Category: Academic Analysis

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Chunrong Jia, Professor of Environmental Health, University of Memphis

Even before an Elon Musk-owned artificial intelligence company opened a data center in southwest Memphis, Tennessee, air pollution was so bad that residents of a nearby neighborhood were far more likely to get cancer from industrial air pollution than average Americans. Our analysis found that air pollution got only slightly worse as a result of the data center.

The xAI Supercluster began operations on Sept. 1, 2024, powered by natural gas turbines that began operating before the company applied for the required air pollution permits. As environmental health researchers at the University of Memphis, we were immediately concerned about the potential for the turbines to pollute the air even more and decided to investigate.

Combustion from natural gas turbines releases a complex mixture of pollutants, including fine and coarse particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and hazardous chemicals such as benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes. Each of these compounds has been linked to serious health consequences, such as respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses, neurological effects, cancers and elevated mortality rates.

Southwest Memphis is home to predominantly Black people with low incomes. Local residents were concerned that the new data center would worsen long-standing problems of industrial pollution in their community, which includes levels of fine particulate matter, sometimes known as PM2.5, that have long been at or near the level the U.S. government says is the maximum allowable concentration.

There were, and still are, no permanent air-quality monitors operating in the neighborhoods of southwest Memphis that are closest to the xAI data center. So we developed an approach that combined several types of measurements and calculations to determine what air pollution was like in the area before the data center opened, and what, if anything, changed after it was up and running.

Examining multiple pictures

We focused on two neighborhoods: the Boxtown Subdivision, located 2½ miles (4 km) east of xAI, which is the community closest to the facility, and the Riverview Subdivision, 6.8 miles (11 km) northeast, a known air pollution hot spot near multiple industrial and traffic emissions sources.

To create a picture of local air quality, we looked at three elements. Using company-provided technical details about the turbines and information about how many were running at any one time, we examined how emissions move through the air in the local area. We looked at satellite data showing fine-particle pollution both before and after the turbines began operating. And we looked at data on current air pollution levels in Boxtown using a third-party company’s monitors on the ground.

The company reported to county health officials that the turbines would emit different amounts of 11 different pollutants, including 30 tons of sulfur dioxide and 94 tons per year of carbon monoxide. Using a computer model recommended by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, we calculated how that pollution would spread across the neighborhoods.

Our calculations found that the xAI turbines would contribute minimally to ambient air pollution in both neighborhoods. We also calculated that concentrations of sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide would remain well below national standards.

Fine particulate matter

The modeling estimated that fine particulate matter would increase about 1% – though that increase would come on top of a level of fine particulate matter pollution that was already higher than the national limit.

We released our initial findings, based on the computer modeling of company-reported emissions, in March 2025. Since then, our findings have been confirmed by additional research involving direct measurements of air quality in the area.

To examine whether the xAI turbines had, in fact, increased fine particulate matter concentrations, we compared satellite measurements from before and after Sept. 1, 2024. The comparison showed no significant changes.

In addition, an independent accredited lab conducted a two-day monitoring campaign in June 2025. Its findings confirmed that our model’s predictions for fine particulate matter, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and formaldehyde aligned closely with observed concentrations.

Limitations remained, however: The lab’s monitoring techniques were not sensitive enough to detect trace levels of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylenes or sulfur dioxide. That makes it impossible to directly compare our model and real-world data for those pollutants.

A long-standing concern

Our analysis offers evidence that at least as of when we did our work, xAI’s natural gas turbines had not measurably degraded air quality in the surrounding neighborhoods. That said, any changes to the equipment used to generate power would likely change the data center’s emissions. And all our analyses assumed regular, normal turbine operations: Malfunctions or accidents can lead to emissions of excessive quantities of air pollutants until they are fixed or resolved.

Our findings confirmed that fine particulate matter has long been, and remains, a concern in the area. If we had access to sustained, community-based monitoring data, we could more clearly examine pollution levels and their public health effects in the community. We believe this type of monitoring by regulatory agencies and public health groups would be beneficial to the people of southwest Memphis, whether or not there is an xAI data center operating there.

Through our work, we aim to not only clarify the air pollution effects of a specific facility, but also highlight the importance of sustained scientific engagement in communities disproportionately affected by industrial emissions. By understanding and documenting the environmental health challenges faced by the residents of southwest Memphis, we hope to contribute to their ultimate mitigation.

Chunrong Jia received funding from the Environmental Protection Agency, National Institutes of Health, and JPB Foundation.

Abu Mohammed Naser Titu receives funding from the National Institute of Health.

Namuun Batbaatar 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. Air quality analysis reveals minimal changes after xAI data center opens in pollution-burdened Memphis neighborhood – https://theconversation.com/air-quality-analysis-reveals-minimal-changes-after-xai-data-center-opens-in-pollution-burdened-memphis-neighborhood-265152

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Tammi Walker, Associate Professor of Law and Psychology, University of Arizona

Most Americans assume that schools are legally required to protect students from sexual harassment and assault under Title IX – the federal law enacted in 1972 that bans sexual discrimination in education.

I am a law professor and researcher who has spent more than a decade examining the disconnect between what Title IX promises on paper and what students expect it to deliver in practice. What’s happening now isn’t just another policy shift – it’s a dismantling of protections many assume still exist.

Title IX’s 37 words

The main text of Title IX is just 37 words and reads: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

This legal text doesn’t define sex or discrimination, or explain what kinds of behavior the act covers. For decades, the Department of Education filled in those gaps by writing detailed rules, providing guidance to schools and investigating when schools failed to comply.

In 2020, the Trump administration adopted much narrower rules. Colleges and universities have to act only when top officials – such as deans or Title IX coordinators – receive a report, and even then, their responses only have to avoid being “clearly unreasonable.”

In 2024, the Biden administration tried to widen those protections by requiring schools to step in whenever employees other than doctors and therapists learned of possible harassment, and to do so promptly and effectively. But in January 2025, a federal court blocked those rules before they could take effect.

Today those less protective 2020 rules remain in place, and the agency responsible for enforcing them is being dismantled.

In March 2025, President Donald Trump ordered the Department of Education to close. Legally, an executive order cannot abolish the department outright. That would require an act of Congress.

But the order has still reshaped the agency in practice by cutting staff and shuttering offices. The Office for Civil Rights, which handles Title IX and other discrimination complaints in schools, was especially hard hit. About 260 employees were laid off, and seven of its 12 regional offices were closed, even though more than 6,000 investigations were unresolved as of January.

A federal judge has since ordered those employees to be reinstated, with staff scheduled to return in phases through November 2025. It is not clear how these and other changes are going to affect how the office functions.

A system under strain

Beyond the headlines about layoffs, the deeper question is what happens when students turn to Title IX for protection.

The Heritage Foundation’s long-term vision provides a clue: Project 2025 proposes to move the Office of Civil Rights into the Department of Justice and limit its role to litigation of intentional discrimination cases.

While Trump distanced himself from Project 2025 on the campaign trail, his Cabinet includes authors of this policy blueprint. And in less than a year, the administration has moved forward with nearly half of Project 2025’s goals, including over 40% of the policies aimed at the Department of Education.

If the Department of Education can no longer resolve discrimination complaints within the agency, students will be left to pursue their claims directly in federal court. But the numbers show why that path cannot absorb the caseload.

In 2024, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights received 22,687 discrimination complaints, including nearly 12,000 related to Title IX. By comparison, federal courts in 2024 nationwide heard fewer than 1,000 education-related civil rights cases.

Federal courts are understaffed, and even if federal judges had the capacity to absorb 20 times more cases, most students simply cannot afford that path. Lawsuits demand lawyers, months of preparation and often years before any resolution.

The Office for Civil Rights offers something fundamentally different from going to court. It provides low-cost investigations, mediation that could resolve cases in weeks instead of years. Its settlements address not just individual harm but institutional failures.

Some cases drag on, but students do not need lawyers, and the OCR often secures broader reforms through negotiated settlements – from campuswide training programs to complete overhauls of complaint procedures.

The office also published policy guidance and answered more than 11,000 public inquiries in 2024, providing clarity for schools and students alike. These tools didn’t eliminate the backlog, but they showed that the OCR could deliver meaningful results without the cost and delay of court.

But this system is exactly what’s at risk if Project 2025’s vision becomes reality. If the OCR loses its authority to resolve complaints, students will lose the only clear path to quick, affordable results and reliable information.

What this means for students

For schools and their students, that shift away from federal agencies would be dramatic. It would mean no more negotiated agreements, no more policy guidance, and no administrative investigations into systemic issues. Courts would decide what Title IX means, forcing students to file expensive lawsuits that drag on for years and require much stronger evidence of discrimination than the Office of Civil Rights ever demanded.

The administration has offered an alternative: “return our students to the states,” as President Donald Trump put it on March 20, 2025, when he signed the executive order outlining his plan to close the Department of Education.

But states cannot fill the enforcement gap left by eliminating the Office for Civil Rights’ role in resolving complaints and guiding schools. The OCR had the infrastructure to investigate cases, mediate disputes and issue clear policy guidance – capacities that most states simply do not have.

State laws addressing sexual discrimination in education vary dramatically – some provide strong protections, while others offer only limited coverage or lack enforcement mechanisms altogether. Kansas, for example, has antidiscrimination laws that do not explicitly cover education, leaving it unclear whether any state agency can investigate student complaints.

And in half the country, LGBTQ+ students still lack explicit statutory protection. In practice, that means a student’s rights depend less on Title IX itself than on where they happen to go to school.

The problems run deeper than just inadequate alternatives. Even under the current system, protections are already narrow: Schools must act only if complaints reach officials with the power to make institutional changes. A report to a trusted coach, professor or resident assistant may lead nowhere. When schools do respond, the standard is remarkably low – acknowledging a complaint or opening a limited investigation often satisfies legal requirements.

These narrow protections are becoming even less reliable as transparency erodes. The Department of Education stopped updating its public list of investigations in January 2025 and only resumed in June, after months of silence. As of August 2025, just 10 resolutions involving sexual discrimination at colleges had been posted – and half predated Trump’s second inauguration. Without accurate information, students have little insight into whether schools are being held accountable at all.

The narrowing scope of federal protection

Title IX was written to ensure equal educational opportunity regardless of sex. But weak regulations, enforcement delays and shrinking federal oversight are steadily eroding that promise.

For students, the reality is stark: telling the wrong person about a complaint may trigger no response; minimal efforts by schools often satisfy legal requirements; and the federal agency once charged with oversight is being sidelined. If a litigation-only model takes hold, most students will have no realistic path to relief unless they can hire a lawyer and withstand years of court proceedings.

As I further explain in a new law review article – No Department, No Enforcement – Title IX remains law, but without meaningful enforcement it risks becoming a guarantee in name only. For students, that means rights promised but rarely delivered.

Tammi Walker previously received funding from the National Science Foundation.

– ref. Title IX’s effectiveness in addressing campus sexual assault is at risk − a law professor explains why – https://theconversation.com/title-ixs-effectiveness-in-addressing-campus-sexual-assault-is-at-risk-a-law-professor-explains-why-258125

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Masha Remskar, Psychologist and Postdoctoral Researcher in Behavioral Science, Arizona State University

Most people know roughly what kind of lifestyle they should be living to stay healthy.

Think regular exercise, a balanced diet and sufficient sleep. Yet, despite all the hacks, trackers and motivational quotes, many of us still struggle to stick with our health goals.

Meanwhile, people worldwide are experiencing more lifestyle-associated chronic disease than ever before.

But what if the missing piece in your health journey wasn’t more discipline – but more stillness?

Research shows that mindfulness meditation can help facilitate this pursuit of health goals through stillness, and that getting started is easier than you might think – no Buddhist monk robes or silent retreats required.

Given how ubiquitous and accessible mindfulness resources are these days, I have been surprised to see mindfulness discussed and studied only as a mental health tool, stopping short of exploring its usefulness for a whole range of lifestyle choices.

I am a psychologist and behavioral scientist researching ways to help people live healthier lives, especially by moving more and regulating stress more efficiently.

My team’s work and that of other researchers suggests that mindfulness could play a pivotal role in paving the way for a healthier society, one mindful breath at a time.

Mindfulness unpacked

Mindfulness has become a buzzword of late, with initiatives now present in schools, boardrooms and even among first responders. But what is it, really?

Mindfulness refers to the practice or instance of paying careful attention to one’s present-moment experience – such as their thoughts, breath, bodily sensations and the environment – and doing so nonjudgmentally. Its origins are in Buddhist traditions, where it plays a crucial role in connecting communities and promoting selflessness.

Over the past 50 years, however, mindfulness-based practice has been Westernized into structured therapeutic programs and stress-management tools, which have been widely studied for their benefits to mental and physical health.

Research has shown that mindfulness offers wide-ranging benefits to the mind, the body and productivity.

Mindfulness-based programs, both in person and digitally delivered, can effectively treat depression and anxiety, protect from burnout, improve sleep and reduce pain.

The impacts extend beyond subjective experience too. Studies find that experienced meditators – that is, people who have been meditating for at least one year – have lower markers of inflammation, which means that their bodies are better able to fight off infections and regulate stress. They also showed improved cognitive abilities and even altered brain structure.

But I find the potential for mindfulness to support a healthy lifestyle most exciting of all.

How can mindfulness help you build healthy habits?

My team’s research suggests that mindfulness equips people with the psychological skills required to successfully change behavior. Knowing what to do to achieve healthy habits is rarely what stands in people’s way. But knowing how to stay motivated and keep showing up in the face of everyday obstacles such as lack of time, illness or competing priorities is the most common reason people fall off the wagon – and therefore need the most support. This is where mindfulness comes in.

Multiple studies have found that people who meditate regularly for at least two months become more inherently motivated to look after their health, which is a hallmark of those who adhere to a balanced diet and exercise regularly.

A 2024 study with over 1,200 participants that I led found more positive attitudes toward healthy habits and stronger intentions to put them into practice in meditators who practiced mindfulness for 10 minutes daily alongside a mobile app, compared with nonmeditators. This may happen because mindfulness encourages self-reflection and helps people feel more in tune with their bodies, making it easier to remember why being healthier is important to us.

Another key way mindfulness helps keep momentum with healthy habits is by restructuring one’s response to pain, discomfort and failure. This is not to say that meditators feel no pain, nor that pain during exercise is encouraged – it is not!

Mild discomfort, however, is a very common experience of novice exercisers. For example, you may feel out of breath or muscle fatigue when initially taking up a new activity, which is when people are most likely to give up. Mindfulness teaches you to notice these sensations but see them as transient and with minimal judgment, making them less disruptive to habit-building.

Putting mindfulness into practice

A classic mindfulness exercise includes observing the breath and counting inhales up to 10 at a time. This is surprisingly difficult to do without getting distracted, and a core part of the exercise is noticing the distraction and returning to the counting. In other words, mindfulness involves the practice of failure in small, inconsequential ways, making real-world perceived failure – such as a missed exercise session or a one-off indulgent meal – feel more manageable. This strengthens your ability to stay consistent in pursuit of health goals.

Finally, paying mindful attention to our bodies and the environment makes us more observant, resulting in a more varied and enjoyable exercising or eating experience. Participants in another study we conducted reported noticing the seasons changing, a greater connection to their surroundings and being better able to detect their own progress when exercising mindfully. This made them more likely to keep going in their habits.

Luckily, there are plenty of tools available to get started with mindfulness practice these days, many of them free. Mobile applications, such as Headspace or Calm, are popular and effective starting points, providing audio-guided sessions to follow along. Some are as short as five minutes. Research suggests that doing a mindfulness session first thing in the morning is the easiest to maintain, and after a month or so you may start to see the skills from your meditative practice reverberating beyond the sessions themselves.

Based on our research on mindfulness and exercise, I collaborated with the nonprofit Medito Foundation to create the first mindfulness program dedicated to moving more. When we tested the program in a research study, participants who meditated alongside these sessions for one month reported doing much more exercise than before the study and having stronger intentions to keep moving compared with participants who did not meditate. Increasingly, the mobile applications mentioned above are offering mindful movement meditations too.

If the idea of a seated practice does not sound appealing, you can instead choose an activity to dedicate your full attention to. This can be your next walk outdoors, where you notice as much about your experience and surroundings as possible. Feeling your feet on the ground and the sensations on your skin are a great place to start.

For people with even less time available, short bursts of mindfulness can be incorporated into even the busiest of routines. Try taking a few mindful, nondistracted breaths while your coffee is brewing, during a restroom break or while riding the elevator. It may just be the grounding moment you need to feel and perform better for the rest of the day.

Masha Remskar previously received funding from UK Research & Innovation’s Economic and Social Research Council, and served as Head of Science at the Medito Foundation. The Medito Foundation is a non-profit that does not benefit financially from users downloading and using its mobile app.

– ref. Mindfulness won’t burn calories, but it might help you stick with your health goals – https://theconversation.com/mindfulness-wont-burn-calories-but-it-might-help-you-stick-with-your-health-goals-260482

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Lucy Xiaolu Wang, Assistant Professor, Department of Resource Economics, UMass Amherst

Pharmaceutical innovation saves lives. But not every “new” drug is truly new.

Patents are designed to reward breakthrough inventions by granting the inventors temporary monopoly rights to recoup the costs of research and development and to encourage future innovation. But firms may also exploit the system in ways that make drugs more expensive and less accessible to patients. A 2023 study found that 78% of drugs associated with new patents weren’t actually new drugs but minor modifications.

After obtaining a drug’s primary patent, pharmaceutical companies often file additional ones to extend their monopoly rights. This practice – called evergreening – may cover new dosages, delivery methods, drug combinations and conditions. Though some of these secondary patents improve the effectiveness or convenience of treatment, many have little effect on health outcomes. More often, these subsequent changes are mainly used to strategically prolong market exclusivity, delay competition from generics and keep drug prices high.

Such practices raise concerns about drug access and affordability, especially when companies use minor tweaks to block cheaper alternatives, with little benefit to patients. Yet distinguishing between truly innovative improvements and low-value extensions has been challenging for regulators and courts.

I am an economist studying innovation and digitization in health care markets. My colleague Dennis Byrski and I have focused on how regulatory transparency plays a role in curbing weak patents. Our recently published research found that when clinical trial data become public, this disclosure makes it harder for firms to obtain patents for incremental changes that add little therapeutic benefit for patients.

What makes a drug patentable?

According to World Intellectual Property Organization, a patentable invention needs to be novel and non-obvious.

Novelty means the invention hasn’t been previously documented in publicly available information – such as patents, publications or products – in fields related to an invention before the filing date. This information is often referred to as prior art.

Non-obviousness means the invention wouldn’t be obvious – an easy tweak or routine step in the process – to a skilled person in the field based on existing knowledge. For example, if prior art reveals that a new combination therapy improves treatment outcomes, officials may deem subsequent patents using the same drug cocktail as obvious and refuse to grant or enforce the patent.

For drugs, these two concepts are deeply intertwined with safety and efficacy. If a company reformulates a drug – say, by changing an inactive ingredient or tweaking the dose – it is not always easy to determine whether such changes improve patient health without further testing in the clinic.

According to guidelines from the European Patent Office, clinical trial results can be critical to prior art, particularly when revealing unexpected or previously undisclosed therapeutic benefits. Patent advisers have also noted that evidence from trials can play a decisive role in assessing novelty and non-obviousness.

However, comprehensive clinical trial results are often either unavailable or not disclosed until the start of the marketing authorization process, when a company submits a comprehensive application to regulators to formally approve a drug for sale.

In fact, while European drug regulators strongly encourage companies to disclose clinical trial data early in the process, firms can defer the release of study data for up to seven years after trial completion or until the drug goes on the market – whichever occurs first. The latter is more binding for firms wishing to delay the release of critical data points to avoid competition.

Marketing authorization changes the game

Given the lengthy drug development process, most firms file the primary patent of a drug early on, often before starting clinical trials and obtaining data on treatment safety and efficacy.

This information is required when applying for marketing authorization and is usually disclosed through detailed Phase 3 clinical trial results. That data can then become prior art to evaluate subsequent patent applications, making it harder to obtain low-value patents. But does marketing authorization actually affect whether drug companies pursue follow-on patents?

To investigate how patenting behaviors change after marketing authorization, we specifically used data from the German Patent and Trade Mark Office and the European Patent Office’s Worldwide Patent Statistical Database. Legal and innovation scholars worldwide often view the European agency as the gold standard for patent quality, and scholars use European drug patents as high-quality benchmarks when evaluating U.S. drug patents.

Furthermore, the U.S. has seen four major Supreme Court cases involving patent eligibility between 2010 and 2014, including two focused on the pharmaceutical sector. The European setting allowed us to study changes in patenting behavior in the absence of direct legal changes to the patent system.

Identifying primary patents isn’t easy. Because they often aren’t labeled in drug patent databases, researchers often need to manually review lengthy patent texts for U.S. drugs. We overcome this difficulty by tracking supplementary protection certificates granted by the European patent term extension system. This system requires companies to specify which main drug patent to extend after marketing authorization and before patent expiration.

We found that disclosing prior art – such as existing knowledge from clinical trial data – during marketing authorization makes it harder to obtain low-value, follow-on patents afterward. This was reflected by a sharp drop in self-citations from subsequent patents for that drug and other patents with similar disease targets.

In contrast, subsequent self-citations from substantive product patents – such as those for new drug derivatives – and patents targeting different disease areas continue at roughly the same pace as before marketing authorization.

These findings suggest that transparency in the authorization process effectively deters companies from obtaining low-value patent extensions without discouraging further research and development.

Importantly, we saw similar patenting adjustments among the patent owner’s competitors, collaborators and generic manufacturers. This pattern suggests that changes in patenting behaviors may not be driven by reduced profit-seeking after drug approval, as other firms would have a higher motivation to obtain related weak patents after seeing a drug’s market potential. Once clinical trial data is public, this seems to have a systemwide effect on reducing low-value, follow-on patents, likely driven by a higher bar for novelty.

Interestingly, we didn’t see similar declines in patent filings after earlier milestones in the drug development process, such as the end of Phase 2 clinical trials. These milestones provide information on drug quality but involve less data disclosure, so they’re less likely to provide usable prior art for patent examiners.

In other words, it’s the full clinical transparency at marketing authorization that makes a big difference.

What this means for patients and policymakers

Drug patent quality matters. Weak patents can drive up drug costs and delay access by blocking competition from generics long after the market has rewarded a company for its main innovation. The results can be costly for patients, insurers and public health systems, and it risks steering R&D toward marginal tweaks instead of breakthrough therapies.

Our findings suggest that integrating regulatory information, including clinical trial data, into patent assessments can indirectly improve patent quality. Doing so can reduce the number of weak drug patents filed more for strategic considerations rather than improving patient health.

Better aligning patents with genuine innovation is not just a legal concern but a public health imperative. Transparency, paired with smarter review systems, can help raise the bar for drug development and reward the kinds of innovations that truly improve health.

Lucy Xiaolu Wang 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. Some new drugs aren’t actually ‘new’ – pharmaceutical companies exploit patents and raise prices for patients, but data transparency can help protect innovation – https://theconversation.com/some-new-drugs-arent-actually-new-pharmaceutical-companies-exploit-patents-and-raise-prices-for-patients-but-data-transparency-can-help-protect-innovation-258989

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Scott Saleska, Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona

From a distance, Biosphere 2 emerges from the cacti and creosote of the Sonoran desert like a gleaming oasis, a colony of glass and bright white structures. Despite being just outside Tucson, Arizona, it looks almost like a colony on another planet.

When one of the facility’s 100,000 annual visitors steps inside, they see a whole world – from a tropical rainforest, glistening in 50 shades of green and teeming with life, to a miniature, experimental ocean. Toward the end of the tour, the visitor comes to a comparatively barren-looking experiment called the Landscape Evolution Observatory, where life is struggling to establish itself on crushed volcanic rock originally spewed from an ancient Arizonan volcano.

It is these rock slopes, where life is colonizing and transforming a tough landscape, that our team thinks are the key to humanity’s future – both on Earth and, eventually, on other worlds.

Biosphere 2 first became famous as the human experiment of the 1990s that sealed a group of eight researchers inside its 3 acres of diverse ecosystems for two long years. The goal was to experiment with the viability of a closed ecological system to maintain human life in outer space. Today, we – a global change ecologist, an astronomer and a doctoral student specializing in microbial biogeochemistry, along with our team of colleagues – have made Biosphere 2 into a test bed for understanding how life transforms landscapes, from local areas to whole planets.

We hope to use what we learn to help preserve biodiversity, access to fresh water and food security. To address these issues, we must understand how soil, rocks, water and microbes together drive the transformation of landscapes, from local to planetary scales.

Beyond Earth, these same principles apply to the challenge of terraformation: the science of rendering other worlds habitable.

How life on Earth affects the Earth

Life doesn’t just sit on the Earth’s surface. Organisms profoundly affect the planet’s geology, as well as the atmosphere’s composition. Biology can transform barren environments into habitable ecosystems.

This happened with the evolution of cyanobacteria, the first microscopic organisms to use oxygen-producing photosynthesis. Cyanobacteria pumped oxygen into the atmosphere 2 billion to 3 billion years ago.

Atmospheric oxygen, in turn, enabled a new supercharged metabolism of life called aerobic, or oxygen-using, respiration. Aerobic respiration produced so much energy that it became the dominant way for organisms to make the energy needed for life, eventually making multicellular life possible.

In addition, the oxygen produced by photosynthesizing cyanobacteria also made its way to the upper atmosphere, forming another kind of oxygen known as ozone, which, by shielding the Earth’s surface from sterilizing ultraviolet radiation, allowed life to expand onto land.

Biology again transformed the planet when the life that expanded onto land 400 million years ago gave a biological boost to the chemical and geological process known as weathering. Weathering occurs when carbon dioxide in the atmosphere chemically reacts with material on Earth’s surface – such as rocks, minerals and water – to create soils imbued with nutrients that can support plants and other living organisms.

On Earth, weathering was first driven by purely physical and chemical processes. Once plants expanded from the oceans onto land, however, their roots injected carbon dioxide directly into the soil where weathering reactions were strongest. This process sucked carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Lower carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere then cooled the Earth, turning a hothouse planet into one with a more temperate climate, like the one enjoyed by life today.

How organisms colonize new landscapes

When life colonizes a new, previously barren landscape, it starts up the process of primary succession. In this process, the first biological organisms – simple microbes – expand into interacting communities made of different kinds of organisms, which increase in complexity and biodiversity as they change and adapt to fit their new environment.

These microbes react with the air and rock through photosynthesis and respiration to produce organic molecules called metabolites. The metabolites can alter the soil, allowing it to support larger plants. The larger plants that then emerge have complex structures such as roots and leaves that regulate the flow of water – and contribute to weathering. Eventually, humans can domesticate some of these plants for food crops.

Biosphere 2’s Landscape Evolution Observatory is ideal for the careful study of how weathering and primary succession work together. Those processes both happen at the small, molecular scale but emerge as important only over large areas.

The Landscape Evolution Observatory has both hillslopes larger than any experiment in the world and crushed rock soils that are more simple and uniform than almost any natural setting. These characteristics mean the molecular measurements are consistent and understandable, even in different places across the larger hillslope.

The observatory is made up of three hillslopes covering 300 square yards that look like three giant tray-shaped, inclined planters made of steel, filled with crushed rock instead of fertile soil. The rain that falls on them soaks into the surface and flows down the incline to dribble out along the lower edge, where it is captured and carefully measured for its chemical and biological content.

We are using biological tools to understand how microbes and simple plants end up spreading across the larger, originally bare, crushed-rock hillslopes. These techniques include metagenomics, which can identify all the microbial life forms in a hillslope, and metabolomics, which can look at the organic molecules that microbes and plants produce and use in their interactions with each other and their surroundings.

Putting this all together, we see that colonies of photosynthesizing bacteria initiate succession on the Landscape Evolution Observatory. Critically, these cyanobacteria – descendants of those same organisms that gave Earth oxygen – capture the essential nutrient, nitrogen, from the air. Nitrogen buildup paves the way for mosses – simple plants without roots – to join them.

These bacteria-moss communities are now gradually spreading across the observatory’s hillslopes, preparing the way for the next phase: colonization by larger plants with roots.

By learning how life establishes itself and then thrives on lifeless landscapes, we will gain insights for addressing key problems scientists face today. For example, when life-forms in a new landscape successfully spread and diversify, they tell us how biodiversity is preserved.

When those spreading organisms transform the way a landscape uses water, they give us lessons on how we should use water. And when plants find a way to be productive under stressful conditions, they give us examples for increasing our own plant-dependent food security.

Implications for Mars

Earth isn’t the only planet where we can apply our findings. Today, Mars, unlike Earth, is a barren, lifeless desert. But it was once warmer, wetter and, like the early Earth, it may have hosted primitive living organisms several billion years ago.

While the rock in the Landscape Evolution Observatory comes from an Arizona volcano, basalt is the same kind of rock found on the surface of the Moon and Mars.

Countries such as the United States and China plan to land humans on Mars, and the company SpaceX has grandiose plans to send a million colonists there. If humans ever hope to grow plants on the red planet’s surface, learning how to create early succession there will prove crucial.

Before Mars colonization can happen at a large, sustainable scale, the first step is to grow plants and create food for human life. That is, we must solve what might be called the “Matt Damon problem,” after the actor in the movie “The Martian.” In order to survive, his character had to quickly learn to grow food crops – potatoes – on Mars.

Matt Damon’s character would probably not have survived on the real Mars of today, because its rocklike surface, called regolith, is too full of salts and toxic chemicals such as perchlorate for potatoes, or most Earth-like plants, to grow.

At the Landscape Evolution Observatory, we are focusing on experiments in chambers that simulate Martian environments to ask what it will take to detoxify Mars-like soils so that microbes and plants can live there.

One initial approach is to use perchlorate-reducing bacteria, recruited from extreme environments on Earth, to convert the perchlorate into harmless chloride.

In this way, experiments at Biosphere 2 are informing the science of terraforming Mars. Together with progress made in other areas, such as finding ways of making Mars warm enough to sustain liquid water, restoring barren environments on Earth could be a key to one day living on Mars.

Scott Saleska receives funding from National Science Foundation, NASA, and U.S. Department of Energy.

Ghiwa Makke receives funding from National Science Foundation and U.S. Department of Energy.

Chris Impey 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. Biosphere 2’s latest mission: Learning how life first emerged on Earth – and how to make barren worlds habitable – https://theconversation.com/biosphere-2s-latest-mission-learning-how-life-first-emerged-on-earth-and-how-to-make-barren-worlds-habitable-262293

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Debra Lam, Founding Director of the Partnership for Inclusive Innovation, Enterprise Innovation Institute, Georgia Institute of Technology

Precision agriculture uses tools and technologies such as GPS and sensors to monitor, measure and respond to changes within a farm field in real time. This includes using artificial intelligence technologies for tasks such as helping farmers apply pesticides only where and when they are needed.

However, precision agriculture has not been widely implemented in many rural areas of the United States.

We study smart communities, environmental health sciences and health policy and community health, and we participated in a research project on AI and pesticide use in a rural Georgia agricultural community.

Our team, led by Georgia Southern University and the City of Millen, with support from University of Georgia Cooperative Extension, local high schools and agriculture technology company FarmSense, is piloting AI-powered sensors to help cotton farmers optimize pesticide use. Georgia is one of the top cotton-producing states in the U.S., with cotton contributing nearly US$1 billion to the state’s economy in 2024. But only 13% of Georgia farmers use precision agriculture practices.

Public-private-academic partnership

Innovation drives economic growth, but access to it often stops at major city limits. Smaller and rural communities are frequently left out, lacking the funding, partnerships and technical resources that fuel progress elsewhere.

At the same time, 75% of generative AI’s projected economic impact is concentrated in customer operations, marketing, software engineering and research and development, according to a 2023 McKinsey report. In contrast, applications of AI that improve infrastructure, food systems, safety and health remain underexplored.

Yet smaller and rural communities are rich in potential — home to anchor institutions like small businesses, civic groups and schools that are deeply invested in their communities. And that potential could be tapped to develop AI applications that fall outside of traditional corporate domains.

The Partnership for Innovation, a coalition of people and organizations from academia, government and industry, helps bridge that gap. Since its launch almost five years ago, the Partnership for Innovation has supported 220 projects across Georgia, South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, Texas and Alabama, partnering with more than 300 communities on challenges from energy poverty to river safety.

One Partnership for Innovation program provides seed funding and technical support for community research teams. This support enables local problem-solving that strengthens both research scholarship and community outcomes. The program has recently focused on the role of civic artificial intelligence – AI that supports communities and local governments. Our project on cotton field pesticide use is part of this program.

Cotton pests and pesticides

Our project in Jenkins County, Georgia, is testing that potential. Jenkins County, with a population of around 8,700, is among the top 25 cotton-growing counties in the state. In 2024, approximately 1.1 million acres of land in Georgia were planted with cotton, and based on the 2022 agricultural county profiles census, Jenkins County ranked 173rd out of the 765 counties producing cotton in the United States.

The state benefits from fertile soils, a subtropical-to-temperate climate, and abundant natural resources, all of which support a thriving agricultural industry. But these same conditions also foster pests and diseases.

Farmers in Jenkins County, like many farmers, face numerous insect infestations, including stink bugs, cotton bollworms, corn earworms, tarnished plant bugs and aphids. Farmers make heavy use of pesticides. Without precise data on the bugs, farmers end up using more pesticides than they likely need, risking residents’ health and adding costs.

While there are some existing tools for integrated pest management, such as the Georgia Cotton Insect Advisor app, they are not widely adopted and are limited to certain bugs. Other methods, such as traditional manual scouting and using sticky traps, are labor-intensive and time-consuming, particularly in the hot summer climate.

Our research team set out to combine AI-based early pest detection methods with existing integrated pest management practices and the insect advisor app. The goal was to significantly improve pest detection, decrease pesticide exposure levels and reduce insecticide use on cotton farms in Jenkins County. The work compares different insect monitoring methods and assesses pesticide levels in both the fields and nearby semi-urban areas.

We selected eight large cotton fields operated by local farmers in Millen, four active and four control sites, to collect environmental samples before farmers began planting cotton and applying pesticides.

The team was aided by a new AI-based insect monitoring system called the FlightSensor by FarmSense. The system uses a machine learning algorithm that was trained to recognize the unique wingbeats of each pest insect species. The specialized trap is equipped with infrared optical sensors that project an invisible infrared light beam – called a light curtain – across the entrance of a triangular tunnel. A sensor monitors the light curtain and uses the machine learning algorithm to identify each pest species as insects fly into the trap.

FlightSensor provides information on the prevalence of targeted insects, giving farmers an alternative to traditional manual insect scouting. The information enables the farmers to adjust their pesticide-spraying frequency to match the need.

What we’ve learned

Here are three things we have learned so far:

1. Predictive pest control potential – AI tools can help farmers pinpoint exactly where pest outbreaks are likely – before they happen. That means they can treat only the areas that need it, saving time, labor and pesticide costs. It’s a shift from blanket spraying to precision farming – and it’s a skill farmers can use season after season.

2. Stronger decision-making for farmers – The preliminary results indicate that the proposed sensors can effectively monitor insect populations specific to cotton farms. Even after the sensors are gone, farmers who used them get better at spotting pests. That’s because the AI dashboards and mobile apps help them see how pest populations grow over time and respond to different field conditions. Researchers also have the ability to access this data remotely through satellite-based monitoring platforms on their computers, further enhancing the collaboration and learning.

3. Building local agtech talent – Training students and farmers on AI pest detection is doing more than protecting cotton crops. It’s building digital literacy, opening doors to agtech careers and preparing communities for future innovation. The same tools could help local governments manage mosquitoes and ticks and open up more agtech innovations.

Blueprint for rural innovation

By using AI to detect pests early and reduce pesticide use, the project aims to lower harmful residues in local soil and air while supporting more sustainable farming. This pilot project could be a blueprint for how rural communities use AI generally to boost agriculture, reduce public health risks and build local expertise.

Just as important, this work encourages more civic AI applications – grounded in real community needs – that others can adopt and adapt elsewhere. AI and innovation do not need to be urban or corporate to have a significant effect, nor do you need advanced technology degrees to be innovative. With the right partnerships, small towns, too, can harness innovations for economic and community growth.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. What happens when AI comes to the cotton fields – https://theconversation.com/what-happens-when-ai-comes-to-the-cotton-fields-261526