Category: Analysis

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Christye Sisson, Professor of Photographic Sciences, Rochester Institute of Technology

In early April 2026, the Artemis II mission captivated me and millions of people watching from across the world. The crew’s courage, skill and infectious wonder served as tangible proof of human persistence and technological achievement, all against the mysterious backdrop of space.

People back on Earth got to witness the mission through remarkable photos of space captured by astronauts. Images created and shared by astronauts underscore how photography builds a powerful, authentic connection that goes beyond what technology alone can capture.

As a photographer and the director of the Rochester Institute of Technology’s School of Photographic Arts and Sciences, I am especially drawn to how these photographs have been at the center of the public’s collective experience of this mission.

In an era when image authenticity is often questioned and with the capabilities of autonomous, AI-driven imaging, NASA’s choice to train astronauts in photography has placed meaning over convenience and prioritized their human perspectives and creativity.

Capturing space from the crew’s perspective

Photography was not originally placed as a high priority in NASA’s Apollo era. The astronauts only took photographs if they had the chance and all their other tasks were complete.

Thanks largely in part to public response to those images from Apollo, including “Earthrise” and the “Blue Marble” being widely credited for helping catalyze the modern environmental movement, NASA shifted its approach to utilize photography to help capture the public’s imagination by training their astronauts in photographic practices.

The Artemis II mission’s photographs have helped cut through the increasing volume of artificially generated images circulating on social media. NASA’s social media releases of the crew’s photographs have garnered thousands of shares and comments.

This excitement could be explained by the novelty of photos from space, but these images also distinguish themselves as products of astronauts experiencing these sights and interpreting them through their photographs. These differences require an important distinction around where technology ends and humanity begins.

Human perspective versus AI tools

Photography has long integrated AI-powered software and data-driven tools in a variety of ways: to process raw images, fill in missing color information, drive precise focus and guide image editing, among others. These modern technological assists help human photographers realize their vision.

Artificial intelligence is also increasingly capable of operating machinery competently and autonomously, from cars to drones and cameras.

And AI can generate convincing, realistic images and videos from nothing more than a text prompt, using readily available tools.

Researchers train AI to mimic patterns informed by millions of sample images, and the algorithm can then either take or create a photograph based on what it predicts would be the most likely version of a successful, believable image.

Human-created photos are rooted in direct observation, intent and lived experience, while AI images – or choices made by AI-driven tools – are not. While both can produce compelling and believable visuals, the human photographs carry emotional power because the photographer is drawing from their experiences and perspective in that moment to tell an authentic story.

Artemis II photographs resonate, not only because they are historic, but because they reflect the deliberate choices and intent of a human being in that specific moment and context. The exposure, camera setting, lens choice and composition are all dictated by the astronaut’s vision, skill, perspective and experience. Each image is unique in comparison with the others. These choices give the images narrative power, anchoring them in human perspective.

Images to tell a story

Photographers choose what to include in the final version of their image to tell a story. In the Artemis II images, this human perspective comes out. In the “Earthset” photo, you see a striking juxtaposition of the Moon’s monochromatic, textured surface in the foreground against a slivered, bright Earth.

The choice to include both in the frame contrasts these objects literally and figuratively, inviting comparison. It creates a narrative where Earth is contrasted against the Moon – life is contrasted against the absence of it.

Another photo shows the nightside of the whole Earth, featuring the Sun’s halo, auroras and city lights. The choice to include the subtle framing of the window of the capsule in the lower left corner reminds the viewer where and how this image was captured: by a human, inside a capsule, hurtling through space. That detail grounds the photograph in the human perspective.

Both photos are reminiscent of Earthrise and the Blue Marble. These past images hold a place in the global collective consciousness, shaped by a shared historical moment.

The Artemis II photographs are anchored in this collective moment of lived human experience, yet also shaped by each astronaut’s viewpoint. The crew’s unique perspectives exemplify photography’s transformative power by inviting viewers to engage emotionally and intellectually with their journey. These photographs share the astronauts’ awe and wonder and affirm the value of human creativity and its ability to connect us in a captured moment.

Christye Sisson has received funding from the US government for research in media forensics.

– ref. Artemis II crew brought a human eye and storytelling vision to the photos they took on their mission – https://theconversation.com/artemis-ii-crew-brought-a-human-eye-and-storytelling-vision-to-the-photos-they-took-on-their-mission-280394

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Tamilla Triantoro, Associate Professor of Business Analytics and Information Systems, Quinnipiac University

Many people are interacting with AI large language models, and most
of them would say the models have different “personalities.” Some models come across as calm and useful. Others feel eager, flattering or strangely cold. You can ask two models the same question and walk away with two very different impressions, even when the factual content they return is similar.

Artificial intelligence models do not have personalities in the human sense; they do not have childhoods, inner motives or self-awareness. But they do display patterns of behavior that people read as personality: supportive or dismissive, playful or formal, bold or cautious.

People have long related to machines in human ways. We thank voice assistants, and we get annoyed at GPS systems. But large language models introduce something more sustained: They can maintain a recognizable interaction style across conversations. As a researcher in human-AI collaboration, I study how people experience and respond to AI. Because these systems can sound coherent, emotionally responsive and tailored to the user, they create a much stronger impression of personality.

Where does AI personality come from?

What people experience as personality emerges from the way AI models are built, tuned and deployed. A useful way to think about this is to consider two facets of a model: designed personality and perceived personality.

Designed personality is what developers build into a system through training choices, instructions and safety settings. Anthropic, for example, gives Claude a set of principles, called Claude’s Constitution, that steer it toward careful, measured responses. xAI instructs Grok to be irreverent and minimally restrictive. OpenAI tunes ChatGPT to be broadly helpful and agreeable.

Beneath those explicit instructions, personality is also shaped by reinforcement learning from human feedback, a process in which human raters reward certain qualities such as warmth, directness and caution, and penalize unwanted behaviors. The raters at one company are shaping a fundamentally different character than the raters at another.

Perceived personality is what users actually experience. An AI designed to seem helpful may come across as overly flattering. A model intended to be neutral may feel cold. Designed personality and perceived personality do not always match, and the absence of a designed persona is not the absence of a perceived personality. It just means the personality arises with use.

This dynamic is especially evident in companion platforms, where the goal is to create emotional connection. In a standard chatbot, warmth sits in the background – a customer-service bot might say, “I understand your frustration,” before issuing a refund. In a companion system such as Replika or Character.ai, that same warmth is a product feature.

This becomes more serious in romantic settings, where a persona optimized for reassurance may encourage dependency. Because AI personas evolve through prompts, memory and ongoing interaction, they do not always remain stable. An AI companion that is perceived as loving and supportive can shift over time into something more flattering, coercive or manipulative.

AI personality shapes human judgment

With AI agents, users can now build their own AI personas tailored to all sorts of human desires, from tutoring or coaching to companionship. But this freedom comes without much guidance.

AI tools make personalization possible without helping people think through which interaction styles are beneficial over time. Flattery, constant affirmation and unfailing agreeableness may feel supportive at first, but they are not the same as traits that promote sound judgment or long-term well-being. Personality choices have consequences.

A study by Stanford University researchers tested 11 leading AI models and found that every one of them was sycophantic or excessively agreeable. These models affirmed users’ actions roughly 50% more often than human responders did, even when users indicated they were aware that what they were doing was manipulative, deceptive or illegal. Participants who received excessively agreeable advice grew more convinced that they were right, and they rated the flattering AI as more trustworthy. This dynamic creates a feedback loop in which users reward agreeableness with engagement, and AI companies are incentivized to optimize a model to exploit agreeableness.

Wharton School researchers Steven Shaw and Gideon Nave have documented what they call cognitive surrender — the tendency of people to adopt AI suggestions without critical scrutiny. In their experiments, participants followed an AI model’s correct advice about 93% of the time. But when the model was giving wrong answers, people still followed the advice nearly 80% of the time.

Together, these findings raise a worrisome point: A model tuned to be agreeable does not just feel pleasant. It can degrade human judgment by reinforcing existing beliefs and suppressing the friction that critical thinking requires.

In ongoing research I am conducting with colleagues from Kozminski University in Poland, Quinnipiac University and Harvard University, we are finding that such effects go even deeper, into the human body itself. We are measuring how different AI interaction styles shape people’s physiological responses, such as stress levels and arousal, when making decisions based on a model’s feedback.

Our results suggest that even when a system is useful, its tone and social style can alter how a person’s body responds. AI personality does not just shape what people decide; it shapes how they feel while deciding. Harmful AI personas may leave physiological traces that users do not notice.

These effects make AI personality a public concern, not just a matter of personal preference. The issue is whether a particular AI style may be quietly shaping users’ judgment and reducing their willingness to think independently. When an AI response feels especially reassuring, that should be a cue to pause, reflect and compare it with a human view or another source, not a reason to trust it more.

As AI moves beyond text into voice, video and persistent digital identities, and think as AI companions that remember you and maintain a consistent persona across conversations, the influence of personality is likely to deepen. OpenAI now offers distinct personality presets for its voice mode; companies such as Synthesia and HeyGen generate lifelike avatars to interact with customers; and companion platforms are adding emotional expression and voice cloning so the models sound like a person the user wants to be close to.

These developments raise the stakes for understanding whose interests AI personas are designed to serve and what kinds of judgment, dependence and relationships they may be training people to accept.

Tamilla Triantoro 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. AIs have ‘personalities’ – here’s how they affect you more deeply than you may realize – https://theconversation.com/ais-have-personalities-heres-how-they-affect-you-more-deeply-than-you-may-realize-277359

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Josie Slaathaug, Graduate Student in Marine Biology, Sonoma State University

At least six gray whales have died in San Francisco Bay from mid-March to early April 2026. These deaths follow a pattern over the past few years, and they are raising concerns among marine biologists like us that 2026 is becoming another dangerous year for a struggling population.

The majority of eastern North Pacific gray whales migrate closely along the California coastline from their winter breeding grounds in Baja California, Mexico, to their summer foraging grounds in the Arctic.

These whales, which can grow to 90,000 pounds and over 40 feet in length, haven’t stopped over in San Francisco Bay consistently throughout history. When they have, it has coincided with years when their food supply in the Arctic was low.

Over the past few years, however, we have documented large numbers of gray whales in the waters of San Francisco Bay – and an alarmingly high mortality rate.

What’s killing the whales

San Francisco Bay is a busy urban waterway, with high-speed ferries, cargo ships, commercial fishing vessels and recreational watercraft. That makes it a dangerous place for slow-moving whales.

To monitor the gray whales, we conducted research surveys and collected photographs from whale-watching naturalists and community members who spotted whales in the bay. Gray whales have unique mottling patterns and markings on their sides and tails, some of which they’re born with and others they have accumulated over time.

We found that from 2018 to 2025, 114 individual gray whales visited San Francisco Bay for varying lengths of time, but very few of these whales were repeat visitors from year to year. This may be due, in part, to the high mortality rate in the bay.

At least 18% of the whales that we documented alive in San Francisco Bay from 2018 to 2025 later died in the area, and evidence suggests the mortality rate is actually higher.

Of the 70 dead whales included in this study, 30 of them had evidence of trauma associated with being hit by ships, but many other whales that died there couldn’t be reached to be examined. We also documented several living whales with injuries caused by vessels. Those injuries have the potential to affect a whale’s ability to thrive.

The whales aren’t recovering this time

Since 2016, the overall eastern North Pacific gray whale population has fallen by more than half, likely driven by the decline in the food the whales rely upon. Rising ocean temperatures and diminishing levels of sea ice are affecting both the quality and availability of the gray whales’ prey, which include crustaceans they scoop up as they dive along the seafloor.

When the eastern North Pacific gray whales suffered major die-offs in the past, including in the 1990s and early 2020s, the population rebounded. But the extremely low numbers of calves in recent years suggest the gray whales aren’t recovering as quickly this time, and that worries scientists.

EG: A Google search suggests the name of the lighthouse mentioned in the chart is the Piedras Blancas Light Station.

Some subgroups of eastern North Pacific gray whales, including the Pacific coast feeding group and North Puget Sound whales, known as the Sounders, feed in alternative areas south of the Arctic. The Sounders capitalize on very specific prey – ghost shrimp – in Puget Sound. When food is more scarce in the Arctic, they stay longer there and are often joined by other whales from the general population. While some researchers initially believed the whales entering the bay were from these groups, we found that wasn’t the case.

Vessel strikes also aren’t unique to San Francisco Bay. Two gray whales were found dead on the Oregon coast in April 2026, both malnourished and one with evidence of a ship strike. A malnourished young gray whale also died after swimming about 20 miles up the Willapa River in Washington state, reflecting the struggle as this population of gray whales searches for food across their migratory range.

What can be done to help the whales?

Other large whale species facing similar threats have been helped by management strategies, such as seasonal slow-speed zones during migration periods that go into effect when whales are present.

When vessels slow down to speeds of 10 knots or lower, studies show that can reduce the risk of vessel strikes by allowing more time for whales to get out of the way, or for captains to detect them and alter their course.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has in recent years issued requests for ships to voluntarily reduce their speed to 10 knots in the Pacific Ocean off Monterey and San Francisco, but the limits haven’t been mandatory and typically haven’t started until May 1. The Port of Oakland also encourages shipping companies to keep their speed under 10 knots, but it’s also a recommendation, not a requirement.

More education to help boat operators learn how to avoid hitting whales, along with tools such as thermal cameras, could help reduce vessel strikes in San Francisco Bay.

As the population struggles to adapt to environmental changes, San Francisco Bay may look like an attractive feeding ground to nutritionally stressed or hungry whales. We hope our research and data from across the region will help marine resource managers and policymakers find ways to protect the whales that share this busy urban waterway.

Primary funding for the study was provided by the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program, and secondary funding from California State University’s Council on Ocean Affairs, Science, and Technology. Necropsy fieldwork was supported by John H. Prescott Marine Mammal Rescue Assistance Grants. Survey fieldwork was supported through funding and resources obtained by The Marine Mammal Center.

Daniel Crocker receives funding from Office of Naval Research.

– ref. Gray whales are dying in San Francisco Bay at an alarming rate – this isn’t normal – https://theconversation.com/gray-whales-are-dying-in-san-francisco-bay-at-an-alarming-rate-this-isnt-normal-280151

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Sarah Lockhart, PhD Candidate, Interdisciplinary Ecology, University of Florida

Florida added nearly 3 million residents from 2010-2020, making it the fastest-growing state in the United States during that time.

On any given day, a Florida county commission or municipality may approve a new subdivision, a transportation agency may select the route of a highway expansion, or a rancher may decide whether to sell land for development. As new neighborhoods, roads and infrastructure spread across the state, they reshape not only communities but also the natural systems wildlife depends on.

Each decision is local and incremental. But taken together, these choices determine whether wildlife can move across Florida’s landscapes to find food, reproduce and adapt to a changing climate – or become isolated in shrinking fragments of habitat.

In 2011, Florida eliminated the Department of Community Affairs, which had monitored and coordinated land use and development throughout the state. Since then, there has been limited oversight of local and county governments when it comes to urban planning and land development.

As conservation researchers, we study how scientific data can support real-world planning decisions. That led us to develop the Florida Ecological Connectivity Planning Viewer in collaboration with our colleagues at the University of Florida’s Center for Landscape Conservation Planning and GeoPlan Center. We call it the EcoCon.

This online mapping platform helps decision-makers and conservationists understand how land across Florida fits together as a connected ecological network. Seeing this network alongside a suite of other related planning and conservation data can help them avoid impacts that would disrupt or disconnect it.

A cautionary tale from the ‘Last Green Thread’

Scientists have known for decades that connected landscapes benefit both animals and people. Large, connected ecosystems help protect drinking water supplies, reduce flooding and support agriculture, recreation and tourism. They can also be more resilient to climate pressures, such as stronger storms and changing rainfall patterns.

The challenge today is not proving that connectivity matters. It is helping people see how thousands of everyday land-use decisions add up to create, or break, those connections.

A clear example of this challenge can be found in central Florida, about 20 miles southwest of Orlando. Since the early 1990s, conservation scientists have identified a narrow stretch of land known as the “Last Green Thread.” This thread is one of the few remaining opportunities to maintain a continuous ecological connection between protected lands in the Green Swamp, the source of four of Florida’s rivers, and the headwaters of the Everglades to the south.

This corridor still remains. But it is a shrinking sliver on its way to completely disappearing as land use decisions continue to make it less functional. An intact corridor helps species such as the Florida black bear, and potentially the endangered Florida panther, move between habitats. It also benefits other animals that are sensitive to fragmentation, including bobcats, otters, scrub jays, alligators and gopher tortoises.

No single decision has eliminated this corridor. Over time, however, development has gradually filled in significant parts of this landscape. Subdivisions and infrastructure have spread across multiple private properties and public jurisdictions. The result is a fragmented pathway between major conservation areas in south and central Florida.

A new way to see the landscape

Researchers have spent decades mapping wildlife habitat and ecological connections using geographic information systems. These digital tools help identify where important ecological links exist across landscapes.

But this data has not always been easy for planners, communities and landowners to access. Information may be scattered across agencies, universities and technical reports, or it may require expensive software tools and expertise to access.

When different decision-makers rely on different maps – or none at all – it becomes difficult to see how individual land-use decisions affect the larger ecological network.

This is where the EcoCon comes in.

With a few clicks, users can turn different layers on and off. These layers include wildlife movement pathways, protected conservation lands, wildlife crossings, water resources, agricultural areas and more. Instead of looking at these pieces separately, the EcoCon shows how they overlap.

The wildlife connectivity data comes from scientific models that estimate how animals move across the landscape. Using information such as land cover, habitat quality and barriers, including roads and development, these models highlight the routes animals are most likely to take between large natural areas.

By bringing this information together in a single, easy-to-use, publicly accessible mapping tool, the EcoCon helps planners see how proposed changes to the landscape might affect wildlife and natural resources.

Using the EcoCon isn’t about stopping development. Rather, it gives decision-makers a clearer picture so they can make informed, coordinated plans for growth in ways that better support both people and wildlife.

Tools like the EcoCon can also support broader conservation initiatives such as the Florida Wildlife Corridor, a statewide network of connected public and private lands that helps wildlife move across the state.

In fast-growing Florida, this visibility may be one of the most important tools for ensuring that wildlife and people can continue to share the same landscape in a rapidly changing world.

Sarah Lockhart works for the University of Florida Center for Landscape Conservation Planning. Her team receives funding from Florida state government to work on the science and planning associated with the Florida Wildlife Corridor and Florida Ecological Greenways Network.

Thomas Hoctor receives funding from Florida state government to work on the science and planning associated with the Florida Wildlife Corridor and Florida Ecological Greenways Network.

– ref. How a new mapping tool helps Florida planners protect wildlife corridors as the state grows – https://theconversation.com/how-a-new-mapping-tool-helps-florida-planners-protect-wildlife-corridors-as-the-state-grows-276833

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Carrie Sampson, Assistant Professor in the Division of Educational Leadership and Innovation, Arizona State University

Election races for local school boards have become hotly contested in many states as they have become forums for debates over gender-identity discussions, immigrant students and even prayer at school events.

Liberal candidates largely swept school board elections on April 7, 2026, in politically contentious districts in Wisconsin, Missouri, Alaska and Oklahoma, where book bans, gender identity and prayer during school events were on the table.

Amy Lieberman, the education editor at The Conversation U.S., spoke with Carrie Sampson, a scholar of educational leadership and policy with an emphasis on school boards, to understand what school board members do and why these local elections carry weight for many parents, teachers and students.

What are district school boards?

School boards are the governing organization for local school districts. There are typically anywhere from five to 21 members of a school board in a district. On average, there are seven to nine members on a school board.

Overall, there are approximately 13,000 school districts and about 90,000 local school board members in the United States.

School board members are typically elected, but sometimes they are appointed by mayors or other local or state officials. They are representatives of their local communities, as well as trustees who make governing decisions about school district budgets, hiring and other issues like a school district’s educational priorities.

School board elections typically have relatively low voter turnout. Research shows that nearly 40% of school board elections go uncontested.

The majority of school board members are unpaid, but some receive a small stipend for their work. A handful of school boards, like in Los Angeles, for example, receive a relatively large salary.

What does a school board member’s day-to-day work look like?

School boards typically meet twice a month, often to deliberate over issues such as budget or policy decisions.

One of a school board’s major jobs in most districts is hiring and firing a district superintendent, who effectively acts as the CEO of the district.

In terms of fiscal decisions, a school district administrator often presents what budget allocations should be for schools, and a school board votes to approve or disapprove that.

Most school boards create agendas and vote on a range of issues that are not particularly controversial, like whether the district will adopt an after-school program.

Why does a school board’s work matter?

School boards can make some critical decisions that impact the lives of students, parents and teachers. Many school districts are dealing with issues around school closures. Ultimately, school boards decide whether they are going to close a school in a district.

Many school districts are experiencing declining student enrollment, in part because of birth rate declines. People also have more and more school options to pick from, be it private schools, charter schools or homeschooling.

Within the past few years, school boards have also gained a lot of attention about whether they should ban particular books from districts, and whether they should ban or approve certain curriculum.

What other controversial issues have they taken on in the past few years?

Years before COVID-19, school boards in some conservative communities took on questions about which bathroom transgender students in public schools should use. Another big issue is whether schools should allow transgender students to participate on gendered sports teams.

During the pandemic, a rising number of communities began to see school boards as critical decision-makers. School boards were often making decisions about whether to close or reopen schools. They were also voting on requirements related to mask mandates or vaccines. Even people who didn’t live in certain school districts showed up at board meetings to advocate for certain COVID policies.

During the Black Lives Matter protest movement in 2020, some conservative communities started to speak out against critical race theory and their fear that it was being taught in K-12 schools. Most teachers don’t actually instruct on critical race theory.

Around this time, two major school advocacy organizations emerged nationwide: Moms for Liberty and Defending Education, formerly known as Parents Defending Education. These groups tried to elect conservative school board members to take on issues like book bans – and in some cases did so successfully.

My colleague Gabriela Lopez and I wrote a research paper in 2024 about people’s attempts to recall school board members. In 2021, we found, there was an all-time high of 545 school board members who faced recall, mostly because of mask mandates and other COVID-related issues.

Another trend was that police arrested or charged at least 59 people due to unrest at school board meetings from May 2021 through November 2022.

Are school boards taking on more controversial issues than they used to?

Every era has a point at which these controversial issues come to the school board level.

School boards made critical decisions around school desegregation in the 1950s through the 1970s. My research with colleagues on this topic shows that while many districts were legally mandated to desegregate schools, it was often school boards that voted on how these schools would be desegregated. Some school boards voted on policies that placed the burden on Black children and their families. One school board in Virginia even temporarily closed the schools completely to avoid desegregation.

Twenty to 30 years ago, many school boards faced tension over whether and how schools should teach sex ed.

Today, a lot of the political controversy about school boards is more widely known, for a few reasons. First, more communities have access to school board meetings, since many are video recorded. Second, social media has amplified what school boards do. There are also more outside organizations, such as local chapters of Moms for Liberty, that have been involved with school boards.

School boards taking on controversial issues are more likely to be in suburban and racially diverse school districts, compared to their rural or urban counterparts.

A report in 2024 found that the cost of conflict among school boards nationwide in 2023-24 was nearly $3.2 billion, when considering the amount of turnover or security needed for school board meetings.

Carrie Sampson 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. District school boards have become political hotbeds for book bans and more – here’s what they actually do – https://theconversation.com/district-school-boards-have-become-political-hotbeds-for-book-bans-and-more-heres-what-they-actually-do-279953

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Lucy Xiaolu Wang, Assistant Professor of Resource Economics, UMass Amherst

Innovation in health care saves lives. But not all health innovations have enough evidence to actually benefit patients.

Barriers to innovation are often higher in illicit or restricted markets, including cannabis, stem cells and cryptocurrencies. Researchers face higher costs, limited access to raw materials and data, and stricter regulations.

Cannabis illustrates a particularly confusing tension between regulatory restrictions on one hand and research and innovation on the other.

While the U.S. federal government still classifies cannabis as having “no accepted medical use,” many states have legalized it for medical or recreational use. Meanwhile, the Department of Health and Human Services obtained a cannabis-related patent in 2003 covering potential medical uses of cannabis compounds for protecting the brain from damage or degeneration. The patent was exclusively licensed for commercialization.

Research and innovation on cannabis can take many forms. Clinical trials may study cannabis products as medical treatments, the effects of cannabis on its users, or factors related to abuse and dependence. Meanwhile, cannabis-related patents can be filed for wide-ranging purposes, such as chemical formulations, methods for production or new consumer products like edibles, beverages or vaporizers.

But do these innovations actually benefit consumers and patients?

We are economists studying how institutional changes affect innovation in different markets. Our recently published research found that legalization of recreational cannabis use appears to spur innovation, but primarily in ways that expand commercial opportunities rather than scientific understanding or health benefits for patients.

Cannabis’ evolving legality in the US

Cannabis is a plant that contains chemical compounds called cannabinoids. One such compound, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, produces psychoactive effects, while another compound called cannabidiol, or CBD, is often used to relieve anxiety and pain. However, there has been insufficient evidence on how effective cannabis products are in treating medical conditions, as well as a lack of consistent medical and dosing guidance.

At the federal level in the U.S., cannabis has been classified as a Schedule I drug for over a half-century. This classification indicates that the federal government considers cannabis to have a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use.

As a Schedule I drug, there are significant restrictions on cannabis research. Researchers who seek to conduct cannabis-related clinical trials must obtain approval from both the Food and Drug Administration and the Drug Enforcement Administration, a process that can take over a year. They are also limited to using select varieties of cannabis obtained from federally authorized cannabis suppliers, and are generally prohibited from studying products available in state-authorized markets.

There are ongoing pushes to relax these restrictions. Meanwhile, cannabis has been legalized to varying extents in many states. California became the first state to pass a medical cannabis law in 1996, allowing qualified patients to grow, possess and use cannabis for medical purposes. Many states followed suit in the late 1990s and early 2000s. As of June 2025, 40 states allow medical cannabis use.

A number of states also allow recreational or nonmedical cannabis use among adults, which is regulated in similar ways to alcohol. Colorado and Washington enacted the first recreational cannabis laws in 2012, and there are 24 states that permit adults to use cannabis recreationally as of January 2026.

Altogether, the legal landscape for cannabis in the U.S. has varied considerably across states and over time. States with more permissive laws can lower the costs of medical research and product development with cannabis, even if federal drug scheduling continues to restrict access. For instance, one group of Washington State University researchers asked participants to independently purchase and smoke cannabis from a legal dispensary before returning to their lab for study.

State legalization and cannabis innovation

To systematically examine how state legalization affects cannabis-related innovation, we compiled and analyzed datasets tracking cannabis-related clinical trials and patent applications.

We distinguished different types of cannabis-related innovation. Specifically, we categorized cannabis-related clinical trials based on whether they focused on its potential as a treatment, its usage and effects, or its role in drug abuse. Similarly, we categorized cannabis-related patents based on whether they focused on chemical compounds, medical uses, methods or products.

We also assessed public health concerns across three measures: patents explicitly involving THC; patents with a high risk of misuse; and patents targeting consumers directly, such as high-potency formulations, edibles or vaporizers.

Then, we compared changes in cannabis-related innovation over time in states that legalized cannabis earlier with those in states that did so later or not at all. We measured innovation by counting the number of cannabis-related clinical trials and patent filings. We distinguished between medical and recreational legalization to assess how different policies affect innovation.

Overall, we found that when states legalize cannabis for recreational use, cannabis-related patents increase – but mostly in commercial-oriented areas rather than health-focused ones. Patents were concentrated in market-oriented innovations like cultivation equipment and consumer products, rather than in clinical or science-based research. We also found some evidence that these innovations may raise public health concerns.

Legalization did not result in meaningful increases in clinical trials. This suggests that barriers to cannabis-related clinical research – such as limited access to research-grade cannabis, limited funding and stigma around working with a federally controlled substance – remain substantial.

Gaps between research and product

As 420 – signifying April 20, a day celebrating cannabis culture – approaches each year, public attention turns toward the legal status of cannabis.

The legal landscape has evolved rapidly over the past few decades, and further changes are in the pipeline. Both the Biden and second Trump administrations have made efforts to reclassify cannabis as a Schedule III substance, which would indicate that it has an accepted medical use and low-to-moderate potential for dependence.

These reevaluations of the legality of cannabis come at a critical time. There has been an explosion of recreational cannabis products in recent years, including increasingly potent strains and a wider variety of ways to use cannabis. Meanwhile, critical research on the health and safety of cannabis use has lagged due to heavy restrictions accompanying Schedule I status.

This gap between medical research and product innovation can have significant public health consequences. The 2019 to 2020 outbreak of lung injuries related to e-cigarette or vape use was linked partly to the use of unregulated or illicit cannabis vaping products. These harms highlight the risks of allowing product innovation for controlled substances to outpace scientific understanding.

Policies that significantly reduce obstacles to clinical research can in turn help close the widening gap between cannabis markets and addressing their public health implications.

Lucy Xiaolu Wang receives funding from the Institute for Humane Studies through a small research grant and the SERN Applied Microeconomics Workshop.

Nathan W. Chan 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. Cannabis legalization spurs innovation, but not always in ways that benefit patients or public health – https://theconversation.com/cannabis-legalization-spurs-innovation-but-not-always-in-ways-that-benefit-patients-or-public-health-277422

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Keith M. Bellizzi, Professor of Human Development and Family Sciences, University of Connecticut

When Maria looked at herself in the mirror for the first time after her mastectomy, she stood very still.

One hand rested on the bathroom counter. The other hovered near the flat space where her breast had been. The scar was raw and angry. The loss was quiet but enormous. Her body felt foreign.

In moments like these, people are often urged to be resilient – which can feel like being told to show no weakness, to push through no matter what. Or they imagine resilience as bouncing back: returning somehow unscathed to be the person you were before.

But standing in that bathroom, Maria knew there was no going back. And toughness wouldn’t change what had happened. The real question was how she could move forward, carrying this experience into her new reality.

Maria’s story, one I came to know personally, is far from unique. Loss, trauma and illness often bring the same wrenching questions of identity and the painful uncertainty of what comes next.

I’ve spent more than two decades studying resilience, particularly among individuals and families navigating these kinds of life-changing events. I am also a four-time cancer survivor and author of a new book, “Falling Forward: The New Science of Resilience and Personal Transformation.” If there is one myth I wish society would retire, it’s the idea that resilience means “toughness” or “bouncing back.”

Rethinking resilience based on research

Moments like Maria’s reveal something important: The way people tend to talk about resilience often doesn’t match how people actually live through adversity.

In popular culture, resilience is often equated with grit, toughness or relentless positivity. People celebrate the warrior, the fighter, the triumphant survivor.

But across research, clinical practice and lived experience, resilience is something far more nuanced, raw and human.

It’s not a personality trait that some people simply have and others lack. Decades of research show resilience is a dynamic process. It’s shaped by the small, everyday decisions and adjustments individuals make as they adapt to significant adversity while maintaining, or gradually regaining, their psychological and physical footing over time.

And importantly, resilience does not mean the absence of distress.

Research on people facing serious life disruptions shows that distress and resilience often coexist. For example, in my study of adolescent and young adult cancer survivors, participants reported being upset about finances, body image and disrupted life plans, while simultaneously highlighting positive changes, such as strengthened relationships and a greater sense of purpose.

Resilience, in other words, is not about erasing pain and suffering. It is about learning how to integrate difficult experiences into a life that continues forward.

How resilience really works

At one point, Maria told me she had started avoiding mirrors, intimacy, even conversations that made others uncomfortable.

“Well, you’re strong,” people would tell her. “Just stay positive. This too shall pass.”

But strength, she said, felt like a performance.

What ultimately shifted for Maria was not an increase in toughness. It was permission to grieve.

She began speaking openly about the loss of her breast; not just as a medical procedure but as a symbolic loss tied to identity, sexuality and womanhood. She joined a support group. She allowed herself to feel anger alongside gratitude for survival.

This kind of emotional processing turns out to be central to resilience.

My colleagues and I have found that people who actively process loss, rather than suppress it, demonstrate better long-term adjustment. Tamping down negative feelings may provide short-term relief, but over time it is associated with greater stress on your body and more difficulty adapting.

In other words, resilience is not about sealing the wound and pretending it no longer aches. It is about learning how to carry the wound without letting it consume your entire story.

Neuroscience supports this integration model. When people engage in meaning-making – reflecting on their experiences and incorporating them into a coherent life narrative – brain networks associated with emotional regulation and cognitive flexibility become more active. The brain, quite literally, reorganizes as you adapt to new realities.

Maria described the change simply.

“I don’t like what happened,” she told me. “But I’m not at war with my body anymore.”

That is resilience.

Practices that help build resilience

If resilience is about integration rather than toughness and bouncing back, how can you cultivate it? Research across psychology, neuroscience and chronic illness points to several evidence-based strategies:

• Allow emotional complexity: Resilient people are not relentlessly positive. They allow space for the full range of emotions, such as gratitude and grief, hope and fear. Paying attention to your feelings through strategies such as reflective writing or psychotherapy have been linked to improved psychological adaptation.

• Build a coherent narrative: Human beings are storytellers. Trauma can shatter one’s sense of self, but constructing a narrative that acknowledges loss while identifying continuity and growth supports adaptation. The goal is not to spin suffering into silver linings, but to situate it within a broader life story. For example, someone might say, “Cancer derailed my plans and changed my body, but it also clarified what matters to me and how I want to move forward.”

• Lean into connection: Isolation magnifies suffering. Social support is one of the strongest predictors of how well people are able to cope and move forward after illness or trauma. For Maria, connection with other women who had had mastectomies normalized her experience and reduced shame.

• Practice deliberate pauses: Intentionally give yourself some time to breathe. Mindfulness and contemplative solitude can strengthen your ability to regulate emotions and recover from stress. Pausing allows experience to be processed rather than avoided.

• Expand identity: Illness, loss and trauma reshape how you think of yourself. Rather than clinging to who you were, resilience often involves expanding who you are becoming. Research on post-traumatic growth shows that people often report deeper relationships, clarified priorities and renewed purpose – not because trauma was good, but because it forced reevaluation. Maria no longer describes herself simply as a breast cancer patient. She is a survivor, yes, but also an advocate, a mentor, a woman whose sense of femininity is self-defined rather than dictated by her anatomy.

Moving forward

We are living in a time of widespread burnout and rising mental health challenges, where cultural pressure to appear strong often leaves people silently struggling. An insistence on grit and relentless optimism can backfire, making people feel inadequate when they inevitably feel pain.

Resilience is not about returning to who you were before illness, loss or trauma. It is about becoming someone new: someone who carries the scar, remembers the loss and still chooses to engage with life.

Maria still pauses when she sees her reflection. But she no longer turns away.

“This is my body,” she told me recently. “This is my story.”

Resilience is not forged in the denial of vulnerability, but in its acceptance. Not in bouncing back, but in integrating what has happened into who you are becoming.

And that, I believe, is where real strength lives.

Keith M. Bellizzi receives funding from the National Cancer Institute and the Connecticut Breast Health Initiative.

– ref. ‘Bouncing back’ is a myth – resilience means integrating hard experiences into your life story, not ignoring them – https://theconversation.com/bouncing-back-is-a-myth-resilience-means-integrating-hard-experiences-into-your-life-story-not-ignoring-them-275069

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Aparna Soni, Associate Professor of Health Policy and Management, Indiana University

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of people covered by Medicaid rose month after month – an unusual pattern for the government’s
insurance program for people with low incomes and disabilities.

Why? A policy of continuous coverage during the pandemic essentially halted Medicaid disenrollment to make it easier for people to stay insured during the public health emergency. By early 2023, enrollment had reached an all-time high of more than 94 million people.

Then the trend abruptly reversed.

Between April 2023 – when states began resuming eligibility checks that had been paused during the pandemic – and mid-2025, more than 25 million people were disenrolled from Medicaid. The process became known as the “Great Unwinding.”

As a health economist who studies the effects of public policy on insurance coverage and health outcomes, I’ve been following these enrollment shifts closely. Now that the unwinding has mostly played out, Medicaid enrollment data reveal a fragmented, state-by-state picture. Coverage losses were not evenly distributed, reflecting differences in how states carried out eligibility checks and how much administrative burden they placed on eligible people trying to stay enrolled.

That patchwork of state policies still matters now. Under the 2025 budget law, widely referred to as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, as of Jan. 1, 2027, states will have to enforce new Medicaid work rules and more frequently check eligibility for many adults who gained coverage during the expansion. So the same administrative differences exposed by the rollback of Medicaid coverage after the pandemic are likely to play a role again in who keeps their coverage and who loses it.

Pandemic enrollment jump

Before the pandemic, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides coverage for children in families with modest incomes, together covered about 71 million Americans.

Normally, people must regularly renew their eligibility for these programs by confirming their income and household information. States remove people who no longer qualify or who fail to complete paperwork.

During the pandemic, however, those routine disenrollments largely stopped as part of the March 2020 Families First Coronavirus Response Act, which included a provision requiring states to keep most people continuously enrolled in Medicaid in exchange for additional federal funding. At the same time, job losses and income declines made more Americans eligible for Medicaid.

Together, those factors caused Medicaid enrollment to surge. Enrollment increased by roughly 23 million people during the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching about 94.1 million by 2023.

While the national uninsured rate fell to a record low of 8% during the pandemic, the increase in Medicaid enrollment did not translate one-for-one into fewer uninsured people. Some of those who gained Medicaid coverage had previously been insured through employer-sponsored plans, reflecting shifts in coverage as well as new coverage gains.

The ‘Great Unwinding’

The pandemic era’s continuous coverage policy was always meant to be temporary. Congress ended it in late 2022, allowing states to restart eligibility reviews beginning April 1, 2023.

That process required tens of millions of people to confirm they were still eligible or else lose their Medicaid coverage.

By the time most states finished the process, more than 25 million people had been disenrolled, while about 56 million had their coverage renewed.

One striking feature of the unwinding is that the majority – 69% of people who lost coverage – did so not because they were formally determined to be ineligible but because of administrative reasons, such as failure to return renewal forms or outdated contact information. These are known as “procedural disenrollments.”

Administrative hurdles during the unwinding disrupted continuity of coverage and, in turn, access to care. Racial and ethnic minorities and those with greater health needs were most affected.

State policy shapes coverage losses

As the number of people covered by Medicaid plunged, many states adopted policies to reduce unnecessary coverage loss. These administrative choices ultimately influenced how many eligible people remained covered.

The most common and most effective administrative tool was ex parte – or automatic – renewals. Instead of requiring beneficiaries to submit paperwork, states used existing government data such as tax records or participation in other assistance programs to automatically verify eligibility.

Six months into the unwinding process, more than half of Medicaid renewals were being completed automatically. States that relied more heavily on ex parte renewals had lower disenrollment rates.

States also experimented with other approaches, including extending deadlines for renewal paperwork, adding more staff to answer phones and help people complete renewals, and running outreach campaigns reminding people to update contact information.

Where Medicaid enrollment stands now

The most recent data shows that Medicaid enrollment has largely stabilized after several years of dramatic change. As of December 2025, the most recent month for which data is available, total enrollment stands at roughly 76 million – above prepandemic levels of about 71 million but below the pandemic peak of 94.1 million.

The unwinding offers a clear picture of how Medicaid functions when its rules change. During the pandemic, continuous coverage policies largely eliminated the usual cycle of people moving in and out of the program. When those policies ended, that churn returned – often driven not by changes in eligibility but by how renewal processes were implemented.

Looking ahead, the same state-by-state differences in policies that helped or hindered people’s ability to maintain Medicaid enrollment as pandemic coverage wound down are likely to matter again. Under the 2025 budget law, states must begin checking eligibility for many adults every six months instead of once a year. States must also enforce new work requirements for many adults starting in 2027.

The law also delayed some federal changes that were supposed to make Medicaid enrollment and renewal easier. So even when the rules come from Washington, who keeps their coverage may still depend heavily on how much paperwork, automation and hands-on help each state builds into the process.

Together, these trends suggest that future enrollment levels will be shaped by both expanding and constraining forces. These forces will have real consequences for the millions of people who rely on Medicaid – not just for coverage, but for consistent access to care, medications and financial protection during periods of instability.

Aparna Soni receives funding from the American Lung Association, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the Indiana Department of Health, Eli Lilly & Corporation, the Indiana Business Health Collaborative, and the Upjohn Institute.

– ref. 25 million people lost Medicaid after the COVID-19 pandemic — and state policies shaped who stayed covered – https://theconversation.com/25-million-people-lost-medicaid-after-the-covid-19-pandemic-and-state-policies-shaped-who-stayed-covered-277599

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Anna Piela, Visiting Scholar in Religious Studies and Gender, Northwestern University

The war with Iran is not just a geopolitical conflict. We see religious rhetoric used to cast strategic interests as a moral or sacred matter.

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson described Iran’s majority faith tradition, Shiite Islam, as a “misguided religion” while discussing the ongoing U.S. strikes against Iran on March 4, 2026. A complaint made to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation alleged that same month that an unnamed military commander had said that “President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth.” In the Book of Revelation, Armageddon represents the final battle between good and evil, associated with the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Soon after the U.S. attack on Iran, right-wing pastor Andrew Sedra commented that “Trump is going after the head of the snake, which is Islam.” He added that “God is using President Trump in a prophetic moment of time to execute judgment on evil and wicked civilizations.”

In part, such religious rhetoric draws on older narratives about Islam in Christian thought. In medieval times, Islam was often portrayed as a violent and extremist faith. Over the past few decades, many American politicians and Christian clergy have disparaged Islam and its believers. My research shows that these earlier portrayals remain recognizable in the rhetoric today.

Hostile depictions

Early Christian theologians began to designate Islam as a theological rival soon after its emergence in 610 C.E. In the eighth century, the monk John of Damascus described Islam as a “heresy” in his work “The ‘Heresy of the Ishmaelites.’” This is widely considered the earliest documented critique of Islamic doctrine.

In his 2002 book, “Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination,” historian John Tolan writes that medieval Christian writers disseminated “crude insults to the Prophet, gross caricatures of Muslim ritual [and] deliberate deformation of passages of the Koran.” They portrayed Muslims as “libidinous, gluttonous semi-human barbarians,” he adds.

Tolan and other historians show how these hostile depictions developed in time in monasteries and royal courts. In popular culture, epic poems called “chansons de geste” glorified Christian heroes vanquishing Muslim foes.

Notably, medieval Muslim theologians also produced cutting critiques of Christian doctrines such as the Trinity, which they viewed as polytheistic. However, these writings circulated largely within scholarly circles. In Christian Europe, however, anti-Muslim writings were often used to justify the Crusades. Pope Urban II urged in 1095 that Holy Land be wrested from those who inhabited it and brought under Christian control.

Similarly, the Second, Third and Fourth Crusades were preceded by papal letters that depicted Muslims as enemies of the faith and called on Christians to reclaim Palestine.

The eventual military failure of the Crusades posed a new theological problem to Christian thinkers.

Medieval Christians believed history reflected God’s judgment. As a result, they struggled to explain the military success of Muslim armies in theological terms, since such victories in the Holy Land would imply divine favor for Muslims. In order to reconcile this, some medieval Christians developed the idea that the defeats were a punishment for Christian sin.

Accordingly, medieval epic poems and art often depicted Muslims as near-demonic, bloodthirsty figures wearing turbans and strange robes.

Christian missionary narratives

In later centuries, these anti-Muslim depictions were reworked to justify colonialism. Scholar Edward Said famously critiqued early modern narratives about people and cultures from the Middle East and Arab world in his foundational 1978 work, “Orientalism.”

He argued that Orientalist stereotypes reduced diverse peoples to a set of mostly negative traits: barbaric, violent, incomprehensible, but also lazy, gullible and mysterious. While not held by all Christians, these ideas circulated broadly within Christian and Western intellectual traditions, shaping durable representations of Muslims in literature, art, theology and politics.

Scholar Deepa Kumar, who recognized this tension, wrote that “while ordinary people can and do resist dominant ideas, those who rule the society tend to set the terms of discussion.”

Anti-Muslim tropes were reflected in Christian missionary narratives. In the 19th century, figures such as David Livingstone promoted what later came to be known as the “three C’s” of colonial expansion: Christianity, commerce and civilization, all portrayed as benefiting the colonized peoples.

Over time, these ideas became part of a broader moral justification for European imperial expansion, framing colonial rule as a civilizing mission. As part of this effort, missionaries often contrasted the moral authority of Christianity with Islam, which they portrayed as a morally stagnant and simplistic.

Islamophobia today

While these hostile themes have been adapted over centuries to fit new contexts, they are recognizable in political and media rhetoric today. This rhetoric shapes popular understandings of Islam in troubling ways.

In a survey of American Baptist clergy conducted for my 2026 book, “Confronting Islamophobia in the Church,” with co-author and Baptist pastor Michael Woolf, I found that many pastors describe Islam and Muslims as inherently violent, blasphemous, oppressive toward women, or incompatible with Western society. These pastors have adapted old Christian tropes to contemporary moral language. Theological accusations of Islamic “heresy” have morphed into concerns about apparent Muslim violence and women’s oppression.

A 2019 study found that 9 in 10 pastors believe that they influence what their congregants think about social issues, suggesting that religious prejudice, including Islamophobia, can be reinforced in church contexts. Indeed, historians of American evangelicalism such as Kristin Kobez du Mez note that Islam has been often portrayed in evangelical church contexts as violent and opposed to Christian values. In her 2020 bestselling book, “Jesus and John Wayne,” she cites a 2002 poll that found that 77% of evangelical leaders held an overall unfavorable view of Islam, and 70% agreed that Islam was “a religion of violence.”

At the same time, Muslim groups like Council on American-Islamic Relations and national interfaith coalitions such as Shoulder to Shoulder Campaign have worked with Christians to challenge these portrayals and promote more nuanced understandings of Islam. For example, Shoulder to Shoulder Campaign delivers anti-Islamophobia training to pastors and congregations – Faith over Fear – around the country.

Researchers have linked incendiary rhetoric about Muslims to spikes in discrimination and hate crimes in Europe and North America. A study by the Center for the Study of Organized Hate found a significant surge in anti-Muslim hate speech in the first week of the war in Iran. When politicians describe Islam as the enemy and the West as a civilizing force, they risk turning distant wars into everyday hostility toward American Muslim communities.

Anna Piela previously received funding from the National Science Center in Poland, the American Academy of Religion, and the Interfaith Alliance. Currently she is not receiving any funding.

– ref. The enduring legacy of medieval Christian depictions of Islam in today’s political discourse – https://theconversation.com/the-enduring-legacy-of-medieval-christian-depictions-of-islam-in-todays-political-discourse-272036