Category: The Conversation – USA

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By William McCorkle, Associate Professor of Education, College of Charleston

All immigrants, regardless of their citizenship status, have the right to attend a public K-12 school in the United States. Schools cannot collect students’ immigration status when they enroll. This has been the case since 1982, when the Supreme Court ruled against Texas in the case of Plyler v. Doe.

Republican legislators in several states, including Tennessee, Oklahoma and Ohio, are trying to pass legislation that challenges the Plyler decision. These bills would make it harder, if not impossible, for immigrant children to attend public school.

In the U.S., there are approximately 1.5 million children under the age of 18 who are undocumented immigrants, meaning that they live in the country without legal authorization.

There are likely 600,000 to 850,000 undocumented students enrolled in K-12 schools.

Opposition to Plyler

In 1975, Texas passed legislation that allowed school districts to either charge undocumented students to attend public school or not let them enroll at all.

Seven years later, the Supreme Court ruled that Texas’ law violated the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. The court determined that someone’s immigration status “does not establish a sufficient rational basis for denying them benefits that the State affords other residents.”

For the past 44 years, this ruling has ensured that no state can ban undocumented students from attending a public K-12 school, charge them extra fees or discriminate against them in any other way because of their immigration status.

A few times over the past few decades, some states have unsuccessfully tried to make it harder for immigrant children to attend school.

In 1994, California voters passed Proposition 187, a ballot initiative that denied undocumented people the right to receive public services, including a public education. The proposition also required schools to document students’ immigration status.

A federal judge ruled in 1998 that the controversial proposition was unconstitutional.

In 2011, Alabama passed legislation that required K-12 public schools to collect students’ immigration status.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that Alabama’s legislation was illegal. Alabama schools, like all other schools, are not allowed to ask students about their immigration status, as it could be a means of discrimination or intimidation.

A new wave of legislation

The conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation issued a policy document in February 2026 that encouraged all states to challenge the Plyler v. Doe ruling.

Heritage argued that “illegal aliens should not be eligible for federal, state, or local government benefits, including through their children.” It wrote that giving undocumented immigrants these benefits “takes resources from American citizens and lawful immigrants.”

Heritage also published sample legislation that challenges the Plyler ruling and which state legislators could follow when drafting a new bill.

In 2025, at least five states considered legislation that would make it harder for undocumented students to attend K-12 school. None of those measures have become official policy, though some are still being debated in legislatures.

The Tennessee Senate passed a bill in 2025 that allowed school districts to ban undocumented students. In March 2026, the state’s House of Representatives passed a similar, watered-down version of the legislation. This bill would require schools to check students’ immigration status. The two government chambers are now working to determine next steps on the measure.

In 2025, Ohio legislators introduced a bill that wouldn’t ban immigrants from attending school, but it would require schools to report students’ immigration status to the state. The state’s House Government Oversight Committee is considering the measure.

In January 2025, the Oklahoma Board of Education passed a resolution that would require parents to show their child’s citizenship status before enrolling in school. Oklahoma’s House of Representatives blocked the resolution four months later.

Similarly, Republican legislators in Idaho introduced a bill in February 2026 that would require public K-12 schools to check students’ immigration status. The state’s House Education Committee is currently considering the bill.

A bill was also introduced in New Jersey in January 2025 that would charge undocumented students to study at a K-12 school, but the bill did not gain traction.

In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott has talked about challenging the Plyler ruling, as far back as 2022. The state is not currently considering any specific legislation on the issue.

But in March 2026, Mandy Drogin, a campaign director with the conservative think tank Texas Public Policy Foundation, spoke out against Plyler in a U.S. Congressional hearing.

“If states are required to educate illegal immigrant students, they must be allowed to identify the student population’s status to fully understand and address the adverse effects of Plyler v. Doe,” Drogin said.

A patchwork higher education landscape

The Plyler decision focused on K-12 schools, not colleges and universities. Undocumented students in some states already face college enrollment and tuition restrictions, particularly when it comes to state schools.

Twenty-five states, including Florida and Texas, require undocumented students to pay higher out-of-state tuition fees for state schools, even if they are Florida residents.

Alabama and South Carolina ban undocumented students from attending state colleges and universities. Undocumented students in Georgia cannot attend certain top public universities, including the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech.

These policies all make it harder for undocumented students to receive a college degree. But the stakes of state legislation that would create new hurdles for immigrant children to attend elementary and secondary school would arguably be much higher.

A fragile right

If undocumented students are not offered a free public education, then students who are applying for asylum, or students whose parents are undocumented, could find that this standard is no longer a guarantee for them as well.

This issue has not received a great deal of media attention, perhaps because states have not yet succeeded in passing any of this legislation.

As an education professor, I believe that any of these state measures, if turned into law, would have significant effects on immigrant families – and on American education more broadly.

It would mean that many young people, including the many who are rapidly losing their legal immigration status under the Trump administration, would no longer be able to receive an education in this country and try to reach their full potential. They also would have less opportunities to contribute to our society.

The universal right to public education in the U.S. has long been taken for granted – but this right, like others, might be more fragile than it seems.

William McCorkle 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. Immigrant kids can attend school regardless of citizenship – some states are challenging this standard – https://theconversation.com/immigrant-kids-can-attend-school-regardless-of-citizenship-some-states-are-challenging-this-standard-278766

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Beth Schinoff, Assistant Professor of Management, University of Delaware

Your back pain gets worse as you sit through a long meeting. Your wrist pain flares when you’re typing furiously to meet a tight deadline. During a busy shift at the grocery store, you feel a migraine coming on.

If that sounds familiar, you’ve got plenty of company. About 1 in 4 U.S. adults suffer from chronic pain. The share who say they are in chronic pain either on most days or every day in the past three months is growing: It jumped by nearly 4 percentage points to 23% of U.S. adults in 2023, up from 19% in 2019.

Chronic pain is not only hard on workers trying to do their jobs, but it also takes a toll on employers and the economy as a whole by costing an estimated US$722 billion in lost productivity each year.

As management scholars who study how people feel at work, we wanted to understand why chronic pain so often makes it impossible for employees to do their work – and even to keep their jobs.

Bad for your health

With this in mind, we teamed up with two other management researchers, Kimberly Rocheville of Creighton University and Njoke Thomas of Boston College, to conduct a study that Academy of Management Journal published online in January 2026 and will include in an upcoming print edition.

We interviewed 66 people between 2019 and 2021. All of them said that they were in chronic pain – meaning pain that lasts for at least three months. They were all U.S. workers and at least 18 years old. They lived all over the country, in relatively more urban than rural areas. Our sample was 78% women because women tend to experience more chronic pain than men and tend to be more open to talking about their pain.

This professionally diverse group included lawyers, grocery store workers, teachers, police officers and health care professionals. They experienced many different kinds of pain, such as back pain, migraines, arthritis and fibromyalgia.

We found that this wide array of workers and white-collar professionals pushed through their pain because they felt pressure to have what we call an “ideal worker body”: a body that is healthy and strong enough to do anything their job requires.

Regardless of what job they had, people described a surprisingly similar pressure to perform despite their pain. From warehouse workers to lawyers, people felt they had no choice but to walk without a limp, lift heavy things and sit still during meetings.

Many of these people felt compelled to be ideal workers who put work before everything else in their lives. Previous research has found that these expectations can harm their mental health. We found that it can harm your physical health too.

Trapped in a cycle of pain and shame

Because they were in chronic pain, all of the participants in our study said their body wasn’t healthy and strong enough to do everything their job required when it required them to do it.

Even though they were more than intellectually capable of doing their work, they felt ashamed that their bodies fell short. This led them to hide their pain. They took the stairs, instead of the elevator, to seem more like their co-workers who felt fine. They avoided managing their pain in ways their colleagues could see, such as by applying ice to areas of their body that were in pain.

Ironically, trying to make it seem like their bodies were ideal worsened pain for all 66 of the people we interviewed. Most of them eventually reached a point where their pain became so intolerable that they could not function at or outside of work.

Some of them ultimately had to leave their jobs and found other ones that were more compatible with their chronic pain symptoms. In a few cases, they exited the workforce entirely.

This is not unusual. Chronic pain is the leading reason for workers becoming eligible for long-term disability benefits.

Breaking free of the cycle of shame and pain

A few of the people we interviewed told us that they managed to escape the damaging cycle of shame and pain.

Why were they able to break free?

First, they found doctors who told them their pain was real. Getting a clear diagnosis and having a medical professional recognize their physical limitations helped them understand that they could never look healthy and strong as expected, no matter how hard they tried.

This released them from the pressure of trying to do so.

Second, most of these people had employers who cared more about what they did – the work itself – and less about how their body looked and moved, even if this meant finding a new job or even changing their profession. As a result, they felt free to ask colleagues for help, stretch during meetings, use dictation software instead of typing, or keep the camera off during Zoom calls so they could lie down when their backs were aching.

They also came up with creative ways of working that were more efficient and better for their bodies. For example, an ultrasound technician told us that she learned to scan patients using both her arms instead of constantly using the same arm. A deli worker said she started using a cart to move heavy meats around the store.

Although we focused on how pressure to be strong and healthy can hurt workers with chronic pain, we believe our findings could matter to everyone – no matter their size, strength, age or employment status.

After all, it’s possible to feel social pressure to conceal aches and pain when you’re in public settings of any kind. And failing to move around when needed or take care of your body in other ways can make you vulnerable to more pain.

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. For the nearly 1 in 4 US adults with chronic pain, employers’ expectations of a healthy body can lead to shame – https://theconversation.com/for-the-nearly-1-in-4-us-adults-with-chronic-pain-employers-expectations-of-a-healthy-body-can-lead-to-shame-278140

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Sundeep Venkatesan, Assistant Professor of Speech and Language Pathology, Binghamton University, State University of New York

Last Easter while my children were sorting through their baskets of chocolate eggs and jelly beans, my son looked up from the table and asked a simple question:

“Why don’t Grandma and Grandpa eat candy like we do?”

It was the kind of question children ask without really thinking. To him, it seemed obvious: Candy is delicious, so why wouldn’t everyone want it?

From a child’s perspective, it can look like older adults simply lose their taste for sweets. But as a speech-language pathologist who studies swallowing disorders, I know the explanation is often more complicated. In many cases, the issue has less to do with liking candy and more to do with something most people rarely have to think about: swallowing.

Swallowing is more complex than most people realize

You hardly notice the act of swallowing. It happens automatically every time we eat or drink. But swallowing is actually a remarkably complex process. More than 30 muscles and several nerves coordinate to move food from the mouth through the throat and into the esophagus while briefly protecting the airway.

One way to think about swallowing is like a carefully timed relay race. Each group of muscles passes food along to the next step at exactly the right moment, while the airway briefly closes to keep food from entering the lungs.

When everything works smoothly, it takes only a second or two.

As people age, some parts of this process can change. Chewing muscles may lose a bit of strength. Saliva production can decrease, which makes dry or sticky foods harder to manage. Taste can also shift over time, and the timing of swallowing movements may become slightly slower.

Dental changes or missing teeth can make certain foods harder to chew. These shifts don’t necessarily mean something is wrong, but they can make certain textures more difficult to manage.

Candy is a good example. Many Easter treats – caramels, gummies and sticky chocolate – require strong chewing and precise coordination to swallow comfortably.

For someone whose swallowing has become slightly less efficient, those foods can suddenly feel like more effort than they used to.

When swallowing changes become a disorder

Sometimes, swallowing changes go beyond normal aging. The medical term for difficulty swallowing is dysphagia, and it is a condition that can occur for many reasons. Researchers estimate that about 1 in 25 adults experience dysphagia, making it a relatively common but often overlooked health condition.

Stroke, Parkinson’s disease, dementia and other neurological conditions can affect the muscles and nerves that control swallowing. In health care settings, speech-language pathologists frequently see swallowing problems among older adults recovering from illness or managing chronic conditions.

When swallowing becomes difficult, eating can feel tiring or uncomfortable. Some people cough while eating. Others feel like food is getting stuck in their throat or notice that meals take longer than they used to.

To avoid discomfort, many people quietly begin adjusting what they eat. They may choose softer foods, take smaller bites or skip foods that feel harder to swallow.
Sometimes that includes sticky or chewy candies.

To others at the table, it may appear that Grandma or Grandpa no longer enjoys sweets. But these changes are often subtle adaptations that make eating safer and more manageable.

Food is about more than nutrition

Eating is not just about getting calories or nutrients. Food is tied to memory, tradition and connection.

Think about how many family traditions revolve around meals. Holiday dinners, birthday cakes and seasonal treats bring people together. Sharing food is one of the most universal ways in which families celebrate and connect across generations.

When swallowing becomes difficult, the effects go beyond the physical challenge of eating. People may start avoiding certain foods or feel self-conscious eating around others. Over time, they may even withdraw from shared meals.

That’s one reason many clinicians now emphasize quality of life alongside safety when treating swallowing disorders.

Speech-language pathologists are the health care professionals who evaluate and treat swallowing disorders. Through specialized assessments and therapy, they help people find strategies that make eating safer and more comfortable. Sometimes the changes needed are surprisingly small.

Helping older adults continue to enjoy food

Family members are often the first to notice when someone’s eating habits begin to change. Signs that may suggest swallowing difficulty include coughing or throat clearing during meals, needing extra time to chew food, or avoiding certain textures — especially dry or sticky foods.

If these patterns appear regularly, a medical evaluation can help identify whether swallowing changes are involved.

The goal is rarely to eliminate someone’s favorite foods entirely. Instead, clinicians often help people find ways to continue enjoying meals safely – whether that means modifying food textures, adjusting eating strategies or addressing the underlying condition affecting swallowing.

In many cases, these adjustments allow older adults to keep participating in the meals and traditions that matter most to them.

A different way to see that moment at the table

The next time candy appears at a holiday gathering, a grandparent’s decision to pass might raise a question from a curious child.

Sometimes the explanation really is simple preference. But other times, the answer lies in the quiet changes that can occur in chewing and swallowing as people age. Understanding those changes can help families respond with a little more awareness and patience.

After all, the joy of sharing food together doesn’t disappear with age. It just might require a little more understanding of how the body works.

Sundeep Venkatesan 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 many older adults skip hard candy – how aging can change chewing and swallowing – https://theconversation.com/why-many-older-adults-skip-hard-candy-how-aging-can-change-chewing-and-swallowing-278372

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Aaron Brynildson, Law Instructor, University of Mississippi

The global price of oil continues to skyrocket as Iran’s missiles and drones hit vital infrastructure in Arab Gulf states. Billion-dollar American radar systems have also been targeted and destroyed across the Middle East by Iran, seemingly degrading U.S. defenses.

U.S. military presence near Iran includes dozens of locations and tens of thousands of troops in harm’s way. This raises the question: If a missile is launched from Iran toward a U.S. military base in the region, how do service members know in time to stay safe?

The United States and its allies have built a layered system to watch the skies day and night. This system uses satellites in space, radar on the ground, ships at sea and aircraft in the air. It also depends on well-trained military members from U.S. Space Command who make quick decisions with the data. As a former U.S. Air Force officer and now aerospace and national security law professor at the University of Mississippi, I’ve studied the vast network of alliances and systems that make this happen.

Together, these tools form a missile defense network that can spot danger early and give warnings. The fastest way to spot a missile is from space. U.S. satellites, like the U.S. Space Force’s Space-Based Infrared System, circle high above Earth. These billion-dollar satellites, the crown jewels of missile defense, can spot the bright heat from a missile launch almost instantly.

When a missile is fired, it creates a strong enough heat signal to be seen in space. The satellites detect this heat using sensitive, infrared sensors and send an alert within seconds. This early warning is critical. It gives the military on the ground or at sea time to get defense systems ready.

The warning signal from space is then received on the ground by systems known as the U.S. Space Force’s Joint Tactical Ground Stations. The signal is sent from space using secure satellite communications, received by these ground stations, and then quickly distributed to other parts of the missile defense network.

Radar to detect and track missiles

But satellites cannot do everything to detect and track missiles. They need help from systems on Earth. After a missile is launched, ground-based radars take over from the initial satellite signal. Radars work by sending out radio waves. When those waves hit an object, like a missile, they bounce back. The radar then uses that information to track where the object is and where it is going throughout its flight.

The U.S. uses both short and long-range radars together. One powerful, long-range radar is the AN/FPS-132 Upgraded Early Warning Radar. It can see missiles from over 3,000 miles (4,828 km) away and track them as they travel. Another key system is the U.S. Army’s AN/TPY-2 Surveillance Transportable Radar. This radar has a range of almost 2,000 miles (3,219 km) and looks more closely at the missile to provide more information about the threat. TPY-2 systems typically sit right next to weapons systems that will destroy the missile to ensure the timely relay of tracking data.

In sum, satellites spot the launch and radars follow the missile through the sky until defense systems destroy it.

However, Iranian forces recently struck both a TPY-2 in Jordan and a FPS-132 in Qatar. These systems are expensive and difficult to quickly replace. This has required the U.S. to move an additional TPY-2 from Korea to place it in the Middle East.

U.S. missile defense tracking was certainly degraded by losing these resources, but other radars are still part of the network. For example, the U.S. Space Force operates another FPS-132 in the U.K., which could potentially provide radar support to the Middle East.

In addition to ground and space-based sensors, U.S. Navy ships carry powerful radar systems as part of their Aegis Combat System, known as the AN/SPY-1, which can provide up to 200 miles (322 km) of coverage. Ships can sail closer to areas where threats may come from and help fill gaps that land-based radars cannot cover.

U.S. Air Force aircraft also play a big role. Planes like the E-3 Sentry can watch large areas using radar from the sky. Drones such as the MQ-9 Reaper can stay in the air for long periods and track activity below with radar and sensors. These moving sensors help the system stay flexible. If one area needs more coverage or is degraded, ships and aircraft can move there to fill in.

Why drones are harder to catch

Drones require a different set of tracking tools and have proven more difficult to destroy than missiles from Iran. The legacy systems are simply better suited to missiles than new drone technology. To detect drones, the U.S. typically uses several tools: radar; radio signal tracking, which can pick up control signals; and cameras and other sensors, which can see drones directly.

Missiles are fast and hot, which makes them easier to detect with the current systems. Iranian drones, such as the Shahed system, are different. Their heat signature is often minimal due to using gas-powered engines not easily detected by infrared sensors. Without this heat signature, that initial warning cue is delayed, making it difficult for radar to know what to track.

Drones are usually smaller and fly low to the ground, making them hard to see on radar. They can be hidden by buildings or tough to distinguish from birds and other objects. Some are made of materials that do not show up well on radar, such as fiberglass and plastic. Others move slowly, which can make them harder to notice or stand out.

Many of Iran’s drones do not show up on radio signal detection systems because they cannot be remotely controlled. These drones are programmed with GPS coordinates and navigate themselves to a target.

Multiple methods

No single method works all the time to defend against drone attacks. Instead, these tools work together to find and track drones. The U.S. and its allies continue to improve their systems to catch both missiles and drones. For example, the U.S. is in discussions to buy acoustics sensors from Ukraine, which can hear drones coming when they cannot be seen using other methods.

New sensors, better software and faster communication will all help strengthen defenses. The goal is simple: Detect threats earlier, respond faster and hit the target faster.

Former U.S. Air Force officer from 2016-2025.

– ref. A web of sensors: How the US spots missiles and drones from Iran – https://theconversation.com/a-web-of-sensors-how-the-us-spots-missiles-and-drones-from-iran-278865

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Mary Foskett, Professor of Religious Studies, Wake Forest University

On Easter Sunday, festively decorated churches across the United States will be filled with worshippers eager to celebrate the most important day in the Christian year.

While some will attend services led by pastors who are women, the overwhelming majority of worshippers will not. Women constitute 23.7% of professional clergy in the U.S. and an increasing percentage of people earning graduate theology degrees. However, data from 2018-19 shows that only 14% of U.S. congregations, most of which are Christian, are led by women.

The number of women in Christian pulpits stands in jarring juxtaposition with the Easter narratives in the New Testament. The Gospel stories of the resurrection of Jesus point to how essential women’s witness and proclamation were in the earliest stages of Christianity.

First witness

Many denominations share a system assigning particular Bible verses to be read at each week’s services – a cycle that takes three years, called Years A, B and C, to complete. Because Easter 2026 falls in year A in the common lectionary, the Gospel reading that many congregations across the U.S. will hear read on Easter Sunday 2026 is Matthew 28:1-10, while others will hear John 20:1-18.

A beloved New Testament passage, John’s account of Jesus’ resurrection, is perhaps the most familiar. Following Jesus’ death on the cross – the day that Christians around the world mark as Good Friday – the text describes two men, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, retrieving his body. They prepare it for a traditional Jewish burial, then leave the shrouded corpse in a nearby tomb.

As Chapter 20 begins, one of Jesus’ most devoted followers, Mary Magdalene, approaches the tomb. Upon finding it empty, she tells two angels in white that “they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”

As the story unfolds, a weeping Mary is greeted by the risen Jesus, whom she at first mistakes for the gardener. When Jesus calls her by her name, Mary immediately recognizes him, calling him “Rabbouni,” or “teacher.” Jesus explains he will soon ascend to God, instructing her to go to the other disciples and share what he has revealed to her. As the story concludes, “Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her.”

It is for this reason that Mary Magdalene has long been known as the first witness to the resurrection of Jesus. In his 13th-century commentary on the Gospel of St. John, Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas called Mary “apostle of the apostles.”

Women watching

The Gospel of John’s description of Mary Magdalene’s actions aligns with the other canonical Gospels’ portrayal of women who followed Jesus. Despite small differences, all four describe women being the first to proclaim the resurrection.

The Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, all of which were likely written before John, are known as the “Synoptic Gospels” because they narrate the basic story of Jesus’ life in the same general sequence. All three depict a group of women witnessing the end of Jesus’ life. They are identified as disciples who followed Jesus in Galilee, which was at the time a largely Jewish region under Roman rule. Galilee was central to Jesus’ ministry: It included Nazareth, where he was raised, and Capernaum, on the Sea of Galilee, which seems to have served as the hub of Jesus’ ministry.

According to the Synoptic Gospels, the women watched from a distance as Jesus was crucified and “saw the tomb and how his body was laid.” The three books differ in which women they name at the scene, although all include Mary Magdalene.

Most importantly, all the Synoptic Gospels narrate the women’s encounter with angelic figures at the empty tomb, who, in Matthew and Mark, instruct them to tell the other disciples that Jesus has been raised from the dead. In Luke 24:9, the women immediately proclaim the news. In Matthew’s telling, the women are greeted by the risen Jesus himself.

The Gospel of Mark, the earliest of the four canonical Gospels, differs in the way it concludes the story. As scholars have long recognized, Mark 16:8 formed the original, very terse conclusion to Mark’s narrative. After the women are told that Jesus has been resurrected, Mark writes, “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

On a first reading, the stark ending seems anticlimactic. Indeed, later editors eventually added two more endings to Mark’s Gospel. The longest ending includes the risen Jesus appearing to Mary Magdalene, whose testimony is initially rebuffed, and then to others.

No matter which ending we read, though, the Gospel of Mark underscores that it was a woman’s voice that first proclaimed Jesus’ resurrection. Even the terse original ending suggests that the women eventually found their voices. By describing only the women as witnesses, Mark implies that they had to eventually share news about Jesus’ resurrection in order for the Gospel to be written.

Preaching today

Together, the canonical Gospels underscore the importance of women’s proclamation in the Easter story. Yet opposition to women regularly preaching persists in some Christian circles.

A majority of Protestant groups ordain women, including all seven “mainline” denominations – including the United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church USA, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Episcopal Church – as well as some Pentecostal and evangelical bodies, such as the Assemblies of God and Church of the Nazarene.

Yet multiple studies have pointed to the gap between supporting women clergy in principle and hiring them in practice, particularly as lead pastors. In 2017, about 27% of pastors in mainline Protestant churches were women, including, but not limited to, those in senior positions. Moreover, the two largest Christian bodies in the U.S., the Roman Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention, officially oppose women serving as pastors.

The SBC’s Baptist Faith and Message 2000 states that “the office of pastor/elder/overseer is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.” In February 2023, in a move that attracted national attention, the denomination expelled Saddleback Church one of the most prominent megachurches in the country, because it had hired Stacie Woods for a preaching position. In total, the SBC deemed five churches “to be not in friendly cooperation” because of women’s roles. Since then, the convention has been mired in disagreement over how to apply the ban on women as pastors.

The matter is an especially timely one to consider at Easter. Churches will continue to debate whether to ordain women, depending on how they interpret specific parts of the Bible. Yet according to the Gospels, the New Testament as we know it would simply not exist were it not for the proclamation of women.

Mary Foskett wrote a successful NEH grant and a Hanes Foundation grant for the WFU Humanities Institute. She serves on boards for the Foundation for Theological Education in Asia and the Pacific, Feminist Studies in Religion, and Pacific Asian and North American Asian Women in Theology and Ministry; she was once a member of a church that was affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.

– ref. In the Easter story, women are the first to proclaim the resurrection – but churches today are still divided over female preachers – https://theconversation.com/in-the-easter-story-women-are-the-first-to-proclaim-the-resurrection-but-churches-today-are-still-divided-over-female-preachers-253005

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

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

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

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

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

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

Four very different realities

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What communities are doing today

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

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

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

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

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

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

– ref. Power outages in heat waves and storms can threaten the lives of medical device users – we looked at who is most at risk – https://theconversation.com/power-outages-in-heat-waves-and-storms-can-threaten-the-lives-of-medical-device-users-we-looked-at-who-is-most-at-risk-276501

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Monica Duffy Toft, Professor of International Politics and Director of the Center for Strategic Studies, The Fletcher School, Tufts University

Wars are rarely lost first on the battlefield. They are lost in leaders’ minds − when leaders misread what they and their adversaries can do, when their confidence substitutes for comprehension, and when the last war is mistaken for the next one.

The Trump administration’s miscalculation of Iran is not an anomaly. It is the latest entry in one of the oldest and most lethal traditions in international politics: the catastrophic gap between what leaders believe going in and what war actually delivers.

I’m a scholar of international security, civil wars and U.S. foreign policy, and author of the book “Dying by the Sword,” which examines why the United States repeatedly reaches for military solutions and why such interventions rarely produce durable peace. The deeper problem with the U.S. war in Iran, as I see it, was overconfidence bred by recent success.

Dismissed concerns

Before the conflict involving Iran, Israel and the U.S. escalated, Energy Secretary Chris Wright dismissed concerns about oil market disruption, noting that prices had barely moved during the 12-day war in June 2025 between Israel and Iran. Other senior officials agreed.

What followed was significant: Iranian-aimed missile and drone barrages against U.S. bases, Arab capitals and Israeli population centers. Then Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil supply passes daily − not with a naval blockade, not with mines or massed anti-ship missiles, but with cheap drones.

A few strikes in the vicinity of the strait were enough. Insurers and shipping companies decided the transit was unsafe. Tanker traffic dropped to zero, although the occasional ship has made it through recently. Analysts are calling it the biggest energy crisis since the 1970s oil embargo.

Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has since vowed to keep the strait closed. U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, reported after a closed-door briefing that the administration had no plan for the strait and did not know how to get it safely back open.

With no embassy in Tehran since 1979, the U.S. relies heavily for intelligence on CIA networks of questionable quality and Israeli assets who have their own country’s interests in mind. So the U.S. did not anticipate that Iran had rebuilt and dispersed significant military capacity since June 2025, nor that it would strike neighbors across the region, including Azerbaijan, widening the conflict well beyond the Persian Gulf.

The war has since reached the Indian Ocean, where a U.S. submarine sank an Iranian frigate 2,000 miles from the theater of war, off the coast of Sri Lanka – just days after the ship had participated in Indian navy exercises alongside 74 nations, including the U.S.

The diplomatic damage to Washington’s relationships with India and Sri Lanka, two countries whose cooperation is increasingly important as the United States seeks partners to manage and mitigate Iran’s blockade, was entirely foreseeable. Washington has put them in a difficult position, with India choosing diplomacy with Iran to secure passage for its vessels and Sri Lanka opting to retain its neutrality, underscoring its vulnerable position.

But U.S. planners didn’t foresee any of this.

The wrong lesson from Venezuela

The swift military intervention by the U.S. in Venezuela in January 2026 produced rapid results with minimal blowback − appearing to validate the administration’s faith in coercive action.

But clean victories are dangerous teachers.

They inflate what I call in my teaching the “hubris/humility index” − the more a leadership overestimates its own abilities, underestimates the adversary’s and dismisses uncertainty, the higher the score and the more likely disaster will ensue. Clean victories inflate the index precisely when skepticism is most needed, because they suggest the next adversary will be as manageable as the last.

Political scientist Robert Jervis demonstrated decades ago that misperceptions in international relations are not random but follow patterns. Leaders tend to project their own cost-benefit logic onto opponents who do not share it. They also fall into “availability bias,” allowing the most recent operation to stand in for the next.

The higher the hubris/humility index, the less likely there is to be the kind of strategic empathy that might ask: How does Tehran see this? What does a regime that believes its survival is at stake actually do? History shows that such a regime escalates, improvises and takes risks that appear irrational from an outside perspective but are entirely rational from within.

Recent cases reveal this unmistakable pattern.

The United States in Vietnam, 1965–1968

American war planners believed material superiority would force the communists in Hanoi to surrender.

It didn’t.

American firepower alone didn’t lead to military defeat, much less political control. The Tet Offensive in 1968 – when North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces launched coordinated attacks across South Vietnam – shattered the official U.S. narrative that the war was nearly won and that there was “light at the end of the tunnel.”

Athough the U.S. and South Vietnamese forces ultimately repelled the attacks, their scale and surprise caused the public not to trust official statements, accelerating the erosion of public trust and decisively turning American opinion against the war.

The U.S. loss in Vietnam didn’t occur on a single battlefield, but through strategic and political unraveling. Despite overwhelming superiority, Washington was incapable of building a stable, legitimate South Vietnamese government or recognizing the grit and resilience of the North Vietnamese forces. Eventually, with mounting casualties and large-scale protests at home, U.S. forces withdrew, ceding control of Saigon to North Vietnamese forces in 1975.

The U.S. failure was conceptual and cultural, not informational. American analysts simply couldn’t picture the war from their opponent’s perspective.

Afghanistan: Deadly assumptions

The Soviet Union in Afghanistan in 1979 and the United States in Afghanistan after 2001 conducted two different wars but held the same deadly assumption: that external military force can quickly impose political order in a fractured society strongly resistant to foreign control.

In both cases, great powers believed their abilities would outweigh local complexities. In both cases, the war evolved faster − and lasted far longer − than their strategies could adapt.

Russia, Ukraine and the Strait of Hormuz

This is the case that should most haunt Washington.

Ukraine demonstrated that a materially weaker defender can impose huge costs on a stronger attacker through battlefield innovation: cheap drones, decentralized adaptation, real-time intelligence, and the creative use of terrain and chokepoints to find asymmetrical advantages. The U.S. watched it all unfold in real time for four years and helped pay for it.

Iran was also watching − and the Strait of Hormuz is the proof.

Iran didn’t need a navy to close the world’s most important energy chokepoint. It needed drones, the same cheap, asymmetric technology Ukraine has used to blunt Russia’s onslaught, deployed not on a land front but against the insurance calculus of the global shipping industry.

Washington, which had underwritten much of that playbook in Ukraine, apparently never asked the obvious question: What happens when the other side has been taking notes? That is not a failure of U.S. intelligence. It is a failure of strategic imagination − exactly what the hubris/humility index is designed to highlight.

Iran does not need to defeat the U.S. conventionally. It needs only to raise costs, exploit chokepoints and wait for a fracture among U.S. allies and domestic political opposition to force a fake U.S. declaration of victory or a genuine U.S. withdrawal.

Notably, Iran has kept the strait selectively open to Turkish, Indian and Saudi vessels, rewarding neutral countries and punishing U.S. allies, driving wedges through the coalition.

Historian Geoffrey Blainey famously argued that wars start when both sides hold incompatible beliefs about power and only end when reality forces those beliefs to align.

That alignment is now happening, at great cost, in the Persian Gulf and beyond. The Trump administration scored high on the hubris index at exactly the moment when it most needed humility.

Monica Duffy Toft 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. Overconfidence is how wars are lost − lessons from Vietnam, Afghanistan and Ukraine for the war in Iran were ignored – https://theconversation.com/overconfidence-is-how-wars-are-lost-lessons-from-vietnam-afghanistan-and-ukraine-for-the-war-in-iran-were-ignored-278604

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Karen Schlatter, Director, Colorado Water Center, Colorado State University

The seven U.S. states that make up the Colorado River basin are struggling to agree on how best to manage the river’s water as its supply dwindles due to climate change and a period of prolonged drought. Their negotiations, which are not open to the public, missed a Feb. 14, 2026, deadline the federal government had established, after which federal officials said they would impose their own plan.

The federal government has not yet done so, but the prospect of such an action is not good news for the nearly 40 million people who depend on the Colorado River for water, energy, agriculture and recreation, nor for the estimated US$1.4 trillion in economic activity the river supports.

We have led or participated in complex water management discussions from the river’s headwaters in Colorado to its delta in Mexico and elsewhere in the arid Southwest and around the world. Even on less contentious issues, the keys to success involve learning together, understanding one another’s interests, working through conflict and developing inclusive solutions for diverse participants. And that works best with an outside facilitator.

The five most common sources of conflict between people are values, data, relationships, interests and structure. The current Colorado River negotiations include all five. We believe a process designed and facilitated by negotiation experts could help break the logjam.

We recognize it can be very hard to reach an agreement when what’s at stake are countless lives, massive amounts of money, enormous quantities of hydroelectric power and not nearly enough water.

But compromise on Colorado River management is possible and, in fact, was achieved to curb California’s water use in the 2000s, to negotiate an interim agreement to coordinate operations at the Lake Mead and Lake Powell reservoirs in 2007, and to enact contingency plans to manage drought in 2019. But this time around, circumstances are different.

Previous negotiations

The negotiations leading up to those agreements were often facilitated by officials from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation who focused on reaching broad agreements on general principles and concepts before delving into details. Federal staff also actively guided key agreements and provided the science and computer models to make well-informed decisions. And the states’ negotiators knew the Department of Interior would act unilaterally to make damaging cuts to water supply if states couldn’t come to their own agreement.

The negotiators for the states had long-standing relationships and built trust by frequently communicating outside formal meetings and seeking to listen to and understand other states’ perspectives, even if they didn’t agree.

The states also agreed to use the bureau’s computer model for analyzing scenarios of climate change and management decisions. That meant all the negotiators were looking at the same data when delving into possible options. And the political and social environment was less polarized than today.

The current situation

In this round of negotiations, federal leadership has been lagging. The Department of the Interior has not made clear what the consequences might be for the states if they fail to agree. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has been without a permanent commissioner since President Donald Trump retook office in January 2025.

And federal staff have only recently begun helping to facilitate the discussions.

The states are fractured into subgroups, according to whether they are in the river’s Upper Basin – Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico – or the Lower Basin, which includes Arizona, Nevada and California. Each basin group holds strong positions and has generally been unwilling to shift.

Each basin group is using a different set of assumptions for the bureau’s computer model to explore options. And the discussion often gets stuck on details, which prevents progress toward broader agreements.

In addition, the political context has shifted significantly, with increased polarization and politicization of the issues, creating barriers to effective dialogue and deliberation. Today, compromise can seem unattainable.

But those relatively new challenges to Colorado River compromise are not an excuse for failure.

A way forward?

The current negotiations have all been done behind closed doors. From talking with people involved in the negotiations, we understand the negotiators have been left to set their own agendas and meeting plans and conduct their own communications and follow-up, with no formal facilitators.

It’s reasonable to expect the negotiators to be ready to represent their states’ interests, working through an incredibly complicated landscape of hydrology, climate and management scenario modeling, water law and administration, and politics. But we believe it’s unreasonable – and unrealistic and unfair – to expect them to also be experts at designing and facilitating an effective process for sorting out their differences.

Federal officials are not necessarily the best people to run the process either. And if the agency that ultimately needs to approve any deal is the one leading the process, real or perceived biases about the states or key issues in the agreement could further complicate the discussions.

We believe that agreement between the seven states is still possible. It may be less effective to bring in a third-party facilitator at this stage in the negotiation process, though, because of the degraded trust, hardened positions and shortage of time.

One possible outcome is that the Bureau of Reclamation will select and enforce one of the five management alternatives it outlined in January 2026. But that could lead to decades of litigation going up to the Supreme Court. No one wins in this scenario.

A more hopeful possibility is that the bureau adopts short-term rules that would give the states another chance to negotiate a longer-term deal – ideally with an unbiased third-party facilitator for support.

A collaborative and consensus-based planning process in the Yakima River Basin in Washington state in the early 2010s is evidence that while nobody gets everything they want in a negotiated agreement, “if they can (all) get something, that’s really the basis of the plan,” as a Washington state official told The New York Times.

Sharon B. Megdal is principal investigator on multiple grants and contracts, none of which funded or influenced the content of this essay. Megdal served as an elected member of the Central Arizona Project Board of Directors from 2009 through 2020.

Karen Schlatter 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 Colorado River negotiations stalled, and how they could resume with the possibility of agreement – https://theconversation.com/why-colorado-river-negotiations-stalled-and-how-they-could-resume-with-the-possibility-of-agreement-278029

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Katrine L. Wallace, Epidemiologist, University of Illinois Chicago

Public health advocates have largely applauded a Massachusetts judge’s ruling on March 16, 2026, to temporarily block major changes to vaccine policy made by the Department of Health and Human Services since 2025.

The ruling pauses two major actions ushered in by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. since he stepped into the role. First, it blocks Kennedy’s restructuring of a key vaccine panel called the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices in June 2025. Second, it suspends HHS’s overhaul of the childhood vaccine schedule in January 2026, which cut the number of routine vaccinations children are recommended to receive from 17 to 11.

As an epidemiologist who studies vaccine hesitancy and a public-facing science communicator, I view these HHS actions as extremely damaging to public health, and I am relieved they have been paused, at least while legal proceedings are ongoing.

However, I also worry that this back-and-forth is detrimental to trust in science, especially for families who are already uneasy about vaccinating their kids or feel hesitant to do so.

What exactly happened?

The March 16 decision follows a lawsuit originally brought in July 2025 by six medical organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics. The medical organizations argued that HHS’s changes were implemented without following established legal and scientific processes.

The ruling seems to align with that view, concluding that the government’s overhaul of the vaccine committee likely “fails to comport with governing law” and that its changes to the vaccine schedule were “arbitrary and capricious.”

The judge’s action suggests that the court believes the plaintiffs are likely to succeed in showing that the HHS changes violated federal law.

The ruling returns recommendations on the childhood vaccine schedule – made by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one of HHS’s primary divisions – to their pre–June 2025 status while the case proceeds. It also blocks HHS’s replacement of members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which reviews evidence and develops recommendations that guide vaccine-related decisions by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The ruling effectively pauses the vaccine committee’s work. The members appointed by Kennedy cannot serve at the moment, and the previous members do not automatically return, leaving the committee inactive for now.

Officials from HHS have indicated that they are likely to appeal the ruling.

Does the ruling change people’s ability to access vaccines?

Not at the moment, because right now nothing has changed about what vaccines children should receive. Pediatricians should be following the long-standing vaccine schedule as it existed before the HHS’s change in June 2025. Most physicians already are, having followed the American Academy of Pediatrics’ decision not to back HHS’s revised schedule.

Additionally, private insurers as well as federal health programs such as Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program and Vaccines for Children had already agreed to continue covering all the vaccines through 2026, even before the judge intervened.

From a health economics perspective, data shows that the downstream costs of treating vaccine-preventable illnesses are much higher than the cost of reimbursing vaccines, so insurance companies may be motivated to continue covering them.

Moving forward, however, the ongoing court case could affect vaccine availability because many insurance companies and public programs rely on recommendations from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to determine which vaccines are covered or provided at no cost.

If your children are behind on any vaccines, it would be a good idea to get them now, given the uncertainty.

What effect might the ruling have longer term?

It’s important to remember that even though policy shifts in vaccine recommendations can be confusing, the data on the safety and efficacy of childhood vaccines has not changed. There were no safety alerts or new clinical trials that precipitated HHS’s change to the vaccine schedule.

Even with the prior recommendations back in place, however, all the back-and-forth in the headlines may create confusion for parents. Mistrust of vaccines and public health is at an all-time high, fueled by disinformation, poor communication on the part of public health agencies, and other factors that arose mostly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Parents have long considered health agencies such as the CDC to be trustworthy but increasingly look upon them with skepticism. A survey in January 2026 showed public trust in federal health agencies has declined following HHS’s changes to the childhood vaccine schedule.

Immunization rates, meanwhile, are on the decline, particularly for measles. An analysis released by Reuters on March 18, 2026, of vaccination data from Michigan suggests the number of toddlers receiving routine vaccines fell sharply from January 2025 to January 2026, and that Kennedy’s attack on vaccines influenced parents’ decisions to forgo them.

Rebuilding trust in vaccines and public health will take time and will require consistent, transparent communication and strong engagement between clinicians and families. The court ruling potentially represents an initial step in that process.

For parents with questions about vaccines, the best source of information remains their child’s pediatrician. Parents can also look to evidence-based vaccine schedules maintained by health groups such as the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Katrine L. Wallace 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. Federal judge temporarily blocks RFK Jr.’s vaccine agenda – an epidemiologist answers questions parents may have – https://theconversation.com/federal-judge-temporarily-blocks-rfk-jr-s-vaccine-agenda-an-epidemiologist-answers-questions-parents-may-have-278709

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Mary Magnuson, Associate Science Editor, The Conversation

“Project Hail Mary,” the movie adaptation to Andy Weir’s 2021 novel about a science teacher attempting to save the Earth from sun-eating microbes, was released in March 2026 to stellar ratings from critics and audiences alike. The movie explores a few unique forms that extraterrestrial life could take, from space microorganisms that produce both infrared light and an unfathomable amount of energy, to rocklike aliens that live under crushing pressure and breathe ammonia.

Over the past decade, scientists have come up with a variety of frameworks to guide their search for life in the universe. While it’s most convenient to start looking for life using the knowledge that biologists have about life on Earth, scientists have also begun integrating broader conceptions of life, including life that perhaps evolved in different chemical environments.

To expand on the idea that life out in space might look nothing like life on Earth, here are five articles The Conversation U.S. rounded up from our archives, and written by astronomers and astrobiologists.

1. Why base the search on life on Earth?

Astronomers participating in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence typically start by identifying potentially habitable planets. And to do that, they look for what sustains life on Earth: water.

Planets that are close enough to their Sun that liquid water wouldn’t freeze, but far enough away that it wouldn’t evaporate, fall into what’s called the Goldilocks Zone. But why base the search on water, which complex life on Earth uses to survive, if an extraterrestrial life-form might use different chemistry?

Cole Mathis, a physicist and astrobiologist at Arizona State University who studies complex adaptive systems, explained that out of convenience, astronomers start by looking for signals similar to those produced by life on Earth.

Detecting chemical signatures using the instruments on telescopes is tricky – it’s like playing hide-and-seek, but you’re outside the house and can only peer in through the window. You might as well start by ruling out the easy and more obvious hiding spots.

Missions to Mars have looked for signs of photosynthesis – the process by which plants take in energy – and telescopes peering deep into space look for oxygen, which organisms on Earth release into the atmosphere.

“Most astronomers and astrobiologists know that if we only look for life that’s like Earth life, we might miss the signs of aliens that are really different,” Mathis wrote. “But honestly, we’ve never detected aliens before, so it’s hard to know where to start. When you don’t know what to do, starting somewhere is usually better than nowhere.”

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Read more:
Why do astronomers look for signs of life on other planets based on what life is like on Earth?

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2. Finding patterns of purpose

Sometimes, scientists find chemical ingredients that make up life on Earth out in space, but they can’t assume that these ingredients on their own indicate life. Geological and environmental processes on planets may produce these chemical signatures without any living organisms involved.

The key difference, to Amirali Aghazadeh, a computational scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, is purpose. Life grows, adapts and changes over time to better fit its environment.

His research team came up with a framework that, instead of looking for a specific type of life-form, looks at patterns in collections of chemicals and evaluates whether they could have been produced by processes like metabolism and evolution.

“If we assume that alien life uses the same chemistry, we risk missing biology that is similar – but not identical – to our own, or misidentifying nonliving chemistry as a sign of life,” wrote Aghazadeh.

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Read more:
Can scientists detect life without knowing what it looks like? Research using machine learning offers a new way

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3. Lessons from complex, evolving systems

Like Aghazadeh, many astrobiologists are starting to look more broadly at how complexity emerges, rather than searching for a specific type of molecule that could indicate the presence of extraterrestrial life. Other forms of life may be made up of entirely different chemical ingredients to humans, but to be considered life, they would still have to adapt and evolve over time.

Chris Impey, an astronomer from the University of Arizona, attended a workshop where scientists across disciplines came together to try to understand how and why systems in the universe – from organisms to languages and information – change or grow more complex over time.

Figuring out these underlying drivers of complexity, or finding signals that indicate the presence of a complex system, could help scientists search for unique forms of life in the universe.

“As astrobiologists try to detect life off Earth, they’ll need to be creative,” Impey wrote. “One strategy is to measure mineral signatures on the rocky surfaces of exoplanets, since mineral diversity tracks terrestrial biological evolution. As life evolved on Earth, it used and created minerals for exoskeletons and habitats.”

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Read more:
Extraterrestrial life may look nothing like life on Earth − so astrobiologists are coming up with a framework to study how complex systems evolve

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4. Beyond biology: Looking for ‘technosignatures’

Another option for searching for life has nothing to do with biology. Some scientists, wrote astronomers Macy Huston and Jason Wright from Penn State University, look for “technosignatures:” signals that would come from technology originating beyond Earth.

Human technology – from TV towers to satellite and spacecraft communications – emits enough radio waves to create faint but detectable signals traveling through space. Scientists use this idea to search for artificial signals that could potentially come from an extraterrestrial civilization.

Other technosignatures could include chemical pollution, artificial heat or light from industry, or signals from a large number of satellites.

“While many astronomers have thought a lot about what might make for a good signal, ultimately, nobody knows what extraterrestrial technology might look like and what signals are out there in the universe,” wrote Huston and Wright.

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Read more:
Signatures of alien technology could be how humanity first finds extraterrestrial life

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5. Evaluating extraordinary claims

Detecting extraterrestrial life in any form would be a momentous occasion, so, as Impey wrote, making a declaration might not be cut-and-dried. In “Project Hail Mary,” the fictional scientists sample and study the “space dots” they find extensively before drawing a conclusion.

Scientists must first rule out any possible non-biological explanations for a discovery, meaning the discovery would have to be unexplained by any chemical or geological processes. If scientists ever found a potential life-form very different from all life on Earth, it might take extensive research before they could rule out all other possibilities and determine that it’s a living organism. But setting this bar so high protects scientists from making a claim they would later need to walk back.

“A detection of life would be a remarkable development,” Impey wrote. “On scales large and small, astronomers try to set a high bar of evidence before claiming a discovery.”

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Read more:
‘Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence’ − an astronomer explains how much evidence scientists need to claim discoveries like extraterrestrial life

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This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.

– ref. ‘Project Hail Mary’ explores unique forms of life in space – 5 essential reads on searching for aliens that look nothing like life on Earth – https://theconversation.com/project-hail-mary-explores-unique-forms-of-life-in-space-5-essential-reads-on-searching-for-aliens-that-look-nothing-like-life-on-earth-278757