In the early days of the COVID lockdown, Hiroyuki Egami was desperate to get his hands on a Nintendo Switch.

He already had one of the handheld game devices, but he also had two sons who were old enough to fight over it. The only way to maintain the peace in his family’s Tokyo home was to acquire a second unit.

So many parents had the same idea that stores in Japan quickly sold out. When the gaming consoles were back in stock, retailers held lotteries to ensure that everyone who wanted to buy one had an equal chance to do so.

Egami, an economist at Nihon University in Tokyo, quickly recognized that the lottery system could double as a natural experiment and shed light on a question that had been on his mind for years: Are video games actually detrimental to players’ mental health?

“People usually say that video games are harmful and you should decrease the time your children are playing,” he said. “As a father, I’ve been wondering whether it’s true.”

And as a researcher, he said, he felt “a kind of responsibility” to examine the evidence.

Not long before, the World Health Organization stirred up controversy by adding a condition called gaming disorder to the International Classification of Diseases. The ailment describes people who are so consumed by video games that they’re unable to control their playing behavior — even when it puts their health, their relationships with family and friends, and their livelihoods in jeopardy.

The WHO’s action reinforced longstanding views that video games are dangerous. Yet market researchers estimate that more than 3 billion people around the world play video games, a figure that’s been growing steadily for years.

And while titles like “Grand Theft Auto” and “Call of Duty” regularly make the bestseller list, so do family-friendly ones like “Minecraft,” “Animal Crossing,” “Madden NFL” and “Mario Kart 8.”

“Parents should know” whether gaming is truly hazardous, Egami said. “Parents shouldn’t feel too much pressure which is not rational.”

Studies linking gaming to aggression, addiction, cognitive function and general well-being have produced inconclusive results. One reason is that it’s hard to tell, for instance, whether game play itself makes people feel isolated, or whether people who are isolated tend to gravitate toward video games.

The way to tease out cause and effect is to take a group of people and randomly assign some of them to play video games while keeping others game-free to serve as controls. If differences emerge between the otherwise similar cohorts, they may be attributed to the games.

But experiments like these don’t reflect the way people play video games in real life, Egami said. They typically ask college students to play a video game in a laboratory at an appointed time — a study design that, while practical, limits the value of the findings.

That’s why Egami seized upon the video game lotteries. By randomly selecting some would-be gamers to purchase consoles while leaving others empty-handed, retailers unwittingly had set up the equivalent of a clinical trial.

Egami swung into action. He designed a questionnaire and got it into the field as quickly as possible, worried that the shortages would be resolved before he could collect the necessary data.

“Luckily, I could gather my research team and start working on it,” he said.

Between 2020 and 2022, nearly 100,000 people completed Egami’s survey, including 8,192 who took part in a video game lottery. More than a third of the lottery participants were considered “hardcore gamers” who played for at least 90 minutes each day. In addition to game-playing habits, the survey gauged people’s psychological well-being and distress. It also asked about a host of socioeconomic factors, including age, sex, job and family structure.

After crunching all the numbers, the researchers found that purchasing either a Nintendo Switch or a Sony PlayStation 5 through a lottery led to measurable reductions in the recipient’s psychological distress, and that possessing and playing with either device improved the owner’s mental health.

In addition, being selected to buy a PS5 through a lottery boosted gamers’ sense of life satisfaction. So did owning the console and using it to play games, the researchers found. (The team did not have the data to determine whether the same was true for the Nintendo Switch.)

While the improvements in well-being were statistically significant, they weren’t necessarily large enough to be noticed by gamers, Egami said.

The magnitudes of the changes were calculated in terms of standard deviations, which are used in statistics to convey how tightly a group of data points is clustered together. Medical studies suggest that changes are perceptible if they exceed 0.5 standard deviations. By that measure, only the mental health boosts from possessing or playing with a Switch were large enough for gamers to notice.

The data also indicated that after three hours of gaming in a single day, devoting any additional time to playing video games resulted in diminished returns. But there was no amount of time beyond which gaming became “detrimental to mental well-being,” Egami said.

The findings were published Monday in the journal Nature Human Behavior.

While it’s difficult to interpret the exact size of the effects, they “seem large enough to be perceptible to the players themselves,” said Matti Vuorre, a psychological scientist at Tilburg University in the Netherlands who studies video games and other virtual environments. That “indicates a meaningfully large effect in my books,” and makes it more difficult to argue “that gaming is an overall risk” for the average player, he said.

Nick Ballou, a postdoctoral researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute who studies how gaming affects mental health, said he suspects the improvements in well-being “would be minor but perceptible for people.” Anything much larger would be implausible, he said, since “games are only a small part of what contributes to a thriving life.”

Neither Vuorre nor Ballou was involved in Egami’s research, but they collaborated on a 2021 study that documented a dramatic increase in gaming during the pandemic. That was particularly true for multiplayer games, which suggests they were not just a source of entertainment but an outlet for social connection.

“We have lots of evidence that people turned to games as a lifeline in the early part of the pandemic,” said Ballou, who conducted one such study in May 2020. He said he wouldn’t necessarily expect the upside to be as strong in a more typical situation.

Egami agreed that some of the mental health benefits his team documented were likely due to the unique circumstances of the pandemic. But he doesn’t think they’ve disappeared altogether now that regular life has resumed.

“I hope this will bring peace to the general public that enjoys video games,” Egami said.

In the middle of summer, most Southern Californians would be surprised to see more than a handful of clouds in the sky (unless you count clouds of wildfire smoke). But on July 14 in Twentynine Palms, a rapidly developed thunderstorm dropped about 1.88 inches of rain in a couple hours — an overwhelming amount by historical standards for a town that typically gets less than 4 inches in an entire year.

The water rushed along streets and highways, picking up cars and driving debris to damage homes and businesses. Then, while residents were still taking stock of the destruction, nine days later the area was under a flash flood warning again as another thunderstorm moved through.

So why does the Mojave Desert — obviously an extremely arid place — receive all this summer rain while Los Angeles, less than 150 miles away, gets none?

Late summer is the driest time of year for much of California; on average, Los Angeles International Airport receives no rain at all during the month of August. But if you go east over the mountains into San Bernardino County, the pattern suddenly switches — in Twentynine Palms, August is the wettest month. Keep going into Arizona and New Mexico and the late summer precipitation gets even more intense: In Santa Fe, almost half of the year’s rain falls between July and September.

This changeover is the result of a phenomenon called the North American monsoon, which was responsible for the deluge in Twentynine Palms. While it is less well-known than its South Asian counterpart, the North American monsoon plays an important role in the climate of the Four Corners states, bringing crucial moisture to areas that would otherwise be bone dry, but also at times leading to damaging flooding.

All monsoons are driven by the same source: a difference in temperature between land and ocean. During the hot months of late summer, the sun can deliver as much as 1,000 watts per square meter in the subtropics — in terms of power, that’s similar to running a space heater every four feet. Some of this power is reflected into space, but on average more than two-thirds of it is absorbed, either by the land surface or by the ocean.

The essential difference between the two is that the ocean is constantly mixing, which distributes the heat throughout approximately the top 60 feet of ocean water — something that is impossible on land. As a result, the top few inches of soil or rock heat up rapidly over the course of a day, and in turn warm the overlying air.

Monsoon flood waters buckled and damaged the roadway at Kelbaker Road and Mojave Road inside the Mojave National Preserve in August 2022.

(NPS)

Since hot air is less dense than cold air, the air over the land tends to rise, typically in the late afternoon after a full day of baking in the sun. As the air rises from the land, it pulls in moist air from the water — for the North American monsoon, this is the Gulf of California — to replace it. When this moist air reaches mountainous terrain like that of northern Mexico and the American Southwest, it is pushed up and drops its moisture, often in sudden, intense thunderstorms.

There are many places near the coast that don’t have monsoons — Los Angeles, for instance. One important factor is topography: Research suggests that a major reason why the South Asian monsoon is so powerful and consistent is the presence of the Himalayas, which act as a wall that prevents air from the dry Tibetan plateau from making it to the Indian subcontinent.

Another major consideration is something called the “subtropical ridge,” which is a series of persistent high-pressure systems that all occur around 30 degrees north (and south) of the equator.

The reason that the North American monsoon does not reach coastal California is the presence of the North Pacific High, which is a part of the subtropical ridge that typically sits northeast of Hawaii. The North Pacific High strengthens and expands during the summer, creating the hot, dry conditions that are typical for Los Angeles and crowding out the monsoon. In winter, however, the North Pacific High tends to weaken and shift south, allowing atmospheric rivers to reach the state.

For the Southwest, the North American monsoon can be both a blessing and a curse.

It brings much-needed rain to the region, but that precipitation typically falls in torrential downpours that the dry, hard-packed soil is unable to absorb. This leads to dangerous flash floods that can destroy roads and buildings and potentially claim the lives of those caught in their path. The rain and cool conditions delivered by the monsoon can be useful in extinguishing wildfires, but the lightning from the storms is also a major trigger for wildfires in the region.

As with many weather phenomena, climate change is expected to have some effect on monsoon rainfall, but the magnitude and direction of that effect depends on specific local factors.

For some parts of the globe, like South and East Asia, monsoons are predicted to become more intense because of climate change. It is thought that changes in aerosol pollution as China and India (hopefully) shift away from coal power will play a very important role.

In the southern hemisphere, models suggest a possible small increase in summer monsoon rainfall. Of the major monsoon systems, only the North American monsoon is expected to have substantial decreases in total precipitation, with the most likely outcome being a 1%-6% reduction in summer rainfall. The reasons for this predicted decrease are not entirely understood but warming sea surface temperatures off the coast of Baja California have been suggested as a possible explanation.

If the North American monsoon does weaken over the coming decades, it will put further stress on the dwindling Colorado River, which has a watershed that includes almost all of Arizona and large swathes of Colorado and Utah. Perhaps more significantly, it will represent a serious threat to ecosystems that are already fragile because of rising temperatures and outbreaks of the mountain pine beetle.

The future of monsoon systems across the globe is not certain or easily predictable but given the potential perils in either direction — more intense flooding or deepening drought — it is important that we prepare for both scenarios and act quickly to limit these changes including by rapidly cutting emissions.

Ned Kleiner is a scientist and catastrophe modeler at Verisk. He has a doctorate in atmospheric science from Harvard.

A California bill that would have imposed regulations on kratom products was quietly shelved Thursday following a clash between advocacy groups focused on the burgeoning industry.

Kratom products are derived from the leaves of a tree that grows in Southeast Asia, where kratom has long been chewed and brewed into teas. As it has gained more popularity around the globe, greenish capsules, powders and extracts have popped up in vape and smoke shops in California.

Scientists are still learning about its complex effects, which can range from stimulant to sedative and stem from chemical compounds called alkaloids. The Food and Drug Administration has warned against using kratom for medical treatment and says it is “not appropriate for use as a dietary supplement.” Among the reported side effects have been seizures, vomiting and heart problems. Kratom has also been involved in a small share of overdose deaths, although most also involved other drugs, analyses have found.

A bill proposed by Assemblymember Matt Haney (D-San Francisco) would have required kratom products to be registered with the state, and to carry mandated labeling and warnings. It also would have prohibited sales to anyone under 21.

In addition, Assembly Bill 2365 would have banned products containing synthesized versions of kratom alkaloids. And it would have prohibited ones in which a specific chemical makes up more than 1% of its alkaloid content.

That chemical is 7-hydroxymitragynine, also known as 7-OH. It is typically found in the dried kratom leaf in very low concentrations, although a more common alkaloid in the plant — mitragynine — breaks down in the human body to create 7-OH as well.

Scientists have raised concerns about its effects: One study in the Journal of Medical Toxicology said 7-OH “is likely to be a major contributing factor to the addictive potential of kratom.” Another article published in Addiction Biology said 7-OH “should be considered a kratom constituent with high abuse potential.”

Kirsten Smith, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins University, said that because 7-OH appears naturally at very low levels in the kratom leaf, products with much higher levels of 7-OH are “easily identifiable as being manipulated and man-made.”

“It’s no longer the botanical as it’s been used in nature,” Smith said, adding that she didn’t consider synthesized 7-OH products to be kratom at all.

Kratom advocacy groups were split over the California bill. It was backed by the Global Kratom Coalition, whose executive director, Matthew Lowe, argued kratom products should have an alkaloid content similar to the natural plant that has long been used. The coalition was joined by law enforcement groups in backing AB 2365.

In the opposing camp were the American Kratom Assn., which has fought bans on kratom products throughout the country and backed other state regulations, and Holistic Alternative Recovery Trust, which wants 7-OH to be explored as an alternative to opioids for pain relief.

The American Kratom Assn. contended that the regulatory structure needed for the California bill would be so costly that few companies would be able to pay the needed fees. State officials estimated it could cost over $4 million annually to regulate kratom under the bill.

AB 2365 “is promoted by one company who will benefit from the onerous provisions … to the detriment of small and mid-sized kratom manufacturers,” said Mac Haddow, its senior fellow on public policy. He argued Botanic Tonics — a beverage company listed as a supporter of the Global Kratom Coalition — had enough market presence that for them, the registration fees would not be prohibitive.

The Holistic Alternative Recovery Trust argued for a higher limit on 7-OH, saying that California should avoid being so restrictive that the products would lose therapeutic benefits.

Lowe said that the level they were pushing for — 2% of dry weight rather than 1% of the alkaloid content — was vastly higher and would threaten consumer safety. As for concerns about fees, Lowe said the focus should be “how the provisions in the bill inform and protect consumers, rather than the cost on the industry.”

“The Global Kratom Coalition is not looking to support any single vendor. We’re looking to ensure that kratom products are safe,” Lowe said. He added that the bill envisioned a tiered system for fees related to annual sales in California, which would allow lower fees for smaller companies.

AB 2365 stalled in the state Senate’s appropriations committee as lawmakers culled hundreds of bills on the so-called suspense file. The process allows legislative leaders to quietly halt bills that would have significant costs or pose challenging political dynamics, averting the need for many lawmakers to have to weigh in.

Haney said that “Californians are not safer by leaving kratom entirely unregulated in our state,” calling it “a total free-for-all.” The lawmaker said he plans to reach out to the California Department of Public Health to weigh next steps and hopes the FDA will take action, rather than leaving the matter to states.

“I have no interest in benefiting any particular player” in the kratom industry, but chose to err on the side of less potency, to the chagrin of “people who want to sell much stronger versions of kratom,” Haney said. He said if discussions continue, he would like the Department of Public Health to help define what is “synthetic.”

The public health department, which would have handled product registration under the bill, said it has not conducted any scientific assessment of the safety risks of 7-OH in kratom products.

The Global Kratom Coalition spent $15,000 on lobbying related to the bill, according to financial disclosures available as of Thursday. It also contributed $5,500 in political donations to Haney, who introduced AB 2365, and $36,400 to Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, who supported it, according to state records.

Botanic Tonics, in turn, reported spending $90,000 on lobbying during this legislative session, including $30,000 during a period it was advocating on AB 2365. The company said other expenses were for “advice and counsel on the regulatory and legislative landscape specific to California.”

Holistic Alternative Recovery Trust reported spending $18,000 on lobbying over AB 2365. The American Kratom Assn. said it had not hired a lobbyist until the end of July and would report its spending after that point.

And the bill also drew interest from the kratom company MIT45 Inc., which reported spending $60,000 on lobbying. A company leader did not immediately clarify its position on the bill.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse says that “much is still unknown about chemical compounds related to kratom,” its health impacts and possible therapeutic uses, complicating discussions among regulators in California and across the country.

The Global Kratom Coalition has funded research on kratom at the University of Florida college of pharmacy, where researcher Christopher McCurdy and others have raised concerns about “semi-synthetic, isolated” alkaloids. Lowe said his group provided $500,000 total this year. Advancing research on kratom is part of its mission and “ensures that regulations are led by the evolving science,” he said.

McCurdy said the coalition and “many independent kratom vendors” had helped fund research there, but “no one that donates has any influence on what studies we conduct” and “they all understand that we will publish our findings without their review or consent.”

Smith said she had done consulting for the Global Kratom Coalition in the past, but that her research was funded by NIDA, not the coalition or any other groups connected to the kratom industry.

“We are in such early, early days of research” on kratom, she said.