Research

The only way to make beef and dairy more climate-friendly? Stop producing it

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 19:37:16 +0000

The only way to make beef and dairy more climate-friendly? Stop producing it Rachel Sauer Tue, 07/28/2026 - 13:37

Tiffany Plate

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder researcher Cliff Bueno de Mesquita and colleagues are showing why microbial solutions to livestock methane emissions reductions won’t stop beef and dairy’s environmental and health problems

By nature, cows are gassy creatures. But it’s not just the stink of their manure or their belches that are troublesome. The methane gas released by ruminants like cows (or bison, sheep or goats) also causes a lot of trouble for the planet.

That’s because methane is a potent greenhouse gas with a dramatically higher global warming potential than carbon dioxide. And ruminants raised for food account for 14% of global methane emissions.

Over the last decade or so scientists have been hard at work figuring out how to infuse cows’ feedstock with additives that inhibit methane-producing microbes. The process could reduce those methane emissions and potentially produce a more “climate-friendly” beef.

Cliff Bueno de Mesquita, who studies microbial ecology of permafrost and ancient sediments in the lab of ecology and evolutionary biology Professor Noah Fierer and in the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, teamed up with other microbiologists passionate about environmental issues for this perspective piece. (Photo: Cliff Bueno de Mesquita)

Sounds like a win-win, right? A new perspective piece by Cliff Bueno de Mesquita (PhDEBio'19), a research associate in the lab of ecology and evolutionary biology Professor Noah Fierer and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), says otherwise.

“Even if you could decrease cows’ methane emissions by 100%, cows are still worse than plant-based agriculture for their land use, water use, pollution and impacts on human health,” says Bueno de Mesquita.

In their piece in the journal Sustainable Agriculture, Bueno de Mesquita and a team of microbiologist colleagues outline all the reasons that altering cows’ rumen microbes is a misdirected use of time, money and energy. “This is basically distracting from what we really need to be doing, which is reducing the ruminant population size,” he says.

This conclusion—that reducing the numbers of ruminants raised for food is the only solution to actually reducing livestock’s impact on the planet—has already been drawn by researchers around the world.

“There are a lot of great scientists working on this topic, with strong data sets that have been assembled with all of the evidence,” says Bueno de Mesquita.

Bueno de Mesquita and his colleagues cited 98 studies, to be exact, in their peer-reviewed opinion piece that re-emphasizes the personal and planetary benefits of a shift to a plant-based diet—and lays out exactly why rumen microbes are not the answer.

The problem with microbes

Some of the literature references cited in the piece are studies that have been done on the most common feed additives that have been studied for methane inhibition: seaweed and 3-nitrooxypropanol (or Bovaer). The research shows that the demonstrated efficacy of these microbes is extremely variable, with one review reporting a range of 10–63% reduction and another review reporting a range of a 4% increase to a 97% reduction.

Bueno de Mesquita and colleagues are also concerned that altering rumen microbes may lead to unpredictable health effects for the cattle, and may even decrease immunity to pathogens that could be detrimental to human health.

Another reason for concern? This method favors intensive beef production, where cattle are fed in feedlots rather than on grass (as is more likely to be the case in small-holder production). Not to mention that seaweed harvesting has its own inherent carbon emissions and environmental impact.

But Bueno de Mesquita’s team points out that even if none of these were issues, methane reduction does nothing to address potent nitrogen emissions or other emissions from the rest of the production life cycle (e.g., land use, water use, fertilizer, crop residues, manure).

Bueno de Mesquita and colleagues created this graphic to demonstrate how many ways livestock production can impact the environment and human health—and how only one of these impacts is reduced by trying to alter the microbes in the rumen with feed additives. (Graphic: Cliff Bueno de Mesquita and Ylenia Vimercati Molano)

Shifting people’s perspectives

The authors wrote the piece to be accessible to non-scientists in hopes of reaching as wide an audience as possible. “I want the public to be aware and to be skeptical of labels coming from the beef and dairy industry that are calling those products climate friendly,” says Bueno de Mesquita.

Of course, he also hopes that people will consider simply shifting to a plant-based diet in order to make their meals more climate friendly. But he knows that’s easier said than done.

“We're basically living in a ‘carnistic’ society where eating meat is perceived to be normal, natural and necessary,” says Bueno de Mesquita. “That's sort of people's default. So when they’re met with a proposal for a minor shift that challenges that, we know there's gonna be pushback.”

Two years ago Bueno de Mesquita and his co-authors published another paper documenting a push within �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder’s Ecology and Evolutionary Biology department for more plant-based meals. “The PhD students were very hesitant to implement a dietary change, even though they know that it's going to be better for the environment.”

Even still, Bueno de Mesquita says the current perspective piece is getting a lot of traction. “I basically never get emails about my research papers,” he says. “But I've already gotten emails from multiple people saying that they agree.” He adds that even some leading microbiologists have posted it on social media.

That’s key to reaching the other audience Bueno de Mesquita and colleagues wanted to address: the microbiologists actually doing the research on rumen microbes in livestock feed, usually funded by the beef and dairy industries, he says.

“They're enabling the dairy industry to say, ‘Hey, we're doing this research. This is going to work’,” says Bueno de Mesquita. “Then the industry has an excuse to keep business as usual.”

Instead, he hopes that microbiologists and other scientists studying climate change will step up and speak with a unified voice about what needs to be done as a society. “It's very obvious,” says Bueno de Mesquita. “If you want to reduce methane from ruminants, you need to decrease the number of ruminants.”

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Top photo: Unsplash

'It is easy to get lost in this jungle of solar panels'

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 21:25:49 +0000

'It is easy to get lost in this jungle of solar panels' Rachel Sauer Mon, 07/27/2026 - 15:25

Yaks graze beneath solar farm panels on the Tibetan Plateau. (Photo: Sanggay Tashi)

Sanggay Tashi

How the development of solar and wind farms on the Tibetan Plateau is affecting local communities

China is building some of the world’s largest solar farms on the Tibetan Plateau, where nomadic people have grazed herds of animals for millennia.

It’s not the first time Tibetan regions have become a major source of renewable energy in China. Since the mid-1990s, many Tibetan communities have lived alongside hydropower stations.

Now, with vast open landscapes and high elevations that provide ideal conditions for harnessing solar and wind energy, many pastoral lands have become key sites for large-scale renewable energy projects.

Sanggay Tashi is a PhD candidate in the �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder Department of Anthropology.

As part of my ethnographic research, I spoke to number of people in this area, offering a rare look at how large-scale energy development is affecting nomadic communities.

Herding yaks on solar farms

I spent time in a nomadic community located about 100 miles (161 km) southeast of Xining city, the capital of Qinghai province.

Beginning in 2017 and accelerating more recently, regional subsidiaries of energy companies such as PowerChina have built three solar panel power plants – enough to generate about 1 gigawatt of power – and a dozen wind turbines on the area’s open grasslands.

Sandy, desert-type land is well known to be suitable for solar and wind farms. Yet the grasslands and many other pastoral areas turned into solar farms are not sandy deserts. They are productive grazing land where Tibetans have herded yaks and sheep for generations.

Parts of what was once open fine alpine grassland, which Tibetans call pangtang where herders moved freely and gazed across the boundless horizon, are now covered by dense rows of solar panels. It remains unclear how these sites comply with China’s grassland conservation regulations. Other solar projects elsewhere in China have reportedly been investigated for environmental violations.

Walking through the sites feels like moving through a dense forest of iron pillars rising into the air. “It is easy to get lost in this jungle of solar panels,” Tsering, a local observer, told me as we walked between long rows of panels on a windy winter day in 2023.

That day, I also met Dolma, a local Dokpa, or nomad, herding yaks under solar panels. As we talked, she told me the solar farm had changed the experience of herding. She said, “I am used to herding on open grassland. So, herding under these glass panels feels like something is wrapping around my head. It feels very depressing.”

Individual and collective tensions

These energy projects in nomadic communities are presented as part of of national efforts to modernize rural areas, bring capital to local communities and promote renewable energy development as part of China’s clean energy and carbon reduction agenda.

But their implementation brings tensions and contradictions in the communities where they are located.

Tibetans walk through a solar farm in Tibet, while animals graze in the distance. (Photo: Sanggay Tashi)

Based on my conversations with more than 20 people in the community, some view them as good economic opportunities and are envious of those whose grazing lands were selected for lease. Others oppose them, saying they “open the gate” for outsiders to appropriate local land for short-term financial gain by a few.

As more outsiders move in and the landscape changes with these energy projects, the overall concern that I observed from talking to different people is that the land that generations have lived on and protected may not retain the same sense of home in the future.

Tsering, who guided me through the solar farms, is very critical of those who agreed to lease land to solar farms, saying, “I may sound pretentious, but these days people are like grass growing on a wall – easily swayed by the slightest breeze of money.”

Since the 1950s, all land in China has been either government-owned or collectively owned; private land ownership is not allowed. Individuals may hold fixed-term “land-use rights” that can be transferred, sold or leased. In the 2000s, the government allocated land to individual families in nomadic areas of Qinghai and granted them 50-year “grassland use certificates."This enables the locals to raise livestock on the land and lease it to others. Most certificates are set to expire in 2050.

Some holders of grassland use certificates have leased their land to energy farms. In the area I studied, those leases typically are for around 25 years, to align with the remaining term of local grassland use rights. What will happen when these land use rights expire remains unknown.

Yaks graze beneath solar farm panels on the Tibetan Plateau. (Photo: Sanggay Tashi)

Money matters

In practice, leasing is extremely complex. When I asked a dozen families about their official contracts with the energy companies, several people said they signed it without fully understanding what it said.

"The only thing people made sure to know is how much money they are receiving,” one person said to me. The documents included long and complicated legal or technical language in Chinese, some of which was orally translated into Tibetan during the signing, because many nomads who are heads of households and more than 40 years old can’t read either Chinese or Tibetan.

Negotiations and leasing decisions are often carried out between company representatives and a small number of heads of households, brought together with the help of local officials. That leaves many residents uninformed about the terms and conditions of the agreements.

Households that lease grazing land to energy projects receive a one-time payment that depends on the amount of land involved and which company is seeking the lease. From 2017 to 2026, residents have told me they received offers between 3,000 and 4,000 yuan (US$440 to $587) for each mu, a unit of area equivalent to about 0.16 acres. Those rates have resulted in payments between 40,000 and 100,0000 yuan ($7,300 to $147,000) per household.

Human relations with the land

The energy companies’ contracts treat local households and land as individually owned properties in financial transactions. But local Indigenous communities have a different understanding and relationship to the environment.

Socially and historically, and regardless of the government policies on land ownership, Tibetans have perceived pastoral land as communal and experienced it as inhabited by all kinds of beings besides humans, including deities, animals, insects and other visible and invisible beings that are important in the Tibetan cosmological worldview. The energy planners often disregard these local ways of understanding and relating to the land.

During a dinner conversation, four local residents told me about one of these deeper spiritual concerns. During the construction of transmission lines to carry the solar power to users, they said, several transmission poles were placed very close to a labtse of a neighboring community. A labtse is a sacred site where an important mountain deity is believed to reside and where community members make regular offerings.

A solar farm under construction in eastern Tibet. (Photo: Sanggay Tashi)

When locals asked for the poles to be moved, the energy developers suggested they would cover the cost of relocating the labtse instead – which, culturally, cannot be done, and if it were would require direction from high-ranking religious figures.

For the local people, however, this was not a matter of compensation but of protecting the deity from being stabbed by the giant poles. Some residents were even willing to pay the planners to move the poles. After a series of negotiations, the poles were eventually moved a short distance from the labtse.

Living alongside energy farms

Herding on energy farms comes with new challenges.

When the solar panels were installed, excavation for support posts and underground cables disturbed the topsoil and destroyed the native grasses, which consist of a diverse species of grass. According to people involved in the work, the replacement grasses consisted of only one or two dominant species among the several that were common in the local ecosystem. And the seeds used for restoration came from beyond the local area, so residents are unsure whether the replanted grasses are exactly the same as the types that grow locally.

During winter, snow under the shade of solar panels takes a long time to melt, causing baby lambs to freeze in the cold. Dolma also told me, “The solar panels are making a fortune for the wild fox because it is hard to see them when they attack little lambs under the panels.”

Dolma told me that when the wind turbines were being built, their noise frightened her livestock and carried across the valley, disturbing neighbors during windy times.

The locals also told me that wind blowing through the posts and wires of solar farms produces persistent and unsettling noises that disturb both animals and people.

Future uncertainties

While these solar farms are generally considered “renewable” and part of “sustainable development,” their future remains uncertain. Locals told me they do not know whether the land-lease contracts will be renewed or abandoned when they expire in about 25 years. Solar panels also last around 25 years, and local people wonder how the waste will be disposed of.

As more Indigenous communities around the world become locations for climate mitigation projects, energy production and data centers, the stories of local people are essential to understand how their ways of life, culture and environment are affected by these new interventions.

Sanggay Tashi is a PhD candidate in the �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder Department of Anthropology specializing in cultural anthropology.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

How the development of solar and wind farms on the Tibetan Plateau is affecting local communities.

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Top photo: Livestock graze near solar panels in eastern Tibet (Photo: Sanggay Tashi)

Where did language come from?

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 21:02:23 +0000

Where did language come from? Rachel Sauer Mon, 07/27/2026 - 15:02

Karen Stollznow

Nobody really knows, but the theories are fascinating

Humans are the only species known to use fully symbolic language: a system capable of expressing abstract ideas, imaginary worlds and endless combinations of meaning. But how did we get there?

The origins of language have fascinated philosophers, scientists and storytellers for thousands of years. Despite all our advances in linguistics, archaeology and cognitive science, we still don’t know exactly how language began.

That uncertainty hasn’t stopped people from trying to solve the mystery. In fact, some of the earliest theories of language’s origins are among the strangest and most entertaining ideas in the history of science.

Karen Stollznow is a visiting scholar in the �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder Department of Linguistics.

Bow wow, ding-dong

In the 19th century, scholars proposed a flurry of curious theories to explain how speech first emerged. Many of these theories were given playful nicknames by the German philologist Max Müller, who intended them partly as satire. Yet the theories were genuine attempts to tackle one of humanity’s biggest questions.

The most famous is probably the Bow-Wow Theory. This suggested language began through imitation of natural sounds. Early humans, according to this theory, copied the noises around them: animal cries, splashing water, thunderclaps and birdsong. Words such as “buzz”, “hiss”, “bang” and “splash” seem to support the idea because they sound like what they describe.

But there is a problem. Different languages hear the same sounds differently. English dogs go “woof” or “bow-wow”, but in Turkish they go “hev-hev”, while Indonesian dogs go “guk-guk”. Even animal noises, it turns out, are filtered through culture and language.

And onomatopoeic words (words that imitate sounds) make up only a tiny fraction of our vocabularies. Most words sound nothing like their meanings. For instance, there is nothing inherently tree-like about the word “tree”.

That brings us to the Ding-Dong Theory, which argued that sounds and meanings are naturally connected in some deeper, almost mystical way.

Some words do seem to fit their meanings uncannily well. “Mini”, “teeny” and “itsy-bitsy” feel small and delicate. “Lump”, “rump” and “plump” sound heavier and rounder.

Modern linguists call this sound symbolism. One famous experiment asked participants to match two nonsense words, “bouba” and “kiki”, to two shapes: one rounded and one jagged. Most people matched “bouba” with the soft shape and “kiki” with the sharp one.

The effect is real, but it is limited. Most language still appears to be arbitrary, which means there is no natural reason why a particular sound should mean a particular thing.

German philologist Max Müller gave playful nicknames to competing theories of language’s origins. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Pooh-pooh, la-la, ye-he-ho

Other theories focused less on imitation and more on emotion and social interaction.

The Pooh-Pooh Theory proposed that speech began with instinctive emotional cries such as “ouch”, “oh” or perhaps less publishable exclamations uttered after stubbing a toe. According to this idea, language evolved from spontaneous vocal reactions to pain, surprise, fear or joy.

Again, though, there are complications. Interjections vary widely across languages. English speakers say “ouch”. Greeks say “aou”. Czechs might exclaim “ach”. Emotional sounds are not nearly as universal as they seem.

Then there is the wonderfully named Yo-He-Ho Theory, which suggested language emerged from rhythmic chants used during collective labour, like sailors chanting “yo-heave-ho” while hauling ropes, or workers singing together to coordinate physical effort.

The theory may sound quaint, but modern researchers do think rhythm, cooperation and social bonding played important roles in human evolution. Language is, after all, deeply social.

Another proposal, the La-La Theory, linked language to music. Charles Darwin entertained the possibility that speech evolved from musical calls used in courtship and emotional expression. Before humans spoke, perhaps we sang?

Some modern theories echo this idea. One hypothesis suggests that, as early humans began walking upright, parents increasingly needed to soothe babies from a distance. Sing-song vocalisations, cooing and proto “baby talk” may have helped strengthen emotional bonds and eventually paved the way for speech.

Gestures, symbols and brains

Today, most scientists think no single theory fully explains language origins. Instead, language probably emerged gradually through a combination of gestures, vocalisations, facial expressions, social cooperation and increasing cognitive complexity.

Charles Darwin speculated that speech evolved from musical expression. (Photo: Julia Margaret Cameron/Wikimedia Commons)

Some researchers argue that language began with gestures before shifting to speech. Others believe language evolved as a tool for social bonding, allowing larger groups of humans to cooperate and share information. Still others see language as tied to the evolution of symbolic thought itself: our ability to imagine, plan, remember and communicate abstract ideas.

Biology is also a factor. Humans have developed unusually precise control over the tongue, lips and vocal tract. We have evolved specialised brain regions linked to language processing.

But anatomy alone cannot explain language. Parrots can mimic speech sounds. Many animals communicate. None, however, appear to possess grammar and symbolism on the human scale. And, frustratingly, early language leaves no evidence behind. Spoken words don’t fossilise.

That lack of evidence is one reason the topic became so controversial that, in 1866, the Société de Linguistique de Paris banned discussions about language origins altogether, dismissing the field as hopelessly speculative.

Of course, theories about language origins also appear in religion and mythology. In Greek mythology, the messenger god Hermes was associated with language and communication. In the Hindu tradition, the goddess of knowledge and speech Saraswati bestowed Sanskrit upon humanity. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, language was a gift from God, who enabled Adam to name the animals in the Garden of Eden.

These stories reflect something deeply human: our urge to explain where language came from, because language itself feels almost magical. Every theory of language origins captures a small piece of the puzzle. Imitation, emotion, rhythm, music, gesture, cooperation and symbolic thought probably all played some role.

But none can provide a complete answer. The truth is that language evolved so long ago, and likely so gradually, that we will never pinpoint a single moment when it began, unless someone invents a time machine.

The birth of language will probably remain one of humanity’s greatest unsolved mysteries. Still, the theories themselves tell us something important. Humans are always trying to explain what makes us human. And language may be the most human thing of all.

Karen Stollznow is a visiting scholar in the �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder Department of Linguistics specializing in the political and social history of modern Latin America.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Nobody really knows, but the theories are fascinating.

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Do elections affect political anger?

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 18:11:31 +0000

Do elections affect political anger? Rachel Sauer Wed, 07/22/2026 - 12:11

A Freedom Party of Austria (FOP) campaign van bearing the image of Herbert Kickl, who has led the party since 2021. The slogan "Dein herz sagt ja" translates to "Your heart says yes." (Photo: Asurnipal/Wikimedia Commons)

Bradley Worrell

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder political scientists find that far-right voters in Austria were less angry after electoral success while many mainstream voters correspondingly became more angry

Much of the current research on right-wing populist parties focuses on what motivates their supporters before elections—particularly anger, anxiety and discontent.

But a recent study from �鶹��Ѱ�� Department of Political Science Professor Jennifer Fitzgerald and graduate students Mateusz Leszczynski and Sinan Nadarevic takes a different approach. Instead of examining what drives voters to support far-right parties—typically hardline attitudes on immigration, strong Euroskepticism and deep distrust of domestic political leaders—the researchers sought to understand what happens to those voters after their party achieves electoral success.

“What we’re doing is turning that question around,” explains Fitzgerald, whose research focuses on comparative political behavior. “Instead of asking what leads someone to support a far-right party, we’re asking what happens afterwards. Once someone has cast that vote, how do they feel?”

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder political scientists Jennifer Fitzgerald (left), Mateusz Leszczynski (center) and Sinan Nadarevic (right) asked once someone has cast a vote, how do they feel?

The researchers found their answers in studying the 2017 election in Austria, in which the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) finished strongly in third place, allowing it to become a junior partner in a coalition government headed by the center-right Austrian People’s Party (OVP). As the results were counted, FPO voters became less angry and anxious—and more hopeful and confident, the researchers found.

The study’s findings challenge the widely held assumption that populist parties rely on a constant state of anger, says Leszczynski, who studies comparative politics and public policy. Those findings suggest that election outcomes can significantly alter political emotions—at least in the short term, he adds.

Fitzgerald says the research offers a new perspective on how voters experience democratic politics and may help researchers better understand emotional dynamics across modern democracies.

Looking for answers in Austria

One reason the three researchers looked at Austria is because the Freedom Party is one of Western Europe’s longest-running far-right parties and has enjoyed some measure of electoral success, even prior to the 2017 elections, Fitzgerald says.

“(FPO) has a very established electorate and a very well-known brand,” she says.

Austria also had another factor in its favor in terms of studying electoral behavior. Specifically, researchers had access to a rare Austrian survey that tracked political emotions before and after the country’s 2017 national elections. That’s significant because one challenge in studying political emotions is separating them from broader feelings about life, says Nadarevic, who studies comparative politics and American politics.

“It didn’t ask how they felt in general, how they felt about the economy or how they felt about society. It was explicitly focused on the political situation at that moment in time,” he says. He says that distinction helped the researchers isolate political emotions more effectively than many previous studies conducted in other countries with far-right parties.

“We also looked at data from countries such as Britain, Switzerland, the United States and Finland,” he says. “Austria was unique in asking specifically about political emotions rather than simply asking respondents how they were feeling overall.”

Leszczynski says that specificity allowed the researchers “to get much closer to the underlying mechanism.”

At the same time, as with any survey-based study, this research depends on self-reported responses, which always carry built-in limitations, Fitzgerald acknowledges.

“That’s always a challenge with survey data,” she says. “No survey instrument is perfect, and no survey question perfectly captures the phenomenon you’re trying to measure.”

Rather than treating survey responses as definitive proof of emotional states, Fitzgerald says the researchers interpret them in light of existing political psychology research.

“This is where the existing literature becomes so important,” she says. “Prior research gives us a set of theoretical expectations—sometimes competing expectations—which help guide our interpretation of the results.”

Fitzgerald emphasizes that research is an ongoing process of comparing data, theory and previous findings.

“We recognize that surveys don’t provide absolute truth about how people feel,” she says. “However, when interpreted in the context of broader scholarly literature, they can still provide meaningful insights.”

Electoral winners feel better

The study’s central finding is straightforward: Electoral success appears to improve how FPO supporters feel about politics—at least in the short term. Notably, those emotional changes were strongest among voters with deep attachments to the party, Leszczynski says.

“What we looked at was the strength of an individual’s connection to the party,” he says. The researchers compared highly committed supporters with voters who back the FPO but did not strongly identify with it.

“We found that voters who were more strongly connected to the party—what people might call ‘core’ or ‘hardcore’ supporters—experienced much stronger emotional shifts,” Nadarevic says. That finding resembles patterns seen in many democracies, where strong partisans tend to invest more emotionally in election outcomes than voters who simply choose a party in a particular election, he adds.

Fitzgerald says the results suggest that many far-right voters behave much like traditional party loyalists when it comes to how they feel about their preferred party’s electoral performance.

“Our findings suggest that at least some of these voters behave much like traditional partisans,” she explains. “The strongest emotional shifts occurred among those with the strongest partisan attachment.”

Still, the researchers offer a caveat with their findings: Their research makes no claims that election results permanently reduce anger. Campaign cycles may repeatedly increase and decrease emotions; thus, political emotions may be cyclical rather than fixed.

“We can’t say that reduced anger and reduced anxiety persist long term,” Fitzgerald notes.

Elections create winners and losers

Another key finding of the research report: Elections affect more than just the victorious party’s supporters. In the 2017 Austrian election, while FPO voters experienced an emotional uplift, supporters of the center-left Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPO) reacted in the opposite direction.

An FPO campaign booth in Wein, Austria. �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder researchers found that in the 2017 Austrian election, while FPO voters experienced an emotional uplift, supporters of the center-left Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPO) reacted in the opposite direction. (Photo: Janos Korom/Wikimedia Commons)

“What we observed was that center-left voters became more politically angry and anxious after the election,” Leszczynski says. In effect, elections produce emotional winners and losers as well as political ones, he adds.

Fitzgerald says she believes that broader perspective is essential for understanding modern democracy.

“If we looked only at far-right voters, we’d learn something useful from this analysis,” she says. “But by examining other parties as well, we see broader patterns.”

Nadarevic says the result is a kind of emotional trade-off, where gains among one group are accompanied by losses among another.

“To us, that’s a fascinating way to think about elections,” Fitzgerald says. “It highlights just how emotionally consequential modern democratic politics have become.”

Although there are no immediate plans for a follow-up paper, the researchers say a variety of avenues could be pursued, such as designing longitudinal studies in Austria that could better measure emotional changes over time, examining far-right parties and electoral outcomes in other countries, making comparisons across parties and ideologies and putting an even greater focus on the emotional consequences of political participation.

Implications beyond Austria

Although the researchers focused on Austria, they believe its findings could have relevance elsewhere.

Fitzgerald notes that scholars frequently identify similar characteristics among far-right voters in countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, France and Sweden.

“We think there’s a reasonable possibility that our findings could generalize beyond Austria,” she says.

At the same time, the researchers are careful not to overstate their conclusions.

“We view this as a case study with broader theoretical relevance—rather than proof that the same pattern exists everywhere,” Fitzgerald says.

Perhaps the most difficult question raised by the study concerns democratic legitimacy. For instance, if electoral success reduces anger and anxiety among populist voters, does that represent a healthy outcome for democracy? The researchers are cautious about drawing simplistic conclusions.

“It’s certainly something worth thinking about,” Fitzgerald says. However, the answer becomes more complicated when considering the emotional reactions of other voters, she acknowledges.

“If anger and anxiety decline among far-right voters while increasing among center-left voters, it’s hard to conclude that there is an overall gain in democratic legitimacy,” she says.

For the researchers, they say the most important lesson may be that emotions deserve a more central place in discussions about voting and democracy.

“What we can say is that public confidence in democratic politics matters greatly,” Fitzgerald says, “and understanding these emotional dynamics helps us ask better questions about democracies and their citizens.”

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�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder political scientists find that far-right voters in Austria were less angry after electoral success while many mainstream voters correspondingly became more angry.

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Top image: A seemingly defaced FPO candidate billboard in Innsbruck, Austria. (Photo: Jolly Janner/Wikimedia Commons)

What ancient eggshells can tell us about extinction

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 19:55:38 +0000

What ancient eggshells can tell us about extinction Rachel Sauer Tue, 07/21/2026 - 13:55

Tiffany Plate

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder Professor Emeritus Gifford Miller contributed to a new study that delivers a more accurate understanding of the extinction of one of Australia’s oversized flightless birds

Some people collect albums. Or coins. Or stamps. �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder Professor Emeritus Gifford Miller collects the eggshells of large extinct flightless birds.

That collection came in handy for recent research that’s helping scientists understand more precisely when Genyornis newtoni went extinct in Australia—and whether humans were responsible for their extinction.

Genyornis is a genus of large flightless birds that roamed the Australian outback alongside modern-day emus; they reached heights of about 7 feet and weights upwards of 500 pounds.

Gifford Miller has spent some 20 seasons in the field in Australia collecting the well-preserved eggshells of flightless birds. The samples were pivotal to recent research determining the extinction date of the continent’s largest flightless bird. (Photo: Gifford Miller)

While emus—which are unrelated to Genyornis—survived, the majority of other megafauna on the continent went extinct around the time humans arrived (or just shortly after).

“There was a really big uncertainty in Australia as to how we get precise, reliable ages on when the actual Genyornis extinction occurred,” says Miller, a professor emeritus of earth science who is also the director for the Center for the Geochronological Analysis of the Global Environment at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR). “Radiocarbon dating wasn’t going to do it, and amino acid racemization wasn't going to do it at the precision we wanted.”

To get closer to the truth, Miller encouraged his colleague, Elizabeth Niespolo, a geologist at Princeton University, to try out a different method called uranium-thorium burial dating. The process relies on the eggshells to uptake uranium—which is plentiful in Australian soils—and then produce thorium as a byproduct of uranium decay.

The results of the research were published this summer in a new article in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews, which Miller co-authored.

The megafauna-human overlap

Previous dating methods posited that genyornis went extinct around 60,000–65,000 years ago. However, Niespolo found much different results.

“She thinks she has very firm extinction dates at about 45,000 years ago, which is quite a bit younger than a lot of other people think,” says Miller.

The date that humans arrived in Australia is also still up for debate, with some studies saying they showed up around 55,000 years ago, and others around 65,000 years ago (still a long time ago when the only way to reach the island at that time was via boat, Miller points out).

Either way, the new results would mean there was a very long period of time between the arrival of human colonizers and the extinction of genyornis.

“We’re basically left with two options: either there is a long overlap, which is unusual relative to almost all other human-faunal extinction overlaps, or the early human colonization dates are too old,” says Miller. “Both are plausible.”

Predation or fire?

Now, scientists are left to continue zeroing on that human arrival date, as well as the method by which humans managed to make so many species go extinct.

Genyornis newtoni was one of many species of megafauna that disappeared from Australia around the time of human colonization. (Illustration: Peter Trusler/Monash University)

“There are two options, and both have some strength behind them,” says Miller. “One of them would be predation, particularly of genyornis eggs.” Many eggshells were found with evidence of contact with fire, he says, meaning they were either cooked directly over a fire or discarded near one. “Clearly people were utilizing these eggs as a food source.”

The birds themselves might also have made their way to the dinner plate. “These are very big birds, much bigger than emu,” says Miller. “So, they would be a meal for a whole family for a week or two.”

For his part, Miller is partial to another theory: that humans impacted the landscape by systematic burning of vegetation that was genyornis’ primary food source.

“We have independent evidence from the emu—including a continuous time series from the present back through the extinction window—that shows the entire ecosystem shifted about 45,000 years ago in the central desert area where these birds are most common,” says Miller.

Leveraging the eggshells for further research

Miller is hoping that he and Niespolo might be able to use her now-proven dating methods on other eggshells in his collection to learn everything they can about the last 100,000 years or so on the continent.

“I have this tremendous geographic spread of samples from all across Australia,” says Miller, who hopes they might use that reservoir of material to determine whether the extinction dates changed based on location. “Did it happen earlier or later on the south coast? Or up in the far north near Darwin where the first people must have arrived?”

Miller also believes they can learn more about the historical temperature gradient of Australia using Niespolo’s dating methods on his collection.

“There are some interesting little tidbits that she and I are kicking around,” Miller says. “We’re looking to put together more projects that might capitalize on this amazing resource of samples I have.”

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Top photo: Gifford Miller

Project puts fossil records at the world’s fingertips

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 21:41:51 +0000

Project puts fossil records at the world’s fingertips Rachel Sauer Tue, 06/30/2026 - 15:41

Tiffany Plate

A major digitization project at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder’s Natural History Museum is helping researchers around the world collaborate like never before

Imagine being able to see the hairs on a 45-million-year-old fly. Without a microscope. In a lab 5,000 miles away from the museum where it’s stored.

Public images with that level of detail are the result of a major digitization project that has been going on at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder’s Museum of Natural History for more than a decade. The museum team has been diligently snapshotting and recording data about the museum’s collections, then sharing them to open-source databases that are available to researchers around the world. These efforts, which span the Museum’s collections departments, reflect a shared commitment to making specimens and data more accessible for researchers around the world.

The museum’s Paleontology Department, specifically, has shared more than 1 million specimen records to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF)—many with high-resolution images to accompany them—from across the museum’s collections.

“It’s been really key to getting our collection used more,” says Talia Karim, collections manager of invertebrate paleontology at the museum. “We’ve had graduate students in other countries find those images on GBIF and then request higher-resolution images they can publish in a paper.”

As collections manager of invertebrate paleontology, Talia Karim has led major projects to digitize the museum’s fossil collections and publish the resulting data so it can be used by researchers around the world. (Photo: Patrick Campbell/�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder)

The project was made possible through the National Science Foundation’s Advancing Digitization of Biodiversity Collections (ADBC) funding opportunity, which was designed to advance scientific knowledge by improving access to digitized information in U.S. collections.

Now, with the help of a new grant, Karim is working with end users to refine their data output and make sure it’s as usable as possible for people looking to leverage these collections.

To that end, this April, Karim and her team hosted a workshop at CU, gathering paleontology collections managers from around the country, many of whom received funding from the ADBC grant to digitize their own collections.

“We brought all these people together to talk about what’s next,” says Karim. “How can we keep working together to digitize more data or improve the quality of the data to make sure it’s being used?”

The digitization process

With the help of �鶹��Ѱ��graduate students, and some high-tech imaging systems, there are now nearly 57,000 invertebrate fossil records on GBIF that feature two-dimensional images, alongside information about the fossil’s geologic and geographic contexts.

Capturing those images requires a multi-step process. “We're putting a specimen under the camera, and then we're taking images at multiple focal depths,” says Karim. “Then we merge those so that you have a very small thing that's totally in focus in a 2D image.”

Because these are fossils, and don’t have any genetic data to share, researchers need to have a crisp, clear view of the specimen’s morphology in order for the fossil to be useful.

“That’s why it’s important to have those really in-focus, high-resolution photographs,” says Karim. “And some of the morphology on the fossil insects is incredibly preserved. You can see all the venation on the wings of a dragonfly. Or you can zoom in on a fly and see all these little hairs. And they're 45 million years old!”

Karim’s team made use of two NSF grants, Fossil Insect Collaborative and Cretaceous Worlds, to document not only the Museum’s fossil insect collections but also its Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway fossil collection, which features ammonites and clams that were left behind when Colorado was underwater 100 million years ago.

Putting data to good use

Now that those specimens are available on GBIF, they’re facilitating a lot more research connections. Last year Karim was contacted by a French graduate student who had discovered a fossilized ancient sawfly that was first discovered in Colorado’s Florissant Formation and is now part of the museum’s collections.

“He found more things he wanted to work on, and then he shared it with his lab mate, and his lab mate found things in our collection,” says Karim. “But as grad students, they weren’t going to come all the way here from France to look at one specimen.” Instead, Karim’s team was able to use their imaging equipment to take whatever custom high-resolution images they needed.

Karim also points out that having data from a huge number of specimens allows for a more automated aggregation of data to answer big questions about, say, global species distributions through time.

This image of an ancient picture-winged fly was taken from the museum’s fossil insect collections and is just one of more than a million entries �鶹��Ѱ��has submitted to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility database. (Photo: �鶹��Ѱ��Museum of Natural History)

"Museum collections allow us to ask questions that span hundreds of millions of years, revealing how life evolved and how ecosystems responded to a changing world,” says Carl Simpson, associate professor of earth science.

“Digitization allows those collections to power the science of the future,” Simpson adds. “And then by combining museum collections with artificial intelligence, we can accelerate the pace of biodiversity and evolutionary research."

In that vein, Simpson is leveraging the stellar imagery Karim’s team created, along with AI, to identify characteristics in bryozoans, a phylum of simple, aquatic invertebrate animals that he studies. “AI gives us new tools to ask questions at a scale that would have been impossible only a few years ago,” Simpson says.

Fine tuning their output

As co-PI of their current grant, Simpson is serving as a sort of end user test case for Karim’s team to see how the data is being used. But Karim is also gathering input from everyone involved in the process through a series of workshops.

The most recent workshop was the third such gathering planned to help execute Karim’s current Geosciences Open Science Ecosystem grant. The first, which took place in 2024, included paleontologists and researchers who helped Karim’s team determine how their digitized files could be more useful. “We asked, have we digitized the kinds of things that they need for their research?” Karim says. “Can they retrieve the kind of information that they need for their research? What’s missing?”

In 2025, the workshop brought together people who develop cyber-infrastructure tools for databases like GBIF. They shared some researcher feedback and asked them how they might address that feedback from an IT perspective to ensure their systems are actually user friendly. (Karim adds that often in academia systems get built without ever talking to the people who are using what's being built. “So, we're trying to bridge that gap a little bit!”)

Before Karim’s grant wraps up next spring, she and her team will integrate learnings from these information-gathering sessions into a “Paleo Data Roadmap,” featuring recommendations for developers of cyber infrastructure or data standards about how to increase data usability.

Karim looks forward to the increased connections—not just with her fellow collections managers, but from researchers around the world—that have resulted from their digitization efforts. “I love seeing the types of research that people are doing,” she says. “And I also really like helping people with their research. That makes me very happy.”

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A major digitization project at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder’s Natural History Museum is helping researchers around the world collaborate like never before.

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Are Colorado moose invasive? New research says no

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 13:32:33 +0000

Are Colorado moose invasive? New research says no Rachel Sauer Thu, 06/18/2026 - 07:32

A moose affectionately dubbed "Frank the Tank" in the Colorado mountains.

Rachel Sauer

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder archaeologist William Taylor and research colleagues find evidence that far from being non-native, moose have been in the southern Rockies for centuries, likely longer

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The modern Colorado moose is often considered just that: modern—brought to the state by wildlife officials in the late 1970s, preceded by very occasional reports of moose sightings in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Since being translocated to Colorado, these charismatic megafauna have been a source of both fascination and concern. In Rocky Mountain National Park, where moose populations have thrived, ecosystems have been changing, and moose-associated impacts have sparked renewed conversations about managing an animal labeled “non-native.”

However, newly published research by an interdisciplinary team of scientists, archivists and Tribal cultural heritage leaders shows that the “non-native” label is inaccurate. They present evidence demonstrating that moose have been in Colorado for at least centuries and likely longer.

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder scholar William Taylor and his research colleagues found evidence that moose have lived in the southern Rockies for centuries.

The researchers analyzed newspaper archives, archaeological site reports, scientific journals, museum collections and photo archives to understand where and when moose were present in Colorado prior to the mid-1900s. Perhaps most importantly, notes lead author William Taylor, a �鶹��Ѱ�� associate professor of anthropology and �鶹��Ѱ��Museum curator of archaeology, the scholars sought Indigenous histories, and in doing so found evidence of moose being well known and deeply integrated into traditional knowledge of Native people in the southern Rockies.

Crystal C’Bearing, a study co-author and Northern Arapaho Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, notes that among the Northern Arapaho, "the moose is considered a valued commodity among the Tribe.” She adds that societies within the Northern Arapaho "utilize many animals, including moose, in their clothing, society items and regalia. This tradition continues today."

The scholarly approach of joining Indigenous knowledge with historical accounts, archaeology and paleontology, "shows the power of multiple independent lines of evidence converging on the conclusion that moose were part of southern Rocky Mountain ecosystems long before modern reintroductions," says study co-author Jonathan Dombrosky of Crow Canyon Archaeological Center and the University of Alabama. "More broadly, the study demonstrates how historical sciences can help us better understand the origins of modern ecosystems and make more informed decisions about their future."

Delving into the archaeological record

The seeds for this research and the approach to it grew from Taylor’s deep dive into the �鶹��Ѱ��Museum’s collections when he arrived in 2019.

“One of the things I’ve done with my time here is try to familiarize myself with and understand our own collections, which are among the more significant archaeological collections in the whole region,” Taylor says. “In the process of curating our collections, I became more and more familiar with what’s in those and the publications that are out there in the world that pertain to them.

“One of the oldest and most significant is the Jurgens collection, which is from a site in Colorado and related to a really early, deep chapter of Colorado’s pre-history, and that collection was analyzed by (one of) my predecessor(s), Dr. Joe Ben Wheat. He analyzed this collection decades ago and identified several specimens of moose in northwest Colorado dating back thousands of years, to the early Holocene.”

Arapaho objects, symbols and designs linked to moose. 1) Moose hide drum; 2-4) Track designs; 5) Ear design; 6-8) Leg and hoof designs; 9) Animal design (Moose, wolf, or elk). Images modified from Kroeber (1983). (Image courtesy Journey LeBeau)

That fact was on Taylor’s mind a few years ago when Rocky Mountain National Park officials began broadly publicizing moose management issues and the discussions that were happening about them. In many of those discussions, Taylor recalls, the messaging frequently labeled moose as “invasive,” “non-native” or “outsiders,” which doesn’t align with the archaeological record and “some of the basic facts I know from my role here working as curator,” he says.

“I also started to see some media narratives, based on secondhand accounts, suggesting that Native people in the Rockies didn’t know about moose. Things like that just started to rub me the wrong way and raised my spidey senses—I decided that there needs to be serious engagement with the archaeological record. We needed to take a closer look at these things that are trickling into the discourse—particularly characterizations of Indigenous perspectives and the historic record, because that’s going to shape what happens to moose in the future.”

Taylor contacted Tribal partners and colleagues at other universities and institutions and asked, “What’s your sense of the story of moose in the southern Rockies?” From those conversations, he proposed a rigorous analysis of the history of the moose in this area.

The work began in the archives of the �鶹��Ѱ��Museum, and drew on the expertise of other museum staff. They delved into Colorado’s approximately 160 years of digitized newspapers—“an extraordinary resource,” Taylor says—mapping each documented sighting of a moose, every record of an interaction with a moose they encountered for the past 160 years. The story that emerged was a rich record showing that moose have been in this area from its earliest colonial settlement days.

Seeking Indigenous histories

The more challenging task was crawling through Colorado’s sprawling archaeological record. “Like many western states and many parts of the world, the archaeological record isn’t a neatly organized database,” Taylor explains. "It's often a chaotic compilation of dusty old books, partially published white papers, just a lot of resources kind of floating around out there, so you have to turn over a lot of rocks to find what you need.”

This meant sending rafts of emails, requesting interlibrary loans of undigitized manuscripts and working professional and personal networks to better understand the archaeological record. They dug into municipal photo archives along the Front Range and museum databases for vertebrate zoology collections. From this research, they wove a rich tapestry of findings showing that “even though it’s very, very hard to get a comprehensive picture of when an animal was or wasn’t in a given place at a given time in the ancient world, when you take this multi-methodological approach and really get curious rather than starting from assumptions, you uncover a really fascinating picture,” Taylor says.

A moose affectionately dubbed "Frank the Tank" in the Colorado mountains.

One of the most exciting aspects of the research, Taylor adds, was pairing this work with Indigenous histories, including oral traditions about moose from across the region. One of Taylor’s colleagues shared a 19th-century record from the Jicarilla Apache of northern New Mexico discussing the fact that moose were present in—and had recently disappeared from—even the southernmost ranges of the southern Rocky Mountains.

Ultimately, the research coalesced into a reframing of moose in the southern Rockies, supported by evidence: Moose are not, in fact, newcomers, but longtime residents.

Supporting future management

So, what does this mean for human-wildlife co-existence and for populations and ecosystems increasingly stressed by climate change? The findings don’t mean that changes to mountain ecosystems should be ignored, Taylor and his colleagues emphasize. Instead, they argue that moose impacts should be understood through a deeper ecological and historical view, especially in national parks where many processes that once shaped large herbivore populations have been altered.

Moose calves in the Colorado mountains.

“Rocky Mountain National Park is dealing with ecological impacts from moose, but treating moose as a non-native species changes which management responses seem justified," says study co-author John Wendt of New Mexico State University, noting that large mammals and the landscapes they inhabit have never been static, and large herbivores like moose have historically been controlled by things like predators, habitat change and human hunting.

"When modern park systems operate without these regulating processes, high impacts don't necessarily mean that an animal is ecologically out of place,” Wendt adds, Instead, "they may be a sign that our management frameworks themselves should be reconsidered."

The study’s results may change how wildlife managers think about managing modern ecosystems, which have been destabilized by major changes in the last two centuries, including the removal of natural predators, the researchers note. C'Bearing says that Tribes may be willing partners in solving this issue: "Tribal people were part of the natural ecosystem in terms of hunting and wildlife management. It would be beneficial not only to the Tribes to utilize the moose again for cultural practices, but to assist in the co-management of moose in Colorado and the Southern Rockies."

Further, the multidisciplinary approach that the researchers used can be applied to other species, Taylor says. Better understanding where animals lived in the past, and for how long they lived there, can offer important clues to supporting their futures.

"The veil of time is often our biggest obstacle in understanding wildlife," said Joshua Miller, a study co-author from the University of Cincinnati. "Compared to the thousands of years that a species can live in a particular place, data from wildlife surveys might only extend a few decades into the past. We can learn a lot from those data, but some questions require more expansive time horizons. Weaving together different threads of historical evidence can fill important knowledge gaps, and help us develop strategies for managing and conserving plants and animals from around the world."

Study authors are William T. T. Taylor, John A. F. Wendt, Jonathan Dombrosky, Crystal C'Bearing, Mikayla Costales, Isaac A. Hart, Journey LeBeau, Adrian Johnson, Elena Lompe, Russell W. Graham, Chance Ward, Emily Lena Jones and Joshua H. Miller.

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�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder archaeologist William Taylor and research colleagues find evidence that far from being non-native, moose have been in the southern Rockies for centuries, likely longer

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Top photo: A moose pair interacting in Sprague Lake (All moose photos courtesy Deena Sveinsson)

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder scholar tracks Hindu nationalism’s global disguise

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 22:15:45 +0000

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder scholar tracks Hindu nationalism’s global disguise Rachel Sauer Thu, 06/11/2026 - 16:15

Some traditional Hindu iconography and sacred symbols, including the Omkar, have been adopted by the Hindu right wing. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Cody DeBos

Ethnic studies Professor Nishant Upadhyay delves into the gap between image and reality in Hinduism

Hinduism, like most religions, has a reputation.

According to Nishant Upadhyay, a �鶹��Ѱ�� associate professor of ethnic studies, it is tied to a deep and ancient reverence for the natural world and offers a peaceful, colorful alternative to the spiritual traditions many Westerners grew up with.

For Upadhyay (they/them), that reputation poses a problem.

Nishant Upadhyay, a �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder associate professor of ethnic studies, notes that Hinduism, like most religions, has a reputation.

“Hinduism has this reputation, especially in a place like Boulder, where it’s seen as this religion that’s environmentally friendly, animal friendly, cares about women and queer folks, cares about peace and non-violence,” they say.

“But it has always been deeply caste-ist and patriarchal,” Upadhyay adds.

That gap between image and reality is at the heart of Upadhyay’s new paper, published in the Amerasia Journal, which traces a pattern of right-wing Hindu diaspora organizations forging “solidarities” with Indigenous peoples across the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

They argue these gestures are not acts of genuine allyship, but more calculated moves in service of Hindu nationalism, a political ideology with a far different agenda than the one being advertised.

“We have to be very careful when Hindu nationalists use this framework of indigeneity because this is deeply fraught and violent. We can’t come here and say Hindus are in solidarity when Hindus are actually oppressing indigenous, caste-oppressed and Muslim communities in India,” Upadhyay says.

Indians on Indian lands

Upadhyay, associate chair of Graduate Studies in �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder’s Department of Ethnic Studies, is also the author of Indians on Indian Lands: Intersections of Race, Caste, and Indigeneity. The book was recently awarded “Outstanding Contribution in Social Sciences” by the Association of Asian American Studies. Their recent work is a continuation of the book that closely examines the proliferation of the Hindu nationalist movement in the diaspora.

To understand Upadhyay’s argument, it helps to understand the landscape in which their work is taking place.

“I’m looking at more recent formations of the diaspora in the last 100 years to North America, which is a very different form of migration than indentured labor migrations of South Asians to the different colonies under the British empire,” Upadhyay says.

“My focus is more on folks who are willingly moving with caste, class and religious privileges, capital and mobility. A lot more ‘skilled’ workers have moved more willingly in the past several decades, mostly to North America, Western Europe and Australia,” they add.

Upadhyay argues that dominant-caste Hindu immigrants in the U.S. and elsewhere aren't simply racialized minorities navigating racism in white settler states. Rather, in the way these communities relate to the lands they now inhabit, Upadhyay likens them to settlers rather than allies of indigenous peoples.

“Because India was able to become independent in 1947, when we move here, we are racialized, but we don’t really understand the realities of violence that indigenous communities continue to face,” they say.

Hindu nationalism further complicates the picture.

“The Hindu nationalist ideology is about a century old. The project claims that India should only belong to Hindus, specifically dominant caste Hindus, and anyone who’s not a Hindu should not be part of it,” Upadhyay explains. “So the violence is targeted primarily at Muslim and Christian communities in India.”

“Saffronwashing is a way to talk about how Hindu nationalists normalize and make invisible the violences perpetuated against caste-oppressed, indigenous and religious-minority communities in India. They portray Hinduism as environmentally friendly, peace-loving, non-violent, yoga-loving, colorful festivals and spicy food,” explains �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder scholar Nishant Upadhyay.

Under Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, now in his third term, that ideology has become deeply entrenched in Indian political and social life. Upadhyay says it has also traveled with the diaspora.

A familiar playbook

The attempts at allying with indigenous communities Upadhyay examines follow a similar script.

In 2016, during the Standing Rock protests of the Dakota Access Pipeline, Hindu American organizations issued statements claiming kinship with the Standing Rock Sioux.

“Hindu nationalist groups started coming out with these statements saying, ‘We are indigenous to India, and we were colonized by the British. You are indigenous, and you’ve been colonized by the Europeans and the American state. So, we understand your struggles, and we want to be in alliance with you,’” Upadhyay recounts.

The pattern repeated when unmarked graves of Indigenous children were discovered at former residential school sites in Canada, and again when Native Hawaiian protectors rallied against the construction of a massive telescope on the sacred summit of Mauna Kea. In Australia, Hindu organizations point to DNA studies suggesting genetic links between Indian and Aborigine populations as evidence of ancient kinship.

Each gesture, Upadhyay argues, is a form of what they and other scholars call “saffronwashing”—a term borrowed from the similar logics of greenwashing and pinkwashing.

“Caste is very important to think about and name. … This is a longer genealogy of violence that dominant caste Indians have imported with themselves when they’ve come here. So, it’s a conversation we need to be having much more proactively and keep fighting against,” says Nishant Upadhyay. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

“They project these cultural things about Hinduism but erase the violences that hide beneath those cultural practices.”

For Western audiences unfamiliar with caste, the danger in these solidarity gestures may be hard to see. That disguise is the problem.

Caste is among the oldest systems of structural oppression in human history. It predates European colonialism by thousands of years and extends well beyond the borders of India and Hinduism.

For Hindu nationalists in the diaspora, the goal, Upadhyay says, is to normalize and mainstream themselves. Within progressive spaces, interfaith coalitions and anti-racist organizing, Hindu nationalist messaging can be normalized, and any criticism of India’s treatment of its own minorities can be suppressed. In the last decade, there have been cases of diasporic Hindu nationalist groups going after scholars, writers and activists critical of the Hindu nationalist regime in India, caste violence, Islamophobia and the occupation of Kashmir.

Already, Upadhyay points out, Hindu nationalist influence has shaped K-12 textbook battles, hiring cultures in Silicon Valley and the political landscape at the highest levels of American government across both parties.

“This impacts all of us,” they say.

What real solidarity looks like

Upadhyay is careful to distinguish the solidarities they critique from others that they see as genuine and decolonial. Kashmiri, Tamil, Punjabi, Dalit and Tibetan diaspora communities, they argue, have modeled a fundamentally different approach rooted in an honest acknowledgment of their own position, histories and complicities.

“We left our homelands because our people are oppressed and now we are refugees or immigrants here, but we have also become settlers,” they say, describing the framework these communities embrace. “That’s a very different articulation and practice of solidarity.”

At its core, the question is whether a community treats its own suffering as unique and self-contained or accepts its connection to a broader web of struggle and liberation.

For Upadhyay, only one of those orientations can sustain real solidarity.

“We can learn from these decolonial frameworks where interlinking of oppression and liberation is at the forefront,” they say.

That work, Upadhyay says, begins at home. The task they set for themselves, and for others in dominant-caste diaspora communities, is to look inward first.

“We have to examine how caste, race and indigeneity have shaped our own privilege before presuming to stand beside those whose lands and lives remain on the line,” Upadhyay says. “We have to fight together because our liberation is interconnected.”

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Ethnic studies Professor Nishant Upadhyay delves into the gap between image and reality in Hinduism.

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Top photo: Flags of the Party flags of India's conservative Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena. (Photo: Al Jazeera English/Wikimedia Commons)

Can evolutionary rescue help even long-lived species from going extinct?

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 17:44:14 +0000

Can evolutionary rescue help even long-lived species from going extinct? Rachel Sauer Tue, 06/09/2026 - 11:44

Tiffany Plate

Two �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder researchers are helping clarify how species’ populations with longer lives can still adapt to a changing climate

Our warming climate is leaving many plant and animal species with a choice: either adapt, find a new home or risk extinction. Fortunately, throughout the history of life on Earth, a concept called evolutionary rescue has stepped in to help species adapt to new environments and climates.

Evolutionary rescue is a biological process where natural selection favors the individuals of a species that carry genetics best suited to the new climate. These individuals are more likely to survive and reproduce and are therefore able to better propagate future generations to ensure survival of the species.

Scott Nordstrom (left) earned his PhD from �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder in 2023 under the advisorship of Brett Melbourne. (right), professor of ecology and evolutionary biology (Left photo from Scott Nordstrom; right photo from Brett Melbourne)

For example, a smaller bat may be better able to weather a hot summer with multiple heat waves. Or a monkeyflower that's better able to retain water in its leaves may have a better chance of surviving a megadrought. These genetic anomalies help move the population toward survival, instead of extinction.

In the face of anthropogenic climate change, however, conservationists are worried that species with the longest life spans—like giant pandas, elephants, or sequoia trees, for which new generations take years to decades—will be too slow to adapt and avoid extinction.

A mathematical model developed by Scott Nordstrom (PhDEBio’23) proved that that’s not always the case, however. As part of his doctoral dissertation, Nordstrom, in partnership with Brett Melbourne, a �鶹��Ѱ�� professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, set out to determine just how true it was that long-lived species were resigned to their fate. Their findings were published in The American Naturalist in May 2026.

Their model contributes to conversations about conservation, especially when it comes to extinction concerns. “A lot of the more endangered species or the populations that are at higher risk of extinction tend to be longer lived,” says Nordstrom. “So, it's especially relevant for thinking about conservation.”

Shifting focus: From flour beetles to tortoises

Before taking on this project, Nordstrom and Melbourne had been working with colleagues at Colorado State University to understand the evolutionary rescue patterns of flour beetles, which live for about a month before a new generation is birthed.

“We found that genetic diversity of the population is really critical for allowing rapid adaptation to occur,” says Melbourne. “And that got us thinking about how things could be really different for longer-lived species.”

Large tree species, like the Giant Sequoia, can live for thousands of years, but are now more endangered than ever due to increased wildfire activity in the American West. (Photo: Pexels)

The researchers set out t try to understand how relevant their findings were to species with longer lives.

Experimental work tracking the genetic variations in generations of long-lived species was not possible, however, so the pair created the next best thing: A flexible mathematical model and computer simulations that would allow them to map out potential evolutionary patterns of these species.

For each simulation, they input a sample population into the model, using “good” environmental factors (i.e., the climate that they were already adapted to). Then they switched those factors to “bad” (i.e., a climate with warmer temperatures or less water).

“Each individual’s survival depended on how well it was adapted to its environment, so when the environment shifted from good to bad, survival was low and the populations started shrinking,” says Nordstrom.

“But because there was genetic variation within the populations, some individuals were slightly better adapted to the bad environment, and those individuals were more likely to survive and pass on their genes, allowing the population to adapt,” he adds.

When nurture beats nature

Through their simulations, Nordstrom and Melbourne were also surprised to find that long-lived species can experience a complicated evolutionary dynamic in which a population’s traits seem to decouple from their genetics. In these cases, some random environmental event has affected an organism's trait in a way that turns out to be an advantage in the changed environment.

For example, an American alligator might be genetically predisposed to weigh 600 pounds but actually weighs 400 pounds because environmental factors impeded its growth in early development. Perhaps the alligator was born in a drought year, when typical prey like fish and turtles were scarce.

Ultimately, that smaller alligator may be able to survive heat extremes better in a hotter climate, thus slowing the rate of population decline. And because they are long-lived (up to 50 years), there is a good chance that there will be multiple small alligators in a population at once, thus changing the composition of that population in a way that slows the rate of population decline, allowing adaptation time to catch up and prevent extinction, the researchers speculate.

Researchers have long thought that species like the American alligator, which can live up to 50 years, are less likely to benefit from evolutionary rescue to help them adapt to changes in the climate of their habitats. (Photo: Unsplash)

Interestingly, those chances are much less likely to occur to short-lived species like flour beetles. Nordstrom says that’s because their short life spans don’t allow for their non-genetic phenotypic variation (like that seen in the undersized alligators) to remain in the population as time progresses; instead, only their genes are passed on to their offspring, and their offspring will thus not inherit their size advantage.

“The flour beetles just mate once and pass their genes forward,” says Nordstrom. “Next generation, repeat.”

That means that natural selection occurring within a generation can be important for evolutionary rescue in long-lived species. Previously, it was speculated that only evolution between generations determined whether populations could adapt to new conditions in time.

“This process of rescue is one part evolution and one part demography,” says Nordstrom. “In the race of evolution versus demography, this definitely helps the demography because it slows down population decline.”

He adds that this will be surprising to researchers who have up to this point only considered the evolutionary component here. “But we showed that the demography is actually super important, too.”

While Nordstrom and Melbourne can’t say that all long-lived species will benefit from their demography, Nordstrom says it’s important for future researchers and conservation managers to know that evolutionary rescue is not out of the question for endangered species like pandas and bison.

“Maybe it's a little bit more complicated than we thought,” says Nordstrom. “But this is the first major study finding that it’s not necessarily true that slower generational turnover guarantees that adaptation and evolution will be slower.”

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Two �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder researchers are helping clarify how species’ populations with longer lives can still adapt to a changing climate.

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Rethinking marriage—and divorce—in Muslim Indonesia

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 19:25:26 +0000

Rethinking marriage—and divorce—in Muslim Indonesia Rachel Sauer Mon, 06/08/2026 - 13:25

Bradley Worrell

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder sociologist Rachel Rinaldo’s research uncovers how Indonesian women are re-shaping marriage and its end within Islamic law, with implications far beyond Southeast Asia

When Rachel Rinaldo, a �鶹��Ѱ�� sociology associate professor and the faculty director of the Center for Asian Studies, first began studying gender and social change in Indonesia nearly 25 years ago, she entered a field already shaped by deep-seated assumptions.

“There is a common idea in academic literature and media discussions that changes in the developing world are mainly due to ideas imported from the U.S. or Western Europe,” she explains. “That narrative underplays the more internal dynamics of social change.”

Rinaldo’s recently published research paper, “I Have a Right to a Better Imam,” challenges that Western-influence narrative as it relates to Indonesia, instead revealing a much more nuanced and local story.

Rachel Rinaldo, a �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder associate professor of sociology and faculty director of the Center for Asian Studies, first began studying gender and social change in Indonesia nearly 25 years ago.

Indonesia—the world’s largest Muslim-majority country—offers an especially rich case for understanding changing family dynamics, Rinaldo says. With a population that is roughly 90% Muslim and shaped by a mix of longstanding local traditions, economic transformation and evolving religious interpretations, she says it presents a unique environment in which the meaning of marriage—and the decision by women to end it—is being renegotiated.

“One of the things I argue in the article is that religions are always shaped by the societies where they are adopted. Christianity, for example, looks different in Brazil compared to Italy. The same is true for Islam—it looks different in Indonesia versus, say, Egypt,” she says. “In Southeast Asia, there has long been a social structure that gives somewhat more power and agency to women, particularly in marriage. Women have historically had more say, and it’s also been more common for women to work outside of the home.”

This longstanding pattern has influenced how Islamic norms are interpreted in Indonesia, producing a version of Islamic family law that—while not fully egalitarian—is more progressive compared to other Muslim-majority countries, Rinaldo says.

Today, Indonesia’s legal system includes Islamic family laws that apply to its Muslim citizens. These laws establish clear frameworks for marriage and divorce, while also reflecting tensions between traditional gender roles and growing expectations of partnership and mutual responsibility.

Rethinking the origins of change

Through her interviews with several Indonesian women, as well as observations in Islamic courts, Rinaldo says she has found little evidence that Western cultural models were the primary drivers of change. Instead, she says the women she interviewed described a gradual shift in expectations rooted in their own understanding of marriage, religion and personal autonomy.

Crucially, these changing expectations are tied to how women interpret Islamic law—not as a rigid system that confines them, but as a set of principles that can justify their desire for a more equitable partnership, Rinaldo says.

Perhaps the most surprising finding of Rinaldo’s research is the role Islamic courts play in Indonesia, many of which are overseen by female judges. Contrary to common assumptions that such institutions are uniformly conservative or patriarchal, Rinaldo says the courts today tend to be pragmatic.

“What struck me was that judges in Islamic courts were fairly sympathetic to women’s concerns. They emphasized that marriage should be a partnership, and that lack of support—financial or emotional—from husbands was a valid issue,” Rinaldo says. “The idea of a more companionate marriage was embedded in legal thinking … and how legal and religious frameworks were being interpreted locally.”

Economic change has played a critical role in enabling this cultural shift in Indonesia, says �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder researcher Rachel Rinaldo. As Indonesia’s economy has grown, more women have gained access to education and paid employment. (Photo: Lek Nikto/Unsplash)

Rather than attempting to keep marriages intact at all costs, Rinaldo says many judges see their responsibility as arbitrators of outstanding issues resulting from the dissolution of the marriage.

“Judges told me that by the time cases reach them, marriages are often already over, so their role is to facilitate resolution rather than reconciliation.”

Gender differences in divorce law

Despite certain progressive aspects of Indonesian family law, Rinaldo says the country’s legal framework still treats men and women differently when it comes to divorce.

Men can initiate divorce relatively easily, often without needing to provide a specific reason. Women, by contrast, must file a formal case and cite one of several legally recognized grounds for divorce. Rinaldo says these grounds include violence, abuse, financial neglect and even “disharmony”—a broadly defined category that essentially allows women to argue that the relationship is not working.

While this requirement might seem restrictive, Rinaldo says women have become increasingly adept at navigating the system. Many women understand the legal criteria and present their cases in ways that align with judicial expectations, she explains.

Some women even draw on religious arguments, pointing to their spouse’s bad behavior—such as drinking, gambling or neglecting prayer—as evidence that their husband is not living up to his obligations, Rinaldo says.

“Women sometimes use that strategically, knowing judges would respond negatively to behaviors such as drinking or gambling,” she says. “At the same time, religion is an important source of meaning for many women, so these issues were also genuine sources of conflict.”

Evolving expectations for marriage

Underlying these various legal strategies is how women have come to think about marriage itself, Rinaldo says. A recurring theme in Rinaldo’s interviews was dissatisfaction—not with marriage as an institution—but with how it was being lived in their own lives.

“Many women felt their husbands weren’t contributing enough,” she explains. She says the lack of support extended beyond finances, which were historically the husband’s responsibility. In one example, a woman described reaching her breaking point when her husband refused to help care for their children. “She was like, ‘These are our kids; we’re supposed to be doing this together,’” Rinaldo recounts.

Rinaldo notes the women she spoke with were not demanding perfectly equal relationships, but she says they did expect that the marriage involve shared responsibility. When that expectation was not met, she says, it often became a turning point for the relationship.

Economic change has played a critical role in enabling this cultural shift in Indonesia, Rinaldo says. As Indonesia’s economy has grown, more women have gained access to education and paid employment. She says this has expanded their options while also reducing the monetary risks associated with divorce.

In Indonesia, the term "imam" typically refers to a Muslim religious leader. However, in marriage, some Muslim women use it to describe their husbands. (Photo: women at mosque in Jakarta, Indonesia. Mohammed Alim/Pexels)

In some cases, women are the primary earners in their families, which can fundamentally reshape the power dynamics in a relationship. Meanwhile, the experience of divorce tends to differ depending upon Indonesian women’s socioeconomic status. Among lower-income women, divorce is often handled pragmatically, while for middle-class women the process is often more complicated because it often involves shared property and assets, Rinaldo says.

“They really need the assistance from the court to help unwind that kind of situation,” she explains.

From shame to relief and finding family support

Despite various challenges, Indonesian women who divorced their husbands told Rinaldo they ultimately do not regret their decision. While a few expressed feelings of shame—particularly in relation to family expectations—the most common feeling was one of solace.

“I would say the predominant feeling was one of relief,” Rinaldo says.

Regarding their specific motivations for seeking a divorce, Rinaldo says a number of the women told her they did so because they were concerned about exposing their children to unhealthy marital conflict or dysfunction. “They didn’t want that to be the model of marriage that their children were growing up with.”

One issue that many divorced women faced was difficulty obtaining child support that they were owed from their husbands. These payments are often not well-enforced by the Islamic courts. Nevertheless, even when they are entitled to financial support from their ex-husbands, Rinaldo says many women choose not to pursue it because they prefer to have nothing to do with their ex-spouses.

“I think this all reflects broader changes in society, where women today are more financially independent. They have strong support systems today, and they also face less social stigma around divorce than in the past,” she adds.

Faith, authority and the meaning of ‘imam’

One particularly revealing aspect of Rinaldo’s research involves the concept of the “imam.” In Indonesia, the term typically refers to a Muslim religious leader. However, in marriage, some Muslim women use it to describe their husbands.

“The idea is that the husband is . . . their own personal Islamic leader,” Rinaldo explains. This reflects a traditional expectation that wives should obey their husbands. Yet even women who embrace this idea are willing to leave marriages when their expectations are not met, she adds.

“People marrying at later ages and wanting a more meaningful marital relationship, more people remaining single or in non-marital partnerships and people having fewer children are changes happening around the globe.”

In one case, Rinaldo says a woman she interviewed sought guidance from religious authorities about whether to stay in her unhappy marriage or seek a divorce. As a result of the answers she received to her queries, the woman decided the answer was not to endure the marriage but to find “a better imam,” she says.

Rinaldo says that phrase captures the tension at the heart of these transformations: Women are not rejecting their religion but instead are reinterpreting it.

A broader global story about marriage and divorce

Although Rinaldo’s research focuses on Indonesia, she says she believes her work reflects broader global trends. Rising education levels, economic development and evolving gender roles are reshaping marriage and families in many societies, even as religious tradition continues to play a powerful role, she says.

“I think what happens in Indonesia can illuminate the kinds of things that we’re seeing across many countries in the global south, other developing countries and, even more broadly, some similar dynamics in the United States,” she says. “People marrying at later ages and wanting a more meaningful marital relationship, more people remaining single or in non-marital partnerships and people having fewer children are changes happening around the globe.”

In Indonesia, Rinaldo says, those changes are unfolding through the interplay of local culture, legal institutions and individual agency. She says the result is neither a rejection of tradition nor a simple embrace of modernity, but more so a negotiation—a process though which women are redefining marriage from within. And in doing so, Rinaldo says, they are quietly reshaping one of society’s most fundamental institutions.

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�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder sociologist Rachel Rinaldo’s research uncovers how Indonesian women are re-shaping marriage and its end within Islamic law, with implications far beyond Southeast Asia.

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Top photo: Josh Estey/Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

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