Martin Fiore, Santhosh Kumar LalgudiFebruary 21, 20256 Min ReadFreer Law via Alamy StockAlong with the emergence of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has come a surging demand for data and data center capacity to host growing AI workloads. And more and more organizations find themselves in the race to build the infrastructure and data center capacity capable of supporting the current and future use of AI and machine learning (ML).For finance functions, high-quality, well-organized, and trustworthy data is essential in the development of effective AI-driven operating models. And while speed is a big factor, trust and safety are even greater concerns in a technology environment where there are few guardrails for AI risk management. Just think of the internet with no rules around e-commerce, privacy, or business and personal safety.So where does a management team get a handle on the critical issues around an AI approach that is both highly efficient from an operations standpoint and optimized for risk management? We believe in this case that the past can be the prologue: consider a principle known as the medallion architecture -- a commonly used industry framework for managing large-scale data processing in cloud environments. For many of the same reasons it works so well there, we also find it applies well to data engineering. Its particularly well suited for tax and finance operations, where data is one of the most valuable assets and for which flexible, scalable, and reliable data management is essential for regulatory compliance speed and accuracy.Related:A Layered ApproachThe reality is that data and AI are essentially inseparable in our new digital era. While data has existed for a long time without AI, AI does not exist without data. By extension, a solid data strategy is required for achieving meaningful returns on AI value, and medallion architecture is a highly effective data management tool that helps get the most out of an organizations AI investment. As a data engineering model, it organizes information into three distinct tiers of bronze, silver and gold medals. Each layer has a specific role in the data pipeline, designed to facilitate clean, accurate and optimized dataflows for downstream processes:Bronze: This is the raw data layer. The data is ingested from various sources, including structured, semi-structured and unstructured formats. At this stage, the data is stored in its original form without any significant transformation. This serves as a robust foundation, providing a full audit trail and allowing businesses to revisit the raw data for future needs.Related:Silver: In this intermediate stage, data from the bronze layer is cleaned, filtered and structured into a more usable format. This involves applying necessary transformations, removing duplicates, filling in missing data and applying quality checks. The silver layer acts as a reliable data set that can be used for analysis, but its still not fully optimized.Gold: This is the final stage of the data pipeline where the silver data is further refined, aggregated and structured for direct consumption by analytics tools, dashboards and decision-making systems. The gold layer delivers highly curated, trusted data thats ready for use in real-time reporting and advanced analytics.Applying the Benefits of Medallion Architecture in the Finance SectorFor financial institutions, data management needs are highly complex. Banks, trading firms and FinTech companies process enormous amounts of data daily, with requirements for accuracy, speed and regulatory compliance. Medallion architecture addresses the following needs.1. Improved data quality and governance. Financial institutions must ensure data accuracy and completeness in alignment with strict regulatory requirements, such as Basel III, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) and MiFID II. The multilayered features of medallion architecture support data quality checks that can be applied at each stage. By moving from the bronze to gold layer, data undergoes multiple transformations and validations, improving accuracy and reducing errors. It also facilitates better data governance and traceability, allowing for easier auditing and compliance reporting.Related:2. Scalability for large data volumes. The financial sector often deals with massive data sets -- from transaction histories and market feeds to customer data. The layered approach makes it easier to scale these data pipelines. Since the raw data in the bronze layer is stored in its original form, it can handle the ingestion of high volumes of data without requiring immediate transformations. As data moves to the silver and gold layers, the architecture supports scalable processing frameworks that enable financial institutions to efficiently process large data sets.3. Faster time to insights. In fast-paced financial markets, speed is essential. Trading firms, for example, need real-time data to make decisions on market movements. The medallion structure allows financial institutions to separate raw data ingestion from data analytics. Analysts can start working on silver and gold layers for immediate insights, while engineers refine and clean the data in the background. This results in quicker access to actionable insights, essential for high-frequency trading or real-time fraud detection.4. Flexibility and agility. Medallion architecture offers flexibility in handling diverse data sources and types -- an essential feature in the financial industry, where data comes from numerous channels. The bronze layers ability to store raw data in its native form makes it easy to adapt to new data types or sources without needing immediate transformations, while the silver and gold layers can be adjusted to reflect new business requirements, market conditions or regulatory changes.5. Cost efficiency. Processing large volumes of financial data is expensive. Separating the raw data from the processed data helps reduce unnecessary data transformations and storage costs. Financial institutions can optimize their compute resources by running complex transformations only when needed, thus lowering operational costs.6. Enhanced security and risk management. Raw data in the bronze layer can be heavily restricted, with only authorized personnel able to access it, while the curated gold layer can be more widely available for analysis. This segmentation of data access allows for tighter security controls and reduces the attack surface.7. Advanced analytics and machine learning. From algorithmic trading to fraud detection and credit risk analysis, ML and AI are very important to the financial industry, and this approach facilitates advanced analytics by providing high-quality, structured data in the gold layer. Additionally, having access to both silver and bronze layers enable data scientists to work with both historical and refined data, both of which are essential for building accurate predictive models.Medallion architecture is an effective framework for financial sector data management and processing in the digital era. Its layered approach offers financial institutions the capability to handle vast volumes of data efficiently, while providing data quality, compliance and scalability. Using this layered approach, financial firms gain better control over their data pipelines, reduce costs and drive innovation through advanced analytics. As data management plays an increasingly crucial role in contemporary business, this framework helps position financial firms for success in a data-driven world.About the AuthorsMartin FioreDeputy Vice Chair of Tax, EY AmericasMartin Fiore is EY Americas Deputy Vice Chair of Tax. He is author of the 2021 award winning book, Humanity Reimagined, forecasting current advancements in human and technology convergence and the need for guardrails in developing AI and other transformative technologies.See more from Martin FioreSanthosh Kumar LalgudiData & Cloud Technology Solutions Leader, EY AmericasSanthosh Kumar Lalgudi is the Data & Cloud Technology Solutions Leader in the EY Americas Tax Technology & Transformation practice. He is the author of several articles on the role of data and technology in modernizing finance and tax functions.See more from Santhosh Kumar LalgudiNever Miss a Beat: Get a snapshot of the issues affecting the IT industry straight to your inbox.SIGN-UPYou May Also LikeWebinarsMore WebinarsReportsMore Reports

Find yourself Imagining now how exciting it is selling money to wealthy individuals and corporations across the worldthen you instantly realize It is the oldest, best, and most lucrative industry in the world! We sell money, it is an enjoyable satisfying high status very lucrative profession! Our services are valuable to our clients, and it is secure and recession proof for you! You can make money in great economic times, flat economic times, as well as very bad recessions/depressions because demand for our money never stops. We have endless demand from HNWI clients in 195 countries, it gives you incredibly high earning capacity with our generous and lucrative compensation! For the right candidate who is ambitious we offer you a long term extraordinarily secure career regardless of economic conditions, in fact our people do tremendous during periods of chaos or disruptions as they did during the covid era.GLOBAL FINANCIAL CONDITIONS UPDATE: Here are reasons you should consider now a career with SCG. Demand around the world is growing tremendously for our loans to help both individuals and corporations due to the turbulent global conditions in the world including availability of credit contracting, wars, recession and depression risks as well as global tariff risks. People need help and money now as money becomes more expensive and harder to access, with each new crisis. Our global team of experts never stopped helping people around the world during covid when most businesses were shut down, we were fully open the entire time globally. In fact, our people made record profits during this time helping those who needed money desperately as well as any other crisis either globally or limited in scope to a single country or region. You can help others regardless of war, bank failures or market up and downs across the world clients are seeking help and money. We have continued to lend around the world without any interruptions since 2007, which equals future security for you and your family. The World Bank stated that the global economy will plunge into the worst recession since 1870 and per capita incomes to shrink in all regions. This will be a 200% to 400% deeper recession compared to the global financial crisis of 2009, and like nothing people have lived through in the last 100 years. We offer you and your family stability in these turbulent unpredictable times ahead. We are prepared for this and ready to assist globally clients that demand our solutions. While many across the world have and are experiencing global uncertainty and crisis after crisis understand that SCG team members are enjoying record incomes during these unprecedented times and will continue into the future because the demand for money never stops. Good times people need money for nice things during bad times people need money to survive and thrive, our people earn money regardless of the economic cycles. Our loans are in more demand in bad times but equally in great as well as good times. It does not matter because people always need money, and we sell the money they want!Are you goal driven and self-motivated but have not had the correct financial sales product/service to take advantage of those skills you have worked so hard to perfect over your career? Do you want the ability to earn a very sizable income with our bespoke loan product catering to high net worth (HNWI) Individuals? How about the ability to enter an elite area of banking and finance where large loan structures, that we as a direct lender fund consistently, can earn you significant income fees on a single loan transaction? How about the realistic potential with extremely smart work, experience, and determination, to earn at the top income percentile every year with SCG as a HNWI lending expert catering to HNWI clients? Would you like a unique lending product/service with very little competition? Do you want a recession proof product/service, for security? Would a fast-closing cycle from start to finish, be something you would want? We can close our Leveraged Equity Loans (also called stock loans, share loans, equity loans, security/securities loans, SBL) in a couple of weeks. We are seeking an Account Executive & sales manager with the best qualifications that match our exclusive products and would enjoy the advantages of working for us, is that you?Who is SCG?SCG is a bespoke global direct lending company. Serving our HNWI clients with nearly 2 decades of honesty and integrity in Leveraged Equities Lending with the ability to fund loans on over 80+ major stock exchanges across the world and serving clients in 195+ countries globally! What experience are we looking for in a candidate?We are seeking an individual with any of the prior or similar successful sales experience working with HNWI clients, C Level management of public companies, HNWI banking, wealth management, investment groups, investors, angel investors, HNWI sales, securities industry experience, brokerage firms, investment bankers, commercial or HNWI loan brokering, debt/equity structuring, M&A experience, jumbo mortgage brokers, private bankers, trust companies, market makers, offshore firms, luxury realty sales, high ticket sales (yachts, jets, collectible art etc.), HNWI accounting firms, Immigrating specialty firms, hedge fund sales or operations, private equity as well as any other finance niche lending experience all do well with us and fit our experience criteria. What is my earning capacity with SCG in bespoke lending?We offer the most generous and lucrative compensation available, including benefits offered and additional windfalls on quotas attained. Account Executives earn an average of 3% in fee income per structured transaction. We lend very significant amounts of money to our HNWI clients and because your compensation is interlinked to the size of the loans, that is how come this sales position allows you the ability to earn a very considerable amount of money. Our clients borrow in the tens to hundreds of millions of dollars on average with our largest request being $10 billion USD, in loan transactions from us. So, we are seeking somebody with a comfort level working in this exclusive segment of banking and finance. With a global client base the size of ours the earning ability is uncapped! There is no income ceiling because you can earn as much as you want solely reliant on the monetary volume of loans you close with clients both individual and corporate. If you are selected to join us, SCG as a direct lender, can open the doors for you into this lucrative lending niche of banking and finance. You can find yourself building a very lucrative long-term career with the leading leverage equities lender in the world. What are the advantages of working for SCG?SCG originates through our professionally trained loan officers, processes, underwrites, funds and services all the loans we close. In fact, we are one of the only global lenders to do so. This allows us to stick to our model of being fast, efficient, and flexible, which means more loans closed and funded to clients! In turn, you benefit with amazingly large origination fees on transactions. Unlike banks we do not have regulatory imposed lending limits per client, that means we can structure larger loans. We have no theoretical lending limits as each loan is based on the merits and underwriting of the collateral pledged. That stated, most higher loans are in the tens to hundreds of millions typically. Standard loans requests are $10 million to $75 million, larger loans $100 million to $500+ million and some exceptional and growing requests in the billions now, with the absolute minimum loan we do is only $1,000,000 USD.What type of training is provided?Complete very thorough expert training is provided to you, if you are selected as a candidate match. We have invested great amounts of money, energy, and time into our comprehensive training to make sure you really learn not just about lending but exactly how we lend money at SCG to our HNWI clients around the world. Are Leverage Equity Loans in demand in both good and bad economic times?During economic upheaval and recessions, the client demand for our money becomes even stronger globally due directly to other sources of liquidity disappearing and/or banks adopting restrictive lending policies and/or banks calling due very large credit lines or loans our clients may have or planned to use but now are forced to pay in full. Our HNWI clients want more money in great times to expand and they need money in bad times to cover losses or other special need situations. When you are in bespoke lending you are in the money business, and it is simply fantastic and nothing else comes even close to it. What markets do we serve?Both Individual and corporate global stock owners across over 80+ Exchanges spanning the world. An extremely large market globally with a current market capitalization of $130 trillion USD!What is SCG's competitive advantage?Unique solutions and almost no competition firstly, makes this a powerful and lucrative sales position for you. We can be more competitive than institutional banks in the majority of cases and across multiple aspects of a transaction. Nearly 2 decades of experience with honesty and integrity delivering Leveraged Equity Loans to HNWI clients across the world. Never any upfront fees, low borrowing costs and high value service/product, fast execution of closings all of which our clients need and want, which they cannot get with the institutional banks or other lenders! Virtually sells itself because money is the best business in the world! What will be your work environment?We will provide you with never-ending support to excel with us and help you in advancing in our company. This support will allow you to naturally grow your income year after year, as to when you apply yourself with discipline and follow our proven successful training and sales process. We believe and train you to employ smart work combined with hard work, so you can create time freedom to golf or travel as you dream, this is a reward you can enjoy after you master what we do. What we do requires great work and dedication, especially to ramp up, to be successful and those who do not possess this ambition will not experience success as others on the team are. Our people after experiencing success with us follow their dreams to relocate to desirable mountains where they ski and hike, cities they dream of living in, new countries or escape to tropical island beaches because all you need is a good internet and device as our global team work remotely spanning the entire world. We have a large successful team and for the right candidate you can join them and enjoy a newfound level of success and freedom. Executive Summary130+ Trillion dollars of Leveraged Equity Loan potential globally18+ Years of experience with honesty and integrity working with our HNW clients globally!Fast closings and sales cycle in weeks.An Easy Sale - because it really is simple if a client wants our money, they want it! We never ask for any money from clients so that is never an objection many in sales must deal with for a client to proceed. If they need or want money, clients usually proceed with our loan. Very generous and lucrative compensation.Global sales coverage with unlimited prospects and leads.Comprehensive world class training provided to make you successful.Realize working for SCG you now can earn a very large income by leveraging your relationships and skills you worked so hard to develop over your career!We lend globally in 80+ major markets to borrowers in 195+ countries across the world.Health, vacation, and retirement benefits offered.Finally, and most importantly we offer you stability regardless of economic cycles and industry strength you can depend on for your future from a leading bespoke global direct lending company.If you easily find yourself instantly becoming aware to the point you think this is finally what you have been searching for and you want to uncover more now, then continue and apply right now. Please submit your resume/CV along with a personalized email instead of a generic cover letter. In your email, we request that you explain how your experience aligns with SCGs needs, why you are interested in joining the SCG team, and your income goals. Sell us on you, so you get to the next step.

This article first appeared in The Checkup,MIT Technology Reviewsweekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first,sign up here. Yesterday marks a month since the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 47th US president. And what a month it has been. The Trump administration wasted no time in delivering a slew of executive orders, memos, and work notices to federal employees. On February 18, Trump signed an executive order that seeks to make IVF more accessible to people in the US. In some ways, the move isnt surprisingTrump has expressed his support for the technology in the past, and even called himself the father of IVF while on the campaign trail last year. Making IVF more affordable and accessible should give people more options when it comes to family planning and reproductive freedom more generally. But the move comes after a barrage of actions by the new administration that are hitting reproductive care hard for people around the world. On January 20, his first day in office, Trump ordered a 90-day pause in United States foreign development assistance for such programs to be assessed. By January 24, a stop work memo issued by the State Department brought US-funded aid programs around the world to a halt. Recent estimates suggest that more than 8,000 women will die from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth over the next 90 days if the funding is not reinstated. On January 24 Trump also reinstated the global gag rulea policy that requires nongovernmental organizations receiving US health funding to agree that they will not offer abortion counseling and care. This move alone immediately stripped organizations of the funding they need to perform their work. MSI Reproductive Choices, which offers support for reproductive health care in 36 countries, lost $14 million as a result, says Anna Mackay, who manages donor-funded programs at the organization. Over 2 million women and girls would have received contraceptive services with that money, she says. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) had a 2025 budget of $42.8 billion to spend on foreign assistance, which covers everything from humanitarian aid and sanitation to programs promoting gender equality and economic growth in countries around the world. But the stop work memo froze that funding for 90 days. The impacts were felt immediately and are still rippling out. Clinical trials were halted. Jobs were lost. Health programs were shut down. I think this is going to have a devastating impact on the global health architecture, says Thoai Ngo at Columbia Universitys Mailman School of Public Health. USAID is the major foreign funder for global health Im afraid that there isnt [another government] that can fill the gap. Reproductive health care is likely to lose out as affected governments and health organizations try to reorganize their resources, says Ngo: In times of crisis women and girls tend to be deprioritized in terms of access to health and social services. Without information on and access to a range of contraceptive options, unintended pregnancies result. These have the potential to limit the freedoms of people who become pregnant. And they can have far-reaching economic impacts, since access to contraception can improve education rates and career outcomes. And the health consequences can be devastating. Unintended pregnancies are more likely to be ended with abortionspotentially unsafe ones. Maternal death rates are high in regions that lack adequate resources. A maternal death occurred every two minutes in 2020. Its difficult to overstate how catastrophic this freeze has been over the last several weeks, says Amy Friedrich-Karnik, director of federal policy at the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organization focused on global sexual and reproductive health and rights. Every single day that the freeze is in place, there are 130,000 women who are being denied contraceptive care, she says. The Guttmacher Institute estimates that should USAID funding be frozen for the full 90 days, around 11.7 million women and girls would lose access to contraceptive care, and 4.2 million of them would experience unintended pregnancies. Of those, 8,340 will die from complications during pregnancy and childbirth, says Friedrich-Karnik. By denying people access to contraception, not only are you denying them tools for their bodily autonomyyou are really risking their lives, she says. Thousands more women will die down the road. USAID plays such a central role in supporting these life-saving programs, says Ngo. The picture is bleak. Even online sources of information on contraceptives are being affected by the funding freeze. Ben Bellows is a chief business officer at Nivi, a digital health company that develops chatbots to deliver health information to people via WhatsApp. Two million users have used the bot, he says. He and his team have been working on a project to deliver information on contraceptive options and family planning to women in India, and they have been looking to incorporate AI into their bot. The project was funded by a company that, in turn, is funded by USAID. Like the funding, the work is frozen, says Bellows. Weve slowed [hiring] and weve slowed some of the tech development because of the freeze [on USAID], he says. Its bad [for] the individuals, its bad [for] the companies that are trying to operate in these markets, and its bad [for] public health outcomes. Reproductive health and freedoms are also likely to be affected by the Trump administrations cuts to federal agencies. The National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been in the administrations crosshairs, as has the Food and Drug Administration. After all, the FDA regulates drugs and medical devices in the US, including contraceptives. The CDC collects and shares important data on sexual and reproductive health. And the NIH supports vital research on reproductive health and contraception. The CDC also funds health programs in low-income countries like Ethiopia. Following Trumps executive order, the countrys ministry of health terminated the contracts of more than 5,000 health workers whose salaries were supported by the CDC as well as USAID. Thats midwives and nurses working in rural health posts, says Mackay. Were turning up to support these staff and provide them with sexual reproductive health training and make sure theyve got the contraceptives, and theres just no one at the facility. So, yes, it is great news if the Trump administration can find a way to make IVF more accessible. But, as Mackay points out, its increasing reproductive choice in one direction. Now read the rest of The Checkup Read more from MIT Technology Review's archive Last November, two years after Roe v. Wade was overturned, 10 US states voted on abortion rights. Seven of them voted to extend and protect access. My colleague Rhiannon Williams reported on the immediate aftermath of the decision that reversed Roe v. Wade. Fertility rates are falling around the world, in almost every country. IVF is great, but it wont save us from a looming fertility crisis. Gender equality and family-friendly policies are much more likely to be effective. Decades of increasingly successful IVF treatments have caused millions of embryos to be stored in cryopreservation tanks around the world. In some cases, they cant be donated, used, or destroyed and appear to be stuck in limbo forever. Ever come across the term women of childbearing age? The insidious idea that womens bodies are, above all else, vessels for growing children has plenty of negative consequences for us all. But it has also set back scientific research and health policy. There are other WhatsApp-based approaches to improving access to health information in India. Accredited social health activists in the country are using the platform to counter medical misinformation and superstitions around pregnancy. From around the web The US Food and Drug Administration assesses the efficacy and toxicity of experimental medicines before they are approved. It should also consider their financial toxicity, given that medical bills can fall on the shoulders of patients themselves, argue a group of US doctors. (The New England Journal of Medicine) Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the new US secretary of health and human services, has vowed to investigate the countrys childhood vaccination schedule. During his confirmation hearing a couple of weeks ago, he promised not to change the schedule. (Associated Press) Some scientists have been altering their published work without telling anyone. Such stealth corrections threaten scientific integrity, say a group of researchers from Europe and the US. (Learned Publishing) The US Department of Agriculture said it accidentally fired several people who were working on the federal response to the bird flu outbreak. Apparently the agency is now trying to hire them back. (NBC News) Could your next pet be a glowing rabbit? This startup is using CRISPR to level up pets. Their goal is to eventually create a real-life unicorn. (Wired)

Maggie Barnidge, 18, has been managing cystic fibrosis her whole life. But not long after she moved out of her home state to start college, she came down with pneumonia and went into liver failure. She desperately wanted to get in touch with her doctor back home, whom shed been seeing since she was diagnosed as an infant and who knew which treatments worked best for herbut he wasnt allowed to practice telemedicine across state lines. The local hospital, and doctors unfamiliar with her complicated medical history, would have to do. A lot of what Maggie needed wasnt a physical exam, says Barnidges mother, Elizabeth. It was a conversation: What tests should I be getting next? What did my labs look like? She just needed her doctor who knew her well. But doctors are generally allowed to practice medicine only where they have a license. This means they cannot treat patients across state lines unless they also have a license in the patients state, and most physicians have one or two licenses at most. This has led to what Ateev Mehrotra, a physician and professor of health policy at the Brown University School of Public Health, calls an inane norm: A woman with a rare cancer boarding an airplane, at the risk of her chemotherapy-weakened immune system, to see a specialist thousands of miles away, for example, or a baby with a rare disease whos repeatedly shuttled between Arizona and Massachusetts. While eligible physicians can currently apply to practice in states besides their own, this can be a burdensome and impractical process. For instance, lets say you are an oncologist in Minnesota, and a patient from Kansas arrives at your office seeking treatment. The patient will probably want to do follow-up appointments via telehealth when possible, to avoid having to travel back to Minnesota. But if you are not yet licensed to practice in Kansas (and you probably are not), you cant suddenly start practicing medicine there. You would first need to apply to do so, either through the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact (designed to streamline the process of obtaining a full license in another state, but at a price of $700 per year) or with Kansass board of medicine directly. Maybe this poses too great an administrative hurdle for youyou work long hours, and how will you find time to compile the necessary paperwork? Doctors cant reasonably be expected to apply for licensure in all 50 states. The patient, then, either loses out on care or must shoulder the burden of traveling to Minnesota for a doctors visit. The only way to access telehealth, if thats what the patient prefers, would be to cross into the state and log inan option that might still be preferable to traveling all the way to the doctors office. These obstacles to care have led to a growing belief among health-care providers, policymakers, and patients that under certain circumstances, doctors should be able to treat their patients anywhere. Lately, telehealth has proved to be widely popular, too. The coronavirus emergency in 2020 served as proof of concept, demonstrating that new digital platforms for medicine were feasibleand often highly effective. One study showed that telehealth accounted for nearly a quarter of contacts between patients and providers during the first four months of the pandemic (up from 0.3% during the same period in 2019), and among Medicare users, nearly half had used telehealth in 2020a 63-fold increase. This swift and dramatic shift came about because Congress and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had passed legislation to make more telehealth visits temporarily eligible for reimbursement (the payments a health-care provider receives from an insurance company for providing medical services), while state boards of medicine relaxed the licensing restrictions. Now, more providers were able to offer telehealth, and more patients were eager to receive medical care without leaving their homes. Though in-person care remains standard, telehealth has gained a significant place in US medicine, increasing from 0.1% of total Medicare visits in 2019 to 5.3% in 2020 and 3.5% in 2021. By the end of 2023, more than one in 10 Medicare patients were still using telehealth. And in some specialties the rate is much higher: 37% of all mental-health visits in the third quarter of 2023 were telemedicine, as well as 10% of obstetric appointments, 10% of transplant appointments, and 11% of infectious-disease appointments. Telehealth has broadened our ability to provide care in ways not imaginable prior to the pandemic, says Tara Sklar, faculty director of the health law and policy program at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law. Traditionally, patients and providers alike have been skeptical that telehealth care can meet the standards of an in-person appointment. However, most people advocating for telehealth arent arguing that it should completely replace visiting your doctor, explains Carmel Shachar, director of Harvard Law Schools Health Law and Policy Clinic. Rather, its a really useful way to improve access to care. Digital medicine could help address a gap in care for seniors by eliminating the need for them to make an arduous journey to the doctors office; many older adults find theyre more likely to keep their follow-up appointments when they can do them remotely. Telemedicine could also help address the equity issues facing hourly employees, who might not be able to take a half or full day off work to attend an in-person appointment. For them, the offer of a video call might make the difference between seeking and not seeking help. Its a modality that were not using to its fullest potential because were not updating our regulations to reflect the digital age, Shachar says. Last December, Congress extended most of the provisions increasing Medicare coverage for telehealth through the end of March 2025, including the assurances that patients can be in their homes when they receive care and that they dont need to be in a rural area to be eligible for telemedicine. We would love to have these flexibilities made permanent, says Helen Hughes, medical director for the Johns Hopkins Office of Telemedicine. Its confusing to explain to our providers and patients the continued regulatory uncertainty and news articles implying that telehealth is at risk, only to have consistent extensions for the last five years. This uncertainty leads providers and patients to worry that this type of care is not permanent and probably stifles innovation and investment by health systems. In the meantime, several strategies are being considered to facilitate telehealth across state lines. Some placeslike Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DCoffer proximal reciprocity, meaning that a physician licensed in any of those states can more efficiently be licensed in the others. And several states, like Arkansas and Idaho, say that out-of-state doctors can generally practice telemedicine within their borders as long as they are licensed in good standing in another state and are using the technology to provide follow-up care. Expanding on these ideas, some advocates say that an ideal approach might look similar to how we regulate driving across state lines: A drivers license from one state generally permits you to drive anywhere in the country as long as you have a good record and obey the rules of the road in the state that youre in. Another idea is to create a telemedicine-specific version of the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact (which deals only with full medical licenses) in which qualifying physicians can register to practice telehealth among all participating states via a centralized compact. For the foreseeable future, telehealth policy in the US is locked in what Mehrotra calls hand-to-hand warfarestates duking it out within their own legislatures to try to determine rules and regulations for administering telemedicine. Meanwhile, advocates are also pushing for uniformity between states, as with the Uniform Law Commissions Telehealth Act of 2022, which set out consistent terminology so that states can adopt similar telehealth laws. Weve always advanced our technologies, like what I can provide as a doctormeds, tests, surgeries, Mehrotra says. But in 2024, the basic structure of how we deliver that care is very similar to 1964. That is, we still ask people to come to a doctors office or emergency department for an in-person visit. Thats what excites me about telehealth, he says. I think theres the potential that we can deliver care in a better way. Isabel Ruehl is a writer based in New York and an assistant editor at Harpers Magazine.

AESSEAL Factory for the Future by Race Cottam Associates LtdSource: Peter CookPetronella House by Chiles Evans + Care ArchitectsSource: Howard EvansYoung Peoples Space by ArkleBoyceThe Wave by HLM ArchitectsSource: Martine Hamilton KnightDuncan Place Library & Community Hub by EDable ArchitectureSource: Sally Ann Norman PhotographyHull Minster refurbishment by Bauman Lyons Architects LtdSource: Nick Dearden1/6show captionSeven projects have been shortlisted for the RIBA Yorkshire Awards 2025, recognising a range of schemes across the region. The selection includes an industrial facility aiming to integrate sustainable design principles, a new space for young people within a hospice, and the refurbishment of the Grade I-listed Hull Minster.AESSEAL Factory for the Future by Race Cottam Associates Ltd was joined on the shortlist by Duncan Place Library & Community Hub, a project by EDable Architecture. Hull Minster, a refurbishment scheme by Bauman Lyons Architects Ltd, was also recognised.Petronella House by Chiles Evans + Care Architects secured a place alongside The Wave, a project by HLM Architects. Wonderlab: The Bramall Gallery by De Matos Ryan was also shortlisted. Completing the list is Young Peoples Space by ArkleBoyce.RIBA Yorkshire Jury Chair Gayle Appleyard, Director of Gagarin Studio, said: The Yorkshire region is home to a wonderful mix of people across cities, towns and rural communities, so its encouraging to see such diversity reflected in this years shortlist.From the tiny but well-crafted pavilion space created for young people within a hospice, to the renovation of a Grade I-listed church and a cutting-edge factory on a remediated industrial site, its brilliant to see the sensitivity and ambition manifest in all these shortlisted projects that evidently create inspiring, sustainable places in which to live, work, learn and play.Source: Hufton+CrowWonderlab: The Bramall Gallery by De Matos RyanAll projects shortlisted for RIBA Awards will be visited by a regional jury, and the winning projects will be announced later this spring.Shortlisted projects will also be considered for several RIBA Special Awards, including the RIBA Sustainability Award and RIBA Building of the Year, before being considered for a RIBA National Award, which will be announced in summer.RIBA Yorkshire Awards full shortlistAESSEAL Factory for the Future by Race Cottam Associates LtdDuncan Place Library & Community Hub by EDable ArchitectureHull Minster by Bauman Lyons Architects LtdPetronella House by Chiles Evans + Care ArchitectsThe Wave by HLM ArchitectsWonderlab: The Bramall Gallery by De Matos Ryan

The other contenders include two schemes in Sheffield: Petronella House, a revamp of a Victorian villa featuring a copper-clad extension by Chiles Evans + Care Architects; and The Wave at the University of Sheffield by HLM Architects, which had to be demolished part-way through construction in 2020 and the build restarted after its foundations were found to be inadequate.The shortlist also features a social sanctuary for young people inside a Leeds hospice by ArkleBoyce, a new library and community hub in Loftus, North Yorkshire, by Blyth-based EDable Architecture, a futuristic factory in Rotherham by Race Cottam Associates and De Matos Ryans interactive Wonderlab gallery for the National Railway Museum in York.All seven shortlisted projects will be assessed by a regional jury and the winning projects announced later this spring.AdvertisementRegional award winners are considered for several RIBA Special Awards, including the RIBA Sustainability Award and the Yorkshire RIBA Building of the Year.Last year the region famously made headlines after RIBA Yorkshire failed to name a Building of the Year for its area. According to reports, Hugh Broughton Architects and client English Heritage radical restoration of Cliffords Tower in York had been selected by RIBA regional award-winners jury as Yorkshires best in show. But, before it could be handed over, the Building of the Year prize was withdrawn due to concerns over disabled access.Speaking about the 2025 shortlist, RIBA Yorkshire jury chair Gayle Appleyard, director of Halifax-based Gagarin Studio, said: The Yorkshire region is home to a wonderful mix of people across cities, towns and rural communities, so its encouraging to see such diversity reflected in this years shortlist.From the tiny but well-crafted pavilion space created for young people within a hospice, to the renovation of a Grade I-listed church and a cutting-edge factory on a remediated industrial site, its brilliant to see the sensitivity and ambition manifest in all these shortlisted projects that evidently create inspiring, sustainable places in which to live, work, learn and play.All the regional winners in Yorkshire will be in the running for a RIBA National Award, the results of which will be announced in the summer.AdvertisementThe shortlist for theRIBA Stirling Prize for the best building of the year will then be drawn from the national award-winning projects and the Stirling Prize winner will be announced in October. Source:Building NarrativesYoung Peoples Space, Leeds, by ArkleBoyceRIBA Yorkshire awards shortlist 2025AESSEAL Factory for the Future, Rotherham by Race Cottam AssociatesDuncan Place library and community hub, Loftus by EDable ArchitectureHull Minster, Hull by Bauman Lyons ArchitectsPetronella House, Sheffield by Chiles Evans + Care ArchitectsThe Wave, Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Sheffield by HLM ArchitectsWonderlab: The Bramall Gallery, York by De Matos RyanYoung Peoples Space, Leeds by ArkleBoyce Source:Hufton + CrowWonderlab: The Bramall Gallery, York, by De Matos Ryan

Our Experts Written by Desiree DeNunzio Our expert, award-winning staff selects the products we cover and rigorously researches and tests our top picks. If you buy through our links, we may get a commission. Reviews ethics statement Desiree DeNunzio is the gift guide editor for CNET's Commerce team. When she's not writing and editing, she's either hiking through the redwoods or curled up with a good book and a lazy dog. Expertise Desiree has been a writer and editor for the past two decades, covering everything from top-selling Amazon deals to apparel, pets and home goods. Credentials Desiree's previous work has appeared in various print and online publications including Search Engine Land, PCWorld, Wired magazine and PBS MediaShift. See full bio Why You Can Trust CNET 16171819202122232425+ Years of Experience 14151617181920212223 Hands-on Product Reviewers 6,0007,0008,0009,00010,00011,00012,00013,00014,00015,000 Sq. Feet of Lab Space How we test CNETs expert staff reviews and rates dozens of new products and services each month, building on more than a quarter century of expertise.Table of Contents Our Picks Best tennis balls for most players Wilson US Open tennis balls View details $6 at Amazon View details Best tennis balls for hard courts Penn Championship tennis balls View details $11 at Amazon View details Most versatile tennis balls Wilson Profile All Court tennis balls View details $6 at Amazon View details Easy-to-find tennis balls Penn Pink Championship Extra Duty tennis ball can View details $10 at Amazon View details Best tennis balls for beginners Penn QST 36 tennis balls View details $25 at Amazon View details Tennis balls with a great value Wilson Tour Comp tennis balls (Update: Out of stock) View details See at Amazon View details Table of Contents No matter your skill level, the right tennis balls can significantly affect your game. While many players focus on choosing the perfect racket or apparel, the quality of your tennis balls is just as crucial. A reliable ball ensures consistent bounce, durability and a better playing experience. But with so many options available, finding the best one can be overwhelming.Drawing from extensive hands-on testing, years of experience on the court, and user reviews, Ive evaluated a range of tennis balls to determine which ones truly stand out. From beginner-friendly training balls to high-performance options used in competitive matches, this list covers the best choices for all types of players.What is the best tennis ball overall?The best tennis ball for most players is the Wilson US Open tennis ball. However, if you're a beginner, on a hard court or want tennis balls that are easy to find, we have those options for you below. $6 at Amazon The US Open is played on acrylic hard courts, these regular-duty tennis balls are designed for both clay and indoor courts. If you're a recreational player, like most of us are, these balls are a very good pick. They also last a long time for a regular-duty ball, which is important, since most recreational players typically don't plan on purchasing balls on a regular basis. $11 at Amazon $13 at Walmart If you're a serious tennis player and you plan on playing three or four days a week, the Penn Championship tennis ball is an excellent choice. These extra-duty tennis balls are designed for harder courts, which means they have a thicker felt for added durability and longevity. They're also USA and ITF-approved for competitive play. $6 at Amazon Wilson's Profile All Court Tennis Balls are a popular choice thanks to their versatility; they perform well on pretty much any court surface, even hard outdoor courts. These pressurized balls have a consistent bounce, and their signature Duraweave felt gives them added durability. They're excellent balls for multiple uses; great for practice, competing or casual play. $10 at Amazon Most of my picks have focused on durability, longevity and bounce, let's not forget one important thing: How easy is it to find your balls on a crowded court? When you're sharing your space with multiple players or with someone who's having a lesson in the next court over, it's hard to locate which balls are yours. These pink balls are the answer. The best part is that, for every can sold, Penn will donate 15 cents to benefit breast cancer research.

Millions of student loan borrowers -- myself included -- haven't made a student loan payment since March of 2020, when loans were first placed into an emergency forbearance during the pandemic. Now experts are urging us to prepare for repayment.Before the payment pause in 2020, my student loan payments were about $40 per month under the now-defunct Repaye income-driven repayment plan. I moved onto the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan as soon as the option was available in 2023. That set my payments to $0 per month. Shortly after, my loans, along with millions of other people's, were quickly put into an interest-free forbearance because of legal challenges to SAVE.Now that SAVE has been officially shot down by the courts, experts don't expect the Trump administration to defend this income-driven repayment plan. With SAVE on its way out, what does repayment look like for my $63,493 student loan debt?How much will my student loan payments increase without SAVE?The Department of Educationlet borrowers in SAVE know just before Trump's inauguration that the earliest we should expect repayment to resume is December 2025, and income recertification won't be required until at least February 2026. However, repayment could start sooner now that SAVE has been blocked by the appeals court, Mark Kantrowitz, a student loan expert, told CNET.At best, that gives me about a year to figure out how to fit a student loan payment back into my plan after a nearly six-year break. At worst, it gives me a few months.Encouraged by advisors, I used theDepartment of Education's loan simulator to see what kind of monthly bill I can expect when payments resume.I was shocked by the numbers.My income as a freelance writer has gone up since those $40-a-month payments in 2020. Now I work for my own S-corp and pay myself an annual salary of $80,000.If my payments were to resume under the SAVE plan given my income increase, my monthly payment would be $192, and my loan balance would be forgiven in April 2031.With SAVE likely disappearing, I'm not eligible for any other income-driven repayment (IDR) plans. My remaining options to repay my consolidated loans are:Graduated repayment(where payments start low and increase every two years): starting at $324 and ending at $806 per month until the balance is repaid in full in October 2042Standard repayment:$488 per month until the balance is repaid in full in December 2042Graduated repayment is designed for borrowers who are early in their careers and can expect significant income increases over the years. I'm midcareer and work for myself, so I don't expect that kind of bump. Bracing for $800 payments in the future doesn't sound feasible.That leaves me with a payment of $488 per month... more than 10 times the amount of my last student loan payment.How I'm planning for my increased student loan paymentThat $488 is a hefty monthly payment to absorb, especially as my housing costs happen to be going up this year, as well. At this rate:My student loan payment will take 10% of my take-home pay.My housing and utilities will take 53%.My health insurance premium will take another 3%.My other debt payments will take 5%.I'm left with about $1,400 per month for spending. If I spend about $500 on groceries and gas, that leaves me $900 for any other fluctuating and unexpected costs. My situation, thankfully, isn't dire, but I'll lose a lot of the financial cushion I've grown used to. I'll have to think more carefully about purchases than I have in several years, and I won't have much wiggle room for emergencies, luxuries or unexpected expenses.Since I have almost a year to adjust how I use money. Here's how I'll plan ahead to absorb the new payment:Keep my savings and credit intact foremergency expenses, like car repairs or health surprisesEat out less frequently and spend less when I doBuy clothing from thrift stores for lower pricesBuy furniture and home goods from thrift stores and watch for freebies in buy-nothing groupUse my remaining time in 2025 to build up funds for future purchases, including travel and my next car (those monthly savings contributions will probably stop once I restart student loan repayment)What if you can't afford your new student loan payment?Income-driven repayment plans are intended to make student loan payments affordable, but they don't take your real cost of living into account (just your income and family size). SAVE's adjusted formula made IDR an option for many borrowers who, like me, don't qualify for other IDR plans but are still burdened by student loan payments.If you find yourself unable to qualify for IDR after recertifying your income next year -- or if your payment doesn't feel feasible, even under IDR -- here are some ways tomake your loan payment more affordable:Work with student loan experts like those atEdvisorsor the Institute of Student Loan Advisorsto create a money management plan. Make sure you've tried all your options with the Department of Education's repayment plans.Apply with your loan servicer fordeferment or forbearance. You might qualify if you're experiencing economic hardship, you're unemployed or you're experiencing other financial difficulties, like medical expenses.Look intorefinancing-- with caution. Refinancing your federal loans with a private lender might land you a lower interest rate or lower monthly payment, but it'll also eliminate any potential for income-driven repayment, forgiveness or other relief in the future.Work with a nonprofit organization, likeUpsolve, to discuss debt-relief and bankruptcy options. Student loans aren't commonly discharged in bankruptcy, but it's possible if payments cause undue financial hardship. More student loan advice:

February 20, 20255 min readWhats on the Milky Ways Far Side?With radio and infrared telescopes, astronomers can pierce the dusty veil of our galaxy and map its farthest reachesBy Phil Plait edited by Lee BillingsThis infrared image from NASAs Spitzer Space Telescope shows the nebula nicknamed the Dragonfish. This turbulent region lies beyond the galactic centereffectively on the dust-obscured far side of our galaxyand is home to some of the most luminous massive stars in the Milky Way. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of TorontoYoud think, given that we live inside the Milky Way, we would have a pretty good map of it by now, together with an understanding of its overall structure and components.Being embedded in the Milky Way is actually a major obstacle to our galactic cartography, however. We see every other galaxy from the outside, allowing us to observe most of them sprawled out before us. That makes mapping their structure relatively easy.But for our own Milky Way, were stuck inside with a murky view. Imagine youre in a giant, fog-filled warehouse where you can always see the floor and ceiling, but the gloom blocks any deep view to the buildings perimeter. You can see the boxes and other goods stacked up on nearby shelving, yet your spatial awareness fades past a dozen meters or so. You cant tell whats out there; you dont even know how far away the walls are or if youre near the warehouses periphery or its center.On supporting science journalismIf 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.Astronomers face this very issue. If our galaxy were just made up of stars, wed be able to see clear across it. But its also filled with dust: tiny grains of rocky or sooty material created when massive stars die, blown out in a vast wind that expels the grains into space. Billions of these stars over billions of years have choked the Milky Way with dust, filling it with opaque clouds, blocking our sight line and limiting our view. Essentially all the stars we can see are on our near side of the Milky Way.Still, we can say with utmost confidence that our galaxy is a flat disk with a roughly spherical central bulge of stars; on a dark, moonless night we see this as a broad river of light across the sky that blossoms outward into a circle near the constellation Sagittarius. Were inside that flat disk, so the all the visible stars combined light produces that misty stream (called the Milky Wayconfusingly, our galaxy as a whole is also named after it).But whats beyond the stars we can see? What is our galaxys overall structure, and what lies in the middle and on the other side?I have good news: I lied to you earlier. Well, I didnt lie so much as withhold some information. Although the disks ubiquitous dust blocks visible (also called optical) light, other, longer wavelengths of light such as radio waves and infrared can slip through that dust relatively unimpeded. So by using telescopes sensitive to those wavelengths, we can see much farther and learn what lies beyond our own eyesight.For example, the center of our galaxy is obscured by so much dust that optical light telescopes are nearly useless, but with infrared telescopes, we can see the light emitted by objects there. Using such instruments, astronomers have been able to track stars so accurately that their stellar motions have revealed and even weighed a monstrously huge object at our galaxys center that emits no visible or infrared light: a supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A* with a mass of more than four million suns.Radio waves have a longer wavelength than infrared and can pass through dust even more easily. In 2010 astronomers detected a gigantic gas cloud 31,000 light-years from Earth, on the other side of our galaxy. Follow-up observations in infrared revealed it to be an immense cloud of gas and dust in which stars are actively forming; the astronomers named it the Dragonfish Nebula because of its resemblance to the tropical fish. Its two degrees across in the skyfour times as wide as the apparent size of a full moonwhich, given the nebulas astronomical distance, makes it a staggering 1,000 light-years wide; compare that with the Orion Nebula, a relatively nearby stellar nursery that is only a couple of dozen light-years across.The Dragonfish is likely the largest such nebula in the Milky Way, making it easily visible even from other galaxies, yet its entirely invisible to our optical telescopes.Still, we can do even better. Some of these gas clouds are powerful emitters of microwave light, which has a wavelength in between infrared and radio waves. The physics behind these emissions is essentially the same as that of lasers, so we call them masers (the m is for microwave), and they can be seen clear across the galaxy. By combining the observations of telescopes around the world, we can get ultraprecise measurements of their motions and distances.These clouds lie along the galaxys winding, star-studded streams: its spiral arms. In fact, observations of these masers have proved that our Milky Way is a magnificent example of a spiral galaxy. Astronomers have observed that our galaxy has four large-scale arms. But theres also a fifth arm, not as large or obvious, that tracks less than a quarter of the way around the galaxy; this local arm holds our solar system. Other radio astronomy measurements have pinpointed our galactic coordinates with considerable precision: the sun is about 26,000 light-years from the centera bit less than halfway out across the 120,000-light-year-wide diskand located very close to the exact midplane of the Milky Way.G1.9+0.3 is another galactic far-side object found in observations by the Very Large Array, a series of radio telescopes located in the New Mexico desert. Its a supernova remnant, the expanding gaseous debris from a star that exploded. The light from this explosion reached Earth only a little over a century ago, making it the most recent known supernova in our galaxy, but the intervening dust dimmed it so much it wasnt seen in visible light at all. Its location is estimated to be over 27,000 light-years from Earth, putting it just barely on the galaxys far side.X-rays can penetrate our galaxys dust as well. In 2004 a huge wave of this kind of high-energy light swept over Earth, blasted out by a magnetar: an extremely energetic and magnetically charged neutron star called SGR 1806-20. The explosion was so powerful that it swamped satellites designed to measure the x-ray sky and physically affected Earths atmosphere. And it did this from a distance of 40,000 to 50,000 light-years, clear on the other side of the Milky Way. Magnetars are relatively rareonly a handful are known in our galaxy, and all of those except SGR 1806-20 are on our side of the galactic center. Its likely there are more located on the other side that are (hopefully) less powerful than that one.Clearly the hidden half of our galaxy is worth exploring! Our local volume of space is filled with amazing objects, such as powerful Wolf-Rayet stars blasting out waves of dust, stars that are just on the edge of exploding and exoplanets galore, just to name a handful. What other treasures lie in wait to be discovered on the other side? Until we can further explore the Milky Ways more distant reaches, our galactic census is, at best, only half-complete.

February 20, 2025Where Did Curly Hair Come From? Biological Anthropology May Provide InsightsHumans have a surprising lack of hair for mammals. Biological anthropology may provide insights into why the hair we have sometimes comes out curly.By Rachel Feltman & Jeffery DelViscio Anaissa Ruiz Tejada/Scientific AmericanSUBSCRIBE TO Science QuicklyRachel Feltman: Have you ever really thought about the hair that grows out of your head? I mean, Im sure youve thought about your hairin terms of which way to get it cut and how to get that one really wonky piece to behave itselfbut have you ever considered why it is the way it is?For Scientific Americans Science Quickly, Im Rachel Feltman. My guest today is biological anthropologist Tina Lasisi, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan. She leads a lab that studies the evolution and genetic basis of human phenotypic variation, with a focus on pigmentation and hair. In other words shes figuring out why human skin and hair comes in so many gorgeous varieties.Thanks so much for joining us to chat today.On supporting science journalismIf 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.Tina Lasisi: Great to be here.Feltman: So Ive been a fan of your research for a few years now cause, among other things, youre really asking and answering questions about hair that I dont think anyone else is tackling. How did you get interested in your field of study, and would you tell our listeners a little bit about it?Lasisi: Absolutely. So I got interested in this when I was an undergrad. I did my undergrad at the University of Cambridge, where I was studying archaeology and anthropology, which there consists of studying archaeology, biological anthropology and social anthropology.And I was always someone who really liked culture and traveling, so I thought I was gonna be a cultural anthropologist, but I got this lecture in the evolution of human skin color that really had me intrigued, and it was a lecture where they showed, you know, those really famous map pairings where you see the distribution of skin color around the world and the distribution of UV radiation, and it was just like this [makes explosion noise], you know, brain-exploding moment of like, Wow, like I never thought about that, and learning more about evolution and how theres all these processes that can shape the way that humans arethe way that a lot of different species are, rightthat really got me intrigued, and I felt like, Okay, now I understand why my skin is the color that it is, but my immediate next question was: Well, why is my hair curly?Feltman: Hmm.Lasisi: And there wasnt a great answer at the time, and I was lucky enough to be in a really supportive environment, and I had a mentor who said, You know, why dont you just go into the science side of anthropology and study this? And so, what year are we in2025? Okay, 14 years later, here I am [laughs] still working on that.Feltman: Yeah, well, and, you know, it sounds like the nature of your work is pretty interdisciplinary. You know, how would you summarize everything youre looking at to someone whos not familiar with your work?Lasisi: Thats such a great question. Im actually teaching an introduction to anthropology class right now, and Im trying to explain to the students, like, Anything can be anthropology, and everything can be anthropology. You can use so many different methods. So right now, I would say I am definitely an evolutionary biologist. I work on human biology. I also work onthermoregulation is work that Ive worked on. Ive worked with thermal engineers. I also have worked on genetics; thats a big part of what I do. Im also in a Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. So all of those little bits and pieces, they give a different insight into the question that you can ask, and so everything that I do involves sitting [laughs] behind a computer, mostly, but also collecting samples from people and measuring things with various instruments and a lot of computer imaging, basically [basically].Feltman: Very cool. And so, broadly speaking, why is it that people have so much variation in their hair and skin?Lasisi: Mm-hmm. So the reason is simultaneously because of natural selection and because of the absence of natural selection. So the story that weve been able to piece together for skin color is that very long agosomewhere between, you know, two to one million years agoas the genus Homo was emerging, we were completely bipedal and at some point would have started losing our body hair, so really reducing those hair follicles so that we have like, this, tiny peach fuzz all over our body. And by doing that we have lost a really important barrier, right? So a lot of people can associate hair with keeping you warm, but it can also protect you from UV radiation. And so those ancestors probably would have been under selective pressure to evolve darker skin because by having more melanin in your skin, thats another way that you can protect yourself from that UV radiation.The story afterwards is one of adaptation to different environments. So it turns out that having all of that wonderful melanin to protect you is great when theres a lot of solar radiation, but if youre in an environment with not a lot of radiation, you end up running into issues with being able to produce enough vitamin D ...Feltman: Hmm.Lasisi: Which is something you can only do in your body with the power of solar radiation that helps you convert it into an active form. Now, there are, of course, exceptions to that because there are places in the world where people have diets that are rich in naturally occurring vitamin D, like in the Arctic.And since all those times weve moved to so many different places, and you have all of this variation thats evolved because of that. And in the last, lets call it 200 years whats really nice is that we have developed all of these cultural ways of adapting to different places. So instead of being someone who maybe doesnt have a lot of melanin and going to a place that is very, very sunny and being like, Well, geez, Im gonna have to wait a couple of generations for evolution to fix it for my ancestors, we now have sunscreen and all of these other things that we can do. We have vitamin D supplementation.Now the story with hair, its much more complicated to tell because we really dont know. The thing about hair and skin is that in both cases, they dont fossilize, and so were having to infer a lot from the past. And we do that by putting together hypotheses and saying, Well, if this is the reason that natural selection would have selected for this kind of hair or that kind of skin, whats the distribution that we expect to see? And with hair we dont have a lot of thoroughly tested hypotheses, but some of the work that I did in my Ph.D. that got published a few years ago was asking the question: Well, does tightly curled hair reduce how much heat we might gain from solar radiation? And I found in my experiments that, yes, it really does have this role. And so now the question is: Can we also use genetics to ask, Well, how did this happen? Whats the history of this? And whats the story for every group of people around the world?Feltman: Yeah, thats so cool. I loved that study. Its not apparent cause its pulled back and bleached within an inch of its life, but I have very curly hair [laughs]. And I was like, Ive always wondered why when I get a blowout, I feel [laughs], I feel like my head is gonna sweat right off. Meanwhile, when people are like,I dont know how you live through the summer with that long hair, and Im like, I dont know what youre talking about [laughs]. Its fine. So I love when the science answers questions I didnt even know I had.So a lot of the ways that weve historically categorized different variations in hair and skin are, of course, really lacking and sometimes quite racist. What factors are actually at play that lead to differences in the makeup of our skin and hair, and how has your work changed the way you think about how we might describe or categorize those variations?Lasisi: Mm-hmm, thats really an interesting question. So theres a number of factors that we can tease apart there, right? We can ask the question of: What are the mechanisms and the biological processes that contribute to this variation? When it comes to skin color, weve known for a long time that its melanin, but measuring how much melanin is in someones skin is actually [laughs] really invasive. Its really invasivelike youd have to have a skin punch, youd have to do various chemical analyses to measure exactly how much melanin and what kind of melanin is in there. So thats really difficult, and people need a shorthand, especially if youre doing population-wide studies. So people have tried to come up with really good descriptions, but descriptions can only go so far, and measuring something is so much better.So with the rise of reflectance spectrophotometers, we finally had a tool that could really easily and noninvasively measure the color of skin. So this can be done at various levels of detail.You can have one that is specifically trying to estimate the visible range of melanin, and it can give you something called melanin index, which is something thats been developed to say, Okay, well, how much melanin is in someones skin? And so that really helped us collect a lot of accurate data, and in 2017, 2018 there were a lot of papers that came out saying, Oh, wow, look at all of this variation in skin color that we didnt realize existed in Africa.And so thats where you have this really interesting insight of, Oh, sometimes the words that we use and the variation that we think were seeing doesnt align with what it is that were measuring, which is why its so important to have tools that measure things. With hair we suffer from a similar problem, where, okay, well, we have all these descriptions of straight, wavy, curly, but is that really what the range of the variation is?However, there isnt a single thing that you can measure to define hair shape. Theres a lot of things that you can measureif you are narrowing down to the level of a single hair fiber, in a single hair fiber you can get a cross section. You can slice that in half, look at that cross section and say, Well, how thick is that hair fiber? What shape is it? And thats something that weve been doing for over 100 years, and weve noticed that theres a variation there. But when it comes to thecurl its really difficult because hair curves in three dimensions.So that is the thing that I actually worked on the longestit took me 10 years to develop a method that Im, you know, remotely happy with. And it involves getting a little strand of hair, chopping it up into little pieces so that it only curves in two dimensions and then measuring the curvature by trying to, basically, fit a circle to it. So you can imagine: you have different types of curls, different sizes of curls, and the smaller the circle is that fits to that curl, the more curly that hair is, you could say. And so that is one method that you can have of really precisely, accurately measuring hair curvature.To answer the question of, Why does hair curl?: well, we dont really know yet, and thats really interesting because when it comes to sheeps wool, so that doesnt curl, but it crimps; it has this wave. We know that it has to do with two different types of cells that are deposited in different ways. But when it comes to human hair curl we dont know what the mechanism is that makes hair curl, and it might be that there are many mechanisms that contribute to the shape. Some people have said that its the shape of the hair follicle, but we still have a lot of work to do to be sure about that.Feltman: Yeah, well, and, you know, for folks who dont think about hair texture or curl at all, why is it important to answer these questions?Lasisi: Mm-hmm, so its important on a number of levels. First, from the perspective of someone who is really interested in human evolution, human origins, my desire to answer this comes from, you know, being, I dont want to say a natural historian, but thats really what you are when youre studying evolution and asking, like, Wow, what is the story of our people as a whole? I would love to know: What is it that makes our hair the way that it is, and why are we the only mammals that have naked bodies and hair on their heads? Thats weird. Not trying to judge here, but its a little odd compared to all the other mammals. But theres a lot of other reasons that it might be useful to understand.So something that Im incredibly fascinated with is the potential to understand the variation within your ownbody through the hair follicle, right? You have hair follicles all over your body. Your eyebrows are hair, you know, your eyelashes are hair, and they are very different than the hair on your head. You might have body hair in various places. And yet you have the same DNA across your body; its just how that DNA is used. And because you have this incredible structure, this hair follicle, which is the same thing all over your body, we have this unique opportunity to ask, Okay, well, how can we use the same DNA and a similar structure around the body and create different things?And thats the kind of knowledge that you can apply to a lot of different ends. You could be asking questions about, Well, why do things go wrong when they go wrong? And what are various processes that affect how our DNAs able to express itself? Something thats incredibly interesting is a lot of people have reported to me, for themselves or someone they know, when they went through chemotherapy their hair texture changed.Feltman: Mm.Lasisi: Your DNA didnt change, right? But something about how your DNA is being used in those hair follicles has changed, and if were able to make those associations, see what those links are, we can break down what the biological processes are that are going on, and that might lead towho knows what; you never know what youre gonna find in the type of science that Im doing [laughs], and thats what I love about it.Feltman: [Laughs] Yeah, awesome. What are some other big questions that youre still hoping to answer?Lasisi: So there are a number of adventures that I still want to go on when it comes to hair science, and one of them is, you know, understanding how various physiological processes can affect our hair. So thinking of even our own trajectories [laughs] through to adulthood, there was a time when we were probably marginally less hairy, and then puberty happened, and all of a sudden there was hair in places where it wasnt before, and maybe our hair was a little bit different [laughs] in places where we already had hair. And thats really interesting because we know that theres something going on endocrinologically that is, is changing our body and we have this external marker that is telling us, Okay, well, here are some changes, and so its really interesting to ask that question.And then on the other end of that, once were talking about aging, we have people who maybe start losing hair in certain places. It gets thinner or maybe it gets coarser, is something Ive heard people say. And so we can ask questions, again, about whats going on in your body and can we learn something from this external marker that is very noninvasive to say, Okay, this is giving me a window into your body about what could be going on?And then the second part of hair science that Im really interested in right now is what we can learn from the hair fibers that are coming out of your body in terms of biomarkers.Feltman: Mm.Lasisi: So theres a lot you can measure from hair. For example, right now in my lab one of my students is working on extracting cortisol from hair, and the way that your hair works it ends up being, like, this ice core of your bodys physiology; its constantly capturing bits of whats going on in your bloodstream. And so theres this incredible potential to get this slice-of-time view, if we can get our methods to be precise enough, of: This is what was going on in your body a month ago, two months ago, three months ago. And it would be an incredible, noninvasive way to be able to keep track of cortisol, other hormones, and theres also a lot of toxicology that you can do with hair.Feltman: Very cool. Thank you so much for coming on to talk about this. I hope we can have you back soon to talk about more of your research.Lasisi: Absolutely, this was so much fun.Feltman: Thats all for todays episode. Tune in on Monday for our usual science news roundup.Science Quickly is produced by me, Rachel Feltman, along with Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg, Naeem Amarsy and Jeff DelViscio. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Subscribe to Scientific American for more up-to-date and in-depth science news.For Scientific American, this is Rachel Feltman. Have a great weekend!