Color

The US committed to meet the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, but like other countries, it's struggling to make progress

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, September 6, 2023

These problems are made harder by the ways in which people, including elected representatives, often talk past each other.

Key Points: 
  • These problems are made harder by the ways in which people, including elected representatives, often talk past each other.
  • This understanding – that economic, social and environmental well-being are intertwined – is the premise of sustainable development.
  • In 2015, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals, known as the SDGs, with 169 measurable targets to be achieved by 2030.
  • It’s a good opportunity for Americans to review their own progress because, as we see it, sustainable development is fundamentally American.

Environment, economy and health intertwined

    • Goldman Sachs estimated the law would spur about US$3 trillion in renewable energy investment.
    • The law has already been credited with creating 170,000 new jobs and leading to more than 270 new or expanded clean energy projects.
    • The 2015 Sustainable Development Goals cover a broader range of environmental, social and economic issues, and there are indicators for assessing progress on each.

How is America doing?

    • The U.S. ranked 39th out of 166 countries in a 2023 review of national efforts to implement the Sustainable Development Goals.
    • The resulting 2023 book, Governing for Sustainability, provides some 500 U.S.-specific recommendations for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
    • Health and access to quality health care loom large in many of the goals.
    • This often occurs in communities of color and low income, and it can impede economic prosperity and development in these areas.
    • This has been shown repeatedly as some developing nations backslide from democratic progress and prosperity to civil war and poverty.

Taking the reins

    • Businesses, universities and other organizations, as well as individuals, are essential to help the country realize its environmental, health and climate goals, fair practices and living wages.
    • Look at what our book recommends and what others are already doing to meet the Sustainable Development Goals.

Climate change is destroying reefs, but the effects are more than ecological – coral's been woven into culture and spirituality for centuries

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, September 5, 2023

Hurricane Idalia made landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast on Aug. 30, 2023, bringing surging seas and winds over 100 mph.

Key Points: 
  • Hurricane Idalia made landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast on Aug. 30, 2023, bringing surging seas and winds over 100 mph.
  • Meanwhile, another climate emergency has been unfolding along Florida’s coast this summer: a marine heat wave bleaching corals throughout the world’s third-largest barrier reef.
  • Similarly, ocean temperatures in many parts of the Atlantic and Pacific are at record highs, with reefs from Colombia to Australia showing signs of stress in recent years.

Protective powers

    • Early Christian art from the medieval and Renaissance periods often features the infant Jesus in red coral, which scholars suggest may also be because its color symbolized the blood of Christ.
    • Coral encircles the necks and wrists of babies and children in more secular portraits, too, particularly during the 18th and 19th centuries.
    • By giving a child coral, parents were protecting what was most precious to them: their child’s life.

The birth of coral

    • In his epic poem “Metamorphoses,” Ovid describes the hero Perseus severing Medusa’s head and laying it on a bed of seaweed that then hardened into coral.
    • By the medieval period, this story gave rise to popular beliefs that wearing coral could ward off the “evil eye.” Coral was also believed to have curative properties.
    • Some rosaries, too, are still made of red coral beads, just as they were in the Middle Ages.

Community bonds

    • Throughout the African diaspora during the 18th and 19th centuries, free and enslaved women in many communities wore red coral jewelry, particularly on special occasions, to commemorate a shared past and create new bonds.
    • Wearing coral was a way to preserve links to the African cultures from which slavery had severed these women.
    • But when diasporic women wore coral, it became part of their choice to create a different present and future.

Forging the future

    • During Reconstruction, as these communities struggled to create a more just country, writers, religious leaders and activists turned to reefs as an inspiring model.
    • According to African American poet and civil rights advocate Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, reefs expand by sustaining others, rather than devaluing or displacing them.
    • As Charles Darwin explained in 1842 in a famous treatise on coral, reefs are formed by so many relationships among different individual organisms across vast periods of time that their future form and shape can only be unpredictable.

Grief and preservation

    • And scientists are making extraordinary efforts, such as relocating threatened species to dry tanks on land and developing tools to predict marine heat waves months in advance.
    • But for centuries, coral has also shaped thoughts about difficult human problems, from love and loss to social injustice.

Dogs don't see life through rose-coloured glasses, nor in black and white

Retrieved on: 
Monday, September 4, 2023

For a few months now, I’ve been treating six-year-old Samuel, who has the beginnings of myopia.

Key Points: 
  • For a few months now, I’ve been treating six-year-old Samuel, who has the beginnings of myopia.
  • He’s very quick for his age and often asks me questions about tests I give him, and about what I see inside his eyes.
  • However, as an optometrist, I can offer some insights that might help answer Samuel’s question.

Cones and rods

    • The retina, the sensitive part that lines the back of the eye, has two types of photon receptors: cones and rods.
    • The cones, in the centre of the retina (fovea), perceive bright light and are responsible for colour perception.
    • There are three types of cones.
    • The brain combines the signals emitted by each of these cones to form the colour it perceives.

And what about animals?

    • For example, birds have a fourth opsin that allows them to see ultraviolet (UV) light.
    • Humans cannot perceive this light because our crystalline (internal) lens filters UV rays.
    • UV rays influence birds’ behavioural decisions, including foraging and their choice of a mate.
    • This is an advantage when it comes to spotting prey, as they can distinguish their heat even at night.

Back to Scotch

    • The vision of dogs — such as our friend Scotch — is quite different.
    • As a result, dogs have a wider field of vision (250 to 280 degrees), but less simultaneous vision.
    • This is equivalent to the vision of a very myopic person not wearing glasses.
    • And as an added bonus, they have an extra layer of the retina, called the tapetum lucidum — or carpet.
    • So it’s possible, depending on the colour of the ball, that Scotch will not see it, and as a result, will gaze up at Samuel with a lost look.

Workers like it when their employers talk about diversity and inclusion

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, August 30, 2023

That would be bad news for companies, because research has shown that diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives improve creativity, innovation, productivity and organizational performance.

Key Points: 
  • That would be bad news for companies, because research has shown that diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives improve creativity, innovation, productivity and organizational performance.
  • What’s more, a majority of workers say they want their employers to do DEI.

DEI and the workplace

    • While strategies may vary, DEI is in wide use across corporate America.
    • Every Fortune 100 company listed some kind of DEI initiative on its website as of July 2022, and a 2021 survey found that 82% of chief human resource officers said DEI was their foremost concern.

Broad benefits of DEI

    • And companies with the most gender diversity among executives were 25% more likely to outperform the market, up from 15% in 2014.
    • One of the reasons DEI initiatives have a positive impact is because workers appreciate them.
    • For example, a survey conducted in early 2023 found that most employees – 56% – think it’s a good thing if their company is focused on DEI.

Talking up DEI

    • But my own work suggests that getting many of these benefits from DEI initiatives may depend on how well employers are communicating their efforts to workers.
    • We asked respondents how well they thought their employers communicated around the topic of diversity, including efforts to promote a diverse workforce.
    • This was also correlated with higher levels of cultural intelligence, and together they contributed to a more inclusive work environment.

Valued and included

    • And as we found, a more diverse and inclusive work environment leads to a more engaged workforce when companies continually communicate about their stance, values and commitment to DEI.
    • It’s about making sure everyone feels valued and included.

What can cities do to correct racism and help all communities live longer? It starts with city planning

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, August 29, 2023

But this range varies widely – a child raised in wealthy San Mateo County, California, can expect to live nearly 85 years.

Key Points: 
  • But this range varies widely – a child raised in wealthy San Mateo County, California, can expect to live nearly 85 years.
  • A child raised in Fort Worth, Texas, could expect to live about 66.7 years.
  • This means that a person’s ZIP code is often a better predictor of their life expectancy than their genetic code.
  • The air people breathe, the streets they walk, and their general sense of safety and happiness are all shaped by city and town plans.

Brief history of environmental justice

    • Environmental justice stems from a 1980s social movement that protested toxic waste being dumped in predominantly Black neighborhoods in the South.
    • The Biden administration, for example, convened an environmental justice advisory council in 2021 to track local disparities in health, environmental and economic impacts.
    • But environmental justice progress ultimately depends on local work.

California’s housing policies

    • Los Angeles, for example, has exclusionary zoning policies that can make it harder for low-income people to purchase homes in particular neighborhoods.
    • The zoning policies require the construction of single family homes with large yards in many neighborhoods.
    • For example, Inglewood’s 2020 plan adopts an inclusionary zoning policy to construct affordable housing in the same locations as market-rate housing.
    • Other places in California, like the the city of Richmond, have introduced a Health in All Policies approach to combat inequality.

Analyzing California city plans

    • We collected over 500 finalized California city plans from 2020 through 2022.
    • Plans are required to be updated every three to eight years, but we found that some places are still running on plans drafted in the 1970s.
    • City plans are often hard to find on individual city and county websites – or they are buried in the shelves of municipal libraries.
    • Local communities spend years in public meetings finessing the details of city plans.

Addressing environmental justice

    • We also searched for synonyms, like segregation, that address environmental justice and anti-racism.
    • Through this, we uncovered the various ways that some California cities addressed environmental justice.
    • Ultimately, the answer to how cities can plan to be anti-racist, address health equity or promote environmental justice rests with concerned constituents and council members crafting a feasible plan of action.

Why do fingers get wrinkly after a long bath or swim? A biomedical engineer explains

Retrieved on: 
Monday, August 28, 2023

Why do fingers and toes get wrinkly and change color after a dip in a pool or a bath?

Key Points: 
  • Why do fingers and toes get wrinkly and change color after a dip in a pool or a bath?
  • – Raymond Y., age 12, Bothell, Washington
    Why do fingers and toes get wrinkly and change color after a dip in a pool or a bath?
  • But researchers back in the 1930s discovered that in people with nerve damage in their fingers, the post-bath wrinkles didn’t form.
  • So, if it isn’t swelling due to water, then what is behind pruny fingers and toes after a long swim?

A nerve signal for narrower blood vessels

    • It also automatically controls the expansion and contraction of your blood vessels.
    • Typically, temperature, medications or what you eat or drink can cause your blood vessels to expand or contract.
    • Nerve fibers send a message about lower salt levels to your brain, and the autonomic nervous system responds by constricting the blood vessels.
    • This constriction of blood vessels also causes the skin to become paler – it’s the opposite of what happens when your skin gets redder when you get into a really hot bath, due to your blood vessels dilating.

An advantage to wrinkled fingers or toes

    • Researchers have found that wrinkled skin has added grip underwater in comparison to unwrinkled skin.
    • It makes walking along an underwater surface easier, with less likelihood of slipping.
    • We’re interested in skin analyses that can be done to help forensic investigators after a crime or disaster.
    • Prolonged immersion in water makes skin more likely to break, but this weakening can take weeks to occur.

Children's early learning belongs in neighbourhood schools

Retrieved on: 
Monday, August 28, 2023

Some important lessons pertain to effective ways provinces and territories can expand children’s and families’ access to early learning programs.

Key Points: 
  • Some important lessons pertain to effective ways provinces and territories can expand children’s and families’ access to early learning programs.
  • Canada-wide early learning and child-care agreements established between the federal government and provinces or territories allow governments to be creative with increasing access.
  • Ample evidence points towards benefits and practical ways of offering high-quality early learning programs in schools quickly and efficiently.

Relying on school infrastructure


    Schools can launch early learning and care fast and well by including four-year-olds in the neighbourhood school in programs offered by the school, free of charge. These programs recognize that any fee, even $10 a day, is a challenge for many, especially those who most need the program. This approach is efficient and effective, child-friendly and family focused, and informed by a wealth of international research.

Creating more early years spaces


    Ample examples exist of governments who have effectively launched school based early learning programs:
    Canadian success with school-based pre-kindergarten reflects international experiences, including in the United States:

High-quality programs

    • Similar lessons were learned in many schools’ move to full-day kindergarten for five-year-olds, once unheard of but now enjoyed by all but three provinces in Canada.
    • As regions across Canada work to meet the expansion requirements outlined in the federal agreements, enrolment numbers for existing school-based programs for four-year-olds offer an attractive route toward creating more early years spaces.
    • Read more:
      What to look for in a high-quality 'pre-primary' or junior kindergarten program

      It is not just the rate of expansion that is impressive; so too is the quality of programs.

Short- and long-term benefits

    • High-quality early childhood education lowers special education rates and lessens the intensity of supports required for children with identified exceptionalities.
    • Families enjoy having all their children at one site, and can sometimes also rely on busing.

Return on investment, continuity of learning

    • A report from the Roosevelt Institute, a not-for-profit think tank in the United States, notes “studies of early care and education programs beginning at birth targeted to disadvantaged groups — such as children in low-income communities of color — have demonstrated significant improvements in their long-term education, health, and employment outcomes, leading economist James Heckman to estimate a 13 percent per year return on investment for similar programs.” New York’s pre-kindergarten program created 70,000 spaces in two years.
    • In Australia, efforts to align programs serving three- and four-year-olds with primary grades stress the significance of learning and teaching that smooths the transition for children and families and optimizes academic and developmental outcomes.

Early learning is early education

    • They need to know that their children are immersed in high-quality early learning and they do not want to be exhausted in their search for it.
    • Early learning is early education.
    • The federal government invested in children’s early learning and child-care because it finally accepted the wisdom of doing so — for children’s learning and development, for families’ well-being, for the economy and for communities optimal social outcomes.

How educational research could play a greater role in K-12 school improvement

Retrieved on: 
Friday, August 25, 2023

Between 2019 and 2022, the Institute of Educational Sciences, the research and evaluation arm of the U.S. Education Department, distributed US$473 million in 255 grants to improve educational outcomes.

Key Points: 
  • Between 2019 and 2022, the Institute of Educational Sciences, the research and evaluation arm of the U.S. Education Department, distributed US$473 million in 255 grants to improve educational outcomes.
  • In 2021, colleges and universities spent approximately $1.6 billion on educational research.
  • The Educational Research Information Center, a federally run repository, houses 1.6 million educational research sources in over 1,000 scholarly journals.
  • Each year, for instance, more than 15,000 educators and researchers gather to present or discuss educational research findings at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association.

Growing gaps

    • During the same period, NAEP outcomes show stagnated growth in reading achievement among fourth graders.
    • By eighth grade, there is a greater gap in reading achievement between the highest- and lowest-achieving students.
    • Some education experts have even suggested that the chances for progress get dimmer for students as they get older.
    • Here are four things I believe can be done in order to make sure that educational research is actually being applied.

1. Build better relationships with school leaders


    Educational researchers can reach out to school leaders before doing their research in order to design research based on the needs of schools and schoolchildren. If school leaders can see how educational research can specifically benefit their school community, they may be more likely to implement findings and recommendations from the research.

2. Make policy and practice part of the research process

    • By implementing new policies and practices based on research findings, researchers can work with school leaders to do further research to see if the new policies and practices actually work.
    • Through the fund, $679 million was distributed through 67 grants – and 12 of those 67 funded projects improved student outcomes.

3. Rethink how research impact is measured


    As part of the national rankings for colleges of education – that is, the schools that prepare schoolteachers for their careers – engagement with public schools could be made a factor in the rankings. The rankings could also include measurable educational impact.

4. Rethink and redefine how research is distributed

    • Research findings written in everyday language could be distributed at conferences frequented by public school teachers and in the periodicals that they read.
    • If research findings are to make a difference, I believe there has to be a stronger focus on using research to bring about real-world change in public schools.

This university class uses color and emotion to explore the end of life

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, August 22, 2023

In both contexts, I work with advanced oncology patients and with people at the end of life.

Key Points: 
  • In both contexts, I work with advanced oncology patients and with people at the end of life.
  • After decades working with university students and people facing the end of life, I found myself working with people at the beginning of life – with children.
  • The end of life is all about life itself and the many different types of love that we experience as human beings.
  • The class provides a window into a vital aspect of life that is often overlooked and avoided – namely, serious illness and the end of life.

Hip-hop at 50: 7 essential listens to celebrate rap's widespread influence

Retrieved on: 
Friday, August 11, 2023

Armed with two record players and a mixer, he created an extended percussive break while others rhymed over the beats.

Key Points: 
  • Armed with two record players and a mixer, he created an extended percussive break while others rhymed over the beats.
  • Well, that’s the origin story, although pinpointing the birth of a genre is never going to be an exact science.
  • Below is a selection of the resulting articles, introduced by a key track featured in their writing.

1. ‘Rapper’s Delight’ – The Sugarhill Gang

    • No history of hip-hop would be complete without this 1979 track by The Sugarhill Gang.
    • But along with being an old-school classic, it also kick-started hip-hop’s global expansion.
    • Read more:
      After 'Rapper's Delight,' hip-hop went global – its impact has been massive; so too efforts to keep it real

2. ‘Planet Rock’ – Afrika Bambaataa & The Soulsonic Force

    • Despite building on samples and influences from the past, hip-hop as a genre has always pointed forward – as this 1981 track from Afrika Bambaataa & Soulsonic Force exemplifies.
    • Read more:
      Through space and rhyme: How hip-hop uses Afrofuturism to take listeners on journeys of empowerment

3. ‘Stan’ – Eminem, featuring Elton John

    • But it was a pivotal moment in rap history: Eminem dueting with pop royalty Elton John underscored how hip-hop by the beginning of the 21st century had been accepted by the mainstream music industry.
    • Moreover, it came at a time when Eminem was deemed deeply controversial because of his use of anti-gay slurs in his tracks.
    • He noted that rappers are now having discussions over LGBTQ+ issues and apologizing for hateful speech in their earlier lyrics.

4. ‘You Came Up’ – Big Pun

    • While hip-hop’s origins lie in Black American communities, Latino culture is also deeply woven into its story: from pioneers like Kid Frost and Big Pun to Bad Bunny, one of the most-streamed artists making music today.
    • The genre was “my first love,” wrote Alejandro Nava, a religious studies professor at the University of Arizona.

5. ‘That’s what the Black woman is like’ – Arianna Puello

    • Those social messages connected with Black and immigrant youths throughout Europe who themselves were searching for identity in countries where discrimination remains entrenched.
    • Throughout her career, for example, Puello has used her music to confront the racism that she has faced as a Black female migrant in Spain.

6. ‘Move the Crowd’ – Eric B. and Rakim

    • She argued that it became “hip-hop’s consciousness, emphasizing an awareness of injustice and the imperative to address it through both personal and social transformation.” One of the first rappers to use the phrase in lyrics was Rakim, who mentioned it in his 1987 song “Move the Crowd.” The song is a track on the “Paid in Full” album, which Rolling Stone once listed as No.
    • 61 on its “500 Greatest Albums of All Time.”

7. ‘LOUD’ – Wawa’s World