Over the past 400 years or so, a set of mostly unwritten guidelines has evolved for how science should be properly done. The assumption in the research community is that science advances most effectively when scientists conduct themselves in certain ways.

Cybersecurity and data privacy are constantly in the news. Governments are passing new cybersecurity laws^[1]. Companies are investing in cybersecurity controls such as firewalls, encryption and awareness training at record levels^[2].

And yet, people are losing

People often consider evolution to be a process that occurs in nature in the background of human society. But evolution is not separate from human beings. In fact, human cultural practices can influence evolution^[1] in wildlife. This influence is highly

Fort Rucker is making its name change official Thursday - its second in two years’ time.

An installation redesignation ceremony is scheduled for 9 a.m. at the U.S. Army Aviation Museum at the newly-renamed Fort Rucker in Dale County.

Only this time, the installation takes its name not from a Confederate figure but a World War I aviator.

Fort Rucker was originally named for Confederate Col. Edmund W. Rucker, a brigade commander during the Civil War who fought at Chickamauga, Franklin and Nashville. After the war, he was an industrial figure in Birmingham who made his home in Five Points. He died in 1924

Then in 2023, the name was changed to Fort Novosel after Enterprise resident Michael Novosel Sr.^[1] Under then-President Joe Biden, the Defense Department changed the names of several military bases that honored Confederate figures in the wake of the 2020 George Floyd protests.

Novosel was a military aviator for more than 40 years and received the highest military honor for his service in Vietnam. He died in 2006.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed a memorandum reversing the naming of Fort Liberty back to Fort Bragg.^[2]

The base’s new namesake is Capt. Edward W. Rucker, a Missouri native who was called into service in 1916 and saw action in France during World War I.

He was credited with helping to down several German planes near Luneville, France on June 13, 1918, according to the Masonic Great War Project.^[3]

He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross along with 21 other officers and enlisted men, as well as the Croix de Guerre with palm.

“Flying deep behind enemy lines, then-1st Lt. Rucker and his fellow aviators engaged a numerically superior enemy force in a daring aerial battle over France, disrupting enemy movements and completing their mission against overwhelming odds,” the Army said in a statement last month.

After World War I, he relocated to New York before moving to St. Louis. He died in 1945.

A descendant of Edmund Rucker^[4] has spoken out against the renaming.

“Rucker family members support naming Army bases for individuals who fought for the United States….we don’t want our name back on an Alabama base,” K. Denise Rucker Krepp, a former House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee senior counsel, posted to X on Tuesday.

“Novosel is a Medal of Honor recipient,” Rucker Krepp said in another post to X.^[5]

“His name should remain on an Alabama base.”

©2025 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit al.com^[6]. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.^[7]

Top officials at the Pentagon office that played a key role in designing the bombs used in the strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities more than two weeks ago cannot say whether the weapons were successful in reaching the deeply buried bunkers.

At a press briefing days after the strike, Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that "for more than 15 years" a pair of officers at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency "lived and breathed this single target -- Fordo -- a critical element of Iran's covert nuclear weapons program" and hailed the agency as "the world's leading expert on deeply buried underground targets."

However, in a press briefing Thursday, a senior defense official at the agency told reporters that they didn't know whether the bombs they designed specifically for this strike reached the depths for which they were engineered. They also defined the effects of the strike in incredibly narrow terms that boiled down to the bombs falling where they were intended.

Read Next: Tim Kennedy, Green Beret and Army Hype Man, Under Investigation for Lying About Combat Valor^[1]

The officials, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity, argued that the historic U.S. strikes on three key Iranian nuclear facilities^[2] were successful and their 30,000-pound bombs, 14 of which were dropped on two sites, accomplished their goals.

Top political appointees in the Trump administration, along with President Donald Trump himself^[3], have asserted that the strike left Iran's nuclear program "obliterated." However, since then, reporting has indicated that that may not have been the case.

Reports emerged days after the strike that initial assessments by the Defense Intelligence Agency found that the airstrikes on Iran had likely not eliminated its nuclear program and only set it back months.

Days later, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth spent a large portion of a press conference^[4] berating the media over what he felt was bad coverage of the report and the strikes as a whole -- even as lawmakers, following a classified briefing, told reporters that it was too early to know the damage.

When a reporter pushed the DTRA officials Thursday on their claims of success, the senior defense official deferred to Caine's remarks and said that "we achieved the objective that we had set. ... They achieved the effects intended."

"That's the success I was claiming."

When asked whether those effects included the destruction of the facilities, the senior defense official said that the agency was still "awaiting full battle damage assessment."

Under further questioning, the senior official said that the achieved effects that they were referring to were simply that "we were able to strike the facilities as planned and strike where intended."

While such fine parsing of language would be typical for officials of any highly specialized and technical office, it comes at a time when both the White House and Pentagon leaders, eager to convince the American public of the resounding success of the Iranian strikes, have spoken in sweeping and dramatic terms.

Last Wednesday, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell told reporters^[5] the bombing led to "the total obliteration of Iran's nuclear ambitions."

Yet later in the same briefing, Parnell also said that the nuclear program was degraded -- not obliterated -- "by one to two years I think. ... We're thinking probably closer to two years."

Furthermore, in the weeks after the strike, experts were quick to note that the type of argument the Pentagon was employing -- that the mission was successful because it matched the models and plans -- was flawed.

"A strike can go 'precisely as planned' and still fail, if the model of the facility is wrong," Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, said on social media two weeks ago^[6].

Meanwhile, on Thursday, The New York Times, citing an Israeli official, reported^[7] that at least some of Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium -- a key component of a nuclear weapon -- survived the U.S. and Israeli attacks last month.

Related: Pentagon Presses Iran Strike Claims as Briefed Senators Point to Unknown Effects^[8]

...

Nicotine pouches, which contain nicotine powder and are placed in the mouth, were not tracked in national poison center data until 2020. However, between 2020 and 2023 (the most recent year of data from the study), the rate of unintentional ingestion of nicotine pouches by young children increased at a fast rate -- even as ingestion rates for other formulations of nicotine declined.

"Nicotine pouches are a serious and growing toxic ingestion hazard among young children," said Hannah Hays, MD, co-author of the study and medical director of the Central Ohio Poison Center.

"The rapid increase in the number and comparative severity of nicotine pouch ingestions is a reminder of the public health challenges of the changing nicotine product market. This is why we need to continue ongoing surveillance and increase our efforts to prevent nicotine ingestions among young children."

The study, published in Pediatrics, also investigated other nicotine products and formulations. Researchers examined nearly 135,000 cases of nicotine ingestions among children younger than 6 years old that were reported to U.S. poison centers from 2010 through 2023. Most ingestions occurred at home and involved children under the age of 2 years. While most exposures resulted in minor or no effects, there were 39 cases with major medical outcomes and two deaths.

The overall rate of all nicotine ingestions increased 59% from 2010-2015 before decreasing 34% from 2015-2023. This rate was primarily driven by the ingestion rate for liquid nicotine and nicotine solid formulations such as tablets, capsules, and caplets. The ingestion rate for liquid nicotine increased by 450% from 2010-2015 and then decreased by 45% from 2015-2023.

"This abrupt change in the rate trend for liquid nicotine ingestions corresponded with the passage of both state and federal legislation, including the Child Nicotine Poisoning Prevention Act of 2015, which required child-resistant packaging of liquid nicotine," said Gary Smith, MD, DrPH, senior author of the study and director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's. "This suggests that legislation can make a difference. However, despite this improvement, the ingestion rate for liquid nicotine remained higher than the rates for any other nicotine product, which clearly indicates that there are opportunities for further improvement.

"Many nicotine products are flavored and sold in colorful packaging that may be attractive to a young child," said Dr. Smith. "Banning flavors in all nicotine products helps reduce unintentional ingestions by young children as well as discourage use among teens."

Researchers also shared a few safety tips for parents and caregivers of young children. The safest choice is to keep all nicotine products out of the home. If you choose to have them in your home, you can lower the risk by following these steps:

• Store nicotine products safely. If these products are kept in the home, store them up, away from food, and out of sight -- preferably in a locked cabinet, drawer or box. While storing these products in purses or backpacks is not recommended when you have young children that live in or visit your home, if you are going to keep them in these places, make sure to store the purse/backpack up, away, and out of sight of children. Ask that caregivers around your child do the same in their homes.
• Avoid using these products in front of children. It is helpful to not use these products in front of your children, especially if packaged to look like treats.
• Save the national Poison Help Line number (1-800-222-1222) in your phone and post it in a visible place in your home. The Poison Help Line provides free, confidential advice from experts, 24 hours per day, seven days per week.

Data for this study were obtained from the National Poison Data System (NPDS), which is maintained by America's Poison Centers. Poison centers receive phone calls through the national Poison Help Line (1-800-222-1222) and document information about the exposure, which is reported to the NPDS.

Destructive flash flooding in Texas^[1] and other states^[2] is raising questions about the nation’s flood maps and their ability to ensure that communities and homeowners can prepare for rising risks.

The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency’s flood maps^[3] are intended to be the nation’s primary tool for identifying flood risks.

...

Flash floods like the one that swept down the Guadalupe River^[1] in Texas on July 4, 2025, can be highly unpredictable. While there are sophisticated flood prediction models and different types of warning systems in some places, effective flood protection requires extensive preparedness and awareness.

It also requires an understanding of how...

The burgeoning space industry and the technologies society increasingly relies on – electric grids, aviation and telecommunications – are all vulnerable to the same threat: space weather.

Space weather^[1] encompasses any variations in the space environment between the Sun and Earth. One common type of space weather event is called an ...