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Category: The Conversation

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: Many Texas communities are dangerously unprepared for floods − lack of funding plays a big role

    Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Ivis García, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, Texas A&M University

    A deadly flash flood on July 4, 2025, destroyed homes near the Guadalupe River in Texas Hill Country. Jim Vondruska/Getty Images

    The devastating flash floods that swept through Texas Hill Country in July 2025 highlight a troubling reality: Despite years of warnings and recent improvements in flood planning, Texas communities remain dangerously vulnerable to flood damage.

    The tragedy wasn’t caused just by heavy rainfall. It was made worse by a lack of money for early warning systems, by drainage systems and emergency communication networks that haven’t been updated to handle more intense storms or growing populations, and by the many older buildings in harm’s way.

    A 2024 state report estimated the cost of flood mitigation and management projects needed statewide at US$54.5 billion. But in Texas, most of that work is left to local governments.

    We study disaster planning at Texas A&M University and see several ways the state and Texas communities can improve safety for everyone.

    Progress since Hurricane Harvey

    Since Hurricane Harvey devastated the Houston area in 2017, Texas has made strides in flood planning.

    The state in 2024 created its first comprehensive flood plan, which identifies flood risks statewide and recommends projects to reduce them. The state now requires all local governments to adopt and enforce flood plain regulations that meet federal standards, enabling residents to purchase federal flood insurance.

    The plan represented a major shift for a state government that historically left flood planning to local communities.

    However, it also revealed widespread risks in Texas: Approximately 5 million Texans live or work in flood-prone areas, and an estimated 1.5 million homes and other structures are in flood plains.

    Flood risks are intensifying as Texas experiences more extreme rainfall. State climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon and colleagues at Texas A&M University found that extreme one-day precipitation has increased by 5% to 15% in Texas since the late 20th century, and another 10% increase is expected by 2036.

    Rural communities lack resources

    The biggest problem for small towns and rural communities isn’t just weak regulations. Many of them can’t afford to hire specialized staff for technical work such as hazard assessment and regulatory enforcement.

    While the state provides planning frameworks, implementation and enforcement remain local responsibilities.

    Budget limitations can mean one emergency manager serves as fire marshal, building inspector, engineer and flood plain administrator for hundreds of square miles.

    These officials must still meet federal standards and develop detailed disaster plans. But cash-strapped communities often lack the funding to implement solutions.

    Kerrville Mayor Joe Herring, Jr. speaks at a news briefing about the July 4, 2025, flooding. Most towns in Texas Hill Country are small, and their government officials wear many hats.
    Jorge Salgado/Anadolu via Getty Images

    What they need is practical hazard mitigation plans. Those include specific evacuation routes for each neighborhood, identifying which buildings house vulnerable populations, such as older adults, and steps local officials can implement immediately during emergencies. It also means aligning of other local planning documents, such as comprehensive plans or land use plans. Access to flood gauge data, weather monitoring and social vulnerability mapping is also important for determining when to close roads or activate emergency shelters.

    That work takes time, expertise and funding.

    The challenge of older buildings

    Creating safer communities also requires investment to address challenges with both new development and vulnerable existing structures.

    For new construction, many communities require buildings to be built above flood level. The state could help small communities in this area by funding new local code enforcement jobs, similar to the way it provided training and guidance to local officials after Hurricane Harvey. However, that might not be possible in the Texas Legislature today.

    The bigger challenge is older buildings. According to federal requirements, unless a structure floods or gets “substantially damaged” – meaning damage exceeds 50% of its value – there’s no requirement to make it safer.

    The July 4, 2025, flash flood tore off the wall of this building in Camp Mystic. The Guadalupe River rose more than 20 feet in less than an hour and a half early that morning.
    AP Photo/Julio Cortez

    Research shows that retrofitting homes by improving drainage to avoid future flood damage and [voluntary buyout programs can be effective]. Buyout programs allow families to sell their homes at market rate and relocate to higher ground when the programs are properly designed and funded.

    Harris County’s buyout program after Hurricane Harvey acquired nearly 200 flood-damaged homes in the Houston area for a total of $20 million. That helped families escape repeated flooding. The homes were demolished, and the land became permanent open space. By preventing future development, the land can take on floodwater in the future without economic harm.

    Many counties can’t afford buyout programs, though. A statewide voluntary buyout program could help them by prioritizing the most vulnerable properties. But to have a wide reach, such a voluntary program would need dedicated funding in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

    How Harris County’s buyout program works.

    Beyond voluntary buyouts, the state could expand programs that help property owners retrofit existing houses and other buildings, such as elevating structures, installing flood vents that allow water to flow through, or using flood-resistant materials. Tax incentives and low-interest loans could make these improvements more affordable while respecting property owners’ right to choose to participate or not.

    Texas currently offers limited retrofit assistance through the General Land Office’s disaster recovery programs. But it lacks a comprehensive retrofit program with dedicated funding that would help homeowners prepare before the disaster strikes.

    Where communities are taking important steps

    Some innovative approaches are emerging in Texas cities and counties.

    Liberty and Comanche counties have partnered with Texas A&M University’s Texas Target Communities program to create comprehensive plans that help their communities grow but in safer ways. Research shows that when communities integrate land use planning, hazard mitigation, emergency response and economic development plans, they can better ensure that new development avoids high-risk areas and that existing vulnerable areas are targeted for improvement projects.

    Houston, despite lacking traditional zoning, has implemented strict flood plain regulations that require new construction to be elevated above flood levels and prohibit development in the most dangerous flood-risk areas. By maintaining a top rating in FEMA’s Community Rating System, the city helps residents qualify for discounts on flood insurance.

    The tragedy in Hill Country is a reminder that many Texas communities face flood risks yet lack the funding and technical capacity to implement comprehensive flood risk reduction on their own without state support. As extreme weather becomes more common, the question is whether communities will be able to protect themselves without more help.

    Shannon Van Zandt is affiliated with Texas Housers, a non-profit advocating for affordable housing for low-income Texans.

    Ivis García and Jaimie Hicks Masterson 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.

    – ref. Many Texas communities are dangerously unprepared for floods − lack of funding plays a big role – https://theconversation.com/many-texas-communities-are-dangerously-unprepared-for-floods-lack-of-funding-plays-a-big-role-261090

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: Many Texas communities are dangerously unprepared for floods − lack of funding plays a big role

    Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Ivis García, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, Texas A&M University

    A deadly flash flood on July 4, 2025, destroyed homes near the Guadalupe River in Texas Hill Country. Jim Vondruska/Getty Images

    The devastating flash floods that swept through Texas Hill Country in July 2025 highlight a troubling reality: Despite years of warnings and recent improvements in flood planning, Texas communities remain dangerously vulnerable to flood damage.

    The tragedy wasn’t caused just by heavy rainfall. It was made worse by a lack of money for early warning systems, by drainage systems and emergency communication networks that haven’t been updated to handle more intense storms or growing populations, and by the many older buildings in harm’s way.

    A 2024 state report estimated the cost of flood mitigation and management projects needed statewide at US$54.5 billion. But in Texas, most of that work is left to local governments.

    We study disaster planning at Texas A&M University and see several ways the state and Texas communities can improve safety for everyone.

    Progress since Hurricane Harvey

    Since Hurricane Harvey devastated the Houston area in 2017, Texas has made strides in flood planning.

    The state in 2024 created its first comprehensive flood plan, which identifies flood risks statewide and recommends projects to reduce them. The state now requires all local governments to adopt and enforce flood plain regulations that meet federal standards, enabling residents to purchase federal flood insurance.

    The plan represented a major shift for a state government that historically left flood planning to local communities.

    However, it also revealed widespread risks in Texas: Approximately 5 million Texans live or work in flood-prone areas, and an estimated 1.5 million homes and other structures are in flood plains.

    Flood risks are intensifying as Texas experiences more extreme rainfall. State climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon and colleagues at Texas A&M University found that extreme one-day precipitation has increased by 5% to 15% in Texas since the late 20th century, and another 10% increase is expected by 2036.

    Rural communities lack resources

    The biggest problem for small towns and rural communities isn’t just weak regulations. Many of them can’t afford to hire specialized staff for technical work such as hazard assessment and regulatory enforcement.

    While the state provides planning frameworks, implementation and enforcement remain local responsibilities.

    Budget limitations can mean one emergency manager serves as fire marshal, building inspector, engineer and flood plain administrator for hundreds of square miles.

    These officials must still meet federal standards and develop detailed disaster plans. But cash-strapped communities often lack the funding to implement solutions.

    Kerrville Mayor Joe Herring, Jr. speaks at a news briefing about the July 4, 2025, flooding. Most towns in Texas Hill Country are small, and their government officials wear many hats.
    Jorge Salgado/Anadolu via Getty Images

    What they need is practical hazard mitigation plans. Those include specific evacuation routes for each neighborhood, identifying which buildings house vulnerable populations, such as older adults, and steps local officials can implement immediately during emergencies. It also means aligning of other local planning documents, such as comprehensive plans or land use plans. Access to flood gauge data, weather monitoring and social vulnerability mapping is also important for determining when to close roads or activate emergency shelters.

    That work takes time, expertise and funding.

    The challenge of older buildings

    Creating safer communities also requires investment to address challenges with both new development and vulnerable existing structures.

    For new construction, many communities require buildings to be built above flood level. The state could help small communities in this area by funding new local code enforcement jobs, similar to the way it provided training and guidance to local officials after Hurricane Harvey. However, that might not be possible in the Texas Legislature today.

    The bigger challenge is older buildings. According to federal requirements, unless a structure floods or gets “substantially damaged” – meaning damage exceeds 50% of its value – there’s no requirement to make it safer.

    The July 4, 2025, flash flood tore off the wall of this building in Camp Mystic. The Guadalupe River rose more than 20 feet in less than an hour and a half early that morning.
    AP Photo/Julio Cortez

    Research shows that retrofitting homes by improving drainage to avoid future flood damage and [voluntary buyout programs can be effective]. Buyout programs allow families to sell their homes at market rate and relocate to higher ground when the programs are properly designed and funded.

    Harris County’s buyout program after Hurricane Harvey acquired nearly 200 flood-damaged homes in the Houston area for a total of $20 million. That helped families escape repeated flooding. The homes were demolished, and the land became permanent open space. By preventing future development, the land can take on floodwater in the future without economic harm.

    Many counties can’t afford buyout programs, though. A statewide voluntary buyout program could help them by prioritizing the most vulnerable properties. But to have a wide reach, such a voluntary program would need dedicated funding in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

    How Harris County’s buyout program works.

    Beyond voluntary buyouts, the state could expand programs that help property owners retrofit existing houses and other buildings, such as elevating structures, installing flood vents that allow water to flow through, or using flood-resistant materials. Tax incentives and low-interest loans could make these improvements more affordable while respecting property owners’ right to choose to participate or not.

    Texas currently offers limited retrofit assistance through the General Land Office’s disaster recovery programs. But it lacks a comprehensive retrofit program with dedicated funding that would help homeowners prepare before the disaster strikes.

    Where communities are taking important steps

    Some innovative approaches are emerging in Texas cities and counties.

    Liberty and Comanche counties have partnered with Texas A&M University’s Texas Target Communities program to create comprehensive plans that help their communities grow but in safer ways. Research shows that when communities integrate land use planning, hazard mitigation, emergency response and economic development plans, they can better ensure that new development avoids high-risk areas and that existing vulnerable areas are targeted for improvement projects.

    Houston, despite lacking traditional zoning, has implemented strict flood plain regulations that require new construction to be elevated above flood levels and prohibit development in the most dangerous flood-risk areas. By maintaining a top rating in FEMA’s Community Rating System, the city helps residents qualify for discounts on flood insurance.

    The tragedy in Hill Country is a reminder that many Texas communities face flood risks yet lack the funding and technical capacity to implement comprehensive flood risk reduction on their own without state support. As extreme weather becomes more common, the question is whether communities will be able to protect themselves without more help.

    Shannon Van Zandt is affiliated with Texas Housers, a non-profit advocating for affordable housing for low-income Texans.

    Ivis García and Jaimie Hicks Masterson 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.

    – ref. Many Texas communities are dangerously unprepared for floods − lack of funding plays a big role – https://theconversation.com/many-texas-communities-are-dangerously-unprepared-for-floods-lack-of-funding-plays-a-big-role-261090

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Weird space weather seems to have influenced human behavior on Earth 41,000 years ago – our unusual scientific collaboration explores how

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Raven Garvey, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Michigan

    Wandering magnetic fields would have had noticeable effects for humans. Maximilian Schanner (GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences, Potsdam, Germany)

    Our first meeting was a bit awkward. One of us is an archaeologist who studies how past peoples interacted with their environments. Two of us are geophysicists who investigate interactions between solar activity and Earth’s magnetic field.

    When we first got together, we wondered whether our unconventional project, linking space weather and human behavior, could actually bridge such a vast disciplinary divide. Now, two years on, we believe the payoffs – personal, professional and scientific – were well worth the initial discomfort.

    Our collaboration, which culminated in a recent paper in the journal Science Advances, began with a single question: What happened to life on Earth when the planet’s magnetic field nearly collapsed roughly 41,000 years ago?

    Weirdness when Earth’s magnetic shield falters

    This near-collapse is known as the Laschamps Excursion, a brief but extreme geomagnetic event named for the volcanic fields in France where it was first identified. At the time of the Laschamps Excursion, near the end of the Pleistocene epoch, Earth’s magnetic poles didn’t reverse as they do every few hundred thousand years. Instead, they wandered, erratically and rapidly, over thousands of miles. At the same time, the strength of the magnetic field dropped to less than 10% of its modern day intensity.

    So, instead of behaving like a stable bar magnet – a dipole – as it usually does, the Earth’s magnetic field fractured into multiple weak poles across the planet. As a result, the protective force field scientists call the magnetosphere became distorted and leaky.

    The magnetosphere normally deflects much of the solar wind and harmful ultraviolet radiation that would otherwise reach Earth’s surface.

    So, during the Laschamps Excursion when the magnetosphere broke down, our models suggest a number of near-Earth effects. While there is still work to be done to precisely characterize these effects, we do know they included auroras – normally seen only in skies near the poles as the Northern Lights or Southern Lights – wandering toward the equator, and significantly higher-than-present-day doses of harmful solar radiation.

    The skies 41,000 years ago may have been both spectacular and threatening. When we realized this, we two geophysicists wanted to know whether this could have affected people living at the time.

    The archaeologist’s answer was absolutely.

    Human responses to ancient space weather

    For people on the ground at that time, auroras may have been the most immediate and striking effect, perhaps inspiring awe, fear, ritual behavior or something else entirely. But the archaeological record is notoriously limited in its ability to capture these kinds of cognitive or emotional responses.

    Researchers are on firmer ground when it comes to the physiological impacts of increased UV radiation. With the weakened magnetic field, more harmful radiation would have reached Earth’s surface, elevating risk of sunburn, eye damage, birth defects, and other health issues.

    In response, people may have adopted practical measures: spending more time in caves, producing tailored clothing for better coverage, or applying mineral pigment “sunscreen” made of ochre to their skin. As we describe in our recent paper, the frequency of these behaviors indeed appears to have increased across parts of Europe, where effects of the Laschamps Excursion were pronounced and prolonged.

    Naturally occurring ochre can act as a protective sunscreen if applied to skin.
    Museo Egizio di Torino

    At this time, both Neanderthals and members of our species, Homo sapiens, were living in Europe, though their geographic distributions likely overlapped only in certain regions. The archaeological record suggests that different populations exhibited distinct approaches to environmental challenges, with some groups perhaps more reliant on shelter or material culture for protection.

    Importantly, we’re not suggesting that space weather alone caused an increase in these behaviors or, certainly, that the Laschamps caused Neanderthals to go extinct, which is one misinterpretation of our research. But it could have been a contributing factor – an invisible but powerful force that influenced innovation and adaptability.

    Cross-discipline collaboration

    Collaborating across such a disciplinary gap was, at first, daunting. But it turned out to be deeply rewarding.

    Archaeologists are used to reconstructing now-invisible phenomena like climate. We can’t measure past temperatures or precipitation directly, but they’ve left traces for us to interpret if we know where and how to look.

    An artistic rendering of how far into lower latitudes the aurora might have been visible during the Laschamps Excursion.
    Maximilian Schanner (GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences, Potsdam, Germany)

    But even archaeologists who’ve spent years studying the effects of climate on past behaviors and technologies may not have considered the effects of the geomagnetic field and space weather. These effects, too, are invisible, powerful and best understood through indirect evidence and modeling. Archaeologists can treat space weather as a vital component of Earth’s environmental history and future forecasting.

    Likewise, geophysicists, who typically work with large datasets, models and simulations, may not always engage with some of the stakes of space weather. Archaeology adds a human dimension to the science. It reminds us that the effects of space weather don’t stop at the ionosphere. They can ripple down into the lived experiences of people on the ground, influencing how they adapt, create and survive.

    The Laschamps Excursion wasn’t a fluke or a one-off. Similar disruptions of Earth’s magnetic field have happened before and will happen again. Understanding how ancient humans responded can provide insight into how future events might affect our world – and perhaps even help us prepare.

    Our unconventional collaboration has shown us how much we can learn, how our perspective changes, when we cross disciplinary boundaries. Space may be vast, but it connects us all. And sometimes, building a bridge between Earth and space starts with the smallest things, such as ochre, or a coat, or even sunscreen.

    Agnit Mukhopadhyay has received funding from NASA Science Mission Directorate and the University of Michigan Rackham Graduate School.

    Raven Garvey and Sanja Panovska 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.

    – ref. Weird space weather seems to have influenced human behavior on Earth 41,000 years ago – our unusual scientific collaboration explores how – https://theconversation.com/weird-space-weather-seems-to-have-influenced-human-behavior-on-earth-41-000-years-ago-our-unusual-scientific-collaboration-explores-how-257216

    MIL OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: How 17M Americans enrolled in Medicaid and ACA plans could lose their health insurance by 2034

    Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Simon F. Haeder, Associate Professor of Public Health, Texas A&M University

    The millions of people losing insurance include many who get coverage through the ACA marketplace. sesame/DigitalVision Vectors via Getty Images

    The big tax and spending package President Donald Trump signed into law on July 4, 2025, will cut government spending on health care by more than US$1 trillion over the next decade.

    Because the final version of the legislation moved swiftly through the Senate and the House, estimates regarding the number of people likely to lose their health insurance coverage were incomplete when Congress approved it by razor-thin margins. Nearly 12 million Americans could lose their health insurance coverage by 2034 due to this legislation, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

    However, the number of people losing their insurance by 2034 could be even higher, totaling more than 17 million. That’s largely because it’s likely that at least 5 million Americans who currently have Affordable Care Act marketplace health insurance will lose their coverage once subsidies that help fund those policies expire at the end of 2025. And very few Republicans have said they support renewing the subsidies.

    In addition, regulations the Trump administration introduced earlier in the year will further increase the number of people losing their ACA marketplace coverage.

    As a public health professor, I see these changes, which will be phased in over several years, as the first step in a reversal of the expansion of access to health care that began with the ACA’s passage in 2010. About 25.3 million Americans lacked insurance in 2023, down sharply from 46.5 million when President Barack Obama signed the ACA into law. All told, the changes in the works could eliminate three-quarters of the progress the U.S. has made in reducing the number of uninsured Americans following the Affordable Care Act.

    Millions will lose their Medicaid coverage

    The biggest number of people becoming uninsured will be Americans enrolled in Medicaid, which currently covers more than 78 million people.

    An estimated 5 million will eventually lose Medicaid coverage due to new work requirements that will go into effect nationally by 2027.

    Work requirements target people eligible for Medicaid through the Affordable Care Act’s expansion. They tend to have slightly higher incomes than other people enrolled in the program.

    Medicaid applicants who are between 19 and 64 years old will need to certify they are working at least 80 hours a month or spending that much time engaged in comparable activities, such as community service.

    When these rules have been introduced to other safety net programs, most people lost their benefits due to administrative hassles, not because they weren’t logging enough hours on the job. Experts like me expect to see that occur with Medicaid too.

    Other increases in the paperwork required to enroll in and remain enrolled in Medicaid will render more than 2 million more people uninsured, the CBO estimates.

    And an additional 1.4 million would lose coverage because they may not meet new citizenship or immigration requirements.

    In total, these changes to Medicaid would lead to more than 8 million people becoming uninsured by 2034.

    Many of those who aren’t kicked out of Medicaid would also face new copayments of up to US$35 for appointments and procedures – making them less likely to seek care, even if they still have health insurance.

    The new policies also make it harder for states to pay for Medicaid, which is run by the federal government and the states. They do so by limiting the taxes states charge medical providers, which are used to fund the states’ share of Medicaid funding. With less funding, some states may try to reduce enrollment or cut benefits, such as home-based health care, in the future.

    Losing Medicaid coverage may leave millions of low-income Americans without insurance coverage, with no affordable alternatives for health care. Historically, the people who are most likely to lose their benefits are low-income people of color or immigrants who do not speak English well.

    A supporter of the Affordable Care Act stands in front of the Supreme Court building on Nov. 10, 2020.
    Samuel Corum/Getty Images

    ACA marketplace policies may cost far more

    The new law will also make it harder for the more than 24 million Americans who currently get health insurance through Affordable Care Act marketplace plans to remain insured.

    For one, it will be much harder for Americans to purchase insurance coverage and qualify for subsidies for 2026.

    These changes come on the heels of regulations from the Trump administration that the Congressional Budget Office estimates will lead to almost 1 million people losing their coverage through the ACA marketplace. This includes reducing spending on outreach and enrollment.

    What’s more, increased subsidies in place since 2021 are set to expire at the end of the year. Given Republican opposition, it seems unlikely that those subsidies will be extended.

    Not extending the subsidies alone could mean premiums will increase by more than 75% in 2026. Once premiums get that unaffordable, an additional 4.2 million Americans could lose coverage, the Congressional Budget Office estimates.

    With more political uncertainty and reduced enrollment, more private insurers may also withdraw from the ACA market. Large insurance companies such as Aetna, Cigna and UnitedHealth have already raised concerns about the ACA market’s viability.

    Should they exit, there would be fewer choices and higher premiums for people getting their insurance this way. It could also mean that some counties could have no ACA plans offered at all.

    Ramifications for the uninsured and rural hospitals

    When people lose their health insurance, they inevitably end up in worse health and their medical debts can mount. Because medical treatments usually work better when diagnoses are made early, people who end up uninsured may die sooner than if they’d still had coverage.

    Having to struggle to pay the kinds of high medical bills people without insurance face takes a physical, mental and financial toll, not just on people who become uninsured but also their families and friends. It also harms medical providers that don’t get reimbursed for their care.

    Public health scholars like me have no doubt that many hospitals and other health care providers will have to make tough choices. Some will close. Others will offer fewer services and fire health care workers. Emergency room wait times will increase for everyone, not just people who lose their health insurance due to changes in Trump’s tax and spending package.

    Rural hospitals play a crucial role in health care access.

    Rural hospitals, which were already facing a funding crisis, will experience some of the most acute financial pressure. By one estimate, more than 300 hospitals are at risk of closing.

    Children’s hospitals and hospitals located in low-income urban areas also disproportionately rely on Medicaid and will struggle to keep their doors open.

    Republicans tried to protect rural hospitals by designating $50 billion in the legislative package for them over 10 years. But this funding comes nowhere near the $155 billion in losses KFF expects those health care providers to incur due to Medicaid cuts. Also, the funding comes with a number of restrictions that could further limit its effectiveness.

    What’s next

    Some Republicans, including Sens. Mike Crapo and Ron Johnson, have already indicated that more health care policy changes could be coming in another large legislative package.

    They could include some of the harsher provisions that were left out of the final version of the legislation Congress approved. Republicans may, for example, try to roll back the ACA’s Medicaid expansion.

    Moving forward, spending on Medicare, the insurance program that primarily covers Americans 65 and older, could decline too. Without any further action, the CBO says that the law could trigger an estimated $500 billion in mandatory Medicare cuts from 2026 to 2034 because of the trillions of dollars in new federal debt the law creates.

    Trump has repeatedly promised not to cut Medicare or Medicaid. And yet, it’s possible that the Trump administration will issue executive orders that further reduce what the federal government spends on health care – and roll back the coverage gains the Affordable Care Act brought about.

    Portions of this article first appeared in a related piece published on June 13, 2025.

    Simon F. Haeder has previously received funding from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Pennsylvania Insurance Department, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for unrelated projects.

    – ref. How 17M Americans enrolled in Medicaid and ACA plans could lose their health insurance by 2034 – https://theconversation.com/how-17m-americans-enrolled-in-medicaid-and-aca-plans-could-lose-their-health-insurance-by-2034-260664

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: Rethinking the MBA: Character as the educational foundation for future business leaders

    Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Andrew J. Hoffman, Holcim (US) Professor of Sustainable Enterprise, Ross School of Business, School for Environment & Sustainability, University of Michigan

    Questions about the role of business education have led to introspection among business school leaders and researchers. Supatman/iStock via Getty Images

    Programs to help students discern their vocation or calling are gaining prominence in higher education.

    According to a 2019 Bates/Gallup poll, 80% of college graduates want a sense of purpose from their work. In addition, a 2023 survey found that 50% of Generation Z and millennial employees in the U.K. and U.S. have resigned from a job because the values of the company did not align with their own.

    These sentiments are also found in today’s business school students, as Gen Z is demanding that course content reflect the changes in society, from diversity and inclusion to sustainability and poverty. According to the Financial Times, “there may never have been a more demanding cohort.”

    And yet, business schools have been slower than other schools to respond, leading to calls ranging from transforming business education to demolishing it.

    What are business schools creating?

    Historically, studies have shown that business school applicants have scored higher than their peers on the “dark triad” traits of narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism. These traits can manifest themselves in a tendency toward cunning, scheming and, at times, unscrupulous behavior.

    Over the course of their degree program, other studies have found that business school environments can amplify those preexisting tendencies while enhancing a concern for what others think of them.

    And these tendencies stick after graduation. One study examined 9,900 U.S. publicly listed firms and separated the sample by those run by managers who went to business school and those whose managers did not. While they found no discernible difference in sales or profits between the two samples, they found that labor wages were cut 6% over five years at companies run by managers who went to business school, while managers with no business degree shared profits with their workers. The study concludes that this is the result “of practices and values acquired in business education.”

    But there are signs that this may be changing.

    Questioning value

    Business leaders play a significant role in society, but they aren’t always trusted.
    miniseries/E+ via Getty Images

    Today, many are questioning the value of the MBA.

    Those who have decided it is worth the high cost either complain of its lack of rigor, relevance and critical thinking or use it merely for access to networks for salary enhancement, treating classroom learning as less important than attending recruiting events and social activities.

    Layered onto this uncertain state of affairs, generative artificial intelligence is fundamentally altering the education landscape, threatening future career prospects and short-circuiting the student’s education by doing their research and writing for them.

    This is concerning because of the outsized role that business leaders play in today’s society: allocating capital, developing and deploying new technologies and influencing political and social debates.

    At times, this role is a positive one, but not always. Distrust follows that uncertainty.

    Only 16% of Americans had a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in corporations, while 51% of Americans between 18 and 29 hold a dim view of capitalism.

    Facing this reality, business educators are beginning to reexamine how to nurture business leaders who view business not only as a means to making money but also as a vehicle in service to society.

    Proponents such as Harry Lewis, former dean of Harvard College; Derek Bok, former president of Harvard University; Harold Shapiro, former president of Princeton University; and Anthony Kronman, former dean of the Yale Law School, describe this effort as a return to the original focus of a college education.

    Not ethics, but character formation

    Character education could challenge business students to consider what type of leaders they aspire to be.
    MoMo Productions/Digital Vision via Getty Images

    Business schools have often included ethics courses in their curriculum, often with limited success. What some schools are experimenting with is character formation.

    As part of this experimentation is the development of a coherent moral culture that lies within the course curriculum but also within the cocurricular programming, cultural events, seminars and independent studies that shape students’ worldviews; the selection, socialization, training and reward systems for students, staff and faculty; and other aspects that shape students’ formation.

    Stanford’s Bill Damon, one of the leading scholars on helping students develop a sense of purpose in life, describes a revised role for faculty in this effort, one of creating the fertile conditions for students to find meaning and purpose on their own.

    I use this approach in my course on vocation discernment in business, shifting from a more traditional academic style to one that is more developmental.

    This is relational teaching that artificial intelligence cannot do. It involves bringing the whole person into the education process, inspiring hearts as much as engaging heads to form competent leaders who possess character, judgment and wisdom.

    It allows an examination of both the how and the why of business, challenging students to consider what kind of business leader they aspire to be and what kind of legacy they wish to establish.

    It would mark a return to the original focus of early business schools, which, as Rakesh Khurana, a professor of sociology at Harvard, calls out in his book “From Higher Aims to Hired Hands: The Social Transformation of American Business Schools and the Unfulfilled Promise of Management as a Profession,” was to train managers in the same vocational way we train doctors “to seek the higher aims of commerce in service to society.”

    Reshaping business education

    Most business school curricula are similar, but there are examples that break the mold.
    Oscar Wong/Moment via Getty Images

    The good news is that there are emerging exemplars that are seeking to create this kind of curriculum through centers such as Notre Dame University’s Institute for Social Concerns and Bates College’s Center for Purposeful Work and courses such as Stanford University’s Designing Your Life and the University of Michigan’s Management as a Calling.

    These are but a few examples of a growing movement. So, the building blocks are there to draw from. The student demand is waiting to be met. All that is needed is for more business schools to respond.

    Andrew J. Hoffman 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.

    – ref. Rethinking the MBA: Character as the educational foundation for future business leaders – https://theconversation.com/rethinking-the-mba-character-as-the-educational-foundation-for-future-business-leaders-259223

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: How universities can keep protests from turning violent: 3 lessons from the 2024 pro-Palestinian encampments

    Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Matthew J. Mayhew, Professor of Higher Education, The Ohio State University

    Pro-Palestinian supporters march outside Columbia University in September 2024. AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura

    In spring 2024, pro-Palestinian student encampments that began at Columbia and Harvard spread to university campuses throughout the U.S. as Israel invaded Gaza in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, surprise attack. At least 100 campuses had encampments for at least a few days during this period.

    While some campuses erupted in violence, others remained peaceful and didn’t experience the open conflict that led to congressional hearings, university presidents losing their jobs and repercussions that are continuing to be felt today.

    What made the difference?

    In spring 2024, Ohio State University’s College Impact Laboratory, where we all work, surveyed universities to learn more about whether their campuses experienced protests, what happened and how they handled them. Part of our goal was to understand how spiritual leaders played a role, if any, in managing the protests. We’ve been analyzing the data ever since. The results from those who responded point to several lessons universities could learn from to avoid violence in future protests.

    Campuses are a critical arena for activism

    Campus protests have long been a defining feature of social and political change in the U.S. From the civil rights movements of the 1950s and 1960s to the student-led climate strikes of recent years, higher education institutions have served as a critical space for activism.

    Often, these protests reflect broader societal tensions, and how universities respond has played a significant role in shaping their outcomes.

    Historically, protests have been most likely to escalate when students feel unheard. In contrast, institutions that adopt proactive strategies, such as facilitating conversations or including students in decision-making, often experience better outcomes.

    A George Washington University student carries a Palestinian flag at a student encampment protesting the Israel-Hamas war in May 2024.
    AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana

    Snapshot of the pro-Palestinian protests

    As our survey data shows, the pro-Palestinian protests illustrate this dynamic.

    To gather data, the College Impact Laboratory sent questionnaires to administrators at the 329 universities that participate in our Interfaith Spiritual, Religious and Secular Campus Climate Index, also known as the INSPIRES Index, as well as hundreds of colleges and universities in our recruitment database.

    In all, 35 schools responded to our 23-question survey. Of those, we found that most protests were led by students, half lasted less than a week, and the vast majority were nonviolent. Fifteen did not have protests, while the rest did. While the number of institutions that participated in this survey is relatively small, it does give us key insights into what schools were thinking.

    Half of the campuses with protests reported law enforcement involvement – either campus police or city officers – with 20% experiencing physical altercations between protesters and police. Other disruptive actions such as academic interruptions, vandalism, physical violence and doxxing were reported with varying frequencies.

    Protests at campuses that participated in our survey peaked during April and May 2024, with 70% of them experiencing demonstrations in these months.

    Here are three takeaways from the survey, suggesting steps universities can take before and during future protests to avoid escalation:

    1. Involve students in guidelines for engagement – early

    At every surveyed institution that reported protests, students were at the forefront of organizing and leading these efforts.

    Yet, despite this clear student leadership, about one-third of institutions said they didn’t consult with students to establish guidelines for engagement. Those that did invited representatives from student organizations or student government officers into the policymaking process to determine what protocols would be followed to manage protests and keep them peaceful.

    On campuses where administrators didn’t engage with student leaders, tensions tended to escalate, and protests disrupted the institutions for weeks, often after police were called in or curfews were imposed.

    While many of the protests lasted only one to seven days, we found that institutions that opened lines of communication early between administration and student protest leaders were more likely to deescalate tensions quickly. In contrast, campuses where administrators did not engage early on saw protests lasting weeks or involving greater disruptions.

    Also, institutions that engaged early with student leaders were less likely to face stronger demands, such as calls for administrators to be fired, divestment from Israeli companies or calls to defund the campus police.

    Our survey results suggest it’s important for administrators to engage with students early to establish clear guidelines to make it less likely future protests spiral into violence.

    2. Communicate openly, often and before protests

    Discussion of difficult topics, such as the conflict between Israel and Palestinians, shouldn’t wait until protests break out to begin. We found that every school in our survey that proactively supported dialogue between Jews and Muslims – before the war broke out – didn’t see violence result from the protests.

    Dialogue isn’t just a strategy for preventing protests from spiraling out of control; it is fundamental to intergroup learning in higher education. These events create safe spaces for students − whether Arab, Jewish, Palestinian or members of different ethnic or religious groups − to engage with classmates with different points of view.

    But even once protests begin, dialogue can help. When institutions engaged in dialogue, during or as a result of a protest, the protests were less likely to involve violence. At half of the campuses that participated in our survey and experienced protests, protests were ended peacefully through dialogue.

    Brown, for example, modeled the power of institutional listening in its response to its April 2024 encampment. Rather than escalating tensions, university leaders engaged directly with student activists, resulting in a peaceful resolution and a commitment to bring the students’ divestment proposal to a formal vote in October. It ultimately failed to pass the board of directors.

    Demonstrators unfurl a banner on a lawn after an encampment protesting the Israel-Hamas war was taken down at Brown University on April 30, 2024, in Providence, R.I.
    AP Photo/David Goldman

    3. Involve relevant groups in decision-making

    Most administrators in our survey, as they considered how to engage with protesters, reached out to relevant student groups such as those that focus on Jewish and Muslim students to better understand their perspectives.

    However, only 28% consulted a religious or spiritual life office staff member on campus.

    Religious or spiritual life staff are present on both private and public campuses and may include university-employed multifaith chaplains, interfaith coordinators or directors of spiritual life. Unlike student-led religious groups, these professionals often serve as liaisons to the religious and nonreligious communities represented on campus.

    The focus of such roles on serving students from all worldviews positions them as key resources for deescalation through community outreach, support and two-way communication. Additionally, these professionals have valuable expertise in religious pluralism and community relationships. This experience helps them to advise administrators on policy and potential courses of action in times of tension.

    Consulting with university staff with a focus on religion or spiritual life makes particular sense given the nature of the protests and how religion is intertwined, but our data suggests they may be underutilized more broadly for their expertise in navigating tensions related to competing worldviews.

    Proactive engagement with these leaders not only helps campuses navigate an immediate crisis but demonstrates a commitment to inclusivity and respect for different groups’ perspectives.

    Leading by example

    Put another way, our research suggests institutions can avoid the negative outcomes of protests by embodying the traits commonly associated with universities, such as showing mutual respect, fostering democratic debate and engaging in critical thinking even on divisive issues. Engaging from a mindset of goodwill with student leaders shows administrators value student voices and are willing to work collaboratively toward solutions.

    But when campuses ignore peaceful protests or refuse to engage with student leaders, they risk turning manageable situations into prolonged crises.

    At a time when divisions run deep, we believe campuses that lead by example by embracing dialogue and engaging student activists before, during and after protests take place are not only likely to see less violence, but are likely to help heal America’s great divides.

    Matthew J. Mayhew receives grant funding for various research projects from the National Science Foundation, the ECMC Foundation, the Templeton Religion Trust, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, and Pew Charitable Trusts. Currently, Dr. Mayhew leads the College Impact Laboratory at The Ohio State University. He is the Principal Investigator for the INSPIRES Index project and is the current editor of the Digest of Recent Research.

    Renee L. Bowling works for the College Impact Lab at The Ohio State University that produces the INSPIRES Index and serves as Chair of NASPA’s Spirituality and Religion in Higher Education Knowledge Community.

    Hind Haddad 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.

    – ref. How universities can keep protests from turning violent: 3 lessons from the 2024 pro-Palestinian encampments – https://theconversation.com/how-universities-can-keep-protests-from-turning-violent-3-lessons-from-the-2024-pro-palestinian-encampments-252278

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: A law from the era of Red Scares is supercharging Trump administration’s power over immigrants and noncitizens

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Daniel Tichenor, Professor of Political Science, University of Oregon

    The Trump administration detained former Columbia University student and pro-Palestinian protest leader Mahmoud Khalil, center, for more than two months and is seeking to revoke his lawful permanent resident status. Kena Betancur/AFP via Getty Images

    Nativism, the idea that government must guard native-born Americans from various threats posed by immigrants, has a long history in the United States.

    Today, the Trump administration is citing the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, a restrictive measure written by nativist members of Congress decades ago when fears of communism were rampant, to sharply restrict the rights of noncitizens.

    Under this law, also known as the McCarran-Walter Act, federal agencies have arrested and detained noncitizens associated with pro-Palestinian protests, reintroduced immigrant registration requirements, and imposed a new travel ban that affects 19 nations.

    Since the 1950s, Congress has removed some of this sprawling federal law’s most discriminatory features, such as racist national origins quotas. But other key provisions remain on the books. Now they are the primary legal basis for some of President Donald Trump’s most controversial immigration crackdowns.

    Author and reporter Clay Risen discusses parallels between anticommunist fears in the 1950s and the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant policies.

    Foreign policy trumps free speech

    In March 2025, the White House invoked the McCarran-Walter Act to justify arresting and deporting Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident who had participated in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University. Officials pointed to Section 237(a)(4)(C) of the law, which states that any “alien whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is deportable.”

    This has been tried only once before. In 1995, the Clinton administration unsuccessfully sought to use the provision to deport a former Mexican official, Mario Ruiz Massieu, to face charges in his homeland for extortion and obstructing a murder investigation. Ruiz Massieu was later indicted in the U.S. on money laundering charges and died by suicide shortly before his arraignment.

    The Trump administration cited the same provision to justify detaining Tufts University doctoral student Rumeysa Ozturk in March. Ozturk came under government scrutiny because she co-authored an op-ed in the Tufts student newspaper criticizing the university’s position on the Israel-Gaza war.

    Surveillance footage of a terrified Ozturk being arrested by masked Immigration Customs and Enforcement agents on a street in Somerville, Massachusetts, drew criticism from government officials and civil liberties advocates. In response, Secretary of State Marco Rubio alleged that Ozturk had harmed U.S. interests by supporting “movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus.”

    Khalil and Ozturk both were released after weeks in detention, pending final resolution of their cases. Their lawyers argue that their clients’ treatment violates free speech protections and that the defendants were punished for expressing their political beliefs.

    Monitoring noncitizens

    The McCarran-Walter Act also authorizes intrusive registration and tracking requirements for noncitizens who remain in the U.S. for 30 days or longer.

    On Jan. 20, 2025, Trump issued an executive order directing the Department of Homeland Security to enforce an “alien registration requirement.” The agency issued a final rule in April requiring all noncitizens over the age of 14 to register and be fingerprinted. Parents or guardians must register noncitizen children under age 14. The rule also requires adult noncitizens to carry “evidence of registration” at all times.

    Such policies aren’t new. Noncitizen registration was codified in the Alien Registration Act of 1940, on the eve of U.S. entry into World War II. The law was designed to regulate the foreign-born population and encourage eligible noncitizens to join the U.S. armed forces. Its requirements were written into the McCarran-Walter Act.

    After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration created the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, which targeted noncitizen males age 16 or older from 25 Muslim-majority countries. It required registrants to submit biometric information, check in regularly with immigration authorities and use specific ports of entry for travel.

    The Obama administration suspended this system in 2011 and permanently dismantled it in 2016.

    Today, Trump administration officials say they are simply enforcing long-standing legal authority. A federal judge agreed, ruling on April 10 that the Homeland Security Department could require noncitizens to register and carry documentation.

    The Trump administration says it will strictly enforce a long-standing requirement for immigrants in the country more than 30 days to register with the federal government.

    Travel bans redux

    On June 2, Trump announced a new travel ban on foreign nationals from 12 countries, mostly in Africa and the Middle East. The ban draws its authority from the McCarran-Walter Act. Two days later, Trump claimed the same legal discretion to exclude Harvard University’s international students from the U.S.

    During his first term, Trump invoked these sections of the law to justify a travel ban on seven predominantly Muslim countries. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately upheld this action in 2018 by a 5-4 vote in Trump v. Hawaii. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts stated that the travel ban was well within broad powers over immigration granted to the president under the McCarran-Walter Act. He added that the court had “no view on the soundness of the policy.”

    Trump’s new ban is more carefully crafted than earlier versions and more likely to withstand legal challenges. But his efforts to use the McCarren-Walter Act to ban international students from attending Harvard University face stiff legal headwinds.

    On May 22, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem notified Harvard officials that the agency was revoking the school’s certification to participate in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, which grants visas to international students to come to the U.S. In a June 4 proclamation, the White House claimed that foreign students at Harvard had behaved in ways that threatened U.S. national security.

    A federal judge in Boston quickly blocked the revocation, holding that it violated core constitutional free speech rights. “The government’s misplaced efforts to control a reputable academic institution and squelch diverse viewpoints seemingly because they are, in some instances, opposed to this administration’s own views, threaten these rights,” wrote Judge Allison D. Burroughs.

    The latest step came on July 9, when the Trump administration subpoenaed Harvard for information on its foreign students, including their disciplinary records and involvement in campus protests.

    Broad power over noncitizens

    Ironically, congressional sponsors of the McCarran-Walter Act were at odds with the White House when the law was enacted in 1952. They overrode a veto by President Harry S. Truman, who thought the law’s nativist ideas were unfitting for a nation of immigrants and global defender of democracy.

    However, the expansive executive powers created by this law have endured largely unaltered over time, through waves of immigration reform.

    Now they are a boon to the Trump administration’s ambitious immigration crackdown. It’s a telling reminder that repressive old laws can come back to life – even when they don’t reflect the current views of many Americans.

    Daniel Tichenor 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.

    – ref. A law from the era of Red Scares is supercharging Trump administration’s power over immigrants and noncitizens – https://theconversation.com/a-law-from-the-era-of-red-scares-is-supercharging-trump-administrations-power-over-immigrants-and-noncitizens-255307

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: How 17M Americans enrolled in Medicaid and ACA plans could lose their health insurance by 2034

    Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Simon F. Haeder, Associate Professor of Public Health, Texas A&M University

    The millions of people losing insurance include many who get coverage through the ACA marketplace. sesame/DigitalVision Vectors via Getty Images

    The big tax and spending package President Donald Trump signed into law on July 4, 2025, will cut government spending on health care by more than US$1 trillion over the next decade.

    Because the final version of the legislation moved swiftly through the Senate and the House, estimates regarding the number of people likely to lose their health insurance coverage were incomplete when Congress approved it by razor-thin margins. Nearly 12 million Americans could lose their health insurance coverage by 2034 due to this legislation, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

    However, the number of people losing their insurance by 2034 could be even higher, totaling more than 17 million. That’s largely because it’s likely that at least 5 million Americans who currently have Affordable Care Act marketplace health insurance will lose their coverage once subsidies that help fund those policies expire at the end of 2025. And very few Republicans have said they support renewing the subsidies.

    In addition, regulations the Trump administration introduced earlier in the year will further increase the number of people losing their ACA marketplace coverage.

    As a public health professor, I see these changes, which will be phased in over several years, as the first step in a reversal of the expansion of access to health care that began with the ACA’s passage in 2010. About 25.3 million Americans lacked insurance in 2023, down sharply from 46.5 million when President Barack Obama signed the ACA into law. All told, the changes in the works could eliminate three-quarters of the progress the U.S. has made in reducing the number of uninsured Americans following the Affordable Care Act.

    Millions will lose their Medicaid coverage

    The biggest number of people becoming uninsured will be Americans enrolled in Medicaid, which currently covers more than 78 million people.

    An estimated 5 million will eventually lose Medicaid coverage due to new work requirements that will go into effect nationally by 2027.

    Work requirements target people eligible for Medicaid through the Affordable Care Act’s expansion. They tend to have slightly higher incomes than other people enrolled in the program.

    Medicaid applicants who are between 19 and 64 years old will need to certify they are working at least 80 hours a month or spending that much time engaged in comparable activities, such as community service.

    When these rules have been introduced to other safety net programs, most people lost their benefits due to administrative hassles, not because they weren’t logging enough hours on the job. Experts like me expect to see that occur with Medicaid too.

    Other increases in the paperwork required to enroll in and remain enrolled in Medicaid will render more than 2 million more people uninsured, the CBO estimates.

    And an additional 1.4 million would lose coverage because they may not meet new citizenship or immigration requirements.

    In total, these changes to Medicaid would lead to more than 8 million people becoming uninsured by 2034.

    Many of those who aren’t kicked out of Medicaid would also face new copayments of up to US$35 for appointments and procedures – making them less likely to seek care, even if they still have health insurance.

    The new policies also make it harder for states to pay for Medicaid, which is run by the federal government and the states. They do so by limiting the taxes states charge medical providers, which are used to fund the states’ share of Medicaid funding. With less funding, some states may try to reduce enrollment or cut benefits, such as home-based health care, in the future.

    Losing Medicaid coverage may leave millions of low-income Americans without insurance coverage, with no affordable alternatives for health care. Historically, the people who are most likely to lose their benefits are low-income people of color or immigrants who do not speak English well.

    A supporter of the Affordable Care Act stands in front of the Supreme Court building on Nov. 10, 2020.
    Samuel Corum/Getty Images

    ACA marketplace policies may cost far more

    The new law will also make it harder for the more than 24 million Americans who currently get health insurance through Affordable Care Act marketplace plans to remain insured.

    For one, it will be much harder for Americans to purchase insurance coverage and qualify for subsidies for 2026.

    These changes come on the heels of regulations from the Trump administration that the Congressional Budget Office estimates will lead to almost 1 million people losing their coverage through the ACA marketplace. This includes reducing spending on outreach and enrollment.

    What’s more, increased subsidies in place since 2021 are set to expire at the end of the year. Given Republican opposition, it seems unlikely that those subsidies will be extended.

    Not extending the subsidies alone could mean premiums will increase by more than 75% in 2026. Once premiums get that unaffordable, an additional 4.2 million Americans could lose coverage, the Congressional Budget Office estimates.

    With more political uncertainty and reduced enrollment, more private insurers may also withdraw from the ACA market. Large insurance companies such as Aetna, Cigna and UnitedHealth have already raised concerns about the ACA market’s viability.

    Should they exit, there would be fewer choices and higher premiums for people getting their insurance this way. It could also mean that some counties could have no ACA plans offered at all.

    Ramifications for the uninsured and rural hospitals

    When people lose their health insurance, they inevitably end up in worse health and their medical debts can mount. Because medical treatments usually work better when diagnoses are made early, people who end up uninsured may die sooner than if they’d still had coverage.

    Having to struggle to pay the kinds of high medical bills people without insurance face takes a physical, mental and financial toll, not just on people who become uninsured but also their families and friends. It also harms medical providers that don’t get reimbursed for their care.

    Public health scholars like me have no doubt that many hospitals and other health care providers will have to make tough choices. Some will close. Others will offer fewer services and fire health care workers. Emergency room wait times will increase for everyone, not just people who lose their health insurance due to changes in Trump’s tax and spending package.

    Rural hospitals play a crucial role in health care access.

    Rural hospitals, which were already facing a funding crisis, will experience some of the most acute financial pressure. By one estimate, more than 300 hospitals are at risk of closing.

    Children’s hospitals and hospitals located in low-income urban areas also disproportionately rely on Medicaid and will struggle to keep their doors open.

    Republicans tried to protect rural hospitals by designating $50 billion in the legislative package for them over 10 years. But this funding comes nowhere near the $155 billion in losses KFF expects those health care providers to incur due to Medicaid cuts. Also, the funding comes with a number of restrictions that could further limit its effectiveness.

    What’s next

    Some Republicans, including Sens. Mike Crapo and Ron Johnson, have already indicated that more health care policy changes could be coming in another large legislative package.

    They could include some of the harsher provisions that were left out of the final version of the legislation Congress approved. Republicans may, for example, try to roll back the ACA’s Medicaid expansion.

    Moving forward, spending on Medicare, the insurance program that primarily covers Americans 65 and older, could decline too. Without any further action, the CBO says that the law could trigger an estimated $500 billion in mandatory Medicare cuts from 2026 to 2034 because of the trillions of dollars in new federal debt the law creates.

    Trump has repeatedly promised not to cut Medicare or Medicaid. And yet, it’s possible that the Trump administration will issue executive orders that further reduce what the federal government spends on health care – and roll back the coverage gains the Affordable Care Act brought about.

    Portions of this article first appeared in a related piece published on June 13, 2025.

    Simon F. Haeder has previously received funding from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Pennsylvania Insurance Department, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for unrelated projects.

    – ref. How 17M Americans enrolled in Medicaid and ACA plans could lose their health insurance by 2034 – https://theconversation.com/how-17m-americans-enrolled-in-medicaid-and-aca-plans-could-lose-their-health-insurance-by-2034-260664

    MIL OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: Weird space weather seems to have influenced human behavior on Earth 41,000 years ago – our unusual scientific collaboration explores how

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Raven Garvey, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Michigan

    Wandering magnetic fields would have had noticeable effects for humans. Maximilian Schanner (GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences, Potsdam, Germany)

    Our first meeting was a bit awkward. One of us is an archaeologist who studies how past peoples interacted with their environments. Two of us are geophysicists who investigate interactions between solar activity and Earth’s magnetic field.

    When we first got together, we wondered whether our unconventional project, linking space weather and human behavior, could actually bridge such a vast disciplinary divide. Now, two years on, we believe the payoffs – personal, professional and scientific – were well worth the initial discomfort.

    Our collaboration, which culminated in a recent paper in the journal Science Advances, began with a single question: What happened to life on Earth when the planet’s magnetic field nearly collapsed roughly 41,000 years ago?

    Weirdness when Earth’s magnetic shield falters

    This near-collapse is known as the Laschamps Excursion, a brief but extreme geomagnetic event named for the volcanic fields in France where it was first identified. At the time of the Laschamps Excursion, near the end of the Pleistocene epoch, Earth’s magnetic poles didn’t reverse as they do every few hundred thousand years. Instead, they wandered, erratically and rapidly, over thousands of miles. At the same time, the strength of the magnetic field dropped to less than 10% of its modern day intensity.

    So, instead of behaving like a stable bar magnet – a dipole – as it usually does, the Earth’s magnetic field fractured into multiple weak poles across the planet. As a result, the protective force field scientists call the magnetosphere became distorted and leaky.

    The magnetosphere normally deflects much of the solar wind and harmful ultraviolet radiation that would otherwise reach Earth’s surface.

    So, during the Laschamps Excursion when the magnetosphere broke down, our models suggest a number of near-Earth effects. While there is still work to be done to precisely characterize these effects, we do know they included auroras – normally seen only in skies near the poles as the Northern Lights or Southern Lights – wandering toward the equator, and significantly higher-than-present-day doses of harmful solar radiation.

    The skies 41,000 years ago may have been both spectacular and threatening. When we realized this, we two geophysicists wanted to know whether this could have affected people living at the time.

    The archaeologist’s answer was absolutely.

    Human responses to ancient space weather

    For people on the ground at that time, auroras may have been the most immediate and striking effect, perhaps inspiring awe, fear, ritual behavior or something else entirely. But the archaeological record is notoriously limited in its ability to capture these kinds of cognitive or emotional responses.

    Researchers are on firmer ground when it comes to the physiological impacts of increased UV radiation. With the weakened magnetic field, more harmful radiation would have reached Earth’s surface, elevating risk of sunburn, eye damage, birth defects, and other health issues.

    In response, people may have adopted practical measures: spending more time in caves, producing tailored clothing for better coverage, or applying mineral pigment “sunscreen” made of ochre to their skin. As we describe in our recent paper, the frequency of these behaviors indeed appears to have increased across parts of Europe, where effects of the Laschamps Excursion were pronounced and prolonged.

    Naturally occurring ochre can act as a protective sunscreen if applied to skin.
    Museo Egizio di Torino

    At this time, both Neanderthals and members of our species, Homo sapiens, were living in Europe, though their geographic distributions likely overlapped only in certain regions. The archaeological record suggests that different populations exhibited distinct approaches to environmental challenges, with some groups perhaps more reliant on shelter or material culture for protection.

    Importantly, we’re not suggesting that space weather alone caused an increase in these behaviors or, certainly, that the Laschamps caused Neanderthals to go extinct, which is one misinterpretation of our research. But it could have been a contributing factor – an invisible but powerful force that influenced innovation and adaptability.

    Cross-discipline collaboration

    Collaborating across such a disciplinary gap was, at first, daunting. But it turned out to be deeply rewarding.

    Archaeologists are used to reconstructing now-invisible phenomena like climate. We can’t measure past temperatures or precipitation directly, but they’ve left traces for us to interpret if we know where and how to look.

    An artistic rendering of how far into lower latitudes the aurora might have been visible during the Laschamps Excursion.
    Maximilian Schanner (GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences, Potsdam, Germany)

    But even archaeologists who’ve spent years studying the effects of climate on past behaviors and technologies may not have considered the effects of the geomagnetic field and space weather. These effects, too, are invisible, powerful and best understood through indirect evidence and modeling. Archaeologists can treat space weather as a vital component of Earth’s environmental history and future forecasting.

    Likewise, geophysicists, who typically work with large datasets, models and simulations, may not always engage with some of the stakes of space weather. Archaeology adds a human dimension to the science. It reminds us that the effects of space weather don’t stop at the ionosphere. They can ripple down into the lived experiences of people on the ground, influencing how they adapt, create and survive.

    The Laschamps Excursion wasn’t a fluke or a one-off. Similar disruptions of Earth’s magnetic field have happened before and will happen again. Understanding how ancient humans responded can provide insight into how future events might affect our world – and perhaps even help us prepare.

    Our unconventional collaboration has shown us how much we can learn, how our perspective changes, when we cross disciplinary boundaries. Space may be vast, but it connects us all. And sometimes, building a bridge between Earth and space starts with the smallest things, such as ochre, or a coat, or even sunscreen.

    Agnit Mukhopadhyay has received funding from NASA Science Mission Directorate and the University of Michigan Rackham Graduate School.

    Raven Garvey and Sanja Panovska 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.

    – ref. Weird space weather seems to have influenced human behavior on Earth 41,000 years ago – our unusual scientific collaboration explores how – https://theconversation.com/weird-space-weather-seems-to-have-influenced-human-behavior-on-earth-41-000-years-ago-our-unusual-scientific-collaboration-explores-how-257216

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: Sculptor galaxy image provides brilliant details that will help astronomers study how stars form

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Rebecca McClain, Ph.D. Student in Astronomy, The Ohio State University

    This image of the Sculptor galaxy will give astronomers detailed information on a variety of stars, nebulae and galactic regions. European Southern Observatory

    If you happen to find yourself in the Southern Hemisphere with binoculars and a good view of the night sky on a dark and clear summer night, you might just be able to spot the Sculptor galaxy. And if your eyes were prisms that could separate light into the thousands of colors making it up, then congratulations: After hours of staring, you could have recreated the newest image of one of the nearest neighbors to our Milky Way galaxy.

    This is not just another stunningly gorgeous picture of a nearby galaxy. Because it reveals the type of light coming from each location in the galaxy, this image of the Sculptor galaxy is a treasure trove of information that astronomers around the world cannot wait to pick apart.

    As an astronomy Ph.D. student at Ohio State University, I (Rebecca) am one of the lucky people who gets to stare at this image for hours every day, alongside my adviser (Adam), discovering meaning behind the beauty everyone can appreciate.

    Creating the image

    The Sculptor galaxy lies 11 million light-years from the Milky Way. This may sound unfathomably far, but it actually makes Sculptor one of the closest galaxies to Earth.

    For this reason, Sculptor has been the primary target for many observations. In 2022, an international team of scientists observed Sculptor with the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer, MUSE, on the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, and publicly released the data this June.

    Most astronomical observations obtain either an image of a single color of light – for example, red or blue – or a spectrum, which splits the light coming from the whole galaxy into many different colors.

    MUSE, conveniently, does both, producing a spectrum at every location it observes. One observation creates thousands of images in thousands of colors, each tracing the critical components that make up the galaxy: stars, dust and gas.

    It may look like only one picture, but this image of Sculptor is actually over 100 individual observations and 8 million individual spectra, painstakingly stitched together to reveal millions of stars all in one cohesive galaxy.

    Scientific significance

    The light associated with the stars in Sculptor is colored white, and gas made up of charged particles is colored red. The largest concentration of both is found in the spiral arms. At the very center of the galaxy is a nuclear starburst: a region of extreme star formation that is blowing material out of the galaxy.

    There is even information in the absence of light. Dust obscures light emitted from behind it, creating a shadow effect called dust lanes. Tracing these dust lanes reveals the cold, dense material that exists between stars. Scientists believe this dark material is the fuel that will form the next generation of stars.

    Complex gaseous nebulae (red) surround young and massive stars (white) in this zoom-in of a cluster of star-forming regions.
    European Southern Observatory/VLT/MUSE

    There is a lot to look at in this image, but the subject of my work and what I find most interesting is the gas illuminated in red. In these star-forming regions, young and massive stars excite the gas around them, which then glows with a specific color to reveal the chemical makeup and physical conditions of the gas.

    This image represents one of the first times that astronomers have obtained images of thousands of star-forming regions at this impressive level of detail. A component of our team’s research uses the data from MUSE to understand how these regions are structured and how they interact with the surrounding galaxy.

    By meticulously piecing all of this information together, astronomers can use this image to learn more about the formation and evolution of stars across the universe.

    Rebecca McClain receives funding from the National Science Foundation.

    Adam Leroy receives funding from NASA/Space Telescope Science Institute that supports research related to the survey of NGC 253 discussed in this article.

    – ref. Sculptor galaxy image provides brilliant details that will help astronomers study how stars form – https://theconversation.com/sculptor-galaxy-image-provides-brilliant-details-that-will-help-astronomers-study-how-stars-form-259754

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Rethinking the MBA: Character as the educational foundation for future business leaders

    Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Andrew J. Hoffman, Holcim (US) Professor of Sustainable Enterprise, Ross School of Business, School for Environment & Sustainability, University of Michigan

    Questions about the role of business education have led to introspection among business school leaders and researchers. Supatman/iStock via Getty Images

    Programs to help students discern their vocation or calling are gaining prominence in higher education.

    According to a 2019 Bates/Gallup poll, 80% of college graduates want a sense of purpose from their work. In addition, a 2023 survey found that 50% of Generation Z and millennial employees in the U.K. and U.S. have resigned from a job because the values of the company did not align with their own.

    These sentiments are also found in today’s business school students, as Gen Z is demanding that course content reflect the changes in society, from diversity and inclusion to sustainability and poverty. According to the Financial Times, “there may never have been a more demanding cohort.”

    And yet, business schools have been slower than other schools to respond, leading to calls ranging from transforming business education to demolishing it.

    What are business schools creating?

    Historically, studies have shown that business school applicants have scored higher than their peers on the “dark triad” traits of narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism. These traits can manifest themselves in a tendency toward cunning, scheming and, at times, unscrupulous behavior.

    Over the course of their degree program, other studies have found that business school environments can amplify those preexisting tendencies while enhancing a concern for what others think of them.

    And these tendencies stick after graduation. One study examined 9,900 U.S. publicly listed firms and separated the sample by those run by managers who went to business school and those whose managers did not. While they found no discernible difference in sales or profits between the two samples, they found that labor wages were cut 6% over five years at companies run by managers who went to business school, while managers with no business degree shared profits with their workers. The study concludes that this is the result “of practices and values acquired in business education.”

    But there are signs that this may be changing.

    Questioning value

    Business leaders play a significant role in society, but they aren’t always trusted.
    miniseries/E+ via Getty Images

    Today, many are questioning the value of the MBA.

    Those who have decided it is worth the high cost either complain of its lack of rigor, relevance and critical thinking or use it merely for access to networks for salary enhancement, treating classroom learning as less important than attending recruiting events and social activities.

    Layered onto this uncertain state of affairs, generative artificial intelligence is fundamentally altering the education landscape, threatening future career prospects and short-circuiting the student’s education by doing their research and writing for them.

    This is concerning because of the outsized role that business leaders play in today’s society: allocating capital, developing and deploying new technologies and influencing political and social debates.

    At times, this role is a positive one, but not always. Distrust follows that uncertainty.

    Only 16% of Americans had a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in corporations, while 51% of Americans between 18 and 29 hold a dim view of capitalism.

    Facing this reality, business educators are beginning to reexamine how to nurture business leaders who view business not only as a means to making money but also as a vehicle in service to society.

    Proponents such as Harry Lewis, former dean of Harvard College; Derek Bok, former president of Harvard University; Harold Shapiro, former president of Princeton University; and Anthony Kronman, former dean of the Yale Law School, describe this effort as a return to the original focus of a college education.

    Not ethics, but character formation

    Character education could challenge business students to consider what type of leaders they aspire to be.
    MoMo Productions/Digital Vision via Getty Images

    Business schools have often included ethics courses in their curriculum, often with limited success. What some schools are experimenting with is character formation.

    As part of this experimentation is the development of a coherent moral culture that lies within the course curriculum but also within the cocurricular programming, cultural events, seminars and independent studies that shape students’ worldviews; the selection, socialization, training and reward systems for students, staff and faculty; and other aspects that shape students’ formation.

    Stanford’s Bill Damon, one of the leading scholars on helping students develop a sense of purpose in life, describes a revised role for faculty in this effort, one of creating the fertile conditions for students to find meaning and purpose on their own.

    I use this approach in my course on vocation discernment in business, shifting from a more traditional academic style to one that is more developmental.

    This is relational teaching that artificial intelligence cannot do. It involves bringing the whole person into the education process, inspiring hearts as much as engaging heads to form competent leaders who possess character, judgment and wisdom.

    It allows an examination of both the how and the why of business, challenging students to consider what kind of business leader they aspire to be and what kind of legacy they wish to establish.

    It would mark a return to the original focus of early business schools, which, as Rakesh Khurana, a professor of sociology at Harvard, calls out in his book “From Higher Aims to Hired Hands: The Social Transformation of American Business Schools and the Unfulfilled Promise of Management as a Profession,” was to train managers in the same vocational way we train doctors “to seek the higher aims of commerce in service to society.”

    Reshaping business education

    Most business school curricula are similar, but there are examples that break the mold.
    Oscar Wong/Moment via Getty Images

    The good news is that there are emerging exemplars that are seeking to create this kind of curriculum through centers such as Notre Dame University’s Institute for Social Concerns and Bates College’s Center for Purposeful Work and courses such as Stanford University’s Designing Your Life and the University of Michigan’s Management as a Calling.

    These are but a few examples of a growing movement. So, the building blocks are there to draw from. The student demand is waiting to be met. All that is needed is for more business schools to respond.

    Andrew J. Hoffman 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.

    – ref. Rethinking the MBA: Character as the educational foundation for future business leaders – https://theconversation.com/rethinking-the-mba-character-as-the-educational-foundation-for-future-business-leaders-259223

    MIL OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: How universities can keep protests from turning violent: 3 lessons from the 2024 pro-Palestinian encampments

    Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Matthew J. Mayhew, Professor of Higher Education, The Ohio State University

    Pro-Palestinian supporters march outside Columbia University in September 2024. AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura

    In spring 2024, pro-Palestinian student encampments that began at Columbia and Harvard spread to university campuses throughout the U.S. as Israel invaded Gaza in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, surprise attack. At least 100 campuses had encampments for at least a few days during this period.

    While some campuses erupted in violence, others remained peaceful and didn’t experience the open conflict that led to congressional hearings, university presidents losing their jobs and repercussions that are continuing to be felt today.

    What made the difference?

    In spring 2024, Ohio State University’s College Impact Laboratory, where we all work, surveyed universities to learn more about whether their campuses experienced protests, what happened and how they handled them. Part of our goal was to understand how spiritual leaders played a role, if any, in managing the protests. We’ve been analyzing the data ever since. The results from those who responded point to several lessons universities could learn from to avoid violence in future protests.

    Campuses are a critical arena for activism

    Campus protests have long been a defining feature of social and political change in the U.S. From the civil rights movements of the 1950s and 1960s to the student-led climate strikes of recent years, higher education institutions have served as a critical space for activism.

    Often, these protests reflect broader societal tensions, and how universities respond has played a significant role in shaping their outcomes.

    Historically, protests have been most likely to escalate when students feel unheard. In contrast, institutions that adopt proactive strategies, such as facilitating conversations or including students in decision-making, often experience better outcomes.

    A George Washington University student carries a Palestinian flag at a student encampment protesting the Israel-Hamas war in May 2024.
    AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana

    Snapshot of the pro-Palestinian protests

    As our survey data shows, the pro-Palestinian protests illustrate this dynamic.

    To gather data, the College Impact Laboratory sent questionnaires to administrators at the 329 universities that participate in our Interfaith Spiritual, Religious and Secular Campus Climate Index, also known as the INSPIRES Index, as well as hundreds of colleges and universities in our recruitment database.

    In all, 35 schools responded to our 23-question survey. Of those, we found that most protests were led by students, half lasted less than a week, and the vast majority were nonviolent. Fifteen did not have protests, while the rest did. While the number of institutions that participated in this survey is relatively small, it does give us key insights into what schools were thinking.

    Half of the campuses with protests reported law enforcement involvement – either campus police or city officers – with 20% experiencing physical altercations between protesters and police. Other disruptive actions such as academic interruptions, vandalism, physical violence and doxxing were reported with varying frequencies.

    Protests at campuses that participated in our survey peaked during April and May 2024, with 70% of them experiencing demonstrations in these months.

    Here are three takeaways from the survey, suggesting steps universities can take before and during future protests to avoid escalation:

    1. Involve students in guidelines for engagement – early

    At every surveyed institution that reported protests, students were at the forefront of organizing and leading these efforts.

    Yet, despite this clear student leadership, about one-third of institutions said they didn’t consult with students to establish guidelines for engagement. Those that did invited representatives from student organizations or student government officers into the policymaking process to determine what protocols would be followed to manage protests and keep them peaceful.

    On campuses where administrators didn’t engage with student leaders, tensions tended to escalate, and protests disrupted the institutions for weeks, often after police were called in or curfews were imposed.

    While many of the protests lasted only one to seven days, we found that institutions that opened lines of communication early between administration and student protest leaders were more likely to deescalate tensions quickly. In contrast, campuses where administrators did not engage early on saw protests lasting weeks or involving greater disruptions.

    Also, institutions that engaged early with student leaders were less likely to face stronger demands, such as calls for administrators to be fired, divestment from Israeli companies or calls to defund the campus police.

    Our survey results suggest it’s important for administrators to engage with students early to establish clear guidelines to make it less likely future protests spiral into violence.

    2. Communicate openly, often and before protests

    Discussion of difficult topics, such as the conflict between Israel and Palestinians, shouldn’t wait until protests break out to begin. We found that every school in our survey that proactively supported dialogue between Jews and Muslims – before the war broke out – didn’t see violence result from the protests.

    Dialogue isn’t just a strategy for preventing protests from spiraling out of control; it is fundamental to intergroup learning in higher education. These events create safe spaces for students − whether Arab, Jewish, Palestinian or members of different ethnic or religious groups − to engage with classmates with different points of view.

    But even once protests begin, dialogue can help. When institutions engaged in dialogue, during or as a result of a protest, the protests were less likely to involve violence. At half of the campuses that participated in our survey and experienced protests, protests were ended peacefully through dialogue.

    Brown, for example, modeled the power of institutional listening in its response to its April 2024 encampment. Rather than escalating tensions, university leaders engaged directly with student activists, resulting in a peaceful resolution and a commitment to bring the students’ divestment proposal to a formal vote in October. It ultimately failed to pass the board of directors.

    Demonstrators unfurl a banner on a lawn after an encampment protesting the Israel-Hamas war was taken down at Brown University on April 30, 2024, in Providence, R.I.
    AP Photo/David Goldman

    3. Involve relevant groups in decision-making

    Most administrators in our survey, as they considered how to engage with protesters, reached out to relevant student groups such as those that focus on Jewish and Muslim students to better understand their perspectives.

    However, only 28% consulted a religious or spiritual life office staff member on campus.

    Religious or spiritual life staff are present on both private and public campuses and may include university-employed multifaith chaplains, interfaith coordinators or directors of spiritual life. Unlike student-led religious groups, these professionals often serve as liaisons to the religious and nonreligious communities represented on campus.

    The focus of such roles on serving students from all worldviews positions them as key resources for deescalation through community outreach, support and two-way communication. Additionally, these professionals have valuable expertise in religious pluralism and community relationships. This experience helps them to advise administrators on policy and potential courses of action in times of tension.

    Consulting with university staff with a focus on religion or spiritual life makes particular sense given the nature of the protests and how religion is intertwined, but our data suggests they may be underutilized more broadly for their expertise in navigating tensions related to competing worldviews.

    Proactive engagement with these leaders not only helps campuses navigate an immediate crisis but demonstrates a commitment to inclusivity and respect for different groups’ perspectives.

    Leading by example

    Put another way, our research suggests institutions can avoid the negative outcomes of protests by embodying the traits commonly associated with universities, such as showing mutual respect, fostering democratic debate and engaging in critical thinking even on divisive issues. Engaging from a mindset of goodwill with student leaders shows administrators value student voices and are willing to work collaboratively toward solutions.

    But when campuses ignore peaceful protests or refuse to engage with student leaders, they risk turning manageable situations into prolonged crises.

    At a time when divisions run deep, we believe campuses that lead by example by embracing dialogue and engaging student activists before, during and after protests take place are not only likely to see less violence, but are likely to help heal America’s great divides.

    Matthew J. Mayhew receives grant funding for various research projects from the National Science Foundation, the ECMC Foundation, the Templeton Religion Trust, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, and Pew Charitable Trusts. Currently, Dr. Mayhew leads the College Impact Laboratory at The Ohio State University. He is the Principal Investigator for the INSPIRES Index project and is the current editor of the Digest of Recent Research.

    Renee L. Bowling works for the College Impact Lab at The Ohio State University that produces the INSPIRES Index and serves as Chair of NASPA’s Spirituality and Religion in Higher Education Knowledge Community.

    Hind Haddad 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.

    – ref. How universities can keep protests from turning violent: 3 lessons from the 2024 pro-Palestinian encampments – https://theconversation.com/how-universities-can-keep-protests-from-turning-violent-3-lessons-from-the-2024-pro-palestinian-encampments-252278

    MIL OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: A law from the era of Red Scares is supercharging Trump administration’s power over immigrants and noncitizens

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Daniel Tichenor, Professor of Political Science, University of Oregon

    The Trump administration detained former Columbia University student and pro-Palestinian protest leader Mahmoud Khalil, center, for more than two months and is seeking to revoke his lawful permanent resident status. Kena Betancur/AFP via Getty Images

    Nativism, the idea that government must guard native-born Americans from various threats posed by immigrants, has a long history in the United States.

    Today, the Trump administration is citing the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, a restrictive measure written by nativist members of Congress decades ago when fears of communism were rampant, to sharply restrict the rights of noncitizens.

    Under this law, also known as the McCarran-Walter Act, federal agencies have arrested and detained noncitizens associated with pro-Palestinian protests, reintroduced immigrant registration requirements, and imposed a new travel ban that affects 19 nations.

    Since the 1950s, Congress has removed some of this sprawling federal law’s most discriminatory features, such as racist national origins quotas. But other key provisions remain on the books. Now they are the primary legal basis for some of President Donald Trump’s most controversial immigration crackdowns.

    Author and reporter Clay Risen discusses parallels between anticommunist fears in the 1950s and the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant policies.

    Foreign policy trumps free speech

    In March 2025, the White House invoked the McCarran-Walter Act to justify arresting and deporting Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident who had participated in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University. Officials pointed to Section 237(a)(4)(C) of the law, which states that any “alien whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is deportable.”

    This has been tried only once before. In 1995, the Clinton administration unsuccessfully sought to use the provision to deport a former Mexican official, Mario Ruiz Massieu, to face charges in his homeland for extortion and obstructing a murder investigation. Ruiz Massieu was later indicted in the U.S. on money laundering charges and died by suicide shortly before his arraignment.

    The Trump administration cited the same provision to justify detaining Tufts University doctoral student Rumeysa Ozturk in March. Ozturk came under government scrutiny because she co-authored an op-ed in the Tufts student newspaper criticizing the university’s position on the Israel-Gaza war.

    Surveillance footage of a terrified Ozturk being arrested by masked Immigration Customs and Enforcement agents on a street in Somerville, Massachusetts, drew criticism from government officials and civil liberties advocates. In response, Secretary of State Marco Rubio alleged that Ozturk had harmed U.S. interests by supporting “movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus.”

    Khalil and Ozturk both were released after weeks in detention, pending final resolution of their cases. Their lawyers argue that their clients’ treatment violates free speech protections and that the defendants were punished for expressing their political beliefs.

    Monitoring noncitizens

    The McCarran-Walter Act also authorizes intrusive registration and tracking requirements for noncitizens who remain in the U.S. for 30 days or longer.

    On Jan. 20, 2025, Trump issued an executive order directing the Department of Homeland Security to enforce an “alien registration requirement.” The agency issued a final rule in April requiring all noncitizens over the age of 14 to register and be fingerprinted. Parents or guardians must register noncitizen children under age 14. The rule also requires adult noncitizens to carry “evidence of registration” at all times.

    Such policies aren’t new. Noncitizen registration was codified in the Alien Registration Act of 1940, on the eve of U.S. entry into World War II. The law was designed to regulate the foreign-born population and encourage eligible noncitizens to join the U.S. armed forces. Its requirements were written into the McCarran-Walter Act.

    After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration created the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, which targeted noncitizen males age 16 or older from 25 Muslim-majority countries. It required registrants to submit biometric information, check in regularly with immigration authorities and use specific ports of entry for travel.

    The Obama administration suspended this system in 2011 and permanently dismantled it in 2016.

    Today, Trump administration officials say they are simply enforcing long-standing legal authority. A federal judge agreed, ruling on April 10 that the Homeland Security Department could require noncitizens to register and carry documentation.

    The Trump administration says it will strictly enforce a long-standing requirement for immigrants in the country more than 30 days to register with the federal government.

    Travel bans redux

    On June 2, Trump announced a new travel ban on foreign nationals from 12 countries, mostly in Africa and the Middle East. The ban draws its authority from the McCarran-Walter Act. Two days later, Trump claimed the same legal discretion to exclude Harvard University’s international students from the U.S.

    During his first term, Trump invoked these sections of the law to justify a travel ban on seven predominantly Muslim countries. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately upheld this action in 2018 by a 5-4 vote in Trump v. Hawaii. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts stated that the travel ban was well within broad powers over immigration granted to the president under the McCarran-Walter Act. He added that the court had “no view on the soundness of the policy.”

    Trump’s new ban is more carefully crafted than earlier versions and more likely to withstand legal challenges. But his efforts to use the McCarren-Walter Act to ban international students from attending Harvard University face stiff legal headwinds.

    On May 22, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem notified Harvard officials that the agency was revoking the school’s certification to participate in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, which grants visas to international students to come to the U.S. In a June 4 proclamation, the White House claimed that foreign students at Harvard had behaved in ways that threatened U.S. national security.

    A federal judge in Boston quickly blocked the revocation, holding that it violated core constitutional free speech rights. “The government’s misplaced efforts to control a reputable academic institution and squelch diverse viewpoints seemingly because they are, in some instances, opposed to this administration’s own views, threaten these rights,” wrote Judge Allison D. Burroughs.

    The latest step came on July 9, when the Trump administration subpoenaed Harvard for information on its foreign students, including their disciplinary records and involvement in campus protests.

    Broad power over noncitizens

    Ironically, congressional sponsors of the McCarran-Walter Act were at odds with the White House when the law was enacted in 1952. They overrode a veto by President Harry S. Truman, who thought the law’s nativist ideas were unfitting for a nation of immigrants and global defender of democracy.

    However, the expansive executive powers created by this law have endured largely unaltered over time, through waves of immigration reform.

    Now they are a boon to the Trump administration’s ambitious immigration crackdown. It’s a telling reminder that repressive old laws can come back to life – even when they don’t reflect the current views of many Americans.

    Daniel Tichenor 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.

    – ref. A law from the era of Red Scares is supercharging Trump administration’s power over immigrants and noncitizens – https://theconversation.com/a-law-from-the-era-of-red-scares-is-supercharging-trump-administrations-power-over-immigrants-and-noncitizens-255307

    MIL OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: When big sports events like FIFA World Cup expand, their climate footprint expands too

    Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Brian P. McCullough, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Michigan

    Lionel Messi celebrates with fans after Argentina won the FIFA World Cup championship in 2022 in Qatar. Michael Regan-FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images

    When the FIFA World Cup hits North America in June 2026, 48 teams and millions of soccer fans will be traveling to and from venues spread across the United States, Canada and Mexico.

    It’s a dramatic expansion – 16 more teams will be playing than in recent years, with a jump from 64 to 104 matches. The tournament is projected to bring in over US$10 billion in revenue. But the expansion will also mean a lot more travel and other activities that contribute to climate change.

    The environmental impacts of giant sporting events like the World Cup create a complex paradox for an industry grappling with its future in a warming world.

    A sustainability conundrum

    Sports are undeniably experiencing the effects of climate change. Rising global temperatures are putting athletes’ health at risk during summer heat waves and shortening winter sports seasons. Many of the 2026 World Cup venues often see heat waves in June and early July, when the tournament is scheduled.

    There is a divide over how sports should respond.

    Some athletes are speaking out for more sustainable choices and have called on lawmakers to take steps to limit climate-warming emissions. At the same time, the sport industry is growing and facing a constant push to increase revenue. The NCAA is also considering expanding its March Madness basketball tournaments from 68 teams currently to as many as 76.

    Park Yong-woo of team Al Ain from Abu Dhabi tries to cool off during a Club World Cup match on June 26, 2025, in Washington, D.C., which was in the midst of a heat wave. Some players have raised concerns about likely high temperatures during the 2026 World Cup, with matches scheduled June 11 to July 19.
    AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson

    Estimates for the 2026 World Cup show what large tournament expansions can mean for the climate. A report from Scientists for Global Responsibility estimates that the expanded World Cup could generate over 9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, nearly double the average of the past four World Cups.

    This massive increase – and the increase that would come if the NCAA basketball tournaments also expand – would primarily be driven by air travel as fans and players fly among event cities that are thousands of miles apart.

    A lot of money is at stake, but so is the climate

    Sports are big business, and adding more matches to events like the World Cup and NCAA tournaments will likely lead to larger media rights contracts and greater gate receipts from more fans attending the events, boosting revenues. These are powerful financial incentives.

    In the NCAA’s case, there is another reason to consider a larger tournament: The House v. NCAA settlement opened the door for college athletic departments to share revenue with athletes, which will significantly increase costs for many college programs. More teams would mean more television revenue and, crucially, more revenue to be distributed to member NCAA institutions and their athletic conferences.

    When climate promises become greenwashing

    The inherent conflict between maximizing profit through growth and minimizing environmental footprint presents a dilemma for sports.

    Several sport organizations have promised to reduce their impact on the climate, including signing up for initiatives like the United Nations Sports for Climate Action Framework.

    However, as sports tournaments and exhibition games expand, it can become increasingly hard for sports organizations to meet their climate commitments. In some cases, groups making sustainability commitments have been accused of greenwashing, suggesting the goals are more about public relations than making genuine, measurable changes.

    For example, FIFA’s early claims that it would hold a “fully carbon-neutral” World Cup in Qatar in 2022 were challenged by a group of European countries that accused soccer’s world governing body of underestimating emissions. The Swiss Fairness Commission, which monitors fairness in advertising, considered the complaints and determined that FIFA’s claims could not be substantiated.

    Alessandro Bastoni, of Inter Milan and Italy’s national team, prepares to board a flight from Milan to Rome with his team.
    Mattia Ozbot-Inter/Inter via Getty Images

    Aviation is often the biggest driver of emissions. A study that colleagues and I conducted on the NCAA men’s basketball tournament found about 80% of its emissions were connected to travel. And that was after the NCAA began using the pod system, which is designed to keep teams closer to home for the first and second rounds.

    Finding practical solutions

    Some academics, observing the rising emissions trend, have called for radical solutions like the end of commercialized sports or drastically limiting who can attend sporting events, with a focus on fans from the region.

    These solutions are frankly not practical, in my view, nor do they align with other positive developments. The growing popularity of women’s sports shows the challenge in limiting sports events – more games expands participation but adds to the industry’s overall footprint.

    Further compounding the challenges of reducing environmental impact is the amount of fan travel, which is outside the direct control of the sports organization or event organizers.

    Many fans will follow their teams long distances, especially for mega-events like the World Cup or the NCAA tournament. During the men’s World Cup in Russia in 2018, more than 840,000 fans traveled from other countries. The top countries by number of fans, after Russia, were China, the U.S., Mexico and Argentina.

    There is an argument that distributed sporting events like March Madness or the World Cup can be better in some ways for local environments because they don’t overwhelm a single city. However, merely spreading the impact does not necessarily reduce it, particularly when considering the effects on climate change.

    How fans can cut their environmental footprint

    Sport organizations and event planners can take steps to be more sustainable and also encourage more sustainable choices among fans. Fans can reduce their environmental impact in a variety of ways. For example:

    • Avoid taking airplanes for shorter distances, such as between FIFA venues in Philadelphia, New York and Boston, and carpool or take Amtrak instead. Planes can be more efficient for long distances, but air travel is still a major contributing factor to emissions.

    • While in a host city, use mass transit or rent electric vehicles or bicycles for local travel.

    • Consider sustainable accommodations, such as short-term rentals that might have a smaller environmental footprint than a hotel. Or stay at a certified green hotel that makes an effort to be more efficient in its use of water and energy.

    • Engage in sustainable pregame and postgame activities, such as choosing local, sustainable food options, and minimize waste.

    • You can also pay to offset carbon emissions for attending different sporting events, much like concertgoers do when they attend musical festivals. While critics question offsets’ true environmental benefit, they do represent people’s growing awareness of their environmental footprint.

    Through all these options, it’s clear that sports face a significant challenge in addressing their environmental impacts and encouraging fans to be more sustainable, while simultaneously trying to meet ambitious business and environmental targets.

    In my view, a sustainable path forward will require strategic, yet genuine, commitment by the sports industry and its fans, and a willingness to prioritize long-term planetary health alongside economic gains – balancing the sport and sustainability.

    Brian P. McCullough 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.

    – ref. When big sports events like FIFA World Cup expand, their climate footprint expands too – https://theconversation.com/when-big-sports-events-like-fifa-world-cup-expand-their-climate-footprint-expands-too-259437

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: When big sports events like FIFA World Cup expand, their climate footprint expands too

    Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Brian P. McCullough, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Michigan

    Lionel Messi celebrates with fans after Argentina won the FIFA World Cup championship in 2022 in Qatar. Michael Regan-FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images

    When the FIFA World Cup hits North America in June 2026, 48 teams and millions of soccer fans will be traveling to and from venues spread across the United States, Canada and Mexico.

    It’s a dramatic expansion – 16 more teams will be playing than in recent years, with a jump from 64 to 104 matches. The tournament is projected to bring in over US$10 billion in revenue. But the expansion will also mean a lot more travel and other activities that contribute to climate change.

    The environmental impacts of giant sporting events like the World Cup create a complex paradox for an industry grappling with its future in a warming world.

    A sustainability conundrum

    Sports are undeniably experiencing the effects of climate change. Rising global temperatures are putting athletes’ health at risk during summer heat waves and shortening winter sports seasons. Many of the 2026 World Cup venues often see heat waves in June and early July, when the tournament is scheduled.

    There is a divide over how sports should respond.

    Some athletes are speaking out for more sustainable choices and have called on lawmakers to take steps to limit climate-warming emissions. At the same time, the sport industry is growing and facing a constant push to increase revenue. The NCAA is also considering expanding its March Madness basketball tournaments from 68 teams currently to as many as 76.

    Park Yong-woo of team Al Ain from Abu Dhabi tries to cool off during a Club World Cup match on June 26, 2025, in Washington, D.C., which was in the midst of a heat wave. Some players have raised concerns about likely high temperatures during the 2026 World Cup, with matches scheduled June 11 to July 19.
    AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson

    Estimates for the 2026 World Cup show what large tournament expansions can mean for the climate. A report from Scientists for Global Responsibility estimates that the expanded World Cup could generate over 9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, nearly double the average of the past four World Cups.

    This massive increase – and the increase that would come if the NCAA basketball tournaments also expand – would primarily be driven by air travel as fans and players fly among event cities that are thousands of miles apart.

    A lot of money is at stake, but so is the climate

    Sports are big business, and adding more matches to events like the World Cup and NCAA tournaments will likely lead to larger media rights contracts and greater gate receipts from more fans attending the events, boosting revenues. These are powerful financial incentives.

    In the NCAA’s case, there is another reason to consider a larger tournament: The House v. NCAA settlement opened the door for college athletic departments to share revenue with athletes, which will significantly increase costs for many college programs. More teams would mean more television revenue and, crucially, more revenue to be distributed to member NCAA institutions and their athletic conferences.

    When climate promises become greenwashing

    The inherent conflict between maximizing profit through growth and minimizing environmental footprint presents a dilemma for sports.

    Several sport organizations have promised to reduce their impact on the climate, including signing up for initiatives like the United Nations Sports for Climate Action Framework.

    However, as sports tournaments and exhibition games expand, it can become increasingly hard for sports organizations to meet their climate commitments. In some cases, groups making sustainability commitments have been accused of greenwashing, suggesting the goals are more about public relations than making genuine, measurable changes.

    For example, FIFA’s early claims that it would hold a “fully carbon-neutral” World Cup in Qatar in 2022 were challenged by a group of European countries that accused soccer’s world governing body of underestimating emissions. The Swiss Fairness Commission, which monitors fairness in advertising, considered the complaints and determined that FIFA’s claims could not be substantiated.

    Alessandro Bastoni, of Inter Milan and Italy’s national team, prepares to board a flight from Milan to Rome with his team.
    Mattia Ozbot-Inter/Inter via Getty Images

    Aviation is often the biggest driver of emissions. A study that colleagues and I conducted on the NCAA men’s basketball tournament found about 80% of its emissions were connected to travel. And that was after the NCAA began using the pod system, which is designed to keep teams closer to home for the first and second rounds.

    Finding practical solutions

    Some academics, observing the rising emissions trend, have called for radical solutions like the end of commercialized sports or drastically limiting who can attend sporting events, with a focus on fans from the region.

    These solutions are frankly not practical, in my view, nor do they align with other positive developments. The growing popularity of women’s sports shows the challenge in limiting sports events – more games expands participation but adds to the industry’s overall footprint.

    Further compounding the challenges of reducing environmental impact is the amount of fan travel, which is outside the direct control of the sports organization or event organizers.

    Many fans will follow their teams long distances, especially for mega-events like the World Cup or the NCAA tournament. During the men’s World Cup in Russia in 2018, more than 840,000 fans traveled from other countries. The top countries by number of fans, after Russia, were China, the U.S., Mexico and Argentina.

    There is an argument that distributed sporting events like March Madness or the World Cup can be better in some ways for local environments because they don’t overwhelm a single city. However, merely spreading the impact does not necessarily reduce it, particularly when considering the effects on climate change.

    How fans can cut their environmental footprint

    Sport organizations and event planners can take steps to be more sustainable and also encourage more sustainable choices among fans. Fans can reduce their environmental impact in a variety of ways. For example:

    • Avoid taking airplanes for shorter distances, such as between FIFA venues in Philadelphia, New York and Boston, and carpool or take Amtrak instead. Planes can be more efficient for long distances, but air travel is still a major contributing factor to emissions.

    • While in a host city, use mass transit or rent electric vehicles or bicycles for local travel.

    • Consider sustainable accommodations, such as short-term rentals that might have a smaller environmental footprint than a hotel. Or stay at a certified green hotel that makes an effort to be more efficient in its use of water and energy.

    • Engage in sustainable pregame and postgame activities, such as choosing local, sustainable food options, and minimize waste.

    • You can also pay to offset carbon emissions for attending different sporting events, much like concertgoers do when they attend musical festivals. While critics question offsets’ true environmental benefit, they do represent people’s growing awareness of their environmental footprint.

    Through all these options, it’s clear that sports face a significant challenge in addressing their environmental impacts and encouraging fans to be more sustainable, while simultaneously trying to meet ambitious business and environmental targets.

    In my view, a sustainable path forward will require strategic, yet genuine, commitment by the sports industry and its fans, and a willingness to prioritize long-term planetary health alongside economic gains – balancing the sport and sustainability.

    Brian P. McCullough 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.

    – ref. When big sports events like FIFA World Cup expand, their climate footprint expands too – https://theconversation.com/when-big-sports-events-like-fifa-world-cup-expand-their-climate-footprint-expands-too-259437

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: How 1860s Mexico offered an alternative vision for a liberal international order

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Tom Long, Professor of International Relations, Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick

    The Execution of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, June 19, 1867 Edouard ManetWikimedia Commons

    In 1867, the world’s most powerful statesmen, including Austria’s Emperor Franz Josef, France’s Napoleon III and US secretary of state, William H. Seward, petitioned the Mexican government to spare the life of a condemned man.

    Mexico’s ragtag army and militias had just humbled France, then Europe’s preeminent land power. The costly six-year campaign drained the French treasury and eroded Napoleon III’s domestic support. Napoleon’s ambition to transform Mexico into a client empire under a Vienna-born, Habsburg archduke, crowned Maximilian I, ended in spectacular failure.

    After his defeat, Maximilian was brought before a Mexican military tribunal. European monarchs regarded the prisoner as their peer, but Mexican liberals convicted him as a piratical invader, usurper and traitor. Despite indignant appeals from European courts, President Benito Juárez refused to commute his sentence. The would-be emperor was executed by firing squad.

    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.

    The controversy went beyond one monarch’s fate. It crystallised a clash between opposed visions of global order — as Peru’s president Ramón Castilla said at the time, it was a “war of the crowns against liberty caps”.

    Today, world politics are in flux. The so-called liberal international order, nominally grounded in multilateralism, open markets, human rights and the rule of law, is facing its gravest crisis since the second world war. Former advocates such as the United States now openly flout international law and undermine the very norms they once championed. China remains ambivalent, while Russia unabashedly hastens the order’s unravelling.

    More broadly, the old post-second world war order appears out of step with the global south and with widespread anger over double standards exposed by the wars in Ukraine, Gaza and Iran.
    Amid today’s crises, a world order arranged for and by the great powers looks both insufficient and doomed to lack legitimacy. Reordering will require support from diverse actors, including states across the global south.

    1860s: a turbulent decade

    The 1860s were a turbulent, although often overlooked, moment of global reordering. Technological shifts – the telegraph, electricity, steamships and railways – appeared as disruptive then as AI does today. Combined with shifting power dynamics, these transformations accelerated imperial expansion. Yet the rules of the emerging order remained uncertain, even among the imperial powers themselves.

    In Europe, networks of dynastic rule still carried weight in international politics. Under growing pressure, the ancien régime sought to reinvent and reassert itself. The old empires often justified their expansion by promising to bring order and progress to supposedly backward peoples. But that “civilising mission” clashed with a worldview emerging from Spanish America – where countries had thrown off colonial rule to establish independent republics.

    As we wrote in a recent article in American Political Science Review, Spanish American diplomats articulated a republican vision of international order centred on the protection of weaker states from domination by great powers.

    Fending off Europe’s empires

    Divided by civil conflict, Mexico became an easy target for European empires. Mexico’s Liberal party had regained power but faced internal dissent and crippling foreign debt. Britain, France and Spain formed a coalition to invade and demand repayment. France, however, had more ambitious designs.

    Exploiting the distraction of the US civil war, Napoleon III dreamed of transforming Mexico into a Latin stronghold against Yankee expansion. Best of all, Napoleon thought the scheme would turn a profit. A stable Mexican empire could repay the costs of the intervention – with interest – by increasing production from the country’s famed silver mines. Meanwhile, France would gain a receptive market for its exports and a grateful geopolitical subordinate.

    Maximilian, a young Austrian prince of the house of Hapsburg, somewhat naively accepted the offer to rule a distant and unfamiliar land. He dreamed of regenerating Mexico through a liberal monarchy while reviving his family’s declining dynasty.

    Led by Juárez, Mexico’s liberals fiercely resisted Maximilian’s rule. While militarily Juárez was consistently on the defensive, he remained diplomatically proactive. The Juaristas encouraged US sympathies that proved decisive after the end of the civil war. They also enjoyed solidarity – though limited material support – from other Spanish American republics. Although the monarchies of Europe all recognised Maximilian as Mexican emperor, Juárez’s defiance became a rallying point for liberals and republicans in Europe.

    Hero to the liberals: a monument to Juárez in central Mexico City.
    Hajor~commonswiki, CC BY-ND

    Vision of a new order

    Beyond stoking sympathies, Juárez and his followers offered trenchant critiques of unequal international rules and practices cloaked in liberal guise.

    First, the “republican internationalism” of Mexico’s Juaristas stood in direct opposition to European liberals’ “civilising mission”. Latin American republicans rejected the notion that progress could be imposed on their countries from abroad – though some echoed civilising rhetoric toward their own non-white populations, who like in the US were subject to campaigns of violence and dispossession that stretched from northern Mexico to the Patagonia. Many Latin American liberals likewise remained silent about empire elsewhere.

    Second, the Juarista vision placed popular sovereignty, not dynastic ties, at the heart of legitimate statehood. These ideas drew on Mexico’s independence tradition and the principles enshrined in the 1857 constitution. European intervention, in this view, aimed to suppress popular rule in the Americas and extend the reaction against the failed revolutions of 1848, which had seriously threatened the old order when they raged across Europe.

    Third, popular sovereign states were equal under international law, regardless of power, wealth, or internal disorder. Sovereign equality also underpinned Latin America’s strong commitment to non-intervention. Liberal writer and diplomat Francisco Zarco, a close confidante of Juárez, condemned frequent European economic justifications for intervention as the work of “smugglers and profiteers who wrap themselves in the flags of powerful nations”.

    Finally, Mexican liberals called for an international system premised on republican fraternity, drawing on aspirations for cooperation that went back to liberator Simón Bolívar. The independence leader and committed republican convened a conference in 1826, hoping that a confederation of the newly independent Spanish American states would “be the shield of our new destiny”.

    Similar arguments for an international order that advances non-domination still resonate in the global south today. The Mexican experience also underscores that the architects of international order have never come exclusively from the global north – and those who shape its future will not either.

    Tom Long receives support from UK Arts and Humanities Research Council grant AH/V006622/1, Latin America and the peripheral origins of the 19th-century international order.

    Carsten-Andreas Schulz receives support from UK Arts and Humanities Research Council grant AH/V006622/1, Latin America and the peripheral origins of the 19th-century international order.

    – ref. How 1860s Mexico offered an alternative vision for a liberal international order – https://theconversation.com/how-1860s-mexico-offered-an-alternative-vision-for-a-liberal-international-order-260228

    MIL OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Why Jane Austen is definitely not just for girls

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Shelley Galpin, Lecturer in Culture, Media and Creative Industries, King’s College London

    In my former life as a teacher, I once had a job interview in which I was asked how I dealt with the problem of teaching Jane Austen to boys.

    Having had experience of this situation, I confidently told my interviewer (a maths teacher) that the “problem” they were assuming didn’t actually exist, and that it was perfectly possible to teach Austen’s novels to mixed-sex classes with successful results. My answer was met by barely veiled scepticism – and suffice to say, I didn’t get the job.

    But where did this popular perception come from? Austen’s genius has been recognised from the earliest days of the development of a canon of English literature, and has never really fallen out of fashion. So it might seem odd that the suitability of her work for a co-educational class is the subject of genuine debate.

    This article is part of a series commemorating the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth. Despite having published only six books, she is one of the best-known authors in history. These articles explore the legacy and life of this incredible writer.

    The increasingly intertwined associations of Austen’s literature with the many (often excellent) adaptations of her work may not help the matter, with screen retellings often foregrounding the love stories and losing much of the ironic tone that characterises Austen’s narrative style.

    The myriad repackaged editions of her novels that adorn bookshelves with pastel-toned floral designs, or images of anonymous portraits of passive young women, also do little to challenge the popular perception of these books as stories for women and girls.

    Finally, and perhaps most troublingly, is the still-commonly held notion that stories with a female protagonist do not have wide-ranging appeal and must be consigned to a “niche interest” bracket. Male-led stories, in contrast, have long been considered to hold universal relevance for audiences.

    This last point is a bigger issue concerning the publishing and entertainment industries, so I will largely park this one. But I will point out that, as others have argued in relation to Austen’s work, the classroom is an excellent place to start countering the assumptions of the “everyman” male experience, in contrast to the “special interest” attitude to female perspectives.

    With regards to the teaching of Austen’s novels, drawing on my experiences both as a scholar and as a teacher, I believe her novels can speak to young readers of different genders and from diverse backgrounds.

    Money, power and inequality

    Addressing the ways in which Austen’s novels tend to be packaged, I asked my students, typically aged 16-18, to explore the ideas at the heart of the novels by redesigning the book covers to better reflect these themes.

    The flowers and passive young women were gone. The redesigned book covers often focused on the idea of wealth, through pictures of differing piles of money, or power, such as the image of imbalanced scales to symbolise the unequal societies inhabited by Austen’s characters.

    Because, as much as they are love stories, Austen’s heroines typically achieve their “happy endings” against a backdrop of money worries, power struggles, familial tension and gendered social hierarchies. While her novels are rightly celebrated for highlighting the unequal treatment of the sexes during her lifetime, it is reductive to see this as their sole contribution to social commentary.

    Take Austen’s last completed novel, Persuasion. Here, Anne Elliot – over the hill at the ripe old age of 27 – begins the novel by rueing her broken engagement to Captain Wentworth, which she had been persuaded to break off eight years earlier due to his lack of fortune.

    While the narrative focus is on Anne, who is left to regret her choice and wonder whether she will ever be able to escape her odious father and siblings, the broken-hearted Wentworth, who reappears in Anne’s life shortly after the start of the novel, is at least as much a victim of the situation as Anne herself.

    At its heart, this is a story of a young woman who allowed herself to be persuaded to make a bad choice, and a young man who, through no fault of his own, was deemed not good enough due to his lack of wealth. The experiences of these characters, although they are older than the average school student, are highly relatable and sympathetic to many teenagers, who may well have experienced meddling family members or unfair judgments of their own.

    Take also Northanger Abbey, in which fanciful Catherine Morland mixes fact and fiction and imagines the titular abbey to be a site of gothic intrigue, only to discover that the real horror derives from a controlling patriarch and his sexually predatory oldest son.

    Here again, the novel cleverly makes the point that social inequalities, and the choices of those motivated by their love of money and power, are the real darkness at the heart of Austen’s society.

    In my experience, students of all genders have been able to appreciate and relate to Northanger Abbey’s depictions of the loss of innocence, class inequality, and the experience of being subject to the sometimes obscure decisions of more powerful individuals.

    Austen’s works, far from being the simple love stories of popular perception, are also razor-sharp satires of social and gendered inequalities. Full of witty observations and universally relatable experiences, there is a reason for the consistent popularity of her writing 250 years after her birth.

    To fail to recognise this in the classroom is to do a disservice to all our students, as well as to Austen herself.

    Shelley Galpin 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.

    – ref. Why Jane Austen is definitely not just for girls – https://theconversation.com/why-jane-austen-is-definitely-not-just-for-girls-259193

    MIL OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Just back from holiday and not feeling well? Here are the symptoms you should take seriously

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Dan Baumgardt, Senior Lecturer, School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience, University of Bristol

    What are you bringing back with you? The Picture Studio/Shutterstock

    Summer is synonymous with adventure, with millions flocking to exotic destinations to experience different cultures, cuisines and landscapes. But what happens when the souvenir you bring back isn’t a fridge magnet or a tea towel, but a new illness?

    International travel poses a risk of catching something more than a run-of-the-mill bug, so it’s important to be vigilant for the telltale symptoms. Here are the main ones to look out for while away and when you return.

    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.

    Fever

    Fever is a common symptom to note after international travel – especially to tropical or subtropical regions. While a feature of many different illnesses, it can be the first sign of an infection – sometimes a serious one.

    One of the most well-known travel-related illnesses linked to fever is malaria. Spread by mosquito bites in endemic regions, malaria is a protozoal infection that often begins with flu-like symptoms, such as headache and muscle aches, progressing to severe fever, sweating and shaking chills.

    Other signs can include jaundice (yellowing of the skin or eyes), swollen lymph nodes, rashes and abdominal pain – though symptoms vary widely and can mimic many other illnesses.

    Prompt medical attention is essential. Malaria is serious and can become life threatening. It’s also worth noting that symptoms may not appear until weeks or even months after returning home. In the UK, there are around 2,000 imported malaria cases each year.

    Travellers to at-risk areas are strongly advised to take preventative measures. This includes mosquito-bite avoidance as well as prescribed antimalarial medications, such as Malarone and doxycycline. Although these drugs aren’t 100% effective, they significantly reduce the risk of infection.

    Aside from malaria, other mosquito-borne diseases can cause fever. Dengue fever, a viral infection found in tropical and subtropical regions, leads to symptoms including high temperatures, intense headaches, body aches and rashes, which overlap with both malaria and other common viral illnesses.

    Most people recover with rest, fluids and paracetamol, but in some instances, dengue can become severe and requires emergency hospital treatment. A vaccine is also available – but is only recommended for people who have had dengue before, as it provides good protection in this group.

    Any fever after international travel should be taken seriously. Don’t brush it off as something you’ve just picked up on the plane – please see a doctor. A simple test could lead to early diagnosis and might save your life.

    Avoiding being bitten is a good defensive measure.
    Jaromir Chalabala/Shutterstock

    Diarrhoea

    Few travel-related issues are as common – or as unwelcome – as diarrhoea. It’s estimated that up to six in ten travellers will experience at least one episode during or shortly after their trip. For some, it’s an unpleasant disruption mid-holiday; for others, symptoms emerge once they’re back home.

    Traveller’s diarrhoea is typically caused by eating food or drinking water containing certain microbes (bacteria, viruses, parasites) or their toxins. Identifying the more serious culprits early is essential – especially when symptoms go beyond mild discomfort.

    Warning signs to look out for include large volumes of watery diarrhoea, visible blood in the stool or explosive bowel movements. These may suggest a more serious infection, such as giardia, cholera or amoebic dysentery.

    These conditions are more common in regions with poor sanitation and are especially prevalent in parts of the tropics.

    Some infections may require targeted antibiotics or antiparasitic treatment. But regardless of the cause, the biggest immediate risk with any severe diarrhoea is dehydration from copious fluid loss. In serious cases, hospital admission for intravenous fluids may be necessary.

    The key message for returning travellers: if diarrhoea is severe, persistent or accompanied by worrying symptoms, see a doctor. What starts as a nuisance could quickly escalate without the right care.

    And if you have blood in your stool, make sure you seek medical advice.

    Jaundice

    If you’ve returned from a trip with a change in skin tone, it may not just be a suntan. A yellowish tint to the skin – or more noticeably, the whites of the eyes – could be a sign of jaundice, another finding that warrants medical attention.

    Jaundice is not a disease itself, but a visible sign that something may be wrong with either the liver or blood. It results from a buildup of bilirubin, a yellow pigment that forms when red blood cells break down, and which is then processed by the liver.

    Signs of jaundice should be taken very seriously.
    sruilk/Shutterstock.com

    Several travel-related illnesses can cause jaundice. Malaria is one culprit as is the mosquito-borne yellow fever. But another common cause is hepatitis – inflammation of the liver.

    Viral hepatitis comes in several forms. Hepatitis A and E are spread via contaminated food or water – common in areas with poor sanitation. In contrast, hepatitis B and C are blood-borne, transmitted through intravenous drug use, contaminated medical equipment or unprotected sex.

    Besides jaundice, hepatitis can cause a range of symptoms, including fever, nausea, fatigue, vomiting and abdominal discomfort. A diagnosis typically requires blood tests, both to confirm hepatitis and to rule out other causes. While many instances of hepatitis are viral, not all are, and treatment depends on the underlying cause.

    As we’ve seen, a variety of unpleasant medical conditions can affect the unlucky traveller. But we’ve also seen that the associated symptoms are rather non-specific. Indeed, some can be caused by conditions that are short-lived and require only rest and recuperation to get over a rough few days. But the area between them is decidedly grey.

    So plan your trip carefully, be wary of high-risk activities while abroad – such as taking drugs or having unprotected sex – and stay alert to symptoms that develop during or after travel. If you feel unwell, don’t ignore it. Seek medical attention promptly to identify the cause and begin appropriate treatment.

    Dan Baumgardt 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.

    – ref. Just back from holiday and not feeling well? Here are the symptoms you should take seriously – https://theconversation.com/just-back-from-holiday-and-not-feeling-well-here-are-the-symptoms-you-should-take-seriously-260013

    MIL OSI –

  • How 1860s Mexico offered an alternative vision for a liberal international order

    Source: ForeignAffairs4

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Tom Long, Professor of International Relations, Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick

    The Execution of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, June 19, 1867 Edouard ManetWikimedia Commons

    In 1867, the world’s most powerful statesmen, including Austria’s Emperor Franz Josef, France’s Napoleon III and US secretary of state, William H. Seward, petitioned the Mexican government to spare the life of a condemned man.

    Mexico’s ragtag army and militias had just humbled France, then Europe’s preeminent land power. The costly six-year campaign drained the French treasury and eroded Napoleon III’s domestic support. Napoleon’s ambition to transform Mexico into a client empire under a Vienna-born, Habsburg archduke, crowned Maximilian I, ended in spectacular failure.

    After his defeat, Maximilian was brought before a Mexican military tribunal. European monarchs regarded the prisoner as their peer, but Mexican liberals convicted him as a piratical invader, usurper and traitor. Despite indignant appeals from European courts, President Benito Juárez refused to commute his sentence. The would-be emperor was executed by firing squad.

    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.

    The controversy went beyond one monarch’s fate. It crystallised a clash between opposed visions of global order — as Peru’s president Ramón Castilla said at the time, it was a “war of the crowns against liberty caps”.

    Today, world politics are in flux. The so-called liberal international order, nominally grounded in multilateralism, open markets, human rights and the rule of law, is facing its gravest crisis since the second world war. Former advocates such as the United States now openly flout international law and undermine the very norms they once championed. China remains ambivalent, while Russia unabashedly hastens the order’s unravelling.

    More broadly, the old post-second world war order appears out of step with the global south and with widespread anger over double standards exposed by the wars in Ukraine, Gaza and Iran.
    Amid today’s crises, a world order arranged for and by the great powers looks both insufficient and doomed to lack legitimacy. Reordering will require support from diverse actors, including states across the global south.

    1860s: a turbulent decade

    The 1860s were a turbulent, although often overlooked, moment of global reordering. Technological shifts – the telegraph, electricity, steamships and railways – appeared as disruptive then as AI does today. Combined with shifting power dynamics, these transformations accelerated imperial expansion. Yet the rules of the emerging order remained uncertain, even among the imperial powers themselves.

    In Europe, networks of dynastic rule still carried weight in international politics. Under growing pressure, the ancien régime sought to reinvent and reassert itself. The old empires often justified their expansion by promising to bring order and progress to supposedly backward peoples. But that “civilising mission” clashed with a worldview emerging from Spanish America – where countries had thrown off colonial rule to establish independent republics.

    As we wrote in a recent article in American Political Science Review, Spanish American diplomats articulated a republican vision of international order centred on the protection of weaker states from domination by great powers.

    Fending off Europe’s empires

    Divided by civil conflict, Mexico became an easy target for European empires. Mexico’s Liberal party had regained power but faced internal dissent and crippling foreign debt. Britain, France and Spain formed a coalition to invade and demand repayment. France, however, had more ambitious designs.

    Exploiting the distraction of the US civil war, Napoleon III dreamed of transforming Mexico into a Latin stronghold against Yankee expansion. Best of all, Napoleon thought the scheme would turn a profit. A stable Mexican empire could repay the costs of the intervention – with interest – by increasing production from the country’s famed silver mines. Meanwhile, France would gain a receptive market for its exports and a grateful geopolitical subordinate.

    Maximilian, a young Austrian prince of the house of Hapsburg, somewhat naively accepted the offer to rule a distant and unfamiliar land. He dreamed of regenerating Mexico through a liberal monarchy while reviving his family’s declining dynasty.

    Led by Juárez, Mexico’s liberals fiercely resisted Maximilian’s rule. While militarily Juárez was consistently on the defensive, he remained diplomatically proactive. The Juaristas encouraged US sympathies that proved decisive after the end of the civil war. They also enjoyed solidarity – though limited material support – from other Spanish American republics. Although the monarchies of Europe all recognised Maximilian as Mexican emperor, Juárez’s defiance became a rallying point for liberals and republicans in Europe.

    A monument to Juárez in central Mexico City.
    Hero to the liberals: a monument to Juárez in central Mexico City.
    Hajor~commonswiki, CC BY-ND

    Vision of a new order

    Beyond stoking sympathies, Juárez and his followers offered trenchant critiques of unequal international rules and practices cloaked in liberal guise.

    First, the “republican internationalism” of Mexico’s Juaristas stood in direct opposition to European liberals’ “civilising mission”. Latin American republicans rejected the notion that progress could be imposed on their countries from abroad – though some echoed civilising rhetoric toward their own non-white populations, who like in the US were subject to campaigns of violence and dispossession that stretched from northern Mexico to the Patagonia. Many Latin American liberals likewise remained silent about empire elsewhere.

    Second, the Juarista vision placed popular sovereignty, not dynastic ties, at the heart of legitimate statehood. These ideas drew on Mexico’s independence tradition and the principles enshrined in the 1857 constitution. European intervention, in this view, aimed to suppress popular rule in the Americas and extend the reaction against the failed revolutions of 1848, which had seriously threatened the old order when they raged across Europe.

    Third, popular sovereign states were equal under international law, regardless of power, wealth, or internal disorder. Sovereign equality also underpinned Latin America’s strong commitment to non-intervention. Liberal writer and diplomat Francisco Zarco, a close confidante of Juárez, condemned frequent European economic justifications for intervention as the work of “smugglers and profiteers who wrap themselves in the flags of powerful nations”.

    Finally, Mexican liberals called for an international system premised on republican fraternity, drawing on aspirations for cooperation that went back to liberator Simón Bolívar. The independence leader and committed republican convened a conference in 1826, hoping that a confederation of the newly independent Spanish American states would “be the shield of our new destiny”.

    Similar arguments for an international order that advances non-domination still resonate in the global south today. The Mexican experience also underscores that the architects of international order have never come exclusively from the global north – and those who shape its future will not either.

    The Conversation

    Tom Long receives support from UK Arts and Humanities Research Council grant AH/V006622/1, Latin America and the peripheral origins of the 19th-century international order.

    Carsten-Andreas Schulz receives support from UK Arts and Humanities Research Council grant AH/V006622/1, Latin America and the peripheral origins of the 19th-century international order.

    – ref. How 1860s Mexico offered an alternative vision for a liberal international order – https://theconversation.com/how-1860s-mexico-offered-an-alternative-vision-for-a-liberal-international-order-260228

  • Why Jane Austen is definitely not just for girls

    Source: ForeignAffairs4

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Shelley Galpin, Lecturer in Culture, Media and Creative Industries, King’s College London

    In my former life as a teacher, I once had a job interview in which I was asked how I dealt with the problem of teaching Jane Austen to boys.

    Having had experience of this situation, I confidently told my interviewer (a maths teacher) that the “problem” they were assuming didn’t actually exist, and that it was perfectly possible to teach Austen’s novels to mixed-sex classes with successful results. My answer was met by barely veiled scepticism – and suffice to say, I didn’t get the job.

    But where did this popular perception come from? Austen’s genius has been recognised from the earliest days of the development of a canon of English literature, and has never really fallen out of fashion. So it might seem odd that the suitability of her work for a co-educational class is the subject of genuine debate.

    This article is part of a series commemorating the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth. Despite having published only six books, she is one of the best-known authors in history. These articles explore the legacy and life of this incredible writer.

    The increasingly intertwined associations of Austen’s literature with the many (often excellent) adaptations of her work may not help the matter, with screen retellings often foregrounding the love stories and losing much of the ironic tone that characterises Austen’s narrative style.

    The myriad repackaged editions of her novels that adorn bookshelves with pastel-toned floral designs, or images of anonymous portraits of passive young women, also do little to challenge the popular perception of these books as stories for women and girls.

    Finally, and perhaps most troublingly, is the still-commonly held notion that stories with a female protagonist do not have wide-ranging appeal and must be consigned to a “niche interest” bracket. Male-led stories, in contrast, have long been considered to hold universal relevance for audiences.

    This last point is a bigger issue concerning the publishing and entertainment industries, so I will largely park this one. But I will point out that, as others have argued in relation to Austen’s work, the classroom is an excellent place to start countering the assumptions of the “everyman” male experience, in contrast to the “special interest” attitude to female perspectives.

    With regards to the teaching of Austen’s novels, drawing on my experiences both as a scholar and as a teacher, I believe her novels can speak to young readers of different genders and from diverse backgrounds.

    Money, power and inequality

    Addressing the ways in which Austen’s novels tend to be packaged, I asked my students, typically aged 16-18, to explore the ideas at the heart of the novels by redesigning the book covers to better reflect these themes.

    The flowers and passive young women were gone. The redesigned book covers often focused on the idea of wealth, through pictures of differing piles of money, or power, such as the image of imbalanced scales to symbolise the unequal societies inhabited by Austen’s characters.

    Because, as much as they are love stories, Austen’s heroines typically achieve their “happy endings” against a backdrop of money worries, power struggles, familial tension and gendered social hierarchies. While her novels are rightly celebrated for highlighting the unequal treatment of the sexes during her lifetime, it is reductive to see this as their sole contribution to social commentary.

    Take Austen’s last completed novel, Persuasion. Here, Anne Elliot – over the hill at the ripe old age of 27 – begins the novel by rueing her broken engagement to Captain Wentworth, which she had been persuaded to break off eight years earlier due to his lack of fortune.

    While the narrative focus is on Anne, who is left to regret her choice and wonder whether she will ever be able to escape her odious father and siblings, the broken-hearted Wentworth, who reappears in Anne’s life shortly after the start of the novel, is at least as much a victim of the situation as Anne herself.

    At its heart, this is a story of a young woman who allowed herself to be persuaded to make a bad choice, and a young man who, through no fault of his own, was deemed not good enough due to his lack of wealth. The experiences of these characters, although they are older than the average school student, are highly relatable and sympathetic to many teenagers, who may well have experienced meddling family members or unfair judgments of their own.

    Take also Northanger Abbey, in which fanciful Catherine Morland mixes fact and fiction and imagines the titular abbey to be a site of gothic intrigue, only to discover that the real horror derives from a controlling patriarch and his sexually predatory oldest son.

    Here again, the novel cleverly makes the point that social inequalities, and the choices of those motivated by their love of money and power, are the real darkness at the heart of Austen’s society.

    In my experience, students of all genders have been able to appreciate and relate to Northanger Abbey’s depictions of the loss of innocence, class inequality, and the experience of being subject to the sometimes obscure decisions of more powerful individuals.

    Austen’s works, far from being the simple love stories of popular perception, are also razor-sharp satires of social and gendered inequalities. Full of witty observations and universally relatable experiences, there is a reason for the consistent popularity of her writing 250 years after her birth.

    To fail to recognise this in the classroom is to do a disservice to all our students, as well as to Austen herself.

    The Conversation

    Shelley Galpin 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.

    – ref. Why Jane Austen is definitely not just for girls – https://theconversation.com/why-jane-austen-is-definitely-not-just-for-girls-259193

  • Just back from holiday and not feeling well? Here are the symptoms you should take seriously

    Source: ForeignAffairs4

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Dan Baumgardt, Senior Lecturer, School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience, University of Bristol

    What are you bringing back with you? The Picture Studio/Shutterstock

    Summer is synonymous with adventure, with millions flocking to exotic destinations to experience different cultures, cuisines and landscapes. But what happens when the souvenir you bring back isn’t a fridge magnet or a tea towel, but a new illness?

    International travel poses a risk of catching something more than a run-of-the-mill bug, so it’s important to be vigilant for the telltale symptoms. Here are the main ones to look out for while away and when you return.

    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.

    Fever

    Fever is a common symptom to note after international travel – especially to tropical or subtropical regions. While a feature of many different illnesses, it can be the first sign of an infection – sometimes a serious one.

    One of the most well-known travel-related illnesses linked to fever is malaria. Spread by mosquito bites in endemic regions, malaria is a protozoal infection that often begins with flu-like symptoms, such as headache and muscle aches, progressing to severe fever, sweating and shaking chills.

    Other signs can include jaundice (yellowing of the skin or eyes), swollen lymph nodes, rashes and abdominal pain – though symptoms vary widely and can mimic many other illnesses.

    Prompt medical attention is essential. Malaria is serious and can become life threatening. It’s also worth noting that symptoms may not appear until weeks or even months after returning home. In the UK, there are around 2,000 imported malaria cases each year.

    Travellers to at-risk areas are strongly advised to take preventative measures. This includes mosquito-bite avoidance as well as prescribed antimalarial medications, such as Malarone and doxycycline. Although these drugs aren’t 100% effective, they significantly reduce the risk of infection.

    Aside from malaria, other mosquito-borne diseases can cause fever. Dengue fever, a viral infection found in tropical and subtropical regions, leads to symptoms including high temperatures, intense headaches, body aches and rashes, which overlap with both malaria and other common viral illnesses.

    Most people recover with rest, fluids and paracetamol, but in some instances, dengue can become severe and requires emergency hospital treatment. A vaccine is also available – but is only recommended for people who have had dengue before, as it provides good protection in this group.

    Any fever after international travel should be taken seriously. Don’t brush it off as something you’ve just picked up on the plane – please see a doctor. A simple test could lead to early diagnosis and might save your life.

    A man spraying bug-repellant on his forearm.
    Avoiding being bitten is a good defensive measure.
    Jaromir Chalabala/Shutterstock

    Diarrhoea

    Few travel-related issues are as common – or as unwelcome – as diarrhoea. It’s estimated that up to six in ten travellers will experience at least one episode during or shortly after their trip. For some, it’s an unpleasant disruption mid-holiday; for others, symptoms emerge once they’re back home.

    Traveller’s diarrhoea is typically caused by eating food or drinking water containing certain microbes (bacteria, viruses, parasites) or their toxins. Identifying the more serious culprits early is essential – especially when symptoms go beyond mild discomfort.

    Warning signs to look out for include large volumes of watery diarrhoea, visible blood in the stool or explosive bowel movements. These may suggest a more serious infection, such as giardia, cholera or amoebic dysentery.

    These conditions are more common in regions with poor sanitation and are especially prevalent in parts of the tropics.

    Some infections may require targeted antibiotics or antiparasitic treatment. But regardless of the cause, the biggest immediate risk with any severe diarrhoea is dehydration from copious fluid loss. In serious cases, hospital admission for intravenous fluids may be necessary.

    The key message for returning travellers: if diarrhoea is severe, persistent or accompanied by worrying symptoms, see a doctor. What starts as a nuisance could quickly escalate without the right care.

    And if you have blood in your stool, make sure you seek medical advice.

    Jaundice

    If you’ve returned from a trip with a change in skin tone, it may not just be a suntan. A yellowish tint to the skin – or more noticeably, the whites of the eyes – could be a sign of jaundice, another finding that warrants medical attention.

    Jaundice is not a disease itself, but a visible sign that something may be wrong with either the liver or blood. It results from a buildup of bilirubin, a yellow pigment that forms when red blood cells break down, and which is then processed by the liver.

    A person's yellow eye, showing signs of jaundice.
    Signs of jaundice should be taken very seriously.
    sruilk/Shutterstock.com

    Several travel-related illnesses can cause jaundice. Malaria is one culprit as is the mosquito-borne yellow fever. But another common cause is hepatitis – inflammation of the liver.

    Viral hepatitis comes in several forms. Hepatitis A and E are spread via contaminated food or water – common in areas with poor sanitation. In contrast, hepatitis B and C are blood-borne, transmitted through intravenous drug use, contaminated medical equipment or unprotected sex.

    Besides jaundice, hepatitis can cause a range of symptoms, including fever, nausea, fatigue, vomiting and abdominal discomfort. A diagnosis typically requires blood tests, both to confirm hepatitis and to rule out other causes. While many instances of hepatitis are viral, not all are, and treatment depends on the underlying cause.

    As we’ve seen, a variety of unpleasant medical conditions can affect the unlucky traveller. But we’ve also seen that the associated symptoms are rather non-specific. Indeed, some can be caused by conditions that are short-lived and require only rest and recuperation to get over a rough few days. But the area between them is decidedly grey.

    So plan your trip carefully, be wary of high-risk activities while abroad – such as taking drugs or having unprotected sex – and stay alert to symptoms that develop during or after travel. If you feel unwell, don’t ignore it. Seek medical attention promptly to identify the cause and begin appropriate treatment.

    The Conversation

    Dan Baumgardt 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.

    – ref. Just back from holiday and not feeling well? Here are the symptoms you should take seriously – https://theconversation.com/just-back-from-holiday-and-not-feeling-well-here-are-the-symptoms-you-should-take-seriously-260013

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: UK air quality is improving but pollution targets are still being breached – new study

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By James Weber, Lecturer in Atmospheric Radiation, Composition and Climate, University of Reading

    Tony Skerl/Shutterstock

    An estimated 4.2 million deaths can be attributed to poor air quality each year. Poor air quality is the largest fixable environmental public health risk in the world.

    Our new study presents analysis of the UK-wide trends for three major pollutants – nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), ozone (O₃) and tiny particulate matter known as PM₂.₅ – between 2015 and 2024 to calculate how often air quality targets were breached.

    Both nitrogen dioxide and PM₂.₅ showed robust decreases over the period 2015-2024, declining on average by 35% and 30% respectively. In 2015-2016, the average Defra monitoring site exceeded the nitrogen dioxide target on 136 days per year. By 2023-2024, this had dropped to 40 days per year.

    For PM₂.₅, the number of days the average Defra site breached the target went from 40 to 22 days per year. While this is an improvement, the World Health Organization advises that these targets should not be breached on more than four days per year.

    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.

    To examine the sources of pollution, we studied how pollutants were influenced by factors including time of day, day of week, wind direction and origin, location of monitoring station and even interactions between pollutant. Nitrogen dioxide concentrations are highest at monitoring sites located next to busy urban roads, lower at urban background sites (which are located at sites further from traffic such as parks) and much lower in rural sites.

    Profiles over 24-hour periods show strong nitrogen dioxide peaks coinciding with the morning and evening rush hours and clear decreases at weekends. This all points to local traffic emissions being the major source. While PM₂.₅ is also higher in urban than rural locations, it exhibits more muted rush hour peaks and is more consistent between the week and weekend, suggesting traffic plays a smaller role.

    We explored how wind direction and origin influenced nitrogen dioxide and PM₂.₅ by running a weather forecast model backwards for three UK locations: Reading, Sheffield and Glasgow. While nitrogen dioxide showed only a weak correlation with wind origin, PM₂.₅ was much more dependent.

    For example, the probability of PM₂.₅ breaching air quality targets on a given day exceeded 15% only when the air had come from continental Europe and, for Sheffield and Glasgow, passed over much of the UK too.

    NO₂ and PM₂.₅ pollution reduced over the last decade but remains too high while O₃ pollution has worsened.
    James Weber, CC BY

    While nitrogen dioxide and PM₂.₅ showed clear improvements, ozone exhibited a less positive picture. Ozone increased in 115 of the 121 sites considered, growing by 17% on average. A similar trend was observed across much of northern Europe. The average number of days ozone exceeded the World Health Organization target doubled from seven to 14 per year.

    This may seem modest at present, but several factors are conspiring to drive ozone higher. In much of the UK, the relatively high levels of nitrogen dioxide effectively suppress ozone: as a result, ozone is higher in rural rather than urban areas and, as nitrogen dioxide decreases, ozone will increase further.

    Unless, that is, we also target nitrogen dioxide’s partner in crime, volatile organic compounds (VOCs). VOCs are critical to the production of ozone and are emitted from human sources such as traffic and industry, plus certain types of vegetation like oak trees. While emissions of nitrogen dioxide fell by 20% between 2015-2024, human-driven VOC emissions declined by only 1%.

    Ozone also increases in periods of hot weather due to elevated VOC emissions from vegetation and greater mixing of air from higher up in the atmosphere into the layer closest to the surface. Incidents of hot weather are only going to become more frequent in the UK, making it even more critical to crack down on human-driven VOC emissions to limit ozone pollution.

    Up in the air

    In the UK, considerable efforts have been made to improve air quality. Its importance has been enshrined in law for nearly 70 years. An extensive network of air quality monitoring sites is maintained by the UK government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) plus devolved and local authorities.

    Local authorities are required to monitor air quality and develop air quality management areas in places where targets are unlikely to be met. Clean air or low emission zones have been introduced as a result.

    However, air quality policy must be designed to reflect the complex nature of each pollutants’ drivers. Nitrogen dioxide is dominated by local sources, PM₂.₅ by transport from further afield and ozone by a combination of both.

    An air quality monitoring station.
    Chemival/Shutterstock

    Local and national policies that cut traffic emissions by incentivising the replacement of older cars with newer, cleaner vehicles, retrofitting buses and restricting entry of the most polluting vehicles into towns and cities will probably reduce nitrogen dioxide further.

    But, if nitrogen dioxide decreases are not accompanied by reductions to VOC emissions, locally and internationally, ozone will continue to rise, especially with more frequent hot weather.

    By contrast, most PM₂.₅ comes from sources further afield, including industry and agriculture from other parts of the UK and beyond, so reductions hinge on stronger national and global policies that target emissions at source rather than just local efforts.

    Air pollution doesn’t respect borders and while the technologies to facilitate continued improvements exist, they must be deployed in joined-up, international efforts.

    Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?

    Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 45,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.

    James Weber 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.

    – ref. UK air quality is improving but pollution targets are still being breached – new study – https://theconversation.com/uk-air-quality-is-improving-but-pollution-targets-are-still-being-breached-new-study-260961

    MIL OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: UK air quality is improving but pollution targets are still being breached – new study

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By James Weber, Lecturer in Atmospheric Radiation, Composition and Climate, University of Reading

    Tony Skerl/Shutterstock

    An estimated 4.2 million deaths can be attributed to poor air quality each year. Poor air quality is the largest fixable environmental public health risk in the world.

    Our new study presents analysis of the UK-wide trends for three major pollutants – nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), ozone (O₃) and tiny particulate matter known as PM₂.₅ – between 2015 and 2024 to calculate how often air quality targets were breached.

    Both nitrogen dioxide and PM₂.₅ showed robust decreases over the period 2015-2024, declining on average by 35% and 30% respectively. In 2015-2016, the average Defra monitoring site exceeded the nitrogen dioxide target on 136 days per year. By 2023-2024, this had dropped to 40 days per year.

    For PM₂.₅, the number of days the average Defra site breached the target went from 40 to 22 days per year. While this is an improvement, the World Health Organization advises that these targets should not be breached on more than four days per year.

    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.

    To examine the sources of pollution, we studied how pollutants were influenced by factors including time of day, day of week, wind direction and origin, location of monitoring station and even interactions between pollutant. Nitrogen dioxide concentrations are highest at monitoring sites located next to busy urban roads, lower at urban background sites (which are located at sites further from traffic such as parks) and much lower in rural sites.

    Profiles over 24-hour periods show strong nitrogen dioxide peaks coinciding with the morning and evening rush hours and clear decreases at weekends. This all points to local traffic emissions being the major source. While PM₂.₅ is also higher in urban than rural locations, it exhibits more muted rush hour peaks and is more consistent between the week and weekend, suggesting traffic plays a smaller role.

    We explored how wind direction and origin influenced nitrogen dioxide and PM₂.₅ by running a weather forecast model backwards for three UK locations: Reading, Sheffield and Glasgow. While nitrogen dioxide showed only a weak correlation with wind origin, PM₂.₅ was much more dependent.

    For example, the probability of PM₂.₅ breaching air quality targets on a given day exceeded 15% only when the air had come from continental Europe and, for Sheffield and Glasgow, passed over much of the UK too.

    NO₂ and PM₂.₅ pollution reduced over the last decade but remains too high while O₃ pollution has worsened.
    James Weber, CC BY

    While nitrogen dioxide and PM₂.₅ showed clear improvements, ozone exhibited a less positive picture. Ozone increased in 115 of the 121 sites considered, growing by 17% on average. A similar trend was observed across much of northern Europe. The average number of days ozone exceeded the World Health Organization target doubled from seven to 14 per year.

    This may seem modest at present, but several factors are conspiring to drive ozone higher. In much of the UK, the relatively high levels of nitrogen dioxide effectively suppress ozone: as a result, ozone is higher in rural rather than urban areas and, as nitrogen dioxide decreases, ozone will increase further.

    Unless, that is, we also target nitrogen dioxide’s partner in crime, volatile organic compounds (VOCs). VOCs are critical to the production of ozone and are emitted from human sources such as traffic and industry, plus certain types of vegetation like oak trees. While emissions of nitrogen dioxide fell by 20% between 2015-2024, human-driven VOC emissions declined by only 1%.

    Ozone also increases in periods of hot weather due to elevated VOC emissions from vegetation and greater mixing of air from higher up in the atmosphere into the layer closest to the surface. Incidents of hot weather are only going to become more frequent in the UK, making it even more critical to crack down on human-driven VOC emissions to limit ozone pollution.

    Up in the air

    In the UK, considerable efforts have been made to improve air quality. Its importance has been enshrined in law for nearly 70 years. An extensive network of air quality monitoring sites is maintained by the UK government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) plus devolved and local authorities.

    Local authorities are required to monitor air quality and develop air quality management areas in places where targets are unlikely to be met. Clean air or low emission zones have been introduced as a result.

    However, air quality policy must be designed to reflect the complex nature of each pollutants’ drivers. Nitrogen dioxide is dominated by local sources, PM₂.₅ by transport from further afield and ozone by a combination of both.

    An air quality monitoring station.
    Chemival/Shutterstock

    Local and national policies that cut traffic emissions by incentivising the replacement of older cars with newer, cleaner vehicles, retrofitting buses and restricting entry of the most polluting vehicles into towns and cities will probably reduce nitrogen dioxide further.

    But, if nitrogen dioxide decreases are not accompanied by reductions to VOC emissions, locally and internationally, ozone will continue to rise, especially with more frequent hot weather.

    By contrast, most PM₂.₅ comes from sources further afield, including industry and agriculture from other parts of the UK and beyond, so reductions hinge on stronger national and global policies that target emissions at source rather than just local efforts.

    Air pollution doesn’t respect borders and while the technologies to facilitate continued improvements exist, they must be deployed in joined-up, international efforts.

    Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?

    Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 45,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.

    James Weber 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.

    – ref. UK air quality is improving but pollution targets are still being breached – new study – https://theconversation.com/uk-air-quality-is-improving-but-pollution-targets-are-still-being-breached-new-study-260961

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • UK air quality is improving but pollution targets are still being breached – new study

    Source: ForeignAffairs4

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By James Weber, Lecturer in Atmospheric Radiation, Composition and Climate, University of Reading

    Tony Skerl/Shutterstock

    An estimated 4.2 million deaths can be attributed to poor air quality each year. Poor air quality is the largest fixable environmental public health risk in the world.

    Our new study presents analysis of the UK-wide trends for three major pollutants – nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), ozone (O₃) and tiny particulate matter known as PM₂.₅ – between 2015 and 2024 to calculate how often air quality targets were breached.

    Both nitrogen dioxide and PM₂.₅ showed robust decreases over the period 2015-2024, declining on average by 35% and 30% respectively. In 2015-2016, the average Defra monitoring site exceeded the nitrogen dioxide target on 136 days per year. By 2023-2024, this had dropped to 40 days per year.

    For PM₂.₅, the number of days the average Defra site breached the target went from 40 to 22 days per year. While this is an improvement, the World Health Organization advises that these targets should not be breached on more than four days per year.

    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.

    To examine the sources of pollution, we studied how pollutants were influenced by factors including time of day, day of week, wind direction and origin, location of monitoring station and even interactions between pollutant. Nitrogen dioxide concentrations are highest at monitoring sites located next to busy urban roads, lower at urban background sites (which are located at sites further from traffic such as parks) and much lower in rural sites.

    Profiles over 24-hour periods show strong nitrogen dioxide peaks coinciding with the morning and evening rush hours and clear decreases at weekends. This all points to local traffic emissions being the major source. While PM₂.₅ is also higher in urban than rural locations, it exhibits more muted rush hour peaks and is more consistent between the week and weekend, suggesting traffic plays a smaller role.

    We explored how wind direction and origin influenced nitrogen dioxide and PM₂.₅ by running a weather forecast model backwards for three UK locations: Reading, Sheffield and Glasgow. While nitrogen dioxide showed only a weak correlation with wind origin, PM₂.₅ was much more dependent.

    For example, the probability of PM₂.₅ breaching air quality targets on a given day exceeded 15% only when the air had come from continental Europe and, for Sheffield and Glasgow, passed over much of the UK too.

    NO₂ and PM₂.₅ pollution reduced over the last decade but remains too high while O₃ pollution has worsened.
    James Weber, CC BY

    While nitrogen dioxide and PM₂.₅ showed clear improvements, ozone exhibited a less positive picture. Ozone increased in 115 of the 121 sites considered, growing by 17% on average. A similar trend was observed across much of northern Europe. The average number of days ozone exceeded the World Health Organization target doubled from seven to 14 per year.

    This may seem modest at present, but several factors are conspiring to drive ozone higher. In much of the UK, the relatively high levels of nitrogen dioxide effectively suppress ozone: as a result, ozone is higher in rural rather than urban areas and, as nitrogen dioxide decreases, ozone will increase further.

    Unless, that is, we also target nitrogen dioxide’s partner in crime, volatile organic compounds (VOCs). VOCs are critical to the production of ozone and are emitted from human sources such as traffic and industry, plus certain types of vegetation like oak trees. While emissions of nitrogen dioxide fell by 20% between 2015-2024, human-driven VOC emissions declined by only 1%.

    Ozone also increases in periods of hot weather due to elevated VOC emissions from vegetation and greater mixing of air from higher up in the atmosphere into the layer closest to the surface. Incidents of hot weather are only going to become more frequent in the UK, making it even more critical to crack down on human-driven VOC emissions to limit ozone pollution.

    Up in the air

    In the UK, considerable efforts have been made to improve air quality. Its importance has been enshrined in law for nearly 70 years. An extensive network of air quality monitoring sites is maintained by the UK government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) plus devolved and local authorities.

    Local authorities are required to monitor air quality and develop air quality management areas in places where targets are unlikely to be met. Clean air or low emission zones have been introduced as a result.

    However, air quality policy must be designed to reflect the complex nature of each pollutants’ drivers. Nitrogen dioxide is dominated by local sources, PM₂.₅ by transport from further afield and ozone by a combination of both.

    big air quality measuring equipment unit , grass in background, white sky
    An air quality monitoring station.
    Chemival/Shutterstock

    Local and national policies that cut traffic emissions by incentivising the replacement of older cars with newer, cleaner vehicles, retrofitting buses and restricting entry of the most polluting vehicles into towns and cities will probably reduce nitrogen dioxide further.

    But, if nitrogen dioxide decreases are not accompanied by reductions to VOC emissions, locally and internationally, ozone will continue to rise, especially with more frequent hot weather.

    By contrast, most PM₂.₅ comes from sources further afield, including industry and agriculture from other parts of the UK and beyond, so reductions hinge on stronger national and global policies that target emissions at source rather than just local efforts.

    Air pollution doesn’t respect borders and while the technologies to facilitate continued improvements exist, they must be deployed in joined-up, international efforts.

    Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?

    Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 45,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.

    The Conversation

    James Weber 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.

    – ref. UK air quality is improving but pollution targets are still being breached – new study – https://theconversation.com/uk-air-quality-is-improving-but-pollution-targets-are-still-being-breached-new-study-260961

  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Don’t blame toxic masculinity for online misogyny – the manosphere is hurting men too

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Kate Cantrell, Senior Lecturer – Writing, Editing, and Publishing, University of Southern Queensland

    “Imagine her tenderly pressing her soft lips against yours”, writes one incel on Reddit, before concluding, “you will never get to experience this because your skeleton is too small or the bones in your face are not the right shape”.

    In his debut book, The Male Complaint, Simon Copland escorts his readers through the manosphere and into the minds of its inhabitants. He illustrates how boys and men who are “terrifyingly normal” become attracted to the manosphere’s grim logic – and the cognitive distortions of anti-feminist influencers like Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson.

    While mainstream debates often cite toxic masculinity as the cause of online misogyny, Copland, a writer and researcher at the Australian National University, shifts the blame to a deeper cultural malaise. It’s caused, he argues, by the cruel optimism of the manosphere, the multiple social and economic crises of late-stage capitalism and a collective nihilistic misery in which complaint becomes futile and destruction “the only way out”.

    Review: The Male Complaint – Simon Copland (Polity)

    The manosphere is a network of loosely related blogs and forums devoted to “men’s interests” – sites like The Rational Male, Game Global and the subreddits ForeverAlone, TheRedPill and MensRights. These online communities, separate in their specific beliefs, are united by their misogynistic ideas – and anti-women and anti-diversity sentiments.

    They’re also united by the growing tendency of the men in these communities towards nihilistic violence: not only against others, but also against themselves.

    In The Male Complaint, Copland relays his dismay at discovering “a constant stream” of suicide notes on Reddit, including a subreddit, IncelGraveyard, which catalogues close to 100 suicide notes and letters posted by self-identified incels.

    Since I was a kid I was fed up with ‘Don’t worry, it will get better’, ‘You will find someone’ […] it’s not even that I want a SO (significant other) anymore. Women are awful. People are awful. I have no friends.

    For Copland, the violence incels inflict on themselves is a form of passive nihilism. Incels “don’t just express disgust and despair at the world, but in themselves – their looks, body, lives, personality, intelligence, and more”.

    Who’s in the manosphere?

    The manosphere includes men’s rights activists, pick-up artists and “Men Going Their Own Way” (male separatists who avoid contact with women altogether). And of course, incels: men who believe they are unable to find a romantic or sexual partner due to their perceived genetic inferiority and oppression.

    Incels also blame their problems on women’s alleged hypergamy: the theory women seek out partners of higher social or economic status and therefore marry “up”. Put another way, hypergamy, a concept rooted in evolutionary psychology, is the belief “women are hard-wired to be gold diggers”.

    Rollo Tomassi, the so-called “godfather of the manosphere”, complains on his blog that “women love opportunistically”, while “men believe that love matters for the sake of it”.

    According to Tomassi, the “cruel reality” of modern dating is that men are romantics who are “forced to be realists”, while women are realists whose use “romanticisms to effect their imperatives”. Tomassi complains:

    Our girlfriends, our wives, daughters and even our mothers are all incapable of idealized love […] By order of degrees, hypergamy will define who a woman loves and who she will not, depending upon her own opportunities and capacity to attract it.

    Ten years ago, these communities were largely regarded as fringe groups. Today, their ideology has infiltrated the mainstream.

    On Sunday, ABC TV’s Compass reported that misogyny is on the rise in Australian classrooms, with female teachers sharing their experiences of sexual assault and harassment on school grounds – ranging from boys writing stories about gang raping their teachers to masturbating “over them” in the bathrooms. One student even pretended to stab his pregnant teacher as a “joke”.

    A 2025 report published by UN Women shows 53% of women have experienced some form of technology-facilitated, gender-based violence. The dark side of digitalisation disproportionately affects young women aged between 18 and 24, LGBTQI+ women, women who are divorced or who live in the city, and women who participate in online gaming.

    ‘Biologically bad’?

    Copland argues that simplified critiques of toxic masculinity minimise the problem of male violence. They fail to consider the context and history of gendered behaviour, assuming toxic traits are somehow innate and unique to men, rather than the product of social expectations and relations.

    This, in turn, promotes the idea that male violence derives from something “biologically bad” in the nature of masculinity itself. As Copland explains, “this is embedded in the term ‘toxic’, which makes it sound like men’s bodies have become diseased or infected”.

    Blaming toxic masculinity for digital misogyny also embraces a form of smug politics in which disaffected men are dismissed as degenerates who are fundamentally different to “us” (meaning the activist left and leftist elites). They are “cellar dwellers”, “subhuman freaks”, or “virgin losers” who need to be either enlightened or locked up. “We”, on the other hand, are educated, progressive, superior.

    This kind of rhetoric, as Copland explains, is unhelpful. It does not create the conditions for changing the opinions, narratives and futures of manosphere men because it does not allow people to understand their complaints and where those concerns come from – even if we do not agree with them.

    Belittling attitudes and demeaning discourses alienate men who already feel socially isolated. This pushes those men further to the fringes – into the hands of “manfluencers” who claim to understand.

    ‘Not having love becomes everything’

    The manosphere, Copland observes, is not “an aberration that is different and distinct from the rest of the world”, nor is it a community that exists solely on the “dark corners of the web”.


    Rather, the manosphere, as an echo chamber, enables and encourages what Copland calls “the male complaint”: a sense of collective pain or “injury” so intrinsic to the group’s identity, it cannot be redressed.

    As injured subjects who believe their problems are caused through no fault of their own, manosphere men cannot mend the “wound” they believe society has inflicted upon them. Their “marginalisation” and injured status are the lens through which they view themselves and the world.

    In the Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW) community, for example, some men talk about the movement as a hospital where “physicians of the male soul” use different “methods of healing” to treat the “illness of gynocentric-induced disease weighing them down”. These methods include “self-improvement” strategies that are designed to build men’s power and wealth: purchasing gym equipment, investing in the stock market, even abstaining from pornography and sex.

    Others in the MGTOW community are vocally anti-victim: “You can live an extraordinary life,” one man says to another, “but you’re wasting your time on complaints and negativity”.

    Even when they disagree, though, manosphere men frame women and feminism as the enemy. In this way, the machinery of the manosphere capitalises on men’s discontent, reflects that messaging back to them and displaces their anger and hurt onto an easy scapegoat.

    As Copland observes, it is easier for men to blame women for their unhappiness than it is to blame the complex systems of capitalism: “if love and sex is everything, then not having love becomes everything as well”.

    Blackpilled incels, lookism and anonymity

    This preoccupation with intimacy is central to the incel community. It is exemplified by the various artefacts Copland embeds in his book – memes and posts from the manosphere itself.

    Blackpilled incels are a subgroup of incels who believe their access to romantic and sexual relationships is doomed because of “lookism”: the belief women choose sexual partners based solely on their physical features.

    Blackpilled ideology attributes romantic failure to genetically unalterable aspects of the human body, such as one’s height or skull shape. Some blackpilled incels, who call themselves wristcels, even blame their lack of sexual success on the width of their wrists.

    This logic is countered by research that demonstrates men, in fact, show stronger preferences for physical attractiveness than women, with women tending to prioritise education level and earning potential.

    On Reddit, incels often imagine and bitterly dismiss the potential for love and intimacy because of their looks.
    Ohsineon/Pexels

    The manosphere, however, amplifies this type of thinking and filters out information that challenges these ideas and opinions, increasing group polarisation. Despite its promise of solidarity, the manosphere isolates boys and men, and ultimately distances them from their wider community. This segregation results in a deep sense of alienation – these boys and men become stuck in a perpetual cycle of ideological reinforcement.

    The manosphere thrives on anonymity, writes Copland, which only reinforces the idea it is not designed to foster deep relationships or connections.

    No silver bullets

    The sense of community the manosphere claims to offer is a sham; its alienating structures do not offer boys and men genuine belonging and connection, or real solutions to their problems.

    “From one day to the next, the ability to communicate depends on the whims of hidden engineers,” writes media studies professor Mark Andrejevic of online networks more broadly. The manosphere, like other virtual constructs, is subject to manipulation by those who control the infrastructure and the rules of engagement.

    More than this, the manosphere does not provide an alternative to complaint. When complaint is the only option, writes Copland, nihilism and violence are the inevitable result.

    When nothing matters, there are no consequences to anything, including violence […] Manosphere men do not look to convince others, but rather seek their destruction. Destruction is the outlet they find to deal with their complaint.

    That’s what makes the manosphere so dangerous.

    ‘Popular boys must be punished’

    In 2014, 22-year-old Elliot Rodger, a British-American college student, embarked on an hours-long stabbing and shooting spree in the university town of Isla Vista, California, killing six and injuring 14. On the morning of May 23 – the “Day of Retribution” – Rodger emailed a 140-page “manifesto” to his family, friends and therapists. He also uploaded several YouTube videos in which he lamented his inability to find a girlfriend, the “hedonistic pleasures” of his peers and his painful existence of “loneliness, rejection, and unfilled desires”.

    In his memoir-manifesto, Rodger – the supposed “patron saint of inceldom” – explains the motive for his violence:

    I had nothing left to live for but revenge. Women must be punished for their crimes of rejecting such a magnificent gentleman as myself. All of those popular boys must be punished for enjoying heavenly lives and having sex with all the girls while I had to suffer in lonely virginity.

    Four years later, in April 2018, Alek Minassian, a self-described incel, drove a rented van onto a busy sidewalk in Toronto, killing 11 (nine of them women) and injuring many more. On Facebook, Minassian explained that his actions were part of the “incel rebellion” led by the “Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger”. Later, Minassian told police, “I feel like I accomplished my mission”.

    Rodger, too, ended his final YouTube video with a similar message: “If I can’t have you girls, I will destroy you”.

    In his book, Copland even draws a parallel between the Westfield Bondi Junction attack and the explanation for attacker Joel Cauchi’s violence, put forward by his father just two days after the attack: “To you, he is a monster. To me, he was a very sick boy […] he wanted a girlfriend and he’s got no social skills and he was frustrated out of his brain”.

    In fact, Cauchi suffered from treatment-resistant schizophrenia and had been unmedicated at the time of the attack: “after almost two decades of treatment, Cauchi had no regular psychiatrist, was not on any medications to treat his schizophrenia and had no family living nearby”. The multifaceted causes of Cauchi’s crime are more complex than misogynistic violence.

    Indeed, the pieces of the manosphere puzzle, when put together, reveal a sobering image of the male complaint. However, they demonstrate misogyny is bad for everyone – not just women and girls.

    As Copland concludes:

    The manosphere promises men that it can make their lives better […] But it really cannot deliver. The promises it offers are not real, and in many cases make things worse […] This is how cruel optimism works, always offering, but never delivering.

    ‘It’s the combinations’

    Recent evidence suggests there is no single route to radicalisation, and no single cause of violent extremism. Rather, complex interactions between push, pull, and personal factors are the root causes of male violence.

    The Netflix sensation Adolescence – the harrowing story of a 13-year-old boy who is arrested and charged with murder – is powered by a single question: why did Jamie kill Katie?

    In attempting to answer this question, critics and fans have offered a range of explanations: bullying, low self-esteem, emotional dysregulation, obsession with love and sex, deprivation of love and sex, the manosphere. The real answer is less obvious and infinitely more complex. It can be found in a simple line of dialogue, spoken at the end of the series by Jamie’s sister.

    “It’s the combinations,” Lisa says. “Combinations are everything.”

    In this moment, Lisa is justifying her outfit to her parents as they await Jamie’s trial. But subtextually, her statement doubles as the most likely explanation for his actions. And it’s the closest explanation for why some boys and men commit extreme acts of violence: the combinations.

    If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

    Kate Cantrell 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.

    – ref. Don’t blame toxic masculinity for online misogyny – the manosphere is hurting men too – https://theconversation.com/dont-blame-toxic-masculinity-for-online-misogyny-the-manosphere-is-hurting-men-too-254802

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: Many fish are social, but pesticides are pushing them apart

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Kyle Morrison, PhD Candidate in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, UNSW Sydney

    Kazakov Maksim, Shutterstock

    Scientists have detected pesticides in rivers, lakes and oceans worldwide. So what are these pesticides doing to the fish?

    Long before pesticides reach lethal doses, they can disrupt hormones, impair brain function and change fish behaviour. Many of these behaviours are essential for healthy ecosystems.

    In a new study, my colleagues and I found that pesticides affect many different behaviours in fish. Overall, the chemical pesticides make fish less sociable and interactive. They spend less time gathering in groups, become less protective of their territory, and make fewer attempts to mate.

    Imagine the ocean without the vibrant schools of fish we’ve come to love – only isolated swimmers drifting about. Quietly, ecosystems begin to unravel, long before mass die-offs hit the news.

    Healthy reef ecosystems feature fish swimming together and socialising.
    Mike Workman, Shutterstock

    Fish are living and dying in polluted water

    Australia is a major producer and user of pesticides, with more than 11,000 approved chemical products routinely used in agricultural and domestic settings. Remarkably, some of these chemicals remain approved in Australia despite being banned in other regions such as the European Union due to safety concerns.

    When a tractor or plane sprays pesticides onto crops, it creates a mist of chemicals in the air to kill crop pests. After heavy rain, these chemicals can flow into roadside drains, filter through soil, and slowly move into rivers, lakes and oceans.

    Fish swim in this diluted chemical mixture. They can absorb pesticides through their gills or eat contaminated prey.

    At high concentrations, mass fish deaths can result, such as those repeatedly observed in the Menindee Lakes. However, doses in the wild often aren’t lethal and more subtle effects can occur. Scientists call these “sub-lethal” effects.

    One commonly investigated sub-lethal effect is a change in behaviour – in other words, a change in the way a fish interacts with its surrounding environment.

    Our previous research has found most experiments have looked at the impacts on fish in isolation, measuring things such as how far or how fast they swim when pesticides are present.

    But fish aren’t solitary — they form groups, defend territory and find mates. These behaviours keep aquatic ecosystems stable. So this time we studied how pesticides affect these crucial social behaviours.

    Pesticide exposure makes fish less social

    Our study extracted and analysed data from 37 experiments conducted around the world. Together, these tested the impacts of 31 different pesticides on the social behaviour of 11 different fish species.

    The evidence suggests pesticides make fish less social, and this finding is consistent across species. Courtship was the most severely impacted behaviour – the process fish use to find and attract mates. This is particularly alarming because successful courtship is essential for healthy fish populations and ecosystem stability.

    Next, we found pesticides such as the herbicide glyphosate, which can disrupt brain function and hormone levels had the strongest impacts on fish social behaviours. This raises important questions about how brain function and hormones drive fish social behaviour, which could be tested by scientists in the future.

    For example, scientists could test how much a change in testosterone relates to a change in territory defence. Looking at these relationships between what’s going on inside the body mechanisms and outward behaviour will help us better understand the complex impacts of pesticides.

    We also identified gaps in the current studies. Most existing studies focus on a limited number of easy-to-study “model species” such as zebrafish, medaka and guppies. They also often use pesticide dosages and durations that may not reflect real-world realities.

    Addressing these gaps by including a range of species and environmentally relevant dosages is crucial to understanding how pesticides affect fish in the wild.

    One of the experiments in our study involved convict surgeonfish, which gather in large groups or ‘shoals’.
    Damsea, Shutterstock

    Behaviour is a blind spot in regulation

    Regulatory authorities should begin to recognise behaviour as a reliable and important indicator of pesticide safety. This can help them catch pesticide pollution early, before mass deaths occur.

    Scientists play a crucial role too. By following the same methods, scientists can produce comparable results. A standardised method then provides regulators the evidence needed to confidently assess pesticide risks.

    Together, regulatory authorities and scientists can find a way to use behavioural studies to help inform policy decisions. This will help to prevent mass deaths and catch pesticide impacts early on.

    Leave no stone unturned in restoring our waters

    Rivers, lakes, oceans and reefs are bearing the brunt of an ever-growing human footprint.

    So far, much of the spotlight has focused on reducing carbon emissions and managing overfishing — and rightly so. But there’s another, quieter threat drifting beneath the surface: the chemicals we use.

    Pesticides used on farms and in gardens are being detected everywhere, even iconic ecosystems such as the Great Barrier Reef. As we have shown, these pesticides can have disturbing effects even at low concentrations.

    Now is the time to cut pesticide use and reduce runoff. Through switching to less toxic chemicals and introducing better regulations, we can reduce the damage. If we act with urgency, we can limit the impacts pesticides have on our planet.

    Kyle Morrison 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.

    – ref. Many fish are social, but pesticides are pushing them apart – https://theconversation.com/many-fish-are-social-but-pesticides-are-pushing-them-apart-256230

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  • MIL-OSI Submissions: UNESCO grants World Heritage status to Khmer Rouge atrocity sites – paving the way for other sites of conflict

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Rachel Hughes, Associate Professor of Geography, The University of Melbourne

    A series of atrocity sites of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia have been formally entered onto the World Heritage list, as part of the 47th session of the World Heritage Committee.

    This is not only important for Cambodia, but also raises important questions for atrocity sites in Australia.

    Before this, the World Heritage list only recognised seven “sites of memory” associated with recent conflicts, which UNESCO defines as “events having occurred from the turn of the 20th century” under its criterion vi. These sat within a broader list of more than 950 cultural sites.

    In recent years, experts have intensely debated the question of whether a site associated with recent conflict could, or should, be nominated and evaluated for World Heritage status. Some argue such listings would contradict the objectives of UNESCO and its spirit of peace, which was part of the specialised agency’s mandate after the destruction of two world wars.

    Sites associated with recent conflicts can be divisive. For instance, when Japan nominated the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, both China and the United States objected and eventually disassociated from the decision. The US argued the nomination lacked “historical perspective” on the events that led to the bomb’s use. Meanwhile, China argued listing the property would not be conducive for peace as other Asian countries and peoples had suffered at the hands of the Japanese during WWII.

    Heritage inscriptions risk reinforcing societal divisions if they conserve a particular memory in a one-sided way.

    Nonetheless, the World Heritage Committee decided in 2023 to no longer preclude such sites for inscription. This was done partly in recognition of how these sites may “serve the peace-building mission of UNESCO”.

    Shortly after, three listing were added: the ESMA Museum and Site of Memory, a former clandestine centre for detention, torture and extermination in Argentina; memorial sites of the Rwandan genocide at Nyamata, Murambi, Gisozi and Bisesero; and funerary and memory sites of the first world war in Belgium and France.

    A number of legacy sites associated with Nelson Mandela’s human rights struggle in South Africa were also added last year.

    Atrocities of the Khmer Rouge

    The recently inscribed Cambodian Memorial Sites include prisons S-21 (now known as Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum) and M-13, as well as the execution site Choeung Ek.

    These sites were nominated for their value in showing the development of extreme mass violence in relation to the security system of the Khmer Rouge in 1975–79. They also have value as places of memorialisation, peace and learning.

    The Khmer Rouge developed its methods of disappearance, incarceration and torture of suspected “enemies” during the civil conflict of 1970–75. It established a system of local-level security centres in so-called “liberated” areas.

    One of these centres was known as M-13, a small, well-hidden prison in the country’s rural southwest. A man named Kaing Guek Eav – also called Duch – was responsible for prisoners at M-13.

    Shortly after the entire country fell to the Khmer Rouge in April 1975, Duch was assigned to lead the headquarters of the regime’s security system: a large detention and torture centre known as S-21.

    Under his instruction, tens of thousands of people were detained in inhumane conditions, tortured and interrogated. Many detainees were later taken to the outskirts of the city to be brutally killed and buried in pits at a place called Choeung Ek.

    The sites operated until early 1979, when the Khmer Rouge was forced from power.

    The S-21 facility and the mass graves at Choeung Ek have long been memorialised as the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and the Choeung Ek Genocidal Centre.

    However, the former M-13 site shows few visual clues to its prior use, and has only recently been investigated by an international team led by Cambodian archaeologist and museum director Hang Nisay. The site is on an island in a small river that forms the boundary between the Kampong Chhnang and Kampong Speu provinces.

    Further research, site protection and memorialisation activities will now be supported, with help from locals.

    From repression to reflection

    The Cambodian memorial sites have been recognised as holding “outstanding universal value” for the way they evidence one of the 20th century’s worst atrocities, and are now places of memory.

    In its nomination dossier for these sites, Cambodia drew on findings from the Khmer Rouge Tribunal to verify and link the conflict and the sites.

    In 2010, the tribunal found Duch guilty of crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions. Duch was sentenced to 30 years in prison (which eventually turned into life imprisonment). He died in 2020.

    While courts such as the International Criminal Court have previously examined the destruction of heritage as an international crime, drawing on legal findings to assert heritage status is an unusual inverse. It raises important questions about the legacies of former UN-supported tribunals and the ongoing implications of their findings.

    The recent listings also raise questions for Australia, which has many sites of documented mass killing associated with colonisation and the frontier wars that lasted into the 20th century.

    Might Australia nominate any of these atrocity sites in the future? And could other processes such as truth-telling, reparation and redress support (or be supported by) such nominations?

    Rachel Hughes has consulted to UNESCO Cambodia.

    Maria Elander 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.

    – ref. UNESCO grants World Heritage status to Khmer Rouge atrocity sites – paving the way for other sites of conflict – https://theconversation.com/unesco-grants-world-heritage-status-to-khmer-rouge-atrocity-sites-paving-the-way-for-other-sites-of-conflict-260923

    MIL OSI –

  • Don’t blame toxic masculinity for online misogyny – the manosphere is hurting men too

    Source: ForeignAffairs4

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Kate Cantrell, Senior Lecturer – Writing, Editing, and Publishing, University of Southern Queensland

    “Imagine her tenderly pressing her soft lips against yours”, writes one incel on Reddit, before concluding, “you will never get to experience this because your skeleton is too small or the bones in your face are not the right shape”.

    In his debut book, The Male Complaint, Simon Copland escorts his readers through the manosphere and into the minds of its inhabitants. He illustrates how boys and men who are “terrifyingly normal” become attracted to the manosphere’s grim logic – and the cognitive distortions of anti-feminist influencers like Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson.

    While mainstream debates often cite toxic masculinity as the cause of online misogyny, Copland, a writer and researcher at the Australian National University, shifts the blame to a deeper cultural malaise. It’s caused, he argues, by the cruel optimism of the manosphere, the multiple social and economic crises of late-stage capitalism and a collective nihilistic misery in which complaint becomes futile and destruction “the only way out”.

    Review: The Male Complaint – Simon Copland (Polity)

    The manosphere is a network of loosely related blogs and forums devoted to “men’s interests” – sites like The Rational Male, Game Global and the subreddits ForeverAlone, TheRedPill and MensRights. These online communities, separate in their specific beliefs, are united by their misogynistic ideas – and anti-women and anti-diversity sentiments.

    They’re also united by the growing tendency of the men in these communities towards nihilistic violence: not only against others, but also against themselves.

    In The Male Complaint, Copland relays his dismay at discovering “a constant stream” of suicide notes on Reddit, including a subreddit, IncelGraveyard, which catalogues close to 100 suicide notes and letters posted by self-identified incels.

    Since I was a kid I was fed up with ‘Don’t worry, it will get better’, ‘You will find someone’ […] it’s not even that I want a SO (significant other) anymore. Women are awful. People are awful. I have no friends.

    For Copland, the violence incels inflict on themselves is a form of passive nihilism. Incels “don’t just express disgust and despair at the world, but in themselves – their looks, body, lives, personality, intelligence, and more”.

    Who’s in the manosphere?

    The manosphere includes men’s rights activists, pick-up artists and “Men Going Their Own Way” (male separatists who avoid contact with women altogether). And of course, incels: men who believe they are unable to find a romantic or sexual partner due to their perceived genetic inferiority and oppression.

    Incels also blame their problems on women’s alleged hypergamy: the theory women seek out partners of higher social or economic status and therefore marry “up”. Put another way, hypergamy, a concept rooted in evolutionary psychology, is the belief “women are hard-wired to be gold diggers”.

    Rollo Tomassi, the so-called “godfather of the manosphere”, complains on his blog that “women love opportunistically”, while “men believe that love matters for the sake of it”.

    According to Tomassi, the “cruel reality” of modern dating is that men are romantics who are “forced to be realists”, while women are realists whose use “romanticisms to effect their imperatives”. Tomassi complains:

    Our girlfriends, our wives, daughters and even our mothers are all incapable of idealized love […] By order of degrees, hypergamy will define who a woman loves and who she will not, depending upon her own opportunities and capacity to attract it.

    Ten years ago, these communities were largely regarded as fringe groups. Today, their ideology has infiltrated the mainstream.

    On Sunday, ABC TV’s Compass reported that misogyny is on the rise in Australian classrooms, with female teachers sharing their experiences of sexual assault and harassment on school grounds – ranging from boys writing stories about gang raping their teachers to masturbating “over them” in the bathrooms. One student even pretended to stab his pregnant teacher as a “joke”.

    A 2025 report published by UN Women shows 53% of women have experienced some form of technology-facilitated, gender-based violence. The dark side of digitalisation disproportionately affects young women aged between 18 and 24, LGBTQI+ women, women who are divorced or who live in the city, and women who participate in online gaming.

    ‘Biologically bad’?

    Copland argues that simplified critiques of toxic masculinity minimise the problem of male violence. They fail to consider the context and history of gendered behaviour, assuming toxic traits are somehow innate and unique to men, rather than the product of social expectations and relations.

    This, in turn, promotes the idea that male violence derives from something “biologically bad” in the nature of masculinity itself. As Copland explains, “this is embedded in the term ‘toxic’, which makes it sound like men’s bodies have become diseased or infected”.

    Blaming toxic masculinity for digital misogyny also embraces a form of smug politics in which disaffected men are dismissed as degenerates who are fundamentally different to “us” (meaning the activist left and leftist elites). They are “cellar dwellers”, “subhuman freaks”, or “virgin losers” who need to be either enlightened or locked up. “We”, on the other hand, are educated, progressive, superior.

    This kind of rhetoric, as Copland explains, is unhelpful. It does not create the conditions for changing the opinions, narratives and futures of manosphere men because it does not allow people to understand their complaints and where those concerns come from – even if we do not agree with them.

    Belittling attitudes and demeaning discourses alienate men who already feel socially isolated. This pushes those men further to the fringes – into the hands of “manfluencers” who claim to understand.

    ‘Not having love becomes everything’

    The manosphere, Copland observes, is not “an aberration that is different and distinct from the rest of the world”, nor is it a community that exists solely on the “dark corners of the web”.


    Rather, the manosphere, as an echo chamber, enables and encourages what Copland calls “the male complaint”: a sense of collective pain or “injury” so intrinsic to the group’s identity, it cannot be redressed.

    As injured subjects who believe their problems are caused through no fault of their own, manosphere men cannot mend the “wound” they believe society has inflicted upon them. Their “marginalisation” and injured status are the lens through which they view themselves and the world.

    In the Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW) community, for example, some men talk about the movement as a hospital where “physicians of the male soul” use different “methods of healing” to treat the “illness of gynocentric-induced disease weighing them down”. These methods include “self-improvement” strategies that are designed to build men’s power and wealth: purchasing gym equipment, investing in the stock market, even abstaining from pornography and sex.

    Others in the MGTOW community are vocally anti-victim: “You can live an extraordinary life,” one man says to another, “but you’re wasting your time on complaints and negativity”.

    Even when they disagree, though, manosphere men frame women and feminism as the enemy. In this way, the machinery of the manosphere capitalises on men’s discontent, reflects that messaging back to them and displaces their anger and hurt onto an easy scapegoat.

    As Copland observes, it is easier for men to blame women for their unhappiness than it is to blame the complex systems of capitalism: “if love and sex is everything, then not having love becomes everything as well”.

    Blackpilled incels, lookism and anonymity

    This preoccupation with intimacy is central to the incel community. It is exemplified by the various artefacts Copland embeds in his book – memes and posts from the manosphere itself.

    Blackpilled incels are a subgroup of incels who believe their access to romantic and sexual relationships is doomed because of “lookism”: the belief women choose sexual partners based solely on their physical features.

    Blackpilled ideology attributes romantic failure to genetically unalterable aspects of the human body, such as one’s height or skull shape. Some blackpilled incels, who call themselves wristcels, even blame their lack of sexual success on the width of their wrists.

    This logic is countered by research that demonstrates men, in fact, show stronger preferences for physical attractiveness than women, with women tending to prioritise education level and earning potential.

    On Reddit, incels often imagine and bitterly dismiss the potential for love and intimacy because of their looks.
    Ohsineon/Pexels

    The manosphere, however, amplifies this type of thinking and filters out information that challenges these ideas and opinions, increasing group polarisation. Despite its promise of solidarity, the manosphere isolates boys and men, and ultimately distances them from their wider community. This segregation results in a deep sense of alienation – these boys and men become stuck in a perpetual cycle of ideological reinforcement.

    The manosphere thrives on anonymity, writes Copland, which only reinforces the idea it is not designed to foster deep relationships or connections.

    No silver bullets

    The sense of community the manosphere claims to offer is a sham; its alienating structures do not offer boys and men genuine belonging and connection, or real solutions to their problems.

    “From one day to the next, the ability to communicate depends on the whims of hidden engineers,” writes media studies professor Mark Andrejevic of online networks more broadly. The manosphere, like other virtual constructs, is subject to manipulation by those who control the infrastructure and the rules of engagement.

    More than this, the manosphere does not provide an alternative to complaint. When complaint is the only option, writes Copland, nihilism and violence are the inevitable result.

    When nothing matters, there are no consequences to anything, including violence […] Manosphere men do not look to convince others, but rather seek their destruction. Destruction is the outlet they find to deal with their complaint.

    That’s what makes the manosphere so dangerous.

    ‘Popular boys must be punished’

    In 2014, 22-year-old Elliot Rodger, a British-American college student, embarked on an hours-long stabbing and shooting spree in the university town of Isla Vista, California, killing six and injuring 14. On the morning of May 23 – the “Day of Retribution” – Rodger emailed a 140-page “manifesto” to his family, friends and therapists. He also uploaded several YouTube videos in which he lamented his inability to find a girlfriend, the “hedonistic pleasures” of his peers and his painful existence of “loneliness, rejection, and unfilled desires”.

    In his memoir-manifesto, Rodger – the supposed “patron saint of inceldom” – explains the motive for his violence:

    I had nothing left to live for but revenge. Women must be punished for their crimes of rejecting such a magnificent gentleman as myself. All of those popular boys must be punished for enjoying heavenly lives and having sex with all the girls while I had to suffer in lonely virginity.

    Four years later, in April 2018, Alek Minassian, a self-described incel, drove a rented van onto a busy sidewalk in Toronto, killing 11 (nine of them women) and injuring many more. On Facebook, Minassian explained that his actions were part of the “incel rebellion” led by the “Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger”. Later, Minassian told police, “I feel like I accomplished my mission”.

    Rodger, too, ended his final YouTube video with a similar message: “If I can’t have you girls, I will destroy you”.

    In his book, Copland even draws a parallel between the Westfield Bondi Junction attack and the explanation for attacker Joel Cauchi’s violence, put forward by his father just two days after the attack: “To you, he is a monster. To me, he was a very sick boy […] he wanted a girlfriend and he’s got no social skills and he was frustrated out of his brain”.

    In fact, Cauchi suffered from treatment-resistant schizophrenia and had been unmedicated at the time of the attack: “after almost two decades of treatment, Cauchi had no regular psychiatrist, was not on any medications to treat his schizophrenia and had no family living nearby”. The multifaceted causes of Cauchi’s crime are more complex than misogynistic violence.

    Indeed, the pieces of the manosphere puzzle, when put together, reveal a sobering image of the male complaint. However, they demonstrate misogyny is bad for everyone – not just women and girls.

    As Copland concludes:

    The manosphere promises men that it can make their lives better […] But it really cannot deliver. The promises it offers are not real, and in many cases make things worse […] This is how cruel optimism works, always offering, but never delivering.

    ‘It’s the combinations’

    Recent evidence suggests there is no single route to radicalisation, and no single cause of violent extremism. Rather, complex interactions between push, pull, and personal factors are the root causes of male violence.

    The Netflix sensation Adolescence – the harrowing story of a 13-year-old boy who is arrested and charged with murder – is powered by a single question: why did Jamie kill Katie?

    In attempting to answer this question, critics and fans have offered a range of explanations: bullying, low self-esteem, emotional dysregulation, obsession with love and sex, deprivation of love and sex, the manosphere. The real answer is less obvious and infinitely more complex. It can be found in a simple line of dialogue, spoken at the end of the series by Jamie’s sister.

    “It’s the combinations,” Lisa says. “Combinations are everything.”

    In this moment, Lisa is justifying her outfit to her parents as they await Jamie’s trial. But subtextually, her statement doubles as the most likely explanation for his actions. And it’s the closest explanation for why some boys and men commit extreme acts of violence: the combinations.

    If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

    The Conversation

    Kate Cantrell 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.

    – ref. Don’t blame toxic masculinity for online misogyny – the manosphere is hurting men too – https://theconversation.com/dont-blame-toxic-masculinity-for-online-misogyny-the-manosphere-is-hurting-men-too-254802

  • Many fish are social, but pesticides are pushing them apart

    Source: ForeignAffairs4

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Kyle Morrison, PhD Candidate in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, UNSW Sydney

    Kazakov Maksim, Shutterstock

    Scientists have detected pesticides in rivers, lakes and oceans worldwide. So what are these pesticides doing to the fish?

    Long before pesticides reach lethal doses, they can disrupt hormones, impair brain function and change fish behaviour. Many of these behaviours are essential for healthy ecosystems.

    In a new study, my colleagues and I found that pesticides affect many different behaviours in fish. Overall, the chemical pesticides make fish less sociable and interactive. They spend less time gathering in groups, become less protective of their territory, and make fewer attempts to mate.

    Imagine the ocean without the vibrant schools of fish we’ve come to love – only isolated swimmers drifting about. Quietly, ecosystems begin to unravel, long before mass die-offs hit the news.

    A variety of fish above healthy coral reef in the Coral Triangle.
    Healthy reef ecosystems feature fish swimming together and socialising.
    Mike Workman, Shutterstock

    Fish are living and dying in polluted water

    Australia is a major producer and user of pesticides, with more than 11,000 approved chemical products routinely used in agricultural and domestic settings. Remarkably, some of these chemicals remain approved in Australia despite being banned in other regions such as the European Union due to safety concerns.

    When a tractor or plane sprays pesticides onto crops, it creates a mist of chemicals in the air to kill crop pests. After heavy rain, these chemicals can flow into roadside drains, filter through soil, and slowly move into rivers, lakes and oceans.

    Fish swim in this diluted chemical mixture. They can absorb pesticides through their gills or eat contaminated prey.

    At high concentrations, mass fish deaths can result, such as those repeatedly observed in the Menindee Lakes. However, doses in the wild often aren’t lethal and more subtle effects can occur. Scientists call these “sub-lethal” effects.

    One commonly investigated sub-lethal effect is a change in behaviour – in other words, a change in the way a fish interacts with its surrounding environment.

    Our previous research has found most experiments have looked at the impacts on fish in isolation, measuring things such as how far or how fast they swim when pesticides are present.

    But fish aren’t solitary — they form groups, defend territory and find mates. These behaviours keep aquatic ecosystems stable. So this time we studied how pesticides affect these crucial social behaviours.

    Pesticide exposure makes fish less social

    Our study extracted and analysed data from 37 experiments conducted around the world. Together, these tested the impacts of 31 different pesticides on the social behaviour of 11 different fish species.

    The evidence suggests pesticides make fish less social, and this finding is consistent across species. Courtship was the most severely impacted behaviour – the process fish use to find and attract mates. This is particularly alarming because successful courtship is essential for healthy fish populations and ecosystem stability.

    Next, we found pesticides such as the herbicide glyphosate, which can disrupt brain function and hormone levels had the strongest impacts on fish social behaviours. This raises important questions about how brain function and hormones drive fish social behaviour, which could be tested by scientists in the future.

    For example, scientists could test how much a change in testosterone relates to a change in territory defence. Looking at these relationships between what’s going on inside the body mechanisms and outward behaviour will help us better understand the complex impacts of pesticides.

    We also identified gaps in the current studies. Most existing studies focus on a limited number of easy-to-study “model species” such as zebrafish, medaka and guppies. They also often use pesticide dosages and durations that may not reflect real-world realities.

    Addressing these gaps by including a range of species and environmentally relevant dosages is crucial to understanding how pesticides affect fish in the wild.

    A large group of convict surgeonfish on the reef in French Polynesia
    One of the experiments in our study involved convict surgeonfish, which gather in large groups or ‘shoals’.
    Damsea, Shutterstock

    Behaviour is a blind spot in regulation

    Regulatory authorities should begin to recognise behaviour as a reliable and important indicator of pesticide safety. This can help them catch pesticide pollution early, before mass deaths occur.

    Scientists play a crucial role too. By following the same methods, scientists can produce comparable results. A standardised method then provides regulators the evidence needed to confidently assess pesticide risks.

    Together, regulatory authorities and scientists can find a way to use behavioural studies to help inform policy decisions. This will help to prevent mass deaths and catch pesticide impacts early on.

    Leave no stone unturned in restoring our waters

    Rivers, lakes, oceans and reefs are bearing the brunt of an ever-growing human footprint.

    So far, much of the spotlight has focused on reducing carbon emissions and managing overfishing — and rightly so. But there’s another, quieter threat drifting beneath the surface: the chemicals we use.

    Pesticides used on farms and in gardens are being detected everywhere, even iconic ecosystems such as the Great Barrier Reef. As we have shown, these pesticides can have disturbing effects even at low concentrations.

    Now is the time to cut pesticide use and reduce runoff. Through switching to less toxic chemicals and introducing better regulations, we can reduce the damage. If we act with urgency, we can limit the impacts pesticides have on our planet.

    The Conversation

    Kyle Morrison 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.

    – ref. Many fish are social, but pesticides are pushing them apart – https://theconversation.com/many-fish-are-social-but-pesticides-are-pushing-them-apart-256230

  • UNESCO grants World Heritage status to Khmer Rouge atrocity sites – paving the way for other sites of conflict

    Source: ForeignAffairs4

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Rachel Hughes, Associate Professor of Geography, The University of Melbourne

    A series of atrocity sites of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia have been formally entered onto the World Heritage list, as part of the 47th session of the World Heritage Committee.

    This is not only important for Cambodia, but also raises important questions for atrocity sites in Australia.

    Before this, the World Heritage list only recognised seven “sites of memory” associated with recent conflicts, which UNESCO defines as “events having occurred from the turn of the 20th century” under its criterion vi. These sat within a broader list of more than 950 cultural sites.

    In recent years, experts have intensely debated the question of whether a site associated with recent conflict could, or should, be nominated and evaluated for World Heritage status. Some argue such listings would contradict the objectives of UNESCO and its spirit of peace, which was part of the specialised agency’s mandate after the destruction of two world wars.

    Sites associated with recent conflicts can be divisive. For instance, when Japan nominated the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, both China and the United States objected and eventually disassociated from the decision. The US argued the nomination lacked “historical perspective” on the events that led to the bomb’s use. Meanwhile, China argued listing the property would not be conducive for peace as other Asian countries and peoples had suffered at the hands of the Japanese during WWII.

    Heritage inscriptions risk reinforcing societal divisions if they conserve a particular memory in a one-sided way.

    Nonetheless, the World Heritage Committee decided in 2023 to no longer preclude such sites for inscription. This was done partly in recognition of how these sites may “serve the peace-building mission of UNESCO”.

    Shortly after, three listing were added: the ESMA Museum and Site of Memory, a former clandestine centre for detention, torture and extermination in Argentina; memorial sites of the Rwandan genocide at Nyamata, Murambi, Gisozi and Bisesero; and funerary and memory sites of the first world war in Belgium and France.

    A number of legacy sites associated with Nelson Mandela’s human rights struggle in South Africa were also added last year.

    Atrocities of the Khmer Rouge

    The recently inscribed Cambodian Memorial Sites include prisons S-21 (now known as Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum) and M-13, as well as the execution site Choeung Ek.

    These sites were nominated for their value in showing the development of extreme mass violence in relation to the security system of the Khmer Rouge in 1975–79. They also have value as places of memorialisation, peace and learning.

    The Khmer Rouge developed its methods of disappearance, incarceration and torture of suspected “enemies” during the civil conflict of 1970–75. It established a system of local-level security centres in so-called “liberated” areas.

    One of these centres was known as M-13, a small, well-hidden prison in the country’s rural southwest. A man named Kaing Guek Eav – also called Duch – was responsible for prisoners at M-13.

    Shortly after the entire country fell to the Khmer Rouge in April 1975, Duch was assigned to lead the headquarters of the regime’s security system: a large detention and torture centre known as S-21.

    Under his instruction, tens of thousands of people were detained in inhumane conditions, tortured and interrogated. Many detainees were later taken to the outskirts of the city to be brutally killed and buried in pits at a place called Choeung Ek.

    The sites operated until early 1979, when the Khmer Rouge was forced from power.

    The S-21 facility and the mass graves at Choeung Ek have long been memorialised as the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and the Choeung Ek Genocidal Centre.

    However, the former M-13 site shows few visual clues to its prior use, and has only recently been investigated by an international team led by Cambodian archaeologist and museum director Hang Nisay. The site is on an island in a small river that forms the boundary between the Kampong Chhnang and Kampong Speu provinces.

    Further research, site protection and memorialisation activities will now be supported, with help from locals.

    From repression to reflection

    The Cambodian memorial sites have been recognised as holding “outstanding universal value” for the way they evidence one of the 20th century’s worst atrocities, and are now places of memory.

    In its nomination dossier for these sites, Cambodia drew on findings from the Khmer Rouge Tribunal to verify and link the conflict and the sites.

    In 2010, the tribunal found Duch guilty of crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions. Duch was sentenced to 30 years in prison (which eventually turned into life imprisonment). He died in 2020.

    While courts such as the International Criminal Court have previously examined the destruction of heritage as an international crime, drawing on legal findings to assert heritage status is an unusual inverse. It raises important questions about the legacies of former UN-supported tribunals and the ongoing implications of their findings.

    The recent listings also raise questions for Australia, which has many sites of documented mass killing associated with colonisation and the frontier wars that lasted into the 20th century.

    Might Australia nominate any of these atrocity sites in the future? And could other processes such as truth-telling, reparation and redress support (or be supported by) such nominations?

    The Conversation

    Rachel Hughes has consulted to UNESCO Cambodia.

    Maria Elander 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.

    – ref. UNESCO grants World Heritage status to Khmer Rouge atrocity sites – paving the way for other sites of conflict – https://theconversation.com/unesco-grants-world-heritage-status-to-khmer-rouge-atrocity-sites-paving-the-way-for-other-sites-of-conflict-260923