How did everything begin? It’s a question that humans have pondered for thousands of years. Over the last century or so, science has homed in on an answer: the Big Bang.
This describes how the Universe was born in a cataclysmic explosion almost 14 billion years ago. In a tiny fraction of a second, the observable universe grew by the equivalent of a bacterium expanding to the size of the Milky Way. The early universe was extraordinarily hot and extremely dense. But how do we know this happened?
Let’s look first at the evidence. In 1929, the American astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered that distant galaxies are moving away from each other, leading to the realisation that the universe is expanding. If we were to wind the clock back to the birth of the cosmos, the expansion would reverse and the galaxies would fall on top of each other 14 billion years ago. This age agrees nicely with the ages of the oldestastronomical objects we observe.
The idea was initially met with scepticism – and it was actually a sceptic, the English astronomer Fred Hoyle, who coined the name. Hoyle sarcastically dismissed the hypothesis as a “Big Bang” during an interview with BBC radio on March 28 1949.
This is article is part of our series Cosmology in crisis? which uncovers the greatest problems facing cosmologists today – and discusses the implications of solving them.
The world's first wooden satellite has blasted off on a SpaceX rocket, its Japanese developers said Tuesday, part of a resupply mission to the International Space Station.
Scientists at Kyoto University expect the wooden material to burn up when the device re-enters the atmosphere -- potentially providing a way to avoid generating metal particles when a retired satellite returns to Earth.
These particles may negatively impact both the environment and telecommunications, the developers say.
Each side of the box-like experimental satellite, named LignoSat, measures just 10 centimeters (four inches).
It was launched on an unmanned rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Kyoto University's Human Spaceology Center said.
The satellite, installed in a special container prepared by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, "flew into space safely", it said in a post on X.
A spokeswoman for LignoSat's co-developer Sumitomo Forestry told AFP the launch had been "successful".
It "will arrive at the ISS soon, and will be released to outer space about a month later" to test its strength and durability, she said.
Data will be sent from the satellite to researchers who can check for signs of strain and determine if the satellite can withstand extreme changes in temperature.
"Satellites that are not made of metal should become mainstream," Takao Doi, an astronaut and special professor at Kyoto University, said at a press conference earlier this year.
Someone following the 2024 presidential election could have seen the following two videos on social media. One shows a man holding a bin full of mail-in ballots entering a building. The other, from before Joe Biden withdrew from the race and labeled “Migrants talk about 2024 election,” shows a man interviewing several people in Spanish, all of whom answer that they plan to vote for Biden.
These videos purport to show different types of illegal election activity: ballot harvesting and noncitizen voting. Both videos are real, not AI-generated, and both show real people behaving authentically, not acting. They also do not show the events they claim to represent.
The first shows a postal worker delivering mailed-in ballots to an election center; the second is deceptively edited to falsely imply that the interviewees were stating their intentions to vote rather than whom they would vote for if they were eligible to vote.
Cheap but effective fakes
Recent headlines warn of sophisticated, AI-driven deepfakes. But it is low-tech cheap fakes like these that fuel the latest round of disinformation. Cheap fakes are the Swiss army knife in the propagandist’s tool belt. Changing a date, altering a location or even repurposing a clip from a video game and passing it off as battlefield combat require little know-how yet effectively sow confusion.
The good news is that you can avoid being taken in by these ruses – not by examining the evidence closely, which is liable to mislead you, but by waiting until trusted sources verify what you’re looking at. This is often hard to do, however.
In the largest survey of its kind, 3,446 high school students evaluated a video on social media that purported to show election fraud in the 2016 Democratic primary. Students could view the whole video, part of it or leave the footage to search the internet for information about it. Typing a few keywords into their browsers would have led students to articles from Snopes and the BBC debunking the video. Only three students – less than one-tenth of 1% – located the true source of the video, which had, in fact, been shot in Russia.
Credible news outlets reported that a video was staged to falsely show mail-in ballots filled out for Donald Trump being destroyed in Pennsylvania.
Your lying eyes
Why were students so consistently duped? The problem, we’ve found, is that many people, young and old alike, think they can look at something online and tell what it is. You don’t realize how easily your eyes can be deceived – especially by footage that triggers your emotions.
When an incendiary video dodges your prefrontal cortex and lands in your solar plexus, the first impulse is to share your outrage with others. What’s a better course of action? You might assume that it is to ask whether the clip is true or false. But a different question – rather, a set of related questions – is a better starting place.
Do you really know what you’re looking at?
Can you really tell whether the footage is from atrocities committed by Russian forces in the Donbas just because the headline blares it and you’re sympathetic to the Ukrainian cause?
Is the person who posted the footage an established reporter, someone who risks their status and prestige if it turns out to be fake, or some random person?
Is there a link to a longer video – the shorter the clip, the more wary you should be – or does it claim to speak for itself, even though the headline and caption leave little room for how to connect the dots?
These questions require no advanced knowledge of video forensics. They require you only to be honest with yourself. Your inability to answer these questions should be enough to make you realize that, no, you don’t really know what you’re looking at.
Patience is a powerful tool
Social media reports of “late-breaking news” are not likely to be reporting at all, but they are often pushed by rage merchants wrapping an interpretation around a YouTube video accompanied by lightning bolt emojis and strings of exclamation points. Reliable reporters need time to establish what happened. Rage merchants don’t. The con artist and the propagandist feed on the impatient. Your greatest information-literacy superpower is learning to wait.
If there are legs to the video, rest assured you’re not the only one viewing it. There are many people, some of whom have mastered advanced techniques of video analysis, who are likely already analyzing it and trying to get to the bottom of it.
You won’t have to wait long to learn what they’ve found.
This is an updated version of an article originally published on Nov. 16, 2023.
Life in the digital world can be rewarding. It’s convenient to order groceries for pickup, share photographs or music, and keep in touch with family and friends, no matter the distance. However, it can also be draining. The feeling of being constantly “on” and productive has driven people to reconsider their balance in the saturated digital world.
What to do? There is a fuzzy line between healthy and unhealthy digital consumption. Some folks feel the need to fully disconnect from the digital world to understand this boundary. The idea of digital detoxing is gaining popularity. This practice involves intentionally unplugging from digital technologies in the pursuit of balance and digital well-being. Nearly half of Americans report that they are making a conscious effort to regularly step away from their screens.
But is this attempt enough? It’s no surprise that 62% of Americans confess to feeling addicted to their devices and the internet. Despite people’s best efforts to unplug and strike a balance, research indicates that digital detoxes often fall short.
Getting outside, being with someone else and having fun are all good approaches to disconnecting from the digital world. kali9/E+ via Getty Images
Digital well-being is subjective. We research technology andconsumer behavior. Our recent research studied the digital detox journey, where people take a much-needed break from digital consumption, aiming to uncover what supports or sabotages those seeking digital well-being. Our findings highlighted four key strategies to improve the outcome of this journey toward achieving a healthier digital balance: replacement practices, social bonds, mindfulness and digital well-being as a journey.
1. Finding replacement practices
We found that feelings of withdrawal during a digital detox are quite common. For many, reaching for their phones and scrolling has become such a ritual that they often don’t realize they are doing it. Many turn to their devices when bored or stressed, much like an adult pacifier. As a result, finding an alternative to distract your mind and occupy your hands can be crucial during a digital detox.
These replacement practices often involve hobbies or activities that result in play. As adults, people sometimes forget what it feels like to have fun. By separating fun from your task list and engaging in play for its own sake, you can significantly reduce stress levels and boost your digital well-being.
2. Shoring up social bonds
Humans are inherently social creatures. Indeed, tools such as email, text messages and social media offer ways to enhance social connections. This innate desire for connection, however, combined with people’s reliance on technology, can lead to feelings of FOMO – fear of missing out – and anxiety during a digital detox.
The average adult now spends 70% less time with friends than they did two decades ago. Digital devices offer connection, but pieces of the experience are missing, such as the joy of in-person contact and trust in others that can be difficult to get online. So while we’re a more connected society, relationships suffer and people are more lonely than ever.
Therefore, during a digital detox it is vital to fill your cup with community, whether through existing friendships or by creating new ones. We recommend engaging in a digital detox alongside others, because FOMO may rear its ugly head if your friend pulls out their phone during a night out.
Taking a short digital detox with the Offline Club.
3. Emphasizing mindfulness
In today’s fast-paced environment, finding a moment to pause can feel nearly impossible. Many experience solitude deprivation, meaning people often don’t have moments to be alone with their own thoughts. Yet, the ability to just be can allow time for reflection, helping you consider what makes you happy and healthy. Finding moments where you can step away – to be still and silent – can provide a much-needed recharge.
With adults spending about 90% of their time indoors, breaking the routine and heading outside can offer a more holistic perspective on both personal and global well-being. In our study, yoga and meditation were common ways that detoxers found moments to become more aware of their own thoughts, which helped foster more intentional behaviors.
4. Viewing digital well-being as an ongoing journey
Ultimately, digital well-being is a journey. It is not a checklist that, once completed, means you are fulfilled.
Unfortunately, a single detox isn’t enough to cure digital imbalance. Instead, a successful detox often leaves people feeling introspective and curious. Our research participants shared that relapses are common, especially if they don’t set and monitor ongoing goals. Importantly, your needs change and evolve over time. In other words, what works now might not be what you need in the future.
Willpower just isn’t enough. We recommend identifying specific goals for yourself related to your own digital well-being. These aren’t productivity goals but goals to be unproductive. The aim is to unplug in more fulfilling ways. Whether planning a weekly game night with friends or taking a 10-minute walk without your phone, making time to unplug is worth it in the long run.
Researchers still have more to learn to help support digital wellness. We should remember, though, that individual differences play a crucial role in this equation, meaning that the journey to achieving digital harmony is uniquely personal. Thus, as people navigate their tech-saturated lives, it’s clear that finding the right balance is a complex, highly individualized process.
The digital detox journey can be challenging, but many people discover it to be rewarding in the end. People are not machines, however, so recognizing your limits and finding ways to reconnect with yourself and others during a detox can significantly enhance your sense of humanity and digital well-being.
The fastest animal on land is the cheetah, capable of reaching top speeds of 104 kilometres per hour. In the water, the fastest animals are yellowfin tuna and wahoo, which can reach speeds of 75 and 77 km per hour respectively. In the air, the title of the fastest level flight (excluding diving) goes to the white-throated needletail swift, at more than 112 km per hour.
What do all of these speedy creatures have in common? None of them are particularly big, nor particularly small for the group of animals they represent. In fact, they are all intermediately sized.
The reason for this is a bit of a mystery. As animals increase in mass, several biological features change as well. For example, in general leg length steadily increases. But clearly long legs are not the answer, since the largest land animals, like elephants, are not the fastest.
Since the early 2000s scientists have been building OpenSim – a freely available, virtual model of the human body, complete with all its bones, muscles and tendons.
This model has been used in various scientific studies to understand human movement, explore exercise science and to help model the effects of surgery on soft tissues.
In 2019 a group of Belgium researchers took this one step further, and built a physics-based simulation using OpenSim. Rather than telling the model how to move, they asked it to move forward at a certain speed. The model then figured out which combinations of muscles to activate so it could walk, or run, at the prescribed speed.
But what if we took this even further and scaled the model down to the size of a mouse? Or what if we scaled the model up to the size of an elephant? Then we could see which models could run – and how fast.
Predictive muscle-driven simulations of 5kg, 50kg, and 500kg musculoskeletal models moving at 2.25 metres per second.
This is exactly what my team did. We took the standard human model (75kg), and made smaller and smaller models down to 100 grams. We also made the models bigger, up to 2,000kg, and challenged them to run as fast as they could.
Getting the mass just right
Several fascinating things happened when we did this.
First, the 2,000kg model couldn’t move. Nor could the 1,000kg model. In fact, the largest model that could move was 900kg, suggesting an upper limit to the human form. Beyond this size we need to change shape in order to move.
We also found that the fastest model was not the biggest nor smallest. Instead, it was around 47kg, a similar weight to an average cheetah. Crucially, we could look under the hood and see why this was so.
The curve that explains the shape of the maximum running speed with mass is the same shape as the curve, which explains the max ground force with mass. This makes sense: to move faster, you need to push off the ground harder.
So why couldn’t larger models push harder off the ground? It appeared the larger models were limited by their muscles.
A muscle’s ability to produce force depends on the cross sectional area of that muscle. And as animals increase in size, the mass of their muscles gets bigger faster than their cross-sectional area.
This means the muscles of larger animals are relatively weaker. The muscles begin to “max out” above the max speed – and so the model has to slow down.
At the other end of the spectrum, the miniature models have relatively stronger muscles, but have a problem with gravity. They are just too light. They try to push on the ground to produce a large force, but this just causes their body to leave the ground earlier.
To try to produce more force on the ground, they crouch their limbs, just like mice or cats do. This allows them to stay on the ground longer and so produce more force, just like you might when doing a standing jump. But this takes time. And the longer you take to produce force, the slower your stride will be and you still won’t run faster.
So a trade off between ground force and stride frequency begins, and doesn’t end until you reach the intermediate size, where your mass is just right.
The pattern of speed and size for running animals (in blue), showing intermediately size species (like the cheetah) are typically the fastest. Computer-generated models of humans (right), which are then scaled in size from a mouse to a horse (orange dots), show the same pattern, revealing the underlying biomechanical reasons. Christofer Clemente et al.
As fast as we will get
What might all of this say about human evolution?
We know throughout history that the size of modern humans and extinct human species – a collective group known as “hominins” – has varied significantly, from the roughly 30kg Australopithecus afarensis that existed roughly 3.5 million years ago, to the roughly 80kg Homo erectus from nearly 2 million years ago.
So generally body mass has tended to increase – and presumably so too has our running speed. Homo naledi, which existed around 300,000 years ago and weighed around 37kg, and Homo floresiensis, which existed around 50,000 years ago and weighed around 27kg, must have had to sacrifice some speed for their small size.
The average body mass of modern adult humans is around 62kg – a little heavier than the 47kg peak weight that our modelling found, but still close to that ideal size.
Interestingly, many of our fastest long distance runners such as Eliud Kipchoge weigh around 50kg.
So based on our new research, we now know humans today are about as fast as we will get – without large changes to our muscular form.
Oxygen, the molecule that supports intelligent life as we know it, is largely made by plants. Whether underwater or on land, they do this by photosynthesising carbon dioxide. However, a recent study demonstrates that oxygen may be produced without the need for life at depths where light cannot reach.
The authors of a recent publication in Nature Geoscience were collecting samples from deep ocean sediments to determine the rate of oxygen consumption at the seafloor through things like organisms or sediments that can react with oxygen. But in several of their experiments, they actually found oxygen was increasing as opposed to decreasing as they would have expected. This left them questioning how this oxygen was being produced.
They found that this “dark” oxygen production at the seafloor seems to only happen in the presence of mineral concentrates called polymetallic nodules and deposits of metals called metalliferous sediments. The authors think the nodules have the right mixture of metals and are densely packed enough for an electrical current to pass through for electrolysis, creating enough energy to separate the hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O) from water (H₂O).
The authors also suggested that the amount of oxygen created may fluctuate depending on the number and mixture of nodules on the ocean floor.
This research team was trying to understand the implications of mining metals from the deep-sea floor such as lithium, cobalt or copper, funded by an extractions company in an effort to ensure deep sea mining leads to a net benefit to humanity and the Earth system. Lithium and cobalt are used, for example, to make rechargeable batteries for mobile phones, laptops and electric vehicles. Copper is vital for electrical wiring in devices like TVs and radios and for roofing and plumbing.
The investigation was focused on the Clarion-Clipperton zone of the Pacific Ocean, a vast plain between Hawaii and Mexico where millions of tons of these metals have been found. However, scientists believe mining on this scale is potentially unpredictable and can destroy habitats vital to ocean ecosystems. Deep-sea mining can also introduce harmful sediment plumes to fragile ecosystems leading to a growing number of countries calling for a moratorium.
Dark oxygen for life
The implications for this finding may also play a role in life elsewhere.
Oxygen is essential to complex life as we know it. Complex life has evolved and expanded alongside photosynthesisers, which actually produce oxygen as a waste product. Yet this oxygen allows organisms’ metabolisms to be much more efficient than without it.
Without photosynthetic bacteria, the reliance that Earth’s life has on oxygen may well have never happened, in addition to the evolutionary pathway to biodiversity as we know it. But this study shows that rich-nodules on the seafloor may have provided an additional source of oxygen to the biosphere - the zone of life on Earth encompassing all living organisms.
We can’t understand how these nodules may have affected evolution until we understand more about how they formed deeper in time. At the moment, all we really know it that we these nodules would have needed oxygen themselves to form.
Studies like this show how much the origin of life on Earth is still a mystery.
News reports of so-called forever chemicals in drinking water have left people worried about the safety of tap and bottled water. But recent research has shown there are ways to significantly reduce the levels of these harmful chemicals in our water.
Per and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a wide range of synthetic chemicals that are used in many everyday products such as cosmetics, fabrics and food packaging (where they are used to make products resistant to water and grease), as well as in fire-fighting foams.
Unusually in the chemical universe, the structures of PFAS include groups of atoms within the same molecule that imbue them with both water-hating and water-loving properties. They are also resistant to degradation.
While this latter characteristic can improve the quality of the products we buy, it also means it is nearly impossible to break these chemicals down once they escape into the environment. Some PFAS chemicals are are also toxic. For example, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) has been classified as carcinogenic to humans, and has been found to lower immune response to common childhood vaccines.
Concerns about their safety has led numerous jurisdictions to set limits on levels of some PFAS in drinking water. Nevertheless, many news stories have reported on research finding dangerous levels of PFAS chemicals in drinking water sources in England.
With this in mind, my colleagues and I measured concentrations of ten key PFAS in 41 samples of tap water from the West Midlands of the UK and 14 samples from Shenzhen, China. We also measured the same PFAS in 112 samples of bottled water.
We sampled 87 different brands from 15 countries that we bought either from shops or online in the UK and China. The PFAS we tested included many of those regulated in drinking water as well as some others we have found previously in indoor air and dust.
We compared concentrations of PFAS in plastic and glass bottled water, as well as in sparkling versus still water. In neither case did we find significant differences in concentrations of PFAS. In contrast however, in China we found significantly higher concentrations of PFAS in natural mineral water than in bottled purified water.
Crucially, while we found PFAS in every sample analysed, the maximum concentration limits set recently by the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) for some PFAS were only exceeded for PFOA in some samples of tap water from Shenzhen.
Concentrations of PFAS were lower in bottled water than in tap water from the same locality. This finding is in line with studies conducted in other countries like Spain.
It may be reassuring to some extent but our study only examined a relatively small number of tap water samples from two municipalities and cannot be taken as representative of the UK or China overall. There is no room for complacency as the USEPA’s target concentration limits for two of the PFAS we measured are zero.
So, taking note of the lower concentrations we saw in bottled purified water, we examined the effectiveness of boiling and filtration using activated carbon jug filters.
Boiling in a regular kettle reduced concentrations of all ten of the PFAS we tested. The level of reduction varied between different PFAS though. For PFOA and the three other PFAS that we measured for which there are USEPA concentration limits, concentrations reduced by 11%−14% but were much greater (61%-86%) for the more volatile and non-regulated PFAS we examined that are more easily evaporated.
Reductions were greater for all the PFAS we tested (81%−96%) when we passed the water through an activated carbon jug filter. Boiling the water after activated carbon filtration, as sometimes happens in China, reduced concentrations a little further to between 81 and 99.6%.
These results suggest that using a jug water filter can substantially reduce concentrations of some regulated PFAS in our tap water. Boiling water before drinking also reduces PFAS concentrations but is less effective.
Our findings add to those of a 2024 study in Montreal, which suggested that using a filter fitted to the kitchen tap reduced concentrations of 75 PFAS in tap water.
Our findings are a small first step towards reducing our exposure to PFAS. But we should not lose sight of the need to reduce and eliminate such forever chemicals. There’s still a lot we don’t understand about these chemicals but what we’ve learned so far shows that some of them present an urgent threat to the health of both humans and wildlife.
Artificial intelligence-generated summaries of scientific papers make complex information more understandable for the public compared with human-written summaries, according to my recent paper published in PNAS Nexus. AI-generated summaries not only improved public comprehension of science but also enhanced how people perceived scientists.
I used a popular large language model, GPT-4 by OpenAI, to create simple summaries of scientific papers; this kind of text is often called a significance statement. The AI-generated summaries used simpler language – they were easier to read according to a readability index and used more common words, like “job” instead of “occupation” – than summaries written by the researchers who had done the work.
In one experiment, I found that readers of the AI-generated statements had a better understanding of the science, and they provided more detailed, accurate summaries of the content than readers of the human-written statements.
I also investigated what effects the simpler summaries might have on people’s perceptions of the scientists who performed the research. In this experiment, participants rated the scientists whose work was described in the simpler texts as more credible and trustworthy than the scientists whose work was described in the more complex texts.
In both experiments, participants did not know who wrote each summary. The simpler texts were always AI-generated, and the complex texts were always human-generated. When I asked participants who they believed wrote each summary, they ironically thought the more complex ones were written by AI and simpler ones were written by humans.
Have you ever read about a scientific discovery and felt like it was written in a foreign language? If you’re like most Americans, new scientific information is probably hard to understand – especially if you try to tackle a science article in a research journal.
In an era where scientific literacy is crucial for informed decision-making, the abilities to communicate and grasp complex ideas are more important than ever. Trust in science has been declining for years, and one contributing factor may be the challenge of understanding scientific jargon.
This research points to a potential solution: using AI to simplify science communication. By making scientific content more approachable, this work demonstrates that AI-generated summaries may help to restore trust in scientists and, in turn, encourage greater public engagement with scientific issues. The question of trust is particularly important, as people often rely on science in their daily lives, from eating habits to medical choices.
What still isn’t known
As AI continues to evolve, its role in science communication may expand, especially if using generative AI becomes more commonplace or sanctioned by journals. Indeed, the academic publishing field is still establishing norms regarding the use of AI. By simplifying scientific writing, AI could contribute to more engagement with complex issues.
While the benefits of AI-generated science communication are perhaps clear, ethical considerations must also be considered. There is some risk that relying on AI to simplify scientific content may remove nuance, potentially leading to misunderstandings or oversimplifications. There’s always the chance of errors, too, if no one pays close attention.
Additionally, transparency is critical. Readers should be informed when AI is used to generate summaries to avoid potential biases.
Simple science descriptions are preferable to and more beneficial than complex ones, and AI tools can help. But scientists could also achieve the same goals by working harder to minimize jargon and communicate clearly – no AI necessary.
Gun ownership in the United States is widespread and cuts across all sorts of cultural divides – including race, class and political ideology. Like all mass experiences in American life, owning a gun can mean very different things to different people.
One thing that American gun owners tend to agree on, no matter their differences, is that guns are for personal protection. In a 2023 Pew survey, 72% of gun owners reported that they owned a firearm at least in part for protection, and 81% of gun owners reported that owning a gun helped them to feel safer. This perspective contrasts to that of gun owners in other developed economies, who generally report that guns are more dangerous than safe and that they own a gun for some other reason.
I’m a psychologist who studies contemporary society. In the lab, my colleagues and I have been investigating this feeling of safety that American gun owners report. We’re trying to get a more complete sense of just what people are using their firearms to protect against. Our research suggests it goes much deeper than physical threats.
By combining social-scientific research on firearms ownership with a raft of interviews we’ve conducted, we’ve developed a theory that gun owners aren’t just protecting against the specific threat of physical violence. Owners are also using a gun to protect their psychological selves. Owning a gun helps them feel more in control of the world around them and more able to live meaningful, purposeful lives that connect to the people and communities they care for.
This sort of protection may be especially appealing to those who think that the normal institutions of society – such as the police or the government – are either unable or unwilling to keep them safe. They feel they need to take protection into their own hands.
Gun owners may end up perceiving the world as a more dangerous place, institutions as more uncaring or incompetent, and their own private actions as all the more important for securing their lives and their livelihoods.
How gun owners feel during daily life
What does this cycle of protection and threat look like in everyday life? My colleagues and I recently ran a study to investigate. We’re still undergoing peer review, so our work is not final yet.
We recruited a group of over 150 firearms owners who told us that they regularly carry their guns, along with over 100 demographically matched Americans who have never owned a gun. Over two weeks, our research team texted the participants at two random times each day, asking them to fill out a survey telling us what they were doing and how they were feeling.
To get a sense of how guns change the psychological landscape of their owners, we divided our gun-carrying group into two. When we texted one half of the group, before we asked any other questions, we simply asked whether they had their gun accessible and why they’d made that decision. For the other half of our gun-owning participants, and for our non-gun-owning control group, firearms and firearm carrying never came up.
When subtly reminded of guns in general – regardless of whether their gun was accessible – our participants reported feeling more safe and in control and that their lives were more meaningful. Thanks to our random-assignment procedure, we can be pretty confident that it was thinking about guns, as opposed to any differences in the underlying groups themselves, that caused this particular increase in psychological well-being.
About half of the times that we texted, the gun owners told us that they had a gun accessible at that moment. When a gun was handy, our participants told us that they were feeling more vigilant and anxious, and that their immediate situation was more chaotic. This result didn’t seem to be driven by owners choosing to have guns available when they were putting themselves into objectively more dangerous situations: We found the same pattern when we looked just at moments when our participants were sitting at home, watching television.
Raising fear and promising rescue
Contemporary American gun ownership may have conflicting messages embedded within it. First, a gun is a thing you can use to bolster your fundamental psychological needs to feel safe, to feel in control and to feel like you matter and belong. Second, having a gun focuses your attention on the dangers of the world.
By both fueling a sense of danger and holding out the promise of rescuing you from the fear, messaging around guns may end up locking some owners into a sort of doom loop.
My collaborators and I are currently exploring whether stressing other parts of gun ownership may help owners to move beyond this negative spiral. For instance, while owners often talk about “danger,” they also talk frequently about “responsibility.”
Being a responsible gun owner is central to many owners’ identities. In one study, 97% of owners reported that they were “more responsible than the average gun owner,” and 23% rated themselves as being in the top 1% of responsibility overall. This, of course, is statistically impossible.
To more fully understand the many ways responsible firearm ownership can look, we are in the process of interviewing gun owners from all around the state of Wisconsin, a notably diverse state when it comes to gun ownership. We’re tapping into as many of the ways of owning a gun as we can, talking with protective owners, hunters, sport shooters, collectors, folks in urban areas, folks in rural areas, men, women, young people, old people, liberals, conservatives, and, of course, trying to capture the complex ways that race shapes ownership.
Who do gun owners feel they are responsible for? What kinds of actions do they think responsible owners take?
We hope to learn more about the many different ways that people conceptualize what a gun can do for them. American gun cultures are complex and distinct things. By exploring the worldviews that support firearm ownership, we can better understand what it means to live in the U.S. today.
A record 8.2 million new tuberculosis cases were diagnosed worldwide last year, the World Health Organization said -- the highest number since it began global TB monitoring in 1995.
The WHO said its Global Tuberculosis Report 2024, released Tuesday, highlights "mixed progress in the global fight against TB, with persistent challenges such as significant underfunding".
While the number of TB-related deaths declined from 1.32 million in 2022 to 1.25 million last year, the total number of people contracting the infectious disease increased from 7.5 million to 8.2 million.
However, not all new cases are diagnosed, and WHO estimates that around 10.8 million people actually contracted the disease last year.
"The fact that TB still kills and sickens so many people is an outrage, when we have the tools to prevent it, detect it and treat it," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.
"WHO urges all countries to make good on the concrete commitments they have made to expand the use of those tools, and to end TB."
The increase in cases between 2022 and 2023 largely reflects global population growth, the report said.
Last year the TB incidence rate was 134 new cases per 100,000 people -- a 0.2-percent increase compared to 2022.
\- Global targets 'off-track' -
The disease disproportionately affects people in 30 high-burden countries.
And five countries -- India, Indonesia, China, Philippines and Pakistan -- account for more than half of the global TB burden, with more than a quarter of the cases found in India alone.
According to the report, 55 percent of people who developed TB were men, 33 percent were women and 12 percent were children and young adolescents.
A preventable and curable disease, TB is caused by bacteria and most often affects the lungs. It is spread through the air when people with lung TB cough, sneeze or spit.
The WHO said a significant number of new TB cases were driven by five major risk factors: undernutrition, HIV infection, alcohol use disorders, diabetes, and, especially among men, smoking.
"Global milestones and targets for reducing the TB disease burden are off-track," the WHO said.
Only $5.7 billion of the $22 billion global annual funding target for TB prevention and care was available last year.
"In 2023, TB probably returned to being the world's leading cause of death from a single infectious agent, following three years in which it was replaced by coronavirus disease (Covid-19)," the WHO added.
Climate-heating carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere more rapidly than at any time since humans evolved.
That's just one of the alarming findings from the World Meteorological Organization's (WMO) Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, released Monday, which found that all three main greenhouse gases reached record atmospheric levels in 2023.
"Words fail," the group Climate Defiance wrote on social media in response to the news.
"Greenhouse gas pollution at these levels will guarantee a human and economic trainwreck for every country, without exception."
Atmospheric concentrations of CO2 hit 420.0 parts per million (ppm) in 2023, an increase of 151% since the Industrial Revolution and a level not seen since 3 to 5 million years ago, when global temperatures was 2-3°C hotter than today and sea levels were 10-20 meters higher. Methane hit 1,934 parts per billion (ppb)—or 265% higher than preindustrial levels—and nitrous oxide rose to 336.9 ppb, 125% of pre-1750 levels.
"Another year. Another record," WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said in a statement. "This should set alarm bells ringing among decision-makers. We are clearly off track to meet the Paris agreement goal of limiting global warming to well below 2°C and aiming for 1.5°C above preindustrial levels. These are more than just statistics. Every part per million and every fraction of a degree temperature increase has a real impact on our lives and our planet."
Carbon dioxide rose by 2.3 ppm in 2023. While that was higher than the 2022 increase, it was lower than in 2019-2021. However, on a longer-term scale, atmospheric CO2 rose by 11.4% in the past 10 years, a record increase during human existence. The burning of fossil fuels is the primary cause of this increase.
"The report is very clear: This crisis is driven by the profit-driven production of coal, oil, and gas," Climate Defiance wrote. "Because of these fuels, planet-heating pollution levels have gone up by 51.5%—since 1990 alone."
However, 2023's CO2 increases were also caused by forest fires—including a record-breaking fire season in Canada—as well as a possible reduction in the ability of Earth's natural carbon sinks to absorb the greenhouse gas. While vegetation-related CO2 emissions are partially influenced by natural cycles—El Niño years like 2023 are drier and tend to see more fires—they could also be a sign of dangerous feedback loops.
"The Bulletin warns that we face a potential vicious cycle," said WMO Deputy Secretary-General Ko Barrett. "Natural climate variability plays a big role in carbon cycle. But in the near future, climate change itself could cause ecosystems to become larger sources of greenhouse gases."
"Wildfires could release more carbon emissions into the atmosphere, whilst the warmer ocean might absorb less CO2. Consequently, more CO2 could stay in the atmosphere to accelerate global warming," Barrett explained. "These climate feedbacks are critical concerns to human society."
The report also said that even if emissions were to cease rapidly, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere means that the current rise in temperatures would linger for decades.
The rise in methane is also a concern. While it increased less in 2023 than in 2022, it hit a record-high increase over the last five years, and some of this could be due to climate feedback loops such as the melting of the Arctic permafrost or greater emissions from wetlands and other natural ecosystems as temperatures rise.
As Climate Defiance noted, WMO's graph showing the rise of methane appears to move from a linear to an exponential progression as it approaches 2023.
"It could literally be the graph that defines human history," Climate Defiance wrote.
"The most infuriating part is it didn't have to be this way," the group continued. "Had we started taking action in the 1970s—when the threat became clear—we could have easily stopped the crisis by now. Instead we gorged ourselves on SUVs and McMansions as politicians dithered and delayed."
The Greenhouse Gas Bulletin is one of several annual reports released ahead of United Nations climate conferences; this year, world leaders are scheduled to gather in Baku, Azerbaijan starting on November 11 for COP29. The Bulletin comes alongside other reports finding that national policies are not on track to reduce emissions in line with the Paris agreement temperature goals.
Last week, the U.N. Emissions Gap Report concluded that current policies put the world on course for as much as 3.1°C of warming. Also on Monday, the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) released its 2024 Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) Synthesis Report, in which it assesses the commitments that different nations have made to reduce emissions under the Paris agreement.
It found that current NDCs would cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2.6% of 2019 levels by 2030, a far cry from the 43% needed to have a chance at limiting global heating to 1.5°C by 2100 and preventing ever-worsening climate impacts.
"Greenhouse gas pollution at these levels will guarantee a human and economic trainwreck for every country, without exception," U.N. Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell said in a statement of the current 2030 trajectory.
"Today's NDC Synthesis Report must be a turning point, ending the era of inadequacy and sparking a new age of acceleration, with much bolder new national climate plans from every country due next year," Stiell said. "The report's findings are stark but not surprising—current national climate plans fall miles short of what's needed to stop global heating from crippling every economy, and wrecking billions of lives and livelihoods across every country."
"By contrast," Stiell continued, "much bolder new national climate plans can not only avert climate chaos—done well, they can be transformational for people and prosperity in every nation."
Climate Defiance also called for renewed ambition.
"It is not too late," the group said. "There is still a small window of opportunity. Together, we will unite to stop our own demise. We will rise. We will defy all odds. There is no alternative."
Much of the vanilla that flavors our ice cream today is artificial, derived from the genetic signature of a plant that hundreds of years ago was known only to an Indigenous Mexican tribe.
The plant's sequenced genomic information, available on public databases, was used as the basis for a synthetic flavoring that today competes with vanilla grown in several countries, mainly by small-scale farmers.
Few, if any, benefits of the lucrative scientific advance have trickled down to the communities that gave us vanilla in the first place.
"Wild genetic resources and pharmaceuticals ... are a multi-multi-billion dollar businesses. They clearly are profitable... that's not in dispute," Charles Barber of the World Resources Institute think tank told AFP.
"A great deal of really valuable information has fed into the system from research and utilization of wild genetic resources. And there is no mechanism currently to compensate the people where this information is coming from" in the form of digitally sequenced data, he added.
Much of the information comes from poor countries.
Fair sharing of the gains derived from digitally-stored genetic sequencing data has been a headache for negotiators at the COP16 biodiversity summit into its second week in Cali, Colombia.
At the last conference, in Montreal in 2022, 196 country parties to the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) agreed to create a benefit-sharing mechanism for the use of digital sequence information (DSI).
Two years later, they still need to resolve such basic questions as who pays, how much, into which fund, and to whom does the money go?
- 'Cheap and very fast' -
The issue is a complex one.
There is little debate that genetic data-sharing on mostly free-access platforms is crucial for human advancement through medicine and vaccine development, for example.
But how to quantify the value of the sequenced information itself? And should the first people to discover a plant's particular usefulness be compensated?
"Sequencing technology has become so advanced that you can go with a... handheld device a little bit bigger than a cell phone and you can literally sequence a genome in an hour or two and upload it as you sequence it," Pierre du Plessis, a DSI expert and former negotiator for African countries at the CBD told AFP.
These gene sequences are then uploaded to databases which artificial intelligence can mine for potential leads for product development.
DSI is worth an estimated hundreds of billions of dollars a year. And there is a lot of it out there.
"Once the sequence is put into a public database, generally, no benefit-sharing obligations apply," Nithin Ramakrishnan, a researcher with the Third World Network, an advocacy NGO for developing countries, told AFP in Cali.
"Like when the sandalwood sequence information is available in the database whether India wants to share its sandalwood... with a cosmetic company or not, doesn't matter.
- Mandatory -
A point of contention in Cali is a demand from developing countries that payment for DSI use be mandatory, perhaps through a one-percent levy on profits from drugs, cosmetics or other products.
They also want guarantees of non-monetary benefits such as access to vaccines produced from genetic information sequenced from viruses and other pathogens.
"We want real understanding, sector-specific understanding of what non-monetary benefits will be shared and we want the system to be obligatory -- the users should have some form of obligation to share benefits," said Ramakrishnan.
Another sticking point is access for Indigenous people and local communities to DSI funds.
Developing countries want the information on genetic databases to be traceable and "answerable to governments" of the countries where it comes from, said Ramakrishnan.
But rich nations and many researchers oppose such a model which they fear will be too onerous, potentially putting the brakes on scientific pursuits that could benefit all humankind.
With such divergent points of view, observers are doubtful the Cali COP will emerge with any firm decisions on the outstanding questions by closing time on Friday.
The World Wildlife Fund has said "many more rounds of negotiations appear necessary" on DSI.
Added Barber: "I think it's not going to all get solved here."
Sandra Demontigny was afraid of being a prisoner in her own body: a 45-year-old diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's, she worried about losing control of her life and burdening those she loves for years.
But the Quebec resident said she is now "relieved" after the Canadian province approved advanced requests for medical assistance in dying (MAID), its voluntary euthanasia program.
As of Wednesday, Quebec has expanded access to euthanasia for people with neurodegenerative diseases. They will now be able to fill out a form -- like a will -- in anticipation of the time when they can no longer consent to care.
"I feel like I finally have control over what's left of my life," said Demontigny, a mother and midwife who lives in Quebec City.
MAID has been offered to the terminally ill in Quebec since 2015, and is widely accepted in the French-speaking province. By authorizing advance requests, Quebec joins a handful of countries where this is also legal -- the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Colombia.
"My condition is degenerating," Demontigny said.
"I would have been a prisoner of my body for years," added Demontigny, who remains shaken by her father's experience with Alzheimer's, an incurable disease.
Before dying at age 53, he "talked to himself in the mirror" thinking it was someone else, she said. He also walked "on all fours, banging his head on the wall," before falling to the floor in tears from exhaustion.
For her, it was inconceivable that she would experience such "atrocities" and make her loved ones suffer them. She has been campaigning for years for advance requests to be allowed.
- 'Very strict' criteria -
Polls have steadily shown support for MAID above 80 percent, but individual cases have attracted international headlines about whether the program is too permissive.
Particular scrutiny has focused on whether assisted suicide should be available to people solely suffering from mental illness, or those citing disability as a primary justification to end their life.
Before Wednesday's eligibility expansion, Quebec already had the highest proportion of deaths attributable to medically assisted suicide in the world: it was administered to 5,686 people in 2023, representing 7.3 percent of deaths in the province.
The majority were 70 years of age or older, had cancer, and a survival prognosis of one year or less.
Marie-Eve Bouthillier, medical professor at the Universite de Montreal, said criteria for advanced bookings are "very strict."
Two specialized doctors or nurse practitioners will have to, as prescribed by law, assess whether the patient is experiencing "persistent, unbearable physical or psychological suffering" that cannot be relieved -- which does not systematically happen in people with dementia, for example.
The patient will also have to clearly explain what clinical circumstances he or she considers intolerable -- for example, no longer recognizing their children, or incontinence -- to set a bar for when they should be provided an assisted death.
Federal Health Minister Mark Holland noted Monday that "it is still illegal in this country under the Criminal Code to enact advance requests" for MAID.
But, he added, "it is the responsibility of the provinces to pursue violations of the Criminal Code," and Ottawa will not challenge Quebec's new rules.
- An 'execution'? -
Criminality aside, doctors have voiced concern.
At the final stage, "what will be the most difficult will be to administer medical assistance in dying to someone who is not aware of it and who will not remember having asked for it," explained David Lussier, a member of the Commission on End-of-Life Care of Quebec.
If the patient makes a "gesture of refusal," the doctor must cancel the procedure. But if a patient "resists, and it is part of their illness, we can still give it" -- which could raise ethical questions for professionals, he added.
Claude Rivard, a doctor who has administered euthanasia hundreds of times over the past decade, fears that it will be necessary to use restraint measures to install intravenous lines.
"In the family's mind, it could appear as an execution," said Rivard, who has decided not to get involved in advance requests.
Laurent Boisvert, another doctor who has administered assisted deaths since 2015, downplayed these as "theoretical" fears and said he saw no issues with Quebec's new policy.
"The person who is in his right mind, who communicates with his loved ones and society, will be gone," he explained.
"If we take the human being as a whole, it is not the same person and I will respond to the wishes of the person who was fit, who had a life that he considers to be dignified and decent, and who is no longer here."
