The findings based on the caracal — a wild cat native to Africa with distinctive tufted ears — demonstrate how social media can harness support for the predators, which some farmers shoot and poison.

Results show that the mammal’s similarity to a domestic feline has attracted thousands of followers to internet feeds about caracal conservation. The researchers suggest this online appeal is linked to the phenomenon where cat images, videos, and memes go viral.

They highlight how ‘charismatic’ smaller mammals such as the caracal can be used as a ‘flagship species’ to communicate the aims of scientific research in rapidly urbanizing areas.

“Using an aesthetic species such as the caracal is an effective way to capture public attention to communicate the importance of conserving urban wildlife,” say Drs Gabriella Leighton and Laurel Serieys from the University of Cape Town.

“These findings highlight the use of smaller carnivores as flagship conservation species for rapidly urbanizing areas.

“This paper contributes to our understanding of the various ways in which the public can participate in science. It shows how charismatic species can contribute to conservation and public awareness of biodiversity in urban areas.

“The research demonstrates how a public interest in urban ecology and the global phenomenon of ‘cats on the internet’…can be harnessed to leverage conservation action.”

Better public engagement is key to achieving conservation goals, especially in biodiversity hotspots. A range of species are both unique to these regions and endangered, and these threatened areas are increasingly urbanized and understudied.

Cape Town is located within a biodiversity hotspot and home to the caracal, an elusive mammal regarded as vermin by livestock farmers elsewhere in South Africa.

The Urban Caracal Project (UCP) was set up in December 2014 to explore caracal ecology and social media was used to influence awareness and perceptions towards caracal conservation in an urban setting. The UCP is run by a research team hosted by the Institute for Communities and Wildlife in Africa at the University of Cape Town.

The project communicates its works in several ways including via a website but most interactions are via social media.

The study authors used Google Trends to assess the global popularity of caracals from 2004 to present day, before and after UCP was set up. They compared the interest with that in a similar African wildcat — the serval.

They also used recent Facebook and Instagram data to analyze all material UCP had posted online and looked at direct public engagement such as reported caracal sightings, rescues, and finds of the wildcats dead.

Results showed a doubling in search interest in the term ‘caracal’ since UCP was launched. This represents a 91% increase compared to that for ‘servals’ which rose by 76% in the same period. The authors say this suggests the project has helped raise awareness of the caracal as a species worldwide.

Other findings include the fact the project now has more than 16,800 Facebook followers and more than 7,300 on Instagram, figures that represent ‘micro-influencer’ status. Most are from people in South Africa but also include those in the UK, India, and the US.

The UCP has received traffic and interactions from accounts linked to the ‘Big Floppa’ meme inspired by an overweight caracal born in a cattery in Kyiv, Ukraine. Again, this links to the popularity of ‘cats on the internet’ according to the authors.

The authors also say caracal deaths reported by the public — often via WhatsApp and social media — allow them to perform post-mortems. They can then assess threats to the caracal population and roadkill patterns.

Tissue analysis has revealed the animals are exposed to pollutants and pesticides, such as rat poison. Samples have even been collected from otherwise unreachable areas thanks to this citizen network.

The sightings and Facebook comments provide conservationists with useful information on how caracals respond to humans. Most encounters occur on roads or paths with caracals described as ‘chilled’ or ‘calm’ before quickly moving away.

The most common positive adjective used in Facebook comments is ‘beautiful’, and ‘sad’ for negative posts usually in response to a death or population threat. This demonstrates the extent to which social media engagement has led to people caring about caracal welfare, add the authors.

In a new paper, drawing on accounts from nearly three dozen previously incarcerated people, researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder reveal a disturbing story of how prisons and jails in Colorado have failed to provide humane protections from growing environmental hazards brought on by climate change. In many cases, the authors report, inadequate policies and dated infrastructure leave incarcerated people uniquely vulnerable to these harms, such as extreme heat and wildfire smoke.

The study was published Oct 13 in the journal Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space.

“There are so many harrowing accounts of how this system is built to operate in one way and is not good at changing or responding dynamically,” said the paper’s first author, Ben Barron, who did the research as a doctoral student in the Department of Geography. “As climate hazards become more frequent and intense, dynamic responses are the only thing that’s going to protect these people when their agency is severely limited.”

The study comes on the heels of multiple reports of Florida and North Carolina prisons failing to evacuate incarcerated people when two deadly hurricanes, Helene and Milton, struck the East Coast. People in those facilities reportedly had no power or running water for days, with sewage overflowing into their cells.

Increasing climate risks

Studies have shown that climate change is likely to increase the intensity and frequency of extreme climate events. In Colorado, that means people are more likely to experience strong heat waves, winter storms, flooding and poor air quality from wildfires.

Barron and a team of experts in engineering, environmental design, and environmental justice set out to study how incarceration facilities cope with increasing climate hazards, an understudied topic in academia.

“As an engineer, it’s shocking to me how little is included in our education and training about these social injustices and our role in amplifying them,” said co-author Shideh Dashti, associate professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering. “There is a lot of focus on the strength and stability of these facilities and little to no attention to the wellbeing and safety of incarcerated people.”

In their previous research, the team uncovered that at least three-quarters of Colorado’s jails and prisons — housing over 80% of the state’s incarcerated population — are susceptible to at least one natural disaster in the coming year. About half of the facilities are at risk of extreme heat.

To better understand how disaster planning works inside prisons and jails, the team first reached out to carceral facilities. But the authors said none of the facilities responded to the team’s interview request. So they decided to speak directly with those who have lived through climate hazards there.

Barron interviewed 35 formerly incarcerated individuals from 23 prisons and 15 jails in Colorado. The team found that over 60% of the interviewees said they had direct experience with at least one of the four main climate hazards in Colorado: extreme heat, extreme cold, wildfires and floods. All participants said they had experienced uncomfortable temperatures, poor air quality, or water issues, such as burst pipes and sewage backups.

“It’s so important to have this opportunity to amplify the voices and experiences of these people, especially in a context where the system is actively trying to keep those stories from being heard,” Barron said. The researchers said there have been incidents in which incarceration facilities attempted to cover up conditions by falsifying data, such as indoor temperatures.

Failing infrastructure

Summer 2024 was the hottest on record in the Northern Hemisphere and the second hottest in Denver. But many prisons and jails lack air conditioning or don’t use it properly, the team found.

Interviewees mentioned that some facilities only turn on the air conditioning on an arbitrary date that does not correlate with the actual outside temperature. As a result, residents can be stuck in an extremely hot or cold cell for weeks.

“That kind of discomfort, over long periods of time, I suppose is a very small form of torture,” one interviewee, who spent 34 years incarcerated, told Barron.

More than one-third of interviewees experienced at least one wildfire while incarcerated. They described how smoke entered from cracked windows and ineffective ventilation systems and burnt their noses and eyes. People said they were left to breathe soot and ash for days.

To date, Colorado has only evacuated one prison due to wildfires. In 2013, the Royal Gorge fire forced a facility in southern Colorado to evacuate 900 incarcerated people to an empty facility. The process was poorly organized and inefficient, according to one interviewee who was evacuated.

“These buildings are designed to keep people in, not effectively get them out,” said Barron, adding that they were unable to confirm whether the facilities have set evacuation plans.

The researchers say their findings reflect a national pattern.

In North Carolina, where torrential rain from Hurricane Helene inundated the western part of the state, individuals held in several incarceration facilities reported living without light or running water for days, with some forced to sleep in rooms where toilets overflowed with feces. Similarly, several jails and prisons in Florida refused to evacuate their residents ahead of Hurricane Milton, despite mandatory evacuation orders issued for the areas.

“The fact that in the U.S. someone could be arrested for abandoning a dog in a flood, but nobody’s being held accountable when human beings are left in jail cells when water rises, is a huge contradiction in our system,” said co-author Phaedra Pezzullo, professor in the Department of Communication.

A difficult battle

Some study participants said that they could be punished for filing complaints about their living conditions.

Many of them came up with their own solutions. For example, some intentionally flooded their cells to cool down in the water. Others used cardboard and plastic to block cracks in the windows and keep wildfire smoke out.

The team hopes the study will inspire more research around climate change adaptation, mitigation and prevention while considering these underheard voices.

The researchers note that some state legislators are already working to improve conditions inside incarceration facilities, but progress often hits roadblocks, partly due to differing opinions on what punishment should look like.

“Even if we fully agree that the response to a crime is that you should be locked in a cell for a certain amount of time, nowhere in the law does it say you should be exposed to poor air quality, extreme temperatures, or the risk of living in sewage water for a week,” Barron said. “These vastly exceed unreasonable, disproportional punishment.”

Batteries store and release energy as ions shift between electrodes, usually through a liquid electrolyte. However, ORNL researchers engineered a battery in which sodium ions travel through a more durable and energy-packed solid electrolyte made with enhanced conductivity.

Solid electrolytes are considered the next frontier of batteries, if scientists can address challenges such as understanding how they fail in high-demand conditions. The ORNL-led team ran the battery under high current or voltage within a powerful X-ray beam. At the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory, researchers observed ions depositing in pores of the electrolyte, eventually forming structures that cause a short circuit.

“We can use this information to understand how to improve this really promising solid electrolyte material that could support storing renewable energy for longer periods,” said ORNL researcher Mengya Li.

Bacteria associated with inflammation is found in the gut in higher amounts roughly ten months before patients develop clinical rheumatoid arthritis, a longitudinal study by Leeds researchers has found.

Affecting more than half a million people in the UK, rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic disease that causes swelling, pain and stiffness in the joints because the immune system is mistakenly attacking the body’s healthy cells.

Previous research has linked rheumatoid arthritis to the gut microbiome, which is the ecosystem of microbes in your intestines. But this new study, published today in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, reveals a potential intervention point.

Lead researcher Dr Christopher Rooney, NIHR Academic Clinical Lecturer at the University of Leeds and Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “Patients at risk of rheumatoid arthritis are already experiencing symptoms such as fatigue and joint pain, and they may know someone in their family who has developed the disease. As there is no known cure, at-risk patients often feel a sense of hopelessness, or even avoid getting tested.

“This new research might give us a major opportunity to act sooner to prevent rheumatoid arthritis.”

Major opportunity for treatment

Funded by Versus Arthritis, the longitudinal study was conducted on 19 patients at risk of rheumatoid arthritis, with samples taken five times during a 15-month period.

Five of these patients progressed to clinical arthritis, and the research showed they had gut instability with higher amounts of bacteria including Prevotella, which is associated with rheumatoid arthritis, about ten months before progression. The remaining 14, whose disease didn’t progress, had largely stable amounts of bacteria in their gut.

Potential treatments that the researchers want to test at the ten-month window include changes to diet like eating more fibre, taking prebiotics or probiotics, and improving dental hygiene to keep harmful bacteria from periodontal disease away from the gut.

The exact relationship between gut inflammation and rheumatoid arthritis development remains unclear. In a small number of patients within the study, the gut changes occurred before there were any changes to the joints observed by a rheumatologist, but more research is needed to determine whether these influence each other.

Although bacteria is associated with rheumatoid arthritis, the researchers want to make it clear that there is no evidence this is contagious.

Lucy Donaldson, director for research and health intelligence at Versus Arthritis, said: “At Versus Arthritis, we welcome the findings of this study which could give the clinicians of the future a crucial window of opportunity to delay — or even prevent — the onset of rheumatoid arthritis. This success is testament to the dedication of UK researchers who are working to personalise treatment and prevent chronic conditions that have significant impacts on a person’s ability to work, raise families and live independently.”

Years in the making

The research was carried out in collaboration with the National Institute for Health Research Leeds Biomedical Research Centre, under the research themes of Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection and Musculoskeletal Disease.

Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Versus Arthritis and Leeds Hospitals Charity were also partners on the project. Patients at Chapel Allerton Hospital helped to design the research to make stool sampling easier for participants.

The study initially took data from 124 individuals who had high levels of CCP+, an antibody that attacks healthy cells in the blood, which indicates risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis. The researchers compared their samples to 22 healthy individuals and seven people who had a new rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis.

The findings from this larger group showed that the gut microbiome was less diverse in the at-risk group, compared to the healthy control group.

The longitudinal study, which took samples from 19 patients over 15 months, revealed the changes in bacteria at ten months before progression to rheumatoid arthritis.

The Leeds research team will now carry out an analysis of treatments that have already been trialed, to inform future testing of treatments at this potential ten-month intervention point.

Students often appear for high-stakes tests that hold significant weight in determining their futures. One such examination, the Common Test for University Admissions, currently allows examinees using braille an extended examination time of 1.5 times the standard duration. However, with the recent increase in complex questions and questions involving charts and diagrams in such tests, it is necessary to review whether the current accommodations remain adequate.

The researchers assessed the validity of the current time extension for examination questions containing complex tables by measuring the time required to read the text and complex tables. The results showed that 70% of the examinees completed the braille text reading task within 1.5 times the standard duration and 100% completed it within double the duration. However, none of the examinees finished the braille table reading task within 1.5 or even double the extended time. Furthermore, the table reading task revealed considerable individual differences in reading speed, with no correlation observed between this task and braille text reading. This suggests that people who read braille sentences quickly cannot necessarily read braille tables at the same pace.

These findings demonstrate that the current time extension for examinees using braille is insufficient when examination questions include complex tables. This prompts a consideration of how to properly assess the abilities of such examinees and raises the broader question of how to evaluate the skills of each individual regardless of disability status. This research indicates the need to reconsider the current examination framework itself.

This work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (grant number 20H00822).