In light of recent events that have tested the commitment of colleges and universities across the nation to free and open discourse on campus, University of Chicago President Robert J. Zimmer appointed a faculty committee, chaired by me, to prepare a statement articulating the University of Chicago’s commitment “to free, robust, and uninhibited debate and deliberation among all members of the University’s community.”

After carefully reviewing the University’s history, examining events at other institutions, and consulting a broad range of individuals both inside and outside the University of Chicago, the committee crafted the following statement, which “reflects the long-standing and distinctive values of the University of Chicago and affirms the importance of maintaining and, indeed, celebrating those values for the future.” I thought it might be instructive to share this statement more generally.

From its very founding, the University of Chicago has dedicated itself to the preservation and celebration of the freedom of expression as an essential element of the University’s culture. In 1902, in his address marking the University’s decennial, President William Rainey Harper declared that “the principle of complete freedom of speech on all subjects has from the beginning been regarded as fundamental in the University of Chicago” and that “this principle can neither now nor at any future time be called in question.”

Thirty years later, a student organization invited William Z. Foster, the Communist Party’s candidate for President, to lecture on campus. This triggered a storm of protest from critics both on and off campus. To those who condemned the University for allowing the event, President Robert M. Hutchins responded that “our students . . . should have freedom to discuss any problem that presents itself.” He insisted that the “cure” for ideas we oppose “lies through open discussion rather than through inhibition.” On a later occasion, Hutchins added that “free inquiry is indispensable to the good life, that universities exist for the sake of such inquiry, [and] that without it they cease to be universities.”

In 1968, at another time of great turmoil in universities, President Edward H. Levi, in his inaugural address, celebrated “those virtues which from the beginning and until now have characterized our institution.” Central to the values of the University of Chicago, Levi explained, is a profound commitment to “freedom of inquiry.” This freedom, he proclaimed, “is our inheritance.”

More recently, President Hanna Holborn Gray observed that “education should not be intended to make people comfortable, it is meant to make them think. Universities should be expected to provide the conditions within which hard thought, and therefore strong disagreement, independent judgment, and the questioning of stubborn assumptions, can flourish in an environment of the greatest freedom.”

The words of Harper, Hutchins, Levi, and Gray capture both the spirit and the promise of the University of Chicago. Because the University is committed to free and open inquiry in all matters, it guarantees all members of the University community the broadest possible latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge, and learn. Except insofar as limitations on that freedom are necessary to the functioning of the University, the University of Chicago fully respects and supports the freedom of all members of the University community “to discuss any problem that presents itself.”

Of course, the ideas of different members of the University community will often and quite naturally conflict. But it is not the proper role of the University to attempt to shield individuals from ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive. Although the University greatly values civility, and although all members of the University community share in the responsibility for maintaining a climate of mutual respect, concerns about civility and mutual respect can never be used as a justification for closing off discussion of ideas, however offensive or disagreeable those ideas may be to some members of our community.

The freedom to debate and discuss the merits of competing ideas does not, of course, mean that individuals may say whatever they wish, wherever they wish. The University may restrict expression that violates the law, that falsely defames a specific individual, that constitutes a genuine threat or harassment, that unjustifiably invades substantial privacy or confidentiality interests, or that is otherwise directly incompatible with the functioning of the University. In addition, the University may reasonably regulate the time, place, and manner of expression to ensure that it does not disrupt the ordinary activities of the University. But these are narrow exceptions to the general principle of freedom of expression, and it is vitally important that these exceptions never be used in a manner that is inconsistent with the University’s commitment to a completely free and open discussion of ideas.

In a word, the University’s fundamental commitment is to the principle that debate or deliberation may not be suppressed because the ideas put forth are thought by some or even by most members of the University community to be offensive, unwise, immoral, or wrong-headed. It is for the individual members of the University community, not for the University as an institution, to make those judgments for themselves, and to act on those judgments not by seeking to suppress speech, but by openly and vigorously contesting the ideas that they oppose. Indeed, fostering the ability of members of the University community to engage in such debate and deliberation in an effective and responsible manner is an essential part of the University’s educational mission.

As a corollary to the University’s commitment to protect and promote free expression, members of the University community must also act in conformity with the principle of free expression. Although members of the University community are free to criticize and contest the views expressed on campus, and to criticize and contest speakers who are invited to express their views on campus, they may not obstruct or otherwise interfere with the freedom of others to express views they reject or even loathe. To this end, the University has a solemn responsibility not only to promote a lively and fearless freedom of debate and deliberation, but also to protect that freedom when others attempt to restrict it.

As Robert M. Hutchins observed, without a vibrant commitment to free and open inquiry, a university ceases to be a university. The University of Chicago’s long-standing commitment to this principle lies at the very core of our University’s greatness. That is our inheritance, and it is our promise to the future.

Geoffrey R. Stone, Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor of Law, Chair

Marianne Bertrand, Chris P. Dialynas Distinguished Service Professor of Economics, Booth School of Business

Angela Olinto, Homer J. Livingston Professor, Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Enrico Fermi Institute, and the College

Mark Siegler, Lindy Bergman Distinguished Service Professor of Medicine and Surgery

David A. Strauss, Gerald Ratner Distinguished Service Professor of Law

Kenneth W. Warren, Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor, Department of English and the College

Amanda Woodward, William S. Gray Professor, Department of Psychology and the College

WASHINGTON -– American medical professionals specializing in respiratory conditions and critical care are concerned about what climate change may mean for patient health, a new survey finds.

A survey of members of the American Thoracic Society, which represents 15,000 physicians and other medical professionals who work in the fields of respiratory disease, critical care and sleep disorder, finds that the majority of respondents said they were already seeing health effects in their patients that they believe are linked to climate change. Seventy-seven percent said they have seen an increase in chronic diseases related to air pollution, and 58 percent said they’d seen increased allergic reactions from plants or mold. Fifty-seven percent of participants said they’d also seen injuries related to severe weather.

An overwhelming majority — 89 percent — agreed that climate change is happening, and 65 percent said they thought climate change was relevant to direct patient care. Forty-four percent said they thought climate change was already affecting the health of their patients a “great deal” or a “moderate amount.” Strong majorities of respondents also said that heat, vector-borne infections, air pollution and allergies would likely affect patients in the next 10 to 20 years.

Numerous scientific studies have found links between climate change and a variety of health problems.

The survey was conducted by the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University and will be published in the February edition of the journal Annals of the American Thoracic Society. The center has previously surveyed members of the National Medical Association, a society of African-American physicians, and also plans to survey members of the American Academy of Family Physicians; the American Academy of Pediatrics; and the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.

Dr. Mona Sarfaty, the director of the program on climate and health at the Center for Climate Change Communication and lead author of the paper, said in an interview with The Huffington Post that she was surprised by some of the anecdotes her team heard from physicians who responded to the survey. These included reports of seeing patients whose asthma has gotten worse due to ozone or other pollutant exposure, longer and more severe allergy seasons, and more cases of both acute and chronic lung conditions. Others cited lung problems related to exposure to smoke from wildfires and changes in precipitation and weather patterns that seemed to be affecting patients.

Having doctors engaged and concerned about climate change could help drive public opinion as well, Sarfaty said. “Not too many people personally know a climate scientist,” she pointed out. “But they do know physicians, and physicians are well thought of.”

“Doctors who are treating patients for a living believe they are seeing health effects in patients they are treating today. That brings home the message,” said Gary Ewart, director of government relations at the American Thoracic Society. “Instead of a drowning polar bear issue, it turns into a kitchen-table issue, with real patient care starting to drive the discussion.”

Ewart said the group undertook the survey to see whether members were interested in climate change and what they were seeing in their practices. Seventy-four percent of the survey respondents said they agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that “physicians should have a significant advocacy role in relation to climate change and health,” while 75 percent agreed that medical societies should play an advocacy role.

Sarfaty said that the survey also shows that there is interest among doctors to know more about climate change and how it might impact their work. It “amounts to a call … to provide more information to meet the needs of the doctors,” she said. She noted that many medical organizations are not currently providing information on climate to their members.

Ewart said his group is hoping to change that. “There are a growing [number] of members in my society, and I suspect other societies, that are trying to elevate this as an issue.”

Lingering amounts of the herbicide Agent Orange aboard repurposed airplanes after the Vietnam War could have sickened military veterans, according to a new federal report.

In findings released Friday, an Institute of Medicine committee “emphatically” refutes a recurrent argument made by the U.S. Air Force and Department of Veteran Affairs that any carcinogenic dioxin or other components of Agent Orange contaminating its fleet of C-123 cargo planes would have been “dried residues” and therefore unlikely to pose any meaningful exposure risks to the 1,500 to 2,100 Air Force Reserve personnel who served aboard the planes between 1972 and 1982.

That contention has been the basis for the VA’s denial of benefits to sick veterans, and remains reflected on the agency’s website today. But in the new report, the committee states “with confidence” that these dried residues in fact could have posed dangers: the Air Force Reservists “were exposed,” write the Institute of Medicine authors.

“That website should be taken down immediately,” said Jeanne Stellman, an Agent Orange expert at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, who was not involved in the new report.

“I can’t imagine a harder slap in the face to the VA than what this committee delivered,” she added. “This is justice, delayed. The VA Secretary will have to change the policy now. The veterans have won.”

The VA has certainly taken notice.

Dr. Ralph L. Erickson, director of the Pre-9/11 Era Environmental Health Program with the VA, told The Huffington Post that a working group within the agency has already begun reviewing the new report. Its aim, he said, is to “package and interpret” it for consideration by the VA Secretary. While he suggested that process should be completed within a couple months, he couldn’t state when and how the results might translate into health care or disability compensation for affected veterans.

Currently, veterans who sprayed or handled Agent Orange herbicide during the war, or who spent any time on the ground in Vietnam, are automatically eligible for care and compensation under federal Agent Orange legislation. The government presumes that certain conditions such as prostate cancer, Parkinson’s disease and Type 2 diabetes are a result of exposure to the chemical. But only one post-Vietnam C-123 veteran to date, Lt. Col. Paul Bailey, is known to have been granted the help. Just weeks before his death, the VA reversed its initial denial of Bailey’s claim.

“Environmental health issues like this are really important to the VA. This report was very well received,” said Erickson, whose agency contracted with the Institute of Medicine — an independent nonprofit organization and part of the National Academy of Science — to conduct the review of the existing science. “There’s a lot of complexity and controversy in this issue. But our technology and science knowledge base continues to grow.”

Specifically, he referenced a paper co-authored by Stellman, published in February 2014, which found safety standard-exceeding exposures to the old herbicide likely occurred on post-Vietnam C-123s — via skin contact, inhalation and ingestion. That study came out right around the time that the Institute of Medicine committee began meeting. Linda McCauley, an expert in environmental exposures and dean of the School of Nursing at Emory University, noted that it quickly became central to her committee’s deliberations and ultimately their decision to “reject” the idea put forth by the Air Force and VA that dioxin residues were “immobile and effectively inaccessible to the Reservists.”

Rather, she explained, the Agent Orange molecules degrade slowly and could continually move between airplane cabin surfaces and the air, attaching to dust and dirt particles.

“It’s quite plausible that some of the reservists received exposures that exceeded acceptable safety levels,” said McCauley.

Further, she suggested that the committee’s conclusions were “conservative.” Air Force Reservists’ exposures could, in fact, have been far higher.

Between their decade of deployment in Operation Ranch Hand, a large-scale defoliation mission in Vietnam and other countries in Southeast Asia, and their new stateside assignments with the Air Force Reserve, the C-123s underwent no testing or decontamination. It wasn’t until 1979, when crews complained about chemical smells, that officials took the first measures of potential contamination. Samples of wiped surfaces in 1994, and again in 2009, supplemented this 1979 air sample data. Nearly all the planes have since been smelted.

Given the dearth of data, and a lack of consensus among committee members on how to accurately recreate levels of contamination present at the time of the veterans’ potential exposure, the Institute of Medicine panel considered only the trace amounts of herbicide remaining in a sample of the planes, and the risks of ingesting the herbicide.

“The levels back when reservists were on the planes would’ve been at least as high [as what was measured],” McCauley said. “We also know they could have been breathing it in and absorbing it through their skin.”

Retired Maj. Wes Carter, who served aboard C-123s after Vietnam, has been leading the effort on behalf of this group of post-war veterans for the past few years. He said there were “hugs all around” with the release of the findings on Friday.

“This is a big deal,” he said. “This is a giant step closer to justice.”

Still, Carter, Stellman and other experts and advocates couched their enthusiasm, lamenting the lost years during which the VA repeatedly denied claims from veterans who said they were sickened by the residual toxins.

The Institute of Medicine committee itself criticized aspects of influential Air Force studies as “inaccurate” and “unreasonable,” including an apparent attempt to associate a lack of proof of harm with proof of no harm. An Air Force spokesperson told HuffPost that their team is currently reviewing the Institute of Medicine report and could not yet comment.

“This is deceitful delay. It’s hard to tell conspiracy from incompetence,” said Stellman. “The history of the VA with regard to Agent Orange is one of their having to be dragged kicking and screaming along the way.”

Erickson of the VA said that it’s only within the last year or so that the science pointing to health risks associated with dried Agent Orange residues has become part of the “broader discussion.”

“There’s been a number of competing opinions,” he added. “But with the evolution of our understanding, we’ve been moving forward.”

Stellman insists that the basis of the findings made by her research team and the Institute of Medicine committee concerning the volatility of these dried residues is not exactly new science. “That’s ludicrous. All of the things in this report are points that have been made repeatedly to the VA,” she said, pointing to letters, meetings and even a 2008 study concerning the volatility of compounds such as dioxin referenced in her 2014 paper.

Over the past few years, scientists with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, among others, have also posited that veterans who flew in post-war planes were exposed and that the VA’s presumption should be expanded to include them.

“We asked for help in 2011,” added Carter, who earned VA benefits due to injuries he sustained during the Gulf War, and therefore is not personally affected by the current VA roadblocks. “I’ve lost more friends this last month. It still hurts.”

In this June 12, 2014 aerial photo, drivers and their tanker trucks, capable of hauling water and fracking liquid line up near a natural gas burn off flame and storage tanks in Williston, N.D. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York’s recent decision to ban fracking is hardly seen as a big loss for the nation’s production of natural gas.

That’s because scientists say New York’s available reserves of natural gas in the sprawling Marcellus Shale are minuscule compared to what can be extracted in other states such as Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

“Even if the ban were lifted right now, I doubt you’d see very much activity,” said Penn State University geologist Terry Engelder, a widely acknowledged expert who has studied the Appalachian shales for decades. “The industry has committed so much capital in other states that they want to see that those investments are made good first.”

Engelder, whose figures are cited by New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation, estimates there are 127 trillion cubic feet of commercially viable natural gas in the Marcellus Shale. He figures New York has only about 16 trillion cubic feet of that.

Factor in local zoning restrictions and proposed permit rules that would have put 63 percent of New York’s Marcellus region off limits under any circumstances, and the state’s available reserves drop to just 5 trillion cubic feet. That’s not even enough to meet the state’s needs for five years.

Estimates of the gas reserves in the Marcellus Shale vary from year to year as new discoveries are made, well production is assessed, and prices and technologies change. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that unproved technically recoverable natural gas reserves in the Marcellus are about 119 trillion cubic feet. The U.S. Geological Survey puts the number at 84 trillion cubic feet. But scientists agree New York’s share of that gas, while enough to attract have attracted some producers, is small.

“New York’s portion of the resource is a small fraction of the total. There’s plenty of resource without the New York gas,” said Bob Ineson, natural gas expert for the analysis group IHS.

Such estimates, along with the plunging wholesale price of natural gas from $8 to below $4 per million BTU since 2008, were considered last month when Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s environmental commissioner announced a ban on fracking, saying potential health risks such as air and water contamination outweighed the economic benefits.

Fracking, which fires millions of gallons of chemically treated water into rock to extract gas from horizontally drilled wells, had been seen as an economic lifeline for landowners in the state’s chronically depressed Southern Tier.

Without fracking, New York will remain a state that consumes great quantities of natural gas but produces very little.

New York is the fifth-highest state in natural gas consumption, using 1.2 trillion cubic feet annually. Its production from conventional wells, according to 2013 figures, is a mere 23 million cubic feet.

The state’s gas consumption is only increasing. Coal-burning power plants in western New York and the Hudson Valley are being retrofitted to use cleaner-burning natural gas. And New York City passed regulations in 2011 phasing out the use of highly polluting fuel oil to heat buildings, transitioning to natural gas and other fuels that produce lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Achieving those goals requires increased gas supply capacity and new pipelines. That supply, according to Engelder’s estimates, is coming largely from Pennsylvania and West Virginia, which have gas reserves of 87 trillion cubic feet and 14 trillion cubic feet, respectively.

More than 8,000 wells drilled in the Marcellus now supply 385 million cubic meters of gas per day, more than half the amount currently burned in U.S. power plants.

Major pipeline projects are underway to bring more cheap shale gas from Pennsylvania into high-demand markets in New England and New York. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last month approved the $700 million Constitution Pipeline, which will run 124 miles from Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna County to New York’s Schoharie County, 80 miles southwest of Albany. Shorter pipeline expansions completed in 2013 in the New Jersey/New York City area have already increased the flow of Marcellus gas into that market and helped ease winter price spikes.

Marcellus Shale gas is about half the wholesale cost of the Gulf of Mexico gas that traditionally reached Boston and New York City through existing pipelines. It’s also cheaper than Canadian gas that flows into the Northeast.

But pipeline constraints, winter spikes in demand and other factors mean that residential customers in New York and New England pay among the highest rates in the country for natural gas even though they are so close to the nation’s largest natural gas basin.

On a chaotic day in early January 2010, rescuers in Haiti plucked an unconscious infant from the rubble of a home destroyed by a devastating earthquake.

Miraculously, the baby had survived on her own for more than four days — long enough for a crew to deliver her to local doctors at Project Medishare. She was then whisked to Miami for treatment of injuries to her head and arm, in addition to a collapsed chest. Months after her rescue, the girl was reunited with her parents, Nadine Devilme and Junior Alexis.

Five years later, after defying unimaginable odds, the infant, “Jenny,” has grown into a happy, healthy little girl, reports CNN.

A more recent picture of Jenny:

“When [Jenny] was first brought in she was near death,” Arthur Fournier, the professor of family medicine at the University of Miami who led the team that cared for the infant, told The Associated Press at the time. “The first miracle was that she had the heart, the courage, to survive by herself for five days on her own.”

The family now lives in an apartment in North Miami, CNN adds, where Jenny is in pre-kindergarten and vivacious as ever.

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By Sharon Begley

U.S. companies are increasingly penalizing workers who decline to join “wellness” programs, embracing an element of President Barack Obama’s healthcare law that has raised questions about fairness in the workplace.

Beginning in 2014, the law known as Obamacare raised the financial incentives that employers are allowed to offer workers for participating in workplace wellness programs and achieving results. The incentives, which big business lobbied for, can be either rewards or penalties – up to 30 percent of health insurance premiums, deductibles, and other costs, and even more if the programs target smoking.

Among the two-thirds of large companies using such incentives to encourage participation, almost a quarter are imposing financial penalties on those who opt-out, according to a survey by the National Business Group on Health and benefits consultant Towers Watson (For graphic see link.reuters.com/byr73w)

For some companies, however, just signing up for a wellness program isn’t enough. They’re linking financial incentives to specific goals such as losing weight, reducing cholesterol, or keeping blood glucose under control. The number of businesses imposing such outcomes-based wellness plans is expected to double this year to 46 percent, the survey found.

“Wellness-or-else is the trend,” said workplace consultant Jon Robison of Salveo Partners.

Incentives typically take the form of cash payments or reductions in employee deductibles. Penalties include higher premiums and lower company contributions for out-of-pocket health costs.

Financial incentives, many companies say, are critical to encouraging workers to participate in wellness programs, which executives believe will save money in the long run.

“Employers are carrying a major burden of healthcare in this country and are trying to do the right thing,” said Stephanie Pronk, a vice president at benefits consultant Aon Hewitt. “They need to improve employees’ health so they can lead productive lives at home and at work, but also to control their healthcare costs.”

But there is almost no evidence that workplace wellness programs significantly reduce those costs. That’s why the financial penalties are so important to companies, critics and researchers say. They boost corporate profits by levying fines that outweigh any savings from wellness programs.

“There seems little question that you can make wellness programs save money with high enough penalties that essentially shift more healthcare costs to workers,” said health policy expert Larry Levitt of the Kaiser Family Foundation.

FOUR-FIGURE PENALTIES

At Honeywell International, for instance, employees who decline company-specified medical screenings pay $500 more a year in premiums and lose out on a company contribution of $250 to $1,500 a year (depending on salary and spousal coverage) to defray out-of-pocket costs.

Kevin Covert, deputy general counsel for human resources, acknowledged it was too soon to tell if Honeywell’s wellness and incentive programs reduce medical spending. But it is clear that the company is benefiting financially from the penalties. Slightly more than 10 percent of the company’s U.S. employees, or roughly 5,000, did not participate, resulting in savings of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Last year, Honeywell was sued over its wellness program by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The EEOC argued that requiring workers to answer personal questions in the health questionnaire – including if they ever feel depressed and whether they’ve been diagnosed with a long list of illnesses – can violate federal law if they involve disabilities, as these examples do. And, if answering is not voluntary.

“Financial incentives and disincentives may make the programs involuntary” and thus illegal, said Chris Kuczynski, an assistant legal counsel at the EEOC.

Using the same argument, the EEOC also sued Wisconsin-based Orion Energy Systems, where an employee who declined to undergo screening by clinic workers the company hired was told she would have to pay the full $5,000 annual insurance premium.

SICK? PAY MORE.

Some vendors that run workplace wellness for large employers promote their programs by promising to shift costs to “higher utilizers” of health care services, according to a recent analysis by Joann Volk and Sabrina Corlette of Georgetown University Health Policy Institute – and by making workers “earn” contributions to their healthcare plans that were once automatic.

Consider Jill, who asked that her name not be used for fear of retaliation from the company. A few years ago, her employer, Lockheed Martin, provided hundreds of dollars per year to each worker to help defray insurance deductibles. Since it implemented its new wellness program, workers must now earn that contribution by, among other things, quitting smoking (something non-smokers can’t do) and racking up steps on a company-supplied pedometer.

“Basically, if you don’t participate in these programs, you have to pay something like $1,000 out of pocket for healthcare before insurance kicks in,” said Jill.

Companies insist the penalties are not intended to be money-makers, but to encourage workers to improve their health and thereby avoid serious, and expensive, illness.

As evidence of that, said Honeywell’s Covert, the company offers employees “easy ways to get out of” some of the wellness requirements, such as certifying that they do not smoke rather than submitting to a blood test.

BALANCING THE WELLNESS BOOKS

Why are companies so keen on such plans?

Most large employers are self-insured, meaning they pay medical claims out of revenue. As a result, wellness penalties also accrue to the bottom line.

About 95 percent of large U.S. employers offer workplace wellness programs. The programs cost around $100 to $300 per worker per year, but generally save far less than that in medical costs. A 2013 analysis by the RAND think tank commissioned by Congress found that annual healthcare spending for program participants was $25 to $40 lower than for non-participants over five years.

Yet at most large companies that impose penalties for not participating in workplace wellness, the amount is $500 or more, according to a 2014 survey by the Kaiser foundation.

“For economic reasons, most employers would prefer collecting the penalties,” said Al Lewis, a wellness-outcomes consultant and co-author of the 2014 book “Surviving Workplace Wellness.”

Lori, for instance, an employee at Pittsburgh-based health insurer Highmark, is paying $4,200 a year more for her family benefits because she declined to answer a health questionnaire or submit to company-run screenings for smoking, blood glucose, cholesterol, and blood pressure. She is concerned about the privacy of the online questionnaire, she said, and resents being told by her employer how to stay healthy.

Highmark vice president Anna Silberman, though, doesn’t see it that way. She said the premium reductions that participants get “are a very powerful incentive for driving behavior,” and that “people deserve to be rewarded for both effort and outcomes.”

(This version of the story corrects name, Lorin Volk, in 16th paragraph, to Joann Volk)

(Reporting by Sharon Begley. Editor: Michele Gershberg and Hank Gilman)

The scent of lavender is known for its soothing properties, and for this reason is often recommended to people as a relaxation or sleep aid. But according to new research, the calming scent can also make us more trusting of others.

“Our results might have various serious implications for a broad range of situations in which interpersonal trust is an essential element,” Leiden psychologist Roberta Sellaro said in a statement. “Smelling the aroma of lavender may help a seller to establish more easily a trusting negotiation to sell a car, or in a grocery store it may induce consumers to spend more money buying products. The smell of lavender may also be helpful in sport psychology to enhance trust and build team spirit, for example in the case of team games such as soccer and volleyball.”

To investigate the flower’s effect on trust, Leiden University researchers exposed one group of study participants to the scent of lavender and another group to peppermint. Then, the participants were asked to play a game that is commonly used in experimental settings to measure how much one subject trusts another. In the game, a “trustor” was given 5 Euros and instructed to decide how much of that money to give a “trustee” in each round. The trustee, in return, could decide to split the money with the trustor. If the trustee gave the trustor enough money in return, he or she would receive additional money.

After being exposed to lavender, participants gave significantly more money to the trustee (3.9 Euro) than those who had been exposed to peppermint (3.23 Euro). The findings “reinforce the idea that interpersonal trust is sensitive to situational and environmental factors,” the researchers note.

Previous research on aromatherapy has found that lavender can affect mood and well-being. Lavender essential oil produces a mild calming and sedative affect, according to the University of Maryland Medical Center, and has been used to ease anxiety, depression, insomnia and fatigue. One brain-scanning study by Wesleyan University researchers found that participants who sniffed lavender oil before going to bed slept more soundly through the night.

The findings were published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology. Check out the video to learn more about lavender’s effects on mutual trust.

Cat people and dog people really do have different personality traits, new research suggests. People who own cats tend to be more creative, adventurous, and anxious. Dog owners, on the other hand, tend to be more extroverted, secure, and risk-averse.

Those differences were seen in a fascinating new study (see video above) by
scientists at the University of California, Berkeley and California State University, East Bay.

And in addition to pinpointing those personality differences, the researchers uncovered something surprising about pet owners’ affection for their companion animals.

For the study, more than 1,000 pet owners across the country were surveyed about their furry friends. The owners were also asked to complete an assessment of their key personality traits–including the ones psychologists call the “Big Five:” openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.

What did the researchers find? Pet owners who expressed the greatest affection for their dog or cat also rated among the most neurotic.

“The fact that higher levels of neuroticism are associated with affection and anxious attachment suggests that people who score higher on that dimension may have high levels of affection and dependence on their pets, which may be a good thing for pets,” Mikel Delgado, a doctoral student in psychology at UC Berkeley who led the research, said in a written statement.

Why might that be good for pets? Because that neuroticism apparently turns pet owners into “helicopter parents” who may be more likely to notice when their pets are sick or hungry or simply want a tummy rub.

But more research is needed to confirm that.

“We will investigate further whether greater affection for and greater anxious attachment to one’s pet, and neuroticism, are associated with better care and understanding of the pet’s needs,” Dr. Gretchen Reevy, a psychologist at CSU-East Bay who participated in this new research, said in the statement.

A paper describing the research was published online in the Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science on Dec. 17, 2014.

Putting Obama’s free community college plan into action could cost $60 billion over the next decade. But the economic boost it provides could be even greater.

If enacted, the proposal will offer two tuition-free years of community college to students who maintain a C+ grade-point average and attend classes at least half-time. The federal government would cover 75 percent of the cost, with participating states covering the rest.

Studies find that community college investments pay themselves back to the government many times over and vastly raise students’ earning potential. Nationwide, community colleges are already a major part of the U.S. economy, contributing an estimated $809 billion in 2012, according to a study by the Economic Modeling Specialists Intl. On the local level, community colleges mean better jobs, higher wages and more spending power for graduates, as well as a larger skilled workforce for local employers.

“Rising levels of education yield a more skilled workforce, which is a crucial driver of economic growth,” Shai Reshef, founder and president of University of the People, a nonprofit online university, said in a recent interview with The Washington Post. “I think Obama’s proposal is an effort to revive education as one of the drivers of economic growth, and this is a good thing.”

California, home to the largest community college system in the country, exemplifies the kinds of economic gains Obama’s plan could bring.

A recent analysis found that a 2 percent increase in people with an associate’s degree and a 1 percent increase in people with a bachelor’s degree would result in $20 billion in additional economic input, $1.2 billion in additional state and local tax revenues every year and 174,000 new jobs.

For every dollar spent on economic and workforce development programs at community colleges, there is a $12 increase in California’s business income and employee wages, according to the Foundation for California Community Colleges. Furthermore, the state receives a $4.5 net return for every dollar it invests to get students through college.

Community colleges have come to serve as an affordable stepping stone for California students who go on to pursue bachelor’s degrees. More than half of California State University graduates started at community colleges, as did nearly a third of University of California graduates. The state’s community colleges are major training centers for some of the most in-demand careers. Over 70 percent of the state’s nurses graduated from the system. It also provides credentials to 80 percent of the state’s firefighters, law enforcement officers and EMTs.

Though the state’s community colleges are the cheapest in the nation, severe budget cuts limited access to these opportunities and brought enrollment to an all-time low in 2013. Meanwhile, students have flocked to for-profit colleges, which offer less competition to get into courses and ply students with false promises about their graduates’ success rates. Nationally, the rate of default on student loans is higher at for-profit colleges than it is at public and private nonprofit institutions. The free community college plan could funnel students away from predatory institutions.

Maxwell Strachan contributed to this report.

Sometimes stereotypes become so widely accepted that nobody takes a step back to actually examine the sweeping generalizations to see if they hold any truth. This is especially true of millennials.

From Time Magazine’s 2013 cover story, “The Me Me Me Generation,” to articles in the Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe and features on The Today Show, the drumbeat pounded into our heads suggests GenYers are lazy, entitled, indebted and unreliable. That they are barreling towards being a lost generation, setting up a catastrophic situation for the economy generally.

It’s a worrisome picture that should make us all fear for what’s next.

Except, of course, for the fact that it’s not true.

Millennials have indeed racked up $1 trillion in student loan debt to become the most highly educated, highly indebted generation in history, and they’re handling their business a whole lot differently than their parents’ generation. This is causing many people who are stuck in the “there’s-a-right-way-to-do-things” mantra to spin out of control.

I recently had an interesting chat with Kate Holmes, a 31-year-old Certified Financial Planner and founder of Las Vegas-based Belmore Financial. A millennial herself, Holmes authored the newly released, free eBook The Millennial Next Door [Revealed]: How To Be Financially Successful in Your 20’s, in collaboration with personal finance community MoneyTips.com. It’s based on a survey of more than 500 millennials, nearly 300 of whom self-identified as successful millennials.

This landmark survey generated some fascinating results. An astounding 96 percent of successful millennials have already begun saving, with 35 percent accumulating $10,000 to $50,000 in various savings accounts and instruments. 59 percent regularly spend less than they earn, and 50 percent have saved enough to maintain their standard of living for at least three months. An impressive 89 percent have some college education, with 71 percent of them footing at least some of their own tuition fees. 91 percent consider themselves financially literate.

But the number that stood out most to Holmes, and shocked me: nearly 47 percent of successful millennials said that saving enough for retirement was their biggest financial concern.

I’ve spent a large portion of my career helping people prepare for retirement. I can’t tell you how many hundreds of people in their 50s and 60s have walked into my office without having a penny saved for their golden years. So to hear that young people in their 20s and early 30s are already looking that far down the road was eye opening.

“That was the most unexpected thing to me,” said Holmes. “I think they look at what their parents have done and said: ‘I don’t want to be in the same position when I’m that age. I don’t want to work in a job that sucks and that drains the life out of me.’ They are reimagining the whole concept of retirement. Rather than just saving 30 percent of their salary and then traveling the world when they are retired in their 70s, millennials want to enjoy their lives now, while keeping an eye on their future.”

Rethinking retirement was just the tip of an overall change in the way millennials are viewing success.

In the eBook, Chelsea Krost, a leading millennial voice and a TV and radio host, says the word “success” is defined differently by millennials than by older people: “success could mean being financially independent and debt free, working in a space that you are truly passionate about, or getting married and having children. A millennial has the flexibility and resources today to really create what they define as success.”

Holmes was quick to point out that what makes millennials so unique is often what gets them labeled lazy by older generations. They don’t want to be in an office from 9-5. They don’t want to work at times they find themselves to be the least productive. They want to set their own hours and are in a position with technology and the Internet to do exactly that. Eventually, they want to do more than just set their own schedules — they want to run their own businesses. According to a Bentley University study, 67 percent of millennials want to be entrepreneurs.

In order to follow that path, millennials need to be out of debt. They grew up in a terrible economic environment. They saw their parents had been faithful employees for decades and were suddenly out of jobs. They thought ‘we can do better.’

They looked at the piles of credit card debt their parents had from spending frivolously on expensive cars and big luxury items they didn’t really need — and have gone out of their way to avoid it — 60 percent of successful millennials have less than $15,000 in debt.

“I tell my clients to make sure they are always living below their means,” said Holmes. “Spend less than you make. Then you have more flexibility throughout your life. If you don’t have debt, you can start a business. You can make different financial decisions and life decisions. It gives you options and the ability to stay open to opportunities.”

The study also found that 87 percent of successful millennials set financial goals and are on track to meet at least some of them.

You really need to know what it costs to live. I think that goes back to figuring out what’s truly important to you. When I sit down with millennials, one of the best exercises is to not only know how much you’re spending, but what percentage of your income. When you realize you spend 20 percent of your take home pay on happy hour, you have to ask — is that really contributing to the life I want in the long term? For a lot of millennials, they find they can often be happier with less than they think.

Holmes wrote The Millennial Next Door to challenge our misconceptions by spotlighting her most successful peers. The eBook reveals the attributes and behaviors of those living comfortably today and shares their savings, investment and planning secrets for affording the lifestyle they want in the future. It may very well be we all have something to learn from this crowd.

Astronomers have apparently discovered the first of a class of strange hybrid stars, confirming theoretical predictions made four decades ago.

In 1975, physicist Kip Thorne and astronomer Anna Zytkow proposed the existence of odd objects that are hybrids between red supergiants and neutron stars — the collapsed, superdense remnants of supernova explosions.

These so-called Thorne-Zytkow objects (TZOs) likely form when a red supergiant gobbles up a nearby neutron star, which sinks down into the giant’s core, researchers said. TZOs look like ordinary red supergiants, like the famed star Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion, but differ in their chemical fingerprints, the theory goes. [Top 10 Star Mysteries]

“Studying these objects is exciting because it represents a completely new model of how stellar interiors can work,” study leader Emily Levesque, of the University of Colorado Boulder, said in a statement.

“In these interiors we also have a new way of producing heavy elements in our universe,” she added. “You’ve heard that everything is made of ‘star stuff’ — inside these stars we might now have a new way to make some of it.”

And now Levesque and her team say they have probably found the first TZO — a star called HV 2112 in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy that lies about 200,000 light-years away.

The researchers used the 6.5-meter Magellan Clay telescope in Chile to study the light emitted by HV 2112. They found the starlight to be highly enriched in rubidium, lithium and molybdenum, just as theory predicts for TZOs. (Normal red supergiants produce these elements as well, but not in such abundance, scientists said.)

The new data, while suggestive, do not represent a slam-dunk discovery for TZOs quite yet, researchers said.

“We could, of course, be wrong,” co-author Philip Massey, of Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, said in a statement.

“There are some minor inconsistencies between some of the details of what we found and what theory predicts,” he added. “But the theoretical predictions are quite old, and there have been a lot of improvements in the theory since then. Hopefully our discovery will spur additional work on the theoretical side now.”

The find means a lot to Zytkow, who is a co-author of the new study.

“I am extremely happy that observational confirmation of our theoretical prediction has started to emerge,” said Zytkow, who is based at the University of Cambridge in England. “Since Kip Thorne and I proposed our models of stars with neutron cores, people were not able to disprove our work. If theory is sound, experimental confirmation shows up sooner or later. So it was a matter of identification of a promising group of stars, getting telescope time and proceeding with the project.”

The study has been accepted for publication in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.

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Alan Turing would have been proud. Or would he have been terrified?

For the first time ever, a computer reportedly has passed the math genius’s iconic Turing Test, The Guardian reported. The achievement came at the Turing Test 2014 competition held at The Royal Society in London on Saturday, which was the 60th anniversary of Turing’s death.

Turing proposed his test in 1950 as a means of determining whether a machine could think on its own. He argued that if a machine could be mistaken for a human being more than 30 percent of the time during a series of keyboard conversations with actual humans, then it just might be “thinking.”

Now, a computer program named Eugene Goostman has met the challenge, convincing more than 33 percent of the judges at this year’s competition that ‘Eugene’ was actually a 13-year-old boy. The program came close to passing the test in a 2012 competition, fooling the judges 29 percent of the time.

“It’s a remarkable achievement for us and we hope it boosts interest in artificial intelligence and chatbots,” Dr. Vladimir Veselov, one of the researchers who developed Eugene Goostman, said in a written statement. “Going forward we plan to make Eugene smarter and continue working on improving what we refer to as ‘conversation logic.'”

Is Eugene really thinking? Actually, the computer program is a sophisticated simulator of human conversation run by scripts, io9.com reported.

In any case, competition organizer Dr. Kevin Warwick, a professor at the University of Reading in the U.K., said that the achievement has serious implications for modern-day society.

“Having a computer that can trick a human into thinking that someone, or even something, is a person we trust is a wake-up call to cybercrime,” Warwick said in the statement. “The Turing Test is a vital tool for combatting that threat. It is important to understand more fully how online, real-time communication of this type can influence an individual human in such a way that they are fooled into believing something is true…when in fact it is not.”