The Brief

In a windy patch of desert outside Barstow, Calif., a 700-pound planetary rover named Helelani is churning its thick tires through a flour-like dust. Seven teams from around the world are taking turns steering this dune-buggy-like rover through the course. And as the rover weaves through a slalom course of cones, NASA technologist Rob Mueller explains that this silty dry lakebed is a pretty good analog for adventures on another planet.

"It's an extreme environment. That's why we're here," Mueller says. "It's blowing dust. It gets hot in the day, cold at night. We even have dust devils, small tornadoes coming through once in a while. So it's very Mars-like."

Mueller is outfitted in a heavy tan work jacket and a NASA baseball cap, and though it's bitterly cold and windy for us humans, he says the robots don't mind. Even if they did, pushing them to their limits is the whole point.

"The unexpected happens out here – dust jamming into a mechanism is not going to happen in a lab," he says. "We want to break the robots many times. Fix them, run them again. By the time they get to the moon and Mars, they'll work."

RoboPalooza has some of the trappings of other desert festivals, like food trucks, portable toilets, and live rock bands like Better than Bad (seen here).

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Raymond Alva for NPR

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Festival attendees watch a robotic dog in action.

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Raymond Alva for NPR

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This rover race is part of a new festival Mueller dreamed up called RoboPalooza. It has some of the trappings of other desert festivals, like live rock bands, food trucks and portable toilets. The difference here is that this one is sponsored in part by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers – and it's focused on building a future for humanity in space. So the star performers at this festival are not musicians, but space robots and the people who spend their lives building them.

In the exhibit area, the company Astrolab is showing off its squishy all-metal tire, meant for roving on the moon. The company's business development manager, Kelly Randell, explains that the tire is intended to conform to the moon's surface, to hug the lunar dirt – and it's missing the inflatable rubber part for a reason.

"There's no AAA on the moon," she says. "So if we pop a tire on our rover, we can't just go fix it."

Nearby, the University of Alabama Astrobotics team is demonstrating what a robot nicknamed "Turbo" can do. It's about the size of a large dog with four metal wheels and built to dig moondust. As it lowers its digger head to the ground – essentially a conveyor belt of tiny buckets – it excavates a small hole and dumps a pile of powder behind the rover.

The University of Alabama team showcase their excavator robot.

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"Turbo was designed to collect a bunch of moon dirt and drive around and build a berm, which is basically just a big pile of dirt," team member Randie Jo Evans said.

This, on a much larger scale, might someday be the way space agencies and private companies build structures for astronauts on the moon – and beyond.

"There's massive radiation in space that will give you cancer," Mueller says. "So we need shelter, we need radiation shielding."

Mueller imagines that in the not-too-distant future, the moon will be a rest stop – a sort of gas station in space – as people travel from the Earth to Mars and the asteroid belt. Some people may just stop by the moon, but others, he says, will want to work and play there. "Imagine playing basketball on the moon," he says.

But someone has to build the basketball courts, the roads and the housing. Mueller says that's where the robots come in – swarms of them.

The festival operates in Lucerne Valley in the Mojave Desert, in a location that mimics Mars's harsh terrain.

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Representatives from Honeybee Robotics show off robot components.

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"The robots will build the infrastructure," he says. "They are good at building infrastructure. They don't complain. They work 24 hours a day."

Robots can also be built to withstand the damaging radiation in space. The problem is, the space robots we have today are slow — incredibly slow. NASA's Opportunity rover, which has traveled farther than any other rover on Mars, rolled about 28 miles over roughly 14 years. Average it out, and that's a ground speed of about 2 miles per year.

Or, as Mueller puts it: "They literally drive at a snail's pace."

And if a snail were to race one of NASA's science rovers, Mueller guesses the snail would win – because it doesn't need to wait for instructions.

"The robot needs instructions from people. The crew in mission control sends instructions to the robot, and there's a time delay on Mars…up to 40 minutes," he added.

Long distances in space mean communication delays because information can't travel faster than the speed of light. For teams controlling robots on Mars, that might mean sending a command one day, waiting for the rover to respond, and sending a new command the next day.

The intricate details of the Helelani rover.

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True, Rome wasn't built in a day. But with construction delays like this, it would never have been built.

"You can't do it at a snail's pace," Mueller says. "You have to move faster. But to move faster, you need a higher level of autonomy. And so that's what we're trying to do here in the desert, is test these robots."

In an old trailer near the rover racecourse, a couple of students from Cal Poly Pomona are hunched over their laptops, sending commands to the Helelani rover. They can't even see the racecourse from where they're seated inside a trailer, relying solely on live video feeds from the rover to steer it through the dust. It's slow work, and the rover travels in fits and starts. It takes a while for the team to figure out where to go next and to transmit a new command to the rover. The team's halting progress demonstrates the types of delays that would hinder construction in space.

But there's a certain magic to this race, too. Six other teams are running the rover through the same race, and they're doing it from thousands of miles away, in places as far as Chile and Australia. After all, if we can control robots in space, why not try to control them from the other side of the planet? It's the team from Western Australia that wins the competition, with a finishing time of 20 minutes 10 seconds.

Students from Cal Poly Pomona strategize while piloting the Helelani rover.

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The Helelani rover getting ready for the competition at Peterman Hill in Lucerne Valley.

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They're getting a $5,000 prize for their effort. But the lessons for the engineering community – and the insights about designing more autonomous machines – might be worth more.

"Giving the rover the opportunity to go off on a longer leash is scary," says Brad Dixon, an engineer from the winning team. "But the more this becomes popular —when people are familiar with controls and hazards — those risks become smaller."

As a local rock band blares on at the stage, half-drowned out by the desert wind and the hum of generators, Mueller leans back against an old RV – his home for the last few days – and gazes at the desert. Even as a space evangelist, he says he won't be the first in line to make a home in space.

"I don't really want to live on the moon," he says. "I love this blue planet, this pale blue dot. It's just so beautiful." But he says humanity's motivations are different.

"It's our human spirit to be explorers," Mueller says. "We don't know why we're going or what will happen. That's why we go. If we did know, we wouldn't have to go."

Copyright 2024 NPR

NASA technologist Rob Mueller says that this silty dry lakebed in the Mojave Desert is a pretty good analog for adventures on another planet.

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President Donald Trump said his administration will, for now, halt its efforts to deploy National Guard troops to Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland, Ore., after his deployments to the Democratic-led cities suffered a series of legal setbacks.

In a Truth Social post on Wednesday, Trump praised the deployments and claimed they have helped curtail crime.

"Portland, Los Angeles, and Chicago were GONE if it weren't for the Federal Government stepping in," he said.

The deployments in Chicago and Portland were blocked by the courts and Guard members left California after a sharp rebuke from a U.S. District Court judge earlier this month.

More recently, the Supreme Court last week ruled against the administration's emergency appeal to deploy troops to Chicago. It was the first time the high court waded into the matter. While not precedent-setting, the ruling brought some clarity to Trump's presidential powers.

Trump had argued that the Guard was needed in the Democratically led cities to quell crime and protect federal immigration officers and facilities. Democratic governors in those states staunchly opposed the deployments and federal judges were also wary of allowing the military to intervene in civilian matters.

"This principle has been foundational to the safeguarding of our fundamental liberties under the Constitution," U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut wrote in her November ruling freezing Trump's deployment of troops to Portland.

Trump has also deployed National Guard troops to other U.S. cities, including Washington, D.C., where more than 2,000 members of the Guard have been patrolling since August.

Those deployments have also faced legal challenges — earlier this month a federal appeals court ruled that troops can remain in the capital city while a panel of judges examines whether the deployment is legal.

A handful of Republican-led states have welcomed the Guard. In Tennessee, troops began patrolling in October. And moments after the Supreme Court ruling, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry said 350 troops would deploy to New Orleans. National Guard members arrived in the city Tuesday, member station WWNO reported.

In his Truth Social post on Wednesday, Trump promised, "We will come back, perhaps in a much different and stronger form, when crime begins to soar again - Only a question of time!"

Copyright 2026 NPR

Starting on Jan. 1, hundreds of new state laws will go into effect, some with the potential to shape the everyday lives of Californians. They’re meant to tackle the state’s housing affordability crisis, establish guardrails on the use of artificial intelligence and protect the sharing of personal information for those who could face federal immigration enforcement.

Most new laws won’t all bring change overnight. But some could stoke continued controversy and legal challenges. For example, if you live near public transit, one new state law will give developers the freedom to build taller, denser housing, overriding local zoning rules and potentially transforming some single-family neighborhoods. Some cities and counties remain vehemently opposed and are considering legal action.

If you’re a renter, your landlord starting Jan. 1 will be required to provide a working stove and refrigerator and keep them in working order, a nod to efforts to ease the state’s severe affordability challenges. And if you work in law enforcement or the health care field, new state laws will regulate what you can and can’t do with AI on the job.

Here’s a small sample of the many new California laws that will go into effect Jan. 1:

More housing near transit

California lawmakers approved a significant and controversial new housing law this year, Senate Bill 79. It allows for building denser, taller housing near major transit stations even in areas where local rules ban that level of development. The law will pave the way for apartment buildings as tall as 75 feet close to metro, light rail, and some bus stations. Democratic lawmakers were divided over the measure. Some argued it was necessary to speed housing development and alleviate the state’s housing shortage while others warned it would change neighborhoods of single-family homes and impact property values. Developers will officially get the green light to break ground on projects that fall under the new law starting in 2026.

— Laura Fitzgerald

Requiring stoves and fridges in rentals

While it’s quite common for rental units to include a stove and a fridge, it hasn’t been the law. Beginning Jan. 1, Assembly Bill 628 adds refrigerators and stoves to the state’s definition of a “habitable” home. This means landlords must provide them, keep them in working order and handle repairs or replacement. The rule applies to new or renewed leases. Tenants may voluntarily bring their own fridge, but they aren’t required to. The law makes exceptions for supportive housing and shared living buildings with communal kitchens. Supporters say the change is designed to improve affordability for low-income renters.

Arturo Rodriguez of the California Democratic Renters Council says this protects many renters in larger cities, where stoves and refrigerators are not included in a unit, which is more common.

“When landlords offload basic costs onto renters, it’s really destabilizing families,” said Rodriguez.

Several landlord and real-estate groups, such as the California Apartment Association and the California Association of Realtors, opposed the bill. They say new costs and installation could complicate expenses for property owners.

— Tony Rodriguez

Rideshare drivers can unionize and will have lower insurance requirements

In this Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2016, file photo, a driver displaying Lyft and Uber stickers on his front windshield drops off a customer in downtown Los Angeles.

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California’s 800,000 rideshare drivers will get the right to unionize in 2026. In turn, rideshare companies will also have drastically lower insurance costs. That’s under two new laws Governor Gavin Newsom signed after brokering a deal between labor and major rideshare companies, including Uber and Lyft. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which sponsored Assembly Bill 1340 to expand collective bargaining rights to gig drivers, has already reached out to drivers ahead of the law’s implementation. Senate Bill 371 will slash insurance requirements for rideshare companies for underinsured drivers from $1 million to $300,000 per incident.

— Laura Fitzgerald

Getting election results faster

Staffers at Los Angeles County Recorder/County Clerk's headquarters sort ballots in this file photo from 2008, for the California presidential primary.

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Californians could see faster election results in 2026. That’s under a new law that will require election officials to count the vast majority of ballots by 13 days after election day, with exceptions for some ballots that require additional verification. There are no current requirements for counting benchmarks, just a deadline for officials to send final election results to the Secretary of State within 31 days after election day. That rule will still apply.

The new law comes as the state has seen a rise in close contests where results can take weeks. Proponents, including some election experts, say speeding up ballot counting will bolster trust in the state’s election process. “We're at the point where people are losing faith in the political process and the elections process because they hear these claims from some political leaders casting doubt on the reliability of our results, and that's a real problem,” said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation.

— Laura Fitzgerald

Ban on AI Chatbots misrepresenting themselves as medical professionals

Starting Jan. 1, Assembly Bill 489 will make it illegal for AI Chatbots to misrepresent themselves as doctors, therapists or other licensed clinicians when people go to them for advice. This has been an emerging problem with the artificial intelligence technology available online.

The California Medical Association helped sponsor the bill. Lobbyist Stuart Thomspon told CapRadio that oftentimes vulnerable people seeking mental health advice are not aware the chatbot they are speaking to is not being monitored by a real person.

“ A lot of these chatbots will imply, or not even imply, directly state, that the patient who's interacting with them is actually interacting with a licensed mental health professional,” Thompson said. “When in fact all the content generated is purely AI.”

Assemblymember Mia Bonta is the law’s author. She said it provides safeguards for young people and elders who may have trouble discerning who they are speaking with.

 ”The world is our oyster when it comes to AI and the advancements that are being made with agentic AI,” she said, referring to artificial intelligence systems that act with autonomy. “It's very important that we are providing enough of the human in the loop to be able to ensure that those experiences end up being positive and ensure that consumers are protected.”

A spokesperson for Bonta said developers of these AI systems may be held to the same consequences as humans who impersonate medical professionals – up to a $10,000 fine and/or up to a year in prison.

— Riley Palmer

Renewed Cap-and-Trade

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California lawmakers passed legislation to renew the state’s cap-and-trade program — now officially calling it “cap-and-invest” — through 2045, with some amendments. The California Air Resources Board will begin rulemaking in the new year to figure out how to integrate the changes.

One change to the program allows CARB the chance to limit the distribution of free allowances. These allowances are meant to help address leakage risk, which refers to the risk that a company may decide to take its operations outside of California to avoid certain state restrictions. But critics have long said the leakage risk associated with the program is overblown, and these allowances allow companies to continue polluting.

CARB will soon announce the results of a revised assessment of the program’s leakage risk, which could guide their decisions to possibly limit free allowances after 2031.

— Manola Secaira

Protecting street vendors' personal data

Senate Bill 635 aims to protect street vendors in California from having their sensitive personal data shared with the federal government as the Trump administration continues to crackdown on undocumented immigrants.

Beginning Jan. 1, state and local governments will be prohibited from voluntarily providing street vendors’ identifying information to federal immigration authorities. The law also bars local agencies from collecting information on immigration status or criminal history, or from requiring fingerprints or LiveScan background checks as part of the street vendor permitting process.

Under the new law, local authorities that collected this prohibited information prior to the law’s effective date must destroy those records by March 1.

“Street vendors are a cornerstone of our communities and contribute significantly to California’s vibrant culture and economy,” said Democratic Senator María Elena Durazo, the bill’s author. “SB 635 ensures that these hardworking entrepreneurs can operate their businesses without fear that their personal information will be turned over to immigration authorities.”

Opposition to the bill was limited during the legislative process, with critics primarily raising questions about language surrounding food safety enforcement and administrative costs rather than immigration policy.

— Chris Felts

Disclosing AI use in police reports

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A new law going into effect Jan. 1 will require California law enforcement officers to disclose when they use AI to help write official reports.

Under the new law, agencies will need to provide a statement when the technology is used in a report as well as a signature from the officer involved in it.

Democratic State Senator Jesse Arreguín of Berkeley is the law’s author. Arreguín told a Senate committee earlier this year that its purpose is to promote transparency and safeguards for the new technology.

“Prosecutors, defense attorneys and courts rely heavily on police reports to determine criminal outcomes,” he said. “It's critically important that additional uses to generate a report is accurate to prevent someone’s livelihood from being wrongly impacted.”

The bill’s supporters included many criminal justice groups. Meanwhile, a few law enforcement agencies in Southern California opposed it.

Sgt. Amar Ghandi is a spokesperson for the Sacramento Sheriff's office. He said the agency does not use AI yet for helping with reports, but it isn’t out of the question in the future.

“The technology is evolving daily, at exponential, light speed,” Gandhi said. “It could come to us, but as of right now we don’t use it because again it is imperfect. There are still some things that need to be worked on and issues we have with it.”

— Riley Palmer

Establishing a framework for reparations

Senate Bill 518 is a new California law that would establish the Bureau for Descendants of American Slavery.

The law was created by a 2023 task force that issued an 1,100-page document with recommendations for reparations for the descendants of enslaved people.

The law requires the bureau to create a Genealogy Division and to verify an individual's status as a descendant of slaves.

Democratic Assemblymember Corey Jackson co-authored the bill and said in July that it’s the first step in a long effort to implement reparations.

“We are not only creating a place to certify eligibility and provide education, but also laying the groundwork for future programs that can deliver remedies and opportunities for descendants.”

— Keyshawn Davis

Legal counsel for immigrant youth

Starting Jan. 1, immigrant youth going through immigration court in California will have access to legal counsel when facing deportation. That’s because of a new law, Assembly Bill 1261, requiring the state to pay for youth legal counsel if the federal government fails to do so. The law could cost taxpayers as much as $77 million.

— Gerardo Zavala

From backyard parties to sweaty moshpits, music lovers of all ages flocked to Riverside in the late 1980s and early 2000s to experience bands like Voodoo Glow Skulls and The Skeletones at smaller, independent venues — a community of fans, artists and promoters that shaped the city’s underground music scene before the days of the internet.

Some of that history is now on display at the Riverside Art Museum in an exhibition called “60 Miles East.” Curators Zach Cordner and Ken Crawford compiled thousands of photographs, flyers and other materials to showcase the impact of local punk, ska and hardcore bands — an era that was separate and distinct from what was happening in Los Angeles and Orange County at the time.

“ We were definitely in the shadow,” Crawford told LAist. “We kinda had to make do with hodgepodge shows and backyard bands. And then these great venues ended up emerging.”

That included places like The Barn at UC Riverside, as well as the Showcase Theatre and Spanky’s Cafe — both of which are now closed. Cordner and Crawford said they would learn about upcoming performances from friends, magazines and at record stores like the now-shuttered Mad Platter.

“As the mid nineties kind of progressed… bands were coming to Riverside finally, so we really didn't have to go too far,” Cordner said. “It was amazing.”

At the time, there was no social media to spread the word about shows, and very little internet access, which made it difficult to navigate the scene. Most people would draw maps and scribble directions to venues on the back of hand-copied flyers and posters.

“We had to actively seek it out, and hope that the map was accurate enough to actually get you there,” Cordner said. “It was definitely a more participatory thing.”

The title of the exhibition is a nod to the Inland Empire — sometimes the simplest way to describe where cities like Riverside and San Bernardino are located is to say they’re about “60 miles east” of L.A.

Ken Crawford and Zach Cordner met as kids in Riverside.

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Cordner and Crawford first met as kids in the I.E. and later bonded over their shared love of skateboarding and concerts during their teen years at Riverside Polytechnic High School.

“My parents had the hangout spot and I had the car with the most seats in it, so I got to be the host and chauffeur,” Crawford said.

During that time, Cordner got hooked on photography. He was about 14 or 15 when he shot his first-ever show featuring a hardcore band called Process. That experience helped him develop relationships with other artists who would then use his prints for their albums and other promotional materials.

“After that I was just smitten,” Cordner said. “I was like, ‘This is what I want to do.’”

The pair reconnected about three decades later. Cordner now serves as publisher of Riversider Magazine, and Crawford is editor-at-large.

In 2023, Crawford said he was covering a story at the opening of a Stater Bros. when he ran into an executive at Riverside Art Museum and later pitched her the idea for “60 Miles East.”

“And we ran with it. We started collecting not only from (Zach’s) stuff but from the community,” he said. “It became very evident very quickly that curating was going to be more of an issue than collecting.”

Cordner said it took almost half a year to sort through all the materials and narrow it down — and that’s “just the tip of the iceberg” of what they have.

The exhibition "60 Miles East" runs through April 12 at the Riverside Art Museum.

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Julian V. Jolliffe

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Today, the music scene in Riverside is still alive, Crawford said, but it’s smaller and lacks institutional support. But thanks to social media, it’s also easier to connect with bands and to learn about events in your area.

“I mean, it's Riverside. We still have a lot of these bands here…. it's just a matter of connecting and creating a community that really fosters the scene,” Cordner said.

Part of the reason they created “60 Miles East” was to educate people on how great the underground scene in Riverside was in its heyday — and how great it can still be today.

“I really love it when I see younger generations in the exhibition, reading the walls and just soaking all of that in,” Cordner said. “Hopefully they see that and can do it, and restart it. That's my hope for it.”

The exhibition “60 Miles East” runs through April 12 at the Riverside Art Museum.

This story was produced with help from Gillian Morán Pérez.

Even as some scientists search for signs of life beyond Earth, other researchers have been discovering new species on our own humble planet faster than ever before.

From high up in the mountains to the deep sea, take a tour across the world to meet five new species discovered in 2025.

An ancient sea cow in the Persian Gulf

Qatar Museums staff and colleagues visit the excavation site of Salwasiren qatarensis, a 21-million-year-old sea cow species.

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Cows often get a bad rap for contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, but a newly discovered species of their ocean counterparts suggests that sea cows have been key contributors to a natural climate change solution for the past 21 million years.

This long-extinct sea cow's fossil remains were discovered in Al Maszhabiya, Qatar, which is now known to be the richest fossil sea cow deposit in the world. Like today's manatees and dugongs, it mainly grazed on seagrass and was considered an "ecosystem engineer" in the coastal waters of the Persian Gulf, where it primarily lived.

With their fleshy muzzles, these mammals would browse the seafloor, grab the plants, and use their tusks to snip the roots and eat them. In the process, they lift up nutrients from the seafloor that would otherwise be buried, which other animals in the ecosystem can use. These nutrients, in addition to the sea cow's excrement, help cultivate a healthier and more diverse ecosystem.

"Supporting seagrass communities through ecosystem engineering is a great natural climate solution, because seagrass communities store an incredible amount of carbon," says Nicholas Pyenson, curator of fossil marine mammals at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.

The name of the new species, Salwasiren qatarensis, honors the fossil's discovery site in Qatar, and the Bay of Salwa in the Persian Gulf, where the largest herd of dugongs can be found today. But Pyenson says Salwa, an Arabic word which roughly translates to "solace," is also a nod to the potential for the new species to "elevate the visibility and protection of natural heritage," adding that "natural heritage doesn't actually, in all cases, respect geopolitical boundaries."

Pyenson is referring to the fact that the seagrass meadow in the Bay of Salwa spans the coasts of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. His colleagues are currently in the process of applying for UNESCO World Heritage status to protect the region.

"This is a great example of science diplomacy," Pyenson says, "where data sharing, making data open access and available when you publish, has the potential to actually form a metaphorical bridge between countries that maybe have not historically seen eye to eye."

You can see a 3D model of the sea cow fossil here.

A mini marsupial in the Andes Mountains

This new species of mouse opossum, called Marmosa chachapoya, has bright reddish fur and a long and delicate snout which distinguishes it from its closest relatives.

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Pedro Peloso

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A beady-eyed mouse opossum living high up in the Peruvian Andes wasn't what Silvia Pavan initially set out to find during her expedition in Río Abiseo National Park, but the new species gives yet another reason why this special region is protected as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Pavan, an assistant professor at Cal Poly Humboldt, was on the hunt for a specific squirrel species when she and her colleagues came across an animal they eventually named Marmosa chachapoya to honor the Chachapoya people who formerly occupied the area.

The tiny marsupial (which, despite its scientific name, is not a marmoset) was the first small mammal that the researchers collected on their trip. While the animal looked a lot like a mouse opossum, its long and delicate snout and home high in the mountains set it apart from other marmosa species. But once Pavan brought the samples back, DNA analysis — coupled with a close examination of its skull — proved that this was indeed a new species.

The high-altitude area of the mountains where the expedition took place is difficult to access, but Pavan says these underexplored areas are even more important to study: "We do not know yet completely what we have, and it highlights how much we still need to explore and study the area, and how unique and important [it] is for biodiversity."

With the threat of climate change and human impact, Pavan says, "the species are being lost before we know they exist."

On this trip alone, the team of researchers collected roughly 100 different specimens that they are continuing to identify.

An undercover spider in Northern California

Marshal Hedin discovered this brown spider, Siskiyu armilla, along the river near where he grew up.

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Marshal Hedin

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Marshal Hedin was walking along the river near where he grew up in Northern California when he came across a spider he hadn't seen before. Fifteen years later, the professor of biology at San Diego State University finally got to identify it as a new species of an entirely new genus, which he named after his home of Siskiyou County.

Brown spider species like Siskiyu armilla are very difficult to tell apart using only their physical characteristics. Many species look similar because they live in the same kind of habitat: under rocks or in other dark, humid places.

To make sure the spider Hedin found was genetically different from existing species, he and his colleagues decided to perform a DNA analysis. So he returned to the river to search for a new specimen of the rare spider (and brought his son along with him, too).

Coauthor Rodrigo Monjaraz Ruedas, an assistant curator of entomology at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles who focused on the DNA analysis, was surprised to find that there was such a huge diversity of spider species in the area.

He says that if we simply assume that spiders that look similar are the same species without actually examining their DNA, "we're going to be missing a lot of the actual diversity these spiders have."

California plays an especially important role in this diversity, according to Monjaraz Ruedas. As part of a project from the California Institute of Biodiversity, which hasn't yet been published, he has found that close to 40% of the total number of described species of spiders in the U.S. can be found in the state.

Hedin, who was once oblivious to the diversity of species his home boasts, says that this journey has brought him full circle: "Now I know that it's a very unique place." He hopes that this discovery shows the other folks living along the river how special their home is.

And "this is just the tip of the iceberg," Monjaraz Ruedas says, because they're still examining 40 to 50 other spiders that might also be new species.

A smiley snailfish from the deep sea

The bumpy snailfish, Careproctus colliculi, was officially described by MBARI researchers this year.

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MBARI

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Nearly 11,000 feet into the deep sea, scientists discovered a new species that caught the attention — and affection — of viewers from around the world. The bumpy snailfish was captured on video by researchers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute during their expedition off the shores of Central California — and with its big eyes, feathery fins and a mouth bearing the suggestion of a smile, it was an instant hit.

To help determine if the floppy pink sea creature was new or one of the 400 existing species of snailfish, they assembled a team of scientists, including Mackenzie Gerringer, an associate professor of biology at the State University of New York at Geneseo.

Even though Gerringer has "never met a snailfish [she] didn't love," she knows that the deep sea, where some of the species live, is seen as a bit of an alien environment by many people, which can come with a negative connotation.

She says the new species can help people question their assumptions about the deep sea because "you're left with these fishes that are, in my opinion, quite cute, and they really look quite fragile in an environment that we think of as being very harsh."

The research team also identified two other species of snailfish, which Gerringer says highlights just how much there still is to learn about the deep sea.

While discovering a new species can be very exciting, Gerringer believes the importance of the practice goes beyond that.

"It's critical to know who is in these ecosystems, so that we can understand how they're working, so that we can protect habitats like the deep sea that we know play hugely important roles," she says. Some of those roles, including the deep sea's ability to store enormous amounts of carbon, are especially important given the threat of climate change.

Live-birthing toads in Tanzania

Scientists have described three toad species in Tanzania, including the Luhomero Glandular Tree Toad (Nectophrynoides luhomeroensis), that give birth to live young — a rare phenomenon among frogs and toads.

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John Lyakurwa

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Many people remember learning about the typical life cycle of frogs and toads in elementary school: Eggs turn into tadpoles, which eventually become adults. But scientists have found three new species of toads in Tanzania that do something very unusual: they give birth to live young.

Another striking thing about these new species, which are all part of the genus Nectophrynoides: The journey to discover them took over 100 years. The first toad in this genus was described in the early 1900s, and because all the specimens collected looked so similar, they were all thought to belong to a singular species.

But Christoph Liedtke, an academic researcher from the Spanish National Research Council who has spent the last decade studying these toads, wondered whether there was more biodiversity in the highlands of the Eastern Arc mountains of Tanzania than previously thought. So he and his colleagues tried to see if there was more than one species in the Nectophrynoides genus.

This was no easy task because many of the specimens they needed to examine and compare to modern-day samples were collected before the time of DNA sequencing. Coauthor John Lyakurwa, an assistant lecturer at the University of Dar es Salaam, says that the process was like a "big puzzle that we had to solve."

So they teamed up with researchers from Denmark and Belgium to extract DNA from over 200 museum specimens. From there, they used next-generation sequencing to identify three new species in the genus, which was more than previously thought.

It's not clear how these toads will fare in the future. Like many species, their populations are in decline, with one species already extinct and others not being spotted for the past 20 years. For his PhD thesis, Lyakurwa has been focusing on understanding why these toad populations have been shrinking. Especially because of their unusual method of reproduction, he stresses that "if we lose them, we lose a very big evolutionary history."

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