Tag: The Conversation

Being scammed; once again!

The latest tricks are very clever!

I’m too confident, and I need to change. My confidence comes from having been scammed a few years ago, and trying now to be very careful.

But scamming is moving forward, technologically speaking, at a great pace.

Thus, I’m including the following article from The Conversation because it offers fantastic tips.

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AI is supercharging money scams – here’s what you can do to protect yourself

An older man looks at a paper statement, with a confused expression, in front of his laptop. — Financial losses caused by AI fraud are skyrocketing, especially among adults over 60. Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash

Pawan Jain, University of Michigan Flint

The phone rings, and it’s your grandson’s shaken voice. There’s been an accident, he says, and he needs money before anyone finds out. Except it isn’t him. It’s software that learned his voice from a clip posted online, run by a stranger working through a list of phone numbers.

For years, warnings about artificial intelligence and cybersecurity have focused on corporate networks and government systems. Those threats are real. But if you follow the money in the FBI’s fraud data, a different picture emerges: Staggering sums are flowing out of household accounts.

In its 2025 annual report, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center began tracking complaints with an AI connection for the first time. Americans filed more than 22,000 such cases and reported roughly US$893 million in losses. Investment fraud accounted for $632 million of that, and people over 60 accounted for $352 million of the losses.

Those figures include only victims who reported to the FBI, and only cases where AI’s role could be identified. The consulting firm Deloitte projects that the actual hit from AI will be much bigger and help push U.S. fraud losses overall to $40 billion by 2027, up from $12.3 billion in 2023.

I’m a finance professor who studies household finance and how people use AI to make money decisions. And I believe the most consequential AI security story right now isn’t unfolding in server rooms, but at kitchen tables.

Old cons, new machinery

None of these scams are new. What AI changed is the cost and the quality of the cons.

Cloning a voice now takes a few seconds of audio and cheap consumer tools. In one study, listeners were able to identify an AI-generated voice only about 60% of the time. Video is heading the same way. In 2024, a finance employee at the architecture and design firm Arup was tricked into wiring about $25 million to fraudsters after they set up a video meeting “staffed” by deepfakes of the chief financial officer and several colleagues.

Phishing has improved, too. Clumsy wording and odd formatting used to give fraudulent emails away. Language models now write clean, fluent messages and can personalize them at scale using details scraped from social media. Deepfake videos of well-known business figures pitch bogus trading platforms.

The same pressure is visible in business losses. The cyber insurer Resilience reported that more than 85% of the losses in its claims portfolio in the first half of 2026 stemmed from attacks aimed at people rather than systems.

Why careful people fall for it

We’d like to believe that only careless people get taken. Research in behavioral finance says otherwise.

These scams are engineered around fear and urgency: a panicked grandchild, a boss demanding a same-day transfer, an investment window that closes tonight. Stress narrows attention and pushes people toward fast, intuitive judgments at the very moment they need slow, deliberate ones. Fraudsters also strike a pose of authority, whether a CFO’s face or a government agency’s letterhead, because most people defer to it.

Fluency matters as well. My own research examines how the smoothness of AI-generated communication leads people to trust it. A message with no typos, in a voice that sounds exactly right, sails past defenses that a clumsy fake would have tripped.

Nobody plans to make a major financial decision mid-panic. That’s exactly why scammers manufacture the panic.

The quiet version of the attack

AI-enabled theft doesn’t necessarily involve talking to the victim. Stolen personal data sells for a few dollars on dark web markets. Criminals then feed it to automated AI agents that probe bank and fintech systems around the clock, testing credentials and hunting for weak points at a speed no human crew could match. Last fall, the AI company Anthropic disrupted an espionage campaign in which an AI agent performed 80% to 90% of the intrusion work against roughly 30 targets, including financial institutions.

When an attacker gets into a customer account, the takeover can be over in minutes. Instant payment platforms like Zelle, built for speed and convenience, become the getaway car. The money typically moves within minutes, and getting it back is almost impossible.

How to protect you and your loved ones

Banks defend their own wire rooms with procedures, not vigilance. Households can borrow those procedures.

Check by calling back. When you get a suspicious call, hang up and dial a number you already know – like your bank’s fraud hotline – and never one the caller or message supplies. The point is to leave the channel the scammer controls. A cloned voice can’t answer your grandson’s real phone.

Trust and verify. You should agree on a robust family code word for emergencies and treat any request for money that lacks it as fake. Require two people in your household to sign off on any large transfer, so nobody moves serious money alone and under pressure. And build in a delay, such as a self-imposed 24-hour wait, before any big payment. Urgency is the scammer’s tool. Slowness is yours.

Add layers of protection. Protect the accounts themselves, too. Turn on two-factor login for financial accounts, and never share a verification code with someone who contacts you. That code is the second lock on your door, and the only reason a caller wants it is to get in.

You should also switch on your bank’s transaction alerts so a takeover announces itself in minutes, and consider a credit freeze, which is free and blocks thieves from opening new accounts with data bought on the dark web.

Protect older people. With $352 million of reported AI-related losses coming from Americans over 60, conversations with older family members are key. Walk through the callback rule and the code word, and ask their bank or brokerage about adding a trusted contact they can call. It costs nothing, and it gives the institution a way to raise an alarm before the money moves.

If money has already moved, you should call your bank immediately, ask it to attempt a recovery, then report the scam to the Federal Trade Commission.

Where habits end, rules should begin

Good habits raise the cost of every one of these scams, but they can’t do it all. This is where the U.S. regulations have fallen behind the technology.

Federal law is supposed to protect consumers from unauthorized electronic transfers, and regulators have said that a transfer set in motion by a fraudster counts as unauthorized even when the victim was tricked into handing over account credentials.

In practice, though, victims of instant-payment fraud often recover little. Banks frequently classify losses as “authorized” when a customer was deceived into approving the payment, and even obvious victims of such takeovers can face long fights over reimbursement.

For example, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued Zelle’s operator and three of the country’s largest banks over their response to alleged fraud in late 2024, then dropped the case in March 2025. New York’s attorney general has since filed her own lawsuit, which a judge allowed to proceed in July. Zelle’s operator denies the allegations and says it will appeal.

A Zelle payments app displays different options for mobile banking on a smart phone. — The payment platform Zelle has become a favorite tool for scammers because stolen money is so hard to retrieve. AP Photo/Patrick Sison

The U.K. has taken a different path. Since late 2024, U.K. banks have been required to reimburse most scam victims up to £85,000, roughly $115,000, with the cost split between the sending and receiving institutions. The logic is that banks are best equipped to fight fraud, since they run security teams and networkwide analytics that can spot suspicious patterns across millions of transactions. What they had lacked was a strong financial reason to deploy them fully, and the reimbursement rule supplied it.

The regulator’s own dashboard shows that 88% of the money lost to eligible scams has been returned to victims since the rules took effect. More telling: An independent evaluation found that scam losses fell by roughly a fifth in the rule’s first year. That shows that when banks bear the losses, they find ways to prevent them.

I believe American regulators and Congress should study that model closely. When payments are instant and irreversible, the risk cannot rest almost entirely on the customer, who is the least-equipped party in the chain.

Pawan Jain, Associate Professor of Finance, University of Michigan Flint

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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The advice is excellent.

A reminder of the tips explained above: Check by calling back., Trust and verify., Add layers of protection., Banking protections,. Protect older people.

They are excellent tips.

And I need to learn this advice and take action, not just republish it and forget it!

A sudden rainstorm, here at home

The power of water.

Last Saturday evening, the 5th September, 2026, we had a violent and sudden rainstorm. In twenty-four minutes 0.85” of rain fell. Luckily there was no damage.

On Thursday, The Conversation published a post about the potential dangers of hiking in canyons when storms hit,

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Hiking canyons can quickly turn deadly when storms hit – what you should know before going in

Mangled construction equipment is partially buried in boulders on the canyon floor. — Mud and debris, including a mangled piece of construction equipment, remain after a flash flood in Grand Canyon National Park on Aug. 31, 2026. Katherine Hensel/National Park Service via AP

Anner Paldor, University of Tennessee

Hiking a picturesque valley or climbing a craggy gorge are some of the most exhilarating experiences in nature. As a geologist, I have hiked and climbed some of the most intense terrains in the world, including in the Andes, Middle Eastern deserts, the Balkans and the Appalachians.

I am particularly drawn to canyons that provide beautiful windows into the rock record and the geologic history of a place. However, these narrow valleys can quickly become extremely dangerous when water pours in.

At Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, at least two hikers died and a third was missing after powerful monsoon storms sent a deluge into one of the narrowest parts of the canyon on Aug. 29, 2026. Two of the survivors who were rescued described seeing the water quickly rise over the trail as they clung to a ledge, fearing they might never see their families again.

People stand on the rim of the Grand Canyon as a storm moves through. — A storm moves into the Grand Canyon. AP Photo/John Locher

So, how do you balance a love for outdoor activity with managing this risk and hike canyons safely?

Why canyons are prone to flash floods

To understand the dynamics of a flash flood, it helps to start with the geomorphologic aspect – understanding the landforms and how they change over time.

In canyons and arroyos – steep gullies common to the Southwest – flash flooding can occur even when the heavy rainfall happens great distances away. A person can be hiking under clear skies in the canyon and not be aware that heavy rain falling upstream or even outside of the canyon means a disaster is unfolding.

The steep gradients and narrow passageways that define these landscapes channel the water, sending vast amounts of it rushing downstream. Under these conditions, water can rise quickly in the narrow space of a canyon.

Timelapse images of the radar shows strong storms upstream and over Bright Angel Canyon ahead of the flood. — Time-lapse radar shows the storms moving over the regions of the Grand Canyon where the flood hit, near Phantom Ranch. Anner Paldor; Iowa Environmental Mesonet

The Grand Canyon flood involved heavy downpours in the heart of monsoon season. The intensity of the rainfall matters in a canyon. Even in arid regions, which generally get low amounts of rain annually, heavy rainfall within a short period of time can create devastating floods.

In 2018, a flash flood in Israel’s Tzafit Canyon – an environment similar to the part of the Grand Canyon where the 2026 flood occurred – claimed the lives of 10 recent high school graduates who were hiking in the canyon.

I grew up in that region and had hiked there many times, and I remember thinking about the incomprehensible suddenness: One moment you are appreciating the breathtaking views of the desert, and within minutes you are fighting a torrent of water you never imagined in such an arid place. A year’s worth of rain fell near the canyon that day.

The hydrogeologic aspect

How well the ground absorbs water also affects flood dynamics. Soils that are highly porous and permeable can transmit water easily vertically into the ground.

However, in arid regions such as Arizona and the Negev Desert, where Tzafit Canyon lies, the dry ground tends to form hardened crusts that make it harder for the water to sink in. That exacerbates surface flooding.

Two people wait on a rocky canyon floor for a helicopter in the distance. — Dozens of people were evacuated by helicopter from the canyon after the flood. Katherine Hensel/National Park Service via AP

What’s more, the lack of vegetation in dry and rocky environments means that water can flow more rapidly down slopes.

What should hikers do to stay safe?

As an avid hiker, I value the beauty of nature and geology that canyons offer, and I believe in enjoying them. However, it is important to understand the risks and to prepare before hiking, climbing or backpacking in these areas.

Carefully study your environment before going in, so you know the risks and the escape routes that will let you get to safety in the event of a flash flood.

An elevation map of the area where the flood happened shows the steepness — An elevation map of the Grand Canyon shows how narrow and steep it is, with 1,500-meter drop over an area less than 5 miles. The white dot shows the location where people were rescued from the flood on Aug. 29, 2026. Anner Paldor; Data Basin, using ESRI, Census Bureau, NOAA, National Ocean Service, National Geodetic Survey, USGS, TomTom, CC BY

Gear up properly. Prepare for your trip so you have the equipment you need. Make sure you have a flashlight with extra batteries, a whistle to signal first responders, and extra clothes in case you get wet. If you know you will be hiking in high-risk water zones, you may consider an inflatable personal flotation device.

Talk to park rangers before going in so you know the current conditions and so someone knows where you’re going.

Always be aware of the weather – not just above you but upstream. Clear skies can be deceptive. An added challenge is that cellular service is often shaky in deep canyons and remote areas. Check the weather forecast before you go down a canyon, not just for the specific location, but also for the surrounding area. The National Weather Service provides warnings of flash floods and other extreme weather events.

When you are in a canyon, a good general guideline is to try to stay as high as possible and to be alert to the sound of an incoming flood. One person described the rush of water in the Grand Canyon sounding like a freight train.

If heavy rain starts, use extra caution and seek higher ground. Be aware that the timing of floods can vary widely – scientists analyzed 74,814 flash flood events in the U.S. and found the average duration was around 3½ hours, but some persisted for more than 48 hours. A flood can start quickly and strand people for long periods of time. Muddy water or debris in a normally clear stream are two signs of flooding developing. Rising water or the distant sound of rushing water is another clear warning to get to safety fast.

There are always risks in nature, but that does not mean you should avoid being out in nature. Planning ahead and hiking with caution and awareness can help you enjoy the beautiful outdoors and come back home safely.

Anner Paldor, Professor of Hydrogeology, University of Tennessee

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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There are a number of excellent tips in this article. The one that stood out for me was making sure that the park rangers know where you are going.

Life Beyond Planet Earth

Yet more stories.

It seems as though many articles are exploring life beyond Earth at the moment.

Here is an article from The Conversation.

Have a read.

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Many space missions are searching for life beyond Earth – but are we prepared for the fallout if they succeed?

An illustration of floating round microbes — Several space missions are searching for extraterrestrial life, which could come in the form of microbes. ClaudioVentrella/iStock via Getty Images Plus

Margaret E. Kosal, Georgia Institute of Technology; Dayana Alagirova, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Karryl Kim Sagun Trajano, Nanyang Technological University

Microbes from space have fueled the plots of science fiction mainstays like “Project Hail Mary” and “The Andromeda Strain.” But with more space missions launching each year, finding extraterrestrial life in a microbial form is becoming more plausible. What will the response be back here on Earth if – or when – scientists discover extraterrestrial microbes? Will the international policy and security communities be prepared for the fallout?

When you hear about extraterrestrial life, your mind may go to intelligent life, like the kind present in a lot of Hollywood science fiction. But even the confirmation of microbial life that originated somewhere other than on Earth – which is much more likely – would be a paradigm-shifting event. Thinking about what these consequences might look like early on can help nations and the international community prepare.

Our team is interested in this question. We’re made up of a full professor of international affairs, who earned a Ph.D. in chemistry, and whose expertise is on how emerging science and technologies could affect global conflict and cooperation, as well as an emerging scholar in space policy and security and an expert on social and political implications of frontier technologies, such as AI, space, quantum and energy sources.

Multiple Mars landers have identified large amounts of frozen and liquid water, essential for life, on the red planet. Samples retrieved by Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft from a near-Earth asteroid revealed the presence of uracil, part of RNA, which is a building block of life. Uncrewed space probes like NASA’s Europa Clipper and the European Space Agency’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer are on their way to conduct detailed reconnaissance of the planet’s moons and to investigate whether they have conditions suitable for life. https://www.youtube.com/embed/3HN_zx4JJfM?wmode=transparent&start=0 Scientists are searching for life in space using what they know about life on Earth. But what will happen if or when they find something?

Along with data from the James Webb Space Telescope and future missions targeting Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus, the likelihood of discovering extraterrestrial microbial life has increased substantially.

A governance challenge

The discovery of microbial life would expose significant gaps in international governance related to space.

While there are some existing international agreements, including the Outer Space Treaty, that provide space law guidelines, these are ill-equipped to address the complexities posed by extraterrestrial biology.

The Outer Space Treaty, established in 1967, dictates that countries should use outer space peacefully. It also states that no single nation may claim ownership or exert sovereignty over parts of outer space or celestial bodies such as the Moon.

A semicircle-shaped room full of people sitting at tables. — The U.N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space is one of the few existing pathways for the governance of space. United States Mission to International Organizations in Vienna, CC BY-NC-ND

However, it doesn’t have much to say about who can own extraterrestrial organisms or what to do about biosecurity risks. It doesn’t have direction for who can use, preserve or destroy living things, such as bacteria or fungi, that may be discovered in space.

Historical analogies and future pathways

While people have yet to discover extraterrestrial life of any kind, there are some major geopolitical events that can help researchers understand what the consequences might look like.

While the space race of the 1950s and ’60s led to exploration of the Moon, it was driven by a Cold War power struggle between two nations back on Earth. Instead of coming together to explore space, both countries experienced a renewed sense of nationalism. They used the new discoveries that came from the space race to invest in their military capabilities.

On the other hand, researchers can look at how states respond to asteroid threats. Since an asteroid could pose a truly existential threat from space, preventing the worst-case scenario requires cooperation and thinking ahead.

Astronomers have built a global, collaborative network to monitor for and sound the alarm about any potential threats. This network has shown that nations can put aside terrestrial rivalries to work together if they perceive something from space as a truly existential threat.

The International Space Station is another example showing how nations that are competing great powers on Earth work together to cooperate in space. Countries have collaborated to solve issues on the International Space Station that have specific, short-term and clearly identified goals.

The International Space Station, which is a metal structure with solar panels coming off it, floating above Earth — The ISS is an example of countries cooperating in space research. NASA/Roscosmos

These examples show a range of possible reactions to the discovery of space microbes. The situation could renew space races between competing countries and lead to militarization, or it could create unprecedented cooperation.

Potential outcomes

We’ve identified three main possible outcomes to the discovery of microbial extraterrestrial life.

First, there’s a cooperative outcome, reminiscent of the asteroid threat network or the International Space Station. Here, nations collaborate to regulate research, share data, protect the planet or advance specific interests they share.

This pathway isn’t inherently benign or malignant. It could entail expanding the roles of international organizations or creating new legal instruments.

Second there’s a competitive outcome, characterized by strategic rivalry between countries. Like in the space race, nations could fight to be technologically superior. They might try to monopolize access to the extraterrestrial microbes or to leverage biological discoveries from the microbes for their own economic or military advantage.

Scientific breakthroughs derived from extraterrestrial organisms could lead to innovations in medicine, agriculture, energy and beyond. However, the organisms could also be weaponized, intentionally or otherwise, which would amplify biosecurity risks. In this sense, the discovery of microbial life could create a new form of technological competition, one that merges space exploration with biological research and development.

The increasing role of private companies, such as SpaceX, complicates this dynamic. These companies receive contracts from the government, blurring the lines between commercial civilian and strategic activities.

For example, around 60% of all satellites currently orbiting the Earth belong to SpaceX’s Starlink subsidiary. The company can – and has – chosen to block access selectively, in alignment with its political priorities. When commercial interests and national priorities diverge, who has access versus who is denied access can be uncertain.

A rocket moving upwards off a launchpad, with a streak of flame and a plume of smoke coming off it. — A SpaceX rocket launches a load of Starlink satellites into orbit around Earth. AP Photo/John Raoux

Research around biopiracy may come into play. Biopiracy is a term that applies to two primary issues: the patenting of indigenous knowledge or the patenting of natural resources, such as microbes, for profit. The Budapest Treaty prohibits claiming ownership of a naturally occurring microbe on Earth, but there’s no equivalent for microbes in space.

Third is an isolationist outcome, in which states could sever their involvement in international cooperation due to biosecurity concerns or political distrust. The potential for unknown biological risks, however minimal, could trigger precautionary restrictions on data sharing, which limits international collaboration.

Countries may lose or gain allies as they grapple with whether the microbe could cause harm to humans or the environment, or be developed into a biological weapon.

Emerging technologies will also shape these outcomes. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are already integral to scientific research. Scientists use them to process astronomical data and identify potential biosignatures. Nanotechnology and advances in the life sciences and engineering could allow researchers to study, modify or exploit extraterrestrial microbes, if they’re given access to them.

Countries will have to prepare not only for the scientific implications of discovery but also for its societal and political reverberations. The politicization of scientific discoveries from the microbes could complicate or change how countries respond domestically and at the international scale. Misinformation about the microbes could shape policy and public response.

Preparing for the unprecedented

The discovery of extraterrestrial microbial life would not merely mark a scientific milestone. It would be a geopolitical event.

Rather than attempting to predict a singular outcome, policymakers could adopt scenario-based planning approaches in the meantime to anticipate and prepare for a range of possibilities. In these approaches, participants explore multiple futures through structured activities similar to professional or military wargaming or path games, in which they explore multiple outcomes systematically to test strategies, to plan and to analyze potential outcomes under realistic uncertainty.

In our view, the question is not whether humanity will discover life beyond Earth, but whether it is prepared for the consequences when it does.

Margaret E. Kosal, Associate Professor of International Affairs, Georgia Institute of Technology; Dayana Alagirova, Ph.D. Student in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Karryl Kim Sagun Trajano, Research Fellow for Future Issues and Technology, Nanyang Technological University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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It states that the discovery of extraterrestrial life would be a ‘geopolitical event’.

I should say so. I would expect the news worldwide would be focussed on this happening!

These academics mentioned above are, I presume, not the only scientists engaged in this.

It would be a fabulous discovery, and I wonder if it will happen before I die!

American academic research

How has the administration affected science funding.

Long been the envy of the world, recent events have affected big changes. In this article published by The Conversation the changes are explored.

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Self‑censorship, more stress, tougher recruiting – we asked US researchers how the Trump administration’s science policies have affected them

Lab coats on hooks outside a closed door to a lab — 93% of surveyed researchers have negative opinions of federal science policies since January 2025. Cavan Images via Getty Images

Eric Welch, Arizona State University and Timothy P. Johnson, University of Illinois Chicago

The American academic research engine has long been the envy of the world. Generally well-funded, labs in the United States have been able to attract the best minds who generate breakthroughs and train the next generation workforce that powers the U.S. economy. But since the start of the second Trump administration in January 2025, new federal policies have destabilized the American scientific enterprise.

The disruption generated by the Trump administration’s funding, DEI and visa policies has been well reported by the media. On an individual level, though, what do academic researchers think of all these changes and how have they been directly affected?

We are researchers affiliated with Arizona State University’s scientist opinion panel survey, known as SciOPS, a 5-year research program designed to monitor, understand and improve how scientists communicate with the public. We wanted to know more about the reality inside today’s universities as researchers grapple with Trump administration policies.

Along with our colleagues, we fielded a survey of randomly sampled members of the academic science community participating in the SciOPS panel. We obtained responses from 280 scientists from several fields, including biology, chemistry, civil and environmental engineering, computer and information science engineering, geography and public health from 131 universities.

Our results show dramatic, mostly negative, effects of federal policy changes on researchers, the research system and American competitiveness.

How research in US universities has changed

Any research enterprise thrives because of its ability to fund cutting-edge science and thus attract highly motivated, well-trained people. Since the second Trump administration took office in January 2025, just over half of the scientists in our survey report that their overall funding has declined.

Declines in federal funding have had knock-on effects. Around one-quarter of scientists reported that state and local and university internal funding have also declined. Another 9% reported that internal funding has increased, presumably as universities have provided emergency funds to researchers to support critical studies.

According to the scientists who responded to our survey, Trump administration policies have also affected the scientific workforce pipeline, hampering their ability to recruit internationally and domestically.

We hypothesize that these hiring issues can be related to visa and immigration policies, which make it difficult for international graduate students and postdocs to work in the U.S. or attend international conferences. Just over half of scientists in our survey reported that international students or postdocs have expressed concerns to them about deportation.

Concerns about longer-term career impacts are also to blame for trouble recruiting the next generation of researchers. Over 80% of surveyed scientists reported that graduate students or postdocs on their research team have increased concerns about future job prospects.

These impacts have taken a toll on scientists’ professional work environment and overall outlook. Over two-thirds reported more work-related stress and almost half reported increased workloads since January 2025. About half reported decreased work motivation.

How are scientists and engineers reacting?

We found scientists’ responses to be a mixture of resilience, acquiescence and considering an exit.

While many scientists said they were less motivated at work, most reported no change in their efforts to obtain federal research funding. Small proportions did report successfully increasing their efforts to obtain funding from non-federal sources.

Our survey also asked scientists whether they had taken any self-censoring actions since January 2025 due to concern over potential negative consequences for their work or career. Over half reported having reviewed or adjusted key words in research proposals, and almost half said they’d reframed research topics. Forty-three percent had also cautioned students or collaborators to be careful what they say publicly and more than a third had abandoned plans on one or more research topics.

Although scientists are adopting strategies to cope with the new challenges, nearly two-thirds of the scientists in our sample appear to be considering one or more other career options.

Scientists look to the long term

Scientists and engineers in our sample have strong opinions about the impacts of current U.S. science policy. A large majority (87%) believe the administration’s actions have influenced research priorities more than previous administrations. Most scientists in our survey had a negative opinion of the Trump administration’s overall changes to science policy.

Scientists in our sample believed that administration policies have had a negative effect on the future scientific workforce and the ability of scientists and engineers in the U.S. to produce breakthroughs and discoveries and contribute to national welfare.

Large majorities believe these policies have harmed public perceptions of the integrity of U.S. scientists (85%) and hurt public trust in science (84%).

Academic scientists’ reactions to the Trump administration’s changes to science policy are perhaps not surprising given the perceived level of threat these actions represent to the research community. What is less certain is whether the dramatic changes we are currently witnessing – cuts to grant funding, politicization of research, downsizing of federal agencies, restrictive immigration policies, attacks on the autonomy of higher education and more – are temporary or if they represent the initial phase of a transition to a new research environment with less federal support for American science.

Eric Welch, Professor and Director, Center for Science, Technology & Environmental Policy Studies, Arizona State University and Timothy P. Johnson, Professor Emeritus of Public Administration, University of Illinois Chicago

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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The last paragraph contains the essence of the argument, as in a temporary change or the first phase of an environment with less federal support for science.

Only time will tell!

Presidential transport

An article about Air Force One.

The Boeing 747, that currently serves as the means of air transport for President Trump, has been written about on The Conversation.

Here is that fascinating article:

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Air Force One is more than transportation – it has defined how presidents run the country and meet the world

A man in a dark suit climbs a stairway to a large plane. — President Donald Trump boards Air Force One on July 1, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. Finn Gomez/Getty Images

Peter Kastor, Washington University in St. Louis

Air Force One used to be a high-flying symbol of American technology, ingenuity and power. For many, it was also a source of national pride.

The current Boeing 747s that serve as Air Force One are a combination transport vehicle, command center, press room, medical center and apartment, complete with bedroom and office for the nation’s chief executive.

Now, to many, Air Force One has become scandalous.

On July 8, 2026, The New York Times reported that the latest version of the presidential aircraft – presented by Qatar as a gift to President Donald Trump – lacks the sophisticated countermeasures that were a ready defense for the 747s that had been in service since 1990. Critics immediately revived earlier claims that the new 747 was a corrupt transaction from the start. Trump later said the plane would be sent to be “maxed out” with upgrades.

This article is not part of that story. Nor is it the standard story of Air Force One that appears in numerous documentaries, which tend to be gee-whiz accounts of the amazing capacities of the president’s airplane.

I am a historian writing a book about the technologies that have shaped the long history of the American presidency, in which Air Force One looms large. I believe it is important to see Air Force One as more than a cool gadget or political flash point. Von Hardesty, a curator at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, certainly understood this when he wrote that “by the end of the 20th century, Air Force One had evolved into an essential arm of the American Presidency.”

Put simply, the presidency as we know it today would have been impossible without Air Force One, which has shaped and defined that role for decades.

A man, waving, and a woman at the top of a stairway leading down from an airplane with 'UNITED STATES OF AMERICA' painted on its side. — President Richard Nixon waves to the crowds from Air Force One with his wife, Pat, as they arrive at Ireland’s Shannon Airport on Oct. 3, 1970. Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix via Getty Images

Horse-drawn carriage to the ‘Sacred Cow’

It was only recently that Americans or their presidents could imagine things this way. When presidents left the capital throughout most of the nation’s history, it was a lengthy, at times arduous, process that severed their connection with government offices.

As a result, presidents rarely traveled while in office and were more likely to depart Washington for extended vacations than for official business. Likewise, no serving president left the United States until Teddy Roosevelt visited the construction of the Panama Canal in 1906. Woodrow Wilson became the first sitting president to cross the Atlantic when he boarded the USS George Washington in 1918 to join the negotiations in Versailles at the end of World War I.

If few presidents got away from Washington to see the country and its residents before 1900, the flip side was also true: Few Americans saw presidential candidates or incumbents in person, especially Americans who lived outside the eastern third of the United States. Instead, the connection between presidents and average citizens was mediated through political parties, the press and eventually through broadcast media.

The first designated presidential aircraft arrived in 1933, but Franklin Roosevelt never flew on it. His first flight as president came in 1943, when American Airlines loaned a flying boat called the Dixie Clipper to ferry Roosevelt to meet with other Allied leaders at the Casablanca Conference. In 1945, Roosevelt traveled to Yalta on a Douglas VC-54C called the Sacred Cow, the first plane specifically built for presidential travel.

Two men, one in a suit and the other in a military uniform, sitting next to each other and talking on an airplane. — President Franklin Roosevelt and Gen. Dwight Eisenhower on the president’s plane en route to the Tehran Conference in December 1943. George Rinhart/Corbis via Getty Images

Despite these flights to important international meetings, Roosevelt and successors Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower made limited domestic use of aircraft, preferring instead to travel by railroad. International trips remained lengthy journeys in loud, propeller-driven aircraft that encountered the greater turbulence of lower altitudes.

All this changed in 1962, when President John Kennedy acquired a brand-new Boeing 707, the first jet-powered Air Force One.

Presidential ubiquity

Flying higher, faster and quieter than their predecessors, the jet aircraft used for Air Force One made possible one of the central facets of the modern presidency: The nation’s chief executive could be a ubiquitous player in national politics and world affairs.

Presidential travel increased dramatically, both in its frequency and in the number of stops on each trip. This was not simply the result of the growing use of air travel worldwide. Where Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower understood world leadership as their ability to coordinate American power from Washington, Kennedy and his successors sought to make themselves the center of the story.

This seemed particularly important during the Cold War. As the United States asserted its leadership in the struggle against the Soviet Union, American presidents positioned themselves as the symbols of freedom in opposition to communism.

Consider President Richard Nixon traveling to China in 1972 to normalize relations, or Ronald Reagan flying to Iceland for the 1986 Reykjavík conference with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to negotiate the future of intermediate-range nuclear missiles. The presence of a president at these conferences elevated both the importance of the event and the image of the president as a statesman who was able to quickly pivot back and forth from national to international leadership.
As American presidents struggled to maintain their power and their relevance after the end of the Cold War, their international travel only increased. Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama each made over twice the number of international trips as Ronald Reagan did.

These trips ranged from goodwill visits to maintain old alliances to attempts to build new connections after the collapse of the Soviet empire.

Presidents specifically visited international hot spots, positioning themselves as global peacemakers. The sight of the American president descending the long stairs from Air Force One, smiling and waving along the way, became a symbol of American diplomacy.

A group of people seated on an airplane listening to a man speaking and gesturing with his hands. — President Jimmy Carter meets with reporters aboard Air Force One on July 1, 1979, while flying from Seoul, South Korea, to Honolulu. AP Photo/Ira Schwarz

Official business – and campaigning

If Air Force One enabled presidents to announce themselves as statesmen abroad, it also revolutionized politics at home.

During the 1970s, the two major parties moved from selecting their nominees at national conventions to a system where state primaries decided who would lead the ticket.

This change emerged from demands that political power move from party leaders to party members. But a primary system would have been unimaginable without aircraft to shuttle candidates around the country. That was particularly important for incumbents, as air travel enabled them to be both sitting presidents and active candidates.

Presidents and their handlers learned how to combine official government business, which permitted the use of Air Force One, with campaign opportunities. These moments not only changed how presidents operated; they changed how Americans understood their presidents.

This change began with Kennedy’s use of the jet-powered Air Force One for domestic travel, including the tragic decision to visit Texas in November 1963, where he was assassinated. In just his first year in office, Bill Clinton visited 37 states over the course of 73 days.

Air Force One is a symbol of presidential power, but its problems only reinforce the fact that technology shapes the presidency.

The clearest demonstration was on 9/11. President Bush was in Florida that morning. Air Force One whisked him into the air, delivering him first to the safety of an Air Force base in Louisiana and then to the fortified headquarters of the U.S. Strategic Command in Nebraska, and still had him back at the White House by the end of the day.

It was a grim reminder of the other task for Air Force One: a safe transport for the president during a national crisis or nuclear armageddon. While the aircraft fulfilled its promise to keep the president safe in a crisis, its legendary communication systems faltered. Crucially, Bush struggled to coordinate with senior officials in Washington, leaving him momentarily out of the loop at a terrifying historical juncture.

The role that presidents have assumed at home and abroad, as well as the ways Americans interact with their presidents, have taken form through the possibilities – and the limitations – of presidential aircraft. Air Force One is not just a great way to travel or a nifty gadget, nor is it peripheral to the presidency. It is central to it.

Peter Kastor, Professor of History & American Culture Studies, Washington University in St. Louis

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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The last sentence of the last paragraph spells out how Air Force One is central to the presidency. The aircraft serves as a symbol of presidential power.

Our changing world.

Now, it is the technology being applied to our electricity supply.

Although we have an array of solar panels here at home, we still have electricity cables coming to the house. In the Winter, when the solar panels are nowhere enough for our electic consumption, we depend on Pacific Power to provide the electic power for our home.

That is why the following article, published by The Conversation, was highly relevant.

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Electric companies don’t need to black out customers to prevent wildfires – here are 3 relatively fast, affordable solutions

Jasmine Garland, University of Colorado Boulder

A severe winter snow drought has left snowpack levels far below normal across the American West in 2026. Without a slow-melting blanket of snow to keep the soil and forests moist, alpine vegetation is drying into a tinderbox earlier than normal and ramping up the fire risk.

The historic dryness means electric utilities are facing a dilemma: how to deliver power through dry, windy regions without accidentally starting a catastrophic fire.

To cope, many utilities are turning to a controversial method pioneered in California: the public safety power shut-off – better known as a preemptive blackout. Imagine your power provider deliberately cutting electricity to your entire neighborhood for hours to days, not because a storm hit or a wire broke, but because the weather forecast is hot, dry and windy. This preventive darkness is fast becoming the new normal for millions of residents in the West.

A map of the Western U.S. shows just about everywhere except northern Idaho far below normal. — Most of the snowpack in the Western U.S. was far below the 30-year average in June 2026, suggesting a dry summer ahead. Snow-water equivalent is a measure of the amount of water in snowpack. National Water and Climate Center

As an energy systems researcher living in the West, I study how our electric grid interacts with these escalating climate risks. I believe utilities have better options that boost fire safety quickly while avoiding the drastic move of shutting off the power or investing in expensive alternatives, such as underground power lines or microgrids.

Billion-dollar spark: Why the West is going dark

To understand why a utility would willingly turn off its own product, you have to look at how the Western grid was built.

Most rural power lines consist of bare, uninsulated aluminum wires strung across thousands of miles of wooden poles, often through rugged forests. If those wires accidentally touch one another or trees or the ground, they can short-circuit, sending off sparks that can start fires.

This system, once considered the greatest engineering achievement of the 20th century, has been responsible for some of the worst fire disasters in U.S. history.

Utility workers in hard hats and reflective vests burying a power line in a trench next to a road. — Burying power lines can keep the wind from blowing tree branches into them, but it can be prohibitively expensive, particularly where transmission lines pass through rugged mountains. AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli

In California, electricity infrastructure has ignited eight of the state’s 20 most destructive wildfires. The legal and financial fallout can be devastating. In 2019, Pacific Gas & Electric was forced into bankruptcy due to an estimated US$30 billion in wildfire liabilities stemming from equipment-caused blazes, including the 2018 Camp Fire that destroyed much of the town of Paradise. Because utilities are regulated monopolies, they can pass these massive liability costs to their customers over time.

California utilities have been using preemptive outages for several years to avoid causing more fires on hot, dry, windy days. Today, that strategy has spread beyond the state. According to the Western Electricity Coordinating Council, the independent grid reliability authority for the West, 24 western power entities had used preemptive shut-offs by 2026.

Colorado’s Xcel Energy implemented its first major preemptive blackout in 2025. Some of these outages have left communities without power for up to five days.

Chart shows how the number of utilities and agencies with policies for preemptive blackouts increased from 16 in the years before 2025 to 24 in 2026 alone — The number of utilities and agencies with policies of using wildfire preemptive blackouts has risen quickly in recent years in Western states. Jasmine Garland, based on WECC data, CC BY-ND

Fortunately, keeping communities safe does not have to mean leaving them in the dark. There are ways utilities can modernize electric system infrastructure quickly that lower the fire risk and keep the power flowing.

Solution 1: Covered conductors

The quickest, most cost-effective physical fix is to use covered conductors. Think of the electrical cords in your house. If you touched the bare copper wire inside, it would spark. But you don’t get shocked by household cords because they are wrapped in plastic insulation.

Utilities like Southern California Edison are actively wrapping their high-risk mountain wires in heavy, weather-resistant polymer insulation. By the end of 2025, SCE had installed over 700 circuit miles (1,126 kilometers) of this insulated “tree wire” in high-fire districts over the span of about a year and committed to modify an additional 1,481 miles (2,383 kilometers) by 2028.

A worker stands by a giant roll of covered conductor line – power lines covered in a plastic. — A Southern California Edison crew installs new covered conductor power lines in Aguanga, Calif. Elisa Ferrari/Southern California Edison

If a severe windstorm blows a heavy pine branch directly onto an insulated line, it simply rests against the wire without sparking. It is a highly effective middle-ground fix that’s significantly less expensive than burying transmission lines in mountain forests, and it can be deployed rapidly across thousands of miles.

2. ‘Fast-trip’ settings and topology optimization

Another option is to change how the electricity behaves inside the power line using automated technology.

Traditionally, if a tree branch touched a power line, the system would try to push electricity through the line anyway, causing repeated sparking. Today, utilities are deploying “fast-trip” settings on their circuit breakers.

Think of these like the ultra-sensitive circuit breakers in your home. The microsecond a branch bumps an outdoor line, these smart systems detect the disruption and cut the power to that specific wire before a spark can even form. This allows operators to isolate a single high-risk area rather than shutting down power to an entire county.

Topology optimization is another promising operations technique. It acts like Google Maps for the electric grid. Instead of shutting power down when one line is facing high risks, advanced software attempts to safely route electricity around the danger zone using neighboring, lower-risk lines.

By dynamically changing the pathway of the power, utilities can drastically reduce the electrical load and heat on vulnerable lines without cutting power.

Solution 3: AI and real-time smart sensors

Advanced computer software and artificial intelligence are also helping utilities act with surgical precision.

In the past, if a utility feared a windstorm could spark a fire, it had to shut off power to a large region because it lacked localized data. Today, utilities are deploying smart sensors called dynamic line rating that are installed directly onto power lines. These sensors act like digital stethoscopes, measuring real-time wire temperature, wind speed and line sag.

When combined with panoramic, AI-powered camera networks, the grid gains eyes. Xcel Energy in Colorado has deployed 81 of these cameras. Instead of executing a sweeping blackout, operators can use these cameras and automated smart switches to isolate the high-risk span in a windy canyon while keeping the lights safely on for the surrounding town.

The era of risk-aware grid design

The future of Western energy relies on moving away from static, 20th-century safety manuals and toward a practice called risk-aware dispatching.

In simple terms, this means treating the power grid like a living, breathing weather map. On a calm day, electricity is routed along the cheapest path. But when fire conditions spike, AI algorithms will automatically recalculate the region’s electricity flow, diverting power away from fragile forest lines and routing it through safer plains or underground urban corridors.

The era of cheap, unmonitored overhead power lines is over. To adapt to a changing climate, I believe the grid must evolve from a passive network of copper, aluminum and wood into a smart, dynamic machine. By combining insulated wires, targeted undergrounding of power lines, and real-time sensor data, utilities can avoid sparking devastating fires without resorting to frequent blackouts.

Jasmine Garland, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Colorado Boulder

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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We live (very happily) in a rural part of Southern Oregon. Much of the land close to us is covered in trees. Large parts of our property has trees and bushes. We try and keep the area directly around the home clear, but what with me being over 80 and Jeannie with Parkinson’s, it is a challenging task.

We have had far less snow over the Winter than normal. There is no guarantee the coming Winter will provide the (historically) past levels of snow. We will have to wait and see.

Defiance, even when it is not easy.

Learning the skills of resistance.

Saying ‘no’ is difficult. This is an article from The Conversation that talks of our need at times to be the opposite of friendly, to stand one’s ground, and to be true to yourself.

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The science of defiance: A psychology researcher explains why people comply – and how to resist

Defiance need not be aggressive or loud. Sergio Mendoza Hochmann/Moment via Getty Images

Sunita Sah, Cornell University

You’re in a meeting when your boss suggests changing a number to make the quarterly report look stronger. Heads nod. The slides move on. You feel a knot in your stomach: Do you speak up and risk being branded difficult, or stay silent and become complicit?

Most people picture defiance as dramatic outbursts. In reality, it’s often these small, tense moments where conscience collides with compliance.

I first saw the power of defiance not in the workplace, but closer to home. My mother was the ultimate people-pleaser: timid, polite, eager to accommodate. Barely 4 feet, 10 inches tall, she put everyone else’s needs above her own. But one day, when I was 7, I saw a different side to her.

We were walking home from the grocery store in West Yorkshire, England, when a group of teenage boys blocked our path in a narrow alleyway. They hurled racist insults and told us to “go back home.”

My reaction was instantaneous: Stay quiet, avoid conflict and get past them as quickly as possible. I grabbed my mother’s arm, urging her to move with me. But she didn’t. My quiet, deferential, never-confrontational mother did something completely different. She stopped, turned and looked the boys directly in the eyes. Then she asked, calmly but firmly, “What do you mean?”

She wasn’t loud or aggressive. And in that moment, she showed me that defiance doesn’t always roar, and it can come from the people you least expect.

I’ve carried these lessons into my work as a physician-turned-organizational psychologist. For decades, I’ve studied why people comply, staying silent when they don’t want to, and how they can resist wisely. In my book “Defy: The Power of No in a World that Demands Yes,” I offer a framework based on behavioral science research that can help you defy in ways that are intentional, effective and true to your values.

worried woman seated with another looking at a laptop — One setting where the choice to defy or comply can arise is work. FG Trade/E+ via Getty Images

What defiance really is

When people think of defiance, they often picture teenagers slamming doors, protesters shouting in the streets or rebels breaking rules just for the thrill of it. But that’s not the kind of defiance I study or the kind that shapes our lives most often.

Defiance is not about being oppositional for its own sake. It’s about choosing to act in line with your values when there is pressure to do otherwise.

That pressure can come from anywhere: a boss urging you to fudge the numbers, a friend nudging you toward something you don’t believe in, a culture telling you to stay in your place. Defiance in those moments might be as small as saying “no,” asking for clarification or simply pausing instead of rushing along with the group. Other times, it means speaking up, challenging authority or maybe walking away.

Seen this way, defiance isn’t a fixed trait that some people are born with and others lack. It’s a practice: a skill you can strengthen over time. Some days you might comply, other days you might resist. What matters is that you have the awareness and the tools to make the choice consciously, rather than letting fear or habit decide for you.

Why people comply

If defiance is so important, why do people so often stay silent?

One reason is a psychological process I’ve uncovered in my research: insinuation anxiety. It arises when people worry that not complying with another person’s wishes may be interpreted as a signal of distrust. Turning down a boss’s request to “adjust” the numbers might feel like you’re implying they’re dishonest. To avoid that discomfort, you go along – even when it violates your values.

Behavioral science has long documented this pull toward compliance. In the 1960s, for example, psychologist Stanley Milgram showed that ordinary people would administer what they believed were dangerous electric shocks to strangers simply because an authority figure told them to.

My own research has shown surprisingly high levels of compliance with obviously bad advice, even when given by a stranger with no consequences for disagreeing. People feel immense social pressure to go along with what others suggest. That’s because if you’ve never been trained in how to say no, it feels uncomfortable and awkward.

A framework for action

If compliance is the human default, how can you build the muscle of defiance? In my research, I’ve developed a simple actionable guide that I call the Defiance Compass. Like a navigation aid, it orients you in difficult situations by asking three questions:

Who am I? What are the core values that matter most to me?
What type of situation is this? Is it safe to resist? Will it have a positive impact?
What does a person like me do in a situation like this? How can I take responsibility and act in a way that’s consistent with my identity and values?

circular chart with arrows connecting the three questions of the defiance compass — Three questions can help you zero in on whether the time is right for you to defy. Sunita Sah

Asking these questions shifts defiance from a gut reaction to a conscious practice. And here’s what’s important: That third question (“What does a person like me do?”) circles back to the first (“Who am I?”), because how you act again and again becomes who you are.

Defiance doesn’t always mean open confrontation. Sometimes it means asking a clarifying question, buying time or quietly refusing. It can mean speaking up or walking away. The key is to start small, practice regularly and anchor your choices in your values. Like any skill, the more you practice, the more natural it becomes.

Why defiance matters now

Defiance may be risky, but it’s never been more relevant. At work, employees are pressured to meet targets at any cost. In politics, citizens face waves of misinformation and polarization. In everyday life, people struggle to set healthy boundaries. Across all these contexts, the temptation to comply for the sake of comfort is strong.

That’s why learning to defy strategically matters. It protects personal integrity, strengthens institutions and helps sustain democracy. And it doesn’t require being loud or confrontational.

Of course, not every act of defiance is safe or guaranteed to make a difference. Sometimes it comes at real personal cost and some people still choose to act even when the impact isn’t certain: think of Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat, or Colin Kaepernick taking a knee. In those moments, the act itself becomes the message. Both of those individuals were deeply connected to their values and the assessment is personal: What feels worth the risk to one person might not to another.

Defiance does require practice: noticing when values are at stake, pausing before you nod along, and choosing actions that align with who you want to be. Each act of consent, compliance or defiance shapes not just your story but the stories of our societies.

If you practice defiance, and teach it and model it, you can imagine a different type of society. You can start to envision a world where, in that same alleyway from my childhood, one of the boys will step forward and tell his friends, “That’s not OK. Let them pass.”

Sunita Sah, Professor of Management and Organizations, Cornell University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Across the range of society there will always be persons who choose to act with poor social values. Some are very senior, such as many politicians, some are towards the bottom of society. That is a fact of life.

Sunita Sah does us proud in writing this article, and I am delighted to republish it, with the permission of The Conversation.

Nature’s map.

Different ways of looking at the world.

Nature is king! I have longed believed that, and here is an example of nature at work.

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Where nature draws the map – here are 5 ways to look at the US, without state boundaries

Varied landscapes and natural contours transcend state boundaries. Smithsonian/Esri, CC BY-ND

Stewart Edie, Smithsonian Institution and Torben Rick, Smithsonian Institution

State boundaries can be iconic. Many were drawn by human hands, but some of the most recognizable contours were shaped by nature: the boot of southeastern Louisiana, carved by the Mississippi River, or the ocean waves sculpting the hook of Cape Cod in Massachusetts.

For a moment, imagine that there are no state lines. View the United States through its natural contours. As curators at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, we often look at our nation this way, drawing different kinds of maps that trace mountains, watersheds, animal migrations, biomes, ancient seas and so much more.

These kinds of maps show us how connected we all are by nature, since it transcends state boundaries. That idea is central to our new exhibition, “From These Lands: Sharing Our Natural and Cultural Heritage,” now open at our museum to mark the 250th anniversary of the United States. We are co-curators of the show, part of a team of exhibit designers and developers who created the exhibition.

“From These Lands” uses items from the museum’s collections to explore these patterns and ideas, offering a way to see the country’s natural and cultural heritage beyond state lines.

Map of North America colored by biome, showing ecological regions such as grasslands, deserts, forests and tundra. — Climate, vegetation and animal life vary across the landscapes of the United States, forming distinct biomes. Smithsonian/Esri/RESOLVE, CC BY-NC

One country, many pine cones

Pine cones can be easy to overlook.

When you’re out for a walk in the woods, you see the forest, maybe even the trees, but not always the cones at your feet. For many people, a pine cone is just a pine cone. But when you look closely, subtle differences in the styles of cones carry clues about the trees that produced them and the places where those trees live.

Several pine cones of different sizes and shapes arranged on a white background, showing variation among pine species. — Pine trees grow across many of these regions, and their cones reflect some of the different environments where pines live. James Di Loreto, Smithsonian, CC BY-NC

There are 43 pine species native to the United States, making up nearly a third of the world’s pine tree diversity. Together, they stretch across surprisingly different combinations of climate, terrain, plants and animals, the regions scientists call biomes. Something as simple as the pine cone can let you hold that concept in your hand: soils, fire, rain, birds and rodents all helped shape the tree that made it.

For example, cones from the sand pine can shield seeds for years, only to release them as the heat from low-intensity fires melts their resin and opens their scales. These scrubby and fire-shaped landscapes are one part of the larger temperate evergreen forests that spread through the southeastern U.S.

On the other side of the country, the Coulter pine produces cones that can be more than a foot-and-half long (50 centimeters) and weigh up to 8 pounds (3.5 kilograms). This large cone size helps its seeds to survive fires, allowing small birds and mammals to then disperse them into new areas in the Mediterranean Scrub of Southern California.

A pine cone comes from one tree in one place, but its form reflects a wide set of environmental conditions. Pine cones provide an interesting way to view the different biomes found in the United States and its territories.

Map of North America colored by geologic age, showing older Precambrian rocks across much of Canada and younger Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic rocks across different parts of the United States and Mexico. — Geologic age maps can reveal ancient landscapes hidden beneath modern ones. Smithsonian/Esri/USGS/GSA, CC BY-NC

An ancient ocean in the middle of the country

The land under your feet can be millions of years old, and it has not always been dry ground.

During the late Mesozoic Era – the time interval made famous by the dinosaurs – a warm, shallow inland sea covered states from North Dakota to Texas. This Western Interior Seaway laid down many of the rocks and sediments that you can see today throughout the Great Plains and Badlands. The sea was also full of life, and the rocks it left behind are full of fossils.

Two coiled ammonite fossils preserved in rock, representing marine animals that lived in the ancient Western Interior Seaway. — These ammonite fossils from South Dakota come from an ancient, shallow sea that once covered much of the middle of North America. Phillip R. Lee, Smithsonian, CC BY-NC

There were familiar characters living on this ancient seafloor: clams, snails and sea stars. But swimming in the waters above were the now-extinct animals called ammonites.

These coiled, shelled relatives of squid and octopuses were abundant predators, hunting in the same waters as fish, turtles, sharks and extinct marine reptiles called plesiosaurs. Ammonites used the chambers in their shells to control buoyancy, much like the modern nautilus.

Ammonite fossils demonstrate that much of the central U.S. was an ancient ocean. They also remind us that the landscapes we know today are just the latest version of those reshaped over and over by the slow work of geologic time.

Map of North America overlaid with migration tracks from five bird species, showing long-distance seasonal movements. — Thousands of animals trace migration routes across the United States. Smithsonian/Esri/Movebank Data Repository, CC BY-NC

Unlikely pairing: Shorebirds and horseshoe crabs

Animals move. Some travel only short distances with the seasons, but others travel thousands of miles, crossing not only state lines, but countries, oceans and hemispheres. Animal migration routes might look chaotic on a map, but birds, whales, turtles and more forge these paths for specific reasons.

left panel: brown bird with white belly walks on bumpy ground with wave in background; right panel: horseshoe crab specimen from above and below — The ruddy turnstone shorebird times its mid-Atlantic stop with the beachside spawning of the horseshoe crab in Delaware Bay. L: G.Halpin/Pixabay. R: Phillip R. Lee, Smithsonian.

Timing is a key component of migration. Thanks to a critical refueling stop in Delaware Bay, the ruddy turnstone shorebird manages to migrate thousands of miles each year to its breeding grounds in the high Arctic. These East Coast migrants time their layover with the migration of horseshoe crabs, which come ashore to lay millions of nutrient-packed eggs on beaches. The turnstones gorge themselves on those eggs before continuing their journey north.

It is a strange and wonderful handoff between an ancient marine animal hauling itself out of the ocean and a weary shorebird bound for the Arctic. A single bay brings them together, illustrating how the many migration routes through these lands can hinge on key moments and places.

Topographic relief map of North America showing mountains, valleys, plains and other landforms. — The topography of North America ranges from broad coastal plains to rugged mountain systems. The ridges, valleys, streams and caves of the Appalachian Mountains create small pockets of habitat for many different plants and animals. Smithsonian/Esri/CEC/USGS, CC BY-NC

Salamander country

Topography is more than scenic landscapes. Everything from the flat coastal plains to the ridges, valleys and stream-cut mountainsides helps shape where animals can live and how biodiversity accumulates.

The rugged terrain of the Appalachian Mountains creates cool, wet forests, shaded hollows, caves, ponds and streams. These habitats can differ from each other in elevation, temperature, moisture and water flow – and salamanders take note. More salamander species live in the Appalachian Mountains than anywhere else in the world. It can feel as though every other rock you turn over hides yet another species.

A preserved salamander specimen with a long body, short legs and mottled brown markings. — A cave salamander from the Appalachian Mountains in Georgia. James Di Loreto, Smithsonian, CC BY-NC

The trio of Plethodon salamanders, the southern gray-cheeked, red-cheeked and red-legged salamanders, were once thought to be regional variations of the same species. But these salamanders live at varying elevations in different mountain ranges, and genetic sequencing confirmed that each was, in fact, its own species. Topography and shifting climates had broken up these populations into different habitats, allowing each to evolve into distinct species.

Map of North America divided into major drainage basins, showing how rivers and watersheds extend across state and national boundaries before draining toward different coasts. — North America’s watersheds cross state and national boundaries, linking distant rivers and landscapes through the flow of water. Smithsonian/Esri/CEC, CC BY-NC

Following the American shad

Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the U.S., fed by a watershed connecting rivers and drainage basins that reach into six states and the District of Columbia. It’s home to more than 3,600 species, including oysters and blue crabs. But one fish in particular has become strongly intertwined with the lives and cultures of many people around the bay.

A preserved American shad specimen, a silvery fish that migrates between the Atlantic Ocean and freshwater rivers to spawn. — American shad move between the Atlantic Ocean and the freshwater rivers of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, a migration long tied to the Pamunkey Indian Tribe’s diet, culture and stewardship of nature. James Di Loreto & Tonda Phalen, Smithsonian, CC BY-NC

The American shad spends much of its adult life in the Atlantic Ocean but returns to the freshwater rivers in the upper reaches of the Chesapeake Bay to spawn. For more than 12,000 years, this herring’s spring migration has been part of Pamunkey Indian Tribe diet and culture.

From 1918 to 2019, to mitigate declining populations of herring, the tribe ran a hatchery to “give back to the river.” The Pamunkey Tribe’s fishing rights date back to their 1677 treaty with the British Crown. Today, only the Pamunkey and citizens of other tribes in Virginia can legally fish for shad in this region.

A single type of fish moving between salt and freshwater, tracing the paths of the watershed, has helped to shape centuries of diet, law, culture and stewardship, highlighting the many connections between nature and culture.

Different ways to map the country

Pine cones, ammonites, shorebirds, salamanders and shad tell more than individual stories about particular places. Together, they point to older and larger patterns: varied forests, vanished seas, seasonal migrations, mountain habitats and rivers that harbor a fantastic diversity of life.

State lines are one way to picture the U.S., but natural history provides another – one that shows the ancient and living connections running across the landscape.

Stewart Edie, Research Geologist and Curator of Paleobiology, Smithsonian Institution and Torben Rick, Curator of North American Archaeology, Smithsonian Institution

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Stewart and Torben have presented a very interesting article.

Thank goodness for the Smithsonian, and thank goodness for natural history!

Not having a father

Prompted to write this after reading an article in The Conversation.

I turned 12 in November, 1956. My father died on December, 20th, 1956.

My mother eventually remarried and my step-father quickly became a wonderful Dad to me. But the shock of my father’s death never left me, and the fact that I am writing this some 70 years later shows that the episode is still with me, albeit in a much reduced way.

Thus this article in The Conversation hits the mark.

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What we misunderstand about absent fathers

Dads aren’t always in the picture. Motortion/iStock via Getty Images

Matthew Alemu, University of Michigan; Northeastern University

“What do dads do on Tuesdays?”

This wasn’t a rhetorical question when I posed it to my wife as our daughter’s birth approached. Before my daughter was born, I had seen my father just once in the past 27 years. That’s over 1,400 Tuesdays. In fact, as a kid I hardly saw fathering any day of the week, save for on TV sitcoms; absent dads were prevalent within my family and among my peers.

My daughter was born on a Saturday. My first Tuesday as a father came and went in a blur of exhaustion. I’d always loved playing and working with kids. I felt generally competent in what to do with my newborn daughter. Yet as I held her, insecurity from my father’s absence kept me questioning: Will I be better than my absent father?

Absence assumes different forms

Years before my daughter’s birth, I was a first-year Ph.D. student intending to study Black men and how their memories of childhood affected them as adults.

My pivot toward focusing on fatherhood began while I was conducting interviews for a larger study on men of all races and unemployment. After completing these interviews, I was surprised to see that 85% of my respondents grew up with absent fathers. The nature of the absences – how they occurred and how they felt – struck me as a more compelling area of study.

Historically, scholars and policymakers looked at whether fathers lived with their kids as the sole criterion when designating them as “present” or “absent.” Yet, my respondents’ stories revealed distinctions that “nonresident” alone did not capture. Specifically, my analysis identified four unique patterns of absence: “consistent,” “inconsistent,” “extended” and “absolute.”

Consistent absence includes regular interactions, like every Tuesday after school or every weekend.

Inconsistent absence involves irregular and unpredictable interactions – a dad who promises to show up on Tuesday but doesn’t appear until Friday, or disappears for weeks at a time.

Extended absence occurs when years pass between interactions: meeting your father for the first time at 9 years old, and then having no interaction with him until he shows up at your high school graduation, for instance.

Finally, absolute absence means interactions never occurred or they can no longer occur, such as a father who died or disappeared, with his whereabouts unknown. Some people in this category didn’t even know their fathers’ names.

These categories complicate what can otherwise be oversimplified.

For example, the fathers of Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were both absent, but in distinctly different ways.

Clinton’s biological father died in a car accident before he was born – an absolute absence. Obama’s father left the family when Barack was 2 years old and reappeared only once, years later – a relationship characterized by extended absence.

In contrast, other famous people saw their absent fathers more regularly.

The parents of the rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, divorced when he was 3 years old, but he grew up spending summers with his father, putting the absence in the “consistent” category. Similarly, Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine regularly saw his dad on weekends after his parents divorced, which I also classify as a consistent form of absence.

Better than my father, or better than his absence?

Ironically, I became a father as I began my dissertation research on absent fathers. Using the four categories of paternal absence I developed, my dissertation examined how men’s experiences with absence shaped their own aspirations for fatherhood and romantic relationships.

I wanted to showcase the complexity and range of experiences of growing up with an absent father, while also exposing the disparity in how people remembered their absent fathers. Specifically, some people knew their fathers, while others knew only that their father was absent. This memory gap makes it harder for some new dads to envision what it means to be better than their own fathers.

Like me, the men I interviewed for my research relayed anxieties about navigating fatherhood. Like me, they wanted to be better than their fathers.

But we all differed in how prepared we felt for the task. Some had vivid memories to guide them: One respondent, who experienced inconsistent absence, hated that his father never showed curiosity in getting to know him. So when he became a parent, he made sure to ask his daughter questions so she would know he cared about her life.

Yet those with little to no memories of their father may aspire to be, as another respondent put it, “a father like my mother.”

Doing this work, I’ve been able to reimagine my own experience with absence.

I used to assume that the pattern of absence I experienced with my own dad reflected a standard. My parents divorced when I was 3 years old. I saw my father regularly until moving away at 6 – a form of consistent absence. But the rest of my childhood passed without seeing my father, shifting me to extended absence. I used to wrongly dismiss less extreme patterns of absence, such as seeing one’s father weekly or monthly, as “not absence.”

My unique experience of absence has also distinctly shaped how I remember my father. My memories mainly come from 6 years old and earlier. Many are unfavorable, like his smoking in the car, knowing I had asthma. Some fond ones exist, like the two of us walking on the beach or feeding ducks at a local pond.

Still, what I recall most is my fear of my father. The origins of this fear escape me. I’ve been told he abused my mother, but I don’t remember witnessing it.

These scant memories presented a paradox as I entered fatherhood: I didn’t want to be feared like my father, but I didn’t know exactly what made me afraid of my father. This uncertainty loomed throughout my early years of parenting: When my daughter cried in my arms or preferred my wife over me, was it simply a sign of normal fussiness? Or had I unknowingly become a scary figure, like my father?

From abandoned son to present father

I last met my father 20 years ago. I was full of hate when that meeting began, but this hatred soon dissipated. First, I realized I wasn’t angry at my father, because I barely knew my father. I was angry at his absence. Second, I learned that his father was absent, too.

They say “hurt people hurt people.” Before my dad was an absent father, he was missing his dad, too. This doesn’t excuse his absence or his treatment of my mother. But it did make it harder to hate someone who was probably hurting like me.

As I continue to explore the impact of absent fathers as an academic, I continue to reconcile my transition from abandoned son to a present father. Lacking inspiration or guidance from my own father, I’m practicing fatherhood on my terms.

For me, that’s meant building traditions. From the outset, we’ve created routines around music, dancing, bath time, reading and talking about “big emotions.” Our most meaningful tradition has been our weekly daddy-daughter breakfast, which I started when she was 18 months old. She’s now 8.

Sometimes we go on Tuesdays. But any day of the week is fair game.

Matthew Alemu, Special Advisor, Poverty Solutions, University of Michigan; Northeastern University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Now Matthew Alema was much more furtunate than me. At least he saw his father from time to time.

I often reflect how my life would have been different had my father lived for much longer, say until he was in his 70’s or 80’s. There’s no question it would have been significant. I would have had a profession, possibly in the designing of buildings. I would have gone to university, And so on …

I have a son and a daughter, both in their 50’s, and a grandson by my daughter and her husband. I am so grateful to be able to speak to them on a regular basis. They all live in England.

The reason behind the human ‘week’.

A fascinating history of our week.

Why are there seven days in a week?

The Conversation published a post on this subject back in 2020 under their Curious Kids title. That may have been the reason I did not republish it.

But on June 5th this year, Kelly Kizer Whitt published on EarthSky an article explaining how the ‘week’ came about.

However, I am going to republish the item, as posted by The Conversation.

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Why are there seven days in a week?

Your calendar dates back to Babylonian times. Aleksandra Pikalova/Shutterstock.com

Kristin Heineman, Colorado State University

Why are there seven days in a week? – Henry E., age 8, Somerville, Massachusetts

Waiting for the weekend can often seem unbearable, a whole six days between Saturdays. Having seven days in a week has been the case for a very long time, and so people don’t often stop to ask why.

Most of our time reckoning is due to the movements of the planets, Moon and stars. Our day is equal to one full rotation of the Earth around its axis. Our year is a revolution of the Earth around the Sun, which takes 365 and ¼ days, which is why we add an extra day in February every four years, for a leap year.

But the week and the month are a bit trickier. The phases of the Moon do not exactly coincide with the solar calendar. The Moon cycle is 27 days and seven hours long, and there are 13 phases of the Moon in each solar year.

Some of the earliest civilizations observed the cosmos and recorded the movements of planets, the Sun and Moon. The Babylonians, who lived in modern-day Iraq, were astute observers and interpreters of the heavens, and it is largely thanks to them that our weeks are seven days long.

The reason they adopted the number seven was that they observed seven celestial bodies – the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. So, that number held particular significance to them.

Other civilizations chose other numbers – like the Egyptians, whose week was 10 days long; or the Romans, whose week lasted eight.

Some of the earliest civilizations recorded the movements of planets, the Sun and Moon.
Andrey Prokhorov/Shutterstock.com

The Babylonians divided their lunar months into seven-day weeks, with the final day of the week holding particular religious significance. The 28-day month, or a complete cycle of the Moon, is a bit too large a period of time to manage effectively, and so the Babylonians divided their months into four equal parts of seven.

The number seven is not especially well-suited to coincide with the solar year, or even the months, so it did create a few inconsistencies.

However, the Babylonians were such a dominant culture in the Near East, especially in the sixth and seventh centuries B.C., that this, and many of their other notions of time – such as a 60-minute hour – persisted.

The seven-day week spread throughout the Near East. It was adopted by the Jews, who had been captives of the Babylonians at the height of that civilization’s power. Other cultures in the surrounding areas got on board with the seven-day week, including the Persian empire and the Greeks.

Centuries later, when Alexander the Great began to spread Greek culture throughout the Near East as far as India, the concept of the seven-day week spread as well. Scholars think that perhaps India later introduced the seven-day week to China.

Finally, once the Romans began to conquer the territory influenced by Alexander the Great, they too eventually shifted to the seven-day week. It was Emperor Constantine who decreed that the seven-day week was the official Roman week and made Sunday a public holiday in A.D. 321.

The weekend was not adopted until modern times in the 20th century. Although there have been some recent attempts to change the seven-day week, it has been around for so long that it seems like it is here to stay.

Kristin Heineman, Instructor in History, Colorado State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

ooOOoo

So there we are, the ancient history of the week. Including the fact that the weekend was not adopted until the 20th century. In the 1940’s to be precise.

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