On a rural road in Kansas, surrounded by farm fields, a startup called Vaulted Deep is pioneering a new type of carbon removal: injecting animal manure and sewage sludge 1,000 feet underground to permanently store CO2.
One of its biggest customers is Google, which announced today that it plans to buy 50,000 tons of carbon removal from the startup over the next five years. Microsoft announced a similar deal in July.
Its part of the tech giants broader effort to deal with their carbon footprints as AI energy demand grows. The companies are also trying to help accelerate new solutions that others can use.
Our carbon removal program is all about finding the right ways to fix the atmosphereand then being the tip of the sphere to catalyze those right ways, says Randy Spock, who leads Google’s work on carbon removal. What we look for in that regard is pretty simple. We care about things that can be highly certain of having impact. And can reach really high scale to the extent that they can put a dent in climate change.
[Photo: Courtesy of Google/Vaulted Deep]
How Vaulted Deep tackles two problems
Vaulted Deeps unconventional approach tackles two problems at once, says CEO Julia Reichelstein. We tackle excess organic waste and what to do with it in a safe, affordable, scalable way. And then we also tackle the problem of climate change.
The company injects the waste into rock formations deep underground, where it’s locked up for hundreds of thousands of years. It doesn’t decompose and add CO2 and methane emissions to the air. (It’s also far away from groundwater, so it doesn’t create new pollution.)
[Photo: Courtesy of Google/Vaulted Deep]
At the startups site in Kansas, dozens of trucks deliver waste each day. Most of it comes from nearby cattle feedlots. “If you go to these feedlots, you’ll often see mountains of manure piled up,” Reichelstein says. That leads to multiple issues beyond climate pollution. Runoff from the waste pollutes water and can lead to algae blooms and dead zones. The stink can travel miles. Methane from the manure adds to local air pollution.
That’s a deeper problem in the food system: The environment can’t keep up with current levels of meat production. Americans now eat around twice as much meat, per capita, as they did a century ago. Small family farms used to be able to use manure as fertilizer on nearby fields; now there’s far more poop than farms can use.
But until Americans start eating fewer burgers, Vaulted Deep’s approach offers another way to deal with the excess waste.
Farms aren’t the only challengehuman waste from wastewater treatment plants is often spread out on fields to return to the soil. That can introduce other problems, including pollution from PFAS (forever chemicals) or other contamination found in the waste.
Waste is also sometimes sent to landfills or incinerated. Vaulted Deep can also make use of waste from paper mills, which causes other pollution. The company plans to build multiple sites across the country to deal with organic waste.
Turning waste tech into climate tech
Vaulted Deep spun out from another company, Advantek, that has been injecting waste underground in L.A. for 15 years. Initially, the technology focused only on the problem of disposal.
Most sewage sludge from Los Angeles is either shipped to California’s Central Valley, causing pollution issues, or used to produce electricity. (Turning poop into electricity doesn’t eliminate emissions, though it’s called renewable energy.) Putting some of the waste deep underground8,000 feet deep, in that casehelped reduce how much was being sent elsewhere.
When Reichelstein learned about the technology, she helped launch Vaulted to focus on the climate benefits, knowing that it was a relatively simple and affordable way to store CO2 durably. When the startup sells carbon removal to companies, it measures how much carbon in the waste otherwise would have been emitted on a field or in a landfill. Now, it’s working with Google to also measure how much methane is being reduced.
[Photo: Courtesy of Google/Vaulted Deep]
Google is especially interested in tackling “superpollutants” like methane, which are heating up the planet even faster than CO2. In the short term, methane has around 80 times the warming power of CO2.
̴The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) estimates that these superpollutants, like methane, have been responsible for close to half of planetary warming to date,” says Spock. “Everyone agrees if we don’t take action to destroy them, they will keep warming the planet really rapidly in the near term. So if we only focus on CO2, we’re only focusing on a piece of the puzzle rather than the whole planet puzzle.”
The tech company is paying for carbon removal from a wide range of companies, from a startup helping fight ocean acidification to a company that helps HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) technicians destroy HFCs (hydrofluorocarbons), another superpollutant, from air conditioners. The goal is to support as many potential solutions as possible, as quickly as possible.
“We’re keenly aware that we are at the starting line of these efforts as a planet,” says Spock. “And now is the time to cast a really wide net and see what works at pilot scale, so that we can make an informed decision about what makes sense to really press the accelerator on as a planet.”
I spend my days talking to executives who believe their teams are performing near full capacity. They point to busy calendars, overflowing inboxes, and long hours as proof. But the data tells a different storyand its costing millions.
Our latest Productivity Lab analysis of more than 300,000 workers across 5,619 organizations reveals a costly reality: Companies lose $11.2 million in productivity per 1,000 employees every year. Utilization averages just 87% of capacity, while payroll costs continue at 100%the equivalent of paying for 130 workers who arent contributing.
Most leaders dont realize this is happening. Across all tracked organizations, that gap adds up to $2.86 billion in lost productivity each year, based on an average productivity goal of 6 hours and 50 minutes of productive work per day.
When ‘Busy’ Isnt the Same as ‘Productive’
The data goes further, showing that 58% of staff failed to meet productivity goals set by their own organizations. By industry, the gap is significant: Computer hardware has the highest underutilization rate at 71%, while logistics is lowest at 41%.
One likely factor is the nature of the work and the corresponding work culture. Industries like logistics often operate with built-in accountabilitybillable hours, compliance requirements, and mission-critical timelinesthat make performance visible and consequences immediate. These structures tend to surface productivity gaps faster than in roles where outputs arent directly tied to fixed deadlines or regulatory oversight.
The Leadership Assumption That Costs Millions
Our benchmark data shows small organizations lose $162,000 to $542,000 in untapped capacity annually, while large enterprises see losses of $3.7 million to $3.9 million. Even small inefficiencies multiply quickly and payroll costs are only one component of the story. Additional waste related to underutilization begins to creep in such as disengagement, quality issues, and collaboration shortcomings.
The issue isnt laziness or poor motivationits structural. Traditional management focuses on hours worked or activity levels, which overlooks the core question: Is the work creating measurable value? When activity isnt aligned to outcomes, organizations dilute the impact of their teams efforts.
Turning Underutilization Into Growth
Addressing underutilization isnt just about cutting wasteit unlocks capacity for work that drives growth.
Ive seen companies change their trajectory by measuring actual output against capacity, then redesigning roles so people focus on what they do best: problem-solving, relationship building, and strategic thinking.
The most successful organizations share three traits:
They measure productivity by activity AND outcomesfocusing on work volume alongside the value created.
They build operational visibility instead of assuming performanceidentifying bottlenecks and barriers before they impact results.
They treat workforce optimization as a revenue growth strategy, not just cost controlusing freed capacity to drive innovation and competitive advantage.
This is a solvable problem. Its not about asking people to work harderits about working smarter, with clarity on what work is happening. From there, its about acting on those insights to eliminate bottlenecks and channel capacity toward high-value work that is core to each role.
A Practical Playbook for Closing the Gap
The first step is to take stock of how productivity is measured today. Many organizations track time spent or activity levels without connecting them to real value creation. Incorporating outcome-based metricssuch as completed deliverables, customer impact, or revenue contributioncreates a much clearer picture of performance.
Next, examine where work slows down. This often means mapping processes end to end to identify bottlenecks, unnecessary steps, or recurring delays. In some cases, this exercise reveals quick winslike automating routine tasks with AIthat free up hours without adding headcount.
Visibility is critical, but it must be purposeful. The goal isnt to monitor for the sake of watchingits to uncover where good work gets stuck and why. This could involve implementing reporting tools that highlight delays or variances from plan so managers can intervene before deadlines are missed.
Finally, treat the capacity you recover as an investment, not just a savings. Redirect that time and talent toward strategic initiatives, innovation or customer-focused projects that move the business forward. Pair that with a regular cadence of process reviews to ensure inefficiencies dont creep back in as teams and priorities evolve.
The opportunity to unlock capacity is hidden in plain sightyou just have to know where to look. Our benchmark analysis shows the data is already there for leaders who are ready to take advantage of it.
This week, Apple launched its biggest design update in years: Liquid Glass. Its a new approach to the software design behind the iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch.
Liquid Glass is making appearances on everything from Apples marketing materials to the 24-carat trophy that Tim Cook gifted to Donald Trump. Apple is betting that it’s going to redefine the visual language of its user experience as it enters the AI era. But at least for now, half a dozen UX experts agree that its anywhere from mildly disappointing to outright broken, due to an aesthetic-first approach that could leave many users behind.
If prior Apple releases have taught us anything, its that it will take anywhere from months to years for Apple to solve Liquid Glasss core issues, and even then, it could be left wrestling with its own flawed metaphor.
[insert paywall]
The burden of scale
With 1.5 billion active iPhones, Apple shoulders an incredible burden of scale. For every magical interaction, there can be an equally devastating reaction. Take its groundbreaking smartphone, for example, which enabled you to map your way anywhere in the world but also pinpoint users in mass surveillance capitalism. Then there’s the AirTag, which can find your lost keys but, as we warned, has enabled stalking and led to a class action lawsuit including several allegations of murder.
When I met Apple reps around the time of the announcement of Liquid Glass in June, I was left with the impression that the team very much feels the weight of Middle America atop all of its decisions. Liquid Glass, at launch, would be a first step toward new modalities that a transforming, transparent interface could create in a world that feels manifest-destined to land at augmented and virtual realities.
[Image: Apple]
Still, Apple knows that people rely on their iPhones for everything, and they cant wholesale change the way people use the most important device in their lives. Thats why Liquid Glass is less a deconstruction of iOS than a luxe reskinreplacing chunks of iOS piece by piece rather than revolutionizing it, for now.
Its a toe-dipping sensibility that I appreciate. Moving fast and breaking things is crucial for fundraising and devastating for real life. Apple may serve its customers better by being careful, adjusting its designs little by little, more like a car company than a tech startup.
Unfortunately, Apple still didnt nail Liquid Glass out of the gate. And it doesnt help that, rumor has it, the company put a tight deadline on itself, only developing Liquid Glass for six months before its announcement.
While Liquid Glass is full of interesting ideas and some truly gorgeous animation work from Apples still-unparalleled technicians, experts I spoke to pointed out that it was inconsistently implemented, and they believe it will make life worse for a lot of its users. They say its cognitive load (think of it as the invisible tax on your brain) is higher across the board than its previous UX. Specifically, its low contrast designwhich often blurs the distinction between the phones background and its messages in the foregroundwill prove difficult for older adults, especially, to read.
I think the worst problems will not be for [people with disabilities] . . . who will probably just turn it off and/or use screen readers in the first place, Jakob Nielsen, a four-decade usability expert, told me. But low-vision users and people with various forms of slight cognitive impairments [that is, not even serious enough that they consider themselves disabled] will suffer.
UX experts I spoke to for this story arent just mindless Apple haters; many generally appreciate the ethos of what Apple is doingspecifically, trying to move interface design somewhere new. But theyre worried about the unintended consequences of Liquid Glass, which is presented as an opt-out feature on iOS 26.
I can see that my father is going to really struggle, says Sonja Radovancevic, creative director at Metalab. He’s going to be, like, Oh my god, I’m definitely going to go back to Samsung.
Apple is trying to head off the worst of these criticisms through iteration. It has been fine-tuning certain features of Liquid Glass, like the level of transparency (during beta testing), and will continue to do so. But to get Liquid Glass to where it needs to be from a usability perspective, Apple might end up undercutting its own metaphor.
[Image: Apple]
The Liquid Works
If one core idea has promise inside Liquid Glass, its that Apple is introducing stretchable, reshapable buttons and new animations, which can break out of the more static menu bars weve known for so long.
Basically, its what you could call the liquid half of Liquid Glass.
Apple has been building toward this more fluid interface for some time. Andy Allen, a lauded digital designer who created the Paper app before founding his own Not Boring apps, points out that developers have been envious of Apples Dynamic Island for years. That little black pill hiding the camera on the top of your screen continues to mature, stretching and morphing into a do-anything bit of UI that can grow and split to scan your mug for Face ID, control music playback, and split notifications side by side.
[Video: Not Boring]
Liquid Glass shares some of these possibilities with developers, allowing them to build more flexibility into their own app UIs. Floating atop the app, buttons can now stretch to reveal toolbars or merge to group contros. Ideally, these updates dont just lead to a prettier UI, but one that can hide clutter away until right when you need it.
The white space that a morphable UI creates is exciting to many in the field, even if weve seen bits of this idea before from Googles Material Design. Instead of providing rigid systems, Liquid Glass could, theoretically, reshape into just about anything.
[Image: Apple]
Right now, though, those floating, morphable interfaces feel different from app to app. You dont know if theyll reshape in front of your eyes (as they do in Music) or pop you to another screen (as they do in Messages . . . and sometimes also in Music!).
I do feel like there is always promise in trying to move toward something, as opposed to just being stuck in our ways, Radovancevic says. She makes the point that liquidity offers a path for Apple to melt away extraneous informationand to prepare itself for AI-led interfaces. Ultimately, we can imagine that in the future, there will be way less interface on the screen anyway.
[Image: Apple]
Some of the best work on Liquid Glass is in Apples tiniest details. One of the small, great updates in iOS 26 is what Allen calls Apples whiter than white animations. The interface takes HDR contrasts to new heights, creating a glow that developers can use in their software. Some buttons appear to light up beyond whats white on your screen. Allen found this particularly useful for his Camera app, where the focus controls can glow white even on a white backdrop. I find the effect a bit too intense while texting in a dark roomeach time I send a message, my chat bubble flashes with an iridescent burst, so brightly that I look away from the screen.
The Glass is broken
Liquid UIs dont work consistently yet, but in theory, they make a lot of sense. Perhaps more problematic for Apple is the glass part. At launch, critics pointed out two issues. The first was that it failed to add new functionality to the phone. The second was more ironic: Glasss fatal flaw is the clarity with which it depicts information.
Legibility is still of concern to every UX specialist I talked to for this piece. They flagged that Liquid Glass presents a significant challenge to cognitive load and creates accessibility issues where there were none in the OS before. In some spots, like the beautiful magnifier tool that helps you highlight words, the glass distortion effects are simply joyful. In many others, they muddle information and make it harder to understand what youre looking at.
Charles Mauro, a human factors researcher and consultant for 40 years, says the glass is creating the most significant human factors issues with iOS 26.
Liquid Glass in Apple Music. Begins on left, morphs to the right. [Screenshot: courtesy of the author]
Mauro points to Liquid Glasss core conceit as making everything you see tricky to parse. The glass buttons that float above your library in Music blur with your albums. In your Control Center, they almost disappear into the background. He notes that text sizes and colors shift across the interface, ever-changing the information density on a page. And he points out that the automated accessibility tests we have today cant examine complex transparencies like this to highlight human factors issues.
Apple Glass in Control Center. Accessibility mode left, regular mode right. Note how much each of these screens now darkens and blurs the iOS backdrop on top. [Screenshot: courtesy of the author]
You might think that only people with disabilities will be affected, but Mauro insists that Apple Glass will increase the mental burden on everyone. He says this is largely due to the fact that Apple is creating minimal contrast between the glass information on top thats vying for your attention and everything below it. (This balance is known as figure-ground contrast.)
If black type on white paper presents the most idyllic contrast for your eyes, clear glass that diffuses the shapes and colors below it verges on the opposite. Contrast represents the very core of our visual processing, possibly due to limbic parts of our brains that evolved to recognize faces by shadows and predators by movement.
When you reach a desktop-style interfacelike on our phones and PCscontrast isnt just about text on a page, but about discerning a stack of the background stuff from whats above it. The most pertinent information floats to the top to grab our focus, and for good reason. A UX principle known as Hicks law dictates that the more choices someone has, the more difficult and time-consuming the decision becomes. All of this means that a low-contrast pile of media is just a lot for our brains to juggle.
It seems like [Apple] has sort of put this forward without having the amount of time to almost challenge, Should these things be floating? Or What is exactly the quality of this blur that’s happening inside of the glass? Radovancevic says. Maybe it does feel a little bit impulsive in some way . . . but a lot of this may be interaction problems that have to be solved.
Compare this to Google, whose release of Android 16 took the opposite approach of Liquid Glass. During our call, when Glass was still in beta, I had Radovancevic pull up Googles Control Center menu side by side with an iOS 26 beta Control Center featuring Liquid Glass. On Apples interface, the simple flashlight, calculator, and Wi-Fi buttons on this screen became illegibly blended. Whereas Googles buttonsbrighter buttons atop a darker backgroundrepresent a more legible foreground/background relationship.
Theyre using a lot of solid color, so it’s automatically going to [work], she says, before concluding that neither of them is necessarily the answer.
[Image: Apple]
Striking a compromise
Apple has since adjusted its approach to the Control Center. In fact, Apple has been constantly fine-tuning Glass, in what appear to be experiments to fix legibility. In beta releases, it reduced Glasss opacityfrosting it and adjusting the blur effectsbefore tuning it more transparently again. In the final release, theyve landed on a significant compromise.
The Control Center is far more legible now than in those earlier glass experimentsits now quite similar to Googles version. Apple increased the opacity of the glass, and to help further, it darkens and blurs your wallpaper. Today, you no longer really see the wallpaper through a glass interface. Apple traded continuity of interface for legibility. Operationally, it was the right decision for users, but it does appear as an inelegant solution to Apple’s glass problem.
Meanwhile, the moments of that hypnotic, optically distorting glass are few and far between. The most prominent permutation I see is in the icon for nested groups of apps, which appear framed in something like a squared-off water droplet. This bit of interface almost feels anachronistic as it has entered a more accessible context.
For developers to figure out where to maximize versus minimize implementations of glass, they are largely on their own. Apple has offered minimal guidelines around the best use of Liquid Glass within app interfaces, frustrating some developers, but it does offer them the option to tune opacity and blur in their own apps.
We tried to implement Liquid Glass and found it didnt work in a lot of cases, in terms of readability, or aesthetically it clashed, so we ended up pairing it back quite a bit, says Allen, who later notes: I bet theres not a person on the Apple design team who doesnt wish they had another six months or year to polish it up more.
While Apple views Liquid Glass as the foundational design language of its future interfaces, some in the industry question whether it pushes things far enough. Allens greater criticism is less about legibility than the limitations of the foundational technologies behind Liquid Glass effects. Hes built his Not Boring software collection as rich, experiential products with true 3D interfaces that leverage the powerful graphics processing of these supercomputers in our pockets. The aesthetic-first approach of Liquid Glass pulls on his heartstrings, but he points out that its not actually 3Dsome future-proof interface that can take us into the next decade. The glistening, specular highlight effects you see on elements like app icons are actually 2D shaders.
If youre someone like me who lives and breathes 3D, we were hoping to see a lot more 3D: true 3D icons, true 3D interfaces, Allen says. He admits that extra processing might be more taxing on an iPhone battery. But he also thinks that to move the interface forward, UX designers need to be thinking in the third dimension. And why build layers of transparent glass interface if not to explore 3D?
[Image: Apple]
Apple can fix glass, but its worth asking why
No doubt, Apple will continue to refine the design language, much as it has done in the past. Apples Aqua design language in OSX, announced in 2000, struggled with legibility around its transparent water effects, and took about a year to repair, and a few more to run smoothly. When Apple launched iOS 7, introducing a flat design and sleek sans serif fonts to the iPhone in 2013, it struggled with legibility again. In less than a year, Apple made rapid adjustments and laid much of the foundation for what were still using today.
I suspect a similar timeline. In another year or two, this will feel a lot more intentional and polished, Allen says. Theyll have a better understanding . . . [of] how to use it themselves.
For the last week, Apple critics have dunked on the company for all sorts of superficial reasons. The logo on the iPhone 17 Pro is in the wrong place for its case. The curvature of the iPhone Airs camera doesn’t match the radius of its case. These issues demonstrate a certain carelessness, perhaps. But, like a thin new iPhone thats not perceptually much thinner than an iPhone 6 (2014), they also dont really matter. They dont affect how well you can read and communicate.
For anyone with vision impairments, in particular, UX experts warn that Liquid Glass could continue to be hard to use in many contexts. Given the commonality of macular degeneration, it will impact older adults in particular. But Apples challenging information architecture will impact everyone, including people with mental disabilities like ADHD.
Apples own designers arent ignorant of such issues: In fact, I hear the design team is split on the direction of Liquid Glass. It wasnt an inevitable evolution for Apple. Its transparency was introduced in Vision Pro as a practical way that people could see floating screens but not be cut off from the world around them. Of course, those same challenges dont exist on the iPhone, so the benefits to transparency arent the same.
Notably, you can disable Liquid Glasss worst offenses in the Accessibility settings. (Its not labeled Liquid Glasscheck Display and Text Size.) You can reduce the window transparency while increasing the contrast. Doing so frosts over the glass effect and flattens the background. You lose the most beautiful animations that seem to break the very laws of physics of your phone, but you can also read things a lot more easily.
These compromises feel like the only way to fix Liquid Glass, and so its unsurprising that Apple has ultimately worked its accessibility options into instances of the main interface. The fix negates the most egregious issues. It also negates the core concept behind Liquid Glass.
Is there any way to wear a Newsom Was Right About Everything! hat, but ironically? Even if youre an earnest fan, its still meant as a joke.
Californias Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsoms political action committee Campaign for Democracy recently launched merch that parodies President Donald Trumps. Dubbed the Patriot Shop, the storefront sells unserious items with serious stakes.
The shop features apparel like the $32 hats designed in the style of a Trump hat, a $20 Newsom 2026 mug, and a two-pack of California-flag themed Dont Poke the Bear stickers for $6. Newsom said the store made more than $100,000 in a day, and thats with leaving money on the table. The sold out $100 Bible was never actually for sale (Trumps, for $60, still is, however, and that seems to be the point), and though Newsom tweeted an image of a Make America Gavin Again flag suitable for boat parades, the flag is not actually available on the site.
The new merch turns memes into fundraising by taking on the tone and content of Newsoms GovPressOffice account on X. In mocking Trumps social media phrasing, sentence structures, and capitalization through imitation, Newsoms office has used the account to trick Fox News hosts into criticizing Trumps behavior without realizing it.
[Image: Campaign for Democracy]
As the highest profile elected officials in their states, governors are inherently brand ambassadors, and their jobs offer them a unique platform to build a national profile. In the lead up to the 2024 presidential campaign, Floridas Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis built name ID for himself as governor through culture wars fights like his war on Disney, and selling merch like a Florida gator Gadsden flag that said Dont Tread on Florida. DeSantiss Make America Florida message didnt help him win, but with a Florida Man in the White House today, its not clear campaigning on the Floridization of America was the reason why.
Newsom now offers Californication, and with the Election Rigging Response Act, his job as Californian-in-chief has taken on new urgency. The legislation, which passed the California legislature and now heads to voters, will determine whether the state throws out districts drawn by a nonpartisan redistricting commission for new maps more favorable to Democrats through 2030, and it comes after Texas redrew its maps at Trumps request to favor Republicans.
For Newsom, this isnt just about building a brand as governor, hes building a bulwark against Trump that Democrats nationwide are noticing. Californias politics are again nationalized, and Newsom is leading the fight. His merch and memes may be a joke, but in taking trolling seriously, Newsoms found a way to trigger the cons and fundraise off it by holding a mirror up to MAGA.
This story originally appeared on Yello, a Substack about design and politics.
Microplastics seem to be everywherein the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. They have turned up in human organs, blood, testicles, placentas, and even brains.
While the full health consequences of that exposure are not yet known, researchers are exploring potential links between microplastics and negative health effects such as male infertility, inflammation, liver disease and other metabolic problems, and heart attack or stroke.
Countries have tried for the past few years to write a global plastics treaty that might reduce human exposure to plastic particles and their harm to wildlife and ecosystems, but the latest negotiations collapsed in August 2025. Most plastics are made with chemicals from fossil fuels, and oil-producing countries, including the U.S., have opposed efforts that might limit plastics production.
While U.S. and global solutions seem far off, policies to limit harm from microplastics are gaining traction at the state and local levels.
Marine animals ingest microplastics from the water and as theyre eating. These were found in marine animals at the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research near Athens, Greece, in 2025. [Photo: Milos Bicanski/Getty Images]
As an environmental lawyer and author of the book Our Plastic Problem and How to Solve It, I see four promising policy strategies.
Banning added microplastics: Glitter, confetti, and turf
Some microplastics are deliberately manufactured to be small and added to products. Think glitter in cosmetics, confetti released at celebrations, and plastic pellet infill, used between the blades in turf fields to provide cushion and stability.
These tiny plastics inevitably end up in the environment, making their way into the air, water, and soil, where they can be inhaled or ingested by humans and other organisms.
California has proposed banning plastic glitter in personal care products. No other state has pursued glitter; however, some cities, such as Boca Raton, Florida, have restricted plastic confetti. In 2023, the European Union passed a ban on all nonbiodegradable plastic glitter as well as microplastics intentionally added to products.
Personal care products, particularly makeup, have added glitter in recent years. However, when that makeup is washed off, it often goes down drains and into wastewater, adding to plastics in the environment. [Photo: Bernadett Grega/Unsplash]
Artificial turf has also come under scrutiny. Although turf is popular for its low maintenance, these artificial fields shed microplastics.
European regulators targeted turf infill through the same law for glitter, and municipalities in Connecticut and Massachusetts are considering local bans.
Infill flies up from artificial turf as a high school soccer player kicks the ball in 2022. [Photo: Isaac Wasserman for The Washington Post via Getty Images]
Rhode Islands proposed law, which would ban all intentionally added microplastics by 2029, is broad enough to include glitter, turf, and confetti.
Reducing secondary microplastics: Textiles and tires
Most microplastics dont start small; rather, they break off from larger items. Two of the biggest culprits of secondary microplastics are synthetic clothing and vehicle tires.
A study in 2019 estimated that textiles accounted for 35% of all microplastics entering the oceanshed from polyester, nylon, or acrylic clothing when washed. Microplastics can carry chemicals and other pollutants, which can bioaccumulate up the food chain.
In an effort to capture the fibers before they are released, France will require filters in all new washing machines by 2029.
Several U.S. states, including Oregon, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, are considering similar legislation. California came close in 2023, passing legislation to require microfiber filters for washing machines, but it was ultimately vetoed due to concerns about the cost of adding the filters. Even so, data submitted in support of the bill showed that such filters could cut microplastic releases from laundry by nearly 80%.
Some states, such as California and New York, are considering warnings on clothing made with synthetic fibers that would alert consumers to the shedding of microplastics.
Tires are another large source of microplastics. As they wear down, tires release millions of tons of particles annually, many of which end up in rivers and oceans. These particles include 6PPD-quinone, a chemical linked to mass die-offs of salmon in the Pacific Northwest.
Synthetic rubber in vehicle tires shed particles into the environment as the tires wear down. [Photo: Wenson Wei/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY]
One approach would be to redesign the product to include safer alternatives. Californias Department of Toxic Substances Control recently added 6PPD-quinone to its priority product list, requiring manufacturers to explain how they will either redesign their product or remove it from the market.
Regulating disposal
Microplastics can also be dealt with at the disposal stage.
Disposable wipes, for example, contain plastic fibers but are still flushed down toilets, clogging pipes and releasing microplastics. States such as New York, California and Michigan have passed no-flush labeling laws requiring clear warnings on packaging, alerting consumers to dispose of these wipes another way.
Construction sites also contribute to local microplastic pollution. Towns along the New Jersey shore have enacted ordinances that require builders to prevent microplastics from entering storm drains that can carry them to waterways and the ocean. Such methods include using saws and drills with vacuums to reduce the release of microplastics and cleaning worksites each day.
Oregon and Colorado have new producer responsibility laws that require manufacturers that sell products in plastic packaging to fund recycling programs. California requires manufacturers of expanded polystyrene plastic products to ensure increasing levels of recycling of their products.
Statewide strategies and disclosure laws
Some states are experimenting with broader, statewide strategies based on research.
Californias statewide microplastic strategy, adopted in 2022, is the first of its kind. It requires standardized testing for microplastics in drinking water and sets out a multiyear road map for reducing pollution from textiles, tires, and other sources.
California has also begun treating microplastics themselves as a chemical of concern. That shifts disclosure and risk assessment obligations to manufacturers, rather than leaving the burden on consumers or local governments.
Other states are pursuing statewide strategies. Virginia, New Jersey, and Illinois have considered bills to monitor microplastics in drinking water. A Minnesota bill would study microplastics in meat and poultry, and the findings and recommendations could influence future consumer safety regulations in the state.
State and local initiatives in the U.S. and abroadbe they bans, labels, disclosures, or studiescan help keep microplastics out of our environment and lay the foundation for future large-scale regulation.
Federal ripple effects
These state-level initiatives are starting to influence policymakers in Washington.
In June 2025, the U.S. House passed the bipartisan Wastewater Infrastructure Pollution Prevention and Environmental Safety (WIPPES) Act, modeled on state no-flush laws, and sent it to the Senate for consideration.
Another bipartisan bill was introduced in July 2025, the Microplastic Safety Act, which would direct the FDA to research microplastics human health impacts, particularly on children and reproductive systems.
Proposals to require microfiber filters in washing machines, first tested at the state level, are also being considered at the federal level.
This pattern is not new. A decade ago, state bans on wash-off cosmetic microbeads paved the way for the Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015, the only federal law to date that directly bans a type of microplastic. That history suggests todays state and local actions could again catalyze broader national reform.
Small steps with big impact
Microplastics are a daunting challenge: They come from many sources, are hard to clean up once released, and pose risks to our health and the environment.
While global treaties and sweeping federal legislation remain out of reach, local and state governments are showing a path forward. These microsolutions may not eliminate microplastics, but they can reduce pollution in immediate and measurable ways, creating momentum for larger reforms.
Sarah J. Morath is a professor of law and an associate dean for international affairs at Wake Forest University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
We all know AI is eating the internet, with bots scraping sites for content and not giving anything in return. This, of course, is the impetus behind the many lawsuits that are playing out between media companies and the big AI labs, but in the here and now, the question remains what to do about those bots.
Blocking them is an option, but how effective is it? And what types of content are most at risk of being scraped and substituted by AI answers? And can you actually get AI bots to pay up?
A good place to start finding answers is the most recent State of the Bots report from AI startup TollBit. For publishers that are feeling the heat of AI, it attaches real numbers to the presence of AI in the media ecosystem and how quickly it’s growing. And while the rise of AI bots is a worrisome trend to those in the content business, it may also be an opportunity.
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Bots in disguise
In the interest of maximizing that opportunity, TollBit is doing more with this report than simply offering up charts and graphs. It’s also taking a stand, arguing that AI bots that crawl the internet should at the very least identify themselves to the sites they visit and scrape. The company is openly calling for regulation to force the issue, something CEO Toshit Panagrahi told me back in June after its previous State of the Bots report showed that certain bots from the likes of Perplexity, Meta, and Google were openly ignoring the Robots Exclusion Protocol, which websites use to manage bot traffic.
There is some nuance to that. I wont rehash the entire thing here, but briefly: certain AI bots perform tasks on behalf of users (as opposed to training or search bots), and those are designated user agents. That affords them a certain status, at least according to AI companies: Because they are essentially human proxies, they believe sites should treat them as humans, not bots. So they don’t identify themselves as bots.
What this does, at the very least, is make it very hard to tell what’s real human trafficthat is, a person navigating to a website and looking at a screenversus a robot doing the same thing. That’s going to make it very difficult to get accurate data about bot traffic, and TollBit predicts that the amount of “human” traffic will probably rebound once user agents become more common, but that’s only because trackers won’t be able to tell the difference between them and actual people.
You can see the impetus to get bots to self-identify, but let’s assume that doesn’t happen, and a significant amount of traffic falls into this gray area: seemingly human but not behaving as such. Those ersatz humans won’t ever interact with advertising, and once that becomes evident, it will cheapen the value of advertising on the web overall. We may never technically reach Google Zero, but margins will be stripped so low that Google 30 might look more like Google 10.
The content AI craves
Something else the TollBit report reveals, though, is what kind of content appears to be of greatest interest to the AI crawlers, or rather, the people using AI engines for discovery. While the data isn’t definitive, it’s fair to conclude that if a particular category of content is being scraped more often, there are more people sending AI crawlers and user agents to get it. That, in turn, might help guide content strategy.
By far the No. 1 category being scraped is B2B content, followed by parenting, sports, and consumer tech. Parenting, in fact, saw a big increase this past quarter, meaning more people are turning to AI portals for answers about parenting issues. If you produce content for parents (and this applies to any category that’s highly crawled by AI), you should consider a few things:
Your content is at high risk of substitution by AI answers.
That means it’s valuable to AI companies.
You can point to the data as leverage in licensing negotiations (or a lawsuit).
It sounds simple, but getting a major AI provider to license your content isn’t something that any site can do. OpenAI, by far the most prolific deal-maker, has signed only a few dozen agreements. And lawsuits are costly.
If you’re a parenting site, you’re not just going to stop doing parenting content, so you have a choice: block the bots, or let them crawl to ensure your presence in AI answers. While the referral traffic remains negligible (we’re effectively already at “ChatGPT Zero”), there are intangibles, mostly brand presence, that being in an AI answer provide.
You can’t build a business on intangibles, though, and that leaves the other option: blockingor rather, redirecting bots to a paywall. TollBit’s data does show that more bots than before are being successfully redirected to “forbidden” pages or hitting the company’s own paywalls.
The illusion of control
The key question, though, which the report doesn’t answer, is how many of those bots are actually paying up? The lack of answer suggests the number is quite low, and that’s because it’s simply too easy to access the content in another way. As the report describes, there are sophisticated ways for AI companies to use relays, third-party systems, and different species of bots to scrape content. And the “gray” status of consumer browser agents makes things even murkier. The number of ways to access blocked content are myriad.
That’s ultimately why TollBit has taken its stance that bots should be required to self-identify, backed by legal teeth. It’s hard to imagine AI companies self-regulating in the interest of another industryin this case, the mediawithout some kind of regulatory pressure. Otherwise, we can look forward to something else: a lot more paywalls on parenting sites.
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On Monday, Apple released macOS 26, also known as macOS Tahoe, to the world. The new operating system is available to anyone with an Apple Silicon Mac and also runs on some older Intel Macs, too. Apples most heavily marketed feature of the new Mac operating system is its Liquid Glass redesign. Just like iOS 26 on the iPhone, macOS 26 brings translucent UI elements to the Mac that mimic the way light refracts through glass. Its fun eye candy, to be sure.However, the company is also introducing another significant change to the Macs operating systemand this one is causing quite a bit of consternation among longtime Mac users. With macOS 26, Apple has eliminated Launchpad, the primary point-and-click visual interface users previously used to launch apps, and replaced it with an overhauled Spotlight search tool that is built for power usersthose who like to type instead of click to get things done. After using macOS 26 for more than a month now in beta, I feel like this is a big mistake on Apples part.Launchpad made the Mac as easy to use as the iPhoneLaunchpad was first introduced in OS X Lion, the Mac operating system Apple debuted in 2011. It sought to make launching apps on the Mac as easy as launching them on the iPhoneand it succeeded. Before Launchpad, Mac users were forced to keep apps in the Macs Dock, which could quickly become crowded depending on how many apps they had installed, or by navigating to the Applications folder in the Macs Finder and scrolling through their list of apps there, which was cumbersome and took too many clicks.Launchpad brought an iPhone home screen-style design to your Mac that made it easy for even the most novice user to find and launch apps. [Photo: Apple]With Launchpad, Apple essentially brought the iPhones home screen to the Mac. With a click of an icon in the Dock or a simple finger gesture on a MacBooks trackpad, a user could bring up Launchpad, which would display an iPhone-inspired home screen on their Mac, showcasing all their apps neatly arranged in a grid of large, beautiful icons. A single click on any icon would launch the app, and users could organize the icons into any order they wanted and even sort them into folders to group apps together.Launchpad also let users easily uninstall apps with a few clicks, and see when an app was being updated, or has been updated, thanks to indicators that showed below the apps icon. Icons also displayed notification badges, so, just like on the iPhone, you could see when you had new content available in the appsuch as an email in the Outlook app or a message in WhatsApp.Launchpad was an intuitive and straightforward way to quickly access your apps. But in macOS 26, Launchpad is gone. Instead, Apple offers a redesigned Spotlight search tool, which is now intended to be the primary way users launch apps on their Macs.The new Spotlight is built for power users, not everyday usersAs an application launcher, the new Spotlight in macOS 26 is frustratingespecially if you were used to Launchpad for the last 14 years. When unsuspecting macOS 26 users first activate Launchpad on their Macs, theyll now be greeted by the new Spotlight application launcher instead. It is noticeably different. Gone is the easily navigable home screen of apps spread across your Macs brilliant display; instead, youll be greeted with smaller icons inside a window that takes up less than a fifth of the available screen real estate. In Spotlight, app icons are displayed in an alphabetical order grid, with five ever-changing icons on top of this grid. These are apps that Spotlight thinks you want access to right awaybut its ability to predict this has been hit-or-miss in my experience. Because the new Spotlight app launcher doesnt take up your Macs entire screen like Launchpad did, nor allow you to arrange apps to your liking, if you have lots of apps, users who prefer to point and click on an icon to open an app will have to scroll through icons alphabetically for some time to find the actual one they’re looking for. While the new Spotlight does offer predefined categories that act as filters by only displaying the apps that fit that category, the categories themselves and the apps inside them are dictated by Apple. The user cannot sort their apps into their own categories (as a user could do with Launchpad by placing apps into folders of their choosing on the Launchpad interface). And, bafflingly, Spotlights app categories combine what should be multiple individual categories into one (Productivity & Finance, for example). At the same time, they often exclude essential apps from a category. For example, you would think the business communications app Microsoft Teams would be sorted into either the Productivity & Finance category or the Social category. Instead, Spotlight buries it in the Other category.As an app launcher, the new Spotlight is a step backwards in ease of use and customizability compared to Launchpad. [Photo: Apple]Icons in Spotlight also lack the helpful information that they provided in Launchpad. App icons in Spotlights launcher no longer show red notification badges on their corners when you have an alert from the app. This is a pain. The other day, I had four unread messages waiting for me in the Messages app. In Launchpad, the Messages icon would have displayed a red notification badge with the number 4 in the icons corner so I could see I had four messages waiting. But in Spotlight, notification badges no longer appear. Spotlight also ceases to show you the progress bar beneath an icon when the app is being updated, and it has removed the indicator dot below the icon signifying an app has been updated since you last launched it. Additionally, the ability to delete an app from your Mac by simply clicking and holding it to bring up an uninstaller button is now gone.Apple says that one of Spotlights big draws as an application launcher is that users can open apps without taking their fingers off the keyboard. Once Spotlight is onscreen, the user can simply type the name of the app they want to open, and then press the Enter key to launch it. But this isnt an improvement over Launchpad, because Launchpad also had this functionality built inin addition to having all the other above-mentioned features Spotlight lacks.It is an example, however, of how Apple built the new Spotlight to cater to tech-savvy “pro” users, who prefer to interact with their computers via keyboard shortcus, to the exclusion of ordinary, everyday point-and-click users. The overhauled macOS search tool also allows users to carry out other tasks, such as sending an email or a message, just by typing commands in Spotlight. I have no doubt that power users will appreciate these new features, but they may be of limited appeal to nontechnical users.If you love Launchpad, should you upgrade to macOS 26?I am far from alone in pointing out all the drawbacks of the new Spotlight as an app launcher compared to Launchpad. The change has been widely discussed on social media and online forums for months by users who have been running the macOS 26 beta on their machines.Some enterprising Mac developers have even created solutions that attempt to mimic or restore the functionality of Apples now-discontinued app launcher. When people try to start building their own replacements to add a feature back to an operating system, it usually signifies that the company made the wrong call in removing it.For what it’s worth, when I spoke recently with Stephen Tonna, an executive on Apples product marketing team, about all the new features of macOS 26 (and there are many good ones), I asked about Apple’s decision to eliminate Launchpad. Tonna reiterated that Apple sees lots of benefits in the new Spotlight, including enhanced file browsing capabilities and the ability for Spotlight to display and launch apps from your iPhone on your Macs desktop. But he did state that Apple was always listening to feedback from our users and always looking for ways that we can improve the Macs new app launcher.Whether Apple will actually make any changes to the new Spotlight, including bringing back many of the former Launchpad features, likely depends on how millions of Mac users react now that macOS 26 is available.What I can say with certainty, however, is that as an app launcher, the new Spotlight in macOS 26 is vastly inferior to the way macOS allowed users to launch, organize, and manage their apps for the last 14 years.And thats a shame because macOS 26 features some otherwise stellar changes, including a highly customizable Finder, a new Phone app, and that gorgeous new Liquid Design interface.There are many things to love in the new macOS. But the removal of Launchpad isnt one of them
Its getting harder to build large wind farms in the U.S. as the industry faces major political roadblocks. But a different kind of wind power could grow more quickly: small turbines that sit on the edge of rooftops rather than fields.
A startup called Accelerate Wind designed a system that takes advantage of the fact that when wind hits a building, it speeds up to flow over the edge.
Founder Erika Boeing, a mechanical engineer, started considering the idea while she was on a Fulbright Scholarship in the Netherlands. One night, while sitting in a brewery, she looked at the buildings across the street and suddenly had the thought that wind could be harnessed on roofs.
I went home, and when I did the math, I realized that theres actually a ton of power right at the edge of the roof, she says. The wind speeds up naturally as the sharp edge of the building forces the air to change direction. With grants, she started developing the idea in a startup program at Argonne National Labortory.
A handful of other startups have also designed rooftop wind turbines. But Accelerate Wind added something newa patented airfoil that hangs over the edge of the building to maximize the speed of the wind hitting the turbines. Without it, youd need tall turbines to generate much power. Were able to capture more power lower to the ground, because we have a spoiler that lets us really use all the wind thats accelerated by the building, Boeing says.
On a warehouse or big-box store that already has solar power covering the roof, the turbines can add an average of 25% more power generation. The tech sits on the edge in space that would otherwise be unused.
The potential is huge. The company used an AI tool to analyze all of the buildings in the U.S. Around 375,000 could potentially install the tech, accommodating roughly 2 million turbinesenough to generate the amount of energy used by 29 million homes. (Though the current product is designed for large, flat roofs, the company may also later design a system that could work on single-family homes, adding to the total space available.)
After spending years developing and testing the tech, the startup will soon begin deploying it in pilots at commercial buildings for several large companies, as well as at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota. It’s a way to make buildings more resilient, so they still have access to power if the grid goes down. Wind power is often strongest at night, when solar power isn’t available. Building owners can save money on power bills. (For some buildings that use relatively little power, such as warehouses, solar and wind on the roof could potentially supply all of the energy needed.)
It’s also helpful for climate goals. “For customers focused on decarbonization, there’s been a big push to generate energy on site, because then you know that you’re directly retiring the electrons that you are generating,” Boeing says. And while building large renewable energy projects is slow, and getting slower thanks to the current federal government, getting permits for rooftop wind is essentially as straightforward as adding rooftop solar.
As the company grows, it plans to work with solar installers to install its equipment alongside solar panels. The payback period is comparable to solarand in especially windy areas, it can be even more cost-effective.
Jim Ferrell is a best-selling author and thought leader whose work explores leadership, culture change, and human connection. As cofounder of the Arbinger Institute, he authored influential books like Leadership and Self-Deception, The Anatomy of Peace, and The Outward Mindset. He now leads Withiii Leadership, focusing on helping people apply relational approaches to leadership and organizational life, which he introduces in his newest book, You and We: A Relational Rethinking of Work, Life, and Leadership. With a background in economics, philosophy, and law, he is known for translating complex ideas into clear, transformative models that bridge divides and bring people together.
Whats the big idea?
You and We aims to help you see work and relationships in a whole new way. It details a practical framework, rooted in philosophy, for leading and running organizations. This approach is effective in business but also offers a powerful method for stitching the human family together in the face of our many threats.
Below, Jim shares five key insights from his new book, You and We: A Relational Rethinking of Work, Life, and Leadership. Listen to the audio versionread by Jim himselfbelow, or in the Next Big Idea app.
1. Management of the individual is dead
For most of modern history, weve treated individuals as the core unit of analysis in organizationsas if each person is a dot on a chart, and performance is about optimizing those dots. But heres the problem with this approach: The idea of a separate individual is a myth, and because its a myth, the strategies that mistake it as true generate systematically poor advice.
Every individual you think you are seeing is relation in disguise. When you are seeing another person, you are the one who is doing the seeing. Since you are the one who is seeing, you are not seeing a person or world separate from yourself, but rather seeing your interaction with the world. This inherent relationality of observed reality is the most important scientific discovery of the last century.
When we observe and measure the world, were not observing and measuring a world separate from ourselves; were observing and measuring our own interaction or relation with the world and the worlds interaction with us. As the great physicist Werner Heisenberg said, What we observe is not Nature itself, but Nature exposed to our method of questioning. Everything we see is relation.
Coming back to the dot analogy, the real driver of performance is not in the dots on the org chart. Its in the space or relation between them. Its in the connectivity within and between teams and departments. Team-sport coaches know this. Listen to the winning coach after a game and you will often hear them say something like, We had great connectivity tonight. What the coach means is that they won not primarily because of individual talent, but because that talent moved and functioned as a fully synchronized whole. The leadership paradigm of the future is the measurement and management of relations.
2. The 5 levels of relation
The most important part of any org chart is the space between the names and boxes on the chart. Thats where the action iswhere collaboration either lives or dies. This space between people isnt just a metaphor. Its a measurable, changeable reality. Collectively, it forms what you might think of as the relational field of your organization. This relational fieldthe levels of connectivity across your organizationis most predictive of organizational success.
To see and measure this space, we first need a way to differentiate between levels of relation. I introduce five levels of relation:
Division: People or teams that get in each others way are dividing.
Subtraction: Those who resist or avoid others are subtracting.
Addition: People or teams just focusing on their own work are adding.
Multiplication: Those who are collaborating with others are multiplying.
Compounding: People who care as much about others success as their own and integrate their work in deep ways to advance their collective success are compounding.
With these levels of relation in mind, you can map team and organizational connectivity levels and, applying strategic priorities, decide which relational intersections across the system need to be improved. When you can see and track these levels of relation, you can start improving them intentionally and systematically.
3. Thinking in 4 dimensions
To improve the connectivity levels in your organization, let me introduce a lens that I call the Four-Dimensional Playing Field.
Every organization is, on the one hand, a collectivea thing, one unit. On the other hand, this collective is made up of many individuals. Both the organization and the individuals that comprise it have outsides (things you can see) and insides (things you cant see but can sense or feel). On the individual side are peoples behaviors (which you can see) and their attitudes (which you can sense or feel). Regarding the collective, you can see its structures, systems, and processes, but you can only sense or feel its culture or community.
You build your playing field in such a way as to maximize connectivity.
These two distinctionscollective vs. individual on the one hand and outsides vs. insides on the otherproduce a four-dimensional view of organizations. The two individual dimensions are individual behaviors and attitudes. The two collective dimensions are the groups structures and culture.
Together, these four dimensions form the playing field of every organization. The realities within them are the levers you can pull to improve connectivity across a system. Elements that are dragging connectivity down can be replaced with features that provide connective lift. You build your playing field in such a way as to maximize connectivity.
4. Understanding connection
I thought I had understood human connection. However, I had only really understood how to get myself and others to the multiplication level of relation. The highest level, compoundingboth as an idea and as a realityhad been beyond me.
We assume that we are separate from others, that the world is divided between I and Other (or between Us and Them). But this is a mistake. Martin Buber shows there is no such thing as a separate-I, but only I-in-relation.
The trouble is that despite being fundamentally connected, we live much of the time as if we were divided from others. We get ourselves stuck within our own heads. We generate our own separations by encountering others through the filters of our thoughts, assumptions, judgments, and concepts, which is just another way of encountering ourselves. When we learn how we do this, we also learn how to undo it.
Getting stuck in our heads keeps us from connecting because connection happens in the space betwee people rather than in our minds. To connect, we have to learn how to escape the walls of our heads; drop the concepts, assumptions, and goals; and be present with others in the space between us.
5. The importance of difference
When thinking about integration and unity, we often assume that this means agreement, giving in, complying, or becoming more similar. But this is incorrect. As an analogy, consider water. If two hydrogen atoms combine with a single oxygen atom, something completely beyond the capabilities of hydrogen or oxygen alone comes into being: water.
This is an example of the law of progress. Whether talking about matter, life, or thought, vertical development arises from a three-part process:
First, differences need to compress together.
Then, if those differences open themselves to each other, they can overcome their apparent divides and converge.
Out of this convergence of differences emerges something entirely new.
For this transformation to happen, the elements need to retain their differences. Hydrogen atoms need to remain hydrogen, and oxygen atoms need to remain oxygen, for water to appear. Progress requires that we value and hold to our differences.
If we stay only with our own kind, or only with our own thoughts, we will remain exactly as we already are. Progress requires connection with difference. Compress, converge, emerge. That is the arc of vertical progress.
Learning to connect with difference is the path of growth.
One way to incline oneself in the direction of this growth is to always be looking for what I call the next we. Maybe I hang out with or listen to people who are like me, but what about people who are unlike me? Or who dislike me? How about those who oppose me? Or even those who might hate me?
Without realizing it, we draw lines in our minds that keep us cut off from others. Those who are currently outside whatever line you have drawn hold the key to your growth and transformation. The thing we need to progressdifferencelies on the other side of that line.
Learning to connect with difference is the path of growth. And thats true not only of you, but also of your company and your community. The lines we draw are merely the places where differences meet. Your company and your community need people who are willing and able to bridge those divides. Only then will you be able to make water.
This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
In May 2025, the White House proposed reducing the budget of the National Institutes of Health by roughly 40%from about $48 billion to $27 billion. Such a move would return NIH funding to levels last seen in 2007. Since NIH budget records began in 1938, NIH has seen only one previous double-digit cut: a 12% reduction in 1952.
Congress is now tasked with finalizing the budget ahead of the new fiscal year, which begins October 1. In July, the Senate rejected the White Houses proposed cuts and instead advanced a modest increase. And in early September, the House of Representatives also supported a budget that maintains the agencys current funding levels.
However, talk of cutting NIH funding is not a new development. Such proposals tend to resurface from time to time, and the ongoing discussion has created uncertainty about the stability of research overall and prompted concern among scientists about the future of their work.
As researchers studying complex health policy systemsand specifically, science funding policywe see the NIH as one node in an interconnected system that supports the discovery of new knowledge, trains the biomedical workforce, and makes possible medical and public health advances across the U.S.
Our research shows that while cutting NIH funding may appear to save money in the short term, it can trigger a chain of effects that increase long-term healthcare costs and slow the development of new treatments and public health solutions over time.
Seeing the bigger picture of NIH funding
NIH funding does not just support the work of individual researchers and laboratories. It shapes the foundation of American science and healthcare by training scientists, supporting preventive health research, and creating the knowledge that biomedical companies can later build into new products.
To understand how funding cuts may affect scientific progress, the training of new researchers, and the availability of new treatments, we took a broad look at existing evidence. We reviewed studies and data that connect NIH funding, or biomedical research more generally, to outcomes such as innovation, workforce development, and public health.
In a study published in July 2025, we built a simple framework to show how changes in one part of the systemresearch grants, for examplecan lead to changes in others, like fewer training opportunities or slower development of new therapies.
Eroding the basic research foundation
The NIH funds early-stage research that lacks immediate commercial value but provides the building blocks for future innovations. This includes projects that map disease pathways, develop new laboratory methods, or collect large datasets that researchers use for decades.
For example, NIH-supported research in the 1950s identified cholesterol and its role in disease pathways for heart disease, helping to lay the groundwork for the later discovery of statins used by millions of people to lower cholesterol levels. Cancer biology research in the 1960s led to the discovery of cisplatin, a chemotherapy prescribed to 10% to 20% of cancer patients. Basic research in the 1980s on how the kidneys handle sugar helped pave the way for a new class of drugs for type 2 diabetes, some of which are also used for weight management. Diabetes affects about 38 million Americans, and obesity affects more than 40% of the adults in the U.S.
Cisplatin, a chemotherapy widely used today, was developed through NIH-supported cancer biology research. [Photo: FatCamera/Getty Images]
Without this kind of public, taxpayer-funded investment, many foundational projects would never begin, because private firms rarely take on work with long timelines or unclear profits. Our study did not estimate dollar amounts, but the evidence we reviewed shows that when public research slows, downstream innovation and economic benefits are also delayed. That can mean fewer new treatments, slower adoption of cost-saving technologies, and reduced growth in industries that depend on scientific advances.
Reducing the scientific workforce
By providing grants that support students, postdoctoral researchers, and early-career investigators, along with the labs and facilities where they train, the NIH also plays a central role in preparing up-and-coming scientists.
When funding is cut, fewer positions are available and some labs face closure. This can discourage young researchers from entering or staying in the field. The effect extends beyond academic research. Some NIH-trained scientists later move into biotechnology, medical device companies, and data science roles. A weaker training system today means fewer skilled professionals across the broader economy tomorrow.
For example, NIH progams have produced not only academic researchers but also engineers and analysts who now work on immune therapies, brain-computer interfaces, diagnostics and AI-driven tools, as well as other technologies in startups and in more established biotech and pharmaceutical companies.
If those training opportunities shrink, biotech and pharmaceutical industries may have less access to talent. A weakened NIH-supported workforce may also risk eroding U.S. global competitiveness, even in the private sector.
Innovation shifts toward narrow markets
Public and private investment serve different purposes. NIH funding often reduces scientific risk by advancing projects to a stage where companies can invest with greater confidence. Past examples include support for imaging physics that led to MRI and PET scans and early materials science research that enabled modern prosthetics.
Our research highlights the fact that when public investment recedes, companies tend to focus on products with clearer near-term returns. That may tilt innovation toward specialty drugs or technologies with high launch prices and away from improvements that serve broader needs, such as more effective use of existing therapies or widely accessible diagnostics.
Imaging technologies such as MRI were developed through NIH funding for basic research. [Photo: Tunvarat Pruksachat/Getty Images]
Some cancer drugs, for instance, relied heavily on NIH-supported basic science discoveries in cell biology and clinical trial design. Independent studies have documented that without this early publicly supported work, development timelines lengthen and costs increase, which can translate into higher prices for patients and health systems. When public funding shrinks and companies shift toward expensive products instead of lower-cost improvements, overall health spending can rise.
What looks like a budget saving in the near term can therefore have the opposite effect, with government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid ultimately shouldering higher costs.
Prevention and public health are sidelined
NIH is also a major funder of research aimed at promoting health and preventing disease. This includes studies on nutrition, chronic diseases, maternal health, and environmental exposures such as lead or air pollution.
These projects often improve health long before disease becomes severe, but they rarely attract private investment because their benefits unfold gradually and do not translate into direct profits.
Delaying or canceling prevention research can result in higher costs later, as more people require intensive treatment for conditions that could have been avoided or managed earlier. For example, decades of observation in the Framingham Heart Study shaped treatment guidelines for risk factors such as high blood pressure and heart rhythm disorders. Now this cornerstone of prevention helps to avert heart attacks and strokes, which are far more risky and costly to treat.
A broader shift in direction?
Beyond these specific areas, the larger issue is how the U.S. will choose to support science and medical research going forward. For decades, public investment has enabled researchers to take on difficult questions and conduct decades-long studies. This support has contributed to advances ranging from psychosocial therapies for depression to surgical methods for liver transplants that do not fit neatly into market priorities, unlike drugs or devices.
If government support weakens, medical and health research may become more dependent on commercial markets and philanthropic donors. That can narrow the kinds of problems studied and limit flexibility to respond to urgent needs such as emerging infections or climate-related health risks.
Countries that sustain public investment may also gain an edge by attracting top researchers and setting global standards for new technologies.
On the other hand, once opportunities are lost and talent is dispersed, rebuilding takes far more time and resources.
Mohammad S. Jalali is an associate professor of systems science and policy at Harvard University.
Zeynep Hasgül is a research associate of data and systems science at Harvard University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
