Kendra Pierre-Louis: For Scientific AmericanIt is Science quicklymy name is Kendra Pierre-Louis, I’m replacing Rachel Feltman. You are listening to our weekly summary of scientific news.
First, a worrying prediction about women’s heart health.
A new analysis by researchers at the American Heart Association published last Wednesday in its journal Traffic predicts that nearly 60 percent of women will have some form of cardiovascular disease by 2050. That’s a jump from nearly 50 percent in 2020. The significant increase, according to the scientific statement, will be driven by an increase in hypertension, or high blood pressure. This is when the force of the blood on the artery walls is too great, causing the heart to work harder. Hypertension, which can go unnoticed because it often has no symptoms, is a main factor in stroke and can also trigger heart attacks. The paper estimates that diabetes rates will increase by around 15 percent to 25 percent over the same period, alongside smaller but still significant increases in coronary heart disease and stroke.
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Perhaps the most striking aspect of this projection is that while cardiovascular disease will continue to be more common among older women, rates among younger women are expected to increase significantly. Researchers have found that by 2050, around a third of women aged 20 to 44 will have some form of cardiovascular disease, compared to less than a quarter today. This will be due in part to increases in risk factors such as hypertension and diabetes. Other risk factors include lack of physical activity and poor diet, starting in childhood, as well as what the authors call “profound inequalities associated with race and ethnicity.”
Karen E. Joynt Maddox, volunteer chair of the statement-writing group, emphasized the urgency of the discovery.
[CLIP Karen E. Joynt Maddox speaking about the findings: “We’re setting up millions of girls to develop diabetes, to develop hypertension, to develop pregnancy complications, right—all of the things that we sort of see as the follow-on of having obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes in childhood. And so I think this is really a call to action for us to focus in that space.”]
Continuing on the theme of women’s health, laws aimed at restricting access to abortion also significantly reduce the overall number of obstetricians and gynecologists. This is the conclusion of a study published last Wednesday in the journal Health economics.
The laws in question are called Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers, or TRAP, laws, which aim to shut down abortion providers through often costly and medically unnecessary requirements. Researchers at the University at Albany, State University of New York, collected state-specific data on TRAP laws. They also gathered state-level data on medical licensing for new obstetricians and gynecologists, as well as county-level data on the overall availability of obstetricians and gynecologists.
They found that, on average, within two years of introducing TRAP laws, a state lost just over two gynecologists per 100,000 women ages 15 to 44. And that the decline continues for at least nine years after the law was passed. According to the Guttmacher Institute25 states had TRAP laws in effect as of late January.
In some ways, this study echoes the findings of a 2025 research letter published in the journal JAMA Open Network. This study follows what happened after an anti-abortion law took effect in Idaho following the overturning of the Supreme Court’s decision. Roe v. Wade. Trigger laws are so called because they remain unenforceable until a change in law or court decision allows them to take effect. As a result of the Supreme Court’s decision, Idaho lost 94 of its 268 practicing obstetricians-gynecologists who worked in obstetrics. This represents a drop of 35 percent. Researchers in this study also found that over a two-year period, 114 obstetricians closed their practices completely, stopped practicing obstetrics and focused solely on gynecology, moved out of state, or retired. Only 20 new gynecologists moved to Idaho during this period.
Separate research found a decline in residency applications for OB-GYNs in states with restrictive TRAP laws from 1993 to 2021.
Now for some space news.
It turns out that NASA’s historic lunar mission won’t happen in March after all. Last Wednesday on Artemis II rocket and the spacecraft was removed from its launch pad and part of its structure returned to NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building for repair work. This happened after engineers detected a problem in the way helium was flowing through the upper stage of the Space Launch System rocket. The setback further delays the launch date of the 10-day mission to send four astronauts around the Moon and back.
On February 20, NASA set March 6 as the target date for the Artemis II launch after successfully conducting a “wet dress rehearsal” on February 19. But just a day after announcing the launch date, NASA backtracked.
The wet dress rehearsal is a critical pre-launch test that simulates almost everything required for a launch, including loading fuel onto the rocket and running the launch countdown, but without actually launching the ship. A previous wet dress rehearsal on February 2 revealed problems such as hydrogen leaks, forcing the launch to be pushed back until at least March. Now, with the new helium problem, the earliest possible launch date is April 1st.
In a surprise move, NASA also announced a revised plan for Artemis III. The mission was expected to land astronauts on the Moon in 2027 for the first time in more than half a century. Here is NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman speaking at a press conference last Friday.
[CLIP: Jared Isaacman speaks at a press conference on February 27: “Instead of going directly to a lunar landing, we will endeavor to rendezvous in low-Earth orbit with one or both of our lunar landers.”]
To explain the delay, Isaacman cited liquid hydrogen leaks and helium flow problems observed during preparations for Artemis II and similar hydrogen fuel leaks that occurred before the launch of the previous uncrewed lunar orbit mission Artemis I. The space agency will attempt to land on the moon in subsequent missions…Artemis IV And V— in 2028.
Coming back to Earth, a study published last Wednesday in the journal Ecology and evolution of nature suggests that the world’s oceans, particularly their marine life, are in dire straits due to climate change.
Researchers from the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid and the National University of Colombia have found that fish biomass is declining by about 20% per year in several oceans in the Northern Hemisphere due to ocean warming linked to climate change. Fish biomass is a measure of the total weight of fish in the world’s oceans.
As human-caused climate change has warmed the planet, the oceans have borne the brunt of this warming, absorbing approximately 90 percent additional heat. Between 1955 and 2024, the top 6,500 feet of the planet’s oceans absorbed about 372 zettajoules of heat, according to NASA. A typical candle can produce up to 100 joules of heat per second. In comparison, a zettajoule takes the 100 joules of heat from a candle and adds 19 additional zeros.
Warming oceans put stress on fish, the majority of which are cold-blooded. As a result, many have evolved to live within specific temperature ranges. For fishing, warmer waters can not only feel uncomfortably warm, but they can also be suffocating because warmer waters contain less oxygen. Some fish cope with rising temperatures by moving: around the world, fish are moving away from equatorial regions and toward the poles in search of cooler waters. But this research suggests that many fish are also dying.
Researchers say the scale of the losses was masked, in part, by marine heatwaves, another product of climate change. Before human-caused climate change, marine heatwaves – when ocean temperatures far exceed normal temperatures for more than five days – were rare. But as the planet has warmed, they have become more and more commonespecially since the 1980s. This phenomenon can impact fish species unequally. Species at the warmest edge of their range can experience loss of up to about 43 percent of their biomass. But fish at the cold edge of their range during a marine heatwave can experience a temporary increase in biomass of up to 176%, potentially masking the overall decline.
The researchers say the main finding of their study is that marine life is in decline due to climate change and that this is particularly affecting fisheries. About 40 percent of the world’s population relies on fish for a significant portion of their animal protein, according to a 2020 report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
And finally, here’s an animal mystery for you. Why do female reindeer have antlers when no other female deer do? A new study published last Tuesday in the journal Ecology and evolution suggests an answer: antlers act like postnatal vitamins.
The idea comes from a study by researchers at the University of Cincinnati that explored how caribou, also known as reindeer, and other Arctic mammals use bone resources. Caribou live in the Arctic tundra and boreal landscapes of much of North America, Europe and Asia. And researchers have already figured out that animals eat bones, a phenomenon known as osteophagy, to obtain essential vitamins and minerals like calcium and phosphorus. But as Ohio researchers examined antlers and skeletal bones from reindeer calving grounds in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, they discovered something unusual about which bones were being nibbled and by whom. For example, they found that just under half of the skeletal remains showed signs of gnawing, compared to almost 90 percent of the reindeer antlers. And while skeletal bones were almost exclusively chewed by carnivores, reindeer antlers primarily showed reindeer bite marks.
Female reindeer lose their ur woods shortly after their arrival at their birthing area, a few days after the birth of their young. Given this, researchers hypothesize that antlers act as a storehouse of essential vitamins and minerals, which animals can draw on during their lives. difficult time to raise their calves. This is particularly important given that reindeer migrate extremely long distances, considered the longest of all land animals, and may have a greater need for nutrients than other deer species. This isn’t the only theory for why female reindeer have antlers: they could also be a defensive tool. But Madison Gaetano, co-author of the study, said SciAm the antlers stay on the ground much longer than on the reindeer’s body. Their use as a sort of postnatal vitamin might therefore make more sense.
That’s all for today! Join us on Wednesday to discuss ChatGPT hacking with journalist Thomas Germain.
Science quickly is produced by me, Kendra Pierre-Louis, with Fonda Mwangi, Sushmita Pathak and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck check in on our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Subscribe to Scientific American for more recent and in-depth scientific news.
For Scientific American, This is Kendra Pierre-Louis. Have a good week!
