Science
Smoke detectors in the sky: Will wildfire affect bird behavior?
As thick clouds of smoke rolled across Los Angeles in early January, Allison Shultz opened a freezer and took out a stash of pristine white pigeon feathers.
The ornithology curator at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County placed handfuls of feathers between two small screens and clipped them together with zip ties. She installed one of these homemade feather filters on the roof of the museum’s Exposition Park building, a few more in its surrounding gardens, another in her Gardena backyard.
As smoke engulfed the city, valuable bits of evidence accumulated in the feathers’ once-white barbs.
“It’s really weird to be a scientist who studies wildfire smoke,” Shultz said. “We don’t want there to be big smoke events. But then, at the same time, we do want data to understand things.”
Allison Shultz, ornithology curator at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, holds bags of feathers that she placed on the roof of the museum during the wildfires in Los Angeles. Researchers will use them to study the effects of wildfire smoke on birds.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
Now stored in sealed plastic bags, the sooty plumes will help answer questions about how chronic smoke exposure affects birds, and what exactly the animals were exposed to during L.A.’s firestorms.
It’s part of a broader scientific effort to understand how a disaster of unprecedented scope will alter the region’s varied ecosystems, many of which were already stressed by a changing climate.
“Most fire ecology is done pretty remotely from human habitation, so therefore we have a bias in what we know in terms of how birds and vegetation and nature respond in quote-unquote, ‘natural areas,’ ” said Morgan Tingley, a UCLA professor of ecology and evolutionary biology who is collaborating with Shultz on the study. “We know much less about how those same processes happen when humans are very, very strongly influencing the environment.”
Their research team will soon extract the pollutants that accumulated on the pigeon feathers. A machine in the museum’s mineralogy department called a Raman spectrometer will analyze the compounds, determining how much carbon on the feathers originated from burned organic matter like trees and shrubs and how much originated from combustion and other urban sources.
Allison Shultz, ornithology curator at the Natural History Museum, shows drawers of house finches at the museum, where researchers are studying bird feathers to determine the effects of wildfire smoke on birds.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
They’ll look for other contaminants arising from the burning of homes and vehicles, like microplastics and heavy metals.
Shultz and her colleagues were in the process of developing these methods well before January’s fires broke out. They anticipated studying birds’ exposure to smoke during Southern California’s typical wildfire season, which traditionally peaks August through October.
They didn’t expect that the smoke in question would originate so close to home.
UCLA’s Tingley lives about three miles from the Palisades fire’s eastern flank. He took copious notes on his observations of bird behavior as the fire raged.
The yellow-rumped warbler is a migratory songbird that spends its winters in Los Angeles. For two days, Tingley recorded a constant stream of them flying in a pattern that looked like their springtime migration.
That was expected behavior for a highly mobile species, he said. We don’t know yet how L.A.’s resident bird species — some of which spend their entire lives within the area of a single kilometer (less than a mile) — will cope with a conflagration in their midst.
Microplastics research assistant Jessica Flores demonstrates the Raman spectrometer, which is the machine that will be used to analyze the bird feathers for carbon, at the Natural History Museum.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
At the Natural History Museum, Shultz is well-positioned to compare birds from this era to those exposed to pollutants past. The ornithology department houses floor-to-ceiling archives of carefully preserved bird specimens.
On a recent morning, Shultz opened a wooden tray to reveal rows of house finches, a palm-sized bird commonly found in Los Angeles.
From one specimen’s spindly leg dangled a handwritten tag bearing the year of its death: 1917. Shultz gently lifted it from the tray.
“You see how this is black, and this is black,” she said, delicately pointing at the bird’s soiled feathers with a gloved finger. More than a century later, fine particles of pollution still clung to its feathers, dulling what once was a scarlet red breast to a mottled gray.
“We’ve known that birds are very sensitive to smoke for a long time. Think about canaries in the coal mine, right?” Shultz said. Caged birds were used as living carbon monoxide detectors starting in the late nineteenth century — thanks to their highly efficient respiratory systems, the birds died from gas leaks long before human miners did.
But there is a lot we don’t know about how cumulative pollution affects these animals, and what impacts a catastrophe like this year’s fires will have. Does the carbon trapped in its barbs affect a bird’s ability to regulate its own body temperature? Which pollutants stick, and which ones molt away? Many species take dust baths to clean themselves — what if that dust is full of contaminants too?
Allison Shultz shows drawers of house finches at the museum, where researchers are studying bird feathers to determine the effects of wildfire smoke on birds.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
Found dead birds are often donated to the museum, and Shultz was braced for an influx of new specimens as the fires raged. They didn’t come. Tingley also heard few reports of bird mortality.
It’s possible that most species were able to escape the smoke or minimize their exposure by reducing their activity during its peak and “it could be that we got lucky,” he said. “But these are questions that we’ll have to keep on trying to answer.”
Our universe might be chock-full of cosmic wonder, but you can observe only a fraction of astronomical phenomena with the naked eye. Meteor showers, natural fireworks that streak brightly across the night sky, are one of them.
The latest observable meteor shower will be the Lyrids, which has been active since April 14 and is forecast to continue through April 30. The shower reaches its peak April 21 to 22, or Tuesday night into Wednesday morning.
According to NASA, the Lyrids are one of the oldest known meteor showers, and have been enjoyed by stargazers for nearly 3,000 years. Their bright, speedy streaks are caused by the dusty debris from a comet named Thatcher. They appear to spring from the constellation Lyra, which right now can be seen in the eastern sky at night in the Northern Hemisphere.
The moon will be about 27 percent full tonight, appearing as a thick crescent in the sky, according to the American Meteor Society.
To get a hint at when to best watch for the Lyrids, you can use this tool, which relies on data from the Global Meteor Network. It shows fireball activity levels in real time.
And while you gaze at the heavens, keep an eye out for other stray meteors streaking across the night sky. Skywatchers are reporting that the amount of fireballs is double what is usually seen by this point in the year.
Where meteor showers come from
There is a chance you might see a meteor on any given night, but you are most likely to catch one during a shower. Meteor showers are caused by Earth passing through the rubble trailing a comet or asteroid as it swings around the sun. This debris, which can be as small as a grain of sand, leaves behind a glowing stream of light as it burns up in Earth’s atmosphere.
Meteor showers occur around the same time every year and can last for days or weeks. But there is only a small window when each shower is at its peak, which happens when Earth reaches the densest part of the cosmic debris. The peak is the best time to look for a shower. From our point of view on Earth, the meteors will appear to come from the same point in the sky.
The Perseid meteor shower, for example, peaks in mid-August from the constellation Perseus. The Geminids, which occur every December, radiate from the constellation Gemini.
How to watch a meteor shower
Michelle Nichols, the director of public observing at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, recommends forgoing the use of telescopes or binoculars while watching a meteor shower.
“You just need your eyes and, ideally, a dark sky,” she said.
That’s because meteors can shoot across large swaths of the sky, so observing equipment can limit your field of view.
Some showers are strong enough to produce up to 100 streaks an hour, according to the American Meteor Society, though you probably won’t see that many.
“Almost everybody is under a light-polluted sky,” Ms. Nichols said. “You may think you’re under a dark sky, but in reality, even in a small town, you can have bright lights nearby.”
Planetariums, local astronomy clubs or even maps like this one can help you figure out where to go to escape excessive light. The best conditions for catching a meteor shower are a clear sky with no moon or cloud cover, sometime between midnight and sunrise. (Moonlight affects visibility in the same way as light pollution, washing out fainter sources of light in the sky.) Make sure to give your eyes at least 30 minutes to adjust to seeing in the dark.
Ms. Nichols also recommends wearing layers, even during the summer. “You’re going to be sitting there for quite a while, watching,” she said. “It’s going to get chilly, even in August.”
Bring a cup of cocoa or tea for even more warmth. Then lie back, scan the sky and enjoy the show.
Where weather is least likely to affect your view
Storm systems sweep across the country in early spring, and some will be obscuring skies tonight. But there will still be plenty of areas with clear skies, particularly in parts of the central United States.
“The best spot is going to be in the Upper Midwest,” said Rich Bann, a meteorologist with the Weather Prediction Center.
Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa will offer especially good sky-viewing weather and a beach on the Great Lakes could be a nice spot to look up at the stars.
But don’t expect to view the show from Chicago, as Illinois could see some thunderstorms. The weather will be better in the Northern and Central Plains, particularly the eastern Dakotas.
High, wispy clouds are expected over the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys and into parts of the Mid-Atlantic. But, Mr. Bann said, “you may be able to see some shooting stars through thin clouds.”
Clouds will be draped across much of the Southeast and the Northeast, though there could be some clearing in Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia. Remember, the meteors could be visible all night long. If you look outside and see clouds, try again later.
Catching the spectacle will be challenging across much of the West, particularly from Washington into Northern California, where a storm system is bringing rain and snow. That system will move east overnight.
There are likely to be some pockets of clear skies at times across southern Nevada, northwest Arizona and southwest Utah, Mr. Bann said.
Amy Graff contributed reporting.
WASHINGTON — Amid growing national security concerns, the FBI said Tuesday that it has launched a broad investigation in the deaths or disappearances of at least 10 scientists and staff connected to highly sensitive research, including four from the Los Angeles area.
“The FBI is spearheading the effort to look for connections into the missing and deceased scientists. We are working with the Department of Energy, Department of War, and with our state and state and local law enforcement partners to find answers,” the agency said in a statement.
The FBI’s announcement comes after the House Oversight Committee announced that it would investigate reports of the disappearance and deaths of the scientists, sending letters seeking information from the agencies involved in the federal inquiry as well as NASA, which owns the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, where three of the missing or dead scientists worked.
“If the reports are accurate, these deaths and disappearances may represent a grave threat to U.S. national security and to U.S. personnel with access to scientific secrets,” Reps. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the committee, and Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) wrote in the letters.
President Trump told reporters last week that he had been briefed on the missing and dead scientists, which he described as “pretty serious stuff.” He said at the time that he expected answers on whether the deaths were connected “in the next week and a half.”
Michael David Hicks, who studied comets and asteroids at JPL, was the first of the scientists who disappeared or died. He died on July 30, 2023, at the age of 59. No cause of death was disclosed.
A year later, JPL physicist Frank Maiwald died at 61, with no cause of death disclosed.
Two other Los Angeles scientists are part of the string of deaths and disappearances.
On June 22, 2025, Monica Jacinto Reza, a materials scientist at JPL, disappeared while on a hike near Mt. Waterman in the San Gabriel Mountains.
On Feb. 16, Caltech astrophysicist Carl Grillmair was fatally shot on the porch of his Llano home. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s department arrested Freddy Snyder, 29, in connection with the shooting. Snyder had been arrested in December on suspicion of trespassing on Grillmair’s property.
Snyder has been charged with murder.
There is no evidence at this point that the deaths and disappearances, which occurred over a span of four years, are connected.
A spokesperson for NASA, which owns JPL, said in a statement on X that the agency is “coordinating and cooperating with the relevant agencies in relation to the missing scientists.
“At this time, nothing related to NASA indicates a national security threat,” agency spokesperson Bethany Stevens wrote. “The agency is committed to transparency and will provide more information as able.”
Representatives from Caltech, which manages JPL, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The sun had barely risen over the Pacific Ocean when a small motorboat carrying a team of Indigenous artisans and Mexican biologists dropped anchor in a rocky cove near Bahías de Huatulco.
Mauro Habacuc Avendaño Luis, one of the craftsmen, was the first to wade to shore. With an agility belying his age, he struck out over the boulders exposed by low tide. Crouching on a slippery ledge pounded by surf, he reached inside a crevice between two rocks. There, lodged among the urchins, was a snail with a knobby gray shell the size of a walnut. The sight might not dazzle tourists who travel here to see humpback whales, but for Mr. Avendaño, 85, these drab little mollusks represent a way of life.
Marine snails in the genus Plicopurpura are sacred to the Mixtec people of Pinotepa de Don Luis, a small town in southwestern Oaxaca. Men like Mr. Avendaño have been sustainably “milking” them for radiant purple dye for at least 1,500 years. The color suffuses Mixtec textiles and spiritual beliefs. Called tixinda, it symbolizes fertility and death, as well as mythic ties between lunar cycles, women and the sea.
The future of these traditions — and the fate of the snails — are uncertain. The mollusks are subject to intense poaching pressure despite federal protections intended to protect them. Fishermen break them (and the other mollusks they eat) open and sell the meat to local restaurants. Tourists who comb the beaches pluck snails off the rocks and toss them aside.
A severe earthquake in 2020 thrust formerly submerged parts of their habitat above sea level, fatally tossing other mollusks in the snail’s food web to the air, and making once inaccessible places more available to poachers.
Decades ago, dense clusters of snails the size of doorknobs were easy to find, according to Mr. Avendaño. “Full of snails,” he said, sweeping a calloused, violet-stained hand across the coves. Now, most of the snails he finds are small, just over an inch, and yield only a few milliliters of dye.
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