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Plastic bottles and agricultural waste can be converted into consumable cookies via genetically engineered yeast. The team members behind the initiative are currently awaiting institutional approval so they can taste the product.

Plastic pollution and food scarcity are two of society’s thorniest problems. Sandhya Jayasekara and her colleagues from Southern Illinois University Carbondale hope to use the former to solve the latter – potentially eliminating both in the process.

The first stage of the process is to take used plastic bottles – sourced from a supermarket – and discarded sweetcorn plant stalks and leaves, and put them through a process called oxidative hydrothermal dissolution. This uses heat to break down the materials into components that microbes can digest.

Those components are then fed to yeast that has been genetically altered using CRISPR gene-editing technology. This allows the yeast to convert the components into a variety of useful ingredients, including proteins, fats and acids, as well as vanilla flavouring and beta-carotene, which the body can convert into vitamin A.

Finally, fibre, starch and sweetener are added to the mix, and the paste is extruded through a 3D printer into any desired shape. The resulting cookies have been dubbed µBites, pronounced microbites.

The researchers, who are presenting the work at the fall meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in Chicago on Friday, are eager to try µBites for themselves as soon as their university approves the experiment. But they are confident that the cookies are both safe and tasty.

“I think it has a pleasant, appealing aroma,” says Jayasekara. “And it will taste good, too. We’ve not tasted it, but it smells good – that’s for sure – like a real cookie.”

Team member Lahiru Jayakody, also at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, says it will take 20 years of additional research before plastic waste can be pulled from oceans or landfills and converted to safe and appetising food, but that he hopes the process alone can inspire others to tackle the problem of plastic waste in innovative ways, leading to “a social shift” in the way we think about the problem.

But not everyone is convinced that µBites can make a meaningful impact on plastic pollution. Jason Hallett at Imperial College London says the research is fun and interesting, but also, in all likelihood, a practical dead end.

We produce 400 million tons a year of plastic waste. You’re not going to turn it all into cookies,” says Hallet. “So it’s not a solution to the plastic-waste crisis. There’s no way you could do this commercially. We’re not gonna be eating plastic cookies.”

The concept certainly faces challenges. In a time when there is growing concern about the amount of microplastics in our environment, food and even our brains, it could be difficult to sell the idea of food that is actually made from plastic. Add the stigma of genetic engineering to the mix, and manufacturers may find a limited appetite for µBites.

Hallett says the best solution to the plastic crisis is recycling through processes we already understand, but logistical problems with gathering such widely cast waste and the low cost of virgin plastic mean it isn’t being done on a large enough scale.

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Key Takeaways

• Scientists disagree if lobsters feel pain, but many believe they do based on key criteria.
• Boiling lobsters alive is illegal in some places, like Switzerland and New Zealand, for ethical reasons.
• The most humane way to kill a lobster is using an electrocution device called the CrustaStun.

The traditional method for cooking a lobster—boiling it alive—raises the question of whether or not lobsters feel pain. This cooking technique (and others, such as storing the live lobster on ice) is used to improve humans’ dining experience. Lobsters decay very quickly after they die, and eating a dead lobster increases the risk of food-borne illness and reduces the quality of its flavor. However, if lobsters are capable of feeling pain, these cooking methods raise ethical questions for chefs and lobster eaters alike.

How Scientists Measure Pain

Until the 1980s, scientists and veterinarians were trained to ignore animal pain, based on the belief that the ability to feel pain was associated only with higher consciousness.

However, today, scientists view humans as a species of animal, and largely accept that many species (both vertebrates and invertebrate) are capable of learning and some level of self-awareness. The evolutionary advantage of feeling pain to avoid injury makes it likely that other species, even those with dissimilar physiology from humans, might have analogous systems that enable them to feel pain. 

If you slap another person in the face, you can gauge their pain level by what they do or say in response. It’s more difficult to assess pain in other species because we cannot communicate as easily. Scientists have developed the following set of criteria to establish a pain response in non-human animals: 

• Demonstrating a physiological response to a negative stimulus.
• Having a nervous system and sensory receptors.
• Having opioid receptors and showing a reduced response the stimuli when given anesthetics or analgesics.
• Demonstrating avoidance learning.
• Displaying protective behavior of injured areas.
• Electing to avoid a noxious stimulus over meeting some other need.
• Possessing self-awareness or the ability to think.

Whether Lobsters Feel Pain

Scientists disagree over whether or not lobsters feel pain. Lobsters have a peripheral system like humans, but instead of a single brain, they possess segmented ganglia (nerve cluster). Because of these differences, some researchers argue lobsters are too dissimilar to vertebrates to feel pain and that their reaction to negative stimuli is simply a reflex. 

Nonetheless, lobsters and other decapods, such as crabs and shrimp, do satisfy all of the criteria for a pain response. Lobsters guard their injuries, learn to avoid dangerous situations, possess nociceptors (receptors for chemical, thermal, and physical injury), possess opioid receptors, respond to anesthetics, and are believed to possess some level of consciousness. For these reasons, most scientists believe that injuring a lobster (e.g. storing it on ice or boiling it alive) inflicts physical pain.

Due to growing evidence that the decapods may feel pain, it is now becoming illegal to boil lobsters alive or keep them on ice. Currently, boiling lobsters alive is illegal in Switzerland, New Zealand, and the Italian city Reggio Emilia. Even in locations where boiling lobsters remains legal, many restaurants opt for more humane methods, both to appease customer consciences and because the chefs believe stress negatively affects the flavor of the meat. 

A Humane Way to Cook a Lobster

While we cannot know definitively whether or not lobsters feel pain, research indicates that it’s likely. So, if you want to enjoy a lobster dinner, how should you go about it? The least humane ways to kill a lobster include:

• Placing it in fresh water.
• Placing it in boiling water or putting it in water that is then brought to boiling.
• Microwaving it while alive.
• Cutting off its limbs or separating its thorax from abdomen (because its “brain” isn’t just in its “head”).

This rules out most of the usual butchering and cooking methods. Stabbing a lobster in the head isn’t a good option, either, as it neither kills the lobster nor renders it unconscious.

The most humane tool for cooking a lobster is the CrustaStun. This device electrocutes a lobster, rendering it unconscious in less than half a second or killing it in 5 to 10 seconds, after which it can be cut apart or boiled. (In contrast, it takes about 2 minutes for a lobster to die from immersion in boiling water.)

Unfortunately, the CrustaStun is too expensive for most restaurants and people to afford. Some restaurants place a lobster in a plastic bag and place it in the freezer for a couple of hours, during which time the crustacean loses consciousness and dies. While this solution is not ideal, it is probably the most humane option for killing a lobster (or crab or shrimp) before cooking and eating it.

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Lobsters and other decapods are different from vertebrates, but they likely feel pain. Credit: AlexRaths / Getty Images

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During the COVID-19 pandemic, my father told me he was thinking about buying a gun. Like many Americans, he felt a vague but powerful sense that the social order was on the brink of collapse. His nightly news was filled with stories of hospitals at full capacity, empty shelves at grocery stores, gas shortages and Black Lives Matter protests turning violent. My father had lost his trust in the government’s and the police’s ability to protect him. Increasingly, he feared his fellow Americans.

At a glance, my father looks like the last guy who’d ever want a gun. He is Jewish, an immigrant, a politically liberal city dweller. He didn’t grow up around guns. Most of all, he believed America needed stricter gun control laws. In fact, on many occasions, my father had referred to gun owners as crazy. But I had spent the previous five years studying American gun culture, and I had seen first hand that my father’s position was not so unusual.

The first firearms class I took was in a remote part of central Texas. I had expected to find myself surrounded by men from one of Texas’ many red suburbs or rural towns. Instead, all seven of us had made the two-hour drive from Austin, the state’s liberal bastion. Even more surprising to me: Four students were women.

All were there because they were worried about their safety. These students didn’t seem to want to learn how to shoot a gun; they felt they had no choice but to learn how to shoot a gun. And nationwide, there were many more like them.

The percentage of Americans who own guns has remained mostly stable over the past quarter century, but the reasons people give for owning them have changed strikingly. Up until the late 1990s, people bought guns primarily for hunting or for sport. In 2023, however, the most recent year for which statistics are available, more than 70 percent of gun owners said that a major reason for their owning a gun was protection. Americans now bear arms not for trips into the woods but for trips to the grocery store or to pick up their children from school.

Those gun owners are an increasingly diverse group. Between 2021 and 2024, 11.2 million Americans bought a gun for the first time. Nearly half were women, a fifth were Black and another fifth were Hispanic, much closer to the demographics of the nation as a whole than gun owners of the past. In 2000, only a third of Americans believed having a gun at home made people safer. Today, almost twice as many — a significant majority — express this view.

As the number and the demographics of people who own guns has expanded, so too has our legal right to kill someone in self-defense. Historically, Americans’ right to use lethal force without a duty to retreat was restricted to defending themselves in their homes. But since 2005, “stand your ground” laws, which expand that right to most public spaces, have spread across the country. In my home state of Texas, you can kill someone if you believe it is necessary to prevent them from committing other crimes such as sexual assault or robbery. Texas also allows you to kill someone to recover something that person stole from you, if you “reasonably believe” it’s the only way to get it back.

Throughout my firearms training, my instructors taught us to shoot only when we think our life or the life of a loved one is in danger and that taking down the “bad guy” is the only viable option. They seemed to be counseling restraint — but the list of circumstances they enumerated as life-threatening was far longer than any I would have drawn up previously. As for holding fire, the reasons I was given were rarely about avoiding a terrible mistake or sparing a life, but rather about sparing myself the financial costs, time and stress of an investigation and legal proceedings that could ensue if I pulled the trigger.

Researchers and politicians on the left often cite statistics showing that guns do not make people safer, or that America’s cities are in fact safer now than they have been in a long time. Objectively, these statistics are correct. Research shows that states with higher gun ownership rates usually have higher levels of gun violence; that women who live in a home with a gun face increased risks of violence; that access to firearms greatly increases the risk of suicide, the leading cause of gun death.

What these researchers and politicians don’t seem to get — but my firearm instructors certainly did — is that people don’t experience the world as a statistic. They don’t process risk and safety like a computer.

Owning a gun is an emotional choice, and these days, for more and more kinds of Americans, it feels like empowerment. It feels like taking back control in a chaotic world.

It’s a vision of safety as a personal responsibility, not a public good. The political right may have arrived there first, but the left has quickly caught up. It was Kamala Harris, not Donald Trump, who went out of her way during the last presidential election to mention that she owned a Glock and that she would not hesitate to shoot someone who broke into her house.

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Alexis Beauclair

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Hmmmm … Shame on the Trump administration for these kids’ deaths. From a preventable disease!

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Two people who were not vaccinated against measles died of the disease in Pennsylvania, public health officials said on Tuesday—these are the first measles fatalities in the state in 35 years. The deaths have come as the number of measles cases across the U.S. has exploded, with 36 outbreaks recorded so far this year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Both people were residents of Lancaster County. State health officials said no other details would be released to protect the privacy of the victims and their families.

So far, 2026 has seen 2,777 confirmed cases of measles, an increase from 2,289 cases for the whole of 2025, according to the CDC. This year, the Pennsylvania Department of Health has reported 393 cases so far; last year, Pennsylvania reported just 16 infections.

Measles is a preventable disease; the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine effectively protects against infections—in fact, it has done such a good job of lowering measles incidence that, in 2000, the U.S. was declared to have eliminated the disease entirely. Now, as vaccine rates drop as a result of increased skepticism toward the shots, infections are back on the rise, and public health experts expect the nation will soon lose its elimination status.

That matters for public health: Measles is the most contagious human virus we know of. It has a fatality rate of one to three deaths per 1,000 cases in the U.S., and it can cause severe health issues, including pneumonia and brain swelling. Some 20 percent of people who contract the disease require hospitalization. Children and pregnant women are among the most at risk of severe disease; measles can also harm unborn fetuses.

Pennsylvania’s secretary of health, Debra Bogen, encouraged residents to get vaccinated against the disease in a statement. Nationwide, inoculations have been declining: New data from the CDC show the proportion of kindergarteners who received the MMR vaccine has fallen from 95 percent to 92.4 percent over the past decade.

“Because measles was largely eliminated in the Commonwealth for more than three decades, people are not familiar with this disease and don’t fully understand the potential severity of the illness,” Bogen said. “We want to ensure every Pennsylvanian has the information they need to protect themselves, their loved ones and their communities. As a physician, I want to make sure that people understand that the MMR vaccine is safe and provides the best protection we have against measles.”

The two deaths from measles were confirmed just weeks after President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at altering the childhood vaccine schedule, particularly by splitting the MMR vaccine into three separate shots. When announcing the order, Trump falsely claimed the MMR vaccine can be “lethal.” Members of his own administration made efforts to walk the pronouncement back: In an interview on Sunday, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator Mehmet Oz said the MMR shot is not, in fact, “a lethal vaccine.” The overwhelming evidence shows the MMR vaccine is safe and effective, with a very low risk of serious side effects.

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In a blockbuster settlement, Meta has agreed to pay up to $17.1 billion and overhaul how Instagram and Facebook work. The settlement resolves claims from 47 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories that Meta’s platforms were designed to be addictive and harmful to children, reports the New York Times.

The company will pay about $12 billion upfront, with the total rising to $17.1 billion if Snap, TikTok and YouTube also settle and agree to similar penalties and changes. It’s one of the largest settlements ever paid by a tech company.

Meta will make major changes to its platform, including imposing two-hour daily time limits on Instagram and Facebook for teens, restricting usage between midnight and 6 a.m. and silencing notifications between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., when people are sleeping. It’s also limiting features linked to negative social comparison, like beauty filters and visible like counts, and strengthening age verification and parental controls.

“Meta wouldn’t settle unless it sees the writing on the wall and feels really exposed,” said Nora Freeman Engstrom, a law professor at Stanford University.

The settlement ends a federal bellwether trial in Oakland where four states were seeking roughly $200 billion, and comes as Meta faces mounting legal pressure. The company spent about $2 billion on legal challenges in a single quarter this year, and a New Mexico judge separately ordered it to pay nearly $1 billion in a related case this month. Meta still faces numerous other lawsuits, some headed to trial in the coming months.

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A giant torrent of mud, water and ice that began high in the Himalayas tore a devastating path through a mountain valley on the border between Nepal and Tibet on Wednesday, smashing buildings and sweeping away fleeing people caught by surprise by its speed and destructive force.

At least 160 people were killed and hundreds more were missing after the flood, which snapped bridges into pieces and pulled multistory structures off their foundations. The deluge also engulfed dozens of men, women and children who were overtaken as they tried to run. The death toll was expected to rise.

Aug. 26, 2026, 4:35 p.m. ET3 hours ago

Mack Liederman

The International Federation of Red Cross is sending more than $1.2 million to the Red Cross in Nepal to help with relief efforts. The hardest-hit areas are extremely difficult to reach, particularly in the northern Rasuwa district, where bridges have been washed away and major roads cut off, making it hard to assess the full scale of the disaster, the federation said in a statement. “The priority now is to reach affected communities and get assistance to people who have lost their homes, suffered injuries or have been cut off,” said David Fisher, the head of the federation’s delegation for Nepal.

Jiban Ghimire, the managing director the expedition group Shangri-La Nepal, said he had been coordinating aerial rescue efforts with security officials. “We’ve never seen that high of a flood,” Ghimire said.

Aug. 26, 2026, 4:11 p.m. ET3 hours ago

Pranav Baskar

Ram Chandra Lamichhane, the founder of Dream Tibet Travel and Tours, a travel operator in the Himalayas, said in an interview that a group of about 35 people on one of his company’s tours were missing because of the flood. The travelers and their guides were in a town that has “completely collapsed,” making it hard to get information, he said, and the families of the tourists were reaching out in desperation. “We are still hoping,” he said.

Aug. 26, 2026, 2:06 p.m. ET5 hours ago

Binod Ghimire

Reporting from Kathmandu, Nepal

The death toll from the floods in Nepal has risen to 157, Nepal’s police said in a statement on Wednesday night. The Chinese state news agency Xinhua has reported only three deaths so far on the Chinese side of the border, after earlier reporting that there had been “significant” casualties at the Gyirong Port.

Floodwaters and mud crashed through Himalayan river valleys and swallowed villages on Wednesday, creating a cross-border crisis in Nepal and the Chinese territory of Tibet, with an unknown number of people swept away or buried.

Thousands of people live in riverside settlements downstream from the flooding, and hundreds are dead or missing, including foreign tourists. At least 19 vehicle bridges and 40 kilometers of roads have been swept away, according to a statement from Nepal’s prime minister.

Among the hundreds of tourists missing in the Nepal floods, the largest contingent — at least 100 people — are from India, according to a preliminary count from officials in Nepal and India.

Many of them were traveling to or from Mount Kailash, a Himalayan peak near the border between Nepal and Tibet, an autonomous region of China. Mount Kailash, which is part of a Hindu pilgrimage called the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra, is revered by many Hindus as the spiritual home of the god Shiva.

Aug. 26, 2026, 12:32 p.m. ET7 hours ago

Judson Jones

Reporter and meteorologist

“This is one of the most devastating floods I can remember seeing in this region,” said Tenzing Chogyal Sherpa, an expert in atmospheric and water processes at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

While scientific consensus points to a glacier collapse in Nepal that caused a deluge of water and debris, Sherpa noted that the exact sequence of events would become clearer as satellite imagery and field observations emerged.

He added that the disaster serves as a “brutal reminder” for those living in the valleys, where current climate extremes mean that “events like this may happen again.”

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Hundreds of people were missing in Nepal and the Tibet region of China, officials said, after waves of floodwaters ripped through river valleys and damaged settlements. Credit…Prabin Ranabhat/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

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The type 2 diabetes drug metformin may reduce the risk of dementia. A randomised study that followed people for more than 20 years found that it seems to halve the risk of developing the condition.

This offers “the available best evidence, short of a long-term randomised clinical trial, that metformin may decrease the risk of dementia”, says José Luchsinger at Columbia University in New York. However, the finding isn’t conclusive, and the potential mechanism behind it is unclear.

Metformin, which helps control blood sugar levels, is a go-to drug for treating type 2 diabetes, with 150 million people taking it daily in 2022. “I’ve been very interested in the question of whether metformin increases or decreases the risk of dementia,” says Luchsinger. “There have been reports either way.”

Some studies suggest metformin increases dementia risk, possibly by causing a deficiency in vitamin B12 that has knock-on effects on cognition. On the other hand, a 2022 meta-analysis found that, on average, metformin was associated with a lower dementia risk.

To clarify the situation, Luchsinger and his colleagues have followed up with people who took part in a clinical trial of metformin in the 1990s called the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP). The trial showed that metformin was effective at preventing type 2 diabetes in people at risk of the condition. Since 2002, the participants have been followed by the DPP Outcomes Study.

This involved comparing 1483 people who, in the 1990s, were given either metformin, a lifestyle intervention to reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes (which included a low-fat diet and regular exercise), or a placebo. The participants did multiple cognitive tests, beginning in 2009, then an intensive battery of such tests more than a decade later.

The team found that the people who had started taking metformin in the 1990s had a significantly lower chance of dementia later in life: just 1.9 per cent of those given metformin developed dementia, compared with 4.2 per cent of those given the lifestyle intervention and 3.5 per cent of those given a placebo. The metformin group also showed significantly better memory performance.

Luchsinger flags that the participants weren’t initially recruited with the aim of studying dementia, so some of them could have had early signs of the condition or cognitive impairment at the start of the trial. What’s more, only 48 people developed dementia in the entire study.

Nevertheless, it adds to the evidence that metformin has a protective effect, says Miia Kivipelto at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. It is rare and valuable to have the chance to follow participants over so many decades, she says.

A 2023 study of more than 210,000 people with type 2 diabetes also suggests that the reduction in risk of dementia is more pronounced among those who stay on metformin for longer. “One trial can answer some questions, but then if you put together evidence from different studies, then we really start to see the pattern more clearly,” says Kivipelto.

It is unclear how metformin may reduce dementia risk because it affects many organs and systems in the body, including hormone-producing glands and the immune system. “Does metformin decrease vascular disease in the brain, for example, or does it decrease inflammation in the brain?” says Luchsinger. “Does metformin decrease the risk of amyloid [the protein implicated in Alzheimer’s disease] in the brain?”

While the protective effect is still unclear, both Luchsinger and Kivipelto point out that the study didn’t find any evidence of metformin increasing dementia risk. “Given that it’s such a widely used medication, if we can at least establish that it’s not harmful, with conviction, I think that that, in itself, would be of really great public health importance,” says Luchsinger.

He is now running a randomised controlled trial called Metformin in Alzheimer’s Dementia Prevention, which is following participants for 18 months to see if the drug reduces the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia. Luchsinger hopes to report the results by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, Kivipelto is leading a study called MET-FINGER to find out if lifestyle changes alone, or a combination of lifestyle changes and metformin, can reduce the risk of dementia. Results are expected in 2028.

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From pantry staples to colorful produce, some of the most talked-about nutrition stories of 2026 have centered on foods you likely already have in your kitchen. Researchers are taking a closer look at familiar foods, such as quinoa, potatoes, and cabbage, and uncovering potential health benefits for everything from heart and gut health to cholesterol, blood sugar, and healthy aging.

So what does this mean for your diet? You may not need to overhaul your eating habits to make healthier choices. A good diet is one you can stick with, and it’s generally built around whole foods, plenty of plants, complex carbohydrates, adequate protein, and healthy fats. “Think of food like information for your body,” says Ashley Kitchens, MPH, RD, a plant-based registered dietitian and owner of Plant Centered Nutrition. “What you eat consistently over time directly influences your health and affects inflammation, your gut, cardiovascular function, as well as aging and longevity.” 

With that in mind, here are the foods making headlines so far this year — and why nutrition experts are paying attention.

01 of 07

 

Berries

The vibrant colors in blueberries, raspberries, and carrots do more than brighten your plate; they signal powerful plant compounds that support your health. A new review of 18 long-term studies and 65 clinical trials found that higher anthocyanin intake — the plant compounds that give foods like blueberries, cherries, and red cabbage their deep colors — was associated with lower risks of cardiovascular disease, heart attack, type 2 diabetes, and high blood pressure. The trials also found that anthocyanins were associated with improved blood vessel function and lower fasting insulin levels. 

Their nutritional appeal is well established. Berries have impressive antioxidant content, according to Jennifer Pallian, RD, a registered dietitian and founder of Foodess. “Berries are particularly rich in phenolic compounds and have considerably higher antioxidant capacity than many other fruits and vegetables,” she explains. “This is important because oxidative stress has been linked to aging and the development of numerous chronic diseases.”

As little as 50 milligrams of anthocyanins per day were associated with improvements in certain cardiovascular and metabolic measures. To put this into perspective, a cup of blueberries provides roughly 150 to 160 milligrams of anthocyanins. Blackberries, cherries, grapes, pomegranates, purple potatoes, and red cabbage are also excellent sources. 

02 of 07

Dairy

Got milk, yogurt, or cottage cheese? If not, it may be worth adding these items to your grocery list. A systematic review and meta-analysis found that consuming 30 to 60 grams of milk protein daily was associated with modest reductions in total cholesterol, triglycerides, and systolic blood pressure. The proteins casein and whey may play a role by encouraging the liver to clear LDL (bad) cholesterol and release compounds that help blood vessels relax.

To increase your milk protein intake, aim for two to four servings of protein-rich dairy foods each day, such as Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, skyr, or a whey protein shake. More isn’t always better, though, because excessive milk protein can cause stomach upset. “Traditional cow milk contains both A1 and A2 beta-casein proteins, and for some people, A1 can be harder to digest, so choosing A2 milk or dairy products made only with A2 protein can be gentler on the gut while still providing all the benefits,” says Samantha Peterson, RD, a registered dietitian and cofounder of Simply Wellness.

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Dolly Parton, a rhinestone-studded, rags-to-riches daughter of Appalachia who for six decades ruled country music — and much of pop culture — with an outsize personality and down-home wit that enshrined her as one of America’s most cherished originals, died on Tuesday in Nashville. She was 80.

Her death was announced in a video posted on social media by her nephew Bryan Seaver. No cause was provided. Concerns about Ms. Parton’s health were raised last year as she postponed and later canceled a Las Vegas residency, and intensified to the point that she took to social media in October to announce, “I ain’t dead yet.” This May, she said that she had responded well to treatment after her immune and digestive systems had, as she put it, “got all out of whack” in recent years.

From her hardscrabble beginnings to glittering stardom, Ms. Parton’s life was the stuff of make-believe. With her voluptuous figure, sparkly stage costumes and blond bouffant wigs, she was likened by the writer Chet Flippo to the Big Rock Candy Mountain, the Depression-era symbol of abundance. Her songs spoke to millions, confronting privation and loss even as they radiated possibility and hope.

She was, quintessentially, a uniter of people. In 2019, The New York Times ran a story with the headline “Is There Anything We Can All Agree On? Yes: Dolly Parton.”

Ms. Parton cannily exploited — and transcended — rural stereotypes and kitsch to fashion a folksy chic entirely her own. (“A country girl’s idea of glam,” she called it in the song “Backwoods Barbie.”) In the process, she became an international celebrity who headlined stadium tours, starred in Hollywood movies, built a business empire and appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone. Her at times girlish soprano notwithstanding, she was anything but the “dumb blonde” invoked in the title of her 1966 single.

“I’ve created this and played it up — the makeup, the whole persona,” Ms. Parton said, alluding to her plastic surgeries as well as her colloquial “Dollyisms” in a 2002 interview with The Times.

“But this isn’t all I am,” she added. “It’s not even most of what I am. Hopefully people can see beneath the hair to know there’s a brain, beneath the boobs to know there’s a heart and behind all the other stuff to know there’s some talent.”

Inducted into both the country music and rock ’n’ roll halls of fame, Ms. Parton was the top-ranking female singer on country radio from 1967 to 1993, and had a total of 25 No. 1 country singles.

Her early breakthrough came in 1967 when she was hired as the “girl singer” on “The Porter Wagoner Show,” a syndicated country music television variety program. Several years later, she had No. 1 country hits with records like “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You.”

Both songs were among about 3,000 titles she published in her lifetime, hundreds of which have been recorded by other artists, including Tina Turner, Norah Jones, the White Stripes, Merle Haggard, RuPaul and Whitney Houston.

Featured in the 1992 movie “The Bodyguard,” Ms. Houston’s version of “I Will Always Love You” spent 14 weeks at the top of the pop chart. The song had previously been a No. 1 country single twice, in versions released by Ms. Parton in 1974 and 1982.

With Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette, Ms. Parton blazed a trail for women in country music, inspiring contemporaries like Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris, as well as latter-day hitmakers like Carrie Underwood, Kacey Musgraves and Taylor Swift. She recorded a pair of albums, “Trio” and “Trio II,” with Ms. Ronstadt and Ms. Harris.

“I can’t imagine anybody, especially in country, who doesn’t try to emulate Dolly in some way,” Ms. Harris said on the occasion of Ms. Parton’s Kennedy Center Honors award in 2006.

Ms. Parton was one of country music’s greatest ambassadors, but she also collaborated widely with artists outside traditional Nashville circles, including Mavis Staples, Queen Latifah, Julio Iglesias and Ladysmith Black Mambazo. “Islands in the Stream,” a triple platinum-selling duet Ms. Parton recorded with Kenny Rogers, topped both the country and pop charts in 1983. (The song was written by Barry, Maurice and Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees.)

Stylistically, Ms. Parton’s music ran the gamut: mountain bluegrass and soul-inflected countrypolitan, disco-era pop and covers of classic rock touchstones written by Neil Young and Led Zeppelin — all of it rendered indelible by her irrepressible spirit and alternately keening and gossamer soprano drawl.

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Dolly Parton in 1975. She was likened to the Big Rock Candy Mountain, the Depression-era symbol of abundance. Her music confronted privation and loss even as it radiated possibility and hope. 

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When survivors of trauma recount their experiences, they are often questioned because of how they relay their stories. They may have problems remembering what happened, or their memories may be jumbled or even contradictory. People hearing those stories—attorneys, reporters, healthcare workers, or friends—may expect a clearer, linear narrative.

Those unaffected by trauma may also be surprised to hear how the person acted in the moment. It’s easy to assume that someone experiencing a traumatic event would have a “fight or flight” response, instinctively fighting off a perpetrator or fleeing the scene—but that might not be the case.

Understanding the science of how trauma affects memory and behavior reveals why these responses can actually be expected and are not contradictory.

In both my academic and clinical work as a psychologist, I have witnessed the impact trauma has on people’s memories and behaviors, especially when an event in their present life triggers something from their past.

Research shows that taking a trauma-informed approach, which prioritizes understanding and curiosity about someone’s experience as opposed to judgment or critical evaluation, increases empathy for survivors’ thoughts, feelings and behaviors.

How trauma affects the brain

According to the World Health Organization, approximately 70 percent of people worldwide report experiencing a traumatic event in their lifetime. The majority of these people do not develop PTSD, a clinical diagnosis of symptoms, such as having nightmares and flashbacks about the event, avoiding places that are reminders of it, and increased arousal that can make concentration and sleep difficult. Many survivors don’t meet criteria for PTSD but struggle with feeling distressed, depressed or anxious.

In traumatic situations, people often respond in unexpected ways, and they may second-guess themselves. This may happen particularly when someone experiences a repeated trauma, which is more likely than not due to how many people experience traumatic events.

Trauma also distorts how memories are stored and retrieved.

Research indicates that people experience traumatic memories differently than memories of other significant events, such as sad or positive experiences. Two of the main brain structures scientists believe are involved in storing traumatic memories are the hippocampus—responsible for memory storage—and the amygdala, which is responsible for processing emotions.

During trauma, the amygdala becomes highly active, processing emotions such as fear, and the hippocampus becomes overwhelmed by stress, leading to problems with memory storage.

Traumatic memories do not follow a neat, linear story. Instead, people may experience the memory as disconnected fragments of sensations, emotions, smells, or images. Such memories cause the body to reexperience the past threat as if it is happening in the moment. This may cause a person to feel like running away or fighting back—flight or fight. Or they may freeze.

In other words, people don’t have the distant perspective they often feel with other memories from the past. Rather, they may feel they are reliving the original experience.

Misinterpreting victims’ behaviors

With this understanding, consider someone who experiences a trauma at the hands of a professional during an appointment. They may appear outwardly calm while it happens and then leave the session as they typically would—checking out, providing payment, and possibly even scheduling the next appointment. While their response to act normally may seem odd, such behavior makes sense for someone trying to escape a threat.

Fight, flight or freeze responses have become widely known in popular culture. In a freeze response, a person’s mind goes blank and they may be unable to speak, leading to a “deer in the headlights” behavior.

On the other hand, a person may act paradoxically—perhaps by going on about their day as if nothing happened. They may not report the event or may question whether the incident even occurred. This represents another survival response—the lesser-known fawn response. This way of handling stress occurs when someone acts calm, appeases the threatening person, and retreats to de-escalate the situation. Instead of literally backing away, in this example, the person metaphorically backs away by completing the session and exiting as expected without further conflict.

Outsiders may misconstrue these behaviors as evidence that a trauma did not actually happen or that a survivor lacks credibility. But that logic reflects common misconceptions about how people “should” remember or respond to trauma.

If this was the person’s first experience with a traumatic situation, afterward they are likely to feel afraid, disoriented or hyperalert. However, if they had previous similar experiences, this scenario may trigger past memories in the moment. This can muddy the experience even further, making it difficult to recall the incident later, especially under stressful circumstances.

When a survivor reports an incident and ultimately testifies against someone who harmed them, memory recall might be uniquely affected. Most people in this situation would be highly stressed, especially if the perpetrator were in the room.

To make matters worse, the feeling that the recalled memory is actually happening in the moment and not in the past may cause a survivor to convey a more fragmented story. They may also have either a more intense or detached emotional experience, depending on their own trauma responses.

Legal and other professionals unaware of the range of natural responses to trauma can easily misinterpret these behaviors as signs of lying or malingering.

In reality, the percentage of people who falsely report sexual assault, for example, is low—between 2 percent and 10 percent.

Providing better support

Research shows that people who better understand nuances of trauma and mental health in turn are more empathetic toward survivors. Some healthcare settings have adopted a trauma-informed approach to prevent retraumatization and build safety. Studies show that even being attentive to word choice can help ensure effective care for patients that avoids victim blaming.

A trauma-informed approach can also improve legal and justice systems so victims are better supported. This includes understanding why accounts aren’t linear and not equating memory inconsistencies with lying.

Research also shows that trauma-informed responses are equally important in everyday relationships. In friendships and close relationships, or in the workplace, patience and empathy convey a sense of respect, safety and trustworthiness. These offer a strong foundation for positive social and working relationships, which can lower a survivor’s distress and support their healing.

When people have a greater understanding of how trauma affects the brain, they gain insight into how survivors think, act and process their memories. What initially looks confusing or inconsistent is actually behavior that flows logically from a traumatized brain.

Having a trauma-informed perspective helps people to be better friends, co-workers, and professionals. By extension, responding from this awareness may even help survivors understand their own reactions and experiences, which may ultimately aid their healing and ability to lead fulfilling lives.

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