NASA’s independent study team released its highly anticipated report on UFOs on Sept. 14, 2023.

In part to move beyond the stigma often attached to UFOs, where military pilots fear ridicule or job sanctions if they report them, UFOs are now characterized by the U.S. government as UAPs, or unidentified anomalous phenomena.

Bottom line: The study team found no evidence that reported UAP observations are extraterrestrial.

I’m a professor of astronomy who has written extensively on astrobiology and the scientists who search for life in the universe. I have long been skeptical of the claim that UFOs represent visits by aliens to Earth.

From sensationalism to science

During a press briefing, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson noted that NASA has scientific programs to search for traces of life on Mars and the imprints of biology in the atmospheres of exoplanets. He said he wanted to shift the UAP conversation from sensationalism to one of science.

With this statement, Nelson was alluding to some of the more outlandish claims about UAPs and UFOs. At a congressional hearing in July, former Pentagon intelligence officer David Grusch testified that the American government has been hiding evidence of crashed UAPs and alien biological specimens. Sean Kirkpatrick, head of the Pentagon office charged with investigating UAPs, has denied these claims.

And the same week NASA’s report came out, Mexican lawmakers were shown by journalist Jaime Maussan two tiny, 1,000-year-old bodies that he claimed were the remains of “non-human” beings. Scientists have called this claim fraudulent and say the mummies may have been looted from gravesites in Peru.

Conclusions from the report

The NASA study team report sheds little light on whether some UAPs are extraterrestrial. In his comments, the chair of the study team, astronomer David Spergel stated that the team had seen “no evidence to suggest that UAPs are extraterrestrial in origin.”

Of the more than 800 unclassified sightings collected by the Department of Defense’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office and reported at the NASA panel’s first public meeting back in May 2023, only “a small handful cannot be immediately identified as known human-made or natural phenomena,” according to the report.

Many of the recent sightings can be attributed to weather balloons and airborne clutter. Historically, most UFOs are astronomical objects such as meteors, fireballs and the planet Venus.

Some sightings represent surveillance operations by foreign powers, which is why the U.S. military considers this a national security issue.

The report does offer recommendations to NASA on how to move these investigations forward.

Most of the UAP data considered by the study team comes from U.S. military aircraft. Analysis of this data is “hampered by poor sensor calibration, the lack of multiple measurements, the lack of sensor metadata, and the lack of baseline data.” The ideal set of measurements would include optical imaging, infrared imaging, and radar data, but very few reports have all these.

The NASA study team described in the report the types of data that can shed more light on UAPs. The authors note the importance of reducing the stigma that can cause both military and commercial pilots to feel that they cannot freely report sightings. The stigma stems from decades of conspiracy theories tied to UFOs.

The NASA study team suggests gathering sightings by commercial pilots using the Federal Aviation Administration and combining these with classified sightings not included in the report. Team members did not have security clearance, so they could look only at the subset of military sightings that were unclassified. At the moment, there is no anonymous nationwide UAP reporting mechanism for commercial pilots.

With access to these classified sightings and a structured mechanism for commercial pilots to report sightings, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office – the military office charged with leading the analysis effort – could have the most data.

NASA also announced the appointment of a new director of research on UAPs. This position will oversee the creation of a database with resources to evaluate UAP sightings.

Looking for a needle in a haystack

Parts of the briefing resembled a primer on the scientific method. Using analogies, officials described the analysis process as looking for a needle in a haystack, or separating the wheat from the chaff. The officials said they needed a consistent and rigorous methodology for characterizing sightings, as a way of homing in on something truly anomalous.

Spergel said the study team’s goal was to characterize the hay – or the mundane phenomena – and subtract it to find the needle, or the potentially exciting discovery. He noted that artificial intelligence can help researchers comb through massive datasets to find rare, anomalous phenomena. AI is already being used this way in many areas of astronomy research.

The speakers noted the importance of transparency. Transparency is important because UFOs have long been associated with conspiracy theories and government cover-ups. Similarly, much of the discussion during the congressional UAP hearing in July focused on a need for transparency. All scientific data that NASA gathers is made public on various websites, and officials said they intend to do the same with the nonclassified UAP data.

At the beginning of the briefing, Nelson gave his opinion that there were perhaps a trillion instances of life beyond Earth. So, it’s plausible that there is intelligent life out there. But the report says that when it comes to UAPs, extraterrestrial life must be the hypothesis of last resort. It quotes Thomas Jefferson: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” That evidence does not yet exist.

Chris Impey, University Distinguished Professor of Astronomy, University of Arizona

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

As wildfires burn across the Western U.S., the people in harm’s way are increasingly those least able to protect their homes from fire risks, evacuate safely or recover after a fire.

In a new study, we and a team of fellow wildfire scientists examined who lived within the perimeters of wildfires over the past two decades in Washington, Oregon and California – home to about 90% of Americans in the U.S. West exposed to wildfires over that period.

Overall, nearly half a million people in California, Oregon and Washington were exposed to wildfires at some point during the past 22 years. Alarmingly, about half the people exposed to wildfires in Washington and Oregon were considered socially vulnerable.

While the number of people exposed to fire rose overall, the number of socially vulnerable people exposed more than tripled between the first and second decades.

How social vulnerability affects fire risk

A variety of factors shape social vulnerability, including wealth, race, age, disability and fluency in the local language.

These factors can make it harder to take steps to protect homes from wildfire damage, evacuate safely and recover after a disaster. For example, low-income residents often can’t afford adequate insurance coverage that could help them rebuild their homes after a fire. And residents who don’t speak English may not hear about evacuation orders or know how to get assistance after a disaster.

Older adults face rising fire exposure

We found that older adults in particular were disproportionately exposed to wildfires in all three states.

Physical difficulties and cognitive decline can hamper older adults’ ability to keep their properties clear of flammable materials, such as dry shrubs and grasses, and can slow their ability to evacuate in an emergency. The fire that destroyed the town of Paradise, California, in 2018 was a tragic example. Of the 85 victims, 68 were 65 years of age or older.

Poverty was another important factor in the exposure of people with high vulnerability to wildfires in Oregon and Washington.

The reasons that socially vulnerable people were increasingly exposed to wildfires varied by state.

In California, the rise was in large part due to socially vulnerable people moving into wildfire-affected areas, possibly in search of more affordable housing, among other factors.

In Oregon and Washington, however, wildfires have increasingly encroached on existing vulnerable communities over the past decade, mainly in rural areas. This is predominantly due to increasing trends of intense, destructive fires.

Nearly 17,000 people living within the perimeter of wildfires in Oregon and Washington over the past decade had high social vulnerability, based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A smaller percentage of California’s exposed population from 2011-2021 was considered to have high social vulnerability, 11%, but that was still 26,100 people.

Secondary impacts of wildfires

Our definition of exposure to wildfire considered only those people who directly lived within a wildfire perimeter.

If you take into account secondary exposures – those living close to wildfire perimeters and likely experiencing evacuation, trauma and poor air quality – the number of people affected is many times larger.

Importantly, other hazards related to wildfires reach still more high-vulnerability communities. Wildfire smoke, for example, has frequently filled large metropolitan areas with unhealthy air in recent years, disproportionately affecting people who work outdoors and other vulnerable populations.

Policy changes that can help

To prepare and respond as wildfire risk rises in a warming world, knowledge of the local population’s social vulnerabilities is necessary, along with targeted community-based strategies.

For example, the exposure of populations with limited English-language skills highlights the need for disaster warnings and response resources in multiple languages.

While the federal government increased its investment for reducing wildfire threats to at-risk communities, including tribes, funding availability does not currently meet the demand.

Increasing exposure of certain populations, such as those living in nursing homes, requires significant investment to plan for and ensure proper and timely responses. When a wildfire in August 2023 burned more than 200 homes near Medical Lake, Washington, southwest of Spokane, it came close to a state-operated psychiatric hospital and a residential home for people with intellectual disabilities.

Finally, including social vulnerability when studying future wildfire trends is important to shape community responses and policies.

Many national disaster prevention programs skew funding toward wealthier communities because they use cost-benefit analyses to direct resources to areas with the greatest potential losses. But while wealthy residents may lose more in dollar value, low-income residents typically lose a larger percentage of their assets and have a harder time recovering. With the rising percentage of people with high social vulnerability at risk of wildfires, governments may need to rethink those methods and lower the barriers for aid.

Mojtaba Sadegh, Associate Professor of Civil Engineering, Boise State University and John Abatzoglou, Professor of Engineering, University of California, Merced

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The 2022-23 school year was a particularly violent year for educators.

In Florida, a high school student beat a paraprofessional unconscious. A 15-year-old in Georgia left her teacher with difficulty walking. And a group of students in Texas sent their assistant principal to the hospital after an assault.

Recent headlines suggest the 2023-24 school year may not be much different.

Such violence at school disrupts teaching and learning and has elicited calls to reform school discipline policies.

As a policy researcher who studies school safety and discipline, I have seen two camps form with polarized and politicized views on school discipline. On the one side are those who seek more restorative responses to misconduct that emphasize building relationships with students and discipline policies that keep kids in school. On the other are calls for greater use of exclusionary and punitive practices like suspension.

In my view, making schools safe requires school leaders not to get caught up in this either/or debate. Instead, I believe it requires recognizing a shared goal of safe schools and the need for a comprehensive approach to achieving it.

Behavior and the pandemic

Recent reports suggest these high-profile incidents of violence in schools are part of a general increase in student misconduct over the past couple of years. This contrasts with a decline over the prior decades.

For example, the National Center for Education Statistics found that 84% of public school leaders felt the pandemic negatively affected student behavior. Another survey found two out of three teachers and leaders perceived more student misbehavior in 2021 than in 2019.

Studies have shown that students who feel unsafe going to school have worse attendance rates than those attending schools with less violence and misbehavior. They also score lower on standardized tests, particularly when classroom instruction is disrupted.

What’s more, teachers who experience threats or physical violence from students are more likely to leave their positions, according to a study I co-authored in 2017.

Restorative justice experiences backlash

Over the past couple of decades, states and school districts nationwide have adopted school discipline reforms that prioritize relationships between peers and with teachers, positive incentives for good behavior and prevention of misconduct.

These policies, often implemented as part of restorative justice initiatives, focus on building community and a positive school climate instead of removing kids from school.

But as school violence persists, these restorative justice reforms are being called into question.

In Nevada, teachers union representatives from the Clark County Education Association sought to revise laws to immediately remove students for violence against school staff. The state legislature there passed legislation scaling back restorative justice and making it easier to suspend students. In San Diego, the superintendent promised to revisit restorative discipline policies after parent complaints about student safety. Policy advocates have claimed discipline reform has contributed to school shootings.

While restorative practices and other positive interventions can improve student outcomes, prior research has found many of these less punitive disciplinary reforms to be poorly implemented or less effective than hoped.

In some cases, this has meant students have been allowed to stay in school despite posing a threat to the safety of others.

Suspensions and expulsions aren’t the solution

The limitations of restorative practices have resulted in calls for a return to greater use of suspensions and other punitive discipline. In one of the most high-profile displays, a Florida sheriff announced in front of a jail plans for a return to more punitive discipline, suggesting a need for more use of detentions and suspensions. He lamented that students were no longer afraid of suspensions or having “the cheeks of their a– torn off for not doing right in class.”

In some cases, removing students who are disruptive to the classroom has had positive effects on other students’ achievement. But exclusionary school discipline like suspension and expulsion can have their own unintended consequences on students. For example, suspensions are related to lower academic test scores for those suspended as well as increased delinquency, such as criminal activity and arrest.

Additionally, schools suspend a disproportionately high number of kids who aren’t white – particularly Black students. In addition, males and students with disabilities are more likely to be suspended.

Ultimately, there is little evidence that suspensions and expulsions improve behavior. In fact, a recent national survey found that only 13% of principals agreed that suspensions reduce future misbehavior.

A path forward

Proponents of progressive discipline reform and those advocating for “get-tough,” exclusionary policies share a desire for safe schools. The sheriff speaking in front of the jail as well as his critics both want to prevent kids from ending up incarcerated.

How do policymakers and educators see past these divides to achieve safer schools?

First, it may help to acknowledge that effective school discipline policies can include both restorative and exclusionary practices. It is true that there is a need to reduce the disproportionate use of suspension for minor offenses. But it is also true that students who pose an immediate danger to others may need to be temporarily removed to settings where they can receive additional support.

Next, schools can focus on strengthening their school climate through excellent instruction and positive relationships between students and teachers. Welcoming schools where students are engaged in learning may preempt many behavioral situations.

Finally, policymakers can recognize that school safety is affected by the experiences of students outside of school. Addressing the trauma, violence and social disruptions experienced in homes and neighborhoods through broader public policy holds potential to improve safety inside schools.

All of this takes resources and support for schools, educators and students. I believe these are resources well spent, though, to achieve the shared goal of school safety.

F. Chris Curran, Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy, University of Florida

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.