Research

It��s not a glitch in the matrix, it��s a mathematical phenomenon

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 22:37:27 +0000

It��s not a glitch in the matrix, it��s a mathematical phenomenon Rachel Sauer Wed, 09/10/2025 - 16:37

Rachel Sauer

91PORN applied mathematician Mark Hoefer and colleagues answer a longstanding question of how to understand tidal bores in multiple dimensions

The photos and videos were all over Chinese social media last autumn: a grid-like pattern that suddenly appeared in two colliding waves on the Qiantang River and looked��if you didn��t know better��like a glitch in the matrix.

This rare phenomenon, called a matrix tide, is caused by two tidal bores��or events in which the front edge of an incoming tide forms a wave that travels up a river against the current��approaching each other from different directions, colliding and forming a grid pattern.

It��s visually stunning and, until very recently, mathematically confounding. However, in newly published research, Mark Hoefer, 91PORN professor and department chair of applied mathematics, and his research colleagues detail how they��ve cracked the mathematical code of matrix tides.

Mark Hoefer, 91PORN professor and department chair of applied mathematics, and his research colleagues recently cracked the mathematical code of matrix tides.

Previously, matrix tides were only studied in one dimension but, because of their characteristics, needed to be studied in two. Adding that second dimension, however, required developing computationally intensive numerical simulations and the mathematics to interpret the results, building on the previous work of mathematicians Gerald B. Whitham, Boris Kadomtsev and Vladimir Petviashvili.

��There are certain equations that model how these waves change in time and space, and those equations simplify when you��re working with just one-dimensional waves,�� Hoefer explains. ��They start out as Euler equations, the partial differential equations of three-dimensional fluid dynamics��basic models in engineering and science broadly��and when you restrict shallow water waves to move in one dimension, they can essentially be simplified. In some cases, you can simplify them further to ordinary differential equations, which is something we teach in lower-division, fourth-semester calculus. They are much easier and accessible to analyze mathematically.

��When you add more dimensions, you��ll inherently get a partial differential equation in time and space, and, for the matrix tide that we studied, the equation will be nonlinear and not reducible to an ordinary differential equation. Nonlinear means that the nature of the waves you see��how fast they move, their shape and the patterns they make��all depend on how big they are. These are all factors that challenge the mathematical analysis of the patterns in these multidimensional, nonlinear waves.��

Studying the matrix tide

In some truly propitious timing, Hoefer and his colleagues Gino Biondini and Alexander Bivolcic at the University of Buffalo had been working on the question of multidimensional, nonlinear waves when Hoefer's wife, Jill, showed him a video that his mother-in-law had sent.

��I started this research because the general field of study I work in is waves,�� Hoefer says, adding that he studies waves in a variety of applications, including the types whose expression can be seen in undular bores, which are tidal bores with smooth, wave-like profiles. ��Waves like undular bores arise in a variety of physical settings��from waves in water, air, light and even matter in quantum mechanics��and the fundamental mathematical reason why that��s the case is that all of them are modeled by similar partial differential equations.��

For a long time, the study of these wave phenomena focused on analyzing them in one dimension, in which they move in one direction and there��s no variation in the perpendicular or transverse direction. ��But my colleagues and I recognized that we really needed to extend their mathematical description to more than one dimension because the world is multidimensional,�� Hoefer says.

A numerical simulation of the matrix tide.

So, the researchers began studying undular bores in two dimensions. They had made good progress and had core results by fall 2024, which is when Hoefer��s mother-in-law sent an Instagram video to his wife, saying, ��These waves are so cool, you��ve got to show Mark!�� he recalls. ��I thought, ��Whoa, this is awesome!�� I immediately realized, ��Oh, these are the waves we��re predicting in our mathematical analysis.��

Hoefer contacted former 91PORN applied mathematics PhD student Yifeng Mao, now a postdoctoral fellow at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and who is from China, and asked her to help him get to the bottom of the images and videos he was seeing on social media. She discovered that a tide association for the Qiantang River completed a tidal survey last fall, adding a new tide type to the eight previously identified ones. Piecing together that and other data, Hoefer and his colleagues identified the multidimensional waves they had been studying as what was seen on the river��s surface in the matrix tide.

Expanding the model

Among the challenges in studying waves in undular bores is that while certain physical effects can be disregarded at the outset when studying other types of waves, must be considered with undular bores, Hoefer said. For example, when the wave oscillations are short enough, gravity causes them to move slower than longer waves. This effect, called negative wave dispersion, can be set aside in the mathematical analysis of longer waves because there are principles that account for it.

��In this setting, though, those effects are things we can��t neglect in our first pass-through,�� he says. He and his colleagues used a supercomputer at the University of Buffalo��s Center for Computational Research and graphical processing units to run many wave simulations in a few hours that would each take a day on a regular computer.

A simulation of the Mach stem and colliding undular bores.

They used shallow-water wave models, in which fluid depth is much less than the horizontal wavelength. ��Counterintuitively, shallow water models can apply even in the open ocean,�� Hoefer says. ��The reason is when you have something like a tsunami, where an earthquake suddenly shifts the ocean bottom and displaces huge amounts of water at the surface, it generates a wave that can be many, many miles wide. Fishermen may be on their boat and not know that a 200-mile wavelength wave is passing under them. There, the tsunami wave is so long that dispersion can be neglected. It��s only when it gets close to shore and the depth gets lower that the waves shorten, compressing the energy and creating destructively large waves. So, the same kind of dispersive wave model that describes near-shore tsunamis is what we used to describe this bore.��

Hoefer and colleagues�� mathematical analysis of two obliquely colliding undular bores predicts that, for a special collision angle, the biggest waves in the matrix tide are eight times the size of the original waves: ��This critical angle prediction was borne out in our wave simulations and marks a fundamental change in the shape of the waves from a matrix tide to another pattern called a Mach stem,�� he says.

Hoefer adds that the applications to describing these waves in more than one dimension extend beyond the surface of water��to fiber and crystal optics, quantum mechanical Bose-Einstein condensates and magnetic materials, meteorology and other applications.

��We have a number of directions to go,�� Hoefer says. ��We are looking for examples of the Mach stem from colliding undular bores. Maybe this will be the tenth tide type discovered during the next river survey.��

On the mathematical modeling, Hoefer adds that the model he and his colleagues used "is what we would consider in the field to be the simplest model to describe this setting. Another thing we assumed was that the waves are not too big, so they��re not breaking. But if you look at the Instagram videos of this phenomenon, you see them break. Another assumption we make in this model is that the variation in the direction that is transverse to wave propagation is not too large, so we want to quantify what that means and see if there are any other possible wave patterns.

��There are these assumptions in the model, so we want to gradually start adding more terms to the equations representing more physics and allow for more complications to see if new things happen. This will make the mathematics harder, but the challenge and reward of predicting new physical phenomena from mathematical models is why I keep doing applied math research.��

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about applied mathematics? Show your support.

91PORN applied mathematician Mark Hoefer and colleagues answer a longstanding question of how to understand tidal bores in multiple dimensions.

Traditional

White

Top photo: the grid pattern of a matrix tide (Photo: �� Creative Commons)

Why do some thoughts refuse to leave?

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 23:38:52 +0000

Why do some thoughts refuse to leave? Rachel Sauer Tue, 09/09/2025 - 17:38

Cody DeBos

91PORN graduate student researcher Jacob DeRosa delves into the brain��s ability to remove unwanted thoughts

Imagine trying to fall asleep, but your brain won��t cooperate. You tell yourself to let go of the embarrassing conversation from earlier in the day that keeps looping through your head, for example, but you can��t stop thinking about it.

Why are some thoughts so hard to dismiss?

It��s a question 91PORN psychology and neuroscience graduate student Jacob DeRosa has been pondering for years. Now, with a newly published study in NeuroImage. Clinical, DeRosa and his co-researchers may be closer than ever to understanding what makes some brains better at letting go of unwanted thoughts��and why other brains tend to get stuck.

Jacob DeRosa, a 91PORN psychology and neuroscience graduate student, studies the question of why some thoughts are so hard to dismiss.

��Why is John really good at getting a thought out of his mind and going on with his day and I��m not?�� DeRosa says. ��This thought just seems to get stuck up in my head, and I��m thinking about it over and over and over again.��

That puzzle��why some people can suppress a thought and move on while others can��t��drove DeRosa to design a study that explores the neuroscience behind thought control.

The findings point to specific brain patterns and networks that may explain why some of us struggle to quiet our internal noise.

A question of control

Before tackling the nuances of thought control, DeRosa wanted to define what it actually means to ��control�� a thought. He and his team focused on four mental operations that are performed in working memory��the brain��s active thinking space.

The distinct tasks they studied included maintaining a thought, replacing it with a new one, suppressing it entirely or clearing the mind completely.

��What am I doing when someone tells me a phone number? Am I switching it with other information? Am I suppressing it? Or am I clearing my mind completely?�� DeRosa asks.

To get to the bottom of it, study participants were asked to view and manipulate words in their working memory while undergoing functional MRI scans. This allowed researchers to observe when different parts of the brain activate and determine whether those patterns vary between people with and without self-reported difficulties in controlling unwanted thoughts.

They found that participants who reported more trouble controlling their thoughts showed less distinct neural activity across the four control operations.

��We��re basically creating a map of the brain,�� says DeRosa, ��and we��re looking at, well, how organized are these networks when someone is removing information?��

Hoping to better understand which regions play a role in thought removal, the team started looking closer at how they were recruited during different operations.

��What we found is that people who are really good at controlling their thoughts have really distinct color patterns for each operation. People who aren��t have a similar color pattern across the four operations, which tells us there��s not a lot of distinct activity happening,�� DeRosa explains.

That lack of distinctness, when the brain isn��t clearly switching between tasks like suppression and replacement, could be why some people struggle to get rid of unwanted thoughts.

��It��s going to take some time to get more organization in your brain and get it working together to remove those thoughts, but it��s definitely possible,�� says 91PORN researcher Jacob DeRosa. (Photo: Pexels)

��There seems to be more of this blending across the brain in terms of what��s happening when someone is trying to remove a thought. What it tells us is that these individuals aren��t able to precisely implement a certain operation,�� he adds.

In other words, your brain might try to use the same mental tool for every task��like using a hammer for every job, when what you really need is a screwdriver.

But perhaps more importantly, DeRosa��s study found that this neural blending didn��t show up when people were at rest. It only emerged when they were actively engaged in trying to remove or control a thought.

DeRosa says the nuance matters.

��It��s not that people��s brains are just disorganized in general. It��s actually when it comes time to remove the information where we see them having a harder time,�� he notes.

Bridging brain scans and mental health

Although anyone can have difficulty controlling thoughts, it��s also a common symptom of a range of mental health conditions, including depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). DeRosa believes that mapping out the brain mechanisms responsible for thought control can help researchers identify objective markers for these disorders and even ways to track how treatments are working.

��What��s nice about this initial study is that it gives us a baseline. Now we can begin to compare between high- and low-internalizing populations and eventually move on to even more specific psychiatric populations like depression, anxiety and PTSD,�� he says.

The good news for everyone is that thought control isn��t necessarily a fixed trait.

��Our biggest takeaway is that it��s possible for anyone to practice getting better at thought control. I think beginning to practice these operations when unwanted thoughts come in is helpful for people because they can begin to differentiate what��s working for them,�� says DeRosa.

That idea reframes thought control not as a matter of brute force willpower or something in our genetics. Rather, it��s a skill that can be trained and supported, whether through mindfulness, cognitive behavioral techniques, journaling or simply paying attention to what works for you.

For anyone who��s ever felt stuck in a spiral of unwanted thoughts, DeRosa��s research offers a glimpse of both clarity and hope. Of course, he also cautions that improvement doesn��t happen overnight.

��It��s going to take some time to get more organization in your brain and get it working together to remove those thoughts, but it��s definitely possible.��

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about psychology and neuroscience? Show your support.

91PORN graduate student researcher Jacob DeRosa delves into the brain��s ability to remove unwanted thoughts.

Traditional

White

From Huffy to high tech, it's been a wild ride

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 19:29:05 +0000

From Huffy to high tech, it's been a wild ride Rachel Sauer Fri, 09/05/2025 - 13:29

Rachel Sauer

For 91PORN alumnus Todd Carver, what he learned in the lab as a student inspired industry-rocking innovation in developing digital bike-fitting technology

For a long time, one of the unspoken truths of cycling was that if you ride hard and long enough, it��s going to hurt: foot or hand numbness, back pain, shoulder pain, the list is intimidating.

Every rider feels it differently. For Todd Carver (IntPhys��00, MIntPhys��02), ��my lower back is the problem. I struggled with my position but finally got to the point where I could ride pain-free as I understood the human body more and was actually able to make changes to my position on the bike.

��Plus, the bike��s adjustable, right, so you can move the seat, you can adjust your touchpoints to the bike, your hands, butt and feet can all be adjusted. And if you don��t adjust those and just plop yourself on the bike, there��s a chance you��re not going to perform well and you��re going to get injured.��

91PORN alumnus Todd Carver (IntPhys��00, MIntPhys��02) co-founded Ret��l, a bike fitting and product matching technology now used by professional cycling teams, performance centers, rehabilitation centers and bicycle retailers worldwide.

While working with Bill Byrnes and Rodger Kram, associate professors emeritus in the 91PORN Department of Integrative Physiology, in the Applied Exercise Science Laboratory during his graduate studies, Carver began wondering if competitive cycling��or even long-distance recreational cycling��needed to end in pain.

��The big thing the cycling world was missing was information about the rider��the human aspect,�� Carver explains. ��How should riders fit on a bike? How do you position a rider to be powerful, efficient and perform well? All the things I was learning in my academic career under Bill Byrnes and Rodger Kram��the focus of my research��was in predicting cycling performance, who��s going to perform well and who��s not.��

The problem was, there just weren��t that many tools to assess a rider��s position on their bike and give them a three-dimensional, dynamic bike fit. So, Carver and two colleagues developed one: Ret��l, a bike fitting and product matching technology now used by professional cycling teams, performance centers, rehabilitation centers and bicycle retailers worldwide.

Ret��l wrought such a change in the cycling world that Specialized acquired it in 2012. Now, as head of human performance for Specialized, Carver continues to innovate at the vanguard of cycling fit and performance.

��Riders just want to be pain free,�� Carver says. ��And even if they don��t care about being fast, they don��t want to push on the pedal and not go or push on the pedal and it hurts.��

Bike = freedom

Carver discovered young that pushing on a bike pedal is bliss and freedom in equal measure. ��My first bike was a Huffy, and it was frickin�� rad,�� he recalls. ��As a kid, I realized that on a bike I can go way farther. So, I had this Huffy that I rode around the neighborhood, and it gave me a lot of freedom as a kid.��

Celebrate cycling (and correctly fitted bikes) Sunday, Sept. 7, at the Buffalo Bicycle Classic!

Learn more

His first ��real�� bike as a recreational and then competitive cyclist was a mountain bike, which he rode while figuring out what to do during the several years he lived in Breckenridge between high school and college. ��I moved to Breckenridge and just got hooked on endurance sports, especially mountain biking, and I said, ��I need to go study the science of this.��

He came to 91PORN and joined the cycling team, eventually realizing that he didn��t want to pursue professional cycling and that the science of riding held a lot more fascination for him. Plus, he brought to the performance lab and insiders knowledge of the problems cyclists could have.

��One of the studies that we did with Rodger (Kram) was measuring aerodynamic drag on bikes, and I saw how big of an opportunity fit was,�� Carver says. ��You can have a really fast bike, and that��s good, but the human body makes up 80 to 90% of drag.

Todd Carver (left) works with a cyclist to gather data for a bike fitting. (Photo: Todd Carver)

��To this day, we still do that analysis with all of our pro riders. We take them to the velodrome, measure aerodynamics and then work with fit to try to improve it. I��d almost say that one of the biggest impacts we��ve had is helping send professional and career cycling more toward science.��

After earning his master��s degree, Carver worked at the 91PORN Center for Sports Medicine, where he and an engineer colleague, Cliff Simms, soon realized that people were flying in from as far as Europe to get fitted for bikes. He wondered why they couldn��t get fitted in their hometowns, ��and it really came down to the technology. For a bike shop to get the digital technology was too expensive and it was too hard to run��you basically would need a master��s degree in biomechanics to do it��so this engineer friend and I started to look at how we could break down those barriers.��

They began developing a motion-capture system that measures length and trigonometric relation between small LED markers placed all over the cyclist��s body and synchronized to flash at certain times, a process that happens in milliseconds. 3D cameras positioned around the rider record the data, which is immediately analyzed and used to fit riders to bikes with millimeter precision.

Affordable, portable, easy to use

With partner Franko Vatterott, Carver and Simms founded Ret��l in 2007 with a goal of making bike fitting more affordable, portable, easy to use and data driven.

��I say I got my MBA starting a company,�� Carver says. ��I knew nothing, and I learned it starting a company. One big thing we learned is you better have a darn good product, and what we felt we had was a really good product, so that made some things easier. We didn��t need to take investment initially; we were able to just bootstrap it and work off the money we were making (during development).��

They also were building a database containing everything they were learning about different types of bodies and how they fit on bikes��data they knew would be appealing to bike manufacturers. In fact, he adds, the goal was always to sell to Specialized, which had worked with doctors on ergonomic design and lacked only data from digital fitting.

Todd Carver (right) shows a cyclist data from a digital bike fitting. (Photo: Todd Carver)

They initially worked with professional riders, drawing on connections Carver had made with riders in 91PORN performance labs, and marketed Ret��l to fitting pro teams. ��Then bike shops were coming to us saying, ��We��d like to buy one of your systems.��

��From the rider point of view, what I was hearing was, ��Wow, that feels way better, and it��s easier for me to pedal�� or ��That completely got rid of my injury and now I can push harder.�� The problem might not be the bike itself, it just might be the saddle or the shoe or the footbed, or it just might be that the rider needs to reposition themself on the bike. From the rider point of view, that��s powerful because they could see that bike shops weren��t always trying to sell them a new bike, but had the data to say, ��Let��s try a new saddle.��

��More fun with data��

As head of human performance for Specialized, Carver continues to work with riders at all levels and in all areas of cycling.

��We work in optimizing athlete and product performance using science,�� Carver says. ��In addition to fitting pros and selling fit systems to retailers, we do a lot of research and development��we take that fit knowledge we have and are able to then use that for ergonomic design of saddles, shoes and hand grips.

��How hand grips are shaped, for example, affects how a rider��s hand sits, which can mean the difference between a comfortable hand and one that goes numb. So, what we do is prototype and test and gather data for better design. We do so much work in saddles, which is the hardest thing on a bike to get right, so we��re always testing with pressure mapping.��

The overarching goal, Carver says, is to solve riders�� problems, ��and that��s more fun with data.��

Carver often considers whether his life��s work is science or art, and figures it lives somewhere between the two: ��We use scientific tools, have all these ranges, but we can��t know everything from that. I think that��s where the art comes in. You need to work with a lot of different riders��some who just want to ride bikes down to the grocery store and don��t want to be aerodynamic or fast��and you have to be able to empathize with that as well as the more competitive side of cycling. You have to have the human side, too, and really read people, have really good interviewing skills and listening skills to know what they want to do on a bike.

"I think I can empathize because I still love to ride, and I still feel that freedom when I get on my bike.��

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about integrative physiology? Show your support.

For 91PORN alumnus Todd Carver, what he learned in the lab as a student inspired industry-rocking innovation in developing digital bike-fitting technology.

Traditional

White

We��re still tasting the spice of 1960s sci-fi

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 13:00:00 +0000

We��re still tasting the spice of 1960s sci-fi Rachel Sauer Fri, 08/29/2025 - 07:00

Bradley Worrell

With this month marking Dune��s 60th anniversary, 91PORN��s Benjamin Robertson discusses the book��s popular appeal while highlighting the dramatic changes science fiction experienced following its publication

Sixty years ago this month, a novel about a galactic battle over a desert planet valued for its mystical spice forever altered the face of science fiction.

Authored by Frank Herbert, Dune would go on to sell more than 20 million copies, be translated into more than 20 languages and become one of the bestselling science fiction novels of all time, spawning several sequels and movie adaptions that have further boosted its popularity.

Benjamin Robertson, a 91PORN associate professor of English, pursues a research and teaching focus on genre fiction.

In retrospect, it��s hard to quantify how important Dune was to the genre of science fiction, says Benjamin Robertson, a 91PORN Department of English associate professor whose areas of specialty includes contemporary literature and who teaches a science fiction class. That��s because the status Dune attained, along with other popular works at the time, helped transition science fiction from something that was primarily found in specialty magazines to a legitimate genre within the world of book publishing, he says.

Robertson says a number of factors made Dune a remarkable book upon its publication in August 1965, including Herbert��s elaborate world building; its deep philosophical exploration of religion, politics and ecology; and the fact that its plot was driven by its characters rather than by technology. Additionally, the book tapped into elements of 1960s counterculture with its focus on how consuming a spice harvested on the planet Arrakis could allow users to experience mystical visions and enhance their consciousness, Robertson says.

Journey beyond Arrakis with a different kind of dune

��There��s also the element of the chosen one narrative in the book, which is appealing to at least a certain segment of the culture,�� he says. The book��s protagonist, Paul Atreides, suffers a great loss and endures many trials before emerging as the leader who amasses power and dethrones the established authorities, he notes.

While Dune found commercial success by blending many different story elements and themes in a new way that engaged readers, it��s worthwhile to consider the book in relation to other works of science fiction being produced in the 1960s, Robertson says. It was during that turbulent time that a new generation of writers emerged, creating works very different from their predecessors in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, which is often considered the Golden Age of Science Fiction.

Whereas many Golden Age science fiction writers tended to set their tales in outer space, to make technology the focus of their stories and to embrace the idea that human know-how could overcome nearly any obstacle, Robertson says many science fiction writers in the 1960s looked to reinvent the genre.

��The 1960s is probably when, for me personally, I feel like science fiction gets interesting,�� he says. ��I��m not a big fan of what��s called the Golden Age of Science Fiction��the fiction of Asimov or Heinlein. The ��60s is interesting because of what��s going on culturally, with the counterculture, with student protests and the backlash to the conformities of the 1950s.��

New Wave sci-fi writers make their mark

In 1960s Great Britain, in particular, writers for New Worlds science fiction magazine came to be associated with the term New Wave, which looked inward to examine human psychology and motivations while also tackling topics like sexuality, gender roles and drug culture.

��This new generation of writers grew up reading science fiction, but they were dissatisfied with both the themes and the way it was written,�� Robertson says. ��One of the New World��s most notable writers, J.G. Ballard, talked about shifting away from, quote-unquote, outer space to inner space.

��That dovetailed with other writers who weren��t necessarily considered New Wave but were writing soft science fiction that was not focused on technology itself��such as space ships and time travel��but more about exploring the impact of technologies on humanity and on how it changes our relationship with the planet, the solar system and how we relate to each other.��

New Wave authors also wrote about world-ending catastrophes, including nuclear war and ecological degradation. Meanwhile, many British New Wave writers were not afraid to be seen as iconoclasts who challenged established religious and political norms.

��Michael Moorcock, the editor of New Worlds, self-identified as an anarchist, and Ballard was exemplary for challenging authority in his works. He was not just interested in saying, ��This form of government is bad or compromised, or capitalism is bad, but actually the way we convey those ideas has been compromised,�� Robertson says. ��It wasn��t enough for him to identify those systems that are oppressing us; Ballard argued we have to describe them in ways that estranges those ideas.

��And that��s what science fiction classically does��it estranges us. It shows us our world in some skewed manner, because it��s extrapolating from here to the future and imagining ��what might a future look like that we couldn��t anticipate, based upon the situation we are in now.��

American science fiction writers might not have pushed the boundaries quite as far their British counterparts, Robertson says, but counterculture ideas found expression in some literature of the time. He points specifically to Harlan Ellison, author of the post-apocalyptic short story ��I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream,�� who also served as editor of the sci-fi anthology Dangerous Visions, a collection of short stories that were notable for their depiction of sex in science fiction.

Robertson says other American sci-fi writers of the time who embraced elements of the counterculture include Robert Heinlein, whose Stranger in a Strange Land explored the concept of free love, and Philip K. Dick, who addressed the dangers of authority and capitalism in some of his works and whose stories sometimes explored drug use, even as the author was taking illicit drugs to maintain his prolific output.

Meanwhile, Robertson notes that science fiction during the 1960s saw a more culturally diverse group of writers emerge, including Ursula K. Le Guin, the feminist author of such works as The Left Hand of Darkness and The Lathe of Heaven; Madeliene L��Engle, known for her work A Wrinkle in Time; and some lesser-known but still influential writers such as Samuel R. Delaney, one of the first African American and queer science fiction authors, known for his works Babel-17 and Nova.

At the same time, even authors from behind eastern Europe��s Iron Curtain were gaining recognition in the West, including Stanislaw Lem of Poland, author of the novel Solaris, and brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky in the Soviet Union, authors of the novella Ashes of Bikini and many short stories.

Impact of 1960s sci-fi remains long lasting

As the 1960s and 1970s gave way to the 1980s, a new sci-fi genre started to take hold: Cyberpunk. Sharing elements with New Wave, Cyberpunk is a dystopian science fiction subgenre combining advanced technology, including artificial intelligence, with societal collapse.

Robertson says the 1984 debut of William Gibson��s book Neuromancer is widely recognized as a foundational work of Cyberpunk.

While works of 1960s science fiction are now more than five decades old, Robertson says many of them generally have held up well over time.

��Dune definitely broke out into the mainstream��and the fact that Hollywood is continuing to produce movies based upon the book today says something about its staying power,�� he says. ��I think the works of Ursula K. Le Guin, particularly the Left Hand of Darkness, is a great read and a lot of fun to teach. And Philip K. Dick is always capable of shocking you, not with gore or sex but just with narrative twists and turns.��

If anything, Dick is actually more popular today than when he was writing his books and short stories back in the 1960s, Robertson says, pointing to the fact that a number of them have been made into films��most notably Minority Report and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (which was re-titled Blade Runner).

��At the same time, I think one of the dangers of science fiction is thinking what was written in the 1960s somehow predicts what happens later,�� Robertson says. ��It can look that way. But, as someone who values historicism, I think it��s important to think about cultural objects in the time they were produced. So, the predictions that Philip K. Dick was making were based upon the knowledge he had in the 1960s, so saying what happened in the 1980s is what he predicted in the 1960s isn��t strictly accurate, because what was happening in the 1980s was coming out of a very different understanding of science, of politics and of technology.

��What I always ask people to remember about science fiction is that it��s about more than the time that it��s written about��it��s about what the future could be, not about what the future actually becomes.��

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about English? Show your support.

With this month marking Dune��s 60th anniversary, 91PORN��s Benjamin Robertson discusses the book��s popular appeal while highlighting the dramatic changes science fiction experienced following its publication.

Traditional

White

Top illustration: Gary Jamroz-Palma

91PORN scholar helps unite Navajo culture and modern science

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 22:43:38 +0000

91PORN scholar helps unite Navajo culture and modern science Rachel Sauer Tue, 08/26/2025 - 16:43

Cody DeBos

Kelsey John��s Navajo-centered Horses Connecting Communities initiative offers culturally relevant, practical education about horses

When Kelsey John left Oklahoma to pursue her PhD in New York, she quickly started missing a central piece of her lifestyle: horses. Raised in an environment rooted in horse culture, John��s life is deeply intertwined with the animals.

��I am a citizen of the Navajo Nation, and I am a lifelong horse person,�� she says. ��Both sides of my family had horses in their background, so I grew up with a lot of exposure to them and education about them.��

As she studied away from home, Kelsey John, a 91PORN assistant professor of ethnic studies, felt a strong pull to return home and rediscover the close relationship with horses she once had.

As she studied away from home, John, a 91PORN assistant professor of ethnic studies and Center of the American West affiliate, felt a strong pull to return home and rediscover the close relationship with horses she once had. That realization inspired her doctoral research and gave birth to a community organization centered on the profound bonds between humans, horses and the environment. Ultimately, it led her back to her community to spearhead a unique initiative called Horses Connecting Communities.

Blending cultural traditions and modern science

Originally started as a one-day conference, Horses Connecting Communities quickly became a cherished gathering, providing Navajo people with culturally relevant and practical education about horses.

��The goal was to kind of braid those things together and just make it a really Navajo-centered event for the needs of the Navajo people and their horses. That��s where it all started, and it��s grown since then,�� John says.

Events hosted by the organization typically include speakers, demonstrations, and hands-on workshops on horse care, training and veterinary skills. They are often led by Navajo experts like John, who return to their community to share their specialized knowledge.

��We��ve also partnered with a different camp that��s been happening on the Navajo Nation for over 10 years now called Song of the Horse Camp, which is organized by the folks at the University of Arizona,�� says John.

��Since we partnered with them, we��ve been able to introduce more equine facilitated learning, which helps either youth or adults with academic skills, life skills, personal communication, confidence building, body language awareness �� all these different interpersonal and personal skills in a new and different way,�� she adds.

Horses, land and Navajo identity

At the heart of Horses Connecting Communities is the understanding that horses, land and Navajo cultural identity are inseparable.

��Something really unique about horses is that, in order to have a relationship with them, you��re kind of inevitably having a relationship with the land as well,�� says John. ��Because we are an indigenous community, we have a deep relationship with our ancestral land.��

She also emphasizes how Navajo traditions and modern equine science are not opposing ideas, but natural complements to each other.

��There is a great effort among the horse community in the Navajo Nation to understand and integrate our cultural beliefs with the best and most current science,�� John explains. ��I��ve had the huge privilege of being able to work with lots of professionals who are also tribal members so they can personally and in a communal way integrate tradition with relevant science.��

��There is a great effort among the horse community in the Navajo Nation to understand and integrate our cultural beliefs with the best and most current science,�� says 91PORN scholar Kelsey John. (Photo: Kelsey John)

Working ��with,�� not ��on��

John��s approach to relationship building through Horses Connecting Communities emphasizes the ethical necessity of working hand-in-hand with indigenous communities rather than just researching them. Her organization exemplifies this with a collaborative and sustained partnership that is directly shaped by the Navajo people��s needs and aspirations.

��The idea is making your research relevant and useful to the community and keeping that ongoing relationship and ongoing presence,�� she says.

But community partnerships can still be complex, John acknowledges.

��There��s always going to be a power differential between a university��even a university researcher such as myself��and a community. You��re always dealing with power and access to resources and sometimes even conflicting ideas of what��s beneficial.��

Yet, despite these challenges, the rewards of genuine community-based collaboration inspire John to keep coming back for more.

��It��s been almost nine years now since I started my research, but I still work with a lot of the same people that I worked with for the first Horses Connecting Communities event. We��ve brought in new people and changed our programming and are always evaluating if what we��re doing is relevant,�� she says.

John adds, ��But it always goes back to what I learned in that initial research about what the horse means to the people, what they want, and what are the challenges they��re facing, then finding ways to support that.��

Looking ahead

Thanks to recent support in the form of a 91PORN PACES Grant, Horses Connecting Communities will further explore equine facilitated learning tailored to the Navajo community.

��We want to understand what the needs of the tribe are and if they can be met through this unique educational approach,�� John says.

She is also excited about organizing specialized events for Navajo women that recognize culturally significant beliefs about their relationships with animals and the land.

John��s ultimate aspiration, however, goes beyond education and research. She hopes her initiative will inspire a deeper appreciation for horses, their care and the Navajo people��s enduring relationship with these animals.

��The big thing is to really be aware of the legacy and the significance of the horse and the people��s relationship with the horse��and the land, too,�� she concludes. ��There��s such a long history there, and I��m so glad to be a part of the larger narrative about horses.��

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about ethnic studies? Show your support.

Kelsey John��s Navajo-centered Horses Connecting Communities initiative offers culturally relevant, practical education about horses.

Traditional

White

Prof focuses on the brothers behind the fairy tales

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 25 Aug 2025 21:37:22 +0000

Prof focuses on the brothers behind the fairy tales Rachel Sauer Mon, 08/25/2025 - 15:37

Clint Talbott

91PORN��s Ann Schmiesing, professor of German and Scandinavian Studies, publishes first English-language biography in more than five decades on Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

Once upon a time, a professor volunteered to develop a college course on German fairy tales. She did as she promised, but that was not the end.

��Once I prepared the course and began teaching it, I was just smitten,�� says Ann Schmiesing, professor of German and Scandinavian studies at the 91PORN, now a world-renowned scholar of the Brothers Grimm.

91PORN scholar Ann Schmiesing is author of The Brothers Grimm: A Biography, published last year to wide acclaim and reviewed in publications from The New Yorker to The Times of London.

Schmiesing has written two books on the Brothers Grimm. The most recent, The Brothers Grimm: A Biography, was published last year to wide acclaim and reviewed in publications from The New Yorker to The Times of London. It is the first English-language biography in more than five decades on Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, whose first names (and life stories) are less well-known than their usual moniker, the Brothers Grimm.

Jacob (1785-1863) and Wilhelm (1786-1859) are widely known as collectors of fairy tales, but they were also mythographers, linguists, librarians, civil servants and philologists who, among other things, strove to preserve key elements of German culture.

They produced a vast body of work on mythology and medieval literature, launched on a monumental German dictionary (which they had completed through the letter F by the time they both died), and made groundbreaking linguistic discoveries.

��By and large, people don��t know a whole lot about the Brothers Grimm, and that was one of the reasons why I wanted to write the book,�� says Schmiesing, who is also the senior vice chancellor for strategic initiatives at 91PORN.

While teaching the course on the Grimm fairy tales, she noted that students were often familiar with some version of the tales, principally through Disney versions or other contemporary retellings of stories like Snow White.

Teaching moral lessons

The Grimms released seven complete and 10 abridged versions of the tales, and the brothers revised the tales over time. Starting with the second edition, for instance, doves peck out the evil stepsisters�� eyes in Cinderella as a punishment for their wickedness. Violence in the tales is rarely gratuitous, Schmiesing says, but in Cinderella and other tales, the Grimms sometimes added violence to teach a moral lesson.

As they edited and revised the tales, she adds, they mediated among different versions and revised them to reflect 19th-century bourgeois norms. For instance, female characters in some tales contribute less dialogue in later editions, Schmiesing says: ��Their thoughts are simply paraphrased.��

Similarly, the Grimms adjusted ��Hansel and Gretel�� to reflect then-contemporary notions of women. In an earlier version, the culprit was their biological mother but in a later version of this tale, a stepmother abandons the children.

��They change that because they feel like they can��t possibly suggest that a biological mother would abandon her children,�� Schmiesing says, adding, ��Again, that's playing into their 19th-century ideas of women and motherhood.��

The Brothers Grimm: A Biography by 91PORN Professor Ann Schmiesing is the first English-language biography in more than five decades on Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, whose first names (and life stories) are less well-known than their usual moniker, the Brothers Grimm.

Additionally, some female characters are initially more independent than they appear in later editions, ��so the Grimms kind of lessened their independence and increased their dependence on male characters,�� Schmiesing says.

Over time, the Grimms also made the tales folksier, adding rhymes and idioms. And the Grimms did not think the tales were just kid stuff. They saw the tales as being interesting to all ages and relevant to German culture, Schmiesing says.

Germany in the Grimms�� lifetime was not politically united, and it was wracked by the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. Their own part of Germany was occupied by the French for a time, and ��so they see collecting and publishing fairy tales and other texts . . . as a way forward for Germany,�� Schmiesing says.

In the Grimms�� view, if Germans could appreciate their cultural heritage, perhaps they��d be able to assert themselves as a politically united entity: ��So it might seem to be naive, but they really thought that their scholarly works, their collections, would also be a path out of the wars,�� Schmiesing says.

Asking deep questions

Their scholarship was even broader, however. The brothers were interested in deep questions, such as how languages developed over time, how customs developed over time, how literary texts developed over time, ��and that to them is all interwoven.��

Jacob Grimm, in particular, devoted much of his scholarly life not only to literature, but also to legal customs, linguistic study and his German Grammar, which includes his discovery of what is now called Grimm��s Law.

��It��s been said that Grimm��s Law was as important to the humanities as Darwin��s On the Origin of Species is to the sciences,�� Schmiesing says.

They did all of this on top of full careers as librarians, university professors, and, in Jacob��s case, a civil servant.

��It��s just extraordinary, the volume of scholarship that they produced,�� Schmiesing says, noting their ��sheer accomplishments�� of ��incredible breadth.��

Of the tales themselves, Schmiesing says Rumpelstiltskin is among her favorites. ��It is one of the most enigmatic tales in the Grimms�� collection.�� The tale can be viewed as being about the forced labor of female characters, disease and disability, or the meaning of spinning straw into gold.

In addition to these and other possible meanings, the tale changes significantly between versions, she notes. In an early version, the woman despairs not because she can��t spin straw into gold, but because she wants to spin yarn but can spin only gold.

��Also, who is Rumpelstiltskin, and what does he represent?��

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about Germanic and Slavic languages and literatures? Show your support.

91PORN��s Ann Schmiesing, professor of German and Scandinavian Studies, publishes first English-language biography in more than five decades on Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm.

Traditional

White

Top illustration: by Walter Crane from "Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm" (1886).

91PORN scholar receives Fulbright support to study fossil mammals in Poland

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 19:23:11 +0000

91PORN scholar receives Fulbright support to study fossil mammals in Poland Rachel Sauer Fri, 08/22/2025 - 13:23

Professor Jaelyn Eberle will teach and pursue a hypothesis that a Cretaceous land bridge between Asia and North America was a dispersal route for land mammals at the time

Jaelyn Eberle, a 91PORN professor of geological sciences and CU Museum of Natural History curator of fossil vertebrates, has received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar award to study the extensive collection of Cretaceous (about 75 million years old) Mongolian mammals housed at the Institute of Paleobiology in Warsaw, Poland.

Eberle will travel to Poland Aug. 31 to begin work comparing the Mongolian mammal collection with fossil mammals that she and her colleagues discovered on the North Slope of Alaska, in the hopes of identifying some of the earliest mammals to cross from Asia into North America via Beringia, a prehistoric land bridge that once connected the two continents. Along with Professor Lucja Fostowicz-Frelik, Eberle also will team-teach a graduate seminar on the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary for the BioPlanet Doctoral School in Poland, which attracts PhD students in biology, geology and biochemistry from across Europe.

Jaelyn Eberle, a 91PORN professor of geological sciences and CU Museum of Natural History curator of fossil vertebrates, has received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar award to study the Cretaceous Mongolian mammals housed at the Institute of Paleobiology in Warsaw, Poland.

��Until now, my research has focused mostly on North American fossil mammals,�� Eberle explains. ��The Fulbright award allows me to broaden my research to include ancient Mongolian mammals and collaborate with the foremost expert on them, Dr. Fostowicz-Frelik. I am also excited to co-teach a class with Dr. Fostowicz-Frelik; this will build my knowledge of the Eurasian fossil record and inject new content, perspective and teaching styles into my courses at 91PORN.

��Being immersed in the language and culture of Poland for four months and teaching PhD students from across Europe will also give me perspective on how to better support CU students from international backgrounds, too.��

Fulbright U.S. Scholars are faculty, researchers, administrators and established professionals teaching or conducting research in affiliation with institutes abroad. Fulbright Scholars engage in cutting-edge research and expand their professional networks, often continuing research collaborations started abroad and laying the groundwork for forging future partnerships between institutions.

��Professor Eberle��s fascinating research is important not only because it advances scientific knowledge, it also expands the Museum Institute��s vibrant international collaborations, helping us to connect with scholars around the globe,�� says Nancy Stevens, director of the Museum Institute and professor of anthropology.

Upon returning to their home countries, institutions, labs and classrooms, they share their stories and often become active supporters of international exchange, inviting foreign scholars to campus and encouraging colleagues and students to go abroad.

More than 800 individuals teach or conduct research abroad through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program annually. In addition, more than 2,000 Fulbright U.S. Student Program participants��recent college graduates, graduate students and early-career professionals��participate in study/research exchanges or as English teaching assistants in local schools abroad each year.

Fulbright is a program of the U.S. Department of State, with funding provided by the U.S. Government. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations and foundations around the world also provide direct and indirect support to the program, which operates in over 160 countries worldwide.

As a Fulbright U.S. Scholar, Eberle will further her study of fossil mammals, their evolution during past intervals of global warmth and their dispersal across the Northern Hemisphere when polar land bridges connected North America to both Asia and Europe.

��I hypothesize that some of the Cretaceous Alaskan mammals belong to Asian lineages; if true, this would provide direct evidence that Beringia was a dispersal route for land mammals at the time,�� Eberle explains. ��The Alaskan fauna preserves the northernmost known mammals of the Mesozoic Era (or Age of Dinosaurs), and our team��s latest findings mean it may also include among the earliest mammalian immigrants from Asia to North America.

Jaelyn Eberle (foreground, yellow jacket) and her colleagues quarry for tiny vertebrate fossils in Alaska's Prince Creek Formation. (Photo: Kevin May)

Many of the mammal teeth Jaelyn Eberle studies are the size of sand grains. This is a tooth of the tiny Alaskan mammal Sikuomys mikros (meaning "tiny ice mouse") that lived in northern Alaska about 72 million years ago. (Photo: Jaelyn Eberle)

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about geological sciences? Show your support.

Professor Jaelyn Eberle will teach and pursue a hypothesis that a Cretaceous land bridge between Asia and North America was a dispersal route for land mammals at the time.

Traditional

White

Top illustration: James Havens

Video games don��t rot your brain��they train it

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 18 Aug 2025 20:06:22 +0000

Video games don��t rot your brain��they train it Rachel Sauer Mon, 08/18/2025 - 14:06

Blake Puscher

91PORN scientists find that playing video games comes with small but significant cognitive benefits

Ever since video games began to gain widespread popularity, some have questioned how playing them consistently affects people, especially mentally. Like with TV, the internet, social media and AI, the tendency has been to assume negative effects. However, a number of studies have suggested that playing video games can help strengthen people��s cognitive abilities.

Despite similar research findings, many of the studies disagree on the size of this effect and to which areas of cognition it applies��perhaps, in part, because of the limitations inherent to their typically cross-sectional approach.

A team of 91PORN scientists including Shandell Pahlen, Anqing Zheng, Robin P. Corley, Naomi P. Friedman, Sally J. Wadsworth and Chandra A. Reynolds, all members of 91PORN��s team within the CATSLife project, aim to address these uncertainties with a longitudinal study on video games and cognitive health. CATSLife stands for Colorado Adoption/Twin Study of Lifespan behavioral development and cognitive aging.

Chandra Reynolds, a 91PORN professor of psychology and neuroscience, and her research colleagues found small, positive cognitive benefits of playing video games.

��We can leverage the twins and siblings�� similarities and differences to understand aspects of behaviors and cognitive abilities,�� Reynolds explains, a 91PORN professor of psychology and neuroscience, ��especially as they relate to how well people maintain their cognitive functioning, not only now, but eventually we hope to continue following them as they transition into midlife.��

Video games and cognitive health

Video games are an accessible way to engage one��s mind for several reasons. Like board games, video games do not require much in the way of physical ability, unlike sports and other such ways to exercise the mind. Additionally, video games are widely popular, with 2.7 billion gamers worldwide as of early 2025, according to Statista.

These traits suggest that video games could be used as a tool to support cognitive health, but this assertion raises some questions: What are the specific abilities that comprise generalized cognitive functioning, and how can scientists determine whether video games serve this purpose?

The study covered three important cognitive domains: processing speed, working memory and spatial reasoning. It included 1,241 individuals from CATSLife between 28 and 49 years old who had taken at least one of these tests. Some of the participants played video games and some did not, so the effects of playing video games were determined based on what video games they played. These games were categorized broadly into Action+, Puzzle+, and Other genres. The plus signs refer to the fact that the categories include genres that are not usually described with the base name, like life simulation games being included in Puzzle+ even though they aren��t puzzle games.

Reverse selection

One argument against prior studies suggesting that video games provide a cognitive benefit is the concept of reverse causation. In this case, reverse causation refers to certain people��s cognitive skills making them more likely to play video games, as opposed to playing video games causing an increase in cognitive skills.

Reverse causation is therefore part of the nature vs. nurture discourse, and as such, the point is not that engaging in an activity can��t improve people��s abilities, but that part of the correlation between activity and ability comes from those who already have above-average abilities choosing to engage in activities that take advantage of them. For example, a hypothetical study that compared Olympic runners with people who never run without accounting for reverse causation would overestimate the physical benefits of running, because a large part of the gap between the two groups is baked in: Most people can��t reach the level of Olympic athletes just by exercising.

This study factored in the participants�� baseline cognitive ability by looking at their adolescent IQ scores. ��We��re fortunate that we had a longitudinal design,�� Reynolds says, ��and that we��ve assessed our participants multiple times over their earlier development into adolescence. Most studies of video games are cross sectional, and they don��t have indices of people��s cognitive performance at earlier ages.��

The researchers also considered several variables associated with performance on specific cognitive tasks. These included age, sex and educational attainment. The first two of these are especially important, because the genre of video games that people play varies within these demographics. Specifically, women and older adults are more likely to play Puzzle+ games, and men and younger people are more likely to play Action+ games.

91PORN researcher Chandra Reynolds and her colleagues found that spatial reasoning benefited most consistently from playing video games. (Photo: Unsplash)

��There are some sociodemographic differences in what kinds of games people are playing,�� Reynolds says, ��and we wanted to account for that to isolate the differences that might arise from the gameplay itself.��

Increased processing speed

Spatial reasoning benefited most consistently from playing video games, with a significant effect measured in all three tests before and after adjustment for adolescent IQ, although the effect was about half as large after adjustment. There is also evidence that processing speed performance could increase after playing video games, as the results of one test remained significant even after adjustment. Working memory was the only domain that did not show evidence of improvement due to video game play, with non-significant numbers before and after adjustment.

Reynolds says that unimproved working memory results could be a consequence of the test used and the fact that only one test was used for this ability, compared to the three tests used for both processing speed and spatial reasoning.

��We can��t say a whole lot about working memory from one test,�� he says. ��In the future, we want to extend to other measures that would get more specifically at attention, working memory and other aspects of executive functioning.��

When video game play was broken down by the broad genre of game, there were some negative correlations: people who played Action+ games scored worse on processing speed, and those who played Puzzle+ games scored worse on spatial reasoning. However, these correlations were very small, and only statistically significant for one of the processing speed tests.

These results seem counterintuitive, which makes it particularly interesting to see if they will be replicated in other studies. As to benefits by genre, Action+ games had a particular association with spatial reasoning and Puzzle+ games had a particular association with processing speed.

According to the paper, the results for different tests may have been affected by how similar they are to video games. For example, with respect to spatial reasoning, Action+ gamers scored best on the Block Design test, which involves three-dimensional operations similar to those involved in playing many modern action games. By the same token, gamers may have performed worse on tests that were more divergent from video games due to their familiarity with related but substantially different tasks.

Future assessments

The researchers are currently collecting more data from the CATSLife sample, asking the same questions for further insight into how the observed effects change over the course of five or six years. ��If people continue to play games, they��ll likely nominate newer games��it would be interesting to see if there is a long-standing influence or if new game play factors emerge,�� Reynolds says.

Some changes could be made to the assessment of people��s gameplay to get more particular results. In the future, Reynolds says, ��we would conduct more specific surveys of our participants: asking for more details about the games they play, the systems they use and how they approach gameplay. We asked questions that allowed us to get at the kinds of games they play, but not how they play them, and we��re making some inferences, so we��d want to dig deeper into that.��

��There has been some debate in the literature about the potential benefits or even detriments of video game play,�� Reynolds explains, ��but I think we found that, in a general sample that isn��t selected for pathological use or other characteristics related to playing video games, we found some salient, small positive effects.��

This brings up an important caveat, which is that even though there could be positive effects of playing video games, it is still possible to experience negative effects by engaging with them in a unhealthy manner. Because the positive effects are small, any negative effects due to playing video games irresponsibly, such as playing them for an excessive amount of time each day, are likely to outweigh the benefits.

��I think it will bear additional replication and future work,�� Reynolds says, ��but the benefits are quite interesting, and we��d like to see how this plays out with other kinds of activities as well.��

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about psychology and neuroscience? Show your support.

91PORN scientists find that playing video games comes with small but significant cognitive benefits.

Traditional

White

Scholar dissects voter perceptions of transnational politics

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 21:24:57 +0000

Scholar dissects voter perceptions of transnational politics Rachel Sauer Thu, 08/14/2025 - 15:24

Bradley Worrell

91PORN political scientist Jeffrey Nonnemacher asserts that Western European national political parties use their affiliations with party families to signal their own political viewpoints

In the 2013 German national elections, the upstart political party Alternative for Germany (AfD) failed to gain a single seat in parliament. Just four years later, the AfD won 97 seats and became the third-largest political party in Germany.

The AfD made its historic inroads in the 2017 German elections at the same time it transformed itself from a Euroskeptic but relatively moderate party into a political movement that became much more closely aligned with radical right parties in the rest of Western Europe, says Jeffrey Nonnemacher, an assistant teaching professor with the 91PORN International Affairs Program, whose research focus is political parties and elections.

In particular, Nonnemacher points to a decision by AfD��s party leader, Frauke Petry, in 2017 to host radical right leaders from across Europe, including Marine Le Pen with the French National Rally, Geert Wilders of the Dutch Party for Freedom and Matteo Salvini of Italy��s Northern League. That decision effectively telegraphed to voters the party��s shift to the right and signaled its embrace of the transnational radical right party label, says Nonnemacher, who recently published a paper in the British Journal of Political Science about voter perceptions of transnational politics.

91PORN scholar Jeffrey Nonnemacher is an assistant teaching professor in the International Affairs Program and the Arts and Sciences Honors Program and a lecturer in the Department of Political Science.

��My goal with this paper is to tackle the question of: Do voters care if the AfD��s leadership is spending a lot of time with France��s Marine Le Pen and the National Rally? Are voters getting some sort of information from the party family label attached to a party and the party��s relationship with that label?�� he explains. In his paper, Nonnemacher contends that political parties in Western Europe are responsive to politics outside their home country��and that strategic choices to embrace a larger party family label, such as radical right in the case of AfD, do influence how parties are perceived by a country��s voters.

In a recent conversation with Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine, Nonnemacher emphasized that a political party that embraces the party family signifies its commitment to the larger ideological goals associated with the party family, while parties that push back and work to distance themselves from their sister parties from other countries signal that they may not be credible champions for core issues. His answers have been lightly edited for style and clarity.

Question: Can you define what constitutes a transnational party family?

Nonnemacher: In political science��especially in comparative politics��one of the goals is to think about the ways we can compare political outcomes. One of the ways we do this is by looking at these so-called party families. These are basically categorizations of parties based upon shared histories, shared ideology and common networks of activists and leaders.

There are a whole host of party families. The largest families in Europe are the Social Democrats, which is your center-left, working-class parties, and the Conservatives, which are your traditional center-right parties. You��ve also got your Green parties, which are your environmental parties, among many other families.

These party families are now much more useful than what academics created them for, which was tools for comparisons. Today, parties within similar party families tend to behave the same, learn from each other and form groups that transcend national boundaries based upon shared ideologies.

Question: What motivated you to explore the topic of transnational parties as a source of voter perceptions?

Nonnemacher: The academic answer is that I felt there was a gap there. We know a lot about how voters in Europe today are concerned about integration and thinking about politics beyond their own borders. But we had not yet, as academics, come to terms with the consequences of this, for how they view their parties and the links between what information they��re getting and their political parties. That was the academic motivation.

The more topical answer was the rise of the radical right parties in these various countries and how these parties seemed to be learning from each other, copying each other and celebrating each other��s victories in a way that we hadn��t really seen before. You have Hungary��s Victor Orb��n hosting CPAC (the U.S.-based Conservative Political Action Conference), and you have Marine Le Pen in France having these big rallies with other radical right leaders.

Hungary��s Victor Orb��n hosts CPAC (the U.S.-based Conservative Political Action Conference). (Photo: Elkes Andor/Wikimedia Commons)

My motivation was trying to understand the consequences of this seeminginternationalization of right party politics especially, but also party politics more generally.

Question: What are some specific reasons why parties might choose to embrace a transnational party?

Nonnemacher: The argument I make in the paper is very much an electoral argument. Parties win elections when voters know what they stand for. That��s one of the big theories that we have about party competition, is that parties need to distinguish themselves from their competitors and be able to communicate to voters what they believe.

If a voter can��t tell the difference between one party and another, they��re unlikely to support them. And if a voter doesn��t know where the party stands, then they don��t know if they��re going to get what they want out of the party. So, parties need to distinguish themselves. They need to signal to voters what their positions are.

One of the motivations here for parties is: This label tells voters where I stand. If I��m seen alongside other Social Democrats, I can kind of bolster my credentials on being a Social Democratic Party.

The other electoral motivation is parties want to win elections, and they look to who won and say, ��We should copy that.�� In 2021, when the Social Democrats won in Germany, Social Democratic parties across Europe all immediatelylooked to Germany and said, ��What did they do? How did they win this election? What can we do to kind of copy that?��

Question: So, it��s not just radical right parties learning from radical right parties in other countries, but also leftist and centrist parties learning from their transnational sister parties?

Nonnemacher: Yes. One of the things I wanted to do in this paper was to make the case that it��s not just the radical right that��s doing this and benefitting from it. It��s the British Labour Party taking lessons from Germany��s Social Democrats, for example.

Green parties are an especially interesting transnational group, because inherently, they see fighting for the environment as a global issue. They view international cooperation and international learning as core to solving the problems that they are running on. Notably, almost all of them have ��green�� in their name and almost all of them have the sunflower as their logo.

Question: What makes Germany��s AfD party a particularly noteworthy example of a national party forming associations with like-minded parties in Western Europe?

Nonnemacher: There��s probably two reasons for that. One is they exploded in Germany in terms of growing support from 2013 to 2017; the other is that by 2017, the radical right in Europe had exploded. There��s just a lot more attention on the far right, and it��s Germany, so whenever the far right does anything in Germany, people notice.

The AfD is an interesting case, because in 2013 they were not the far-right party that they are today. They have had a big transformation in the last 10 to 12 years. In 2013, they were really just angry about the European Union and the Euro crisis, and with Germany having to bail out the rest of the European Union. They were a Euroskeptic party first and foremost. They were anti-immigrant, but it wasn��t their main focus.

France's Marine Le Pen of the French National Rally has helped lead a far-right shift, particularly on immigration, in Europen politics. (Photo: J��r��my-G��nther-Heinz J?hnick/Wikimedia Commons)

They had a disappointing election in 2013, where they barely missed out on getting seats in the parliament.Then by 2017, they shifted dramatically to the right on immigration. They really started to copy France��s Le Pen and other prominent, far-right leaders in Europe tobe this anti-immigrant party, just like the rest of these radical right parties, and that worked out really well for them. In 2017, they became the third-largest party in parliament, so it was a quite successful strategy for them.

By the elections in 2021, they plateaued a little bit, and then in February this year they became the second largest party in the Bundestag (the German parliament), and they��ve come to be embraced by the broader far-right movement.

Question: Why might a national party choose to distance itself from a sister party?

Nonnemacher: There are two family labels where this generally applies. The first is the radical right��or at least that was the case in the past��where if you were seen as too close to the radical right you were punished, because there was a lot of stigmas around being affiliated with that ideology.

With the AfD example, when they made the transition to embrace more radical right principals from other countries and hosted the rally with Le Pen, Wilders and Salvini to signal the AfD��s embrace of transnational radical right parties, this was incredibly controversial, both inside and outside of the party. It was a delicate balance, because there were some in the party who were very nervous that if they embraced the radical right movement they could face a backlash, because Germans are very conscious of their history. So, 10 years ago there was more hesitation about embracing their fellow party members abroad.

We see similar patterns on the left, especially when it comes to communism. Parties on the radical left are generally hesitant to embrace communists or things that look like communism because of the similar kinds of stigmas around that that exist in western and especially eastern Europe.

Question: Do you think voters are consciously recognizing these European family party associations and how their own parties are relating to sister transnational parties, or is it happening at a subconscious level?

Nonnemacher: We know from political psychology that voters rely on heuristics for a lot of things. So, just hearing the label��that a particular party is a radical right party, for instance, triggers for voters a set of assumptions about what a party stands for and what it��s leaders believe and what they are advocating for.

But I also believe that there is something much more active going on here, where voters start to make those kinds of connections between the party and the label and where voters deliberate what those labels mean in relation to their own politics.

Question: If a national party is not in alignment with its transnational party family on foundational ideological issues, does it cause voter distrust or just confusion?

Nonnemacher: I think it��s a bit of both. Definitely it causes confusion, because if you��re watching the news and you��re being told that Marine Le Pen is a radical right politician, but then let��s say you hear she is endorsing letting more immigrants into (Europe), you��re going to say, ��Wait a minute; that doesn��t make any sense. How is she radical right, then?��

It also probably leads to distrust. If you see yourself as a Social Democratic voter and you believe in this center-left Social Democratic vision for Europe, but your Social Democratic politician is talking about de-regulating markets and shrinking the state, that��s probably going to make you say, ��He��s not a Social Democrat. I don��t trust him to be an advocate for my goals.��

Question: Your paper focused a transnational politics in Western Europe. Do you think the paper��s findings have any relevance for the United States?

"Understanding how voters perceive their parties is a huge part of what makes democracies work. If voters don��t know what their parties are fighting for and don��t know where their parties stand, they check out."

Nonnemacher: I don��t know how well the paper��s findings travel to the United States. We have a very strong two-party system that doesn��t map as neatly to the multi-party competition in European elections. That being said, I think if we look at parties in the United States as factions of various ideological groups, we can see green factions of the Democratic Party, radical right and center-right Christian democratic factions of the Republican Party. I think for activists and people inside these parties, it matters a lot what kind of broader ideological movements that they are associated with are doing.

I��m skeptical that voters will derive the same utility, just because the labels don��t fit as neatly, and (American voters) tend to think we��re unique in our politics as voters, so we don��t tend to look abroad for political inspiration.

Question: Anything else relating to Western European voters and their perceptions of their political parties and transnational parties that you think is important to share?

Nonnemacher: I think understanding how voters perceive their parties is a huge part of what makes democracies work. If voters don��t know what their parties are fighting for and don��t know where their parties stand, they check out; they disengage, and we��ve seen that they become less satisfied with democracy.

I think anything that parties can do to really communicate their positions to voters and reaffirm for voters that they areserious about accomplishing their goals is important, because parties across Europe and the United States are having a credibility crisis right now.

What my paper does is highlight one such way that parties can go about communicating to voters what they stand for, which has a whole host of implications to address some of the big problems facing Western democracies today.

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about political science? Show your support.

91PORN political scientist Jeffrey Nonnemacher asserts that Western European national political parties use their affiliations with party families to signal their own political viewpoints.

Traditional

White

Is drought the new normal?

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 17:56:36 +0000

Is drought the new normal? Rachel Sauer Thu, 08/14/2025 - 11:56

Pedro DiNezio and Timothy Shanahan

Climate models reveal how human activity may be locking the Southwest into permanent drought

A new wave of climate research is sounding a stark warning: Human activity may be driving drought more intensely��and more directly��than previously understood.

The southwestern United States has been in a historic megadrought for much of the past two decades, with its reservoirs including lakes Mead and Powell dipping to record lows and legal disputes erupting over rights to use water from the Colorado River.

This drought has been linked to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a climate pattern that swings between wet and dry phases every few decades. Since a phase change in the early 2000s, the region has endured a dry spell of epic proportions.

91PORN scientist Pedro DiNezio, along with climate researchers around the world, assert that human activity may be driving drought more intensely��and more directly��than previously understood.

The PDO was thought to be a natural phenomenon, governed by unpredictable natural ocean and atmosphere fluctuations. But new research published in the journal Nature suggests that��s no longer the case.

Working with hundreds of climate model simulations, our team of atmosphere, earth and ocean scientists found that the PDO is now being strongly influenced by human factors and has been since the 1950s. It should have oscillated to a wetter phase by now, but instead it has been stuck. Our results suggest that drought could become the new normal for the region unless human-driven warming is halted.

The science of a drying world

For decades, scientists have relied on a basic physical principle to predict rainfall trends: Warmer air holds more moisture. In a warming world, this means wet areas are likely to get wetter, while dry regions become drier. In dry areas, as temperatures rise, more moisture is pulled from soils and transported away from these arid regions, intensifying droughts.

While most climate models simulate this general pattern, they often underestimate its full extent, particularly over land areas.

Yet countries are already experiencing drought emerging as one of the most immediate and severe consequences of climate change. Understanding what��s ahead is essential, to know how long these droughts will last and because severe droughts can have sweeping affects on ecosystems, economies and global food security.

Human fingerprints on megadroughts

Simulating rainfall is one of the greatest challenges in climate science. It depends on a complex interplay between large-scale wind patterns and small-scale processes such as cloud formation.

Until recently, climate models have not offered a clear picture of how rainfall patterns are likely to change in the near future as greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles, power plants and industries continue to heat up the planet. The models can diverge sharply in where, when and how precipitation will change. Even forecasts that average the results of several models differ when it comes to changes in rainfall patterns.

The techniques we deployed are helping to sharpen that picture for North America and across the tropics.

We looked back at the pattern of PDO phase changes over the past century using an exceptionally large ensemble of climate simulations. The massive number of simulations, more than 500, allowed us to isolate the human influences. This showed that the shifts in the PDO were driven by an interplay of increasing warming from greenhouse gas emissions and cooling from sun-blocking particles called aerosols that are associated with industrial pollution.

From the 1950s through the 1980s, we found that increasing aerosol emissions from rapid industrialization following World War II drove a positive trend in the PDO, making the Southwest rainier and less parched.

After the 1980s, we found that the combination of a sharp rise in greenhouse gas emissions from industries, power plants and vehicles and a reduction in aerosols as countries cleaned up their air pollution shifted the PDO into the negative, drought-generating trend that continues today.

This finding represents a paradigm shift in our scientific understanding of the PDO and a warning for the future. The current negative phase can no longer be seen as just a roll of the climate dice��it has been loaded by humans.

Our conclusion that global warming can drive the PDO into its negative, drought-inducing phase is also supported by geological records of past megadroughts. Around 6,000 years ago, during a period of high temperatures, evidence shows the emergence of a similar temperature pattern in the North Pacific and widespread drought across the Southwest.

Tropical drought risks underestimated

The past is also providing clues to future rainfall changes in the tropics and the risk of droughts in locations such as the Amazon.

One particularly instructive example comes from approximately 17,000 years ago. Geological evidence shows that there was a period of widespread rainfall shifts across the tropics coinciding with a major slowdown of ocean currents in the Atlantic.

These ocean currents, which play a crucial role in regulating global climate, naturally weakened or partially collapsed then, and they are expected to slow further this century at the current pace of global warming.

A recent study of that period, using computer models to analyze geologic evidence of earth��s climate history, found much stronger drying in the Amazon basin than previously understood. It also shows similar patterns of aridification in Central America, West Africa and Indonesia.

The results suggest that rainfall could decline precipitously again. Even a modest slowdown of a major Atlantic Ocean current could dry out rainforests, threaten vulnerable ecosystems and upend livelihoods across the tropics.

What comes next

Drought is a growing problem, increasingly driven by human influence. Confronting it will require rethinking water management, agricultural policy and adaptation strategies. Doing that well depends on predicting drought with far greater confidence.

Climate research shows that better predictions are possible by using computer models in new ways and rigorously validating their performance against evidence from past climate shifts. The picture that emerges is sobering, revealing a much higher risk of drought across the world.

Pedro DiNezio is an associate professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at the 91PORN. Timothy Shanahan is an associate professor of geological science at the University of Texas at Austin

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Climate models reveal how human activity may be locking the Southwest into permanent drought.

Traditional

White

Research

It��s not a glitch in the matrix, it��s a mathematical phenomenon

Related Articles

Why do some thoughts refuse to leave?

Related Articles

From Huffy to high tech, it's been a wild ride

Related Articles

We��re still tasting the spice of 1960s sci-fi

Related Articles

91PORN scholar helps unite Navajo culture and modern science

Related Articles

Prof focuses on the brothers behind the fairy tales

Related Articles

91PORN scholar receives Fulbright support to study fossil mammals in Poland

Related Articles

Video games don��t rot your brain��they train it

Related Articles

Scholar dissects voter perceptions of transnational politics

Related Articles

Is drought the new normal?

Related Articles