In two Indigenous communities living pre-industrial lifestyles in the Bolivian Amazon, dementia is remarkably uncommon. However, a new longitudinal study reveals why earlier estimates told only part of the story.

Among the Tsimané and Mosetén communities, dementia incidence, or the rate of new cases, didn’t dramatically differ from rates in U.S. and northern European populations, especially for individuals under 80 years old. Shorter survival after dementia develops appears to play a significant role in why dementia prevalence – the total proportion of people living with the disease at a given time – in the Tsimané and Mosetén populations is unusually low.

“The surprising finding was that there weren’t big differences in dementia incidence,” said lead author Margaret Gatz, a professor of psychology and gerontology at USC and a senior scientist at the USC Center for Economic and Social Research. “That challenges us to identify the risk factors for developing dementia in the Tsimané population.”

An international team of scientists featuring faculty at Binghamton University has recreated a 1,000-year timeline documenting the ecological changes and human impact to the area surrounding Crawford Lake, the famed location of the proposed Anthropocene. 

An international team of scientists featuring faculty at Binghamton University has recreated a 1,000-year timeline documenting the ecological changes and human impact to the area surrounding Crawford Lake, the famed location of the proposed Anthropocene. 

The central north Amazon, with extensive areas of high forest cover, natural savannas and vast and important indigenous territories, was not previously considered as being the most affected by climate change.

However, this region, which is considered critical to Amazonia’s cultural and biodiversity wealth has unexpectedly found itself at the forefront of rapid growth in climate extremes, a new study reveals.

Findings, published today in Communications Earth & Environment, identify Amazonia as experiencing rapid growth in extreme temperatures and water stress – with 10% of the basin, an area larger than 700,000 square kilometres (bigger than Afghanistan), witnessing increases in extreme temperatures during the dry season of at least 0.75°C a decade and more than 3.22°C since 1981.

Humans have been observing the sky for thousands of years. Our ancestors were undoubtedly fascinated by it, but observing the heavens also had practical uses: it helped people measure time, both over the course of the day and through the changing seasons, and became especially important with the spread of agriculture. What we now see as scientific frontiers, such as cosmology and astrophysics, are in fact only the latest chapter in an evolving history of observing and interpreting the sky. This is one of the points to emerge from a recent practice insight published in the Journal of Science Communication (JCOM). In the study, South African researcher Anton Binneman reflects on around ten years of meetings with elders and knowledge holders from Indigenous communities descended from the San. The work developed in the context of the construction of MeerKAT and the development of SKA-Mid, two telescopes in the South African Karoo, and as part of the environmental and social impact assessment required for these projects. The research highlights that Indigenous and traditional knowledge is not frozen in time, as is sometimes wrongly assumed, but continuously incorporates elements of the contemporary world, including scientific research.

Chile’s Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity (IEB) and Colombia’s Humboldt Institute are advancing a new model of south-south cooperation that brings together science, local and Indigenous knowledge, and community action to address biodiversity loss. The initiative seeks to strengthen socioecological research, restoration, territorial governance, and knowledge co-production across Latin America, while developing collaborative solutions with relevance for global biodiversity and climate challenges.