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Restless legs syndrome (RLS), also known as Willis-Ekbom Disease, is a neurological condition that affects about 7% of people.

Typical symptoms include an irresistible urge to move your legs, alongside sensations of aching, crawling, creeping, itching, pulling or throbbing. Until the age of 35, the condition is equally common in men and women, but after that age, RLS affects twice the number of women than men.

Each person’s condition is categorised as mild, moderate, severe or very severe according to the international rating scale, which measures the effects of RLS on limb discomfort and sleep disruption, as well as frequency of symptoms.

RLS symptoms have a 24-hour cycle known as a circadian rhythm. Symptoms tend to peak at night, coinciding with the body’s increase in melatonin release. Melatonin reduces dopamine – the brain chemical that affects movement and mood – to help us sleep but, because dopamine helps control muscles, low dopamine levels can cause involuntary movements.

There is no test for RLS. Diagnosis is based on symptoms and medical history. Primary RLS runs in families – there are genetic links to a number of chromosomes. RLS has an autosomal dominant inheritance pattern, meaning you only need one “defective” copy to present with symptoms. Some cases, however, develop with no known cause.

Other people may develop “secondary” RLS as a result of other conditions, such as iron deficiency anaemia, chronic kidney disease, diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, rheumatoid arthritis, underactive thyroid gland, and fibromyalgia. While primary RLS is more common than secondary, the latter is usually more severe and progresses more rapidly.

Risk factors

Age seems to be a risk factor for RLS. In 2000, a study found that 10% of adults aged 30 to 79 have RLS, increasing to 19% of those over the age of 80. However, understanding of the condition has improved since that study was conducted, so it’s likely these figures are higher – particularly in children, where some RLS symptoms have been confused with “growing pains” or ADHD in the past.

Women have an increased chance of developing RLS. Approximately one in five women will suffer from restless legs at some point, and some studies suggest as many as one in three women are affected. Women are more likely to suffer from other comorbidities that affect the central nervous system, such as anxiety, depression and migraine, which may be linked to the development of RLS.

Pregnancy is another risk factor. The further you are through the trimesters, the higher your chance of being affected BY RLS – with 8%, 16% and 22% of women suffering through their respective first, second and third trimesters. Multiple pregnancies increase the risk of pregnancy-related RLS, and research has found that women who’ve given birth may have a higher incidence of RLS in later life, compared with women of the same age who haven’t given birth.

Obesity is also considered a risk factor for RLS. One study showed that each 5kg/m² increase in body mass index increased the likelihood of developing RLS by 31%.

Triggers and treatments

Research has shown smoking and alcohol consumption seem to make RLS worse, so lifestyle changes such as stopping smoking and drinking alcohol can help manage symptoms.

Research has also found that exercise and stretching is beneficial for symptom relief or reduction – although study participants suggest that morning exercise is more effective for improving symptoms, while evening exercise can make restless legs worse. Patients with secondary forms of RLS, lower BMI and less severe cases of the condition may benefit the most from lifestyle changes to manage symptoms.

Also, treatment of underlying issues can also alleviate or reduce some of the symptoms. For instance, iron deficiency anaemia reduces dopamine levels, which can lead to restless legs. Iron supplements may benefit some sufferers – but the evidence is mixed so supplements won’t help everyone.

In terms of medication, research has found that neurological therapies, such as the anticonvulsant Gabapentin – usually prescribed as a treatment for epilepsy – can improve symptoms and overall quality of life for those suffering with restless legs. These therapies target nerve cells in the brain, reducing their activity.

Other medicines – known as dopamine agonists – activate dopamine receptors in the brain to control movement. They are primarily used as a treatment for Parkinson’s disease and are effective in managing symptoms of RLS. However, they can disturb your sleep pattern and may increase impulse control disorders, and are not recommended during pregnancy or breastfeeding as they can inhibit lactation.

While there may not be a cure for RLS, there is hope for sufferers – and options for managing and reducing symptoms. Läs mer…

Observing Greenland from a helicopter, the main problem is one of comprehending scale. I have thought we were skimming low over the waves of a fjord, before noticing the tiny shadow of a seabird far below and realising what I suspected were floating shards of ice were in fact icebergs the size of office blocks. I have thought we were hovering high in the sky over a featureless icy plane below, before bumping down gently onto ice only a few metres below us.

Crevasses – cracks in the surface of glaciers – are the epitome of this baffling range of scales. Formed by stresses at the surface, their direction and size tell us how the ice sheet is flowing towards the ocean. Inland, far away from the fast-flowing glaciers that discharge hundreds of gigatonnes of icebergs a year into fjords, crevasses can be tiny cracks only millimetres wide.

As the ice speeds up, they can be metres in diameter, sometimes covered by deceptive snow bridges that require suitable safety equipment and rescue training to traverse. Finally, where the ice meets the ocean and no scientist would ever dare to stand, they can be monsters over 100 metres from wall to wall. And across Greenland, they are growing.

Cracks you could fly a helicopter through.
Tom Chudley

It shouldn’t be particularly surprising to scientists that crevasses are getting larger across Greenland. As the ocean warms, the ice sheet has sped up in response, increasing the stresses acting upon its surface. However, observations from satellites and in-person fieldwork are so poor that to date, we had no idea how extensively or quickly this process has been occurring.

Mapping cracks

In a new study, my colleagues and I mapped crevasses across the entirety of the Greenland ice sheet in 2016 and 2021. To do this, we used the “ArcticDEM”: three-dimensional surface maps of the polar regions based on high resolution satellite images. By applying image-processing techniques to over 8,000 maps, we could estimate how much water, snow or air would be needed to “fill” each crevasse across the ice sheet. This enabled us to calculate their depth and volume, and examine how they evolved.

We found that from 2016 to 2021, there were significant increases in crevasse volume across fast-flowing sectors of the Greenland ice sheet. In the southeast of the ice sheet, an area that has been particularly vulnerable to ocean-induced acceleration and retreat in the past few years, crevasse volume increased by over 25%.

In most Greenland glaciers that flow into the ocean, scientists found crevasses are increasing in size and depth.
Chudley et al / Nature Geoscience

However, against our expectations, crevasse volume across the whole ice sheet increased by only 4.3%. That’s much closer to an overall balance than the extremes observed in certain sectors. What had happened? In fact, the significant increases elsewhere were being offset by a single source: an outlet glacier known as Sermeq Kujalleq (Danish: Jakobshavn Isbræ).

Sermeq Kujalleq is the fastest-flowing glacier on the planet, reaching speeds of nearly 50 metres a day and providing an outsized proportion of Greenland’s total sea-level rise contribution. In 2016, responding to an influx of cold water from the north Atlantic ocean, the glacier slowed and thickened. As it did this, the crevasses on the surface began to close – offsetting increases across the rest of the ice sheet.

This slowdown was short-lived. Since 2018, Sermeq Kujalleq has once again reverted to acceleration and thinning in response to ongoing warming. We won’t be able to rely on it to offset ice-sheet-wide increases in crevassing in the future.

Cracks grow into icebergs

Crevasses play an integral part in the life cycle of glaciers, and as they grow they hold the potential to further accelerate ice-sheet loss. They deliver surface meltwater into the belly of the ice sheet: once inside, water can act to warm the ice or lubricate the bed that the glacier slides over, both of which can make the ice sheet flow faster into the ocean. Meanwhile, where the ice meets the sea, crevasses form the initial fractures from which icebergs can break off, increasing the output of icebergs into the ocean.

Where Sermeq Kujalleq, or Jakobshavn Glacier, meets the sea. That iceberg filled fjord is several miles wide.
Copernicus Sentinel / lavizzara / shutterstock

In short, crevasses underpin the dynamic processes that occur across Greenland and Antarctica. However, these processes are very poorly understood, and their future evolution is the single largest uncertainty in our predictions of sea-level rise. Together, the increased discharge of ice holds the potential to add up to 10 metres of additional sea-level rise by 2300 (75% of all cities with more than 5 million inhabitants exist less than 10m above sea level). We need to better understand these processes – including crevasses – so that informed sea-level projections can form the basis of our responses to the global challenges that climate change presents.

Since 2023, an international coalition of polar scientists has been urging the world to limit warming to 1.5˚C to avoid the most catastrophic melt scenarios for global glaciers and ice sheets. Last month, the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service confirmed that 2024 was the first year in which average global temperatures exceeded this threshold.

Every fraction of a degree matters. We may still be able to save ourselves from the worst of the damage the climate change will bring – but we are desperately running out of time.

Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 40,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far. Läs mer…

Humans have an exceptional ability to deal with viruses. In most cases, your immune system is able to fight an infection. On the other hand, your body provides a spa-like environment that is temperate and stable, optimal for viruses to replicate. Human behavior, including close contact with animals and frequent travel, also increases the likelihood of becoming infected.

From the perspective of viruses spread by insects, or arboviruses, making the evolutionary leap from insects to humans is a tough battle. Viruses cannot replicate very well in humans, which means transmission from mosquitoes is often very difficult.

One might think arboviruses continually evolve in ways that enable them to infect more species. But do they?

We are a virologist and an entomologist who study insect-borne and viral diseases and how human and insect immune systems respond to invading pathogens. Our work provides insights on the complex journey of an arbovirus as it cycles between insect and vertebrate hosts.

As an example, let’s use a Togavirus, the mosquito-transmitted arbovirus that causes eastern equine encephalitis, or EEE. This rare but serious disease can cause a potentially fatal neurological condition in humans and horses. Although EEE is primarily endemic to the eastern United States, its incidence in recent years has increased in regions farther north, with several reported cases in states such as Michigan, Massachusetts and New York.

While rare, a EEE infection in people can lead to severe complications or death.

From animals to mosquitoes

A female mosquito’s inner workings – particularly its guts and salivary glands – create the perfect environment for a virus to flourish.

When a mosquito bites an infected nonhuman host, such as a sick bird, the virus is transported with freshly ingested blood into the mosquito’s midgut – the equivalent to the human stomach and intestines where food is stored and digested. The virus quickly infects midgut cells to avoid a hostile digestive environment and quietly replicates without activating the mosquito’s immune pathways.

Within days, the virus will be released by damaged midgut cells to migrate to the mosquito’s salivary glands, where it will be positioned for transmission. Now, each time the mosquito feeds, it will pump virus-saturated saliva into its new animal host and continue the disease transmission cycle.

This image shows a tissue section of the salivary gland of a mosquito infected with EEE. The virus particles are colored red.
Fred Murphy and Sylvia Whitfield/CDC

It is easy for the virus to avoid detection by the mosquito’s relatively primitive immune system. Compared with humans, the immune system of mosquitoes can launch only a generalized and overall less effective attack on pathogens. This means an arbovirus can usually establish a persistent, lifelong, almost symbiotic infection without damaging the mosquito’s health, perfect for the virus to disseminate itself.

Mosquitoes have evolved over millions of years to become tolerant to arboviral infections. This relationship has allowed the mosquito to maintain viral populations without having to launch energy-expensive immune responses. However, this does not mean mosquitoes are just passive virus carriers. An arbovirus can change how infected mosquitoes behave or reproduce.

For example, viruses can manipulate mosquitoes in two ways: by making them feed more frequently, and by increasing their attraction to infected hosts. However, this behavior puts the mosquito at greater risk of being killed by irritated hosts who notice the repeated biting attempts. Arboviruses can also affect mosquito reproduction by sometimes reducing the number of eggs a female mosquito produces and increasing the length of time it takes for the eggs to mature. In some cases, these viruses can even sterilize female mosquitoes.

Arboviruses have evolved to expertly use mosquitoes as both transportation vehicles and breeding grounds. By spreading and multiplying without severely harming their insect hosts, these viruses ensure their own survival and continued transmission.

From mosquitoes to humans

The virus must overcome several barriers to successfully colonize a human host.

The initial step for successful disease transmission – the virus’s ultimate goal – is perhaps the easiest: The EEE virus infects humans when a virus-infected female mosquito has an unquenchable appetite for warm blood. From the moment the virus is deposited under the skin through the mosquito’s infected saliva, a tough battle ensues.

The first battle for the virus is to adapt to a typically much hotter setting than the ambient environment – the human body temperature of around 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celcius) or higher.

Then, the virus must evade the host’s immediate defenses, which includes physical barriers, such as layers of skin and mucosa, as well as immune cells that detect and attack invading microbes. Once in the bloodstream, the virus faces the adaptive arm of the human immune system, which is capable of targeting specific viral components with exquisite precision, like a biological sniper.

Once the EEE virus reaches the central nervous system – the brain and spinal cord – the immune system can overreact to the infection and inadvertently cause inflammation and damage nerve cells. This can lead to serious long-term effects, such as cognitive impairment.

The human immune response is more robust than that of a mosquito.
Sashunita/Cavan Images via Getty Images

To persist in this hostile human environment, the virus uses various survival strategies. One technique is creating new mutations on its surface and shape-shifting to avoid immune detection. Another strategy is to hijack human cells to replicate itself, such as using the cell’s machinery to synthesize new viral components and altering how the cell regulates division.

As viruses adapt to overcome immune defenses, both humans and mosquitoes evolve countermeasures to fight infection. The greater complexity of the human immune system makes it especially challenging for viruses to survive and spread between human hosts.

From human to human?

Like many other arboviruses, the EEE virus cannot be transmitted from person to person, which effectively limits its spread among human populations. Your body keeps the virus contained. Consequently, when the EEE virus infects people via the bite from an infected mosquito, it is considered a dead end, as it cannot escape its human host or infect another bloodthirsty mosquito.

So, what does the virus that causes EEE gain by infecting people? Not likely anything. A mosquito-borne virus like the Togavirus that causes EEE prefers its established transmission cycle between mosquitoes and birds. Human infections occur only when a mosquito deviates from its typical menu of birds.

EEE spreads more easily between mosquitoes and birds than it does in humans, which helps explain why human infections don’t happen very often. Thankfully, human bodies simply aren’t the virus’s currently preferred environment. Läs mer…

The colors of rubies and emeralds are so striking that they define shades of red and green – ruby red and emerald green. But have you ever wondered how they get those colors?

I am an inorganic chemist. Researchers in my field work to understand the chemistry of all the elements that make up the periodic table. Many inorganic chemists focus on the transition metals – the elements in the middle of the periodic table. The transition metals include most of the metals you are familiar with, like iron (Fe) and gold (Au).

One feature of compounds made with transition metals is their intense color. There are many examples in nature, including gemstones and paint pigments. Even the color of blood comes from the protein hemoglobin, which contains iron.

Investigating the colors of compounds containing transition metals leads you into some really amazing science – that’s part of what drew me to study this field.

Rubies and emeralds are great examples of how a small amount of a transition metal – in this case, chromium – can create a beautiful color in what would otherwise be a fairly boring-looking mineral.

Minerals and crystals

Rubies appear red because they absorb blue and green light.
benedek/E+ via Getty Images

Both rubies and emeralds are minerals, which is a type of rock with a consistent chemical composition and a highly ordered structure at the atomic level.

When this highly ordered structure extends in all three dimensions, the mineral becomes a crystal.

With a theory developed by physicists in the 1920s called crystal field theory, scientists can explain why rubies and emeralds have the colors they do. Crystal field theory makes predictions about how a transition metal ion’s structure is affected by the other atoms surrounding it.

Rubies are mainly made up of the mineral corundum, which is composed of the elements aluminum and oxygen in a regular, repeating array. Each aluminum ion is surrounded by six oxygen ions.

A crystal of corundum looks like this at the atomic level, with the aluminum ions shown as red balls and the oxygen ions shown as white balls. Each aluminum ion is surrounded by six oxygen ions, and each oxygen by four aluminums.
Eigenes Werk/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Emeralds are mainly made up of the mineral beryl, which is made from the elements beryllium, aluminum, silicon and oxygen. Beryl’s crystal structure is more complicated than corundum’s because of the additional elements in the formula, but each aluminum ion is again surrounded by six oxygen ions.

Emeralds appear green because they absorb red and blue light.
SunChan/E+ via Getty Images

Pure corundum and beryl are colorless. The brilliant colors of rubies and emeralds come from the presence of very small amounts of chromium. The chromium replaces about 1% of the aluminum in the corundum or beryl crystal when a ruby or emerald forms underground at a high temperature and pressure.

But how can one element – chromium – create the red color of a ruby and green color of an emerald?

Color science

Rubies and emeralds have the colors they do because, like many substances, they absorb some colors of light. Most visible light, like sunlight, is composed of all the colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. These colors make up the visible light spectrum, which is easy to remember as ROY G BIV.

Objects absorb some visible light wavelengths and reflect others, which is why we see them as having a color.
Fulvio314/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

One of the main reasons why objects have a color is because they absorb one or more of these visible colors of light. If a substance absorbs, for instance, red light, it means that the red light gets trapped in the substance and the other colors reflect back to your eyes. The color you see is the sum of the remaining light, which will be in the green-to-blue range. If a substance absorbs blue, it will look red or orange to you.

Unlike the colorless aluminum ion, the chromium ion absorbs blue and green light when surrounded by the oxygen ions. The red light is reflected back, so that’s what you see in rubies.

In an emerald, even though the chromium is surrounded by six oxygen ions, there is a weaker interaction between the chromium and the surrounding oxygen ions. That’s due to the presence of silicon and beryllium in the beryl crystal. They cause the emerald to absorb blue and red light, leaving the green for you to see.

The ability to tune the properties of transition metals like chromium through changing what is surrounding it is a core strategy in my field of inorganic chemistry. Doing so can help scientists understand the basic science of metal-containing compounds and the design of chemical compounds for specific purposes.

You can take delight in the amazing colors of the gemstones, but through chemistry, you can also see how nature creates those colors using an endless variety of complex structures made with the elements in the periodic table. Läs mer…

“No famine has ever taken place in the history of the world in a functioning democracy,” observed Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen in his 1999 book “Development as Freedom.”

My recent research doesn’t tackle Sen’s central argument – premised on the belief that democratic leaders prioritize food security because they cannot win reelection if the most basic needs of their constituents are not met – head on. Instead, I explored an auxiliary question: Do democratic governments cope better than their autocratic counterparts when their countries are confronted by sudden drops in food aid?

The answer is a resounding “yes.”

I came to that conclusion by analyzing food insecurity data from 110 countries from 2000 to 2020.

Food aid – a form of international assistance in which donors give food, or funds to buy food, to low- or middle-income countries – has recently fallen, reaching fewer people in 2024 than in 2023, according to estimates from the World Food Program, a United Nations agency. Major donors like Germany and the United States have reduced or suspended aid, citing budgetary constraints or concerns about theft, including to some of the neediest countries, such as Afghanistan, Haiti and Ethiopia. Adding to concerns, the Trump administration has signaled that it may move to “close down” the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, the largest provider of global food assistance.

At the same time, the world has faced a significant hunger crisis since 2019 due to a combination of factors, including the impacts of civil conflict, climate change and stubbornly high prices.

I wanted to determine whether food aid cuts and rising hunger are connected, and if democracy matters. I started by cataloging instances when countries had experienced significant reductions in food aid inflows. I then looked at whether those “aid shocks” were followed by upticks in food insecurity, using data from the U.N.’s Food and Agricultural Organization. Finally, I assessed whether the relationship between aid shocks and food insecurity varied across countries and political systems.

The results indicate that autocracies experience heightened food insecurity when sharp cuts to international food assistance occur, whereas democracies keep their people fed.

For example, autocratic Eswatini, an absolute monarchy in southern Africa that was formerly known as Swaziland, experienced a food aid shock in 2010 that was followed by a 2 percentage point uptick in the prevalence of undernourishment. In contrast, when Mongolia, a robust democracy, experienced an aid shock in 2007, undernourishment actually declined by about 3 percentage points.

On the one hand, this isn’t entirely surprising, as democratic leaders – unlike their autocratic counterparts – have to face the public in national elections, and winning is difficult when people are experiencing widespread hunger. Because leaders in a democracy are more accountable to their citizens, they make more of an effort to make up for the lost aid or cushion the adverse effects of food aid shocks on their populations.

On the other hand, democracies often struggle to move quickly, due to their complex policymaking processes and checks and balances. This may lead some to conclude that it is harder for them to move nimbly during a foreign aid crisis.

Why it matters

While many question the effectiveness of aid, including food aid, my findings suggest that cutting it – as some critics suggest – will have negative effects on the health and well-being of vulnerable people around the world. Already, food systems experts have expressed fears over the Trump administration’s proposed aid freezes and the potential breaking up of USAID.

For this reason, donor nations should be cautious about halting or rapidly shifting their foreign giving.

At the same time, donor governments, which are mostly Western democracies, have often used aid as a tool for promoting democratic institutions, at times cutting off aid to autocratic countries that abuse human rights. While this practice seems sensible to donors that wish to punish or discourage autocrats, my findings raise a significant concern: People living in autocratic countries may be left starving when aid is withdrawn.

And donor nations could take further steps to support democratization and democratic resilience, particularly in countries that are vulnerable to food insecurity. For example, donors can engage with civil society groups in aid-recipient nations, empowering them with tools and techniques to promote, protect and preserve democratic institutions. This way, countries will be more resilient and less likely to fall into crisis levels of hunger if and when aid cuts occur.

What’s next

While there is a tendency to treat governments as either “democratic” or “autocratic,” that approach obscures a good deal of nuance. Democracies vary in terms of their rules, procedures and governing structures. Likewise, autocracies can differ greatly from one another, with military regimes, personalist dictatorships and party-based autocracies each having unique characteristics.

Moving forward, I hope to dig into these varieties of democracy and autocracy to see how countries representing each respond to aid shocks.

The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work. Läs mer…

The Super Bowl is one of the world’s most significant single-day sporting events.

It attracts over 100 million U.S. viewers and [tens of millions of international viewers], making it an entertainment phenomenon. For Eagles fans who are not making the trip to the Superdome in New Orleans, there will be plenty of places to watch in Philadelphia – including rowdy bars, living rooms and even home tailgates, all while the city is lit in Eagles green.

For me, the Super Bowl is a real-life laboratory. As a sports scientist, neuropsychology professor and the former athletic director at Drexel University in Philadelphia, I investigate how high-performance athletes prepare cognitively and psychologically for a winning performance on game day.

When the stakes are at their highest, what can psychology reveal about who is mentally prepared to win the Super Bowl?

Tough-minded and open to experience

Research suggests that super-elite athletes are tough-minded and not easily rattled.

Their psychological profiles look similar to those of high-performance solo classical guitarists or fighter pilots. On personality tests, athletes typically score at least average in extroversion, openness and agreeableness, and high in conscientiousness.

Professional athletes work incredibly hard and are disciplined, well organized, goal-oriented, reliable and generally sociable.

A new focus in personality research in competitive athletes is on creativity and, specifically, being open to experience, which includes being receptive to new ideas and being flexible.

Openness has become increasingly important in the modern blueprint for winning football games. Daniel Memmert, a sports scientist at German Sport University Cologne, calls this “tactical creativity.” It is a cognitive style that allows one to be imaginative and engage in divergent thinking – which is an ability to think flexibly outside of routines and devise multiple solutions – even in real-time competitive situations.

Divergent thinking in high-performance sports includes focusing on the task at hand and paying attention to relevant information while ignoring irrelevant information in the athletic arena. The creative athlete knows when and where to look in order to win a play or avoid a costly error.

Creative and cool under pressure

Creativity is essential in unscripted football plays – when a planned play has not been executed properly, like a fumble or an interception.

Intentionally distracting your opponent has become an important part of sports competition. It is why quarterbacks often change the play at the line of scrimmage. But it becomes even more critical during improvised offensive plays when everything is unscripted. In a sport where milliseconds matter, being creative and engaging in something your opponent doesn’t expect can be the difference between winning and losing.

When the Eagles won the Super Bowl in 2018, backup quarterback Nick Foles calmly executed a trick play on fourth-and-goal, becoming the first player in history to both throw and catch a touchdown pass in a Super Bowl. The play is now called the Philly Special.

To engage in tactical creativity, however, an athlete must be relaxed. That’s not easy when millions of people are watching your every move.

Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver Trey Burton fires a touchdown pass to quarterback Nick Foles, not pictured, on a trick play during Super Bowl LII in Minneapolis in 2018.
Jim Davis/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

Brain connectivity at its finest

Performance anxiety is a leading cause of poor athletic performance. Research suggests an athlete’s competitive anxiety can be cumulative and maybe even be contagious, affecting teammates negatively.

That makes the Super Bowl as much a battle of nerves as it is about the physical execution of plays. So, how do professional athletes do it? The athlete practices how to think as much as they practice to play. Training is intentionally hard and uncomfortable to assist with preparing the body and mind.

Since emotions and thoughts affect behavior and performance, the concept of emotional self-regulation – or intentionally focusing on the present moment – has been introduced into competitive sports. Mindfulness, meditation, yoga, breathing exercises and grounding techniques are now integral to the toolkit for high-performance sports.

For athletes, it is relatively easy to elevate their emotions to push the ball forward with a play like the Philadelphia brotherly shove – an almost unstoppable offensive play used by the Eagles in which the team pushes the quarterback through the opponent’s defense for a short gain when needed.

But calming those emotions to execute a synchronized, attacking, complex passing play is more challenging cognitively.

A successful football player must easily transition from being highly aroused to remaining composed on command within seconds.

This cognitive efficiency and fluidity requires many hours to master. I am fully aware that while watching the Eagles’ Jalen Hurts, I am not just observing a great, innovative quarterback; I am witnessing brain connectivity at its finest.

Philadelphia Eagles fans celebrated the team’s first Super Bowl win with a victory parade on Feb. 8, 2018.
Corey Perrine via Getty Images

Psychology of Eagles fans

How fans experience Super Bowl Sunday is entirely different, psychologically speaking, from the players.

To perform at the highest level, the players are process oriented. They attempt to be present in real time and play without fear. On game day, it is advantageous for the competitor to play like a kid, full of joy and confidence.

Fans, on the other hand, are results oriented. And they are nervous wrecks, like parents watching their kids compete.

One remedy for managing this stress is watching the game with other fans. Philadelphians represent diverse socioeconomic and ethnic groups that often unite through sports. These social connections – which Germans, who were among the first settlers in the city, call Gemeinschaftsgefühl – are a hallmark of good psychological health.

I know I will never forget when the Eagles won Super Bowl LII: the game, the season and the parade.

And new research indicates why.

According to University of California, Berkeley psychology professor Dacher Keltner, these authentic “awe” moments are shortcuts to happiness. Football fans might experience awe when a seemingly unpredictable interception or touchdown has significant consequences.

In other words, the thrill of the game and the excitement of winning not only unite fans, but they can also transform them into happier versions of themselves. Läs mer…

Before assessing the impact of United States President Donald Trump’s climate and energy policies, some context about the current state of the planet is in order. United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres recently called the world’s fossil fuel addiction “a Frankenstein’s monster sparing nothing and no one.”

The year 2024 was the first in which the average temperature exceeded the Paris Agreement threshold of 1.5°C. Under a status quo scenario, Earth is on track to reach an approximate 2.7°C increase in planetary warming by 2100.

The 2024 Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change report found that climate-related global health threats are reaching new records, including heat-related deaths, food insecurity and the spread of infectious diseases.

Despite six reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 29 COP conferences and thousands of scientific papers, the world has made only minor headway on climate action.

The devastation from the Palisades Fire is visible in the Pacific Palisades neighbourhood of Los Angeles on Jan. 9, 2025.
(AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

Main carbon polluters and their victims

The 10 largest oil-producing and consuming countries account for 73 per cent of total oil production and consumption globally.

The U.S. is the largest oil producer and oil consumer, accounting for almost one-quarter of global production and more than 20 per cent of consumption in 2022. Canada is the fourth-largest oil producer and the ninth-largest consumer, and also has the highest per-capita CO2 emission levels of any country.

The world’s 60 largest banks, meanwhile, earmarked US$6.9 trillion over the last eight years to enable the fossil fuel industry.

According to an Oxfam International report, the richest one per cent of the world’s population, most of whom live in developed countries, are responsible for more than twice as much carbon pollution each year as the poorest 50 per cent of humanity. Low-income countries that make up nearly 60 per cent of the world’s population, on the other hand, account for less than 15 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

At COP 29 in Azerbaijan last year, developed countries, including Canada, pledged to triple their financial support for poor climate-vulnerable countries to $300 billion a year by 2035 to help them mitigate emissions, adapt to climate threats and help pay for loss and damage.

But this is far from the $1.3 trillion demanded by Global South countries. Their pledges bear little resemblance to global fossil fuel subsidies that totalled an estimated $7 trillion in 2022.

A global activist march and rally on the final day of the World Bank annual meetings in October 2024 in Washington, D.C., to call for more climate finance and clean energy.
(Kevin Wolf/AP Content Services)

Trump’s climate-related actions

Ahead of Trump’s recent inauguration, and under sustained pressure by Republicans, major American and Canadian banks withdrew from the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) originally led by Canada’s Mark Carney as the United Nations’ Special Envoy for Climate Action.

Read more:
Mark Carney might have the edge as potential Liberal leader, but still faces major obstacles

The oil and gas industry donated more than $75 million to Trump’s campaign, though donations provided by those with links to fossil fuels were estimated to be five times greater than that.

Trump’s more than 200 executive orders included a so-called National Energy Emergency Declaration, in which he:

· Withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement, which he called one-sided, joining only three other petro-states — Iran, Libya and Yemen — that are not signatories to the Agreement.

· Signed an order aimed at “unleashing American energy.”

· Signed a declaration that would allow his administration to fast-track permits for new fossil fuel infrastructure.

· Blocked all new offshore wind power development.

· Revoked former president Joe Biden’s order that half of vehicles sold by 2030 be electric

· Enabled new oil and gas development on federal lands, including reversing restrictions on petroleum extraction in Alaska and the Arctic Wildlife Reserve.

Elon Musk, among Trump’s closest billionaire allies, has been silent on the president’s 2025 exit from the Paris Climate Accord.

This is noteworthy because after Trump’s first withdrawal from the accord in 2017, Musk announced he was leaving presidential advisory councils, stating: “Climate change is real, leaving Paris is not good for America or the world.”

What’s ahead

Notwithstanding the Trump fossil fuels embrace, there are some silver linings.

Although the Trump snub of the COP climate conferences is generally seen as a setback, stronger climate action may now be possible without the U.S. at the table. Furthermore, many American states and municipalities will continue to push forward with aggressive emissions reduction measures. And thousands of climate lawsuits against U.S. governments and corporations are underway.

Read more:
Trump voters are not the obstacle to climate action many think they are

Trump’s actions may also spur the migration of the U.S. renewables industry to Canada. Regardless, renewables will continue to replace fossil fuels worldwide.

A global movement of governments, elected officials, organizations and individuals has endorsed the Canadian-founded Fossil Fuels Non-Proliferation treaty initiative. Modelled on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, it sets clear deadlines for the global phaseout of fossil fuels.

At the 2025 World Economic Forum, Fortescue, a global metal mining giant, endorsed the treaty, the first major industrial company to do so.

In his famous 2015 Lloyd’s of London speech, Carney, now the Liberal leadership frontrunner, called climate change “the tragedy of the horizon.”

In this 2015 photo, Mark Carney, then the governor of the Bank of England, gestures as he speaks at the COP21 United Nations Climate Change Conference in France.
(AP Photo/Michel Euler)

He warned that climate change will lead to financial crises and falling living standards unless the world’s biggest economies do more to ensure their companies come clean about their current and future carbon emissions.

Payam Akhavan, an Iranian-born Canadian human rights lawyer, served as legal counsel to the Commission of Small Island States at the recent International Court of Justice climate hearings where these nations presented evidence about the devastating impact of climate change on their citizens.

In an interview with CBC Ideas, Akhavan said: “What’s happening to the small island states today is going to happen to all of us tomorrow.”

Ultimately, the writing is on the wall for fossil fuels. It’s not a matter of if the world moves away from them dramatically, but when. Läs mer…

After threatening Canada and Mexico with illegal tariffs, and Canada with annexation, United States President Donald Trump has agreed to hold off on imposing tariffs on Canada for at least 30 days. This decision came after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke with Trump and committed to strengthening border security.

While this temporary reprieve provides some breathing room, the long-run question of how Canada should handle Trump and the American descent into authoritarianism remains.

Early responses seem to have coalesced around two policies: for Canada to trade less with the U.S. and more with other countries and to strengthen the internal Canadian economy.

Reducing Canada’s dependence on the U.S. economy is necessary in our current moment, as I’ve previously argued. But it will impose significant costs on Canadians and require a fundamental readjustment in how we think about our economy and society.

The Third Option, revived

Canadian External Affairs Minister Mitchell Sharp in January 1972.
(CP PHOTO)

This current crisis isn’t taking place in a historical vacuum. More than 50 years ago, similar concerns about Canada’s dependence on the U.S. led to a policy discussion centred on what became known as the “Third Option.”

In 1972, then-Secretary of State for External Affairs Mitchell Sharp wrote a paper called “Canada-US Relations: Options for the Future.” At the time, international politics were in a moment of transition, and the U.S. was recalibrating its understanding of its national interest.

Sharp proposed reconsidering the Canada-U.S. relationship. He observed that while Canadians recognized the benefits of ties with the U.S., they were increasingly wary of the direction of the relationship and in support of measures to “assure greater Canadian independence.”

Echoing today’s concerns, Sharp argued that the central question for Canada was whether its interdependence with the U.S. would “impose an unmanageable strain on the concept of a separate Canadian identity, if not on the elements of Canadian independence.”

The options that Sharp proposed are the same ones on offer today:

The First Option: Maintain Canada’s current relationship with the U.S. with minimal policy adjustments
The Second Option: Move toward closer integration with the U.S.
The Third Option: Pursue a long-term strategy to strengthen the Canadian economy and reduce vulnerability

From three options to one

Sharp’s analysis is clear on the costs and benefits of free trade. In terms of benefits, economic prosperity would be easier to attain. In fact, this proved decisive in 1988, when Canada embraced the Second Option — closer integration through the 1988 Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement.

But, as Sharp warned presciently, a free-trade agreement would be a “well-nigh irreversible option for Canada” because it would tie the country so closely to the U.S., raising the cost of disentanglement.

Meanwhile, the U.S. would always be free to redefine the relationship for any reason. This is what happened in 2001 when the U.S. prioritized security over prosperity in response to the 9/11 attacks. It’s what’s happening now.

Then-Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan in March 1985 in Québec City. The U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement was signed by Reagan and Mulroney on Jan. 2, 1988.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, Scott Applewhite

As in 2001, deeper integration remains a tempting response to the U.S. But the risks from integration are even greater now, given that Trump is dismantling U.S. democracy at home and trying to bully its neighbours in unprecedented ways.

Read more:
How constitutional guardrails have always contained presidential ambitions

Already, Canada is struggling to recruit American allies to fight against the tariffs because U.S. businesses and politicians are afraid to stand up to Trump. Choosing to more deeply integrate would only worsen Canada’s position, making it a part of the U.S. economy while losing even more political influence.

And that’s without addressing the morality of collaborating with a country that is currently setting up a concentration camp for migrants in Guantanamo Bay.

Autocratic governments, as Trump’s administration is demonstrating with his ultimatums against Canada and Mexico, are bullies who will always push the advantage. Taking their demands at face value is a surefire way to surrender Canadian autonomy one piece at a time. So, the First Option — maintaining the status quo — is also off the table.

Which leaves the Third Option.

The mortal peril facing Canada

The Third Option has become more appealing across the political spectrum mainly because the U.S. is forcing Canada’s hand. The uncertainty Trump has injected into the relationship, even in the presence of a trade agreement, has made it more costly for businesses to engage in cross-border trade.

If Trump’s tariff threat remains, and his attack on the rule of law continues, the U.S. market will become even more unattractive, not least because of the toxic uncertainty Trump has injected into the relationship.

But his actions also underscore the new, extreme danger Canada now faces.

President Donald Trump holds up a signed executive order in the Oval Office of the White House, Feb. 3, 2025, in Washington.
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

As Sharp recognized in 1972, shared social values were the bedrock of successful Canada-U.S. relations. He understood that, for the Third Option to work, the relationship needed to be “harmonious.” Even as he considered ways to reduce Canada’s dependence, he never doubted Canada and the U.S. were “broadly compatible societies.”

That shared foundation — “based on a broad array of shared interests, perceptions and goals” — made it possible for Canada to chart its own path while maintaining a productive relationship with the U.S.

Today, that assumption no longer holds. The U.S., under Trump, is acting as an expansionist imperial power with little regard for international law.

This is the needle Canadian politicians have to thread. By geography alone, Canada must continue to have a relationship with the U.S. But the absence of shared values makes it incredibly difficult to have any kind of healthy, productive relationship.

The cost of democracy

As Sharp recognized, there is a cost to following the Third Option. It will require a “deliberate, comprehensive and long-term strategy” on a scale not seen since the 1960s — meaning higher taxes, more government intervention and a level of global engagement Canada hasn’t undertaken in quite a while.

This must all be done in a landscape where Canada and the U.S. no longer share values — a shift even ardent Canadian nationalists recognized was necessary for Canadian independence — while pursuing policies that do not antagonize the U.S.

For the Third Option to be viable today, Canadians must embrace an independent Canadian identity based on respect for democracy, pluralism, the rule of law and human rights. It likely requires consensus that U.S. authoritarianism is wholly unacceptable to Canada.

Canada is being pushed toward the Third Option as the least worst approach. But, as was true in Sharp’s time, the Third Option come at a cost. Independence and democracy don’t come for free. Läs mer…

The Albanese government is banning DeepSeek – the Chinese artificial intelligence model – from all government systems and devices on national security grounds.

It says this is in line with the actions of a number of other countries and is based on “risk and threat information” from security and intelligence agencies.

The Chinese platform TikTok is already banned from government systems and devices.

Under the decision, announced by Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, government bodies must immediately remove all DeepSeek products, applications and services from systems and mobile devices. No new installations are allowed.

But politicians can still have DeepSeek on their personal non-government devices. This presently happens with TikTok – for example opposition leader Peter Dutton has a TikTok account.

While the direction only applies to official systems and devices, the government is also urging all Australians to inform themselves about how their data can be used online and to carefully review a company’s privacy policy on how customer data is managed.

Burke said: “The Albanese government is taking swift and decisive action to protect Australia’s national security and national interest.

”AI is is a technology full of potential and opportunity, but the government will not hesitate to act when our agencies identify a national security risk.

”Our approach is country-agnostic and focused on the risk to the Australian government and our assets.‘

The NSW Department of Customer Service acted late last month to ban DeepSeek from official devices and systems.

The department told Cyber Daily it had ”taken a precautionary approach to restrict corporate access to DeepSeek AI, consistent with the approach taken for many new and emerging applications, systems and services”.

Commenting on the NSW department’s decision Dana Mckay, Senior Lecturer in Innovative Interactive Technologies at RMIT, said: “The reason Chinese-made and-owned tools are being banned is that the data they collect is available to the Chinese government not just when a crime has been committed, but also for economic or social reasons.

”DeepSeek even collects keystroke patterns, which can be used to identify individuals, potentially allowing them to match in-work searches with leisure time searches, potentially leading to national security risks,” she said.

“It is fair to ask whether DeepSeek is more dangerous to Australian national security than, say, OpenAI which collects similar data: the difference is that OpenAI will only give data to government to comply with relevant laws, and this typically means where a crime may have been committed.

”Whether governments should be concerned about the level of data collected by commercial companies, such as OpenAI and Google, is still a significant question, but one that is separate to the national security concerns raised by China’s data sovereignty laws.”

Among those banning Deepseek are the Pentagon, the United States Navy, NASA, Italy and Taiwan. Läs mer…

The 1980s are remembered for many things including power suits, the Ford Falcon and the long lunch.

The last was thanks to a generous interpretation of tax law as it applied to food and entertainment at “business meetings”. Bosses could deduct the cost of lunch with colleagues and contacts for tax purposes.

The Hawke government ended that when it made sweeping changes to tax law the mid 80s including the introduction of a fringe benefits tax.

But the long lunch might return under a Coalition government.

Its estimated cost to the budget, however, swings wildly. The Parliamentary Budget Office puts the figure at A$250 million, while a government-commissioned study by Treasury says it could be between $1.6 billion and $10 billion .

The different estimates result from varied modelling of how many businesses would seek the deduction and the average amount each would claim. Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor on Tuesday said it would cost less than $250 million. He said the Treasury estimates were “straight nonsense”.

Angus Taylor said Treasury’s estimates were “straight nonsense”
Mick Tsikas/AAP

The actual cost may also depend on whether the deduction would be limited to employees or could include spending on their family members and on clients. These things are not yet clear.

One thing that is clear, however, is higher spending at hospitality venues should bring in more tax from businesses to offset the lost deduction revenue.

Whatever rules emerge, enforcing them could be expensive. Some small businesses might be tempted to inflate their expenditure, or simply “reclassify” usual food and drink costs to make them eligible for a deduction.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton announced the plan late last month. He said small businesses could claim deductions for meals and entertainment. This would be available to businesses with a turnover under $10 million and excluded alcohol.

The deduction would be capped at $20,000 a year. The policy would run initially for two years and would presumably be reviewed with a view to extending it or making it permanent.

Dutton gave two reasons for reintroducing the exemption to the FBT. First, it was an incentive that would help retain and reward employees. Employees can get a “little bit of a return”, Dutton said at the time. Second, it would boost hospitality spending.

Overwhelmingly, this policy is an incentive for small businesses. However, tax policy experts argue the tax system should not use targeted tax breaks to promote a particular economic activity.

One major concern is this plan runs counter to the reasonably clear boundary our income tax system has established between private consumption expenditure (not deductible) and income producing expenditure (deductible).

The 1985 deduction denial for entertainment expenditure is a central part of this framework; it squarely recognised the private consumption character of the expenditure and it has stood for 40 years in tax law. Serious analysis should be done before changes are made.

Also, it might lead to claims of “what about me?” Think, for example, of a small business taxpayer with a turnover of $12 million who misses out. What about an independent contractor who falls short of being a business?

It looks like the technical way the tax deduction is to be achieved will depend on who benefits from the food and entertainment. If the beneficiary is a customer of the small business, the small business will be given a deduction. If the employee benefits, the small business will get an exemption for the benefit and obtain a deduction for the expenditure.

Peter Dutton said in his announcement last month the Coalition was doing this in a way to ensure small businesses “are not dragged into a complicated tax jungle”.

Fringe benefits tax is complicated and compliance costs are high.
Shakirov Albert/Shutterstock

The complexity of fringe benefits tax is well known. Compliance costs are high and mistakes are made by taxpayers and tax agents. The complexity is greatest for entertainment spending where income tax interacts with fringe benefits tax and the GST.

Without knowing the proposed rules, there is a chance a small business incurring entertainment expenditure can avoid being brought into a “tax jungle” if they keep employees and customers at separate entertainment events.

If they do combine the two, some complications arise, but they are not insurmountable. In any event, tax agents and their clients tend to get used to their specific situation over time. Excluding alcohol does add a slight complication, though, because of the different treatment it will attract.

Overall, the concerns about this policy are real and substantial. It is worth recalling that there are many examples of poor tax policy getting into legislation, and despite the significant evidence about them, they are not removed.

The capital gains tax discount is a good example. This discount has overwhelmingly delivered a tax break to high income earners. And the amount of the lost revenue is continually increasing. Let us think before running this risk with the proposed “long lunch” tax break. Läs mer…