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To grow its economy, China is betting big on artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and other digital technology—and a big part of that bet involves rapidly building data centers to boost computing power. But these massive collections of servers gobble up growing amounts of energy, and each one cycles through hundreds of thousands of gallons of water a day to carry away the heat they generate.

That means these facilities—in China and beyond—will increasingly compete with water demand linked directly to human survival, from agriculture to daily drinking. Many companies have sited their data centers in some of the driest regions of the world, including Arizona, parts of Spain, and the Middle East, because dry air reduces the risks of damage to the equipment from humidity, according to an investigation by the nonprofit journalist organization SourceMaterial and the Guardian. Partly to address water concerns, China is now putting a data center in the wettest place there is: the ocean. This June construction began on a wind-powered underwater data center about six miles off the coast of Shanghai, one of China’s AI hubs. [Read more: What Do Google’s AI Answers Cost the Environment?]

“China’s ambitious approach signals a bold shift toward low-carbon digital infrastructure, and it could influence global norms in sustainable computing,” says Shabrina Nadhila, an analyst at energy-focused think tank Ember, who has researched data centers.

Keeping Data Centers Cool

Data centers store information and perform complex calculations for businesses, whose increasing automation is steadily ramping up such needs. These facilities consume vast amounts of electricity and water because their servers work nonstop and in close proximity—and they generate waste heat as a by-product, which can damage equipment and destroy data. So they need to be constantly cooled.

Instead, undersea data centers use pipes to pump seawater through a radiator on the back of server racks to absorb heat and carry it away. Hailanyun—the company sometimes referred to as HiCloud, that is behind the Shanghai data center—says an assessment conducted with the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology shows its project uses at least 30 percent less electricity than on-land data centers, thanks to natural cooling.

The Shanghai center will also be connected to a nearby offshore wind farm that is set to supply 97 percent of its energy, says Hailanyun spokesperson Li Langping.

The project’s first phase is designed to contain 198 server racks—enough to hold 396 to 792 AI-capable servers—and is slated to begin operation in September, Li says. It is expected to provide enough computing power to complete the equivalent of training GPT-3.5—the large language model that OpenAI released in 2022 and used to fine-tune ChatGPT—in the space of a day, he adds. Yet Hailanyun’s Shanghai center is small compared with a typical land-based one: a medium-scale data center in China normally has up to 3,000 standard racks, while a superscale version can contain more than 10,000.

Leapfrogging the U.S.

At the core of Hailanyun’s $223-million Shanghai gambit is a technology that Microsoft pioneered more than a decade ago under an effort called Project Natick, in which the company sank a shipping-container-sized capsule holding more than 800 servers 117 feet below the surface off the coast of Scotland. After hauling up the pod two years later, Microsoft found that underwater data centers “are reliable, practical and use energy sustainably.”

The experiment also resulted in fewer broken servers compared with on-land data centers because the vessel was sealed off and filled with nitrogen, which is less corrosive than oxygen, Microsoft said in a 2020 press release. The lack of people also meant that the equipment avoided physical contacts or movements that may otherwise cause them damage in an on-land center, the company said.

But Microsoft has reportedly shelved Project Natick. A company spokesperson did not answer questions about whether or not the project was terminated. Instead, they provided a statement: “While we don’t currently have data centers in the water, we will continue to use Project Natick as a research platform to explore, test, and validate new concepts around data center reliability and sustainability.”

Hailanyun aims to leapfrog American companies: if the Shanghai project is successful, Li expects his company to springboard toward large-scale deployments of offshore, wind-powered undersea data centers with the support of the Chinese government.

Zhang Ning, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Davis, who specializes in next-generation low-carbon infrastructure, notes that Hailanyun has moved from a pilot project conducted in Hainan in December 2022 to commercial rollouts in less than 30 months—“something Microsoft’s Project Natick never attempted.”

Environmental Concerns

In spite of the apparent benefits of underwater data centers, some concerns remain—especially over potential environmental impacts. Microsoft researchers found their pod had caused some localized warming in the sea, though the impact was limited. “The water just meters downstream of a Natick vessel would get a few thousandths of a degree warmer at most,” they wrote.

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The economy was supposed to crumble. The trade war was expected to escalate out of control. Markets were forecast to plunge.

None of that happened – at least, not yet.

President Donald Trump has pulled off what few outside the White House predicted: A trade war victory of sorts that sets America’s taxes on imported goods higher than the infamous Smoot-Hawley era, without any of the damaging fallout so far. Customs revenue has increased sharply while inflation remains reasonably low. And America’s trading partners, for the most part, have been willing to accept the higher tariffs without significant retaliation.

Multiple framework agreements between the United States and other trading partners have jacked up tariffs on foreign goods imported to America while setting levies on US exports at or near zero. Overseas trading partners have agreed to open previously closed markets to some US goods, pledged increased investments in the United States and dropped some of what the Trump administration has lambasted as non-trade barriers, like taxes on digital services.

But Trump’s early trade victory may be short-lived. In fact, it is already showing signs that it may not last.

EU is already turning against its deal

The European Union, fresh off its 11th-hour compromise to get a trade agreement done before Trump’s self-imposed August 1 deadline, is already in revolt.

French Prime Minister François Bayrou called Sunday a “dark day.” Hungarian Prime Minister and Trump ally Viktor Orban said Trump steamrolled the EU. Belgium’s Prime Minister Bart De Wever lambasted the Trump administration’s “delusion of protectionism.” And Bernd Lange, chair of the European Parliament’s trade committee, said the deal is “not satisfactory.”

The 27-member bloc has to hammer out key aspects of its framework, and the fragile trade truce between two of the world’s largest economies could quickly break apart if sentiment turns against the arrangement.

Canada’s not playing ball

The Trump administration’s trade talks with its northern neighbor and one of its largest trading partners have been effectively shut down. Despite Canada relenting on its digital services tax that the president has lambasted, Trump continued to threaten higher tariffs on some Canadian goods, including lumber.

Although many goods imported from Canada continue to be tariff-free because of the US-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement, the USMCA only covers just about half of Canadian goods. So higher tariffs on Canada could raise some costs for American consumers down the road.

And the fact that America is even embroiled in a trade spat with Canada in the first place is a sign that the recent cooling off in the trade war may not last: Trump negotiated and signed the United States’ current trade agreement with Canada during his first term. At any time, even after an agreement is inked, Trump could turn around and decide to raise tariffs again.

Elusive China deal

A third round of talks between China and the United States’ trade negotiators is expected to result in a continued pause of their historically high tariffs on one another. But it’s unclear what else might come from the discussions, and the Trump administration has grown frustrated by what it has described as China’s slow-walking of its previous agreements.

Both sides have aimed to reduce more regulatory barriers on shipments of key technologies. China has sought more access to critical semiconductors, and the United States wants the flow of rare earth magnets to increase further.

But the Trump administration has tried repeatedly to speed up China’s slow progress, claiming the country has failed to live up to its agreement to approve the critical materials for crucial electronics. Trump has also said he wants China to open up its market to more US goods – a desire that Chinese Premier Xi Jinping is unlikely to give in to significantly.

Trump’s rhetoric against China has cooled in recent months, but the truce appears to be on a knife’s edge.

Key court decision

A crucial appeals court hearing Thursday could determine whether most of Trump’s tariffs are legal at all.

For most of his tariffs, Trump has cited powers listed in the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. But a federal court in May ruled that Trump overstepped his authority to levy tariffs on that basis.

An appeals court paused that ruling from taking effect and will hear oral arguments Thursday. It’s not clear when the court will rule, and the White House would likely appeal to the Supreme Court if it loses.

If Trump ultimately loses his ability to levy tariffs using emergency powers, he has plenty of other options – but legal experts have said those alternatives could limit his ability to set tariffs without Congress. For example, Trump may be able to impose some tariffs as high as just 15% but only for 150 days, potentially taking some of the bite out of his tariff regime.

Economy is flashing some warning signs

Although the US economy remains strong, with rebounding retail sales, a still-robust labor market, and rising consumer confidence, there is some evidence that inflation in key areas is starting to creep higher – slowly – because of tariffs. That’s a potential warning sign as the tariffs take full effect.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index, earlier this month, showed that some tariff-affected goods have started to gain in price. Clothing, appliances, computers, sporting goods, toys, video equipment, hardware, and tools prices have been on the rise. And it’s starting to become a trend – in many of those categories, the rise has been happening for a few months.

Many major retailers, including Walmart, have said they will raise prices because of tariffs. Procter & Gamble, which makes Tide and a host of consumer goods, said Tuesday it will raise prices in part because of tariffs. And GM, Volkswagen, and Stellantis all reported tariff charges of $1 billion or more over the past quarter.

Economists widely expect inflation to pick up in the late summer and throughout the rest of the year as retailers work through the inventories of goods they had stockpiled before tariffs went into effect. No one expects anything close to the inflation crisis of a few years ago. But with consumers still dealing with price-hike PTSD, that won’t be a welcome change from the return to healthy inflation levels over the past year.

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Taxes can get you thinking about fairness. For instance, when I’m calculating deductions on my salary and watching a decent chunk go to Uncle Sam, I can’t help but wonder: What if the ultra-wealthy paid the same percentage of their income in taxes that regular people do? So I decided to ask ChatGPT a simple question: “What would happen if billionaires paid taxes at the same rate as the middle class?” The AI’s response was more nuanced than I expected — and revealed some surprising truths about how our tax system really works.

Setting the Record Straight

First, ChatGPT corrected a common misconception I had. Based on actual data from PolitiFact and ProPublica investigations, the 25 wealthiest Americans currently pay an average federal income tax rate of 16% under existing law.

Meanwhile, households earning $50,000-$100,000 (where most teachers, firefighters, and other middle-class workers fall) typically pay an effective tax rate between 0% and 15%.

So contrary to what I’d heard, billionaires don’t actually pay less than teachers under current tax law. But here’s where it gets interesting.

How Wealth Grows vs. How Wages Work

ChatGPT explained that the issue isn’t necessarily the tax rates themselves, but how different types of income get taxed. This is where the system becomes genuinely unfair.

“Billionaires benefit from tax strategies that lower their effective tax burden compared to what ordinary income earners face on wages,” the AI explained. “The current system taxes work more than wealth.”

Here’s what that means in practice: When I get my salary, taxes come out immediately. When a billionaire’s stock portfolio increases in value by millions, they don’t pay taxes on that growth until (or unless) they sell those stocks.

The ‘Buy-Borrow-Die’ Strategy

ChatGPT broke down something called the “buy-borrow-die” strategy that wealthy people use to minimize taxes. It sounds like financial wizardry because, honestly, it kind of is.

Here’s how it works: Billionaires borrow money against their stock holdings (which isn’t taxed), live off those loans, and then pass their assets to heirs largely tax-free when they die. Meanwhile, regular people like me can’t defer taxes on our paychecks or borrow against our retirement accounts without major penalties.

The AI used ProPublica data to illustrate this: “The top 25 billionaires saw their wealth grow by $401 billion from 2014-2018, but paid just $13.6 billion in federal income taxes — an effective rate of 3.4% on wealth growth.”

That 3.4% figure is what really stung. While they’re paying their legal tax obligations on realized income, their actual wealth is growing at a rate that’s taxed far below what middle-class workers pay on their salaries.

What If We Changed the Rules?

ChatGPT ran the numbers on what would happen if billionaires paid taxes at the same rate middle-class families do — around 15%-22%.

Using the ProPublica data, if those top 25 billionaires had been taxed at a 20% rate on their wealth growth, they would have paid around $80 billion instead of $13.6 billion. 

“Extrapolate that across approximately 1,000 billionaires?” the AI asked. “You’re talking hundreds of billions in added revenue annually.”

Where That Money Could Go

The AI outlined several ways this massive revenue increase could transform government services:

• Healthcare: We could expand Medicare and Medicaid, potentially moving toward universal coverage.
• Education: Fund universal pre-K or make community college free for everyone.
• Infrastructure and climate: Invest seriously in clean energy projects and fix our crumbling roads and bridges.
• Debt reduction: Actually pay down the national debt instead of adding to it every year.

ChatGPT noted that this extra revenue could “stabilize the economy by boosting the spending power of everyday Americans.” Basically, reducing inequality in a way that helps everyone, not just those at the bottom.

What Surprised Me Most

The most eye-opening part was learning that the problem isn’t necessarily that billionaires are breaking the law or even paying lower rates on their taxable income. The issue is that our entire tax system is designed around taxing work rather than wealth.

“Middle-class families can’t defer taxes on wages or borrow against stocks tax-free,” ChatGPT pointed out. This creates a fundamental unfairness where people who work for their money get taxed immediately, while people whose money grows through investments can delay or even avoid those taxes entirely.

What We Need To Think About

After diving into ChatGPT’s analysis, I realized the conversation about billionaire taxes is more complicated than simple rate comparisons. Under current law, wealthy Americans do pay their required taxes. But the system allows their wealth to grow in ways that are largely untaxed, while regular workers pay taxes on every dollar they earn.

The AI concluded that if we could successfully tax billionaires more like middle-class workers, the results would mean hundreds of billions in additional revenue annually and potentially better funding for health, education, and climate programs. What’s more, it could have the power to reduce inequality and improve public trust in the tax system. 

Maybe the real question isn’t whether billionaires should pay more taxes, but whether our entire approach to taxing work versus wealth makes sense in an economy where most billionaires’ fortunes come from asset appreciation rather than traditional income.

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If you are one of the 39 million Americans in the U.S. living with migraines, there’s a good chance an intense headache will begin when the weather shifts.

You aren’t alone. Studies find 30% to 50% of people with migraines identify some type of weather change as a trigger, making it the most commonly reported migraine source.

Yet, it’s also one of the most puzzling.

Some people are more sensitive to weather

As a neurologist and headache specialist practicing in Colorado, a place with frequent weather shifts, patients often tell me that weather is one of their biggest migraine triggers. The results can disrupt work, school, and social plans, and create a sense of helplessness.

Doctors still don’t fully understand why some brains are more sensitive to environmental changes.

What we do know is that people with migraines have especially sensitive nervous systems, and that certain environmental changes – like shifts in air pressure, temperature, humidity, and air quality – can activate pathways in the brain that lead to pain.

Key ways weather can trigger migraines

Weather triggers can vary from person to person, but there are a few common migraine culprits:

Barometric pressure changes, or changes in atmospheric pressure, are among the most commonly cited triggers.

When a storm system moves in, the air pressure drops. Some scientists believe this change may affect the pressure inside your head or how blood vessels in your brain dilate and constrict.

One theory is that changes in barometric pressure may cause a small imbalance in the pressure between the inside of your skull and the outside environment. That might directly stimulate pain-sensitive nerves in the head, triggering inflammation and the start of a migraine.

Others point to inflammation, the way the brain processes sensory input, and changes in serotonin levels, which play a key role in activating migraine.

Temperature extremes, with very hot or very cold days, or sudden changes in temperature, can throw off the body’s internal balance. High humidity or rapid shifts in moisture levels can have a similar effect.

Air pollutants like ozone and nitrogen dioxide can cause inflammation in the nerves that play a role in migraines.

Bright sunlight can also be especially bothersome, likely due to heightened sensitivity to light and an overactive visual processing system in the brain.

Lightning and strong winds may also be linked to migraine attacks in certain individuals.

In short, weather changes can act as stressors on a brain that’s already wired to be more sensitive. The exact triggers and responses vary from person to person, but the research suggests that the interaction between weather and our biology plays a significant role for a subset of patients with migraines.

Steps you can take to reduce the pain

You can’t change the weather, but you can be proactive. Here are a few tips to help weather-proof your migraine routine:

1. Track your migraines and watch the forecast: Use a migraine diary or app to track when attacks occur, along with weather conditions. Patterns may emerge, such as attacks a day before rain or during temperature changes, that will allow you to adjust your schedule or medication plan.

2. Develop healthy eating, sleeping, and exercise habits: Dehydration, poor sleep, and skipped meals can magnify the effects of weather triggers, so keeping your body on an even keel helps reduce vulnerability. Regular exercise and a healthy diet can also help.

3. Create a migraine-friendly environment: On days when the sun is harsh or the humidity is high, stay inside. Sunglasses, eye masks or even blue-light glasses can be helpful. Some people find that certain earplugs are able to reduce pressure changes felt in the middle ear.

4. Try meditation, mindfulness techniques, or biofeedback, which teaches people to moderate their physiological responses, such as muscle responses and breathing. These strategies can help your nervous system become less reactive over time, which can be especially helpful when dealing with uncontrollable triggers like weather.

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Today, I’m talking with Richard Robinson, who is the cofounder and CEO of Robin AI. Richard has a fascinating resume: he was a corporate lawyer for high-profile firms in London before founding Robin in 2019 to bring AI tools to the legal profession, using a mix of human lawyers and automated software expertise. That means Robin predates the big generative AI boom that kicked off when ChatGPT launched in 2022.

As you’ll hear Richard say, the tools his company was building early on were based on fairly traditional AI technology — what we would have just called “machine learning” a few years ago. But as more powerful models and the chatbot explosion have transformed industries of all types, Robin AI is expanding its ambitions. It’s moving beyond just using AI to parse legal contracts into what Richard is envisioning as an entire AI-powered legal services business.AI can be unreliable, though, and when you’re working in law, unreliable doesn’t really cut it. It’s impossible to keep count of how many headlines we’ve already seen about lawyers using ChatGPT when they shouldn’t, citing nonexistent cases and law in their filings. Those attorneys have faced not only scathing rebukes from judges but also, in some cases, even fines and sanctions.

Naturally, I had to ask Richard about hallucinations, how he thinks the industry could move forward here, and how he’s working to make sure Robin’s AI products don’t land any law firms in hot water.

But Richard’s background also includes professional debate. Richard was the head debate coach at Eton College. So much of his expertise here, right down to how he structures his answers to some of my questions, can be traced back to just how experienced he is with the art of argumentation.

So, I really wanted to spend time talking through Richard’s history with debate, how it ties into both the AI and legal industries, and how these new technologies are making us reevaluate the difference between facts and truth in unprecedented ways.

Okay: Robin AI CEO Richard Robinson. Here we go.

Richard Robinson, founder and CEO of Robin AI. Great to have you here on Decoder.

Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. It’s great to be here. I’m a big listener of the show.

We’ve spoken before. I’m going to be all over the place here, but I want to start off with Robin AI. We’re talking about AI in a lot of different ways nowadays. I started off my Decoder run with former Google employee Cassie Kozyrkov, talking to her about decision science.

But this is a specific application of artificial intelligence in an industry where there’s a lot of thinking going on, and there ought to be — the legal industry. Tell me, what is Robin AI? What’s the latest?

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Image: The Verge / Photo: Robin AI

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Representative April McClain Delaney warned that President Donald Trump’s cuts to programs like Medicaid, as well as NPR and PBS, are going to hit rural America like a “tsunami” in an interview with Newsweek.

Delaney’s Maryland congressional district contains some of the areas that could be hit hardest by Trump’s policies. It spans from the state’s rural western panhandle, which she says could bear the brunt of new rescission cuts, to the Washington, D.C., suburbs, home to federal workers who have lost their jobs amid the mass firings of federal workers.

She first won election to the Sixth District last November, defeating Republican Neil Parrott by about 6 percentage points in a light-blue district that has been competitive in recent elections.

Delaney spoke with Newsweek about how she believes cuts in the Republican rescission package and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act would affect constituents in rural areas in the district and across the country.

“When you look at all of these funding freezes on our government employees on our national parks, but also Medicaid, SNAP, and then start looking at some of the other rescissions that it’s just a tsunami that’s about to hit rural America,” Delaney said.

How PBS, NPR Cuts Will Affect Rural America

Funding cuts for public media, such as PBS and NPR, which were included in a rescissions package passed by Congress earlier in July, could have devastating impacts on rural Americans, Delaney said.

Republicans argued that funding for these programs was a waste of taxpayer dollars and have accused the networks of pushing left-leaning programming. Critics, however, say public funding was a lifeline to communities that relied on their local NPR affiliates for news or PBS for free children’s programming.

When you look at the community that really relies on trusted news, one of the last trusted bastions of news is local news,” Delaney said. These cuts may have an impact on Amber Alerts and Emergency Broadcast System alerts, she said.

Recent flooding in Western Maryland’s Allegany County—a rural, conservative county inside Delaney’s district—underscores the importance of having robust local radio news, she said.

“We had floods in Allegany County, and luckily, because of the emergency alerts, they kept the kids in the school. They didn’t release them early. And as the rising waters went, I think, nine feet in 45 minutes, the kids went from the first floor, the second floor to the third floor, luckily were rescued and no one was hurt,” she said. “When you think about how alerts are really facilitated by our broadcast stations, particularly these rural communities, it’s a pretty big deal.”

Delaney, who spent much of her career advocating for children in media at nonprofits like Common Sense Media, said cuts to PBS will have consequences for children across the country.

“I really look at how this funding will impact rural America in terms of broadcast stations and, in particular, educational programming for our kids. PBS is really the only free programming, educational programming that these kids receive,” she said. “While you might hear some of my GOP colleagues [say] you can stream Sesame Street. Well, I hate to say this, our most disadvantaged kids in rural America, they can’t afford to have a streaming Netflix account, much less have rural broadband.”

Delaney predicted there would be a “significant outcry” from rural Americans if their local stations go under as a result of the cuts and that Democrats would eye the restoration of this funding if they retake control of Congress in the midterms.

The loss of these local stations would be a “loss of our community heart,” she said, noting that they have historically had community obligations and public interest standards.

“I still think there’s that residue reporting on the games from the football game at the high school or talking about the local fairs or the rodeo that’s going to be in town or what have you,” she said. “There is something that’s a big community builder. In these smaller stations in rural and even bigger suburban America.”

Cuts to Medicaid are another challenge facing rural America, she said, noting that one in seven families in her district relies on the program for health care.

What are you going to do in the long term in terms of rural health care and rural hospitals potentially closing? she said. “But also, you know, are all these premiums going to go up? Right, and what’s the impact?”

How Trump’s Agenda Is Affecting Federal Workers

Maryland’s Sixth District also encompasses parts of the D.C. suburbs and is home to more than 35,000 government workers who may be affected by cuts to the federal bureaucracy as part of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

So far, at least 260,000 federal workers have left their jobs since Trump returned to office in January, whether they were fired, retired early, or took a buyout, according to Reuters.

Delaney said many of them are still looking for jobs and have reached out to her office.

Health care is a key concern for these federal workers, she said.

“Many of them are concerned about the long-term, how they’re going to have health care, in addition to being able to find new jobs,” she said.

There are concerns that these “well-educated and well-adjusted” workers may be taken to the private sector or even leave the country as they seek new employment, she said.

“There are other big concerns about workforce development, and how are we going to look at maybe figuring out ways that they can retool some of their skills. I do think that many of our state governments might be able to fill in the gap for some of these workers. But, their concerns are, of course affordability, figuring out their next step, and interestingly enough, I’ve started hear more about AI,” she said.

Delaney Slams ‘Foolish’ Foreign Aid Cuts

Foreign aid cuts have been “one of the most foolish acts” of the Trump administration, Delaney said.

“Our world is on fire right now, and we have traditionally always been the one that has stepped in to help, whether it’s vaccinations, whether it is feeding women and children, whether it was displacement during times of war. But there is something in soft diplomacy,” she said. “What that means is that you are a trusted beacon of light. You are a source that people can depend upon around the world. And you do have more stability and peace when you have that.”

She warned that there is a “lack of trust” in the United States on the global stage right now, and that other countries, such as China, are “zooming in to fill that void.”

She described this foreign aid as the “cheapest part of our defense budget.”

“It is probably some of the most foolish cuts I’ve ever seen in my life, and it’s going to impact us globally, but that’s going to come to haunt us domestically as well,” she said.

Delaney on Trust in Government

Delaney also said her work in Congress is focused on restoring trust in the government amid a period of heightened “anger.”

“It’s really impacting the trust that people have in if our country can function and if our county can feel like the people who are elected officials are trustworthy,” she said.

Elected officials need to take the time to “understand why there’s anger” and why people feel like they have not been heard or met in the moment.

“My biggest concern and my biggest priority in Congress is to find ways to reestablish that trust, that trust with the American people, that trust on a community level,” she said. “And I don’t think it is a top-down—I think it’s going to be a bottom-up within our communities building back, you know, across our communities and understanding in our elected officials.“

She said she plans to ask her constituents for their views on the issues so that her vote can reflect their thoughts.

“Our world is crazy, but the last thing I’m going to say is I believe that we’re going be OK. It’s going to be choppy, it’s going to be hard, but that we are going to swim through this; but it’s a difficult ride at the moment,” she said.

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How does your brain wake up from sleep? A study of more than 1,000 arousals from slumber has revealed precisely how the brain bestirs itself during the transition to alertness — a finding that might help to manage sleep inertia, the grogginess that many people feel when hitting the snooze button.

Recordings of people as they woke from the dream-laden phase of sleep showed that the first brain regions to rouse are those associated with executive function and decision-making, located at the front of the head. A wave of wakefulness then spreads to the back, ending with an area associated with vision.

The findings could change how we think of waking up, says Rachel Rowe, a neuroscientist at the University of Colorado Boulder, who was not involved with the work. The results emphasize that “falling asleep and waking up aren’t simply reverse processes, but really waking up is this ordered wave of activation that moves from the front to the back of the brain”, whereas falling asleep seems to be less linear and more gradual.

The study was published today in Current Biology.

Sleeping-brain signature

The wide-awake brain shows a characteristic pattern of electrical activity, recorded by sensors on the scalp — it looks like a jagged line made up of small, tightly packed peaks and valleys. Although the pattern looks similar during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, when vivid dreams occur, this stage features a lack of skeletal-muscle movement. The peaks are taller during most stages of non-REM sleep, which ranges from light to very deep slumber.

Scientists already knew that the ‘awakened’ signature occurs at different times in different brain regions, but common imaging techniques did not allow these patterns to be explored on a precise timescale.

To refine the understanding of awakening, Francesca Siclari, a neuroscientist at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience in Amsterdam, and her colleagues studied 20 people as they woke from sleep. Each participant’s brain activity was recorded using 256 sensors on their scalps. Some awakenings were spontaneous; in other cases, participants were jolted awake by an alarm.

The sensors allowed the scientists to analyse brain activity at a second-to-second timescale. Using mathematical algorithms and modelling, the team then reconstructed where this activity happens on the surface of the brain.

Hitting snooze

The researchers found that the neural awakened signature spreads from front to back when a person rouses from REM sleep. However, during non-REM sleep, the pattern first appears at a central “hotspot” deep in the brain and then progresses through the same front to back pattern seen during REM sleep. This variation might explain why participants reported feeling less sleepy when waking up from non-REM sleep than from REM sleep, Rowe says, although it’s not clear why this pattern would have that effect.

“The surprise is how consistent [this pattern] was across every awakening and also how it related to the subjective measures”, including sleep stage and method of awakening, says Siclari.

Siclari hopes this research can be used to combat sleep disorders such as insomnia. “Knowing exactly how brain activity is characterized during a normal awakening [means] we can better compare it to these abnormal awakenings,” she says. Rowe agrees that the results could help people who struggle with sleep. “The way that a person wakes up might be impaired, as opposed to the way they fall asleep,” she says. Finding out more about the awakening brain could provide “a whole new avenue of looking at ways to treat people”, she adds.

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President Donald Trump rode to reelection last fall on voter concerns about prices. But as his administration pares back federal rules and programs designed to protect patients from the high cost of health care, Trump risks pushing more Americans into debt, further straining family budgets already stressed by medical bills.

Millions of people are expected to lose health insurance in the coming years as a result of the tax cut legislation Trump signed this month, leaving them with fewer protections from large bills if they get sick or suffer an accident.

At the same time, significant increases in health plan premiums on state insurance marketplaces next year will likely push more Americans to either drop coverage or switch to higher-deductible plans that will require them to pay more out-of-pocket before their insurance kicks in.

Smaller changes to federal rules are poised to bump up patients’ bills, as well. New federal guidelines for COVID-19 vaccines, for example, will allow health insurers to stop covering the shots for millions, so if patients want the protection, some may have to pay out-of-pocket.

The new tax cut legislation will also raise the cost of certain doctor visits, requiring copays of up to $35 for some Medicaid enrollees.

And for those who do end up in debt, there will be fewer protections. This month, the Trump administration secured permission from a federal court to roll back regulations that would have removed medical debt from consumer credit reports.

That puts Americans who cannot pay their medical bills at risk of lower credit scores, hindering their ability to get a loan or forcing them to pay higher interest rates.

“For tens of millions of Americans, balancing the budget is like walking a tightrope,” said Chi Chi Wu, a staff attorney at the National Consumer Law Center. “The Trump administration is just throwing them off.”

White House spokesperson Kush Desai did not respond to questions about how the administration’s health care policies will affect Americans’ medical bills.

The president and his Republican congressional allies have brushed off the health care cuts, including hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicaid retrenchment in the mammoth tax law. “You won’t even notice it,” Trump said at the White House after the bill signing July 4. “Just waste, fraud, and abuse.”

But consumer and patient advocates around the country warn that the erosion of federal health care protections since Trump took office in January threatens to significantly undermine Americans’ financial security.

“These changes will hit our communities hard,” said Arika Sánchez, who oversees health care policy at the nonprofit New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty.

Sánchez predicted many more people the center works with will end up with medical debt. “When families get stuck with medical debt, it hurts their credit scores, makes it harder to get a car, a home, or even a job,” she said. “Medical debt wrecks people’s lives.”

For Americans with serious illnesses such as cancer, weakened federal protections from medical debt pose yet one more risk, said Elizabeth Darnall, senior director of federal advocacy at the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network. “People will not seek out the treatment they need,” she said.

Trump promised a rosier future while campaigning last year, pledging to “make America affordable again” and “expand access to new Affordable Healthcare.”

Polls suggest voters were looking for relief.

About 6 in 10 adults — Democrats and Republicans — say they are worried about being able to afford health care, according to one recent survey, outpacing concerns about the cost of food or housing. And medical debt remains a widespread problem: As many as 100 million adults in the U.S. are burdened by some kind of health care debt.

Despite this, key tools that have helped prevent even more Americans from sinking into debt are now on the chopping block.

Medicaid and other government health insurance programs, in particular, have proved to be a powerful economic backstop for low-income patients and their families, said Kyle Caswell, an economist at the Urban Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C.

Caswell and other researchers found, for example, that Medicaid expansion made possible by the 2010 Affordable Care Act led to measurable declines in medical debt and improvements in consumers’ credit scores in states that implemented the expansion.

“We’ve seen that these programs have a meaningful impact on people’s financial well-being,” Caswell said.

Trump’s tax law — which will slash more than $1 trillion in federal health spending over the next decade, mostly through Medicaid cuts — is expected to leave 10 million more people without health coverage by 2034, according to the latest estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The tax cuts, which primarily benefit wealthy Americans, will add $3.4 trillion to U.S. deficits over a decade, the office calculated.

The number of uninsured could spike further if Trump and his congressional allies don’t renew additional federal subsidies for low- and moderate-income Americans who buy health coverage on state insurance marketplaces.

This aid — enacted under former President Joe Biden — lowers insurance premiums and reduces medical bills enrollees face when they go to the doctor or the hospital. But unless congressional Republicans act, those subsidies will expire later this year, leaving many with bigger bills.

Federal debt regulations developed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under the Biden administration would have protected these people and others if they couldn’t pay their medical bills.

The agency issued rules in January that would have removed medical debts from consumer credit reports. That would have helped an estimated 15 million people.

But the Trump administration chose not to defend the new regulations when they were challenged in court by debt collectors and the credit bureaus, who argued the federal agency had exceeded its authority in issuing the rules. A federal judge in Texas appointed by Trump ruled that the regulation should be scrapped.

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CLIMATEWIRE | The sweeping budget bill signed by President Donald Trump will lead to higher electricity bills, fewer renewable installations, and more planet-warming pollution, according to modeling released Friday by the Rhodium Group.

The economic consulting firm’s results are among the bevy of energy models put out in the wake of the law’s passage earlier this month.

Rhodium predicts average household energy expenditures will increase between $78-$192 by 2035, largely due to fewer electric vehicles on the road and consumers paying more for gasoline. Installations of new clean electricity projects, such as wind and solar, are expected to fall 57-62 percent over the next decade. The result is an increase in the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.

When Rhodium estimated America’s emissions trajectory last year, it predicted the U.S. was on track to cut emissions between 38-56 percent by 2035 compared to 2005 levels. Now, it thinks the U.S. is on pace to reduce emissions 27-44 percent below 2005 levels. For context, U.S. emissions were 20 percent below 2005 levels last year. The broad ranges reflect scenarios that assume differences in economic factors, such as the price of natural gas, renewables or electricity demand growth.

“This has a meaningful slowing effect on the deployment of of clean technology across the economy,” said Ben King, a director in Rhodium’s Climate and Energy practice.

Rhodium’s modeling is one of a series of analyses that have come out in the aftermath of the law’s passage.

FTI, a consulting group, reckons new gas plant construction in the Eastern Interconnection will surge as a result of the measure, prompting an 8 percent increase in natural gas demand for power compared to the group’s reference case scenario. The Eastern Interconnection is the power grid covering two-thirds of the country.

FTI also thinks renewable installations will plunge, leading to renewables’ share of total electricity generation to fall in the 2030s. The group’s initial modeling results did not report changes in costs or emissions.

“The accelerated phase out of clean energy tax credits results in slower growth in wind and solar capacity and leads to gas capacity picking up a greater share, with the majority of new gas builds projected to come online in the 2030’s,” Dan Goodwin, a senior director at FTI, wrote in an email.

The Repeat Project, an academic group led by Princeton University professor Jesse Jenkins, echoed many of Rhodium’s findings.

It estimates the law will increase household energy bills by $280 annually through 2035.

Repeat had expected solar installations to average 44 gigawatts annually through 2035, but that figure falls to 23 GW following the law’s passage. Wind falls from 25 GW annually to 9 GW.

As a result of such changes, it expects greenhouse gas emissions will be 7 percent higher in 2035.

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