Eternity is a fantasy romantic comedy directed by David Freyne, who co-wrote the film with Pat Cunnane. It follows a woman who must choose between two men with whom to spend eternity in the afterlife. Eternity premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival and was theatrically released in the United States by A24 in […]
At a controversial meeting of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory panel recently, members voted to remove a long-standing recommendation that all babies get a first dose of the hepatitis B vaccine at birth. Public health experts derided the move, which goes against evidence that the shot is safe and effective. Members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and agency officials cited a curious rationale for the change: a need to align the U.S.’s vaccine schedule with Denmark’s.
Shortly after the meeting, President Donald Trump ordered the CDC to fast-track a review of the U.S. vaccination schedule to align with that of other “peer, developed countries,” including Denmark. But there’s something rotten in this comparison.
The U.S. and Denmark have starkly different populations, disease rates, and health care systems. It makes sense that they have different vaccination policies.
“The United States is not Denmark,” says Katelyn Jetelina, an epidemiologist who writes a popular health newsletter and who previously advised the CDC on its COVID policy. “The health care and safety net system of the United States is drastically different than other high-income countries around the world. We should expect country-level policy decisions to vary.”
The U.S. has more than 340 million people; Denmark’s population is a little more than six million. Denmark is also much more demographically and economically homogenous than the U.S. And the countries have different burdens of disease.
Take hepatitis B—there were 99 new cases of chronic hepatitis B in Denmark in 2023, compared with more than 17,000 new cases in the U.S. Denmark also screens practically every single pregnant person for the disease, and most of those who test positive receive treatment. In the U.S., about 85 percent of pregnant people are screened, and many never get treatment. Hepatitis B is a liver infection, and if it is left untreated and becomes chronic, it can lead to cirrhosis, liver cancer and death.
The U.S. and Danish health care systems are incomparable. With the exception of Medicare and Medicaid, the U.S. system operates largely on privately funded insurance. Denmark has a universal health system that is paid for by the government, and all residents have access to free care. The CDC’s advisory panel made no mention of this difference during its recent meeting, and the Trump administration has no appetite for a universal health care system in the U.S.
“Managing and following a small population with universal health care is much different than an enormous population with multiple delivery systems and multiple payers,” says Kathryn Edwards, a professor of pediatrics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. It’s “like comparing apples and oranges.”
Jetelina concurs. In Denmark, people are less likely to fall through the cracks of their health system, she says, whereas the U.S. has a “very different health care capacity, and we don’t have a safety net.”
A consequence of universal health care systems is that countries like Denmark are also more likely than the U.S. to take cost-effectiveness into consideration when deciding which vaccines to recommend and to whom. Even though providing vaccines is generally far cheaper than treating a disease, it still costs money. For example, in the U.K., which also has state-funded universal health care, flu vaccines aren’t routinely recommended for children because the shots are more cost-effective in older adults. Similar logic may explain why the hepatitis B vaccine isn’t universally given at birth in Denmark.
A lot of the discussion at the December 5 ACIP meeting focused on hypothetical risks from the hepatitis B vaccine in babies born to people who test negative for the disease; there was very little emphasis on the societal benefits of widespread vaccination.
When it comes to targeting vaccination only to individuals born to parents who are known to have hepatitis B, Jetelina says, “we’ve tested this before.” Prior to 1991, the U.S. attempted to vaccinate only people at high risk for hepatitis B. “Even when mothers screened negative for hep B, and the birth dose was withheld, thousands of children did end up infected via another member of the household,” she says. In contrast, after ACIP recommended a universal birth dose in 1991, cases declined dramatically: in children, teens, and young adults up to age 19, cases of acute hepatitis dropped by 99 percent from 1990 to 2019.
The push to alter the U.S. hepatitis B vaccine recommendation fits into a broader effort by the Trump administration and many Republican lawmakers to prioritize individual freedoms over collective action. Yet strong public health systems—and vaccination in particular—rely on collective action to protect those who cannot protect themselves, such as immune-suppressed people, older adults, and young babies.
“I’m concerned about that,” Jetelina says. “If we land too much on individualism, diseases are going to come back.”
Rapid eye movement, or REM sleep, is the final phase of the four stage cycle that occurs during sleep. Unlike non-REM sleep, the fourth phase is characterized by an increase in brain activity and autonomic nervous system functions, which are closer to what is seen during the awakened state. Similar to non-REM sleep stages, this stage of sleep is primarily controlled by the brainstem and hypothalamus, with added contributions from the hippocampus and amygdala. Additionally, REM sleep is associated with an increase in occurrence of vivid dreams. While non-REM sleep has been associated with rest and recovery, the purpose and benefits of REM sleep are still unknown. However, many theories hypothesize that REM sleep is useful for learning and memory formation.
Key Takeaways: What Is REM Sleep?
REM sleep is an active stage of sleep characterized by increased brain wave activity, return to awake state autonomic functions, and dreams with associated paralysis.
The brainstem, particularly the pons and midbrain, and the hypothalamus are key areas of the brain that control REM sleep with hormone secreting “REM-on” and “REM-off” cells.
The most vivid, elaborate, and emotional dreams occur during REM sleep.
The benefits of REM sleep are uncertain, but may be related to learning and storage of memory.
REM Definition
REM sleep is often described as a “paradoxical” sleep state due to its increased activity after non-REM sleep. The three prior stages of sleep, known as non-REM or N1, N2, and N3, occur initially during the sleep cycle to progressively slow bodily functions and brain activity. However, after the occurrence of N3 sleep (the deepest stage of sleep), the brain signals for the onset of a more aroused state. As the name implies, the eyes move rapidly sideways during REM sleep. Autonomic functions such as heart rate, respiratory rate, and blood pressure begin to increase closer to their values while awake. However, because this period is often associated with dreams, major limb muscle activities are temporarily paralyzed. Twitching can still be observed in smaller muscle groups.
This is a digital illustration of areas of activity during REM sleep in the human brain, highlighted in red and green.Dorling Kinderley / Getty Images
REM sleep is the longest period of the sleep cycle and lasts for 70 to 120 minutes. As the duration of sleep progresses, the sleep cycle favors increased time spent in REM sleep. The proportion time spent in this phase is determined by a person’s age. All stages of sleep are present in newborns; however, babies have a much higher percentage of non-REM slow wave sleep. The ratio of REM sleep gradually increases with age until it reaches 20-25% of the sleep cycle in adults.
REM and Your Brain
REM Sleep. Numbering the traces from top to bottom, 1 & 2 are electroencephalograms (EEG) of brain activity; 3 is an electrooculogram (EOG) of movement in the right eye; 4 an EOG of the left eye; 5 is an electrocardiogram (ECG) trace of heart activity. 6 & 7 are electromyograms (EMG) of activity in the laryngeal (6) and neck (7) muscles.James Holmes / Science Photo Library / Getty Images Plus
During REM sleep, brain wave activity measured on an electroencephalogram (EEG) also increases, as compared to the slower wave activity seen during non-REM sleep. N1 sleep shows slowing of the normal alpha wave pattern noted during the awake state. N2 sleep introduces K waves, or long, high voltage waves lasting up to 1 second, and sleep spindles, or periods of low voltage and high frequency spikes. N3 sleep is characterized by delta waves, or high voltage, slow, and irregular activity. However, EEGs obtained during REM sleep show sleep patterns with low voltage and fast waves, some alpha waves, and muscle twitch spikes associated with transmitted rapid eye movement. These readings are also more variable than those observed during non-REM sleep, with random spiking patterns at times fluctuating more than activity seen while awake.
An electroencephalogram (EEG) uses electrodes to read small electromagnetic waves from the human brain.Graphic_BKK1979 / iStock / Getty Images Plus
The major portions of the brain activated during REM sleep are the brainstem and the hypothalamus. The pons and midbrain, in particular, and the hypothalamus contain specialized cells known as “REM-on” and “REM-off” cells. To induce the transition to REM sleep, REM-on cells secrete hormones such as GABA, acetylcholine, and glutamate to instruct the onset of rapid eye movements, muscle activity suppression, and autonomic changes. REM-off cells, as their name implies, induce the offset of REM sleep by secretion of stimulatory hormones such as norepinephrine, epinephrine, and histamine.
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REM sleep is an active stage of sleep characterized by increased brain wave activity. Jamie Grill / Getty Images
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy threatened to freeze $73 million from New York on Friday for allegedly issuing commercial driver’s licenses for immigrants “illegally,” which could result in the “total decertification” of the state’s CDL program.
Why it matters: The warning comes amid the Trump administration’s broader goal of pushing undocumented immigrants out of the American workforce and a broader push to remove non-proficient English speakers off the road.
What they’re saying: “When more than half of the licenses reviewed were issued illegally, it isn’t just a mistake—it is a dereliction of duty by state leadership,” Duffy said in a Friday news release.
“Gov. Hochul must immediately revoke these illegally issued licenses. If they refuse to follow the law, we will withhold federal highway funding.”
“This administration will never stop fighting to keep you and your family safe on our roads,” he added.
Context: A non-domiciled CDL is a U.S. license for a non-citizen, and is routinely issued to foreign drivers who can meet all of the DOT licensing requirements.
The other side: “Secretary Duffy is lying about New York State once again in a desperate attempt to distract from the failing, chaotic administration he represents,” a NY DMV spokesperson told Axios in an emailed statement.
“Here is the truth: Commercial Drivers Licenses are regulated by the Federal Government, and New York State DMV has, and will continue to, comply with federal rules.”
“Every CDL we issue is subject to verification of an applicant’s lawful status through federally-issued documents reviewed in accordance with federal regulations.”
“This is just another stunt from Secretary Duffy, and it does nothing to keep our roads safer. We will review USDOT’s letter and respond accordingly.”
Catch up quick: The Trump administration has sought to crackdown on the amount of non-citizen drivers on the road and attempted to prohibit states from issuing non-domiciled CDLs earlier this year.
A D.C. Court of Appeals judge blocked that move in November, but some states, such as Virginia and Georgia, have paused new applications as the legal challenge unfolds.
State of play: Roughly 18% of all truck drivers are immigrants, and the often-grueling industry is already short of tens of thousands of drivers.
Nonetheless, several high-profile fatal crashes involving immigrants over the years have spurred the wave of new restrictions.
By the numbers: Duffy said 53% of New York’s non-domiciled CDLs reviewed by DOT were issued “unlawfully or illegally.”
The review only sampled 200 licenses, but 107 of them violated federal law, according to DOT.
Zoom in: Duffy said NY’s DMV system automatically issues an 8-year license to drivers, regardless of if their work authorization or legal status expires before then.
He also said that the state frequently skips verifying if applicants have a visa or are in the country legally.
Zoom out: The administration also announced it was revoking roughly 9,500 licenses for failing to meet the president’s reinstated English-language proficiency requirements earlier this week.
That move essentially reversed an Obama-era order that softened the ELP requirements back in 2016.
What we’re watching: DOT will trigger the funding freeze if NY doesn’t fix the problems the department identified within 30 days.
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Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy speaks during a news conference on May 20 in Austin, Texas. Photo: Brandon Bell/Getty Images
You know how it goes: You’re trying to get some shut-eye in your bunk after a long shift of scraping samples of prebiotic material from red rocks in Utopia Planitia, and before you know it, your alarm bell rings. And then you see it woke you up a full 477 microseconds early!
Life on Mars is tough. Figuring out the exact time isn’t much easier.
Even on the larger end of the timescale, Martian chronometry is not exactly simple; the planet takes about 687 Earth days to go around the sun, making calendrical coordination with Earth pretty hairy. It also spins on its axis—completing one Mars day—in 24 hours, 39 minutes, and 35 seconds (to distinguish this period from an Earth day, we call it a “sol,” referencing the Latin word for the sun). Keeping track of your schedule on Mars would be different than doing so on Earth. But still, at its core, it would just be a matter of conversion.
Building an accurate Martian clock, on the other hand, can be very tricky, depending on how accurate you want it to be. When you start to slice time into smaller and smaller bits, the problem concerns not only engineering but also fundamental physics. That’s because the flow of time on milli- and microsecond scales is affected by relativity, gravity and orbital mechanics, which can vary radically from world to world.
The good news is that a pair of physicists did all the associated mathematical heavy lifting for Mars and published their results on December 1 in the Astronomical Journal. With their help, we can fine-tune our Martian timepieces.
It was Albert Einstein who really first got this ball rolling. Among many other things that emerged from his special theory of relativity, he postulated that time does not necessarily flow the same for two independent objects. The most commonly used example of this is how a clock runs more slowly when it is moving relative to an observer. The effect is pretty small until that motion nears the speed of light, whereupon it can get very large.
But there’s another twist to relativity: besides relative motion, gravity affects time’s flow as well! The stronger the gravity, the slower a clock will tick relative to some observer far away, where the gravitational effects are weaker. Both of these phenomena can affect us on Earth: GPS satellites, for example, orbit far above Earth, where gravity is weaker, so their clocks run faster than those on the surface. But the satellites’ rapid orbital motion also slows their clocks. Combined, these effects cause their clocks to tick about 38 microseconds faster than ones on the ground. This profoundly affects their accuracy in mapping, throwing them off by about 10 kilometers per day. Think about how angry you’d be if your smartphone’s map app was off by a kilometer or so after only a half hour of use. Happily, GPS takes all this into account, so the positional accuracy it calculates is pretty high. But this situation just shows how important relativity can be
What does this have to do with the Red Planet? Well, for one thing, while Mars is a rocky world like our own, it’s much smaller, about a tenth the mass of Earth. Its surface gravity is some three times less than what we feel at home. So on Mars, I’d only weigh about 65 pounds (29 kilograms)! I bet my knees and back would feel a lot better about that.
But this also means a clock on Mars feels less gravity than one on Earth, so it will run faster. And unfortunately, plugging this into Einstein’s equations to calculate that advancement is no easy task.
First, you have to define what the average surface of Mars is. After all, if you’re on a mountain, you’re farther up from the average elevation than you’d be if you were in a valley, where you’d feel a different amount of gravitational force.
But you can’t just average between the highest peaks and lowest valleys to arrive at some clear median. Oh, no. Just as a world can have varying surface elevation, it can also have a varying subsurface composition, with some regions being denser (and thus having greater local gravity) than others. Still, factoring this in alongside things like a global rotation rate and the influence of any massive orbiting moons, it’s possible (though difficult) to determine the average surface for any given world.
We did this properly for Earth in the late 20th century—and thanks to our extensive robotic orbital reconnaissance, we’ve done it more recently for Mars, too. Once calculated, Mars’s average surface can be used to gauge gravity’s influence on clocks anywhere on the planet.
Jamie Dimon is the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, the largest U.S. bank.
In a recent interview, Dimon advised workers to develop skills like critical thinking, communication, and writing to unlock “plenty of jobs.”
Other CEOs, like Amazon’s Andy Jassy, agree with Dimon that curious minds get ahead.
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon says that it’s certain that AI “will eliminate jobs.” However, he also notes that mastering a few skills can help workers protect themselves.
Dimon, who leads the largest bank in the U.S. with $3.9 trillion in assets, told Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures recently that AI taking over tasks “doesn’t mean that people won’t have other jobs.”
“My advice to people would be critical thinking,” Dimon said in the interview, which aired earlier this week. “Learn EQ [emotional quotient or emotional intelligence], learn how to be good in a meeting, how to communicate, how to write. You’ll have plenty of jobs.”
Critical thinking involves the ability to analyze information and question assumptions, while a high EQ allows workers to handle conflict and collaboration well. Communication and writing skills mean explaining ideas clearly.
Dimon says these skills matter in every field, not just banking. He previously highlighted the importance of soft skills in CEOs, stating last year that good leaders get out from behind their desks to meet and communicate with clients and competitors. They are curious, ask a “million questions” and learn from every interaction, he said.
Other CEOs agree with Dimon that curious minds get ahead. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a video published by Amazon last year that the difference between people with successful careers and those who stay “stagnant” is a hunger for learning. “You have to be ravenous and hungry to find ways to learn,” Jassy said.
Research has shown that using AI can lead to a drop in critical thinking skills. A study published earlier this year from MIT suggests that the use of chatbots like ChatGPT could weaken the neural connections that help users process information and think critically.
Brandon Daniels, the CEO of Exiger, an AI-powered supply chain risk management company, told Entrepreneur last month that if AI is used correctly, it actually demands deeper critical analysis, not less.
Daniels agreed with Dimon that workers need to develop critical thinking skills to get ahead in the age of AI and argued that to get the most out of AI, users need to fact-check it. Daniels said that the best results arrive when people combine their own judgment with AI, rather than letting the technology do all the work.
“We need more significant critical reasoning skills,” Daniels said. “The AI, in order to be effective, has to understand the nuances of your question, and you have to understand the limitations of the response.”
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Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase. Photographer: Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
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REM sleep is an active stage of sleep characterized by increased brain wave activity. Jamie Grill / Getty Images
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy speaks during a news conference on May 20 in Austin, Texas. Photo: Brandon Bell/Getty Images
Emmeci74/Getty Images
Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase. Photographer: Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images
