June 17, 2024: Homeschooling needs more oversight, humans are causing the evolution of animals, and Voyager 1 is back to gathering data. —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | | In 2019, nearly 3 percent of U.S. children—1.5 million—were being homeschooled, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The number has been growing in recent decades and the true number is likely much higher, especially since more kids started homeschooling during the COVID pandemic. Why this matters: Homeschooled children have gone on to win national spelling bees, and famed Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdös was homeschooled by his mathematician mother. But most states don't require the same assessment of homeschooled kids that are required for their public school peers. Parents are not required to have an education themselves to direct instruction, and in most states no one checks to see that children are receiving an education at all. In the worst cases, homeschooling can hide abuse.
What can be done: Homeschooling should be subject to some basic federal mandates, write the editors of Scientific American in the June issue. Homeschool parents should be required to undergo a background check–the same as K-12 teachers. Additionally, homeschool instructors could be required to submit documents every year to their local school district or to a state agency to show that their children are learning. "Education is a basic human right," the editors say. "We need to make sure kids have chances to investigate what makes them curious, study history and science and reading." | | | Animal behaviors and biology are uniquely suited to the creatures' environments. Light, temperature and physical dimensions of a specific ecological habitat impact species' feeding habits, breeding cycles and courtship behaviors, and physical range. According to some estimates, humans use or live on about half of Earth's land surface area, directly impacting many plant and animal habitats. Our activities are extensive–burning fossil fuels, using freshwater, building buildings and roads, illuminating the night. As a result of our influence, key aspects of animal behavior are changing, including where they live, where they breed, what they eat, whom they fight.
Why this matters: Warmer average temperatures as a result of human-induced climate change are shifting the breeding timing of tree swallows in northern New York. Many birds struggle to feed their young when they hatch earlier, as grubs and other insects haven't yet emerged. Birds that naturally breed later may show a strong advantage. Light pollution in urban areas in Germany has prompted European Blackbirds to reach sexual maturity weeks sooner than their forest counterparts. Animal researchers have also found that city mice are bolder in their food foraging behavior–likely as a result of living in more fragmented city habitats.
What the experts say: We tend to think of evolution as a slow process, isolated to the historical tomes of Charles Darwin. But so-called anthropogenic evolution–which is driven by human influence–"is happening here and now," writes biologist Lee Alan Dugatkin. "We are driving massive and rapid evolutionary changes in species around us." | | | A flying electric air taxi developed by California-based Joby Aviation. Joby Aviation/© Joby Aero, Inc. | | | • Voyager 1 is back, baby! All four of the spacecraft's science instruments are functional, after nearly six months of troubleshooting by NASA. (The craft is more than 15 billion miles from Earth.) | 3 min read | | | • Russia's war in Ukraine has released some 175 million tons of CO2, the equivalent to $32 billion in damages. | 4 min read | | | • Breakdancing will premiere as an Olympic sport in Paris this summer. Clemson University physicist Amy Pope breaks down the physics of breaking. | 5 min read | | | • AI is already directing military drone strikes in Russia and Ukraine, Gaza, and elsewhere. The U.S. has been vocal about incorporating automated systems into its military operations in the coming years. We need robust laws now to withstand eliminating humans from nuclear decision-making, writes Tamlyn Hunt, a scholar and writer affiliated with the University of California, Santa Barbara. "Will AI incorporated into conventional and nuclear weapons systems follow a hawkish game theory approach...Or will the programs adopt more empathetic and humane decision-making guidelines?" he asks. "There is no way to know how AI will respond in any particular context until after the fact." | 5 min read | | | ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre (CEA Paris-Saclay), G. Anselmi (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO) | | | • The Euclid telescope, whose mission is to study dark matter and dark energy, has sent back some real stunners. The above image is Messier 78, a star nursery nebula about 1,300 light-years away. M78 is a reflection nebula: two nearby massive young blue supergiant stars illuminate the cloud, and that light is scattered toward us, making the cloud's dust appear blue. Euclid's infrared and visible observations were combined to produce this image. Click here to see some other truly spectacular images. | | | An extreme example of human-animal interaction: Leopards on the Indian subcontinent live in densely populated landscapes, and even right on the edge of large cities like Mumbai. Ecologists and policy makers must work in tandem to determine what motivates the cats' (and humans') behavior and devise ways to protect people and leopards. | Welcome to a new week. Reach out any time with feedback or suggestions: newsletters@sciam.com. Same time tomorrow. | —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | Subscribe to this and all of our newsletters . | | | | Scientific American
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