James' World 2

Click the link below the picture

.

A time crystal is a form of matter that shows continuous, repeating patterns over time, much like how atoms in a normal crystal repeat in space. Examples once existed in only complex, quantum matter, but now physicists have found a way to make a time crystal that can be seen, under certain conditions, with the naked eye.

The feat, accomplished by physicists at the University of Colorado Boulder, and published in Nature Materials on 4 September, involved liquid crystals — bar-shaped molecules with properties between those of a liquid and those of a solid. Simply by shining a light on the liquid crystals, the team created ripples of twisting molecules through them. The ripples kept moving for hours, undulating with a distinct beat, even when the researchers changed the conditions. The rhythm was also out of sync with any incoming force — fulfilling the two defining criteria for a time crystal.

Although some of this behaviour of liquid crystals was already known, no one had previously considered whether it could be harnessed to make a time crystal, says Young-Ki Kim, a materials scientist at the Pohang University of Science and Technology in South Korea.

The macroscopic scale of the time crystal — at millimetres to centimetres across — creates opportunities “to provide deeper understanding” of the phenomena, he says. The distinctive patterns in the crystals could also allow them to be used in anti-counterfeit devices, say the authors.

Impossible machines

Nobel-prizewinning physicist Frank Wilczek first proposed the idea of a time crystal in 2012. Wilczek’s version was almost like a perpetual-motion machine; something that cycled endlessly while in its natural resting state. A team later published a paper that mathematically proved this concept was impossible, but researchers soon found that other kinds of time crystal were possible. Ordered time crystals could exist, for example, in bizarre systems that were perpetually in flux, rather than at rest.

Time crystals have since been made in a variety of ways, using interacting nanoscale defects in diamonds, trapped ions, and simulated on Google’s Sycamore quantum computer. But most examples have been at the microscopic scale.

The latest system involves shining a light, even that from a normal light bulb, on a liquid-crystal film trapped between two glass plates. When the light hits photosensitive dye molecules on the glass plates, they switch their orientation, which triggers molecules in the liquid crystal to begin twisting.

Intermolecular forces between rod-like liquid crystal molecules mean that they usually all point in the same direction. If some begin twisting, this sets off a domino effect: the molecules reorient themselves in a complex interaction that moves across the sample like a Mexican wave.

From this soup of molecules arise stable twisted formations that behave like particles. These particles interact with each other to create observable ripples. “We were surprised and excited to see that such time-crystalline order can be readily observed in soft matter systems,” says Ivan Smalyukh, a physicist at the University of Colorado Boulder, who led the work.

To observe the molecular dance in detail, the authors looked at the time-crystal system using a kind of microscope that transmits only polarized light. The amount of light that passes through depends on a molecule’s alignment, revealing the time crystal’s ripples as a series of dark and bright stripes.

The time crystal maintained its distinctive rhythm for hours, even when the researchers varied its temperature and the light intensity. Because the set-up can be tweaked to create patterns that are centimetres across, the effect can be seen by the naked eye, albeit with less contrast and resolution than with the microscope, says Smalyukh.

Because the pattern changes across both space and time, the system is technically a space-time crystal, say the authors. It unquestionably fits the definition of a time crystal, adds Smalyukh, but it does pose the question of whether other periodic effects also fit the bill.

The authors say that these time crystals are not just a curiosity. The thin layers of crystal could be embedded in bank notes as a way to verify their authenticity. Light passing through stacks of different crystals, each with a different characteristic pattern, would create not just a ripple in one direction, but a changing 2D barcode that would be extremely difficult to counterfeit and could also be used to store information, they say.

“We don’t want to put a limit on the applications right now,” added Smalyukh, in a statement. “I think there are opportunities to push this technology in all sorts of directions.”

.

.

.

Click the link below for the complete article:

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

She accepted her Oscar wearing a linen jacket, two full linen skirts, a scarf over a white shirt and black string tie, and high heels with socks. In her 2014 memoir, “Then Again,” she looked back on the moment, with some regret, as “my ‘la-de-da’ layered get-up.”

“Annie Hall,” which won three other Oscars, including best picture, brought Ms. Keaton a shower of additional honors, including acting awards from the National Board of Review, National Society of Film Critics, New York Film Critics Circle and the British Academy of Film and Television Artists.

The Hollywood Reporter’s review of the movie called Ms. Keaton “the consummate actress of our generation” and observed that she “adds the charm and warmth and spontaneity” that make “Annie Hall” plausible.

Ms. Keaton received three other Oscar nominations. One was for the sweeping Oscar-winning drama “Reds” (1981), in which she played Louise Bryant, an intense 1910s writer hanging out with Greenwich Village socialists and Bolshevik revolutionaries, notably the activist journalist Jack Reed (Warren Beatty, who directed).

Another was for “Marvin’s Room” (1996), in which she played the selfless daughter who is taking care of her slowly dying father and her scatterbrained aunt when she receives a diagnosis of leukemia and needs a bone-marrow transplant. Her co-stars included Meryl Streep, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Hume Cronyn.

The third was for “Something’s Gotta Give” (2003), a comedy about a successful playwright who turns an extremely tearful breakup into a new hit comedy. She attracts the attentions of a handsome, much younger doctor (Keanu Reeves) and inspires a sexist man in his 60s (Jack Nicholson) to fall in love with a woman his own age.

Ms. Keaton was also a director. Her first film was “Heaven” (1987), a documentary on beliefs about the afterlife. In her last, she directed herself, Meg Ryan, and Lisa Kudrow in the comic drama “Hanging Up” (2000), based on a novel by Delia Ephron.

“Unstrung Heroes” (1995), her first foray into fictional filmmaking, starred Andie MacDowell, John Turturro and Michael Richards. The story of a teenage boy’s idiosyncratic uncles was selected for Un Certain Regard, the prestigious sidebar at the Cannes Film Festival. The Rolling Stone review said, “The movie works like a charm.” The Washington Post called it “sweet madness,” a “sensitive coming-of-age story.

A film career was always Ms. Keaton’s goal. She explained her aversion to theater as a lifelong pursuit on “CBS Sunday Morning” in 2010. “Night after night? Doing a play?” she said, putting an imaginary gun to her head. “That’s my idea of hell.”

Diane Hall was born on Jan. 5, 1946, in Los Angeles. She was the eldest of four children of John Newton Ignatius Hall, known as Jack, a civil engineer, and Dorothy Deanne (Keaton) Hall, an amateur photographer who was also crowned Mrs. Los Angeles in a beauty pageant for homemakers.

Diane’s father gave her the nickname Perkins and often addressed her as “Di-annie,” Ms. Keaton wrote in her memoir.

She grew up in Santa Ana, Calif., near Los Angeles, and briefly attended community colleges, first Santa Ana and then Orange Coast. At 19, she dropped out and moved to New York to study acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse.

She made her Broadway debut in the hit musical “Hair,” first as a member of the ensemble and then as Sheila, the female lead. (She turned down the $50 bonus offered to actors who were willing to appear nude in one scene.)

Her Broadway career continued, and her partnership with Mr. Allen began with “Play It Again, Sam” (1969), in which she played a romantically desirable married woman opposite Mr. Allen as a nebbishy divorced friend. That performance earned her a Tony Award nomination for best featured actress in a play.

Her film debut came the next year, when she played an unhappy young wife at a suburban wedding in “Lovers and Other Strangers” (1970). Then, after a handful of television appearances, she played Kay Adams, the clearly non-Sicilian girlfriend turned trusting wife of Michael Corleone (played by Al Pacino), in Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather” (1972). (She and Mr. Pacino began dating in 1974, the year “The Godfather, Part II” was released.)

For all the acclaim that “The Godfather” drew, Ms. Keaton, ever self-effacing, hardly raved about her own performance in it. “Right from the beginning I thought I wasn’t right for the part,” she told The Times after the movie was released. “I haven’t seen the film. I just decided I would save myself the pain. I had to see a few scenes because I had to loop — dub in some dialogue — and I couldn’t stand looking at myself. I thought I looked so terrible, just like a stick in those ’40s clothes!”

Three years later, the same year “Annie Hall” was released, she starred in the wrenching drama “Looking for Mr. Goodbar” as a young teacher who prowls singles bars almost every night. Molly Haskell’s review in New York magazine called Ms. Keaton’s “the performance of a lifetime” and the movie itself “harrowing, powerful, appalling.” Some observed that although she won the Oscar for “Annie Hall,” many voters had been influenced by “Mr. Goodbar,” which they considered brilliant but too hard to take.

She appeared regularly in Mr. Allen’s films, starting with the movie version of “Play It Again, Sam” (1972); “Sleeper” (1973), a comedy set in a dystopian future; and “Love and Death” (1975), set in czarist Russia. She also starred in two of Mr. Allen’s more serious contemporary films, “Interiors” (1978) and the multiple-award-winning “Manhattan” (1979).

Although she dismissed her early singing ambitions as foolish, she sang two numbers in “Annie Hall” and made a cameo appearance as a 1940s nightclub singer in Mr. Allen’s “Radio Days” (1987). Their last film together was “Manhattan Murder Mystery” (1993).

In addition to “Reds,” “Marvin’s Room” and the sequels to “The Godfather” (1974 and 1990), she starred in several other dramas, some with satirical undertones. They included “Shoot the Moon” (1982), in which she co-starred with Albert Finney, the story of an unhappy California couple and their divorce; Beth Henley’s Southern Gothic “Crimes of the Heart” (1986), playing the spinster sister of Jessica Lange and Sissy Spacek; and the mini-series “The Young Pope” (2016), as a nun who is personal secretary and confidante to the pope, played by Jude Law.

But her talent for sophisticated farce didn’t go to waste. Before “Something’s Gotta Give,” she appeared in three other comedies directed by Nancy Meyers: “Baby Boom” (1987), opposite Sam Shepard, as a big-city executive who inherits a baby and moves to Vermont; and “Father of the Bride” (1991) and its 1995 sequel, opposite Steve Martin.

.

.

.

Click the link below for the complete article:

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

His latest novel to appear in English is “Herscht 07769,” published last year in the United States. The book, which unfolds in a single sentence, evokes fears about the rise of fascism in Europe, and imagines a graffiti cleaner in Germany who writes letters to Chancellor Angela Merkel to alert her to the world’s impending destruction. It features only one period in its 400 pages.

Krasznahorkai told The New York Times in 2014 that he had tried to develop an “absolutely original” style, adding, “I wanted to be free to stray far from my literary ancestors, and not make some new version of Kafka or Dostoyevsky or Faulkner.”

Steve Sem-Sandberg, a member of the committee that awarded the prize, praised Krasznahorkai’s “powerful, musically inspired epic style” at the news conference announcing the Nobel.

“It is Krasznahorkai’s artistic gaze, which is entirely free of illusion and which sees through the fragility of the social order, combined with his unwavering belief in the power of art that has motivated the academy to award the prize,” Sem-Sandberg added.

A spokeswoman for Krasznahorkai’s German publisher said in an email on Thursday that the author was not conducting any interviews, although earlier in the day he briefly spoke to Swedish radio: “I’m very happy, thank you,” he said, adding, “I don’t know what’s coming in the future.”

Krasznahorkai was born in Gyula, a small town about 120 miles from Budapest, in 1954. His family’s Jewish roots were kept a secret — his grandfather changed the family name from Korin to Krasznahorkai to assimilate — and Krasznahorkai didn’t know about his Jewish heritage until his father told him when he was 11.

He was a musical prodigy and worked as a professional musician for several years in his youth, playing piano in a jazz band and singing in a rock group.

His father was a lawyer, and his mother worked in the social welfare ministry. Inspired by Kafka, an author he revered, he planned to study law and was fascinated by criminal psychology, but ended up studying Hungarian language and literature.

After school, Krasznahorkai undertook military service but, he has said in interviews, deserted the army after being punished for insubordination. He then took on odd jobs — including working as a miner and as a night watchman for 300 cows, a post that allowed him to read work by Dostoyevsky and Malcolm Lowry’s “Under the Volcano,” a book he called his “bible.”

When he began writing, his aim was to complete one book, then pursue a career in music. At the time he published his first short story, artists and writers were subject to censorship under Hungary’s Communist regime, and he was taken in for questioning by the police, who interrogated him about his anti-Communist views and took away his passport.

Krasznahorkai was undeterred. In 1985, he published his subversive debut novel, “Satantango,” about life in a poor, crumbling hamlet, which was a literary sensation in Hungary. “Nobody, myself included, could understand how it was possible to publish ‘Satantango’ because it’s anything but an unproblematic novel for the Communist system,” he said in a 2018 Paris Review interview.

“Satantango,” set on a collectivist farm that hasn’t functioned in years, centers on many of the themes that define Krasznahorkai’s work — it features ordinary people who are filled with an ambient sense of paranoia and confusion, facing uncertainty as social systems start to fray.

“He doesn’t deal with grand politics, he’s dealing with the experiences of people who live within societies that are decaying and falling apart,” said the poet George Szirtes, who translated “Satantango” and several other works by Krasznahorkai.

Tarr filmed an adaptation, which lasts for over seven hours, in 1994. In an interview on Thursday, he recalled reading the book in one night and asking if he could turn it into a movie, only to find the author annoyed to be woken up during Easter holidays. The novel was filled with “these poor people, these miserable people,” Tarr said, but Krasznahorkai gave them a rare “dignity.”

Szirtes said that Krasznahorkai never expected his books — filled with endless clauses and sub-clauses — to catch on with a wide international audience.

“The books can look daunting in some ways, simply because there is no break in them,” Szirtes said.

In recent decades, Krasznahorkai has received a stream of accolades outside his home country. In 2015, he won the Man Booker International Prize, which at the time was awarded for an author’s entire body of work rather than a specific novel.

In the United States, New Directions has published a dozen of his books in translation, and more are forthcoming, including “Zsömle Is Gone,” a satire about an elderly retired electrician living in the countryside who believes he’s a descendant of Hungarian royalty.

Barbara Epler, the publisher of New Directions, said one of the most striking things about Krasznahorkai’s work is his ability to weave unexpected humor into bleak stories.

.

Laszlo Krasznahorkai is known for a prose style that captures confusion and paranoia. Credit…Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times

.

.

Click the link below for the complete article:

.

__________________________________________

Hmmmm… Lookout Humans!

Click the link below the picture

.

UBTECH New Generation of Industrial Humanoid Robot!

 

Imagine a humanoid robot that walks as you do… and never stops working.

.

.

Click the link below for the Video (sound on, Play Video):

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

A powerful tropical wind and rainstorm will unfold and bring days of coastal flooding, erosive surf, high winds, and rain from the Carolinas to New England; Some areas may face impacts similar to a major nor’easter or hurricane.

A powerful tropical wind and rainstorm will unfold and bring days of coastal flooding, erosive surf, high winds, and rain from the Carolinas to New England; Some areas may face impacts similar to a major nor’easter or hurricane.

A slow-moving storm is brewing along the Atlantic coast of the United States that will strengthen and unleash wind, rain, and pounding surf from late this week into early next week. AccuWeather meteorologists warn the tropical wind and rainstorm could evolve into a named tropical storm, but it may be more akin to the powerful nor’easters that ramp up along the coastline during the winter months, without the snow. “This will be a damaging storm for some along the Atlantic coast,” AccuWeather Chief On-Air Meteorologist Bernie Rayno said.

AccuWeather meteorologists are referring to the system as a tropical wind and rainstorm to raise awareness of the situation and allow those affected to better prepare.

“The storm will form just off the Florida coast late this week and move northward this weekend to next week,” Rayno added. “As the storm drifts to the north, it will grow stronger each day.”

An extended period of stormy conditions is in store with stiffening winds that will raise seas, erosive surf, and coastal flooding, as well as bring much-needed rain to some areas.

The AccuWeather RealImpact™ Scale for this storm is 1. In this case, the storm will be the equivalent of a hurricane.

“The risk of major coastal impacts is amplified by the storm occurring toward the end of the ‘king tides,’ a time when tides are already running above their historical averages from an astronomical perspective,” AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jon Porter said. “There is a high risk this storm will be designated a subtropical (hybrid) storm, which is why we have designated this system as a tropical wind and rainstorm, and have issued an eye path map to raise early awareness ahead of potential National Hurricane Center (NHC) classification,” AccuWeather Lead Hurricane Expert Alex DaSilva said.

“A fully tropical storm gets its energy solely from the ocean, a subtropical or hybrid storm gets its energy from both the ocean and the jet stream or stalled front–We think this will be a hybrid storm as a result,” DaSilva said.

Should the storm’s intensity escalate and this storm is officially named by the NHC, it would be designated as Lorenzo, the next name on the 2025 Atlantic list.

There is the potential for major coastal flooding from North Carolina to New Jersey and Cape Cod.

These conditions will develop from North Carolina to Delmarva from Friday to Saturday and expand northward over New Jersey and the New York City area on Sunday. Barrier island communities and low-lying areas that take on water during a tropical storm or nor’easter will likely flood with this event.

Tides are expected to range from 1-3 feet above normal with an AccuWeather StormMax™ surge of 6 feet.

Offshore, waves will build to 10-20 feet and could grow even higher.

The slow-moving nature of this storm will cause days of coastal erosion due to heavy surf and strong rip currents. The prolonged storm may severely damage some beaches and protective dunes.

“Along the immediate coast, winds are likely to get strong enough with this from southeastern Virginia to Delmarva, New Jersey and southeastern New York and possibly southern New England to lead to tree, power line, and property damage,” AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Dave Dombek said.

Wind gusts of 40-60 mph will frequent coastal areas from North Carolina to eastern Massachusetts. The AccuWeather Local StormMax™ gust for this storm is 80 mph. A hurricane has winds of 74 mph or greater.

In a worst-case scenario, the storm could evolve to hurricane strength and turn inland over the mid-Atlantic with a zone where a significant storm surge, high winds, and heavy rain occur just to the north of the center.

The heaviest rain, which may lead to urban flooding outside of storm surge problems, will generally be confined to the Interstate 95 corridor on east from North Carolina to Massachusetts. The storm is forecast to bring 2-4 inches of soaking rain in many coastal areas, with higher amounts of 4-8 inches expected in coastal North Carolina. The AccuWeather Local StormMax™ rainfall is 10 inches.

Rainfall will diminish sharply farther west and south of coastal South Carolina.

Although hurricanes have remained hundreds of miles offshore in recent months, they have still contributed to significant beach damage and erosion.

“There have been probably five significant episodes of heavy surf, beach erosion, and coastal flooding since the summer, starting with Erin in mid-August,” Rayno said. Eastern North Carolina has borne the brunt with multiple beachfront homes crashing into the sea as shoreline erosion intensified in recent weeks.

The upcoming weekend is forecast to be vastly different than last weekend along part of the Atlantic coast. Last weekend’s sunshine and warmth in the mid-Atlantic and New England regions marked one of the most delightful stretches of the year. The upcoming weekend, especially the latter part, is shaping up to be very stormy and could be damaging and dangerous for some due to the risk of flooding and enraged seas.

Elsewhere, in the tropical Atlantic, Jerry is forecast to gain strength and become a hurricane in the coming days. It will take a sharply curved track near the northeastern Caribbean islands and most likely steer to the east of Bermuda.

Meanwhile, Subtropical Storm Karen continues to move across the northern Atlantic and is not expected to bring impacts to land.

.

AccuWeather’s Geoff Cornish breaks down the weather conditions that are expected to strengthen a coastal storm into a powerful system with destructive coastal flooding from Oct. 10-13.

.

.

Click the link below for the complete article (plus accompanying weather Maps):

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

Philadelphia taxpayers have spent around $270,000 funding a scheme that buys one-way bus tickets for homeless people in an attempt to get them to leave the city.

The Stranded Traveler Assistance program has provided tickets for more than 1,000 people to travel across the country since 2021, according to records reviewed by NBC10, with city officials describing it as “the most efficient program in ending homelessness.”

According to information from the city’s Office of Homeless Services, the program provides travel assistance to “non-residents who find themselves stranded, in crisis situations, in Philadelphia.”

“The aid helps travelers return to communities where they have family or social support and will have a better opportunity to attain self-sufficiency,” the department states.

To get the assistance requires the person’s name, social security number, and the number of adults and children that are traveling. They must also have a place to go at the location they are traveling to.

However, city officials acknowledge that the program is not “fail safe,” as there are no court record or background checks, and no follow up once the individual has boarded the bus.

“They come to us and say, ‘Hey, I’m ready to end my homelessness here in the city,’” Bruce Johnson, the assistant deputy director for the Office of Homeless Services, told NBC10.

“We don’t necessarily check court records and backgrounds as far as us assisting participants,” Johnson told the outlet, adding: “It’s a success once we give them that ticket and they arrive at their new destination site.”

As there is also no follow up on the other end, Johnson admitted that Philadelphia officials cannot be certain that the individuals do not end up homeless again in their new destination.

“No program is a fail-safe program,” he said.

The program has reportedly cost taxpayers $270,000 since July 2021.

In addition, investigations by NCB10 found that half of those using the Stranded Traveler program between 2021 and May 2025 traveled under 750 miles away from Philadelphia – and some return.

The outlet reported that one man, Jose Colon, used the program back in July, only to return to the city several weeks later.

The Independent reached out to Philadelphia’s Office of Homeless Services for comment on whether the service was used to move homeless people out of the city and clarification on the number that return.

A business owner in Santa Monica, California, has been testing his own similar program. John Alle, a real estate advisory business owner and co-founder of the Santa Monica Coalition, launched a no-questions-asked program last week offering free flights home to unhoused people in LA with ID and someone waiting at their destination.

.

The tickets are designed to help people who find themselves ‘stranded’ in the city to get to places where they have ‘family or social support’ (AFP via Getty Images)

.

.

Click the link below for the complete article:

.

__________________________________________

.

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

We got our first dog when my oldest son was 10. A friend who was a teacher told me that was a perfect age for a kid to have a pet. “Jake can throw his arms around the dog when he doesn’t feel comfortable hugging you anymore,” he said.

It took a bit for me to get over his reminder that my child was growing up, but I immediately recognized my friend’s insight. A beloved animal can make everything seem better. And most of us believe strongly that our pets make us healthier.

Yet the science of human-animal interaction has found mixed results when it comes to physical and psychological health benefits from pets. Depending on the study, for example, people with pets are either less or more likely to be depressed. Experts say this seesawing probably happens because, for some owners, pets serve as a calming influence and emotional support. But in other cases, the study may include more people who are already struggling mentally and get pets to try to feel better; then, such participants are counted as depressed.

Owning a dog has consistently been associated with higher levels of physical activity, no doubt because of all that walking, which has social benefits, too. One of the very first studies in the field, published in 1980, found that people who had been hospitalized for a heart attack or coronary artery disease were more likely to survive the following year if they had a pet, and the researchers suspected that physical activity from walking dogs was partly responsible, although the results held for other kinds of pets, too. A 2019 analysis of several studies, published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, showed a dramatic result: dog ownership was associated with a 24 percent lower risk of dying. But when other researchers reran the same numbers with more adjustments for confounding variables, that benefit nearly disappeared.“Pets are not a medical intervention; they’re a relationship.” —Jessica Bibbo, gerontologistA history of physical activity is one potential confounder. “You’re more likely to have a dog if you’re already somebody who’s active or wants to be active,” says developmental psychologist Megan Mueller of the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University. “And then once you have that dog, they probably help motivate you to be more active.”

That’s why much of the latest research aims to get beyond such problems by digging into the nuances of human-animal interactions. “Pets are not a medical intervention; they’re a relationship,” says Jessica Bibbo, a gerontologist at the Benjamin Rose Institute on Aging in Cleveland who studies human-animal interactions. And the quality of that relationship, such as the level of attachment and sense of social support, looks like a much better predictor of positive outcomes than just whether there’s a pet in the home, Mueller says: “We are trying to isolate the factors that can help promote those positive relationships [with pets] so we can help people.”

Carefully randomized controlled trials with therapy animals and laboratory experiments offer some clues. A 2025 study had 43 dog owners perform stressful tasks (such as public speaking) with or without their pets present. Those whose dogs accompanied them showed lower spikes of cortisol, a hormone that rises under stress. Another study of about 90 older adults attending a community center randomly assigned half the people to look after five crickets (yes, crickets!) in cages for eight weeks. All the people received the same advice about maintaining their own health. Those who cared for insects showed some improvement in mental and cognitive health compared with those who didn’t.

For older adults, having a pet to care for adds a sense of purpose, Bibbo says, particularly when health is in decline. As part of their work, Bibbo is trying to build pet care into decisions about health care. People often take better care of themselves so they can also look after a loved animal, Bibbo says.

Some of the positive effects seen in controlled settings—such as reduced cortisol levels and heart rates—probably carry over to having a pet in real life, Mueller says, even though real life is messier. As with human relationships, strong, positive bonds with an animal seem to be some of the things that confer health benefits (although even here, there are mixed results). Certainly, pets provide social and emotional support for many people. There’s a physical component as well from having a cat or dog sit in your lap. As a bonus, pets are viewed as nonjudgmental. “Pets aren’t giving you any tough love,” Mueller says.

For adolescents, that can be especially useful (my friend was right). Pets serve as “a bridge helping young people in their transition to autonomy,” says Mueller, whose work focuses on that age group.

Still, we shouldn’t ask too much. Even therapy animals are there to facilitate, not to fix, Bibbo says. And we can’t expect pets to cure serious mental health issues, Mueller says. “But can having a dog or any pet help us build coping skills that are positive for managing anxiety?” she asks. Mueller thinks it’s very possible.

People emphatically believe pets improve our quality of life, and that belief can affect health indirectly. In 2025, economists used a large British dataset with controlled variables to assess how much more money pet owners thought they would have to earn to get the same life satisfaction that pets gave them. The conclusion: up to $90,000 a year. That’s enough to buy dozens of treadmills or go on many relaxing tropical vacations. Co-author Adelina Gschwandtner of the University of Kent in England says, “Are pets good for us? We were able to answer with a resounding yes.”

.

Jay Bendt

.

.

Click the link below for the complete article:

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

There are a lot of things to worry about as modern parents, from the impact of social media on our kids, to violence in schools. But some of us may be worrying so much that our parenting style leans toward overprotective, and even stifling.

I’m talking about intensive parenting, a term which dates back to 1996 when a sociologist named Sharon Hays coined “intensive mothering.”

The term, which has been compared to helicopter parenting, was brought into the spotlight recently through some parents on TikTok. “We’re now in a position where we have to figure out if we continue putting all of ourselves into our children to help them become better humans or if we scale it back,” one parent shares in a TikTok video talking about the parenting style.

Raquel Herrero-Arias, PhD, a researcher of kids and parents at the University of Bergen in Norway, recently also spoke of wanting to research this parenting style. She sees intensive parenting as a style where caregivers are potentially doing too much, to the detriment of the entire family.

While intensive parenting can have benefits, including building parent-child bonds through more time spent together, it can also lead to issues when taken too far.

What Does Intensive Parenting Mean?

You may practice intensive parenting if you constantly strive to keep your kids entertained, rarely leave them in the care of others, and advocate for them to the point of not respecting boundaries with teachers and coaches. 

I’ll admit to being guilty of some intensive parenting habits, such as organizing my life around my children, and investing too much of myself into their emotional state, as well as obsessing over whether I handled tricky situations well enough.

Some aspects of intensive parenting take the notion of the child-centered family further, with parents basing their entire sense of well-being upon kids’ successes in life. Parents may even attempt to live vicariously through their kids, and worry, well, intensely about their futures.

Intensive parenting typically also includes parents being heavily involved in a child’s academics, extracurricular activities, and social interactions. They may often also step in to help their kids solve problems or handle challenges.

While putting your kids first isn’t necessarily a bad thing, according to experts, intensive parenting can lead to unhealthy pressures being placed on kids, and parents who aren’t focusing on themselves to the point of leading a dangerously unbalanced life.

What’s Causing Intensive Parenting?

It’s believed parents are turning to an intensive style of child-rearing because raising our families in the modern world is more difficult and therefore requires ramped up supervision. Here’s why.

Social media pressures

Experts say social media is a huge cause of intensive parenting.

“Most of us know, on a cognitive level, that social media is a highlight reel—a small piece of what actually happens,” says Anne Welsh, PhD, a Belmont, Massachusetts-based clinical psychologist and specialist in maternal mental health. “However, that constant exposure to other ways of doing things—seemingly perfect ways—starts to have an impact on us.”

For example, a 2024 Little Sleepies survey found about 73% of moms compares themselves to other parents on social media. And 77% of moms report feeling “mom guilt” because of social media.4

Dr. Welsh reports, “I have seen clients whose mental health and parenting confidence improves significantly when they spend less time on social media.”

Lauren Canonico, LCSW, a New York City-based psychotherapist and adjunct professor at Affirmative Therapy Collective, agrees that social media plays a big role in pressuring parents.

“From showing perfectly-packed lunches to allegedly Montessori-approved activities that require hours of preparation, and presenting these as normal, daily activities, we’ve made parents feel that the baseline must be extraordinary, with no room for deviation or falling short,” she explains.

Rise in parenting expectations

Social media isn’t the only reason parenting today is so demanding. Dr. Welsh believes that overall, the expectations for parents have risen dramatically in recent years. 

“There is an expectation that we are perfectly emotionally regulated, endlessly available, and always present,” she says. “While those might be laudable goals, they also aren’t reality.”

Canonico underscores that for her, there is no question this current moment creates greater difficulty for parents.

“The world we live in is busier, more demanding, and more expensive than any time that has come before,” she says. “We’re expecting the same things from ourselves—possibly more given the pressures for perfection—with far less disposable time and income to get it done than past generations.”

Given these perspectives, it’s easy to see how parents turn to an intensive style to cope with the many seeming-requirements of raising our kids today.

A parent’s own upbringing

Outside of the demands of raising small humans at this unprecedented time, there are other factors that may drive caregivers toward intensive parenting. 

“A common theme I see in parenting styles is a pendulum swing from what came before,” says Canonico. “Gen X-ers and Millennials, the two primary groups raising children right now, both have their own unique generational baggage.”

Gen X-ers were the first latchkey kids, whose parents may have both worked, and therefore, they came home to an empty house, unsupervised, after school.

Meanwhile, as Canonico explains, “Millennials have faced crisis after crisis, often feeling unprotected and unprepared, and relying on over-work and hustle culture as guard against this.”

In her view, both generations are working to prevent their kids from going through their lived experiences. 

.

Photo:  Parents/GettyImages/xavierarnau

.

.

Click the link below for the complete article:

.

__________________________________________

Click the link below the picture

.

A few years ago, I went to Italy with my then-boyfriend, James. As we sat tucking into a plate of frutti di mare at a seaside restaurant, I struck up a conversation with the waiter in Italian. While I was enjoying myself, James sat glumly and fiddled awkwardly with his phone. Back in the hotel room, he asked why I had ignored him. By speaking in a language he didn’t understand, he said I had managed to make him feel small. I could see his point. I spent quite a while chatting away, oblivious to how he must be feeling. I then went on to joke that as the Italian speaker, I would order for us – after all he didn’t know what osso buco meant… I was showing off. It wasn’t the first time something like this had happened to me. I have always taken the driving seat, been determined to get the last word, and was too busy with books to master the art of charm.

.

Regret

.

.

Click the link below for the complete article (slideshow):

.

__________________________________________