Several immigrants displaced by the California wildfires are choosing not to submit applications seeking federal aid out of fear that the information they provide could make them easy deportation targets, per the San Francisco Chronicle.
What's next: Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA) plans to send a letter to FEMA administrator Brock Long today that seeks clarification on the section of FEMA applications that states the information provided could be shared within the Department of Homeland Security, including the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Scientists have used fossils to discern how some of Earth's earliest trees called cladoxylopsids, which helped to jumpstart the planet's earliest forests about 374 million years ago, actually managed to grow, per the Los Angeles Times. Cladoxylopsids have no living modern ancestors and are believed to be most closely related to ferns.
Why it matters: The discovery helps us to better understand how some of the key inhabitants of our planet's first forests managed to survive. In turn, knowing more about cladoxylopsids could help shed light on how early plants helped to make Earth's climate habitable for the first animals by reducing the planet's carbon dioxide levels.
