Meet Lola: a loving rescue pup who knew something was wrong when it mattered most.
Back in 2025, team members at National Mill Dog Rescue saved Lola from a commercial breeding facility where she’d spent eight years confined to a small space with very little enrichment.
NATIONAL MILL DOG RESCUE
Given her difficult past, rescuers feared Lola might have a hard time adapting to rescue life. But Lola quickly proved them wrong.
“Despite everything she had experienced, Lola emerged as a happy, friendly little dog with so much love still to give,” a rescue representative told The Dodo.
A few months later, Lola met the Mullane family, and they instantly connected.
NATIONAL MILL DOG RESCUE
“From the moment they met her, Lola delighted them with her adorable little butt wiggle and radiant grin,” the representative said. “Choosing to bring her home was an easy decision for them. We were so happy to watch Lola head off to begin this next chapter of her life.”
About a year later, rescuers received an incredible update from Lola’s parents. According to a family member, Lola had been acting “funny,” lying on top of her grandpa and repeatedly nudging him, as if trying to signal that something was wrong.
Lola’s grandpa, who suffers from colon cancer, wasn’t feeling well, and he took Lola’s persistent nudges as a sign that he should go to the emergency room.
NATIONAL MILL DOG RESCUE
A few hours later, doctors confirmed that Lola’s grandpa was in kidney failure. Had he waited any longer, things could have been much worse.
“Lola may have saved his life that day,” National Mill Dog Rescue wrote in a Facebook post.
Rescuers are so proud of Lola, a dog who loves boldly, despite her years spent in solitude.
“We’re incredibly grateful for the role she has played — and continues to play — in the lives of the Mullane family,” the representative said. “They gave Lola a second chance, and in an extraordinary way, Lola was there when her family needed her most.”
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It has been said countless times before – dogs are beyond special. The bond they make with us humans is so beautiful, and this true story about Lola and the Mullane family is wonderful.
Here in Southern Oregon I look up at the birds in the sky, some flying solo, or with a few companions, some flying in larger groups. But I never reflect on birds that migrate.
The truth, that these small animals were traveling thousands of miles across the planet, must once have seemed just as improbable.
Then, in the early 1800s, dramatic evidence emerged supporting the theory of migration. White storks began appearing in Germany with African arrows embedded in their bodies. These birds became known as pfeilstörche, or “arrow storks.” They provided compelling evidence that birds disappearing from Europe were traveling all the way to Africa and back.
Almost two centuries later, scientists are still asking the same question, but our ability to answer it has been transformed.
For most of ornithological history, scientists understood migration through brief glimpses of a bird, a specimen collected somewhere else, or the rare instance of a banded bird recovered hundreds or thousands of miles from where it had been marked. From these fragments of intelligence, scientists reconstructed journeys that took place largely beyond their view.
Today, it’s possible to see the journeys themselves, almost in real time.
A century of following birds
Bird banding was the first tool used to attempt a systematic approach to connect these fragments of information. Since the early 1900s, researchers have placed uniquely numbered metal bands on birds and hoped someone, somewhere, would encounter them again.
Over the past quarter-century or so, the tools used to determine where birds go have changed dramatically.
Tracking devices can now be carried by increasingly smaller birds, recording their movements and communicating with land-based receivers or satellites orbiting the earth. Testing stable isotopes in feathers and other tissues can reveal where a bird originated. Genetic testing can distinguish populations.
Millions of observations by bird-watchers submitted to eBird, an online database to record the birds they see, show the distribution and abundance of birds across a continent throughout the year in ways early ornithologists could scarcely have imagined.
Collectively, these methods open an extraordinary new window into migratory birds and one of nature’s most remarkable behaviors: migration.
Burrowing owls breed in the Western U.S., raising their young in burrows often taken over from ground squirrels or prairie dogs. In winter, they migrate to Southwestern states, Mexico or Central America. John Anderton/The Atlas of North America’s Migratory Birds
Discovering unknown migrations
More than 70% of North American bird species are migratory. Yet scientists have known surprisingly little about where specific populations go.
A species like the American robin may breed across thousands of miles of North America, with different breeding populations migrating to entirely different places for the winter. Birds breeding in one part of the continent may travel one route and encounter one set of environmental conditions, while members of the same species experience a completely different set of conditions along another route.
These connections between where a bird breeds and where it spends the winter is called migratory connectivity. They are critical for understanding everything from the consequences of climate change on birds to how avian pathogens and diseases spread, to a species’ basic ecology.
We are ornithologists and conservation scientists who have spent almost 15 years along with a team of contributors compiling this rapidly expanding knowledge on bird movement into The Atlas of North America’s Migratory Birds. The atlas, being published on Nov. 3, 2026, by Princeton University Press, covers the latest information on seasonal movements for nearly 600 species and combines a century of bird-banding data with eBird observations, tracking studies, stable isotope testing, genetics and other sources of information.
What emerges is a picture of migratory birds that is both more complicated and more remarkable than the simple arrows pointing between breeding and wintering ranges on a map.
Consider the yellow-billed cuckoo. These birds breed over a wide range of the eastern two-thirds of the U.S. but migrate to a relatively small wintering area in the Gran Chaco region of northern Argentina, Paraguay and southern Bolivia.
In contrast, peregrine falcons that breed in Alaska migrate almost directly south, dispersing across the Americas to wintering grounds that extend as far as southern South America.
Discoveries like these are accumulating rapidly. Collectively, they amount to a renaissance in our understanding of animal movement never before imagined.
Living masterpieces
The more clearly scientists can follow individual birds and populations across the planet, the more extraordinary these species can seem.
They navigate landscapes and respond to winds, weather, food and environmental conditions across enormous geographic scales.
The Atlas of North America’s Migratory Birds’ combines illustrations and maps to show where bird populations go when they migrate. Princeton University Press
We see these species and their migrations as among evolution’s great living masterpieces. That’s why we combined science with natural history and artist John Anderton’s extraordinary illustrations of the birds themselves. The maps allow us to see where birds travel, and the art brings the species to life.
Together, they make visible something that humans could only imagine for most of our history.
A map for conservation
North America has lost about 3 billion birds during the past half-century, and many migratory species continue to decline.
To understand why a population is declining and help save it, researchers need to understand the species’ entire annual cycle: its critical stopover habitats, wintering grounds and threats along its migration routes.
For much of the history of ornithology, scientists studied birds primarily during their breeding season. That made practical sense. Birds are conspicuous then – singing, defending territories, building nests and raising young.
But a migratory bird may spend only a few months of its life in its breeding grounds. Conditions such as weather, food availability and habitat quality encountered during migration can determine whether an individual survives to breed again.
All of this knowledge has accumulated because people value birds and have devoted enormous time and effort to understanding them.
For more than a century, thousands of bird-banders have woken up before the crack of dawn to set traps, carefully place bands on birds’ legs and release them, often knowing the chances of ever learning what happened to those individuals were exceedingly small.
More recently, tracking technology has allowed researchers to follow individual birds across continents and oceans. Those tracks exist because scientists, students, technicians and others have spent countless hours attaching and recovering tags, and contributing and sharing their data. https://www.youtube.com/embed/xfiY0tTjKxA?wmode=transparent&start=0 In this animation, Cornell’s Bird Lab traced the routes of 15 species using tracking signals. From tiny sensors to networks of humans with binoculars, efforts to understand migrations are helping to show where cruicial habitat can be preserved.
Today, millions of bird-watchers contribute observations that, thanks to advances in data science, allow us to watch migration unfold across an entire continent.
Scientists today know more about where migratory birds go, how populations are connected and what they encounter along the way than at any previous point in history. That knowledge is helping to identify where conservation efforts can make a difference for the future.
In past years I have run my own business. But it was a long way from running a pet business. If anyone hankers after running their own pet business, the following should be read.
Note:
Penny sent me the following details:
I was wondering if it would be feasible to incorporate the links that I have inserted throughout the article. As a practice, I make sure to include links to properly attribute my sources. Additionally, I have noticed that readers find it valuable to have access to supplementary information.
I have provided the list of links here for your convenience:
Start Your Eco-Friendly Pet Care Business with Practical, Green Steps
For aspiring local pet care founders and side-hustle builders who already serve pets in their community, starting an eco-friendly pet care business can feel both meaningful and overwhelming. The core tension is simple: the environmental impact of the pet industry is hard to ignore, yet many new pet care entrepreneurs worry that sustainable choices will be too expensive, too confusing, or too niche to sell. The opportunity is real because pet parents want healthier routines for their animals and less waste in their homes, and sustainable pet products meet both needs. With the right focus, today’s green business opportunities can grow from values into steady revenue.
Plan a Low-Waste Dog Grooming Salon From Scratch
If the “why” behind eco-friendly pet care resonates with you, an eco-conscious grooming salon is a tangible way to put those values into daily practice.
Start by building your salon around sustainable grooming products and routines that cut resource use: choose natural pet shampoos and cleaners, set up grooming practices that reduce water consumption, and look for energy-efficient ways to run your day-to-day operations, while keeping waste to a minimum through careful supply choices and less disposable “single- use” clutter. When you’re mapping out your concept, a detailed dog grooming salon roadmap can help you connect the eco-friendly vision to real-world planning around costs, equipment, and legal setup.
Just as important, invest in professional training and certification to build trust with clients and to give yourself the hands-on skills to work safely with dogs across breeds, coat types, and temperaments. Aspiring groomers often build those skills by attending a grooming school, apprenticing with an experienced professional, or taking workshops and pursuing certification through industry organizations. That training doesn’t just improve service quality; it also reduces the chances of handling mistakes that can lead to injury-related liability.
Next, we’ll turn this kind of concept into action with seven practical steps you can follow to launch your green pet service.
Build Your Eco-Friendly Pet Care Setup Step by Step
This seven-step checklist turns your eco-friendly idea into a real, day-to-day operating plan, from what you stock to how you move pets and run your space. It matters because small, practical choices are what customers notice, and what your budget feels every month.
Step 1: List your “must-be-green” supplies first Start with a simple inventory of what you will use every week: shampoos, wipes, towels, brushes, treats, waste bags, and cleaning products. Mark which items must be biodegradable, refillable, or low-waste so you do not get distracted by cute add-ons. This becomes your buying guide and keeps your sustainability promises consistent.
Step 2: Source biodegradable supplies and compostable packaging Choose a small set of core items that are easy to reorder, then ask suppliers about materials, certifications, and how they ship to you. If you sell retail items or send pets home with products, switch to compostable mailers, paper tape, and minimal packing so every order produces less trash. Keep one backup option for each item to avoid last-minute non-eco substitutions.
Step 3: Pick non-toxic shampoos and cleaners you can explain Choose gentle, non-toxic pet shampoos and surface cleaners, then write a one-sentence “why we use this” note for each product so your staff can answer questions confidently. Test products on a small group of clients first so you can spot sensitivities and coat-type differences early. Consistency here builds trust and reduces the chance of irritated skin or strong chemical odors.
Step 4: Vet ethical brands like you are hiring a partner Review each brand’s ingredients, sourcing, animal welfare stance, and whether they offer refills or concentrated formats to cut packaging. A helpful gut-check is that many shoppers actively look for this type of value match, and 80% of luxury pet accessory buyers prioritize sustainability and ethical production. If a brand cannot answer basic questions, move on.
Step 5: Set sustainable pet transportation habits Plan routes to reduce drive time, group nearby appointments when possible, and encourage clients to choose off-peak drop-offs that prevent extra trips. Keep reusable seat covers, washable leashes, and a small “spill kit” so you avoid single-use wipes and liners. If you offer pickup, write clear policies that protect pets while also protecting fuel use.
Step 6: Create an energy-efficient workspace you can maintain Start with the basics you can control daily: LED lighting, smart power strips, and a thermostat schedule that matches your hours. Choose efficient dryers and washers when you replace equipment, and post quick reminders for staff to shut off water and power between services. These changes lower costs over time and make your sustainability message real, not just marketing.
Step 7: Track one month of waste and adjust your defaults For four weeks, log what you throw away most, what you reorder too often, and what clients request repeatedly. Then adjust your “default” choices, such as switching to concentrates, moving to refill stations, or replacing disposables with washable tools. Demand for eco-friendly products keeps rising, so tightening your systems now helps you scale without losing your mission.
Small upgrades add up fast, and soon your whole service feels cleaner, kinder, and easier to run.
Borrow Dog-Training Lessons to Build Trust and Loyalty
Once your sustainable products and workspace are in place, your day-to-day work with pets becomes the part that most shapes your reputation.
Running a pet care business is a two-way learning experience, especially with dogs. Spending time with different breeds, ages, temperaments, and routines teaches you how communication really works beyond commands, what a dog is comfortable with, what they’re asking for, and when they need space. You start noticing stress signals sooner, picking up on subtle changes in body language and energy that tell you when something isn’t right. You also learn what kinds of enrichment each dog prefers, how much (and what type of) exercise they truly need, and which predictable routines help them feel secure.
That growing awareness makes you more observant, adaptable, and thoughtful, qualities clients feel immediately and remember when deciding who to trust with their pets. Next, we’ll tackle the practical questions that often come up around costs, laws, and building credibility.
Eco-Friendly Pet Business Questions, Answered
Q: How do I budget for sustainable supplies without pricing myself out? A: Start with the “must-haves” that touch pets directly, like non-toxic cleaners, compostable waste bags, and durable leashes. Buy fewer, better items, then track cost-per-use to spot what actually saves money over time. Keep a small swap list so you can offer a lower-cost option if a client requests it.
Q: What legal basics should I handle before taking my first client? A: Register your business, use a clear service agreement, and get pet care liability insurance before you begin. Ask a local attorney to review your contract language around cancellations, injuries, keys, and emergency vet authorization. Keep client info secure, especially vet records and home access details.
Q: How can I educate customers on green practices without sounding preachy? A: Lead with benefits they feel, like fewer harsh scents, less skin irritation, and tidier waste routines. Offer simple “why we use this” explanations in your welcome packet and let clients opt into upgrades. It also helps to note that 62% bought an environmentally friendly product recently, so you’re meeting an existing preference.
Q: Which certifications are actually worth pursuing for eco pet products? A: Prioritize certifications that match the item type, like third-party compostability for bags and verified recycled content for packaging. Ask brands for documentation and avoid vague “eco” claims without proof. If you sell products, start with a few certified bestsellers rather than trying to certify everything at once.
Q: Can an eco-friendly pet care business really compete with bigger brands? A: Yes, because trust and consistency win locally, especially when your service quality is excellent. The market demand is growing, and the $13.2 billion in 2024 signal suggests customers are actively spending in this space. Focus on a tight niche, memorable customer experience, and transparent product choices.
Small steps, done consistently, add up to a business people love to recommend.
Launch Your Eco-Friendly Pet Care Offer With Confidence
Wanting to help pets while running a business can feel tricky when sustainability, costs, and customer expectations all pull in different directions. The steady path is a values-first approach: choose materials and practices you can stand behind, communicate clearly, and build trust one decision at a time. Done well, the benefits of sustainable pet care show up in healthier routines, less waste, and a brand people feel good supporting, fueling entrepreneur motivation and long-term green business growth. Start small, stay consistent, and let your values lead. Choose your first simple offer today and write a short promise for how it helps pets and the planet. That’s how the impact of eco-friendly businesses grows into real stability for animals, customers, and your future.
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I am slowly getting used to this Mac, and the new wireless trackball, so readers have to be patient with me.
And my comment to Penny: “Thank you, Penny, for another valuable article.
This is such a beautiful account of a young boy rescuing a dog.
I said this many times before. That is when I first met my wife, Jean, she was living in Mexico with twenty-three ex-rescue dogs (and quite a few cats).
So this tale from The Dodo is a must to republish,
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Little Boy Can’t Stop Crying When He Meets An Abandoned Dog At A Gas Station
“He was like, ‘We can’t just leave this animal here.’”
This past Labor Day weekend, Alexandra and Rollins Luckey went on a road trip from Florida back home to Atlanta. Along the way, they made a stop at a gas station in Columbus, Georgia, and were immediately greeted by a pit bull.
“There was just this dog chilling in front, and the people inside were like, ‘Yeah, he’s been here for forever. We don’t know who owns him,’” Alexandra told The Dodo.
ALEXANDRA LUCKEY
The Luckeys were shocked by how affectionate the big dog was. He had the demeanor of someone’s beloved pet but was clearly all by himself.
“He came right up to us and was so friendly,” Alexandra said.
The couple’s 6-year-old son, Reese, became very attached to the dog right away. Reese fell in love with the pup’s sweet personality and didn’t understand how anyone could abandon him outside a gas station. He was so heartbroken by the dog’s situation that he was even moved to tears.
“Our son’s a really good kid. He knows right from wrong, and not just that, he knows what’s good and bad,” Rollins told The Dodo. “He was like, ‘We can’t just leave this animal here.'”
Between Reese’s tears and the pup’s sweet face, Alexandra and Rollins started to wonder: What if they actually didn’t leave the dog? On paper, taking a dog from a random Georgia gas station home with them seemed crazy. But as they thought about it more, they realized nothing was stopping them.
“I’m a dog lover, so I was like, ‘Let’s just take him,’” Alexandra said.
Reese couldn’t believe it. As his parents brought the dog into the car, he couldn’t stop smiling.
“He was so excited,” Alexandra said.
ALEXANDRA LUCKEY
The couple posted a photo of the dog to a local lost pets Facebook page, where they learned from a community member that the dog’s owner had been neglecting him for quite some time and didn’t want him anymore. That settled it — Reese named the dog Clark, and the Luckeys officially welcomed him into their home.
“Pit bulls have such a bad rap, but they’re truly the sweetest dogs,” Alexandra said. “If you treat them well, they’ll love you back.”
ALEXANDRA LUCKEY
Over the past week and a half, Clark has quickly settled into his new home. He’s obsessed with sitting in Rollins’ lap and covering him with licks, and he’s already enjoying running around with the family’s other dog, Bunny. Reese, of course, has been thrilled to cuddle up with his new best friend.
“I feel like our family’s complete with him,” Alexandra said.
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Fabulous!
The story brings to mind the last dog that we took from the local dog rescue centre. Namely, Cloudy. He is a part Chihuahua and very intelligent. He adores Jeannie.
I do not drive. I haven’t driven for quite a few years. I had a biking accident that caused the DVLC to recall my license. (I had two sub-dural bleedings that required urgent surgery)
Ouch!
Thus, ironically, I am removed from having car-driving accidents.
That leads me on to republish a recent George Monbiot article.
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Driven to the Brink
Posted on 23rd September 2026
Petromasculinity not only kills people on the road. It spills into our politics, fuelling far-right individualism.
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 17th September 2026
Where is lawbreaking not just visible, but designed to be seen? Where is antisocial behaviour worn as a badge of honour? Where is pleasure gained directly from causing distress? And where is reckless endangerment often ignored by the police or treated with the mildest of punishments? The answer is on the roads.
Last month, three men in the West Midlands were convicted of street racing. Two were driving at over 80mph in a 40mph zone. The third clocked over 90mph in a 30mph zone. The West Midlands has long been blighted by organised racing, sometimes involving 200 cars or more and hundreds of spectators. The result is a long catalogue of deaths and life-changing injuries, including some caused when racers have left the road and ploughed into onlookers or pedestrians. And there are plenty more accidents where the police have little idea whether racing is to blame, for as soon as they happen, the drivers disperse.
The West Midlands is one of the few places in the UK where the police are actively trying to stop antisocial driving. An injunction bans street racing and dangerous tricks such as “drifting” (long sideways skids) and “doughnutting” (making the car spin on the spot). The local police commissioner has warned that reckless drivers “will face the full force of the law … including seizure of your vehicle and imprisonment”. But are the courts listening?
Of the three men convicted at Birmingham magistrates court, one received a suspended sentence, a £272 fine, 150 hours of community work and a two-year driving ban. Another was handed a £1,275 fine and seven penalty points: in other words, he could step out of the court and back into his car. The man who did over 90mph in a 30mph zone got a £253 fine and a 56-day driving ban. He’ll be back on the roads in November. All appear to have kept their cars.
If these men had caused the same level of endangerment by any other means, it’s hard to believe they would have got off so lightly. But in dozens of ways, driving gets special treatment.
There’s a similar racing culture in mid-Wales, where I lived until 2012. Night after night, a convoy of cars with exhausts modified to be as loud as possible would race past, at 50mph or more in a 30mph zone. They would start at around 10pm and continue some nights until 2am, going round the nearby roads in a loop. As soon as I’d got my infant daughter to sleep, they’d roar past and wake her up again.
Calls to the police were useless: they told me to take down the number plates and “report the incident”. When I did so, they explained, in effect, that I was wasting my time, as I couldn’t prove the drivers were breaking the speed limit. In fact, their advice was counterproductive: when I went outside to take the plates, the young men jeered, gave me the finger and accelerated. It seemed that shock and disgust was what they craved. And this was before TikTok, where drivers can achieve much wider notoriety.
The first young man to “do a ton” (100mph) down my high street in Wales on his motorbike became a local hero. Soon afterwards, he rode into a wall and died. Other drivers killed their passengers, hit pedestrians or forced other cars off the road. When people were killed or injured, the drivers were prosecuted and lightly punished, but there was little effort to address the underlying culture. Some men went straight back into the convoys when they regained their licences. I’m told that nothing has changed, despite the default 20mph speed limit now applied to residential areas across Wales. Every year a new cohort of young men joins the local urban racetrack.
Now I live in Devon, where there’s a different culture of antisocial driving. Here it’s mostly middle-aged men in “lifted” pickup trucks, which have been modified to be as loud and smoky as possible. Two local SUVs have been refitted to “roll coal” from twin exhaust towers mounted behind the cab, releasing a dense black cloud of soot when the driver hits the “smoke switch”. Adapting your truck for this purpose means buying a “delete kit” to bypass the vehicle’s emissions control system, retuning the engine and fitting bigger injectors. The practice emerged in the US, both as an anti-environmental protest and as a form of amusement. It is largely deployed against cyclists, pedestrians and electric vehicles. I’ve seen these two trucks doing it, blinding the drivers behind and choking everyone around. Of course it’s illegal. But it doesn’t seem to be a priority for the police in my area.
What we see here are manifestations of petro-masculinity: a violent, misogynistic, climate-denying version of manhood, expressed through an antisocial driving culture. Some of the modified trucks have decals saying “Stop the Boats” or “Save Our Children” (who are apparently being brainwashed by LGBTQ+ cultural Marxists). This is the Magafication of transport – a vehicle that carries some of the worst aspects of US culture and politics into the UK.
It’s the extreme end of a much wider trend. In the UK last year, 52% of the new cars on sale were SUVs. Not only do the ever-rising bonnets of these trucks make it harder for drivers to see pedestrians and cyclists, especially children, but higher and heavier cars are also more likely to cause deaths or serious injuries when they hit people: children under nine are three times more likely to be killed if they’re hit by an SUV than by a regular car.
And what are they for? On narrow country lanes round here, tourists in these “off-road” vehicles won’t back up if it means touching a hedge, in case the high-gloss finish on their Wankpanzer Childkiller gets scratched. In one of the poshest parts of London, the Chelsea Truck Company advertises “iconic urban 4x4s”. “Iconic” appears to mean huge. But what the hell is an “urban 4×4”? And why is it legal?
Isn’t it obvious that selfishness on the road changes us as a society? The belief that drivers should be allowed to do whatever they please, regardless of the impact on others, mounts the pavement and travels deep into our lives. If this is to be a decent, inclusive country that values human life, then the law and its enforcement should match that aspiration. But when the roads are used to amplify and celebrate a dangerous, antisocial culture, we are driven towards a very dark place.
Now this is in England but I have very little doubt that it occurs here in America. Especially since a far greater proportion of vehicles are SUV’s. Well that’s the case here in Oregon.
Could you imagine if pagers made a comeback? Sure, your smartphone would still be your notepad-flashlight-camera-personal assistant-MP3 player-wallet-social media browser. But imagine if pagers made it so easy to do that one important thing – pinging your friends and associates – that we all brought them back into our lives, or adopted them for the first time.
A redemption arc like this is happening in cosmology, the study of the history of our universe. The hero – rather than old technology – is an epoch of cosmological history called Big Bang Nucleosynthesis, or BBN.
Some cosmologists have thought that BBN is too old-school to be as good a tool for cosmology as other probes of the early universe. But BBN is the darling of my research program, where I use cosmology to learn more about particle physics. I have seen firsthand how recent results from this old cosmological epoch can guide new research about our universe.
The smartphone of cosmology
Cosmology’s superstar is the Cosmic Microwave Background, or CMB, which formed some 400,000 years after the Big Bang. It’s an all-sky mosaic of hot and cold patches of light, which appeared while electrons and nuclei combined into the first neutral atoms. Viewed from Earth, each hot or cold patch is small enough for the Moon to block out.
The CMB’s intricate patterning has been the subject of severalintenseobservationalcampaigns, and for good reason. The key scientific model in cosmology has six major unknown quantities that researchers must measure to understand the universe. All of these quantities can be inferred with good measurements of the CMB.
But the CMB’s much older, less famous cousin is starting to steal some of its limelight.
A game of musical chairs
The universe started with a bang – the Big Bang – and about 10 minutes later, the largest game of musical chairs in history began. By that time, the universe was still dense, and hotter than the Sun. But it had cooled just enough for formerly freewheeling protonsand neutronsto fuse into nuclei, which make up the centers of atoms.
The game started, and every proton searched for neutrons to fuse with. A proton lucky enough to find a neutron partner formed deuterium. That couple could snatch either another neutron to make tritium, or another proton to make helium-3. One more proton or neutron each finally made helium-4, which has a remarkably stable nucleus with two protons and two neutrons.
Particles fused together in the first few minutes of the universe to create larger and more complicated particles. Cara Giovanetti, CC-BY-SA
The catch is that the number of neutrons in the universe plummeted during the game, like chairs being yanked out of line. Neutrons are unstable when they’re not bound in nuclei, spontaneously spitting out lighter particles in about 15 minutes to become the slightly lighter proton.
The music stopped for good when the universe became too cold for these particles to continue fusing. By that time – just 20 minutes after the game started – nearly all neutrons had either turned into protons or ended up in helium-4. Any proton that wasn’t lucky enough to partner up probably remained single for millennia, and might even be wandering the universe alone today.
But a new measurement of the primordial helium-4 abundance, published in September 2026, has reached stunning precision, providing information about the universe during BBN at a level of detail never before known.
A window to the early universe
Just a few seconds after the Big Bang, neutrons could absorb lighter particles and become protons, setting the stage for Big Bang Nucleosynthesis in processes distinct from the decays that happened toward the end of BBN 15 minutes later. This conversion could occur as long as the universe was very dense and hot. The longer that condition was satisfied, the more neutrons could turn into protons before BBN began.
But the universe expanded quickly after the Big Bang. The stretching of the fabric of the universe was propelled by radiation, where “radiation” refers to hot particles with tiny masses. The rate of expansion – and, by proxy, the amount of radiation – determined how quickly the universe became less dense.
It’s harder for neutrons to absorb particles and convert into protons in a diluted universe, because everybody’s so far away. The quicker the universe expanded, the less time there was to turn neutrons into protons, and so the more neutrons there would be the start of BBN. More neutrons at the beginning of musical chairs means more helium-4 by the end of it.
In a dense universe, particles interact easily, and neutrons (blue) turn into protons (red). If the universe is not very dense, interaction becomes much harder, and more neutrons stick around. Cara Giovanetti, CC-BY-SA
The amount of radiation therefore determines the final helium-4 abundance. By measuring that abundance, my colleagues and I work backward to find the precise amount of radiation in the early universe.
That’s an important quantity to measure. Among other reasons, particle physicists can use it to learn more about dark matter, a largely invisible substance that constitutes 80% of the matter in the universe.
Manymodels of dark matter, or other hypothetical physics, call for slightly more or slightly less radiation than what’s expected in standard cosmology. Measuring this quantity precisely helps particle physicists differentiate these predictions from the truth.
Looking ahead
BBN now determines the amount of radiation in the early universe better than the CMB. And its newfound prowess doesn’t stop at helium-4. Measurements of primordial deuterium, taken throughout the 21st century, tell cosmologists the density of particles like protons and neutrons with extreme precision. The precision with which BBN determines this quantity rivals, though does not yet exceed, that of the CMB.
The CMB isn’t quite ready to give up its spotlight. Even more precise measurements of all of the major unknowns in cosmology are already underway, as the Simons Observatory – a new high precision CMB telescope – makes its first observations. But there’s no clear path to improved measurements after the Simons Observatory finishes taking data, since the next-generation experiment CMB-S4 was suspended indefinitely last year.
Maybe it’s good timing, then, for BBN to be making its comeback. Getting even better BBN data doesn’t require dedicated observatories. Instead, observers only need more time on existing or planned telescopes. With near-term improvements to astronomical observations, physicists may get closer than ever to understanding the makeup – and therefore history and future – of our universe.
Now there’s another thing I have just learnt (on the 26th). That is to copy and paste I now have to use the Command key plus the appropriate letter key.
We love living in Southern Oregon. This rural part of the countryside is a delight, and feeding the wild deer is a bonus.
However, we also have to take note of the changing climate and the potential risks that extremes of weather can bring.
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As cities prepare for 2026’s super El Niño, some crucial blind spots can’t be ignored
An affordable-housing crisis and a growing homeless population led Los Angeles to declared a shelter crisis during the 2015-16 El Niño. David McNew/Getty Images
Community planning for El Niño often starts by identifying infrastructure that’s vulnerable to extreme weather. What can be harder to address are the needs of the populations most at risk, including low-income communities and older adults who may need help preparing their homes and themselves for extreme conditions.
As communities prepare for the rising risk of extreme weather, they need to be aware of the blind spots.
What is El Niño and what’s at risk?
El Niño is part of a natural climate pattern that appears every few years when temperatures in the eastern Pacific Ocean rise.
Its effects can shift weather patterns away from what is considered normal. Typically wet regions can get unusually dry, while dry areas can experience extreme rainfall that causes flooding. Global average temperatures also tend to rise during El Niño conditions, leaving people facing dangerous heat, both indoorsand outdoors.
In winter, El Niño typically shifts weather patterns across the U.S. However, every El Nino is different – conditions during one El Niño may be very different from the next. NOAA
Preparing for the strong El Niño expected in late 2026 and early 2027 means ensuring that critical infrastructure is able to withstand flooding, temperature extremes and other severe weather conditions.
That means inspecting flood control and drainage systems, trimming trees that could knock down power lines during high winds, and reinforcing or maintaining infrastructure such as dams, stormwater channels, roads and bridges.
Aging infrastructure, in particular, can be a problem.
Old levees and dams, for example, can leave a community vulnerable to catastrophic flooding, as the Seattle area saw in December 2025 when flooding from heavy rainfall broke levees in multiple communities. Repairing and replacing large-scale infrastructure like this is expensive and time-consuming. Too often, by the time it fails, repairs had been discussed for years but not completed.
Where we’re finding gaps in disaster planning
Infrastructure is only part of the challenge. Preparing a community for El Niño also means preparing people for what could be unprecedented conditions.
A study I worked on with researchers at Tufts University reviewed climate adaptation and disaster preparedness in several high-risk communities in the United States. We identified gaps in the policies, resources and institutional capacity available to help communities adapt to rising risks.
Crews inspect damage to a Green River levee in the Seattle suburbs on Dec. 15, 2025. Thousands of people were urged to evacuate during a series of atmospheric river storms, and the National Guard was sent to monitor and reinforce several levees considered at risk. AP Photo/Manuel Valdes
In particular, we found that governments often focus heavily on physical risks while giving too little attention to social vulnerability.
In the Los Angeles area, homeless people often set up camp in normally dry riverbeds. But those areas are at high risk of flooding during El Niño. Heavy rains during the 2015-16 El Niño swept away this camp’s mattresses. Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
It is often easier for governments to identify and invest in physical infrastructure than to invest in policies that address complex social vulnerabilities like these. For example, building a seawall can be tied to a specific project or funding stream. Reducing social vulnerability, on the other hand, may require coordination across housing, healthcare, emergency management and social services. And it typically requires sustained investments over time.
Yet, preparing successfully for extreme weather often requires considering housing and shelter needs, healthcare access and support services.
A community’s preparedness often improves after an event, when the gaps become obvious. The challenge is identifying those gaps before a disaster occurs.
In Los Angeles, emergency managers are using a good method to meet that challenge in 2026: They are carrying out scenario exercises that bring together county departments and community disaster management coordinators to practice how they would respond to an El-Niño-driven extreme weather event.
These exercises are designed to identify gaps in existing plans and figure out what might be needed if severe storms, flooding or mudslides occur. Scenario exercises allow people involved in disaster response to work through a hypothetical event before it happens.
Heavy downpours in October 2015 caused mudslides that trapped vehicles on Interstate 5 north of Los Angeles. The storm was early in the season for El Niño damage and served as a warning of the risks to come. Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images
In both the San Francisco Bay Area and in Durham County, North Carolina, officials are talking publicly about the risks to encourage residents to prepare. Bay Area officials are stressing the importance of following emergency management notifications and weather forecasts, particularly for individuals living close to the water or on hillsides that could face flash flooding and landslides.
In Oceanside, California, city officials convened an El Niño working group that included representatives from their public works, engineering, fire and police departments to coordinate planning, communications strategies and the monitoring of the San Luis Rey River.
Broader lessons
The challenge of preparing for El Niño in the face of uncertainty reflects some of the broader issues humanity faces when preparing for future climate changes.
Keeping up with infrastructure maintenance, scenario planning ahead of heat or storm seasons, understanding the needs of vulnerable populations and having plans in place to meet them can help prevent a severe storm from becoming a major disaster for the community.
Some of the trees that we have are, potentially, too close to the house. I hate cutting down trees but then even worse than that would be that the house is badly damaged and we have to move out.
It is nicely summarised in that last chapter of the article, and I quote: “The challenge of preparing for El Niño in the face of uncertainty reflects some of the broader issues humanity faces when preparing for future climate changes.”
Penny is a generous person. I say that because she sends me on a regular basis posts that I can publish. So today’s post will be well-received by pet owners and that, potentially, is many people. When I did the research, AI responded by writing that 71 million U.S. households in America own a dog.
Thus Penny’s post is highly relevant.
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Simple Daily Wellness Tips Every Pet Owner Can Easily Follow
For busy pet owners balancing work, errands, and the steady rhythm of walks, feeding, and cleanup, personal health often slips to the bottom of the list. The challenge isn’t a lack of caring, it’s the pressure to “do wellness right” while already managing a full day and a pet’s needs. That all-or-nothing mindset can leave both body and brain running on fumes, even when life looks fine from the outside. Simple, holistic well-being strategies and realistic daily wellness routines can support energy, mood, and focus in ways that fit real pet-owner lifestyle considerations.
Build a Pet-Owner-Friendly Wellness Rhythm
This quick routine helps you care for your body and mind without competing with walks, feeding, and playtime. You’ll stack tiny actions at the same times each day so wellness feels automatic, not like another chore.
Anchor a 3-minute morning stretch to your first pet task Start with gentle neck rolls, shoulder circles, and a slow forward fold right after you let your pet out or set down breakfast. Keep it easy and pain-free, aiming for “looser” not “sweaty.” This wakes up stiff joints and sets a calm tone before the day speeds up.
Add a short walk upgrade you can repeat During your usual walk, choose one tiny change: walk for a few more minutes or take one extra lap around the block. Keeping the change small makes it far more likely you will stick with it, and your pet still gets their normal routine.
Use a 60-second mindfulness reset at pet “pause points” Pick two moments you already stop, like waiting for the kettle, brushing your pet, or standing by the door before a walk. Breathe in for four counts, out for six, and relax your jaw and shoulders. This tiny pattern interrupts stress spirals without needing a quiet room or extra time.
Set a realistic bedtime “shut-down” that protects sleep Choose a consistent lights-out window, then build a 10-minute wind-down: dim lights, silence notifications, and do one calm activity (stretch, shower, or light reading). Treat it as non-negotiable because making sleep a priority supports your mood, focus, and patience for tomorrow’s pet care.
Review once a week and adjust, not restart On the same day each week, ask: What felt easy, what felt hard, and what can I shrink by half? Keep the parts that work and tweak one thing, like shifting your stretch to right after feeding. Small adjustments beat starting over.
Build Career Satisfaction That Supports Your Health—and Your Pet’s
When your days have a steadier rhythm, it’s easier to notice whether work is supporting your well-being or quietly draining it. Career fulfillment matters because it shapes your stress levels, energy, and sense of purpose, things that spill over into how present and patient you feel at home with your pet. If you’re feeling stuck, going back to school can be a meaningful way to strengthen your career trajectory, open new doors, and build longer-term stability that supports the life you want.
You can choose from an array of accredited online programs; for example, if you’re drawn to a behind-the-scenes role in care, a health administration master’s can help you move toward healthcare administration. Whatever path you choose, online programs are ideal for working professionals because they let you keep earning and keep up with your current responsibilities.
Daily Wellness Habits That Fit Pet-Owner Life
When you repeat a few basics, wellness stops feeling like another task and starts feeling automatic. These habits build a simple baseline you can stick with even on busy, pet-centered days.
Why it helps: Steadier hydration supports energy, digestion, and clearer hunger cues.
Brush and Floss Pairing
What it is: Brush for two minutes, then floss before you start evening pet routines.
How often: Daily
Why it helps: It reduces plaque buildup and keeps gums less irritated.
Dental Calendar Anchor
What it is: Put your next dental cleaning on the calendar when you book it.
How often: Every 6 months
Why it helps: It prevents small issues from becoming painful, expensive surprises.
Sunscreen Before the Leash
What it is: Apply broad-spectrum SPF 30+ to face, ears, neck, and hands.
How often: Daily, before outdoor time
Why it helps: It protects skin from UV damage during walks and yard breaks.
Moisturize After Washing
What it is: Apply moisturizer within two minutes of bathing or face washing.
How often: Daily
Why it helps: It seals in moisture and supports your skin barrier.
Wellness With Pets: Common Questions Answered
Q: What if my pet wakes me up and I miss sleep again? A: Keep your goal tiny: one steady habit the next morning, like a full glass of water or sunscreen before the first outing. If nights are chaotic, try a short wind-down cue you can repeat even at 2 a.m., like two slow breaths while your pet settles. Consistency beats perfection when sleep is choppy.
Q: How can I calm a stress spike without losing my whole day? A: Use your pet as a reset, not a distraction. Many pet parents rely on their pet for stress relief, so take 60 seconds to pet them slowly and unclench your jaw. Then do one next right thing, like brushing your teeth or refilling your water.
Q: When I’m rushed, what’s the minimum routine that still counts? A: Pick a two-minute combo: drink water while your pet eats, then wash your face and moisturize. Tie it to something that already happens every day, like the first leash grab or filling the bowl. If you do only that, you still reinforce the habit loop.
Q: How do I stop being inconsistent with self-care? A: Make it automatic by choosing one anchor time and one location, like floss at the sink before evening feeding. Lower friction by keeping essentials where you use them, such as sunscreen by the door. Track streaks weekly, not daily, so one off day does not derail you.
Q: Can I fit planning in when pet care takes over my evenings? A: Yes, keep it to 90 seconds. Plan out the next day by writing down three must-dos, then stop. Waking up with a simple plan makes follow-through easier, even with surprise messes.
Start One Small Pet-and-You Routine for Lasting Wellness
It’s easy for pet care to crowd out personal care, especially when sleep slips, stress flares, and the day fills up fast. The steady way forward is the mindset of small, repeatable routines, sustainable self-care habits that support both of you and build long-term health maintenance without relying on perfect days. Over time, that approach brings more motivation for wellness routines, fewer restarts, and a calmer path toward achieving balanced well-being. Small daily habits keep both ends of the leash healthy.
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Like all things that are important, developing a routine is crucial. Making it a habit is vital.
Penny has offered a grand analysis of what one needs to do to keep your pets healthy and happy.
The phone rings, and it’s your grandson’s shaken voice. There’s been an accident, he says, and he needs money before anyone finds out. Except it isn’t him. It’s software that learned his voice from a clip posted online, run by a stranger working through a list of phone numbers.
For years, warnings about artificial intelligence and cybersecurity have focused on corporate networks and government systems. Those threats are real. But if you follow the money in the FBI’s fraud data, a different picture emerges: Staggering sums are flowing out of household accounts.
In its 2025 annual report, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center began tracking complaints with an AI connection for the first time. Americans filed more than 22,000 such cases and reported roughly US$893 million in losses. Investment fraud accounted for $632 million of that, and people over 60 accounted for $352 million of the losses.
Those figures include only victims who reported to the FBI, and only cases where AI’s role could be identified. The consulting firm Deloitte projects that the actual hit from AI will be much bigger and help push U.S. fraud losses overall to $40 billion by 2027, up from $12.3 billion in 2023.
None of these scams are new. What AI changed is the cost and the quality of the cons.
Cloning a voice now takes a few seconds of audio and cheap consumer tools. In one study, listeners were able to identify an AI-generated voice only about 60% of the time. Video is heading the same way. In 2024, a finance employee at the architecture and design firm Arup was tricked into wiring about $25 million to fraudsters after they set up a video meeting “staffed” by deepfakes of the chief financial officer and several colleagues.
Phishing has improved, too. Clumsy wording and odd formatting used to give fraudulent emails away. Language models now write clean, fluent messages and can personalize them at scale using details scraped from social media. Deepfake videos of well-known business figures pitch bogus trading platforms.
The same pressure is visible in business losses. The cyber insurer Resilience reported that more than 85% of the losses in its claims portfolio in the first half of 2026 stemmed from attacks aimed at people rather than systems.
Why careful people fall for it
We’d like to believe that only careless people get taken. Research in behavioral finance says otherwise.
These scams are engineered around fear and urgency: a panicked grandchild, a boss demanding a same-day transfer, an investment window that closes tonight. Stress narrows attention and pushes people toward fast, intuitive judgments at the very moment they need slow, deliberate ones. Fraudsters also strike a pose of authority, whether a CFO’s face or a government agency’s letterhead, because most people defer to it.
Fluency matters as well. My own research examines how the smoothness of AI-generated communication leads people to trust it. A message with no typos, in a voice that sounds exactly right, sails past defenses that a clumsy fake would have tripped.
Nobody plans to make a major financial decision mid-panic. That’s exactly why scammers manufacture the panic.
The quiet version of the attack
AI-enabled theft doesn’t necessarily involve talking to the victim. Stolen personal data sells for a few dollars on dark web markets. Criminals then feed it to automated AI agents that probe bank and fintech systems around the clock, testing credentials and hunting for weak points at a speed no human crew could match. Last fall, the AI company Anthropic disrupted an espionage campaign in which an AI agent performed 80% to 90% of the intrusion work against roughly 30 targets, including financial institutions.
When an attacker gets into a customer account, the takeover can be over in minutes. Instant payment platforms like Zelle, built for speed and convenience, become the getaway car. The money typically moves within minutes, and getting it back is almost impossible.
How to protect you and your loved ones
Banks defend their own wire rooms with procedures, not vigilance. Households can borrow those procedures.
Check by calling back. When you get a suspicious call, hang up and dial a number you already know – like your bank’s fraud hotline – and never one the caller or message supplies. The point is to leave the channel the scammer controls. A cloned voice can’t answer your grandson’s real phone.
Trust and verify. You should agree on a robust family code word for emergencies and treat any request for money that lacks it as fake. Require two people in your household to sign off on any large transfer, so nobody moves serious money alone and under pressure. And build in a delay, such as a self-imposed 24-hour wait, before any big payment. Urgency is the scammer’s tool. Slowness is yours.
Add layers of protection. Protect the accounts themselves, too. Turn on two-factor login for financial accounts, and never share a verification code with someone who contacts you. That code is the second lock on your door, and the only reason a caller wants it is to get in.
You should also switch on your bank’s transaction alerts so a takeover announces itself in minutes, and consider a credit freeze, which is free and blocks thieves from opening new accounts with data bought on the dark web.
Protect older people. With $352 million of reported AI-related losses coming from Americans over 60, conversations with older family members are key. Walk through the callback rule and the code word, and ask their bank or brokerage about adding a trusted contact they can call. It costs nothing, and it gives the institution a way to raise an alarm before the money moves.
If money has already moved, you should call your bank immediately, ask it to attempt a recovery, then report the scam to the Federal Trade Commission.
Where habits end, rules should begin
Good habits raise the cost of every one of these scams, but they can’t do it all. This is where the U.S. regulations have fallen behind the technology.
Federal law is supposed to protect consumers from unauthorized electronic transfers, and regulators have said that a transfer set in motion by a fraudster counts as unauthorized even when the victim was tricked into handing over account credentials.
In practice, though, victims of instant-payment fraud often recover little. Banks frequently classify losses as “authorized” when a customer was deceived into approving the payment, and even obvious victims of such takeovers can face long fights over reimbursement.
For example, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued Zelle’s operator and three of the country’s largest banks over their response to alleged fraud in late 2024, then dropped the case in March 2025. New York’s attorney general has since filed her own lawsuit, which a judge allowed to proceed in July. Zelle’s operator denies the allegations and says it will appeal.
The payment platform Zelle has become a favorite tool for scammers because stolen money is so hard to retrieve. AP Photo/Patrick Sison
The U.K. has taken a different path. Since late 2024, U.K. banks have been required to reimburse most scam victims up to £85,000, roughly $115,000, with the cost split between the sending and receiving institutions. The logic is that banks are best equipped to fight fraud, since they run security teams and networkwide analytics that can spot suspicious patterns across millions of transactions. What they had lacked was a strong financial reason to deploy them fully, and the reimbursement rule supplied it.
The regulator’s own dashboard shows that 88% of the money lost to eligible scams has been returned to victims since the rules took effect. More telling: An independent evaluation found that scam losses fell by roughly a fifth in the rule’s first year. That shows that when banks bear the losses, they find ways to prevent them.
I believe American regulators and Congress should study that model closely. When payments are instant and irreversible, the risk cannot rest almost entirely on the customer, who is the least-equipped party in the chain.
A reminder of the tips explained above: Check by calling back., Trust and verify., Add layers of protection., Banking protections,. Protect older people.
They are excellent tips.
And I need to learn this advice and take action, not just republish it and forget it!
Over last weekend I finished reading Jared Huffman’s book. To say is was good would be an understatement. It was excellent.
I will print the last paragraph of the last chapter.
CONCLUSION
We don’t need to agree on everything, but right now we must come together as fellow Americans who agree on the most important thing: Our beleaguered democracy remains the best system of government the world has ever seen, and it belongs to all of us. Let us be worthy of it by confronting the myths, defending the facts, and honouring the Enlightenment inheritance that made pluralistic democracy possible. And as we do, let us remember Thomas Paine’s words that echo across the centuries: “The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark.” (My emboldening.)
