Researchers say that increasing potassium intake, rather than focusing only on reducing sodium, could lead to better blood pressure control. By addressing both nutrients together, this approach could strengthen efforts to prevent hypertension and reduce the risk of serious cardiovascular problems.

The potential impact is enormous. High blood pressure, also known as hypertension, affects more than 1.28 billion adults worldwide and is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, including heart attacks and strokes. Although public health recommendations have traditionally emphasized cutting sodium, researchers now argue that getting enough potassium deserves just as much attention.

Why Potassium Matters for Blood Pressure

Sodium and potassium are essential minerals that help regulate fluid balance, nerve signaling, and muscle function. Both also influence blood pressure, but they affect the body in different ways.

Eating too much sodium can cause the body to retain additional fluid, increasing the pressure inside blood vessels. Potassium helps counter some of sodium’s effects by supporting the kidneys in removing excess sodium through urine. It also contributes to the normal functioning of blood vessel walls, which plays an important role in maintaining healthy blood pressure.

In a new report, physicians and health experts argue that dietary recommendations should address these two minerals together. Rather than treating sodium reduction as the primary solution, they propose combining it with greater potassium consumption to achieve stronger results.

“It is time to view dietary interventions holistically because food components interact and physiology is integrative across systems,” said Naomi Fukagawa, M.D. Ph.D., professor of medicine emerita at the Robert Larner, M.D. College of Medicine at the University of Vermont and first author on the report. “Growing evidence shows that increasing dietary potassium as well as reducing sodium intake work together to better manage hypertension.”

A Major Rethink of Blood Pressure Guidelines

The report, published in the peer-reviewed American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, was supported by the IAFNS Sodium in Food and Health Implications Committee.

The researchers examined the scientific evidence underlying current sodium and potassium recommendations, along with practical ways to reduce sodium consumption and increase potassium intake. They also explored the obstacles to implementing these changes and identified areas where additional research and updated public health policies could help improve outcomes.

One of the central concerns is that many people consume too much sodium while getting nowhere near enough potassium. Both dietary patterns can contribute to elevated blood pressure, making them important targets for prevention and treatment.

Despite widespread efforts to encourage people to limit salt, average sodium consumption continues to exceed recommended levels. Meanwhile, potassium intake remains “far below optimal levels in both developed and developing nations,” according to the authors.

This imbalance suggests that focusing primarily on what people should eat less of may be overlooking an important opportunity to improve cardiovascular health by encouraging them to consume more of a beneficial nutrient.

How to Get More Potassium in Your Diet

Potassium is naturally present in many familiar foods, including fruits, vegetables, legumes, and dairy products. Bananas, potatoes, beans, leafy greens, and yogurt are examples of foods that can help increase potassium intake.

Another possibility is replacing some sodium chloride, the main ingredient in ordinary table salt, with potassium salts. These substitutes can help reduce sodium while simultaneously increasing potassium, potentially addressing both dietary goals at once.

However, creating these products presents challenges for food manufacturers. Adding too much potassium salt can produce an unpleasant metallic taste, limiting how much can be used without affecting flavor. Manufacturers must therefore find a balance that improves nutritional content while keeping foods appealing to consumers.

Increasing potassium is also not appropriate for everyone. People with kidney disease or those taking certain medications may have difficulty regulating potassium levels, so potassium supplements and potassium-based salt substitutes should be used with medical guidance when these concerns apply.

A New Strategy for Fighting High Blood Pressure

The researchers emphasize that reducing sodium remains essential. Their proposal is not to abandon existing advice, but to expand it by recognizing that potassium intake is another major factor in blood pressure regulation.

The authors conclude that “dietary sodium reduction is a foundational strategy for hypertension prevention and management. However, new evidence supports a broadening of the current approach that focuses solely on sodium reduction and provides equal emphasis on increasing potassium intake.”

For the more than one billion people living with hypertension, this shift in thinking could have significant implications. Instead of concentrating almost exclusively on reducing salt, future dietary recommendations may increasingly emphasize the combined benefits of consuming less sodium and more potassium.

The underlying message is straightforward: better blood pressure control may depend not only on what people remove from their diets, but also on what they add.

The rover had actually come close to breaking the record about two months earlier. On Sol 1947, Perseverance was just 200 meters short of the milestone, a distance it could have covered in a single trip using its Autonomous Navigation (AutoNav) system.

But reaching the record was not the team’s immediate priority. Perseverance was exploring an area filled with scientifically valuable ancient rock formations, so it spent weeks making short trips between locations to examine exposed rock surfaces. These investigations included grinding away thin layers of rock and conducting detailed measurements up close. Once the scientific work was complete, the rover resumed its journey and soon surpassed the previous distance record.

“Two months ago, (Perseverance) sat about 200 meters away from the milestone, a distance easily achievable with a single drive… However, the rover found itself in a very scientifically interesting area and spent time (investigating) ancient rock outcrops. When Perseverance was finally ready to move on to a new site, it sailed past the record.”

How NASA Improved Perseverance’s Driving Capabilities

Covering more than 28 miles on Mars has required Perseverance to overcome difficult terrain while testing new approaches to robotic driving. Its journeys through tightly packed boulder fields and across steep hillsides have given NASA engineers valuable experience, helping them improve the rover’s ability to navigate hazardous landscapes.

To expand what Perseverance can safely handle, engineers conducted thousands of computer simulations and adjusted several operating limits. The rover can now tolerate tilts of up to 24 degrees, while the minimum clearance beneath its protective belly pan has been reduced to 20 centimeters (about 7.9 inches).

The team also introduced several important improvements to the driving system. Updated braking software helps the rover avoid collisions with rocks, and the electrical current limits for its steering motors have been nearly doubled. Engineers also added “dynamic slip tables” to its flight software, allowing the rover to better anticipate how much its wheels might slip on different surfaces.

Another technique involves driving across slopes in ways that help keep the wheels securely positioned on exposed bedrock. Together, these changes allow Perseverance to handle challenging terrain more effectively as it continues exploring Mars.

A Mars Rover That Can Navigate Without GPS

Among the rover’s most significant technological advances is a system called onboard Global Localization (GBLC). This technology gives Perseverance a way to determine its position on Mars without relying on directions from Earth.

The system uses a powerful commercial processor originally installed in the Ingenuity Helicopter Base Station. By comparing images captured from the Martian surface with pictures taken from orbit, it can calculate the rover’s location in global coordinates after completing a drive (as though we had GPS on a world without it).

Knowing its position independently is a major advantage. It allows Perseverance to cover greater distances without needing people on Earth to repeatedly determine its location, potentially making future exploration faster and more efficient.

However, this approach introduced an engineering challenge. Unlike the rover’s main flight computer, the additional processor was not specifically designed to withstand the intense radiation conditions on Mars. The planet has a thin atmosphere and no global magnetic field, leaving electronics exposed to radiation that can interfere with their operation.

In particular, radiation can cause “transient bit flips” that unexpectedly change information stored in computer memory, potentially disrupting software. To address this problem, engineers developed software protections that help the processor operate reliably despite the harsh environment.

The Next Frontier in Autonomous Mars Exploration

NASA is also investigating how generative AI could make the rover even more independent. As missions involve longer journeys and increasingly complex operations, the team wants to reduce the time and resources needed to plan safe routes.

The technology could help generate driving plans for the many individual segments of a longer journey, providing guidance that Perseverance’s AutoNav system can use to navigate the terrain.

After traveling 45 kilometers (more than 28 miles), Perseverance has already provided engineers with extensive experience in navigating the Martian landscape. Those lessons are now shaping new technologies that could transform how robotic explorers operate on distant worlds.

And the journey is far from over. As Perseverance continues climbing higher along the rim of its Martian crater, NASA is preparing for the next major advances in autonomous exploration.

rticularly haunting appearance when viewed from above. Its rocky and icy features resemble a grinning skull seen from the side, seemingly gazing toward nearby Devil Island. But behind this unusual sight is a more serious story about the changing condition of Antarctica’s glaciers.

NASA Satellite Images Reveal Antarctica’s Icy Skull

NASA satellite images show the island during the beginning of Antarctic autumn and during spring. The images were captured by the OLI (Operational Land Imager) aboard Landsat 9 on March 22, 2025, and October 10, 2026, respectively. (Clouds obscured the island in March 2026.)

Several natural landmarks create the skull’s distinctive appearance. A nunatak, which is a rocky peak rising above the surrounding ice, resembles an empty eye socket. A lateral moraine, a ridge of material left along the side of a glacier, outlines the mouth. Meanwhile, Bahía del Diablo (Devil’s Bay) Glacier forms what looks like the skull’s lower jaw.

The two satellite views also reveal a striking difference in snow coverage. In March 2025, snow blanketed the icy terrain, consistent with March being the wettest month in the region. By October 2026, however, extensive sections of the island were free of snow, leaving darker glacier ice exposed.

Glaciologist Mauri Pelto of Nichols College explained that unusually warm conditions during the winter of 2026, especially in June, contributed to the unusually large areas of exposed ice observed in October. According to Pelto, the exposed surfaces on Vega Island and neighboring islands suggest that relatively little fresh snow accumulated over the winter. Some of that snow was also lost through sublimation, when ice turns directly into water vapor, and through strong winds that swept snow away.

“The winter season was no treat for these glaciers.”

Why Exposed Ice Could Accelerate Glacier Melting

The lack of snow could have important consequences as Antarctica moves into its warmer months. Fresh snow reflects much of the sunlight that reaches it, while darker, exposed ice absorbs more solar energy. As daylight increases and temperatures rise, these darker surfaces are likely to warm more quickly, potentially speeding up glacier melting.

Even a modest amount of new snowfall could temporarily slow that process by covering the exposed ice.

“Even a thin cover of new snow from a spring storm would be helpful in the short run,” Pelto said.

Continued melting could also gradually transform the island’s unsettling appearance. The same ice and rock formations that give Vega Island its skull shape are vulnerable to changes as the glaciers retreat.

“When entombed in snow and ice, the skull is preserved. But when exposed to melt, it weathers away, which will lead to a changing jawline and expanding eye socket.”

Decades of Glacier Loss on Vega Island

Scientists have been studying Vega Island’s glaciers for decades, and satellite observations have played an important role in documenting their condition.

One of the earliest detailed surveys appeared in a 1982 study that used early Landsat satellite data, aerial photography, and topographic maps to examine the island’s ice cover. Researchers identified four ice caps, along with rocky cliffs extending above the ice and glaciers flowing outward from the ice caps. Altogether, they documented 29 glaciers across Vega Island.

One of these, Devil’s Bay Glacier, has been monitored in detail since the Antarctic summer of 1998-1999. Measurements collected over that period show an overall reduction in the glacier’s mass.

The changes are not limited to Devil’s Bay Glacier. Satellite observations spanning recent decades reveal that other glaciers on Vega Island have also lost ice, exposing increasing amounts of the underlying bedrock.

Vega Island’s Remarkable Antarctic Survival Story

Long before satellites began monitoring its ice, Vega Island played an unexpected role in one of Antarctica’s dramatic early exploration stories.

The Swedish Antarctic Expedition of 1901-1903 traveled to the region to investigate the geography, geology, climate, and wildlife of the eastern Antarctic Peninsula and surrounding areas. What began as a scientific mission turned into a desperate struggle for survival.

During the expedition, the explorers became separated into three groups, each forced to endure the Antarctic winter in a different location. Their situation became even more dangerous when pack ice destroyed their ship, leaving them stranded in one of the world’s most unforgiving environments.

Despite the ordeal, Vega Island eventually became the setting for a moment of hope. In spring 1903, two of the separated groups reunited at a location later named Cape Well-met, near what now resembles the “forehead” of the island’s giant skull.

Not long afterward, an Argentinean expedition arrived and rescued the survivors, bringing their extraordinary Antarctic ordeal to an end.

Today, Vega Island remains a place where dramatic natural formations, a remarkable history of exploration, and the effects of a changing climate come together. Its ghostly skull may be one of Antarctica’s most unusual sights, but the gradual transformation of the ice that shapes it tells an even more important story.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.

Researchers at UCLA Health found that people with long-term residential exposure to chlorpyrifos, a widely used pesticide, had more than 2.5 times the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease compared with those who were not exposed. Laboratory experiments also revealed how the chemical can interfere with the brain’s ability to remove damaged proteins, leading to the loss of nerve cells essential for controlling movement.

The study, published in Molecular Neurodegeneration, goes beyond identifying a connection between pesticide exposure and Parkinson’s. By examining what happens inside affected brain cells, the researchers uncovered a biological mechanism that could eventually provide new ways to protect the brain from damage.

A Common Pesticide With a Troubling Link to Parkinson’s

Parkinson’s disease affects nearly one million Americans. The progressive neurological condition gradually damages brain cells involved in movement, often causing tremors, muscle stiffness, slowed movement, and difficulties with coordination.

One of the defining features of Parkinson’s is the loss of neurons that produce dopamine. This chemical messenger allows nerve cells to communicate and helps the brain coordinate smooth, controlled movements. As dopamine levels decline, the brain becomes less capable of regulating those movements.

Although inherited genetic factors can influence who develops Parkinson’s, researchers have increasingly focused on environmental exposures that may also contribute to the disease. Pesticides are of particular interest because some chemicals used to kill insects or other agricultural pests can also interfere with biological processes in the nervous system.

Chlorpyrifos has been used extensively in agriculture for decades. Its residential use was banned in the United States in 2001, and agricultural applications faced additional restrictions in 2021. However, the pesticide remains in use on many crops in the United States and continues to be widely applied in other countries.

Because exposure may have occurred years before symptoms appeared, understanding the potential long-term effects of chlorpyrifos is particularly important. Identifying specific chemicals associated with Parkinson’s could help researchers develop prevention strategies and determine whether previously exposed individuals might benefit from additional neurological monitoring.

Researchers Find More Than Double the Parkinson’s Risk

To investigate the connection, UCLA scientists examined information from 829 people diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and 824 people without the condition. All participants were enrolled in the university’s long-running Parkinson’s Environment and Genes study, which investigates how environmental exposures and inherited factors influence Parkinson’s risk.

The researchers combined California’s detailed pesticide application records with participants’ residential and workplace address histories. This allowed them to estimate how much chlorpyrifos individuals may have encountered over time based on where they lived and worked.

The results revealed a striking association. People with prolonged residential exposure to chlorpyrifos had more than 2.5 times the risk of Parkinson’s disease compared with those who had no such exposure.

Although this population analysis could not establish that the pesticide directly caused Parkinson’s, the researchers took an additional step to investigate whether chlorpyrifos could produce the kinds of brain damage seen in people with the disease.

How the Pesticide Damages Brain Cells

The team exposed mice to chlorpyrifos in aerosol form for 11 weeks. The inhalation approach was designed to resemble a common way people may encounter pesticides in the environment.

The exposed mice developed movement difficulties and lost neurons responsible for producing dopamine. This was particularly significant because the degeneration of these same nerve cells is a central feature of Parkinson’s disease.

The researchers also detected inflammation in the animals’ brains, along with abnormal accumulations of a protein called alpha-synuclein.

Under normal conditions, alpha-synuclein is found in nerve cells and plays a role in their functioning. However, the protein can accumulate in abnormal clumps that are closely associated with Parkinson’s disease. These deposits are a major focus of research into why certain brain cells gradually deteriorate.

Together, the findings showed that chlorpyrifos exposure could reproduce several important characteristics of Parkinson’s in laboratory animals, strengthening the biological evidence behind the human population findings.

Scientists Uncover a Breakdown in the Brain’s Cleanup System

The researchers then turned to zebrafish to investigate exactly how chlorpyrifos harms neurons. These small fish are frequently used in neuroscience research because they allow scientists to study biological processes involved in nerve cell development and survival.

Their experiments pointed to a disruption in autophagy, a natural cellular maintenance process that helps remove damaged proteins and other unwanted material.

Autophagy functions much like an internal recycling system. Cells use it to break down worn-out or defective components so that potentially harmful material does not accumulate. This process is especially important for neurons, many of which must remain functional throughout a person’s lifetime.

When chlorpyrifos interfered with this cleanup system, damaged material accumulated inside neurons, contributing to their deterioration.

The researchers also made an encouraging discovery. When they restored the cellular cleanup process or removed synuclein protein in their experiments, the neurons were protected from damage.

This finding suggests that the pesticide’s harmful effects may depend partly on a biological pathway that researchers could potentially target with future treatments.

A Potential New Strategy for Protecting Against Parkinson’s

The discovery raises the possibility of developing therapies that strengthen the brain’s cellular cleanup mechanisms and help protect vulnerable neurons. Such treatments might eventually prove useful for people exposed to chlorpyrifos or other pesticides that disrupt similar processes.

However, the protective effects have so far been demonstrated in laboratory models. Additional research will be needed to determine whether enhancing autophagy can prevent or reduce pesticide-related brain damage in humans.

Scientists also want to investigate whether other commonly used pesticides interfere with the same cellular mechanisms. Although chlorpyrifos use has declined in the United States, many people were exposed before restrictions were introduced, and related agricultural chemicals remain widely used.

The findings could also help identify people with a history of substantial pesticide exposure who may benefit from closer neurological monitoring. Earlier recognition of possible changes in brain function could become increasingly important as researchers work toward treatments that slow or prevent Parkinson’s progression.

Dr. Jeff Bronstein, professor of Neurology at UCLA Health and the study’s senior author, emphasized the importance of identifying a particular chemical rather than treating all pesticides as a single category.

“This study establishes chlorpyrifos as a specific environmental risk factor for Parkinson’s disease, not just pesticides as a general class,” said Dr. Jeff Bronstein.

“By showing the biological mechanism in animal models, we’ve demonstrated that this association is likely causal. The discovery that autophagy dysfunction drives the neurotoxicity also points us toward potential therapeutic strategies to protect vulnerable brain cells.”