Category: The Conversation – USA

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Arie Perliger, Director of Security Studies and Professor of Criminology and Justice Studies, UMass Lowell

Every major escalation in the Middle East sends shock waves far beyond the region. In the United States, those shock waves arrive not as distant tremors but as catalysts for domestic radicalization and violence, particularly against Jewish communities.

The data is unambiguous.

Following the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which led to the deaths of more than 1,200 Israelis and taking of more than 200 hostages, Israel’s military responded in a campaign that intensified the following year, killing more than 70,000 Gazans.

At the same time, in 2024 the Anti-Defamation League recorded 9,354 antisemitic incidents in the U.S. – averaging more than 25 acts per day – the highest figure in the audit’s 46-year history.

FBI hate-crime statistics documented 1,938 anti-Jewish offenses in 2024, constituting 69% of all religion-based hate crimes. Jews comprise roughly 2% of the population.

The Secure Community Network, which provides Jewish communities in North America security services, tracked over 10,000 threat incidents and suspicious-activity reports since Oct. 7, 2023, including more than 500 credible threats to life in 2024.

Research shows similar trends following past military escalations in the Middle East.

Geopolitical violence abroad translates, with alarming efficiency, into homegrown threats in the U.S. and Canada. For the first time in the ADL audit’s history, a majority of incidents in 2024, 58%, contained elements explicitly related to Israel or Zionism. As someone who has studied domestic terrorism and hate for over 20 years, such dynamics are not surprising. They illustrate what my own research and that of others calls “imported conflict.”

The recent attacks against Jewish targets in Toronto, Michigan and possibly the one in San Jose underscore that the threat is neither abstract nor hypothetical.

Radicalization of strange bedfellows

Foreign conflict can become domestic violence via multiple pathways.

Left-wing extremists, Jihadi-inspired militants and far-right white supremacists occupy distinct spaces along the ideological spectrum, yet they converge on a shared target: Jews.

Each escalatory cycle in the Middle East energizes their exposure to and gradual adoption of extremist views. Online ecosystems accelerate the process dramatically.

Encrypted Telegram channels circulate operational guidance from jihadist media wings within hours of a Middle East strike, encouraging attacks against Jews wherever they can be found. On platforms like 4chan and Gab, white-supremacist accelerationists seize on the same events to amplify “great replacement” narratives casting Jews as orchestrators of unwanted demographic change.

Meanwhile, TikTok and Instagram accounts repackage eliminationist slogans, advocating the end of the state of Israel – “from the river to the sea,” “glory to the resistance” – as mainstream progressive content, reaching millions of young users whose algorithmic feeds reward outrage over nuance.

What once required years of indoctrination within a closed network can now unfold in weeks of passive scrolling.

On university campuses, the atmosphere has grown particularly volatile. Campus Jewish organization Hillel International documented 2,334 antisemitic incidents during the 2024–25 academic year, the highest since tracking began.

These confrontations involve physical intimidation, exclusion from student organizations and what the organization describes as the normalization of eliminationist language cloaked in social justice vocabulary.

Antisemitism as anti-racism

To understand the increasing ease with which geopolitical violence abroad turns into antisemitic violence in the U.S. requires understanding the ideological developments in recent progressive thinking.

One observation that our research demonstrates is that today’s antisemitism may not come from the political fringes but from within progressive movements themselves. Much of progressive ideological frameworks tend to divide the world into oppressors and oppressed. Because Jews are often seen as white, wealthy and well connected, they can get placed on the oppressor side of that line.

Intersectionality – a concept originally designed to show how different forms of disadvantage overlap – is now regularly used to justify shutting Jews out of progressive coalitions and solidarity campaigns.

According to ADL survey data, Americans who agreed with the belief that problems in the world “come down to the oppressor vs. the oppressed” were 2.6 times more likely to hold negative or stereotypical views about Jewish people compared to those who disagreed with the statement.

I believe this is not a fringe problem. Among some parts of the intellectual and cultural elite, such as parts of academia, nonprofits and political parties, hostility toward Jews has become more apparent, with some suggesting that Jews simply do not deserve the same moral sympathy extended to other minorities. In some of these circles, if you do not accept that Jewish collective life is inherently oppressive, you are labeled a bad progressive and exiled.

A coalition of progressive California Democratic delegates pushed a resolution that opponents described as a Zionism “litmus test,” effectively requiring that delegates reject Zionism to be considered legitimate progressives. The D.C. chapter of the Sunrise Movement, an influential progressive climate group, boycotted a voting rights rally because of “the participation of a number of Zionist organizations.”

Such dynamics reflect that there is little room in this framework for the complexity of Jewish history, people who have been both persecuted and resilient.

Furthermore, they can facilitate the rebranding of antisemitism as anti-racism. Some writers have noted that attacking Jewish influence can become a moral duty rather than a bigoted act. Antisemitism is renovated with concepts such as equity, decolonization and liberation, despite promoting the same traditional antisemitic tropes.

Strange alliance

I assert that multiple ideological movements targeting Jews reflect a deeper structural alignment between political Islam and segments of the progressive left.

Superficially, the two camps could hardly appear more different. Contemporary left-wing activism champions LGBTQ rights, environmentalism, social and economic equality, human rights and government transparency. Radical Islamist movements reject most of these commitments outright.

Beneath these contradictions appears to exist a shared ideological architecture powerful enough to sustain cooperation: anti-globalization, anti-imperialism, rejection of the Western nation-state, the primacy of collective identity over individual rights, a revolutionary vision and, most critically, a common set of enemies.

This alliance is visible in the protest movements that have erupted on American streets and campuses since the attacks of Oct. 7, 2023. Marches under the banner of Palestinian liberation routinely feature Islamist slogans such as “From the water to the water, Palestine is Arab” alongside progressive placards, or Hezbollah iconography beside “Queers for Palestine” signs. What binds this coalition is opposition to Israel, to American power, and, increasingly, to Jews as symbols of both.

For domestic security, this Red-Green alliance matters because it creates a shared radicalization experience in which grievances originating in very different worldviews are fused into a single call to action.

And as a scholar of political violence and extremism, I believe that when a progressive activist and an Islamist militant attend the same rally, share the same social media space and chant the same slogans, the boundary between political protest and operational violence becomes dangerously thin. Consider two recent cases.

In May 2025, Elias Rodriguez − steeped in anti-Zionist rhetoric and whom the ADL has called a far-left activist − shot and killed Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, two young Israeli Embassy staffers, outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., pulling out a keffiyeh and chanting “Free Palestine” as he was subdued. Weeks later in Boulder, Colorado, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, allegedly yelling “Free Palestine,” hurled Molotov cocktails at a weekly vigil for hostages held by Hamas, killing 82-year-old Karen Diamond.

These attackers occupied different positions on the spectrum between ideological radicalism and organized militancy, but they drew from the same well of dehumanizing language that circulates freely in spaces where political protest and incitement to violence have become indistinguishable.

Foreign crises, domestic failures

The structures governing how security agencies carry out their work in the U.S. are inadequate to this challenge.

Counterterrorism agencies seem to continue to treat Islamist militancy, far-right extremism and far-left radicalism as separate, unrelated threats. But the examples above point in a different direction: Ideologically distinct movements are converging on the same target − Jewish communities.

Meanwhile, civil rights agencies and nonprofit advocacy groups struggle to name progressive antisemitism for what it is, caught between legitimate commitments to anti-racism and the uncomfortable recognition that some anti-racist discourse has itself become bigotry.

Addressing the feedback loop between Middle East escalation and domestic antisemitic violence requires an honest reckoning with all of its sources – not only the familiar threats from jihadist networks and white supremacist cells, but also the ideological currents within progressive spaces that make hatred of Jews newly respectable.

Until policymakers, educators and leaders of civil society confront this threat’s full topology, Jewish Americans will continue to face a reality in which more than half report experiencing antisemitism in the past year and nearly half doubt that their neighbors would stand with them if the worst were to come.

Arie Perliger receives funding from Federal grants affiliated with DHS and DOJ.

– ref. How hatred of Jews became a common ground for Islamic terrorists and left-wing extremists, fueling domestic terrorism – https://theconversation.com/how-hatred-of-jews-became-a-common-ground-for-islamic-terrorists-and-left-wing-extremists-fueling-domestic-terrorism-278373

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Jeffrey Shook, Professor of Social Work, University of Pittsburgh

Data released in January 2026 to Allegheny County officials offers a clear look at who is being held at Highland Detention Center – and how much it costs taxpayers. The numbers show short stays, significant racial disparities and millions spent to operate the facility. These findings raise new questions about whether detention is being used effectively in the county’s youth justice system.

In 2025, 220 young people passed through the center. The county paid nearly US$800 per day for each of the 12 beds in the facility, whether they were occupied or not.

The center operates at the site of the former Shuman Juvenile Detention Center in Allegheny County. After a documented history of child abuse, medical issues, unauthorized use of restraints and other violations, Shuman closed in September 2021 when the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services revoked its license.

Shuman opened in 1974 with an occupancy of approximately 120 beds. At the time it was closed, the daily population had dropped to 20 juveniles at an annual cost of $11 million.

As a professor of social work at the University of Pittsburgh, my research centers on law, policy and child welfare. I have spent my career studying how the juvenile justice system can shape – and also damage – the lives of young people while creating significant costs to taxpayers.

Here’s what local taxpayers in Pennsylvania are paying for juvenile detention.

A costly reinvention

Allegheny County signed a five-year, $73 million contract with nonprofit organization Adelphoi to operate a detention facility at the old Shuman site in 2023. It was renamed Highland Juvenile Detention Facility.

The county agreed to pay $650.25 per bed, per day for the first year of the contract. That rate, the contract specifies, “shall be adjusted each year.” By the end of 2025, it had already climbed to $825 per day. In total, the county paid Adelphoi nearly $7 million last year to hold kids for an average stay of 13 days.

The facility offered 12 beds in 2025. The contract calls for that number to increase to 60 beds, with the costs also rising to $19 million annually. The county has an option to renew the contract when it expires at the end of 2028.

In March 2026, there were seven juveniles being held at Highland. As of late February 2026, there were approximately 12 to 14 juveniles held in the Allegheny County Jail. They can be held in the jail for a variety of reasons but are primarily there if they are being charged as an adult.

Who’s being locked up

Statistics show a correlation between juvenile detention and adult involvement with the criminal legal system.

According to The Sentencing Project, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, more than a third of people in state prisons have served time in a juvenile facility.

Black youth are more than five times more likely to be placed in juvenile facilities than white peers, and two-thirds of state prisoners experienced an arrest before age 19.

In the juvenile system, detention is intended to be short term and is generally used prior to an adjudication, the determination of someone’s guilt or innocence.

Detention is typically used for kids who pose a threat of committing additional crimes or a risk of not appearing in court, based on a determination by a probation officer, a state risk-assessment test or a judge, typically. Dentention is not a destination but part of a continuum with a goal of moving a young person to less restrictive alternatives, such as community-based programs and services that allow youth to remain at home, in school and in their communities while receiving supervision, treatment and support. These alternatives are often more effective at reducing recidivism and less costly than secure confinement.

While kids in detention have the right to receive a free public education and should be offered physical, behavioral, mental health and recreational services, according to state law, detention is not a treatment facility.

EG: There’s usually a brief caption beneath video links like this one.

The number of kids in detention facilities in the U.S has dropped substantially over the past 20 years, from approximately 400,000 to 135,000. However, an average of 13,000 to 14,000 kids remain in detention facilities across the country daily. Youth of color are disproportionately represented, and many kids are detained for minor crimes, technical violations or status offenses, such as breaking curfew.

Based on available data and my own experience working in and with detention facilities, it is clear that youth locked in these facilities are not only those at risk of committing another crime or not appearing in court. Many have education, mental health and substance abuse needs, come from poor families or identify as LGBTQ+. In many respects, detention facilities have served as a dumping ground for youth dealing with a vast array of issues in their lives.

The juvenile justice system was built primarily around managing risk and ensuring court appearances. It does little to address the underlying needs of the children moving through it. Unstable housing, missed school and lack of supervision can trigger detention even when a child poses no real threat. In many cases, juvenile detention ends up filling a gap left by social services.

Doubling down on detention

Despite its limited capacity, the Allegheny County Highland Detention Center dashboard shows 220 youths were detained at Highland in 2025. Eighty-six percent of these kids are Black. Firearms charges are the most common offense.

More than half had an individualized education plan, a legally binding document that outlines the specific educational support and services a student with a physical or mental disability is entitled to receive in school.

Over 60% were involved with the child welfare system, 88% had family involvement in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, and 72% had received a crisis mental health service at some point before entering Highland.

Research shows that young people who are detained are more likely to commit additional offenses when they are released, experience educational and economic disruption, and face increased mental health challenges. Detention does not promote the social development of young people or community safety.

A variety of alternatives to detention exist that have been shown to be more effective and cost significantly less – such as mentoring programs, family therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy and restorative justice programs.

Restorative justice programs bring victims, accused youth and trustworthy adults in their lives together to discuss the harm caused by the offense. They come up with a plan to help make things “right” between the parties to avoid subsequent offenses and help the youth learn from the incident.

The dollars being spent to confine kids in Allegheny County could be reinvested in the young people themselves and in their families, schools and communities. The new advisory board was appointed to Highland in July 2025. The board was created to provide a layer of accountability over the facility and Adelphoi – but what that looks like in practice remains up in the air.

Jeffrey Shook 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. Pittsburgh spends millions on juvenile detention – research points to cheaper, more effective alternatives – https://theconversation.com/pittsburgh-spends-millions-on-juvenile-detention-research-points-to-cheaper-more-effective-alternatives-275043

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Tal Slemrod, Associate Professor of Special Education, California State University, Chico

K-12 teachers and students across the country are increasingly using AI in and out of classrooms, whether it is teachers turning to AI to refine lesson plans or students asking AI to help them research a particular topic.

An estimated 85% of K-12 public school teachers recently reported that they used AI during the 2024-2025 school year – often for curriculum and content development.

In 2023, 13% of teens said they used ChatGPT to complete their schoolwork, while 26% of them said in 2025 that they were using ChatGPT for this purpose.

Similarly, 86% of K-12 students shared in 2025 that they have used AI in general. An estimated 50% of students reported that they use it for schoolwork, such as for learning more about topics outside of what was taught in class, tutoring on specific subjects, receiving help with a homework assignment or asking for college advice.

However, policies and training have not kept pace with how frequently teachers and students are using AI.

Only 35% of school district leaders reported in 2025 that they provided students with any AI training, according to the global policy think tank RAND Corporation. Additionally, 45% of principals reported school or district policies or guidance on the use of AI in schools, according to these findings.

Another challenge is that students are also using AI for potentially dangerous uses. There are recent examples of students who self-harmed or died by suicide after they used AI for mental health support. A 2025 study found that when a chatbot responded to 60 simulated scenarios that posed mental health questions, the chatbots sometimes made harmful proposals – such as cutting off all human contact for a month or dropping out of school.

So, is it safe for young students to use AI? Does using AI provide better learning outcomes for students when compared to traditional instruction? Does AI help teachers reduce their workload?

The answers to these questions are complicated. It is not yet clear how AI influences learning in K-12 settings or when and how it is best for teachers and students to use AI.

Some clear pros

As an associate professor of inclusive teacher education, I’m trying to answer some of these big questions about AI and K-12 education.

Some university centers that I’ve worked with, such as the Center for Innovation, Design, and Digital Learning at the University of Kansas, are conducting research on how AI can be used to support students with learning disabilities.

In 2025, 57% of special education teachers said they use AI to help develop individualized plans, often called an individualized education program, for their students with learning disabilities.

I believe there is no doubt that AI can, in some ways, reduce barriers and support students with disabilities. In my own research, for example, my co-authors and I show that AI can help students learn by adapting assignments to meet their personal learning needs and pace. It can also help teachers reduce their time spent grading or editing assignments.

There remain concerns over student privacy and whether AI systems will reinforce bias, but special education teachers are testing the benefits of generative AI.

The missing evidence

Among the broader available research and evidence on AI and K-12 education, some studies from 2019 through 2022 show that AI might help students learn and stay motivated by providing a personalized learning experience. However, the evidence appears less promising when considering how students learn after they use AI and then stop using it.

For example, Guilherme Lichand, an economics scholar at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, found in 2026 that when students use AI and then are told they can no longer use it for their studies, students actually perform worse than those who never used AI. This shows that additional research on how AI influences students’ long-term learning and development is necessary.

The Brookings Institution also recently warned in a 2026 AI and K-12 education report that the risks of using generative AI in education overshadow its benefits. These risks include weakened relationships between students and teachers, as well as students’ safety.

A 2025 report by the nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology also shows that an average of 71% of K-12 teachers reported that when students use AI to complete their schoolwork, it is hard for the teachers to understand whether student work is their own.

Similarly, almost two-thirds of parents of K-12 students said in 2025 that AI is weakening important academic skills that their child needs to learn, such as writing, reading comprehension and critical thinking.

Lessons from the past

AI is being introduced to K-12 classrooms faster than evidence and understanding can support. But schools have rushed to incorporate educational technologies into their classrooms before.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, schools needed to quickly equip teachers and students with online platforms for remote learning.

But the rush also challenged educators to learn how to effectively teach and provide individual support for each student – and to ensure that all students, including students with disabilities, could participate in remote learning.

Similarly, not long ago, some educators thought that social media and smartphones would bring the next frontier in education, with the idea that these technologies could increase student engagement. Yet we now know the dangers that both social media and smartphones pose for children.

Slowing down how students especially are using AI in the classroom does not mean rejecting it altogether. I think it means being responsible – especially when there is a good chance children’s academic skills, behaviors or emotions are at risk.

New evidence on AI and education is coming from scholars like me and my colleagues. There is little doubt that AI and future technologies are game changers in society and education.

I think it is also critical that we slow down and follow the evidence that is available. Speed is a choice, and education deserves intention.

Tal Slemrod receives funding from the US Department of Education.

– ref. More and more teachers and students are using AI – even though it might do more harm than good – https://theconversation.com/more-and-more-teachers-and-students-are-using-ai-even-though-it-might-do-more-harm-than-good-275650

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Peter Gunderman, Assistant Clinical Professor of Radiology and Imaging Sciences, Indiana University

Recently, a patient came to the hospital where I work with a persistent cough. Their doctor had ordered a CT scan – a type of imaging that creates detailed cross-sectional pictures of the body’s interior – to look for pneumonia or another infection.

The scan ruled that out, but it also showed something unexpected: calcium buildup in the walls of the coronary arteries. That finding had nothing to do with the cough, but it pointed toward a much more serious problem. After weighing other risk factors, the patient and their doctor decided to start medication to reduce the risk of a heart attack.

Stories like this are becoming more common, and I think about them differently than I used to. I am a cardiothoracic radiologist at Indiana University. In practice, that means I use imaging to diagnose diseases of the heart and lungs. My job is to answer the clinical question in front of me.

But every scan contains far more information than anyone requested, and most of it never gets reported. That is not a failure of any individual radiologist; it is a gap built into how medicine processes imaging data. Closing that gap could matter enormously for patients.

Data hiding in plain sight

A single chest CT produces hundreds of cross-sectional images. Within those images, a trained eye – or an increasingly capable algorithm – can see calcium accumulating in coronary arteries, assess the condition of the muscles along the spine, estimate bone density and detect early changes in the liver. None of this requires an extra scan, radiation or appointment. The information is already there.

This is the idea behind opportunistic screening: using imaging ordered for one purpose to identify other health risks at the same time.

Coronary artery calcium

Coronary artery calcium, or CAC, is probably the best demonstration of what opportunistic screening can accomplish. When calcium builds up in the walls of the coronary arteries, it reflects underlying atherosclerosis, the disease process behind most heart attacks. CAC scoring is one of the strongest predictors of future heart attacks, and it adds predictive information beyond what traditional risk calculators provide.

Dedicated cardiac CT scans can measure this calcium precisely. So can a standard lung cancer screening CT, if someone takes the time to look. Studies have found that calcium measurements from lung screening CTs agree closely with those from dedicated cardiac scans, meaning the information is there even when the scan was not designed for cardiac evaluation.

That overlap matters because roughly 19 million noncardiac chest CTs are performed each year in the United States. Every one of those scans passes through the heart. The presence of calcium is visible in the images – yet studies find that when CAC is present, radiologists report it in fewer than half of cases.

The connection runs in both directions. In research my team conducted at Indiana University studying nearly 15,000 patients undergoing dedicated cardiac calcium scans, roughly 1 in 4 were potentially eligible for lung cancer screening, yet fewer than 11% had ever been screened. Patients at risk for heart disease and those at risk for lung cancer overlap substantially, and right now, medicine is not doing enough for either group.

The scale of this missed opportunity becomes clearer when you look at the National Lung Screening Trial, a study that established low-dose CT as an effective lung cancer screening tool. Among participants in that trial, the most common cause of death was not lung cancer. It was cardiovascular disease. More people died of heart attacks than of the cancer the trial was designed to detect.

When high-risk patients are already getting these scans, the question of whether doctors should be doing more with the data becomes hard to ignore.

Other findings worth looking for

Coronary calcium is the proof of concept, but it is not the only finding hiding in these images.

CT scans can measure muscle loss – a condition called sarcopenia – and patients with low muscle mass consistently face higher rates of postoperative complications and death compared with those with normal muscle mass. Bone density from CT predicts fractures related to osteoporosis, and liver fat visible on CT can flag early metabolic disease before a patient has any symptoms. Each of these findings is present in scans already being done, at essentially no added cost.

The point is not to turn every radiology report into a comprehensive evaluation of a patient’s health. It is to capture measurable findings that point toward something treatable, and to make sure that information actually reaches someone who can act on it.

Getting there is difficult. CT protocols vary across institutions, and measurement accuracy depends on how a scan was acquired. Radiology reports are often written in plain prose rather than structured data fields, which is hard to analyze systematically. And extracting data is only half the problem. Using that data in a way that actually changes care requires coordination across radiology, cardiology and primary care that most health systems have not yet built.

Artificial intelligence is beginning to help. Automated tools can now measure bone density, muscle mass, body fat and coronary calcium from routine scans with reasonable accuracy. A study published in March 2026 found that AI analysis of routine mammograms can identify calcium deposits in breast arteries that predict heart attacks and strokes in women. As these tools become more integrated into everyday radiology practice, a scan that answers the question it was asked and also catches something else worth knowing becomes less of an aspiration and more of a realistic near-term goal.

What you can do now

There are practical steps that patients can take while health systems catch up to advances in medical imaging.

If you are undergoing imaging for any reason, it is worth asking your doctor whether the scan showed anything else relevant to your overall health. That question does not always get a full answer, but asking opens a door that otherwise stays closed.

If you are between 50 and 80 with a significant smoking history, you may already qualify for annual lung cancer screening with low-dose CT. Only about 1 in 5 eligible patients are currently being screened. If you have not discussed it with your doctor, bring it up. Cancers found early are far more likely to be cured, and there is good evidence that the same scan can uncover cardiovascular risk that’s worth knowing about.

The mechanic who changes your oil and mentions that your brake pads are worn is not overstepping. He is doing what an attentive, skilled person in his position should do. Opportunistic screening asks whether radiology can be that kind of attentive – not just occasionally and by chance, but routinely and at scale. The data is already there. The only thing missing is the will to use it.

Peter Gunderman 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. Millions of CT scans are done every year – most leave important data behind – https://theconversation.com/millions-of-ct-scans-are-done-every-year-most-leave-important-data-behind-264736

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Adrienne Lapidos, Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, University of Michigan

Imagine your dream is to get a job at the local library. You have a love for people and for books. You also have schizophrenia, a psychiatric disability that makes life in the community more challenging.

You often have extreme psychological experiences. When you leave your apartment, you hear voices that tell you it’s not safe, and you feel scared. People seem to keep their distance from you. You feel lonely sometimes.

Most of the people you spend time with are mental health staff members, who provide medications and psychological therapies to make the voices and paranoia less intense. Their treatment philosophy is based on the belief that by reducing the symptoms, working at the library might be possible for you someday.

But what if they have it backward? What if waiting for your symptoms to get better means waiting too long, or even forever?

That’s where the concept of psychiatric rehabilitation, or PSR, turns traditional mental health treatment on its head. While PSR does not minimize the significance of psychiatric symptoms, reducing those symptoms is seen as neither necessary nor sufficient for improving quality of life. Instead of asking “What are your symptoms?” and “How can we make them better?” providers instead ask, “What do you want to do?” and “What’s getting in the way?”

These questions might lead to interventions that are not traditionally considered mental health services: practicing job interviews, scheduling wake-up calls, learning unfamiliar bus routes or making environmental changes like negotiating accommodations. Irrespective of symptoms, such interventions can support people diagnosed with psychiatric disabilities like schizophrenia, major depression and bipolar disorder.

We are psychologists and researchers who have worked in these settings and who study ways to support people with psychiatric disabilities like schizophrenia. And we believe rehabilitative approaches to psychiatric disabilities can help people engage in activities they value, including work, relationships, passions and public service.

Origins of psychiatric rehabilitation

Psychiatric rehabilitation originated at a time of upheaval and hope. In 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed the Community Mental Health Act into law, establishing mental health centers in the community with the goal of decreasing the number of people living in long-term psychiatric institutions. By 1975, the number of patients in state and county mental hospitals had rapidly declined by 62%.

However, the law never really fulfilled its promise. Even when connected to outpatient care, people with psychiatric disabilities had unmet needs related to community living, including educational attainment, employment, housing and community participation, leading to a lower quality of life.

But what if building a meaningful and self-directed life in the community really was possible, if people were given the right support?

Psychiatric rehabilitation emerged during the 1970s and 1980s in part as a response to the deinstitutionalization movement, where more and more people with psychiatric disabilities lived in the community. Psychologist William Anthony, a pioneer of psychiatric rehabilitation, described the purpose and values of this approach as analogous to physical rehabilitation. Both are centered on improving patients’ ability to live within their chosen environment.

For example, in physical rehabilitation, a person with a serious mobility impairment would not only receive treatment that improves their ability to walk on their own, but also supervised practice using a wheelchair. Modifying their environment, such as adding curb cuts to public sidewalks, is also critical.

Psychiatric rehabilitation challenges mental health professionals to consider questions like “What is the equivalent of a wheelchair or curb cut for a person with schizophrenia?”

One key example of this approach is a form of supported employment called individual placement and support. In this model, employment specialists learn from patients about their goals and preferences; help them search for jobs and identify potential employers; and assist with applications, resumes and interview preparation. Staff will systematically visit businesses in the community to learn about their needs and hiring preferences. Research has shown that this model effectively increases competitive employment for people with psychiatric disabilities, and that most who become employed have a better quality of life.

In addition to gaining employment, psychiatric rehabilitation can help people with severe psychiatric disabilities reduce hospital admissions, obtain housing, improve cognitive function and reduce stigma. Each of these interventions is designed to improve a person’s functioning in the community, either by modifying their skills or their environment.

Because many of these services can be delivered by people without advanced degrees, psychiatric rehabilitation also opens careers in mental health services to a broader swath of the community.

The future of psychiatric rehabilitation

Despite its effectiveness, many factors limit access to psychiatric rehabilitation, including underfunding, lack of appropriate Medicaid reimbursement, an unprepared workforce and an overemphasis on pharmaceutical treatment.

Psychiatric rehabilitation practices could improve the extent to which they are culturally tailored and centered on serving the most vulnerable and disenfranchised populations. For example, research has found that having a low income is correlated with worse outcomes in these services, and that not enough programs consider cultural diversity.

Progress in treating mental illness has been elusive, and it’s not because researchers don’t know which treatments are effective. Rather, it’s because care quality varies greatly and the best services are often inaccessible. Psychiatric rehabilitation relies primarily on financing through state mental health agencies and Medicaid, and its future depends on sustainable financing.

Until investments match need, disparities in the health and quality of life of people living with psychiatric disabilities will continue.

In community, with support

Just like those recovering from a physical illness, we believe people recovering from psychiatric disabilities are deserving of comprehensive rehabilitation services that enable their full participation in community life.

So imagine once more that you love books, love the library and live with schizophrenia. You got confirmation from your employment specialist that she found a library in the community seeking a part-time worker. She mentioned you to them, and they’re willing to give you a chance.

You and your peer support specialist take the bus back and forth to the library one more time to make sure you’re confident about the route. To prepare for your interview, you sit in your community mental health center’s computer lab and use a virtual reality program to practice your job interview skills. Later that afternoon, you share your excitement and fears with peers in a Hearing Voices Network support group.

Tomorrow’s your interview. With your support network at your back, you believe your dream could come true.

Adrienne Lapidos’s research work is funded by the CareQuest Foundation, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, and the National Institutes of Health. She is Associate Editor of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal.

Elizabeth Thomas receives funding from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. She is Associate Editor of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal.

Kristen Abraham has received funding from the National Institutes of Health, the Veterans Health Administration and the Michigan Disability Rights Coalition. She maintains an appointment at the Veterans Health Administration Serious Mental Illness Treatment Resource and Evaluation Center and is Editor of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal.

– ref. What’s the equivalent of a wheelchair for a person with schizophrenia? How psychiatric rehabilitation brings community into care – https://theconversation.com/whats-the-equivalent-of-a-wheelchair-for-a-person-with-schizophrenia-how-psychiatric-rehabilitation-brings-community-into-care-274724

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Matthew D. Dean, Assistant Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of California, Irvine

When the power goes out and stays off for hours, the result can be more than just a hassle – for millions of Americans who rely on medical equipment, losing electricity can become a medical emergency.

Your neighbor might rely on an oxygen concentrator to breathe – a machine the size of a carry-on bag that hums quietly through the night. Or they might need a CPAP – continuous positive airway pressure – machine to keep them breathing safely in their sleep, or a ventilator.

Most home medical devices run on backup batteries that last only 3 to 8 hours. Yet people in over half of U.S. counties experienced at least one outage lasting more than eight hours between 2018 and 2021. Power outages are becoming more common in the U.S., too. They grew 9% more frequent and lasted 56% longer between 2014 and 2023, driven by severe weather, winter storms, hurricanes and wildfires linked to climate change.

Studies following major blackouts show an increase in disease-related deaths, including a 25% rise during a three-day blackout in New York City in August 2003. Emergency rooms can become overwhelmed with device users seeking backup power and medical care.

But not everyone with a medical device faces the same risks during a power outage. In a new study published in the journal Environmental Research: Health, we show which groups need the most help and who is slipping through the cracks in life-threatening ways.

Four very different realities

We analyzed data from more than 2,600 households reporting the use of medical devices, drawn from a nationally representative federal survey of nearly 18,500 American homes. Using statistical modeling, we identified four distinct groups, each facing a very different situation when the power goes out.

About 60% of medically dependent households are financially stable homeowners. They face outages, but they are the most likely group to have backup generators.

A second group, roughly 20%, are homeowners who struggle to pay their energy bills and sometimes skip medicine or meals to keep the lights on, but who also tend to have backup power sources. This group had the highest likelihood of experiencing dayslong power outages in the past year, but was also more likely to have a generator or access to solar power than the average American.

A third group is apartment renters who can afford their electricity bills but are typically unable to make long-term upgrades for more resilient power supplies. For example, they can’t install solar panels or add permanent backup power because those decisions belong to their landlord, not them.

The fourth class is the smallest, roughly 7% of medical device households, and by far the most at risk. These are mostly low-income urban renters, and they face two compounding problems: They struggle to pay their electricity bills every month, and they have almost no backup resources when the power goes out.

Nearly 58% of these at-risk renters said they had received a disconnection notice from their utility within the previous year. One in eight had needed medical attention because their home got too hot or too cold. This group is also disproportionately Black or Hispanic.

Our findings confirm what researchers have long suspected: Energy insecurity among medical device users is deeply tied to income, housing type and race. Our study also shows the importance of understanding where people are both energy insecure and less likely to have access to backup power sources during outages.

What communities are doing today

Some communities are finding ways to tackle pieces of this problem.

Most utility companies maintain lists of households with medical devices, and they are supposed to notify customers ahead of power shutoffs and prioritize restoring power to their homes. However, studies show that these registries capture only a fraction of the people who qualify.

If medical device users were instead automatically enrolled during a doctor’s visit, or if landlords were required to notify new tenants of these registries, those steps could help reach more people.

Portable battery programs, like those run by California’s largest utilities, provide free or low-cost rechargeable batteries and a solar panel kit to homeowners and renters with medical devices who are most at risk of power shutoffs. Contractors can work with households to choose an appropriate battery to ensure it isn’t too heavy or difficult to transport if evacuating because of a wildfire or other disaster.

As climate change makes blackouts longer and more frequent – and as federal low-income energy assistance programs face cuts – providing help to residents falls increasingly on states and cities. Knowing which households face the greatest risks can make it easier to target aid to those in need.

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. Power outages can threaten the lives of medical device users – knowing who is most at risk will help cities respond – https://theconversation.com/power-outages-can-threaten-the-lives-of-medical-device-users-knowing-who-is-most-at-risk-will-help-cities-respond-276501

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Stephen Chen, Associate Professor of Psychology, Wellesley College

Each March, many of the country’s most selective colleges and universities release their admissions decisions, reviving debates over the roles of race, wealth and privilege – and putting Americans’ cultural obsession with rankings back in the spotlight.

Meanwhile, a more personal set of questions will emerge in many homes and schools. Who got into a “better” school, and why? And for those who didn’t, what to do with a dream school deferred? What’s missing are more fundamental questions about the costs of striving for status and how to know when to stop.

From my former life as a college counselor to my current one as a psychology professor, I’ve spent more than two decades working with Asian American families, the demographic group that often finds itself at the center of college admissions debates. I listen as they grapple with questions of race, social status and who makes it in the U.S. and why. I’ve also seen firsthand, both inside and outside of the research lab, how some students’ never-ending quest for achievement takes a toll on their mental health.

Americans’ frenzy over college admissions may be a relatively modern affliction, but striving for status is timeless and universal, and it can benefit from the wisdom of ancient texts. This is why, in my team’s research with Asian American families, we bring the Chinese philosopher Laozi into the conversation. Through the Daodejing, one of the central texts of Daoism, Laozi offers perspectives from a tumultuous period of status-striving in Chinese history – and shifts our focus from comparison and competition to contentment.

The ‘success frame’

In interviews with Asian American parents, children and teens over the past 10 years, I hear echoes of what sociologists Jennifer Lee and Min Zhou call the “Asian American success frame”: success defined by elite educational credentials, graduate degrees and select occupations. Their research shows how the success frame is endorsed by Asian Americans across different ethnic groups, generations and socioeconomic brackets.

My team’s ongoing interviews, in turn, provide a window into how that idea of success is promoted. One mother told her 11-year-old son her wish is for him not to pursue an M.D. or a Ph.D., but both. Another parent of a 16-year-old with college applications on the horizon discouraged her from applying to state schools, because she had heard that some job recruiters consider only Ivy League resumes.

These conversations rarely mention the toll of chasing these highly specific, highly ambitious benchmarks of success. Rather, it comes to light when we talk with parents one-on-one about their own experiences. One lamented being a doctor, but not the “right kind” of doctor; another mentioned getting a Ph.D., but not from the best school; yet another described landing the job they sought when they immigrated to the U.S., only to run up against “bamboo ceilings” in their career.

Each of these comparisons involves relative or subjective social status: not how much education, wealth or prestige people actually have, but how much they think they have, relative to others. Decades of research indicate that thinking you have lower relative status takes a unique toll on mental and physical health.

I see this in my lab’s studies, as well: Parents who perceive themselves as being lower in subjective social status report more depressive symptoms, and children who perceive themselves as having low relative status report more loneliness, even when accounting for families’ actual levels of income and education.

Likewise, scholars Zhou and Lee identify similar struggles among Asian Americans shouldering the weight of these social comparisons. A woman who attended a lower-ranked college than her family members told researchers she “feels like the ‘black sheep’ of the family”; a man rejected from elite Ph.D. programs considers himself a failure for “only having a B.A.”

The unending climb of status comparisons can be a crushing load – and this is where Laozi comes into the conversation.

Dangers of desire

By some accounts, Laozi was a contemporary of Confucius in the sixth century B.C.E. – though the details of his biography are more legendary than factual.

Traditionally, he has been venerated as the author of the Daodejing, a foundational text of Daoism: a Chinese philosophical and religious tradition centered around following the “dao,” or “the way” of nature. The general consensus of modern scholarship, however, is that the Daodejing reflects the work of generations of thinkers and editors, and that even the name “Laozi” embodies ideas developed over centuries.

Most scholars date the composition of the Daodejing to China’s Warring States period, from 475-221 B.C.E. It was a time of tremendous technological, economic and political change, when competitions for status played out on the battlefield. Given this historical context, it’s little surprise that much of the text’s musings are devoted to status-chasing and the dark side of human desire.

For example, the Daodejing criticizes the ruling class and its talent-recruitment system for dangling enticing status markers that could never be fully achieved. Dreaming of prestige could feel like a full assault on the senses, as captured in Ken Liu’s luminous translation:

A profusion of colors blinds the eye.
A cacophony of noises deafens the ear.
A flood of flavors numbs the tongue.
Rushing and chasing, the mind becomes unsettled.
Craving and desiring, the heart loses itself on crooked paths.

The Daodejing may be an ancient text, but part of its enduring appeal is its timelessness. Through Liu’s prose, we can easily imagine Laozi critiquing today’s profusion of college influencer videos, a cacaphony of Reddit threads trumpeting admissions strategies, and high school students rushing and chasing after a stacked resume.

Laozi sees plainly the Sisyphean nature of achieving: that it inevitably leads to desiring more. He offers a stark warning: “The more you desire, the more it costs. / The more you hoard, the more you’ll waste.”

Critically, as the philosopher Curie Virág argues, Laozi isn’t suggesting that people abandon desire altogether. Rather, our truest desires can only be uncovered when we’ve freed ourselves from those imposed by society. And it’s the satisfaction of these true desires that can lead to contentment.

Deeper questions

In my research team’s ongoing study with Chinese American parents and adolescents, we present a phrase encapsulating one of the core teachings of the Daodejing: that contentment – knowing or mastering satisfaction – leads to happiness. We then ask parents to explain to their child what they think it means and whether or not they agree.

Most parents are familiar with the phrase. Some endorse it, while others add caveats. Being content is different from being lazy, some emphasize; it’s not an excuse to stop striving. Many struggle to articulate the distinctions between contentment, laziness and healthy ambition – and as a psychologist, I admit that I’m right there with them.

I want Laozi to provide a clear definition for contentment, and even better, a formula for how to find it. But the Daodejing is more descriptive than prescriptive – less how-to and more what is. In Liu’s description, the text is Laozi’s invitation into a conversation, and it allows our deepest questions to come to the surface. Beneath the race for rank and status, what is it that we actually desire, and how do we find it?

These are difficult questions for any parent to answer. But if we’re willing to start the conversation, we can begin by asking them first of ourselves.

Preparation of this essay was supported in part by a grant from the Asian Pacific American Religions Research Initiative.

– ref. What an ancient Chinese philosopher can teach us about Americans’ obsession with college rankings – https://theconversation.com/what-an-ancient-chinese-philosopher-can-teach-us-about-americans-obsession-with-college-rankings-277059

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Kathy Kiely, Professor and Lee Hills Chair of Free Press Studies, University of Missouri-Columbia

Martha Gellhorn stowed away on a hospital ship to become the only woman journalist to land on Normandy Beach on D-Day. She carried stretchers before writing her harrowing account of the invasion.

The New Yorker’s famously epicurean writer A.J. Liebling subsisted on military rations and came under fire during World War II to describe what it was like for the soldiers and sailors at war.

Syndicated columnist Ernie Pyle died, in a helmet and Army fatigues, among some of the troops whose names and hometowns he carefully included in his dispatches. “At this spot, the 77th Infantry lost a buddy,” read the makeshift sign posted at the place where a Japanese machine gun bullet felled him.

Those reporters told stories of war in all its gore and its glory, its exhilaration and its ennui. Others have laid bare the anxiety and doubts.

Veteran Vietnam correspondent Neil Sheehan broke the story of the Pentagon Papers, which showed how government officials deceived the public about the Vietnam war. Sheehan won a Pulitzer Prize for his book, “A Bright Shining Lie,” which chronicled the war’s impact on idealists who once believed in it, through the story of his relationship with an inside source.

Well before bombs started dropping on Iran and President Donald Trump began to tease the notion of a ground invasion, his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, began putting obstacles in the way of the reporters with the most experience covering the nation’s military. While Hegseth’s moves haven’t stopped the reporters from doing their jobs, it has made it harder for them to keep the public informed.

As someone who worked as a Washington correspondent for decades, I worry that these obstacles could limit the number of reporters who have the experience with – and trust of – key sources to do the kind of in-depth, nuanced journalism that a war, with its price in lives and resources, deserves.

Corralling the watchdogs

Generally, war correspondents need the cooperation of the military they are covering to get to the front. For the U.S. press, that requires relationships and credibility at the Pentagon.

Early in 2025, Hegseth ordered major news organizations to give up their desks in the Pentagon press room to MAGA favorites. NPR’s desk went to Breitbart News. Roaming the hallways, where reporters sometimes found sources who would deviate from the company line, became verboten.

Eventually, the area in the Pentagon where reporters were allowed was circumscribed to a single corridor outside the press room – even though the public affairs officers who worked most closely with reporters were in an office on the other side of the 6½-million-square-foot building.

Then Hegseth conditioned the issuance of press credentials on reporters, effectively giving military brass the right to censor or sanitize their reports.

As a result, almost the entire Pentagon press corps, which included outlets ranging from The Associated Press to The New York Times to Fox News and USNI News, which covers the Navy, moved out of the building in October 2025. Some have been invited back for the press briefings Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have begun to give on progress of the battle in Iran.

But after the first of these briefings, the Pentagon abruptly banned photographers from attending, reportedly because Hegseth’s staff found some of their images of him to be unflattering.

Secretary on defense

Gone are the off-camera “background” briefings where Department of Defense brass could give trusted reporters greater context and nuance for battlefield decisions. Gone are the impromptu hallway meetings where reporters have, with luck or persistence, picked up information that deviates from an administration’s agreed-upon script.

Also not in evidence, at least not so far: the deployment of the kind of journalistic embed program that the Pentagon used during the Iraq war to give the American people an up-close look at troops in the conflict zone.

How might that affect what you, the public, gets to know? It was a combination of an anonymous tip and insider access that led the legendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersh to break the devastating story of My Lai, the American soldiers’ massacre of civilians during the Vietnam War.

At the made-for-TV briefings he does hold, Hegseth devotes most of the session to questions from outlets such as the Epoch Times, The Daily Caller and LindellTV – owned by Mike Lindell, the head of the well-known pillow company.

At one recent briefing, one of the favored new cadre tossed Hegseth a shameless softball. Referring to American troops in the Middle East, the questioner asked: “What is your prayer for them?”

Yet as hostilities drag on, even some among Hegseth’s chosen press corps have begun to ask irksome questions about the war. The normally Trump-friendly Daily Caller ran a less-than-flattering piece about the president berating a reporter for asking about troop deployments.

On March 4, 2026, Hegseth accused journalists of focusing on war casualties to make “the president look bad.” On March 13, Hegseth castigated as “more fake news” CNN’s report that the Trump administration had underestimated the impact of the war on shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.

“The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better,” Hegseth concluded, adding fuel to the speculation that a Trump supporter who won a bidding war for CNN’s corporate parent is going to turn the network into a more administration-friendly outlet.

Soon after, Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr threatened network broadcast licenses over coverage critical of the administration’s conduct of the war. Echoing Carr’s threats the next day: the president himself.

‘Be a Marine’

The Trump administration is not alone in its disdain for a free press: Israel has long been notorious for restricting press access from areas where it is conducting military operations.

Leaders of the theocratic Iranian regime are even worse; the country is cited by press freedom advocate Reporters Without Borders as “one of the world’s most repressive countries in terms of press freedom.”

But the United States has historically distinguished itself by making freedom its calling card, even – or perhaps especially – in wartime.

“The news may be good, or bad. We shall tell you the truth,” Voice of America, a U.S. government-launched radio network, promised – in German – in its very first broadcast to Nazi Germany in 1942.

Now, however, the Trump administration, is busy trying to undermine the editorial independence of Voice of America, which broadcasts news to countries that don’t have a free press.

Pentagon reporters are continuing to find ways to get around the propaganda. NPR’s Tom Bowman told me that he takes inspiration from a pep talk he overheard a military source deliver to another reporter crestfallen over the lack of access.

“Quit whining and be a Marine,” the official said. “Go over, under or around the obstacle. Find a way to do it.”

Most reporters and their organizations are doing just that, finding sources outside the administration, like the ones in Congress who told The Hill how much money the war is costing taxpayers per day. And they’re continuing to get information from sources on the inside, like the ones who told The Wall Street Journal that Trump’s military advisers warned him that Iran might block the Gulf of Hormuz, but that he opted for war anyway.

So far, neither Hegseth’s obstacle course nor threats from the White House and the FCC have stopped the press from reporting stories or asking questions that the administration would rather not see or hear.

But restrictions on press freedom have a corrosive effect. We already have seen how Trump, using lawsuits and licensing threats, has used his power to make corporate media owners think twice about pursuing news he doesn’t like.

Seasoned Pentagon reporters will still find ways to get to sources they already have. But Hegseth’s tactic of blocking press access to the military keeps reporters from developing new sources and keeps new reporters from building the relationships they need to become seasoned Pentagon reporters.

Americans have long been able to understand the triumphs and tribulations of American troops at war, and to make intelligent decisions about whether they approve of a war’s cost, because a free press has been able to tell the story – good or bad. That tradition is now at risk.

Kathy Kiely 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. Pete Hegseth is working hard to make sure the public hears only good news about Iran war – https://theconversation.com/pete-hegseth-is-working-hard-to-make-sure-the-public-hears-only-good-news-about-iran-war-278295

Source: The Conversation – USA – By J. Carson Meredith, Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology

Jie Wu, an engineering graduate student, was studying a type of striking white beetle found in Southeast Asia and attempting to figure out how to mimic its brilliant color when an unexpected discovery upended the experiment.

Jie and I had been hoping to identify naturally occurring whitening pigments that could be used in paper and paints. The beetle’s white exoskeleton is made from a compound called chitin, which is a type of carbohydrate – one that is also commonly found in crab and lobster shells.

First, Jie extracted chitin nanofibers from crab shells obtained from food waste that are chemically the same as those found in the white beetles. But instead of creating a white material as intended, Jie produced dense, transparent films. The nanofibers more readily assembled in tightly packed films than in the porous structures Jie desired.

On a whim, Jie measured the rate at which oxygen passed through the film. The result was astonishing: The barrier allowed less oxygen through than many existing packaging plastics.

That serendipitous finding in 2014 shifted my team of engineering students’ focus from color to packaging. We asked whether natural materials could rival the performance of common plastics. In the years since, our team has used this discovery to create biodegradable films that offer a more sustainable and effective alternative to plastic packaging.

Challenges of plastic packaging

Plastic packaging is commonly used to protect food, pharmaceuticals and personal care products. These plastics keep out moisture and oxygen from the air, so products stay fresh and safe.

Most packaging has several layers that work together to keep air out, but these layers hinder reuse and recycling efforts. As a result, most of this plastic barrier packaging is discarded to landfills as single-use materials.

Many researchers have sought alternatives that are renewable, biodegradable or recyclable, yet just as effective. At Georgia Tech, my team of students and post-docs has spent more than a decade tackling this problem. This journey began with that beetle.

Building a better barrier

Chitin is widely available in food waste and mushrooms, and it is used in products such as water filters and wound dressing. However, our early attempts to scale up the film technology based on the beetle-inspired experiment failed.

In 2018, the team made an important leap forward by using spray coating to create layers of chitin and cellulose nanomaterials. Cellulose, like chitin, is a carbohydrate polymer – a chain of repeating carbohydrate units – and it is obtained from plants. These abundant natural materials have opposite electric charges, which led to better barrier performance when we combined them than either material alone.

In this approach, the team sprayed down a layer of chitin, followed by a layer of cellulose. The opposite charges between the chitin and cellulose created a long-range attraction between them that binds the layers to create a dense interface.

Later, in collaboration with Meisha Shofner, a materials scientist, and Tequila Harris, a mechanical engineer, other students showed these coatings could be applied with scalable, roll-to-roll techniques. Roll-to-roll coating methods are preferred in industry because the coatings are applied continuously to large rolls of a substrate material, such as paper or other biodegradable plastics.

Still, humidity posed a major challenge, limiting any real-world applications. Moisture swelled the film, allowing more oxygen to sneak through.

Then came another breakthrough. In 2024, another collaborator, Natalie Stingelin, and I discovered that two common food components resisted water vapor when combined: carboxymethylcellulose – which is found in ice cream, for example – and citric acid.

The result was a film that hindered the transmission of moisture. The citric acid reacted with the cellulose to form cross-links, which are chemical junctions that bind the cellulose molecules. Once bound, they reduced the film’s moisture uptake.

We integrated this new discovery with the prior work by combining the citric acid and cellulose, and then casting this mixture as a freestanding film by coating it onto a substrate, such as chitin.

However, that formulation did not have strong oxygen barrier properties because it did not contain the highly crystalline cellulose nanomaterials from our first film. Our team’s most recent achievement, from October 2025, combines the above innovations. As a result, we’ve created a bio-based film that is an excellent barrier to both oxygen and moisture.

Scaling up production

When cast into thin films, these components self-organize into a dense structure that resists swelling with water vapor. Tests showed that even at 80% humidity the film matched or outperformed common packaging plastics.

The materials are renewable, biodegradable and compostable. Our team has filed several patent applications, and we are working with industry partners to develop specific packaging uses.

One challenge that applications face is a limited supply of the bio-based components compared to the high volume of conventional plastics. Like any new material, it would take time for manufacturers to develop supply chains as the films begin to be used.

For example, the market demand for purified chitin is small right now, as it is used in niche applications, such as wound dressings and water filtration. Due to its variety of uses, packaging could increase that market demand.

The next challenge is scaling up from experimental films to industrial production, which would likely take several years. The team is exploring roll-to-roll coating techniques and working with industry partners to integrate these materials into existing packaging lines.

Policy and consumer demand will also play a role. As governments push for bans on single-use plastics and companies set sustainability targets, bio-based films could become part of the solution.

The story of this breakthrough reminds me that science often advances through unexpected results. From a failed attempt to mimic a beetle’s color to a promising alternative to plastic, this research shows how curiosity can lead to solutions for some of our biggest challenges.

Carson Meredith received funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, Mars, Nestle, Winpak, One.Five, and Dow. This technology has pending patents.

– ref. Researchers develop biodegradable, plant-based packaging from natural fibers – new research – https://theconversation.com/researchers-develop-biodegradable-plant-based-packaging-from-natural-fibers-new-research-271262

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Matthew Bunn, Professor of the Practice of Energy, National Security and Foreign Policy, Harvard Kennedy School

Before launching his war on Iran, President Donald Trump said his most important goal was that Iran would “never have a nuclear weapon.” Yet it is not clear what, if anything, his administration has planned for dealing with Iran’s stock of enriched uranium that could be used to make nuclear bombs – or its remaining deeply buried nuclear facilities and the nuclear equipment that might be in them, or hidden elsewhere.

U.S. and Israeli strikes in June 2025 seriously damaged Iran’s major nuclear facilities and killed several prominent scientists associated with the country’s nuclear program. However, contrary to Trump’s claim that the Iranian nuclear program had been “completely obliterated,” it appears that Iran had stored much or all of its enriched uranium in deep tunnels that were not destroyed.

The Trump administration’s demand, just two days before the attacks began, that Iran export its enriched uranium stocks represented a tacit acknowledgment that Iran’s government still had control of this material or could get access to it.

So, as airstrikes on Iran continue, an unclear fate faces several elements of Iran’s nuclear program, including:

• Its stock of enriched uranium.
• Its centrifuges for enriching more uranium, and parts for more centrifuges.
• Any equipment it may have for turning enriched uranium into metal, shaping it into nuclear weapons components and taking other weapons-assembly steps.
• The documents and expertise from its past nuclear weapons program.
• Its as-yet-intact nuclear facilities that are deep underground.

I have been studying steps to stop the spread of nuclear weapons – including managing the dangers of Iran’s nuclear program – for decades. My conclusion is that if all these capabilities remain in place, the war will have accomplished little in reducing Iran’s nuclear capability, while likely increasing the government’s belief that it needs a nuclear weapon to defend itself.

Where could Iran’s uranium be?

The most immediate concern is roughly 970 pounds (441 kilograms) of highly enriched uranium containing 60% of the U-235 isotope that is relatively easy to split. That’s what Iran was believed to have before the summer 2025 bombings, and much of it reportedly survived those strikes.

Over 440 pounds (200 kilograms) of it is reportedly stored in deep underground tunnels near Isfahan. Other stocks of this material are thought to be in a deep underground facility near Natanz known as Pickaxe Mountain, and in Fordow, one of the sites bombed in summer 2025.

Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, has reportedly acknowledged that the Isfahan tunnels are too deep to destroy with bunker-buster bombs like those used on the underground Fordow facility last summer. Pickaxe Mountain, under granite, would be at least as challenging a target.

What could the uranium be used for?

With just 100 centrifuges, Iran could further enrich the 60% enriched material to be 90% or more U-235 in a few weeks. That is the concentration needed for the nuclear weapon design that Iran was working on in the secret nuclear weapons program it largely stopped in late 2003.

Even without further enrichment, the 60% enriched material could be used in a bomb, either exploding with less power or using more material and explosives.

Beyond Iran using this material itself, there are other concerns. Nobody knows who might get it if Iran’s government collapses. Some lower-level people managing it might decide to try to sell it as part of trying to save themselves from the current crisis, as happened after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. Government studies have warned that even a sophisticated terrorist group might be able to make a crude nuclear bomb if it had the needed uranium.

Could it be removed peacefully?

One possibility is that the current Iranian government, or a future one, might be willing to cooperate or at least acquiesce in getting rid of the country’s nuclear material. The existing Iranian government reportedly offered to blend it down to a lower concentration in the negotiations that Trump ended by attacking Iran in February 2026.

Highly enriched uranium has been removed from many cooperative countries over the years. One early example was Project Sapphire, in 1994, in which U.S. teams worked with Kazakhstan to fly some 1,280 pounds (580 kilograms) of highly enriched uranium to safe storage in Tennessee. Similar efforts have removed tons of plutonium and highly enriched uranium from scores of sites around the world, removing the risk that terrorists could get hold of that material.

Could it be captured?

Without cooperation, and with the uranium in tunnels too deep to destroy from the air, the only other option for eliminating them could be sending in a team of either U.S. or Israeli soldiers and experts while the war continues.

U.S. special forces troops have long trained with federal scientists and experts to disable or secure adversaries’ nuclear weapons and material. But it wouldn’t be easy: Mark Esper, a defense secretary in Trump’s first term, has warned that actually doing so in Iran would take a large force and be “very perilous.”

Trump has said he would only do so if Iran was “so decimated that they wouldn’t be able to fight on the ground level.”

If nuclear materials were captured, what then?

Iran’s nuclear material is in the form of uranium hexafluoride, in containers somewhat similar to scuba tanks.

The simplest but messiest option would be to blow up the containers, with explosives attached to each one. The uranium hexafluoride would deposit on the walls, floors and rubble in the tunnels, making it very difficult to ever recover and use. But the tunnels would then be contaminated and unusable, and the team would need to be careful about its own safety.

For a neater option, the material could hypothetically be packaged and flown out, as in the cooperative approach. But there are probably dozens of containers, collectively weighing tons, in multiple locations deep inside Iran, a country as big as Western Europe. Troops would need to collect the material from several places, secure an airstrip near each, truck or helicopter the equipment and material to and from the strip, and defend against attacks on the preparations and shipments.

Another option could be to blend the material with less-concentrated uranium so it could not be used in a nuclear bomb. That would also be difficult, requiring the delivery of equipment and tons of uranium for blending into an active war zone. The National Nuclear Security Administration has developed mobile equipment in the past for similar efforts, though it has never been used in a war zone. And flying everything back out of Iran would be another logistical nightmare.

Such an operation would deal with the highly enriched uranium Iran has already produced – if the United States and Israel are confident they know where it all is.

But Iran also has stockpiles of less-enriched uranium, including over 6 tons enriched to 5% U-235, some of which may also have survived the strikes. That may not sound like much, but to reach that level, two-thirds of the work of enriching all the way to 90% has already been done. And the centrifuges and centrifuge parts that Iran probably still has could always be used to make more.

Another ending

Trump may choose to try to stop the war without dealing with Iran’s uranium stockpiles or any of these other capabilities. That would leave a weakened but embittered regime possibly more determined than ever to make a nuclear bomb – and still with the material and much of the knowledge and equipment needed to do so.

To mitigate the dangers of that, the United States and Israel might effectively say to Iran, “Don’t you dare use those tunnels or take anything out of them or we’ll hit you again.” But that is hardly a long-term solution.

Fundamentally, Iran’s nuclear knowledge cannot be bombed away. Ultimately, I believe, U.S. security would be best served through agreements to limit Iran’s nuclear efforts, coupled with effective international inspection, keeping watch year after year. Provisions to do that were central to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal between China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, the European Union and Iran. Trump pulled the U.S. out of the agreement in 2018, enabling Iran to make the highly enriched uranium that now poses a danger.

In my view, only diplomacy can again provide strict limits and effective monitoring in the future. But this war may well have ruined the chances for such diplomatic options for many years to come.

Matthew Bunn is a member of the Board of Directors of the Arms Control Association; serves on the National Academies’ Committee on International Security and Arms Control; has consulted for the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration and several U.S. national laboratories; and receives funding for his research from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Frankel Foundation, and others.

– ref. Iran’s nuclear materials and equipment remain a danger in an active war zone – https://theconversation.com/irans-nuclear-materials-and-equipment-remain-a-danger-in-an-active-war-zone-278008