Research /asmagazine/ en This summer, where there's smoke there's probably fire /asmagazine/2025/04/23/summer-where-theres-smoke-theres-probably-fire <span>This summer, where there's smoke there's probably fire</span> <span><span>Rachel Sauer</span></span> <span><time datetime="2025-04-23T15:01:58-06:00" title="Wednesday, April 23, 2025 - 15:01">Wed, 04/23/2025 - 15:01</time> </span> <div> <div class="imageMediaStyle focal_image_wide"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/focal_image_wide/public/2025-04/controlled%20burn.jpg?h=854a7be2&amp;itok=_gUPPMq1" width="1200" height="800" alt="wildland firefighter conducting controlled burn in forest"> </div> </div> <div role="contentinfo" class="container ucb-article-categories" itemprop="about"> <span class="visually-hidden">Categories:</span> <div class="ucb-article-category-icon" aria-hidden="true"> <i class="fa-solid fa-folder-open"></i> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/889"> Views </a> </div> <div role="contentinfo" class="container ucb-article-tags" itemprop="keywords"> <span class="visually-hidden">Tags:</span> <div class="ucb-article-tag-icon" aria-hidden="true"> <i class="fa-solid fa-tags"></i> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/676" hreflang="en">Climate Change</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/256" hreflang="en">Ecology and Evolutionary Biology</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/686" hreflang="en">Research</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/1150" hreflang="en">views</a> </div> <span>Laura Dee</span> <div class="ucb-article-content ucb-striped-content"> <div class="container"> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--article-content paragraph--view-mode--default"> <div class="ucb-article-text" itemprop="articleBody"> <div><p class="lead"><em>Controlled burns reduce wildfire risk, but they require trained staff and funding鈥攖his could be a rough year</em></p><hr><p>Red skies in August, longer fire seasons and checking air quality before taking my toddler to the park. This has become the new norm in the western United States as wildfires <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abc0020" rel="nofollow">become more frequent</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1607171113" rel="nofollow">larger and more catastrophic</a>.</p><p>As <a href="/ebio/laura-dee" rel="nofollow">an ecologist</a> at the 麻豆影院, I know that fires are <a href="https://www.frames.gov/catalog/21445" rel="nofollow">part of the natural processes</a> that forests need to stay healthy. But the combined effects of a warmer and drier climate, more people living in fire-prone areas and vegetation and debris built up over <a href="https://theconversation.com/fighting-every-wildfire-ensures-the-big-fires-are-more-extreme-and-may-harm-forests-ability-to-adapt-to-climate-change-225953" rel="nofollow">years of fire suppression</a> are leading to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adk5737" rel="nofollow">more severe fires that spread faster</a>. And that鈥檚 putting <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1607171113" rel="nofollow">humans, ecosystems and economies</a> at risk.</p><p>To help prevent catastrophic fires, the U.S. Forest Service issued <a href="https://www.fs.usda.gov/managing-land/wildfire-crisis" rel="nofollow">a 10-year strategy in 2022</a> that includes scaling up the use of controlled burns and other techniques to remove excess plant growth and dry, dead materials that fuel wildfires.</p><div class="feature-layout-callout feature-layout-callout-medium"><div class="ucb-callout-content"> <div class="imageMediaStyle large_image_style"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/large_image_style/public/2025-04/Laura%20Dee.jpg?itok=fMEAI8Ae" width="1500" height="1922" alt="portrait of Laura Dee"> </div> <span class="media-image-caption"> <p class="small-text">CU 麻豆影院 researcher Laura Dee is an associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology.</p> </span> </div></div><p>However, the Forest Service鈥檚 wildfire management activities have been thrown into turmoil in 2025 with <a href="https://apnews.com/article/wildfire-firefighters-trump-federal-hiring-freeze-b9e12f2a439d9e40da099b3e6075f832" rel="nofollow">funding cuts and disruptions</a> and uncertainty from the federal government.</p><p>The planet just saw its <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/temperatures-rising-nasa-confirms-2024-warmest-year-on-record" rel="nofollow">hottest year on record</a>. If spring and summer 2025 are also dry and hot, conditions could be prime for severe fires again.</p><p><strong>More severe fires harm forest recovery and people</strong></p><p>Today鈥檚 severe wildfires have been pushing societies, emergency response systems and forests beyond what they have evolved to handle.</p><p>Extreme fires have burned into cities, including destroying <a href="https://theconversation.com/southern-california-is-extremely-dry-and-thats-fueling-fires-maps-show-just-how-dry-246983" rel="nofollow">thousands of homes in the Los Angeles area</a> in 2025 and <a href="https://theconversation.com/homes-that-survived-the-marshall-fire-1-year-ago-harbored-another-disaster-inside-heres-what-weve-learned-about-this-insidious-urban-wildfire-risk-196926" rel="nofollow">near 麻豆影院, Colorado</a>, in 2021. They threaten downstream public drinking water by increasing sediments and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.149890" rel="nofollow">contaminants in water supplies</a>, as well as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adk5737" rel="nofollow">infrastructure</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06522-6" rel="nofollow">air quality</a> and rural economies. They also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2114069119" rel="nofollow">increase the risk of flooding</a> and mudslides from soil erosion. And they undermine efforts to mitigate climate change by <a href="https://northlab.faculty.ucdavis.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/195/2024/09/Decreasing-carbon-capacity-of-fire-prone-forests-Frontiers-Hurteau-et-al-2024.pdf" rel="nofollow">releasing carbon</a> stored in these ecosystems.</p><p>In some cases, fires burned so hot and deep into the soil that the forests are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2208120120" rel="nofollow">not growing back</a>.</p><p>While many species are <a href="https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/eldorado/fire/?cid=fsbdev7_019091" rel="nofollow">adapted to survive low-level fires</a>, severe blazes can damage the seeds and cones needed for forests to regrow. My team has seen this trend outside of Fort Collins, Colorado, where four years after the Cameron Peak fire, forests have still not come back the way ecologists would expect them to under past, less severe fires. Returning to a strategy of fire suppression 鈭 or trying to 鈥<a href="https://mountainjournal.org/white-house-reviewing-draft-executive-order-for-consolidating-wildfire-agencies-including-forest-service-and-calls-for-immediate-fire-suppression" rel="nofollow">go toe-to-toe with every fire</a>鈥 鈭 will make these cases more common.</p><p>Proactive wildfire management can help reduce the risk to forests and property.</p><p>Measures such as prescribed burns have <a href="https://www.frames.gov/catalog/21445" rel="nofollow">proven to be effective</a> for <a href="https://www.climatehubs.usda.gov/hubs/northwest/topic/prescribed-fire-northwest" rel="nofollow">maintaining healthy forests</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2024.121885" rel="nofollow">reducing the severity</a> of subsequent wildfires. A recent review found that selective thinning followed by prescribed fire reduced subsequent fire severity <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2024.121885" rel="nofollow">by 72% on average</a>, and prescribed fire on its own reduced severity by 62%.</p><p>But managing forests well requires knowing how forests are changing, where trees are dying and where undergrowth has built up and increased <a href="https://wildfirerisk.org/" rel="nofollow">fire hazards</a>. And, for federal lands, these are some of the jobs that are being targeted by the Trump administration.</p><div class="feature-layout-callout feature-layout-callout-large"><div class="ucb-callout-content"><p>&nbsp;</p> <div class="imageMediaStyle large_image_style"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/large_image_style/public/2025-04/Cameron%20Peak%20burn%20scar.jpg?itok=kfIkQvoM" width="1500" height="2001" alt="forest fire burn scar by Cameron Peak in Colorado"> </div> <span class="media-image-caption"> <p class="small-text"><span>Parts of Cameron Peak in north-central Colorado that burned in a severe fire in 2020 showed scant evidence of recovery four years later, when this photo was taken. (Photo: </span><a href="/ebio/isabella-oleksy" rel="nofollow"><span>Bella Olesky</span></a><span>/CU 麻豆影院)</span></p> </span> </div></div><p>Some of the Forest Service staff who were <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/fired-us-forest-service-national-park-service-workers/story?id=119004068" rel="nofollow">fired or put in limbo</a> by the Trump administration are those who do research or collect and communicate critical data about forests and <a href="https://www.nifc.gov/" rel="nofollow">fire risk</a>. Other <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-doge-cuts-forest-service-firefighting" rel="nofollow">fired staff provided support</a> so crews could clear flammable debris and carry out fuel treatments such as prescribed burns, thinning forests and building fire breaks.</p><p>Losing people in these roles is like firing all primary care doctors and leaving only EMTs. Both are clearly needed. As many people know from emergency room bills, preventing emergencies is less costly than dealing with the damage later.</p><p><strong>Logging is not a long-term fire solution</strong></p><p>The Trump administration cited 鈥渨ildfire risk reduction鈥 when it issued an <a href="https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/sm-1078-006.pdf" rel="nofollow">emergency order to increase logging</a> in national forests by 25%.</p><p>But private 鈭 unregulated 鈭 forest management <a href="https://www.eforester.org/Main/Issues_and_Advocacy/Statements/Wildland_Fire_Management.aspx" rel="nofollow">looks a lot different</a> than managing forests to prevent destructive fires.</p><p>Logging, depending on the practice, can involve clear-cutting trees and other techniques that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/2688-8319.12090" rel="nofollow">compromise soils</a>. Exposing a forest鈥檚 soils and dead vegetation to more sunlight also dries them out, which can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1755-263X.2009.00080.x" rel="nofollow">increase fire risk in the near term</a>.</p><p>In general, logging that focuses on extracting the highest-value trees leaves thinner trees that are more vulnerable to fires. A study in the Pacific Northwest found that replanting logged land with the same age and size of trees can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.1710" rel="nofollow">lead to more severe fires</a> in the future.</p><p><strong>Research and data are essential</strong></p><p>For many people in the western U.S., these risks hit close to home.</p><p>I鈥檝e seen neighborhoods burn and friends and family displaced, and I have contended with regular air quality warnings and red flag days signaling a high fire risk. I鈥檝e also seen beloved landscapes, such as those on Cameron Peak, transform when conifers that once made up the forest have not regrown.</p><p>My scientific research group <a href="https://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/workinggroups/morpho-fire-impacts-ecosystem-services-us-west-does-prescribed-burning-work-what" rel="nofollow">and collaborations with other scientists</a> have been helping to identify cost-effective solutions. That includes which fuel-treatment methods are most effective, which types of forests and conditions they work best in and how often they are needed. We鈥檙e also planning research projects to better understand which forests are at greatest risk of not recovering after fires.</p><p>This sort of research is what robust, cost-effective land management is based on.</p><p>When careful, evidence-based forest management is replaced with a heavy emphasis on suppressing every fire or clear-cutting forests, I worry that human lives, property and economies, as well as the natural legacy of public lands left to every American, are at risk.</p><hr><p><a href="/ebio/laura-dee" rel="nofollow">Laura Dee</a> is an associate professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.</p><p><em>This article is republished from&nbsp;</em><a href="https://theconversation.com/" rel="nofollow"><em>The Conversation</em></a><em>&nbsp;under a Creative Commons license. Read the&nbsp;</em><a href="https://theconversation.com/controlled-burns-reduce-wildfire-risk-but-they-require-trained-staff-and-funding-this-could-be-a-rough-year-251705" rel="nofollow"><em>original article</em></a><em>.</em></p><p>&nbsp;</p></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div>Controlled burns reduce wildfire risk, but they require trained staff and funding鈥攖his could be a rough year.</div> <h2> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--ucb-related-articles-block paragraph--view-mode--default"> <div>Related Articles</div> </div> </h2> <div>Traditional</div> <div>0</div> <div> <div class="imageMediaStyle large_image_style"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/large_image_style/public/2025-04/controlled%20burn%20cropped.jpg?itok=t-2z9T7y" width="1500" height="500" alt="wildlands firefighter conducting controlled burn in forest"> </div> </div> <div>On</div> <div>White</div> <div>Top image: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service</div> Wed, 23 Apr 2025 21:01:58 +0000 Rachel Sauer 6120 at /asmagazine Recognizing a century of boats against the current /asmagazine/2025/04/23/recognizing-century-boats-against-current <span>Recognizing a century of boats against the current</span> <span><span>Rachel Sauer</span></span> <span><time datetime="2025-04-23T13:17:08-06:00" title="Wednesday, April 23, 2025 - 13:17">Wed, 04/23/2025 - 13:17</time> </span> <div> <div class="imageMediaStyle focal_image_wide"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/focal_image_wide/public/2025-04/Gatsby%20scene.jpg?h=b0856314&amp;itok=kZiLtNA3" width="1200" height="800" alt="Scene from 2013 film 'The Great Gatsby'"> </div> </div> <div role="contentinfo" class="container ucb-article-categories" itemprop="about"> <span class="visually-hidden">Categories:</span> <div class="ucb-article-category-icon" aria-hidden="true"> <i class="fa-solid fa-folder-open"></i> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/30"> News </a> </div> <div role="contentinfo" class="container ucb-article-tags" itemprop="keywords"> <span class="visually-hidden">Tags:</span> <div class="ucb-article-tag-icon" aria-hidden="true"> <i class="fa-solid fa-tags"></i> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/1241" hreflang="en">Division of Arts and Humanities</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/320" hreflang="en">English</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/686" hreflang="en">Research</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/1235" hreflang="en">popular culture</a> </div> <span>Collette Mace</span> <div class="ucb-article-content ucb-striped-content"> <div class="container"> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--article-content paragraph--view-mode--default"> <div class="ucb-article-text" itemprop="articleBody"> <div><p class="lead"><span lang="EN">The Great Gatsby</span><em><span lang="EN"> remains relevant for modern readers by shapeshifting with the times, says CU 麻豆影院 scholar Martin Bickman</span></em></p><hr><p><em><span lang="EN">鈥淪o we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.鈥</span></em></p><p><span lang="EN">The final words of F. Scott Fitzgerald鈥檚 classic novel, </span><em><span lang="EN">The Great Gatsby</span></em><span lang="EN">鈥攑ublished 100 years ago this month鈥攁re among the most known and appreciated in American literature.</span></p><div class="feature-layout-callout feature-layout-callout-medium"><div class="ucb-callout-content"> <div class="imageMediaStyle large_image_style"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/large_image_style/public/2025-04/Martin%20Bickman.jpg?itok=0cOIbktI" width="1500" height="1500" alt="portrait of Martin Bickman"> </div> <span class="media-image-caption"> <p class="small-text">Martin Bickman, a CU 麻豆影院 professor of English, notes that the <span lang="EN">intentional vagueness of </span><em><span lang="EN">The Great Gatsby</span></em><span lang="EN"> helps readers of all generations connect with the characters.</span></p> </span> </div></div><p><span lang="EN">And according to </span><a href="/english/martin-bickman" rel="nofollow"><span lang="EN">Martin Bickman</span></a><span lang="EN">, a 麻豆影院 professor of </span><a href="/english/" rel="nofollow"><span lang="EN">English</span></a><span lang="EN">, this line and the novel鈥檚 conclusion reflect the age in which it was written and neatly ends a novel that seems to capture the American psyche.</span></p><p><span lang="EN">But why is </span><em><span lang="EN">The Great Gatsby</span></em><span lang="EN"> considered the Great American Novel? Not because it鈥檚 great or because it鈥檚 American, Bickman explains鈥攁lthough it is both. This novel has remained relevant from generation to generation because it shapeshifts with the times, continuing to carry themes that Americans are bred to notice.</span></p><p><span lang="EN">Questions of the American dream, wealth, class standing and ambition are central to American values in both 1925 and today. And while these themes look very different to the modern American, Bickman says the intentional vagueness of the novel helps readers of all generations connect with the characters.</span></p><p><span lang="EN">To understand this, Bickman, a CU President鈥檚 Teaching Scholar who has taught a course called American Novel, cites 鈥渞eader response theory,鈥 a framework he emphasizes is critical in the study of literature. According to reader response theory, the reader of a text to take must take an active role in constructing the meaning within the text; if readers look only at a novel through the perspective of the author, that neglects much of the text鈥檚 meaning.</span></p><p><span lang="EN">For this reason, no text can be interpreted the exact way by two different people. Readers approach texts differently as a result of their position in the world, and the experiences that have shaped them inform their understanding of what they read. The text then becomes a blank canvas for what readers project onto it, Bickman says</span></p><p><span lang="EN"><strong>Seeing ourselves in Gatsby</strong></span></p><p><span lang="EN">What does this have to do with </span><em><span lang="EN">Gatsby</span></em><span lang="EN">? According to Bickman, the title character is just two-dimensional enough to serve as a perfect projection screen for readers of the novel. He鈥檚 mysterious, allowing the narrator, Nick Calloway, to cast his own assumptions about the world and the wealthy onto him, as well as vague enough to allow the reader to project their own internal thoughts and biases onto him.</span></p><div class="feature-layout-callout feature-layout-callout-medium"><div class="ucb-callout-content"> <div class="imageMediaStyle large_image_style"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/large_image_style/public/2025-04/Great%20Gatsby%20cover.jpg?itok=o2ZrPTeO" width="1500" height="2287" alt="book cover of 'The Great Gatsby'"> </div> <span class="media-image-caption"> <p class="small-text"><span lang="EN">As well as having characters that reflect the reader in personality and perceptions, </span><em><span lang="EN">The Great Gatsby</span></em><span lang="EN"> also reflects classic American messages that are relevant today.&nbsp;</span></p> </span> </div></div><p><span lang="EN">Because of his intentional ambiguity, Gatsby as a character can reflect what the reader thinks of many different things, including the elite, the rich and even the quintessential American dreamer.</span></p><p><span lang="EN">This is how </span><em><span lang="EN">The Great Gatsby</span></em><span lang="EN"> becomes a chameleon, remaining relevant in era, despite its age, Bickman says. As well as having characters that reflect the reader in personality and perceptions, the novel also reflects classic American messages that are relevant today.</span></p><p><span lang="EN">The green light on Daisy鈥檚 dock, for example, represents the unattainable hopes for the future that stem from the inability to transcend the past. This feeling is still present, and most likely always will be in a country that believes in the possibility of a glowing future as long as we just work hard enough to get there鈥攕uch is, in essence, the American dream, Bickman says.</span></p><p><span lang="EN">It also showcases the all-to-frequent pain of the American dream. Although Bickman says the billionaires of today had no equal in Fitzgerald鈥檚 time, the uneasiness surrounding the callousness of the rich is on full display in </span><em><span lang="EN">Gatsby</span></em><span lang="EN">. Daisy, for example, named for the beautiful and delicate flower that Gatsby sees her as, is just as cruel and selfish as any of the men around her. She was the one driving the car, after all.</span></p><p><span lang="EN">However, as she comes from 鈥渟elf-earned鈥 money, and as someone who has seemingly 鈥渨on鈥 at the American dream, does she get a pass for her selfishness? In a way, she seems to, at least for the moment. And as time moves on, and the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer, it seems that the original questions of whether the rich can be callous changes to whether the rich can be cruel鈥攁 key difference in how the world works, according to Bickman.</span></p><p><span lang="EN">鈥淚t鈥檚 a real pathology now,鈥 he says, 鈥淚 mean, these people are cruel. The richest of the rich in the 1920s were nothing like today鈥檚 billionaires.鈥</span></p><p><span lang="EN">So the lessons of </span><em><span lang="EN">The Great Gatsby</span></em><span lang="EN"> remain relevant, Bickman says, suggesting that modern readers should take a deep look between the lines and wonder what Gatsby can show us about ourselves.</span></p><hr><p><em>Did you enjoy this article?&nbsp;</em><a href="https://cu.tfaforms.net/73" rel="nofollow"><em>Subscribe to our newsletter.</em></a><em>&nbsp;Passionate about English?&nbsp;</em><a href="/english/donate" rel="nofollow"><em>Show your support.</em></a></p><p>&nbsp;</p></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div>'The Great Gatsby' remains relevant for modern readers by shapeshifting with the times, says CU 麻豆影院 scholar Martin Bickman.</div> <h2> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--ucb-related-articles-block paragraph--view-mode--default"> <div>Related Articles</div> </div> </h2> <div>Traditional</div> <div>0</div> <div> <div class="imageMediaStyle large_image_style"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/large_image_style/public/2025-04/Gatsby%20scene%20cropped.jpg?itok=-luYKJZV" width="1500" height="498" alt="scene from 2013 film 'The Great Gatsby'"> </div> </div> <div>On</div> <div>White</div> <div>Top image: Warner Bros.</div> Wed, 23 Apr 2025 19:17:08 +0000 Rachel Sauer 6119 at /asmagazine How we can, why we must transform food systems /asmagazine/2025/04/21/how-we-can-why-we-must-transform-food-systems <span>How we can, why we must transform food systems</span> <span><span>Rachel Sauer</span></span> <span><time datetime="2025-04-21T13:07:24-06:00" title="Monday, April 21, 2025 - 13:07">Mon, 04/21/2025 - 13:07</time> </span> <div> <div class="imageMediaStyle focal_image_wide"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/focal_image_wide/public/2025-04/diversified%20farm%20fields.jpg?h=2e976bc2&amp;itok=By80pa3O" width="1200" height="800" alt="aerial view of diversified farm fields"> </div> </div> <div role="contentinfo" class="container ucb-article-categories" itemprop="about"> <span class="visually-hidden">Categories:</span> <div class="ucb-article-category-icon" aria-hidden="true"> <i class="fa-solid fa-folder-open"></i> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/889"> Views </a> </div> <div role="contentinfo" class="container ucb-article-tags" itemprop="keywords"> <span class="visually-hidden">Tags:</span> <div class="ucb-article-tag-icon" aria-hidden="true"> <i class="fa-solid fa-tags"></i> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/676" hreflang="en">Climate Change</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/1242" hreflang="en">Division of Natural Sciences</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/160" hreflang="en">Environmental Studies</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/686" hreflang="en">Research</a> </div> <span>Laura Vang Rasmussen</span> <span>,&nbsp;</span> <span>Ingo Grass</span> <span>,&nbsp;</span> <span>Claire Kremen and Zia Mehrabi</span> <div class="ucb-article-content ucb-striped-content"> <div class="container"> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--article-content paragraph--view-mode--default"> <div class="ucb-article-text" itemprop="articleBody"> <div><p class="lead"><em><span>Evidence shows that diversified farming is key</span></em></p><hr><p>If you had to pick the single most important thing driving the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries" rel="nofollow">overshooting of multiple planetary boundaries</a>, it would be the food we eat and how we produce that food. The environmental grand challenges of our day鈥攂iodiversity loss, climate change, freshwater use and pollution鈥攁ll tie back to our food systems.</p><p>So also do our social challenges: As of writing, one in four people around the world does not have reliable access to nutritious food. Our food systems need transformation. They must become environmentally safe and socially just.</p><p>For years, ecologists have advocated for designing our food systems to be diverse, like ecosystems, to help bring the planet into a safe operating space for humanity. And despite clear examples of both innovative farmers and more traditional ones around the world doing this in practice, governments have remained skeptical due to the opposition this idea poses to mainstream agricultural-development policy.</p><p>As we undertook our <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adj1914" rel="nofollow">published research</a>, we set out to explore if mainstream thinking surrounding agricultural development was wrong and, if so, what adding diversity back into agricultural systems might do to correct farming systems around the world.</p><p>We worked with more than 50 researchers, who in turn worked with thousands of farmers across 11 countries covering five continents, to test the idea. We covered vastly different food systems, from maize production in Malawi to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvopasture" rel="nofollow">silvopastoral</a> cattle farming in Colombia, winter wheat production in Germany, strawberry cultivation in the United States and more.</p><p>One unique feature of our approach was that all co-authors participated actively in the study design to interweave the many data sets spread across the world. Our project was far from a standard research initiative; it was highly interdisciplinary, involving the co-production of knowledge among researchers from various fields and farmers.</p><p>Further, a stakeholder committee, including representatives from different levels of government, U.N. organizations, NGOs and various national farmers鈥 organizations, was involved in co-production through workshops and engagement activities.</p><p>We all worked together to answer a basic question: If more diversity is added into, or kept on, farms, what happens to the environmental and social outcomes we care about? Do we create a better world for people and nature?</p><div class="feature-layout-callout feature-layout-callout-xlarge"><div class="ucb-callout-content"><p>&nbsp;</p> <div class="imageMediaStyle large_image_style"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/large_image_style/public/2025-04/strawberry%20field.jpg?itok=raNAs53n" width="1500" height="1125" alt="strawberries growing in plants in raised beds"> </div> <span class="media-image-caption"> <p class="small-text"><span>CU 麻豆影院 scientist Zia Mehrabi and his research colleagues found that across systems, a general rule emerged: the more diversification done at a farm, the better. (Photo: California Strawberry Commission)</span></p> </span> </div></div><p>The outcomes we looked at were directly related to planetary boundaries on reducing environmental pollution, land use, biodiversity loss and the disruption of biogeochemical flows.</p><p>But, unlike earlier studies, we also assessed social outcomes at the same time, including human well-being, crop yields and food security. This integration allowed us to assess whether both <span lang="EN-GB">positive environmental and social outcomes</span> can be achieved at the same time, something that had never been done before in this way.</p><p>What we produced was novel: the first-ever cross-continental, multi-farming system and culturally contextual evidence from real food systems that diversifying agricultural systems helps move agriculture toward where we want it to be. We found that the benefits of diversification differed depending on the practices and farming systems they were tied to. But saliently, we found that across systems, a general rule emerged: the more diversification done at a farm, the better.</p><p>And even more promisingly, this was especially true when it came to improving food security and biodiversity at the same time鈥攖wo outcomes that have previously been juxtaposed in policy and that need the world鈥檚 urgent attention now more than ever.</p><p>Critically, our study was not theoretical or abstract, nor was it run on field stations or in laboratories. It was conducted with farmers on real-world farms. The main effects we identified held up to a range of different analyses.</p><p>We even came up with a list and typology of on-farm interventions, all clearly defined, for practical implementation and support by governments, NGOs, research for development organizations and civil society groups. Importantly, the significance of these interventions is already recognized as a possible pathway toward change and was a key focus of the U.N. Food Systems Summit.</p><p>Our work provides robust evidence that investment in these areas will yield the desirable outcomes, bolstering ongoing initiatives by governments and the private sector to support these transformative actions.</p><p>Our research demonstrates that diversification represents a significant, tangible and policy-relevant step towards achieving more sustainable food systems globally: one not just grounded in theory or anecdotes but also supported by rich data, covering a vast range of farming systems across the world.</p><p>Other observations made during our research project include the insight that farmers in many locations have already been actively working against the odds, finding ways past barriers to diversification. We鈥檝e found this in Malawi, Brazil and the United States, where grass-roots communities of farmers and social networks are mobilizing knowledge, land, seeds, equipment, processing infrastructure and markets to support this movement. Policymakers and practitioners can now support these groups by lowering the structural barriers that have limited their growth and the growth of diversified farming to date.</p><p>We are now at a critical juncture where agricultural-development policy requires urgent attention. While the action will be location dependent鈥攄iversifying systems that have been made far too simple to function properly and retaining diversity in systems where it is threatened鈥攖he time has come, and the options exist, to ensure that the damages and losses done in the past do not continue into the future.</p><p><em>Laura Vang Rasmussen is associate professor of geosciences and natural resource management at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. Ingo Grass is professor and head of the Department of Ecology and Tropical Ecological Systems at the University of Hohenheim in Germany. Claire Kremen is the president鈥檚 excellence chair in biodiversity at the University of British Columbia in Canada. Zia Mehrabi is an associate professor of environmental studies at the 麻豆影院.</em></p><hr><p><em>Did you enjoy this op-ed?&nbsp;</em><a href="https://cu.tfaforms.net/73" rel="nofollow"><em>Subscribe to our newsletter.</em></a><em>&nbsp;Passionate about environmental studies?&nbsp;</em><a href="/envs/donate" rel="nofollow"><em>Show your support.</em></a></p><p>&nbsp;</p></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div>Evidence shows that diversified farming is key.</div> <h2> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--ucb-related-articles-block paragraph--view-mode--default"> <div>Related Articles</div> </div> </h2> <div>Traditional</div> <div>0</div> <div> <div class="imageMediaStyle large_image_style"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/large_image_style/public/2025-04/diversified%20farm%20fields%20cropped.jpg?itok=_BaPYW24" width="1500" height="511" alt="Aerial view of farm fields growing different crops"> </div> </div> <div>On</div> <div>White</div> Mon, 21 Apr 2025 19:07:24 +0000 Rachel Sauer 6117 at /asmagazine Farm-diversification research wins high kudos /asmagazine/2025/04/21/farm-diversification-research-wins-high-kudos <span>Farm-diversification research wins high kudos</span> <span><span>Rachel Sauer</span></span> <span><time datetime="2025-04-21T13:03:22-06:00" title="Monday, April 21, 2025 - 13:03">Mon, 04/21/2025 - 13:03</time> </span> <div> <div class="imageMediaStyle focal_image_wide"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/focal_image_wide/public/2025-04/Zia%20Mehrabi%20thumbnail.jpg?h=6ac2e07b&amp;itok=nLKxJvYX" width="1200" height="800" alt="portrait of Zia Mehrabi taken outside"> </div> </div> <div role="contentinfo" class="container ucb-article-categories" itemprop="about"> <span class="visually-hidden">Categories:</span> <div class="ucb-article-category-icon" aria-hidden="true"> <i class="fa-solid fa-folder-open"></i> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/30"> News </a> </div> <div role="contentinfo" class="container ucb-article-tags" itemprop="keywords"> <span class="visually-hidden">Tags:</span> <div class="ucb-article-tag-icon" aria-hidden="true"> <i class="fa-solid fa-tags"></i> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/1155" hreflang="en">Awards</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/676" hreflang="en">Climate Change</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/1242" hreflang="en">Division of Natural Sciences</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/160" hreflang="en">Environmental Studies</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/857" hreflang="en">Faculty</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/56" hreflang="en">Kudos</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/686" hreflang="en">Research</a> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/clint-talbott">Clint Talbott</a> <div class="ucb-article-content ucb-striped-content"> <div class="container"> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--article-content paragraph--view-mode--default"> <div class="ucb-article-text" itemprop="articleBody"> <div><p class="lead"><em>CU 麻豆影院鈥檚 Zia Mehrabi and an international group of researchers are named national champion of the Frontiers Planet Prize for research that finds environmental and social benefits of agricultural diversification</em></p><hr><p>Widespread agricultural diversification could improve the health of the world鈥檚 environment and that of its people, a landmark study published last year found.</p><p><a href="/envs/zia-mehrabi" rel="nofollow">Zia Mehrabi</a>, assistant professor of <a href="/envs/" rel="nofollow">environmental studies</a> at the 麻豆影院, alongside a large group of international researchers, has been named the <a href="https://www.frontiersplanetprize.org/news/nsh4fahwd27fhan-jy3kg-m84px-hy7hr-4cn4c-98kke-tsr6s" rel="nofollow">U.S. national champion</a> for the <a href="https://www.frontiersplanetprize.org/" rel="nofollow">Frontiers Planet Prize</a>, the Frontiers Research Foundation announced today.</p><p>As one of 19 national champions, Mehrabi and team are in contention to be named one of three international champions, each of whom will receive $1 million in funding to advance their research. The international champions will be announced at the Frontiers Planet Prize ceremony in Switzerland in June.</p><div class="feature-layout-callout feature-layout-callout-large"><div class="ucb-callout-content"><p>&nbsp;</p> <div class="imageMediaStyle large_image_style"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/large_image_style/public/2025-04/Zia%20Mehrabi%20portrait.jpg?itok=7TNBJTYa" width="1500" height="2251" alt="headshot of Zia Mehrabi"> </div> <span class="media-image-caption"> <p class="small-text"><a href="/envs/zia-mehrabi" rel="nofollow"><span>Zia Mehrabi</span></a><span>, a CU 麻豆影院 assistant professor of </span><a href="/envs/" rel="nofollow"><span>environmental studies</span></a><span>, has been named the U.S. national champion for the </span><a href="https://www.frontiersplanetprize.org/" rel="nofollow"><span>Frontiers Planet Prize</span></a>.</p> </span> </div></div><p>The Frontiers Planet Prize celebrates breakthroughs in Earth system and planetary science that 鈥渁ddress these challenges and enable society to stay within the safe boundaries of the 麻豆影院 ecosystem.鈥 The prize puts scientific rigor and ingenuity at its heart, helping researchers worldwide accelerate society toward a green renaissance, the <a href="https://www.frontiersfoundation.org/" rel="nofollow">Frontiers Research Foundation</a> says.</p><p>Professor Jean-Claude Burgelman, director of the Frontiers Planet Prize, said the planet faces immense threats that require bold, transformative solutions rooted in evidence and validated by science.</p><p>鈥淚nnovative yet scalable solutions are the only way for us to ensure healthy lives on a healthy planet,鈥 Burgelman said. 鈥淏y spotlighting the most groundbreaking research, we are helping scientists bring their work to the international stage and provide the scientific consensus needed to guide our actions and policies.鈥</p><p>Mehrabi, who leads the&nbsp;<a href="https://betterplanetlab.com/" rel="nofollow">Better Planet Laboratory</a>, was recognized, alongside his co-authors, for an article published last year in the journal <em>Science</em> titled 鈥<a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adj1914" rel="nofollow">Joint environmental and social benefits from diversified agriculture</a>.鈥&nbsp;</p><p>Laura Vang Rasmussen of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and Ingo Grass of the University of Hohenheim in Germany were lead authors of the paper, which had 58 co-authors. Claire Kremen of the University of British Columbia was a senior author and co-principal investigator on the study.</p><p>The researchers found that diversifying crops and animals and improving habitat, soil and water conservation on individual farms can improve biodiversity while improving or, at a minimum, not coming at a cost to yields. Additionally, diversified farming can yield social benefits and improve food security鈥攕howing improved food access or a reduced number of hungry months, for example, particularly in smallholder systems.</p><p>The more diversification measures farms employed, the more benefits accrued, researchers observed. Essentially, the team found evidence to move toward agriculture that more closely reflects natural systems.</p><p>鈥淚f you look at how ecosystems operate, it鈥檚 not just plants growing alone. It鈥檚 not just animals or soil,鈥 Mehrabi said last year. 鈥淚t鈥檚 all of these things working together.鈥</p><p>Using data from 2,655 farms across 11 countries and covering five continents, the researchers combined qualitative methods and statistical models to&nbsp;analyze 24 different datasets. Each dataset studied farm sites with varying levels of diversification, including farms without any diversification practices. This allowed the team to assess the effects of applying more diversification strategies.</p><p>Diversified farming differs from the dominant model of agriculture: growing single crops or one animal on large tracts of land. That efficient, 鈥渕onoculture鈥 style of farming is a hallmark of agriculture after the Green Revolution, which reduced global famine by focusing on high-yield crops that rely on fertilizers and pesticides.&nbsp;</p><p>鈥淭he Green Revolution did many, many great things, but it came with a lot of costs,鈥 Mehrabi says, noting that synthetic fertilizers and pesticides harm the environment.</p><p>Also, to increase labor productivity, large farms rely on mechanization, which tends to 鈥渞eplace people with machines.鈥</p><div class="feature-layout-callout feature-layout-callout-xlarge"><div class="ucb-callout-content"> <div class="imageMediaStyle large_image_style"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/large_image_style/public/2025-04/diversified%20farm%20fields.jpg?itok=GGYik0vN" width="1500" height="843" alt="aerial view of diversified farm fields"> </div> <span class="media-image-caption"> <p class="small-text">鈥淚f you look at how ecosystems operate, it鈥檚 not just plants growing alone. It鈥檚 not just animals or soil. It鈥檚 all of these things working together,鈥 says Zia Mehrabi.</p> </span> </div></div><p>鈥淪o, the idea of trying to engineer nature into our agricultural systems is somewhat antithetical to the whole way we think about agricultural development,鈥 Mehrabi says.</p><p>Making a case for a different way of doing agriculture is one thing. Implementing it on a widespread basis is something else. The dominant view, fostered by 鈥渂ig ag鈥 (short for agriculture), is that 鈥渋f you want to do ag, you鈥檝e got to do it this way,鈥 Mehrabi says.</p><p>鈥淥ur work challenges that idea, but it鈥檚 a bit of a David-and-Goliath situation,鈥 he adds. 鈥淲e have the stone, but it hasn鈥檛 yet landed.鈥</p><p>But it鈥檚 necessary to confront Goliath, Mehrabi contends, noting that agriculture affects all the things people care about environmentally, including climate change, water security, biodiversity, pollution, land use and habitat destruction.</p><p>A third of the Earth鈥檚 land is used for agriculture, and about a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions stem from agriculture, he notes. Climate change has reduced agricultural yields by as much as 5% to 10% in the last four decades, research has shown.</p><p>鈥淚f we want to do something about environmental issues, agriculture is one of the big buckets that we need to really, really start in.鈥</p><p>Separate from the research published in <em>Science</em>, Mehrabi has done <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-023-01110-y" rel="nofollow">modeling of the future state of agriculture globally</a> if the world continues business-as-usual farming. He found that in the next century, the number of farms is likely to be cut in half and the average size of farms would likely double.</p><p>Given that, along with what scientists know about the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-021-00699-2" rel="nofollow">loss of natural ecosystems as farm sizes increase</a>, 鈥渢he future looks a little bit bleak,鈥 Mehrabi says. But this new research shows it could be different.</p><p>Though he does not suggest that all farms must be small farms, he does advise that agriculture strive to diversify systems that have been 鈥渕assively depleted and massively simplified.鈥</p><p>麻豆影院 the Frontiers Planet Prize, Mehrabi says he鈥檚 gratified to be recognized as one of 19 national champions. Additionally, he underscores the importance of the Frontiers Research Foundation鈥檚 financial commitment to this kind of research, calling it a 鈥渟ignal鈥 to other funding entities that might follow suit.</p><p>Launched by the Frontiers Research Foundation on Earth Day 2022, the prize encourages universities worldwide to nominate their top three scientists working on understanding and putting forward pathways to stay within the safe operating space of <a href="https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries.html" rel="nofollow">nine planetary boundaries</a> that are outlined by the Stockholm Resilience Center.</p><p><span>These nominations are then vetted at the national level, and the top scientists face an independent jury of 100鈥攁 group of renowned sustainability and planetary health experts chaired by Professor Johan Rockstr枚m鈥攚ho vote for the National and International Champions.</span></p><p><em>Read a guest opinion by Zia Mehrabi and co-authors </em><a href="/asmagazine/2025/04/21/how-we-can-why-we-must-transform-food-systems" rel="nofollow"><em>at this link</em></a><em>. See a Q&amp;A with Mehrabi about adding carbon-footprint labels on food&nbsp;</em><a href="/today/2025/04/09/what-if-your-food-had-carbon-footprint-and-human-rights-label" rel="nofollow"><em>at this link</em></a><em>.&nbsp;<span>&nbsp;</span></em></p><hr><p><em>Did you enjoy this article?&nbsp;</em><a href="https://cu.tfaforms.net/73" rel="nofollow"><em>Subscribe to our newsletter.</em></a><em>&nbsp;Passionate about environmental studies?&nbsp;</em><a href="/envs/donate" rel="nofollow"><em>Show your support.</em></a></p><p>&nbsp;</p></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div>CU 麻豆影院鈥檚 Zia Mehrabi and an international group of researchers are named national champion of the Frontiers Planet Prize for research that finds environmental and social benefits of agricultural diversification.</div> <h2> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--ucb-related-articles-block paragraph--view-mode--default"> <div>Related Articles</div> </div> </h2> <div>Traditional</div> <div>0</div> <div> <div class="imageMediaStyle large_image_style"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/large_image_style/public/2025-04/Frontiers%20Planet%20Prize%20logo.jpg?itok=HAJUXLh0" width="1500" height="411" alt="Frontiers Planet Prize logo"> </div> </div> <div>On</div> <div>White</div> Mon, 21 Apr 2025 19:03:22 +0000 Rachel Sauer 6116 at /asmagazine Climate change is transforming how scientists think about their roles /asmagazine/2025/04/18/climate-change-transforming-how-scientists-think-about-their-roles <span>Climate change is transforming how scientists think about their roles</span> <span><span>Rachel Sauer</span></span> <span><time datetime="2025-04-18T09:08:35-06:00" title="Friday, April 18, 2025 - 09:08">Fri, 04/18/2025 - 09:08</time> </span> <div> <div class="imageMediaStyle focal_image_wide"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/focal_image_wide/public/2025-04/dry%20lake%20bed.jpg?h=e4f440a4&amp;itok=t1NijNNe" width="1200" height="800" alt="cracked dry earth and setting sun with bare tree on horizon"> </div> </div> <div role="contentinfo" class="container ucb-article-categories" itemprop="about"> <span class="visually-hidden">Categories:</span> <div class="ucb-article-category-icon" aria-hidden="true"> <i class="fa-solid fa-folder-open"></i> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/30"> News </a> </div> <div role="contentinfo" class="container ucb-article-tags" itemprop="keywords"> <span class="visually-hidden">Tags:</span> <div class="ucb-article-tag-icon" aria-hidden="true"> <i class="fa-solid fa-tags"></i> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/202" hreflang="en">Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/676" hreflang="en">Climate Change</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/1242" hreflang="en">Division of Natural Sciences</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/1284" hreflang="en">Print Magazine 2024</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/686" hreflang="en">Research</a> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/sarah-kuta">Sarah Kuta</a> <div class="ucb-article-content ucb-striped-content"> <div class="container"> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--article-content paragraph--view-mode--default"> <div class="ucb-article-text" itemprop="articleBody"> <div><p class="lead"><em><span lang="EN">CU 麻豆影院 researcher Pedro DiNezio emphasizes solving the problems of climate change in the here and now</span></em></p><hr><p><span lang="EN">When </span><a href="/atoc/pedro-dinezio-they-their-them" rel="nofollow"><span lang="EN">Pedro DiNezio</span></a><span lang="EN"> began studying El Ni帽o and La Ni帽a roughly 20 years ago, human-caused climate change was still a future problem. At that time, researchers spent much of their energy trying to show that humans were, in fact, influencing the world鈥檚 climate.</span></p><p><span lang="EN">Flash forward two decades, and climate change is no longer some far-off, eventual phenomenon鈥攊t鈥檚 happening now. Communities and businesses are factoring climate change into their yearly, monthly and even weekly decisions.</span></p><p><span lang="EN">Against this backdrop, climate scientists are starting to transition away from purely theoretical research and pivot toward more applied work and consulting. DiNezio, a 麻豆影院 associate professor of </span><a href="/atoc/" rel="nofollow"><span lang="EN">atmospheric and oceanic sciences</span></a><span lang="EN">, for example, is embarking on a new partnership with WTW, a global insurance broker and risk advisor鈥攁n exciting prospect for putting research into practice.</span></p><div class="feature-layout-callout feature-layout-callout-medium"><div class="ucb-callout-content"> <div class="imageMediaStyle large_image_style"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/large_image_style/public/2025-04/Pedro%20DiNezio.jpg?itok=9gsZ57WD" width="1500" height="1905" alt="headshot of Pedro DiNezio"> </div> <span class="media-image-caption"> <p class="small-text"><span lang="EN">鈥淲e can鈥檛 stop the drought and the heatwaves, but we can do things to become more resilient, so they don鈥檛 affect us as badly鈥攁t least for a while,鈥 says Pedro DiNezio, a CU 麻豆影院 associate professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences.</span></p> </span> </div></div><p><span lang="EN">鈥淚鈥檓 going through a career transformation right now because I鈥檓 more and more interested in solving problems in the here and now,鈥 says DiNezio. 鈥淏ecause we now know so much about the climate system and about the impact it could have on society, many of us in academia are feeling that it鈥檚 time to act.鈥</span></p><p><span lang="EN"><strong>Resilience is key</strong></span></p><p><span lang="EN">As global temperatures continue to rise, world leaders are taking steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Whether their actions will be enough to stave off catastrophic warming remains to be seen. But, in the meantime, communities and businesses must prepare for and adapt to the unprecedented extremes caused by climate change.</span></p><p><span lang="EN">Drought, heatwaves, wildfires, rising sea levels, coastal erosion and other ripple effects are already causing big problems鈥攁nd scientists like DiNezio might be able to help solve them.</span></p><p><span lang="EN">鈥淲e can鈥檛 stop the drought and the heatwaves, but we can do things to become more resilient, so they don鈥檛 affect us as badly鈥攁t least for a while,鈥 DiNezio says. 鈥淎nd hopefully we can win that time we need to stabilize the climate.鈥</span></p><p><span lang="EN">For example, </span><a href="https://luskin.ucla.edu/high-temperatures-increase-workers-injury-risk-whether-theyre-outdoors-or-inside" rel="nofollow"><span lang="EN">research</span></a><span lang="EN"> has linked hot weather with an increased risk of accidents and injuries in the workplace. Employees are more likely to suffer heat-related illnesses on hot days. But they鈥檙e also more likely to be involved with other seemingly unrelated accidents, too.</span></p><p><span lang="EN">From an ethical perspective, companies want to keep their workers safe and healthy. But, from a business perspective, they also want to keep costs down鈥攁nd workers-compensation insurance is a major expense.</span></p><p><span lang="EN">鈥淲e鈥檙e only starting to learn the full extent of the impact of heatwaves and how we can mitigate them,鈥 says DiNezio. 鈥淭his is having a huge impact on businesses. So, how do we prevent these accidents?鈥</span></p><p><span lang="EN">As the climate shifts, supply chains are also becoming increasingly vulnerable. When vital waterways like the Panama Canal鈥檚 Gatun Lake dry up during droughts, ships cannot reach their intended destinations on time. And those delays cost money.</span></p><p><span lang="EN">鈥淵ou cannot avoid these things, but at least you can know there鈥檚 a risk and plan an alternative shipping route,鈥 DiNezio says.</span></p><p><span lang="EN">Reinsurance companies are particularly interested in anticipating disasters because they already take a long-term, big-picture view of risk. While a company in one part of the world might be worried about drought and another might be focused on sea level rise, global reinsurance companies see what鈥檚 happening around the world and connect the dots.</span></p><p><span lang="EN">鈥淩einsurance companies look for our knowledge because their scale makes them more sensitive to the aggregated effect of climate change over large swaths of the world,鈥 says DiNezio. 鈥淭hey are some of the first businesses to think, 鈥楬ow do we anticipate this new climate that is continually changing and prepare for it?鈥欌</span></p><p><span lang="EN"><strong>Why now?</strong></span></p><p><span lang="EN">Climate science is a relatively new field. But, in recent years, it鈥檚 matured enough to allow researchers to make predictions that are applicable to communities and businesses.</span></p><div class="feature-layout-callout feature-layout-callout-xlarge"><div class="ucb-callout-content"><p>&nbsp;</p> <div class="imageMediaStyle large_image_style"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/large_image_style/public/2025-04/Gatun%20Lake.jpg?itok=Wj45-D2q" width="1500" height="758" alt="Gatun Lake in Panama Canal"> </div> <span class="media-image-caption"> <p class="small-text"><span>When vital waterways like the Panama Canal鈥檚 Gatun Lake (above) dry up during droughts, ships cannot reach their intended destinations on time. And those delays cost money. (Photo: Valiant/Shutterstock)</span></p> </span> </div></div><p><span lang="EN">鈥淲e are starting to see these climate events happening, we have the tools to better predict them, and the climate sector is recognizing this as a problem, as a need,鈥 says DiNezio. 鈥淎s academics, we cannot ignore them because this is no longer a theoretical exercise.鈥</span></p><p><span lang="EN">Teaching has played an important role in DiNezio鈥檚 transformation. After joining the CU 麻豆影院 faculty four years ago, DiNezio began teaching an introductory-level class on climate change for non-science majors.</span></p><p><span lang="EN">Every semester, DiNezio updated the curriculum because the climate was changing so fast. That process has been a bit of a reality check.</span></p><p><span lang="EN">鈥淲hen you talk about it with students, especially non-science majors, they are interested in what effect this could have on their lives and their careers,鈥 says DiNezio. 鈥淵ou have to think about these things more concretely.鈥</span></p><p><span lang="EN"><strong>Concrete problems</strong></span></p><p><span lang="EN">DiNezio, like other climate scientists who are experimenting with consulting, is approaching this new career chapter with a mix of enthusiasm and anticipation.</span></p><p><span lang="EN">鈥淚鈥檓 diving into something that I haven鈥檛 done before,鈥 DiNezio says. 鈥淪ometimes, I describe it to my friend like I鈥檓 doing another PhD. 鈥 A lot of people in my field are going through this transformation and is entirely new.鈥</span></p><p><span lang="EN">But, in some ways, DiNezio suspects solving real-world problems may be easier than solving theoretical ones. Either way, DiNezio is looking forward to the new challenge.</span></p><p><span lang="EN">鈥淲hen you move away from the purely academic, the problems become really concrete,鈥 DiNezio says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really simple: How do you prevent heat deaths or help farmers mitigate drought? For me, the new thing is the action. The transformation is, how do we act with all this information about weather and climate? It鈥檚 very different from the academic approach. Now, we have a goal.鈥</span></p><hr><p><em>Did you enjoy this article?&nbsp;</em><a href="https://cu.tfaforms.net/73" rel="nofollow"><em>Subscribe to our newsletter.</em></a><em>&nbsp;Passionate about atmospheric and oceanic sciences?&nbsp;</em><a href="/atoc/support" rel="nofollow"><em>Show your support.</em></a></p><p>&nbsp;</p></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div>CU 麻豆影院 researcher Pedro DiNezio emphasizes solving the problems of climate change in the here and now.</div> <h2> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--ucb-related-articles-block paragraph--view-mode--default"> <div>Related Articles</div> </div> </h2> <div>Traditional</div> <div>0</div> <div> <div class="imageMediaStyle large_image_style"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/large_image_style/public/2025-04/dry%20lake%20bed%20cropped.jpg?itok=YevleTh-" width="1500" height="518" alt="Cracked dry earth and setting sun"> </div> </div> <div>On</div> <div>White</div> Fri, 18 Apr 2025 15:08:35 +0000 Rachel Sauer 6115 at /asmagazine Don鈥檛 fear the fungi /asmagazine/2025/04/17/dont-fear-fungi <span>Don鈥檛 fear the fungi</span> <span><span>Rachel Sauer</span></span> <span><time datetime="2025-04-17T07:30:00-06:00" title="Thursday, April 17, 2025 - 07:30">Thu, 04/17/2025 - 07:30</time> </span> <div> <div class="imageMediaStyle focal_image_wide"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/focal_image_wide/public/2025-04/The%20Last%20of%20Us%20fungus%20zombie.jpg?h=06ac0d8c&amp;itok=ozfwvnow" width="1200" height="800" alt="Zombie character with fungus sprouting on head from &quot;The Last of Us&quot;"> </div> </div> <div role="contentinfo" class="container ucb-article-categories" itemprop="about"> <span class="visually-hidden">Categories:</span> <div class="ucb-article-category-icon" aria-hidden="true"> <i class="fa-solid fa-folder-open"></i> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/30"> News </a> </div> <div role="contentinfo" class="container ucb-article-tags" itemprop="keywords"> <span class="visually-hidden">Tags:</span> <div class="ucb-article-tag-icon" aria-hidden="true"> <i class="fa-solid fa-tags"></i> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/1242" hreflang="en">Division of Natural Sciences</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/256" hreflang="en">Ecology and Evolutionary Biology</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/686" hreflang="en">Research</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/1235" hreflang="en">popular culture</a> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/bradley-worrell">Bradley Worrell</a> <div class="ucb-article-content ucb-striped-content"> <div class="container"> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--article-content paragraph--view-mode--default"> <div class="ucb-article-text" itemprop="articleBody"> <div><p class="lead"><em><span>CU 麻豆影院 mycologist Alisha Quandt says there鈥檚 little reason to fear a fungi-zombie apocalypse like the one imagined in the HBO hit TV series 鈥楾he Last of Us鈥</span></em></p><hr><p><a href="/ebio/alisha-quandt" rel="nofollow"><span>Alisha Quandt</span></a><span> prepared herself in advance to be asked by students and others about Sunday鈥檚 season 2 premier of 鈥淭he Last of Us鈥濃攖he&nbsp;</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_of_Us_(TV_series)#References" rel="nofollow"><span>hit HBO series</span></a><span> that imagines a post-apocalyptic future where a fungal infection on a massive scale turns the majority of humanity into zombie-like creatures seeking to infect the last pockets of civilization.</span></p><p><span>It鈥檚 not that Quandt is a super-fan of the TV show (鈥淚鈥檓 not into zombies, honestly,鈥 she confesses), but as a mycologist鈥攁 scientist who studies fungi鈥攕he is used to getting asked about the TV show, specifically whether the grim future it imagines is anything people need to be worried about, or whether it鈥檚 simply harmless entertainment.</span></p><div class="feature-layout-callout feature-layout-callout-medium"><div class="ucb-callout-content"><p>&nbsp;</p> <div class="imageMediaStyle large_image_style"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/large_image_style/public/2025-04/Alisha%20Quandt.jpg?itok=k1H3wy0g" width="1500" height="2101" alt="headshot of Alisha Quandt"> </div> <span class="media-image-caption"> <p class="small-text"><span>鈥淚鈥檓 happy if it gets people excited about fungi. They鈥檙e so incredible,鈥 says </span>Alisha Quandt, a CU 麻豆影院 assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology.</p> </span> </div></div><p><span>鈥淓specially when the TV show first debuted, it was definitely a topic people wanted to discuss,鈥 says Quandt, a 麻豆影院&nbsp;</span><a href="/ebio/" rel="nofollow"><span>Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology</span></a><span> assistant professor.</span></p><p><span>鈥淎nd it seems like the topic (of infectious fungi) comes up in popular culture every five to 10 years. When I was starting my PhD, people were fascinated by the 鈥楶lanet Earth鈥 TV series by David Attenborough, where this ant infected by&nbsp;</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophiocordyceps_unilateralis" rel="nofollow"><span>Ophiocordyceps unilateralis</span></a><span> staggers around, being controlled by the fungus. Then later, the Last of Us videogame came out, which really got people excited about (zombie) fungi.鈥</span></p><p><span>Quandt did her PhD research studying Cordyceps-like fungi, which is the type of pestilence the TV show identifies as the culprit for turning civilization into a hellscape populated by&nbsp;</span><a href="https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/30/3/23-0684_article" rel="nofollow"><span>zombies controlled by the spiky fungi tendrils sprouting from their heads</span></a><span>. For the record, Quandt finds that scenario very unlikely, for a variety of reasons.</span></p><p><span><strong>No need to panic</strong></span></p><p><span>For starters, the TV show imagines a worldwide outbreak is caused by Cordyceps-contaminated food. However, Quandt says most fungal infections in humans are caused by inhaling spores or through contact with the eyes or skin鈥攁nd not through the digestive tract. She notes that in many parts of the world, people have been ingesting Cordyceps fungi for decades without incident, because they believe they contain beneficial properties.</span></p><p><span>鈥淚鈥檝e eaten Cordyceps in Asia, in Korea and China,鈥 says Quandt, who remains unzombified. 鈥淚t鈥檚 considered a part of traditional Chinese medicine, especially certain species. Even here in the U.S., you can find Cordyceps in coffees and teas, for example. They sell them at stores in 麻豆影院.鈥</span></p><p><span>Quandt says another reason not to be overly concerned about Cordyceps is that many of them are 鈥渟pecialists鈥 that have a very narrow range of hosts that they infect, down to a specific family of ant or spider. While some Cordyceps can transition from infecting one type of arthropod to another, or to jump from infecting an insect to another fungus, she says making the leap to a healthy human being is remote.</span></p><p><span>What鈥檚 more, the average human body temperature of 97 to 99 degrees Fahrenheit is not an environment that鈥檚 hospitable for many fungi, although Quandt acknowledges there are exceptions. 鈥淭he Last of Us鈥 imagines a future in which global warming has raised Earth temperatures to a point where mutated Cordyceps zombie fungi could live comfortably in human hosts, but Quandt notes that ambient temperatures of even 90 degrees Fahrenheit are still cooler than the human body.</span></p><p><span>鈥淭hat鈥檚 a hard path for me to follow,鈥 she says of an environmental change that would allow Cordyceps to evolve in such a way. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot of assumptions that would go into that trajectory.鈥</span></p><div class="feature-layout-callout feature-layout-callout-xlarge"><div class="ucb-callout-content"><p>&nbsp;</p> <div class="imageMediaStyle large_image_style"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/large_image_style/public/2025-04/Last%20of%20Us%20poster.jpg?itok=wk73urJo" width="1500" height="2222" alt="Pedro Pascal on &quot;The Last of Us&quot; promotional poster"> </div> <span class="media-image-caption"> <p class="small-text"><span>CU 麻豆影院 scientist Alisha Quandt finds the scenario from "The Last of Us" in which a Cordyceps-like fungi causes worldwide zombification very unlikely, for a variety of reasons. (Photo: HBO)</span></p> </span> </div></div><p><span>Beyond those arguments, Quandt says there is an even more important one as to why humans don鈥檛 need to start doom prepping for a fungi apocalypse.</span></p><p><span>鈥淢y argument about why we shouldn鈥檛 be worried about a fungal pandemic is that our bodies, when fully immunocompetent鈥攎eaning healthy human bodies鈥攁re extremely well equipped to deal with fungal propagules (spores) that come into contact with our bodies, mostly through our lungs,鈥 she says. 鈥淔ungi have this cell wall that is made up of stuff that our bodies do not make. So, our bodies are really good identifying and dealing with that.鈥</span></p><p><span>Quant says fungal infections do pose a risk to people whose immune systems are compromised鈥攑articularly if they have taken a heavy dose of antibiotics, because those can kill off good bacteria, which can lower resistance to harmful fungi.</span></p><p><span>鈥淥nce our immune system goes away, which could handle those types of (fungi), we have so few antifungal drugs to treat fungal infections compared to the myriad of antibiotics that we have to treat bacterial diseases,鈥 she says.</span></p><p><span>For the immunocompromised, Quandt says one of the most concerning fungi鈥攚hich just cropped up in recent years and has spread worldwide鈥攊s&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.cdc.gov/candida-auris/about/index.html" rel="nofollow"><span>Candida auris.</span></a></p><p><span>鈥淚t is a really concerning human pathogen because it is what we call nosocomial, meaning it is&nbsp; hospital related. People get these infections in hospitals, and once it鈥檚 in a hospital, it can be almost impossible to get rid of it,鈥 she says.</span></p><p><span>鈥淧eople will use all kinds of bleach and ethanol but it鈥檚 very hard to get rid of the yeast once it gets into a hospital room. And the fully immunocompetent, like nurses and doctors who are not sick, can end up spreading it from room to room to sick, often elderly, patients. Unfortunately, there鈥檚 not a good defense on the ground, so to speak, once Candida auris takes hold.鈥</span></p><p><span>But while 鈥渙pportunistic pathogens鈥 like Candida auris can pose a risk to the immunocompromised, the number of fungal diseases that could be described as 鈥減rimary pathogens鈥濃攎eaning they can infect and potentially cause serious health issues for healthy individuals鈥攊s less than a handful, Quandt says.</span></p><p><span>One primary pathogen that can be found in the United State is&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/valley-fever/symptoms-causes/syc-20378761" rel="nofollow"><span>Valley Fever</span></a><span>, which is primarily located in New Mexico, Arizona and southern California. Farming, construction or other practices that disrupt the soil can release the fungi鈥檚 spores, which people can then breathe into their lungs. Once inhaled, Valley Fever can potentially cause fever, cough, tiredness, shortness of breath and, in limited cases, serious conditions such as pneumonia and meningitis.</span></p><p><span>鈥淏ut those are the rarer things, and I鈥檓 still not worried about them becoming common because they鈥檙e still not being spread from person to person,鈥 she says.</span></p><p><span>In contrast with the way 鈥淭he Last of Us鈥 portrays fungi as an existential threat, Quandt sees a type of virus that鈥檚 already well-known to the scientific community and the public alike as a much greater risk for causing a global pandemic. The World Health Organization estimates the </span><a href="https://www.who.int/news/item/05-05-2022-14.9-million-excess-deaths-were-associated-with-the-covid-19-pandemic-in-2020-and-2021" rel="nofollow"><span>COVID-19 pandemic</span></a><span> killed 14.9 million people worldwide between January 2020 and December 2021.</span></p><p><span>鈥淎s we鈥檝e recently seen, unfortunately, there are a lot of other places to look for more likely suspects for (global pandemics). Things that were predicted by a lot of great investigative journalists and epidemiologists, like coronavirus and other zoonotic diseases (which jump from animals to humans), pose a much greater threat to mankind,鈥 she says.</span></p><div class="feature-layout-callout feature-layout-callout-large"><div class="ucb-callout-content"><blockquote><p class="lead"><span>鈥淎s we鈥檝e recently seen, unfortunately, there are a lot of other places to look for more likely suspects for (global pandemics). Things that were predicted by a lot of great investigative journalists and epidemiologists, like coronavirus and other zoonotic diseases (which jump from animals to humans), pose a much greater threat to mankind.鈥</span></p></blockquote></div></div><p><span><strong>And now, back to the show</strong></span></p><p><span>Even beyond the fact she鈥檚 not into zombies, Quandt says her training as a mycologist can get in the way of her enjoyment of 鈥淭he Last of Us鈥 as entertainment, based upon the few episodes she has watched.</span></p><p><span>鈥淚鈥檓 probably a little too close to watch the show鈥攅specially the fruiting bodies,鈥 she says. 鈥淪ometimes they would show a person who is dead up against a wall, and the fruiting structures look life shelf fungi,鈥 she says.</span></p><p><span>鈥淭hose are related to mushrooms鈥攖hey鈥檙e not related to (fungi) that are molds, like Cordyceps. The artistry was beautiful, so they did a good job visually, but it鈥檚 just completely inaccurate. So, it does take you out of it a little bit to watch as an expert; you have to really suspend belief.鈥</span></p><p><span>Another scene that inspired disbelief for Quandt was a flashback episode鈥攑rior to the fungal pandemic鈥攚hen a mycologist in Jakarta is asked by representatives of the country鈥檚 military to provide guidance on how to proceed after a group of workers in a building are found to be infected with early cases of the Cordyceps contagion. After surveying the infected, the mycologist gives the military members a chilling one-word answer: 鈥淏omb!鈥 (As in, bomb the entire country to try to prevent the infection from spreading.)</span></p><p><span>鈥淢y husband was watching the show with me. He paused it there and he鈥檚 like, 鈥榃hat should they do?鈥 I was like, 鈥楪et all the antifungals that you can. Get all the major ones and then get the rare ones鈥攁nd start pumping these people with IVs, or all the people that you think might be exposed and get going on it.鈥 But the fact she said 鈥榖omb!鈥 I almost found it funny, but I was also like, 鈥極h, my God, that鈥檚 so dramatic.鈥 Still, it鈥檚 a TV show, and I acknowledge that.鈥</span></p><p><span>While Quandt may opt not to watch more episodes of 鈥淭he Last of Us,鈥 she says if the TV show raises public awareness about fungi鈥攅ven if the details in the show are not entirely correct鈥攕he is all for it.</span></p><p><span>鈥淚鈥檓 happy if it gets people excited about fungi,鈥 she says. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e so incredible.鈥</span></p><hr><p><em>Did you enjoy this article?&nbsp;</em><a href="https://cu.tfaforms.net/73" rel="nofollow"><em>Subscribe to our newsletter.</em></a><em>&nbsp;Passionate about ecology and evolutionary biology?&nbsp;</em><a href="/ebio/donate" rel="nofollow"><em>Show your support.</em></a></p><p>&nbsp;</p></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div>CU 麻豆影院 mycologist Alisha Quandt says there鈥檚 little reason to fear a fungi-zombie apocalypse like the one imagined in the HBO hit TV series 鈥楾he Last of Us.'</div> <h2> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--ucb-related-articles-block paragraph--view-mode--default"> <div>Related Articles</div> </div> </h2> <div>Traditional</div> <div>0</div> <div> <div class="imageMediaStyle large_image_style"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/large_image_style/public/2025-04/The%20Last%20of%20Us%20fungus%20zombie%20cropped.jpg?itok=04gB2KlV" width="1500" height="466" alt="zombie with fungus on head from &quot;The Last of Us&quot;"> </div> </div> <div>On</div> <div>White</div> <div>Top image: HBO</div> Thu, 17 Apr 2025 13:30:00 +0000 Rachel Sauer 6112 at /asmagazine In the archaeological record, size does matter /asmagazine/2025/04/14/archaeological-record-size-does-matter <span>In the archaeological record, size does matter</span> <span><span>Rachel Sauer</span></span> <span><time datetime="2025-04-14T09:24:57-06:00" title="Monday, April 14, 2025 - 09:24">Mon, 04/14/2025 - 09:24</time> </span> <div> <div class="imageMediaStyle focal_image_wide"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/focal_image_wide/public/2025-04/PNAS%20housing%20thumbnail.jpg?h=4b610909&amp;itok=BRbl2wMm" width="1200" height="800" alt="illustration showing archaeological maps of housing size with present-day housing seen from above"> </div> </div> <div role="contentinfo" class="container ucb-article-categories" itemprop="about"> <span class="visually-hidden">Categories:</span> <div class="ucb-article-category-icon" aria-hidden="true"> <i class="fa-solid fa-folder-open"></i> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/30"> News </a> </div> <div role="contentinfo" class="container ucb-article-tags" itemprop="keywords"> <span class="visually-hidden">Tags:</span> <div class="ucb-article-tag-icon" aria-hidden="true"> <i class="fa-solid fa-tags"></i> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/244" hreflang="en">Anthropology</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/1129" hreflang="en">Archaeology</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/1240" hreflang="en">Division of Social Sciences</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/686" hreflang="en">Research</a> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/rachel-sauer">Rachel Sauer</a> <div class="ucb-article-content ucb-striped-content"> <div class="container"> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--article-content paragraph--view-mode--default"> <div class="ucb-article-text" itemprop="articleBody"> <div><p class="lead"><em>CU 麻豆影院 archaeologist Scott Ortman and colleagues around the world explore relationships between housing size and inequality in PNAS Special Feature</em></p><hr><p>If the archaeological record has been correctly interpreted, stone alignments in Tanzania鈥檚 Olduvai Gorge are remnants of shelters built 1.7 million years ago by <em>Homo habilis</em>, an extinct species representing one of the earliest branches of humanity鈥檚 family tree.</p><p>Archaeological evidence that is unambiguously housing dates to more than 20,000 years ago鈥攁 time when large swaths of North America, Europe and Asia were covered in ice and humans had only recently begun living in settlements.</p><p>Between that time and the dawn of industrialization, the archaeological record is rich not only with evidence of settled life represented by housing, but also with evidence of inequality.</p><div class="feature-layout-callout feature-layout-callout-medium"><div class="ucb-callout-content"><p>&nbsp;</p> <div class="imageMediaStyle large_image_style"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/large_image_style/public/article-image/scott_ortman.jpg?itok=A2JIgeZB" width="1500" height="1500" alt="Scott Ortman"> </div> <span class="media-image-caption"> <p class="small-text">CU 麻豆影院 archaeologist Scott Ortman partnered with colleagues <span>Amy Bogaard of the University of Oxford and Timothy Kohler of the University of Florida on a PNAS Special Feature focused on housing size in the archaeological record and inequality.</span></p> </span> </div></div><p>In a <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2401989122" rel="nofollow">Special Feature published today in the <em>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)</em></a>, scholars from around the world draw from a groundbreaking archaeological database that collects more than 55,000 housing floor area measurements from sites spanning the globe鈥攄ata that support research demonstrating various correlations between housing size and inequality.</p><p>鈥淎rchaeologists have been interested in the study of inequality for a long time,鈥 explains <a href="/anthropology/scott-ortman" rel="nofollow">Scott Ortman</a>, a 麻豆影院 associate professor of <a href="/anthropology/" rel="nofollow">anthropology</a> who partnered with colleagues Amy Bogaard of the University of Oxford and Timothy Kohler of Washington State University to bring together the PNAS Special Feature. (Special Features in PNAS are curated collections of articles that delve into important topics.)</p><p>鈥淔or a long time, studies have focused on the emergence of inequality in the past, and while some of the papers in the special feature address those issues, others also consider the dynamics of inequality in more general terms.鈥</p><p>Kohler notes that "we use this information to identify the fundamental drivers of economic inequality using a different way of thinking about the archaeological record鈥攎ore thinking about it as a compendium of human experience. It鈥檚 a new approach to doing archaeology.鈥</p><p><strong>Patterns of inequality</strong></p><p>Ortman, Bogaard and Kohler also are co-principal investigators on the <a href="https://ibsweb.colorado.edu/archaeology/global-dynamics-of-inequality-kicks-off/" rel="nofollow">Global Dynamics of Inequality (GINI)</a> Project funded by the National Science Foundation and housed in the CU 麻豆影院 <a href="https://ibsweb.colorado.edu/archaeology/" rel="nofollow">Center for Collaborative Synthesis in Archaeology</a> in the Institute of Behavioral Science to create the database of housing floor area measurements from sites around the world.</p><p>Scholars then examined patterns of inequality shown in the data and studied them in the context of other measures of economic productivity, social stability and conflict to illuminate basic social consequences of inequality in human society, Ortman explains.</p><p>鈥淲hat we did was we crowdsourced, in a sense,鈥 Ortman says. 鈥淲e put out a request for information from archaeologists working around the world, who knew about the archaeological record of housing in different parts of world and got them together to design a database to capture what was available from ancient houses in societies all over world.鈥</p><p>Undergraduate and graduate research assistants also helped create the database, which contains 55,000 housing units and counting from sites as renowned as Pompeii and Herculaneum, to sites across North and South America, Asia, Europe and Africa. 鈥淏y no stretch of the imagination is it all of the data that archaeologists have ever collected, but we really did make an effort to sample the world and pull together most of the readily available information from excavations, from remote sensing, from LiDAR,鈥 Ortman says.</p><p>The housing represented in the data spans non-industrial society from about 12,000 years ago to the recent past, generally ending with industrialization. The collected data then served as a foundation for 10 papers in the PNAS Special Feature, which focus on the archaeology of inequality as evidenced in housing.</p><p><strong>Housing similarities</strong></p><p>In their introduction to the Special Feature, Ortman, Kohler and Bogaard note that 鈥渆conomic inequality, especially as it relates to inclusive and sustainable social development, represents a primary global challenge of our time and a key research topic for archaeology.</p><div class="feature-layout-callout feature-layout-callout-large"><div class="ucb-callout-content"><p>&nbsp;</p> <div class="imageMediaStyle large_image_style"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/large_image_style/public/2025-04/PNAS%20cover.png?itok=_PUcXU7x" width="1500" height="1961" alt="cover of PNAS Special Feature about housing size and inequality"> </div> <span class="media-image-caption"> <p class="small-text"><span>In the PNAS Special Feature published Monday, researchers from around the world describe evidence of inequality found in archaeological data of housing size. (Cover image: Johnny Miller/Unequal Scenes)</span></p> </span> </div></div><p>鈥淚t is also deeply linked to two other significant challenges. The first is climate change. This threatens to widen economic gaps within and between nations, and some evidence from prehistory associates high levels of inequality with lack of resilience to climatic perturbations. The second is stability of governance. Clear and robust evidence from two dozen democracies over the last 25 years that links high economic inequality to political polarization, distrust of institutions and weakening democratic norms. Clearly, if maintenance of democratic systems is important to us, we must care about the degree of wealth inequality in society.鈥</p><p>Archaeological evidence demonstrates a long prehistory of inequality in income and wealth, Ortman and his colleagues note, and allows researchers to study the fundamental drivers of those inequalities. The research in the Special Feature takes advantage of the fact 鈥渢hat residences dating to the same chronological period, and from the same settlements or regions, will be subject to very similar climatic, environmental, technological and cultural constraints and opportunities.鈥</p><p>Several papers in the Special Feature address the relationship between economic growth and inequality, Ortman says. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e thinking about not just the typical size of houses in a society, but the rates of change in the sizes of houses from one time step to the next.</p><p>鈥淥ne thing we鈥檝e also done (with the database) is arrange houses from many parts of the world in regional chronological sequences鈥攈ow the real estate sector of past societies changed over time.鈥</p><p>The papers in the Special Feature focus on topics including the effects of land use and war on housing disparities and the relationship between housing disparities and how long housing sites are occupied. A study that Ortman led and conducted with colleagues from around the world found that comparisons of archaeological and contemporary real estate data show that in preindustrial societies, variation in residential building area is proportional to income inequality and provides a conservative estimator for wealth inequality.</p><p>鈥淥ur research shows that high wealth inequality could become entrenched where ecological and political conditions permitted,鈥 Bogaard says. 鈥淭he emergence of high wealth inequality wasn鈥檛 an inevitable result of farming. It also wasn鈥檛 a simple function of either environmental or institutional conditions. It emerged where land became a scarce resource that could be monopolized. At the same time, our study reveals how some societies avoided the extremes of inequality through their governance practices.鈥</p><p>The researchers argue that 鈥渢he archaeological record also shows that the most reliable way to promote equitable economic development is through policies and institutions that reduce the covariance of current household productivity with productivity growth.鈥</p><p><em>GINI Project data, as well as the analysis program developed for them, will be available open access via the&nbsp;</em><a href="https://core.tdar.org/dataset/502429/gini-database-all-records-20240721" rel="nofollow"><em>Digital Archaeological Record</em></a><em>.</em></p><hr><p><em>Did you enjoy this article?&nbsp;</em><a href="https://cu.tfaforms.net/73" rel="nofollow"><em>Subscribe to our newsletter.</em></a><em>&nbsp;Passionate about anthropology?&nbsp;</em><a href="/anthropology/donate" rel="nofollow"><em>Show your support.</em></a></p><p>&nbsp;</p></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div>CU 麻豆影院 archaeologist Scott Ortman and colleagues around the world explore relationships between housing size and inequality in PNAS Special Feature.</div> <h2> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--ucb-related-articles-block paragraph--view-mode--default"> <div>Related Articles</div> </div> </h2> <div>Traditional</div> <div>0</div> <div> <div class="imageMediaStyle large_image_style"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/large_image_style/public/2025-04/aerial%20comparison.jpg?itok=CXmamYdt" width="1500" height="508" alt="illustration showing archaeological housing size with present-day housing overhead view"> </div> </div> <div>On</div> <div>White</div> Mon, 14 Apr 2025 15:24:57 +0000 Rachel Sauer 6105 at /asmagazine Tales as old as time 鈥 yet we still love them /asmagazine/2025/04/04/tales-old-time-yet-we-still-love-them <span>Tales as old as time 鈥 yet we still love them</span> <span><span>Rachel Sauer</span></span> <span><time datetime="2025-04-04T09:36:10-06:00" title="Friday, April 4, 2025 - 09:36">Fri, 04/04/2025 - 09:36</time> </span> <div> <div class="imageMediaStyle focal_image_wide"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/focal_image_wide/public/2025-04/Evil%20queen%20mirror.jpg?h=8226ba79&amp;itok=hFqosOUU" width="1200" height="800" alt="Evil queen speaking to magic mirror in movie Snow White"> </div> </div> <div role="contentinfo" class="container ucb-article-categories" itemprop="about"> <span class="visually-hidden">Categories:</span> <div class="ucb-article-category-icon" aria-hidden="true"> <i class="fa-solid fa-folder-open"></i> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/30"> News </a> </div> <div role="contentinfo" class="container ucb-article-tags" itemprop="keywords"> <span class="visually-hidden">Tags:</span> <div class="ucb-article-tag-icon" aria-hidden="true"> <i class="fa-solid fa-tags"></i> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/1241" hreflang="en">Division of Arts and Humanities</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/326" hreflang="en">French and Italian</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/504" hreflang="en">Libraries</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/686" hreflang="en">Research</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/917" hreflang="en">Top Stories</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/710" hreflang="en">students</a> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/rachel-sauer">Rachel Sauer</a> <div class="ucb-article-content ucb-striped-content"> <div class="container"> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--article-content paragraph--view-mode--default"> <div class="ucb-article-text" itemprop="articleBody"> <div><p class="lead"><em>With yet another Snow White adaptation currently in theaters, CU 麻豆影院 scholar Suzanne Magnanini reflects on the enduring appeal of fairy tales</em></p><hr><p>Once upon a time鈥<em>this</em> time, in fact, and many of the ones that came before it鈥攖here was a story that never grew dull in its telling.</p><p>It possibly leaped the porous cultural and national borders of narrative, carried by caravans or ships or ethernet cables and planted in the ready imaginations of successive generations of story lovers鈥攖hose who tell them and those who hear them.</p><p>Maybe it鈥檚 the story of a young person who ventures into the unknown, where they encounter magic and beasts of all sizes and a resolution specific to the tale鈥檚 time and place. Maybe there really even are fairies involved.</p><div class="feature-layout-callout feature-layout-callout-large"><div class="ucb-callout-content"><p>&nbsp;</p> <div class="imageMediaStyle large_image_style"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/large_image_style/public/2025-04/Suzanne%20Magnanini.jpg?itok=Qn0y-03p" width="1500" height="1082" alt="headshot of Suzanne Magnanini"> </div> <span class="media-image-caption"> <p class="small-text">Suzanne Magnanini, <span>a CU 麻豆影院 associate professor of Italian and chair of the Department of French and Italian, notes that fairy tales' malleability helps them remain fresh and relevant over centuries of retellings.</span></p> </span> </div></div><p>And we never seem to tire of hearing about them.</p><p>The recent theatrical release of Disney鈥檚 live-action <em>Snow White</em>鈥攐ne of countless retellings of the tale over more than 400 years鈥攈ighlights the place of honor that fairy tales occupy in cultures around the world and in the hearts of people hearing them for the first time or the thousandth.</p><p>One of the reasons they remain fresh through countless years and iterations is their malleability, says <a href="/frenchitalian/suzanne-magnanini" rel="nofollow">Suzanne Magnanini</a>, a 麻豆影院 associate professor of Italian and chair of the <a href="/frenchitalian/" rel="nofollow">Department of French and Italian</a>. 鈥淭he Italian author Italo Calvino, who also edited a seminal collection of Italian folktales, writes of fairy tales as being like a stone fruit, where you have that hard core center that is always the same鈥攜ou鈥檒l usually recognize a Sleeping Beauty story, for example鈥攂ut the fruit can be radically different around that.鈥</p><p><strong>Stories of time and place</strong></p><p>As a researcher, Magnanini has published broadly on fairy tales, including her 2008 book <em>Fairy-Tale Science:&nbsp;Monstrous Generation in the Fairy Tales of Straparola and Basile.&nbsp;</em>She began studying fairy tales while working on her PhD, finding in them a fascinating dovetailing between her interests in monstrosity and otherness.</p><p>鈥淎s a scholar, I take what鈥檚 called a social-historical approach,鈥 she explains. 鈥淚鈥檓 really interested in all those little details that link a tale to a very precise place in time where it was told, and I鈥檝e written about the ways in which fairy tales are used to elaborate on and think about scientific theories of reproduction that hadn鈥檛 really been nailed down at the time鈥攓uestions that were still being circulated about whether humans could interbreed with animals, for example, and would that produce a monstrous child?</p><p>鈥淵ou look at a some variations of Beauty and the Beast, like Giovan Francesco Straparola鈥檚 story of a pig king, where it鈥檚 a magical version of these questions, and maybe what鈥檚 actually happening is that fairy tales are a way to think through the anxieties and interests of the time.鈥</p><div class="ucb-box ucb-box-title-left ucb-box-alignment-left ucb-box-style-fill ucb-box-theme-lightgray"><div class="ucb-box-inner"><div class="ucb-box-title">Fairy Tales at CU 麻豆影院</div><div class="ucb-box-content"><p>The ATU Index is one of the search elements that Suzanne Magnanini and her students are including as they develop the database for <a href="/projects/fairy-tales/" rel="nofollow">Fairy Tales at CU 麻豆影院</a>. The project aims, in part, to improve access and searchability of the more than 2,000 fairy tale collections that are part of the Rare Books Collection at Norlin Library.</p><p>The project is a partnership between undergraduates and graduate students under the direction of Magnanini and <a href="https://libraries.colorado.edu/sean-babbs" rel="nofollow">Sean Babbs</a>, instruction coordinator for the University Libraries' Rare and Distinctive Collections, as well as <a href="/cuartmuseum/about/staff/hope-saska" rel="nofollow">Hope Saska</a>, CU Art Museum acting director and chief curator, who has trained students in visual-thinking strategies. The project is supported by <a href="/urop/" rel="nofollow">Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program,</a> the <a href="/assett/innovation-incubator" rel="nofollow">ASSETT Innovation Incubator</a>, the <a href="https://www.cu.edu/ptsp" rel="nofollow">President鈥檚 Teaching Scholars Program</a> and the <a href="https://libraries.colorado.edu/" rel="nofollow">University Libraries</a>.</p><p>Fairy Tales at CU 麻豆影院 will host a showcase of CU's fairy tale collection from 3:30 to 4:45 p.m. April 16 in Norlin Library M350B. <a href="/asmagazine/media/8529" rel="nofollow">Learn more here.</a></p></div></div></div><p>Though fairy tales may be spun in response to what鈥檚 happening in a specific time and place, they also often address concerns that aren鈥檛 specific to one location or culture but are broadly pondered across humanity. 鈥淎ndrew Teverson has written that fairy tales are literature鈥檚 migrants because they can move across borders, they can move across boundaries and then make themselves at home and assimilate to a certain extent in different cultures,鈥 Magnanini says.</p><p>For example, the Brothers Grimm heard a tale called 鈥淪neewittchen鈥 (Snow White) from folklorist <a href="https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm053.html" rel="nofollow">Marie Hassenpflug</a>, as well as from other sources, and included it as tale No. 53 in their seminal 1812 <em>Grimm鈥檚 Fairy Tales</em>. However, says Magnanini, there was a similar tale called 鈥淭he Young Slave鈥 in Giambattista Basile鈥檚 1634 work <em>Pentamerone</em>. In fact, Snow White is type 709 in the <a href="https://guides.library.harvard.edu/folk_and_myth/indices" rel="nofollow">Aarne鈥揟hompson鈥揢ther Index</a> (ATU Index), which catalogs and describes common motifs and themes in fairy tales and folklore around the world.</p><p><strong>Not so happily ever after</strong></p><p>The origins of many fairy tales can be traced as far back as ancient Greece, Rome and China, Magnanini says, which speaks to their ability not only to help people of particular times and places explore their anxieties and questions, but to address the feelings that have been central to the human condition almost since our species emerged from caves.</p><p>鈥淲hen I think about fairy tales, I think about number of characteristics that make them really appealing across time and space,鈥 Magnanini says. 鈥淚f you think about it, the protagonists are almost always young people heading out into the world鈥攎uch like our students are heading out鈥攍eaving home behind, having to make their way in world, facing challenges. That experience can be very transformational, so in a way these stories are all about metamorphosis and change.</p><p>鈥淎 lot of times that鈥檚 when you鈥檙e living your life in Technicolor and all the emotions are new. So, even if you鈥檙e no longer in that moment of life, fairy tales tap into experiences like the first falling in love, the first adventure from home. And they often end right after the wedding, so you don鈥檛 see someone having to do their taxes or being like, 鈥極h, my god, I鈥檝e been in this relationship for 30 years and I鈥檓 bored.鈥 I think part of the reason we don鈥檛 get tired of fairy tales is because they capture this fleeting time in life.鈥</p><div class="feature-layout-callout feature-layout-callout-xlarge"><div class="ucb-callout-content"><p>&nbsp;</p> <div class="imageMediaStyle large_image_style"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/large_image_style/public/2025-04/Snow%20White%20in%20forest.jpg?itok=zwJJDOSg" width="1500" height="971" alt="Actress Rachel Zeigler in forest scene from movie Snow White"> </div> <span class="media-image-caption"> <p class="small-text"><span>鈥淚f you think about it, the (fairy tale) protagonists are almost always young people heading out into the world鈥攎uch like our students are heading out鈥攍eaving home behind, having to make their way in world, facing challenges," says CU 麻豆影院 scholar Suzanne Magnanini. (Photo: Disney Studios)</span></p> </span> </div></div><p>While fairy tales, particularly as they鈥檝e been interpreted and simplified by Disney, are stereotyped as having 鈥渁nd they lived happily ever after鈥 endings, fairy tales pre-Disney more commonly ended with justice served, Magnanini says. For example, the version of 鈥淪now White鈥 in the 1812 <em>Grimm鈥檚 Fairy Tales</em> ends with the evil queen being forced to step into a pair of red-hot iron shoes and dance until she dies.</p><p>鈥淎 lot of people will say, 鈥極h, it鈥檚 the happy ending that鈥檚 the appeal of fairy tales,鈥 but it鈥檚 important to remember the vast majority of fairy tales end with the deliverance of justice鈥攕omething really unjust has happened, someone has been discriminated against, there鈥檚 some evil in the world, and justice is delivered,鈥 Magnanini explains. 鈥淧eople who study the formal aspects of fairy tales always talk about how the 鈥榟appy ending鈥 is found in justice.</p><p>鈥淒isney Studios has a tendency to remove the ambiguity from these tales and remove most of the violence鈥攕implifying them in a lot of ways. If you read the French version of Beauty and the Beast, Charles Perrault鈥檚 version, there were other siblings in there; there was a complex family structure with complex interactions and a lot of really heavy issues鈥攖he family must deal with economic disaster.鈥</p><p>In fact, the field of fairy tale scholarship addresses everything from feminist interpretations of the stories to the ways in which children use fairy tales to help navigate psychosexual rites of passage. Generations of authors have told and continue to retell these familiar stories through different lenses of gender, sexuality, geography, racial identity, economic status and many, many others.</p><p><span>鈥淲hat makes these stories different, and what I think is a big part of the appeal of fairy tales, is the magic or the marvel,鈥 Magnanini says. 鈥淔or it to be a fairy tale, scholars would say there has to be magic in there鈥攏ot just the presence of magic, but magic that facilitates the happy ending by allowing the protagonist to overcome whatever obstacles are in the way of what they desire, maybe the marriage, the wealth, the happy ending. There鈥檚 something so satisfying about that, because it doesn鈥檛 happen in your quotidian day-to-day life. I mean, imagine if you met a talking deer.鈥&nbsp;</span></p><hr><p><em>Did you enjoy this article?&nbsp;</em><a href="https://cu.tfaforms.net/73" rel="nofollow"><em>Subscribe to our newsletter.</em></a><em>&nbsp;Passionate about French and Italian?&nbsp;</em><a href="https://giving.cu.edu/fund/french-and-italian-department" rel="nofollow"><em>Show your support.</em></a></p><p>&nbsp;</p></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div>With yet another Snow White adaptation currently in theaters, CU 麻豆影院 scholar Suzanne Magnanini reflects on the enduring appeal of fairy tales.</div> <h2> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--ucb-related-articles-block paragraph--view-mode--default"> <div>Related Articles</div> </div> </h2> <div>Traditional</div> <div>0</div> <div> <div class="imageMediaStyle large_image_style"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/large_image_style/public/2025-04/Snow%20White%20with%20apple.jpg?itok=sqO9UjMg" width="1500" height="629" alt="Evil queen handing Snow White an apple in movie Snow White"> </div> </div> <div>On</div> <div>White</div> <div>Top image: Disney Studios</div> Fri, 04 Apr 2025 15:36:10 +0000 Rachel Sauer 6097 at /asmagazine CU prof fighting to keep Latin classes alive through video storytelling /asmagazine/2025/04/01/cu-prof-fighting-keep-latin-classes-alive-through-video-storytelling <span>CU prof fighting to keep Latin classes alive through video storytelling</span> <span><span>Rachel Sauer</span></span> <span><time datetime="2025-04-01T09:51:17-06:00" title="Tuesday, April 1, 2025 - 09:51">Tue, 04/01/2025 - 09:51</time> </span> <div> <div class="imageMediaStyle focal_image_wide"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/focal_image_wide/public/2025-04/Il_Duomo_dedicato_al_patrono_di_Modena.jpg?h=e5b87810&amp;itok=xsNHMXZb" width="1200" height="800" alt="Carved stone statues and Latin inscription on tablet"> </div> </div> <div role="contentinfo" class="container ucb-article-categories" itemprop="about"> <span class="visually-hidden">Categories:</span> <div class="ucb-article-category-icon" aria-hidden="true"> <i class="fa-solid fa-folder-open"></i> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/30"> News </a> </div> <div role="contentinfo" class="container ucb-article-tags" itemprop="keywords"> <span class="visually-hidden">Tags:</span> <div class="ucb-article-tag-icon" aria-hidden="true"> <i class="fa-solid fa-tags"></i> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/266" hreflang="en">Classics</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/1241" hreflang="en">Division of Arts and Humanities</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/686" hreflang="en">Research</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/1053" hreflang="en">community</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/710" hreflang="en">students</a> </div> <span>Cody DeBos</span> <div class="ucb-article-content ucb-striped-content"> <div class="container"> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--article-content paragraph--view-mode--default"> <div class="ucb-article-text" itemprop="articleBody"> <div><p class="lead"><em><span>For Reina Callier, learning Latin 鈥榠s like lifting weights for your brain鈥</span></em></p><hr><p>When a student in one of Reina Callier鈥檚 Latin classes said, 鈥淚 came for the language, I stayed for the vibes,鈥 she laughed, but the phrase stuck with her.</p><p>It captured something essential about Latin classrooms. Beyond conjugations and declensions, they offer students a haven for community, curiosity and a shared passion for the ancient world.</p><p>In recent years, though, that community has been shrinking.</p><div class="feature-layout-callout feature-layout-callout-large"><div class="ucb-callout-content"><p>&nbsp;</p> <div class="imageMediaStyle large_image_style"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/large_image_style/public/2025-04/Reina%20Callier.jpg?itok=yCmEnqXF" width="1500" height="1875" alt="portrait of Reina Callier"> </div> <span class="media-image-caption"> <p class="small-text">Reina Callier, a CU 麻豆影院 teaching assistant professor of classics, notes that <span>鈥淟atin survives because people love it. And as long as we keep sharing that love, it鈥檚 not going anywhere.鈥</span></p> </span> </div></div><p>鈥淓nrollment in Latin classes, especially at the secondary level, has largely been declining,鈥 Callier explains. 鈥淒uring COVID, Latin classes were seen as non-essential, so they lost a lot of students. And they鈥檝e been having a hard time bringing the numbers back up.鈥</p><p>For Callier, <a href="/classics/reina-callier" rel="nofollow">a teaching assistant professor of classics and the Latin Program Coordinator at the 麻豆影院</a>, this trend is more than an academic concern.</p><p>She wasn鈥檛 alone in her worries. In response to falling enrollment rates, the Colorado Classics Association (CCA) formed a committee dedicated to promoting interest in Latin classes.</p><p>The solution? A project that would convey the benefits of learning Latin to students in their own words.</p><p><strong>A language in decline</strong></p><p>Across the country, Latin programs have struggled to justify their existence in an education system increasingly focused on STEM fields and workforce development. In some districts, administrators have proposed cutting Latin entirely, forcing teachers and students to fight for their programs.</p><p>In collaboration with the CCA and local high school educators, Callier helped spearhead <em>You Belong in Latin</em>, a video project designed to remind high school students why Latin is worth learning.</p><p>鈥淲e finally came up with the idea for a video, because it鈥檚 something you can share easily. It鈥檚 more entertaining than just looking at a brochure that says, 鈥楬ere鈥檚 why Latin is a good thing to take,鈥欌 Callier says.</p><p>The project quickly took shape as teachers across Colorado filmed interviews with their students, capturing firsthand accounts of what Latin means to them. They also collected footage of classrooms filled with laughter, animated discussions and moments of discovery.</p><p>鈥淥ne of the things we noticed is that once students get into Latin class, they really love it,鈥 Callier says. 鈥淵ou just have to get them in the door.鈥</p><p>The team secured a grant to bring the project to life, which allowed them to hire a former CU 麻豆影院 student who majored in film鈥攁nd took several semesters of Latin with Callier鈥攖o professionally edit the videos.</p><p>Over the course of a year, the raw footage was transformed into a compelling series of short videos, each emphasizing a unique aspect of the Latin classroom experience.</p><p>Now available on YouTube, the <em>You Belong in Latin</em> videos are a vital resource for teachers, students and parents to share.</p> <div class="field_media_oembed_video"><iframe src="/asmagazine/media/oembed?url=https%3A//www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DbP-jbHYt6w0&amp;max_width=516&amp;max_height=350&amp;hash=H7OU9e4k-eWLpFcp_6BpIYOa8QOguiFHGpXbE3fgrLg" width="516" height="290" class="media-oembed-content" loading="eager" title="You Belong in Latin"></iframe> </div> <p>&nbsp;</p><p><strong>Latin is for everyone</strong></p><p>A central theme of <em>You Belong in Latin</em> is the tight-knit community formed in Latin classrooms. Unlike more popular language programs, Latin classes tend to be small, allowing students to form deeper relationships with their peers and instructors.</p><p>鈥淎t CU 麻豆影院, if you take Latin, aside from the first semester where there are two sections of Latin I, after that, everybody鈥檚 in the same class together,鈥 Callier explains. 鈥淵ou continue to see the same instructors in the department as well. So you get to know them, and you get to know your peers in a way that鈥檚 not really very common at the college level.鈥</p><p>The same holds true in high schools, where Latin students often stay in one cohort across multiple years and gain a sense of unity and belonging.</p><p>The videos also seek to challenge the misconception that Latin is elitist鈥攁 subject reserved for Ivy League prep schools and aspiring academics.</p><p>鈥淟atin actually isn鈥檛 elitist. Everybody鈥檚 starting from the same level when they walk into Latin class. There鈥檚 no barrier, and everybody can benefit from it in various ways,鈥 Callier says.</p><p>And while Latin鈥檚 reputation as a 鈥渄ead language鈥 often turns students away, Callier argues that its benefits are very much alive. Latin gives students a foundation for English vocabulary, enhances their analytical skills and prepares them for careers in law, medicine and the sciences, she says, adding that it also provides direct access to Latin texts, 鈥渨hich is immensely beneficial to anyone who is enthusiastic about Roman literature or history.</p><div class="feature-layout-callout feature-layout-callout-large"><div class="ucb-callout-content"><blockquote><p class="lead">鈥淟atin actually isn鈥檛 elitist. Everybody鈥檚 starting from the same level when they walk into Latin class. There鈥檚 no barrier, and everybody can benefit from it in various ways.鈥&nbsp;</p></blockquote></div></div><p>鈥淟earning Latin is like weightlifting for your brain,鈥 she says with a smile.</p><p><strong>Keeping the momentum going</strong></p><p>Now that the <em>You Belong in Latin</em> videos have been published, Callier is working to spread the word.</p><p>鈥淲e have been sharing our Colorado Classics Association YouTube channel with educators from around the country who are looking for different ways to promote Latin,鈥 she says.</p><p>Feedback on the project has been encouraging for Latin educators who rarely receive recognition for their efforts.</p><p>鈥淲hat we are doing as Latin educators is something that is really having an impact,鈥 Callier says. 鈥淪tudents are getting a lot out of Latin in various ways, and they鈥檙e really appreciating what we bring to the table.鈥</p><p>At its heart, this project isn鈥檛 just about keeping Latin alive but also celebrating what makes it special. As Callier and her colleagues know, the language is only the beginning. The real magic comes from the people who learn and teach it.</p><p>Callier says, 鈥淟atin survives because people love it. And as long as we keep sharing that love, it鈥檚 not going anywhere.鈥</p><hr><p><em>Did you enjoy this article?&nbsp;</em><a href="https://cu.tfaforms.net/73" rel="nofollow"><em>Subscribe to our newsletter.</em></a><em>&nbsp;Passionate about classics?&nbsp;</em><a href="/classics/giving" rel="nofollow"><em>Show your support.</em></a></p><p>&nbsp;</p></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div>For Reina Callier, learning Latin 鈥榠s like lifting weights for your brain.'</div> <h2> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--ucb-related-articles-block paragraph--view-mode--default"> <div>Related Articles</div> </div> </h2> <div>Traditional</div> <div>0</div> <div> <div class="imageMediaStyle large_image_style"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/large_image_style/public/2025-04/Latin%20inscription%20cropped.jpg?itok=fVthdiOU" width="1500" height="546" alt="Carved stone statues and Latin inscription"> </div> </div> <div>On</div> <div>White</div> Tue, 01 Apr 2025 15:51:17 +0000 Rachel Sauer 6092 at /asmagazine Who has the influence to curb gender bias in STEM? /asmagazine/2025/03/25/who-has-influence-curb-gender-bias-stem <span>Who has the influence to curb gender bias in STEM?</span> <span><span>Rachel Sauer</span></span> <span><time datetime="2025-03-25T07:30:00-06:00" title="Tuesday, March 25, 2025 - 07:30">Tue, 03/25/2025 - 07:30</time> </span> <div> <div class="imageMediaStyle focal_image_wide"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/focal_image_wide/public/2025-03/female%20scientist.jpg?h=06ac0d8c&amp;itok=_5V8UrxG" width="1200" height="800" alt="female scientists working at lab bench"> </div> </div> <div role="contentinfo" class="container ucb-article-categories" itemprop="about"> <span class="visually-hidden">Categories:</span> <div class="ucb-article-category-icon" aria-hidden="true"> <i class="fa-solid fa-folder-open"></i> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/30"> News </a> </div> <div role="contentinfo" class="container ucb-article-tags" itemprop="keywords"> <span class="visually-hidden">Tags:</span> <div class="ucb-article-tag-icon" aria-hidden="true"> <i class="fa-solid fa-tags"></i> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/1242" hreflang="en">Division of Natural Sciences</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/144" hreflang="en">Psychology and Neuroscience</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/686" hreflang="en">Research</a> </div> <span>Cody DeBos</span> <div class="ucb-article-content ucb-striped-content"> <div class="container"> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--article-content paragraph--view-mode--default"> <div class="ucb-article-text" itemprop="articleBody"> <div><p class="lead"><em><span>Hint: It鈥檚 not women</span></em></p><hr><p>When <a href="/psych-neuro/charlotte-moser" rel="nofollow">Charlotte Moser</a> started graduate school, she was the only woman in a shared office with four male students. One day, a classmate casually remarked that he wished she weren鈥檛 there so the office could be all men.</p><p>Moser barely had time to process the sting of the exclusion before another male student cut in, calling out the remark as gender bias.</p><p>鈥淚t felt so great to have someone stand up for me,鈥 Moser recalls. 鈥淚 felt like someone had my back and I belonged in this space.鈥</p><div class="feature-layout-callout feature-layout-callout-large"><div class="ucb-callout-content"><p>&nbsp;</p> <div class="imageMediaStyle large_image_style"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/large_image_style/public/2025-03/Charlotte%20Moser.jpg?itok=RTgaqc0o" width="1500" height="1500" alt="headshot of Charlotte Moser"> </div> <span class="media-image-caption"> <p class="small-text"><span>Charlotte Moser, a research associate in CU 麻豆影院鈥檚 Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, studies how allyship in male-dominated fields influences workplace culture.</span></p> </span> </div></div><p>That moment stayed with her鈥攏ot just because of the personal validation, but because it led her to begin exploring a larger pattern in workplace dynamics.</p><p>Now as a research associate in the 麻豆影院鈥檚 Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Moser <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/13684302241257184?ai=1gvoi&amp;mi=3ricys&amp;af=R" rel="nofollow">studies how allyship in male-dominated fields influences workplace culture</a>. Her findings reveal an unsettling but potentially useful truth: When men openly advocate for gender equality, their voices often carry more weight than women鈥檚 do.</p><p>The reason? Not necessarily gender, Moser says, but power and influence.</p><p><strong>The social influence gap</strong></p><p>Moser鈥檚 research suggests that in STEM workplaces, where men hold most leadership positions, male allies are perceived as more persuasive, more legitimate and more effective at creating a culture that supports gender equality than their female counterparts.</p><p>鈥淲e find that men who advocate for gender equality and act as allies tend to be better at signaling to women that they will belong and be respected in male-dominated STEM contexts than when women advocate for gender equality,鈥 Moser says.</p><p>Her findings suggest that allyship in male-dominated workplaces isn鈥檛 just about intent or even gender. Rather, it鈥檚 about who is perceived as having the power to create change.</p><p>If a female scientist points out that women are often overlooked for leadership roles or promotions, she may be met with skepticism or dismissed as self-interested. But when a male colleague makes the same argument, research shows that their remark is more likely to be taken seriously and perceived as a norm-setting statement rather than a personal complaint.</p><p>鈥淥ther work has found that men tend to be perceived more positively than women when advocating for gender equality,鈥 Moser explains. 鈥淲omen tend to be viewed as whiners, complainers, and only acting in their own self-interest.鈥</p><p><strong>The cost of exclusion</strong></p><p>Gender bias in the workplace isn鈥檛 a theoretical issue. It has real repercussions.</p><div class="feature-layout-callout feature-layout-callout-large"><div class="ucb-callout-content"><p>&nbsp;</p> <div class="imageMediaStyle large_image_style"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/large_image_style/public/2025-03/female%20crash%20test%20dummy.jpg?itok=O7-ObyKv" width="1500" height="2246" alt="female crash test dummy"> </div> <span class="media-image-caption"> <p class="small-text"><span>Car-crash dummies designed to represent women鈥檚 bodies weren鈥檛 introduced until 2011. Even today, they are tested only in the passenger seat, not the driver鈥檚 seat. (Photo: Lin Pan/Wikimedia Commons)</span></p> </span> </div></div><p>鈥淎 huge consequence is the loss of the contributions from many brilliant women scientists,鈥 Moser says.</p><p>Research shows that women are less likely to be retained in male-dominated fields due to factors like persistent bias, exclusion and a lack of support. With fewer women present to offer their perspective, blind spots emerge, and those gaps can have serious, even deadly, implications.</p><p>One striking example is the case of crash-test dummies.</p><p>鈥淔or decades, car-crash dummies were built to represent the average body of a man,鈥 Moser says. 鈥淭his led women to be much more likely to fall victim to serious injury and death in car crashes.鈥</p><p>Shockingly, car-crash dummies designed to represent women鈥檚 bodies weren鈥檛 introduced until 2011. Even today, they are tested only in the passenger seat, not the driver鈥檚 seat. Recent statistics show that women are <a href="https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/811766" rel="nofollow">17% more likely to be killed</a> in a car accident and <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15389588.2019.1630825" rel="nofollow">73% more likely to be seriously injured</a> than male occupants.</p><p>This oversight isn鈥檛 an accident, but the denouement of decades of scientific decision-making that lacked diverse perspectives.</p><p>鈥淢ore inclusive science is better for everyone鈥攏ot just those who face bias,鈥 Moser says.</p><p><strong>Going beyond performative allyship</strong></p><p>If allyship from men is perceived as more effective, what should they do to ensure their support is genuine and impactful?</p><p>Moser has a few recommendations.</p><p>鈥淚 would say that men who don鈥檛 know where to start could start within their own spheres. Pay attention to what鈥檚 going on, how people are treated, and listen to the women around you,鈥 she says.</p><p>But listening is only the first step.</p><p>Moser emphasizes that standing up against gender bias isn鈥檛 just about making statements on social media or in private. Meaningful allyship requires action.</p><p>Calling out dismissive remarks in a team meeting or challenging biased hiring decisions can have an immediate effect. Those in leadership positions can stretch their influence further by advocating for equitable organizational policies and ensuring women have access to mentorship and career-advancement opportunities.</p><p>鈥淥ne hurdle for men regarding allyship for gender equality is that they feel that it is 鈥榥ot their place,鈥欌 Moser says. 鈥淚 hope that my work can show that allyship from men is not only wanted but very beneficial to women.鈥</p><p>However, Moser warns that inauthentic allyship鈥攑ublicly claiming to support gender equality without backing it up鈥攃an make meaningful change even harder to achieve.</p><div class="feature-layout-callout feature-layout-callout-large"><div class="ucb-callout-content"><blockquote><p class="lead"><span>鈥淭he future of allyship isn鈥檛 just about who speaks. It鈥檚 about who gets listened to.鈥</span></p></blockquote></div></div><p>鈥淚 have other work showing that it is worse to claim allyship but then do nothing to promote equality than if one had said nothing about inequality and allyship in the first place,鈥 she says.</p><p><strong>Who deserves to be heard?</strong></p><p>Moser鈥檚 research makes clear the fact that eliminating gender bias in the workplace isn鈥檛 a matter of men versus women. Rather, it鈥檚 about recognizing and altering the systems that create credibility and influence.</p><p>鈥淚 think allyship can change the narrative of the widespread belief that most men don鈥檛 care about women and change the narrative that it鈥檚 women鈥檚 responsibility to make these workplaces work for them,鈥 she says.</p><p>But the goal isn鈥檛 just getting men to use their influence鈥攊t鈥檚 about redistributing power so that women鈥檚 voices carry the same weight without needing male validation.</p><p>鈥淭he future of allyship isn鈥檛 just about who speaks,鈥 Moser explains. 鈥淚t鈥檚 about who gets listened to.鈥</p><hr><p><em>Did you enjoy this article?&nbsp;</em><a href="https://cu.tfaforms.net/73" rel="nofollow"><em>Subscribe to our newsletter.</em></a><em>&nbsp;Passionate about psychology and neuroscience?&nbsp;</em><a href="/psych-neuro/giving-opportunities" rel="nofollow"><em>Show your support.</em></a></p><p>&nbsp;</p></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div>Hint: It鈥檚 not women.</div> <h2> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--ucb-related-articles-block paragraph--view-mode--default"> <div>Related Articles</div> </div> </h2> <div>Zebra Striped</div> <div>0</div> <div> <div class="imageMediaStyle large_image_style"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/large_image_style/public/2025-03/female%20scientist%20cropped.jpg?itok=3mthg-31" width="1500" height="665" alt="female scientists working at lab bench"> </div> </div> <div>On</div> <div>White</div> Tue, 25 Mar 2025 13:30:00 +0000 Rachel Sauer 6090 at /asmagazine