News Headlines

It's not a glitch in the matrix, it's a mathematical phenomenon

Megan Maneval — Wed, 17 Sep 2025 13:26:33 +0000

It's not a glitch in the matrix, it's a mathematical phenomenon Megan Maneval Wed, 09/17/2025 - 07:26

Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine

CU Boulder applied mathematician Mark Hoefer and colleagues answer a longstanding question of how to understand tidal bores in multiple dimensions.

Traditional

White

Why do some thoughts refuse to leave?

Megan Maneval — Tue, 16 Sep 2025 19:54:49 +0000

Why do some thoughts refuse to leave? Megan Maneval Tue, 09/16/2025 - 13:54

Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine

CU Boulder graduate student researcher Jacob DeRosa delves into the brain's ability to remove unwanted thoughts.

Traditional

White

US to retire its only icebreaker, stranding polar research

Yvaine Ye — Tue, 16 Sep 2025 15:17:14 +0000

US to retire its only icebreaker, stranding polar research Yvaine Ye Tue, 09/16/2025 - 09:17

Stephanie Maltarich

On Sept. 10, the U.S. National Science Foundation announced that the agency is terminating the lease for Nathaniel B. Palmer Icebreaker, the sole U.S. icebreaker dedicated to Antarctic research.

This move, which came as a result of budget cuts under the current administration, worries polar researchers, including Naomi Ochwat, a postdoctoral researcher in CIRES’ Earth Science and Observation Center.

Ochwat is a glaciologist who studies the changes on the edges of Antarctic glaciers and how they relate to climate change. Decades of data collection conducted from the decks of the Palmer has been integral to her work.

“There was a cruise back in 2006, where the Palmer went to an area that I study on the Antarctic Peninsula,” Ochwat said. “It was one of the few times the sea ice was actually low enough that they could reach the front of the glaciers that I study. Now 17 years later, I've used that data, and it's been very important for the research I've done.”

As the National Science Foundation plans to decommission the Palmer after it returns from its last expedition this October, Ochwat shares her take on what’s at stake.

Why is the Palmer icebreaker important for United States’ Antarctica research?

We are currently a global leader in Antarctic research and Antarctic exploration, where the Palmer is an integral aspect of the U.S. Antarctic Program.

Earth’s climate is rapidly changing, and in order to understand the extent of those changes, we need to know what's happening in Antarctica, especially along the glacier edges, where we have a lot of drastic changes happening right now. Antarctica is really far away, and we rely heavily on research vessels to get there.

The Ross Ice Shelf at the Bay of Whales, Antarctica, and the Palmer in the background. (Credit: Michael Van Woert/ NOAA)

Are there other reasons beyond research?

Antarctica is a very special place because nobody owns the continent, and so you don't have any official territories or any kind of land ownership. As long as you are on the Antarctic Treaty, you can go to Antarctica to study it, following the treaty rules. So it’s important to be able to say we have a presence in Antarctica.

Having research stations and these research vessels puts us at the forefront of science and the forefront of Antarctic science and exploration on a global scale.

Why do polar researchers need a designated ice-breaking vessel?

Parts of Antarctica have persistent sea ice year round that can restrict access to areas along the coast. The sea ice can be several meters thick in some places, and you don't have the ability to wait for it to melt out, so you absolutely need an ice breaker in order to go through the sea ice. You have a very short period of time in which you can go to Antarctica—the sea ice has its own schedule.

What does it look like to conduct research on the Palmer?

You’re usually at sea for at least a month, and you're doing research that entire time, except when you're crossing the Drake Passage (between the tip of South America and the Antarctic Peninsula) which is known to be very rough seas. It’s equipped with enough supplies so scientists can spend large amounts of time doing research without having to return to port. I’ve never been on the ship, but the data it collected has been vital to my research.

In 2006, the ship went to the eastern side of the Antarctic Peninsula to the Larsen B Embayment, and it collected multi-beam bathymetry data, meaning it mapped the topography of the sea floor. This dataset has allowed me to investigate the role of the bed topography on the 2022–24 glacier retreats in this area.

How does Antarctic research impact everyday Americans?

If we’re talking about sea level rise, we've already seen the kind of flooding that can happen with storm surges, which have been exacerbated by sea level rise. So, you're not going to be able to live on the coast because your house insurance is going to be skyrocketing, or your job in your warehouse that was right on the coast is going to be flooded, and now you can't work there.

People are going to move, and I think that's one of the biggest things with climate change and sea level rise. It is not so much that the sea is rising, but more that people are going to have to relocate because of it.

CU Boulder Today regularly publishes Q&As with our faculty members weighing in on news topics through the lens of their scholarly expertise and research/creative work. The responses here reflect the knowledge and interpretations of the expert and should not be considered the university position on the issue. All publication content is subject to edits for clarity, brevity and university style guidelines.

With the United States government retiring its only Antarctic ice breaking ship, a CU Boulder researcher shares what's next for polar research.

Traditional

The Palmer in Barilari Bay, Antarctic Peninsula, January 1999. (Credit: Adam Jenkins/National Science Foundation)

White

The Palmer in Barilari Bay, Antarctic Peninsula, January 1999. (Credit: Adam Jenkins/National Science Foundation)

How to avoid seeing disturbing content on social media

Megan Maneval — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 19:33:48 +0000

How to avoid seeing disturbing content on social media Megan Maneval Mon, 09/15/2025 - 13:33

The video of Charlie Kirk's murder went far and wide, and many people saw it when they would rather have avoided it. Read from CU expert Annie Margaret on The Conversation.

Read the Article The Conversation on CUBT

The Conversation

The Conversation is an independent, nonprofit publisher of commentary and analysis, authored by academics and edited by journalists for the general public. On a mission “to promote truthful information and strengthen journalism by unlocking the rich diversity of academic research for audiences across America,” they publish short articles by academics on timely topics related to their research. CU Boulder provides funding as a member of The Conversation U.S.

Social media platforms are designed to maximize engagement. Here are steps from CU expert Annie Margaret on how to protect your peace of mind—on The Conversation.

Traditional

White

A new way to fight allergies: Switch on the light

Lisa Marshall — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 18:21:10 +0000

A new way to fight allergies: Switch on the light Lisa Marshall Mon, 09/15/2025 - 12:21

Lisa Marshall

Tess Eidem holds a jar of fungus used to produce allergens for research. A new study shows that UV light can reduce allergens in the air by double digits within a half-hour. Credit: Patrick Campbell/CU Boulder

Cats. Dust mites. Mold. Trees.

For people with allergies, even a brief whiff of the airborne allergens these organisms produce can lead to swollen eyes, itchy skin and impaired breathing.

Such allergens can persist indoors for months after the original source is gone, and repeated exposure can exacerbate, and even lead to, asthma.

What if you could just flip a switch and disable them? You can, according to new �� research.

“We have found that we can use a passive, generally safe ultraviolet light treatment to quickly inactivate airborne allergens,” said study author Tess Eidem, a senior research associate in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering.

“We believe this could be another tool for helping people fight allergens in their home, schools or other places where allergens accumulate indoors.”

The findings were published in August in the journal ACS ES&T Air.

Why you can’t kill an allergen

Walk into a room with a cat and, if you sneeze, it’s not actually the cat you are reacting to. It’s likely airborne flecks of a protein called Fel d1 produced in their saliva. The protein spreads when they lick themselves and ends up in microscopic flakes of dead skin floating in the air, a.k.a. dander. When we inhale these particles, our immune system produces antibodies that bind to the protein’s unique 3D structure, kicking off an allergic reaction.

Dogs, mice, dust mites, mold and plants all emit their own unique proteins, with their own unique structure. Unlike bacteria and viruses, these allergens can’t be killed because they were never alive.

“After those dust mites are long gone, the allergen is still there,” said Eidem. “That’s why, if you shake out a rug, you can have a reaction years later.”

Standard methods of reducing allergens — like vacuuming, washing walls, using an air filter and regularly bathing pets — can work OK but are hard to maintain long-term studies show.

Eidem and co-authors Mark Hernandez, a professor of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, and Kristin Rugh, a microbiologist in the lab, sought a simpler way.

Tess Eidem pumps airborne allergens into a sealed chamber to test how UV light impacts them. Credit: Patrick Campbell/CU Boulder

Instead of eliminating the proteins that cause allergies, they sought to change their structure — much like unfolding an origami animal — so the immune system wouldn’t recognize them.

“If your immune system is used to a swan and you unfold the protein so it no longer looks like a swan, you won’t mount an allergic response,” explained Eidem.

UV light, their study suggests, can do that.

Let there be light

Previous research has shown that UV light can kill airborne microorganisms, including the virus that causes COVID-19.

It’s already used widely to disinfect equipment in hospitals, airports and elsewhere, but the bandwidth is typically so strong (a wavelength of 254 nanometers) that users must wear protective equipment to prevent damage to skin and eyes.

Eidem used 222-nanometer-wavelength lights, a less-intense alternative considered safe for occupied spaces because it doesn’t penetrate deep into cells. (It does not come entirely without risks, including ozone production, she notes, so exposure should be limited.)

The team pumped microscopic aerosolized allergens from mites, pet dander, mold and pollen into an unoccupied and sealed 350-cubic-foot chamber. Then they switched on four lunchbox-sized UV222 lamps on the ceiling and floor.

When they sampled the air at 10-minute intervals and compared it to untreated, allergen-filled air via laboratory tests, they saw significant differences. In the treated samples, immunorecognition was reduced, meaning the antibodies no longer recognized many of the proteins and stuck to them.

UV 222 lights

After just 30 minutes, airborne allergen levels effectively decreased by about 20% to 25% on average, the study showed. Efficacy depended on the type of allergen, how long the light was on and what the allergen was floating in (dust, dander, liquid droplets, etc.) In one condition tested, after 40 minutes of UV light exposure, the cat allergen Fel d 1 had decreased by 61% compared to untreated air.

“Those are pretty rapid reductions when you compare them to months and months of cleaning, ripping up carpet, and bathing your cat,” said Eidem.

A portable allergy buster?

UV222 lights are already commercially available, mostly for industrial antimicrobial uses.

But Eidem envisions a day when companies could engineer portable versions for people to switch on when they visit a friend with a pet or clean out a dusty basement.

UV222 systems could also potentially protect workers frequently exposed to allergens, such as those who work around live animals or in cannabis grow houses where, her own research shows, allergic reactions can be deadly.

One-in-three adults and children in the United States have allergies, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Eidem hopes her research, and more to come, can provide them with some relief — or even save lives.

“Asthma attacks kill about 10 people every day in the United States, and they are often triggered by airborne allergies,” she said. “Trying to develop new ways to prevent that exposure is really important.”

Ultraviolet light can disable airborne allergens within 30 minutes, according to a new study. The findings could lead to new portable devices to prevent allergies or new systems to provide relief from allergens in workplaces and other public spaces.

Traditional

White

CU Boulder ranked No. 1 in startups based on university discoveries

Elizabeth Lock — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 18:16:16 +0000

CU Boulder ranked No. 1 in startups based on university discoveries Elizabeth Lock Mon, 09/15/2025 - 12:16

CU Boulder launched 35 startups based on university intellectual property in fiscal year 2024, more than any other U.S. campus that year. The achievement also places CU Boulder at No. 2 for the most startups launched in any single year by a U.S. campus.

Traditional

White

The end of EV tax credits? An expert's take on what's at stake

Yvaine Ye — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 14:53:15 +0000

The end of EV tax credits? An expert's take on what's at stake Yvaine Ye Thu, 09/11/2025 - 08:53

Yvaine Ye

Electric vehicle sales in the United States are setting records. Over the past two months, consumers across the country have been rushing to car dealerships to buy EVs before a federal incentive providing up to $7,500 in tax credits ends Sept. 30.

In July, automakers sold more than 130,000 EVs, about 25% more than the month before. That number reached an all-time high in August, with about 12% of all new cars sold being electric.

The federal government rolled out current EV tax incentives in 2008, aiming to bridge the price difference between gasoline and electric cars. In 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act modified the policy by adding income caps for those eligible to receive the tax break and limiting the credit to EVs under a certain price. To qualify, vehicles also must be built in the United States using domestically sourced materials. This policy was set to run through 2032.

But in July, Congress approved the tax and spending legislation colloquially known as the Big Beautiful Bill, scrapping the discount seven years before its original expiration date.

“The move is broadly reflective of the government not wanting to promote electric vehicle adoption or environmental policy more generally,” said Stephanie Weber, assistant professor in the Department of Economics, noting that several other pro-EV policies have already been eliminated.

Stephanie Weber

As the program comes to an end, CU Boulder Today sat down with Weber, who is also a fellow at the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute, to discuss the impact federal incentives had and the outlook for electric cars.

Have the tax incentives for electric vehicles worked?

There’s evidence that a meaningful share, from 10% to 30%, of the EVs that were being sold were purchased because of the incentives.

Over the past 15 years, the types of products automakers offer in the United States have also improved. For example, we now have EVs with larger batteries that have more range before they need to be charged. We can attribute some of those improvements to the incentives. They motivate automakers to develop new products, knowing there’s this enhanced demand for EVs.

The current tax credit policy for EVs was set to expire in 2032. Doesn't that mean the government was going to phase out the incentives anyway?

The subsidies were always intended to be phased out. But from an economic perspective, some should maybe persist.

Economically, we want to use these incentives to solve what are called market failures—basically anything that causes us to deviate from efficient outcomes under a free market. In the case of vehicles, the major market failures are environmental impacts from gasoline vehicles, from local air pollution to greenhouse gas emissions.

Consumers, when they buy a car, don't necessarily have an incentive to consider the pollution impacts on other people. So we might want an ongoing incentive to push people into buying electric vehicles.

What happens now that the federal incentives are ending?

In the immediate term, we're seeing really big increases in electric vehicle adoption, because people want to make the purchase before the tax credit expires.

Over time, we will see a reduction in sales relative to what we’d see under the policy. It may not be an absolute decline in sales, although that's also possible, but it might be a flattening out in growth. Some estimates suggest that between 2026 and 2028, about 4% of new vehicles sold will be EVs, about half the current share, due to these policy changes.

How is this policy change affecting automakers?

We are going to see fewer new products than we might have otherwise. Some automakers have actually canceled EV models that they had previously announced. For example, Honda canceled plans for a large electric SUV in July, anticipating a decrease in U.S. demand. General Motors and Volkswagen have announced that they’re scaling back EV production. They are also going to spend less money trying to develop new electric vehicles and trying to improve the technology in the United States.

And it’s not just the tax credits that are getting taken away. There are other incentives on the automaker side for promoting EVs and fuel-efficient vehicles. Many of those have also been eliminated in the last year.

One was a waiver that allowed California to set its own vehicle emission rules, which were stricter than federal standards. The state mandated that a certain percent of new cars sold in California be zero-emission, ramping up to all new cars by 2035, and 11 other states, including Colorado, adopted California’s standards. They have also eliminated penalties for failing to meet Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, which require automakers to sell more fuel-efficient vehicles, including electric vehicles.

What would be a better long-term policy than EV subsidies?

EV subsidies, as we've been doing them, are not the optimal policy, partly because these subsidies tend to disproportionately benefit wealthier people who can afford new vehicles.

From an economic standpoint, an effective environmental policy should align people's private incentives with societal incentives. So in this case, we would want to directly make it more expensive to generate pollution, through ways like putting a surcharge on gasoline.

Such a policy can have impacts beyond car-buying behaviors too. It would also make people consider things like, “Should I drive to the grocery store, or is this actually a small trip that I can make via the bus or bike?” and reduce their emissions that way. An EV subsidy isn't going to do that.

With federal incentives for electric vehicles ending in the United States this month, CU Boulder economist Stephanie Weber shares what's next for consumers and automakers.

Traditional

Electric car charging. (Credit: Andrew Roberts/Unsplash)

White

Construction secrets of honeybees: Study reveals how bees build hives in tricky spots

Amber Elise Carlson — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 11:07:20 +0000

Construction secrets of honeybees: Study reveals how bees build hives in tricky spots Amber Elise Carlson Thu, 09/11/2025 - 05:07

Amber Carlson , Nicholas Goda

From left, Francisco López Jiménez, Orit Peleg and graduate student Richard Terrile inspect the honeycomb in a bee hive. (Credit: Patrick Campbell)

On a hot summer day in Colorado, European honeybees (Apis mellifera L.) buzz around a cluster of hives near Boulder Creek. Worker bees taking off in search of water, nectar and pollen mingle with bees that have just returned from the field. Inside the hives, walls of hexagons are beginning to take shape as the bees build their nests.

“Building a hive is a beautiful example of honeybees solving a problem collectively,” said Orit Peleg, associate professor in CU Boulder’s Department of Computer Science. “Each bee has a little bit of wax, and each bee knows where to deposit it, but we know very little about how they make these decisions.”

In an August 2025 study in PLOS Biology, Peleg’s research group collaborated with Francisco López Jiménez, associate professor in CU’s Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, and his group to offer new insight into how bees work their hive-making magic—even in the most challenging of building sites.

The new findings could spark ideas for new bio-inspired structures or even new ways to approach 3D printing.

How and why bees build honeycomb

Honeybees can build nests in any number of places, whether it’s a manmade box, a hole in a tree trunk or an empty space inside someone’s attic. When a bee colony finds somewhere new to call home, the bees build their hive out of honeycomb—a waxy structure filled with hexagonal cells—on whatever surfaces are around.

Building a beehive is hard work, and it consumes a lot of resources. It all starts with honey, the nutrient-dense superfood that helps bee colonies survive the winter.

To make honey, bees spend the warmest months gathering nectar from flowers. The nectar mixes with enzymes in the bees’ saliva, and the bees store it in honeycomb cells until it dries and thickens.

It takes roughly 2 million visits to flowers for bees to gather enough nectar to make a pound of honey. Then, each worker bee must eat about 8 ounces of honey to produce a single ounce of the wax they need to build more honeycomb.

If the surface of their building site is irregular, the bees have to expend even more resources building it, and the resulting comb can be harder to use. So efficiency is key.

In an ideal world, bees try to build honeycomb with nearly perfect hexagonal cells that they use for storing food and raising young larvae into adults. Mathematically, the hexagonal shape is ideal for using as little wax as possible to create as much storage space as possible in each cell.

The honeycomb cells are usually a consistent size, but when bees are forced to build comb on odd surfaces, they start making irregular cells that take more wax to build and aren’t as optimal for storage or brood rearing.

Irregular surfaces: A puzzle for bees to solve

This hive frame shows a foundation with a smaller cell size than what bees would typically build. The bees adjusted their building strategies to adapt. (Credit: Patrick Campbell)

Golnar Gharooni Fard, the lead author of the new study and a former CU graduate student, said her main goal in the study was to understand how bees work together to solve the structural problems they might run into.

“We wanted to find the rules of decision-making in a distributed colony,” Fard said.

The researchers 3D printed panels, or foundations, for bees to build comb on. The team imprinted the foundations with shallow hexagonal patterns with differing cell sizes—some larger, some smaller, and some closer to an average cell size—and added the foundations to hives for the bees to use.

Next, the researchers used X-ray microscopy to analyze patterns in the comb the bees built on each type of foundation. Depending on which foundation they were given, the bees used strategies like merging cells together, tilting the cells at an angle or layering them on top of one another to build usable honeycomb.

Giving bees these different surfaces to work with was like giving them puzzles they had to solve, said López Jiménez.

“All those things happen in nature. If they're building honeycomb on a tree, and at some point they get to the end of the branch, the branch might not be super flat, and they need to figure that out,” he said.

It’s still not clear why bees use the strategies they use in all situations. That’s a question the researchers hope to continue exploring.

Meanwhile, the team sees numerous possible applications for their findings. For example, honeycomb could inspire designs for efficient, lightweight structures such as those used in aerospace engineering.

López Jiménez also likened the honeycomb building process to 3D printing, where each bee gradually adds tiny bits of wax to the larger structure.

“The bees take turns, and they organize themselves, and we don't know how that happens,” he said. “Can we learn from how the bees organize labor or how they distribute themselves?”

CU graduate student Chethan Kavaraganahalli Prasanna was also part of the research team.

Beyond the Story

Our research impact by the numbers:

$742 million in research funding earned in 2023–24
No. 5 U.S. university for startup creation
$1.4 billion impact of CU Boulder's research activities on the Colorado economy in 2023–24

Follow CU Boulder on LinkedIn

In a new study, CU researchers found that honeybees used adaptive strategies to build stable, usable honeycomb on irregular and imperfect surfaces.

Traditional

Bees move about their hive on a summer day. (Credit: Patrick Campbell)

White

As salmon disappear in warming rivers, Indigenous communities face an uncertain future

Yvaine Ye — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 20:24:27 +0000

As salmon disappear in warming rivers, Indigenous communities face an uncertain future Yvaine Ye Wed, 09/10/2025 - 14:24

Yvaine Ye

For millennia, Indigenous people living in Alaska and Canada’s Yukon territory have relied on Chinook salmon. The large, fatty fish provide essential nutrients for Arctic living and have influenced traditions and languages across generations.

But over the past three decades, many communities have been unable to fish Chinook amid a sharp salmon population decline.

The situation could worsen as climate change warms rivers in the Arctic, stunting salmon growth, according to a CU Boulder-led study published August 6 in Scientific Reports.

“The fish are really important for maintaining the culture and language of Indigenous communities,” said Peyton Thomas, a research associate at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research.

Peyton Thomas

In collaboration with locals on the ground, the team is now working to help communities prepare for the changes ahead.

Over the past two summers, Thomas and her team visited many Alaskan tribes to understand changes to the lands and communities.

“People pointed to not being able to teach their children the names of the fish or the practices of how to process them,” Thomas said.

The silver lining: Some rivers in the area could remain suitable for young salmon, and a less popular fish species, Dolly Varden, might benefit from warming waters.

Melting North Pole

Over the past 50 years, the Arctic has warmed nearly four times faster than the global average. Climate change has melted sea ice, thawed frozen ground and eroded coastlines, reshaping the Arctic landscapes Indigenous peoples have called home for generations.

In Alaska, Indigenous community members told Thomas that these changes have disrupted many aspects of their life: In winter, they haven’t been able to access neighboring villages, because the river connecting them didn’t freeze. Thinning and fragmented sea ice has made travel and hunting harder and riskier, cutting off sources of food and income. The area has seen more frequent and intense extreme weather events like typhoons, further damaging already limited infrastructure.

Prior research has suggested that increased river temperatures can affect fish species adapted to cooler environments. Chinook salmon in the Arctic are a prime example. These fish spend their first one to two years in cold river water bulking up, before embarking on a journey of hundreds of thousands of miles to the ocean. There, they spend the next six years growing, to up to 100 pounds, before returning to the rivers to spawn.

In recent decades, river communities in Alaska have seen a major decline in the number of young and adult salmon in the water. One study estimated that Chinook salmon populations in the Yukon River, Alaska’s largest, plummeted by more than 57% between 2003 and 2010.

When Thomas and team visited Indigenous tribes near the Alaska-Yukon border along the Yukon River, community members told them that they hadn’t been able to fish Chinook in 30 years.

“The loss of fish, as well as the loss of access to fishing and foraging grounds, means people are relying more on buying food from the store, which is really expensive and doesn’t meet their nutritional needs,” Thomas said.

Two fishes, two tales

Working closely with Indigenous communities in Alaska, Thomas and her team set out to better predict how climate change would affect fish populations in the seven river basins spanning watersheds in Alaska and Yukon.

After talking to tribal members, the team focused on two species important for subsistence, Chinook salmon and Dolly Varden, a type of trout.

Using computer models, the team simulated how the region’s climate and rivers might change by mid-century. They found that summer river temperatures could rise by 1.26 °C (2.27 °F) by mid-century compared to the average between 1990 and 2021.

When they combined these data with a fish growth model, they found that in the warmest future years, four out of seven river basins would experience water temperatures surging above what juvenile Chinook salmon can tolerate.

Rivers in Alaska are changing rapidly. (Credit: Peyton Thomas)

On the other hand, Dolly Varden thrive in slightly warmer water than Chinook salmon. The simulations suggested that these fish might nearly double their growth in many rivers.

“It is good news that not all species are going to decline under warming,” Thomas said. “But communities have different preferences about fishing Dolly Varden. We’re trying to show that maybe in warm years, Dolly Varden could be an alternative.”

The team also identified some rivers that may serve as refuges for Chinook. For example, the Aniak and Andreafsky rivers, both tributaries of the Yukon River in Alaska, are likely to remain suitable habitats. Protecting and restoring juvenile salmon in these rivers could bring the greatest benefit, Thomas said.

“We are hoping to provide communities with some applicable information, like when and where the water would be too warm for salmon, which could help them decide whether to reduce fishing,” she said.

Uncertain future

This study comes just a year after Alaska and Canadian authorities agreed to pause Chinook salmon fishing, both commercial and subsistence, for seven years in a bid to allow their populations to recover.

The fishing ban only applies to Canadian-origin Chinook. Commercial fishing continues for the Alaska stock.

“Everything has an impact on fish populations. We need more studies to look into not just the environmental factors, but also how fishing activities play a role,” Thomas said.

Wild Fish Conservancy, a nonprofit conservation group, has filed a petition with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to have Alaska Chinook salmon receive federal protection under the Endangered Species Act, which would ban commercial fishing of this species. The decision is still pending.

Meanwhile, Thomas plans to return to Alaska next year.

“The coolest part of this work is just being able to see how we're all trying to connect with each other,” Thomas said. “We learned so much from history and people's daily lived experiences in these places. Everyone should be a part of all of this work, because we can't do it just by modeling.”

New research shows that climate change is exacerbating salmon declines in the Arctic, but warming waters could give another fish species a temporary boost.

Traditional

Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve in Alasaka. (Credit: Alaska National Park Service/Flickr)

White

Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve in Alasaka. (Credit: Alaska National Park Service/Flickr)

Want to get ahead at work? Learn to be funny

Katy Hill — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 14:02:00 +0000

Want to get ahead at work? Learn to be funny Katy Hill Wed, 09/10/2025 - 08:02

Katy Marquardt Hill

Humor in the workplace has long been seen as a soft skill, useful for breaking the ice or bonding over awkward moments on Zoom. But Tony Kong, professor in the Leeds School of Business, believes it’s far more than that. A leading researcher on workplace humor, he sees it as a powerful leadership tool that could help professionals navigate power dynamics, build trust and even elevate their status on the job.

Tony Kong

“Humor is a life skill. It’s great at a party, and it’s great in a meeting. But it’s not just about being funny. It’s about understanding your audience, your timing and your intent,” said Kong, who also directs Leeds’ Business Leadership Certificate program. “When done right, humor can increase trust, boost creativity, promote emotional well-being and even facilitate conflict resolution.”

An emerging field

Once dismissed as more playful than practical, humor is gaining traction as a serious subject of study in management. Researchers have been exploring its impact—both positive and negative—on leadership, negotiations, team dynamics and workplace culture.

Kong has spent a decade studying humor in professional settings and has published numerous papers on its role in leadership and organizational settings.

“There’s been a surge in research,” said Kong. “People are realizing humor plays an important role in negotiations, leadership, teamwork and culture. It’s also important to people’s health and well-being.”

His latest research proposes a framework for understanding workplace humor that shifts the focus from the content of the joke to the motive behind it. Instead of labeling humor as sarcastic, dry or self-deprecating, he classifies it by purpose: Is the humor meant to build connection, ease tension, impress others or cover up discomfort?

That perspective echoes what leadership coaches have noted—that humor can build inclusion, ease tension and break down hierarchies, but it’s also often misunderstood. Kong’s advice: Think more about how your intent will be received. “One should take the perspective of the audience and think ahead whether and how a joke can convey a constructive motive and thus be appreciated in a given situation,” he said.

Humor is a powerful but risky tool, Kong added, especially in diverse or global workplaces.

“Humor can be inclusive or exclusive,” Kong said. “It can strengthen bonds or reinforce hierarchies. That’s why we need to study it more seriously, especially in diverse and cross-cultural settings.”

10 reasons we tell jokes at work

Researchers classify our reasons for telling jokes into two broad categories: agentic motives, which aim to advance personal goals or influence others, and communal motives, which focus on connecting with people and building relationships.

Agentic motives:

Attack or demean third parties
Attain status
Ingratiate
Motivate
Relay information
Subvert authority

Communal motives:

Alleviate boredom
Build rapport
Seem more approachable
Signal solidarity and inclusion

Intent matters

Kong’s newest research on workplace humor, published online in May in the Journal of Management Studies and co-authored by Cecily D. Cooper of the University of Miami in Florida and Sharon B. Sheridan of Clemson University in South Carolina, draws on six studies and more than 1,000 participants. The goal: to rethink how humor is measured and studied in organizations and to build a stronger foundation for future research. The findings suggest that whether humor helps or harms depends less on the joke itself and more on how it is perceived.

For example, a roast or teasing among colleagues might seem risky on the surface, but when interpreted as communal (for example, relationship-building) rather than self-serving or aggressive, it can build trust. One study cited in the paper found that “putdown humor” among police officers fostered team cohesion when framed as a sign of group belonging.

“Humor is all about how it’s received,” Kong said. “The same joke can land very differently depending on who tells it, who hears it, when and how it’s told, and what the perceived motive is.”

That perception can matter in high-stakes situations, too, like job interviews. A well-placed joke, particularly one that reveals self-awareness, can be disarming and memorable. However, a bad joke or over-use of jokes can undermine one’s credibility and create awkwardness.

“Answering ‘What’s your greatest weakness?’ with a bit of humor can work—if it shows authenticity and emotional intelligence,” Kong said.

But humor can also backfire. Kong points to recent research by organizational scholars showing that employees often feel pressured to laugh at a boss’s jokes, regardless of whether they’re funny. That kind of “forced laughter,” Kong says, can contribute to emotional exhaustion and job dissatisfaction.

A teachable tool

So what does this mean for ambitious professionals? As Kong sees it, humor is a strategic skill worth developing.

He believes business schools—and business leaders—should take humor seriously, as it’s a fundamental element of interpersonal communication and it intersects with power, status, inclusion, creativity, trust, ethics, psychological safety and well-being.

“Business schools have a lot to gain from incorporating humor into their curriculum,” Kong said. “I’ve been exploring and ideating how to teach it through both research-based insights and interactive learning experiences in business schools in different regions of the world.”

Some MBA programs are beginning to explore humor more formally. For example, Stanford’s business school offers a course on humor in business, focused on using levity to build stronger teams and drive innovation.

While the goal isn’t to turn business school students into comedians, Kong said, teaching future leaders to read the room, build genuine and healthy connections with humor, lead with authenticity, and help others enhance emotional well-being can give them a competitive edge in today’s dynamic, fast-changing and stressful workplaces.

Plus, humor can help people laugh together, and leaders should laugh with others. Humor, when used appropriately, can create a more cohesive, egalitarian, and healthy workplace in which people thrive, Kong said lightheartedly, adding: “We take our work seriously, but can we not take ourselves too seriously?”

Organizational leadership expert Tony Kong says humor is a strategic skill that can help you lead, connect and stand out—and his research shows why intent matters more than the punchline.

Traditional

White

News Headlines

It's not a glitch in the matrix, it's a mathematical phenomenon

Related Articles

Why do some thoughts refuse to leave?

Related Articles

US to retire its only icebreaker, stranding polar research

Why is the Palmer icebreaker important for United States’ Antarctica research?

Are there other reasons beyond research?

Why do polar researchers need a designated ice-breaking vessel?

What does it look like to conduct research on the Palmer?

How does Antarctic research impact everyday Americans?

Related Articles

How to avoid seeing disturbing content on social media

Related Articles

A new way to fight allergies: Switch on the light

Why you can’t kill an allergen

Let there be light

A portable allergy buster?

Related Articles

CU Boulder ranked No. 1 in startups based on university discoveries

Related Articles

The end of EV tax credits? An expert's take on what's at stake

Have the tax incentives for electric vehicles worked?

The current tax credit policy for EVs was set to expire in 2032. Doesn't that mean the government was going to phase out the incentives anyway?

What happens now that the federal incentives are ending?

How is this policy change affecting automakers?

What would be a better long-term policy than EV subsidies?

Related Articles

Construction secrets of honeybees: Study reveals how bees build hives in tricky spots

How and why bees build honeycomb

Irregular surfaces: A puzzle for bees to solve

Related Articles

As salmon disappear in warming rivers, Indigenous communities face an uncertain future

Melting North Pole

Two fishes, two tales

Uncertain future

Related Articles

Want to get ahead at work? Learn to be funny

An emerging field

Intent matters

A teachable tool

Related Articles