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Over the past decade, furtive commercial entities around the world have industrialized the production, sale and dissemination of bogus scholarly research. These paper mills are profiting by undermining the literature that everyone from doctors to engineers rely on to make decisions about human lives.

It is exceedingly difficult to get a handle on exactly how big the problem is. About 55,000 scholarly papers have been retracted to date, for a variety of reasons, but scientists and companies who screen the scientific literature for telltale signs of fraud estimate that there are many more fake papers circulating – possibly as many as several hundred thousand. This fake research can confound legitimate researchers who must wade through dense equations, evidence, images and methodologies, only to find that they were made up.

Even when bogus papers are spotted – usually by amateur sleuths on their own time – academic journals are often slow to retract the papers, allowing the articles to taint what many consider sacrosanct: the vast global library of scholarly work that introduces new ideas, reviews and other research and discusses findings.

These fake papers are slowing research that has helped millions of people with lifesaving medicine and therapies, from cancer to COVID-19. Analysts’ data shows that fields related to cancer and medicine are particularly hard-hit, while areas such as philosophy and art are less affected.

To better understand the scope, ramifications and potential solutions of this metastasizing assault on science, we – a contributing editor at Retraction Watch, a website that reports on retractions of scientific papers and related topics, and two computer scientists at France’s Université Toulouse III–Paul Sabatier and Université Grenoble Alpes who specialize in detecting bogus publications – spent six months investigating paper mills.

Co-author Guillaume Cabanac also developed the Problematic Paper Screener, which filters 130 million new and old scholarly papers every week looking for nine types of clues that a paper might be fake or contain errors.

An obscure molecule

Frank Cackowski at Detroit’s Wayne State University was confused.

The oncologist was studying a sequence of chemical reactions in cells to see whether they could be a target for drugs against prostate cancer. A paper from 2018 in the American Journal of Cancer Research piqued his interest when he read that a little-known molecule called SNHG1 might interact with the chemical reactions he was exploring. He and fellow Wayne State researcher Steven Zielske began experiments but found no link.

Meanwhile, Zielske had grown suspicious of the paper. Two graphs showing results for different cell lines were identical, he noticed, which “would be like pouring water into two glasses with your eyes closed and the levels coming out exactly the same.” Another graph and a table in the article also inexplicably contained identical data.

Zielske described his misgivings in an anonymous post in 2020 at PubPeer, an online forum where many scientists report potential research misconduct, and also contacted the journal’s editor. The journal pulled the paper, citing “falsified materials and/or data.”

“Science is hard enough as it is if people are actually being genuine and trying to do real work,” said Cackowski, who also works at the Karmanos Cancer Institute in Michigan.

Wayne State scientists Cackowsi and Zielske carried out experiments based on a paper they later found to contain false data.
Amy Sacka, CC BY-ND

Legitimate academic journals evaluate papers before publication by having other researchers in the field carefully read them over. But this peer review process is far from perfect. Reviewers volunteer their time, typically assume research is real and so don’t look for fraud.

Some publishers may try to pick reviewers they deem more likely to accept papers, because rejecting a manuscript can mean losing out on thousands of dollars in publication fees.

Worse, some corrupt scientists form peer review rings. Paper mills may create fake peer reviewers. Others may bribe editors or plant agents on journal editorial boards.

An ‘absolutely huge’ problem

It’s unclear when paper mills began to operate at scale. The earliest suspected paper mill article retracted was published in 2004, according to the Retraction Watch database, which details retractions and is operated by The Center for Scientific Integrity, the parent nonprofit of Retraction Watch.

An analysis of 53,000 papers submitted to six publishers – but not necessarily published – found 2% to 46% suspect submissions across journals. The American publisher Wiley, which has retracted more than 11,300 articles and closed 19 heavily affected journals in its erstwhile Hindawi division, said its new paper mill detection tool flags up to 1 in 7 submissions.

As many as 2% of the several million scientific works published in 2022 were milled, according to Adam Day, who directs Clear Skies, a company in London that develops tools to spot fake papers. Some fields are worse than others: biology and medicine are closer to 3%, and some subfields, such as cancer, may be much larger, Day said.

The paper mill problem is “absolutely huge,” said Sabina Alam, director of Publishing Ethics and Integrity at Taylor & Francis, a major academic publisher. In 2019, none of the 175 ethics cases escalated to her team was about paper mills, Alam said. Ethics cases include submissions and already published papers. “We had almost 4,000 cases” in 2023, she said. “And half of those were paper mills.”

Jennifer Byrne, an Australian scientist who now heads up a research group to improve the reliability of medical research, testified at a July 2022 U.S. House of Representatives hearing that nearly 6% of 12,000 cancer research papers screened had errors that could signal paper mill involvement. Byrne shuttered her cancer research lab in 2017 because genes she had spent two decades researching and writing about became the target of fake papers.

In 2022, Byrne and colleagues, including two of us, found that suspect genetics research, despite not immediately affecting patient care, informs scientists’ work, including clinical trials. But publishers are often slow to retract tainted papers, even when alerted to obvious fraud. We found that 97% of the 712 problematic genetics research articles we identified remained uncorrected.

Potential solutions

The Cochrane Collaboration has a policy excluding suspect studies from its analyses of medical evidence and is developing a tool to spot problematic medical trials. And publishers have begun to share data and technologies among themselves to combat fraud, including image fraud.

Technology startups are also offering help. The website Argos, launched in September 2024 by Scitility, an alert service based in Sparks, Nevada, allows authors to check collaborators for retractions or misconduct. Morressier, a scientific conference and communications company in Berlin, offers research integrity tools. Paper-checking tools include Signals, by London-based Research Signals, and Clear Skies’ Papermill Alarm.

But Alam acknowledges that the fight against paper mills won’t be won as long as the booming demand for papers remains.

Today’s commercial publishing is part of the problem, Byrne said. Cleaning up the literature is a vast and expensive undertaking. “Either we have to monetize corrections such that publishers are paid for their work, or forget the publishers and do it ourselves,” she said.

There’s a fundamental bias in for-profit publishing: “We pay them for accepting papers,” said Bodo Stern, a former editor of the journal Cell and chief of Strategic Initiatives at Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a nonprofit research organization and funder in Chevy Chase, Maryland. With more than 50,000 journals on the market, bad papers shopped around long enough eventually find a home, Stern said.

To prevent this, we could stop paying journals for accepting papers and look at them as public utilities that serve a greater good. “We should pay for transparent and rigorous quality-control mechanisms,” he said.

Peer review, meanwhile, “should be recognized as a true scholarly product, just like the original article,” Stern said. And journals should make all peer-review reports publicly available, even for manuscripts they turn down.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. This is a condensed version. To learn more about how fraudsters around the globe use paper mills to enrich themselves and harm scientific research, read the full version. Läs mer…

The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether Oklahoma can open St. Isidore: an online Roman Catholic charter school named after the patron saint of the internet. If affirmed, the school would be the nation’s first faith-based charter – a sea change in education law, expanding the boundaries of government aid to faith-based schools.

On Jan. 24, 2025, the justices agreed to hear two consolidated cases: Oklahoma Charter School Board v. Drummond and St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School v. Drummond. Gentner Drummond, the state’s attorney general, filed suit in 2023 to block the school’s contract. In Oklahoma’s courts, Drummond argued that St. Isidore’s creation would violate state statutes, Oklahoma’s Constitution and the U.S. Constitution – and the Supreme Court of Oklahoma agreed with the attorney general.

The ruling involving St. Isidore “stands to be one of the most significant religious and education freedom decisions in our lifetime,” noted Oklahoma’s Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, who backs the school. Opponents such as Drummond, another Republican, fear just the opposite: that a judgment in favor of St. Isidore would threaten religious liberty by allowing closer ties between the government and religious organizations.

Indeed, St. Isidore is a potential blockbuster. At stake is whether, or how far, the Supreme Court may continue to expand the boundaries of permissible government aid to faith-based institutions and their students – a trend I have often written about in my work on education law.

Testing the limits

In a trio of recent cases, the majority of justices held that states cannot deny institutions or individuals generally available aid based solely on their religions. The first, decided in 2017, dealt with a Lutheran church applying for grants to enhance playground protection in a preschool and child care facility in Missouri. The court reached similar conclusions about an educational tax-credit program in Montana, and providing tuition assistance to parents in districts lacking public secondary schools in Maine.

This time around, the justices will face two key questions. First, do the teachings of “a privately owned and run school constitute state action simply because it contracts with the state”? In other words, is a charter school a state actor?

Second, the justices will weigh how the First Amendment religion clauses apply to a faith-based charter school. According to the First Amendment, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The question is whether a state violates the free exercise clause by excluding schools from the charter program “solely because they are religious.” If so, is the exclusion justified by concerns about the government “establishing” religion?

Key arguments

The first issue – the “state actor” question – essentially asks whether a state-funded school teaching Catholicism would constitute the government promoting a religion, in violation of the First Amendment prohibition against doing so.

Drummond, Oklahoma’s attorney general, argues that St. Isidore “misuses the concept of religious liberty by employing it as a means to justify state-funded religion.” The state’s “charter schools bear all of the hallmarks of a public school,” such as being entirely state-funded, he wrote in a brief to the Supreme Court. Thus, as a government actor, St. Isidore may not promote religion or one religion over another.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond has argued the school is unconstitutional – and the state’s Supreme Court agreed.
AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki

This “state actor” argument may be difficult for St. Isidore’s proponents to rebut. Yet, supporters of St. Isidore have an ace in the hole: that trio of recent Supreme Court opinions expanding the boundaries of aid to faith-based schools and their students.

In the first of the trilogy – the 2017 playground case from Missouri – Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that excluding the Christian child care center “from a public benefit for which it is otherwise qualified, solely because it is a church, is odious to our Constitution all the same, and cannot stand.”

Roberts authored the opinions in all three of those cases, which reflect the dominant view of the court in recent years: the accommodationist wing. Accommodationists tend to take the position that the First Amendment promotes cooperation between religion and government, so long as the government does not favor a particular religion.

However, the justices’ support for faith-based charter schools may not prove as strong. One reason is that previous cases expanding permissible aid to religious organizations have used what is called the child-benefit test: The students or their parents, rather than the institutions themselves, like St. Isidore, are the primary beneficiaries of the government funds.

Another factor is that Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who has joined the majority in previous decisions increasing aid to faith-based schools and their students, recused herself from participating in the decision over whether to hear the dispute over St. Isidore. She did not say why, and it remains to be seen whether she will take part in its resolution.

In the earlier cases, the five accommodationist justices – led by Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, along with Roberts, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh – supported increased aid. The remaining three justices – Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson – are less likely to support St. Isidore’s position. Thus, St. Isidore’s supporters may have little wiggle room.

What’s next?

St. Isidore is a potential game changer, because it may expand the limits of aid to faith-based schools and their students more than ever before.

If the court does uphold the creation of St. Isidore, the full implications remain to be seen. This much appears clear: Other states may follow suit, further blurring the line between church and state.

The Supreme Court will likely release a decision in late spring.
AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

A decision in the school’s favor could have other consequences, as well. One issue Oklahoma’s courts considered was whether St. Isidore had to admit and serve students with disabilities. By state law, charter schools are required to, but critics argued that St. Isidore failed to demonstrate that it would.

Nonpublic schools, on the other hand, have no legal duty to admit particular students, including those with disabilities. When they do attend nonpublic schools, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and its regulations require local public school boards to fund some services. But that amount is limited, with the upshot that faith-based schools often are not equipped to serve students with disabilities.

If the court were to uphold the creation of St. Isidore, I believe the ruling could provide the impetus for Congress and the federal Department of Education to modify these laws to increase funding for children with disabilities at faith-based schools.

As I learned in law school, “the Supreme Court does not take cases to affirm them.” That lesson, combined with the court’s three most recent cases on religion and schools, suggests more change may be in the offing when the justices issue their decision – likely in late June. Läs mer…

Private citizens and companies may one day begin to permanently settle outer space and celestial bodies. But if we don’t enact governing laws in the meantime, space settlers may face legal chaos.

Many wars on Earth start over territorial disputes. In order to avoid such disputes in outer space, nations should consider enacting national laws that specify the extent of each settler’s authority in outer space and provide a process to resolve conflicts.

I have been researching and writing about space law for over 40 years. Through my work, I’ve studied ways to avoid war and resolve disputes in space.

Property in space

Space is an international area, and companies and individuals are free to land their space objects – including satellites, human-crewed and robotic spacecraft and human-inhabited facilities – on celestial bodies and conduct operations anywhere they please. This includes both outer space and celestial bodies such as the Moon.

Space objects include landers, rovers, satellites and other objects on the surface of or in orbit around a celestial body.
Stocktrek Images/Stocktrek Images via Getty Images

The 1967 Outer Space Treaty prohibits territorial claims in outer space and on celestial bodies in order to avoid disputes. But without national laws governing space settlers, a nation might attempt to protect its citizens’ and companies’ interests by withdrawing from the treaty. They could then claim the territory where its citizens have placed their space objects.

Nations enforce territorial claims through military force, which would likely cost money and lives. An alternative to territorial claims, which I’ve been investigating and have come to prefer, would be to enact real property rights that are consistent with the Outer Space Treaty.

Territorial claims can be asserted only by national governments, while property rights apply to private citizens, companies and national governments that own property. A property rights law could specify how much authority settlers have and protect their investments in outer space and on celestial bodies.

The Outer Space Treaty

In 1967, the Outer Space Treaty went into effect. As of January 2025, 115 countries are party to this treaty, including the United States and most nations that have a space program.

The Outer Space Treaty is the main international agreement governing outer space. However, it is not self-executing.

The Outer Space Treaty outlines principles for the peaceful exploration and use of outer space and celestial bodies. However, the treaty does not specify how it will apply to the citizens and companies of nations that are parties to the treaty.

For this reason, the Outer Space Treaty is largely not a self-executing treaty. This means U.S. courts cannot apply the terms of the treaty to individual citizens and companies. For that to happen, the United States would need to enact national legislation that explains how the terms of the treaty apply to nongovernmental entities.

One article of the Outer Space Treaty says that participating countries should make sure that all of their citizens’ space activities comply with the treaty’s terms. Another article then gives these nations the authority to enact laws governing their citizens’ and companies’ private space activities.

This is particularly relevant to the U.S., where commercial activity in space is rapidly increasing.

UN Charter

It is important to note that the Outer Space Treaty requires participating nations to comply with international law and the United Nations Charter.

In the U.N. Charter, there are two international law concepts that are relevant to property rights. One is a country’s right to defend itself, and the other is the noninterference principle.

The international law principle of noninterference gives nations the right to exclude others from their space objects and the areas where they have ongoing activity.

But how will nations apply this concept to their private citizens and companies? Do individual people and companies have the right to exclude others in order to prevent interference with their activities? What can they do if a foreign person interferes or causes damage?

The noninterference principle in the U.N. Charter governs relations between nations, not individuals. Consequently, U.S. courts likely wouldn’t enforce the noninterference principle in a case involving two private parties.

So, U.S. citizens and companies do not have the right to exclude others from their space objects and areas of ongoing activity unless the U.S. enacts legislation giving them that right.

US laws and regulations

The United States has recognized the need for more specific laws to govern private space activities. It has sought international support for this effort through the nonbinding Artemis Accords.

The Artemis Accords outline a framework for the peaceful exploration of outer space.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

As of January 2025, 50 nations have signed the Artemis Accords.

The accords explain how important components of the Outer Space Treaty will apply to private space activities. One section of the accords allows for safety zones, where public and private personnel, equipment and operations are protected from harmful interference by other people. The rights to self-defense and noninterference from the U.N. Charter provide a legal basis for safety zones.

Aside from satellite and rocket-launch regulations, the United States has enacted only a few laws – including the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act of 2015 – to govern private activities in outer space and on celestial bodies.

As part of this act, any U.S. citizen collecting mineral resources in outer space or on celestial bodies has a right to own, transport, use and sell those resources. This act is an example of national legislation that clarifies how the Outer Space Treaty applies to U.S. citizens and companies.

Property rights

Enacting property rights for outer space would make it clear what rights and obligations property owners have and the extent of their authority over their property.

All nations on Earth have a form of property rights in their legal systems. Property rights typically include the rights to possess, control, develop, exclude, enjoy, sell, lease and mortgage properties. Enacting real property rights in space would create a marketplace for buying, selling, renting and mortgaging property.

Because the Outer Space Treaty prohibits territorial claims, space property rights would not necessarily be “land grabs.” Property rights would operate a little differently in space than on Earth.

Property rights in space would have to be based on the authority that the Outer Space Treaty gives to nations. This authority allows them to govern their citizens and their assets by enacting laws and enforcing them in their courts.

Space property rights would include safety zones around property to prevent interference. So, people would have to get the property owner’s permission before entering a safety zone.

If a U.S. property owner were to sell a space property to a foreign citizen or company, the space objects on the property would have to stay on the property or be replaced with the purchaser’s space objects. That would ensure that the owner’s country still has authority over the property.

Also, if someone transferred their space objects to a foreign citizen or company, the buyer would have to change their objects’ international registration, which would give the buyer’s nation authority over the space objects and the surrounding property.

Nations could likely avoid some territorial disputes if they enact real property laws in space that clearly describe how national authority over property changes when it is sold. Enacting property rights could reduce the legal risks for commercial space companies and support the permanent settlement of outer space and celestial bodies.

U.S. property rights law could also contain a reciprocity provision, which would encourage other nations to pass similar laws and allow participating countries to mutually recognize each other’s property rights.

With a reciprocity provision, property rights could support economic development as commercial companies around the world begin to look to outer space as the next big area of economic growth. Läs mer…

What do you think there are more of: professional computer programmers or computer users who do a little programming?

It’s the second group. There are millions of so-called end-user programmers. They’re not going into a career as a professional programmer or computer scientist. They’re going into business, teaching, law, or any number of professions – and they just need a little programming to be more efficient. The days of programmers being confined to software development companies are long gone.

If you’ve written formulas in Excel, filtered your email based on rules, modded a game, written a script in Photoshop, used R to analyze some data, or automated a repetitive work process, you’re an end-user programmer.

As educators who teach programming, we want to help students in fields other than computer science achieve their goals. But learning how to program well enough to write finished programs can be hard to accomplish in a single course because there is so much to learn about the programming language itself. Artificial intelligence can help.

Lost in the weeds

Learning the syntax of a programming language – for example, where to place colons and where indentation is required – takes a lot of time for many students. Spending time at the level of syntax is a waste for students who simply want to use coding to help solve problems rather than learn the skill of programming.

As a result, we feel our existing classes haven’t served these students well. Indeed, many students end up barely able to write small functions – short, discrete pieces of code – let alone write a full program that can help make their lives better.

Learning a programming language can be difficult for those who are not computer science students.
LordHenriVoton/E+ via Getty Images

Tools built on large language models such as GitHub Copilot may allow us to change these outcomes. These tools have already changed how professionals program, and we believe we can use them to help future end-user programmers write software that is meaningful to them.

These AIs almost always write syntactically correct code and can often write small functions based on prompts in plain English. Because students can use these tools to handle some of the lower-level details of programming, it frees them to focus on bigger-picture questions that are at the heart of writing software programs. Numerous universities now offer programming courses that use Copilot.

At the University of California, San Diego, we’ve created an introductory programming course primarily for those who are not computer science students that incorporates Copilot. In this course, students learn how to program with Copilot as their AI assistant, following the curriculum from our book. In our course, students learn high-level skills such as decomposing large tasks into smaller tasks, testing code to ensure its correctness, and reading and fixing buggy code.

Freed to solve problems

In this course, we’ve been giving students large, open-ended projects and couldn’t be happier with what they have created.

For example, in a project where students had to find and analyze online datasets, we had a neuroscience major create a data visualization tool that illustrated how age and other factors affected stroke risk. Or, for example, in another project, students were able to integrate their personal art into a collage, after applying filters that they had created using the programming language Python. These projects were well beyond the scope of what we could ask students to do before the advent of large language model AIs.

Given the rhetoric about how AI is ruining education by writing papers for students and doing their homework, you might be surprised to hear educators like us talking about its benefits. AI, like any other tool people have created, can be helpful in some circumstances and unhelpful in others.

In our introductory programming course with a majority of students who are not computer science majors, we see firsthand how AI can empower students in specific ways – and promises to expand the ranks of end-user programmers. Läs mer…

On Jan. 27, 2025, the Trump administration ordered a freeze on federal grants and contracts covering a wide array of aid programs to take effect at 5 p.m. the following day. This freeze was partially prevented when a judge responded to a lawsuit filed by the National Council of Nonprofits and other organizations. The flow of funds on grants that had already been awarded was at least temporarily protected by the judge’s action. The attorneys general of 22 states and the District of Columbia have also sued to block this funding freeze.

The Trump administration, which on Jan. 29 rescinded the memo ordering the funding suspension, has made clear that it may again seek to reduce or eliminate much of the money, totaling several hundred billion dollars, that funds many services that nonprofits provide, such as support for foster parents, after-school care and distributing food for free.

Dyana Mason and Mirae Kim, two scholars of nonprofits, explain the role that federal funding plays in the nonprofit sector.

How much do nonprofits rely on federal funding?

Nonprofits partner with the government to deliver social services, such as child care for low-income families, housing for people experiencing homelessness, and job training and placement. These partnerships can form with local or state governments, as well as with the federal government, with this collaboration mostly taking place through grants and contracts.

Government funding makes up about 33% of the revenue flowing into the nonprofit sector annually, according to the Urban Institute. The institute, a think tank, also found that nearly 40% of all nonprofits in the United States applied for federal grants in 2021, 2022 and 2023, and that about 10% applied for federal contracts. The share of government funding can be far larger for some kinds of social service nonprofits.

Many other nonprofits applied for local and state grants during that three-year period. Those grants, however, are often themselves funded by the federal government indirectly through grants it makes to state and local government agencies. Those agencies, in turn, then provide grants or maintain contracts with local nonprofits to provide services.

Although it’s hard to track with absolute precision due to those complex arrangements, government revenue is the second-largest source of income for nonprofits after the money these organizations and institutions earn through commercial activities.

Also called “fee-for-service,” this revenue includes the money nonprofit hospitals get when patients and insurers pay medical bills, nonprofit theaters receive when they sell tickets to performances, and nonprofit private schools obtain when parents pay tuition.

Some social service nonprofits charge fees too, typically on a sliding scale. That is, their clients with relatively higher incomes pay more, and those with extremely low incomes pay very little or nothing at all.

How could freezing federal funding affect nonprofits?

We have no doubt that a long freeze on federal grants and contracts would be devastating for nonprofits and the communities they serve.

For example, Meals on Wheels, a program that delivers hot meals to more than 2 million homebound people over 65 and helps them maintain social connections, gets 37% of its funding from the federal government.

Clackamas Women’s Services, a domestic and sexual violence organization based near Portland, Oregon, is one of the many local organizations that have expressed concern about what to expect. The group says it could lose half of its annual budget if federal funding were to be eliminated.

Without federal funding, organizations like these – many of which already have waitlists – would have to cut back on the services they provide.

Nonprofits are confused and concerned about the stability of federal funding, Scripps News reports.

What’s the role of nonprofits in the US safety net?

It’s very significant.

For the past several decades, attempts to scale back the size of the government have led to government agencies essentially hiring nonprofits to do much of their work.

Through contracts and grants, nonprofits then do such things as assist people who are recovering from fires, hurricanes and other disasters; provide services for veterans and active-duty members of the military; and help people with mental health conditions, including substance use problems, just to name a few.

This arrangement typically provides nonprofits with a reliable and predictable source of funds that they can use to serve their communities. But it can also leave them vulnerable to policy changes – especially when new administrations take over, as the second Trump administration’s actions illustrate.

Research we conducted about what happened to nonprofits during the COVID-19 pandemic showed that volatility in the economy has serious effects on the ability of nonprofits to do their work.

For example, social service nonprofits struggled in March and April 2020 due to falling revenue at a time of increasing demand. Many of these organizations had to scale back their services. In some cases, they canceled them.

We followed up with another survey in November and December 2020. By then, we found, 61% of the groups had received forgivable federal loans through the government’s Paycheck Protection Program.

Nearly half of the nonprofits told us that they had, in addition, received other forms of emergency funding from the federal government, including Economic Injury Disaster Loans and emergency food distributions.

This federal assistance made it possible for thousands of nonprofits to keep their staff employed and continue to provide important services as the economy recovered.

What happens when nonprofits lose federal funds?

It’s hard for social service organizations to replace federal funding.

Nonprofits can, of course, appeal to their donors to help bridge the gap. But donations from individuals, foundations, corporations and bequests only amount to no more than 15% of the funds flowing into the nonprofit sector.

The outcome of freezing, eliminating or scaling back federal funding for nonprofits would mean that those in need would get fewer services. We would also expect mass layoffs, which could harm the U.S. economy.

Nonprofits employ more than 12 million people in the United States. That’s more workers than big industries such as construction, transportation and finance employ. Should millions of them suddenly become unemployed, demand would grow further for social services from providers already unable to meet lower levels of demand due to funding cuts.

Has there ever been upheaval like this before?

Congress appropriates money to provide for the services that the public needs and demands. These moves have led to great fear and uncertainty among organizations that serve people in need in the United States and abroad.

Although it’s not unusual for funding priorities to change from one administration to the next, Donald Trump’s executive orders on international aid and nonprofit grants and contracts that underpin the U.S. safety net are unprecedented. Läs mer…

Children should be seen and not heard, or so the old saying goes. A new version of this adage is now playing out across the United States, as more states are passing laws about how children and teens should use social media.

In 2024, approximately half of all U.S. states passed at least 50 bills that make it harder for children and teens to spend time online without any supervision.

Some of the new laws in places such as Maryland, Florida, Georgia and Minnesota include provisions that require parental consent before a child or teenager under the age of 18 can use a social media app, for example. Other new laws prevent targeted marketing to teens based on the personal information they share online. Others recognize child influencers who have active social media followings as workers.

In 1998, long before the age of Instagram or TikTok, the federal government set a minimal baseline for internet safety for children under the age of 13 with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. This law, known as COPPA, prevents websites from sharing children’s personal information, among other measures.

As law professors who study children’s online lives and the law, we are tracking state governments that are providing new protections to children when they use social media.

So far, almost all of these new protections are happening at the state level – it remains to be seen how the Trump administration will, if at all, weigh in on how children and teens are spending time on social media.

Almost half of all teens ages 13 to 17 said in 2024 that they are ‘constantly’ online.
iStock/Getty Images Plus

Risk of social media use for kids and teens

Almost half of teens ages 13 to 17 said in 2024 they are “almost constantly” online and virtually all of them use the internet every day.

And approximately 40% of children ages 8 to 12 use social media on a daily basis.

Research shows that adolescents who spend more than three hours a day on social media have an increased risk of anxiety and depression.

Almost half of teens have faced online bullying or harassment, with older teen girls most likely to have experienced this. Social media use has been linked to self-harm in some cases.

In 2023, 41 states and the District of Columbia sued Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, claiming that it was harming children. Although Meta tried to have the case dismissed, it is still moving forward.

States’ attempts to make social media safer for teens

States including New York and California have made a number of legal changes since 2023 that make it safer for adolescents to spend time online.

California, for example, has expanded information protection for young social media users by limiting apps from collecting kids’ and teens’ geolocation data.

Utah and Florida have raised the age for social media use. Children under the age of 14 cannot open their own social media account, and the platforms are supposed to shut down any such accounts used by children in those states.

In 2024, the Utah Legislature determined that social media was similar to regulated “products and activities” like cars and medication that create risks for minors.

Utah’s new law requires social media platforms to verify a user’s age, such as by requiring a photo ID.

A 2024 Tennessee law allows minors to open their own accounts but requires that social media companies ensure that anyone under the age of 18 has parental consent to do so.

Some states, including Texas and Florida, are trying to create a different experience for minors once they have an account on a social media platform. They are blocking apps from sending targeted advertisements to minors or, in states such as New York, curating social media feeds based on an algorithm instead of based on the minors’ own choices.

A growing number of states have also focused on creating more protections for children influencers and vloggers, who regularly post short videos and images on social media and often have other young people following their content. So far, California, Illinois and Minnesota have passed child digital entertainer laws since 2023.

All of these laws set up financial protections for child influencers. Illinois’ law requires child influencers to receive a portion of the profits they make from their content. Minnesota’s law includes privacy protections: forbidding children under the age of 14 from working as influencers and giving them the right to later delete content, even when their parents have created the post or video.

These laws face different legal challenges. For example, some private industry groups claim these laws restrict free speech or the rights of parents. The U.S. Supreme Court is now considering – for the first time since 1997 – the constitutionality of age restrictions for social media usage.

States across the political spectrum, as well as social media companies themselves, are creating more protections for kids whose online activity might suggest that federal law reform will finally happen.

Members of a dance group in Times Square on Jan. 14, 2025, record videos to be used for social media.
Adam Gray/Getty Images

Federal action on social media

Congress has considered new online privacy legislation for children in the past 25 years, including banning targeted ads. But nothing has been enacted.

There is no clear indication that the Trump administration will make any substantial changes in existing law on children and internet privacy. While federal agencies, including the Federal Trade Commission, could take the lead on protecting children online, there has been little public discussion of issues involving children and media access.

Trump’s choice for surgeon general, Janette Nesheiwat, said in 2024, “Social media has had a tremendous negative impact on all aspects of society, especially our younger generations.” It’s unclear how widely this view is shared within the new administration.

On other social media issues, such as the future of TikTok, Trump’s nominees and advisers have been divided. Particularly in an administration in which “the president owns a social media company, and one of his main associates owns another,” the future scope of federal action to protect children online is uncertain. This is likely to prompt states to advance laws that create more protections for children on social media.

Even though social media platforms have national and global reach, we believe that state-by-state leadership might be the best way to make laws in which the needs and rights of children and their families are seen, heard and protected. Läs mer…

Antidepressants are typically prescribed to manage depression. But this isn’t the only reason you may be prescribed an antidepressant. In fact, they can have a broad range of effects, which makes them suitable for managing a range of other health conditions that aren’t necessarily related to mental health.

Here are five health conditions you may be prescribed an antidepressant for.

1. Chronic nerve pain

Many antidepressants are believed to work by increasing the levels of chemicals in the brain called neurotransmitters – although the exact science is still unknown. In particular, they increase levels of serotonin and noradrenaline, which are linked to mood.

These neurotransmitters are also linked to pain pathways. It’s for this reason that some people who experience nerve pain may be prescribed a tricyclic antidepressant – such as amitriptyline and nortriptyline.

Studies show that low doses of these drugs may be effective in treating nerve pain. This pain is often described as a shooting, burning pain, which may radiate outwards.

Sometimes patients also experience tingling and numbness. This type of pain is typically caused by nerve damage. Nerve pain can occur in people with diabetes (diabetic neuropathy), trigeminal neuralgia (facial pain) and multiple sclerosis.

Studies show these antidepressants are more likely to relieve nerve pain compared to traditional painkillers such as ibuprofen or paracetamol. Duloxetine is another antidepressant that may be used.

Amitriptyline is also sometimes used to prevent migraines, chronic tension headaches and to treat abdominal pain in irritable bowel syndrome.

2. Urinary incontinence

Antidepressants may also be helpful in managing urinary incontinence (unintentionally passing urine) and stress incontinence (passing urine when there’s pressure on the bladder from coughing, jumping, laughing or sneezing).

In clinical trials of the antidepressant duloxetine (a serotonin noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor, or SNRI), the drug is shown to be useful in treating severe urinary incontinence in women. However, duloxetine is usually only prescribed by a specialist as a second-choice treatment after surgery.

It’s thought duloxetine increases serotonin and noradrenaline in the spinal cord. This helps contract the muscle that regulates urine flow from the urethra to the bladder.

An SNRI is typically only prescribed as a second-line treatment option for incontinence.
CrizzyStudio/ Shutterstock

In children who experience bedwetting (nocturnal enuresis), studies show a tricyclic antidepressant, such as imipramine, may be used. Similarly to duloxetine, this is only used if other treatments have been unsatisfactory.

Imipramine may help with bedwetting as it relaxes the bladder muscle so children are less likely to release urine.

3. Eating disorders

Bulimia is an eating disorder characterised by purging (for example, making themselves vomit) and binge eating. As it’s a complex mental health disorder, the first-choice treatment is psychotherapy. But fluoxetine, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), is the only antidepressant licensed for bulimia. It’s normally prescribed alongside psychotherapy if psychotherapy by itself hasn’t worked.

A small study showed that fluoxetine was more effective than a placebo in treating some bulimia symptoms. It’s unclear what the exact mechanism is, but some research suggests fluoxetine reduces depressive symptoms which may be associated with bulimia in some patients – making it easier for them to engage in psychotherapy.

4. OCD, panic and anxiety disorders

Antidepressants may also be useful for treating other mental health conditions – including obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), panic disorder and generalised anxiety disorder.

Research has shown SSRIs, such as fluoxetine and sertraline, may improve OCD symptoms in some patients. Both SSRIs and SNRIs have proven to be effective in managing symptoms of panic and generalised anxiety disorders.

The exact mechanism that enables antidepressants to work for these conditions is unknown. But it may be due to the increase in serotonin levels or changes in brain pathways which regulate mood, anxiety and compulsions.

5. Menopause

Although antidepressants are not licensed for this condition, they are sometimes used to treat menopausal symptoms.

Several studies show the SSRIs paroxetine and citalopram and the SNRI venlafaxine can help women. In particular, they reduce the frequency and severity of hot flushes – one of the most common menopause symptoms women seek help for. One review found that hot flushes can be reduced by up to 65% when using these antidepressants.

In menopause, a woman’s oestrogen level drops. This is a hormone that stimulates the production of serotonin. But some studies suggest the lower levels of serotonin may be linked to hot flushes. This may explain why antidepressants are useful in managing hot flushes as they are thought to increase serotonin levels in the brain.

Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is the most effective option for managing menopause symptoms such as hot flushes. But antidepressants may be useful for women who are unable to use HRT. But as there is limited research on using antidepressants to manage menopause symptoms, more studies will be needed.

For many of these conditions, antidepressants are the last treatment option. But for some, such as those with nerve pain, antidepressants are the most effective options. Antidepressants may not work for everyone – and they may cause side-effects in some people. This is why it’s important to talk with your pharmacist or doctor if you have questions about taking an antidepressant you’ve been prescribed. Läs mer…

Satellite-derived Earth observation (EO) data helps researchers like me unlock new insights into monitoring both environmental and human health.

I’m working with the European Space Agency’s EO4Health Resilience project to integrate information about different types of disease into one digital platform. Due to launch in summer 2025, this project aims to improve accessibility to EO data for medical professionals, support more informed decision-making in public health and hopefully prevent more deaths from disease in the future.

Environmental and animal health are both closely linked to human health. Climate change has a huge influence on these connections, as it can make disease outbreaks such as the 2003 Sars virus and the recent H5N1 bird flu more likely.

By increasing the chance of human-wildlife contact, disruptions like deforestation can increase the risk of disease (like COVID-19) transferring from wildlife to people. Many other factors beyond medicine also determine health, such as sanitation, water supply and farming practices.

The World Health Organization adopted the One Health approach to inspire a joint response to health threats by connecting efforts by veterinary, public health and environmental sectors.

At a time when governments are struggling to come to grips with the growing costs of healthcare, avoiding outbreaks of infectious diseases is crucial. So, the importance of identifying and monitoring areas of high risk, and of communicating the means of avoiding risks to the public rise to the fore.

Satellite data can improve environmental and human health monitoring for three different categories of disease:

1. Waterborne diseases

There is growing concern about the impact of climate change and human migration. This intensifies the global spread of major bacterial waterborne infectious diseases. EO technology plays a key role in tracking climate change by monitoring big areas over long periods, often in enough detail to spot changes clearly.

Many bacteria, like Vibrio cholerae which causes cholera, thrive in stagnant water. My team worked with the European Space Agency to show that its presence can be modelled using the concentration of chlorophyll found on the surface of bodies of water. Chlorophyll is the green pigment in plants that helps them use sunlight to make their food and grow.

Risk maps for an entire lake can be created using satellite-derived chlorophyll data. Zoonotic diseases that spread from animals to humans such as leptospirosis (a disease caused by Leptospira bacteria) have an animal origin, but reach humans through contaminated floodwater in cities.

Bacteria such as Escherichia coli are often present in sewage pollution and can cause of diarrhoea and gastrointestinal illness. These infections typically occur through activities like drinking or swimming in contaminated water.

A recent study predicts that US cases of non-cholera Vibrio infections could rise by 50% by 2090 compared to 1995. That’s because sea surface temperatures are increasing due to climate change and bacterial populations can grow and spread at warmer temperatures. Satellites could help monitor those temperature changes and therefore identify places most prone to outbreaks.

One recent report highlights the value of satellites studying waterborne diseases. The ability to measure and monitor water quality across large areas makes it much easier and quicker to deliver near real-time information.

Harmful blooms of blue-green algae can be spotted from space.
Ray Hugo Tang

2. Vector-borne diseases

Vector-borne diseases, such as the West Nile virus and malaria, pose
significant global health threats. They are transmitted by
mosquitoes and can lead to severe neurological diseases. Vector-borne diseases are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality, particularly in tropical regions.

My colleagues in Italy used EO data to unlock new insights about the transmission of West Nile virus. Models based on satellite data that showed temperature, humidity and vegetation – all of which influence mosquito populations and disease transmission patterns – can help forecast the next outbreak.

The malaria atlas is a collaborative project that involves scientists from around the world. By collating EO data, mosquito breeding sites can be mapped, while climate change can be tracked as it affects the habitats that disease-carrying mosquitoes live in. Maps like this enhance the effectiveness of public health strategies by pinpointing where best to focus efforts and resources to control and prevent the spread of these diseases.

3. Non-communicable diseases

Non-communicable diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases
exacerbated by heatwaves, rank among the top global causes of death. Prolonged exposure to extreme heat can strain the heart, increasing risks of heart attacks and strokes. So, isolating locations most at risk of heatwaves could help target aid and reduce the risk of widespread heatstroke and other conditions.

Environmental factors like urbanisation, climate change and air pollution amplify health risks. Several EO projects funded by the European Space Agency use AI and satellite data to map land surface temperatures, greenhouse gas emissions, green spaces, rivers and lakes.

For example, poor air quality caused by high levels of emissions in urban areas can lead to respiratory diseases such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Long-term exposure to pollutants like fine particulate matter known as PM2.5 and nitrogen dioxide may increase the risks of cardiovascular diseases, lung cancer, and even premature death.

Read more:
Why ocean pollution is a clear danger to human health

Mapping air quality using satellite data helps identify particulate pollution hotspots. This supports targeted interventions to improve public health.

In the future, satellites could track plastic pollution in oceans. Marine life consumes plastic particles that humans ingest through seafood. Chemicals present in plastics can lead to hormone disruption in humans and may increase cancer risk or immunity, for example. So tracking pollution distribution around the globe could identify sources and the places where people and wildlife are at most risk of exposure to chemical contaminants like those in plastic.

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…

The AI revolution is well under way and two companies – DeepSeek and Nvidia – stand out among those competing to lead it. Outside the financial world, the story might seem distant – but it really does have consequences for everyone. It comes down to why investors are paying so much attention to AI, and how this competition could affect the technology we use daily.

Developments in AI investment will shape the capabilities of the next generation of apps, smart assistants, self-driving technology and business practices.

DeepSeek, the new player on the scene, is a Chinese company that has been making huge waves in AI development. Its powerful technology could change things such as healthcare, finance – and even the way we interact with the internet. Investors are excited because they see DeepSeek as a potential leader in shaping the next generation of AI tools.

Meanwhile, Nvidia has long been a giant in AI hardware, producing the graphics processing units (GPUs, or chips) that power many AI applications. However, the rise of DeepSeek has made some investors rethink their bets, leading to a sell-off in Nvidia shares, and wiping almost US$300 billion (£242 billion) off the company’s value.

Why does this matter? To put it simply, the AI race isn’t just about corporate profits. The technology developed by companies such as DeepSeek and Nvidia is what powers voice assistants, recommendation systems on streaming platforms, self-driving car software and even medical breakthroughs. As investment flows into AI, it means that innovation could become more advanced and accessible – much faster than we previously expected.

When investors hear about a new company like DeepSeek making big advances, they often react by shifting their investments. This is what happened with Nvidia. Some investors sold their shares, fearing that DeepSeek might take away some of Nvidia’s dominance in AI. This does not necessarily mean the company is struggling – only that markets move based on expectations, rather than just current success.

Speculation – where investors accept uncertainty and high risks in return for potentially big returns – plays a key role in these shifts. Investors do not always wait for solid proof that a company will succeed, instead they often act based on excitement, predictions or just fear of missing out. This can cause rapid changes in stock prices, even before new technology is widely available.

Read more:
Why Donald Trump’s election win fuelled a stock market surge

Speculation can sometimes lead to instability, but it also helps to drive innovation. When investors put money into AI companies, it allows those companies to develop technology that could improve people’s daily lives. This has happened before – during the dotcom boom of the 1990s, investment rushed into internet startups. While many companies failed, others like Amazon and Google became global leaders.

Similarly, cryptocurrency investment surged in the past decade. While the hype led to many failures, blockchain technology – one of its key innovations – has since become a major part of modern finance and security systems.

Is it a bubble?

With so much excitement around AI, some experts worry that the industry is experiencing a speculative bubble. A bubble happens when investors pour money into a sector too quickly, driving up prices beyond their real value. This happened in the early 2000s with the dotcom crash that followed the boom years of the previous decade. Many internet companies received huge investments, but when they failed to deliver on their promises markets crashed.

Could the same happen with AI? It’s possible – but unlike some past bubbles, AI is already being widely used in everyday life. The key question is not whether AI is important, but whether current investments reflect realistic long-term growth or over-optimistic speculation.

AI is already a big part of people’s lives.
Tero Vesalainen/Shutterstock

The sell-off of Nvidia shares does not necessarily mean it is losing its place in AI. Instead, it could reflect investors trying to hedge their bets, moving some of their money to newer companies such as DeepSeek while still keeping Nvidia in their portfolios.

In other words, investors are looking into the potential “next big thing” (Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, for example, is touting a new AI model that claims to be superior to those of DeepSeek and Meta). Savvy investors often shop around like this to spread risk to avoid relying too much on a single company to bring them returns.

Beyond Nvidia and DeepSeek, there is a larger global race for AI dominance. Countries, including the United States, China and some European states, are investing heavily in AI research because they recognise how much power and influence this technology could bring. Governments are funding AI initiatives, and businesses are pouring resources into being the first to create groundbreaking AI systems.

But while speculation and innovation drive growth, regulation is needed to prevent market and financial instability. The history of economic crashes shows that unchecked hype can lead to over-investment and eventual collapse. Regulators need to ensure that AI companies and investors operate responsibly, balancing growth with stability.

For example, regulators should provide clear AI investment guidelines, endorse transparency around the financial risks of investing, and be on the lookout for possible AI investment bubbles. Importantly, they should also introduce consumer protection policies to shield retail (non-professional) investors. And they should encourage international cooperation around regulation, working towards common principles.

The battle between DeepSeek and Nvidia is a sign of how AI is transforming the world. Investors, regulators and everyday consumers all have a stake in how this technology develops. While financial speculation can be unpredictable, it is also one of the driving forces behind the innovation that’s shaping the future. Läs mer…