Category: Universities

MIL-OSI Economics: Rosneft holds the first open academic competition for schoolchildren in Bashkiria

Source: Rosneft

Headline: Rosneft holds the first open academic competition for schoolchildren in Bashkiria

Bashneft (Rosneft subsidiary) held the first open academic competition for schoolchildren at the Ufa State Petroleum Technical University (USPTU). The winners will receive additional points to the Unified State Examination when entering USPTU.

More than 100 schoolchildren from Ufa and other cities and districts of Bashkortostan took part in the academic competition. Students of 10-11 grades could test their knowledge in mathematical chemistry and mathematical physics.

The winners of the competition will be awarded at the All-Russian Employment Fair to be held in Ufa on 18 April 2025. Bashneft will also offer the winners an opportunity to go on an “oil quest” at the fair, which is dedicated to the profession of an oil worker. The Rosneft academic competition in USPTU is planned to be held on an annual basis with an increase in the number of participants.

As a part of the corporate program of continuous education “school – college/university – enterprise”, Rosneft implements projects to attract talented young people and form an external talent pool. The program has been implemented in the Republic of Bashkortostan for several years already. 49 schoolchildren were enrolled in the 10th grade “Rosneft Classes” in 2024. In addition, 25 9th grade students were enrolled in the Rosneft Class in Ufa on a pilot basis. The Ufa Fuel and Energy College (UFEC) became a partner.

USPTU and UFEC have six corporate groups of Bashneft in various training areas, including: solid fuel, oil and gas processing technology, design and operation of oil and gas processing equipment, oil and gas geology and geophysics, etc. In profile groups, students combine work at the production site with individualized training. Training in specialized subjects is conducted with the involvement of expert teachers among Bashneft’s employees.

In partnership with Bashneft’s enterprises, USPTU has established basic departments: Petrochemical Process Technology, Welding of Oil and Gas Structures, Bashneft Refining and Bashneft Environmental Engineering.

For reference:

Basheft is one of the oldest oil and gas enterprises in the country engaged in oil extraction and processing. The key assets of Bashneft, including the refinery and petrochemical complex, are located in the Republic of Bashkortostan.Oil and gas exploration and production are also carried out in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area–Yugra, Nenets Autonomous Area, Orenburg Region and the Republic of Bashkortostan.

USPTU is Bashneft’s key partner in personnel training. More than 50% of Bashneft’s employees are graduates of this university.

Department of Information and Advertising
Rosneft
April 11, 2025

MIL OSI Economics –

June 10, 2025
MIL-Evening Report: 9 myths about electric vehicles have taken hold. A new study shows how many people fall for them

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christian Bretter, Senior Research Fellow in Environmental Psychology, The University of Queensland

More people believe misinformation about electric vehicles than disagree with it and even EV owners tend to believe the myths, our new research shows.

We investigated the prevalence of misinformation about EVs in four countries – Australia, the United States, Germany and Austria. Unfortunately, we found substantial agreement with misinformation across all countries.

People who endorsed false claims about EVs were, not surprisingly, significantly less likely to consider buying one.

Electric vehicles are vital in the fight against climate change. But pervasive misinformation is a significant challenge to the technology’s uptake and has serious implications for the shift away from fossil fuels.

Widespread agreement with false EV claims

We conducted a survey of 4,200 people across the four countries who did not own an electric vehicle. We measured the extent to which they agreed with these nine misleading claims about electric vehicles:

What we found

The most widely believed myth was that electric vehicles are more likely to catch fire than petrol cars. Some 43–56% of people agreed with the statement, depending on the country.

To tally the results, we looked at participants’ responses for all nine misinformation statements – more than 36,000 responses in all. We then calculated how many of these responses indicated agreement or disagreement.

Of the 36,000 responses, 36% were in agreement with a statement and 23% were in disagreement. A further 24% were undecided and 17% did not know.

Misinformation agreement was highest in Germany and lowest in the US, but the differences between nations were small.

Agreement with misinformation was strongly correlated with a lack of support for electric vehicle policies and a lack of intention to buy an EV in future.

A separate part of the research involved 2,100 people in the US, about half of whom owned an electric vehicle. Surprisingly, EV owners did not significantly differ in their agreement with misinformation compared to non-owners. This underscores how embedded the problem has become.

Agreement with misinformation was strongly correlated with a lack of buying intention.
Photo by Sebastian Ng/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

It’s not about education

We also examined the factors that make individuals more susceptible to EV misinformation.

The strongest predictor was people who scored highly on a “conspiracy mentality” – in other words, they believed conspiracies were common in society, they saw the world through a lens of corruption and secret agendas, and distrusted institutions.

People with progressive political and environmental views were less likely to endorse misinformation about EVs.

A person’s scientific knowledge or level of education was not a predictor. This finding aligns with previous research, and suggests the pervasive endorsement of misinformation stems from distrust in institutions and expertise rather than from a lack of education.

People with progressive political views were less likely to endorse EV misinformation.
Costfoto/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Grounds for optimism

We tested whether misinformation could be reduced with two interventions among a different sample of US participants. One group was asked to converse with ChatGPT about their views on EV misinformation. The second was asked to read a traditional EV fact sheet from the US Department of Energy. On a third “control” group, no intervention was tested.

Participants who engaged with either ChatGPT or the fact sheet before we surveyed them showed significantly lower endorsement of EV misinformation compared to the control group. This persisted at a follow-up session ten days after the survey.

Notably, ChatGPT did not produce any misinformation about EVs. These results build upon existing research demonstrating ChatGPT’s potential to reduce endorsement of conspiracy theories.

Misinformation about EVs poses significant challenges to uptake of the technology.
Florian Wiegand/Getty Images

How to tackle EV misinformation

Our findings show misinformation about electric vehicles has a substantial foothold in Western nations. Susceptibility is not a matter of education or knowledge, but rather stems from distrust of established institutions and expertise.

We also found people who engage with facts about electric vehicles are less likely to endorse misinformation.

This suggests a dual strategy is needed to reduce misinformation about EVs. First, those who deliberately spread misinformation should be held accountable. And second, evidence-based information, including accessible AI tools, can be used to build public resilience against false claims.

Matthew Hornsey receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Christian Bretter and Samuel Pearson do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. 9 myths about electric vehicles have taken hold. A new study shows how many people fall for them – https://theconversation.com/9-myths-about-electric-vehicles-have-taken-hold-a-new-study-shows-how-many-people-fall-for-them-257557

MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

June 10, 2025
MIL-Evening Report: Starlink is transforming Pacific internet access – but in some countries it’s still illegal

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amanda H.A. Watson, Fellow, Department of Pacific Affairs, Australian National University

Solomon aligning the Starlink dish on the roof of his friend’s home in Vanuatu. Paul Basant

In the past few years, Starlink’s satellite internet service has become available across much of the Pacific. This has created new challenges for regulators in Pacific Island countries: some have promoted Starlink while others have banned it.

What is Starlink?

Elon Musk founded the space technology company SpaceX in 2002, and owns about 44% of it.

Among other projects, SpaceX has launched thousands of satellites into low-Earth orbit, where they circle the globe and enable internet connectivity at ground level. This service is offered through Starlink, a subsidiary of SpaceX.

The first satellites were launched in 2019. Later the same year, Musk demonstrated the use of Starlink internet.

It took a few years for access to be available in the Pacific region. The first known use was in Tonga in 2022, after a volcanic eruption and tsunami.

Satellite internet in the Pacific

Starlink is not the only company offering internet access via satellite technology. However, it is well known and has generated much interest in the Pacific.

Other companies use satellites in low-Earth orbit, such as OneWeb. Another consumer offering comes from Kacific, which provides internet access via a geostationary satellite high above the Pacific. This type of satellite moves at the same speed as Earth spins, so it appears to stay in the same place from ground level.

Starlink access is available in many of the 18 member countries of the Pacific Islands Forum, such as Fiji, Tonga and Vanuatu. In several of those, there are both resellers and retailers.

Authorised resellers can sell Starlink products and services, meaning customers can buy Starlink kits and pay their monthly Starlink charges through these companies. Authorised retailers can only sell Starlink equipment.

Gateways and barriers

Nauru and Kosrae (a state in the Federated States of Micronesia) have recently launched more powerful Starlink connections called community gateways to improve internet access for their communities.

Nauru’s gateway, reportedly the first in the Pacific, went live in December 2024. Kosrae’s followed in February 2025.

In Niue, the government has banned the use of Starlink, warning users of fines or imprisonment for unauthorised use. Satellite provider Kacific continues to operate legally on the island.

In Papua New Guinea, Starlink licensing is before the courts.

Education and disasters

Remote schools across Fiji and Solomon Islands are using Starlink services to improve connectivity in the hope it will enable access to online learning and digital resources. In Fiji, six rural schools now have internet access.

In Malaita, in the Solomon Islands, Starlink is being used in classrooms, funded and supported by an initiative to make education more accessible. Kacific’s satellite internet service has also been used to connect schools in the Pacific.

Starlink has been used for disaster communications. It is proving to be a crucial backup for undersea cables, which are vulnerable to natural disasters and service disruptions.

Immediately after a 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck Vanuatu on December 17 2024, causing an outage of the country’s sole submarine cable, Starlink was used to maintain communication. As traditional internet services failed, more than 300 Starlink units were quickly deployed, restoring connectivity for residents, businesses and emergency services.

Fast-moving change

Governance responses to Starlink have differed across the Pacific, impacting access for consumers.

Where Starlink has been approved, people can buy equipment and pay monthly usage fees in local currency.

In some countries, Starlink has been approved but no local resellers or retailers have been established yet. In these cases, people can access the service by ordering a kit directly from the official Starlink website, which offers international shipping to approved locations.

Internet access options across the Pacific are changing rapidly. In several countries, Starlink has not yet officially launched.

Further change is likely. For now, governance of Starlink among Pacific countries remains a mixed bag.

Amanda H.A. Watson receives research funding from the Australian government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade through the Pacific Research Program.

Atishnal Elvin Chand 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. Starlink is transforming Pacific internet access – but in some countries it’s still illegal – https://theconversation.com/starlink-is-transforming-pacific-internet-access-but-in-some-countries-its-still-illegal-257905

MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

June 10, 2025
MIL-OSI NGOs: MSF hands over Lassa fever care in Ebonyi state Nigeria

Source: Médecins Sans Frontières –

After seven years of critical support from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), local health authorities in Ebonyi state are now well equipped to take on care for Lassa fever with improved infrastructure and training — saving lives and restoring confidence in the healthcare system.

Outside the Alex Ekwueme Federal University Teaching hospital in Abakaliki, Nigeria, March 2023.
Abba Adamu Musa/MSF

In early 2018, Ebonyi state in southeastern Nigeria faced a serious public health concern. Lassa fever – a potentially deadly viral haemorrhagic neglected tropical disease – recorded a particularly high seasonal outbreak, overwhelming hospitals and claiming numerous lives, notably among healthcare workers who are particularly exposed to infection.

“We lost doctors, nurses, and cleaners,” recalls Dr Nnennaya Anthony Ajayi, then head of clinical services at the virology unit of the Alex Ekwueme Federal University Teaching hospital in Abakaliki (AE-FUTHA), the state’s main referral centre. “There was panic. In the hospital, 16 healthcare workers passed away. People were afraid to go near the emergency room.”

Though the federal and state governments had already made strides—building an isolation ward and setting up a virology lab—AE-FUTHA was not prepared for the outbreak’s scale. Personal protective equipment was scarce. Infection control procedures were unclear. Samples had to be sent to distant labs for confirmation. Suspected patients were sometimes kept in open spaces, and the risks for staff were devastating.

It’s in that context that MSF arrived in Abakaliki to support the response. What began as an emergency intervention soon evolved into a seven-year partnership with the Ebonyi state Ministry of Health, laying the groundwork for sustainable, locally led Lassa fever care.

An MSF doctor raises his hands sideways as he is sprayed with water diluted chlorine after a ward round at the virology unit of the Alex Ekwueme Federal University Teaching hospital in Abakaliki, Ebonyi state. Nigeria, March 2023.
MSF/Abba Adamu Musa

Protect health workers, improve care for patients

From the outset, MSF’s top priority was clear: stop the loss of healthcare workers.

“We had to put an end to this series of avoidable deaths,” says Alain-Godefroid Ndikundavyi, MSF’s most recent project coordinator in Ebonyi. “Our main objective was to reverse that trend and to reinforce the hospital’s capacity to better receive and treat patients with the disease.”

MSF’s intervention was wide-ranging. We built triage and observation areas, distributed personal protective equipment, implemented robust infection prevention and control systems, and trained local staff to manage Lassa cases safely and effectively.

“They helped us structure patient flow, infection prevention and control, and biosafety measures, and provided what we needed to work safely,” says Dr Ajayi. “They brought structure, training, and most importantly, hope.”

In total, over 230 training sessions for healthcare workers were delivered, and laboratory capacity was strengthened, enabling faster diagnosis. Eventually, a new model of care was put in place to protect staff and better support patients.

Between 2018 and 2024, MSF supported the treatment of 1,701 suspected and 427 confirmed Lassa fever cases. MSF also paid the full cost of patient care—including dialysis, medications, and meals—which significantly reduced fatalities.

Crucially, deaths among healthcare workers fell dramatically, with years passing without a single death being recorded.

Reaching beyond the hospital

But MSF understood that stopping Lassa fever required action far beyond hospital walls. The disease thrives in communities where public health awareness is low and early detection is lacking.

“To bridge that gap, we mobilized health promotion teams that conducted over 4,500 education sessions and nearly 1,300 community visits across Ebonyi state,” says Ndikundvyi. “These efforts demystified the disease, corrected misconceptions, and encouraged early care-seeking behaviour.”

MSF health promotion officer, Chidinma Ugonna, educating the public about Lassa fever in Iboko market, Izzi local government area, Ebonyi state, Nigeria, July 2023.
Nathalie San Gil/MSF

MSF also supported two clinics in rural areas—Izzi Unuhu and Onuebonyi—providing training, lab equipment, medical supplies, and even building water towers to ensure safe sanitation. The goal was to catch Lassa fever early and ease the burden on AE-FUTHA.

“We realised that to truly fight Lassa, the response had to start at the community level,” says Ndikundavyi.

A new chapter

In 2025, MSF formally handed over operations to the Ebonyi state Ministry of Health and AE-FUTHA. This transition was carefully planned and included donations of medical equipment, ambulances, and waste management tools. Enough supplies were provided to last through the next Lassa fever peak season.

“We officially handed over management responsibilities at the end of 2024 but kept an observational team on until March of this year, in case the Ministry needed additional resources,” Ndikundavyi said.

MSF also supported the creation of internal committees within AE-FUTHA to maintain standards in infection control, patient care, and outbreak response—ensuring that progress would continue after our departure. More broadly, MSF experts partnered with the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, and state and federal authorities, to improve detection, prevention, and medical care guidelines.

A Lassa fever survivor has a mental health session with MSF’s counsellor, Ada, at his home in Abakaliki’s neighbourhood, Ebonyi state, Nigeria, March 2023.
Abba Adamu Musa/MSF

Today, AE-FUTHA is a different place. Gone are the days of improvised gear and terrified staff. Healthcare workers now operate with confidence, knowledge, and proper equipment. Patients are treated with dignity, and survivors return home with hope. Not as outcasts, but as symbols of resilience.

The fight against Lassa fever is not over. In 2024 alone, 24 confirmed cases were recorded in AE-FUTHA, with one death among the hospital staff—still tragic, but a far cry from what happened in 2018, when 16 healthcare workers alone were lost.

“We are no longer afraid,” says Dr Ajayi. “MSF helped us believe that we could fight Lassa fever—and win.”

MIL OSI NGO –

June 10, 2025
MIL-OSI United Nations: UNFPA and Partners Drive Strategic Shift in Women’s Health with Launch of Global WomenX Hub in Nairobi

Source: United Nations Population Fund

Nairobi, 9 June 2025 – UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency, is proud to launch its WomenX Collective (WomenX) Nairobi Hub on 9 June 2025 at the Aga Khan University Auditorium.

WomenX supports locally led initiatives that develop and scale practical solutions – such as new technologies, service delivery models, and financing tools – to close gaps in care for women and girls. They are creating a network across Africa and beyond to improve women’s health by bringing together governments, health experts, innovators, and funders. Building on the October 2024 launch of its Berlin Hub, the new Nairobi Hub marks a major step in extending WomenX’s impact across the continent and globally.

The Nairobi Hub is being launched in partnership with the Government of Kenya, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), and Aga Khan University. Together, these partners aim to build a global innovation hub based in Africa – advancing women’s health innovation and accelerating progress toward gender equity in health systems worldwide.

A Strategic Investment in Women’s Health

“Every minute, at least two women die globally from breast or cervical cancer, or from pregnancy-related complications due to inequitable access to healthcare,” said Dr. Natalia Kanem, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UNFPA. “Through the WomenX Collective Nairobi Hub, UNFPA and our partners aim to invest in and scale transformative solutions to close critical health gaps and ensure that women and girls everywhere can access the care they deserve — and that is their right.”

With initial funding commitments from international donors – including the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), Organon & Co., among others – the WomenX Collective aims to mobilize $100 million in catalytic investment by 2030 and leverage financing to scale innovative solutions. This programme has the potential to avert at least 10.4 million unintended pregnancies, 3.2 million unsafe abortions, and 21,000 maternal deaths. Through its hubs and partnerships, the programme is uniquely positioned to bring together experience and technical expertise from across countries and regions, as well as modern technologies and sustainable financing.

Africa as an Innovation Powerhouse
The Nairobi Hub will serve as a platform to unite research, scalable technologies, and innovative financing strategies across Africa. With its proximity to a thriving ecosystem of health and tech innovators, Nairobi plays a central role in delivering sustainable impact for women and girls across the continent and beyond

A Call to Action
The inauguration of the WomenX Nairobi Hub will gather funders, regional stakeholders, health leaders, and innovators to ignite bold commitments, amplify evidence-based investment strategies, and catalyze new collaborations. It will issue a clarion call for governments, philanthropies, and the private sector to prioritize women’s health – not just as a moral imperative, but as a cornerstone of social and economic progress.

“The Nairobi Hub is more than a location,” said Dr. Nigina Muntean, Chief of Innovation and Transformation Branch at UNFPA. “In close collaboration with the WomenX Berlin Hub, it’s a commitment to drive lasting change through the power of women-centered innovation. Every dollar invested today unlocks exponential returns for future generations.”

Find out more about the WomenX Collective here:
https://www.unfpa.org/womenx-collective

Contact UNFPA: media@unfpa.org

——-

Quotes of our partners:

“The National Council for Population and Development, a Kenyan government agency, is proud to support the launch of the WomenX Hub in Nairobi with our partners. This programme supports our mission to improve lives and underscores the importance of empowering women and girls as a foundation for sustainable development,” said Dr. Mohamed Sheikh , Director General NCPD & Inaugural Member of the WomenX Collective Steering Group.

“At Africa CDC, we recognise that the health of women and girls is the backbone of strong public health systems and resilient communities. The WomenX Nairobi Hub is a timely and transformative platform that places African leadership and innovation at the centre of advancing women’s health. This initiative is a call to action for all of us to invest boldly, collaborate deeply, and ensure that women and girls are not only beneficiaries but drivers of Africa’s health security and progress.” said Dr. Mazyanga Lucy Mazaba, Regional Director, Africa CDC Eastern Africa RCC.

“At Aga Khan University (AKU), we believe that the true value of knowledge lies not only in its creation but in its ability to transform lives. Our partnership with UNFPA, the Ministry of Health Kenya, and Africa CDC, in launching the WomenX Collective Africa Hub reflects our unwavering commitment to women’s and girls’ health. By contributing our research expertise and local insights, we aim to co-create and scale evidence-based, sustainable solutions that deliver real impact to the communities we serve. It is a privilege for AKU to host this launch and to stand alongside global and regional leaders in driving meaningful change in maternal and reproductive health across East Africa and beyond.”

About UNFPA:

UNFPA is the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency. UNFPA’s mission is to deliver a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person’s potential is fulfilled. UNFPA calls for the realization of reproductive rights for all and supports access to a wide range of sexual and reproductive health services, including voluntary family planning, quality maternal health care and comprehensive sexuality Education.

About the Government of Kenya:
The Government of Kenya is committed to improving the health and well-being of its population through inclusive, equitable, and sustainable policies. With a strong emphasis on universal health coverage and gender equality, Kenya continues to invest in healthcare infrastructure, innovation, and strategic partnerships to ensure accessible and quality care for women and girls across the country.

About Africa CDC:
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) is a continental autonomous public health agency of the African Union that supports member states in efforts to strengthen health systems and improve surveillance, emergency response, and prevention and control of diseases.

About Aga Khan University (AKU):
Aga Khan University (AKU) is an international institution of higher learning and research with campuses and programs in South and Central Asia, East Africa, and the United Kingdom. Committed to the highest standards in medical education, research, and patient care, AKU aims to improve quality of life in the developing world by investing in human capital, generating knowledge, and fostering innovation that addresses the most pressing health challenges.

MIL OSI United Nations News –

June 10, 2025
MIL-OSI New Zealand: Universities – Economists urge action to prevent ‘AI poverty traps’ – UoA

Source: University of Auckland (UoA)

Artificial intelligence could deepen inequality and create ‘AI-poverty traps’ in developing nations, write economists Dr Asha Sundaram and Dr Dennis Wesselbaum in their paper ‘Economic development reloaded: the AI revolution in developing nations’.

Sundaram, an associate professor at the University of Auckland Business School, and Wesselbaum, an associate professor at the University of Otago, say developing countries lack the necessary infrastructure and skilled labour force to capitalise on AI’s potential.

“The downside is that there isn’t a lot of capacity in some countries in terms of digital infrastructure, internet, mobile phone penetration,” says Sundaram.

“Much of the technology is controlled by firms like Google and OpenAI, raising the risk of over-reliance on foreign tech, potentially stifling local innovation.”

Without strategic interventions, Wesselbaum says AI may create an ‘AI-poverty trap’: locking developing nations into technological dependence and widening the gap between global economies.

“For developing countries, AI could be a game-changer; boosting productivity, expanding access to essential services, and fostering local innovation – if the right infrastructure and skills are in place.”

Financial support from developed countries and international bodies like the UN could help cover upfront costs through grants, loans and investment incentives, according to the research.

“We also need robust legal and regulatory frameworks to support responsible AI by addressing data privacy, ethics, and transparency concerns,” says Sundaram.

The economists argue that in developing AI policies, the international community must learn from the successes and failures of foreign aid.

“Aid has often failed to spur lasting growth in developing countries,” says Sundaram, “partly because it can create dependency, reducing self-reliance and domestic initiatives.”

She highlights a need for policies to mitigate the downsides of AI, both in developed and developing countries.

Such policies could include an international tax regime that would allow countries to capture tax revenue from economic activities driven by AI inside their borders.

Sundaram’s involved in one such project in Ethiopia where artificial intelligence is being harnessed by the government and the country’s largest telecom provider to support small businesses excluded from formal banking due to lack of collateral.

By analysing mobile money transactions and how much these businesses pay and receive, algorithms estimate how much credit can safely be offered, enabling small loans and helping integrate marginalised enterprises into the formal economy.

Artificial intelligence holds the power to transform development trajectories, but without targeted investments and inclusive policies, says Wesselbaum, it risks deepening the digital divide and entrenching global inequality.

MIL OSI New Zealand News –

June 10, 2025
MIL-Evening Report: A 10-fold increase in rocket launches would start harming the ozone layer – new research

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Revell, Associate Professor in Atmospheric Chemistry, University of Canterbury

Han Jiajun/VCG via Getty Images

The international space industry is on a growth trajectory, but new research shows a rapid increase in rocket launches would damage the ozone layer.

Several hundred rockets are launched globally each year by a mix of commercial companies and nation-state space programmes. These take place at around 20 sites, almost all in the northern hemisphere, with the most prolific launch rates currently from the United States, China, New Zealand and Russia.

Our latest research explores the tipping point when launching more rockets will begin to cause problems. Our findings show that once rates reach 2,000 launches a year – about a ten-fold increase on last year – the current healing of the ozone layer slows down.

We argue that with care, we can avoid this future. The economic benefits of industry growth can be realised, but it will take a collaborative effort.

Rocket launches thin the ozone layer

The ozone layer protects life on Earth from harmful solar ultraviolet (UV) rays. It is slowly healing from the effects of chlorofluorocarbons and other damaging chemicals emitted last century, thanks to global cooperative agreements under the Montreal Protocol.

Gases and particulates emitted by rockets as they punch through the atmosphere are known to thin the ozone layer. So far, they don’t cause appreciable ozone depletion, as relatively few launches take place each year.

However, launches are steadily increasing. In 2019, there were 102 launches. By 2024, that increased to 258 worldwide. There are expected to be even more in 2025. At multiple sites worldwide, the launch industry projects impressive levels of future growth.

For US-based launches, a three-fold increase in the number of rockets launched in 2023 is expected as soon as 2028.

One driver of this growth is the effort to build out satellite constellations to tens of thousands of units, positioned low in Earth’s orbit. These require many launches to create and are happening in several nations, run by a number of companies.

Once in place, these constellations require ongoing launches to keep them supplied with active satellites.

Potential delay in ozone recovery

To figure out how future launches could affect the ozone layer, we first built a database of ozone-depleting chemicals emitted by rockets currently in use. We then fed this database into a model of Earth’s atmosphere and climate, and simulated atmospheric composition under several scenarios of higher rates of rocket launches.

We found that with around 2,000 launches worldwide each year, the ozone layer thins by up to 3%. Due to atmospheric transport of rocket-emitted chemicals, we saw the largest ozone losses over Antarctica, even though most launches are taking place in the northern hemisphere.

Fortunately, the ozone losses are small. We wouldn’t expect to see catastrophic damage to humans or ecosystems. However, the losses are significant given global efforts underway to heal the ozone layer. The global abundance of ozone is still around 2% lower than before the onset of losses caused by chlorofluorocarbons.

Future ozone losses are not locked in

Encouragingly, we found no significant ozone loss in a scenario of more modest rates of around 900 launches per year. However, this is for the types of rockets that are in use right now around the world.

We focus on current launch vehicles because it is uncertain when the new and massive rockets currently in development will enter use. But these larger rockets often require far more fuel, which creates more emissions at each launch.

Rocket propellant choices make a big difference to the atmosphere. We found fuels emitting chlorine-containing chemicals or black carbon particulates have the largest effects on the ozone layer. Reducing use of these fuels as launch rates increase is key to supporting an ongoing recovery of the ozone layer.

Re-entering spacecraft and satellite debris can also cause damage. However, the global scientific community doesn’t yet fully understand the chemistry around re-entry. Our work provides a realistic “floor” for the lowest level of damage that will occur.

But it is important to remember that these effects are not locked in. It is entirely possible to create a launch industry where we avoid harmful effects, but that would require reducing use of chlorine-containing fuels, minimising black carbon emissions by new rockets and monitoring emissions.

It will take keen effort and enthusiasm from industry and regulators, working together with scientists. But this needs to start now, not after the damage is done.

Laura Revell is a member of the International Ozone Commission and the UNEP Environmental Effects Assessment Panel, which assesses the effects of ozone depletion on life on Earth. She is a Rutherford Discovery Fellow, funded by the Royal Society of NZ Te Apārangi.

Michele Bannister is the NZ delegate for the International Astronomical Union, serves on the COSPAR-NZ national committee, is a voting member of Aerospace New Zealand, and has research collaborations with the IAU Centre for Protection of the Dark & Quiet Sky. She is a Rutherford Discovery Fellow, funded by the Royal Society of NZ Te Apārangi.

– ref. A 10-fold increase in rocket launches would start harming the ozone layer – new research – https://theconversation.com/a-10-fold-increase-in-rocket-launches-would-start-harming-the-ozone-layer-new-research-257480

MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

June 10, 2025
MIL-OSI Global: Can Israel still claim self-defence to justify its Gaza war?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Self-defence in the law

Self-defence has a long history in international law.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A test of proportionality

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is rescuing hostages in self-defence?

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

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

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

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

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

An act of aggression?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Donald Rothwell receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

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

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

June 10, 2025
MIL-OSI Australia: Grassroots solutions key to boosting health support for Aussie bush kids

Source:

10 June 2025

Children in rural Australia are missing out on critical early health supports, with limited access to allied health services putting them at greater risk of lifelong developmental challenges.

Now, new research from the University of South Australia shows that local communities hold the key to improving health outcomes for Aussie bush kids.

In the first study to bring together global literature, researchers assessed what helps or hinders health care in rural areas, finding that place-based strategies – those designed around the unique needs and strengths of each community – are better positioned to support rural children and their families.

Place-based health strategies are developed in partnership with community stakeholders and delivered outside traditional clinical settings – often in schools or homes – with teachers and parents playing an active role.

In Australia, about 7 million people – or 28% of the Australian population – live in rural and remote areas.

UniSA researcher and PhD candidate, Georgia Gosse, says governments must work with rural communities, including children, to ensure that country kids get the heath care they need.

“All children have the right to quality healthcare. But those who live outside of metropolitan centres are distinctly and unfairly disadvantaged,” Gosse says.

“Children in rural or remote areas are four times more likely to be developmentally vulnerable than metropolitan children and less likely to access the health services they need.

“Without access to timely and appropriate allied health services – like physio, occupational therapy or speech therapy – children with developmental delays can struggle to meet full potential.

“Allied health services are vital to putting children on the road to healthy development; but accessing one of these professionals in the bush is like herding cats. Our research is trying to change this.”

Gosse says that new rural health services are often driven by a lack of access to existing services – whether due to long waiting lists, geographical isolation, or a shortage of allied health professionals in rural areas.

“Our study found that strategies co-designed and delivered with local communities are especially effective for rural families. They take place in familiar settings – such as homes or schools – and work closely with communities to respect local needs and cultural sensitivities,” Gosse says.

“But these strategies also face challenges: parents or carers may not have the time or knowledge to support therapy at home, and teachers are often stretched with limited resources at school.

“It’s a complex issue, and while there’s no quick fix, the evidence strongly supports working alongside local communities – including children as the end users – to shape and deliver effective solutions.”

Amid renewed calls for a National Rural Health Strategy, the findings provide valuable insights to guide much needed dollars into community-led, rural health initiatives.

Senior researcher, UniSA’s Professor Saravana Kumar says, children’s needs must be at the heart of any new initiatives.

“To improve health outcomes for rural communities, we must deliver child-centred, place-based care that’s co-designed with local communities,” Prof Kumar says.

“We need to leverage the strengths of the local community, respect lived realities, and ensure that health services are built for the people who use them.

“Importantly, children’s voices must underpin the design and implementation of any models of care.

“This is about designing care that works with communities, not just for them. Because when we get it right for our bush kids, we’re getting it right for the future.”

The research has also been synthesised into an interactive evidence-informed decision-making tool to help clinicians quickly identify and understand the key drivers, enablers, and barriers to different models of care in rural areas.

To access this free tool, click here: https://unplex.com.au/evidence-informed-decision-making-tool/

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Contact for interview: George Gosse E: Georgia.Gosse@unisa.edu.au
Media contact: Annabel Mansfield M: +61 479 182 489 E: Annabel.Mansfield@unisa.edu.au

Other articles you may be interested in

MIL OSI News –

June 10, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: Hickenlooper, Schmitt Introduce Bipartisan Bill to Create Defense Tech Hubs, Boost National Security
US Senate News:
Source: United States Senator John Hickenlooper – Colorado

Colorado would be a prime location for a Defense Tech Hub

WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senators John Hickenlooper and Eric Schmitt introduced the bipartisan Defense Technology Hubs Act, which would spur defense innovation and investment across 10 regions, including states like Colorado, to modernize our defense industrial base and create good-paying jobs.

“You don’t have to look further than Colorado to see how a strong, interconnected defense tech ecosystem spurs even greater cutting-edge breakthroughs,” said Hickenlooper. “America needs to double down on our innovation advantage to compete with China’s accelerating investments.”

“We cannot deter great power conflict, we cannot protect the American way of life, and we cannot guarantee peace through strength if we cannot build the tools of defense at scale and speed. The United States faces an ever-growing challenge of maintaining our advantage amid rapid advancements and innovations from our foreign adversaries like China, and we must rise to the challenge. With Missouri serving as a key model for this program, I look forward to these tech hubs spreading across the nation to ensure our military is prepared for the next century of technological threats,” said Schmitt.

Specifically, the Defense Technology Hubs Act will:
- Require the Department of Defense (DoD) to establish a program to designate and support regional DoD Tech Hubs focused on advancing defense technologies critical to national security.
- Establish the criteria for eligible consortia to receive a DoD Tech Hub, including:
  
  Capability in defense-relevant technology areas.
  
  Evidence of regional collaboration and stakeholder commitment.
  
  Presence of anchor Federal defense institutions or mission-critical military installations that support or utilize emerging defense technologies, particularly in geospatial intelligence, data fusion, and AI.
- Require the Secretary of Defense to coordinate with existing efforts such as DIU, EDA Tech Hubs, DARPA, Manufacturing USA Institutes, and NSF’s Regional Innovation Engines to reinforce the capacity of all programs.
- Bar foreign entities of concern, as identified by DoD in coordination with the intelligence community and consistent with existing federal designations, like Commerce Department’s Entity List.
- Authorize $375 million for fiscal years 2026 – 2030 and include a 1:1 cost sharing requirement with non-federal private and state sources.
“A Defense Technology Hubs program would bolster the nation’s and region’s aerospace leadership through workforce development and economic growth, not to mention building out critical defense systems to protect all Americans,” said Iain Boyd, Director of the Center for National Security Initiatives at the University of Colorado Boulder. “The Hub concept recognizes that regional alliances of universities with complementary capabilities can best meet the needs of today’s defense technology challenges.”

Full text of the legislation available HERE.
MIL OSI USA News –
June 10, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: State Director & Chair Positions Confirmed

Source: US State of New York

overnor Kathy Hochul today announced the confirmation of director and chair positions in New York State government. Joshua Norkin today was confirmed by the New York State Senate to serve as Director of the Authorities Budget Office. Additionally, Jessica García was confirmed by the New York State Senate today to serve as Chair of the Cannabis Control Board.

“New Yorkers deserve the best and the brightest individuals serving them, working to make New York safer, more affordable and more liveable — these two individuals will do just that,” Governor Hochul said. “My administration remains laser focused on ensuring experienced individuals are serving at every level of government, delivering for families statewide.”

About Director Joshua Norkin

Joshua Norkin was confirmed by the New York State Senate on June 9 to serve as Director of the Authorities Budget Office. Joshua Norkin previously served as Assistant Counsel to the Governor before being promoted to Deputy Counsel to the Governor in 2022, and Senior Advisor to the Governor in 2024. As Deputy Counsel to the Governor, Joshua oversaw the introduction, negotiation, and disposition of all legislation on behalf of the Executive Chamber.

Mr. Norkin has practiced law in both the nonprofit and private sectors since 2008. Joshua Norkin earned his Juris Doctorate from the University of Denver Sturm College of Law.

About Chair Jessica García

Jessica García was confirmed by the New York State Senate on June 9 to serve as Chair of the Cannabis Control Board. Jessica García has served as a board member on the Cannabis Control Board since 2021.

Jessica García is Assistant to the President of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), a national labor union representing workers along the food supply chain, as well as workers in non-food retail and healthcare. She previously served as Deputy Political Director for the RWDSU, where she worked to advance the union’s legislative and political agendas. Additionally, Jessica García currently serves as President of the Board of Directors of the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health and a member of the Safe Passage Project. In 2021, she was appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Labor to serve on the National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health (NACOSH). Jessica García earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Anthropology from Harvard University and Master of Social Work from the Hunter College School of Social Work.

MIL OSI USA News –

June 10, 2025
MIL-OSI United Kingdom: UK to become world leader in drug discovery as Technology Secretary heads for London Tech Week
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

Press release

UK to become world leader in drug discovery as Technology Secretary heads for London Tech Week

New project to make the UK a leader in AI-drug discovery, as Imperial College also partners with the World Economic Forum on AI-Driven Innovation Centre.
New OpenBind consortium to make the UK a leader in AI-driven drug discovery – slashing the cost of drug discovery and development by as much as £100 billion.

Imperial College London to partner with World Economic Forum to deliver new AI-Driven Innovation Centre – boosting AI adoption and innovation to grow the economy

Peter Kyle to set out plans at London Tech Week for technology to go further and faster in unlocking the growth driving the government’s Plan for Change

People around the world are set to benefit from new breakthroughs in AI-driven drug discovery to tackle previously untreatable diseases and transforming patient outcomes using British AI and research expertise.

Announced today, the UK’s ‘OpenBind’ consortium will use breakthrough experimental technology to generate the world’s largest collection of data on how drugs interact with proteins, the building blocks of the body. This will be twenty times greater than anything collected over the last fifty years – cementing the UK’s position as a global hub for AI-driven drug discovery.

This will support the training of new AI models that can identify promising new drugs, giving researchers an unparalleled ability to open up new fronts in the fight against disease- slashing development costs by up to £100 billion and sparking the innovation and economic growth which underpins the government’s Plan for Change.

Based at Diamond Light Source – the UK’s national synchrotron facility at the Harwell Science Campus in Oxfordshire – the consortium will close critical data gaps, driving breakthroughs in healthcare which will unlock new avenues for drugs that can treat and beat diseases, as well as helping scientists harness the transformative potential of engineering biology to face down a range of other issues, such as designing new enzymes to tackle plastic waste.

The consortium, backed with up to £8 million of investment from DSIT’s newly established Sovereign AI Unit, will be led by some of the world’s leading scientific minds including Professor Charlotte Deane at the University of Oxford, Professor Frank von Delft at Diamond Light Source and the University of Oxford, and David Baker, Chemistry Nobel Prize winner and head of the Institute for Protein Design at Washington University.

The Secretary of State for Science, Innovation, and Technology, Peter Kyle said:

London Tech Week is where we lay down a marker – not just as a government with technology at the heart of our agenda, but as a country that will harness its opportunities for the global good.

OpenBind is a prime example of how we’re doing exactly that. Through home-grown AI expertise, we will be the driving force that doesn’t just treat, but beats disease – benefitting every person in the world.

This week, we’ll have plenty more to say on how we’re using technology to drive growth, improve public services, and transform communities all over the country – delivering a Plan for Change grounded in action, not words.

This investment will also help to unlock unique strategic capabilities for UK AI and biosciences, securing the nation’s critical influence over a sector fundamental to growth, health, and wellbeing.

Investors from industry and philanthropy will be convened shortly to have the opportunity to co-invest and take the project to a point of maximum ambition. These discussion will include a roundtable at 10 Downing Street including Isomorphic Labs, Astex Pharmaceuticals, Apheris, Chai Discovery, Genentech, Genesis Therapeutics, Odyssey Therapeutix, Pfizer Inc, and Renaissance Philanthropy.

Professor Gianluigi Botton, CEO, Diamond Light Source, said:

At Diamond Light Source, a Joint Venture between the UK government through STFC and the Wellcome Trust, we are proud to be at the forefront of the UK’s ambition to lead the world in AI-driven drug discovery.

OpenBind represents an exciting step forward in harnessing our unique capabilities to generate the high-quality data that AI needs to revolutionise healthcare, helping to cement the UK’s position as a global hub for bioscience innovation.

Sir Demis Hassabis, CEO, Isomorphic Labs, said:

High-quality biochemical data supports superior AI models, which in turn helps us design new drug candidates faster.

We’re delighted to partner with the OpenBind Consortium and the UK government to cultivate this vital resource. This is a brilliant initiative for UK science, and we’re proud to support it from its inception.

Artificial Intelligence has become one of the key drivers of the government’s Plan for Change, with its adoption across the economy sparking economic growth and creating jobs. Earlier this year the Prime Minister launched the AI Opportunities Action Plan – taking forward 50 recommendations which will mainline the technology into all sectors of the economy.  

To accelerate AI’s rollout even further, Imperial College London has today announced it will partner with the World Economic Forum to deliver a Centre for AI Driven Innovation based in the UK. This dedicated centre will cement the UK’s global position as a leader in the technology, driving innovation by unlocking AI’s potential to transform economies across various sectors. The Centre will join the World Economic Forum’s Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR) Network – a global network of 21 independent centres which bring together public and private sectors to maximise technological benefits while minimising risks.

The UK government will work with both organisations to co-design the Centre’s activities in alignment with the government’s ambitions to harness AI to deliver a new era of growth and opportunity.

Hugh Brady, President, Imperial College London said:

This is a pivotal moment for UK innovation where the power and creativity of our science and technology can drive economic growth. This new Centre for AI Driven Innovation will unlock AI’s potential to transform existing industries.

Anchored in the World Economic Forum global network of Centres for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the new Centre hosted by Imperial creates a powerful multi-stakeholder platform from research through to scalable real-world innovation and adoption.

Børge Brende, President and CEO of World Economic Forum said:

We are excited to collaborate with Imperial College London and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to launch the Centre for AI Driven Innovation, the first UK-based centre in the World Economic Forum’s global Network of Centres for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

This milestone comes at a pivotal moment, as AI emerges as a powerful catalyst for prosperity and accelerated transformation across all sectors of the economy. The Centre will play a key role in helping the UK shape the global AI innovation agenda, providing a unique platform for collaboration with one of the world’s largest multistakeholder communities of AI experts.

The announcements come as the Technology Secretary prepares to deliver his keynote address to London Tech Week later today, where his speech will set out the range of actions the government is taking to harness technology to boost growth, improve public services, and unlock new opportunities for communities across the UK.

Further commentary welcoming today’s announcements:

Professor Charlotte Deane of the University of Oxford said:

OpenBind realises a major gear-shift for AI in drug discovery by investing in the data that powers it.

This funding will mean we can begin generating a catalogue that not only dwarfs in quantity everything messily accumulated over half a century, but transcends it in quality and is geared towards powering the AI algorithms.

Professor Frank von Delft of Diamond Light Source and the University of Oxford said:

OpenBind is unique double opportunity: whereas to date we experimental scientists have generated data as a byproduct of answering our scientific questions, now we combine forces with AI scientists and produce the data their AIs actually need. And to do so, we will align several very different types of experiments, harnessing recent dramatic advances, including those we’ve achieved at Diamond.

As this accelerates drug design, we will gain currently unthinkable ways to dissect how diseases work and what to do about them.

Robin Roehm, CEO and co-founder of Apheris said:

The utility of AI models in predicting protein-small molecule structure and affinity pairs hinges on the quality and scale of training data.

The life sciences sector urgently needs more comprehensive data, and collaborative networks like the AI Structural Biology Consortium where multiple Pharmas jointly collaborate are an example of this. OpenBind has the potential to transform small molecule drug discovery by developing datasets that are orders of magnitude larger than what is currently available.

Karmen Čondić-Jurkić, Executive Director and Co-Founder, Open Molecular Software Foundation (OMSF) said:

OMSF is excited to participate in OpenBind and contribute to building open datasets and infrastructure that will power the next generation of ML/AI models for drug discovery. Expanding high-quality public datasets is essential for advancing molecular science, both for training and validating new computational approaches.

We believe this collaboration is an opportunity to bring experimental and computational researchers closer together, accelerating innovation across the field.

Mohammed AlQuraishi, Founder, OpenFold; Professor, Departments of Systems Biology and Computer Science, Columbia University, said:

The task of predicting structures of molecules bound to proteins is challenged by a severe paucity of data, crucial for training data-hungry machine learning models such as OpenFold3.

The OpenBind project is poised to transform this dynamic, first by providing significant amounts of new and diverse structural data to fuel machine learning, and second by working synergistically with OpenFold to focus data acquisition on molecules and proteins with the greatest potential for improving the accuracy of predictive models.

David Rees PhD FMedSci, FRSC, Chief Scientific Officer, Astex Pharmaceuticals, Cambridge, UK.

As a pioneer in fragment-based drug discovery, Astex is excited to be involved in this new initiative to build a unique database that will help the UK to remain at the forefront of developments in this field.

Training AI models with experimentally determined protein-ligand crystal structure data can significantly accelerate the drug discovery process and deliver new medicines more efficiently.

Dr Ed Griffen, Technical Director at MedChemica said:

At MedChemica we apply chemistry machine learning at scale and speed to design and analyse large data sets to give exploitable knowledge.

One of the critical areas of weakness in drug discovery is relating how protein-drug structures are related to how strongly a possible drug binds to that protein structure. The goal of OpenBind is to gather and analyse enough of the right data so that machine learning can make useful predictions. With better predictions we can run drug hunting projects faster and cheaper, bringing new therapies to the clinic more quickly.

OpenBind is a keystone in the bridge from basic science to new ways of treating the diseases and conditions that afflict patients world wide. OpenBind’s scale is globally strategic and leading beyond what is being done anywhere else. MedChemica is delighted and proud to be able to contribute to this endeavour.

Joshua Meier, Co-founder and CEO, Chai Discovery, said:

The UK’s OpenBind initiative provides the rich, open data frontier our AI models need to design better medicines faster, and we’re excited to contribute our open state-of-the-art structure prediction technology to this national effort.

Notes to editors

OpenBind will create the largest open dataset of experimentally validated drug–protein interactions in history. By addressing a long-standing gap in pharmaceutical R&D: the lack of high-quality, large-scale datasets linking small molecules to the proteins they bind. These datasets are essential for training high quality AI models for early-stage drug design.

OpenBind will deploy automated chemistry and high-throughput X-ray crystallography to eventually generate more than 500,000 protein – ligand complex structures and affinity measurements over 5 years. This would represent a 20-fold increase over all public data produced in the last half-century – filling a critical gap in the data ecosystem that has slowed the development and evaluation of modern generative models.

OpenBind provides a foundational dataset that will underpin progress across multiple areas of technology – including structure prediction, generative molecular design, docking, and active learning workflows. It is designed to work in synergy with other emerging approaches to help reduce trial-and-error experimentation, inform candidate selection, and support more systematic exploration of chemical space.

OpenBind’s senior consortium principal investigators are:

Professor Frank von Delft (Diamond Light Source and University of Oxford)

Professor Charlotte Deane (University of Oxford)

Dr John Chodera (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre)

Dr Mark Murcko (MIT and Disruptive Biomedical LLC)

Professor Mohammed AlQuraishi (Columbia University)

Professor David Baker (University of Washington)

Dr Ed Griffen (MedChemica Limited)

Professor Paul Brennan (University of Oxford)

Professor Sir David Stuart (Diamond Light Source)

Dr Martin Walsh (Diamond Light Source)

About Diamond Light Source

Diamond Light Source provides industrial and academic user communities with access to state-of-the-art analytical tools to enable world-changing science. Shaped like a huge ring, it accelerates electrons to near light speeds, producing a light 10 billion times brighter than the sun, which is then directed off into 35 laboratories known as beamlines. In addition to these, Diamond offers access to several integrated laboratories including the world-class Electron Bio-imaging Centre (eBIC) and the Electron Physical Science Imaging Centre (ePSIC).    

Diamond serves as an agent of change, addressing 21st century challenges such as disease, clean energy, food security and more. Since operations started, more than 16,000 researchers from both academia and industry have used Diamond to conduct experiments, with the support of approximately 800 world-class staff. More than 14,000 scientific articles have been published by our users and scientists.    

Funded by the UK government through the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), and by the Wellcome Trust, Diamond is one of the most advanced scientific facilities in the world, and its pioneering capabilities are helping to keep the UK at the forefront of scientific research.    

Diamond was set-up as an independent not for profit company through a joint venture, between the UKRI’s Science and Technology Facilities Council and one of the world’s largest biomedical charities, the Wellcome Trust – each respectively owning 86% and 14% of the shareholding.    

DSIT media enquiries

Email press@dsit.gov.uk

Monday to Friday, 8:30am to 6pm 020 7215 3000

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Published 9 June 2025
MIL OSI United Kingdom –
June 10, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: VIDEO: Rep. Pressley Condemns Trump’s Authoritarian Assault on Harvard, Nonprofits

Source: United States House of Representatives – Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07)

Trump Admin. Weaponizing Tax Laws to Silence Dissent, Attack Nonprofits Providing Essential Services to Vulnerable People

“This is about Trump and Republicans punishing people who disagree with them. It is about attacking nonprofits of all sizes that serve the vulnerable and marginalized and stand in the gap for our communities. It’s about trying to intimidate every charity and nonprofit in this country and spark a fear that if you speak up – if you do something the Republicans don’t like – you could be next.”

Video (YouTube)

WASHINGTON – Today, in a House Oversight Subcommittee hearing, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07) condemned Donald Trump’s targeted, authoritarian assault on nonprofit organizations it disagrees with. Congresswoman Pressley discussed the Trump Administration’s efforts to revoke the tax-exempt status of Harvard University as part of Republicans’ broader campaign to punish dissent and attack organizations that serve vulnerable communities.

A full transcript of the Congresswoman’s remarks is below and the video is available here.

Transcript: Pressley Condemns Trump’s Authoritarian Assault on Harvard, Nonprofits

House Oversight DOGE Subcommittee

June 4, 2025

REP. PRESSLEY: Thank you to our witnesses for being here today.

What we are witnessing from Occupant Trump, his Administration, and Republicans writ-large is not governance – it is a targeted, dangerous assault on the independence of our nonprofit organizations.

We’ve seen these attacks take many forms, perhaps most visibly in my own district – the Massachusetts 7th – as the administration continues its unlawful campaign against Harvard University. Trump has threatened to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status, freeze billions in federal funding for scientific research to save lives, might I add, and publicly vilify students and faculty – all part and parcel of his attacks on education.

But let me make it plain: this isn’t just about Harvard and it’s definitely not about government efficiency – the name of this subcommittee.

This is about Trump and Republicans punishing people who disagree with them.

It is about attacking nonprofits of all sizes that serve the vulnerable and marginalized and stand in the gap for our communities.

It’s about trying to intimidate every charity and nonprofit in this country and spark a fear that if you speak up – if you do something the Republicans don’t like – you could be next.

A hospital that provides abortion care. A local food pantry that feeds immigrants. Or an advocacy group that fights for civil rights.

Donald Trump is weaponizing our tax laws to attack nonprofits at the same time he is pushing for tax cuts for Elon Musk and billionaires.

Ms. Yentel, can the President or Executive Branch legally revoke a nonprofit’s tax-exempt status simply because it disagrees with that organization’s lawful speech or mission?

DIANE YENTEL: They can’t. The statute is very clear that that is illegal.

REP. PRESSLEY: Thank you. Republicans think the answer is yes, but that would mean every nonprofit in America is just one tweet away from being targeted by the federal government.

I am proud that in the Massachusetts 7th, community-based organizations are speaking up and fighting back against Republican attacks. And I know they are doing it at risk of serious threat.

Ms. Yentel, can you make plain what are the consequences to charities and nonprofits losing tax-exempt status?

MS. YENTEL: Well, tax exempt status is given to nonprofit organizations that do essential work to meet needs in their local communities, in exchange for significant transparency and accountability. And if nonprofit organizations lose their tax exempt status, it could create significant challenges for them to be able to do their work related to how and where they get their funding, and it could cause them to have to shut down their work altogether.

REP. PRESSLEY: Their work which is to the betterment of us all, which is to the collective, our shared constituents.

MS. YENTEL: Yes.

REP. PRESSLEY: Very good. Let’s put this in perspective:

Trump is firing government workers that administer programs like Head Start and Social Security while also attacking non-profits that provide resources and supports to vulnerable populations.

Trump and his Republican cult do not care about helping people who are struggling. Instead, they want to make them suffer more.

Now, before I yield back, let me ask the Republican witnesses: if you all think Trump is right for revoking tax-exempt status for nonprofits for their political views, raise your hand then if you think the Heritage Foundation – who wrote Project 2025 – should also lose their tax-exempt status?

Show of hands, by the logic that is being applied.

MR. WALTER: I’m not aware of any nonprofit that’s had its status revoked.

REP. PRESSLEY: Again, the question that I’m posing is, would you please raise your hand if you think the Heritage Foundation who wrote Project 2025 should also lose their tax exempt status?

Show of hands.

MR. WALTER: It’s a perfectly a reasonable speech by a nonprofit.

REP. PRESSLEY: So none of you, so none of you, none of you.

The shame and the sham of it all.

Before I yield back, Ms. Yentel, I know that you have been harangued intensely throughout today’s proceedings. Is there anything that you would like to set the record straight on or respond to in my remaining time?

MS. YENTEL: Thank you, Congresswoman. I would like to use the remaining time to remind us all and every member of this committee of the vital, essential work that nonprofit organizations do in each of your communities, for your constituents, and the work that we do to support them in that work. Nonprofit organizations are local. They are transparent and accountable. They are non-partisan, by law and in practice, and they do essential work to meet the needs of all of your communities and all Americans. Thank you.

REP. PRESSLEY: Thank you. I yield back.

###

MIL OSI USA News –

June 10, 2025
MIL-Evening Report: Some economists have called for a radical ‘global wealth tax’ on billionaires. How would that work?

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Venkat Narayanan, Senior Lecturer – Accounting and Tax, RMIT University

Rudy Balasko/Shutterstock

Earlier this year, I attended a housing conference in Sydney. The event’s opening address centred on the way Australia seems to be becoming like 18th-century England – a country where inheritance largely determines one’s opportunities in life.

There has been a lot of media coverage of economic inequities in Australian society. Our tax system has been partly blamed for this problem. The case for long-term, visionary tax reform has never been stronger. And one area of tax reform could be a wealth tax.

First, let’s be clear about one thing. Unlike the superannuation tax reforms currently being debated for those with more than A$3 million in superannuation, the wealth tax we’re talking about would apply to a very different cohort: billionaires.

A recent article in the Financial Times re-examined a proposal to impose such a tax on the world’s highest-net-worth individuals. It also pointed out these efforts would need to be globally coordinated.

Such taxes could collect significant sums of money for governments. It’s previously been estimated a billionaire tax could raise US$250 billion (more than A$380 billion) globally if just 2% of the net worth of the world’s billionaires was taxed each year.

The case for a wealth tax

Inequality is on the rise and the argument for a wealth tax can’t be ignored – not least here at home. According to the Australia Institute, the wealth of Australia’s richest 200 people has soared as a percentage of our national gross domestic product (GDP) – from 8.4% in 2004 to 23.7% in 2024.

If that sounds dramatic, the picture is far worse in the United States. So, what would a wealth tax look like in Australia (noting that in reality a globally coordinated effort would be needed)?

The starting point for this is understanding of why high-net-worth individuals seemingly pay very low taxes.

High net worth, low tax rate

Income taxes only take into account any amounts that are received in the hands of the taxpayer – whether that is a company, a person or a trust.

Most high-net-worth individuals do not receive much income directly but “store” their wealth in companies and other corporate structures.

In Australia, the maximum applicable tax rate for companies is 30%. Note that the highest tax rate in Australia for individuals is 45% plus the 2% medicare levy, effectively 47%.

Assets such as real estate may also be held by companies or trusts, and the increase in value of these assets is not taxed until they are sold (through capital gains tax).

Even then, those gains may not be paid out directly to the high-net-worth individual who owns these entities.

Unrealised gains

So, how do we tax wealth that is sitting in various businesses (company structures) or other entities, but isn’t taxed at present because the “income” or “gains” from these are not taxable in the hands of the wealthy individuals who own them?

This goes into the murky area of taxation of unrealised gains. Here, we need to tread very carefully. But we also need to recognise that we already do this, albeit rather subtly, and most of us are not billionaires.

In your rates notice from your local council, for example, the increase in value of your residence or investment property is used to calculate your rates.

The real difficulty, to carry on with this example, is that your residence or investment property is typically held in your name and so the tax can be directly levied on you.

A luxury residence in Miami Beach, Florida, owned by Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon. The US is home to the most billionaires of any country in the world.
Felix Mizioznikov/Shutterstock

Making tax unavoidable

As we’ve already explained, the bulk of the assets or net worth of wealthy individuals is not directly attributable to them. Does this mean we should give up altogether?

Not quite. UNSW professor Chris Evans has pointed out that while we may not be able to effectively tax all the net worth of the wealthy, there are some things we can tax and they can’t avoid it.

An obvious example is real estate. You can pack your bags and bank accounts and move to a low-tax country, but you can’t move your mansion overlooking Sydney Harbour.

Real estate, both residential and commercial, provides one clear way in which we could implement a partial wealth tax. This method (which also has fewer valuation issues than value stored in a company in the form of retained profits) also counters the argument that the wealthy will simply move to other jurisdictions that won’t tax them.

There is plenty of academic research looking at various wealth tax initiatives in other countries. We should learn from these, including the experience in Switzerland and Sweden.

In Sweden, for instance, research found the behavioural effects of wealth taxation were less pronounced than those of income taxation, but the system had so many loopholes that evasion was an option for some people.

Change faces headwinds

In a very uncertain world that features ongoing wars and an unpredictable US president, any change that seeks to address issues of inequity is going to be met with resistance by those who hold power.

Some billionaires in the US, however, have expressed their support for being taxed more in a letter signed by heirs to the Disney and Rockefeller fortunes. That offers some hope, and suggests the discussion about wealth taxes should not be relegated to the “too hard” basket.

Some steps towards taxing the uber-rich would be better than the status quo.

Venkat Narayanan 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. Some economists have called for a radical ‘global wealth tax’ on billionaires. How would that work? – https://theconversation.com/some-economists-have-called-for-a-radical-global-wealth-tax-on-billionaires-how-would-that-work-257632

MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

June 10, 2025
MIL-Evening Report: Fake news and real cannibalism: a cautionary tale from the Dutch Golden Age

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Garritt C. Van Dyk, Senior Lecturer in History, University of Waikato

The Corpses of the De Witt Brothers, attributed to Jan de Baen, c. 1672-1675. Rijksmuseum

The Dutch Golden Age, beginning in 1588, is known for the art of Rembrandt, the invention of the microscope, and the spice trade of the Dutch East India Company. It ended a little under a century later in a frenzy of body parts and mob justice.

In 1672, enraged by a fake news campaign, rioters killed the recently ousted head of state Johan de Witt and his brother Cornelis. The mob hung them upside down, removed their organs, ate parts of the corpses, and sold fingers and tongues as souvenirs.

Even in a period characterised by torture and assassination, this grisly act stands out as extreme. But it also stands as a warning from history about what can happen when disinformation is allowed to run rampant.

The attack on Johan and Cornelis de Witt was fuelled by a relentless flood of malicious propaganda and forgeries claiming the brothers were corrupt, immoral elitists who had conspired with enemies of the Dutch Republic.

The anonymous authors of the smear campaigns blamed Johan for war with England and “all the bloodshed, killing and injuring, the crippled and mutilated people, including widows and orphans” that allegedly kept him in power.

According to one pamphlet, the violence was legitimate because the ends justified the means: “Beating to death is not a sin in case it is practised against a tyrant.” The sentiment echoes a quote frequently attributed to Napoleon, recently shared by US President Donald Trump on social media: “He who saves his country does not violate any law.”

‘Fight like hell’

These days, of course, we’ve become accustomed to the dangers fake news (and deepfakes) pose in the promotion of political violence, hate speech, extremism and extrajudicial killings.

In March, for example, historical footage of war crimes in Syria was manipulated by generative AI to appear as current events. Combined with disinformation in chat rooms and on social media, it incited panic and violence.

The effects were magnified in a country with no reliable independent media, where informal news is often the only source of information.

But even in a superpower with an established media culture, similar things happen.
Before the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol in 2021, Trump called on thousands of supporters at a “Save America” rally to “fight like hell” or they were “not going to have a country anymore”.

This was shortly before Congress verified the presidential election result, which Trump alleged was invalid because of voter fraud. Addressing the same crowd, Trump advisor Rudolph Giuliani called for “trial by combat”.

What happened might not have been as extreme as the events in the Netherlands 350 years earlier, but a violent mob fired up on disinformation still shook the foundations of US democracy.

Historical echoes: supporters of Donald Trump march through Washington DC to the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021.
Getty Images

The ‘disaster year’

The deeper forces at work in the US were and still are complex – just as they were in the 17th-century Dutch Republic. What brought it down was a volatile mix of power struggles, geopolitical rivalries and oligarchy.

William of Orange had been excluded from the office of stadtholder, the hereditary head of state, by a secret treaty with England under Oliver Cromwell to end the First Anglo-Dutch War.

When the English monarchy was restored, however, the treaty became invalid and the Orangists attempted to reinstate William. Johan De Witt represented the States Party, made up of wealthy oligarchs, whereas William was seen as a man of the people.

The republic had built an impressive navy and merchant fleet but neglected its army. A land invasion by France and allies was supported by the English navy. To prevent the invasion from advancing, land was flooded by opening gates and canals.

The combination of floods and an occupying army threw the economy into chaos. The Orangists wouldn’t cooperate with the States Party, and the republic was on the brink of collapse. The Dutch referred to 1672 as the Rampjaar, the “disaster year”.

Historical rhymes

Satirists, pamphleteers and activists seized on the crises as an opportunity to ramp up their campaign against the de Witt brothers. Political opposition turned into personal attacks, false accusations and calls for violence.

Johan was assaulted and stabbed in an attempted assassination in June 1672, resigning from his role as head of state two months later. Cornelis was then arrested for treason. When Johan went to visit him in prison, the guards and soldiers disappeared, and a conveniently positioned mob dragged the brothers into the street.

The rest, as they say, is history. William III was strongly suspected of orchestrating the brothers’ gruesome murder, but this was never confirmed.

Is there is a moral to the story? Perhaps it is simply that, in a time of crisis, a campaign of disinformation can transform political opposition and rebellion into assassination – and worse.

Pamphlets – the social media of their day – manipulated public perception and amplified popular anxiety into murderous rage. A golden age of prosperity under a republic headed by oligarchs ended with ritualised political violence and the return of a monarch who promised to keep the people safe.

They say history doesn’t repeat, but it does rhyme. As ever, the need to separate fact from fiction remains an urgent task.

Garritt C. Van Dyk has been a recipient of Getty Research Institute funding.

– ref. Fake news and real cannibalism: a cautionary tale from the Dutch Golden Age – https://theconversation.com/fake-news-and-real-cannibalism-a-cautionary-tale-from-the-dutch-golden-age-257104

MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

June 10, 2025
MIL-Evening Report: The Racial Discrimination Act at 50: the bumpy, years-long journey to Australia’s first human rights laws
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Azadeh Dastyari, Director, Research and Policy, Whitlam Institute, Western Sydney University

On June 11, Australia marks 50 years since the Racial Discrimination Act became law. This important legislation helps make sure people are treated equally no matter their race, skin colour, background, or where they come from.

But the act didn’t happen overnight. It took nearly ten years for Australia to follow through on the promises it made to the world to fight racism when it signed the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in 1966.

When Australia first signed that agreement, it still had laws and attitudes shaped by the White Australia Policy.

Even after Australia started moving away from the White Australia Policy, federal leaders held off on making anti-racism laws. They weren’t sure it was allowed under the Constitution, worried about the cost, and didn’t want to upset the states. Many also feared that Australians wouldn’t support it.

It took the courage of Gough Whitlam, Australia’s 21st prime minister, to pass Australia’s first anti-discrimination law. Between 1973 and 1975, Whitlam and his government made four attempts to pass laws against racial discrimination. The act was the result of their fourth try – this time, it worked.

An uphill battle

The first time the Racial Discrimination Bill was introduced was in 1973, it was alongside a Human Rights Bill. Together, they were part of a bigger plan to give people in Australia more rights and fair treatment.

People had mixed feelings about the idea of a law to protect individual rights. Most of the concern was about the Human Rights Bill, but some also doubted whether a Racial Discrimination Act was needed.

There was debate about whether it would really work or just be a symbolic step, and whether or not it would take away from people’s freedoms.

In the end, the 1973 bill lapsed and did not become law.

The Whitlam government reintroduced the bill twice more in 1974, once in April and then again in October.

The April version added protections for immigrants and focused more on conciliation and education, but it wasn’t debated before an election.

The bill returned in October with minor updates, mainly to strengthen education efforts and clarify that it used civil, not criminal, enforcement.

Still, it was withdrawn in early 1975 because of ongoing political instability.

The 1975 Racial Discrimination Bill was the Whitlam government’s final, and successful, push to make laws tackling racism.

Familiar debates

Labor MPs backed the 1975 version of the bill, highlighting its importance for Indigenous people and other marginalised groups.

But the Liberal–Country Party Coalition, then in opposition, pushed back hard.

While the opposition claimed to support equality, they questioned the legal basis of the bill, feared it gave too much power to the race relations commissioner and warned it might threaten free speech.

Some opposition voices, especially in the Senate, went further, downplaying racism altogether. Senator Ian Wood claimed Australia was “singularly free of racial discrimination”.

Senator Glen Sheil argued immigration was the issue:

Australia over recent years has adopted an immigration policy that has allowed the immigration into this country of blacks, whites, reds, yellows and browns […] because of these problems, once again created by governments, we are now faced with this Racial Discrimination Bill. In my opinion if this bill is implemented it will create more discrimination, not less.

The opposition successfully weakened the bill by removing several key parts, including:
- criminal penalties for inciting racial discrimination
- the ability of the commissioner to start legal proceedings in court or ask a court to make someone give evidence
- and criminal penalties for publishing, distributing or expressing racial hostility.
Despite these setbacks, the Racial Discrimination Act passed.

Change takes time

Even with all the compromises, the passing of the act was a major moment in Australian history.

As Whitlam acknowledged:

it is of course extraordinarily difficult to define racial discrimination and outlaw it by legislative means. Social attitudes and mental habits do not readily lend themselves to codification and statutory prohibition.

The act has not erased racial discrimination, nor is it perfect.

It continues to spark debates and needs to be further strengthened to meet the changing needs of our society.

However, the laws have been used in real cases to protect people’s rights, shown the federal government does have the power under the Constitution to make laws about human rights, and has sent a strong message that everyone deserves to be safe and free from discrimination, regardless of their race, colour or national or ethnic origin.

The story of the Racial Discrimination Act is a reminder that real change takes time, resolve and tenacity.

While the laws finally passed, the Human Rights Bill introduced alongside it in 1973 did not.

More than 50 years later, Australia still does not have a national Human Rights Act. As more people call for stronger human rights protections in our laws, the Racial Discrimination Act stands as both a reminder of what progress can look like and a challenge to imagine what bold leadership could achieve today.

A Human Rights Act is now needed more than ever to protect those most at risk. It will take the same political will, moral clarity, and bravery that brought the Racial Discrimination Act to life.

Azadeh Dastyari 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. The Racial Discrimination Act at 50: the bumpy, years-long journey to Australia’s first human rights laws – https://theconversation.com/the-racial-discrimination-act-at-50-the-bumpy-years-long-journey-to-australias-first-human-rights-laws-257245
MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –
June 10, 2025
MIL-Evening Report: For the first time, fossil stomach contents of a sauropod dinosaur reveal what they really ate

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Poropat, Research Associate, School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Curtin University

Artist’s reconstruction of Judy. Travis Tischler

Since the late 19th century, sauropod dinosaurs (long-necks like Brontosaurus and Brachiosaurus) have been almost universally regarded as herbivores, or plant eaters.

However, until recently, no direct evidence – in the form of fossilised gut contents – had been found to support this.

I was one of the palaeontologists on a dinosaur dig in outback Queensland, Australia, that unearthed “Judy”: an exceptional sauropod specimen with the fossilised remains of its last meal in its abdomen.

In a new paper published today in Current Biology, we describe these gut contents while also revealing that Judy is the most complete sauropod, and the first with fossilised skin, ever found in Australia.

Remarkably preserved, Judy helps to shed light on the feeding habits of the largest land-living animals of all time.

Plant-eating land behemoths

Sauropod dinosaurs dominated Earth’s landscapes for the entire 130 million years of the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. Along with many other species, they died out in the mass extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous 66 million years ago.

Ever since the first reasonably complete sauropod skeletons were found in the 1870s, the hypothesis that they were herbivores has rarely been contested. Simply put, it is hard to envisage sauropods eating anything other than plants.

Their relatively simple teeth were not adapted for tearing flesh or crushing bone. Their small brains and ponderous pace would have prevented them from outsmarting or outpacing most potential prey.

And to sustain their huge bodies, sauropods would have had to eat regularly and often, necessitating an abundant and reliable food source – plants.

Although the general body plan of sauropods seems pretty uniform – stocky, on all fours, with long necks – these behemoths did vary when we look more closely.

Some had squared-off snouts with tiny, rapidly replaced teeth confined to the front of the mouth. Others had rounded snouts, with much more robust teeth, arranged in a row that extended farther back in the mouth. Neck length varied greatly (with some necks up to 15 metres long), as did neck flexibility. In addition, a few of them had taller shoulders than hips.

Absolute size varied too – some were less enormous than others. All of these factors would have constrained how high above ground each species could feed and which plants they could reach.

Food in the belly

Sauropod discoveries are becoming more regular in outback Queensland, thanks largely to the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum in Winton.

In 2017, I helped the museum unearth a roughly 95-million-year-old sauropod, nicknamed Judy after the museum’s co-founder Judy Elliott.

We soon realised this find was extraordinary. Besides being the most complete sauropod skeleton and skin ever found in Australia, Judy’s belly region hosted a strange rock layer. It was about two square metres in area and ten centimetres thick on average, chock-full of fossil plants.

The fact this plant-rich layer was confined to Judy’s abdomen and located on the inside surface of the fossil skin, made us wonder – had we unearthed the remains of Judy’s last meal or meals?

If so, we knew we had something special on our hands: the first sauropod gut contents ever found.

Multi-level feeding

Analysis of Judy’s skeleton, which was prepared out of the surrounding rock by volunteers in the museum’s laboratory, enabled us to classify her as a Diamantinasaurus matildae.

We scanned portions of Judy’s gut contents with X-rays at the Australian Synchrotron in Melbourne and at CSIRO in Perth, and with neutrons at Australia’s Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation in Sydney.

This enabled us to digitally visualise the plants – which were preserved as voids within the rock – without destroying them.

We did destructively sample some small portions of the gut contents to figure out their chemical make-up, along with the skin and surrounding rock.

This revealed the gut contents were turned to stone by microbes in an acidic environment (stomach juices, perhaps), with minerals likely derived from the decomposition of Judy’s own body tissues.

Judy’s gut contents confirm that sauropods ate their greens but barely chewed them – their gut flora did most of the digestive work.

Most importantly, we can tell Judy ate bracts from conifers (relatives of modern monkey puzzle trees and redwoods), seed pods from extinct seed ferns, and leaves from angiosperms (flowering plants) just before she died.

Conifers then, as now, would have been huge, implying Judy fed well above ground level. By contrast, flowering plants were mostly low-growing in the mid-Cretaceous.

Based on other specimens (especially teeth), scientists previously thought Diamantinasaurus browsed plants relatively high off the ground. The conifer bracts in Judy’s belly support this.

However, Judy was not fully grown when she died, and the angiosperms in her belly imply lower-level feeding, as well. It seems likely, then, that the diets of some sauropods changed slightly as they grew. Nevertheless, they were life-long vegetarians.

Judy’s skin and gut contents are now on display at the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum in Winton. I’m not sure how I’d feel about having the remains of my last meal publicly exhibited for all to see posthumously, but if it helped the cause of science, I think I’d be OK with it.

Stephen Poropat receives funding from the Australian Research Council through an ARC Laureate awarded to Prof. Kliti Grice, “Interpreting the molecular record in extraordinarily preserved fossils”.

– ref. For the first time, fossil stomach contents of a sauropod dinosaur reveal what they really ate – https://theconversation.com/for-the-first-time-fossil-stomach-contents-of-a-sauropod-dinosaur-reveal-what-they-really-ate-258183

MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

June 10, 2025
MIL-Evening Report: As livestock numbers grow, wild animal populations plummet. Giving all creatures a better future will take a major rethink

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clive Phillips, Adjunct Professor in Animal Welfare, Curtin University

Toa55/Shutterstock

As a teenager in the 1970s, I worked on a typical dairy farm in England. Fifty cows grazed on lush pastures for most of their long lives, each producing about 12 litres of milk daily. They were loved and cared for by two herdsmen.

About 50 years later, I visited a dairy farm in China. There, 30,000 cows lived indoors. Most of these selectively bred animals wore out after two or three years of producing 30–40 litres of milk every day, after which they were unceremoniously killed. The workers rarely had contact with the cows. Instead, they sat in offices, programming machines which managed them.

This speaks to a huge and very recent shift in how we treat animals. Over the last half century, the human population has soared – and so too our demand for meat, milk and many other animal products. As a result livestock populations have ballooned while living conditions for animals permanently kept inside have drastically worsened.

Even as farmed animals have multiplied, populations of wild animals have crashed. The two trends are deeply connected. Humans convert wildlife habitat into pastures and farms, expanding living space for farm animals at the expense of many other animals.

This cannot continue. Humans must reckon with how we treat the myriad other species on the planet, whether we rely on them or not. As I argue in my new open access book, the growing scarcity of animal species should make us grasp our responsibility towards the welfare of all animal species on the planet, not just those in farms.

Efforts to enshrine rights for animals is not enough. The focus has to be on our responsibilities to them, ensuring they lead good lives if in our care – or are left well alone if they are not.

Should we care?

In the last 50 years, two-thirds of all wild animal populations have been lost.

The main cause is habitat loss, as native forest is felled to grow grass for cattle or corn and soya for livestock.

By weight, the world’s farm animals and humans now dwarf the remaining wild animals. Farm animals weigh 630 million tonnes and humans 390 million tonnes, while wild land mammals now weigh just 20 million tonnes and marine mammals 40 million tonnes.

Wildlife numbers have fallen off a cliff across many kingdoms of life. Three quarters of flying insects are gone from monitored areas of Western Europe. One in eight bird species is threatened with extinction worldwide.

Insect populations are plunging, endangering the many animal species who rely on them.
David Pineda Svenske/Shutterstock

On animal welfare, philosophers have long argued one of two positions. The first is known as “utilitarianism”. This approach argues for minimising the bad things in the world and maximising the good things, regardless of who benefits from them, humans or other animals. This theory-heavy approach does little to restore our relationship with wild animals because of the difficulties in deciding what is good and bad for animals.

The second has more to recommend it. This is the view that animals have the right to be looked after well. This approach has also been used to give rights to rivers, nature and even the atmosphere.

But this doesn’t recognise the fact that only humans can attribute such rights to animals, who themselves do not have any concept of “rights”. It also doesn’t tackle the issue that most humans would not accord the same rights to a blue whale and an insect.

A better approach might be to recognise our responsibilities to animals, rather than attribute rights to them.

This would acknowledge the increasing rarity of animal species on Earth and the fact that – as far as we know – they’re unique in the universe. So far, no reliable signs have been found indicating life evolved on any other planets.

Earth formed just over 4.5 billion years ago. Some evidence suggests simple animal life began just 400 million years later.

The evolution of complex multicellular life on earth probably only happened once when a single celled organism – one of the ancient archaea, perhaps – engulfed a bacterium without digesting it. Instead, it found something better: putting it to work as an internal energy factory as the first mitochondrion. After that came life’s great flowering.

But now we’re currently losing between 0.01–0.1% of all species each year. If we use an average species loss rate of 0.05% and assuming human pressures remain similar, life on Earth could have only 2,000 years left.

Do we have responsibility to care for something just because it’s rare? Not always. But life is beautiful. We marvel when we are able to connect with wildlife. Other social animals also appear to derive pleasure from such relationships.

If we destroy wild animal life, we could undermine the natural systems humans depend on. Pollinators are essential for orchards, forests protect topsoil and produce clean drinking water and predators prevent herbivore populations from soaring out of control and destroying crops. As wilder areas shrink, the chance of another animal virus spillover into humans increases.

The habitat available for many wild animals has shrunk rapidly in recent decades.
MohdFadhli_83/Shutterstock

From small scale to industrial

For almost all of human history, livestock herds were small enough that people could build relationships with the animals they depended on.

But in only a couple of human generations, we’ve turned farm animal production into a factory process with billions of animals.

For centuries, farm animals were walked to market. That, too, has changed. In 2005, I was undertaking research on a livestock ship alongside 80,000 sheep being transported from Australia to the Middle East. Hundreds of sheep die from the stress of these journeys, while many survivors arrive exhausted and terrified.

These changes have made it possible for humans all around the globe to eat meat or dairy products at every meal. But it has come at a real cost to livestock and wild animals.

Correcting this will not be easy. We have to learn to eat fewer animals or preferably none at all, restore habitat for wildlife and curb our consumption of the world’s natural resources.

It’s not too late to restore animal habitat. Rewilding efforts are drawing back long-missing wild animals. There are hopeful signs for farm animal welfare too. The live export of Australian sheep will end in 2028. Battery cage production of eggs is dying out.

These are big issues. But to paraphrase a quote reputedly by Confucius:

The man who asks big questions is a fool for a minute. The man who does not ask, is a fool for life.

Clive Phillips has received funding from several not-for-profit groups, including Voiceless and AnimalKind, to help make this book open access. He has previously had funding from several government and livestock industry organisations, as well as the World Organisation for Animal Health and Open Philanthropy. He was, until recently, a director of Humane Society International and chair of the Queensland and Western Australia government animal welfare boards. He is editor of the animal welfare book series of Springer Nature and another book series, Letters in Animal Welfare and Ethics for CABI, as well as editor-in-chief of the journals Animals, and Animal Behaviour and Welfare Cases.

– ref. As livestock numbers grow, wild animal populations plummet. Giving all creatures a better future will take a major rethink – https://theconversation.com/as-livestock-numbers-grow-wild-animal-populations-plummet-giving-all-creatures-a-better-future-will-take-a-major-rethink-256891

MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

June 10, 2025
MIL-OSI Global: Ultra-processed foods are everywhere — and they’re quietly raising health risks

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

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

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

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

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

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

How UPFs harm health

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

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

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

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

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

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

Substituting UPFs for healthy foods

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Setting reduction targets

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

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

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

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

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

Angelina Baric does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

June 10, 2025
MIL-OSI: Canadian Nuclear Laboratories and the University of Ottawa Accelerate Low Dose Radiation Research and Foster Next Generation of Scientists

Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

CHALK RIVER, Ontario, June 09, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL), Canada’s premier nuclear science and technology organization, and the University of Ottawa (uOttawa), one of Canada’s most innovative universities, are pleased to announce a new partnership to advance knowledge, education, research and innovation in low dose radiation (LDR) exposure health effects.

Leveraging the leading research organizations’ complementary capabilities, the new partnership builds on CNL’s global leadership in LDR research with the establishment of a CNL-led LDR innovation hub, accelerating research critical to public safety and the health of Canadians. It will also serve to increase capabilities, education and training opportunities to graduate students and early career researchers.

The partnership will also extend uOttawa researchers’ access to Atomic Energy of Canada Limited’s world class facilities at Chalk River Laboratories, including the unique Biological Research Facility, associated irradiation facilities and LDR Tissue Bank, and establishes a CNL satellite laboratory within uOttawa’s new Advanced Medical Research Centre (AMRC) – set to open in 2026. This physical presence will be co-located with the Ottawa Institute of Systems Biology (OISB) as well as uOttawa state-of-the-art Core Facilities, which altogether will support new research directions in radiation sciences and advanced organoid-based systems biology. These areas are rapidly developing strengths at uOttawa, positioning the university as a national, and potentially international, leader in this field. uOttawa will also offer reciprocal access to key research facilities on campus, in addition to those located at the faculty of medicine and in AMRC.

“As a major player in the global research and development effort to support LDR research, CNL is focused on the prevention or reduction of radiation exposure effects in workers, patients and the larger population,” says Dr. Stephen Bushby, Vice-President, Science & Technology, CNL. “We are very excited to include uOttawa as a major partner in the work needed to shed light on this complex field of research.”

As part of this partnership, CNL will be contributing towards the acquisition of a mass spectrometer, which will be installed in the in the Metabolomics Core Facility at uOttawa. This strategic investment, supporting collaborative initiatives between OISB and CNL, will enable leading-edge single-cell metabolomics and spatial metabolomics, a rapidly advancing field with transformative potential in biomedical research. This will be the only equipment of its kind in eastern Canada, offering unique capabilities for high-resolution chemical imaging at the cellular level. The instrument will not only serve researchers at uOttawa, but also attract national and international collaborators, firmly establishing uOttawa as a leader in metabolomics and precision health research.

The mass spectrometer will be a central component of the new Spatial Biology and Single-Cell Suite (3S) within the AMRC. This cutting-edge suite will integrate transformative new technologies into a coordinated workflow that complements and enhances five existing and intensively used Core Facilities: Flow Cytometry, Metabolomics, Gene Editing, Cellular Imaging, and Bioinformatics. By bridging these platforms, 3S will significantly expand research capabilities in some of uOttawa’s strongest areas of discovery, particularly brain, heart, and cancer biology—driving breakthroughs in systems biology, precision medicine, and therapeutic development.

“This new equipment, the only one of its kind in Eastern Canada, positions the University of Ottawa as a leader in metabolomics and precision health research, while attracting national and international collaborations,” says Julie St-Pierre, Interim Vice-President, Research and Innovation, uOttawa.

This new partnership builds on over a decade of collaborative research involving CNL and multiple uOttawa faculties, including Engineering, Science and Medicine. These collaborations have advanced understanding of the biomedical impacts of LDR, including studies on DNA damage and repair, protein synthesis, epigenetics, mitochondrial biology, metabolism, immunity, and stem cell functions. As part of this partnership, CNL has also provided funding support for postdoctoral fellow stipends, further enabling high-impact research and talent development.

With the field of LDR research growing and Canadian leadership in LDR research well-recognized, both organizations will continue to explore additional opportunities to further strengthen this partnership.

About CNL

As Canada’s premier nuclear science and technology laboratory and working under the direction of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), CNL is a world leader in the development of innovative nuclear science and technology products and services. Guided by an ambitious corporate strategy known as Vision 2030, CNL fulfills three strategic priorities of national importance – restoring and protecting the environment, advancing clean energy technologies, and contributing to the health of Canadians.

By leveraging the assets owned by AECL, CNL also serves as the nexus between government, the nuclear industry, the broader private sector and the academic community. CNL works in collaboration with these sectors to advance innovative Canadian products and services towards real-world use, including carbon-free energy, cancer treatments and other therapies, non-proliferation technologies and waste management solutions.

To learn more about CNL, please visit www.cnl.ca.

About the University of Ottawa

The University of Ottawa is powered by research. Located in Canada’s capital, we bring together energetic and creative scholars to tackle urgent global challenges and to respond to emerging opportunities.

As one of Canada’s most innovative universities, we generate breakthroughs and discoveries that make a real difference in communities across Ontario, Canada and the world. Our thought leaders provide evidence-based insights that inform policy and support industry.

Our influence keeps growing due to our vast range of international partnerships, including our membership in the U7+ Alliance. As the world’s largest French-English university, we are a driving force in the Francophonie.

To learn more about uOttawa, please visit www.uottawa.ca.

CNL Contact:
Philip Kompass
Director, Corporate Communications
1-866-886-2325
media@cnl.ca

uOttawa contact:
media@uottawa.ca

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/8c4cd1c0-401a-44e6-83ce-e65ea78dc6b4

The MIL Network –

June 10, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: Comet-Catching NASA Technology Enables Exotic Works of Art

Source: NASA

Consisting of 99% air, aerogel is the world’s lightest solid. This unique material has found purpose in several forms — from NASA missions to high fashion.
Driven by the desire to create a 3D cloud, Greek artist, Ioannis Michaloudis, learned to use aerogel as an artistic medium. His journey spanning more than 25 years took him to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge; Shivaji University in Maharashtra, India, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
A researcher at MIT introduced Michaloudis to aerogel after hearing of his cloud-making ambition, and he was immediately intrigued. Aerogel is made by combining a polymer with a solvent to create a gel and flash-drying it under pressure, leaving a solid filled with microscopic pores.
Scientists at JPL chose aerogel in the mid-1990s to enable the Stardust mission, with the idea that a porous surface could capture particles while flying on a probe behind a comet. Aerogel worked in lab tests, but it was difficult to manufacture consistently and needed to be made space-worthy. NASA JPL hired materials scientist Steve Jones to develop a flight-ready aerogel, and he eventually got funding for an aerogel lab.

The Stardust mission succeeded, and when Michaloudis heard of it, he reached out to JPL, where Jones invited him to the lab. Now retired, Jones recalled, “I went through the primer on aerogel with him, the different kinds you could make and their different properties.” The size of Jones’ reactor, enabling it to make large objects, impressed Michaloudis. With tips on how to safely operate a large reactor, he outfitted his own lab with one.
In India, Michaloudis learned recipes for aerogels that can be molded into large objects and don’t crack or shrink during drying. His continued work with aerogels has created an extensive art portfolio.
Michaloudis has had more than a dozen solo exhibitions. All his artwork involves aerogel, drawing attention with its unusual qualities. An ethereal, translucent blue, it casts an orange shadow and can withstand molten metals. In 2020, Michaloudis created a quartz-encapsulated aerogel pendant for the centerpiece of that year’s collection from French jewelry house Boucheron. Michaloudis also captured the fashion and design world’s attention with a handbag made of aerogel, unveiled at Coperni’s 2024 fall collection debut.
NASA was a crucial step along the way. “I am what I am, and we made what we made thanks to the Stardust project,” said Michaloudis.

MIL OSI USA News –

June 10, 2025
MIL-OSI Canada: New partnership will help detect, monitor wildfires in B.C.
Source: Government of Canada regional news

A camera network that gives first responders information to support wildfire response, emergency management and public awareness is being expanded through a partnership between the Province and the University of British Columbia Okanagan campus (UBCO).

“With this technology, we’re making strides in protecting communities from wildfires by predicting them before they happen. And better predicting them means keeping more families safe,” said Ravi Parmar, Minister of Forests. “I’m proud to work with UBCO and use its research to protect our communities from the threat of wildfire.”

After a successful trial in 2024, the Province is investing $200,000 to expand the camera network throughout British Columbia. Early detection of wildfire plays a crucial role in reducing risks, lowering suppression costs and protecting communities. Using 5G technology, the cameras detect smoke from wildfires and provide real-time data to support evacuation planning, resource deployment and wildfire behaviour predictions.

“As our climate changes, it’s important to manage and reduce risks to keep people safe,” said Kelly Greene, Minister of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness. “Taking steps to prevent disasters, such as the early detection of wildfires, can be life-saving and helps protect communities, homes, critical infrastructure and our forests.”

Data captured by the network is analyzed using artificial intelligence at UBCO and provides information to first responders to support wildfire response, emergency management and public awareness.

Communities, local governments or First Nations interested in becoming involved in the development of the camera network, can contact the BC Wildfire Service (BCWS) for more information: BCWS.CameraNetwork@gov.bc.ca

Quotes:

Lesley Cormack, principal and deputy vice-chancellor, UBC Okanagan –

“As a leading research institution, the University of British Columbia Okanagan is proud to partner with the BC Wildfire Service and the Government of British Columbia to support the people of the province through the provincial wildfire camera network.”

Mathieu Bourbonnais, Irving K. Barber faculty of science, UBC Okanagan –

“The provincial camera network will serve as a vital public-safety platform, helping to build safe and resilient communities, while enhancing wildfire and emergency management across British Columbia.”

Quick Facts:
- The Ministry of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness contributed $50,000 to the BCWS provincial wildfire camera network.
- In 2024, a partnership of Rogers Communications, Pano AI and the BCWS tested smoke-detection cameras in five locations in British Columbia
MIL OSI Canada News –
June 10, 2025
MIL-OSI Security: Alien from Wuhan, China, Charged with Making False Statements and Smuggling Biological Materials into the U.S. for Her Work at a University of Michigan Laboratory

Source: Office of United States Attorneys

DETROIT – Chengxuan HAN, a citizen of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), was arrested and charged in a criminal complaint with smuggling goods into the United States and false statements, announced United States Attorney Jerome F. Gorgon, Jr.

Gorgon was joined in the announcement by Special Agent in Charge Cheyvoryea Gibson, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Detroit Division, Acting Director of Field Operations John Nowak, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Jared Murphey, acting Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Detroit field office.

According to the complaint, Han is a citizen of the PRC who is currently pursuing a Ph.D. from the College of Life Science and Technology in the Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) in Wuhan, PRC. In 2024 and 2025, Han sent four packages to the United States from the PRC containing concealed biological material. These packages were addressed to individuals associated with a laboratory at the University of Michigan. On June 8, 2025, Han arrived at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport on a J1 visa. Customs and Border Protection officers conducted an inspection of Han, during which Han made false statements about the packages and the biological materials she had previously shipped to the United States. CBP officers also found that the content of Han’s electronic device had been deleted three days prior to her arrival in the United States. At the conclusion of the border inspection, Han was interviewed by agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. During this interview, Han admitted to sending the packages, admitted that the packages contained biological material related to round worms, and admitted to making false statements to the CBP officers during her inspection.

Han will be appearing this afternoon in federal court in Detroit.

A complaint is only a charge and is not evidence of guilt. Trial cannot be held on felony charges in a complaint. When the investigation is completed, a determination will be made whether to seek a felony indictment.

United States Attorney Gorgon stated: “The alleged smuggling of biological materials by this alien from a science and technology university in Wuhan, China—to be used at a University of Michigan laboratory—is part of an alarming pattern that threatens our security. The American taxpayer should not be underwriting a PRC-based smuggling operation at one of our crucial public institutions.”

“The guidelines for importing biological materials into the U.S. for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said CBP Acting Director of Field Operations John Nowak. “We will not tolerate the smuggling of regulated biological materials through our ports of entry, and this interdiction is another recent example of our commitment—along with that of our law enforcement partners—to preventing potentially dangerous goods from harming the American people.”

“ICE HSI is proud to work with our partners at the FBI and CBP to keep Americans and Michiganders safe from biological threats,” said ICE HSI Detroit acting Special Agent in Charge Jared Murphey. “This case should serve as a reminder that multiple law enforcement agencies are working around the clock to provide for our shared national security from malicious foreign actors.”

The FBI, CBP and ICE HSI are investigating this case.

MIL Security OSI –

June 10, 2025
MIL-OSI Global: Hedgehog poo could hold important secrets about local biodiversity

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

Jayne Morgan

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

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

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

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

The eDNA method could reveal genetic traces of all organisms present in the samples in a single analysis. And, as we’ll see, these prickly mammals have a surprisingly liberal diet.

Get your news from actual experts, straight to your inbox. Sign up to our daily newsletter to receive all The Conversation UK’s latest coverage of news and research, from politics and business to the arts and sciences.

Due to the loss of natural habitats, hedgehogs are increasingly living in gardens, and this is where the battle to save the hedgehog will take place. My research showed that European hedgehogs in residential areas normally visit ten to 14 gardens a night.

Here, they eat a wide selection of prey, primarily insects, snails, slugs and worms, but also birds’ eggs (from ground-nesting birds – they don’t climb trees). They are scavengers too, and will munch on all sorts of dead animals.

What most people don’t realise is that these adorable little creatures are also ferocious predators. If they can get their paws (or perhaps more correctly, their jaws) on live prey, they will eat chicks that have fallen out of nests or amphibians such as salamanders, newts and frogs. They are excellent swimmers and sometimes catch fish in garden ponds.

I have seen hedgehogs taking on adult pigeons or full-sized chickens, and winning. Hedgehogs also sometimes chew on the faeces of foxes and lick the saliva onto their spines, probably with the purpose of masking their scent against predators.

Prickly, but not picky.
Nojafoto/Shutterstock

We are not sure whether hedgehogs eat fruit and plants intentionally, or if they are actually after the worms or insects living on them – hedgehogs are officially categorised as “insectivores” – but vegetation shows up in the stomachs of dead hedgehogs too. The DNA from plants ingested by the insects, worms and snails eaten by hedgehogs, will also show up in an analysis of hedgehog poo.

In terms of a guide to local biodiversity, hedgehogs are the full package.

Hedgehogs live and forage in a small area. They poop a lot, and their faeces are easy to recognise and collect. If we keep the hedgehog population going, we won’t run out of sample material any time soon.

Before DNA analysis was invented, it was very difficult to determine the diet of a hedgehog, because a slug is reduced to nothing after a trip through its digestive tract, and it’s hard to identify a species from a chewed-off beetle leg. In contrast, it only takes a tiny fragment of a species to show up in an eDNA analysis of hedgehog faeces, so imagine what we could discover.

In these times of drastic biodiversity loss, we need to establish good and reliable methods for monitoring biodiversity. An analysis of a hedgehog poo could even reveal elusive species which may have been categorised as extinct in the area.

My idea of biodiversity monitoring through hedgehog poo has spawned ridicule and numerous rejection letters for funding applications. I refused to let it stop me. So I have created a crowdfunding campaign where you can support the research by purchasing a hedgehog poo and getting a certificate. I have 800 hedgehog faecal samples collected from all over Denmark, England and Scotland, stored in a freezer ready to be analysed.

The work has begun, and my colleagues and I have found some very interesting results already. One is the remarkable scarcity of bird DNA in hedgehog faecal samples collected from islands, where hedgehogs are accused of posing a threat to ground-nesting birds by eating their eggs. We are confident that our method works as we tested it beforehand by feeding quail eggs to hedgehogs, and found lots of bird DNA in the samples.

When I have managed to raise the remaining funds, we will continue the investigation.

This is the story of how I discovered that hedgehog droppings are gold. If you would like to know more, watch my talk on the subject here.

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.

Sophie Lund Rasmussen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Hedgehog poo could hold important secrets about local biodiversity – https://theconversation.com/hedgehog-poo-could-hold-important-secrets-about-local-biodiversity-256644

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

June 10, 2025
MIL-OSI Global: Why wind farm developers are pulling out at the last minute

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Thomas York, Postgraduate Researcher in Human Geography, University of Leicester

ShutterDesigner/Shutterstock

The UK government’s strategy for tackling climate change received a major blow in May when Danish developer Ørsted announced that adverse economic developments had halted its 2.4 gigawatt (GW) Hornsea 4 wind farm in the North Sea.

The government aims to generate at least 43GW of offshore wind power (current capacity is 14.7GW) and 95% of all energy from renewable sources by 2030.

These targets are now in jeopardy. The cancellation of Hornsea 4 follows a similar decision by Swedish developer Vattenfall, which stopped work on its 1.4GW Norfolk Boreas wind farm in 2023.

What is forcing renewable energy developers to pull out when they are due to make their final investment decision?

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The offshore wind industry is exposed to fluctuations in the prices of raw materials necessary to meet rising global demand for renewable energy. This vital part of the energy transition, alongside the phaseout of fossil fuels, has been impeded by inflation caused by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

Building a wind turbine requires significant amounts of steel, copper and aluminium, all of which doubled or tripled in price between 2020 and 2023. Turbine manufacturers have raised prices in an effort to recover recent losses. This affects the profitability forecasts of wind energy developers like Ørsted and the viability of each of their projects.

Impending national and international net zero targets also mean that developers globally are having to make earlier investments in transmission infrastructure. An exponential increase in demand for scarce high-voltage cabling has already led to high-profile cancellations of offshore wind farms in the US.

Electricity network operators are scrambling to update power grids.
Esbobeldijk/Shutterstock

Rising demand for rare earth metals used to make magnets in turbine generators has also been snared by geopolitical issues. The mining, processing and refining of these metals is dominated by China, which manufactures over 90% of these magnets.

A shortage of boats

Developers need boats to build offshore wind farms. Here lies another strain on the timescales of developers.

Ørsted ceased work on its 2.2GW Ocean Wind development zone off the coast of New Jersey in 2023, citing a vessel delay in its decision to cancel the project.

According to the advocacy group WindEurope, demand for vessels capable of installing foundations and turbines and laying cables will outstrip availability within the next five years. The gap between the two is forecast to skyrocket between 2028 and 2030. This will make it harder to commission the wind farms that the UK government is relying on to reach its 43GW target by the end of the decade.

Delays caused by these issues can result in a problem known as “contract erosion”. In their contracts, developers have a commissioning window within which turbines have to start generating. If they are not operational within this time, they lose their subsidies on a day-by-day basis.

Rising costs mean that even one of the world’s biggest wind farms, Dogger Bank in the North Sea, will not be profitable for its developer, Equinor. As a prospect for generating financial returns, renewable energy still cannot compete with oil and gas.

This is the key argument of economic geographer Brett Christophers in his recent book The Price is Wrong. Christophers argues that, if national governments continue to rely so heavily on private sector investment to build renewable energy, decarbonisation is unlikely to proceed as fast as it needs to. It is simply not profitable enough.

Misguided planning reform

How might the UK defy difficult global conditions and meet its 43GW target by 2030? So far, the government’s main proposal has been to relax timelines for the planning process of wind farms.

Earlier in 2025 it opened a consultation on reforms to the contracts for difference process, which is how developers bid for long-term energy generation contracts, prior to an auction round in summer 2025.

The main proposed change was to allow developers of fixed-bottom offshore wind projects to bid in the auction before receiving a development consent order, or a DCO. A DCO defines the approved scope of a development, taking into account environmental surveys, land rights and developer proposals.

It can take more than two years for a DCO to be awarded. The government hopes that fast-tracking fixed-bottom developments will result in more contracts being awarded in the latest auction, but will this work?

The government is aware of the risks. Planning permission could be refused after a contract has been awarded, and projects without consent face even greater uncertainty over costs than developments that already have a DCO.

The government might be able to get more projects into the pipeline, but the supply chain is already stretched to its limits. Through the state-owned investment body GB Energy, the government has pledged £300 million to bolster the domestic supply chain for components required for offshore wind, like platforms and cabling.

However, this investment largely focuses on new technologies for floating offshore wind, leaving fixed-bottom projects like Hornsea 4 at the mercy of vessel delays and raw material price rises. If something does not change to mitigate costs and increase returns for developers, the government’s 2030 target is in doubt.

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.

Thomas York receives funding from the University of Leicester’s Future 50 doctoral training pathway.

– ref. Why wind farm developers are pulling out at the last minute – https://theconversation.com/why-wind-farm-developers-are-pulling-out-at-the-last-minute-256842

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

June 10, 2025
MIL-OSI Global: Edmund White was my friend – I know first-hand why his writing meant so much to queer readers

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Hugh Stevens, Senior Lecturer Department of English Language & Literature, UCL

When I was 19 years old, I visited New York for ten days on the way to London. I was flying from New Zealand, that small island nation in the South Pacific where all sexual acts between men were still illegal. My body was naive and innocent, but my mind had somehow (partly through conversations with older, less naive students at Auckland University) absorbed essential knowledge about gay life happening elsewhere.

Gay life happened in London, in Paris, in San Francisco. But more than anywhere else, it happened in New York. I was terrified. What would happen to me, in those sinful cities of the plain? With any luck I would be corrupted, and thoroughly de-moralised.

It was November 1982, and Manhattan was freezing, especially after sub-tropical Auckland. On my first day, I walked ten or so blocks south from my hostel in Chelsea to Greenwich Village. My knees trembled, but still they carried me towards my goal. The theme tune from Sesame Street went through my mind: “Come and play, everything’s A-OK, friendly neighbours there, that’s where we meet, can you tell me how to get, how to get to Christopher Street?”

It wasn’t difficult – you just walked south on Seventh Avenue. Where Seventh met Christopher, if you turned right, you passed an improbable number of gay bars and seedy bookstores until you reached the infamous, nefarious Christopher Street pier. I turned left. I walked past the Stonewall Inn, and soon I came to a not-so-seedy bookstore, the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop, where Christopher Street met Gay Street. Intrigued by the name – how could I not be? – I went inside.

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I was the only customer in the shop. Behind the counter, piled with books, were a woman, and a man. They started talking to me. The man, Edmund White, told me that he was a writer, and the books were copies of his new novel, A Boy’s Own Story (1982). A real novelist! I looked at the book, at the beautiful boy in a lilac vest on its cover – a new hardback. It was too expensive for me.

Sensing that my hesitation was financial, the woman told me that another book by the author, States of Desire: Travels in Gay America (1980), was much cheaper. By the time I left the shop I had a copy of States of Desire, and two invitations. One to join Ed for tea at the New York Institute for the Humanities, and another to hear him read from a novel-in-progress.

He was billed alongside the painter Joe Brainard, who was reading from his own wonderful book, I Remember (1975). “I remember how much, in high school, I wanted to be handsome and popular. I remember when, in high school, if you wore green and yellow on Thursday it meant that you were queer.”

I remember that Edmund’s voice, reading from his book Caracole (1985), was fluent and mellifluous. But I found his prose much more difficult to follow than Brainard’s poetry. After the reading there was a party, with biscuits, rounds of Brie and grapes. Among these confident Americans I was shy, and I thought the Brie was impossibly sophisticated – I had grown up with New Zealand Tasty Cheddar.

Enchanted worlds

I met Ed at the New York Institute for the Humanities on a cold, grey afternoon, and walked with him to his apartment on Lafayette Street. We chatted as we drank tea. “What authors do you like?” he asked me. “What music do you listen to?” He gave me a copy of A Boy’s Own Story, which he signed: “For Hugh, at the beginning of a friendship.”

This was indeed the beginning of a friendship, although I haven’t seen Ed since 1998. I introduced him when he read from yet another novel, The Farewell Symphony (1997), at the University of York. Ed was extrovert and gregarious, whereas I am introverted, often painfully shy – and not good at keeping in touch.

But over the years I have read and reread Ed’s work. His autobiographical novels, his memoirs, his short stories, his travel writing, his criticism, his biography of the French writer Jean Genet, his utilitarian guide to criminal pleasures, The Joy of Gay Sex (1977).

Why does his writing mean so much to me – and to many other queer readers? Ed may have been confident, gregarious, never afraid to speak or to write about his own queer life, and the queer lives of others. But his writing also charted the anxieties, the anguish, the remorse, the self-loathing that were probably a part of every “gay” life in America in the 50s and 60s. And many gay lives in New Zealand in the 80s, for that matter.

In A Boy’s Own Story the narrator remembers the enchantment of a marionette troupe performing Sleeping Beauty at his third birthday party. The performance transported him to a world in which “evil was defeated and love crowned”, in which “things devolved with the logic of art, not life”. Ed himself was such an enchanter: his art may have imitated life, but it also created magical worlds for his readers, enabling them to defeat evil and to find love.

Our lives can imitate art. His art gives us the thrill of articulating what may not be articulated, of speaking the names that dare not be spoken, as when, on the last page of A Boy’s Own Story, the “boy” (now a remembering man) tells us how “scandalised” he was when Mr Beattie, the teacher he is seducing, “asked me to lick the bright red head, to roll my tongue around the head of his penis”. How scandalised and thrilled I was reading those words.

Now Edmund is gone – he passed away on June 3 age 85 – but his enchanted worlds remain. They are there for us to read, and to reread, to inspire us to remember, remember, remember.

Hugh Stevens 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. Edmund White was my friend – I know first-hand why his writing meant so much to queer readers – https://theconversation.com/edmund-white-was-my-friend-i-know-first-hand-why-his-writing-meant-so-much-to-queer-readers-258504

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

June 10, 2025
MIL-OSI Global: Trump’s use of the national guard against LA protesters defies all precedents

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sinead McEneaney, Senior Lecturer in History, The Open University

Violence has erupted on the streets of cities across southern California over the weekend, as protesters clashed with agents from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency detaining people they suspected to be illegal immigrants. The US president, Donald Trump, took the unusual decision on Saturday to deploy 2,000 troops from California’s national guard, despite not being requested to by the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom.

Newsom has threatened to sue Trump over what he has called “an illegal act, an immoral act, an unconstitutional act”. Other California officials have also denounced the move, with Senator Adam Schiff calling it a “dangerous precedent for unilateral misuse of the guard across the country”.

Raids by ICE agents have increased significantly since mid-May when the Trump administration threatened to fire senior ICE officials if they did not deliver on higher arrest quotas. Several high-profile wrongful arrests of US citizens have further inflamed tensions.

Protests have escalated in California, a Democratic stronghold and a “sanctuary state” where local law enforcement does not cooperate with ICE to detain illegal immigrants.

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At around 24,000 troops, California’s national guard is the largest in the United States. Each state has its own national guard unit, a reserve force under the control of the governor which can be called upon in times of crisis – often to help out during natural disasters or other emergencies. For example, in January, Newsom activated several thousand troops to aid relief work during the devastating fires that threatened Los Angeles.

In 1992, the then president, George H.W. Bush, backed the call of the then governor of California, Pete Wilson, call to deploy national guard members to quell the South Central LA riots.

Now troops are back on the streets of LA. But this time not at the behest of the governor. Trump’s unilateral decision to take federal control over the national guard pits the president against the state of California – and importantly, against a state that has constantly resisted his anti-immigrant agenda. Newsom is seen by many as a possible contender for the Democratic Party’s nomination in the 2028 presidential election.

Historical precedents

Is there a precedent for this? Yes and no. The Insurrection Act (passed in 1807, but revised several times) authorises the president to call on the national guard in times of crisis or war to supplement state and local forces. This has been codified in title 10 of the US Code, which details the laws of the land.

In 1871, the law was revised to specifically allow for the national guard to be used in the protection of civil rights for black Americans. Legal experts have long called for reform of the Insurrection Act, arguing that the language is too vague and open to misuse.

In the past, former US presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson all invoked different sections of the Act to protect civil rights, particularly against segregationist states. While the act implies consent between governor and president, it does not require it.

Two examples stand out. On June 11 1963, John F. Kennedy issued executive order 11111 mobilising the national guard to protect desegregation of the University of Alabama, against the wishes of Alabama governor George Wallace.

Wallace’s determination to block the registration of two black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, produced a produced a sensational media moment when Wallace physically blocked the entrance of the university. Local law enforcement stood by the governor. With the state of Alabama in defiance of federal law, Kennedy saw no alternative but to deploy the guard.

Less than two years later, in March 1965 Lyndon B. Johnson again deployed the guard in Alabama, bypassing Governor Wallace. In February, a state trooper in the town of Marion killed a young voters-rights activist, Jimmie Lee Jackson.

This shooting, along with several violent attacks by the local police on voter registration activists in Selma, inspired a series of marches in support of the 1965 voting rights bill. On the eve of the march from Selma to Montgomery, tensions between local police and civil rights protesters were at a high.

Civil rights activists, including Martin Luther King Jr, lead a march from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama, March 1965, to support the right to safe voter registration.
Wikimedia Commons

In response, Johnson bypassed Wallace and called in the national guard to ensure, as he put it, the rights of Americans “to walk peaceably and safely without injury or loss of life from Selma to Montgomery”.

Before last Saturday, this was the last time a president circumvented the authority of the state governor in deploying the guard. But even in this instance, there was an implied request from Wallace, who explicitly requested federal aid in the absence of state resources.

The subtext here is that Wallace did not want to be seen to call up the national guard himself, so he forced Johnson to make that decision, allowing him to claim that the president was trampling on state sovereignty.

Insurrection Act

This is not the current situation in California. The LAPD is the third largest police force in the US, with over just under 9,000 sworn officers. While its ranks have shrunk in recent years, it has been responding to the recent protests and unrest. There is no reason to think that Newsom would hesitate to call in the national guard if warranted.

In reality, Trump has invoked the Insurrection Act to protect ICE agents. Indeed, the national guard has a complicated history of responding to civil unrest. The current situation is in stark contrast with the past, and faces serious questions of legitimacy.

It is difficult not to see this as the latest move by the Trump administration to subjugate California. In early January Trump threatened to withhold federal aid to rebuild after the wildfires. In past months he threatened to withdraw all of the state’s federal funding to punish it for its stance on campus protests and the inclusion of transgender athletes in women’s sports.

Unlike his predecessors, Trump has not mobilised the national guard to protect civil rights against a hostile police force. Instead, he appears to be using this as leverage to undermine a political opponent he views as blocking his agenda. Circumventing gubernatorial powers over the national guard in this way has no precedent and heralds the next stage in an extended conflict between the president and the state of California.

Sinead McEneaney 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. Trump’s use of the national guard against LA protesters defies all precedents – https://theconversation.com/trumps-use-of-the-national-guard-against-la-protesters-defies-all-precedents-258486

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

June 10, 2025
MIL-OSI Global: Diverticular disease: the surprisingly common gut condition you’ve probably never heard of

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sophie Davies, Lecturer in Nutrition & Dietetics, Cardiff School of Sport and Health Sciences, Cardiff Metropolitan University

It’s not something people often talk about at the dinner table, but your gut health plays a huge role in your overall wellbeing. And one of the most common conditions affecting the large intestine is diverticular disease.

Diverticular disease or diverticulosis is where small bulges or pouches (called diverticula) form in the wall of the colon, often due to a weakening in the muscle layer. These pouches are usually harmless, but in some cases they can become inflamed or infected – a condition known by the slightly different name of diverticulitis.

Around 70% of people in western countries will have developed diverticular disease by the time they reach 80. It’s also increasingly showing up in younger adults, which may be linked to the low-fibre, highly processed nature of many modern diets. UK dietary surveys show that people are currently consuming only 60% of their recommended daily fibre intake.

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The reasons some people develop diverticular disease and others don’t aren’t fully understood. However, several factors have been identified as contributors, including the structure and movement of the colon, diet, fibre intake, obesity, physical activity and genetics.

Most people with diverticular disease don’t experience symptoms. However, some may report pain or discomfort in the lower left side of the abdomen – often worse after eating – as well as bloating, diarrhoea or constipation. These symptoms can mimic other digestive disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), making diagnosis more complex.

Despite how common it is, diverticular disease is often misunderstood. Many people have no symptoms at all, while others experience ongoing digestive discomfort.

Diverticulitis (when diverticula in the colon become inflamed or infected) is usually marked by more severe symptoms, including constant abdominal pain, a high temperature, nausea, and in some cases, changes in bowel habits. These symptoms warrant urgent medical attention, as untreated diverticulitis can lead to complications.

Thankfully, small changes in diet and lifestyle can make a big difference and outdated advice is quickly being replaced by evidence based recommendations. Historically, people with diverticular disease were told to avoid foods like nuts, seeds and popcorn out of fear that they might get stuck in the diverticula and cause inflammation. However, this idea has now been debunked.

Updated guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence confirms there is no need to avoid these foods unless specifically advised to do so by a healthcare professional.

What does help is a high-fibre diet. Fibre softens stools and makes them easier to pass, which helps reduce pressure in the colon and prevent constipation – one of the known risk factors for diverticulitis. When stools are small and hard, they may become lodged in the diverticula, increasing the chance of inflammation or infection.

In addition to eating more fibre, staying well hydrated and being physically active also support healthy digestion. Water helps fibre do its job, while regular movement can encourage normal bowel function and reduce the risk of complications.

If you’re unable to meet fibre targets through food alone, your doctor or dietitian may recommend fibre supplements or mild laxatives.

Official UK guidance advises adults to eat at least 30g of fibre per day. Some simple ways to do this include starting your day with a high-fibre breakfast cereal and adding fresh or dried fruit. Switching to wholemeal or granary breads, choosing wholewheat pasta or brown rice, and including more lentils, chickpeas, beans and vegetables in your meals can all help.

For example, grated carrot, red lentils or kidney beans can easily be added to mince-based dishes, while raw vegetables such as peppers or carrots work well with dips like hummus or guacamole.

Read more:
Some vegetables are pretty low in fibre. So which veggies are high-fibre heroes?

When increasing your fibre intake, it’s best to do so gradually. A sudden jump in fibre can cause bloating or gas, so give your digestive system time to adapt.

By making small, sustainable changes to your diet and lifestyle – like eating more fibre, staying hydrated and moving your body – you can reduce your risk of discomfort and complications. With up-to-date medical advice and a balanced approach to nutrition, it’s entirely possible to keep your gut happy, healthy and functioning well for years to come.

Sophie Davies 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. Diverticular disease: the surprisingly common gut condition you’ve probably never heard of – https://theconversation.com/diverticular-disease-the-surprisingly-common-gut-condition-youve-probably-never-heard-of-256922

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

June 10, 2025
MIL-OSI Global: Animals can’t talk like humans do – here’s why the hunt for their languages has left us empty-handed

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Anna Jon-And, Director of Centre for Cultural Evolution, Senior Lecturer in Portuguese, Stockholm University

No matter how much you want to believe it … Patrick Rolands

Why do humans have language and other animals apparently don’t? It’s one of the most enduring questions in the study of mind and communication. Across all cultures, humans use richly expressive languages built on complex structures, which let us talk about the past, the future, imaginary worlds, moral dilemmas and mathematical truths. No other species does this.

Yet we are fascinated by the idea that animals might be more similar to us than it seems. We delight in the possibility that dolphins tell stories or that apes can ponder the future. We are social and thinking creatures, and we love to see our reflection in others. That deep desire may have influenced the study of animal cognition.

Over the past two decades, studies of thinking and language in animals, especially those highlighting similarities with human abilities, have flourished in academia and attracted extensive media coverage. A wave of recent studies reflects a growing momentum.

Two recent papers, both in top-tier journals, focus on our closest relatives: chimpanzees and bonobos. They claim these apes combine vocalisations in ways that suggest a capacity for compositionality, a key feature of human language.

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In simple terms, compositionality is the capacity to combine words and phrases into complex expressions, where the overall meaning derives from the meanings of the parts and their order. It is what allows a finite set of words to generate an infinite range of meanings. The idea that great apes might do something similar has been presented as a potential breakthrough, hinting that the roots of language may lie deeper in our evolutionary past than we thought.

But there is a catch: combining elements is not enough. A fundamental aspect of compositionality in human language is that it is productive. We do not just reuse a fixed set of combinations; we generate new ones, effortlessly. A child who learns the word “wug” can instantly say “wugs” without having heard it before, applying rules to unfamiliar elements.

That flexible creativity gives language its vast expressive power. Yet while animal calls can be combined, nobody has observed animals doing this to create new meanings in an open-ended productive manner. They don’t scale into the layered meanings that human language achieves. In short: there are no wugs in the wild.

The sequence hypothesis

Rather than chasing grammar in animals, a more grounded approach asks what cognitive difference might explain the gap we observe between humans and other animals. One such idea is the sequence hypothesis, developed by researchers at the Centre for Cultural Evolution in Stockholm, to which we are both connected. It proposes that humans have a unique ability to recognise and remember the exact sequential order of events or elements – including words in language.

Studies over the past few years provide strong evidence that non-human animals, including our closest relatives, represent order only approximately. For example, recent experiments with bonobos, including the world-famous Kanzi, show that in 2,400 trials, these apes did not learn to distinguish a sequence of yellow and blue from a sequence of blue and yellow on a screen.

Humans, on the other hand, instantly grasp this difference. This capacity enables us to understand unknown compositional linguistic expressions like “wug killer” and “killer wug”, a shift in sequence that flips meaning entirely.

Recent theoretical studies using artificial intelligence (AI) have shown that recognising and remembering sequences may allow not only for distinguishing short expressions like “killer wug” and “wug killer”, but also for extracting the hierachical structures and grammatical categories that enable open-ended compositionality from linguistic input during learning.

This kind of mental precision does not just power language. It changes how we see the world, breaking experience into far more distinct situations. But a richer world is also a more complex one to learn because the number of possible combinations explodes.

This may have resulted in the co-evolution of human mental capacities and our unusually long childhood. The learning costs that come with sequence memory may explain why no other animal has taken this path.

This isn’t to exclude all other species entirely here. The similarities observed between neanderthals and our prehistoric culture implies that the two groups were mentally quite alike. We cannot exclude that cultural and linguistic abilities evolved before the common ancestor of modern humans and neanderthals, more than half a million years ago.

Animal communication

If the sequence hypothesis is correct, then grammar, planning and abstract thought in non-human animals are often being inferred from behaviours that may be explained by simpler well-studied learning mechanisms. If so, a bonobo combining gestures or a bird eliciting a sequence of calls reflect clever learning and instinct, but not true compositional meaning.

If animals cannot represent sequences faithfully – and we see no evidence that they can – many apparent parallels with human language fall apart. The temptation to see ourselves in animals is strong, especially when their behaviour seems familiar. But surface resemblance does not necessarily imply the same underlying mechanisms.

If animals have more language-like capacities than suggested here, a relevant question is why these similarities are so difficult to detect. After decades of research on dolphin intelligence and communication in larger whales, for instance, we still cannot communicate with them using any language-like code.

Why no talking dolphins?
F Photography R

None of this means animals are not intelligent or that their communication is not sophisticated. Some frogs use hollow trees to broadcast their mating calls more efficiently. Honeybees transmit information about the direction, distance to and quality of nectar sources. Ground squirrels have an elaborate system for communicating about various predatory threats.

Animals have evolved rich and effective ways to interact and survive in a hostile world. As a matter of fact, theoretical work suggests that in a world without language, non-human great apes and pigeons would learn more efficiently and thus have greater chances of survival than a human.

Nonetheless, we see no signs of their communication stretching flexibly across time and space or building up networks of abstract concepts in the way human language does. If we want to reach a better understanding of the fascinating communication systems of other animals, perhaps humans are not the best model.

Anna Jon-And receives funding from from the Swedish Research Council and has received funding from Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation.

Johan Lind has received funding from the Swedish Research Council and Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation.

– ref. Animals can’t talk like humans do – here’s why the hunt for their languages has left us empty-handed – https://theconversation.com/animals-cant-talk-like-humans-do-heres-why-the-hunt-for-their-languages-has-left-us-empty-handed-258321

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

June 10, 2025
MIL-OSI Global: Shoemaker Clarks is turning 200. Its Quaker roots made it a pioneer of ethical business

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Nicholas Burton, Professor, Department of Leadership and Human Resource Management, Northumbria University, Newcastle

DELBO ANDREA/Shutterstock

For many, the Clarks brand is a byword for sturdy school shoes and functional footwear for those of more mature years. The manufacturing and retailing company was set up two centuries ago in Somerset, England, in the shadows of Glastonbury Tor, by brothers Cyrus and James Clark. In 2025, it is celebrating its 200th anniversary and remains a formidable force both on the high street and online.

Less well known is that the Clark brothers, like chocolatier families Cadbury and Rowntree, were Quakers. This small religious community has produced a remarkable and disproportionate number of scientists, thinkers and campaigners for justice, peace and human rights. In addition, its contribution of ethical businesses has dominated many industries in the UK.

The Lloyds and Barclays of the banking dynasties were Quakers. The Jacobs (of biscuits and crackers fame) were Quakers. So were the Rathbones (fund management), the Penroses (founders of Waterford Crystal) and the Waterhouse family (accountancy), to name just a few.

The Quakers – more formally known as the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) – have a history of nearly 400 years in Britain and the US. While Quakerism has Christian foundations, Quakers also emphasise moral commitments to peace, truth, integrity, simplicity and equality – the five testimonies in Quaker theology. These came to define how Quakers approach the world, and their businesses.

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As early Quakers were deemed radical and challenged the established church, they became persecuted by the state during the 17th century. They were excluded from political and public life, as well as from universities. Perhaps as a direct consequence, Quakers became highly active entrepreneurs and came to dominate many industries through a combination of their testimonies and outward entrepreneurial action.

This led to the reputation that Quaker firms had for trustworthiness and integrity. Their impact was perhaps so acute as to represent a distinctive form of ethical entrepreneurship.

While not all Quakers were engaged in commerce, and not all those who were succeeded, a disproportionate number did. Such commercial success is all the more intriguing, as the Quakers were a very small (and, from the mid-18th century, declining) minority of the UK population (about 20,000 in total today).

Zero-waste beginnings

Quaker values and the entrepreneurial spirit are woven through the history of Clarks. For example, the original business idea by James in 1825 to produce sheepskin slippers was born of a desire to eliminate waste, with slippers produced from off-cuts of sheepskin rugs.

Like many Quaker businesses, Clarks has always supported social and environmental causes. Family members took a central role in the anti-abolitionist movement and in women’s suffrage.

It also invested a proportion of its profits in local community amenities, such as building homes, constructing classrooms, funding a theatre, a library, an open-air swimming pool, a town hall and playing fields near the company’s base in Street, Somerset.

Today, Clarks continues to play an active community role. It champions corporate responsibility and high sustainability criteria in its business operations and supply chains. This focus draws interesting parallels with the modern social enterprise sector, and ethical, purpose-driven business accreditation schemes such as B Corporation status, which assesses profit-making firms on their environmental, social and governance credentials.

The moral commitments of the members of the Clarks family in these formative years of the firm have left their mark and shaped its later development. The 200-year history of the firm represents a close affinity between the values of the company and the values of Quakers.

A classic – the Clarks Wallabee shoe.
Rushay/Shutterstock

However, all firms from time to time face challenges to the way they do business. The balance between economics and ethics can be a fine line to tread. It’s no different for Clarks. Struggling to survive the impact of the COVID pandemic in 2020, and with losses mounting, the Clark family sold its stake to a private equity firm.

Within 12 months, Clarks workers accused the new owners of betraying the company’s philanthropic roots by threatening them with dismissal if they did not accept significant pay cuts. Clarks said at the time that renegotiating workers’ terms would be a “very last resort” and that almost half of the workers in the distribution centre in question would receive a pay rise.

The dispute involved strike action and mediation, eventually leading to a resolution. Afterwards, Clarks said in a joint statement with the Community union that the resolution had protected workers’ livelihoods and recognised their loyalty to the firm.

This demonstrated how firms can face repeated cycles of crises, including competitive, financial and economic shocks that bring debates about ethics into focus. These crisis events are typically more acute when a founder, CEO or family departs, and especially when those involved with the company honour its tradition and legacy. Rathbones, the fund management company with Quaker origins, was faced with similar challenges when the family was no longer actively involved.

Yet despite the economic and financial pressures that Clarks faced in this exceptional period, the firm is also attempting to protect the core of its moral backbone. It echoes an affinity – albeit a more distant one – with the Quakerism of the founding family.

This stance can potentially be fragile, however. Businesses must remain viable as businesses – and only last year Clarks was facing up to a difficult trading environment by cutting 150 office staff. Indeed, the previous conversation within the firm and the community about betrayal clearly expresses a strong moral view, shaped by the links to Quaker values. It is also a conversation about the future strength of those ties, and one that places values at the heart of its future.

Nicholas Burton 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. Shoemaker Clarks is turning 200. Its Quaker roots made it a pioneer of ethical business – https://theconversation.com/shoemaker-clarks-is-turning-200-its-quaker-roots-made-it-a-pioneer-of-ethical-business-258323

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

June 10, 2025