Tuesday, July 21, 2026
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
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| 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 |
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
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
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.
Monday, July 20, 2026
Trump's renewed Greenland threats are why we have no allies
And our former friends won't trust us again anytime soon.
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| An image Trump posted on Truth Social depicts America taking over Canada, Greenland, Cuba, and Venezuela. (TS screencap) |
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.
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.
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
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| 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 |
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
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
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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.
Sunday, July 19, 2026
Field is set for Charlestown Municipal elections
All but two declared candidates qualified
By Will Collette
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.
Three endorsed Democrats for the Charlestown Town Council:
Incumbent Town Council President Deb Carney,
Cynthia Drummond and Jill Fonnemann
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.
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| 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 |
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.
Despite recent rain, Rhode Island remains in drought watch
Local water use restrictions remain in effect
By Nolan Page, Rhode Island Current
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.
Classic cartoon available for purchase HERE.
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.
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