Permanent daylight saving time is not the fix we think it is
This story deserves to be shared
Send it to someone who'd care, or post it on your networks.
Susan Kohl Malone is an assistant professor at NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing. “Spring ahead, fall back” may soon be a thing of the past. In July, the House of Representatives, Republicans and Democrats alike, voted to end the twice-a-year ritual. I share this instinct as a nurse and a sleep scientist. Changing clock times is not good for us, but the bill now in the Senate would lock Americans out of sync with the sun. The Sunshine Protection Act would make daylight saving time permanent. That sounds wonderful: more light after work and school, longer evenings. But there’s a catch — making daylight saving time permanent does not create a single additional minute of daylight. The sun does not change when it rises and sets; the clock simply relabels the hours. Permanent daylight saving time would take an hour of light from winter mornings and shift it to the evenings. That trade is the problem, because morning light and evening light are not interchangeable. Our bodies run on internal clocks that are set by the sun, not the clock on the wall. Morning light is the master signal: It resets our internal clocks each day and tells the brain to trigger a surge of cortisol.
This article is an excerpt. To read the full content, visit the original source. The Boston Globe
Related articles
Junior Saavedra missing: 18-year-old with autism has been missing since Friday after walking out of Reseda school, mom says
The boy's mother is frustrated with how the school handled his disappearance. Monday, October 19, 2026 7:39AMThe family of a missing teen with autism is begging for help and answers after he walked out of his school in Reseda. RESEDA, LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- The family of a missing teen with autism is begging for help after he walked out of his school in Reseda. Junior Saavedra, 18, was last seen at Diane S. Leichman Career Preparatory and Transition Center on Friday. The Los Angeles Police Department has now declared the boy a critical missing person. His mother is frustrated with how the school handled the situation. Now, she is demanding an explanation. Maria Saavedra says the school called her and asked if her son had come home, informing her that he left the school. She said she then went to the school, where they told her he went missing at 11:20 a.m. Saavedra says they didn't call her until 12:59 p.m., and police didn't arrive until 1:20 p.m. "All I want is for him to show up. Please help me. If you’ve seen him, call me, let me know, because I’m so worried about him," Saavedra said in Spanish. "I don’t even know what to think or what to do anymore to get help.
Trump’s misguided obsession with Greenland
If you weren’t already aware of the president’s fixation on oil as a solution to the world’s problems, his recent social media bloviation on Greenland should make it evident (“Trump says oil, gas, and mineral exploration in Greenland is set to begin. It’s not that simple,” BostonGlobe.com, Oct. 14). In the aftermath of his imperialist usurpation of Venezuela’s oil, he set his sights on Iran. As that war imploded, he resorted to a huge oil deal with President Vladimir Putin of Russia aimed at staunching the rise in gas prices that his war of choice caused. Now he’s moved on to Greenland. The fact that Greenland has never produced significant amounts of oil and gas is beside the point. What’s relevant is that President Trump’s obsession with acquiring ever more fossil fuel resources regardless of the cost in lives or geopolitical relationships is skewing both energy policy and foreign policy. Combined with his ideological antagonism for renewable energy, his monomania for oil and gas has left our nation years behind China, our strongest adversary, in the necessary transition to renewable energy sources that do not exacerbate the already alarming warming of the atmosphere and oceans.
The problem with Austin? It’s in Texas.
Emma Platoff’s piece about how Austin is attracting Massachusetts residents (“He left Boston for Austin. He’s not the only one,” Oct. 15) left out one important Austin downside: It’s in Texas. If you need an abortion, you don’t want to be in Texas. If you don’t have health insurance, you don’t want to be in Texas. And if you care about the future of this country why would you live in a state that elected Greg Abbott as governor and Ken Paxton as attorney general? Boston has its problems but at least most people here care about protecting human rights. Thomas D’AvanzoSharon
Good colleges need good watchdogs
Genevieve Morrison is the editor in chief of The Heights, the independent student newspaper at Boston College. Student journalists at Cornell were the first to report that a former student had filed a civil lawsuit alleging she was raped at a frat party in 2024. Since they did that, professional outlets have taken the story further. The New York Times exclusively obtained documents from the university’s investigation of the incident. CBS broke the news of the Snapchat messages sent on the night of the alleged rape. Traditional outlets do a great job exposing wrongdoing at colleges when they have a reason to look. But someone has to sound the alarm before anyone else knows there’s a fire. A student newspaper is often the sole news organization with reporters on the ground, paying attention, and invested in what happens on a campus. We do important work. But we need the buy-in of other students, readers, and — most of all — administrators to do our jobs well. Private colleges are unusually difficult to report on from the outside. Private schools generally aren’t subject to public records law. As a college journalist myself, I know what that means in practice.
High school football players of the week: 50 standout performers from Week 6
Kayveon Burke, Brockton — The senior rushed for 90 yards and all three touchdowns to lead the Boxers in a 21-8 win at Weymouth, marking his second straight game with three scores. Will Codreanu, St. John’s Prep — It was a breakout party for the sophomore on a big stage, as he led Prep with six catches for 135 yards and two touchdowns in a 43-20 win at previously unbeaten Saint John’s (Shrewsbury). Nick Duarte, Framingham — A true workhorse, the senior fullback carried 26 times for 248 yards with four touchdowns and a pair of 2-point conversions, scoring the go-ahead 29-yard touchdown with 1:07 left to outlast Durfee, 28-27, Thursday night. Tyler Freni, Everett — The senior rushed 17 times for 101 yards and a touchdown, adding 30 receiving yards and 10 tackles to pace the Crimson Tide in a 35-12 win over Lynn English. Get Varsity NewsYour weekly look at the top high school sports stories. Enter EmailPreston Pinckney, Needham — The sophomore tallied 173 yards and a touchdown on 19 carries to lift the Rockets in a 21-7 win over Bay State Herget rival Braintree.
Could Democrats really lose the New Hampshire Senate race?
Part of the panic on the left is that New Hampshire Democrats seem to be running an old — and failed — playbook. Analysts and Democratic politicians themselves have repeatedly said that running against Trump, and not for anything in particular, was the great sin of the 2024 election. And in the years since, we’ve seen unlikely candidates succeed because they took that message to heart and ran on platforms that outlined a clear vision for what they would do if elected. The best example is Zohran Mamdani, who won the New York mayoral race in 2025 on the strength of a bold platform that offered remedies to voters’ everyday concerns: freeze the damn rent, raise the minimum wage, make buses fast and free. And this year, in close Senate races in Michigan and Maine, the Democratic candidates are running on unapologetically progressive platforms with ambitious agendas. But New Hampshire is not New York City, nor is it Maine or Michigan. And in this race, the Democrat is choosing to go in the other direction.
0 comments
No comments yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!