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SPONSORED BY  | | | | July 25, 2024: Super spikes at the Olympics, new research on a universal basic income and what a Kamala Harris presidency would mean for science. —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | | People who receive monthly no-strings-attached cash from guaranteed income programs increase spending on things that boost their housing security and financial stability. One recent study showed that participants receiving a $1000 per month cash benefit spent more money on basic needs like food, but also spent more money on helping family and friends. Another study found that cash benefits lead to fewer emergency room visits.
Why this matters: Some 37.9 million people live in poverty in the U.S., according to 2021 Census Bureau figures. Experts estimate that a universal basic income would benefit millions and end up saving hundreds of billions of dollars by reducing the social costs of poverty (e.g. hunger assistance programs or public assistance programs).
What the experts say: Guaranteed basic income is not a cure-all solution to poverty, says Sara Kimberlin, executive director of the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality. "Access to health care, schooling, childcare and affordable housing are still needed. I think it makes sense to think about basic income as a promising intervention that complements other parts of the social safety net. Unrestricted cash has a lot of power to be able to fill in places where the safety net is inadequate." | | | Behind elite athletes is usually (but not always), some pretty elite gear. Ninety-four percent of all gold-medal-winning swimmers at the 2008 Beijing Olympics were wearing a fullbody Speedo LZR Racer swimsuit, which was engineered to reduce drag in the water. Keep an eye out for "super spikes" running shoes at track events at the Paris Olympics this year, with their enhanced bounce-back foam and spikes under the forefoot. Researchers speculate the shoes can improve running economy by 1.5 percent. Why this matters: When do technological advances become unfair advantages? Some athletic purists argue that souped-up apparel and equipment constitute "technological doping," and regulations usually come after the fact. For example, the governing body for water sports banned those shark-skin inspired swimsuits in 2008, but only after the gold medalists wearing the suits had thoroughly trounced the competition.
What the experts say: "Elite sports performances are always a combination of biological capability and the training of that ability through technological means," says Andy Miah, a professor at the University of Salford in England who studies the science of the Olympics. "There is no natural athlete. In fact, [being an] elite athlete is a very unnatural way of life—but that doesn't make it bad." | | | How many words do you see? I'm thrilled to announce that Scientific American has launched a new games section! Flex your math muscles with puzzles, find all the words you can in our game Spellements (today's puzzle above), and test your science knowledge with quizzes and crosswords. Check out all our games here.
Oh and one more thing: The dictionary we use for Spellements misses a lot of science words, such as apatite and coati. Let us know at games@sciam.com what extra science terms you found, and I might give you a shout out in tomorrow's Today in Science! | | | • The James Webb Space Telescope has spotted a giant cold planet some 12 light years away. | 3 min read | | | An adult Komodo dragon seen at a zoo. Jürgen & Christine Sohns/ imageBROKER.com GmbH & Co. KG / Alamy Stock Photo | | | • Olympic-hosting cities make a good effort to employ sustainable practices to limit the environmental impact of the Games. But efforts to curb over-construction and source sustainable food from local producers to feed athletes are overshadowed by the massive carbon footprint of tourist travel to the events, among other factors, writes Jules Boykoff, an author and political science instructor at Pacific University. "If the Olympic organizers truly want to be sustainable, the Games need to reduce their size, limit the number of tourists who travel from afar, thoroughly greenify their capacious supply chains and open up their eco-books for bona fide accountability," he says. | 6 min read | | | SPONSORED CONTENT BY UNIVERSITÉ PARIS CITÉ | Resistance: The secrets of a long life in sports | While sports are beneficial at any age, our physical fitness ultimately wanes. This is a natural and irreversible process, but it can be slowed down. | | | I promise, once you give some of our new science games a try, you'll quickly be hooked. And reading Scientific American articles will give you a leg-up on several of them. This week's trivia stumped me over the medical name of the special surgery required to repair damaged connective tissues in baseball players. Hint: You can find the answer here. | Relax, try out some of our new games, and let me know what you think of them: newsletters@sciam.com. Until tomorrow! | —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | Subscribe to this and all of our newsletters . | | | | Scientific American
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