Trachoma eliminated in Fiji.

Trachoma, a transmissible disease causing blindness, has been eliminated in Fiji, according to a press release issued by the World Health Organization on 20 October 2025. The disease, which is caused by the Bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis was first detected in Fiji in the 1930s and had become a major public health concern by the 1950s. Public action taken at that time led to a decline in infections, and by the 1980s it was no longer the most common cause of blindness in Fiji. However, the disease underwent a resurgeance in the 2000s, with a high rate of infection in children, leading the Ministry of Health and Medical Services to launch an eradication campaign in 2012. This began with a period of surveying, to understand the the local epidemiology of the disease and distinguish it from other blindness-inducing conditions, followed by a series of school health, water and sanitation initiatives, and community awareness programmes.

Chlamydia trachomatis is spread through contact with mucus emitted from the eyes and nose during infection, and can be spread by Flies. Infections are most common among children, and the disease can spread rapidly in overcrowded environments, particularly where sanitation is poor and access to clean water is limited. The Bacterium infects the inside of the eyelid, causing a roughening which can in turn lead to damage to the surface of the eye. Eventually the disease can lead to the eyelids turning inwards, blinding the patient. Infections are generally fought off fairly quickly, particularly in adults, but having been infected does not offer protection against future infections, and the damage caused by each infection is cumulative. Chlamydia trachomatis is vulnerable to the antibiotics azithromycin and tetracycline.

McCoy cell monolayer micrograph reveals a number of intracellular Chlamydia trachomatis inclusion bodies; Magnified 200 times. The intracellular inclusion body represents the replication phase of the Chlamydia spp. organisms, whereupon, the reorganized reticulate body multiplies through binary fission into 100-500 new reticulate bodies, which mature into elementary bodies. Eugene Arum/Norman Jacobs/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/Wikimedia Commons.

Fiji is the 26 country to eliminate Trachoma, with Benin, Burundi, Cambodia, China, Gambia, Islamic Republic of Iran, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Ghana, India, Iraq, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Myanmar, Nepal, Oman, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Togo, Vanuatu and Vietnam having previously done so. It is also the 38th country to have eliminated at least one Neglected Tropical Disease, and the 13th state in the Western Pacific Region to have done so. Trachoma is still considered to be a public health problem in 31 countries, and is hyperendemic in many of the poorest and most rural areas of Africa, Central and South America, Asia, Australia and the Middle East. Approximately 103 million people live in areas where the disease is considered to be endemic. In 2024, 87 349 people worldwide received surgical treatment for advanced Trachoma, and 44.4 million people were treated with antibiotics for Chlamydia trachomatis infections. Trachoma is thought to be responsible for about 1.4% of all cases of blindness worldwide.

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Gordius nixus: A new species of Horsehair Worm found living on snow in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan.

Horsehair Worms, Nematomorpha, are parasitiod Worms related to Nematodes, but with a rather more complex life-cycle. The adult worms are extremely long, sometimes exceeding two meters in length, but seldom more than a millimetre in width, and are found in marine and freshwater ecosystems. The larval stages of these Worms are parasites, growing inside the bodies of other animals, and typically have a two-host life-cycle, with the young Worms infecting a secondary host shortly after hatching, then modifying the behaviour of this host so that it is more easily consumed by the primary host, inside which the Worm reaches maturity, emerging as an adult, typically with fatal consequences for the host. There are two extant orders of Nematomorphs, the Gordiida, which are typically found in freshwater environments, and which mainly parasitise Insects, and the Nectonematoida, which are typically found in marine environments, and which typically parasitise Crustaceans. A single terrestrial species is known, Gordius terrestris, from Oklahoma, Texas, and Louisiana.

In a paper published in the journal Evolutionary Systematics on 2 October 2025, Qaisar Jamal, Muhammad Riaz, and Moeen Uddin of the Institute of Zoological Sciences at the University of Peshawar, and Andreas Schmidt-Rhaesa of the Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change, describe a new species of Gordiid Horsehair Worm, found living on snowfields in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan.

The new species is named Gordius nixus, where 'nixus' derives from 'nix', the Latin for snow. Specimens were found living on freshly fallen snow in two villages, Gat Koto and Shaltaloo, in Upper Dir District, and one village, Karang, in Upper Kohistan District. Sightings of similar Worms on snow are reported from several other villages. Examined specimens are 1 mm in diameter and between 110 and 185 mm in length, and are yellow-to-light brown in colour. No likely Insect host for the species was found near the sightings.

Gordius nixus, (A), (B) living specimens on snow. (E)  Tangle with several specimens. Some females have sperm on their posterior end (arrows). Jamal et al. (2025).

The biology of Horsehair worms is now well understood. Most reported sightings of these Worms from temperate regions are from the summer months, leading to the expectation that they overwintered either as eggs or inside a host species. Finding Horsehair Worms active on recent snowfalls is therefore surprising. 

Jamal et al. note that reported sightings suggest that this is not the only so-far-undescribed species of Horsehair Worms in Pakistan. They also note that this is probably true for neighbouring countries as well, with only three records of Horsehair Worms from Iran, and no records from Afghanistan, In India, 22 species of Horsehair Worms have been recorded, but most from the east of the country, with only three species recorded in northwest India, one from Punjab and two from Uttarakhand. Seventeen species have been described from the whole of China.

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Chelonia mydas: The Green Sea Turtle no longer considered to be Endangered as population recovers.

Green Sea Turtles, Chelonia mydas, is a widespread marine Turtle, found across tropical and sub-tropical regions of the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic Oceans, as well associated seas. Due to this widespread distribution, it is probably also the most numerous Turtle species. However, it has historically been hunted by Humans across its range, with both adults and eggs being considered desirable foods and the skin used to make leather for luxury goods. High levels of hunting, combined with a slow reproductive cycle (the average generation time for Green Sea Turtles is 45 years) led to the species being listed as Endangered under the terms of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species in 1982, and subsequently all trade in Green Turtles or Green Turtle-derived products been banned under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

A Green Sea Turtle, Chelonia mydas. Xanthe Rivett/International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

The conservation status of Green Sea Turtles has subsequently been reviewed in 1986, 1988, 1990, 1994, 1996, 2004, and 2023. During this time many countries across its range have enacted laws to protect both the species and its breeding grounds, and raised public awareness across the globe of the threat to a fairly charismatic species has made the consumption of Turtles and their eggs much less acceptable in many places (although the practice has never completely ceased). 

On 10 October 2025 the conservation status of the Green Sea Turtle was updated from Endangered to Least Concern. This is based upon the observation of 526 000 clutches of eggs hatching successfully in 2024, a 28% increase on the estimated breeding success rate for the mid twentieth century; because adult Green Sea Turtles are solitary animals widely distributed across the worlds oceans, it has never been possible to assess their adult population directly.

This does not mean that all threats to Green Sea Turtles have been eliminated. The species is still consumed in places, it is widely caught as a by-catch of fishing fleets, and it breeds on sandy tropical beaches highly desirable to developers. It is also considered to be vulnerable to the effects of global warming, as well as plastic waste in the oceans. Several populations of Green Sea Turtles are still considered to be locally threatened. Nevertheless, there is not now thought to be any immediate danger of the species becoming extinct.

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The Orionid Meteor Shower

The Orionid Meteors are a prolific meteor shower appearing between 2 October and 7 November each year and peaking on the nights of 20-22 October, when the shower can produce 50-70 meteors per hour, originating in the constellation of Orion (above and to the right of Orion's right shoulder). This makes them both one of the more prolific meteor showers, and one of the easiest for an amateur enthusiast to locate the radiant of (apparent point of origin). The peak of this year's display should fall just before dawn on Tuesday 21 October, coinciding with the New Moon, which should make for good viewing. The Orionids can be seen from anywhere on Earth, although viewing will be better from the Northern Hemisphere.

The radiant point of the Orionid Meteor Shower. EarthSky.

Meteor streams are thought to come from dust shed by comets as they come close to the Sun and their icy surfaces begin to evaporate away. Although the dust is separated from the comet, it continues to orbit the Sun on roughly the same orbital path, creating a visible meteor shower when the Earth crosses that path, and flecks of dust burn in the upper atmosphere, due to friction with the atmosphere.

The Earth passing through a stream of comet dust, resulting in a meteor shower. Not to scale. Astro Bob.

The Orionid Meteor Shower is caused by the Earth passing through the trail of Halley's Comet (technically Comet P1/Halley), and encountering dust from the tail of this comet. The dust particles strike the atmosphere at speeds of over 200 000 km per hour, burning up in the upper atmosphere and producing a light show in the process. The Earth does not need to pass close to Halley's Comet for the meteor shower to occur, it simply passes through a trail of dust from the comet's tail that is following the same orbital path. Halley's Comet only visits the Inner Solar System once every 75 years, last doing so in 1986. 

How the passage of the Earth through a meteor shower creates a radiant point from which they can be observed. In The Sky.

Halley's Comet has been observed repeatedly and recognised as the same recurring object since at least 240 BC. However, it takes its modern name from the eighteenth century English Astronomer Edmund Halley, who determined the comet's periodicity in 1705.

Halley's Comet completes one orbit every 75.32 years (27 509 days) on an eccentric, orbit tilted at 162° to the plane of the Solar System (i.e. a retrograde orbit, at an angle of18° to the plane of the Solar System, but travelling in the opposite direction to the majority of the objects in the Solar System), that takes it from 0.56 AU from the Sun (59% of the average distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun, and inside the orbit of the planet Venus) to 35.1 AU from the Sun (35.1 times as far from the Sun as the Earth, and outside the orbit of the planet Neptune). As a comet with a period of more than 20 years but less than 200 years, Halley's Comet is considered to be a Periodic Comet, and a Halley-type Comet.

The current position and orbit of Halley's Comet. JPL Small Body Database.

Halley's Comet was visited by the European Space Agency's Giotto Probe and the Soviet Vega 1 and Vega 2 probes in March 1986, which were able to determine that the nucleus of the comet was only 15 km across, although it was surrounded by a coma about 100 000 km in diameter, made up of fragments of dust and ice released from the surface as it was heated by the Sun, causing the ices on its surface to sublimate (turn directly from solids to gasses), and that this material comprised 80% water, 10% carbon monoxide, 2.5% methane and ammonia, as well as trace amounts of more complex hydrocarbons, iron and sodium.

Image of Halley's Comet taken by the Giotto Space Probe in 1986 - the first ever photograph of the nucleus of a comet. Halley Multicolour Camera Team/Giotto Project/European Space Agency.

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At least one dead as Typhoon Halong hits western Alaska.

At least one person has died and two more are missing amid widespread flooding in Western Alaska, caused by the arrival of a remnant of Typhoon Halong. The storm brought with it a two metre high storm surge, a record for the region, which inundated the coastal communities of Kipnuk and Kwigillingok overnight between Saturday 11 and Sunday 12 October 2025. Hundreds of people were forced to flee the area as their homes were submerged, with the state launching its largest ever air-evacuation to air lift people to the safety of Anchorage, 800 km to the east.

Flooding in the village of Kipnuk, Western Alaska, on Sunday 12 October 2025. US Coast Guard.

The flooding has re-ignited grievances over the cancellation of a US$20 million grant from the Environmental Protection Agency to improve sea defences, and prevent climate change-driven coastal erosion which was leaving the villages exposed. The grant was approved by President Joe Biden in December 2024, but then rescinded by President Donald Trump in May of this year, as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. Whilst it is unlikely that sea defences would have been in place to protect the villages before the storm, the events have demonstrated the necessity of such projects, and left many community members feeling abandoned by the administration. 

Residents of communities in Western Alaska being evacuated upon a National Guard military aircraft. Joseph Moon/Alaska National Guard.

Ocean storms form due to heating of air over the sea in tropical zones. As the air is heated the the air pressure drops and the air rises, causing new air to rush in from outside the forming storm zone. If this zone is sufficiently large, then it will be influenced by the Coriolis Effect, which loosely speaking means the winds closer to the equator will be faster than those further away, causing the storm to rotate, clockwise in the northern hemisphere and anticlockwise in the southern hemisphere.

The structure of a tropical cyclone. Wikimedia Commons.

Despite the obvious danger of winds of this speed, which can physically blow people, and other large objects, away as well as damaging buildings and uprooting trees, the real danger from these storms comes from the flooding they bring. Each drop millibar drop in air-pressure leads to an approximate 1 cm rise in sea level, with big tropical storms capable of causing a storm surge of several meters. This is always accompanied by heavy rainfall, since warm air over the ocean leads to evaporation of sea water, which is then carried with the storm. These combined often lead to catastrophic flooding in areas hit by tropical storms. 

The formation and impact of a storm surge. eSchoolToday.

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