Category: The Conversation – USA

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Masha Remskar, Psychologist and Postdoctoral Researcher in Behavioral Science, Arizona State University

Most people know roughly what kind of lifestyle they should be living to stay healthy.

Think regular exercise, a balanced diet and sufficient sleep. Yet, despite all the hacks, trackers and motivational quotes, many of us still struggle to stick with our health goals.

Meanwhile, people worldwide are experiencing more lifestyle-associated chronic disease than ever before.

But what if the missing piece in your health journey wasn’t more discipline – but more stillness?

Research shows that mindfulness meditation can help facilitate this pursuit of health goals through stillness, and that getting started is easier than you might think – no Buddhist monk robes or silent retreats required.

Given how ubiquitous and accessible mindfulness resources are these days, I have been surprised to see mindfulness discussed and studied only as a mental health tool, stopping short of exploring its usefulness for a whole range of lifestyle choices.

I am a psychologist and behavioral scientist researching ways to help people live healthier lives, especially by moving more and regulating stress more efficiently.

My team’s work and that of other researchers suggests that mindfulness could play a pivotal role in paving the way for a healthier society, one mindful breath at a time.

Mindfulness unpacked

Mindfulness has become a buzzword of late, with initiatives now present in schools, boardrooms and even among first responders. But what is it, really?

Mindfulness refers to the practice or instance of paying careful attention to one’s present-moment experience – such as their thoughts, breath, bodily sensations and the environment – and doing so nonjudgmentally. Its origins are in Buddhist traditions, where it plays a crucial role in connecting communities and promoting selflessness.

Over the past 50 years, however, mindfulness-based practice has been Westernized into structured therapeutic programs and stress-management tools, which have been widely studied for their benefits to mental and physical health.

Research has shown that mindfulness offers wide-ranging benefits to the mind, the body and productivity.

Mindfulness-based programs, both in person and digitally delivered, can effectively treat depression and anxiety, protect from burnout, improve sleep and reduce pain.

The impacts extend beyond subjective experience too. Studies find that experienced meditators – that is, people who have been meditating for at least one year – have lower markers of inflammation, which means that their bodies are better able to fight off infections and regulate stress. They also showed improved cognitive abilities and even altered brain structure.

But I find the potential for mindfulness to support a healthy lifestyle most exciting of all.

How can mindfulness help you build healthy habits?

My team’s research suggests that mindfulness equips people with the psychological skills required to successfully change behavior. Knowing what to do to achieve healthy habits is rarely what stands in people’s way. But knowing how to stay motivated and keep showing up in the face of everyday obstacles such as lack of time, illness or competing priorities is the most common reason people fall off the wagon – and therefore need the most support. This is where mindfulness comes in.

Multiple studies have found that people who meditate regularly for at least two months become more inherently motivated to look after their health, which is a hallmark of those who adhere to a balanced diet and exercise regularly.

A 2024 study with over 1,200 participants that I led found more positive attitudes toward healthy habits and stronger intentions to put them into practice in meditators who practiced mindfulness for 10 minutes daily alongside a mobile app, compared with nonmeditators. This may happen because mindfulness encourages self-reflection and helps people feel more in tune with their bodies, making it easier to remember why being healthier is important to us.

Another key way mindfulness helps keep momentum with healthy habits is by restructuring one’s response to pain, discomfort and failure. This is not to say that meditators feel no pain, nor that pain during exercise is encouraged – it is not!

Mild discomfort, however, is a very common experience of novice exercisers. For example, you may feel out of breath or muscle fatigue when initially taking up a new activity, which is when people are most likely to give up. Mindfulness teaches you to notice these sensations but see them as transient and with minimal judgment, making them less disruptive to habit-building.

Putting mindfulness into practice

A classic mindfulness exercise includes observing the breath and counting inhales up to 10 at a time. This is surprisingly difficult to do without getting distracted, and a core part of the exercise is noticing the distraction and returning to the counting. In other words, mindfulness involves the practice of failure in small, inconsequential ways, making real-world perceived failure – such as a missed exercise session or a one-off indulgent meal – feel more manageable. This strengthens your ability to stay consistent in pursuit of health goals.

Finally, paying mindful attention to our bodies and the environment makes us more observant, resulting in a more varied and enjoyable exercising or eating experience. Participants in another study we conducted reported noticing the seasons changing, a greater connection to their surroundings and being better able to detect their own progress when exercising mindfully. This made them more likely to keep going in their habits.

Luckily, there are plenty of tools available to get started with mindfulness practice these days, many of them free. Mobile applications, such as Headspace or Calm, are popular and effective starting points, providing audio-guided sessions to follow along. Some are as short as five minutes. Research suggests that doing a mindfulness session first thing in the morning is the easiest to maintain, and after a month or so you may start to see the skills from your meditative practice reverberating beyond the sessions themselves.

Based on our research on mindfulness and exercise, I collaborated with the nonprofit Medito Foundation to create the first mindfulness program dedicated to moving more. When we tested the program in a research study, participants who meditated alongside these sessions for one month reported doing much more exercise than before the study and having stronger intentions to keep moving compared with participants who did not meditate. Increasingly, the mobile applications mentioned above are offering mindful movement meditations too.

If the idea of a seated practice does not sound appealing, you can instead choose an activity to dedicate your full attention to. This can be your next walk outdoors, where you notice as much about your experience and surroundings as possible. Feeling your feet on the ground and the sensations on your skin are a great place to start.

For people with even less time available, short bursts of mindfulness can be incorporated into even the busiest of routines. Try taking a few mindful, nondistracted breaths while your coffee is brewing, during a restroom break or while riding the elevator. It may just be the grounding moment you need to feel and perform better for the rest of the day.

Masha Remskar previously received funding from UK Research & Innovation’s Economic and Social Research Council, and served as Head of Science at the Medito Foundation. The Medito Foundation is a non-profit that does not benefit financially from users downloading and using its mobile app.

– ref. Mindfulness won’t burn calories, but it might help you stick with your health goals – https://theconversation.com/mindfulness-wont-burn-calories-but-it-might-help-you-stick-with-your-health-goals-260482

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Lucy Xiaolu Wang, Assistant Professor, Department of Resource Economics, UMass Amherst

Pharmaceutical innovation saves lives. But not every “new” drug is truly new.

Patents are designed to reward breakthrough inventions by granting the inventors temporary monopoly rights to recoup the costs of research and development and to encourage future innovation. But firms may also exploit the system in ways that make drugs more expensive and less accessible to patients. A 2023 study found that 78% of drugs associated with new patents weren’t actually new drugs but minor modifications.

After obtaining a drug’s primary patent, pharmaceutical companies often file additional ones to extend their monopoly rights. This practice – called evergreening – may cover new dosages, delivery methods, drug combinations and conditions. Though some of these secondary patents improve the effectiveness or convenience of treatment, many have little effect on health outcomes. More often, these subsequent changes are mainly used to strategically prolong market exclusivity, delay competition from generics and keep drug prices high.

Such practices raise concerns about drug access and affordability, especially when companies use minor tweaks to block cheaper alternatives, with little benefit to patients. Yet distinguishing between truly innovative improvements and low-value extensions has been challenging for regulators and courts.

I am an economist studying innovation and digitization in health care markets. My colleague Dennis Byrski and I have focused on how regulatory transparency plays a role in curbing weak patents. Our recently published research found that when clinical trial data become public, this disclosure makes it harder for firms to obtain patents for incremental changes that add little therapeutic benefit for patients.

What makes a drug patentable?

According to World Intellectual Property Organization, a patentable invention needs to be novel and non-obvious.

Novelty means the invention hasn’t been previously documented in publicly available information – such as patents, publications or products – in fields related to an invention before the filing date. This information is often referred to as prior art.

Non-obviousness means the invention wouldn’t be obvious – an easy tweak or routine step in the process – to a skilled person in the field based on existing knowledge. For example, if prior art reveals that a new combination therapy improves treatment outcomes, officials may deem subsequent patents using the same drug cocktail as obvious and refuse to grant or enforce the patent.

For drugs, these two concepts are deeply intertwined with safety and efficacy. If a company reformulates a drug – say, by changing an inactive ingredient or tweaking the dose – it is not always easy to determine whether such changes improve patient health without further testing in the clinic.

According to guidelines from the European Patent Office, clinical trial results can be critical to prior art, particularly when revealing unexpected or previously undisclosed therapeutic benefits. Patent advisers have also noted that evidence from trials can play a decisive role in assessing novelty and non-obviousness.

However, comprehensive clinical trial results are often either unavailable or not disclosed until the start of the marketing authorization process, when a company submits a comprehensive application to regulators to formally approve a drug for sale.

In fact, while European drug regulators strongly encourage companies to disclose clinical trial data early in the process, firms can defer the release of study data for up to seven years after trial completion or until the drug goes on the market – whichever occurs first. The latter is more binding for firms wishing to delay the release of critical data points to avoid competition.

Marketing authorization changes the game

Given the lengthy drug development process, most firms file the primary patent of a drug early on, often before starting clinical trials and obtaining data on treatment safety and efficacy.

This information is required when applying for marketing authorization and is usually disclosed through detailed Phase 3 clinical trial results. That data can then become prior art to evaluate subsequent patent applications, making it harder to obtain low-value patents. But does marketing authorization actually affect whether drug companies pursue follow-on patents?

To investigate how patenting behaviors change after marketing authorization, we specifically used data from the German Patent and Trade Mark Office and the European Patent Office’s Worldwide Patent Statistical Database. Legal and innovation scholars worldwide often view the European agency as the gold standard for patent quality, and scholars use European drug patents as high-quality benchmarks when evaluating U.S. drug patents.

Furthermore, the U.S. has seen four major Supreme Court cases involving patent eligibility between 2010 and 2014, including two focused on the pharmaceutical sector. The European setting allowed us to study changes in patenting behavior in the absence of direct legal changes to the patent system.

Identifying primary patents isn’t easy. Because they often aren’t labeled in drug patent databases, researchers often need to manually review lengthy patent texts for U.S. drugs. We overcome this difficulty by tracking supplementary protection certificates granted by the European patent term extension system. This system requires companies to specify which main drug patent to extend after marketing authorization and before patent expiration.

We found that disclosing prior art – such as existing knowledge from clinical trial data – during marketing authorization makes it harder to obtain low-value, follow-on patents afterward. This was reflected by a sharp drop in self-citations from subsequent patents for that drug and other patents with similar disease targets.

In contrast, subsequent self-citations from substantive product patents – such as those for new drug derivatives – and patents targeting different disease areas continue at roughly the same pace as before marketing authorization.

These findings suggest that transparency in the authorization process effectively deters companies from obtaining low-value patent extensions without discouraging further research and development.

Importantly, we saw similar patenting adjustments among the patent owner’s competitors, collaborators and generic manufacturers. This pattern suggests that changes in patenting behaviors may not be driven by reduced profit-seeking after drug approval, as other firms would have a higher motivation to obtain related weak patents after seeing a drug’s market potential. Once clinical trial data is public, this seems to have a systemwide effect on reducing low-value, follow-on patents, likely driven by a higher bar for novelty.

Interestingly, we didn’t see similar declines in patent filings after earlier milestones in the drug development process, such as the end of Phase 2 clinical trials. These milestones provide information on drug quality but involve less data disclosure, so they’re less likely to provide usable prior art for patent examiners.

In other words, it’s the full clinical transparency at marketing authorization that makes a big difference.

What this means for patients and policymakers

Drug patent quality matters. Weak patents can drive up drug costs and delay access by blocking competition from generics long after the market has rewarded a company for its main innovation. The results can be costly for patients, insurers and public health systems, and it risks steering R&D toward marginal tweaks instead of breakthrough therapies.

Our findings suggest that integrating regulatory information, including clinical trial data, into patent assessments can indirectly improve patent quality. Doing so can reduce the number of weak drug patents filed more for strategic considerations rather than improving patient health.

Better aligning patents with genuine innovation is not just a legal concern but a public health imperative. Transparency, paired with smarter review systems, can help raise the bar for drug development and reward the kinds of innovations that truly improve health.

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

– ref. Some new drugs aren’t actually ‘new’ – pharmaceutical companies exploit patents and raise prices for patients, but data transparency can help protect innovation – https://theconversation.com/some-new-drugs-arent-actually-new-pharmaceutical-companies-exploit-patents-and-raise-prices-for-patients-but-data-transparency-can-help-protect-innovation-258989

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Scott Saleska, Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona

From a distance, Biosphere 2 emerges from the cacti and creosote of the Sonoran desert like a gleaming oasis, a colony of glass and bright white structures. Despite being just outside Tucson, Arizona, it looks almost like a colony on another planet.

When one of the facility’s 100,000 annual visitors steps inside, they see a whole world – from a tropical rainforest, glistening in 50 shades of green and teeming with life, to a miniature, experimental ocean. Toward the end of the tour, the visitor comes to a comparatively barren-looking experiment called the Landscape Evolution Observatory, where life is struggling to establish itself on crushed volcanic rock originally spewed from an ancient Arizonan volcano.

It is these rock slopes, where life is colonizing and transforming a tough landscape, that our team thinks are the key to humanity’s future – both on Earth and, eventually, on other worlds.

Biosphere 2 first became famous as the human experiment of the 1990s that sealed a group of eight researchers inside its 3 acres of diverse ecosystems for two long years. The goal was to experiment with the viability of a closed ecological system to maintain human life in outer space. Today, we – a global change ecologist, an astronomer and a doctoral student specializing in microbial biogeochemistry, along with our team of colleagues – have made Biosphere 2 into a test bed for understanding how life transforms landscapes, from local areas to whole planets.

We hope to use what we learn to help preserve biodiversity, access to fresh water and food security. To address these issues, we must understand how soil, rocks, water and microbes together drive the transformation of landscapes, from local to planetary scales.

Beyond Earth, these same principles apply to the challenge of terraformation: the science of rendering other worlds habitable.

How life on Earth affects the Earth

Life doesn’t just sit on the Earth’s surface. Organisms profoundly affect the planet’s geology, as well as the atmosphere’s composition. Biology can transform barren environments into habitable ecosystems.

This happened with the evolution of cyanobacteria, the first microscopic organisms to use oxygen-producing photosynthesis. Cyanobacteria pumped oxygen into the atmosphere 2 billion to 3 billion years ago.

Atmospheric oxygen, in turn, enabled a new supercharged metabolism of life called aerobic, or oxygen-using, respiration. Aerobic respiration produced so much energy that it became the dominant way for organisms to make the energy needed for life, eventually making multicellular life possible.

In addition, the oxygen produced by photosynthesizing cyanobacteria also made its way to the upper atmosphere, forming another kind of oxygen known as ozone, which, by shielding the Earth’s surface from sterilizing ultraviolet radiation, allowed life to expand onto land.

Biology again transformed the planet when the life that expanded onto land 400 million years ago gave a biological boost to the chemical and geological process known as weathering. Weathering occurs when carbon dioxide in the atmosphere chemically reacts with material on Earth’s surface – such as rocks, minerals and water – to create soils imbued with nutrients that can support plants and other living organisms.

On Earth, weathering was first driven by purely physical and chemical processes. Once plants expanded from the oceans onto land, however, their roots injected carbon dioxide directly into the soil where weathering reactions were strongest. This process sucked carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Lower carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere then cooled the Earth, turning a hothouse planet into one with a more temperate climate, like the one enjoyed by life today.

How organisms colonize new landscapes

When life colonizes a new, previously barren landscape, it starts up the process of primary succession. In this process, the first biological organisms – simple microbes – expand into interacting communities made of different kinds of organisms, which increase in complexity and biodiversity as they change and adapt to fit their new environment.

These microbes react with the air and rock through photosynthesis and respiration to produce organic molecules called metabolites. The metabolites can alter the soil, allowing it to support larger plants. The larger plants that then emerge have complex structures such as roots and leaves that regulate the flow of water – and contribute to weathering. Eventually, humans can domesticate some of these plants for food crops.

Biosphere 2’s Landscape Evolution Observatory is ideal for the careful study of how weathering and primary succession work together. Those processes both happen at the small, molecular scale but emerge as important only over large areas.

The Landscape Evolution Observatory has both hillslopes larger than any experiment in the world and crushed rock soils that are more simple and uniform than almost any natural setting. These characteristics mean the molecular measurements are consistent and understandable, even in different places across the larger hillslope.

The observatory is made up of three hillslopes covering 300 square yards that look like three giant tray-shaped, inclined planters made of steel, filled with crushed rock instead of fertile soil. The rain that falls on them soaks into the surface and flows down the incline to dribble out along the lower edge, where it is captured and carefully measured for its chemical and biological content.

We are using biological tools to understand how microbes and simple plants end up spreading across the larger, originally bare, crushed-rock hillslopes. These techniques include metagenomics, which can identify all the microbial life forms in a hillslope, and metabolomics, which can look at the organic molecules that microbes and plants produce and use in their interactions with each other and their surroundings.

Putting this all together, we see that colonies of photosynthesizing bacteria initiate succession on the Landscape Evolution Observatory. Critically, these cyanobacteria – descendants of those same organisms that gave Earth oxygen – capture the essential nutrient, nitrogen, from the air. Nitrogen buildup paves the way for mosses – simple plants without roots – to join them.

These bacteria-moss communities are now gradually spreading across the observatory’s hillslopes, preparing the way for the next phase: colonization by larger plants with roots.

By learning how life establishes itself and then thrives on lifeless landscapes, we will gain insights for addressing key problems scientists face today. For example, when life-forms in a new landscape successfully spread and diversify, they tell us how biodiversity is preserved.

When those spreading organisms transform the way a landscape uses water, they give us lessons on how we should use water. And when plants find a way to be productive under stressful conditions, they give us examples for increasing our own plant-dependent food security.

Implications for Mars

Earth isn’t the only planet where we can apply our findings. Today, Mars, unlike Earth, is a barren, lifeless desert. But it was once warmer, wetter and, like the early Earth, it may have hosted primitive living organisms several billion years ago.

While the rock in the Landscape Evolution Observatory comes from an Arizona volcano, basalt is the same kind of rock found on the surface of the Moon and Mars.

Countries such as the United States and China plan to land humans on Mars, and the company SpaceX has grandiose plans to send a million colonists there. If humans ever hope to grow plants on the red planet’s surface, learning how to create early succession there will prove crucial.

Before Mars colonization can happen at a large, sustainable scale, the first step is to grow plants and create food for human life. That is, we must solve what might be called the “Matt Damon problem,” after the actor in the movie “The Martian.” In order to survive, his character had to quickly learn to grow food crops – potatoes – on Mars.

Matt Damon’s character would probably not have survived on the real Mars of today, because its rocklike surface, called regolith, is too full of salts and toxic chemicals such as perchlorate for potatoes, or most Earth-like plants, to grow.

At the Landscape Evolution Observatory, we are focusing on experiments in chambers that simulate Martian environments to ask what it will take to detoxify Mars-like soils so that microbes and plants can live there.

One initial approach is to use perchlorate-reducing bacteria, recruited from extreme environments on Earth, to convert the perchlorate into harmless chloride.

In this way, experiments at Biosphere 2 are informing the science of terraforming Mars. Together with progress made in other areas, such as finding ways of making Mars warm enough to sustain liquid water, restoring barren environments on Earth could be a key to one day living on Mars.

Scott Saleska receives funding from National Science Foundation, NASA, and U.S. Department of Energy.

Ghiwa Makke receives funding from National Science Foundation and U.S. Department of Energy.

Chris Impey 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. Biosphere 2’s latest mission: Learning how life first emerged on Earth – and how to make barren worlds habitable – https://theconversation.com/biosphere-2s-latest-mission-learning-how-life-first-emerged-on-earth-and-how-to-make-barren-worlds-habitable-262293

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Debra Lam, Founding Director of the Partnership for Inclusive Innovation, Enterprise Innovation Institute, Georgia Institute of Technology

Precision agriculture uses tools and technologies such as GPS and sensors to monitor, measure and respond to changes within a farm field in real time. This includes using artificial intelligence technologies for tasks such as helping farmers apply pesticides only where and when they are needed.

However, precision agriculture has not been widely implemented in many rural areas of the United States.

We study smart communities, environmental health sciences and health policy and community health, and we participated in a research project on AI and pesticide use in a rural Georgia agricultural community.

Our team, led by Georgia Southern University and the City of Millen, with support from University of Georgia Cooperative Extension, local high schools and agriculture technology company FarmSense, is piloting AI-powered sensors to help cotton farmers optimize pesticide use. Georgia is one of the top cotton-producing states in the U.S., with cotton contributing nearly US$1 billion to the state’s economy in 2024. But only 13% of Georgia farmers use precision agriculture practices.

Public-private-academic partnership

Innovation drives economic growth, but access to it often stops at major city limits. Smaller and rural communities are frequently left out, lacking the funding, partnerships and technical resources that fuel progress elsewhere.

At the same time, 75% of generative AI’s projected economic impact is concentrated in customer operations, marketing, software engineering and research and development, according to a 2023 McKinsey report. In contrast, applications of AI that improve infrastructure, food systems, safety and health remain underexplored.

Yet smaller and rural communities are rich in potential — home to anchor institutions like small businesses, civic groups and schools that are deeply invested in their communities. And that potential could be tapped to develop AI applications that fall outside of traditional corporate domains.

The Partnership for Innovation, a coalition of people and organizations from academia, government and industry, helps bridge that gap. Since its launch almost five years ago, the Partnership for Innovation has supported 220 projects across Georgia, South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, Texas and Alabama, partnering with more than 300 communities on challenges from energy poverty to river safety.

One Partnership for Innovation program provides seed funding and technical support for community research teams. This support enables local problem-solving that strengthens both research scholarship and community outcomes. The program has recently focused on the role of civic artificial intelligence – AI that supports communities and local governments. Our project on cotton field pesticide use is part of this program.

Cotton pests and pesticides

Our project in Jenkins County, Georgia, is testing that potential. Jenkins County, with a population of around 8,700, is among the top 25 cotton-growing counties in the state. In 2024, approximately 1.1 million acres of land in Georgia were planted with cotton, and based on the 2022 agricultural county profiles census, Jenkins County ranked 173rd out of the 765 counties producing cotton in the United States.

The state benefits from fertile soils, a subtropical-to-temperate climate, and abundant natural resources, all of which support a thriving agricultural industry. But these same conditions also foster pests and diseases.

Farmers in Jenkins County, like many farmers, face numerous insect infestations, including stink bugs, cotton bollworms, corn earworms, tarnished plant bugs and aphids. Farmers make heavy use of pesticides. Without precise data on the bugs, farmers end up using more pesticides than they likely need, risking residents’ health and adding costs.

While there are some existing tools for integrated pest management, such as the Georgia Cotton Insect Advisor app, they are not widely adopted and are limited to certain bugs. Other methods, such as traditional manual scouting and using sticky traps, are labor-intensive and time-consuming, particularly in the hot summer climate.

Our research team set out to combine AI-based early pest detection methods with existing integrated pest management practices and the insect advisor app. The goal was to significantly improve pest detection, decrease pesticide exposure levels and reduce insecticide use on cotton farms in Jenkins County. The work compares different insect monitoring methods and assesses pesticide levels in both the fields and nearby semi-urban areas.

We selected eight large cotton fields operated by local farmers in Millen, four active and four control sites, to collect environmental samples before farmers began planting cotton and applying pesticides.

The team was aided by a new AI-based insect monitoring system called the FlightSensor by FarmSense. The system uses a machine learning algorithm that was trained to recognize the unique wingbeats of each pest insect species. The specialized trap is equipped with infrared optical sensors that project an invisible infrared light beam – called a light curtain – across the entrance of a triangular tunnel. A sensor monitors the light curtain and uses the machine learning algorithm to identify each pest species as insects fly into the trap.

FlightSensor provides information on the prevalence of targeted insects, giving farmers an alternative to traditional manual insect scouting. The information enables the farmers to adjust their pesticide-spraying frequency to match the need.

What we’ve learned

Here are three things we have learned so far:

1. Predictive pest control potential – AI tools can help farmers pinpoint exactly where pest outbreaks are likely – before they happen. That means they can treat only the areas that need it, saving time, labor and pesticide costs. It’s a shift from blanket spraying to precision farming – and it’s a skill farmers can use season after season.

2. Stronger decision-making for farmers – The preliminary results indicate that the proposed sensors can effectively monitor insect populations specific to cotton farms. Even after the sensors are gone, farmers who used them get better at spotting pests. That’s because the AI dashboards and mobile apps help them see how pest populations grow over time and respond to different field conditions. Researchers also have the ability to access this data remotely through satellite-based monitoring platforms on their computers, further enhancing the collaboration and learning.

3. Building local agtech talent – Training students and farmers on AI pest detection is doing more than protecting cotton crops. It’s building digital literacy, opening doors to agtech careers and preparing communities for future innovation. The same tools could help local governments manage mosquitoes and ticks and open up more agtech innovations.

Blueprint for rural innovation

By using AI to detect pests early and reduce pesticide use, the project aims to lower harmful residues in local soil and air while supporting more sustainable farming. This pilot project could be a blueprint for how rural communities use AI generally to boost agriculture, reduce public health risks and build local expertise.

Just as important, this work encourages more civic AI applications – grounded in real community needs – that others can adopt and adapt elsewhere. AI and innovation do not need to be urban or corporate to have a significant effect, nor do you need advanced technology degrees to be innovative. With the right partnerships, small towns, too, can harness innovations for economic and community growth.

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. What happens when AI comes to the cotton fields – https://theconversation.com/what-happens-when-ai-comes-to-the-cotton-fields-261526

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Sage Meredith Goodwin, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for American Political History and Technology, Purdue University

“Is there any way we can screw him?” asked President Richard M. Nixon.

“We’ve been trying to,” an aide replied, alluding to the White House’s efforts to remove from the airwaves an ABC talk show host whose critiques of the administration had placed that “son of a b—h” on the chief executive’s enemies list.

Over 50 years ago, Nixon and his team sought to use the full weight of the federal government – with calls to network executives, Federal Communications Commission complaints, IRS audits and FBI investigations – to silence “The Dick Cavett Show.”

Cavett, who seemed to personify the liberalism that Nixon despised, had drawn the president’s ire by platforming anti-war activists like John Kerry and Jane Fonda, along with left-wing radicals such as Stokely Carmichael.

Nixon ultimately failed in his attempt to silence Cavett. ABC executives were committed to independent media, while the broadcasting industry as a whole had garnered the attention and trust of an enormous audience, which insulated them from political pressure.

It’s a sharp contrast to President Donald Trump’s second term, during which he has loudly announced his desire to rid the nation’s televisions of his critics, and is making headway in doing so. In July 2025, CBS announced the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s late night show. While the network maintained this was “purely a financial decision” based on ratings, it came in the wake of Colbert mocking both the president and the network.

“I hear Kimmel is next,” Trump crowed in the days after. Lo and behold, ABC briefly suspended Jimmy Kimmel on Sept. 17 over comments the comedian made about the response to the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk. The suspension was lifted five days later, after it generated widespread backlash and became a flash point for free speech debates in the U.S.

But why has Trump been able to shake up late-night TV in ways Nixon never could?

It’s tempting to think of the network era – those decades in the 20th century when CBS, NBC and ABC dominated television – as a golden age of independent broadcasting and free expression.

However, as political historians of media, we know from our research that TV has always been a battleground of politics, business interests and broadcasting ideals.

The apparent appeasement of Trump by network executives shows just how much has changed in both the media and regulatory landscape since Nixon’s time.

Television’s decline

Direct pressure from the White House was the immediate catalyst for ABC’s decision to briefly pull the plug on Kimmel.

Brendan Carr, the chair of the FCC, threatened ABC and its affiliates while speaking on the podcast of right-wing commentator Benny Johnson.

“These companies can find ways to change conduct to take action on Kimmel,” he said, “or, you know, there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.” Soon, Nexstar and Sinclair, which own dozens of ABC affiliates, announced that they would pull the show, forcing ABC to act.

That said, network television’s fading place in the American media ecosystem probably made the call a whole lot easier.

When Nixon was trying to nix “The Dick Cavett Show,” the program averaged 5 million viewers a night. The rival “Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” regularly pulled in 11 million viewers.

Yet even Cavett’s relatively smaller audience is more than double what Kimmel and his colleagues in late night television can count on today.

The rise of cable loosened the networks’ chokehold on TV news and entertainment in the late 20th century. The internet – followed by the advent of podcasts, streaming and social media – merely accelerated this trend.

By the 2010s, more viewers were watching clips of late night talk shows on their phones and computers than on television. Today, over 40% of people under 30 say they don’t watch broadcast or cable TV.

Kimmel does have over 20 million subscribers on YouTube and millions more on social media, but ABC has struggled to monetize this following.

In short, late night is no longer the TV crown jewel it once was. As a result, it’s far easier for executives to decide to cut the cord on a Kimmel or a Colbert.

Deregulation and consolidation

Broadcasting has always been a business where those at the top are swayed by the bottom line.

But back in Cavett’s day, top decision-makers at the networks were still dyed-in-the-wool broadcasting executives. Leonard Goldenson, the president of ABC whom Nixon’s aides hounded, had created the network from scratch and was invested in the ideals of independent media. Over at CBS, founder William S. Paley had spent decades building the network’s brand and reputation and held similar beliefs. They wanted to shield the respectability of their networks, which made them more resolute when confronted with political attacks.

Now, however, the ultimate decisions about what happens at ABC and CBS are made by executives at the megacorporations that own them.

Decades of deregulation – in particular, the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which spurred a wave of media mergers and consolidation – have allowed broadcasting today to be dominated by a handful of massive conglomerates. They own not only the networks, but also studios, cable channels and internet services.

These media giants need government approval to further expand their empires. This includes the US$8 billion merger that made Paramount Skydance the owner of CBS in summer 2025 – a deal that was approved just a week after CBS announced the cancellation of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” Disney, which owns ABC, also has major deals pending that require the government’s go-ahead.

If the ultimate goal is ever-increasing profits for shareholders, getting rid of a late night show may seem like a small price to pay – especially if a particular program threatens the government’s sign-off on a massive deal.

Charging ‘liberal bias’

The decline of ratings and media consolidation has left television more vulnerable to attempts at political intimidation than ever before.

Trump is far from the first conservative to use the television networks as a political punching bag. His strategy of tarring national broadcasters with the brush of “liberal media bias” can be traced back to right-wing media activists who, as early as the 1940s, argued that the mainstream media shut out conservative ideas and voices.

Nixon, convinced that the nation’s television industry was against him, brought those tactics to the White House. In public, he relied on his vice president, Spiro Agnew, to slam the networks as part of an irresponsibly hostile liberal “unelected elite” with “vast power.” In private, Nixon abused the office of the presidency to harass and intimidate broadcasting reporters, directors and executives.

These tactics largely failed. But in Nixon’s wake, partisan media activists like former Fox News executive Roger Ailes and radio host Rush Limbaugh continued to popularize the idea of “liberal media bias” within the conservative movement.

Today, Trump’s charges of “liberal bias” or “fake news” galvanize his supporters – and make media executives sweat – because they’re a key part of modern right-wing identity.

But the president’s no-holds-barred approach is unprecedented. By threatening broadcasting licenses, instigating investigations and filing lawsuits – all while declaring the mainstream media “the enemy of the people” – Trump has turned the dial up to 11.

His administration’s success in temporarily getting Kimmel off the air is obviously one more chapter in an ongoing crisis for free speech. Unfortunately, given the trends in the relationship between American media and politics over the past half-century, it likely won’t be the last.

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. Even as Jimmy Kimmel returns to the airwaves, TV networks remain more vulnerable to political pressure than ever before – https://theconversation.com/even-as-jimmy-kimmel-returns-to-the-airwaves-tv-networks-remain-more-vulnerable-to-political-pressure-than-ever-before-265653

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Pawel Popiel, Assistant Professor of Journalism, Washington State University

Following unprecedented threats from Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr, major affiliate station owners Nexstar and Sinclair Broadcasting pressured Disney’s ABC to pull Jimmy Kimmel’s show off the air over his comments related to Charlie Kirk’s killing.

The cancellation is a harbinger of what could happen under a fundamental restructuring of U.S. media that will take place if the proposed Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery merger is approved by the Trump administration.

The deal, first revealed on September 11, 2025, would erase one of the five remaining movie studios and concentrate oversight of two of the country’s most prominent newsrooms – CNN and CBS, both targets of the Trump administration’s ire – under one owner with strong ties to Donald Trump.

Based on research from the Global Media & Internet Concentration Project, our analysis shows that Paramount Skydance-Warner Bros. Discovery would gain control of more than a quarter of the US$223 billion U.S. media market, along with influence over film, television, streaming and the cloud infrastructure upon which digital media increasingly depends.

The combined entity would acquire nearly half of the cable television market, including HBO and CNN. The merger would nearly double Paramount’s share of the video streaming market, uniting HBO Max, Paramount+ and Discovery.

By combining two major Hollywood film studios, it would also capture nearly one-third of the film production market.

This is exactly the type of merger that U.S. antitrust agencies have historically scrutinized because of concerns that excessive market concentration gives too much power to a few companies.

In media markets, such concerns are pronounced: Concentration threatens media diversity and increases the risk of media bias and ideological manipulation.

A mega-conglomerate like Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery would control a vast share of U.S. viewership. Subject to pressure from or, worse, alignment with the Trump administration, the merged company could promote and protect the administration’s interests.

Cloud control

By combining media production and valuable brands such as Harry Potter, DC Comics and Barbie, the merged giant would gain great negotiating power with competing streaming companies, advertisers and distributors. The merged companies could also secure more lucrative streaming deals, better licensing windows and higher per subscriber and ad rates with cable providers.

The 2023 Hollywood writers and actors strikes opposed the exploitative impact of streaming and AI on creative workers’ compensation. The new media giant would wield significant bargaining power over those media workers.

The merger’s potential detrimental impact extends beyond film and television industries.

Paramount is helmed by David Ellison, and the merger is backed by his father, Larry Ellison. Ellison senior owns the world’s fifth-largest cloud provider, Oracle.

Cloud providers are the critical infrastructure for streaming platforms, ferrying digital content from streamers to viewers. As streaming becomes the dominant mode of media consumption, the Ellison family’s control over this infrastructure could give Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery another lever of power over its competitors.

Diversity denied

With potential size and reach to rival Disney and Comcast’s NBC Universal, Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery could become another massive media outlet with right-wing ties.

The proposed deal follows the Trump administration’s $1.1 billion cuts in public media funding. These cuts – affecting PBS, NPR and more than 1,500 affiliated local news stations across the country, all accused by Trump of “partisan bias” – effectively accelerate the ongoing demise of local, independent news.

Concurrently, Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Corp. has settled its dynastic succession, ensuring Fox remains a core channel for the American right.

If the merger is approved, Fox Corporation, the conservative Sinclair Broadcasting and Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery would control one-third of all U.S. media.

This consolidation would further cement the partisan media model driving deepening political polarization in the U.S., as public and local news media lose funding. The deal also would undermine already declining media independence, fundamental to holding the powerful – whether corporations or politicians – to account.

Wielding regulation

The Trump administration has not shied away from using antitrust law and communications regulation to exercise political control over media.

Before initiating its merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount was acquired by David Ellison’s Skydance Media. Ahead of the government’s merger review, amid regulatory signals it could affect the review process, Paramount-owned CBS paid $16.5 million dollars to Donald Trump to settle a lawsuit Trump filed based on allegations of “deceptive” editing of an interview with his political opponent Kamala Harris. Editing of interviews is a standard editorial practice.

Shortly after, the merger was approved by the FCC with strict political conditions: hiring an ombudsman to oversee CBS’s reporting and eliminating all of the network’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

David Ellison accepted these conditions, promising to eliminate all of Paramount’s U.S.-based DEI programs. For the ombudsman role, he hired Kenneth Weinstein, former CEO of the conservative Hudson Institute and ambassador to Japan under the first Trump administration.

Since then, the Paramount CEO also has pursued Bari Weiss, a prominent conservative voice, to guide “the editorial direction” of the CBS news division. Ellison’s moves signal that editorial independence at CBS, and soon perhaps CNN, may be subject to ideological oversight.

Meanwhile, Ellison’s father, Larry Ellison, has ties to Donald Trump going back to the first Trump administration. The New York Times in an April 2025 profile said that Ellison “may be closer to Mr. Trump than any mogul this side of” Elon Musk.

The senior Ellison has been playing a key role in negotiations over the future ownership of TikTok. His ties to Trump run deep enough to likely make him one of the main beneficiaries of the TikTok deal currently in negotiation between the United States and China.

Trump has shown an appetite for coercing media companies. For instance, ABC settled a Trump lawsuit in late 2024 with a $15 million donation to the as-yet-unbuilt Trump Library.

By placing two major news outlets in the hands of a family with ties to Trump, the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger would facilitate such control.

---

Read more:
ABC’s and CBS’s settlements with Trump are a dangerous step toward the commander in chief becoming the editor-in-chief

---

What Orbán did – but faster

This is the “Hungarian model” on speed.

Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s authoritarian leader, spent a decade asserting increasing control over that nation’s media.

The Trump administration is poised to accomplish the same in less than a year – and at greater scale.

In addition to helping allies buy a growing share of U.S. media, in his first eight months Trump also has managed to score conciliatory overtures from the nation’s tech billionaires, who fired fact-checkers at major social media platforms, curbed moderation of hateful content and asserted rigid editorial control over the op-ed pages at The Washington Post, one of the country’s most prominent newspapers.

If the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger is approved and Larry Ellison joins Andreessen Horowitz as part of the impending TikTok deal, a movie studio, CBS, CNN, Fox, 185 Sinclair-owned TV stations and a major social media platform will have owners with strong ties to Trump.

We believe the promised benefits of a Paramount-Warner Bros. Disovery merger, including lower streaming prices, pale next to the damage it would do to media diversity and pluralism.

By acquiring greater control over film production, TV and streaming, the merger would dramatically reconfigure the very media institutions that shape U.S. culture and politics.

The Trump administration’s review of this merger may further cement the administration’s political control over the U.S. media.

Pawel Popiel receives funding from funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Dwayne Winseck receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Hendrik Theine receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Sydney Forde receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Department of Canadian Heritage.

– ref. A Paramount–Warner Bros. Discovery merger could give Trump even more influence over US media – shaping the news and culture Americans watch and stream – https://theconversation.com/a-paramount-warner-bros-discovery-merger-could-give-trump-even-more-influence-over-us-media-shaping-the-news-and-culture-americans-watch-and-stream-265699

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Seth Warner, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Connecticut

Protests are becoming a routine part of public life in the United States. Since 2017, the number of nonviolent demonstrations has almost tripled, according to researchers with the nonprofit Crowd Counting Consortium.

And more people are joining than ever. The Black Lives Matter marches in 2020, after George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis, have been described as the largest nonviolent mobilization in U.S. history. The No Kings protests against Trump administration policies on June 14, 2025, were not far behind, with between 2 million and 4.8 million Americans protesting nationwide

What explains this surge of protest activity?

My research shows that polarization – the extent to which people dislike members of the opposing party – is a key driver. Today political polarization, as reflected by the ratings Americans give to the political parties, continues to be at its highest level since political scientists began using the measure in 1964.

I am an expert on political behavior, and my work analyzes how polarization shapes public life. In a recent article published in the journal Social Forces, I analyzed surveys conducted between 2014 and 2021 that asked Americans whether they had joined protests connected to Black Lives Matter, the climate movement or the tea party, the small-government movement that was active in the early 2010s.

These surveys, which include over 14,000 respondents, make it possible to see what separates people who protest from those who stay home.

The data points to a clear pattern: Anger at the other side motivates protest. People who rated the opposing party more negatively at one point in time were much more likely to take part in demonstrations in the years that followed.

Dislike for the other side spurs action

Importantly, I found that partisan animosity was a strong motivator for taking part in protests, even after taking people’s feelings about the issues into account. In the surveys, respondents were asked detailed questions about their views on the movements’ topics: for example, whether white Americans enjoyed advantages that Black Americans did not, or how serious a problem they thought climate change was and whether it was caused by human activity.

This allowed me to calculate how much protest activity was due to partisan anger and how much was simply a result of policy concerns. The results surprised me.

For the two higher-profile movements – Black Lives Matter and the tea party – partisan animosity mattered for protest a little more than half as much as people’s feelings about racial inequality or government spending, respectively. For climate protests, the effect of partisan anger was even greater. How people felt toward the “other side” mattered 2½ times more for their decision to protest than did concern about climate change.

This finding matters because it shows that polarization is not just about what people think. It also changes how they participate in politics.

What’s known as “affective polarization,” or the tendency for partisans to dislike and distrust each other, has already been shown to affect how people view U.S. political parties and their willingness to be friends across party lines. My study showed that this kind of division also increases people’s real-world engagement with politics.

When partisans feel threatened or angry at the opposing side, they don’t just complain about it. They organize, hit the streets and march.

More division, more marches

The polarized nature of protest also helps explain why some of today’s protests address multiple issues. The No Kings protests in June 2025, for instance, challenged a number of actions, including funding cuts to social programs, ICE deportations and the deployment of troops in Los Angeles.

But the “King” in question was always clear: President Donald Trump. Protesters may not have shared identical or extreme views on every issue, but they were united by their opposition to Trump.

Protest has long been an infrequent activity, but that’s changing. In the 2020 American National Election Study, nearly 1 in 10 Americans said they had joined a protest in the past year, the highest figure recorded on that survey since the question was first asked in 1976.

That level of participation makes protest one of the most visible ways Americans now engage in politics. As polarization remains high, there is every reason to expect it will continue – starting with another nationwide No Kings protest planned for Oct. 18, 2025.

The author has attended public events for social movements mentioned in this article. These experiences did not involve any funding, employment, or formal affiliation, and the analysis presented here is guided by academic standards of objectivity and evidence-based research.

– ref. Why are there so many protests? The US public is highly polarized, and that drives people to act – https://theconversation.com/why-are-there-so-many-protests-the-us-public-is-highly-polarized-and-that-drives-people-to-act-263021

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Nilakshi Veerabathina, Professor of Physics Instruction, University of Texas at Arlington

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

---

Why can’t we feel the Earth moving? – Dave H., age 12, Atlanta

---

Right now, you’re zooming through space at incredible speeds. As just one of all the living creatures on Earth, you’re along for the ride as our planet constantly moves in two major ways.

First, consider that the Earth spins around like a top. It’s rotating around the imaginary line that runs from the North Pole to the South Pole through the center of our planet. Earth completes one full rotation every 24 hours, with a speed of about 1,000 miles per hour at the equator (1,670 km/h).

While Earth is spinning on its axis, it’s also traveling around the Sun. It takes a year to finish the journey – that is, to make one full revolution and wind up back where we started. Earth hurtles along its path with a whopping average speed of 67,000 miles per hour (107,000 kmh).

These speeds are way faster than any vehicle you’ve ever traveled in. So why aren’t you dizzy or flying off into space? Why don’t you even feel the Earth moving?

It’s this kind of question that lit a desire in me as a child to understand the universe and our place in it. Now I have a Ph.D. in astronomy and teach college students some of the same physics principles that explain why you can’t feel Earth’s motion as it zips through space.

No jerks or bumps

Think about a time when you do feel motion, such as on a carousel ride at an amusement park. When it speeds up, slows down or turns quickly, your body notices because the motion isn’t smooth.

In contrast, the Earth’s motion is remarkably steady. It has been spinning on its axis and orbiting the Sun at nearly the same speeds for billions of years, with no sudden jolts or stops. As Earth travels its slightly oval-shaped path around the Sun, its speed does change to be a bit faster when it’s closer to the Sun and a bit slower when it’s farther away. But the changes happen so gradually and smoothly that you don’t feel them at all.

Imagine you’re flying on an airplane that has reached cruising altitude. The engines are humming, you’re soaring through the sky at hundreds of miles per hour – but everything inside feels calm and still. You can walk around, relax and forget you’re traveling at all. That’s because the plane, you and everything else inside it are moving at the same speed, in the same direction.

Just as passengers don’t feel the plane’s speed while smoothly cruising, we don’t feel Earth’s movement because we’re traveling at the same speed as our planet. You, your chair, the trees, buildings, oceans – everything is moving together with the Earth.

There’s no difference in motion for your body to detect unless Earth were to suddenly speed up, slow down or change direction – and, thankfully, that doesn’t happen.

Very small ants on a very big ball

Imagine holding a huge beach ball in your hands. Picture a tiny ant crawling on the surface of that ball.

Now, think about us on Earth. We are like that ant, but the ball we’re crawling on is almost 8,000 miles (almost 13,000 kilometers) wide at the equator. That’s about the distance you’d travel driving from New York to Los Angeles and back to New York.

Because the Earth is so humongous, any movement feels very slow and gentle to our comparatively minuscule bodies as we stand on its surface.

Another reason you don’t notice Earth’s motion is that there are no nearby “landmarks” in space to act as reference points. When you’re in a car on the highway, you see trees, signs or telephone poles rushing by. Those fixed points help your brain register motion. But in space, the stars are so far away that they appear completely still, even though we’re moving relative to them at thousands of miles per hour.

Luckily, these high speeds don’t fling us off into space thanks to gravity. Gravity is an invisible force of attraction. It pulls everything on the surface of the planet toward the Earth’s center. It’s like the Earth is giving us a giant, constant hug, keeping us safely grounded.

How do we know the Earth is actually moving?

Even though we don’t feel the Earth moving, people long ago figured out that it really is by watching the sky carefully.

Start with day and night. The Sun appears to rise and set because Earth makes one full rotation on its axis every 24 hours. If Earth weren’t spinning, one side would always face the Sun, and the other would be in darkness.

Then there are the seasons. Earth is tilted on the axis it spins around. Over the course of its orbit of the Sun, Earth’s tilt causes different parts of the planet to get more or less sunlight. That’s why we have summer, winter and everything in between.

At night, stars and constellations seem to move across the sky as Earth rotates. And their positions in the sky change with the seasons. Our view of the stars changes as we move along our yearly path around the Sun. If everything stayed still, the night sky would never change.

By seeing Earth spinning and orbiting, satellites and space telescopes have confirmed what astronomers have long deduced. We may not feel it, and we can’t see any obvious landmarks rushing by, but the clues are everywhere. Earth is on the move.

And it’s not just Earth – the Sun itself rotates and moves around the center of our Milky Way galaxy at hundreds of thousands of miles per hour. Nothing in the universe is truly standing still. Everything is in motion, from planets and stars to galaxies themselves.

---

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

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

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

– ref. Why can’t we feel the Earth moving? – https://theconversation.com/why-cant-we-feel-the-earth-moving-256964

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Kelley Cotter, Assistant Professor of Information Sciences and Technology, Penn State

President Donald Trump announced on Sept. 19, 2025, a preliminary agreement for the sale of a majority stake in TikTok from Chinese tech giant ByteDance to a group of U.S. investors following Trump’s negotiation with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

The deal would create a new U.S.-only version of the app, bringing it into compliance with a law signed by former President Joe Biden on April 23, 2024, and upheld by the Supreme Court on Jan. 17, 2025. Specifics of the deal remain to be hammered out, and left unresolved is the fate of the video sharing app’s core algorithm – and what that means for TikTok’s millions of U.S. users.

The Chinese government has indicated it will not permit ByteDance to sell the algorithm, because it is classified as a controlled technology export, per Chinese law. Meanwhile, U.S. tech industry executives and some lawmakers say compliance with the law requires the algorithm to be under American control. The deal as proposed includes licensing the algorithm so that it remains Chinese intellectual property while the U.S. version of the app continues to use the technology.

TikTok’s For You Page algorithm is widely considered the most important part of the app. As one analyst put it: “Buying TikTok without the algorithm would be like buying a Ferrari without the engine.”

The algorithm’s value lies in its uncanny capacity to anticipate users’ content preferences. Many users claim it knows them better than they know themselves — a sentiment that has evolved into a curious mix of spiritual belief and conspiracy theorizing, as my colleagues and I have documented. Other scholars have similarly noted that users feel more intimately seen and known by TikTok’s algorithm than those powering other popular platforms.

I have studied social media algorithms for nearly a decade, exploring how our relationships with them have evolved as they become increasingly entwined with daily life. As both a social media scholar and TikTok devotee, I want to shed some light on how the algorithm works and how the app might change in the wake of its sale.

How the TikTok algorithm works

In some ways, the TikTok algorithm does not differ significantly from other social media algorithms. At their core, algorithms are merely a series of steps used to accomplish a specific goal. They perform mathematical computations to optimize output in service of that goal.

There are two layers to the TikTok algorithm. First, there is the abstract layer that defines the outcome developers wish to accomplish. An internal document shared with The New York Times specified that TikTok’s algorithm optimizes for four goals: “user value,” “long-term user value,” “creator value” and “platform value.”

But how do you turn these goals into math? What does an abstract concept like “user value” even mean? It’s not practical to ask users whether they value their experience every time they visit the site. Instead, TikTok relies on proxy signals that translate abstract outcomes into quantifiable measures — specifically, likes, comments, shares, follows, time spent on a given video and other user behavior data. These signals then become part of an equation to predict two key concrete outcomes: “retention,” or the likelihood that a user will return to the site, and “time spent” on the app.

The TikTok For You Page algorithm relies on machine learning for predicting retention and time spent. Machine learning is a computational process in which an algorithm learns patterns in a dataset, with little or no human guidance, to produce the best equation to predict an outcome. Through learning patterns, the algorithm determines how much individual data signals matter for coming up with a precise prediction.

A Wall Street Journal investigation found that the amount of time users spend watching each video plays a large role in how the algorithm chooses videos it suggests to users. Using the equation it has generated to predict retention and time spent, the algorithm assigns a score to each video and ranks possible videos that could be shown to the user by this score. The higher the score for an individual user, the more likely the video will appear in their feed.

Of course, content characteristics and other users additionally inform recommendations, and there are other subprocesses folded into the equation. This step is where algorithmic moderation usually comes in. If a video looks like engagement bait or has excessive gore, for example, the content’s score will be penalized.

What’s likely to change for US users

The sale has not been finalized, and what happens to the algorithm is unresolved. However, it’s fairly certain that TikTok will change. I see two key reasons for change.

First, the proposed app’s U.S.-only user population will alter the makeup of the underlying dataset informing algorithmic recommendations on an ongoing basis. As the kinds of content and users come to reflect American cultural preferences, values and behaviors, the algorithm may be slightly different as it “learns” new patterns.

Moreover, not all users will choose to join the new app, especially if it is seen as under the control of Trump’s allies. The current deal reportedly would give an 80% share to U.S. investors, including 50% to new investors Oracle, Silver Lake and Andreessen Horowitz. These investors’ have connections to Trump, and an apparent provision of the deal allows the U.S. government to select one board member. This may result in a user population – and data – reflective of a narrower realm of interests and ideologies.

Second, it’s possible that the majority share owners of the new app will decide to adjust the algorithm, particularly when it comes to content moderation. The new owners may wish to modify TikTok’s Community Guidelines according to their view of acceptable and unacceptable speech.

For example, TikTok’s current Community Guidelines prohibit misinformation and work with independent fact-checkers to assess the accuracy of content. While Meta used to follow a similar approach for Instagram and Facebook, in January 2025 announced that it would end Meta’s relationships with independent fact-checkers and loosen content restrictions. YouTube has similarly relaxed its content moderation this year.

The bottom line is algorithms are highly sensitive to context. They reflect the interest, values and worldviews of the people who build them, the preferences and behaviors of people whose data informs their models and the legal and economic contexts they operate within.

This means that while it’s difficult to predict exactly what a U.S.-only TikTok will be like, it’s safe to assume it will not be a perfect mirror image of the current app.

Kelley Cotter has received funding from the National Science Foundation.

– ref. TikTok sale puts app’s algorithm in the spotlight – a social media expert explains how the For You Page works and what changes are in store – https://theconversation.com/tiktok-sale-puts-apps-algorithm-in-the-spotlight-a-social-media-expert-explains-how-the-for-you-page-works-and-what-changes-are-in-store-265658

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Mike Shriberg, Professor of Practice & Engagement, School for Environment & Sustainability; Director of the University of Michigan Water Center, University of Michigan

For more than a decade, controversy over an oil pipeline that passes directly through a Native American reservation and then across a sensitive waterway that is also a key shipping lane has brewed in Wisconsin and Michigan.

Since taking office in January 2025, the Trump administration has joined an already complex fray, with policy decisions and legal filings as well as administrative and judicial appointments that have shifted the strategies and potential outcomes of the situation. The changes affect not just pipeline operator Enbridge but also the environmental, Indigenous and political leaders working to shut down the pipeline, known as Line 5.

Part of the dispute is slated to come before the U.S. Supreme Court in the coming months, but that will not deliver the final resolution of the situation.

I am a water policy and politics analyst and a former gubernatorial appointee to Michigan’s Pipeline Safety Advisory Board. I see these controversies raising critical questions about the environmental and economic future of the Great Lakes region and serving as a proxy for wider national battles over water policy, Indigenous rights and the role of fossil fuels in the nation’s future.

Scrutiny of the pipeline

Built in 1953, Enbridge’s Line 5 oil pipeline carries petroleum products mostly from western Canada’s tar sands to refineries in eastern Canada, using the Great Lakes as a shortcut. It traverses 645 miles (1,040 km) through Wisconsin and Michigan and transports approximately 23 million gallons of oil and natural gas liquids per day from Superior, Wisconsin, to Marysville, Michigan, and then across the Saint Clair River to Sarnia, Ontario.

The pipeline has been the subject of intense scrutiny since soon after a 2010 oil spill into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan from another Enbridge pipeline with a similar start and endpoint. The 2012 publication of Sunken Hazard, a report from the National Wildlife Federation about the potential for a spill from Line 5, fomented public concern and launched an advocacy movement that began with questions about Line 5’s safety and has led to calls for its complete shutdown.

While the entire pipeline is being scrutinized, there are two primary areas of concern. In Wisconsin, the pipeline runs for 12 miles (19 km) across the reservation of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. And when it crosses from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to its Lower Peninsula, the line splits into two parallel pipes that run along the bottom of the Straits of Mackinac, which connect Lake Michigan and Lake Huron.

Shutting down Line 5 in Michigan

In 2021, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer revoked Enbridge’s easement to operate the pipeline across the Straits of Mackinac. The governor asserted that Enbridge “repeatedly violated the 1953 easement and that the continued operation of the dual pipelines violates the state’s solemn duty to protect the Great Lakes.”

Some of her concerns exist because the pipeline sits in the open water of the Great Lakes and has been damaged multiple times by ship’s anchors, is subject to corrosion, and has been found to be bent and deformed by the extremely powerful currents in the Straits of Mackinac.

Enbridge refused to comply with the shutdown order and has taken the battle into the courts while continuing to send petroleum products through the pipeline across the straits. The Trump administration – through a Sept. 19, 2025, court filing – is supporting Enbridge’s claim that the pipeline is not subject to state regulation and oversight.

There has been a long back-and-forth about whether state courts have jurisdiction, as state officials argued, or whether federal courts should handle it, as Enbridge claimed. In June 2025 the trial was set for a state court when the U.S. Supreme Court unexpectedly stepped in at Enbridge’s request. The case has not yet been scheduled for oral arguments before the court, but they – and a potential ruling – are expected sometime between October 2025 and June 2026.

The state court has said it will continue its proceedings without waiting for a Supreme Court decision. But the ground is set for the continuation of an extended and complicated legal battle.

The Great Lakes tunnel

While Enbridge is fighting the shutdown of its existing pipeline, the company is seeking state and federal permission to build a replacement, by digging a new tunnel below the Straits of Mackinac.

The company needs both federal and state permits before construction can begin. The federal permits are expected to come quickly as a result of a Trump administration policy.

On the first day of his second term, Trump declared a “national energy emergency.” In general, the policy is being used to try to slow the transition away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy sources, and to remove climate change as a factor in environmental reviews and permitting.

For Line 5, the most consequential provisions of the order are those that call for “emergency approvals” and “expediting the Delivery of Energy Infrastructure.” The tunnel is on the Army Corps of Engineers’ list of projects eligible for fast-track approval.

However, Enbridge still needs state permits, which many groups are opposing based on potential environmental damage to the shoreline, the safety of the tunnel and the need to address climate change by slowing down oil extraction.

In addition, all of the federally recognized tribal governments in Michigan oppose Line 5’s continued existence, contending that Indigenous fishing rights in the Straits of Mackinac are at risk from the pipeline both ecologically and culturally. Their position, expressed in a state-court challenge to the tunnel, could end up testing the power of their rights under treaties with the U.S. government.

Bad River Band’s effort

In addition to both of those disputes, a Native American tribe in Wisconsin undertook its own efforts to reduce the risk of environmental damage from the pipeline on its land and the surrounding watershed.

In 2013, the Bad River Band declined to renew Enbridge’s pipeline easement through its territory, which is sometimes referred to as the “Everglades of the Great Lakes” because of its extensive and pristine wetlands. In 2017 the tribe voted to require Enbridge to remove the line from its land.

Enbridge refused to comply and has contested the validity of the Bad River Band’s decision, inherently challenging the tribe’s sovereignty. At the same time, the company is attempting to reroute the pipeline around the reservation – though still within the Bad River watershed.

In 2019 the tribe sued Enbridge to force the removal and ultimately won a federal judge’s ruling that the company must remove the pipeline by June 2026 and pay US$5.15 million for ongoing trespassing. Enbridge has appealed, and many observers expect that case to also come to the Supreme Court.

As that process unfolds, Enbridge is seeking expedited state and federal permits for the reroute. Environmental advocates, tribe members and others have asked a court to decide whether state permits that were granted in late 2024 were given without following the proper procedure. Hearings on that question continue.

Pipeline opponents are also asking the Army Corps of Engineers, which must issue its own permits, to reject the application for the new route, effectively cutting off the pipeline. However, this federal permit is also subject to Trump’s “national energy emergency,” and so it is unlikely to be stopped by federal agencies and is expected by the end of 2025.

A convoluted puzzle

On all three parallel fronts, the Trump administration’s shaping of policy and the judiciary has put advocates on the defensive.

The state of Michigan is concerned that its autonomy over its portion of the Great Lakes is at risk if the federal government and courts can overrule its revocation of Enbridge’s easement to operate.

Native American governments are concerned that their treaty-guaranteed fishing and land rights will be sacrificed in service of an energy company’s interests.

And, of course, Line 5 has major implications for Great Lakes protection and mitigating climate change, where the Trump administration has tilted the playing field in favor of fossil fuels and away from clean energy and environmental protection.

Yet the outcomes are not at all clear, and Enbridge would likely have to win on all fronts to avoid the pipeline being shut down, since it cannot operate the pipeline if any segment is inoperable. I expect the implications of Line 5’s ultimate fate to reverberate across the country for years to come.

Mike Shriberg previously served as a gubernatorial appointee to the Michigan Pipeline Safety Advisory Board and as the Great Lakes Regional Executive Director for the National Wildlife Federation, which is referenced in this article and has taken positions on Line 5. He currently has no formal affiliation with this organization.

– ref. A Great Lakes oil pipeline faces 3 controversies with no speedy resolutions – https://theconversation.com/a-great-lakes-oil-pipeline-faces-3-controversies-with-no-speedy-resolutions-264105