James' World 2

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The world is likely to overshoot 1.5°C of warming within the next few years, a report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) acknowledges. However, it says it is still possible to cool the planet back down to this level by the end of the century. Can it really be done? It isn’t impossible, but it certainly isn’t the most likely outcome.

The goal of limiting the increase in the average global surface temperature to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels looked implausible even back in 2015, when it was adopted as part of the Paris Agreement. The UNEP report can be seen as an “official” acknowledgment of what many have been saying for years: that it is now certain that we are going to blast right past this limit.

But some aren’t giving up on the target. There are no good outcomes if we remain above 1.5°C, says Inger Andersen at UNEP. “Even if we exceed 1.5, let’s be very clear: that 1.5 target is still the goal. But now we need to approach it differently, from above.”

Much of the report looks at the consequences of overshooting 1.5°C and the need for adaptation to cope with the severe impacts this will bring. “We will see increased food insecurity, increased water insecurity, impacts on human health – physical and mental – danger to our homes and our infrastructure,” says Debra Roberts at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, one of the authors of the report. “This will lead to the loss of livelihoods and certainly lives.”

The world isn’t prepared for overshooting 1.5°C, she says. “Therefore we have to advance our adaptation and development strategies to deal with those higher levels of warming, the greater range of risks and impacts… Adaptation needs to be transformational to allow us to plan for a changing world.”

There will be no going back to how things were, says Roberts. “Some losses will be irreversible, which means returning to 1.5 doesn’t mean we return back to the same world we left.”

But what exactly should we be preparing for? The report focuses on a scenario in which rapid emissions cuts and massive-scale removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere result in a return to 1.5°C of warming by the end of the century.

But achieving this would require limiting temperature rises to no more than 1.8°C, says Roberts. Beyond this, there will be cascading effects from all the irreversible changes that make it much harder.

However, restricting warming to this level requires a halving of global emissions by 2035, says report author Joeri Rogelj at Imperial College London. That seems highly unlikely given that emissions are still rising worldwide.

In addition to emissions cuts, the scenario envisaged in the report also requires carbon removal on a truly gigantic scale – enough not just to balance out hard-to-tackle emission sources, such as farming, and achieve net zero, but to go well beyond that to remove around 10 gigatonnes of CO2 each year. That compares with current emissions of around 40 gigatonnes.

This means scaling up carbon removal by a factor of around 100,000, says Reto Knutti at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, who wasn’t involved in the report. Cheap forms of carbon removal, such as planting forests, can’t be scaled up this much because there isn’t enough land. Direct air capture could be scaled up, but it is really expensive, he says.

Knutti thinks achieving this is technically and financially possible, but not politically plausible. “We should be honest when we talk to policy-makers and the public that this is not the thing to plan for,” he says. “I think the plan should be to adapt for at least 2 degrees, if not more.”

James Dyke at the University of Exeter in the UK is even less optimistic. “There are still no credible plans for large-scale carbon dioxide removal,” he says. “Human societies must adapt and prepare for a warmer and more dangerous world that will persist potentially for centuries.”

Konstantin Weber, also at ETH Zurich, points out that among the latest emissions scenarios that will be used by climate modellers, only two imply a return to 1.5°C before 2150. The scenario based on current policies suggests warming of around 3°C by 2100.

Until recently, overshooting and returning to 1.5°C was no more than a scientific thought experiment, says Oliver Geden at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. Now it could become the “official” plan B for 1.5°C. “The overshoot concept may turn out to be no more than a way to mask ongoing failure,” he says.

But even if getting the temperature back down to 1.5°C isn’t likely, we have to try, says Weber. “We have to give it a shot. There’s no real alternative.”

“Now is the time to double down on climate action, not to give up on it,” says Andersen. “Every fraction of a degree avoided, every year by which overshoot is shortened, and every adaptation action taken will save lives, protect ecosystems and reduce economic losses.”

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Key points

• Micro-nanobubble technology removes over 90% of microplastics from wastewater in lab tests.
• This method could improve wastewater treatment and potentially filter microplastics from drinking water.
• Reducing plastic use and preventing microplastics in the environment are key to protecting health and ecosystems.

Featured Story: How Nanobubbles Could Remove the Majority of Microplastics from Wastewater

Microplastics seem to be everywhere. They can make their way into our wastewater, which in turn flows into our oceans.1 Doing a load of laundry with synthetic textiles, using certain household cleaning products like sponges and using certain cosmetics can all release microplastics that end up down the drain.

Fortunately, scientists are continuing to find solutions to reduce microplastics from entering our environment. A recent study published in the American Chemical Society’s ES&T Water journal found that enhancing wastewater treatment by using microbubbles and nanobubbles significantly improved the removal of microplastics from water.

So, what are “microbubbles” and “nanobubbles” exactly? We asked study author Biplob Pramanik, PhD, to give us the breakdown.

“Microbubbles are tiny air bubbles (typically 10–100 micrometres) that provide buoyancy and lift particles to the water surface,” he explains. “Nanobubbles are much smaller (less than 1 micrometre) and have unique surface properties that enhance particle attachment and aggregation. In our approach, nanobubbles help microplastics clump together, while microbubbles float these larger particles to the surface where they can be removed. By combining both bubble types, we achieved over 90% microplastic removal in laboratory-scale wastewater treatment.”

The combined system removed up to 95% of polyethylene (a type of synthetic plastic) and 97% of polystyrene (a synthetic polymer found in packing peanuts and Styrofoam), which could further improve methods already in use by wastewater treatment plants.

While Pramanik notes that wastewater treatment plants already do a great job of filtering out microplastics from the water, this additional science can help filter wastewater more effectively.

“Due to the large volumes of wastewater processed every day, even a small amount of escaping microplastics can result in significant environmental releases,” Pramanik says. “In addition, many captured microplastics accumulate in sewage sludge, which may be reused as biosolids. Improving microplastic removal at the early stages of treatment can further reduce their release to waterways and biosolids, helping to protect ecosystems and public health.”

But wait, there’s more: while more testing is still needed, this micro-nanobubble process could potentially be used to filter drinking water, which could help significantly reduce our microplastic intake in our daily lives.

“[It] could be adapted for drinking water treatment because it is based on physical separation and flotation principles already used in water treatment facilities,” Pramanik shares. But he admits that there’s still a long way to go, as “drinking water applications would require additional testing and optimisation to ensure consistent removal of very small particles while meeting strict drinking water quality and safety standards.”

Microplastics shouldn’t be your no. 1 concern when it comes to your food and drink choices. But new technology lowering the amount of microplastics that allow themselves into our drinking water and wastewater is always good news to hear about. In the meantime, you can reduce your microplastic intake with simple steps—like swapping out plastic cooking utensils in your kitchen.

“People should be aware of microplastics rather than alarmed,” Pramanik says. “Microplastics are widespread in the environment, and research is ongoing to better understand their long-term impacts on ecosystems and human health. While many questions remain, reducing unnecessary plastic use and preventing microplastics from entering the environment are sensible precautionary measures.”

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Credit: Design elements: Getty Images. EatingWell design.

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Hmmmm  ….    Force the Trump administration to release Epstein files! Force the Trump administration to release Epstein files! 

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The move could end up redirecting money away from working parents and their child care providers, causing some to raise their rates or even close, critics said, potentially worsening what many experts say is a child care crisis in the country.

About 80 percent of the 870,000 families who currently get the child care subsidies have single working parents, most of them mothers, according to Health Department data.

The policy change would effectively create a government incentive for parents to stay home with their children, an idea embraced as part of a broader conservative effort to advance policies that promote more mothers staying at home.

The new rule being drafted would allow married couples with one stay-at-home parent in certain income brackets to collect a subsidy, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the plan before it is finalized. The change could be made without approval from Congress.

More than 80 percent of stay-at-home parents are mothers, according to the Pew Research Center.

The plan is being pushed by the White House and is seen as a top priority of Mr. Vance, according to several people familiar with the discussions. The draft rule also incorporates policies in legislation written by Secretary of State Marco Rubio when he was a senator from Florida.

Representatives for the White House, Mr. Vance and the Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to requests for comment.

Mr. Vance, whose wife Usha, a former corporate lawyer, gave birth to their fourth child in July, has long advocated for more mothers to stay at home with young children and called for efforts to open up child care subsidy programs to those providing “kinship care.”

In 2021, Mr. Vance co-wrote an opinion essay in The Wall Street Journal contending that day care can harm children and declaring, “Young children are clearly happier and healthier when they spend the day at home with a parent.”

He also wrote then on Twitter that “normal Americans” want a “family policy that doesn’t shunt their kids into crap day care so they can enjoy more ‘freedom’ in the paid labor force.”

Some family policy experts said the changes to the program would hurt parents who have to work and have difficulty affording child care.

“I am a big proponent of more support for stay-at-home parents. But this is not how I would choose to do it,” said Patrick T. Brown, a fellow at the Life and Family Initiative at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative think tank.

“Expanding the eligibility without increasing funding would mean more parents competing for the same dollars, and leaving more parents — particularly single working parents — worse off,” he said.

The $12 billion Child Care and Development Fund, which is run by the Health Department’s Administration for Children and Families, was created during the Clinton administration to support the employment of low to moderate-income parents. It subsidizes the care of children up to age 13 and currently offsets the costs for caring for about 1.3 million children.

Under the current rules, most of the money is distributed to states, which in turn distribute it to parents, usually in the form of vouchers or direct deposits to child care providers.

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About 80 percent of the 870,000 families that currently get child care subsidies from the Health and Human Services Department have single working parents, most of them mothers, according to department data. Credit…Julia Nikhinson/Associated Press

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GLP-1 weight-loss drugs are transformational. From helping people lose weight to controlling their blood sugar to tamping down inflammation and improving heart health, these medications herald a new age of medicine. And now a new study in mice suggests that starting semaglutide, a GLP-1 (glucagonlike peptide 1) medication sold under the brand names Wegovy and Ozempic, in old age extends the lifespan by about 12 percent.

Not only that, but semaglutide outperformed dieting in terms of maintaining memory and keeping blood sugar in check. It’s an intriguing result: Scientists already knew that restricting calories seems to boost longevity and hold off the ill effects of aging. But sticking to such a diet is hard, and researchers have long looked for a drug that delivers the same benefits without the hunger. The new results, published in Nature, suggest they may have found it.

In the study, scientists gave semaglutide to female mice that were 20 months old—roughly equivalent in age to a woman in her 60s—and injected them with the drug for the rest of their lives. Against a comparison group of the same age that ate freely and received only saline shots, the mice’s median lifespan rose by about 12 percent—from 742 days to 834.

Semaglutide’s list of uses has grown long in recent years. Beyond being used to treat diabetes and obesity, it is approved to lower cardiovascular risk, slow kidney decline, and treat fatty liver disease, with trial data piling up for sleep apnea and osteoarthritis. Why one drug works in so many seemingly unrelated conditions is a mystery. “I read in journals about all these benefits for all kinds of diseases, and I don’t think there was an answer in the scientific community,” says Danica Chen, a longevity researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, and senior author of the new study.

Chen as researched calorie restriction for two decades and thought that semaglutide might work as a dieting substitute because it also reduces calorie intake, albeit through appetite suppression rather than willpower and discipline. Perhaps, she reasoned, by slowing aging itself through the same calorie restriction effect, the drug would push back the diseases that aging can bring on. It worked.

Mice on semaglutide explored more, balanced longer on a rotating rod, ran farther on a treadmill, and solved a maze faster—gains that held even after the researchers accounted for the animals just being leaner than their peers. Compared with the untreated animals, their tissues were less worn out and inflamed, and they died later.

Then Chen and her team set up a separate, five-month experiment in which a group of late-life mice got the drug while another group was simply fed 24 percent less—about the same amount of food as the treated mice had cut back on because of appetite suppression. Semaglutide treatment matched the diet on measures of muscle strength and coordination.

To see whether the drug works through the same biological mechanism as dieting, the team sequenced gene activity in the livers of treated mice and compared that to existing data on calorie restriction. The overlap was significant: both calorie restriction and the GLP-1 quieted down inflammation and fat processing, and both stepped up the genes for handling blood sugar and maintaining proteins. The results suggests semaglutide mimics calorie restriction but has an additional power: the GLP-1 mice had better memory scores, curiosity levels and blood sugar.

“In that sense, it’s more than just a calorie restriction,” Chen says. Why the drug apparently has this edge over dieting is unclear. “The short answer is: we don’t know yet,” she says.

The study doesn’t answer whether dieting or semaglutide extends the lifespan more. “Maybe calorie restriction increases the lifespan more?” wonders Nir Barzilai, a longevity researcher at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine who was not involved in the study. “The data is not there, and it bugs me.” It bugs Chen, too.

That experiment is currently ongoing, she says. “I don’t predict what the results might be. The results always surprise us.”

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Summer ’26 is winding down, but before you soak up the last unofficial weekend of summer, don’t miss the wave of Labor Day sales happening right now. As a deals editor, I’ve sorted through the discounts to find the ones actually worth your time, from fashion and clothing to vacuums and outdoor upgrades like grills. (P.S. Our top-tested pellet grill is nearly 30% off.)

Can’t-miss deals:

• Best mattress deal: Bear Elite Hybrid (35% 0ff) $2,570 $1,670
• Best beauty deal: Dyson Airwrap i.d. (20% off) $650 $519
• Best Apple deal: AirPods 4 (23% off) $129 $99
• Best tech deal: JBL Charge 5 Speaker (25% off) $180 $135
• Best bedding deal: Rest Evercool Comforter (32% off) $199 $136
• Best vacuum deal: ECOVACS Robot Vacuum (44% off) $800 $450
• Best appliance deal: Whirlpool Washing Machine (21% off) $1,055 $829
• Best clothing deal: COACH Hamptons Hobo (30% off) $295 $206
• Best shoe deal: New Balance Cross Trainer (40% off) $75 $45

While scanning these markdowns, I kept the GH Institute’s favorite products in focus, along with editor favorites and highly rated finds. That’s because our team of pros only recommends brands and buys that’ve performed well in tests—so when I see one of their go-to’s on sale, I know it’s worth it.

Jump to:

• Mattress deals

• Beauty deals

• Apple deals

• Tech deals

• Bedding deals

• Vacuum deals

• Appliance deals

• Clothing finds

• Shoe sales

Best Overall Mattress in multiple categories

Saatva Classic Mattress

Now 20% Off

$2,229 $1,784 at Saatva

Credit: saatva

Ahead of Labor Day, you can get 20% off Saatva mattresses (after spending at least $1,000) by using our exclusive discount link through September 7. The Saatva Classic has been praised by our Textiles Lab for its durability, comfort, and support.

Best Hybrid Mattress

Bear Elite Hybrid Mattress

Now 35% Off

$2,570 $1,670 at Bear Mattress

Credit: bear

Our team at the Textiles Lab named the Bear Elite Hybrid the best overall hybrid mattress, thanks to its comfortable memory foam-and-coil construction. Use the code GH40 at checkout for 40% off.

best hybrid mattress for couples

Helix Dusk Luxe

Now 22% Off

$2,399 $1,874 at Helix Sleep

The Helix Dusk Luxe is ideal for couples—primarily those with different sleep styles—thanks to its medium firmness that works for a variety of sleeping positions.

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We’ve been independently researching and testing products for over 120 years. If you buy through our links, we may earn a commission. Learn more about our review process.

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The Candace Award is an award that was given from 1982 to 1992 by the National Coalition of 100 Black Women (NCBW) to “Black role models of uncommon distinction who have set a standard of excellence for young people of all races”.^[1] Candace (pronounced can-DAY-see) was the ancient Ethiopian title for queen or empress. “Candace, queen of the Ethiopians” is mentioned in the Bible: Philip meets “a eunuch of great authority” under her reign and converts him to Christianity (Acts 8:27-39).^[2] The awards ceremony was held each year at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.^[1]

The award was established in 1982 as part of an effort to increase recognition of the achievements of Black intellectuals. The award was given annually to several women and one man in select categories including arts and letters, business, community service, economic development, education, health, science, history, and technology. Sponsorship was provided by The Paddington Corporation (through their brand Baileys Irish Cream) and then by AT&T. Tiffany & Co. customized engraved crystal for the awards ceremony.^[3] The President of the NCBW, Jewell Jackson McCabe, founded the award.^[4]

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1986 Candace Award

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A federal magistrate judge ordered the Trump administration on Friday to reveal the identities of the people who devised a contentious plan to create a $1.8 billion fund to compensate those who believed they were wronged by political prosecutions.

The order by the magistrate judge, Ivan D. Davis, could shed further light on how the fund was put together. The plan to create the fund, which could have funneled taxpayer money to the president’s allies, drew repeated scrutiny. It prompted a rare rebuke from Senate Republicans, and imperiled the confirmation of Todd Blanche as attorney general.

Mr. Blanche has repeatedly said the fund is dead, but President Trump has been more circumspect, indicating his support for compensating people like the rioters who were prosecuted for attacking the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Judge Davis’s order, issued in Federal District Court in Alexandria, Va., came as part of a lawsuit challenging the legality of the fund and another measure by the Justice Department that benefited Mr. Trump. That provision granted the president, his family and his businesses expansive protections against all past tax investigations.

Both the fund and the tax immunity deal emerged from backroom negotiations between Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers and senior Justice Department officials. The measures were made public after Mr. Trump agreed to dismiss a lawsuit he had filed against the Internal Revenue Service, seeking damages for claims that the agency had failed to stop the release of some of his tax returns to news organizations.

A federal judge in Florida later excoriated both the suit and the way in which it was dismissed. She said that the suit was an improper exercise in self-dealing because the president had brought claims against a federal agency that he himself controlled. She also asserted that the dismissal had been worked out with the intent to evade judicial oversight.

The suit seeking to kill the fund and the tax immunity deal was brought in Virginia by a group of plaintiffs that includes a former federal prosecutor who was fired by the Trump administration after working on Jan. 6-related cases. The group has claimed that the program was unfairly designed to help only supporters of the president.

The union representing I.R.S. workers later joined the suit, claiming that the tax provisions were illegal and could put its employees in the untenable position of carrying out unlawful orders.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs hailed the decision.

“Today’s order granting discovery is a significant step in getting to the bottom of the slush fund,” said Aman George, a lawyer for Democracy Forward, which filed the suit.

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President Trump supports compensating people like the rioters who were prosecuted for attacking the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Credit…Jason Andrew for The New York Times

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Mercury, the closest planet to the sun, is extremely difficult to study up close. In fact, just one spacecraft, NASA’s MESSENGER, has ever orbited the planet. But soon a second mission will begin exploring this rocky world to tease out new details about its surface, interior, and interaction with our star. And on Thursday that mission—BepiColombo, a joint operation of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)—took a critical step closer to beginning in earnest.

After an eight-year voyage in space, BepiColombo’s two component science orbiters, which will together observe Mercury, have split off from the spacecraft’s Mercury Transfer Module: the ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter and JAXA’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter were released and gave out a strong signal to Earth, according to an ESA livestream of the procedure.

The job isn’t done yet. Now that they’ve separated from the transfer module, the Mercury Planetary Orbiter and Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter will remain joined together until November, when they’ll enter orbit around Mercury. A month later, they’ll go on their separate orbital paths before full science operations begin next April.

The ESA orbiter will gather data on Mercury’s topography and interior structure and will put Einstein’s general theory of relativity to the test, while the JAXA orbiter will study the planet’s magnetosphere and magnetic field.

BepiColombo has already had a couple of close interactions with Mercury: it conducted flybys that used the planet’s gravity to help it get toward the proper position to accomplish its mission. During one such flyby in 2021, the spacecraft captured some photographs of the surface from just 199 kilometers (123 miles) away.

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Hmmmm  ,,,.  Hoping you can find at least 1 recipe that is inviting!

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Discover what to cook and eat in September with our sensational seasonal recipes featuring ingredients at their peak.

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