Category: The Conversation – USA

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Kayla Gabehart, Assistant Professor of Environmental Policy, Michigan Technological University

Many rural Coloradans, especially in agricultural communities, feel looked down on by their urban counterparts. One cattle rancher I spoke to put it plainly. “It’s an attitude … we are the idiots … we are the dumb farmers … we don’t really matter.”

The sentiment is also portrayed in popular culture such as the hit TV show “Yellowstone.”

“It’s the one constant in life. You build something worth having, someone’s gonna try to take it,” says patriarch John Dutton. He was facing repeated threats by developers from “the city” to annex his land for a luxury hotel and resort development.

As a policy scholar, I’ve talked to and interviewed many dozens of people in rural areas in Colorado. I’ve also read hundreds of newspaper articles and watched hundreds of hours of legislative testimony that capture the sentiment of rural people being left behind, left out and snubbed by their urban counterparts.

Recently, I studied the divide between rural and urban Coloradans by looking at their responses to four statewide policies. A designated day to forgo eating meat, two political appointees and the ongoing wolf reintroduction.

These policies, while specific to Colorado, are symptoms of something larger. Namely, an ever-urbanizing, globalized world that rural, agricultural citizens feel is leaving them behind.

‘MeatOut’ or misstep?

My expertise doesn’t just come from my research – I’ve lived it.

I grew up in a rural community in Elbert County, Colorado, about an hour- and-a-half southeast of Denver.

In early 2021, Gov. Jared Polis declared via proclamation that March 20 would be a “MeatOut Day.” For health and environmental reasons, Colorado residents were encouraged to forgo meat for a single day.

Supported by the Farm Animal Rights Movement, MeatOuts have been promoted across the U.S. since the 1980s. Typically, gubernatorial proclamations, of which hundreds are passed each year and are completely ceremonial and devoid of any long-term formal policy implications, go largely unnoticed. And in Denver, Colorado’s metropolitan center, this one did too.

Not so in rural Colorado.

My neighbors in Elbert County promptly responded with outrage, flying banners and flags declaring their support for agriculture and a carnivorous diet.

One rancher from Nathrop painted a stack of hay bales to say, “Eat Beef Everyday.”

Communities all over the state, and even in neighboring states, responded with “MeatIns,” where they gathered to eat meat and celebrate agriculture and the rural way of life. They also coupled these events with fundraisers, for various causes, for which hundreds of thousands of dollars were raised across the state. While Polis backed off the MeatOut after 2021, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston has, just this year, supported a similar “Eat Less Meat” campaign, prompting similar rural outrage.

Did I mention there are nearly 36,000 cattle in Elbert County? This is relatively typical of a rural Colorado county, particularly on the Plains.

In Colorado, 2.7 million cattle are raised annually, with a value of US$4.5 billion. The industry is consistently the top agricultural commodity and the second-largest contributor to Colorado’s GDP, at about $7.7 billion per year.

In early March 2021, Polis declared March 22 “Colorado Livestock Proud Day,” in response to the backlash.

Other policies

This came on the heels of several policies supported by Polis prior to the MeatOut controversy that critics considered anti-agriculture.

In 2020, he appointed Ellen Kessler, a vegan and animal rights activist, to the State Veterinary Board. Kessler criticized 4-H programs, designed to educate youth on agriculture and conservation, on her social media, insisting they “don’t teach children that animal lives matter.” Kessler resigned in March 2022, just days before she was cited for 13 counts of animal cruelty. More recently, in May 2025, Polis appointed Nicole Rosmarino to head the State Land Board. Rosmarino has ties to groups that oppose traditional agricultural practices, historically a key component of Colorado State Land Board operations.

Then came wolf reintroduction, passed by urban voters by just under 57,000 votes in the 2020 general election and supported by the governor. Those in support advocated for a return to natural biodiversity; wolves were hunted to extinction in the 1940s.

Rural residents voted decidedly against the initiative. Despite much legislative and grassroots action to oppose it, wolves were reintroduced in December 2023 in various areas along the Western Slope, in close proximity to many ranches. Several cattle have since been killed by wolves. Ever since, rural interests have been working to overturn wolf reintroduction on the 2026 ballot.

An American mess

Rural residents in Colorado have told me they feel excluded. This is not new or exclusive to Colorado, but a story as old as America itself.

University of Wisconsin political scientist Katherine J. Cramer wrote about this rural exclusion in Wisconsin, calling it “rural resentment.” Berkeley sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild called it “stolen pride.” In their book, Tom Schaller, a political scientist at the University of Maryland, and Paul Waldman, a longtime journalist, characterize it as “white rural rage.”

It’s a dynamic that descends from slavery. Isabel Wilkerson, in her book “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents,” demonstrates that while Black Americans have historically been relegated to the bottom of the hierarchy of an American caste system, poor white people are strategically positioned just above them but below white Americans of higher socioeconomic status. As Wilkerson explains, this is a durable system sustained by norms, laws and cultural expectations that feel “natural.” But they are entirely constructed and designed by the American upper class to intentionally exploit resentment of working-class white people.

The result is what sociologist Michael M. Bell calls a “spatial patriarchy” that characterizes rural America as dumb, incapable, racist, poor and degraded as “white trash.”

This spatial patriarchy is as old as industrialization and urbanization. One of the first policy iterations was rural school consolidation during the turn of the 20th century, designed to modernize schools and make them more efficient. Urban policymakers were influenced by eugenics and the assumption that rural schools “were populated by cognitively deficient children whose parents had not been smart enough or fortunate enough to leave the decaying countryside,” according to sociologist Alex DeYoung.

So, states around the country consolidated schools, the lifeblood of rural communities. Where a school closed, the town often died, as in small towns, schools are not just socioeconomic hubs but centers of cultural and social cohesion.

Environmental impact

The same concept – that urban policymakers know better than rural Americans – is manifest in the modern environmental movement. Like with the MeatOut, rural communities also distrust environmental policies that, in their view, intentionally target a rural way of life. Rural communities take the position that they’ve been made to bear the brunt of the transformations of the global economy for generations, including those that deal with energy and the environment.

For example, environmentalists frequently call for lowering meat consumption and enacting livestock taxes to lower global greenhouse gas emissions.

But, there’s a huge, untapped potential for environmental policies that use language consistent with rural attitudes and values, such as ideas about conservation and land stewardship. Political scientists Richard H. Foster and Mark K. McBeth explain, “Rural residents perceive, probably correctly, that environmental ‘outsiders’ are perfectly willing to sacrifice local economic well-being and traditional ways of life on the altar of global environmental concerns.” They instead suggest “emphasizing saving resources for future generations” so that rural communities may continue to thrive.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations attribute between 18% to 24% of greenhouse gas emissions to agriculture, while the International Panel on Climate Change places the estimate closer to 10%. However, agricultural producers point out that, while they may be responsible for that 10%, just 100 companies, such as BP and ExxonMobil, have produced 70% of all emissions. Agricultural producers say policies such as livestock taxes would disproportionately impact small-scale farmers and intensify rural inequality.

Rural communities have the distinct feeling that urban America doesn’t care whether they fail or flourish. Nearly 70% of rural voters supported Trump in the 2024 presidential election. He won 93% of rural counties. Rural Americans feel left behind, and for them, Trump might be their last hope.

Kayla Gabehart 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. Why rural Coloradans feel ignored − a resentment as old as America itself – https://theconversation.com/why-rural-coloradans-feel-ignored-a-resentment-as-old-as-america-itself-260894

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Brendan Cantwell, Professor of Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education, Michigan State University

The Trump administration and Harvard University are reportedly close to reaching a settlement that would require Harvard to pay US$500 million in exchange for the government releasing frozen federal funding and ending an investigation into antisemitism on campus.

This follows similar deals the White House struck with Columbia University and Brown University in July 2025. Both of those universities agreed to undertake campus reforms and pay a large sum – more than $200 million in the case of Columbia and $50 million for Brown – in order to receive federal funding that the Trump administration was withholding. The White House originally froze funding after saying that these universities had created unsafe environments for Jewish students during Palestinian rights protests on campus in 2024.

As a scholar of higher education politics, I examined the various deals the Trump administration made with some universities. When Harvard announces its deal, it will be informative to see what is different – or the same.

I believe the Columbia and Brown deals can be used as a blueprint for Trump’s plans for higher education. They show how the government wants to drive cultural reform on campus by giving the government more oversight over universities and imposing punishments for what it sees as previous wrongdoing.

Here are four key things to understand about the deals:

1. Antisemitism isn’t a major feature of the agreements

The Trump White House accused Brown and Columbia of tolerating antisemitism during campus protests. But the administration neither followed federal standards for investigating antisemitism, nor did it dictate specific reforms to protect Jewish students.

Ahead of its deal, Columbia in March 2025 adopted a new, broader definition of antisemitism that was created by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. The United Nations and most European Union countries also use this definition.

Yet the school’s 22-page deal mentions antisemitism only once, where it says Columbia is required to hire an additional staff member to support Jewish students’ welfare.

Brown’s deal, meanwhile, did not involve the university adopting a particular definition of antisemitism. But Brown did commit to offering “research and education about Israel, and a robust Program in Judaic Studies.” Brown already hosts a Judaic Studies program, and it is unclear from the agreement’s text what additional measures are required.

The deals also extend well beyond antisemitism concerns and into questions of gender and the composition of student bodies.

Columbia agreed to provide “single-sex” housing and sports facilities, for example. The university has an optional Open Housing program that allows mixed-gender roommates and several gender-neutral restrooms.

This places the school in line with Donald Trump’s January executive order that says a person’s gender is based on their sex as assigned at birth.

Brown’s deal also requires single-sex sports and housing facilities. In addition, Brown committed to using definitions of men and women that match Trump’s executive order.

Columbia, which enrolls about 40% of its students from other countries, also agreed to “decrease financial dependence on international student enrollment.”

The Brown deal says nothing about international education.

2. Both deals are expensive but vague about financial details.

Columbia must pay a fine of more than $200 million to the federal government, while Brown will make $50 million in donations to Rhode Island workforce development programs.

In both cases, it is not clear where the money will go or how it will be used.

Congress passed The Clery Act in 1990, creating a legal framework for fining campuses that failed to protect students’ safety.

Since then, the government has reached different settlements with universities.

Liberty University, in Lynchburg, Virginia, was required to pay the federal government $14 million in 2024, for example, for failing to investigate sexual assault allegations.

But Columbia’s payment is far larger than any previous university and government settlement. Columbia will make three payments of about $66 million into the Treasury Department over three years, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education. But it isn’t clear how the money will exactly be spent and what will happen after those three years, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported in August 2025.

Only Congress can legally decide how to spend Treasury Department funds. But Trump has ignored Congress’ appropriation directives on a number of occasions.

Brown, meanwhile, will not pay the government anything. Instead, its deal will go “to state workforce development organizations operating in compliance with anti-discrimination laws, over the ten years.”

The Brown deal doesn’t say what qualifies as qualified workforce development organizations.

3. Trump wants to influence university admissions.

While the Brown and Columbia deals have several differences, the agreements have nearly identical language giving the Trump administration oversight of the way they admit students.

The deals say that the universities must provide the government with detailed information about who applied to the schools and was admitted, broken down by grades and test scores, as well as race and ethnicity. The government could then conduct a “comprehensive audit” of the schools, based on this information.

This information could also be used to determine if universities are showing a preferences for students of color. Without providing evidence, conservative activists have alleged that selective colleges discriminate against white people and that this is a violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Experts have said that these reporting requirements appear to be intended to increase the number of white students admitted to Ivy League schools.

4. The deals could open more doors to federal intrusion.

Claire Shipman, Columbia’s acting president, said in July that the deal would allow the university’s “research partnership with the federal government to get back on track.”

Christina Paxson, Brown’s president, also defended the agreement in a statement, writing that it “enables us as a community to move forward after a period of considerable uncertainty in a way that ensures Brown will continue to be the Brown that our students, faculty, staff, alumni, parents and friends have known for generations.”

But the deals could invite more scrutiny from the federal government.

Both deals spell out the government’s right to open new investigations against Brown and Columbia, or to reopen old complaints if the administration is not satisfied with how the universities are implementing the agreement.

Trump is now pressuring Harvard, UCLA and other universities to strike deals, also based on similar antisemitism allegations.

The White House announced on Aug. 8 that it could seize the research patents, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, that Harvard holds. Since 1980, universities have been able to legally hold, and profit from, patents resulting from federally funded research.

The federal government has long influenced higher education through funding and regulation. But the government has never tried to dictate what happens on campus before now.

Higher education experts like me believe that political goals now drive the way the government approaches higher education. Some of Trump’s conservative allies are now urging the president to go even further, saying “we have every right to renegotiate the terms of the compact with the universities.”

Given these and other pressure tactics, academics who study the law and government warn that the university deals indicate encroaching authoritarianism.

Brendan Cantwell 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. Exactly what is in the Ivy League deals with the Trump administration – and how they compare – https://theconversation.com/exactly-what-is-in-the-ivy-league-deals-with-the-trump-administration-and-how-they-compare-262912

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Andrew A. Schwartz, DeMuth Chair of Business Law, University of Colorado Boulder

Imagine you invest US$500 to help a startup get off the ground through investment crowdfunding. The pitch is slick, the platform feels trustworthy and the company quickly raises its target amount from hundreds of people just like you. Then – silence. No updates, no financials, not even a thank-you.

You’ve been ghosted – not by a friend, but by a company you helped fund.

This isn’t just an unlucky anecdote. It’s happening across the United States. And while it may violate federal law, there’s little enforcement – and virtually no consequences.

Thanks to a 2012 law, startups can raise up to US$5 million per year from the general public through online platforms such as Wefunder or StartEngine. The law was intended to “democratize” investing and give regular people, not just the wealthy, a chance to back promising young companies.

But there’s a catch: Companies that raise money this way are required to file an annual report with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and post it publicly. This report, intended to show whether the business is making progress and how it is using investor funds, is a cornerstone of accountability in the system.

As a professor of business law, I wrote the book on investment crowdfunding. And in my recent research, I found that a majority of crowdfunded companies simply ignore this rule. They raise the money and go silent, leaving investors in the dark.

In most cases, I suspect their silence isn’t part of an elaborate con. More likely, the founders never realized they had to file, forgot about the requirement amid the chaos of running a young business, or shut down entirely. But whether it’s innocent oversight or deliberate avoidance, the effect on investors is the same: no information, no accountability.

This kind of vanishing act would be unthinkable for public companies listed on the stock market. But in the world of investment crowdfunding, limited oversight means that going silent, whatever the reason, is all too easy.

It’s not just 1 or 2 victims

When startups go dark, they don’t just leave their investors behind – they undermine the entire crowdfunding model.

Investment crowdfunding was meant to be an accessible, transparent way to support innovation. But when companies ghost their backers, the relationship starts to look less like an investment and more like a donation.

It’s not just unethical – it’s illegal. Federal law requires at least one annual update. But so far, enforcement has been almost nonexistent.

Concerned state attorneys general have encouraged the SEC to ramp up enforcement actions. This could work in theory, but it’s unrealistic in practice, given the SEC’s limited resources and broad mission.

If nothing changes, the crowdfunding experiment could collapse under the weight of mistrust.

Incentives work − let’s use them

Fortunately, there’s a low-cost solution.

I propose that crowdfunding platforms hold back 1% of the capital raised until the company files its first required report. If it complies, it gets the funds. If not, it doesn’t.

It’s a small but powerful incentive that could nudge companies into doing the right thing, without adding bureaucratic complexity.

It’s the same principle used in escrow arrangements, which are common in finance. In a home sale, for example, part of the money goes into a neutral holding account – escrow – until the seller meets certain agreed conditions. Only then is it released. Applying that approach here, a small slice of crowdfunding proceeds would stay in escrow until the company files its first annual report. No report, no release.

Unfortunately, crowdfunding platforms are unlikely to adopt this voluntarily. They compete with one another for deal flow, and any rule that makes fundraising slightly harder at one platform could send startups to a rival site.

However, the SEC has the legal authority to update its rules, and this change would be easy to implement – no new laws, no congressional fights, just a bit of regulatory will. I’ve even drafted a proposed rule, ready-made for the SEC to adopt, and published it in my recent article, Ghosting the Crowd.

The idea behind investment crowdfunding remains powerful: Open the door to entrepreneurship and investment for everyone. But if that door leads to silence and broken promises, trust will disappear – and with it, a promising financial innovation.

A tiny tweak to the rules could restore that trust. Without it, investors will keep getting ghosted. And the market might ghost them right back.

Andrew A. Schwartz 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. Crowdfunded companies are ‘ghosting’ their investors – and getting away with it – https://theconversation.com/crowdfunded-companies-are-ghosting-their-investors-and-getting-away-with-it-261346

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Ilana Horwitz, Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies and Sociology, Tulane University

Students at elite universities tend to talk a good game when it comes to religious pluralism. Many of them show up on day one already saying all the right things about respecting different faiths.

But here’s the paradox: They don’t grow from there, according to our research published in The Journal of Higher Education. Students at less selective colleges, meanwhile, do develop more pluralistic attitudes. And by their fourth year, they participate in interfaith activities, such as taking courses about different religions or joining in interfaith dialogues, just as much as anyone else.

Religious pluralism goes beyond tolerance or diversity, which are simply coexisting with people of different faiths. Pluralism involves actively seeking to understand other traditions, talking with people from other backgrounds and working with them toward common goals.

As scholars of religion and education, we worked with sociologist of education David Shuang Song to study how students’ attitudes and actions change over time. We examined data from more than 3,100 students at 112 colleges, using the Interfaith Diversity Experiences and Attitudes Longitudinal Survey. Our study tracked students for four years, measuring two things: their attitudes about appreciating different faiths, and their actual participation in interfaith activities.

Our study revealed three findings.

First, freshmen at highly selective schools – institutions that typically admit fewer than 1 in 5 applicants – often start with stronger support for religious pluralism. Compared with freshmen at less selective schools, they are more likely to agree with questions like “I respect people who have religious or nonreligious perspectives that differ from my own,” though the difference was modest.

Second, fourth-year students at less selective schools showed more pluralistic attitudes than at the start of college. In contrast, students at elite institutions maintained their high initial attitudes without any measurable change.

Third, students at all types of institutions participated in more interfaith activities by the end of college, on average, with less selective schools showing slightly larger gains. That might mean attending services of different faiths, taking courses about other religions or joining dialogue groups.

The bottom line: At less selective colleges, students tended to develop stronger attitudes about religious pluralism, and they also increased their interfaith activities. At elite colleges, students increased their activities, but their attitudes more often remained flat.

Why it matters

The United States is growing more religiously diverse – with growing numbers of non-Christian and nonreligious adults – and more divided across religious lines. Antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents have surged over the past few years, including on college campuses. All of this makes it especially urgent that colleges prepare students to bridge divides.

Our findings reveal an interesting paradox: Elite institutions admit students who already express strong support for religious pluralism on surveys. On average, however, students’ attitudes don’t deepen during college, although their interfaith activities do increase somewhat.

And students’ answers to questions about pluralism don’t necessarily demonstrate genuine commitment. For example, these attitudes may be part of how some elite students learn to seem culturally sophisticated – voicing ideals they associate with being open-minded, cosmopolitan and educated.

The findings may challenge assumptions about where meaningful education about diversity occurs. On average, less selective institutions, which educate most college students, begin with students less inclined toward pluralism. Yet in general, we found that these schools successfully foster growth in both attitudes and behavior – particularly when interfaith programs are integrated into everyday campus life and curriculum. All colleges can challenge students through experiences like interfaith events, research projects or internships.

What’s next

Today’s college students are tomorrow’s civic leaders, educators, policymakers and professionals. If institutions are struggling to cultivate the skills students need to have conversations and collaborate with people from diverse religious backgrounds, the cultural divides that already fracture our democracy are at risk of deepening.

We believe colleges must go beyond performative pluralism to foster the habits of curiosity, humility and collaboration. Pluralism isn’t just a campus value. It’s a civic necessity.

The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.

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

– ref. The paradox of pluralism: How college shapes students’ views of other religions – https://theconversation.com/the-paradox-of-pluralism-how-college-shapes-students-views-of-other-religions-261901

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Alton C. Byers, Faculty Research Scientist, Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado Boulder

Each summer in the mountains above Juneau, Alaska, meltwater from the massive Mendenhall Glacier flows into mountain lakes and into the Mendenhall River, which runs through town.

Since 2011, scientists and local officials have kept a close eye on one lake in particular: Suicide Basin, an ice-dammed bowl on an arm of the glacier. Glacier ice once covered this area, but as the ice retreated in recent decades, it left behind a large, deep depression.

In the summers of 2023 and 2024, meltwater filled Suicide Basin, overflowed and escaped through tunnels in the ice, sending surges of water downstream that flooded neighborhoods along the river.

On Aug. 12-13, 2025, the basin flooded again.

The surge of water from Suicide Basin reached record levels at Mendenhall Lake on Aug. 13 on its way toward Juneau, the state capital. Officials urged some neighborhoods to evacuate ahead of the surge. As the water rose, new emergency flood barriers were able to limit the damage.

The glacial flood risks that Juneau is now experiencing each summer are becoming a growing problem in communities around the world. As an Earth scientist and a mountain geographer, we study the impact that ice loss can have on the stability of the surrounding mountain slopes and glacial lakes, and we see several reasons for increasing concern.

The growing risk of glacial floods

In many mountain ranges, glaciers are melting as global temperatures rise. Europe’s Alps and Pyrenees lost 40% of their glacier volume from 2000 to 2023.

These and other icy regions have provided freshwater for people living downstream for centuries – almost 2 billion people rely on glaciers today. But as glaciers melt faster, they also pose potentially lethal risks.

Water from the melting ice often drains into depressions once occupied by the glacier, creating large lakes. Many of these expanding lakes are held in place by precarious ice dams or rock moraines deposited by the glacier over centuries.

Too much water behind these dams or a landslide or large ice discharge into the lake can break the dam, sending huge volumes of water and debris sweeping down the mountain valleys, wiping out everything in the way.

The Mendenhall Glacier floods, where glacial ice holds back the water, are classic jökulhlaup, or “glacier leap” floods, first described in Iceland and now characteristic of Alaska and other northern latitude regions.

Erupting ice dams and landslides

Most glacial lakes began forming over a century ago as a result of warming trends since the 1860s, but their abundance and rates of growth have risen rapidly since the 1960s.

Many people living in the Himalayas, Andes, Alps, Rocky Mountains, Iceland and Alaska have experienced glacial lake outburst floods of one type or another.

A glacial lake outburst flood in the Sikkim Himalayas in October 2023 damaged more than 30 bridges and destroyed a 200-foot-high (60 meters) hydropower plant. Residents had little warning. By the time the disaster was over, more than 50 people had died.

Avalanches, rockfalls and slope failures can also trigger glacial lake outburst floods.

These are growing more common as frozen ground known as permafrost thaws, robbing mountain landscapes of the cryospheric glue that formerly held them together. These slides can create massive waves when they plummet into a lake. The waves can then rupture the ice dam or moraine, unleashing a flood of water, sediment and debris.

That dangerous mix can rush downstream at speeds of 20-60 mph (30-100 kph), destroying homes and anything else in its path.

The casualties of such an event can be staggering. In 1941, a huge wave caused by a snow and ice avalanche that fell into Laguna Palcacocha, a glacial lake in the Peruvian Andes, overtopped the moraine dam that had contained the lake for decades. The resulting flood destroyed one-third of the downstream city of Huaraz and killed between 1,800 and 5,000 people.

In the years since, the danger there has only increased. Laguna Palcacocha has grown to more than 14 times its size in 1941. At the same time, the population of Huaraz has risen to over 120,000 inhabitants. A glacial lake outburst flood today could threaten the lives of an estimated 35,000 people living in the water’s path.

Governments have responded to this widespread and growing threat by developing early warning systems and programs to identify potentially dangerous glacial lakes. In Juneau, the U.S. Geological Survey starts monitoring Suicide Basin closely when it begins to fill.

Some governments have taken steps to lower water levels in the lakes or built flood-diversion structures, such as walls of rock-filled wire cages, known as gabions, that divert floodwaters from villages, infrastructure or agricultural fields.

Where the risks can’t be managed, communities have been encouraged to use zoning that prohibits building in flood-prone areas. Public education has helped build awareness of the flood risk, but the disasters continue.

Flooding from inside and thawing permafrost

The dramatic nature of glacial lake outburst floods captures headlines, but those aren’t the only risks.

Englacial conduit floods originate inside of glaciers, commonly on steep slopes. Meltwater can collect inside massive systems of ice caves, or conduits. A sudden surge of water from one cave to another, perhaps triggered by the rapid drainage of a surface pond, can set off a chain reaction that bursts out of the ice as a full-fledged flood.

Thawing mountain permafrost can also trigger floods. This permanently frozen mass of rock, ice and soil has been a fixture at altitudes above 19,685 feet (6,000 meters) for millennia.

As permafrost thaws, even solid rock becomes less stable and is more prone to breaking, while ice and debris are more likely to become detached and turn into destructive and dangerous debris flows. Thawing permafrost has been increasingly implicated in glacial lake outburst floods because of these new sources of potential triggers.

How mountain regions can reduce the risk

A study published in 2024 counted more than 110,000 glacial lakes around the world and determined 10 million people’s lives and homes are at risk from glacial lake outburst floods.

To help prepare and protect communities, our research points to some key lessons:

1. Some of the most effective early warning systems have proven to be cellphone alerts. If combined with apps showing real-time water levels at a dangerous glacial lake, residents could more easily assess the danger.

2. Projects to lower glacier lakes aren’t always effective. In the past, at least two glacial lakes in the Himalayas have been lowered by about 10 feet (3 meters) when studies indicated that closer to 65 feet (20 meters) was needed. In some cases, draining small, emerging lakes before they develop could be more cost effective than waiting until a large and dangerous lake threatens downstream communities.

3. People living in remote mountain regions threatened by glacial lakes need a reliable source of information that can provide regular updates with monitoring technology.

4. Recently it has become clear that even tiny glacial lakes can be dangerous given the right combination of cascading events. These need to be included in any list of potentially dangerous glacial lakes to warn communities downstream.

The U.N. declared 2025 the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation and 2025-2034 the decade of action in cryospheric sciences. Scientists on several continents will be working to understand the risks and find ways to help communities respond to and mitigate the dangers.

This is an update to an article originally published March 19, 2025, to include the latest Alaska flooding.

Suzanne OConnell receives funding from The National Science Foundation

Alton C. Byers 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. Glacial lake flood hits Juneau, Alaska, reflecting a growing global risk as mountain glaciers melt – https://theconversation.com/glacial-lake-flood-hits-juneau-alaska-reflecting-a-growing-global-risk-as-mountain-glaciers-melt-263109

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Alton C. Byers, Faculty Research Scientist, Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado Boulder

Each summer in the mountains above Juneau, Alaska, meltwater from the massive Mendenhall Glacier flows into mountain lakes and into the Mendenhall River, which runs through town.

Since 2011, scientists and local officials have kept a close eye on one lake in particular: Suicide Basin, an ice-dammed bowl on an arm of the glacier. The glacier once covered this area, but as the ice retreated in recent decades, it left behind a large, deep depression.

In the summers of 2023 and 2024, meltwater filled Suicide Basin, overflowed its rim and escaped through tunnels in the ice, sending surges of water downstream that flooded neighborhoods along the river.

On Aug. 12-13, 2025, Suicide Basin flooded again.

The surge of water from Suicide Basin reached record levels at Mendenhall Lake on Aug. 13 on its way toward Juneau. Officials urged some neighborhoods to evacuate. As the water rose, new emergency flood barriers appeared to have limited the damage.

The glacial flood risks that Juneau is now experiencing each summer are becoming a growing problem in communities around the world. As an Earth scientist and a mountain geographer, we study the impact that ice loss can have on the stability of the surrounding mountain slopes and glacial lakes, and we see several reasons for increasing concern.

The growing risk of glacial floods

In many mountain ranges, glaciers are melting as global temperatures rise. Europe’s Alps and Pyrenees lost 40% of their glacier volume from 2000 to 2023.

These and other icy regions have provided freshwater for people living downstream for centuries – almost 2 billion people rely on glaciers today. But as glaciers melt faster, they also pose potentially lethal risks.

Water from the melting ice often drains into depressions once occupied by the glacier, creating large lakes. Many of these expanding lakes are held in place by precarious ice dams or rock moraines deposited by the glacier over centuries.

Too much water behind these dams or a landslide or large ice discharge into the lake can break the dam, sending huge volumes of water and debris sweeping down the mountain valleys, wiping out everything in the way.

The Mendenhall Glacier floods, where glacial ice holds back the water, are classic jökulhlaup, or “glacier leap” floods, first described in Iceland and now characteristic of Alaska and other northern latitude regions.

Erupting ice dams and landslides

Most glacial lakes began forming over a century ago as a result of warming trends since the 1860s, but their abundance and rates of growth have risen rapidly since the 1960s.

Many people living in the Himalayas, Andes, Alps, Rocky Mountains, Iceland and Alaska have experienced glacial lake outburst floods of one type or another.

A glacial lake outburst flood in the Sikkim Himalayas in October 2023 damaged more than 30 bridges and destroyed a 200-foot-high (60 meters) hydropower plant. Residents had little warning. By the time the disaster was over, more than 50 people had died.

Avalanches, rockfalls and slope failures can also trigger glacial lake outburst floods.

These are growing more common as frozen ground known as permafrost thaws, robbing mountain landscapes of the cryospheric glue that formerly held them together. These slides can create massive waves when they plummet into a lake. The waves can then rupture the ice dam or moraine, unleashing a flood of water, sediment and debris.

That dangerous mix can rush downstream at speeds of 20-60 mph (30-100 kph), destroying homes and anything else in its path.

The casualties of such an event can be staggering. In 1941, a huge wave caused by a snow and ice avalanche that fell into Laguna Palcacocha, a glacial lake in the Peruvian Andes, overtopped the moraine dam that had contained the lake for decades. The resulting flood destroyed one-third of the downstream city of Huaraz and killed between 1,800 and 5,000 people.

In the years since, the danger there has only increased. Laguna Palcacocha has grown to more than 14 times its size in 1941. At the same time, the population of Huaraz has risen to over 120,000 inhabitants. A glacial lake outburst flood today could threaten the lives of an estimated 35,000 people living in the water’s path.

Governments have responded to this widespread and growing threat by developing early warning systems and programs to identify potentially dangerous glacial lakes. In Juneau, the U.S. Geological Survey starts monitoring Suicide Basin closely when it begins to fill.

Some governments have taken steps to lower water levels in the lakes or built flood-diversion structures, such as walls of rock-filled wire cages, known as gabions, that divert floodwaters from villages, infrastructure or agricultural fields.

Where the risks can’t be managed, communities have been encouraged to use zoning that prohibits building in flood-prone areas. Public education has helped build awareness of the flood risk, but the disasters continue.

Flooding from inside and thawing permafrost

The dramatic nature of glacial lake outburst floods captures headlines, but those aren’t the only risks.

Englacial conduit floods originate inside of glaciers, commonly on steep slopes. Meltwater can collect inside massive systems of ice caves, or conduits. A sudden surge of water from one cave to another, perhaps triggered by the rapid drainage of a surface pond, can set off a chain reaction that bursts out of the ice as a full-fledged flood.

Thawing mountain permafrost can also trigger floods. This permanently frozen mass of rock, ice and soil has been a fixture at altitudes above 19,685 feet (6,000 meters) for millennia.

As permafrost thaws, even solid rock becomes less stable and is more prone to breaking, while ice and debris are more likely to become detached and turn into destructive and dangerous debris flows. Thawing permafrost has been increasingly implicated in glacial lake outburst floods because of these new sources of potential triggers.

How mountain regions can reduce the risk

A study published in 2024 counted more than 110,000 glacial lakes around the world and determined 10 million people’s lives and homes are at risk from glacial lake outburst floods.

To help prepare and protect communities, our research points to some key lessons:

1. Some of the most effective early warning systems have proven to be cellphone alerts. If combined with apps showing real-time water levels at a dangerous glacial lake, residents could more easily assess the danger.

2. Projects to lower glacier lakes aren’t always effective. In the past, at least two glacial lakes in the Himalayas have been lowered by about 10 feet (3 meters) when studies indicated that closer to 65 feet (20 meters) was needed. In some cases, draining small, emerging lakes before they develop could be more cost effective than waiting until a large and dangerous lake threatens downstream communities.

3. People living in remote mountain regions threatened by glacial lakes need a reliable source of information that can provide regular updates with monitoring technology.

4. Recently it has become clear that even tiny glacial lakes can be dangerous given the right combination of cascading events. These need to be included in any list of potentially dangerous glacial lakes to warn communities downstream.

The U.N. declared 2025 the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation and 2025-2034 the decade of action in cryospheric sciences. Scientists on several continents will be working to understand the risks and find ways to help communities respond to and mitigate the dangers.

This is an update to an article originally published March 19, 2025, to include the latest Alaska flooding.

Suzanne OConnell receives funding from The National Science Foundation

Alton C. Byers 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. Glacial lake flood hits Juneau, Alaska, reflecting a growing risk as mountain glaciers melt around the world – https://theconversation.com/glacial-lake-flood-hits-juneau-alaska-reflecting-a-growing-risk-as-mountain-glaciers-melt-around-the-world-263109

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Pedro DiNezio, Associate Professor of Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder

A new wave of climate research is sounding a stark warning: Human activity may be driving drought more intensely – and more directly – than previously understood.

The southwestern United States has been in a historic megadrought for much of the past two decades, with its reservoirs including lakes Mead and Powell dipping to record lows and legal disputes erupting over rights to use water from the Colorado River.

This drought has been linked to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a climate pattern that swings between wet and dry phases every few decades. Since a phase change in the early 2000s, the region has endured a dry spell of epic proportions.

The PDO was thought to be a natural phenomenon, governed by unpredictable natural ocean and atmosphere fluctuations. But new research published in the journal Nature suggests that’s no longer the case.

Working with hundreds of climate model simulations, our team of atmosphere, earth and ocean scientists found that the PDO is now being strongly influenced by human factors and has been since the 1950s. It should have oscillated to a wetter phase by now, but instead it has been stuck. Our results suggest that drought could become the new normal for the region unless human-driven warming is halted.

The science of a drying world

For decades, scientists have relied on a basic physical principle to predict rainfall trends: Warmer air holds more moisture. In a warming world, this means wet areas are likely to get wetter, while dry regions become drier. In dry areas, as temperatures rise, more moisture is pulled from soils and transported away from these arid regions, intensifying droughts.

While most climate models simulate this general pattern, they often underestimate its full extent, particularly over land areas.

Yet countries are already experiencing drought emerging as one of the most immediate and severe consequences of climate change. Understanding what’s ahead is essential, to know how long these droughts will last and because severe droughts can have sweeping affects on ecosystems, economies and global food security.

Human fingerprints on megadroughts

Simulating rainfall is one of the greatest challenges in climate science. It depends on a complex interplay between large-scale wind patterns and small-scale processes such as cloud formation.

Until recently, climate models have not offered a clear picture of how rainfall patterns are likely to change in the near future as greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles, power plants and industries continue to heat up the planet. The models can diverge sharply in where, when and how precipitation will change. Even forecasts that average the results of several models differ when it comes to changes in rainfall patterns.

The techniques we deployed are helping to sharpen that picture for North America and across the tropics.

We looked back at the pattern of PDO phase changes over the past century using an exceptionally large ensemble of climate simulations. The massive number of simulations, more than 500, allowed us to isolate the human influences. This showed that the shifts in the PDO were driven by an interplay of increasing warming from greenhouse gas emissions and cooling from sun-blocking particles called aerosols that are associated with industrial pollution.

From the 1950s through the 1980s, we found that increasing aerosol emissions from rapid industrialization following World War II drove a positive trend in the PDO, making the Southwest rainier and less parched.

After the 1980s, we found that the combination of a sharp rise in greenhouse gas emissions from industries, power plants and vehicles and a reduction in aerosols as countries cleaned up their air pollution shifted the PDO into the negative, drought-generating trend that continues today.

This finding represents a paradigm shift in our scientific understanding of the PDO and a warning for the future. The current negative phase can no longer be seen as just a roll of the climate dice – it has been loaded by humans.

Our conclusion that global warming can drive the PDO into its negative, drought-inducing phase is also supported by geological records of past megadroughts. Around 6,000 years ago, during a period of high temperatures, evidence shows the emergence of a similar temperature pattern in the North Pacific and widespread drought across the Southwest.

Tropical drought risks underestimated

The past is also providing clues to future rainfall changes in the tropics and the risk of droughts in locations such as the Amazon.

One particularly instructive example comes from approximately 17,000 years ago. Geological evidence shows that there was a period of widespread rainfall shifts across the tropics coinciding with a major slowdown of ocean currents in the Atlantic.

These ocean currents, which play a crucial role in regulating global climate, naturally weakened or partially collapsed then, and they are expected to slow further this century at the current pace of global warming.

A recent study of that period, using computer models to analyze geologic evidence of earth’s climate history, found much stronger drying in the Amazon basin than previously understood. It also shows similar patterns of aridification in Central America, West Africa and Indonesia.

The results suggest that rainfall could decline precipitously again. Even a modest slowdown of a major Atlantic Ocean current could dry out rainforests, threaten vulnerable ecosystems and upend livelihoods across the tropics.

What comes next

Drought is a growing problem, increasingly driven by human influence. Confronting it will require rethinking water management, agricultural policy and adaptation strategies. Doing that well depends on predicting drought with far greater confidence.

Climate research shows that better predictions are possible by using computer models in new ways and rigorously validating their performance against evidence from past climate shifts. The picture that emerges is sobering, revealing a much higher risk of drought across the world.

Pedro DiNezio receives funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and WTW Research Network.

Timothy Shanahan 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. Climate models reveal how human activity may be locking the Southwest into permanent drought – https://theconversation.com/climate-models-reveal-how-human-activity-may-be-locking-the-southwest-into-permanent-drought-262837

Source: The Conversation – USA – By M. Hadi Amini, Associate Professor of Computing and Information Sciences, Florida International University

Imagine a busy train station. Cameras monitor everything, from how clean the platforms are to whether a docking bay is empty or occupied. These cameras feed into an AI system that helps manage station operations and sends signals to incoming trains, letting them know when they can enter the station.

The quality of the information that the AI offers depends on the quality of the data it learns from. If everything is happening as it should, the systems in the station will provide adequate service.

But if someone tries to interfere with those systems by tampering with their training data – either the initial data used to build the system or data the system collects as it’s operating to improve – trouble could ensue.

An attacker could use a red laser to trick the cameras that determine when a train is coming. Each time the laser flashes, the system incorrectly labels the docking bay as “occupied,” because the laser resembles a brake light on a train. Before long, the AI might interpret this as a valid signal and begin to respond accordingly, delaying other incoming trains on the false rationale that all tracks are occupied. An attack like this related to the status of train tracks could even have fatal consequences.

We are computer scientists who study machine learning, and we research how to defend against this type of attack.

Data poisoning explained

This scenario, where attackers intentionally feed wrong or misleading data into an automated system, is known as data poisoning. Over time, the AI begins to learn the wrong patterns, leading it to take actions based on bad data. This can lead to dangerous outcomes.

In the train station example, suppose a sophisticated attacker wants to disrupt public transportation while also gathering intelligence. For 30 days, they use a red laser to trick the cameras. Left undetected, such attacks can slowly corrupt an entire system, opening the way for worse outcomes such as backdoor attacks into secure systems, data leaks and even espionage. While data poisoning in physical infrastructure is rare, it is already a significant concern in online systems, especially those powered by large language models trained on social media and web content.

A famous example of data poisoning in the field of computer science came in 2016, when Microsoft debuted a chatbot known as Tay. Within hours of its public release, malicious users online began feeding the bot reams of inappropriate comments. Tay soon began parroting the same inappropriate terms as users on X (then Twitter), and horrifying millions of onlookers. Within 24 hours, Microsoft had disabled the tool and issued a public apology soon after.

The social media data poisoning of the Microsoft Tay model underlines the vast distance that lies between artificial and actual human intelligence. It also highlights the degree to which data poisoning can make or break a technology and its intended use.

Data poisoning might not be entirely preventable. But there are commonsense measures that can help guard against it, such as placing limits on data processing volume and vetting data inputs against a strict checklist to keep control of the training process. Mechanisms that can help to detect poisonous attacks before they become too powerful are also critical for reducing their effects.

Fighting back with the blockchain

At Florida International University’s solid lab, we are working to defend against data poisoning attacks by focusing on decentralized approaches to building technology. One such approach, known as federated learning, allows AI models to learn from decentralized data sources without collecting raw data in one place. Centralized systems have a single point of failure vulnerability, but decentralized ones cannot be brought down by way of a single target.

Federated learning offers a valuable layer of protection, because poisoned data from one device doesn’t immediately affect the model as a whole. However, damage can still occur if the process the model uses to aggregate data is compromised.

This is where another more popular potential solution – blockchain – comes into play. A blockchain is a shared, unalterable digital ledger for recording transactions and tracking assets. Blockchains provide secure and transparent records of how data and updates to AI models are shared and verified.

By using automated consensus mechanisms, AI systems with blockchain-protected training can validate updates more reliably and help identify the kinds of anomalies that sometimes indicate data poisoning before it spreads.

Blockchains also have a time-stamped structure that allows practitioners to trace poisoned inputs back to their origins, making it easier to reverse damage and strengthen future defenses. Blockchains are also interoperable – in other words, they can “talk” to each other. This means that if one network detects a poisoned data pattern, it can send a warning to others.

At solid lab, we have built a new tool that leverages both federated learning and blockchain as a bulwark against data poisoning. Other solutions are coming from researchers who are using prescreening filters to vet data before it reaches the training process, or simply training their machine learning systems to be extra sensitive to potential cyberattacks.

Ultimately, AI systems that rely on data from the real world will always be vulnerable to manipulation. Whether it’s a red laser pointer or misleading social media content, the threat is real. Using defense tools such as federated learning and blockchain can help researchers and developers build more resilient, accountable AI systems that can detect when they’re being deceived and alert system administrators to intervene.

M. Hadi Amini has received funding for researching security of transportation systems from U.S. Department of Transportation. Opinions expressed represent his personal or professional opinions and do not represent or reflect the position of Florida International University.

This work was partly supported by the National Center for Transportation Cybersecurity and Resiliency (TraCR). Any opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of TraCR, and the U.S. Government assumes no liability for the contents or use thereof.

Ervin Moore has received funding for researching security of transportation systems from U.S. Department of Transportation. Opinions expressed represent his personal or professional opinions and do not represent or reflect the position of Florida International University.

This work was partly supported by the National Center for Transportation Cybersecurity and Resiliency (TraCR). Any opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of TraCR, and the U.S. Government assumes no liability for the contents or use thereof.

– ref. How poisoned data can trick AI − and how to stop it – https://theconversation.com/how-poisoned-data-can-trick-ai-and-how-to-stop-it-256423

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Ella Kellner, Ph.D. Student in Biological Sciences, University of North Carolina – Charlotte

Have you ever walked face-first into a spiderweb while on a hike? Or swept away cobwebs in your garage?

You may recognize the orb web as the classic Halloween decoration or cobwebs as close neighbors with your dust bunnies. These are just two among the many types of spiderweb architectures, each with a unique structure specially attuned to the spider’s environment and the web’s intended job.

While many spiders use their webs to catch prey, they have also evolved unusual ways to use their silk, from wrapping their eggs to acting as safety lines that catch them when they fall.

As a materials scientist who studies spiders and their silks, I am curious about the relationship between spiderweb architecture and the strength of the silks spiders use. How do the design of a web and the properties of the silk used affect a spider’s ability to catch its next meal?

Webs’ ancient origins

Spider silk has a long evolutionary history. Researchers believe that it first evolved around 400 million years ago. These ancestral spiders used silk to line their burrows, protect their vulnerable eggs and create sensory paths and guidelines as they navigated their environment.

To understand what ancient spiderwebs could have looked like, scientists look to the lampshade spider. This spider lives in rock outcroppings in the Appalachian and Rocky mountains. It is a living relative of some of the most ancient spiders to ever make webs, and it hasn’t changed much at all since web-building first evolved.

Aptly named for its web shape, the lampshade spider makes a web with a narrow base that widens outward. These webs fill the cracks between rocks where the spider can be camouflaged against the rough surface. It’s hard for a prospective meal to traverse this rugged landscape without being ensnared.

Web diversity

Today, all spider species produce silk. Each species creates its own specific web architecture that is uniquely suited to the type of prey it eats and the environment it lives in.

Take the orb web, for example. These are aerial, two-dimensional webs featuring a distinctive spiral. They mostly catch flying or jumping prey, such as flies and grasshoppers. Orb webs are found in open areas, such as on treelines, in tall grasses or between your tomato plants.

Compare that to the cobweb, a structure that is most often seen by the baseboards in your home. While the term cobweb is commonly used to refer to any dusty, abandoned spiderweb, it is actually a specific web shape typically designed by spiders in the family Theridiidae. This spiderweb has a complex, three-dimensional architecture. Lines of silk extend downwards from the 3D tangle and are held affixed to the ground under high tension. These lines act as a sticky, spring-loaded booby trap to capture crawling prey such as ants and beetles. When an insect makes contact with the glue at the base of the line, the silk detaches from the ground, sometimes with enough force to lift the meal into the air.

Web weirdos

Imagine you are an unsuspecting beetle, navigating your way between strands of grass when you come upon a tightly woven silken floor. As you begin to walk across the mat, you see eight eyes peeking out of a silken funnel – just before you’re quickly snatched up as a meal.

Spiders such as funnel-web weavers construct thick silk mats on the ground that they use as an extension of their sensory systems. The spider waits patiently in its funnel-shaped retreat. Prey that come in contact with the web create vibrations that alert the spider a tasty treat is walking across the welcome mat and it’s time to pounce.

Jumping spiders are another unusual web spinner. They are well known for their varied colorations, elaborate courtship dances and being some of the most charismatic arachnids. Their cuteness has made them popular, thanks to Lucas the Spider, an adorable cartoon jumping spider animated by Joshua Slice. With two huge front eyes giving them depth perception, these spiders are fantastic hunters, capable of jumping in any direction to navigate their environment and hunt.

But what happens when they misjudge a jump, or worse, need to escape a predator? Jumpers use their silk as a safety tether to anchor themselves to surfaces before leaping through the air. If the jump goes wrong, they can climb back up their tether, allowing them to try again. Not only does this safety line of silk give them a chance for a redo, it also helps with making the jump. The tether helps them control the direction and speed of their jump in midair. By changing how fast they release the silk, they can land exactly where they want to.

To weave a web

All webs, from the orb web to the seemingly chaotic cobweb, are built through a series of basic, distinct steps.

Orb-weaving spiders usually start with a proto-web. Scientists think this initial construction is an exploratory stage, when the spider assesses the space available and finds anchor points for its silk. Once the spider is ready to build its main web, it will use the proto-web as a scaffold to create the frame, spokes and spiral that will help with absorbing energy and capturing prey. These structures are vital for ensuring that their next meal won’t rip right through the web, especially insects such as dragonflies that have an average cruising speed of 10 mph. When complete, the orb weaver will return to the center of the web to wait for its next meal.

The diversity in a spider’s web can’t all be achieved with one material. In fact, spiders can create up to seven types of silk, and orb weavers make them all. Each silk type has different material and mechanical properties, serving a specific use within the spider’s life. All spider silk is created in the silk glands, and each different type of silk is created by its own specialized gland.

Orb weavers rely on the stiff nature of the strongest fibers in their arsenal for framing webs and as a safety line. Conversely, the capture spiral of the orb web is made with extremely stretchy silk. When a prey item gets caught in the spiral, the impact pulls on the silk lines. These fibers stretch to dissipate the energy to ensure the prey doesn’t just tear through the web.

Spider glue is a modified silk type with adhesive properties and the only part of the spiderweb that is actually sticky. This gluey silk, located on the capture spiral, helps make sure that the prey stays stuck in the web long enough for the spider to deliver a venomous bite.

To wrap up

Spiders and their webs are incredibly varied. Each spider species has adapted to live within its environmental niche and capture certain types of prey. Next time you see a spiderweb, take a moment to observe it rather than brushing it away or squishing the spider inside.

Notice the differences in web structure, and see whether you can spot the glue droplets. Look for the way that the spider is sitting in its web. Is it currently eating, or are there discarded remains of the insects it has prevented from wandering into your home?

Observing these arachnid architects can reveal a lot about design, architecture and innovation.

Ella Kellner 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. Spiderweb silks and architectures reveal millions of years of evolutionary ingenuity – https://theconversation.com/spiderweb-silks-and-architectures-reveal-millions-of-years-of-evolutionary-ingenuity-261928

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Charli Carpenter, Professor of political science, UMass Amherst

With his Aug. 11, 2025, announcement that he was sending the National Guard – along with federal law enforcement – into Washington, D.C. to fight crime, President Donald Trump edged U.S. troops closer to the kind of military-civilian confrontations that can cross ethical and legal lines.

Indeed, since Trump returned to office, many of his actions have alarmed international human rights observers. His administration has deported immigrants without due process, held detainees in inhumane conditions, threatened the forcible removal of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and deployed both the National Guard and federal military troops to Los Angeles to quell largely peaceful protests.

When a sitting commander in chief authorizes acts like these, which many assert are clear violations of the law, men and women in uniform face an ethical dilemma: How should they respond to an order they believe is illegal?

The question may already be affecting troop morale. “The moral injuries of this operation, I think, will be enduring,” a National Guard member who had been deployed to quell public unrest over immigration arrests in Los Angeles told The New York Times. “This is not what the military of our country was designed to do, at all.”

Troops who are ordered to do something illegal are put in a bind – so much so that some argue that troops themselves are harmed when given such orders. They are not trained in legal nuances, and they are conditioned to obey. Yet if they obey “manifestly unlawful” orders, they can be prosecuted. Some analysts fear that U.S. troops are ill-equipped to recognize this threshold.

We are scholars of international relations and international law. We conducted survey research at the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Human Security Lab and discovered that many service members do understand the distinction between legal and illegal orders, the duty to disobey certain orders, and when they should do so.

Compelled to disobey

U.S. service members take an oath to uphold the Constitution. In addition, under Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the U.S. Manual for Courts-Martial, service members must obey lawful orders and disobey unlawful orders. Unlawful orders are those that clearly violate the U.S. Constitution, international human rights standards or the Geneva Conventions.

Service members who follow an illegal order can be held liable and court-martialed or subject to prosecution by international tribunals. Following orders from a superior is no defense.

Our poll, fielded between June 13 and June 30, 2025, shows that service members understand these rules. Of the 818 active-duty troops we surveyed, just 9% stated that they would “obey any order.” Only 9% “didn’t know,” and only 2% had “no comment.”

When asked to describe unlawful orders in their own words, about 25% of respondents wrote about their duty to disobey orders that were “obviously wrong,” “obviously criminal” or “obviously unconstitutional.”

Another 8% spoke of immoral orders. One respondent wrote that “orders that clearly break international law, such as targeting non-combatants, are not just illegal — they’re immoral. As military personnel, we have a duty to uphold the law and refuse commands that betray that duty.”

Just over 40% of respondents listed specific examples of orders they would feel compelled to disobey.

The most common unprompted response, cited by 26% of those surveyed, was “harming civilians,” while another 15% of respondents gave a variety of other examples of violations of duty and law, such as “torturing prisoners” and “harming U.S. troops.”

One wrote that “an order would be obviously unlawful if it involved harming civilians, using torture, targeting people based on identity, or punishing others without legal process.”

Soldiers, not lawyers

But the open-ended answers pointed to another struggle troops face: Some no longer trust U.S. law as useful guidance.

Writing in their own words about how they would know an illegal order when they saw it, more troops emphasized international law as a standard of illegality than emphasized U.S. law.

Others implied that acts that are illegal under international law might become legal in the U.S.

“Trump will issue illegal orders,” wrote one respondent. “The new laws will allow it,” wrote another. A third wrote, “We are not required to obey such laws.”

Several emphasized the U.S. political situation directly in their remarks, stating they’d disobey “oppression or harming U.S. civilians that clearly goes against the Constitution” or an order for “use of the military to carry out deportations.”

Still, the percentage of respondents who said they would disobey specific orders – such as torture – is lower than the percentage of respondents who recognized the responsibility to disobey in general.

This is not surprising: Troops are trained to obey and face numerous social, psychological and institutional pressures to do so. By contrast, most troops receive relatively little training in the laws of war or human rights law.

Political scientists have found, however, that having information on international law affects attitudes about the use of force among the general public. It can also affect decision-making by military personnel.

This finding was also borne out in our survey.

When we explicitly reminded troops that shooting civilians was a violation of international law, their willingness to disobey increased 8 percentage points.

Drawing the line

As my research with another scholar showed in 2020, even thinking about law and morality can make a difference in opposition to certain war crimes.

The preliminary results from our survey led to a similar conclusion. Troops who answered questions on “manifestly unlawful orders” before they were asked questions on specific scenarios were much more likely to say they would refuse those specific illegal orders.

When asked if they would follow an order to drop a nuclear bomb on a civilian city, for example, 69% of troops who received that question first said they would obey the order.

But when the respondents were asked to think about and comment on the duty to disobey unlawful orders before being asked if they would follow the order to bomb, the percentage who would obey the order dropped 13 points to 56%.

While many troops said they might obey questionable orders, the large number who would not is remarkable.

Military culture makes disobedience difficult: Soldiers can be court-martialed for obeying an unlawful order, or for disobeying a lawful one.

Yet between one-third to half of the U.S. troops we surveyed would be willing to disobey if ordered to shoot or starve civilians, torture prisoners or drop a nuclear bomb on a city.

The service members described the methods they would use. Some would confront their superiors directly. Others imagined indirect methods: asking questions, creating diversions, going AWOL, “becoming violently ill.”

Criminologist Eva Whitehead researched actual cases of troop disobedience of illegal orders and found that when some troops disobey – even indirectly – others can more easily find the courage to do the same.

Whitehead’s research showed that those who refuse to follow illegal or immoral orders are most effective when they stand up for their actions openly.

The initial results of our survey – coupled with a recent spike in calls to the GI Rights Hotline – suggest American men and women in uniform don’t want to obey unlawful orders.

Some are standing up loudly. Many are thinking ahead to what they might do if confronted with unlawful orders. And those we surveyed are looking for guidance from the Constitution and international law to determine where they may have to draw that line.

Zahra Marashi, an undergraduate research assistant at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, contributed to the research for this article.

Charli Carpenter directs Human Security Lab which has received funding from University of Massachusetts College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, the National Science Foundation, and the Lex International Fund of the Swiss Philanthropy Foundation.

Geraldine Santoso and Laura K Bradshaw-Tucker do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. 4 out of 5 US troops surveyed understand the duty to disobey illegal orders – https://theconversation.com/4-out-of-5-us-troops-surveyed-understand-the-duty-to-disobey-illegal-orders-261929