Category: The Conversation – USA

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Zachary W. Schulz, Senior Lecturer of History, Auburn University

Each year in the U.S., tens of thousands of deaths are categorized as “preventable” — meaning, in theory, they did not need to happen. A missed cancer screening, a fatal asthma attack or a death from untreated infection might all be counted as preventable.

The term is commonly used in public health reports, policy documents and local news coverage, and it generally implies that something went wrong and could have been prevented.

But it’s also deceptively simplistic. Researchers have noted that definitions of preventable death are often imprecise and shaped by subjective judgment. In clinical settings like intensive care units, reviews of mortality frequently focus on individual decisions or errors, while broader systemic issues — like hospital understaffing or regional disparities in access — may go unexamined.

I’m a historian of public health who studies how U.S. health systems have developed over time, especially in rural and underserved areas. I study how structural decisions — about Medicaid, dental care and regional health investment — shape health access and outcomes today.

The language of preventability is widely used and often well-intentioned. But it can make certain deaths appear to be caused by regrettable choices or the failures of an overburdened health system. This, in turn, can lead to policy choices based on mistaken assumptions about where responsibility lies and how solutions should be designed.

What does ‘preventable death’ really mean?

In epidemiology, a preventable death typically refers to a death that could have been avoided with timely and effective medical care, public health intervention or behavioral change. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention uses the term to describe deaths from conditions like heart disease, diabetes, respiratory illness and certain infections — illnesses that can often be managed or averted with adequate care.

This definition is useful: It helps health departments set priorities, allocate funding and measure progress.

But when the term circulates outside that context — in news articles, political speeches or everyday conversation — it often loses its technical grounding. In those settings, “preventable” can imply that prevention is merely a matter of personal knowledge or access, obscuring the deeper structural forces at play.

For example, a person who dies from untreated high blood pressure might be counted in preventable death statistics, since their death could likely have been avoided with routine medical care, effective treatment and support for managing blood pressure.

Health outcomes shaped by policy

But the label overlooks some deeper causes. For example, it doesn’t reflect whether a patient had stable health insurance, lived near a provider or faced cost barriers to filling a prescription. And it doesn’t show whether they were one of the millions of Americans living in states that have not expanded Medicaid, which provides government-supported health insurance for low-income Americans under the Affordable Care Act. These variables can be the determining factor for whether someone is able to receive the care they need that could have made the death preventable.

Since 2010, states have had the option to expand Medicaid, and many states did. But a number of states — primarily in the South — have chosen not to. This policy choice has left many low-income adults without access to affordable health coverage, especially in Southern and rural regions.

Research shows that these decisions have real consequences. Numerous studies have linked Medicaid expansion with lower rates of premature death, better cancer outcomes and improved management of chronic diseases.

Similarly, dental care is one of the most consistently under-resourced parts of the health system. Medicare does not include dental benefits, and Medicaid dental coverage varies widely by state. Dental disease can lead to serious medical complications, including infections that can become life-threatening — yet dental deserts, especially in rural America, leave many without timely access to care.

Rural hospitals and clinics also face persistent underinvestment. According to the Chartis Center for Rural Health, more than 141 rural hospitals have closed since 2010, with hundreds more at risk. Many rural areas struggle to attract and retain health care workers, leaving residents with long travel times and limited emergency coverage.

A pattern, not a fluke

National health statistics reflect these structural gaps. According to the CDC, rates of potentially preventable death are significantly higher in the South than in other regions of the U.S. They are also higher among Black, Native and Hispanic populations compared with white populations — disparities that track closely with differences in poverty rates, insurance coverage and local health infrastructure.

In other words, when one looks more closely at who is dying from so-called preventable causes — and where — consistent patterns emerge. These are not random tragedies, but outcomes that follow familiar policy lines. They are, in many cases, the foreseeable result of long-standing policy decisions and predictable outcomes shaped by structural inequities.

Yet the language of “preventable death” rarely points directly to those decisions. Instead, it implies that the right care simply wasn’t accessed — but not why it wasn’t available or affordable in the first place.

How language shapes perception

In public health, the terms used matter — they shape how both the public and the health system perceives risk, attribute responsibility and support reform.

Without context, calling a death preventable can imply individual failure — that someone didn’t eat right, didn’t take their medication, didn’t go to the doctor in time. The word erases the conditions that make such behaviors difficult or impossible, miscasting structural faults as personal shortcomings. Someone without transportation to a clinic, or without health insurance to cover basic treatment, may not be positioned to “prevent” anything. In that sense, the death is only preventable in theory — not in practice.

As public health experts increasingly embrace the importance of structural barriers to health, some are proposing alternatives to the phrase or are calling for clearer explanations when it is used.

As the health system grapples with widening inequities and eroding trust, speaking clearly about how individual choices interact with the systems in which people make them will help guide stronger policies, more equitable health systems and genuine access to health care. For patients and families, that clarity can mean something as basic as knowing a local clinic will be open when they need it, or that cost won’t keep them from filling a prescription.

Zachary W. Schulz 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. Calling deaths ‘preventable’ can obscure barriers to health care access and shift blame to individuals – https://theconversation.com/calling-deaths-preventable-can-obscure-barriers-to-health-care-access-and-shift-blame-to-individuals-260915

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Tazeen M. Ali, Assistant Professor of Religion and Politics, Washington University in St. Louis

For over a century, Hollywood has tended to portray Muslim men through a remarkably narrow lens: as terrorists, villains or dangerous outsiders. From shows such as “24” and “Homeland” to procedural dramas such as “Law and Order,” this portrayal has seldom allowed for complexity or relatability.

Such depictions reinforce Orientalist stereotypes – a colonial worldview that treats cultures in the East as exotic, irrational or even dangerous.

However, recent years have seen a noticeable increase in Muslim-led storytelling across platforms in the U.S. and U.K. While still a minority, these stories depart from decades of misrepresentation.

As a scholar of Islam and gender who has conducted research on masculinity, sexuality and national belonging in Muslim entertainment media, I analyze a new wave of critically acclaimed shows where Muslim characters are at the center of the narrative.

Historical stereotypes

Scholar of media and race Jack Shaheen has documented the systematic vilification of Arabs and Muslims in Western media. In his 2001 book “Reel Bad Arabs,” he analyzed over a thousand films and found that the vast majority depicted Arab and Muslim men almost exclusively as fanatics, oil-rich villains and misogynists.

More recently, a 2021 study from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative looked at 200 popular movies and found that Muslim characters were either completely missing or shown as violent.

Despite the consistency of negative representations of Muslims on television following the rise in Islamophobia, the post-9/11 climate actually saw the introduction of more diverse Muslim characters. Such portrayals promoted the idea of the U.S. as a tolerant, liberal society.

Scholar of popular culture Evelyn Alsultany writes that Hollywood introduced Muslim characters who were often law-abiding citizens or patriotic allies. She explains that despite these positive attempts, these characters were still depicted in simplistic ways, as either “good Muslims” or “bad Muslims.” The “good Muslim/bad Muslim” framework was coined by scholar of postcolonialism Mahmood Mamdani to describe how Muslims are understood across this binary. The “good Muslims” distance themselves from their faith and align themselves with Western liberal values to gain acceptance.

Expanding on this theme, Islamic studies scholar Samah Choudhury explains how the mainstream success of South Asian Muslim male comedians such as Hasan Minhaj, Kumail Nanjiani and Aziz Ansari is shaped by their adoption of secular ideals.

Even so-called “positive” characters, such as Muslim FBI agents or loyal informants in shows like “NCIS” or “Homeland,” ultimately served to normalize state surveillance and justify the global war on terrorism, a global campaign initiated by the U.S. following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. These brown and sometimes Black Muslim characters are portrayed as “good” only when aligned with U.S. state power.

Effort in contemporary television

Hulu’s comedy drama series “Ramy” is a milestone in Muslim storytelling. Created by actor-comedian Ramy Youssef, the series, which debuted in 2019, follows a young Egyptian-American Muslim navigating family, faith and relationships in New Jersey.

Ramy is devoid of storylines about national security. Instead, the show foregrounds its main character’s grappling with religiosity, dating and identity. Moreover, as I have argued elsewhere, the protagonist’s religious devotion is never a punchline but a part of his everyday experience.

For instance, Ramy prays five times a day – at the mosque and at home, fasts during Ramadan, and abstains from alcohol as a matter of Islamic observance. At the same time, he also partakes in hookup culture and wrestles with guilt for falling short of Islamic ideals. By showcasing this duality, the show illuminates internal debates within American Muslim communities, including on gendered norms around marriage and sexual ethics.

Across the Atlantic, the BBC comedy series “Man Like Mobeen,” created by comedian-actor Guz Khan, offers a layered portrayal of Muslim life in inner-city Birmingham, England. The show follows Mobeen, a reformed British Pakistani gangster, striving and often failing to leave his criminal past behind and live as a devout Muslim while raising his teenage sister.

The show explores the struggles of the working class. It situates Muslim communities within broader class and racial dynamics whereby working-class Black and brown men are vulnerable to racial profiling by law enforcement and gang violence.

With incisive and dark humor, it challenges British racism against Muslims and offers social and political commentary on U.K. society. This includes critiques of British far-right movements and their racism, as well as the failures of the National Health Service.

Muslim women on screen

The flip side of stereotypical portrayals of Muslim men as violent and misogynist is the equally reductive portrayal of Muslim women as passive or oppressed. When Muslim women appear on screen, they are often presented as submissive or “liberated” only by a white non-Muslim male romantic interest. This process of liberation usually involves removing their hijab or distancing themselves from Islam.

A refreshing departure from such storytelling norms can be found in the British Channel 4 comedy “We Are Lady Parts,” created by filmmaker and writer Nida Manzoor, which debuted in 2021.

The show follows an all-female Muslim punk band in London. The bandmates are funny, creative and rebellious. While they defy Western views of Muslim women, they do not appear to be written solely to shatter stereotypes.

They reflect the contradictions that many Muslims live with, juggling faith, identity and politics in their music. The band’s songs include feminist themes but are diverse, subverting Islamophobic stereotypes against women with humor with songs like “Voldemort Under My Headscarf,” or lusting after a love interest in “Bashir with the good beard.”

The band members are also often seen engaged in ritual prayer together, a unified display of worship among women who otherwise have very different personalities, fashion sensibilities and goals in life. The show also addresses queerness, Islamophobia and intergenerational conflict with nuance and humor.

I explore all of these themes in further detail in my forthcoming book, in which I examine how this new wave of Muslim media offers insights about the lived religious experiences of American and British Muslims.

Narrative authority

What unites these series is their rejection of reductive and stereotypical narratives. Muslim characters in these shows are not defined by violence, trauma or assimilation. Nor do they serve as spokespeople for all Muslims; they are written as flawed and evolving individuals.

This wave of nuanced portrayals of Muslim life includes other recent productions such as Netflix’s 2022 series “Mo” and Hulu’s 2025 reality series “Muslim Matchmaker,” which centers real people whose lives and romantic journeys showcase American Muslim life in authentic ways. Muslims in the show are depicted as having various professions, levels of faith and life experiences.

These series and their creators signal that real progress comes when Muslim voices are telling their own stories, not simply reacting to the gaze of outsiders or the pressures of political headlines. By foregrounding daily ritual, spiritual aspiration and even awkwardness and desire, “Ramy,” “Man Like Mobeen” and “We Are Lady Parts” all refuse the burden of “representation.”

By moving away from the binary of “threatening other” versus “assimilated citizen,” this new wave of media challenges the legacy of Orientalism. Instead, they offer characters who reflect the complex realities of Muslim lives that are messy, joyful and evolving.

Tazeen M. Ali 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. Muslim men have often been portrayed as ‘terrorists’ or ‘fanatics’ on TV shows, but Muslim-led storytelling is trying to change that narrative – https://theconversation.com/muslim-men-have-often-been-portrayed-as-terrorists-or-fanatics-on-tv-shows-but-muslim-led-storytelling-is-trying-to-change-that-narrative-263404

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Tom Anchordoquy, Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

When the first cells appeared on Earth approximately 3.8 billion years ago, viruses were already here to greet them. Ever since, viruses have been devising ways to infect cells, and cells have been responding by evolving ways to stop these infections. This evolutionary dance eventually led to the development of your immune system.

A key aspect of your immune system is to distinguish “self” from “nonself” so it can destroy and remove foreign materials from your body. While this immune reaction protects you from viruses, it also has implications for how well foreign materials such as medications work.

I am a researcher studying ways to make drugs work better, including how to get them to the site of disease within the body before being removed or destroyed. One way to do this is to encapsulate drugs in nanoparticles – materials small enough to be taken up by cells. While these materials still trigger an immune response to get them out of the body, scientists like me have found that this reaction could actually be used to improve the effectiveness of cancer treatment.

The immune system and drug delivery

In addition to detecting pathogens, your immune system also responds to tissue damage. You might observe this reaction as inflammation – such as redness and swelling – when drugs are injected into your body with a needle.

Typically this inflammatory response is minimal. But the potential for a sustained reaction increases when drugs are administered slowly over a prolonged period of time, such as during chemotherapy infusions that can take an hour or more. For this reason, some patients are given anti-inflammatory medications before infusion to reduce the potential for an adverse immune response during treatment.

The most recent breakthroughs in getting drugs into the body is using nanoparticles. These materials – which can be made from lipids, proteins, gold or other components – have the advantage of being very small: The diameter of a typical nanoparticle is about 10-thousandths of a millimeter. Their small size allows diseased cells to easily take them up. So when nanoparticles contain drugs, they can act as a drug delivery system.

Despite being so small, nanoparticles can hold a large number of drug molecules, allowing them to deliver a potent cargo of treatment directly into a cell. They can also deliver drugs made of DNA and RNA. The most well-known example of this technology is the COVID-19 vaccine, which uses nanoparticles made of modified fat molecules to deliver mRNA that teaches the immune system to protect itself against COVID-19 infection.

Your innate immune system also identifies nanoparticles as foreign invaders when they are injected into your body. As a result, some patients experience an initial inflammatory reaction when the body tries to attack the nanoparticle.

But what if this reaction could actually be used to improve treatment?

Exploiting the innate immune response

For the past 30 years, my laboratory at the University of Colorado has been studying how nanoparticles deliver drugs. More recently, we have focused on understanding how the innate immune system responds to an injection of nanoparticles. While this immune reaction is typically considered a drawback, we wanted to explore whether it could enhance therapy.

In a 2022 study on how nanoparticles affect the immune response in mice, we found that the innate immune response triggered by an initial dose of nanoparticles carrying a drug will also reduce the effects of a second dose if it is injected shortly afterward – typically within days. It does this by clearing the drug out from the body more quickly. This reaction is similar to how an initial viral infection would trigger a short-term protective response against a subsequent infection from another virus.

One critical aspect of this protective effect involves the production of a protein called interferon lambda. This molecule “interferes” with the infection process by restricting viruses from gaining access to different tissues in the body. Researchers have previously tested this protein as a potential antiviral drug to treat COVID-19.

Similarly, the interferon lambda made in response to the first dose of nanoparticles limits the ability of the second dose to deliver the drug to healthy tissues in the body. However, it did not affect the nanoparticle’s ability to access tumors, possibly because tumors can impair the immune response.

In conventional cancer treatment, chemotherapy drugs are used to kill the tumor. Because these drugs are also toxic to healthy cells, patients often experience side effects such as hair loss, gastrointestinal problems and skin rashes. Using nanoparticles to deliver cancer treatment could help reduce these side effects, and combining them with interferon lambda could allow the nanoparticle-encapsulated drug to stay in the body long enough to have its full effects.

Our team is studying whether directly injecting interferon lambda before chemotherapy with nanoparticles could help limit the amount of drug that ends up in healthy tissues while increasing their concentration in tumors. In an initial test of this strategy in mice with colon cancer, all mice that received interferon lambda saw increased survival time and reduced weight loss. A better understanding of how this effect happens could help researchers eventually test this approach to cancer treatment in human patients.

Scientists have a long way to go in developing nanoparticles that are as efficient as viruses at getting into cells. But our hope is that exploiting an immune response that evolved approximately a billion years ago to prevent viral infections could help reduce the toxic side effects from treatment while improving its effectiveness.

Tom Anchordoquy receives funding for this work from the Nationals Institutes of Health through grant # RO1 CA289447.

– ref. Your immune system attacks drugs like it does viruses – paradoxically offering a way to improve cancer treatment – https://theconversation.com/your-immune-system-attacks-drugs-like-it-does-viruses-paradoxically-offering-a-way-to-improve-cancer-treatment-249824

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Ari Koeppel, Earth Sciences Postdoctoral Scientist and Adjunct Associate, Dartmouth College

NASA’s search for evidence of past life on Mars just produced an exciting update. On Sept. 10, 2025, a team of scientists published a paper detailing the Perseverance rover’s investigation of a distinctive rock outcrop called Bright Angel on the edge of Mars’ Jezero Crater. This outcrop is notable for its light-toned rocks with striking mineral nodules and multicolored, leopard print-like splotches.

By combining data from five scientific instruments, the team determined that these nodules formed through processes that could have involved microorganisms. While this finding is not direct evidence of life, it’s a compelling discovery that planetary scientists hope to look into more closely.

To appreciate how discoveries like this one come about, it’s helpful to understand how scientists engage with rover data — that is, how planetary scientists like me use robots like Perseverance on Mars as extensions of our own senses.

Experiencing Mars through data

When you strap on a virtual reality headset, you suddenly lose your orientation to the immediate surroundings, and your awareness is transported by light and sound to a fabricated environment. For Mars scientists working on rover mission teams, something very similar occurs when rovers send back their daily downlinks of data.

Several developers, including MarsVR, Planetary Visor and Access Mars, have actually worked to build virtual Mars environments for viewing with a virtual reality headset. However, much of Mars scientists’ daily work instead involves analyzing numerical data visualized in graphs and plots. These datasets, produced by state-of-the-art sensors on Mars rovers, extend far beyond human vision and hearing.

Developing an intuition for interpreting these complex datasets takes years, if not entire careers. It is through this “mind-data connection” that scientists build mental models of Martian landscapes – models they then communicate to the world through scientific publications.

The robots’ tool kit: Sensors and instruments

Five primary instruments on Perseverance, aided by machine learning algorithms, helped describe the unusual rock formations at a site called Beaver Falls and the past they record.

Robotic hands: Mounted on the rover’s robotic arm are tools for blowing dust aside and abrading rock surfaces. These ensure the rover analyzes clean samples.

Cameras: Perseverance hosts 19 cameras for navigation, self-inspection and science. Five science-focused cameras played a key role in this study. These cameras captured details unseeable by human eyes, including magnified mineral textures and light in infrared wavelengths. Their images revealed that Bright Angel is a mudstone, a type of sedimentary rock formed from fine sediments deposited in water.

Spectrometers: Instruments such as SuperCam and SHERLOC – scanning habitable environments with Raman and luminescence for organics and chemicals – analyze how rocks reflect or emit light across a range of wavelengths. Think of this as taking hundreds of flash photographs of the same tiny spot, all in different “colors.” These datasets, called spectra, revealed signs of water integrated into mineral structures in the rock and traces of organic molecules: the basic building blocks of life.

Subsurface radar: RIMFAX, the radar imager for Mars subsurface experiment, uses radio waves to peer beneath Mars’ surface and map rock layers. At Beaver Falls, this showed the rocks were layered over other ancient terrains, likely due to the activity of a flowing river. Areas with persistently present water are better habitats for microbes than dry or intermittently wet locations.

X-ray chemistry: PIXL, the planetary instrument for X-ray lithochemistry, bombards rock surfaces with X-rays and observes how the rock glows or reflects them. This technique can tell researchers which elements and minerals the rock contains at a fine scale. PIXL revealed that the leopard-like spots found at Beaver Falls differed chemically from the surrounding rock. The spots resembled patterns on Earth formed by chemical reactions that are mediated by microbes underwater.

Together, these instruments produce a multifaceted picture of the Martian environment. Some datasets require significant processing, and refined machine learning algorithms help the mission teams turn that information into a more intuitive description of the Jezero Crater’s setting, past and present.

The challenge of uncertainty

Despite Perseverance’s remarkable tools and processing software, uncertainty remains in the results. Science, especially when conducted remotely on another planet, is rarely black and white. In this case, the chemical signatures and mineral formations at Beaver Falls are suggestive – but not conclusive – of past life on Mars.

There actually are tools, such as mass spectrometers, that can show definitively whether a rock sample contains evidence of biological activity. However, these instruments are currently too fragile, heavy and power-intensive for Mars missions.

Fortunately, Perseverance has collected and sealed rock core samples from Beaver Falls and other promising sites in Jezero Crater with the goal of sending them back to Earth. If the current Mars sample return plan can retrieve these samples, laboratories on Earth can scrutinize them far more thoroughly than the rover was able to.

Investing in our robotic senses

This discovery is a testament to decades of NASA’s sustained investment in Mars exploration and the work of engineering teams that developed these instruments. Yet these investments face an uncertain future.

The White House’s budget office recently proposed cutting 47% of NASA’s science funding. Such reductions could curtail ongoing missions, including Perseverance’s continued operations, which are targeted for a 23% cut, and jeopardize future plans such as the Mars sample return campaign, among many other missions.

Perseverance represents more than a machine. It is a proxy extending humanity’s senses across millions of miles to an alien world. These robotic explorers and the NASA science programs behind them are a key part of the United States’ collective quest to answer profound questions about the universe and life beyond Earth.

Ari Koeppel previously received funding from NASA science grants. He is affiliated with The Planetary Society. Any views represented in this article are those of the author. The budget cuts do not directly affect the author’s work and he is not currently formally connected to the rover campaign.

– ref. Mars rovers serve as scientists’ eyes and ears from millions of miles away – here are the tools Perseverance used to spot a potential sign of ancient life – https://theconversation.com/mars-rovers-serve-as-scientists-eyes-and-ears-from-millions-of-miles-away-here-are-the-tools-perseverance-used-to-spot-a-potential-sign-of-ancient-life-265144

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

When the federal government threatened to cancel billions in research funds from Harvard University – as it has also done to other research universities – the message was clear: Institutions that speak or think in ways elected officials dislike can expect to pay a price.

But in a recent ruling that underscored a principle at the heart of American democracy, a federal judge struck down the Trump administration’s move. The “government-initiated onslaught against Harvard was much more about promoting a governmental orthodoxy in violation of the First Amendment than about anything else,” U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs wrote.

The Harvard controversy began when the Trump administration announced plans to cut off billions in federal research funds because it objected to the university’s public positions, campus culture and some of its academic scholarship. No one contended that Harvard had mismanaged money or failed to meet grant requirements.

Instead, the White House said the school had done too little to eliminate so-called woke diversity, equity and inclusion – DEI – policies and alleged that antisemitism proliferated on campus, as evidenced by student demonstrations against Israel’s conduct in the Gaza war.

Along with the American Association of University Professors, Harvard filed suit in response to the funding cuts, arguing that the administration’s action was punitive and unconstitutional – a textbook case of retaliation. By canceling funding, the government was deploying financial pressure to silence disfavored speech.

Protection for dissent and disagreement

In striking down the funding cut, Burroughs ruled that the administration’s move violated the First Amendment. The First Amendment protects freedom of speech, press, religion and assembly by limiting government intrusion. While government officials may disagree with Harvard’s speech – whether that means faculty scholarship, public statements or the culture of campus debate – they cannot retaliate by pulling federal support, the judge wrote.

As chair of a public policy institute devoted to strengthening deliberative democracy, I have written two books about the media and the presidency, and another about media ethics. My research traces how news institutions shape civic life and why healthy democracies rely on free expression.

The principle at work in the Harvard case is simple: Free speech protections don’t just apply to individuals in the town square or in places where public decisions are being made.

First Amendment rights extend to private institutions, even when their views or policies contravene official government opinions, and even when they receive funding from the government. Government reprisal does more than chill speech – it sets up a system where only state-approved viewpoints can flourish.

Supreme Court has seen this before

The ruling in Harvard’s favor follows a long legal tradition of Supreme Court rulings that bar the government from demanding ideological acquiescence in exchange for support.

In the case Speiser v. Randall that was decided in 1958, the court struck down a California law requiring veterans to sign loyalty oaths to receive tax exemptions. The decision created the doctrine of unconstitutional conditions, a principle that forbids government from making the receipt of a government benefit or entitlement conditional in a way that interferes with the exercise of a constitutional right.

In Perry v. Sindermann, a 1972 decision, a professor was denied reappointment at a state college after criticizing administrators. Even without tenure, the court held, the government could not retaliate against him for protected speech.

And in Legal Services Corp. v. Velazquez, the court in 2001 invalidated restrictions that barred federally funded legal aid lawyers from challenging welfare laws. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that such limits “distort the legal system” by preventing some members of the bar from making arguments on behalf of their clients, while the government would face no similar restriction in promoting their own views.

Supreme Court’s contemporary signals

More recent cases show the court wrestling with the same question in new contexts.

The court’s 2013 decision in Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society International struck down a requirement that nonprofits adopt a government-approved position opposing prostitution in order to receive global health funding.

The government, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, could not make program funds dependent on grant-seeking groups adopting particular political or moral beliefs. In this case, that meant the Alliance for Open Society did not have to condemn sex work in order to qualify for public health funding.

Likewise, in Janus v. AFSCME from 2018, the court struck down an Illinois law that required public employees who chose not to join a union to still pay fees to support it. The state had argued that these “fair-share fees” were necessary because unions bargain on behalf of all workers. But the court said that forcing nonmembers to pay was a form of compelled speech – subsidizing union political organizing – that abridged the First Amendment.

While the context is very different from Harvard’s funding dispute, both cases highlight the same principle: The government cannot use money – whether through subsidies, grants or mandatory fees – as a way to compel or suppress expression. These rulings show that the First Amendment protections apply to government funding and policy questions that quietly shape who gets heard and who does not.

Long history of retaliation

While American myth celebrates the idea that the United States welcomes dissent, the government has a history of punishing protesters.

The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 criminalized criticism of the federal government. During World War I, the Espionage and Sedition Acts were used to imprison activists and silence newspapers. In the 1950s, Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s crusade against alleged communists extended to universities, with faculty losing jobs and having their careers destroyed.

In each of those episodes, dissent was framed as dangerous to national security or social stability. And in each case, the tools of government – whether criminal law, congressional investigations or funding threats – were used to discipline voices that strayed from the party line. The impulse to punish institutions for perceived ideological deviance is part of a recurring American story.

What’s distinctive today is how the tactic has been folded into the culture wars.

Where earlier generations of politicians used criminal prosecution or loyalty oaths, the contemporary fight often plays out in budget spreadsheets. Defund public radio. Cut university budgets. Zero out grants to the arts.

These are not just fiscal decisions; they are symbolic moves aimed at disciplining institutions seen by conservatives as too liberal or too critical.

Why this matters beyond the courts

The latest ruling may protect Harvard in this instance, but the larger conflict is not going away.

The legal decision confirms that retaliation violates the First Amendment, but political leaders may continue to test the boundaries. And among the public, the idea that universities should play along with official doctrine in exchange for continued government funding may eventually gain traction. That possibility feels especially real given Trump’s promises, echoed by Vice President JD Vance and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, to wield federal power against universities and civic groups they portray – often inaccurately – as leftist, radical or violent.

A society where public funding flows only to institutions aligned with those in power is not a free society. It’s one where government can shape the landscape of knowledge and debate to its own ends.

The Harvard decision offers a reminder: The First Amendment is not just about the right to speak without fear of jail. It’s also about ensuring that the government cannot punish speech indirectly by threatening livelihoods and institutions. That’s why this case matters to the future of free expression in American democracy.

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

– ref. Harvard, like all Americans, can’t be punished by the government for speaking freely – and a federal court decision upholds decades of precedents saying so – https://theconversation.com/harvard-like-all-americans-cant-be-punished-by-the-government-for-speaking-freely-and-a-federal-court-decision-upholds-decades-of-precedents-saying-so-264743

Source: The Conversation – USA – By James B. Blasingame, Professor of English, Arizona State University

When a junior at an Orange County public high school in Florida visited the school library to check out a copy of “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac, it wasn’t in its Dewey decimal system-assigned location.

It turns out the title had been removed from the library’s shelves because of a complaint, and in compliance with Florida House Bill 1069, it had been removed from the library indefinitely. Kerouac’s quintessential chronicle of the Beat Generation in the 1950s, along with hundreds of other titles, was not available for students to read.

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill into law in July 2023. Under this law, if a parent or community member objected to a book on the grounds that it was obscene or pornographic, the school had to remove that title from the curriculum within five days and hold a public hearing with a special magistrate appointed by the state.

On Aug. 13, 2025, Judge Carlos Mendoza of the U.S. Middle District of Florida ruled in Penguin Random House v. Gibson that parts of Florida HB 1069 are unconstitutional and violate students’ First Amendment right of free access to ideas.

The plaintiffs who filed the suit included the five largest trade book publishing houses, a group of award-winning authors, the Authors Guild, which is a labor union for published professional authors with over 15,000 members, and the parents of a group of Florida students.

Though the state filed an appeal on Sept. 11, 2025, this is an important ruling on censorship in a time when many states are passing or debating similar laws.

I’ve spent the past 26 years training English language arts teachers at Arizona State University, and 24 years before that teaching high school English. I understand the importance of Mendoza’s ruling for keeping books in classrooms and school libraries. In my experience, every few years the books teachers have chosen to teach come under attack. I’ve tried to learn as much as I can about the history of censorship in this country and pass it to my students, in order to prepare them for what may lie ahead in their careers as English teachers.

Legal precedent

The August 2025 ruling is in keeping with legal precedent around censorship. Over the years, U.S. courts have established that obscenity can be a legitimate cause for removing a book from the public sphere, but only under limited circumstances.

In the 1933 case of United States v. One Book Called Ulysses, Judge John Munro Woolsey declared that James Joyce’s classic novel was not obscene, contradicting a lower court ruling. Woolsey emphasized that works must be considered as a whole, rather than judged by “selected excerpts,” and that reviewers should apply contemporary national standards and think about the effect on the average person.

In 1957, the Supreme Court further clarified First Amendment protections in Roth v. United States by rejecting the argument that obscenity lacks redeeming social importance. In this case, the court defined obscenity as material that, taken as a whole, appeals to a prurient – that is, lascivious – interest in sex in average readers.

The Supreme Court’s 1973 Miller v. California decision created the eponymous Miller test for jurors in obscenity cases. This test incorporates language from the Ulysses and Roth rulings, asking jurors to consider whether the average person, looking at the work as a whole and applying the contemporary standards in their community, would find it lascivious. It also adds the consideration of whether the material in question is of “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value” when deciding whether it is obscene.

Another decision that is particularly relevant for teachers and school librarians is 1982’s Island Trees School District v. Pico, a case brought by students against their school board. The Supreme Court ruled that removing books from a school library or curriculum is a violation of the First Amendment if it is an attempt to suppress ideas. Free access to ideas in books, the court wrote, is sacrosanct: “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion or other matters of opinion.”

What this ruling clarifies

In his ruling in August 2025, Mendoza pointed out that many of the removed books are classics with no sexual content at all. This was made possible in part by the formulation of HB 1069. The law allows anyone from the community to challenge a book simply by filling out a form, at which point the school is mandated to remove that book within five days. In order to put a book back in circulation, however, the law requires a hearing to be held by the state’s appointed magistrate, and there is no specified deadline by which this hearing must take place.

Mendoza did not strike down the parts of HB 1069 that require school districts to follow a state policy for challenging books. In line with precedent, he also left in place challenges for obscenity using the Miller test and with reference to age-appropriateness for mature content.

The Florida Department of Education argued that HB 1069 is protected by Florida’s First Amendment right of government speech, a legal theory that the government has the right to prevent any opposing views to its own in schools or any government platform. Mendoza questioned this argument, suggesting that “slapping the label of government speech on book removals only serves to stifle the disfavored viewpoints.”

What this means for schools, in Florida and across the US

In the wake of Mendoza’s decision, Florida schools are unlikely to pull more books from the shelves, but they are also unlikely to immediately return them. Some school librarians have said that they are awaiting the outcome of the appeal before taking action.

States with similar laws on the books or in the works will also be watching the appeal.

Some of these laws in other states have also been challenged, with mixed outcomes. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit already struck down Texas’ appeal of a ruling against Texas House Bill 900. And parts of an Iowa bill currently are being challenged in court.

But the NAACP’s lawsuit against South Carolina Regulation 43-170 was dismissed On Sept. 8, 2025. And Utah’s House Bill 29 has not yet faced a challenge in court, though it could be affected by the outcomes of these lawsuits in other states.

James B. Blasingame 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. Federal judge overturns part of Florida’s book ban law, drawing on nearly 100 years of precedent protecting First Amendment access to ideas – https://theconversation.com/federal-judge-overturns-part-of-floridas-book-ban-law-drawing-on-nearly-100-years-of-precedent-protecting-first-amendment-access-to-ideas-263893

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Delphine Farmer, Professor of Chemistry, Colorado State University

Sometimes, doing research stinks. Quite literally.

Corpse plants are rare, and seeing one bloom is even rarer. They open once every seven to 10 years, and the blooms last just two nights. But those blooms – red, gorgeous and massive at over 10 feet (3 meters) tall – stink. Think rotting flesh or decaying fish.

Corpse plants definitely earn their nickname. Their pungent odors attract not only the carrion insects – beetles and flies normally drawn to decomposing meat – that pollinate the plants, but also crowds of onlookers curious about the rare, elaborate display and that putrid scent.

Plant biologists have studied corpse flowers for years, but as atmospheric chemists we were curious about something specific: the mixes of chemicals that create that smell and how they change during the flower’s short bloom.

While previous studies had identified dozens of volatile organic and sulfur compounds that contribute to corpse flower scents, no one had yet quantified those emission rates or looked at how the rates changed throughout a single evening. We recently got that opportunity. What we found opened a new window into the complexity and strategic behavior of a very unusual flower.

Meet Cosmo the corpse plant

Corpse plants are native to the Indonesian island of Sumatra but are considered endangered, even there. Several years ago, Colorado State University was given a corpse plant, or Titan arum (Amorphophallus titanum), to study. Its name is Cosmo – Titan arums are rare enough that they get names.

Cosmo sat dormant in the CSU plant growth facility for several years before showing signs that it was about to flower in spring 2024. When news came that Cosmo was going to bloom, we jumped at the opportunity to bring our atmospheric chemistry expertise into the greenhouse.

We deployed a series of devices for collecting air samples before, during and after the bloom. Then we measured chemicals in the air samples using a gas chromatography mass spectrometer, an instrument that is mentioned frequently on crime TV shows. Colleagues also brought a time-of-flight mass spectrometer that we placed downwind of Cosmo to measure volatile organic compounds every second.

To make each rare bloom count, corpse plants put vast amounts of energy into the show, producing large flowers that can weigh more than 100 pounds. The plants heat themselves up using a biochemical process known as thermogenesis that enhances emissions of organic compounds that attract insects.

Corpse plant emissions are notorious. While some local communities revered the plants, others would try to destroy them. In the 19th century, European explorers actively collected Titan arum plants and distributed them throughout botanical gardens and conservatories around the world.

Corpse plants are dichogamous: Each has both male and female flowers. Inside the giant petal-like leaf called a spathe, each plant has a central spike called a spadix that is ringed with many rows of tiny female and male flowers near its base. These female and male flowers bloom at separate times to avoid self-pollination, and they are the source of the smell.

On the first night of a corpse plant bloom, the female flowers bloom to attract pollinators that, if they’re lucky, are carrying pollen from another corpse plant.

Then, on the second night, the male flowers bloom, allowing pollinating insects to carry pollen off to another corpse plant.

The rare blooms and avoidance of self-pollination highlight not only why these plants are listed as endangered but also their need for efficient pollination strategies – exactly the chemistry we wanted to investigate.

Female flowers work harder

We found that the female flowers do most of the work attracting pollinators, as previous studies noted. They emit vast amounts of organic sulfur, plus some other compounds that mimic rotting smells to attract beetles and flies that normally feed on animal carcasses.

It’s this organic sulfur that really stinks from the female bloom: Methanethiol, a molecule in the same chemical family of compounds as the odors emitted by skunks, was the single most-emitted compound during Cosmo’s bloom.

We also measured many other organic sulfur compounds, including dimethyl disulfide, which has a garlic smell; dimethyl sulfide, known for an unpleasant scent; and dimethyl trisulfide, which smells like rotting cabbage or onions. We also measured dozens of other compounds: sweet-smelling benzyl alcohol, asphalt-scented phenol and fragrant benzaldehyde.

While previous studies found some of the same compounds with different instruments, we were able to measure the methanethiol and quantify the concentrations quickly enough to track the progress of the bloom overnight.

As Cosmo bloomed, we combined our instrument data with measurements of the air change rate in the greenhouse – meaning how fast it takes for air to move through the space – and were able to calculate the emission rates.

The volatile emissions added up to about 0.4% of the plant’s average biomass, meaning the plant, which we estimated to weigh about 100 pounds, lost a measurable amount of weight while producing those chemicals. That’s a lot of stench.

Floral trapping

The female flowers bloomed all night, but early the next morning the emissions rapidly stopped. We wondered whether this cutoff point just might be evidence of floral trapping: a pollination strategy employed by other members of Titan arum’s family.

During floral trapping, the floral chamber can physically close through movement of hairs or expansion of parts of the plant, such as the surrounding spathe. A physical closure of the floral chamber would not be easily visible to bystanders, but it could rapidly cut off the emissions the way we observed.

An Australian arum lily that smells like dung uses this technique. The carrion insects that come for the female flowers are forced to stay for the male flowers that bloom the next night, so they can carry off that pollen to find another female corpse bloom. Our evidence suggests that the corpse flower probably does too.

The second night, the emissions started back up – at much lower levels. The male flowers emit a sweeter set of aromatic compounds and far less sulfur than the females.

We hypothesize that the male flowers don’t need to work as hard to smell pungent in order to attract as many insects because insects are already there due to floral trapping. A 2023 study found that thermogenesis was also weaker during the male bloom: the spadix reached 96.8 degrees Fahrenheit (36 C) during the female bloom, but only 92 F (33.2 C) during the male bloom.

Stinkier than a landfill

We found that the corpse plant’s powerful emission rates can be an order of magnitude stronger than landfills – albeit only for two nights. These strong emissions are well designed to move far through the Sumatran jungle to attract carrion flies.

The odors are also resilient to atmospheric oxidation – the way organic compounds degrade in the atmosphere by reacting with oxidants in pollution such as ozone or nitrate radicals. Different compounds degrade at different rates – an important factor for attracting pollinators.

Many insects are attracted to not just one volatile compound, but by specific ratios of different volatile compounds. When atmospheric pollution degrades floral emissions and these ratios change, pollinators have a harder time finding flowers.

The female floral plume maintained a reasonably constant ratio of the major sulfur chemicals. The male plume, however, was far more susceptible to degrading in pollution and changing floral ratios in nighttime air.

These enigmatic plants put a lot of energy into clever pollination strategies. Cosmo taught us about their far-reaching scents of rotting meat, thermogenesis to increase emissions and floral entrapment, offering new insight into the corpse plant’s spectacular bloom.

Delphine Farmer receives funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of Energy, and the W.M. Keck Foundation.

Mj Riches receives funding from the National Science Foundation.

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

– ref. How a corpse plant makes its terrible smell − it has a strategy, and its female flowers do most of the work – https://theconversation.com/how-a-corpse-plant-makes-its-terrible-smell-it-has-a-strategy-and-its-female-flowers-do-most-of-the-work-263409

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Carson MacPherson-Krutsky, Research Associate, Natural Hazards Center, University of Colorado Boulder

Many Coloradans may never get an alert that could save their life during a disaster.

And the alerts that go out may not easily be understood by the people who do get them.

We are social scientists who study emergency alerts and warnings, the challenges that exist in getting emergency information to the public, and ways to fix these issues.

Research two of us – Carson MacPherson-Krutsky and Mary Painter – did with researcher Melissa Villarreal shows only 4 in 10 Colorado residents have opted in to receive local emergency alerts. And many alerts may not be written with complete information, translated into the languages residents speak, or put into formats accessible to people with vision or hearing loss. This means some of our most vulnerable neighbors could miss crucial information during a crisis.

A decentralized alert system

Alerts are complex. They can come from a variety of official sources, including 911 centers, weather forecast centers and others. Alerts can also come in many forms, ranging from emails and texts to sirens and radio broadcasts.

Our study, mandated and funded by Colorado House Bill 23-1237, focused on understanding alert systems in Colorado after the Grizzly Creek Fire in 2020 and the Marshall Fire in 2021.

These fires were destructive and highlighted issues related to emergency alerting. Alerts about the fires and calls to evacuate were delayed and inconsistently received. Most were only available in English despite census data that shows 1 in 10 residents of Eagle and Garfield counties speak Spanish at home and only “speak English less than ‘very well.’”

The resulting legislation focused on how to make emergency alerts in Colorado accessible to all, but especially those with disabilities and with limited-English proficiency.

As social scientists who study disasters, we know that hazards, like earthquakes and wildfires, reveal inequities and that certain groups fare worse and take longer to recover. People with disabilities have higher rates of death from disasters. This is not because these populations are inherently less able to respond, but because emergency planning and systems may not account for their specific needs.

Our Colorado study used interviews and a statewide survey of 222 officials that send alerts to better understand the challenges of providing alerts across the state and reaching at-risk populations.

A patchwork system

The state of Colorado does not have a uniform alert system. Local areas determine the alert systems they will use.

Some alerts get sent through systems that require people to opt in. This means that people sign up and choose to receive notifications. Neighboring counties often use different opt-in alert systems, meaning individuals who travel to different counties for work or recreation may need to register for multiple systems. Examples of these systems include Everbridge, used by Boulder County, and CodeRed, used by Adams and Park counties.

The success of these systems in an emergency relies on the community signing up for alerts.

We found that registering for alert systems was a barrier for everyone, but especially those with limited-English proficiency and with disabilities. This is because they may not be aware of the systems that are accessible to them or they are wary of providing personal information, and depending on their location, alerts may only be offered in English.

Another system is “opt out,” meaning people will receive alerts by default unless they turn them off. These include Wireless Emergency Alerts, or WEAs. These messages get broadcast through cellphone towers to phones in a specific geographic area. So if you have a cellphone in a WEA alert boundary, you will get an alert. WEAs are used in Colorado to target specific regions in danger, such as an area that needs to evacuate or for an Amber Alert.

There is no national standard or guidance for opt-in or opt-out systems, which can lead to inconsistencies in how people get alerts.

Lack of resources limits alerting authorities

We found that though authorities often want to provide alerts in other languages and accessible formats, they have significant resource constraints. Time, staff, money or training can all limit the level of accessibility they can provide.

Sixty-four percent of the authorities we surveyed said they lacked funding to make alerts more inclusive.

More than a third of our respondents didn’t know if their systems could provide alerts in languages other than English or for people with disabilities. This speaks to a need for better training on how these systems work and how to use them effectively.

An alert is complete if it includes information about the source, hazard, location and time. Recently, researchers found that fewer than 10% of all Nationwide Wireless Emergency Alerts issued from 2012 to 2022 were complete.

One of us – Micki Olson – worked with the federal government to develop the Message Design Dashboard to help alerting authorities craft clear and comprehensive emergency messages.

Fifty-six out of 64 counties in Colorado are an Integrated Public Alert and Warning System authority, which means they can send alerts across multiple platforms at once. This can improve alert access since it broadens who alerts reach.

Not all counties have this option, and even the ones who do, don’t always use it. In our study, authorities noted limited staff capacity, funds and lack of time prevents them from getting or using the IPAWS system.

“We simply do not have the resources, both financial and people, to deploy all of these systems,” a survey respondent from Gunnison County said.

Alert systems were not built to be accessible

The final issue we identified is that alert systems were not developed with accessible options and functionality like video or image options. For example, people who are blind or have low vision won’t have access to a message unless they enable text-speech features on their phone in advance.

The WEA system only allows alerts to be sent in English or Spanish. Characters like accents and tildes cannot be included. Expansion of language options was planned but is now on hold for unclear reasons. Some counties have the resources to make alerts available in additional languages, but most do not.

Almost 900,000 Coloradans speak a language other than English. According to the Migration Policy Institute, more than 230,000 Coloradans have difficulty comprehending and communicating in English.

Where do we go from here?

Recent events, including the Palisades and Eaton fires in California and the devastating floods in Kerr County, Texas, demonstrate how critical it is that timely and accessible emergency alerts reach everyone, but especially the most vulnerable individuals.

However, these systems are complex, and everyone from individuals to local government can play a part in improving them.

• Federal and local governments can allocate funds to update and standardize systems. They can also implement training and procedures to ensure alerts are effective and inclusive.

• Authorities that send alerts can partner more closely with trusted community organizations and networks to reach diverse audiences.

• Researchers can identify how to better tailor systems to meet community needs.

• Individuals can learn about and sign up for alerts. To do so, visit local government websites or enter “emergency alerts” and the name of your county or city in an online search.

Carson MacPherson-Krutsky works for the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado Boulder. Through the Center, she receives funding from the State of Colorado, NSF, USACE, USGS and others.

Mary Angelica Painter works for the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado Boulder. Through the Center, she receives funding from agencies including NSF, USACE, USGS and others.

Micki Olson has received funding from FEMA and NOAA.

– ref. Emergency alerts may not reach those who need them most in Colorado – https://theconversation.com/emergency-alerts-may-not-reach-those-who-need-them-most-in-colorado-262308

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Jerrid Kruse, Professor of Science Education, Drake University

During my years teaching science in middle school, high school and college, some of my students have resisted teaching that educators call higher-order thinking. This includes analysis, creative and critical thinking, and problem-solving.

For example, when I asked them to draw conclusions from data or generate a process for testing an idea, some students replied, “Why don’t you tell us what to do?” or “Isn’t it the teacher’s job to tell us the right answers?”

In other words, my students had developed a strong preconceived notion that knowledge comes from authority. After investigating, my colleagues and I concluded that these beliefs about learning were influencing how they approached our lessons – and thus what they were able to learn.

All students come to class with a range of beliefs about what it means to learn. In the field of education, perhaps the most sought-after belief is what we call having a growth mindset. Students with a growth mindset believe they can improve and continue to learn. In contrast, students with a fixed mindset struggle to believe they can become more knowledgeable about the topic they’re studying. When students say, “I’m bad at math,” they exhibit a fixed mindset.

As teachers, we not only try to help students understand the topic at hand but also aim to instill accurate beliefs about learning so nothing interferes with their ability to take in new information.

Other than the growth mindset, I argue that five other beliefs are particularly important to promote in classrooms to help students become better learners and more prepared for the modern world.

Learning is understanding

Some students and teachers equate learning to memorizing.

While memorization has a role in learning, deep learning is about understanding. Students will be well served recognizing that learning is about explaining and connecting concepts to make meaning.

Too much focus on memorizing can hide gaps in learning.

For example, I was once working with a preschool student when they proudly demonstrated their ability to recite the numbers 1 through 20. I then asked the student to count the pencils on the desk. The student did not understand my request. They had not connected these new words to the number concept.

To help students recognize the importance of understanding for learning, teachers and parents might engage students in questions such as, “Why is connecting a new idea to an old idea better than just trying to memorize the answer?” or “Why is an explanation more useful than just an answer?”

Learning is complex and requires challenge

Students’ belief that learning is akin to memorization may reflect a related belief that knowledge is simple and learning should be easy.

Instead, educators want students to embrace complexity and its challenges. Through wrestling with nuance and complexity, students engage in the mental effort required to form and reinforce new connections in their thinking.

When students believe knowledge is simple and learning should be easy, their engagement in higher-order thinking, which is required to embrace complexity and nuance, suffers.

To help students who are struggling grasp a complex idea, teachers and parents might ask questions that help students see why learning is complex and requires challenge.

Learning takes time

When students believe learning is simple and easy, educators should not be surprised they think learning should be fast as well.

Instead, students ought to understand that deep learning takes time. If students believe learning is quick, they are less likely to seek challenge, explore nuance or reflect and make connections among ideas. Unfortunately, many curricula pack so much intended learning into a short amount of time that beliefs in quick learning are subtly reinforced.

While teachers can get creative with curricular materials — and spend more time challenging students to explore complexity and make connections — just spending more time on a concept may not be enough to shift a student’s beliefs about learning.

To help students shift their thinking about the speed of learning, I ask them to discuss questions such as, “Why do you think understanding complex concepts takes so much time?” or “Why would only covering this concept for one lesson not be enough?” With these questions, my colleagues and I have found students start to recognize that deep learning is slow and takes time.

Learning is ongoing

Students should also recognize that learning doesn’t end.

Unfortunately, many students believe learning to be a destination rather than an ongoing process. Yet, because knowledge contains an inherent level of uncertainty, and increased learning often reveals increased complexity, learning must be continuous.

To help students reflect on this belief, teachers and parents might ask their students, “How do you think your knowledge has changed over time?” and “How do you think your learning will change in the future?”

Learning is not only from teachers

I remember one high school student telling me that “teachers are supposed to tell us the answers, so we know what to put on the test.”

This student had apparently figured out the “rules of the game” and was not happy when their teacher was trying to engage them in higher-order thinking. This student was holding onto a transmission model of learning in which learning comes from authority figures.

Instead, students should recognize that learning comes from many sources, including their experiences, their peers and their own thinking, as well as from authority figures.

While teachers and parents may hesitate to undermine their own authority, they do students a disservice when they do not prepare them to question and go beyond authority figures.

To help students shift their thinking, teachers might ask students to consider, “Why might learning from multiple sources help you better understand the complexity and nuance of a concept?”

Building better beliefs about learning

Often, teachers and parents believe opportunities to engage in higher-order thinking are enough to help their students develop better beliefs about learning.

But such beliefs require explicit attention and must be planned for in lessons. This is done by asking reflective questions that target specific beliefs, such as the questions noted in the final sentence of each of the previous sections.

In my experience, the conversations I’ve had with students using the questions noted above are highly engaging. Moreover, helping kids develop more robust beliefs about learning just might be the most important thing teachers can do to prepare students for the future.

Jerrid Kruse receives funding from the National Science Foundation, the NASA Iowa Space Grant Consortium, and the William G. Stowe Foundation.

– ref. 5 ways students can think about learning so that they can learn more − and how their teachers can help – https://theconversation.com/5-ways-students-can-think-about-learning-so-that-they-can-learn-more-and-how-their-teachers-can-help-244619

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Caroline Lynn Kamerlin, Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Georgia Institute of Technology

The questions of how humankind came to be, and whether we are alone in the universe, have captured imaginations for millennia. But to answer these questions, scientists must first understand life itself and how it could have arisen.

In our work as evolutionary biochemists and protein historians, these core questions form the foundation of our research programs. To study life’s history billions of years ago, we often use clues called molecular “fossils” – ancient structures shared by all living organisms.

Recently, we discovered that an important molecular fossil found in an ancient protein family may not be what it seems. The dilemma centers, in part, on a simple question: What does it mean if a simple molecular structure – the fossil – is found in every single organism on Earth? Do molecular fossils point to the seeds that gave rise to modern biological complexity, or are they simply the stubborn pieces that have resisted erosion over time? The answers have far-reaching implications for how scientists understand the origins of biology.

Follow the phosphorus to follow life

Life is made of many different building blocks, one of the most important of which is the chemical element phosphorus. Phosphorus makes up part of your genetic material, powers complex metabolic reactions and acts as a molecular switch to control enzymes.

Phosphorus compounds – specifically a charged form called phosphate – have a number of unique chemical properties that other biological compounds cannot match. In the words of the pioneering organic chemist F.H. Westheimer, they are chemically able to “do almost everything.”

Their unique combination of stability, versatility and adaptability is why many researchers argue that following phosphorus is key to finding life. The presence of phosphorus both close to home – in the ocean or on one of Saturn’s moons – and in the farthest reaches of our galaxy is strong evidence for the potential for life beyond Earth.

If phosphorus is so critical to life, how did early biology predating cells first use it?

Today, biological organisms are able to make use of phosphates through proteins – molecular machines that regulate all aspects of life. By binding to proteins, phosphates regulate metabolism and cellular communication, and they serve as a source of cellular energy.

Further, the process of phosphorylation, or adding a phosphate group to a protein, is ubiquitous in biology and allows proteins to perform functions their individual building blocks cannot. Without proteins, the existence of organisms such as bacteria and humans may not be possible.

Given how essential phosphorus is to life, scientists hypothesize that phosphate binding was among the first biological functions to emerge on Earth. In fact, current evidence suggests that the first phosphate-binding proteins are truly ancient – even older than the last universal common ancestor, the hypothetical mother cell to all life on Earth that existed around 4 billion years ago.

A mysterious phosphate-binding fossil

One family of phosphate-binding proteins, called P-loop NTPases, regulates everything from the communication between cells to the storage of energy and are found across the tree of life. Because P-loop NTPases are among the most ancient protein families, analyzing their properties can provide key insights into both the emergence of proteins and how primitive life used phosphates.

Although P-loop NTPases are diverse in structure, they share a common motif called a P-loop. This component binds to phosphate by wrapping a nest of amino acids – the building blocks that make up proteins – around the molecule. Every known organism has multiple families of P-loop NTPase, which makes the P-loop an excellent example of a molecular fossil that can provide clues about the evolution of life. Our crude analysis of the human genome estimates that humans have about 5,000 copies of P-loops.

When part of a larger protein structure, the P-loop folds like origami into a shape that is ideal for hugging a phosphate molecule. These nests are extremely similar to each other, even when the surrounding proteins are only distantly related in function. A landmark study in 2012 argued that even if the P-loop nest is extracted from a protein, it can still bind to phosphate. In other words, the ability of a P-loop to form a nest is determined by its interactions with phosphate, not its protein scaffold.

This study provided the first evidence that some forms of the P-loop sequence could have functioned billions of years ago, even before the emergence of large, complex proteins. If true, this implies that P-loop nests may have seeded the emergence and evolution of many of the phosphate-binding proteins seen today.

Interrogating the history of the P-loop

The pioneer of bioinformatics, Margaret Oakley Dayhoff, hypothesized in 1966 that the large collection of big proteins seen today arose from small peptides that were duplicated and fused over long periods of time. Although P-loops may have evolved in a different way, Dayhoff’s realization was the first to clarify how complex forms could have arisen from much simpler ones.

Inspired by Dayhoff’s hypothesis, we sought to interrogate the role that simple P-loops may have played in the evolution of the complex proteins key to life. Our findings challenge what’s currently known about these molecular fossils.

Using computer models, we compared a range of P-loops from the P-loop NTPase family to a control group made of the same amino acids but in a different order. While these control loops are also found in proteins, they do not form nests.

Although the P-loops and the control loops are very different in their nest-forming ability, we found that they both are able to form transient nests when embedded in proteins. This meant that, contrary to popular belief, the amino acid sequence of P-loops aren’t special in their ability to form nests – as would be expected if they alone were the seeds for many modern proteins.

A fossil eroded over time

Our work strongly suggests that while the P-loop is a molecular fossil, the true nature of its form billions of years ago may have been eroded by the sands of time.

For example, when we repeated our simulations in a different solvent – specifically methanol – we found that P-loops situated in their parent proteins were able to regain some of their ability to form nests. This doesn’t mean that being in methanol drove the first proteins with P-loops to form the nests critical for life. But it does emphasize the importance of considering the surrounding environment when studying peptides and proteins.

Just as archaeologists know to be careful in how they interpret physical fossils, historians of protein evolution could take similar care in their interpretation of molecular fossils. Our results complicate the current understanding of early protein evolution and, consequently, some aspects of the origins of life.

In resetting the field’s broader understanding of how these crucial proteins emerged, scientists are poised to start rewriting our own evolutionary history on this planet.

Caroline Lynn Kamerlin receives funding from the NASA Exobiology program.

Liam Longo receives funding from the NASA Exobiology program.

– ref. Molecular ‘fossils’ offer microscopic clues to the origins of life – but they take care to interpret – https://theconversation.com/molecular-fossils-offer-microscopic-clues-to-the-origins-of-life-but-they-take-care-to-interpret-259271