--- title: Five Best: Scientists Don't Know When Adolescence Begins description: Scientists don't know when adolescence begins, a massive quantity of this surprising pollutant is winding up in the ocean and more. canonical: https://time.com/5172585/scientists-are-struggling-to-understand-when-adolescence-begins/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-02-23T17:00:14.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:58:03.516Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Scientists Don't Know When Adolescence Begins og:description: And four more of today's best ideas og:url: https://time.com/5172585/scientists-are-struggling-to-understand-when-adolescence-begins/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Scientists Don't Know When Adolescence Begins twitter:description: And four more of today's best ideas twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Scientists Are Struggling to Understand When Adolescence Begins by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Feb 23, 2018 5:00 PM UTC by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Feb 23, 2018 5:00 PM UTC **1\.** [**Scientists are struggling to understand when adolescence begins.**](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-02169-w) By Heidi Ledford in _Nature_ **2\.** [**A massive quantity of this surprising pollutant is winding up in the ocean.**](https://www.hakaimagazine.com/features/off-the-green-and-into-the-blue/) By Alastair Bland in _Hakai Magazine_ **3\.** [**‘Trending’ on social media is a broken metric. We should get rid of it.**](http://nymag.com/selectall/2018/02/trending-on-social-media-is-worthless.html) By Brian Feldman in _Select All_ **4\.** [**Here’s how we can stop making mass shooters famous.**](https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2018/2/22/17041382/school-shooting-media-coverage-perpetrator-parkland) By Jaclyn Schildkraut in _Vox_ **5\.** [**To address America’s farm labor shortage, should farmers pay for child care?**](https://newfoodeconomy.org/farmworker-shortage-solution-childcare/) By Danielle Beurteaux in the _New Food Economy_  [_The Aspen Institute_](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/) _is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5172585/scientists-are-struggling-to-understand-when-adolescence-begins/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5172585/scientists-are-struggling-to-understand-when-adolescence-begins/"},"headline":"Scientists Are Struggling to Understand When Adolescence Begins","datePublished":"2018-02-23T17:00:14.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:58:03.516Z","description":"These are today's best ideas","url":"https://time.com/5172585/scientists-are-struggling-to-understand-when-adolescence-begins/","keywords":["Five Best Ideas","Social Media","Environment","Innovation","mass shootings","Farming","adolescence"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"The Aspen Institute","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/five-best-ideas/","name":"Five Best Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5172585/scientists-are-struggling-to-understand-when-adolescence-begins/","name":"Scientists Are Struggling to Understand When Adolescence Begins"}}]}] ```