As solar eclipse spectators are gathering in the path of totality, teams of students from Maryland and around the nation are preparing to launch instruments to study the phenomenon.

This afternoon, dozens of teams participating in the NASA supported Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project will launch high altitude weather balloons hauling instruments into the sky to study the eclipse's effect on the atmosphere. A team from the University of Maryland will launch two balloons from a location near Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Mary Bowden, senior lecturer of aerospace engineering at the University of Maryland, said there are numerous engineering lessons.

"All of the learning about how to design payloads that will work at altitude, and in the low temperature and low-pressure environment up there at altitude, and then putting them together and inflating a balloon and tracking a balloon and all that, there's a lot of engineering there," Bowden outlined. "That is really a wonderful educational experience."

The Maryland team is part of the University of Maryland Nearspace program, which has been conducting multiple balloon launches each semester for nearly 20 years. Even if skies are overcast, the balloons will fly well above the clouds, livestreaming video to YouTube.

Balloon teams have the opportunity to investigate several different scientific questions including how heat moves through the atmosphere. The Maryland team has been conducting practice launches in the months leading up to today's eclipse. Bowden pointed out in addition to monitoring forecasts of wind speed at higher altitudes, trying to study the eclipse has the team focused on timing.

"One of the trickiest parts of this is that we need to launch the balloon such that it is at altitude at totality," Bowden explained. "You have to figure out how much helium to put in the balloon to get a certain ascent rate to make sure it's going up just at the right speed, so that it is at altitude. And for us, we're shooting for about 70,000 to 80,000 feet."

The team tracks the payload during the flight and after with multiple technologies including using Iridium satellites, as well as ham radio frequencies. After the eclipse, the team will activate a remote device to cut the payload loose and allow it to parachute back to the ground. Balloon teams select the recovery location and choose open fields or farmland rather than forests or cities.

Bowden noted sometimes, recovery is the hardest part.

"We can usually locate exactly where they've landed, even to the point of walking up to somebody's house and saying, 'We just landed our payloads in your backyard. Would you allow us to go get them?'" Bowden recounted. "That is the last step of the flight. And sometimes the most stressful is basically recovering the payload."


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The U.S. Surgeon General has declared a public health crisis of loneliness and social isolation.

New research from Colorado State University suggested Americans are pretty happy with the number of friends they have, they just want to spend more time with them.

Natalie Pennington, communication studies researcher at Colorado State University and co-leader of the American Friendship Project, said she was eager to learn more about how interactions across a person's social network -- from Facebook acquaintances to forever besties -- can affect people's lives.

"Understanding how, over time, how changes in our relationships might affect our well-being," Pennington outlined. "Things like life satisfaction, loneliness, stress, connection, disconnection."

Researchers looked at three different surveys conducted by the American Friendship Project starting in 2022, and found 98% of respondents said they had at least one friend. Three in four American adults said they are satisfied with their number of friends but just half said they're satisfied with the time spent together. Four in 10 said they want deeper connections with the friends they have.

Pennington pointed out people did lose some friends during the pandemic, a time of prolonged social isolation, especially relationships with weaker bonds. But she added many friendships grew closer.

"Your closest friends, you actually kind of strengthen those because now, suddenly you can't see each other," Pennington explained. "We have this need to belong to each other. We're reaching out and deepening a few connections, even though we might lose some as well."

Maintaining connections with friends, especially those who now live far away, can be challenging. Pennington emphasized there are ways to remain close if you do not have the time or resources to meet up in person.

"In the absence of that, knowing that there are little ways we can connect, sending emails, sending a text message, phone call, voice memo, those are ways that we can sustain that relationship," Pennington concluded.

More Americans are learning about the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation this election season, but its influence has been decades in the making.

Its controversial Project 2025 to reshape the federal government includes standard conservative ideas like slashing regulations, along with more extreme plans to restrict abortion and certain contraceptives.

Zachary Albert, assistant professor of politics at Brandeis University, said the think tank has played a key role in pushing Republicans toward more conservative policies.

"They are policy demanders, who have strong opinions about the direction they want government to go and the research is the first step in pushing for that type of policy change," Albert explained.

Albert pointed out a growing share of think tanks, including the more liberal-leaning Center for American Progress, are engaged in direct political advocacy. The President of the Heritage Foundation has described its role as "institutionalizing Trumpism."

It is also spending money to influence elections and lobby politicians through its 501(c)(4) advocacy organization, Heritage Action for America. It spent more than $13 million in the 2022 midterms through its Super PAC, Sentinel Action Fund.

Albert noted it has earned Heritage and similar groups the label of "do tanks" rather than think tanks.

"By forming these other 501(c)(4)s and even Super PACs, these think tanks are allowed to engage in aggressive, direct political advocacy to force their ideas into the political system, rather than hoping that they trickle in," Albert emphasized.

Ideas presented in Project 2025 may already be ingrained. Nearly two-thirds of the authors behind the plan served in former President Donald Trump's administration.

Albert added the fact it has gained such widespread attention ahead of the November elections is a telling indication of its expected influence.


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The regularity of news stories with individuals being misled or even radicalized by social media brought two Colorado State University researchers to compare social media algorithms to villains in classic tragedies such as Shakespeare's "Othello."

In a paper published last fall, researchers examine how algorithms can transform a person's view of reality in ways leading to detrimental actions. Platforms track user engagement with content and then feed users more of what they like.

Hamed Qahri-Saremi, assistant professor of computer information systems at Colorado State University and co-author of the paper, said even if you are following a news website such as CNN or Fox, you will not see every post by the outlets, only what the feeding algorithm thinks will maximize your engagement.

"It's not about the source, even," Qahri-Saremi explained. "It's about what these feeding algorithms are showing to you. So if you just go onto social media to get your news, most likely you're going to be very polarized. You see the world differently, because a big part of the picture, the true picture of the world, is going to be eliminated, is going to be masked from you because that's the job of the feeding algorithms."

The authors compare algorithms to the Shakespearean character Iago, who uses lies and manipulation to mislead Othello into murdering his wife.

The paper illustrated how platforms learn about users directly by observing their behavior, including which posts they spend time with and like, and learn about users indirectly by identifying and verifying the most similar platform users. The authors refer to it as a "matching mechanism" and users can see its effects with platform suggestions of who users should follow or connect with.

When offering content to users, platforms use social signaling to drive engagement by showing them which friends liked or commented on a post. Qahri-Saremi noted when misinformation is presented, social signals increase the likelihood users will engage.

"The person who sees that misinformation on social media is not just any random person, it's a person that the algorithm has selected and probably have added some social signals to it," Qahri-Saremi pointed out. "This significantly increases the power of this misinformation content."

Platform algorithms have the ability to select from the many millions of pieces of content floating around on social media, and choose the ones driving individual user engagement the most. With social media platforms primarily in the business of selling advertising, Qahri-Saremi emphasized the kind of granular data algorithms can learn about users makes them some of the most profitable companies around.

"These are some of the best algorithms," Qahri-Saremi stressed. "That's why social media companies are so wealthy. They can sell ads like nobody else; they can customize ads like nobody else. So now the same machine is being used to disseminate misinformation."

The paper suggested methods to combat misinformation, among them using an "endorsing accuracy" prompt such as "I think this news is accurate" and connecting it to the sharing function.