James Harden is having an MVP-caliber season for the Houston Rockets, but it’s clear that his unmatched awareness on the court doesn’t travel so well when he steps off to the sidelines. The bearded NBA superstar was seated courtside during a pre-game shootaround when BlocBoy JB’s “Shoot” started playing through the Toyota Center’s PA system.
Harden couldn’t help but bust out some incredibly bold and goofy dance moves, unaware that his act was caught on camera and projected on the arena’s jumbotron for all to see.
Once his blissful unawareness came to a screeching halt, he paused for a few beats, then got right back to dancing with a wide smile. It appears when you’re an international superstar, doubling down on these silly little moments comes easily.
If history’s any indication, Harden’s the type of guy to bust a move whenever and wherever the mood strikes, which appears to be — more often than not — on the sidelines before games.
Following his most recent dance number, Harden took to the court to tally up 38 points, 10 rebounds, and nine assists in a win over the Wizards on April 3.
Across Appalachia, rust-colored water seeps from abandoned coal mines, staining rocks orange and coating stream beds with metals. These acidic discharges, known as acid mine drainage, are among the region’s most persistent environmental problems. They disrupt aquatic life, corrode pipes and can contaminate drinking water for decades.
However, hidden in that orange drainage are valuable metals known as rare earth elements that are vital for many technologies the U.S. relies on, including smartphones, wind turbines and military jets. In fact, studies have found that the concentrations of rare earths in acid mine waste can be comparable to the amount in ores mined to extract rare earths.
Scientists estimate that more than 13,700 miles (22,000 kilometers) of U.S. streams, predominantly in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, are contaminated with acid mine discharge.
We and our colleagues at West Virginia University have been working on ways to turn the acid waste in those bright orange creeks into a reliable domestic source for rare earths while also cleaning the water.
Experiments show extraction can work. If states can also sort out who owns that mine waste, the environmental cost of mining might help power a clean energy future.
Rare earths face a supply chain risk
Rare earth elements are a group of 17 metals, also classified as critical minerals, that are considered vital to the nation’s economy or security.
MP Materials’ Mountain Pass Rare Earth Mine and Processing Facility, in California near the Nevada border, is one of the few rare earth mines in the U.S. Tmy350/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA
China controls about 70% of global rare earth production and nearly all refining capacity. This near monopoly gives the Chinese government the power to influence prices, export policies and access to rare earth elements. China has used that power in trade disputes as recently as 2025.
The United States, which currently imports about 80% of the rare earth elements it uses, sees China’s control over these critical minerals as a risk and has made locating domestic sources a national priority.
The U.S. Geological Survey has been mapping locations for potential rare earth mining, shown in pink. But it takes years to explore a locations and then get a mine up and running. USGS
Although the U.S. Geological Survey has been mapping potential locations for extracting rare earth elements, getting from exploration to production takes years. That’s why unconventional sources, like extracting rare earth elements from acid mine waste, are drawing interest.
Turning a mine waste problem into a solution
Acid mine drainage forms when sulfide minerals, such as pyrite, are exposed to air during mining. This creates sulfuric acid, which then dissolves heavy metals such as copper, lead and mercury from surrounding rock. The metals end up in groundwater and creeks, where iron in the mix gives the water an orange color.
Expensive treatment systems can neutralize the acid, with the dissolved metals settling into an orange sludge in treatment ponds.
For decades, that sludge was treated as hazardous waste and hauled to landfills. But scientists at West Virginia University and the National Energy Technology Laboratory have found that it contains concentrations of rare earth elements comparable to those found in mined ores. These elements are also easier to extract from acid mine waste because the acidic water has already released them from the surrounding rock.
Acid mine drainage flowing into Decker’s Creek in Morgantown, West Virginia, in 2024. Helene Nguemgaing
Experiments have shown how the metals can be extracted: Researchers collected sludge, separated out rare earth elements using water-safe chemistry, and then returned the cleaner water to nearby streams.
It is like mining without digging, turning something harmful into a useful resource. If scaled up, this process could lower cleanup costs, create local jobs and strengthen America’s supply of materials needed for renewable energy and high-tech manufacturing.
But there’s a problem: Who owns the recovered minerals?
The ownership question
Traditional mining law covers minerals underground, not those extracted from water naturally running off abandoned mine sites.
Nonprofit watershed groups that treat mine waste to clean up the water often receive public funding meant solely for environmental cleanup. If these groups start selling recovered rare earth elements, they could generate revenue for more stream cleanup projects, but they might also risk violating grant terms or nonprofit rules.
To better understand the policy challenges, we surveyed mine water treatment operators across Pennsylvania and West Virginia. The majority of treatment systems were under landowner agreements in which the operators had no permanent property rights. Most operators said “ownership uncertainty” was one of the biggest barriers to investment in the recovery of rare earth elements, projects that can cost millions of dollars.
Not surprisingly, water treatment operators who owned the land where treatment was taking place were much more likely to be interested in rare earth element extraction.
Map of acid mine drainage sites in West Virginia. Created by Helene Nguemgaing, based on data from West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, West Virginia Office of GIS Coordination, and U.S. Geological Survey
West Virginia took steps in 2022 to boost rare earth recovery, innovation and cleanup of acid mine drainage. A new law gives ownership of recovered rare earth elements to whoever extracts them. So far, the law has not been applied to large-scale projects.
Across the border, Pennsylvania’s Environmental Good Samaritan Act protects volunteers who treat mine water from liability but says nothing about ownership.
Map of acid mine drainage sites in Pennsylvania. Created by Helene Nguemgaing, based on data from Pennsylvania Spatial Data Access
This difference matters. Clear rules like West Virginia’s provide greater certainty, while the lack of guidance in Pennsylvania can leave companies and nonprofits hesitant about undertaking expensive recovery projects. Among the treatment operators we surveyed, interest in rare earth element extraction was twice as high in West Virginia than in Pennsylvania.
The economics of waste to value
Recovering rare earth elements from mine water won’t replace conventional mining. The quantities available at drainage sites are far smaller than those produced by large mines, even though the concentration can be just as high, and the technology to extract them from mine waste is still developing.
Still, the use of mine waste offers a promising way to supplement the supply of rare earth elements with a domestic source and help offset environmental costs while cleaning up polluted streams.
Early studies suggest that recovering rare earth elements using technologies being developed today could be profitable, particularly when the projects also recover additional critical materials, such as cobalt and manganese, which are used in industrial processes and batteries. Extraction methods are improving, too, making the process safer, cleaner and cheaper.
Treating acid mine drainage and extracting its valuable rare earth elements offers a way to transform pollution into prosperity. Creating policies that clarify ownership, investing in research and supporting responsible recovery could ensure that Appalachian communities benefit from this new chapter, one in which cleanup and clean energy advance together.
As Americans increasingly report feeling overwhelmed by daily life, many are using self-care to cope. Conversations and social media feeds are saturated with the language of “me time,” burnout, boundaries and nervous system regulation.
To meet this demand, the wellness industry has grown into a multitrillion-dollar global market. Myriad providers offer products, services and lifestyle prescriptions that promise calm, balance and restoration.
Paradoxically, though, even as interest in self-care continues to grow, Americans’ mental health is getting worse.
I am a professor of public health who studies health behaviors and the gap between intentions and outcomes. I became interested in this self-care paradox recently, after I suffered from a concussion. I was prescribed two months of strictly screen-free cognitive rest – no television, email, Zooming, social media, streaming or texting.
The benefits were almost immediate, and they surprised me. I slept better, had a longer attention span and had a newfound sense of mental quiet. These effects reflected a well-established principle in neuroscience: When cognitive and emotional stimuli decrease, the brain’s regulatory systems can recover from overload and chronic stress.
Obviously, most people can’t go 100% screen-free for days, much less months, but the underlying principle offers a powerful lesson for practicing effective self-care.
Chronic disease patterns mirror this strain. When daily stress becomes chronic, it can trigger biological changes that increase the risk of long-term conditions like heart disease and diabetes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 6 in 10 U.S. adults live with at least one chronic condition, and 4 in 10 live with multiple chronic conditions.
How people try to cope
Many Americans say they actively practice self-care in everyday life. For example, they describe taking mental health days, protecting personal time, setting boundaries around work and prioritizing rest and leisure.
The problem lies in how they use that leisure time.
Over the past 22 years, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ American Time Use Survey has consistently found that watching television is the most popular leisure activity for U.S. adults. Americans spend far more time watching TV than exercising, spending time with friends or practicing reflection through activities like yoga. Other common self-care activities include watching movies and gaming.
Modern leisure time increasingly includes smartphone use. Surveys suggest that mobile phones have become the dominant screen for many Americans, with adults spending several hours per day on their phones.
For many adults, checking social media or watching short videos has become a default relaxation behavior layered on top of traditional screen use. This practice is often referred to as second screening.
Although many people turn to screen-based activities to wind down, these activities may have the opposite effect biologically.
Why modern screen use feels different
Pre-internet forms of leisure often involved activities such as watching scheduled television programs, listening to radio broadcasts or reading books and magazines. For all of these pastimes, the content followed a predictable sequence with natural stopping points.
Today’s digital media environment looks very different. People routinely engage with multiple screens at once, respond to frequent notifications and switch rapidly between several streams of content. These environments continuously require users to split their attention, engage their emotions and make decisions.
Modern digital platforms are designed to maximize engagement. Algorithms tend to prioritize emotionally arousing content, particularly anger, anxiety and outrage. These feelings drive clicks, sharing and time spent on platforms. Research has shown that this design is associated with higher stress, distraction and cognitive load.
When ‘rest’ doesn’t restore
Against the backdrop of daily hassles and competing demands, it can feel like relief to flip on the TV. Practices such as streaming or so-called bed-rotting – spending extended periods in bed while scrolling – often are framed as a form of radical rest or self-care.
Other common coping behaviors include leaving the television on as background noise, scrolling between tasks throughout the day or using phones during meals and conversations. These strategies can feel restful because they temporarily reduce external demands and decision-making.
However, pairing rest with screen use may undermine the very restoration that people are seeking. Digital media stimulate attention, emotion and sensory processing. Even while people are sitting or lying still, being onscreen can keep their nervous systems in a heightened state of arousal. It may look like downtime, but it doesn’t create the biological conditions for restoration.
Unwind with analog or low-novelty activities, such as reading print, journaling, gentle movement or device-free walking. These pastimes allow mental engagement without overload.
The goal is to intentionally reduce mental load, not to abandon all digital devices.
To improve well-being in our overstimulated society, it’s important to understand the difference between feeling as though you are unwinding and actually allowing your brain and body to recover. In my view, fewer screens, fewer inputs, fewer emotional demands and more protected time for genuine cognitive rest are important components of an effective wellness strategy.
Imagine going to the hospital for a bacterial ear infection and hearing your doctor say, “We’re out of options.” It may sound dramatic, but antibiotic resistance is pushing that scenario closer to becoming reality for an increasing number of people. In 2016, a woman from Nevada died from a bacterial infection that was resistant to all 26 antibiotics that were available in the United States at that time.
Bacteria naturally evolve in ways that can make the drugs meant to kill them less effective. However, when antibiotics are overused or used improperly in medicine or agriculture, these pressures accelerate the process of resistance.
As resistant bacteria spread, lifesaving treatments face new complications – common infections become harder to treat, and routine surgeries become riskier. Slowing these threats to modern medicine requires not only responsible antibiotic use and good hygiene, but also awareness of how everyday actions influence resistance.
For decades, treating bacterial infections has involved a lot of educated guesswork. When a very sick patient arrives at the hospital and clinicians don’t yet know the exact bacteria causing the illness, they often start with a broad-spectrum antibiotic. These drugs kill many different types of bacteria at once, which can be lifesaving — but they also expose a wide range of other bacteria in the body to antibiotics. While some bacteria are killed, the ones that remain continue to multiply and spread resistance genes between different bacterial species. That unnecessary exposure gives harmless or unrelated bacteria a chance to adapt and develop resistance.
In contrast, narrow-spectrum antibiotics target only a small group of bacteria. Clinicians typically prefer these types of antibiotics because they treat the infection without disturbing bacteria that are not involved in the infection. However, it can take several days to identify the exact bacteria causing the infection. During that waiting period, clinicians often feel they have no choice but to start broad-spectrum treatment – especially if the patient is seriously ill.
For clinicians, better tests could help them make faster diagnoses and more effective treatment plans that won’t exacerbate resistance. For researchers, these tools point to an urgent need to integrate diagnostics with real-time surveillance networks capable of tracking resistance patterns as they emerge.
Diagnostics alone will not solve resistance, but they provide the precision, speed and early warning needed to stay ahead.
2. Expanding beyond traditional antibiotics
Antibiotics transformed medicine in the 20th century, but relying on them alone won’t carry humanity through the 21st. The pipeline of new antibiotics remains distressingly thin, and most drugs currently in development are structurally similar to existing antibiotics, potentially limiting their effectiveness.
To stay ahead, researchers are investing in nontraditional therapies, many of which work in fundamentally different ways than standard antibiotics.
One promising direction is bacteriophage therapy, which uses viruses that specifically infect and kill harmful bacteria. Others are exploring microbiome-based therapies that restore healthy bacterial communities to crowd out pathogens.
Researchers are also developing CRISPR-based antimicrobials, using gene-editing tools to precisely disable resistance genes. New compounds like antimicrobial peptides, which puncture the membranes of bacteria to kill them, show promise as next-generation drugs. Meanwhile, scientists are designing nanoparticle delivery systems to transport antimicrobials directly to infection sites with fewer side effects.
Many of these options remain early-stage, and bacteria may eventually evolve around them. But these innovations reflect a powerful shift: Instead of betting on discovering a single antibiotic to address resistance, researchers are building a more diverse and resilient tool kit to fight antibiotic-resistant pathogenic bacteria.
3. Antimicrobial resistance outside hospitals
Antibiotic resistance doesn’t only spread in hospitals. It moves through people, wildlife, crops, wastewater, soil and global trade networks. This broader perspective that takes the principles of One Health into account is essential for understanding how resistance genes travel through ecosystems.
Researchers are increasingly recognizing environmental and agricultural factors as major drivers of resistance, on par with misuse of antibiotics in the clinic. These include how antibiotics used in animal agriculture can create resistant bacteria that spread to people; how resistance genes in wastewater can survive treatment systems and enter rivers and soil; and how farms, sewage plants and other environmental hot spots become hubs where resistance spreads quickly. Even global travel accelerates the movement of resistant bacteria across continents within hours.
Together, these forces show that antibiotic resistance isn’t just an issue for hospitals – it’s an ecological and societal problem. For researchers, this means designing solutions that cross disciplines, integrating microbiology, ecology, engineering, agriculture and public health.
4. Policies on what treatments exist in the future
Drug companies lose money developing new antibiotics. Because new antibiotics are used sparingly in order to preserve their effectiveness, companies often sell too few doses to recoup development costs even after the Food and Drug Administration approves the drugs. Several antibiotic companies have gone bankrupt for this reason.
To encourage antibiotic innovation, the U.S. is considering major policy changes like the PASTEUR Act. This bipartisan bill proposes creating a subscription-style payment model that would allow the federal government up to US$3 billion to pay drug manufacturers over five to 10 years for access to critical antibiotics instead of paying per pill.
Still, the bill represents one of the most significant policy proposals related to antimicrobial resistance in U.S. history and could determine what antibiotics exist in the future.
The future of antibiotic resistance
Antibiotic resistance is sometimes framed as an inevitable catastrophe. But I believe the reality is more hopeful: Society is entering an era of smarter diagnostics, innovative therapies, ecosystem-level strategies and policy reforms aimed at rebuilding the antibiotic pipeline in addition to addressing stewardship.
For the public, this means better tools and stronger systems of protection. For researchers and policymakers, it means collaborating in new ways.
The question now isn’t whether there are solutions to antibiotic resistance – it’s whether society will act fast enough to use them.
