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Blue Origin Scrubs New Glenn Rocket’s Debut Launch

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Blue Origin Scrubs New Glenn Rocket’s Debut Launch

Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket is poised upright at Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Preparations began in earnest several hours before launch when liquid hydrogen started flowing into New Glenn’s propellant tanks.

At 10 minutes before liftoff time, the launch director will conduct a “go poll,” asking people whether the rocket’s systems are ready and whether the weather conditions are favorable.

The last four minutes before launch are the “terminal count” when the rocket’s computer takes over the countdown process.

The seven engines in the booster will ignite 5.6 seconds before liftoff. That gives the computer a chance to check the performance of the engines before committing to liftoff. If anything is not quite right, it will shut down the engines.

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If everything is good, the clamps holding the rocket will let go, and New Glenn will rise into the sky.

A crucial moment will come one minute, 39 seconds after launch as the rocket passes through what is known as max-Q, when atmospheric pressure on the rocket is greatest.

If it passes through that moment intact, the booster during the third minute of the flight will be done pushing the rocket upward and the engines will shut down. Twelve seconds later, it will drop away, and nine seconds after that, the second-stage engine will fire up.

Not long afterward, the fairing — the two halves of the nose cone protecting the payload — will jettison. At that altitude, the atmosphere is thin enough that the fairing is no longer needed.

Over the next few minutes, the booster will light up twice as it tries to land on a floating platform named Jacklyn, after Jeff Bezos’ mother, in the Atlantic Ocean.

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Meanwhile, the second-stage engine will continue to fire until nearly 13 minutes after launch and then shut down.

Blue Origin will then switch on a prototype of its Blue Ring space tug, testing the communications, power and computer systems. It will remain attached to the rocket’s second stage.

About an hour after launch, the second stage will perform another engine burn to push it into a high elliptical orbit, coming as close as 1,500 miles from Earth and swinging out as far away as 12,000 miles. That is much higher than launches to low-Earth orbit, a few hundred miles up.

In an interview on Sunday, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Blue Origin, said that orbit will allow testing of the communications systems at a wide variety of altitudes. “And it puts the vehicle in a very harsh radiation environment, which we also want to test,” he said.

Then, almost six hours after launch, the mission will be over. The systems on the rocket stage and Blue Ring will be made safe and turned off, and they will continue their elliptical orbiting. Few other satellites occupy that region, making the chances slim that it will collide with anything else.

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“It gets disposed in place,” Mr. Bezos said.

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Faces From a Meth Surge

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The devastating stimulant has been hitting Portland, Maine hard, even competing with fentanyl as the street drug of choice. Although a fentanyl overdose can be reversed with Narcan, no medicine can reverse a meth overdose. Nor has any been approved to treat meth addiction.Unlike fentanyl, which sedates users, meth can make people anxious and violent. Its effects can overwhelm not just users but community residents and emergency responders.Here are voices from one troubled neighborhood.

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A Scientist Is Paid to Study Maple Syrup. He’s Also Paid to Promote It.

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A Scientist Is Paid to Study Maple Syrup. He’s Also Paid to Promote It.

For more than a decade, Navindra Seeram, a biomedical researcher, has praised maple syrup, calling it a “hero ingredient” and “champion food” that could have wide-ranging health benefits.

Dr. Seeram, dean of the School of Pharmacy at the University of New England, has published more than three dozen studies extolling the power of maple. Much of his work has been bankrolled by Canada’s maple syrup industry and the Canadian and American governments.

At the same time, he has taken on another role: maple syrup pitchman.

“I am uniquely qualified as the world’s leading researcher on maple health benefits with the scientific reputation and credibility to promote the sales of maple products,” he has written in grant applications. He has assured leaders of the Canadian industry that he would always support maple from Quebec, according to emails obtained through a public records request.

As he straddles the realms of scientific inquiry and promotion, he has distorted the real-world implications of his findings and exaggerated health benefits, according to a review by The Examination and The New York Times of 15 years of his studies and public statements. In videos and press releases, he has suggested that consuming maple syrup may help stave off diseases including cancer, Alzheimer’s and diabetes. Other scientists told The Examination and The Times that they thought he had overstated his lab findings and made misleading claims.

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Industry funding is commonplace in nutrition research and may become even more critical as scientists grapple with the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts. Dr. Seeram’s work shows the perils of intertwining science and salesmanship, propelling information that can shape consumer habits and public health.

At the University of Rhode Island, where he worked until last year, Dr. Seeram oversaw projects that were awarded $2.6 million in U.S. government funding, including a grant explicitly intended to increase maple syrup sales. That promotional work produced a stream of social media posts like, “Maple Syrup’s Benefits: Anti-Cancer, Anti-Oxidant, Anti-Inflammatory.”

In a video posted on YouTube in 2019, Dr. Seeram said nutrients in maple syrup could “potentially together prevent and/or delay the onset” of conditions such as “cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, diseases of the brain and so on.”

But his studies have found something more limited: that maple syrup contains small amounts of polyphenols, compounds in plants that are generally considered beneficial. To demonstrate their effects, he tested highly concentrated maple extracts in lab settings — not people’s consumption of commercial maple syrup.

Dr. Seeram told The Examination that he believed in the power of natural medicines, which were part of his upbringing in South America. And he defended how he had spoken about his findings: “No one can go back to direct-quote from me to say, ‘It’s going to cure cancer, it’s going to cure diabetes.’”

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His conclusions often include hedging language — that maple syrup “may” or “could” have meaningful health effects — or disclaimers recommending further study. But several researchers said that the caveats weren’t enough to counterbalance broad health claims, and that Dr. Seeram had leaped too far from lab findings to practical applications.

“They are framing it in a far more positive light than they should,” said Christopher Gardner, a nutrition researcher at Stanford.

In an interview, Dr. Seeram blamed a former colleague at the University of Rhode Island for stirring up what he said was unwarranted scrutiny of his work. A university official said the school had investigated and found no research misconduct.

At a maple industry conference in October, Dr. Seeram described his work as making “it simple for Mom to understand” that syrup is beneficial.

“We have to convince the consumer that this sugar is good for you,” he told an audience of maple farmers, and laid out how to reach the public: Studies like his would be published in peer-reviewed journals, leading to marketing and media coverage and inspiring consumers to buy.

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The Quebec Maple Syrup Producers, an industry association that markets and regulates most of the world’s maple syrup, has long funded Dr. Seeram’s work. The association and the Canadian government have together provided at least $2.8 million for his research, according to a 2019 grant application. The association disputed that figure but would not provide details; neither would Dr. Seeram.

The association has also hired him for consulting and what it termed “PR activities” for at least a decade, according to emails and invoices. In 2023, his fees totaled $37,000, emails show.

In response to one of several emails from association officials thanking him for his work, he wrote in 2018 that he would “always work to find ways to promote maple products from Quebec.”

The maple association approached him in 2009, after the owners of POM Wonderful had funded and used some of his research on pomegranate to promote their juice during the pomegranate craze of the 2000s. (The Federal Trade Commission later issued a cease-and-desist order accusing the company of making misleading or false claims, based in part on a study he coauthored.)

Though Dr. Seeram had not previously researched maple, he told The Examination he was intrigued because he had recently moved to the Northeast, where it is an important agricultural product. Over the next couple of years, Dr. Seeram announced he had discovered dozens of polyphenols in maple syrup, including one his team named Quebecol.

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Based on his lab tests of concentrated compounds, he began suggesting that maple syrup had wide-ranging applications for human health.

“Maple syrup is becoming a champion food,” he said in a 2011 press release. “Several of these compounds possess antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, which have been shown to fight cancer, diabetes and bacterial illnesses.”

But experts say the low levels of these compounds in syrup are unlikely to improve health. Dr. Seeram acknowledged in interviews that a person would have to consume gallons of maple syrup to get the nutritional equivalent of the extracts. He noted, as he often has, that he isn’t encouraging anyone to consume more sugar, merely to choose maple syrup over alternatives.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, another important benefactor, awarded more than $2.6 million for Dr. Seeram’s work. This included nearly $500,000 in 2017 to study whether maple syrup extract could improve the health of obese mice. Their health did not improve, and in some cases worsened, according to study findings cited by a government website and a student dissertation. The results weren’t published in an academic journal. Dr. Seeram, who in recent weeks stopped responding to queries from The Examination and The Times, didn’t answer questions about this study.

In 2018, the U.S.D.A. awarded $500,000 to a group led by Dr. Seeram for a promotional campaign that would showcase maple research on a University of Rhode Island website. Dr. Seeram’s grant application said he would be responsible for translating the science into “lay-friendly terminology.”

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The website, overseen by his team, called maple syrup “immensely healthy for you.” And though it carried disclaimers that more research was needed, it made misleading statements connecting studies of reduced-sugar maple extract to the consumption of maple syrup, such as: “Did you ever think that you could fight high blood sugar with some things as sugary and delicious as maple syrup?”

It also said the Quebecol compound could become a “potential cancer prevention drug,” noting that it looked “remarkably similar” to the breast cancer drug Tamoxifen — a comparison Dr. Seeram has also made in presentations.

In interviews, three cancer researchers called this comparison misleading. Geoffrey Greene of the University of Chicago said it was like expecting the brother of a concert violinist to also be a concert violinist because they looked similar.

When asked why he has used his research to promote maple products, Dr. Seeram said he was simply fulfilling the terms of the government grant. A U.S.D.A. spokeswoman said the University of Rhode Island was responsible for the website’s claims.

The university wouldn’t comment on the research. After inquiries from reporters, the website was taken down. The university said this was part of a broader effort to remove dormant pages.

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One of Dr. Seeram’s studies involved giving maple syrup extract to genetically modified worms to examine Alzheimer’s-related effects. His team observed that some worms fared better, but on average they were worse off. Nevertheless, the top-line summary in Dr. Seeram’s paper, published in 2016 by the journal Neurochemical Research, ignored the negative results and said the syrup extract “showed protective effects” for the worms.

An industry association press release said maple syrup extract had prolonged the worms’ lives — even though on average they died sooner — with a disclaimer that more research was needed. That nuance was lost in headlines in Canada, India, England and the United States proclaiming that maple syrup could protect against Alzheimer’s.

Christopher Link of the University of Colorado Boulder, who pioneered Alzheimer’s research on that kind of worm, criticized the study, citing the lack of basic details like the number of worms tested and whether the experiment had been replicated. Dozens of plant extracts have produced positive results in similar experiments, Dr. Link said, but that doesn’t mean they have real-world applications.

In a statement, Julie Barbeau of the maple association said it adheres to strict ethics rules and has had “no influence whatsoever” on the scores of research projects it has backed.

At least a dozen of Dr. Seeram’s papers that the maple association says it funded didn’t disclose that relationship. Also not disclosed in his papers: his paid consultant role and a Canadian maple extract patent that names him and Ms. Barbeau as co-inventors.

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Six publishers of Dr. Seeram’s work said they require authors to declare potential conflicts of interest. Dr. Seeram did not respond to questions about his disclosures.

In public statements, he has acknowledged receiving financial support from the maple association. And in earlier interviews, he said that industry funding is vital, because other research dollars are scarce. He also defended his patents, saying, “The driver here is not for me to get rich.” The maple association said it was protecting its intellectual property.

Last year, the association hailed a new study, which it funded, as the “first human clinical trial” of maple syrup.

Participants replaced a small amount of sugar in their diet with maple syrup — for instance, to sweeten coffee. The scientists told Newsweek that the results, published in The Journal of Nutrition, showed that maple syrup improved measures of blood sugar, blood pressure and fat, and might help lower the risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Dr. Seeram, who was not an author of the study, said the results validated his work.

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But three independent experts who reviewed the research said the conclusions were overstated — emphasizing a few positive results among dozens of measures — and the study appeared to show no meaningful difference between maple syrup and refined sugar.

“They took it too far,” said Kimber Stanhope, a nutritional biologist at the University of California, Davis.

The lead researcher, André Marette of Laval University, said that while the differences between maple syrup and refined sugar were “modest,” they were meaningful. Through a public relations firm hired by the industry association, he said, “We were careful to state that the clinical relevance of the work will need to be further substantiated.”

In the meantime, the findings have reached the general public. “Sweet!” effused a headline in a women’s magazine last fall. “Maple Syrup in Coffee Could Help You Lose Weight.”

Mago Torres contributed reporting.

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Can a baby struggle with their mental health? How this hospital is helping L.A.’s youngest

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Can a baby struggle with their mental health? How this hospital is helping L.A.’s youngest

A major initiative at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles aims to address a critical but much overlooked need: mental health care for families experiencing the complex flood of joy, fear and upheaval during the first few years of a child’s life.

Myriad issues can emerge or become exacerbated in a family after a baby is born, including maternal postpartum depression, sleep problems, attachment issues between caregivers and children, early signs of behavioral challenges, domestic conflict between parents, and housing insecurity that often worsens as a family grows. If a child also experiences a medical issue, including an extended hospital stay, a serious birth defect or a developmental delay, these problems can be compounded.

A $25-million gift from the Tikun Olam Foundation of the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles will allow the hospital to expand mental health screening and services to as many as 30,000 children ages 3 and under who seek care at Children’s Hospital each year, making it one of the first hospitals in the country to provide universal infant-family mental health services. Currently, the hospital provides these services to about 1,800 children each year.

The idea behind the program is to provide attention and care that can strengthen the bond between parents and children during the baby’s crucial early years — and help prevent problems from spiraling in the longer term.

Engage with our community-funded journalism as we delve into child care, transitional kindergarten, health and other issues affecting children from birth through age 5.

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These bonds are essential to a baby’s healthy brain development in a period of rapid neuron formation and great sensitivity, said Melissa Carson, a pediatric psychologist at the hospital and co-director of the Early Connections Program.

Medical issues and family stressors — also called adverse childhood experiences — can disturb this process, but often aren’t identified until preschool or later, when behavioral or other problems have spiraled.

1

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Several of Vicente Giron Sarria's medications fill up a cabinet at his home.

2 Evy Soto replaces the cap on Vicente Giron Sarria's feeding tube.

3 Stephanie Blanco shuffles through a cabinet of her son's medical records.

4 Evy Soto gives Vicente Giron Sarria, 6, formula through a feeding tube before he wakes up for the day.

5 Stephanie Blanco gets her son Vicente Giron Sarria dressed for the day.

1. Several of Vicente Giron Sarria’s medications fill up a cabinet at his home. 2. Evy Soto replaces the cap on Vicente Giron Sarria’s feeding tube. 3. Stephanie Blanco shuffles through a cabinet of her son’s medical records. 4. Evy Soto gives Vicente Giron Sarria, 6, formula through a feeding tube before he wakes up for the day. (Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times) 5. Stephanie Blanco gets her son Vicente Giron Sarria dressed for the day.

“Just a little support at a critical moment can really prevent the need for much more intensive service later,” said pediatric psychologist Marian Williams, the program’s co-director.

Children’s Hospital Los Angeles has been offering mental health screening and services to the sickest young children who pass through its neonatal intensive care unit for about 10 year. That program was also funded by Mindy and Gene Stein, whose Tikun Olam Foundation focuses on early childhood.

The demand became evident when the hospital found that many families that were offered mental health support in the neonatal intensive care unit stuck with the services after leaving the hospital. Soon, other departments, such as the cardiac unit, were requesting similar services for their patients as well.

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“I hope this becomes something that everybody understands and looks at as a crucial part of a child’s development,” Mindy Stein said.

A ‘window’ of opportunity in early childhood

The hospital will also use the funds to train providers in infant and family mental health care and research the effectiveness of the program in the hopes that the model will spread to other hospitals.

A woman smiles.

Psychologist Marian Williams at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.

“We have this kind of window when you have a new baby. And there’s also a window when you have a medical need,” Williams said. “There’s probably a lot of parents who will say, ‘I don’t really need you. I’m here because of a cut finger, and we’re fine.’ But I imagine there’s going to be a lot more who say, ‘Oh, wow. Since you asked … .’”

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Many families probably could benefit from a handout or video about a common early childhood problem such as sleep issues, picky eating or excessive crying. Some might want to join a parent group with others facing similar challenges, or benefit from a few home visits from a nurse who can help them adjust to life with a new baby.

But other families may need more intensive assistance, such as longer-term therapy. The hospital will also screen them for needed social supports such as housing, food, transportation and internet access, — the lack of which can contribute to a family’s stress and a child’s long-term mental health challenges.

What is infant-family mental health?

The term “infant mental health” can be confusing. After all, it’s difficult to believe that a baby could already be experiencing emotional difficulties. But mental health care in the early years is laser-focused on supporting the developing relationship between the caregiver and child, which can set the trajectory of a child’s life.

For an infant, a therapist might work with the parent to help them notice their baby’s cues, find activities to help the baby explore their environment, and work on their own emotional regulation. As a baby gets older, the therapist also uses play to help develop the bond and begin to treat the child more directly.

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A boy plays with a train set.

Vicente plays with a train set in his bedroom at his home.

For families in the midst of a medical crisis, these early days and months can be particularly fraught, said Patricia Lakatos, a psychologist at the hospital who works with families of children who have been treated in the intensive care unit.

In the neonatal intensive care unit, parents are not only dealing with the day-to-day medical reality, but they’re also “grieving the imagined baby — the baby you thought you were going to have,” Lakatos said. Her work is to visit the family regularly during their stay to help the parent work through their grief and understand how their baby communicates.

Stressful experiences can also affect the baby’s well-being. A baby with traumatic medical needs, for example, may panic every time an adult tries to touch them.

A woman.

Psychologist Patricia Lakatos.

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Lakatos said she can read the signs of a struggling newborn in their eyes. Healthy babies, she said, “have a bright, shiny look that tells you, ‘I’m ready. I’m here. I’m curious and want to engage with the world.’” But babies who experience distress often have a “dull, glazed look in their eye. You might try to engage them, and they’re really not engaging with you.”

Others have eyes that are “wide open, almost like hyperalert,” she said. They’re easily startled and may arch their back and splay their hands, as if to say, “The world is stressful for me.”

But having a nurturing, supportive relationship with a caregiver helps buffer that stress. Supporting this bond includes helping the parent notice the signs that the baby is ready to engage — even momentarily — or whether the baby’s cues are telling them they need to “soften my voice or just hold them and not try to look at them because that’s too much stimulation.” The ultimate goal is to help the caregiver find the joy and delight in the baby they have.

A lifeline of support for mother and baby

Stephanie Blanco of Mission Hills first learned she would be having a baby with major medical complications during an ultrasound early in her pregnancy. “I didn’t think I was going to be able to handle it, going through that,” she said.

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1 A photo of Stephanie Blanco and her son Vicente Giron Sarria as an infant hangs on the fridge at their home.

2 Stephanie Blanco's ultrasounds of her son, Vicente Giron Sarria.

1. A photo of Stephanie Blanco and her son Vicente Giron Sarria as an infant hangs on the fridge at their home. 2. Stephanie Blanco’s ultrasounds of her son, Vicente Giron Sarria.

But right away, she was referred to Children’s Hospital’s Fetal-Maternal Center, which specializes in pregnancies with complex medical conditions, where she met Lakatos. Her son, Vicente Giron Sarria, had been diagnosed with facial deformities, and Lakatos began joining Blanco and her partner at every meeting with the craniofacial team.

“They would explain [the problems] to me, but you would go through so many emotions in that moment. So she would tell me, ‘It’s OK, I’m here,’” and ask her how she was feeling. It was a moment of great tension and stress with her son’s father as they navigated what their new life would look like. She wasn’t sure they would make it as a couple. But Lakatos helped them process their feelings together, she said, and learn to communicate about the their son’s health.

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Vinny was born with numerous complications even beyond the predicted facial abnormalities, including the need to eat through a feeding tube, and spent about two months in the intensive care unit, where Lakatos visited the family every other day.

A woman and a boy lift their right legs.

Stephanie Blanco and Vicente dance to one of Vicente’s favorite YouTube videos.

Lakatos taught her breathing exercises, helped her connect with her son and encouraged her to take some time for herself on walks around the hospital campus. Blanco was able to bond with her baby. “You’re thinking, I can deal with this,” she said. “He’s my baby, and we’re going to get through it. The love comes out.”

The challenges didn’t end when Blanco and Vinny finally went home, and neither did Lakatos’s support. Vinny needed several surgeries, and Blanco had to learn how to feed him six times a day — including the middle of the night — through a gastronomy tube.

But Blanco and her partner, Jesse Giron, continued their visits with Lakatos for several more years. Vinny was eventually diagnosed with nonverbal autism and a seizure disorder, and Blanco joined a support group for parents that Lakatos was leading.

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Blanco said she is still processing life with a medically complex child who requires constant care at home. “Every day is something new. Every day I learn something. Some days are harder than others.”

But she credits Lakatos and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles with saving her life — and her relationship. “If it wasn’t for them and their kindness, their compassion and their guidance, I would be lost.”

This article is part of The Times’ early childhood education initiative, focusing on the learning and development of California children from birth to age 5. For more information about the initiative and its philanthropic funders, go to latimes.com/earlyed. The Stein Early Childhood Development Fund at the California Community Foundation is among the funders.

A child, a woman and a dog on a sofa.

Blanco holds Vicente and their dog Benny at their home.

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