Category: The Conversation – USA

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Shannon Pruden, Professor of psychology, Florida International University

What do puzzles, gymnastics, writing and using maps all have in common?

They all rely on people’s ability to visualize objects as they spin, flip or turn in space, without physically moving them. This is a spatial skill that developmental psychologists call mental rotation.

Whether a person is navigating a new city or doing a cartwheel, they must use mental rotation skills to move shapes or objects in their mind and make sense of where their bodies are going and what surrounds them.

When children play with puzzles, building blocks or pattern games, they are also practicing mental rotation.

Over time, these skills support learning in math, science and reading. This can look like visualizing pulley systems in physics or seeing the differences between similar-looking letters such as b and d, which young children often confuse.

Strong mental rotation skills also lay the foundation for doing well in school and developing interest in careers in science, technology, engineering and math.

Most preschool-age children are not yet learning to read – but it turns out they are still using some of these same spatial reasoning skills as they think about the world around them.

We are scholars of, developmental science and were curious to find out how children as young as 3 years old mentally rotate objects.

While there is research on the age at which children can mentally rotate objects, less is understood about how children are solving mental rotation problems. We found in our research, conducted from 2022 to 2023, that young children are using the same problem-solving strategies as adults when they solve a mental rotation task.

Children think visually, just like adults

We used eye-tracking technology to understand how a sample of 148 children, all between 3 and 7 years old, solved different mental rotation problems. Eye-trackers use harmless infrared light to capture eye movements. This technology lets us observe how children solve these problems in real time.

As part of our study, we showed each child a large picture of items such as a fire truck, as well as two smaller pictures of the same truck, one placed above the other and positioned slightly differently.

Children were asked to say which small picture on the right matched the large one on the left. In this example, the correct answer is the top picture, because that top fire truck can be rotated to match the large fire truck. The bottom fire truck was a mirrored image, and no matter how much you rotate it, it will never match the large fire truck.

While the children thought about their response, the eye-tracker, mounted right below the computer screen, recorded their eye movements.

By looking at where and for how long children looked at each image, we figured out what kind of strategy they were using.

Some children focused on fewer parts of the object and spent less time studying its details. This suggests they used a holistic strategy, meaning they took in the whole image at once, instead of breaking it into pieces. These children mentally rotated the entire object to solve the task.

Other children focused on parts of the object and spent more time studying its details. This suggests they broke the image down into pieces instead of visualizing the image as a whole, known as a piecemeal strategy. Our findings support prior work showing that children generally use these two visual approaches to solve mental rotation problems.

This study helped us learn where children look while solving puzzles and identify how they solve these problems – without ever having to ask the child, who might be too young to explain, about their process.

Children were more likely to turn the whole image instead of breaking it down into pieces, a pattern of problem solving adults typically also use. This means that even very young children are already thinking about how objects move and turn in space in ways that are more advanced than expected.

Supporting children’s visual skills

Knowing how young children mentally rotate objects may help researchers, teachers and parents understand why some children struggle with learning to read.

Children who break an image down into pieces, instead of visualizing it as a whole, to solve mental rotation problems may be the very same children who struggle with discriminating similar-looking letters such as p and q and may later be diagnosed with dyslexia.

Parents can play an important role in building their child’s mental rotation skills. Parents can help children by offering them opportunities to practice rotating real objects with toys such as three-dimensional puzzles or building blocks. Tangrams – flat, colorful puzzles that come in different shapes – can be used to practice breaking down shapes of animals into pieces. Parents can encourage their child to look for shapes that match parts of the animal or object they are building.

Nov. 8 is International STEM Day, a celebration of all things science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Research like ours provides valuable guidance for designing early STEM activities and educational tools. By directly observing children’s problem solving in real time, we can develop better ways for educators and toy makers to support strong spatial thinking from an early age. To celebrate, we encourage people to engage in activities that test their spatial skills, such as ditching the GPS for the day or playing a game of Tetris.

Mental rotation is a powerful skill that helps us understand and interact with the surrounding physical world. From solving puzzles to reading maps, mental rotation plays a role in many everyday activities. Building mental rotation abilities can improve children’s performance in subjects such as reading, math and science and may inspire future careers in STEM fields.

Shannon Pruden receives funding from National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development and National Science Foundation.

Karinna Rodriguez 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. Even before they can read, young children are visualizing letters and other objects with the same strategies adults use – https://theconversation.com/even-before-they-can-read-young-children-are-visualizing-letters-and-other-objects-with-the-same-strategies-adults-use-264532

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Victoria Pitts-Taylor, Professor of Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Sociology; Science and Technology Studies, Wesleyan University

Political attacks on teaching about gender in colleges and universities are about more than just gender: They are part of a grander project of eroding civil and human rights, limiting personal freedoms and undermining democracy in the name of “traditional” values.

On the first day of his second term, President Donald Trump issued an executive order declaring there are two sexes determined solely by the kind of reproductive cells the body makes, and that the federal government would recognize nothing else. The order claims to protect the “freedom to express the binary nature of sex” and bans the use of federal funds to “promote gender ideology.” Legal experts have criticized the directive as unconstitutional and are challenging it in the courts.

Yet the order has provided fuel for conservatives, right-wing politicians and activists trying to remove so-called gender ideology from many places in American society, including classrooms. Right-wing activists are pushing for censorship of educational curricula in K-12 schools and in colleges and universities, and they have succeeded in Texas, Florida and other red states.

Why are conservative politicians so determined to control how Americans define sex and understand gender?

As sociologists who research and teach about gender, we know that gender across disciplines is understood to be a complex topic of study, not an ideology. The study of gender represents the kind of free inquiry that allows people to decide for themselves how to live, free of coercion or government control.

What is ‘gender ideology’?

“Gender ideology” is a catch-all term conservative Catholics initially promoted in the 1990s in response to the United Nations’ promotion of women’s equality.

In 2004, pushing back on the global women’s and gay rights movements, the Vatican declared in a letter to bishops that men and women are different by nature “not only on the physical level, but also on the psychological and spiritual.” The letter stated that the idea of gender “inspired ideologies” that sanction alternatives to the traditional two-parent family headed by men and treated homosexuality on par with heterosexuality.

Over the following decades, evangelical groups and far-right parties across the globe – from Hungary and Russia to Peru, Brazil and Ghana – have used the language of combating “gender ideology” to counter a host of social policies, including sex education in schools, the legalization of gay marriage and same-sex adoption, reproductive rights and transgender rights.

The anti-gender movement is no longer fringe but rather well funded, organized and transnational. For example, 40 countries have signed the Geneva Consensus Declaration, an international pact proposed by the first Trump administration and supported by anti-gender campaigners as a way to deny abortion rights internationally.

In the U.S., where the majority of Americans support gay marriage and abortion rights, targeting trans rights has become one of the conservative movement’s galvanizing issues. A flood of state bills not only ban books and discussions of gender, sexuality and race in schools but also criminalize abortion, ban gender-affirming health care and legalize discrimination in housing and employment on religious grounds.

What we talk about when we talk about gender

How gender is researched and taught in universities has become a key target of anti-gender campaigns across the globe, in part because the study of gender raises questions about the universality of traditional social roles and the inequalities that can result from them.

Gender is a focus of inquiry not only in gender studies classes but in literature, sociology, law, government, history, anthropology and cultural geography, among many other fields.

Anti-gender campaigners argue there is nothing to understand about it because gender is given by nature or God. For them, gender is equivalent to sex, which is taken to be straightforward and without exception male or female.

Scientific evidence suggests, however, that sex is not always binary. In biology, sex refers to genes, reproductive organs, hormone systems and observable physical characteristics; different combinations of these lead to variations in sex. Far from straightforward, then, sex is complicated.

And a person’s assigned sex at birth does not always align with their deeply held sense of self – their gender identity.

Gender is both a feature of individual people and a mode of organizing social life. At the individual level, people have a subjective sense of and embody their gender by dressing and behaving in ways that encourage other people to see them as they want to be seen. A man might wear a tie at the office to convey masculinity. People will interact differently with a woman when she is wearing high heels and makeup than when she goes barefaced or dons a swimsuit. Someone who is gender fluid may appear more masculine or feminine at different times and experience prejudice and discrimination.

Gender shapes societies through norms and rules on everything from what you wear to how families operate, whom you are allowed to partner with and what jobs you are likely to hold. Whether in the spheres of culture, family, economic or civic life, gender roles and norms intersect with class, race and other social differences and shift across cultures and historical eras. Indigenous societies across the globe have long recognized more than two gender categories, and historical and contemporary examples of gender diversity abound.

A ban on learning about gender would sweep aside all this variation in favor of a homogeneous worldview that deliberately ignores biology, history and lived experience. Denying the diversity of gender makes it easier to impose a conservative worldview and roll back rights.

Education as a political target

Anti-gender campaigners view education as a major battleground in the fight over societal values. In the U.S., conservative efforts to ban the study of gender and sexuality initially centered on K-12 education, exemplified in bills such as Florida’s 2022 “Don’t Say Gay” law. But the movement has also affected colleges and universities.

Texas A&M’s president fired a professor in September 2025 after a student recorded her confrontation with her for discussing gender diversity in a literature course. The student alleged the course was “not legal” because it contradicted “our president’s laws” and her own religious beliefs. The university president also later resigned under pressure.

The same month, the chancellor of the Texas Tech University system, citing Trump’s executive order on “gender ideology,” banned all faculty members across its five universities from recognizing “more than two sexes” in any course or classroom.

As the Texas chapter of the American Association of University Professors reminds its members, faculty have a constitutional right to teach and discuss “all matters related to the subject matter of a class” without interference from administrators, politicians or government officials. Despite this, states led by conservative lawmakers have used a range of tactics to eliminate gender studies programs or curriculum from colleges.

These attacks on universities are attempts to control thought, subdue social movements advocating for change and promote an orthodoxy that upholds those in power.

Restricting rights, eroding democracy

These attacks on education are not only academic matters. They disempower women and marginalized groups that have achieved some legal protection or rights in recent decades. And they contribute to the erosion of democracy.

Authoritarian approaches to governing rely on scapegoating people, policing thought and speech, and punishing dissent. This is true whether it’s Viktor Orban’s Hungary, Vladimir Putin’s Russia or Donald Trump’s United States. By prohibiting questions and challenges, autocrats gain the power to limit how people think and control their bodies.

Victoria Pitts-Taylor is a member of the American Association of University Professors and the National Women’s Studies Association.

Elizabeth Anne Wood a senior strategist with the Woodhull Freedom Foundation. This is a volunteer position.

– ref. Gender is not an ideology – but conservative groups know learning about it empowers people to think for themselves – https://theconversation.com/gender-is-not-an-ideology-but-conservative-groups-know-learning-about-it-empowers-people-to-think-for-themselves-265549

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Joanna Fong-Isariyawongse, Associate Professor of Neurology, University of Pittsburgh

Have you ever tossed and turned under a full moon and wondered if its glow was keeping you awake? For generations, people have believed that the Moon has the power to stir up sleepless nights and strange behavior – even madness itself. The word “lunacy” comes directly from luna, Latin for Moon.

Police officers, hospital staff and emergency workers often swear that their nights get busier under a full moon. But does science back that up?

The answer is, of course, more nuanced than folklore suggests. Research shows a full moon can modestly affect sleep, but its influence on mental health is much less certain.

I’m a neurologist specializing in sleep medicine who studies how sleep affects brain health. I find it captivating that an ancient myth about moonlight and madness might trace back to something far more ordinary: our restless, moonlit sleep.

What the full moon really does to sleep

Several studies show that people really do sleep differently in the days leading up to the full moon, when moonlight shines brightest in the evening sky. During this period, people sleep about 20 minutes less, take longer to fall asleep and spend less time in deep, restorative sleep. Large population studies confirm the pattern, finding that people across different cultures tend to go to bed later and sleep for shorter periods in the nights before a full moon.

The most likely reason is light. A bright moon in the evening can delay the body’s internal clock, reduce melatonin – the hormone that signals bedtime – and keep the brain more alert.

The changes are modest. Most people lose only 15 to 30 minutes of sleep, but the effect is measurable. It is strongest in places without artificial light, such as rural areas or while camping. Some research also suggests that men and women may be affected differently. For instance, men seem to lose more sleep during the waxing phase, while women experience slightly less deep and restful sleep around the full moon.

The link with mental health

For centuries, people have blamed the full moon for stirring up madness. Folklore suggested that its glow could spark mania in bipolar disorder, provoke seizures in people with epilepsy or trigger psychosis in those with schizophrenia. The theory was simple: lose sleep under a bright moon and vulnerable minds might unravel.

Modern science adds an important twist. Research is clear that sleep loss itself is a powerful driver of mental health problems. Even one rough night can heighten anxiety and drag down mood. Ongoing sleep disruption raises the risk of depression, suicidal thoughts and flare-ups of conditions like bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

That means even the modest sleep loss seen around a full moon could matter more for people who are already at risk. Someone with bipolar disorder, for example, may be far more sensitive to shortened or fragmented sleep than the average person.

But here’s the catch: When researchers step back and look at large groups of people, the evidence that lunar phases trigger psychiatric crises is weak. No reliable pattern has been found between the Moon and hospital admissions, discharges or lengths of stay.

But a few other studies suggest there may be small effects. In India, psychiatric hospitals recorded more use of restraints during full moons, based on data collected between 2016 and 2017. In China, researchers noted a slight rise in schizophrenia admissions around the full moon, using hospital records from 2012 to 2017. Still, these findings are not consistent worldwide and may reflect cultural factors or local hospital practices as much as biology.

In the end, the Moon may shave a little time off our sleep, and sleep loss can certainly influence mental health, especially for people who are more vulnerable. That includes those with conditions like depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or epilepsy, and teenagers who are especially sensitive to sleep disruption. But the idea that the full moon directly drives waves of psychiatric illness remains more myth than reality.

Other theories fall short

Over the years, scientists have explored other explanations for supposed lunar effects, from gravitational “tidal” pulls on the body to subtle geomagnetic changes and shifts in barometric pressure. Yet, none of these mechanisms hold up under scrutiny.

The gravitational forces that move oceans are far too weak to affect human physiology, and studies of geomagnetic and atmospheric changes during lunar phases have yielded inconsistent or negligible results. This makes sleep disruption from nighttime light exposure the most plausible link between the Moon and human behavior.

Why the myth lingers

If the science is so inconclusive, why do so many people believe in the “full moon effect”? Psychologists point to a concept called illusory correlation. We notice and remember the unusual nights that coincide with a full moon but forget the many nights when nothing happened.

The Moon is also highly visible. Unlike hidden sleep disruptors such as stress, caffeine or scrolling on a phone, the Moon is right there in the sky, easy to blame.

Lessons from the Moon for modern sleep

Even if the Moon does not drive us “mad,” its small influence on sleep highlights something important: Light at night matters.

Our bodies are designed to follow the natural cycle of light and dark. Extra light in the evening, whether from moonlight, streetlights or phone screens, can delay circadian rhythms, reduce melatonin and lead to lighter, more fragmented sleep.

This same biology helps explain the health risks of daylight saving time. When clocks “spring forward,” evenings stay artificially brighter. That shift delays sleep and disrupts circadian timing on a much larger scale than the Moon, contributing to increased accidents and cardiovascular risks, as well as reduced workplace safety.

In our modern world, artificial light has a much bigger impact on sleep than the Moon ever will. That is why many sleep experts argue for permanent standard time, which better matches our biological rhythms.

So if you find yourself restless on a full moon night, you may not be imagining things – the Moon can tug at your sleep. But if sleeplessness happens often, look closer to home. It is likely a culprit of the light in your hand rather than the one in the sky.

Joanna Fong-Isariyawongse 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. Does the full moon make us sleepless? A neurologist explains the science behind sleep, mood and lunar myths – https://theconversation.com/does-the-full-moon-make-us-sleepless-a-neurologist-explains-the-science-behind-sleep-mood-and-lunar-myths-267528

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Robert Wyss, Professor Emeritus of Journalism, University of Connecticut

It was a morning unlike anything St. Louis had ever seen. Automobile traffic crawled as drivers struggled to peer through murky air. Buses, streetcars and trains ran an hour behind schedule. Downtown parking attendants used flashlights to guide vehicles into their lots. Streetlamps were ignited, and storefront windows blazed with light.

Residents called Nov. 28, 1939, “Black Tuesday.” Day turned to night as thick, acrid clouds blackened the sky. Even at street level, visibility was just a few feet. The air pollution was caused by homes, businesses and factories, which burned soft, sulfur-rich coal for heat and power. The soft coal was cheap and burned easily but produced vast amounts of smoke.

The murky morning was an extreme version of a problem St. Louis and dozens of other American cities had been experiencing for decades. Strict federal air pollution regulations were still 30 years away, and state and local efforts to limit coal smoke had failed miserably.

Today, as the Trump administration works to roll back air pollution limits on coal, the events in St. Louis more than 80 years ago serve as a reminder of how bad a situation can become before people’s objections finally force the government to act. And as I discuss in my book “Black Gold: The Rise, Reign and Fall of American Coal,” those events also highlight how successful that action can be.

A widespread civic effort

Days after Black Tuesday, St. Louis Mayor Bernard Dickmann responded to the crisis by creating a commission to investigate and recommend a solution to the continuing air pollution.

Just before Black Tuesday, Joseph Pulitzer II, publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, had launched his own anti-smoke newspaper campaign seeking fundamental change. In my research I found the first editorial, on Nov. 13, 1939, which declared “something must be done, or else.” A crack reporter, Sam J. Shelton, was assigned full time to what became the smoke beat. Post-Dispatch news stories, editorials and political cartoons championed the values of cleaner air and the dangers of toxic pollution.

Dickmann’s Smoke Elimination Committee met 13 times over a winter that seemed unrelenting in darkness. News and weather reports record that smoke blotted out the Sun on one out of every three days, and sometimes sunlight never pierced the darkness. Advice poured in, including from a Hollywood-style stuntman and flagpole sitter, Alvin “Shipwreck” Kelly, who offered to perch in the sky searching for dirty chimneys.

In late February 1940, the commission issued a report recommending restrictions on smoke emissions. The report said residents and industry should either pay more to buy coal with less sulfur or other fuel, or pay for and install new equipment to burn the sulfur-rich coal more cleanly. On April 5, the city’s Board of Aldermen convened to consider the changes in law that would enact the recommendations.

Newspapers reported that more than 300 protesters, including coal dealers, operators and miners, parked their trucks outside City Hall, waving banners. Black smoke spewed upward from coal stoves mounted atop one, newspaper reports said. The boisterous throng marched into City Hall, shouting and often drowning out city representatives. Amid catcalls and boos, the aldermen passed the ordinance 28-1.

Immediately, Raymond Tucker, the mayor’s deputy, began arranging for suppliers of more expensive low-sulfur coal for the city’s residents and businesses. He launched a slick public relations campaign urging residents to comply with the new law. He also hired a team of inspectors to block bootleg shipments of unauthorized sulfur-rich coal and to cite anyone whose chimney’s smoke ran too black.

Coal operators in Illinois, who sold the cheaper sulfur-rich coal, urged their state’s residents to boycott St. Louis goods and filed lawsuits challenging the legality of the new ordinance. Those actions appeared menacing but made little headway.

The true test of the ordinance would arrive with the winter chill.

A winter of change

As winter arrived, legal coal was 10% to 30% more expensive than the high-sulfur coal had been, and some families struggled, especially in poorer areas of the city. Bootleg coal shipments arrived. More than once, Tucker’s armed inspectors fired at a suspect truck that ignored orders to stop, according to newspaper reports from the time.

While hopes were already high that the new, tough measures would clean the skies, the winter of 1940-41 defied even those rosy expectations. By mid-January, the city’s skies were so much cleaner than the year before that they were the talk of the town. They were clear blue, and even on days when there was smoke, it was far less than had been common before the city ordinance passed.

The national press picked up the news, and arriving visitors wrote letters to the editors of their hometown newspapers reporting being astounded by what St. Louis had accomplished that winter. Tucker compiled notes on how many communities in the U.S. and Canada sought details on the transformation. In that document, now held among his archives at Washington University in St. Louis, he listed 83.

“A great city has washed its face,” Sam Shelton wrote for the Post-Dispatch. “St. Louis is no longer the grimy old man of American municipalities.” The “plague of smoke and soot” had been wiped away after a century in “a dramatic story of intelligent, courageous and co-operative effort.” No longer did residents have to endure “burning throats, hacking coughs, smarting eyes, sooty faces and soiled clothing.”

The newspaper was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for public service in 1941 for its campaign, the first time that a major award was conferred for an environmental story.

For years afterward, the coal industry argued that the St. Louis campaign was a fraud that needlessly forced residents to buy more expensive fuel and equipment. But even during World War II, when industrial restrictions meant pollution was worse in the name of driving the war economy, the city’s skies were never as blackened as they had been before.

Tucker, the mayor’s deputy, later used the fame he had achieved from the smoke campaign as a springboard to being elected mayor. He served 12 years. His former boss, Dickmann, was less fortunate, losing his reelection bid in 1941. He blamed it on having forced residents to pay more, even though it meant cleaner fuel for their homes and clearer skies for their community.

Robert Wyss 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. When coal smoke choked St. Louis, residents fought back − but it took time and money – https://theconversation.com/when-coal-smoke-choked-st-louis-residents-fought-back-but-it-took-time-and-money-265934

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Shannon Gibson, Professor of Environmental Studies, Political Science and International Relations, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

In the Marshall Islands, where the land averages only 7 feet (2 meters) above sea level, people are acutely aware of climate change.

Their ancestors have lived on this string of Pacific islands for thousands of years. But as sea level rises, storms more easily flood communities and farmland with saltwater. Warming ocean water has triggered mass coral-bleaching events, harming habitats that are important for both tourism and fish that the islands’ economy relies on.

If the world fails to rein in the greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change, studies suggest low-lying islands like these could be uninhabitable within decades.

Climate change isn’t just a problem for islands. Countries worldwide are experiencing intensifying storms, dangerous heat waves and rising seas as global temperatures rise.

Yet, after 30 years of international climate talks, 10 years of a global treaty promising to keep temperatures in check, and trillions of dollars in damage, the world is still not on track to stop rising global temperatures. Greenhouse gas emissions were at record highs in 2024, and it was Earth’s hottest year on record.

I study the dynamics of global environmental politics, including the United Nations climate negotiations. And I and my lab have been tracking countries’ latest climate pledges – known as nationally determined contributions, or NDCs – to see which countries have stepped up their efforts, which have slid back and who has ideas that can deliver a safer world for everyone.

While the Trump administration has been pressuring countries to back away from their climate commitments – and succeeded in delaying an International Maritime Organization vote on a global plan to tax greenhouse gas emissions from shipping after threatening other counties with sanctions, visa restrictions and port fees if they supported it – many countries are still pressing ahead.

Trump agitates, but many countries are steadfast

U.S. President Donald Trump, whose administration came into office vowing to eliminate climate regulations and boost the fossil fuel industry, derided concerns about climate change in his Sept. 23, 2025, speech to the U.N. General Assembly. He called climate change the “greatest con job ever perpetuated” and ridiculed green energy and climate science.

Trump’s language no longer surprises world leaders, though. More than 100 other countries announced new climate commitments during a high-level summit a few days later.

China, currently the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, was lauded for hitting its green energy targets five years early. Its rapid expansion of low-cost renewable energy and electric vehicle manufacturing has reduced pollution in Chinese cities while also boosting its economy and expanding the government’s influence around the world.

Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the country’s first absolute emissions reduction goal at the summit, committing to cut its net greenhouse gas emissions by 7% to 10% from peak levels by 2035. China also committed to nearly triple its solar and wind power capacity and expand reforestation efforts.

While advocates and other governments had hoped for a stronger announcement from China, the new goals mark an important shift from the country’s earlier carbon intensity targets, which aimed to decrease the amount of greenhouse gas emissions per unit of economic output but still allowed emissions to grow over time.

The European Union has yet to submit its new commitments, but the group of 27 European countries delivered a letter of intent, saying it would commit to a 66% to 72% collective decrease in net greenhouse gas emissions by 2035 compared with 1990 levels. Europe has seen a swift rise in renewable energy, up sharply since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine put the continent’s natural gas supplies in jeopardy.

The EU has also made waves by extending its carbon pricing rules beyond its borders.

The EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, scheduled to begin in January 2026, will be the first system to charge for the climate impact of imported goods coming into Europe from countries that don’t have carbon prices similar to the EU’s. The measure, meant to even the playing field for EU industries, sets a global precedent for linking carbon emissions to trade.

However, the EU’s climate plans are also facing some headwinds. Its parliament is moving toward softening new corporate sustainability requirements after pressure from companies. And it may face calls from some member countries to delay a new carbon market meant to cut emissions from road transportation and buildings, Politico reported.

The EU has pledged to mobilize up to 300 billion Euros (about US$350 billion) to support the global clean energy transition in developing countries.

The United Kingdom, Japan and Australia submitted their most ambitious targets to date. All three put them on track to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, meaning any greenhouse gases they emit will be offset by projects that avoid carbon emissions or remove carbon from the atmosphere.

In Australia, Queensland’s recent announcement that it would extend existing coal power plant use to the 2030s and 2040s may slow national progress. But Queensland also supports scaling up renewable energy and is still aiming for net-zero emissions by 2050.

Norway committed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 70% by 2035 compared with 1990 levels, which would align with the Paris Agreement goal to keep global emissions below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). However, it plans to remain a major oil and gas exporter.

Notably, many developing countries also stepped up their commitments.

Brazil pledged a net emissions reduction of 59% to 67% by 2035 and is maintaining its 2050 net-zero target.

Free riding and taking cover behind the US

However, while some new climate commitments signal important momentum in the fight against climate change, the tug-of-war between global ambition to slow climate change and strategic self-interests was palpable at the New York summit. The responses to Trump’s remarks revealed both veiled critiques and deceleration of climate action by some governments.

China criticized backsliding by some countries, without naming names.

Brazil used the summit to call out countries that were late in submitting their updated climate commitments. Only about a third had submitted their updated pledges at that point.

While it is difficult to parse out individual country motivations – economic stress, wars and political influence can all play a role – many scholars worry that U.S. backsliding will lead other countries to reduce their climate commitments, and some recent pledges appear to back this up.

Many petroleum-producing countries missed the U.N. pledge deadline. Qatar, which recently gifted the U.S. a jet plane for Trump’s use and has an economy largely bolstered by the oil and gas industry, has not updated its pledge since 2021. The six-member Gulf Cooperation Council’s average emissions reduction target is even lower than Qatar’s, at around 21.6% by 2030.

Similarly, Argentina, among the world’s top holders of shale oil and gas reserves, has not released its updated commitments. Progress on its previous commitment has been undermined by political shifts since President Javier Milei’s election in 2023.

Milei initially vowed to abandon the 2030 agenda entirely and withdraw from the Paris Agreement, though his administration later backtracked. His dismissal of climate change as a “socialist lie” has aligned Argentina closely with Trump, culminating in a recently planned US$20 billion aid package from the U.S. to Argentina and raising questions about whether Argentina’s climate stance reflects genuine policy or geopolitical strategy.

Also noticeably absent are commitments from India, Mexico, South Africa and Saudi Arabia. Angola weakened its climate pledge, citing lack of international funding.

A new way to make climate commitments?

While many countries are promising progress to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the commitments formally submitted as of Oct. 20 were still far below the level needed to keep global temperatures from rising by 2 C (3.6 F), let alone 1.5 C.

To help boost national efforts and accountability, Brazil has proposed a new approach it calls a globally determined contribution. Unlike the 1997 Kyoto Protocol framework, which set fixed, country-specific emission reduction targets based on historical baselines, or the 2015 Paris Agreement’s pledge-as-you-can system, it would establish global targets aligned with the Paris Agreement’s temperature goals.

So, a globally determined contribution might state, for example, that the world will triple its renewable energy production and reverse deforestation by 2030. A target like that gives countries a clearer path of action. The new format would also allow city and state actions to be counted separately, increasing incentives for them to act.

As the host of the COP30 climate talks Nov. 10-21, 2025, Brazil is uniquely positioned to champion this concept. In the absence of U.S. leadership, the proposal could offer a rare opportunity for countries to collectively strengthen commitments and reshape treaty language in a way never seen before – leaving open the possibility for progress.

Wila Mannella, a research assistant and graduate student in environmental studies at USC, contributed to this article.

Shannon Gibson 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. Trump’s words aren’t stopping China, Brazil and many other countries from setting higher climate goals, but progress is slow – https://theconversation.com/trumps-words-arent-stopping-china-brazil-and-many-other-countries-from-setting-higher-climate-goals-but-progress-is-slow-267194

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Tony Cookson, Associate Professor of Finance, University of Colorado Boulder

Most Colorado homeowners do not have enough insurance coverage to rebuild their house after a total loss. That’s according to our new research examining whether homes destroyed in Colorado’s Marshall Fire — which burned more than 1,000 houses in suburban Boulder County — have been rebuilt.

We are economists who study the financial resources available to households to cope with disasters, including insurance, crowdfunding and federal disaster aid.

Over the past five years, insurance premiums in Colorado rose nearly 60%, driven by mounting losses from wildfire, hail and other disasters. These patterns are not unique to Colorado. They reflect a broader national reassessment of risks.

Our new research sheds light on this issue by linking confidential, contract-level data to real rebuilding outcomes.

Our study analyzes 3,089 policies from 14 major insurers held by people affected by the Marshall Fire. The findings offer concrete steps homeowners can take now to reduce the risk of holding insufficient coverage.

How common is underinsurance?

Underinsurance is determined by comparing the amount of coverage a homeowner carries to rebuild the physical structure of their home to the actual cost of rebuilding after a disaster.

To estimate each unique home’s rebuilding cost, the study used construction-cost software and adjusted the estimates to align with a sample of real-world construction quotes received by homeowners after the Marshall Fire.

We found that 74% of homeowners affected by the Marshall Fire were underinsured, and 36% were so severely underinsured that their policy covered less than 75% of the rebuild cost.

According to our research, underinsurance was not just a problem for poorer households. Even for households with incomes above US$180,000, 72% held policies that did not cover the cost of a complete rebuild.

Credit scores and mortgage debt amounts were unrelated to how underinsured people were.

After major fires, construction costs typically spike as hundreds of survivors rebuild at once. To help manage this risk, many homeowners purchase an Extended Replacement Cost policy, which boosts coverage by a set percentage of the existing coverage limit if rebuilding costs end up higher than the coverage limit.

Eighty-seven percent of the Marshall Fire policies we studied included extended coverage. But nearly three-quarters of them still fell short of covering the full cost to rebuild. Our study found that while extended coverage policies cushion the impact of postfire construction cost inflation, they do not solve the deeper problem of underinsurance.

In other words, even without the surge in costs, most households had bought too little coverage from the outset.

Price shopping vs. the coverage you actually need

Our research finds that the insurance company a household chooses strongly predicts how much coverage the household has. That’s even after accounting for income, mortgage status, credit score, home value and property characteristics. In other words, insurers differ systematically in the coverage levels they tend to provide.

When shopping, homeowners attend to the headline premium, or the total cost of insurance, but not to how much coverage that premium actually buys. Indeed, if shoppers compared insurer quotes for the same coverage amount, they would gain about $290 per year in value, roughly 10% of the average annual homeowners insurance premium.

Why underinsurance slows recovery

Underinsurance isn’t an abstract problem offset by savings, loans and federal aid. It leaves real gaps in rebuilding.

The study found that when a household’s insurance coverage falls short of the home’s replacement cost, the household is significantly less likely to rebuild after a total loss. Instead, some families end up selling and moving away.

In fact, the research shows that if all underinsured households in the sample had been fully insured, 25.4% of homeowners would have filed for reconstruction permits within a year of the fire, instead of the 18.8% that filed. In addition, only approximately 5.4% of homeowners would have sold their destroyed properties that year, as opposed to the 9.7% that did sell. Overall, this means more families could have rebuilt and stayed in their communities.

What Colorado homeowners can do now

Here are some practical steps Colorado homeowners can take to make sure their coverage keeps pace with rising risks and rebuilding costs:

• When getting quotes or renewing, request a side-by-side comparison where coverage limits and any extended coverages are held constant across insurers. Shopping this way helps avoid underinsuring in pursuit of a lower premium.

• Revisit limits after renovations and big economic changes. Construction costs in the region rose steeply in the lead-up to the Marshall Fire due to the pandemic and related inflation. If you haven’t updated your coverage recently, revisit it annually — especially if you remodeled or added square footage.

Consider insurer reputation and local presence. Different insurance companies will suggest different coverage limits for the exact same property. The study finds that companies with deeper roots in the community are less likely to underinsure, likely due to concerns about their reputation — something worth weighing alongside price.

The Front Range will continue to face wildfire seasons where wind, drought and human ignition interact in populated areas, and premiums are unlikely to snap back quickly. For households, the most practical step is to shop for insurance and renew policies as if a total loss could happen tomorrow.

Tony Cookson received funding from the National Bureau of Economic Research Household Finance Small Grants Program.

Emily Gallagher is affiliated with the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. The views expressed are solely hers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, or the Federal Reserve System. No statements should be treated as legal advice or as an endorsement by the Federal Reserve System of a specific product or service.

– ref. Many Colorado homeowners are underinsured − here’s what to do before the next fire – https://theconversation.com/many-colorado-homeowners-are-underinsured-heres-what-to-do-before-the-next-fire-263702

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Daniel J. Mallinson, Associate Professor of Public Policy and Administration, Penn State

While Americans across the country deal with the consequences of the federal government shutdown, residents of Pennsylvania are being hit with a double blow.

Pennsylvania has been without a state budget for over 100 days – and remains the only state currently operating without a budget.

As a political scientist at Penn State who studies state politics and policy, I see how Pennsylvania’s budget impasse has ripple effects that are compounded by the current budget problems in Washington.

Let’s look at the present budget problems in Pennsylvania and what we can learn from past battles over the state budget.

A double crisis

Double government budget crises, like the one Pennsylvania faces now, are rare. One reason is that 46 states, including Pennsylvania, begin their new fiscal year on July 1. The federal government’s fiscal year begins on Oct. 1. Even a state like Pennsylvania, that has had late budgets for eight of the last 10 years, would have to be very late in passing a budget for it to potentially coincide with a federal budget impasse. And, of course, federal government shutdowns do not happen all the time.

Pennsylvania’s Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro faces a delicate political environment in Harrisburg – as he has since his first budget in 2023. The Democrats control the state House by a single seat, whereas the Republicans have a comfortable majority in the Senate.

The parties have been debating over the last several budget cycles how to handle funding surpluses – much of which came from Biden-era legislation like the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act – and when and how to deal with the inevitable end to those surpluses.

This year, the two sides are far apart on their views of the proper spending level.

The Democrats in the House passed a US$50.3 billion spending plan, but Senate Republicans want to keep state spending flat at $47.6 billion. The two sides have clashed over proposals surrounding school vouchers, marijuana legalization and more.

As for the federal government, Republicans have a trifecta – control of the White House, Senate and House of Representatives – but do not have the 60 votes in the Senate required to overcome a filibuster. Democrats have dug in over reversing cuts to health care from the earlier passed “one big beautiful bill” and expiring Obamacare subsidies.

There is little sign of an immediate end to either impasse.

In Pennsylvania, there is growing frustration on both sides about an inability to compromise. Nationally, House Speaker Mike Johnson has speculated that this may end up being the longest federal government shutdown in history. In neither case, though, does there seem to be a great deal of urgency in coming to a compromise.

Effects on Pennsylvania

These dual crises are affecting Pennsylvanians in many ways. The state government continues to function even without a budget, but counties, school districts and nonprofit organizations that rely on state funding are being forced to make difficult operating choices.

Some counties like Westmoreland and Northampton are beginning the process of furloughing employees. School districts are taking out loans, freezing hiring and deferring spending. The state already owes school districts more than $3 billion in missed payments for the past three months.

The social safety net is also fraying as social service organizations, like rape crisis centers and mental health providers, are also expending reserves, taking out loans and furloughing employees.

Then comes the federal shutdown.

Military families nationwide have been hit particularly hard, with many turning to food pantries to help meet their needs. The recent money maneuvers at the Department of Defense to pay active-duty and activated National Guard and Reserves personnel is temporary. The commonwealth also has the eighth-highest population of federal civilian employees, at over 66,000 who are not being paid.

Services like food banks are especially vulnerable in this situation, as they are seeing greater demand – which may increase due to federal workers going unpaid – but rely on both the state and federal governments for subsidies. Just this week, it was announced that Pennsylvanians buying health care through the state’s Affordable Care Act marketplace for 2026 should expect a 22% increase in premiums, on average. Part of that increase is due to expectations around the expiring Obamacare subsidies at the center of the Democrats’ demands in this shutdown.

All of these forces are coming together to pinch Pennsylvania residents.

Echoes of the past

While the compounding pain of the federal shutdown is unique, long budget delays in Pennsylvania are not.

In 2023, Gov. Shapiro’s first budget was not fully passed until Dec. 14. That budget was fundamentally delayed by the acrimonious implosion of a deal on school voucher spending between the governor and Senate Republicans. The budget negotiations ended after some horse-trading on specific programs, like removing the popular Whole-Home Repairs Program started during the COVID-19 pandemic but adding funding for lead and asbestos abatement in schools.

The difference between then and now, however, is that back then the governor and General Assembly agreed on the overall budget, but typical bargaining was needed to get the votes needed to pass the spending bills after the voucher blow-up. This time, the parties are almost $3 billion apart in what should even be spent.

In the end, however, both Pennsylvania and the federal government will pass budgets, and I expect that each will be the result of protracted negotiations over multiple spending items, as Americans have seen in the past. The question is: How much pain will citizens, nonprofits and local governments face in the interim?

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

Daniel J. Mallinson 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. Pennsylvania’s budget crisis drags on as fed shutdown adds to residents’ hardships – https://theconversation.com/pennsylvanias-budget-crisis-drags-on-as-fed-shutdown-adds-to-residents-hardships-267382

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Matthew Smith, Visiting Assistant Professor of History, Miami University

Two hundred years ago, on Oct. 26, 1825, New York Gov. DeWitt Clinton boarded a canal boat by the shores of Lake Erie. Amid boisterous festivities, his vessel, the Seneca Chief, embarked from Buffalo, the westernmost port of his brand-new Erie Canal.

Clinton and his flotilla made their way east to the canal’s terminus in Albany, then down the Hudson River to New York City. This maiden voyage culminated on Nov. 4 with a ceremonial disgorging of barrels full of Lake Erie water into the brine of the Atlantic: pure political theater he called “the Wedding of the Waters.”

The Erie Canal, whose bicentennial is being celebrated all month, is an engineering marvel – a National Historic Monument enshrined in folk song. Such was its legacy that as a young politician, Abraham Lincoln dreamed of becoming “the DeWitt Clinton of Illinois.”

As a historian of the 19th-century frontier, I’m fascinated by how civil engineering shaped America – especially given the country’s struggles to fix its aging infrastructure today. The opening of the Erie Canal reached beyond Clinton’s Empire State, cementing the Midwest into the prosperity of the growing nation. This human-made waterway transformed America’s economy and immigration while helping fuel a passionate religious revival.

But like most big achievements, getting there wasn’t easy. The nation’s first “superhighway” was almost dead on arrival.

Clinton’s folly

The idea of connecting New York City to the Great Lakes originated in the late 18th century. Yet when Clinton pushed to build a canal, the plan was controversial.

The governor and his supporters secured funding through Congress in 1817, but President James Madison vetoed the bill, considering federal support for a state project unconstitutional. New York turned to state bonds to finance the project, which Madison’s ally Thomas Jefferson had derided as “madness.”

Some considered “Clinton’s big ditch” blasphemy. “If the Lord had intended there should be internal waterways,” argued Quaker minister Elias Hicks, “he would have placed them there.”

Construction began on July 4, 1817. Completed eight years later, the canal stretched some 363 miles (584 kilometers), with 18 aqueducts and 83 locks to compensate for elevation changes en route. All this was built with only basic tools, pack animals and human muscle – the latter supplied by some 9,000 laborers, roughly one-quarter of whom were recent immigrants from Ireland.

Boomtowns

Despite its naysayers, the Erie Canal paid off – literally. Within a few years, shipping rates from Lake Erie to New York City fell from US$100 per ton to under $9. Annual freight on the canal eclipsed trade along the Mississippi River within a few decades, amounting to $200 million – which would be more than $8 billion today.

Commerce drove industry and immigration, enriching the canal towns of New York – transforming villages like Syracuse and Utica into cities. From 1825-1835, Rochester was the fastest-growing urban center in America.

By the 1830s, politicians had stopped ridiculing America’s growing canal system. It was making too much money. The hefty $7 million investment in building the Erie Canal had been fully recouped in toll fees alone.

Religious revival

Nor was its legacy simply economic. Like many Americans during the Industrial Revolution, New Yorkers struggled to find stability, purpose and community. The Erie Canal channeled new ideas and religious movements, including the Second Great Awakening: a nationwide movement of Christian evangelism and social reform, partly in reaction to the upheavals of a changing economy.

Though the movement began at the turn of the century, it flourished in the hinterlands along the Erie Canal, which became known as the “Burned-Over District.” Revivalists like Charles Grandison Finney – America’s most famous preacher at the time – found a lively reception along this “psychic highway,” as one author later dubbed upstate New York.

Some denominations, like the Methodists, grew dramatically. But the “Burned-Over District” also gave birth to new churches after the canal’s creation. Joseph Smith founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, often known as Mormons, in Fayette, New York, in 1830. The teachings of William Miller, who lived near the Vermont border, spread west along the canal route – the roots of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Door to the West

As Clinton predicted, the Erie Canal was “a bond of union between the Atlantic and Western States,” uniting upstate New York and the agrarian frontier of the Midwest to the urban markets of the Eastern seaboard.

In the mid-1820s, Ohio Gov. Ethan Allen Brown praised America’s canals “as veins and arteries to the body politic” and commissioned two canals of his own: one to link the Ohio River to the Erie Canal, completed in 1832; and another to link the Miami River, completed in 1845. These canals in turn connected to numerous smaller waterways, creating an extensive network of trade and transportation.

Like New York, Ohio had its canal towns, including Middletown: the birthplace of Vice President JD Vance and a city emblematic of America’s shifting industrial fortunes.

While America’s canal boom brought prosperity, this wealth came at a cost to many Indigenous communities – a cost that is only slowly being acknowledged. The Haudenosaunee, often known by the name “Iroquois,” especially paid the price for the Erie Canal. The confederacy of tribes was pressured into ceding lands to the state of New York, and further displaced by ensuing frontier settlement.

Past and future

As the U.S. nears its 250th birthday on July 4, 2026, the official website of this commemoration urges Americans “to pause and reflect on our nation’s past … and look ahead toward the future we want to create for the next generation and beyond.”

As the recent federal government shutdown suggests, however, the nation’s political system is struggling.

Overcoming gridlock demands bipartisan consensus on basic concerns. Technology changes, but the demands of infrastructure – from rebuilding roads and bridges to expanding broadband and sustainable energy networks – and the will needed to address them, persist. As the Erie Canal reminds us, American democracy has always been built upon concrete foundations.

Matthew Smith 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. The Erie Canal: How a ‘big ditch’ transformed America’s economy, culture and even religion – https://theconversation.com/the-erie-canal-how-a-big-ditch-transformed-americas-economy-culture-and-even-religion-266343

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Yuanyuan (Gina) Cui, Assistant Professor of Marketing, Coastal Carolina University

Your phone buzzes at 6 a.m. It’s ChatGPT: “I see you’re traveling to New York this week. Based on your preferences, I’ve found three restaurants near your hotel. Would you like me to make a reservation?”

You didn’t ask for this. The AI simply knew your plans from scanning your calendar and email and decided to help. Later, you mention to the chatbot needing flowers for your wife’s birthday. Within seconds, beautiful arrangements appear in the chat. You tap one: “Buy now.” Done. The flowers are ordered.

This isn’t science fiction. On Sept. 29, 2025, OpenAI and payment processor Stripe launched the Agentic Commerce Protocol. This technology lets you buy things instantly from Etsy within ChatGPT conversations. ChatGPT users are scheduled to gain access to over 1 million other Shopify merchants, from major household brand names to small shops as well.

As marketing researchers who study how AI affects consumer behavior, we believe we’re seeing the beginning of the biggest shift in how people shop since smartphones arrived. Most people have no idea it’s happening.

From searching to being served

For three decades, the internet has worked the same way: You want something, you Google it, you compare options, you decide, you buy. You’re in control.

That era is ending.

AI shopping assistants are evolving through three phases. First came “on-demand AI.” You ask ChatGPT a question, it answers. That’s where most people are today.

Now we’re entering “ambient AI,” where AI suggests things before you ask. ChatGPT monitors your calendar, reads your emails and offers recommendations without being asked.

Soon comes “autopilot AI,” where AI makes purchases for you with minimal input from you. “Order flowers for my anniversary next week.” ChatGPT checks your calendar, remembers preferences, processes payment and confirms delivery.

Each phase adds convenience but gives you less control.

The manipulation problem

AI’s responses create what researchers call an “advice illusion.” When ChatGPT suggests three hotels, you don’t see them as ads. They feel like recommendations from a knowledgeable friend. But you don’t know whether those hotels paid for placement or whether better options exist that ChatGPT didn’t show you.

Traditional advertising is something most people have learned to recognize and dismiss. But AI recommendations feel objective even when they’re not. With one-tap purchasing, the entire process happens so smoothly that you might not pause to compare options.

OpenAI isn’t alone in this race. In the same month, Google announced its competing protocol, AP2. Microsoft, Amazon and Meta are building similar systems. Whoever wins will be in position to control how billions of people buy things, potentially capturing a percentage of trillions of dollars in annual transactions.

What we’re giving up

This convenience comes with costs most people haven’t thought about.

Privacy: For AI to suggest restaurants, it needs to read your calendar and emails. For it to buy flowers, it needs your purchase history. People will be trading total surveillance for convenience.

Choice: Right now, you see multiple options when you search. With AI as the middleman, you might see only three options ChatGPT chooses. Entire businesses could become invisible if AI chooses to ignore them.

Power of comparing: When ChatGPT suggests products with one-tap checkout, the friction that made you pause and compare disappears.

It’s happening faster than you think

ChatGPT reached 800 million weekly users by September 2025, growing four times faster than social media platforms did. Major retailers began using OpenAI’s Agentic Commerce Protocol within days of its launch.

History shows people consistently underestimate how quickly they adapt to convenient technologies. Not long ago most people wouldn’t think of getting in a stranger’s car. Uber now has 150 million users.

Convenience always wins. The question isn’t whether AI shopping will become mainstream. It’s whether people will keep any real control over what they buy and why.

What you can do

The open internet gave people a world of information and choice at their fingertips. The AI revolution could take that away. Not by forcing people, but by making it so easy to let the algorithm decide that they forget what it’s like to truly choose for themselves. Buying things is becoming as thoughtless as sending a text.

In addition, a single company could become the gatekeeper for all digital shopping, with the potential for monopolization beyond even Amazon’s current dominance in e-commerce. We believe that it’s important to at least have a vigorous public conversation about whether this is the future people actually want.

Here are some steps you can take to resist the lure of convenience:

Question AI suggestions. When ChatGPT suggests products, recognize you’re seeing hand-picked choices, not all your options. Before one-tap purchases, pause and ask: Would I buy this if I had to visit five websites and compare prices?

Review your privacy settings carefully. Understand what you’re trading for convenience.

Talk about this with friends and family. The shift to AI shopping is happening without public awareness. The time to have conversations about acceptable limits is now, before one-tap purchasing becomes so normal that questioning it seems strange.

The invisible price tag

AI will learn what you want, maybe even before you want it. Every time you tap “Buy now” you’re training it – teaching it your patterns, your weaknesses, what time of day you impulse buy.

Our warning isn’t about rejecting technology. It’s about recognizing the trade-offs. Every convenience has a cost. Every tap is data. The companies building these systems are betting you won’t notice, and in most cases they’re probably right.

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. OpenAI slipped shopping into 800 million ChatGPT users’ chats − here’s why that matters – https://theconversation.com/openai-slipped-shopping-into-800-million-chatgpt-users-chats-heres-why-that-matters-267402

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Jordan Bretzfelder, Postdoctoral Fellow, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology

Humanity’s drive to explore has taken us across the solar system, with astronaut boots, various landers and rovers’ wheels exploring the surfaces of several different planetary bodies. These environments are generally hostile to human and equipment health, so designing and executing these missions requires a lot of planning, testing and technological development.

You may have heard about the extensive testing facilities for spacecraft and equipment, but how do scientists prepare for the human aspect of space exploration?

One way to test out techniques and identify situations that may arise during a real mission is using a simulation, which in this field is more commonly known as an analog. Researchers choose and design analog missions and environments to replicate elements of a real mission, using what is available here on Earth.

These missions are conducted in extreme environments on Earth that are comparable to the Moon or Mars, in habitats designed to replicate living quarters, or a combination of both. Researchers can use analogs to study crew performance and procedures, or to test instruments under development for use in space.

For example, operating a drill or wrench may seem easy here on Earth, but try doing the same task in thick gloves on a bulky, pressurized space suit in lower gravity. Suddenly, things aren’t so straightforward. Testing these scenarios on Earth allows researchers to identify necessary changes before launch. The analogs can also train crew members who will one day undertake the actual mission.

I’m a planetary scientist, which means I study the geology of other planets. Currently, I study environments on Earth that are similar to other planets to improve our understanding of their counterparts elsewhere in the solar system. I participated as a volunteer in one of these analog missions as an “analog astronaut,” serving as the crew geologist and applying my prior research findings from studying the surfaces of the Moon and Mars.

These analog missions vary in setting, length and intensity, but all aim to learn more about the human factors involved in space exploration.

Where do we send them?

Analog missions are designed to simulate the crew’s experience in a given mission plan. In some cases, they simulate surface operations on the Moon or Mars for up to a year. Others might replicate the experience of being in transit to Mars for a period of time, followed by the crew “landing” and exploring the surface.

NASA uses several analog mission facilities spread across the world. For example, the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah is located in an environment chosen to imitate conditions on Mars, while analog missions at Aquarius, an undersea research station off the coast of Florida, help scientists learn about crew behavior and psychology in a confined habitat located in a hostile environment.

Some natural environments are commonly used for analog operations, such as volcanic terrains in the western U.S., human-made craters in Nevada, the natural meteor crater in Arizona and research stations in Antarctica. These locations mirror the geologic settings the crews are likely to encounter on future missions, and so training in these locations helps them execute the actual missions.

I participated in a simulated 28-day lunar surface mission at a facility called Hi-SEAS as part of a study on crew dynamics and psychology in extreme isolation. The facility is located on Mauna Loa, a volcano on the big island of Hawaii. This habitat has been used for a variety of studies, as the volcanic terrain is reminiscent of both the Moon and parts of Mars, and the isolated location simulates being in space.

Analog mission crews

Most missions require applicants to hold relevant degrees. They must undergo physical health and psychiatric evaluations, with the goal being to select individuals with similar backgrounds to those in the astronaut corps. The ideal crew is typically made up of participants who work and live well with others, and can stay cool under stress.

Crews also include at least one person with medical training for emergencies, as well as a variety of scientists and engineers to operate the habitat’s life support systems.

The experiences of each crew varies, depending on the mission design, location and makeup of the crew. My mission was designed so that the six crew members would not have any information about our crewmates until we arrived in Hawaii for training. In addition to geology expertise, I also have some medical training as a Wilderness First Responder, so I was there to assist with any medical issues.

Daily life on an analog mission

Once in Hawaii, the crew spent three days learning how to operate the habitat systems, including the hydroponic garden and solar panels. We practiced emergency procedures and were taught how to perform other tasks.

After that orientation, we were deployed to the habitat for 28 days. We turned in our phones to mission control and could only access the internet to check emails or use a few preapproved websites required for our daily duties. Our days were scheduled with tasks from wake up, about 6:30 a.m., to lights out, about 10 p.m.

The tasks included a variety of exercises to assess individual and group performance. They included individual assessments – similar to a daily IQ test – and group computer-based tasks, such as team 3D Tetris. The researchers remotely monitored our interactions during these activities, and the results were analyzed as the mission progressed. They used our fluctuating performance on these activities as a proxy for estimating stress levels, group cohesion and individual well-being.

Additionally, we went on two-to-three-hour extra-vehicular activities, or excursions outside the habitat, on alternating days. During these expeditions, we conducted geologic investigations on the volcano. On our “off days,” we spent two hours exercising in the habitat. We had to be fully suited in a mock spacesuit any time we went outside, and we had to be careful about the airlock procedures. We were never outdoors alone.

We could only eat freeze-dried and powdered foods, aside from what we were able to grow in the hydroponic system. We had no additional food delivered during our stay. Water was also rationed, meaning we had to find innovative ways to maintain personal hygiene. For example, a bucket shower one or two times per week was allowed, supplemented by “wilderness wipe” baths. As someone with a lot of very curly hair, I was happy to figure out a method for managing it using less than two liters of water per week. We were also permitted to do laundry once during our stay, as a group. Sorting through your crewmates’ wet clothes was certainly one way to bond.

Though physically demanding at times, the workload was not unreasonable. We were kept busy all day, as certain everyday tasks, such as cooking, required more effort than they might need in our normal lives. Preparing nutritionally balanced and palatable meals while rationing our very limited resources was hard, but it also provided opportunities to get creative with recipes and ingredients. We even managed to bake a cake for a crew member’s birthday, using peanut butter protein and cocoa powders to flavor it.

After dinner each night, we shared the pre-saved movies and shows we had each brought with us into the habitat, as we could not access the internet. Those of us who had brought physical copies of books into the habitat would trade those as well. One crew member managed to acquire a downloadable form of the daily Wordle, so we could still compete with our friends back home. We also played board games, and all of these activities helped us get to know each other.

Though different from our typical daily lives, the experience was one of a kind. We had the satisfaction of knowing that our efforts advanced space exploration in its own small way, one IQ test and slapdash cake at a time.

Jordan Bretzfelder 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. Space exploration in the backyard, on a budget – how NASA simulates conditions in space without blasting off – https://theconversation.com/space-exploration-in-the-backyard-on-a-budget-how-nasa-simulates-conditions-in-space-without-blasting-off-264658