Couples who co-create a shared worldview find greater meaning in life

McGill-led study shows that being ‘on the same page’ reduces uncertainty in tumultuous times and increases satisfaction with life and work

McGill University

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Fostering shared understanding between romantic partners may be a powerful way for people to navigate uncertainty and build a more meaningful life, a study by McGill researchers suggests.

The study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, found that co-creating a shared worldview can buffer against distress, even in highly charged social and political contexts. For example, front-line health-care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic and Black Americans during the Black Lives Matter movement reported less uncertainty and more meaning when they understood the world around them in the same way as their partners. Sharing a perception of reality with a partner makes one’s view of reality seem true.

While previous research has shown that people overwhelmingly cite personal relationships as their primary source of meaning in life, it has been less clear which aspects of relationships contribute to this feeling.

“Our approach was different from earlier work on how relationships promote meaning, which tended to focus on aspects like belonging or support,” said M. Catalina Enestrom, lead author of the article, written while she was a doctoral student in psychology at McGill. She is now a post-doctoral fellow at IESE Business School in Barcelona. “We set out to explore whether sharing thoughts, ideas and concerns about the world with a romantic partner could enhance meaning by reducing uncertainty about one’s environment.”

A new understanding of the benefits of relationships

“As couples accumulate shared experiences, shared feelings, goals, and memories, they develop a generalized shared reality,” said senior author John Lydon, a psychology professor at McGill University. “This is different from simply feeling close or supported. It’s not just ‘my partner gets me,’ it’s ‘we get it.’”

Enestrom explained that shared reality can emerge from both shared experiences and shared interpretations.

 “Shared reality can form, for instance, when a couple watches a horror movie together and one or both partners perceive that they both find it scary. But shared reality doesn’t necessarily require shared experiences. One partner can describe a stressful event they experienced, and if the other partner sees it the same way, this too can foster shared reality. As couples accumulate these shared reality experiences, they come to develop a sense of shared understanding about the world in general.”

A sense of coherence and purpose

Although there is no single definition of “meaning,” researchers often describe it as a sense of coherence and purpose. Prior studies have shown that experiencing meaning in life is associated with better coping, greater happiness and improved health outcomes.

To arrive at their findings, the researchers conducted five studies involving nearly 1,300 adults in Canada and the U.S, using a variety of methods, from lab-based tasks to online surveys and experiments, to test their hypothesis. They consistently found that a shared sense of reality reduced uncertainty, which in turn increased participants’ sense of meaning.

The study

“Meaning-making with romantic partners: Shared reality promotes meaning in life by reducing uncertainty” by M Catalina Enestrom, Maya Rossignac-Milon, Amanda L Forest,, John E Lydon 

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: Interpersonal Relations and Group Processes

DOI: 10.1037/pspi0000472

Funding

The research was funded in part by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the University of Pittsburgh.

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Journal

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

DOI

10.1037/pspi0000472 

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Meaning-making with romantic partners: Shared reality promotes meaning in life by reducing uncertainty

Article Publication Date

17-Jun-2025

Satisfaction in romantic relationships significantly fluctuates over several days and even within a 24-hour period

Willingness to recognize and respond to the partner's needs is a key factor determining relationship satisfaction

Johannes Gutenberg Universitaet Mainz

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Two couples with average (top) versus strong (bottom) fluctuations in relationship satisfaction, measured once a day over 14 days

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Credit: ill./©: Louisa Scheling

In romantic relationships, the partners' satisfaction with their relationship can vary considerably over several days and even in the course of a single day. This is the result of a new psychological study on short-term satisfaction in romantic relationships. "Fluctuations are quite normal. However, they may also indicate unsatisfied needs in the relationship," said Louisa Scheling of the Institute of Psychology at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), lead author of the corresponding article. According to Scheling, fluctuations in relationship satisfaction can be a good starting point for partners to talk about their own expectations and, at the same time, become aware of the partner's needs, thus contributing to an overall improvement in the quality of the relationship. The study was mainly conducted at JGU and has been published recently in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Also involved were researchers at Heidelberg University, Brigham Young University in the USA, the University of Basel in Switzerland, and the German Center of Gerontology (DZA) in Berlin.

High-frequency surveys to assess relationship satisfaction

For most individuals, romantic relationships are among the most important relationships in their lives. Relationship satisfaction plays an important role not only for the relationship itself, but also for health outcomes and life satisfaction. In the Western world, however, 30 to 50 percent of marriages end in divorce. Separation rates among unmarried couples are even higher. In the search for the root causes of this development, research has to date focused primarily on relationship satisfaction over periods of months and years. "In contrast, we have decided to take a narrow chronological approach to determine how satisfied partners were with their situation over the course of a few days and even within a 24-hour period," explained Louisa Scheling.

The research team evaluated data from two individual surveys of couples who reported on their individual relationship satisfaction on a daily basis or even several times each day. A total of 593 couples participated in the first survey and 150 couples in the second. The results of analysis of the data showed that partners experience substantial fluctuations in terms of how satisfied they are with their relationship. These fluctuations tend to be greater over periods of several days than during a single 24-hour period. Interestingly, the up and down swings of the degree of satisfaction reported turned out to be relatively synchronous for both partners over the course of time.

Mutual recognition of needs contributes to satisfaction

The researchers then considered various possible factors that might affect the outcome, such as age, gender, relationship duration, and attachment style. In fact, the perceived responsiveness of the partner proved to be a key parameter determining the course of satisfaction, while the emotional instability of male partners also had a notable effect. Louisa Scheling summarizes the findings of this part of the study as follows: "The reliable perception and fulfillment of the partner's needs contributes significantly to stable relationship satisfaction in everyday life. It's similar to a parent-child relationship: if needs are consistently met, satisfaction stabilizes at a high level."

The observed fluctuations in relationship satisfaction can, over the short term, be accompanied by thoughts of separation. Over the longer term, however, these have merely a limited effect on the course of the relationship over time. "It is possible that fluctuations in relationship satisfaction tend on the whole to mimic the current relationship dynamics between partners, rather than predicting the future development of the relationship," added Scheling. In her view, the findings of the study can help to support couples and show them, for example in the context of relationship counseling, that fluctuations in relationship satisfaction are normal but may serve as signals that there is room for improvement. "If this is to work, the partners have to be well aware of their needs and be able to express them clearly," the psychologist concluded.

 

Read more:

• https://press.uni-mainz.de/transition-point-in-romantic-relationships-signals-the-beginning-of-their-end/ – press release "Transition point in romantic relationships signals the beginning of their end" (21 March 2025)
• https://press.uni-mainz.de/adolescents-today-are-more-satisfied-with-being-single/ – press release "Adolescents today are more satisfied with being single" (25 June 2024)
• https://press.uni-mainz.de/new-emmy-noether-junior-research-group-focuses-on-couple-relationships/ – press release "New Emmy Noether junior research group focuses in couple relationships" (4 Oct.2023)

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Two couples with average (top) versus strong (bottom) fluctuations in relationship satisfaction, measured five times a day over ten days

Credit

ill./©: Louisa Scheling

Journal

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

DOI

10.1037/pspp0000559 

Article Title

Within-person variability and couple synchrony in state relationship satisfaction: Testing predictors and implications

Article Publication Date

17-Jun-2025

 

Clearing out the clutter: how people retain important information from memories

Mechanism for how people actively remove unneeded information from their memories to retain what is important to remember

Society for Neuroscience

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Removing information from memories may help people retain what they want to remember. Studies focus on how the brain removes information by subconsciously not paying attention to these details, but sometimes there is a need to consciously remove unneeded details from memories. This is especially true when details in a memory are perceptibly harmful and lead to, for example, people combating rumination, intrusive negative thoughts, or hallucinations. In a new JNeurosci paper, Jiangang Shan and Bradley Postle, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, explored how the brain actively removes unneeded memory content. 

The researchers recorded the brain activity of nearly 30 study participants as they performed a memory task. In this task, participants were initially given two items to remember. Experimental conditions either did or did not encourage participants to actively remove the memory of one of these items. Following these conditions, they were given a third item to remember. Finally, participants were tested on their memory of the relevant first and final items. The findings indicate a mechanism linked to consciously removing information from a memory: less excitable brain circuits that initially process unneeded memory content. 

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Please contact media@sfn.org for full-text PDF. 

About JNeurosci 

JNeurosci was launched in 1981 as a means to communicate the findings of the highest quality neuroscience research to the growing field. Today, the journal remains committed to publishing cutting-edge neuroscience that will have an immediate and lasting scientific impact, while responding to authors' changing publishing needs, representing breadth of the field and diversity in authorship. 

About The Society for Neuroscience 

The Society for Neuroscience is the world's largest organization of scientists and physicians devoted to understanding the brain and nervous system. The nonprofit organization, founded in 1969, now has nearly 35,000 members in more than 95 countries. 

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Journal

JNeurosci

DOI

10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2414-24.2025 

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

EEG Correlates of Active Removal from Working Memory

Article Publication Date

16-Jun-2025

 

Exposure to low levels of arsenic in public drinking water linked to lower birthweight, preterm birth, study finds

Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes

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NIH Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes 

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Credit: The ECHO Program

Babies born to mothers potentially exposed to low levels of arsenic in public drinking water—even at levels below the federal safety standard—were more likely to be born preterm, with lower birthweight, or be smaller than expected, according to a study funded by the National Institutes of Health’s Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Program.

While the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sets a maximum contaminant level of 10 micrograms per liter for arsenic in public water systems, this study examines how even lower-level arsenic exposures may still affect pregnancy outcomes in a large population. Previous research largely focused on private wells or smaller study groups.

Because arsenic occurs naturally, water that comes in contact with certain rocks and soils may contain it. Contamination from various industrial processes also contributes to increased levels of arsenic in some areas.

“Most U.S. residents rely on public drinking water, and our findings suggest that further reducing arsenic in public water systems could be an important step to improve infant health across the U.S.,” said Anne Nigra, PhD, of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. “Even low levels of arsenic in public drinking water were associated with low birthweight and other adverse birth outcomes in U.S. infants.”

Key takeaways include:

• Potential arsenic exposure during pregnancy—even at levels below the current federal safety standard—may be linked to adverse birth outcomes.
• Mothers exposed to higher levels of arsenic in public drinking water were more likely to have babies born with low birthweight or smaller than expected for the number of weeks of pregnancy.
• These patterns were seen across several racial and ethnic groups, including White, Black, and Hispanic/Latino families. Similar risks were also observed among babies born to American Indian, Alaskan Native, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander parents.
• Babies born to Black parents faced higher risks of being born early, having low birthweight, or being smaller than expected.

Researchers analyzed data from nearly 14,000 mother-infant pairs from the ECHO Cohort. Arsenic exposures during pregnancy were estimated by combining water quality data with the residential histories of participants. No actual arsenic levels were tested for these participants.

This collaborative research was published in JAMA Network Open.

Nigra, A., et al. (2025) Public water arsenic and birth outcomes in the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes Cohort. JAMA Network Open. DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.14084

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About ECHO
The ECHO Cohort Consortium is a research program supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) with the mission to enhance the health of children for generations to come. ECHO Cohort investigators study the effects of a broad range of early environmental influences on child health and development. For more information, visit echochildren.org.

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Journal

JAMA Network Open

DOI

10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.14084 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Public water arsenic and birth outcomes in the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes Cohort

Article Publication Date

16-Jun-2025

 

AMS Science Preview: Gun violence & weather; NOAA flights improve hurricane forecasts; atmospheric rivers and radio waves

Early online research from journals of the American Meteorological Society

American Meteorological Society

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The American Meteorological Society continuously publishes research on climate, weather, and water in its 12 journals. Many of these articles are available for early online access–they are peer-reviewed, but not yet in their final published form. Below are some recent examples.

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JOURNAL ARTICLES

Exploring The Role of Air Mass Type and Weather on Shooting Incidents in New York City
Weather, Climate, and Society

Hot, dry air masses=increased gun violence in NYC. Previous studies have suggested that shootings increase during hot weather in New York City. This study looks at the overall characteristics of the air masses dominant over the city, yielding a more accurate picture of how weather relates to gun violence. The authors find that on the whole,  “hotter, drier air masses tend to increase shootings, especially in the spring, while cooler, wetter air masses tend to decrease shootings, especially in the summer.”

Comparison of 2018–22 Tropical Cyclone Track Forecasts Before and After NOAA G-IV Missions
Weather and Forecasting 

NOAA hurricane flights improve tropical cyclone track forecasts. Wind data from flights into tropical cyclones by the NOAA Gulfstream IV jet–such as Hurricane Hunter missions–improved forecasts of a storm’s path by up to 24% on average, based on 2018-2022 data. The authors ran model forecasts (using both U.S. and European models) with and without dropwindsonde data from Gulfstream flights, and found that the first track forecast to incorporate the data for a given cyclone saw the greatest improvement.

The Conditional Effects of Air Conditioning: How Air Conditioning Affects Climate Change Views by Partisanship in Los Angeles County
Weather, Climate, and Society

L.A. Republicans without air conditioning are more likely to be concerned about climate change. Data from the Los Angeles Barometer survey suggest that L.A.-area Republicans without access to air conditioning are “more likely to consider climate change a human-caused threat and more likely to support individual and government action to address climate change” compared with Republicans who had central air. Democrats did not show a similar divide.

The Cost of Weather-Related Traffic Collisions
Weather, Climate, and Society

Weather-related traffic accidents cost North Carolina. A study of 2013–19 data from North Carolina counties found that common adverse weather conditions like rain, wind, and extreme temperatures contributed to around 7,805 extra traffic collisions per year in the state, and around $961 million in costs to society. Different conditions have disparate impacts on collision outcomes for vehicles, bicycles, and pedestrians, with each county seeing thousands to millions of dollars’ worth of costs per day of exposure to adverse weather.

Extreme Weather Experiences, Emotional Reactions to Messages, and Support for Pro-Climate Policies
Weather, Climate, and Society

Political conservatives who have experienced extreme weather are somewhat more receptive to climate communications. Using data from Pew’s American Trends Panel, the authors found that personal experiences with extreme weather may enhance political conservatives’ receptiveness to messages about climate action, moderating their emotional responses and subtly shifting their preferences around energy policy toward pro-climate positions.

Quantifying the Effects of the KULM Radar on Local Report Climatology, Operational Metrics, and Casualty Impacts of Tornadoes
Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology

Increased tornado reports, fewer casualties followed installation of new weather radar. In 2016, the University of Louisiana Monroe began operating a Doppler radar in an area with previously poor radar coverage. Results indicate more than a seven-fold increase in the number of annual tornado reports, fewer false alarms, and a lower annual casualty rate. Investing in supplemental radars has the potential to improve National Weather Service warnings and provide public value.

Characterizing Rainfall and Land Surface Conditions Associated with Lightning-Initiated Wildfires
Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology

Less rain, more lightning-sparked wildfires. A study of lighting-initiated wildfires (LIWs) in the United States found that LIWs were more likely after days of declining soil moisture with plants stressed by dryness. Rain rates were most important for determining whether LIWs would occur, but dry surface soil (with more water deep down) was also common at ignition sites. 

Synthesis of Publications on the Anomalous June 2021 Heat Wave in the Pacific Northwest, United States and Canada
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

2021 PNW heat wave: causes and effects. A synthesis of research on 2021’s Pacific Northwest heat wave found that “a persistent, extraordinarily strong ridge of high pressure was a primary driver,” with contributors like moisture from the tropical Pacific, high solar radiation, and unusually dry soils. Climate change contributed by increasing average temperatures, but it’s unclear whether it disproportionately increased temperature extremes. Mortality, heat-induced illness, and the number of visits to emergency departments during the 2021 heat wave were anomalously high, especially among older and low-income people, those who lived alone, and those without functioning a/c.

Impact of Atmospheric Rivers on Electromagnetic Ducting as Diagnosed from Dropsondes
Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology

Atmospheric rivers create channels for electromagnetic radiation. Electromagnetic ducting, in which atmospheric conditions create a layer that traps and channels electromagnetic waves, is crucial for radio wave propagation in communication, radar, and navigation systems. Analysis of data from Atmospheric River Reconnaissance flights finds that atmospheric rivers (ARs) play a significant role in determining the frequency and properties of electromagnetic ducts, suggesting that large changes in airmass density lead to deeper ducts that can trap larger wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation.

Global Land-Lake Thermal Contrast in a Warming World
Journal of Climate

Lakes’ weather impact may change with warming. Lakes exert strong influence on local weather and climate due to large differences in their temperature from that of nearby land (on average worldwide, across seasons and time of day, lakes are warmer than the land around them). This study suggests that under a high-emissions global warming scenario, warming of land surfaces will lead to lakes being on average cooler than surrounding land by the end of the century. Lake breezes are likely to intensify.

A Linear Analysis of the Heating Footprints of the US Mesoscale Convective Systems in the Northern Extratropical Synoptic Variability
Journal of Climate

Localized U.S. storm systems may alter weather as far away as Europe. A modeling study suggests that convective heating from mesoscale convective systems (thunderstorm complexes) over the United States could alter weather patterns as far away as the North Atlantic and Europe “for days or even longer.” Heat released from these storms can add energy to larger-scale weather patterns, with implications for regional and global climate.

NOAA/NASA/NSF research spotlights

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is the parent agency of the National Weather Service. NOAA’s research arm, the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, is threatened with elimination under 2026 budget plans, as is much of the research that takes place at the National Air and Space Administration (NASA) or is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). To help reporters understand some of the research that takes place through these funds and agencies, we are highlighting the additional recent publications below: 

U.S.-based hurricane track forecasts for the North Atlantic are improving: While European hurricane models have been considered the most reliable globally, U.S. models have been catching up to them since 2019, this study finds. “Various FV3 (Finite-Volume Cubed-Sphere Dynamical Core)-based models, including [the] National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) operational Global Forecast System (GFS), [NCEP’s] newly operational Hurricane Analysis and Forecast System (HAFS), and [the] research-oriented Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) System for High-resolution prediction on Earth-to-Local Domains (SHiELD), have consistently demonstrated improved hurricane forecasts in the North Atlantic basin.” 

Flights over the ocean help quantify climate change: Read about the NASA ACTIVATE mission, studying aerosol-cloud interactions (ACI) over the northwest Atlantic, which represent the largest uncertainty in estimating total anthropogenic-radiative forcing (i.e., human contributions to climate change).

An accessible home for Antarctic research: Read about the NSF-funded Antarctic Meteorological Research and Data Center (AMRDC) Data Repository, which aims to house and archive current and future Antarctic meteorological research.

You can view all research published in AMS Journals at journals.ametsoc.org.

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About the American Meteorological Society

The American Meteorological Society advances the atmospheric and related sciences, technologies, applications, and services for the benefit of society. Founded in 1919, AMS has a membership of around 12,000 professionals, students, and weather enthusiasts. AMS publishes 12 atmospheric and related oceanic and hydrologic science journals; hosts more than 12 conferences annually; and offers numerous programs and services. Visit us at www.ametsoc.org/.

About AMS Journals

The American Meteorological Society continuously publishes research on climate, weather, and water in its 12 journals. Some AMS journals are open access. Media login credentials are available for subscription journals. Journals include the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Weather, Climate, and Society, the Journal of Climate, and Monthly Weather Review.

 

DUNE-TECH boot camp at Rice ignites next generation of America ’s neutrino scientists

Rice University

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A group photo of the DUNE-TECH camp attendees.

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In a milestone moment for science education and collaboration, Rice University hosted its first DUNE-TECH (DUNE Training ExperienCe Hub) camp this June, drawing students, researchers and scientists from across the country into the world of neutrino physics and computing. The weeklong event held on Rice’s campus was designed to prepare participants for meaningful engagement with the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) — the most ambitious neutrino experiment ever undertaken in the United States.

“The DUNE-TECH camp was born out of a desire to give students hands-on experience and training in the kind of cutting-edge tools and technologies they’ll need to contribute to the DUNE experiment and to neutrino physics more broadly,” said Aaron Higuera, assistant research professor of physics and astronomy at Rice and the principal investigator for DUNE-TECH. “We’re laying the foundation for the next generation of scientists to ask — and hopefully answer — some of the most fundamental questions about the universe.”

Advancing the frontiers of neutrino science

The DUNE experiment is an international, multi-institutional effort to study neutrinos — the second most abundant particle in the universe. It involves a pair of detectors placed along a 1,300-kilometer baseline with one near the source of a high-intensity neutrino beam at Fermilab in Illinois and the other housed deep underground in South Dakota’s Sanford Underground Research Facility. Together, these detectors will allow researchers to observe neutrino oscillations, probe the origin of matter, test theories of proton decay and even investigate how black holes are born.

Through DUNE-TECH, Rice and its partners — including Fermi National Accelerator Lab, Los Alamos National Lab, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory and others — aim to immerse early career researchers in this groundbreaking scientific endeavor.

“The camp wasn’t just lectures, it was about building skills,” Higuera said. “From C++ and Python programming to machine learning, ROOT data analysis and databases, we introduced participants to the full technical tool kit they’ll need for DUNE and other experiments.”

The students who attended the weeklong camp found it both inspiring and useful for their future studies and careers.

“I’m really into particle physics, and I started doing research with my professor at Wichita State, who’s also involved with DUNE,” said Olive Colfelt, a rising junior at Wichita State University and a DUNE-TECH fellow and camp attendee. “He pointed me toward this opportunity as a great way to expand my computing capabilities.”

“As a physics major, I’ve always been fascinated by neutrinos, especially the unintuitive, almost mysterious things they do, like oscillations,” said Oswaldo J. Cardenas, a rising senior at Harvey Mudd College who attended the camp. “What drew me to this program was the chance to be part of a collaborative environment where you’re thinking, learning and talking with others who are just as curious as you are.”

A week of discovery

The camp kicked off June 9 with a special lecture from Mary Bishai, the 2024 DOE Office of Science Distinguished Scientist Fellow, former DUNE co-spokesperson and a pioneer in neutrino physics. Currently a senior scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory, Bishai has spent her career unlocking the secrets of neutrinos and played a key role in shaping DUNE’s scientific mission.

“This is a 30-year project, and we need to develop the scientific community that will carry it forward — from high school to undergrad and beyond,” Bishai said. “Some of these young people in attendance today may be standing up here in 10 years announcing what could be a Nobel Prize-winning result.”

“It was incredibly inspiring to have Dr. Bishai speak to the students,” Higuera said. “Her career exemplifies the impact one person can have on the direction of a major scientific collaboration.”

Throughout the week, students and early career researchers dove into technical sessions on computing and neutrino theory. The diverse group of lecturers — representing national labs and universities from across the country — gave students the opportunity to build community and network during coffee breaks, including a Wednesday night dinner at Rice’s historic Cohen House.

The future of fundamental physics

With its emphasis on skill-building, mentorship and collaboration, DUNE-TECH reflects a growing recognition of the importance of training in science. As the DUNE experiment moves closer to operations, camps like this one will be essential to preparing a global workforce capable of analyzing data and advancing bold new theories.

“It’s been incredible to see how everyone has come together. Research teams get to share their work, and it’s inspiring to hear about what they’re doing,” said Mikayla Bukenya, who helped establish DUNE-TECH and graduated from Rice with a computer science degree this spring. “I enjoy having conversations with the team and helping out, especially on the software side of things. It’s great to contribute in that way.”

“DUNE is a once-in-a-generation project, and Rice is proud to be a hub for this kind of high-impact science education,” Higuera said. “This camp is our way of making sure that when the big discoveries come, our students are ready to lead.”

 

Ensuring the future of flora: UMass Amherst ecologists release dataset of climate-smart plants

University of Massachusetts Amherst

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Spotted beebalm can grow to almost three feet tall in dry soil with full sun and is beloved of native bees.

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Credit: Jenica Allen

AMHERST, Mass. — Native plant species cannot adapt quickly enough, nor move fast enough to keep ahead of climate change. If native plants are going to survive rising temperatures, they need human intervention—everyone from home gardeners to professional landscapers. But which flora to choose? And how to know if a plant native to Connecticut might do well in Maine?

To help solve this problem, ecologists from the University of Massachusetts Amherst collaborated with the Northeast Regional Invasive Species and Climate Change (NE RISCC) Management Network to launch both a Climate-Smart Gardening guide and an extensive dataset of easily obtainable native plants that will thrive in the coming decades. The resources, available now, will be officially announced in an online “Coffee Talk,” June 18, 10 a.m. ET.

“We’ve been working on this for more than two years,” says Matthew Fertakos, a graduate student in organismic and evolutionary biology at UMass Amherst and one of the project’s lead authors. “People are getting excited about planting native species, but climate change is changing what can grow where and what will persist into the future. Unfortunately, there’s not all that much publicly available information to help guide people when they’re trying to decide what to plant.”

To remedy that, Fertakos and his co-authors, who hail from the New York Botanical Garden, Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and New York State Parks, have assembled an enormous database of climate-smart plants. They surveyed approximately 350 nurseries, from Virginia to Maine, Ohio to Massachusetts, to see what native plants were generally available, and then relied on some of the best, most current ecological forecasting to understand what each state’s growing conditions would look like over the next 40 years. The resulting state lists have hundreds of options for home gardeners to choose from.

“When we’re thinking about climate change and the impact it is going to have on where species can grow, there’s a paradigm of move, adapt or die,” says Jenica Allen, senior research fellow at UMass Amherst and NE RISCC. “We’re trying to avoid the die, and there is good evidence that moving is the key to survival. That’s really the piece of the puzzle that this dataset is aiming to address, with home gardeners and landscape professionals as the audience.”

The UMass Amherst team, along with their NE RISCC colleagues, worked closely with on-the-ground experts and natural resource practitioners to fine-tune the plant lists for each Atlantic coast state, from Maine to Virginia, as well as states as far west as Ohio. “We had input and review from more than 100 experts,” says Fertakos, “and we made dozens of changes to our initial draft based on their feedback.”

Both the Climate Smart Gardening pamphlet and the plant database are available here.