Mariel Russell

Almost one third of people on Earth live near the coast where they are at risk from floods. Coastal areas are often protected from flooding by human-built flood-protection structures, like dikes and seawalls. Now that Earth’s climate is changing, sea-level rise and storms are becoming more intense and frequent, which increases the risk of flooding. Therefore, we need to develop bigger flood-defense structures to stay safe from flooding. However, this is very expensive. Is there an alternative? It may sound surprising, but nature can help us out. Around the world, ecosystems like mangrove forests, salt marshes, and coral reefs can help to protect our coasts from flooding. They can contribute to greener, more natural, biodiverse coasts, and make living along Earth’s coastlines safer and more sustainable. Using these natural systems is called nature-based flood defense. In this article, we explain how it works.

How Can Nature Protect People Against Sea-Level Rise? Almost one third of people on Earth live near the coast where they are at risk from floods. Coastal areas are often protected from flooding by human-built flood-protection structures, like dikes and seawalls. Now that Earth’s climate is changing, sea-level rise and storms are becoming more intense...

“Life is a series of seasons, and what works in one season may not work in the next.

What season are you in right now? What habits does that season require?”

– James Clear

Ever wish you had a switch you could just turn whenever you needed to be focused and productive?
While getting in the zone is something we all hope and strive for — whether it’s at work, at home, at school — it’s critically important for athletes.

How top athletes get in the zone Ever wish you had a switch you could just turn whenever you needed to be focused and productive? While getting in the zone is something we all hope and strive for — whether it’s at work, at home, a…

Have you ever wondered if someone who is 72 uses their brain any differently than someone who is 27? What are the changes to the ways that our brains look and work as we grow older? What tasks get easier because of these changes, and which get harder? If you wonder about any of these things, keep reading—because these are the questions we will answer!

Wiser With Age? Understanding Aging Brains Have you ever wondered if someone who is 72 uses their brain any differently than someone who is 27? What are the changes to the ways that our brains look and work as we grow older? What tasks get easier because of these changes, and which get harder? If you wonder about any of these things, keep re...

Have you ever wondered if there is life beyond Earth? Scientists have been studying this topic for a long time and believe the answer might lie in extremophilic microbes, small organisms that thrive in extreme environments. In a 2022 study, scientists took extremophilic microbes from an analogue environment, or place on Earth similar to Mars, and put them in simulated Martian conditions. After exposing them to higher ultraviolet radiation levels, low oxygen levels, a dry atmosphere, and moisture-free Mars-like soil, these microbes still were able to survive. This research is important in helping us understand if Mars can house life and give us clues into what that life might look like beyond Earth.

Can Extreme Bacteria Teach Us About Extraterrestrial Life? Have you ever wondered if there is life beyond Earth? Scientists have been studying this topic for a long time and believe the answer might lie in extremophilic microbes, small organisms that thrive in extreme environments. In a 2022 study, scientists took extremophilic microbes from an analogue env...

One of the keys to a life-changing journey, says celebrated travel writer and TED Course instructor Pico Iyer, is what you do with it afterwards. This means taking the time to unpack your experiences, and not just your suitcases.

“It’s only when you get back home that you can really begin to understand a trip and implement the changes it may have set into motion inside you,” says Iyer in a lesson from his TED Course on “How to take a life-changing journey.”

3 questions that turn a trip into a life-changing experience Enjoy acquiring new skills and putting them into action? Well, we’ve got just the thing for you lifelong learners: TED Courses! These new four-week courses offer enriching experiences that help you…

Nowadays, overweight and obesity are increasing in young people, resulting in several health problems. New scientific evidence shows that consuming too much fructose, a basic type of sugar, can cause some of these problems. Sugary foods such as soft drinks are sweetened with syrups that have very high fructose content. Drinking too much of these beverages results in weight gain from the accumulation of body fat. Scientists have also found that, in children, consuming excessive amounts of fructose can harm the liver, lungs, and heart. This article will explain how fructose in sweetened beverages leads to overweight and obesity in children and adolescents, highlighting the alarming number of young people all over the world who suffer from these diseases and what can be done to prevent this situation.

What Is Fructose and How Does It Make Sweet Drinks Dangerous for Your Health? Nowadays, overweight and obesity are increasing in young people, resulting in several health problems. New scientific evidence shows that consuming too much fructose, a basic type of sugar, can cause some of these problems. Sugary foods such as soft drinks are sweetened with syrups that have very hi...

Your friends can influence you in ways you may not realize. They can influence the way you think and behave, your likes and dislikes, what you buy, how well you do in school. Information on who you know is useful to scientists because we can use it to better understand how ideas, or in some cases diseases, spread. Scientists and mathematicians can use data and advanced mathematics to make educated guesses about how likely something is to occur. For example, we can predict your likelihood of being friends with another person given just a few pieces of information, like what school you attend, your hobbies, and who you know! In this article, you will learn about some of the tools to become a network scientist and make your own mathematical predictions about friendships!

Predict Who Your Friends Are? Your friends can influence you in ways you may not realize. They can influence the way you think and behave, your likes and dislikes, what you buy, how well you do in school. Information on who you know is useful to scientists because we can use it to better understand how ideas, or in some cases di...

Sometimes in life, we can get sick and feel badly—maybe a headache, fever, or other uncomfortable symptoms—and sometimes we need to use a medicine to feel better. Medicines can often taste sweet, have bright colors, or even look like candy. But be careful, medicines are certainly not candy! They are powerful substances capable of curing, treating, and preventing diseases. If we do not use medicines properly, they can be very dangerous or even kill us. That is why it is important to keep medicines in safe places, away from children and animals, and use them only under adult supervision. The best way to practice medicine safety is to learn as much as possible about our medicines and follow the recommendations of our healthcare professionals.

Use Medicines Safely—Even If They Taste Like Candy! Sometimes in life, we can get sick and feel badly—maybe a headache, fever, or other uncomfortable symptoms—and sometimes we need to use a medicine to feel better. Medicines can often taste sweet, have bright colors, or even look like candy. But be careful, medicines are certainly not candy! They...

Have you ever heard about, or maybe even seen, a whale or a dolphin that was helplessly lying on the beach or stuck in very shallow water? These are called “stranding events” or “strandings,” and have been documented since the fourth century. Back then, strandings involving cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises) were welcome events because they provided a rich source of food and other resources for the people nearby. But today, we tend to see strandings as events in which animals need human help. There are several types of strandings, each with their own possible causes. In this article, we explain what stranding events are, what might cause them, and how you can help if you ever find a stranded animal.

Why Do Marine Mammals Strand on Land and How Can Humans Help? Have you ever heard about, or maybe even seen, a whale or a dolphin that was helplessly lying on the beach or stuck in very shallow water? These are called “stranding events” or “strandings,” and have been documented since the fourth century. Back then, strandings involving cetaceans (whales...

She was an unconventional person, quietly waging her own battle against received opinion and restrictive traditions. But unlike her older sister, Catherine Bauer, Elizabeth Bauer Mock didn’t come across as a forceful presence. “Betty Mock wasn’t strong,” remarked Philip Johnson, who was both her predecessor and successor as curator of architecture at the Museum of Modern Art. “She wasn’t a specialist in any field … nobody thought she was a permanent star … she was very much influenced by her sister, a very strong woman.” 1 Yet Catherine, who perhaps knew her sister better than anyone, was fully aware of Betty’s capacity for resistant individuality. It was a quality that Mock mostly kept hidden from the world at large, though it was to influence her personal life, her writing, and her attitude toward architecture.

https://placesjournal.org/article/elizabeth-bauer-mock/

On a sunny afternoon in late April 2020, 45-year-old Michael Pellet, better known as Sage, stood under fresh-leafed laurel oaks on a white-sand beach and let his gaze drift across the shimmering waters of Lake Pontchartrain. He was thinking about Ahmaud Arbery, murdered in Georgia less than two months prior; about how much New Orleans had changed after Hurricane Katrina, nearly fifteen years ago; and about the pandemic. The new virus had already proved exceptionally lethal for Black New Orleanians, who at that point accounted for 77 percent of the city’s Covid deaths. 2 Taking in the beach, with its crumbling brick seawall and decrepit concrete pavilions, Pellet said to himself, “This place was built because of racism. Only because of racism.

https://placesjournal.org/article/lincoln-beach-new-orleans-black-and-indigenous-space/

Start at the Guard Shore, where a small scrap of beach juts out into the Pocomoke Sound of the Chesapeake Bay. On one side of the parking lot, chunks of concrete debris protect a sandy point just large enough for a truck to turn around, as evidenced by the tire tracks half erased by the high tide. A thousand feet away, the beach ends at a stone groin, a construction that seems to belong to another time. Just offshore are the oyster leases and eelgrass beds. Inland, a salt marsh extends for more than a mile, featuring all gradients of cordgrass, saltgrass, needlerush, and phragmites, moving with the tides and winds. The shore is a thin spit of sand between vast expanses: grass on one side, water on the other, sky above. A narrow road cuts through the marsh, following the sandy, curved rim of a Delmarva bay, a relic landform from the last ice age, high ground that will be last to slip beneath the water as sea levels rise.

Bay Migrations Ditch banks and road ends, straight guts and Delmarva bays. Rural forms show how people live with climate change in the Chesapeake marshlands.

This is the seventh and final installment of a narrative survey in which several dozen educators and practitioners share perspectives on the intensifying demands for meaningful change across design pedagogy and practice. How is the field responding to the interlocking wicked problem that define our time — climate crisis, structural racism, unaffordable housing, rapid technological shifts? To the increasingly passionate campaigns to decolonize the canon, to make schools and offices more equitable, ethical, and diverse? What are the issues of greatest urgency? What specific actions and practical interventions are needed now?

Field Notes on Design Activism The seventh and final installment of a narrative survey in which educators and practitioners share perspectives on the intensifying demands for change across design pedagogy and practice.

Sitting on the terrace of our family house at the edge of the town, I look east onto row upon row of sierras, fading into mist even as the sun begins to burn it off. In the foreground are olive groves and bosques of oak, flanking a camino that winds down to Torre de Santa Maria and its pastureland. Beyond the valley, the Sierra de Montánchez rises up; the Cancho Blanco (White Boulder) radar station at its summit squats above the olive terraces and the village of Valdemorales. Further away, still swathed in mist, is the blue-gray profile of the Villuercas range, and, hidden behind a ridge, the home of La Virgen de Guadalupe. On a clear day — most days — I can turn my gaze north and see the Gredos range, snow-topped until well into spring. At night, under a starlit sky, we see the villages of the plain, lit up like cruise ships moored in a dark sea. The Cancho Blanco winks its little red eye as much to us as to the few passing aircraft. The silence seems infinite.

Machines in the Garden Harnessing the wind to produce energy will undoubtedly temper the environmental and social damage unfolding all around us. But at what cost to rural economies and ecologies?

In February Architect Barbie made her industry debut at the Toy Industry Association’s Toy Fair in New York City; in May she made her professional entrance at the American Institute of Architects convention in New Orleans. But Architect Barbie’s real beginnings were political. In 2006, while I was a research fellow at the University of Michigan, the passage of Proposal 2, a ballot initiative, ended affirmative action in that state. Debates before and after the law’s passage tore into friendships and collegial relationships, and the atmosphere on campus was tense as the school’s colleges, including architecture, struggled to determine what the new law would mean for diversity among students and faculty, and ultimately why that diversity mattered.

What I Learned from Architect Barbie: Why can't Architects Wear Pink? Why can’t architects wear pink? An activist historian explores the feminist politics that inspired the new career of the famous doll.

When I call home to my parents in Central Pennsylvania, my mother always greets me with her customary “I was just thinking about you!” It’s the gracious — and, I believe, genuine — salutation she’s extended to pretty much every non-telemarketer who’s called the house for the last 40-odd years. After inquiring about my well-being, she then describes the weather, recounts the health of the dogs and the cat, and offers a play-by-play of her day — right up until the moment the phone rang. Even when she retired in 2004, after 34 years as a special education teacher, she was always in the midst of a dozen projects: raising funds for a wheelchair-accessible van for her former students, organizing supplies at the local soup kitchen, advising student teachers, recruiting tradespeople to provide pro bono maintenance for house-bound seniors. A single hour-long phone call with her would invariably include several interruptions from her collaborators: “someone’s beeping in; hold on a minute.”

Concealment and Compassion Dementia care is usually marginalized in remote asylums, informal networks, or grim nursing homes. Why can’t entire buildings and whole cities be designed as caring environments writ large?

Here you can see the themes that have fascinated me for so long: growth and change, the continuation of patterns as results of human action; the way living urban tissues are developed out of many small, individual entities; and, above all, the underlying structure, the relatively constant holding the relatively ephemeral; the unity and diversity; the beauty of the extraordinary that compliments the beauty of the ordinary — the leaves and flowers that speak of the same tree.

Mass Support: John Habraken, mass-produced housing, and democratic agency for the end-user. Dutch architect John Habraken saw the potential of industrialized building to democratize decision-making, to involve inhabitants in optimizing their homes for their own needs.

The asylum seekers’ camp known as the Baobab Experience persisted in Rome for three years. Before the camp was bulldozed by municipal police, a photographer and an archaeologist documented the improvised village

The Future Absence of a Tent City The migrants' camp known as the Baobab Experience persisted for years in Rome. Before the camp was bulldozed by police, a photographer and an archaeologist documented the improvised dwellings.

Cave diving requires specialized equipment and coordinated groups. In this photo, taken in March in Belize, you can see that I always carry duplicate lights and navigation tools, and bring extra air tanks. During this sampling trip, I was using a plankton net and test tubes to collect tiny, nearly invisible animals floating in the water.

Shining a light on mysterious underwater cave creatures Cave ecologist Fernando Calderón Gutiérrez is studying the resilience of cave-adapted species in the face of climate change and other stressors.

“When we plant a rose seed in the earth, we notice that it is small, but we do not criticize it as “rootless and stemless.” We treat it as a seed, giving it the water and nourishment required of a seed. When it first shoots up out of the earth, we don't condemn it as immature and underdeveloped; nor do we criticize the buds for not being open when they appear. We stand in wonder at the process taking place and give the plant the care it needs at each stage of its development. The rose is a rose from the time it is a seed to the time it dies. Within it, at all times, it contains its whole potential. It seems to be constantly in the process of change; yet at each state, at each moment, it is perfectly all right as it is.”

—Timothy Gallwey

What I Do When it Feels Like My Work Isn't Good Enough Release the desire to define yourself as good or bad.

The consumption of alcohol remains a significant health concern and represents a prevalent form of substance use worldwide. Previous research has identified s*x differences in the consumption of alcohol.

Distress symptoms and alcohol consumption: Anxiety differentially mediates drinking across gender The consumption of alcohol remains a significant health concern and represents a prevalent form of substance use worldwide. Previous research has identified s*x differences in the consumption of alcohol. This study explores the relationship between drinking and the presence of distress symptoms acro...

The COVID-19 pandemic caused many people to lose their jobs, and companies around the world made the move to remote work. For example, by June 2020, 42 percent of the US labor force were working from home, and 46 percent of employees in London reported working from home at some point in 2020. Over the past year, we’ve nailed the bed-to-Zoom commute: We can be up, presentably dressed (our top half at least), hydrated, caffeinated and in front of the screen in minutes.

Despite the challenges of making our living space into our working space, we’ve gotten used to the comforts of working from home, and surveys show that employees are feeling anxious about returning to the office. As vaccination rates rise and COVID cases drop, more of us are being asked to go back to in-person workplaces. So how can we make this transition easier?

Going back to the office? 6 tips to help you adjust Our working situations have changed dramatically since early 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic caused many people to lose their jobs, and companies around the world made the move to remote work. For exam…

During the ten year period from 1905 to 1915, Einstein developed the general theory of relativity, which is one of the most important ideas in modern physics. Einstein's theory has held up remarkably well over time. For example, general relativity predicted the existence of gravitational waves, which scientists finally confirmed in 2015—a full 100 years after Einstein originally wrote it down.

All Models Are Wrong, Some Are Useful Even the best models of the world are imperfect. This insight is important to remember if we want to learn how to make decisions.

Psychological resilience was negatively associated with gender, making women with low resilience more vulnerable to experiences of s*xual harassment and more affected by its consequences. This study highlights important aspects of this gender-based aggressive behavior in academia and emphasizes the necessity for the implementation of appropriate policies and interventions in higher education institutions against s*xual harassment.

University students' experiences of s*xual harassment: the role of gender and psychological resilience This study aimed to investigate university students' experiences of different types of s*xually harassing behaviors, within academia, as well as the role of gender and psychological resilience regarding their victimization and its consequences. Overall, 2,134 students (70.5% women), both undergradua...

Healthy biological systems exhibit complex patterns of variability that can be described by mathematical chaos. Heart rate variability (HRV) consists of changes in the time intervals between consecutive heartbeats called interbeat intervals (IBIs). A healthy heart is not a metronome. The oscillations of a healthy heart are complex and constantly changing, which allow the cardiovascular system to rapidly adjust to sudden physical and psychological challenges to homeostasis.

An Overview of Heart Rate Variability Metrics and Norms Healthy biological systems exhibit complex patterns of variability that can be described by mathematical chaos. Heart rate variability (HRV) consists of changes in the time intervals between consecutive heartbeats called interbeat intervals (IBIs). A healthy heart is not a metronome. The oscillation...

When you are truly living on the edge, walking on the moon, perhaps, or caught in the grip of extreme poverty — there's no room at all for error. It's a luxury you can't afford.

For the rest of us, though, there's a cushion. Being wrong isn't fatal, it's merely something we'd prefer to avoid. We have the privilege of being wrong. Not being wrong on purpose, of course, but wrong as a cost on the way to being right.

The Difference Between Being "Not Wrong" and Being Right A problem arises when it becomes more important to "not fail" in your daily life than it is to succeed.

Cultured meat is an emerging technology in which animal muscle cells are produced through tissue culture in a controlled factory or laboratory environment, in contrast to traditional whole-animal livestock systems (Stephens et al., 2018). Other commonly used terms include clean, in vitro, lab-grown, or synthetic meat. Reducing the environmental impacts of meat production, and particularly greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, is generally highlighted as a significant potential advantage of cultured meat (Tuomisto and Teixeira de Mattos, 2011; Post, 2012). Despite recent research and popular interest in cultured meat, and the frequency with which its supposed climate benefits are reported, the potential temperature impacts of cultured meat production have not yet been investigated.

Climate Impacts of Cultured Meat and Beef Cattle Improved greenhouse gas (GHG) emission efficiency of production has been proposed as one of the biggest potential advantages of cultured meat over conventional livestock production systems. Comparisons with beef are typically highlighted, as it is a highly emissions intensive food product. In this s...

The excess deposition of intra-pancreatic fat deposition (IPFD) has been reported to be associated with type 2 diabetes, chronic pancreatitis, and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. In the current study, we aimed to identify a relationship between lifestyle factors and IPFD.

Relationships between Intra-Pancreatic Fat Deposition and Lifestyle Factors: A cross-sectional study Aims: The excess deposition of intra-pancreatic fat deposition (IPFD) has been reported to be associated with type 2 diabetes, chronic pancreatitis, and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. In the current study, we aimed to identify a relationship between lifestyle factors and IPFD. Materials and metho...

One of the biggest examples we have in history of someone bearing witness is Anne Frank and her diary. She simply wrote down what was happening to her family and about her confinement and, in doing so, we have a very intimate record of this family during one of the worst periods of our world’s history.

How writing about difficult experiences can help you take back your power I have a question for you. Have you ever seen something and you wish you could have said something — but you didn’t? And I have a second question. Has something ever happened to you and you never s…