Bellevue, Washington, is the home of thousands of Microsoft employees. Its AI-powered traffic monitoring system lives up to such expectations. Using existing traffic cameras capable of reading signs and lights, it tracks not just crashes but also near misses. And it suggests solutions to managers, like rethinking a turn lane or moving a stop line.But this AI technology wasnt born out of Microsoft and its big OpenAI partnership. It was developed by a startup called Archetype AI. You might think of the company as OpenAI for the physical world.[Image: Archetype AI]A city will report an accident after an accident happens. But what they want to know is, like, where are the accidents that nearly happenedbecause that they cannot report. And they want to prevent those accidents, says Ivan Poupyrev, cofounder of Archetype AI. So predicting the future is one of the biggest use cases we have right now.Poupyrev and Leonardo Giusti founded Archetype after leaving Googles ATAP (advanced technology and projects) group, where they worked on cutting-edge projects initiatives like the smart textile Project Jacquard and the gadget radar Project Soli. Poupryev details his history of working at giants like Sony and Disney, where engineers always had to develop one algorithm to understand something like a heartbeat, and another for steps. Each physical thing you wanted to measure, whatever that may be, was always its own discrete systemanother mini piece of software to code and support.Theres simply too much happening inside our natural world to measure or consider it all through this one-problem-at-a-time approach. As a result, our highest-tech hardware still understands very little of our real environment, and what is actually happening in it.What Archetype is suggesting instead is an AI that can track and react to the complexity of the physical world. Its Newton foundational model is trained on piles of open-sensor data from sources like NASAwhich publishes everything from ocean temperatures gathered with microwave scanners to infrared scans of cloud patterns. And much like an LLM can infer linguistic reasoning by studying texts, Newton can infer physics by studying sensor readings. [Image: Archetype AI]The companys big selling point is that Newton can analyze output from sensors that already exist. Your phone has a dozen or more, and the world may soon have trillionsincluding accelerometers, electrical and fluid flow sensors, optical sensors, and radar. By reading these measurements, Newton can actually track and identify whats going on inside environments to a surprising degree. Its even proven capable of predicting future patterns to foresee actions ranging from the swing of a small pendulum in a lab to a potential accident on a factory floor to the sunspots and tides in nature.In many ways, Archetype is constructing the sort of system truly needed for ambient computing, a vision in which the lines between our real world and computational world blur. But rather than focusing on a grand heady vision, its selling Newton as a sort of universal translator that can turn sensor data into actionable insight.[Its a] fundamental shift to how we see AI as a society. [Right now] its an automation technology where we replace part of our human labor with AI. We delegate to AI to do something, Giusti says. We are trying to shift the perspective, and we see AI as an interpretation layer for the physical world. AI is going to help us better understand whats happening in the world.Poupyrev adds, We want AI to act as a superpower that allows us to see things we couldnt see before and improve our decision-making. [Image: Archetype AI]How does Archetype AI work? Lenses.In one of Archetypes demos, a radar notices someone entering the kitchen. A microphone can listen for anything prompted, like washing dishes. Its a demonstration of two technologies that reside in many smartphones, but through the context of Newton, sensor noise becomes knowledge.In another demo, Newton analyzes a factory floor and generates a heat map of potential safety risks (notably drawn in the path of a forklift coming close to people). In yet another demo, Newton analyzes the work of construction boats, and actually charts out a timeline of their active hours each day. Of course, physics alone cant extrapolate everything happening in these scenes, which is why Newton also includes training data on human behavior (so it knows if, say, shaking a box might be inferred as mishandling it) and uses traditional LLM technology for labeling whats going on.Each different front-end UX described above required some custom code, and Archetype has been working with its early partners in a white-glove approach. But the core logic at play is all built upon Newton. Our companies dont care about some AGI benchmark we can meet and not meet, Poupyrev says. What they care about is that this odel solved their particular use cases.Much like entire apps are now built upon OpenAIs ChatGPT and Anthropics Claude, Archetype is making Newton AI available as an API (and customers can request access now). Technically, you can run Newton from computers operated by Archetype, on cloud services like AWS or Azure, or even on your own servers if you prefer. Your primary task is simply to feed whatever sensor data your company already uses through a Newton AI lens. The lens is the companys metaphor for how it translates sensor information into insight. Unlike LLMs, which work on question-answer queries that lead us to metaphors like conversations and agents, sensors output streams of information that may need constant analysis. So a lens is a means to scrutinize this data at intervals or in real time. And the operational cost of running Newton AI will be proportionate to the amount and frequency of your own sensor analysis. [Image: Archetype AI]Tuning the lens is surprisingly simple: You can use natural language prompts to ask the system something like alert me every time theres a safety issue on this floor or notify me if an alarm goes off. But whats particularly exciting to the company is that in analyzing sensor waveforms, Newton AI has proven that it doesnt just understand a lot of whats happening, but it can actually predict what may happen in the future. Much like autocomplete already knows what you might type next, Newton can look at waveforms of data (like electrical or audio information from a machine) to predict the next trend. In a factory, this might allow it to spot the imminent failure of a machine.To demonstrate this idea, Archetype shares data from an accelerometer measuring the swing of an elastic pendulum (aka a pendulum on a springwhich is a classic way to generate chaotic behavior). Even though the model has never been trained specifically on pendulum equations or been programmed to understand accelerometers, Archetype claims that it can accurately track the swing of the chaotic pendulum and predict its next movements. Poupyrev says the same is true for thermoelectric behaviors, like we might see in electronics.By observing patterns normally ignored, and coupling that information with predictive analysis, Archetype believes it can revolutionize all sorts of platforms, ranging from industrial applications to urban planning. And for its next act, the company wants Newton to output in more than text; theres no reason why it cant communicate in symbols or real-time graphs.The claims are, on one hand, outrageously large and tricky to grok. But on the other, Poupyrev has built his entire career on building mind-bendingly novel innovations from existing technologiesthat actually work.For any company interested in Newton, Archetype is still working closely with partners to use their API. Pilots start in the mid-six figures, while annual projects range into the millions, depending on scale.
Growing up in the mountains of western Guatemala, Feliciano Perez Tomas cultivated the same type of native maize his family had for generations.
The breed of corn was central to his Indigenous Kiche communitys diet, a grain and pulse-heavy intake that dates back to the time of the Maya Civilization.
But over the years, more frequent and intense rainslinked to climate changecame earlier in the year, disrupting the harvest.
Before it rained in March and we would sow seeds when it happened, but these days the rains can begin in February, and there can be a lot of ice and colder conditions, said Tomas, 42. We would have to work so hard, but receive little.
Indigenous communities around the world are losing the crops their forebears had bred over centuries to a changing climate, deforestation, and industrial farming.
Three-quarters of the worlds plant genetic diversity has been lost over the last century, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, with only 30 plants fueling 95% of the calories that all humans consume globally. Such a homogenized food system raises the risk of crop failures, pests and diseases, malnutrition, and the extinction of unique and ancient plant species.
Perez Tomas, left, at his local seed bank. [Photo: ASOCUCH]
Though its difficult to gauge exactly how much the biodiversity crisis is costing farmers, one 2023 survey suggests smallholder farmers are spending $368 billion of their own income every year on measures to adapt to climate change, which include pest control, soil improvements, and biodiversity conservation.
Increasingly, farmers like Tomas are turning to seed banks.
These modest, community-run storage hubstypically located within walking distance of the fieldspreserve Indigenous, climate-resilient seeds adept at dealing with harsh conditions, while also providing farmers like Tomas with a free, direct supply of seeds. In turn, proponents say seed banks can help to protect biodiversity. A 2022 survey by the company Terraformation found more than 400 seed banks operating in 96 countries worldwide.
There are so many uses of the seed banks, says Sergio Alonzo, senior technical manager of ASOCUCH, a Guatemalan nonprofit that works with 16,000 farmers in the Huehuetenango region where Tomas lives. They protect biodiversity. They protect incomes. If theres a disaster or emergency, they are there as a kind of insurance for farmers.
ASOCUCH launched its seed bank program in 2007 and Tomas joined in 2010. It has provided him with long-term, protective storage for his native seeds, meaning he no longer has to pay for them at the market, and crucially, a kind of insurance for when extreme weather strikes. Research by ASOCUCH has also found that cultivating these native seeds in banks has tripled farmers yields. They increase food availability for families and create income from the sale of surpluses, said Alonzo.
Tomas local branch of the seed bank, run by a committee of local farmers of which he is a member, has seen his community through crop-destroying frosts, floods, heat waves, and a severe seed shortage in 2018.
Without the seed banks, it would have been disastrous, Tomas said. You save a lot of money not having to buy seeds, too.
Each storage hub holds hundreds of containers of seeds, divided into sections for each farmer. Seeds shown to be resistant to harsh weather are prioritized. Some farmers visit the bank every month, while others just use it in case of emergencies.
When Tomas first joined the bank, he was one of only six participating farmers in the communitynow there are more than 40 of them.
They saw the need, he says. Many farmers now see the importance of the banks.
Agricultural experts say that supporting the use of traditional seeds, also known as heirloom varieties, could minimize the likelihood of food shortages, improve diets amid growing malnutrition, and bolster the resilience of rural farming communities.
Farmers have long been conserving seedsand the banks support them to do this, said Ronnie Vernooy, a genetic resources specialist at the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, a nonprofit. Its so important because we are losing crop diversity everywhere. We have to take action to protect seeds.
The emergence of modern seed banks follows in the path of the ancient Indigenous practice of seed-keeping, which is becoming increasingly important for areas relying on subsistence farming as they are disproportionately affected by climate change.
Before the focus was on national seed banks, says Vernooy. They would put seeds in a freezer and store them for as long as possible. But that has its limits. And thats very far away from the farmers.
Instead, community seed banks provide a living use of seeds, at once supporting farmers and their families, helping to secure the future of native and climate-resilient seeds, as well as encouraging social cohesion, equality, and knowledge exchange among farmers.
They become more than a physicl area, they increase interchange, sharing of seeds, said Vernooy.
A 2023 study co-authored by Vernooy focusing on community banks in Kenya and Uganda found that 2,630 smallholder farmers protected 72 unique crop and tree species, serving as a platform for community action and womens empowerment. Women have always played a key role in seed saving and management, he says.
Similar projects are sprouting up across Central America, home to large Indigenous populations who are knowledgeable about seed keeping, yet also on the frontlines of climate change. Many of these communities suffer high rates of malnutrition.
In Nicaragua, a Swiss NGO is working with more than 7,000 farmers to identify native breeds of maize, grains, beans, and other legumes and develop new drought-resistant varieties. Mexicos national FES Iztacala Seed Bank, a state-led initiative, works directly with community seed banks and international partners to conserve about 12% to 13% of the countrys 23,000 plant species.
In the United States, volunteers gathered seeds to regrow native plants in areas of Southern California devastated by Januarys wildfires. Seed Savers Exchange, based in Iowa, is one of the nations largest nongovernmental seed banks, holding some 20,000 species.
But in order to live up to their potential, which could allow farmers to generate extra income through sales, advocates say the seed banks need more support from national governments.
Support is improving, but it remains lacking, Vernooy said.
Alonzo of ASOCUCH agreed that institutional backing would make it easier for farmers to develop and independently maintain their own seed banks while recognizing their crucial role in protecting biodiversity.
Even if the banks are working, climate change still presents challenges, he says. If we want to safeguard the needs, we need to recognize the value of these smallholder producers.
By Peter Yeung, Nexus Media News
This story was originally published by Nexus Media News, an editorially independent publication of MEDA (Mennonite Economic Development Associates).
As AI takes on a greater role in our media ecosystem, many journalists look at it like a farmer sees an invasive species: as a force that threatens to slowly choke, kill, and replace their work, potentially threatening their livelihood.
There’s good reason for this: For reporters and editors, AI represents an assault on multiple fronts. Not only can large language models (LLMs) take over many tasks within journalistic workresearch, writing, editingAI systems also threaten to substitute media publications entirely. The more readers get their information from AI, the less reason they have to engage with publishers or journalists directly.
Ask a journalist how it’s going these days, and you’re likely to hear, “Not great.” Many are understandably skeptical, if not outright antagonistic, toward AI. And while the many rounds of recent layoffs at media companies aren’t happening because AI is replacing journalists en masse, its growing presence in newsrooms is certainly a factor in how those organizations are restructuring themselves.
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There’s another perspective, however. While the rise of AI is, in many ways, painful for journalists, it may actually be healthy for journalism.
Audiences are moving on
The fact is more and more people are using AI to find news and information. ChatGPT now has 400 million weekly active users, and it’s showing up on top 10 lists of the most popular sites on the internet. A recent study from Adobe found that the amount of traffic that AI services are sending to retail sites has increased 1,200% in just the last seven months. Despite generating far fewer clicks than traditional search, AI tools are driving a massive spike in trafficproof of their growing reach.
AI use may be climbing fast, but it’s all a drop in the bucket compared to regular search. A recent analysis from search expert Rand Fishkin revealed that ChatGPT searches are less than 1% of overall search activity.
Google’s “10 blue links” may still rule the day, but Google is going deeper into AI, too. Its AI Overviewstopic summaries at the top of search resultsnow appear in searches for more users, and it has recently expanded the availability of “AI mode,” which produces a summary that does away with the links altogether. While Google hasn’t yet begun applying these tools to current news articles in a significant way, the trend is clear: more AI in search, not less.
So whichever way you turn, the picture is clear: a significant part of our future media ecosystem will be AI-mediated. The key question: How will these systems surface the content for the summaries they give?
This is a difficult question to answer definitively, partly because AI companies aren’t eager to open up their “black boxes,” but also because the technology itself makes the decisions LLMs make fairly opaque. But we can infer a lot from the outputs they create, and what companies do say.
OpenAI publishes a model spec for its LLMsbasically a set of first principles. One of them is “seek the truth together,” by which it means the AI and user collaborate to find whatever the truthful output is for the user’s query. Taken at face value, that’s well aligned with journalistic principles. Balance and neutrality are also encouraged by AI systems. Most topics in the news have left- and right-leaning takes, with chatbots giving a blended summary, possibly with a note that “opinions differ.” Overall, AI summaries are the result of a multisource approach that tends to reward depth and uniqueness.
The new incentives of AI
Deep and unique content that takes a balanced and neutral approach to the truth? We used to call that good journalism. If AI optimizes for these factors and allows for a business model that works, it would alter media incentives for the better. Because we couldn’t do much worse than the last decade.
When search referrals and social reach ruled the day, publisher incentives were often not aligned with journalistic best practices. Even if you overlook the worst excesses of that era, such as clickbait and content farms, most digital newsrooms were obsessed with running up page views and unique visitors so they could sell big numbers to advertisers. As a result, incentives aligned around content that was provocative and disposable rather than thoughtful and rich.
Success in the AI era, however, will be measured by how often your stories are cited in AI summaries. The content will need to be “definitive” in some waythat leaving it out would weaken the answer to the point where it’s incomplete or wrong. That’s great motivation for journalists to produce scoops, original quotes, and analysis you can’t get anywhere else.
Of course, this all hinges on a big assumption: that AI systems can actually maximize accuracy and minimize biasand be trusted to do so. Recent evidence suggests that’s far from a sure bet: An extensive study from Newsguard revealed an effort to influence LLM outputs to favor the Russian point of view on the Ukraine war. And it was apparently successful: the brute-force campaign affected the outputs of all the popular AI chatbots and search engines. OpenAI might align its model “seek the truth together” with the user, but reinforcements may beneeded.
There’s another snag: the copyright question. The major AI labs have attracted so many copyright lawsuits that elaborate data visualizations are required to keep track. That’s led to several AI companies inking content deals with various publishers, which might be good for business, but there’s a big downside for users: information in AI summaries will favor partners, which may not necessarily be the best possible sources. OpenAI, for instance, has said that ChatGPT does this, and it avoids citing, linking, or summarizing content from anyone litigating against it.
Courts and legislators could step in, but they might not do so in a way that benefits news publishers. If they decide that the data ingestion that all AI systems do is fair use, that would instantly reduce the value of journalism in the AI market and disincentivize publishers from appearing in AI summaries at all. Extremely strong copyright, on the other hand, might make the information too expensive for AI companies to even offer a wide range of summarized news.
This isnt a surrender. It’s a strategy.
So yes, there a lot to be sorted out before we declare a golden AI age of journalism. But the tools are there to create an ecosystem with the right incentives: a media that can build sustainable business through summarization, a journalism community where talent and hard work are rewarded instead of quick hits and clickbait, and a public that benefits from thorough and fair summaries of topics.
The potential of such a vision is worth fighting for, and certainly a much more productive struggle than pushing back against AI as an existential threat. The fact is AI is here to stay, but there’s an opportunity to help shape a new system that rewards truth, originality, and transparency. Sure, robots can do a lot, but when journalists do the hard work of telling stories that matter, that impact should be apparenteven to a machine.
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This week, AccuWeather released its prediction for the Atlantic hurricane season. The weather service found that after last years Hurricanes Beryl, Helene, and Milton, 2025 will likely be another supercharged year for tropical storms.
AccuWeather expects the Atlantic hurricane season, which starts on June 1, to yield 13 to 18 named storms, including 7 to 10 hurricanes. Of those, three and six are expected to have direct U.S. impacts, with the Gulf Coast, Atlantic Canada, the Carolinas, and northwestern Caribbean at the highest risk.
Meanwhile, as climate change and record-warm ocean temperatures usher the U.S. into yet another intense storm season, the Trump administration has signaled that it may be working to dismantle the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Heres what to know:
Why does hurricane season keep getting worse?
According to AccuWeather lead hurricane expert Alex DaSilva, one of the main factors driving the companys prediction is elevated water temperatures. Across the oceans surface, including in the Gulf and Caribbean, temperatures aren’t just well above historical averages, the warm waters also extend to deeper depths than usual. Warm water fuels storms by evaporating quickly, causing rising columns of moist air to feed developing hurricanesmeaning that an abundance of warm water can make hurricanes develop both more quickly and more intensely.
“A rapid intensification of storms will likely be a major story yet again this year as sea-surface temperatures and ocean heat content (OHC) across most of the basin are forecast to be well above average,” DaSilva said in a news release.
Last year, high OHC supercharged intense storms, including Hurricane Beryl and Hurricane Milton. In an article for The Conversation that summer, expert Brian Tang noted, The peak intensification rates of hurricanes increased by an average of 25% to 30% when comparing hurricane data between 1971-1990 and 2001-2020.
Experts believe that as climate change continues to worsen and ocean temperatures rise, its likely that hurricane season will only become more extreme and more dangerous.
What’s going on with FEMA?
As more information about the upcoming hurricane season comes to light, it appears that the Trump administration may be gearing up to shutter the governments largest disaster aid group.
On Monday, Kristi Noem, secetary of Homeland Security, reportedly said that her department planned to eliminate FEMA. On Tuesday, CNN reported that top officials from FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security met to discuss FEMAs future and options for shutting it down. According to CNN, the agency is currently in a state of disarray as more than $100 billion in disaster assistance and grant money is frozen and hiring is largely stalled.
The elimination of FEMA could have major consequences for the future of disaster relief in the U.S. In January, Samantha Montano, an emergency management professor at Massachusetts Maritime Academy, told Fast Company that abolishing FEMA would result in a less effective, less efficient, and less equitable emergency management system, which means it makes all of us less safe. Without question, we would see higher death tolls, greater physical damage, and immense economic impacts.
Currently, aid from FEMA is provided only after local jurisdictions have depleted their own resources and the agencys intervention is approved by Congress. In 2023, the agency spent $30 billion aiding in the aftermath of fires, floods, landslides, tornadoes, hurricanes, and winter storms across the country. In 2024, FEMA workers went door-to-door providing aid after Hurricane Helene struck. Now, though, when the agency should be prepping for the upcoming hurricane season, staffers tell CNN that theyve had to pause their operations.
March is typically when were finalizing hurricane plans. A lot of that got paused, one anonymous source shared. So, its already having an impact, which is that were not preparing.
In mountain ranges around the world, glaciers are melting as global temperatures rise. Europes Alps and Pyrenees lost 40% of their glacier volume from 2000 to 2023. These and other icy regions have provided freshwater for people living downstream for centuriesalmost 2 billion people rely on glaciers today. But as glaciers melt faster, they also pose potentially lethal risks.
Water from the melting ice often drains into depressions once occupied by the glacier, creating large lakes. Many of these expanding lakes are held in place by precarious ice dams or rock moraines deposited by the glacier over centuries.
Too much water behind these dams or a landslide into the lake can break the dam, sending huge volumes of water and debris sweeping down the mountain valleys, wiping out everything in the way.
Today, over 10million people across the world are vulnerable to glacial lake outburst floods.In High Mountain Asia alone, these flooding hazards are projected to triple by 2100, especially with continued high emissions. Read full @Nature paper: https://t.co/PsXcyH2jFC pic.twitter.com/RgZ44VF6v4— International Cryosphere Climate Initiative (@ICCInet) May 30, 2024
These risks and the loss of freshwater supplies are some of the reasons the United Nations declared 2025 the International Year of Glaciers Preservation and March 21 the first World Day for Glaciers. As an earth scientist and a mountain geographer, we study the impact that ice loss can have on the stability of the surrounding mountain slopes and glacial lakes. We see several reasons for increasing concern.
Erupting ice dams and landslides
Most glacial lakes began forming over a century ago as a result of warming trends since the 1860s, but their abundance and rates of growth have risen rapidly since the 1960s.
Many people living in the Himalayas, Andes, Alps, Rocky Mountains, Iceland, and Alaska have experienced glacial lake outburst floods of one type or another.
A glacial lake outburst flood in the Himalayas in October 2023 damaged more than 30 bridges and destroyed a 200-foot-high hydropower plant. Residents had little warning. By the time the disaster was over, more than 50 people had died.
Juneau, Alaska, has been hit by several flash floods in recent years from a glacial lake dammed by ice on an arm of Mendenhall Glacier. Those floods, including in 2024, were driven by a melting glacier that slowly filled a basin below it until the basins ice dam broke.
Avalanches, rockfalls and slope failures can also trigger glacial lake outburst floods. These are growing more common as frozen ground known as permafrost thaws, robbing mountain landscapes of the cryospheric glue that formerly held them together. These slides can create massive waves when they plummet into a lake. The waves can then rupture the ice dam or moraine, unleashing a flood of water, sediment, and debris.
That dangerous mix can rush downstream at speeds of 20 to 60 mph, destroying homes and anything else in its path.
The casualties of such an event can be staggering. In 1941, a huge wave caused by a snow and ice avalanche that fell into Laguna Palcacocha, a glacial lake in the Peruvian Andes, overtopped the moraine dam that had contained the lake for decades. The resulting flood destroyed one-third of the downstream city of Huaraz and killed between 1,800 and 5,000 people.
Teardrop-shaped Lake Palcacocha, shown in this satellite view, has expanded in recent decades. The city of Huaraz, Peru, is just down the valley to the right of the lake. [Image: Google Earth, data from Airbus Data SIO, NOAA, U.S. Navy, NGA, GEBCO]
In the years since, the danger there has only increased. Laguna Palcacocha has grown to more than 14 times its size in 1941. At the same time, the population of Huaraz has risen to mre than 120,000 inhabitants. A glacial lake outburst flood today could threaten the lives of an estimated 35,000 people living in the waters path.
Governments have responded to this widespread and growing threat by developing early warning systems and programs to identify potentially dangerous glacial lakes. Some governments have taken steps to lower water levels in the lakes or built flood diversion structures, such as walls of rock-filled wire cages, known as gabions, that divert floodwaters from villages, infrastructure, or agricultural fields.
Where the risks cant be managed, communities have been encouraged to use zoning that prohibits building in flood-prone areas. Public education has helped build awareness of the flood risk, but the disasters continue.
Flooding from inside and thawing permafrost
The dramatic nature of glacial lake outburst floods captures headlines, but those arent the only risks. As scientists expand their understanding of how the worlds icy regions interact with global warming, they are identifying a number of other phenomena that can lead to similarly disastrous events.
Englacial conduit floods, for instance, originate inside of glaciers, commonly those on steep slopes. Meltwater can collect inside massive systems of ice caves, or conduits. A sudden surge of water from one cave to another, perhaps triggered by the rapid drainage of a surface pond, can set off a chain reaction that bursts out of the ice as a full-fledged flood.
Thawing mountain permafrost can also trigger floods. This permanently frozen mass of rock, ice and soil has been a fixture at altitudes above 19,685 feet for millennia.
Freezing helps keep mountains together. But as permafrost thaws, even solid rock becomes less stable and is more prone to breaking, while ice and debris are more likely to become detached and turn into destructive and dangerous debris flows. Thawing permafrost has been increasingly implicated in glacial lake outburst floods because of these new sources of potential triggers.
In 2017, nearly a third of the solid rock face of Nepals 20,935-foot Saldim Peak collapsed and fell onto the Langmale glacier below. Heat generated by the friction of rock falling through air melted ice, creating a slurry of rock, debris, and sediment that plummeted into Langmale glacial lake below, resulting in a massive flood.
A glacial outburst flood in Barun Valley started when nearly one-third of the face of Saldim Peak in Nepal fell onto Langmale Glacier and slid into a lake. The top image shows the mountain in 2016. The lower shows the same view in 2017. [Figures: Elizabeth Byers (2016)/Alton Byers (2017)]
These and other forms of glacier-related floods and hazards are being exacerbated by climate change.
Flows of ice and debris from high altitudes and the sudden appearance of meltwater ponds on a glaciers surface are two more examples. Earthquakes can also trigger glacial lake outburst floods. Not only have thousands of lives been lost, but billions of dollars in hydropower facilities and other structures have also been destroyed.
A reminder of whats at risk
The International Year of Glaciers Preservation and World Day for Glaciers are reminders of the risks and also of who is in harms way.
The global population depends on the cryospherethe 10% of the Earths land surface thats covered in ice. But as more glacial lakes form and expand, floods and other risks are rising. A study published in 2024 counted more than 110,000 glacial lakes around the world and determined 10 million peoples lives and homes are at risk from glacial lake outburst floods.
The U.N. is encouraging more research into these regions. It also declared 2025 to 2034 the decade of action in cryospheric sciences. Scientists on several continents will be working to understand the risks and find ways to help communities respond to and mitigate the dangers.
Suzanne OConnell is a Harold T. Stearns Professor of Earth science at Wesleyan University.
Alton C. Byers is a faculty research scientist at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado Boulder.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
If you were given $100 and five minutes in a bookstore, which titles would you pick? Thats the premise of Simon & Schusters upcoming web series, Bookstore Blitzthe publishers latest internet-inspired effort to market its authors.
And Bookstore Blitz is just the beginning. In a recent interview with The Cuts Cat Zhang, the flagship imprints new publisher, Sean Manning, shared his plans to modernize Simon & Schuster into a media powerhouse. Other series in the works include an awards showstyle interview program called Read Carpet.
Were essentially an entertainment company with books at the center. Every Tuesday, we have a new author whos a cultural tastemaker, Manning said. Why arent we using them? Why are we so dependent on outside media?
Theres a well-documented appetite for book-related content online. TikToks book community was responsible for approximately 59 million print book sales in 2024, catapulting previously unknown authors into household names. BookToks older, less zany cousin, BookTube, has also long been used to promote new publications and offer free marketing to authors big and small.
Many of the top-selling fiction writers in the U.S. todayincluding Colleen Hoover, Sarah J. Maas, and Rebecca Yarrosowe their success in part to going viral on TikTok. A single video in the apps sensationalized style often outperforms traditional advertising, sending authors straight to the top of bestseller lists.
BookToks runaway success has forced publishers into the 21st century, pushing them to grow their presence on other social platforms, especially Instagram and Threads. Manning believes his biggest competition is no longer other publishersits social media.
Inspired by brands like Vice, which built a following through YouTube documentaries, and The New Yorker with its podcasts and annual festival, Manning told The Cut he envisions cultivating A24-style brand loyaltyfor books.
As for Bookstore Blitz, Manning has big ambitions: My hope is that inevitably the series could be a promotional stop like Chicken Shop Date or Hot Ones.
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Taking the first step towards a new future for your organization can be a daunting effortbut for professional services organizations, the time is now. With 70% of organizations planning to track office attendance in 2025, the corporate real estate landscape is primed for potential. Leaders must fully capitalize on the seismic shifts in the new standard of in-office work and use their spaces to enhance collaboration, productivity, and company purpose. As law firms, in particular, transition back to in-office work, they face the challenge of balancing privacy with collaborative spaces. While these needs seem at odds, a thoughtful approach that integrates flexibility and a strong workplace experience strategy can help firms create environments that attract and retain top talent.
Organic interaction opportunities
The most transformative ideas often emerge far beyond the confines of a boardroom or the monotony of a desk. Instead, sparks of ingenuity can stem from shared moments with colleagues, like a quick chat in the hallway or a coffee break.
These moments that happen in interstitial spaces tend to be afterthoughts. When utilized well, however, an interstitial space can be every bit as impactful as a breakroom or lounge. A global law firm with a two-floor office space is a perfect example. Thanks to an open design and interconnected staircase, team members can communicate quickly and easily with colleagues from other floors.
As in-office work models continue to shift and evolve, leaders must prioritize creating dynamic spaces that foster these organic connections. Otherwise, businesses risk missing out on valuable interactions like knowledge sharing, mentorship, and peer-to-peer professional development. Organizations have plenty of options regardless of office footprint and team size.
For instance, one of PDRs energy clients wanted to maximize its office potential and facilitate face-to-face interactions. We worked with them to create specific areas, such as green spaces and cafes, where team members could gather away from their desks. Best of all, the design provided these amenities while simultaneously reducing the footprint, ultimately saving the organization money. Providing these spaces solves for challenges like a lack of mentoring or knowledge sharing, while boosting peoples connection to an organizations purposetwo primary imperatives valued by new generations of leadership.
Competitive advantages for employee wellness
In todays competitive job market, top talent has abundant options. This means transforming the office into a powerful amenity that offers unique valueone that attracts, engages, and retains the best employees.
As noted in Wellhubs 2025 State of Work-Life Wellness report, 88% of employees say that wellness-focused workspaces are crucial to their overall job satisfaction. In fact, firms with WELL-certified offices see higher levels of employee engagement, productivity, and retention.
Looking to hospitality design is a strong way leaders can begin to rethink their approach to the workplace. A health-centric mindset is especially valuable for the legal profession, where long hours, intense focus, and strong mental and emotional resilience are essential. The industry’s demands can contribute to stress and burnout, resulting in a high turnover rate.Design elements such as access to daylight or biophilic design have a proven effect on employee productivity and mood, minimizing stress while improving performance. A firms leaders must leverage these insights to create spaces that elevate the work experience and provide an undeniable draw to attract new talent and sustain the energy and motivation of those who already drive the firms success.
Space utilization
Workplace solutions must be tailored to an organizations culture and work styleswhat works for one industry may not suit another. A functional workspace must align with a companys purpose while maximizing efficiency. With high real estate costs and long-term leases posing risks, underutilized space can lead to significant financial waste.
A structured visioning process helps organizations optimize their space. For example, one company balanced energy and focus by dedicating its second floor to quiet areas, meeting rooms, and breakout spaces, complementing its high-energy trade floor. Some law firms are repurposing law libraries into collaborative spaces as research shifts to digital, fostering knowledge sharing and mentorship. Transforming these spaces into meeting or common areas increases opportunities to interact while eliminating single-purpose inefficiencies.
Organizations can create environments that support productivity, collaboration, and long-term business success by taking a strategic approach to space planning.
Future-focus and flexibility
The most impactful workplaces are agile and adaptable, ready to support an organizations mission today, tomorrow, and for years to come. But leaders must navigate and accommodate multiple needs and preferences from several generations. That is easier said than done, as our global corporate law office client discovered. It was critical that every square foot for this firm was used with intention and provided a competitive advantage. This client had the added challenge of fusing two teams and bringing them under the same roof. Modular planning helped them create a blend of personalized and collaborative work areas well-suited for the firms new hybrid work style.
Another Band 1-ranked global law firm involved a similar challenge, as its team needed to balance internal meetings with client interactions in a limited space. To address this, the firms conference rooms were designed with adjustable walls, allowing them to expand the space for client meetings while maintaining privacy when needed.
Flexibility was key to these projects’ success and will only become more vital. Adapting to ongoing shifts helps businesses attract top talent and strengthen their competitive edge.
It’s time to prioritize exceptional experiences
As leaders look to the many opportunities ahead, its important to remember that peoples needs, workstyles, and preferences in the workplace will continue evolving. Ongoing discussions and a future-focused approach can ensure an organizatios environment provides competitive advantages that match their peoples desires.
Simply put, if organizations do not provide people with the types of experiences they crave, they risk missing out on the best and brightest talent. Or they invest capital in a physical workplace that fails to draw employees into their space. Yet with ample real estate opportunities, this is the perfect time to rethink workplace design.
Lauri Goodman Lampson is president and CEO of PDR.
The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more.
The recent L.A. wildfires have been devastating, displacing thousands and leaving behind a stark reminder of how vulnerable our built environment remains. Having lived through the 2018 Woolsey Fire in Malibu, Ive seen firsthand the immense challenges of rebuilding. In my April 2024 TEDx talk, How building a home in four weeks can influence four generations, I explored the emotional and financial toll of losing a homeand why we must rethink how we rebuild. That talk reinforces the importance of protecting all the meanings of home by building (and rebuilding) our homes with mindfulness toward sustainability and resilience against the sure potential of additional weather- and fire-related harms in the future.
A new approach to fire-resilient housing
Since 2019, Ive focused on applying lessons from past disasters to create homes that can better withstand future wildfires. My company, Azure Homes, uses advanced prefab technology to construct homes that are sustainable and built to have a better chance at surviving a fire.
Beyond technology, though, we need a broader shift in how we design and construct homes. My newly published book, From Ashes to Action: A Survivors Guide to Rebuilding After Wildfire, explores practical solutions for homeowners, policymakers, architects, and builders to make communities more fire-resilient. Here are a few key points from the book:
What makes a home fire-resistant?
By analyzing recent wildfires, we can identify clear patterns in home survivability:
Fire-rated siding and decks resist ignition from radiant heat.
Double-pane or triple-pane tempered windows withstand extreme heat without shattering.
Ember-resistant vents block embers from entering attics and crawl spaces.
Class A fire-rated roofs are designed to withstand severe fire exposure, offering the highest level of fire resistance available for roofing materials.
In contrast, homes with untreated wood siding, single-pane windows, unprotected vents, and those without class A-rated roofs often ignite quickly.
Beyond materials: The role of terrain and weather
Fire doesnt just spread through structuresit moves through landscapes. The risk is significantly influenced by:
Slope: Fires move faster uphill, preheating vegetation.
Wind: Drives embers miles ahead, sparking new ignitions.
Urban fuels: Vehicles, fences, and neighboring homes can create unpredictable fire spread.
Reducing risk requires a holistic approachdefensible space, smart urban planning, and proactive vegetation management.
How homeowners can build for resilience
Wildfires will continue to be a reality in California and beyond, but homeowners can take actionable steps to reduce risk:
Defensible space: Clear dry vegetation and use fire-resistant landscaping.
Stronger building codes: Follow post-2008 fire-resistant construction standards.
Fire-smart design: Consider modular, prefabricated, or 3D-printed homes for speed and safety.
Emergency-ready communities: Engage in programs like Firewise USA to enhance neighborhood resilience.
Policy and innovation must work together
With climate change intensifying fire conditions, policymakers must step up. L.A.s recent executive orders have helped fast-track rebuilding, but we need long-term commitments:
Faster approvals for fire-resilient construction: Pre-approved designs and modular solutions can cut rebuilding time significantly.
Expanded fire-resistant zoning laws: Smarter land-use policies can prevent high-risk development.
Incentives for fireproof homes: Lower insurance rates and grants for fire-resistant retrofits can encourage adoption.
The future of rebuilding: A smarter, safer approach
Recovering from a wildfire isnt just about rebuildingits about rethinking. We have the technology and knowledge to construct homes that can survive these disasters. Prefabricated and 3D-printed homes offer a scalable, cost-effective solution, reducing reliance on labor while increasing resilience.
As difficult as this moment is, its also an opportunity. The lessons from these fires must shape how we build the homes of the futurestronger, safer, and ready for whatever comes next.
Gene Eidelman is cofounder of Azure Homes.
The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more.
Through hundreds of conversations with college presidents and my work with institutions across the globe, I’ve observed a powerful dynamic shaping the success or failure of digital transformation in higher education. As we progress through the first few months of 2025, Ive been reflecting on the dynamic at this pivotal time in higher education.
Before institutions rush the doors of modernization and leap into this new wave of artificial intelligence, they must first step back and acknowledge a different type of AIalignment and inertia.
Institutional inertia
First, lets start with inertia, because the reality is, its always easier to do nothing than to drive change. Organizational inertia acts as a constant force against change, manifesting itself in ways that directly impact an organizations ability to evolve and be healthy. In the context of higher education, where there are often competing priorities, technology projects that should take months stretch into years. Decision processes become mired in endless approval cycles. Resources remain locked in legacy systems while innovation initiatives slowly die in committee. Meanwhile, competitors advance, and market opportunities slip away.
Sadly, the cost of this inertia compounds over time, creating a widening gap between institutional capabilities and student expectations. When technology projects face multiple delays, institutions lose more than time and moneythey lose their place in line for their competitive position. We see this even more when an institution prioritizes its modernization project to start with its administrative areas rather than those directly affecting the student experience and their ultimate success.
I had this conversation with a top HBCU leader in Alabama which is gearing up to modernize its enterprise and student systems. He called me to announce that his strategy to compete and ensure his students had the best experience and graduated on time was to start with their student systems first. He just plain got it, telling me that our student information system would help them drive the outcomes they need.
Todays modern learner is expecting seamless digital experiences and will choose institutions that better meet their needs. We saw this clearly in our recent Student Voice Report that showed 92% of students surveyed expect to access all student account services in one place. At the same time, faculty was frustrated with outdated tools, while staff waste countless hours on an abundance of manual processes that could be automated (stating that this is the way theyve always done it). The resulting impact on enrollment, retention, and institutional reputation creates a downward spiral that becomes increasingly difficult to reverse. It also traps valuable resources that could be directed to higher impact areas, from student mental health services to career coaching innovations, to addressing the imbalance of student-to-advisor ratios.
Leadership alignment
Inertia sets up like quicksand when one variable is missingalignment. Leadership alignment provides the essential counterforce to institutional inertia. When presidents achieve true alignment from their board, leadership team, and endowment partners, they create momentum that can almost always overcome even the strongest resistors. This type of multi-stakeholder alignment accelerates decision making, ensures resources flow to strategic priorities, and empowers change champions throughout the organization. Rather than avoiding resistance or waiting for the right time that often never comes, aligned leadership teams address it proactively in a constructive, outcomes-based, and student-first mindset aligned to their strategic priorities.
Presidents face the challenging task of building these aligned teams while managing the constant drag of inertia. Some achieve this by bringing in trusted leaders who share their transformation vision. Others invest time building coalitions with existing team members, carefully assessing their capability and commitment to change. But the best leaders do one thing that trumps all othersthey lead with the mindset of putting their students first. When leaders do this, there is always a sense of urgency and action because students cant and wont wait!
Alignment helps overcome inertia
So, what is a president to do with their board? If they are lucky, they have recruited leaders with a bias for transformation and action, but often this is not the case. The reality is that the board plays a particularly crucial role in gaining alignment and support for an institutions strategic goals and must not be overlooked. As higher education becomes increasingly technology-dependent, boards must expand their oversight beyond traditional areas to ensure modernization serves student needs while supporting the institutions mission.
Technology can no longer be an afterthought and it cant fromdecisions made in facilities and buildings committees. It must be front and center as a part of institutional strategic planning. Strong board support empowers presidents to overcome inertia by approving necessary resources, supporting difficult leadership decisions, and maintaining focus on long-term sustainability despite short-term pressures.
When institutions lack this leadership alignment, inertia wins the day. Projects stall in endless committees while resources remain trapped in maintaining legacy systems. Innovation initiatives become diluted in attempts to maintain the status quo, and departmental interests regularly override institutional priorities. The result is a gradual erosion of competitive position that may go unnoticed until an institution finds itself unable to compete for the students they once attracted.
The stakes are particularly high right now as artificial intelligence reshapes higher education in ways that we cannot even imagine. Institutions that struggle with basic technology implementations will find AI adoption nearly impossible. The technology itself, no matter how promising, cannot overcome the gravitational pull of institutional inertia.
Success in digital transformation requires mastering both types of AI. While artificial intelligence promises transformation, alignment provides the force to overcome inertia and make even the toughest transformation possible. In the race to embrace AI, remember: The most crucial intelligence isn’t artificialit’s aligned. Only through strong alignment can institutions generate enough momentum to overcome inertia and create meaningful change that serves students, supports faculty, and ensures institutional sustainability in an increasingly digital world.
Laura Ipsen is CEO of Ellucian.
Many Americans wonder whether the pill used in most U.S. abortions will be restricted under the new Republican administration in Washington.
President Donald Trumps pick to lead the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Marty Makary, was confirmed by the Senate late Tuesday. In recent testimony before the Senate health committee, Makary wouldnt commit to specific action on the pill, called mifepristone, despite prodding from both Republicans and Democrats.
Medical professionals call it among the safest medications ever approved by the FDA. But a Christian conservative group that sued the FDA over the drug says it has caused tens of thousands of emergency complications.”
Heres what to know about the safety of mifepristone, which is typically used with misoprostol in medication abortions that make up close to two-thirds of abortions in the U.S.
What are the safety limits on use of the abortion pill?
The FDA approved mifepristone in 2000 as a safe and effective way to end early pregnancies. Currently, there are no in-person requirements and the pill can be sent through the mail.
That’s not how the FDA first treated mifepristone, which on rare occasions can cause dangerous, excessive bleeding that requires emergency care. Strict safety limits were placed on who could prescribe and distribute it only specially certified physicians and only as part of three mandatory in-person appointments with the patient getting the drug. The doctors also had to be capable of performing emergency surgery to stop excess bleeding and an abortion procedure if the drug didnt end the pregnancy.
Over time, the FDA reaffirmed mifepristones safety and repeatedly eased restrictions.
How often are there serious problems?
Abortion opponents say the FDAs 2021 decision allowing online prescribing and mail-order use of mifepristone resulted in many more emergency complications.
But that argument lumps together women experiencing a range of issues from mifepristone not working to people who may simply have questions or concerns but dont require medical care.
OB-GYNs say a tiny fraction of patients suffer major or serious adverse events after taking mifepristone.
A legal brief filed with the Supreme Court last year by a group of medical organizations including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says: When used in medication abortion, major adverse events significant infection, excessive blood loss, or hospitalization occur in less than 0.32% of patients, according to a highly regarded study with more than 50,000 patients.
The definition that scientists generally use for serious adverse events includes blood transfusions, major surgery, hospital admissions and death, said Ushma Upadhyay, one of the authors of that 2015 study.
The prescribing information included in the packaging for mifepristone tablets lists slightly different statistics for what it calls serious adverse reactions. It cites ranges for how frequently various complications occur: 0.03% to 0.5% for transfusion; 0.2% for sepsis and 0.04% to 0.6% for hospitalization related to medication abortions. The ranges reflect findings across various relevant studies, experts said.
Why do patients go to the emergency room?
Mifepristones labeling lists a complication that most medical groups dont consider a serious or major adverse event: ER visits, which ranged from 2.9% to 4.6%. The current FDA label lists going to the ER as an option if patients experience prolonged heavy bleeding, severe abdominal pain or a sustained fever. But ER visits dont always reflect big problems.
Some people may go there after a medication abortion because they want to be checked out or have questions but dont have a doctor, said Upadhyay, a public health scientist at the University of California, San Francisco. Others, she said, dont want to go to their primary care provider about their abortion because of stigma.
A study she co-authored in 2018 found that slightly more than half of patients who visited the ER because of abortions received only observational care.
How effective is the pill?
Mifepristone results in a completed abortion 97.4% of the time, according to U.S. studies cited in the FDA label.
But in 2.6% of cases, a surgical intervention is needed. And 0.7% of the time, the pregnancy continues.
Thats compared to a procedural abortion in a clinic, where the chance of the procedure failing to end a pregnancy is extremely, extremely low, probably less than 0.1%, said Dr. Pratima Gupta, a board member for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
Any time a procedural abortion is done, the clinicians ensure that it was a complete abortion by examining the tissue that is removed or performing an ultrasound during or after the procedure, she said.
Gupta, who has done abortion procedures for more than 20 years, said there are very few complications from abortion any kind of abortion, medication or procedural abortion.
One study suggested thats just as true for medication abortions that happen in a clinic, a doctors office or at home with the help of telehealth.
How does mifepristones safety and effectiveness compare to other drugs?
The FDA makes drug approval decisions on a case-by-case basis, weighing effectiveness, safety and other factors.
No drug is 100% effective, and many common medications dont work for a significant portion of patients.
Antidepressants typically help between 40% and 60% of people with depression. New antibiotics approved by the FDA often resolve about 70% of infections.
Since 2000, roughly 6 million patients have taken mifepristone, according to the FDA. A 2021 review of agency records looking for deaths that were likely related to the drug identified 13, or 0.00027% of patients.
Medical organizations supporting mifepristones availability say the drugs safety given the rate of deaths compares to ibuprofen, which more than 30 million Americans take in any given day. ___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Scince and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Laura Ungar and Matthew Perrone, Associated Press
