Why you let down your guard on ads when scrolling on social media

Don't click "BUY" until the following day

Matthew Pittman, University of Tennessee

Even a few seconds of scrolling will tire your brain
and make you more open to bold advertising claims.
Money Knack on Unsplash, CC BY

My wife stared at me in shock as I ripped opened the package. The FedEx driver hadn’t even made it back to his truck as I held the item up overhead like a trophy. Fumbling for words, she asked: “Why on earth did you buy a Speedo … with dinosaur tear-away trunks?”

Honestly, I couldn’t remember. Maybe it was for a social media skit? Maybe I was planning on making her laugh? Or maybe I was just a “victim” of an online ad that showed me the wrong message at the right time.

Scroll on social media for even 30 seconds, and your brain is already a little more tired than it was before. And in that mentally foggy state, you become more open to ads that just tell you what to buy – “The facts make it clear, we’re the best!” – than to ads that invite you to draw your own conclusion.

I’m a professor of advertising who has spent years studying how social media affects consumer behavior. And my recent research underscores how the mental tax of processing information, or “cognitive load,” changes the way people respond to product claims from brands.

Tiny plastics in drinking water may be making dangerous bacteria stronger

Can plastics make you sicker?

Virginia Tech

Nanoplastics are already a concern because people may ingest them directly, but new research points to another possible danger. These tiny plastic particles may also make harmful bacteria more difficult to control.

In a study published in Water Research, Virginia Tech researcher Jingqiu Liao and an international team found that nanoplastics can interact with environmental microbes in ways that may create indirect risks to human health, especially through drinking water systems.

"It is very important to better understand the adverse effects of the nanoplastics on human health, and not just in humans but also in the environment, which indirectly influences human health," said Liao, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering. "The nanoplastics can make the antimicrobial-resistant pathogens better survive, which could be harmful to the environment and would have public health implications."

Nanoplastics May Complicate Water Treatment

The researchers reported that bacteria exposed to nanoplastics can become more resistant to disinfectants. That could create serious problems for water treatment facilities and distribution networks designed to keep drinking water safe.

"When the nanoplastics interact with the biofilm and the bacteria inside them, they can strengthen the biofilm and make it more resistant to any kind of measures that are going to keep the water clean," said Liao, who is also an affiliate with Fralin Life Sciences Institute's Global Change Center.

Jingqiu Liao is an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering. Photo by Peter Means for Virginia Tech.

Nanoplastics are a smaller category of microplastics. They range from about one to 1,000 nanometers in size and cannot be seen with the naked eye. In this study, the researchers examined how these particles affect the formation of biofilms inside drinking water systems.

The Richest 10% Cause up to $5.7 Trillion in Environmental Damage Each Year

Anyone surprised?

By University of Oxford

A relatively small share of the world’s population may be causing environmental damage on the same financial scale as the global effort needed to repair it. 

According to a new study, the highest-consuming 10% of people generate an estimated $1.7 trillion to $5.7 trillion in environmental harm each year, several times more, at the central and upper estimates, than current international commitments for climate action and biodiversity conservation combined.

Published in Communications Sustainability, the analysis places a monetary value on damage across four major planetary boundaries: climate change, biodiversity loss, nutrient pollution, and freshwater use. 

The findings offer a stark measure of how heavily environmental pressures are concentrated among the world’s most resource-intensive consumers.

Trump's renewed Greenland threats are why we have no allies

And our former friends won't trust us again anytime soon.

Noah Berlatsky

An image Trump posted on Truth Social depicts
America taking over Canada, Greenland, Cuba,
and Venezuela. (TS screencap)

Depending on when you read this, Trump may be bombing Iran, claiming a peace deal is imminent, threatening to commit more war crimes against the civilian population, teasing a ground invasion, or some combination thereof.

Nothing, though, has really changed.

Nearly five months out from Trump’s unprovoked and disastrous attack, the bottom line is that he’s lost the war but still can’t bring himself to admit it. So we’re trapped in a seemingly endless cycle of vacillating between belligerence and fake peace deals while gas prices spike, bombs fall, and people die.

Off to the side of that debacle, Trump last week reiterated that he wants to seize Greenland in his sweaty short-fingered appendages.

Greenland, he blustered, “should be controlled by the United States, not Denmark.” He added, “that’s what hurt my relationship with NATO, because Greenland doesn’t help Denmark”— which is both nonsensical and a lie, inasmuch as Trump’s been attacking NATO for at least a decade.

Trump’s gaseous blather about invading Greenland seems like a minor monstrosity compared to his actual murderous bombing of, and ongoing humiliation by, Iran. But they’re part of the same phenomenon — a foreign policy driven by ego, ignorance, and inflamed colonial malice, in which the US sees no allies and really no other sentient human beings, just territory to be won and glorious carnage to commit.

The renewed threats against Greenland are serious because they signal once again how untrustworthy, erratic, selfish, and cruel US foreign policy has become. Neither allies, rivals, nor enemies can trust us. Which means everyone, definitely including us, is poorer, less secure, and less safe.

MAGA explains science

Keeping track of Trump's grifts

How to avoid tick bites in your yard or while hiking in the woods, and what to do if one starts feasting on you

Tick bites are not good for you

Amanda Roome, Binghamton University, State University of New York

Ticks can be tiny. An adult deer tick is on the left
and a nymph of the same species is on the right,
both sitting on an adult’s finger. CDC

Ticks are small, and you might not notice when they bite, but the diseases they carry can dramatically harm your health.

Each year, deer ticks alone cause an estimated 476,000 new U.S. cases of Lyme disease, which can do long-term damage to a person’s joints, heart and nervous system. You may be hearing about the lone star tick, as well – it can trigger Alpha Gal syndrome, which can leave infected people allergic to red meat and its byproducts, including certain vaccines, medications and products with gelatin.

Several other tick-borne illnesses, including Heartland virus disease, Powassan virus disease, babesiosis and anaplasmosis, can cause serious health problems and, in severe cases, even death.

2026 has been a tough year, with emergency room visits linked to tick bites running high going into summer.

So how can you avoid getting bitten, and what preventive measures actually work? I’m the co-director of the Tick-Borne Disease Center at Binghamton University. Here are some of the questions my team hears – and some advice:

1. Why should I worry about ticks, and how do I know if I’ve been infected?

Ticks can really pack a punch when it comes to how sick they make you. Lyme disease and anaplasmosis, both caused by bacteria that deer ticks can carry, are the most common tick-borne diseases we see in the U.S.

About 70% to 80% of people with Lyme disease will see a rash develop that often looks like a bull’s-eye, and they’ll experience flu-like symptoms, such as a fever, chills, body aches and fatigue. Antibiotics can control the infection, but only if the disease is quickly treated.

Millions take omega-3 fish oil for brain health but a new study found no benefit

But heart health recommendations remain unchanged

University of Southern California - Health Sciences

Americans spend more than $1 billion each year on fish oil supplements, largely because of claims that the omega-3 fatty acids they contain can support brain health. These essential nutrients help build and maintain the connections between brain cells that are important for thinking and memory.

But new research from Keck Medicine of USC suggests that boosting omega-3 levels through supplements may not provide the brain benefits many people expect. The study, published in eBioMedicine, found that although omega-3s from fish oil successfully reached the brain, they did not improve measures of brain health in older adults at increased risk of Alzheimer's disease.

Over the course of a two-year, placebo-controlled, double-blinded clinical trial, researchers found that high-dose omega-3 supplements failed to improve memory, cognitive performance, or brain cell loss in regions associated with Alzheimer's.

"We all wish there was a silver bullet for preventing Alzheimer's, but our findings showed that fish oil supplements do not appear to protect brain health," said Hussein Naji Yassine, MD, director of the USC Center for Personalized Brain Health and lead investigator of the study. "While omega-3s play an important role in forming brain cell connections needed for cognition, our results do not support fish oil supplements as a preventive measure against Alzheimer's."

Hapless McKee catches a small break

McKee’s lucky day at ballot placement lottery

By Nolan Page, Rhode Island Current

Gov. Dan McKee won the top spot on the Sept. 9 Democratic primary ballot in a lottery conducted at the Rhode Island Department of State’s Elections Division in Providence Friday, a welcome stroke of luck for a reelection campaign that has weathered some setbacks.

The first place on the ballot is usually reserved for the party-endorsed candidate. But ballot placement was at the mercy of a retired Rhode Island Lottery ball machine now owned by the Department of State. That’s because the state’s Democratic Party declined to endorse either McKee or his main rival, Helena Bounanno Foulkes, at its convention on June 20.

McKee became the first sitting governor in recent history to not win his party’s endorsement. He also missed out on an influential endorsement from the Rhode Island AFL-CIO, which declined to back a Democratic governor candidate on Wednesday. 

Party endorsements reward candidates with the top ballot spot and an asterisk next to their name. While McKee will go without that asterisk, research suggests being the first name on a ballot advantages a candidate, said Matt Ulricksen, an associate professor of political science at the Community College of Rhode Island. 

That advantage is greatest in races where voters know less about the candidates and default to whichever name is at the top, Ulricksen said. While McKee could get a “modest bump” from coming first, Ulricksen said it won’t matter as much in the Democratic governor race, where most voters are familiar with the candidates.

“Any bump that McKee gets from first placement on the ballot likely will not be sufficient to overcome the gap,” Ulricksen said.

Field is set for Charlestown Municipal elections

All but two declared candidates qualified

By Will Collette

Three endorsed Democrats for the Charlestown Town Council:
Incumbent Town Council President Deb Carney,
Cynthia Drummond and Jill Fonnemann

4 PM Thursday was the deadline for the Charlestown Board of Canvassers to certify the signatures on declared candidates’ nomination papers. Each candidate needed to produce at least 50 signatures of registered Charlestown voters to make the cut.

Most candidates were certified shortly after the July 10 closing date for filing those signed forms, but there were a few nail-biters whose list counts were not posted until the last minute. 

One was the de facto leader of the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA), Ruth Platner, who is running for re-election to the Charlestown Planning Commission. Her disciple Frances Topping’s signature count also was posted at the last minute. In the end, both were credited with 108 certified signatures.

Apparently the CCA has given up on retaking control
of the Town Council by only running these two:
Bonnita B. Van Slyke and Sasha Puchalski

CCA newcomer Sasha Puchalski, running as one of only two CCA candidates for Town Council, also was certified late with 107 certified signatures.

As the late Rev. Jesse Jackson used to say, “Keep Hope Alive!” a sentiment I felt as I checked the Secretary of State’s candidate database once or twice a day. What a joy it would have been to see Ruth Platner fail to qualify for the ballot due to some paperwork SNAFU.

But in the end, the only two candidates failing to qualify are two guys who declared their wish to represent Charlestown on the Chariho School Committee. Declared Republican James Sullivan and Independent James McCabe failed to be credited with any certified signatures and are out of the running.

I was surprised to see McCabe with no signatures. He and I both appeared before the July 8 special hearing of the Charlestown Board of Canvassers asking the Board to allow us to correct errors we made when we filed our candidate declaration papers.

As I reported earlier, I had checked the wrong box on my form. I intended to file to continue serving on the Democratic House District 36 Committee, but checked the box that, for a few days, made me an accidental September 9 Primary opponent to our terrific state Rep. Tina Spears. The Board allowed me to correct my filing.

McCabe had filed his declaration at Town Hall on the deadline day. However, he filed after the 4 PM deadline thinking he was OK since he got there before Town Hall closed at 4:30. The Board sympathized with this obvious mistake and granted his request. However, they noted legal precedents where candidates in contested elections who failed to file on time were taken off the ballot.

McCabe apparently took that warning to heart and did not turn in any certified signatures.

So now the field is set for Charlestown’s local municipal races on the ballot for the November 3 General Election:

Town Council: Five seats at stake

Endorsed Democrats: Deb Carney, Cynthia Drummond and Jill Fonnemann.

Endorsed Republicans: Craig Marr, Steve Stokes and Matt Westover.

CCA Endorsed: Sasha Puchalski and Bonnita B. Van Slyke.

NOTE: Deb Carney, Craig Marr and Steve Stokes are incumbents seeking re-election. For the first time I can remember, the CCA failed to field a full slate of 5 Council candidates so they have apparently padded their list by endorsing Democrat Cynthia Drummond and “conditionally” endorsed Steve Stokes, even though neither sought their blessing.

Planning Commission: Four seats at stake

CCA candidates: Ruth Platner, Frances Topping, Coleen Yaroshenko and Gordon Willcox

Opposition candidates: Katherine Gingras, Cheryl Lill and Laura Rom

NOTES: Three incumbents of the seven total Planning Commission members are not up for re-election in this cycle. One is a Platner acolyte CCA person and two are opposed to Platner. For years, Ruth Platner has run the Commission with an iron fist, stifling all residential construction to advance her anti-family agenda. Platner needs to have three of the four people on the CCA slate to win to continue to chair the Planning Commission.

Chariho School Committee: three seats at stake

Democrats: Holly Eaves, Craig Louzon and Linda Lyall

Republican Kim Coulter

Independent Nicholas Testa

The CCA fielded no candidates of their own, their Chariho leader Donna Chambers having died earlier this year. Instead, the CCA endorsed the three Democrats.

Town Moderator: 1 seat

This is an honorific post. Under Charlestown’s Home Rule Charter, the moderator’s only job is to preside over the annual fiscal town meeting on the town budget.

The CCA’s David Wilkinson will compete with Republican Tony Jones for this all-important position.

Nobody expected this

Dems dealt with Platner - now the GOP needs to deal with their own rapist

Despite recent rain, Rhode Island remains in drought watch

Local water use restrictions remain in effect

By Nolan Page, Rhode Island Current

Classic cartoon available for purchase HERE.

Recent rainfall hasn’t been enough to pull Rhode Island out of its drought watch, and the July heat hasn’t worsened conditions enough to warrant the next stage of drought monitoring, the state’s Drought Steering Committee determined Tuesday morning.

Gov. Dan McKee announced the state’s first drought watch since 2002 on June 25. More severe than an advisory, a drought watch is the second of four designations in the state’s drought plan, followed by a warning and an emergency. The stages are issued based on the committee’s recommendation, drawing from three major indicators of drought: precipitation, groundwater and stream flow. 

Meredith Brady, the committee’s chair, opened Tuesday’s meeting by saying they were “likely not to make a change one way or the other this month.” But while the stage of the drought didn’t shift in the past month, its conditions did. 

Presentations from the U.S. Geological Survey and National Weather Service revealed a common theme: Recent rains haven’t reversed the trend of below-average levels of precipitation, groundwater and stream flow. Presenters from the organizations added that it took months to get into the drought, and it will take months to get out of it.

Attention couch potatoes

Hours of uninterrupted sitting could be more dangerous than you think.

By PLOS

A large study found that every additional hour spent in prolonged, uninterrupted sedentary periods each day was associated with a 9% higher risk of dying from cancer. The findings suggest that how people accumulate sedentary time may matter alongside the total amount.

The study, published July 2 in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine, was led by Frederick Ho of the University of Glasgow in the UK and colleagues.

Sedentary behavior includes sitting, reclining, or lying down while awake. It can happen almost anywhere, including at a desk, in a car, or while watching television. Previous research has connected high levels of sedentary time with poorer health, but most guidelines do not distinguish between sitting continuously and sitting for the same amount of time with regular movement breaks.

Tomaquag Museum presents July 27 lunch program on sovereignty with Linda Coombs

Long denied to the Narragansetts, sovereignty is a core issue for indigenous people

From the museum

We will discuss the actual meaning of sovereignty, what it was for our ancestors, and how we carry and enact it in the world we live in today.

Linda is a member of the Aquinnah Wampanoag tribe on Martha's Vineyard, and has lived in Mashpee for more than 40 years. Her two grandchildren are enrolled with the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, as was their father and grandfather.

She worked for 45 years as a museum educator, and spent 11 years total at the Boston Children's Museum, 30 years in the Wampanoag Indigenous Program at Plimoth Plantation, and 9 years at the Aquinnah Cultural Center, a house museum built by an Aquinnah Wampanoag man, and showing that history.

She's been an interpreter, an artisan, a researcher; led workshops and teacher institutes; written children's stories and articles on various aspects of Wampanoag history and culture; and developed and worked on all aspects of a wide variety of exhibits.

The goal of all of her work continues to be the communication of accurate and appropriate representations about the history, cultures, and people of the Wampanoag and other Indigenous nations.