Flyte Jet Card launches as a premium loyalty program offering guaranteed jet access, fixed hourly rates, and no hidden fees across a curated fleet of private aircraft.
Program introduces Bitcoin as a payment option, reflecting Flyte’s commitment to financial flexibility and innovation.
Launch supports Creatd, Inc.’s broader strategy to expand digital asset infrastructure among its portfolio.
NEW YORK, July 21, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Creatd, Inc. (OTC: CRTD) today announced that its aviation subsidiary, Flyte, Inc., has officially launched the Flyte Jet Card, a premium members loyalty program. The program is designed to provide frequent flyers with a streamlined, predictable, and elevated private aviation experience.
The Flyte Jet Card gives members access to a curated fleet of luxury aircraft, with benefits including guaranteed aircraft availability, fixed hourly pricing, and complementary services. Membership is structured to meet the needs of high-frequency travelers seeking consistency, simplicity, and premium service.
In line with Flyte’s customer-centric approach, the program will also accept Bitcoin as a payment method, providing clients with additional flexibility. This feature places Flyte as one of the only private aviation providers that accept cryptocurrency, and supports Creatd’s broader strategy to build a long-term Bitcoin treasury position.
“The launch of the Flyte Jet Card represents the next evolution in our aviation business,” said Jeremy Frommer, CEO of Creatd, Inc. “This program is designed for clients who demand reliability, efficiency, and luxury. By accepting Bitcoin, we’re giving our members another layer of choice while aligning with the way high-net-worth individuals are managing their assets today.”
“As we continue building infrastructure across our portfolio, we are prioritizing services that match the pace and preferences of today’s most discerning travelers,” Frommer added. “Flyte sits at the intersection of convenience, technology, and financial innovation.”
About Creatd, Inc. Creatd, Inc. focuses on investments and operations across technology, media, aviation, advertising, and consumer sectors. By leveraging its expertise in structured finance and acquisitions, Creatd identifies and nurtures opportunities within small-cap companies, driving growth and innovation across its diverse portfolio.
About Flyte, Inc. Flyte is an air mobility company redefining private air travel through AI-powered infrastructure and user-centered design. Flyte operates Flyte Hops, a regional air taxi service, as well as Flyte Luxe, a premium global charter service.
A submersible, which travels to the seafloor to collect rock and microbe samples, is lifted by the arm of a research vessel. James F. Holden
People have long wondered what life was first like on Earth, and if there is life in our solar system beyond our planet. Scientists have reason to believe that some of the moons in our solar system – like Jupiter’s Europa and Saturn’s Enceladus – may contain deep, salty liquid oceans under an icy shell. Seafloor volcanoes could heat these moons’ oceans and provide the basic chemicals needed for life.
Similar deep-sea volcanoes found on Earth support microbial life that lives inside solid rock without sunlight and oxygen. Some of these microbes, called thermophiles, live at temperatures hot enough to boil water on the surface. They grow from the chemicals coming out of active volcanoes.
Because these microorganisms existed before there was photosynthesis or oxygen on Earth, scientists think these deep-sea volcanoes and microbes could resemble the earliest habitats and life on Earth, and beyond.
However, for planetary scientists to interpret the data they collect, they need to first understand how similar habitats function and host life on Earth.
I grew up in Spokane, Washington, and had over an inch of volcanic ash land on my home when Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980. That event led to my fascination with volcanoes.
Several years later, while studying oceanography in college, I collected samples from Mount St. Helens’ hot springs and studied a thermophile from the site. I later collected samples at hydrothermal vents along an undersea volcanic mountain range hundreds of miles off the coast of Washington and Oregon. I have continued to study these hydrothermal vents and their microbes for nearly four decades.
The samples collected include rocks and heated hydrothermal fluids that rise from cracks in the seafloor.
The submarines use mechanical arms to collect the rocks and special sampling pumps and bags to collect the hydrothermal fluids. The submarines usually remain on the seafloor for about a day before returning samples to the surface. They make multiple trips to the seafloor on each expedition.
Inside the solid rock of the seafloor, hydrothermal fluids as hot at 662 degrees Fahrenheit (350 Celsius) mix with cold seawater in cracks and pores of the rock. The mixture of hydrothermal fluid and seawater creates the ideal temperatures and chemical conditions that thermophiles need to live and grow.
When the submarines return to the ship, scientists – including my research team – begin analyzing the chemistry, minerals and organic material like DNA in the collected water and rock samples.
These samples contain live microbes that we can cultivate, so we grow the microbes we are interested in studying while on the ship. The samples provide a snapshot of how microbes live and grow in their natural environment.
Thermophiles in the lab
Back in my laboratory in Amherst, my research team isolates new microbes from the hydrothermal vent samples and grows them under conditions that mimic those they experience in nature. We feed them volcanic chemicals like hydrogen, carbon dioxide, sulfur and iron and measure their ability to produce compounds like methane, hydrogen sulfide and the magnetic mineral magnetite.
The thermophilic microbe Pyrodictium delaneyi isolated by the Holden lab from a hydrothermal vent in the Pacific Ocean. It grows at 194 degrees Fahrenheit (90 Celsius) on hydrogen, sulfur and iron. Lin et al., 2016/The Microbiology Society
Oxygen is typically deadly for these organisms, so we grow them in synthetic hydrothermal fluid and in sealed tubes or in large bioreactors free of oxygen. This way, we can control the temperature and chemical conditions they need for growth.
From these experiments, we look for distinguishing chemical signals that these organisms produce which spacecraft or instruments that land on extraterrestrial surfaces could potentially detect.
We also create computer models that best describe how we think these microbes grow and compete with other organisms in hydrothermal vents. We can apply these models to conditions we think existed on early Earth or on ocean worlds to see how these microbes might fare under those conditions.
We then analyze the proteins from the thermophiles we collect to understand how these organisms function and adapt to changing environmental conditions. All this information guides our understanding of how life can exist in extreme environments on and beyond Earth.
Uses for thermophiles in biotechnology
In addition to providing helpful information to planetary scientists, research on thermophiles provides other benefits as well. Many of the proteins in thermophiles are new to science and useful for biotechnology.
The best example of this is an enzyme called DNA polymerase, which is used to artificially replicate DNA in the lab by the polymerase chain reaction. The DNA polymerase first used for polymerase chain reaction was purified from the thermophilic bacterium Thermus aquaticus in 1976. This enzyme needs to be heat resistant for the replication technique to work. Everything from genome sequencing to clinical diagnoses, crime solving, genealogy tests and genetic engineering uses DNA polymerase.
DNA polymerase is an enzyme that plays an essential role in DNA replication. A heat-resistant form from thermophiles is useful in bioengineering. Christinelmiller/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA
My lab and others are exploring how thermophiles can be used to degrade waste and produce commercially useful products. Some of these organisms grow on waste milk from dairy farms and brewery wastewater – materials that cause fish kills and dead zones in ponds and bays. The microbes then produce biohydrogen from the waste – a compound that can be used as an energy source.
Hydrothermal vents are among the most fascinating and unusual environments on Earth. With them, windows to the first life on Earth and beyond may lie at the bottom of our oceans.
A submersible, which travels to the seafloor to collect rock and microbe samples, is lifted by the arm of a research vessel. James F. Holden
People have long wondered what life was first like on Earth, and if there is life in our solar system beyond our planet. Scientists have reason to believe that some of the moons in our solar system – like Jupiter’s Europa and Saturn’s Enceladus – may contain deep, salty liquid oceans under an icy shell. Seafloor volcanoes could heat these moons’ oceans and provide the basic chemicals needed for life.
Similar deep-sea volcanoes found on Earth support microbial life that lives inside solid rock without sunlight and oxygen. Some of these microbes, called thermophiles, live at temperatures hot enough to boil water on the surface. They grow from the chemicals coming out of active volcanoes.
Because these microorganisms existed before there was photosynthesis or oxygen on Earth, scientists think these deep-sea volcanoes and microbes could resemble the earliest habitats and life on Earth, and beyond.
However, for planetary scientists to interpret the data they collect, they need to first understand how similar habitats function and host life on Earth.
I grew up in Spokane, Washington, and had over an inch of volcanic ash land on my home when Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980. That event led to my fascination with volcanoes.
Several years later, while studying oceanography in college, I collected samples from Mount St. Helens’ hot springs and studied a thermophile from the site. I later collected samples at hydrothermal vents along an undersea volcanic mountain range hundreds of miles off the coast of Washington and Oregon. I have continued to study these hydrothermal vents and their microbes for nearly four decades.
The samples collected include rocks and heated hydrothermal fluids that rise from cracks in the seafloor.
The submarines use mechanical arms to collect the rocks and special sampling pumps and bags to collect the hydrothermal fluids. The submarines usually remain on the seafloor for about a day before returning samples to the surface. They make multiple trips to the seafloor on each expedition.
Inside the solid rock of the seafloor, hydrothermal fluids as hot at 662 degrees Fahrenheit (350 Celsius) mix with cold seawater in cracks and pores of the rock. The mixture of hydrothermal fluid and seawater creates the ideal temperatures and chemical conditions that thermophiles need to live and grow.
When the submarines return to the ship, scientists – including my research team – begin analyzing the chemistry, minerals and organic material like DNA in the collected water and rock samples.
These samples contain live microbes that we can cultivate, so we grow the microbes we are interested in studying while on the ship. The samples provide a snapshot of how microbes live and grow in their natural environment.
Thermophiles in the lab
Back in my laboratory in Amherst, my research team isolates new microbes from the hydrothermal vent samples and grows them under conditions that mimic those they experience in nature. We feed them volcanic chemicals like hydrogen, carbon dioxide, sulfur and iron and measure their ability to produce compounds like methane, hydrogen sulfide and the magnetic mineral magnetite.
The thermophilic microbe Pyrodictium delaneyi isolated by the Holden lab from a hydrothermal vent in the Pacific Ocean. It grows at 194 degrees Fahrenheit (90 Celsius) on hydrogen, sulfur and iron. Lin et al., 2016/The Microbiology Society
Oxygen is typically deadly for these organisms, so we grow them in synthetic hydrothermal fluid and in sealed tubes or in large bioreactors free of oxygen. This way, we can control the temperature and chemical conditions they need for growth.
From these experiments, we look for distinguishing chemical signals that these organisms produce which spacecraft or instruments that land on extraterrestrial surfaces could potentially detect.
We also create computer models that best describe how we think these microbes grow and compete with other organisms in hydrothermal vents. We can apply these models to conditions we think existed on early Earth or on ocean worlds to see how these microbes might fare under those conditions.
We then analyze the proteins from the thermophiles we collect to understand how these organisms function and adapt to changing environmental conditions. All this information guides our understanding of how life can exist in extreme environments on and beyond Earth.
Uses for thermophiles in biotechnology
In addition to providing helpful information to planetary scientists, research on thermophiles provides other benefits as well. Many of the proteins in thermophiles are new to science and useful for biotechnology.
The best example of this is an enzyme called DNA polymerase, which is used to artificially replicate DNA in the lab by the polymerase chain reaction. The DNA polymerase first used for polymerase chain reaction was purified from the thermophilic bacterium Thermus aquaticus in 1976. This enzyme needs to be heat resistant for the replication technique to work. Everything from genome sequencing to clinical diagnoses, crime solving, genealogy tests and genetic engineering uses DNA polymerase.
DNA polymerase is an enzyme that plays an essential role in DNA replication. A heat-resistant form from thermophiles is useful in bioengineering. Christinelmiller/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA
My lab and others are exploring how thermophiles can be used to degrade waste and produce commercially useful products. Some of these organisms grow on waste milk from dairy farms and brewery wastewater – materials that cause fish kills and dead zones in ponds and bays. The microbes then produce biohydrogen from the waste – a compound that can be used as an energy source.
Hydrothermal vents are among the most fascinating and unusual environments on Earth. With them, windows to the first life on Earth and beyond may lie at the bottom of our oceans.
“India is on the Moon,” S. Somanath, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, announced in August 2023. The announcement meant India had joined the short list of countries to have visited the Moon, and the applause and shouts of joy that followed signified that this achievement wasn’t just a scientific one, but a cultural one.
India’s successful lunar landing prompted celebrations across the country, like this one in Mumbai. AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade
With more countries joining the evolving space economy, many of our colleagues in space strategy, policy ethics and law have celebrated the democratization of space: the hope that space is now more accessible for diverse participants.
Major players like the U.S., the European Union and China may once have dominated space and seen it as a place to try out new commercial and military ventures. Emerging new players in space, like other countries, commercial interests and nongovernmental organizations, may have other goals and rationales. Unexpected new initiatives from these newcomers could shift perceptions of space from something to dominate and possess to something more inclusive, equitable and democratic.
We address these emerging and historical tensions in a paper published in May 2025 in the journal Nature, in which we describe the difficulties and importance of including nontraditional actors and Indigenous peoples in the space industry.
Continuing inequalities among space players
Not all countries’ space agencies are equal. Newer agencies often don’t have the same resources behind them that large, established players do.
The U.S. and Chinese programs receive much more funding than those of any other country. Because they are most frequently sending up satellites and proposing new ideas puts them in the position to establish conventions for satellite systems, landing sites and resource extraction that everyone else may have to follow.
Sometimes, countries may have operated on the assumption that owning a satellite would give them the appearance of soft or hard geopolitical power as a space nation – and ultimately gain relevance.
Small satellites, called CubeSats, are becoming relatively affordable and easy to develop, allowing more players, from countries and companies to universities and student groups, to have a satellite in space. NASA/Butch Wilmore, CC BY-NC
In reality, student groups of today can develop small satellites, called CubeSats, autonomously, and recent scholarship has concluded that even successful space missions may negatively affect the international relationships between some countries and their partners. The respect a country expects to receive may not materialize, and the costs to keep up can outstrip gains in potential prestige.
Environmental protection and Indigenous perspectives
Usually, building the infrastructure necessary to test and launch rockets requires a remote area with established roads. In many cases, companies and space agencies have placed these facilities on lands where Indigenous peoples have strong claims, which can lead to land disputes, like in western Australia.
Many of these sites have already been subject to human-made changes, through mining and resource extraction in the past. Many sites have been ground zero for tensions with Indigenous peoples over land use. Within these contested spaces, disputes are rife.
Because of these tensions around land use, it is important to include Indigenous claims and perspectives. Doing so can help make sure that the goal of protecting the environments of outer space and Earth are not cast aside while building space infrastructure here on Earth.
Some efforts are driving this more inclusive approach to engagement in space, including initiatives like “Dark and Quiet Skies”, a movement that works to ensure that people can stargaze and engage with the stars without noise or sound pollution. This movement and other inclusive approaches operate on the principle of reciprocity: that more players getting involved with space can benefit all.
Researchers have recognized similar dynamics within the larger space industry. Some scholars have come to the conclusion that even though the space industry is “pay to play,” commitments to reciprocity can help ensure that players in space exploration who may not have the financial or infrastructural means to support individual efforts can still access broader structures of support.
The downside of more players entering space is that this expansion can make protecting the environment – both on Earth and beyond – even harder.
The more players there are, at both private and international levels, the more difficult sustainable space exploration could become. Even with good will and the best of intentions, it would be difficult to enforce uniform standards for the exploration and use of space resources that would protect the lunar surface, Mars and beyond.
It may also grow harder to police the launch of satellites and dedicated constellations. Limiting the number of satellites could prevent space junk, protect the satellites already in orbit and allow everyone to have a clear view of the night sky. However, this would have to compete with efforts to expand internet access to all.
The amount of space junk in orbit has increased dramatically since the 1960s.
What is space exploration for?
Before tackling these issues, we find it useful to think about the larger goal of space exploration, and what the different approaches are. One approach would be the fast and inclusive democratization of space – making it easier for more players to join in. Another would be a more conservative and slower “big player” approach, which would restrict who can go to space.
The conservative approach is liable to leave developing nations and Indigenous peoples firmly on the outside of a key process shaping humanity’s shared future.
But a faster and more inclusive approach to space would not be easy to run. More serious players means it would be harder to come to an agreement about regulations, as well as the larger goals for human expansion into space.
Narratives around emerging technologies, such as those required for space exploration, can change over time, as people begin to see them in action.
Technology that we take for granted today was once viewed as futuristic or fantastical, and sometimes with suspicion. For example, at the end of the 1940s, George Orwell imagined a world in which totalitarian systems used tele-screens and videoconferencing to control the masses.
Earlier in the same decade, Thomas J. Watson, then president of IBM, notoriously predicted that there would be a global market for about five computers. We as humans often fear or mistrust future technologies.
However, not all technological shifts are detrimental, and some technological changes can have clear benefits. In the future, robots may perform tasks too dangerous, too difficult or too dull and repetitive for humans. Biotechnology may make life healthier. Artificial intelligence can sift through vast amounts of data and turn it into reliable guesswork. Researchers can also see genuine downsides to each of these technologies.
Space exploration is harder to squeeze into one streamlined narrative about the anticipated benefits. The process is just too big and too transformative.
To return to the question if we should go to space, our team argues that it is not a question of whether or not we should go, but rather a question of why we do it, who benefits from space exploration and how we can democratize access to broader segments of society. Including a diversity of opinions and viewpoints can help find productive ways forward.
Ultimately, it is not necessary for everyone to land on one single narrative about the value of space exploration. Even our team of four researchers doesn’t share a single set of beliefs about its value. But bringing more nations, tribes and companies into discussions around its potential value can help create collaborative and worthwhile goals at an international scale.
Tony Milligan receives funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement No. 856543).
Adam Fish, Deondre Smiles, and Timiebi Aganaba do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
“India is on the Moon,” S. Somanath, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, announced in August 2023. The announcement meant India had joined the short list of countries to have visited the Moon, and the applause and shouts of joy that followed signified that this achievement wasn’t just a scientific one, but a cultural one.
India’s successful lunar landing prompted celebrations across the country, like this one in Mumbai. AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade
With more countries joining the evolving space economy, many of our colleagues in space strategy, policy ethics and law have celebrated the democratization of space: the hope that space is now more accessible for diverse participants.
Major players like the U.S., the European Union and China may once have dominated space and seen it as a place to try out new commercial and military ventures. Emerging new players in space, like other countries, commercial interests and nongovernmental organizations, may have other goals and rationales. Unexpected new initiatives from these newcomers could shift perceptions of space from something to dominate and possess to something more inclusive, equitable and democratic.
We address these emerging and historical tensions in a paper published in May 2025 in the journal Nature, in which we describe the difficulties and importance of including nontraditional actors and Indigenous peoples in the space industry.
Continuing inequalities among space players
Not all countries’ space agencies are equal. Newer agencies often don’t have the same resources behind them that large, established players do.
The U.S. and Chinese programs receive much more funding than those of any other country. Because they are most frequently sending up satellites and proposing new ideas puts them in the position to establish conventions for satellite systems, landing sites and resource extraction that everyone else may have to follow.
Sometimes, countries may have operated on the assumption that owning a satellite would give them the appearance of soft or hard geopolitical power as a space nation – and ultimately gain relevance.
Small satellites, called CubeSats, are becoming relatively affordable and easy to develop, allowing more players, from countries and companies to universities and student groups, to have a satellite in space. NASA/Butch Wilmore, CC BY-NC
In reality, student groups of today can develop small satellites, called CubeSats, autonomously, and recent scholarship has concluded that even successful space missions may negatively affect the international relationships between some countries and their partners. The respect a country expects to receive may not materialize, and the costs to keep up can outstrip gains in potential prestige.
Environmental protection and Indigenous perspectives
Usually, building the infrastructure necessary to test and launch rockets requires a remote area with established roads. In many cases, companies and space agencies have placed these facilities on lands where Indigenous peoples have strong claims, which can lead to land disputes, like in western Australia.
Many of these sites have already been subject to human-made changes, through mining and resource extraction in the past. Many sites have been ground zero for tensions with Indigenous peoples over land use. Within these contested spaces, disputes are rife.
Because of these tensions around land use, it is important to include Indigenous claims and perspectives. Doing so can help make sure that the goal of protecting the environments of outer space and Earth are not cast aside while building space infrastructure here on Earth.
Some efforts are driving this more inclusive approach to engagement in space, including initiatives like “Dark and Quiet Skies”, a movement that works to ensure that people can stargaze and engage with the stars without noise or sound pollution. This movement and other inclusive approaches operate on the principle of reciprocity: that more players getting involved with space can benefit all.
Researchers have recognized similar dynamics within the larger space industry. Some scholars have come to the conclusion that even though the space industry is “pay to play,” commitments to reciprocity can help ensure that players in space exploration who may not have the financial or infrastructural means to support individual efforts can still access broader structures of support.
The downside of more players entering space is that this expansion can make protecting the environment – both on Earth and beyond – even harder.
The more players there are, at both private and international levels, the more difficult sustainable space exploration could become. Even with good will and the best of intentions, it would be difficult to enforce uniform standards for the exploration and use of space resources that would protect the lunar surface, Mars and beyond.
It may also grow harder to police the launch of satellites and dedicated constellations. Limiting the number of satellites could prevent space junk, protect the satellites already in orbit and allow everyone to have a clear view of the night sky. However, this would have to compete with efforts to expand internet access to all.
The amount of space junk in orbit has increased dramatically since the 1960s.
What is space exploration for?
Before tackling these issues, we find it useful to think about the larger goal of space exploration, and what the different approaches are. One approach would be the fast and inclusive democratization of space – making it easier for more players to join in. Another would be a more conservative and slower “big player” approach, which would restrict who can go to space.
The conservative approach is liable to leave developing nations and Indigenous peoples firmly on the outside of a key process shaping humanity’s shared future.
But a faster and more inclusive approach to space would not be easy to run. More serious players means it would be harder to come to an agreement about regulations, as well as the larger goals for human expansion into space.
Narratives around emerging technologies, such as those required for space exploration, can change over time, as people begin to see them in action.
Technology that we take for granted today was once viewed as futuristic or fantastical, and sometimes with suspicion. For example, at the end of the 1940s, George Orwell imagined a world in which totalitarian systems used tele-screens and videoconferencing to control the masses.
Earlier in the same decade, Thomas J. Watson, then president of IBM, notoriously predicted that there would be a global market for about five computers. We as humans often fear or mistrust future technologies.
However, not all technological shifts are detrimental, and some technological changes can have clear benefits. In the future, robots may perform tasks too dangerous, too difficult or too dull and repetitive for humans. Biotechnology may make life healthier. Artificial intelligence can sift through vast amounts of data and turn it into reliable guesswork. Researchers can also see genuine downsides to each of these technologies.
Space exploration is harder to squeeze into one streamlined narrative about the anticipated benefits. The process is just too big and too transformative.
To return to the question if we should go to space, our team argues that it is not a question of whether or not we should go, but rather a question of why we do it, who benefits from space exploration and how we can democratize access to broader segments of society. Including a diversity of opinions and viewpoints can help find productive ways forward.
Ultimately, it is not necessary for everyone to land on one single narrative about the value of space exploration. Even our team of four researchers doesn’t share a single set of beliefs about its value. But bringing more nations, tribes and companies into discussions around its potential value can help create collaborative and worthwhile goals at an international scale.
Tony Milligan receives funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement No. 856543).
Adam Fish, Deondre Smiles, and Timiebi Aganaba do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Why is heart cancer so rare? – Jackson, age 12, Davis, California
You probably know someone who is affected by cancer. This disease results when cells divide uncontrollably and can make a person sick, sometimes very seriously.
I’m a biologist who specializes in the blood vessels of the cardiovascular system. A big part of my work focuses on how cells interact with their environment to regulate the function of tissues and organs. Disease can develop when things go wrong.
Turns out, heart cells have unique features that make them super resistant to cancer.
How cancer starts
Cells produce more cells to grow, replace older or worn-out cells or to repair damaged tissues. This process is called cell division. Each type of cell in the body divides at different rates based on multiple factors, including what their function is and a person’s age.
For example, the cells of a growing human embryo divide extremely fast, undergoing four divisions in three days. The cells that make up the skin, nails and hair regularly replenish across your lifespan. Bone cells divide at a rate that will give you an entirely new skeleton approximately every 10 years.
Whether and how often a cell divides is tightly regulated by a series of molecular checkpoints. During cell division, genes within DNA are duplicated and evenly distributed into two daughter cells. Damage to these genes caused by exposure to harmful chemicals, ultraviolet light or radiation can result in mutations that cause disease. Mutations can just happen randomly, too. When there are mutations on the genes regulating cell division, cancer can develop.
Cells move through a series of checkpoints before division. OpenStax, CC BY-SA
This low rate of cell division in the adult heart likely serves as its primary defense against cancer. The less often a cell divides, the fewer opportunities there are for mistakes during DNA replication.
The heart’s location in the body gives it more protection from certain cancer-causing factors. OpenStax, CC BY-SA
The heart is also less directly exposed to cancer-causing factors, such as UV light on the skin or inhaled substances in the lung, due to its protected location in the chest.
Unfortunately, the heart’s low rate of cell division has some downsides, such as a reduced ability to repair and replace cells damaged by disease, injury or aging.
Why heart cancer still happens
Even with the heart’s resistance to cancer, tumors may still form.
When cancer is found in the heart, it’s often the result of cancer cells migrating from another part of the body to the heart. This process is called metastasis. Certain types of skin cancers or cancers in the chest are more likely to spread to the heart, though this is still rare.
When they do happen, heart tumors can be quite serious and more aggressive than other cancers. A study analyzing more than 100,000 heart cancer cases in the United States found that patients who underwent surgery and chemotherapy to treat their heart cancer survived longer than those who did not.
Successful cancer care spans multiple areas of medicine. These include palliative care, which focuses on relieving pain and addressing symptoms, and integrative medicine, which considers the mind-body-spirit connection.
Heart cancer holds clues to heart regeneration
Understanding how heart cells divide and what causes that process to change offers clues about disease and shapes ideas for new treatments.
For example, research into how heart cells divide helps scientists better understand why the heart doesn’t heal well after a heart attack. Researchers found that although failing hearts have more dividing cells than healthy hearts, they need help to recover fully.
New technologies, such as the ability to reprogram blood cells into heart cells, have allowed researchers to develop new heart disease models to study and one day achieve heart regeneration. This opens doors for new treatments for heart diseases, including cancer.
Understanding why cancer doesn’t happen is just as important for developing new and better treatments as knowing why it does. The answers to both questions lie truly at the heart.
Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.
And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.
Julie Phillippi receives funding from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Stephen Cushion, Professor, Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Culture, Cardiff University
In a world of fake news and disinformation, factchecking claims and the veracity of images has become an important part of impartial journalism. People invest their trust in information sources they believe are accurate.
With this in mind, the BBC launched its Verify service in May 2023. Its more than 60 journalists routinely factcheck, verify videos, counter disinformation, analyse data and explain complex stories.
Then in June 2025, the BBC launched Verify Live, a blog that tells audiences in real time what claims they are investigating and how they are being checked.
At the Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Culture at Cardiff University we have been monitoring BBC Verify since its launch. And we have systematically tracked the first month of BBC Verify Live from June 3-27 this year, examining all 244 blog posts as well as the hundreds of claims and sources that featured.
We’ve found that the service places a heavy emphasis on foreign affairs. We argue that it could (and should) be used more to factcheck UK politics, enhancing the quality of the BBC’s impartiality journalism and serving the public service broadcaster’s domestic audiences.
Get your news from actual experts, straight to your inbox.Sign up to our daily newsletter to receive all The Conversation UK’s latest coverage of news and research, from politics and business to the arts and sciences.
Our analysis found international stories made up 71% of all BBC Verify Live coverage. The coverage largely focused on verifying international conflicts and humanitarian crises, from the Middle East and Ukraine to the recent plane crash in India.
This might reflect the large number of major international stories that occurred over the first month of BBC Verify Live’s launch. But the emphasis on foreign news was also evident in our analysis of the main BBC Verify service over the last 18 months. We monitored how much the factchecking service appeared on the BBC’s News at Ten, and found it was used more often in coverage of foreign affairs.
One exception was during the 2024 general election campaign, when BBC Verify was used to challenge politicians’ claims, and scrutinise policies around migration and the economy. BBC Verify has also covered recent major political developments, like the budget and announcements of flagship government policy.
The emphasis on covering international conflicts is consistent with its editorial mission to “analyse satellite imagery, investigate AI-generated content, factcheck claims and verify videos when news breaks”. BBC Verify regularly uses satellite mapping and geolocation data, which most newsrooms do not have at their disposal, to factcheck images and social media posts.
However, the resources and expertise Verify has could also be used to more regularly factcheck false or misleading claims in domestic political issues. This could be important to building audience trust at a time when the BBC’s impartiality is regularly questioned, while helping people better understand political debates in the UK.
Our past research with media users suggests they want journalists to be bolder and more transparent when assessing the credibility of politicians’ competing claims. BBC Verify is a logical tool to do this.
Two years after it launched, Verify is considered one of the most trusted factchecking sources in the UK by the University of Oxford’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and the most used by media regulator Ofcom.
BBC Verify has proved it can effectively use its resources and expertise to unpack and challenge domestic political claims – covering the spending review and party manifestos ahead of the 2024 general election. We have previously analysed how BBC Verify robustly challenged a misleading Conservative party claim about a future Labour government raising taxes during the election campaign.
Interrogating real-time claims
BBC Verify Live takes a variety of approaches to its analysis of real-time claims. We assessed all claims appearing in blogs throughout most of June 2025 and discovered that 22% were challenged to some extent (found to be inaccurate), while 23% were upheld (considered accurate) and 13% partially upheld.
Meanwhile, 10% were still being verified at the time the blog was posted (but may have been upheld or challenged in subsequent coverage), and 12% had additional context added to them. One fifth of all claims were not subject to any clear judgement about their accuracy.
BBC Verify Live most often used the UK or official foreign governments, and their militaries or agencies, as the main corroborating sources to factcheck claims, or the focus of the claim being investigated in some stories. These made up well over three quarters of sources in factchecking coverage. There was, comparatively, limited use of think tanks, policy institutes, nongovernmental organisations, experts, academics or eyewitnesses.
Just over one in ten claims had additional context added to them (as opposed to verifying or challenging a claim). This was most often the case in blogs about domestic affairs and rival political claims.
Given the recent cuts to the BBC’s World Service, Verify’s international news agenda will bolster the public service broadcaster’s worldwide profile and credibility. Yet, for BBC Verify to enhance impartiality and trust with domestic audiences, we would argue it should play a more prominent role in routine political reporting, not just during elections or high-profile stories.
Stephen Cushion has received funding from the BBC Trust, Ofcom, AHRC, BA and ESRC.
Nathan Ritchie does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Druze from Syria hug relatives from the Israeli Druze community before crossing the border in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights on July 17, 2025.AP Photo/Leo Correa
A fragile ceasefire was put in place in southern Syria on July 19, 2025, after days of violence between Druze militias and Bedouin tribes that drew in government forces and prompted Israeli strikes on the capital, Damascus, as a warning to pull back from Druze areas. The United States helped broker the latest agreement, fearing a spillover of violence to other parts of Syria.
The conflict’s quick escalation brings to the fore multiple layers of politics and identity in the region – particularly among the Druze, who form an important minority in several countries and make up about 2% of Israel’s population. As a historian of the Middle East, I have researched Druze cross-border communal ties and followed closely their predicaments since the start of the Syrian civil war in March 2011.
Bedouin fighters deploy in Mazraa village on the outskirts of Sweida, as smoke rises from clashes with Druze militias, on July 18, 2025. AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed
Cross-border brotherhood
The Druze are a monotheistic religious community that split from a branch of Shiite Islam in the 11th century. Today, they live mainly in three countries: Lebanon, Syria and Israel, with a small presence in northern Jordan.
Despite their geographical dispersion, they have managed to retain a strong sense of communal identity. One of the most important creeds of their faith is “protection of brothers of the faith.”
Another article of faith that helps to buttress shared communal solidarity is belief in reincarnation: that with physical death, the soul is transferred to the body of a newly born Druze.
Although Druze history shows that the community is not always united, the belief in and practice of cross-border solidarity is very strong. According to their popular saying, “the Druze are like a copper tray. Wherever you hit it, the whole tray reverberates.”
National identity
After World War I, the creation of the modern states in the Middle East divided the Druze community between Syria, Lebanon and the British mandate of Palestine, which is now Israel.
A young member of the Druze community in the Golan Heights waves to Syrian Druze clerics while they cross the border back to Syria on March 15, 2025. AP Photo/Leo Correa
In Israel, they have largely integrated into the Jewish state. Like Jewish citizens, Druze men are required to serve in the military, and many have attained leadership positions in the security sector and politics.
A popular cliché has developed about their “blood oath” with the Jewish state. In a July 15 statement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz cited Israel’s “deep covenant of blood with our Druze citizens” and their connections to Druze in Syria.
Their integration has been marred by discrimination, a prime example of which is the 2018 law that defines Israel as the nation-state for Jews. Still, many retain a strong sense of Israeli identity that sets them apart from Arab Palestinian citizens of Israel.
An additional Druze community lives in the Golan Heights, territory that Israel seized from Syria in 1967 and has occupied since. Most Druze there declined to receive Israeli citizenship, and remained loyal to Syria until the outbreak of the civil war there. Since then, there has been a notable change in their relationship with Israel, marked by increased numbers who have acquired Israeli citizenship.
Druze communities elsewhere in the region have also adopted aspects of their countries’ culture, including Arab nationalism and Syrian or Lebanese national sentiments. Still, cross-border solidarity among Druze has remained strong – and often resurfaced in times of crisis.
War in Syria
When the Syrian civil war erupted in March 2011, Syrian Druze were targeted at times by both the Assad regime, which pressured them to support it, and by Islamist rebel groups that regarded them as infidels. The Druze straddled a fine line throughout the war, seeking, not always successfully, to be left on their own.
In 2015, that tension came to a boiling point. Druze regions throughout Syria became sites of military confrontations, involving Druze militias, the Syrian army and opposition fighters.
Israeli Druze organized mass rallies in support of their brothers in Syria and called on the Israeli government to intervene. Israel, in turn, protected Syrian Druze villages close to its border with Syria in the Golan Heights. The Israeli government covertly supported Druze areas deeper in Syria, and sent clear messages to combatants on all sides not to harm the Druze.
Since the fall of the Assad regime in Damascus in December 2024, Ahmad al-Sharaa, the new Syrian leader, has attempted to bring divided and ruined Syria together under his authority.
However, religious and ethnic minorities have been highly suspicious of the new government. Many of its members hail from al-Sharaa’s own militia during the civil war, Hayat Tahrir al Sham, which targeted religious minorities and enforced its own interpretation of Islam on the population under its control.
Spiraling crisis
The most recent violence took place in Mount Druze, a region in Sweida province that is home to most of the community in Syria. It was sparked by an incident where a local Bedouin band robbed and killed a Druze man. The incident quickly became a catalyst for major fighting between Druze, Bedouins and dispatched units of the Syrian army.
Syrian government forces in Mazraa village, on the outskirts of Sweida, pass by a dead Druze militia fighter on July 14, 2025. AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed
State security forces tried to impose their authority, but in the process killed scores of Druze. They also violated Druze cultural norms by filming the forced shaving of Druze men’s mustaches, including respected religious men, and posting the clips on social media. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, more than 1,100 people have been killed in the fighting.
The fragile agreement that the Sweida Druze signed with the new government in May, as part of the government’s efforts to solidify authority over the divided country, collapsed following these incidents.
Befitting the saying about the reverberation of the copper tray, Israeli Druze immediately mobilized, joined by Druze in the Golan Heights. Hundreds crossed the border to Syria. Many called on the government in Jerusalem to intervene, though others were opposed.
On July 16, the Israeli military targeted the Syrian army by striking Damascus – sending a clear threat to al-Sharaa. Israel also struck military targets in southern Syria.
Later that day, the Syrian government reached a ceasefire agreement with the Druze in Sweida, which collapsed soon after. On July 19, following more fighting and violence – and mediation by the United States, Turkey and Jordan – a new ceasefire was put in place, though new fighting has been reported.
A changing Middle East
Even before these recent incidents, Israel became a key player in post-Assad Syria by occupying areas close to their shared border. Now, Israel has deepened its involvement by defending the Druze population in the country – as many Israeli Druze had hoped it would since the start of the civil war in 2011.
Apart from supporting the Druze, Israel’s military actions are also tied to its efforts to project power amid the tectonic shifts in the Middle East since the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, 2023. In Syria, it seeks to guarantee its influence on the reshaping of the country after civil war. Domestically, Netanyahu is interested in prolonging Israel’s state of emergency, as it extends the survival of his far-right and unpopular government. Syria provides him with another front to maintain this state of emergency.
For many Israeli Druze, meanwhile, this still-unfolding episode constitutes another example in their history of seeking to protect their brothers in faith. Among Druze in the Middle East, they are uniquely positioned, with many serving in the region’s most powerful military.
On July 19, Israel’s public broadcaster, Kan news, reported that 2,000 Israeli Druze, including reserve soldiers, signed a petition that said: “we are getting ready to volunteer to fight alongside our brothers in Sweida. It is our time to defend our brothers, our land and our religion.”
Asher Kaufman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Now, a new study that we conducted with a team of colleagues suggests that dogs might have a deeper and more biologically complex effect on humans than scientists previously believed. And this complexity may have profound implications for human health.
How stress works
The human response to stress is a finely tuned and coordinated set of various physiological pathways. Previous studies of the effects of dogs on human stress focused on just one pathway at a time. For our study, we zoomed out a bit and measured multiple biological indicators of the body’s state, or biomarkers, from both of the body’s major stress pathways. This allowed us to get a more complete picture of how a dog’s presence affects stress in the human body.
When a person experiences a stressful event, the SAM axis acts quickly, triggering a “fight or flight” response that includes a surge of adrenaline, leading to a burst of energy that helps us meet threats. This response can be measured through an enzyme called alpha-amylase.
At the same time, but a little more slowly, the HPA axis activates the adrenal glands to produce the hormone cortisol. This can help a person meet threats that might last for hours or even days. If everything goes well, when the danger ends, both axes settle down, and the body goes back to its calm state.
While stress can be an uncomfortable feeling, it has been important to human survival. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors had to respond effectively to acute stress events like an animal attack. In such instances, over-responding could be as ineffective as under-responding. Staying in an optimal stress response zone maximized humans’ chances of survival.
After cortisol is released by the adrenal glands, it eventually makes its way into your saliva, making it an easily accessible biomarker to track responses. Because of this, most research on dogs and stress has focused on salivary cortisol alone.
While these studies have shown that having a dog nearby can lower cortisol levels during a stressful event, suggesting the person is calmer, we suspected that was just part of the story.
What our study measured
For our study, we recruited about 40 dog owners to participate in a 15-minute gold standard laboratory stress test. This involves public speaking and oral math in front of a panel of expressionless people posing as behavioral specialists.
The participants were randomly assigned to bring their dogs to the lab with them or to leave their dogs at home. We measured cortisol in blood samples taken before, immediately after and about 45 minutes following the test as a biomarker of HPA axis activity. And unlike previous studies, we also measured the enzyme alpha-amylase in the same blood samples as a biomarker of the SAM axis.
As expected based on previous studies, the people who had their dog with them showed lower cortisol spikes. But we also found that people with their dog experienced a clear spike of alpha-amylase, while those without their dog showed almost no response.
No response may sound like a good thing, but in fact, a flat alpha-amylase response can be a sign of a dysregulated response to stress, often seen in people experiencing high stress responses, chronic stress or even PTSD. This lack of response is caused by chronic or overwhelming stress that can change how our nervous system responds to stressors.
In contrast, the participants with their dogs had a more balanced response: Their cortisol didn’t spike too high, but their alpha-amylase still activated. This shows that they were alert and engaged throughout the test, then able to return to normal within 45 minutes. That’s the sweet spot for handling stress effectively. Our research suggests that our canine companions keep us in a healthy zone of stress response.
Having a dog benefits humans’ physical and psychological health.
Dogs and human health
This more nuanced understanding of the biological effects of dogs on the human stress response opens up exciting possibilities. Based on the results of our study, our team has begun a new study using thousands of biomarkers to delve deeper into the biology of how psychiatric service dogs reduce PTSD in military veterans.
But one thing is already clear: Dogs aren’t just good company. They might just be one of the most accessible and effective tools for staying healthy in a stressful world.
Kevin Morris receives funding for this research from the Morris Animal Foundation, the Human-Animal Bond Research Institute, and the University of Denver.
Jaci Gandenberger receives funding from the University of Denver to support this research.
For generations, women have relied on informal networks of friends, family and neighbors to navigate the complexities of birth and motherhood. Today, research is finally catching up to what generations of women have known: Peer support can be a lifeline.
Despite growing evidence, the unique wisdom and strength that arise when mothers help mothers has been surprisingly under‑explored in the scientific literature, but that’s beginning to change. Peer-delivered programs are beginning to bring together long-standing community traditions and structured, evidence-based approaches to support the mental health of new and expectant moms.
We are clinicalpsychologists at the University of Colorado Boulder Renée Crown Wellness Institute. Our work and research weaves together psychological science and the wisdom of mothers supporting mothers. Our program, Alma, supports women in restoring well-being in ways that are community-rooted, evidence-based and scalable.
Pressure on parents
Nearly 50% of parents report feeling overwhelmed by stress on most days. An even larger share, about 65%, experience feelings of loneliness, according to a 2024 report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. These feelings hit mothers especially hard, the report says.
Many mothers report experiencing depression during pregnancy, which is one of th emost common complications of childbirth. kieferpix/GettyImages
The science of peer support is part of a larger field exploring community health workers as one way to address the shortage of mental health providers. Peer mentors are trusted individuals from the community who share common experiences or challenges with those they serve. Through specialized training, they are equipped to deliver education, offer mental health support and connect people with needed resources.
A study that analyzed 30 randomized clinical trials involving individuals with serious mental illness found that peer support was associated with significant improvements in clinical outcomes and personal recovery. Researchers have proposed that peer support creates space for learning and healing, especially when peers share lived experience, culture and language.
As clinical psychologists, we heard from mothers in our work and communities that wanted to help other moms recover from depression, navigate the challenges of motherhood and avoid feeling alone. This insight led us to co-create Alma, a peer-led mental health program based on behavioral activation.
Alma is based on the principle that depression must be understood in context and that changing what you do can change how you feel. One strategy we use is to help a mother identify an activity that brings a sense of accomplishment, connection or enjoyment – and then take small steps to schedule that activity. Mothers might also be guided on ways to ask for help and strengthen their support networks. Alma is offered in English and Spanish.
Peer mentors typically meet with moms once a week for six to eight sessions. Sessions can take place in person or virtually, allowing flexibility that honors each family’s needs. Traditionally, peer mentors have been recruited through long-standing relationships with trusted community organizations and word-of-mouth referrals. This approach has helped ensure that mentors are deeply rooted in the communities they serve. Alma peer mentors are compensated for their time, which recognizes the value of their lived expertise, their training and the work involved in providing peer mentoring and support.
“This was the first time I felt like someone understood me, without me having to explain everything,” shared one mother during a post-program interview that all participants complete after finishing Alma.
To date, more than 700 mothers in Colorado have participated in Alma. In one of our studies, we focused on 126 Spanish-speaking Latina mothers who often face significant barriers to care, such as language differences, cost and stigma. For nearly 2 out of 3 mothers, symptoms of depression decreased enough to be considered a true, measurable recovery — not just a small change.
Notably, most of the depression improvement occurred within the first three Alma meetings. We also observed that peer mentors delivered the Alma program consistently and as intended. This suggests the program could be reliably expanded and replicated in other settings with similar positive outcomes.
A second study, conducted through a national survey of Spanish-speaking Latina new and expectant mothers, found that peer-led mental health support was not only perceived as effective, but also highly acceptable and deeply valued. Mothers noted that they were interested in peer-led support because it met them where they were: with language, trust and cultural understanding.
Supporting mothers works
Supporting mothers’ mental health is essential because it directly benefits both mothers and their children. Those improvements foster healthier emotional, cognitive and social development in their children. This interconnected impact highlights why investing in maternal mental health yields lasting benefits for the entire family.
It also makes strong economic sense to address mood and anxiety disorders among new and expectant mothers, which cost an estimated US$32,000 for each mother and child from conception through five years postpartum. More than half of those costs occur within the first year, driven primarily by productivity losses, preterm births and increased maternal health care needs.
Beyond the impact on individual families, the broader economic toll of untreated mood and anxiety disorders among new and expectant mothers is substantial. For example, it’s estimated that $4.7 billion a year are lost to mothers who have to miss work or reduce their job performance because of symptoms like fatigue, anxiety and depression.
Together – as individuals, families, communities and institutions – we can cultivate a world where the challenges of parenting are met with comprehensive support, allowing the joy of parenting to be fully realized. Because no one should have to do this alone.
Sona Dimidjian reports funding from philanthropic foundations and the National Institute of Health, and founding and receiving revenue from Mindful Noggin, Inc. and Access Consulting, LLC.
Anahi Collado reports receiving funding from philanthropic foundations.
But behind the spirit’s flash of marketing and growing popularity lies a rarely asked question: Where did the knowledge to distill agave come from in the first place?
In recent years, scholars studying how Indigenous communities responded to colonialism and global trade networks have begun to look more closely at the Pacific world. One key focus is the Manila-Acapulco galleon trade route, which linked Asia and the Americas for 250 years, from 1565 to 1815.
After Spain colonized the Philippines in 1565, Spanish galleons – towering, multidecked sailing ships – carried Chinese silk and Mexican silver across the ocean. But far more than goods traveled aboard those ships. They moved people, ideas and technologies.
For centuries, the rise of tequila has been credited to the Spanish. After the conquest of Mexico in the 16th century, colonizers introduced alembic stills, which are based on Moorish and Arabic technology. Unlike simple boiling, distillation requires managing heat and capturing purified vapor. These stills represented a major technological leap, allowing people to transform fermented drinks into distilled spirits.
Agave, long used to make the fermented drink pulque, soon became the base for something new: tequila and mezcal.
Colonial records, including the “Relaciones Geográficas,” a massive data-gathering project initiated by the Spanish Crown in the late 16th century, describe local Mesoamerican communities learning distillation from Spanish settlers. This version is well documented. But it assumes that technology moved in only one direction, from Europe to the Americas.
A second idea suggests that Mesoamerican communities already had some understanding of vapor condensation. Archaeologists have found ceramic vessels in western Mexico that may have been used to capture steam. While distillation requires additional steps, this prior knowledge may have primed Indigenous groups to more readily adopt new techniques.
A third perspective, which other researchers and I are exploring, traces a potential Filipino influence. The galleon trade brought thousands of Filipino sailors and laborers to Mexico, particularly along the Pacific coast. In places such as Guerrero, Colima and Jalisco, Filipino migrants introduced methods for fermenting and distilling coconut sap into lambanog, the coconut-based spirit.
The stills they used, sometimes called Mongolian stills, were built with clay and bamboo and included a condensation bowl. Historian Pablo Guzman-Rivas has noted that these stills more closely resemble the earliest Mexican agave distillation setups than European alembics. He has also documented oral traditions in some coastal Mexican communities to link local distillation practices to their Filipino ancestors.
The still on the left in Jalisco, Mexico, has similarities to the lambanog on the right from Infanta, Quezon, Philippines. Photo on left courtesy of Patricia Colunga-GarcíaMarín and Daniel Zizumbo-Villarreal; photo on right courtesy of Sherry Ann Angeles and Rading Coronacion, CC BY-SA
Beyond the bottle
Filipino influence extends beyond the distilling pot.
In Colima and other Pacific port towns, traces of the Manila galleon trade ripple through daily life – in kitchens, cantinas and even in architecture. The word “palapa,” used in Mexico and Central America today to describe rustic thatched roofs, is exactly the same as the term for coconut fronds that’s primarily used in the Bicol Region of the Philippines.
Filipino migrants in Mexico also shared knowledge of boatbuilding, fermentation and food preservation. Coconut vinegar, fish sauce and palm sugar-based condiments became part of Mexican cuisine. One of the most enduring legacies is tuba, the fermented coconut sap still popular in coastal areas of the Mexican state of Guerrero, where Filipino sailors once settled. Known locally by the same name, tuba is sold in markets and along roadsides, often enjoyed as a refreshing drink or as a cooking ingredient.
A replica of a galleon, the Spanish trading ship that traversed the world’s oceans from the 16th century to the 18th century. Dennis Jarvis/flickr, CC BY-SA
Exchange moved both ways. Filipino vessels carried corn, peanuts, sweet potatoes and cacao back across the Pacific, reshaping food in the Philippines. These exchanges took place under the shadow of colonialism and forced labor, but their legacies endure in language, in taste and even in the roofs over people’s heads.
Technical knowledge rarely travels through official channels alone. It moves with cooks in ship galleys, with carpenters below deck, with laborers who desert ships to settle in unfamiliar ports. Sometimes it was a way to build a roof or preserve a flavor. Other times, it was a method for turning a fermented plant into a spirit that could keep for long voyages. And by the early 1600s, new types of distilled agave spirits were being made in Mexico.
Tequila is unmistakably a product of Mexico. But it is also a product of movement. Whether Filipino migrants directly introduced distillation methods or whether they emerged from a mix of Indigenous experimentation and European tools, every time you sip tequila, you’re tasting an echo of those long ocean crossings from many centuries ago.
Stephen Acabado receives funding from the Henry Luce Foundation and the National Science Foundation.
Found in everything from protein bars to energy drinks, erythritol has long been considered a safe alternative to sugar. But new research suggests this widely used sweetener may be quietly undermining one of the body’s most crucial protective barriers – with potentially serious consequences for heart health and stroke risk.
A new study from the University of Colorado suggests erythritol may damage cells in the blood-brain barrier, the brain’s security system that keeps out harmful substances while letting in nutrients. The findings add troubling new detail to previous observational studies that have linked erythritol consumption to increased rates of heart attack and stroke.
In the new study, researchers exposed blood-brain barrier cells to levels of erythritol typically found after drinking a soft drink sweetened with the compound. They saw a chain reaction of cell damage that could make the brain more vulnerable to blood clots – a leading cause of stroke.
Get your news from actual experts, straight to your inbox.Sign up to our daily newsletter to receive all The Conversation UK’s latest coverage of news and research, from politics and business to the arts and sciences.
Erythritol triggered what scientists call oxidative stress, flooding cells with harmful, highly reactive molecules known as free radicals, while simultaneously reducing the body’s natural antioxidant defences. This double assault damaged the cells’ ability to function properly, and in some cases killed them outright.
But perhaps more concerning was erythritol’s effect on the blood vessels’ ability to regulate blood flow. Healthy blood vessels act like traffic controllers, widening when organs need more blood – during exercise, for instance – and tightening when less is required. They achieve this delicate balance through two key molecules: nitric oxide, which relaxes blood vessels, and endothelin-1, which constricts them.
The study found that erythritol disrupted this critical system, reducing nitric oxide production while ramping up endothelin-1. The result would be blood vessels that remain dangerously constricted, potentially starving the brain of oxygen and nutrients. This imbalance is a known warning sign of ischaemic stroke – the type caused by blood clots blocking vessels in the brain.
Even more alarming, erythritol appeared to sabotage the body’s natural defence against blood clots. Normally, when clots form in blood vessels, cells release a “clot buster” called tissue plasminogen activator that dissolves the blockage before it can cause a stroke. But the sweetener blocked this protective mechanism, potentially leaving clots free to wreak havoc.
The laboratory findings align with troubling evidence from human studies. Several large-scale observational studies have found that people who regularly consume erythritol face significantly higher risks of cardiovascular disease, including heart attacks and strokes. One major study tracking thousands of participants found that those with the highest blood levels of erythritol were roughly twice as likely to experience a major cardiac event.
However, the research does have limitations. The experiments were conducted on isolated cells in laboratory dishes rather than complete blood vessels, which means the cells may not behave exactly as they would in the human body. Scientists acknowledge that more sophisticated testing – using advanced “blood vessel on a chip” systems that better mimic real physiology – will be needed to confirm these effects.
The findings are particularly significant because erythritol occupies a unique position in the sweetener landscape. Unlike artificial sweeteners such as aspartame or sucralose, erythritol is technically a sugar alcohol – a naturally occurring compound that the body produces in small amounts. This classification helped it avoid inclusion in recent World Health Organization guidelines that discouraged the use of artificial sweeteners for weight control.
Erythritol has also gained popularity among food manufacturers because it behaves more like sugar than other alternatives. While sucralose is 320 times sweeter than sugar, erythritol provides only about 80% of sugar’s sweetness, making it easier to use in recipes without creating an overpowering taste. It’s now found in thousands of products, especially in many “sugar-free” and “keto-friendly” foods.
Erythritol can be found in many keto-friendly products, such a protein bars. Stockah/Shutterstock.com
Trade-off
Regulatory agencies, including the European Food Standards Agency and the US Food and Drug Administration, have approved erythritol as safe for consumption. But the new research adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that even “natural” sugar alternatives may carry unexpected health risks.
For consumers, the findings raise difficult questions about the trade-offs involved in sugar substitution. Sweeteners like erythritol can be valuable tools for weight management and diabetes prevention, helping people reduce calories and control blood sugar spikes. But if regular consumption potentially weakens the brain’s protective barriers and increases cardiovascular risk, the benefits may come at a significant cost.
The research underscores a broader challenge in nutritional science: understanding the long-term effects of relatively new food additives that have become ubiquitous in the modern diet. While erythritol may help people avoid the immediate harms of excess sugar consumption, its effect on the blood-brain barrier suggests that frequent use could be quietly compromising brain protection over time.
As scientists continue to investigate these concerning links, consumers may want to reconsider their relationship with this seemingly innocent sweetener – and perhaps question whether any sugar substitute additive is truly without risk.
Havovi Chichger does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Hosepipe bans have been announced in parts of England this summer. Following the driest spring in over a century, the Environment Agency has issued a medium drought risk warning, and Yorkshire Water will introduce restrictions starting Friday, 11 July. It’s a familiar story: reduced rainfall, shrinking reservoirs and renewed calls for restraint: take shorter showers, avoid watering the lawn, turn off the tap while brushing your teeth.
These appeals to personal responsibility reflect a broader way of thinking about water: that everyone, everywhere, is facing the same crisis, and that small individual actions are a meaningful response. But what if this narrative, familiar as it is, obscures more than it reveals?
In my new book, Thirst: The global quest to solve the water crisis, I argue that the phrase “global water crisis” may do more harm than good. It simplifies a complex global reality, collapsing vastly different situations into one seemingly shared emergency. While it evokes urgency, it conceals the very things that matter: the causes, politics and power dynamics that determine who gets water and who doesn’t.
What we call a single crisis is, in fact, many distinct ones. To see this clearly, we must move beyond the rhetoric of global scarcity and look closely at how drought plays out in different places. Consider the UK, the Horn of Africa, and Chile: three regions facing water stress in radically different ways.
Roughly a fifth of treated water is lost through leaking pipes, some of them over a century old. At the same time, privatised water companies have come under growing scrutiny for failing to invest in infrastructure while paying billions in dividends to shareholders. So calls for households to use less water often strike a dissonant note.
The UK’s droughts are not just the product of climate variability. They are also shaped by policy decisions, regulatory failures and eroding public trust. Temporary scarcity becomes a recurring crisis due to the structures meant to manage it.
Horn of Africa: survival and structural vulnerability
In the Horn of Africa, drought is catastrophic. Since 2020, the region has endured five consecutive failed rainy seasons – the worst in four decades. More than 30 million people across Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya face food insecurity. Livelihoods have collapsed and millions of people have been displaced.
Climate change is a driver, but so is politics. Armed conflict, weak governance and decades of underinvestment have left communities dangerously exposed. These vulnerabilities are rooted in longer histories of colonial exploitation and, more recently, the privatisation of essential services.
Adaptation refers to how communities try to cope with changing climate conditions using the resources they have. Local efforts to adapt to drought (such as digging new wells, planting drought-resistant crop or rationing limited supplies) are often informal or underfunded.
When prolonged droughts strike in places already facing poverty, conflict or weak governance, these coping strategies are rarely enough. Framing climate-induced drought as just another chapter in a global water crisis erases the specific conditions that make it so deadly.
Chile’s water crisis is often linked to drought. But the underlying issue is extraction. The country holds over half of the world’s lithium reserves, a metal critical to electric vehicles and energy storage.
Lithium is mined through an intensely water-consuming process in the Atacama Desert, one of the driest places on Earth, often on Indigenous land. Communities have seen water tables drop and wetlands disappear while receiving little benefit.
Chile’s water laws, introduced under the Pinochet regime, allow private companies to hold long-term rights regardless of environmental or social cost. Here, water scarcity is driven less by rainfall and more by law, ownership and global demand for renewable technologies. Framing Chile’s situation as just another example of a global water crisis overlooks the deeper political and economic forces that shape how water is managed – and who gets to benefit from it.
No single crisis, no single solution
While drought is intensifying, its causes and consequences vary. In the UK, it’s about infrastructure and governance. In the Horn of Africa, it’s about historical injustice and systemic neglect. In Chile, it’s about legal frameworks and resource extraction.
Labelling this simply as a global water crisis oversimplifies the issue and steers attention away from the root causes. It promotes technical solutions while ignoring the political questions of who has access to water and who controls it.
This approach often favours private companies and international organisations, sidelining local communities and institutions. Instead of holding power to account, it risks shifting responsibility without making meaningful changes to how power and resources are shared.
In Thirst, I argue that the crisis of water is a cultural and political one. Who controls water, who profits from it, who bears the cost of its depletion: these are the defining questions of our time. And they cannot be answered with generalities. We don’t need one big solution. We need many small, just ones.
This article features a reference to a book that has been included for editorial reasons. If you click on one of the links to bookshop.org and go on to buy something, The Conversation UK may earn a commission.
Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
Filippo Menga does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
For the uninitiated, fermented foods include anything that uses bacteria to break down organic matter into a new product. Look around an ordinary kitchen and you’ll almost certainly find something fermented: yoghurt (milk), beer and wine (grain/fruit) or vinegar (alcohol). Not all of these will give you the promised health boost, however, which comes from “live” ferments containing probiotic microbes, usually lactic acid bacteria. In alcohol and vinegar the fermenting bacteria die during the process.
The health benefits of fermented foods are widely promoted. Some advocates, like epidemiologist Tim Spector, suggest the gut microbiome is the key to our health, while others are more cautious: in essence, although kefir is certainly good for your gut, it isn’t a cure-all. Still, the research is ongoing and diversifying: one study has even suggested that probiotics could fight the less pleasant recent phenomenon of microplastics in our stomachs.
The future of fermented foods is definitely something to keep an eye on, but equally interesting is their long past and the different fermented food fashions we see over time.
Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.
Garum eventually lost its popularity in Europe during the Middle Ages, but fermented fish made a comeback in the 18th century. In Asia fish sauces had continued strong, and colonialism brought the south Asian fish sauce kê-chiap to Europe, alongside soy sauce (fermented soybeans). Salt-fermenting oysters and anchovies in this style became popular in England and North America, and people eventually branched out to preserving tomatoes – giving us modern ketchup.
Cabbage cultures
No discussion of fermentation would be complete without pickled vegetables. Today, the most talked-about fermented vegetable is the cabbage, in the form of kimchi and sauerkraut, thanks to its strong probiotic and vitamin C content.
The historical origins of these dishes are unclear. Online articles might tell you that pickled cabbage was first eaten by the builders of the Great Wall of China 2,000 years ago and brought to Europe in Genghis Khan’s saddlebags. These kinds of apocryphal stories should be taken with more than a grain of salt.
An illustration of the cultivation of grapes and winemaking in Ming dynasty China (1368–1644). Wellcome Collection
Still, as Jan Davison, author of Pickles: A Global History, writes, literary evidence suggests that salt pickling in general does have a long precedence. Pickled gourds were eaten in Zhou dynasty China around 3,000 years ago.
It’s hard to say when sauerkraut became a common dish, but the term was in use by the 16th century and was associated with Germany by the 17th. As to Korean kimchi, research suggests this style of preservation was practised by the 13th century, only using turnips rather than cabbage.
The popularity of radish and cabbage kimchi only came about in the 16th century, alongside the use of chilli peppers. Now an iconic aspect of this bright-red dish, peppers were not part of “Old World” diets before the Columbian exchange.
History reveals our long relationship with fermented food. Our pickling ancestors were more interested in food preservation than in their bacterial microbiome – a very modern concept. Looking to past practices might even help us innovate fermentation technologies, as recent research from the Vrije Universiteit Brussels shows. I’m not sure about bringing back fermented fish guts, but more pickled turnips doesn’t sound half bad.
This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.
Serin Quinn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Kate Sullivan de Estrada, Associate Professor in the International Relations of South Asia, University of Oxford
Preparing to react to a maritime ’emergency’.Romuald Robert, CC BY
The coils of black hose, drum skimmers designed to collect oil from the ocean’s surface, and orangey-red containment booms all looked out of place on the white sand of Mombasa’s touristy Nyali beach. But on July 9, dozens of emergency responders in red and orange hi-vis gear took over a portion of this beach. They were braving the wind and choppy Indian Ocean waves as they mock up the onshore response to a simulated oil spill at sea.
I research how countries in the western Indian Ocean cooperate to make the seas around them safer, and I was there to observe a field training exercise that brought together around 200 participants from ten coastal and island states for one week in east Africa’s largest port city. Codenamed MASEPOLREX25, it put two types of emergency response to the test.
The first was Kenya’s national-level response to marine oil pollution, guided by its national contingency plan. The second was a regional-level response that can bring in outside help from other nations. The organiser of the exercise, the Indian Ocean Commission (IOC) – an intergovernmental group of Western Indian Ocean islands headquartered in Mauritius – wanted the countries of the region to rehearse a joint response to marine pollution.
Preparations begin on Kenya’s Nyali beach for the emergency exercise. Romuald Robert., CC BY
The exercise put two IOC-designed regional centres through their paces. Think of them like a pair of regional helpdesks for ocean security, each with a distinct purpose.
How does it unfold?
The exercise began the day before with a briefing on the marine pollution scenario. The Kenyan authorities had received a distress call from the fictional captains of two damaged vessels.
An oil tanker with a deadweight tonnage of 50,000 had collided with a feeder ship in Tanzanian waters, just south of Kenya’s maritime zone. The captain of the tanker suspected that 3,000-to-4,000 metric tonnes of intermediate fuel oil (persistent, thick oil that won’t evaporate by itself) had spilled into the ocean.
Such an incident is plausible. A 2023 IOC-commissioned internal study pinpointed the Kenya-Tanzania border as a hotspot for marine pollution risk. Two major ports sit in close proximity in a busy maritime transit corridor.
Clustered around an incident board, Kenya’s incident management team mounted their national response. Nuru Mohammed, liaison officer for the Kenya Maritime Authority, explained that the assessment of the size of the spill and expectations of its behaviour had already led the team to anticipate the need for regional support. At this time of year, the sea current would carry the slick northward into Kenyan waters.
At the back of everyone’s minds was the 2020 Wakashio incident, in which a bulk carrier owned by a Japanese shipping company but flagged to Panama ran aground to the southeast of Mauritius. An estimated 800-to-1,000 tonnes of fuel oil spilled into the sea, affecting 30km of Mauritian coastline. The cost to marine life, food security and human health were compounded by economic and connectivity challenges posed by the COVID pandemic.
Responders prepare oil-spill equipment on the beach near Mombasa. Romuald Robert, CC BY-SA
For the exercise, aerial surveillance of the mock spill triggered the first attempt at containment. A live video feed of the offshore national response showed rice husks, a substitute for the oil, afloat on the waves. Two vessels sprayed simulated oil-spill dispersants in challenging winds.
In real life, as in this exercise, oil properties determine how the spill will behave. IOC consultant Peter Taylor warned that churning waves could mix with the oil forming emulsions that were viscous and not dispersible.
We turned our attention to the chat feed on SeaVision, an information-sharing platform. A notification popped up. The Regional Maritime Information Fusion Centre (RMIFC) in Madagascar had shared mapped and timestamped projections of the drift of the oil slick for the following 72 hours. The centre’s director, Alex Ralaiarivony, later explained how it could provide other technical support such as satellite imagery, and could calculate the proportions of oil that were likely to become submerged, evaporate, remain adrift and reach the shoreline.
By July 9, the fictional oil spill had reached the coast. The team on Nyali beach hurried to deploy an oil containment boom, a floating barrier that can shield sensitive areas such as shorelines.
Back at headquarters, SeaVision was busy with messages. The other centre, the Regional Coordination of Operations Centre (RCOC) in Seychelles, was urgently requesting more shoreline equipment to help with oil spills, such as booms, from regional partners. Mauritius and Madagascar both made offers to help that Kenya accepted, and the RCOC coordinated a Dornier aircraft from Seychelles for collection and delivery.
How does the emergency response work?
The two centres help countries in the Western Indian Ocean secure their maritime zones against threats such as piracy, illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, the trafficking of illicit goods – and marine pollution incidents.
In Madagascar, the RMIFC gathers and analyses maritime data from multiple sources to detect potential threats at sea. This enables early warning of threats like oil spills, as well as suspicious ships or boats engaged in illicit maritime activities.
The RCOC in Seychelles responds to these threats. It draws on a shared pool of aircraft and ships belonging to its members, using these to coordinate joint responses – whether through sea patrols, boarding and inspecting ships, or laying the legal groundwork to prosecute offenders.
The two regional centres serve seven states: IOC island members Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles and France — through its island territory of La Réunion — as well as East African coastal states Kenya and Djibouti.
On July 10, the exercise ended with an evaluation. One takeaway was that the two regional centres could have been used even more – for instance, to coordinate technical assistance from different partners. But a key purpose of the exercise was to help participating countries understand what the centres offer, and get them used to a regional-level response.
Coastal and island states thousands of kilometres apart are being brought closer by maritime threats in their shared ocean. And the two centres are building their operational capacity to support the whole region, while also creating trust among countries. This matters in a geopolitical context of strategic competition in the Indian Ocean, where islands and East African coastal states sometimes want to put their own needs first.
At the end of the exercise, IOC officer-in-charge Raj Mohabeer reminded participants that the island and coastal states of the Western Indian Ocean have vast maritime zones and face multiple seaborne security threats to their economies, ecologies and livelihoods. “No developing country can deal with a significant marine pollution event alone.”
Kate Sullivan de Estrada receives funding from Research England’s Policy Support Fund allocation to the University of
Oxford via the Public Policy Challenge Fund. Her project under the Fund is titled “Balancing ‘Sovereignty Trade-offs’ in Small-State Maritime Security Co-operation: The Case of the Indian Ocean Commission.”
As roses fill gardens and hedgerows this season, there is a story, millions of years in the making, unfolding beneath their petals.
Analysis of rose genomes and floral structure is revealing how the stunning diversity we admire is rooted in the genes of these plants, offering new insight into how the beauty in our world is built at the molecular level.
Modern roses are a riot of colour. Some roses are showy and fragrant while others are modest and understated. Jude the Obscure is coloured in peach, Kew Gardens a soft white and Catherine’s Rose a coral pink.
Many people think of plants as nice-looking greens. Essential for clean air, yes, but simple organisms. A step change in research is shaking up the way scientists think about plants: they are far more complex and more like us than you might imagine. This blossoming field of science is too delightful to do it justice in one or two stories.
All modern roses, in one way or another, stem from a pool of ancient ancestors. The genus Rosa first appeared over 30 million years ago, while the more recent ancestral species that gave rise to today’s roses emerged around 6 million years ago. Diversifying over this time, all modern roses have come into being from these plants.
An April 2025 study by Chinese researchers suggests that the first Rosa flowers 30 million years ago were probably yellow. The researchers studied key traits of modern roses, like petal colour and the number of petals, and mapped them onto an evolutionary tree of roses. Tracing these traits through time allowed them to see how roses have changed over millions of years. For example, the next colours to appear in rose petals were pinks and reds. They also found the ancestor of modern roses alive 6 million years ago was probably pink.
The 2025 study’s evolutionary reconstruction of key rose traits suggests the first roses were simple in form, bearing a single layer of petals. Jude the Obscure and Catherine’s Rose are both double-flowered roses, meaning their blooms have extra petals. These extra petals originated through natural mutations, which were later selected for during rose breeding.
Scent is one of the main appeals of roses in our gardens. Jude the Obscure has a strong fruity fragrance, while Catherine’s Rose is said to have a subtle hint of mango. Yet, some roses are completely scentless.
Floral fragrances come from plant compounds. For instance, roses that emit a lemony aroma owe it to the compound citronellol. Scientists aren’t sure why some Rosa species produce these compounds, but they probably help attract specific pollinators or serve as part of the plant’s defence system.
A 2024 study found that fragrant roses have more genes involved in the production of scent compounds compared to their less fragrant cousins. These fragrant plants produce compounds in high abundance, their complex aromas attracting pollinators and our senses alike. This suggests that, over time, scent production became an advantageous strategy for some roses, because it costs energy to produce these genes.
After their origin over 30 million years ago, roses gradually evolved a remarkable range of forms, colours and fragrances. Today, there are more than 300 accepted species in the genus Rosa. Fossil evidence and genetic studies suggest that the ancestors of roses first evolved in central Asia, probably in modern-day China and the Himalayan foothills. Their natural diversity helped roses adapt to temperate climates, spreading throughout Asia. From there, they gradually expanded westward, reaching Europe around 15 to 25 million years ago.
In only the last couple of centuries, roses have undergone a second wave of diversification, this time driven by human hands. Modern rose breeders selected between eight and 20 wild rose species — particularly from Asia, such as Rosa chinensis and Rosa multiflora, as well as European species Rosa gallica and Rosa canina — to create all modern cultivated varieties. This process enhanced traits that appeal to our senses and produced flowers with more petals, deeper and more vibrant colours and stronger, more complex scents.
The origin of rose breeding: Rosa multiflora, Rosa canina and Rosa gallica Wikimedia
For example, genes involved in petal development have been selected to produce fuller, double-flowered blooms. Other genes associated with pigment production have been targeted to enhance deeper and more vibrant colours. Likewise, genes involved in the synthesis of scent compounds, such as one known as NUDX1, have been favoured to intensify rose fragrance.
Other characteristics flower breeders targeted include recurrent flowering, disease resistance and reduced prickle formation. Many wild rose species originally had far more prickles than modern garden varieties. Outside of our gardens, this may leave them more vulnerable to grazing animals.
This botanical experiment, guided by human hands, has shaped the stunning diversity we cherish today. This cultivation is what sets roses apart from their close relatives. Rubus, a closely related genus including blackberries and raspberries, has more than 800 species. There are over 300 Rosa species but it is estimated there are over 35,000 varieties of modern rose.
Beauties such as Jude the Obscure, Kew Gardens and Catherine’s Rose are the result of centuries of careful cultivation and scientific understanding. So, the next time you walk through a rose garden, take a moment to appreciate the deep history behind each bloom.
Alexander Bowles receives funding as a Glasstone Fellow at the University of Oxford.
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments
News story
Inquiry to uncover truth of Orgreave
Inquiry into violent confrontation at Orgreave to be established this year, with the Rt Revd Dr Pete Wilcox, Bishop of Sheffield, appointed as chair.
The Home Secretary visiting the site alongside campaigners and the National Union of Mineworkers
An inquiry into the violent confrontation between police, picketers and subsequent protesters at Orgreave 41 years ago will be established as the government delivers its manifesto commitment to uncover the truth.
The inquiry, expected to launch in the autumn, will investigate the events surrounding clashes at the Orgreave Coking Plant in 1984, causing 120 injuries. In total, 95 picketers were arrested and initially charged with riot and violent disorder, but all charges were later dropped after evidence was discredited.
The inquiry will be statutory, with the appropriate powers to compel people to provide information where necessary.
The Rt Revd Dr Pete Wilcox, the Bishop of Sheffield, has agreed to chair the inquiry, which is intended to aid the public’s understanding of how the events on the day, and immediately after, came to pass.
The event has left a lasting impact on those present that day and their families, as well as undermining the wider mining community’s confidence in policing for decades.
That is why, as the government looks to rebuild public confidence in policing as part of its Plan for Change, it is delivering on this manifesto commitment to bring to light what happened at Orgreave, with the Home Secretary visiting the site alongside the campaigners and the National Union of Mineworkers who have fought for years for answers.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said:
Every community should have confidence in their police, but we know what happened at Orgreave cast a shadow over communities in Yorkshire and other mining areas.
The violent scenes and subsequent prosecutions raised concerns that have been left unanswered for decades, and we must now establish what happened.
I pay tribute to the campaigners who never stopped in their search for truth and justice, and I look forward to continuing to work with them as we build an inquiry that gets the answers they and their communities deserve.
The Rt Revd Dr Pete Wilcox said:
I am extremely grateful to the Home Secretary for the opportunity to chair this inquiry and for the support I shall be given in doing so. I do not underestimate the weight of expectation or the significance of the task.
I look forward to engaging with stakeholders in the coming weeks over the draft terms of reference, and to working with the government to identify experts to support me on the independent panel.
I expect the panel to begin its work in the autumn, and we will endeavour to deliver an inquiry which is thorough and fair, and which will uncover what happened at Orgreave as swiftly as possible.
The government has engaged with campaign groups throughout the process of designing the inquiry to ensure their concerns and experiences are considered.
Formal consultation between the Home Secretary and the Rt Revd Dr Pete Wilcox on the inquiry’s terms of reference has already begun, and further engagement with key stakeholders will be an important part of that process. The inquiry will aim to deliver swiftly to ensure the wellbeing of those searching for answers is not unduly impacted.
A final copy of the terms of reference will then be published at the earliest opportunity.
Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign Secretary, Kate Flannery, said:
We have waited a long time for this day and this is really positive news. All these years of hard work by the OTJC and our many supporters has helped to influence this constructive announcement. We appreciate the Home Secretary’s commitment to holding some kind of Orgreave inquiry.
We now need to be satisfied that the inquiry is given the necessary powers to fully investigate all the aspects of the orchestrated policing at Orgreave, and have unrestricted access to all relevant information including government, police and media documents, photos and films.
The National Union of Mineworkers General Secretary, Chris Kitchen, said:
The NUM welcome the announcement the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, has made to hold a statutory inquiry into the policing at Orgreave and subsequent court case abandoned after police evidence was discredited.
It is hugely welcome to see this government fulfil its pledge made in the Labour Party Manifesto to the mining community. The events at Orgreave, and throughout the strike, destroyed the trust between the police and mining communities even now, 41 years later. It is vital that this trust is won back and the NUM believe this inquiry will go some way to rebuilding that trust.
The NUM will offer the Rt Revd Dr Pete Wilcox, Bishop of Sheffield, any assistance that he requires to ensure that the inquiry uncovers the truth about who orchestrated the events at Orgreave and the failed court case so that precautions can be put in place, so it never happens again.
South Yorkshire’s Mayor, Oliver Coppard, said:
What happened at Orgreave remains one of the most controversial episodes in policing history. The violent clashes, the arrest of 95 miners, the collapse of the subsequent trial after revelations about police conduct, and the absence of any investigation or accountability scarred those involved, and people across our entire community.
So, the announcement of a public inquiry into the events at Orgreave is a landmark moment for justice and accountability. We wouldn’t have got this without the sheer determination of the campaigners and a government and Home Secretary who have listened to the long-held concerns.
The inquiry represents an opportunity to examine not only the actions of South Yorkshire Police and other forces on that day, but also the broader role of government at the time. It’s a step towards setting the historical record straight, ensuring lessons are learned, and restoring public trust.
We owe it to the miners, their families, and our communities to ensure that the events of Orgreave are finally understood. My hope is that the public inquiry is completed at pace and that at the end of the process it brings closure and a sense of justice for those involved and their families in particular, and that we are finally able to turn the page on the events of that moment in our history.
Milestone anniversary for Canada’s first national urban park
July 21, 2025 Markham, Ontario Parks Canada
Rouge National Urban Park, Canada’s first national urban park and one of the largest protected urban parks in the world, offers easy access to residents of Canada’s largest urban centre to explore a rich assembly of forests, creeks, farms and trails as well as marshland, a beach on Lake Ontario and human history spanning 10,000 years.
Today, the Honourable Gary Anandasangaree, Minister of Public Safety and Member of Parliament for Scarborough—Guildwood—Rouge Park, on behalf of the Honourable Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture and Minister responsible for Official Languages, celebrated this important milestone at an event honouring Indigenous partners, volunteers, farmers, advocates, and local stakeholders who have helped shape the vision of the park. The ceremony highlighted key achievements from the past decade, including major land assembly and legislation, the completion of the park’s first management plan, the development of a multi-species action plan, the completion of 137 restoration projects with partners and collaborators, the addition of 23 km of new trails and a $21 million investment in the future visitor, learning and community centre.
Since its establishment in 2015, Rouge National Urban Park has become a globally recognized model for conservation in an urban setting. Spanning over 79 square kilometres, an area 1.3 times larger than the city of Manhattan, the park protects a remarkable diversity of natural, cultural, and agricultural landscapes and continues to evolve through Indigenous leadership, community stewardship, restoration efforts, and collaboration across all levels of government.
Parks Canada will celebrate the 10th anniversary of Rouge National Urban Park throughout 2025. Weekly features on the park’s Facebook page will highlight key moments of its history, while on-site anniversary programming will offer visitors opportunities to reflect on the park’s past, share their own stories, and contribute to a collective vision for the future of Canada’s first national urban park.
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
BEIJING, July 21 — China’s State Council announced the appointment of several new officials on Monday.
Xie Yuansheng was appointed vice minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Ling Zhifeng was named vice minister of the Ministry of Public Security.
Liu Jianqiao was appointed deputy head of the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense. Zhao Jianheng was named vice president of the China Academy of Engineering Physics.
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
Farmers across China busy with agricultural production in farming season around Dashu
Updated: July 21, 2025 20:58Xinhua
An aerial drone photo taken on July 21, 2025 shows villagers driving transplanters to plant rice seedlings in Yuyao, east China’s Zhejiang Province. Farmers across the country are busy with agricultural production in the farming season around Dashu, or the Great Heat, the 12th of traditional Chinese 24 solar terms falling on July 22 this year. [Photo/Xinhua]Farmers harvest marigold flowers in Tengchong, southwest China’s Yunnan Province, July 21, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]Farmers transplant rice seedlings in Loudi, central China’s Hunan Province, July 21, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]An aerial drone photo taken on July 21, 2025 shows a farmer carrying rice seedlings in Loudi, central China’s Hunan Province. [Photo/Xinhua]A drone photo taken on July 21, 2025 shows villagers transplanting rice seedlings in Hengyang, central China’s Hunan Province. [Photo/Xinhua]An aerial drone photo taken on July 21, 2025 shows villagers transplanting rice seedlings in Hengyang, central China’s Hunan Province. [Photo/Xinhua]
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
BEIJING, July 21 — China has released its first national standard specifically targeting school meal services, scheduled to take effect on Dec. 1 this year, the country’s State Administration for Market Regulation announced Monday.
The Guidelines for the Management of School Meal Service Enterprises will apply to enterprises that provide meal preparation and delivery services to primary and secondary schools and kindergartens.
China now has more than 460,000 primary and secondary schools and kindergartens, involving over 237 million students.
The guidelines stated that enterprises must designate full-time staff responsible for food safety management and inspection.
Enterprises are required to purchase major ingredients such as rice, flour and oil from designated suppliers, and retain testing reports for each batch of raw materials.
Meal preparation should be integrated into the internet-enabled transparent kitchen monitoring system, with key operational procedures publicly accessible to schools, parents and students, according to the guidelines.
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
Russian forces launched an overnight group strike on Ukraine’s military-industrial complex and the infrastructure of military airfields, the Russian Defense Ministry said Monday.
The raid involved long-range high-precision weapons launched from air, land and sea-based platforms, including “Kinzhal” air-launched hypersonic ballistic missiles and combat drones, the ministry said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Russia’s air defense intercepted 74 Ukrainian drones overnight, including 23 in the Moscow Region, it added.
Airports in Moscow introduced air restrictions in the early hours of Monday for flight safety reasons, which were subsequently lifted, according to Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency.
Downed drone debris caused a fire on the roof of the railway station in the village of Kamenolomni in the Rostov Region, and more than 50 trains were delayed, said Russian Railways.
KANSAS CITY, KAN. – A Tennessee man was sentenced to 71 months in prison after being convicted of running a $1.9 million Ponzi scheme.
According to court documents, Alcides Roman, 66, of Lebanon, Tennessee, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud. Roman defrauded victims in Kansas, New York, Texas, and in Canada by soliciting their participation in purportedly high-yield investment programs. In truth, these investment opportunities were fraudulent. Roman did not invest the funds and failed to redeem the investments upon the victims’ requests. Rather, he left the funds in bank accounts he controlled and used the money for his own and others’ benefit. Roman induced victims to make additional or larger investments by making payments to them, ostensibly as returns on investment. Those payments, however, were from the same victim’s prior principal investments or another victim’s investments.
Roman used funds from the scheme to pay for his personal living expenses, to buy vehicles and land, and to send money to numerous foreign and domestic companies. The total known loss to victims was $1,977,857.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigated the case.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan J. Huschka prosecuted the case.
New York City, NY, July 21, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Driven by the wave of digital currency, we are delighted to witness the collision of innovation and opportunity. Recently, Whale Capital has made a heavy investment in Dogecoin (DOGE) and so ETHRANSACTION cloud mining platform has launched many mining contracts to explore the unlimited potential of decentralized finance. This launching not only demonstrates the long-term confidence in the Dogecoin ecosystem, but also brings sustainable wealth growth solutions to global users through the platform’s leading stable yield and income technology.
Why choose ETHRANSACTION for cooperation?
ETHRANSACTION is a world-leading integrated mining service provider, providing customers with one-stop solutions such as cloud mining. ETHRANSACTION is committed to building a secure, compliant and transparent blockchain infrastructure, and providing global customers with a variety of stable and intelligent computing power service solutions.
Efficient and stable: ETHRANSACTION relies on the world’s leading data centers and uses the most advanced mining equipment to ensure that every user’s investment can generate returns efficiently and stably.
Security: In the field of blockchain, security is one of the most concerned issues for investors. ETHRANSACTION uses multiple levels of security measures, including SSL encryption, L&G insurance, and a 24/7 all-weather monitoring system to ensure the safety of your funds and information.
Flexible investment options: The platform provides users with flexible investment options. Whether you invest large or small amounts, long-term or short-term, you can find a plan that suits you. At the same time, the platform regularly launches promotions to reward new and old customers.
We offer a variety of high-yield mining contract plans to meet your financial goals. Whether you are looking for short-term gains or long-term returns, ETHRANSACTION has you covered.
Step 3: Start earning
Easily control your income growth without any management. Daily income will be automatically deposited into your account, and you can also withdraw your income to your cryptocurrency wallet address.
Participate in the following contracts to earn stable passive income:
After purchasing a contract, the income will be automatically credited to your account the next day. When the account balance reaches $100, you can choose to withdraw to your digital currency wallet or continue to purchase contracts to earn more.
Everything is safe and transparent – officially operated, control your financial freedom anytime, anywhere.
Download the official APP with one click, support Apple and Android mobile APP applications, convenient to monitor your income at any time.
For example: someone invests $330,000 and can buy 1 ANTSPACE HK3 [Advanced Computing Power Contract] worth $330,000, with a contract period of 35 days and a contract daily interest rate of 2.75%.
Daily passive income after purchase = $330,000*2.75%=$9,075.
Principal and income after 35 days = $330,000 + $9,075*35 = $647,625
Generous affiliate program ETHRANSACTION rewards users who help promote its excellent platform. Refer others to get unlimited rewards and commissions to further increase your mining income. Seize the opportunity and open up more lucrative sources of income.
Summary In the strategic agreement reached by both parties, ETHRANSACTION will focus on efficient and transparent cloud mining services, combined with the community momentum of Dogecoin, to create a safe and high-return participation experience. We firmly believe that this cooperation will bring “blessings” to every participant and help you move forward steadily in the crypto field! If you are interested in mining investment, don’t miss this opportunity. I believe that ETHRANSACTION will become your right-hand man on the road to wealth appreciation.
For more information about ETHRANSACTION, please visit its official website: https://ethransaction.vip Email: info@ethransaction.vip
New York City, NY, July 21, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Driven by the wave of digital currency, we are delighted to witness the collision of innovation and opportunity. Recently, Whale Capital has made a heavy investment in Dogecoin (DOGE) and so ETHRANSACTION cloud mining platform has launched many mining contracts to explore the unlimited potential of decentralized finance. This launching not only demonstrates the long-term confidence in the Dogecoin ecosystem, but also brings sustainable wealth growth solutions to global users through the platform’s leading stable yield and income technology.
Why choose ETHRANSACTION for cooperation?
ETHRANSACTION is a world-leading integrated mining service provider, providing customers with one-stop solutions such as cloud mining. ETHRANSACTION is committed to building a secure, compliant and transparent blockchain infrastructure, and providing global customers with a variety of stable and intelligent computing power service solutions.
Efficient and stable: ETHRANSACTION relies on the world’s leading data centers and uses the most advanced mining equipment to ensure that every user’s investment can generate returns efficiently and stably.
Security: In the field of blockchain, security is one of the most concerned issues for investors. ETHRANSACTION uses multiple levels of security measures, including SSL encryption, L&G insurance, and a 24/7 all-weather monitoring system to ensure the safety of your funds and information.
Flexible investment options: The platform provides users with flexible investment options. Whether you invest large or small amounts, long-term or short-term, you can find a plan that suits you. At the same time, the platform regularly launches promotions to reward new and old customers.
We offer a variety of high-yield mining contract plans to meet your financial goals. Whether you are looking for short-term gains or long-term returns, ETHRANSACTION has you covered.
Step 3: Start earning
Easily control your income growth without any management. Daily income will be automatically deposited into your account, and you can also withdraw your income to your cryptocurrency wallet address.
Participate in the following contracts to earn stable passive income:
After purchasing a contract, the income will be automatically credited to your account the next day. When the account balance reaches $100, you can choose to withdraw to your digital currency wallet or continue to purchase contracts to earn more.
Everything is safe and transparent – officially operated, control your financial freedom anytime, anywhere.
Download the official APP with one click, support Apple and Android mobile APP applications, convenient to monitor your income at any time.
For example: someone invests $330,000 and can buy 1 ANTSPACE HK3 [Advanced Computing Power Contract] worth $330,000, with a contract period of 35 days and a contract daily interest rate of 2.75%.
Daily passive income after purchase = $330,000*2.75%=$9,075.
Principal and income after 35 days = $330,000 + $9,075*35 = $647,625
Generous affiliate program ETHRANSACTION rewards users who help promote its excellent platform. Refer others to get unlimited rewards and commissions to further increase your mining income. Seize the opportunity and open up more lucrative sources of income.
Summary In the strategic agreement reached by both parties, ETHRANSACTION will focus on efficient and transparent cloud mining services, combined with the community momentum of Dogecoin, to create a safe and high-return participation experience. We firmly believe that this cooperation will bring “blessings” to every participant and help you move forward steadily in the crypto field! If you are interested in mining investment, don’t miss this opportunity. I believe that ETHRANSACTION will become your right-hand man on the road to wealth appreciation.
For more information about ETHRANSACTION, please visit its official website: https://ethransaction.vip Email: info@ethransaction.vip
Chicago, July 21, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — As the price of XRP rises strongly to $3.5, the crypto market has once again attracted widespread attention. As the world’s leading cloud mining platform, Mint Miner took the lead in its layout and officially launched new medium- and short-term XRP cloud mining contracts this week, which continue to be popular.
The leap in XRP prices not only reflects the market’s confidence in the Ripple ecosystem, but also stimulates a new round of demand for XRP asset appreciation. Under this trend, Mint Miner launched flexible contracts covering medium and short terms. Users can choose the most suitable investment cycle based on their personal funds and strategies to achieve “daily calculation and daily income”.
“The current XRP ecosystem has entered the fast lane. Mint Miner’s goal is to help users seize this growth opportunity. Without hardware and maintenance, they can easily participate in mining and obtain daily income.” Jane Carter, Mint Miner’s operations director, said, “We see that medium- and short-term contracts are particularly popular among young users and novice investors because they have low barriers to entry, short cycles, and fast returns.”
Mint Miner contract highlights: Flexible cycle: The contract can be opened in as little as 1 day; Daily income settlement: The platform automatically settles the income and distributes it to the user’s account every day without manual operation; Green energy mining support: All computing power is hosted in a data center using renewable energy, practicing the concept of environmentally friendly mining.
It only takes 3 steps to quickly join Mint Miner cloud mining: 1.Mint Miner launched a new user event:Register to get a $15 reward, and sign in every day to get $0.6. 2. Choose a contract: After successful registration, the next step is to choose a mining contract that meets your goals and budget. Here are some of the contract options: [New User Experience Contract]: Investment amount: $100, contract period: 2 days, maturity income: $100 + $10 [Avalon Miner A13]: Investment amount: $500, contract period: 5 days, maturity income: $500 + $30.5 [Bitcoin Miner S19 XP+ Hyd]: Investment amount: $1,500, contract period: 9 days, maturity income: $1,500 + $178.2 [ETC Miner E9 Pro]: Investment amount: $3,200, contract period: 14 days, maturity income: $3,200 + $672 [Antminer L7 ]: Investment amount: $5,200, contract period: 20 days, maturity income: $5,200 + $1,612 [Bitcoin MinerS21+ Hyd]: Investment amount: $10,000, contract period: 28 days, maturity income: $10,000 + $4,760 Click here to explore more mining contracts 3. Start earning → Daily settlement, withdraw to your wallet at any time or choose to reinvest.
Advantages of MintMiner Cloud Mining Platform MintMiner is committed to creating a safe, efficient and rewarding mining environment for users of different experience levels. Its core advantages include: ◆ Legal and Compliance: Fully compliant with British and global standards – your trust is our foundation. ◆ Security: The platform integrates McAfee® security and Cloudflare® protection to protect user data security and smooth mining. ◆ Zero management fee: No management fee is required, no hidden fees. The mining process is clean, transparent, honest, reliable and completely transparent. ◆ Support multiple currencies: XRP supports a variety of mainstream cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, DOGE, LTC, etc. ◆ Technology and service: Provided by an experienced team of experts. The 24/7 fast-response customer service team will solve every problem you encounter, so that you have no worries.
Mint Miner pointed out: The strong rise of XRP, coupled with the favorable implementation of the GENIUS Act, has ushered in a new growth cycle for the Mint Miner compliance platform. Mint Miner’s rapid response and product innovation not only meet investors’ needs for flexible configuration, but also once again consolidate its position as the “cloud mining platform with the fastest market response speed”.
About Mint Miner: Mint Miner is a compliant cloud mining platform headquartered in London, UK, dedicated to providing users with zero-threshold, safe and efficient digital asset mining services through innovative cloud computing technology. The platform already supports mainstream cryptocurrency mining such as BTC and DOGE, and insists on green energy mining, actively promoting the sustainable development of the industry.
Visit https://mintminer.com/ now to start your XRP mining journey and enjoy the fun of daily passive income.
Media Contact: Contact email: info@mintminer.com Official website: https://mintminer.com
Denver, Colorado, July 21, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) —ETHRANSACTION’s cloud mining contracts are leading the cloud mining industry due to its ease of use and stable crypto yields, In the recent past ETHRANSACTION has launched a variety of new mining contracts including one where the users can generate Dogecoin as a reward of crypto mining. Countdown to policy dividends: DOGE mining income is expected to be halved in Q4 2025, and the current network computing power competition has surged by 45%! Now you can enter the market to lock in a 40-day high-yield contract and grab the last dividend before halving.
Hedging volatility tool: When DOGE plummeted 20% in a single day due to the news of ETF extension, ETHRANSACTION users still received a stable DOGE fixed dividend share every day.
Musk’s ecological expansion: DOGE payment scenarios penetrate Twitter rewards and Tesla peripherals, hoarding coins = laying out the next generation of payment infrastructure!
Triple security protection, stable capital protection Asset insurance: Each contract is underwritten by the British century-old insurance giant Legal & General to ensure the protection of the planned contract.
Military-grade encryption: EV SSL encryption + McAfee® anti-hacking system + cold wallet isolated storage, 0 security incident record.
Compliance backpack: Established in 2017, it holds all necessary licenses issued by the British government and has now developed into a world-renowned cloud mining company. [The company is currently preparing for a stock listing]
2. Purchase a planned contract: A variety of profitable mining plans are available to meet your personal financial needs, whether you are seeking short-term gains or long-term returns. For example:
Investment amount
Plan period
Daily profit
Total income at maturity
$100
2
$9
$118
$600
6
$7.5
$645
$1300
13
$16.9
$1518.7
$3700
20
$51.06
$4721.2
3. Collect daily DOGE: You can easily view the daily account income growth remotely without any management.
Invest $33,000 and choose ANTSPACE HK3 “Premium Contract” (40 days):
Daily income: $9,075 × 40 days = $363,000
Compound interest reinvestment: Add multiple contracts on the 40th day, and the return will increase by 4%
Take action now, miss it = miss out! The 2025 wealth window is closing: DOGE halving countdown, SEC policy variables, and fierce computing power competition – those who enter the market at this moment will lock in the highest future returns! Take action and don’t miss out on opportunities. Go directly to ETHRANSACTION mining to unlock the DOGE password.
Houston, Texas, July 21, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The GENIUS Act was officially passed, the crypto market heated up, and XRP once again became the focus of investors. As the world’s leading cloud mining service platform, Siton Mining officially released a new cloud mining solution for XRP users, providing investors with a low-threshold, high-efficiency, zero-technical-burden participation channel, opening up a new model for easily earning XRP rewards. What is cloud mining? Cloud mining is a way for users to participate in cryptocurrency mining by renting computing power remotely without having to purchase mining machines or maintain equipment. All mining operations are completed in the data center, and users only need to select the appropriate computing power contract through the platform to enjoy daily income. This method has the advantages of low threshold, zero technical requirements, flexibility and convenience, and is suitable for novices and investors who want to obtain stable passive income. Break down barriers, everyone can participate Traditional mining relies on expensive hardware and technical barriers, which discourages ordinary users. Siton Mining provides a new solution: no need to purchase mining machines, no technical background, just register and start mining. Users only need to choose the appropriate cloud computing power contract to remotely access global green mines and obtain daily cryptocurrency income.
Platform highlights: Why chooseSiton Mining? ⦁Sign up and get a bonus: New users can get a random bonus of $10-$100 ⦁Daily sign-in bonus: Daily login can get a bonus of $0.6 ⦁Efficient mining: Global green energy mines, automatic mining, intelligent system allocation ⦁Security guarantee: Bank-level security protection + McAfee security protocol + cold wallet management ⦁Multi-currency support: supports mining and settlement of multiple crypto assets such as XRP, BTC, ETH, USDT, DOGE, SOL, LTC, etc. ⦁ Withdraw at any time: Withdraw when the balance reaches $100, and reinvest flexibly
Investment contract actual profit display
MiningEquipment
Contract Amount
Net income
Total net profit
Zcash Miner
$100
$8
$108（$100 + $8）
ETC Miner
$500
$30
$530（$500 + $30）
IceRiver AE2
$1,200
$140.40
$1,340.40
Bitcoin Miner
$3,000
$538.20
$3,538.20
iPollo V2
$7,000
$1,839.60
$8,839.60
VOLCMINER D1 Pro
$10,000
$3,657.00
$13,657.00
You may ask: “Can you really make money?” Here is Siton Mining’s official profit model (display):
How to join: Just 3 steps to start your XRP passive income journey 1. Visit the official website SitonMining.com to register an account; 2. Select a suitable mining contract and recharge to activate; 3. Enjoy daily income, the platform automatically settles and distributes it to the account balance. Daily sign-in can also get a $0.6 USD reward, continuous mining, continuous income!
The official APP is now online, making mobile mining easier Download the Siton Mining App to keep track of mining trends anytime, anywhere, and check revenue records, operate contracts, and withdraw assets more conveniently. Applicable platforms: iOS / Android Download method: Click https://yunquantum.com/download/ to download now
Conclusion: Join Siton Mining now to seize new opportunities for digital wealth At a critical moment when the global financial system is moving towards decentralization, Siton Mining is opening a new channel for global users to increase the value of digital assets. Whether you are a novice who has just come into contact with the world of encryption, or a veteran player seeking stable passive income, Siton Mining provides you with a safe, transparent, and low-threshold new choice. The rise of XRP is just a prelude, and the real opportunity belongs to those who dare to take the lead. Join now, start your cloud mining journey, and grasp the future of digital wealth!
REDWOOD CITY, Calif., July 21, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Check Point® Software Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ: CHKP), a pioneer and global leader of cyber security solutions, today announced the appointment of Jonathan Zanger as Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Zanger will lead Check Point’s global cyber security and AI strategy and AI centers. He will also shape the company’s AI innovation efforts.
Jonathan Zanger brings more than 15 years of experience building and scaling cyber security and AI-driven platforms. Prior to joining Check Point, he served as CTO at Trigo, where he led the development of advanced AI and computer vision systems for autonomous retail. He holds advanced degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
“AI is fundamentally reshaping both how cyber threats emerge and how we defend against them,” said Nadav Zafrir, CEO at Check Point Software Technologies. “Jonathan’s deep technical expertise and leadership in cyber security and applied AI, will accelerate our mission to deliver prevention-first security for a hyperconnected world. His appointment reinforces our commitment to shaping the future of cyber defense through bold innovation.”
As CTO, Zanger will steer the evolution of Check Point’s AI strategy, embedding advanced automation and machine learning across its Infinity Platform to support a prevention-first approach. These efforts build on a series of recent milestones, including Check Point’s recognition as a Leader in the Forrester Wave™: Zero Trust Platform, Q3 2025, which praised its “plan to deliver AI-driven capabilities to automate network security functions.” Zanger’s appointment also aligns with Miercom’s validation of Check Point as one of the industry’s top-performing AI-powered security platforms. Together, these distinctions reinforce the company’s leadership in delivering intelligent, unified cyber security for hybrid IT environments.
“I’m thrilled to join Check Point at such a pivotal moment,” said Jonathan Zanger, Chief Technology Officer at Check Point. “Cyber security must evolve faster than the threats it’s designed to stop. By embedding AI across every layer of our architecture, from gateways to the cloud, we’re not just keeping pace, we’re setting the pace.”
Zanger’s appointment comes as Check Point expands its AI investments and talent base, reinforcing its leadership in intelligent, unified cyber defense. Backed by a prevention-first approach and its open garden ecosystem, the company is uniquely positioned to help enterprises navigate digital transformation with confidence and resilience.
Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. (checkpoint.com) is a leading protector of digital trust, utilizing AI-powered cyber security solutions to safeguard over 100,000 organizations globally. Through its Infinity Platform and an open garden ecosystem, Check Point’s prevention-first approach delivers industry-leading security efficacy while reducing risk. Employing a hybrid mesh network architecture with SASE at its core, the Infinity Platform unifies the management of on-premises, cloud, and workspace environments to offer flexibility, simplicity and scale for enterprises and service providers.
Legal Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements generally relate to future events or our future financial or operating performance. Forward-looking statements in this press release include, but are not limited to, statements related to our expectations regarding future growth, the expansion of Check Point’s industry leadership, the enhancement of shareholder value and the delivery of an industry-leading cyber security platform to customers worldwide. Our expectations and beliefs regarding these matters may not materialize, and actual results or events in the future are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those projected. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are also subject to other risks and uncertainties, including those more fully described in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 2, 2024. The forward-looking statements in this press release are based on information available to Check Point as of the date hereof, and Check Point disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required by law.
