Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com.

What did the T. rex use its little arms for? – Aurora, age 11, Pemberton Township, New Jersey

One of the most famous dinosaurs to ever roam across Earth, Tyrannosaurus rex, has filled people’s minds with wonder since the first skeleton was discovered in the early 1900s.

Scientists believe T. rex, or King of the Tyrant Lizards, as its name translates, was a fearsome predator. An adult T. rex was massive in size – approximately 40 feet (12 meters) long and 20 feet (6 meters) tall, weighing as much as an African elephant. Each of its enormous sharp teeth could be near a foot (0.3 meters) in length from the root to the tip.

I’m a paleontologist, and I use fossils to study how animals lived and evolved over long periods of time. One of the coolest things about being a paleontologist is that there are always new questions to ask and new things to learn – even about a super-well-known dino like T.rex, which went extinct just over 65 million years ago.

One T. rex mystery has to do with this giant predator’s relatively tiny arms. Why would it have arms so short that it couldn’t even reach its own mouth? How did it use them?

How ‘short’ is short?

First, let’s define what we mean by “short.”

The biggest T. rex could measure 45 feet (14 meters) from the snout to the tip of the tail, but their arms were only about 3 feet (1 meter) long. On average, a T. rex’s arms were just about 30% of the length of its legs.

In comparison, humans have, on average, arms around 66% of the length of their legs. If people had the same arm proportions as a T.rex, a 6-foot (1.8 meters) tall person would have arms only 10 or 12 inches (25 to 30 centimeters) long!

T. rex isn’t the only dinosaur with such short arms. The evolutionary trend toward shorter arms in theropods – the larger group of meat-eating, two-legged dinosaurs that T. rex belongs to – happened multiple times. Similar to how wings separately evolved in different animals – like birds and bats – traits can emerge many times in evolutionary history.

You can see the shortening of T. rex arms as a pattern in its family tree, as earlier relatives had proportionally longer arms.

How did they use their mini-arms?

Short arms don’t seem to have been a problem for these mighty dinosaurs. T. rex was a successful carnivorous species that existed for over a million years. They only went extinct when an asteroid hit the Earth, causing a global mass extinction.

Scientists have suggested a few ideas to possibly explain how T. rex used their arms. Maybe they were used as some kind of social display that could impress other T. rex – kind of like the bright feathers of a peacock that can attract potential mates.

But male and female T. rex skeletons don’t show the major differences that paleontologists would take as clues that they relied on social displays to attract mates. And while animal behavior can sometimes be preserved, such as in bite marks or fossilized footprints, it’s rare to have enough fossil data to draw clear conclusions.

Maybe T. rex used their arms as weapons to attack or hold down prey. But these options seem unlikely since T. rex’s huge jaws would have made contact with an enemy or prey before the short arms would have been able to reach it.

Some scientists have recently hypothesized that T. rex‘s short arms were an adaptation to competition with other carnivores. If multiple predators were feeding on a carcass, one could get hurt by accidental bites or even intentional warning bites for getting too close. Shorter arms would be less likely to get chomped. Similar things occur today with territorial carnivores, like Komodo dragons.

Maybe the arms didn’t have a purpose

Another possibility is that the arms served little or no purpose at all, so over time, they became vestigial. That’s the scientific term for body parts that don’t have clear purposes anymore, but are still passed down through evolution.

One example is a whale’s hindlimbs. Whales evolved from mammals that lived on land that had large legs to move around. The bones are still present in today’s whales, but have gotten much smaller over millions of years and have no function.

Some scientists have suggested a different idea: T. rex’s arms may have evolved to be smaller as another body part grew larger. The fossil record reveals that arms got shorter as theropod skulls got larger across many different dinosaur groups, including T. rex. Larger skulls likely would have made it easier to hunt and eat larger prey.

Researchers can use mathematical equations to accurately predict theropod arm length if they know the animal’s skull size and length of its upper leg bone, the femur. It turns out that larger skulls are strongly linked to shorter arms in theropods.

The reason for the change in arms, however, isn’t as clear. Some scientists have argued that the smaller arms could have helped with balance as the head got larger, but others aren’t so sure. In evolution, there isn’t always a reason why a change occurs – sometimes, changes just happen. In this case, we don’t yet know if there was a benefit for the arms to get smaller as heads got larger.

So for now, we don’t really know how T. rex used its arms or why they evolved to be so small, proportionally. As scientists find new data, we will continue to test hypotheses to better understand why this tiny-arm trend occurred so many times in theropod evolution. That’s what makes science so exciting – a future fossil discovery could be the missing puzzle piece that helps us answer these questions.

Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.

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Sarah Sheffield does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Students who are Black, Hispanic, female, from low-income families or multilingual learners are less likely to be identified with autism in U.S. elementary schools than their white, male, higher-income or English-speaking peers. This finding comes from our new research, published in April 2026 in the academic journal Autism.

These disparities appear even among students who have similar levels of academic achievement and who are attending the same schools.

Our research shows there are big and recurring gaps in whether students are identified with having autism while they attend U.S. elementary schools. In both 2003 and 2019, for example, fourth grade female students were about 80% less likely to be identified with autism, as compared to similarly situated boys.

We found that for every 10 boys identified with autism, only about two girls in a comparable situation – including those displaying similar levels of reading achievement and attending the same schools – were identified.

We analyzed data repeatedly collected from 2003 to 2022, using large, nationally representative samples of about 160,000 fourth grade students participating in the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

We specifically looked at data that included student academic achievement. This approach let us consider potential bias in how a student’s disability is identified.

Why it matters

Understanding these disparities in U.S. elementary schools is important to help ensure that all students with disabilities have equal access to appropriate services and supports.

Schools are one of the most common places that provide disability services to children and adolescents. This includes students who have autism.

Some research finds that teachers are more understanding of a student’s classroom struggles when informed that the student has autism.

School-based special education services, such as speech therapy, often benefit students with disabilities, including those of color. Student will not receive these services without an identified disabilty.

For example, recent analyses of public data from Massachusetts, Indiana and Connecticut compared the achievement trajectories of the same students before and after they received special education services. The students did better in both reading and mathematics when they received special education services.

Students with disabilities are also more likely to graduate from high school and attend college if they receive special education services.

What still isn’t known

We do not know whether these disparities in autism identification are occurring in other elementary grades, at least based on the National Assessment of Educational Progress data.

In another of our recent analyses, though, we did observed racial disparities in autism identification across elementary grades.

Some other research suggests that students of color and girls experience significant delays in receiving autism diagnoses.

Our analysis is based on students who completed the National Assessment of Educational Progress reading test. Students with severe autism and higher support needs who were unable to complete these assessments, even with accommodations, were not included in our analysis.

Future studies could examine whether sociodemographic disparities in autism identification are occurring in U.S. middle and high schools as well for students with significant impairments.

What’s next

Our additional preliminary analysis indicates there are other types of disparities at play. For example, we are finding that Black and Hispanic girls, low-income Black students and multilingual learners who are white or Hispanic are especially unlikely to be identified as having autism.

We are also exploring whether some of these disparities have grown, or otherwise changed, following recent increases in autism prevalence rates, including for students of color and girls.

The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.

Paul L. Morgan received funding from the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences to support these analyses. Opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not represent the view of the U.S. Department of Education.

A 35-year-old Kentucky woman was arrested in late 2025, accused of taking abortion pills that she ordered online.

The gestational age and status of the pregnancy is unknown. But Kentucky, like the majority of Southern states that contain Appalachian counties, has a complete abortion ban.

Mifepristone is a medication approved by the Food and Drug Administration for self-administered abortion care through 10 weeks’ gestation, and research suggests it is safe and effective up to 16 weeks. Mifepristone can still be ordered into states with abortion bans after the Supreme Court weighed in on the matter on May 4, 2026.

Abortion is illegal in Kentucky, however, and the police viewed the woman’s actions as criminal. A grand jury supported bringing charges, including fetal homicide, “abuse of a corpse” and tampering with physical evidence. Her distressed mugshot was plastered all over regional news sites.

As a social work researcher who studies access to reproductive healthcare in underserved Appalachian communities, I have worked with clients in similar circumstances. I have observed that many decisions to end pregnancies are motivated by intense barriers to accessing healthcare – not by criminal intent.

It can be extremely difficult for women in this region to get healthcare, and these access burdens affect quality of life in the region. For example, research suggests that Appalachian women are more likely to die at younger ages when compared to women living in other regions of the United States.

Here are six factors I consider when a case like this appears in the news.

1. Abortion bans do not stop abortion

Data clearly shows that outlawing abortion care does not stop abortions from happening.

According to data from the Society of Family Planning’s #WeCount project, U.S. abortion rates have actually increased since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, ending federal abortion protections.

What state abortion bans do is change how people try to get care.

2. Abortion bans isolate patients from doctors

For people living in most of rural Appalachia, brick-and-mortar abortion facilities are currently only available in another state, often a great distance away.

The only way many people can get care, then, is to order pills and self-manage their own abortion.

When someone orders abortion pills without medical consultation, however, there is more room for error in assessing relevant medical information, such as how far along their pregnancy is. When abortion care is legal and accessible, like other forms of healthcare, such estimates are made in consultation with a health provider.

Multiple clinics, community groups and pharmacies will send abortion pills to Kentucky for self-managing abortions up to about 13 weeks into pregnancy, according to the abortion access resource Plan C. These places may offer medical support, peer support or no additional support at all.

Patients who do involve a telehealth provider report satisfaction with that experience.

Yet patients in abortion-ban states may avoid using sites that are connected to support services because they fear being discovered and prosecuted. Abortion bans may therefore compel patients to make critical reproductive health decisions without consulting an expert.

This may have occurred in the Kentucky case, according to what the law enforcement officers reported to the Lexington Herald-Leader newspaper.

3. Ending Roe worsened healthcare deserts

Another factor to consider is how abortion bans contribute to existing healthcare deserts in rural Appalachian communities.

Even before the repeal of Roe, people living in Appalachian communities were not getting adequate healthcare. Communities in central and southern Appalachia face significant health disparities: These regions have higher illness and death rates and increased risk of cancer and diabetes compared to non-Appalachian areas of the United States.

In part, that has to do with inadequate healthcare infrastructure endemic in rural parts of the country. Geographic isolation, limited financial incentives and lack of infrastructure decrease the number of available health providers, meaning that only about 9% of U.S. physicians practice in rural areas.

Appalachia has lost regional obstetric services in recent years and seen numerous hospital closures, further discouraging providers from working there. One study found that of 53 rural hospitals that closed between 2005 and 2016, 66% of them were in Southern states, 21% in Appalachia.

This has reduced access to specialty care, including reproductive healthcare.

Abortion bans have compounded all these problems. They make it difficult, if not impossible, for providers to practice within established standards of care when treating conditions such as miscarriage, which can discourage ER physicians and OB-GYNs from remaining in red states.

The shortage of medical professionals makes it increasingly challenging to obtain reproductive healthcare in the region – except by mail.

4. Poverty influences reproductive decisions

Money is another important factor in people’s reproductive choices.

Research indicates that financial distress is a main reason that people seek abortions. Those who are denied abortion access are more likely to be in poverty four years after they give birth than those who were able to access it.

Appalachia’s history of resource extraction has left it impoverished. In Central Appalachia – in Kentucky – up to 21% of residents live in poverty.

The median household income in adjusted 2023 dollars in Wolfe County, Kentucky, where the woman was arrested, is just over US$29,000, compared to about $79,000 in the rest of the country. It costs approximately $232,000 to raise a child in Kentucky from birth to age 18, the mortgage broker LendingTree calculated in April 2026.

Facing the daunting cost of another mouth to feed, families confronting an unintended pregnancy may see abortion as a financial necessity. Appalachian residents in these circumstances are figuring out how to get the abortion care they need against steep odds.

5. In rural Appalachia, abortion can carry stigma

In rural Appalachian communities where most residents know each other, abortion and reproductive health stigma – some of which, research suggests, is rooted in religiosity – can present a significant barrier to care.

My own research has found that stigma may dissuade Appalachians from seeking healthcare and discussing sexual health topics with providers due to fear of judgment. Many Appalachians have reported to me their negative reproductive health visits with regional medical providers, including attempts to coerce patients into using or not using contraception.

Because abortion is stigmatized in Appalachian communities, healthcare workers may be inclined to inform police on their patients.

One news report indicates that in cases where abortions were reported to police, 39% of reports were made by health professionals and another 6% by social workers. In 412 cases of pregnancy criminalization analyzed by the advocacy group Pregnancy Justice, 264 involved information that had been disclosed in a medical setting.

That is what happened in the Kentucky case: People working in a clinic allegedly told the police that the woman had disclosed her abortion.

Abortion medication shipped directly to one’s home, by contrast, offers privacy.

The prosecutor eventually dismissed the homicide charge, because Kentucky law exempts pregnant people from being prosecuted for getting abortion care. But other charges were added, including concealing the birth of an infant. The woman may still be facing legal consequences.

6. Sex education is important – and lacking

One final factor I consider relevant in understanding this case is sex education – or rather, the lack of it in most Appalachian states.

Kentucky requires some sexual health education in public schools, but each county can dictate much of the content. Sex education in the state is not required to be comprehensive, and it must promote abstinence.

As NPR reported in 2023, there are parts of rural Appalachia without comprehensive sex education, where contraception is unaffordable and abortion is also banned. Those trying to provide better sex education have faced harassment and threats of violence.

When people do not receive the sexual health education needed to know their bodies and how they function, they are more vulnerable to negative health outcomes such as unintended pregnancy. And they may not know their bodies well enough to know how long they’ve been pregnant when they make reproductive health choices.

Bad policies, impossible situations

All of the factors listed above could potentially affect people in any community. But rural Appalachian communities are disproportionately affected by a confluence of these factors.

In my analysis, the Kentucky case elucidates how poor health infrastructure and bad health policies – such as abortion bans – place one barrier after another in front of people who are just trying to do the best they can to cope with an unintended pregnancy.

This story was produced in collaboration with Rewire News Group, an independent newsroom dedicated to covering reproductive health in the United States. Read their version here.

Gretchen E. Ely has previously received funding for her research from the Society of Family Planning.

Language issues in Canada regularly spark controversy and fuel polarizing debates, which can then be echoed and amplified in the media and by citizens.

Following the accident in March at LaGuardia Airport in New York involving an Air Canada passenger jet, the company’s CEO, Michael Rousseau, delivered a message of condolence in English only, provoking a fierce outcry and extensive media coverage. Rousseau announced his resignation soon after.

Although English-Canadian media and Québec French-speaking journalists and commentators largely agreed that the monolingual message was inappropriate, the views expressed by the general public were more divided.

This was particularly obvious when it came to how Québec’s francophones responded to Rousseau’s choice of language.

To better understand how these controversies emerge and develop, sociolinguistics is helpful. Sociolinguists look not only at how language is used, but also at how people talk about language, and how those discussions are interpreted and take on meaning.

À lire aussi : New official languages plan aims to end the decline of French in Canada

Negative portrayals of Québec, bilingualism

As part of an ongoing study analyzing reactions to the controversy in the media, I have examined about 3,000 reader comments published in the comment sections of a series of articles in the The Globe and Mail. I wanted to know what these comments would tell us about the attitudes and stances of the English-speaking public.

The five thematic areas that emerged from an automated analysis of all the comments were “French,” “Canada,” “Québec,” “English” and “bilingualism,” in descending order of frequency of occurrence.

An analysis that I carried out using a random sample of 500 comments reveals that 75 per cent of those relating to Québec express a negative attitude towards the province. These attitudes are primarily seen through unfavourable references to Québec’s distinctiveness within Canada, as well as its language policies and concerns.

While most references to Canada were also negative, repeatedly describing it as a “non-serious country,” this stance was largely developed through unfavourable references to Québec. More specifically, Canada’s perceived failure was often attributed to giving in to pressure from Québec, the French language and official bilingualism.

In some comments, this sentiment was conveyed with pejorative connotations. It included terms such as “catering”, “kowtowing” or “pandering” to Québec. These stances reflect a broader sense of resentment towards Québec and its language policies.

Although 62.5 per cent of comments regarding the CEO’s unilingual message were critical, 55.7 per cent expressed a negative attitude towards bilingualism. This centres, in particular, on the theme of coercion: “forced to be bilingual” and “force bilingualism on executives.”

French monolingualism, also described as “forced” (“forced monolingualism within Québec”), was associated with numerous references to the “language police.”

The tension between individual linguistic choice and the state-protected language, which reflects two divergent visions of language, pits the two linguistic communities against one another.

À lire aussi : La langue inclusive : lorsque des mythes font leur entrée dans les politiques publiques

Differing perceptions of the two languages

Sociolinguists like Annette Boudreau, an Acadian emeritus professor at the University of Moncton, have highlighted a close link in Canada between negative attitudes towards people and the language associated with them.

Furthermore, according to several studies, language can also serve as a socially acceptable vehicle for stigmatizing its speakers.

As such, negative attitudes about Québec were expressed through pejorative descriptions of Québecois French, including “the international language of whining” and “Canada’s second (unofficial dying) language.”

Stereotypical representations that aimed to challenge the status of Québecois French as a legitimate variety of French described it as “a dying” or “dead language,” or even as “a 400-year-old dialect,” which “is only understood in Québec.”

In contrast, several comments presented English as the “international” and “dominant” language and, in particular, “the dominant language in Canada.” One comment argued that the English language was “a lever for success.”

Language as a mirror

What assumptions about language — so ingrained they often go unquestioned within their communities — help drive these disparaging narratives?

For many French speakers, their language is more than a tool: it’s a source of belonging and a cornerstone of culture and social cohesion, tied closely to both personal and collective identity. That means criticizing the language can be regarded as criticizing the people who speak it.

In English-speaking Canada, by contrast, English — widely seen as the dominant language in public life — is often treated primarily as a practical means of communication. It tends to be viewed as emotionally neutral rather than identity-defining. From this perspective, criticizing a language doesn’t necessarily imply criticism of its speakers.

These contrasting ways of thinking about language — what researchers call language ideologies — are rarely spelled out, as shown in the work of Carleton University sociolinguist Rachelle Vessey. As a result, many people aren’t aware of them or their effects.

When these perspectives meet, they can clash and create tension. Recognizing these differences, and the attitudes they shape, can help explain persistent misunderstandings — and may open the door to a measure of reconciliation.

Yulia Bosworth ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

About 1 in 4 elementary students in the United States reports being bullied at least once during a given school year.

Children who are frequently bullied are more likely to struggle in school, experience poorer physical health and face higher risks of depression, anxiety and substance use as they age. These effects can persist into adulthood, contributing to unemployment and financial instability.

Most bullying research focuses on children’s individual traits, such as whether they display signs of aggressiveness or whether their parents physically punish them at home. Children who experience non-physical but harsh or punitive discipline at home may also be more likely to engage in bullying.

Overall, bullying rates vary widely across classrooms.

New research I conducted with colleagues at the University at Albany and other schools finds that classroom environments play an important role in bullying. Children have a slightly higher risk of being bullied when they are in classrooms that are frequently disrupted by student misbehavior, or are chaotic – even after considering individual factors, like a child’s personality and family experiences.

Our findings show that bullying is not only influenced by who children are, but by the environments they are exposed to at school.

Evaluating classroom environments

We analyzed teacher and student surveys collected by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics from 2014 through 2016. This nationwide data looked at teachers and children who were in the third, fourth and fifth grades.

Teachers evaluated whether their classroom environment was disruptive by reporting how many students struggled to pay attention, behave appropriately or follow instructions. They also gave an overall rating of classroom misbehavior. Students reported how frequently they were bullied, including being teased, called names, intentionally excluded from play or subjected to physical aggression like pushing and hitting.

To make sure the findings reflected a real pattern and not a coincidence, we used a statistical method that tests whether the same students reported more or less bullying when they were in more or less disruptive or chaotic classrooms across different grades.

In other words, we looked at how changes in a child’s classroom environment were linked to changes in their own experiences of bullying. This approach helps separate the effects of a classroom environment from differences between children’s personal characteristics and experiences at home.

Reducing classroom chaos

Traditionally, anti-bullying efforts target individual students’ behaviors or family dynamics. Interventions might include teaching social skills or giving parents more support and training in responding to their kids’ behavior.

However, programs that target only bullies or victims are not always effective at preventing bullying.

Our findings suggest that reducing classroom chaos is a viable path toward decreasing bullying. The effects we observed are small but consistent, meaning the pattern held even under strict tests. We think awareness of this connection could help make a meaningful difference across a classroom.

Teachers reporting that classrooms are disruptive reflects both students’ behavior and the challenges teachers face in overseeing a classroom full of students. These challenges include keeping students focused, encouraging appropriate behavior and ensuring that students follow instruction.

In more chaotic classrooms, students may be talking over one another, leaving their seats or struggling to stay on task. This creates an environment where it is harder to maintain order and can lead to a “spillover effect,” in which negative behaviors spread. As a result, aggression can become more common and even be reinforced within the peer group, increasing the likelihood of bullying.

Managing a chaotic classroom can also be demanding and emotionally exhausting for teachers. They must spend more time handling disruptions and keeping students on task. This can limit not only the time and energy they have to prevent or respond to bullying but also their ability to notice it in the first place.

At the same time, it is important to recognize that chaotic or disruptive classrooms often reflect broader challenges, such as large class sizes, limited school funding and students dealing with difficulties outside of school, such as poverty, housing instability or trauma.

Supporting educators with professional development options, like offering training on how to support students emotionally and connecting rules to positive or negative consequences, can help to reduce the likelihood that children will misbehave in class.

The impact of classroom chaos also intersects with broader social inequalities.

Previous studies show that students from low-income families, racial and ethnic minority backgrounds and those with disabilities face higher risks of being bullied. Our study helps explain why: These students are more likely to be in chaotic classrooms.

This is not because they are deliberately placed in such environments, but because they are more likely to attend schools with low budgets that might have large class sizes, fewer experienced staff and less specialized kinds of support for students.

Next steps

Bullying is a serious issue that often occurs in elementary schools, making prevention an urgent priority. Our findings shift the focus from students’ individual characteristics and backgrounds to the broader classroom environment.

Our findings suggest that reducing classroom chaos may be one promising approach to addressing bullying. Further research is needed to identify additional classroom factors that capture the complexity of classroom dynamics and how they contribute to bullying.

Qingqing Yang receives funding from Spencer Foundation.

When the U.S. Department of Justice moved to reclassify medical marijuana to a Schedule III drug on April 23, 2026, it set the stage for a vast amount of medical research that has been hobbled for decades by its more restrictive Schedule I classification.

The Justice Department also called for an expedited federal rescheduling process, with proceedings expected to begin in late June 2026, but for now cannabis at the federal level remains a Schedule I drug.

I’m an associate professor of nursing and I edited a textbook for nurses about providing care with cannabis. Cannabis is the umbrella term for the plant genus that includes both marijuana and hemp – two varieties of the same plant distinguished primarily by their content of THC, one of the active components of cannabis.

Moving cannabis to a Schedule III drug ushers in the end of the cannabis prohibition era and the beginning of the regulation era, potentially creating promising opportunities around research and new therapeutics.

How are drugs regulated by ‘schedule’?

The Controlled Substances Act of 1970 categorizes all substances regulated under existing federal law into one of five schedules. The act regulates the manufacturing, importation, possession, use and distribution of substances on each schedule.

Several factors determine schedule placement, including the drug’s medical use, scientific evidence of its benefits and pharmacological effects, patterns and history of abuse, public health risk level, degree of physical or psychological addiction potential, and whether the drug can be used to make another controlled substance.

The Drug Enforcement Administration’s rescheduling of marijuana will move it from its current classification as a Schedule I drug, defined as having a high risk for abuse and no accepted medical use, to a Schedule III drug under the Controlled Substances Act. While still tightly regulated, Schedule III drugs are considered to have moderate to low risk for physical and psychological dependence and to have some medical benefits.

Other Schedule I drugs include heroin, psilocybin, LSD, peyote and MDMA, or ecstasy. These drugs cannot be dispensed or prescribed, with some exceptions. Current Schedule III drugs include ketamine, anabolic steroids, testosterone, products with less than 90 milligrams of codeine per dosage unit and some cannabinoids.

The move to reclassify medical marijuana products as Schedule III drugs applies only to those products certified by state-level medical cannabis programs. All other cannabis products remain a federal Schedule I drug, including those available from states’ recreational cannabis programs.

Impacts of cannabis reclassification

This legal order acknowledges that medical marijuana has some medical value and asserts that it has a lower potential for abuse than under the previous Schedule I classification.

The reclassification also ensures that state-registered medical cannabis patients continue to be permitted to purchase medical cannabis products without changes to their current certification or recommendation.

One of the challenges with this new law is that states have not standardized medical cannabis regulations, and each state will have its own quality and testing standards. In Maine, for instance, medical cannabis is not tested for molds, fungus, heavy metals or pesticides, while recreational cannabis is.

This means that the Schedule III medical cannabis in Maine could be contaminated, while the state’s testing of recreational cannabis makes it much safer to consume.

What are the implications for marijuana research?

For decades, researchers have struggled to conduct high-quality research studies due to their lack of access to the cannabis products that patients actually use and restrictions on their processes.

With the reclassification, researchers who are registered with the DEA to research cannabis will be able to obtain cannabis flower and plant material, as well as manufactured cannabis products, such as tinctures and edibles, directly from state-licensed businesses that are DEA-registered.

This means researchers will no longer need to rely on the federal DEA registry for access to cannabis products for research, which were often inferior in quality and variety in comparison to the everyday products medical cannabis patients typically have access to. Instead, they will be able to study cannabis products that patients use in daily life, such as vapes and various edible products.

This shift in access will now allow researchers to undertake the gold standard of research approaches: the randomized controlled trial.

Randomized controlled trials will help researchers like my colleagues determine how effective cannabis is in treating people with complex medical needs. This includes patients who experience nausea and pain while undergoing cancer treatments, multiple sclerosis patients with severe muscle spasm and stiffness, and chronic pain patients who strive to find relief without using opioids.

Might rescheduling send mixed signals?

Rescheduling may lead people to believe that cannabis is safe for all people to consume.

However, a growing body of research points to possible adverse effects from cannabis use, particularly in vulnerable groups, such as people who are pregnant, adolescents, people with preexisting mental health conditions such as schizophrenia or psychosis, and those with cardiac issues.

Cannabis can also lead to adverse drug interactions. Therefore, medical patients should use it with discretion and under the guidance of a healthcare professional.

For most medical cannabis patients, THC doses should start low and gradually be increased.

Rescheduling will be a big step toward helping researchers build a greatly needed solid body of evidence around both the benefits and potential harms of cannabis. But rescheduling should not be interpreted as a signal that cannabis is harmless.

Carey S. Cadieux is affiliated with the American Cannabis Nurses Association as a volunteer who consults with them on federal and state-level cannabis policy, and the editor of the textbook Cannabis: A handbook for nurses, published by Wolters Kluwer.

On April 26, 1986, Soviet engineers at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant were conducting a safety test. Doomed by a fatal design flaw and pushed to the limit by human negligence, reactor 4 exploded amid an attempted shutdown during a routine procedure, setting off a chain of events that ultimately released radioactive material hundreds of times greater than that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Although the accident occurred north of Kyiv, Ukraine, near the border with Belarus, radioactive fallout was soon detected throughout northern and central Europe. Yet the Soviets did what they could to prevent the spread of information that would reveal the true horror of what had occurred.

For decades, researchers, political leaders and advocacy groups have worked to uncover the story of the explosion. While science has allowed us to understand the circumstances of the explosion itself, it has taken much more work to uncover the layers of mismanagement, negligence and misinformation that resulted in human suffering, ecological disaster and economic damage.

One of the problems is that many of the official Soviet records of the event, such as the KGB files, are located in Moscow and are inaccessible to all but a few Russian government agencies.

But there is a partial workaround: Because East Germany was a Soviet satellite state and not a full member of the Soviet Union, official documents remained in the country after the fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1991, after the reunification of Germany, the German government passed a law allowing for the declassification of certain files from the Stasi, East Germany’s secret police and intelligence service. These files can now give us further insight into the mismanagement of Chernobyl, since the East German Stasi and the Soviet KGB were in communication on the matter.

I have spent the past three years reading Stasi files and researching the creation of misinformation in the former Eastern bloc, meeting with Stasi archivists in Berlin and viewing the original archival rooms in the former Stasi headquarters.

Looking at formerly top secret communication between the KGB and Stasi, it is clear that despite publicly insisting everything was under control, both intelligence agencies knew the explosion was absolutely devastating. They kept detailed records of hospitalizations, casualties, damaged crops, contaminated livestock and radiation levels.

But only the very top officials in East Germany and the Soviet Union had access to these numbers. The main fear for both the KGB and Stasi was not the radiation that would harm affected populations but the damage done to their respective countries’ reputations.

Controlling the message

Handling the press was a top priority.

In the Soviet Union, top government officials created their own briefings for the media to be published at precise dates and times. In a set of classified documents that one government official bravely saved and later published, the concreteness with which the lies were devised is apparent. It documents Mikhail Gorbachev, then-leader of the Soviet Union, saying in a Politburo meeting with top government officials: “When we inform the public, we should say that the power plant was being renovated at the time, so it doesn’t reflect badly on our reactor equipment.”

Later in the same meeting, another senior Soviet official, Nikolai Ryzhkov, suggests that the group prepare three different press releases: one for the Soviet people, one for the satellite states and another for Europe, the U.S. and Canada.

In East Germany, the Stasi reports mirrored this messaging. Although top officials are briefed on the presence of radioactive contaminants, the formerly classified Stasi files reiterate that the public is to be told that “absolutely no danger” is present. East German media, controlled by the state, then disseminated this information to the public.

The problem for the East German state was that by the mid-1980s, a lot of people were able to pick up Western TV and radio signals. Many recognized that their own government wasn’t telling them the truth. However, they also knew that Western media would take any chance they got to disparage the Eastern bloc. The result was that many people knew that they weren’t being told the truth, but they weren’t sure exactly what the truth was.

Much of the East German and Soviet propaganda at that time was designed to confuse and cast doubt, not necessarily to fully persuade. The idea was that enough conflicting information would tire people out.

Downplaying economic concerns

One of the Stasi’s major concerns following the disaster was the economic damage that was sure to affect East Germany. Once people began to learn of the radioactive fallout over much of Europe, they grew fearful of their own produce and dairy products.

Children began refusing to drink milk at school, while people frequently asked produce vendors whether their products were grown in a greenhouse or outdoors. On the whole, people stopped buying many of these products.

With an excess of these goods, the East German government needed to devise a plan to continue to make money off potentially contaminated goods. The Stasi’s solution was to increase export of these goods to West Germany.

In the formerly classified files, Stasi officials claim that exports would spread out the consumption of radioactive products, so that no one would consume unsafe levels of contaminated meat and produce.

The problem for the East Germans was that West Germany quickly amended their regulations for border crossings from East to West. Vehicles emitting certain levels of radiation were no longer allowed across the border. As a response, the lower-ranking Stasi workers were required to clean radioactive vehicles themselves. In doing so, the state was knowingly risking the health and safety of its own officials.

The East German food export plan was modeled on a similar one proposed by the Soviet government. The Soviet strategy, however, was not to export contaminated goods abroad but rather to send contaminated meat products to “the majority of regions” in the Soviet Union “except for Moscow.”

How disinformation proved an Achilles’ Heel

When the Stasi was founded in 1950, many of its employees genuinely believed in the East German cause.

Having witnessed the horrors of Nazi Germany, many older Stasi workers saw the East German state as the answer to creating a just and equitable society. By the 1980s, however, this sentiment had grown rare. Instead, many Stasi workers viewed their jobs as means to a decent income and privileged government treatment.

As a result, many Stasi workers had grown disillusioned and dispassionate.

It was little surprise, then, that the Stasi put up little resistance when protesters stormed their headquarters in 1990, months after the Berlin Wall fell. While there are many factors in the demise of the communist bloc, the way the East German and Soviet governments handled the aftermath of Chernobyl contributed greatly to the growing popular sentiment against each regime.

In East Germany, the disinformation campaign after the nuclear disaster only strengthened the message that the state did not have its people’s best interests in mind and that it was willing to sacrifice their health and well-being in order to maintain a certain image.

Lauren Cassidy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.