Category: English

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Clive Neal, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences, University of Notre Dame

In a bold, strategic move for the U.S., acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy announced plans on Aug. 5, 2025, to build a nuclear fission reactor for deployment on the lunar surface in 2030. Doing so would allow the United States to gain a foothold on the Moon by the time China plans to land the first taikonaut, what China calls its astronauts, there by 2030.

Apart from the geopolitical importance, there are other reasons why this move is critically important. A source of nuclear energy will be necessary for visiting Mars, because solar energy is weaker there. It could also help establish a lunar base and potentially even a permanent human presence on the Moon, as it delivers consistent power through the cold lunar night.

As humans travel out into the solar system, learning to use the local resources is critical for sustaining life off Earth, starting at the nearby Moon. NASA plans to prioritize the fission reactor as power necessary to extract and refine lunar resources.

As a geologist who studies human space exploration, I’ve been mulling over two questions since Duffy’s announcement. First, where is the best place to put an initial nuclear reactor on the Moon, to set up for future lunar bases? Second, how will NASA protect the reactor from plumes of regolith – or loosely fragmented lunar rocks – kicked up by spacecraft landing near it? These are two key questions the agency will have to answer as it develops this technology.

Where do you put a nuclear reactor on the Moon?

The nuclear reactor will likely form the power supply for the initial U.S.-led Moon base that will support humans who’ll stay for ever-increasing lengths of time. To facilitate sustainable human exploration of the Moon, using local resources such as water and oxygen for life support and hydrogen and oxygen to refuel spacecraft can dramatically reduce the amount of material that needs to be brought from Earth, which also reduces cost.

In the 1990s, spacecraft orbiting the Moon first observed dark craters called permanently shadowed regions on the lunar north and south poles. Scientists now suspect these craters hold water in the form of ice, a vital resource for countries looking to set up a long-term human presence on the surface. NASA’s Artemis campaign aims to return people to the Moon, targeting the lunar south pole to take advantage of the water ice that is present there.

In order to be useful, the reactor must be close to accessible, extractable and refinable water ice deposits. The issue is we currently do not have the detailed information needed to define such a location.

The good news is the information can be obtained relatively quickly. Six lunar orbital missions have collected, and in some cases are still collecting, relevant data that can help scientists pinpoint which water ice deposits are worth pursuing.

These datasets give indications of where either surface or buried water ice deposits are. It is looking at these datasets in tandem that can indicate water ice “hot prospects,” which rover missions can investigate and confirm or deny the orbital observations. But this step isn’t easy.

Luckily, NASA already has its Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover mission built, and it has passed all environmental testing. It is currently in storage, awaiting a ride to the Moon. The VIPER mission can be used to investigate on the ground the hottest prospect for water ice identified from orbital data. With enough funding, NASA could probably have this data in a year or two at both the lunar north and south poles.

How do you protect the reactor?

Once NASA knows the best spots to put a reactor, it will then have to figure out how to shield the reactor from spacecraft as they land. As spacecraft approach the Moon’s surface, they stir up loose dust and rocks, called regolith. It will sandblast anything close to the landing site, unless the items are placed behind large boulders or beyond the horizon, which is more than 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) away on the Moon.

Scientists already know about the effects of landing next to a pre-positioned asset. In 1969, Apollo 12 landed 535 feet (163 meters) away from the robotic Surveyor 3 spacecraft, which showed corrosion on surfaces exposed to the landing plume. The Artemis campaign will have much bigger lunar landers, which will generate larger regolith plumes than Apollo did. So any prepositioned assets will need protection from anything landing close by, or the landing will need to occur beyond the horizon.

Until NASA can develop a custom launch and landing pad, using the lunar surface’s natural topography or placing important assets behind large boulders could be a temporary solution. However, a pad built just for launching and landing spacecraft will eventually be necessary for any site chosen for this nuclear reactor, as it will take multiple visits to build a lunar base. While the nuclear reactor can supply the power needed to build a pad, this process will require planning and investment.

Human space exploration is complicated. But carefully building up assets on the Moon means scientists will eventually be able to do the same thing a lot farther away on Mars. While the devil is in the details, the Moon will help NASA develop the abilities to use local resources and build infrastructure that could allow humans to survive and thrive off Earth in the long term.

Clive Neal receives funding from NASA.

– ref. NASA wants to put a nuclear reactor on the Moon by 2030 – choosing where is tricky – https://theconversation.com/nasa-wants-to-put-a-nuclear-reactor-on-the-moon-by-2030-choosing-where-is-tricky-263146

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Fiddy Davis Jaihind Jothikaran, Associate Professor of Kinesiology, Hope College

In a world where sports are dominated by youth and speed, some athletes in their late 30s and even 40s are not just keeping up – they are thriving.

Novak Djokovic is still outlasting opponents nearly half his age on tennis’s biggest stages. LeBron James continues to dictate the pace of NBA games, defending centers and orchestrating plays like a point guard. Allyson Felix won her 11th Olympic medal in track and field at age 35. And Tom Brady won a Super Bowl at 43, long after most NFL quarterbacks retire.

The sustained excellence of these athletes is not just due to talent or grit – it’s biology in action. Staying at the top of their game reflects a trainable convergence of brain, body and mindset. I’m a performance scientist and a physical therapist who has spent over two decades studying how athletes train, taper, recover and stay sharp. These insights aren’t just for high-level athletes – they hold true for anyone navigating big life changes or working to stay healthy.

Increasingly, research shows that the systems that support high performance – from motor control to stress regulation, to recovery – are not fixed traits but trainable capacities. In a world of accelerating change and disruption, the ability to adapt to new changes may be the most important skill of all. So, what makes this adaptability possible – biologically, cognitively and emotionally?

The amygdala and prefrontal cortex

Neuroscience research shows that with repeated exposure to high-stakes situations, the brain begins to adapt. The prefrontal cortex – the region most responsible for planning, focus and decision-making – becomes more efficient in managing attention and making decisions, even under pressure.

During stressful situations, such as facing match point in a Grand Slam final, this area of the brain can help an athlete stay composed and make smart choices – but only if it’s well trained.

In contrast, the amygdala, our brain’s threat detector, can hijack performance by triggering panic, freezing motor responses or fueling reckless decisions. With repeated exposure to high-stakes moments, elite athletes gradually reshape this brain circuit.

They learn to tune down amygdala reactivity and keep the prefrontal cortex online, even when the pressure spikes. This refined brain circuitry enables experienced performers to maintain their emotional control.

Creating a brain-body loop

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF, is a molecule that supports adapting to changes quickly. Think of it as fertilizer for the brain. It enhances neuroplasticity: the brain’s ability to rewire itself through experience and repetition. This rewiring helps athletes build and reinforce the patterns of connections between brain cells to control their emotion, manage their attention and move with precision.

BDNF levels increase with intense physical activity, mental focus and deliberate practice, especially when combined with recovery strategies such as sleep and deep breathing.

Elevated BDNF levels are linked to better resilience against stress and may support faster motor learning, which is the process of developing or refining movement patterns.

For example, after losing a set, Djokovic often resets by taking deep, slow breaths – not just to calm his nerves, but to pause and regain control. This conscious breathing helps him restore focus and likely quiets the stress signals in his brain.

In moments like these, higher BDNF availability likely allows him to regulate his emotions and recalibrate his motor response, helping him to return to peak performance faster than his opponent.

Rewiring your brain

In essence, athletes who repeatedly train and compete in pressure-filled environments are rewiring their brain to respond more effectively to those demands. This rewiring, from repeated exposures, helps boost BDNF levels and in turn keeps the prefrontal cortex sharp and dials down the amygdala’s tendency to overreact.

This kind of biological tuning is what scientists call cognitive reserve and allostasis – the process the body uses to make changes in response to stress or environmental demands to remain stable. It helps the brain and body be flexible, not fragile.

Importantly, this adaptation isn’t exclusive to elite athletes. Studies on adults of all ages show that regular physical activity – particularly exercises that challenge both body and mind – can raise BDNF levels, improve the brain’s ability to adapt and respond to new challenges, and reduce stress reactivity.

Programs that combine aerobic movement with coordination tasks, such as dancing, complex drills or even fast-paced walking while problem-solving have been shown to preserve skills such as focus, planning, impulse control and emotional regulation over time.

After an intense training session or a match, you will often see athletes hopping on a bike or spending some time in the pool. These low-impact, gentle movements, known as active recovery, help tone down the nervous system gradually.

Outside of active recovery, sleep is where the real reset and repair happen. Sleep aids in learning and strengthens the neural connections challenged during training and competition.

Over time, this convergence creates a trainable loop between the brain and body that is better equipped to adapt, recover and perform.

Lessons beyond sport

While the spotlight may shine on sporting arenas, you don’t need to be a pro athlete to train these same skills.

The ability to perform under pressure is a result of continuing adaptation. Whether you’re navigating a career pivot, caring for family members, or simply striving to stay mentally sharp as the world changes, the principles are the same: Expose yourself to challenges, regulate stress and recover deliberately.

While speed, agility and power may decline with age, some sport-specific skills such as anticipation, decision-making and strategic awareness actually improve. Athletes with years of experience develop faster mental models of how a play will unfold, which allows them to make better and faster choices with minimal effort. This efficiency is a result of years of reinforcing neural circuits that doesn’t immediately vanish with age. This is one reason experienced athletes often excel even if they are well past their physical prime.

Physical activity, especially dynamic and coordinated movement, boosts the brain’s capacity to adapt. So does learning new skills, practicing mindfulness and even rehearsing performance under pressure. In daily life, this might be a surgeon practicing a critical procedure in simulation, a teacher preparing for a tricky parent meeting, or a speaker practicing a high-stakes presentation to stay calm and composed when it counts. These aren’t elite rituals – they’re accessible strategies for building resilience, motor efficiency and emotional control.

Humans are built to adapt – with the right strategies, you can sustain excellence at any stage of life.

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

– ref. Some pro athletes keep getting better as they age − neuroscience can explain how they stay sharp – https://theconversation.com/some-pro-athletes-keep-getting-better-as-they-age-neuroscience-can-explain-how-they-stay-sharp-261927

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Benjamin Jensen, Professor of Strategic Studies at the Marine Corps University School of Advanced Warfighting; Scholar-in-Residence, American University School of International Service

Despite two centuries of evolution, the structure of a modern military staff would be recognizable to Napoleon. At the same time, military organizations have struggled to incorporate new technologies as they adapt to new domains – air, space and information – in modern war.

The sizes of military headquarters have grown to accommodate the expanded information flows and decision points of these new facets of warfare. The result is diminishing marginal returns and a coordination nightmare – too many cooks in the kitchen – that risks jeopardizing mission command.

AI agents – autonomous, goal-oriented software powered by large language models – can automate routine staff tasks, compress decision timelines and enable smaller, more resilient command posts. They can shrink the staff while also making it more effective.

As an international relations scholar and reserve officer in the U.S. Army who studies military strategy, I see both the opportunity afforded by the technology and the acute need for change.

That need stems from the reality that today’s command structures still mirror Napoleon’s field headquarters in both form and function – industrial-age architectures built for massed armies. Over time, these staffs have ballooned in size, making coordination cumbersome. They also result in sprawling command posts that modern precision artillery, missiles and drones can target effectively and electronic warfare can readily disrupt.

Russia’s so-called “Graveyard of Command Posts” in Ukraine vividly illustrates how static headquarters where opponents can mass precision artillery, missiles and drones become liabilities on a modern battlefield.

The role of AI agents

Military planners now see a world in which AI agents – autonomous, goal-oriented software that can perceive, decide and act on their own initiative – are mature enough to deploy in command systems. These agents promise to automate the fusion of multiple sources of intelligence, threat-modeling, and even limited decision cycles in support of a commander’s goals. There is still a human in the loop, but the humans will be able to issue commands faster and receive more timely and contextual updates from the battlefield.

These AI agents can parse doctrinal manuals, draft operational plans and generate courses of action, which helps accelerate the tempo of military operations. Experiments – including efforts I ran at Marine Corps University – have demonstrated how even basic large language models can accelerate staff estimates and inject creative, data-driven options into the planning process. These efforts point to the end of traditional staff roles.

There will still be people – war is a human endeavor – and ethics will still factor into streams of algorithms making decisions. But the people who remain deployed are likely to gain the ability to navigate mass volumes of information with the help of AI agents.

These teams are likely to be smaller than modern staffs. AI agents will allow teams to manage multiple planning groups simultaneously.

For example, they will be able to use more dynamic red teaming techniques – role-playing the opposition – and vary key assumptions to create a wider menu of options than traditional plans. The time saved not having to build PowerPoint slides and updating staff estimates will be shifted to contingency analysis – asking “what if” questions – and building operational assessment frameworks – conceptual maps of how a plan is likely to play out in a particular situation – that provide more flexibility to commanders.

Designing the next military staff

To explore the optimal design of this AI agent-augmented staff, I led a team of researchers at the bipartisan think tank Center for Strategic & International Studies’ Futures Lab to explore alternatives. The team developed three baseline scenarios reflecting what most military analysts are seeing as the key operational problems in modern great power competition: joint blockades, firepower strikes and joint island campaigns. Joint refers to an action coordinated among multiple branches of a military.

In the example of China and Taiwan, joint blockades describe how China could isolate the island nation and either starve it or set conditions for an invasion. Firepower strikes describe how Beijing could fire salvos of missiles – similar to what Russia is doing in Ukraine – to destroy key military centers and even critical infrastructure. Last, in Chinese doctrine, a Joint Island Landing Campaign describes the cross-strait invasion their military has spent decades refining.

Any AI agent-augmented staff should be able to manage warfighting functions across these three operational scenarios.

The research team found that the best model kept humans in the loop and focused on feedback loops. This approach – called the Adaptive Staff Model and based on pioneering work by sociologist Andrew Abbott – embeds AI agents within continuous human-machine feedback loops, drawing on doctrine, history and real-time data to evolve plans on the fly.

In this model, military planning is ongoing and never complete, and focused more on generating a menu of options for the commander to consider, refine and enact. The research team tested the approach with multiple AI models and found that it outperformed alternatives in each case.

AI agents are not without risk. First, they can be overly generalized, if not biased. Foundation models – AI models trained on extremely large datasets and adaptable to a wide range of tasks – know more about pop culture than war and require refinement. This makes it important to benchmark agents to understand their strengths and limitations.

Second, absent training in AI fundamentals and advanced analytical reasoning, many users tend to use models as a substitute for critical thinking. No smart model can make up for a dumb, or worse, lazy user.

Seizing the ‘agentic’ moment

To take advantage of AI agents, the U.S. military will need to institutionalize building and adapting agents, include adaptive agents in war games, and overhaul doctrine and training to account for human-machine teams. This will require a number of changes.

First, the military will need to invest in additional computational power to build the infrastructure required to run AI agents across military formations. Second, they will need to develop additional cybersecurity measures and conduct stress tests to ensure the agent-augmented staff isn’t vulnerable when attacked across multiple domains, including cyberspace and the electromagnetic spectrum.

Third, and most important, the military will need to dramatically change how it educates its officers. Officers will have to learn how AI agents work, including how to build them, and start using the classroom as a lab to develop new approaches to the age-old art of military command and decision-making. This could include revamping some military schools to focus on AI, a concept floated in the White House’s AI Action Plan released on July 23, 2025.

Absent these reforms, the military is likely to remain stuck in the Napoleonic staff trap: adding more people to solve ever more complex problems.

Benjamin Jensen led a research project that was a collaboration between CSIS and Scale AI. He did not personally receive any funding from the company.

– ref. AI is about to radically alter military command structures that haven’t changed much since Napoleon’s army – https://theconversation.com/ai-is-about-to-radically-alter-military-command-structures-that-havent-changed-much-since-napoleons-army-262200

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Kimberly Fenn, Professor of Psychology, Michigan State University

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com.

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Do we visualize dreams in color or black and white? – Srihan, age 7, West Bengal, India

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Dreams are an astonishing state of consciousness. As you sleep, your mind creates fantastic and bizarre stories, rich with visual details – all without any conscious input from you.

Some dreams are boring. Others show you shocking events or magnificent images. I frequently dream of alligators walking upright, wearing sunglasses and yellow T-shirts. Often the alligators are friendly and go on adventures with me, but sometimes they’re aggressive and chase me.

The way the brain operates while you’re dreaming explains why dreams can be so fantastic. A small structure called the amygdala is largely responsible for processing emotional information, and it’s very active while dreaming. In contrast, the brain’s frontal cortex, which helps you plan and strategize, tends to be rather quiet. This pattern explains why dreams can jump from one peculiar scene to the next, with no clear story line. It’s as if you are sailing an emotional wave, without a captain.

Dreams can indeed be emotional and sometimes scary. But dreams can be enjoyable too – maybe you’ve had a dream so delightful you were disappointed to wake up and realize it wasn’t reality.

Are the images in your dreams in vivid color? Perhaps you had a dream about playing Candy Crush and can remember the brightly colored red, purple and yellow candies cascading in your dream.

As a neuroscientist who studies sleep, I can tell you that about 70% to 80% of people report dreaming in color, as opposed to just in shades of black and white. But this estimate may be low, because scientists can’t actually see what a dreamer sees. There’s no sophisticated technology showing them exactly what’s happening in a dreamer’s mind. Instead, they have to rely on what dreamers remember about their dreams.

Studying sleep in the laboratory

To study dreams, researchers ask people to sleep in laboratories, and they simply wake them while they’re dreaming and then ask them what they were just thinking about. It’s pretty rudimentary science, but it works.

How do scientists know when people are dreaming? Although dreams can occur in any sleep stage, research has long shown that dreams are most likely to occur during rapid eye movement sleep, or REM sleep.

Scientists can identify REM by the electrical activity on your scalp and your eye movements. They do this by using an electroencephalogram, which uses several small electrodes placed directly on the scalp to measure brain activity. During REM, the dreamer’s eyes move back and forth repeatedly. This likely means they’re scanning – that is, looking around in their dream.

That’s when dream researchers wake up their participants. Dreams are really tricky to study because they evaporate so quickly. So instead of asking participants to remember a dream – even one they were having a moment ago – we ask them what they were just “thinking.” Dreamers don’t have time to think or reflect, they just respond – before the dream is lost.

Dreams are full-sensory experiences

There seem to be age differences in color dreaming. Older people report far less color in their dreams than younger people. The prevailing explanation for this is based on the media they experienced while young. If the photographs, movies and television you saw as a child were all in black and white, then you are more likely to report more black-and-white dreams than color dreams.

This phenomenon raises some interesting questions. Are people really dreaming in black and white or just remembering their dreams that way after the fact? Was it as common for people to say they dreamed in black and white before these visual media were invented? There wasn’t any focused research that relied on in-the-moment dream reports back before black-and-white photos and movies existed, so we will never know.

Although visual features dominate, you can also hear, smell, taste and feel things in your dreams. So if you dream about visiting Disneyland, you might hear the music from the parade or smell french fries from a food stand.

You may have also wondered whether blind people dream. They do. If a person becomes blind after age 5 or 6, their dreams will contain visual images. However, someone who is congenitally blind, or becomes blind before about age 5, will not have visual images in their dreams. Instead, their dreams contain more information from the other senses.

Remembering your dreams

Some people may say they don’t dream at all. They do, but many people don’t remember their dreams. The vast majority of dreams are forgotten. That’s because when we’re in REM sleep, the hippocampus, the area of the brain responsible for long-term memory, is largely turned off.

Others may remember a dream immediately upon awakening but quickly forget it. That’s because the hippocampus is a bit sluggish and takes some time to wake up, so you’re not able to create a long-term memory right after waking.

Perhaps the biggest question about dreams is whether they mean anything. People have been discussing this since ancient times. Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, called dreams the “royal road to the unconscious.” He believed they had a profound meaning that’s hidden from the dreamer.

But today, scientists agree that dreams do not have any hidden meaning. So while it’s entertaining to think about what your dreams mean, there’s no scientific basis, for example, to think that a dream about your teeth falling out automatically means you’re anxious about a loss.

If you would like to remember your dreams better, simply keep a notepad and pen by your bed and practice writing down your dreams right when you wake. This is the best way to remember the fantastical stories your brain creates for you every night.

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Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.

And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.

Kimberly Fenn 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. Do people dream in color or black and white? – https://theconversation.com/do-people-dream-in-color-or-black-and-white-256971

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Caterina G. Roman, Professor of Criminal Justice, Temple University

Pennsylvania spends roughly US$200,000 a year for each juvenile it incarcerates, according to a 2021 report from the bipartisan Pennsylvania Juvenile Justice Task Force.

That’s 50 times the cost to deliver evidence-based family therapy that could prevent kids from entering the justice system in the first place.

In Philadelphia, juvenile incarceration involves confinement in the city‑run Philadelphia Juvenile Justice Services Center or other residential placement facility.

Young people leave these facilities with lower chances of graduating high school, frayed mental health and a higher likelihood of rearrest or being shot.

The social, emotional and economic costs of incarcerating young people are compounded in Philadelphia where, on any given day, dozens of youth may be held in the Juvenile Justice Services Center after they have been sentenced because a secure facility bed is not available.

That waiting time, which can be months, is punitive and unjust because it is not credited toward their sentence.

Drawing on almost 35 years of work in Philadelphia and other cities to understand what makes neighborhoods safer, I believe the surest returns come from prevention strategies aimed at young people who are not yet enmeshed in robberies, shootings and gang activity.

Homicides in Philadelphia are at their lowest levels in 25 years. In my view, this is an opportunity to redirect even youth who are already involved in violence away from the costly and counterproductive cycle of incarceration and into targeted, relationship-focused intervention programs that are humane, voluntary and effective.

At least two such programs exist here in Philadelphia – but on a modest scale.

School-based case management at Bartram High

In Southwest Philly, John Bartram High School’s Youth Violence Reduction Initiative launched in 2023.

It was designed by former School Safety Chief and now Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel, School Safety Officer and Program Manager Kevin Rosa, criminal justice researcher Brandy Blasko and me.

Students who have been involved in fights or show other risk factors for violence and street gang involvement are referred to the program.

The initative’s core idea is simple: Earn students’ trust through consistent, credible mentorship and step in when needed. Stepping in means teaching conflict resolution skills, running engaging workshops, buying a meal, or intervening when a fight is brewing or a student is on the verge of being expelled.

Each week a team of administrators, counselors, school safety officers and community outreach workers, most of whom are based in the school, review every participant’s progress. They track follow-through on referrals and coordinate communication with families and school staff.

The tightly managed, relationship-driven safety net gives students quicker access to help and makes the school climate calmer and safer.

Prior to 2023, on average, five Bartram High students were victims of firearm assault – at least one fatally – each school year.

At the 2025 National Conference on Juvenile Justice, program leaders presented evidence of an 80% decrease in firearm assaults by students and a 31% decrease in student-on-student assaults that did not involve guns. They also reported a 92% decrease in gang-involved group assaults, a 67% drop in student-on-staff assaults and a 62% drop in school incidents involving police.

More rigorous analysis needs to be done to verify that the program itself produced these results and some other factor wasn’t involved.

The program costs roughly $120,000 to serve 30 to 35 teenagers over a school year. That covers two full-time case managers, one part-time program manager and a small discretionary fund. The fund can be used for things such as local trips to museums, paying guest speakers and incentives for participant milestones.

Community-based support in West and Southwest Philly

The nonprofit YEAH Philly launched its Violent Crime Initiative in late 2020 for young people ages 15–24 from West and Southwest Philadelphia who have been charged with a violent or gun-related offense.

It takes the same relationship-based playbook the Youth Violence Reduction Initiative uses and amplifies it.

Court advocacy, cash stipends and intensive case management stay on tap for as long as a young person wants them. Since its inception, the voluntary program has served almost 200 people. Currently, 22 Philly youth receive Violent Crime Initiative services.

Flexible funding enables case managers to address nearly any support need that arises, going well beyond standard program budgets. This could mean a young person receives full tuition support for a two-year dental technician program while also attending intensive remedial writing workshops. Meanwhile, a partnership with Project HOME can secure them subsidized housing at Kate’s Place in Center City.

The approach emphasizes connection, case management and skill-building – key elements shown to help young people thrive when supported by caring, consistent adults.

I analyzed arrest data following a cohort of 93 young people who received Violent Crime Initiative services between January 2020 and April 2025. Among participants with two or more prior arrests, the rearrest rate was 60%. That’s compared to over 80% documented in a 2023 report prepared for the Philadelphia district attorney’s office that analyzed data on Philadelphia juveniles arrested in 2016. However, we haven’t been collecting data on all of the Violent Crime Initiative participants for as long, so the two figures are not perfectly comparable.

The power of credible, caring adults

Fostering deep engagement with positive role models is not a feel-good add-on. It is evidence-based public safety policy.

Research shows clearly that one of the most reliable turning points for high-risk youth is a stable, caring relationship with an adult who refuses to give up on them. This can be a teacher, coach, grandparent or any other trusted adult who provides consistent positive support and guidance and opens doors to new opportunities.

My own research on how and why young people leave street gangs underscores just how powerful such relationships can be. I also led a three-study synthesis with colleagues from Arizona State University and the University of Colorado-Boulder that reviewed research involving 784 former gang members in 13 U.S. cities. We wanted to understand what actually moves young people out of gang life.

The clearest pattern was positive relationships. “Push” forces, such as fatigue from violence or pressure from police, opened the exit door for many. But lasting change required equally strong “pulls” toward stable, positive relationships.

Data-sharing enables early intervention

After decades of evaluating both successful and failed public safety initiatives, I can say the biggest hurdle to developing cost-effective policies that reduce youth violence is the lack of coordinated, cross-agency use of data.

Cities need more than justice system records to guide their efforts. They need integrated information from schools, housing, behavioral health and community services.

With the right tools, early warning signs such as chronic school absence, school and neighborhood fights, and gun carrying can be flagged and young people matched with evidence-based programs and services they choose to participate in, rather than being mandated by the court, before a major crisis occurs.

Philadelphia already has the technical backbone for this work.

The Integrated Data for Evidence & Action or, “IDEA,” warehouse is a secure, city-run system that links administrative records across agencies. It allows officials to analyze patterns of risk across education, justice, housing and health systems, and it is used to support policy priorities such as Mayor Cherelle Parker’s public safety goal of reducing homicides by 20%.

Philadelphia also uses multidisciplinary planning meetings to configure services after a juvenile is released from incarceration – but only after incarceration. The meetings bring together the young people and their families with probation officers; attorneys; school, court and community representatives; behavioral health clinicians; and case management teams to coordinate supports that ease reentry and reduce recidivism.

Philadelphia city leaders could apply this coordinated approach earlier in a young person’s life and replace expensive and counterproductive confinement with voluntary, relationship-centered programming, using data from the IDEA warehouse to address early risk, pilot new ideas and track outcomes in real time.

Read more of our stories about Philadelphia.

Caterina G. Roman consults for the Office of School Safety within the School District of Philadelphia which runs the Youth Violence Reduction Initiative. She is also supported by the Neubauer Family Foundation as the evaluation partner for YEAH Philly’s Violence Crime Initiative. She is a member of the Advisory Board for Everytown for Gun Safety’s Community Safety Fund.

– ref. Data-driven early intervention strategies could revolutionize Philly’s approach to crime prevention – https://theconversation.com/data-driven-early-intervention-strategies-could-revolutionize-phillys-approach-to-crime-prevention-258756

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Germán Reyes, Assistant Professor of Economics, Middlebury

Over 80% of Middlebury College students use generative AI for coursework, according to a recent survey I conducted with my colleague and fellow economist Zara Contractor. This is one of the fastest technology adoption rates on record, far outpacing the 40% adoption rate among U.S. adults, and it happened in less than two years after ChatGPT’s public launch.

Although we surveyed only one college, our results align with similar studies, providing an emerging picture of the technology’s use in higher education.

Between December 2024 and February 2025, we surveyed over 20% of Middlebury College’s student body, or 634 students, to better understand how students are using artificial intelligence, and published our results in a working paper that has not yet gone through peer review.

What we found challenges the panic-driven narrative around AI in higher education and instead suggests that institutional policy should focus on how AI is used, not whether it should be banned.

Not just a homework machine

Contrary to alarming headlines suggesting that “ChatGPT has unraveled the entire academic project” and “AI Cheating Is Getting Worse,” we discovered that students primarily use AI to enhance their learning rather than to avoid work.

When we asked students about 10 different academic uses of AI – from explaining concepts and summarizing readings to proofreading, creating programming code and, yes, even writing essays – explaining concepts topped the list. Students frequently described AI as an “on-demand tutor,” a resource that was particularly valuable when office hours weren’t available or when they needed immediate help late at night.

We grouped AI uses into two types: “augmentation” to describe uses that enhance learning, and “automation” for uses that produce work with minimal effort. We found that 61% of the students who use AI employ these tools for augmentation purposes, while 42% use them for automation tasks like writing essays or generating code.

Even when students used AI to automate tasks, they showed judgment. In open-ended responses, students told us that when they did automate work, it was often during crunch periods like exam week, or for low-stakes tasks like formatting bibliographies and drafting routine emails, not as their default approach to completing meaningful coursework.

**In the graphic explainer, add “tasks” after

Of course, Middlebury is a small liberal arts college with a relatively large portion of wealthy students. What about everywhere else? To find out, we analyzed data from other researchers covering over 130 universities across more than 50 countries. The results mirror our Middlebury findings: Globally, students who use AI tend to be more likely to use it to augment their coursework, rather than automate it.

But should we trust what students tell us about how they use AI? An obvious concern with survey data is that students might underreport uses they see as inappropriate, like essay writing, while overreporting legitimate uses like getting explanations. To verify our findings, we compared them with data from AI company Anthropic, which analyzed actual usage patterns from university email addresses of their chatbot, Claude AI.

Anthropic’s data shows that “technical explanations” represent a major use, matching our finding that students most often use AI to explain concepts. Similarly, Anthropic found that designing practice questions, editing essays and summarizing materials account for a substantial share of student usage, which aligns with our results.

In other words, our self-reported survey data matches actual AI conversation logs.

Why it matters

As writer and academic Hua Hsu recently noted, “There are no reliable figures for how many American students use A.I., just stories about how everyone is doing it.” These stories tend to emphasize extreme examples, like a Columbia student who used AI “to cheat on nearly every assignment.”

But these anecdotes can conflate widespread adoption with universal cheating. Our data confirms that AI use is indeed widespread, but students primarily use it to enhance learning, not replace it. This distinction matters: By painting all AI use as cheating, alarmist coverage may normalize academic dishonesty, making responsible students feel naive for following rules when they believe “everyone else is doing it.”

Moreover, this distorted picture provides biased information to university administrators, who need accurate data about actual student AI usage patterns to craft effective, evidence-based policies.

What’s next

Our findings suggest that extreme policies like blanket bans or unrestricted use carry risks. Prohibitions may disproportionately harm students who benefit most from AI’s tutoring functions while creating unfair advantages for rule breakers. But unrestricted use could enable harmful automation practices that may undermine learning.

Instead of one-size-fits-all policies, our findings lead me to believe that institutions should focus on helping students distinguish beneficial AI uses from potentially harmful ones. Unfortunately, research on AI’s actual learning impacts remains in its infancy – no studies I’m aware of have systematically tested how different types of AI use affect student learning outcomes, or whether AI impacts might be positive for some students but negative for others.

Until that evidence is available, everyone interested in how this technology is changing education must use their best judgment to determine how AI can foster learning.

Germán Reyes 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. At one elite college, over 80% of students now use AI – but it’s not all about outsourcing their work – https://theconversation.com/at-one-elite-college-over-80-of-students-now-use-ai-but-its-not-all-about-outsourcing-their-work-262856

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Margaret Levenstein, Research Professor at the Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan

People rely on data from federal agencies every day – often without realizing it.

Rural residents use groundwater level data from the U.S. geological survey’s National Water Information System to decide where to dig wells. High school coaches turn to weather apps supported by data from the National Weather Service to decide when to move practice inside to avoid life-threatening heat. Emergency managers use data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey to ensure that residents without vehicles have seats on evacuation buses during local emergencies.

On Jan. 31, 2025, websites and datasets from across the federal government began to disappear. As that happened, archivists and researchers from around the world sprang into action, grabbing what they could before it was gone.

Trust in the federal statistical system took another hit when Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer was fired on the heels of a dismal Aug. 1, 2025, employment report.

And reduced data collection at the bureau was already causing concern before her dismissal. The bureau has ceased collection of critical inputs to the Consumer Price Index, likely reducing that inflation indicator’s accuracy, especially at the level of specific locations and products.

As researchers of economics and epidemiology at the University of Michigan, we have spent years working with data, often from the federal government. When data and information began to disappear, we were spurred into action to preserve these important public goods.

The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, where we work – commonly known as ICPSR – has been making data from governments and researchers available for more than 60 years. We are stewards of this data, preserving it and ensuring that it is accessible in a safe and responsible manner.

Unfortunately, government data is now at risk of becoming less available or disappearing. But there are steps that researchers – and the public – can take to reduce that risk.

Data at risk

Some 8,000 pages were removed from federal websites within a few days of Jan. 31, 2025. Though many were soon restored following substantial outcry and some court orders, it’s still unclear how the restored webpages and datasets may have been changed.

In one preliminary examination, researchers found that 49% of the 232 datasets they reviewed had been substantially altered, including the replacement of the word “gender” with “sex.” This alteration can obscure nonbinary gender identities. Only 13% of the changes the researchers found were documented by the government.

U.S. government data has also become less accessible because of mass firings of federal workers and the dismantling of entire agencies.

Important efforts like the Data Rescue Project and the Internet Archive have been able to preserve a great deal of knowledge and data, but they are mostly limited to publicly available data and information.

No one left to vet data

Many important government data resources contain sensitive or identifying information. This means officials must vet requests before they grant access to data rescue efforts. But many agencies have had their ability to conduct vetting and manage access severely curtailed and, in some cases, eliminated altogether.

Take the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System, which provides key data on maternal and child health from around the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention integrates data collected at state and local levels and adds population information to come up with estimates. While some of this data is publicly available, access to most data from 2016 and later requires a request to the CDC and a signed data use agreement.

At the start of 2025, multiple researchers reported to our team at the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research that the CDC had stopped processing these requests. In February, researchers discovered that the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System would be discontinued.

The CDC suggested that data collection would restart at some point. But on April 1, the entire Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System team was laid off. This made one of the most valuable sources of data on the health of mothers and babies largely inaccessible, and put plans for its future in limbo.

Similar situations have played out at other agencies, including the dismantled U.S. Agency for International Development and the National Center for Education Statistics. Data collected, cleaned and harmonized using taxpayer dollars is now languishing on inaccessible servers.

Inaccessible data

The portal that researchers use to apply for access to restricted federal statistical data now includes a list of data that researchers can no longer access.

Some organizations are leading efforts to restore access to particular datasets. The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, for instance, has an agreement with USAID to preserve and provide access to USAID’s education data. Unfortunately, these efforts barely scratch the surface. With very few staff left, there isn’t a clear estimate of which other USAID resources remain inaccessible.

According to our count, 354 restricted datasets from the federal statistical system’s Standard Application Portal have become unavailable due to firings, layoffs and funding cuts.

Data is critical for people and the state and local governments that represent them to make good decisions. Federal data is also used for oversight, so that researchers can verify that the government is doing what it’s supposed to in accordance with its congressionally mandated missions. Government efficiency requires accountability.

And accountability requires high-quality and timely data on operations.

The mass firings of federal employees means that those tasked with ensuring this accountability are doing so while struggling to obtain necessary data.

So where do we go from here?

While the pace of intentional government data removal appears to have slowed, it hasn’t stopped. New datasets under threat of disappearing are being rescued daily. Restructured federal agencies and related changes to – or neglect of – official websites can make data difficult or impossible to find.

What you can do

If you identify data that is at risk, perhaps because its collection has been discontinued or it covers a controversial topic, you can report your observations to the Data Rescue Project, a grassroots effort of archivists, librarians and other concerned people.

The Data Rescue Project has been working for months to identify data and preserve government data, including in the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research’s DataLumos open-access archive.

Similarly, the Public Environmental Data Partners, a coalition of nonprofits, archivists and researchers, are preserving federal environmental data and have a nomination form.

Efforts to identify restored data that has been altered are also gaining steam.

Dataindex tracks Federal Register notices that describe proposed changes to 24 widely used datasets from across the federal government, including the American Community Survey from the Census Bureau, the National Crime Victimization Survey from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, and the National Health Interview Survey from the CDC. The website also facilitates comment on proposed alterations.

You can help researchers understand the scale of data alterations that have been, and continue to be, made. If you notice changes in public datasets, you can share that information with the American Statistical Association’s FedStatMonitoring project.

The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research is continuing our efforts to ensure the preservation of, and access to, existing data, including from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

At the same time, we and other groups are planning future efforts in data collection to avoid gaps in our knowledge.

The federal statistical system is both large and complex, including hundreds of thousands of datasets that people depend on in many ways, from weather forecasts to local economic indicators. If the federal government continues to step back from its role as a provider of high-quality, trusted data, others – including state and local governments, academia, nonprofits and companies – may need to fill the gap by stepping up to collect it.

Margaret Levenstein receives or has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the U.S. Census Bureau.

John Kubale receives funding from the National Institutes of Health and Flu Lab. He previously worked for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. .

– ref. Data that taxpayers have paid for and rely on is disappearing – here’s how it’s happening and what you can do about it – https://theconversation.com/data-that-taxpayers-have-paid-for-and-rely-on-is-disappearing-heres-how-its-happening-and-what-you-can-do-about-it-251787

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Massumeh H. Toosi, PhD Student in Philanthropic Studies, Indiana University

Twelver Shiism is the largest branch within Shiism – one of the two major sects within Islam. Shiism is the second-largest tradition within Islam overall, following the Sunni tradition.

Iran is the only country to have Twelver Shiism as its official religion. In this tradition, religious leaders known as the marājiʿ al-taqlīd – the highest-ranking cleric within Twelver Shiism – and other high-ranking clerics, including ayatollahs, are regarded as moral and spiritual authorities whose guidance extends to both religious and political matters.

The second-largest population of Twelvers after Iran is in Iraq. Other major communities live in Pakistan, India, Lebanon, Azerbaijan and other countries of the Persian Gulf, such as Bahrain and Kuwait. There are also Twelver communities in some Western countries.

I am a practicing Twelver and have worked for an anthropological research project that highlights the rich cultural traditions of ethnic groups across Iran, based on written historical documents that cover various topics. This experience deepened my appreciation for Iran’s diversity, including the many ways in which Twelver Shiism is practiced and understood. Twelver Shiism is deeply rooted in a spiritual, theological and ethical tradition with over a millennium of history.

In Twelver Shiism, these values touch many aspects of daily and communal life. They are present in traditions and rituals, such as during Muḥarram, the first month of the Islamic calendar. They are also reflected in art, architecture and philanthropy as moral and religious obligations.

History and core beliefs

According to the Shiite tradition, the Prophet Muhammad’s family holds a special, divinely guided role in both religious and political leadership of the Muslim community.

Twelver Shiites, however, believe in a continuous line of 12 imams, considered to be descendants of the prophet through his daughter Fatima and son-in-law Ali. These imams represent moral integrity and spiritual authority and have a deep knowledge of the Quran and Islamic law.

The origin of Shiite identity traces back to the period following Muhammad’s death in A.D. 632. One group of Muslims supported Abu Bakr, a close companion of the prophet, as the first caliph – the successor to Muhammad and the leader of the Muslim community. This group later came to be known as Sunnis. Others believed that Ali, the prophet’s cousin and son-in-law, had been designated to lead. This group became known as Shi‘at Ali – the Party of Ali – which eventually evolved into the Shiite branch of Islam.

In the following years, Imam Hussein ibn Ali – the grandson of Muhammad – refused to recognize the authority of the Umayyad caliph Yazid, the ruler of the Umayyad dynasty from 680 to 683. Yazid’s rule marked the beginning of dynastic succession in the caliphate, a change many Shiites criticized as a departure from earlier Islamic principles of leadership. Hussein objected to Yazid’s claim on both political and moral grounds. He questioned Yazid’s legitimacy and refused to pledge allegiance to a ruler he believed was unjust.

Accompanied by a small group of companions and family members, Hussein embarked on a journey toward Kufa, Iraq, where he was intercepted and ultimately killed at the Battle of Karbala in 680. In Twelver Shiism, this death is revered as martyrdom, and the event holds enormous historical and religious significance, as it stands as a symbol of resistance to injustice when faced with tyranny. The remembrance of Karbala stands at the heart of the Shiite worldview. Within the Twelver tradition, it affirms the right to resist injustice.

In the following centuries, further differences over succession led to divisions within Shiites. Twelver Shiites recognize 12 imams, while other groups, such as the Ismailis and Zaydis, follow different descendants of Ali and have formed their own interpretations of religious authority.

Mourning and reflection

The battle of Karbala is mourned as a tragedy but remembered as a moral triumph among Shiite Muslims.

During the month of Muḥarram, the first 10 nights are set aside for reflection on the martyrdom of Hussein. This period culminates on the 10th day known as Āshūrā.

During these nights, Shiite families and communities create spaces of grief and remembrance. In many neighborhoods, shrines and mosques – grand or modest – are adorned with black flags, handwritten prayers, chains and candles.

Taziyyah – elegies and processions – enact the story of the martyrdom of Hussein as a symbol of resistance and sacrifice.

During those 10 days, people often turn living rooms, basements or alleyways into mourning spaces. They hang black, red and green cloth on the walls, and they light candles. Families and neighbors gather to recite poetic elegies and serve tea and food. These moments bring mourning into the rhythm of daily life.

Culture and art

Love for the prophet’s family, and a continuing search for justice and spiritual meaning, has inspired poetry, architecture, ritual and daily practice among Twelver Shiites across generations.

In Twelver contexts, especially in Iran and Iraq, grief is expressed through shrine design. Holy shrines are decorated with mirror mosaics, glowing tiles and engraved prayers. This architecture has symbolic and spiritual significance that deepens the sense of awe and respect in visitors, conveying a sense of hope for divine light and inviting reflection on martyrdom as the most honored form of death, or ashraf al-mawt.

There are other examples of how the spiritual memory of Karbala has inspired Twelver Shiites across generations: Artists in the the Saqqakhana movement, an Iranian art movement that emerged in the 1950s and ‘60s, drew inspiration from devotional structures and other popular rituals of Shiite piety. The word saqqakhanan – house of the water-giver – refers to small shrinelike fountains installed on neighborhood corners, where water is offered in remembrance of Hussein’s thirst at Karbala.

These structures, often decorated with chains, candles, mirrors and handwritten prayers, serve as modest devotional spaces where passersby pause for reflection or prayer. The artists used materials such as calligraphy, amulets, talismans, prayer beads and cloth, and combined them with techniques from modern painting and sculpture. Their goal was not to depict faith directly but to translate its emotional and symbolic language of devotion into visual expression. This movement carried into modern art galleries.

Philanthropic practices

This living tradition also shapes how Twelver Shiism understands generosity and philanthropy as a moral and religious obligation.

Philanthropy in Twelver Shiism evolved under the guidance of contemporary “marāji,” the highest-ranking religious scholars, who interpret the obligations of giving in light of present-day realities.

Like all Muslims, Twelvers are required to give zakat, a key Islamic philanthropic tradition and an obligatory act of giving. In addition, Shiite tradition uniquely includes Khums, a 20% religious obligation on annual savings and surplus income, which Twelvers pay directly to recognized Shiite religious authorities or their appointed representatives. Half is allocated to the needy descendants of the prophet, while the other half is entrusted to religious authorities to support religious, educational and charitable initiatives.

Shiite communities also sustain charitable giving through the institution of waqf, or charitable endowment, which supports mosques, religious schools and aid for the poor.

According to Islamic scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr, the diversity within Islam, including the Shiite tradition, reflects the richness of Islam. Twelver Shiism, in this view, stands as a profound spiritual path within the broader Islamic tradition.

Massumeh H. Toosi 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. Twelver Shiism – a branch of Islam that serves both as a spiritual and political force in Iran and beyond – https://theconversation.com/twelver-shiism-a-branch-of-islam-that-serves-both-as-a-spiritual-and-political-force-in-iran-and-beyond-259853

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Claire Therese Hemingway, Assistant Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee

People often prioritize aesthetics when choosing plants for their gardens. They may pick flowers based on colors that create visually appealing combinations and varieties that have bigger and brighter displays or more fragrant and pleasant-smelling flowers. Some may also choose species that bloom at different times in order to maintain a colorful display throughout the growing season.

Many gardeners also strive for ecological harmony, seeking to maintain pollinator-friendly gardens that support bees, butterflies, hummingbirds and other pollinators. But there are some notable ways in which the preferences of humans and pollinators have the potential to diverge, with negative consequences for pollinators.

As a cognitive ecologist who studies animal decision-making, I find that understanding how pollinators learn about and choose between flowers can add a helpful perspective to garden aesthetics.

Pollinator preferences and rewards

Over millions of years, plants have evolved suites of floral traits to attract specific types of pollinators.

Pollinators can be attracted to flowers based on color, pattern, scent and texture. For instance, hummingbirds typically visit bright red and orange flowers with narrow openings and a tubular shape. The striking red cardinal flower is one that is primarily pollinated by hummingbirds, for example.

Bees are often attracted to blue, yellow and white flowers that can be either narrow and tubular or open. Lavender, sage and sunflower plants all bear flowers that attract bee pollinators.

Flowers offer rewards to visiting pollinators. Nectar is a sugar-rich solution that flowers produce to attract pollinators, which use it to meet their energy needs.

Flowers have an ulterior motive for providing this energy source. While drinking the nectar, pollen can get stuck on the pollinator and transferred to the next flower it visits. This process is essential for the plant’s reproductive success. Pollen contains the plants’ male gametes, which, when deposited onto another flower in the right place, can fertilize the female gametes and produce seeds that grow into new plants. Pollen is also nutrient-rich, containing proteins, lipids and amino acids. Many species, such as bees, collect pollen to feed their developing young.

A battle for resources

Pollinators visit flowers in search of floral rewards. But modifying the features of flowers for aesthetics can be a hindrance to pollinators trying to get these rewards. For example, popular garden plants such as roses and peonies are often bred to have more petals and larger flower heads, making them more visually striking and appealing to humans. But these extra petals may block a pollinator’s access to the center of the flower, where floral rewards are located.

Further, plants have limited resources. Spending them on building aesthetically pleasing but energetically expensive features can mean there’s less left to invest in signals and rewards essential for attracting pollinators. In extreme cases, breeding for aesthetics has led to plants with what scientists and gardeners call “double flowers.” In these varieties, extra petals replace reproductive parts entirely. These plants are often altogether unrewarding for pollinators, since the flowers no longer produce nectar or pollen. Double flowers occur from mutations that convert the pollen-producing stamens and other reproductive organs into petals. They can occur naturally but are rare in wild populations.

Since these double flowers cannot spread pollen or produce seeds effectively, they are unable to reproduce in the wild and pass these mutations on. To cultivate them as garden varieties, people propagate these plants through cuttings – small sections cut from the stem that can be rooted to grow clones of the parent plant. Many common garden plants have popular double-flowered varieties, including roses, peonies, camellias, marigolds, tulips, dahlias and chrysanthemums.

Roses, for example, have become synonymous with having many densely-packed petals. But these popular garden varieties are usually double-flowered or have many extra petals blocking access to the center of the rose and provide no rewards to pollinators.

Consider making your gardens friendlier to pollinators by avoiding these double-flowered plants, and ask your local garden center for recommended varieties if you need help.

Sometimes gardeners intentionally prevent plants from flowering, which limits or eliminates their value to pollinators.

For example, herbs such as thyme, oregano, mint and basil are generally most flavorful and tender before the plant begins to flower. Once it flowers, the plant diverts energy to reproductive structures, and leaves become tougher and lose flavor. As a result, gardeners often pinch off flower buds and harvest leaves frequently to promote continued growth and delay flowering. Letting some of your herbs flower occasionally can help pollinators without affecting your kitchen supplies too much.

Finding the right flowers

Flowers with unusual colors and stronger fragrances can be difficult for pollinators to detect and recognize.

People might favor bright and unusual flower colors in their gardens over naturally occurring shades. But this preference might not align with what the pollinators have evolved to favor in nature. For example, planting human-preferred colors, such as white or pink morphs of hummingbird-pollinated flowers that are typically red, can reduce a flower’s visibility and attractiveness. Even when cultivated varieties have a similar enough color to natural ones to attract pollinators, they may lack other important visual components, such as ultraviolet floral patterns that can guide pollinators to nectar sources.

Breeding plant varieties to accentuate particular aesthetic traits may have unintended consequences for other traits. Changes in flower color through selective breeding can also affect leaf color, as genes involved in pigment production can affect multiple plant tissues. Besides changing the overall appearance of the plant, changing leaf color may alter background contrast between flowers and the leaves, which can make flowers less conspicuous to pollinators.

Many pollinators use a combination of color and scent to detect and discriminate between flowers. But breeding for traits such as color and brightness can alter floral scents due to unintended genetic changes or energetic trade-offs.

Scent helps pollinators locate flowers from farther distances, so unfamiliar or reduced fragrance may make flowers harder to find in the first place. Disruption in either color or scent can make flowers less noticeable to pollinators expecting a familiar pairing and can hinder a pollinator’s ability to learn which flowers are suitable for them in the first place.

A balanced approach for healthy gardens

When flowers are harder to find, pollinators are less likely to visit them. When they offer poor or no rewards, pollinators quickly abandon them for better options. This disruption in plant-pollinator interactions has implications not only for pollinator health but also for garden vitality. Many plants rely on animal pollinators to reproduce and make mature seeds. These are either collected by gardeners or allowed to drop to the ground and sprout on their own to grow new flowering plants the following year.

When selecting plants for a garden, gardeners who want to support pollinators might consider choosing native varieties that have evolved alongside local pollinators.

In most areas of the country, there are native plants with colorful and interesting flowers that bloom at different times, from early spring to late fall. These plants tend to produce reliable floral signals and offer the nectar and pollen needed to support pollinator nutrition and development.

Sterile varieties and double flowers offer little or no rewards for pollinators, and gardens with them may not attract as many pollinators. Letting herbs flower after some harvesting is another simple way to support beneficial insects.

With choices informed by not just your aesthetic preferences but also those of pollinators, you can create colorful gardens that support wildlife and stay in bloom across various seasons.

Claire Therese Hemingway 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. Cultivating for color: The hidden trade-offs between garden aesthetics and pollinator preferences – https://theconversation.com/cultivating-for-color-the-hidden-trade-offs-between-garden-aesthetics-and-pollinator-preferences-261631