Category: Academic Reportage

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Atom Sarkar, Professor of Neurosurgery, Drexel University

Athletic footwear has entered a new era of ambition. No longer content to promise just comfort or performance, Nike claims its shoes can activate the brain, heighten sensory awareness and even improve concentration by stimulating the bottom of your feet.

“By studying perception, attention and sensory feedback, we’re tapping into the brain-body connection in new ways,” said Nike’s chief science officer, Matthew Nurse, in the company’s press release for the shoes. “It’s not just about running faster — it’s about feeling more present, focused and resilient.”

Other brands like Naboso sell “neuro-insoles,” socks and other sensory-based footwear to stimulate the nervous system.

It’s a compelling idea: The feet are rich in sensory receptors, so could stimulating them really sharpen the mind?

As a neurosurgeon who studies the brain, I’ve found that neuroscience suggests the reality is more complicated – and far less dramatic – than the marketing implies.

Close links between feet and brain

The soles of the feet contain thousands of mechanoreceptors that detect pressure, vibration, texture and movement.

Signals from these receptors travel through peripheral nerves to the spinal cord and up to an area of the brain called the somatosensory cortex, which maintains a map of the body. The feet occupy a meaningful portion of this map, reflecting their importance in balance, posture and movement.

Footwear also affects proprioception – the brain’s sense of where the body is in space – which relies on input from muscles, joints and tendons. Because posture and movement are tightly linked to attention and arousal, changes in sensory feedback from the feet can influence how stable, alert or grounded a person feels.

This is why neurologists and physical therapists pay close attention to footwear in patients with balance disorders, neuropathy or gait problems. Changing sensory input can alter how people move.

But influencing movement is not the same thing as enhancing cognition.

Minimalist shoes and sensory awareness

Minimalist shoes, with thinner soles and greater flexibility, allow more information about touch and body position to reach the brain compared with heavily cushioned footwear. In laboratory studies, reduced cushioning can increase a wearer’s awareness of where their foot is placed and when it’s touching the ground, sometimes improving their balance or the steadiness of their gait.

However, more sensation is not automatically better. The brain constantly filters sensory input, prioritizing what is useful and suppressing what is distracting. For people unaccustomed to minimalist shoes, the sudden increase in sensory feedback may increase cognitive load – drawing attention toward the feet rather than freeing mental resources for focus or performance.

Sensory stimulation can heighten awareness, but there is a threshold beyond which it becomes noise.

Can shoes improve concentration?

Whether sensory footwear can improve concentration is where neuroscience becomes especially skeptical.

Sensory input from the feet activates somatosensory regions of the brain. But brain activation alone does not equal cognitive enhancement. Focus, attention and executive function depend on distributed networks involving various other areas of the brain, such as the prefrontal cortex, the parietal lobe and the thalamus. They also rely on hormones that modulate the nervous system, such as dopamine and norepinephrine.

There is little evidence that passive underfoot stimulation – textured soles, novel foam geometries or subtle mechanical features – meaningfully improves concentration in healthy adults. Some studies suggest that mild sensory input may increase alertness in specific populations – such as older adults training to improve their balance or people in rehabilitation for sensory loss – but these effects are modest and highly dependent on context.

Put simply, feeling more sensory input does not mean the brain’s attention systems are working better.

Belief, expectation and embodied experience

While shoes may not directly affect your cognition, that does not mean the mental effects people report are imaginary.

Belief and expectation still play a powerful role in medicine. Placebo effects and their influence on perception, motivation and performance are well documented in neuroscience. If someone believes a shoe improves focus or performance, that belief alone can change perception and behavior – sometimes enough to produce measurable effects.

There is also growing interest in embodied cognition, the idea that bodily states influence mental processes. Posture, movement and physical stability can shape mood, confidence and perceived mental clarity. Footwear that alters how someone stands or moves may indirectly influence how focused they feel, even if it does not directly enhance cognition.

In the end, believing a product gives you an advantage may be the most powerful effect it has.

Where science and marketing diverge

The problem is not whether footwear influences the nervous system – it does – but imprecision. When companies claim their shoes are “mind-altering,” they often blur the distinction between sensory modulation and cognitive enhancement.

Neuroscience supports the idea that shoes can change sensory input, posture and movement. It does not support claims that footwear can reliably improve concentration or attention for the general population. If shoes truly produced strong cognitive changes, those effects would be robust, measurable and reproducible. So far, they are not.

Shoes can change how we feel in our bodies, how you move through space and how aware you are of your physical environment. Those changes may influence confidence, comfort and perception – all of which matter to experience.

But the most meaningful “mind-altering” effects a person can experience through physical fitness still come from sustained movement, training, sleep and attention – not from sensation alone. Footwear may shape how the journey feels, but it is unlikely to rewire the destination.

Atom Sarkar 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. Can shoes alter your mind? What neuroscience says about foot sensation and focus – https://theconversation.com/can-shoes-alter-your-mind-what-neuroscience-says-about-foot-sensation-and-focus-273759

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Michelle L.D. Hanlon, Professor of Air and Space Law, University of Mississippi

When Apollo 13 looped around the Moon in April 1970, more than 40 million people around the world watched the United States recover from a potential catastrophe. An oxygen tank explosion turned a planned landing into an urgent exercise in problem-solving, and the three astronauts on board used the Moon’s gravity to sling themselves safely home. It was a moment of extraordinary human drama, and a revealing geopolitical one.

The Cold War space race was a two-player contest. The Soviet Union and the United States operated in parallel, rarely cooperating, but clearly measuring themselves against one another. By 1970, the United States had already landed on the Moon, and competition centered on demonstrating technological capability, political and economic superiority and national prestige. As Apollo 13 showed, even missions that did not go as planned could reinforce a country’s leadership if they were managed effectively.

More than half a century later, NASA’s Artemis II mission will send humans around the Moon again in early 2026, this time deliberately. But the strategy going into Artemis II looks very different from that of 1970. The United States is no longer competing against a single rival in a largely symbolic race.

As a professor of air and space law, I research questions of governance and conflict avoidance beyond Earth. From a space law perspective, sustained human activity on the Moon and beyond depends on shared expectations about safety and responsible behavior. In practice, the countries that show up, operate repeatedly and demonstrate how activity on the lunar surface and in outer space can be carried out over time shape these expectations.

Artemis II matters not as nostalgia or merely a technical test flight. It is a strategic signal that the United States intends to compete in a different kind of Moon race, one defined less by singular achievements and more by sustained presence, partnerships and the ability to shape how activity on the Moon is conducted.

From a 2-player race to a crowded field

Today, more countries are competing to land on the Moon than ever before, with China emerging as a pacing competitor. While national prestige remains a factor, the stakes now extend well beyond flags and firsts.

Governments remain central actors in the race to the Moon, but they no longer operate alone. Commercial companies design and operate spacecraft, and international partnerships shape missions from the start.

China, in particular, has developed a lunar program that is deliberate, well-resourced and focused on establishing a long-term presence, including plans for a research station. Its robotic missions have landed on the Moon’s far side and returned samples to Earth, and Beijing has announced plans for a crewed landing by 2030. Together, these steps reflect a program built on incremental capability rather than symbolic milestones.

Why Artemis II matters without landing

Artemis II, scheduled to launch in February 2026, will not land on the Moon. Its four-person crew will loop around the Moon’s far side, test life-support and navigation systems, and return to Earth. This mission may appear modest. Strategically, however, crewed missions carry a different weight than robotic missions.

Sending people beyond low Earth orbit requires sustained political commitment to spaceflight, funding stability and systems reliable enough that sovereign and commercial partners can align their own plans around them.

Artemis II also serves as a bridge to Artemis III, the mission where NASA plans to land astronauts near the Moon’s south pole, currently targeted for 2028. A credible, near-term human return signals that the U.S. is moving beyond experimentation and toward a sustained presence.

2 different models for going back to the Moon

The contrast between U.S. and Chinese lunar strategies is increasingly clear.

China’s program is centrally directed and tightly controlled by the state. Its partnerships are selective, and it has released few details about how activities on the Moon would be coordinated with other countries or commercial actors.

The U.S. approach, by contrast, is intentionally open. The Artemis program is designed so partners, both other countries and companies, can operate within a shared framework for exploration, resource use and surface activity.

This openness reflects a strategic choice. Coalitions among countries and companies expand their capabilities and shape expectations about how activities such as landing, operating surface equipment and using local resources are conducted.

When vague rules start to matter

International space law already contains a framework relevant to this emerging competition. Article IX of the 1967 outer space treaty requires countries to conduct their activities with “due regard” for the interests of others and to avoid harmful interference. In simple terms, this means countries are expected to avoid actions that would disrupt or impede the activities of others.

For decades, this obligation remained largely theoretical. On Earth, however, similarly open-ended rules, particularly in maritime contexts, created international conflicts as traffic on shipping lanes, resource extraction and military activity increased. Disputes intensified as some states asserted claims that extended beyond what international law recognized.

The Moon is now approaching a comparable phase.

As more actors converge on resource-rich regions, particularly near the lunar south pole, due regard becomes an immediate operational question rather than a theoretical future issue. How it is interpreted – whether it means simply staying out of each other’s way or actively coordinating activities – will shape who can operate where, and under what conditions.

Washington is naming the race − without panic

During his second Senate Commerce Committee confirmation hearing, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman was asked directly about competition with China in lunar exploration. He emphasized the importance of keeping U.S. space efforts on track over time, linking the success of the Artemis program to long-term American leadership in space.

A similar perspective appears in a recent U.S. government assessment, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission’s 2025 annual report to Congress. Chapter 7 addresses space as a domain of strategic competition, highlighting China’s growing capabilities. The report frames human spaceflight and deep-space infrastructure – including spacecraft, lunar bases and supporting technologies – as part of broader strategic efforts. It emphasizes growing a human space program over time, rather than changing course in response to individual setbacks or the accomplishments of other countries.

Recent U.S. policy reflects this emphasis on continuity. A new executive order affirms federal support for sustained lunar operations, as well as commercial participation and coordination across agencies. Rather than treating the Moon as a short-term challenge, the order anticipates long-term activity where clear rules, partnerships and predictability matter.

Artemis II aligns with this posture as one step in the U.S.’s plans for sustained activity on the Moon.

A different kind of test

As Artemis II heads toward the Moon, China will also continue to advance its lunar ambitions, and competition will shape the pace and manner of activity around the Moon. But competition alone does not determine leadership. In my view, leadership emerges when a country demonstrates that its approach reduces uncertainty, supports cooperation and translates ambition into a set of stable operating practices.

Artemis II will not settle the future of the Moon. It does, however, illustrate the American model of space activity built on coalitions, transparency and shared expectations. If sustained, that model could influence how the next era of lunar, and eventually Martian, exploration unfolds.

Michelle L.D. Hanlon is affiliated with For All Moonkind, Inc. a non-profit organization focused on protecting human cultural heritage in outer space.

– ref. NASA’s Artemis II crewed mission to the Moon shows how US space strategy has changed since Apollo – and contrasts with China’s closed program – https://theconversation.com/nasas-artemis-ii-crewed-mission-to-the-moon-shows-how-us-space-strategy-has-changed-since-apollo-and-contrasts-with-chinas-closed-program-270245

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Stephanie A. (Sam) Martin, Frank and Bethine Church Endowed Chair of Public Affairs, Boise State University

In Minneapolis, two recent fatal encounters with federal immigration agents have produced not only grief and anger, but an unusually clear fight over what is real.

In the aftermath of Alex Pretti’s killing on Jan. 24, 2026, federal officials claimed the Border Patrol officers who fired weapons at least 10 times acted in self-defense.

But independent media analyses showed the victim holding a phone, not a gun, throughout the confrontation. Conflicting reports about the earlier death of Renée Good have similarly intensified calls for independent review and transparency. Minnesota state and local officials have described clashes with federal agencies over access to evidence and investigative authority.

That pattern matters because in fast-moving crises, early official statements often become the scaffolding on which public judgment is built. Sometimes those statements turn out to be accurate. But sometimes they do not.

When the public repeatedly experiences the same sequence – confident claims, partial disclosures, shifting explanations, delayed evidence, lies – the damage can outlast any single incident.

It teaches people that “the facts” are simply one more instrument of power, distributed strategically. And once that lesson sinks in, even truthful statements arrive under suspicion.

And when government stories keep changing, democracy pays the price.

Lying in politics

This is not a novel problem. During the U.S. Civil War, for example, President Abraham Lincoln handled hostile press coverage with a blunt mix of repression and restraint. His administration shut down hundreds of newspapers, arrested editors and censored telegraph lines, even as Lincoln himself often absorbed vicious, personal ridicule.

The Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s brought similar disingenuous attempts by the Reagan administration to manage public perception, as did misleading presidential claims about weapons of mass destruction in the 2003 leadup to the Iraq War.

During the Vietnam era, the gap between what officials said in public and what they knew in private was especially stark.

Both the Johnson and Nixon administrations repeatedly insisted the war was turning a corner and that victory was near. However, internal assessments described a grinding stalemate.

Those contradictions came to light in 1971 when The New York Times and The Washington Post published the Pentagon Papers, a classified Defense Department history of U.S. decision-making in Vietnam. The Nixon administration fiercely opposed the document’s public release.

Several months later, political philosopher Hannah Arendt published an essay in the New York Review of Books called “Lying in Politics”. It was also reprinted in a collection of essays titled “Crises of the Republic.”

Arendt, a Jewish refugee who fled Germany in 1933 to escape Nazi persecution and the very real risk of deportation to a concentration camp, argued that when governments try to control reality rather than report it, the public stops believing and becomes cynical. People “lose their bearings in the world,” she wrote.

‘Nobody believes anything any longer’

Arendt first articulated this argument in 1951 with the publication of “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” in which she examined Nazism and Stalinism. She further refined it in her reporting for The New Yorker on the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann, a major coordinator of the Holocaust.

Arendt did not wonder why officials lie. Instead, she worried about what happens to a public when political life trains citizens to stop insisting on a shared, factual world.

Arendt saw the Pentagon Papers as more than a Vietnam story. They were evidence of a broader shift toward what she called “image-making” – a style of governance in which managing the audience becomes at least as important as following the law. When politics becomes performance, the factual record is not a constraint. It is a prop that can be manipulated.

The greatest danger of organized, official lying, Arendt warned, is not that people will believe something that is false. It is that repeated, strategic distortions make it impossible for citizens to orient themselves in reality.

“The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth and truth be defamed as a lie,” she wrote, “but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world … [gets] destroyed.”

She sharpened the point further in a line that feels especially poignant in today’s fragmented, rapid and adversarial information environment:

“If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer,” she wrote. “A lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history … depending on how the political wind blows. And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge.”

When officials lie time and again, the point isn’t that a single lie becomes accepted truth, but that the story keeps shifting until people don’t know what to trust. And when this happens, citizens cannot deliberate, approve or dissent coherently, because a shared world no longer exists.

Maintaining legitimacy

Arendt helps clarify what Minneapolis is showing us, and why the current federal government posture matters beyond one city.

Immigration raids are high-conflict operations by design. They happen quickly, often without public visibility, and they ask targeted communities to accept a heavy federal presence as legitimate. When killings occur in that context, truth and transparency are essential. They protect the government’s legitimacy with the public.

Reporting on the Pretti case shows why. Even as federal government leaders issued definitive claims about the victim’s allegedly threatening behavior – they said Pretti approached agents while pointing a gun – video evidence contradicted that official account.

The point isn’t that every disputed detail in a fast-moving, complicated event causes public harm. It’s that when officials make claims that appear plainly inconsistent with readily available evidence – as in the initial accounts of what happened with Pretti – that mismatch is itself damaging to public trust.

Distorted declarations paired with delayed disclosure, selective evidence or interagency resistance to outside investigations nudge the public toward a conclusion that official accounts are a strategy for controlling the story, and not a description of reality.

Truth is a public good

Politics is not a seminar in absolute clarity, and competing claims are always part of the process. Democracies can survive spin, public relations and even occasional falsehoods.

But Arendt’s observations show that it is the normalization of blatant dishonesty and systematic withholding that threatens democracy. Those practices corrode the factual ground on which democratic consent is built.

The U.S. Constitution assumes a people capable of what Arendt called judgment – citizens who can weigh evidence, assign responsibility and act through law and politics.

If people are taught that “truth” is always contingent and always tactical, the harm goes beyond misinformation. A confused, distrustful public is easier to manage and harder to mobilize into meaningful democratic participation. It becomes less able to act, because action requires a shared world in which decisions can be understood, debated and contested.

The Minneapolis shootings are not only an argument about use of force. They are a test of whether public institutions will treat facts and truth as a public good – something owed to the community precisely when tensions are highest. If democratic life depends on a social contract among the governed and those governing, that contract cannot be sustained on shifting sand. It requires enough shared reality to support disagreement.

When officials reshape the facts, the damage isn’t only to the record. The damage is to the basic belief that a democratic public can know what its government has done.

Stephanie A. (Sam) Martin 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. Repeated government lying, warned Hannah Arendt, makes it impossible for citizens to think and to judge – https://theconversation.com/repeated-government-lying-warned-hannah-arendt-makes-it-impossible-for-citizens-to-think-and-to-judge-274340

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Steven R. Fassnacht, Professor of Snow Hydrology, Colorado State University

Winter Storm Fern brought Colorado’s mountain towns a bit of what they’ve spent weeks hoping for.

It snowed 23 inches (58 centimeters) at the Crested Butte ski resort over the weekend of Jan. 24-25, 2026. Aspen Snowmass got 13 inches (33 cm).

It was a welcome change in Colorado, where the ski season is off to a slow start. By Thanksgiving 2025, Colorado had only about 45% of the average snowpack it usually does at that time of year. Thanksgiving weekend is when many western ski resorts, such as Steamboat and Vail, typically open for the season.

By January 2026, the snowpack had increased only slightly to 57% of average. About half of the runs were open at central Colorado resorts in late January.

On top of a dry fall, Colorado has been unseasonably warm. Denver’s average air temperature for December 2025 was 11 degrees Fahrenheit (6 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal.

This phenomenon is not entirely new. Over the past four decades, Colorado has seen a decline in November snowfall, which is a problem for developing the snowpack base for ski runs. There has also been a decline in March snowpack, which can reduce skier numbers during spring break, when many families and college-age skiers typically flock to the mountains.

In spite of the welcome snowfall, the forecast for the rest of the season, which runs through April, doesn’t look good. It’s expected to continue to be warmer than average across the Colorado mountains.

The warm temperatures and lack of snow in Colorado are a problem for skiers and ski resorts. This has translated into a growing economic impact on the state’s mountain communities.

We are a snow hydrologist and a historian of the ski industry. We’re concerned about how this year’s continuing low snowfall will affect Colorado’s US$5 billion ski industry, the state’s environment and water resources across the western U.S.

Creating snow

The ski industry relies on natural snow falling from the sky. Natural snowfall can be supplemented by resorts making their own snow, often in a race to be the first ski area to open. This year, Keystone opened first after beginning to make snow before Halloween.

Ski resorts use snow guns that use high-pressure air to blow fine water particles that freeze and form snow. But to make snow, the wet-bulb temperature needs to be colder than 28 F (minus 2 C). The wet bulb temperature is a combination of air temperature, humidity and air pressure.

Snowmaking covers only a fraction of any ski resort in Colorado. Even the most extensive snowmaking resorts like Keystone are only able to cover 40% of their runs with humanmade snow. Other resorts can cover less than 10%. Snowmaking in Colorado provides the base for the ski season to start, but it can’t replace a season with no snow.

By comparison, ski areas in other states, such as Arizona’s Snowbowl, rely on snowmaking throughout the winter. Snowmaking can cover most of a ski resort in the eastern U.S., where resorts tend to be smaller than ones in the West.

Snowmaking has environmental costs. On average, snowmaking accounts for 67% of a ski resort’s electricity costs and consumes billions of gallons of water.

Snow is made using water taken from streams during low-flow condition, or times when less water is available. The water is essentially stored on the ski slope, with about 80% flowing back into the streams when it melts.

Due to water rights legislation unique to the western U.S., a ski resort cannot easily use more water to make more snow without going through an extensive and often expensive legal process.

Regardless of how much snow can be made, Colorado’s ski areas mostly rely on natural snowfall.

History of snowmaking

This year is far from the first time Colorado’s ski industry has struggled with a lack of snow. Many areas in the state did not see snow during the winter of 1976-77 until after the December holidays. The lack of snowfall caused skier numbers to drop a staggering 38% from the previous season.

That dry season convinced the ski industry to take matters into its own hands. In the summer of 1976, Winter Park Ski Area made a $1.2 million investment in snowmaking, which saved the following season. Other larger ski resorts followed suit and invested heavily in the technology over the following five years.

Over the past decade, Vail Resorts, owner of 42 ski resorts worldwide, has invested more than $100 million in snowmaking to compensate for marginal snow years.

These investments reflect a broader rivalry within the industry as resorts compete for a limited number of skiers. By the end of the 1990s, snowmaking was understood as essential for ski resorts across the country.

What’s next

Low snow years are not just a problem for skiing. Colorado has a semi-arid climate, so water stored in the snowpack is a crucial water resource. In Colorado, up to 80% of the water comes from snow, so below-average snowfall usually means there will be a drought during the summer months that follow. Dry winters also lead to more wildfires.

Snowpack also affects summer tourism activities in Colorado that rely on water from snowmelt, such as whitewater rafting, whitewater parks, fishing and related river activities.

Coloradans may hope for snow to change the course of this winter. It’s happened before, like with the March 2003 Colorado blizzard, when 3 feet (1 meter) of snow fell in a day. Or in the winter of 2010-11, which started out drier than average and went on to be the wettest year on record.

The ski industry has tried to insulate itself from bad snow years through season pass sales and diversifying entertainment options. Vail Resorts and Alterra Mountain Company require skiers and snowboarders to buy their Epic and Ikon season passes by October or spend upward of $300 for a day lift ticket. But the high costs of skiing are making the sport more exclusive.

Numerous ski resorts, such as Winter Park, have invested heavily in summer activities such as mountain biking and music festivals to increase revenue. But you can bet your mittens that people in Colorado’s mountain towns are hoping for another big dump of natural snow – and as soon as possible.

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. Colorado ski resorts got some welcome snowfall from Winter Storm Fern, but not enough to turn a dry and warm winter around – https://theconversation.com/colorado-ski-resorts-got-some-welcome-snowfall-from-winter-storm-fern-but-not-enough-to-turn-a-dry-and-warm-winter-around-272008

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Andrea De Stefano, Assistant Professor of Forestry, Mississippi State University

For thousands of years, one tree species defined the cultural and ecological identity of what is now the American South: the longleaf pine. The forest once stretched across 92 million acres from Virginia to Texas, but about 5% of that original forest remains. It was one of North America’s richest ecosystems, and it nearly disappeared.

As part of my job with the Mississippi State University forestry extension, I help private landowners, public agencies and nonprofit conservation groups restore these ecosystems. The forests’ story begins before European settlement, when Native peoples shaped and sustained this vast landscape using one of nature’s oldest tools: fire.

Longleaf pine trees depend on fire for survival and regeneration. Fire reduces competition from other plants, recycles nutrients into the soil and maintains the open structure of the landscape where longleaf pines grow best. In its open, grassy woodlands, red-cockaded woodpeckers, gopher tortoises, orchids, pitcher plants and hundreds of other species find homes.

Native stewardship

Longleaf pine seedlings spend about three to 10 years in a low, grasslike stage, building deep roots and resisting flames that sweep across the forest floor. Regular, low-intensity fires keep the ground open and sunny, and allow an incredibly diverse understory to flourish: pine lilies, meadow beauties, white bog orchids, carnivorous pitcher plants and dozens of native grasses.

For millennia, Native American tribes intentionally set fires to keep these areas open for hunting, travel and agriculture. This practice is evident from Indigenous oral histories, early European accounts and archaeological findings. Fire was part of daily life – a tool, not a danger.

European settlers arrive

When the first Europeans made it to that part of North America, they encountered a landscape that seemed almost limitless: tall, straight pines ideal for shipbuilding; deep soils in the uplands suited for farming; and understory, the plants that grow in the shade of the forest, perfect for open-range grazing.

Longleaf pine trees became the backbone of early industries. They provided lumber, fuel and naval supplies, such as tar, pitch and turpentine, which are essential for waterproofing wooden ships. By the mid-1800s, the naval industry alone consumed millions of longleaf pines each year, especially in the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida.

At the same time, livestock, especially hogs, roamed freely and caused unexpected ecological damage. Hogs rooted up the starchy, above-ground stems of young longleaf seedlings, often wiping out an area’s entire year of seedlings before they could grow beyond the grass stage.

Still, even into the mid-1800s, millions of acres of longleaf forest remained intact. That would soon change.

Industrial logging and the collapse of a forest

By the late 19th century, the industrial South entered a new era of logging. Railroads could reach deep into forests that were previously inaccessible. Steam-powered skidders dragged huge logs to mobile mills that could turn thousands of acres of trees into lumber in a single season. Lumber towns appeared overnight, then disappeared once the last trees were cut.

Most longleaf forests were felled between 1880 and 1930, with little thought given to regrowth. Land was cheap, timber was valuable, and scientific forestry was in its infancy. After logging, what was left on the ground at many sites burned in wildfires too hot for young longleaf pines to survive. Some of the fires were ignited accidentally by sparks from railroads or logging operations, others by lightning, and some by people attempting to clear land.

Other parcels of land were overrun by hogs or were converted to farms. Other forestland simply failed to regenerate because longleaf requires both good seed years and carefully timed burning to establish new generations of seedlings. By 1930, the once-vast longleaf forest was effectively gone.

A turning point

The early 20th century brought public debates about fire. National forestry leaders, trained in northern ecosystems where wildfire was destructive, insisted that all fire was harmful and should be quickly extinguished. Southern landowners disagreed. They had long understood that fire kept the woods open, reduced pests and improved forage.

A series of pioneering researchers, including Herbert Stoddard, Austin Cary and others, proved scientifically what Native peoples had practiced for centuries: Prescribed fire is essential for longleaf pine forests.

By the 1930s, prescribed fire began to gain acceptance among Southern landowners and wildlife biologists, and by the 1940s it was recognized by state forestry agencies and the U.S. Forest Service as a legitimate management tool. This shift marked the beginning of a slow recovery of the forest.

Yet, after the logging of old-growth longleaf pine forests ended, foresters faced challenges regenerating the trees. Early planting attempts often failed. The longleaf species grows more slowly than loblolly or slash pine, making it less attractive to industry.

Millions of acres that once supported longleaf pines were converted to fast-growing plantation pines through the mid-20th century. By 1990, only 2.9 million acres of longleaf pine forest remained.

A new era of restoration

But beginning in the 1980s, research breakthroughs had begun to offer the prospect of change. Studies across the Southeast demonstrated that longleaf pine trees could be reliably planted if seedling quality, site preparation and fire timing were carefully managed.

Improved genetics – for instance, choosing those seedlings more likely to grow straight and tall and those more resistant to disease and drought – and starting seedlings in containers increased survival dramatically.

At the same time, landowners and agencies began to appreciate the benefits of longleaf pines. They are strong enough to withstand hurricanes, resistant to pests and disease, and provide high-quality timber and exceptional wildlife habitat. And they are compatible with grazing, need little to no fertilizer or other support to grow, and are ready to adapt to a warming, more fire-prone climate.

Today, many organizations are restoring longleaf pine trees across national forests, private lands and working farms.

Landowners are choosing the species not only for conservation but for recreation, hunting and cultural reasons.

In many parts of the South, longleaf pines have become a symbol of both heritage and resilience to hurricanes, drought, wildfire and climate change.

The longleaf pine ecosystem is more than a forest: It is the story about how people shape landscapes over centuries. It thrived under Native fire stewardship, declined under industrial exploitation, and is now returning – thanks to science, collaboration and cultural rediscovery.

The future of the longleaf pine forest will depend on continued use of prescribed fire, support for and from private landowners and recognition that restoring a complex ecosystem takes time. But across the South, the open, grassy longleaf pine ecosystems are coming back. A forest once given up for lost is becoming, again, a living emblem of the southern landscape.

Andrea De Stefano 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. How fire, people and history shaped the South’s iconic longleaf pine forests – https://theconversation.com/how-fire-people-and-history-shaped-the-souths-iconic-longleaf-pine-forests-272003

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Steven Goldsmith, Associate Professor of Environmental Science, Villanova University

Snow has returned to the Philadelphia region, and along with it the white residues on streets and sidewalks that result from the over-application of deicers such as sodium chloride, or rock salt, as well as more modern salt alternatives.

As an environmental scientist who studies water pollution, I know that much of the excess salt flows into storm drains and ultimately into area streams and rivers.

For example, a citizen science stream monitoring campaign led by the Stroud Water Research Center in Chester County – about 40 miles west of Philadelphia – found that chloride concentrations in southeastern Pennsylvania streams remained higher than EPA-recommended levels not only after winter snowfalls, but also in many cases during some summer months – showing salt persists in watersheds year-round.

Once there, it can have a profound impact on fish and other aquatic life. This includes a decrease in the abundance of macroinvertebrates, which are small organisms that form the base of many freshwater food webs, and reductions in growth and reproduction in fish.

Increased salt concentrations can also degrade and pollute the local water supply. Working with other researchers at Villanova University, I have measured spikes in sodium levels in Philadelphia region tap water during and immediately after snow melts. These spikes can pose a health risk to people on low-sodium diets.

What local governments can do

In recent years, many state and local governments nationwide have adopted best management practices – such as roadway brining, more efficient salt spreaders and improved storm forecasting – to limit damage from salt to infrastructure, including roads and bridges.

Roadway brining works by applying a salt solution, or brine, that contains about 23% sodium chloride by weight prior to a storm. Unlike road salt, brines adhere to all pavement and can prevent ice from sticking to the roadway during the storm. This potentially reduces the need for subsequent road salt applications.

The environmental benefits of these best practices, when properly administered, are promising. The Maryland State Highway Administration reduced its total salt usage on roadways by almost 50% by using multiple best practices.

The extent to which these strategies will continue to reduce the road salt burden on roads and, by extension, improve the water quality of streams elsewhere will largely depend on political will and corresponding economic investments.

Yet, roads are not the only source of salt to our streams. Recent studies have suggested that the cumulative amount of salt applied to other impervious surfaces in a watershed, such as parking lots, driveways and sidewalks, can exceed that applied to roads.

For example, one survey of private contractors suggests their application rate can be up to 10 times higher than that of transportation departments.

I do not know of any studies that have been able to determine a household application rate.

How to salt at home

To better understand how individuals or households deice their properties, and what they know about the environmental impacts of deicing, I collaborated with a team of environmental scientists and psychologists at Villanova University and the local conservation-focused nonprofit Lower Merion Conservancy.

In winter 2024-2025, the Lower Merion Conservancy disseminated a survey in a social media campaign that received over 300 responses from residents in southeastern Pennsylvania. We are completing the analysis to determine a household application rate, but some of our initial findings provide a starting point for engaging households on how to limit the environmental impact of deicers.

One key finding is that only 7% of respondents reported being aware of municipal ordinances regarding deicer use on residential sidewalks.

Of those who applied deicers to their property, 55% indicated they were unsure whether they used them in a way that would reduce environmental harm.

About 80% of all respondents indicated interest in learning more about the environmental impacts of road salt.

Based on these survey results, here are several actionable steps that homeowners can take to reduce their deicer use.

1. Check your local municipal ordinance

Most municipalities in the greater Philadelphia area do not require deicer use but instead require clearing a walkable path – in most cases, 3 feet wide – free of snow and ice within a certain time frame after a storm event ends.

For example, the city of Philadelphia requires this be done within six hours, the borough of Narberth within 12 hours and Lower Merion and Haverford townships within 24 hours.

Narberth and Lower Merion specify which abrasives – such as sand, ashes and sawdust – or deicers, like rock salt, can be used if ice persists.

2. Use rock salt and other deicers judiciously

The recommended amount from conservation organizations is one 12-ounce coffee mug of deicer for every 10 sidewalk squares. Keep in mind that “pet-friendly” deicers are not necessarily environmentally friendly. Many of these deicers contain magnesium chloride, which is harmful to plants and aquatic life.

Deicers coupled with dyes might be a good choice to visually prevent over-application. They can also temporarily reduce concrete’s surface reflectivity, thereby increasing its warming effect and enabling melting.

Finally, it’s important to know that many deicers become ineffective at or below certain temperatures. Rock salt/sodium chloride loses its effectiveness at 15 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 9 Celsius), magnesium chloride at 5 F (minus 15 C) and calcium chloride at minus 20 degrees F (minus 29 C). If temperatures are expected to fall below those numbers, it might make sense to skip the salt.

3. Sweep up after

We have all seen rock salt on sidewalks for days on end, especially when a storm never materializes. If the next storm brings rain, this leftover salt will form a concentrated brine solution that will wash down the nearest storm drain and into a local waterway.

Leftover salt can be swept up and reapplied after the next storm event, saving money and supplies.

Read more of our stories about Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, or sign up for our Philadelphia newsletter on Substack.

Steven Goldsmith receives funding from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. He is affiliated with Villanova University.

– ref. Oversalting your sidewalk or driveway harms local streams and potentially even your drinking water – 3 tips to deice responsibly – https://theconversation.com/oversalting-your-sidewalk-or-driveway-harms-local-streams-and-potentially-even-your-drinking-water-3-tips-to-deice-responsibly-274353