Only 2% of U.S. homes rely on wood as their primary heating source, but residential wood burning accounts for 22% of fine particulate matter in winter air, a new study finds. The researchers estimate 8,600 premature deaths per year are associated with wood-burning fireplaces, furnaces and stoves. People of color burn less wood yet disproportionately experience higher exposure rates.

The abrupt ending of NIH support for fetal tissue research will undermine the development of new therapies for diseases that affect American families. Research with human fetal tissue (HFT) and HFT-derived cell lines has been integral to biomedical progress for nearly a century and has long been supported on a bipartisan basis under many U.S. administrations. This research has contributed to fundamental advances in understanding human development, infertility, infectious diseases, and chronic and neurodegenerative conditions. HFT-derived cell lines have played a critical role in the development of vaccines that have saved millions of lives worldwide.

In a Policy Forum, Daniel Schroeder and colleagues discuss the risks of malicious “Artificial Intelligence (AI) swarms”, which enable a new class of large-scale, coordinated disinformation campaigns that pose significant risks to democracy. Manipulation of public opinion has long relied on rhetoric and propaganda. However, modern AI systems have created powerful new tools for shaping human beliefs and behavior on a societal scale. Large language models (LLMs) and autonomous agents can now generate vast amounts of persuasive, human-like content. When combined into collaborative AI Swarms – collections of AI-driven personas that retain memory and identity – these systems can mimic social dynamics and easily infiltrate online communities, making false narratives appear credible and widely shared. According to the authors, unlike earlier labor-intensive influence operations run by humans, AI systems can operate cheaply, consistently, and at tremendous scale, transforming once isolated disinformation efforts into persistent, adaptive campaigns that pose serious risks to democratic processes worldwide. Here, Schroeder et al. discuss the technology underpinning these malicious systems and identify pathways through which they can harm democratic discourse through widely used digital platforms. The authors argue that defense against these systems must be layered and pragmatic, aiming not for total prevention of their use, which is highly unlikely, but for raising the cost, risk, and visibility of manipulation. Because such efforts would require global coordination outside of corporate and governmental interests, Schroeder et al. propose a distributed “AI Influence Observatory,” consisting of a network of academic groups, nongovernmental organizations, and other civil institutions to guide independent oversight and action. “Success depends on fostering collaborative action without hindering scientific research while ensuring that the public sphere remains both resilient and accountable,” write the authors. “By committing now to rigorous measurement, proportionate safeguards, and shared oversight, upcoming elections could even become a proving ground for, rather than a setback to, democratic AI governance.”