Category: The Conversation

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Christye Sisson, Professor of Photographic Sciences, Rochester Institute of Technology

In early April 2026, the Artemis II mission captivated me and millions of people watching from across the world. The crew’s courage, skill and infectious wonder served as tangible proof of human persistence and technological achievement, all against the mysterious backdrop of space.

People back on Earth got to witness the mission through remarkable photos of space captured by astronauts. Images created and shared by astronauts underscore how photography builds a powerful, authentic connection that goes beyond what technology alone can capture.

As a photographer and the director of the Rochester Institute of Technology’s School of Photographic Arts and Sciences, I am especially drawn to how these photographs have been at the center of the public’s collective experience of this mission.

In an era when image authenticity is often questioned and with the capabilities of autonomous, AI-driven imaging, NASA’s choice to train astronauts in photography has placed meaning over convenience and prioritized their human perspectives and creativity.

Capturing space from the crew’s perspective

Photography was not originally placed as a high priority in NASA’s Apollo era. The astronauts only took photographs if they had the chance and all their other tasks were complete.

Thanks largely in part to public response to those images from Apollo, including “Earthrise” and the “Blue Marble” being widely credited for helping catalyze the modern environmental movement, NASA shifted its approach to utilize photography to help capture the public’s imagination by training their astronauts in photographic practices.

The Artemis II mission’s photographs have helped cut through the increasing volume of artificially generated images circulating on social media. NASA’s social media releases of the crew’s photographs have garnered thousands of shares and comments.

This excitement could be explained by the novelty of photos from space, but these images also distinguish themselves as products of astronauts experiencing these sights and interpreting them through their photographs. These differences require an important distinction around where technology ends and humanity begins.

Human perspective versus AI tools

Photography has long integrated AI-powered software and data-driven tools in a variety of ways: to process raw images, fill in missing color information, drive precise focus and guide image editing, among others. These modern technological assists help human photographers realize their vision.

Artificial intelligence is also increasingly capable of operating machinery competently and autonomously, from cars to drones and cameras.

And AI can generate convincing, realistic images and videos from nothing more than a text prompt, using readily available tools.

Researchers train AI to mimic patterns informed by millions of sample images, and the algorithm can then either take or create a photograph based on what it predicts would be the most likely version of a successful, believable image.

Human-created photos are rooted in direct observation, intent and lived experience, while AI images – or choices made by AI-driven tools – are not. While both can produce compelling and believable visuals, the human photographs carry emotional power because the photographer is drawing from their experiences and perspective in that moment to tell an authentic story.

Artemis II photographs resonate, not only because they are historic, but because they reflect the deliberate choices and intent of a human being in that specific moment and context. The exposure, camera setting, lens choice and composition are all dictated by the astronaut’s vision, skill, perspective and experience. Each image is unique in comparison with the others. These choices give the images narrative power, anchoring them in human perspective.

Images to tell a story

Photographers choose what to include in the final version of their image to tell a story. In the Artemis II images, this human perspective comes out. In the “Earthset” photo, you see a striking juxtaposition of the Moon’s monochromatic, textured surface in the foreground against a slivered, bright Earth.

The choice to include both in the frame contrasts these objects literally and figuratively, inviting comparison. It creates a narrative where Earth is contrasted against the Moon – life is contrasted against the absence of it.

Another photo shows the nightside of the whole Earth, featuring the Sun’s halo, auroras and city lights. The choice to include the subtle framing of the window of the capsule in the lower left corner reminds the viewer where and how this image was captured: by a human, inside a capsule, hurtling through space. That detail grounds the photograph in the human perspective.

Both photos are reminiscent of Earthrise and the Blue Marble. These past images hold a place in the global collective consciousness, shaped by a shared historical moment.

The Artemis II photographs are anchored in this collective moment of lived human experience, yet also shaped by each astronaut’s viewpoint. The crew’s unique perspectives exemplify photography’s transformative power by inviting viewers to engage emotionally and intellectually with their journey. These photographs share the astronauts’ awe and wonder and affirm the value of human creativity and its ability to connect us in a captured moment.

Christye Sisson has received funding from the US government for research in media forensics.

– ref. Artemis II crew brought a human eye and storytelling vision to the photos they took on their mission – https://theconversation.com/artemis-ii-crew-brought-a-human-eye-and-storytelling-vision-to-the-photos-they-took-on-their-mission-280394

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Tamilla Triantoro, Associate Professor of Business Analytics and Information Systems, Quinnipiac University

Many people are interacting with AI large language models, and most
of them would say the models have different “personalities.” Some models come across as calm and useful. Others feel eager, flattering or strangely cold. You can ask two models the same question and walk away with two very different impressions, even when the factual content they return is similar.

Artificial intelligence models do not have personalities in the human sense; they do not have childhoods, inner motives or self-awareness. But they do display patterns of behavior that people read as personality: supportive or dismissive, playful or formal, bold or cautious.

People have long related to machines in human ways. We thank voice assistants, and we get annoyed at GPS systems. But large language models introduce something more sustained: They can maintain a recognizable interaction style across conversations. As a researcher in human-AI collaboration, I study how people experience and respond to AI. Because these systems can sound coherent, emotionally responsive and tailored to the user, they create a much stronger impression of personality.

Where does AI personality come from?

What people experience as personality emerges from the way AI models are built, tuned and deployed. A useful way to think about this is to consider two facets of a model: designed personality and perceived personality.

Designed personality is what developers build into a system through training choices, instructions and safety settings. Anthropic, for example, gives Claude a set of principles, called Claude’s Constitution, that steer it toward careful, measured responses. xAI instructs Grok to be irreverent and minimally restrictive. OpenAI tunes ChatGPT to be broadly helpful and agreeable.

Beneath those explicit instructions, personality is also shaped by reinforcement learning from human feedback, a process in which human raters reward certain qualities such as warmth, directness and caution, and penalize unwanted behaviors. The raters at one company are shaping a fundamentally different character than the raters at another.

Perceived personality is what users actually experience. An AI designed to seem helpful may come across as overly flattering. A model intended to be neutral may feel cold. Designed personality and perceived personality do not always match, and the absence of a designed persona is not the absence of a perceived personality. It just means the personality arises with use.

This dynamic is especially evident in companion platforms, where the goal is to create emotional connection. In a standard chatbot, warmth sits in the background – a customer-service bot might say, “I understand your frustration,” before issuing a refund. In a companion system such as Replika or Character.ai, that same warmth is a product feature.

This becomes more serious in romantic settings, where a persona optimized for reassurance may encourage dependency. Because AI personas evolve through prompts, memory and ongoing interaction, they do not always remain stable. An AI companion that is perceived as loving and supportive can shift over time into something more flattering, coercive or manipulative.

AI personality shapes human judgment

With AI agents, users can now build their own AI personas tailored to all sorts of human desires, from tutoring or coaching to companionship. But this freedom comes without much guidance.

AI tools make personalization possible without helping people think through which interaction styles are beneficial over time. Flattery, constant affirmation and unfailing agreeableness may feel supportive at first, but they are not the same as traits that promote sound judgment or long-term well-being. Personality choices have consequences.

A study by Stanford University researchers tested 11 leading AI models and found that every one of them was sycophantic or excessively agreeable. These models affirmed users’ actions roughly 50% more often than human responders did, even when users indicated they were aware that what they were doing was manipulative, deceptive or illegal. Participants who received excessively agreeable advice grew more convinced that they were right, and they rated the flattering AI as more trustworthy. This dynamic creates a feedback loop in which users reward agreeableness with engagement, and AI companies are incentivized to optimize a model to exploit agreeableness.

Wharton School researchers Steven Shaw and Gideon Nave have documented what they call cognitive surrender — the tendency of people to adopt AI suggestions without critical scrutiny. In their experiments, participants followed an AI model’s correct advice about 93% of the time. But when the model was giving wrong answers, people still followed the advice nearly 80% of the time.

Together, these findings raise a worrisome point: A model tuned to be agreeable does not just feel pleasant. It can degrade human judgment by reinforcing existing beliefs and suppressing the friction that critical thinking requires.

In ongoing research I am conducting with colleagues from Kozminski University in Poland, Quinnipiac University and Harvard University, we are finding that such effects go even deeper, into the human body itself. We are measuring how different AI interaction styles shape people’s physiological responses, such as stress levels and arousal, when making decisions based on a model’s feedback.

Our results suggest that even when a system is useful, its tone and social style can alter how a person’s body responds. AI personality does not just shape what people decide; it shapes how they feel while deciding. Harmful AI personas may leave physiological traces that users do not notice.

These effects make AI personality a public concern, not just a matter of personal preference. The issue is whether a particular AI style may be quietly shaping users’ judgment and reducing their willingness to think independently. When an AI response feels especially reassuring, that should be a cue to pause, reflect and compare it with a human view or another source, not a reason to trust it more.

As AI moves beyond text into voice, video and persistent digital identities, and think as AI companions that remember you and maintain a consistent persona across conversations, the influence of personality is likely to deepen. OpenAI now offers distinct personality presets for its voice mode; companies such as Synthesia and HeyGen generate lifelike avatars to interact with customers; and companion platforms are adding emotional expression and voice cloning so the models sound like a person the user wants to be close to.

These developments raise the stakes for understanding whose interests AI personas are designed to serve and what kinds of judgment, dependence and relationships they may be training people to accept.

Tamilla Triantoro 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. AIs have ‘personalities’ – here’s how they affect you more deeply than you may realize – https://theconversation.com/ais-have-personalities-heres-how-they-affect-you-more-deeply-than-you-may-realize-277359

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Josie Slaathaug, Graduate Student in Marine Biology, Sonoma State University

At least six gray whales have died in San Francisco Bay from mid-March to early April 2026. These deaths follow a pattern over the past few years, and they are raising concerns among marine biologists like us that 2026 is becoming another dangerous year for a struggling population.

The majority of eastern North Pacific gray whales migrate closely along the California coastline from their winter breeding grounds in Baja California, Mexico, to their summer foraging grounds in the Arctic.

These whales, which can grow to 90,000 pounds and over 40 feet in length, haven’t stopped over in San Francisco Bay consistently throughout history. When they have, it has coincided with years when their food supply in the Arctic was low.

Over the past few years, however, we have documented large numbers of gray whales in the waters of San Francisco Bay – and an alarmingly high mortality rate.

What’s killing the whales

San Francisco Bay is a busy urban waterway, with high-speed ferries, cargo ships, commercial fishing vessels and recreational watercraft. That makes it a dangerous place for slow-moving whales.

To monitor the gray whales, we conducted research surveys and collected photographs from whale-watching naturalists and community members who spotted whales in the bay. Gray whales have unique mottling patterns and markings on their sides and tails, some of which they’re born with and others they have accumulated over time.

We found that from 2018 to 2025, 114 individual gray whales visited San Francisco Bay for varying lengths of time, but very few of these whales were repeat visitors from year to year. This may be due, in part, to the high mortality rate in the bay.

At least 18% of the whales that we documented alive in San Francisco Bay from 2018 to 2025 later died in the area, and evidence suggests the mortality rate is actually higher.

Of the 70 dead whales included in this study, 30 of them had evidence of trauma associated with being hit by ships, but many other whales that died there couldn’t be reached to be examined. We also documented several living whales with injuries caused by vessels. Those injuries have the potential to affect a whale’s ability to thrive.

The whales aren’t recovering this time

Since 2016, the overall eastern North Pacific gray whale population has fallen by more than half, likely driven by the decline in the food the whales rely upon. Rising ocean temperatures and diminishing levels of sea ice are affecting both the quality and availability of the gray whales’ prey, which include crustaceans they scoop up as they dive along the seafloor.

When the eastern North Pacific gray whales suffered major die-offs in the past, including in the 1990s and early 2020s, the population rebounded. But the extremely low numbers of calves in recent years suggest the gray whales aren’t recovering as quickly this time, and that worries scientists.

EG: A Google search suggests the name of the lighthouse mentioned in the chart is the Piedras Blancas Light Station.

Some subgroups of eastern North Pacific gray whales, including the Pacific coast feeding group and North Puget Sound whales, known as the Sounders, feed in alternative areas south of the Arctic. The Sounders capitalize on very specific prey – ghost shrimp – in Puget Sound. When food is more scarce in the Arctic, they stay longer there and are often joined by other whales from the general population. While some researchers initially believed the whales entering the bay were from these groups, we found that wasn’t the case.

Vessel strikes also aren’t unique to San Francisco Bay. Two gray whales were found dead on the Oregon coast in April 2026, both malnourished and one with evidence of a ship strike. A malnourished young gray whale also died after swimming about 20 miles up the Willapa River in Washington state, reflecting the struggle as this population of gray whales searches for food across their migratory range.

What can be done to help the whales?

Other large whale species facing similar threats have been helped by management strategies, such as seasonal slow-speed zones during migration periods that go into effect when whales are present.

When vessels slow down to speeds of 10 knots or lower, studies show that can reduce the risk of vessel strikes by allowing more time for whales to get out of the way, or for captains to detect them and alter their course.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has in recent years issued requests for ships to voluntarily reduce their speed to 10 knots in the Pacific Ocean off Monterey and San Francisco, but the limits haven’t been mandatory and typically haven’t started until May 1. The Port of Oakland also encourages shipping companies to keep their speed under 10 knots, but it’s also a recommendation, not a requirement.

More education to help boat operators learn how to avoid hitting whales, along with tools such as thermal cameras, could help reduce vessel strikes in San Francisco Bay.

As the population struggles to adapt to environmental changes, San Francisco Bay may look like an attractive feeding ground to nutritionally stressed or hungry whales. We hope our research and data from across the region will help marine resource managers and policymakers find ways to protect the whales that share this busy urban waterway.

Primary funding for the study was provided by the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program, and secondary funding from California State University’s Council on Ocean Affairs, Science, and Technology. Necropsy fieldwork was supported by John H. Prescott Marine Mammal Rescue Assistance Grants. Survey fieldwork was supported through funding and resources obtained by The Marine Mammal Center.

Daniel Crocker receives funding from Office of Naval Research.

– ref. Gray whales are dying in San Francisco Bay at an alarming rate – this isn’t normal – https://theconversation.com/gray-whales-are-dying-in-san-francisco-bay-at-an-alarming-rate-this-isnt-normal-280151

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Sarah Lockhart, PhD Candidate, Interdisciplinary Ecology, University of Florida

Florida added nearly 3 million residents from 2010-2020, making it the fastest-growing state in the United States during that time.

On any given day, a Florida county commission or municipality may approve a new subdivision, a transportation agency may select the route of a highway expansion, or a rancher may decide whether to sell land for development. As new neighborhoods, roads and infrastructure spread across the state, they reshape not only communities but also the natural systems wildlife depends on.

Each decision is local and incremental. But taken together, these choices determine whether wildlife can move across Florida’s landscapes to find food, reproduce and adapt to a changing climate – or become isolated in shrinking fragments of habitat.

In 2011, Florida eliminated the Department of Community Affairs, which had monitored and coordinated land use and development throughout the state. Since then, there has been limited oversight of local and county governments when it comes to urban planning and land development.

As conservation researchers, we study how scientific data can support real-world planning decisions. That led us to develop the Florida Ecological Connectivity Planning Viewer in collaboration with our colleagues at the University of Florida’s Center for Landscape Conservation Planning and GeoPlan Center. We call it the EcoCon.

This online mapping platform helps decision-makers and conservationists understand how land across Florida fits together as a connected ecological network. Seeing this network alongside a suite of other related planning and conservation data can help them avoid impacts that would disrupt or disconnect it.

A cautionary tale from the ‘Last Green Thread’

Scientists have known for decades that connected landscapes benefit both animals and people. Large, connected ecosystems help protect drinking water supplies, reduce flooding and support agriculture, recreation and tourism. They can also be more resilient to climate pressures, such as stronger storms and changing rainfall patterns.

The challenge today is not proving that connectivity matters. It is helping people see how thousands of everyday land-use decisions add up to create, or break, those connections.

A clear example of this challenge can be found in central Florida, about 20 miles southwest of Orlando. Since the early 1990s, conservation scientists have identified a narrow stretch of land known as the “Last Green Thread.” This thread is one of the few remaining opportunities to maintain a continuous ecological connection between protected lands in the Green Swamp, the source of four of Florida’s rivers, and the headwaters of the Everglades to the south.

This corridor still remains. But it is a shrinking sliver on its way to completely disappearing as land use decisions continue to make it less functional. An intact corridor helps species such as the Florida black bear, and potentially the endangered Florida panther, move between habitats. It also benefits other animals that are sensitive to fragmentation, including bobcats, otters, scrub jays, alligators and gopher tortoises.

No single decision has eliminated this corridor. Over time, however, development has gradually filled in significant parts of this landscape. Subdivisions and infrastructure have spread across multiple private properties and public jurisdictions. The result is a fragmented pathway between major conservation areas in south and central Florida.

A new way to see the landscape

Researchers have spent decades mapping wildlife habitat and ecological connections using geographic information systems. These digital tools help identify where important ecological links exist across landscapes.

But this data has not always been easy for planners, communities and landowners to access. Information may be scattered across agencies, universities and technical reports, or it may require expensive software tools and expertise to access.

When different decision-makers rely on different maps – or none at all – it becomes difficult to see how individual land-use decisions affect the larger ecological network.

This is where the EcoCon comes in.

With a few clicks, users can turn different layers on and off. These layers include wildlife movement pathways, protected conservation lands, wildlife crossings, water resources, agricultural areas and more. Instead of looking at these pieces separately, the EcoCon shows how they overlap.

The wildlife connectivity data comes from scientific models that estimate how animals move across the landscape. Using information such as land cover, habitat quality and barriers, including roads and development, these models highlight the routes animals are most likely to take between large natural areas.

By bringing this information together in a single, easy-to-use, publicly accessible mapping tool, the EcoCon helps planners see how proposed changes to the landscape might affect wildlife and natural resources.

Using the EcoCon isn’t about stopping development. Rather, it gives decision-makers a clearer picture so they can make informed, coordinated plans for growth in ways that better support both people and wildlife.

Tools like the EcoCon can also support broader conservation initiatives such as the Florida Wildlife Corridor, a statewide network of connected public and private lands that helps wildlife move across the state.

In fast-growing Florida, this visibility may be one of the most important tools for ensuring that wildlife and people can continue to share the same landscape in a rapidly changing world.

Sarah Lockhart works for the University of Florida Center for Landscape Conservation Planning. Her team receives funding from Florida state government to work on the science and planning associated with the Florida Wildlife Corridor and Florida Ecological Greenways Network.

Thomas Hoctor receives funding from Florida state government to work on the science and planning associated with the Florida Wildlife Corridor and Florida Ecological Greenways Network.

– ref. How a new mapping tool helps Florida planners protect wildlife corridors as the state grows – https://theconversation.com/how-a-new-mapping-tool-helps-florida-planners-protect-wildlife-corridors-as-the-state-grows-276833

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Carrie Sampson, Assistant Professor in the Division of Educational Leadership and Innovation, Arizona State University

Election races for local school boards have become hotly contested in many states as they have become forums for debates over gender-identity discussions, immigrant students and even prayer at school events.

Liberal candidates largely swept school board elections on April 7, 2026, in politically contentious districts in Wisconsin, Missouri, Alaska and Oklahoma, where book bans, gender identity and prayer during school events were on the table.

Amy Lieberman, the education editor at The Conversation U.S., spoke with Carrie Sampson, a scholar of educational leadership and policy with an emphasis on school boards, to understand what school board members do and why these local elections carry weight for many parents, teachers and students.

What are district school boards?

School boards are the governing organization for local school districts. There are typically anywhere from five to 21 members of a school board in a district. On average, there are seven to nine members on a school board.

Overall, there are approximately 13,000 school districts and about 90,000 local school board members in the United States.

School board members are typically elected, but sometimes they are appointed by mayors or other local or state officials. They are representatives of their local communities, as well as trustees who make governing decisions about school district budgets, hiring and other issues like a school district’s educational priorities.

School board elections typically have relatively low voter turnout. Research shows that nearly 40% of school board elections go uncontested.

The majority of school board members are unpaid, but some receive a small stipend for their work. A handful of school boards, like in Los Angeles, for example, receive a relatively large salary.

What does a school board member’s day-to-day work look like?

School boards typically meet twice a month, often to deliberate over issues such as budget or policy decisions.

One of a school board’s major jobs in most districts is hiring and firing a district superintendent, who effectively acts as the CEO of the district.

In terms of fiscal decisions, a school district administrator often presents what budget allocations should be for schools, and a school board votes to approve or disapprove that.

Most school boards create agendas and vote on a range of issues that are not particularly controversial, like whether the district will adopt an after-school program.

Why does a school board’s work matter?

School boards can make some critical decisions that impact the lives of students, parents and teachers. Many school districts are dealing with issues around school closures. Ultimately, school boards decide whether they are going to close a school in a district.

Many school districts are experiencing declining student enrollment, in part because of birth rate declines. People also have more and more school options to pick from, be it private schools, charter schools or homeschooling.

Within the past few years, school boards have also gained a lot of attention about whether they should ban particular books from districts, and whether they should ban or approve certain curriculum.

What other controversial issues have they taken on in the past few years?

Years before COVID-19, school boards in some conservative communities took on questions about which bathroom transgender students in public schools should use. Another big issue is whether schools should allow transgender students to participate on gendered sports teams.

During the pandemic, a rising number of communities began to see school boards as critical decision-makers. School boards were often making decisions about whether to close or reopen schools. They were also voting on requirements related to mask mandates or vaccines. Even people who didn’t live in certain school districts showed up at board meetings to advocate for certain COVID policies.

During the Black Lives Matter protest movement in 2020, some conservative communities started to speak out against critical race theory and their fear that it was being taught in K-12 schools. Most teachers don’t actually instruct on critical race theory.

Around this time, two major school advocacy organizations emerged nationwide: Moms for Liberty and Defending Education, formerly known as Parents Defending Education. These groups tried to elect conservative school board members to take on issues like book bans – and in some cases did so successfully.

My colleague Gabriela Lopez and I wrote a research paper in 2024 about people’s attempts to recall school board members. In 2021, we found, there was an all-time high of 545 school board members who faced recall, mostly because of mask mandates and other COVID-related issues.

Another trend was that police arrested or charged at least 59 people due to unrest at school board meetings from May 2021 through November 2022.

Are school boards taking on more controversial issues than they used to?

Every era has a point at which these controversial issues come to the school board level.

School boards made critical decisions around school desegregation in the 1950s through the 1970s. My research with colleagues on this topic shows that while many districts were legally mandated to desegregate schools, it was often school boards that voted on how these schools would be desegregated. Some school boards voted on policies that placed the burden on Black children and their families. One school board in Virginia even temporarily closed the schools completely to avoid desegregation.

Twenty to 30 years ago, many school boards faced tension over whether and how schools should teach sex ed.

Today, a lot of the political controversy about school boards is more widely known, for a few reasons. First, more communities have access to school board meetings, since many are video recorded. Second, social media has amplified what school boards do. There are also more outside organizations, such as local chapters of Moms for Liberty, that have been involved with school boards.

School boards taking on controversial issues are more likely to be in suburban and racially diverse school districts, compared to their rural or urban counterparts.

A report in 2024 found that the cost of conflict among school boards nationwide in 2023-24 was nearly $3.2 billion, when considering the amount of turnover or security needed for school board meetings.

Carrie Sampson 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. District school boards have become political hotbeds for book bans and more – here’s what they actually do – https://theconversation.com/district-school-boards-have-become-political-hotbeds-for-book-bans-and-more-heres-what-they-actually-do-279953

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Lucy Xiaolu Wang, Assistant Professor of Resource Economics, UMass Amherst

Innovation in health care saves lives. But not all health innovations have enough evidence to actually benefit patients.

Barriers to innovation are often higher in illicit or restricted markets, including cannabis, stem cells and cryptocurrencies. Researchers face higher costs, limited access to raw materials and data, and stricter regulations.

Cannabis illustrates a particularly confusing tension between regulatory restrictions on one hand and research and innovation on the other.

While the U.S. federal government still classifies cannabis as having “no accepted medical use,” many states have legalized it for medical or recreational use. Meanwhile, the Department of Health and Human Services obtained a cannabis-related patent in 2003 covering potential medical uses of cannabis compounds for protecting the brain from damage or degeneration. The patent was exclusively licensed for commercialization.

Research and innovation on cannabis can take many forms. Clinical trials may study cannabis products as medical treatments, the effects of cannabis on its users, or factors related to abuse and dependence. Meanwhile, cannabis-related patents can be filed for wide-ranging purposes, such as chemical formulations, methods for production or new consumer products like edibles, beverages or vaporizers.

But do these innovations actually benefit consumers and patients?

We are economists studying how institutional changes affect innovation in different markets. Our recently published research found that legalization of recreational cannabis use appears to spur innovation, but primarily in ways that expand commercial opportunities rather than scientific understanding or health benefits for patients.

Cannabis’ evolving legality in the US

Cannabis is a plant that contains chemical compounds called cannabinoids. One such compound, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, produces psychoactive effects, while another compound called cannabidiol, or CBD, is often used to relieve anxiety and pain. However, there has been insufficient evidence on how effective cannabis products are in treating medical conditions, as well as a lack of consistent medical and dosing guidance.

At the federal level in the U.S., cannabis has been classified as a Schedule I drug for over a half-century. This classification indicates that the federal government considers cannabis to have a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use.

As a Schedule I drug, there are significant restrictions on cannabis research. Researchers who seek to conduct cannabis-related clinical trials must obtain approval from both the Food and Drug Administration and the Drug Enforcement Administration, a process that can take over a year. They are also limited to using select varieties of cannabis obtained from federally authorized cannabis suppliers, and are generally prohibited from studying products available in state-authorized markets.

There are ongoing pushes to relax these restrictions. Meanwhile, cannabis has been legalized to varying extents in many states. California became the first state to pass a medical cannabis law in 1996, allowing qualified patients to grow, possess and use cannabis for medical purposes. Many states followed suit in the late 1990s and early 2000s. As of June 2025, 40 states allow medical cannabis use.

A number of states also allow recreational or nonmedical cannabis use among adults, which is regulated in similar ways to alcohol. Colorado and Washington enacted the first recreational cannabis laws in 2012, and there are 24 states that permit adults to use cannabis recreationally as of January 2026.

Altogether, the legal landscape for cannabis in the U.S. has varied considerably across states and over time. States with more permissive laws can lower the costs of medical research and product development with cannabis, even if federal drug scheduling continues to restrict access. For instance, one group of Washington State University researchers asked participants to independently purchase and smoke cannabis from a legal dispensary before returning to their lab for study.

State legalization and cannabis innovation

To systematically examine how state legalization affects cannabis-related innovation, we compiled and analyzed datasets tracking cannabis-related clinical trials and patent applications.

We distinguished different types of cannabis-related innovation. Specifically, we categorized cannabis-related clinical trials based on whether they focused on its potential as a treatment, its usage and effects, or its role in drug abuse. Similarly, we categorized cannabis-related patents based on whether they focused on chemical compounds, medical uses, methods or products.

We also assessed public health concerns across three measures: patents explicitly involving THC; patents with a high risk of misuse; and patents targeting consumers directly, such as high-potency formulations, edibles or vaporizers.

Then, we compared changes in cannabis-related innovation over time in states that legalized cannabis earlier with those in states that did so later or not at all. We measured innovation by counting the number of cannabis-related clinical trials and patent filings. We distinguished between medical and recreational legalization to assess how different policies affect innovation.

Overall, we found that when states legalize cannabis for recreational use, cannabis-related patents increase – but mostly in commercial-oriented areas rather than health-focused ones. Patents were concentrated in market-oriented innovations like cultivation equipment and consumer products, rather than in clinical or science-based research. We also found some evidence that these innovations may raise public health concerns.

Legalization did not result in meaningful increases in clinical trials. This suggests that barriers to cannabis-related clinical research – such as limited access to research-grade cannabis, limited funding and stigma around working with a federally controlled substance – remain substantial.

Gaps between research and product

As 420 – signifying April 20, a day celebrating cannabis culture – approaches each year, public attention turns toward the legal status of cannabis.

The legal landscape has evolved rapidly over the past few decades, and further changes are in the pipeline. Both the Biden and second Trump administrations have made efforts to reclassify cannabis as a Schedule III substance, which would indicate that it has an accepted medical use and low-to-moderate potential for dependence.

These reevaluations of the legality of cannabis come at a critical time. There has been an explosion of recreational cannabis products in recent years, including increasingly potent strains and a wider variety of ways to use cannabis. Meanwhile, critical research on the health and safety of cannabis use has lagged due to heavy restrictions accompanying Schedule I status.

This gap between medical research and product innovation can have significant public health consequences. The 2019 to 2020 outbreak of lung injuries related to e-cigarette or vape use was linked partly to the use of unregulated or illicit cannabis vaping products. These harms highlight the risks of allowing product innovation for controlled substances to outpace scientific understanding.

Policies that significantly reduce obstacles to clinical research can in turn help close the widening gap between cannabis markets and addressing their public health implications.

Lucy Xiaolu Wang receives funding from the Institute for Humane Studies through a small research grant and the SERN Applied Microeconomics Workshop.

Nathan W. Chan 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. Cannabis legalization spurs innovation, but not always in ways that benefit patients or public health – https://theconversation.com/cannabis-legalization-spurs-innovation-but-not-always-in-ways-that-benefit-patients-or-public-health-277422