Spellements: Tuesday, June 24, 2025
How to Play
Click the timer at the top of the game page to pause and see a clue to the science-related word in this puzzle!
The objective of the game is to find words that can be made with the given letters such that all the words include the letter in the center. You can enter letters by clicking on them or typing them in. Press Enter to submit a word. Letters can be used multiple times in a single word, and words must contain three letters or more for this size layout. Select the Play Together icon in the navigation bar to invite a friend to work together on this puzzle. Pangrams, words which incorporate all the letters available, appear in bold and receive bonus points. One such word is always drawn from a recent Scientific American article—look out for a popup when you find it! You can view hints for words in the puzzle by hitting the life preserver icon in the game display.
The dictionary we use for this game misses a lot of science words, such as apatite and coati. Let us know at games@sciam.com any extra science terms you found, along with your name and place of residence,
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Scientific American
20 hours ago
- Scientific American
To Make Better Choices, Understand How Your Brain Processes Values
Much has been made of the power of habit. We're encouraged to make healthy choices our default and to understand the way that the brain sets certain tasks, such as our morning commute, on autopilot to improve our efficiency. But what about our more intentional, conscious day-to-day choices? The decisions we ponder—over seconds or lengthy deliberation—rely in part on the value system, which weighs in on the subjective evaluations we make, tipping the scales toward one choice over another. 'When we understand how the value system works, we can recognize many possible paths to our goals,' says Emily Falk, a neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania and author of What We Value. As the book explores, many people feel frustrated when they find themselves making choices that run counter to their big-picture goals—things like exercising more, visiting older relatives or cutting back screen time. Falk introduces readers to the brain systems that calculate our priorities in the moment and the strategies for weighting those decisions toward what matters most to each person. In the process, she offers a compassionate framework for recognizing how we make choices and why change can be so challenging. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. Scientific American spoke with Falk about how the brain sifts through options and how reflecting on our priorities can help align our behaviors with long-term aims. [ An edited transcript of the interview follows. ] So how does the brain assign value? When we're making a decision, the brain first identifies the different things that we might be choosing the brain's valuation system takes input from many other systems, including the ones that help us process emotions, think about ourselves, and help us understand other people's thoughts and feelings. It integrates that information and assigns a subjective value to each option. Then we choose the one that we expect will be most rewarding. Finally, after we make the choice, the brain keeps track of how things went to see whether something we thought would be rewarding was as good as we predicted. Ultimately, that valuation system provides a final common pathway in arriving at our subjective evaluations across very different things—whether relationship partners, food choices or financial decisions. As just one example of factors that influence these value calculations, in January my colleagues and I published findings that showed people are more likely to share news stories with others when they reflect on why that article is relevant to themselves and their social worlds. And we've seen, in this and in past research, how that desire to share news relates to activity in the brain's self-reference and social cognition systems. How might understanding these systems change the way people think about their choices or behavior? We know that one important input for the value system is self-relevance, or how much something feels psychologically meaningful or close to oneself. And we tend to confound self and value. Neuroscientific research shows a deep intertwining of these self and values systems. Sometimes that is good in terms of maintaining a coherent sense of self and a positive sense of self. The problem is that we may hold on to notions of what we did and who we are beyond the point when they are useful. As another example, people prefer rewards that are close in time or instantly gratifying. Understanding how the brain works also highlights how other kinds of psychological [closeness or] distance work in a similar way. Scientists have studied how the medial prefrontal cortex, which is important to both the value and self-relevance systems, handles multiple kinds of psychological distance in a similar way. For instance, people are more motivated to choose something when you expect the rewards will come sooner or involve something geographically close or people who feel socially close. But you can make rewards feel psychologically closer. Scientists have done that by asking people to imagine otherwise distant scenarios in concrete ways. You can vividly imagine how your future self will spend money in retirement as an incentive to save now or envision the transformative consequences for a specific child of donating to UNICEF to increase your giving. In your research, you've looked at another strategy, what psychologists call values affirmation, and found it can help people make better decisions for themselves in the long term. Can you explain more? Lots of research shows that when we are reminded of the things that are most important to us—'capital-V' values such as kindness or friendship and family—we are more open to changing our behaviors. For example, in studies that our team has run, sedentary people are more likely to become physically active after being asked to affirm their values by identifying the most important ones on a list and then envisioning themselves in various scenarios that tap into those values. So if you choose friends and family, we might ask you to imagine a time in the future when you connect with a family member, and they help you with a challenge. When we look at brain activity, we see that when thinking about what matters most, core parts of the value and self-relevance systems become active. We also find people are less defensive and more open to change after reflecting on their most important values. So if we have people do this type of values affirmation before we give them messages intended to coach them toward healthier choices—such as reminders to exercise—we see that the people who affirmed their values show more activity in the value and self-relevance systems in the brain than others who did not do that affirmation. And then when we follow our participants over the next month—sending out more value-reflection prompts and reminders to be active—the ones who showed that greater brain activation were ultimately less sedentary. Why would thinking about family and friends change someone's inclination to exercise? In many value affirmation studies, the value does not have an obvious connection to the behavior. Instead the idea is that thinking about what really matters to you helps you zoom out and consider the big picture. Affirming your values—by writing about what you care about most, choosing values from a list or imagining situations that involve those values—can ground you. In addition, self-transcendent values, which connect you to something outside of yourself, such as friends and family or spirituality, are more effective than purely self-focused values at helping people make changes. People who connect with those self-transcendent values on a regular basis, and people who have a stronger sense of purpose, get health and well-being benefits that don't accrue when we focus on more self-focused values such as personal money, fame and power. All of this suggests that people who keep their big-picture ideas and goals top of mind—for example, through regular reminders of their big-picture values—gain some advantages when it comes to decision-making, right? Yes. Feeling purposeful means having a clear picture of what you're trying to do and why. It can be like a North Star that helps us think about the path from where we are now to where we want to be. But it isn't just that some people are purposeful and others are not. People's sense of purpose fluctuates, on a day-to-day basis, around whatever their baseline is. This is helpful to keep in mind because it highlights that we can do things that might change how purposeful we feel on a given day and what benefits we get as a result. For example, day-to-day choices and physical health relate to purpose. Exercise, sleep, mood, connecting with other people and sense of purpose relate to one another in a web of wellness. When we actively choose to prioritize one of these, we can get benefits in lots of other areas for free.
Scientific American
a day ago
- Scientific American
Spellements: Tuesday, June 24, 2025
How to Play Click the timer at the top of the game page to pause and see a clue to the science-related word in this puzzle! The objective of the game is to find words that can be made with the given letters such that all the words include the letter in the center. You can enter letters by clicking on them or typing them in. Press Enter to submit a word. Letters can be used multiple times in a single word, and words must contain three letters or more for this size layout. Select the Play Together icon in the navigation bar to invite a friend to work together on this puzzle. Pangrams, words which incorporate all the letters available, appear in bold and receive bonus points. One such word is always drawn from a recent Scientific American article—look out for a popup when you find it! You can view hints for words in the puzzle by hitting the life preserver icon in the game display. The dictionary we use for this game misses a lot of science words, such as apatite and coati. Let us know at games@ any extra science terms you found, along with your name and place of residence,
The Hill
2 days ago
- The Hill
A judge just took Trump to task for his attack on science
In some quarters, science has a bad name. Some children, from their first exposure to courses in biology, chemistry, or physics, are intimidated by their quantitative focus or turned off by what they mistakenly see as its sterility. On college campuses, humanists feel under siege due to the growing popularity of scientific fields among their students. They reject the view of some scholars that because 'science follows the methodology of rational dialogue,' it 'transcends culture.' But, as the Trump administration proceeds to take down the existing infrastructure of scientific research in the U.S., all Americans need to rally to its defense. That is because scientific literacy and research are essential to the well-being of all of us and to the country itself. The administration claims that it does not want to limit or end scientific research, just rid it of the taint of politics. On May 23, President Trump issued an executive order alleging that 'Actions taken by the prior Administration … politicized science, for example, by encouraging agencies to incorporate diversity, equity, and inclusion considerations into all aspects of science planning, execution, and communication.' The president promised to restore what he called a 'gold standard for science to ensure that federally funded research is transparent, rigorous, and impactful.' But on June 16, Judge William G. Young of the Federal District Court for the District of Massachusetts exposed that promise as just a pretext for carrying out a war on science. He said that cuts to the National Institutes of Health grants mandated by the president and others in the federal government were blatantly discriminatory and rooted in prejudice. Judge Young ordered the government to restore most of those grants. This is not the first time in American history that the scientific enterprise has been used as a political football. Indeed, as a 2017 article in Scientific American notes, 'The reality is that engaging in scientific research is a social activity and an inherently political one.' Scientific projects, like World War II's Manhattan Project, which led to the atomic bomb, and the massive investment in science after Russia launched the first satellite into space, have been fueled by political goals. Moreover, the work of scientists on subjects like global warming can easily get caught up in partisan contests. Critics worry that the scientific enterprise will be tainted by the political agendas of those who supply funding and help drum up public support for the work scientists do. Those worries reached a fever pitch following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Science skepticism spiked as resentment grew over such polices as universal masking and school closures. Although polls show that trust in science has rebounded, a substantial portion of the population remains doubtful that scientific research is sound and helpful in making public policy decisions. Enter the Trump administration. As The Atlantic's Adam Serwer observes, 'The Trump administration has launched a comprehensive attack on knowledge itself, a war against culture, history, and science.' But it has done so by using a skillful kind of double-speak. The president's executive order puts the administration on the side of 'restoring a gold standard for science,' and guarantees that scientific research is 'transparent, rigorous, and impactful.' At the same time, Trump has cut science funding to 'its lowest level in decades.' The administration has taken a meat ax to research budgets everywhere, including the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, to say nothing about what it has done to research funding at universities like Columbia and Harvard. This brings us back to Judge Young's ruling. He found that the administration's efforts to terminate NIH grants 'on topics such as health equity, racial disparities, vaccine hesitancy and maternal health in minority communities' had nothing to do with the president's supposed commitment to 'restoring the gold standard for science.' Instead, Young said they were motivated by prejudice and a political agenda of 'racial discrimination and discrimination against America's LGBTQ community.' Young took note of 'the administration's very public efforts to eliminate any trace of diversity and equity initiatives from the federal government, as well as its attacks on transgender people.' He did not mince words. From the bench, he told the government's lawyers that 'over the course of his career he had 'never seen government racial discrimination like this,'' and that he 'felt duty bound to state his conclusion about the government's intent. 'I would be blind not to call it out.'' Americans should not be blind to why the Trump administration is targeting science and what its consequences will be for all of us. As Serwer puts it, the president and his allies believe that the kind of 'truth-seeking' that goes on in scientific laboratories all over the country 'imperils their hold on power.' But whatever its motivation, the president's assault on science will leave us sicker, less prosperous, and more vulnerable to the ravages of nature. It will leave this country weaker and will undermine its position in the world. Put simply, America loses when science loses. Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College.
