1,200 Rare Salamanders Released in Florida Days After 42 Snakes Were Set Free in the State
Frosted flatwoods salamanders are endangered due to habitat destruction and climate change
Biologists released the amphibians to improve Florida's ecosystemsFlorida is gaining more amphibian residents!
According to the Amphibian and Reptile Conservancy (ARC), biologists released 1,204 frosted flatwoods salamanders in the wetlands of the Florida panhandle in late April.
Frosted flatwoods salamanders are listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List. The April release was an effort to help bolster the amphibian population and save the salamanders from extinction.
The Amphibian and Reptile Conservancy is committed to helping salamander species through releases and habitat restoration.
"Along with our incredible partners here, we're carrying out a multi-faceted strategy for frosted flatwoods salamanders. We're not only releasing more salamanders onto the land; we're building better habitats and making sure the ecosystem contains what these amphibians need, all to give them a fighting chance against the big threats they face," JJ Apodaca, the executive director of ARC, shared.
The salamanders released into Florida are part of a process called head-starting. Biologists collected the animals as unhatched eggs in the wild, hatched them, and raised them in protected environments. Then, the biologists released the salamanders back into the wild once they reached a size more suitable for surviving in the wild.
ARC is also working on a captive breeding program for frosted flatwoods salamanders and plans to release the salamanders that result from the initiative.
"This is a species persisting in the face of a lot of adversity, and there's a committed team of people mirroring that persistence by working hard to help them in many ways," ARC project coordinator Nicole Dahrouge said.
While the salamanders have numerous supporters at ARC and the organization's partners, the amphibians still face mounting hazards.
"The looming climate threats are pretty worrisome; with storm surges and flooding, the coastal populations are increasingly at risk," Dahrouge added.
Still, Dahrouge remains optimistic about the frosted flatwoods salamander's future and the "positive changes" ARC is making for them.
"These animals matter, even if most people never see them or might not even notice their absence if they were lost," she said. "They're part of a system that's been in place long before we arrived, and the tragedy of their loss would be an avoidable one."
The release of the over 1,200 salamanders comes days after a large snake release. On April 25, The Nature Conservancy and its partners released 42 young eastern indigo snakes, 22 females and 20 males, at the Apalachicola Bluffs and Ravines Preserve (ABRP) in Florida.
Indigo snakes are non-venomous apex predators that bring balance to the longleaf pine ecosystems they are native to. The species is also the longest snake native to the U.S.
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"In restoring ecosystems, each species plays a part in bringing back natural balance," the ABRP preserve manager, Catherine Ricketts, said in a statement. "In our longleaf pine-wiregrass savannas, we want the complete suite of species here, including birds, mammals, insects, and an apex predator: the eastern indigo snake. These snakes are a key component of restoring north Florida's longleaf pine forests."
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Forbes
27-06-2025
- Forbes
500 Bird Species Face Extinction Within The Next Century
The loss of these birds will lead to the unraveling or to the complete collapse of entire ecosystems. An adult male yellow-bellied sunbird-asity (Neodrepanis hypoxantha) in Ranomafana National Park, ... More Madagascar. This tiny songbird lives in montane forests where it feeds on feeds on nectar. (Credit: Dubi Shapiro / CC BY-SA 3.0) A recent international study warns that more than 500 bird species could go extinct in the next 100 years due to climate change and human persecution. The species that are most vulnerable to extinction include the yellow-bellied sunbird-asity, the helmeted hornbill and the bare-necked umbrellabird. The loss of these vulnerable birds would greatly reduce the variety of avian sizes and shapes and would harm ecosystems as well as humans that depend on unique birds for vital ecosystem functions. 'The rate of extinction in modern times is unprecedented,' the study's lead author, ornithologist and conservation biologist Kerry Stewart, a PhD student at the University of Reading, told me in email 'We predict three times as many bird extinctions in the next 100 years as have been recorded since 1500 AD (164 recorded avian extinctions). Extinctions on this scale are expected to fundamentally alter avian communities worldwide, potentially undermining ecosystem stability and resilience.' Helmeted Hornbill (Rhinoplax vigil) is a very large bird in the hornbill family. It is found on the ... More Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Borneo, Thailand and Myanmar. It is critically endangered due to poaching and habitat loss. (Credit: Doug Janson / CC BY-SA 3.0) Many of these threatened birds will require targeted interventions if they are to survive at all. 'We need immediate action to reduce human threats across habitats and targeted rescue programs for the most unique and endangered species,' Ms Stewart explained. 'Many birds are already so threatened that reducing human impacts alone won't save them. These species need special recovery programs, like breeding projects and habitat restoration, to survive.' Tragically, Ms Stewart and collaborators found that even with complete protection from hunting, habitat loss, and climate change, roughly 250 bird species will probably go extinct anyway. Ms Stewart and collaborators came to this conclusion after examining IUCN Red List data for nearly 10,000 bird species. They predicted extinction risk based on the types of threats that each species faces. 'Birds differ in their vulnerability to different human threats, so large-bodied species are particularly likely to be vulnerable to hunting and climate change, while birds with broad wings suffer more from habitat loss,' Ms Stewart told me in email. 'We also found that many of the world's most unique species in terms of their size and shape are threatened with extinction.' Why should people care about these bird species, many of which live in faraway places? 'Bird declines have serious implications for ecosystems and human societies,' Ms Stewart replied in email. 'Declines alter species interaction networks which undermines ecosystem stability and has knock-on effects for other species including plants, mammals and insects. The impact of bird declines are expected to be particularly serious when they reduce the diversity of the roles that species play within an ecosystem.' The Indian vulture (Gyps indicus) is an Old World scavenger native to India, Pakistan, and Nepal. ... More They are usually found in savannas and other open habitats around villages, cities, and near cultivated areas. They are critically endangered after their populations crashed in 2002 and afterwards. (Credit: Mike Prince via / CC BY) 'Birds provide many services that humans depend upon. For example, pollination, pest control and seed dispersal are necessary for agricultural production, and some birds are important scavengers – the vulture decline in India was estimated to have killed more than half a million people between 2000 and 2005 (ref) following the spread of disease-carrying pathogens due to an excess of dead animals,' Ms Stewart elaborated in email. 'Birds also have immense cultural value, with over $14.5 billion being spent on birdwatching trips every year in the US alone (PDF).' Considering this is not the first warning that scientists have delivered regarding the conservation status of the world's birds, what makes this study unique? 'One of the novel aspects of this paper is that we estimated biodiversity loss in more than one way, looking at species extinctions and functional diversity decline,' Ms Stewart explained in email. 'Functional diversity describes the diversity of size and shape of species within a community, and can be useful for understanding the range of ecological roles present in an ecosystem which is important for understanding ecosystem function and integrity. We found that functional diversity will decline as much as species richness in response to species extinctions, and that threats like hunting and collection have a particularly large impact on functional diversity per the number of species affected.' In addition to sounding yet another warning regarding these birds' extinction risks, Ms Stewart and collaborators also identified which conservation actions will best preserve both the number of bird species and their ecological functions. The study found that stopping the destruction of habitats would save the most bird species overall. However, reducing hunting and preventing accidental deaths would save birds with more unusual functions, which are especially important for ecosystem health. But as many as 250–350 species will require more intensive conservation measures, such as captive breeding programs and habitat restoration, if they are to survive into the next century. For example, prioritizing conservation programs for just 100 of the most unusual threatened birds could save 68% of the variety in bird shapes and sizes. This approach could help to keep ecosystems healthy. One particularly inspirational conservation triumph that illustrates successful intensive conservation efforts is the California condor, Gymnogyps californianus. With a 9½-foot wingspan, this species is amongst the largest birds in North America. When in flight, this spectacular bird is hard to miss. But poaching for feathers and eggs, poisoning from consuming lead ammunition in carcasses, and habitat destruction caused the condors' population to crash. By 1987, the entire species – numbering just 22 individuals – was removed from the wild and placed into captive breeding programs at a number of zoos throughout the United States. Meanwhile, lead ammunition for hunting has been either banned or severely restricted, thereby protecting condors as well as other large birds, particularly eagles. These targeted intensive conservation efforts are paying off: there are more than 350 condors currently living in the wild, with more than 200 individuals in the state of California alone, and over 180 birds (including chicks) living in captivity. A fledgling California condor (Gymnogyps californianus) spreads her wings to absorb the sun's rays. ... More (Credit: NPS / Gavin Emmons / public domain.) What is this study's most important take-home message? 'The take-home message of this study is that immediate and ambitious actions to reduce threats to natural populations are essential to prevent avian diversity loss, but threat reduction alone is not enough. Many species will require additional measures such as captive breeding efforts for their survival.' Source: Kerry Stewart, Chris Venditti, Carlos P. Carmona, Joanna Baker, Chris Clements, Joseph A. Tobias & Manuela González-Suárez (2025). Threat reduction must be coupled with targeted recovery programmes to conserve global bird diversity, Nature Ecology & Evolution | doi:10.1038/s41559-025-02746-z © Copyright by GrrlScientist | hosted by Forbes | Socials: Bluesky | CounterSocial | LinkedIn | Mastodon Science | MeWe | Spoutible | SubStack | Threads | Tumblr | Twitter
Business Wire
20-06-2025
- Business Wire
Archeus Technologies Receives FDA Clearance of Investigational New Drug Application for ART-101 in Development for the Treatment of Prostate Cancer
MADISON, Wis.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Archeus Technologies, a company developing radiopharmaceutical therapies for the treatment of patients with cancer, today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared its Investigational New Drug (IND) application for ART-101, a novel receptor-based targeting small molecule that Archeus has developed for the imaging and treatment of prostate cancer. This IND clearance enables Archeus to initiate a Phase 1 clinical trial in men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC), which is expected to start later this year. ART-101 was discovered and developed by Reinier Hernandez, Ph.D., assistant professor of medical physics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, with robust development support from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. The therapy targets prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA), similar to several FDA-approved imaging and therapeutic agents. However, preclinical data demonstrates that ART-101 exhibits higher tumor uptake and retention, as well as lower normal tissue and salivary gland uptake, relative to current FDA-approved PSMA-targeting agents. Archeus plans to evaluate ART-101 as a theranostic radiopharmaceutical agent with the potential to deliver alpha particle-emitting isotopes with greater efficacy and safety compared with current standards of care. 'This IND clearance marks an important milestone for Archeus as we prepare to initiate the first of multiple clinical trials set to begin this year from our broader portfolio of differentiated radiopharmaceutical assets for difficult-to-treat cancers,' said Evan Sengbusch, Ph.D., chief executive officer of Archeus Technologies. 'ART-101 represents a promising approach to targeting PSMA-positive prostate cancer with the potential to deliver meaningful clinical benefit and reduced side effects for patients. We are eager to begin evaluating ART-101 in patients to better understand its full therapeutic potential.' In addition, Archeus received IND clearances in October 2024 for its lead therapeutic candidate, ARC-706, and companion diagnostic, ARC-166. The company plans to advance the two assets - together as a theranostic pair - into clinical development this year. Archeus is developing ARC-706 for combination use with certain validated immunotherapies across a range of cancer types. Preclinical data indicate that this radiopharmaceutical agent and treatment paradigm may produce curative responses, as well as immune memory against cancers that are otherwise resistant to these immunotherapies. About Archeus Technologies Archeus Technologies is a company developing radiopharmaceutical therapies for some of the most difficult-to-treat cancers. Starting with its Phase 1-ready therapeutic candidate, ARC-706, the company has assembled a growing pipeline of differentiated radiopharmaceutical therapy agents and companion diagnostic assets with the potential to provide curative responses to patients with advanced cancer. Archeus is led by an executive team with proven radiopharmaceutical expertise and a demonstrated record of advancing innovative agents from discovery through clinical development. In addition, Archeus has a long-standing strategic collaboration with the University of Wisconsin–Madison (UW), a global leader in radiopharmaceuticals and theranostics. To learn more, visit
Yahoo
19-06-2025
- Yahoo
Every fusion startup that has raised over $100M
Over the last several years, fusion power has gone from the butt of jokes — always a decade away! — to an increasingly tangible and tantalizing technology that has drawn investors off the sidelines. The technology may be challenging to master and expensive to build today, but fusion promises to harness the nuclear reaction that powers the sun to generate nearly limitless energy here on Earth. If startups are able to complete commercially viable fusion power plants, then they have the potential to upend trillion-dollar markets. The bullish wave buoying the fusion industry has been driven by three advances: more powerful computer chips, more sophisticated AI, and powerful high-temperature superconducting magnets. Together, they have helped deliver more sophisticated reactor designs, better simulations, and more complex control schemes. It doesn't hurt that, at the end of 2022, a U.S. Department of Energy lab announced that it had produced a controlled fusion reaction that produced more power than the lasers had imparted to the fuel pellet. The experiment had crossed what's known as scientific breakeven, and while it's still a long ways from commercial breakeven, where the reaction produces more than the entire facility consumes, it was a long-awaited step that proved the underlying science was sound. Founders have built on that momentum in recent years, pushing the private fusion industry forward at a rapid pace. With a $1.8 billion Series B, Commonwealth Fusion Systems catapulted itself into the pole position in 2021. Since then, the company has been quiet on the fundraising front (no surprise), but it has been hard at work in Massachusetts building Sparc, its first-of-a-kind power plant intended to produce power at what it calls 'commercially relevant' levels. Sparc's reactor uses a tokamak design, which resembles a doughnut. The D-shaped cross section is wound with high-temperature superconducting tape, which when energized, generates a powerful magnetic field that will contain and compress the superheated plasma. In Sparc's successor, the commercial-scale Arc, heat generated from the reaction is converted to steam to power a turbine. CFS designed its magnets in collaboration with MIT, where co-founder and CEO Bob Mumgaard worked as a researcher on fusion reactor designs and high-temperature superconductors. Backed by Breakthrough Energy Ventures, The Engine, Bill Gates, and others, Devens, Massachusetts-based CFS expects to have Arc operational in the early 2030s. The company has raised a total of $2 billion, according to PitchBook. Founded in 1998, TAE Technologies (formerly known as Tri Alpha Energy) was spun out of the University of California, Irvine by Norman Rostoker. It uses a field-reversed configuration, but with a twist: after the two plasma shots collide in the middle of the reactor, the company bombards the plasma with particle beams to keep it spinning in a cigar shape. That improves the stability of the plasma, allowing more time for fusion to occur and for more heat to be extracted to spin a turbine. The company raised $150 million in June from existing investors, including Google, Chevron, and New Enterprise. TAE has raised $1.79 billion in total, according to PitchBook. Of all fusion startups, Helion has the most aggressive timeline. The company plans to produce electricity from its reactor in 2028. Its first customer? Microsoft. Helion, based in Everett, Washington, uses a type of reactor called a field-reversed configuration, where magnets surround a reaction chamber that looks like an hourglass with a bulge at the point where the two sides come together. At each end of the hourglass, they spin the plasma into doughnut shapes that are shot toward each other at more than 1 million mph. When they collide in the middle, additional magnets help induce fusion. When fusion occurs, it boosts the plasma's own magnetic field, which induces an electrical current inside the reactor's magnetic coils. That electricity is then harvested directly from the machine. The company raised $425 million in January 2025, around the same time that it turned on Polaris, a prototype reactor. Helion has raised $1.03 billion, according to PitchBook. Investors include Sam Altman, Reid Hoffman, KKR, BlackRock, Peter Thiel's Mithril Capital Management, and Capricorn Investment Group. Pacific Fusion burst out of the gate with a $900 million Series A, a whopping sum even among well-funded fusion startups. The company will use inertial confinement to achieve fusion, but instead of lasers compressing the fuel, it will use coordinated electromagnetic pulses. The trick is in the timing: All 156 impedance-matched Marx generators need to produce 2 terawatts for 100 nanoseconds, and those pulses need to simultaneously converge on the target. The company is led by CEO Eric Lander, the scientist who led the Human Genome Project, and president Will Regan. Pacific Fusion's funding might be massive, but the startup hasn't gotten it all at once. Rather, its investors will pay out in tranches when the company achieves specified milestones, an approach that's common in biotech. Shine Technologies is taking a cautious — and possibly pragmatic — approach to generating fusion power. Selling electrons from a fusion power plant is years off, so instead, it's starting by selling neutron testing and medical isotopes. More recently, it has been developing a way to recycle radioactive waste. Shine hasn't picked an approach for a future fusion reactor, instead saying that it's developing necessary skills for when that time comes. The company has raised a total of $778 million, according to PitchBook. Investors include Energy Ventures Group, Koch Disruptive Technologies, Nucleation Capital, and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. Now its third-decade, General Fusion has raised $440.53 million, according to PitchBook. The Richmond, British Columbia-based company was founded in 2002 by physicist Michel Laberge, who wanted to prove a different approach to fusion known as magnetized target fusion (MTF). Investors include Jeff Bezos, Temasek, BDC Capital, and Chrysalix Venture Capital. In an General Fusion's reactor, a liquid metal wall surrounds a chamber in which plasma is injected. Pistons surrounding the wall push it inward, compressing the plasma inside and sparking a fusion reaction. The resulting neutrons heat the liquid metal, which can be circulated through a heat exchanger to generate steam to spin a turbine. General Fusion hit a rough patch in spring 2025. The company ran short of cash as it was building LM26, its latest device that it hoped would hit breakeven in 2026. Just days after hitting a key milestone, it laid off 25% of its staff. Tokamak Energy takes the usual tokamak design — the doughnut shape — and squeezes it, reducing its aspect ratio to the point where the outer bounds start resembling a sphere. Like many other tokamak-based startups, the company uses high-temperature superconducting magnets (of the rare earth barium copper oxide, or REBCO, variety). Since its design is more compact than a traditional tokamak, it requires less in the way of magnets, which should reduce costs. The Oxfordshire, UK-based startup's ST40 prototype, which looks like a large, steampunk Fabergé egg, generated an ultra-hot, 100 million degree C plasma in 2022. Its next generation, Demo 4, is currently under construction and is intended to test the company's magnets in 'fusion power plant-relevant scenarios.' Tokamak Energy raised $125 million in November 2024 to continue its reactor design efforts and expand its magnet business. In total, the company has raised $336 million from investors including Future Planet Capital, In-Q-Tel, Midven, and Capri-Sun founder Hans-Peter Wild, according to PitchBook. Zap Energy isn't using high-temperature superconducting magnets or super-powerful lasers to keep its plasma confined. Rather, it zaps the plasma (get it?) with an electric current, which then generates its own magnetic field. The magnetic field compresses the plasma about 1 millimeter, at which point ignition occurs. The neutrons released by the fusion reaction bombard a liquid metal blanket that surrounds the reactor, heating it up. The liquid metal is then cycled through a heat exchanger, where it produces steam to drive a turbine. Like Helion, Zap Energy is based in Everett, Washington, and the company has raised $327 million, according to PitchBook. Backers include Bill Gates' Breakthrough Energy Ventures, DCVC, Lowercarbon, Energy Impact Partners, Chevron Technology Ventures, and Bill Gates as an angel. Most investors have favored large startups that are pursuing tokamak designs or some flavor of inertial confinement. But stellarators have shown great promise in scientific experiments, including the Wendelstein 7-X reactor in Germany. Proxima Fusion is bucking the trend, though, having attracted a €130 million Series A that brings its total raised to more than €185 million. Investors include Balderton Capital and Cherry Ventures. Stellarators are similar to tokamaks in that they confine plasma in a ring-like shape using powerful magnets. But they do it with a twist — literally. Rather than force plasma into a human-designed ring, stellarators twist and bulge to accommodate the plasma's quirks. The result should be a plasma that remains stable for longer, increasing the chances of fusion reactions. Marvel Fusion follows the inertial confinement approach, the same basic technique that the National Ignition Facility used to prove that controlled nuclear fusion reactions could produce more power than was needed to kick them off. Marvel fires powerful lasers at a target embedded with silicon nanostructures that cascade under the bombardment, compressing the fuel to the point of ignition. Because the target is made using silicon, it should be relatively simple to manufacture, leaning on the semiconductor manufacturing industry's decades of experience. The inertial confinement fusion startup is building a demonstration facility in collaboration with Colorado State University, which it expects to have operational by 2027. Munich-based Marvel has raised a total of $161 million from investors including b2venture, Deutsche Telekom, Earlybird, HV Capital, and Taavet Hinrikus and Albert Wenger as angels. First Light dropped its pursuit of fusion power in March 2025, pivoting instead to become a technology supplier to fusion startups and other companies. The startup had previously followed an approach known as inertial confinement, in which fusion fuel pellets are compressed until they ignite. First Light, which is based in Oxfordshire, U.K., has raised $140 million, according to PitchBook, from investors including Invesco, IP Group, and Tencent. Though nothing about fusion can be described as simple, Xcimer takes a relatively straightforward approach: follow the basic science that's behind the National Ignition Facility's breakthrough net-positive experiment, and redesign the technology that underpins it from the ground up. The Colorado-based startup is aiming for a 10-megajoule laser system, five times more powerful than NIF's setup that made history. Molten salt walls surround the reaction chamber, absorbing heat and protecting the first solid wall from damage. Founded in January 2022, Xcimer has already raised $109 million, according to PitchBook, from investors including Hedosophia, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Emerson Collective, Gigascale Capital, and Lowercarbon Capital. This story was originally published in September 2024 and will be continually updated. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
