Category: The Conversation – USA

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

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

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

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

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

The ‘success frame’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dangers of desire

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Deeper questions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Corralling the watchdogs

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

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

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

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

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

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

Secretary on defense

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Be a Marine’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Challenges of plastic packaging

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

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

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

Building a better barrier

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Scaling up production

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where could Iran’s uranium be?

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

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

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

What could the uranium be used for?

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

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

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

Could it be removed peacefully?

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

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

Could it be captured?

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

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

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

If nuclear materials were captured, what then?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another ending

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Jon Bergdoll, Associate Director of Data Partnerships at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, Indiana University

Many provisions in the huge tax-and-spending package that President Donald Trump signed into law on July 4, 2025, sometimes called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, will influence how much money Americans give to charity.

We conduct in-depth research on philanthropy. Together, we have analyzed the tax policy changes.

After crunching the numbers, we predict that the number of U.S. donors will rise, but that individuals, families and corporations will give less overall. We estimate that giving will be around US$5.7 billion less due to these tax policy changes, which went into effect on Jan. 1, 2026. That’s roughly 1% of the nearly $600 billion Americans gave in 2024.

Everyone gets a charitable deduction

As the reforms take effect, the provision likeliest to affect the most Americans should increase giving.

All taxpayers will finally get something that many nonprofit leaders had long sought: a universal charitable deduction.

The new rule will allow people who file on their own to shave up to $1,000 off their taxable income, or $2,000 for married couples who file jointly. Those amounts will not be adjusted for future inflation and will remain the same unless Congress changes them. They won’t affect anyone’s 2025 tax bill, but they will play a role in 2026 and beyond, especially when Americans file their 2026 tax returns in 2027.

The way this works is fairly simple. If a single person gives up to $1,000 or a married couple who file their taxes jointly give $2,000 to charity in a calendar year, they can deduct that much from their taxable income if they do not itemize their taxes.

This new deduction will allow every American individual and family to deduct charitable gifts, at least up to these limits. In practice, if your marginal tax rate is 22%, taking the charitable deduction could cut your tax bill by $220 if you file on your own and $440 if you’re married and file with your spouse, and this opportunity is available for the 90% of households who claim the standard deduction when they file their taxes.

The standard deduction is a fixed amount that all taxpayers may deduct from their taxable income.

Unlike the $300 charitable deduction that all American taxpayers could claim in 2020 and 2021 as part of economic relief measures during the COVID-19 pandemic, the measure is permanent this time around.

While charitable giving did increase in those years, it’s unclear whether this policy contributed to the higher levels of donations. Most likely, that temporary universal charitable deduction was set too low to make a significant difference. What’s more, people tend to respond more strongly to permanent policy changes than temporary ones.

The standard deduction no longer restricts access

Previously, only people who itemized their tax returns – around 10% of filers in recent years – could deduct the value of their charitable gifts from their taxable income.

Using data from 2022, we have estimated around 85% of non-itemized giving was coming from Americans who made donations totaling above the $1,000 and $2,000 amounts Congress set for the universal charitable deduction.

These taxpayers will now get tax breaks for some of that amount when they give to charity. There remains no incentive to give more than they already did in the past.

Encouraging more people to give to charity

While there are many factors that can affect giving patterns, evidence suggests that getting a new tax break makes any given person or family more likely to donate to charity.

Due to the introduction of a permanent universal charitable deduction, we project that 8.7 million more tax filers will donate. Adding this number of people to the most recently available data would bring the share of Americans who give charitably to 52%.

Our colleagues have identified a long-running decline in the number of U.S. individuals and families who give anything to charity each year. In 2020, the most recent year for which data is available, 46% of households made charitable gifts, down from 64% in 2008.

Changes for those who itemize

Two new tax rules, however, could discourage giving by higher-income donors. Those who itemize their taxes can’t deduct any giving below 0.5% of their income. Only their donations that exceed this floor can be deducted.

We found that only a small portion of itemized giving – less than 2% in the data we used – was done by households giving less than 0.5% of their income. We project individual giving will be $2.4 billion lower within this group of donors in 2026 and moving forward – at least relative to what individual giving would have been absent this tax-changing provision.

Another tax change could depress giving by larger amounts. It’s a reduction in the cap on all tax deductions – including the charitable deduction – from 37% to 35%.

While this might sound like a relatively minor difference, we and other scholars have found that high-income Americans tend to be highly responsive to tax policy changes. Perhaps that’s because they hire tax advisers, whose job it is to pay attention to changes like these.

According to 2022 IRS data, the most recent available, around half of all individual giving by people who itemize their tax returns – more than $100 billion – came from households likely to be affected by this 35% ceiling on deductions.

We project that this cap will decrease individual giving by $6.1 billion.

Corporate giving

Corporations gave an estimated $44 billion to charity in 2024, around 7% of all charitable gifts.

They might give less beginning in 2026, due to weaker incentives. The tax reform package includes a measure that makes it impossible for corporations to deduct any charitable gifts from their taxes unless those donations add up to at least 1% of their pretax profits.

Corporate giving has until now hovered around 1% of pretax profits. That pattern might suggest that this provision is likely to significantly discourage corporate giving because many companies will have to choose between getting no tax break at all or giving more to be eligible for one.

However, we’ve found that corporate giving is very top-heavy – as is the case with individual giving. While most corporations don’t give more than 1%, most of the money corporations give to charity actually comes from those that donate at least 1% of their profits.

Donors, including corporations, have a way to avoid missing out on the charitable deduction for those who itemize their tax on their returns. It’s possible to give more money to charity in one year to optimize the tax effects of their donations over time.

One way to go about this is to make gifts to a donor-advised fund, a financial account that people and companies can use to reserve charitable dollars. If a company deposits donations that are large enough to qualify for the corporate charitable tax deduction for one year into a donor-advised fund, it can get a tax break for that year and distribute gifts over two or more years as its executives see fit.

Taking all of the above into account, we project corporate giving to decline by only $1.55 billion, starting in 2026.

A mixed picture

In short, we project that these new tax policy changes will reduce total giving overall by $5.7 billion annually. The greatest downward pressure will be on individual donors who make large charitable gifts and bump up against the 35% cap on what they can deduct from their taxable income when they itemize.

But there is also a new disincentive for some of the middle-class donors who itemize their tax returns due to the new floor for itemizers being able to deduct charitable gifts. And the similar floor for corporate donations could discourage some companies from making gifts they would have made under the old rules.

At the same time, we expect to see the introduction of a permanent universal charitable deduction increase the total number of donors and the gifts that donors with more modest incomes make. Many nonprofit leaders had asked for this change for many years because they believed this change might increase giving overall.

To be clear, these estimated changes are relative to what would have happened had the government not enacted these new tax policies. Giving could still rise, just by less than it otherwise would have.

In addition, other factors affect giving besides taxation, including changes to income, wealth, stock market performance, economic growth and corporate profits.

Jon Bergdoll received funding from Independent Sector, a nonprofit membership group, for an earlier iteration of this research. This research was funded in partnership with CCS Fundraising.

Patrick Rooney does consulting for Rooney & Associates. He has received funding from Independent Sector, which earlier funded the portion of this work on the tax cap at 35%. This current work was funded by CCS, a fundraising consulting firm.

– ref. Tax changes taking effect in 2026 may boost the number of donors but lead to the US missing out on an estimated $5.7B a year in charitable giving – https://theconversation.com/tax-changes-taking-effect-in-2026-may-boost-the-number-of-donors-but-lead-to-the-us-missing-out-on-an-estimated-5-7b-a-year-in-charitable-giving-278137

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Gayle Rogers, Professor of English, University of Pittsburgh

It’s a familiar feeling: You start a text message, and your phone’s auto-complete function suggests several choices for the next word, ranging from banal to hilarious. “I love…” you, or coffee? Or you’re finishing an email, and merely typing the word “Let” prompts your app to suggest “Let me know if you have any questions” in light gray text.

Predictive language technologies have become so routine – baked into smartphones, email services and chatbots – that we barely notice them anymore. But they raise a difficult question: What happens to a writer’s unique voice when AI routinely completes their thoughts – or generates them altogether from scratch?

As the chair of a large English department – and as a scholar who researches the effects of predictive writing – I’ve witnessed firsthand the challenges that generative AI systems such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude pose for individual expression.

This technology has been incorporated into the writing process so fully that it’s almost impossible to imagine encountering a scene from the not-so-distant past: a writer, alone, with a pen and a piece of paper, wrestling with how to best translate their ideas, arguments and stories into something legible and interesting.

Predictive text leads to predictive writing

As many scholars have noted, though, this vision of writing was never fully accurate.

Essays have always incorporated guidance from teachers, professors or writing tutors. A friend might give feedback, or your favorite novelist’s turn of phrase might offer inspiration. The language we use is never fully “ours,” but draws on millions of sources absorbed over the course of our lives.

Just as it’s a myth to imagine that writers compose in a vacuum, there has never been a clear line between genuine human expression versus machine-generated text. As scholars have pointed out, we have been using machines to communicate for a long time. Every technological development – from the quill pen and the typewriter to the word processor – has brought with it changes in how humans express themselves.

However, the ubiquity of predictive language technologies directly threatens human creativity – or, as one study put it, “Predictive Text Encourages Predictive Writing.”

Because generative AI composes and suggests text in highly standardized, predictable patterns, its outputs can read as if they’re dressed-up versions of what linguists call “phatic expression.” These are the overly common phrases that function as social glue more than as conveyors of sentiment: “How are you?”, “Have a good day” or “See you soon.”

But this glue can lose its hold if the technology is used in the wrong situations. Using artificial intelligence to compose a social media post in the wake of a tragedy, or using it to write a fan letter to an Olympic athlete, comes off as insincere.

People are starting to catch on to generative AI’s prose, not because it’s clunky or poorly written, but because it all sounds the same. That’s because large language models are trained on gigantic masses of examples of human writing, and they predict text based on probabilities and commonalities.

Those predictive outputs often end up producing a singular, recognizable voice. Or, as Sam Kriss explained in a recent essay for The New York Times Magazine, “Once, there were many writers, and many different styles. Now, increasingly, one uncredited author turns out essentially everything.”

Slouching toward a cultural mean

Generative AI is accelerating the types of cultural convergence and uniform expression that were already happening.

For example, linguists have shown that regional accents in the U.S. are fading and becoming homogenized due to a mix of migration, urbanization, mass media and social media. Meanwhile, American English continues supplanting many other forms internationally due to the global predominance of U.S.-based media, TV, film and more.

Are we all destined to write and speak alike? Generative AI doesn’t know in advance whether you call soft drinks “soda,” “pop” or “coke.” If you let it choose, it will simply select “soda” for you, since that’s the most common term in its training data.

By contrast, what people typically value in a personal essay, novel, poem or message to a grieving friend is the ability of the human author to demonstrate – clearly and distinctly – something powerful and singular.

Making chatbots less appealing

So how can teachers compel students to craft their own voices? How is that task different today than it was even a decade ago?

It helps to think here about where generative AI struggles, and why.

Chatbots are great at creating relatively bland, highly readable prose, since that’s what is omnipresent in their training data. But they struggle to create the kinds of radically unexpected shifts that appear in novels like James Joyce’s “Ulysses” or songs like Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

Several techniques exist to encourage these types of stylistic leaps among student writers.

Teachers can bake unpredictability into the assignment. Creative writing instructors have used techniques for decades to encourage out-of-the-box thinking. They might ask students to draft a poem and then rewrite it while avoiding the letter “E,” or limit themselves to two adjectives at most.

Another tactic involves having students draw from distinctly personal experiences. Teaching students how to explore connections between characters and conflicts in a novel to people and situations in their own lives makes resorting to chatbots less appealing, if not altogether useless. By contrast, impersonal assignments – “Discuss the symbolism of the color green in ‘The Great Gatsby’” – will likely produce generic, predictable results.

Teachers can also ensure the work of their students has a range of readers. If it’s just the professor, students may be less likely to invest time into cultivating their own voice. But if they have to write an essay or story for, say, their friends or their grandparents, they might have more of an incentive to sound like themselves.

Many other strategies exist, from being forced to reverse the argument of an essay to favor the other side, to interviewing strangers for an assignment and including their quotes.

The bottom line: Writers have access to sources – and language – that machines cannot access or generate. Having students wrestle with unconventional modes of composition and revision lies at the heart of ensuring that the technology is more of a helpful thought partner, but not a substitute for their voice.

Gayle Rogers 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. With AI finishing your sentences, what will happen to your unique voice on the page? – https://theconversation.com/with-ai-finishing-your-sentences-what-will-happen-to-your-unique-voice-on-the-page-276036

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By David Kroll, Professor of Natural Products Pharmacology & Toxicology, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

A Denver food and cannabis investigator became suspicious of PolkaDot-branded chocolate bars sitting next to convenience store energy shots and nicotine pouches in January 2026.

Months earlier, California public health officials warned about PolkaDot-branded chocolate bars. California authorities destroyed more than US$3 million of the chocolate after laboratory testing revealed added synthetic psychoactive drugs. The agency warned of severe illness, hospitalization or worse – particularly in children who could mistake the bars for ordinary candy.

Unfortunately, the California case was a beacon of a more widespread problem. In Denver, investigators from the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment and Denver Licensing and Consumer Protection the Denver Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection warned consumers and removed these products from three retailers. They then partnered with the Denver Police Department to destroy similar products from six additional retailers.

I’m a natural products pharmacologist and professor based in Colorado who has studied the emergence of known and novel psychoactive substances in consumer products. I did some investigating to find out how these products landed on shelves, and how dietary supplement loopholes allowed them to initially evade detection by licensing authorities.

False labels fool retailers and mislead consumers

The PolkaDot-branded chocolate bars were marketed as “mushroom blends” and said to include lion’s mane, reishi, turkey tail and cordyceps — all non-hallucinogenic varieties. But laboratory tests showed otherwise. The bars contained psychoactive drugs: psilocybin and psilocin, the principal psychedelics found in Psilocybe mushrooms, as well as other chemical relatives called synthetic tryptamines.

“We didn’t want any one retailer to feel singled out,” said Jessica Davis, Denver health department’s food and cannabis investigator, in an interview. “We simply asked if they were carrying any mushroom blends. Most didn’t know they contained hallucinogenic mushroom compounds.”

This isn’t the first time psilocybin-laced products have been found in Denver. In the summer 2025, tobacco licensing authorities warned consumers about the same issue in West Coast Gold Caps chocolate bars. And in late 2024, Colorado was one of 34 states where the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported hospitalizations and suspected deaths associated with Diamond Shruumz chocolate bars and gummies.

What PolkaDot is – and isn’t

PolkaDot products look like everyday treats: 2-ounce chocolate bars in multiple flavors, gummies and even liquid “shots” or seltzers. They’re advertised as containing a blend of non-hallucinogenic mushrooms. These products are often sold in natural foods stores as nutritional supplements, even though there is little clinical evidence for their health benefits.

But according to public advisories, PolkaDot bars in Denver contained chemicals prohibited in retail food products.

PolkaDot brand materials, including the paper wrapping of the chocolates – but not the chocolates themselves – are widely available online. That means there isn’t a single regulated manufacturer of the chocolate. Instead, multiple unconnected players can purchase packaging kits and fill them with whatever compounds they choose. As a result, the composition of the same PolkaDot-labeled product can vary considerably across the U.S.

Davis, the food safety investigator, said gas station retailers frequently produced apparently factual invoices from wholesalers, but the paperwork rarely verified what was actually found inside the bars.

“Wholesalers weren’t doing their due diligence,” she said. “Some said they found these at trade shows and were told they were legal.”

No, Colorado didn’t legalize retail sales of psilocybin

Much of the confusion among wholesalers and consumers stems from Colorado’s 2022 Natural Medicine Act. Voters approved Proposition 122, leading to the state’s decriminalization of personal possession, cultivation and sharing of certain natural psychedelic substances. So, while people are free to grow, share and use “magic mushrooms,” it is unlawful to sell them.

Colorado is also building a system for licensed facilitators to offer supervised use of hallucinogenic mushrooms for a variety of mental health issues, but the law did not authorize over-the-counter retail sales at gas stations, smoke shops or corner stores.

“People assume that because Colorado decriminalized natural medicines, anything ‘mushroom’ is fair game to buy. It isn’t. Retail sales are prohibited,” Davis said.

So-called natural or herbal medicine products, such as chamomile for relaxation and echinacea for colds, are regulated in the U.S. as foods – not drugs – under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994. Retailers are free to sell products as long as the label does not make false or misleading medical claims or contain unapproved or illicit drugs. The Food and Drug Administration issues a formal warning letter to prohibit sales when products are misbranded, spiked with unapproved drugs or when adverse reactions appear in consumers.

Psilocybin and some semi-synthetic tryptamines are prohibited under Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, governed by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. But some of the synthetic tryptamines found in the PolkaDot-branded bars are not explicitly named in this most restrictive classification, although the main building block of these chemicals, diethyltryptamine, or DET, is.

Some of the slightly modified psychoactives found in PolkaDot products are presumed by the DEA and other authorities to circumvent the law.

Small gas station convenience stores buy products from dozens of regional wholesalers. PolkaDot chocolates and other products can slip into local gas stations and evade detection. By contrast, GNC, a national health and nutrition company, manufactures many of its own products and receives others from a select few wholesalers. These retailers tend to know better what’s in the products they carry.

“If you keep [these products] under the FDA’s radar – in small gas stations rather than doing a mass distribution at GNC – you avoid detection until something really bad happens,” Harvard physician Dr. Pieter Cohen told STAT News.

By avoiding federal detection, the detection of problematic products is left to local and regional public health officials or food inspectors and tobacco licensing authorities. If they discover these products, they can revoke food or tobacco licenses, which can cause extensive financial losses, due in part to the low profit margins of gasoline sales alone.

Education first, but enforcement is real

The Denver health department’s messaging has emphasized consumer education and retailer outreach. Advisories urge residents to avoid purchasing PolkaDot products and to report sightings to 311 or via the city’s consumer protection portal so inspectors can track their spread. The department has also underscored that businesses selling unlawful products face fines, license suspension or revocation, and potential criminal penalties.

According to Davis, the Denver food and cannabis investigator, the city’s licensing team has begun coaching retailers on basic due diligence: Does the price point make sense for a legitimate product? Can the wholesaler connect the retailer to the manufacturer? Can the manufacturer provide clear, complete ingredient disclosures and testing documentation? If clerks or suppliers can’t answer conclusively, that’s a red flag.

The practical reality is that routine sweeps won’t catch every mislabeled mushroom product. Denver needs the public to report what they see.

“If you’re seeking natural medicine, we want you to do it safely,” Davis said. “Cultivate it yourself within the law, obtain it from someone you trust or work with a licensed facilitator. Don’t buy mystery bars at a gas station.”

David Kroll 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. Magic mushroom-infused products appear in Colorado gas stations – what public health officials want consumers to know – https://theconversation.com/magic-mushroom-infused-products-appear-in-colorado-gas-stations-what-public-health-officials-want-consumers-to-know-274935

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Dannell D. Boatman, Assistant Professor and Health Communication Researcher, West Virginia University

Scientists are making rapid progress toward a long-awaited goal that could help to reshape cancer care: mRNA cancer vaccines with the potential to significantly boost the immune system’s ability to fight and eliminate tumors.

Since the early 2000s, there have been over 120 promising clinical trials testing the use of mRNA vaccines to treat multiple cancer types, such as melanoma, brain, breast, lung and prostate cancer.

At the same time, misinformation about so-called turbo cancer began spreading widely on social media, with mainstream media outlets first reporting on it in late 2022. Turbo cancer refers to the false claim that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines cause unusually aggressive cancers.

As a researcher in health communication who monitors cancer-related conversations online, I have seen how quickly new misinformation can spread and the impact it can have on people’s health decisions. In the case of mRNA cancer vaccines, this false narrative could undermine public confidence in an important tool that may help prevent or treat cancer in the future.

Cancer research and mRNA vaccines

Most people likely first heard about mRNA technology through COVID-19 vaccines, but scientists have been studying it for decades.

How mRNA vaccines work is by delivering instructions that prompt the body’s cells to make specific proteins. This process teaches the immune system how to recognize and attack those proteins. In cancer research, scientists can design highly targeted vaccines that train the immune system to find tumor cells and more effectively kill them without harming healthy cells.

One example of this potential comes from studies on glioblastoma, an aggressive brain tumor with few effective treatments. Researchers have found that a personalized mRNA vaccine can rapidly activate people’s immune systems against this type of brain cancer and improve survival.

The body of evidence that mRNA vaccines can transform how researchers harness the immune system to treat cancer is growing. However, even the most promising medical advances can only improve health if people are willing to use them.

Rise of the ‘turbo cancer’ narrative

“Turbo cancer” is a term often used by anti-vaccine advocates who claim – without credible evidence – that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are causing unusually aggressive cancers.

This inaccurate narrative has trickled into the mainstream news. In September 2025, a controversial U.K. cardiologist claimed that the COVID-19 vaccine contributed to the royal family’s recent cancer diagnoses, spurring immediate backlash from the medical community. Although uncommon, some public figures and health professionals have claimed that the vaccines could cause cancer despite ample contradictory evidence, often by misinterpreting or misrepresenting studies.

Health misinformation can be described as false or misleading health-related claims shared with the public that are not supported by scientific evidence, are based on unverified personal stories or are opinions presented as facts. For example, while tracking discussions about the HPV vaccine across social media platforms, my team and I found that safety fears, mistrust of authority and conspiracy claims were widespread online.

Vaccine misinformation accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic, causing what researchers call an infodemic: the rapid spread of both accurate and false health information during a public health crisis. The COVID-19 infodemic made it harder for people to find trustworthy guidance and shaped public attitudes toward vaccines.

“Turbo cancer” reflects many of the same patterns and narratives as the COVID-19 infodemic.

In a social listening study, which involves systematically monitoring online conversations about different topics, my team and I observed countless posts about turbo cancer beginning in July 2023 and continuing through early 2026. Many posts rely on emotionally compelling anecdotes, misinterpretations of animal studies, misuse of adverse events reporting and recycled myths that vaccines alter human DNA. Some posts also link rising cancer rates in younger adults to the COVID-19 vaccine. However, large population studies have found no increased cancer risk following vaccination.

None of these turbo cancer claims are supported by credible evidence. But on social media, repetition, personal stories and scientific-sounding language can make misinformation appear legitimate and help it spread quickly.

Cancer vaccine misinformation harms health

At first glance, fringe claims such as turbo cancer may seem easy to dismiss. But research shows that they can have real-world consequences, and cancer-related misinformation can be particularly consequential.

Inaccurate information about cancer treatment is common online, and researchers have shown that it influences patient decisions. When patients rely on unproven approaches instead of recommended therapies, their risk of death can increase substantially.

Clinicians are already seeing the effects of misinformation in routine care. Oncologists report having to address myths or misleading information that patients have encountered, though researchers do not yet know how common these conversations are across cancer care.

mRNA technology is entering a pivotal phase in its development. Scientific progress is accelerating, but public understanding has not kept pace. Repeated exposure to misleading claims can erode trust in mRNA technology over time, increasing the likelihood that some patients will decline mRNA therapies in the future.

If misleading narratives such as turbo cancer continue to spread, they could complicate the future rollout of mRNA vaccines and limit their lifesaving benefits.

Keeping communication in pace with science

Once misinformation takes hold of public understanding, changing its course can be difficult.

Research has consistently shown that proactive, transparent and persuasive communication can counter misinformation. It also shows that trust, once lost, is difficult to rebuild.

Medical innovations can save lives, but only if communication keeps up. This means monitoring emerging misinformation trends on social media, addressing concerns early on, equipping clinicians to have effective patient conversations and designing public health messaging that builds public understanding of new medical technologies before they are widely introduced in the clinic.

Scientific innovation alone is not enough to improve health. Ensuring that the public can evaluate medical innovations like mRNA cancer vaccines based on evidence, rather than viral misinformation, is part of the scientific challenge.

The future of cancer care depends not just on scientific discovery, but on public understanding and trust.

Dannell D. Boatman receives funding from Merck, Sharp & Dohme LLC, the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of General Medical Sciences and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

– ref. Cancer vaccines could transform treatment and prevention – but misinformation about mRNA vaccines threatens their potential – https://theconversation.com/cancer-vaccines-could-transform-treatment-and-prevention-but-misinformation-about-mrna-vaccines-threatens-their-potential-276809

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Leanne Snyder, Assistant Professor of Exercise Science, Loyola University Chicago

Every March, millions of Americans fill out brackets and tune in to watch the NCAA college basketball tournaments known as March Madness. The men’s and women’s competitions unfold in parallel, each with their own brackets, champions, storylines and fan bases.

The separation reflects one of the most deeply embedded assumptions in sports: that women and men perform differently enough that they must compete apart.

The divide is so normal, it’s rarely explained: On average, men are faster, stronger and have more endurance. As a result, performance differences between men and women are often assumed to follow directly from these physical traits.

This notion shape how sports organizations structure competition, how coaches train athletes and how researchers study performance. Sex becomes a shortcut – a way to predict what athletes can do before they ever step onto the court.

As an exercise scientist who studies the physical demands of Paralympic sports, I wanted to know whether this assumption actually holds up.

My research on elite wheelchair basketball suggests it may not. I found that many of the differences widely attributed to physiological differences between women and men in sports are far less pronounced in wheelchair basketball players – and in most cases absent altogether.

It may seem that wheelchair sports are too different from nondisabled sports to compare. But in my view, they may instead reveal what sports look like when performance is measured by what athletes can do, rather than presumptions tied to their sex.

Testing different abilities

In most sports, presumptions about physical differences between the sexes appear early, often starting with elementary school physical education classes and youth teams.

Wheelchair basketball works differently. Although international competitions have separate women’s and men’s teams, athletes at the national level often train together, while women sometimes compete in men’s leagues and vice versa.

As part of my Ph.D. research, I examined how elite wheelchair basketball players move during competition by asking athletes from the Australian national men’s and women’s teams to wear movement sensors during five international-level games in 2022.

The sensors recorded how often players accelerated and decelerated, how frequently they changed direction, how fast they moved and how much distance they covered. Accelerations, decelerations and changes of direction are typically the most physically demanding movements in wheelchair basketball. To ensure fair comparisons, I adjusted all measures for playing time.

A consistent difference emerged. Players with less severe impairments – those with greater trunk control and stability – performed more high-intensity actions than players with more severe impairments. Female athletes with less severe impairments accelerated and decelerated more frequently and reached higher peak speeds, and male athletes showed the same pattern.

When I compared performance by sex, however, the differences were much less pronounced. Across most measures – including distance covered, average speed and high-intensity movements – female and male athletes performed similarly over the course of multiple games.

Performance beyond sex

If sex-based performance differences are so common in sports, why didn’t they appear in my research? The answer lies partly in how wheelchair basketball is organized.

To compete, athletes are assigned a classification based on how their impairment affects movement during play. These classifications range from 1.0 to 4.5, with lower numbers indicating more severe impairments. The system is designed to account for athletes with wide variations in physical disabilities, particularly differences in trunk control, balance and the ability to generate force and change direction in their game wheelchairs.

During games, teams must stay under a combined classification limit of 14 points for the five players on court. This means lineups are built around functional movement ability rather than sex, balancing players with different movement capacities within lineups so that no single team gains an unfair advantage.

With this in mind, it makes sense that classification, not sex, explained the differences I observed. In other words, wheelchair basketball is designed around physical variation in sports – not just between women and men, but across individuals with very different movement capacities and roles on the court. In this context, sex becomes one variable among many, rather than the primary basis for performance.

This pattern isn’t unique to wheelchair basketball. In wheelchair rugby, where women and men compete together on the same international teams, research has also found that game demands are shaped more by players’ classification and on-court roles than by sex.

Challenging sports science norms

My findings challenge a near-universal assumption in sports: that sex is the primary factor defining physical ability.

To be clear, there are contexts where sex-based comparisons matter. Differences in average muscle mass, body size and hormone profiles can influence performance in many sports, which is one reason competitions are typically separated into women’s and men’s divisions. Safety concerns are also frequently cited as a reason for maintaining separate competitions.

But when sex becomes the primary framework for understanding performance, it can obscure other important factors such as strength, body size, training history and access to coaching.

Research supports this idea. One study comparing athletes by both sex and strength found that many differences often attributed to sex were better explained by strength. Another review found little consistent evidence for sex-specific movement patterns in jumping and landing tasks, concluding that many reported differences are better explained by training exposure, motor skill or sociocultural factors than by sex alone.

Put simply, what is often labeled a sex difference may instead reflect unequal opportunities to develop physical capacity – much of which is trainable – rather than fixed, innate ability.

This perspective does not mean sex differences disappear, but it suggests that they may not always be the most informative way to understand performance. In some cases, focusing primarily on sex-based categories may even risk underselling what some young athletes are capable of.

Looking more closely at individual factors such as strength, agility, sport-specific skills and training exposure may give coaches a clearer picture of how athletes actually perform, rather than relying on long-standing presumptions about what girls and boys are capable of.

Leanne Snyder 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. My research on wheelchair basketball challenges one of the biggest assumptions about sex differences in sports – https://theconversation.com/my-research-on-wheelchair-basketball-challenges-one-of-the-biggest-assumptions-about-sex-differences-in-sports-261624

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Armin Sorooshian, Professor of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, University of Arizona

The waves of U.S. and Israeli bomb strikes in Tehran and Beirut, and Iran’s missile and drone attacks on neighboring countries in response, are damaging more than buildings – they are sending toxic debris into the air in cities that are home to millions of people.

Military strikes have hit Iran’s missile stockpiles, nuclear facilities and oil refineries. When a strike set fire to an oil depot, it sent toxic black clouds billowing over Tehran and created oily rain that settled on buildings, cars and people. Residents described having headaches and difficulty breathing.

As a chemical and environmental engineer who studies the behavior and effects of airborne particles, I have been following the damage reports to understand the health risks residents are facing as toxic materials get into the air. The risks come from many sources, from heavy metals in the munitions themselves to the materials sent airborne by what they blow apart.

The invisible enemy during war: Air pollution

A disaster’s effects on air quality and public health depend in large part on what is being destroyed.

The terrorist attacks on New York City’s World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, were localized, but they ejected massive bursts of pollutants into the air. These included gases such as volatile organic compounds and particulates – often called aerosols – containing a myriad of substances, such as dust, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, metals, asbestos and polychlorinated biphenyls.

These pollutants can harm the lungs, making breathing difficult, and worsen cardiovascular problems, contributing to heart attacks, among other health damage. Tiny particles smaller than 2.5 micrometers, called PM2.5, are especially harmful because they can travel deep into the human respiratory system. But larger particles can also bring major airborne health risks.

When buildings are heavily damaged or collapse, the rubble often contains crushed concrete, gypsum and carcinogenic fibrous materials, such as asbestos. Even after the initial dust settles, wind and other disturbances, including efforts to find survivors or clear the rubble, can send those materials back into the air, putting more people at risk.

Many rescue and recovery workers who responded to the World Trade Center collapse in 2001 developed chronic respiratory problems. That’s also a risk for people searching for survivors in bombed buildings after military strikes and later when cleaning up the debris.

Fires create additional hazards as vehicles, buildings and the chemicals and other materials in them burn. The January 2025 fires in Los Angeles sent a stew of dangerous particles and gases into the lower atmosphere. Studies have shown how lead particles that fell to the ground were kicked back up into the air again where people could inhale them, along with other contaminants.

Munitions and oil facilities

Military attacks degrade air quality in other ways. The Gaza Strip, Iraq, Kuwait, Ukraine and most recently Iran and surrounding countries have all faced extensive damage from munitions, which contain toxic materials. Bombs and artillery often contain explosives and heavy metals, such as lead and mercury, which also contaminate soil, water and the environment.

When oil storage facilities and pipelines are damaged, they emit an especially harmful cocktail of pollutants. This chemical blend includes airborne soot particles, which darken the sky and contribute to the “black rain” observed in Iran.

During the Gulf War in 1991, downwind countries experienced similar polluted rain as Kuwait’s oil fields burned. The U.S. Department of Defense found that the smoke plumes contained sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, among other gases and soot.

The severe consequences of environmental pollution during wars prompted the U.S. National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine to publish a series of reports on Gulf War military veterans’ health, starting in the early 2000s. They documented illnesses soldiers suffered after being exposed to chemicals and heavy metals, including from oil well fires. They also examined scientific evidence on potential associations between pollution in war and reproductive and developmental effects in the veterans’ children.

Getting pollution out of the air

Nature, including rain and wind, can help reduce the pollution levels in the air.

Rain helps pull particles out of the air, depositing them back on the ground and surfaces. The raindrops form around particles and also collect more particles as they fall. However, rain has occurred only sporadically since the military attacks began in Iran.

And rain also contributes to runoff into streams, and pollutants can damage crops and contaminate waterways, soil and vegetation.

Wind can help blow pollutants out of an area, though at the expense of downwind sites.

Tehran has another challenge when it comes to pollution because of its terrain. The city is surrounded by mountains and prone to the effects of low-altitude temperature inversions in the wintertime, which concentrates pollutants even more by holding them closer to the ground. These attacks have been slightly outside the coldest periods for Tehran, allowing for deeper mixing of air, but the inversion still has an effect.

Can people in war zones protect their health?

People in war zones, where they are already under stress, can reduce their health risks by staying indoors in the days after military attacks, if possible. Keeping windows and doors closed can help reduce the amount of polluted ambient air that comes inside.

Indoor air quality is just as important as the air outside. For example, infants crawling on floors can be exposed to deposited particles with toxic materials that are tracked in or blow in under sills and doors, similar to wildfire smoke exposure.

As buildings continue to smolder and clearing debris sends harmful particles back into the air, the pollutants can also contaminate agriculture and waterways. People can try to avoid crops, water and seafood that were likely to have been affected by toxic airborne pollutants. However, getting information about risks gets harder in a time of war, and scarcity can leave people with few choices.

Armin Sorooshian 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. In war-torn Iran, air pollution from burning oil depots and bombed buildings unleashes invisible health threats – https://theconversation.com/in-war-torn-iran-air-pollution-from-burning-oil-depots-and-bombed-buildings-unleashes-invisible-health-threats-278407