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Category: Science

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Landmark Economic Deal with US saves thousands of jobs

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    Press release

    Landmark Economic Deal with US saves thousands of jobs

    Today the UK and US has agreed a landmark economic deal which will save thousands of jobs for British carmakers and steel industry

    • Britain secures the first US trade deal protecting British business and British jobs, the second landmark deal in Britain’s national interest in a matter of days following the India deal
    • Prime Minister delivers on his promise to save UK steel and British car makers – saving thousands of jobs across the country
    • US tariffs on automotives immediately slashed from 27.5%, with steel and aluminium reduced to zero
    • Unprecedented market access for British farmers with protections on food standards maintained 

    Thousands of jobs have been saved as the Prime Minister secured a first-of-a-kind trade agreement with the US.

    It is the second major trade announcement this week – following the India Free Trade Agreement on Tuesday, this historic agreement with the US to slash tariffs delivers for UK carmakers, steelworks and farmers – protecting jobs and providing stability for exporters. 

    Car export tariffs will reduce from 27.5% to 10% – saving hundreds of millions a year for Jaguar Land Rover alone. This will apply to a quota of 100,000 UK cars, almost the total the UK exported last year. 

    The Prime Minister visited Jaguar Land Rover last month announcing greater freedom for car manufacturers to back British industry in the face of global headwinds. During this visit he told workers he would accelerate trade deals to protect their jobs, their livelihoods, and to champion British business worldwide. 

    The UK steel industry – which was on the brink of collapse just weeks ago – will no longer face tariffs thanks to today’s deal. The Prime Minister negotiated the 25% tariff down to zero, meaning UK steelmakers can carry on exporting to the US. This follows last month’s intervention from the Prime Minister to take control of British Steel to save thousands of jobs in Scunthorpe.

    In a win for both nations, we have agreed new reciprocal market access on beef – with UK farmers given a tariff free quota for 13,000 metric tonnes. There will be no weakening of UK food standards on imports. 

    We will also remove the tariff on ethanol – which is used to produce beer – coming into the UK from the US, down to zero. 

    It is one of many international deals that the Government is landing to boost our economy – following an Indian trade deal which will add £4.8 billion to the UK economy and £2.2 billion in wages every year.

    Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, said:

    “The new global era demands a government that steps up, not stands aside. 

    “This historic deal delivers for British business and British workers protecting thousands of British jobs in key sectors including car manufacturing and steel. 

    “My government has put Britain at the front of the queue because we want to work constructively with allies for mutual benefit rather than turning our back on the world.

    “As VE Day reminds us, the UK has no greater ally than the United States, so I am delighted that eight decades on, under President Trump the special relationship remains a force for economic and national security. 

    “This is jobs saved, jobs won but not job done and our teams will continue to work to build on this agreement. 

    “My Government is determined to go further and faster to strengthen the UK’s economy, putting more money in working people’s pockets as part of our Plan for Change.”

    Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said:

    “I am delighted our calm approach and proactive engagement with the US has resulted in this deal which cuts tariffs for UK industry and cuts costs for businesses.

    “Businesses across the country will be glad to see our approach working, but this is only the beginning. We look forward to strengthening our trading relationship with the US through a wider economic deal, which will help us to deliver on our Plan for Change to provide economic stability and make this country fit for the future.”

    Adrian Mardell, Chief Executive Officer, JLR said:  

    “The car industry is vital to the UK’s economic prosperity, sustaining 250,000 jobs. We warmly welcome this deal which secures greater certainty for our sector and the communities it supports. We would like to thank the UK and US Governments for agreeing this deal at pace and look forward to continued engagement over the coming months.”

    Work will continue on the remaining sectors – such as pharmaceuticals and remaining reciprocal tariffs. But – in an important move – the US has agreed that the UK will get preferential treatment in any further tariffs imposed as part of Section 232 investigations. The deal opens the way to a future UK US technology partnership through which our science-rich nations will collaborate in key areas of advanced technology, for example biotech, life sciences, quantum computing, nuclear fusion, aerospace and space. 

    The Digital Services Tax remains unchanged as part of today’s deal. Instead the two nations have agreed to work on a digital trade deal that will strip back paperwork for British firms trying to export to the US – opening the UK up to a huge market that will put rocket boosters on the UK economy.

    Updates to this page

    Published 8 May 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI Global: David Attenborough’s Ocean reveals how bottom trawling is hurting sealife in horrifying detail

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Callum Roberts, Professor of Marine Conservation, University of Exeter

    A bottom trawl net hanging to dry in the harbour of Harlingen in the Netherlands, showing the rockhopper rollers on the footrope that contacts the seabed. 365 Focus Photography/Shutterstock

    In one of the most powerful scenes of Sir David Attenborough’s new film Ocean, the audience sees industrial fishing from a fish’s perspective.

    Confronting a bottom trawl net as it thunders across the seabed, terrified fish scatter in desperate but futile attempts to escape the vast net swallowing them. The heavy chain that holds the trawl down sweeps away sponges, corals, seagrass and other seabed life, leaving behind utter devastation.

    Attenborough’s latest nature documentary is a visually magnificent and highly personal meditation on the relationship humans have with the sea. It is the most important part of our world, he says. But we have taken it for granted.

    A century of intensifying and destructive fishing has culminated in bottom trawl nets, some as big as cathedrals and weighing many tonnes, being towed along the seabed to catch fish. To allow them to fish more effectively in areas of rough seabed, which is where most marine life is found, fishers in the 1920s invented “rock-hopper” gear: rollers placed along the foot rope that touches the bottom, allowing the net to bounce over obstacles.

    This innovation followed the trajectory of many fishing methods, which was to become more destructive over time to sustain the size of catches in the face of declining fish stocks.

    Trawler nets are designed to gobble up marine life indiscriminately.
    Anney_Lier/Shutterstock

    Shellfish dredging, another fishing method that destroys as it catches, is shown in a second horrifying scene. To catch scallops, steel dredges armed with spikes (imagine the harrows farmers use to break up soil on ploughed fields) drag along the seabed, smashing and pummelling everything. In minutes, seabed life of astonishing diversity and beauty is erased.

    Together, Attenborough explains, bottom trawling and dredging wreak their havoc across an area of seabed larger than the Amazon rainforest every year.

    Attenborough invites viewers to wonder how on Earth these fishing methods are still allowed when the damage is so obvious. Viewers may be even more surprised, and very probably angry, to learn that most marine protected areas in Europe, and indeed worldwide, permit bottom trawling and dredging within their boundaries.

    To understand why this is the case, we have to go back in time.

    A medieval practice

    We know from the parliamentary records of Edward III in 1376 that fishers in southern England were practising bottom trawling as far back as the 1300s. Long-held traditions are hard to change, even when there is irrefutable evidence that they cause harm.

    It is telling, however, that this early description of trawling is a petition urging the king to ban the method for its reckless destruction of habitat and waste of fish.

    Nevertheless, these fisheries expanded because trawling was an efficient means of landing huge quantities of fish. Trawling’s success came at the expense of what we call marine animal forests, habitats built by animals like oysters, horse mussels and sponges – all swept away to leave behind vacant shifting sands, mud and gravel that predominate over vast swaths of seafloor today.

    A recent estimate has suggested that oyster reefs once covered at least 17,000 square kilometres of European seas – an area the size of Northern Ireland. All of this was gone by the beginning of the 20th century. This ecosystem cannot recover until it is offered protection from trawling and dredging. So, why haven’t we protected it?

    Degraded habitats, profoundly altered by trawling, were what scientists and then conservationists found when they first ventured below water after the invention of scuba diving in the mid-20th century. These early submarine explorers mistook them for natural and wild, failing to see the role industrial fishing had played in their creation.

    Being now occupied almost exclusively by creatures used to the passage of trawls – animals that live fast and die young like worms, prawns and whelks – these habitats were labelled as resilient, and not in need of protection.

    This warped perspective fooled us into thinking that marine protected areas left open to bottom trawling would be fine. In the few cases where protected areas exclude trawling, like around the Isle of Arran in western Scotland, the swift resurgence of seabed life has revealed how wrong this assumption was.

    In only five years, sea-moss, sea-nettles, scallops and brittle stars have reoccupied the seafloor, a transformation that is nevertheless just the beginning of a recovery that will carry on for decades.

    Seabeds protected from trawls and dredges can rebound, like this one off the Isle of Arran. It offers a glimpse of what existed before industrial fisheries.
    Henley Spiers/Blue Marine Foundation

    Giving up the trawl and dredge does not mean an end to fishing, as the film explains. In fact, recovering fish populations in protected areas replenish those in fishing grounds nearby, leading to better and more sustainable catches.

    Calling time on destructive fishing

    Perhaps now, at last, the writing is on the wall for bottom trawling and dredging, because they do a more insidious form of damage we have only recently become fully aware of. The ocean floor is one of the planet’s largest carbon stores. A snowfall of sinking organic matter and sediment accumulates on the seabed, where the carbon it contains is buried for thousands of years.

    Left undisturbed, this carbon is out of harm’s way. But when churned up by the passage of trawls and dredges, some is turned back into CO₂, some of which will end up back in the atmosphere.

    The magnitude of these seabed carbon emissions, and their role in climate change, is hotly debated. Getting more reliable estimates is the mission of a five-year project I lead, the Convex Seascape Survey. One thing is already clear from our research, however: there are places underwater – like peat bogs or permafrost on land – that we should not disturb because they harbour immense quantities of carbon.

    Ironically, these muddy basins have in the past few decades become some of the most intensively fished places in the sea because they are home to valuable prawns, which are among the few species still able to support viable fisheries.

    Any country serious about meeting net zero in time to prevent dangerous climate change must act swiftly to protect its seabed carbon stores. And any country serious about ocean conservation knows that marine protected areas are useless if they don’t exclude trawling and dredging.

    David Attenborough, Silverback Films and the Open Planet Studios team have brought these truths to a mass audience, leaving no space for further evasion and denial. What we need now is action.

    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.

    Callum Roberts receives funding from Convex, the Natural Environment Research Council and the European Research Council. He is on the board of Nekton and Maldives Coral Institute and sits on the Minderoo Natural Ecosystems advisory panel, the Bertarelli Ocean Legacy Science advisory board and the CORDAP science advisory panel.

    – ref. David Attenborough’s Ocean reveals how bottom trawling is hurting sealife in horrifying detail – https://theconversation.com/david-attenboroughs-ocean-reveals-how-bottom-trawling-is-hurting-sealife-in-horrifying-detail-255991

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Landmark economic deal with United States saves thousands of jobs for British car makers and steel industry

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    Press release

    Landmark economic deal with United States saves thousands of jobs for British car makers and steel industry

    Thousands of jobs have been saved as the Prime Minister secured a first-of-a-kind trade agreement with the US.

    • Britain secures the first US trade deal protecting British business and British jobs, the second landmark deal in Britain’s national interest in a matter of days following the India deal
    • Prime Minister delivers on his promise to save UK steel and British car makers – saving thousands of jobs across the country
    • US tariffs on automotives immediately slashed from 27.5%, with steel and aluminium reduced to zero
    • Unprecedented market access for British farmers with protections on food standards maintained

    Thousands of jobs have been saved as the Prime Minister secured a first-of-a-kind trade agreement with the US.

    It is the second major trade announcement this week – following the India Free Trade Agreement on Tuesday, this historic agreement with the US to slash tariffs delivers for UK carmakers, steelworks and farmers – protecting jobs and providing stability for exporters. 

    Car export tariffs will reduce from 27.5% to 10% – saving hundreds of millions a year for Jaguar Land Rover alone. This will apply to a quota of 100,000 UK cars, almost the total the UK exported last year. 

    The Prime Minister visited Jaguar Land Rover last month announcing greater freedom for car manufacturers to back British industry in the face of global headwinds. During this visit he told workers he would accelerate trade deals to protect their jobs, their livelihoods, and to champion British business worldwide. 

    The UK steel industry – which was on the brink of collapse just weeks ago – will no longer face tariffs thanks to today’s deal. The Prime Minister negotiated the 25% tariff down to zero, meaning UK steelmakers can carry on exporting to the US. This follows last month’s intervention from the Prime Minister to take control of British Steel to save thousands of jobs in Scunthorpe.

    In a win for both nations, we have agreed new reciprocal market access on beef – with UK farmers given a tariff free quota for 13,000 metric tonnes. There will be no weakening of UK food standards on imports. 

    We will also remove the tariff on ethanol – which is used to produce beer – coming into the UK from the US, down to zero. 

    It is one of many international deals that the Government is landing to boost our economy – following an Indian trade deal which will add £4.8 billion to the UK economy and £2.2 billion in wages every year.

    Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, said:

    The new global era demands a government that steps up, not stands aside. 

    This historic deal delivers for British business and British workers protecting thousands of British jobs in key sectors including car manufacturing and steel. 

    My government has put Britain at the front of the queue because we want to work constructively with allies for mutual benefit rather than turning our back on the world.

    As VE Day reminds us, the UK has no greater ally than the United States, so I am delighted that eight decades on, under President Trump the special relationship remains a force for economic and national security. 

    This is jobs saved, jobs won but not job done and our teams will continue to work to build on this agreement. 

    My Government is determined to go further and faster to strengthen the UK’s economy, putting more money in working people’s pockets as part of our Plan for Change.

    Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said:

    I am delighted our calm approach and proactive engagement with the US has resulted in this deal which cuts tariffs for UK industry and cuts costs for businesses.

    Businesses across the country will be glad to see our approach working, but this is only the beginning. We look forward to strengthening our trading relationship with the US through a wider economic deal, which will help us to deliver on our Plan for Change to provide economic stability and make this country fit for the future.

    Adrian Mardell, Chief Executive Officer, JLR said:

    The car industry is vital to the UK’s economic prosperity, sustaining 250,000 jobs. We warmly welcome this deal which secures greater certainty for our sector and the communities it supports. We would like to thank the UK and US Governments for agreeing this deal at pace and look forward to continued engagement over the coming months.

    Work will continue on the remaining sectors – such as pharmaceuticals and remaining reciprocal tariffs. But – in an important move – the US has agreed that the UK will get preferential treatment in any further tariffs imposed as part of Section 232 investigations. The deal opens the way to a future UK US technology partnership through which our science-rich nations will collaborate in key areas of advanced technology, for example biotech, life sciences, quantum computing, nuclear fusion, aerospace and space. 

    The Digital Services Tax remains unchanged as part of today’s deal. Instead the two nations have agreed to work on a digital trade deal that will strip back paperwork for British firms trying to export to the US – opening the UK up to a huge market that will put rocket boosters on the UK economy.

    Updates to this page

    Published 8 May 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI USA News: President Trump is Bringing Drug Manufacturing Back

    Source: The White House

    President Donald J. Trump is determined to make the American pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries great again — both as a matter of national security and to unleash unprecedented prosperity for American workers.

    Gilead Sciences became the latest industry leader to announce a massive new investment in its U.S. operations with an $11 billion boost to its planned U.S.-based spending.

    The company joins a host of others in expanding their domestic footprint to align with President Trump’s vision:

    • New Jersey-based Johnson & Johnson announced a $55 billion investment in manufacturing, research and development, and technology.
    • Roche, a Swiss drug and diagnostics company, announced a $50 billion investment in its U.S.-based manufacturing and research and development.
    • New Jersey-based Bristol Myers Squibb announced a $40 billion investment in research, development, technology, and manufacturing.
    • Indiana-based Eli Lilly and Company announced a $27 billion investment to more than double its domestic manufacturing capacity.
    • Novartis, a Swiss drugmaker, announced a $23 billion investment to build or expand ten manufacturing facilities across the U.S.
    • Illinois-based AbbVie announced a $10 billion investment over the next ten years to support volume growth and add four new manufacturing plants to its network.
    • New Jersey-based Merck & Co. announced it will invest a total of $9 billion over the next several years after opening a new $1 billion North Carolina manufacturing facility — including a new state-of-the-art biologics manufacturing plant in Delaware.
      • Merck Animal Health announced an $895 million investment to expand their manufacturing operation in Kansas.
    • New York-based Regeneron Pharmaceuticals announced a $3 billion agreement with FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies to produce drugs at its North Carolina facility.
    • California-based Amgen announced a $900 million investment in its Ohio-based manufacturing operation.
    • Illinois-based Abbott Laboratories announced a $500 million investment in its Illinois and Texas facilities.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA News: Fact Sheet: U.S.-UK Reach Historic Trade Deal

    Source: The White House

    ESTABLISHING A NEW PARADIGM FOR OUR SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP: Today, on the 80th anniversary of Victory Day for World War II, President Donald J. Trump and Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced a historic trade deal, providing American companies unprecedented access to the UK markets while bolstering U.S. national security. This is a great deal for America.

    • President Trump: “The deal includes billions of dollars of increased market access for American exports, especially in agriculture, dramatically increasing access for American beef, ethanol, and virtually all of the products produced by our great farmers.”
      • “The UK will reduce or eliminate numerous non-tariff barriers that unfairly discriminated against American products.”
      • “This is now turning out to be, really, a great deal for both countries.”
    • Prime Minister Starmer: “This is going to boost trade between and across our countries. It’s going to not only protect jobs, but create jobs, opening market access.”
    • This trade deal will significantly expand U.S. market access in the UK, creating a $5 billion opportunity for new exports for U.S. farmers, ranchers, and producers.
      • This includes more than $700 million in ethanol exports and $250 million in other agricultural products, like beef.
      • It commits the countries to work together to enhance industrial and agricultural market access.
      • It closes loopholes and increases U.S. firms’ competitiveness in the UK’s procurement market.
      • It ensures streamlined customs procedures for U.S. exports.
      • It establishes high standard commitments in the areas of intellectual property, labor, and environment.
      • It maximizes the competitiveness and secures the supply chain of U.S. aerospace manufacturers through preferential access to high-quality UK aerospace components.
      • It creates a secure supply chain for pharmaceutical products.
    • The reciprocal tariff rate of 10%, as originally announced on Liberation Day, is in effect.
    • The United States will agree to an alternative arrangement for the Section 232 tariffs on UK autos.
      • Under the deal, the first 100,000 vehicles imported into the U.S. by UK car manufacturers each year are subject to the reciprocal rate of 10% and any additional vehicles each year are subject to 25% rates.
    • The United States also recognizes the economic security measures taken by the UK to combat global steel excess capacity and will negotiate an alternative arrangement to the Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum.
      • This deal creates a new trading union for steel and aluminum.
    • This U.S.-UK trade deal will usher in a golden age of new opportunity for U.S. exporters and level the playing fields for American producers.
    • Today’s action also sets the tone for other trading partners to promote reciprocal trade with the United States.

    A FRAMEWORK TO BOLSTER ECONOMIC SECURITY: President Trump continues to advance the interests of the American people, enhancing market access for American exporters and lowering tariff and non-tariff barriers to protect our economic and national security.

    • On April 18, President Trump had a call with Prime Minister Starmer to discuss our bilateral trade relationship.
    • U.S. total goods trade with the UK was an estimated $148 billion in 2024.
    • The UK average applied agricultural tariff is 9.2% while the U.S. average applied agricultural tariff (prior to April 2) was 5%.
    • The UK maintains certain tariff and non-tariff barriers that restrict market access and create an unfair playing field for American workers and businesses.
      • For example, the UK imposes tariffs that can exceed 125% on meat, poultry, and dairy products on top of maintaining non-science-based standards that adversely affect U.S. exports.
    • On April 2, 2025, Liberation Day, President Trump imposed a 10% tariff on all countries to address unfair trade practices that have contributed to America’s trade deficit and imbalances in order to better protect American workers and our national security. 

    A MILESTONE IN ADVANCING AN AMERICA FIRST TRADE POLICY: Since Day One, President Trump challenged the assumption that American workers and businesses must tolerate unfair trade practices that have disadvantaged our workers and businesses for decades and contributed to our historic trade deficit.

    • Reversing these conditions and addressing the lack of reciprocity in America’s trade relationships will bring about a new Golden Age and Make America Great Again.
    • President Trump continues to advance the interests of the American people, enhancing market access for American exporters and lowering tariff and non-tariff barriers.
    • The Economic Prosperity Deal with the United Kingdom is a critical step forward in a special relationship to promote reciprocal trade with a key ally and partner.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Europe: ASIA/INDIA – Salesian missionaries help young people seek for a job

    Source: Agenzia Fides – MIL OSI

    Thursday, 8 May 2025

    ANS

    Srikakulam (Agenzia Fides) – An initiative launched by the Salesian missionaries in the Diocese of Srikakulam aims not only to shape the conscience of young people but also to impart skills needed to enter the world of work. The diocese is located in one of the poorest districts of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.In a social context where youth unemployment is high in India, with approximately 42 out of 100 young people unable to find work in their preferred field, the missionaries’ initiative, implemented as part of a festival with cultural events and meetings with local businesses, proved not only to be a form of “employment agency” but also a moment that gave new hope to more than 500 young people from rural areas and their families.During the three-day event, jointly organized by DISHA, the career counseling and placement service of the Salesian Province of India-Hyderabad, the Don Bosco Job Placement Network, and the Diocese of Srikakulam, the young people also participated in sessions focused on communication, decision-making, emotional intelligence, goal setting, and teamwork, all aimed at helping the young people succeed in job interviews.Theater performances, songs, and various artistic performances complemented the training sessions and gave the young people the opportunity to showcase their talents. The artistic performances also addressed social issues relevant to the community, such as unemployment and migration. At the end of the festival, over 300 young people received job offers on site from the 15 participating companies from various sectors (including healthcare, retail, manufacturing, and IT services). (F.B.) (Agenzia Fides, 8/5/2025)
    Share:

    MIL OSI Europe News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: News 05/8/2025 Blackburn, Bennet, Tillis, Coons Introduce Bill to Bolster Domestic Semiconductor Supply Chains

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn)

    WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), and Chris Coons (D-Del.) introduced the bipartisan Strengthening Essential Manufacturing and Industrial (SEMI) Investment Act to expand tax incentives for semiconductor facilities to include upstream materials suppliers. This would help protect U.S. defense supply chains by supporting domestic investment and reducing reliance on foreign adversaries like Communist China.

    “Communist China has rapidly increased its grip on semiconductor production, threatening America’s economy and national security,” said Senator Blackburn. “The SEMI Investment Actwould boost manufacturing here in the United States and help secure our supply chains by expanding tax incentives for semiconductor facilities to reduce our dependence on Beijing.”

    “The CHIPS and Science Act revitalized advanced domestic manufacturing and restored funding for cutting-edge research and development. But without sustained investment across the semiconductor supply chain, we risk undermining these important efforts,” said Senator Bennet. “Our bipartisan bill will secure our supply chains and ensure companies across the semiconductor ecosystem can invest in and expand U.S. production.”

    “The U.S. must do everything we can to strengthen the domestic semiconductor supply chain,” said Senator Tillis. “It is crucial for our national security and economic resilience that we get this policy right and I am proud to cosponsor this legislation to ensure we reduce our reliance on our adversaries like China.”

    “Semiconductors drive everything from smartphones to medical devices to automobiles, and countries that excel at manufacturing them will be stronger and more secure in the decades ahead,”said Senator Coons. “Expanding the semiconductor manufacturing investment tax credit—established by President Biden’s CHIPS and Science Act—will strengthen our semiconductor supply chain and advance us toward that goal.”

    BACKGROUND

    • Fueled by massive government subsidies, China’s state-controlled companies now dominate nearly 85% of global processing capacity for rare earth minerals used in semiconductor manufacturing.
    • Last month, China imposed new export bans on rare earth materials like gallium, germanium, and antimony, which are key to semiconductor production.
    • Under current law, tax incentives are only available for facilities that directly produce semiconductors or manufacturing equipment. However, much of the upstream materials and components used in these facilities are sourced from China, leaving our critical supply chains vulnerable and heavily reliant on foreign adversaries.

    SEMI INVESTMENT ACT

    • To safeguard national security and counter China’s growing dominance in the semiconductor sector, the SEMI Investment Act would foster the development of a robust U.S.-based supply chain by expanding the tax credit to include upstream materials suppliers.
    • Expanding incentives to include upstream production would also bolster American innovation, create jobs, and ensure the resilience of this vital industry.

    Click here for bill text.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: FDA Announces Completion of First AI-Assisted Scientific Review Pilot and Aggressive Agency-Wide AI Rollout Timeline

    Source: US Department of Health and Human Services – 3

    For Immediate Release:
    May 08, 2025

    In a historic first for the agency, FDA Commissioner Martin A. Makary, M.D., M.P.H., today announced an aggressive timeline to scale use of artificial intelligence (AI) internally across all FDA centers by June 30, 2025, following the completion of a new generative AI pilot for scientific reviewers.
    “I was blown away by the success of our first AI-assisted scientific review pilot. We need to value our scientists’ time and reduce the amount of non-productive busywork that has historically consumed much of the review process. The agency-wide deployment of these capabilities holds tremendous promise in accelerating the review time for new therapies,” said Dr. Makary.
    The generative AI tools allow FDA scientists and subject-matter experts to spend less time on tedious, repetitive tasks that often slow down the review process.
    “This is a game-changer technology that has enabled me to perform scientific review tasks in minutes that used to take three days,” said Jinzhong (Jin) Liu, Deputy Director, Office of Drug Evaluation Sciences, Office of New Drugs in FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER).
    To reflect the urgency of this effort, Dr. Makary has directed all FDA centers to begin deployment immediately, with the goal of full integration by the end of June. Work will continue to expand use cases, improve functionality and adapt to the evolving needs of each center after June 30. By that date, all centers will be operating on a common, secure generative AI system integrated with FDA’s internal data platforms.
    “There have been years of talk about AI capabilities in frameworks, conferences and panels but we cannot afford to keep talking. It is time to take action. The opportunity to reduce tasks that once took days to just minutes is too important to delay,” said Dr. Makary.
    Next Steps
    Looking ahead, the FDA plans to expand generative AI capabilities—across all centers using a secure, unified platform. Future enhancements will focus on improving usability, expanding document integration, and tailoring outputs to center-specific needs, while maintaining strict information security and compliance with FDA policy.
    The agency-wide rollout is being coordinated by Jeremy Walsh, the FDA’s newly appointed Chief AI Officer and Sridhar Mantha. Walsh previously led enterprise-scale technology deployments across federal health and intelligence agencies and Mantha recently led the Office of Business Informatics in CDER.
    The agency will continue to assess performance, gather user feedback and refine features to support the evolving needs of FDA staff and advance its public health mission. Additional details and updates on the initiative will be shared publicly in June.
    ###

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    The FDA, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, protects the public health by assuring the safety, effectiveness, and security of human and veterinary drugs, vaccines and other biological products for human use, and medical devices. The agency also is responsible for the safety and security of our nation’s food supply, cosmetics, dietary supplements, radiation-emitting electronic products, and for regulating tobacco products.

    Inquiries

    Consumer:
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    Content current as of:
    05/08/2025

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    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Fraudulent crowdfunding after the Lapu Lapu tragedy highlights the need for vigilance and oversight

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Jeremy Snyder, Professor, Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University

    Around 100,000 members of Vancouver’s Filipino community and other residents recently gathered to take part in the Lapu Lapu street festival to celebrate Filipino culture. This vibrant community celebration ended in tragedy when a vehicle was driven at high speed through the festival.

    Eleven people were killed in the April 26 attack, and dozens injured in what acting police chief Steve Rai called the “darkest day in the city’s history.”

    There has been an outpouring of community support for the victims, their friends and families, and the Filipino community in Vancouver. This support has taken the form of flowers and messages left at the attack site, vigils and gatherings and religious events.

    And, as is now common following high-profile tragedies, the Lapu Lapu festival attack has been accompanied by a number of crowdfunding campaigns by and for its victims.

    A memorial for the victims of the Lapu Lapu tragedy.
    (J. Snyder), CC BY

    Helping after disaster

    Many of these crowdfunding campaigns are hosted by GoFundMe, which has set up a dedicated hub for these fundraisers. A week after the attack, the 16 campaigns on this hub had raised more than $2.3 million.

    Dozens of other fundraisers on GoFundMe have raised additional money for various causes and groups associated with the tragedy and Vancouver’s Filipino community. Other crowdfunding platforms have also hosted related crowdfunding campaigns.

    Crowdfunding is a way for the public to help those in need in concrete ways while also expressing their shock and sadness over tragic events. People from across the world have taken advantage of crowdfunding’s accessibility to learn about victims and join the outpouring of support.

    This support can be large and consequential. A campaign for Andy Le, a teenager who lost his family at the festival attack, has received more than $500,000 in donations. As a result of this support, Le has in turn pledged to donate half that money to other victims.

    This viral, international support has meant these campaigns are likely able to raise vastly more money than would be possible through traditional, purely local and offline activities.

    Teenager Andy Le, who lost his family in the Lapu Lapu attack, redistributes the funds raised in an online campaign.

    Fraud and fundraising

    But while the online nature of crowdfunding allows for a global response to high-profile tragedies, the relatively impersonal nature of crowdfunding has its downsides. Our research has demonstrated that crowdfunding sometimes attracts fraudulent campaigns.

    High-profile events that spur numerous campaigns and massive financial support are particularly attractive to fraudsters. Unfortunately, this has been the case with the Lapu Lapu festival tragedy. In one case, a GoFundMe campaign fraudulently raised more than $57,000, ostensibly to return the body of “Reyna Dela Peñato” to the Philippines after her death at the festival and to support her sons.

    Separately, the Philippine Consulate General of Vancouver warned of fraudulent campaigns on its behalf that used images from its website.

    Vetting authenticity

    Communities can provide mutual support by detecting these fraudulent campaigns, especially in tight-knit communities like Filipinos in Vancouver. In the case of the fraudulent campaign for “Reyna Dela Peñato,” it was flagged by Raquel Narraway, a Vancouver resident who had been compiling information on fundraisers. Narraway was able to marshal her connections to the local Filipino community to show that the campaign was not genuine.

    GoFundMe does its own vetting as well, identifying some campaigns as “verified” after contacting organizers.

    However, responding to actual and potential fraud creates new burdens on victims to prove their legitimacy to the public and crowdfunding platforms. Local community members are in turn taken away from grieving to investigate these campaigns. These policing activities inject a level of distrust into fundraising that is less present when giving takes place between people with pre-existing connections.

    Growing challenges

    While the problem of fraud in crowdfunding isn’t new, changes to the practice of crowdfunding may make it harder to detect. The advent of large language models or artificial intelligence (AI) tools like ChatGPT have made it easier for crowdfunding campaigners to edit their campaign narratives to appeal to a wider pool of potential donors.

    Crowdfunding platforms like GoFundMe are also pushing AI features directly into their platforms to “enhance” these campaigns and help campaigners “connect with more donors.” These features may be especially appealing to people whose first language is not English, as may be the case with some victims of the Lapu Lapu festival attack.

    While the AI-ification of crowdfunding creates a more level playing field for campaigners, it may also make fraud easier to commit and harder to detect. This will be true if generating fake campaigns is easier using chatbots and if legitimate campaigns use AI and take on a less authentic voice.

    Online crowdfunding isn’t going anywhere, and for many victims of the Lapu Lapu festival attack, it has enabled them to ease some of the burden from that terrible day. However, we should be aware that crowdfunding isn’t a purely beneficial tool for people in need. Without proper oversight, it may develop in ways that are even more problematic.

    Jeremy Snyder receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

    Valorie A. Crooks receives funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, BC Women’s Health Research Institute and MITACS..

    – ref. Fraudulent crowdfunding after the Lapu Lapu tragedy highlights the need for vigilance and oversight – https://theconversation.com/fraudulent-crowdfunding-after-the-lapu-lapu-tragedy-highlights-the-need-for-vigilance-and-oversight-255934

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Could CT scans really lead to a rise in cancer cases?

    Source: Anglia Ruskin University

    By Justin Stebbing, Anglia Ruskin University

    CT scans are a vital part of modern medicine. Found in every hospital and many clinics, they give doctors a fast and detailed look inside the body – helping to diagnose everything from cancer and strokes to internal injuries. But a new study suggests there may be a hidden cost to our growing reliance on this technology.

    The study, published in Jama Internal Medicine, warns that CT scans performed in the US in 2023 alone could eventually lead to over 100,000 extra cancer cases. If the current rate of scanning continues, the researchers say CT scans could be responsible for around 5% of all new cancers diagnosed each year.

    That figure has raised concerns. Especially when you consider that the number of CT scans done in the US has jumped by 30% in just over a decade. In 2023, there were an estimated 93 million CT exams carried out on 62 million people.

    The risk from a single scan is low – but not zero. And the younger the patient, the greater the risk. Children and teenagers are especially vulnerable because their bodies are still developing, and any damage caused by ionising radiation may not show up until many years later.

    That said, over 90% of CT scans are performed on adults, so it’s this group that faces the largest overall impact. The most common cancers linked to CT exposure are lung, colon, bladder and leukaemia. For women, breast cancer is also a significant concern.

    What makes this latest estimate so striking is how much it has grown. In 2009, a similar analysis projected around 29,000 future cancers linked to CT scans. The new number is over three times higher – not just because of more scans, but because newer research allows for a more detailed analysis of radiation exposure to specific organs.

    The study also makes an eye-catching comparison: if things stay as they are, CT-related cancers could match the number of cancers caused by alcohol or excess weight – two well-known risk factors.

    Not all scans carry the same level of risk. In adults, scans of the abdomen and pelvis are thought to contribute the most to future cancer cases. In children, it’s head CTs that pose the biggest concern – especially for babies under the age of one.

    Often life-saving

    Despite all this, doctors stress that CT scans are often life-saving and remain essential in many cases. They help catch conditions early, guide treatment and are crucial in emergencies. The challenge is making sure they’re only used when really needed.

    Newer technologies could help reduce the risk. Photon-counting CT scanners, for example, deliver lower doses of radiation, and MRI scans don’t use radiation at all. The researchers suggest that better use of diagnostic checklists could also help doctors decide when a scan is necessary, and when a safer alternative like MRI or ultrasound might do the job.

    It’s worth noting that this study doesn’t prove CT scans cause cancer in individual people. The estimates are based on “risk models” – not direct evidence. In fact, the American College of Radiology points out that no study has yet linked CT scans directly to cancer in humans, even after multiple scans.

    Still, the idea that radiation can cause cancer isn’t new. It’s scientifically sound. And with the huge number of scans being done, even small risks can add up.

    CT scans save lives, but they’re not risk-free. As medical technology evolves, so too should the way we use it. By cutting down on unnecessary scans, using safer alternatives where possible, and keeping radiation doses as low as practical, we can ensure CT scans continue to help more than they harm.

    Justin Stebbing, Professor of Biomedical Sciences, Anglia Ruskin University

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

    The opinions expressed in VIEWPOINT articles are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARU.

    If you wish to republish this article, please follow these guidelines: https://theconversation.com/uk/republishing-guidelines

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI: Parker Announces Retirement of Filtration Group President Rob Malone, Elects Matt Jacobson as Successor

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    CLEVELAND, May 08, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Parker Hannifin Corporation (NYSE: PH), the global leader in motion and control technologies, today announced that Robert W. Malone, Vice President and President – Filtration Group, will retire on August 31, 2025, after 12 years of dedicated service to the company.

    Parker’s Board of Directors has elected Matthew A. Jacobson, currently Vice President of Operations – Motion Systems Group, to succeed Mr. Malone as Vice President and President – Filtration Group, effective July 1, 2025.

    Mr. Malone was elected as Vice President and President – Filtration Group in 2014. He joined Parker in 2013 as Vice President of Operations for the Filtration Group. Previously, he spent 15 years in the filtration industry in various leadership roles. He led Parker’s Filtration Group through a period of significant growth and transformation and was a strong advocate for The Win Strategy™ to optimize the performance of the Group. He also led the successful integration of CLARCOR, which was acquired in 2017, and at the time was Parker’s largest acquisition, doubling the size of the Filtration Group. Mr. Malone will continue to serve as a Parker Vice President from July 1, 2025 through his retirement date, to ensure a smooth transition of responsibilities.

    “My thanks to Rob for his significant contributions to Parker’s success over many years and congratulations on his distinguished career,” said Jenny Parmentier, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer. “Rob has firmly established Parker as a global leader in this important growth market. Our robust succession planning process allows us to identify and develop outstanding leaders like Matt to seamlessly step into higher leadership roles and ensure the group’s continued success. Matt’s many years of experience as an operational leader within Parker will allow him to build on the strong foundation Rob has put in place.”

    Mr. Jacobson has a long track record of successful operational leadership over his two decades at Parker. He joined the company in 2005 as Manufacturing Engineer for the Integrated Hydraulics Division. In 2007, he became Operations Manager and in 2008 Division Supply Chain Manager for the Hydraulic Cartridge Systems Division. He continued to progress through operational leadership roles as business unit manager and general manager across three different divisions within the Motion Systems Group. In 2020, he was named Group Vice President of Supply Chain for Motion Systems Group, and in 2021, was named to his current role as Vice President of Operations – Motion Systems Group.

    Mr. Jacobson holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University. He also has a Master of Business Administration from DePaul University.

    About Parker Hannifin
    Parker Hannifin is a Fortune 250 global leader in motion and control technologies. For more than a century the company has been enabling engineering breakthroughs that lead to a better tomorrow. Learn more at www.parker.com or @parkerhannifin.

    ###

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI Economics: Meet four of this year’s Swift Student Challenge winners

    Source: Apple

    Headline: Meet four of this year’s Swift Student Challenge winners

    May 8, 2025

    UPDATE

    Local inspiration, global impact: Meet four of this year’s Swift Student Challenge winners

    Every year, the Swift Student Challenge invites students from around the world to follow their curiosity and explore their creativity through original app playgrounds built with Apple’s intuitive, easy-to-learn Swift coding language. From a starry sky glimpsed through a telescope in Nuevo León, Mexico, to a pack of cards discovered in a Japanese game shop, the inspirations behind this year’s 350 winning submissions span the globe, representing 38 countries and regions, and incorporating a wide range of tools and technologies.

    “We’re always inspired by the talent and perspective young developers bring to the Swift Student Challenge,” said Susan Prescott, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations. “This year’s winners show exceptional skill in transforming meaningful ideas into app playgrounds that are innovative, impactful, and thoughtfully built — and we’re excited to support their journey as they continue building apps that will help shape the future.”

    Fifty Distinguished Winners have been invited to attend the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) at Apple Park, where they’ll take part in a specially curated three-day experience. Over the course of the week, the winners will have the opportunity to watch the Keynote live on June 9, learn from Apple experts and engineers, and participate in labs.

    Many of this year’s winners took inspiration from their local communities, creating powerful tools that are designed to make an impact on a global scale. Below, Distinguished Winners Taiki Hamamoto, Marina Lee, Luciana Ortiz Nolasco, and Nahom Worku delve into their app playgrounds and the real-world problems they’re aiming to solve, demonstrating the power of coding to drive lasting change.

    When Taiki Hamamoto, 22, came across a Hanafuda deck at his local game shop, he was intrigued. He had grown up playing the traditional Japanese card game with family members, and he thought it’d be easy to recruit friends for a nostalgic round or two — but that wasn’t the case.

    “I found that very few people in my generation know how to play Hanafuda, despite it being such a staple in Japanese culture,” explains Hamamoto, a recent graduate of the Prefectural University of Kumamoto. “I thought if there was a way to make it easy to play on a smartphone, it might be possible to spread Hanafuda, not only in Japan but also to the world.”

    Through his winning app playground, Hanafuda Tactics, novices can get familiar with the game’s rules and the cards themselves. The colorful, ornate 48-card decks, inspired by Japan’s reverence for nature, are divided into 12 suits — one for each month of the year — and each illustrated by a seasonal plant. There are many ways to play, but one of the most popular variations is Koi-Koi, where players try to form special card combinations known as yaku.

    While Hamamoto stayed true to the game’s classic floral iconography, he also added a modern touch to the gameplay experience, incorporating video game concepts like hit points (HP) that resonate with younger generations. SwiftUI’s DragGesture helped him implement dynamic, highly responsive effects like cards tilting and glowing during movement, making the gameplay feel natural and engaging. He’s also experimenting with making Hanafuda Tactics playable on Apple Vision Pro.

    The idea that a centuries-old game could one day disappear is unthinkable for Hamamoto, who’s gotten so much joy from it. “Hanafuda is unique in that it allows you to experience the scenery and culture of Japan,” he says. “I want users of my app to feel immersed in it, and I want to preserve the game for generations to come.”

    With wildfires spreading quickly across much of Los Angeles earlier this year, Marina Lee, 21, got a harrowing phone call. Her grandmother — a resident of the San Gabriel Valley — had received an evacuation alert, and had little time to decide what to do or where to go.

    “As someone who grew up in L.A., I’ve always been aware of the wildfire risks and the realities that come with natural disasters,” says Lee, a third-year computer science student at the University of Southern California, who was spending winter break with her parents in Northern California at the time. “But with this phone call, the urgency really hit home. My grandma was panicked, unsure what to pack, or how to stay prepared and informed. That inspired me to create an app for people like her, who might not be as tech-savvy but deserve an accessible, trustworthy resource in times of crisis.”

    Through the app playground EvacuMate, users can prepare an emergency checklist of important items to pack for an evacuation. Lee integrated the iPhone camera roll into the app so users can upload copies of important documents, and added the ability to import emergency contacts through their iPhone contacts list. She also included resources on topics like checking air quality levels and assembling a first-aid kit.

    As Lee continues to refine EvacuMate, she’s focused on ensuring that the app is accessible to everyone who might want to use it. “I’d like to add support for different languages,” Lee explains. “Thinking back to my grandma, she’s not as comfortable reading English, and I realized a translation feature could really help others in the community who face the same challenge.”

    Heading into WWDC, Lee’s looking forward to fostering new connections with fellow developers, like the kinds she’s made hosting hackathons with her organization Citro Tech, or serving as a mentor for USC Women in Engineering. “Coding is so much more than just developing software,” she says. “It’s really the friendships you build, the community you find, and the problem-solving journey that empower you to make a difference.”

    Luciana Ortiz Nolasco was thrilled when she was presented with a telescope for her 11th birthday. Every night, she’d peer through her bedroom window to explore the sky over her home state of Nuevo León, Mexico.

    But there were two issues she quickly encountered: first, the thick layer of smog that hung over the heavily industrialized city, obscuring the stars and their brilliance, and second, a lack of fellow enthusiasts to geek out with.

    “I didn’t find a community till I joined the Astronomical Society of Nuevo León,” shares Ortiz Nolasco, now 15. On the weekends, through the connections she made at the society, she’d travel to the countryside to see the stars more clearly, attending camps and learning from mentors who shared her passion. These experiences sparked her interest in making astronomy even more accessible to others.

    Her app playground BreakDownCosmic is a virtual gathering place where users can add upcoming astronomical events around the world to their calendars, earn medals for accomplishing “missions,” and chat with fellow astronomers about what they see.

    Ortiz Nolasco found the ideal tool for bringing her idea to life with the Swift programming language. “Swift is very easy to learn, and using Xcode is very intuitive,” she explains. “Most of the time, it would correct me if I had an error. I didn’t have to spend time looking for hours and have it turn out to just be a small error I overlooked.”

    After attending WWDC in June, she plans to continue to develop BreakDownCosmic, with the ultimate goal of launching it on the App Store. “I want people to feel like they’re going on a journey through space when they log into my app,” she says. “The universe is full of mysteries we have yet to discover, and infinite possibilities. This journey is not just for some selected people. The universe is where we live. It’s our home, and everybody should be able to get to know it.”

    Growing up in Ethiopia and later in Canada, Nahom Worku felt pulled in two career directions: following in his uncle’s footsteps and becoming a pilot, or pursuing an engineering degree like his father. Ultimately, his fear of flying took the former profession off the table, but he still couldn’t decide on an engineering field to specialize in, until COVID-19 hit.

    “During the pandemic, I had a lot of time on my hands, so I bought a few books and discovered web design and coding,” says Worku, 21. He found a community in Black Kids Code, a nonprofit that helps kids learn math and coding, and eventually became a mentor himself.

    While assisting with a summer program at York University in Toronto, where he’s now a fourth-year student, Worku and his group were tasked with working on a United Nations Sustainable Development Goal that focuses on ensuring global access to quality education. For Worku, the project was eye-opening, as it connected back to his formative years. “Growing up in Ethiopia, I witnessed firsthand how many students lacked quality education,” he explains. “Additionally, many people either don’t have access to the Internet, or have issues with unreliable connections.”

    His app playground AccessEd is designed to tackle both of these issues, offering learning resources that are accessible with or without Wi-Fi connectivity. Built using Apple’s machine learning and AI tools, such as Core ML and the Natural Language framework, the app recommends courses based on a student’s background, creating a truly personalized experience.

    “Students can take a picture of their notes, and then the machine learning model analyzes the text using Apple’s Natural Language framework to create flash cards,” Worku says. “The app also has a task management system with notifications, as many students globally have a lot of homework and family responsibilities after school, so they often struggle with time management.”

    Worku hopes that AccessEd can unlock new possibilities for students around the world. “I hope my app will inspire others to explore how modern technologies like machine learning can be used in innovative ways, especially in education, and how they can make learning more engaging, effective, and enjoyable,” he says.

    Apple is proud to champion the next generation of developers, creators, and entrepreneurs through its annual Swift Student Challenge program. Over the past five years, thousands of program participants from all over the world have built successful careers, founded businesses, and created organizations focused on democratizing technology and using it to build a better future. Learn more at developer.apple.com/swift-student-challenge.

    Press Contacts

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    MIL OSI Economics –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: China’s Xinjiang commemorates Soviet comradeship in anti-Japanese war through Red Tourism promotion

    Translation. Region: Russian Federal

    Source: People’s Republic of China in Russian – People’s Republic of China in Russian –

    Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News

    URUMQI, May 8 (Xinhua) — A wooden arch bridge, which has become one of the “calling cards” of Xinjiang’s red tourism, is still carefully preserved on the Baiyang River in Urumqi, capital of northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The 85-year-old structure stands as a silent witness to the desperate story of how Chinese communists organized and protected a vital supply route for the Chinese nation from the Soviet Union through the northwest territory during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.

    After the Chinese people’s all-out anti-Japanese war began in 1937, Japanese militarists quickly captured China’s coastal regions, thereby cutting off communications linking the country to the outside world. At such a critical moment for the existence of the Chinese nation, the authorities were forced to organize a new route for the import of ammunition from friendly countries in the country’s northwestern inland region, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

    The first state to assist China in the all-out anti-Japanese war was the USSR, which supplied strategic cargo through Xinjiang by both air and road transport. In particular, cargo was sent by land from Almaty, after crossing the Khorgos border crossing, it passed through Ili, Dihua (present-day Urumqi), Turpan, Hami and other places in Xinjiang, and after leaving Xinjiang, it was delivered to the city of Lanzhou in Gansu Province.

    The length of this transport route exceeded 1,500 km in the section within Xinjiang, and the above-mentioned arch bridge, called “Dabancheng”, became an essential passage on the way between Dihua and Turpan. The bridge was built and opened to traffic in 1940. Its length is 28.5 m, and the width of the deck made of wooden slabs soaked in special oil is 7 m.

    According to published data, during the period 1937-1941, the USSR, with the help of this international corridor, delivered to the Chinese front more than 1,200 aircraft of various types, 82 tanks, over 2,000 vehicles, more than 4,300 artillery units and 14 thousand machine guns, as well as a large quantity of other ammunition.

    According to Mai Yuhua, deputy director of the Research Institute of History at the Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences, of all the international aid and weapons received by China during the anti-Japanese war, 80 percent came from the USSR, and 90 percent of them were delivered to the front lines through Xinjiang. “Therefore, helping the local authorities of Xinjiang to protect and guarantee the continuity of this communication artery was one of the important tasks for the Chinese communists who were in Xinjiang at that time,” he noted.

    Now, a tourist zone has been created around the Dabancheng Arch Bridge, which is included in the list of cultural relics protected at the level of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Here, visitors can view the arch bridge, learn about historical episodes of the Anti-Japanese War, and participate in various interactive activities, including a test of manually transporting strategic cargo in the absence of motor vehicles.

    In recent years, the area has attracted more and more visitors, thanks to efforts by Xinjiang authorities to effectively utilize and promote red tourism resources. Such efforts have also resulted in the improvement and increased visitor numbers of other military and revolutionary memorial sites, including a museum dedicated to the Xinjiang Mission of the Chinese Communist-controlled 8th Army, which was once tasked, among other things, with the extraordinary task of organizing and protecting the “red” logistics route between Yan’an (Shaanxi Province, Northwest China) and Moscow, via Xinjiang.

    Summing up the situation of Xinjiang’s tourism market during the recently concluded International Labor Day holiday (May 1-5), many online platforms reported a significant increase in the number of searches for museums, memorial sites, cemeteries of martyrs, and other red tourism sites.

    According to data from the Urumqi City Museum, which also functions as the Urumqi Revolutionary Historical Memorial Sites Management Center, over 12,000 people visited various museums and memorial sites throughout the city every day from May 1 to 5 as part of the red tourism. -0-

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Using machine learning to speed up discovery for drug delivery and disease treatment

    Source: US Government research organizations

    New computational tools are speeding up scientists’ ability to determine the structure of complex RNA molecules

    A new computational tool developed with support from the U.S. National Science Foundation could greatly speed up determining the 3D structure of RNAs, a critical step in developing new RNA-based drugs, identifying drug-binding sites and using RNAs in other biotechnology and biomedicine applications.

    The tool, NuFold, leverages state-of-the-art machine learning techniques to predict the structure of a wide variety of RNA molecules from their sequences. This new capability will allow researchers to visualize what a given RNA structure could look like based on its sequence and identify its potential use in drug delivery, disease treatment and other applications.  The research leading to NuFold was published in Nature Communications.

    RNAs are critical biological molecules — encoding information, like DNA, and performing cellular functions, like proteins — but relatively few RNA structures have been determined through experimentation thus far, which severely limits understanding of their functions. For example, RNAs in the NSF-funded Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics Protein Data Bank (RCSB PDB) represent only about 3% of total entries. Experimentally determining RNA structures is often time-consuming and costly. By providing a path to reliably predicting RNA structure from sequence, NuFold could greatly expedite the discovery of RNA function and enable quicker development of RNA-based therapeutics and technologies.

    Credit: Daisuke Kihara, Purdue University. Figure taken from the Nufold paper under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License

    Case studies of the predictions of NuFold, an NSF-funded AI-based tool for predicting RNA structures.

    These therapeutics and technologies could help address a range of diseases and conditions. For example, information on the structure of small interfering RNAs could aid in limiting gene overexpression that can play a role in cancer, neurological disorders and kidney stones. Knowing the structure of RNAs also could help enhance food security by protecting plants from viruses.

    NuFold leverages state-of-the-art machine learning techniques to predict the structure of a range of RNA molecules from their sequences. The system architecture for NuFold is based on the artificial intelligence-based protein structure prediction tool AlphaFold2, which was trained on the RCSB PDB and whose developers were awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in chemistry.  The source code for NuFold is openly available for use by the broad computational biology research community and other researchers interested in RNA structures.

    The machine-learning-enabled 3D RNA structures can be realized through novel 3D nanomanufacturing approaches.

    Learn more about NSF support for biotechnology.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Lab-synthesized botanical compound shows promise for fighting aggressive breast cancer

    Source: US Government research organizations

    Chemists created a new process for synthesizing complex natural compounds that can also boost their efficacy and therapeutic potential

    Chemists funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation have developed a new process to synthesize a plant-based compound that shows effectiveness against triple-negative breast cancer cells. According to the American Cancer Society, triple-negative breast cancer is one of the most aggressive types of breast cancer and accounts for 10-15% of all breast cancer cases. The process also increases the compound’s potency against these cancer cells and provides a method for it to be mass-produced to enable further testing as a potential treatment.

    The new process can also be used broadly to help discover new medicines by synthesizing and testing other complex organic compounds. The findings were achieved by Emory University researchers and published in The Journal of the American Chemical Society.

    The compound — called phaeocaulisin A — is extracted from the flowering plant Curcuma phaeocaulis, a relative of ginger and turmeric used for centuries in traditional medicine.

    “We not only efficiently replicated a complex natural product, we also improved upon it by turning it into a more potent compound,” says Mingji Dai, professor of chemistry and co-lead of the study.

    “It is only the first step in a long process,” says Yong Wan, professor of pharmacology and chemical biology and study co-lead. “But the new analogue of phaeocaulisin A we have reported shows promising efficacy against triple-negative breast cancer cells, which are very aggressive and challenging to deal with.”

    The study describes how the unique molecular structure of phaeocaulisin A works against triple-negative breast cancer by inhibiting it as a particularly effective anti-inflammatory agent. Wan and Dai were drawn to understand this property and improve upon it with their lab-synthesized analogue version.

    Credit: Sarah Woods, Emory University

    Mingji Dai (right), professor of chemistry at Emory University, and Yong Wan (left), professor of pharmacology and chemical biology at Emory School of Medicine, invented a reaction to streamline the total synthesis of a compound, phaeocaulisin A, extracted from a plant used for centuries in traditional medicine.

    Other chemists have synthesized phaeocausilin A before by using a 17-step method. But Wan and Dai wanted to find a more efficient way. In the process, they devised a new type of chemical reaction to create complex molecules: palladium-catalyzed carbonylation, which uses low-cost and widely available carbon monoxide as a resource. This discovery also cuts down their total synthesis of phaeocausilin A from 17 to 10 steps.

    “The icing on the cake,” says Dai, “is that the chemical reaction we invented holds potential for widespread use in organic chemistry to make many other compounds for drug discovery.”

    “What is so exciting to me about this work is that this methodology can be broadly applied to other synthetic targets. These reactions enable chemists to rethink strategies for how to piece together molecules, like building a Lego set with a different, shorter, set of instructions,” says John Jewett, program director in the NSF Division of Chemistry, which supported the research.

    The chemists say the compound and this method will require years of further research to evaluate its full potential. That said, it’s already shown possibilities for production at scale, and in preparation for commercial therapeutic use.

    “My lab’s focus is to find ways to integrate basic research into translational research,” Wan says. “We are not only trying to understand the mystery of mechanisms behind cancer. We also want to bring strategies to neutralize cancer to the clinical bedside.”

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Landsat at Work: Satellites Help Extinguish Wildfire Risk

    Source: US Geological Survey

    Wildfire Risk to Communities (wildfirerisk.org) is a USDA Forest Service program that incorporates LANDFIRE data to help assess risk across the entire United States.

    The LANDFIRE project uses Landsat satellite data to map wildland fuels. When combined with information about weather and population, LANDFIRE data can then be used to map wildfire risk. 

    The Community Wildfire Defense Grant program uses LANDFIRE-based wildfire risk data available on the Wildfire Risk to Communities website, wildfirerisk.org, a Forest Service program mandated by Congress in 2018.

    “Since wildfirerisk.org launched in 2020, there have been 2 million views of the website,” said Kelly Pohl, associate director of Headwaters Economics, a nonprofit research group that helps manage the user dashboard.  “LANDFIRE is a fundamental building block for what we do at wildfirerisk.org, and without it, it would be nearly impossible to continue to map wildfire risk for the country.”

    LANDFIRE data is available at no charge on its website LANDFIRE.gov, a website at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. 

    This section from LANDFIRE’s Existing Vegetation Cover (2023) shows the four counties in Montana—Gallatin, Park, Stillwater and Carbon—that commissioned the Trans-County Wildfire Risk Assessment. Dark green pixels indicate tree cover; orange, herb cover; light yellow, row crops; and red or pink, developed land in towns and cities. 

    Another example of LANDFIRE data helping save lives and property comes from four Montana counties that commissioned an assessment of their risk for wildfires, paid for in part by a grant from CWDG. The four counties—Gallatin, Park, Stillwater and Carbon—all include parts of the Custer-Gallatin National Forest and touch several wilderness areas. Two of the counties border Yellowstone National Park.

    Protecting homes and people’s lives amid so much forestland is a major concern, said Patrick Lonergan, chief of Emergency Management and Fire for Gallatin County. “Rarely does the main body of a fire burn into a community and burn the community down,” he said. “The main body of the fire produces embers because of the fuel makeup and the intensity of the fire, which then launches embers, starting spot fires and directly igniting buildings.” 

    Vibrant Planet, the company conducting the assessment, uses LANDFIRE data to map fuels—the plant life on the ground that might burn—and then adds more data like wind and weather conditions to predict what it calls Sources of Ember Load to Buildings.

    Once potential sources of embers are identified, communities can target those areas strategically before a wildfire even starts in order to prevent homes and other personal property from burning.

    Landsat Next is a trio of satellites with expanded capabilities that will orbit Earth more frequently than current Landsat satellites.

    In 2024, the project started releasing annual LANDFIRE updates. “If you’re not making your decisions based on good, usable data, then you’re just sort of punching in the dark,” Brooks said. “The LANDFIRE datasets and the website are valuable tools to help you make smart decisions.”

    LANDFIRE will gain even more insight in the future with the next generation of Landsat. A trio of satellites is planned to launch in late 2030/early 2031 as Landsat Next, capturing far more detail about features of the Earth’s surface more frequently than current Landsat satellites. “LANDFIRE welcomes every bit of data Landsat Next will provide, especially the expanded infrared capabilities that will help gauge the health of vegetation as well as potentially help differentiate additional vegetation types. I’m also hopeful new methods for analysis of fire damage will spring from the expanded bands keyed towards this very problem,” said LANDFIRE Project Manager Jon Dewitz.

    Note: LANDFIRE products are generated at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center through an interagency partnership between the Department of the Interior and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, with The Nature Conservancy as an additional partner. Both Landsat and LANDFIRE data are available to the public at no cost.

    Disclaimer: This web page contains hypertext links to information created and maintained by other organizations. USGS is not responsible for the content of any off-site pages. Reference herein to any specific commercial products, processes, or services by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not constitute or imply its endorsement or recommendation by the United States Government. 

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Chinese research isn’t taken as seriously as papers from elsewhere – my new study

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Peng Zhou, Professor of Economics, Cardiff University

    My new research suggests there is a stubborn pattern in academic publishing. My co-author and I examined some 8,000 articles published in the world’s most reputable economics journals to study citations, which are where academics cite previously published research in their papers. We found papers whose lead author had a Chinese surname received on average 14% fewer citations than comparable papers written by those with a non-Chinese name.

    This supports similar findings from previous studies in chemistry and other natural sciences, suggesting that citation prejudice is a cross-disciplinary problem.

    In reaching that conclusion, we put our raw findings through every test we could think of to rule out other explanations. Our first thought was that maybe Chinese-authored papers are more recently published on average than non-Chinese-authored papers, and therefore less cited. However the same citation gap holds for papers published in all years.

    Average citations of economic articles by author ethnicity:

    Another obvious guess is that Chinese-authored papers are of lower quality. Some readers will have heard about the issue of China’s “paper mills”, companies which have in recent years been churning out research papers based on fraudulent findings for Chinese universities. There are reports that this may have made some western academics more reluctant to take Chinese research seriously, but these are largely a problem for low-quality journals.

    We only looked at articles published in the top journals (rated as 4 or 4* in the ABS journal rankings). Each paper has gone through a strict process of editorial review, often taking a couple of years, so they are far less likely to have been produced by high-volume paper mills. Additionally, almost half of the Chinese authors in our sample were affiliated outside China, so paper-mill allegations against Chinese authors are not relevant in our observations.

    Alternatively, you may be wondering if Chinese authors’ papers are less citable because of a language barrier in the writing. Again, this shouldn’t be an issue when all these papers which have been strictly quality-assured by peer reviews and editorial reviews. The writing styles of Chinese authors in these journals do not seem significantly different from non-Chinese authors.

    We probed still more possibilities to explain the apparent discrimination, controlling for different factors and so on. But each time, the citation gap persisted – and sometimes became larger.

    Eventually we gave up trying to falsify the hypothesis, and turned to understanding why this ethnic discrimination exists.

    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. Join The Conversation for free today.

    Why do economists discriminate?

    Picture the market for ideas as a miniature galaxy. Each paper is like a planet with its own mass, based on its quality, the authors’ stature and the perceived importance of the topic. Citations are like gravity, tugging knowledge towards these planets; the heavier the planet’s mass, the stronger the pull.

    Yet gravity also fades with distance, in this case meaning not kilometres but culture – language, networks and the subtle signals that tell us who feels familiar. It may be that the farther away a scholar seems on the cultural map, the weaker their intellectual pull.

    Our findings show this “cultural distance” at work. Interestingly, the same thing happens in both directions: the ratio of Chinese-authored references is significantly higher in Chinese-authored papers than in non-Chinese-authored papers.

    Our next step was some detective work to deduce who exactly is discriminating. We identified four “suspects”: journal editors, reviewers, publishers, and finally citers.

    If discrimination began with journal editors, they should only be publishing Chinese-led papers of comparably higher quality than other papers they publish. If so, you would expect these superior papers to be cited more, not less, which is at odds with the evidence.

    As for reviewers, most journals adopt a “double-blind” approach where reviewers and authors don’t know each other’s identities. If reviewers don’t know when they’re dealing with a Chinese author, they cannot be discriminating against them. Similarly, publishers are not usually allowed to intervene in editorial decisions, so they cannot be discriminating either.

    This leaves the citers as the main discriminators, those who read academic papers and cite them in their own work. To get a clearer picture of what is happening, we compared three pairs of subgroups: Chinese versus non-Chinese, top economists versus non-top economists, and those with US university affiliations versus non-US affiliations.

    We concluded that non-Chinese top economists from non-US institutions are the ones least likely to cite authors with Chinese surnames. This seems surprising given US rivalry with China, but actually it is a natural consequence. For US economists to study their biggest opponent, you would expect them to cite studies about China –and most are done by Chinese authors.

    Mitigating the discrimination

    One way of reducing the “Chineseness” of authorship is co-authoring with a non-Chinese academic. However in academic writing, a citation convention is that when a paper has over three authors, you only keep the surname of the first author (who is also the lead researcher). For example, a paper written by Zhang, Smith and Armstrong in 2025 will simply become “Zhang et al. (2025)”. Therefore bringing in more non-Chinese academics will make no difference.

    Another way of diluting “Chineseness” is for the lead author to become affiliated with a US institute. Per our study, this reduces the citation bias by 16%. However, obtaining such a US affiliation is not always feasible.

    This led us to conclude that the best way of reducing discrimination is to reduce the amount of author information in citations. For example, journals can request for citations to be by initials (“BG 1957”) or numeric codes (1, 2, 3), as market leaders like Nature already do. Journals can also use a digital object identifier (DOI), for example “10.1234/example.article”, instead of disclosing author names in published references.

    This may not solve the problem of papers not being cited in the first place, but it can reduce the likelihood of subsequent citation bias as readers no longer know the surnames of cited papers.

    Discrimination is self-sabotage. Each time we discount a paper because the surname feels “foreign”, we put the brakes on our own progress. This slows insight, muffles debate and leaves the world poorer in ideas.

    Peng Zhou 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. Chinese research isn’t taken as seriously as papers from elsewhere – my new study – https://theconversation.com/chinese-research-isnt-taken-as-seriously-as-papers-from-elsewhere-my-new-study-255794

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Decentralized finance is booming − and so are the security risks. My team surveyed nearly 500 crypto investors and uncovered the most common mistakes

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Mingyi Liu, Ph.D. student in Computer Science, Georgia Institute of Technology

    When the first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, was proposed in 2008, the goal was simple: to create a digital currency free from banks and governments. Over time, that idea evolved into something much bigger: “decentralized finance,” or “DeFi.”

    With decentralized finance, people trade, borrow and earn interest on crypto assets without relying on traditional intermediaries. DeFi services run on blockchains, which are essentially digital ledgers, and use “smart contracts” − self-executing code that automates financial transactions. Tens of billions of dollars have poured into the DeFi market.

    But with innovation comes risks. The lack of centralized oversight has made crypto, including decentralized finance, a prime target for hackers and scammers. In 2024 alone, people lost nearly US$1.5 billion due to security exploits and fraud. And unlike traditional finance, there’s usually no way to recover stolen crypto.

    As a computer scientist, I wanted to better understand how people perceive and respond to these risks. So my colleagues and I first conducted in-depth interviews with 14 crypto investors, then surveyed nearly 500 others to validate our findings.

    Our study found that people often made the same mistakes, driven by recurring misconceptions and gaps in security awareness. Here are some of the most important.

    Mistake 1: Thinking the blockchain guarantees security

    Many people told us they thought decentralized finance was secure – but their reasoning wasn’t very convincing. Some seemed to confuse decentralized finance with blockchain technology itself, which is designed to ensure transactions are tamper-resistant through so-called “consensus mechanisms.” One told us that DeFi is secure “because a hacker would have to override an entire blockchain” to steal funds.

    But services on the blockchain are still vulnerable to implementation and design flaws. These include smart contract breaches, in which bad guys exploit bugs in a service’s code, and front-end attacks, where a user interface is altered to redirect funds into a hacker’s wallet. A front-end attack was reportedly to blame for a recent $1.5 billion crypto heist.

    CNBC reports on the record-breaking $1.5 billion crypto theft.

    Mistake 2: Thinking safe keys mean safe funds

    Another common misconception is that DeFi is secure if private keys are well stored. A private key is a secret code that allows someone to access their crypto assets. It’s true that in DeFi – unlike in centralized crypto finance where an exchange holds private keys – users have full control over their own private keys.

    But even with perfect private key management, users can still lose funds by interacting with compromised DeFi platforms. That’s because safeguarding private keys can prevent only direct attacks targeting private key access, such as phishing attempts.

    The people we spoke with also failed to follow best practices for securing their private keys. Using a hardware wallet – a physical device that stores private keys offline – is one of the most secure options for protecting keys from online threats. However, our study found that only a handful of participants actually used hardware wallets.

    Mistake 3: Thinking 2-factor authentication is a silver bullet

    Two-factor authentication, or 2FA, is a standard security mechanism in which two forms of verification are required to access an account. Think being texted a one-time code before you can log into your bank account.

    To prevent account breaches, centralized crypto exchanges such as Binance and Coinbase use two-factor authentication for logins, account recovery and withdrawal confirmations. But while 2FA is crucial to security in the traditional and centralized crypto finance system, it plays a much smaller role in decentralized finance.

    DeFi wallets give users access based on private key ownership rather than identity verification, which means traditional 2FA can’t be used. Instead, only 2FA-like mechanisms are available in DeFi. For instance, multisignature wallets require approval from multiple private key holders. However, if your private key is compromised, attackers can perform wallet operations on your behalf without any additional verification. In addition, even users who adopt 2FA-like measures can’t prevent the security breaches on the DeFi services’ end.

    Unfortunately, our participants were overly confident regarding the effectiveness of 2FA, with one saying, “Two-factor authentication has been one of the best solutions for keeping wallets safe.” In our survey, 57.1% of users relied on 2FA as their only technical countermeasure against rug pulls – scams where project creators suddenly withdraw funds – and 49.3% did so for smart contract exploits. This misplaced trust could lead them to ignore more effective security strategies.

    Mistake 4: Not managing token approvals

    One such effective strategy is revoking token approvals. In DeFi, tokens are digital assets on a blockchain that represent value or rights, and users often need to approve smart contracts to access or spend them. But if you leave these approvals open, a malicious contract – or one that’s been hacked – can drain your wallet. So it’s crucial to routinely check all token approvals you’ve granted to prevent losses caused by fraudulent or hacked DeFi services. Specifically, you should limit spending allowances instead of using the default “unlimited” option, and revoke approvals for apps you no longer use or trust.

    Worryingly, we found that only 10.8% and 16.3% of participants regularly checked and revoked token approvals to protect against rug pulls and smart contract exploits, respectively. In light of this, we recommend that wallet providers introduce a reminder feature to prompt users to review their token approvals periodically.

    Mistake 5: Not learning from past incidents

    Even after they’re hacked or scammed, people often don’t do anything to improve their security practices, we found. Just 17.6% of those who reported being victims of a DeFi scam regularly checked token approvals afterward. Worse, 26% took no action at all after a scam, and 16.4% doubled down by investing even more in other DeFi services.

    Surprisingly, more than half of the victims said their belief in DeFi either stayed the same or grew stronger after the incident. One user who lost $4,700 due to a rug-pull incident said, “My belief in cryptocurrency has grown stronger after that because I made good money from it.” That person added, “An opportunity to make money is something I believe in.” This suggests that DeFi users’ financial motivations can sometimes outweigh their security concerns – and, perhaps, their better judgment.

    There’s no one-size-fits-all solution to DeFi security. But awareness is the first step. To stay safe, crypto investors should use hardware wallets, revoke unused token approvals and continually learn new techniques to protect themselves from evolving threats. Most importantly, they should stay rational and not let the allure of profits cloud their security practices.

    Mingyi Liu 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. Decentralized finance is booming − and so are the security risks. My team surveyed nearly 500 crypto investors and uncovered the most common mistakes – https://theconversation.com/decentralized-finance-is-booming-and-so-are-the-security-risks-my-team-surveyed-nearly-500-crypto-investors-and-uncovered-the-most-common-mistakes-251305

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Humans are killing helpful insects in hundreds of ways − simple steps can reduce the harm

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Christopher Halsch, Ecologist, Binghamton University, State University of New York

    Dragonflies, just like bees and butterflies, face threats that humans can help prevent. Christopher Halsch

    Insects are all around us – an ant on the sidewalk, a bee buzzing by, a butterfly floating on the breeze – and they shape the world we experience. They pollinate flowering plants, decompose waste, control pests, and are critical links in food chains.

    Despite how much humans rely on insects, our actions are reducing their populations in many parts of the world. A recent study found that the United States lost more than 20% of its butterflies over the past two decades. Sadly, this rate of decline is not unusual. Many studies have found that insect populations are declining at 1% to 2% per year.

    To understand why this is happening, Status of Insects, an international research group we are part of, reviewed 175 recent studies on the causes of insect decline. We found hundreds of potential causes that are all highly connected, almost all of which stem directly or indirectly from human activities.

    The drivers of insect decline are connected

    The causes of insect decline are led by a few major sources: intensive agriculture, climate change, pollution, invasive species and habitat loss. Some drivers are bigger threats than others, but all of them play a role in causing insect declines.

    Importantly, many insects experience more than one of these stressors at the same time.

    The Mitchell’s satyr butterfly relies on prairie wetlands, many of which have been drained or altered, and is now critically endangered. Its greatest threats are habitat loss and insecticides from agricultural areas. This one was spotted in Michigan.
    U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

    Urban risks

    Picture a moth in a city park. It is threatened by habitat loss as the city grows, but its habitat may also be threatened by invasive plants that escape from gardens. At the same time, it is suffering from the effects of pollution – light, air and noise pollution are common in urban areas.

    Light pollution is especially important for moths because they are attracted to artificial lights at night, and so are their predators. Spiders, for example, have learned to hunt in lit areas. When moth species that fly at night spend a lot of time around lights, they can expend a lot of energy, leaving less for other activities, such as pollinating plants.

    In addition to being pollinators, moths also control plant growth by eating leaves during their caterpillar stage. And they provide food for many species of birds and bats, which play their own important roles in ecosystems.

    Risks on farmland and orchards

    Intensive agriculture is one of the most commonly discussed drivers of insect decline. It is also heavily connected to other causes.

    Consider native bees in agricultural areas. As agriculture expands, their native habitat is reduced. Agricultural landscapes also tend to have high levels of chemical pollution – especially insecticides, fungicides, herbicides and fertilizers. Insecticides are designed to disrupt insect physiology and can directly harm bees, while herbicides indirectly disrupt bees by removing plants that provide food.

    Flowers, and the insects that rely on them, can fall victim to chemicals used on farms.
    Dixit Motiwala/Unsplash, CC BY

    Often, U.S. farms also use honeybees, native to Europe, for pollination. These introduced bees are easier to manage but can spread diseases and parasites into native bee populations.

    Native bees may be able to survive one of these threats, but all three together present a much bigger challenge.

    Polluted water can also harm insects

    Humans often focus on insects such as bees and butterflies because they are more visible, but many insects spend much of their life underwater, where they face another set of threats.

    For instance, dragonflies are aquatic when they are juveniles. The threats at this stage of life are no less severe but are entirely different from those facing adults.

    When water levels in streams or ponds decrease, that reduces young dragonflies’ habitat. These insects can also be threatened by water pollution from runoff and increases in water temperature with climate change.

    Successful conservation considers all the risks

    These connections mean humans must be thoughtful about conservation.

    Well-meaning actions such as reducing pollution or controlling invasive species can help, but they will have little effect if there is no habitat for insects to return to. Restoring habitat can have widespread benefits and potentially help insects respond to other threats.

    Many insects play important roles in humans’ lives. Caterpillars, for example, help keep plant growth under control.
    Christopher Halsch

    There are more insect species on Earth than species in any other plant or animal group. They can be found almost everywhere you look.

    Yet public attention is mostly focused on pollinators. That can leave other insects facing unaddressed human threats.

    Preserving and restoring water resources such as wetlands, lakes and streams is vital for aquatic insects like dragonflies. Many other insects spend much of their lives underground. Soil-dwelling insects, such as some beetles and flies, serve important functions, like decomposing dead plant material.

    Successful conservation also considers species throughout their life cycles. For instance, planting pollinator gardens provides nectar for adult hoverflies – an important but often overlooked pollinator. But a garden alone would not necessarily provide food for their larval stage, when many hoverflies decompose plant and animal matter.

    How to help insects

    The simplest way to help insects is by providing high-quality habitats.

    This includes supporting a variety of native plants that can provide both nectar and leaves, which are food for many herbivorous insects throughout their lives.

    A good habitat also provides places for insects to nest, such as bare ground or leaf litter. Bigger patches are better, but even small gardens can be helpful.

    Wildflower gardens can help insects thrive.
    California Native Plant Society/Flickr, CC BY

    At the same time, limiting exposure to other threats is important. Actions such as dimming artificial lights at night and reducing the use of pesticides can help.

    There are many reasons for insect decline, making population recovery an imposing challenge. But there are also many ways – large and small – that people, cities and companies can reduce the harm and help these valuable critters thrive.

    Christopher Halsch has received funding from the USDA NIFA (2022-67011-36563).

    Eliza Grames receives funding from the National Science Foundation (DEB 2225092).

    – ref. Humans are killing helpful insects in hundreds of ways − simple steps can reduce the harm – https://theconversation.com/humans-are-killing-helpful-insects-in-hundreds-of-ways-simple-steps-can-reduce-the-harm-255844

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: ‘Grit’ and relentless perseverance can take a toll on brain health − particularly for people facing social stresses like racism

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Darlingtina Esiaka, Assistant Professor of Behavioral Science, University of Kentucky

    Persistence without rest may tax brain health. ljubaphoto/E+ via Getty Images

    For many people, grit – the perseverance and passion for long-term goals – is a virtue. It is also a key ingredient in overcoming challenges, achieving success and maintaining resilience.

    Studies have linked grit with success in goal attainment, improved psychological well-being and increased life satisfaction.

    But despite conventional narratives equating this type of psychological persistence with well-being, brain research is beginning to show that mustering grit in the face of adversity may also have some unexpected detrimental effects – particularly for communities that are already under chronic stress.

    As a behavioral scientist studying Alzheimer’s disease and brain health in Black communities, I use techniques such as brain activity monitoring to examine risk factors and early signs of cognitive decline. My research along with other work is beginning to uncover that pushing through can create a level of stress that actually taxes brain health.

    The paradox of grit, active coping and brain health

    Grit has become a central idea in psychology. Researchers have mainly focused on its positive features, describing it as a quality that helps people work hard, stay strong during tough times and keep trying even when things are difficult. Active coping is a similar concept defined as addressing problems directly and actively seeking solutions. Studies have linked it to lower stress, better health and feeling more in control.

    Traits such as grit and active coping are strategies used to manage stress, and they are traditionally seen as protective factors for well-being.

    But perseverance may also come with risks that can contribute to poor brain health outcomes. Consider the concept of John Henryism, developed by an epidemiologist named Sherman James in the 1970s.

    John Henryism is a coping strategy characterized by persistent, high-effort striving in response to chronic stressors, particularly among marginalized groups. It is named after the legendary African American folk hero John Henry, who worked himself to death in a contest against a steam-powered drill. In the folk tale, John Henry exemplifies how people may engage in prolonged, high-effort coping, often at the expense of their health. James used the folklore to symbolize the relentless effort to overcome structural and systemic barriers.

    For example, imagine someone in their early 40s who works two physically demanding jobs to support their family and prevent homelessness. They believe relentless effort is the only path to stability, despite experiencing chronic fatigue and pain. Over time, this sustained strain may lead to high blood pressure, stroke and depression – all of which have been linked to cognitive decline.

    This statue of John Henry stands in Talcott, W.Va., above the Big Bend Tunnel on the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway. Many people believe the events described in the folktale took place here.
    Ken Thomas via Wikimedia Commons

    John Henryism has been linked to negative health outcomes, including increased risks of hypertension, cardiovascular disease and early mortality. It has also been linked to the risk of poor brain health.

    Perseverance and the risk of cognitive impairment

    My colleagues’ and my recent work supports the idea that high-effort coping such as grit can contribute to neurocognitive wear and tear. Being constantly under stress can essentially overwork certain parts of the brain. This damage can build up to make it harder for the brain to learn new things, remember information and stay sharp as a person gets older.

    In our study published in January 2025, we asked 158 Black men living in the U.S. to participate in an online survey. The survey measured grit by asking how much participants agreed with statements like “I finish whatever I begin.” It also asked participants to report how often they experienced episodes of memory loss and confusion and to rank whether these episodes were becoming more frequent.

    We found that men with higher levels of grit reported greater cognitive difficulties such as trouble concentrating, forgetfulness and feeling mentally fatigued, despite their strong motivation to persevere. While our study couldn’t determine whether grit causes these difficulties, it raises important questions about whether sustained, high-effort coping might come at a cognitive cost over time.

    A concept called allostatic load provides one possible explanation for the link between perseverance and the cognitive decline we observed in our study. Allostatic load is the wear and tear on the body that builds up over time due to dealing with stress.

    I believe individuals who push through adversity against all odds may experience allostatic load more acutely. Their persistent coping could intensify physiological strain over time, contributing to earlier onset of cognitive decline. This explanation aligns with previous work, which has shown that prolonged exposure to stress can accelerate cognitive decline and negatively affect memory and executive function.

    Facing frequent stressors such as racism, discrimination, economic challenges and limited access to health care with intense levels of perseverance may encourage people to push through these challenges without adequate recovery. That can cause chronic stress that damages brain health.

    Continuously exerting mental and emotional effort without relief may also result in cognitive overload and diminish people’s ability to sustain mental resilience. This burden accelerates brain aging and increases the risk of cognitive decline.

    Unlike the occasional stress of meeting a deadline or completing a difficult project, this type of overexertion is more like waking up every day already exhausted, yet pushing through multiple jobs, financial worries and family responsibilities with little rest or support. Over time, this constant mental strain may wear down the brain’s ability to recover and maintain clarity, even when the person appears outwardly resilient.

    Rethinking perseverance

    Researchers are beginning to build a more nuanced understanding of perseverance that challenges the conventional wisdom that it is always beneficial. This perspective also redefines the notion of strength in the face of adversity.

    In this more realistic definition, perseverance can include self-care and rest. Knowing when to take a break or prioritize self-care is a practical strategy for maintaining cognitive health in the face of challenges.

    Also, practices such as meditation, deep breathing and guided relaxation can help regulate stress responses and reduce cognitive strain. And beyond personal resilience, leaning on social support and meaningful connections can be just as crucial for long-term brain health.

    Darlingtina Esiaka receives funding from National Institute on Aging and Alzheimer’s Association. She is the founder of Black in Gerontology and Geriatrics Network.

    – ref. ‘Grit’ and relentless perseverance can take a toll on brain health − particularly for people facing social stresses like racism – https://theconversation.com/grit-and-relentless-perseverance-can-take-a-toll-on-brain-health-particularly-for-people-facing-social-stresses-like-racism-251585

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Recycling asphalt pavement can help the environment − now scientists are putting the safety of recycled pavement to the test

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Jingtao Zhong, Ph.D. Student in Civil Engineering, University of Tennessee

    The composition of the asphalt mixture making up a road can determine how safe it is for cars to drive on. Tarik Seker/iStock via Getty Images Plus

    More than 90% of paved roads in the U.S. are made of asphalt, which is constructed with nonrenewable materials such as petroleum. One way to make paving more sustainable is to recycle old pavement. When roads break down and need repaving, transportation agencies can recycle their old pavement into a reusable material called reclaimed asphalt pavement, or RAP. This method reduces carbon emissions and conserves natural resources.

    Nearly 95% of new asphalt pavement projects in the U.S. incorporate RAP.

    However, researchers don’t know as much about the long-term safety and durability of RAP as they do about new pavement.

    So, can engineers make roads more sustainable without compromising safety? As civil engineering researchers at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, we’re working with our state’s transportation department to help answer this question.

    RAP and friction

    Asphalt pavement is composed of asphalt binder and aggregates. Asphalt binder is typically sticky and black petroleum-based material that acts as glue, holding the pavement together.

    Aggregates are solid materials, such as crushed stone, gravel or sand. The pavement manufacturers coat these aggregates with asphalt to bind them together and create a durable road surface. But both of these materials are nonrenewable.

    One way to reduce the demand for new aggregates is by recycling old pavement. Contractors use a milling machine to grind up the existing pavement surface. The milled material is then reused: The old aggregates and asphalt binder from the road become part of the new mixture. These old materials are often blended with new binder and additional aggregates to make sure they can perform well.

    Why study RAP’s properties?

    One challenge with using RAP is that its properties vary significantly. RAP typically look black, since they are fully coated in asphalt. Researchers have a hard time visually inspecting them to identify the aggregate types, shapes or textures. But we developed testing procedures to measure these properties.

    The road’s ability to grip the tires, known as skid resistance, keeps vehicles from skidding or hydroplaning during wet conditions. Skid resistance is typically quantified by measuring a coefficient of friction between the tire and the pavement surface.

    Pavement friction is the force that resists the motion between a vehicle’s tire and the pavement’s surface. More friction means a vehicle is less likely to skid.

    Understanding RAP’s skid resistance-related properties is important because these attributes affect how safe the pavement is, especially when it’s wet.

    Nearly 75% of weather-related accidents occur on wet pavement. At low speeds, most of the skid resistance between a tire and the pavement comes from the texture of the aggregates.

    Most friction research has tested new aggregates. RAP needs to maintain good frictional properties to be as safe as the original, but until now, researchers haven’t fully investigated whether it does.

    How we study RAP’s properties

    Our research team developed a two-step process to better understand RAP’s safety performance. First, we extract the aggregates from the RAP. Then, we measure the frictional properties of those aggregates, since they play a key role in pavement skid resistance.

    To remove the black asphalt coating and expose the actual surface of the aggregates, we use two simple methods. The first is a mechanical method, where we crush the RAP using a hammer to expose the surface inside. The second is a chemical procedure, where we use a solvent to dissolve asphalt and leave the aggregates for further testing.

    Once we’ve cleaned the aggregates, we analyze their chemical composition and see how it relates to friction. One factor we look for is the hardness of the minerals in the aggregate. Harder minerals, such as silica, provide better friction as they keep their texture better over time instead of wearing down under traffic.

    We also use an aggregate image measurement system, which takes high-resolution images and analyzes the shape, angularity − the sharpness of the aggregate particles − and surface texture of the aggregates. These properties relate directly to skid resistance.

    Understanding the frictional properties of RAP − and, specifically, how silica content affects skid resistance − helps engineers determine whether an RAP mixture is safe for a road’s curves or intersections. These insights can guide how much RAP transportation departments can use, and where, without compromising safety. We hope our research will lead to solutions that reduce carbon emissions, conserve natural resources and keep roads safe over time.

    Jingtao Zhong receives funding from the Tennessee Department of Transportation (State project number RES2023-15).

    Baoshan Huang receives funding from the Tennessee Department of Transportation (State project number RES2023-15).

    – ref. Recycling asphalt pavement can help the environment − now scientists are putting the safety of recycled pavement to the test – https://theconversation.com/recycling-asphalt-pavement-can-help-the-environment-now-scientists-are-putting-the-safety-of-recycled-pavement-to-the-test-252348

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Basic research advances science, and can also have broader impacts on modern society

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Bruce J. MacFadden, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, University of Florida

    As charismatic animals, sharks can stimulate interest in science, research and technology. Florida Museum (Kristin Grace photo)

    It might seem surprising, but federal research funding isn’t just for scientists. A component of many federal grants that support basic research requires that discoveries be shared with nonscientists. This component, referred to as “broader impacts” by the National Science Foundation, can make a big difference for K-12 students and teachers, museumgoers, citizen scientists and other people interested in science, while also helping the scientists themselves give back to the taxpayers that fund their work.

    Basic research, often done because of a curious scientist’s interest, may not initially have a direct application, like developing the smartphone or curing a disease. But these discoveries build important knowledge in the natural sciences, engineering, mathematics and related disciplines.

    The U.S. is a world leader in scientific and technological innovation. On the federal level, the National Science Foundation, or NSF, is one of the primary funders of this kind of basic research. In 2022, the federal government funded 40% of all basic research done in the U.S., with the remainder coming from other sources, including the business sector.

    During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted to position the U.S. for strategic and economic leadership worldwide. He commissioned physicist Vannevar Bush to develop a vision for the future of U.S. science and technology. His 1945 report, “Science: the Endless Frontier,” became the blueprint for government-funded basic research. In 1950, Congress created the National Science Foundation to promote the progress of science, advance national prosperity and welfare and secure the national defense.

    Vannevar Bush historically said that ‘without scientific progress, no amount of achievement in other directions can insure our health, prosperity and security as a nation in the modern world.’
    Office for Emergency Management Defense

    During the early decades of NSF, the 1950s until the late 1990s, proposals were mostly evaluated based on the quality of the science and the scientists doing the work. But then, the foundation created a new system, still in place today.

    Thus, each NSF research proposal is now peer-reviewed based on two criteria: intellectual merit, or the quality and novelty of the science and track record of the research team, and “broader impacts” – related activities that disseminate the discoveries to general audiences.

    Intellectual merit is about advancing science knowledge and innovation, while broader impacts describe why people who aren’t scientists should care, and how society could benefit from this research.

    Another pragmatic aspect to broader impacts is that taxpayers pay for these activities, so it’s important for them, and Congress, to understand their return on investment. These broader impacts activities communicate about, and engage the public in, research in a variety of ways.

    While researchers usually understand the intellectual merit of their NSF-funded projects, these broader impacts can be challenging to characterize.

    Broader impact activities

    Since childhood, I’ve had an interest in paleontology — the study of fossils and what we can learn from them about prehistoric life. This field is primarily basic research — adding to knowledge about ancient life. As a scientist conducting basic research, I’ve felt the responsibility to give back to society through broader impacts activities, and I’ve seen many of the benefits that these activities can have.

    My primary area of interest has been extinct mammals of the Americas, particularly the 55-million-year-old record of fossil horses on this continent. For years, NSF supported my discoveries about this interesting group of animals. Fossil horses are a classic example of evolution — in books and museum exhibits.

    A fossil horse from the Ice Age on display at the Florida Museum. Fossil horses are a classic example of evolution — both in books and museum exhibits.
    Florida Museum (Mary Warrick photo)

    Many people are generally interested in horses, so it’s easy to attract their attention with this charismatic group. They also are often surprised to learn that prehistoric horses were native to North America for millions of years. Then, during historical times, they were first introduced by humans onto the continent about 500 years ago.

    Over the years, my research team has used grant-funded broader impact activities to teach people about these fossil horses and our research. One example included working with K-12 science teachers to develop lesson plans. The students measured fossil horse teeth and explored how their teeth adapted to feeding on grasses. We’ve also developed exhibits on fossil horses and studied how they communicate science to museum visitors.

    Science teachers have joined our fieldwork to collect fossils along the Panama Canal during its recent expansion. I’ve given many talks and collaborated with fossil clubs and their members throughout the U.S. We’ve also promoted projects like Fossils4Teachers where fossil collectors donated their fossils and worked alongside K-12 teachers to develop lesson plans that were implemented back in the teachers’ classrooms.

    The Fossils4Teachers professional development workshop, hosted by the Florida Museum in 2017, is one example of a broader impacts activity.
    Florida Museum (Jeff Gage photo)

    We’ve also been able to activate peoples’ interest in other animal groups — such as fossil sharks. Through our Scientist in Every Florida School program, we gave middle school teachers study kits with real fossil shark teeth. Their students learned to identify the shark teeth and then trained computers to identify the teeth using machine learning, a type of artificial intelligence.

    Students study fossil shark teeth through a program at the Florida Museum of Natural History.
    Florida Museum (Megan Higbee Hendrickson photo)

    Broader impact outcomes

    Broader impacts activities like these can have a variety of short- and long-term outcomes. More than 50 million people visit natural history museums in the U.S. annually. Activities that promote museums can reach large numbers of people in their pursuit of lifelong learning.

    More broadly, participatory science interest groups can allow people to learn about science while informing basic research projects. Within the field of natural history, a few popular examples include the Merlin app and the iNaturalist app, both of which have millions of active observers. Merlin encourages people to submit their observations of birds, and iNaturalist accepts sightings of plants, animals and fossils, which researchers can carefully vet and use as data.

    Many of the K-12 teachers my team has worked with report that they feel more confident teaching the new science content that they learned from our collaborations.

    Interestingly, although much of the research on science professional development focuses on the teachers, scientists also report a high level of satisfaction and improved communication skills after working with these teachers, both in the field and back in the classroom.

    Basic research benefits for society

    Generations of U.S. scientists have greatly benefited from federal investments in basic research. In the 75 years since NSF’s founding, the organization has funded hundreds of thousand projects to advance science and technology.

    These have supported basic research discoveries and also the training and career development of the tens of thousands of scientists working on these projects annually.

    Many prominent scientists have gone on to be productive leaders and innovators in the U.S. and internationally. NSF has funded more than 268 Nobel laureates.

    While NSF invests in the discovery of foundational knowledge about the natural world, funded projects have not traditionally had direct applications for societal benefits. To be sure, however, many of NSF’s projects – for example, on lasers and nanotechnology – started out as curiosity-driven basic research and ended up with immense applications for technological innovation and economic prosperity.

    For example, mapping the Earth’s ocean floor’s magnetic properties during World War II helped scientists understand how the crust moves and mountains form. This led to the plate tectonic revolution in the earth sciences. This line of basic research then led to an important application: predicting the probable location of high-risk earthquake zones worldwide.

    None of these downstream applications and benefits to society would have been realized without basic research discoveries supported by federal agencies such as NSF, and the further value added through broader impacts activities.

    Bruce J. MacFadden has received funding from the U. S. National Science Foundation.

    – ref. Basic research advances science, and can also have broader impacts on modern society – https://theconversation.com/basic-research-advances-science-and-can-also-have-broader-impacts-on-modern-society-252983

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: HSE University Signs Cooperation Agreements with Leading Universities in China

    Translation. Region: Russian Federal

    Source: State University Higher School of Economics – State University Higher School of Economics –

    On May 8, 2025, in Moscow, in the presence of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chairman of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping, strategic agreements were signed between the National Research University Higher School of Economics and two of China’s largest universities, Peking University and Tsinghua University. The ceremony was attended by HSE Rector Nikita Anisimov, Tsinghua University Party Committee Secretary Qiu Yong, and Peking University President Gong Qihuang. The signing took place as part of the official visit of the Chinese delegation to Russia, timed to coincide with the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the Victory.

    The agreements will be an important step in the development of a strategic partnership between Russia and China aimed at creating a unified scientific space and institutional strengthening of the BRICS association. Particular emphasis is placed on fundamental disciplines, reflecting the desire of both countries to support advanced research that lays the foundation for technological breakthroughs.

    The agreement between HSE and Peking University is dedicated to the development of scientific cooperation in the field of natural sciences: physics, chemistry, and advanced materials. The universities agreed to implement a joint research project, “Development of highly efficient and stable perovskite solar cells.” The project became one of the winners of the HSE competition “International academic cooperation” The Higher School of Economics is participating in it Scientific and educational laboratory of quantum nanoelectronics Moscow Institute of Electronics and Mathematics named after A.N. Tikhonov.

    HSE and Peking University also signed an agreement to create a BRICS Research Platform. This is a joint scientific space within which Russian and Chinese researchers will analyze key areas of scientific work, the activities of multilateral institutions, global governance processes, and interactions between Russia and China in the field of international relations.

    The Higher School of Economics signed a cooperation agreement with Tsinghua University aimed at developing academic, cultural and educational ties. This will create a basis for implementing joint programs, including scientific, student exchange, etc.

    HSE University is one of the leading Russian universities today, focused on developing a comprehensive Russian-Chinese partnership. The Higher School of Economics cooperates with more than 40 leading educational and scientific organizations in China. The university offers many bachelor’s, master’s and professional retraining programs focused on studying and working with China. About 1,300 HSE students study Chinese, more than 300 students from China study at HSE, including on exchange programs.

    HSE plans to expand cooperation formats and launch new initiatives with universities and research centers in China, focusing on the development of fundamental sciences and strengthening international scientific dialogue.

    Nikita Anisimov, Rector of the National Research University Higher School of Economics

    “The Higher School of Economics and Chinese universities are already linked by successful joint work, and recently, during the visit of the HSE delegation to China, we reached an agreement on further expansion of this partnership. We are confident that our new agreements with Peking University and Tsinghua University will not only help expand bilateral ties and enrich science in its advanced areas, but will also give an additional impetus to further deepening Russian-Chinese cooperation in general. It is noteworthy that the BRICS dimension is now added to our scientific interaction with Chinese partners: the countries of the association play a key role in the formation of a new multipolar global architecture, and their interaction and influence on the international situation require comprehensive, deep expert understanding.”

    Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why loneliness should be treated as a social issue

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Kathryn Bates, Research Fellow, Psychology, King’s College London

    Stock Unit/Shutterstock

    Anyone who has experienced loneliness knows how deeply personal it feels. We feel lonely when our social and emotional needs aren’t being met. Because of this, psychological research often focuses on individual-level solutions, encouraging people to change their perceptions or behaviour through therapy. But this focus misses the heart of the issue: the absence of meaningful connection with others.

    It’s right to be concerned about high rates of loneliness among young people, especially given the negative impact of severe loneliness on physical and mental health. Some argue that technology is to blame and point to increased time spent on phones or social media.

    While studies do show that higher internet use is associated with greater loneliness, the direction of this relationship remains unclear. Are young people lonely because they’re online, or online because they feel lonely?

    The internet is not devoid of social interaction. In fact, studies suggest that young people’s online activities often mirror their offline behaviour, especially when it comes to seeking connection and communicating with friends. This complicates the idea that technology alone is to blame.

    Rather than placing all responsibility on a person suffering from loneliness, we need to look at societal solutions. This doesn’t mean psychological interventions have no value. Therapies like cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) or social skills training can be effective for some, particularly in cases of severe loneliness.

    But these approaches aren’t universally successful. They’re expensive, require trained professionals and any resulting improvements are often short-lived.

    Societal solutions, by contrast, offer broader and more sustainable impact. These can be thought of in two main ways: creating spaces for meaningful social connection and addressing the root societal conditions that lead to loneliness.

    While loneliness is a subjective experience, social connection is more tangible. It’s reflected in whether we have people we can rely on, whether we feel supported, and the quality of our relationships. In this sense, social connection can be an antidote to loneliness.

    When public spaces shrink, loneliness grows

    But opportunities for connection are shrinking. In the UK, hundreds of millions of pounds have been cut from youth services and half of all youth clubs closed between 2011 and 2021. At the same time, a global cost of living crisis has left many young people – even those in full-time work – with little or no money left at the end of the month.

    Meanwhile, “third spaces” – places outside of home, school, or work where people can connect – are disappearing. Cafes and bars are often too expensive, while public libraries and community spaces are underfunded and closing rapidly. In this context, it’s no surprise that young people are spending more time socialising online: there are simply fewer affordable and accessible places to connect in person.

    Taking a societal approach also means acknowledging the inequalities that shape how loneliness is experienced. We’re not just individuals making isolated choices: we’re part of communities and systems. And, for many, structural issues like marginalisation and discrimination play a role in their experience of loneliness.

    Young people from marginalised backgrounds, including those from lower-income families and those identifying as LGBTQ+, are at significantly higher risk of loneliness. Researchers argue that exclusion and discrimination – not individual deficits – are contributing to this.

    That’s why some are calling for us to understand the causes of loneliness at every level, from personal traits to societal attitudes to the design of neighbourhoods and communities.

    If we want to reduce loneliness in young people, we need to go beyond telling them to seek therapy or use their phones less. We need public investment in spaces that foster connection, and we must address the broader structural issues that make some young people especially vulnerable. Focusing only on the lonely individual won’t be enough, especially for those facing the deepest barriers to belonging.

    Kathryn Bates receives funding from the Economic Social Research Council.

    – ref. Why loneliness should be treated as a social issue – https://theconversation.com/why-loneliness-should-be-treated-as-a-social-issue-252951

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Could psychedelics help you to drink less alcohol? Our new study aims to find out

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Rebecca Harding, PhD Candidate, Clinical Psychopharmacology Unit, UCL

    Master1305/Shutterstock

    Psychedelics like LSD and psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) are gaining increasing attention in psychiatry. Studies suggest they may offer therapeutic benefits for conditions such as depression, anxiety, obsessive–compulsive disorder, eating disorders and addiction.

    Our research team is investigating whether N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a fast-acting psychedelic, can help people reduce alcohol consumption.

    Alcohol is the most commonly misused substance in the UK, partly because it is legal, widely available and deeply ingrained in social culture. While many people can enjoy alcohol in moderation, a significant number struggle to control their drinking. For these people, excessive alcohol consumption can lead to serious physical, mental and social consequences.

    Traditional treatments don’t work for everyone, which is why we’re exploring alternatives, such as psychedelics, that might enable people to change their behaviour in a single, transformative experience.

    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. Join The Conversation for free today.

    DMT is metabolised rapidly in the body. When administered intravenously, the effects kick in almost immediately, typically within one to two minutes. However, these effects are short-lived, lasting only ten to 20 minutes.

    Despite its brief duration, many users describe the experience as intensely profound. They often report vivid visions, complex patterns and a sensation of entering a different reality. In some cases, the experience leads to a complete shift in how they think, feel and perceive the world. For many, the experience is deeply meaningful and transformative.

    But what happens in the brain during this time, and how might it influence long-term behaviour, such as reducing alcohol consumption?



    Read more:
    Psychedelic drugs can be almost as life altering as near-death experiences

    Neuroplasticity and addiction

    Our team is particularly interested in how psychedelics like DMT might help in the context of addiction. One theory is that psychedelics can temporarily enhance neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to form new neural connections. This temporary boost could open a window of flexibility, allowing some people to be more open to change.

    For someone stuck in the cycle of heavy drinking, this enhanced plasticity might help them break old habits and develop healthier behaviour. Essentially, it could offer the brain an opportunity to “rewire” itself and disrupt the unhealthy patterns that underlie addiction.

    We’re also focusing on the brain’s reward and motivation systems, which play a key role in addiction. These systems influence behaviour associated with pleasure, including eating, sex and drinking alcohol.

    In people with alcohol use disorder, these systems become hypersensitive to alcohol-related cues, often at the expense of other rewarding experiences. Some early research suggests psychedelics may help “reset” these reward pathways. We’re testing this theory to see whether DMT can reduce alcohol consumption by recalibrating the brain’s reward system.

    To explore these possibilities, we’ve designed a study with heavy drinkers who are motivated to reduce their alcohol intake. Every participant undergoes a thorough screening to ensure they’re fit for the study and all sessions are conducted in a highly controlled, clinical setting with medical professionals and experienced researchers overseeing the process.

    The study involves three visits to our lab at UCL. On the first and third visits, we use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure brain activity and observe how different regions of the brain interact.

    During the scans, participants watch emotionally engaging films, which offer a more natural way to study brain responses compared to abstract tasks. This helps us assess how DMT might impact brain function in real-life, emotionally charged situations.

    On the second visit, participants are randomly assigned to receive either DMT, a placebo, or a non-psychedelic drug (D-cycloserine or Lisuride). These non-psychedelic substances are believed to promote neuroplasticity without inducing the full psychedelic effects of DMT.

    The study is double-blind – neither the participants nor the researchers know which substance is being administered. This helps eliminate bias and ensures that the results are as reliable as possible.

    Additionally, we measure changes in brain activity during the drug infusion using electroencephalography (EEG). EEG tracks the brain’s electrical signals and could help us predict which participants are most likely to benefit from DMT.

    Participants also complete a range of psychological assessments, including questionnaires and tasks that measure memory, attention, mood and decision-making. This data will help us understand how changes in brain function might relate to changes in drinking behaviour.

    What we’re hoping to discover

    We’re still in the process of collecting data, but we’re excited to see whether DMT can lead to meaningful reductions in alcohol consumption. As researchers, it’s crucial that we stay objective and allow the evidence to guide our conclusions. By keeping the study “blinded” until all results are in, we ensure that our findings are unbiased and reliable.

    If DMT proves effective in helping people reduce their alcohol consumption, particularly for those who have struggled with other treatments, it could pave the way for a new approach to addiction therapy. Even if the results are inconclusive, they will still provide valuable insights into the potential role of psychedelics in addiction treatment and open up new avenues for future research.

    It’s important to emphasise that this research is taking place in a safe, controlled environment. Psychedelics are potent substances, and their effects can be unpredictable, especially outside of clinical settings. They are not a “magic bullet” and are not suitable for everyone. The controlled setting allows us to study their effects while minimising risk to participants.

    That said, we believe psychedelics offer a unique opportunity to better understand the brain and its capacity for change. By examining how transformative experiences can influence behaviour, we hope to contribute to the development of more effective treatments for addiction and other mental health conditions.

    Ravi Das receives research funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (UK), Academy of Medical Sciences (UK) and Wellcome Leap (USA).

    Rebecca Harding 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. Could psychedelics help you to drink less alcohol? Our new study aims to find out – https://theconversation.com/could-psychedelics-help-you-to-drink-less-alcohol-our-new-study-aims-to-find-out-255454

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Black students are increasingly less likely to get a first or 2:1 than their white peers

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By David Mba, Vice-Chancellor, Birmingham City University

    Andrii Zastrozhnov/Shutterstock

    Black students are increasingly less likely to get a first or 2:1 than their white peers, according the latest Ethnic Representation Index for higher education in England and Scotland.

    This need for better representation for students was the impetus behind the development of the index, first launched in 2022. I began it while deputy vice-chancellor at the University of Arts London, with the intention of creating a consistent methodology and agreed metrics to measure the progress of universities in England and Scotland in addressing institutional racism, as well as to examine the sense of belonging and inclusion among Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) staff and students.

    The index exposes the so-called “awarding gap” – that’s the difference between the proportion of white and BAME students awarded a first class or 2:1 degree. For Black and other ethnic minority students in England, it now stands at 14.1%, up from 12.3% the previous year. Indeed, 76% of universities in England and a similar proportion of universities in Scotland have a gap of more than 10%.

    For Black students in particular, the gap is even greater. It now stands at 21.6%, up from 19.3% in England. In Scotland, 81% of universities have a Black awarding gap of over 25%.

    Despite this, though, the index does show some encouraging signs. This is its third and latest iteration, which I co-authored with Chris Lloyd-Bardsley, Adam Weigel and Sandra Longville at the University of Arts London, covers the 2022-2023 academic year.

    According to data from the National Student Survey, the gap in reported satisfaction rates between white and students from ethnic minority backgrounds has narrowed over the last few years. Black students reported a better university experience than their white peers.

    Staff representation

    Staff, by and large, are becoming more representative of the student body. For instance, 20.2% of academics and 33.3% of undergraduates in England are from ethnic minority backgrounds.

    This is by no means parity, but it is progress when we consider that, in the last index, 18.5% of academics were from ethnic minority backgrounds. Representation among professional services staff, professors, senior managers and governors increased, too.

    Progress has also been made in Scotland. Black and ethnic minority students comprise 11.6% of the undergraduate student body there, 16% of postgraduate researchers – and 15.4% of academics. Representation among executive board members also increased.

    Interestingly, irrespective of the near parity in minority ethnic student and academic populations in Scotland, the awarding gaps are still high. This could in part be due to the concentration of staff and students from minority ethnic groups in different departments, schools and subject areas. So, while the overall representation looks equal, minority ethnic staff populations may be concentrated in only a few areas.

    Nonetheless, addressing the awarding gap isn’t entirely about representation.

    Some universities are signed up to the Race Equality Charter: an award provided to institutions addressing problems faced by ethnic minority staff and students. Universities can apply for a bronze or silver award depending on progress.

    At the time of developing this year’s index, 52 universities had achieved an award. I am pleased to note that 77% of these increased the proportion of Black and ethnic minority academic staff relative to students and 65% increased their proportion of Black academics.

    Yet while universities have made progress in some areas, it has stalled in others. In some cases, it has even retreated. The ethnicity pay gap measures the average gap across all university staff, including academic staff and professional services staff. The ethnicity pay gap increased this year by 0.4 percentage points to 6%. At some universities, gaps as high as 27.4% were reported.

    In Scotland, the figures are better, but a pay gap of 1.9% nevertheless persists.

    Mixed success

    And while representation may have increased among academics and professorial staff, the same cannot be said for the highest echelons of management. In England, Black and ethnic minority representation among executive teams fell from 7.7% to 7%. Black representation in England also fell, to only 0.7%.

    In Scotland, ethnic minority representation among executives increased, but Black representation fell. There are no reported Black executive board members in Scotland.

    For students in England, the disparity in continuation rates (the proportion of students who continue their studies into a second year) is 1.3 percentage points between Black and ethnic minority and white students. The disparity in completion rates (the proportion of students who can be tracked through to the end of their qualification) is 2.7 percentage points.

    For Black students in particular the gap is even greater. There is a continuation rate gap of 2.5 percentage points and a completion rate gap of 4.5 percentage points between Black and white students. Some universities in England reported completion rate disparities for Black students of over 15%.

    Moreover, Black and ethnic minority graduates in England are 2.5 percentage points less likely to be in employment or further study 15 months after graduating than their white peers, though this does mark a slight improvement of 0.4 percentage points from last year.

    Students from an ethnic minority background have previously been shown to worry that the absence of lecturers from a similar background could have an effect on their achievement, as well as their sense of belonging at university, their engagement with their course. For these students, having a teacher that looks like them can have a transformational impact.

    We may be tempted to believe the path toward equality in higher education is straight and narrow. Make the commitment, put in place the strategy, the rest will follow. This is evidently not the case. We should gain some comfort that universities are making progress in some areas. However, it is disappointing that higher education institutions have fallen back elsewhere.

    David Mba 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. Black students are increasingly less likely to get a first or 2:1 than their white peers – https://theconversation.com/black-students-are-increasingly-less-likely-to-get-a-first-or-2-1-than-their-white-peers-255546

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Alberta has long accused Ottawa of trying to destroy its oil industry. That’s a dangerous myth

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Ian Urquhart, Professor Emeritus, Political Science, University of Alberta

    “Alberta is a place soaked in self-deception.” Those words began Alberta-based journalist Mark Lisac’s 2004 book aimed at shattering the myths that have unhelpfully animated too much of Alberta’s politics over the past few decades.

    Current and former Alberta politicians are once again embracing and treating separatist grievances seriously. That means it’s time once again to highlight and challenge political misconceptions that have the potential to destroy Canada.

    Oil is the root of one such myth. The misconception? That Ottawa perenially opposes the oil and gas sector and is determined to stop its continued growth. The National Energy Program (1980), the Northern Gateway pipeline project (2016), the Energy East Pipeline (2017) and the proposed greenhouse gas pollution cap allegedly prove Ottawa’s hostility.

    Notably missing from these grievances is the Keystone XL pipeline and the Trans Mountain Expansion Project. Ottawa supported these projects aimed at transporting Alberta oilsands crude to foreign markets. The federal government even purchased the Trans Mountain project from Kinder Morgan in 2018 — not to kill it, but to build it.



    Read more:
    Justin Trudeau’s risky gamble on the Trans Mountain pipeline

    As for Keystone XL, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney thanked Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for supporting the project. This doesn’t fit the separatist narrative, so it’s largely ignored.

    Oilsands booster

    No one should dispute the National Energy Program’s devastating impact on Alberta’s conventional oil and gas sector 40 years ago. But the oilsands, not conventional oil, propelled Canada to its position as the world’s fourth largest oil producer.

    Has Ottawa facilitated or obstructed the spectacular post-1990 growth of oilsands production?

    The record shows that, since the mid-1970s, Ottawa has facilitated and supported the oilsands sector. The federal government helped keep the Syncrude project alive in 1975 when it took a 15 per cent interest in Canada’s second oilsands operation.

    Ironically, Ottawa’s enthusiasm for more, not less, petroleum from the oilsands also appeared in 1980 via the National Energy Program (NEP), the devil in Alberta’s conservative catechism. What most accounts of the NEP don’t mention is that Ottawa offered tax benefits to oilsands companies while stripping them from conventional oil producers.

    Furthermore, the NEP’s “made-in-Canada” pricing effectively guaranteed Syncrude would receive the world price for its production. At $38 per barrel, Syncrude received more than double what conventional producers received. If the NEP was harsh on conventional oil producers, it helped create a golden future for the oil sands.

    In the mid-1990s, Ottawa helped propel the post-1995 oilsands boom. The industry-dominated National Task Force on Oil Sands Strategies sought federal tax concessions to promote oilsands growth. The federal government delivered them in its 1996 budget, despite Prime Minister Jean Chretien’s general concern with cutting the deficit.

    Again, these measures clearly contradict the myth of federal opposition to the oil industry.

    Generous emissions caps

    Ottawa’s policy favouritism towards the oilsands didn’t end there. It has consistently animated the federal government’s treatment of the oilsands in its climate change policies.

    The federal Climate Change Plan for Canada (2002) treated oil and gas leniently. Its measures for large industrial emitters bore a striking resemblance to the climate change policy preferences of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. Suncor and Syncrude, the two leading oilsands producers, estimated these federal proposals would add a pittance, between 20 and 30 cents, to their per barrel production costs.

    Justin Trudeau’s response to Alberta’s 2015 oilsands emissions cap also underlined Ottawa’s favouritism, not hostility, to the dominant player in Canada’s oil patch.

    Rachel Notley’s NDP government set this cap at 100 million tonnes of GHG per year, plus another 10 million tonnes allowed to new upgrading and co-generation facilities. This cap was a whopping 39 million tonnes or 55 per cent higher than what the oilsands emitted in 2014.

    This generous cap contributed to a tremendous increase in oilsands production. Healthy profits became record profits in 2022. Ottawa embraced Alberta’s largesse, incorporating the province’s cap into its post-2015 climate policies.

    Furthermore, Ottawa increased its leniency towards the oilsands by exempting new in-situ (non-mining) oilsands projects in Alberta from the federal Impact Assessment Act. This exemption applies until Alberta’s emissions cap is reached. Canada’s latest National Inventory Report on greenhouse gas emissions reported record oilsands GHG emissions of 89 million tonnes in 2023, still 11 million tonnes shy of the 100 million tonne threshold.

    Weaponizing myths

    Finally, we have today’s proposed national cap on greenhouse gas emissions. Alberta is apoplectic about the cap. But whether or not it’s intentional, Premier Danielle Smith’s outrage feeds into secessionist sentiment by seemingly misrepresenting the cap’s impact on oil and gas production.

    Smith and her environment minister use the work of the Parliamentary Budgetary Officer (PBO) to nurture their “Ottawa hates oil” narrative. They claim the officer’s analysis of the cap’s economic impact showed it “will cut oil and gas production by five per cent, or more than 245,000 barrels per day.”

    This is simply not true.

    In fact, the PBO concluded that, with the cap, oilsands production “is projected to remain well above current levels” — 15 per cent higher than in 2022. The proposed federal emissions cap, like the Alberta NDP’s cap of a decade ago, is higher than current oilsands emissions levels. The PBO concluded the proposed ceiling for oilsands emissions would be six per cent higher than 2022 emissions.

    Ottawa’s proposed cap, in fact, continues its decades-long support of the oilsands.

    Myths are central to our being. When I tell my grandsons about the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, I hope to inspire curiosity, imagination and interest in their grandmother’s Irish heritage.

    But in politics, fanciful stories can be dangerous. Some weaponize myths, using the fictions at their core to encourage followers to let falsehoods rule their behaviour. That seems to be playing out yet again in Alberta. We must demand better from the political class.

    Ian Urquhart 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. Alberta has long accused Ottawa of trying to destroy its oil industry. That’s a dangerous myth – https://theconversation.com/alberta-has-long-accused-ottawa-of-trying-to-destroy-its-oil-industry-thats-a-dangerous-myth-255908

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: SPbGASU – 193 years old!

    Translation. Region: Russian Federal

    Source: Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering – Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering –

    Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering celebrates its 193rd birthday. By decree of Emperor Nicholas I, the university was founded on April 27 (May 9, new style), 1832 as the School of Civil Engineers under the Main Directorate of Communications and Public Buildings.

    For almost two centuries, our university has been successfully fulfilling its mission. During this time, a whole galaxy of outstanding architects, engineers, and scientists have emerged from its walls, who have made a great contribution to the development of science and education, and left beautiful architectural monuments to their descendants.

    Preserving and enhancing traditions, SPbGASU confidently moves forward: it introduces digital technologies into the educational process, conducts scientific research relevant to modern society, and implements innovative projects, thanks to which it has been awarded the status of a federal innovation platform. Industry partners provide our students with opportunities for internships and practical training, offer topics for writing final qualifying papers, which contributes to the training of in-demand specialists with modern knowledge and competencies.

    We congratulate SPbGASU on its birthday and wish you new successes and achievements!

    Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: After 170 Years, Thoreau’s River Observations Inform Our Changing Climate

    Source: US State of Connecticut

    Like an expertly choreographed dance, the sequence and timing of natural events through a season, called phenology, give us clues about how the climate is changing.

    For example, a warmer spring may lead to plants leafing and flowering early, potentially disrupting life cycles of the birds and insects who may miss this crucial window if it happens before they migrate. Climate change is throwing such timing out of balance, and unless it directly impacts humans, we may not notice.

    To study New England’s regional phenology through a historical lens, UConn Department of Earth Sciences Professor Robert Thorson is looking into 10 years’ worth of Henry David Thoreau’s meticulous, systematic records of river behavior from the 1850s to glean insights into climate change. His findings are published in The Concord Saunterer.

    A season is much more than a block of a few months on the calendar; it is a category of phenomena that varies depending on who you ask, says Thorson. For instance, a season differs if you ask a skier, a fisherman, or a student. To understand something as complex as climate change on a personal level requires helping them see that their seasons are being changed and time-shifted, no matter how they define them. This requires a well-established baseline with a clear definition for each season. Thoreau’s “Journal” provides exactly this.

    Replica of Thoreau’s boat, Musketaquid, on the bank of the Sudbury River, Lincoln, MA. (Photo courtesy of Juliet Wheeler)

    “I don’t pick Thoreau for his philosophy, he’s just a damn good observer,” says Thorson. “He is meticulous, he is daily, he is yearly, and he is systematically rigorous about roaming around 50 square miles and recording it day after day after day after day.”

    Thoreau created an impressive data set from 1850 through 1860, including the 6,000 entries Thorson has cataloged so far by reading line-by-line, indexing, and creating a spreadsheet. Thoreau recorded examples of phenology along the river – for instance, when the first ice occurred, when the river was completely frozen, when the first snow fell, and when the breakup of ice occurred.

    “From these observations, we can establish the timings of discrete phenomena from the mid-19th century using simple statistics,” says Thorson. “The next step is to compare those timings with the modern era using publicly available data; for example, minimum stream discharges from the U.S. Geological Survey.”

    Rather than seeing the year on a calendar, Thorson categorized how Thoreau saw not four, but ten discrete seasons whose exact dates were fluid and based on the physical conditions he observed rather than celestial happenings or arbitrary dates. These seasons included breakup, inland sea, aquatic spring, riparian spring, summer, drought, aquatic autumn, riparian autumn, freeze up, and winter white. Thorson details the timings and characteristics of Thoreau’s river seasons using hundreds of direct, dated, and descriptive quotes. Thorson notes that all of Thoreau’s seasons still exist today, though they have shifted in timing and intensity due to climate change.

    Thorson’s idea is to create a then-and-now comparison and to incorporate statistical analysis between Thoreau’s and modern data sets to understand patterns and trends in the complicated phenomena.

    “Even just answering the question of how much earlier ice breakup is occurring would take nothing more than a than simple statistical analysis. This is eminently translatable to the public because many residents of Thoreau country have experienced river breakup in the past,” says Thorson. “They may have had their dock ripped out by river ice, they may have gone swimming on a certain day, but not others. People could relate to this stuff, and that’s essentially what I’m trying to do.”

    Though Thoreau is remembered primarily for his writings while living on Walden Pond, Thorson points out that he actually spent most of his time on three local rivers, whether walking trails, boating, swimming, or skating.

    “This is a guy who skated 60 miles in one day — upriver to the falls at Framingham on the Sudbury River and then he turned around and skated past Concord all the way down to just north of Lowell in Billerica. Then he turned around and skated back home again. On another winter, he measured ice floes two feet thick. Imagine those conditions today. Now the river hardly freezes at all.”

    Researching this project, Thorson was delighted by the sensory detail of Thoreau’s descriptions. For example, on one August day, he felt the baking “dog-day” heat of the air, the silence of laminar streamflow, the “unctuous” iridescent sheen on sluggish water, and the fetid smell of riverbank muck draped by dead lily pads, says Thorson.

    “But within a day, he can feel fall coming, and all of a sudden, the first rains or the cooling air start to bring change. You get a completely different river from the preceding one of drought, or the one with icebergs stampeding down the river, tearing out bridges. All of this is phenology. All can be timed to a specific day.”

    With these phenological details, Thorson has laid the groundwork for creating a record of climate change. Thorson was initially inspired by Thoreau’s phenology when writing his book “The Boatman,” in which he was only able to sketch Thoreau’s river seasons briefly. With this new article, Thorson pulls it all together to identify the specific seasonal thresholds and present the information in Thoreau’s words to show readers how he saw the year. Thorson hopes the paper inspires collaboration with statisticians to help in the next step of analysis.

    “Probably the first thing I’ll do is explore where the modern records are. I also wanted to pull the historic record together and tighten portions into a robust hypothesis. Thoreau’s work is New England’s best record of broad environmental conditions for the mid-19th century. It’s astonishing. It’s two million words,” says Thorson.

    Noting the contrasts between the river phenology Thoreau so thoughtfully detailed and what we can observe today, Thorson says he hopes this work resonates with readers.

    “Breakup is the most instantaneous and dramatic point in the entire year. We don’t think much about it right now, because we don’t have a lot of river ice, but it used to be two feet thick on the river, and that says something sad about how dramatic the climate change has been. You can read dry numerical facts about how New England’s nighttime average temperatures have risen in the 100 years. But when you make climate change dramatic, as with a bridge being torn apart by a spring freshet, that’s a phenomenon associated with emotion. People pay more attention. The personal narrative of a river system year after year after year — that’s what Thoreau gave us.”

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: This Is Your Brain On Music: Groundbreaking UConn-led Study Shows How the Brain Keeps the Beat

    Source: US State of Connecticut

    The most sophisticated musical instrument in the world is the human brain, according to a paradigm-shifting new paper in Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 

    Led by UConn psychological sciences and physics professor Edward W. Large, the research introduces neural resonance theory (NRT). NRT explains how physical structures in the brain and nervous system resonate with the structures of music, turning sequences of sounds into profound physiological and emotional experiences. 

    “In physics, resonance is everywhere,” explains Large, who directs the Music Dynamics Laboratory. “The heart is an oscillator. Circadian rhythms are oscillators, and they synchronize to the light and dark cycles of the earth.” 

    His research shows that human brain activity can also sync to various rhythms – from reggae to R&B to rhapsodies. 

    “A long-standing puzzle in music research is the presence of common features as well as variations across musical cultures,” says Ji Chul Kim, a co-author on the paper and assistant research professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences. “NRT explains this nature/nurture problem in terms of natural constraints and neural plasticity.” 

    Music, Meet Math

    Large carries himself like someone who has spent some time on stage. He’s a smart dresser, accessorizing on a Monday afternoon video interview with a small silver earring. He does have a musical past, he tells me – after double-majoring in math and classical guitar in college, he spent some time performing – but when he learned it was possible to study the science of music in graduate school, he was hooked. 

    “As soon as I saw that, I knew that’s what I was meant to do,” he says. 

    When Large transitioned from making music to studying it, he noticed that the scientific world understood music very differently than he did. 

    The prevailing understanding was that humans enjoy music because its patterns enable a pleasurable system of prediction based on learned expectations. The human brain works like autocomplete, it was thought, predicting which notes and chord shifts will come next in a sequence – and feeling rewarded when it guesses correctly. 

    But Large’s research shows that this is only part of the story. His pioneering neural resonance theory offers a new explanation: oscillations (rhythms) in the brain’s neural activity actually synchronize with the pitches and rhythms of music. This synchronization is what creates the sense of expectation or anticipation. 

    According to NRT, people can keep time, dance, and effectively improvise music because human biological processes can sync with music, from simple tunes to complex melodies. 

    “This is about embodiments – physical states of the brain that have lawful relationships to external events [like sounds],” Large says. “They’re not abstract. It’s literally the sound causing a physical resonance in the brain.” 

    This means that the human body is very much part of the music-making process. Neurons vibrate like a plucked guitar string. Seen on an EEG, brainwaves dance to drumbeats.  

    “I have always been fascinated by music and physics,” Kim says. “I am excited about the way NRT brings them together and describes the perception and performance of music as dynamic patterns formed within and between listeners and performers.” 

    Volume Up

    Large’s paper explains that this function of music is responsible for many of its uplifting qualities, like its mood- and memory-boosting properties, as well as its most universally recognized side effect: the urge to dance. (The paper refers to this phenomenon as “groove.”) 

    “This is the way I always intuitively understood music, before I went into science,” Large says. “But people wanted to talk about the brain as a computer, and its computing input/output functions. It just didn’t seem like how I experience music, or how people in general experience music. But this idea of resonance? I thought that was really compelling. 

    “So, what I set out to do was make it science,” he continues. “Instead of just New Age terminology — ‘oh, I’m resonating to this music, man’ — I wanted to ask whether, scientifically, this really does happen.” 

    Large demonstrates a form of combined light and music therapy at Pratt & Whitney Hangar Museum in East Hartford on Oct. 7, 2019. (Peter Morenus/UConn Photo)

    Even before the publication of this latest research, Large recognized the healing potential of music. In 2016, he founded Oscillo Biosciences (named for the neural oscillations that synchronize with music) with Kim, who had recently completed a postdoctoral fellowship at UConn.

    The healthcare startup uses music and light therapy to help mitigate disease progression among Alzheimer’s patients. It is a highly promising application of NRT. 

    “We’re in a clinical trial right now, and we are showing that by listening to music and watching lights in a certain frequency relationship to the music, we can cause resonance in the brain that actually improves memory,” Large says. 

    NRT has other promising potential applications, ranging from AI to education. Machines trained on neural resonance could produce more emotionally intelligent and culturally aware music. Learning tools could leverage NRT to help people better grasp rhythm and pitch. 

    In the meantime, NRT offers a scientific explanation for one of the most mysterious human experiences — how and why music moves us. 

    In addition to Large, the multi-institutional collaboration featured other researchers at the University of Connecticut and at the University of Groningen (Netherlands), the University of Illinois Chicago, Queen Mary University of London, and McGill University (Canada). The other UConn authors on the paper were Ji-Chul Kim, who is now an assistant research professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences, and Parker Tichko ‘19 Ph.D. 

    MIL OSI USA News –