2025-10-27
10 分钟Happy Monday listeners. For Scientific American Science Quickly, I'm Rachel Feldman.
You're listening to our weekly science news roundup.
Let's kick things off with some climate news.
Back in 2016,
an article in the New York Times referred to Iceland as a mosquito-free island paradise.
While nearby countries host mosquito populations during warmer times of the year,
one of the going theories was that Iceland's propensity for harsh swings between thawing and freezing helped keep the bloodsuckers from getting a foothold.
But that same times piece warned that this skeeter-free status could be in peril.
Temperatures were increasing in the land of fire and ice,
and a local biologist told the news outlet that mosquitoes could get cozy there
if the country kept heating up.
Now it seems like mosquitoes have made themselves at home in Iceland for the first time.
According to local news sources,
an insect enthusiast got in touch with the Natural Science Institute of Iceland after finding three suspected mozzies out in the wild.
An expert confirmed that the bugs were indeed mosquitoes,
marking the first time these insects have been found taking up residency on the island.
This development is a troubling reminder of rapid global warming's potential impacts on our planet,
especially up in the Arctic.
One 2022 study in Nature reported that this region had warmed almost four times faster than the rest of the planet between 1979 and 2021.
Speaking of climate change,