Troy Farah, Salon

Without stars, our universe would be a much darker, colder place. These balls of plasmic hydrogen and helium gas not only blast heat and light, they come in a stunning array of colors, chemical composition and size. And "big" doesn't begin to describe them. Our sun is 109 times larger than our planet. But our star isn't so special — it's technically average-sized. Some stars, like UY Scuti, an extreme red hypergiant in the constellation Scutum, have a radius 1,700 times our sun, which could fit inside it almost 5 billion times. Compared to UY Scuti, our favorite star is a speck of dust.

A black hole devouring a star (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/CI Lab)

So it's a little disturbing thinking about a star getting shredded to bits with the same ease someone chomps into a stringy chunk of saltwater taffy. (That's also sorta what it looks like, as we'll get into.) A recent analysis has given astronomers a clearer look at the horror that occurs when star meets black hole and the results will make anyone glad these things are nowhere near us.

But first, briefly, what is a black hole? Though they can form in other ways, black holes are typically formed when a star dies and collapses in on its own gravity. Black holes are star corpses. We can think of them as massive whirlpools, and just like a rubber ducky will circle the drain, anything that "swims" too close to a black hole will get sucked in the spin cycle of death. The pull is so strong even light cannot escape, making it extremely difficult to photograph, not to mention the immense distances and breathtaking speed that factors into anything space-related. But astronomers are getting a lot better at snapshots of these weird dead stars.

While the James Webb Space Telescope has been getting a lot of attention for its stunning astrophotography — and for damn good reason — the Hubble Space telescope isn't out of commission just yet. In January, NASA announced that Hubble caught a black hole in the act of devouring a star, swirling it into a donut shape the size of our solar system.

This sequence of artist's illustrations shows how a black hole can devour a bypassing star. (NASA, ESA, Leah Hustak (STScI))

Around 300 million lightyears away from us, at the core of a galaxy obliquely named ESO 583-G004, a supermassive black hole caught a star in its grisly orbit, and began to unravel it like a spool of cotton candy. Hubble caught the resulting burst of ultraviolet light, an explosive event known as a tidal disruption event (TDE).

A TDE may sound like when a toxic algae bloom forces a beach closure, but these are actually some of the brightest phenomenon in the known universe. As the star is unspooled around the black hole, it creates immense pressure on the gas and dust from the star, with temperatures reaching thousands of degrees, discharging luminous flares that can be seen millions of miles away.

Astronomers have previously captured about 100 different TDEs, but usually after a black hole has already torn everything to shreds. The recent snapshots from Hubble demonstrate changes in the ill-fated star's life over the course of days or months and before things got especially heated.

"Typically, these events are hard to observe. You get maybe a few observations at the beginning of the disruption when it's really bright," Peter Maksym, an astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said in a statement. At this stage in its execution, the star resembles a giant donut or a fluffy steering wheel cover in a lowrider music video.

"We're looking somewhere on the edge of that donut. We're seeing a stellar wind from the black hole sweeping over the surface that's being projected towards us at speeds of 20 million miles per hour (three percent the speed of light)," Maksym said. "We really are still getting our heads around the event. You shred the star and then it's got this material that's making its way into the black hole. And so you've got models where you think you know what is going on, and then you've got what you actually see. This is an exciting place for scientists to be: right at the interface of the known and the unknown."

"Chronic cannabis users tend to be less overweight than non-cannabis users."

Although it's hard to make the case that cannabis makes anyone more slothful — that's simply an old drug war myth — there is plenty of evidence that marijuana stimulates appetite. Some patients may need to gorge themselves, such as people with HIV or cancer who sometimes have trouble eating. Getting the munchies can be a good thing in this case, explains Dr. Peter Grinspoon, a primary care physician at Harvard Medical School who specializes in medical marijuana. Some research indicates that cannabis users also tend to have lower body mass index (BMI), even if this is an imperfect metric for weight and bodily health.

"Any of us who have used cannabis can attest to the fact that it can make you very hungry," Grinspoon told Salon. "But contrary to stereotypes, chronic cannabis users in several studies have been shown to have a lower BMI. There's sort of a paradox there. And it's not entirely understood why chronic cannabis users tend to be less overweight than non-cannabis users."

For example, a study published last year in the journal Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research reviewed 16 studies examining this relationship, identifying many of the different ways that cannabis seems to regulate metabolism.

"Based on the data presented, the hypothesis arises that Cannabis sativa and its derivatives can be potentially effective in treating and reversing the damage caused by inflammation in obesity," the authors conclude. "It is clear that phytocannabinoids [drugs] derived from Cannabis sativa have therapeutic potential due to their anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and neuroprotective properties, making the plant a study option for reducing and reversing inflammation and comorbidities associated with obesity."

"The hypothesis arises that Cannabis sativa and its derivatives can be potentially effective in treating and reversing the damage caused by inflammation in obesity."

Inflammation is a natural process in the body, a way for the immune system to fight infections or injuries. But too much of it can be a bad thing. Chronic inflammation can contribute to the development of various diseases such as cancer, heart disease and obesity. In fact, many experts believe that obesity is linked to low-grade inflammation, which can contribute to the development of various metabolic disorders.

It could be that many of the chemicals in cannabis, called cannabinoids, can be anti-inflammatory. CBD (cannabidiol), for example, is a drug found in marijuana that has shown broad antioxidative and anti-inflammatory behavior across a multitude of different cell receptors. That means it seems to act on numerous systems in the body, including those related to pain, memory, mood . . . and appetite.

One of the most obvious ways that cannabis can potentially help people maintain a lower weight is by replacing alcohol. Quitting booze has been shown to help with weight, among other health benefits. So the "California sober" crowd, who have ditched all drugs except cannabis, may experience some weight loss.

Furthermore, cannabinoids like CBD and THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), the drug best known for marijuana's trademark euphoria, act on the endocannabinoid system (ECS), a network in the body actually named after the plant. Cannabinoid receptors have a lot more functions than getting one stoned, of course. The ECS largely maintains homeostasis, balancing various physiological processes including immune function, sleep and reproductive function. It's a complex system that isn't well-studied.

"The relationship of cannabis to body weight is complex and a bit counterintuitive," Dr. Ethan Russo, a neurologist and psychopharmacology researcher who served as a study physician for numerous clinical trials involving cannabinoids, told Salon in an email. "The answer lies at least partially in the gut microbiome. A 2015 study in mice genetically prone towards obesity demonstrated that THC altered the ratios of gut bacteria statistically significantly in a manner that prevented weight gain despite intake of a high fat diet. Likely the same is true in humans."

One of the most interesting molecules in cannabis for regulating weight is THCV (tetrahydrocannabivarin), which is an analog of THC. Like its cousin, THCV can get someone stoned, but it requires much higher quantities. Some research indicates that even if you took a lot of THCV, the intoxicating effect would still be pretty mild. THCV is more medicinal in that sense, and Russo and others believe it has therapeutic promise for obesity, diabetes and even the possible treatment of addiction.

"[THCV] has therapeutic promise for obesity, diabetes and even the possible treatment of addiction."

"There was a human study where it [THCV] not only lowered blood sugar, but also facilitated improved markers of pancreatic function," Grinspoon said. "Insulin comes from a part of the pancreas called the beta cells, and those are what eventually give out, which gives you Type 2 diabetes. And it appeared that [in the THCV study] the beta cells were working less hard, which, in theory could postpone diabetes – because the mechanism is that they will lose their ability to produce enough insulin."

Russo pointed to several animal studies that demonstrated THCV produced weight loss, decreased body fat and serum leptin concentrations with increased energy expenditure in obese mice.

"Subsequently, an fMRI study in humans showed significantly altered reward and aversion patterns in the brain in a manner that suggests therapeutic efficacy in obesity," Russo says. "And without triggering depression that is commonly encountered with other weight loss drugs."

However, THCV typically appears in very low concentrations in cannabis plants. That means your typical joint probably won't have enough THCV to do much for anyone, though it will likely have plenty of THC. Yes, just that little V makes a huge difference in how the molecule interacts with our bodies.

While it is possible to selectively breed cannabis plants to produce more THCV, some variants of the plant have more than others. They're still relatively rare, but more and more companies are selling highly concentrated THCV products online or in states where weed isn't totally legal yet. This is through a loophole in the law that allows these products if they're derived from hemp plants. It's all very complicated thanks to archaic laws prohibiting cannabis on a federal level, and that in turn makes these products difficult to regulate.

Some of these gummy or vape products are making a lot of wild health claims, such as THCV being "natural" weight loss that's "safe." But many hemp-derived marijuana products are manufactured in sloppy agricultural labs, which can make them tainted with byproducts of backyard chemistry, unlike the edibles or vape pens sold at state-licensed dispensaries.

"They are synthetics with inevitable contamination with chemical byproducts and even solvent residues," Russo says. "This is another counterproductive result of prohibition."

Given all the hype around cannabis for weight, especially THCV, it might be tempting for people to run out and try these products, whether they have decent quality control or not. But despite all the evidence pointing in this direction, we still need a lot more research into what cannabis does to the endocannabinoid system, including ruling out potential side effects. In the meantime, we need better quality control for gray market products potentially containing leftovers from crude extraction processes, while making health claims that aren't entirely based on evidence.

"With all weight loss, there's no silver bullet," Grinspoon says. But despite cannabis seeming to have this effect, people shouldn't expect toking up to equal shedding pounds. "That doesn't necessarily translate into, 'I'm gonna use cannabis to treat your obesity.'"

One of the fastest growing diet trends has less to do with what you eat or how much, but when you eat. Restricting meal times, a practice sometimes called intermittent fasting or time restricted eating, comes in many forms, but it generally involves limiting when you eat to certain windows.

Intriguingly, fasting isn't merely about weight loss. A great deal of research suggests that this behavior can spur a whole host of health benefits, from improved mental state to more restful sleep. Weight loss, of course, is the benefit often most hyped. The Reddit forum for intermittent fasting, for example, has over 860,000 members, many of which share before and after photos of massive weight loss.

Simply restricting eating to an 8 to 10 hour window can change the way our genes express themselves, which has broad implications for human health.

But while intermittent fasting has been linked to a myriad of health benefits, researchers still have many questions about it — such as how it compares to counting calories, how different populations respond, even some fundamental questions about safety and side effects. One of the biggest questions is how it works. On a molecular level, why does changing the times we eat seem to have such a dramatic effect on our bodies?

Dr. Satchidananda Panda, a biology professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, has spent considerable time researching the underlying mechanisms of intermittent fasting. He says simply restricting eating to an 8 to 10 hour window can change the way our genes express themselves, which has broad implications for human health.

In a recent study in the journal Cell Metabolism, Panda and his colleagues gave two groups of young, male mice the same obesogenic diet, meaning it was high in sugar and fat. One group was permitted ad libitum feeding, which is eating whenever they wanted. The other group could only eat during restricted hours, a form of intermittent fasting called time restricted feeding.

The difference between time restricted feeding and intermittent fasting is that people who do intermittent fasting are also counting calories. With time restricted feeding, you can generally eat whatever and as much as you want, just sticking between those 8 to 10 hours. In the experiment, the mice on the ad libitum schedule gained weight and experienced metabolic dysfunction, whereas the mice on time restricted feeding did not. This is remarkable given they were both on the same diet.

Next, Panda and his colleagues analyzed the organs of the mice, looking for genetic changes in 22 different organ and brain regions, screening for more than 21,000 genes from over 1,000 samples. Importantly, they took samples at different periods throughout the day and night. Gene expression can change throughout the day, depending on their function.

"Our genes are not static. So you just can't look at one time one morning or evening and figure out what's going on," Panda told Salon. "To our surprise, we found that almost every organ that we looked at experienced a huge impact from time restricted eating."

More than 80 percent of the organs looked at had some level of change in the genes that code for proteins, which means time restricted feeding could alter metabolic efficiency. In simpler terms, constraining the time when you eat could make the entire way your body processes energy more flexible, which translates into other health benefits.

On the surface, this isn't an entirely surprising result. Intermittent fasting has previously been linked to improved liver function, insulin sensitivity and even hormone regulation. It seems to have a broad effect across many different systems in the body, but some of these organs, especially the brain, have been looked at a lot less than others.

"We are seeing a signature of gene expression changes that are indicating that people who have chronic kidney disease may benefit from this."

Of course, this research was in mice, and only male mice to boot. This may not translate directly to humans. But the research provides a "transcriptome map" which gives researchers a good idea of where to start looking next when researching intermittent fasting. Potential targets include metabolic disorders, neurodegenerative diseases and cancer.

"I think this is a good blueprint for what diseases can be treated," Panda said. "This study is giving us clues, for example, in the kidney. We are seeing a signature of gene expression changes that are indicating that people who have chronic kidney disease may benefit from this."

Panda has studied the effects of intermittent fasting in humans as well, such as an experiment with 15 Australian men with obesity who were kept on a time restricted diet for eight weeks.

"We took their biopsy. A little bit of belly fat was taken out, almost like a mini liposuction," Panda explained. "What we found were good changes in gene expression in these individuals which now gives us some idea what to expect when people with obesity do time restricted eating."

"Our adipose tissue or fat is almost like a hormone-producing organ. It produces a lot of different hormones good and bad," Panda added. "Time restricting actually improves the production of good hormones."

Studying intermittent fasting could also open the door to new therapies, such as drugs designed to target these gene expressions, maybe no time restricting required. Already, drugs that target certain metabolic pathways and can reduce weight in some individuals are becoming all the rage on social media. Semaglutide, also known by the brand names Wegovy or Ozempic, is a diabetes drug sometimes used for weight loss. It's become so popular that it's caused shortages in some areas, encouraging some patients to seek out risky alternatives or attempt brewing it up at home using raw chemicals. It should go without saying you shouldn't try to make your own weight loss drug.

However, the long-term effects of semaglutide for weight aren't well known. Many folks seem to gain back lost weight once they stop taking the drug, which can come with its own set of side effects like indigestion and nausea.

New, more effective medications to meet the demand for treating obesity and diabetes are necessary and studying intermittent fasting could help produce them. This is somewhat how metformin, a commonly prescribed drug for diabetes, was discovered. Although initially synthesized in the 1920s, it wasn't until 1957 that metformin was first used to treat diabetes. The reason for this multi-decade gap is because scientists didn't fully understand the mechanisms it uses to lower blood sugar levels. Unfortunately, despite metformin's widespread usage today, it still comes with some side effects that can be serious, even life-threatening. Alternative drugs would certainly be useful for some people.

But there will be no silver bullet for any of this. Medications or intermittent fasting alone can't form the foundation of a healthy lifestyle, Panda said.

"We have to keep in mind that medication is not going to give us long-term benefits. It will help us to reverse our disease," Panda said. "But to stay healthy for very long term, we have to adopt at least two out of the three foundations of health: that's sleep, exercise and nutrition."

The full extent to which intermittent fasting can help people, or even backfire, is not entirely known. Few things are as complex as how human bodies turn food into energy. More detailed research into how time restricted eating works will help us better understand the ways to make it useful for promoting good health.

Salon spoke to experts about the short-term health benefits of moderating one's alcohol consumption for a month. As it turns out, time actually does play a big role in determining health benefits.

The most noticeable effect ethanol has is on GABA receptors, which play a role in calming the nervous system. More GABA means a more sedating, relaxed effect.

"The long-term effects of Dry January depends on if the habit of not drinking or reduced alcohol consumption is maintained," Dr. Rami Hashish, an injury expert and founder of the National Biomechanics Institute, told Salon. "If somebody drinks relatively a lot, and then stops for a month, and then goes right back to that same habit, then you may not necessarily see so many great benefits. It sounds nice, but science doesn't really bear that out, that they're going to see these huge benefits long-term, if they just stop some sort of action for a given month."

In other words: alcohol abstinence is not unlike diet or exercise, in that finding a new routine for only a month probably won't trigger life-altering changes.

That said, the effects of quitting alcohol can become noticeable quite quickly. A recent study in the journal Alcohol and Alcoholism found that for two-thirds of patients, cognitive abilities returned 18 days after detoxing from alcohol. This was a small study with just 32 subjects and it examined severe alcohol use disorder. Patients were also given thiamine, which may have helped improvement. More moderate drinkers may not experience the same extreme changes, but it's still a window into how profound even a short stint without alcohol can be.

Ethanol, the technical term for the drug in booze, is a promiscuous molecule. That means it likes to interact with a lot of different receptors in the body; it sometimes likened to a shotgun blast that doesn't discriminate where it hits. Almost every organ system in the body is affected by alcohol, from digestion to immunity, but nothing is as influenced as the brain. And this has a cascading effect from the top down. "If something affects the brain, it affects every other part of the body," Hashish says.

When alcohol enters the brain, it can gum up the way neurons and other cells communicate. Braincells send messages using chemicals called neurotransmitters. Ethanol can trigger the release of neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine, which are associated with feelings of mood and reward. But the most noticeable effect ethanol has is on GABA receptors, which play a role in calming the nervous system. More GABA means a more sedating, relaxed effect.

"When one is drunk, the brain struggles to produce long-term memories, which account for blackouts," Dr. Sanam Hafeez, a neuropsychologist, founder and director of Comprehensive Consultation Psychological Services, told Salon in an email. "Alcohol also affects the temporal cortex, which is the area of the brain that makes new memories." In contrast, quitting drinking can improve memory.

The moment you take a sip of beer, wine or whatever, your body recognizes ethanol as a toxin and tries to flush it out. It's first absorbed through the stomach and small intestine, working its way through the bloodstream. An enzyme in the liver called ADH4, or alcohol dehydrogenase 4, breaks ethanol down, which eventually becomes carbon dioxide and water.

But there's an intermittent stage between ethanol and its harmless byproducts, when the liver produces acetaldehyde, a known carcinogen that can have many toxic effects on the body. The more you drink, the more this byproduct builds up. The liver can only break it down further so fast, at a rate of about one drink per hour. Acetaldehyde is often implicated as the cause of hangovers.

The more someone drinks, the more work their liver will have. This can lead to liver inflammation, also called hepatitis, which can result in scarring and a lower-functioning organ that can trigger more serious problems with the liver.

"The liver filters toxins in the body. Heavy drinking is toxic to your cells and can lead to cirrhosis, fatty liver disease and other issues," Hafeez says. "When you abstain from alcohol, the liver can repair itself, and in some cases, regenerate."

Of course, all of this depends on the frequency and volume of alcohol someone is consuming. Many people can responsibly manage the temporary side effects of alcohol and feel like the social and stress-relieving aspects outweigh the negative health effects. While a popular 2018 Lancet study concluded that there is "no safe level of alcohol consumption," a sentiment recently echoed by the World Health Organization, many have expressed criticism of such strict abstinence.

"People generally see a pretty immediate reduction within a month," Hashish says, "such as increased hydration, weight loss, reductions in blood pressure, better sleep... people may have better sex."

A 2019 article in JAMA Internal Medicine claimed the Lancet research miscalculated the harms associated with alcohol, using biased overestimates that overlooked underreported drinking. Problematic drinking gets far more medical attention, at least ideally, so the majority of people who drink and aren't experiencing harms may go uncounted.

Nonetheless, when you quit drinking for a while, it can have an immediate impact on your health — again, depending on how much alcohol is typically imbibed.

"Although a regular glass of red wine might be heart healthy, overindulging is bad for your heart and blood pressure," Hafeez says. "Quitting or cutting back may lower triglycerides, which reduces the chances of heart failure."

However, in severe alcohol use disorders, quitting cold turkey can be deadly, putting people at risk for fatal seizures. This is why Hafeez, Hashish and other experts recommend talking to a doctor about drinking habits and quitting. But if you do quit, it can change someone's health relatively quickly.

"People generally see a pretty immediate reduction within a month," Hashish says, "such as increased hydration, weight loss, reductions in blood pressure, better sleep... people may have better sex, they have greater immunity, so they may be able to heal better from injury or illness. So there's a lot of benefits."

Abstaining can also translate into increased energy, better concentration and memory and improved mood. It's worth emphasizing that there's nothing wrong with drinking alcohol. Humans do all kinds of activities that can be unhealthy, from eating sugar to sitting at a computer too long. The question here is one of moderation, assessing one's health and being informed about what is happening when ingesting certain drugs like alcohol.

When you think of flowers being pollinated, you likely picture a bee or butterfly doing the work. But many different insects also visit flowers and help plants reproduce, including flies, wasps, beetles, and even certain mosquitoes. Some birds and bats also benefit flowering vegetation, acting as the liaison for sexual reproduction, a strange but widespread evolutionary practice.

This article first appeared on Salon.

But sadly, climate change is rapidly shifting the relationships between plants and certain bugs. And in Scandinavia, that has meant that flies are taking the place of moths and other more charismatic insects. The takeover of the flies speaks to the biodiverse history of the region that is being lost as the climate warms.

Researchers were able to figure this out using an interesting comparative analysis of pollinators that involved looking back at old research. Writing in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, researchers recreated an experiment from over a century ago involving an inventory of the types of insects visiting plants.

Between 1895 and 1900, a Finnish forester named Frans Silén recorded the various visitors to flowers in Kittilä, a village in Lapland, Finland 75 miles (120 km) north of the Arctic Circle. The study cites a travel book authored by Cutcliffe Hyne, who journeyed through the area in the summer of 1896, describing Kittilä as a "cluster of farms, with fields of barley and rye between the houses and herds of cows grazing beside the roadway." Silén aimed to complete a census as thoroughly as possible for flower-loving bugs in the area, jotting down the records of 17 plant species near rivers and churchyards.

Not much has changed in Kittilä in the last century in terms of land use — it's still a very rural area — but even this frigid region isn't immune to the perils of global heating. The plants that Silén studied still populate the area, but the bugs visiting the flowers seem to have changed dramatically. Only 7 percent of the observed visits to flowers involved the same bugs as back in Silén's time.

"That is surprisingly little," one of the study authors, Leana Zoller, an ecologist at Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in Germany, said in a statement. "We have noticed drastic changes in the networks of pollinators."

Specifically, there are far fewer moths and hoverflies than 125 years ago; now, flowers are being swarmed with muscoid flies, which are a superfamily including houseflies. And these replacement pollinators may not be as effective as the other bugs that are seemingly being pushed out.

Many people confuse hoverflies with bees — and that's what the hoverflies want us to do. Volucella bombylans, for example, is a harmless, plump-looking hoverfly that mimics bumblebees. Silén often witnessed V. bombylans drifting among woodland geranium (Geranium sylvaticum) and Arctic raspberry (Rubus arcticus). Today, according to this study, you'd be far more likely to see these idyllic plants droning with black, boring houseflies like the kind typically buzzing around kitchen sinks.

The authors do report some good news: Bumblebee visits have remained relatively stable over time, which is "cause for optimism." That's because bumblebees — being archetypally fuzzy as heck — are extremely good at spreading pollen around and thus, helping flowers trade genetic information. The same optimism cannot be applied to most bumblebee populations, which are seeing cataclysmic declines across the globe, thanks to climate change.

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"Insects are under fire from the poles to the tropics, and there's not much cover to duck behind," British journalist Oliver Milmann wrote in his 2022 book "The Insect Crisis." "The Arctic bumblebee, or Bombus polaris, is found in the northern extremities of Alaska, Canada, Scandinavia, and Russia. It is able to survive near-freezing temperatures due to dense hair that traps heat and its ability to use conical flowers, like the Arctic poppy, to magnify the sun's rays to warm itself up. Rocketing temperatures in the Arctic, however, mean the bee is likely to become extinct by 2050. Species of alpine butterflies, dependent on just one or two high-altitude plants, are also facing severe declines as their environment transforms around them."

But houseflies might actually benefit from a warmer climate, which also means more spread of human diseases like food-borne diarrhea. Less fuzzy flies, especially houseflies, are just not as good at pollinating as bees or moths. Therefore, it's not just the quantity of pollinators, but the quality that also matters. And the steep decline in moths and other specialized pollinators is worrisome. Certain plants, like bladder campion (Silene vulgaris), have evolved to service bugs that will more likely help them in return, tucking their nectar further back in the base of tubular flowers.

Moths, which have long sucking mouthparts called a proboscis, can reach this nectar easily. Less fuzzy bugs that are less like to spread pollen are deterred. Some of these flies are also "generalists," meaning they will flit to many different flowers, which makes pollination less likely. You need two or more of the same flower species to make a seed. Some moths, by contrast, are specialists that only rely on a single species, which can make them better at their "job." But in this study, even more common flower types were getting different tourists.

"Several plant species with more generalized floral forms, such as disk flowers, shifted from receiving visits from more hoverflies in the past to more muscoid flies in the present," Zoller and her colleagues wrote. "Mean pollen loads carried by hoverflies and muscoid flies are comparable, but probably there are large differences between individual species."

Plants may be able to compensate for such a dramatic shift in pollinators now, but the longterm effects are uncertain.

It's not yet clear how big an impact more flies will have on plant reproduction, but it will have cascading effects. Less pollination means less plants, which means less food for pollinators. If more pollinators starve, there's less pollination, potentially causing certain species to spiral out into extinction. So far, that doesn't seem to be the case in Kittilä, but it's happening at a rapid pace elsewhere in the world.

"So far, the pollinator network in our study area still seems to be working well," Zoller said. "There is no evidence so far that the plants are getting too little pollen and are thus less capable of reproducing".

But elsewhere in the world, some insects are experiencing catastrophic declines, which gives a window for less charismatic bugs, like houseflies, to proliferate. Much of these changes are driven by increased temperatures and destruction of natural habitat.

And things could take a turn for the worse in Kittilä in the near future. Plants may be able to compensate for such a dramatic shift in pollinators now, but the longterm effects are uncertain. This is an indicator this research needs more attention. Part of the reason so many unknowns exist about pollinators — and why this study was unique in that it relied on century-old data — is because entomology (the study of insects) is historically underfunded. Plant and pollinator relationships are complex, but we know relatively little about them, especially over long time periods.

"Stabilizing the composition of species and their interactions across space and time is crucial to safeguard the ecosystem service of pollination," Zoller and her colleagues wrote.

Despite their small size, insects have an outsized impact on our planet. Swarms of bugs can create so much electricity that they may even influence the weather and pollinators are the underbelly of the majority of agriculture. But as the climate warms, those effects could have massive impacts that are hard to predict. When it comes to pollination, honeybees tend to get all the attention. But many plants and bugs rely on this system, which needs better scientific understanding if we want to slow the effects of a changed climate.

In 2019, a mere three years ago, public health researchers described the "face" of vaccine hesitancy as middle- and upper-class women of a very specific cultural milieu.

"The rebel forces in America's latest culture war — the so-called anti-vaxxers — are often described as middle- and upper-class women who breast-feed their children, shop at Whole Foods, endlessly scour the web for vaccine-related conversation, and believe that their thinking supersedes that of their doctors," wrote Alfred Lubrano in the Philadelphia Inquirer, reporting on then-recent studies from government public health agencies.

How things have changed. Nowadays, the face of vaccine hesitancy is most apt to be a Christian, according to more recent research and polling. The COVID-19 pandemic appears to have shifted cultural opinions on vaccines.

In April 2021, researchers surveyed 2,135 vaccinated registered voters in South Dakota, presenting them with identical messages about COVID guidelines from either a political, religious, or medical leader. Messaging from a religious leader was more effective than the other two, leading the authors to suggest public health professionals "might find it beneficial to coordinate their efforts with leaders in faith communities."

This is in line with data from Pew Research Center that has found "a relatively high degree of trust in clergy to give advice on the coronavirus vaccines: Fully six-in-ten U.S. congregants (61%) say they have at least 'a fair amount' of confidence in their religious leaders to provide reliable guidance about getting a vaccine." That guidance can swing either positive or negative — some church leaders encourage their flock to get the shots, while others don't.

Certainly fears that vaccines may be unsafe or developed too quickly are common — but they're not based on evidence. The bulk of available evidence demonstrates that the COVID-19 vaccines are safe. But where you hear that message matters. For some evangelical Christians, vaccine recommendations from their pastor matter more than their doctor or politicians.

Dr. Jeanine Guidry, a social and behavioral scientist and an associate professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, has focused her research primarily on communication related to vaccines and infectious diseases. "Of course, the past few years, a lot of that has meant COVID-19," she told Salon in a call.

Some research has found Christian nationalism to be one of the strongest predictors of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy.

"I think this idea of the trusted messenger is a really powerful one," Guidry says. "Pastors need to be aware that they're not just having influence on their parishioners' spiritual life, but also on their physical health."

Guidry and her colleagues recently published a survey in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health of 531 self-identified evangelical Christians in the U.S. By focusing solely on evangelicals, an identity around 29 percent of Americans associate with, the research aimed to better understand why this group is so vaccine hesitant. Some research has found Christian nationalism to be one of the strongest predictors of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, compared to, say, Catholics, other religions or atheists.

"If their health care provider had talked to them about getting the vaccine, they were significantly more likely to have gotten the vaccine," Guidry says of her study. "And the not-so-hopeful thing was that if they talk to their spiritual leader, their faith leader, their congregation leader, they were less likely."

The survey relied on the Health Belief Model, a widely used tool for understanding the motivation behind health decisions. The results suggests that younger Evangelicals in rural areas with children are in most need of positive vaccine messaging.

"We cannot say that this is representative of all evangelicals," Guidry explains. "What we can say, though, is that it gives us an indication of what might be the case among evangelicals as a larger group."

"Communication with them should focus on health beliefs that bolster the perceived benefits of the vaccine, while simultaneously adequately addressing perceived barriers to vaccination," Guidry and her coauthors wrote, adding that "addressing these health beliefs might be best accomplished through a careful collaboration between public health officials, healthcare providers, and religious leaders."

However, Guidry emphasizes that this is not a representative sample because it wasn't random — people chose to respond to the survey, for example. But the data wasn't meant to be totally characteristic of evangelicals, and instead can be used as a tool to further examine questions about these groups.

"We cannot say that this is representative of all evangelicals," Guidry explains. "What we can say, though, is that it gives us an indication of what might be the case among evangelicals as a larger group."

Meanwhile, public health workers can try to bridge these gaps, and many are already doing this work. Guidry pointed to Facts and Faith Fridays, a partnership between VCU Massey Cancer Center and the African American faith-based community as an example. But changes won't happen overnight, Guidry cautioned.

"This is not going to happen quickly," Guidry says. "There needs to be a relationship and that doesn't form quickly. Relationships take time."