On a shrub-covered dune in San Francisco’s Presidio, biologist Durrell Kapan and a group of volunteers huddle around a tiny plastic condiment container placed delicately amid a cluster of orange-yellow flowers. Inside is a Silvery Blue butterfly whose inch-long wings beat sleepily, revealing its shimmering namesake hue as it sips on a cotton ball doused in fruit punch Gatorade.

Just over 80 years ago, Xerces Blue Butterfly last flapped its wings over the Presidio, becoming the first butterfly on the continent known to go extinct as a result of human activity. Now, by releasing this Silvery Blue – and over a hundred others over the past year — Kapan hopes there can be some sort of life after extinction, with these butterflies filling the role in the ecosystem that the Xerces once did.

De-extinction – the idea of bringing species back from beyond the brink or filling their role with surrogate creatures – has been an effort for decades. But last month, that idea burst into the popular consciousness when the stark white coats of “Dire wolves” (which some scientists say might be better described as genetically modified grey wolves) graced the covers of magazines across the world.  Led by a researcher from UC Santa Cruz, a group of scientists claimed to bring back the creature after it had been extinct for over 12,000 years.

“The idea of de-extinction is that it’s part of the spectrum of restoring lost species and ecological roles in environments,” said Ben Novak, lead scientist at the Sausalito-based conservation philanthropy Revive & Restore.

Both the wolf and the butterfly are part of a larger push by scientists and philanthropists across the Bay Area to bring back species from extinction or replace their roles in the name of conservation. While many in the movement say their work could be essential for preserving life on earth, some fear that use or abuse of these techniques could be a distraction — or worse, harm the very conservation cause they claim to fight for.

“We need new tools to address conservation problems – that’s essential,” said Ryan Phelan, co-founder of Revive & Restore, who helped create a nexus of researchers, ethicists, and conservationists interested in biotech and de-extinction. “These new tools need to be developed responsibly and with open transparency… No new technology today can replace the need to protect habitat.”

Biologists and conservationists largely agree that we are in the midst of a biodiversity crisis, a rapid loss in populations and widespread extinctions of animals, plants and other organisms across the globe fueled by human activity like habitat destruction, a changing climate, and pollution. While estimates vary, some studies suggest the planet is losing species at least 100 times faster than the “natural” rate we might expect.

As a species disappears from the environment, so too does its role in its habitat. For example, a group of grey wolves might keep the elk population in check. Without the wolves, elk might overgraze, chomping down on flora that would otherwise grow into food or roosts for other species.

“It’s like a Jenga stack. When a species goes extinct, you create a gap in that fragile structure. Life and ecosystems are a little bit like that,” said Douglas McCauley, a professor at UC Santa Barbara and UC Berkeley, who co-wrote ethical guidelines to de-extinction. “So what you want to do is you want to fill those blocks back in.”

For many in the Bay Area, rebuilding that Jenga stack is the goal of de-extinction: to release a group of animals that can fill in a key role in the environment and stabilize an ecosystem.

In 2020, Revive & Restore partnered with Kapan at the California Academy of Sciences to look into the genetics of the Xerces butterfly with an eye towards restoring it to the Presidio. Kapan and his collaborators investigated the DNA of the extinct Xerces and analyzed historical records of the butterfly’s behavior and habitat. Then they compared the genes and the environment to other species of butterfly and found the Silvery Blue, a butterfly out of California’s Central Coast with a similar penchant for foggy dunes and certain shrubs as the Xerces.

The butterfly might be able to serve as pollinator and prey like the Xerces, filling its empty role in the ecosystem. So over the last year, Kapan and his team captured over 100 Silvery Blues from Monterey County and brought them to the Presidio to release them.

Kapan calls the experiment a “test case of … what people are calling de-extinction,” allowing him and others to gain insight into what happens when you try to replace an extinct species with a new one.

De-extinction, though, has another side, fueled by 21st-century advances in genetics that rival science fiction.

“Habitats around the world are changing at a rate that is faster than evolution can keep up,” said UCSC biologist Beth Shapiro. “If we want a future that is both biodiverse and filled with people, we need to be increasing the tools at our disposal that allow us to help species … we need to directly modify (genes).”

Shapiro wrote the book on de-extinction, “How to Clone a Mammoth,” after becoming a world leader in extracting and deciphering DNA from ancient remains. She detailed the steps to creating a creature for de-extinction. In brief summation, she wrote: figure out the genes of an extinct creature, tweak the genes of a close relative so that it might have key traits of the extinct one, find a good surrogate mom, figure out how to raise it, and release it — ideally along with many of its kin — into the wild.

Then last year, Colossal Biosciences, a biotech startup dedicated to de-extinction, tapped Shapiro to serve as their chief science officer.

That’s where she helped bring back the Dire wolf, or something like it.

According to Colossal, the company’s scientists extracted ancient DNA from millennia-old Dire wolf bones. Using that prehistoric code as a guide, they edited a handful of genes in grey wolf cells for traits they linked to Dire wolves – like a bigger frame and longer hair. They then moved their genes into embryos that, when carried by surrogate dog moms, produced wolves with fluffy white coats and some dire wolf traits.

While some, including Phelan, argued that this could be a significant stride in the science of de-extinction, any potential advances were lost in a flurry of media coverage and debate over scientific rigor and thorny ethical quandaries.

Many proponents of de-extinction as a potential tool worried that Dire wolves no longer have a role in the environment – there are no more wooly mammoths or giant sloths for the beast to hunt.

“It starts to devalue if people think (de-extinction) is all about Jurassic Park – It’s just not. It’s something much more serious, it really is about ecosystem restoration,” said Phelan.

Some feared that claiming to bring back a species would weaken efforts to protect them: fears that were fueled by statements from the Secretary of the Interior and by a push by the Trump administration to weaken the Endangered Species Act .

“We have a higher calling for these tools,” said McCauley, who called the Dire wolf experiment and its fallout the “worst case scenario” for de-extinction. “It was not just a distraction. It actually was a very significant threat to endangered species conservation.”

Others argued that the high-tech exploits would distract money and attention from already-underfunded conservation efforts. “(T)he priority ought to be saving … endangered species and not attempting to recreate extinct ecological niches,” said Ben Sacks, director of the Mammalian Ecology and Conservation Unit at UC Davis, in an email. “I think the potential harms of charging forth into the great unknown with shiny tools and hubris to guide conservation efforts are likely to far outweigh any benefits that might come of them.”

Shapiro maintains that the experiment could offer key insight crucial to advancing the science of de-extinction, including whether the genetic changes affect the long-term health of an animal or its ability to reproduce. As of yet, there isn’t another ideal candidate for de-extinction, she argues. “If we say we’re going to go to the moon and the first thing we do is get into orbit, are people just mad because we didn’t immediately go to the moon?” asked Shapiro.

In an attempt to cut through the noise, Phelan collaborated with a group of scientists, conservationists and ethicists to create a statement maintaining that while biotechnology could have a key role in conservation, it is far from a cure-all and that without laws protecting species and efforts to protect habitats, the point of de-extinction is moot.

While the debate simmers on, the team at Colossal continues to monitor the wolves in their remote preserve in an undisclosed location, searching for hints as to how their altered genes might affect them.

Kapan, meanwhile, holds that the experiment may give clues to how de-extinction projects might proceed after releasing animals into the wild.

On one of his trips to monitor the butterflies, Kapan and a group of volunteers take a walk around the Presidio, looking for unmarked Silvery Blue butterflies – a sign that some of those released last year managed to reproduce. A volunteer calls Kapan with a sighting, and he rushes to the scene. Between them, they catch sight of two butterflies that day – a female and a male – living proof that the species is surviving on its own in the new habitat, beating their wings in the wake of extinction.

By HILLEL ITALIE, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Amber Salazar is the kind of idealist you just knew would end up running a bookstore — a lifelong reader who felt angered “to the core” as she learned of book bans around the country.

A resident of Colorado Springs, Colorado, Salazar last year opened Banned Wagon Books, a pop-up store she sets up everywhere from wineries to coffee shops, featuring such frequently censored works as Maia Kobabe’s “Gender Queer,” Angie Thomas’ “The Hate U Give” and Toni Morrison’s “Beloved.”

“I decided that no matter what it looked like, I was going to open a bookstore so that I could contribute in some small way and stand up for intellectual freedom in the U.S.,” explains Salazar, 33, who donates 5% of her profits to the American Library Association and other organizations opposing bans. “Since we were coming out of the pandemic at that time, I started thinking about ways to combine my love of literature and passion for intellectual freedom with my appreciation for the small businesses in my city who weathered some difficult storms through shutdowns and supply chain concerns.”

This photo provided by Amber Salazar shows books at the Third Annual Winter(ish) Market hosted by Lost Friend Brewing Company, Nov. 30, 2024, in Colorado Springs, Colo. (Amber Salazar via AP)

Salazar is among a wave of new — and, often, younger — owners who have helped the independent book community dramatically expand, intensify and diversify. Independent bookselling is not a field for fortune seekers: Most local stores, whether run by retirees, bookworms or those switching careers in middle age, have some sense of higher purpose. But for many who opened in recent years, it’s an especially critical mission. Narrative in Somerville, Massachusetts, identifies as “proudly immigrant-woman owned & operated, with an emphasis on amplifying marginalized voices & experiences.” In Chicago, Call & Response places “the voices of Black and other authors of color at the center of our work.”

Independent stores will likely never recover their power of 50 years ago, before the rise of Barnes & Noble superstores and the online giant Amazon.com. But the days of industry predictions of their demise seem well behind. In 2016, there were 1,244 members in the American Booksellers Association trade group, at 1,749 locations. As of this month, the ABA has 2,863 individual members, at 3,281 locations. And more than 200 stores are in the process of opening.

“It’s incredible, this kind of energy,” says association CEO Allison Hill, remembering how, during the pandemic, she feared that the ABA could lose up to a quarter of its membership. “I don’t think any of us would have predicted this a few years ago.”

Hill and others acknowledge that even during an era of growth, booksellers remain vulnerable to political and economic challenges. Costs of supplies remain high and could grow higher because of President Donald Trump’s tariffs. ABA President Cynthia Compton, who runs two stores in the Indianapolis area, says that sales to schools are down because censorship laws have made educators more cautious about what they purchase.

The ABA’s own website advises: “Passion and knowledge have to be combined with business acumen if your bookstore is to succeed.”

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Salazar herself is part of an Instagram chat group, Bookstores Helping Bookstores, with such like-minded sellers as the owners of The Crafty Bookstore in Bloomington, Indiana, “specializing in Indie books & custom bookish accessories,” and the Florida-based Chapter Bound, an online store with a calling “to connect great books with great people — at prices everyone can afford.”

“In the age of social media, people are craving genuine connection and community,” Salazar says. “And books often provide a catalyst to that feeling of community.”

Stephen Sparks, who is 47 and since 2017 has owned Point Reyes Books northwest of San Francisco, believes that the pandemic gave sellers of all ages a heightened sense of their role in the community and that the return of Trump to the White House added new urgency. Sales are up 20% this year, he says, if only because “during tough times, people come to bookstores.”

The younger owners bring with them a wide range of prior experience. Salazar had worked in retail management for nine years, switched to property and casualty insurance sales “in search of advancement opportunity” and, right before she launched her store, was a business process owner, “a blend of project management, customer and employee experience management.”

Courtney Bledsoe, owner of Call & Response, had been a corporate attorney before undertaking a “full career shift” and risking a substantial drop in income. The 30-year-old held no illusions that owning a store meant “pouring a cup of coffee and reading all day.” Calling herself “risk averse,” she researched the book retail business as if preparing for a trial, before committing herself and launching Call & Response in May 2024.

“This endeavor is probably the hardest thing I have ever done in my life,” she says, acknowledging it could take a couple of years before she can even pay herself a salary. “We’re just doing this to serve the community, doing something we love to do, providing people with great events, great reading. It’s been a real joy.”

By Sarah Jane Tribble, KFF Health News, Holly K. Hacker, Lydia Zuraw, KFF Health News, KFF Health News

BRANCHLAND, W.Va. — Ada Carol Adkins lives with her two dogs in a trailer tucked into the timbers off Upper Mud River Road.

“I’m comfortable here, but I’m having health issues,” said the 68-year-old, who retired from her job as a school cook several years ago after having a stroke. “Things are failing me.”

Her trailer sits halfway up a ridge miles from town and the local health clinic. Her phone and internet are “wacky sometimes,” she said. Adkins — who is fiercely independent and calls herself a “Mountain Momma” — worries she won’t be able to call for help if service goes out, which happens often.

To Frontier Communications, the telecommunications company that owns the line to her home, Adkins says: “Please come and hook me right.”

But she might be waiting years for better service, frustrated by her internet provider and left behind by troubled federal grant programs.

A quarter of West Virginia counties — including Lincoln, where the Mud River bends its way through hollows and past cattle farms — face two barriers to health care: They lack high-speed internet and have a shortage of primary care providers and behavioral health specialists, according to a KFF Health News analysis.

Years of Republican and Democratic administrations have tried to fix the nation’s broadband woes, through flawed attempts. Bad mapping, weak standards, and flimsy oversight have left Adkins and nearly 3 million other rural Americans in dead zones — with eroded health care services and where telehealth doesn’t reach.

Blair Levin, a former executive director of the Federal Communications Commission’s National Broadband Plan, called one rural program rollout during the first Trump administration “a disaster.”

It was launched before it was ready, he said, using unreliable federal maps and a reverse-auction process to select internet carriers. Locations went to the lowest bidder, but the agency failed to ensure winners had the knowledge and resources to build networks, said Levin, who is now an equity analyst with New Street Research.

The fund initially announced awards of $9.2 billion to build infrastructure in 49 states. By 2025, $3.3 billion of those awards were in default and, as a result, the program won’t connect 1.9 million homes and businesses, according to a recent study.

A $42 billion Biden-era initiative still may not help Adkins and many others shortchanged by earlier federal broadband grants. The new wave of funding, the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program, or BEAD, has an anti-waste provision and won’t provide service in places where previous grants were awarded — even if companies haven’t delivered on their commitments.

The use of federal money to get people connected is “really essential” for rural areas, said Ross DeVol, CEO and chairman of the board of Heartland Forward, a nonpartisan think tank based in Bentonville, Arkansas, that specializes in state and local economic development.

“Internet service providers look at the economics of trying to go into some of these communities and there just isn’t enough purchasing power in their minds,” DeVol said, adding that broadband expansion is analogous to rural electrification. Without high-speed internet, “you’re simply at a distinct disadvantage,” he added. “I’ll call it economic discrimination.”

‘I Got Books Full’

Adkins keeps spiral-bound notebooks and calendars filled with handwritten records of phone and internet outages.

In January, while bean soup warmed on the stove, she opened a notebook: “I got books full. Hang on.”

Her finger traced the page as she recounted outages that occurred about once a month last year. Adkins said she lost connectivity twice in November, again in October, and in July, May, and March. Each time she went for days without service.

Adkins pays Frontier Communications $102.13 a month for a “bundle” that includes a connection for her house phone and wireless internet access on her cellphone. Frontier did not respond to requests for comment on Adkins’ and other customers’ service.

Adkins, a widow, spends most of her time at home and said she would do video calls with her doctors if she could. She said she still has numbness on one side of her body after the stroke. She also has high blood pressure and arthritis and uses over-the-counter pain patches when needed, such as after she carries 30-pound dog food bags into the house.

She does not own a four-wheel-drive truck and, for three weeks in January, the snow and ice were so severe she couldn’t leave. “I’m stranded up here,” she said, adding that neighbors check in: “‘Do you have electric? Have you got water? Are you OK?’”

The neighbors have all seen Adkins’ line. The pale-yellow cord was tied off with green plastic ties around a pole outside her trailer. As it ran down the hill, it was knotted around tree trunks and branches, frayed in places, and, finally, collapsed on the ground under gravel, snow, and ice at the bottom of the hill.

Adkins said a deer stepping on the line has interrupted her phone service.

David and Billi Belcher’s double-wide modular home sits near the top of the ridge past Adkins’ home. Inside, an old hunting dog sleeps on the floor. Belcher pointed out a window toward where he said Frontier’s cable has remained unrepaired for years: “It’s laying on the ground in the woods,” he said.

Frontier is West Virginia’s legacy carrier, controlling most of the state’s old landlines since buying them from Verizon Communications in 2010. Twelve years later, the company won nearly $248 million to install high-speed internet to West Virginia through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, an initiative launched during President Donald Trump’s first term.

“Big Daddy,” as local transit driver Bruce Perry called Trump, is popular with the people of Lincoln County. About 80% of the county’s voters picked the Republican in the last election.

Bruce Perry is a local transit driver in Lincoln County, West Virginia. (Sarah Jane Tribble/KFF Health News/TNS)

The Trump administration awarded Frontier money to build high-speed internet to Upper Mud River Road residents, like Adkins, according to state mapping. Frontier has until Dec. 31, 2028, to build.

But the Belchers needed better internet access for work and could afford to pay $700 for a Starlink satellite internet kit and insurance, they said. Their monthly Starlink bill is $120 — a price many cannot manage, especially since Congress sunset an earlier program that helped offset the cost of high-speed plans for consumers.

Meanwhile, the latest broadband program to connect rural Americans is ensnared in Trump administration policy shifts.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which administers the program, in April announced a 90-day extension for states to finalize their plans during a “comprehensive review” of the program.

West Viriginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey, a Republican, announced his state would take an extension. The move, though, doesn’t make a lot of sense, said Evan Feinman, who left the agency in March after directing the broadband program for the past three years.

Calling the work already done in West Virginia an “incredible triumph,” Feinman said the state had completed the planning, mapping, and the initial selection of companies. The plan that was in place would have brought high-speed fiber lines to homes ahead of schedule and under budget, he said.

“They could be building today, and it’s just deeply disappointing that they’re not,” Feinman said.

When Feinman resigned in March, he sent a lengthy email stating that the new administration wants to take fiber away from homes and businesses and substitute it with satellite connections. The move, he said, would be more expensive for consumers and hurt rural and small-town America.

Morrisey, whose office declined to respond to requests for comment, said in his announcement that he wants to ensure West Virginia spends the money in a manner “consistent with program changes being proposed by the Trump Administration” and “evaluate a broader range of technology options.”

Commissioners from Grant County responded with a letter supporting fiber-optic cables rather than satellite-based connections like those provided by Elon Musk’s Starlink. Nationwide, 115 lawmakers from 28 states sent a letter to federal leaders stating that changes could “delay broadband deployment by a year or more.”

For Adkins and others, the wait has been long enough.

While legislators in Washington and across the country bickered over the broadband program, Adkins went without phone and internet. By late March, she said, her 42-year-old son was increasingly worried, noting “you’re getting up in age.” He told her: “Mom, move out, get off of that hill.”

Worst-Case Scenario

A few miles from Upper Mud River Road, past the McDonald’s and across the road from the local library, Brian Vance sat in his downtown Hamlin, West Virginia, office. He said his company has been trying to “build up there for a while.”

Vance is a general manager for Armstrong Telephone and Cable, a regional telecommunications provider that competes with Frontier. He grew up in the community, and parents of a high school friend live off Upper Mud River. But he said “it’s very difficult” to build fiber along the rocky terrain to homes where “you are hoping that people will hook up, and if they don’t, well, you’ve lost a lot of money.”

Della and Isaiah Vance, who are expecting their first child together, live in Lincoln County, West Virginia, in a home without phone or internet service. (Sarah Jane Tribble/KFF Health News/TNS)

A 2022 countywide broadband assessment found that stringing fiber-optic lines along telephone poles would cost more than $5,000 per connection in some areas — work that would need big federal subsidies to be feasible.

Yet Vance said Armstrong cannot apply for the latest BEAD funding to help finance connections. And while he likes that the federal government is “being responsible” by not handing out two federal grants for the same area, Vance said, “we want to see people deliver on the grants they have.”

If Frontier hadn’t already gotten federal funds from the earlier Trump program, “we definitely would have applied to that area,” Vance said.

The 2022 assessment noted the community’s economy would not be sustainable without “ubiquitous broadband.”

High-speed internet brings more jobs and less poverty, said Claudia Persico, an associate professor at American University. Persico, who is also a research associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research, co-authored a recent paper that found increased broadband internet leads to a reduction in the number of suicides as well as improvements in self-reported mental and physical health.

More than 30% of Lincoln County’s population reports cases of depression, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The rate of opioid prescriptions dispensed in Lincoln County is down about 60% from 2014 to 2024 — but still higher than the state average, according to the West Virginia Board of Pharmacy.

Twenty percent of the county’s population lives below the poverty line, and residents are also more likely than the national average to experience heart disease, diabetes, and obesity.

Lincoln Primary Care Center offers telehealth services such as electronic medical records on a patient portal and a pharmacy app, said Jill Adkins, chief quality and risk officer at Southern West Virginia Health System, which operates the clinic.

But because of limited access, only about 7% of patients use telehealth, she said.

Della Vance was a patient at the clinic but said she has never used a patient portal. If she could, Vance said, she would check records on the baby she is expecting.

“You can’t really get on if you don’t have good service and no internet,” she said. “It makes me angry, honestly.”

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Vance and her husband, Isaiah, live off a gravel road that veers from Upper Mud River. There is a tall pole with black wires dangling across the road from their small home. Pointing to the cables, Isaiah Vance said he couldn’t get phone service anymore.

Verizon announced plans last year to buy Frontier for an estimated $20 billion. The deal, which must be approved by federal and state regulators, is expected to be completed in early 2026, according to an investor’s press release.

In its federal merger application, Frontier stated that it had taken on too much debt after emerging from bankruptcy and that debt would make it difficult to finish the work of installing fiber to customers in 25 states.

In West Virginia, Frontier’s Allison Ellis wrote in March 3 testimony, seeking approval for the merger from state regulators, that Verizon will honor the rural program commitments. The previous month, in February, Frontier filed a motion with the state public service commission to keep the number of customers using copper lines and the faster fiber-optic lines confidential.

Kelly Workman, West Virginia’s broadband director, said during a November interview that her office has asked federal regulators for “greater visibility” into Frontier’s rural program construction, particularly because those locations cannot win the Biden-era infrastructure money when it’s available.

“The worst-case scenario would be for any of these locations to be left behind,” Workman said.

‘Money Cow’

Frontier’s progress installing fiber-optic lines and its unreliable service have frustrated West Virginians for years. In a 2020 letter to the FCC, U.S. Sen. Shelley Capito (R-W.Va.) cited “the failure of Frontier to deliver on promises to federal partners” and its “mismanagement” of federal dollars, which forced the state to pay back $4.7 million because of improper use and missed deadlines.

Michael Holstine, a longtime member of the West Virginia Broadband Enhancement Council, said the company has “just used West Virginia as a money cow.” Holstine has been fighting for the construction of fiber-optic lines in Pocahontas County for years. “I really just hope I get it before I die.”

Across the state, people like Holstine and Adkins are eager for updated networks, according to interviews as well as letters released under a public records request.

Chrissy Murray, vice president of Frontier’s external communications, acknowledged that the company was “building back our community efforts” in West Virginia after a bankruptcy filing and reorganization. She said there has been a “notable decline” in consumer complaints, though she did not provide specific numbers.

Murray said Frontier built fiber-optic cables to 20% of its designated rural funds locations as of the end of 2024. It has also invested in other infrastructure projects across the state, she said in a January email, adding that the company donated high-speed fiber internet to West Virginia University’s rural Jackson’s Mill campus.

According to data tracked by a federal agency, Frontier has connected 6,100 — or fewer than 10% — of the more than 79,000 locations it was awarded in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund program.

The FCC oversees the rural fund. The agency did not respond to a request for comment. Frontier expects to receive $37 million annually from the agency through 2032, according to a federal filing.

In April, a new batch of letters from West Virginia residents filed as “support” for Frontier’s merger with Verizon appeared in the state regulatory docket:

“My support for this case depends on whether Verizon plans to upgrade or replace the existing Frontier infrastructure,” wrote one customer in Summers County, in the far southern corner of the state, adding, “West Virginians in my neck of the woods have been held hostage by Frontier for a generation now because no other providers exist.”

A customer from Hardy County, in the state’s northeastern corner, wrote: “This is [a] move by frontier to to [sic] escape its responsibility to continue services.”

‘Deep-Rooted’

Adkins moved to Upper Mud River with her husband, Bobby, decades ago.

For years, Bobby and Ada Carol Adkins ran a “carry-out” on Upper Mud River Road. The old building is still at the rock quarry just down the hill and around the curve from where her trailer sits.

It was the type of store where locals kept a tab — which Bobby treated too much like a “charity,” Adkins said. They sold cigarettes, beer, bread, bags of chips, and some food items like potatoes and rice. “Whatever the community would want,” she said.

Then, Bobby Adkins’ “health started deteriorating and money got tighter,” Adkins said. He died at 62 years old.

Now, Adkins said, “I’m having kidney problems. I got arthritis, they’re treating me for high blood pressure.”

Her doctor has begun sending notes over the internet to refill her blood pressure medicine and, Adkins said, “I love that!”

But Adkins’ internet was out again in early April, and she can’t afford Starlink like her neighbors. Even as Adkins said she is “deep-rooted,” her son’s request is on her mind.

“I’m having health problems,” Adkins said. “He makes a lot of sense.”

©2025 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Bruce Helmer and Peg Webb

Have you ever taken a road trip to a new place and felt like the drive there dragged on forever — only to be surprised at how quickly the return trip seemed to fly by?

That feeling has a name. Behavioral scientists call it the “going home effect.” It’s the phenomenon where the return leg of a journey feels shorter, even though it takes just as long. The reason, researchers say, is rooted in familiarity: when we’ve already seen the route, the uncertainty fades, and time seems to compress.

Now apply that same logic to your financial future — especially retirement.

Uncertainty is distancing

Recent research from the University of Indiana shows that uncertainty doesn’t just slow down how we perceive time, it creates psychological distance. People tend to see the future as farther away when it’s unfamiliar, vague or emotionally disconnected from their present-day lives. In other words, if retirement feels unclear, it also feels unreachable.

This “mental distance” may help explain why so many people put off saving for the future. But here’s the rub: the reverse is also true. When people take time to visualize their future selves, they are significantly more likely to start saving for that future. Seeing yourself in the next chapter of life makes it real — and when something is real, it’s worth planning for.

So how do we shrink the distance between now and then?

Flip your thinking. Instead of starting in the present and trying to stretch your mind toward the future, start in the future and rewind back. Picture where you want to be and then ask what it would take to get there.

As reported by the Wall Street Journal, the Indiana researchers conducted a series of experiments where participants were prompted to imagine a future year (say, 2034) and visualize what their life looked like. Only afterward were they asked to think about what financial decisions in the present would support that vision. This reversal in mental framing — starting with the future, then rewinding back — had a noticeable effect. Participants were 14% more likely to invest in a long-term savings product when asked to plan this way.

A sample prompt quoted in the study precisely illustrates the concept: “The year is 2034 … rewind back to 2024 and consider saving for the 2034 you.”

Most of us are used to doing the opposite. We look around at our current expenses, salaries or anxieties, and then try to stretch that frame of reference into something that resembles a retirement plan. The problem is, present-day constraints rarely inspire future-oriented action. The better way is to make the future vivid — and then translate it back into the steps we can take today.

So what does that look like in practice?

Visualize your future self, then work backwards

Begin by picturing a day in your retired life. Not in abstract terms, but in sensory, specific detail. Imagine it’s a morning in the year 2035 or 2045. Where are you waking up? What kind of home are you in? What’s your morning routine? Are you traveling? Volunteering? Spending time with grandkids? Having coffee with old friends?

Then take 15 minutes to write a letter from your future self to your present self. What are you grateful you did when you were younger? What financial habits paid off? What regrets did you avoid? This simple exercise creates an emotional and cognitive bridge between today and tomorrow. It helps bring your future self out of the shadows and into focus.

From there, you can rewind. Ask yourself: “What would have to happen between now and then to make this day real?” Break it down. What kind of income would you need to support this lifestyle? How much would you need to have saved? What kind of monthly contributions would get you there?

By starting with a destination and then planning the route, you replicate the clarity of that return trip — the “going home” effect — but in reverse. The future becomes a place you know. That makes it easier to believe in, and easier to act on.

To stay grounded, create visual cues for yourself — a vision board. This might be a sticky note on your mirror with a retirement mantra, photos of the people with whom you want to share your lifetime, or even a few short phrases that describe your vision for later life. These reminders keep your long-term self front and center in your everyday life.

It can also help to make this a recurring habit. Try setting a weekly or monthly “Future Friday” check-in, a brief moment each week where you reflect on your goals and progress or re-read your future-self letter. Ask yourself again: “The year is 2035 … what does the 2025 version of me need to do today to stay on track?”

Reversals are not always bad

What behavioral science reveals is that we’re not bad at saving because we don’t care. We’re bad at saving because we rarely feel the future. But by reversing the order of thought — starting with a vivid picture of life ahead and rewinding back to the present — we collapse the mental distance that holds us back.

The truth is, you’re already on your way to your future. You can drift there or design it. And the person you become in 2035 or 2045 isn’t a stranger — it’s you. Your future you is just waiting to see what decisions you’ll make next to meet you there.

So start with that image. Then rewind. That’s where your smartest moves begin.

The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual.

Bruce Helmer and Peg Webb are financial advisers at Wealth Enhancement Group and co-hosts of “Your Money” on WCCO 830 AM on Sunday mornings. Email Bruce and Peg at yourmoney@wealthenhancement.com. Securities offered through LPL Financial, member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services offered through Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services, LLC, a registered investment advisor. Wealth Enhancement Group and Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services are separate entities from LPL Financial.