A Mission for Nutrition

Accomplish health goals with better-for-you family meals

Setting out on a mission to eat healthier starts with creating goals and working to achieve them with those you love. To help make nutritious eating more manageable, call together your family and work with one another to create a menu everyone can enjoy while staying on track.

Connecting an array of recipes that all can agree on starts with versatile ingredients like dairy. Gathering at the table with your loved ones while enjoying delicious, nutritious recipes featuring yogurt, cheese and milk can nourish both body and soul.

For example, the key dairy ingredients in these recipes from Milk Means More provide essential nutrients for a healthy diet. The cheese varieties in Feta Roasted Salmon and Tomatoes and 15-Minute Weeknight Pasta provide vitamin B12 for healthy brain and nerve cell development and are a good source of calcium and protein, which are important for building and maintaining healthy bones. Meanwhile, the homemade yogurt sauce served alongside these Grilled Chicken Gyros provides protein and zinc.

To find more nutritious meal ideas to fuel your family’s health goals, visit MilkMeansMore.org.

Feta Roasted Salmon and Tomatoes

Recipe courtesy of Marcia Stanley, MS, RDN, Culinary Dietitian, on behalf of Milk Means More
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes
Servings: 4

• Nonstick cooking spray
• 3 cups halved cherry tomatoes
• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano or dried dill weed
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper, divided
• 1 1/2 pounds salmon or halibut fillets, cut into four serving-size pieces
• 1 cup (4 ounces) crumbled feta cheese

1. Preheat oven to 425 F. Line 18-by-13-by-1-inch baking pan with foil. Lightly spray foil with nonstick cooking spray. Set aside.
2. In medium bowl, toss tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, oregano or dill weed, salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper.
3. Place fish pieces, skin side down, on one side of prepared pan. Sprinkle with remaining pepper. Lightly press feta cheese on top of fish. Pour tomato mixture on other side of prepared pan. Bake, uncovered, 12-15 minutes, or until fish flakes easily with fork.
4. Place salmon on serving plates. Spoon tomato mixture over top.

Grilled Chicken Gyros

Recipe courtesy of Kirsten Kubert of "Comfortably Domestic" on behalf of Milk Means More
Prep time: 30 minutes, plus 30 minutes chill time
Cook time: 20 minutes
Servings: 8

Chicken:

• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
• 3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Yogurt Sauce:

• 1 1/2 cups plain, whole-milk yogurt
• 1 1/2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1/2 cup diced cucumber
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
• 1 clove garlic, peeled and minced
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/8 teaspoon black pepper

• 3-4 small loaves whole-wheat pita bread, halved lengthwise
• 1 cup thinly sliced tomatoes
• 1/2 cup thinly sliced red onion

1. To make chicken: Place melted butter, dill, oregano, garlic, lemon juice, salt and pepper in gallon-size zip-top freezer bag. Seal bag and shake contents to combine. Add chicken. Seal bag, pressing air out of bag. Shake chicken to coat with marinade. Refrigerate chicken in marinade 30 minutes.
2. To make yogurt sauce: Stir yogurt, lemon juice, diced cucumber, dill, garlic, salt and pepper. Cover sauce and refrigerate.
3. Heat grill to medium heat.
4. Grill chicken over direct heat, about 10 minutes per side, until cooked through. Transfer chicken to cutting board and rest 10 minutes. Thinly slice chicken across grain.
5. Serve chicken on pita bread with tomatoes, red onion and yogurt sauce.

15-Minute Weeknight Pasta

Recipe courtesy of Kirsten Kubert of "Comfortably Domestic" on behalf of Milk Means More
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 10 minutes
Servings: 6

• 6 quarts water
• 16 ounces linguine or penne pasta
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup thinly sliced onion
• 1 cup thinly sliced carrots
• 1 cup thinly sliced sweet bell pepper
• 1/2 cup grape tomatoes, halved
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
• 1 cup reserved pasta water
• 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
• 1/2 cup smoked provolone cheese, shredded
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley (optional)
• Parmesan cheese (optional)

1. Bring water to rolling boil and prepare pasta according to package directions for al dente texture, reserving 1 cup pasta water.
2. In large skillet over medium heat, melt butter. Stir in onions, carrots and sweet bell peppers. Saute vegetables about 5 minutes, or until they brighten in color and begin to soften. Add tomatoes, salt, pepper and garlic. Cook and stir 1 minute to allow tomatoes to release juices.
3. Pour reserved pasta water into skillet, stirring well. Bring sauce to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer 3 minutes. Taste sauce and adjust seasonings, as desired.
4. Transfer drained pasta to skillet along with lemon zest and smoked provolone cheese, tossing well to coat. Serve immediately with fresh parsley and Parmesan cheese, if desired.

 

SOURCE:
United Dairy Industry of Michigan

How the bottled water industry is masking the global water crisis

Bottled water corporations exploit surface water and aquifers, buy water at a very low cost and sell it for 150 to 1,000 times more than the same unit of municipal tap water. (Shutterstock)

Zeineb Bouhlel, United Nations University and Vladimir Smakhtin, United Nations University

Bottled water is one of the world’s most popular beverages, and its industry is making the most of it. Since the millennium, the world has advanced significantly towards the goal of safe water for all. In 2020, 74 per cent of humanity had access to safe water. This is 10 per cent more than two decades ago. But that still leaves two billion people without access to safe drinking water.

Meanwhile, bottled water corporations exploit surface water and aquifers — typically at very low cost — and sell it for 150 to 1,000 times more than the same unit of municipal tap water. The price is often justified by offering the product as an absolute safe alternative to tap water. But bottled water is not immune to all contamination, considering that it rarely faces the rigorous public health and environmental regulations that public utility tap water does.

In our recently published study, which studied 109 countries, it was concluded that the highly profitable and fast-growing bottled water industry is masking the failure of public systems to supply reliable drinking water for all.

The industry can undermine progress of safe-water projects, mostly in low- and middle-income countries, by distracting development efforts and redirecting attention to a less reliable, less affordable option.

Bottled water industry can disrupt SDGs

The fast-growing bottled water industry also impacts the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in many ways.

The rising sales of global bottled water is contributing to plastic pollution on land and in the oceans. (Shutterstock)

The latest UN University report revealed that the annual sales of the global bottled water market is expected to double to US$500 billion worldwide this decade. This can increase stress in water-depleted areas while contributing to plastic pollution on land and in the oceans.

Growing faster than any other in the food category worldwide, the bottled water market is biggest in the Global South, with the Asia-Pacific, Africa and Latin American and Caribbean regions accounting for 60 per cent of all sales.

But no region is on track to achieve universal access to safe water services, which is one of the SDG 2030 targets. In fact, the industry’s greatest impact seems to be its potential to stunt the progress of nations’ goals to provide its residents with equitable access to affordable drinking water.

Impact on vulnerable nations

In the Global North, bottled water is often perceived to be healthier and tastier than tap water. It is, therefore, more a luxury good than a necessity. Meanwhile, in the Global South, it is the lack or absence of reliable public water supply and water management infrastructure that drives bottled water markets.

Therefore, in many low- and middle-income countries, particularly in the Asia Pacific, rising consumption of bottled water can be seen as a proxy indicator of decades of governments’ failure to deliver on commitments to safe public water systems.

The rising consumption of bottled water in some countries can be seen as a proxy indicator of decades of governments’ failure to deliver on commitments to safe public water systems. (Shutterstock)

This further widens the global disparity between the billions of people who lack access to reliable water services and the others that enjoy water as a luxury.

In 2016, the annual financing required to achieve a safe drinking water supply throughout the world was estimated to cost US$114 billion, which amounts to less than half of today’s roughly US$270 billion global annual bottled water sales.

Regulating the bottled-water industry

Last year, the World Health Organization estimated that the current rate of progress needs to quadruple to meet the SDGs 2030 target. But this is a colossal challenge considering the competing financial priorities and the prevailing business-as-usual attitude in the water sector.

As the bottled water market grows, it is more important than ever to strengthen legislation that regulates the industry and its water quality standards. Such legislation can impact bottled water quality control, groundwater exploitation, land use, plastic waste management, carbon emissions, finance and transparency obligations, to mention a few.

Our report argues that, with global progress toward this target so far off-track, expansion of the bottled water market essentially works against making headway, or at least slows it down, adversely affecting investments and long-term public water infrastructure.

Some high-level initiatives, like an alliance of Global Investors for Sustainable Development, aim to scale up finance for the SDGs, including water-related ones.

Such initiatives offer the bottled water sector an opportunity to become an active player in this process and help accelerate progress toward reliable water supply, particularly in the Global South.

Zeineb Bouhlel, Research Associate, Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH), United Nations University and Vladimir Smakhtin, Former Director of the Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH), United Nations University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Public school enrollment dropped by 1.2M during the pandemic – an expert discusses where the students went and why it matters

Some parents decided to continue home-schooling their kids even after public schools resumed in-person classes. AP Photo/Sarah Blake Morgan

Thomas Dee, Stanford University

Student learning took a big hit during the COVID-19 pandemic. Just how much is only becoming clear nearly three years after the World Health Organization declared the pandemic and nearly all U.S. public schools pivoted to online instruction for at least several months in March 2020.

However, the data guiding the nation’s efforts to help kids catch up does not generally include the students who experienced the most dramatic learning disruptions.

Nationwide testing results released in the fall of 2022 revealed that the reading and math performance on standardized tests of students who were in fourth and eighth grades in the U.S. in the 2021-2022 school year declined by historic amounts.

This dramatic evidence of learning loss has mobilized federal, state and local education leaders. The federal government has allocated US$122 billion to support state and local efforts to help students “catch up in the classroom.”

Public school districts are using these resources to fund tutoring and extended learning time. And researchers are assessing the effects of these investments on standardized test scores.

However, these efforts do little to identify or target support to the children whose learning environments were most disrupted by the pandemic. This is especially so for the youngest students, who aren’t yet old enough for most standardized testing.

Enrollment decline and the ‘streetlight effect’

During the pandemic, public school enrollment in grades K through 12 fell by 1.2 million students. These declines were concentrated among kindergarten students and in schools that offered only remote instruction.

Similarly dramatic enrollment losses among even younger learners erased a decade of progress in boosting preschool education enrollment.

These declines indicate that the pandemic caused students to miss instructional time or undertake disruptive school switches, often in their developmentally critical early years.

However, school officials list early-childhood programs among the least popular use of available federal funds and provide no indication of targeted academic-recovery efforts for younger or truant students.

This is an example of what scholars call the “streetlight effect,” in which people focus their attention on easily visible evidence – such as the test scores available for older, currently enrolled students – rather than other relevant data that are more obscured and harder to identify.

And long lags in national data reporting mean little is yet known about the learning environments of the disproportionately young children whose families avoided public schools during the pandemic. Currently, official federal statistics do not even provide basic data on private school or home-school enrollment beyond 2019.

In most schools, standardized tests don’t start until well beyond kindergarten. FatCamera/E+ via Getty Images

Where the kids went

My research, done collaboratively with The Associated Press and data journalists at Stanford University’s Big Local News, addresses this issue.

For our analysis, we gathered state-level data on public, private and home-school enrollment for the school years from 2019-20 through 2021-22. We also used U.S. Census Bureau estimates to identify the school-age population in each state over this time period. These combined data provide insights into where the students who avoided public schools went and what it means for the nation’s academic-recovery efforts.

Complete data aren’t available in every state, but we have good data on more than half of the school-age population in the U.S. at the onset of the pandemic. These states also experienced public school enrollment declines that are representative of the national trend.

Some students, particularly the youngest, clearly turned to private schools during the pandemic. In the 34 jurisdictions with available data, private school enrollment grew by over 140,000 students between the 2019-20 and 2021-22 school years. However, this increase only explains a modest amount – roughly 14% – of the corresponding decline in public school enrollment.

A more surprising finding is the robust growth of home-schooling during this period. An early Census Bureau survey reported that home-schooling increased soon after the pandemic began. Our data show this initial increase endured into the 2021-22 school year when most public schools returned to in-person instruction.

In the 22 jurisdictions with data, home-school enrollment increased by over 184,000 students between the 2019-20 and 2021-22 school years – a 30% increase. For every additional student enrolled in private school over this period, nearly two entered home-schooling. This sustained growth in home-schooling explains 26% of the corresponding losses in public school enrollment.

Roughly a quarter of the public school enrollment loss simply reflects the pandemic decline in the number of school-age children in the U.S. However, people moving to new homes during the pandemic means this demographic impact varied considerably by state. In states like California and New York, which saw their overall populations fall dramatically, the percentage declines in public school enrollment were at least six times those in states like Texas and Florida, where populations grew.

New questions for academic recovery

These findings raise several new questions about what help American students will need to get their education back on track. For instance, researchers know little about the learning opportunities available to children who switched to home-schooling, or the effects of this choice on families.

Our data is also unable to locate more than one-third of the students who left public schools. That could mean that some children are not going to school at all – or that even more families started home-schooling but did so without notifying their state.

A third possibility is that the pandemic led more families to have their kids skip kindergarten. Our data indirectly supports this conjecture. The unexplained declines in public school enrollment are concentrated in states that do not require kindergarten attendance, like California and Colorado.

What we do know is the pandemic’s learning disruptions occurred disproportionately among the nation’s youngest learners.

Our work to understand and respond to this situation is just beginning. One possible response is to refocus some federal funding on the broad use of early screening tools to reliably identify – and address – learning setbacks years before students are old enough to take the current battery of standardized tests, which often begins in the third grade. Policymakers can also do more to locate students who are missing and to understand the educational needs of those outside the light of conventional data systems.

Thomas Dee, Barnett Family Professor, Stanford University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The World Bank used to cause untold harm - but 30 years ago it started reforming. What went right

Photo by Celal Gunes/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Danny Bradlow, University of Pretoria

Development projects can have profound impacts on their societies. There are many benefits that flow from building new roads and power plants, and from modernising agricultural practices. But they can also have permanent negative consequences.

For example, communities may be involuntarily relocated to make way for roads or power plants. These projects can change the way natural resources are used in a particular area, making it difficult or impossible for communities to continue their traditional agricultural practices. The job opportunities that they create can challenge traditional values and ways of living.

Historically, many of these projects have been owned or sponsored by governments, eager to bring the benefits of modernisation to their citizens. They have often been funded by multilateral institutions like the World Bank, which was established in 1944 to fund the reconstruction and development of its member states.

These institutions were not unaware of the environmental and social impacts of the projects they funded. However, they maintained that each state had to decide for itself how it wished to manage these impacts. They would argue that they were merely the funders, and so should defer to the government on how to manage them. It would be an affront to the state’s sovereignty for them to interfere with the government’s decisions on these aspects of the project.

The World Bank’s confidence in its ability to avoid responsibility for its project related decisions and actions was bolstered by the fact that it was immune from being sued in any national court.

The result was that the bank supported some projects that were environmentally and socially damaging. As a result, during the 1980s the World Bank was the target of sustained protests by affected communities and their allies around the world.

To its credit, 30 years ago the bank, following an international campaign in which this author participated, recognised that its position was untenable. In 1993 it established the world’s first citizen driven independent accountability mechanism, the World Bank Inspection Panel.

This article argues that the panel’s 30th anniversary is a moment to celebrate its accomplishments. The panel has significant limitations. Nevertheless, its impact on development and the international development financing institutions has been profound.

Accomplishments

The three-member panel is independent of the World Bank’s management. It receives and investigates complaints from communities who allege that they have been harmed or threatened with harm because of the World Bank’s failure to comply with its own policies and procedures in funding a particular project. In other words, the panel’s focus is exclusively on the conduct and decisions of the Bank’s staff and management.

It sends its findings to the bank’s board. In cases of noncompliance, the bank’s management is expected to submit an action plan to the board that explains how it will correct the noncompliance and its consequences. Both the report and the action plan are made public.

Since it was established, the panel’s investigations have resulted in some relief for affected communities. For example, 70,000 people, previously ignored by the World Bank, received compensation for their losses in a bridge project in Bangladesh. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, a forestry project was revised to provide greater protection to indigenous communities who had not been adequately consulted about the project.

The panel has also succeeded in establishing the principle that international financial organisations must be accountable for their own actions to the communities whose lives are affected by the projects and policies they finance.

Since its establishment, over 25 multilateral and national development banks and institutions have established their own independent accountability mechanisms. In total, these mechanisms have received 1,634 complaints, of which about 330 have been from 27 countries in Africa. Forty-five of the African cases have resulted in findings on compliance or noncompliance.

All findings of noncompliance have led to management action plans intended to correct the noncompliance.

The reports of these mechanisms are used both by their own institutions to improve their performance in development projects and to reduce the risk that they repeat old mistakes. They can also help ensure that they are held accountable when they do repeat these mistakes.

Many of these mechanisms now offer dispute resolution services in addition to compliance reviews. Many of them now also publish reports documenting the lessons they have learned about specific aspects of development projects.

It is important to note that many of the issues that arise in these cases also arise in private sector projects. This means that the reports provide guidance and help develop good practice standards for all development projects. They are also used to develop best practice in regard to the human rights and environmental responsibilities of business.

Challenges

To be sure, independent accountability mechanisms face significant challenges.

The first is that bringing cases to the mechanisms is not simple. Many of the successful cases have required communities to obtain the assistance of technical experts. This means that the cases that are brought come from communities that have access to sophisticated NGOs and advisers rather than because they are the most urgent cases.

Second, they cannot make binding decisions or determine that the communities should be given a remedy. There have been cases in which those who have been harmed by the action of the banks have been compensated. But this is not the norm. In fact, there is only one case in Africa in which a panel investigation led to victims receiving monetary compensation. The panel’s report in a case in Uganda resulted in the World Bank developing a new policy on gender-based violence and establishing a trust fund to compensate, and support the girls and women who were the victims of this violence.

Designing and funding remedies that can be used in all similarly situated cases is politically and technically complicated. But it is not acceptable that those who have been harmed by the Bank’s own failures do not receive an effective remedy that compensates them for their loss.

Third, the bravery required to bring complaints to these mechanisms must be noted. They require the complainants to go to an international forum in opposition to their own governments or powerful interests in their own countries who support the projects the banks are funding. It is therefore inevitable that in some cases, the supporters of the project will retaliate against the complainants. This suggests that the mechanisms and the banks have a responsibility to take action to protect the complainants.

To their credit, the banks and the mechanisms have foreseen this problem and do allow for confidential complaints. But the procedures that seek to protect the complainants from reprisals have not always been fully effective.

It is now standard practice for multilateral financing institutions like the World Bank to have an independent citizen driven accountability mechanism that focuses exclusively on the responsibilities of the institution. The only exception to this general rule is the International Monetary Fund.

The mechanisms have also demonstrated that they can evolve and adapt to new challenges. While their limitations have also become clear, we should celebrate the Inspection Panel’s 30th anniversary.

Danny Bradlow, SARCHI Professor of International Development Law and African Economic Relations, University of Pretoria

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Against baseball’s new pitch clock

During the 2023 season, pitchers and hitters will be on the clock for the first time. Julio Aguilar/Getty Images

Alva Noë, University of California, Berkeley

Baseball moves very fast. That’s how it seems to me, anyway.

Just try coaching a Little League game; decisions pile up like branches on a tree, as tactical and strategic considerations multiply.

And as a player, when it’s time to act, you need to do so before you even get to the “t” in “think,” as a coach I know used to say.

That’s why it’s hard for me to shake the worry that the executives who restlessly tinker with the rules in an effort to speed up the game are doing so less as its reliable custodians and more as marketers.

Why else would they have adopted the new pitch clock rule?

Beginning this season in Major League Baseball, pitchers will have 15 seconds to throw when the bases are empty and 20 seconds when there’s a runner on base. Hitters need to be in the box, looking at the pitcher, with 8 seconds left on the clock. Violators will be punished by automatic balls or strikes. There are new time limits on managers’ deliberations on whether to challenge calls on the field, too.

But to me, the idea that you need to get things to move faster because it might seem to you – or to potential customers – as if nothing is going on is either a brazen sellout or a remarkable piece of ignorance.

During these purported empty spaces of inaction, the game’s drama is actually unfurling right there in front of you. As I explain in my book “Infinite Baseball,” you just have to know what to look for.

Seeing the game better

Every plate appearance – that willful and wily exchange between batter and pitcher – unfolds at the center of attention of every player and spectator.

Hitters develop ways of excelling – or, I should say, coping – and to some extent their strategy consists in scratching out seconds and milliseconds to collect their thoughts, to read the signals, to settle themselves in the box by breathing in, breathing out.

Pitchers, meanwhile, work to control the rhythm and keep the hitters off guard by concealing what’s coming next.

The scrutiny can be vicious. Twelve-year-old baseball players routinely burst into tears when they have struck out or grounded out yet again.

Former pitcher Felix Hernandez screams into his glove after losing his battle with a hitter and surrendering a home run during a game in 2014. Stephen Brashear/Getty Images

Professional baseball players, no less than their younger counterparts, need tactical guidance and emotional support. The manager is cool in the dugout, surrounded by consiglieri, and in constant contact with coaches on the first and third baselines, who, for their part, are talking to the players.

It’s not rocket science, to be sure; but there is a lot to think about – whether to take a pitch, or fake bunt, or run on contact, or hold, or steal, or sacrifice, and on and on, with answers depending on the situation that itself varies pitch to pitch. Players need all the help they can get.

Clock time is not the only time. Pitches and plate appearances and outs and innings are another way to mark time, the way time in tennis is counted in service games, sets and match points.

In my view, baseball’s problem is not that it is too slow. It’s that it’s too fast. There’s a lot of action; it’s just that novice fans may not have the eyes to see it.

That’s what baseball should be helping viewers do: Slow the game down so they can see it better; or rather, teach them to see it better.

Baseball is an opportunity to learn to see, to notice the detail, to pay attention and uncover the decisions that inform everything that happens on the field. Fielders shift their positions, batters adjust their stances, catchers vary the target they provide, runners shorten or extend their leads.

It all carries information.

The game only shows up if you do

But baseball executives who sell the game, and are willing to sell it out, do so by making the game itself expendable. Your typical MLB game is drowned out in distracting bright lights, ear-splitting music, sideline games and giveaways. Roving cameras encourage fans to dance for the public or make out with the person next to them.

Fun is good, and I enjoy the carnival atmosphere, too. (Although if it’s a circus you want, you might prefer the Savannah Bananas, a wildly popular minor league team whose players wear kilts and who have adopted a rule calling a home run an out if a fan catches the ball.) And I don’t begrudge baseball’s entrepreneurs their payday. But no wonder the game seems boring beside all that. The game shows up only if you do.

The problem is not change. Imagine if baseball had never evolved from its past incarnations – the dead ball era when home runs were a rarity, segregated leagues and no free agency. And baseball responded to the remarkable 1968 season, known as “the year of the pitcher,” by actually lowering the pitcher’s mound to shift advantage back to batters.

Baseball, like the law – and like society itself – evolves.

Actually, there is another respect in which baseball is like the law. In baseball, the events on the field of play matter less than the assignments of responsibility and the judgments of praise – and blameworthiness.

Real baseball is in the scorebook, for it is there that hits are sorted from physically indiscernible patterns of action that count as fielder’s choices, or errors, or sacrifices. It is there that mere runs separate themselves from earned runs, and that stolen bases assert themselves as achievements that don’t come down to mere defensive indifference.

Each game tells a story. Brace Hemmelgarn/Minnesota Twins via Getty Images

This is why keeping score in baseball is never just marking down what happens, like hatch marks on a prison wall marking the passage of time; it is always, rather, a thoughtful reflection on the meaning of events, and so is more like a daily journal.

And it is baseball’s problems – pertaining not only to the question of who’s winning, but rather who deserves credit or blame for this rapid-fire thing that just happened on the field – that define the game and preoccupy players, coaches and fans.

It is this space, one that is not limited to the physical field of play, that finally defines the national pastime and joins players and fans alike in its preservation and celebration.

I certainly appreciate that shorter games, like shorter books, have a certain attraction. They are less demanding and more user-friendly. And there is no doubt that games in MLB have gotten much longer than they used to be.

But baseball’s executives should avoid ruining the game in order to save it.

Alva Noë, Professor of Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Drones over Ukraine: What the war means for the future of remotely piloted aircraft in combat

A Ukrainian soldier uses a commercial drone to monitor the front line in eastern Ukraine. Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Roberto J. González, San José State University

Over the past year, images from Ukraine have often portrayed a war resembling other conflicts from the past half-century. Russian forces deploy tanks, fighter planes, warships, amphibious vehicles and attack helicopters. Ukrainians fight back with anti-tank weapons, grenade launchers and anti-aircraft missiles. This is how much of the war appears on the ground.

But there’s another side to the conflict – a hypermodern battleground where drones play a crucial role in surveillance, reconnaissance and combat missions. These technologies may foreshadow a world in which armed conflicts are conducted largely by remote control – and perhaps someday, by artificial intelligence.

What lessons does the drone war in Ukraine hold for the future?

Commercial and portable drones

One lesson is that drones have been democratized, accessible to anyone with a few hundred dollars and a bit of technical knowledge. In Ukraine, DIY hobbyists have modified and weaponized small, inexpensive commercial drones by outfitting them with high-resolution cameras and explosives.

Ukraine’s Aerorozvidka air reconnaissance unit made headlines early in the war when its drones helped stop a Russian convoy headed for Kyiv. Aerorozvidka personnel use spiderlike hexacopters, octocopters and other remote-controlled devices as weapons.

These gadgets typically fly at low altitudes – less than 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) – and limited distances – less than 19 miles (31 kilometers). Russia’s fighter jets aren’t designed to prevent attacks from such small drones.

‘Suicide’ drones

Both sides in the war have also unleashed loitering munitions — sometimes called “suicide” drones. These self-destructing devices can circle around targets for hours before attacking. Ukraine’s arsenal includes U.S.-made Switchblade and Phoenix Ghost models, while Russian forces use domestically manufactured Lancet-3 drones. Some of these weapons are small enough to fit in a backpack. Ukrainian forces have also fashioned DIY loitering munitions by attaching explosives to off-the-shelf quadcopters.

Russian troops have also used Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones, which recently terrorized Kyiv. At about 11 feet (3.5 meters) long, these fixed wing drones resemble a small plane. Loitering munitions typically cost US$10,000-$20,000 each, and have a longer range – 932 miles (1,500 kilometers) or more – than cheap commercial drones. Most have swarming capability, which allows multiple drones to attack a target and inflict greater damage.

An Iranian-made Shahed-136 suicide drone seconds before it hit buildings in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Oct. 17, 2022. AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky

In the Ukraine war, it’s much more expensive to intercept loitering munitions than to deploy them. Using MiG-29 jet fighters, C-300 cruise missiles and other Cold War-era weapons to stop these drones far exceeds the cost of the disposable robots. New high-tech battles of attrition could become a regular feature of future conflicts, with each side attempting to exhaust its enemy’s resources.

Loitering munitions hold another lesson. When used against civilians, low-altitude drones can unnerve an entire city. Russia’s October 2022 drone attacks on Kyiv not only killed four people, but they terrorized thousands more. A Stanford-NYU research project on the long-term impact of America’s drone war in Pakistan reveals that it has deeply traumatized civilian populations.

Remotely piloted aircraft

Another class of drones includes those capable of flying longer distances – 124 miles (200 kilometers) or more – and at higher altitudes – 2.5 to 5 miles (4 to 8 kilometers) – than those mentioned above. They can also be armed with laser-guided missiles, boosting their lethality. In the Ukraine war, these drones – essentially remotely piloted fighter planes – include the Turkish-produced Bayraktar TB2. The Ukrainian military has acquired several dozen, at a cost of about $5 million each.

Some call it the “Toyota Corolla of drones” because of its affordability and reliability. Among other things, the Bayraktar TB2 inspired a Ukrainian rap song that went viral, pointing to the potential propaganda value of new technologies.

Ukrainian forces have made extensive use of the Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 drone. Birol Bebek/AFP via Getty Images

Russian forces have used comparable drones, most notably the domestically produced Orion series. Other drones in this class (none of which have been used in Ukraine) include the Israeli Hermes 450, the American-made MQ-1C Gray Eagle, China’s recently unveiled Wing Loong 3 and dozens more. China now surpasses Israel as the world’s biggest drone exporter. Drone proliferation is likely to accelerate their battlefield presence.

High-end military drones

High-end drones aren’t likely to be used in Ukraine anytime soon. It’s hard to imagine that the Rolls-Royce of drones, the U.S.-made RQ-4 Global Hawk, will ever be deployed in Ukraine, given its high cost. (The $200 million behemoth is, in fact, powered by a Rolls-Royce AE 3700 turbofan engine).

But it’s plausible that one day, the U.S. government might provide Ukraine with RQ-9 Reapers, which cost about $50 million apiece. And although China has so far been reluctant to send weapons to Russian forces, its state-of-the-art CH-5 Rainbow strike drones could dramatically alter the course of the war. This advanced aircraft would provide Russian troops with far greater firepower, endurance and range than its current drones.

How drones are changing war

Over the past 20 years, researchers have observed that drone warfare simultaneously stretches and compresses the battlefield. It does so both physically and psychologically by increasing the geographic distance between targeter and targeted. When American forces launch drone strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Yemen, the attacks are secret, targeted assassinations, more like a form of hunting than airstrikes on military targets.

But the ways in which drones are being used in Ukraine are strikingly different from how the U.S. has deployed them in the war on terror. In Ukraine, both sides use drones as a tactical technology for a range of missions, including battlefield surveillance, artillery spotting and attacking armored vehicles and missile launchers.

An interview in the field with Ukrainian drone pilots.

One year on, missiles and drones dominate the air war over Ukraine, raising the question: Where are the pilots? Future wars may incorporate yet more advanced drones — and counter-drone systems for jamming command or GPS signals, or intercepting drones before they strike. Russia’s failure to adequately use such systems gave Ukrainian forces an edge in the early months of the war.

Flying ‘killer robots’

Perhaps the most troubling prospect is the possibility of a new global arms race in which the U.S., China, Russia, Iran, Israel, the European Union and others rush to develop fully autonomous drones. The U.S. Air Force is already testing an AI-controlled fighter jet.

Several factors are driving this process. As GPS and control signal jammers become more sophisticated, drones are likely to become less reliant on remote control and more autonomous, using systems that incorporate AI, such as simultaneous location and mapping, LiDAR technology and celestial navigation.

Another factor propelling the long-term adoption of autonomous weapons is the psychological impact of remote-controlled warfare on drone pilots, many of whom suffer from serious mental illnesses like post-traumatic stress disorder after killing targeted people. To some observers, autonomous drones might seem to offer a way of eliminating the psychological trauma of killing remotely. Yet many rank-and-file soldiers and pilots are reluctant to use autonomous weapons because they don’t trust them, something confirmed by my own research.

Finally, there are ethical concerns: Autonomous weapons tend to absolve humans of any responsibility for life-and-death decisions. Who will be held accountable when an autonomous drone kills civilian noncombatants?

As the Ukraine war drags on — and as autonomous weapons research surges forward — the possibility of a robot war looms on the horizon.

Roberto J. González, Professor of Anthropology, San José State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Human genome editing offers tantalizing possibilities – but without clear guidelines, many ethical questions still remain

DNA editing has the capacity to treat many diseases, but how to do this safely and equitably remains unclear. KTSDESIGN/Science Photo Library via Getty Images

André O. Hudson, Rochester Institute of Technology and Gary Skuse, Rochester Institute of Technology

The Third International Summit on Human Genome Editing, a three-day conference organized by the Royal Society, the U.K. Academy of Medical Sciences, the U.S. National Academies of Sciences and Medicine and The World Academy of Sciences, was held this week in March 2023 at the Francis Crick Institute in London. Scientists, bioethicists, physicians, patients and others gathered to discuss the latest developments on this technology that lets researchers modify DNA with precision. And a major topic at the summit was how to enforce research policies and ethical principles for human genome editing.

One of the first agenda items was how to regulate human genome editing in China in light of its misuse in 2018, when scientists modified the DNA of two human embryos before birth to have resistance against HIV infection. The controversy stems from the fact that because the technology is relatively early in its development, and its potential risks have not been reduced or eliminated, editing human embryos in ways they could pass on to their own offspring could lead to a variety of known and unknown adverse complications. The summit speakers noted that while China has updated its guidelines and laws on human genome editing, it failed to address privately funded research – an issue other countries also face. Many countries, including the U.S., do not have sufficiently robust regulatory frameworks to prevent a repeat of the 2018 scandal.

We are a biochemist and a geneticist who teach and conduct research in genomics and ethics at the Rochester Institute of Technology. As in our classrooms, debate about genome editing continues in the field.

Listening to different perspectives about CRISPR could lead to more balanced discussions about how to regulate it.

What is genome editing?

The human genome typically consists of 23 pairs of chromosomes made of approximately 3.2 billion nucleotides – the building blocks of DNA. There are four nucleotides that make up DNA: adenine (A), thymine (T), guanine (G) and cytosine (C). If the genome were a book, each chromosome would be a chapter, each gene on a particular chromosome would be a paragraph and each paragraph would be made of individual letters (A, T, G or C).

One can imagine a book with over 3 billion characters might need editing to correct mistakes that occurred during the writing or copying processes.

Genome editing is a way for scientists to make specific changes to the DNA in a cell or in an entire organism by adding, removing or swapping in or out one or more nucleotides. In people, these changes can be done in somatic cells, those with DNA that cannot be inherited by offspring, or in gamete cells, those containing DNA that can be passed on to offspring. Genome editing of gamete cells, which includes egg or sperm, is controversial, as any changes would be passed on to descendants. Most existing guidelines and policies prohibit its use at this time.

Geneticist Jennifer Doudna is one of the co-inventors of CRISPR/Cas9.

How CRISPR works

In 2012, scientists published a groundbreaking study demonstrating how CRISPR, or Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, can be used to accurately change specific DNA sequences.

CRISPR’s natural origins are as a kind of immune response for bacteria. Bacteria that can be infected with viruses have evolved mechanisms to combat them. When a bacterium is infected with a particular virus, it keeps a small piece of the viral DNA sequence called a “spacer” in its own genome. This spacer is an exact match to the viral DNA. Upon subsequent infection, the bacterium is able to use the spacer to recruit a scissorlike protein called Cas9 that can sever new viral DNA attempting to integrate into the bacterium’s genome. This cut to the genetic material prevents the virus from replicating and killing its bacterial host.

After this discovery, scientists were able to fine-tune the system in the lab to be highly precise. They can sever DNA from a variety of cells, including human cells, at a specific location in the genome and subsequently edit it by adding, removing or swapping nucleotides. This is similar to adding or removing letters and words from a book.

This technology has the potential to treat diseases that have genetic origins. One of the summit’s sessions covered CRISPR’s ongoing experimental use to treat patients with sickle cell anemia and beta-thalassemia, two blood disorders caused by mutations in the genes. Notably, genetic modification to treat sickle cell anemia and beta-thalassemia involves editing somatic cells, not germline cells. But as the summit speakers noted, whether these likely expensive therapies will be accessible to the people who need them most, especially in low- and middle-income countries, is a problem that requires changes to how treatments are sold.

Scientists have been testing ways to use CRISPR/Cas9 to treat sickle cell anemia.

Ethics of human genome editing

Many questions remain concerning the safety of genome editing, along with its potential to promote eugenics and exacerbate inequities and inequality.

A number of the summit’s sessions involved discussion on the ethics and regulation of the use of this tool. While the landmark 1979 Belmont Report outlined several ethical pillars to guide human research in the U.S., it was published before human genome editing was developed. In 2021, the World Health Organization issued recommendations on human genome editing as a tool to advance public health. There is no current international law governing human genome editing.

There is still a debate regarding how to use this technology. Some people equate genome editing to interfering with the work of God and argue that it shouldn’t be used at all, while others recognize its potential value and weigh that against its potential risks. The latter focuses on the fundamental question of where to draw the line between which applications are considered acceptable and which are not. For example, some people will agree that using genome editing to modify a defective gene that may lead to an infant’s death if untreated is acceptable. But these same people may frown upon the use of genome editing to ensure that an unborn child has specific physical features such as blue eyes or blond hair.

Nor is there consensus about what diseases are desirable targets. For example, it may be acceptable to modify a gene to prevent an infant’s death but not acceptable to modify one that prevents a disease later in life, such as the gene responsible for Huntington’s disease.

The potential for positive applications of human genome editing is both numerous and tantalizing. But establishing informed regulatory legislation everyone can agree on is and will continue to be a challenge. Conferences such as the human genome editing summit are one way to continue important discussions and educate the scientific community and the public on the benefits and risks of genome editing.

André O. Hudson, Interim Dean/Professor-College of Science, Rochester Institute of Technology and Gary Skuse, Professor of Bioinformatics, Rochester Institute of Technology

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Presidential hopefuls are considering these 5 practical factors before launching their 2024 campaigns

Former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley announces her presidential run in Charleston, S.C, on Feb. 15, 2023. Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images

Robbin Mellen Jr., University of South Florida

The 2024 race for the White House is in motion. Democratic incumbent President Joe Biden said in October 2022 that he intends to seek a second term, even if he stopped short of making an official announcement. But – in what is expected to be a crowded Republican field – only a few candidates had announced their bids by late March 2023.

Former President Donald Trump, the last Republican to hold the office and party standard-bearer, said in November 2022 that he will seek the party’s nomination. And Republican Nikki Haley, one-time U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and former governor of South Carolina, announced in February 2023 that she is running.

In the weeks and months ahead, more presidential hopefuls likely will enter the race. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, for example, is expected to jump in after his state’s legislative session ends in May. And Sen. Tim Scott, of South Carolina, appears ready to announce soon.

Each candidate, along with their campaigns, makes decisions about the right time to jump into the race. But how do they decide?

The Conversation asked Rob Mellen Jr., a political scientist who studies the presidency, to explain five things presidential hopefuls consider before running for the highest office in the land.

President Joe Biden speaks on March 14, 2023, in Monterey Park, Calif. Mario Tama via Getty Images

1. Incumbent eligibility

The first thing potential presidential candidates consider is whether the incumbent president or, for the party out of office, the standard-bearer, is eligible to seek office.

Candidates who oppose incumbents - and popular past presidents of the same party - face nearly insurmountable obstacles, largely due to incumbent popularity. It offers officeholders seeking reelection a significant advantage. Between 1952 and 2000, for example, incumbent presidents enjoyed a 6 percentage point bonus in the popular vote.

Typically, incumbents have advantages because of their track records, name recognition – which affects a candidate’s level of voter and financial support – and their ability to direct federal money to the geographic areas that support them.

While the incumbent’s advantages typically cause potential challengers to think twice before running for president, there have been exceptions. In 1980, Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts unsuccessfully challenged incumbent President Jimmy Carter for the Democratic nomination. Kennedy failed, though, and his bid divided the Democratic Party.

Republican Ronald Reagan, a former governor of California, beat Carter in the general election and became the nation’s 40th president.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signs a copy of his book in Des Moines, Iowa, on March 10, 2023. Rachel Mummey/The Washington Post via Getty Images

2. The number of possible opponents

Potential candidates also consider the number of opponents they will have to compete against. A crowded field with numerous candidates makes it difficult for more than a three or four to gain traction before the first primary contests, which are usually held in January and February of election year.

If they are not the incumbent, a party standard-bearer or someone with otherwise significant name recognition, candidates with a lot of opponents typically find it tough to get their messages across, especially if they are competing against political stars.

During the 2016 Republican campaign, for example, 17 candidates entered the race, but only Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz stood out. Because of Trump’s celebrity status – earned from years of marketing himself as a billionaire and through reality television fame – Trump got a lot of attention from the media. His bombastic personality also played well with a segment of the Republican base. He drew significant media attention that other candidates could not match. And Cruz gained traction by finishing first in the Iowa caucuses, which allowed him to be competitive in the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries that followed.

3. Likely voters

Candidates have a few ways to identify their likely voters. They can visit early contest states and test their messages, just like Trump, DeSantis, Haley and Scott have been doing in Iowa and South Carolina. Or, they can deliver speeches at major gatherings of party loyalists, such as the annual Conservative Political Action Conference.

Conducting polls is another way for candidates to figure out how broad, or narrow, their bases of support are.

Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina speaks in Des Moines, Iowa, on Feb. 22, 2023. KC McGinnis/The Washington Post via Getty Images

4. Campaign Finance

Most presidential candidates also have to figure out how to finance what could become a lengthy bid for the party nomination. The main question they have to answer for themselves is, where will the money come from for sustained primary battles?

Connecting with wealthy backers who can can contribute large sums to a super PAC that supports the candidate can be the key to a candidate’s staying power.

Sometimes, committed large donors enable candidates to stay in the race much longer than expected, just as having backing from wealthy supporters and a super PAC prolonged former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s failed presidential bid in 2012.

But, as Gingrich’s run proved, having the backing of a super PAC, which is legally prohibited from coordinating efforts with candidates and their campaigns, is not a guarantee of success.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s 2016 campaign had the backing of the super PAC Right to Rise with a budget of over US$100 million. But his run for president ended after a disappointing fourth-place finish in the South Carolina primary.

Whether or not potential candidates have access to significant financial support influences their decisions to enter the race. It is extremely expensive to run a competitive campaign because of costs associated with staffing, travel, advertising and more. But candidates who fare well in the early contests tend to raise more money and survive longer in the primary process.

Former President Donald Trump delivers remarks on Feb. 22, 2023, to a crowd in East Palestine, Ohio, site of the Norfolk Southern train derailment earlier that month. Michael Swensen via Getty Images News

5. The mood of the electorate

The mood of the electorate also influences potential candidates’ decisions about whether to run. If the incumbent president is very popular – a rarity in modern American politics – it may scare off some would-be challengers.

But the public can be fickle. An incumbent may be popular a year before the general election, just as George H.W. Bush was in early 1991, only to see their popularity fade the following year. Bush lost the election to Bill Clinton in 1992.

The political fortunes of unpopular incumbents also can shift. In 1983, Reagan’s favorability ratings were very weak, but he rebounded by 1984 and beat Democratic candidate and former Vice President Walter Mondale in a 49-state landslide victory.

During presidential election years when there is no incumbent, as in 2008 and 2016, potential candidates’ calculations don’t have to include incumbent popularity. In 2016, both Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who sought the Democratic nomination, were able to tap into an electorate looking for change by appealing to supporters with populist messages.

Trump’s effort successfully secured the Republican nomination, while Sanders’ effort came up short as the Democratic party favored its first female nominee, former Sen. Hillary Clinton.

From determining whether an incumbent president is vulnerable to a challenge from within the party to the likelihood of defeating an incumbent of the opposite party, a significant amount of strategic planning is involved in any effort to win the presidency. And the planning begins long before the day candidates announce their intention to run.

Robbin Mellen Jr., Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of South Florida

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.