epstein conspiracy theories often follow a classic logical fallacy known as “post hoc ergo propter hoc” — assuming that because event A happened before event B, event A must have caused event B. For example, in 2017, QAnon participants claimed that there was a secret cabal of satanic pedophiles trafficking children, so by this faulty logic, the subsequent Epstein revelations must be evidence that QAnon was right.
The platform conspiracists have a ready audience because many Americans are concerned about the vast tentacles of Epstein affiliates reaching into government, entertainment, academia and the tech industry. And of course many people simply want to know who is in the files and why. The unintended, or in some cases intended, consequences are that the do-it-yourself conspiracy platforms encourage paranoia and conspiracism.
Each time the Department of Justice releases or tries to not release a new crop of documents, it sparks widespread interest. Social media influencers, for example, immediately share videos of their own interpretations of the files.
Conspiracy masquerading as data analysis
One platform, called the WEBB, promises to use AI for “document intelligence” that can purportedly help researchers explore the Epstein files, flight logs, court documents and depositions.
Using a slick interface with literal red threads animating the screen as a reader moves their mouse, WEBB automates the messy data cleaning tasks that are required when working with unstructured data. The site says WEBB converts, optically records and indexes the files’ contents automatically, making the documents “structured, searchable intelligence.”
Named for Gary Webb, an investigative journalist who reported on an alleged CIA drug trafficking operation, WEBB invites users to imagine themselves as scrappy open-source intelligence researchers. It presents the platform as an objective resource that will be transparent about its functions. But even in the necessary first step of cleaning data, researchers make decisions that can steer the results.
One of the creators of WEBB is purported antisemitic conspiracy influencer Ian Carroll, who has appeared on Alex Jones’ Infowars and other far-right shows espousing conspiracy theories about Jewish cabals, 9/11 Trutherism, Epstein and Pizzagate, the discredited conspiracy theory in which child sex trafficking was allegedly happening at the Comet Ping Pong Pizzeria in Washington.
Carroll, or someone on his team, engages with people who mine the Epstein files through the WEBB interface, sharing their interpretations with his 1.4 million followers. Carroll also posts explainer videos showcasing his own conspiracy theory research with WEBB.
It remains unclear how WEBB won’t hallucinate when it jumbles the Epstein files, JFK reports, 9/11 documents and Book of Enoch together. Carroll is now promoting a product called WEBB Enterprise, which presumably will include more access and tools for a fee.
Conspiracy of data
Whenever Americans are hungry for answers, platforms such as these can more easily masquerade as objective data analysis tools. They feed into a “conspiracy of data,” in which false or misleading information is presented in charts and graphics that create the impression of accuracy and authority.
Legitimate data analysis is complicated, messy and challenging, and best practices call for data analysis tools to emphasize transparency and context. For example, journalists at The New York Times use AI to supplement their work while also acknowledging the potential sloppiness of such tools and need for experts and journalists to do the work.
And as platforms like WEBB add their own datasets, the fodder for the paranoid fantasy of online conspiracy theories grows.
Matthew N. Hannah does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The U.S. is in a bizarre situation in 2026: It’s facing a looming energy shortage, yet the Trump administration is making deals to pay offshore wind developers nearly US$2 billion in taxpayer money to walk away from energy projects.
These politically motivated moves are costing Americans far more than just the buyouts.
Communities have been laying the groundwork for offshore energy projects for years. Offshore wind development brings jobs and economic development that reshape regional economies, with the scale of public and private investment reaching into the hundreds of billions of dollars over years. East Coast communities have built up ports to support the industry and launched job-training programs to prepare workers. Construction, maintenance and shipping businesses have sprung up, along with secondary businesses that support the industry.
Offshore wind farms bring jobs and economic development. State Pier in New London, Conn., serves as a staging site for wind farm construction and supplies. AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey
Losing the projects, and the threat of losing other planned wind farms, will also likely mean higher energy prices. And while some offshore wind farms are moving ahead, developers must account for both lost momentum and increased uncertainty from the Trump administration.
As a result, Americans will bear the economic brunt of these decisions for decades ahead.
How America got to this point
To understand how the U.S. arrived in this predicament, let’s take a step back.
In March 2023, leaders from three U.S. federal agencies under the Biden administration met with the CEOs from American technology and manufacturing giants Microsoft, Amazon, Ford, GM, Dow Chemical and GE at the annual ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit, under the banner of “Affordable, Reliable and Secure American-Made Energy”.
They agreed on a key point: The nation was staring down a severe shortage of electrons to drive American business forward.
Fortunately, solutions abounded. Enormous amounts of onshore wind and solar power had been deployed during the previous five years. More than 80% of all new power additions to the U.S. grid had come from these two sources.
Particularly exciting were plans to build large offshore wind farms up and down the Eastern Seaboard. Taken together, the wind farms would generate 30 gigawatts of new power by 2030, enough to power more than 10 million homes and reduce volatility in energy pricing thanks to long-term power purchase agreements.
The U.S. had one small wind farm at the time, off Rhode Island, and two wind turbines off Virginia, but Europe had been operating large offshore wind projects for over two decades and was building more.
In the months following the 2023 meeting, leasing and permitting for the U.S. mega projects continued, and in some areas construction got underway.
A map of offshore wind lease areas shows how many companies have paid the U.S. to lease areas of ocean for offshore wind farms. A few wind farms off New England are already operating. The lease areas where the Trump administration used taxpayer money to persuade companies to drop their wind farm plans include two TotalEnergies leases – Attentive Energy, off New Jersey, and a lease area off South Carolina – and Bluepoint Wind, also off New Jersey. U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management
Then, the Trump administration arrived in 2025. As president, Donald Trump immediately issued an executive order to halt offshore wind lease sales and any approvals, permits or loans for wind farms. He had made his disdain for wind power clear ever since he lost a fight to stop construction of a small wind farm near his golf course in Scotland in the 2010s.
In March 2026, news outlets began reporting on deals struck in which the federal government would pay three offshore wind project developers hundreds of millions of dollars to cease development of their permitted projects, agree not to build others and repurpose the funds toward fossil fuel projects.
According to reported discussions involving the French energy company TotalEnergies, the money would be paid out through the Department of Interior’s Judgment Fund, intended for payment of legal settlements, despite there not being any active litigation with TotalEnergies.
The other projects agreeing to Trump’s buyouts as of early May were Golden State Wind, in California, and Bluepoint Wind, off New Jersey and New York. Both are co-owned by Ocean Winds, a joint venture of the French energy company Engie and EDP Renewables, headquartered in Spain. The California Energy Commission and members of Congress are now investigating the moves.
Offshore wind means local investment
Regardless of whether these buyouts are even legal, the losing parties will be the American taxpayers and a U.S. economy that needs more electrons on the grid, not fewer.
One analysis projected that deploying 40 GW along the U.S. East Coast by 2035 would generate roughly $140 billion in investment, much of it concentrated in port infrastructure and supply chain development.
Workers in New London, Conn., prepare a generator and its blades for transport to South Fork Wind’s offshore wind farm in 2023. To build an offshore wind farm requires manufacturing jobs, parts suppliers, dockworkers, crane operators, ship crews, as well as the wind farm construction crews and maintenance teams and many more businesses and their employees. AP Photo/Seth Wenig
In 2025, California state lawmakers authorized $225.7 million in spending for offshore wind ports and related facilities.
For these projects to pay off for local communities, however, the regions will need to see the development of wind farms.
Killing jobs
The cancellations of the planned projects also take jobs away from hard-working, blue-collar Americans.
The construction and installation of offshore wind turbines requires the expertise of skilled electrical workers, pipe fitters, welders, pile drivers, iron workers, machinists and carpenters.
Future offshore wind costs depend on investments today. As infrastructure is established and expertise grows, each subsequent project becomes easier to build, less risky and less expensive.
Canceling projects or buying back leases eliminates the electricity those projects would have generated. It also slows the accumulation of experience, scale and supply chain maturity that drive costs down over time.
The result is higher costs for future projects and for electricity ratepayers.
Limiting the supply of homegrown energy will increase energy costs for Americans, especially in the regions where the wind farms were supposed to be located – New York, New Jersey, North Carolina and California.
With the federal buyouts, the U.S. is losing 8 GW of planned electricity generation, enough to power more than 3 million homes. That generation needs to be replaced by other energy sources and expanding power transmission lines that can take seven to 10 years to get permits for and build out. The leased projects were on their way to providing new clean power generation fairly quickly. Eliminating them restarts the project clock.
Reliance on dirtier, conventional forms of power generation will increase along with foreign energy imports, such as electricity delivered from Canada to New York, leading to higher and more volatile electricity prices.
Evidence from Europe shows that offshore wind can also reduce electricity costs for consumers by lowering wholesale prices and reducing dependence on fossil fuels and their volatile prices.
Vineyard Wind I, an offshore wind farm completed in 2026, with 806 MW of generation – enough to power about 400,000 homes – is projected to save Massachusetts customers about $1.4 billion on electricity bills over the next 20 years. With a fixed-price, 20-year contract, the project also lowered prices during cold snaps and peak demand for gas, reducing volatility and cost.
From jobs to local economic development to power costs, we believe canceling these offshore wind projects is a bad deal for American taxpayers.
Christopher Niezrecki receives funding from from the National Science Foundation, Office of Naval Research, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, ARROW Center, and several companies that support the WindSTAR Industry-University Cooperative Research Center.
Ben Link serves on the Maryland Clean Energy Center Board of Directors.
Zoe Getman-Pickering receives funding from The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center and Maryland Energy Administration. She is affiliated with ARROW based at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. ARROW is a member of NE4Wind and sits on the advisory board for The Pacific Offshore Wind Consortium.
