James' World 2

Click the link below the picture

.

Where children live and what their household’s socioeconomic status is leaves a mark on their brains, a new study in Science finds. The results suggest that the fewer opportunities a child’s zip code affords, the more tired and stressed their brain appears—and that socioeconomics by far outweighs hundreds of other possible environmental factors in determining a child’s brain function and structure.

“Socioeconomic came out ahead by like a million miles,” says Nico Dosenbach, the study’s senior author and a professor of neurology at the Washington University in St. Louis. Other factors generally thought to be important to child brain development, such as a child’s culture and overall health and their caregivers’ parenting style, didn’t rise above the fold at all, he adds.

Dosenbach and his colleagues used a dataset from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, a long-term investigation of brain development and child health in the U.S. Using thousands of children’s brain scans, the scientists made maps of each child’s brain function and structure and then weighed them against 649 variables.

These variables included IQ and cognitive test measures, demographic and cultural information, and mental and physical health records, as well as the child’s score on a measure called the Child Opportunity Index (COI). The COI measures and maps the quality of resources such as safe housing, food access, and schools nearby. Then the researchers looked for patterns in the brain maps that could reveal which factors were most associated with significant changes in the brain. The researchers compared what they were seeing with another, totally unrelated adult sample—the U.K. Biobank—and found that the same patterns persisted.

“A lower socioeconomic brain—so a child who grows up at the lower end, their brain looks more tired and stressed out,” Dosenbach says. “It doesn’t look dumber. The pattern of association completely spares the cognition areas of the brain.”

That’s important, Dosenbach stresses: past research has suggested that socioeconomic status is linked to IQ and cognitive scores, but the new results indicate the reason may be entirely to do with how sleep-deprived and stressed a child is when they are tested—not their basic cognitive ability. That finding came as a shock to Dosenbach and the study’s first author, Scott Marek.

“At the very least, I thought there would still be something there,” says Marek, an assistant professor of radiology at Washington University School of Medicine. Instead, the researchers found that any associations between cognition and the brain disappeared after they adjusted for socioeconomic status. “Place matters a lot for pretty much everything in our lives, so why not the brain as well?” Marek says. “It literally is the factor that permeates all brain behavior association studies.”

Dosenbach says the results have challenged his assumptions about standardized testing for kids—and about screen time. One of the less prominent but still significant variables the team found to have some effect on brain function was how much screen time a child got. He points to journalist and psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s book The Anxious Generation, which argues that screen time is causing a mental health epidemic in kids. Dosenbach didn’t buy Haidt’s argument because it was based on correlations, he says, but he feels unable to argue with his data. “My daughter was about to get her [first] real cell phone, and I pulled the plug on it,” he says.

More broadly, the findings underscore the importance of early childhood circumstances on the developing brain. They do not, however, suggest that a child’s zip code determines their destiny. Marek says he hopes his team and other researchers can work toward developing interventions to combat sleeplessness and stress. Importantly, most of the changes associated with socioeconomic status that the researchers found were in brain function, as opposed to structure, indicating they may not last if those pressures are addressed.

In an accompanying article also published in Science, University of Pennsylvania neuroscientists Lucinda Sisk and Theodore Satterthwaite write that the findings “highlight the need for societal-level policies that provide early support for families.”

The study does have some key limitations, Marek says. For one, it isn’t clear how early in life children’s environment begins to weigh on their brains. The study also included ABCD data from just two time points in children’s lives, so it’s unknown whether the changes the team saw stick around through their teenage years or if they change with age.

The study also doesn’t account for the children’s genetics, such as by calculating and factoring in their polygenetic risk scores, says Torkel Klingberg, a professor of neuroscience at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, who was not involved in the new study. These are measures that estimate a person’s genetic predisposition to a disease or a trait, such as educational attainment.

“Environment is super important for the brain development, for cognitive function, but so is genetics,” he says. “In order to draw firm conclusions, you really need to consider the effect of genetics.”

Marek says that at the time they did the analysis, the ABCD dataset didn’t include that information. The study does account for genetic ancestry, and it finds no correlation between that and a child’s brain.

“The story is fundamentally about place, right? It’s not race; it’s fundamentally about where you live. Doesn’t matter what color your skin is, what your family history is. The zip code is the thing that matters,” he says. At the same time, Marek and Dosenbach argue that trying to make sure kids are getting enough sleep and are less stressed in their immediate environment are relatively achievable and inexpensive interventions—and could have significant impacts on brain development.

“America as a country is extraordinarily rich,” Marek says, “and I think the hopeful message here is that, yeah, a lot of these effects seem like they are reversible, and they’re not set in stone.”

.

metamorworks/Getty Images

.

.

Click the link below for the complete article:

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

Key Takeaways

• Rebellious behavior in teens is common and normal—but should you ever be worried if your teen displays defiant behavior?
• Sometimes, defiant behavior in teens can be a cover for more serious emotional issues, like insecurity or anger.
• Experts recommend that parents pay close attention to their teens’ patterns of behavior, so they can spot any changes, and have deeper talks with them about their feelings when tempers have cooled.

I have two teenagers, and so I am very familiar with teenage defiance. Talking back, arguing, not listening to reason or rules – I’ve seen it all. The other day, one kid blew a fuse after I asked him the simple question of what he wanted for lunch. The day before that, we had a heated argument after I reminded him to charge his school iPad. And don’t even get me started on the daily screaming match that happens when I remind him to leave the house on time to catch his morning bus.

I know this is normal behavior for teenagers, but I often ask myself if there is something deeper going on. What emotions might be underlying these behaviors? A few of my close friends have recently confided in me that their teens’ defiant behavior often gets exacerbated when they’re experiencing low self-esteem or feeling inadequate. That got me wondering: Is defiance in teens ever a sign of underlying insecurity? Could it ever be a symptom of another underlying intense emotional state?

To answer my questions, I connected with two therapists to help unpack what defiance in teens really means, and whether it ever is a sign of insecurity.

Is Defiant Behavior in Teens a Sign of Insecurity?

While defiant behavior in teenagers can happen for many different reasons, underlying insecurity is certainly among them.

“When a teen is insecure, they look for ways to find belonging, which can be modeling other teens who are defiant,” says Allison Guilbault, LPC, licensed therapist and founder of the Yes, I Am Too Much™ Revolution. Additionally, “if they think they are not valuable, or struggle with a deep inner critic, they can become defiant as a way to almost double down on how they believe they are perceived,” says Guilbault.

In other words, a teen might be thinking, “If I am not lovable or worthy anyway, may as well go all the way,” Guilbault says. And that thinking transforms outwardly into defiant behavior.

Defiant behavior might also be a way for teens to overcompensate for feeling small or insecure, says Jerry Weichman, Ph.D., clinical psychologist and founder of The Weichman Clinic. “This is an example of ‘the best defense is a strong offense’ mindset that a teen or anyone, for that matter, subconsciously establishes to protect him or herself from emotional pain, embarrassment, judgment, and or disappointment,” he describes.

Is Defiance a Sign of Any Other Concerning Emotions?

Of course, defiant behavior isn’t always a sign of insecurity. There are many other emotions that may cause a teen to break rules and rebel against their parents.

“As a cognitive behavioral therapist who specializes in teens, I always believe that our thoughts dictate our emotions and our emotions dictate our behavior,” says Guilbault. “So if a teen’s emotions are unregulated, that will almost undoubtedly affect behavior negatively.”

Challenges like anxiety, depression, or negative self-talk can increase defiant behaviors, according to Guilbault.

Any teen who is living with strong feelings of hurt and pain—that could be trauma involving school or another family member or stress around academics or romantic relationships—may be prone to increased defiant behavior, too.

“The teens I’ve worked with over the past two and a half decades who have the most common profile associated with oppositional behavior are the teens who have incurred a lot of emotional hurt and pain in their lives,” says Dr. Weichman.

And healing their mental health might be far more than a parent is equipped to handle, which might mean reaching out to mental health experts for therapy or other resources. In situations of more extreme mental health issues, teens may not have the tools to navigate difficult feelings and instead, repress and compartmentalize their feelings as a way to cope.

In addition, teens who are dealing with intense emotions that are hard to cope with are often hot-tempered and easily irritated.

“This unresolved emotional hurt and pain then turns into anger over time,” Dr. Weichman shares.

“As a result of the buildup of emotions, they have a very short fuse and are quick to snap,” says Dr. Weichman. “When they do snap, it’s typically a much bigger reaction than the actual situation may warrant.”

.

Teenagers

.

.

Click the link below for the complete article:

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

After a night of storms, both political and meteorological, workers began removing President Trump’s name from the white marble facade of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts early on Saturday morning, responding to a federal judge’s ruling that its rebranding was unlawful.

The letters began coming down just past 3 a.m., after the center sought an extension of a midnight deadline. Matt Floca, the center’s executive director, asked a federal district court for 12 more hours to certify that it had complied with the order, attributing the delay to a cluster of summer storms.

Workers spent about eight hours on Friday building towering scaffolding in front of the section of the facade bearing Mr. Trump’s name. Then, in the early hours of Saturday, they hung heavy white tarps from the structure. It obscured views of the removal, which was a significant symbolic victory for opponents of Mr. Trump’s takeover of an iconic performing arts center.

But a gap in the tarps allowed a New York Times photographer to observe a worker pulling the letter “A” from the wall. There was no sound of power tools; the letter appeared to come off by hand.

For all of Friday, lawyers for Mr. Trump and the center had been seeking legal intervention to keep his name on the marble as they pursue an appeal.

But after both the district court and a federal appeals court denied their requests for an immediate stay on the ruling, workers began erecting scaffolding in earnest to reach the letters. A rowdy audience of a few hundred people gathered to watch.

The center’s Trump-allied board voted to add the president’s name to the institution nearly six months ago, causing an uproar in Washington and a crisis within the city’s pre-eminent art center. At an institution that had already been rocked by the president’s takeover, the 18 new letters affixed to the building — less than a day after the board vote — increased the temperature even further.

Democratic legislators condemned the move as an act of “narcissism”; a series of artists canceled engagements at the center; and Representative Joyce Beatty, an ex officio member of the center’s board, filed a lawsuit calling the move a “flagrant violation of the rule of law.” Ms. Beatty was on hand for the operation on Saturday morning, remaining on the plaza outside the Kennedy Center even after the work crew departed around 4 a.m.

The ensuing debate over the appropriateness of the renaming led to a bizarre scene in Washington, where, for two days, the arts center on the Potomac River has seen a flurry of visitors, not there for a symphony or ballet, but to see whether the president’s name would be detached from the marble. While onlookers kept watch, a steady drumbeat of legal developments drove a sense of uncertainty over whether the removal would happen at all.

On Thursday, one of the first signs of movement came when security guards erected black bike racks to close off the main drive and walkway near the front of the building. Passers-by quizzed volunteers and guards inside the center about when the letters would come off, with little success.

A short walk from the Kennedy Center, residents of the Watergate were planning impromptu house parties at the sprawling condominium complex. Two volunteer organizations, Hands Off the Arts and Free the Kennedy Center, coordinated to livestream the signage on the building from a webcam situated on a balcony at the Watergate.

Christine Lienert and Debra Wilfong kept their celebratory champagne on ice until 10:30 p.m. on Thursday. As news emerged that Mr. Trump’s name would not be coming off the building that night, they slipped the bubbly back into the fridge

On Friday, Ms. Lienert reloaded the cooler and joined the throng awaiting the letters’ removal. But after news spread that Mr. Trump’s name might not be removed for hours, she packed up her champagne, the ice in her cooler having long since melted.

Not everyone who milled around the Kennedy Center was opposed to keeping Mr. Trump’s name on the building. Jeanette Mercado and her husband, Bert, had traveled to Washington from Wasco, in California’s Central Valley, to see the capital’s monuments and came upon the scaffolding and the gathering crowd.

“I like Trump, I like what he’s doing for our country, I think he’s a blessing for our country, and I don’t see anything wrong with his name being added,” Ms. Mercado said, her voice almost drowned out by chants of “take it down.”

Mr. Mercado, who said he was a Trump supporter as well, took a different view. “There should be a sense of continuity here — why are you going to interject your name?” he said.

In December, the Kennedy Center board voted to put Mr. Trump’s name on the building in recognition of what officials have described as his dedication to the institution and his help in securing $257 million to finance what officials said was a much-needed renovation.

.

On Friday night, workers constructed scaffolding near President Trump’s name on the facade of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Credit…Pete Kiehart for The New York Times

.

.

Click the link below for the complete article:

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

If you’ve never heard of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi before, I wouldn’t blame you—unless you happen to be a ficus. With symbiotic trade relationships spanning roughly 70 percent of plant species on Earth, these charismatic topsoil denizens should be on the radar of any self-respecting photosynthesizer. Yet although AM fungi haul roughly four billion metric tons of carbon from plants into the soil each year, there’s still a lot we humans don’t know about this type of fungus, starting with how much of it there actually is.

Until now: in a new paper published in Science, researchers combined data from more than 300 studies to estimate the total global biomass of AM fungi. The task is deceptively difficult. Biomass depends in part on the thickness of fungal filaments, meaning that even small errors in estimating their average diameter can dramatically affect the final calculation. To illustrate the challenge, co-author Justin D. Stewart, a data scientist at the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN), offers an analogy: Imagine lying beneath a tree and trying to determine the average width of all its branches. Some are long and incredibly thin, while others are short and thick. 

To tackle the problem, the team used a custom-built robot named Prince, which captured more than 300,000 measurements of growing fungal networks. (For those interested, other robotic residents of the lab include Donna Summer and Aretha Franklin.) Combined with mathematical modeling and published data from around the world, those measurements let the researchers estimate global fungal biomass and, with data visualizer Moritz Stefaner, create an interactive mycorrhizal infrastructure map covering Earth’s landmasses down to each square kilometer.

“We’re surrounded by numbers and data,” says Stefaner, who was immediately drawn to the aesthetic qualities of the dataset. “Everybody wants to make sense of it. Everybody wants to see the big picture.”

So, how much of this type of fungus is there?

The answer is simultaneously more and less than you might expect. By biomass, the world’s AM fungi weigh roughly five times as much as all humans combined. That’s substantial but not nearly as much as many researchers anticipated.

“I was kind of surprised that the numbers weren’t higher,” says Kyra Skye Gibson, a postdoctoral researcher at Northern Arizona University, who was not involved in the study.

Stewart says the research team felt much the same way. “When we first calculated how heavy these fungi were,” he says, “I think we spent two or three weeks recalculating it to make sure we weren’t missing zeros.”

Perhaps mass is the wrong way to think about it. In terms of length, the numbers become genuinely absurd. Earth’s topsoil contains an estimated 110 quadrillion kilometers of AM fungi laid end to end— enough to stretch from Earth to our neighboring star Proxima Centauri and back or to reach the 11.9 light-years to Tau Ceti, the setting of Andy Weir’s sci‑fi hit Project Hail Mary.

Yet despite such staggering numbers, Stewart is just as eager to discuss what the researchers haven’t found. “We’re treating these maps as living documents, not static images,” he says, emphasizing the importance of the nearly 200 researchers working with SPUN to fill in the remaining gaps. To help identify those gaps, the team created supplemental “maps of ignorance” that highlight where the estimates are most uncertain.

“I’m very comfortable with uncertainty, as long as we quantify what type of uncertainty it is and how large it is,” Stewart says. “These maps of ignorance are also treasure maps of where we need to go sample data in the future.”

.

.

.

Click the link below for the complete article:

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

.

A firefighter monitors flames caused by the Hughes fire in Castaic, California, on 22 January 2025. Photograph: Jae C Hong/AP

.

.

Click the link below for the complete article:

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

Claiming there was progress in the peace negotiations, President Trump said he had canceled his next wave of planned attacks after two days of U.S. airstrikes.

Here’s the latest.

After two days of pounding Iran with airstrikes, President Trump on Thursday promised to hit Iran hard again for a third day and mused about invading a strategic island — then abruptly called off the attacks.

Mr. Trump said in a social media post that he changed his mind because progress had been made in peace negotiations with Iran. While he claimed that the discussions had “been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved,” Iran’s leadership did not immediately confirm any progress. Earlier this week, Mr. Trump had claimed a peace deal was imminent, but hours later, the two countries attacked each other.

Shortly before he called off strikes on Iran on Thursday, President Trump spoke to the Pakistanis, who have been mediating with the Iranians. The Pakistanis told Trump that “we have a deal” with Iran, according to a senior administration official. We have yet to independently confirm this with the Iranians, and it’s unclear what, if anything, has been agreed. International oil prices fell more than 3 percent, below $90 a barrel, after President Trump said he had canceled planned strikes against Iran.

In a social media post, President Trump said that he had “cancelled the scheduled strikes and bombings against Iran” that he had threatened for later this evening. The president said he had canceled the attacks because of progress on a peace deal. He said that discussions “have been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership” and approved. The president said the naval blockade would remain and suggested, without further explanation, there would be a “signing” announced soon.

Trump has repeatedly claimed over the last several months that a peace deal was imminent, often threatening escalating strikes against Iran soon after. Iranian officials, in turn, have often denied Trump’s claims that they have agreed to terms of a potential peace deal.

The commander of Iran’s military headquarters warned on Thursday that any new U.S. attack would draw a “response harsher than before” that would make the war “broader and more widespread,” the country’s state broadcaster reported.

The commander also appeared to issue a veiled threat against other countries’ energy exports, saying that in light of recent U.S. threats against Iran’s oil infrastructure, “either everyone” will be able to export oil and gas, “or no one will.”

The State Department said on Thursday that it was speaking with the Indian government after officials in Delhi summoned the top U.S. diplomat in India at the moment to denounce what appears to be U.S. involvement in a strike on a commercial oil tanker near Oman that left three Indian sailors dead. “The Department of State is in direct contact with the government of India regarding this matter,” the agency said. India summoned the diplomat, Jason P. Meeks, the deputy chief of mission at at the U.S. Embassy in Delhi, on Wednesday. The U.S. ambassador, Sergio Gor, is out of the country. “We condemn the attack on the commercial vessel Settebello off the coast of Oman,” the Indian ministry of external affairs had said on Wednesday.

Data from Kpler, a global-ship tracking firm, shows one vessel has crossed the Strait of Hormuz so far on Thursday, and another one crossed on Wednesday, as military clashes between the United States and Iran have heightened tensions in the vital waterway. Those crossing numbers are down from earlier in the week; six ships crossed on Tuesday, and eight on Monday, Kpler found.

The data might not reflect the full number of crossings, because ships can turn off or misdirect their location signals to avoid being tracked. In a report published Thursday, Kpler found that non-Iranian crude oil shipments have picked up since Tehran initially closed the strait — but the vast majority of that traffic has been through dark transits or other workarounds.

Iran’s speaker of Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, warned on Thursday that further escalation by the United States could threaten energy infrastructure and global markets.

“Wrong strategies and impulsive decisions will reset the entire board for the worse,” Ghalibaf wrote on social media, adding that the United States would see “a different Iran.”

.

Tehran on Monday.Credit…Arash Khamooshi/Polaris for The New York Times

.

.

Click the link below for the complete article:

.

__________________________________________