In November 2018, while filming the second episode of Dynasties, a BBC Earth series focused on the struggles of endangered species, the crew found themselves in a dilemma. During a massive storm, they spotted a colony of Emperor penguins trapped in a ravine, separated from their rookery. Although the crew was bound by the standard rule against interfering with nature, they ultimately chose to step in and help the penguins.
Representative Image Source: Getty Images | David Merron Photography
Dynasties director Will Lawson explained their decision to break this “cardinal rule of nature documentaries” during an interview with Lorraine. “It was not a straightforward decision by any stretch of the imagination,” he shared. “You just have to look at the facts that are in front of you before you make a decision like that.” The storm had brought temperatures down to minus 50 degrees Celsius (minus 76 degrees Fahrenheit). The mother penguins, cradling their chicks, struggled to climb the icy slopes, unable to do so without risking their babies’ safety.
Some chicks who were abandoned in the gully already froze to death while others were at the risk of getting attacked by predatory animals. The cameraman who was reduced to tears after witnessing this, told Country Living, “I know it’s natural, but it’s bloody hard to watch.”
After the storm ceased, the crew approached the icy patch where the penguins were trapped and constructed a shallow ramp that they could use to climb the slope. “We opted to intervene passively,” Lawson told Country Living. “Once we’d dug that little ramp, which took very little time, we left it to the birds. We were elated when they decided to use it.” Lawson added that there is no “rule book” for dealing with situations like this.
In an unprecedented move, the crew decided to act. They dug a shallow ramp in the hope that at least some of the penguins would use it to save themselves ?#Dynastiespic.twitter.com/yRuoEGPDCk— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) November 18, 2018
The show’s narrator, David Attenborough, is known for being strictly against interrupting the natural course of events. But according to Country Living, Attenborough later explained the crew’s decision by saying, “It’s very rare for the film crew to intervene. But they realize that they might be able to save at least some of these birds, simply by digging a few steps in the ice.” Producer Mike Gunton also supported the decision. He said, “We have a rule that interfering is a very dangerous thing to do. But these penguins were going to die through a freak act of nature if nothing happened,” and added, “How would this conversation be going if you said you saw them there and did nothing? I think you have to do it.”
Three cheers to the @BBCEarth camera crew for digging a little ramp to save those penguins and their babies…! Remarkable work all round, but extra thanks for giving nature a tiny helping hand. We need to give nature all the helping hands we can. #Dynasties#BBC— Dominic Jermey (@DomJermey) November 18, 2018
In the end, the ramp constructed by the crew members proved to be useful for the penguins, who were seen climbing it to return to their colony. “To have done anything else would only make matters worse and distort the truth,” said Attenborough. On social media, the crew’s rare decision was received with positive response from people. @moleyjan called it a “fully justified intervention.” “Legendary film crew. Thank you for this and everything you did to bring us such a beautiful penguin,” commented @leahealey_. User @heikeoleary1 said, “Thanks for the ‘breaking’ the rules! Let kindness and common sense prevail.”
The modern workday unfolds largely indoors. Long hours spent commuting, sitting in meetings and staring at screens can make time outdoors feel like a luxury. Finding time for nature in an already packed workday can feel impossible, especially if you think nature only “counts” when it involves hiking boots and camping gear.
But a growing body of research suggests that nature’s benefits don’t require an exotic vacation getaway or weekend adventure. Even brief, routine interactions with green space can reduce stress, improve mood and promote overall well-being.
I spent the spring of 2026 teaching and studying urban landscapes in Denmark, a country consistently ranked among the happiest in the world. I expected to find thoughtfully designed parks, courtyards and bicycle paths. I did see those things. But what surprised me was how seamlessly people moved through those spaces as part of their ordinary lives.
These green spaces weren’t aspirational destinations, reserved for special occasions. They were places to eat lunch, meet friends, walk through on the way home from work, or just pause for a few quiet moments. Getting outside seemed a part of the natural rhythm of the day.
Denmark‘s outdoor culture stemmed not only from the creation of a meticulously planned network of parks, but also from the way green spaces were fundamentally woven into the routines of everyday life.
A wooden bench in one of Copenhagen’s forest therapy parks invites people to sit and soak in their surroundings. Todd Lookingbill
Everyday parks, everyday benefits
Evidence linking time spent in nature with health benefits has increasingly shaped public policy. In the U.S., for example, the National Park Service’s Healthy Parks Healthy People and ParkRx initiatives reflect a growing recognition that access to parks contributes to well-being.
For many Americans, however, the word “park” brings to mind iconic national parks such as Yellowstone, Yosemite or the Grand Canyon. Yet visiting parks of all kinds can improve your overall health. The greatest public health value may come not from the parks people visit once in a lifetime but from those close enough to visit again and again.
My own research on Civil War battlefield parks illustrates this point. These are parks that were established to commemorate historic conflicts that were frequently fought on the fringes of major metropolitan areas. Consequently, many of these landscapes preserve forests, grasslands and trails within easy reach of millions of Americans.
Because they’re accessible without extensive travel or planning, they can become places people return to repeatedly – such as during a lunch break or after work. Reframing the notion of “park” opens up millions of acres of land for everyday uses.
Designing for everyday nature
At the University of Richmond, where I work, a stream restoration projects became an opportunity to rethink how nature fits into campus life. Landscape architects designed an Eco-Corridor, as the project became known. It has walking paths, gathering spaces and seating areas for quiet reflection alongside flowing streams and native vegetation.
The result was a landscape that supports biodiversity and improves water quality while also creating places for students, faculty and staff to walk between meetings, eat lunch alfresco or spend a few quiet moments outside during the workday. Its ongoing care depends on an army of volunteers who spread mulch, remove invasive plants and tend the community garden. For these volunteers, stewardship between classes and meetings meant another opportunity to interact with nature.
Students walk through the ‘Eco-Corridor’ at the University of Richmond. Haley Herrmann
What we learned was that nature doesn’t have to compete with work, studying or everyday responsibilities. Thoughtful landscape design can make spending time outdoors, even if only for a few short minutes, feel like a normal part of the day.
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the oldest person lived to the ripe age of 122 years old. Such a lifespan is an incredible feat, but what if the average person could beat that record by 34 years? Recent research done in Russia has led scientists to believe that the average human lifespan could be up to 156 years.
The researchers at Skoltech Biomed Technologies Center developed a mathematical model that allowed them to “switch on” a variety of aging mechanisms. This allowed them to calculate a human’s lifespan where mortality risk never increased with age. After experimenting with different scenarios and conditions, they found the biggest barriers to longevity were caused by non-renewable tissues and somatic mutations.
What are these barriers against longer life?
Somatic mutations are DNA changes within a cell. They accumulate over time during a human’s life and cannot be reversed with any existing therapy. These DNA errors that pile up in our cells contribute to the aging process.
Many human organs like the liver and skin continually replace cells and regrow damaged portions of themselves. However, there are two organs that can’t do this: the brain and the heart. Brain tissue (neurons) and heart tissue (cardiomyocytes) cannot regenerate. This proves to be the most prominent biological limit that shortens our lifespans. This explains why issues like dementia and heart disease are prominent causes of death and morbidity later in life. Since those organs’ tissues don’t replace damaged cells, they’re prone to irrevocably decline over time.
“The key finding of the study is the discovery of substantial differences between tissue types. Neurons and cardiomyocytes, which lack the ability to divide, turned out to be the main limiting factors: when all other causes of aging are eliminated, somatic mutations alone reduce the theoretical median lifespan from 1,759 years (for a hypothetical non-aging human organism) to 156 years,” said Evgeny Efimov, a research intern at the Skoltech Biomed Technologies Center, researcher at AIRI, and one of the key authors of the study.
This suggests that somatic mutations and DNA damage is what ultimately prevents humans from living indefinitely, even if our brains and hearts regenerated cells like other organs.
So what’s next?
Now knowing these biological limitations, the researchers hope to study other areas of aging impacting the human lifespan that could plausibly be reversed. This includes mitochondrial dysfunction, telomere shortening, epigenetic drift, and loss of proteostasis.
The hope is to have a clearer priority list of issues for future therapies to tackle. This is not just to possibly extend life, but to improve lives in general. By developing a fully comprehensive theory of aging, Skoltech hopes to pinpoint which aspects of aging are within our scope to address. After all, thoroughly studying each puzzle piece that makes up human life gives us a better understanding of the whole.
Of course, other impactful factors in a person’s lifespan can be addressed today. As most know, things like diet, sleep, and exercise are among them. A person’s living environment can also negatively impact their lifespan if it doesn’t have clean air, access to clean water, and so on.
For now, the best method for living long is to follow instructions from your physician. Whether you make it to 156 years or not, living well is best for whatever time you’re given.
In the U.S., as of mid-2026, more than 30 states have passed laws banning or restricting cellphones in K–12 classrooms; in 2023, the U.S. surgeon general issued a formal advisory on social media and children’s and adolescents’ mental health; and bestselling books tell parents that smartphones are “rewiring” their children’s brains.
These concerns and policies are part of a quickly changing national and international conversation around how young people spend time on screens and its relationship to their overall health and development. My reading of the mounting research on this issue across disciplines is that the popular narrative blaming screens and smartphones for an adolescent mental health crisis runs well ahead of the current evidence.
I study adolescent digital media use and its influence on social, emotional and academic outcomes. A growing body of research suggests that one-size-fits-all solutions are not the answer and that managing appropriate use of digital media needs to take into account a child’s developmental milestones, how parents and adults around them use media, and the ways kids use it to connect and learn with friends and family.
Screen time: From monolith to multifaceted
Wide adoption of digital media and the internet broadened the range of experiences young people could have online. At the same time, the digital age introduced newfound uncertainties. As with the advent of radio, comic books and arcades, adults worried about how children might interact with or be affected by internet use.
Policies introduced by the academy in 2013 and 2016 continued to advise that school-age kids and adolescents – those ages 5 to 18 – be restricted to no more than two hours of “entertainment” screen time a day. The goal was to curb risks associated with heavy media use, among them disrupted sleep, online safety, cyberbullying and physical inactivity.
Originally created for young people’s engagement with stationary media that tend to be confined to one room or context – for example, watching television – these hourly limits became outdated with the integration of smartphones and other digital devices into everyday life. Compared with watching television, online media was far more difficult to track and define, and more nuanced in its use.
In January 2026, the American Academy of Pediatrics retired its decade-old framework that had largely organized its advice around hourly screen limits. The new policy statement on children, adolescents and digital media diverges from this blanket approach. Instead, it suggests parents consider the larger picture in which this media use exists rather than lumping all screen use together.
Both the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics also recommend that when children under 24 months use screens, they should be limited to content and devices that encourage children and caregivers to interact. For ages 2 to 5, screen time – including TV and interactive apps on devices – may be extended to more solo use, provided it’s high-quality digital media designed around learning goals in mathematics and reading. But recreational use should be limited to roughly an hour per day.
For school-age children and teens, the newest guidance has begun to step away from fixed screen time limits and asks families to weigh online activity in the context of everyday life.
Doing so recognizes that a child’s digital experiences are shaped by diverse factors rather than the hours spent online. Current guidelines call on caregivers to distinguish among types of media, from television and social media to video games and interacting with artificial intelligence chatbots. They also call for taking into account a child’s individual characteristics, such as their interests and personality, family members’ own use of screens, and the type of content children are spending time on.
Rethinking screen time
Moving beyond strict screen time limits includes questioning the kind of digital activities kids and adolescents participate in. Do the activities encourage time spent interacting with others online, which can help young people develop important skills and competencies?
Scrolling an algorithm-based, auto-playing video feed likely does not equate to the same opportunities as video-chatting with friends, creating digital art or working with teammates in a multiplayer game. Research suggests these different uses relate to development in different ways and can help kids develop varying skill sets pertaining to everyday life and schooling.
Indeed, a large review of current research found that young people who take part in a range of digital activities, such as browsing the web, online gaming or interacting on social media, show positive associations with social connection, identity exploration, civic participation and learning.
The current evidence suggests parents and caregivers are best positioned to be digital instructors. Cutting children off altogether can carry its own risks for social and emotional development. Caregiver mediation of children’s screen time can produce widely different outcomes and effects, depending on whether the guidance is supportive or controlling.
Considering your own digital media use is the first step: Are family members engaging in problematic or heavy media use that children in the household might emulate? What applications and uses are most common in the family, and what positive or negative effects might they have, depending on the child’s age? How could these digital activities be safely integrated with other everyday experiences to increase their benefit for children? Conversely, what online time might be better spent on face-to-face experiences?
The American Academy of Pediatrics’ Family Media Plan tool turns these ideas into concrete questions. For example, it recommends working out what each child needs from digital technology, what activities screens might be crowding out, and where their family or household can build in screen-free time. The recommendation is to talk with each child about why they are drawn to particular apps or online activities, what they encounter while browsing, and what might be lost when kids bring phones to gatherings such as mealtimes.
The debate over young people’s screen time is not going away. But the most up-to-date guidelines, and the growing body of research behind them, make a strong case for a more holistic approach. The guidelines treat digital media as a complex, diverse and evolving environment that children need to learn to navigate in the digital age. The risks and rewards depend, as with any developmental setting, on the child, the content and what online time might be crowding out.
