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Category: Report

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why the salmon on your plate contains less omega-3 than it used to – and how the industry can address that

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Richard Newton, Lecturer in Aquaculture, University of Stirling

    Maria_Usp/Shutterstock

    Farmed Atlantic salmon has become one of the most highly traded food commodities in the world, enjoyed for its versatility as much as for its health benefits. It has long been known that eating oily fish such as salmon is the best way to consume long-chain omega-3 fatty acids. These are essential for brain development, mental health and cognition.

    In salmon, omega-3 fatty acids must come from the fish’s diet. For farmed fish, this means fishmeal and fish oil – so–called “marine ingredients” made from ground-up wild fish such as anchovy and fish by-products.

    But the global supply of omega-3s is severely limited, whether from farmed or wild seafood. Many of the key fisheries supplying marine ingredients reached full exploitation in the mid-1990s. Since the growth of salmon aquaculture, increasing volumes of the limited marine ingredients supply have been taken up by fish farming.

    This has raised concerns over sustainability and inflated the cost of these ingredients. The result has been a steady decline in the proportion of fish oil in farmed salmon diets, which has been replaced by plant oils. But these oils do not contain long-chain omega-3s.

    In turn, the amount of omega-3s in a portion of salmon halved between 2006 and 2015. However, the salmon industry increasingly uses omega-3 as a key selling point for its product – two portions of farmed Scottish salmon per week would meet the recommended intake for an adult at current levels.

    If the salmon industry is to continue to grow and maintain the omega-3 targets, it must be more efficient. And the seafood industry as a whole must do more to prevent omega-3 losses through its value chains. Part of the efficiency journey has been to produce more fish oil.

    This can be done by harnessing the value of fishery and aquaculture byproducts such as trimmings, skins and heads, so that more omega-3s are kept in the food (and feed) system.

    There is a growing incentive to use the whole fish – consequently there has been good progress in improving the use of byproducts. It is now estimated that around half of global fish oil supply is sourced from fishery, and particularly aquaculture, processing sources. However, there is still a lot of waste and logistical difficulties in storing and transporting seafood byproducts.

    Much of the industry incentive to use byproducts has been economic, as the global shortage of fish oil pushed prices above US$8,000 (£5,900) per tonne in 2024. Evidence from the past 20 years suggests that overall use of wild fish in the European salmon industry has dropped (replaced by plant ingredients), while production has grown several-fold.

    Despite improvements and reductions in the use of marine ingredients, the industry still comes under huge pressure from NGOs and conservation groups. They are concerned about the use of fish as feed, which may damage public perceptions of the aquaculture industry.

    To assess the use of fish as feed in aquaculture, the “fish in fish out” (Fifo) ratio was conceived, which measures the ratio of fish biomass included in fish feeds to the biomass of fish ultimately produced for consumption. The goal is for more fish to be produced for human consumption than is used as feed, and this would result in a Fifo of less than 1.

    New measure for nutrients

    Certification bodies such as the Aquaculture Stewardship Council and Best Aquaculture Practices have adopted different forms of the Fifo metric. However, until now, Fifo has not addressed one of the fundamental reasons for including marine ingredients in aquafeeds – providing omega-3s to consumers. It has neither considered the omega-3 content within feed fish, nor in the final product.

    Similarly, studies examining nutrient retention in salmon have only looked at that from feed to the farmed fish. The omega-3 lost in the process of turning the fish raw material in feed is not currently measured. By introducing our new measure, the nutrient Fifo (nFifo), nutrients can be followed from wild fish capture, its separation into meal and oil, and through to the final product sold to consumers.

    Certification bodies like the Aquaculture Stewardship Council could adopt the new metric for nutrition.
    T. Schneider/Shutterstock

    The method used in nFifo favours the use of byproduct resources over virgin raw materials, so that diets containing byproducts receive a lower nFifo. In theory, this should promote circular economy initiatives.

    This is crucial in the marine ingredients industry. Seafood is highly perishable and the byproducts especially so. But they are also some of the richest sources of omega-3s, such as from herring or mackerel.

    However, the cost of retaining, stabilising, storing and transporting byproducts is often prohibitive. This is especially true on board fishing boats, where space is at a premium and byproducts are often dumped at sea.

    Introducing metrics that prevent bioresources being wasted is essential for sustainable food production. Current salmon feed contains around 20% to 25% marine ingredients, but only around 5% is from byproducts. This results in a nFIFO of 2.17.

    Incorporating only marine ingredients sourced from byproducts reduces that nFifo to below 0.5. Crucially, this still provides the same level of omega-3s to the consumer.

    If the seafood industry is serious about sustainable production, it needs to become much more efficient with resources. The nFifo metric links the use of wild fish to omega-3s consumed in farmed salmon for the first time – but it could also be applied to other species and nutrients.

    The methodology is similar to that used for environmental impact indicators for climate change, land or water use. It makes it possible to assess the trade-offs of including and substituting marine ingredients in fish diets at different points of production.

    For example, while marine ingredients may raise concerns around their impact on fisheries, they have comparatively low carbon footprints and almost no land or water footprints compared to plant ingredients. This could potentially lead to more balanced and sustainable approaches to seafood production.

    It is hoped that the nFifo metric and an accessible tool for calculating it (there is one provided on the Blue Food Performance website) will be adopted by certifiers. It could also lead to more complex sustainability indicators becoming mainstream, letting consumers make informed choices about the nutritional and environmental credentials of the products they buy.

    Richard Newton is the Chair of the Climate Action Committe for Best Aquaculture Practice and the Stakeholder Advisory Group for Seafood Watch. He has previously received funding in 2019 and 2013 from the International Fishmeal Fishoil Organisation to map supplies of underutilised by-product resources.

    Dave Little has received funding from various organisations supporting sustainable aquaculture development and has been affiliated to various organisations working to to improve farmed seafood assurance

    – ref. Why the salmon on your plate contains less omega-3 than it used to – and how the industry can address that – https://theconversation.com/why-the-salmon-on-your-plate-contains-less-omega-3-than-it-used-to-and-how-the-industry-can-address-that-258228

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Beards and microbes: what the evidence shows

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Primrose Freestone, Senior Lecturer in Clinical Microbiology, University of Leicester

    Bernardo Emanuelle/Shutterstock.com

    Beards have long attracted suspicion, sometimes seen as stylish, sometimes as unsanitary. But how dirty are they, really?

    Human skin is home to billions of microorganisms – mainly bacteria, but also fungi and viruses – and facial hair provides a unique environment for them to thrive. Research shows that beards, in particular, support a dense and diverse microbial population, which has fuelled a persistent belief that they are inherently unhygienic. The Washington Post recently reported that some toilets contain fewer germs than the average beard.

    But are beards truly a hygiene risk? A closer look at the evidence reveals a nuanced picture.

    The microbial population on skin varies by location and is influenced by factors such as temperature, pH, humidity and nutrient availability. Beards create a warm, often moist environment where food debris and oils can accumulate – ideal conditions for microbial growth.

    These microbes thrive not just because of the warm, moist conditions beards provide, but also because of constant exposure to new contaminants and microbes, especially from hands that frequently touch surfaces and the face.

    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.

    Concerns among scientists about beard hygiene date back over 50 years. Early studies showed that facial hair could retain bacteria and bacterial toxins even after washing. This led to the enduring idea that beards act as bacterial reservoirs and could pose an infection risk to others.

    For healthcare workers, this has made beards a point of controversy, especially in hospitals where pathogen transmission is a concern. However, hospital-based research has shown mixed results. One study found that bearded healthcare workers had higher bacterial loads on their faces than clean-shaven colleagues.

    Another investigation, looking at whether it would be hygienic to evaluate dogs and humans in the same MRI scanner, found that most men’s beards contained significantly more microbes than dog fur, including a greater presence of harmful bacteria. The researchers concluded: “Dogs are no risk to humans if they use the same MRI.”

    Dogs and humans can share the same MRI scanner.
    Dmytro Zinkevych/Shutterstock.com

    However, other studies have challenged the idea that beards increase infection risk. For example, one investigation found no significant difference in bacterial colonisation between bearded and clean-shaven healthcare workers.

    The same study also reported that bearded doctors were less likely to carry Staphylococcus aureus, a major cause of hospital infections, and that there was no increase in infection rates among patients treated by bearded surgeons wearing surgical masks.

    Beards can sometimes spread skin infections, such as impetigo — a contagious rash often caused by S aureus, which is commonly found in facial hair.

    In rare cases, parasites like pubic lice – which usually live in the groin area – can also show up in beards, eyebrows or eyelashes, particularly in cases of poor hygiene or close contact with an infected person.

    The case for good beard hygiene

    Neglected beards can foster irritation, inflammation and infection. The skin beneath a beard – rich in blood vessels, nerve endings and immune cells – is highly sensitive to microbial and environmental stressors. When sebum, dead skin, food debris and pollutants accumulate, they can irritate the skin and provide fuel for fungal and bacterial growth.

    Experts strongly recommend washing your beard and face every day. Doing so removes dirt, oils, allergens and dead skin, helping prevent microbial buildup.

    Dermatologists also advise moisturising to prevent dryness, using a beard comb to clear debris, and trimming to control loose hairs and reduce shedding. These steps help maintain not only hygiene but also beard health and appearance.

    So, are beards dirty? Like most things, it depends on how well you care for them. With daily hygiene and proper grooming, beards pose little risk and may even be healthier than we once thought.

    Primrose Freestone 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. Beards and microbes: what the evidence shows – https://theconversation.com/beards-and-microbes-what-the-evidence-shows-256917

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: The National Gallery at 200: is this rehang a bold relaunch or rinse and repeat?

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jonathan Conlin, Professor of Modern History, University of Southampton

    The National Gallery has recently rehung its entire collection. Taking hundreds of paintings off the wall and replacing them in a new arrangement requires considerable mental and physical labour on the part of curators, conservators and technicians.

    A rehang tends to elicit strong reactions from anyone with a stake in the collection – and in the case of a public gallery, “anyone” means “everyone”.
    Unsurprisingly then, it has only been done twice at the National Gallery since the second world war.

    Last month, I attended a launch party for the gallery’s new Sainsbury Wing entrance. It marked the end of NG200, a year-long programme of events celebrating the gallery’s 200th birthday. As the author of the gallery’s authorised bicentenary history, I had written about the refurbishment, albeit with only computer-generated impressions of what it would look like. Now I could see for myself.

    Inside the launch party for the gallery’s new Sainsbury Wing entrance.
    Jonathan Conlin, CC BY-SA

    Back in 1946, the director of the National Gallery was eager to offer both reassurance about his rehang and the promise of striking new juxtapositions. “The traditional grouping by schools has been largely maintained,” Sir Philip Hendy noted, “but a good many exceptions have been made, partly for the sake of a more harmonious and stimulating ensemble and partly for the sake of historical truth.”

    The rehang, Hendy argued, would show how “the spirit of the time is usually more important than national boundaries, and that ideas can transcend both”. A striking example was Hendy hanging Bronzino’s An Allegory With Venus and Cupid (1545) next to Holbein’s The Ambassadors, painted just 12 years earlier.

    “I enjoyed the intellectual shocks provided, lavishly, in the juxtaposition of unexpected artists,” wrote one regular visitor from Godalming in Surrey. But she soon found herself wondering if there was “some subtle plan” behind “having the Botticellis all in different rooms, the Venetians just anywhere, and the Rembrandts torn asunder?”

    Evacuation of paintings from the National Gallery during the second world war, shortly before the last rehang.
    Imperial War Museum

    The Bronzino and the Holbein were split up fairly quickly, perhaps in response to criticism from other confused visitors. While they have not been reunited on the same wall, as I stood back from The Ambassadors in room four, I could turn my head to the left and see Venus and Cupid neatly framed by the door to neighbouring room two.

    At least, I could have seen it, had Neil MacGregor not been standing in front of it. The National Gallery’s director from 1987 to 2002, MacGregor oversaw the last complete rehang as well as the construction of the Sainsbury Wing, which opened in 1991.

    This article is part of our State of the Arts series. These articles tackle the challenges of the arts and heritage industry – and celebrate the wins, too.

    At that time, the gallery’s then-head of exhibitions, Michael Wilson, replaced the traditional grouping by schools with the wing system, which organised the hang around three broad pan-European epochs. It was a profound shift, perhaps linked to broader pan-European political visions that would lead to the introduction of a common European currency in 1999.

    Former National Gallery trustee Robert Benson (as drawn by John Singer Sargent) believed art should be hung chronologically.
    Wiki Commons

    This was a world away from the previous arrangement. “Pictures must be hung in historical sequence,” trustee Robert Benson noted in 1914. “A salon carré, or a Tribuna, of masterpieces of all schools is an objective far ahead.”

    For Benson, it was clear that the collection could only be understood “school by school”. Each painter “must be appreciated and judged in relation to the chef d’école of whose artistic lineage, or entourage, he forms part”. Collecting works from the “period of eclecticism and decadence” that followed each chef d’école (the initiator or leader of a school of painting) was of secondary importance.

    But as a result, in the National Gallery that Benson (a wannabe gallery director) helped create and that MacGregor inherited, there were shocks aplenty as the visitor jumped from one school to another.

    Having followed the French school through from Corneille de Lyon’s Man in a Black Biretta (c. 1538-61) through Jacques-Louis David’s Jacobus Blauw (1795) to Cézanne’s Hillside in Provence (c. 1890-1912), you then jumped four or more centuries back to start over again with the Dutch or the Italians.

    The redesigned wing

    These shocks were compounded by gestures towards period interiors: terrazzo tile for the Italians, dark wood panelling for the Dutch. Opened in 1975, the northern extension’s carpet, suspended ceilings and floating walls were hailed as “a model of discretion and reticence in comparison to the grandeur of the Victorian interiors”.

    Under MacGregor’s wing system, “the spirit of the time” came first – nowhere more so than in the Sainsbury Wing, designed to set up a conversation between the artists of the Northern Renaissance and the Italian Renaissance. The system recognised that the Alps had not been a barrier to the exchange of artistic ideas, and had been criss-crossed by many Renaissance artists, including Albrecht Dürer.

    The postmodern American architects chosen to design the Sainsbury Wing, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, larded their design with a series of knowing, sometimes mannered quotations from much older buildings.

    The redesign of this Grade I-listed building by the American architect Annabelle Selldorf has now opened up Venturi and Scott Brown’s dark, crypt-like ground floor foyer. Squat columns originally intended to create a sense of anticipation have been thinned and in some cases removed. As the Twentieth Century Society noted in its planning objection, “the key sense of compression” (released upon climbing the stair) has been lost.

    Artemisia Gentileschi’s Self-Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria has not been hung in a specific women artists room.
    National Gallery

    A ‘tamer’ rehang

    Upstairs in the galleries, theme rooms have been introduced, scattered among the otherwise chronological hang. The choice of themes is tamer than the 2023 rehang of European paintings at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, where some of the themes feel forced – such as “Tiepolo and multiracial Europe”.

    The National Gallery has resisted the temptation to devote a gallery to women artists: Artemisia Gentileschi’s Self Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria (c. 1615-17) hangs between Caravaggios in room three, not next to Elizabeth Vigée Le Brun’s Self Portrait in a Straw Hat (1782) in room 15.

    Those who admired the way in which MacGregor invited non-believers to engage with Christian art on an emotional level may nonetheless feel that an opportunity has been lost. This is a rehang that could have shocked more than it did.

    Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.

    Jonathan Conlin is the author of the National Gallery’s authorised bicentenary history, The National Gallery: A History.

    – ref. The National Gallery at 200: is this rehang a bold relaunch or rinse and repeat? – https://theconversation.com/the-national-gallery-at-200-is-this-rehang-a-bold-relaunch-or-rinse-and-repeat-258334

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: The world needs bold, equitable climate action at the 2025 G7 summit

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Sharon E. Straus, Professor, Department of Medicine, University of Toronto

    As climate change and disrupted weather patterns impact countries around the world, leaders must act to mitigate the negative effects on public health.

    Leaders from six western countries and Japan will soon gather in Kananaskis, Alta., for the Group of Seven (G7) meeting from June 15 to 17, 2025. In the lead-up to this meeting, the Royal Society of Canada hosted the Science 7 (S7). This is an engagement meeting of the leading academies of the G7 member countries.

    Following discussion and deliberation, three statements aimed at advancing science for society were published, entitled Advanced Technologies and Data Security, Sustainable Migration and Climate Action and Health Resilience.

    One of us (Sharon Straus) oversaw the S7 statement on Climate Action and Health Resilience. This statement draws attention to the health impacts of climate change and recommends several mitigation strategies.

    Wide-ranging health impacts

    Experts on health and climate change have outlined the growing impact of delayed climate action. The data are clear. Extreme weather events such as heat, floods, droughts and wildfires are having wide-ranging health impacts.

    In the 10 years between 2014-2023, there was a 167 per cent increase in heat-related deaths in those aged 65 years and older compared with the 10 years between 1990-99. Extreme weather events also directly impact food and water security, as well as infectious diseases and chronic diseases.

    The health consequences of climate change are not only the result of environmental factors. Of equal importance are recent decisions eliminating funding for programs that mitigate the risks of climate change.

    Consider for example, the multiple threats to recent progress in eliminating malaria. The World Malaria Report published in December 2024 by the World Health Organization estimated that 2.2 billion malaria cases and 12.7 million malaria deaths were averted between 2000 and 2023.

    Now, many countries anticipate a malaria resurgence. Antimalarial drug resistance, mosquito resistance to insecticides, changes in temperature and humidity affecting mosquito survival and the emergence of new mosquito species linked to climate change — combined with the recent abrupt funding freeze from the United States — are leading to a perfect storm.

    Economic impact of climate change

    The economic burden of climate change, which includes more health-care use, lost productivity, adaptation and mitigation expenses — to say nothing of the costs of rebuilding — is massive.

    Much of that burden is borne by those who live in low- and middle-income countries (80 per cent of the world’s population) and who are the lowest contributors to carbon dioxide emissions.

    To put this in perspective, in 2021, the United Nations Environment Program estimated the costs of annual adaptation for vulnerable countries at US$70 billion and predicted this would increase to US$140-300 billion by 2030.

    In addition to the costs of adaptation aimed at reducing vulnerability to climate change, there are the costs associated with losses resulting from climate change. The 2024 Lancet Countdown estimated that the average annual economic losses due to extreme weather-related events reached US$227 billion between 2019-2023. This value exceeds the gross domestic product of approximately 60 per cent of the world’s economies.

    What about Canada?

    In Canada, warming is happening at twice the global rate with resulting heat, wildfires and floods. There is also evidence of significant impacts on mental health and chronic diseases, leading to an increased need for health care.

    Indigenous communities, older adults and those who have experienced homelessness are disproportionately impacted by climate change. Indigenous Peoples, especially those living in remote and northern areas, are particularly vulnerable.

    Currently there are 37 long-term and 40 short-term drinking water advisories in First Nations communities across Canada. The lack of safe, clean drinking water can exacerbate climate-related food and water insecurity and lead to infectious disease transmission.

    The number of people experiencing homelessness is growing and many of these individuals are over 50 years old. These older adults are physiologically 15-20 years older than their housed counterparts and are at higher risk of chronic diseases, including those exacerbated by climate change.

    Similarly, frail older adults are at higher risk of health effects of climate change. It is worth remembering the impact of poor air quality and lack of air conditioning during the COVID-19 pandemic on those living in long-term care homes.

    Climate change costs health-care systems more each year. The Canadian Institute for Climate Choices recently estimated that health-related hospitalizations will increase by 21 per cent by mid-century. Our health systems are not prepared for this.

    In addition, the costs of death and reduced quality of life from heat-related climate change is estimated to rise between $3 billion and $3.9 billion by the middle of this century. Factoring in other impacts such as those from air pollution, flooding and wildfires, the total estimated costs are in the tens to hundreds of billions.

    S7’s recommendations

    The S7 statement on Climate Action and Health Resilience includes seven recommendations. Addressing the disproportionate impact of climate change on populations who are particularly vulnerable and investing in innovative solutions are among them. Particularly critical are societal and political innovations that involve affected communities, including Indigenous communities.

    The S7’s climate and health resilience recommendations include:

    • Developing and optimizing climate change mitigation strategies to transform health and social services (such as early warning infectious disease systems and biomonitoring).

    • Developing new regulations nationally and internationally to transform health, public health and social services, increasing their readiness and safeguarding health from climate change impact.

    • Providing economic and regulatory incentives to foster adaptation and resiliency of health systems.

    • Investing in innovative solutions (including vaccine development for emerging diseases, wastewater surveillance) to mitigate climate change and its health risks.

    The G7 summit is an opportunity to centre climate change discussions and act on the S7 recommendations. Bold investment in innovations that address the health challenges resulting from climate change will benefit us all and drive new economic activity and resilience.

    Climate change is a health issue, a social justice issue and an economic issue, and the time to act is now. Scientists, policymakers, clinicians and the public must work together.

    Sharon E. Straus receives research funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Public Health Agency of Canada. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

    Françoise Baylis is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

    – ref. The world needs bold, equitable climate action at the 2025 G7 summit – https://theconversation.com/the-world-needs-bold-equitable-climate-action-at-the-2025-g7-summit-256876

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Teens say they can access firearms at home, even when parents lock them up, new research shows

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Katherine G. Hastings, PhD Candidate in Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia

    Most households that own firearms have more than one − and owners often don’t secure all of them. StockPlanets/E+ via Getty Images

    More than half of U.S. teens living in households with firearms believe they can access and load a firearm at home. Even when their parents report storing all firearms locked and unloaded, more than one-third of teens still believe they could access and load one. These are the main findings of our new study, published in the journal JAMA Network Open.

    We are behavioral scientists investigating youth injury prevention and youth safety. In this study, we analyzed national survey data from nearly 500 parents who owned firearms and their teens. One survey asked the parents to report how many firearms they had in the home and how they stored each one. Another asked their teens to estimate how quickly they could access and load a firearm at home.

    While the presence of unlocked and loaded firearms in the home was weakly linked to perceived access among teens, we found that parents’ storage practices alone were a poor predictor of whether teens believed they could access a firearm. What’s more, in households with more than one firearm, locking up more firearms was not at all linked to perceived access among teens if at least one remained unsecured.

    In short, just one unlocked firearm can undo the protective benefit of securing all other firearms in the home, our results showed.

    Why it matters

    In the U.S., firearms are now the leading cause of death among children and teens. In most of these cases, the firearm used belonged to a parent, relative or friend.

    Our study focused on teens’ beliefs about firearm access, not their actual access. However, these perceptions may provide important clues around firearm access and use. Prior research shows that teens who believe they can access a firearm are more likely to access and carry one. This is particularly concerning for teens who already have a higher risk for dying by suicide.

    One of the most widely supported ways to reduce teen injuries and deaths by firearms is to encourage owners to keep firearms locked and unloaded. However, most firearm-owning households in the U.S. have multiple firearms, and owners often store some firearms securely but not all.

    Firearms are the leading cause of death among children and teens.
    Kypros/Stock Photos Gun Safe via Getty Images

    Despite evidence that securely storing firearms saves lives, efforts to promote that messaging may be less effective when it is not universally applied to all firearms in the home or when teens still know how to access them.

    Our study also points to the need for messaging and safety strategies that consider teen behavior amid household firearm dynamics. For example, teens may observe where firearms are stored or know where keys or combinations are kept and unlock firearms in moments of impulsivity or emotional distress. Beyond securely storing firearms, encouraging parents to treat every firearm in the household as a potential source of risk and talking with teens about how to address conflicts and promote mental and emotional well-being may also be protective.

    Additionally, our study adds support for universal laws that require securely storing all firearms in homes in which children live and mandating routine assessments of teen firearm access by pediatricians.

    What still isn’t known

    It is still unclear how teens’ beliefs about their access to firearms affects whether they actually seek them out – or how the variability of parents’ practices on storing firearms affects teen access.

    Another important question is how teens’ perceptions of their access to firearms at home may vary depending on cultural backgrounds, geography and different households’ attitudes and beliefs around firearm use.

    Additionally, our study looked only at teens ages 14 to 18. Further research is needed to explore these associations among younger children in firearm-owning households.

    The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.

    Rebeccah Sokol receives funding from the National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    Katherine G. Hastings 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. Teens say they can access firearms at home, even when parents lock them up, new research shows – https://theconversation.com/teens-say-they-can-access-firearms-at-home-even-when-parents-lock-them-up-new-research-shows-256550

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: 5 benefits Africa’s new space agency can deliver

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Scott Firsing, Senior Research Associate, University of South Africa

    The African Space Agency was officially inaugurated in Cairo’s Space City in April 2025. The event marked a milestone in a process that had been in the works since the early 2000s. Drawing inspiration from the European Space Agency, it unites African Union (AU) member states to harness space technology for development. This is in line with the AU’s Agenda 2063, aimed at advancing Africa into a prosperous future.



    Read more:
    Africa has ambitious goals for 2063: plans for outer space hold the key to success

    The agency’s goal is to:

    • coordinate and implement Africa’s space ambitions by promoting collaboration among the AU’s 55 member states

    • harness space technologies for sustainable development, climate resilience and socio-economic growth

    • oversee the African Space Policy and Strategy to enhance access to space-derived data

    • foster partnerships with international space agencies like the European Space Agency and others.

    Over 20 African countries operate space programmes and more than 65 African satellites have been launched. It is my view as a global space diplomacy expert that the agency can help ensure that Africa isn’t a bystander in the space economy. This sector is projected to be worth US$1.8 trillion by 2035.

    The space agency positions Africa to address pressing challenges and take advantage of opportunities in the global space economy. These include using satellite data, boosting connectivity, driving economic growth, fostering global partnerships and training future leaders.

    Five benefits

    Valuable eyes in the sky

    Space assets, particularly Earth observation satellites, offer a number of advantages. The continent faces significant climate risks like droughts, fires and floods. This is particularly problematic as the agricultural sector is approximately 35% of Africa’s GDP and employs about half of its people across over 1 billion hectares of arable land.

    Satellite data optimises crop yields, supports climate-resilient farming, and enhances sustainable fisheries and port modernisation. Nigeria’s National Space Research and Deveopment Agency, for example, has used satellites like the NigSat-2 to monitor crop health and predict yields.

    Beyond agriculture, satellites assist in project planning in cities across Africa. Kenya uses a satellite to track urban development trends and enhance municipal urban planning capacities.

    Satellites also keep an eye on Africa’s resource-abundant territories while tackling problems like armed conflict, deforestation, and illegal migration and mining.

    The African Space Agency will help provide access to AI-enhanced satellite data. This will enable even nations with constrained resources to tackle local needs. For instance, Côte d’Ivoire’s first locally made satellite, launched in 2024, shows how African nations are building their own capabilities.



    Read more:
    Côte d’Ivoire is launching its first satellite for Earth observation – and it’s locally made

    By making it easier to share data, the African Space Agency also positions the continent to generate revenue in the global space data market. That fuels innovation.

    Enhancing connectivity and enabling cutting-edge technology

    Africa’s digital divide is stark. Only 38% of its population was online in 2024, compared to the global average of 68%. The African Space Agency aims to bridge this gap through satellite-based communications. This technology can deliver broadband to remote regions where cell towers and undersea cables are impractical.

    Connectivity enables education, e-commerce and telemedicine.

    Satellite services, like those provided by SpaceX’s Starlink in 21 African countries, will drive digital inclusion. In turn this promises to reduce unemployment and help entrepreneurs.

    The African Space Agency is also positioning Africa to embrace new space technologies. Examples include Japan’s 2025 demonstration of beaming solar power from space, following a US achievement in 2023.

    This could revolutionise energy access. Space-based solar power captures solar energy in orbit via satellite and transmits it as microwaves to Earth. This offers a solution to Africa’s energy poverty. It could provide reliable power to remote areas without extensive grid infrastructure.

    The African Space Agency’s role in coordinating satellite launches and data sharing will make these technologies more accessible and cost-effective.

    Driving economic growth and innovation

    Africa’s space sector, now worth over US$20 billion, is growing rapidly. The industry has seen an increase of private companies and investor support, moving beyond sole dependence on government funding. Investment is being fuelled by 327 NewSpace firms, a term used for the new emerging commercial space industry in nations such as Egypt, Nigeria, and South Africa. These firms often excel in satellite communication, Earth observation and component manufacturing.

    But many African nations lack resources. The agency will lower barriers by fostering collaboration, coordinating national space programmes, and reducing duplication.For example, the African Space Agency’s efforts to streamline satellite development and launches will spur local manufacturing and tech hubs.

    This means that smaller economies will be able to participate.

    Strengthening regional and global connections

    Africa’s space sector relies on partnerships with space agencies and commercial space companies based in the “space powers”. These include the US, Russia, China, France, India, Italy, Japan, Israel and the United Arab Emirates. These institutions provide launch services, satellite development and ground stations.

    An example is Senegal’s GaindeSAT-1A, a CubeSat launched in 2024 via America’s SpaceX with French collaboration.

    Meanwhile, countries like South Africa are exploring local rocket programmes to enhance the agency’s self-reliance. Africa’s space ground stations are already located across the continent, supporting the European Space Agency and commercial missions. They will soon host a deep space ground station for America’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

    Funding remains a challenge. African nations allocated just US$426 million to space programmes in 2025. That’s less than 1% of global spending. The European Space Agency has an US$8 billion budget.

    However, initiatives like the €100 million Africa-EU Space Partnership Programme (2025–2028) aim to boost Africa’s space sovereignty and innovation.

    The agency’s vision extends beyond Earth, with an eye on the Moon. Some members, notably Angola, Nigeria and Rwanda, have already signed the US-led Artemis Accords for lunar exploration. For their part Egypt and South Africa are collaborating with China and Russia on the International Lunar Research Station.



    Read more:
    Outer space: Rwanda and Nigeria sign an accord for more responsible exploration – why this matters

    Training the next generation

    A skilled workforce is critical to Africa’s space industry. The Africa Space Agency Space City plans to host a training academy. It will build on Egypt’s programmes in space project management, satellite design, and orbital simulation.

    Partnerships like the Africa-EU programme offer scholarships, while private initiatives, such as the Pathways to Space programme by Boeing and the Future African Space Explorers STEM Academy, engage students in 63 schools in Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Tanzania.

    Scott Firsing 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. 5 benefits Africa’s new space agency can deliver – https://theconversation.com/5-benefits-africas-new-space-agency-can-deliver-258098

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Violence against women in Ghana is deeply rooted in culture and family ties – study

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Eric Y Tenkorang, Professor of Sociology,, Memorial University of Newfoundland

    Intimate partner violence is controlling behaviour that results in harm to victims. This can be physical, sexual, emotional, psychological, economic or spiritual harm. Women are overwhelmingly the victims and survivors of intimate partner violence.

    Globally, about one third of women have experienced some type of intimate partner violence. In Ghana too, one third of women have experienced physical and sexual abuse.

    Research has linked women’s experiences of intimate partner violence to their socio-economic marginalisation, although it can happen to wealthy women too. Beyond the socio-economic reasons, some also make cultural arguments.

    One such factor is lineage: lines of ancestry. Lineage is a major source of wealth, privileges and responsibilities in Ghana and more broadly in sub-Saharan Africa.

    Some people trace their ancestry through maternal kin members. Women in these matrilineal societies wield socio-economic and cultural power because inheritance goes through the female line. As carriers of the lineage, women have some cultural value.

    In a patrilineage, people trace their ancestry through men. Inheritance goes through the male line. Women cannot source wealth from the lineage. There is noticeable gender ordering and hierarchies in patrilineal societies. Male children are considered the carriers of the lineage.

    Despite these two predominant lineage systems, there is also bilateral descent. In bilateral systems, kinship is traced to both maternal and paternal sides of the family.

    Recent studies have suggested a link exists between lineage and intimate partner violence. But there is limited evidence as to why this might be the case.

    One of my research interests is violence against women in African cultures and I have published extensively on this subject. For a recent study, my team collected survey data, including in-depth interviews, from the three ecological areas of Ghana – coastal, middle and northern. These reflect differences in ecology, culture and modernity.

    About 1,700 women responded to our survey questions on lineage and intimate partner violence. Of these, about 30 women were followed up for an in-depth interview.

    We found differences in experiences of violence between women depending on the lineage system they were part of. Awareness of this pattern could inform efforts to prevent violence and empower women.

    What we found

    A major finding was that women in matrilineal communities experienced lower levels of intimate partner violence than women in patrilineal communities or bilateral ones. Part of the reason is women’s access to resources.

    We also found that bride price payments elevated patrilineal women’s risks of experiencing intimate partner violence. Bride price payment is an exchange of resources from the groom to the family of the bride. This is in acknowledgement that marriage has taken place. Women in patrilineal systems were more likely to experience physical, sexual and emotional violence when bride price was fully paid than when it was partially paid.

    Unlike patrilineal women, matrilineal and bilateral women only experienced emotional and physical violence when bride price was fully paid.

    The backdrop

    Ghana passed its landmark Domestic Violence Act in 2007. It criminalises acts that are likely to result in intimate partner violence. This opened the door to the establishment of a Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit to prosecute perpetrators. Structures are also in place to provide support for victims of abuse.

    But criminalising intimate partner violence offers only a partial remedy to the problem. This is particularly true when behaviours that lead to such acts of violence are deeply rooted in inequality, culture and patriarchy.

    Despite recent efforts to bridge gender inequality, Ghana continues to lag behind other societies in this area. Ghanaian women are discriminated against socially and culturally. They are excluded from participating in major decisions related to their households and communities. They are also marginalised economically, creating less opportunity for upward mobility.

    The patriarchal nature of Ghanaian society has not helped. It has worked in tandem with existing social arrangements to deepen inequality and further render women powerless.

    In my view, part of matrilineal women’s reduced risk of experiencing intimate partner violence may be explained by access to maternal resources, where they benefit more than their patrilineal and bilateral counterparts.

    This background also helps explain why bride price arrangements make a difference. Contemporary feminist analysis of the payment of bride price suggests it may be interpreted as “wife ownership and purchase”. This can be a tool for oppressing and controlling women.

    These findings support the argument that bride price payment may have negative consequences for Ghanaian women. This is especially so for those in patrilineal cultures where the norms and expectations associated with these payments are stronger.

    A path to safety

    Establishing cultural reasons why some women are at greater risk than others of experiencing intimate partner violence is important for policy in Ghana and has implications for sub-Saharan Africa.

    Our research findings point to the need to empower women by providing them with the resources they need to flourish and fight abuse. It shows lineage can be a conduit for resource exchange and distribution.

    Also, public education can help correct narratives of ownership and purchase which are linked to intimate partner violence. Bride price payments should have symbolic, not commercial, significance.

    Eric Y Tenkorang received funding from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation.

    – ref. Violence against women in Ghana is deeply rooted in culture and family ties – study – https://theconversation.com/violence-against-women-in-ghana-is-deeply-rooted-in-culture-and-family-ties-study-257947

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: What keeps girls from school in Malawi? We asked them and it’s not just pregnancy

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Rachel Silver, Assistant Professor, York University, Canada

    Coverage of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns on girls in Malawi emphasised the risks they faced as a result of not attending school. In particular, concerns about pregnancy garnered significant media attention.

    The United Nations Children’s Fund, for example, published an article in March 2021 entitled “Schoolgirl shakes off COVID-19 regret: Lucy’s return to school”. Under a glossy photograph of a smiling girl, readers learn about 16-year-old Lucy, one of 13,000 Malawian students who became pregnant during COVID-19 school closures. The story went on to detail the dire consequences of sexual activity to Lucy’s well-being, and the redemptive power of an eventual return to school.

    The Unicef piece echoed thousands of similar publications circulated after March 2020 that analysed COVID-19’s unique risk for girls in the global south and lamented lost returns to girls’ education.

    In response to COVID-19 surges, Malawian schools closed for over seven months, during which the percentage of pregnancies to young women aged 10-19 did increase from 29% to 35% of total pregnancies.

    Yet, our research has demonstrated that international development organisations and media outlets focused mostly on narrow, sexualised framings of risk to African girls and women rather than on the many intersecting and ongoing barriers to their well-being and school retention. These challenges both predate and extend beyond COVID-19.

    As scholars of international development education who have conducted research in Malawi for over a decade, we decided to join Malawian educational activist and collaborator Stella Makhuva to research how girls themselves narrated their experiences of the COVID-19 years. What did they consider a risk to their schooling?

    Together, we designed a longitudinal study from 2020 to 2023 that included multiple rounds of interviews and participatory journalling methods with 22 upper primary and secondary school girls in southern Malawi.

    We found that for girls in our study, COVID-19 was less a rupture – an unusual event that threatened their education in unprecedented ways – than an added variable in the already complex calculations girls and their families made about whether and how to remain in school.

    We argue that it was not pregnancy itself, but escalating resource constraints, that kept girls from school. And that interventions must do something about the real problem: inequitable systems.

    The stories told by the girls illustrate this. (All the names are pseudonyms.)

    Their stories

    When Faith joined our study in 2020, she was attending a peri-urban
    primary school near her home. She lived in a mud and grass-thatched house with her parents, both subsistence farmers who supported Faith’s and her siblings’ education. During school closures, she studied with friends to keep up with academic content when she was not helping with her parents’ farm.

    Yet school costs threatened Faith’s return to school upon reopening. Despite primary school being officially “free” by government mandate, students at her school were required to contribute 800 Malawi kwacha (close to US$1 at the time) per term to a school fund for infrastructure projects and upkeep. Not paying into the fund resulted in exclusion from classes.



    Read more:
    Does free schooling give girls a better chance in life? Burundi study shows the poorest benefited most

    When Faith eventually passed the Primary School Leaving Certificate Exam and enrolled in secondary school, the costs to schooling rose from 5,000 kwacha (about US$6.50 in early 2021) to 20,000 kwacha (about US$19 in late 2022). Faith worried about whether her parents, whose maize and tomato yields suffered from poor rains, would be able to pay.

    On top of this, Faith paid other costs, from exam fees and bicycle rental fees to supplemental lessons in which she learned material never covered during school hours. She said she and her family often sacrificed eating sufficiently to save money.

    Still, Faith was repeatedly pushed out of school until her fee balance was met. Before, during, and after COVID-19 school closures, girls like her were pushed out of school for a lack of regular fee payments.

    Faith’s school-going was also threatened by warming temperatures and new rain patterns that left her family with diminished food and income. Added to this were volatility in government agricultural subsidies to small farmers, inflated school fees, and the increasing privatisation of public education in Malawi.



    Read more:
    Malawi faces a food crisis: why plans to avert hunger aren’t realistic and what can be done

    Like Faith, all of the girls in our study worked to supplement their schooling with part time lessons, holiday classes, or by repeating grades given educational quality concerns. Based in under-resourced schools with low exam pass rates, girls knew that they were provided an incomplete education.

    According to Brightness,

    We do not learn fully what we are supposed to cover, and some teachers tend to be absent during their lessons. This makes us lag behind … As a result during exams they ask some questions which some of us … did not learn.

    Empirical evidence has shown how teacher engagement has long been influenced by the region’s high disease burden, especially due to HIV/Aids. This has left teachers both ill and caring for ill relatives.

    While teacher disengagement, therefore, reflected factors such as competing care responsibilities, professional dissatisfaction and stress, girls were deeply frustrated by what felt like abandonment.

    Rethinking pregnancy and parenting

    Mainstream discourses that missed key barriers to girls’ school retention and performance, such as privatisation and food insecurity, misrepresented student pregnancy as an emergent “crisis”.

    Prior to the pandemic, sexuality and school-going already overlapped for many girls in Malawi, where adolescent pregnancy rates were threefold the global average. Still, girls in our study countered the idea that schooling and sex were incompatible. They also challenged the idea that school was inherently safe and that it was pregnancy that kept them from school.



    Read more:
    Education and gender equality: focus on girls isn’t fair and isn’t enough — global study

    Many of the girls’ stories emphasised continuity with what came before the pandemic.

    We have found this in past research. Schooling and sexuality are not necessarily opposed; but parents and teachers try to protect girls from sexuality; and parenting and non-parenting girls alike face significant resource-related barriers to schooling.

    Conclusion

    If girls’ choices, particularly around sexuality, do not represent the greatest or only source of risk for girls’ schooling, interventions must respond to this reality. They should support well-being and address the broader conditions in which girls live and learn. The problem is inequity, not pregnant girls.

    Rachel Silver has received funding from the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

    Alyssa Morley 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. What keeps girls from school in Malawi? We asked them and it’s not just pregnancy – https://theconversation.com/what-keeps-girls-from-school-in-malawi-we-asked-them-and-its-not-just-pregnancy-258401

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Is Israel’s interception of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla legal?

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Priya Gupta, Associate Professor of Law, McGill University

    Israel’s interception of a ship launched by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) — a grassroots group that campaigns in solidarity with the Palestinian people — in international waters approximately 185 kilometres from Gaza has raised serious questions about the legality of its actions.

    The Madleen — a small, British-flagged civilian vessel named for Gaza’s first fisherwoman — was carrying 11 activists, one journalist and a small cargo of humanitarian aid, including flour, baby formula and children’s prostheses. Israeli forces detained all passengers, including well-known Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg and French European Parliamentarian Rima Hassan.

    The FFC uses non-violent direct action to attempt to break the blockade Israel has imposed on Gaza since 2007, and to raise awareness about the “ongoing brutality inflicted upon civilians in Gaza.”

    At approximately 3 a.m. local time on June 9, Israeli forces rammed and boarded the Madleen. Shortly before that, military drones hovered above it and the activists took video of Israeli forces of spraying a white substance on board that “caused burning eyes and general discomfort.”

    Israel says it intercepted the Madleen to enforce “a legal naval blockade.” The FFC, however, has called Israel’s actions an “illegal attack” and “a small extension of their war crimes in Gaza.”

    Past attacks on humanitarian flotillas

    Israel’s interception of the Madleen is not without precedent. On May 2, the FFC ship Conscience was seriously damaged during a drone attack while carrying humanitarian aid bound for Gaza. The attack ended its journey.

    In 2010, a group of six vessels called the Gaza Aid Flotilla sailed to Gaza to breach the Israeli blockade. The largest of the ships, the Mavi Marmara, was carrying more than 500 passengers when it was raided by Israeli forces in international waters, killing 10 people and wounding 56.

    Israel’s attack on the Mavi Marmara triggered international legal scrutiny and condemnation. The United Nations secretary-general immediately established an inquiry that determined the Israeli attack had resulted in “unacceptable” death, injury and mistreatment of detainees.

    Additionally, the UN Human Rights Council established a fact-finding mission that found that “no case can be made for the legality of the interception.”

    The Union of the Comoros, where the vessel was registered, referred the situation to the International Criminal Court (ICC), alleging war crimes and crimes against humanity. A chamber of the court found there was evidence Israeli soldiers committed “systematic abuse” of detained passengers.

    In the end, the case did not proceed because the prosecutor decided the incident was of “insufficient gravity,” in part because they could not identify a plan or policy on the part of Israel to carry out war crimes on a large scale.

    Israel’s ongoing crimes in Gaza

    It would be difficult to make the same conclusion regarding the situation in Gaza today.

    Israel is downplaying the severity of its attack on the Madleen, casting it as a sort of rescue mission as the Israeli foreign ministry posted a photo of activists being offered sandwiches. But Israel’s actions must be evaluated within the context of legal findings that have already been made by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the ICC.

    In January 2024, the ICJ found there was a “real and imminent risk” that Israel would commit genocide in Gaza. Two months later, it ordered Israel not to impede the provision of humanitarian assistance.

    In November 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant based on reasonable grounds that they “intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival” and that this deprivation “created conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of part of the civilian population.”

    In separate proceedings in July 2024, the ICJ found that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory, including Gaza and its surrounding waters, was unlawful and must come to an end “as rapidly as possible.”

    Against this backdrop, the interception of the flotilla could be seen as furthering Israel’s unlawful blockade, occupation and attack against the civilian population of Gaza, in addition to constituting unlawful targeting of the civilians on board. Amnesty International’s Secretary General, Agnès Callamard, has accused Israel of once again flouting “its legal obligations towards civilians in the occupied Gaza Strip” with the interception of the boat.

    Arbitrary detention, degrading treatment

    Thunberg, along with four other activists, has already been deported from Israel. Eight passengers who Israel says chose not “to sign deportation documents” remain in detention in an Israeli prison and will soon appear in court.

    Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said they would be forced to watch video footage of the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel. He later said they refused to watch the video.

    This detention and its circumstances may constitute violations of the protection against arbitrary deprivation of liberty under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Israel is a signatory.

    Israel cannot legally block aid

    Israel is not permitted to prevent humanitarian aid from reaching Palestinians in Gaza. The ICJ has ordered Israel to “ensure the unhindered provision at scale of urgently needed humanitarian assistance” and not do anything that would constitute a violation of the Genocide Convention “including by preventing, through any action, the delivery” of aid.

    The Geneva Convention also outlaws collective punishment of civilian populations and requires free passage of aid.

    Israel seemingly anticipated these arguments. Israeli officials mocked the Madleen, calling it a “selfie yacht” carrying a “tiny amount of aid” and proclaiming that “the show is over.” These statements could serve to cast the FFC as a disingenuous humanitarian mission.

    Israel also claims that the aid on board will be distributed through “real humanitarian channels.” This is likely an attempt by Israel to signal it’s not violating international humanitarian law by blocking assistance.

    These arguments, however, fail to acknowledge that the size of a humanitarian mission is irrelevant to the protection accorded to civilians and the requirement to allow delivery of aid.

    Disregarding the courts

    Israel has disregarded the ICJ’s orders to facilitate the delivery of urgently needed food and supplies to Gaza and has been accused of gunning down starving civilians at aid distribution centres.

    The Madleen’s mission was to force the world to acknowledge, in real time, Israel’s disregard for international law. In this aim, it succeeded. Israel’s interception of the Madleen could end up being prosecuted in the domestic courts of the passengers’ home countries, in the United Kingdom — where the boat was registered — or at the ICC.

    Humanitarians have vowed to continue to try to breach Israel’s blockade on Gaza. The Madleen’s voyage is a precursor to the March on Gaza scheduled for June 15, where thousands of activists will attempt to reach the Rafah crossing. The world will be watching.

    Heidi Matthews receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and is an advisor to the Legal Centre for Palestine.

    Priya Gupta 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. Is Israel’s interception of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla legal? – https://theconversation.com/is-israels-interception-of-the-gaza-freedom-flotilla-legal-258511

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Defence firms must adopt a ‘flexible secrecy’ to innovate for European rearmament

    Source: The Conversation – France – By Sihem BenMahmoud-Jouini, Associate Professor, HEC Paris Business School

    In the face of US President Donald Trump’s wavering commitments and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inscrutable ambitions, the talk in European capitals is all about rearmament.

    To that end, the European Commission has put forward an €800 billion spending scheme designed to “quickly and significantly increase expenditures in defence capabilities”, in the words of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

    But funding is only the first of many challenges involved when pursuing military innovation. Ramping up capabilities “quickly and significantly” will prove difficult for a sector that must keep pace with rapid technological change.

    Of course, defence firms don’t have to do it alone: they can select from a wide variety of potential collaborators, ranging from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to agile start-ups. Innovative partnerships, however, require trust and a willingness to share vital information, qualities that appear incompatible with the need for military secrecy.

    That is why rearming Europe requires a new approach to secrecy.

    A paper I co-authored with Jonathan Langlois of HEC and Romaric Servajean-Hilst of KEDGE Business School examines the strategies used by one leading defence firm (which we, for our own secrecy-related reasons, renamed “Globaldef”) to balance open innovation with information security. The 43 professionals we interviewed – including R&D managers, start-up CEOs and innovation managers – were not consciously working from a common playbook. However, their nuanced and dynamic approaches could serve as a cohesive role model for Europe’s defence sector as it races to adapt to a changing world.

    How flexible secrecy enables innovation

    Our research took place between 2018 and 2020. At the time, defence firms looked toward open innovation to compensate for the withdrawal of key support. There was a marked decrease in government spending on military R&D across the OECD countries. However, even though the current situation involves more funding, the need for external innovation remains prevalent to speed up access to knowledge.

    When collaborating to innovate, firms face what open innovation scholars have termed “the paradox of openness”, wherein the value to be gained by collaborating must be weighed against the possible costs of information sharing. In the defence sector – unlike, say, in consumer products – being too liberal with information could not only lead to business losses but to grave security risks for entire nations, and even prosecution for the executives involved.

    Although secrecy was a constant concern, Globaldef’s managers often found themselves in what one of our interviewees called a “blurred zone” where some material could be interpreted as secret, but sharing it was not strictly off-limits. In cases like these, opting for the standard mode in the defence industry – erring on the side of caution and remaining tight-lipped – would make open innovation impossible.


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    Practices that make collaboration work

    Studying transcripts of more than 40 interviews along with a rich pool of complementary data (emails, PowerPoint presentations, crowdsourcing activity, etc.), we discerned that players at Globaldef had developed fine-grained practices for maintaining and modulating secrecy, even while actively collaborating with civilian companies.

    Our research identifies these practices as either cognitive or relational. Cognitive practices acted as strategic screens, masking the most sensitive aspects of Globaldef’s knowledge without throttling information flow to the point of preventing collaboration.

    Depending on the type of project, cognitive practices might consist of one or more of the following:

    • Encryption: relabelling knowledge components to hide their nature and purpose.

    • Obfuscation: selectively blurring project specifics to preserve secrecy while recruiting partners.

    • Simplification: blurring project parameters to test the suitability of a partner without revealing true constraints.

    • Transposition: transferring the context of a problem from a military to a civilian one.

    Relational practices involved reframing the partnership itself, by selectively controlling the width of the aperture through which external parties could view Globaldef’s aims and project characteristics. These practices might include redirecting the focus of a collaboration away from core technologies, or introducing confidentiality agreements to expand information-sharing within the partnership while prohibiting communication to third parties.

    When to shift strategy in defence projects

    Using both cognitive and relational practices enabled Globaldef to skirt the pitfalls of its paradox. For example, in the early stages of open innovation, when the firm was scouting and testing potential partners, managers could widen the aperture (relational) while imposing strict limits on knowledge-sharing (cognitive). They could thereby freely engage with the crowd without violating Globaldef’s internal rules regarding secrecy.

    As partnerships ripened and trust grew, Globaldef could gradually lift cognitive protections, giving partners access to more detailed and specific data. This could be counterbalanced by a tightening on the relational side, eg requiring paperwork and protocols designed to plug potential leaks.

    As we retraced the firm’s careful steps through six real-life open innovation partnerships, we saw that the key to this approach was in knowing when to transition from one mode to the other. Each project had its own rhythm.

    For one crowdsourcing project, the shift from low to high cognitive depth, and high to low relational width, was quite sudden, occurring as soon as the partnership was formalised. This was due to the fact that Globaldef’s partner needed accurate details and project parameters in order to solve the problem in question. Therefore, near-total openness and concomitant confidentiality had to be established at the outset.

    In another case, Globaldef retained the cognitive blinders throughout the early phase of a partnership with a start-up. To test the start-up’s technological capacities, the firm presented its partner with a cognitively reframed problem. Only after the partner passed its initial trial was collaboration initiated on a fully transparent footing, driven by the need for the start-up to obtain defence clearance prior to co-developing technology with Globaldef.

    How firms can lead with adaptive secrecy

    Since we completed and published our research, much has changed geopolitically. But the high-stakes paradox of openness is still a pressing issue inside Europe’s defence firms. Managers and executives are no doubt grappling with the evident necessity for open innovation on the one hand and secrecy on the other.

    Our research suggests that, like Globaldef, other actors in Europe’s defence sector can deftly navigate this paradox. Doing so, however, will require employing a more subtle, flexible and dynamic definition of secrecy rather than the absolutist, static one that normally prevails in the industry. The defence sector’s conception of secrecy must also progress from a primarily legal to a largely strategic framework.

    Sihem BenMahmoud-Jouini ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

    – ref. Defence firms must adopt a ‘flexible secrecy’ to innovate for European rearmament – https://theconversation.com/defence-firms-must-adopt-a-flexible-secrecy-to-innovate-for-european-rearmament-258302

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: There are clear laws on enforcing blockades – Israel’s interception of the Madleen raises serious questions

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Shannon Bosch, Associate Professor (Law), Edith Cowan University

    On June 9, the Madleen, a UK-flagged civilian ship carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza, was stopped by Israeli forces in international waters, about 200 kilometres off the coast.

    The Freedom Flotilla Coalition had organised the voyage, setting sail from Sicily on June 1. The vessel’s 12 passengers included climate activist Greta Thunberg, European Parliament member Rima Hassan, two French journalists and several other activists from around the world.

    The Israeli military boarded the ship and diverted it to the Israeli port of Ashdod. The aid it carried — baby formula, food, medical supplies, water desalination kits — was confiscated. All passengers were detained and now face deportation.

    This interception has sparked international condemnation. Importantly, it also raises questions about whether Israel’s actions comply with international law.

    Legal conditions for naval blockades

    Naval blockades are not automatically illegal. Under the San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea (1994), a blockade may be used in wartime, but only if five legal conditions are met:

    • it must be formally declared and publicly notified
    • it must be effectively enforced in practice
    • it must be applied impartially to all ships
    • it must not block access to neutral ports or coastlines
    • it must not stop the delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians.

    If even one of these conditions is not met, the blockade may be considered illegal under customary international humanitarian law.

    The fifth condition is especially important here. According to a comprehensive study of international humanitarian law conducted by the International Committee of the Red Cross, the parties to a conflict must allow the rapid and unimpeded delivery of humanitarian relief to civilians in need.

    A blockade that prevents this could be in breach of international law.

    Israel and Egypt have imposed a blockade of varying degrees on Gaza since 2007 when Hamas came to power. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz claims the purpose of the blockade is to “prevent the transfer of weapons to Hamas”. Critics say it amounts to collective punishment.

    The Madleen was operating in compliance with three binding International Court of Justice orders (from January 2024, March 2024 and May 2024) requiring unimpeded humanitarian access to Gaza.

    Freedom of navigation

    International law also strongly protects the freedom of navigation, particularly in international waters beyond any state’s territorial limits.

    There are only a few exceptions when a country can lawfully stop a foreign ship in international waters – if it is involved in piracy, slave trading, unauthorised broadcasting, or the vessel itself is stateless. A country can also stop a ship if it is enforcing a lawful blockade or acting in self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter.

    So, if Israel’s actions do not fully meet the international legal requirements for enforcing a blockade during wartime, it would not have the right to intercept the Madleen in international waters.

    Protections for humanitarian workers

    More broadly speaking, international humanitarian law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention, protects civilians during conflict. This protection extends to people delivering humanitarian aid, so long as they do not directly take part in hostilities.

    To be considered directly participating in hostilities, a person must:

    • intend to cause military harm
    • have a direct causal link to that harm, and
    • be acting in connection with one side of the conflict.

    Bringing aid to civilians, even if politically controversial, does not meet this legal threshold. As a result, the Madleen’s passengers remain protected civilians and should not be treated as combatants or detained arbitrarily.

    International law also sets out how civilians detained in conflict situations must be treated. Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, detainees must be given access to medical care, lawyers and consular representatives. They must also not be punished without fair legal processes.

    Reports that Madleen passengers have been detained and are facing deportation raise concerns about whether these standards are being upheld.

    In response to the ship’s interception, the Hind Rajab Foundation, a nonprofit advocacy group, has filed a complaint with the UK Metropolitan Police War Crimes Unit. The complaint alleges a number of breaches of international humanitarian law, including forcible detention, obstruction of humanitarian relief, and degrading treatment.

    Previous flotilla intercepted

    This is not the first time Israel has stopped an aid ship and faced accusations of violating the law of the sea and humanitarian law.

    In 2010, the Israeli military raided a flotilla of six ships organised by international activists aiming to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza and challenge the blockade.

    Violence broke out on the largest vessel, the Mavi Marmara, resulting in the deaths of nine Turkish nationals and injuries to dozens of others. The incident drew international condemnation. Israel agreed to ease its blockade after the incident.

    A fact-finding mission established by the UN Human Rights Council found that Israel violated a number of international laws and that its blockade was “inflicting disproportionate damage upon the civilian population”.

    This is not just a political or moral issue – it’s a legal one. International law lays out clear rules for when and how a country can enforce blockades, intercept vessels and treat civilians.

    Based on these rules, serious legal questions remain about Israel’s handling of the Madleen and its passengers.

    Shannon Bosch 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. There are clear laws on enforcing blockades – Israel’s interception of the Madleen raises serious questions – https://theconversation.com/there-are-clear-laws-on-enforcing-blockades-israels-interception-of-the-madleen-raises-serious-questions-258562

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: In Trump’s America, the shooting of a journalist is not a one-off. Press freedom itself is under attack

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Peter Greste, Professor of Journalism and Communications, Macquarie University

    The video of a Los Angeles police officer shooting a rubber bullet at Channel Nine reporter Lauren Tomasi is as shocking as it is revealing.

    In her live broadcast, Tomasi is standing to the side of a rank of police in riot gear. She describes the way they have begun firing rubber bullets to disperse protesters angry with US President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants.

    As Tomasi finishes her sentence, the camera pans to the left, just in time to catch the officer raising his gun and firing a non-lethal round into her leg. She said a day later she is sore, but otherwise OK.

    Although a more thorough investigation might find mitigating circumstances, from the video evidence, it is hard to dismiss the shot as “crossfire”. The reporter and cameraman were off to one side of the police, clearly identified and working legitimately.

    The shooting is also not a one-off. Since the protests against Trump’s mass deportations policy began three days ago, a reporter with the LA Daily News and a freelance journalist have been hit with pepper balls and tear gas.

    British freelance photojournalist Nick Stern also had emergency surgery to remove a three-inch plastic bullet from his leg.

    In all, the Los Angeles Press Club has documented more than 30 incidents of obstruction and attacks on journalists during the protests.

    Trump’s assault on the media

    It now seems assaults on the media are no longer confined to warzones or despotic regimes. They are happening in American cities, in broad daylight, often at the hands of those tasked with upholding the law.

    But violence is only one piece of the picture. In the nearly five months since taking office, the Trump administration has moved to defund public broadcasters, curtail access to information and undermine the credibility of independent media.

    International services once used to project democratic values and American soft power around the world, such as Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia, have all had their funding cut and been threatened with closure. (The Voice of America website is still operational but hasn’t been updated since mid-March, with one headline on the front page reading “Vatican: Francis stable, out of ‘imminent danger’ of death”).

    The Associated Press, one of the most respected and important news agencies in the world, has been restricted from its access to the White House and covering Trump. The reason? It decided to defy Trump’s directive to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America.

    Even broadcast licenses for major US networks, such as ABC, NBC and CBS, have been publicly threatened — a signal to editors and executives that political loyalty might soon outweigh journalistic integrity.

    The Committee to Protect Journalists is more used to condemning attacks on the media in places like Russia. However, in April, it issued a report headlined: “Alarm bells: Trump’s first 100 days ramp up fear for the press, democracy”.

    A requirement for peace

    Why does this matter? The success of American democracy has never depended on unity or even civility. It has depended on scrutiny. A system where power is challenged, not flattered.

    The First Amendment to the US Constitution – which protects freedom of speech – has long been considered the gold standard for building the institutions of free press and free expression. That only works when journalism is protected — not in theory but in practice.

    Now, strikingly, the language once reserved for autocracies and failed states has begun to appear in assessments of the US. Civicus, which tracks declining democracies around the world, recently put the US on its watchlist, alongside the Democratic Republic of Congo, Italy, Serbia and Pakistan.

    The attacks on the journalists in LA are troubling not only for their sake, but for ours. This is about civic architecture. The kind of framework that makes space for disagreement without descending into disorder.

    Press freedom is not a luxury for peacetime. It is a requirement for peace.

    Peter Greste is Professor of Journalism at Macquarie University and the Executive Director for the advocacy group, the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom.

    – ref. In Trump’s America, the shooting of a journalist is not a one-off. Press freedom itself is under attack – https://theconversation.com/in-trumps-america-the-shooting-of-a-journalist-is-not-a-one-off-press-freedom-itself-is-under-attack-258578

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Dismal ticket sales, grumblings from fans and clubs – is FIFA’s latest attempt to establish a global club game doomed before it starts?

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Stefan Szymanski, Professor of Sport Management, University of Michigan

    FIFA is hoping that Lionel Messi can draw the crowds. Megan Briggs/Getty Images

    The FIFA World Club Cup, which kicks off in the U.S. on June 14, 2025, may seem like a new competition.

    Certainly, soccer’s governing body, FIFA, is promoting it as is it were, marketing the monthlong competition between 32 of the world’s biggest soccer teams as the “pinnacle of club football,” with up to US$125 million in prize money for the winning team and $250 million set aside for promoting “football solidarity.”

    In reality, the competition is the latest chapter in FIFA’s long-running quest – going all the way back to 1960 – to create a global championship that would determine which club really is the best in the world.

    The organizing body has trumpeted a $1 billion prize pot for the World Club Cup. But FIFA has been less vocal about the broadcasting deal underpinning the event, which is being financed by Saudi Arabia reportedly to tune of $1 billion. That deal was announced just days before Saudi Arabia was confirmed as the host of the men’s 2034 World Cup – a lucrative prize for the Gulf kingdom.

    This sounds more like the FIFA we all know, with the whiff of corruption and dodgy dealing that has dogged the organizing body for decades.

    FIFA’s president, Gianni Infantino.
    Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images

    FIFA’s critics argue that the competition is nothing more than an attempt to line the governing body’s coffers. FIFA’s line is that it will not keep “one dollar” from the event, and instead plans to distribute revenue to the clubs.

    Not helping FIFA’s case is the fact that clubs and players are similarly unimpressed, protesting that the event is an unnecessary addition to an already-overburdened soccer calendar.

    As always, the litmus test for success will come from the fans. So far, things are not going well on that front. Falling prices on Ticketmaster bode ill for the competition. Just days before the games were due to begin, FIFA slashed prices for the opening match: MLS club Inter Miami against Egypt’s Al-Ahly. Reports suggest that less than a third of tickets at the 65,000-seat venue for the opener, Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, had sold – despite the likely presence of soccer superstar Lionel Messi.

    Of course, the declining number of tourists coming to the U.S. since the second inauguration of Donald Trump – and the president’s recently announced travel ban affecting 19 countries – hasn’t helped encourage fans of the global game to the U.S., even if none of the competing clubs come from one of those countries.

    FIFA vs. UEFA

    So, given all the problems and controversies, why is FIFA so invested?

    As someone who has long researched the nexus of soccer, money and power, I see the World Club Cup as part of a struggle between UEFA, the European governing body that runs the Champions League – currently seen as the pinnacle of soccer club competition – and FIFA, which wants to supplant the Champions League with its own competition.

    UEFA’s power stems from hosting the world’s biggest clubs. Only one club from outside Europe appears in soccer data website Transfermarkt’s list of the 50 most valuable squads – with Palmeiras from Brazil squeaking in at 50.

    Top players in their prime rarely quit Europe to play on another continent – the high-profile names that opt to play in the U.S. or Saudi leagues tend to be veterans cashing in on their name.

    Meanwhile, the world’s soccer talent flocks to European clubs. It’s not just that big clubs like Real Madrid, Liverpool or Bayern Munich that can pay top dollar for the star players – less storied clubs like Brentford, Real Sociedad or VfB Stuttgart have the wherewithal to fish in the global player market.

    The wealth and status of these clubs form the muscle behind UEFA. And the jewel in the UEFA crown is the Champions League, an annual competition that brings together the best clubs in Europe.

    A game of two halves

    While UEFA also has its own national competition, the Euros, its pull is nowhere near as great as FIFA’s World Cup.

    This division – with FIFA dominating the international team competition and UEFA the club competition – dates back to the 1960s and the early years of mass television.

    When the 1966 World Cup was hosted by England, it was one of the very first global sports events, watched by an estimated audience of 400 million people worldwide.

    The 1970 World Cup, a legendary event in the eyes of boomer soccer fans, established the four-year ritual that surpasses even the Olympics as a global sporting event.

    At this time, UEFA’s Euros were barely a competition at all. The 1968, 1972 and 1976 editions – played in Italy, Belgium and Yugoslavia, respectively – each had only four teams and only four or five games.

    UEFA had by then established its role in club competition. The European Cup, as the Champions League was then called, started in 1955.

    But the game remembered today for establishing the dominance of European club competition is the 1960 final between Real Madrid and Eintract Frankfurt – a 10-goal thriller that Los Blancos won 7-3.

    Ferenc Puskas of Real Madrid scores his team’s sixth goal during the European Cup final against Eintracht Frankfurt at Hampden Park in Glasgow, Scotland, on May 18, 1960.
    Keystone/Getty Images

    Witnessed by a crowd of 128,000 at Hampden Park in Glasgow, Scotland, the more important statistic was the estimated 70 million television audience in Europe.

    The 1968 final at London’s Wembley Stadium, when Manchester United overcame Benfica in honor of the “Busby Babes” – Manchester players who died in a 1958 Munich air disaster while traveling home from a European Cup game – saw a TV audience of 270 million.

    A history of failure

    The ambition to create a club world cup to rival the European Cup goes back to the 1950s. Soccer powerhouses Brazil and Argentina in particular promoted the idea that the top clubs in Europe should face off against the top South American teams.

    The resulting Intercontinental Cup ran from 1960 to 2004, with the top teams from UEFA and CONMEBOL, the South American soccer federation, taking part.

    But played in midseason, it barely made an impression on the fans.

    In 2000, FIFA created the Club World Championship, with eight teams drawn from the five international federations.

    It also attracted little love, and the 2001-to-2004 editions had to be canceled for lack of financial backing.

    In the early years, it seemed like an excuse to emulate the Intercontinental Cup, and the first three winners were South American. However, since 2006, all the winners bar one – Brazil’s Corinthians in 2012 – have been European.

    Europe is ‘on the beach’

    Then, in 2017, Gianni Infantino, the FIFA president, announced plans to expand the competition and move it to the summer. With 32 teams, the competition will look more like the World Cup and will receive a lot of TV coverage.

    The fact that it will be free to watch will help. So too will the presence of Messi.

    Yet the overwhelming feeling going into the competition is that, like its predecessors, the revamped FIFA club competition is destined for failure.

    With the European domestic leagues all completed and the Champions League final – the unofficial marker of the end of the soccer season – having taken place on May 31, players and fans appear to be “on the beach,” to use a favorite phrase of soccer commentators.

    Ultimately, FIFA’s revamped World Club Cup faces the same issues that beset its forerunners: European teams are overwhelmingly tipped to win.

    Rather than the global soccer “solidarity” that FIFA hopes, the competition sets to reinforce the dominance of European clubs – and of Europe’s governing body when it comes to club competition.

    Stefan Szymanski 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. Dismal ticket sales, grumblings from fans and clubs – is FIFA’s latest attempt to establish a global club game doomed before it starts? – https://theconversation.com/dismal-ticket-sales-grumblings-from-fans-and-clubs-is-fifas-latest-attempt-to-establish-a-global-club-game-doomed-before-it-starts-258378

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Trump–Xi call boosts Chinese president’s tough man image — and may have handed him the upper hand in future talks

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Linggong Kong, Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science, Auburn University

    Presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump at the G20 Summit on July 7, 2017, in Hamburg, Germany. Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images

    On June 5, U.S. President Donald Trump held a phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping. It marked the first direct conversation between the two leaders since Trump began his second term — and the first since tensions sharply escalated in 2025’s U.S.-China trade war.

    After the call, Trump was quick to frame it as a success for his administration, posting on social media that it led to “a very positive conclusion for both Countries.” He later told reporters that Xi had agreed to resume exports of rare earth minerals and magnets to the U.S. — allaying the fears of the auto industry, which had previously warned that parts suppliers were facing severe and immediate risks to production.

    The presidential phone call also yielded an invitation for Trump and first lady Melania to visit China, an invitation that Trump reciprocated.

    But aside from the easing of some trade tension and surface-level niceties, the call conveyed subtle messages about an imbalance in the bilateral dispute. As an expert on U.S.-China relations, I believe these subtleties point to Xi having the upper hand in U.S.-China talks and also using Trump as a foil to burnish his own image as a strong leader at home and abroad.

    A rare earths ace

    The Trump-Xi call should not distract from the fragile state of China-U.S. relations — and the willingness of Beijing to play its “rare earth materials card.”

    Beijing suspended rare earth shipments to prominent American companies following the U.S. imposition of tariffs on China.

    Although China and U.S. delegations reached a 90-day tariff truce in Geneva on May 12, negotiations between the two countries remain ongoing. As many observers have noted, deep-rooted and structural differences — such as disputes over currency manipulation, export subsidies and other nontariff barriers — continue to cast a long shadow over the prospects of U.S-China trade talks.

    U.S. auto assembly lines are reliant on rare earth materials from China.
    Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images

    Under the terms of the Geneva deal, China agreed to suspend or lift its export ban on rare earths — something the U.S. accuses China of dragging its feet on.

    Beijing, in turn, accuses the U.S. of breaking the Geneva agreement first and blames Washington for rolling out a wave of discriminatory measures against China after the talks, including new export controls on artificial intelligence chips, a ban on selling electronic design automation software to Chinese companies, and plans to revoke visas for Chinese students.

    Trump’s order banning American companies from using AI chips by China-based Huawei — issued just one day after the Geneva agreement on May 12 — was seen by many in Beijing as directly countering the spirit of the agreement. Indeed, it may well have prompted Beijing to delay the resumption of rare earth exports to the U.S. in the first place.

    Aside from the actual effect of the resumption of rare earth exports, Trump’s apparent priority given to the issue signals to Beijing just how reliant the U.S. is on China in this regard — something that would not have gone unnoticed by Xi.

    Xi never came calling

    Just one day before the June 5 call, Trump wrote on social media: “I like President XI of China, always have, and always will, but he is VERY TOUGH, AND EXTREMELY HARD TO MAKE A DEAL WITH!!!”

    His conversation with the Chinese leader would have further reinforced Xi’s tough image — not just for a Chinese audience, but for international observers as well.

    This was certainly encouraged by how China described the call. According to China’s official statement, Xi “took a phone call from U.S. President Donald J. Trump” – the subtle implication being that it was Trump who initiated the call.

    This framing promotes the idea that Xi holds the upper hand. The Chinese statement also highlighted that the Geneva talks were “at the suggestion of the U.S. side,” implying that China did not back down in the face of Trump’s trade pressure — and that it was Trump who ultimately blinked first.

    China’s message is particularly significant given that, as the U.S.-China trade war intensified in April, Washington believed it could gain “escalation dominance” by imposing tariffs on Chinese goods — perhaps underestimating China’s ability to retaliate effectively and assuming Beijing would be eager to negotiate.

    Prior to the June 5 communication, Trump repeatedly expressed hope that Xi would call him, yet Xi never took the initiative. On April 22, Trump told Time magazine that Xi had phoned him — an assertion that Beijing quickly denied.

    Throughout the trade standoff, Xi refrained from initiating contact with Trump, and in the end, it was Trump who reached out.

    This undoubtedly enhanced Xi’s image back home — and potentially undermined Trump’s negotiating posture.

    The official Chinese statement following the talks noted: “The Chinese side is sincere about this, and at the same time has its principles. The Chinese always honor and deliver what has been promised. Both sides should make good on the agreement reached in Geneva.”

    Those words appear aimed at signaling to the international community that it is the U.S. — not China — that failed to uphold its end of the Geneva agreement.

    The second-to-last paragraph of the Chinese statement on the phone call noted: “President Trump said that he has great respect for President Xi, and the U.S.-China relationship is very important. The U.S. wants the Chinese economy to do very well. The U.S. and China working together can get a lot of great things done. The U.S. will honor the one-China policy. The meeting in Geneva was very successful, and produced a good deal. The U.S. will work with China to execute the deal. The U.S. loves to have Chinese students coming to study in America.”

    While much of this language may be standard diplomatic rhetoric, it clearly aims to box in Trump as the supplicant in the current dispute and implies that he is moving closer to China’s positions, including key nontrade issues like U.S. visas for Chinese students.

    A game of telephone?

    Aside from the optics or broader question of who is “winning” the dispute, the Trump-Xi call has certainly eased some tensions on both sides — at least temporarily.

    For the U.S., concerns over rare earth supplies were alleviated. Since the call, it has been reported that China has issued temporary export licenses to companies that supply rare earth materials to America’s three largest automakers.

    For China, Trump’s remarks seemingly helped reduce anxiety over issues such as Taiwan and student visa restrictions.

    But given the deep and fundamental differences between the two countries on trade and economic matters — and recalling how trade negotiations repeatedly stalled and restarted during Trump’s first term — there is good reason to believe that future talks could face similar setbacks.

    But what is clear now, especially compared with the trade war during Trump’s first administration, is that Beijing appears better prepared and more skilled at leveraging its rare earth exports as a bargaining chip.

    In many ways, Trump faces the greater pressure in his handling of Xi. Should talks collapse, any resulting supply chain disruptions could lead to rising inflation, market volatility and economic woe for the U.S. — with the associated risks of political fallout ahead of the midterm elections. Xi will know this and, in rare earth materials, has an ace up his sleeve to pull out when needed.

    Indeed, Trump may find himself needing to reach out to Xi again in the future in an effort to revive troubled trade negotiations. But doing so would only reinforce Xi’s image as the tougher and more dominant figure.

    Linggong Kong 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. Trump–Xi call boosts Chinese president’s tough man image — and may have handed him the upper hand in future talks – https://theconversation.com/trump-xi-call-boosts-chinese-presidents-tough-man-image-and-may-have-handed-him-the-upper-hand-in-future-talks-258437

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Skip the ice bath if you want bigger muscles

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Michelle Spear, Professor of Anatomy, University of Bristol

    Mariusz Szczygiel/Shutterstock.com

    Ice baths are everywhere in modern fitness culture. From professional athletes to weekend warriors, many swear by the post-workout plunge, hoping the icy shock will ease soreness, calm inflammation and help their bodies bounce back faster. But recent research from the Netherlands reveals a surprising downside: those freezing dips might actually slow muscle growth.

    When you expose your body to cold, like during an ice bath, your blood vessels constrict. This can reduce swelling, flush out waste products from your workout and ease the muscle soreness that occurs a day or two after intense exercise. That post-workout ache is a sign that your muscles are repairing. So when it fades, it feels like you’re ready to hit the gym again, which helps explain why ice baths are so popular.

    But there’s a twist. The very inflammation that causes soreness is also part of how your muscles heal and grow. Shut it down too soon and you might be holding back your progress.

    In the recent study, researchers at Maastricht University tested how cold temperatures affect nutrient delivery and muscle-building signals. Twelve healthy young men each did a strength workout using just one leg. Immediately afterwards, each immersed that leg in 8°C water for 20 minutes, while the other leg sat in 30°C water (the “control”). The scientists then measured blood flow and tracked how the muscles used protein to see how the cold affected recovery and muscle-building processes.

    The results were clear: right after the ice bath, blood flow in the cold-exposed leg dropped by about 60% compared with the warm-water leg.

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    Even three hours after the workout, blood flow to the muscle that had been cooled was still noticeably lower. Since muscles rely on blood to deliver nutrients, such as amino acids and oxygen, this meant they were getting less of what they needed to grow. In fact, the researchers found about 30% less of the building blocks of protein being used by the muscle.

    After strength training, blood flow to your muscles normally increases – a response known as hyperemia. This rush of blood brings important nutrients like amino acids, oxygen and insulin, all of which help to trigger the muscle-building process.

    But when you expose your muscles to cold right after a workout, the blood vessels tighten – a reaction called vasoconstriction – which limits how much of those nutrients get through. That means your muscles may miss out during an important window for growth and recovery.

    After a workout, a bit of inflammation is actually a good thing – it signals your body to start the repair process. Immune cells release special proteins called cytokines – chemical messengers that help spark muscle repair.

    But cooling the muscles too soon, like with an ice bath, can reduce this natural response. It dampens the signals and slows the activation of those repair cells, which may lead to slower progress and less muscle growth over time.

    Not all ice baths are equal

    Most athletes who use ice baths jump in within minutes after a workout, usually soaking in water between 8°C and 15°C for ten to 20 minutes. This is the standard protocol, although coaches and athletes often adjust the timing and temperature, depending on their goals.

    Waiting at least an hour before taking an ice bath might be a smart move as it gives the body time to initiate important muscle-building signals and absorb nutrients without interference. Also, using milder cold water (around 15°C) is gentler on blood flow compared with very cold water. That means it can still help ease soreness without slowing muscle growth as much as colder temperatures might.

    How often you use ice baths makes a difference too. In the Maastricht study and others like it, participants used cold plunges after every workout, which led to less muscle growth over time. But if you save ice baths for especially tough days, like during competitions or intense training weeks, athletes can avoid some of those negative effects while still getting recovery benefits when they need them most.

    If the goal is to stay sharp and recover quickly – rather than building maximum muscle – then a slight drop in muscle growth might be a fair trade-off for feeling fresher and bouncing back faster.

    There’s still a lot we don’t know about ice baths and muscle growth. Most studies so far have focused on young men, so it’s unclear if women, older adults or people with muscle loss due to health conditions respond the same way. More research is needed to understand how cold therapy affects different groups of people.

    Most research so far has focused on soaking just one arm or leg, but full-body ice baths might cause different reactions in the body, such as changes in hormones like adrenaline and cortisol, that could affect how muscles adapt. Bigger studies are needed to figure out the best timing, temperature and how different people respond to cold therapy.

    The allure of ice baths is understandable: who doesn’t want to feel less sore after a gruelling training session? But current data should serve as a cautionary tale – muscles need blood, nutrients and even inflammation to grow. By plunging immediately into icy water, athletes risk dampening the very signals that drive muscle growth.

    For people who want to maximise muscle size and strength, it might be best to skip the ice bath or delay it by at least an hour. But for athletes facing tough competition schedules who need to recover quickly, carefully timed ice baths can be a helpful tool. Ultimately, each athlete must weigh the benefits of feeling less sore against the possibility of slower muscle growth and adjust how they use cold therapy based on their personal goals and training demands.

    Michelle Spear 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. Skip the ice bath if you want bigger muscles – https://theconversation.com/skip-the-ice-bath-if-you-want-bigger-muscles-258407

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Juliet and Romeo strains to be meaningful but never earns its emotional crescendos

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Emily Rowe, Lecturer in Early Modern Literature, King’s College London

    The new musical film Juliet and Romeo arrives on screen with lavish visuals, saccharine pop songs and a reworked Shakespearean plot that tries to dazzle. With its vivid colour palette and dreamy masquerade aesthetic, this is Verona as filtered through a Eurovision lens: glittering, melodramatic and frequently overwrought.

    Writer and director Timothy Scott Bogart and composer Evan Kidd join a lineage of Romeo and Juliet adaptations that blend music with spectacle. Who could forget Harold Perrineau’s drag rendition of Young Hearts Run Free as Mercutio in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet (1996)? More recently, the stage show & Juliet (2019) used the iconic songwriting of Max Martin for a jukebox musical meets feminist retelling of the tragedy. So where does Juliet and Romeo fall in comparison?

    Let’s begin with the fair, before turning to the foul. Shot on location in the real Verona, Juliet and Romeo makes excellent use of its scenery, with inventive sets and clever staging that breathe some vitality into its world.

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    Verona’s jewel tones, candlelit street parties and endless twisting streets grant the film its fairytale quality. There’s a tactile richness to the production design that occasionally feels immersive, evoking a heightened world somewhere between Shakespeare’s imagined Verona and a perfume advert. The array of fight, dance, and crowd scenes are well-choreographed and the camera often moves with an energetic theatricality that hints at what the musical could have been.

    Unfortunately, the music doesn’t keep pace. While the pop soundtrack is relentlessly inoffensive – think bubblegum ballads and power choruses – it lacks the lyrical bite or emotional weight needed to sustain a tragedy.

    With sugary harmonies and banal lyrics, these numbers evoke more Eurovision than Elizabethan drama – not inherently a bad thing, but in this case, it results in emotional flatness. For example, a number like Better Than This, led with verve by Martina Ortiz Luis as Veronica, stands out slightly with its charming melody and joyful choreography. It’s a moment of brightness that briefly lifts the energy. But even that slips into the overall sameness of the score. At its best, the music is cutesy; at its worst, it’s filler.

    The trailer for Juliet & Romeo.

    The character work is similarly uneven. Juliet (Clara Rugaard) emerges as the most compelling figure – wry, self-aware, and played with just enough spunk to avoid cliché. Romeo (Jamie Ward), by contrast, is a forgettable boy-band archetype, rebelling weakly against a domineering father (Jason Isaacs channelling medieval Lucius Malfoy) and contributing little beyond brooding charm.

    Derek Jacobi’s gravitas is squandered on narration and playing the hapless Friar Lawrence. Juliet and Romeo opens with a flurry of historical exposition delivered by Jacobi: medieval Italy, papal politics, the splintering of city-states, and the threat of “mighty Rome” coming for Verona. It’s an ambitious – if unnecessary – reframing that sets up a late-stage twist that gestures toward a sequel.

    The supporting cast is also a mix of intriguing choices and tonal confusion. Mercutio’s (Nicholas Podany) subplot, involving his own forbidden love and tense relationship with an adoptive Montague patriarch, hints at deeper parallels to the central couple, but is never fully developed. The apothecary (Dan Fogler), bafflingly, gets a solo about alchemical experiments that feels lifted from a mid-tier Disney sequel. Meanwhile, the nurse (Sara Lazzaro), usually a comedic gem, is stripped of humour entirely.

    The Mask I Wear from Juliet & Romeo.

    A standout number comes from Rebel Wilson’s Lady Capulet and Verona’s women, who lament in The Mask I Wear about the constraints of femininity in well-arranged harmony. Yet the song’s emotional resonance is blunted by underwritten character arcs. The women sing beautifully, but we barely know why they’re angry.

    In the end, Juliet and Romeo is a musical that strains to be meaningful but never earns its emotional crescendos. It gestures toward political intrigue, feminist revision and star-crossed romance, but settles for spectacle. Still, with its sparkling visuals and glossy score, for fans of unapologetic musical fanfare, there’s some joy to be found in the glitter.

    Emily Rowe 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. Juliet and Romeo strains to be meaningful but never earns its emotional crescendos – https://theconversation.com/juliet-and-romeo-strains-to-be-meaningful-but-never-earns-its-emotional-crescendos-258507

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why burning waste to power a giant greenhouse really could be a greener way of growing food

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Alex Newman, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Sustainability Assessment at the Grantham Centre, University of Sheffield

    Tomatoes could be grown at an industrial scale using heat generated from burning household waste in Essex, UK. Jenoche/Shutterstock

    A new project in Bradwell, Essex, aims to change how we grow food and how we deal with our rubbish. Slated to begin operations in 2027, the Rivenhall greenhouse project could become Europe’s largest low-carbon horticulture facility.

    While smaller scale applications already exist, primarily in the Netherlands, a proposal of this size is ambitious: to use heat from waste incineration to power and warm a massive 40-hectare greenhouse to produce up to 30,000 tonnes of tomatoes a year (around 6% of the UK’s current consumption).

    The idea is to close two loops at once. By processing most of Essex’s household waste, the region’s reliance on landfill can be reduced – this cuts the amount of biodegradable waste decomposing to release methane (a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide). Also, by diverting the energy from that waste to grow food locally, less produce will need to be imported from regions increasingly vulnerable to climate-related stresses like drought and water scarcity.

    The giant greenhouse will sit next to the Rivenhall integrated waste management facility, operated by waste company Indaver. Household waste will be incinerated on site, producing steam. Some of that steam will drive turbines to generate electricity and power the greenhouse. The rest of the steam will heat the greenhouse at a constant temperature all year round.

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    To further reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a carbon capture system (separates CO₂ from other gases in exhaust streams) will extract around 20,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually from the incinerator’s flue gases. Rather than releasing this into the atmosphere, the captured carbon dioxide will be piped into the greenhouse to enhance plant growth.

    Still, the scale of carbon capture is modest and not a quick fix. The 20,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide expected to be captured annually represents less than 10% of typical emissions from similar-scale waste facilities.

    The facility will include 13 hectares of artificially lit greenhouse space for winter growing and a vertical farm (growing crops in stacked layers) converted from a former RAF hangar to grow leafy greens. In theory, this creates a resilient, year-round food production system largely decoupled from fossil fuels and climate-sensitive imports.

    Burning waste to grow tomatoes might sound counterintuitive. Incinerators still release emissions after all. As a method of electricity generation, incineration of waste has a higher carbon footprint than burning coal. But in the context of current waste management and food import practices, it may make sense.

    According to the UK government’s Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, around 30.8% of England’s household waste went to landfill in 2023 (around 8 million tonnes). Landfill emissions (primarily methane) are not just large – they’re long-lived and hard to capture.

    A modern waste incineration plant.
    Below the Sky/Shutterstock

    Rivenhall’s model claims to reduce total greenhouse gas emissions by roughly 20% compared to landfill. When electricity, heat, and food outputs are factored in, and carbon capture included, emissions per kilogram of tomato could be substantially lower than those from conventional imports or fossil-powered greenhouses.

    But low-carbon status is not a badge that companies claim, it’s a result that needs to be verified. In lifecycle assessment (a method for measuring the environmental impacts of a product, service, or system, and the focus of my research), low-carbon status only applies if net emissions per kilogram of tomato are demonstrably lower than those from the realistic baseline.

    That baseline, be it landfill, composting, anaerobic digestion, or recycling, must be clearly defined. If incinerated waste includes material better suited to recycling, the claimed benefits narrow or vanish.

    The success of this particular project hinges not just on technical integration, but on accurate emissions accounting and efficient performance of carbon capture systems.

    According to the waste hierarchy, the most sustainable strategy for reducing waste-related emissions is not incineration, but waste prevention and reduction. Energy recovery is better than landfill, but less preferable than eliminating waste altogether.

    The bigger picture

    In the Netherlands, greenhouses often run on combined heat and power systems. In Canada, some horticultural operations use industrial waste heat. But Rivenhall’s scale and its tight integration with waste management infrastructure makes it unusual. If it works, it could serve as a blueprint for how regions can simultaneously tackle food security and waste while keeping the environmental cost of consumption closer to home.

    Beyond greenhouse gas emissions, there are other environmental considerations. Even modern incinerators produce air-polluting nitrogen oxides and particulates, which must be rigorously controlled to avoid human health problems such as lung disease. To comply with the UK’s biodiversity net gain rules, natural habitats and wildlife populations around this site must be enhanced, not degraded.

    While delivering on its technical promises, Rivenhall must also prove that its low-carbon credentials are more than just hot air. Even so, projects like this are no substitute for upstream solutions like waste prevention, reduced consumption and circular design.

    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.

    Alex Newman 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 burning waste to power a giant greenhouse really could be a greener way of growing food – https://theconversation.com/why-burning-waste-to-power-a-giant-greenhouse-really-could-be-a-greener-way-of-growing-food-258241

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Europe is perfectly placed to lead a world abandoned by the US – but will it meet the moment?

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Francesco Grillo, Academic Fellow, Department of Social and Political Sciences, Bocconi University

    Shutterstock/Coffeemil

    I believe we Europeans feel far too safe. Europe’s political and economic leadership in the world, which was still unchallenged at the beginning of the century, has long since ceased to exist. Will the dominant cultural influence of Europe be maintained? I think not, unless we defend it and adjust ourselves to new conditions; history has shown that civilisations are all too perishable.

    It is astonishing how much these words used in 1956 by Konrad Adenauer, one of the founding fathers of the European Union, still sound valid today. They perfectly define the current state of the union. Europeans are still struggling to adjust to new conditions – and the conditions to which they need to adjust also continue to change dramatically.

    The battle for technological leadership is the current version of this struggle. Success in this domain could transform Europe, yet the continent remains complacent about its decline into backwardness. The European commission itself calculates that of the 19 digital platforms that have more than 45 million EU users, only one (Zalando) is from the EU.

    Information is (economic and political) power and losing control means to gradually lose both market share and the ability to protect European democracies. Brussels has produced a mass of regulation on digital services, yet American digital platforms are getting away with what European leaders themselves call the manipulation of democratic elections, with very little repercussions. Elon Musk’s X, was banned in Brazil for less – refusing to ban accounts accused of spreading misinformation.

    This decline, however, has been slow enough to lull European leaders into complacency about the future.

    Meanwhile, Donald Trump has a point when he laments that the European Union has been slow to engage in the negotiations he imposed on trade. Indeed, even on trade – one of the very few areas in which the European Union has a mandate from the member states to deal directly with third parties – progress is generally stuttering. The commissioner in charge has to constantly find a common denominator with the agendas of 27 member states, each of which has a different industrial agenda.

    Europe’s decision-making processes are sub-optimal. Indeed, they were built for a different age. There is no shared voice on foreign policy – the EU has been able to say far less on Gaza than individual countries like Spain or the UK, for example. This may have the practical consequence of eroding the “moral leadership” that should still be Europe’s soft advantage.

    Crisis of confidence

    Europe’s failure to respond to real-world changes is due to sub-optimal institutional settings. However the current paralysis in the face of clear need for action may be due to an even more fundamental question of trust in its own capabilities.

    On one hand, there still seems room for complacency. As Stanley Pignal, the Charlemagne columnist for The Economist, recently put it, Europe can take a moderate amount of satisfaction from its continued status as a place where people are free to pursue “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. Yet, it is evident that the institutions needed to concretely achieve those objectives are crumbling: healthcare systems and welfare; robust and independent media; energy and military autonomy in a world without order.

    On the other hand, Europe is increasingly resigned. A global poll taken by Gallup International shows that when responding to the question “do you think that your children will live better than you?” seven of the most pessimistic countries of the world are from the EU. Only 16% of Italians and 24% of French respondents answered “yes” to this question.

    According to Ipsos, less than half of young Europeans feel prepared to enter the job market. And they blame the education system for that. The picture may well be even worse now – this survey was taken in 2019, before the pandemic, war in Europe and, more importantly, AI made the picture even more uncertain.

    Europe has no alternative, as even far-right and far-left parties seem to acknowledge. Note that France’s Rassemblement National and Italy’s Lega no longer talk about exiting the EU but about changing it from the inside. Individual nation states simply do not have the minimum scale to even try to take leadership in a world looking for a new order.

    In a world abandoned by the US, Europe stands a real chance. However, it urgently needs to be creative enough to imagine new mechanisms through which EU institutions take decisions and EU citizens have their say. This in turn requires an entire society to somehow recover the reasonable hope that decline is not inevitable (although we also must be aware that it may even nastily accelerate).

    Finally, young people are absolutely crucial in the process. The rhetoric of “listening to them” must now be replaced by a call for them to govern. They are today what Karl Marx would have probably defined as a class – with very specific demographic, cultural, economic and linguistic characteristics. These must be turned into a political agenda and a new vision of what Europe of the future could look like.

    The challenges ahead for the European Union will be the subject of the forthcoming conference on the Europe of the future in Siena, Italy. This will feed into a seven-point paper that will be discussed with EU institutions.

    Francesco Grillo is associated to VISION think tank.

    – ref. Europe is perfectly placed to lead a world abandoned by the US – but will it meet the moment? – https://theconversation.com/europe-is-perfectly-placed-to-lead-a-world-abandoned-by-the-us-but-will-it-meet-the-moment-258030

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: For Trump’s ‘no taxes on tips,’ the devil is in the details

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Jay L. Zagorsky, Associate Professor Questrom School of Business, Boston University

    President Donald Trump’s promise to eliminate taxes on tips may sound like a windfall for service workers — but the fine print in Congress’ latest tax bill tells a more complex story.

    Right now, Republican lawmakers are advancing the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” — a sprawling, 1,100-page proposal that aims to change everything from tax incentives for electric vehicles to health care. It also includes a proposal to end taxes on tips, which could potentially affect around 4 million American workers. The Senate has recently passed its own version – the No Tax on Tips Act.

    The idea started getting attention when Trump raised it during a 2024 campaign stop in Las Vegas, a place where tipping is woven into the economy. And the headlines and press releases sound great — especially if you’re a waiter, bartender or anyone else who depends on tips for a living. That may be why both Democrats and Republicans alike broadly support the concept. However, like most of life, the devil is in the details.

    I’m a business-school economist who has written about tipping, and I’ve looked closely at the language of the proposed laws. So, what exactly has Trump promised, and how does it measure up to what’s in the bills? Let’s start with his pledge.

    The promise of money that’s ‘100% yours’

    Back in January 2025, Trump said, “If you’re a restaurant worker, a server, a valet, a bellhop, a bartender, one of my caddies … your tips will be 100% yours.” That sounds like a boost in tipped workers’ income.

    But when you look at the current situation, it becomes clear that the reality is far more complicated.

    First, the new tax break only applies to tips the government knows about — and a lot of that income currently flies under the radar. Tipped workers who get cash tips are supposed to report it to the IRS via form 4137 if their employer doesn’t report it for them. If a worker gets a cash tip today and doesn’t report it, they already get 100% of the money. No one really knows what percentage of tips are unreported, but an old IRS estimate pegs it at about 40%.

    What’s more, the current tax code defines tips only as payments where the customer determines the tip amount. If a restaurant charges a fixed 18% service charge, or there’s an extra fee for room service, those aren’t tips in the government’s eyes. This means some tipped workers who think service charges are tips will overestimate the new rule’s impact on their finances.

    How the new bills would affect tipped workers

    The “Big Beautiful Bill” would create a new tax code section under “itemized deductions” This area of the tax code already includes text that creates health savings accounts and gives students deductions for interest on their college loans.

    What’s in the new section?

    First, the bill specifies that this tax break applies just to “any cash tip.” The IRS classifies payments by credit card, debit card and even checks as “cash tips.” Unfortunately for workers in Las Vegas, noncash tips, like casino chips, aren’t part of the bill.

    While the House bill limits the deduction to people earning less than US$160,000 the Senate bill caps the deduction to the first $25,000 of tips earned. Everything over that is taxed.

    Second, the current House bill ends this special tax-free deal on Dec. 31, 2028. That means these special benefits would only last three years, unless Congress extends the law. The Senate bill does not include such a deadline.

    Third, the exemption is only available to jobs that typically receive tips. The Treasury secretary is required to define the list of tipped occupations. If an occupation isn’t on the list, the law doesn’t apply.

    I wonder how many occupations won’t make the list. For example, some camp counselors get tips at the end of the summer. But it’s unclear the Treasury Department will include these workers as a covered group, since counselors only make up a proportion of summer camp staff. Not making the list is a real problem.

    And while the new proposal gives workers an income tax break, there’s nothing in either bill about skipping FICA payments on the tipped earnings. Workers are still required to contribute slightly more than 7% in Social Security and Medicare taxes on all tips they report, which won’t benefit them until retirement. This isn’t an oversight — the bill specifically says employees must furnish a valid Social Security number to get the tax benefits.

    There are a few other ways the legislation might benefit workers less than it seems at first glance. Instituting no taxes on tips could mean tipped employees feel more pressure to split their tips with other employees, like busboys, chefs and hosts. After all, these untipped workers also contribute to the customer experience, and often at low wages.

    And finally, many Americans are tired of tipping. Knowing that servers don’t have to pay taxes might make some to cut back on it even more.

    The specifics of any piece of legislation are subject to change until the moment Congress sends it to the president to be signed. However, as now written, I think the bills aren’t as generous to tipped workers as Trump made it sound on the campaign trail.

    Jay L. Zagorsky 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. For Trump’s ‘no taxes on tips,’ the devil is in the details – https://theconversation.com/for-trumps-no-taxes-on-tips-the-devil-is-in-the-details-258276

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Ancient fossils show how the last mass extinction forever scrambled the ocean’s biodiversity

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Stewart Edie, Research Geologist and Curator of Paleobiology, Smithsonian Institution

    Even bivalves looked different during the time of the dinosaurs, as these fossils of an ultra-fortified oyster, left, and armored cockle show. Smithsonian Institution

    About 66 million years ago – perhaps on a downright unlucky day in May – an asteroid smashed into our planet.

    The fallout was immediate and severe. Evidence shows that about 70% of species went extinct in a geological instant, and not just those famous dinosaurs that once stalked the land. Masters of the Mesozoic oceans were also wiped out, from mosasaurs – a group of aquatic reptiles topping the food chain – to exquisitely shelled squid relatives known as ammonites.

    Even groups that weathered the catastrophe, such as mammals, fishes and flowering plants, suffered severe population declines and species loss. Invertebrate life in the oceans didn’t fare much better.

    But bubbling away on the seafloor was a stolid group of animals that has left a fantastic fossil record and continues to thrive today: bivalves – clams, cockles, mussels, oysters and more.

    What happened to these creatures during the extinction event and how they rebounded tells an important story, both about the past and the future of biodiversity.

    Surprising discoveries on the seafloor

    Marine bivalves lost around three-quarters of their species during this mass extinction, which marked the end of the Cretaceous Period. My colleagues and I – each of us paleobiologists studying biodiversity – expected that losing so many species would have severely cut down the variety of roles that bivalves play within their environments, what we call their “modes of life.”

    But, as we explain in a study published in the journal Sciences Advances, that wasn’t the case. In assessing the fossils of thousands of bivalve species, we found that at least one species from nearly all their modes of life, no matter how rare or specialized, squeaked through the extinction event.

    Statistically, that shouldn’t have happened. Kill 70% of bivalve species, even at random, and some modes of life should disappear.

    Most bivalves happily burrow into the sand and mud, feeding on phytoplankton they strain from the water. But others have adopted chemosymbionts and photosymbionts – bacteria and algae that produce nutrients for the bivalves from chemicals or sunlight in exchange for housing. A few have even become carnivorous. Some groups, including the oysters, can lay down a tough cement that hardens underwater, and mussels hold onto rocks by spinning silken threads.

    We thought surely these more specialized modes of life would have been snuffed out by the effects of the asteroid’s impact, including dust and debris likely blocking sunlight and disrupting a huge part of the bivalves’ food chain: photosynthetic algae and bacteria. Instead, most persisted, although biodiversity was forever scrambled as a new ecological landscape emerged. Species that were once dominant struggled, while evolutionary newcomers rose in their place.

    The reasons some species survived and others didn’t leave many questions to explore. Those that filtered phytoplankton from the water column suffered some of the highest species losses, but so did species that fed on organic scraps and didn’t rely as much on the Sun’s energy. Narrow geographic distributions and different metabolisms may have contributed to these extinction patterns.

    Biodiversity bounces back

    Life rebounded from each of the Big Five mass extinctions throughout Earth’s history, eventually punching through past diversity highs. The rich fossil record and spectacular ecological diversity of bivalves gives us a terrific opportunity to study these rebounds to understand how ecosystems and global biodiversity rebuild in the wake of extinctions.

    The extinction caused by the asteroid strike knocked down some thriving modes of life and opened the door for others to dominate the new landscape.

    The rebound from the extinction wasn’t so straightforward. Some modes of life lost nearly all their species, never to recover their past diversity. Others rose to take the top ranks. Genera is the plural of genus.
    Adapted from Edie et al. 2025, Science Advances

    While many people lament the loss of the dinosaurs, we malacologists miss the rudists.

    These bizarrely shaped bivalves resembled giant ice cream cones, sometimes reaching more than 3 feet (1 meter) in size, and they dominated the shallow, tropical Mesozoic seas as massive aggregations of contorted individuals, similar to today’s coral reefs. At least a few harbored photosymbiotic algae, which provided them with nutrients and spurred their growth, much like modern corals.

    An ancient fossil of a rudist from before the last mass extinction. These bivalves could grow to a meter high.
    Smithsonian Institution

    Today, giant clams (Tridacna) and their relatives fill parts of these unique photosymbiotic lifestyles once occupied by the rudists, but they lack the rudists’ astonishing species diversity.

    Mass extinctions clearly upend the status quo. Now, our ocean floors are dominated by clams burrowed into sand and mud, the quahogs, cockles and their relatives – a scene far different from that of the seafloor 66 million years ago.

    New winners in a scrambled ecosystem

    Ecological traits alone didn’t fully predict extinction patterns, nor do they entirely explain the rebound. We also see that simply surviving a mass extinction didn’t necessarily provide a leg up as species diversified within their old and sometimes new modes of life – and few of those new modes dominate the ecological landscape today.

    Like the rudists, trigoniid bivalves had lots of different species prior to the extinction event. These highly ornamented clams built parts of their shells with a super strong biomaterial called nacre – think iridescent pearls – and had fractally interlocking hinges holding their two valves together.

    An ancient fossil of a pearly but tough trigoniid bivalve from the last mass extinction. The two matching shells show their elaborate hinge.
    Smithsonian Institution

    But despite surviving the extinction, which should have placed them in a prime position to accumulate species again, their diversification sputtered. Other types of bivalves that made a living in the same way proliferated instead, relegating this once mighty and global group to a handful of species now found only off the coast of Australia.

    Lessons for today’s oceans

    These unexpected patterns of extinction and survival may offer lessons for the future.

    The fossil record shows us that biodiversity has definite breaking points, usually during a perfect storm of climatic and environmental upheaval. It’s not just that species are lost, but the ecological landscape is overturned.

    Many scientists believe the current biodiversity crisis may cascade into a sixth mass extinction, this one driven by human activities that are changing ecosystems and the global climate. Corals, whose reefs are home to nearly a quarter of known marine species, have faced mass bleaching events as warming ocean water puts their future at risk. Acidification as the oceans absorb more carbon dioxide can also weaken the shells of organisms crucial to the ocean food web.

    Findings like ours suggest that, in the future, the rebound from extinction events will likely result in very different mixes of species and their modes of life in the oceans. And the result may not align with human needs if species providing the bulk of ecosystem services are driven genetically or functionally extinct.

    The global oceans and their inhabitants are complex, and, as our team’s latest research shows, it is difficult to predict the trajectory of biodiversity as it rebounds – even when extinction pressures are reduced.

    Billions of people depend on the ocean for food. As the history recorded by the world’s bivalves shows, the upending of the pecking order – the number of species in each mode of life – won’t necessarily settle into an arrangement that can feed as many people the next time around.

    Stewart Edie receives funding from the Smithsonian Institution.

    – ref. Ancient fossils show how the last mass extinction forever scrambled the ocean’s biodiversity – https://theconversation.com/ancient-fossils-show-how-the-last-mass-extinction-forever-scrambled-the-oceans-biodiversity-258389

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ positions US energy to be more costly for consumers and the climate

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Daniel Cohan, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Rice University

    Proposed revisions to U.S. energy policy would likely raise consumer prices and climate-warming emissions. zpagistock/Moment via Getty Images

    When it comes to energy policy, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” – the official name of a massive federal tax-cut and spending bill that House Republicans passed in May 2025 – risks raising Americans’ energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions.

    The 1,100-page bill would slash incentives for green technologies such as solar, wind, batteries, electric cars and heat pumps while subsidizing existing nuclear power plants and biofuels. That would leave the country and its people burning more fossil fuels despite strong popular and scientific support for a rapid shift to renewable energy.

    The bill may still be revised by the Senate before it moves to a final vote. But it is a picture of how President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans want to reshape U.S. energy policy.

    As an environmental engineering professor who studies ways to confront climate change, I think it is important to distinguish which technologies could rapidly cut emissions or are on the verge of becoming viable from those that do little to fight climate change. Unfortunately, the House bill favors the latter while nixing support for the former.

    Renewable energy

    Wind and solar power, often paired with batteries, are providing over 90% of the new electricity currently being added to the grid nationally and around the world. Geothermal power is undergoing technological breakthroughs. With natural gas turbines in short supply and long lead times to build other resources, renewables and batteries offer the fastest way to satisfy growing demand for power.

    However, the House bill rescinds billions of dollars that the Inflation Reduction Act, enacted in 2022, devoted to boosting domestic manufacturing and deployments of renewable energy and batteries.

    It would terminate tax credits for manufacturing for the wind industry in 2028 and for solar and batteries in 2032. That would disrupt the boom in domestic manufacturing projects that was being stimulated by the Inflation Reduction Act.

    Deployments would be hit even harder. Wind, solar, geothermal and battery projects would need to commence construction within 60 days of passage of the bill to receive tax credits.

    In addition, the bill would deny tax credits to projects that use Chinese-made components. Financial analysts have called those provisions “unworkable,” since some Chinese materials may be necessary even for projects built with as much domestic content as possible.

    Analysts warn that the House bill would cut new wind, solar and battery installations by 20% compared with the growth that had been expected without the bill. That’s why BloombergNEF, an energy research firm, called the bill a “nightmare scenario” for clean energy proponents.

    However, one person’s nightmare may be another man’s dream. “We’re constraining the hell out of wind and solar, which is good,” said Rep. Chip Roy, a Texas Republican backed by the oil and gas industry.

    Wind turbines and solar panels generate renewable energy side by side near Palm Springs, Calif.
    Mario Tama/Getty Images

    Efficiency and electric cars

    Cuts fall even harder on Americans who are trying to reduce their carbon footprints and energy costs. The bill repeals aid for home efficiency improvements such as heat pumps, efficient windows and energy audits. Homeowners would also lose tax credits for installing solar panels and batteries.

    For vehicles, the bill would not only repeal tax credits for electric cars, trucks and chargers, but it also would impose a federal $250 annual fee on vehicles, on top of fees that some states charge electric-car owners. The federal fee is more than the gas taxes paid by other drivers to fund highways and ignores air-quality and climate effects.

    Combined, the lost credits and increased fees could cut projected U.S. sales of electric vehicles by 40% in 2030, according to modeling by Jesse Jenkins of Princeton University.

    Nuclear power

    Meanwhile, the bill partially retains a tax credit for electricity from existing nuclear power plants. Those plants may not need the help: Electricity demand is surging, and companies like Meta are signing long-term deals for nuclear energy to power data centers. Nuclear plants are also paid to manage their radioactive waste, since the country lacks a permanent place to store it.

    For new nuclear plants, the bill would move up the deadline to 2028 to begin construction. That deadline is too soon for some new reactor designs and would rush the vetting of others. Nuclear safety regulators are awaiting a study from the National Academies on the weapons proliferation risks of the type of uranium fuel that some developers hope to use in newer designs.

    The House-passed bill would protect government subsidies for existing nuclear power plants, like the one in the background, while limiting support for wind turbines.
    Scott Olson/Getty Images

    Biofuels

    While cutting funding for electric vehicles, the bill would spend $45 billion to extend tax credits for biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel.

    Food-based biofuels do little good for the climate because growing, harvesting and processing crops requires fertilizers, pesticides and fuel. The bill would allow forests to be cut to make room for crops because it directs agencies to ignore the impacts of biofuels on land use.

    Hydrogen

    The bill would end tax credits for hydrogen production. Without that support, companies will be unlikely to invest in the seven so-called “hydrogen hubs” that were allocated a combined $8 billion under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in 2021. Those hubs aim to attract $40 billion in private investments and create tens of thousands of jobs while developing cleaner ways to make hydrogen.

    The repealed tax credits would have subsidized hydrogen made emissions-free by using renewable or nuclear electricity to split water molecules. They also would have subsidized hydrogen made from natural gas with carbon capture, whose benefits are impaired by methane emissions from natural gas systems and incomplete carbon capture.

    However it’s made, hydrogen is no panacea. As the world’s smallest molecule, hydrogen is prone to leaking, which can pose safety challenges and indirectly warm the climate. And while hydrogen is essential for making fertilizers and potentially useful for making steel or aviation fuels, vehicles and heating are more efficiently powered by electricity than by hydrogen.

    Still, European governments and China are investing heavily in hydrogen production.

    As Congress deliberates on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the nation’s energy agenda is one of many issues being hotly debated.
    Kevin Carter/Getty Images

    Summing it up

    The conservative Tax Foundation estimates that the House bill would cut the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy tax credits by about half, saving the government $50 billion a year. But with fewer efficiency improvements, fewer electric vehicles and less clean power on the grid, Princeton’s Jenkins projects American households would pay up to $415 more per year for energy by 2035 than if the bill’s provisions were not enacted. If the bill’s provisions make it into law, the extra fossil fuel-burning would leave annual U.S. greenhouse gas emissions 1 billion tons higher by then.

    No one expected former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act to escape unscathed with Republicans in the White House and dominating both houses of Congress. Still, the proposed cuts target the technologies Americans count on to protect the climate and save consumers money.

    Daniel Cohan receives funding from the Carbon Hub at Rice University.

    – ref. How the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ positions US energy to be more costly for consumers and the climate – https://theconversation.com/how-the-big-beautiful-bill-positions-us-energy-to-be-more-costly-for-consumers-and-the-climate-257783

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: LGBTQ+ patients stay up-to-date on preventive care when their doctors are supportive, saving money and lives throughout society

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Nathaniel M. Tran, Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Administration, University of Illinois Chicago

    Getting cancer screenings, vaccinations and HIV tests is easier when you can trust your doctor. Hit Stop Media/iStock via Getty Images Plus

    When LGBTQ+ patients are unsure if they can be open about their identity and related health needs, it becomes more difficult for them to access high-quality health care.

    In our recently published research, my colleagues and I found that how LGBTQ+ people are treated at the doctor’s office has a measurable effect on whether they stay up to date with lifesaving preventive care like flu shots, colorectal cancer screenings and HIV testing.

    Results of affirming care

    We examined how LGBTQ+ adults rated their health care provider across three areas: LGBTQ+ cultural competency, such as if providers used inclusive language on forms and in person; LGBTQ+ clinical competency, such as their doctor’s knowledge on all aspects of their health; and experiences of discrimination, such as being told to seek care elsewhere.

    After analyzing survey data on the experiences of more than 950 LGBTQ+ adults from across the U.S., we saw that three clear patterns emerged.

    First, 34% of participants reported having positive health care experiences – meaning their providers were culturally and clinically competent about LGBTQ+ health needs, and did not discriminate against them. These patients were more likely to be up to date on at least one preventive service recommended by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, compared to those receiving neutral or discriminatory care.

    Second, 60% of participants reported having neutral experiences, when their providers were clinically competent about LGBTQ+ health needs and didn’t discriminate against them, but were not culturally competent. These patients were 43% less likely to get an HIV test compared to patients reporting affirming care.

    Third, 6% of participants reported experiencing discrimination, when their providers were neither culturally nor clinically competent on LGBTQ+ health. These patients were 24% less likely to get a colorectal cancer screening compared to patients reporting affirming care.

    Most LGBTQ+ adults in our study reported neutral or even discriminatory care, which leads to avoidable health risks and higher costs for the health system. This provides additional evidence that being supportive of LGBTQ+ patients has measurable improvements for health outcomes.

    Fear of discrimination can lead to delayed and missed diagnoses.

    Why preventive care matters

    Preventive care saves lives and saves money. When diseases like colorectal cancer or HIV are caught early, treatments are often simpler, more effective and less expensive.

    When LGBTQ+ patients are made to feel unwelcome or unsafe, we found that they are less likely to get routine preventive care, ultimately driving up long-term costs across the health system. States like North Carolina and Georgia that have more health systems participating in the Human Rights Campaign’s Healthcare Equality Index, which evaluates policies and practices around LGBTQ+ care, had higher rates of LGBTQ+ patients reporting positive care experiences compared to states with few participating health systems, such as Tennessee and Alabama.

    Other researchers have found that health systems participating in the Healthcare Equality Index have lower rates of nurse burnout and better quality of care, along with higher patient satisfaction among all patients.

    Affirming care benefits not just patients, but society as a whole.
    Renata Angerami/iStock via Getty Images Plus

    Public health in crisis

    This study was originally funded by the National Institute on Aging, but it was among the first LGBTQ+-focused projects terminated by the Trump administration in its efforts to eliminate “gender ideology.”

    Our team has continued the work independently to ensure that the over 1,250 participants who already shared their experiences and data would not have this information sit idly.

    Our findings reinforce what many LGBTQ+ patients already know – nonjudgmental and competent care is not a luxury, but a public health necessity.

    Nathaniel M. Tran received funding from the National Institute on Aging and Vanderbilt University.

    – ref. LGBTQ+ patients stay up-to-date on preventive care when their doctors are supportive, saving money and lives throughout society – https://theconversation.com/lgbtq-patients-stay-up-to-date-on-preventive-care-when-their-doctors-are-supportive-saving-money-and-lives-throughout-society-258338

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Binge drinking brake found in mouse brains, offering future path to treating alcohol abuse – new research

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Gilles Martin, Associate Professor of Neurobiology, UMass Chan Medical School

    Millions of people abuse alcohol. South_agency/E+ via Getty Images

    Despite the profound human, social and economic costs of alcohol abuse, existing treatments have failed to provide meaningful relief. Excessive alcohol consumption remains a leading cause of death and disability worldwide. In the U.S. alone, 16.4 million people age 12 and older reported binge drinking on five or more days in the past month.

    Although there are several drugs available to those seeking to stop or lower their alcohol consumption, their effectiveness is limited, and they often have significant side effects. Over the past three decades, efforts to treat excessive drinking have focused primarily on developing drugs that target proteins that can control how neurons respond to stimuli. Because these proteins are present in almost every neuron throughout the brain, the drugs also affect neurons that aren’t directly responsible for regulating alcohol’s effects. This often leads to unwanted side effects like headache, fatigue, drowsiness or insomnia.

    In my work as a neurobiologist, I study the idea that pinpointing the specific brain circuits that play a role in suppressing alcohol consumption is critical to developing targeted treatments with limited side effects. In my newly published research, my team and I identified a small cluster of neurons responsible for suppressing binge drinking.

    A map of binge drinking neurons

    Researchers have identified several brain regions that play a key role in alcohol abuse. But there has been strong evidence that only a very small number of neurons within these regions underpinned the effects of the drug on brain function.

    Small populations of neurons, called neuronal ensembles, have been shown to play a key role in memory formation and experiencing fear. However, researchers haven’t known whether the neuronal ensembles activated during binge drinking also influence binge drinking behavior.

    The brain’s binge drinking brakes can go awry.
    Victoria Kotlyarchuk/iStock via Getty Images Plus

    Considering the billions of neurons contained in the brain, the task of identifying these neurons is akin to finding a needle in a haystack. To solve this challenge, my colleagues and I used a genetically modified mouse model that, upon exposure to alcohol, activates a gene coding for a red fluorescent protein that is selectively expressed in alcohol-sensitive neurons. By tracing these fluorescent neurons, we were able to make a map of the precise locations of affected neurons.

    We identified a discrete number of neurons that respond to binge drinking in a brain region called the medial orbitofrontal cortex. This area is known for its key role in controlling decision-making and adapting behavior to a changing environment.

    We also found that turning this neuronal ensemble off resulted in a sharp increase of alcohol consumption in mice. This means that the brain has, in essence, a built-in regulation system that is activated during alcohol drinking to act as a brake on its consumption. Should these neurons misfire, the regulatory system would fail, possibly leading to uncontrolled drinking.

    Future treatments

    Although this study advances our understanding of how and where binge drinking modulates brain function in mice, it remains unclear whether human brains are also equipped with the same neuronal ensemble. If they are, stimulating these neurons may provide a path toward helping people who experience difficulty controlling their alcohol intake.

    Although selective control of neuronal activity is a formidable challenge, progress in gene therapy for patients with cancer and other rare diseases offers hope for more effective alcohol use disorder treatments with fewer side effects.

    Gilles Martin receives funding from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, which is part of the National Institutes of Health.

    – ref. Binge drinking brake found in mouse brains, offering future path to treating alcohol abuse – new research – https://theconversation.com/binge-drinking-brake-found-in-mouse-brains-offering-future-path-to-treating-alcohol-abuse-new-research-257217

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Where is the center of the universe?

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Rob Coyne, Teaching Professor of Physics, University of Rhode Island

    In space, there are four dimensions: length, width, height and time. scaliger/iStock/NASA via Getty Images Plus

    About a century ago, scientists were struggling to reconcile what seemed a contradiction in Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

    Published in 1915, and already widely accepted worldwide by physicists and mathematicians, the theory assumed the universe was static – unchanging, unmoving and immutable. In short, Einstein believed the size and shape of the universe today was, more or less, the same size and shape it had always been.

    But when astronomers looked into the night sky at faraway galaxies with powerful telescopes, they saw hints the universe was anything but that. These new observations suggested the opposite – that it was, instead, expanding.

    Scientists soon realized Einstein’s theory didn’t actually say the universe had to be static; the theory could support an expanding universe as well. Indeed, by using the same mathematical tools provided by Einstein’s theory, scientists created new models that showed the universe was, in fact, dynamic and evolving.

    I’ve spent decades trying to understand general relativity, including in my current job as a physics professor teaching courses on the subject. I know wrapping your head around the idea of an ever-expanding universe can feel daunting – and part of the challenge is overriding your natural intuition about how things work. For instance, it’s hard to imagine something as big as the universe not having a center at all, but physics says that’s the reality.

    The universe gets bigger every day.

    The space between galaxies

    First, let’s define what’s meant by “expansion.” On Earth, “expanding” means something is getting bigger. And in regard to the universe, that’s true, sort of. Expansion might also mean “everything is getting farther from us,” which is also true with regard to the universe. Point a telescope at distant galaxies and they all do appear to be moving away from us.

    What’s more, the farther away they are, the faster they appear to be moving. Those galaxies also seem to be moving away from each other. So it’s more accurate to say that everything in the universe is getting farther away from everything else, all at once.

    This idea is subtle but critical. It’s easy to think about the creation of the universe like exploding fireworks: Start with a big bang, and then all the galaxies in the universe fly out in all directions from some central point.

    But that analogy isn’t correct. Not only does it falsely imply that the expansion of the universe started from a single spot, which it didn’t, but it also suggests that the galaxies are the things that are moving, which isn’t entirely accurate.

    It’s not so much the galaxies that are moving away from each other – it’s the space between galaxies, the fabric of the universe itself, that’s ever-expanding as time goes on. In other words, it’s not really the galaxies themselves that are moving through the universe; it’s more that the universe itself is carrying them farther away as it expands.

    A common analogy is to imagine sticking some dots on the surface of a balloon. As you blow air into the balloon, it expands. Because the dots are stuck on the surface of the balloon, they get farther apart. Though they may appear to move, the dots actually stay exactly where you put them, and the distance between them gets bigger simply by virtue of the balloon’s expansion.

    It’s the space between the dots that’s growing.
    NASA/JPL-Caltech, CC BY

    Now think of the dots as galaxies and the balloon as the fabric of the universe, and you begin to get the picture.

    Unfortunately, while this analogy is a good start, it doesn’t get the details quite right either.

    The 4th dimension

    Important to any analogy is an understanding of its limitations. Some flaws are obvious: A balloon is small enough to fit in your hand – not so the universe. Another flaw is more subtle. The balloon has two parts: its latex surface and its air-filled interior.

    These two parts of the balloon are described differently in the language of mathematics. The balloon’s surface is two-dimensional. If you were walking around on it, you could move forward, backward, left, or right, but you couldn’t move up or down without leaving the surface.

    Now it might sound like we’re naming four directions here – forward, backward, left and right – but those are just movements along two basic paths: side to side and front to back. That’s what makes the surface two-dimensional – length and width.

    The inside of the balloon, on the other hand, is three-dimensional, so you’d be able to move freely in any direction, including up or down – length, width and height.

    This is where the confusion lies. The thing we think of as the “center” of the balloon is a point somewhere in its interior, in the air-filled space beneath the surface.

    But in this analogy, the universe is more like the latex surface of the balloon. The balloon’s air-filled interior has no counterpart in our universe, so we can’t use that part of the analogy – only the surface matters.

    Trying to figure out how the universe works? Start by contemplating a balloon.
    Kristopher_K/iStock via Getty Images Plus

    So asking, “Where’s the center of the universe?” is somewhat like asking, “Where’s the center of the balloon’s surface?” There simply isn’t one. You could travel along the surface of the balloon in any direction, for as long as you like, and you’d never once reach a place you could call its center because you’d never actually leave the surface.

    In the same way, you could travel in any direction in the universe and would never find its center because, much like the surface of the balloon, it simply doesn’t have one.

    Part of the reason this can be so challenging to comprehend is because of the way the universe is described in the language of mathematics. The surface of the balloon has two dimensions, and the balloon’s interior has three, but the universe exists in four dimensions. Because it’s not just about how things move in space, but how they move in time.

    Our brains are wired to think about space and time separately. But in the universe, they’re interwoven into a single fabric, called “space-time.” That unification changes the way the universe works relative to what our intuition expects.

    And this explanation doesn’t even begin to answer the question of how something can be expanding indefinitely – scientists are still trying to puzzle out what powers this expansion.

    So in asking about the center of the universe, we’re confronting the limits of our intuition. The answer we find – everything, expanding everywhere, all at once – is a glimpse of just how strange and beautiful our universe is.

    Rob Coyne receives funding from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the US National Science Foundation (NSF).

    – ref. Where is the center of the universe? – https://theconversation.com/where-is-the-center-of-the-universe-252695

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Do you know how to prepare for your digital life after death? CU Boulder’s student-run clinic has some advice

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Dylan Thomas Doyle, Information Science Researcher, University of Colorado Boulder

    Older adults have large digital archives that can be hard to access after their deaths. picture alliance/Getty Images

    From family photos in the cloud to email archives and social media accounts, the digital lives of Americans are extensive and growing.

    According to recent studies by the password management companies NordPass and Dashlane, the average internet user maintains more than 150 online accounts. Individuals produce hundreds of gigabytes of data each year. But few people have plans for what happens to that digital legacy after they die.

    Unlike physical possessions, online assets often don’t pass smoothly from one generation to the next. Loved ones struggle to access important accounts or recover treasured photos. Many families face these challenges while already overwhelmed with grief.

    Most tech companies haven’t kept up with this reality. Fewer than 15% of popular online platforms have clear systems for handling a user’s death, and customer support is often limited, according to our new study. As people’s “digital footprints” expand, the lack of planning has become both a practical and emotional burden for families. This is especially true for older adults who may not be aware of the steps required to manage their digital estate.

    We are an associate professor of information science and a researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder. We are researching how to design technologies for people engaged in end-of-life planning for their data.

    First clinic of its kind

    We realized there was no organization or comprehensive website to help people navigate the technical, privacy or practical challenges they were facing. In response, we launched what we believe is a first-of-its-kind solution: the Digital Legacy Clinic.

    Just as writing a will helps manage physical possessions after death, planning your digital legacy ensures that your online life is handled according to your wishes.

    Our clinic opened in late 2024. The free clinic offers support both to people planning for the end of their digital lives and to those managing the digital estates of loved ones who have died.

    Led by students and housed in the University of Colorado, Boulder’s Information Science department, the clinic operates much like a pro bono law clinic. Community members in the Denver and Boulder areas, as well as from across the country, can contact the clinic for help.

    First, a person interested in getting support fills out a simple form. Then, a member of the clinic will send a follow-up email to clarify and offer preliminary advice. Since every case is different, often clinic workers will then meet via Zoom with a client to create a personalized plan for them and their family.

    How the clinic helps

    The clinic offers guidance on a wide range of digital estate concerns, including setting up digital legacy tools such as trusted contacts on Google and Apple or legacy contacts on Facebook – someone you choose to manage your main profile after you’ve died. People can also get guidance on how to memorialize or delete social media or other online accounts after a loved one has died.

    For example, Facebook allows you to either memorialize an account or request its removal. To memorialize it, you’ll need to submit a form with the person’s name, date of death, proof of passing, such as an obituary, and verify your relationship to the deceased. Including these steps can help your loved ones manage a digital legacy with clarity and care.

    The clinic also helps people recover and preserve digital assets. That includes photos, videos, emails and other important documents, such as legal documents stored on a Google Drive.

    For those who are planning for after they die, the clinic can guide them in creating a digital estate plan. That plan might include inventorying online accounts, documenting login credentials and leaving instructions for account closure, or determining steps to email the documents to your lawyer.

    Students supporting their community

    The ongoing work of the clinic is run entirely by undergraduate and graduate students, who build and maintain the clinic’s website, manage the client intake process and research solutions tailored to each case.

    For the students, it’s a hands-on learning opportunity that connects academic work to real-world needs. The experience is also professionally valuable. Students learn how to communicate complex tech topics with empathy, navigate privacy laws and manage sensitive data responsibly.

    A resource for older adults

    While the Digital Legacy Clinic is available to people across the country, its location in Boulder makes it especially accessible to older adults in the Boulder and Denver areas who may prefer or benefit from in-person support.

    For older adults, the Digital Legacy Clinic can help them organize their digital lives and make passing their digital archives on to their families easier.
    Robert Alexander/Getty Images

    For older adults, the clinic can play a crucial role in helping them organize their digital lives while they’re still alive. This can reduce confusion for loved ones later and even help prevent issues such as identity theft or account misuse. Many older adults now maintain extensive online presences, but they may not have the tools or knowledge to ensure their accounts are secure and accessible to people they trust.

    Jed Brubaker currently receives research funding from the National Science Foundation and Google. In the past he has recieved research funding from Facebook and Mozilla. During 2014-2020 he worked as a research for the Legacy Contact and Memorialized Profile features at Facebook.

    Dylan Thomas Doyle 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. Do you know how to prepare for your digital life after death? CU Boulder’s student-run clinic has some advice – https://theconversation.com/do-you-know-how-to-prepare-for-your-digital-life-after-death-cu-boulders-student-run-clinic-has-some-advice-257867

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: 100 years ago, the Social Gospel movement pushed to improve workers’ lives – but also to promote its vision of Christian America

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Christina Littlefield, Associate Professor of Communication and Religion, Pepperdine University

    Immigrant children from Central Europe at a settlement house in St. Louis. Thomasa.nagel/Wikimedia Commons

    President Donald Trump has praised the Gilded Age, which he believes was a time of immense national prosperity thanks to tariffs, no income tax, and few regulations on business.

    Similar to today, the late 19th century was a time where a small group of men enjoyed immense wealth, privilege and power to shape the nation. It was a time of immense inequality, as factory and housing conditions crushed the lives of the poor.

    And it was a time of white Christian nationalism.

    In Northern cities, reformers saw the wealth gap, the plight of workers and the squalid conditions in tenements as undermining their vision of a Christian America. Fueled by faith, the Social Gospel movement worked to expand labor rights and improve living conditions at the turn of the 20th century.

    At the same time, many of these white Protestant activists believed their own culture and race to be superior, and this prejudice hindered their efforts. They often spouted anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant rhetoric, and mostly ignored Black workers’ plight.

    One of Jacob Riis’ many photographs of living conditions on New York’s Lower East Side.
    Bettmann via Getty Images

    Ever since the Puritans landed, white Christian nationalism has informed how many Protestants try to shape their country – a history I trace with church historian Richard T. Hughes in the book “Christian America and the Kingdom of God.” But Christian nationalism has taken dramatically different forms over time. The progressive Social Gospellers of a century ago are a particularly striking contrast to the conservative Christian right that has shaped U.S. politics for half a century, up to today.

    Guardians of a Christian nation

    There are many differences between Christian nationalism then and now. Like many conservative Christians today, however, the Social Gospellers believed that the United States was uniquely chosen and blessed by God, and called to be a Christian nation. They saw themselves as the rightful guardians of that mission. And though the country was still overwhelmingly Protestant, they feared they were losing influence.

    New research explored the history of the Bible – research that many Christians feared would undermine people’s trust in Scripture as the word of God, by emphasizing its human composition. New scientific ideas about the Earth’s creation and human evolution challenged their visions of an all-powerful, all-knowing God. Meanwhile, rapid industrialization and urbanization had created new social challenges, such as workers’ safety and living conditions, leading some to reject faith as irrelevant to their needs.

    Social Gospellers wanted to vindicate Christianity and show it was still relevant to modern life. But white leaders’ vision of what a Christian America should look like conflated their Protestant faith with their race and culture.

    Josiah Strong, for example, was a Congregationalist minister known for promoting factory safety. But he stoked fear of Catholic immigrants and endorsed the expansion of the U.S. as a benevolent empire. The Anglo-Saxon race “is destined to dispossess many weaker races, assimilate others, and mold the remainder,” Strong argued in his 1885 book, “Our Country.”

    Baptist reformer Walter Rauschenbusch.
    Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images

    Another Social Gospel reformer, Northern Baptist theologian Walter Rauschenbusch, railed against unrestrained greed, political corruption, militarism and contempt between elites and the working class. But he shared the white supremacy of his age. God was favoring Germanic and Anglo-Saxon people, he claimed, to enact God’s purposes.

    “Other races are as dear to God as we and he may be holding them in reserve to carry His banner when we drop it,” he wrote in an undated article. But it was part of God’s plan, he believed, for Northern Europeans to “hold the larger part of the world’s wealth and power in the hollow of their hands and the larger share of the world’s intellectual and spiritual possessions in the hollow of their heads.”

    The ‘right’ kind of Christian

    Though many white Protestants felt threatened by the challenges of immigration, they were still a clear majority, and they presumed that most Americans would endorse applying Christian ethics to public policy and social reform.

    Jane Addams speaks to visitors in 1935 at Hull House, a settlement house in Chicago that she co-founded in 1889.
    National Archives via Wikimedia Commons

    What’s more, women gaining the right to vote in 1920 meant Social Gospel leaders expanded Protestants’ power at the ballot box. Many Social Gospel leaders embraced women’s suffrage because women were already leading supporters for their causes: For example, Frances Willard, who promoted temperance and workers’ rights; and Jane Addams, who ran a Christian “settlement house,” or community center, for the poor.

    But in another sense, demographics were not on their side. The U.S. might have been a very white and Christian country, but in some Social Gospellers’ minds, the era’s waves of immigrants were not the “right” kind of Christian: Northern European and Protestant. Immigration was shifting from Great Britain, Ireland and Germany to Russia, Poland, Hungary and Italy. While Protestants far outnumbered Catholics nationally, Strong wrote that they were double the Protestant population in major cities like New York, Chicago and Philadelphia.

    A Polish mother and her nine children waiting at Ellis Island.
    U.S. National Park Service

    Strong argued that Catholic immigrants were lazy, prone to alcoholism and criminal activity, and willing to sell their vote to corrupt city politicians. He claimed they would corrupt the morals of Anglo-Saxon Americans, and that if the Catholic population grew, it would undermine Protestants’ religious liberty.

    Nativist views like these led to the National Origins Act of 1924, which restricted the number of immigrants. Quotas for each country were based on the profile of the American population in 1890 – an attempt to maintain Protestant dominance against Catholic and Jewish immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe. That distrust also kept Social Gospellers from partnering with Roman Catholic leaders on shared concern for workers.

    Flourishing for all, or some?

    Still, when it came to workers’ basic needs, reformers cared deeply about improving circumstances for the “least of these.” The movement was strongly influenced by the biblical parable of the sheep and the goats: verses in the Book of Matthew where Jesus promotes feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, clothing the naked and visiting those in prison.

    Social Gospellers aimed to prove that Christianity could answer the social challenges caused by industrialization, urbanization and immigration. For the most part, they sought to use their privilege in ways that promoted the flourishing of all Americans, such as expanding labor rights and providing services to the poor through settlement houses.

    A photograph by Jacob Riis in a small New York City sweatshop in the 1880s.
    Bettmann via Getty Images

    In 1908, for example, the Federal Council of Churches adopted a 14-point statement called the “Social Creed,” affirming that churches should support reforms “to lift the crushing burdens of the poor, and to reduce the hardships and uphold the dignity of labor.” While some of the reforms they called for are taken for granted today — like one day off per week — other calls, like a living wage for all, are yet to be realized.

    Over the past half-century, the modern Christian right, too, has feared that its vision for the nation is eroding. Conservative churches have seen their influence drop as more Americans move away from organized religion and reject their rejection of LGBTQ+ people.

    I — along with other scholars — argue that these fears have helped fuel resurgent Christian nationalism today. Since merging with the tea party movement during the Obama administration, the Christian right has increasingly embraced an anti-immigration and anti-minority stance, fearing the loss of its own standing.

    Like the Social Gospellers of a century ago, the Christian nationalists of recent decades are wary of religious and racial change in their country. Yet the movement’s priorities – often focused around its vision of families, sex and gender – are starkly more limited than the broader quality-of-life issues that Social Gospellers addressed.

    Both groups desired an America rooted in biblical values. But each interpreted Scripture through its own lens, seeking to remake America in its own, white Protestant image.

    Christina Littlefield 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. 100 years ago, the Social Gospel movement pushed to improve workers’ lives – but also to promote its vision of Christian America – https://theconversation.com/100-years-ago-the-social-gospel-movement-pushed-to-improve-workers-lives-but-also-to-promote-its-vision-of-christian-america-255216

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Trump orders Marines to Los Angeles as protests escalate over immigration raids, demonstrating the president’s power to deploy troops on US soil

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By William C. Banks, Professor Emeritus of Public Administration and International Affairs, Syracuse University

    National Guard members watch protests in Los Angeles on June 9, 2025. Luke Johnson/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

    President Donald Trump ordered a contingent of about 700 Marines to Los Angeles on June 9, 2025, in response to what Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth described as “increased threats to federal law enforcement officers and federal buildings.”

    This dramatic escalation of the military presence in Los Angeles followed Trump’s June 7 order to send about 2,000 National Guard troops into the city.

    Both measures were Trump’s response to what he called “numerous incidents of violence and disorder” by those protesting his administration’s actions rounding up and deporting immigrants in the Los Angeles area.

    State and local officials decried Trump’s actions, with California Gov. Gavin Newsom calling the move “purposefully inflammatory,” as well as “an illegal act.” California sued the Trump administration on June 9 to block its deployment of National Guard members. Other critics of Trump’s actions said the scale and character of the protests did not warrant such extreme measures.

    Amy Lieberman, a politics and society editor at The Conversation U.S., spoke with William C. Banks, a scholar of the role of the military in domestic affairs, to understand the extent of a president’s power to send American troops to Los Angeles.

    Hundreds of protesters march in Los Angeles on June 9, 2025, demanding an end to Immigration and Customs Enforcement workplace raids.
    Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images

    Can American troops be used inside the country?

    They can, but it is an extraordinary exercise of authority to use troops domestically. It has rarely been done in the U.S. as a way of responding to a civil disturbance.

    Congress has delegated that authority of deploying American troops domestically to the president in limited circumstances. Otherwise, the only authority is exercised by governors, who have control of the National Guard.

    Why was American law set up this way?

    The U.S. was founded in response to heavy-handed English use of the military by King George to interfere with the civil liberties and rights of the colonists in the lead-up to the American Revolution. So, when the founders created the U.S. Constitution, they were very careful to insert roadblocks that would make it difficult for the government to use troops to carry out its own programs.

    The country’s framers also understood there might be occasions when it would be necessary to use the military domestically. They did a couple of things to control the exercise of military authority. One was to ensure that the commander in chief of the military was a civilian. Second, they gave the authority to call up the National Guard, what was known as the “militia” in those days, to Congress, not to the president, in order to create a separation of powers.

    Under what circumstances can the president deploy troops to an American city?

    Under the Insurrection Act, which was signed into law in 1807, a president can deploy troops during what is called an insurrection, simply meaning when all hell breaks loose. The president can decide that it is “impracticable,” according to the Insurrection Act, to enforce the laws of the U.S. in a given city, and he may call forth the military or the National Guard to help restore law and order.

    In order to invoke the Insurrection Act, the president first has to make a proclamation to those he calls the insurrectionists to cease and desist. Unless the alleged insurrectionists immediately do what the president says, the president then has the authority to deploy forces.

    Trump has repeatedly called the protesters in Los Angeles “insurrectionists,” but has also walked those remarks back and hasn’t made any kind of formal proclamation yet. When Trump ordered California’s National Guard members to deploy to Los Angeles on June 7, he did so on a narrow statutory authority to protect federal buildings, properties and personnel that were trying to enforce immigration laws.

    What is the Posse Comitatus Act and how does it apply to the current situation in Los Angeles?

    Congress passed the Posse Comitatus Act in 1878. This act’s name derives from an arcane Latin term that means “the power of the county.” This law establishes a legal presumption in the U.S. that the military, if it is deployed domestically, should not engage in law enforcement.

    This act is an important part of American law. It means that the military and National Guard are trained on this principle that they are not to engage in domestic law enforcement activities. Those are reserved for police, sheriffs and marshals. Invoking the Insurrection Act is the principal exception to this law.

    So the Insurrection Act allows the military to act as law enforcement officials?

    That’s right. By invoking the Insurrection Act the military could act as cops and have the right to arrest, investigate and detain civilians, with only the Constitution as a check on its power.

    This is not a situation that California National Guard members have trained for. They are trained to fight actual wildfires, but this is something entirely different.

    Demonstrators hold signs and fly flags, facing California National Guard members, in Los Angeles on June 9, 2024.
    Apu Gomes/AFP via Getty Images

    Are there any legal roadblocks that could curb the president’s authority to send U.S. troops to Los Angeles?

    The short answer to this question is no.

    Can state governors or other elected officials prevent U.S. troops from being sent to their cities?

    In many ways that is the main question right now. California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, has said that the state doen’t need these military forces. Newsom’s June 9 lawsuit against the Trump administration argues that the authority over the National Guard is reserved for states, “unless the State requests or consents to federal control.” That has not happened in this case.

    William C. Banks 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. Trump orders Marines to Los Angeles as protests escalate over immigration raids, demonstrating the president’s power to deploy troops on US soil – https://theconversation.com/trump-orders-marines-to-los-angeles-as-protests-escalate-over-immigration-raids-demonstrating-the-presidents-power-to-deploy-troops-on-us-soil-258527

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Can Israel still claim self-defence to justify its Gaza war?

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Donald Rothwell, Professor of International Law, Australian National University

    On October 7 2023, more than 1,000 Hamas militants stormed into southern Israel and went on a killing spree, murdering 1,200 men, women and children and abducting another 250 people to take back to Gaza. It was the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

    That day, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the country, “Israel is at war”. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) immediately began a military campaign to secure the release of the hostages and defeat Hamas. Since that day, more than 54,000 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children.

    Israel has maintained its response is justified under international law, as every nation has “an inherent right to defend itself”, as Netanyahu stated in early 2024.

    This is based on the right to self-defence in international law, which is outlined in Article 51 of the 1945 United Nations Charter as follows:

    Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations[…]

    At the start of the war, many nations agreed Israel had a right to defend itself, but how it did so mattered. This would ensure its actions were consistent with international humanitarian law.

    However, 20 months after the October 7 attacks, fundamental legal issues have arisen around whether this self-defence justification still holds.

    Can Israel exercise self-defence ad infinitum? Or is it now waging a war of aggression against Palestine?

    Self-defence in the law

    Self-defence has a long history in international law.

    The modern principles of self-defence were outlined in diplomatic exchanges over an 1837 incident involving an American ship, The Caroline, after it was destroyed by British forces in Canada. Both sides agreed that an exercise of self-defence would have required the British to demonstrate their conduct was not “unreasonable or excessive”.

    The concept of self-defence was also extensively relied on by the Allies in the second world war in response to German and Japanese aggression.

    Self-defence was originally framed in the law as a right to respond to a state-based attack. However, this scope has broadened in recent decades to encompass attacks from non-state actors, such as al-Qaeda following the September 11 2001 terror attacks.

    Israel is a legitimate, recognised state in the global community and a member of the United Nations. Its right to self-defence will always remain intact when it faces attacks from its neighbours or non-state actors, such as Hamas, Hezbollah or the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

    However, the right of self-defence is not unlimited. It is constrained by the principles of necessity and proportionality.

    The necessity test was met in the current war due to the extreme violence of the Hamas attack on October 7 and the taking of hostages. These were actions that could not be ignored and demanded a response, due to the threat Israel continued to face.

    The proportionality test was also met, initially. Israel’s military operation after the attack was strategic in nature, focused on the return of the hostages and the destruction of Hamas to eliminate the immediate threat the group posed.

    The legal question now is whether Israel is still legitimately exercising self-defence in response to the October 7 attacks.

    This is a live issue, especially given comments by Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz on May 30 that Hamas would be “annihilated” unless a proposed ceasefire deal was accepted.

    These comments and Israel’s ongoing conduct throughout the war raise the question of whether proportionality is still being met.

    A test of proportionality

    The importance of proportionality in self-defence has been endorsed in recent years by the International Court of Justice.

    Under international law, proportionality remains relevant throughout a conflict, not just in the initial response to an attack.

    While the law allows a war to continue until an aggressor surrenders, it does not legitimise the complete destruction of the territory where an aggressor is fighting.

    The principle of proportionality also provides protections for civilians. Military actions are to be directed at the foreign forces who launched the attack, not civilians.

    While Israel has targeted Hamas fighters in its attacks, including those who orchestrated the October 7 attacks, these actions have caused significant collateral deaths of Palestinian civilians.

    Therefore, taken overall, the ongoing, 20-month military assault against Hamas, with its high numbers of civilian casualties, credible reports of famine and devastation of Gazan towns and cities, suggests Israel’s exercise of self-defence has become disproportionate.

    The principle of proportionality is also part of international humanitarian law. However, Israel’s actions on this front are a separate legal issue that has been the subject of investigation by the International Criminal Court.

    My aim here is to solely assess the legal question of proportionality in self-defence and international law.

    Is rescuing hostages in self-defence?

    Israel could separately argue it is exercising legitimate self-defence to rescue the remaining hostages held by Hamas.

    However, rescuing nationals as an exercise of self-defence is legally controversial. Israel set a precedent in 1976 when the military rescued 103 Jewish hostages from Entebbe, Uganda, after their aircraft had been hijacked.

    In current international law, there are very few other examples in which this interpretation of self-defence has been adopted – and no international consensus on its use.

    In Gaza, the size, scale and duration of Israel’s war goes far beyond a hostage rescue operation. Its aim is also to eliminate Hamas.

    Given this, rescuing hostages as an act of self-defence is arguably not a suitable justification for Israel’s ongoing military operations.

    An act of aggression?

    If Israel can no longer rely on self-defence to justify its Gaza military campaign, how would its actions be characterised under international law?

    Israel could claim it is undertaking a security operation as an occupying power.

    While the International Court of Justice said in an advisory opinion last year that Israel was engaged in an illegal occupation of Gaza, the court expressly made clear it was not addressing the circumstances that had evolved since October 7.

    Israel is indeed continuing to act as an occupying power, even though it has not physically reoccupied all of Gaza. This is irrelevant given the effective control it exercises over the territory.

    However, the scale of the IDF’s operations constitute an armed conflict and well exceed the limited military operations to restore security as an occupying power.

    Absent any other legitimate basis for Israel’s current conduct in Gaza, there is a strong argument that what is occurring is an act of aggression. The UN Charter and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court prohibit acts of aggression not otherwise justified under international law.

    These include invasions or attacks by the armed forces of a state, military occupations, bombardments and blockades. All of this has occurred – and continues to occur – in Gaza.

    The international community has rightly condemned Russia’s invasion as an act of aggression in Ukraine. Will it now do the same with Israel’s conduct in Gaza?

    Donald Rothwell receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

    – ref. Can Israel still claim self-defence to justify its Gaza war? – https://theconversation.com/can-israel-still-claim-self-defence-to-justify-its-gaza-war-257822

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Ultra-processed foods are everywhere — and they’re quietly raising health risks

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Angelina Baric, PhD Student, Department of Kinesiology, McMaster University

    It’s not exactly news that junk food isn’t healthy.

    What may be surprising is exactly how pervasive ultra-processed foods (UPFs) have become and what harm they’re doing. This includes some foods that are specifically labelled and marketed as having nutritional value.

    We are nutrition researchers, and the authors of a new study that identifies some of the specific negative effects of ultra-processed foods that are readily available, very popular and often hard to resist, especially when people are feeling pressed for time.

    Our research group leads population-based studies that integrate nutrition epidemiology, food policy, and dietary assessment to better understand how modern food environments and dietary patterns influence chronic disease risk.

    While ultra-processed foods include obvious culprits like potato chips, candy and frozen pizza, there are also some that people may believe are good for them, such as packaged granola bars, sports drinks and fruit-filled yogurt. Our study used the Nova classification system to define UPFs, which are industrial formulations made mostly or entirely from substances extracted from foods, derived from food constituents with little if any intact whole food remaining.

    How UPFs harm health

    Our research, based on diet questionnaires and personal medical data that Health Canada and Statistics Canada collected from over 6,000 Canadians, shows that the effects of UPFs can pile up over time, adding to the risk of heart attack, stroke and other serious health issues by raising blood pressure and blood sugar levels, for example.

    Even a person who is thin, active and free from illness might be accumulating risk by consuming UPFs that may seem innocuous or even healthy.

    The ways ultra-processed foods harm our health aren’t just about calories or individual nutrients like salt, sugar and fat, though those aren’t making things better. It’s also in the way they’re made.

    Take that seemingly healthy tub of yogurt. On its own, yogurt is indeed very healthy. The problem is when things like jam-like fruit with preservatives or artificial vanilla flavouring are added. They make yogurt taste better but can push it into unhealthy territory.

    Even after we eliminated the impacts of influences such as the survey respondents’ body mass index, age, exercise and smoking habits, the numbers showed a specific risk that may be related to the additives that give ultra-processed foods longer shelf life, brighter colours and enhanced flavours. For example, we know that the modern diet of highly processed food is associated with distorted hormone levels.

    Some products are so heavily processed that it appears our bodies may not respond to them as they would to more natural foods. UPFs trigger inflammatory responses that suggest the body regards them as stressors, rather than nutrition.

    Substituting UPFs for healthy foods

    We learned from survey respondents that consumers are increasingly using UPFs as substitutes for healthy staples such as vegetables and fruit. This is not surprising when the wrapper on a granola bar proclaims its contents to be a good source of fibre, or a when a sports drink label says it’s a good source of electrolytes, Vitamin D or some other single nutrient.

    Granola bars are often marketed as containing fibre. While the claim may be factual, many granola bars are also high in sugar, fat or salt.
    (Shutterstock)

    While these claims are factual, they don’t represent the entire or even most significant effects of the products inside. For a long time, food policies have been very focused on single nutrients rather than thinking about the totality of our food supply.

    Our complex food supply has come to be heavily influenced by huge multinational companies and their need for sales instead of our need for health, to the point where marketing and packaging have made it challenging to understand exactly what we are eating or drinking.

    That is starting to change. Starting in January 2026, the Canadian government will require food packaging to prominently declare the presence of unhealthy amounts of sodium, sugar and saturated fat.



    Read more:
    Front-of-package food labels: A path to healthier choices

    While that will be a significant and welcome improvement in transparency, it will not change the fact that a loaf of mass-manufactured white bread, a package of bacon or even a tray of muffins may also be harming the people who eat them in ways they have not even considered.

    Setting reduction targets

    Canada’s food guide, produced by Health Canada, only suggests we limit the amount of processed food we eat, but it doesn’t set any clear national target for how much we should cut our consumption. While most other countries also stop short of setting specific limits, France has gone a step further by aiming to cut national consumption of ultra-processed foods by 20 per cent over five years.

    Setting a similar national reduction target in Canada could have a particularly significant, positive effect on people in care homes, hospitals and schools that are required to use Canada’s Food Guide in planning their menus.

    Individual consumers know how easy it is to fall into the habit of eating too many ultra-processed foods. They are hard to resist because they are heavily marketed, usually tasty, reasonably affordable and appear to make life easier by saving time and effort.

    Understanding more about what these appealing products are really doing to people is an important step toward helping consumers make better, more informed choices. We are already working on more research to understand more about what’s really inside those bright shiny packages that keep finding their way into shopping carts.

    Anthea Christoforou receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and has previously received funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

    Angelina Baric 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. Ultra-processed foods are everywhere — and they’re quietly raising health risks – https://theconversation.com/ultra-processed-foods-are-everywhere-and-theyre-quietly-raising-health-risks-256419

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Hedgehog poo could hold important secrets about local biodiversity

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sophie Lund Rasmussen, Research fellow in Ecology and Conservation, University of Oxford

    Jayne Morgan

    Biodiversity, the rich variety of life found on Earth, is vanishing. I’m a conservation scientist keen to monitor this loss to better understand where efforts to reverse it will be most effective. And I might have hit on a novel solution.

    I study European hedgehogs, the popular spiky mammals that inhabit our gardens. Hedgehog populations are declining massively, with an estimated loss of up to 75% in the rural areas of the UK during the past 25 years.

    Thanks to insights gained in my research, I, Dr Hedgehog, believe that this species could be helpful for mapping wider biodiversity. More specifically, its poo.

    One probable cause of the decline in hedgehogs is a decline in insects, which form a major part of their diet. During my many nights of radio-tracking hedgehogs, I came up with the idea of analysing environmental DNA (eDNA) contained in samples of hedgehog poo to discover what the hedgehogs are eating and through that, what’s living locally.

    The eDNA method could reveal genetic traces of all organisms present in the samples in a single analysis. And, as we’ll see, these prickly mammals have a surprisingly liberal diet.

    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.

    Due to the loss of natural habitats, hedgehogs are increasingly living in gardens, and this is where the battle to save the hedgehog will take place. My research showed that European hedgehogs in residential areas normally visit ten to 14 gardens a night.

    Here, they eat a wide selection of prey, primarily insects, snails, slugs and worms, but also birds’ eggs (from ground-nesting birds – they don’t climb trees). They are scavengers too, and will munch on all sorts of dead animals.

    What most people don’t realise is that these adorable little creatures are also ferocious predators. If they can get their paws (or perhaps more correctly, their jaws) on live prey, they will eat chicks that have fallen out of nests or amphibians such as salamanders, newts and frogs. They are excellent swimmers and sometimes catch fish in garden ponds.

    I have seen hedgehogs taking on adult pigeons or full-sized chickens, and winning. Hedgehogs also sometimes chew on the faeces of foxes and lick the saliva onto their spines, probably with the purpose of masking their scent against predators.

    Prickly, but not picky.
    Nojafoto/Shutterstock

    We are not sure whether hedgehogs eat fruit and plants intentionally, or if they are actually after the worms or insects living on them – hedgehogs are officially categorised as “insectivores” – but vegetation shows up in the stomachs of dead hedgehogs too. The DNA from plants ingested by the insects, worms and snails eaten by hedgehogs, will also show up in an analysis of hedgehog poo.

    In terms of a guide to local biodiversity, hedgehogs are the full package.

    Hedgehogs live and forage in a small area. They poop a lot, and their faeces are easy to recognise and collect. If we keep the hedgehog population going, we won’t run out of sample material any time soon.

    Before DNA analysis was invented, it was very difficult to determine the diet of a hedgehog, because a slug is reduced to nothing after a trip through its digestive tract, and it’s hard to identify a species from a chewed-off beetle leg. In contrast, it only takes a tiny fragment of a species to show up in an eDNA analysis of hedgehog faeces, so imagine what we could discover.

    In these times of drastic biodiversity loss, we need to establish good and reliable methods for monitoring biodiversity. An analysis of a hedgehog poo could even reveal elusive species which may have been categorised as extinct in the area.

    My idea of biodiversity monitoring through hedgehog poo has spawned ridicule and numerous rejection letters for funding applications. I refused to let it stop me. So I have created a crowdfunding campaign where you can support the research by purchasing a hedgehog poo and getting a certificate. I have 800 hedgehog faecal samples collected from all over Denmark, England and Scotland, stored in a freezer ready to be analysed.

    The work has begun, and my colleagues and I have found some very interesting results already. One is the remarkable scarcity of bird DNA in hedgehog faecal samples collected from islands, where hedgehogs are accused of posing a threat to ground-nesting birds by eating their eggs. We are confident that our method works as we tested it beforehand by feeding quail eggs to hedgehogs, and found lots of bird DNA in the samples.

    When I have managed to raise the remaining funds, we will continue the investigation.

    This is the story of how I discovered that hedgehog droppings are gold. If you would like to know more, watch my talk on the subject here.

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    Sophie Lund Rasmussen 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. Hedgehog poo could hold important secrets about local biodiversity – https://theconversation.com/hedgehog-poo-could-hold-important-secrets-about-local-biodiversity-256644

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –