Category: The Conversation – USA

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Robin R. Murphy, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, Texas A&M University

For search and rescue, AI is not more accurate than humans, but it is far faster.

Recent successes in applying computer vision and machine learning to drone imagery for rapidly determining building and road damage after hurricanes or shifting wildfire lines suggest that artificial intelligence could be valuable in searching for missing persons after a flood.

Machine learning systems typically take less than one second to scan a high-resolution image from a drone versus one to three minutes for a person. Plus, drones often produce more imagery to view than is humanly possible in the critical first hours of a search when survivors may still be alive.

Unfortunately, today’s AI systems are not up to the task.

We are robotics reseachers who study the use of drones in disasters. Our experiences searching for victims of flooding and numerous other events show that current implementations of AI fall short.

However, the technology can play a role in searching for flood victims. The key is AI-human collaboration.

AI’s potential

Searching for flood victims is a type of wilderness search and rescue that presents unique challenges. The goal for machine learning scientists is to rank which images have signs of victims and indicate where in those images search-and-rescue personnel should focus. If the responder sees signs of a victim, they pass the GPS location in the image to search teams in the field to check.

The ranking is done by a classifier, which is an algorithm that learns to identify similar instances of objects – cats, cars, trees – from training data in order to recognize those objects in new images. For example, in a search-and-rescue context, a classifier would spot instances of human activity such as garbage or backpacks to pass to wilderness search-and-rescue teams, or even identify the missing person themselves.

A classifier is needed because of the sheer volume of imagery that drones can produce. For example, a single 20-minute flight can produce over 800 high-resolution images. If there are 10 flights – a small number – there would be over 8,000 images. If a responder spends only 10 seconds looking at each image, it would take over 22 hours of effort. Even if the task is divided among a group of “squinters,” humans tend to miss areas of images and show cognitive fatigue.

The ideal solution is an AI system that scans the entire image, prioritizes images that have the strongest signs of victims, and highlights the area of the image for a responder to inspect. It could also decide whether the location should be flagged for special attention by search-and-rescue crews.

Where AI falls short

While this seems to be a perfect opportunity for computer vision and machine learning, modern systems have a high error rate. If the system is programmed to overestimate the number of candidate locations in hopes of not missing any victims, it will likely produce too many false candidates. That would mean overloading squinters or, worse, the search-and-rescue teams, which would have to navigate through debris and muck to check the candidate locations.

Developing computer vision and machine learning systems for finding flood victims is difficult for three reasons.

One is that while existing computer vision systems are certainly capable of identifying people visible in aerial imagery, the visual indicators of a flood victim are often very different compared with those for a lost hiker or fugitive. Flood victims are often obscured, camouflaged, entangled in debris or submerged in water. These visual challenges increase the possibility that existing classifiers will miss victims.

Second, machine learning requires training data, but there are no datasets of aerial imagery where humans are tangled in debris, covered in mud and not in normal postures. This lack also increases the possibility of errors in classification.

Third, many of the drone images often captured by searchers are oblique views, rather than looking straight down. This means the GPS location of a candidate area is not the same as the GPS location of the drone. It is possible to compute the GPS location if the drone’s altitude and camera angle are known, but unfortunately those attributes rarely are. The imprecise GPS location means teams have to spend extra time searching.

How AI can help

Fortunately, with humans and AI working together, search-and-rescue teams can successfully use existing systems to help narrow down and prioritize imagery for further inspection.

In the case of flooding, human remains may be tangled among vegetation and debris. Therefore, a system could identify clumps of debris big enough to contain remains. A common search strategy is to identify the GPS locations of where flotsam has gathered, because victims may be part of these same deposits.

An AI classifier could find debris commonly associated with remains, such as artificial colors and construction debris with straight lines or 90-degree corners. Responders find these signs as they systematically walk the riverbanks and flood plains, but a classifier could help prioritize areas in the first few hours and days, when there may be survivors, and later could confirm that teams didn’t miss any areas of interest as they navigated the difficult landscape on foot.

Robin R. Murphy receives funding from the National Science Foundation. She is affiliated with the Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue.

Thomas Manzini is affiliated with the Center for Robot Assisted Search & Rescue (CRASAR), and his work is funded by the National Science Foundation’s AI Institute for Societal Decision Making (AI-SDM).

– ref. Why drones and AI can’t quickly find missing flood victims, yet – https://theconversation.com/why-drones-and-ai-cant-quickly-find-missing-flood-victims-yet-261035

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Aishwarya Veerabahu, Ph.D. Candidate in Botany, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Golden oyster mushrooms, with their sunny yellow caps and nutty flavor, have become wildly popular for being healthy, delicious and easy to grow at home from mushroom kits.

But this food craze has also unleashed an invasive species into the wild, and new research shows it’s pushing out native fungi.

In a study we believe is the first of its kind, fellow mycologists and I demonstrate that an invasive fungus can cause environmental harm, just as invasive plants and animals can when they take over ecosystems.

Native mushrooms and other fungi are important for the health of many ecosystems. They break down dead wood and other plant material, helping it decay. They cycle nutrients such as carbon and nitrogen from the dead tissues of plants and animals, turning it into usable forms that enter the soil, atmosphere or their own bodies. Fungi also play a role in managing climate change by sequestering carbon in soil and mediating carbon emissions from soil and wood.

Their symbiotic relationships with other organisms also help other organisms thrive. Mycorrhizal fungi on roots, for example, help plants absorb water and nutrients. And wood decay fungi help create wooded habitats for birds, mammals and plant seedlings.

However, we found that invasive golden oyster mushrooms, a wood decay fungus, can threaten forests’ fungal biodiversity and harm the health of ecosystems that are already vulnerable to climate change and habitat destruction.

The dark side of the mushroom trade

Golden oyster mushrooms, native to Asia, were brought to North America around the early 2000s. They’re part of an international mushroom culinary craze that has been feeding into one of the world’s leading drivers of biodiversity loss: invasive species.

As fungi are moved around the world in global trade, either intentionally as products, such as kits people buy for growing mushrooms at home, or unintentionally as microbial stowaways along with soil, plants, timber and even shipping pallets, they can establish themselves in new environments.

Many mushroom species have been cultivated in North America for decades without becoming invasive species threats. However, golden oyster mushrooms have been different.

No one knows exactly how golden oyster mushrooms escaped into the wild, whether from a grow kit, a commercial mushroom farm or outdoor logs inoculated with golden oysters – a home-cultivation technique where mushroom mycelium is placed into logs to colonize the wood and produce mushrooms.

As grow kits increased in popularity, many people began buying golden oyster kits and watching them blossom into beautiful yellow mushrooms in their backyards. Their spores or composted kits could have spread into nearby forests.

Evidence from a pioneering study by Andrea Reisdorf (née Bruce) suggests golden oyster mushrooms were introduced into the wild in multiple U.S. states around the early 2010s.

Species the golden oysters pushed out

In our study, designed by Michelle Jusino and Mark Banik, research scientists with the U.S. Forest Service, our team went into forests around Madison, Wisconsin, and drilled into dead trees to collect wood shavings containing the natural fungal community within each tree. Some of the trees had golden oyster mushrooms on them, and some did not.

We then extracted DNA to identify and compare which fungi, and how many fungi, were in trees that had been invaded by golden oyster mushrooms compared with those that had not been.

We were startled to find that trees with golden oyster mushrooms housed only half as many fungal species as trees without golden oyster mushrooms, sometimes even less. We also found that the composition of fungi in trees with golden oyster mushrooms was different from trees without golden oyster mushrooms.

For example, the gentle green “mossy maze polypore” and the “elm oyster” mushroom were pushed out of trees invaded by golden oyster mushrooms.

Another ousted fungus, Nemania serpens, is known for producing diverse arrays of chemicals that differ even between individuals of the same species. Fungi are sources of revolutionary medicines, including antibiotics like penicillin, cholesterol medication and organ transplant stabilizers. The value of undiscovered, potentially useful chemicals can be lost when invasive species push others out.

The invasive species problem includes fungi

Given what my colleagues and I discovered, we believe it is time to include invasive fungi in the global conversation about invasive species and examine their role as a cause of biodiversity loss.

That conversation includes the idea of fungal “endemism” – that each place has a native fungal community that can be thrown out of balance. Native fungal communities tend to be diverse, having evolved together over thousands of years to coexist. Our research shows how invasive species can change the makeup of fungal communities by outcompeting native species, thus changing the fungal processes that have shaped native ecosystems.

There are many other invasive fungi. For example, the deadly poisonous “death cap” Amanita phalloides and the “orange ping-pong bat” Favolaschia calocera are invasive in North America. The classic red and white “fly agaric” Amanita muscaria is native to North America but invasive elsewhere.

The golden oyster mushrooms’ invasion of North America should serve as a bright yellow warning that nonnative fungi are capable of rapid invasion and should be cultivated with caution, if at all.

Golden oyster mushrooms are now recognized as invasive in Switzerland and can be found in forests in Italy, Hungary, Serbia and Germany. I have been hearing about people attempting to cultivate them around the world, including in Turkey, India, Ecuador, Kenya, Italy and Portugal. It’s possible that golden oyster mushrooms may not be able to establish invasive populations in some regions. Continued research will help us understand the full scope of impacts invasive fungi can have.

What you can do to help

Mushroom growers, businesses and foragers around the world may be asking themselves, “What can we do about it?”

For the time being, I recommend that people consider refraining from using golden oyster mushroom grow kits to prevent any new introductions. For people who make a living selling these mushrooms, consider adding a note that this species is invasive and should be cultivated indoors and not composted.

If you enjoy growing mushrooms at home, try cultivating safe, native species that you have collected in your region.

There is no single right answer. In some places, golden oyster mushrooms are being cultivated as a food source for impoverished communities, for income, or to process agricultural waste and produce food at the same time. Positives like these will have to be considered alongside the mushrooms’ negative impacts when developing management plans or legislation.

In the future, some ideas for solutions could involve sporeless strains of golden oysters for home kits that can’t spread, or a targeted mycovirus that could control the population. Increased awareness about responsible cultivation practices is important, because when invasive species move in and disrupt the native biodiversity, we all stand to lose the beautiful, colorful, weird fungi we see on walks in the forest.

Aishwarya Veerabahu receives funding from UW-Madison Dept. of Botany, the UW Arboretum, the Society of Ecological Restoration, and the Garden Club of America. Aishwarya Veerabahu was an employee of the USDA Forest Service.

– ref. The golden oyster mushroom craze unleashed an invasive species – and a worrying new study shows it’s harming native fungi – https://theconversation.com/the-golden-oyster-mushroom-craze-unleashed-an-invasive-species-and-a-worrying-new-study-shows-its-harming-native-fungi-259006

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Brian P. McCullough, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Michigan

When the FIFA World Cup hits North America in June 2026, 48 teams and millions of soccer fans will be traveling to and from venues spread across the United States, Canada and Mexico.

It’s a dramatic expansion – 16 more teams will be playing than in recent years, with a jump from 64 to 104 matches. The tournament is projected to bring in over US$10 billion in revenue. But the expansion will also mean a lot more travel and other activities that contribute to climate change.

The environmental impacts of giant sporting events like the World Cup create a complex paradox for an industry grappling with its future in a warming world.

A sustainability conundrum

Sports are undeniably experiencing the effects of climate change. Rising global temperatures are putting athletes’ health at risk during summer heat waves and shortening winter sports seasons. Many of the 2026 World Cup venues often see heat waves in June and early July, when the tournament is scheduled.

There is a divide over how sports should respond.

Some athletes are speaking out for more sustainable choices and have called on lawmakers to take steps to limit climate-warming emissions. At the same time, the sport industry is growing and facing a constant push to increase revenue. The NCAA is also considering expanding its March Madness basketball tournaments from 68 teams currently to as many as 76.

Estimates for the 2026 World Cup show what large tournament expansions can mean for the climate. A report from Scientists for Global Responsibility estimates that the expanded World Cup could generate over 9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, nearly double the average of the past four World Cups.

This massive increase – and the increase that would come if the NCAA basketball tournaments also expand – would primarily be driven by air travel as fans and players fly among event cities that are thousands of miles apart.

A lot of money is at stake, but so is the climate

Sports are big business, and adding more matches to events like the World Cup and NCAA tournaments will likely lead to larger media rights contracts and greater gate receipts from more fans attending the events, boosting revenues. These are powerful financial incentives.

In the NCAA’s case, there is another reason to consider a larger tournament: The House v. NCAA settlement opened the door for college athletic departments to share revenue with athletes, which will significantly increase costs for many college programs. More teams would mean more television revenue and, crucially, more revenue to be distributed to member NCAA institutions and their athletic conferences.

When climate promises become greenwashing

The inherent conflict between maximizing profit through growth and minimizing environmental footprint presents a dilemma for sports.

Several sport organizations have promised to reduce their impact on the climate, including signing up for initiatives like the United Nations Sports for Climate Action Framework.

However, as sports tournaments and exhibition games expand, it can become increasingly hard for sports organizations to meet their climate commitments. In some cases, groups making sustainability commitments have been accused of greenwashing, suggesting the goals are more about public relations than making genuine, measurable changes.

For example, FIFA’s early claims that it would hold a “fully carbon-neutral” World Cup in Qatar in 2022 were challenged by a group of European countries that accused soccer’s world governing body of underestimating emissions. The Swiss Fairness Commission, which monitors fairness in advertising, considered the complaints and determined that FIFA’s claims could not be substantiated.

Aviation is often the biggest driver of emissions. A study that colleagues and I conducted on the NCAA men’s basketball tournament found about 80% of its emissions were connected to travel. And that was after the NCAA began using the pod system, which is designed to keep teams closer to home for the first and second rounds.

Finding practical solutions

Some academics, observing the rising emissions trend, have called for radical solutions like the end of commercialized sports or drastically limiting who can attend sporting events, with a focus on fans from the region.

These solutions are frankly not practical, in my view, nor do they align with other positive developments. The growing popularity of women’s sports shows the challenge in limiting sports events – more games expands participation but adds to the industry’s overall footprint.

Further compounding the challenges of reducing environmental impact is the amount of fan travel, which is outside the direct control of the sports organization or event organizers.

Many fans will follow their teams long distances, especially for mega-events like the World Cup or the NCAA tournament. During the men’s World Cup in Russia in 2018, more than 840,000 fans traveled from other countries. The top countries by number of fans, after Russia, were China, the U.S., Mexico and Argentina.

There is an argument that distributed sporting events like March Madness or the World Cup can be better in some ways for local environments because they don’t overwhelm a single city. However, merely spreading the impact does not necessarily reduce it, particularly when considering the effects on climate change.

How fans can cut their environmental footprint

Sport organizations and event planners can take steps to be more sustainable and also encourage more sustainable choices among fans. Fans can reduce their environmental impact in a variety of ways. For example:

• Avoid taking airplanes for shorter distances, such as between FIFA venues in Philadelphia, New York and Boston, and carpool or take Amtrak instead. Planes can be more efficient for long distances, but air travel is still a major contributing factor to emissions.

• While in a host city, use mass transit or rent electric vehicles or bicycles for local travel.

• Consider sustainable accommodations, such as short-term rentals that might have a smaller environmental footprint than a hotel. Or stay at a certified green hotel that makes an effort to be more efficient in its use of water and energy.

• Engage in sustainable pregame and postgame activities, such as choosing local, sustainable food options, and minimize waste.

• You can also pay to offset carbon emissions for attending different sporting events, much like concertgoers do when they attend musical festivals. While critics question offsets’ true environmental benefit, they do represent people’s growing awareness of their environmental footprint.

Through all these options, it’s clear that sports face a significant challenge in addressing their environmental impacts and encouraging fans to be more sustainable, while simultaneously trying to meet ambitious business and environmental targets.

In my view, a sustainable path forward will require strategic, yet genuine, commitment by the sports industry and its fans, and a willingness to prioritize long-term planetary health alongside economic gains – balancing the sport and sustainability.

Brian P. McCullough 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. When big sports events expand, like FIFA’s 2026 World Cup matches across North America, their climate footprint expands too – https://theconversation.com/when-big-sports-events-expand-like-fifas-2026-world-cup-matches-across-north-america-their-climate-footprint-expands-too-259437

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Mohamed Khalil Elhachimi, PhD Student in Mechanical Engineering, Binghamton University, State University of New York

Pick up a button mushroom from the supermarket and it squishes easily between your fingers. Snap a woody bracket mushroom off a tree trunk and you’ll struggle to break it. Both extremes grow from the same microscopic building blocks: hyphae – hair-thin tubes made mostly of the natural polymer chitin, a tough compound also found in crab shells.

As those tubes branch and weave, they form a lightweight but surprisingly strong network called mycelium. Engineers are beginning to investigate this network for use in eco-friendly materials.

Yet even within a single mushroom family, the strength of a mycelium network can vary widely. Scientists have long suspected that how the hyphae are arranged – not just what they’re made of – holds the key to understanding, and ultimately controlling, their strength. But until recently, measurements that directly link microscopic arrangement to macroscopic strength have been scarce.

I’m a mechanical engineering Ph.D. student at Binghamton University who studies bio-inspired structures. In our latest research, my colleagues and I asked a simple question: Can we tune the strength of a mushroomlike material just by changing the angle of its filaments, without adding any tougher ingredients? The answer, it turns out, is yes.

2 edible species, many tiny tests

In our study, my team compared two familiar fungi. The first was the white button mushroom, whose tissue uses only thin filaments called generative filaments. The second was the maitake, also called hen-of-the-woods, whose tissue mixes in a second, thicker type of hyphae called skeletal filaments. These skeletal filaments are arranged roughly in parallel, like bundles of cables.

After gently drying the caps and stems to remove any water, which can soften the material and skew the results, we zoomed in with scanning electron microscopes and tested the samples at two very different scales.

First, we tested macro-scale compression. A motor-driven piston slowly squashed each mushroom while sensors recorded how hard the sample pushed back – the same way you might squeeze a marshmallow, only with laboratory precision.

Then we pressed a diamond tip thinner than a human hair into individual filaments to measure their stiffness.

The white mushroom filaments behaved like rubber bands, averaging about 18 megapascals in stiffness – similar to natural rubber. The thicker skeletal filaments in maitake measured around 560 megapascals, more than 30 times stiffer and approaching the stiffness of high-density polyethylene – the rigid plastic used in cutting boards and some water pipes.

But chemistry is only half the story. When we squeezed entire chunks, the direction we squeezed in mattered even more for the maitake. Pressing in line with its parallel skeletal filaments made the block 30 times stiffer than pressing across the grain. By contrast, the tangled filaments in white mushrooms felt equally soft from every angle.

A digital mushroom and twisting the threads

To separate geometry from chemistry, we converted snapshots from the microscope into a computer model using a 3D Voronoi network – a pattern that mimics the walls between bubbles in a foam. Think of ping-pong balls crammed in a box: Each ball is a cell, and the walls between cells become our simulated filaments.

We assigned those filaments by the stiffness values measured in the lab, then virtually rotated the whole network to angles of 0 degrees, 30 degrees, 60 degrees, 90 degrees and completely random.

Horizontal (0 degrees) filaments flexed like a spring mattress. Vertical (90 degrees) filaments supported weight almost as firmly as dense wood. Simply tilting the network to 60 degrees nearly doubled its stiffness compared with 0 degrees – all without changing a single chemical ingredient.

Basically, we found that orientation alone could turn a mushy sponge into something that stands up to serious pressure. That suggests manufacturers could make strong, lightweight, biodegradable parts – such as shoe insoles, protective packaging and even interior panels for cars – simply by guiding how a fungus grows rather than by mixing in harder additives.

Greener materials – and beyond

Startups already grow “leather” made from mycelium – the threadlike fungal network – for handbags, and mycelium foam as a Styrofoam replacement.

Guiding fungi to lay their filaments in strategic directions could push performance much higher, opening doors in sectors where strength-to-weight ratio is king: think sporting goods cores, building-insulation panels or lightweight fillers inside aircraft panels.

The same digital tool kit also works for metal or polymer lattices printed layer by layer. Swap the filament properties in the model, let the algorithm pick the best angles, and then feed that layout into a 3D printer.

One day, engineers might dial up an app that says something like, “I need a panel that’s stiff north-south but flexible east-west,” and the program could spit out a filament map inspired by the humble maitake.

Our next step is to feed thousands of these virtual networks into a machine learning model so it can predict – or even invent – filament layouts that hit a targeted stiffness in any direction.

Meanwhile, biologists are exploring low-energy ways to coax real fungi to grow in neat rows, from steering nutrients toward one side of a petri dish to applying gentle electric fields that encourage filaments to align.

This study taught us that you don’t always need exotic chemistry to make a better material. Sometimes it’s all about how you line up the same old threads – just ask a mushroom.

Mohamed Khalil Elhachimi 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. Examining mushrooms under microscopes can help engineers design stronger materials – https://theconversation.com/examining-mushrooms-under-microscopes-can-help-engineers-design-stronger-materials-260477

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Joshua Winowiecki, Assistant Professor of Nursing, Michigan State University

Reviewer 1: “This manuscript is a timely and important contribution to the field, with clear methodology and compelling results. I recommend publication with only minor revisions.”

Reviewer 2: “This manuscript is deeply flawed. The authors’ conclusions are not supported by data, and key literature is ignored. Major revisions are required before it can be considered.”

These lines could be pulled from almost any editorial decision letter in the world of academic publishing, sent from a journal to a researcher. One review praises the work, while another sees nothing but problems. For scholars, this kind of contradiction is common. Reviewer 2, in particular, has become something of a meme: an anonymous figure often blamed for delays, rejections or cryptic critiques that seem to miss the point.

But those disagreements are part of the peer-review process.

As a clinical nurse specialist, educator and scholar who reviews studies in nursing and health care and teaches others to do so critically as well, I’ve seen how peer review shapes not just what gets published, but what ultimately influences practice.

Peer review is the checkpoint where scientific claims are validated before they are shared with the world. Researchers and scholars submit their findings to academic journals, which invite other scholars with similar expertise – those are the peers – to assess the work. Reviewers look at the way the scholar designed the project, the methods they used and whether their conclusions stand up.

The point of peer review

This process isn’t new. Versions of peer review have been around for centuries. But the modern form – anonymous, structured and managed by journal editors – took hold after World War II. Today, it is central to how scientific publishing works, and nowhere more so than health, nursing and medicine. Research that survives review is more likely to be trusted and acted upon by health care practitioners and their patients.

Millions of research papers move through this process annually, and the number grows every year. The sheer volume means that peer review isn’t just quality control, it’s become a bottleneck, a filter of sorts, and a kind of collective judgment about what counts as credible.

In clinical fields, peer review also has a protective role. Before a study about a new medication, procedure or care model gains traction, it is typically evaluated by others in the field. The point isn’t to punish the authors – it’s to slow things down just enough to critically evaluate the work, catch mistakes, question assumptions and raise red flags. The reviewer’s work doesn’t always get credit, but it often changes what ends up in print.

So, even if you’ve never submitted a paper or read a scientific journal, peer-reviewed science still shows up in your life. It helps shape what treatments are available, what protocols and guidelines your nurse practitioner or physician uses, and what public health advice gets passed along on the news.

This doesn’t mean peer review always works. Plenty of papers get published despite serious limitations. And some of these flawed studies do real harm. But even scholars who complain about the system often still believe in it. In one international survey of medical researchers, a clear majority said they trusted peer-reviewed science, despite frustrations with how slow or inconsistent the process can be.

What actually happens when a paper is reviewed?

Before a manuscript lands in the hands of reviewers, it begins with the researchers themselves. Scientists investigate a question, gather and analyze their data and write up their findings, often with a particular journal in mind that publishes new work in their discipline. Once they submit their paper to the journal, the editorial process begins.

At this point, journal editors send it out to two or three reviewers who have relevant expertise. Reviewers read for clarity, accuracy, originality and usefulness. They offer comments about what’s missing, what needs to be explained more carefully, and whether the findings seem valid. Sometimes the feedback is collegial and helpful. Sometimes it’s not.

Here is where Reviewer 2 enters the lore of academic life. This is the critic who seems especially hard to please, who misreads the argument, or demands rewrites that would reshape the entire project. But even these kinds of reviews serve a purpose. They show how work might be received more broadly. And many times they flag weaknesses the author hadn’t seen.

Review is slow. Most reviewers aren’t paid, with nearly 75% reporting they receive no compensation or formal recognition for their efforts. They do this work on top of their regular clinical, teaching or research responsibilities. And not every editor has the time or capacity to sort through conflicting feedback or to moderate tone. The result is a process that can feel uneven, opaque, and, at times, unfair.

It doesn’t always catch what it is supposed to. Peer review is better at catching sloppy thinking than it is at detecting fraud. If data is fabricated or manipulated, a reviewer may not have the tools, or the time, to figure that out. In recent years, a growing number of published papers have been retracted after concerns about plagiarism or faked results. That trend has shaken confidence in the system and raised questions about what more journals should be doing before publication.

Imperfect but indispensable

Even though the current peer-review system has its shortcomings, most researchers would argue that science is better off than it would be without the level of scrutiny peer review provides. The challenge now is how to make peer review better.

Some journals are experimenting with publishing reviewer comments alongside articles. Other are trying systems where feedback continues after publication. There are also proposals to use artificial intelligence to help flag inconsistencies or potential errors before human reviewers even begin.

These efforts are promising but still in the early stages of development and adoption. For most fields, peer review remains a basic requirement for legitimacy, while some, such as law and high-energy physics, have alternate methods of communicating their findings. Peer review assures a reader that a journal article’s claim has been tested, scrutinized and revised.

Peer review doesn’t guarantee truth. But it does invite challenge, foster transparency, offer reflection and force revision. That’s often where the real work of science begins.

Even if Reviewer 2 still has notes.

Joshua Winowiecki 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. What is peer review? The role anonymous experts play in scrutinizing research before it gets published – https://theconversation.com/what-is-peer-review-the-role-anonymous-experts-play-in-scrutinizing-research-before-it-gets-published-258255

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Jacob Stid, Ph.D. student in Hydrogeology, Michigan State University

Imagine that you own a small, 20-acre farm in California’s Central Valley. You and your family have cultivated this land for decades, but drought, increasing costs and decreasing water availability are making each year more difficult.

Now imagine that a solar-electricity developer approaches you and presents three options:

• You can lease the developer 10 acres of otherwise productive cropland, on which the developer will build an array of solar panels and sell electricity to the local power company.
• You can select 1 or 2 acres of your land on which to build and operate your own solar array, using some electricity for your farm and selling the rest to the utility.
• Or you can keep going as you have been, hoping your farm can somehow survive.

Thousands of farmers across the country, including in the Central Valley, are choosing one of the first two options. A 2022 survey by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that roughly 117,000 U.S. farm operations have some type of solar device. Our own work has identified over 6,500 solar arrays currently located on U.S. farmland.

Our study of nearly 1,000 solar arrays built on 10,000 acres of the Central Valley over the past two decades found that solar power and farming are complementing each other in farmers’ business operations. As a result, farmers are making and saving more money while using less water – helping them keep their land and livelihood.

A hotter, drier and more built-up future

Perhaps nowhere in the U.S. is farmland more valuable or more productive than California’s Central Valley. The region grows a vast array of crops, including nearly all of the nation’s production of almonds, olives and sweet rice. Using less than 1% of all farmland in the country, the Central Valley supplies a quarter of the nation’s food, including 40% of its fruits, nuts and other fresh foods.

The food, fuel and fiber that these farms produce are a bedrock of the nation’s economy, food system and way of life.

But decades of intense cultivation, urban development and climate change are squeezing farmers. Water is limited, and getting more so: A state law passed in 2014 requires farmers to further reduce their water usage by the mid-2040s.

The trade-offs of installing solar on agricultural land

When the solar arrays we studied were installed, California state solar energy policy and incentives gave farm landowners new ways to diversify their income by either leasing their land for solar arrays or building their own.

There was an obvious trade-off: Turning land used for crops to land used for solar usually means losing agricultural production. We estimated that over the 25-year life of the solar arrays, this land would have produced enough food to feed 86,000 people a year, assuming they eat 2,000 calories a day.

There was an obvious benefit, too, of clean energy: These arrays produced enough renewable electricity to power 470,000 U.S. households every year.

But the result we were hoping to identify and measure was the economic effect of shifting that land from agricultural farming to solar farming. We found that farmers who installed solar were dramatically better off than those who did not.

They were better off in two ways, the first being financially. All the farmers, whether they owned their own arrays or leased their land to others, saved money on seeds, fertilizer and other costs associated with growing and harvesting crops. They also earned money from leasing the land, offsetting farm energy bills, and selling their excess electricity.

Farmers who owned their own arrays had to pay for the panels, equipment and installation, and maintenance. But even after covering those costs, their savings and earnings added up to US$50,000 per acre of profits every year, 25 times the amount they would have earned by planting that acre.

Farmers who leased their land made much less money but still avoided costs for irrigation water and operations on that part of their farm, gaining $1,100 per acre per year – with no up-front costs.

The farmers also conserved water, which in turn supported compliance with the state’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act water use reduction requirements. Most of the solar arrays were installed on land that had previously been irrigated. We calculated that turning off irrigation on this land saved enough water every year to supply about 27 million people with drinking water or irrigate 7,500 acres of orchards. Following solar array installation, some farmers also fallowed surrounding land, perhaps enabled by the new stable income stream, which further reduced water use.

Changes to food and energy production

Farmers in the Central Valley and elsewhere are now cultivating both food and energy. This shift can offer long-term security for farmland owners, particularly for those who install and run their own arrays.

Recent estimates suggest that converting between 1.1% and 2.4% of the country’s farmland to solar arrays would, along with other clean energy sources, generate enough electricity to eliminate the nation’s need for fossil fuel power plants.

Though many crops are part of a global market that can adjust to changes in supply, losing this farmland could affect the availability of some crops. Fortunately, farmers and landowners are finding new ways to protect farmland and food security while supporting clean energy.

One such approach is agrivoltaics, where farmers install solar designed for grazing livestock or growing crops beneath the panels. Solar can also be sited on less productive farmland or on farmland that is used for biofuels rather than food production.

Even in these areas, arrays can be designed and managed to benefit local agriculture and natural ecosystems. With thoughtful design, siting and management, solar can give back to the land and the ecosystems it touches.

Farms are much more than the land they occupy and the goods they produce. Farms are run by people with families, whose well-being depends on essential and variable resources such as water, fertilizer, fuel, electricity and crop sales. Farmers often borrow money during the planting season in hopes of making enough at harvest time to pay off the debt and keep a little profit.

Installing solar on their land can give farmers a diversified income, help them save water, and reduce the risk of bad years. That can make solar an asset to farming, not a threat to the food supply.

Jacob Stid works for Michigan State University. Funding for this work came from the US Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture program and the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Michigan State University. He also receives funding from the Foundation for Food and Agricultural Research.

Annick Anctil receives funding from NSF and USDA.

Anthony Kendall receives funding from the USDA, NASA, the NSF, and the Foundation for Food and Agricultural Research. He is an Assistant Professor at Michigan State University, and serves on the nonprofit board of the FLOW Water Advocates.

– ref. California farmers identify a hot new cash crop: Solar power – https://theconversation.com/california-farmers-identify-a-hot-new-cash-crop-solar-power-259653

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Christopher P. Scheitle, Associate Professor of Sociology, West Virginia University

Younger Americans are more likely to express belief in witchcraft and luck, as our new research shows.

As sociologists who research the social dynamics of religion in the United States, we conducted a nationally representative survey in 2021. Our survey posed dozens of questions to 2,000 Americans over the age of 18 on a wide range of beliefs in supernatural phenomena – everything from belief in the devil to belief in the magical power of crystals.

Our statistical analyses found that supernatural beliefs in the United States tend to group into four types.

The first represents what many consider “traditional religious beliefs.” These include beliefs in God, the existence of angels and demons, and belief in the soul and its journey beyond this lifetime.

A second represents belief in “spiritual and mental forces,” some of which are associated with either paranormal or new age beliefs. These include communicating with the dead, predicting the future, or believing that one’s soul can travel through space or time.

A third group represents belief in “witches and witchcraft.” This was measured on our survey with questions about the existence of “black magic” and whether it was “possible to cast spells on people.”

The fourth and final group represents beliefs in supernatural forces that shape “luck” – for instance, that “black cats bring bad luck.”

Our analysis finds that higher education and higher income are associated with lower levels of all four types of supernatural belief. Those with a bachelor’s degree or higher, for instance, score below average on all four types of belief, while those with less education score higher than average on all four.

Looking at race and ethnicity, we found that Latino or Hispanic individuals were more likely than white individuals to express belief in the “witches and witchcraft” form of supernatural belief. About 50% of Latino or Hispanic individuals in our survey, for example, strongly agreed that “witches exist.” This compares with about 37% of white individuals.

Comparing gender differences, we find that women are more likely than men to believe in the “spiritual and mental forces” forms of supernatural belief. For instance, about 31% of women in our survey agreed that “it is possible to communicate with the dead” compared with about 22% of men.

Why it matters

Our research addresses two key questions: first, whether people who hold one type of supernatural belief are also more likely to hold other types of supernatural beliefs; and second, how do different types of supernatural belief vary across key demographic groups, such as across educational levels, racial and ethnic groups, and gender?

Answering these questions can be surprisingly difficult. Most scientific surveys of the U.S. public include, at best, only one or two questions about religious beliefs; rarely do they include questions about other types of supernatural beliefs, such as belief in paranormal or superstitious forces. This could lead to an incomplete understanding of how supernatural beliefs and practices are changing in the United States.

An increasing number of Americans are leaving organized religion. However, it is not clear that supernatural beliefs have or will follow the same trajectory – especially beliefs that are not explicitly connected to those religious identities. For example, someone can identify as nonreligious but believe that the crystal they wear will provide them with supernatural benefits.

Moreover, recognizing that supernatural beliefs can include more than traditionally religious supernatural beliefs may be vital for better understanding other social issues. Research has found, for example, that belief in paranormal phenomena is associated with lower trust in science and medicine.

What’s next

Our survey provides some insight into the nature and patterns of supernatural belief in the U.S. at one point in time, but it does not tell us how such beliefs are changing over time.

We would like to see future surveys – both ours or from other social scientists – that ask more diverse questions about belief in supernatural beings and forces that will allow for an assessment of such changes.

The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.

Christopher P. Scheitle receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. The research discussed in this article was supported by a grant from the Science and Religion: Identity and Belief Formation grant initiative spearheaded by the Religion and Public Life Program at Rice University and the University of California-San Diego and provided by the Templeton Religion Trust via The Issachar Fund.

Bernard DiGregorio receives funding from the National Science Foundation. The research discussed in this article was funded by a grant from the Science and Religion: Identity and Belief Formation grant initiative spearheaded by the Religion and Public Life Program at Rice University and the University of California-San Diego and provided by the Templeton Religion Trust via The Issachar Fund.

Katie E. Corcoran receives funding from the National Science Foundation, the John Templeton Foundation, and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. The research discussed in this article was supported by a grant from the Science and Religion: Identity and Belief Formation grant initiative spearheaded by the Religion and Public Life Program at Rice University and the University of California-San Diego and provided by the Templeton Religion Trust via The Issachar Fund.

– ref. Angels, witches, crystals and black cats: How supernatural beliefs vary across different groups in the US – https://theconversation.com/angels-witches-crystals-and-black-cats-how-supernatural-beliefs-vary-across-different-groups-in-the-us-258377

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Elise Silva, Director of Policy Research at the Institute for Cyber Law, Policy, and Security, University of Pittsburgh

The advent of generative AI has elicited waves of frustration and worry across academia for all the reasons one might expect: Early studies are showing that artificial intelligence tools can dilute critical thinking and undermine problem-solving skills. And there are many reports that students are using chatbots to cheat on assignments.

But how do students feel about AI? And how is it affecting their relationships with peers, instructors and their coursework?

I am part of a group of University of Pittsburgh researchers with a shared interest in AI and undergraduate education. While there is a growing body of research exploring how generative AI is affecting higher education, there is one group that we worry is underrepresented in this literature, yet perhaps uniquely qualified to talk about the issue: our students.

Our team ran a series of focus groups with 95 students across our campuses in the spring of 2025 and found that whether students and faculty are actively using AI or not, it is having significant interpersonal, emotional effects on learning and trust in the classroom. While AI products such as ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude are, of course, affecting how students learn, their emergence is also changing their relationships with their professors and with one another.

‘It’s not going to judge you’

Most of our focus group participants had used AI in the academic setting – when faced with a time crunch, when they perceive something to be “busy work,” or when they are “stuck” and worry that they can’t complete a task on their own. We found that most students don’t start a project using AI, but many are willing to turn to it at some point.

Many students described positive experiences using AI to help them study or answer questions, or give them feedback on papers. Some even described using AI instead of a professor, tutor or teaching assistant. Others found a chatbot less intimidating than attending office hours where professors might be “demeaning.” In the words of one interviewee: “With ChatGPT you can ask as many questions as you want and it’s not going to judge you.”

But by using it, you may be judged. While some were excited about using AI, many students voiced mild feelings of guilt or shame about their AI use due to environmental or ethical concerns, or just coming across as lazy. Some even expressed a feeling of helplessness, or a sense of inevitability regarding AI in their futures.

Anxiety, distrust and avoidance

While many students expressed a sense that faculty members are, as one participant put it, “very anti-ChatGPT,” they also lamented the fact that the rules around acceptable AI use were not sufficiently clear. As one urban planning major put it: “I feel uncertain of what the expectations are,” with her peer chiming in, “We’re not on the same page with students and teachers or even individually. No one really is.”

Students also described feelings of distrust and frustration toward peers they saw as overly reliant on AI. Some talked about asking classmates for help, only to find that they “just used ChatGPT” and hadn’t learned the material. Others pointed to group projects, where AI use was described as “a giant red flag” that made them “think less” of their peers.

These experiences feel unfair and uncomfortable for students. They can report their classmates for academic integrity violations – and enter yet another zone in which distrust mounts – or they can try to work with them, sometimes with resentment. “It ends up being more work for me,” a political science major said, “because it’s not only me doing my work by myself, it’s me double checking yours.”

Distrust was a marker that we observed of both student-to-teacher relationships and student-to-student relationships. Learners shared fears of being left behind if other students in their classes used chatbots to get better grades. This resulted in emotional distance and wariness among students. Indeed, our findings reflect other reports that indicate the mere possibility that a student might have used a generative AI tool is now undercutting trust across the classroom. Students are as anxious about baseless accusations of AI use as they are about being caught using it.

Students described feeling anxious, confused and distrustful, and sometimes even avoiding peers or learning interactions. As educators, this worries us. We know that academic engagement – a key marker of student success – comes not only from studying the course material, but also from positive engagement with classmates and instructors alike.

AI is affecting relationships

Indeed, research has shown that faculty-student relationships are an important indicator of student success. Peer-to-peer relationships are essential too. If students are sidestepping important mentoring relationships with professors or meaningful learning experiences with peers due to discomfort over ambiguous or shifting norms around the use of AI technology, institutions of higher education could imagine alternative pathways for connection. Residential campuses could double down on in-person courses and connections; faculty could be incentivized to encourage students to visit during office hours. Faculty-led research, mentoring and campus events where faculty and students mix in an informal fashion could also make a difference.

We hope our research can also flip the script and disrupt tropes about students who use AI as “cheaters.” Instead, it tells a more complex story of students being thrust into a reality they didn’t ask for, with few clear guidelines and little control.

As generative AI continues to pervade everyday life, and institutions of higher education continue to search for solutions, our focus groups reflect the importance of listening to students and considering novel ways to help students feel more comfortable connecting with peers and faculty. Understanding these evolving interpersonal dynamics matters because how we relate to technology is increasingly affecting how we relate to one another. Given our experiences in dialogue with them, it is clear that students are more than ready to talk about this issue and its impact on their futures.

Acknowledgment: Thank you to the full team from the University of Pittsburgh Oakland, Greensburg, Bradford and Johnstown campuses, including Annette Vee, Patrick Manning, Jessica FitzPatrick, Jessica Ghilani, Catherine Kula, Patty Wharton-Michael, Jialei Jiang, Sean DiLeonardi, Birney Young, Mark DiMauro, Jeff Aziz, and Gayle Rogers.

Elise Silva 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. University students feel ‘anxious, confused and distrustful’ about AI in the classroom and among their peers – https://theconversation.com/university-students-feel-anxious-confused-and-distrustful-about-ai-in-the-classroom-and-among-their-peers-258665

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Mark Schlakman, Senior Program Director, The Florida State University Center for the Advancement of Human Rights, Florida State University

The state of Florida has opened a migrant detention center in the Everglades. Its official name is Alligator Alcatraz, a reference to the former maximum security federal penitentiary in San Francisco Bay.

While touring Alligator Alcatraz on July 1, 2025, President Donald Trump said, “This facility will house some of the menacing migrants, some of the most vicious people on the planet.” But new reporting from the Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times reveals that of more than 700 detainees, only a third have criminal convictions.

To find out more about the state of Florida’s involvement in immigration enforcement and who can be detained at Alligator Alcatraz, The Conversation spoke with Mark Schlakman. Schlakman is a lawyer and senior program director for The Florida State University Center for the Advancement of Human Rights. He also served as special counsel to Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles, working as a liaison of sorts with the federal government during the mid-1990s when tens of thousands of Haitians and Cubans fled their island nations on makeshift boats, hoping to reach safe haven in Florida.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has characterized the migrants being detained in facilities like Alligator Alcatraz as “murderers and rapists and traffickers and drug dealers.” Do we know if the detainees at Alligator Alcatraz have been convicted of these sorts of crimes?

The Times/Herald published a list of 747 current detainees as of Sunday, July 13, 2025. Their reporters found that about a third of the detainees have criminal convictions, including attempted murder, illegal reentry to the U.S., which is a federal crime, and traffic violations. Apparently hundreds more have charges pending, though neither the federal nor state government have made public what those charges are.

There are also more than 250 detainees with no criminal history, just immigration violations.

Is it a crime for someone to be in the U.S. without legal status? In other words, is an immigration violation a crime?

No, not necessarily. It’s well established as a matter of law that physical presence in the U.S. without proper authorization is a civil violation, not a criminal offense.

However, if the federal government previously deported someone, they can be subject to federal criminal prosecution if they attempt to return without permission. That appears to be the case with some of the detainees at Alligator Alcatraz.

What usually happens if a noncitizen commits a crime in the U.S.?

Normally, if a foreign national is accused of committing a crime, they are prosecuted in a state court just like anyone else. If found guilty and sentenced to incarceration, they complete their sentence in a state prison. Once they’ve served their time, state officials can hand them over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. They are subject to deportation, but a federal immigration judge can hear any grounds for relief.

DHS has clarified that it “has not implemented, authorized, directed or funded” Alligator Alcatraz, but rather the state of Florida is providing startup funds and running this facility. What is Florida’s interest in this? Are these mostly migrants who have been scooped up by ICE in Florida?

It’s still unclear where most of these detainees were apprehended. But based on a list of six detainees released by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier’s office, it is clear that at least some were apprehended outside of Florida, and others simply may have been transferred to Alligator Alcatraz from federal custody elsewhere.

This calls to mind the time in 2022 when Gov. Ron DeSantis flew approximately 50 migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts at Florida taxpayer expense. Those migrants also had no discernible presence in Florida.

To establish Alligator Alcatraz, DeSantis leveraged an immigration emergency declaration, which has been ongoing since Jan. 6, 2023. A state of emergency allows a governor to exercise extraordinary executive authority. This is how he avoided requirements such as environmental impact analysis in the Everglades and concerns expressed by tribal governance surrounding that area.

For now, the governor’s declaration remains unchallenged by the Florida Legislature. Environmental advocates have filed a lawsuit over Alligator Alcatraz, and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a decision by a federal judge temporarily barring Florida from enforcing its new immigration laws, which DeSantis had championed. But no court has yet intervened to contest this prolonged state of emergency.

This presents a stark contrast to Gov. Lawton Chiles’ declaration of an immigration emergency during the mid-1990s. At that time, tens of thousands of Cubans and Haitians attempted to reach Florida shores in virtually anything that would float. Chiles’ actions as governor were informed by his experience as a U.S. senator during the Mariel boatlift in 1980, when 125,000 Cubans made landfall in Florida over the course of just six months.

Chiles sued the Clinton administration for failing to adequately enforce U.S. immigration law. But Chiles also entered into unprecedented agreements with the federal government, such as the 1996 Florida Immigration Initiative with U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno. His intent was to protect Florida taxpayers while enhancing federal enforcement capacity, without dehumanizing people fleeing desperate circumstances.

During my tenure on Chiles’ staff, the governor generally opposed state legislation involving immigration. In the U.S.’s federalist system of government, immigration falls under the purview of the federal government, not the states. Chiles’ primary concern was that Floridians wouldn’t be saddled with what ought to be federal costs and responsibilities.

Chiles was open to state and local officials supporting federal immigration enforcement. But he was mindful this required finesse to avoid undermining community policing, public health priorities and the economic health of key Florida businesses and industries. To this day, the International Association of Chiefs of Police’s position reflects Chiles’ concerns about such cooperation with the federal government.

Now, in 2025, DeSantis has taken a decidedly different tack by using Florida taxpayer dollars to establish Alligator Alcatraz. The state of Florida has fronted the US$450 million to pay for this facility. DeSantis reportedly intends to seek reimbursement from FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program. Ultimately, congressional action may be necessary to obtain reimbursement. Florida is essentially lending the federal government half a billion dollars and providing other assistance to help support the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement agenda.

Florida is also establishing another migrant detention facility at Camp Blanding Joint Training Center near Jacksonville. A third apparently is being contemplated for the Panhandle.

ICE claims that the ultimate decision of whom to detain at these facilities belongs to the state of Florida, through the Florida Division of Emergency Management. Members of Congress who visited Alligator Alcatraz earlier this week have disputed ICE’s claim that Florida is in charge.

You advised Florida Division of Emergency Management leadership directly for several years during the administrations of Gov. Charlie Crist and Gov. Rick Scott. Does running a detention facility like Alligator Alcatraz fall within its typical mission?

The division is tasked with preparing for and responding to both natural and human-caused disasters. In Florida, that generally means hurricanes. While the division may engage to facilitate shelter, I don’t recall any policies or procedures contemplating anything even remotely similar to Alligator Alcatraz.

DeSantis could conceivably argue that this is consistent with a 287(g) agreement authorizing state and local support for federal immigration enforcement. But such agreements typically require federal supervision of state and local activities, not the other way around.

Mark Schlakman served as special counsel to Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles and as a consultant to Emilio Gonzalez at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security during his tenure as U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director during the George W. Bush administration.

– ref. Florida is fronting the $450M cost of Alligator Alcatraz – a legal scholar explains what we still don’t know about the detainees – https://theconversation.com/florida-is-fronting-the-450m-cost-of-alligator-alcatraz-a-legal-scholar-explains-what-we-still-dont-know-about-the-detainees-260665

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Bryan Keogh, Managing Editor

The Trump administration was given the green light by the Supreme Court on July 14, 2025, to proceed with mass layoffs at the Department of Education – part of a wider plan to dismantle the agency. In doing so, the conservative majority on the bench overruled a lower court judge that had blocked the move.

While the court didn’t explain its decision – and didn’t rule on the merits of the case – Justice Sonia Sotomayor, one of the three liberal justices who objected, issued a strongly worded dissent: “When the Executive publicly announces its intent to break the law, and then executes on that promise, it is the Judiciary’s duty to check that lawlessness, not expedite it.”

The Conversation has been following the administration’s efforts to take apart the Department of Education since President Donald Trump won the presidential election in November. Here are a few stories from our archives that explain the executive order targeting the department, why the agency has been in the crosshairs of conservatives, and some of the impacts of carrying out the order.

1. Hollowing out education

Trump has promised to eliminate the Department of Education since at least September 2023. What started out as a campaign promise eventually became the executive order he issued on March 20, 2025, released shortly after the administration announced plans to lay off about 1,300 of the 4,000 employees in the department.

“Although the president has broad executive authority, there are many things he cannot order by himself,” wrote Joshua Cowen, a professor of education policy at Michigan State University. “And one of those is the dismantling of a Cabinet agency created by law. But he seems determined to hollow the agency out.”

And that’s what the Supreme Court says he can do while the case plays out in lower courts. Ultimately, Trump’s order creates a lot of “legal and policy uncertainty around funding for children in local schools and communities.”

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Read more:
Mass layoffs at Education Department signal Trump’s plan to gut the agency

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2. What the education secretary normally does

The person directed to actually carry our the president’s order is the education secretary, Linda McMahon. She has called dismantling the department its “final mission.”

But the secretary – and the department – have many other missions, such as managing students loans and administering Title I funding to help schools serving low-income students obtain an equitable education regardless of their socioeconomic status.

“Every child in the United States is required to attend school in some capacity, and what happens at the federal level can have real-world impacts on students ranging from preschool to grad school,” wrote Dustin Hornbeck, a scholar of educational policy at the University of Memphis.

In his article, Hornbeck explored the key duties of the education secretary and the role of the federal government in education, which he argued will continue even if the Education Department is abolished.

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Read more:
US secretary of education helps set national priorities in a system primarily funded and guided by local governments

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3. Why MAGA targeted the department

So why did Trump decide getting rid of the Education Department was a top priority and worth the legal risks?

Fighting what he perceived as “wokeness” was likely one reason, wrote Alex Hinton, an anthropologist who has been studying U.S. political culture at Rutgers University − Newark.

“First and foremost, Trump and his supporters believe that liberals are ruining public education by instituting what they call a ‘radical woke agenda’ that they say prioritizes identity politics and politically correct groupthink at the expense of the free speech of those, like many conservatives, who have different views,” he explains.

Trump’s battle against DEI – or diversity, equity and inclusion – is of course a big part of that, but so too are what he and his supporters call “radical” race and gender policies.

Hinton goes on to describe three other reasons – including supposed “Marxist indoctrination” and school choice – he argues that the MAGA faithful want to eliminate the Department of Education.

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Read more:
Trump orders a plan to close Education Department – an anthropologist who studies MAGA explains 4 reasons why Trump and his supporters want to eliminate it

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4. It didn’t begin with Trump

But conservative efforts to gut the department didn’t begin with Trump or MAGA. In fact, the Heritage Foundation, which created the Project 2025 blueprint for remaking the federal government, has been trying to limit or end its role in education since at least 1981 – just two years after the Department of Education was created.

“In its 1981 mandate, the Heritage Foundation struck now-familiar themes,” including closing the Department of Education and ending funding for disadvantaged students, wrote Fred L. Pincus, a sociology professor focused on diversity and social inequality at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. “And the Heritage Foundation called for ending federal support for programs it claimed were designed to ‘turn elementary- and secondary-school classrooms into vehicles for liberal-left social and political change.’”

The conservative think tank struck similar themes in its Project 2025 playbook, though it went even further in calling out “leftist indoctrination” and “gender ideology extremism,” Pincus noted.

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Read more:
Trump’s executive order to dismantle the Education Department was inspired by the Heritage Foundation’s decades-long disapproval of the agency

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5. Impact on most vulnerable students

After all the already planned layoffs go into effect, the Department of Education will have roughly half the staff it started the year with. That will have a significant impact on its ability to carry out its many tasks, such as managing federal loans for college and tracking student achievement.

The department also enforces civil rights for schools and universities, and that office has been hit especially hard by the job cuts, wrote education professors Erica Frankenberg of Penn State and Maithreyi Gopalan of the University of Oregon.

“The Office for Civil Rights has played an important role in facilitating equitable education for all students,” they wrote. “The full effects of these changes on the most vulnerable public school students will likely be felt for many years.”

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Read more:
Big cuts at the Education Department’s civil rights office will affect vulnerable students for years to come

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

– ref. Trump free to begin gutting Department of Education after Supreme Court ‘shadow’ ruling − 5 essential reads – https://theconversation.com/trump-free-to-begin-gutting-department-of-education-after-supreme-court-shadow-ruling-5-essential-reads-261218