George Boone III's Homesite: The Start of a Legacy
Most adventurous boys and history lovers connect Boone with what became Kentucky, due to his exploration in the 1700s of territory west of the original Thirteen Colonies. He is also famous for establishing the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap and into Kentucky as well as for fighting in the Revolutionary War.
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National Geographic
26 minutes ago
- National Geographic
What is flow state? Here's the science behind top athletes' laser focus.
Pro climber Steph Davis climbing "Hidden Gem" near Moab Utah. The athlete often experiences a flow state during her intensive free climbs. Photograph by Chris Noble Steph Davis had reached the halfway point in her ropeless climb up the Sister Superior—a slim, 6,037-foot-tall natural sandstone tower. Surrounded by miles of red rocks, there was nothing but her grip strength keeping her from falling thousands of feet down into the open desert. As a professional rock climber, Davis often does free solo climbing, which means leaving her harness and ropes at home. Her plan on this climb, which took place in 2010, was to reach the top, then jump off with a parachute. As she climbed the tower in southeast Utah, the holds for her hands started getting smaller, and she was getting tired. She felt mentally distracted, and took a moment to pause. Suddenly, a feeling of calm energy washed over her. Her body seemed to take control, bringing her to the top. (Why a pair of adventurers decided to make their treacherous climb much harder.) Davis had entered a flow state, an experience that athletes, musicians, scientists, and artists say they tap into when they're confronting challenging situations. In this state, a person becomes completely engrossed in what they're doing and achieves a loss of self-consciousness while also feeling completely in control—a mindset that actor Chris Hemsworth leverages in Limitless: Live Better Now (currently streaming on Disney+ and Hulu, and on National Geographic starting August 25). In episode two, the 41-year-old enters a flow state while ascending the Luzzone Dam, an artificial climbing wall in the Swiss Alps that, at approximately 540 feet tall, is the world's highest. Though most of us likely don't find ourselves hanging onto a rock or a climbing wall hundreds to thousands of feet in the air, life's daily challenges can feel equally insurmountable. Can entering a flow state help push through all the difficulties you might encounter daily? While the mindset is a rewarding experience that comes from taking on life's hardest tasks, it also requires a certain set of conditions in place in order to be activated. What is flow state? In 1975, Hungarian-American psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi became fascinated with how artists lost themselves in their work. His research found similar experiences reported by chess players, dancers, mountain climbers, athletes, and musicians. Csíkszentmihályi called the engrossed attention he observed a 'flow state' after many people he interviewed said they felt like they were floating and being carried by the flow. (Your body changes in fascinating ways during the first 10 minutes of exercise.) Regardless of profession or hobby, the states of mind these people entered all sounded similar. They lost their sense of time, became impervious to pain or fatigue, and achieved a laser focus on what they were doing. One later report from 1996 asked professional athletes what flow was like. 'You're just so absorbed in what you're doing that you're not really aware of what is happening around you,' one tracker runner said. A javelin thrower experienced time slowing down, saying, 'When I went to throw it, it was like things were in slow motion, and I could feel the position I was in, and I held my position for a long time." Based on his interviews, Csíkszentmihályi determined that to enter a flow state, a person first had to have a clear intention in mind; then, they had to be put under pressure, but not too much or too little. People entered flow states when they were pushed to their limits and had the expertise to accomplish their goal. 'It's a balance between your skills and the challenge,' says Abigail Marsh, a neuroscientist at Georgetown University who worked with Hemsworth on the show. The science behind the flow state Over the years, scientists have come up with different theories about what happens in the brain during the flow states. These theories fall into roughly two camps, says John Kounios, a cognitive neuroscientist at Drexel University. Some believe that flow states happen during periods of intense focus, when the brain is exerting more attention and greater effort to exclude everything but the task at hand. An alternate view argues that the brain calms down during flow, rather than ramps up, allowing a person's skills to take over. In 2024, Kounios and David Rosen, another cognitive neuroscientist, brought 32 jazz guitarists to a lab to study the location and intensity of electrical activity in the brain while they were in flow. Some of the guitarists were newer at playing, and some had played at an expert level for years. The researchers asked them to improvise solo performances and report back whether they fell into flow states, all while being measured by an electroencephalogram (EEG), which records electrical activity in the brain. The experienced musicians had a higher number of flow states that were also more intense. The scientists then compared what was happening in the brain when musicians said they had high-flow performances versus low-flow ones, and the difference was notable—there was less activity in the frontal lobes during flow states. The frontal lobes are responsible for executive processing, which organizes thoughts and behaviors, focuses attention, and forms goals. 'If the flow state was a matter of heightened concentration [and] focus, we would have seen greater activity in the frontal lobes when a person was in a state of flow,' Kounios says. The more experienced musicians also had activity in brain regions associated with hearing and vision during their flow states, while the less experienced musicians didn't show this activity. Kounious says it was as if the seasoned jazz players had their own brain networks for improvising that they relied upon, while at the same time releasing conscious control in the frontal parts of the brain. Kounios believes the study's findings show that flow takes place when the brain lets go and expertise takes over. 'It doesn't become something you have to consciously, deliberately do,' he says. How you can achieve a flow state Some amount of expertise is required for flow, whether it be during something thrilling like rock climbing, or a less intense activity, like building model ships or putting up drywall. As long as a challenge you're confronting demands that you utilize your expertise, that's when the flow state can be activated. If you're attempting a task that you're not skilled in at all—playing a concerto at Carnegie Hall as a beginner, for example—then you're more likely to experience frustration or fear instead. (Here's what fear does to your brain and your body.) However, there's no way to rush a flow state—it's something that comes on its own time. When you first learn a new skill, it's unlikely you'll experience flow; but if you turn away at the first sign of challenge or stress, you won't be able to increase your expertise to tap into those flow states later on. 'The flow state is the reward you get for tackling a difficult challenge,' says Marsh. You can still be highly focused and engaged in activities without needing to be an expert, however; Kounios calls this absorption. When you see a beautifully shot movie, read the end of a thrilling novel, or even clean out your garage, you might find yourself absorbed. Rather than chasing after flow, Marsh recommends thinking about what hobbies you genuinely like to do, keeping in mind that flow states are an eventual pleasant side effect of doing these activities that you find valuable and rewarding. (Your brain shrinks after 40. Learning a musical instrument can reverse it.) After all, the best way to gain expertise is to take on new and difficult experiences. It's not satisfying when a climb is too easy, Davis says. 'The goal in climbing is to get into the flow state,' though climbers call it 'sending.' When she's climbing at her limit, there's nothing better than entering flow and reaching her goal. In Utah, when she reached the top of that summit, 'I just had this incredible sense of well-being: Everything's right with the world. Everything feels good," she says. "It's a very euphoric feeling—you want to stay in that feeling for as long as you can.' "Limitless: Live Better Now" is currently streaming on Disney+ and Hulu and on National Geographic starting August 25. Check local listings.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Airlines say AI won't set fares by passenger. Experts aren't so sure.
Cruising Altitude is a weekly column about air travel. Have a suggestion for a future topic? Fill out the form or email me at the address at the bottom of this page. It's no secret that airline pricing can be opaque and confusing to many travelers – even to experts. When I spoke to William J. McGee, senior fellow for aviation and travel at the American Economic Liberties Project, we joked that one of the worst questions an aviation expert can get asked at a party is, 'how do I find a good deal on airfare?' The answer is usually best represented by the shrugging emoji: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ However, flight pricing is getting a renewed round of attention after Glen Hauenstein, president of Delta Air Lines, acknowledged on the company's earnings call last month that the airline is testing a new AI tool to help set its fares. Panic from consumers, advocates and even lawmakers naturally ensued as the specter of a new way for corporations to squeeze every penny out of us appeared on the horizon. For now, Delta (and other airlines) insist that they're not using AI to make prices truly individualized, but as technology gets more sophisticated, the already-dynamic pricing model used in the aviation industry is likely to get more granular. How do airlines price tickets today? Again, I say: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 'This is such an opaque process, there is so much that we don't know about what they know about us,' McGee said. Airlines acknowledge using some of our personal data in setting prices even now but say that such information is used only in the aggregate, not to tailor fares to individual travelers. In a letter to senators after last month's earnings call, Delta Air Lines' Executive Vice President of External Affairs, Peter Carter, explained how the carrier does and doesn't use passenger data for setting prices. 'There is no fare product Delta has ever used, is testing or plans to use that targets customers with individualized prices based on personal data. ... Our AI-powered pricing functionality is designed to enhance our existing fare pricing processes using aggregated data,' the letter said. 'Given the tens of millions of fares and hundreds of thousands of routes for sale at any given time, the use of new technology like AI promises to streamline the process by which we analyze existing data and the speed and scale at which we can respond to changing market dynamics.' Still, McGee said airlines have a history of testing the limits of price differentiation. 'It's really a much longer story going back 20 or 25 years at least. The technology has improved for them, and that has increased the airline industry's ability to tailor surveillance pricing, individualized pricing,' he said. For now, Delta says it's just using AI technology to streamline the work of its human analysts, who ultimately set and file its fares. Kyle Potter, editor of Thrifty Traveler, a travel and flight deal website, said it makes sense that airlines don't have the technical capability right now to target prices at specific passengers, because the system airlines use to file their fares relies on outdated technology. 'The technology in how airlines set fares and distribute them to their own website and other third-party sites, is really a roadblock to offering truly individualized airfare,' he said. 'There's no way to weave in the massive amount of data that airlines have or could have into offering a truly dynamic set of prices that varies from person to person. That's just not possible today at any kind of scale that I'm aware of.' How could AI be used for airline pricing in the future? For a third time I say: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ There are just too many variables to be sure about how all this will develop. 'Where we're at right now is that we're going to come to look at Delta's comments last month to investors as a trial balloon for just how far Americans would be willing to go to accept some level of personalized pricing,' Potter said. 'The answer, at least for the last month, has pretty clearly been not at all.' Delta, which is the poster child for pricing developments in the airline world right now, insists it has no intention to ever set truly individualized prices. 'There is no fare product Delta has ever used, is testing or plans to use that targets customers with individualized prices based on personal data,' Carter's letter said. But McGee, who works as a consumer advocate, said it's important for both passengers and regulators to not get complacent as predictive pricing technology gets more powerful. 'It's going to be very hard, but it's necessary, for regulators and legislators to get their hands around this and understand it,' he said. 'It's not unimaginable that if this goes unchecked and there's not action by Congress or (the Department of Transportation), we may all be paying a different fare for the same flight within a few years. That's going to be a tough thing to undo.' Potter agreed with McGee's assessment. 'I think what we saw this year, what we've seen again and again and again over the last several decades is that airlines will do whatever it takes to charge people the highest fares possible within the constraints of the technology that they currently have,' he said. 'The global airline industry has been trying to push towards a future of personalized airfare. Just because there's a backlash now doesn't mean this isn't going to happen eventually.' Last week's Cruising Altitude: Travel tips every senior should know for stress-free flights How do I find the best airfares? For one final time, I say: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Airfares are subject to change at any time, and the prices are set by people working in a black box behind a curtain. In general, the advice experts have always given me is to trust your gut. If you feel like you're getting a good deal on airfare when you look for flights, you probably are. Also: it's a good idea to leverage consumer-facing price prediction tools, like those available on Google Flights, Expedia and other airfare aggregators. Zach Wichter is a travel reporter and writes the Cruising Altitude column for USA TODAY. He is based in New York and you can reach him at zwichter@ This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Could AI make your plane ticket more expensive than your neighbor's?
5 hours ago
Does Paris have too many tourists? A European crisis comes to Montmartre
PARIS -- When Olivier Baroin moved into an apartment in Montmartre about 15 years ago, it felt like he was living in a village in the heart of Paris. Not anymore. Stores for residents are disappearing, along with the friendly atmosphere, he says. In their place are hordes of people shooting selfies, shops selling tourist trinkets and cafés whose seating spills into the narrow cobbled streets as overtourism takes its toll. Baroin has had enough. He put his apartment up for sale after local streets were designated pedestrian-only while accommodating the growing number of visitors. 'I told myself that I had no other choice but to leave since, as I have a disability, it's even more complicated when you can no longer take your car, when you have to call a taxi from morning to night," he told The Associated Press. From Venice to Barcelona to Amsterdam, European cities are struggling to absorb surging numbers of tourists. Some residents in one of Paris' most popular neighborhoods for tourists are now pushing back. A black banner strung between two balconies in Montmartre reads, in English: 'Behind the postcard: locals mistreated by the Mayor.' Another, in French, says: 'Montmartre residents resisting.' Atop the hill where the Basilica of Sacré-Cœur crowns the city's skyline, residents lament what they call the 'Disneyfication' of the once-bohemian slice of Paris. The basilica says it now attracts up to 11 million people a year — even more than the Eiffel Tower — while daily life in the neighborhood has been overtaken by tuk-tuks, tour groups, photo queues and short-term rentals. 'Now, there are no more shops at all, there are no more food shops, so everything must be delivered,' said 56-year-old Baroin, a member of a residents' protest group called Vivre a Montmartre, or Living in Montmartre. The unrest echoes tensions across town at the Louvre Museum, where staff in June staged a brief wildcat strike over chronic overcrowding, understaffing and deteriorating conditions. The Louvre logged 8.7 million visitors in 2024, more than double what its infrastructure was designed to handle. Paris, a city of just over 2 million residents if you count its sprawling suburbs, welcomed 48.7 million tourists in 2024, a 2% increase from the previous year. Sacré-Cœur, the most visited monument in France in 2024, and the surrounding Montmartre neighborhood have turned into what some locals call an open-air theme park. Local staples like butchers, bakeries and grocers are vanishing, replaced by ice-cream stalls, bubble-tea vendors and souvenir T-shirt stands. Paris authorities did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Visitors seemed largely to be enjoying the packed streets on a sunny Tuesday this week. 'For the most part, all of Paris has been pretty busy, but full of life, for sure," said American tourist Adam Davidson. "Coming from Washington, D.C., which is a lively city as well, I would say this is definitely full of life to a different degree for sure.' In Barcelona, thousands have taken to the streets this year, some wielding water pistols, demanding limits on cruise ships and short-term tourist rentals. Venice now charges an entry fee for day-trippers and caps visitor numbers. And in Athens, authorities are imposing a daily limit on visitors to the Acropolis, to protect the ancient monument from record-breaking tourist crowds. Urban planners warn that historic neighborhoods risk becoming what some critics call 'zombie cities' — picturesque but lifeless, their residents displaced by short-term visitors. Paris is trying to mitigate the problems by cracking down on short term rentals and unlicensed properties. But tourism pressures are growing. By 2050, the world's population is projected to reach nearly 10 billion, according to United Nations estimates. With the global middle class expanding, low-cost flights booming and digital platforms guiding travelers to the same viral landmarks, many more visitors are expected in iconic cities like Paris. The question now, residents say, is whether any space is left for those who call it home.
