March 6, 2025: Tornado alley is moving eastward, why it's been such a horrible flu season, and the Athena lunar lander touches down. —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | | A helicopter flies through the Cache La Poudre Canyon as flames score the forest south of the river on June 14, 2012. Karl Gehring/The Denver Post via Getty Images | | | • Athena, a commercially built spacecraft that is loaded with cutting-edge technology and science experiments, has landed on the moon. But the company that built and operates the spacecraft, has yet to confirm its exact status. | 5 min read | | | This week, a large storm system swept across the entire south, with 22 reported tornadoes, according to Accuweather. Two occurred in Mississippi, one in North Carolina, and one was reported in Florida. From the 1950s through the 1990s, tornadoes in the U.S. struck most often in Tornado Alley, an oval area centered on northeastern Texas and south-central Oklahoma. More recently, that oval has shifted eastward by 400 to 500 miles, with tornadoes becoming prevalent in eastern Missouri and Arkansas, western Tennessee and Kentucky, and northern Mississippi and Alabama—a new region of concentrated storms.
Shifting Tornado Zones | | | Dark yellow regions are the zone from 1950 to 1990. Darker blue hatched areas show where the zone has shifting eastward in the last 30 years. Daniel P. Huffman | | |
Why this matters: Tornado shelters are common in Texas and Oklahoma but less so elsewhere. The Southeast is more densely populated, and mobile homes, which fare poorly in windstorms, are much more common there. Tornadoes in the Southeast are also more likely to occur at night when they are 2.5 times more deadly.
What can be done: Local governments can launch educational campaigns to increase resident preparedness, improve community shelters and warning systems, strengthen building codes, and better equip emergency responders. | | | Hospitalizations and outpatient visits for the flu are at a 15-year high, according to data from the CDC. The 2024-2025 flu season got off to a typical start, but then at the beginning of February, when things normally start calming down, hospitalizations peaked again with close to 14 weekly hospitalizations per 100,000 people.
Why is this happening? The dominant flu strains this season, influenza A H3N2 and H1N1, cause more severe disease and fewer people have been vaccinated against them. Overall, flu vaccination rates have declined since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, because of anti-vaccine sentiments. People may also have overall less immunity after years of social distancing during the pandemic.
| Amanda Montañez; Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (data) | | | Are you enjoying this newsletter? Consider supporting the vital science journalism we do with a subscription to Scientific American. Special discounts are available for Today in Science readers!
| | | • Trump's February executive order to bring independent regulatory agencies under the "supervision and control" of the president applies to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the watchdog that holds nuclear energy companies accountable for avoiding reactor accidents and not releasing radioactive material into the environment. The supervision move will "will severely increase the risk of expensive, unexpected nuclear accidents in the U.S," write a group of nuclear engineers and former government and industry officials, warning against political control of nuclear safety. "Nuclear energy relies on precision technology and an unwavering dedication to safety, so regulating it is a serious technical undertaking meant to shield us from unwanted radiological consequences," they say. "The U.S. has historically been a global leader in nuclear regulatory practices and principles that uphold the highest standards of safety globally. A critical component of their operation is independence from conflicting motives." | 4 min read | | | Environmental-health scientist Laura Vandenberg is among the researchers challenging the traditional toxicology adage that "the dose makes the poison "when it comes to the possible long-term effects of tiny amounts of endocrine-disrupting compounds or PFAS "forever chemicals"— especially in babies. (Chemistry World | 12 min read) | | | Last year was a doozy for tornadoes. Record-breaking high ocean temperatures, including in the Gulf of Mexico, produced abundant heat and moisture in the atmosphere that was transported northward, fueling thunderstorms. Such atmospheric instability is a key ingredient for tornadoes and will become more of the norm as the climate continues to warm. Supercell clouds are often the birthplace of tornadoes, check out these monsters (strangely beautiful too). | —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | Subscribe to this and all of our newsletters . | | | | Scientific American
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