URI bee specialists share information for insect enthusiasts of all ages

Mind your bee’s and q’s

Kristen Curry

Bees are small but play a big role in our
environment. (URI Photos / Casey Johnson)

For Steven Alm and Casey Johnson, it’s a bug’s world every day in the University of Rhode Island Bee Lab. With a new exhibit on insects opening at Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence, they could not be happier to see a new generation of insect enthusiasts get an up-close look at their small subjects of study.

Part of URI’s Plant Sciences and Entomology department, Alm and Johnson answered questions on the local bee population for zoo visitors who may be interested in learning more after their day at the park:

Which bees are most common here in Rhode Island?

We know the most about our bumble bees because they are large and fairly easy to identify. The Common Eastern Bumble Bee is our most prevalent bumble bee here. We also have good numbers of sweat, mining, digger, and cellophane bees.  

We have recorded more than 280 bee species in Rhode Island, past and present; they are incredibly diverse with different needs. Some species have evolved to only collect pollen from certain plant families or even a single plant species. This means they are closely linked to these plants and will disappear if the plant disappears.

The Southeastern Blueberry Bee, for instance, forages only on blueberry, lupine or redbud and nests only in loose, sandy soil. This bee was recorded in Rhode Island for the first time in 2024. The Macropis Cuckoo Bee was thought to be extinct for nearly 60 years until it was rediscovered in Nova Scotia in 2004. Since then, it has been recorded in a handful of U.S. states, including one specimen collected here in Rhode Island in 2024.

Tylenol during pregnancy not tied to increased risk of autism in children

Trump and Kennedy are wrong. AGAIN.

Mary Van Beusekom, MS

Bobby Jr. does science. This is a REAL
story, not made up

Danish researchers find no link between maternal use of acetaminophen (Tylenol) during pregnancy and excess risk of autism in children, adding to mounting evidence that the drug is safe to use in pregnancy.

For the nationwide study, published yesterday in JAMA Pediatrics, Copenhagen University Hospital investigators linked prospective individual-level data from national demographic and health care registers on singletons born in Denmark from January 1997 to July 2022 who were alive at one year old. Follow-up was one year or until emigration or autism diagnosis. 

Exposure to acetaminophen during pregnancy was identified by maternal fulfillment of a prescription for the drug in the National Prescription Register. Another analysis compared sibling groups with discordant acetaminophen exposure in pregnancy.

“Evidence regarding the association between prenatal acetaminophen exposure and risk of autism in offspring remains inconsistent,” the study authors wrote. “One large Swedish cohort study reported a small but statistically significant increase in autism risk among children in a population-level analysis; however, the association was not observed in a sibling matched analysis, raising questions about residual confounding.” 

Trump’s unfounded claims spook pregnant women

The researchers initiated the study after Donald Trump’s September 2025 remarks discouraging pregnant women from using acetaminophen because of a purported link to autism. He also claimed, without evidence, that leucovorin (folinic acid) can help autistic children.

Trump regime data shows little evidence that the killing almost 200 people on the high seas has stopped drugs from reaching the US.

Murder at sea and for what?

Julia Conley

As Republicans and several Democrats in the US Senate gave the go-ahead for the US to send more bombs and military equipment to Israel for its attacks on Gaza and Lebanon, the Trump administration was continuing what it claims is an effort to rid Latin American countries of drug traffickers—killing three people aboard a vessel in the eastern Pacific Ocean in the US military’s third boat bombing in three days.

The US Southern Command posted a video on social media of the bombing, which it said targeted a boat that was “transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations.”

As with the 50 previous attacks on boats in the Pacific and the Caribbean Sea, the military did not publicize any evidence that the boat was carrying drugs or that its passengers were “narco-terrorists.”

A small number of the at least 177 victims of the Trump administration’s boat bombings have been identified. The Associated Press reported in November that Robert Sánchez, who was killed in the Caribbean, was a 42-year-old fisherman who made $100 per month and had started helping cocaine traffickers navigate the sea due to economic pressures. Juan Carlos Fuentes was an out-of-work bus driver who also worked as a “drug runner” to make ends meet.

The families of at least two victims have filed legal complaints over the killings of their family members, saying they were fishermen.

Adam Isacson of the Washington Office on Latin America has compared the boat bombings, assuming they have targeted people involved in the drug trade at all, to “straight-up massacring 16-year-old drug dealers on US street corners.”

Trump’s sweeping nuclear energy and weapons agenda has prompted revisions of longstanding radiation standards.

The Nuclear Safety Protections in Federal Crosshairs

By Alicia Inez Guzmán, High Country News

Bradley P. Clawson spent more than three decades handling highly radioactive materials at Idaho National Laboratory, a nuclear energy testing and production hub outside Idaho Falls. His work ranged from shipping and receiving nuclear naval fuels to helping bring hundreds of canisters of leftover fuel to Idaho for storage after the catastrophic Three Mile Island meltdown. He often handled nuclear fuel in “hot cells,” immensely contaminated areas reinforced with thick concrete. 

Throughout, Clawson, a member of the United Steelworkers union, leaned on safety standards to argue for extra protections against radiation, including respirators and additional shielding. 

But Donald Trump’s sweeping agenda to expand nuclear energy and modernize nuclear weapons now includes easing the radiation standards that Clawson credits with keeping his exposure as low as possible. 

“They’re pulling away from what’s kept us safe all these years,” said Clawson, who retired in 2021 and now serves on the advisory board on radiation and workers under the Centers for Disease Control. He spoke to High Country News in an unofficial personal capacity.

Last May, Trump signed four executive orders aimed at reviving what he called an industry “atrophied” by regulation. The U.S. Department of Energy quickly began stripping away regulations designed to reduce the amount of radiation exposure workers can face at its national laboratories, cleanup sites, and energy infrastructure. 

Trump interprets God's will

The brilliance of their genius is simply dazzling

 

Protest in Ashaway on Wednesday

Trump said this in 2019

Where There’s Wildfire Smoke, There’s Poor Mental Health

We know wildfire smoke harms your body but that's not all

Charlestown will likely get another dose of smoke from Canadian and western fires this summer

By Emma Foehringer Merchant

On a mild day in mid-November, among a clutch of oaks and sycamores, more than a dozen people encircled a small fire. Some lay splayed on the ground or on blankets, others perched on camp stools. Many had their eyes closed, while others stared into the flames. California fire season is barely in the rearview mirror.

The group had gathered in Paradise, California, at a park that sits on land burned in the 2018 Camp Fire. That wildfire destroyed most of the town and killed 85 people. In the years since, the same region has experienced three other conflagrations that rank among the largest in California history; one joined the Camp Fire as among the deadliest. Within the circle sat Blake Ellis, the program manager of the ecotherapy program associated with California State University, Chico, who invited attendees to lean into their senses and pay attention to the smells, sounds, and feel of the fire.

The ecotherapy program, which is open to the public, offers “place-based, holistic healing practices” and leads guided therapeutic programs in nature, including those focused on rebuilding a relationship with nature and what Ellis calls “good fire.” “The intention is to slow down, relax, engage with your senses, and to be in nature and community with one another,” she added, and to help the brain write over traumas associated with fire and create neural pathways that connect it with more positive experiences. The ultimate aim is to build resilience within a community repeatedly impacted by devastating wildfires.

Over the last decade, wildfires and their smoke have spread into new regions and grown into a more menacing threat due to climate change. And recently, research has increasingly connected wildfire and smoke with worsening mental health outcomes, in part due to cellular changes in the brain. Papers suggest a link between wildfires and emergency room visits for anxiety disorders, increased rates of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, and suicides in rural areas. More broadly, decades of research has tied air pollution to spikes in suicide attempts, depression, hospitalizations for mental illness, and other neurological conditions such as dementia.

HPV vaccination cuts cancer risk in men by about half, study suggests

But Donald Trump has his own cancer cure

Laine Bergeson

Cancers caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV) affect both men and women in large numbers, but prevention efforts initially focused on women (see related CIDRAP News story today). A retrospective cohort study published last week in JAMA Oncology suggests that vaccinating boys and young men with the nine-valent (nine-strain) HPV vaccine can meaningfully reduce their risk of related cancers, supporting the case for sex-neutral vaccination programs.

HPV vaccination has long been framed as a way to prevent cervical cancer in women, but the virus causes a range of cancers that affect men, including head and neck, anal, and penile cancers. In the study, researchers from the Nara Prefecture General Medical Center in Nara, Japan, looked at large-scale population data to evaluate the effectiveness of the nine-valent HPV vaccine in preventing these cancers in men. 

Here’s how Rhode Island can prepare for stronger wind storms.

Climate risk research tells us how the wind blows. 

By Steven M. Rothstein and Christopher S. Stark, Rhode Island Current

There is no doubt that more frequent and significantly stronger thunderstorms, combined with hurricanes, tornados, and wildfires are increasing the pressure on affordable insurance products to protect your assets. And on all of us. Because we need to work together to create a culture of resiliency in Rhode Island. 

Global insured losses from natural catastrophes alone reached over $100 billion for the sixth consecutive year in 2025. In 2015, these numbers were between $27 billion and $37 billion across the globe. California wildfires alone in 2025 exceeded 2015 losses. 

In the coming decades, millions more homes and businesses along the East Coast will be threatened by wind damage. According to a 2023 study by the First Street Foundation, the average cost of damage in Rhode Island caused by extreme weather is projected to rise by more than 50% from $10 million to $15.6 million in 2053. 

Rhode Island’s 400 miles of coastline and several rivers have risen above flood stage in the past. That means an increased risk of waterborne diseases, mold growth, bacterial contamination, psychological trauma, and long-term effects on local economies in the years ahead, state officials say.

“More bombs, less of everything else” is a tough campaign platform.

Trump's Total War Budget

Noah Berlatsky

Donald Trump called for the culmination of a 45-year Republican dream and did so in a way designed to do maximum damage to the GOP — not to mention the country.

That dream is the utter destruction of the US safety net and the unlimited expansion of the US military.

“The United States can’t take care of daycare,” Trump blustered during a speech to faith leaders. “That has to be up to a state. We’re fighting wars. Medicaid, Medicare — they can do it on a state basis. We have to take care of one thing: military protection. But all these little scams that have taken place, you have to let states take care of them.”

Two days later, Trump proposed a 2027 fiscal year budget with a defense spending increase of 42 percent, or $445 billion, to a staggering total of $1.5 trillion. The budget calls for reducing non-defense spending by 10 percent through the elimination of “woke, weaponized, and wasteful programs” — including steep cuts to the Internal Revenue Service, Environmental Protection Agency, NASA, and defunding the National Endowment for Democracy. Trump also called for massive budget cuts to the National Institutes of Health.

Democrats have said the document is dead on arrival — though Trump hopes to pass a big chunk of it through reconciliation without Democratic votes.

The budget does not, at least initially, include cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security. It also does not include funding for Trump’s war against Iran, which he also hopes to pass through a reconciliation process without Democratic support. But it points the way clearly toward a distinctively Republican future for America — one in which the populace is transformed into an impoverished mass of hunger and disease, emitting occasional hoarse pleas for castoffs from oligarchs.

Patty Murray, the top democrat on the Senate appropriations committee, said it is a “bleak and unacceptable” vision. It’s one that is likely to be incredibly unpopular, throwing a lead anchor to the GOP’s already rapidly sinking midterm prospects.

Which side are you on

Trump reveals existence of "Vatican Files' (seriously). They're stored next to the Epstein files in his gold-plated bathroom at Mar-A-Largo

SHOCKER: Trump’s nominee to head the CDC does not seem to be crazy and may actually be qualified

Trump nominates Brown Med School graduate Erica Schwartz, former deputy surgeon general, to head CDC

Stephanie Soucheray, MA 

Wikimedia Commons / Mike Olliver

Erica Schwartz, MD, JD, MPH, former Coast Guard officer, is Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Trump announced late this afternoon. 

“Erica graduated from Brown University for College and Medical School, and served a distinguished career as a Doctor of Medicine in the United States Military, the Greatest and Most Powerful Force in the World, and then served as my Deputy Surgeon General during my First Term,” Trump wrote in a lengthy Truth Social post. 

Trump also appointed Sean Slovenski as the CDC deputy director and chief operating officer, Jennifer Shuford, MD, MPH, as the CDC deputy director and chief medical officer, and Sara Brenner, MD, MPH, as senior counselor for public health to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 

“These Highly Respected Doctors of Medicine have the knowledge, experience, and TOP degrees to restore the GOLD STANDARD OF SCIENCE at the CDC,” Trump said. 

Schwartz is set to inherit a chaotic and hollowed CDC, one that has seen public firings, the resurgence of measles across the nation, and legally disputed changes to routine vaccine recommendations. Polling also shows that Kennedy’s anti-vaccine “Make America Healthy Again” agenda isn’t sitting well with voters and may be a liability in the midterm elections for Republicans. 

The CDC is an agency within HHS.