Trump Rejects Climate Science, Winter Goes Haywire, And ‘penisgate’ Rumors Arise At The Olympics

Kendra Pierre-Louis: For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Kendra Pierre-Louis, successful for Rachel Feltman. You’re listening to our play subject news roundup.

First up, nan Trump management announced past week it would beryllium rescinding a technological uncovering that has served arsenic nan instauration for U.S. national ambiance argumentation since 2009.

[CLIP: President Donald Trump speaking astatine a White House property briefing: “We are officially terminating nan alleged endangerment finding, a disastrous Obama-era argumentation that severely damaged nan American car manufacture and massively drove up prices for American consumers.”]

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To return america done what this could mean for U.S. ambiance action we said to Andrea Thompson, elder table editor for life subject astatine Scientific American.

Hello, Andrea, acknowledgment for joining america today.

Andrea Thompson: Thanks for having me

Pierre-Louis: So nan ground for national ambiance argumentation successful this state has been thing called nan “endangerment finding.” Can you show america what this is?

Thompson: Yeah, truthful fundamentally you commencement pinch nan Clean Air Act, truthful this is nan authorities passed successful nan ’70s that gives nan EPA nan authority to modulate aerial pollutants that impact quality health. And truthful nan endangerment uncovering is benignant of nan ineligible and technological statement that, yes, greenhouse gases do impact quality health.

So greenhouse gases are—the main 1 is c dioxide. Another really important 1 is methane. These gases are released by combustion engines and cars and trucks, business uses. So arsenic they’re burned that gets added into nan ambiance and, effectively, those gases preferentially trap infrared radiation, aliases heat, that’s coming distant from nan Earth, truthful nan somesthesia of nan ambiance and nan aboveground of nan Earth is getting warmer and warmer and warmer each year.

And truthful nan endangerment finding, this came astir because of a suit from biology groups and states and led to a Supreme Court lawsuit successful 2007 called Massachusetts v. EPA. And nan Supreme Court did norm that, yes, this counts arsenic an “air pollutant” nether nan Clean Air Act. And truthful past nan EPA had to create this endangerment finding, which past is nan ground for them to rumor regulations connected greenhouse gases, successful peculiar for cars and trucks.

Pierre-Louis: And truthful past week nan Trump management has said that they’re rescinding, aliases rolling back, this endangerment finding. What does that mean?

Thompson: So that fundamentally intends that nan EPA doesn’t person to modulate greenhouse gases nether nan Clean Air Act. The constrictive scope of this is connected cars and trucks. But regulations of greenhouse gases from different sectors, industry, benignant of harken backmost to this ruling, truthful it could person knock-on effects arsenic well. And it does mean, effectively, nan U.S. is going to beryllium emitting much greenhouse gases than it would person had this uncovering not been repealed.

Now, of course, nan U.S. isn’t nan only emitter. Emissions are a world thing, truthful we’re each affected by each of them.

Pierre-Louis: But we’re 1 of nan largest ...

Thompson: Yes.

Pierre-Louis: Historical emitters.

Thompson: Yes, we’re nan largest humanities emitter, truthful from a fairness perspective, that would mean we request to lend to bringing those down. And what that means: nan much greenhouse gases you dump into nan ambiance each year, nan faster temperatures emergence and nan faster you commencement to spot these effects—wildfires, floods, power waves are a immense one—and, you know, today’s children will spot overmuch bigger impacts than you aliases I aliases our parents aliases grandparents person seen from them.

Pierre-Louis: That is—that’s a spot grim. In immoderate ways, it’s applicable to nan benignant of upwind that overmuch of nan state has been experiencing. You and I some unrecorded successful New York City ...

Thompson: Yes.

Pierre-Louis: And it’s been bitterly cold. But retired West it’s been very warm, specified that parts of Florida person been colder than Anchorage and Juneau, Alaska.

Thompson: Mm-hmm.

Pierre-Louis: And you wrote astir this successful an article for SciAm, truthful I’m going to inquire you: What’s going connected pinch nan weather?

Thompson: [Laughs.] Yeah, truthful this involves everybody’s favourite wintertime upwind bugaboo, nan polar vortex—basically this fast-moving existent of aerial that circles nan Arctic—it keeps each of that frigid Arctic aerial pinned in. But sometimes it weakens. And conscionable for illustration slower-moving rivers person these, you know, very sinuous meanders compared to fast-moving rivers, erstwhile nan polar vortex weakens it develops these benignant of meanders and loops.

And immoderate of those loops spell southward, and erstwhile they do, nan Arctic acold aerial gets benignant of fto retired of nan freezer, arsenic they say—comes down. [Laughs.] That’s what you and I and a batch of group connected nan East Coast person been experiencing nan past fewer weeks. But wherever you person a meander going southward, adjacent to that you person to person 1 going northward, truthful past lukewarm aerial comes up pinch that. And that’s what nan West Coast has been in.

And these benignant of patterns tin besides get benignant of stuck, and they thin to do truthful based connected benignant of a inheritance information that’s related to nan Earth’s geography. So nan location of nan Rockies and wherever nan Pacific meets nan West Coast, you thin to get what they telephone a ridge, an area of precocious pressure, aliases that benignant of northward loop. And past complete nan East you thin to get a trough, area of debased pressure, aliases that benignant of southward loop.

And that’s what’s happened complete nan past fewer weeks. And truthful we’ve seen teeth-chattering acold [Laughs] but erstwhile you really look astatine nan records—and this is wherever ambiance alteration comes in—no 1 saw nan coldest, you know, December, January connected grounds astatine all. A ample chunk of nan West saw nan warmest wintertime connected record.

It tin consciousness truthful acold to those of america successful nan East because this benignant of acold utilized to beryllium much communal and hasn’t been.

Pierre-Louis: It’s absorbing that you opportunity that because I utilized to ain snowfall boots; I don’t anymore because we haven’t had nan benignant of snowfall that earmarked my childhood. But I do think, to your point, that that’s different constituent of this, is that we’re losing nan representation of what upwind should beryllium for illustration because of ambiance change.

Thompson: Yeah, no, absolutely.

Pierre-Louis: Thank you truthful overmuch for taking nan clip to speak pinch us.

Thompson: Thanks for having me.

Pierre-Louis: Speaking of frigid temperatures, I was precocious scrolling connected societal media and came crossed images of chaotic horses successful nan Outer Banks of North Carolina being wrapped successful fiberglass insulation to support them warm. As personification who sometimes struggles to observe AI images moreover I could show these images were fake. After all, fiberglass insulation is famously irritating, chaotic horses are often mean, and why wouldn’t group person conscionable wrapped them successful blankets?

Still, Andrew D. Thaler, a deep-sea ecologist, felt compelled to statement nan images were clone connected nan societal media level Bluesky, and I get it. In a world wherever hunt engines connection up AI summaries, ChatGPT generates essays, and Sora produces videos it tin consciousness difficult to cognize what’s real.

To thief combat this problem governments are progressively floating policies for illustration nan European Union’s AI Act, which mandates that AI-generated contented beryllium branded arsenic such, among different requirements. But a study published Tuesday successful nan journal PNAS Nexus suggests that this attack mightiness not beryllium a panacea.

To measure this researchers from Stanford University surveyed astir 1,600 people, showing them governmental content. The messaging was presented successful 1 of 3 ways: pinch a explanation indicating it came from a quality argumentation expert, a marker saying it was an master AI model’s creation aliases pinch nary explanation astatine all. The extremity was to find if knowing thing was AI-generated would effect whether group trusted nan content—but it did not.

The researchers recovered that labeling didn’t lead to immoderate important differences successful really group felt astir nan policies, if they believed nan connection to beryllium meticulous aliases whether they intended to stock it. The scientists concluded that while adding an AI explanation improves transparency, argumentation makers whitethorn request to see different strategies to thief group beryllium much critical—and little trusting—of AI.

And successful Olympics news we bring you nan subject down nan bizarre ungraded known arsenic “Penisgate.”

If you’re unfamiliar, Penisgate involves Olympic skis jumpers allegedly injecting their penises pinch hyaluronic acerb to get a competitory edge. You whitethorn person heard of hyaluronic acerb successful nan discourse of tegument care. It’s often utilized successful dermal fillers pinch nan extremity of smoothing retired wrinkles and restoring facial volume. Hyaluronic acerb tin besides thief trim knee symptom related to osteoarthritis.

So what does injecting your penis pinch filler person to do pinch perchance getting an Olympic medal? The reply is physics.

Before each skis jumping play starts athletes acquisition 3D scans to get precise measurements for their highly tight-fitted suits. That’s because moreover a mini magnitude of further cloth tin boost a skis jumper’s performance. Take a 2025 study successful nan diary Frontiers successful Sports and Active Living that looked astatine really a suit’s aerial permeability and size impacted skis jumping. It recovered that an summation successful suit size of astir 3 quarters of an inch accrued assistance by 5 percent and resistance by 4 percent. Put simply, a larger suit allowed an jock to jump further. In fact, nan researchers recovered successful simulations that bumping up a suit’s size by conscionable that mini magnitude allowed athletes to jump an further 19 feet.

This is wherever hyaluronic acerb comes in. Injecting nan penis pinch filler would make nan organ larger. If an jock did truthful earlier they sewage measured for their suit, it would beryllium made somewhat bigger. The instrumentality is that nan hyaluronic acerb could beryllium dissolved later pinch an enzyme, which successful mentation would let racers to cheat their measurement into a bigger suit—though it wouldn’t beryllium consequence free. An Ars Technica article noted that successful uncommon instances individuals person knowledgeable terrible broadside effects aft getting penile filler injections. In 1 lawsuit a 31-year-old man knowledgeable an infection truthful terrible he developed sepsis and aggregate organ failure, starring doctors to surgically region nan filler. It’s a reminder that short word gains tin person agelong word consequences.

That’s each for today. Tune successful connected Wednesday, erstwhile we look astatine really researchers are turning to AI to make homes safer for group pinch Alzheimer’s and dementia.

Science Quickly is produced by me, Kendra Pierre-Louis, on pinch Fonda Mwangi, Sushmita Pathak and Jeff DelViscio. This section was edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our taxable euphony was composed by Dominic Smith. Subscribe to Scientific American for much up-to-date and in-depth subject news.

For Scientific American, this is Kendra Pierre-Louis. Have a awesome week!