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Japan’s catastrophic Tohoku-Oki earthquake in 2011 was so strong that it caused the entire country to “slip,” in some areas by as much as five or six millimeters, according to new research.

This “extraordinary observation,” as it is described in a new study published today in Science, was likely triggered by seismic waves bouncing off Earth’s core in the wake of the magnitude 9.0 quake. This never-before-seen event could present a previously unknown hazard associated with earthquakes, says Sunyoung Park, the study’s lead author and an assistant professor of geophysics at the University of Chicago.

Park and her team relied on an extensive Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) dataset to document subtle movement at sites across Japan in the minutes after the 2011 Tohoku-Oki quake. What they saw baffled them, Park says.

“The co-authors and I, we were all kind of initially puzzled by the observation,” Park says, referring to the movement of Japan. “Because this was such an unusual thing, we took a lot of time going through different possibilities.”

After ruling out other possible explanations for what they were seeing, such as a processing error in the GNSS data, the researchers concluded that “ScS waves”—seismic waves that travel through Earth’s mantle, ping off the planet’s iron core and return to the surface—had made Japan shift position.

Five or six millimeters—about the length of an average adult’s pinky toenail—might not sound like a lot. And it’s not uncommon for land to shift much more than that during earthquakes, causing “offsets,” where you might see, say, a disconnected road. But those movements are typically localized to areas near the center of the quake, Park says. Until now, researchers had never documented land movement at this scale—an entire country “nudged” by ScS waves, Park says.

“Dynamic earthquake triggering,” or “when seismic waves from an earthquake ‘nudge’ a fault already close to breaking into having an earthquake,” is well documented, says earthquake geologist Wendy Bohon. “However, this paper outlines a previously unrecognized source for this type of occurrence”: ScS waves. “The authors’ observations of triggered slip from this source across an area six to seven times greater than the area that broke during the main shock is extraordinary.”

In this case, it took about 15 minutes or so for the waves generated by the quake to travel to Earth’s core and back. The “slip” appears to have happened gradually, possibly over the course of around 100 or 200 seconds, so people in Japan probably wouldn’t have felt it, Park says. But it’s unclear if that would be the case for future ScS-triggered slips in Japan or elsewhere.

More research is needed to better understand why exactly this earthquake made Japan slip and whether future events such as this might be more damaging. The Tohoku-Oki quake was one of the world’s largest and most devastating: the initial shock and following tsunami killed more than 18,000 people and caused an estimated $220 billion in damage (in 2011 dollars), according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The new findings could help people around the world better prepare for possible dangers hidden in the aftermath of quakes, Park says.

“I think we should be aware of the fact that there could be this potential triggering of an event many minutes after [an earthquake’s] main shaking has passed,” she says.

This “new type of seismic hazard” is one which “we might want to think about,” she adds.

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Scientists have revealed insights from ancient scrolls buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius nearly 2,000 years ago, after an AI breakthrough helped uncover some of their secrets.

The trove of hundreds of scrolls was buried in Herculaneum by the famous eruption in A.D. 79 that also destroyed nearby Pompeii. Uncovering the contents of the fragile carbonized papyrus is a puzzle that has fixated researchers since their rediscovery three centuries ago, but only in recent years has AI-enabled “digital unwrapping” become possible.

Researchers from the University of Kentucky and Naples on Thursday revealed recovered texts from authors previously lost to history, including philosophical takes on ethics, the arts, human behavior, and theology.

In one text, an unknown author appears to warn against excessive impulse. Another key concept, researchers say, is phronesis, ancient Greek for “practical wisdom.” In another passage, the ancient author writes: “We will inquire into something, but we will not grasp it, if in some way we depart from ourselves and from our own nature.”

“It’s been a long time since the classical period, and we feel a distance from that culture. And then you read the words, and then the distance shrinks immediately,” Brent Seals, a computer science professor at the University of Kentucky and one of the foremost experts in the digital restoration of cultural antiquities, told NBC News.

“They were worried about living a good life and understanding the world,” he added.

Previous attempts to unwrap the scrolls, discovered in the ruins of a Herculaneum villa thought to have belonged to Julius Caesar’s father-in-law, have produced mixed results.

In the 18th century, an Italian monk, Father Antonio Piaggio, invented a device to gently unroll the carbonized papyrus. It was painstaking work: It took four years to unravel the first scroll, revealing ancient Greek texts, and many more years to unfold 500 more. But most were so carbonized they crumbled apart.

Since then, papyrologists have patiently tried to put the pieces together, like parts of an ancient puzzle, revealing one letter and word at a time.

They also kept another 600 badly carbonized scrolls — impossible to open with mechanical methods without reducing them to ash — intact and carefully stored, most of them in the National Library in Naples.

While modern 3D X-ray technology has allowed some insight into the scrolls since, extracting text has proved especially challenging, given the partially destroyed papyrus is as black as the ink.

But a breakthrough came in 2023, when three students used machine-learning algorithms to extract ancient Greek letters from a “virtually unwrapped” scroll, claiming a $1 million prize for the discovery, which has led to rapid advancements since.

“In the past, it would take more than one month to decipher one phrase. Now we get full texts,” said Gianluca del Mastro, professor of papyrology at Naples’ University Campania Luigi Vanvitelli.

“It is an amazing feeling because I am the first with my colleagues to be able to read the ideas of philosophers from the third, second, and the first century B.C. It is a completely new world for us,” he said.

Some breakthroughs have been unexpected. One scroll “was marked in the catalog as having no visible ink,” Seals said, only for researchers to find that it did, and “may be one of the oldest Roman scrolls ever discovered.”

So far, researchers have managed to read only 10% of the scrolls. On Thursday, the University of Kentucky announced a new $1 million prize to anyone able to decipher a complete scroll, a feat the researchers once considered impossible, by June next year.

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A Herculaneum scroll with red laser lines being scanned at the Institut de France by Brent Seales and his team.EduceLab

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For weeks, the Israeli news media has been obsessing about the once-ironclad U.S.-Israeli relationship.

President Trump’s pursuit of a peace deal with Iran, which many Israelis see as a betrayal, and his repeated berating of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have raised doubts about whether they can still call Mr. Trump the best friend in the White House that Israel has ever had.

Then came Tuesday’s election results in New York City. Three pro-Palestinian candidates backed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a harsh critic of Israel, defeated moderates in hotly contested Democratic congressional primaries.

No one in Israel is suggesting a pivot to China or Russia quite yet. But those who have studied or steered the U.S.-Israel relationship say that the strains and tensions are fast becoming worrisome for Israel.

“I’m extremely concerned,” said Asaf Zamir, a deputy mayor of Tel Aviv who was Israel’s consul general in New York from 2021 to 2023. All three candidates had made fierce criticism of Israel central to their campaigns and political identities. “And they say it out loud in the most Jewish city in the world, after Jerusalem.”

Experts on the relationship warn that Israel may not be able to count on solid support from Washington for much longer — whether in concrete assistance like billions of dollars in yearly military aid, in symbolic backing like reliable vetoes of anti-Israel resolutions at the United Nations, or even in tax exemptions for U.S. charities benefiting Israeli causes.

“There’s a cliff, and we’re heading towards it,” said Daniel C. Kurtzer, a Princeton professor who was ambassador to Israel under President George W. Bush.

Some pro-Israel moderates also won House primaries in New York on Tuesday. But the victories by the candidates Mr. Mamdani aided — Brad Lander and Claire Valdez, who accuse Israel of genocide in Gaza; and Darializa Avila Chevalier, who has questioned Israel’s right to exist and, like Ms. Valdez, calls it an apartheid state — landed like bold new dots on a scatter chart revealing a clear trend of rising American hostility to Israel.

Mr. Zamir, the Tel Aviv deputy mayor, said, “I’m waking up and hearing that we’re ‘genocidal’ and ‘apartheid.’”

“I’m a left-wing, two-state, pro-peace Israeli, but I’m not blind or crazy,” he added. “I know what the situation in Israel is, and we’re not those things we’re being called. And yet, more and more Americans are buying into and voting on those grounds. That troubles me.”

Israel was already hemorrhaging popularity in the United States, and in both parties, largely over its prosecution of the two-year war in Gaza after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, in which about 1,200 people were killed and some 250 taken hostage. Tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians were killed in the ensuing war, food shortages caused widespread famine, and the enclave has been largely destroyed by Israel’s campaign.

Americans’ sympathy for the Palestinians exceeded their sympathy for Israel for the first time in a New York Times/Siena poll in September. And 60 percent of Americans said that they held unfavorable opinions of Israel in a Pew survey in April, up from 42 percent in 2022.

“If I were the Israelis, I wouldn’t necessarily be concerned with three or four members of Congress who are way out to the left,” Michael Koplow, an analyst at the Israel Policy Forum, a New York-based research group, said of Tuesday’s primary results.

But, he said, those new lawmakers signaled a broader Democratic turn against Israel. “Opposition to Israel is now the major foreign policy issue,” he noted. “It’s not on the fringe anymore; it’s not even relegated to the sidelines in terms of its importance. It’s front and center in campaigns and in worldviews.”

It could well be front and center again in the 2028 presidential primaries, and Israelis watching American politics say they can imagine the eventual nominees of both parties agreeing on little except that U.S. policy toward Israel needs to change.

For Democratic critics of Israel, the rift has focused on the perception that the two countries no longer share the same values, chiefly when it comes to human rights and Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.

“The ‘specialness’ of this relationship was pleasant and easygoing and taken for granted for decades,” said Dahlia Scheindlin, an Israeli pollster who grew up in New York. That was until Israel’s war with Hamas, she added, when many Democrats and a growing number of Republicans “realized that a special relationship was all well and good as long as Israel wasn’t killing thousands of babies in Gaza. People just broke over that.”

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Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York, center, in Manhattan on Tuesday. Three pro-Palestinian candidates backed by Mr. Mamdani, an ardent critic of Israel, defeated moderates in Democratic congressional primaries this week. Credit…Angelina Katsanis for The New York Times

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The latest generation of obesity drugs might have another potential benefit: improving fertility in men. A systematic review presented today at the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting in Chicago, Illinois, suggests that GLP-1 medications might increase testosterone levels and help to improve the quality of sperm in men with obesity.

The evidence is still preliminary, and more robust trials are needed to confirm the association, says review co-author Pratibha Natesh, an endocrinologist at Warwick Medical School in Coventry, UK. But emerging evidence from other sources points in the same direction.

Perfect sperm

Most of the next-generation obesity drugs that have come on the market in the past five years work by binding to the same receptor as a natural hormone called glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1), creating a feeling of fullness. To learn how the drugs affect male fertility, Natesh and her colleagues searched the literature for randomized controlled trials of GLP-1 drugs that included measurements of testosterone levels in men. They found only five studies.

(This article uses ‘men’ to reflect the language used in the review and other studies, while recognizing that not all people who have sperm identify themselves as men.)

In one study, for example, 30 men with low testosterone levels, a condition known as hypogonadism, and obesity were assigned to receive either a GLP-1 drug or testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) at random. At the end of 16 weeks, the testosterone levels of both groups had risen.

Another study randomly assigned 25 men with type 2 diabetes and hypogonadism to receive either a GLP-1 drug or TRT. After 24 weeks, testosterone levels increased in both groups, although the increase was greater among those receiving TRT. In the GLP-1 group, however, sperm quality improved. The percentage of morphologically typical sperm — those with a perfect shape and size — went from 2% at the start of the study to 4% by the end. In the TRT group, sperm count and quality declined, which is expected during this type of therapy.

The other three studies included in the review involved healthy men receiving GLP-1 medications for short periods of time and showed that the drugs had no effect on testosterone levels.

Testosterone boost

The findings of the systematic review are supported by other studies, including research presented last month at the American Urological Association annual meeting in Washington DC by Andrés Guillén-Lozoya, a physician at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Guillén-Lozoya and his colleagues analysed the electronic health records of more than 1,600 men who had been prescribed obesity drugs and found that participants’ testosterone levels increased by around 30% after treatment with either a GLP-1 drug or a drug that mimics both GLP-1 and a separate hormone called glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide.

And a retrospective study examined the electronic health records of 215 men who were being treated with weight-loss drugs. It found that after treatment, their testosterone levels were, on average, around 20% higher than before treatment.

Fat cells’ effect

Scientists say that it is not surprising that the drugs might affect male fertility. It is well known that obesity lowers levels of testosterone, which is an essential hormone for the production of sperm and therefore for fertility. One reason for the relationship between obesity and lower testosterone is that fat cells contain high levels of an enzyme that converts testosterone into oestradiol, the main female sex hormone. But other metabolic changes and the increased levels of inflammation caused by obesity also affect testosterone production.

Natesh says that the team’s findings should be an “eye opener to all endocrinologists” who are treating men, especially people who are planning to conceive, and have both obesity and symptoms of low testosterone, which can include low libido, depressed mood, and muscle loss. The data suggest that, for people who have low testosterone, addressing obesity with lifestyle changes and possibly weight-loss drugs is a reasonable strategy. In many cases, those interventions will be enough to bring testosterone levels back up.

“I come across a number of patients in this similar situation,” Natesh says. Her advice to colleagues who are treating people with obesity and low testosterone is not to prescribe “testosterone immediately, look at the broader picture.”

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What to know about the World Cup today

• France beats Norway 4-1, and Senegal beats Iraq 5-0 to keep its World Cup hopes alive.
• Spain defeated Uruguay 1-0. Uruguay, a two-time World Cup winner, will not advance to the knockout rounds.
• Cape Verde and Saudi Arabia tied 0-0, meaning Cape Verde will advance.
• Belgium vs. New Zealand and Iran vs. Egypt are at 11 p.m. ET
• All matches are on Telemundo and Peacock.
• Sign up for The Sports Desk newsletter for daily recaps, previews, and analysis.

When former Peace Corps volunteer Jill Tucker went to a party to cheer for Cape Verde, where she had worked as a teacher, she discovered the man who organized the event had been one of her students more than 30 years ago. NBC News’ Hallie Jackson speaks with Tucker and Ivan Silva about their reunion.

That’s the final whistle and the game is over at nil-nil!

In the final minute of stoppage time, Cape Verde missed an agonizing last-second shot but still claimed a point!

But the fairy tale for Cape Verde continues, as they’re on into the knockouts!!!

One of this tournament’s favorite underdogs, they’ve clinched the second-place spot in the group H standings and will go on to the round of 32. 

Cape Verde came onto the international stage with a thrilling show — shocking the world with its 0-0 draw against Spain, where Vozinha was catapulted into sports stardom for stonewalling the Spanish, and on to its 2-2 stalemate with Uruguay. 

It’s been a tough tournament for Saudi Arabia, which lost 4-0 Spain and had a 1-1 draw with Uruguay. 

Spain advances, Uruguay is headed home

Spain won 1-0, winning the group while Uruguay is exiting the World Cup in the group stage for the second consecutive time.

Things unraveling for Uruguay

Agustín Canobbio received a red card for his reckless challenge in stoppage time. Uruguay’s time in the World Cup is just about over.

Uruguay registers its first shot on target

In the 85th minute, Uruguay’s Nicolás de la Cruz took a blast from distance that Spanish keeper Unai Simón handled easily. Just moments later, Spain had a chance to seal the win when striker Ferran Torres’ shot hit the crossbar.

Save by Saudi Arabia!

In the 74th minute, Cape Verde is hungry for a goal!

Cape Verde ran the ball downfield, it cuts right to midfielder Laros Duarte, who was just subbed on three minutes prior. Duarte rockets it from the right of the box, and Mohammed Al-Owais leaps forward to block it.

Woah! Close call as Vozinha saves Saudi shot

Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed Abu Al-Shamat fires right-footed shot from the right of the box that soars to the left upper corner of the goal. Vozinha jumps for it, doesn’t get a grip, and it bounces on the grass. But he recovers and catches it.

Uruguay still hasn’t take a shot on goal

At the second half hydration break, Uruguay needs a goal, or else its World Cup is over. They are losing 1-0 to Spain and Cape Verde is tied with Saudi Arabia, 0-0. If the results hold, Uruguay will finish in third place with just two points.

Big chances for Cape Verde

Big chance for Jamiro Monteiro in the 48th minute with a shot at the center of the box, but it’s saved by Saudi goalkeeper Mohammed Al-Owais

Uruguay registers its first shot on target

In the 85th minute, Uruguay’s Nicolás de la Cruz took a blast from distance that Spanish keeper Unai Simón handled easily. Just moments later, Spain had a chance to seal the win when striker Ferran Torres’ shot hit the crossbar.

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NBC News’ Hallie Jackson speaks with Tucker and Ivan Silva about their reunion.

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Hmmmm … The trump administration turned the wading pool green! Very interesting!

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Bulky “nanobubbler” machines were carted off ahead of a promotional event for President Trump’s Ultimate Fighting Championship birthday party.

The nanobubblers had to go.

It was early June, and the Trump administration was planning an event at the Lincoln Memorial on June 12 to promote President Trump’s Ultimate Fighting Championship birthday celebration at the White House.

Dotted around the perimeter of the memorial’s Reflecting Pool were the nanobubblers, the temporary water-purification machines meant to keep the pool clear of algae. Encased in black fencing and powered by large generators, the machines were something of an eyesore.

Before the event, the National Park Service asked Greenwater Services, which won a $1.7 million no-bid contract to install the nanobubblers, to remove them, according to two people briefed on the decision. The people asked for anonymity because they feared retaliation from the administration. The Park Service did not provide a reason for the removal, but it coincided exactly with the promotional event, which drew crowds to the Reflecting Pool.

Photos from that evening showed the pool without the hoses or enormous machines working to keep the water clean. The water looked dark blue.

But by the time the purification systems were reinstalled 36 hours later, enormous algae blooms were starting to spread unchecked, turning the water green.

Once the algae started growing, it proved difficult to eliminate. Even with the nanobubblers back online, Park Service workers tried dumping jugs of hydrogen peroxide into the water to clear the algae more quickly. But the peroxide largely dissolved before it could reach the large clumps in the middle of the basin.

The result was a Reflecting Pool that stayed green and murky for about a week because of the residual chlorophyll, a highly visible symbol of one of Mr. Trump’s pet projects gone very wrong.

The decision to remove the water-treatment systems, which has not previously been reported, was one of several missteps that have plagued Mr. Trump’s $16.4 million renovation of the Reflecting Pool. There have been no-bid contracts, peeling strips of waterproof coating in Mr. Trump’s handpicked shade of “American flag blue,” and even a dead duck floating in the water (though it is not clear if the renovation had anything to do with the duck’s demise).

In recent days, the water has become clear again, reflecting the sky and the surrounding monuments. The temporary nanobubblers have been replaced with more discreet, permanent purification systems.

Still, the Park Service plans to drain the pool again soon to fix the peeling coating.

Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman, did not answer specific questions, but said in an email that “thanks to President Trump, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is fixed, crystal clear and currently reflecting beautifully ahead of America’s 250th birthday celebration.”

Mr. Trump has blamed vandals for the deteriorating conditions of the Reflecting Pool, saying they dumped fertilizer to feed the algae and slashed its blue coating with a “sharp knife or razors.” The administration has asserted in court that there were cuts made to the caulk and “surface material” of the pool.

Interviews with people involved in the project and a New York Times analysis — including a review of images taken by news photographers — suggest that actions taken by the Trump administration and the companies involved caused disruptions at every turn.

A Construction Spree

Mr. Trump has embarked on a construction spree in Washington unlike any undertaken by a modern president. He has rolled out jobs quickly, bypassing traditional contracting requirements and review panels. And costs have mounted as Mr. Trump’s vision for his most prized projects has doubled or tripled in size.

But it is the renovation of the Reflecting Pool that perhaps best serves as an emblem of how Mr. Trump operates. Instead of seeking competitive bids for the project, the administration awarded no-bid contracts, hoping to expedite the process. Mr. Trump never submitted the project to a review board so that experts could weigh in.

A crucial decision came in early April, when the administration awarded a no-bid contract to a Virginia-based company called Atlantic Industrial Coatings to spread the waterproofing blue coating on the pool’s concrete slabs. That coating, known as Rhino Pipeliner 5000, may be peeling off because it is not stretchy or flexible enough, said Anthony Flett, the chief executive of U.S. Coating Specialists, a Florida-based company that specializes in waterproofing substances.

“They used a hybrid polyurea, and they really should have picked a pure poly,” Mr. Flett said, adding, “There’s people in the pool industry whose whole life is polyurea, and they should have been called in.”

Tim Auerhahn, the chair of the Aquatic Council LLC, a consulting firm for the pool and hot-tub industry, said in an email that Rhino Pipeliner 5000 is usually used to line the inside of pipes.

“The manufacturer’s technical literature indicates it may be suitable for certain waterproofing and protective coating applications beyond pipe rehabilitation,” he said, “but it does not specifically identify large ornamental water features, swimming pools, or granite-lined basins like the Reflecting Pool as primary use cases.”

Rhino Pipeliner 5000 is made by a California-based company called Rhino Linings. Pierre Gagnon, the company’s chief executive, said in an email that the peeling “is limited to isolated areas of the finish layer and does not affect the underlying waterproofing membrane.”

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By the next day, the water had turned from blue to green with algae before officials re-installed the nanobubblers.

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Tick season is in full swing, and unfortunately for us humans, these parasites are having a banner year. Across the U.S., weekly rates of emergency room visits for tick bites have been trending higher than in all years since 2019, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tick bite tracker. In the Midwest, the rates have consistently been at their highest since 2017, when the tracker was launched. That all adds up to a lot of bites. “Every year, an estimated 31 million people in the United States are bitten by a tick,” says CDC epidemiologist Alison Hinckley. These bites can cause serious, sometimes deadly diseases, including Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and, increasingly, alpha-gal syndrome (also known as red meat allergy) and Powassan disease.

I recently had a tick bite and wasn’t sure what to do. I live in an area with a high incidence of Lyme disease, so that was on my mind. Should I go to a doctor to have the tick extracted or remove the offending creature myself? Monitor the bite and watch for a bull’s-eye rash and other symptoms of Lyme disease, or take a preventative dose of antibiotics? Some cursory Googling of tick bites suggested that I should remove the tick, flush it down the toilet, and watch for any symptoms in the following days and weeks. But a closer look at the literature hinted that I might be better off taking a different approach, given my circumstances. So I went down the rabbit hole. Here’s what I learned about what to do—and not to do—when you discover a tick on your body.

Remove the tick as soon as you discover it. Don’t wait to go to a health care provider, the CDC advises. The longer a tick is attached, the more time it has to transmit bacteria and other pathogens that cause disease. Infected ticks generally need to be attached for more than 24 hours to transmit Lyme disease, but they may transmit Powassan virus in as little as 15 minutes. The sooner you get the tick off your body, the better.

When I was a kid, the received wisdom was to get rid of ticks by burning them off with a match or cigarette (I remember my mom trying to do this with a tick she found on my head while washing my hair in the kitchen sink) or smothering them with petroleum jelly, among other tactics. Don’t do this. Interventions such as these could cause the tick to release infected fluids into the host, according to the Johns Hopkins Medicine Lyme Disease Research Center. All you need is a pair of fine-tipped tweezers. (Incidentally—and this is friendly advice, not official guidance—if you’re a little squeamish, take a moment to calm yourself first. The tick is gross. You might see its legs move when you lift it away from the skin. You can scream/shudder/sob later. Right now, your job is to stay cool and remove the tick safely. You’ve got this.)

The tick is only attached to the host by its mouthparts, so grasp the tick with the tweezers at or near its head, as close to the skin as possible, and using steady, even pressure, pull it straight up and out, away from the skin. Do not squeeze its body, which could force infected fluids into the skin. Don’t crush the tick, which could complicate species identification. Put it in a clear, sealable plastic bag for identification and possible lab analysis. Clean the bite area and your hands with soap and warm water or alcohol. If you see that the tick’s head or mouthparts broke off and are stuck in the skin, don’t worry—the tick can’t transmit disease without its body. Your body will eventually expel the stuck parts as the wound heals.

Assess your risk for disease. Different species of ticks live in different parts of the country, and each species carries its own set of pathogens. “Knowing the type of tick, the likely tick infection rate in the region, and how long the tick was attached, and feeding are all critical details for making tick bite management decisions,” according to the University of Rhode Island’s TickEncounter resource center.

In New England, where I live, four tick species are well established: the brown dog tick, American dog tick, black-legged tick (also known as the deer tick), and the lone star tick; Gulf Coast ticks occur in smaller numbers in the southern part of the region. My tick was a few millimeters long and teardrop-shaped, with a brick-red abdomen surrounding the black shield on its back—hallmarks of an adult female deer tick.

Not all ticks are as easy to identify as mine. Not only do tick species differ in size, colors, and markings, but individuals of the same species can look different depending on what their life stage and sex are and how engorged they are from a blood meal (ugh). Some tick species are so similar that identification is best left to a pro. If you need help identifying your tick, your doctor may be able to assist you. And TickEncounter has a free tick identification program that allows users to submit a photograph of their tick and get an expert ID, usually within 24 hours. You can also contact your state or local health department for information about tick infection rates and disease case rates in your area.

The most common tick-borne disease in the U.S. is Lyme disease. The CDC estimates that 476,000 people a year are treated for Lyme. In North America, it is transmitted exclusively by the black-legged tick and the Western black-legged tick. In parts of the eastern U.S., the domain of the black-legged tick, more than half of these parasites carry the Borrelia bacteria that cause Lyme disease. Western black-legged ticks, which are found mostly on the Pacific coast, also carry Lyme bacteria, as well as several other pathogens, but typically less than 5 percent of them are infected, according to TickEncounter.

If you were bitten by a black-legged tick in an area where Lyme is common and your tick was attached for 36 hours or more, your doctor may recommend a single prophylactic dose of the antibiotic doxycycline to kill bacteria before they multiply. This preventative dose is most effective when given within 72 hours of tick removal, while the bacteria are incubating. Doxycycline is the same drug that is used to treat Lyme disease, but treatment requires a much longer course of the antibiotic than prevention—10 to 28 days or more.

Because my tick bite met all the criteria for high risk for transmitting Lyme, and because I was within the 72-hour window, my doctor and I decided to go ahead with the preventative dose of doxycycline.

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Diogo Guerra

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French authorities have announced public alcohol consumption and sales bans in Paris, in a bid to ease pressure on the capital’s hospitals during the heatwave.

Parisians will be restricted from drinking alcohol in public from noon on Friday until 07:00 on Saturday. The measures will be in place during the same hours from Saturday to Sunday.

Heatwave conditions that have left Spain, the UK, and France sweltering for days are set to shift to the east, with forecasters in Germany and the Czech Republic warning of extreme conditions.

Temperatures in Germany could hit 40C across the country on Friday. An extreme weather warning is now in place in much of the Czech Republic.

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said the health alert level was being raised to its highest, to boost hospital staffing and protect the vulnerable.

Bans on takeaway alcohol sales will be in effect from 18:00 on Friday until 07:00 on Saturday in the capital, and again during the same hours from Saturday to Sunday.

Licensed bars and restaurants are exempt from the restrictions.

Speaking to local media, Paris police chief Patrice Faure said: “We are reaching a saturation point in hospital facilities.”

United Nations climate change chief Simon Stiell has said “Europe’s savage heatwave has the fingerprints of the climate crisis all over it”, and he has called for “a faster shift to renewables, protecting forests and boosting climate resilience”.

After France recorded its hottest day on Wednesday for the second day in a row, records continue to be broken. Météo-France said the average minimum temperature reached 22C on Wednesday night. Nantes saw 27.2C in the north-west.

After days of record-breaking temperatures in France, officials have warned people to adjust their behaviour, with Health Minister Stéphanie Rist saying there were risks to young people as well as the elderly.

Rist said, “young people are also suffering from cardiac arrests”. The ambulance service in Paris had seen four times more cardiac arrests than normal over a 24-hour period, said Rist, while stressing there were no confirmed figures for the number of deaths linked to the heatwave.

Paris mayor Emmanuel Grégoire said the mortality rate was on the rise in the capital.

“We must not believe we are invulnerable,” he told French TV. “I am thinking especially about the youth… At about 19:30 last night… I saw 100 or so joggers on the street. Frankly, that’s irresponsible.”

“It’s fine to take a couple of days off from exercising,” he added.

Rist said everyone had to adjust their personal activity to the high temperatures: “Even if you are young and in good health with no underlying medical issues, this heat will affect you too.”

Even cycling came with risks, she warned, from high temperatures that lasted a week, as people would start feeling faint and might fall and even end up in hospital.

Meanwhile, a three-year-old child has been found dead in a car in the Paris region, days after two young children were found dead in the family’s car in the southern town of Carpentras.

In the north-western city of Rennes, the head of the Accident and Emergency department, Professor Louis Soulas, linked the deaths of five or six people in their homes in the region to the extreme temperatures.

Emergency services had gone to check in on them after they had failed to pick up their phones during welfare calls, said Soulas: “It’s not just the very elderly; it’s people aged 60 and up.”

Rennes saw a record 40.6C on Monday, only for that to be broken by 41C the following day. The previous record dated back to 2022.

The region’s intensive care units were “saturated,” he warned. “We are truly at a peak of activity.”

Lecornu said France’s Orsan health emergency plan was now moving to level three so the health system could “withstand the strain over time and protect the most vulnerable”.

French teachers’ unions are calling for a strike in response to “unacceptable working conditions” in the heat. They said that despite having called for mitigation measures to be taken, “nothing was done” and the “health of staff, students and their working conditions are being jeopardised”.

Three nuclear plants in France have gone offline due to the heat.

Some western regions are now bracing for huge thunderstorms from Thursday afternoon onwards.

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