Take a break from Trump coverage

Hairy-legged red-eyed sea spiders discovered in the Salish Sea

University of British Columbia

A photo of a new species of sea spider Tanystylum kiixin. Credit: Cormac Toler-Scott

If you’re swimming in the Salish Sea late at night and feel a skittering along your calves, tiny hairy feet tip-tapping their way higher and higher towards your face, don’t worry, it’s probably just the stuff of nightmares: hairy-legged, red-eyed sea spiders newly discovered by UBC researchers.

Two new sea spider species are the first described in the Salish Sea in almost a century. Their documentation and genetic analysis, published recently in Organisms Diversity & Evolution, helps fill a gap in a poorly understood group of animals.

Edible Rhode Island: Mother Nature Provides Wild Selection

Feasting on forage

By Frank Carini / ecoRI News columnist

Autumn olives, delicious, nutritious and invasive.
Ripening right about now. Photo by Will Collette

Not to be rude, but the free Saturday morning breakfast buffet didn’t look appetizing. The portions were meager, bugs were crawling over much of it, and some of it could be toxic if prepared the wrong way.

Our hostess, Keri Brulé, delivered a splendid 2-hour presentation. The affable University of Rhode Island student working on her master’s degree shared how to identify what we were about to put in our mouths, preparation tips, and valuable information to keep us from having a seizure or pooping our pants.

Bottom of Form

We learned a lot about foraging. Most of the 15 of us walking through the woods and meadows of Ryan Park seemed comfortable with the idea of feeding ourselves in the wild. I was not among the confident. Without Brulé, a botanist and plant ecologist, planning the menu, I’m fairly certain I would eat the wrong plant or the wrong part. I would not survive the apocalypse.

The Sept. 12 breakfast club gathered in a parking lot outside a gym on Ten Rod Road. The edible walk was sponsored by the Rhode Island Wild Plant Society.

Besides sampling the wild menu, Keri Brulé,
here holding an edible tuber from a young Indian
cucumber root, encouraged participants to
also touch … (Frank Carini/ecoRI News)

“Roughly 15,000 years ago, where you are standing right now, was covered under a massive sheet of ice,” Brulé told us. “That ice melted and retreated from the landscape. Slowly, vegetation moved from south to north to occupy that space. About 10,000 years ago, indigenous people followed that vegetation, and therefore animals, in the form of food and medicine.

“European colonizers arrived in the 1600s and they brought their forms of food and medicine that they were familiar with to this landscape. Not longer after, enslaved people were brought here against their wills and they brought their food and medicine with them as well, when they could. The landscape you are in, is the story of the geography, of time, humans, and, therefore, you.”

She noted we all have, whether we are aware of it or not, an innate relationship with plants. She encouraged us to look at, touch, smell, and get to know the plants around us. Mind the poison ivy.

“You were meant to interact with them in the form of food,” Brulé said.

Alzheimer's Is No Longer an Untreatable Disease, Major Report Concludes.

Here's Why.

By Carly Cassella

Mechanisms of action by which addressing each risk factor can potentially reduce dementia risk. (WHO)

Dementia research has reached a profound turning point.

Alzheimer's disease was once considered 'untreatable', but that is not the universal rule any longer, according to this year's World Alzheimer Report.

In the past five years alone, novel drugs have been shown to modestly slow decline in early Alzheimer's, while growing evidence suggests some dementia cases could potentially be delayed or prevented through risk reduction.

Today, hundreds of clinical trials worldwide are now investigating possible medicines, new diagnostic options, and lifestyle interventions to identify, treat, or delay cognitive decline.

The possibility of a cure is still far away, but it "feels like a more palpable prospect than ever before," according to the 2026 World Alzheimer Report, coauthored by Alzheimer's Disease International (ADI) and leading health journalist Paul Gallagher.

"After decades during which dementia was widely regarded as an inevitable consequence of old age and neurodegeneration with few therapeutic options beyond symptom management, research has entered an era of unprecedented activity," reads the report.

"Alzheimer's disease is no longer universally described as untreatable; instead, it is increasingly viewed as a condition for which earlier diagnosis, better understanding of disease biology, and a wider range of interventions may collectively improve outcomes."

ADI calls itself the 'global voice of dementia'. It is a worldwide federation of dementia associations in official relations with the World Health Organization (WHO).

‘Trump Vanity Calculator’ Spotlights President’s Abuse of $1.8 Billion in Taxpayer Funds

What we pay for Trump's egomania

Brad Reed for Common Dreams

Democrats on the congressional Joint Economic Committee on Wednesday released a report calculating that taxpayer funding for President Donald Trump’s vanity projects has soared to more than $1.8 billion.

Renovations made to the White House—including the president’s luxury ballroom—are the biggest projected expenses, as the analysis cites reporting from The Washington Post last month to estimate that they will cost $927 million.

After the White House renovations, the second-most expensive Trump vanity project highlighted in the report is the estimated $400 million that will be required to provide security upgrades to the luxury jet the president received as a gift from the Qatari government.

The report finds that taxpayers will also be on the hook for $257 in renovations to the the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, which the president has threatened to tear down unless he is allowed to slap his name on the side of the building.

The president’s “Triumphal Arch” monument is another big-ticket item, as the report calculates it will cost $100 million to construct. Trump’s infamously botched attempt to renovate the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, meanwhile, is set to cost taxpayers $16 million.

Keeping it simple: vote Blue

With a nod to Woody Guthrie

Here's the original:

Starting in 1943, Woody put this slogan on his guitars

Screen Time at Ages 1 and 6 Linked to Lasting Learning and Memory Effects

Study challenges commonly held beliefs 

By Zhejiang University

Screens are now a routine part of life for many young children, but their possible effects on later learning remain uncertain. A study that tracked children from age 1 through age 8 found that greater viewing time, especially during infancy and near the start of school, was associated with lower academic performance at age 9 and weaker working memory at age 10.5. The results indicate that when children use screens may matter as much as how long they spend using them.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the American Academy of Pediatrics advise avoiding screens before 18 to 24 months and limiting viewing to less than one hour per day between ages 2 and 5. Many children exceed those recommendations, yet previous research on screens and cognitive development has produced inconsistent results.

Much of that work has examined children at only one point in time, concentrated on those already in school, or lacked repeated measurements across the early years. Following children through several developmental stages can help researchers identify periods of greater sensitivity while accounting more carefully for family and environmental factors.

CDC inaction delays COVID shots for low-income children

Bobby Jr. and Trump withhold vaccine from poor children

Liz Szabo, MA

Satire from The Onion, but not far from the truth

Although hospitalizations due to COVID-19 are climbing, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has not yet announced when COVID shots for the most vulnerable children in the country—those eligible for the Vaccines for Children (VFC) program—will be available.

The VFC program offers free immunizations to more than half of US children, including those who are uninsured, underinsured, eligible for Medicaid, or American Indians or Alaska Natives.

The CDC approved updated COVID shots on August 27, and manufacturers have been shipping the vaccines to medical offices since at least September 7. 

While doctors and pharmacists have been able to buy COVID shots for children with private insurance, public health officials who administer state VFC programs say they have not yet received the free vaccines, a problem originally reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Why haven’t we had an Atlantic hurricane yet?

Thank El Niño.

Matt Simon, Senior Staff Writer

"This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist's weekly newsletter here."

You are about to time travel. Off the Pacific coast of South America, the band of warm water known as El Niño is mutating into a freak of nature. At more than 3 degrees Celsius above normal, it’s the warmest El Niño recorded since satellites started measuring sea surface temperatures half a century ago, and it won’t peak for several more months, potentially hitting somewhere around 4 degrees by November or December. 

“This event is already in record territory,” said Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at the research group Berkeley Earth. “And every model expects it to keep growing.”

At the same time, this year’s Atlantic hurricane season, which began in June, is shattering records in the opposite direction. On average, by this time of year we should have seen four hurricanes, two of them major. But so far, the Atlantic hasn’t produced even one. The previous record for the latest first hurricane in a season was September 11.

The two events on opposite sides of the Americas are individually extreme and bizarre. But while they’re both record-breaking, they’re not unexplained. In fact, they’re intertwined in a fascinating way.

To understand the link, we need to talk about the ingredients of a hurricane, which you can think of as an engine. The fuel is warm ocean water, which sends energy skyward. This is why hurricanes have grown so much more powerful and destructive in recent years: The more the planet warms, the more high-octane fuel that can go into cyclones. Additionally, hurricanes like high humidity, as masses of dry air tend to break them up. Lastly, they prefer that the wind move in a consistent direction.

The Atlantic is full of warm water right now, so the hurricanes should have fuel. But it’s the wind that’s getting in the way: El Niño increases wind shear over the Atlantic, meaning air moving in different directions and different speeds at different altitudes. 

The Trump-Vance family policy reeks of white supremacy and misogyny.

MAGA ❤️ Motherhood (If You’re White)

Mitchell Zimmerman in Common Dreams

Creepy. That’s the word for the rising right-wing interest in family policy, exemplified by a recent administration proposal to pay $9,000 each year per child for women to stay at home with their children. The money would come from, and deplete, an existing federal program that helps working parents pay for childcare.

Of course, that program, the Child Care and Development Fund, is already woefully underfunded—only 1 in 7 eligible parents is able to use it. Most of those are single working mothers, the kind of hardworking people who do tough work for low wages and are derided by conservatives as “Welfare Queens.” They would not be eligible for the stay-at-home moms benefit.

MAGA leaders like Vice President JD Vance have a model of family life that is a caricature of a 1950s TV family: Dad works and Mom stays home with the kids, shops, cooks, cleans house, and puts on a clean apron and a big smile for Dad when he comes home from the office. A woman’s appropriate concerns in that model life are “Kinder, Küche, Kirche.” Children, cooking, church, as 19th-century Germans described the feminine role.

Or put more simply, “barefoot and pregnant.”

In Vance’s view, women who seek a professional career have chosen a “value system that leads to misery.” Consistent with the MAGA conception of women’s roles in society, Vance opposes abortion in all circumstances, wants to make divorce more difficult, and sees traditional family life as “the path to happiness and to fulfillment.”

But Vance and the right are motivated by bigger concerns than female happiness. They believe more pregnancies are critical to preserving civilization. It’s a “crisis,” says Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. “Low birth rate is the number one threat to the West,” says Elon Musk.

MAGA, this one's for you

October 3: Essen und Spaß

Trump signs "moral" deal with tech bros over artificial intelligence, and misspells "United States"

Since there is no such place as the "Unites States," does that mean the deal is void?

But what do you expect when Trump tries his hand at AI and gets THIS....

URI Theatre’s season lineup includes long-awaited return of ‘Cabaret,’ ‘Proof,’ ‘Charlotte’s Web’

URI THEATRE SEASON PREVIEW

James Bessette

The URI Theatre Department will produce a mix of Broadway classics, including “Cabaret” in December, and the children’s classic “Charlotte’s Web” in April during the 2026-27 academic year. Pictured is the cast of URI’s 2026 production of “Ride the Cyclone. (URI photo/Seth Jacobson)

This season, the University of Rhode Island’s Theatre Department will take audiences on a journey through the trials and tribulations of a brilliant mathematician’s family, a nightclub in 1930s Berlin, the French Revolution, and an enchantingly unique friendship between a young pig and a spider.

All the while, student actors, designers, directors and stage managers will bring their creativity to the URI Fine Arts Center’s various stages to both delight the public and also develop the necessary skills to thrive in the performing arts realm.

“Proof” and “Cabaret,” will premiere in the J Studio and Robert E. Will Theatre, respectively, this fall at the Fine Arts Center, 150 Upper College Road, on the Kingston Campus. In the spring, “The Revolutionists” and “Charlotte’s Web” will be staged under the bright stage lights.

The season commences Oct. 16 with “Proof” by David Auburn, directed by URI alum and Providence College professor of theatre Jimmy Calitri ’01—with URI theatre student Princess Johnson serving as student assistant director. Calitri returns to URI to lead “Proof” after previously directing “Guys and Dolls” and “Little Shop of Horrors” on campus a few years ago.

Trout season starts Friday

Hooked on Autumn: 25 Waterways to be Stocked with Trout

Get ready to drop a line during one of the fall’s fin-est pastimes! The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) is stocking brook and rainbow trout in selected areas throughout RI starting Friday, Oct. 2 through Thursday, Oct. 8. The following areas will be stocked:

• Alton Pond, Richmond
• Barber Pond, South Kingstown
• Blackstone River, Lincoln
• Browning Mill Pond, Exeter
• Carbuncle Pond, Coventry
• Carolina Trout Pond, Richmond
• Cronan Landing, Richmond
• Eight Rod Farm Pond, Tiverton
• Grantville to Rt. 95, Hopkinton
• Hope Valley Fishing Area, Hopkinton
• Kings Factory Bridge, Charlestown
• Lower Shannock, Charlestown
• Meadow Brook Pond, Richmond
• Rt. 165 Check Station to Wyoming Dam, Exeter, Hopkinton
• Onley Pond, Lincoln Woods State Park, Lincoln
• Round Top Ponds, Burrillville.
• Shippee Sawmill Pond, Foster
• Silver Spring Lake, North Kingstown
• Spring Grove Pond, Glocester
• Stafford Pond, Tiverton
• Upper Pawtuxet, (Hope), Scituate
• Upper Melville (Thurston Gray Pond)
• Willet Pond, East Providence
• Woodville, Richmond, Hopkinton        

Regular stocking updates will be available on DEM's Division of Fish and Wildlife's (DFW) Facebook Page and www.dem.ri.gov/troutwaters. See freshwater fisheries updates and FAQs at www.dem.ri.gov/fishing.