Spotlights

The U.S. national debt exceeding the size of the American economy is a dubious milestone that has sparked alarm and confusion among policymakers who are asking how worried they should be and what can be done to stop the bleeding.

David Primo, a political scientist and professor of business administration at the University of Rochester and a fiscal policy expert who has testified before Congress on the national debt, says Americans should be very concerned about the debt and, at the same time, know there is a solution.

“The federal budget outlook is grim and threatens the economic future of the United States,” says Primo, the author of Rules and Restraint: Government Spending and the Design of Institution (University of Chicago Press). “If Congress waits to act, Americans will need to give up a bigger piece of the nation’s economic pie to stabilize the country’s finances.”

Primo says a solution lies in a constitutional amendment restraining the federal budget. Specifically, such an amendment would clearly define spending and revenue, set spending limits based on a multiyear period, and allow for waiving the limit only with a large supermajority in Congress.

“As it stands, Congress is constitutionally incapable of tying its own hands, making it difficult for legislators to implement durable changes to the federal budget,” Primo says.

Recent data show the national debt has crossed 100% of the GDP threshold — roughly $31.27 trillion versus $31.22 trillion in economic output — marking the highest peacetime level in U.S. history. The Congressional Budget Office has projected that debt levels, if left unchecked, could reach 181% of GDP in the next 30 years.

Primo says delaying implementing a solution raises the risk of increased interest rates, which would, in turn, reduce investment and, ultimately, economic growth.

For journalists covering deficits, tax policy, and the long-term economic outlook, Primo offers key expertise and a clear lens on:

• The implications of national debt exceeding GDP
• Constitutional and institutional approaches to fiscal reform
• Fiscal policy and political incentives

“The United States is in precarious fiscal health,” Primo told Congress in 2023. “In the absence of a constitutional amendment, I fear it will take a fiscal crisis before Congress acts. Nobody wants that.”

Connect with Primo by clicking on his profile.

Put down the protest signs already. Retire the “Save Pluto” pins. Step away from the planetary outrage. Seriously.

So says University of Rochester astrophysicist Adam Frank in his latest column in Forbes. Frank explains that the real story behind Pluto being stripped of its planetary status in 2006 isn’t about what Pluto lost, but what scientists found.

Pluto made news recently when NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman replied to a Florida girl’s handwritten plea to restore Pluto’s designation as a planet, saying he supported such a move.

Frank has one word for Isaacman: Stop!

“Now Isaacman seems like a good guy and I sure don’t want to make little kids cry,” Frank writes. “Still, there’s an amazing science reason why Pluto got kicked out of the planet club.”

For decades, Frank explains, we thought the solar system ended with the nine familiar planets, with Pluto being the most distant. But beyond Neptune lies the Kuiper Belt, a vast expanse filled with icy remnants from the birth of the solar system.

These objects are essentially the leftover building blocks of planets. Pluto, it turns out, is one of them.

That matters because this cosmic debris holds crucial clues about how planets form. Studying Pluto and its neighbors helps scientists understand the origins of Earth and the potential for life elsewhere in the universe.

So, Pluto isn’t an outcast; it’s a key witness to our cosmic history. It belongs to a newly understood class of worlds that are central to modern astronomy.

Rather than mourn Pluto’s status and push for restoring its former title, Frank suggests we celebrate its reclassification as the moment astronomers realized the solar system is far richer than they had ever imagined.

If you’re a journalist looking for an expert to talk about Pluto — or planets and worlds formerly known as planets — Frank is your scholar. He is a frequent contributor to the likes of CNN, The New York Times, The Atlantic, and MSNBC, and can help your audience make sense of our vast universe.

As Americans scale back spending on luxuries and some necessities — from dining out and live entertainment to home and auto maintenance — the ripple effects are being felt across the broader economy.

Daniel Burnside, clinical professor of finance at the Simon Business School, says the trend reflects more than just belt-tightening and signals deeper structural pressures tied to energy markets.
“Higher energy prices push inflation up and growth down, putting monetary policymakers in a bind,” Burnside says, explaining the current situation as being beyond a typical price spike.

“This isn’t just a price shock, it’s a capacity shock,” he says. “You can’t just flip a switch back to normal because a lot of energy infrastructure has been destroyed.

That distinction matters. Because energy costs are embedded in nearly every good and service, rising prices squeeze consumers beyond the gas pump. The result is reduced discretionary spending at venues like sporting and live music events, restaurants, and leisure destinations.

Looking ahead, Burnside says a rapid rebound in discretionary spending is possible but unlikely.

“If, by some miracle, energy prices quickly return to prewar levels, you would see a sharp run-up in discretionary stocks,” he says. “But that’s precisely because expectations are so low.”

For now, markets are signaling that a swift return to pre-crisis conditions isn’t on its way, Burnside says. Until energy supply stabilizes, the pressure on both consumers and the businesses that rely on it is likely to persist.

Burnside regularly fields inquiries from journalists looking for his insight on personal money matters and investing. Contact him by clicking on his profile.

A dramatic decline in reading for pleasure in the United States has fewer American parents reading aloud to their children — and experts warn the consequences can be dire.

“It builds connections,” Carol Anne St. George, an expert in early literacy at the University of Rochester’s Warner School of Education and Human Development, recently told The74 for an article citing a 41-percent decline in parents reading to children daily.

“People talk about text to text, text to world,” St. George said, “and those are the kinds of things that help children cognitively think and classify their world around them.”

Many young parents grew up in an education system focused on reading as a means to testing and building skills rather than enjoyment. As a result, St. George worries, they often view reading to their young as an obligation rather than a joy and a time to bond.

Experts say an increased reliance on screens and digital content and time pressures and competing demands on families have also fueled the decline.

St. George notes that children benefit greatly from being read to regularly. The advantages of early literacy include:

• Having a more robust vocabulary and stronger communications skills.
• Being better prepared to learn in school.
• Having a closer relationship with their parents.
• Higher academic achievement and better health outcomes later in life.

What Parents Can Do St. George advises parents to:

• Let children choose books they enjoy.
• Make reading part of a daily routine and that bedtime is ideal.
• Focus on fun and connection.
• Model good reading behavior because children mimic what they see.

St. George is available for media interviews and can be reached by contacting Theresa Danylak, the director of communications at the Warner School, at tdanylak@warner.rochester.edu.

The on-again-off-again nationwide boycott of Target has the retailer’s new chief executive, Michael Fiddelke, officer facing relentless pressure from activists on both sides of the issue.

David Primo, a professor of political science and business administration at the University of Rochester, says Fiddelke can’t seem to move Target from the crosshairs despite slashing prices on thousands of products and investing in stores, workers, and technology.

“Target remains a battleground for activists on the left and the right, and its new CEO hasn’t yet figured out how to extricate the company from this role,” Primo recently told USA Today. “Fiddelke already faces a huge challenge in turning around a company with significant operational issues. This certainly doesn’t help matters.”

Target has reported 13 straight quarters of sluggish sales. Company officials have admitted that shopper anger has contributed.

Activists in Minneapolis, where Target is based, organized a nationwide boycott last year over the company’s rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. From church pulpits to community gatherings, the policy about-face was widely viewed as a betrayal of Black Americans who had propped up the retail giant’s bottom line.

Primo studies corporate political strategies, among other areas, and regularly shares his insights with business journalists and political reporters. His essays have appeared in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, and he’s been interviewed by many radio and television outlets, including Bloomberg and National Public Radio.

Contact him by clicking on his profile.

With the recent presidential comments on potential alien life, UFO enthusiasts have new hope that finally we’re going to get federal “disclosure” of UFOs, aliens and the great government conspiracy surrounding both. But, as a scientist who studies the search for life in the Universe, the question I have is much simpler: What would disclosure really need to disclose? What is required for actual, factual proof that aliens exist and they’ve been visiting Earth?

We’ve already had three years of Congressional hearings on UFOs that have produced zero proof of anything. What we need now is simple: hard physical evidence. That is what disclosure needs to deliver. Not stories about alien spaceships being held by the government, but the actual spaceships themselves. Not stories about alien bodies but the actual icky, gooey bodies with their icky gooey tentacles. If disclosure provides physical evidence that independent laboratories and independent scientists all over the world can verify, then it will live up to its hype. That would make “Disclosure Day” truly history-making.

As teenagers push for independence, many parents respond by trying to become their friends and confidants.

University of Rochester psychologist Judi Smetana says blurring the line between warmth and authority can backfire.

“It’s great if kids want to disclose to you,” Smetana explains. “But it would be weird for parents to talk about their private lives with their kids. When parents start revealing things about themselves, it’s slippery. Your child should not be your confidant.”

Smetana, an expert in adolescent development and parent-teen relationships, emphasizes that closeness and trust are essential — but they are not the same as “friendship.” Teenagers need structure, limits, and clear boundaries as they test autonomy. When parents overshare they risk shifting roles in ways that reduce parental influence.

That doesn’t mean parent-child relationships remain rigid forever. The dynamics naturally evolve as children mature into early adulthood.

“Let the child take the lead,” Smetana says. “There may show a willingness to become more like friends when parents don’t have the same authority. But there will still be some boundaries.”

Her research underscores that healthy parent-teen relationships balance openness with guidance. Trust grows not from collapsing boundaries, but from maintaining them with consistency and care.

For reporters covering parenting and adolescent behavior, Smetana is available to discuss:

• Healthy boundaries in parent-teen relationships
• Oversharing and role confusion in families
• Adolescent autonomy and authority
• How parent-child dynamics shift in early adulthood

Click her profile to connect with her.

After more than 50 years studying close relationships, University of Rochester psychologist Harry Reis has reached a deceptively simple conclusion: Happy people feel loved.

That conclusion became the jumping-off point for a new book Reis co-wrote, “How to Feel Loved: The Five Mindsets That Get You More of What Matters Most” (Harper 2026), which blends decades of research on happiness and human connection.

In it, Reis and his co-author, Sonja Lyubomirsky, a psychologist at the University of California, Riverside, outline five research-backed mindsets that strengthen connection: sharing authentically, listening to people, practicing radical curiosity, approaching others with an open heart, and recognizing human complexity.

The book was recently featured in The New York Times, which noted that the authors contend giving and receiving love function together like a seesaw: You lift a person up with the weight of your curiosity and attentiveness — and they do the same in turn.

“The other side is very important also,” Reis told The Times. “To be sharing what’s important to you, to be sharing what you’re concerned about, so it can really become a two-way street.”

Reis, who leads groundbreaking research on close relationships, is available to discuss:

• The science of feeling loved vs. being loved
• How digital distraction undermines connection
• AI companionship and its psychological limits
• Practical ways to build stronger, more resilient relationships
• The link between love, happiness, and health

Journalists writing about love and relationships can contact Reis by clicking on his profile.

What if boats, buoys, and other items designed to float could never be sunk — even when they’re cracked, punctured, or tossed by an angry sea?

If you think unsinkable metal sounds like science fiction. Think again.

A team of researchers at the University of Rochester led by professor Chunlei Guo has devised a way to make ordinary metal tubes stay afloat no matter how much damage they sustain. The team chemically etches tiny pits into the tubes that trap air, keeping the tubes from getting waterlogged or sinking. Even when these superhydrophobic tubes are submerged, dented, or punctured, the trapped air keeps them buoyant and, in a very literal sense, unsinkable.

“We tested them in some really rough environments for weeks at a time and found no degradation to their buoyancy,” says Guo, a professor of physics and optics and a senior scientist at the University of Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics. “You can poke big holes in them, and we showed that even if you severely damage the tubes with as many holes as you can punch, they still float.”

Guo and his team could usher in a new generation of marine tech, from resilient floating platforms and wave-powered generators to ships and offshore structures that can withstand damage that would sink traditional steel.

Their research highlights the University of Rochester’s knack for translating physics into practical wonder.

For reporters covering materials science, sustainable engineering, ocean tech, or innovative design, Guo is the ideal expert to explain why “unsinkable metal” might be closer to everyday use than you think.

To connect with Guo, contact Luke Auburn, director of communications for the Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, at luke.auburn@rochester.edu.