Welcome to the (U.S. Science) Apocalypse

I'm starting to feel like I’m beating a dead horse, having already written a couple times recently about the Trump Administration’s attacks on science, but the hits just keep on coming. Last Friday, for example, not only did the Administration’s proposed 2026 budget slash National Science Foundation (NSF) funding by over 50%, but the Nature reported that the NSF was ceasing not only making new grants but also paying out on existing grants.

Then today, at an event called “Choose Europe for Science,” European leaders announced a 500 million euro ($566 million) program to attract scientists. It wasn’t specifically targeted at U.S. scientists, but the context was pretty clear.

Sudip Parikh, chief executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, called the proposed budget cuts “a crisis, just a catastrophe for U.S. science.” Even if Congress doesn’t go along with such draconian cuts and grant approval resumes, Dr. Parikh warns: “That's created this paralysis that I think is hurting us already.”  

One NSF staffer fears: “This country’s status as the global leader in science and innovation is seemingly hanging by a thread at this point.”

Proposed 2026 NSF cuts

Nature obtained an internal NSF April 30 email that told staff members “stop awarding all funding actions until further notice.” Researchers can continue to spend money they’ve already received but new money for those existing or for new grants are frozen “until further notice.” Staff members had already been told to screen grant proposals for “topics or activities that may not be in alignment with agency priorities.”

NPR reports that some 344 previously approved grants were terminated as a result, as they “were not aligned with agency priorities.” One staffer told Nature that the policy had the potential for “Orwellian overreach,” and another warned: “They are butchering the gold standard merit review process that was established at NSF over decades.” Yet another staffer told Samantha Michaels of Mother Jones that the freeze is “a slow-moving apocalypse…In effect, every NSF grant right now is canceled.”

No wonder that NSF's director, Sethuraman Panchanathan, resigned last week, simply saying: “I believe I have done all I can." 

If you think, oh, who cares? We still have plenty of innovative private companies investing in research, so who needs the government to fund research, then you might want to consider this: new research from American University estimates that even a 25% drop in federal support for R&D would reduce the U.S. GDP by 3.8% in the long term. And these aren’t one-time hits. “It is going to be a decline forever,” said Ignacio González, one of the study’s authors. “The U.S. economy is going to be smaller.”  

If you don’t believe AU, then maybe you’ll believe the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, which estimates that government investments in research and development accounted for at least a fifth of U.S. productivity growth since World War II. “If you look at a long period of time, a lot of our increase in living standards seems to be coming from public investment in scientific research,” Andrew Fieldhouse, a Texas A&M economist and an author of the Dallas Fed study, told The New York Times. “The rates of return are just really high.”

It's no wonder, then, that European leaders see an opportunity.

“Nobody could imagine a few years ago that one of the great democracies of the world would eliminate research programs on the pretext that the word ‘diversity’ appeared in its program,” President Emmanuel Macron of France said at the Choose Europe event.

President Macron went on to add:

No one could have thought that one of the largest democracies in the world would erase, with a stroke of the pen, the ability to grant visas to certain researchers. No one could have thought that this great democracy, whose economic model relies so heavily on free science, on innovation and on its ability to innovate more than Europeans and to spread that innovation more over the past three decades, would make such a mistake. But here we are.

“Unfortunately, we see today that the role of science in today’s world is questioned. The investment in fundamental, free and open research is questioned. What a gigantic miscalculation,” said Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission.  She wants to “make Europe a magnet for researchers” over the next two years.

Here we are indeed, and, yes, what a gigantic miscalculation.

“In the United States, once a paradise for researchers, academic freedom is being challenged. The line between truth and falsehood, between fact and belief, is being weakened,” Elisabeth Borne, France’s education minister, said.

“The first priority is to ensure that science in Europe remains open and free. That is our calling card,” Ms. von der Leyen explained. President Macron echoed this: "We call on researchers worldwide to unite and join us ... If you love freedom, come and help us stay free."

America was supposed to be the land of the free, right?

We need to keep in mind that, while all this is going on, President Trump is waging war on major U.S. research universities, ostensibly in the name of fighting DEI or antisemitism. The New York Times estimates he has targeted some 60 in all, especially Ivy League institutions. Over 200 colleges and universities have signed on to a statement decrying the attacks:

As leaders of America’s colleges, universities, and scholarly societies, we speak with one voice against the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education…We will always seek effective and fair financial practices, but we must reject the coercive use of public research funding.

The statement warns: “The price of abridging the defining freedoms of American higher education will be paid by our students and our society.”

Robert N. Proctor, a historian at Stanford University, told Reuters that Trump was leading "a libertarian right-wing assault on the scientific enterprise" that had been years in the making. "We could well see a reverse brain drain," he said. "It's not just to Europe, but scholars are moving to Canada and Asia as well."

Last week Dr. Francis Collins, former head of the NIH, pointed out: “When you mix politics and science, you just get politics.” Starting with WWII, U.S. universities made a devil’s bargain with the federal government about research funding. That bargain served both parties, and the country, well over these past many decades, but we’ve never seen politics and ideology play such a role in what and who gets funded.  

The Administration claims it values science, but only certain kinds of science and especially not “woke” science. It’s fair to question levels of federal funding, but when the political considerations outweigh the scientific ones, we run the risk that “America First” won’t be true of U.S. science anymore.

YouTube at 20

You may have missed it, but last week marked a milestone for YouTube: twenty years ago, on April 23, 2005, YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim posted the very first YouTube video, titled "Me at the Zoo." It’s not very long, the production values aren’t great, and the main import is that elephants have very long trunks, but few could have predicted the cultural presence that YouTube has become.

Just a few facts to set the stage:

• It has over 20 billion uploaded videos, with some 20 million uploaded daily;
• It has 125 million subscribers, and 122 million daily viewers;
• 1 billion hours of content are viewed daily, generating over 3.5 billion likes and over100 million comments daily;
• It is the #1 streaming platform – 50% more than Netflix, its nearest competitor.

The Pew Research Center has done extensive research on it, and offers these five key findings:

• “More U.S. adults use YouTube than any other online platform we’ve asked about. As of 2024, 85% of adults say they ever use YouTube.
• Across age groups, majorities of adults use YouTube. More than nine-in-ten adults under 50 say they use the site, as do 86% of adults ages 50 to 64. Even among adults 65 and older – who are generally less likely than younger people to use various online platforms – 65% use the video sharing platform.
• An overwhelming majority of U.S. teens also use YouTube. Nine-in-ten U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 say they ever use YouTube, though this is down slightly from 95% in 2022. And most teens go on YouTube daily (73%).
• Around a third of U.S. adults say they regularly get news from YouTube. The share of Americans who get news on YouTube has risen in recent years, from 23% in 2020 to 32% in 2024.
• Around a quarter of adult YouTube users in the U.S. (24%) say they regularly get news from news influencers on any social media site. A recent Pew Research Center analysis of news influencers found that 44% of those in our sample are on YouTube,”

Talk all you want about TikTok, Facebook, or Instagram, but YouTube beats all of them. It’s not just cat videos or even Baby Shark Dance.  

Credit: Pew Research Center

Not only does YouTube take in about $36b in ad revenue, it shares some of that with creators through its Partner Program, paying out around $25b per year (MrBeast has done particularly well, taking in over $80 million annually). David Craig, who teaches media and culture at the University of Southern California at Annenberg, told CBS News: "YouTube came along and said, 'Why don't we give you some advertising revenue in exchange for the fact that you're helping us grow our service?'"

As a result, Professor Craig continued: “They've been surveying young people, and they've all said they want to grow up to be a creator or an influencer more than a celebrity – or, I'm sorry to say, a journalist."

But what you think you know about YouTube based on your feeds is probably misleading. Thomas Germain did a deep dive on the YouTube algorithms for BBC. Ryan McGrady, senior researcher at the Initiative for Digital Public Infrastructure at the University of Massachusetts, explained to him:

The conversations we're having about YouTube are based on an impoverished view of what the platform really is. When we just focus on what's popular, we miss how the vast majority of people actually use YouTube as uploaders, and overlooking the role it plays in our society.

According to Dr. McGrady’s analysis, the median video has only been viewed 41 times. If a video gets as little as 130 views, it is in the upper third of all videos. Mr. Germain concludes: “In other words, the vast majority of YouTube is practically invisible.”

 Initiative for Digital Public Infrastructure (iDPI) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

That’s OK. Dr. McGrady says: "YouTube isn't just a vehicle for professionals. We rely on it as the default video arm of the internet. YouTube is infrastructure. It's a critical tool that regular people use to communicate."

A third of the U.S. population is under 25 and so don’t recall the internet before YouTube, so, yes, to them it is basic infrastructure, like search or email might be to older generations.

YouTube CEO Neal Mohan also sees it as a communication platform, telling CBS News:

But it's fundamentally a platform for freedom of speech…I think it goes back to we, as human beings, are social beings. We connect with other people. We are storytellers. That is what happens billions of times a day on YouTube. And it's back to our mission: give everyone a voice and show them the world.

Ethan Zuckerman, who leads the YouTube research as the director of the University of Massachusetts' Initiative for Digital Public Infrastructure, told Mr. Germain that, without the algorithm's recommendations, YouTube is a study of the everyday, people documenting small moments in their lives and using the available tools to exchange ideas.

"As researchers, we spend a lot of time with this stuff. It can be a lot like looking at people's personal snapshots," Dr. Zuckerman says. "Most of it's boring, but sometimes it's poignant, even haunting. And every so often, you get something that feels incredibly revealing about how human beings communicate."

Mr. Germain ended up being quite touched by his exploration:

The YouTube we talk about – the one full of celebrities, scandals and manufactured virality – only tells part of the story. The majority exists in quiet moments, in shaky camera work and voices meant for no one in particular.  I watched hundreds of these videos. Everything one of them is public, but it's also clear that most people didn't upload this content for strangers. It was like being let in on a secret, a sprawling, uncurated documentary of human life.

“Me at the Zoo” fits right in after all.

-------------

One can think of YouTube as social media, as a streaming platform, as a creator platform, as storage for personal memories, or as core internet infrastructure. All of those are correct, but twenty years is a long time in tech. Google and Facebook are each showing their age, and one has to wonder what might displace YouTube. For a time TikTok looked like it might be the thing, but perhaps not so much now.

AI is going to further supercharge YouTube, both in terms of the kind of videos it can help create (or create on its own) and in how refined the YouTube algorithm might become, for better or for worse. You have to figure that whatever YouTube evolves into, or is dethroned by, will involve AI.

So, happy birthday, YouTube, and I hope your twenties are fulfilling.

Fair Warning: There Won't Be Fair Warnings

Perhaps you are the kind of person who acts as though that the food in the grocery store somehow magically appears, with no supply chain vulnerabilities along the way. You trust that the water that you drink and the air you breathe are just fine, with no worries about what might have gotten into them before getting to you. You figure that the odds of a tornado or a hurricane hitting your location are low, so there’s no need for any early warning systems. You believe that you are healthy and don’t have to worry about any pesky outbreaks or outright epidemics.

Don't count on anything like that for our health & safety. Credit: Microsoft Designer

Well, I worry about all those, and more. Say what you will about the federal government – and there’s plenty of things it doesn’t do well – it has, historically, served as the monitoring and warning system for these and other potential calamities. Now, under DOGE and the Trump Administration, many of those have been gutted or at least are at risk.

But, at the end of the day, the thing at risk is us.

Credit: Global Finance

Here is a not exhaustive list of examples:

FDA: Although HHS Secretary Kennedy has vowed he will keep the thousands of inspectors who oversee food and drug safety, it has already suspended a quality control program for its food testing laboratories, and has cut support staff that, among other things, make arrangements for those inspectors to, you know, go inspect.  Even before recent cuts, a 2024 GAO report warned that the FDA was already critically short on inspectors.

The FDA has already laid off key personnel responsible for tracking bird flu, including virtually all of the leadership team in the Center for Veterinary Medicine's office of the director. Plus: "The food compliance officers and animal drug reviewers survived, but they have no one at the comms office to put out a safety alert, no admin staff to pay external labs to test products," one FDA official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, told CBS News.

Even worse, drafts of the Trump budget proposal would further slash FDA budget, in part by moving “routine” food inspections to states.  

CDC: Oh, gosh, where to start? Cuts have shut down the labs that help track things like outbreaks of hepatis and antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea. We’re having a hard time tracking the current measles outbreak that started in Texas and has now spread to over half the states.

The White House wants to encourage more people to have babies, but has cut back on a national surveillance program that collects detailed information about maternal behaviors and experiences to help states improve outcomes for mothers and babies. It helped, among other things, compare IVF clinics. “We’ve been tracking this information for 38 years, and it’s improved mothers’ health and understanding of mothers’ experiences,” one of the statisticians let go told The Washington Post.

The Office on Smoking and Health was effectively shuttered, in what one expert called “the greatest gift to the tobacco industry in the last half century.”  CDC cuts will force the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to stop collecting data on injuries that result from motor vehicle crashes, alcohol, adverse drug effects, aircraft incidents and work-related injuries.

And if you’re thinking of taking a cruise, you should know that the CDC’s cruise ship inspections have all been laid off – even though those positions are paid for by the cruise ship companies, not the federal government.

EPA: Even though EPA head Lee Zeldin “absolutely” guarantees Trump cuts won’t hurt either people or the environment, the EPA has already announced it will stop collecting data on greenhouse gas emissions, is shutting down all environmental justice offices and is ending related initiatives, “a move that will impact how waste and recycling industries measure and track their environmental impact on neighboring communities.”

The EPA has proposed rolling back 31 key regulations, including ones that limit limiting harmful air pollution from cars and power plants; restrictions on the emission of mercury, a neurotoxin; and clean water protections for rivers and streams. Mr. Zeldin called it the “greatest day of deregulation our nation has seen” and declared it a “dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion.”  But, sure, it won’t hurt anything.

The EPA is also proposing to loosen rules about coal ash storage and disposal. Most of us don’t know much about coal ash but Environmental Health News warns: “Coal ash is one of the largest industrial waste streams in the United States, containing toxic elements such as arsenic, mercury, and lead.” Meanwhile, sister agency NIOSH has laid off two-thirds of the staff who do black lung screening for coal miners, despite President Trump’s purported love of coal miners.

NIH: what’s happening to the NIH deserves and article on its own, some of which I’ve covered before. The Trump Administration has frozen much research in its track, laid off a generation of young scientists, is severely cutting the amount of overhead funding that research universities have come to rely on, and is now using NIH grants for political extortion (take that, Columbia ad Harvard!).

Its proposed budget would cut NIH’s budget nearly in half and consolidate its 27 agencies into eight. “This is going to completely kneecap biomedical research in this country,” Jennifer Zeitzer, deputy executive director at the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, told Science.

I could go on with other agencies, I would be remiss if I didn’t note that cuts at the National Weather Service and NOAA will mean “degraded operations” that, mark my words, will come back to haunt us.

Credit: University of Maryland

-------------

ProPublica calls the Administration’s efforts as a “war on measurement”:

In agency after agency, the government is losing its capacity to measure how American society is functioning, making it much harder for elected officials or others to gauge the nature and scale of the problems we are facing and the effectiveness of solutions being deployed against them.

It goes on to assert: “Looked at one way, the war on measurement has an obvious potential motivation: making it harder for critics to gauge fallout resulting from Trump administration layoffs, deregulation or other shifts in policy.”

The efforts are also a war on science. Climate change deniers and vaccine deniers are examples of how we’ve entrusted our lives and health to people who reject well-established science in favor of their own personal beliefs, especially when that will make more money for big donors.

This is a crisis. This is a catastrophe. This is our future, and we won’t know some of it is happening until it is far too late to do anything about it.  

Saving U.S. Manufacturing: Think Biotech, Not Cars

Amidst all the drama last week with tariffs, trade wars, and market upheavals, you may have missed that the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology (NSCEB) issued its report: Charting the Future of Biotechnology. Indeed, you may have missed when the Commission was created by Congress in 2022; I know I did.

Credit: NSCEB

Biotechnology is a big deal and it is going to get much bigger. John Cumbers, founder and CEO of SynBiobeta, writes that the U.S. bioeconomy is now already worth $950b, and quotes McKinsey Global Institute as predicting that by 2040, biology could generate up to 60% of the world’s physical inputs, representing a $30 trillion global opportunity. Not an opportunity the U.S. can afford to miss out on – yet that is exactly what may be happening.

The NSCEB report sets the stakes:

We stand at the edge of a new industrial revolution, one that depends on our ability to engineer biology. Emerging biotechnology, coupled with artificial intelligence, will transform everything from the way we defend and build our nation to how we nourish and provide care for Americans.

Unfortunately, the report continues: “We now believe the United States is falling behind in key areas of emerging biotechnology as China surges ahead.”

Their core conclusion: “China is quickly ascending to biotechnology dominance, having made biotechnology a strategic priority for 20 years.¹ To remain competitive, the United States must take swift action in the next three years. Otherwise, we risk falling behind, a setback from which we may never recover.”

Credit: NSCEB

NSCEB Chair Senator Todd Young elaborated:

The United States is locked in a competition with China that will define the coming century. Biotechnology is the next phase in that competition. It is no longer constrained to the realm of scientific achievement. It is now an imperative for national security, economic power, and global influence. Biotechnology can ensure our warfighters continue to be the strongest fighting force on tomorrow's battlefields, and reshore supply chains while revitalizing our manufacturing sector, creating jobs here at home.

“We are about to see decades of breakthrough happen, seemingly, overnight…touching nearly every aspect of our lives—agriculture, industry, energy, defense, and national security,” Michelle Rozo, PhD, molecular biologist and vice chair of NSCEB, said while testifying before the April 8 House Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Cyber, Information Technologies, and Innovation. Yet, she continued, “America’s biotechnology strengths are atrophying—dangerously.”

Paul Zhang, a partner at Bluestar BioAdvisors, which advises drugmakers on commercial strategies, including seeking business in China, explained to The Wall Street Journal how China’s manufacturing aims have evolved: “Initially it was how to do shoes and sneakers faster and cheaper and better. Then it was how to build iPhones faster and better. Now it’s how to build biotech and AI faster and better,” 

If you think NSCEB is being alarmist, Julie Heng, writing for the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), notes:

Over the past decade, China has dramatically increased its biotech investments, with biopharma R&D growing 400-fold and the market value of biotech firms surging 100-fold between 2016 to 2021, now reaching a collective value of $300 billion…Notably, 79 percent of U.S. pharmaceutical companies now depend on Chinese contract firms for manufacturing. Furthermore, China is continuing a whole-of-government effort to support its domestic industry with financing, regulatory streamlining, and diplomatic support, building out over 100 biotech research parks and 17 industrial clusters.

It's worse than just being out manufactured. The Commission “has every reason to believe that the CCP will weaponize biotechnology,” and describes some scary scenarios, including genetically enhanced “super soldiers,” using microbes to degrade wood and concrete in our buildings and infrastructure, or developing pathogens to only attack crops grown in the U.S. If those don’t scare you, I don’t know what does.

Thus, the Commission says, “if the United States fails to act, the future of biotechnology could be catastrophic.”

The Commission does suggest a plan. The report lays out six “pillars” and makes 49 recommendations. The six pillars are:

• Pillar 1: Prioritize biotechnology at the national level
• Pillar 2: Mobilize the private sector to get U.S. products to scale
• Pillar 3: Maximize the benefits of biotechnology for defense
• Pillar 4: Out-innovate our strategic competitors
• Pillar 5: Build the biotechnology workforce of the future
• Pillar 6: Mobilize the collective strengths of our allies and partners

The Commission’s goal is not to “out-China China,” but to “lean into our inherent strengths.” Their key recommendation is to invest a minimum of $15b over the next five years, in hopes of attracting even more private capital into the field. It also calls for a National Biotechnology Coordination Office to help drive government strategy.

With all that is at stake, $15b hardly seems like enough. Let’s hope DOGE doesn’t find out.

I should probably note that David Wainer, writing in WSJ, points out: “The U.S. biotech sector had already been through a brutal few years before the latest market crash… More investors are even wondering if the whole model—risky science, costly funding, political uncertainty and long waits for payoffs—is simply broken. For many of the nearly 200 companies trading below their cash value, it probably is.” Not a market that is inspiring a flood of new investment – at least, not in the U.S.

Dr. Cumbers urges:

We have the Rust Belt and the Bible Belt—now let’s build a Bio Belt: a nationwide network of regional biomanufacturing hubs. These hubs wouldn’t just drive innovation—they’d power economic renewal, especially in rural and industrial regions. While some jobs will go to scientists and engineers, many more will go to tradespeople, factory workers, and high school graduates trained to run and maintain next-gen biofacilities.

And he warns: “If we fail to build the capacity to make what we invent, we’ll watch the returns on American innovation.” We’ve seen that movie too many times, in other sectors, and it doesn’t end well for us.

We definitely do need to make biotechnology a priority,. The federal investment and national coordinating office seem like sound recommendations. The problem is, we need the same in A.I. and in robotics, just to name two other key emerging industries. The current Administration is so focused on bringing back 20^th century industries like coal mining and auto manufacturing that I have to wonder: who is looking ahead, not behind?   

Go Read a Book. You Probably Won't

Let’s not talk about tariffs.

That's what I want to see more of. Credit: Microsoft Designer

Let’s not talk about the stock market, either. Both topics are way too depressing these days, for related reasons. Let’s talk instead about one of my favorite things, reading. Alas, though, I have to warn you: the news here is not all good either.

A new NPR/Ipsos poll had some intriguing insights into how Americans feel about reading. Two-thirds of us claim we’ve read or listened to a book in the past month (half had read a book, physical or electronic, and the rest had listened to audiobook). Ninety-eight percent of us want our children to develop a love of reading. About two-thirds of us say we have a collection of books in our homes, and want to be better readers.

All encouraging stuff.

But: forty-three of us say reading is low on our priority list. Slightly less than forty percent think they read more now than they did a few years ago, or when they were kids. We like reading in principle, but many of us spend our time doing other things.

Interestingly enough, readers reported slightly more time streaming, being on social media, or watching short-form videos like on YouTube or TikTok, so those activities don’t necessarily need to keep non-readers from reading. Similarly, readers were more likely to say they didn’t read more because of work or other life activities, including kids’ activities. Readers were less likely to say they just preferred other forms of entertainment, but the difference was not large. So it’s really not quite clear why more don’t read.

Here's a clue: a 2023 survey from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) found that 28% of U.S. adults read at the lowest literacy level. In 2017, that comparable statistic was 17%.  And, oh-by-the-way, our scores on numeracy were even worse (34%). When asked about the reasons for the decline, then NCES Commissioner Peggy Carr said: “It’s difficult to say.” She has, of course, been let go by President Trump, who is not particularly known for any love of reading.

Many of us may not read because, well, we’re not very good at it.

Percentage of U.S. adults aged 16-65 at selected proficiency levels. Credit: NCES

Similarly, new statistics from the National Assessment of Educational Progress found that 33% of eighth graders were reading at “below basic” levels, the lowest it has been in the thirty year history of the survey. For fourth graders, it was even worse, with 40% at “below basic” levels, the lowest in twenty years. “Our lowest performing students are reading at historically low levels,” said Commission Carr.

Evidently all those people who claimed to want their children to develop a love of reading are not succeeding.

Writing last fall in Vox, Anna North highlighted what she thinks the problem with kids’ reading is:

What has plummeted, however, is how much kids read, especially outside of school. In 1984, the first year for which data is available, 35 percent of 13-year-olds reported reading for fun “almost every day,” according to NAEP. By 2023, that figure was down to 14 percent, and 31 percent of respondents said they never read for fun at all.

By the way, the NPR/Ipsos survey found that, among those with K-12 children, 82% think their child reads at or above their grade level, 79% think their child is interested in reading, and 69% thinks their child reads for pleasure. A lot of parents are kidding themselves.

In the NPR/Ipsos poll, 82% of us think reading is a way to learn about the world (which, of course, it is). Unfortunately, our children may not be learning how to learn that way. Catherine Snow, a professor of cognition and education at Harvard Graduate School of Education, told Ms. North (referring to children): “they’re not reading in the ways that they need to read in order to be prepared for the tasks of learning and critical thinking.”

Christina Cover, who leads the Project for Adolescent Literacy at the nonprofit Seek Common Ground, added: “These are our voters. These are people that are really going to be taking us into what’s next for our country and for our world.”

Their not reading does not bode well for our future.

Let’s track back to that seemingly encouraging statistic that two-thirds of us have read or listened to a book in the last month. A 2023 YouGov survey found that 46% of us didn’t finish any books in the last year. Another five percent read only one book, so just over half of us read one or fewer books in the entire year.

If you read five books – five books! – you’re in the upper third of all Americans. While I’m at it, half of us rarely or never visit a library, with those over 45 least likely to (even though they are most likely to be readers). Don’t even get me started at the increasing efforts to ban books.

Our literacy is very much at risk…which put our society at risk.

------------

There’s significant research that indicate our attention span is getting shorter, even when just online, so it probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that reading an actual book is a commitment that many of us won’t undertake; heck, reading to the end of this article is probably a stretch.  

Maybe reading books is just old-fashioned, like printing presses in a e-book world. Maybe short form content, be it YouTube videos or X posts, is how we like to get our information. On the other hand, (print) book sales rose 6.5% in 2024, according to Publishers Weekly, so maybe not all hope is lost.

I grew up in a family of readers. I grew up with weekly trips to the library. There was never a time in my life when I wasn’t a voracious reader. My wife teases (I think) me about how many books we have in our house. So I am very much prejudiced about the importance of reading and of reading books in particular.

I fear that it’s not just children who aren’t reading in ways that help them learn about the world and to think critically about information. Reading at most one book a year is not going to do it. And I fear that is leading us to a society where ignorance triumphs, truth loses meaning, and progress stalls or even reverses.

So pick up a book – preferably one that challenges you to learn something new– or, better yet, read one with your kids.  

Learning How to Say "Robot" in Chinese

Perhaps you were one of the people who were alarmed when Chinese firm DeepSink released its powerful AI R1 a couple months ago, rivaling U.S. AI efforts but supposedly developed much cheaper and much faster. It was a reminder that, when it comes to AI, China is not to be taken lightly; the battle for AI supremacy is far, far from over.

They're coming. Credit: Unitree Robotics

Well, when it comes to robots – especially AI-powered, humanoid ones -- the battle may be closer to being over…and the U.S. is not winning.

China’s robotics version of DeepSink may be Unitree Robotics. Or UBTech. Or maybe Agibot or Pudu Robotics.  You get the point.

Speaking specifically about Unitree Robotics, Kyle Chan, an expert on Chinese industrial policy at Princeton University, told The Washington Post:  “They are almost the symbol of China’s ability to operate at the cutting edge of robotics. They’ve become kind of like the DeepSeek of the robotics world for China.”

WaPo reports that there are almost half a million smart-robot firms registered in China, with a combined market cap of almost a trillion dollars. Morgan Stanley recently noted that China had 5,688 patents containing the word “humanoid” over the past five years; by comparison, the U.S. had 1,483.

Yeah, they take smart robots seriously in China.  

The Morgan Stanley report commented: “Our research suggests China continues to show the most impressive progress in humanoid robotics where startups are benefitting from established supply chains, local adoption opportunities, and strong degrees of national government support.”

China has to take AI and robotics seriously, not only because they are seen as key technologies of the future but also because it is facing a marked labor shortage. Its labor force peaked in the mid-2010’s, and is forecast to shrink by 20% over the next 25 years. China has plenty of automation and even robots in those factories already, but they’re mostly limited to specific tasks. The AI humanoid robots would allow them to do jobs that only humans can do now.

“You won’t have to retrofit your factory, warehouse or home to accommodate a humanoid—that’s the future promise,” Jeff Burnstein, president of the Association for Advancing Automation (A3), a trade group in Ann Arbor, Mich, told The Wall Street Journal.

It won’t stop just at factories. Ming Hsun Lee, head of Greater China automotive and industrials research at BofA Global Research, told CNBC: ““I think in the short-term, three to four years, we will see humanoid robots initially applied in production lines to compare some workers, and in the midterm, we will see them gradually spread into the service industry.”

Unitech CEO Wang Xingxing  told TMTPost: “Within our lifetime, humanoid robots will be able to revolutionize every industry, from industrial and service sectors to agriculture and manufacturing, On an even grander scale, governments could deploy 100,000 humanoid robots to build an entire city.” Mr. Wang is clear about the reason for the progress: “The reason we’ve progressed so quickly is simple: the rapid advancement of AI technology.”

Similarly, Reyk Knuhtsen, analyst at SemiAnalysis, an independent research and analysis company specializing in semiconductors and AI, told CNBC: “China has the potential to replicate its disruptive impact from the EV industry in the humanoid space. However, this time the disruption could extend far beyond a single industry, potentially transforming the labor force itself.”

 AI and robotics leaders in the U.S. are paying attention – and are worried. “They have more companies developing humanoids and more government support than anyone else. So, right now, they may have an edge,” said Mr. Burnstein in WSJ.

A recent “call to action” from SemiAnalysis was blunt:  

Automation and robotics is currently undergoing a revolution that will enable full-scale automation of all manufacturing and mission-critical industries…The only country that is positioned to capture this level of automation is currently China, and should China achieve it without the US following suit, the production expansion will be granted only to China, posing an existential threat to the US as it is outcompeted in all capacities.

SemiAnalysis notes China has already captured the markets for batteries, solar, and EV, and warns that the economies of scale allowed by robotics “will be exponential compared to their last strategic industry captures.”

WaPo notes how Chinese robotics companies are already driving costs down (again, similar to what they’ve done with batteries, solar, and EVs):

Unitree has built its business model on competitive pricing. The company’s cheapest robot dog goes for $1,600, according to its website, while a humanoid robot costs $16,000. A robot dog from Boston Dynamics, by contrast, goes for around $75,000.

 Liu Gang, a professor at Nankai University in Tianjin who researches China’s innovation economy, explained the strategy to WaPo: “We are picking a path where we lower the costs for innovation and industrialization, When many can do things with a comparable quality, whoever makes it more cheaply will have a bigger chance to win.”

That’s going to make it increasingly harder for the U.S. to compete. And that’s a huge problem. When President Trump and others talk about bringing manufacturing back to the U.S., in large part what they want are all those well paying (human) jobs, but, to use the Wayne Gretsky metaphor, they may be skating to where the puck used to be.

Recently U.S. robotics leaders Agility Robitics, Boston Dynamics, Tesla (think Optimus robots, not Cybertrucks), along with A3, have called for a national strategy for AI-powered robots, much as China has developed (and funded). “The United States is at a critical moment in shaping the future of automation,” said Mr. Burnstein. “While AI is a major focus, we cannot afford to fall behind in robotics.” The strategy includes dedicated federal office to coordinate robotics policy, innovation, and industry collaboration, tax incentives, and funding public-private research partnerships to spur innovation.

According to Jeff Cardenas, co-founder of Austin-based humanoid startup Apptronik: “The next robotics race is powered by AI and is up for grabs.” 

Let’s hope so, anyway. The U.S. is terrible at industrial policy – just ask our steel, shipbuilding, or even chips industries. We still haven’t figured out what we should do about/for AI, other than to hope American ingenuity will save the day.

The U.S. shouldn’t be looking at how to strengthen our oil, gas, or coal industries; we shouldn’t worry so much about gasoline-powered automobiles; we shouldn’t be building multi-million dollar fighters or billion dollar aircraft carriers. Those were all important 20^th century industries/technologies, but, hey, this is the 21st century.

The 21^st century – and the 22^nd – will belong to the countries and industries that best adopt to/innovate in 21^st century technologies. Like AI and robotics.

Home, Alone

News flash: America is not a very happy place these days.

This is too many of us. Credit: Microsoft Designer

No, I’m not talking about the current political divide (which is probably more accurately described as a chasm), at least not directly. I’m referring to the latest results from the World Happiness Report, which found that the U.S. has slid to 24^th place in the world, its lowest position ever. We were 11^th in 2011, the first such report.

Nordic countries scored the highest yet again, taking half of the top ten counties, with Finland repeating for the eighth year in a row as the happiest country. America’s nearest neighbors Mexico (10^th) and Canada (18^th) are happier places, tariffs or not.

The researchers declare: “Belief in the kindness of others is much more closely tied to happiness than previously thought.” They specifically cite the belief that others would return a lost wallet is a strong predictor of a country’s happiness, while noting that such returns are twice as likely as people believe them to be.

John F. Helliwell, an economist at the University of British Columbia, a founding editor of the World Happiness Report, said:

The wallet data are so convincing because they confirm that people are much happier living where they think people care about each other. The wallet dropping experiments confirm the reality of these perceptions, even if they are everywhere too pessimistic.

The U.S., as it turned out, ranked only 52^nd in believing a stranger would return a lost wallet, and even only 25^th that the police would. We were slightly more optimistic (17^th) that our neighbors would.  

Sharing meals with others is also strongly linked to happiness. “The extent to which you share meals is predictive of the social support you have, the pro-social behaviors you exhibit and the trust you have in others,” Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, a University of Oxford professor and an author of the report, told The New York Times.

Unfortunately, the number of people dining alone in the U.S. has increased 53% over the past two decades. According to the Ajinomoto Group, among American adults under 25, it has jumped 80%.

Young Americans are helped drive our dismal results generally. “The decline in the U.S. in 2024 was at least partly attributable to Americans younger than age 30 feeling worse about their lives,” Ilana Ron-Levey, managing director at Gallup, told CNN. “Today’s young people report feeling less supported by friends and family, less free to make life choices and less optimistic about their living standards.”

Eighteen percent (18%) of young U.S. adults (18-29) report not having anyone they feel close to, the highest of all the U.S. age groups, and those same young adults also have lower quality of connections than older U.S. respondents. The report speculates: “Although not definitive, this provides intriguing preliminary evidence that relatively low connection among young people might factor into low wellbeing among young Americans.”

In fact, if the U.S. was measured just by the happiness of our young adults, we wouldn’t even rank in the top 60 countries. “It is really disheartening to see this, and it links perfectly with the fact that it’s the well-being of youth in America that’s off a cliff, which is driving the drop in the rankings to a large extent,” Professor De Neve said.

Researchers also point to inequality as an important factor. “In these Nordic Scandinavian countries, a rising tide lifts all boats, so the levels of economic inequality are much less, and that reflects in well-being as well,” Professor De Neve said. “In Finland, most people will rate [their happiness] as seven or an eight, whereas if you look at the distribution of well-being in the States, there’s a lot of 10s out there, but there’s a lot of ones as well.”

No wonder. According to The Urban Institute:

Wealth inequality is higher in the United States than in almost any other developed country and has risen for much of the past 60 years. Racial wealth inequities have persisted for generations, reflecting the long-standing effects of racist policies, not individual intentions or deficits.

So, no, we’re not all in this together, especially with the bottom 50% having a mere 2.4% of all household wealth, one of the lowest points we’ve seen. Americans also say we’re deeply divided both politically and on values (which, of course, are not unrelated).

Professor Jan-Emmanuel De Neve summarized some key takeaways from their report::

This year’s report pushes us to look beyond traditional determinants like health and wealth. It turns out that sharing meals and trusting others are even stronger predictors of wellbeing than expected. In this era of social isolation and political polarisation we need to find ways to bring people around the table again — doing so is critical for our individual and collective wellbeing.

“The fact that we’re increasingly socially isolated means also that we’re not testing our ideas about the world with other people,” Dr. De Neve explained to the NYT. “And the more you sit around the table with other people who might have somewhat different views, the more you start moderating your own views. And the increasing lack of social interaction and social isolation as a result, for a lot of people — amplified by echo chambers — makes people more radical.”

If you’ve read Robert Putman’s classic Bowling Alone (2000) – and, if you haven’t, stop reading this, go buy a copy, and read it – then none of this will be a surprise. Professor Putnam described how, even before the advent of social media, the U.S. went from a society that did a wide variety of things together into one that tended to be more insular, at the cost of much of our social capital.  We could sure use that social capital now.

Sure, there’s a lot to be unhappy about in today’s America. Most Americans don’t think the country is on the right track. We don’t trust our various institutions. We use social media, but we’re very worried about its impact – much moreso than the rest of the world. Eight percent of us have no close friends. 

Look, I can understand being behind Finland, Denmark, even New Zealand in overall happiness, but Slovenia or the U.A.E.? Seriously. We need to put our phones down, stop arguing about politics, go out to eat with friends, and, for goodness’ sake, if you find a wallet, be sure to return it to its owner.