Author: MIL-OSI Publisher

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Michal Kowalewski, Thompson Chair of Invertebrate Paleontology, University of Florida

During a day at the beach, it’s common to see people walking up and down the shore collecting seashells.

As a paleontologist and marine ecologist, we look at shells a bit differently than the average beachcomber. Most people dig up shells in the sand and see beautiful color patterns or unusual shapes. But we tend to focus on how old these shells are and what they tell us about the habitat they come from.

You may be surprised to learn that the translucent spiral shell you plucked from the sand belonged to a snail that lived long before Columbus sailed to the New World. And that unassuming clamshell you might nonchalantly toss away belonged to a mollusk that filtered seawater when pharaohs ruled Egypt.

In recent decades, scientists have used methods such as radiocarbon dating to assess the age of shells, along with bones and other skeletal remains, scattered around Earth’s surface.

Increasingly, paleontologists and conservation biologists like us are turning to these remains as potential treasure troves of information about what various habitats were like before humans entered the picture. The insights we glean from this approach, known as conservation paleobiology, can result in more effective conservation, restoration and management strategies aimed at the protection or recovery of many essential habitats.

This approach has proved, among other things, that cows reshaped shellfish communities on the California shelf, caribou used the same calving grounds for millennia, and Caribbean sharks were much more diverse in the past.

Over the past decade, we have applied conservation paleobiology to Florida’s Nature Coast, home to an extensive and intricate patchwork of seagrass meadows and sand. Prior to our studies, scientists’ understanding of those meadows was largely uninformed by historical data.

Why seagrass matters

It may not be obvious at first glance why we should be interested in the past history of seagrass meadows.

But these meadows are among the most important structural habitats on our planet. Myriad species, including sea turtles and manatees, forage, shelter or reproduce in those habitats, making seagrasses major hot spots of biodiversity.

Beyond these benefits, seagrasses offer extremely valuable services. They oxygenate ocean waters, draw down carbon dioxide and stabilize bottom sediments. And critically for Florida’s coastline, seagrass can dampen wave energy, which helps to protect shorelines and coastal communities from the punishing effects of tropical storms and hurricanes.

By providing all these services, seagrasses fuel a tremendous economic engine that generates global revenue in excess of US$6 trillion annually, according to an analysis published in the journal Nature Reviews Biodiversity in February 2025.

Unfortunately, seagrass meadows are in decline globally, vanishing rapidly due to broad-scale environmental changes and an onslaught of local human impacts. Efforts are underway all over the world to protect seagrasses that still exist and restore those that have been lost.

Shells in Florida’s seagrass meadows

The challenge inherent to our research is that seagrasses don’t have a hard skeleton, so they are very rarely found in the fossil record.

Fortunately, we found that the shells of mollusks that prefer to dwell in seagrass are a reliable proxy for the grass itself. In general, the quality of ecological data provided by fossil shellfish is outstanding.

When living and dead organisms are alike, we can infer that local ecosystems have not changed notably despite human activities. Conversely, when live and dead mollusk species differ, it usually is a sign that a habitat has been heavily altered by humans.

Location, location, location

In our initial study, our team examined about a 40-mile (65-kilometer) swath of nearshore habitats in an area just north of the Suwannee River.

We found that seagrass meadows often span only a few acres, forming a regional patchwork of vegetated and open-sand habitats. We also observed that distinct sets of mollusk species inhabit meadows and open sands today. This was not surprising, as many previous studies have shown that different mollusks live in seagrass and open-sand habitats.

Next, we looked at the shells of dead mollusks found in surface sediments in the area. Using radiocarbon dating, we showed that about half of these shells belonged to mollusks that lived prior to the Industrial Revolution. Many shells dated back to previous millennia.

If these small patches of seagrass meadows were waxing, waning or shifting location over the recent centuries, then we would expect each spot on the seafloor to harbor a mix of dead shells representing species from both habitats. However, we found that the species of dead mollusks in seagrass patches were remarkably similar to those that live there now. The same was the case for the mollusks from open sands.

This suggests that this mosaic of seagrass patches and open-sand bottoms has been remarkably stable for hundreds of years. We do not know why the seagrass consistently thrived for centuries in specific spots within a seemingly uniform environment. But whatever the reason, this habitat is not a mosaic of meadows in constant flux, but rather, a seascape that has remained the same for a long time.

This is an important find for conservation efforts. It means that it may be unwise to assume that we can compensate for seagrass losses by simply planting new meadows in open-sand habitats.

Broadening the scope

In our newest study, we broadened our scope to compare living mollusks and dead mollusks across multiple estuaries along the Nature Coast, a 93-mile (150-kilometer) stretch of Florida’s Gulf Coast.

As with our first study, this broader study revealed many remarkable similarities between the mollusks that live there now and the mollusks from previous centuries and millennia, documented by shells.

We found that the mollusks that are common today and those that were common in the past represent virtually the same suite of species, and their relative abundance stayed steady, too.

Even more remarkably, both the live mollusks and shells from previous centuries document the same changes in dominant mollusk species between the southern and northern regions of the study area.

Today, mollusks are not the same everywhere along the Nature Coast. This reflects the fact that coastal waters are increasingly nutritious in the north. Consequently, seagrass is taller and denser moving north, and the suites of mollusk species that live in them change as well.

The shells of dead mollusks tell the same story. This indicates that not much has changed along this stretch of the Gulf Coast since preindustrial times.

Highlighting what’s working

Knowing that seagrass meadows in this area have maintained their ecological character and integrity for centuries or longer is a powerful argument for their continued protection.

Understandably, most conservation paleobiology studies have focused on threatened species, degraded habitats or imperiled systems, such as reef sharks, oyster beds or freshwater mussels. As a result, these studies generally document population collapse, biodiversity loss, habitat shrinking and overall ecosystem decline.

But we believe it is equally important for investigators in our field to study systems that are believed to be stable and resilient. In this case, the unspoiled status of the Nature Coast seagrass meadows makes them a much-needed benchmark to assess the state of other seagrass systems that have been altered by human activities. This can offer insights into which conservation efforts are working and how best to restore and maintain similar habitats elsewhere.

Michal Kowalewski receives funding from the US National Science Foundation, University of Florida Foundation and the Felburn Foundation, Florida.

Thomas K. Frazer receives funding from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Florida Department of Transportation, and South Florida Water Management District and The Ocean Conservancy.

– ref. Seashells from centuries ago show that seagrass meadows on Florida’s Nature Coast are thriving – https://theconversation.com/seashells-from-centuries-ago-show-that-seagrass-meadows-on-floridas-nature-coast-are-thriving-264170

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Bailey A. Brown, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Spelman College

Deciding where to send your child to kindergarten has become one of the most high-stakes moments in many American families’ lives.

A few factors have made selecting an elementary school particularly challenging in recent years. For one, there are simply more schools for parents to pick from over the past few decades, ranging from traditional public and private to a growing number of magnet and charter programs. There are also new policies in some places, such as New York City, that allow parents to select not just their closest neighborhood public school but schools across and outside of the districts where they live.

As a scholar of sociology and education, I have seen how the expanding range of school options – sometimes called school choice – has spread nationwide and is particularly a prominent factor in New York City.

I spoke with a diverse range of more than 100 New York City parents across income levels and racial and ethnic backgrounds from 2014 to 2019 as part of research for my 2025 book, “Kindergarten Panic: Parental Anxiety and School Choice Inequality.”

All of these parents felt pressure trying to select a school for their elementary school-age children, and school choice options post-COVID-19 have only increased.

Some parents experience this pressure a bit more acutely than others.

Women often see their choice of school as a reflection of whether they are good moms, my interviews show. Parents of color feel pressure to find a racially inclusive school. Other parents worry about finding niche schools that offer dual-language programs, for example, or other specialties.

Navigating schools in New York City

Every year, about 65,000 New York City kindergartners are matched to more than 700 public schools.

New York City kindergartners typically attend their nearest public school in the neighborhood and get a priority place at this school. This school is often called someone’s zoned school.

Even so, a spot at your local school isn’t guaranteed – students get priority if they apply on time.

While most kindergartners still attend their zoned schools, their attendance rate is decreasing. While 72% of kindergartners in the city attended their zoned school in the 2007-08 school year, 60% did so in the 2016-17 school year.

One reason is that since 2003, New York City parents have been able to apply to out-of-zone schools when seats were available. And in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began, all public school applications moved entirely online. This shift allowed parents to easily rank 12 different school options they liked, in and outside of their zones.

Still, New York City public schools remain one of the most segregated in the country, divided by race and class.

Pressure to be a good mom

Many of the mothers I interviewed from 2015 through 2019 said that getting their child into what they considered a “good” school reflected good mothering.

Mothers took the primary responsibility for their school search, whether they had partners or not, and regardless of their social class, as well as racial and ethnic background.

In 2017, I spoke with Janet, a white, married mother who at the time was 41 years old and had an infant and a 3-year-old. Janet worked as a web designer and lived in Queens. She explained that she started a group in 2016 to connect with other mothers, in part to discuss schools.

Though Janet’s children were a few years away from kindergarten, she believed that she had started her research for public schools too late. She spent multiple hours each week looking up information during her limited spare time. She learned that other moms were talking to other parents, researching test results, analyzing school reviews and visiting schools in person.

Janet said she wished she had started looking for schools when her son was was 1 or 2 years old, like other mothers she knew. She expressed fear that she was failing as a mother. Eventually, Janet enrolled her son in a nonzoned public school in another Queens neighborhood.

Pressure to find an inclusive school

Regardless of their incomes, Black, Latino and immigrant families I interviewed also felt pressure to evaluate whether the public schools they considered were racially and ethnically inclusive.

Parents worried that racially insensitive policies related to bullying, curriculum and discipline would negatively affect their children.

In 2015, I spoke with Fumi, a Black, immigrant mother of two young children. At the time, Fumi was 37 years old and living in Washington Heights in north Manhattan. She described her uncertain search for a public school.

Fumi thought that New York City’s gifted and talented programs at public schools might be a better option academically than other public schools that don’t offer an advanced track for some students. But the gifted and talented programs often lacked racial diversity, and Fumi did not want her son to be the only Black student in his class.

Still, Fumi had her son tested for the 2015 gifted and talented exam and enrolled him in one of these programs for kindergarten.

Once Fumi’s son began attending the gifted and talented school, Fumi worried that the constant bullying he experienced was racially motivated.

Though Fumi remained uneasy about the bullying and lack of diversity, she decided to keep him at the school because of the school’s strong academic quality.

Pressure to find a niche school

Many of the parents I interviewed who earned more than US$50,000 a year wanted to find specialty schools that offered advanced courses, dual-language programs and progressive-oriented curriculum.

Parents like Renata, a 44-year-old Asian mother of four, and Stella, a 39-year-old Black mother of one, sent their kids to out-of-neighborhood public schools.

In 2016, Renata described visiting multiple schools and researching options so she could potentially enroll her four children in different schools that met each of their particular needs.

Stella, meanwhile, searched for schools that would de-emphasize testing, nurture her son’s creativity and provide flexible learning options.

In contrast, the working-class parents I interviewed who made less than $50,000 annually often sought schools that mirrored their own school experiences.

Few working-class parents I spoke with selected out-of-neighborhood and high academically performing schools.

New York City data points to similar results – low-income families are less likely than people earning more than them to attend schools outside of their neighborhoods.

For instance, Black working-class parents like 47-year-old Risha, a mother of four, and 53-year-old Jeffery, a father of three, who attended New York City neighborhood public schools themselves as children told me in 2016 that they decided to send their children to local public schools.

Based on state performance indicators, students at these particular schools performed lower on standard assessments than schools on average.

Cracks in the system

The parents I spoke with all live in New York City, which has a uniquely complicated education system. Yet the pressures they face are reflective of the evolving public school choice landscape for parents across the country.

Parents nationwide are searching for schools with vastly different resources and concerns about their children’s future well-being and success.

When parents panic about kindergarten, they reveal cracks in the foundation of American schooling. In my view, parental anxiety about kindergarten is a response to an unequal, high-stakes education system.

Bailey A. Brown does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Anxiety over school admissions isn’t limited to college – parents of young children are also feeling pressure, some more acutely than others – https://theconversation.com/anxiety-over-school-admissions-isnt-limited-to-college-parents-of-young-children-are-also-feeling-pressure-some-more-acutely-than-others-265537

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Katie Davis, Professor Information School and Adjunct Associate Professor, College of Education, University of Washington

Today’s teachers find themselves thrust into a difficult position with generative AI. New tools are coming online at a blistering pace and being adopted just as quickly, whether they’re personalized tutors and study buddies for students or lesson plan generators and assignment graders for teachers. Schools are traditionally slow to adapt to change, which makes such rapid-fire developments especially destabilizing.

The uncertainties accompanying the artificial intelligence onslaught come amid existing challenges the teaching profession has faced for years. Teachers have been working with increasingly scarce resources – and even scarcer time – while facing mounting expectations not only for their students’ academic performance, but also their social-emotional development. Many teachers are burned out, and they’re leaving the profession in record numbers.

All of this matters because teacher quality is the single most important factor in school influencing student achievement. And the impact of teachers is greatest for students who are most disadvantaged. How teachers end up using, or not using, AI to support their teaching – and their students’ learning – may be the most crucial determinant of whether AI’s use in schools narrows or widens existing equity gaps.

We have been conducting research on how public school teachers feel about generative AI technologies.

The initial results, which are currently under review, reveal deep ambivalence about AI’s growing role in K-12 education. Our work also shows how inadequate training and unclear communications could worsen existing inequalities among schools.

A ‘thought partner’ for busy teachers

As part of a larger project examining AI integration in education, we interviewed 22 teachers in a large public school district in the United States that has been an early and enthusiastic adopter of AI. The district serves a multilingual and socioeconomically diverse student population, with over 160 languages spoken and approximately three-quarters of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch.

The teachers who participated in our study spanned elementary, middle school and high school grade levels, and represented a variety of subject areas, including science, technology, engineering and mathematics, social studies, special education, and culturally and linguistically diverse education. We asked these teachers to describe how they first encountered generative AI tools, how they currently use them, and the broader shifts they have observed in their schools. Teachers also reflected on both the opportunities and challenges of using AI tools in their classrooms.

Mirroring a recent survey finding that AI has helped teachers save up to six hours per week of work, the teachers in our study pointed to AI’s ability to create more space in the day for themselves and their students. Turning to AI for help writing lesson plans and assessments not only saves time, but it also gives teachers a tool for brainstorming ideas, helping them feel less isolated in their work. One high school teacher with over 11 years’ experience reflected:

“The most significant benefit that AI has brought to my life as a teacher is having work-life balance. It has decreased my stress 80-fold because I am able to have a thought partner. Teachers are really isolated, even though we work with people constantly … When I’m exhausted, it gives me support and help with ideas.”

Why lack of training matters

However, not all teachers felt well-equipped to benefit from AI. Much of what they told us boiled down to a lack of resources and other professional support. An elementary school classroom teacher explained:

“It’s just a lack of time. We don’t really get much planning time, and it would be a new tool to learn, so we would have to take the time personally to learn how to use it and where to find everything.”

Many teachers underscored the need for – and current lack of – professional development offerings to help them understand and integrate AI into their teaching.

Research on previous waves of technological innovations shows that under-resourced schools serving disadvantaged students are typically the least well-equipped to provide teachers with the professional support they need to make the most of new technologies.

Because well-resourced schools are far more likely to offer such support, the introduction of new technologies in schools tends to reinforce existing inequities in the education system.

When it comes to AI, well-resourced schools are best positioned to give teachers time, support and encouragement to “tinker” with AI and discover how and whether it can support their teaching and learning goals.

‘You need a relationship’ to learn

Our research also uncovered the importance of preserving the relational nature of teaching and learning, even – or perhaps especially – in the age of AI. As one middle school social studies teacher observed:

“A machine can give you information, but most students we know are not able to get information from something that’s just printed out for them and put it into their heads. You need a relationship. Some kids can do online school or read a book and teach themselves, but that’s like 2%. Most kids need a social environment to do it.”

Here again, prior research shows us that teachers in well-resourced schools are better equipped to introduce new technologies in ways that augment rather than undermine the relational dimensions of teaching and learning. And again, teachers are crucial in determining how and whether AI, like all new technologies, is used to support their teaching and student learning.

That’s why we believe the practices established during this current period of rapid AI development and adoption will profoundly influence whether educational inequities are dismantled or deepened.

Grounded in the classroom

Going forward, we see the need for research to examine how generative AI is changing teachers’ practice and relationship to their work. Their input can inform practices that empower teachers as professionals and advance student learning.

This approach requires adequate institutional support at the school and district levels. It also means listening to the real experiences of teachers and students instead of responding to the promised benefits touted by education technologies companies.

Katie Davis has received funding from the Spencer Foundation.

Aayushi Dangol does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. AI could worsen inequalities in schools – teachers are key to whether it will – https://theconversation.com/ai-could-worsen-inequalities-in-schools-teachers-are-key-to-whether-it-will-266140

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By C. Michael White, Distinguished Professor of Pharmacy Practice, University of Connecticut

A generic blood pressure drug called prazosin, made by Teva Pharmaceuticals, is being recalled by the Food and Drug Administration because it contains elevated levels of cancer-causing chemicals called nitrosamines.

The recall, which Teva announced on Oct. 7, 2025, affects more than 580,000 prazosin capsules. Prazosin is prescribed to around 510,000 patients yearly and is used to treat post-traumatic stress disorder as well as high blood pressure.

I am a pharmacologist and pharmacist who has studied nitrosamine contamination of popular blood pressure, diabetes and heartburn drugs, as well as other issues in generic drug manufacturing.

Prazosin has been available as a generic medication for more than 25 years and, like many generics that have been around that long, is now produced by multiple manufacturers. This ratchets up competition on price, which may explain why older generics are more prone to manufacturing issues that may harm patient health.

What are nitrosamines and where do they come from?

Nitrosamines are by-products of many common chemical reactions. They form when a type of chemical building block called a nitrite group interacts with another type called an amine group.

Industrial processes like rocket fuel, rubber and sealant manufacturing can produce high concentrations of nitrosamines during chemical reactions. Bacon, pepperoni and salami are high in nitrite preservatives that interact with the amine groups in the meats to form small amounts of nitrosamines. The chemical reaction that happens when chlorinated water interacts with naturally occurring chemicals that contain nitrogen and oxygen can also form small amounts of nitrosamines.

Occasional and small exposures to nitrosamines are not thought to be dangerous. But some studies have found that certain nitrosamines are carcinogenic when ingested in high amounts for long periods of time

European regulators first discovered in 2018 that prescription drugs could also be contaminated when testing revealed that an active ingredient in a blood pressure drug called valsartan contained a nitrosamine chemical. Since the Chinese company that made the drug’s active ingredient sold it to multiple manufacturers of valsartan tablets, many companies, including Teva Pharmaceuticals, recalled the drug at the time.

The FDA then launched a major effort to identify nitrosamines in prescription and over-the-counter drugs and to define unsafe levels for tablets and capsules. It published an initial industry guidance in 2021 and an updated version in 2024.

Based on the agency’s new testing requirements, drugmakers have identified nitrosamine contamination in widely used blood pressure, diabetes, heartburn, antibiotic and smoking cessation drugs. Most of the recalled drugs were contaminated during the chemical processing at a manufacturing plant.

What should people who take prazosin do?

Teva Pharmaceuticals’ prazosin is just one of many generic versions – but it’s the only one that is contaminated. You can determine whether your medication came from Teva by looking at your prescription label. Search for the abbreviations MFG or MFR, which stand for “manufacturing” or “manufacturer.” If it says “MFG Teva” or “MFR Teva,” that means Teva Pharmaceuticals supplied the medication.

The first four numbers of a National Drug Code, abbreviated as NDC on the prescription label, also reveal the manufacturer or distributor. Teva products have the number 0093.

If Teva Pharmaceuticals is the distributor, a pharmacist can cross-reference your prescription number to obtain the lot number and compare it with the posted lot numbers on the FDA website for recalled prazosin. If your product has been recalled, your pharmacy may have other generic versions of prazosin in stock that are not part of this recall.

Based on its risk assessment for these tablets, the FDA gave the recall a Class II status, which means that the medication could cause “temporary or medically reversible adverse health consequences.” If no other prazosin version exists at your pharmacy, do not stop taking your drug without talking with your physician first. The risk of temporarily taking tablets with an elevated amount of nitrosamines may be less than the risk of suddenly stopping this medication.

Your physician may also be able to prescribe an alternative treatment such as clonidine or trazodone.

Do older generics made overseas pose higher risks?

Until recently, it wasn’t possible to compare whether the safety records of generic drugs manufactured overseas differed from the same generics made in the U.S., because the FDA does not disclose which manufacturing plants companies use to create their tablets and capsules. But in a 2025 study, researchers managed to triangulate that information from an FDA dataset.

They found that the risk of serious adverse events was 54.3% higher with generics made in India as compared with those made in the United States. And the longer a drug has been available in generic form, the greater the difference in safety risk between its U.S.- and India-made forms. As my colleague and I wrote in a commentary accompanying the study, the findings suggest that when the market for generic drugs is crowded by multiple manufacturers, lower-priced options naturally sell better. As a result, manufacturers in developing countries are more apt to produce poorer quality products that are less expensive to produce.

Teva Pharmaceuticals has manufacturing plants around the world, including in India. The company has not disclosed where its recalled prazosin capsules and their active and inactive ingredients were manufactured.

The FDA publishes ratings on generic drug quality and claims that generics with an “A” rating meet the same manufacturing quality standards and achieve the same blood concentrations as brand-name drugs. But pharmacies can’t tell from those ratings if a drug comes from manufacturing plants that are at higher risk for quality issues.

Patients are at the mercy of choices pharmacies make in the generic versions of drugs they procure for their stores. In my view, if pharmacies could access reliable information about quality, they might be able to make choices that are safer for American consumers.

C. Michael White does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. FDA recall of blood pressure pills due to cancer-causing contaminant may point to higher safety risks in older generic drugs – https://theconversation.com/fda-recall-of-blood-pressure-pills-due-to-cancer-causing-contaminant-may-point-to-higher-safety-risks-in-older-generic-drugs-268968