The objective is to determine if a newly acquired sample of gold comes from a protected area, meaning it has been illegally mined.

The project is intended to preserve the species’ population and enhance biodiversity.

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 27 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41558-026-02698-7

The authors integrate tree species richness with satellite-derived photosynthesis proxies to show that richness correlates with greater current levels of photosynthesis and greater increases over time. Projected biodiversity loss by 2050 could lead to cumulative forest photosynthesis loss of 4.4–35.7 PgC.

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 27 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41558-026-02692-z

Soil carbon stocks are greater than biomass carbon in boreal forests. This study shows that tree canopies thermally protect more carbon in permafrost from thaw than is stored in biomass, highlighting the need to consider carbon impacts of forest disturbance and conservation on an ecosystem scale.

Lower catch this year.

As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.

Blog moderation policy.

For years, John Deere had actively made repairing their tractors near-impossible for anyone but itself and the few "authorized" repair shops—regardless of the ability of its customers to actually visit such shops. Now, in a major win for farmers and right to repair advocates, John Deere must soon provide farmers with not just the tools and resources to finally repair their own John Deere equipment, but also access to future updates for said equipment.

In 2025, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) brought a suit against farm equipment manufacturer John Deere, alleging John Deere used their control over equipment repair tools and resources to limit the ability of farmers and independent repair providers (IRPs) to repair John Deere equipment. Earlier this month, John Deere reached a settlement with the FTC in which they will immediately make available a tranche of repair resources, then continue to make further resources available until the end of the year. Five states joined the FTC in this suit, and over the next 10 years these states will work alongside the FTC to ensure John Deere complies with this settlement. 

It is worth noting there is a second, farmer-initiated antitrust lawsuit against John Deere, also concerning a farmer’s right to repair their own equipment. In April, John Deere agreed to a $99 million settlement in that case, which also includes right to repair provisions.

This fight is just one example of how, as machines become increasingly computerized, companies like John Deere restrict your ability to repair machines behind software subject to legal regimes that don’t just lock down repair, but make unauthorized repair a potential criminal offense. 

John Deere’s market dominance in farm equipment led to an extraordinary power over access to the tools and resources of repair. John Deere actively restricted who had access to repair tools, and monopolized who could do the repair. This revenue stream—and control of it—is built into the business models of a lot of the technology we buy today. It also encourages companies to move away from the kinds of devices that can be easily fixed at home to ones that offer bells and whistles no one wants but makes repair difficult—like app-enabled toasters. 

This whole saga with John Deere has been an exemplar of the greater need for right to repair laws, policy, and enforcement.  There was a time when you bought a tractor and with some know-how and a manual could fix it yourself. It is easy to envision why someone with John Deere farm equipment might find it inconvenient to wait for John Deere approved repairpeople to come and fix any broken equipment. Especially when it meant waiting for days or weeks. Especially if it meant their crop was withering on the vine. This settlement will help ensure this is no longer the case. 

But it’s not just about farm equipment; If you can’t fix it, you don’t own it. While some might feel more willing to agree they “shouldn’t” futz with laptops or smartphone, it still stands that — whether it’s farm equipment, a car, a laptop, or even your phone — if you legally cannot fix it yourself, if you must go hat in hand to an “approved provider,” you are at the mercy of a corporation. It is why EFF continues to support right to repair laws that ensure people truly own what they buy. And it is why EFF continues to fight for exemptions to the law that makes it most difficult to tinker and repair your own devices.

This essay was written with Barath Raghavan, and originally appeared in The Guardian.

Major benchmarks measure what AI can do. None measure whether it does what you mean: the distance between what you ask an AI to do and the unspoken assumptions about how you want the AI to do it. We propose a new metric: the Genie coefficient.

There’s often a gap between one person’s request and another’s understanding. Most of the time, we bridge it using general knowledge. For example, if you ask a friend to get you coffee, they’ll pour a cup from the pot or buy one from a coffee shop. They won’t bring you a bag of raw beans or snatch a cup from a stranger and hand it to you. You never specified any of this. You never had to...

The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality stepped into a fight over powering AI facilities with natural gas turbines. It could shape the industry’s future.

Republicans are blasting Canadian forest management after smoke recently reached Washington.

The Texas Water Development Board's decision means the state's water plan likely won't detail data centers' usage when it is finalized in 2027.

While intense heat disrupts operations for a variety of industries, it also creates business opportunities for others.

Efforts to combat plastic waste have gotten derailed by the divide over chemical recycling.

Heat causes coral to bleach, which can be fatal if it lasts long enough.

France has been through eight ecology ministers in nine years, and Macron’s environmental policies are splitting his supporters ahead of next year’s presidential election.

Illegal gold mining has become one of the Amazon’s greatest environmental threats, driving deforestation and mercury pollution of rivers across the region.

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 24 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41558-026-02708-8

Global temperature change over long times after cessation of greenhouse gas emissions is not well constrained. Now, research shows a consistent global cooling, especially if negative CO2 emissions compensate for continued CH4 and N2O emissions.

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 24 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41558-026-02720-y

Assessing the status of adaptation is important to target support and determine priority gaps. Here I look back on an influential 2021 study that reported a systematic review of evidence of implemented human adaptation and consider how this underscored the imperative for greater policy action and spawned methodological advancements in how to track adaptation progress.

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 24 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41558-026-02700-2

How global temperatures change after net-zero emissions are reached is highly uncertain. Here the authors constrain this response and find that net-zero GHG emissions lead to multi-century cooling of at least 0.6 °C.

Police departments across the country are lining up to launch drone-as-first-responder (DFR) programs, and hundreds have cleared a necessary hurdle toward making deployment a reality, expanding aerial surveillance and data collection even in areas patrol officers typically can't reach.

As of February 2026, over 1,000 public safety agencies—including police, fire, and other emergency management agencies—had received Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) waivers needed to automate drone operations and launch a DFR program, according to a recent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) release listing agencies that have obtained Part 91 waivers since the FAA streamlined and sped up the process in April 2025.

The changes led to a massive increase in the number of waivers issued. Only 976 DFR waivers had been granted since the first DFR program launched in 2018 through April 2025, according to an FAA representative. The agency issued more waivers between April 2025 and February 2026 than it had in the previous seven years combined.

A map illustrating the locations of police departments and other public safety agencies that have received Part 91 waivers, making it possible for them to launch drone-as-first-responder programs. (This map image links to Google Maps, which is governed by Google's privacy policy)

The new FAA process for waivers and the rush of police departments to obtain them signifies a shift in law enforcement's use of drones: from human-operated aerial surveillance to AI-based autonomous drone use. 

Typically, a drone operator is only permitted to fly in areas that can still be seen by the pilot, and that drone pilot needs to be certified under FAA Part 107. To fly drones “Beyond Visual Line of Sight” (BVLOS) requires additional approval from the FAA, as do flights above 200 feet, due to the risk of colliding with planes and other aircrafts. Without such approval, an officer could not pilot a drone from a desk inside a building and fly it to a call across the city because they could not possibly have line of sight on the drone. 

FAA rules for police drones also required a human operator to manually fly the device to a scene, but DFR technology has become a more common and more automated police technology. DFR programs increasingly rely on artificial intelligence to automate drone flights from launchpads placed around the city, often atop municipal buildings, and make it possible for one drone operator to “fly” multiple devices at once. Though not every police department that has received BVLOS has launched a DFR program yet, by going through this process, every department on this list has signified it has strong enough interest to clear the necessary regulatory hurdles.

Police departments and the companies that sell DFR equipment claim that these drones make it easier for officers to establish “situational awareness” of a scene before they arrive. Early drone adoption centered on similar claims, particularly related to high-risk situations like vehicular accidents or incidents involving an armed suspect. However, these kinds of situations may make up only a small portion of deployments, which often occur in response to low-risk calls for service related to unhoused people, mental health concerns, and loud music, as a Government Technology analysis of the system in Chula Vista, California, found. 

DFR programs have become important sources of revenue for companies like Flock Safety and Axon, the latter of which reported that its DFR platform has become one of the company’s fastest growing sectors. Axon is also known for products like the TASER and the Fusus camera system that lets police integrate viewing of public and private cameras. 

Footage from drone flights is streamed back to a police office, and it can be stored, shared, and analyzed like other video. Turning drone footage into fodder for automated license plate reader (ALPR) networks, for example, requires very little additional software, and Flock Safety was quietly able to turn its drones into “flying ALPRs” last year. 

The normalization of police DFR programs jeopardizes privacy in communities across the country. As flying cameras, drones can capture footage from areas typically inaccessible to a casual patrol officer—backyards, roofs, through windows—at distances that leave subjects of surveillance completely unaware of the spy in the sky. A recent leak of drone footage from the San Francisco Police Department illustrated the ease with which surreptitious drone flights could observe innocent individuals for minutes without them realizing it. EFF's Atlas of Surveillance contains a list of police departments with drones, including those with DFR programs.

While daytime DFR use grows, police departments are exploring other ways to expand overhead surveillance. In October 2024, the Campbell Police Department in California announced it had received the first FAA approval for BVLOS operations at night, claiming it was the “first to incorporate radar technology with electro-optical sensors to enhance airspace monitoring, enabling a single remote pilot to safely deploy drones both day and night.”  

As communities consider drone use, it’s crucial that they have a say in whether the program is acquired at all, not just how it's run once purchased. Throughout the process, police should be transparent with the community and comply with local regulations about its adoption.

Many cities provide portals that log the flight paths and reasons for each drone flight, often in real time, an important transparency practice. In California, under AB 481, police departments are required to provide advance notice of intent to acquire drones, establish policies before they’re procured, and provide annual updates on their uses—giving communities and city councils the opportunity, before any contract is signed, to weigh in or object to the acquisition itself. 

For police departments and communities considering drone use, clear policies on appropriate use, transparency around deployment, and regular re-evaluation—including the choice to discontinue a program that isn't working—are all vital for protecting people’s privacy and security. 

In Professor Anna-Christina Eilers’ research group, mentorship happens through small, meaningful gestures: thoughtful feedback on a draft, a check-in after a rough week, and a readiness to help when things get tough. For her students, these everyday moments have become a defining feature of her approach.

An observational astrophysicist, Eilers studies how the universe evolved from its earliest beginnings. Her research investigates the formation and growth of black holes across cosmic time, particularly during the “cosmic dawn,” when the first stars, galaxies, and quasars illuminated the young universe.

Working alongside her in this field, graduate students describe a mentor who pairs high expectations with genuine attentiveness, encouraging both scientific independence and a strong sense of community. This approach has earned Eilers recognition through MITs Committed to Caring initiative — a student-driven program honoring exemplary mentorship within the graduate community.

Showing up in the everyday moments

Students say one of Eilers’ defining qualities is her consistency. No matter how busy her schedule, they know they can count on thoughtful feedback, productive meetings, and regular conversations about both research and broader career development. While those practices may sound routine, her mentees emphasize that they are anything but guaranteed within many academic spaces.

“As Christina's advisees,” two students wrote in their joint nomination, “we are both extremely grateful for the professional and emotional support we constantly receive. She always keeps an eye out for us.”

Eilers’ support takes many forms. Students describe an advisor who carefully reads every draft, provides timely and detailed feedback, and creates space for conversations that extend beyond immediate research questions. 

Students also reflect on the manner in which Eilers celebrates their wins alongside them. “She brings our favorite desserts to group meetings when we publish a paper,” shared one nominator. 

Her attentiveness becomes especially meaningful when challenges arise. Students note that she regularly checks in on them and does not hesitate to step in when research collaborations become difficult or obstacles threaten to slow their progress. Rather than leaving them to navigate those situations alone, she helps identify solutions before small problems become larger ones.

For Eilers, building a successful research group means cultivating connections among its members as well as producing strong science.

One of the group’s traditions takes place whenever a member returns from a conference or research visit. The traveler brings back a small treat — cookies, chocolates, or another local specialty — to share during the next group meeting. Along with the snacks comes a conversation about the talks they attended, the researchers they met, and the ideas they brought home.

The tradition transforms an individual trip into a shared opportunity for learning, with new perspectives becoming part of the group’s collective conversation. These exchanges work to not only reinforce a sense of community, but also to expose students to research and ideas beyond their own projects.

Through moments like these, students develop both as researchers and as colleagues who celebrate one another’s successes and learn from one another's discoveries. 

Remembering the person behind the researcher

One of Eilers’ most consistent pieces of advice has little to do with coursework or research.

“I always recommend to incoming graduate students to find a hobby outside of work that they enjoy, and ideally where they interact with people they don’t work with,” she says.

She believes maintaining interests beyond the lab helps students sustain both their curiosity and their perspective. “Graduate school can be all-consuming,” she says, reflecting on her own experiences. “It's easy to let your research become your entire identity.”

This same philosophy shapes her mentorship: successful researchers are also people with lives, relationships, and interests beyond their work. Making space for those parts of life helps students build careers that are both ambitious and sustainable.

Eilers traces her approach to the advisors who shaped her own career.

“I was very fortunate to have had — and continue to have — several mentors who have challenged me scientifically and supported me along the way," she says. “They modeled how to pursue excellent research without losing sight of the importance of personal connection and integrity.”

Her students see these values reflected within the group environment. They are encouraged to tackle ambitious questions while developing the confidence to think independently, but they know that guidance is available when they need it. 

In their nominations of Eilers, students describe an advisor who is present in both the ordinary and the difficult moments — someone who notices when support is needed, advocates for her students, celebrates their successes, and builds a community where students consistently feel seen. 

Through this steady commitment, Eilers demonstrates that care is not separate from academic excellence. Rather, it creates the conditions that allow excellence to flourish.