Category: The Conversation – USA

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Aaron Buss, Associate Professor of Psychology, University of Tennessee

Parents of young children probably recognize the hectic mornings filled with reminding the kids to eat breakfast, brush their teeth and put on their shoes – and hurry up, you’re gonna be late!

Most little kids can’t manage these morning routines on their own because they lack the necessary executive function: the set of skills that affect how people make purposeful decisions that align with their goals. It’s these skills that allow you to set and pursue short-term goals, such as making breakfast, and long-term goals, such as pursuing a successful career.

Early childhood marks a period of significant development in executive function ability. Research shows that children with better executive function tend to grow up to be financially stable, healthy and productive adults. For this reason, many psychologists and educators are seeking ways to help kids develop these skills in early childhood, potentially setting them up for later success.

As important as these skills are, though, attempts to understand where they come from and how to train them have been mostly unsuccessful – until now.

We are psychologists at the University of Tennessee in the Attention, Brain and Cognition Lab, and our recent study provides new insights into how executive function develops.

Where previous attempts failed

There have been many attempts to teach children executive function, in hopes that improvements will translate to other cognitive skills. But these have largely been unsuccessful for two reasons.

First, while children in these experiments learned specific tasks, they didn’t learn skills that would translate to the real world. It’s like how studying for your ACT may make you better at taking the ACT but not necessarily better at the skills you need for your future job.

Second, on the more technical side, measuring brain activity in young children is notoriously difficult. MRIs are too restrictive – not to mention scary – to be used on children while they perform tasks.

New tools offer new insights

Many researchers now use a more child-friendly neuroimaging machine called functional near-infrared spectroscopy, which involves placing sensors on a child’s head – typically in the form of a lightweight cap – to track their brain function. This laser system monitors blood flow in the outer layer of the brain, known as the cortical surface. Blood flow indicates neural activity and reveals areas of the brain that are most busy.

This technology is a step in the right direction, but it’s still difficult to ensure that the sensors are placed in exactly the same way from one session to the next, and from one kid to the next. This challenge is particularly pronounced in longitudinal studies, because children’s heads grow over time.

To solve this problem, our team developed 3D-image reconstruction techniques that allow us to keep track of where brain activation is happening. With the 3D model, we are able to map and measure each child’s individual brain regions.

Our advanced analysis tools allowed us to collect multiple recordings from the same children over several years, confident the sensors were in the correct, consistent spots on their heads for each study phase.

By administering a wide range of tasks that tap into different aspects of neurocognitive function, we were able to pinpoint which regions of a child’s brain are active as they develop executive function skills.

Understanding the nature of executive function

One important aspect of executive function is the ability to filter what information is relevant for completing your goals. Based on previous executive function studies and our mathematical model of the brain’s connections, our team believes that the key is the process of what we call learning labels – that is, learning to name and sort the objects in your environment based on various categories they fit into.

Label learning allows you to move through your world finding tools you need to accomplish your goals and flexible uses for the objects around you. For instance, understanding the labels “smooth” and “concave” would help you identify a spoon. Knowing how the features of a spoon relate to other objects or processes such as “mixing,” “shoveling” or “slinging” can encourage flexible uses of the spoon, so that you recognize you can use the spoon to stir your chocolate milk, eat your cereal or even catapult a bit of breakfast onto your sibling.

So all that learning in a child’s early years of fundamentals such as color, shape and basic sounds and words is preparing them for a life where they can identify what they need to set and meet their goals, small and large.

Further, understanding how to identify and label items in your environment can help you be flexible and notice different aspects of an object when your goals change. For example, if there’s no cow’s milk available, but you know almond milk falls into the same category, you can use it as a substitute. In this way, learning labels for categories of objects lets you identify and act on goal-relevant information around you.

What we found

Using our near-infrared spectroscopy tools, we examined the brain function of 20 children during a series of tasks. We first assessed their label understanding at age 2½ by asking them simple questions about objects, such as, “Which one is red?” or “What color is this one?”

Two years later, when the children were 4½, we brought them back to the lab for an executive function task. First, they would play a few rounds of a shape-sorting game. Then the research assistant would ask them to switch to sorting the same objects by color. This task requires thinking flexibly about the objects and making different decisions about them when the rules change.

We found that brain activity differed before versus after children learned to categorize objects by shape and color. In addition, we found that children who showed stronger activation in their brain’s frontal cortex region during the simpler color and shape labeling tasks at age 2½ performed better on the complex task at 4½. We think this indicates that those children at 2½ were further along in the developmental trajectory of learning categories for objects around them, and thus had richer neurocognitive resources available at 4½ when performing the complex executive function task.

Our findings suggest that label learning extends beyond language and affects how kids can control and regulate their behavior. That is, by having ways of labeling different aspects of objects or the environment, children have ways to cognitively focus on that information in order to guide their behavior.

What’s next?

Our results open the door to finding ways to teach children executive function skills. Scientists can now try to create interventions focused on label learning and grouping objects based on their physical characteristics. Training would likely build on the sort of learning that naturally occurs during play time with caregivers, as well as via children’s books and edutainment videos.

Our team has already begun the next step in this work, examining how to facilitate these learning processes. Our goal is to develop interventions aimed at improving executive function skills in early childhood that will improve broad development outcomes as kids get older.

Aaron Buss received funding from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Alexis McCraw 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. Naming and categorizing objects is part of how young kids develop executive function skills – new research – https://theconversation.com/naming-and-categorizing-objects-is-part-of-how-young-kids-develop-executive-function-skills-new-research-255943

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By William Cornwell, Associate Professor of Cardiology, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

Nearly half of all Americans have high blood pressure – a condition called hypertension.

Hypertension is the No. 1 risk factor for heart disease and stroke. In addition, hypertension increases risk of dementia and cognitive decline. Heart disease, stroke and dementia are the first-, fourth- and sixth-leading causes of death in the U.S. Unfortunately, only 1 in 4 people with a history of high blood pressure have this condition under control.

In August 2025, the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology released new guidelines on prevention and management of hypertension, based on a comprehensive analysis of literature published over the past 10 years.

The Conversation U.S. asked cardiologist Dr. William Cornwell of the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus to explain what the new guidelines mean and how you can work with your doctor to manage your blood pressure.

What are the primary takeaways of the new guidelines?

The most recent guidelines prior to this new statement were in 2017. Since that time, the medical community has learned a lot about hypertension and the best way to control it. The new guidelines provide a great deal of new information.

First, the definition of hypertension has changed. The criteria are more strict, and the target blood pressures are lower than in the past.

The criteria depend on the values of the “systolic” and the “diastolic” pressure. Systolic blood pressure, the top number, represents the pressure in the blood vessels when the heart is squeezing blood into the body. Diastolic blood pressure, the bottom number, is the pressure in the blood vessels when the heart is relaxing. Both numbers are important when determining the severity of hypertension and how it is most appropriately managed.

The new guidelines have removed the category of “prehypertension,” which was defined by a systolic pressure of 120-139 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg), or a diastolic pressure of 80-99 mm Hg. Now, patients are categorized as having “elevated blood pressure” if their blood pressure is 120-129 over less than 80 mm Hg, or stage 1 hypertension if they are 130-139/80-89.

A reading of 140/90 or more is considered stage 2 hypertension, and a reading of 180/120 or greater is a hypertensive crisis. In essence, the bar has been lowered, and this change may impact millions of Americans.

People need to ask their doctors if they have hypertension based on these new criteria and whether or not they should be treated. It is also very important for patients to get advice from their doctors about lifestyle habits that they can incorporate into their daily routine, like diet, exercise and healthy sleep habits to help lower blood pressure.

In addition, the guidelines encourage providers to use a risk calculator, called PREVENT – short for Predicting Risk of Cardiovascular Disease EVENTS – to determine a patient’s overall risk of cardiovascular disease and heart failure. This tool represents a significant advance in personalizing medical care, since it incorporates risk factors unique to the individual, allowing for a tailored approach to medical care.

What is the link between alcohol intake and high blood pressure?

The guidelines encourage people to limit alcohol intake because alcohol increases blood pressure.

A 2023 meta-analysis of seven studies with nearly 20,000 people showed that systolic blood pressure will increase by about 1mmHg for every 10 grams of alcohol consumed. A standard beer contains about 14 grams of alcohol, so regular alcohol consumption may increase blood pressure by several points over time. For people who have been drinking an excessive amount of alcohol but stop, their blood pressure may come back down.

That might not sound like much, but when combined with other unhealthy and risky behaviors, like sedentary behavior, excessive weight, inadequate sleep, psychological stress and smoking, the risk factors start to add up quickly. Together, they can very quickly increase the risk of heart disease, stroke and dementia.

The new guidelines encourage patients to reduce or eliminate alcohol consumption entirely compared with the old guidelines. For people who do want to drink alcohol, the new guidelines recommend that men should drink no more than two drinks per day, and women should drink no more than one drink per day.

What other lifestyle factors did the new report focus on?

The new guidelines also emphasize the fact that diet can have a major impact on blood pressure. They recommend that all adults – with or without hypertension – consume less than 2,300 milligrams of salt, or approximately 1 teaspoon, per day, and more ideally, less than 1,500 milligrams per day. For a comparison, the average American eats more than 3,300 milligrams of salt per day. Patients may also consider potassium-based salt substitutes to further lower blood pressure.

The guidelines recommend a specific diet called the DASH diet, short for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, for patients with or without hypertension to prevent or treat elevated blood pressure. The DASH diet emphasizes fruits, vegetables, low-fat or nonfat dairy and whole grains. This diet may lead to a reduction in blood pressure by up about 10 mm Hg.

The guidelines also emphasize the need to increase physical activity. On average, for every additional 30 minutes of aerobic exercise a person gets per week, systolic blood pressure decreases by 2 mm Hg and diastolic blood pressure drops by 1 mm Hg, with the largest reduction occurring at 150 minutes of dynamic exercise per week.

Regular exercise also helps you live longer and reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke and dementia.

What are the main preventive strategies in the report?

The PREVENT risk calculator that the new guidelines recommend incorporates several factors, including demographics, cholesterol levels, medical history and blood pressure, to determine risk. This risk calculator is free and available online to the general public. The PREVENT calculator may be a helpful tool for all Americans since it reliably provides patients and providers with an assessment of overall risk assessment. But it is particularly helpful for people with multiple chronic conditions, like hypertension, high cholesterol, overweight/obesity or diabetes.

The American Heart Association recommends eight essential health behaviors for controlling blood pressure and reducing risk of cardiovascular disease overall. These include healthy diet, regular exercise, stopping or avoiding smoking, sleeping seven to nine hours per night, and controlling weight, cholesterol, blood sugar and blood pressure.

Will the new guidelines change how doctors address high blood pressure?

One of the greatest advances with these new guidelines is the personalized approach to medical care through the use of the PREVENT calculator.

The guidelines recommend that doctors encourage their patients to check blood pressure at home to better understand the fluctuations in pressure that occur throughout the day.

Finally, the guidelines encourage physicians to be more aggressive about treating blood pressure. This may be an important change since uncontrolled blood pressure is a major risk factor for eventual development of heart disease and stroke.

William Cornwell 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. More Americans meet criteria for high blood pressure under new guidelines – https://theconversation.com/more-americans-meet-criteria-for-high-blood-pressure-under-new-guidelines-263507

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Jonathan Larsen, Legal Technology Manager, Beasley School of Law Center for Public Health Law Research, Temple University

Pennsylvania is due to receive US$2.2 billion dollars from the national opioid settlements, and a new database shows the public where that money is going.

Starting in 2021, a national, bipartisan coalition of attorneys general, including now-Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, reached settlements with opioid manufacturers and distributors who had directly contributed to the opioid addiction crisis.

That year, over 5,000 Pennsylvanians died from unintended drug overdoses. That number has since dropped, falling to about 3,300 in 2024.

The opioid settlement payments, which began in 2022 and are slated to continue until 2038, are supposed to fund opioid overdose prevention, treatment, harm reduction, recovery support and other programs. This includes a broad array of interventions in Pennsylvania, from first-responder training for law enforcement to handle people who have overdosed to stigma reduction education and support for medication-assisted treatment, to name just a few.

We are researchers from Penn State University, Temple University and the University of Pittsburgh who helped build a website, which launched in August 2025, that publishes and tracks opioid settlement fund spending data in Pennsylvania.

We are partnering with the Pennsylvania Opioid Misuse and Addiction Abatement Trust, the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Career Development Association. Our team receives funding through the Pennsylvania Opioid Misuse and Addiction Abatement Trust to help the trust with data collection, analysis and web design. However, our website is separate and independent from the trust.

Here are five things we believe Pennsylvania residents ought to know about the spending data, and how it can be used to improve public health:

1. Counties are in the driver’s seat

Out of the 48 states that have received settlements so far, Pennsylvania is one of nine states that have given majority control of settlement spending to local governments.

In Pennsylvania’s case, 70% of the funding goes to counties. Cities and other organizations that were involved in the lawsuits, such as county district attorney offices, get 15%. The remaining 15% goes to the state.

This means that in Pennsylvania, it is mostly up to counties to determine how to best spend the US$2.2 billion. Counties must interact directly with their communities through requests for proposals to distribute funds. They will face critical decisions about how to invest the funds in ways that move beyond pilot programs to sustainable, system-level change.

Requirements from the opioid settlement to spend at least 85% of the money on opioid abatement aim to avoid pitfalls of the 1990s tobacco settlement, when funds were often diverted to general budgets and spent on programs unrelated to getting people to quit smoking.

States that have not given majority control of settlement spending to local governments have created a variety of ways to spend the money. These include a mix of state and local disbursement, as well as special fund-governing bodies charged with deciding how settlement funds are distributed. In some states, the state is the primary decision-maker about how settlement funds are used.

The requirement in Pennsylvania that opioid settlement funds are primarily sent to counties creates an opportunity for local innovation. It will also, eventually, allow experts to evaluate the effectiveness of this local control of funds compared with state control or other structures.

2. Website improves transparency and accountability

When members of the public can see where the money is going, they can hold systems accountable for using the funds effectively. County leaders, meanwhile, can see what programs are currently being funded in other counties that they may want to replicate or scale up.

3. Spending is a marathon, not a sprint

Settlement dollars are just beginning to be distributed and spent. According to the tracker, over $80 million had been spent on approved opioid remediation programs as of Dec. 31, 2024. Settlement payments will continue over the next seven to 18 years, varying by company.

This is a marathon and not a sprint, so communities and decision-makers will have to balance spending that produces short- and longer-term objectives.

Additionally, not all counties are receiving the same amount of money, and that affects what they can do with it.

4. New challenges will arise in opioid crisis

Emerging issues in the opioid crisis will continue to evolve, such as how contaminants like the animal tranquilizers xylazine and medetomidine, or products derived from kratom, a tropical tree, have entered the street drug supply in recent years.

Systematically tracking data will help expand our knowledge base of all programs in Pennsylvania that aim to address the opioid crisis. Some of these programs are based on strong existing evidence, while others will help to build new evidence, especially considering the ever-changing landscape of the crisis.

5. Funding gaps will remain

Opioid settlement funds are an important opportunity to address the opioid crisis, but will not on their own cover all funding gaps needed to address the crisis or the broader public health crises that are its major drivers. These include food and housing insecurity, unemployment, lack of access to mental health care, and so many other related issues.

As the country faces major and rapid federal disinvestment in states and communities, these funding gaps will grow and increase the pressure on local decision-makers to make the most of each dollar while demonstrating evidence of impact.

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

Jonathan Larsen receives funding from the Pennsylvania Opioid Misuse and Addiction Abatement Trust. He is the Chair of the Haverford Township Democratic Committee.

Amy Yeung receives funding from the Pennsylvania Opioid Misuse and Addiction Abatement Trust

Dennis Scanlon receives funding from the Pennsylvania Opioid Misuse and Addiction Abatement Trust.

Renee Cloutier receives funding from the Pennsylvania Opioid Misuse and Addiction Abatement Trust.

– ref. New website tracks how Pennsylvania’s $2.2B in opioid settlement funds is being spent – https://theconversation.com/new-website-tracks-how-pennsylvanias-2-2b-in-opioid-settlement-funds-is-being-spent-263765

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Sarah Pessin, Professor of Philosophy, University of Denver

It’s the Jewish High Holiday season, and Jews the world over are preparing to visit their local synagogues – for community, for prayer, and to hear the arresting, soulful sounds of the shofar.

An animal horn – typically a ram’s horn – used as a wind instrument, the shofar is featured over 70 times in the Torah. In ancient Jewish tradition, horns were sounded for everything from calls to action to royal coronations. In the spirit of both, the Bible calls upon Jews to raise forth shofar blasts on Rosh Hashana, which literally means the “head,” or start, of the year.

The holiday is a time of communitywide soul-searching. Beyond marking the Jewish new year, it also commemorates the world’s birthday, the creation of humans, and the sovereignty and majesty of God. Marking the start of the High Holiday season, Rosh Hashana kicks off a 10-day period of reflection that culminates in Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, whose last moments are also marked by the shofar’s call.

According to the Talmud, a central collection of rabbinic teachings on Jewish law and theology, three divine books are opened on Rosh Hashana. Each person is inscribed into one of the three: one book for the righteous, one for the wicked and one for those in between, who are given till Yom Kippur to set their hearts straight.

Rabbis say the shofar’s sounds cause God to move from his “throne of judgement” to his “throne of mercy.” They also say that shofar sounds can penetrate human hearts, prompting them toward repentance – while mimicking the broken-hearted cries of someone recognizing just how much they need to repent.

As a scholar of Jewish tradition, I’ve worked extensively on the downright esoteric writings of Moses Maimonides, a 12th-century Jewish philosopher. When it comes to the meaning of the shofar’s call, though, Maimonides offers a refreshingly down-to-earth take in the Mishneh Torah, his guide to Jewish law: “Wake up you sleepy ones from your sleep and you who slumber, arise. Inspect your deeds, repent, remember your Creator.”

Sonic-spiritual pause

The sound of the shofar is uniquely rich and searching, somewhere between a human cry and an otherworldly hum. It fills the room as well as one’s entire body – inviting a moment of pause, of existential reckoning.

During the High Holidays there are three varieties of shofar blasts, which are combined into a series of sound constellations throughout the prayer service.

The first kind of blast is a single, solid sounding called “tekiah.” This one also comes in a “tekiah gedolah,” or “big tekiah,” version that stretches on for a longer stint. The second sound pattern is called “shevarim,” made up of three medium blares. And the third is called “teruah,” consisting of at least nine staccato soundings – or, for Jews of Yemenite heritage, another single tone.

The shofar is sounded throughout the two days of Rosh Hashana – in some congregations, 100 times per day. The constancy and repetition enhance the sounds’ capacity to engage participants’ minds, hearts and spirits.

Sourcing shofars

To make a shofar, a horn is boiled to soften its innards for removal. Using heat to straighten part of the horn, the craftsman carefully drills a hole and carves a mouthpiece at one end. Heat can be used to further straighten the horn, and the finish can range from natural to polished.

As for the species and shape of shofars, there are differences of opinion – and of culture. Amid rabbinic debates over straight shofars or curved ones for Rosh Hashana, Maimonides says only a curved ram’s horn will do. Jews of Yemenite heritage use the kudu antelope, whose spectacularly long horns produce a strikingly deep sound. And the “Moroccan shofar” is said to have emerged during the Spanish Inquisition: Because Jews needed to hide their shofars to avoid persecution, they were crafted to be flat and straight.

The hollowness of the shofar is what produces its unique sound, so it needs to be made of a horn, not an antler. And it will need to come from a kosher animal, an animal permissible to eat under Jewish law – which, for land animals, means having split hooves and chewing its cud.

On both counts, only certain animals will do, including goats, antelopes and rams. And regardless of the kind of shofar it is, it takes some practice to get a sound to come out of it at all.

Holy covenant

The popular use of rams’ horns is also a nod to the biblical story of the binding of Isaac, which is traditionally read during Rosh Hashana services.

According to the Book of Genesis, God commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, his beloved son. After nearly going through with the killing, Abraham has a heavenly vision in which he is thanked for his loyalty to God and instructed to spare Isaac after all. Abraham sees a ram caught in a nearby thicket, which he sacrifices to God instead. The next verses describe God blessing Abraham and all his future descendants – which Jews read as a key moment in their identity as a people.

In the Talmud and across a number of other Jewish texts, blowing a ram’s horn for the new year invokes this same redemptive energy: God’s willingness to watch over not just Abraham and Isaac but the entire Jewish community, in a spirit of mercy and blessing.

Using a bull’s horn as a shofar, on the other hand, doesn’t fly. Rabbis rule it out because the term for a cow horn in the bible is “keren,” not “shofar.” The bull’s horn is also seen as too much of a reminder of another key story from the Torah: the Sin of the Golden Calf.

As the Book of Exodus describes it, God led the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt. He then shares that he would reveal his law to them as a form of everlasting covenant, working through Moses as his spokesperson.

To make the point, God called Moses up to Mt. Sinai, accompanying him in the form of thunder, lightning and fire. Together with pillars of smoke, and louder and louder shofar blasts, the experience left the people awestruck. While details are debated, the text says that they then assented to God’s law – including the commandment not to worship idols.

Yet when Moses heads back to the mountaintop, the Israelites fear he’s abandoned them. Eager for immediate spiritual support, and in spite of having just agreed to God’s law, they built a bovine idol and proceed to worship at its feet.

God considers destroying the people. Yet Moses reminds God of the promise to protect Abraham and his descendants – a direct loop back to the binding of Isaac.

What’s in a word

It appears that the origin of the term “shofar” is “šappāru,” a word in the Akkadian language of the ancient Near East that originally referred to types of rams, deer or wild goats. But there is also a rabbinic commentary connecting the word “shofar” to the Hebrew term for beauty and improvement – suggesting the shofar inspires people to beautify their souls, aligning their actions with their values.

Regardless of the historical etymology of the word, this reading certainly captures the tenor and texture of hearing the shofar during the High Holidays. Its sounds inspire Jews to take spiritual inventory, surveying where the previous year has led them and planning the paths upon which they will next embark.

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

– ref. How the spiritual sound of the shofar shapes the Jewish New Year – a Jewish studies scholar explains – https://theconversation.com/how-the-spiritual-sound-of-the-shofar-shapes-the-jewish-new-year-a-jewish-studies-scholar-explains-263687

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Alexandra Jahn, Associate Professor of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Arctic Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder

As I walked out onto the frozen Arctic water off Utqiagvik, Alaska, for the first time, I was mesmerized by the icescape.

Piles of blue and white sea-ice rubble several feet high gave way to flat areas and then rubble again. The snow atop it, sometimes several feet deep, hides gaps among the blocks of sea ice, as I found out when one of my legs suddenly disappeared through the snow.

As a polar climate scientist, I have focused on Arctic sea ice for over a decade. But spending time on the ice with people who rely on it for their way of life provides a different perspective.

Local hunters run snowmobiles over the sea ice to reach the whales and seals they rely on for traditional food. They talked about how they know when the sea ice is safe to travel on, and how that’s changing as global temperatures rise. They described worsening coastal erosion as the protective ice disappears earlier and forms later. On land, they’re contending with thawing permafrost that causes roads and buildings to sink.

Their experiences echo the data I have been working with from satellites and climate models.

Most winters, sea ice covers the entire surface of the Arctic Ocean basin, even extending into the northern North Atlantic and North Pacific. Even in late summer, sea ice used to cover about half the Arctic Ocean. However, the late summer ice has declined by about 50% since routine satellite observations began in 1978.

This decline of summer sea ice area has a multitude of effects, from changing local ecosystems to allowing more shipping through the Arctic Ocean. It also enhances global warming, because the loss of the reflective white sea-ice surface leaves dark open water that absorbs the Sun’s radiation, adding more heat to the system.

What coastal communities are losing

Along the Alaskan coast, the decline of the Arctic sea ice cover is most apparent in the longer ice-free season. Sea ice is forming later in the fall now than it used to and breaking up earlier in the spring.

For people who live there, this means shorter seasons when the ice is safe to travel over, and less time when sea ice is present to protect the coastline from ocean waves.

Open water increases the risk of coastal erosion, particularly when accompanied by thawing permafrost, stronger storms and rising sea level. All are driven by greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, particularly burning fossil fuels.

In some places along the Alaskan coast, erosion threatens roads, houses and entire communities. Research has shown that coastal erosion in Alaska has accelerated over recent decades.

More weeks of open water also affect animals. Polar bears spend the summer on land but require sea ice to hunt their preferred food, seals. The longer the sea ice stays away from land, the longer polar bears are deprived of this high-fat food, which can ultimately threaten the bears’ survival.

The ice is also thinning and getting younger

Across the Arctic, satellite data has captured how sea ice has been thinning and getting younger.

As recently as the late 1970s, about 60% of the Arctic sea ice was at least 1 year old and generally thicker than younger ice. Today, the amount of ice more than a year old is down to about 35%.

Local residents experience that change in another way: Multiyear sea ice is much less salty than new sea ice. Hunters used to cut blocks of multiyear sea ice to get drinking water, but that older ice has become harder to find.

Sea ice forms from ocean water, which is salty. As the water freezes, the salt collects in between the ice crystals. Because the higher the salt content, the lower the freezing point of the water, these enclosures in the sea ice contain salty liquid water, called brine. This brine drains out of the sea ice over time through small channels in the ice. Thus, multiyear sea ice, which has survived at least one melt cycle, is less salty than first-year sea ice.

Since the coastal landfast sea ice around Utqiagvik no longer contains much multiyear sea ice, if any, the hunters now have to take a block of lake ice or simply gallon jugs of water with them if they plan to stay on the ice for several days.

Why data shows a continuing decline

As long as greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase, Arctic sea ice will generally continue to decline, studies show. One study calculated that, statistically, the average carbon dioxide emissions per person per year in the U.S. led to the disappearance of an area of summer sea ice the size of a large hotel room – 430 to 538 square feet (40 to 50 square meters) each year.

Today, when Arctic sea ice is at its minimum extent, at the end of summer, it covers only about half what it covered in 1979 at that time of the year. The Arctic still has around 1.8 million square miles (4.6 million square kilometers) of sea ice that survives the summer melt, approximately equal to the area of the entire European Union.

Climate models show the Arctic could be ice-free at the end of summer within decades, depending on how quickly humans rein in greenhouse gas emissions.

While a win for accessibility of shipping routes through the Arctic in summer, studies suggest that the large reduction of sea ice would bring profound ecological changes in the Arctic Ocean, as more light and heat enter the ocean surface.

The warmer the surface ocean water is, the longer it will take for the ocean to cool back down to the freezing point in the fall, delaying the formation of new sea ice.

What now?

Arctic sea ice will continue to form in winter for the next several decades. The months of no sunlight mean it will continue to get very cold in winter, allowing sea ice to form.

Climate models have estimated that it would take extremely high atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations to warm the climate enough for no sea ice to form in the winter in the Arctic Ocean – close to 2,000 parts per million, more than 4.5 times our current level.

However, winter sea ice will cover less area as the Earth warms. For people living along the Arctic Ocean coast in Alaska, winter ice will still return for now. If global greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced, though, climate models show that even winter sea ice along the Alaskan coast could disappear by the end of the 21st century.

Alexandra Jahn receives funding from the National Science Foundation.

– ref. A walk across Alaska’s Arctic sea ice brings to life the losses that appear in climate data – https://theconversation.com/a-walk-across-alaskas-arctic-sea-ice-brings-to-life-the-losses-that-appear-in-climate-data-254910

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Beth Gazley, Professor of Nonprofit Management and Policy, Indiana University

Following the Sept. 10, 2025, death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in Utah, the Trump administration signaled that it intends to expand investigations into “leftist groups” for possible links to the suspect.

Kirk, who was 31 when he died, founded and led Turning Point USA, a conservative nonprofit that counted hundreds of thousands of young Americans among its members. Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old Utah man, is accused of killing Kirk with a single bullet at a crowded outdoor debate. He was, according to many accounts, raised by Republican parents in a conservative community. Although Robinson reportedly had recently adopted different political views, his precise motives remain unclear.

The Conversation U.S. asked Beth Gazley, an Indiana University scholar of nonprofits, local governance and civil society, to explain the significance of the Trump administration’s response to Kirk’s death in terms of free speech and nonprofit norms.

What are the Trump administration’s allegations?

High-ranking members of the Trump administration, including Vice President JD Vance and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, are accusing certain progressive organizations of encouraging violence against right-wing public figures and suggesting they played a role in Kirk’s death.

Miller, for example, has likened those groups to “a vast domestic terror movement.”

Vance has said the government will “go after the NGO network that foments, facilitates and engages in violence,” in a reference to nonprofits he alleges are supporting illegal activities.

President Donald Trump has blamed Kirk’s death on “a radical left group of lunatics” that doesn’t “play fair.” He has stated that they are “already under major investigation,” although no such probe has been disclosed to date.

Trump has raised the possibility of criminal charges under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as the
RICO statute, which is typically used to prosecute gangs and organized crime rings.

But, to be clear, the Trump administration has not yet produced evidence to support any of its allegations of wrongdoing by nonprofits and their funders.

What organizations are being targeted?

Some conservative media outlets and Trump administration members have singled out specific nonprofits and funders.

Their targets include billionaire George Soros, whose Open Society Foundations are among the country’s largest philanthropies, and the Ford Foundation, another of the nation’s top grantmakers. The outlets and officials claim that both foundations allegedly provided money to as-of-yet unnamed groups that “radicalized” Tyler Robinson and led to what the White House has called “organized agitation.”

Another target is the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization that regularly reported comments Kirk made disparaging Black, LGBTQ and other people.

The Ford Foundation is among more than 100 funders that signed onto an open letter posted to the Medium platform on Sept. 17, in which they objected to these Trump administration’s attacks. Open Society Foundations also signed the letter, and, in a post on the X platform, it denied the specific allegations directed at it by the Trump administration. The Southern Poverty Law Center has posted its own denial on Facebook.

Most but not all of the organizations Trump and his officials have accused of wrongdoing are charitable nonprofits and foundations. These organizations operate in accordance with the rules spelled out in Section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. tax code.

What can count as a charitable activity is defined very broadly due to the language that Congress approved over a century ago. It includes public policy advocacy, a limited amount of direct lobbying, social services and a broad range of other activities that include running nonprofit hospitals, theaters and universities. Churches and other houses of worship count as U.S. charities too.

The rights of nonprofits are also protected under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which entitles them to freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and the right to assemble and “petition the government for a redress of grievances” – which cements their right to participate in public policy advocacy.

Obviously, institutions – including nonprofits – and the people who lead them can’t promote criminal activity or incite political violence without breaking the law. U.S. Supreme Court precedents have set the bar very high on what counts as an incitement to violence.

Are there any precedents for this?

The Republican Party has previously attempted, and failed, several times in the past few years to expand the executive branch’s power to deregister charities for partisan purposes.

Most recently, GOP House members drafted an amendment that was cut from the final version of the big tax-and-spending bill Trump signed on July 4.

But many nonprofit advocates remain concerned about the possibility of the Trump administration using other means to limit nonprofit political rights.

Are there precedents for the repression of US nonprofits and their funders?

Under the Bill of Rights, the U.S. has strong protections in place that shield nonprofits from partisan attacks. Still, there are some precedents for attempts to repress them.

The Johnson Amendment to a tax bill passed in 1954 is a well-known example. This law ended the ability of 501(c)(3) charities, private foundations and religious organizations to interfere in political campaigns.

Despite strong support from the public and the nonprofit sector for keeping it in place, the Trump administration has attempted to repeal the Johnson Amendment. What is largely forgotten is that Lyndon B. Johnson, then a member of Congress, introduced the measure to silence two conservative charities in his Texas district that supported his political opponent.

The Republican Party has also claimed in recent years that conservatives have been victims of efforts to suppress their freedom to establish and operate charitable nonprofits. A notable case was the GOP’s accusation during the Obama administration that the Internal Revenue Service was unfairly targeting Tea Party groups for extra scrutiny. Following years of outrage over that alleged partisanship, however, it later turned out that the IRS had applied extra scrutiny to progressive groups as well.

Some political observers have suggested that the Trump administration’s inspiration for targeting certain nonprofits and their funders comes from what’s going on in other countries. Hungary, Russia, Turkey and other countries have punished the activities of their political opponents and nongovernmental organizations as crimes.

What do you think could ultimately be at stake?

The economic and political freedoms that are the bedrock of a true democracy rely on a diversity of ideas. The mechanism for implementing that ideal in the U.S. relies heavily on a long-standing Supreme Court doctrine that extends constitutional rights to individuals and organizations alike. Nonprofits, in other words, have constitutional rights.

What this means for American society is a much greater proliferation of nonprofit activity than you see in many other countries, with the inevitable result that many organizations espouse unpopular opinions or views that clash with public opinion or the goals of a major political party.

That situation does not make their activities illegal.

Even Americans who disagree with the missions of Turning Point USA or the Southern Poverty Law Center should be able to agree that both institutions contribute to what Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas once called the “market place of ideas” necessary for an open democracy.

Is it easy to see what donors fund and what nonprofits do with their money?

This situation leaves open the question of whether the public has a right to know who is bankrolling a nonprofit’s activity.

Following the money can be frustrating. Federal law is somewhat contradictory in how far it will go to apply democratic ideals of openness and transparency to nonprofit activity. A key example is the long-standing protection of donor privacy in U.S. law, a principle that conservatives generally favor.

The courts have established that making a charitable gift is a protected free speech activity that entitles donors to certain privacy rights. In fact, the most recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling related to charitable giving, handed down in 2021, upheld a conservative nonprofit’s right to strip donors’ names from reporting documents.

This privacy right extends to foundations: They can decide whether to disclose the names of their grant recipients. Still, all nonprofits except churches need to make some disclosures regarding their finances on a mandatory form filed annually.

Looking forward, organizations that advocate for the charitable sector as a whole, such as the National Council of Nonprofits, are closely following the efforts of the Trump administration. Their role is to remind the public that nonprofits on both the right and left side of the political spectrum have strong advocacy rights that don’t disappear when bad things happen.

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

– ref. Trump administration is threatening liberal foundations and nonprofits after Kirk’s death – but proving wrongdoing by any of them would be very hard – https://theconversation.com/trump-administration-is-threatening-liberal-foundations-and-nonprofits-after-kirks-death-but-proving-wrongdoing-by-any-of-them-would-be-very-hard-265445

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Anindya Kundu, Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership, Florida International University

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced a plan in early September 2025 that he intends to make Florida the first state to end vaccine mandates across all schools and in other state-run institutions such as nursing homes.

His proposal would dismantle Florida Statute 1003.22, which requires that all schools, including public and private schools, collect proof of students’ immunization for a range of communicable diseases when they enroll.

In 2025, approximately 88.7% of Florida kindergartners are vaccinated, which is almost 5% lower than the national average. Florida’s rate of vaccination for kindergarten students has steadily declined over the past eight years – and dropped from 93.5% in 2020 to 89.9% in 2024.

If Florida state legislators approve DeSantis’ plan when they convene in January 2026, the state would sweepingly eliminate long-standing obligations for schools and other places to require a standard set of immunizations for enrollment. Florida nursing homes currently assess whether residents should receive pneumococcal and flu vaccines.

As a sociologist, I study how education policy shapes democracy, social cohesion and inequality. I am also a professor of educational policy studies.

DeSantis’ plan is indicative of Florida’s general approach to approve education policy that is aligned with conservative priorities on “woke politics” and culture war issues, such as book bans.

Other Republican-led states, such as Alabama, Arkansas and Iowa, are typically quick to follow Florida’s lead and implement their own versions of Florida’s educational and social policies.

Florida setting examples

Well before DeSantis, Florida has tried to be a national leader of educational reform and has tightened state control over schools by reshaping standards on testing, school curricula and guidance on what can and cannot be taught in public schools.

Florida’s former Gov. Jeb Bush, who served from 1999 through 2007, helped lead this educational reform work. He was steadfast in increasing top-down accountability for educators, closely monitoring their performance by increasing high-stakes testing and tying teachers’ compensation to test results.

Bush also widely promoted policies to expand school choice for parents or policies that often allow any parent – regardless of income – to apply for state grants that use public money to pay for their children’s private school education.

Public school enrollment has steadily declined in Florida over the past two decades. While 86% of Florida students attended a traditional public school in 2001-2002, just 51% of Florida children went to a public school in 2024.

In 2022, Arizona became the first state to adopt a universal voucher system.

Florida then expanded its school voucher program in 2023 – allowing all parents, regardless of income, to use state taxpayer-funded scholarships to help pay for their children’s private school or home school experience. More than 500,000 Florida students received these vouchers in 2025.

Since 2024, 10 states plus Washington D.C. have adopted voucher programs.

Critical race theory on the front line

Since taking office in 2018, DeSantis has also set his sights squarely upon other hot-button issues, including by banning critical race theory from public schools in 2021.

Critical race theory, or CRT, is an academic framework that looks at how different forms of marginalization, such as gender or race, overlap, as well as how racism is embedded within American institutional and legal structures. DeSantis has said that CRT amounts to “state-sanctioned racism” that teaches “kids to hate our country or to hate each other.”

I and other experts on education considered this ban on CRT largely symbolic. The likelihood that K-12 educators are trained in CRT to then teach it to students seemed remote.

That same year, Florida rejected 54 math textbooks that officials felt contained CRT-related subject matter.

In 2023, DeSantis also cited CRT when he blocked Florida from offering the nonprofit College Board’s newly developed AP African American Studies course from public schools.

These actions made Florida one of the first states to place formal policy restrictions on CRT, effectively prohibiting discussions around race and inequality in public schools.

Since 2021, 44 other states have introduced similar bills. Approximately 28 states, including Texas, Idaho, Tennessee and Montana, have adopted at least one law limiting educators’ discussions of racism and sexism.

Anti-LGBTQ+ measures

In 2022, Florida also became the first state to prohibit classroom instruction on sexuality or gender identity topics from kindergarten through third grade. This law – formally called the Parental Rights in Education Act but often referred to as “Don’t Say Gay” – also restricts discussion on these topics in higher grades.

Though the law restricts formal classroom discussion or curriculum on sexuality and gender identity, teachers are allowed to discuss these topics in informal settings, such as student gay and straight alliance clubs.

By 2024, a growing list of at least 20 states, including Alabama and Indiana, followed Florida and introduced similar laws to “Don’t Say Gay.”

Book bans

Book bans are another prominent front where DeSantis has influenced how education looks in Florida – and in other states.

Book bans refer to schools and libraries removing books that are deemed controversial or inappropriate for students, often flagged for content related to race, sexuality or gender.

In 2023, Florida passed a law called HB 1069, which, among other things, banned books primarily flagged by parents or education officials for discussing or mentioning sexual topics.

One of these banned books was “Arthur’s Birthday,” a children’s picture book based on the animated PBS children’s series about an aardvark. The book was banned for including a reference to the game “spin the bottle.”

Florida’s schools banned approximately 4,500 books in the 2023-2024 school year, more than any other state.

A federal judge overruled a large portion of HB 1069 in August 2025, calling the categorization overly broad and unconstitutional.

Following Florida’s example, 33 other states passed laws about book bans in the 2022-2023 school year.

Overall, there has been a 200% increase in book bans nationwide from 2022 to 2024.

Beyond Florida

If Florida lifts its vaccine mandate, the decision would also affect other groups in Florida, including young children in day care centers and elderly residents living in nursing homes, which would also no longer require vaccines.

Private schools and universities would retain the ability to impose their own stances and vaccine requirements. However, private educational institutions in Florida often preemptively align themselves with state guidance.

Idaho loosened its vaccination rules in the summer of 2025, prohibiting schools from denying admission to a person who has not received vaccines. Louisiana has also said it will stop promoting mass vaccine campaigns.

As recent education policy history shows, Florida’s potential decision to end vaccine mandates in schools and other places would immediately have ripple effects across the nation. It is likely that if Florida strikes down its school vaccine requirements, this move will catalyze a rapid unraveling of similar public health protections across other states.

Anindya Kundu 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 Florida’s plan to end vaccine mandates will likely spread to other conservative states – https://theconversation.com/why-floridas-plan-to-end-vaccine-mandates-will-likely-spread-to-other-conservative-states-264734

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Marcelo Bigliassi, Assistant Professor, Florida International University

When you lift weights, walk up a steep hill or ride a bike, your body is continuously sending sensory signals to your brain. These signals paint a picture of the physical sensation of what you’re doing. Your brain then takes these signals and filters them through your past experience, goals, expectations and current emotional state.

It turns out that the way your brain uses all that context to interpret this sensory information significantly influences whether you perceive something physically strenuous, such as a bike ride, as difficult and threatening or as rewarding and pleasant.

Many people who are new to exercise often quit because they interpret physical discomfort as a warning sign instead of a challenge that can be overcome. But in recent years, scientists have shown that by changing your emotional state, you can also change how you interpret physical sensations.

We are two neuroscientists who study how the brain and body respond to stress and how those reactions shape perception. Research has shown that small, well-timed challenges can help the body and mind grow more resilient, while too much stress, or stress at the wrong time, can slow recovery and sap motivation.

In a recent experiment, we wanted to see whether it is possible, in a sense, to recalibrate how the brain interprets difficult tasks using a tiny, safe dose of physical discomfort. We found that physical stress in manageable doses – in this case, dunking your hand in ice-cold water – can make a later effort feel more doable, particularly for people who are not yet accustomed to strenuous exercise.

Cold first, bike second

In order to evaluate the concept of stress calibration, we assembled a group of 31 adult volunteers with limited prior engagement in physical activity. Our physical fitness task involved volunteers riding a stationary bike for six minutes, with the effort increasing in short stages from easy to tough.

On one visit, before getting on the bike, participants put one hand into a bucket of ice-cold water and kept it there for as long as they could – between one and three minutes. We hypothesized this physical stress would trigger a slight change in how their brains would interpret physical sensations and change their ability to tolerate physical discomfort; this was the recalibration step.

On the other visit they just got on the bike without doing a cold-water hand dunk. To help control for variables, we mixed up the order so that some people did the cold-water dunk on the first day and others did it on the second.

While riding the test bike, participants reported on a number of variables using rating scales, including how much pain they felt, how pleasant or unpleasant the effort seemed, how much energy they had, and whether they felt in control or overwhelmed. These measures allowed us to track how the volunteers were experiencing the exercise at different levels of intensity, both with and without the cold-water hand dunk.

What we found

When we first saw the results, we were amazed by how much a short stress induction could affect people’s perceptual responses during exercise. During the hardest two minutes of the cycling task, the participants who had lasted longer in the cold-water dunk actually reported less pain and more pleasure. Additionally, the participants who said they had a high tolerance for pain experienced a slightly greater sense of dominance compared to other participants as the biking intensity peaked.

We believe three effects may help explain why our participants felt the toughest minutes on the bike were less painful and more enjoyable after the cold-water challenge.

The first effect is similar to a quick biological reset. Ice water jolts the nervous system. In response, the brain switches on its built-in pain-dimming system and sends “turn it down” signals down the spinal cord. For a short window, incoming pain messages are muted, so discomfort feels less intense, helping participants tolerate more pain during cycling right after the hand dunk.

The second effect is a short stress surge. When the body feels stress, your heart rate and blood pressure jump, stress chemicals rise, and the brain may turn pain down for a moment. That bump can make the first minutes of exercise feel less abrupt, almost as if you did a quick psychological warmup. As the surge fades, your system settles, allowing you to find your rhythm without the start feeling so shocking.

The third mechanism works through the brain’s interpretation of the sensations. Getting through the short burst of discomfort from the ice dunk seemed to give participants an instant sense of “I can handle this” and a feeling of accomplishment. We think this boost recalibrates how their brains interpret stress and discomfort.

From lab insight to everyday training

At its core, this study shows that how your brain perceives physical sensations is adjustable. A short, well-timed challenge, such as an ice-cold hand dunk, can act as a calibration mechanism, tilting the toughest moments of exercise away from pain and toward enjoyment.

You don’t need an ice bucket to apply this principle to your life. The challenge could be a short uphill push before a longer run, a quick set of jump squats before starting a workout, or a short jog before a more challenging activity. These brief contrasts can prime the body and mind so the main effort feels less like a threat and more like progress. The key is to keep the challenge short, safe and within your limits, especially on days when life is already stressful.

This finding fascinates us because it shows that neither your brain nor your body is just a passive passenger during effort. They constantly recalibrate what “hard” feels like. The effect of overcoming one small challenge can ripple forward, making the next challenge feel more doable and even rewarding.

Over time, those small wins become reference points, proof that effort leads to recovery and growth. Layered into everyday training, they turn workouts into opportunities to practice composure, restore a sense of control and build lasting resilience.

Marcelo Bigliassi is an Assistant Professor of Psychophysiology and Neuroscience at Florida International University. He receives funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), serves on the advisory board of the Antifragile Academy, and works as the Chief Scientist at NeuroMotor Training and NeuroSmart.

Dayanne Antonio is a Ph.D. student at Florida International University and serves as a Teaching Assistant in the undergraduate Kinesiology program. She reports no conflicts of interest.

– ref. A cold shock to ease the burn − how brief stress can help your brain reframe a tough workout – https://theconversation.com/a-cold-shock-to-ease-the-burn-how-brief-stress-can-help-your-brain-reframe-a-tough-workout-258552

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Rahul Telang, Professor of Information Systems, Carnegie Mellon University

Scams are nothing new – fraud has existed as long as human greed. What changes are the tools.

Scammers thrive on exploiting vulnerable, uninformed users, and they adapt to whatever technologies or trends dominate the moment. In 2025, that means AI, cryptocurrencies and stolen personal data are their weapons of choice.

And, as always, the duty, fear and hope of their targets provide openings. Today, duty often means following instructions from bosses or co-workers, who scammers can impersonate. Fear is that a loved one, who scammers also can impersonate, is in danger. And hope is often for an investment scheme or job opportunity to pay off.

AI-powered scams and deepfakes

Artificial intelligence is no longer niche – it’s cheap, accessible and effective. While businesses use AI for advertising and customer support, scammers exploit the same tools to mimic reality, with disturbing precision.

Criminals are using AI-generated audio or video to impersonate CEOs, managers or even family members in distress. Employees have been tricked into transferring money or leaking sensitive data. Over 105,000 such deepfake attacks were recorded in the U.S. in 2024, costing more than US$200 million in the first quarter of 2025 alone. Victims often cannot distinguish synthetic voices or faces from real ones.

Fraudsters are also using emotional manipulation. The scammers make phone calls or send convincing AI-written texts posing as relatives or friends in distress. Elderly victims in particular fall prey when they believe a grandchild or other family member is in urgent trouble. The Federal Trade Commission has outlined how scammers use fake emergencies to pose as relatives.

Cryptocurrency scams

Crypto remains the Wild West of finance — fast, unregulated and ripe for exploitation.

Pump-and-dump scammers artificially inflate the price of a cryptocurrency through hype on social media to lure investors with promises of huge returns – the pump – and then sell off their holdings – the dump – leaving victims with worthless tokens.

Pig butchering is a hybrid of romance scams and crypto fraud. Scammers build trust over weeks or months before persuading victims to invest in fake crypto platforms. Once the scammers have extracted enough money from the victim, they vanish.

Scammers also use cryptocurrencies as a means of extracting money from people in impersonation scams and other forms of fraud. For example, scammers direct victims to bitcoin ATMs to deposit large sums of cash and convert it to the untraceable cryptocurrency as payment for fictitious fines.

Phishing, smishing, tech support and jobs

Old scams don’t die; they evolve.

Phishing and smishing have been around for years. Victims are tricked into clicking links in emails or text messages, leading to malware downloads, credential theft or ransomware attacks. AI has made these lures eerily realistic, mimicking corporate tone, grammar and even video content.

Tech support scams often start with pop-ups on computer screens that warn of viruses or identity theft, urging users to call a number. Sometimes they begin with a direct cold call to the victim. Once the victim is on a call with the fake tech support, the scammers convince victims to grant remote access to their supposedly compromised computers. Once inside, scammers install malware, steal data, demand payment or all three.

Fake websites and listings are another current type of scam. Fraudulent sites impersonating universities or ticket sellers trick victims into paying for fake admissions, concerts or goods.

One example is when a website for “Southeastern Michigan University” came online and started offering details about admission. There is no such university. Eastern Michigan University filed a complaint that Southeastern Michigan University was copying its website and defrauding unsuspecting victims.

The rise of remote and gig work has opened new fraud avenues.

Victims are offered fake jobs with promises of high pay and flexible hours. In reality, scammers extract “placement fees” or harvest sensitive personal data such as Social Security numbers and bank details, which are later used for identity theft.

How you can protect yourself

Technology has changed, but the basic principles remain the same: Never click on suspicious links or download attachments from unknown senders, and enter personal information only if you are sure that the website is legitimate. Avoid using third-party apps or links. Legitimate businesses have apps or real websites of their own.

Enable two-factor authentication wherever possible. It provides security against stolen passwords. Keep software updated to patch security holes. Most software allows for automatic update or warns about applying a patch.

Remember that a legitimate business will never ask for personal information or a money transfer. Such requests are a red flag.

Relationships are a trickier matter. The state of California provides details on how people can avoid being victims of pig butchering.

Technology has supercharged age-old fraud. AI makes deception virtually indistinguishable from reality, crypto enables anonymous theft, and the remote-work era expands opportunities to trick people. The constant: Scammers prey on trust, urgency and ignorance. Awareness and skepticism remain your best defense.

Rahul Telang 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. Scams and frauds: Here are the tactics criminals use on you in the age of AI and cryptocurrencies – https://theconversation.com/scams-and-frauds-here-are-the-tactics-criminals-use-on-you-in-the-age-of-ai-and-cryptocurrencies-264867

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Joan Strassmann, Professor of Biology, Washington University in St. Louis

As I walked along Bolivar Flats, just across from Galveston Island in Texas, I watched flocks of sanderlings forage along the frothy wavefront as it surged and retreated. Nearby, Caspian terns, American avocets, and black skimmers rested on the beach, each in its own group.

The birds rose simultaneously as I drew near, and then settled farther down the beach, clearly fearing me.

As an evolutionary biologist and author of the new book “The Social Lives of Birds,” I’m fascinated by how social behavior has evolved in birds. Why is it ever worth being with others that not only compete for food but may pass on diseases or even mate with your partner?

Safety in numbers

The late Oxford University biologist William D. Hamilton discussed the advantages of flocking with his landmark 1971 paper “Geometry for the Selfish Herd.” He theorized that individuals in a flock stay because each benefits from the shelter of the group. At the time, a prevailing belief was that animals moved in groups for the benefit of the group, not the individual.

Groups provide some safety because they’re harder to attack, they’re more likely to provide warnings of approaching danger, and they have an ability to respond together if threatened.

But everyone in the group does not necessarily benefit equally.

The best position is one that puts another bird between oneself and a predator, making your neighbor the more likely target. This keeps birds in a group close together as each tries for living shelter. It is a kind of movement you’ll also see in schools of fish or great herds of ungulates in Africa, like wildebeests.

The peril of being the lone bird

Shorebirds, similar to those I saw in Texas, might be the easiest to study, particularly where the predator can come from a forest that borders the shore.

One of the best-studied flocking shorebirds is the common redshank, Tringa tetanus, often seen feeding on mudflats and saltmarshes in Britain. Redshanks are sandpipers very closely related to the greater and lesser yellowlegs I see in Texas, but with red legs rather than yellow.

The predator that redshanks have most reason to fear is the Eurasian sparrowhawk, which watches foraging redshanks from the trees bordering the saltmarsh. When a sparrowhawk picks its prey, it flies fast and hard toward a single predetermined target, grabbing the hapless redshank with its talons.

Evolutionary biologist Will Cresswell studied the redshank’s flocking behavior on the chilly Tyninghame Estuary and found that sparrowhawks were most successful in catching lone birds and those in smaller flocks.

The closer a bird was to a neighbor, the less likely it was to be targeted and caught. That reminds me of that old trope about how fast you have to run from a lion: just faster than your neighbor.

Large flocks have downsides, too

One downside to being in a large redshank flock is that these birds have to take more steps to get food because they have more competition.

With other flock members probing the sand, and the sand shrimp and other invertebrates fleeing this probing, the redshanks spend more time foraging when they are in larger flocks.

Canadian ornithologist Guy Beauchamp compared closely related species on islands where there were fewer predators with those on the mainland where predators were common. Flocks were smaller on islands, allowing the birds to forage with less competition.

Fantastic flying flocks

Flying in flocks can also help birds avoid predators.

Evolutionary biologist Daniel Sankey and his colleagues separated the behavior of predator and prey by using an artificial predator, the ingeniously engineered flying robot falcon. Its behavior could be mechanically controlled as it approached a flock of homing pigeons, all labeled with GPS tags that allowed precise measurements of how the birds’ positions changed.

The team compared pigeon flight with and without attacks by the robot falcon and found that when the pigeons noticed the robot falcon, they turned sharply away from it, following the direction their nearest neighbor was turning and did not cluster more tightly.

More spectacular but harder to study are the mesmerizing flocks of European starlings as they circle and swerve, avoiding predators before settling for the night. These flocks of thousands are called murmurations and are fantastic to watch, and likely frustrating for predators that would struggle to grab a single bird from the swirling scene.

Italian physicist Michele Ballerini figured out that this magnificent visual concert was the result of birds simply keeping track of six nearest neighbors, turning and moving when they did.

Beyond flocks: Roosts and supersociality

Birds are social in other ways, too.

Some sleep together in roosts, nest near each other in colonies, or show off together, carrying out mating dances in what is known as lekking to attract females. They may actively help each other in rearing the young, typically if they are related to the breeders, or anticipate inheriting the breeding position or territory.

Take time to watch the behavior of the birds around you, and you’ll start to notice social behaviors everywhere, from the ducks in a city pond to the chickadees hunting for insects deep in winter. I hope you’ll watch them with more understanding of their social lives, and with a little bit more wonder.

I wrote a book, The Social Lives of Birds, and this piece might increase sales of this book since it is about the same topic and is cited. Not sure if this is a necessary disclosure or not.

– ref. For birds, flocks promise safety – especially if you’re faster than your neighbor – https://theconversation.com/for-birds-flocks-promise-safety-especially-if-youre-faster-than-your-neighbor-264674