Tag: New study

The Winter Olympics Face an Existential Chill From Climate Change

Olympic Rings are seen above the Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium ahead of the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026. Photo by Emmanuele Ciancaglini/Getty Images

There are currently 93 cities in the world with the infrastructure needed to host the Winter Olympics and Paralympics. But as the planet continues to warm, that pool of options is dwindling rapidly. By 2050, only four cities would be able to support the Olympics without the aid of artificial snow, according to a study published this week.

“Hockey, figure skating, curling, etc., are all indoors; you can do that in Miami if you want,” Daniel Scott, a professor of geography and environmental management at the University of Waterloo and one of the study’s authors, told Observer. “It’s really the snow sports that we’re talking about as vulnerable—how do you maintain that as part of the Winter Games?”

This question is top of mind for the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which is preparing to kick off the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics in Italy next month. The governing body is weighing a range of options to address rising temperatures, from combining the Olympic and Paralympic games to hosting them in different cities, or even shifting their traditional start dates to take advantage of the coldest months of the year.

“Our ambition is to protect the Olympic Winter Games and the winter sports that so many people love; to minimize the impact on the environment; and to help safeguard the winter economies that so many people rely on,” an IOC spokesperson told Observer over email.

It isn’t just the IOC that’s worried about warming winters. A 2022 survey of professional and Olympic winter athletes and coaches from 20 countries found that 90 percent were concerned about climate change’s impacts on their sport. Those impacts can include serious safety risks: eight years earlier, during the Sochi Winter Games, higher crash and injury rates among snow sport athletes were linked to warmer temperatures and lower-quality snow.

The ramifications of global warming will only get worse as the years go by. Of the 93 past and potential hosts for the Winter Olympics—which traditionally take place in February—between 45 and 55 are expected to be climate-reliable by the 2050s, with that figure falling to between 30 and 54 by the 2080s, according to the study.

The Winter Paralympics, which are held the month after the Olympics, face an even steeper challenge. Only 17 to 31 cities will be able to host the games by mid-century, with just four to 31 cities remaining viable three decades later. “How do you get the Paralympics out of March?” said Scott.

This aerial view shows the Biathlon venue in Antholz, northern Italy, prior to the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Games. Photo by Odd Anderson/AFP via Getty Images

How can the Olympics adapt to rising temperatures?

One proposal from Scott and his co-authors is to merge the Olympics and Paralympics so that both games take place in February. The solution would increase visibility for the Paralympics—but, on the other hand, might risk them being overshadowed. The logistics of unifying the two games, too, would be a mammoth undertaking for the host city.

Another option could be to get rid of the “One Bid, One City” partnership, established in 2001, which requires host cities to stage the Olympics and Paralympics at the same venues. Instead, the games could be held in different locations at the same time. But doing so would end a successful collaboration that has helped the IOC and International Paralympic Committee (IPC) support each other and their athletes over the past 25 years.

The most promising solution, Scott said, would be to shift both games back by two to three weeks. While that would slightly reduce the number of climate-reliable Olympic hosts, it would substantially expand options for the Paralympics, adding 14 more climate-reliable cities by the 2080s. The IOC “were grateful to get that new analysis, because that was something they were actually considering,” said Scott.

The future of snow itself is another critical concern. Artificial snow will play an increasingly central role in future Winter Games—and already does today. Currently, just seven of the 93 possible host locations could stage the Olympics without artificial snow, with only five able to do so for the Paralympics. That number is expected to fall even further as emissions continue to rise.

Artificial snow is nothing new, Scott noted. “I think some people lose sight of the fact that snowmaking has been part of the Olympics since Lake Placid, 40 years ago,” he said. “So, it’s not a question of, ‘Can you do without it?’ It’s, ‘How do you make it as sustainable as possible?’”

While machine-made snow has drawn criticisms for its energy and water use, newer systems are becoming more efficient and vary widely by location. “That’s for the IOC to select,” said Scott. The 2026 Games in Milan and the 2034 Games in Salt Lake City, Utah, for example, will produce six and 16 times more emissions, respectively, than the 2030 Games in the French Alps, which will rely on an electricity grid that is almost entirely nuclear and renewable.

Rising heat won’t just affect the Winter Olympics. The Summer Olympics are already feeling the strain: during the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, marathons were moved to Sapporo to escape extreme heat. And the 2032 Summer Olympics in Brisbane will be held during Australia’s winter rather than summer to take advantage of cooler weather. “Heat risk is a growing concern,” said Scott.

Alexandra Tremayne-Pengelly

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January 23, 2026
Yale Study Quantifies How Much Elon Musk’s Politics Have Cost Tesla

Tesla’s fading momentum may have less to do with its cars and more with its CEO’s politics. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

How did Tesla go from the world’s fastest-growing automaker to a company beleaguered by slowing sales and shrinking market share? According to a team of Yale researchers, the answer lies in the polarizing and partisan behavior of CEO Elon Musk.

Sure, Tesla has faced headwinds from aging models, rising competition, and a saturated customer base. But an analysis of county-level data shows that its declining demand is also linked to Musk’s increasingly political actions. The study’s authors estimate that Tesla would have sold between 1 million to 1.26 million more cars in recent years without what they call the “Musk partisan effect.”

During the most recent quarter, Tesla’s profit plunged 37 percent year-over-year. Revenue fell for two consecutive quarters this year. (The most recent quarter saw a rebound thanks to tax credits-fueled buying rush.)

The Yale researchers argue that much of Tesla’s decline stems from the alienation of its traditional consumer base. Drawing on vehicle registration data from S&P Global and county-level voting records, they found that Tesla’s customer base has long leaned Democratic and environmentally conscious.

That began to change in 2022, when Musk acquired X and rolled back content moderation policies. The shift deepened amid his involvement in the 2024 U.S. presidential election and his subsequent appointment as head of the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). “Musk’s actions antagonized his most loyal customer base,” the authors wrote.

The trend has only grown more pronounced. Between October 2022 and April 2025, Musk’s partisan behavior caused Tesla to lose between 67 percent and 83 percent of its potential car sales, according to the study. In the first quarter of 2025 alone, that figure jumped to 150 percent.

Musk himself has acknowledged the backlash. During an April earnings call, he said his DOGE role had led to “blowback” and announced plans to scale back his time with the agency to refocus on Tesla.

The fallout hasn’t even benefited Tesla’s competitors. The study found that, absent Musk’s partisan behavior, sales of other EV and hybrid models would have been 17 to 22 percent lower over the past three years and 25 percent lower in early 2025, suggesting his actions helped rival automakers.

Musk’s controversies have also had unintended policy consequences, the researchers noted. In California, which aims for zero-emission vehicles to make up 25 percent of new sales by 2026, 68 percent by 2030, and 100 percent by 2035, progress has stalled. The study estimates that without Musk’s partisan impact, California would have added 139,700 more EV sales in the first quarter of 2025. The reality is that California fell short by 28,000 vehicles in that quarter to stay on track.

This study highlights just how impactful a CEO’s partisan actions can be,” the authors concluded.

Alexandra Tremayne-Pengelly

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November 5, 2025
Study finds flooding could impact 27,000 Long Island businesses | Long Island Business News
THE BLUEPRINT:
- New study finds 27,000 Long Island businesses face flood risk.
- Nearly 7,000 firms in high or extreme risk zones employ 58,000 people.
- Businesses in extreme, high or moderate risk zones total over $42 billion in sales.
- LIRPC urges action to reduce economic losses from severe flooding.
Severe flooding could threaten the economic stability of more than 27,000 Long Island businesses, which fall into moderate to extreme risk categories, according to a new analysis.

Commissioned by the Long Island Regional Planning Council (LIRPC), the study was updated to include business communities along the North Shore and inland waterways such as the Nissequogue River.

The study, which ranked businesses from negligible to extreme risk, found nearly 7,000 companies employing more than 58,000 people in the high or extreme risk categories, representing more than $11 billion in annual sales.

Conducted by LIRO GIS, the study also pinpoints the communities in each county likely to be hardest hit.

“As we have seen several times in just the last 18 months alone, the devastation from severe flooding brought about by heavy rainfall presents the potential for severe economic loss along our coastal communities,” John Cameron, LIRPC chair, said in a news release about the study.

“This important study provides a tool for all levels of government and the private sector to develop strategies to minimize the risk,” Cameron added.

In Nassau County, a total of 17,395 businesses were at risk. These businesses total nearly $27.5 billion in annual sales and employ 131,522 people, according to the study. Freeport, Valley Stream, Oceanside, Wantagh, Lynbrook, Inwood, Long Beach, Bellmore, Merrick and Cedarhurst were identified as the 10 communities, based on annual sales volume, that would be most impacted.

In Suffolk County, a total of 9,843 businesses were at risk. These businesses total more than $15.1 billion in sales, and employ 74,800 people, according to the study. Bay Shore, Lindenhurst, Oakdale, Babylon, West Islip, Port Jefferson, Halesite, West Babylon, Islip and East Quogue were identified as the 10 communities were identified as the 10 communities that would be most affected.

The study, which includes an interactive map to break out the impact on individual communities, is available here.
Adina Genn

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October 24, 2025
MIT Study Finds Chatbot Love Is Real—and It’s Often Unintentional

People are increasingly falling in love with A.I. chatbots—and not on purpose. Ghariza Mahavira for Unsplash+

It was once a trope of science fiction, most notably in Her, the 2013 Spike Jonze film, where Joaquin Phoenix falls in love with an A.I. character. Now, chatbot relationships are not only real but have morphed into a complex sociotechnical phenomenon that researchers say demands attention from developers and policymakers alike, according to a new study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

The report analyzed posts between December 2024 and August 2025 from the more than 27,000 members of r/MyBoyfriendIsAI, a Reddit page dedicated to A.I. companionship. The community is filled with users introducing their tech partners, sharing love stories and offering advice. In some cases, Redditers even display their commitments with wedding rings or A.I.-generated couple photos.

“People have real commitments to these characters,” Sheer Karny, one of the study’s co-authors and a graduate student at the MIT Media Lab, told Observer. “It’s interesting, alarming—it’s this really messy human experience.”

For many, these bonds form unintentionally. Only 6.5 percent of users deliberately sought out A.I. companions, the study found. Others began using chatbots for productivity and gradually developed strong emotional attachments. Despite the existence of companies like Character.AI and Replika, which market directly to users seeking companionship, OpenAI has emerged as the dominant platform, with 36.7 percent of Reddit users in the study adopting its products.

Preserving the “personality” of an A.I. partner is a major concern for many users, Karny noted. Some save conversations as PDFs to re-upload them if forced to restart with a new system. “People come up with all kinds of unique tricks to ensure that the personality that they cultivated is maintained through time,” he said.

Losing that personality can feel like grief. More than 16 percent of discussions on r/MyBoyfriendIsAI focus on coping with model updates and loss—a trend amplified last month when OpenAI, while rolling out GPT-5, temporarily removed access to the more personable GPT-4o. The backlash was so intense that the company eventually reinstated the older model.

A cure for loneliness?

Most of the Reddit page’s users are single, with about 78 percent making no mention of human partners. Roughly 4 percent are open with their partners about their A.I. relationships, 1.1 percent have replaced human companions with the technology, and 0.7 percent keep such relationships hidden.

On one hand, chatbot companionship may reduce loneliness, said Thao Ha, a psychologist at Arizona State University who studies how technologies reshape adolescent romantic relationships. But she also warned of long-term risks. “If you satisfy your need for relationships with just relationships with machines, how does that affect us over the long term?” she told Observer.

The MIT study urges developers to add safeguards to A.I. systems while preserving their therapeutic benefits. Left unchecked, the technology could prey on vulnerabilities through tactics like love-bombing, dependency creation and isolation. Policymakers, too, should account for A.I. companionship in legislative efforts, such as California’s SB 243 bill, the authors said.

Ha suggested that A.I. products undergo an approval process similar to new medications, which must clear intensive research and FDA review before reaching the public. While replicating such a strategy for technology companies “would be great,” she conceded that it’s unlikely in light of the industry’s profit-driven priorities.

A more achievable step, she argued, is expanding A.I. literacy to help the public understand both the risks and benefits of forming attachments to chatbots. Still, such programming has yet to materialize. “I wish it was here yesterday, but it’s not here yet,” Ha said.

Alexandra Tremayne-Pengelly

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September 26, 2025
Private land used for logging is more prone to severe fire than public lands. A new study shows why

In the Sierra Nevada, private lands used for logging are more likely to experience high-severity fire that devastates forest ecosystems compared to public lands like National Forests.

It’s a fact that’s been known for years — but what exactly causes this discrepancy has remained elusive.

Consequently, the factoid has served as fuel for the longstanding California debate of “who is to blame for our wildfire problem?” while providing little insight for forest managers hoping to address it.

A new study published Wednesday finally offered some answers. By studying detailed data around Plumas National Forest north of Tahoe both before and after a series of devastating wildfires burned 70% of the land in just three years, researchers identified the common practices responsible for increased severity.

They found that when a fire ripped through, private timber lands were about 9% more likely than public lands to burn with such intensity that virtually no trees survived.

When the scientists looked at what prefire forest characteristics resulted in severe fire, they found that dense groups of evenly spaced trees were largely to blame. It’s the exact kind of forests timber companies often plant to intentionally harvest a few decades down the road.

“It allows the fire to essentially gain a bunch of momentum and start exhibiting much more extreme fire behavior than if it’s encountering road blocks every once in a while: open areas or meadows or areas with really big and more resilient trees,” said Jacob Levine, postdoctoral fellow at the University of Utah and lead author on the study.

While California’s forests are adapted for frequent, low-intensity fires that clear out the forest floors and promote regeneration, high-intensity flames can decimate ecosystems so much so that they may never recover.

Although the study focused on one forest in Northern California, it has implications across the Western U.S., where this kind of “plantation”-style logging is common.

The conditions in Plumas National Forest, “I’d call them very typical for at least Oregon, Washington and California,” said Scott Stephens, UC Berkeley professor of fire science and co-author on the study. “These are places that are more productive, they have more precipitation, they grow trees faster.”

For the scientists, the results emphasize just how much work California still must do to address its wildfire problem. They hope the results, instead of vilifying logging companies, can help spur a conversation about what forest managers can do better.

“If you want to grow timber in the state, contribute to the economy, contribute to home building — all those are laudable goals,” Stephens said. “I think you’ve got to think about, ‘Well, how am I going to do this in the fire environment of today or the future?’ ”

And while public lands are less likely to experience severe fire than timber lands — with a 57% probability of experiencing high-severity fire, compared to timber lands’ 66% — government forest managers aren’t necessarily doing a perfect job either, experts say.

While timber companies’ approaches tend to be too “hands-on” — bulldozing over the natural ecosystem (sometimes literally) — the U.S. Forest Service still tends to be too “hands-off,” experts argue: National Forests are still lagging behind on much-needed prescribed burning and mechanical thinning work (or “forest raking” as the president likes to call it).

The U.S. Forest Service allows logging on about a fourth of its land through agreements with private companies (which President Trump aims to significantly increase), but it has moved away from the practice of planting dense, evenly spaced “pines in lines” plantations.

The forest-fire blame game fueled by these differences in approach has gone on for decades.

After the 2007 Moonlight fire scorched 65,000 acres, including in Plumas National Forest, both the federal and state governments filed lawsuits against California’s largest timber company, Sierra Pacific Industries, alleging the fire was started by a subcontractor’s bulldozer that hit a rock and created a spark.

The company initially settled with the federal government while not admitting any wrongdoing, but, through a lengthy legal drama now living on as Sierra Nevada folklore, the company’s lawyer petitioned, alleging that the federal government had concealed the fact that its own fire watch lookout was caught away from his post reeking of marijuana and peeing on his feet.

The Supreme Court ultimately declined to hear the company’s appeal, while a lower court eventually ordered Cal Fire to pay out $15 million for fraud and withholding evidence.

In recent years, the federal and state governments and private industry have increasingly begun to cooperate on an active management strategy.

In 2021, Gov. Gavin Newsom created a task force to develop such a plan. It set a goal of practicing active management, primarily through mechanical thinning and intentional fire, on 1 million acres every year. Both the Forest Service and private timber companies are active participants.

Stephens and Levine hope their work can help forest managers work smarter, not harder.

The team analyzed data from planes that used lasers to create a 3-dimensional map of the forest — down to individual trees — in 2018 before the major fires that burned the majority of the land. They then looked at satellite data taken after each fire measuring the resulting severity of the burns.

The team found that the biggest indicator of how severely a fire burned on one plot of land was how severely it burned on plots next door. This made sense to the researchers: Fire is contagious, meaning a high-intensity fire with a lot of energy and momentum is likely to continue at a high intensity.

This can also create a spillover effect. Areas susceptible to high-severity fires, like private timber lands, can lead to high-severity fire in surrounding better-managed areas as well, typically up to a little over a mile away.

The second most important factors were how tightly-packed the trees were and how hot, dry and windy the weather was on the day of the fire. The effects also compounded: The worse the weather, the more forest density served as a predictor for fire severity.

The team also found that “ladder fuels” between the low-lying ground vegetation and the canopies of trees — which can help a fire climb high into the canopy — contributed to fire severity. Clustered trees and open spaces in the canopy, meanwhile, resulted in less severe fire.

Tree density, the most significant indicator related to forest management, is fundamental to timber’s business: It allows companies to produce more wood on the same amount of land. But Levine still sees a way forward.

Moving away from plantation-style logging by planting trees in irregular, clustered patterns and staggering planting over years to create a forest with different-aged trees can make sure tree crowns aren’t all perfectly aligned for a fire to rip right through.

Previous research from Stephens has repeatedly shown that mechanical thinning and prescribed burns are incredibly effective at reducing high-severity fire risk while also improving forest health and preserving biodiversity. (Notably, the researchers couldn’t explore the effects of ground vegetation in this new study, since the laser data struggled to detect it.)

There are already several examples of timber companies that have moved away from plantation-style logging in favor of more natural, fire-resistant forests. And, while these practices can be more expensive in the short term, Levine is still optimistic they can gain traction as research increasingly shows their effectiveness.

“Timber companies are also invested in their forest not burning down,” he said. “That’s bad for business, too — if you plant the plantation and then 30 years later, before it gets to the size that it becomes profitable, it goes up in flames.”

Noah Haggerty

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August 21, 2025
Coffee may help with muscle mass as you age, new study says

Coffee may help with muscle mass as you age, new study says

“The research shows a clear association.”

Updated: 4:14 AM PDT Sep 15, 2024

Your go-to cup of coffee may do more than pep you up in the morning—it could help you to age more comfortably. That’s the main takeaway from a new study, which found a link between drinking coffee every day and having higher muscle mass. Video above: Six ways drinking coffee is linked to better healthIn case you’re not familiar with it, muscle mass is the amount of muscle in your body, and it helps with your strength, balance, and metabolism. Plus, as you age, having a higher muscle mass has been linked with more mobility and a lower risk of falls.But what does coffee have to do with muscle mass? Here’s the deal.What did the study find?For the study, which was published in Frontiers in Nutrition in August, researchers analyzed health data from more than 8,300 adults in the United States. The scientists looked at participants’ muscle mass through bone density scans and then compared that with their coffee intake from questionnaires.The study authors found that people who drank coffee every day had an 11 to 13 percent higher muscle mass than non-coffee drinkers. This, they concluded, may help lower the risk of developing sarcopenia, a musculoskeletal disease. (Worth noting: There did not seem to be an association between drinking decaf coffee and muscle mass.)“An appropriate increase in coffee and caffeine intake may be advocated in populations at high risk for low skeletal muscle mass,” the researchers added.Does coffee improve muscle mass?It’s important to point out that the study didn’t prove that drinking coffee gives you higher muscle mass. Instead, it found a link between a daily coffee and having higher muscle mass. “It’s not definitive proof that coffee alone will preserve muscle mass as you age,” says Scott Keatley, RD, co-owner of Keatley Medical Nutrition Therapy.Still, Keatley says that findings are “fascinating,” adding, “The research shows a clear association between coffee and caffeine intake and improvements in skeletal muscle mass.” As for why, Keatley says it could be due to the anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties of caffeine. Inflammation is linked to decreased muscle mass, so tamping down on it could potentially have the opposite effect, he explains. Coffee may also help clear out damaged cells and maintain muscle integrity, Keatley says. “That could help prevent the muscle degradation typically seen with aging,” he says. Should I start drinking coffee for muscle mass? Nope, we’re not there yet. “While the research suggests coffee can have benefits for muscle mass, I wouldn’t recommend starting a coffee habit solely for that purpose,” Keatley says. “While coffee may have some benefits, it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution,” he says. “People need to take into account their own health, lifestyle, and whether caffeine affects them negatively.”If you want to build up your muscle mass, Keatley suggests focusing on having a balanced, protein-rich diet with lean sources like fish, chicken, and plant-based proteins. “Engaging in resistance training is a proven method to build and maintain muscle mass, and combining that with activities like walking or cycling helps improve overall function,” he says. And, if you happen to drink coffee, that may help you out, too.

Your go-to cup of coffee may do more than pep you up in the morning—it could help you to age more comfortably. That’s the main takeaway from a new study, which found a link between drinking coffee every day and having higher muscle mass.

Video above: Six ways drinking coffee is linked to better health

In case you’re not familiar with it, muscle mass is the amount of muscle in your body, and it helps with your strength, balance, and metabolism. Plus, as you age, having a higher muscle mass has been linked with more mobility and a lower risk of falls.

But what does coffee have to do with muscle mass? Here’s the deal.

What did the study find?

For the study, which was published in Frontiers in Nutrition in August, researchers analyzed health data from more than 8,300 adults in the United States. The scientists looked at participants’ muscle mass through bone density scans and then compared that with their coffee intake from questionnaires.

The study authors found that people who drank coffee every day had an 11 to 13 percent higher muscle mass than non-coffee drinkers. This, they concluded, may help lower the risk of developing sarcopenia, a musculoskeletal disease. (Worth noting: There did not seem to be an association between drinking decaf coffee and muscle mass.)

“An appropriate increase in coffee and caffeine intake may be advocated in populations at high risk for low skeletal muscle mass,” the researchers added.

Does coffee improve muscle mass?

It’s important to point out that the study didn’t prove that drinking coffee gives you higher muscle mass. Instead, it found a link between a daily coffee and having higher muscle mass. “It’s not definitive proof that coffee alone will preserve muscle mass as you age,” says Scott Keatley, RD, co-owner of Keatley Medical Nutrition Therapy.

Still, Keatley says that findings are “fascinating,” adding, “The research shows a clear association between coffee and caffeine intake and improvements in skeletal muscle mass.”

As for why, Keatley says it could be due to the anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties of caffeine. Inflammation is linked to decreased muscle mass, so tamping down on it could potentially have the opposite effect, he explains.

Coffee may also help clear out damaged cells and maintain muscle integrity, Keatley says. “That could help prevent the muscle degradation typically seen with aging,” he says.

Should I start drinking coffee for muscle mass?

Nope, we’re not there yet. “While the research suggests coffee can have benefits for muscle mass, I wouldn’t recommend starting a coffee habit solely for that purpose,” Keatley says.

“While coffee may have some benefits, it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution,” he says. “People need to take into account their own health, lifestyle, and whether caffeine affects them negatively.”

If you want to build up your muscle mass, Keatley suggests focusing on having a balanced, protein-rich diet with lean sources like fish, chicken, and plant-based proteins.

“Engaging in resistance training is a proven method to build and maintain muscle mass, and combining that with activities like walking or cycling helps improve overall function,” he says. And, if you happen to drink coffee, that may help you out, too.

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September 15, 2024
Biden’s Hidden Economic Success

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President Joe Biden’s economic agenda is achieving one of his principal goals: channeling more private investment into small communities that have been losing ground for years.

That’s the conclusion of a new study released today, which found that economically strained counties are receiving an elevated share of the private investment in new manufacturing plants tied to three major bills that Biden passed early in his presidency. “After decades of economic divergence, strategic sector investment patterns are including more places that have historically been left out of economic growth,” concludes the new report from Brookings Metro and the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research at MIT.

The large manufacturing investments in economically stressed counties announced under Biden include steel plants in Mason County, West Virginia, and Mississippi County, Arkansas; an expansion of a semiconductor-manufacturing plant in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania; a plant to process the lithium used in electric vehicle (EV) batteries in Chester County, South Carolina; an electric-vehicle manufacturing plant in Haywood County, Tennessee; and plants to manufacture batteries for EVs in Montgomery County, Tennessee; Vigo County, Indiana; and Fayette County, Ohio.

These are all some of the 1,071 counties—about a third of the U.S. total—that Brookings defines as economically distressed, based on high levels of unemployment and a relatively low median income. As of 2022, the report notes, these counties held 13 percent of the U.S. population but generated only 8 percent of the nation’s economic output.

Since 2021, though, these distressed counties have received about $82 billion in private-sector investment from the industries targeted by the three major economic-development bills Biden signed. Those included the bipartisan infrastructure law and bills promoting more domestic manufacturing of semiconductors and clean energy, such as electric vehicles and equipment to generate solar and wind power.

That $82 billion has been spread over 100 projects across 70 of the distressed counties, Brookings and MIT found. In all, since 2021 the distressed counties have received 16 percent of the total investments into the industrial sectors targeted by the Biden agenda. That’s double their share of national GDP. It’s also double the share of all private-sector investment they received from 2010 to 2020. Funneling more investment and jobs to these economically lagging communities “is really just at the core of what [Biden] is trying to accomplish,” Lael Brainard, the director of Biden’s National Economic Council, told me. “The president talks a lot about communities that have been left behind, and now he is talking a lot about communities that are coming back.”

Brian Callaci: Biden says goodbye to tweezer economics

This surge of investment into smaller places is a huge change from previous patterns that have concentrated investment and employment in a handful of “superstar” metropolitan areas, Mark Muro, a senior fellow at Brookings Metro and one of the report’s authors, told me.

“As the rich places have been getting richer, the social-media/tech economy was something that was happening somewhere else for most people,” Muro said. “Clearly, this is a different-looking recovery that is occurring in different places and has a tilt to distressed communities right now.”

One of those places is Fayette County, in south-central Ohio, about equidistant from Dayton, Cincinnati, and Columbus. Fayette’s population of roughly 28,000 is predominantly white and rural with few college graduates. Its median income is about one-fourth lower than the national average, and its poverty rate is about one-fourth higher.

Early in 2023, Honda and its partner LG Energy Solution broke ground on a massive new plant in Fayette to build batteries for Honda and Acura EVs. The Honda project has already generated large numbers of construction jobs, as has a massive Intel semiconductor-fabrication plant under construction about an hour away, outside Columbus, in Licking County. “The trade associations for electrical workers, plumbers, whatever it might be, they are going to have jobs in the state of Ohio for years,” Jeff Hoagland, the CEO of the Dayton Development Coalition, told me. “These are huge facilities. The Honda facility is the size of 78 football fields.”

Honda is already advertising to fill some engineering jobs, and once the plant is operational in late 2024 or early 2025, it expects to hire some 2,200 people. Most of those jobs will not require college degrees, Hoagland said. Many more jobs, he added, will flow from the plant’s suppliers moving to establish facilities in the area. “There are companies already buying up land,” Hoagland told me.

Hoagland said he has no doubt that the federal tax incentives in the big Biden bills for domestic production of clean energy and semiconductors were central to these decisions. The federal incentives have been “100 percent critical, and I know that firsthand from Intel and from Honda,” Hoagland said. “Those companies needed those [incentives] to get into the full implementation of their strategy to rebuild that manufacturing, that supply-chain base, in the United States. Now we are seeing all these companies come back to the heartland in Ohio to do manufacturing.” Yet another firm, Joby Aviation, announced in September that, with support from federal clean-energy loan guarantees, it plans to construct a factory near Dayton to build electric air taxis.

Encouraging manufacturers to locate their facilities in the U.S. rather than abroad has been the central goal of the tax incentives, loan guarantees, and grants in the clean-energy, semiconductor, and infrastructure bills. But the Biden administration has also been using provisions in those bills, as well as other programs, to try to steer more of those domestic investments specifically into distressed communities.

As the Brookings/MIT report notes, the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean-energy tax credits provide extra bonuses of 10 percent or more to companies that invest in low-income communities. An Energy Department loan-guarantee program favors companies that locate clean-energy investments in communities that lost jobs when fossil-fuel facilities shut down. In a speech last month, Brainard highlighted a $1 billion Transportation Department program that funds infrastructure improvements to “reconnect” neighborhoods that have been isolated from job opportunities by highways or other transportation infrastructure. (Many of those places are heavily minority communities.)

Similarly, under the semiconductor bill, the administration is awarding substantial funds for “regional innovation engines” through the National Science Foundation, as well as “tech hubs” that require communities to organize businesses, schools, and government to develop coordinated plans for regional growth in high-tech industries. The winners of these grants include projects that are based in places far beyond the existing large metro centers of technological innovation, such as Louisiana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Carolina, and Oklahoma. “Those [programs] are spreading innovation investment to clusters all around the country rather than being concentrated just in a few huge metros,” Brainard told me.

Joseph Parilla, the director of applied research at Brookings Metro, told me that the large manufacturing facilities being built in response to the new federal incentives naturally would flow toward the periphery of major metropolitan areas where many of these distressed counties are located. But Parilla believes the tax incentives and other programs that the Biden administration is implementing are also “having a pretty significant impact” in driving so many of these investments to smaller, economically strained places.

Biden has made clear that he considers steering more investments to the places lagging economically both a political and policy priority. Even in forums as prominent as the State of the Union address, he often talks about the importance of creating jobs that will allow young people to stay in the communities where they were born. Biden has also, as I’ve written, rejected the belief of his two Democratic predecessors, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, that the most important step for expanding economic opportunity is to help more people obtain postsecondary education; instead, Biden conspicuously emphasizes how many jobs that do not require four-year college degrees are being created in the projects subsidized by his big-three bills. “What you’ll see in this field of dreams” are “Ph.D. engineers and scientists alongside community-college graduates,” he declared at the 2022 Ohio Intel plant ground-breaking.

But it’s not clear that the economic benefits flowing into distressed communities will produce political gains for Biden. In 2020, despite his small-town, blue-collar “Scranton Joe” persona, Biden heavily depended on the big, well-educated metro areas thriving in the Information Age: Previous Brookings Metro research found that, although Biden won only about one-sixth of all U.S. counties, his counties generated nearly three-fourths of the nation’s total economic output.

The outcome was very different in the economically distressed counties. Brookings found that in 2020, Trump won 54 of the 70 distressed counties where the new investments have been announced under Biden. Some Democratic operatives are dubious that these new jobs and opportunities will change that pattern much.

Read: Biden’s economic formula to win in 2024

Partly that’s because Democrats face so many headwinds in these places on issues relating to race and culture, such as immigration and LGBTQ rights. But it’s also because of the risk that without unions or many local Democratic officials to drive the message, workers simply won’t be aware that their new jobs are linked to programs that Biden created, as Michael Podhorzer, the former AFL-CIO political director, has argued to me.

Jim Kessler, the executive vice president of Third Way, a centrist Democratic group that has studied the party’s problems in small-town and rural areas, agrees that even big job gains won’t flip small red places toward Biden. But even slightly reducing the GOP margin in those places could matter, he told me. “Some of these swing states have vast red areas, and he needs to do well enough in those areas,” Kessler said. Pointing to new jobs in previously declining places, Kessler said, could also provide Biden a symbol of economic recovery that resonates with voters far beyond those places.

The Brookings and MIT authors expect that Biden will have many more such examples to cite as further investments in industries including clean energy and semiconductors roll out. “The map is not yet finished,” the report concludes. “There are hundreds of distressed counties with assets similar to those that have attracted investment and have not yet been targeted.” One of the most tangible legacies of Biden’s presidency may be a steady procession of new plants rising through the coming years in communities previously left for scrap. Whether voters in these places give him credit for that will help determine if he’s still in the White House to see it.

Ronald Brownstein

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February 13, 2024
Was the COVID Toilet Panic Overblown?

In the dark early days of the pandemic, when we knew almost nothing and feared almost everything, there was a moment when people became very, very worried about toilets. More specifically, they were worried about the possibility that the cloud of particles toilets spew into the air when flushed—known in the scientific literature as “toilet plume”—might be a significant vector of COVID transmission. Because the coronavirus can be found in human excrement, “flushing the toilet may fling coronavirus aerosols all over,” The New York Times warned in June 2020. Every so often in the years since, the occasional PSA from a scientist or public-health expert has renewed the scatological panic.

In retrospect, so much of what we thought we knew in those early days was wrong. Lysoling our groceries turned out to not be helpful. Masking turned out to be very helpful. Hand-washing, though still important, was not all it was cracked up to be, and herd immunity, in the end, was a mirage. As the country shifts into post-pandemic life and takes stock of the past three years, it’s worth asking: What really was the deal with toilet plume?

The short answer is that our fears have not been substantiated, but they weren’t entirely overblown either. Scientists have been studying toilet plume for decades. They’ve found that plumes vary in magnitude depending on the type of toilet and flush mechanism. Flush energy plays a role too: The greater it is, the larger the plume. Closing the lid (if the toilet has one) helps a great deal, though even that cannot completely eliminate toilet plume—particles can still escape through the gap between the seat and the lid.

Whatever the specifics, the main conclusion from years of research preceding the pandemic has been consistent and disgusting: “Flush toilets produce substantial quantities of toilet plume aerosol capable of entraining microorganisms at least as large as bacteria … These bioaerosols may remain viable in the air for extended periods and travel with air currents,” scientists at the CDC and the University of Oklahoma College of Public Health wrote in a 2013 review paper titled “Lifting the Lid on Toilet Plume Aerosol.” In other words, when you flush a toilet, an unsettling amount of the contents go up rather than down.

Knowing this is one thing; seeing it is another. Traditionally, scientists have measured toilet plume with either a particle counter or, in at least one case, “a computational model of an idealized toilet.” But in a new study published last month, researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder took things a step further, using bright-green lasers to render visible what usually, blessedly, is not. John Crimaldi, an engineering professor and a co-author of the study, who has spent 25 years using lasers to illuminate invisible phenomena, told me that he and his colleagues went into the experiment fully expecting to see something. Even so, they were “completely caught off guard” by the results. The plume was bigger, faster, and more energetic than they’d anticipated—“like an eruption,” Crimaldi said, or, as he and his colleagues put it in their paper, a “strong chaotic jet.”

Within eight seconds, the resulting cloud of aerosols shoots nearly five feet above the toilet bowl—that is, more than six feet above the ground. That is: straight into your face. After the initial burst, the plume continues to rise until it hits the ceiling, and then it wafts outward. It meets a wall and runs along it. Before long, it fills the room. Once that happens, it hangs around for a while. “You can sort of extrapolate in your own mind to walking into a public restroom in an airport that has 20 toilet stalls, all of them flushing every couple minutes,” Crimaldi said. Not a pleasant thought.

The question, then, is not so much whether toilet plume happens—like it or not, it clearly does—as whether it presents a legitimate transmission risk of COVID or anything else. This part is not so clear. The 2013 review paper identified studies of the original SARS virus as “among the most compelling indicators of the potential for toilet plume to cause airborne disease transmission.” (The authors also noted, in a dry aside, that although SARS was “not presently a common disease, it has demonstrated its potential for explosive spread and high mortality.”) The one such study the authors discuss explicitly is a report on the 2003 outbreak in Hong Kong’s Amoy Gardens apartment complex. That study, though, is far from conclusive, Mark Sobsey, an environmental microbiologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told me. The researchers didn’t rule out other modes of transmission, nor did they attempt to culture live virus from the fecal matter—a far more reliable indicator of infectiousness than mere detection.

Beyond that, Sobsey said, there is little evidence that toilet plumes spread SARS or COVID-19. In his own review, published in December 2021, Sobsey found “no documented evidence” of viral transmission via fecal matter. This, at least, seems to track with the three years of pandemic experience we’ve all now endured. Although we can’t easily prove that bathrooms don’t play a significant role in spreading COVID-19, we haven’t seen any glaring indications that they do. And anyway, the coronavirus has found plenty of other awful ways to spread.

Just because toilet plume doesn’t seem to be a vector of COVID transmission, though, doesn’t mean you can forget about it. Gastrointestinal viruses such as norovirus, Sobsey told me, present a more serious risk of transmission via toilet plume, because they are known to spread via fecal matter. The only real solutions are structural. Improved ventilation would keep aerosolized waste from building up in the air, and germicidal lighting, though the technology is still being developed, could potentially disinfect what remains. Neither, however, would stop the plume in the first place. To do that, you would need to change the toilet itself: In order to create a smoother and thus better-contained flush, you could change the geometry of the bowl, the way the water enters and exits, or any number of other variables. Toilet manufacturers could also, you know, stop producing lidless toilets.

But none of that will save you the next time you find yourself staring into a toilet’s blank maw. Crimaldi suggests wearing a mask in public bathrooms to protect against not just the plume created when you flush but also the plumes left by the person who used the bathroom before you, the person who used it before them, and so on. You don’t need to have any great affection for masking as a public-health intervention to consider donning one for a few minutes to avoid literally breathing in shit. Sobsey offered another bit of unconventional bathroom-hygiene advice, which he acknowledged can only do so much to protect you: If you find yourself in a public restroom with a lidless toilet, he said, consider washing your hands before you flush. Then “hold your breath, flush the toilet, and leave.”

Jacob Stern

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January 26, 2023
TikTok and Instagram Trends Reveal New Attitudes for Millennials and Gen Z
Study from Harris Poll Thought Leadership finds groups’ new opinions, uses of social media point to shift in values and future look of the internet.

Press Release
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Nov 29, 2022 07:00 EST
NEW YORK, November 29, 2022 (Newswire.com)
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Millennials and Gen Z go to TikTok – not for dance videos but for career planning. They look for their friends on Instagram – but don’t believe what they see. These new, little-known social media trends point to a fundamental shift in societal values, according to new data from The Harris Poll Thought Leadership Practice.

The Harris Poll Thought Leadership Practice designs creative research for leading brands, allowing them to proactively address cultural trends. The new project examines changing societal values and how they play out in social media.

“If you think TikTok is just about viral dances, you’d be mistaken. Young people are turning to it for deeper purposes, like gathering information, building community, and cultivating equity,” said Abbey Lunney, co-founder of The Harris Poll Thought Leadership Practice. “We see a giant shift happening in social media away from surface-level likes, hyper-edited photos towards spaces for authenticity and discovery.”

The group’s study identifies five shifts in social media, with a central theme of Gen Z and Millennials wanting something more real from these online interactions. They include:
- Gen Z Aren’t Looking for Friend Updates, They Are Leaning Into The Algorithm Gen Z doesn’t turn to social to see updates from their friends; instead, they turn to social to be informed, entertained and direct messages. For example, Gen Z says their feed is ‘filled mostly with personalized content that the platform thinks I’ll like’ (62%) and a majority agree that ‘algorithms have increased the content they like to consume and be entertained by’ (65%). This is in contrast to older people, like Boomers and Gen X, who a majority of their feeds consist of ‘updates from friends/people I follow’ (66%, 57% respectively).
- TikTok is the new Google. For Gen Z, TikTok is the “center of gravity” when it comes to search and education. TikTok is the first platform Gen Z uses to search for culturally relevant content; TikTok (34%), beating YouTube (24%), Google (19%), and Instagram (17%). This is in contrast to older generations, including Millennials, where Google continues to be the first platform users turn towards (Boomers 57%, Gen X 47%, Millennials 40%).
- TikTok is an Undercover Learning Engine: A majority of Gen Z reports regularly turning to TikTok to learn something (63%). And the things they are learning about surpass the social media standards of food, fashion, and music to include career planning (37%), small/local business (36%), politics (28%), social structures/DEI (27%) and even STEM categories (20%). And this is critical as 81% of Gen Z and Millennials say that ongoing education is core to their ability to create financial stability in their life.
- Reality, not superficiality. Four out of five (80%) Gen Zers and Millennials believe most lifestyles on social media are fake or overly perfected, and almost three-quarters (73%) would like to see proof that people are living the way they claim on social media. Large shares of those generations want social media to validate information that is shared on its platforms (39%) and don’t want filtered images and content on social media (24%).
- Social media isn’t just youth culture, it’s all culture. Among Americans of all ages, 85% say social media isn’t just for young people. Moreover, 78% of Gen Z and Millennials say they have learned a lot from content created by people older than them. And an amazing two-thirds (66%) of Gen Z and Millennials say they love watching videos of senior citizens.
The Harris Poll Thought Leadership study also offers insight on the reasons behind these shifts in values. Pressure from those concerns, Lunney said, is creating “distinct generational values,” and for Gen Z and Millennials, that means ways to navigate the future:
- Learning as a source of stability. They believe ongoing education is central to their ability to have financial security. (Gen Z, 78%; Millennials, 82%; 41+ yrs old, 66%.)
- Fluidity as a source of expression. More than three out of four (77%) say being able to express different versions of themselves is important. (Gen Z, 79%; Millennials, 77%; 41+ yrs old, 62%.)
- Equity as a source of growth. They believe racial and gender equity helps individual, economic, and societal growth (Gen Z, 78%; Millennials, 82%)
The desire to create and utilize these services, Lunney said, will drive the internet toward a more 3D and immersive environment – 74% of Gen Z and Millennials expect the future of art to be assisted and accelerated by artificial intelligence, and 67% are interested in using AI creative-based tools.

The result will be a change to everything from ads to immersive search to online personas and more. “Today’s stacked crises are creating movement toward changing generational values,” she said. “Today it’s rewiring social. Tomorrow, it’s redefining social.”

To speak with experts or to learn more about The Harris Poll Thought Leadership Practice, visit https://theharrispoll.newswiremapsvc.com

About Harris Poll Thought Leadership Practice

Building on 50+ years of experience pulsing societal opinion, we design research that is credible, creative, and culturally relevant. Our practice drives thought leadership and unearths trends for today’s biggest brands. We are focused on helping our clients get ahead of what’s next.

Source: The Harris Poll
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November 29, 2022