Research

Does cannabis cause anxiety? It depends

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 14:54:20 +0000

Does cannabis cause anxiety? It depends Rachel Sauer Fri, 03/27/2026 - 08:54

Blake Puscher

Research suggests that cannabis may cause anxiety when it is strong enough or taken in large enough quantity to produce an immediate effect

Cannabis is an increasingly common drug, with more than 64 million people reporting use in 2024 in the United States alone, according to Statista—more than double the amount in 2010. Despite this, its effects are not well understood. For example, some people use cannabis for relief from anxiety, but there is also evidence that it can cause or worsen anxiety depending on the individual, how much is taken and other factors.

Determining what effect cannabis has on anxiety requires a better understanding of how it affects the endocannabinoid system. To this end, researchers from CUChange (Center for Health and Neuroscience, Genes and Environment), including Renée Martin-Willett, Carillon Skrzynski, Ethan Taylor and Cinnamon Bidwell, with assistance from Jost Klawitter and Cristina Sempio of the University of Colorado Anschutz, assessed the biochemical changes that occurred when people with anxiety took different cannabis products.

Endocannabinoids

The endocannabinoid system is a biological system that extends throughout the whole body. “It’s not just in our brains,” Martin-Willett says; “it’s also in the peripheral nervous system, which is just a fancy way of saying it’s all over the body.”

Renée Martin-Willett (left) and Carillon Skrzynski (right), along with their CUChange research colleagues, assessed the biochemical changes that occurred when people with anxiety took different cannabis products.

The system uses two receptors: CB1 and CB2. In biology, receptors are chemical structures that contribute to a biological effect when they bind with compatible chemical messengers. Whether a receptor and messenger will be able to bind depends on their structure, similar to a lock and key, except that the structure is chemical. When a messenger binds to a receptor and the receptor uses the signal (by relaying or amplifying it, for example), the messenger is considered an agonist—as opposed to an antagonist, which is like a key that fits in a lock but, instead of opening that lock, prevents the correct key from being inserted.

Unlike keys, which either work or do not, chemical messengers can have effects of different strength. For example, THC (delta 9-tetrahydrocannabinol), the main psychoactive component of cannabis, is only a partial agonist of CB1. According to Martin-Willett, CB1 is mostly concentrated in the brain, whereas CB2 is mostly in the gut. The other main component of cannabis is CBD (cannabidiol), which modulates CB1 and CB2, making the effects they produce when activated by agonists weaker without preventing agonists from binding to the receptors.

These chemicals act on the endocannabinoid system because they have chemical structures like endocannabinoids, which are neurotransmitters that are produced by the human body. The two most-studied endocannabinoids are AEA (N-arachidonoyl ethanolamide) and 2-AG (2-arachidonoylglycerol), and they are the focus of this study for that reason.

“2-AG has a really high concentration, and it’s mostly in the brain,” Martin-Willett explains. “It binds with CB1. Then AEA, which has much lower concentrations, is more in the periphery. It’s implicated in implantation and the hormonal cycle for women and is increasingly being linked to anxiety and other kinds of mood disorders.” AEA is associated with positive feelings, and the receptors it binds with, CB1 and CB2, are thought to play a role in whether people view their environment in a positive or negative way. Therefore, AEA may ameliorate feelings of anxiety.

Although some simple facts about the endocannabinoid system are understood, many details remain unexplained. In particular, there is a question as to the effect of cannabis on the endocannabinoid system. This includes how THC and CBD may affect the concentration of AEA and 2-AG in the body, which has implications for what effect cannabis has on anxiety and other aspects of people’s mental state. “Sometimes I tell people the endocannabinoid system is like the Mariana Trench of biomedicine,” Martin-Willett says, “because it was only really discovered in the mid-‘90s. How did we not know about this entire, full-body system until the ‘90s?”

The study

Because this study was intended to determine the effect of cannabis use on anxiety, the participants all had scores on the GAD-7 (generalized anxiety disorder) screener that indicated at least mild anxiety. The participants were split up into four groups: one-fourth of the participants were in the control group (meaning they did not use any cannabis), one-fourth used THC-dominant products, one-fourth used CBD-dominant products and one-fourth used products that combined THC and CBD in a 1:1 ratio.

Some people use cannabis for relief from anxiety, but there is also evidence that it can cause or worsen anxiety depending on the individual, how much is taken and other factors. (Photo: Unsplash)

The study found that the people in the THC-dominant and 1:1 groups had higher AEA levels than those in the control group when cannabis was taken during an acute administration session (meaning in a single dose that is strong enough to produce an immediate effect as opposed to administration over the course of weeks). These results are consistent with the hypothesis that the effects of THC on AEA are caused by competitive binding between the two chemicals at CB1.

“THC might affect AEA in a couple of different ways,” Martin-Willett explains. “THC will bind to CB1 in a ‘normal’ way at the synapse, but it will also permeate the lipid bilayer of the cell itself. The results from our paper support that first idea that THC is competitively binding with AEA at CB1. It is kind of fighting AEA to bind and winning more often than AEA is.”

The basic idea is that whenever THC binds to a receptor, it takes away an opportunity for AEA to bind, causing fewer receptors to be activated by AEA. Even though THC and AEA are both partial agonists of CB1, it is possible that the effects they create upon binding are different. “One idea,” Martin-Willett continues, “is if more AEA makes you less anxious, and in the moment, THC binds competitively with CB1 and keeps AEA from interacting, maybe that is contributing to the paranoia or anxiety after acute use of THC. That is speculative, though. We do not have good human studies on that yet.”

2-AG levels did not change when administered acutely. This could be because 2-AG has higher concentrations in the human body than AEA, making the consequences of introducing THC less significant in the short term. However, in the THC-dominant group, it increased from baseline after two weeks before decreasing to reach a near-baseline level by week four. While AEA is thought to be associated with positive feelings, the association between 2-AG is mostly unknown.

Catching up with the market

Since the Controlled Substances Act of 1971, cannabis has been classified as a Schedule I drug in the United States, which means that it faces special restrictions on the federal level. That may change soon because of the Department of Health and Human Services’ 2023 recommendation that cannabis be reclassified as a Schedule III drug and because of President Trump’s 2025 executive order on the subject. Despite this, and even in states where cannabis has been legalized, the current classification puts limits on studies like this one.

For example, second author Carillon Skrzynski says, “In a lot of our studies, we are not allowed to tell people how much to use, or what to use in some circumstances. That really puts a damper on any kind of causal conclusion.” Ordinarily, scientists keep all variables that could affect the phenomenon they want to understand constant except for one, called the independent variable, which they vary in a controlled manner. This makes the relationship between the independent variable and the phenomenon clear. If multiple variables change at the same time, it becomes almost impossible to say how much each variable contributes to the phenomenon, or even if they would have an effect individually.

“I think there are two really exciting areas that the field needs to move towards,” Martin-Willett adds. “Number one, we need to account for age. We know that the endocannabinoid system changes a lot when we get older. People talk about reduced tone, which just means you have fewer receptors, but we do not really know what that means—if it has a greater effect or a lower effect. And I think the other piece of it is sex assigned at birth. Like I mentioned, more and more the endocannabinoid system is being viewed like the endocrine system, or like the hormonal system, and these things are intertwined, especially AEA and the reproductive system.”

Martin-Willett and Skrzynski both plan to look into these areas. Additionally, their center, CUChange, has multiple studies running and is actively looking for research participants. That is important not only because the different effects of cannabis are unknown, but because it is already being used on a large scale. “A lot of this is really unregulated right now,” Martin-Willett says, “and I think the market is way ahead of the science. People are already using cannabinoids for anxiety, for sleep, for pain, for other kinds of mood problems, and so they can make their voices heard to the government, that this is someplace they want research money to go.”

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Research suggests that cannabis may cause anxiety when it is strong enough or taken in large enough quantity to produce an immediate effect.

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Young musicians tend to keep playing later in life

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 18:38:58 +0000

Young musicians tend to keep playing later in life Rachel Sauer Wed, 03/25/2026 - 12:38

Clint Talbott

But their path is not linear, with many starting, stopping and resuming in adulthood; genetics and home environment play differing roles, �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder research finds

Those who played a guitar, piano or ukulele as kids are more likely than average to play as an adult—though perhaps not as likely as you might expect.

That’s one finding of a new study led by �鶹��Ѱ�� researcher Dan Gustavson, which sheds light on how children’s early interactions with music shape—but don’t determine—their musical lives decades later.

The findings, recently published in the journal Developmental Science, draw on nearly 40 years of data from surveys of 1,900 people in The Colorado Adoption/Twin Study of Lifespan Behavioral Development and Cognitive Aging (CATSLife).

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder researcher Dan Gustavson led a recently published study that sheds light on how children’s early interactions with music shape—but don’t determine—their musical lives decades later.

Gustavson and his colleagues analyzed measures of “music engagement”—being interested in and skilled at musical instruments—of participants at ages 7, 10, 12 and 16, then compared them with the same individuals’ music-playing habits in their 30s. The result: Early music engagement predicts adult instrument playing, but far less strongly than expected.

Many participants started and stopped music throughout adolescence, and some took up music later in life.

“We found more change than stability,” says Gustavson, assistant research professor at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder’s Institute of Behavioral Genetics. “Kids don’t follow a single linear path. A lot of them start, stop and restart music as they grow.”

The study also highlights shifting genetic and environmental influences. In childhood, shared environmental factors—such as family resources, school access and neighborhood programs—played a major role in determining who “engaged” with music. By adolescence, however, genetic influences grew stronger, probably reflecting teens’ increasing autonomy in the activities they pursue.

“Adolescence is a time where you start to get a lot more freedom over your own behavior,” Gustavson says. “Your interests become less influenced by your parents and more by what you’re exploring. People who are just more naturally tuned to figuring out musical instruments are going to find themselves in those environments more.”

Gender differences emerged as well. Girls were somewhat more likely to engage with music in childhood, though boys showed slightly higher heritability for music engagement at younger ages. These differences disappeared by adolescence.

“Girls were more likely to play music than boys . . . but in boys, there was slightly higher heritability in childhood for music engagement. That actually evened out by adolescence,” Gustavson says.

Playing and listening

Perhaps surprisingly, listening to music in adulthood was largely unrelated to playing music in childhood. Playing and listening appear to be distinct traits. “Passive listening is its own thing,” Gustavson notes. “It doesn’t track neatly with who played instruments as kids.”

“Music may be uniquely positioned to support language development, cognitive growth and even resilience against risky behaviors. But kids can’t benefit from it if they don’t have access,” says �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder researcher Dan Gustavson. (Photo: Dzmitry Shepeleu/Unsplash)

Gustavson is now exploring whether music engagement at key developmental windows—especially around age 12—may help protect teens from later substance use. Preliminary evidence suggests early adolescent music engagement is linked to lower rates of alcohol use and fewer substances tried in late adolescence, five to 10 years later.

He notes that scientists take a developmental perspective on how behaviors can affect health. “You can’t just look at one time point when you want to understand how behaviors relate to important health outcomes. You have to think about the developmental stage. . . . There may be specific windows where things matter a lot more.

“Adolescence is when people start experimenting, and putting yourself in a music environment might be most protective during this time,” he says. Ultimately, Gustavson hopes the research might strengthen arguments for restoring music programs in schools.

“Music may be uniquely positioned to support language development, cognitive growth and even resilience against risky behaviors,” he says. “But kids can’t benefit from it if they don’t have access.”

CATSLife twin studies and other longitudinal twin research help scientists discern the influences of genetics vs. environmental factors by comparing identical twins (who have 100% shared genes) and fraternal twins (with 50% shared genes).

As a student, Gustavson became interested in the power of such studies: “I had friends growing up who were twins, and we always talked about what makes twins similar or different. Taking courses here, I found it really exciting to unpack which aspects of things are explained by genetics and which by the environment.”

Music itself strikes a chord with Gustavson, who plays guitar and drums and was a professional musician for a couple of years before he earned his PhD. “I’ve been really grateful that I’ve been able to integrate this into my research program now.

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But their path is not linear, with many starting, stopping and resuming in adulthood; genetics and home environment play differing roles, �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder research finds.

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TikTok doesn’t change minds—it changes moods

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 23:25:55 +0000

TikTok doesn’t change minds—it changes moods Rachel Sauer Mon, 03/23/2026 - 17:25

Bradley Worrell

New research from �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder political scientist Michelangelo Landgrave finds that watching political influencers on TikTok does not seem to influence young voters on the issues—but does leave them feeling sadder, angrier and more anxious

If you are over the age of 30, put aside those preconceived ideas that TikTok is just a website where teens and young adults watch 10-second videos of cute cats.

According to the Pew Research Center, about one in five U.S. adults now regularly gets their news from TikTok—and usage is highest among people under age 30. That shift prompted �鶹��Ѱ�� political scientist Michelangelo Landgrave to ask a simple but important question: What does consuming political content on TikTok actually do to young voters?

In a new study published in Political Studies Review, Landgrave and his co-authors found that while TikTok videos from political influencers don’t appear to change young voters’ positions on the issues, they do have an impact—making those viewers feel more negative emotional states, such as anxiety, anger and sadness.

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder political scientist Michelangelo Landgrave and his research colleagues found that while TikTok political influencers may not change minds, they do change moods.

Landgrave recently discussed the findings of his research paper with Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine. His comments have been edited lightly for clarity and condensed.

Question: How does this latest study fit into your broader area of research?

Landgrave: I study American politics broadly, including institutions and political behavior. This paper is primarily a behavior study. It was inspired by earlier work examining how exposure to traditional news media—like Fox News and CNN—shapes political beliefs.

We started thinking that traditional media isn’t where many young people get their news anymore. Instead, they’re getting it from TikTok or similar short‑form video platforms like YouTube. It’s arguably the only type of media where the number of people getting news is actually increasing. Traditional media still has an audience, but it’s relatively stagnant and it skews older.

That led us to ask: Does this change in media format affect how people process political information?

Question: At the outset, were you surprised to learn how many younger Americans are getting their news from TikTok?

Landgrave: Somewhat. One of our co‑authors, Robert Anstett, was a student at the time, and we brought him onto the project explicitly because neither I nor the other senior co‑author, Abdelaziz Alsharawy (assistant professor at UT Health Houston School of Public Health), really used TikTok. We had a sense this was happening, but we weren’t firsthand users of TikTok.

We had read a Pew Research Center report noting that an increasing number of people get their news from TikTok, and both of us thought, ‘Isn’t that just a 5‑second clip? What can you really get from that?’

That skepticism helped motivate the study.

Question: When and where was this study conducted?

Landgrave: This study was conducted in 2023 at the University of Missouri while I was finishing my work there. Missouri turned out to be ideal because, while it’s a red state at the presidential level, the local student population was about evenly split—roughly 50% Democrat and 50% Republican. The experiment involved political science students who agreed to participate in the experiment.

Question: How did the experiment work?

Landgrave: At the start of the weeklong study, participants were randomly assigned—regardless of their political views—to one of three groups. One group watched Democratic‑leaning political videos, another watched Republican‑leaning videos, and the control group watched nonpolitical content—mostly animal videos.

We didn’t produce the videos ourselves. These were real TikTok videos that had been popular in the week leading up to the study.

"Because the videos are so short, influencers rely heavily on emotion rather than argument. Both Democratic and Republican videos leaned strongly on negative emotions—sadness, fear and anxiety," says �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder scholar Michelangelo Landgrave.

Question: With political influencer content, did you notice any notable differences in who was producing the content by age, gender or race? What about the frequency of posts?

Landgrave: That surprised us. We expected differences but we didn’t find much. Age, gender and racial diversity were fairly balanced across political sides.

We did observe that Democratic‑leaning influencers produce more videos and tend to have more followers. Both are still dwarfed by nonpolitical content like animal videos, but there is a clear production imbalance. It’s unclear whether that’s due to the algorithm or differences in content creation. We can’t say for sure.

Question: Were there differences in the way Democratic and Republican influencers made their cases to TikTok viewers?

Landgrave: That was one of our most interesting findings. Because the videos are so short, influencers rely heavily on emotion rather than argument. Both Democratic and Republican videos leaned strongly on negative emotions—sadness, fear and anxiety.

Republican‑leaning videos tended to show more negative emotions like contempt and fear. That said, both sides relied heavily on negative emotions. Democratic-leaning videos were more likely to utilize anger. By contrast, traditional news often includes lighter or feel‑good stories, while animal videos found on TitkTok are, of course, just animals being animals.

Question: If the political videos on TikTok are less than a minute, it doesn’t seem like that’s enough time to properly address an issue in a substantive way?

Landgrave: Exactly. Even short television news segments usually provide some nuance and context. There’s a reason it takes 10, 20 or even 60 minutes to follow the news properly. With 5‑ or 10‑second clips, there’s very little room for nuance—you’re really only getting snippets.

Question: After the weeklong experiment, research subjects who watched these influencer videos showed no evidence of changing their opinions on political topics?

Landgrave: That’s correct. We didn’t find evidence that political attitudes changed—even after a full week of exposure. This is important because it wasn’t just one video; the algorithm adapts. Once someone starts watching a type of content, TikTok shows them more of it. So, effectively, we were altering their algorithm for a week—and still didn’t see attitude change.

It’s possible longer exposure—months or years—could matter, but at least over a week, we didn’t see a direct effect on political attitudes.

Question: But you did see emotional effects even at just one week?

Landgrave: Yes. While political attitudes didn’t change, emotional states did. After a week of political TikTok exposure—regardless of whether it was Democratic or Republican—participants reported feeling more sadness, anxiety and anger.

I went into this study fairly ambivalent, assuming concerns were probably overstated. But after seeing the results, I’m genuinely worried about the emotional effects on young people.

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder scholar Michelangelo Landgrave and his research colleagues found that after a week of political TikTok exposure—regardless of whether it was Democratic or Republican—participants reported feeling more sadness, anxiety and anger. (Photo: Kelly Sikkema/Unsplash)

Question: Do you believe there are possible policy implications here?

Landgrave: Speaking only as a private citizen, and not representing �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder’s position, I think there’s reason for concern—particularly regarding children and teenagers. While we didn’t find direct political effects, we did find emotional harm.

That suggests policymakers should consider stronger safeguards, whether that’s time limits, improved parental controls or other measures.

Question: Why do you think emotions changed but political attitudes didn’t?

Landgrave: That surprised me, too. We focused on young adults because their political views are still forming. If there were going to be an effect, we expected to see it there.

One possibility is that emotional effects accumulate faster than ideological change. I also wonder whether younger audiences—middle school or even elementary‑age children—might be more susceptible, though that research would require different expertise.

Question: Were your survey participants already using TikTok?

Landgrave: Almost all of them. Only about five participants had never used TikTok. Most already had accounts and varied only in how much they used it. Our intervention didn’t replace their normal viewing—it nudged the algorithm by requiring them to watch specific videos daily.

Question: How confident are you that TikTok itself caused the negative emotional effects, rather than outside life stress?

Landgrave: Because it was an experimental study with random assignment, we’re confident we controlled for most external factors. That said, I’d love to explore conditional effects—whether the impact is stronger for heavy users, rural populations or people with fewer entertainment alternatives.

Question: Do you believe this is a subject area worthy of more exploration, possibly on what longer-term exposure to TikTok might mean for mental health outlook? And maybe whether political influencers have a greater influence over a longer-term period?

Landgrave: Long‑term experimental studies would be very difficult, but observational work is possible. As a researcher—and as a teacher—I’m increasingly concerned about the mental health effects (of social media) on younger people. I see students who seem almost addicted to these platforms, and I worry about my nieces and nephews too.

I want to be clear: This is speculative, but I can imagine an indirect effect over time. Years of exposure to emotionally negative content could potentially radicalize people or increase tolerance for extreme behavior. Our study can’t prove that, but it raises important questions.

Question: If you do more research on this particular subject, what might that look like?

Landgrave: We want to use eye‑tracking technology—glasses that track where people are actually looking. That would help us understand whether viewers are focused on the speaker, the text or even the video at all. Future studies might also involve controlled lab settings to see whether focused attention changes outcomes.

Question: Have you received feedback from other researchers on your published work regarding TikTok influencers?

Landgrave: Yes. Colleagues have reached out, including researchers studying similar effects internationally. This may not be a uniquely American issue—it could be global.

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Renewable energy goals can A) boost infrastructure or B) cut emissions

Anonymous — Thu, 06 Dec 2018 23:44:51 +0000

Renewable energy goals can A) boost infrastructure or B) cut emissions Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 12/06/2018 - 16:44

While states believed Renewable Portfolio Standards would yield both environmental benefits and resource booms, researchers find that it’s one or the other

States working within our nation’s patchwork of Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) apparently can’t have their cake and eat it too, according to a recent study co-authored by a �鶹��Ѱ�� economics professor.

The study found that enacting such standards can generate either lots of renewable infrastructure or reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions, but not both. Many states have adopted Renewable Portfolio Standards to support alternative energy and mitigate climate change.

Daniel Kaffine

“We spent some time looking at what exactly people were saying in the (state) legislatures when they passed these (RPS),” said Professor Daniel Kaffine, co-author of the research, which was published earlier this year in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management.

“We saw them talking in terms of both environmental benefits and resource booms.”

RPS polices typically require that a certain percentage of a state’s power be produced by renewable energy such as wind and solar. Colorado’s RPS has a target of 30 percent renewables by 2020.

It turns out that if there is a patchwork of roughly 30 different states adopting different rules for each RPS, the different standards can result in either big resource booms—lots of renewable infrastructure—or big benefits in pollution reduction, but not both, the study states.

“And that’s a consequence of having this patchwork of RPS across different states with different resource bases and different RPS stringencies,” Kaffine said.

You can look at an RPS like a ratio, with a numerator and denominator. If the RPS increases, one way to approach that is to make the numerator bigger, increasing renewable production, but that means there will be less emissions reduction in the denominator.”

Some of that is by design, the study notes, as when Iowa developed its RPS in 1983, emphasizing the use of corn for ethanol, thus resulting in a resource boom that didn’t produce much in the way of emission reduction, but did provide economic relief during a farming crisis. New Jersey, which went for stringent renewable standards, though it doesn’t really have the sun or the wind to make it work, has seen great emission reduction, but not much in the way of a resource boom.

But the paper was not based on case studies; rather it created a general equilibrium model of an RPS policy that captures key features of the economic features that come into play. The idea, Kaffine said, was to create a model that state legislatures could use to predict the effects of their RPS.

“Essentially the question we wanted to answer is how a state’s economy would respond to an increase in RPS standards,” Kaffine said. “Given that, we set up a sort of toy model of the economy that’s all self-contained and consistent: accounting for demands of consumers and decisions made by producers.”

“You can look at an RPS like a ratio, with a numerator and denominator,” Kaffine continued. “If the RPS increases, one way to approach that is to make the numerator bigger, increasing renewable production, but that means there will be less emissions reduction in the denominator.”

That’s similar to what has transpired in Colorado. The state created new renewable resources in both solar and wind, but that resource boom hasn’t necessarily meant huge emissions reduction, as much of the power finds its way to other places on the grid or making new power available here.

That’s exactly the opposite of what has occurred in New Jersey, Kaffine said. The state ratcheted up its standards to require a certain percentage of (costly to generate) solar; a move that decreased the amount of total power produced in the state, suppliers finding other resources or consumers cutting back usage.

The paper was co-authored by economists Antonio M. Bento, a professor at the University of Southern California, and Teevrat Garg, an assistant professor at the University of California San Diego.

Kaffine said the paper went on hold for a time as the Obama Administration was working on a federal clean energy plan, but its timing today can still help states attempting to create a clean energy route of their own.

States working within our nation’s patchwork of Renewable Portfolio Standards apparently can’t have their cake and eat it too, according to a recent study.

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‘Til death do us part

Anonymous — Thu, 06 Dec 2018 18:36:17 +0000

‘Til death do us part Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 12/06/2018 - 11:36

Sarah Kuta

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder researchers find link between marriage quality and mortality

If you’ve taken the plunge, you’ve likely heard some variation of the popular marriage expression: “Happy spouse, peaceful house.”

But new research from the �鶹��Ѱ�� suggests that the phrase doesn’t go far enough and that the quality of your marriage may be linked to how long you live.

A trio of �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder researchers in the psychology and neuroscience department recently set out to explore the connection between marriage quality and mortality. The findings of their study were published in the journal Health Psychology in November.

Researchers Mark Whisman, Anna Gilmour and Julia Salinger.

“We found that the odds of dying for married people who described their marriage as ‘not too happy’ was 25 percent greater than the odds of dying for people who rated their marriage as ‘very happy’ or ‘pretty happy,’” said Mark Whisman, a �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder professor of psychology and neuroscience and the study’s lead author.

Past research has found a connection between the quality of our marriages and our physical health. In addition, other studies have measured the link between marital satisfaction and mortality in people with pre-existing conditions, such as cardiovascular disease and renal disease.

But Whisman, who also serves as the department’s associate chair for undergraduate education and director of undergraduate studies, wanted to understand whether a connection exists between relationship quality and death by any means, a “downstream” health outcome, in a sample of the general, healthy population.

To do that, Whisman and graduate students Anna Gilmour and Julia Salinger analyzed data from the General Social Survey, a long-running national survey of American households led by the University of Chicago with funding from the National Science Foundation. They focused their attention on data gathered from more than 19,000 married individuals between 1978 and 2010.

We found that the odds of dying for married people who described their marriage as ‘not too happy’ was 25 percent greater than the odds of dying for people who rated their marriage as ‘very happy’ or ‘pretty happy."

As part of the survey, these married participants were asked, “Taking things all together, how would you describe your marriage? Would you say that your marriage is very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy?” The participants then selected one answer to rate their relationship.

Whisman, Gilmour and Salinger linked this survey data with information from the National Death Index, a database of national mortality statistics maintained by the National Center for Health Statistics.

Even after factoring in participants’ household income and self-rated health, the results showed a connection between marriage quality and mortality rates — those who were in happier marriages had lower odds of dying than those in not-so-happy marriages. The findings seem to support past studies led by Whisman, including research that linked divorce to a biological indicator of early aging.

“Mortality is arguably the most detrimental health outcome and so even though there are a lot of studies showing that relationship quality can be impactful on less-severe health outcomes, it was really intriguing to see that we did find a significant difference even for mortality,” Gilmour said.

Because past research has found that women have more interdependent self-concepts — meaning they tend to define their identities in the context of their relationships to other people more so than men — the researchers suspected that marriage quality may be more closely linked with mortality for women. But they ultimately found no evidence of gender differences in their analysis of the data.

It’s important to note that the �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder research showed a correlation between marriage quality and mortality, not a causal relationship, meaning that bad marriages don’t necessarily cause death, Whisman said.

The researchers pointed out that the magnitude of the association between marriage quality and mortality is similar to that of physical inactivity and mortality, which suggests that we should consider paying just as much attention to the health of our marriages as we do to hitting the gym regularly.

Everyone knows that being physically inactive is bad for your health and can lead to a reduced lifespan, but you don’t really hear doctors talking about your relationship with your partner as something you should boost to potentially live longer."

“Everyone knows that being physically inactive is bad for your health and can lead to a reduced lifespan, but you don’t really hear doctors talking about your relationship with your partner as something you should boost to potentially live longer,” said Gilmour.

Though this study didn’t examine why marriage quality is linked to mortality, Whisman said researchers have several possible explanations as to why our primary romantic relationships seem to have such a big impact on our health.

Our romantic partners can help reinforce healthy behaviors, such as eating a healthy diet and getting regular exercise, while also helping us shed bad habits. Relationships can also provide a sense of security and purpose in our lives, while at the same time buffering the effects of acute or chronic stressors, Whisman added.

In their paper, Whisman, Gilmour and Salinger called for additional research to build upon their findings and pointed out that their study has limitations. For starters, participants were only asked one question about the quality of their marriages at one point in time, meaning the researchers didn’t get a very detailed look inside their relationships, nor could they consider changes over time.

There was also no accounting of people who separated or divorced after participating in the survey, nor any measure of other relationship characteristics, such as the length of the marriage or whether the participants had been married before.

“It would be really interesting to do this study in a sample where more is asked about the relationship with the partner,” Gilmour said. “Just knowing whether someone is satisfied or not with their marriage does actually tell you a good amount, but I would be interested in knowing what particular things are actually happening in those relationships.”

Futures studies might also consider the specific biological pathways underlying the connection between marriage quality and mortality, Salinger said. In other words, what’s happening in the bodies and minds of people in both happy and unhappy marriages that could be connected to their life expectancy?

“More research on why and how this kind of psycho-social stress leads to mortality, particularly through cardiac, immune, and neuroendocrine pathways, would be informative,” Salinger said.

Future research that replicates and extends these findings could have important public health implications — doctors may be inclined to prescribe couples counseling to help lengthen their patients’ lives, for example. Until then, the researchers say their findings are an interesting addition to the growing body of research into how our romantic partnerships affect our health and wellbeing.

“It could really speak to the importance of screening couples to try to detect those who are discordant and connect them with resources in the community and therapists to try to improve their marital satisfaction with a goal of improving their health and, potentially, longevity,” Salinger said.

New research from �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder suggests that the quality of your marriage may be linked to how long you live.

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Declining warblers making the best of bad situation

Anonymous — Mon, 03 Dec 2018 17:15:12 +0000

Declining warblers making the best of bad situation Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 12/03/2018 - 10:15

Cay Leytham-Powell

The discovery of a rare three-species warbler hybrid suggests bird species in sharp decline are struggling to find suitable mates

A strange warbler found in a Pennsylvania backyard is the first-of-its-kind three-species hybrid, indicating nearby endangered warblers might be making the best of a declining population—but at a cost, according to new research from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the �鶹��Ѱ��.

With a mother that is a fertile hybrid of the Golden-winged Warbler and Blue-winged Warbler, and a father that is a Chestnut-sided Warbler, this newly found bird is one of only a few firmly documented cases of a three-species hybrid ever found, and the only known hybrid of two completely different genera (or, the biological classification above species).

The newly discovered three-species hybrid is believed to have stemmed from a mother, who was also a hybrid, and a Chestnut-Sided Warbler. Graphic by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

These findings were recently published by the journal Biology Letters.

“I don’t think we would’ve expected that across such a different part of the warbler evolutionary tree we’d still have offspring produced. They’re genetically very different birds,” said Scott Taylor, an assistant professor in ecology and evolutionary biology at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder and one of the study’s co-authors.

The small, vocal bird was first spotted in May 2018 by Lowell Burket, a bird watcher, on his property in Pennsylvania. Burket, who is a co-author on the study, had gotten into birding only in the last few years, and immediately noticed when he reviewed a video he took that there was something not quite right about this bird. It looked and acted like both Blue-winged and Golden-winged Warblers, but it sang like, and had minor physical characteristics of, a Chestnut-sided Warbler.

After seeing the bird a few times, he sent a photograph and video of it to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, where Taylor was previously a postdoctoral researcher. The bird immediately drew the interest of Taylor and David Toews, a fellow postdoc, as the bird was found in an area where Golden-winged Warblers have declined dramatically over the past decade.

“During fieldwork in West Virginia the previous summer, we were having these conversations about, what if Golden-winged and Blue-winged Warblers hybridize with Chestnut-sided Warblers? But we both thought that would be crazy,” said Taylor.

Scott Taylor, seen here holding a Chestnut-Sided Warbler, helped identify the three-species hybrid. Photograph courtesy of Scott Taylor.

Toews immediately went to the property and retrieved a blood sample from the bird. And, using that sample and genomic tools they had already created from Golden-winged and Blue-winged Warblers, Toews and Taylor established that this mysterious bird was indeed a three-species hybrid.

"I had literally zero knowledge about birds until seven years ago," Burket commented to the Lab of Ornithology. "And now I end up discovering what appears to be a first-of-its-kind bird. It can happen to anybody!"

While the three-species hybrid is interesting, Taylor cautions that it’s hard to say how evolutionary relevant this hybrid is to the grand scheme of warbler speciation and conservation. Rather, it might actually hurt the Golden-winged Warbler, which is up for consideration to be listed on the Endangered Species Act, and the Blue-winged Warbler’s future survival.

And this issue isn’t new. Golden-winged and Blue-winged Warblers have increasingly been hybridizing, thanks in part to a steep decline in their populations stemming from habitat loss in their wintering grounds—Venezuela and Central America.

“It’s maybe rarity of mates that caused this hybridization because the mother just couldn’t find another Blue-winged or Golden-winged to breed with, so she bred with a Chestnut-sided,” commented Taylor.

Toews agreed in a comment to Cornell: "That this hybridization occurred within a population of Golden-winged Warblers in significant decline suggests that females may be making the best of a bad situation.”

Toews and Taylor will continue monitoring this three-species hybrid going forward to see if it will try and find a mate next year, and then, if so, whether the hybrid is sterile or fertile.

The discovery of a rare three-species warbler hybrid suggests bird species in sharp decline are struggling to find suitable mates.

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Think the Bible is fully understood? �鶹��Ѱ��scholar begs to differ

Anonymous — Wed, 28 Nov 2018 18:15:10 +0000

Think the Bible is fully understood? �鶹��Ѱ��scholar begs to differ Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 11/28/2018 - 11:15

Sarah Kuta

In the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Sam Boyd, a �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder scholar of Biblical studies, dove into the study of religious texts ‘so I know what I’m talking about’

When he tells people about his research, Sam Boyd is often met with perplexed looks and questions. But why are you studying the Bible? Don’t we know everything there is to know already?

But the University of Colorado faculty member simply smiles and explains that while the Bible is extremely popular — it’s the world’s best-selling book of all time — it’s still ripe for exploration.

Sam Boyd

“The answer is always, ‘No, we know next to nothing about it still,’” said Boyd, an assistant professor of religious studies and Jewish studies.

Perhaps that’s why Boyd, who also serves as the director of undergraduate studies for the Program in Jewish Studies, is such a productive scholar — he’s driven by an intense curiosity and the desire to solve what he describes as a “really interesting, sophisticated puzzle” in understanding the Bible.

Case in point, he’s in the process of writing his second book, which is based on an article being published in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies this spring about the Tower of Babel passage in the book of Genesis. This year, he was also a member of the inaugural cohort of fellows in the Research and Innovation Office, a prestigious new program that seeks to build and enhance scholarly leadership across campus.

Beyond that, fellow professors say Boyd is a congenial colleague who is dedicated to service within the department and building bridges to other disciplines. As a teacher, Boyd is “inspiring and challenging,” forcing students to think critically about widely accepted views of the Bible, said David Shneer, chair of the religious studies department.

This well-rounded faculty member, who became CU’s first Biblical scholar when he arrived in the fall of 2015, is already considered a rising star in his department and across the campus at large.

“He’s unbelievable, and we’re really, really lucky to have him,” said Nan Goodman, director of the Program in Jewish Studies. “He’s really ramped up the intellectual rigor of the department, both for the students and among his colleagues. His scholarship is meticulous and innovative and he has really shed a huge amount of light on what the Bible is as a text.”

Boyd didn’t always want to become a professor — in fact, when he was a kid, he dreamt of growing up to be Indiana Jones. He studied economics and American history as an undergraduate at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and was working at a bank when a series of conversations caused him to rethink his career path entirely.

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Boyd remembers having happy hour debates with his coworkers about Christianity, Islam and other religions. But for Boyd, these after after-work conversations went much deeper.

“I thought, ‘I should go read these texts so I know what I’m talking about’ and I just got hooked — that’s what led me on this journey,” he said.

He earned a master of divinity from Westminster Theological Seminary before earning his doctorate from the University of Chicago in 2014. Today, he uses more than 20 languages to study ancient texts and gain a better understanding of the conversations Biblical scribes were having with the world around them through their writing.

“The basic question I ask is, ‘Where did the Bible come from? Why did people start writing it?’” he said. “People think of the Bible as just a book you pull off the shelf at Barnes & Noble and it’s always kind of looked like this, and that’s not the case.”

Though religion can be a polarizing issue, Boyd has made a point of reaching out to pastors, rabbis and imams in Colorado to introduce himself since arriving at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder from Chicago three years ago. He said he hopes his work can help spark a constructive dialogue that transcends political and religious differences.

“I am not out to tell people whether God exists or whether there’s one or many gods or whether God is a man or a woman — that is not what I do,” he said. “I’m interested in the people walking around in the ancient Near East whose thought is reflected in what becomes the Bible, the very real issues of what it means to be human in the world.”

Because interpretations of Bible passages are referenced so frequently in popular culture, political discourse and everyday conversations, Boyd and his colleagues say they believe it’s more important than ever to understand what this book actually says.

“Whether it’s the attack on the synagogue in Pittsburgh or whether it’s our presidential election, it’s important for us to get it right and be responsible with it, whether we’re religious or not,” Boyd said.

The topic of his forthcoming journal article and book provides a perfect example of why Boyd’s research into ancient Biblical texts is so relevant today.

Traditionally, the Tower of Babel story has been interpreted like this: People attempted to build a tower that reached heaven, but were stymied when God caused them to speak different languages and scattered them across the earth.

In the modern era, politicians and pundits have used this interpretation in debates about immigration reform, arguing that multilingualism is a sign of God’s curse and should be avoided at all costs; a similar interpretation also appears in literature and art. For example, Pat Buchanan, who unsuccessfully ran for president three times in the 1990s and early 2000s, has cited the Tower of Babel story to argue against multiculturalism in America. Bobby Jindal, the former Louisiana governor who made an unsuccessful 2016 presidential bid, used “Tower of Babel” to criticize Democrats’ love of diversity in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed.

But based on his analysis of the syntax and the order of Biblical chapters, Boyd argues that the story is not about language at all.

“When we take the Tower of Babel story and put it in its ancient Near Eastern context … Syrian kings would talk about ‘one mouth’ as a political metaphor,” Boyd said. “It had nothing to do with everyone speaking the same language, but was about political unification and fragmentation against authority. And boy, if we’ve gotten that story wrong, that has a big impact on people’s political metaphors, a big impact on art history, on literature.”

In essence, much of Boyd’s research can fundamentally change the way we think about the Bible and call into question long-held notions about morality, human behavior, diversity and other topics.

These types of research revelations from Boyd consistently impressed the 12 other inaugural Research and Innovation Office faculty fellows, a cohort of early to mid-career tenured and tenure-track professors who were identified as leaders in research, collaboration and systems thinking.

The first group of participants in the new program spent 2018 forming cross-campus relationships, improving and developing leadership skills, setting professional goals and discussing the significance of their roles within the university community and in society at large. The second cohort will begin the fellowship in January 2019.

“Most of the faculty in the program were mesmerized whenever Sam spoke because he had such a breadth of understanding of humanity and history through his studies of the Bible,” said Kirsten Rowell, program director for the fellowship program. “We had a really broad group of intellects in the program, and we were all thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, I need to understand more.’”

In the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Sam Boyd, a �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder scholar of Biblical studies, dove into the study of religious texts ‘so I know what I’m talking about.’

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Barn swallows may indeed have evolved alongside barns, humans

Anonymous — Tue, 30 Oct 2018 15:57:07 +0000

Barn swallows may indeed have evolved alongside barns, humans Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 10/30/2018 - 09:57

Cay Leytham-Powell

As humans evolved and expanded, so too did barn swallows, new research from �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder suggests

The evolution of barn swallows, a bird ubiquitous to bridges and sheds around the world, might be even more closely tied to humans than previously thought, according to new study from the �鶹��Ѱ��.

Chris Smith (left) and Rebecca Safran (right) re-examined the evolution of barn swallows and found that they may indeed have evolved alongside barns. Photographs courtesy of Rebecca Safran and Patrick Campbell/�鶹��Ѱ��.

The research, published this week in Molecular Ecology, offers preliminary insight suggesting that the barn swallow and its subspecies evolved alongside—but independently from—humans. These new results make it one of the only known species, in addition to microscopic organisms like bacteria or viruses, to have developed in such a way, upending previous assumptions that barn swallows evolved prior to human settlement.

“Humans could be a really big part of the story,” said Rebecca Safran, a co-author of the study and an ecology and evolutionary biology (EBIO) associate professor at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder. “There’s very few studies that can point to the exact influence of humans, and so here, this coincidence of human expansion and permanent settlement and the expansion of a group that relies really, really heavily on humans is compelling.”

Barn swallows are found across the northern hemisphere and are characterized by their mud-cup nests that are built nearly exclusively on human-made structures. Despite their prevalence, however, not much is known about their evolutionary history, the timing of their expansion from northern Africa (where they originated) or how the six subspecies evolved so physically and behaviorally different yet remain almost genetically identical.

Previous studies published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London and Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution looked into these questions and found that the different subspecies split early, well before human settlement.

This new study, however, gave the topic a fresh look by examining the whole genome of 168 barn swallows from the two sub-species farthest apart on an evolutionary scale: H. r. savignii in Egypt (a non-migratory species that lives along the Nile) and H. r. erythrogaster in North America (a species found throughout North America that migrates seasonally to South America).

Barn swallow subspecies are found throughout the northern hemisphere. Barn Swallow illustrations courtesy of Hilary Burn, and map courtesy of the Safran lab.

These data—which are on the order of 100,000 times bigger than the previous dataset used—were then analyzed with more sophisticated computational resources and methods than previously available. This allowed researchers to get a more complete picture that places the timing of barn swallow differentiation or speciation (i.e., when the barn swallow subspecies separated) closer to that of when humans began to build structures and settlements.

“The previous studies were playing with the idea of potential impact on population sizes due to humans,” said Chris Smith, a graduate student in EBIO and the Interdisciplinary Quantitative Biology program, and the study’s lead author. “Our results suggest a much more substantial link with humans.”

These new preliminary findings also suggest that this evolutionary link may have been forged through a “founder event,” which is when a small number of individuals in a species take over a new environment and are able to expand their new population there thanks to an availability of resources and an absence of competitors. For barn swallows, this event may have occurred rapidly when they moved into a new, relatively empty environment: alongside humans.

“Everyone is always wondering how do you study speciation? It’s been viewed as this long-term, million-year (process), but in barn swallows, we are not talking about differentiation within several thousands of years,” said Safran. “Things are really unfolding rather rapidly.”

Smith concurred: “It’s interesting to study speciation in the beginning steps.”

Top photograph courtesy of fishhawk/Flickr.

As humans evolved and expanded, so too did barn swallows, new research from �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder suggests

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Think the Bible is fully understood? �鶹��Ѱ��scholar begs to differ

In the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Sam Boyd, a �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder scholar of Biblical studies, dove into the study of religious texts ‘so I know what I’m talking about’