Por Gustavo Valdés y Ivonne Valdés, CNN en Español

En un remoto rincón de Coahuila, estado en el norte de México, 47 bisontes americanos vuelven a pisar la tierra que alguna vez tuvo a su especie como protagonista esencial.

Durante más de dos siglos, su ausencia causada por la intervención humana dejó el ecosistema fragmentado. Ahora, una manada de conservación, reintroducida a la reserva El Santuario por la Fundación Pro Cuatrociénegas, reactiva una historia ancestral que se negó a desaparecer.

Para la nación N’dé —como se llaman a sí mismos, a quienes en español se les dio el nombre “apache”—, el regreso del iyané, bisonte en su lengua, es el reencuentro con un “maestro” que les enseñó el equilibrio entre la tierra, la flora y la fauna. Este pueblo indígena, al igual que los bisontes, habitaba estas tierras en Cuatrociénegas y estuvo a punto de desaparecer tras la llegada de los europeos.

Juan Luis Longoria Granados, líder de la nación y director de Cultura de la Fundación, explicó que actualmente el terreno tiene una sobrepoblación de plantas espinosas que, si bien son nativas, estorban la permeación del agua. “Necesitamos el pastizal porque los pastizales permanentes hacen sus raíces tres o cuatro metros y ayudan a que el agua se quede y ¿quién va a traer el pasto? Pues el iyané”, aseguró Longoria.

Las pisadas de los bisontes crean huecos que retienen la humedad; además, al consumir el pasto seco, se vuelven una barrera natural contra incendios forestales y aumentan la infiltración de agua de lluvia porque estimulan el crecimiento de raíces. “Se le llama un ingeniero del paisaje, un arquitecto del paisaje, porque lo va moldeando, lo va regenerando”, describió Gerardo Ruiz Smith, director de la Fundación.

Aunque los bisontes llevan apenas unos meses en esta tierra, el cambio ya es evidente pues realizan, instintivamente, un trabajo que a los humanos les exigiría maquinaria pesada.

“Ahorita el que tenemos, el macho principal, anda en los 800 kilos. Con todo su peso, su pezuña rompe”, explicó Longoria. “Y cuando se rascan tirándose al piso, lo que hacen ellos son microcuencas, es como si escarbaran; entonces, cae el agua y donde se rascó, donde creó la microcuenca, se retiene el agua y ayuda a que se infiltre, no a que corra, se pierda, se evapora y como si aquí no pasara nada”, detalló.

Empleando una estrategia que busca devolver a la vida silvestre y a los ecosistemas su papel natural, conocida en inglés como rewilding, a estos gigantes gentiles se les tiene libres, habitando más de 3.700 hectáreas de pastizales y matorrales, indiferentes a los humanos visitantes.

El proyecto es liderado por Fundación Pro Cuatrociénegas, el Fondo Mexicano para la Conservación de la Naturaleza, Cuenca Los Ojos, AC, y la Comisión Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas (Conanp). Según los responsables, además de beneficiar al ecosistema, genera un modelo de que financia la continuidad del proyecto.

Reintroducir al bisonte no es solo una apuesta ambiental; es la semilla para detonar una nueva economía de regeneración en el norte de México. Así lo explicó Ruiz, al plantear un modelo que combine ecoturismo y manejo ecológico de la población para permitir también su aprovechamiento como alimento.

Mientras esa estrategia avanza, los efectos ya comienzan a notarse. Tras un año y medio de monitoreo con cámaras trampa, empezaron a registrarse osos negros, un puma, venados y coyotes que regresan a una zona donde el ecosistema empieza a recuperar su equilibrio. “Es parte de la belleza de la ecología: cuando haces un cambio o regresas un componente clave, empiezan a darse efectos que a veces ni siquiera podemos entender”, dijo Ruiz.

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By Ashley Strickland, CNN

(CNN) — In 2022, a NASA spacecraft intentionally barreled into the tiny asteroid Dimorphos during a planetary defense test. The objective was to assess whether humanity could protect Earth from cosmic threats, such as space rocks. New observations now reveal that the planetary defense test was a success, altering the orbit of Dimorphos as well as that of a larger asteroid called Didymos.

Dimorphos and Didymos are a binary pair, meaning that the asteroids orbit one another while also circling the sun — and a measurable change for one will affect the other.

The new data show that the time required for Didymos and Dimorphos to complete one solar orbit, which takes about 770 days, permanently decreased by less than a second after the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, according to a study that published Friday in the journal Science Advances.

“The change in the binary system’s orbital speed was about 11.7 microns per second, or 1.7 inches per hour,” said lead study author Dr. Rahil Makadia, a planetary defense scientist who worked on the DART team and recently completed his PhD in aerospace engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, in a statement. “Over time, such a small change in an asteroid’s motion can make the difference between a hazardous object hitting or missing our planet.”

The DART mission marks the first time a human-crafted object has altered the path of a celestial body as it orbits the sun, according to the study authors — and if an asteroid is found to be on a collision course with Earth in the future, it may not be the last time.

The aftermath of a collision

While Didymos and Dimorphos have never posed a risk to Earth, the binary system provided NASA with the perfect scenario to evaluate how effectively a spacecraft could be used as a deflective tool.

But to gauge the success of the test, researchers needed to measure how Dimorphos and Didymos were changed by the impact.

Didymos is shaped like a spinning top and is believed to be a rubble pile asteroid — essentially a collection of dust and rocks loosely held together by gravity. Dimorphos, also a rubble pile, likely formed from debris that clumped together after being shed by Didymos.

When DART slammed into Dimorphos, a massive cloud of debris was released into space, estimated to be 35.3 million pounds (16 million kilograms). While the 560-foot-wide (170-meter-wide) space rock only lost 0.5% of its mass, the debris released was 30,000 times greater than the spacecraft’s mass, according to previous research.

Scientists determined that the force of the rubble spewing from the asteroid actually packed more of a punch than the spacecraft did when it slammed into the space rock. The momentum boost helped shrink the time it takes for the pair of asteroids to orbit the sun.

Previous research has shown that Dimorphos’ 12-hour orbit around Didymos decreased by 33 minutes.

The new study highlights that the sheer amount of material blasted away from the asteroid system also increased the speed at which both space rocks orbit the sun, reducing the total orbit time by 0.15 seconds.

In order to measure this orbital change, astronomers relied on ground-based observations of Didymos as well as data from when the asteroid passed directly in front of stars. Known as stellar occultations, such movements enable scientists to measure an asteroid’s direct position, speed and shape.

But spotting when a star blinks for a fraction of a second as an asteroid passes in front of it from our perspecti

By Aileen Graef, Alison Main, CNN

(CNN) — Rep. Kevin Kiley has announced he is leaving the Republican Party effective immediately, making him the only independent member of the US House of Representatives.

The move comes as the California lawmaker is facing a tough bid for reelection in the wake of redistricting in the state led by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom. The decision by the congressman will officially shrink Speaker Mike Johnson’s already razor-thin GOP majority. Kiley, however, will still caucus with Republicans in the chamber, meaning the switch in his party affiliation may not have a significant impact on vote math in the House.

Pressed on if he’ll continue to be a reliable vote for Johnson, who is operating with the narrowest House margin in decades, Kiley noted that he has already crossed party lines, including on votes to rein in the president’s tariff authorities.

“I approach, you know, every vote with, you know, a mind towards how it’s going to impact the folks that I represent,” he told reporters on Monday.

Kiley said that he has already changed his registration in California to “no party preference” and has asked the House clerk to change how he is identified in the official roster.

The House has been operating with 218 Republicans, including Kiley, and 214 Democrats, which means Johnson has been able to afford only afford a single defection on party-line votes.

The California lawmaker, who has broken with his party on several key issues in his two terms in Congress, said he’ll continue to caucus with House Republicans for the remainder of this term, given that committee assignments are linked to party affiliation.

“I will remain caucusing with the Republicans … for those administrative purposes, but in terms of the way that I approach my role here. I am an independent, and as I have been throughout my time here, I’ll be an independent voice fighting for our district,” he said.

He said he spoke with Johnson over the weekend about his intentions to continue to caucus with the House GOP, but that he had made his decision without input from either party’s leadership.

Asked if he plans to change the party he caucuses with next term if he’s reelected this fall, Kiley responded, “I’m going to do whatever is serves my constituents and so you know that’s a decision that I’ll make at the time.”

Kiley has introduced legislation to prohibit mid-decade redistricting nationwide.

“I have been very strongly opposed to this redistricting war – this epidemic of gerrymandering – across the country, ” he said. “I think it’s a terrible thing for democracy.”

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