Global Superbugs Surge, Chikungunya Hits Long Island, and Satellites Leak Data
A new WHO report warns of rising antimicrobial resistance, and researchers uncover satellite data leaks and insect surprises.
Smith Collection/Gado/Contributor/Getty Images
Rachel Feltman: Happy Monday, listeners! For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman. Let’s kick off the week with a quick roundup of some of the latest science news.
Last Monday the World Health Organization warned that drug-resistant bacterial infections are on the rise around the globe. According to the WHO, superbugs that are antimicrobial-resistant, or AMR, contributed to almost five million deaths in 2019 and bore direct responsibility for more than one million. By 2023, one in six laboratory-confirmed bacterial infections showed resistance to antibiotics, with upwards of 40 percent of the medications commonly used in these cases having lost effectiveness over the five years prior. Low- and middle-income countries were more likely to be experiencing antibiotic resistance, according to the New York Times. And, in fact, the situation could be worse than it appears: the WHO noted that just 48 percent of countries actually shared data on antimicrobial resistance and of those roughly half had lacking tracking systems. Improving surveillance over the coming years will be crucial in the fight against superbugs, the agency said.
Zooming in on some more localized public health news and some much bigger bugs. New York officials confirmed last Tuesday that a Long Island resident had tested positive for the chikungunya virus. The infected individual, who lives in Nassau County, had reportedly traveled out of the county but not internationally before acquiring the mosquito-borne illness, making this the first reported transmission to occur within the U.S. since 2019.
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Chikungunya virus is transmitted by two types of mosquitoes, one of which is present on Long Island. The virus can cause severe joint pain that persists for months or even years in some cases. Other symptoms include fever, muscle pain, nausea, headache, joint swelling, fatigue and rash. While most people make full recoveries within a week or so, some can experience severe eye, heart and neurological complications. These severe cases are most common in infants, older adults and individuals with underlying health conditions. While the virus is generally transmitted through a mosquito bite, it’s possible for a newborn to catch chikungunya from their birthing parent during delivery.
The last time we saw local transmission of chikungunya in the U.S. and its territories was back in 2019. Transmission within the states and territories began five years earlier, when cases popped up in Florida, Texas, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands after an uptick in folks returning from international travel carrying the virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Once someone brings the virus home, it’s possible for local mosquitos to bite them, acquire the infection and spread it to others.
The silver lining is that health officials haven’t found signs of ongoing transmission—and with fall weather finally settling in, it’s unlikely local mosquitoes will pose much of a threat in the coming weeks. But folks traveling abroad should still be mindful: the virus is actively spreading in several countries, including China, which the WHO says is experiencing its largest-ever outbreak on record.
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Now let’s move on to some space news.
Scientists analyzing data from the European Space Agency’s Swarm satellites have found that a vulnerable region in Earth’s protective magnetic shield above the South Atlantic has grown by an area roughly half the size of continental Europe over the past 11 years. According to a recent study in Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors, these changes stem from unusual activity where Earth’s molten iron outer core meets the rocky mantle layer, creating areas where the magnetic field’s direction is reversed. The study authors say that this weak zone poses risks to satellites and spacecraft passing through because it exposes the objects to elevated radiation levels that can damage their electronics.
Speaking of satellites it turns out that many of the ones currently in orbit could be putting sensitive information at risk. Last week a team of researchers from the University of California, San Diego, and the University of Maryland presented a new study on satellite communications at an Association for Computing Machinery conference in Taiwan.
The researchers pointed an off-the-shelf satellite receiver at the sky to see what data they could collect. Using a simple setup on a single rooftop in San Diego, the team was able to observe satellite communications from almost 15 percent of the geostationary devices currently in operation. Aaron Schulman, a UCSD professor who co-led the research, told Wired that his team expected most of the information they received in these signals to be encrypted. Instead, the team caught phone calls and texts from thousands of T-Mobile customers in the span of just a few hours, saw what people were checking out on airplane Wi-Fi and even picked up communications relating to military helicopters—all because nobody bothered to encrypt the data.
When the researchers started warning companies and agencies about the problem in late 2024, some, like T-Mobile, quickly added encryption. But the researchers say others still haven’t secured their systems.
We’ll wrap up with a cool animal story. In a study published last Thursday in Science stink bugs prove to be, if not more pleasant, than at least more interesting than previously assumed. Female stink bugs from the Dinidoridae family are known to have an enlarged structure on their rear legs that scientists figured was a tympanal organ. This is a simple hearing organ found on many insects.
But when researchers looked at one species from this family they found something unexpected: this strange leg structure is actually a fungal nursery. The surface of the structure is full of tiny pores from which filaments of a symbiotic fungus grow. When the stink bugs reproduce, they deliberately transfer some of the fungus to their eggs. As the fungus grows it seems to offer physical protection against parasitic wasps.
That’s all for this week’s science news roundup. We’ll be back on Wednesday to learn the secret formula for crafting a convincing apology.
Science Quickly is produced by me, Rachel Feltman, along with Fonda Mwangi and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Subscribe to Scientific American for more up-to-date and in-depth science news.
For Scientific American, this is Rachel Feltman. Have a great week!
