Lisa Marshall

Sudden, unexpected deaths on rise among infants born to Black mothers

Lisa Marshall — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 22:48:11 +0000

Sudden, unexpected deaths on rise among infants born to Black mothers Lisa Marshall Wed, 09/23/2026 - 16:48

Lisa Marshall

After years of declines in sudden unexpected infant deaths (SUID), rates have been ticking up again, particularly among babies born to Black mothers, new research shows.

The findings, published Sept. 22 in the journal JAMA Network Open, help explain a puzzling widening of the disparity in infant mortality rates between white and Black populations since 2020.

“This study provides evidence that there is an acute crisis right now in sudden unexplained infant death, a category of cause of death that we assumed we got under control a long time ago,” said co-author Leslie Root, a demographer and assistant research professor in the Institute of Behavioral Science at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder.

Mortality rates for babies born to Black mothers are about twice that of babies born to white mothers, a gap that has persisted for decades. Experts point to higher rates of preterm birth among Black women as the primary cause of the gap, and public health campaigns centering around prenatal care and education have worked to address the issue.

But since 2020, the gap has begun to widen again.

To explore why, Root and her co-authors analyzed federal data on nearly 58 million live births from Jan. 1, 2003, to Dec. 31, 2024. The data set included linked birth-and-death certificates for 366,384 infant deaths among non-Hispanic Black mothers and 224,733 non-Hispanic white mothers.

The researchers grouped infants’ gestational age into seven categories, from extremely preterm (28 weeks) to post-term (42 weeks) to compare mortality rates among white and Black infants born at each gestational age. They also divided deaths into 13 categories.

They found that while differences in gestational age at birth still account for the bulk of the infant mortality gap, other factors are playing an increasing role.

SUID—which includes sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), accidental suffocation in bed and other unexplained causes, now accounts for more than a third of the disparity, making it the largest single cause-of-death contributor.

“This finding suggests that even if preterm birth disparities were eliminated entirely, a large mortality gap would remain, and sudden unexpected infant death is what is driving the increase,” said Root.

Root said it’s not clear why rates of SUID are rising among infants born to Black mothers while staying relatively flat among whites. But she points out that the increase coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some recent studies have suggested that off-season resurgences in respiratory infections, including COVID, RSV and influenza, could be making infants more vulnerable to sudden infant death syndrome and other forms of SUID. Lingering social and economic consequences associated with the pandemic may have also exacerbated health disparities, widening the infant mortality gap.

Root notes that the shift also coincided with an increase in opioid deaths and overdoses among Black Americans, surpassing, for the first time, the rate among white Americans.

In future studies, the team would like to study whether parental opioid use, which can increase risk of SUID, could be a factor. They also want to look at the data around Native American and Alaska Native populations, which were not included in this study.

An estimated 3,400 infants die unexpectedly in the US each year, making SUID a leading cause of death in infants.

Root hopes the findings will prompt more attention to the issue and heighten efforts to prevent it.

“We have come a long way since a few decades ago,” she said, pointing to campaigns urging parents that “back is best” for a baby’s sleep position and heightening awareness of safe crib standards. “That’s why this uptick, and the fact that there is a racial disparity component, is so alarming. We need to address it.”

A new analysis of 22 years of U.S. mortality data highlights a troubling trend.

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Why some stroke patients fare better than others

Lisa Marshall — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 17:33:58 +0000

Why some stroke patients fare better than others Lisa Marshall Wed, 09/02/2026 - 11:33

Lisa Marshall

A clot forms. Blood flow to the brain is blocked. Starved of oxygen, neurons begin to die.

This scenario, known as an ischemic stroke, plays out in roughly 21,000 people worldwide each day, threatening long-term disability or even death. In recent years, clot-busting drugs and mechanical tools for removing them have revolutionized care.

Yet, even with the clot gone and the vessel clear, up to 50% of patients never recover neurologically. New research from �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder and the University of Antwerp helps explain why.

The study, published in the journal PNAS, reveals in unprecedented detail how the brain’s own defense mechanisms against stroke can backfire, triggering additional micro-clots in minor vessels which can damage tissue long after the primary culprit is gone.

“We now have a way to explain why so many of these patients are not seeing neurological improvements,” said co-author Debanjan Mukherjee, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder. “Our findings also point to a new potential target for therapeutics that could be extremely impactful for stroke patients.”

The mystery behind ‘no reflow’

Doctors have long known that removing a stroke-causing clot cannot always restore full blood flow to the brain. But why this phenomenon, known as “no reflow,” occurs has remained a mystery.

To unravel it, Mukherjee, who studies the physics of blood flow, teamed up with senior author Frederik Denorme, an assistant professor of biology at the University of Antwerp who studies, as he puts it, “life after the clot.”

“The dogma used to be that you just need to get rid of that blood clot and then all problems should be solved,” said Denorme. “We now know that is not the case.”

In fact, only about 1 in 10 surviving stroke patients recover completely after a stroke; 25% have minor impairments; and half have moderate to severe impairments.

To examine what, precisely, goes on in the brain after a clot is removed, the research team first turned to mice.

Using a technique called intravital microscopy, they observed in real time how blood flowed in the brain, and cells behaved, in the hour after mice suffering from stroke underwent endovascular thrombectomy. The procedure involves threading a tool through a blood vessel to pluck out an obstructive clot.

While blood quickly started flowing again post-procedure, the researchers were stunned to see that in many mice, it flowed haphazardly, in fits and starts, even reversing course at certain points.

“We saw it with our own eyes. Blood that was flowing left all of a sudden flowed right and vice versa,” said Denorme. “It was remarkable.”

A Jekyll and Hyde protein

Debanjan Mukherjee and his students work with a blood vessel simulation in the FLOWLab at the �鶹��Ѱ��. Credit: Patrick Campbell

An even closer look revealed that, as the brain tried to divert blood around the original obstruction, tiny clots formed where the haphazard channels converged.

To drill down on why those clots formed, Mukherjee’s FLOWLab recreated this scenario using computer simulations. In other research, his lab has recreated similar scenarios using a 3D artificial brain filled with fake blood.

These experiments implicated von Willebrand factor—a protein best known for stopping bleeding when we get a cut.

In its resting state, Mukherjee explained, von Willebrand factor is coiled up like a ball of string inside blood vessels, waiting for distress signals from the body that make it stretch out and start forming clots to stop bleeding.

In a brain experiencing a stroke, something else unfolds the ball.

“If there is some kind of fluid motion induced after the clot is removed, it can stretch out that ball into an extended thread that attracts platelets, forms new clots and blocks flow even after the original culprit clot is gone,” Mukherjee said.

Meanwhile, the study showed, the brain's inflammatory response to stress interferes with safeguards that normally keep the protein’s clotting efforts in check, creating what the authors call “a perfect storm” of collateral damage.

Other experiments, looking at blood from stroke patients at the University of Washington in St. Louis, suggest a similar phenomenon happens in humans too.

“We are the first to really show in this hyperacute phase of stroke what is happening with these cells inside blood vessels,” said Denorme.

More research is necessary to determine why no reflow happens in some stroke patients but not others. But the study did find that stroke patients with higher blood levels of a pro-inflammatory compound called Interleukin 6 had more overactive von Willebrand factor and fared worse long-term.

The researchers envision a day when therapeutics targeting von Willebrand factor, or the inflammatory compounds that exacerbate its clotting capabilities, could be given to stroke patients alongside clot-busting drugs and surgery.

Notably, several such drugs already exist and are approved for use for other disorders.

“It’s early days. But now that we have a lead on what drives these micro-clots, we have a promising new avenue to explore for improving recovery,” said Denorme.

As it tries to defend itself from stroke, the brain can paradoxically trigger tiny new clots in minor blood vessels, damaging tissue even after the original culprit has been removed. The findings help explain why nearly half of treated stroke patients don’t recover—and identify potential new treatments.

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Blood vessels in the brain, captured by MRI. Credit: Adobe Stock Photos

Why permanent standard time is the healthiest choice

Yvaine Ye — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 19:12:39 +0000

Why permanent standard time is the healthiest choice Yvaine Ye Wed, 08/12/2026 - 13:12

Lisa Marshall

Spring forward. Fall back.

For 60 years, most of the U.S. has engaged in this biannual clock-changing ritual, much to the chagrin of critics who have argued that it’s confusing, outdated and dangerous.

The Sunshine Protection Act, passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in July, would end this practice, enabling states to stick with daylight saving time (DST) year-round.

Another recently introduced proposal, the Sunshine for our Kids Act, calls for the opposite: making standard time—which currently goes from November to March—the permanent national default. This proposal would still allow states to pass laws opting into permanent daylight saving time (pDST).

Under permanent standard time (pST), our winters would stay the same. But in the summer, the sun would rise and set earlier. For instance, in Denver, sunrise in June would occur as early as 4:31 a.m. and set as early 7:23 p.m.

Which is better? Or should we just keep switching our clocks?

Ken Wright

“If we take a pure health, safety and well-being perspective, especially for our children, the clear choice based on all the available evidence is permanent standard time,” said Ken Wright, an integrative physiology professor of distinction and director of the Sleep and Chronobiology Lab at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder. “Permanent daylight saving time, which is being considered the most right now, is the worst choice.”

We spoke with Wright about the potential health impacts of making DST permanent and why other options may be healthier.

When was daylight saving time invented?

It was first introduced on a large scale by the Germans during World War I. The idea was that extending evening sunlight would mean people wouldn’t use as much energy and that savings could be used to support the war effort. Several countries, including the U.S., followed suit temporarily during World Wars I and II. It wasn’t until 1966 that uniform start and stop dates for daylight saving time were established nationwide.

Have we tried to make DST year-round before?

Yes. During the oil crisis in 1974, but it was a very short-lived experiment. As soon as we hit the winter months, the public said, "No, we don't like these dark winter mornings," so Congress repealed it.

Why is permanent standard time your first choice?

Standard time is more closely aligned with the natural patterns in the environment under which we, as humans, have evolved. For instance, under standard time, we get lots of morning light, and the sun is high in the sky above us around noon. Under daylight saving time, there’s less morning light and the sun is high in the sky when the clock says 1 p.m.—after midday. We basically have a mismatch between the clock on the wall and the natural environment.

Why is morning light so important?

Light synchronizes our circadian rhythms (biological clocks that control an array of bodily processes) and our sleep timing to the 24-hour day. Morning light sets our circadian rhythm early, activates our brain, alerts us that it’s time to be awake and makes our mood better. But if we get that light at night it can shut down our melatonin (a hormone that signals us to sleep) and keep us awake.

What concerns you about permanent DST?

It would lead to darker mornings and brighter evenings, and this pushes our sleep times and our circadian rhythms later. We know that the later our sleep and circadian rhythms are, the less we sleep, the less healthy we are.

For instance, insufficient sleep and waking up and going to sleep later increases our risk for obesity, heart disease, mental health disorders and substance use disorders. For children, if their internal clock is set later, it makes it more difficult for them to learn in school. The same goes for people’s performance at work, especially in the morning.

What would permanent DST look like in Colorado?

This change would cause Colorado to lose 2.4 months of having sunlight in the morning before 8 a.m. and four months of having sunlight in the morning before 7:30 a.m., compared to a permanent standard time system.

The sun would rise late—after 7:30 a.m.—on 38% of school days, under permanent daylight saving time. Under permanent standard time, there would be no school days with a sunrise after 7:30 a.m. Under the current bi-annual change, Colorado has only four days with a sunrise after 7:30 a.m., so permanent daylight saving time is really a drastic change that will have consequences.

What concerns you about those dark mornings?

A lot of our children are going to be waiting for the school bus or walking to school in the dark. A lot of people are going to be driving to work or the ski slopes in the dark. These conditions could increase accidents.

Also, many places have adopted late school start times because they recognize the benefits to our children—it allows them to be more in sync with the sunrise and shift their circadian rhythm and sleep timing earlier. There’s less absenteeism, better grades and students are falling asleep less in class. With permanent daylight saving time, we would lose all those benefits.

Why not just stick with the time change twice a year?

There is no question the change itself is associated with problems. In the days after the "spring ahead," we get less sleep and wake up at a time when our brains are telling us we should still be sleeping. There are lots of associated risks, including an increase in fatal motor vehicle accidents and in heart attacks and strokes.

That said, there are strategies that we could think about to reduce the negative impacts of the time change. Instead of having the change occur in the early morning hours on Sunday, what if we shifted it to Saturday morning so most people would have an extra day to adjust?

What's your takeaway for lawmakers?

If you look across the board, not only at societies that focus on sleep, but also on health in general, it's nearly unanimous. Everyone says that permanent standard time, if we're going to make a change, is going to be the healthier, safer choice. Arizona and Hawaii have used permanent standard time since the 1960s, as federal law currently allows states the freedom to choose permanent standard time. We all should follow suit.

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder Today regularly publishes Q&As on news topics through the lens of scholarly expertise and research/creative work. The responses here reflect the knowledge and interpretations of the expert and should not be considered the university position on the issue. All publication content is subject to edits for clarity, brevity and university style guidelines.

Congress is considering dueling proposals this summer. One would make daylight saving time permanent; another would make standard time permanent. Which is better? Or should we just keep changing our clocks? A sleep expert weighs in.

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But is it natural? How our affinity for 'naturalness' can save or sink new climate solutions

Lisa Marshall — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 21:20:46 +0000

But is it natural? How our affinity for 'naturalness' can save or sink new climate solutions Lisa Marshall Mon, 08/10/2026 - 15:20

Sequoyah Nuclear Power Plant near Chattanooga Tennessee. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Lisa Marshall

From nuclear energy to lab-grown meat, the list of effective but unpopular climate solutions is long.

A new �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder study sheds light on why people reject or accept some proposed sustainability technologies: If it doesn’t seem natural, they won’t go for it.

“We found that naturalness predicts support over and above a lot of other things you might think matter, like risk and benefit perceptions or how much people understand the technology,” said first author Sarah Gonzalez-Coffin, who earned her doctorate in social psychology from �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder in May.

The study also found that a simple shift in framing, comparing technologies to things in nature, can prompt people to trust and accept even engineered solutions, such as nuclear energy, more.

The findings appear in the journal Communications Earth and Environment.

“We sometimes assume that if we can just develop solutions to address climate change, the public will say, ‘OK. Let’s use them,” said senior author and psychology Professor Leaf Van Boven. “Our study shows that often it is not the technology itself, but the way we communicate about it that shapes public response.”

Sarah Gonzalez-Coffin

Leaf Van Boven

What is natural?

Research in the health and wellness space has long shown that merely framing something as natural prompts consumers to make positive assumptions.

When fruits are adorned with an “organic” label, people say they taste better even though studies show no major flavor differences. People view vaccines as safer if they are described as made from ingredients “found in nature.”

Gonzalez-Coffin’s previous research has shown that despite its potential environmental benefits, beef grown in a bioreactor is generally considered too unnatural to support.

While there is no strict legal definition, people tend to view things as natural if they have minimal human intervention, are made from things in the natural environment and are culturally familiar, the authors found.

“We ask ourselves all the time: Is this natural? And we have a deep aversion to things that are artificial,” said Van Boven, noting that this has been shown to hold true across genders and among urban and rural populations. “It’s part of being human.”

To see if it also applies to climate solutions, the researchers surveyed 1,000 U.S. adults about 10 methods for reducing or removing carbon from the atmosphere. They ranged from afforestation (tree planting) to direct-air carbon capture (using chemical filters to draw carbon out of the air and pump it into the ground) to nuclear energy, wind and solar power.

Participants were asked if they would support using tax dollars to deploy the technology on a broad scale.

Above and beyond perceived risks, benefits, fears and familiarity, how “natural” people thought the technology was predicted whether they’d support it. This held true across a diverse sample of the U.S. public and, surprisingly, political parties.

“That is a rare point of convergence, especially in the realm of climate change, where support for solutions can be incredibly polarized,” said Gonzalez-Coffin, now a postdoctoral research associate at University of Arizona’s Lovejoy Center for Bridging Biodiversity, Conservation Science & Policy.

In a second study, the authors manipulated their descriptions to frame technologies in a natural light. For instance, direct-air carbon capture was described as a technology “that mimics natural processes to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, similar to the way that plants pull carbon from the atmosphere through their leaves.”

This simple wording change led to higher levels of support across the board.

The promise and peril of naturalness

Van Boven notes that humans’ affinity for naturalness can have a dark side.

Tobacco companies leveraged it to sell cigarettes as far back as the early 1900s, billing them as natural, organic or additive-free. Today, companies often conjure nature-based imagery to paint everything from single-use coffee pods to bottled water as sustainable, regardless of the true environmental impact.

An allegiance to naturalness may also lead people to outright dismiss potentially beneficial climate solutions, like nuclear energy, geoengineering or artificial meat, he said.

“If we want to solve climate change, we are going to have to figure out how to accept a broad range of technology solutions,” Van Boven said. “And right now, we are resistant to anything that seems remotely artificial.”

Gonzalez-Coffin stresses that she is not advocating for greenwashing climate solutions.

But she does believe communicators could lean into the genuine, natural elements of technologies. For instance, she notes humpback whale fins helped inspire the design of wind turbine blades.

She also hopes her research will inform design and investment in sustainability technologies, demonstrating that more natural options might garner easier public buy-in.

“We have incredible engineers and others working on developing technological solutions to climate change; the gridlock that we're running into is largely social,” she said. “Our work brings that missing social component to illuminate the underlying psychology behind this gridlock.”

Other collaborators on the study included: �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder Associate Professor Amanda Carrico; Shahzeen Z. Attari (Indiana University Bloomington); Holly Buck (University at Buffalo); Yoel Inbar (University of Toronto Scarborough); Ezra Markowitz (University of Massachusetts Amherst); Kaitlin T. Raimi (University of Michigan); Jonathon P. Schuldt (Cornell University); and Trisha Shrum (University of Vermont).

Across political ideologies, people in the U.S. overwhelmingly gravitate toward technologies presented as natural and reject those that seem unnatural. The findings offer insight on why some proposed climate solutions fail.

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Sequoyah Nuclear Power Plant near Chattanooga Tennessee. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

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Sequoyah Nuclear Power Plant near Chattanooga Tennessee. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Only 1 in 3 people arrested by ICE have a criminal conviction

Lisa Marshall — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 17:03:13 +0000

Only 1 in 3 people arrested by ICE have a criminal conviction Lisa Marshall Thu, 07/30/2026 - 11:03

Lisa Marshall

Just 34% of people arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents during President Donald Trump’s second term have a criminal conviction, according to new research published July 27 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

That’s a near-historic low, the authors note.

“Our results reveal that the reality of immigration enforcement diverges sharply from the public narrative that ICE arrests are necessary to protect public safety by removing people who commit crimes,” said lead author Chloe East, an associate professor of economics at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder.

Labor economist Chloe East

East and her colleagues analyzed 1.6 million ICE arrests from October 2015 to March 2026, looking at the location and method of each arrest and whether the person arrested had a criminal conviction.

They found that early in each of Trump’s terms, his administration delivered on its promise to increase immigration enforcement activity. For example, the daily average number of ICE arrests in the first 14 months of Trump’s first term was 436, up 43% from the daily average during President Barack Obama’s final year in office. In the first 14 months of Trump’s second term, average daily ICE arrests soared to 952 per day, up 214% from President Joe Biden’s final year in office.

Increased enforcement did not, however, translate to more arrests of previously convicted criminals. Instead, the opposite happened.

Just one in three ICE arrests during Trump’s first 14 months in office—for his second term—involved individuals with criminal convictions. That’s down from 52% in Biden’s final year in office, 70% in Trump’s first year of his first term and 79% in Obama’s final year.

“We found that there is an inverse relationship between the number of arrests that ICE makes and ICE’s ability to target people with a criminal conviction,” said East.

The study also identified stark changes in the way ICE arrests are being conducted, with more arrests now made in community gathering places like schools, workplaces and airports. In the past, ICE typically detained individuals who were already in law enforcement custody.

Prior to Trump’s second inauguration, only 17% of ICE arrests were made in the community. That has risen to nearly half of all arrests.

Enforcement activity has not taken place evenly across the country, the study found. In 2025–26, Democratic strongholds like Denver, Boston and Washington, D.C., were far more likely to see dramatic spikes in community arrests, the study found.

For instance, in the enforcement area that includes Denver, which has a democratic mayor and governor, ICE arrests increased 220% at the beginning of Trump’s second term, with community arrests increasing 269%.

Previous studies have consistently shown that immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, are less likely to commit crimes than are people born in the United States.

East fears that by increasingly arresting those with no criminal record, heightened ICE enforcement efforts could make communities less safe by making law-abiding citizens afraid to report crimes.

Such efforts also hurt the economy, her previous research has found.

“When you remove thousands of people from the labor market through arrest, detention and deportation, that alone has a harmful effect. But we also find that those who remain work less because they are afraid,” she said.

In another recent study, she forecasts, at the state level, how ICE surges could lead to thousands of lost jobs for U.S. born men too, as company leaders turn down projects due to lack of workforce.

For instance, she estimates that in Colorado a statewide ICE surge that arrested 1% of the immigrants most at risk would result in a direct removal of 1,000 immigrant men from their jobs and shrink the labor force by an additional 2,700 immigrant men due to chilling effects and employment decline. The largest employment loss would ultimately be on U.S.-born men, whose employment level would shrink by 6,800. Wages for those remaining employed are not predicted to change.

East hopes her findings will help lawmakers from all parties develop more effective immigration policies.

“Overall, our data provide important new evidence that simply increasing the funding and scale of ICE activity is unlikely to improve public safety.”

An analysis of 1.6 million ICE arrests shows that while arrests are at a historic high, most of those detained have no criminal conviction.

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Ukrainians see Trump as an enemy, Americans as friends

Lisa Marshall — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 16:21:20 +0000

Ukrainians see Trump as an enemy, Americans as friends Lisa Marshall Mon, 07/27/2026 - 10:21

President Trump and Vice President JD Vance clash with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy during meeting in Oval Office on Feb. 28, 2025. Credit: The White House via Wikimedia Commons

Lisa Marshall

President Trump and Vice President JD Vance clash with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy during meeting in Oval Office on Feb. 28, 2025. Credit: The White House via Wikimedia Commons

Most Ukrainians have no confidence in the U.S. team negotiating with Russia to end the war, and more than half view President Donald Trump, to some degree, as “an enemy,” according to new research from �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder and Virginia Tech.

“Our results show that the Trump administration has generally not made a great impression on Ukrainians,” said Sarah Wilson Sokhey, associate professor of political science at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder.

Sarah Sokhey

The representative survey of Ukrainians is the latest of dozens of polls—including tens of thousands of Ukrainians collectively over the years—that �鶹��Ѱ��researchers have organized and conducted in Ukraine since 2000.

Nearly five years into the Russia-Ukraine war, it offers insight into how people on the ground feel about their own president, government corruption, the draft, Americans and more.

“If there is going to be any stable peace, Ukrainians have to be on board,” said Sokhey, who studies Central and Eastern European politics and last visited the country in summer 2025. “What they think matters, and we should be paying attention.”

For the most recent survey, Sokhey, �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder Geography Professor John O'Loughlin and Virginia Tech Professor Gerard Toal worked with Kyiv International Institute of Sociology to conduct a telephone survey of 1,801 Ukrainians from June 9 to June 26, 2026. For safety reasons, they did not survey individuals in regions occupied by Russia.

How Ukraine feels about the U.S.

Sokhey notes that, over the years, Trump has frequently lauded Russian President Vladimir Putin as “smart” and “a strong leader.” In 2025, Trump made global headlines when he publicly chastised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a meeting in the Oval Office.

While aid to Ukraine has been significant—making it the top recipient of U.S. foreign aid with $195 billion since the war began in 2022—no significant aid package has been passed since April of 2024. A promised $400 million military aid package has been delayed.

To determine how all this has shaped Ukrainian’s impressions of the U.S., the survey asked: Is Trump a friend or an enemy of Ukraine?

Thirty-six percent of respondents chose “enemy,” while 17% chose friend and 24% chose “a bit of both.” Sixty-seven percent said they had no trust at all in Trump.

When asked about their confidence in U.S. negotiators Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, 57% said they had “no confidence,” while 32% said they had some, and 3% had high confidence.

Still, 74% said they viewed Americans as friends, and only 4% viewed them as enemies.

“In a way this is not surprising,” said O’Loughlin, who has been doing surveys in Ukraine for nearly 26 years. “If you look at worldwide surveys across many countries, people tend to make a distinction between the American government and its foreign policy actions that they don’t like, and Americans.”

John O'Loughlin

O’Loughlin notes that Ukrainians have shifted their views on who the country’s most vital foreign partner is.

When asked about the U.S. role in world affairs, 26% said they had negative feelings, 62% had mixed feelings and 8% felt positively.

“They are looking more to Europe now, especially France and Britain, as their most reliable supporters,” said O’Loughlin.

How Ukrainians feel about their own government

While Zelenskyy’s approval rating has held steady over the past year, not everyone trusts him either. The new survey found that 14% of respondents have no trust at all in him, 47% trust him a little and 37% trust him a lot.

Surprisingly, when Ukrainians were asked what they worry most about, more than a third ranked government corruption as the nation’s top challenge. Half chose Russian aggression and 14% said they were equally concerned about both.

Zelenskyy ran on an anti-corruption platform but has struggled to rein it in, leading to protests.

“Ukraine is one of the most corrupt countries in the world when it comes to things like government contracts and military sources. It’s endemic,” said O’Loughlin.

Resisting the draft

In April 2024, the Ukrainian government lowered the draft age from 27 to 25. Since then military authorities have reportedly used a violent method known as “busificaton” to forcefully detain young men and haul them away in minivans to serve on the battlefield.

The new survey asked Ukrainians specifically: “Is it time to draft all young Ukrainian men into military service?”

Read more about the surveys on The Conversation

Amid grinding war, protesting Ukrainians still want their voices and values heard at home

We asked Ukrainians what they think of Trump—more view him as an enemy than a friend

Fifty-six percent disagreed and only 8% fully agreed.

This resistance to the draft played out on the streets of Ukraine earlier this month, as young protesters turned out in record numbers to oppose the firing of Mykhailo Federov as defense minister. Federov has led the charge to use unmanned drones over on-the-ground soldiers to fight the war.

On July 23, Zelenskyy reversed his decision and promised Federov a return to a “prominent position” in the military.

“Ukraine, even before the war started, had an aging and shrinking population. Then you add war to that, with 8 million people leaving the country and hundreds of thousands of soldiers being killed,” said Sokhey. “Our survey suggests that they are realizing they won’t have anyone left to run the country if they send all their younger people off to war. They are running out of people to fight.”

Fewer than 17% of Ukrainians view Trump as a friend to Ukraine, and 57% say they have no confidence in the U.S. team negotiating to try to end the war, according to a new �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder survey. The survey also offers insight into Ukrainians' views of their own government, the draft and the lingering war.

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Can leaderless societies get stuff done? Ask the honeybees

Lisa Marshall — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 19:24:17 +0000

Can leaderless societies get stuff done? Ask the honeybees Lisa Marshall Tue, 07/21/2026 - 13:24

Lisa Marshall

Do organizations do better when they have a central leader who calls the shots or a decentralized group of individuals who sort out their own division of labor?

The question has intrigued philosophers, biologists, political scientists and business leaders for centuries.

A new honeybee-inspired study, published in the journal PNAS, offers answers. It suggests that while both kinds of organizations can survive and thrive, leaderless groups may have an edge—as long as communication is good and there’s just the right mix of risk-takers and cautious followers.

“We found that decentralized strategies of decision making are at least as good as centrally coordinated ones and, in many ways, may be more robust and resilient,” said corresponding author Zachary Kilpatrick, a professor of applied mathematics who studies how animals, including insects and humans, make decisions.

Using math to understand decision making

Peek at a bee colony and you’ll find tens of thousands of individuals toiling away, each with their own unique role in supporting the hive. Some explore surrounding meadows, foraging for nectar and pollen and scouting for information to bring back to the group. Others hang back, cleaning the hive and feeding the larvae. While the queen lays eggs and chemically signals her presence, she doesn’t determine who does what.

Elephant troops follow the lead of the matriarch while baboons and schools of fish tend to collectively decide which way to move. Credit: Adobe Stock photos

Ants and termites operate similarly, without a central authority.

Other animals are more hierarchical.

In a herd of elephants, the oldest female makes the call on where to find water and when to flee, when survival is at stake. Wolf breeding pairs direct where the group hunts and rests.

Wild baboons are a mix of hierarchy and egalitarianism, living in ranked groups but deciding democratically where to go when it’s time to move.

To get at which system works best under what circumstances, and how leaderless societies manage to accomplish so much, Kilpatrick and his colleagues—Hyunjoong Kim of the University of Cincinnati and Krešimir Josić of the University of Houston—developed a mathematical model informed by research on real animals in the wild.

The model simulated life in a bee colony under different scenarios with varying numbers of bees; good and bad environmental conditions; and a central coordinator vs no central coordinator.

Surprisingly, the study found no difference in outcome between scenarios where a central coordinator determined who does what and scenarios where individuals acted based on their own risk tolerance.

“Turns out those models behave identically,” said Kilpatrick.

And in some ways, the leaderless group was more resilient, the model suggested.

“If one individual is making the decisions for an entire group, and that individual dies, gets removed or can’t communicate with the group it leaves it really vulnerable,” Kilpatrick said. “In a decentralized group if you knock out one communication pathway, there are others.”

Another question at the core of the experiment, and in day-to-day life in a hive: How many risk-takers, or scouts, should be sent out to forage and how many should cautiously wait?

The study found that the larger the group, the smaller the proportion of risk-takers it required. That’s because each brave bee that puts its life on the line to leave the hive adds proportionally less new information to the colony upon return.

“If you send too many foragers out, you’re going to waste a bunch of energy for little additional benefit,” he said. “The same scaling logic may hold for human groups, where a small team may need half its members exploring while a large field needs only a handful.”

Notably, the study found that the more challenging the situation, in terms of weather and resources, the more critical it was for this division of labor to be dialed in.

Zachary Kilpatrick

Lessons for humans

Kilpatrick said the findings could help inform development of artificial neural networks (computing systems modeled after the human brain) and multi-agent systems (think drone swarms working collectively toward a common goal).

“One of the best ways to design efficient systems and technologies is to look at what nature has done.”

But the study also yields other lessons for humans.

Research has shown that our ancestral default, from living in small hunter-gatherer bands, is to make decisions collectively. Some small organizations, like kibbutzim or co-ops, still do this. But as organizations grow larger, humans tend to build centralized hierarchies and install powerful leaders to control them.

“That flexibility is one of our most distinctive traits as a species,” Kilpatrick said.

Yet much human advancement can be attributed to moments when, without direction from above, risk-taking individuals break out to make scientific discoveries, launch startups, explore new territories or create avant-garde art—nudging the more cautious to follow them when the time is right.

As new, more complex challenges arise, humans might want to take a cue from the bees, said Kilpatrick.

“Our research suggests that there can be a real benefit to having decentralized, individuated exploration that ultimately gets shared back with the community.”

A new honeybee-inspired analysis suggests that central control isn't necessary for group success, as long as there's good communication and just the right mix of risk-takers and cautious followers.

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Want to get published in a top-tier journal? Where you're from matters

Lisa Marshall — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 18:00:00 +0000

Want to get published in a top-tier journal? Where you're from matters Lisa Marshall Wed, 07/15/2026 - 12:00

Lisa Marshall

Scientists from prestigious universities are more than three times more likely to have their research published in top-tier scientific journals than authors from lesser known schools are. Meanwhile, authors based in China and those studying politics, economics, gender or other social issues face a significant disadvantage.

These are a few takeaways from a sweeping new �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder-led study, published July 15 in the journal Science Advances.

The analysis of more than 110,000 manuscript submissions over five years offers the most comprehensive glimpse yet at who makes the cut, and who doesn’t, during the rigorous editorial and peer review process at elite science journals.

“These journals play a special role in the science ecosystem, shaping what ideas get attention, inform society and shape policy,” said senior author Aaron Clauset, a professor of computer science and researcher with �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder’s BioFrontiers Institute. “Yet very few studies have been able to open the black box and take a look at their review process.”

Aaron Clauset

Sam Zhang

The findings raise an important question: To what degree are important scientific discoveries going unnoticed because their authors lack certain characteristics?

By calling out potential biases and making their dataset available to the public, the authors also hope to help journals improve their processes.

“With the rise of AI slop and the ability to mass produce junk science, the role of established gatekeepers like these elite journals becomes more important,” said first author Sam Zhang, an assistant professor of mathematics and statistics at University of Vermont who earned his doctorate in applied math from �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder.

Probing the ‘science of science’

For a decade, Clauset has studied what he calls “the science of science,” scouring data to paint a clear picture of who enters (and leaves) academia, who gets tenure and whose ideas tend to spread.

“There is no science without scientists, so it’s important to know who has the opportunity to be ‘in the room’ so to speak, and who does not, to make discoveries,” said Clauset, who also serves as external faculty for the nonprofit Santa Fe Institute.

For the new study, Clauset and Zhang were joined by Dan Larremore, associate professor of computer science at CU, and Nick Laberge, then a doctoral candidate there. They analyzed anonymized manuscript records for 110,303 submissions to Science and Science Advances between 2016 and 2020.

Unlike topical journals, general interest journals cover everything from health to space to politics and are regularly covered by the mainstream media. They strongly influence careers, with grants and tenure often tied to publishing there.

The competition is stiff. In 2023 alone, Science received more than 15,000 submissions.

As a result, such journals have a two-tiered review process: In-house editors make a first pass and then enlist outside subject experts to make suggestions and then accept or reject.

Over five years, the study found, Science accepted just 6.1% of submissions; Science Advances accepted 10.5%. About 83% of submissions to Science and nearly 75% to Science Advances were screened and rejected by in-house editors prior to undergoing peer review.

It also found that:

Papers with 10 or more authors are three times as likely to be published than papers with 1–5 authors.
Manuscripts with corresponding authors from the most prestigious institutions had an 11.6% acceptance rate, compared to 3.4% for those from the least prestigious institutions.
Studies with authors from China were more than three times less likely to be published than papers with U.S.- or Canada-based authors. Notably, authors with Chinese names, but based in the U.S., also faced a disadvantage.
Even pre-COVID, research related to viruses, infection, RNA and immune response had a six-fold greater likelihood of being accepted than research on politics, economics, gender and the societal dimensions of health.
Work by female corresponding authors was slightly less likely to be accepted. Had this trend not been there, Science would have published about 23 more papers by women per year.

“The fact that we find only a very marginal association with gender is in some sense reassuring,” said Clauset. “But the number is still not zero.”

Are editors and reviewers biased?

The authors stress that the findings do not prove journal editors or reviewers are inherently biased. Instead, they shine a light on questions they and other researchers should explore.

Are reviewers inherently biased toward papers that come from Harvard or Stanford, or are those papers truly of better quality?

Are journals somehow biased against Chinese-based researchers, or do Chinese government incentives and other factors prompt China-based authors to submit an inordinately high number of papers?

In the spirit of transparency, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (the journals’ parent organization), volunteered to share the data, as long as the team developed a way to anonymize it.

“The current evidence suggests, overall, these journals seem to be doing pretty well at just treating the science as the science. But this is not a totally clean bill of health,” said Clauset. “In the current environment where the integrity of science is being attacked in bad faith, we need to be thinking about whether the processes at these journals live up to the ideals the scientific community has set for them.”

An analysis of 110,000 submissions to elite general science journals shows that researchers from prestigious universities are more than three times more likely to get published than those from lesser-known schools. Meanwhile, China-based researchers, small teams and social scientists face a disadvantage.

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What video evidence can reveal—and conceal

Megan M Rogers — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 18:50:47 +0000

What video evidence can reveal—and conceal Megan M Rogers Tue, 07/14/2026 - 12:50

Lisa Marshall

From police body cams to cellphone videos, visual evidence plays a growing role in courtrooms and public discourse. �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder researcher Sandra Ristovska explores the challenges of interpreting footage in the age of AI.

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Is wildfire smoke bad for your health?

Lisa Marshall — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 17:02:41 +0000

Is wildfire smoke bad for your health? Lisa Marshall Tue, 06/30/2026 - 11:02

Lisa Marshall

Editor's note: This article was originally published July 12, 2021, and updated June 30, 2026.

Coloradans awoke to hazy skies this week, as smoke from multiple large fires burning across the West deemed air quality “poor” and “unhealthy for sensitive groups” in some regions, according to federal data.

Not long ago, researchers had little understanding of how such smoke impacts human health—if at all, says Colleen Reid, an assistant professor of geography who, in 2008, became one of the first researchers in the country to start studying it.

“At the time, there was a sense that it was ‘natural’ air pollution, and that it was only short-term so it was not as much of a concern as pollution from things like factories, refineries and vehicles,” she said. “What we are realizing now, as these episodes of exposure become more frequent and last longer, is that wildfire smoke can have measurable and potentially lasting health impacts.“

Reid spoke with �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder Today about what those impacts are and how we can minimize them.

It seems like smoke is getting worse each summer. Is it?

It is. When I started this work, people collecting data from monitors in Northern California said "disregard anything above 400 micrograms per cubic meter (ug/m3)" because they assumed it was impossible. They thought the monitors were malfunctioning. Now, in some areas of the country, levels have reached the thousands during extreme wildfire smoke events near the fire.

There is now evidence that wildfire smoke is offsetting the gains in air quality that have been achieved by regulating industrial and vehicular emissions under the Clean Air Act.

What is wildfire smoke made of?

It’s a complex mix of gases and solid and liquid particles. From a health perspective, the particles—that dark cloud that you see when you look at the smoke plume—are most concerning. They are so tiny that, unlike larger particles, they don’t get stopped in the trachea or nose when you breathe them in.

When assessing air quality, we tend to focus on PM2.5, particulate matter that is 2.5 microns or smaller in diameter. The smaller the particle, the deeper they get into the lungs, and the more likely they are to get into the bloodstream.

Most particles created during wildfires are 1 micron or smaller, not only affecting respiratory health but potentially having systemic effects—including inflammatory effects. They have found particles in the brains of cadavers, so we also know they can get into the brain.

Is there anything else in there of concern?

Some researchers have also become concerned about hazardous air pollutants such as formaldehyde, benzene and hydrogen cyanide present in wildfire smoke. We also have found these contaminants in ash after wildfires that burn structures, such as the Marshall Fire and the L.A. fires. Ground-level ozone is also a concern, as it is a respiratory irritant and can be formed through chemical reactions of other air pollutants in wildfire smoke.

Is wildfire smoke worse for you than other forms of air pollution?

The case is not yet settled on this.

Some epidemiological studies suggest that PM2.5 found in wildfire smoke is more harmful than other sources of PM2.5, but these findings do not take into account differences in what burned (forest, grassland or human-made materials) or the fact that wildfire smoke is very bad for short periods, whereas other sources of PM2.5 contribute lower levels but regularly throughout the year.

At least one study in mice found that particles in wildfire smoke are more toxic than particles from other sources.

How does wildfire smoke impact short-term health?

Probably everyone exposed to wildfire smoke is impacted in some way, even if they don’t recognize it. They might be a little short of breath or have some heart rate variability or lung function decline. We know that it can cause a sore throat, cough, itchy/watery eyes, congestion and shortness of breath. If you can’t breathe as deeply and get as much oxygen, especially at this altitude, you might feel tired.

For people with pre-existing respiratory disease (such as asthma or emphysema), wildfire smoke can lead to increased need to use medication and, in some cases, needing emergency care. Generally, there are more people who die during wildfire events than would be expected if the wildfire was not there—these are probably individuals who were very sick and the air pollution from the wildfire smoke was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.

Are there longer-term effects?

My own research found that babies whose gestation is during a wildfire event are more likely to be born with a lower birth weight and more likely to be born early. There is also some evidence that wildfire smoke can trigger heart attacks and impact the immune system.

One recent study looking at eight years of data in Montana found that areas with more intense wildfire smoke exposure in the summer had worse flu seasons the following winter. It could be that wildfire smoke irritates the lungs and makes people more susceptible to worse infection upon exposure. Some evidence suggests that areas with worse wildfire smoke may experience more COVID-19 cases or more severe cases of the disease.

Researchers are also studying whether wildfire smoke is affecting metabolic health and cognition.

What should people do on smoky days?

Make sure that your medication is up to date and that you have enough of it.

Use indoor air cleaners and make sure to check the filter on portable air cleaners and on your HVAC system. After just one bad wildfire smoke episode, the filter can be filled with particulates and needs to be changed. Get the highest MERV (minimum efficiency reporting value) rating on your HVAC filter that your system can handle.

On very smoky days, people with pre-existing conditions or those who are more sensitive should wear an N95, KN95 or KF94 mask (good for smaller sizes or children) that fits them well.

What if the fire is really far away? Should I worry?

A study from researchers at Colorado State University found there were more asthma hospitalizations along the Front Range when there was wildfire smoke in the area from the Pacific Northwest than when there was smoke from a local fire.

The difference is likely due to people being more likely to protect themselves when fires are close than when there is only smoke. That means people should take precautions when there is smoke in the area, regardless of how close the fire is.

Should I exercise outdoors when it’s smoky?

That is a challenging question. We know from studies of cyclists that when the air pollution levels are not too high, the benefits of exercise outweigh the risk of air pollution exposure. But when the air quality gets really bad, it is challenging.

I recommend following the guidelines of the air quality index (AQI):

For the average person—curb outdoor exercise when levels exceed an AQI level of 150 or PM2.5 concentrations of 55 micrograms per meter cubed.
For those with pre-existing respiratory or cardiovascular disease—the recommended levels are lower, 100 on the AQI or 35 micrograms per meter cubed PM2.5 concentration.

If you can’t see to the end of your street, that might be a time to curb your outdoor exercise.

Can the smoke get inside?

From research I have done looking at indoor and outdoor PM2.5 in normal times and during wildfire smoke episodes, we see that PM2.5 can infiltrate indoor environments—but this happens less so in newer constructions (which are less leaky or tighter) and those with central HVAC systems. Indoor spaces do protect people from outdoor smoke.

But even with a really tight home, if the air pollution is bad for many days at a time, the smoke will get in. HEPA filters can help a lot. When it is really smoky, try to keep your windows and doors closed. But you also don’t want the indoor temperature to get so high that it is a health threat.

With heat and wildfires happening at the same time, that gets really challenging, especially for people who don’t have air conditioning. Some cities are looking into creating public clean-air shelters with air conditioning and HEPA filters.

With fires blazing across Colorado and surrounding states, many communities are inundated with smoke this week. How does it impact our health? Is it OK to exercise outside? How can we protect ourselves? Wildfire smoke researcher Colleen Reid has answers.

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Lisa Marshall

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Can the smoke get inside?

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