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In his language to diplomats and about matters of international concern, Pope Leo is notably good at articulating and reaffirming the principles that Catholics insist must guide decision-making, without getting down into the conclusions at a contestable level. The way he speaks and his presence could make it easier to discuss such sensitive topics. There were times when Pope Francis would talk off the cuff and give exaggerated responses, which would sometimes cause [the Vatican] to have to backtrack. With Leo, it's always careful. I think he sees his job to be a model of deliberation, care and unequivocal commitment to first principles that everybody should live by.

Pope Leo XIII was known as the "Pope of the East." He was actually listening to many of the patriarchs at the time who were opposed to a lot of the colonization that was happening—and Latinization. So, in my mind, it's notable that one of Pope Leo XIV's first addresses was to the Eastern Catholic Churches and that his first papal visit was to celebrate the 1700th anniversary of Nicaea [an ecumenical council that was among the first efforts to attain theological consensus among Christians]. To me, it signals his recognition of the concentric circles of unity that are needed. First of all, we Catholics have to figure out our own unity. But then what does it mean to be in right relationship with Churches that have equal dignity in terms of their apostolic heritage and have drifted away for historical reasons? I think Pope Leo XIV is trying to listen to the cry of our generation, and younger generations, and help us all discern what is the right response.

For a long time, because the Church has been run in Italian and the pope speaks Italian, there has been a kind of implicit sense that Italians own the Church and that all other expressions of Catholicism are not the "real thing." Pope Leo XIV brings this sense of the universal Church that is much needed, and his ability to speak English, Spanish, French and Italian emphasizes that. I think one of the reasons that he was chosen as pope is because of his global exposure and global understanding, not just from his time spent in Peru but also from his experience as Prior General of the Order of Saint Augustine. He traveled to many different places in this role and gained an understanding of the different cultures that are part of the body of Christ and of the Church, and the different voices that exist and challenge us to think differently.

CaptionResizeWrap TextRemoveSupport for, and trust in, public health is at a nadir. Recent accomplishments include the rapid development and approval of a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine, effective mpox response, declines in opioid overdose deaths through harm reduction, and evidence-based public health initiatives addressing root causes of gun violence. Despite these initiatives, which have significantly reduced the population-level impact of injury and illness, perceived missteps in the management of COVID-19, pervasive mis- and disinformation, increasing public distrust, and a lack of financial support have contributed to the deterioration of public health’s ability to respond to disasters and emergencies. The impact of false narratives and disinvestments interrupt the public health workforce pipeline, denying students opportunities to be trained for and participate in public health emergency preparedness activities. In 2003, I began my career as a disaster epidemiologist conducting household interviews for rapid needs assessments being conducted by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the N.C. Division of Public Health, and the University of North Carolina following Hurricane Isabel.For more than two decades, I deployed with students in partnership with local, state, and federal public health agencies to respond to disasters and collect data that contributed to both the immediate and long-term mitigation of the negative health impacts of disasters.This work, conducted in communities across the United States, is only possible because of a community’s trust in public health agencies and individuals’ willingness to share their postdisaster needs with our interview teams, which typically include a public health student and a local resident.The collection of perishable data in postdisaster contexts is challenging regardless of circumstance, and alterations have been made over time to ensure better representation of pregnant women, migrant workers, and rural populations in these postdisaster assessments. Yet, these assessments would not be possible at all without trusted connections between governmental agencies, academic public health, and disaster-affected communities.Politicization threatens our ability to respondPoliticization of disaster response and disaster assistance, and the mis- and disinformation that has now become prevalent around it, make it more difficult to collect these data. Following Hurricane Helene, one of my public health students at the University of Delaware worked with the western North Carolina nonprofit Sustaining Essential and Rural Community Healthcare to conduct key informant interviews and a Community Assessment for Public Health Emergency Response community survey. Both officials and residents reported that misinformation took time and attention away from response activities and disinformation led residents to distrust the response and recovery.After the pandemic, we have a dramatically under-resourced public health preparedness and response system, even in the face of more frequent and severe disasters and public health emergencies. These challenges will continue to mount as the Trump administration dismantles not only public health but also science more broadly. If the administration continues with their stated intent to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research, this will further limit our ability to understand the human health impacts of extreme weather and weather-related hazards associated with climate change. This comes after significant damage to other federal agencies, including the CDC, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, all of whom monitor and collect data on disasters caused by natural, biological, and technological or industrial hazards and risks.A weakened workforce pipelineWith the rapidly changing landscape, students are learning about “how things used to be,” with an asterisk next to almost all federal disaster and public health policies and legal frameworks noting that the material could be outdated quickly. However, it is important that students are aware of the mechanisms and functionalities that have existed before this most recent political upheaval. For new public health professionals to help build back programs in more sustainable and resilient ways, it is vital that they have a comprehensive understanding of the policies that were dismantled, as well as their strengths and weaknesses. However, limited job opportunities and ongoing uncertainty will steer this generation of public health students away from governmental public health careers, leaving a long-term deficit of expertise.The difference between an emergency and a disaster is that in an emergency, actions can be taken to avoid a disaster, which exceeds the capacity of an impacted community. The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA’s) workforce is 20% smaller under the Trump administration, and mitigation grants through the Flood Mitigation Assistance and Building Resiliency Infrastructure and Communities programs have been eliminated. Reducing community capacity to manage social, systemic, and infrastructural risks through disaster risk reduction, mitigation, and anticipatory action will result in emergencies more frequently progressing into disasters. Furthermore, without federal capacity to respond in agencies like FEMA or CDC, the risks that a given emergency will become a disaster also drastically increase simply because of the ways resources are allocated. Students will no longer have the opportunity to participate in fieldwork when there are no federally supported disaster responses or to learn about disaster epidemiology when there is no longer funding for academic programs that teach students public health in complex emergencies and disaster epidemiology concepts. A safety net that is frayed in nondisaster times will simply unravel during a public health emergency.Overall, it is critical for both the current and future public health workforce to continue to work to identify and understand the social drivers of health and the ways in which the current regulatory, technological, and political moment is affecting public health in both the short and long term. Discussing the ongoing stress impacts of the “triple disaster” in Japan in 2011 (i.e., earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear accident at the Fukushima power plant), Adam highlighted the importance of identifying and understanding the impacts of new and unexpected stressors on population health.A call to action Borrowing from this framing, the next generation of public health professionals must now begin to engage in quantifying the public health impacts of these policies to generate the essential evidence base for the future reinvestment in, and reinvigoration of, public health emergency preparedness.Current public health students can begin to actively capture the baseline state of public health, commit to ongoing active surveillance and measurement, and engage with both objective measures of health and self-reported perceptions to track how the human-made and unexpected stressors like artificial intelligence, climate change, and political polarization may affect us.While being “political” has often been seen as a negative for public health officials, now is not the time for public health students to be insular or isolated. Although engaging with the political, legislative, legal, and business sectors as a public health student or professional may feel daunting, public health must now more than ever engage with a variety of new partners and tools for public health practice. We cannot respond to the current attacks on public health in isolation. Businesses must speak up regarding how important a healthy and safe workforce is to their success. Local officials must advocate for the health of their residents and communities.The long-held sovereignty of local public health governance must give way to regional collaborations like the recently announced Northeast Public Health Collaborative, which brings together 10 states and New York City to work together on issues like vaccine policy, public health financing, and public health data collection, management, and analysis.Public health has always had the impetus to protect previous achievements—vaccination, robust surveillance systems, workplace and environmental safety, maternal and child health, reducing health disparities—through monitoring and evaluation, education, regulatory enforcement, and other essential public health services. For public health students, now is the time to find your passion, engage with partners that can support you, and prepare to lead.

Across much of the Caribbean, the collapse of the Maduro regime has been met with a restrained but unmistakable sense of relief. Yet beneath the diplomatic restraint lies a shared understanding: for small island states that have absorbed the spillover effects of Venezuelan collapse for more than two decades, this moment represents the possible end of a long and destabilizing chapter.  Migration pressures were immediate. By 2025, nearly seven million Venezuelan refugees and migrants were living in Latin America and the Caribbean. While mainland countries absorbed the largest absolute numbers, Caribbean islands faced some of the most intense per-capita impacts. Trinidad and Tobago hosted an estimated 45,000 to more than 70,000 Venezuelans in a population of roughly 1.5 million, placing sustained strain on schools, healthcare access, housing markets, and immigration systems. Against this backdrop, it is unsurprising that the end of the Maduro regime has been quietly welcomed. This moment also invites a reassessment of China’s expanding footprint in the Caribbean. Over the past decade, Beijing has deepened its presence through port infrastructure, telecommunications, energy projects, concessional lending, and diplomatic engagement, often filling financing gaps when Western attention appeared episodic. The emerging environment is one of recalibration rather than rupture. Caribbean governments are navigating a landscape in which external engagement is becoming more consequential, not less. Geography has not changed, but expectations have.What to watch nextAs this transition unfolds, several policy developments will determine whether cautious optimism proves warranted.First, whether Venezuelan outward migration to the Caribbean measurably slows. Sustained declines or credible pathways for voluntary return would be the clearest indicator that conditions inside Venezuela are stabilizing.Second, whether Caribbean public systems receive durable support rather than short-term humanitarian fixes. Education, healthcare, housing, and immigration systems absorbed migration pressures for years; meaningful relief will require budget support and institutional strengthening, not emergency framing alone .Third, whether organized crime and drug trafficking pressures in the Caribbean basin begin to ease.Finally, whether the region avoids a return to dependency-driven energy and infrastructure politics.For the Caribbean, hope today is not naïve. It is conditional. The Chávez–Maduro years imposed real costs on the region. Maduro’s end creates an opening for an intriguing turn in the historic relations with the US, the region’s most important economic partner.

One of the grandest questions is whether or not we are alone in the universe. The ingredients for life appear to be ubiquitous, but how often that ultimately leads to life is unknown. Mars is one of the likeliest places for life to have existed, being the closest planet which was once habitable, including liquid water in the distant past. Further, if life existed then, its possible it still exists on Mars under the surface. Observations with past and current scientific experiments have hinted that life has or does exist on Mars. If the US decides to proceed with the Mars Sample Return mission, which will gather dust and rocks from Mars and bring them back to Earth for detailed study, we could prove life on Mars as early as 2040. I am one of a dozen or so scientists external to NASA brought in to consult on the design of the Habitable Worlds Observatory. This successor to Hubble is designed to seek signatures of life beyond our own, with a planned launch around 2040. Thus, NASA is seeking to answer the grand question "are we alone?" with every viable avenue.

The single biggest mistake is treating an interview like an informal chat rather than a structured assessment. When managers “go with their gut,” they open the door to unconscious biases that have a profound effect on who gets hired. This lack of structure allows biases like the halo effect (where one positive trait overshadows everything else) and affinity bias (our tendency to favor people like us) to take over. As a result, managers often hire the person they like the most, not the person who is most qualified. The solution is a structured interview. This involves two simple but powerful steps: First, Define the criteria first: Identify the essential knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) for the role before looking at a single resume. Next, Use a consistent rubric: Ask all candidates the same job-related questions and score their answers using a pre-defined rating scale. This process transforms hiring from a subjective guessing game into an evidence-based decision, leading to fairer outcomes and a more talented workforce.

It depends on the background noise. There have been studies that looked at a different number of voices in the background when people were doing a memory task. One or two voices were very disruptive, but once it became a larger number of voices it was not as disruptive. In essence, with a larger number of voices (like 16) the individual words/voices could no longer be distinguished and it became less disruptive because it was more "general noise" instead of specific conversations.Phone alerts are designed to capture our attention and get us to switch away from our focal task and to attend to the phone. They are unpredictable, which makes them much more likely to distract a person away from whatever they were working on before the phone alert. If a phone chimed (say every 15 minutes) it would be predictable and much less disruptive.

Solar and carbon removal are perhaps the most important. Battery technologies are really important too though. So, if I can pick three, its solar, carbon removal, and batteries.

Digital Twins bring the world around us to life. First, we build digital avatars of real world buildings, objects, and even people. We integrate sensors, databases, AI agents, and user interfaces so that we can visualize and interact with the world around us more deeply. Through Digital Twins, we can plan and analyse using realistic visuals and natural language. We can predict and rehearse possible futures. At LSU we're using Digital Twins to help NASA build the rockets that are taking us back to the Moon, to inform decision making about coastal flooding, and to help LSU Athletics predict injuries and accurately access recovery.