Can rainbows form in a circle? Fun facts on the physics of rainbows

The higher your vantage point, the more likely you’ll see more of the rainbow’s circle. Chen Hui/VCG via Getty Images

Partha Chowdhury, UMass Lowell

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com.

---

Can rainbows form in a circle? – Henry D., age 7, Cambridge, Massachusetts

---

The legend goes that there is a pot of gold hidden at the end of every rainbow. But is there really an “end” to a rainbow, and can we ever get to it?

Most us go through life seeing rainbows only as arches of color in the sky, but that’s only half of what is really a circle of color.

Normally, when you look at a rainbow, the Earth’s horizon in front of you hides the bottom half of the circle. But if you are standing on a mountain where you can see both above and below you, and the sun is behind you and it is misty or has just rained, chances are good that you will see more of the rainbow’s circle.

How full this rainbow looks depends in part on how high up you’re standing while watching sunlight hit the waterfall’s mist. Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images

To see the full circle, however, you will have to be in an airplane, literally above the clouds. Or you could create your own rainbow. I am a physicist, and I’ll explain how to do that in a minute.

How a rainbow forms

Rainbows form when sunlight from behind you hits millions of tiny round water droplets in front of you and bounces back to your eyes.

As a sunbeam hits a droplet at an angle, it bends into the water and separates out into a spectrum of colors. Scientists call the bending of light “refracting.” The colors separate because each “color” of light travels with a different speed in water, or, for that matter, any transparent material that light can travel through, like glass in a prism.

When the colors hit the back wall of the water droplet, the angle is now too shallow for them to bend out into the air, so they reflect back into the water droplet and return to its entrance wall. From there, the colors can bend out again into air and reach your eye.

The United Kingdom’s Meteorology Office explains how light refracts, or bends, in a water droplet or a prism.

As you look at these droplets, the different colors happen to bunch up at a slightly different angle, and each color forms the circular rim of a cone with your eye at the tip of the cone. And, voila, you have your own personal rainbow.

The droplets that send the colors to your eye cannot send them to anyone else, so even though everyone near you sees the same rainbow at a distance, each person really sees their own slightly different rainbow. It’s all in the eye of the beholder.

For rainbows to form, the shape of the water droplets has to be very close to a sphere for all of them to bend and reflect the colors in harmony. This happens for very small droplets, such as a fine mist, or just after a rain shower when the air is just moist. As the droplets get larger, gravity distorts their shape and the rainbow vanishes.

Even though it looks like this elephant is bathing in a rainbow, the elephant wouldn’t see it in the same way. Mads Claus Rasmussen / Ritzau Scanpix / AFP

A rainbow is not physically present where it appears to be, similar to your image in a mirror. So, I’m sorry to say that you can never actually reach your rainbow. And, alas, nobody can ever find that pot of gold.

But you can create your own rainbow.

How to create and see a circular rainbow

One experiment you can try in summer is to turn on a sprinkler hose using the “mist” setting. Remember to have the sun behind you. If you create a fine mist screen in front of you and look at your shadow, you might see a rainbow.

It might take some work, but you can see your own full-circle rainbows in the mist. Gary Hershorn/Getty Images

It is not difficult to see colors, but to see a full circle, you will need some patience and practice, just like scientists.

So next time you are on an airplane, grab the window seat. If you are flying a little above the cloud cover, keep a lookout for the small shadow of your plane on the clouds. That means the sun is behind you.

The clouds are tiny water droplets, so chances are you may see a small circle of color around the shadow of the airplane. This phenomenon is nicknamed “pilot’s glory,” because pilots who fly all the time and have a good view from the cockpit have a better chance of seeing it.

The circular rainbow you see around an airplane’s shadow is called ‘pilot’s glory.’ Matthew Straubmuller/Flickr, CC BY

And if you really can’t wait to see what it looks like, there’s always the internet.

---

Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.

And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.

Partha Chowdhury, Professor of Physics, UMass Lowell

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

How corporations use greenwashing to convince you they are battling climate change

Consumers must do their homework before determining whether a company is actually green. Victor de Schwanberg/Science Photo Library via Getty Images

Tom Lyon, University of Michigan

Many corporations claim their products are “green-friendly.” But how do you know if what they’re selling is truly eco-safe? SciLine interviewed Thomas Lyon, professor of sustainable science, technology and commerce at the University of Michigan, on how to buy environmentally sustainable products, whether carbon credits actually work and the prevalence of greenwashing.

Dr. Thomas Lyon discusses the impact of corporate sustainability initiatives.

Below are some highlights from the discussion. Answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.

What is greenwashing?

Thomas Lyon: Greenwashing is any communication that leads the listener to adopt an overly favorable impression of a company’s greenness.

How can the consumer avoid falling for it?

Thomas Lyon: I still love the old concept of the seven sins of greenwashing. The first and most common is what’s called the sin of the hidden trade-off, where an organization tells you something good they do but neglects to tell you the bad things that go along with it.

For example, when you see an electric hand dryer in a public restroom, it may say on it: This dryer protects the environment. It saves trees from being used for paper.

But it neglects to tell you that, of course, it’s powered with electricity, and that electricity may have been generated from coal-fired power, which might actually be more damaging than using a tree, which is a renewable resource. That’s the most common of the seven deadly sins.

Other ones include the sin of irrelevance. For example, telling people that “this ship has an onboard wastewater recycling plant,” when all ships that go to Alaska are required by law to have exactly that kind of equipment. It’s no reflection of the company’s quality.

The sin of fibbing is actually the least common. Companies don’t usually actually lie about things. After all, it’s against the law.

One of the increasingly common forms of greenwashing … is a hidden trade-off between the company’s market activities and its political activities.

You may get a company that says: Look at this, we invested US$5 million in renewable energy last year. They may not tell you that they spent $100 billion drilling for oil in a sensitive location. And they may not tell you that they spent $50 million lobbying against climate legislation that would have made a real difference.

What are carbon credits (or offsets)?

Thomas Lyon: I think the easiest way to understand these may be to step back a little bit and think about cap-and-trade systems … under which the government will set a cap on the aggregate amount of, say, carbon emissions. And within that, each company gets a right to emit a certain amount of carbon.

But that company can then trade permits with other companies. Suppose the company finds it’s going to be really expensive for it to reduce its carbon emissions. But there’s some other company next door that could do it really cheaply.

The company with the expensive reductions could pay the other company to do the reductions for it, and it then buys one of the permits – or more than one permit – from the company that can do it cheaply.

That kind of trading system has been recommended by economists for decades, because it lowers the overall cost of achieving a given level of emissions reduction. And that’s a clean, well-enforced, reliable system.

Now the place where things get confusing for people is that a lot of times the offsets are not coming from within a cap-and-trade system. Instead they’re coming from a voluntary offset that’s offered by some free-standing producer that’s not included in a cap.

Now it’s necessary to ask a whole series of additional questions. Perhaps the foremost among them is: Is this offset actually producing a reduction that was not going to happen anyway?

It may be that the company claims, “Oh, we’re saving this forest from being cut down.” But maybe the forest was in a protected region in a country where there was no chance it was going to be cut down anyway. So that offset is not what is called in the offset world “additional.”

What should consumers make of companies that offer programs such as planting a tree for every widget they sell?

Thomas Lyon: Overall, it’s better that they’re trying to do something than just ignoring the issue. But this is where you, the consumer, have to start doing your homework … and look for a provider that has a strong reputation and that is making claims validated by external sources.

Which rating schemes can people trust?

Thomas Lyon: There’s a cool little app that I like a lot. You can download it. It’s called EWG Healthy Living. EWG stands for Environmental Working Group. It’s a group of scientists who get together and draw on science to assess which products are environmentally friendly, and which ones aren’t. And they have something like 150,000 products in their database.

You can scan the UPC code when you go to the store, and you just immediately get this information up on your phone that rates the quality of the company’s environmental claims and performance. That’s a really nice little way to verify things on the fly.

Are there any examples of business practices that really do benefit the environment?

Thomas Lyon: Building is one big area. LEED building standards or Energy Star building standards reduce environmental impact. They improve the quality of the indoor environment for employees. They actually produce higher rents because people are more willing to work in these kinds of buildings.

You can look at the whole movement toward renewable energy and companies that produce solar or wind energy. They’re doing something that really is good for the environment.

The move toward electric vehicles – that really will be good for the environment. It does raise trade-offs. There are going to be issues around certain critical mineral inputs into producing batteries, and we’ve got to figure out good ways to reuse batteries and then dispose of them at the end of their life.

Watch the full interview to hear more.

SciLine is a free service based at the nonprofit American Association for the Advancement of Science that helps journalists include scientific evidence and experts in their news stories.

Tom Lyon, Professor of Sustainable Science, Technology and Commerce and Business Economics, University of Michigan

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

Why so many South Korean women are refusing to date, marry or have kids

South Korean women protest against sexism and digital sex crimes, such as the making of pornography using hidden cameras. Jean Chung/Getty Images

Min Joo Lee, Indiana University

South Korea finds itself embroiled in an all-out gender war – and it keeps getting worse.

The animosity between Korean men and women has reached a point where some women are outright refusing to date, marry and have kids with men – a phenomenon known as the 4B movement.

As a Korean feminist scholar living in the U.S., I’ve followed this gender war from afar as I conducted research on contemporary Korean gender politics.

However, I also became embroiled in it myself after my research on Korean masculinity was published by CNN.

The article described foreign women who traveled to Korea after becoming enamored of the idea of dating Korean men from watching Korean television dramas. I pointed out that since the tourists’ fantasies were based on fictional characters, some of them ended up disappointed with the Korean men they dated in real life.

The article was about racial politics and the masculine ideals. But some Korean readers thought that I was simply criticizing Korean men for not being romantic and handsome enough. One enraged Korean man commented that I was an “ugly feminist.”

But this was tame in comparison to what women living in South Korea have endured in recent years.

Extreme misogyny and a feminist backlash

Over the past couple of decades, there have been flash points in this gender war.

In 2010, Ilbe, a right-wing website that traffics in misogyny, started attracting users who peppered the forums with vulgar posts about women.

Then in 2015, an online extremist feminist group named Megalia arose. Its goal was to fight back by demeaning Korean men in ways that mirrored the rhetoric on sites like Ilbe.

A year later, a man who had professed his hatred of women murdered a random woman in a public bathroom near a Seoul subway station. He was eventually sentenced to decades in prison, but the lines were quickly drawn. On one side were feminists, who saw misogyny as the underlying motive. On the other side were men who claimed that it was merely the isolated actions of a mentally ill man. The two groups violently clashed during competing protests at the site of the murder.

A backdrop of digital sex crimes

However, none of these events have elicited as much public controversy as the steep rise in digital sex crimes. These are newer forms of sexual violence facilitated by technology: revenge porn; upskirting, which refers to surreptitiously snapping photos under women’s skirts in public; and the use of hidden cameras to film women having sex or undressing.

In 2018, there were 2,289 reported cases of digital sex crimes; in 2021, the number snowballed to 10,353.

In 2019, there were two major incidents that involved digital sex crimes.

In one, a number of male K-pop stars were indicted for filming and circulating videos of women in group chatrooms without their consent.

A few months later, Koreans were shocked to learn about what became known as the “Nth Room Incident,” during which hundreds of perpetrators – mostly men – committed digital sex crimes on dozens of women and minors.

They tended to target poorer women – sex workers, or women who wanted to make a few bucks by sharing anonymous nude photos of themselves. The perpetrators either hacked into their social media accounts or approached these women and offered them money, but asked for their personal information so they could transmit the funds. Once they obtained this information, they blackmailed the women by threatening to reveal their sex work and their nudes to their friends and family.

Since sex work and posting nude images of yourself online are illegal in Korea, the women, fearing arrest or being ostracized by friends and family, complied with the perpetrators’ demands to send even more compromising images of themselves. The men would then swap these images in chatrooms.

Protests erupted in Seoul in July 2019 after women were drugged and sexually abused at a popular nightclub partly owned by the K-Pop star Seungri. Jean Chung/Getty Images

And yet a 2019 survey conducted by the Korean government found that large swaths of the population blamed women for these sex crimes: 52% said that they believed sexual violence occurs because women wear revealing clothes, while 37% thought if women experienced sexual assault while drunk, they are partly to blame for their victimization.

In other words, a significant percentage of the Korean population believes that female sexuality is the problem – not the sexual violence.

Government policy lays the groundwork

Digital sex crimes are too widespread to lay the blame at the feet of a handful of bad actors.

To me, part of the problem stems from the long history of “gendered citizenship.”

Korean feminist scholar Seungsook Moon has written about the ways in which the government created one track for men and another for women as the country sought to modernize in the second half of the 20th century:

“Men were mobilized for mandatory military service and then, as conscripts, utilized as workers and researchers in the industrializing economy. Women were consigned to lesser factory jobs, and their roles as members of the modern nation were defined largely in terms of biological reproduction and household management.”

Although these policies are no longer officially carried out, the underlying attitudes about gender roles remain embedded in Korean life and culture. Women who veer from being mothers and housewives expose themselves to public and private backlash.

The government has created gender quotas in certain industries to try to unravel this system of gendered citizenship.

For instance, some government jobs have minimum gender quotas for new hires, and the government encourages the private sector to implement similar policies. In historically male-dominant industries, such as construction, there are quotas for female hires, while in historically female-dominant industries, such as education, there are male quotas.

In some ways, this has only made things worse. Each gender feels as if the other is receiving special treatment due to these affirmative action policies. Resentment festers.

‘The generation that has given up’

Today, the sense of competition between young men and women is exacerbated by the soaring cost of living and rampant unemployment.

Called the “N-Po Generation,” which roughly translates as “the generation that has given up,” many young South Koreans don’t think they can achieve certain milestones that previous generations took for granted: marriage, having kids, finding a job, owning a home and even friendships.

Members of South Korea’s Women’s Party campaign ahead of the 2020 election. Though the party didn’t win any races, it marked the first time a feminist party sought seats in the National Assembly. Jung Yeon-Je/AFP via Getty Images

Although all genders find themselves discouraged, the act of “giving up” has caused more problems for women. Men see women who forgo marriage and having kids as selfish. And when they then try to compete against men for jobs, some men become incensed.

Many of the men who have become radicalized commit digital sex crimes to take revenge on women who, in their view, have abandoned their duties.

Ultimately, the competitive dynamic created by the Korean government’s embrace of gendered citizenship has stoked the virulent gender war between Korean men and women, with digital sex crimes used as ammunition.

The 4B movement, whereby Korean women forego heterosexual dating, marriage, and childbirth, represents a radical escalation of the gender war by seeking to create an online and offline world devoid of men. Rather than engaging in altercations, these women are refusing to interact with men, period.

Digital sex crimes are a global problem

To be sure, digital sex crimes are not unique to Korea.

When I teach my college class on digital sex crimes in the U.S., I’m surprised by how many of my students admit that they’ve been victims of digital sex crimes, or knew of it happening at their high schools. And at the National Women’s Studies Association’s annual conference in 2022, I watched feminist activists and scholars from all over the world present their findings about digital sex crimes back home.

Since each country has its own cultural context for the rise in digital sex crimes, there isn’t a single solution to solve the problems. But in South Korea, continuing to unravel the system of gendered citizenship could be part of the solution.

Min Joo Lee, Postdoctoral Fellow, Indiana University

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

What is hydrogen, and can it really become a climate change solution?

Hydrogen has potential, but it faces some big challenges, including a lack of pipeline infrastructure. Petmal/iStock/Getty Images Pluss plus

Hannes van der Watt, University of North Dakota

Hydrogen, or H₂, is getting a lot of attention lately as governments in the U.S., Canada and Europe push to cut their greenhouse gas emissions.

But what exactly is H₂, and is it really a clean power source?

I specialize in researching and developing H₂ production techniques. Here are some key facts about this versatile chemical that could play a much larger role in our lives in the future.

So, what is hydrogen?

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, but because it’s so reactive, it isn’t found on its own in nature. Instead, it is typically bound to other atoms and molecules in water, natural gas, coal and even biological matter like plants and human bodies.

Hydrogen can be isolated, however. And on its own, the H₂ molecule packs a heavy punch as a highly effective energy carrier.

It is already used in industry to manufacture ammonia, methanol and steel and in refining crude oil. As a fuel, it can store energy and reduce emissions from vehicles, including buses and cargo ships.

Hydrogen can also be used to generate electricity with lower greenhouse gas emissions than coal or natural gas power plants. That potential is getting more attention as the U.S. government proposes new rules that would require existing power plants to cut their carbon dioxide emissions.

Because it can be stored, H₂ could help overcome intermittency issues associated with renewable power sources like wind and solar. It can also be blended with natural gas in existing power plants to reduce the plant’s emissions.

Using hydrogen in power plants can reduce carbon dioxide emissions when either blended or alone in specialized turbines, or in fuel cells, which consume H₂ and oxygen, or O₂, to produce electricity, heat and water. But it’s typically not entirely CO₂-free. That’s in part because isolating H₂ from water or natural gas takes a lot of energy.

How is hydrogen produced?

There are a few common ways to produce H₂:

• Electrolysis can isolate hydrogen by splitting water – H₂O – into H₂ and O₂ using an electric current.

• Methane reforming uses steam to split methane, or CH₄, into H₂ and CO₂. Oxygen and steam or CO₂ can also be used for this splitting process.

• Gasification transforms hydrocarbon-based materials – including biomass, coal or even municipal waste – into synthesis gas, an H₂-rich gas that can be used as a fuel either on its own or as a precursor for producing chemicals and liquid fuels.

Each has benefits and drawbacks.

Green, blue, gray – what do the colors mean?

Hydrogen is often described by colors to indicate how clean, or CO₂-free, it is. The cleanest is green hydrogen.

Green H₂ is produced using electrolysis powered by renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar or hydropower. While green hydrogen is completely CO₂-free, it is costly, at around US$4-$9 per kilogram ($2-$4 per pound) because of the high energy required to split water.

The largest share of hydrogen today is made from natural gas, meaning methane, which is a potent greenhouse gas. IRENA (2020), Green Hydrogen: A guide to policymaking

Other less energy-intensive techniques can produce H₂ at a lower cost, but they still emit greenhouse gases.

Gray H₂ is the most common type of hydrogen. It is made from natural gas through methane reforming. This process releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and costs around $1-$2.50 per kilogram (50 cents-$1 per pound).

If gray hydrogen’s CO₂ emissions are captured and locked away so they aren’t released into the atmosphere, it can become blue hydrogen. The costs are higher, at around $1.50-$3 per kilogram (70 cents-$1.50 per pound) to produce, and greenhouse gas emissions can still escape when the natural gas is produced and transported.

An electrolyzer system at a hydrogen production plant in Mallorca, Spain. Jaime Reina/AFP via Getty Images

Another alternative is turquoise hydrogen, produced using both renewable and nonrenewable resources. Renewable resources provide clean energy to convert methane – CH₄ – into H₂ and solid carbon, rather than that carbon dioxide that must be captured and stored. This type of pyrolysis technology is still new, and is estimated to cost between $1.60 and $2.80 per kilogram (70 cents-$1.30 per pound).

Can we switch off the lights on fossil fuels now?

Over 95% of the H₂ produced in the U.S. today is gray hydrogen made with natural gas, which still emits greenhouse gases.

Whether H₂ can ramp up as a natural gas alternative for the power industry and other uses, such as for transportation, heating and industrial processes, will depend on the availability of low-cost renewable energy for electrolysis to generate green H₂.

It will also depend on the development and expansion of pipelines and other infrastructure to efficiently store, transport and dispense H₂.

Without the infrastructure, H₂ use won’t grow quickly. It’s a modern-day version of “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” Continued use of fossil fuels for H₂ production could spur investment in H₂ infrastructure, but using fossil fuels releases greenhouse gases.

What does the future hold for hydrogen?

Although green and blue hydrogen projects are emerging, they are small so far.

Policies like Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions limits and the 2022 U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, which offers tax credits up to $3 per kilogram ($1.36 per pound) of H₂, could help make cleaner hydrogen more competitive.

Hydrogen demand is projected to increase up to two to four times its current level by 2050. For that to be green H₂ would require significant amounts of renewable energy at the same time that new solar, wind and other renewable energy power plants are being built to provide electricity directly to the power sector.

While green hydrogen is a promising trend, it is not the only solution to meeting the world’s energy needs and carbon-free energy goals. A combination of renewable energy sources and clean H₂, including blue, green or turquoise, will likely be necessary to meet the world’s energy needs in a sustainable way.

Hannes van der Watt, Research Assistant Professor, University of North Dakota

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

Pliny the Elder’s radical idea to catalog knowledge

This year marks 2,000 years since the birth of the Roman author of the first natural encyclopedia

By Tom Siegfried

Among the achievements of the ancient Roman Empire still acclaimed today, historians list things like aqueducts, roads, legal theory, exceptional architecture and the spread of Latin as the language of intellect (along with the Latin alphabet, memorialized nowadays in many popular typefaces). Rome was not known, though, for substantially advancing basic science.

But in the realm of articulating and preserving current knowledge about nature, one Roman surpassed all others. He was the polymath Gaius Plinius Secundus, aka Pliny the Elder, the original compiler of scientific knowledge by reviewing previously published works.

If he were immortal, Pliny would be celebrating his 2,000th birthday this year. Nobody knows his exact date of birth, but we can infer the year 23 CE because his nephew reported how old he was when he died. His death was on August 25, 79 CE, a date established by an unfortunate event associated with a volcano.

Pliny was like a Renaissance man a millennium and a half before the Renaissance. Apart from his Roman Empire obligations as a military commander and provincial governmental official, he was a student of law, language, history, geography and every single branch of natural science. An indefatigable worker of intense curiosity about everything, he disdained sleep because it kept him from his tasks, and hated walking, because he could not walk and write at the same time.

His Natural History, a 37-volume masterpiece of high literary quality yet immense factual density, attempted to record and systematize the totality of human knowledge about nature. He reviewed hundreds of ancient texts by the most illustrious authors in all scientific fields, extracting from them thousands of specific facts to preserve for posterity. As the late classicist David Eichholz wrote, Pliny’s motivation was “his anxiety to save the science of past ages from the forgetful indifference of the present.”

Pliny was born in Como, Italy, into a family of sufficient stature that he was educated in Rome and then pursued a military career, including service as commander of a cavalry squadron in Germany. During that time, he wrote a history of Roman military activity in that region, after first composing a now lost treatise on how best to throw a javelin.

By about 58 CE, Pliny had returned to Rome, where he devoted his writing to grammar and rhetoric and maybe practiced law. He avoided governmental involvement for years, probably because he was no friend of the crazy emperor, Nero. But he was friendly with Vespasian, who became emperor in 69. Pliny soon assumed governmental positions in Roman provinces in Spain, France and possibly Africa.

All along, Pliny read voraciously (or had books read aloud to him). He collected fact after fact about the natural world, with the aim of compiling a comprehensive account of all the knowledge about nature that those before him had accumulated. Nobody else had ever produced anything so encyclopedic about natural science. (In fact, the very concept of “encyclopedia” was unknown at the time.) He published it in 77 CE, two years before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Pliny was then commanding a fleet of Roman ships that sailed to the vicinity of the volcano, perhaps because of Pliny’s curiosity or possibly on a rescue mission. Tradition said Pliny died from inhaling toxic volcanic fumes, although some historians suspect he just had a heart attack.

Pliny began Book 1 of his Natural History  with a dedication to the emperor Titus (Vespasian’s son) and an itemization of what was to follow. First came a book on the universe, heavenly bodies and the elements, followed by several books on the geography of the Earth and its inhabitants. Book 7 discussed man and his inventions. Then came the animals (land and sea), and then one book each on birds and insects. Many volumes followed on various aspects of plants, trees, flowers and fruits, and their cultivation. Botanical themes continued in several books on the use of plant products in medicine. Next came more medicine, with commentary on medicinal substances derived from animals. Pliny finished with five books on metals and minerals, including their role in painting, providing the earliest detailed account of the history of art.

Pliny’s emphasis on facts obscured an underlying philosophy about the universe and humankind’s place in it. His approach was not to defend any philosophy, but to discuss nature factually. That meant, as the classics historian Aude Doody wrote, “ knowing that six European trees produce pitch, that there are three kinds of lettuce, that the best kind of emeralds come from Scythia.” Yet Pliny’s presentation was nevertheless infected with a deeply held belief that the universe existed to serve humankind. As Doody noted, Pliny believed that nature is “a conscious, creative power, who deliberately organizes the world with the needs of humanity in mind.” That view reflected the philosophy of the Stoics, popular in those days, that the cosmos was infused with a powerful cohesive force, or pneuma, which unites everything that exists and determines matter’s properties.

“The whole of nature is animated by a providential presence that directs it, and this divine power can be identified both with nature and with the world itself,” Doody commented. Which is what made comprehending all of nature so important for Pliny.

Pliny’s books served as an authoritative source of information about nature for centuries. “The Natural History continued to be used as a practical source of medical and scientific knowledge right into the 16th century,” Doody commented. Today it remains a useful resource for scholars studying ancient knowledge and, in fact, is still sometimes cited in scientific papers today. In the 2020 Annual Review of Cell and Developmental Biology, for instance, Sarah M. Mohr and colleagues cite Pliny as one of the earliest authors to describe hibernation. And bioluminescence, a hot research topic in the 21st century, was first reported (in scyphozoans) by Pliny, as Steven H.D. Haddock and coauthors reported in the 2010 Annual Review of Marine Science.

Yet for all its benefits, Pliny’s Natural History had one serious drawback. It was full of errors. Pliny pretty much believed everything he read from ancient authorities, and essentially retweeted it all without any fact checking. His book on land animals includes the mythical monoceros or unicorn, a “ very fierce animal,” he wrote, with “a single black horn which projects from the middle of its forehead.” (It’s not a rhinoceros — he describes that beast elsewhere.)  And he mentions the legendary Ethiopian animal called the catoblepas, deadly to the human race, “ for all who behold its eyes, fall dead upon the spot.” (He might better have titled his animal book Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. And yes, he describes the basilisk, which can also kill by sight, and destroys plants by its touch or even its breath.)

On the other hand, Pliny did occasionally express skepticism and he rejected some outrageous claims. For one, he dismissed the idea of immortality. Had he been wrong, there would be a serious fire hazard at his birthday party this year.

Tom Siegfried is a science journalist in Avon, Ohio. His book The Number of the Heavens, about the history of the multiverse, was published in 2019 by Harvard University Press.

This article originally appeared in Knowable Magazine, an independent journalistic endeavor from Annual Reviews.

Lessons from ‘Star Trek: Picard’ – a cybersecurity expert explains how a sci-fi series illuminates today’s threats

Richard Forno, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Editor’s note: This article contains plot spoilers.

Society’s understanding of technology and cybersecurity often is based on simple stereotypes and sensational portrayals in the entertainment media. I’ve written about how certain scenarios are entertaining but misleading. Think of black-clad teenage hackers prowling megacities challenging corporate villains. Or think of counterintelligence specialists repositioning a satellite from the back of a surveillance van via a phone call.

But sometimes Hollywood gets it right by depicting reality in ways that both entertain and educate. And that’s important, because whether it’s a large company, government or your personal information, we all share many of the same cybersecurity threats and vulnerabilities. As a former cybersecurity industry practitioner and current cybersecurity researcher, I believe the final season of “Star Trek: Picard” is the latest example of entertainment media providing useful lessons about cybersecurity and the nature of the modern world.

So how does “Star Trek: Picard” relate to cybersecurity?

The nature of the threat

The show’s protagonist is Jean-Luc Picard, a retired Starfleet admiral who commanded the starship Enterprise-D in a previous series. Starfleet is the military wing of the United Federation of Planets, of which Earth is a member. In Season 3, the final season, Picard’s ultimate enemy, the Borg, returns to try conquering humanity again. The Borg is a cybernetic collective of half-human, half-machine “drones” led by a cyborg queen.

The Borg has partnered with other villains and worked for over a decade to deploy hidden agents able to compromise the DNA data contained in the software underpinning the transporter – a teleportation device used regularly by Starfleet personnel. Over many years, a certain subgroup of Starfleet personnel had their DNA altered by using the transporter.

Thus, in launching their final attack, the Borg is able to instantly activate thousands of “drones” to do its bidding in the form of altered, compromised Starfleet personnel. As Geordi La Forge, the Enterprise-D’s engineer, notes, “They’ve been assimilating the entire fleet this whole time, without anyone ever knowing it.”

Instead of malicious software taking over computers, the plot involves malicious genetic code taking over humans.

The Borg’s prolonged, stealthy infiltration of the federation is indicative of how today’s most effective cyberattackers work. While it’s relatively easy to detect when hackers attempt to breach a system from the outside, experts worry about the effects of an enemy infiltrating critical systems from within. Attackers can put malicious code in software during manufacturing or in software updates, both of which are avenues of attack that do not arouse suspicion until the compromised systems are activated or targeted.

This underscores the importance of ensuring the security and integrity of digital supply chains from product development at the vendor through product deployment at client sites to ensure no silent “drones,” such as malware, are waiting to be activated by an adversary.

Equally important, “Star Trek: Picard” presents the very real and insidious nature of the insider threat faced by today’s organizations. While not infected with a cybernetic virus, recently arrested Massachusetts Air National Guard airman Jack Teixeira shows the damage that can occur when a trusted employee has malicious intent or becomes co-opted and inflicts significant damage on an employer.

In some cases, these compromised or malicious individuals can remain undiscovered for years. And some global adversaries of the U.S., such as China and Russia, are known for taking a long-term perspective when it comes to planning and conducting espionage activities – or cyberattacks.

Humans remain the weakest link

“Synchronistic technology that allows every ship in Starfleet to operate as one. An impenetrable armada. Unity and defense. The ultimate safeguard.”

With these words, humanity’s military defenders activated a feature that linked every Starfleet vessel together under one unified automated command system. While intended to serve as an emergency capability, this system – called Fleet Formation – was quickly hijacked by the Borg as part of its attack on Earth. In essence, Starfleet created a Borg-like defense system that the Borg itself used to attack the federation.

Here, the most well-intentioned plans for security were thwarted by enemies who used humanity’s own technologies against them. In the real world, capabilities such as on-demand real-time software updates, ChatGPT and centrally administered systems sound enticing and offer conveniences, cost savings or new capabilities. However, the lesson here is that organizations should not put them into widespread use without carefully considering as many of the potential risks or vulnerabilities as practical.

But even then, technology alone can’t protect humans from ourselves – after all, it’s people who develop, design, select, administer and use technology, which means human flaws are present in these systems, too. Such failings frequently lead to a stream of high-profile cybersecurity incidents.

Resiliency is not futile

To counter the Borg’s final assault on Earth, Picard’s crew borrows its old starship, Enterprise-D, from a fleet museum. The rationale is that its ship is the only major combat vessel not connected to the Borg collective via Starfleet’s compromised Fleet Formation protocol and therefore is able to operate independently during the crisis. As La Forge notes, “Something older, analog. Offline from the others.”

When a network has been compromised, it’s important to be able to use systems that aren’t connected to the network.

From a cybersecurity perspective, ensuring the availability of information resources is one of the industry’s guiding principles. Here, the Enterprise-D represents defenders in response to a cyber incident using assets that are outside of an adversary’s reach. Perhaps more important, the vessel symbolizes the need to think carefully before embracing a completely networked computing environment or relying on any single company or provider of services and connectivity for daily operations.

From natural disasters to cyberattack, what’s your plan if your IT environment becomes corrupted or inaccessible? Can your organization stay operational and still provide necessary services? For critical public messaging, do governments and corporations have their own uncorruptible Enterprise-D capabilities to fall back on, such as the fediverse, the decentralized microblogging platform that is immune to the impulsive manipulations of Twitter’s ownership?

Prepare for the unknown

The “Star Trek” universe explores the unknown in both the universe and contemporary society. How the crews deal with these experiences relies on their training, the appreciation of broad perspectives and ability to devise innovative solutions to the crisis of the week. Often, such solutions are derived from characters’ interests in music, painting, archaeology, history, sports and other nontechnical areas of study, recreation or expertise.

Similarly, as modern digital defenders, to successfully confront our own cyber unknowns we need a broad appreciation of things beyond just cybersecurity and technology. It’s one thing to understand at a technical level how a cyberattack occurs and how to respond. But it’s another thing to understand the broader, perhaps more systemic, nuanced, organizational or international factors that may be causes or solutions, too.

Lessons from literature, history, psychology, philosophy, law, management and other nontechnical disciplines can inform how organizations plan for and respond to cybersecurity challenges of all types. Balancing solid technical knowledge with foundations in the liberal arts and humanities allows people to adapt comfortably to constantly evolving technologies and shifting threats.

Dystopic metaphors in fiction often reflect current social concerns, and the “Star Trek” universe is no different. Although rooted in a science fiction fantasy, “Star Trek: Picard” provides some accurate, practical and understandable cybersecurity reminders for today.

Season 3, in particular, offers viewers both entertainment and education – indeed, the best of both worlds.

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

Gen Z goes retro: Why the younger generation is ditching smartphones for ‘dumb phones’

Sales of so-called “dumb phones,” like flip and slide phones, are on the rise among the younger generation. (Shutterstock)

Omar H. Fares, Toronto Metropolitan University

There is a growing movement among Gen Z to do away with smartphones and revert back to “less smart” phones like old-school flip and slide phones. Flip phones were popular in the mid-1990s and 2000s, but now seem to be making a comeback among younger people.

While this may seem like a counter-intuitive trend in our technology-reliant society, a Reddit forum dedicated to “dumb phones” is steadily gaining in popularity. According to a CNBC new report, flip phones sales are on the rise in the U.S.

Gen Z’s interest in flip phones is the latest in a series of obsessions young people are having with the aesthetic of the 1990s and 2000s. Y2K fashion has been steadily making a comeback over the past few years and the use of vintage technology, like disposable cameras, is on the rise.

There are a few reasons why, including nostalgia and yearning for an idealized version of the past, doing a “digital detox” and increasing privacy concerns.

The power of nostalgia

Nostalgia is a complex emotion that involves reconnecting with the happy emotions of an idealized past by recalling positive memories.

Over the years, marketers have realized that nostalgia is a powerful way to evoke positive emotions — so much so that nostalgia marketing has become a recognized marketing strategy. It leverages positive memories and feelings associated with the past to create an emotional connection with consumers.

A wealth of research shows that nostalgia can result in consumers being willing to pay more, enhance brand ties, increased purchase intention and increased digital brand engagement.

Nostalgia may be a driving factor behind people purchasing flip phones because they evoke memories of a previous era in mobile communication.

But nostalgia marketing doesn’t just target the younger generation — it’s also a powerful tool for advertising to those who grew up using older mobile devices. Nokia is an example of a company that understands this well.

A YouTube advertisement for Nokia’s 2720 V Flip shows how brands can use nostalgia marketing to appeal to customers and drive product sales.

A marketing video about the Nokia 2720 V Flip, a modern take on the flip phones from the 2000s.

When older generations speak about objects from the past, they usually hearken back to “the golden era” or “golden time.” The comment section of the Nokia video showcases this kind of thinking.

One comment reads: “My first phone was a Nokia 2760! It was also a flip phone. This brings back good memories.” Another says: “I am definitely getting this just for good old memories. When life was easy.”

Digital detox

Another reason why people might be purchasing flip phones is to do a digital detox and cut down on screen time. A digital detox refers to a period of time when a person refrains from using their electronic devices, like smartphones, to focus on social connections in the physical world and reduce stress.

In 2022, people in the U.S. spent more than 4.5 hours daily on their mobile devices. In Canada, adults self-reported spending about 3.2 hours per day in front of screens in 2022. Children and youth had about three hours of screen time per day in 2016 and 2017.

Excessive smartphone usage can result in a number of harmful side effects, such as sleep disruption. Just over 50 per cent of Canadians check their smartphones before they go to sleep.

The blue-light emitted from smartphones may suppress melatonin production, making it harder to sleep and causing physiological issues including reduced glucose tolerance, increased blood pressure and increased inflammatory markers.

Just over 50 per cent of Canadians check their smartphones before they go to sleep. (Shutterstock)

The increased level of digital connectivity and the pressure to respond instantly, especially in a post-pandemic world where many people work remotely, can lead to increased levels of anxiety and stress. Being constantly online can also lead to reduced social connectivity and can negatively impact personal relationships and social skills.

The constant digital noise and multi-tasking nature of smartphones and apps like TikTok can lead to decreased attention spans. From my personal observations in the classroom, I’ve noticed students find it difficult to concentrate for prolonged periods of time.

A condition known as text neck can also occur when a person spends extended periods of time looking down at an electronic device. The repetitive strain of holding the head forward and down can cause discomfort and pain in the neck.

As people become more aware of the potential side effects of excessive screen time and constant digital connectivity, some are choosing to digitally detox. Flip phones are a way people can limit their exposure to digital noise and build a healthier relationship with technology.

Privacy concerns

Smartphones have a long list of advanced features such as cameras, GPS and tons of mobile applications — all of which can store and access a significant list of personal data.

In some cases, personal data can be used for targeted advertisements, but in worst cases that information can be leaked as part of a data breach. More and more people are growing concerned with how their data is being collected, shared and used by companies and online platforms.

The Motorola Razr was a type of flip phone that was extremely popular in the mid-2000s. (Shutterstock)

It’s natural to feel worried about the potential misuse of our personal information. That’s why some people are taking matters into their own hands and seeking out creative ways to limit the amount of data being collected about them.

Old-fashioned flip phones generally have fewer features that collect and store personal data compared to smartphones. That can make them a more attractive option for people concerned with privacy, data breaches or surveillance.

But this trend doesn’t mean smartphones are going out of style. There are still millions of smartphones being shipped worldwide every year. The trend may result in users opting to own both a smartphone and a flip phone, allowing users to digitally detox and reduce screen time without sacrificing the benefits of social media.

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

What’s a Luddite? An expert on technology and society explains

Some Luddites simply want to press ‘pause’ on the uninhibited march of technological progress. Stan Eales/iStock via Getty Images

Andrew Maynard, Arizona State University

The term “Luddite” emerged in early 1800s England. At the time there was a thriving textile industry that depended on manual knitting frames and a skilled workforce to create cloth and garments out of cotton and wool. But as the Industrial Revolution gathered momentum, steam-powered mills threatened the livelihood of thousands of artisanal textile workers.

Faced with an industrialized future that threatened their jobs and their professional identity, a growing number of textile workers turned to direct action. Galvanized by their leader, Ned Ludd, they began to smash the machines that they saw as robbing them of their source of income.

It’s not clear whether Ned Ludd was a real person, or simply a figment of folklore invented during a period of upheaval. But his name became synonymous with rejecting disruptive new technologies – an association that lasts to this day.

Questioning doesn’t mean rejecting

Contrary to popular belief, the original Luddites were not anti-technology, nor were they technologically incompetent. Rather, they were skilled adopters and users of the artisanal textile technologies of the time. Their argument was not with technology, per se, but with the ways that wealthy industrialists were robbing them of their way of life.

A wood engraving from 1844 depicts Luddites destroying power looms. Archiv Gerstenberg/Getty Images

Today, this distinction is sometimes lost.

Being called a Luddite often indicates technological incompetence – as in, “I can’t figure out how to send emojis; I’m such a Luddite.” Or it describes an ignorant rejection of technology: “He’s such a Luddite for refusing to use Venmo.”

In December 2015, Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk and Bill Gates were jointly nominated for a “Luddite Award.” Their sin? Raising concerns over the potential dangers of artificial intelligence.

The irony of three prominent scientists and entrepreneurs being labeled as Luddites underlines the disconnect between the term’s original meaning and its more modern use as an epithet for anyone who doesn’t wholeheartedly and unquestioningly embrace technological progress.

Yet technologists like Musk and Gates aren’t rejecting technology or innovation. Instead, they’re rejecting a worldview that all technological advances are ultimately good for society. This worldview optimistically assumes that the faster humans innovate, the better the future will be.

This “move fast and break things” approach toward technological innovation has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years – especially with growing awareness that unfettered innovation can lead to deeply harmful consequences that a degree of responsibility and forethought could help avoid.

Why Luddism matters

In an age of ChatGPT, gene editing and other transformative technologies, perhaps we all need to channel the spirit of Ned Ludd as we grapple with how to ensure that future technologies do more good than harm.

In fact, “Neo-Luddites” or “New Luddites” is a term that emerged at the end of the 20th century.

In 1990, the psychologist Chellis Glendinning published an essay titled “Notes toward a Neo-Luddite Manifesto.”

In it, she recognized the nature of the early Luddite movement and related it to a growing disconnect between societal values and technological innovation in the late 20th century. As Glendinning writes, “Like the early Luddites, we too are a desperate people seeking to protect the livelihoods, communities, and families we love, which lie on the verge of destruction.”

On one hand, entrepreneurs and others who advocate for a more measured approach to technology innovation lest we stumble into avoidable – and potentially catastrophic risks – are frequently labeled “Neo-Luddites.”

These individuals represent experts who believe in the power of technology to positively change the future, but are also aware of the societal, environmental and economic dangers of blinkered innovation.

Then there are the Neo-Luddites who actively reject modern technologies, fearing that they are damaging to society. New York City’s Luddite Club falls into this camp. Formed by a group of tech-disillusioned Gen-Zers, the club advocates the use of flip phones, crafting, hanging out in parks and reading hardcover or paperback books. Screens are an anathema to the group, which sees them as a drain on mental health.

I’m not sure how many of today’s Neo-Luddites – whether they’re thoughtful technologists, technology-rejecting teens or simply people who are uneasy about technological disruption – have read Glendinning’s manifesto. And to be sure, parts of it are rather contentious. Yet there is a common thread here: the idea that technology can lead to personal and societal harm if it is not developed responsibly.

And maybe that approach isn’t such a bad thing.

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

Entertain Guests with a Fresh Al Fresco Favorite

If you and your loved ones yearn for new, stimulating experiences to feel connected to the outdoors, look no further than enjoying mealtime al fresco. Inspired by the Mediterranean tradition of “eating in the open air,” al fresco dining offers passionate home cooks a fresh way to enjoy their favorite recipes outside with friends and family.

Consider these two tried-and-true al fresco tips from television personality and culinary icon Rachael Ray the next time you enjoy dinner on the deck or lunch on the patio.

Gather the right tools: On those buggy days and nights during the warm season when you’re dining al fresco, grab a food mesh tent. Not only will it protect your food, but it also looks good and goes with a variety of table settings.

Plan the decor: When hosting friends and family, up your floral game by reaching into the garden and adding some fresh herbs – it’s aesthetically pleasing and smells delicious.

Ideal al fresco meals typically take advantage of in-season produce, offer easy preparation so you can focus on entertaining and are simple enough to eat outdoors. Skip complicated cooking steps and turn to a delicious option like Yellowfin Tuna and Artichoke Pasta, which can be served as an appetizer, side dish or on its own as a light main course.

This dish practically calls for ingredients like Genova Yellowfin Tuna in Olive Oil, which features cuts of wild-caught tuna, hand-filleted in just the right amount of olive oil. Savory, rich and flavorful with a perfect texture, the tuna elevates the dish with a uniquely rich and savory flavor stemming from Mediterranean inspiration.

To find more al fresco dining inspiration and recipe ideas, visit GenovaSeafood.com.

Yellowfin Tuna and Artichoke Pasta

Recipe courtesy of Rachael Ray on behalf of Genova Tuna
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 40 minutes with fresh artichokes (25 minutes with canned)
Servings: 4

Artichokes:

• Cold water
• 12 small, fresh artichokes or 2 cans artichoke hearts in water
• 2 lemons
• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• salt, to taste
• pepper or red pepper, to taste

Pasta:

• Water
• 2 cans (5 ounces each) Genova Yellowfin Tuna in Olive Oil
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 4 tablespoons butter, cut into tabs
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper (optional)
• salt, to taste
• 1/2 cup white wine, chicken stock or vegetable stock
• 1 pound spaghetti or linguine
• 1 lemon, juice only
• 1 cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley, divided
• 1 small handful fresh mint, chopped, divided
• 1/4 cup toasted pistachios or pine nuts, chopped

1. To make artichokes: Preheat oven to 425 F.
2. Fill bowl with cold water and juice of one lemon.
3. If using fresh artichokes, trim tops of artichokes and tougher outer leaves. Using vegetable peeler or small paring knife, trim stems. Once prepped, cut fresh artichokes in half. If using canned artichokes, drain well and quarter lengthwise.
4. Place artichokes in lemon water.
5. Let soak 2-3 minutes, drain and pat dry with kitchen towel.
6. In casserole or baking dish, arrange artichokes and add juice of remaining lemon, quarter lemon and add lemon wedges to dish.
7. Add olive oil and salt and pepper, to taste.
8. Roast 25-30 minutes, or until tender.
9. To make pasta: Bring large pot of water to boil.
10. While water is coming to boil, place large skillet over medium heat and add olive oil and butter. Add garlic; red pepper, if desired; and salt, to taste, and swirl 1 minute. Add white wine or stock and let reduce by half.
11. When water comes to boil, salt water, add pasta and cook 1 minute less than directions. Reserve 1/2 cup pasta water before draining.
12. Add artichokes to large skillet with tuna with its oil and gently break up with back of wooden spoon or paddle.
13. Add lemon juice and reserved pasta water to skillet along with drained pasta, cheese and half the parsley, mint and pistachios. Toss to combine, top with remaining parsley, mint and pistachios and serve.

SOURCE:
Genova Tuna