Source: State University of Management – Official website of the State –
The State University of Management has opened a new Telegram channel for the Center for Interaction with Alumni and Career Development (CIECD).
The channel was created for prompt interaction and expansion of opportunities for publishing vacancies from partner companies and employment of graduates and students of the State University of Management.
The pinned post contains links where you can post a vacancy or resume.
We inform you that by filling out the form you agree to the posting on the Internet of data falling under the Federal Law of 27.07.2006 No. 152-FZ “On Personal Data”.
The channel already has offers for internships, permanent jobs, invitations to a career forum, business camp, and IT school.
Subscribe and publish your vacancies and resumes.
Subscribe to the TG channel “Our GUU” Date of publication: 05/14/2025
Telegram channel of the Center for Interaction with Alumni and Career Development (CIECD).
The channel was created for prompt interaction and expansion of opportunities for publishing vacancies from partner companies and employment of graduates and students of the State University of Management….
Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Kevin Kirkman, Professor of Grassland Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal
South Africa’s rangelands have always had great value for the country. These areas offer more than just grazing for livestock. They provide services like purifying water, storing carbon and conserving biodiversity.
The grassland biome (28%), along with the savanna (32.5%) and the Nama-Karoo (19.5%), are collectively referred to as rangelands. They make up almost 80% of the land area of South Africa.
Their ecological services haven’t always been fully appreciated. Research into rangelands has evolved in response to environmental changes, human needs and scientific discoveries.
Commercial livestock production was the main concern when academics, researchers and practitioners met for the first congress of the Grassland Society of Southern Africa in 1966. Less than 15% of South Africa’s land surface area is arable. The only agricultural production possible on the balance of the land is livestock production from natural rangeland. Livestock production is thus a cornerstone of agriculture and food production in South Africa.
Six decades on, the Grassland Society has reflected – through a special issue of its journal, the African Journal of Range and Forage Science – on how it has tackled research challenges and adapted to shifting perceptions of rangelands.
Research has explored aspects of global change, bush encroachment and other changes in rangeland composition and function. Land transformation is another research area. Peri-urban sprawl, open-cast mining, timber plantations and other developments reduce and fragment rangeland. The result is increased pressure on the remaining, intact rangelands.
Widening scope
A review of research over the 60 years shows that early efforts focused mainly on forage production to support livestock industries. Research topics included rotational grazing and burning, as well as reinforcing rangelands by adding nutrients, forage grasses and legumes.
By the 1980s, it became clear that rangelands offered more than just grazing – they were vital ecosystems.
Rangelands in southern Africa span diverse climates and landscapes, from arid deserts to moist mountains.Kevin Kirkman, Author provided (no reuse)
In the early 1990s, around the onset of democracy in South Africa, local researchers became part of global conversations around rangeland ecology. In doing so, they started to use the international terminology, instead of the old Dutch-derived word “veld”.
This shift was not just about geography, but about scope. Rangelands were increasingly seen as multifaceted ecosystems critical in the fight against climate change. Increasing temperatures, increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and changing rainfall patterns pose a threat to all ecosystems. Understanding the response of rangelands is increasingly important in devising management strategies to adapt to these changes.
Scientists expanded their attention to preserving soil health, restoring degraded landscapes, and maintaining biodiversity. Issues like overgrazing, soil erosion and invasive species gained recognition in southern Africa. Degradation of rangelands in South Africa was first highlighted in the mid 1700s, and became a “mainstream” issue in the 1930s. Replacing a diverse group of wild animals with a single species of grazer, such as cattle, is the reason generally given for degradation. Fire has also been linked to it (often unfairly).
The Grassland Society responded by promoting ideas like adaptive grazing management (making decisions in response to conditions, rather than following a recipe approach). It also encouraged integrating indigenous knowledge with scientific research to create more sustainable and resilient land-use systems. This has helped shape land management practices across the region.
Rangelands are dynamic, especially in the Karoo, where vegetation cover can shift dramatically in response to rainfall and grazing.Justin du Toit, Author provided (no reuse)
Many southern African rangelands face the challenge of balancing grazing with biodiversity conservation. Research on conservation agriculture and integrating livestock and wildlife systems is helping farmers and conservationists to find common ground. Wildlife, both in the conservation and the game production contexts, plays a critical role in South Africa’s economy. Tourism is one of the major contributors.
Land management is particularly important in the Mediterranean-climate regions of South Africa, where poor crop farming practices have damaged soil health. The research is guiding the development of more sustainable farming systems focused on soil regeneration and biodiversity.
A key indicator of ecosystem degradation is a decline in grassland forbs (herbaceous plants that are not grasses). They are highly sensitive to grazing pressure. So the role of wildflowers in ecosystem health and animal wellbeing has also become an important research area.
Climate change, fire suppression and overgrazing drive woody plant encroachment, where grasslands are turning into shrublands. This calls for integrated management approaches that consider fire, grazing and even controlled rewilding.
Fire is a natural element in many grassland ecosystems, and research has helped advance understanding of how it can be monitored and controlled to reduce risks while promoting healthy rangelands.
People and grasslands
Grazing contrast.Justin du Toit
Rangeland management has important social dimensions. Research is addressing issues such as land tenure, governance, community management systems on communal rangelands and indigenous knowledge in management decisions. These topics are essential for creating sustainable solutions that account for people’s livelihoods and needs.
In addition to these ecological, social and management advances, the Grassland Society of Southern Africa has worked to develop the next generation of rangeland scientists and practitioners. Through its congresses, workshops and journal publications, the society continues to foster dialogue across disciplines and communities. Its 60th congress will be held in July 2025.
– Southern Africa’s rangelands do many jobs, from feeding cattle to storing carbon: a review of 60 years of research – https://theconversation.com/southern-africas-rangelands-do-many-jobs-from-feeding-cattle-to-storing-carbon-a-review-of-60-years-of-research-254736
Light is all around us, essential for one of our primary senses (sight) as well as life on Earth itself. It underpins many technologies that affect our daily lives, including energy harvesting with solar cells, light-emitting-diode (LED) displays and telecommunications through fibre optic networks.
The smartphone is a great example of the power of light. Inside the box, its electronic functionality works because of quantum mechanics. The front screen is an entirely photonic device: liquid crystals controlling light. The back too: white light-emitting diodes for a flash, and lenses to capture images.
We use the word photonics, and sometimes optics, to capture the harnessing of light for new applications and technologies. Their importance in modern life is celebrated every year on 16 May with the International Day of Light.
Scientists on the African continent, despite the resource constraints they work under, have made notable contributions to photonics research. Some of these have been captured in a recent special issue of the journal Applied Optics. Along with colleagues in this field from Morocco and Senegal, we introduced this collection of papers, which aims to celebrate excellence and show the impact of studies that address continental issues.
In more recent times, Africa has contributed to two Nobel prizes based on optics. Ahmed Zewail (Egyptian born) watched the ultrafast processes in chemistry with lasers (1999, Nobel Prize for Chemistry) and Serge Harouche (Moroccan born) studied the behaviour of individual particles of light, photons (2012, Nobel Prize for Physics).
Unfortunately, the African optics story is one of pockets of excellence. The highlights are as good as anywhere else, but there are too few of them to put the continent on the global optics map. According to a 2020 calculation done for me by the Optical Society of America, based on their journals, Africa contributes less than 1% to worldwide journal publications with optics or photonics as a theme.
Yet there are great opportunities for meeting continental challenges using optics. Examples of areas where Africans can innovate are:
bridging the digital divide with modern communications infrastructure
optical imaging and spectroscopy for improvements in agriculture and monitoring climate changes
harnessing the sun with optical materials for clean energy
bio-photonics to solve health issues
quantum technologies for novel forms of communicating, sensing, imaging and computing.
The papers in the special journal issue touch on a diversity of continent-relevant topics.
Another paper is about tiny quantum sources of quantum entanglement for sensing. The authors used diamond, a gem found in South Africa and more commonly associated with jewellery. Diamond has many flaws, one of which can produce single photons as an output when excited. The single photon output was split into two paths, as if the particle went both left and right at the same time. This is the quirky notion of entanglement, in this case, created with diamonds. If an object is placed in any one path, the entanglement can detect it. Strangely, sometimes the photons take the left-path but the object is in the right-path, yet still it can be detected.
New approaches in spectroscopy (studying colour) for detecting cell health; biosensors to monitor salt and glucose levels in blood; and optical tools for food security all play their part in optical applications on the continent.
Another area of African optics research that has important applications is the use of optical fibres for sensing the quality of soil and its structural integrity. Optical fibres are usually associated with communication, but a modern trend is to use the existing optical fibre already laid to sense for small changes in the environment, for instance, as early warning systems for earthquakes. The research shows that conventional fibre can also be used to tell if soil is degrading, either from lack of moisture or some physical shift in structure (weakness or movement). It is an immediately useful tool for agriculture, building on many decades of research.
The diverse range of topics in the collection shows how creative researchers on the continent are in using limited resources for maximum impact. The high orientation towards applications is probably also a sign that African governments want their scientists to work on solutions to real problems rather than purely academic questions. A case in point is South Africa, which has a funded national strategy (SA QuTI) to turn quantum science into quantum technology and train the workforce for a new economy.
Towards a brighter future
For young science students wishing to enter the field, the opportunities are endless. While photonics has no discipline boundaries, most students enter through the fields of physics, engineering, chemistry or the life sciences. Its power lies in the combination of skills, blending theoretical, computational and experimental, that are brought to bear on problems. At a typical photonics conference there are likely to be many more industry participants than academics. That’s a testament to its universal impact in new technologies, and the employment opportunities for students.
The last century was based on electronics and controlling electrons. This century will be dominated by photonics, controlling photons.
Professor Zouheir Sekkat of University Mohamed V, Rabat, and director of the Pole of Optics and Photonics within MAScIR of University Mohamed VI Polytechnic Benguerir, Morocco, contributed to this article.
– Light is the science of the future – the Africans using it to solve local challenges – https://theconversation.com/light-is-the-science-of-the-future-the-africans-using-it-to-solve-local-challenges-256031
South Africa’s rangelands have always had great value for the country. These areas offer more than just grazing for livestock. They provide services like purifying water, storing carbon and conserving biodiversity.
The grassland biome (28%), along with the savanna (32.5%) and the Nama-Karoo (19.5%), are collectively referred to as rangelands. They make up almost 80% of the land area of South Africa.
Their ecological services haven’t always been fully appreciated. Research into rangelands has evolved in response to environmental changes, human needs and scientific discoveries.
Commercial livestock production was the main concern when academics, researchers and practitioners met for the first congress of the Grassland Society of Southern Africa in 1966. Less than 15% of South Africa’s land surface area is arable. The only agricultural production possible on the balance of the land is livestock production from natural rangeland. Livestock production is thus a cornerstone of agriculture and food production in South Africa.
Six decades on, the Grassland Society has reflected – through a special issue of its journal, the African Journal of Range and Forage Science – on how it has tackled research challenges and adapted to shifting perceptions of rangelands.
Research has explored aspects of global change, bush encroachment and other changes in rangeland composition and function. Land transformation is another research area. Peri-urban sprawl, open-cast mining, timber plantations and other developments reduce and fragment rangeland. The result is increased pressure on the remaining, intact rangelands.
Widening scope
A review of research over the 60 years shows that early efforts focused mainly on forage production to support livestock industries. Research topics included rotational grazing and burning, as well as reinforcing rangelands by adding nutrients, forage grasses and legumes.
By the 1980s, it became clear that rangelands offered more than just grazing – they were vital ecosystems.
In the early 1990s, around the onset of democracy in South Africa, local researchers became part of global conversations around rangeland ecology. In doing so, they started to use the international terminology, instead of the old Dutch-derived word “veld”.
This shift was not just about geography, but about scope. Rangelands were increasingly seen as multifaceted ecosystems critical in the fight against climate change. Increasing temperatures, increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and changing rainfall patterns pose a threat to all ecosystems. Understanding the response of rangelands is increasingly important in devising management strategies to adapt to these changes.
Scientists expanded their attention to preserving soil health, restoring degraded landscapes, and maintaining biodiversity. Issues like overgrazing, soil erosion and invasive species gained recognition in southern Africa. Degradation of rangelands in South Africa was first highlighted in the mid 1700s, and became a “mainstream” issue in the 1930s. Replacing a diverse group of wild animals with a single species of grazer, such as cattle, is the reason generally given for degradation. Fire has also been linked to it (often unfairly).
The Grassland Society responded by promoting ideas like adaptive grazing management (making decisions in response to conditions, rather than following a recipe approach). It also encouraged integrating indigenous knowledge with scientific research to create more sustainable and resilient land-use systems. This has helped shape land management practices across the region.
Many southern African rangelands face the challenge of balancing grazing with biodiversity conservation. Research on conservation agriculture and integrating livestock and wildlife systems is helping farmers and conservationists to find common ground. Wildlife, both in the conservation and the game production contexts, plays a critical role in South Africa’s economy. Tourism is one of the major contributors.
Land management is particularly important in the Mediterranean-climate regions of South Africa, where poor crop farming practices have damaged soil health. The research is guiding the development of more sustainable farming systems focused on soil regeneration and biodiversity.
A key indicator of ecosystem degradation is a decline in grassland forbs (herbaceous plants that are not grasses). They are highly sensitive to grazing pressure. So the role of wildflowers in ecosystem health and animal wellbeing has also become an important research area.
Climate change, fire suppression and overgrazing drive woody plant encroachment, where grasslands are turning into shrublands. This calls for integrated management approaches that consider fire, grazing and even controlled rewilding.
Fire is a natural element in many grassland ecosystems, and research has helped advance understanding of how it can be monitored and controlled to reduce risks while promoting healthy rangelands.
People and grasslands
Rangeland management has important social dimensions. Research is addressing issues such as land tenure, governance, community management systems on communal rangelands and indigenous knowledge in management decisions. These topics are essential for creating sustainable solutions that account for people’s livelihoods and needs.
In addition to these ecological, social and management advances, the Grassland Society of Southern Africa has worked to develop the next generation of rangeland scientists and practitioners. Through its congresses, workshops and journal publications, the society continues to foster dialogue across disciplines and communities. Its 60th congress will be held in July 2025.
Kevin Kirkman receives funding from the National Research Foundation.
Helga van der Merwe receives funding from the National Research Foundation.
Craig Morris 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.
Light is all around us, essential for one of our primary senses (sight) as well as life on Earth itself. It underpins many technologies that affect our daily lives, including energy harvesting with solar cells, light-emitting-diode (LED) displays and telecommunications through fibre optic networks.
The smartphone is a great example of the power of light. Inside the box, its electronic functionality works because of quantum mechanics. The front screen is an entirely photonic device: liquid crystals controlling light. The back too: white light-emitting diodes for a flash, and lenses to capture images.
We use the word photonics, and sometimes optics, to capture the harnessing of light for new applications and technologies. Their importance in modern life is celebrated every year on 16 May with the International Day of Light.
Scientists on the African continent, despite the resource constraints they work under, have made notable contributions to photonics research. Some of these have been captured in a recent special issue of the journal Applied Optics. Along with colleagues in this field from Morocco and Senegal, we introduced this collection of papers, which aims to celebrate excellence and show the impact of studies that address continental issues.
In more recent times, Africa has contributed to two Nobel prizes based on optics. Ahmed Zewail (Egyptian born) watched the ultrafast processes in chemistry with lasers (1999, Nobel Prize for Chemistry) and Serge Harouche (Moroccan born) studied the behaviour of individual particles of light, photons (2012, Nobel Prize for Physics).
Unfortunately, the African optics story is one of pockets of excellence. The highlights are as good as anywhere else, but there are too few of them to put the continent on the global optics map. According to a 2020 calculation done for me by the Optical Society of America, based on their journals, Africa contributes less than 1% to worldwide journal publications with optics or photonics as a theme.
Yet there are great opportunities for meeting continental challenges using optics. Examples of areas where Africans can innovate are:
bridging the digital divide with modern communications infrastructure
optical imaging and spectroscopy for improvements in agriculture and monitoring climate changes
harnessing the sun with optical materials for clean energy
bio-photonics to solve health issues
quantum technologies for novel forms of communicating, sensing, imaging and computing.
The papers in the special journal issue touch on a diversity of continent-relevant topics.
Another paper is about tiny quantum sources of quantum entanglement for sensing. The authors used diamond, a gem found in South Africa and more commonly associated with jewellery. Diamond has many flaws, one of which can produce single photons as an output when excited. The single photon output was split into two paths, as if the particle went both left and right at the same time. This is the quirky notion of entanglement, in this case, created with diamonds. If an object is placed in any one path, the entanglement can detect it. Strangely, sometimes the photons take the left-path but the object is in the right-path, yet still it can be detected.
New approaches in spectroscopy (studying colour) for detecting cell health; biosensors to monitor salt and glucose levels in blood; and optical tools for food security all play their part in optical applications on the continent.
Another area of African optics research that has important applications is the use of optical fibres for sensing the quality of soil and its structural integrity. Optical fibres are usually associated with communication, but a modern trend is to use the existing optical fibre already laid to sense for small changes in the environment, for instance, as early warning systems for earthquakes. The research shows that conventional fibre can also be used to tell if soil is degrading, either from lack of moisture or some physical shift in structure (weakness or movement). It is an immediately useful tool for agriculture, building on many decades of research.
The diverse range of topics in the collection shows how creative researchers on the continent are in using limited resources for maximum impact. The high orientation towards applications is probably also a sign that African governments want their scientists to work on solutions to real problems rather than purely academic questions. A case in point is South Africa, which has a funded national strategy (SA QuTI) to turn quantum science into quantum technology and train the workforce for a new economy.
Towards a brighter future
For young science students wishing to enter the field, the opportunities are endless. While photonics has no discipline boundaries, most students enter through the fields of physics, engineering, chemistry or the life sciences. Its power lies in the combination of skills, blending theoretical, computational and experimental, that are brought to bear on problems. At a typical photonics conference there are likely to be many more industry participants than academics. That’s a testament to its universal impact in new technologies, and the employment opportunities for students.
The last century was based on electronics and controlling electrons. This century will be dominated by photonics, controlling photons.
Professor Zouheir Sekkat of University Mohamed V, Rabat, and director of the Pole of Optics and Photonics within MAScIR of University Mohamed VI Polytechnic Benguerir, Morocco, contributed to this article.
The authors 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.
Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Juan Ciscomani (Arizona)
TUCSON, AZ — U.S. Congressman Juan Ciscomani honored more than 20 students from across Arizona’s 6th Congressional District for achieving one of our country’s most prestigious academic honors: an appointment to a United States Service Academy.
“You are the best of the best and the brightest of the bright,” Ciscomani told the students Friday at a “send-off” reception hehostedto recognize their achievement. “We celebrate your success and take great comfort in knowing that you are our country’s next generation of military leaders.”
Each of the students received an appointment to a service academy from Ciscomani after competing in a rigorous and highly selective nomination process. Each student was interviewed by a members of selection board who then recommended their nomination to the congressman and were invited to apply for admission to a service academy. They then had to be accepted by a service academy.
“It’s easier to get into an Ivy League university than it is a service academy,” Ciscomani told the students.
Joining the students at the reception were their proud parents, the selection board and members of The Friday Pilots, a local group of retired military pilots who meet for lunch every Friday.
“We’re passing the torch from one generation of military leaders to the next,” Ciscomani said. “Our country is a land of liberty because of the bravery and sacrifice of people like The Friday Pilots. It will remain a land of liberty because of students like this.”
Each of the students received a Certificate of Congressional Recognition and a challenge coin from Ciscomani, as well as a challenge coin from The Friday Pilots. Additional photos of the event can be viewed here.
“Nominating these outstanding high school students to one of our nation’s prestigious service academies is truly one of my greatest honors as a member of Congress,” said Ciscomani. “These young men and women represent the very best our community has to offer and have repeatedly demonstrated exceptional leadership qualities, academic excellence and a heartfelt commitment to serving our great nation. Their patriotism and dedication are an inspiration, and I look forward to seeing all their great contributions as the next generation of military leaders.”
Ciscomani congratulates the following students for their appointments:
Aleksandria Gabbard, Marana High School, U.S. Naval Academy
Brodie Hendrick, Arizona State University Prep Digital and Falcon Foundation Scholarship recipient, U.S. Air Force Academy
Sonia Donkeng, Mica Mountain High School, U.S. Air Force Academy
Kyle Dowe, Catalina Foothills High School, U.S. Naval Academy
Jose Chafin, Walden Grove High School, U.S. Merchant Marine Academy
Nathan Poulton, Mountain View High School, U.S. Air Force Academy
Mason Rustand, Sabino High School, U.S. Military Academy
Hector Lepley, Tombstone High School, U.S. Merchant Marine Academy
Collin Skaret, Marana High School, U.S. Air Force Academy Prep School
Conner Swigert, Home School, U.S. Air Force Academy
Andres Taylor, Marana High School, U.S. Merchant Marine Academy
Austin Thompson, Basis Oro Valley High School and Falcon Foundation Scholarship recipient, U.S. Air Force Academy
Luke Villareal, Mountain View High School, U.S. Naval Academy
Nathan Whitworth, Buena High School, U.S. Merchant Marine Academy
Gavin Yewell, Canyon Del Oro High School and Falcon Foundation Scholarship recipient, U.S. Air Force Academy
Gavin Dean, Pusch Ridge Christian Academy, U.S. Military Academy
Emma Lindsey, Catalina Foothills High School and Falcon Foundation Scholarship recipient, U.S. Air Force Academy
Hayden Picton, Pusch Ridge Christian Academy, U.S. Air Force Academy
Isabella Gorkowski, Bishop Gorman High School, U.S. Naval Academy
Ethan Venghaus, Kwajalein High School U.S. Marshall Islands, U.S. Military Academy
Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Scott Peters (52nd District of California)
[embedded content]
Washington, D.C. – Today, during the Energy and Commerce Committee’s consideration of the Republican tax plan, which will kick 13.7 million people off their healthcare, Representative Scott Peters (CA-50) called out provisions that will make it easier to build polluting coal power plants and cut back on investments in clean energy technologies.
Watch Rep. Peters’ opening statement against the Republican tax plan here.
Speaking on the Republican plan, Rep. Peters said, “Last Congress, my Republican colleagues were insistent that we should have an all-of-the-above energy strategy, one that leveraged our natural resources, unleashed American innovation, and cut through bureaucratic red tape. Which is why I am confused that we are considering a reconciliation bill that picks winners and losers, and elevates expensive, outdated, and inefficient sources like coal over cheap American-made energy like solar, wind, and storage.”
He continued, “Why does this bill provide government-backed insurance to coal plants, as the President of the United States single-handedly kills hundreds if not thousands of clean energy jobs across the country by illegally targeting projects and weaponizing the permitting process?”
And he concluded, “We need to face reality; we can’t build anything in America anymore. North America has built about 7 gigawatts of interregional transmission since 2014, with less than half of that in the U.S. In that same time frame, South America has built 22 gigawatts, Europe has built 44 gigawatts, and China has built 260. There is a growing bipartisan coalition for permitting reform. Whether it’s forest management, electric transmission, or building housing, I have reached across the aisle and found success in moving solutions forward. Many of us have voiced our desire to work in a bipartisan way to make America more energy dominant. Now is the time to put our money where our mouth is, and focus on durable, common-sense, and all-of-the-above policies that provide certainty for industry and consumers.”
CA-50 Medicaid Facts:
156,100 people in the district rely on Medicaid for health coverage—that’s 20 percent of all district residents.
34,700 children in the district are covered by Medicaid.
17,700 seniors in the district are covered by Medicaid.
64,900 adults in the district have Medicaid coverage through Medicaid expansion—that includes pregnant women who are able to access prenatal care sooner because of Medicaid expansion, parents, caretakers, veterans, people with substance use disorder and mental health treatment needs, and people with chronic conditions and disabilities.
At least five hospitals in the district had negative operating margins in 2022. These hospitals would be especially hard-hit by cuts to Medicaid. For example:
Scripps Mercy Hospital had a negative 25.3 percent operating margin—and nearly 22 percent of its revenue came from Medicaid.
Sharp Coronado Hospital had a negative 3.5 percent operating margin—and over 36 percent of its revenue came from Medicaid.
University of California San Diego Medical Center had a negative 2.4 percent operating margin—and nearly 19 percent of its revenue came from Medicaid.
There are 54 health center delivery sites in the district that serve 529,944 patients.
Those health centers and patients rely on Medicaid—statewide, 69 percent of health center patients rely on Medicaid for coverage.
Health centers will not be able to stay open and provide the same care that they do today, with more uninsured and underinsured patients. They are already operating on thin margins—in 2023, nationally, nearly half of health centers had negative operating margins.
Medicaid cuts put health centers at risk, including:
Family Health Centers of San Diego
Neighborhood Healthcare
North County Health Project
San Diego American Indian Health Centers
St. Vincent De Paul Village
Read Rep. Peters full remarks below:
Last Congress, my Republican colleagues were insistent that we should have an all-of-the-above energy strategy, one that leveraged our natural resources, unleashed American innovation, and cut through bureaucratic red tape.
Which is why I am confused that we are considering a reconciliation bill that picks winners and losers, and elevates expensive, outdated, and inefficient sources like coal over cheap American-made energy like solar, wind, and storage.
Why does this bill expedite permitting for natural gas pipelines – an undeniably important component of our energy system – while completely ignoring transmission lines, without which we would not be able to meet a single kilowatt of energy demand?
Why does this bill provide government-backed insurance to coal plants, as the President of the United States single-handedly kills hundreds, if not thousands, of clean energy jobs across the country by illegally targeting projects and weaponizing the permitting process?
This entire Congress, my Republican colleagues have focused almost exclusively on our need to build baseload power to meet energy demand from data centers, manufacturing, and AI.
However, when they have an opportunity to ensure this baseload power can move from where it’s generated to where it will be used, my Republican colleagues have not only chosen to completely ignore the problem, but are rescinding funds to make it easier to build out the energy infrastructure we need to reduce costs and keep the lights on.
We need to face reality; we can’t build anything in America anymore. North America has built about 7 gigawatts of interregional transmission since 2014, with less than half of that in the U.S. In that same time frame, South America has built 22 gigawatts, Europe has built 44 gigawatts, and China has built 260.
There is a growing bipartisan coalition for permitting reform. Whether it’s forest management, electric transmission, or building housing, I have reached across the aisle and found success in moving solutions forward.
Many of us have voiced our desire to work in a bipartisan way to make America more energy dominant. Now is the time to put our money where our mouth is, and focus on durable, common-sense, and all-of-the-above policies that provide certainty for industry and consumers.
This bill, however, doesn’t come anywhere close to meeting the moment. It isn’t real permitting reform, it doesn’t make us energy dominant, and it only makes things more uncertain for industry, for Americans, and for our future.
Instead of making it easier to build everything, once again we are cutting off our feet in the race to energy resilience. This is the definition of picking winners and losers. And this not the way we will achieve a resilient, energy-abundant future.
Australia’s productivity performance has stagnated for years, and Treasurer Jim Chalmers has declared addressing this is a second term priority.
“Productivity” is now an added part of the remit of Assistant Minister Andrew Leigh, along with his responsibility for competition, charities and Treasury matters.
It’s an area to which Leigh brings some expertise. He is a former professor of economics at the Australian National University and has a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School.
He joins us to discuss productivity and more.
On the concept of productivity, Leigh outlines some common misconceptions.
A lot of people think of productivity as being working longer or working harder, rather than working smarter.
Really, productivity should be how much you can produce per hour, not how much you can produce per year, because I don’t think any of us feel productive if we’re forced to work at night and the weekend when we don’t want to. Improving the way in which we use technology can be important to that.
On why it has taken government so long to boost productivity, Leigh says:
The measures tend to be lagging. And it’s about changing the structure of businesses, and sometimes that takes a while to take effect. So, for example in the computer revolution, you don’t immediately see that showing up in the productivity statistics. Same story for electrification a couple of generations earlier.
These so-called general purpose technologies take a while before work is revamped around them. So too we can have problems that take a while to embed themselves, and then it can take a while to get out.
On emerging artificial intelligence technology, Leigh, while aware of the concerns, says there’s great potential:
I think we’re all concerned about the implications for privacy. I think there are reasons to be concerned about the potential anti-competitive aspects if the AI engines consolidate over coming years. But it’s also very clear that this is a technology with great potential to take away drudge parts of our jobs and allow people to focus on the most stimulating types.
There are invariably job impacts of any technology that comes along, and artificial intelligence is no different from that. We don’t tend to be very good as economists at forecasting precisely where the jobs of the future will come and where they’ll go, but we do know that it’ll have an impact, and this is potentially as big a general purpose technology as any of the others that we’ve seen in the past.
As a member of parliament from the Australian Capital Territory, Leigh remains keen that both territories get more representation in the Senate.
I think the ACT [and] the Northern Territory send representatives of strong calibre to the federal parliament. And having more representation for the territories would be a great thing.
To have more ACT senators, I think, would be a terrific thing. We saw in the last election a pretty ferocious attack from the conservatives on Canberra, and so having more voices in the federal parliament standing up for the ACT would be great.
Michelle Grattan 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.
The third reading stage will take place after a debate on Friday May 16 and would test MPs’ commitment to a change they initially supported at second reading in November 2024. In this first vote, the bill passed with 331 votes to 276 (with 35 abstentions), but in subsequent stages, the process has been more controversial. Emotions are running high and pressure groups have been vocal on both sides.
As with many issues of morality, this is a free vote – MPs are not told what to do by their party. And after the second reading in November, MPs could, and did, give a range of reasons for how they voted, including their own experiences of loved ones’ final days, discussions with constituents, the experiences of other countries with assisted suicide – and also their religious views.
Want more politics coverage from academic experts? Every week, we bring you informed analysis of developments in government and fact check the claims being made.
In that first vote, there were clear patterns in voting relating to religious affiliation. MPs with no religion were much more likely to support assisted dying.
In this group, 76% voted for, while just 18% voted against. Christian MPs overall were more likely to oppose the bill, with 57% voting against with the most pronounced opposition coming from Catholics, who were 74% opposed.
Muslim MPs were even more likely to vote against, with 84% of them on the no side. Jewish and Sikh MPs were both roughly twice as likely to support the bill as to oppose it, whereas Hindu MPs were more likely to oppose than support by the same margin. The one Buddhist MP – Suella Braverman – voted against.
Beyond their own demographic, political or religious position, the views of their constituents are also expected to influence how MPs vote. To explore this, I conducted a regression analysis (a statistical method to find a relationship between factors) that included a range of constituency variables, such as the proportion of white residents and the percentage of each religious group (along with those identifying as non-religious).
I also considered the percentage of constituents with no formal qualifications, graduates, and those reporting some form of disability. In the full model, which incorporated all these variables, none of the religious variables were found to be statistically significant, suggesting that localised religious lobbying did not have a measurable effect on MPs’ voting behaviour.
However, an interesting finding is that MPs with a higher proportion of disabled people in their constituency were more likely to vote for assisted dying. It is not clear if this relationship is causal, suggesting they had been lobbied by their constituents to support the bill, or a correlation between disabled people being more likely to live in Labour constituencies.
How MPs voted on assisted dying, November 2024
Characteristic
Overall
Yes
No
Abstain
Total
642
331 (52%)
276 (43%)
35 (5%)
Female
261
143 (55%)
107 (41%)
11 (4.2%)
Ethnic MP
90
30 (33%)
57 (63%)
3 (3.3%)
LGBT
71
49 (69%)
18 (25%)
4 (5.6%)
Elected As
Labour
411
236 (57%)
155 (38%)
20 (4.9%)
Conservative
121
23 (19%)
93 (77%)
5 (4.1%)
Liberal Democrat
72
61 (85%)
11 (15%)
0 (0%)
Scottish National Party
9
0 (0%)
0 (0%)
9 (100%)
Independent
6
0 (0%)
6 (100%)
0 (0%)
Democratic Unionist Party
5
0 (0%)
5 (100%)
0 (0%)
Reform UK
5
3 (60%)
2 (40%)
0 (0%)
Green Party
4
4 (100%)
0 (0%)
0 (0%)
Plaid Cymru
4
3 (75%)
1 (25%)
0 (0%)
Social Democratic & Labour Party
2
1 (50%)
0 (0%)
1 (50%)
Alliance
1
0 (0%)
1 (100%)
0 (0%)
Traditional Unionist Voice
1
0 (0%)
1 (100%)
0 (0%)
Ulster Unionist Party
1
0 (0%)
1 (100%)
0 (0%)
MP Religion
None
234
179 (76%)
43 (18%)
12 (5.1%)
Christian (all)
351
132 (38%)
199 (57%)
20 (5.7%)
Catholic
35
7 (20%)
26 (74%)
2 (5.7%)
Muslim
25
2 (8.0%)
21 (84%)
2 (8.0%)
Jewish
13
8 (62%)
4 (31%)
1 (7.7%)
Sikh
12
8 (67%)
4 (33%)
0 (0%)
Hindu
6
2 (33%)
4 (67%)
0 (0%)
Buddhist
1
0 (0%)
1 (100%)
0 (0%)
Note: the vote tallies differ from that given by the parliament website because I have included tellers for both sides, and correctly assigned MPs who voted in both lobbies as abstentions.
In the first vote, female MPs were slightly more likely to vote for assisted dying than against it. LGBT MPs leaned heavily towards support (with 69% voting in favour of the law change). And minority ethnic MPs leaned heavily in the opposite directions – with 63% voting against.
Perhaps predictably, given the prime minister’s open support for assisted dying, Labour MPs supported the bill, with 57% voting in favour and 38% against.
The Liberal Democrats were overwhelmingly supportive – 85% backed it – whereas 77% of Conservative MPs voted against. All Northern Irish unionist parties – as well as the independent unionist MP – voted against the bill, with no abstentions.
Reform UK MPs were split, with two against and three in favour (albeit one of the three, the now-suspended Rupert Lowe, only after a survey of his own constituents).
But there is an interesting story unfolding on the left of politics. The 2024 general election saw challenges to Labour from both the Green Party and so-called Gaza independents. In this free vote, we see the contrasting social views between these two groups play out.
All Green MPs supported assisted dying, while all Gaza independents – and Jeremy Corbyn – opposed it. This divide echoes Maria Sobolewska and Robert Ford’s framework in Brexitland, which distinguishes between “conviction identity liberals” and “ethnic minority ‘necessity liberals’”.
The latter group aligns with conviction liberals on issues of discrimination due to self-interest, but often diverges on broader socially liberal issues such as assisted dying. Issues like assisted dying lay bare the tensions within this coalition.
Identifying religion in parliament
Religion is a personal matter so there is no official database that records the religious affiliation of MPs. It is therefore often impossible to test how religious views interact with voting behaviour. To address this gap, I built a dataset using a three-step methodology to determine MPs’ religious affiliation.
Among MPs (excluding the Speaker and Sinn Fein MPs, who don’t take their seats), 54.7% (351) are Christian, including 5.5% (35) who are Catholic; 36.4% (234) have no religion; 3.9% (25) are Muslim; 2% (13) are Jewish; 1.9% (12) are Sikh; 0.9% (6) are Hindu; and 0.2% (1) is Buddhist.
To work this out, I look first to see if an MP is a member of a religiously based group, such as Christians in Parliament. They are classified as belonging to that religion. Second, if an MP has publicly stated their religious beliefs – say, in a speech or interview – they are also classified accordingly.
These first two steps, however, cover only a fraction of MPs. Fortunately, all MPs are required to take an oath of allegiance to the Crown when sworn in. This oath can be made on a religious text or as a non-religious affirmation, and crucially MPs can choose which text to swear on, making this decision a meaningful and publicly visible indication of belief.
That brings us to step three: the religious text (or lack thereof) used in the swearing-in ceremony is taken as an additional source of evidence for classification.
These three sources are used in order of priority. For example, Tim Farron is a member of Christians in Parliament and has spoken openly about his faith, yet he chose to affirm without using a religious text. Even so, he is classified as Christian based on the first two criteria.
What has been particularly interesting in this case has been the different voting patterns between Christian groups. I was able to set these groups apart because when MPs swear in, Catholics usually request specific versions of the Bible – such as the New Jerusalem Bible – whereas others might simply ask for “the Bible” and are given the King James Version.
Treating Catholics as a distinct category allows for greater nuance in the analysis of the religious composition of parliament. A full breakdown of the religion of MPs, and the data used for this project, can be found here.
We’ll soon be able to see how these markers interact with voting in the third reading.
David Jeffery 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.
A new study has highlighted the complex emotions and ethical dilemmas of learning your future risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Among 274 healthy research participants from the US aged 65 and over, 40% declined to receive their personal risk estimates – despite having initially expressed an interest in doing so.
These risk estimates were based on demographic data, brain imaging and blood biomarkers, offering an 82 to 84% accuracy in predicting the likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s disease within five years. By comparison, age alone can predict this risk with 79% accuracy.
So the value of these tests is modest in people without any cognitive symptoms, and there are potential risks to disclosing them. People told they are at increased risk of dementia describe how this can feel like an illness in itself – or being in limbo between health and disease – and cause distress.
Participants who did not want to be tested cited the uncertainty of the result, the burden of knowing, and their negative experiences of witnessing Alzheimer’s disease in others. Those with a family history of Alzheimer’s were less likely to want to know their results – perhaps because of greater exposure to these negative experiences.
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.
Black participants were less likely to want to know, too, which the researchers suggest could relate to greater experiences of stress, stigma and discrimination, making the prospect of a positive test result feel more threatening.
Perhaps the question here is not why more people didn’t want to know the result, but whether researchers should routinely offer them at all, given the lack of certainty of the results and the potential for distress.
Another issue is their limited usefulness for people without symptoms. Addressing lifestyle risk factors, such as eating a healthy diet and getting regular exercise, can reduce cognitive decline, a message the public is increasingly aware of. But knowing your risk doesn’t change the advice.
In contrast to areas like breast cancer, where people at high risk of the disease can be offered preventative measures, such as drugs, surgery or enhanced screening, there are no comparable interventions to reduce dementia risk in people without symptoms.
The authors of the new study explain that researchers used to be cautious about not sharing test results with participants in Alzheimer’s studies. But now there’s a growing expectation that people will be given their results. A proposed “bill of rights” for dementia research participants includes the right to get their results and have them clearly explained.
It’s hard to explain how uncertain these results can be. People often worry about getting dementia in general, not just Alzheimer’s, which makes up about two-thirds of all cases. Some people who are told they have a low risk of Alzheimer’s may still develop another form of dementia, such as vascular dementia.
The wider science that produced these future risk estimates has enabled the development of new diagnostic technologies unimaginable ten years ago. Similar blood tests can detect Alzheimer’s disease pathology in people with cognitive symptoms with over 90% accuracy, potentially enabling more accurate and timely dementia diagnoses.
Blood tests
Two major UK research programmes are piloting these blood tests in the NHS to support the more accurate diagnoses of some forms of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease. Improved and earlier detection is needed: a third of people with dementia in England and Northern Ireland are never diagnosed.
The benefits of the first drugs to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease are modest. In the UK, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence hasn’t yet been convinced that these drugs are worth the cost for the NHS.
Some might question a focus on identifying future risks for dementia before we have good treatments. But developing better treatments depends on the new scientific discoveries that are helping us detect Alzheimer’s earlier. Finding a treatment for an illness requires a detailed understanding of how that illness develops.
We are closer to delivering accurate detection of Alzheimer’s disease than curative treatment. This presents a dilemma of how much to know about personal risk. Rights-based approaches situate this dilemma with the participant, to decide whether to know rather than researchers to decide whether to tell.
For researchers, disclosing results compassionately and clearly is difficult and for some, the knowledge will cause distress, however well it is conveyed. The option to receive results should come with warnings.
Claudia Cooper receives funding from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Dementia and Neurodegeneration Policy Research Unit (NIHR206110) and is supported by an NIHR Senior Investigator award (NIHR205009). The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the NIHR, the NHS or the Department of Health and Social Care. She received funding from ESRC/NIHR for the APPLE-Tree secondary dementia prevention programme from 2019-24 (ES/S010408/1). She works as a Professor of Psychological Medicine at Wolfson Institute of Population Health, Queen Mary University of London.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Olumayokun Ogunde, PhD Candidate in English, City St George’s, University of London
In Bitter Honey, novelist Lola Akinmade Åkerström explores the emotional undercurrents of motherhood and daughterhood. The novel reflects on how the past bears down on the present. How mothers carry their histories into their daughters’ lives – often uninvited, sometimes unrecognised.
One particular line is emblematic of this exploration: “‘When I was your age, I moved to Sweden without my mother. With nobody.’ Tina has heard this story a million times.” It captures both the weariness of inherited trauma and the fragility of the desire for understanding that threads through the novel.
Bitter Honey begins with the promise of protagonist Tina’s rising stardom. Alone in a dressing room, navigating fame and the sudden reappearance of her absentee father, Tina’s story has all the markings of a Bildungsroman (a coming-of-age novel shaped by psychological and moral growth). But the novel’s emotional nucleus is not fame, nor even fatherhood – it’s Tina’s mother, Nancy. Or at least, it wants to be.
Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.
Nancy’s story is one of deep and curdled regret. Akinmade crafts a portrait of a woman who once stood at the cusp of a glamorous new world, having fallen in love with Malik, an ambassador’s son who offers her access to elite circles, state dinners and the Swedish prime minister. But it is Lars, her white Swedish professor, who slowly unpicks the seams of her life.
The novel promises a sense of romantic tension, inviting the reader to feel torn between Malik’s genuine warmth and Lars’s sophistication. But no such ambivalence materialises.
Lars is not charming. He is jealous, controlling and ultimately predatory. Akinmade’s portrayal of Lars makes it clear: he is not a romantic dilemma, he is a colonising force. Nancy’s life with him is one of slow suffocation, and her daughter Tina is born of that rupture.
Throughout the novel, there are subtle allusions and at times more overt depictions of Tina’s struggle with her mixed heritage. However, these moments feel overwritten, particularly in lines such as Tina’s desire to “fully wear her mixed skin”.
While the phrasing may aim for poetic resonance, for me, it comes across as reductive. The metaphor inadvertently simplifies a complex and embodied experience, raising uneasy questions. Can identity be worn? Is it something that can be adorned, removed or chosen at will?
Akinmade appears to be engaging with the constructedness of race and the illusion of agency within African diasporic identity. But Tina’s exploration of these themes lacks depth. There remains a striking incongruity between how she understands herself and how the world perceives her.
At times her lack of critical self-awareness is jarring. Particularly when set against the more richly developed and emotionally layered portrayal of Nancy.
Love and regret
Where Akinmade excels is in her rendering of Nancy. Her character is more vividly drawn, more emotionally accessible than Tina’s. We see her consumed by grief and fear, mothering from a place of survival rather than nurture.
“She would have resisted him. Even if it meant Tobias and Tina vanishing into thin air, never existing.” This is the agonising truth of Nancy’s lifetime: that her children are reminders of her own loss of agency. Her love is knotted with regret.
There’s an urgent question running through Bitter Honey. What does it mean to parent when your life has been violently derailed by structures beyond your control?
This legacy of cultural dislocation is a theme Akinmade touches on but stops short of fully exploring. Nancy, as an immigrant mother, carries a kind of preemptive grief. Her decisions are shaped not just by personal trauma but by a constant anticipation of harm. The immigrant mother often exists in survival mode, where care is expressed not through softness, but vigilance.
“You figured I have no agency without him?” A line Tina delivers in a moment of confrontation typifies the novel’s uneven dialogue. Akinmade at times stumbles into phrasing that feels stilted or overwrought, reducing what could be moments of real emotional depth into awkward exchanges. Yet her broader ambition, to map generational wounds and diasporic complexity, is clear.
The novel’s scope is wide. We move between Sweden and the United States, from the 70s to 2006, witnessing how each locale produces different shades of diasporic identity.
Akinmade is particularly attuned to how Gambian communities shift across contexts – Gambians in Sweden are not like those in London or in New York. This specificity highlights that place informs not only experience but the perception of self.
Ultimately, Bitter Honey is at its most compelling when it slows down, when it allows Nancy’s grief to speak plainly. One of the novel’s most poignant lines arrives when Nancy warns Tina before she signs with an American label that brands her the “Swedish siren”.
“The world gives you your heart’s desires, then violently rips it away from your hands when you’re most vulnerable. Please stay vigilant.” Here, Akinmade captures the cruel irony of diasporic ambition, the way success can echo colonial exploitation, offering visibility at the cost of safety.
Through Tina, the reader is kept at a remove from the raw reality of Nancy. The moments where we begin to glimpse the true texture of her life, her regret, her protectiveness, her survival, are all too fleeting.
What would their lives look like without this fear? This is the novel’s quiet, unanswered question. Are these maternal guardrails protection or shackles? Bitter Honey doesn’t offer a resolution. But in asking, it reveals the aching legacy that mothers like Nancy pass down: not just trauma, but the impossible task of surviving without softness.
Olumayokun Ogunde 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.
Physical inactivity costs the UK an estimated £7.4 billion each year — but more importantly, it costs lives. In today’s increasingly sedentary world, sitting too much is raising the risk of many serious diseases, including cancer. But could something as simple as walking offer real protection?
It turns out the answer may be yes.
A growing body of research shows that regular physical activity can lower the risk of cancer. Now, recent findings from the University of Oxford add more weight to that idea. According to a large study involving over 85,000 people in the UK, the more steps you take each day, the lower your chances of developing up to 13 different types of cancer.
In the study, participants wore activity trackers that measured both the amount and intensity of their daily movement. On average, researchers followed up with participants six years later. They found a clear pattern: more steps meant lower cancer risk, regardless of how fast those steps were taken.
Get your news from actual experts, straight to your inbox.Sign up to our daily newsletter to receive all The Conversation UK’s latest coverage of news and research, from politics and business to the arts and sciences.
The benefits began to appear at around 5,000 steps a day – anything below that didn’t seem to offer much protection.
At 7,000 steps, the risk of developing cancer dropped by 11%. At 9,000 steps, it dropped by 16%. Beyond 9,000 steps, the benefits levelled off. The difference in risk reduction became marginal, and varied slightly between men and women.
These findings support the popular recommendation of aiming for 10,000 steps a day – not just for general health, but potentially for cancer prevention too. These associations also held up when results were adjusted for demographic, BMI and other lifestyle factors, such as smoking, suggesting that the observed changes in cancer risk were indeed down to the average number of daily steps a participant took.
Step intensity was also analysed – essentially, how fast participants were walking. Researchers found that faster walking was linked with lower cancer risk. However, when total physical activity was taken into account, the speed of walking no longer made a statistically significant difference. In other words: it’s the total amount of walking that counts, not how brisk it is.
Likewise, replacing sitting time with either light or moderate activity lowered cancer risk – but swapping light activity for moderate activity didn’t offer additional benefits. So just moving more, at any pace, appears to be what matters most.
The researchers looked at 13 specific cancers, including oesophageal, liver, lung, kidney, gastric, endometrial, myeloid leukaemia, myeloma, colon, head and neck, rectal, bladder and breast.
Over the six year follow-up period, around 3% of participants developed one of these cancers. The most common were colon, rectal, and lung cancers in men, and breast, colon, endometrial, and lung cancers in women.
Higher physical activity levels were most strongly linked to reduced risk of six cancers: gastric, bladder, liver, endometrial, lung and head and neck.
Break it up
Previous studies have relied on self-reported activity logs, which can be unreliable – people often forget or misjudge their activity levels. This study used wearable devices, providing a more accurate picture of how much and how intensely people were moving.
The study also stands out because it didn’t focus solely on vigorous exercise. Many past studies have shown that intense workouts can reduce cancer risk – but not everyone is able (or willing) to hit the gym hard. This new research shows that even light activity like walking can make a difference, making cancer prevention more accessible to more people.
Walking just two miles a day – roughly 4,000 steps, or about 40 minutes of light walking – could make a significant impact on your long-term health. You don’t have to do it all at once either. Break it up throughout the day by: taking the stairs instead of the lift; having a stroll at lunchtime; walking during phone calls; parking a bit further away from your destination.
Getting more steps into your routine, especially during middle age, could be one of the simplest ways to lower your risk of developing certain cancers.
Of course, the link between physical activity and cancer is complex. More long-term research is needed, especially focused on individual cancer types, to better understand why walking helps – and how we can make movement a regular part of cancer prevention strategies.
But for now, the message is clear: sit less, move more – and you could walk your way toward better health.
Mhairi Morris 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.
Public servants are the backbone of Canadian government. Canadians expect them to act in the best interest of society, to uphold Canadian democratic institutions, to steward public monies and to deliver programs and services.
But as retirements surge, how can governments attract young people to work for them? It’s difficult when governments suffer from poor reputations, low public trust and offer working conditions that may not appeal to young people.
What do young Canadians want from their careers, and what will it take for public service to win them over?
This issue, among others concerning Canadian public servants, are currently being studied at the Professional Motivations Research Lab at Dalhousie University. The lab is led by the lead author of this piece, Dominika Wranik, whose work focuses on measuring and explaining the motivations of professionals in the public service.
The lab’s insights shed light on the factors that influence how young people make decisions about whether to work for the public sector.
A labour shortage will create increased competition for top talent between the public and private sector, an issue for governments as research has shown a growing disinterest among youth in pursuing civil service careers.
Recruitment to the public service is further complicated by declining perceptions of competence and trust in Canadian public institutions. With studies demonstrating that applicants’ perceptions of an organization’s competence affect their attraction to working there, Canadian governments also run the risk of losing potential applicants who don’t view Canada’s public institutions as being competent or trustworthy.
These challenges come as young Canadians enter the workforce with more career options than ever before, and different expectations from previous generations.
Salary not the sole motivator
Young Canadians are not solely interested in high incomes, but also in workplaces that provide a healthy work/life balance and align with their values.
Data collected in 2024, for example, shows that 87 per cent of British Columbians between the ages of 18 and 34 prefer employers that are socially and environmentally responsible, with 61 per cent stating they would only work for such companies.
This means Canadian governments are currently finding themselves in a perilous situation, where rising suspicion about their trustworthiness and competence, paired with growing disinterest in the public sector as a whole, means they’re not positioned well to navigate an impending labour shortage.
Strengthening their capacity to attract and recruit the next generation of workers is therefore imperative, not only for upholding public institutions, but also for rebuilding trust in government.
In the effort to resolve this issue and enhance recruitment to the public service, Canadian government officials must pore over existing research into the factors that determine why youth and those just entering the labour market — people between the ages of 13 to 27, known as Gen Z — pursue or refrain from pursing public service jobs.
Some research suggests the three variables that potentially predict whether a member of Gen Z is inclined to pursue a career in the public sector are:
Their perception of the public sector’s reputation;
In terms of perceptions of the public sector, a recent study found that when choosing between the public and private sectors, university students in Norway and Poland were most influenced by their views of the public sector.
The more positive the outlook — for example, that public sector work is considered less bureaucratic and less inefficient — the higher the preference to work in the public sector, and vice versa.
This finding was echoed by racialized minorities in the United States. A 2022 study found that Black, Asian and Latinx young adults between the ages of 18-36 were largely turned off by government work due to perceptions that they weren’t represented or well-served by their “largely white, male and wealthy” local, state or federal government representatives.
In Canada, a study led by the Public Policy Forum discovered that perceptions of the nature of government work also had a significant impact on a student’s decision to pursue a career in the public sector. Students who chose to enter the public service cited “opportunities to examine a wide range of complex challenges and help create policy solutions that can have a positive impact on many communities.”
Motivations
In terms of having public service motivation (PSM) — which refers to an individual’s inclination to serve the public interest — studies have found that members of Gen Z are more likely to be drawn to the public sector if they are high in PSM.
Specifically, a study of Gen Z students in criminal justice programs found that those who identified with PSM tenets — such as “meaningful public service is very important to me” and “making a difference in society means more to me than personal achievements” — had a significantly higher likelihood of choosing the public sector over the private sector.
Similarly, an interdisciplinary sample of undergraduate students with higher levels of PSM — and who therefore identified with the PSM dimensions of self-sacrifice, compassion and commitment to public values — were more likely to have a preference for the public sector.
Job attributes
Preferred job attributes also influence the employment choices of members of Gen Z. The aforementioned research on Norwegian and Polish youth and another 2017 study by Canada’s Public Policy Forum (2017) find that when Gen Z students are interested in public sector work, it’s due to the semblance of financial and job security.
Given the growing disinterest among the Canadian population in pursuing employment in the public sector, new insights about what attracts Gen Z workers to the public sector should be required reading by governments across Canada.
Understanding Gen Z’s misgiving about public sector work will help better position governments to compete with the private sector to recruit the next generation of employees.
With perceptions of government competence and trustworthiness continuing to fall, it is imperative that Canadian public policymakers take significant steps to engage with Gen Z students and workers to create employment conditions that are attractive and aligned with their values.
The next generation of government leaders in Canada are currently in high school, college or university classrooms across the country, meaning that research centred in educational institutions is uniquely positioned to uncover valuable regarding how public sector employment is perceived.
Therefore, government-led engagement that is conducted through town halls, workshops and focus groups can help strengthen trust in government while familiarizing Gen Z students with government careers.
W. Dominika Wranik receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. In the past, she has held funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Mitacs, Research Nova Scotia, and the EU Horizon 2020, as well as short-term funding from several provincial and federal government departments. Dr. Wranik serves as an expert consultant for Canada’s Drug Agency (CDA-AMC).
Alec Brooks and Payton Nicol 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.
Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Gaelle Planchenault, Associate Professor of French Media, Culture, and Applied Linguistics, Simon Fraser University
Amid an ongoing tariff war, Trump’s proposal — which may ultimately remain an empty threat — goes beyond economic protectionism. It is cultural protectionism. It also reflects language ideologies that have long constrained the American film industry and American engagement with multilingual cinema.
Experts have offered various theories about the motivations behind this threat, as well as why it may ultimately prove unwise. In the rush to brace for impact, we often forget the values behind these extreme positions aren’t new. More importantly, we must also remember why it’s vital to protect these cultural expressions.
Such authority and threats are recognizable in this most recent threat to make access to foreign films difficult. The issue is not just about the economic dimension of foreign-made films. It is also about the perceived threat posed by the presence and influence of other languages. At its core, this reflects a fear or rejection of linguistic diversity.
In the film industry, this monolingual ideology is closely tied to glottophobic attitudes, also referred to by some scholars as linguicism. These terms define the misrepresentation and negative stereotyping of speakers of languages other than English.
Hollywood, in particular, has a long history of portraying foreign or heritage languages in stereotypical and often derogatory ways. Consider, for instance, the German-speaking characters in Second World War films, or more recent depictions of Arabic, Mexican Spanish or Russian speakers.
These portrayals illustrate a tendency to depict other languages as menacing — a point that was also made in the American president’s claim that foreign films pose a “threat” because they constitute “messaging and propaganda.”
Linguistic stereotyping
It’s not just characters who speak other languages who have been misrepresented in American films. Those who speak English as a second language — that is with an accent or with a syntax that is marked by their first language — were often played by white actors and subject to similar derogatory stereotypes.
Linguists have identified patterns in these linguistic representations, referring to them as Injun English, Mock Spanish or yellow voices, among others.
Lippi-Green has famously argued that such linguistic depictions are ways to reinforce standard language ideologies through linguistic stereotyping in media, including popular Disney cartoons. They effectively teach American children how to discriminate.
Hollywood has come a long way since the heydays of linguicism, gradually embracing a more inclusive and multilingual cinematic landscape. Today, films that present a more diverse linguistic landscape are increasingly common. And audiences are accustomed to having access to a wide selection of international content.
The global success of the French series Call My Agent is just one example. Among others are popular French spy thrillers and romances, Swedish thrillers, Japanese anime and Korean dystopian series.
As a professor of French media and linguistics, I often use films to teach students about French language and culture. But beyond their educational benefits, foreign-language films offer unique esthetic and emotional pleasures.
A press image for the show Call My Agent. Netflix
Watching a film is to engage with sound and image. The language itself enhances the immersive experience, contributing to the authenticity of the storytelling. For example, one of my students told me he enjoys turning on closed captions in French. These are also known as SDH: Subtitles for the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing. He does this not just for the dialogue but because they capture the full cinematic experience, including the naming of sounds.
Restricting access to these cultural products would trap viewers in an ideological echo chamber, where only one language is heard and validated.
Gaelle Planchenault 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.
An outrigger canoe would typically have several paddlers and one navigator.AP Photo/David Goldman
Wet and shivering, I rose from the outrigger of a Polynesian voyaging canoe. We’d been at sea all afternoon and most of the night. I’d hoped to get a little rest, but rain, wind and an absence of flat space made sleep impossible. My companions didn’t even try.
It was May 1972, and I was three months into doctoral research on one of the world’s most remote islands. Anuta is the easternmost populated outpost in the Solomon Islands. It is a half-mile in diameter, 75 miles (120 kilometers) from its nearest inhabited neighbor, and remains one of the few communities where inter-island travel in outrigger canoes is regularly practiced.
A documentary team made a recent visit to Anuta.
My hosts organized a bird-hunting expedition to Patutaka, an uninhabited monolith 30 miles away, and invited me to join the team.
Wayfinding techniques vary, depending upon geographic and environmental conditions. Many, however, are widespread. They include mental mapping of the islands in the sailors’ navigational universe and the location of potential destinations in relation to the movement of stars, ocean currents, winds and waves.
Western interest in Pacific voyaging
Disney’s two “Moana” movies have shined a recent spotlight on Polynesian voyaging. European admiration for Pacific mariners, however, dates back centuries.
In 1768, the French explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville named Sāmoa the “Navigators’ Islands.” The famed British sea captain James Cook reported that Indigenous canoes were as fast and agile as his ships. He welcomed Tupaia, a navigational expert from Ra‘iātea, onto his ship and documented Tupaia’s immense geographic knowledge.
In 1938, Māori scholar Te Rangi Hīroa (aka Sir Peter Buck) authored “Vikings of the Sunrise,” outlining Pacific exploration as portrayed in Polynesian legend.
In 1947, Thor Heyerdahl, a Norwegian explorer and amateur archaeologist, crossed from Peru to the Tuamotu Islands aboard a balsa wood raft that he named Kon-Tiki, sparking further interest and inspiring a sequence of experimental voyages.
Ten years later Andrew Sharp, a New Zealand-based historian and prominent naysayer, argued that accurate navigation over thousands of miles without instruments is impossible. Others responded with ethnographic studies showing that such voyages were both historic fact and current practice. In 1970, Thomas Gladwin published his findings on the Micronesian island of Polowat in “East Is a Big Bird.” Two years later, David Lewis’ “We, the Navigators” documented wayfinding techniques across much of Oceania.
A final strand has been experimental voyaging. Most celebrated is the work of the Polynesian Voyaging Society. They constructed a double-hull voyaging canoe named Hōkūle‘a, built from modern materials but following a traditional design. In 1976, led by Micronesian navigator Mau Piailug, they sailed Hōkūle‘a over 2,500 miles, from Hawai‘i to Tahiti, without instruments. In 2017, Hōkūle‘a completed a circumnavigation of the planet.
In traversing Earth’s largest ocean, one can travel thousands of miles and see nothing but sky and water in any direction. Absent a magnetic compass, much less GPS, how is it possible to navigate accurately to the intended destination?
Which stars are visible, as well as their rising and setting points, changes throughout the year. Therefore, navigation requires detailed astronomical understanding.
Also, stars are constantly in motion. One that is positioned directly over the target island will soon either rise too high to be useful or sink below the horizon. Thus, a navigator must seek other stars that follow a similar trajectory and track them as long as they are visible and low on the horizon. Such a sequence of guide stars is often called a “star path.”
Of course, stars may not align precisely with the desired target. In that case, instead of aiming directly toward the guide star, the navigator keeps it at an appropriate angle.
A navigator must modify the vessel’s alignment with the stars to compensate for currents and wind that may push the canoe sideways. This movement is called leeway. Therefore, celestial navigation requires knowledge of the currents’ presence, speed, strength and direction, as well as being able to judge winds’ strength, direction and effect on the canoe.
During daylight, when stars are invisible, the Sun may serve a similar purpose. In early morning and late afternoon, when the Sun is low in the sky, sailors use it to calculate their heading. Clouds, however, sometimes obscure both Sun and stars, in which case voyagers rely on other cues.
Navigating requires deep understanding of waves, in the form of both swells and seas. AP Photo/Esteban Felix
Waves, wind and other indicators
A critical indicator is swells. These are waves produced by winds that blow steadily across thousands of miles of open sea. They maintain their direction regardless of temporary or local winds, which produce differently shaped waves called “seas.”
The helmsman, feeling swells beneath the vessel, gleans the proper heading, even in the dark. In some locations, as many as three or four distinct swell patterns may exist; voyagers distinguish them by size, shape, strength and direction in relation to prevailing winds.
Once sailors near their target island, but before it is visible, they must determine its precise location. A common indicator is reflected waves: swells that hit the island and bounce back to sea. The navigator feels reflected waves and sails toward them. Pacific navigators who have spent their lives at sea appear quite confident in their reliance on reflected waves. I, by contrast, find them difficult to differentiate from waves produced directly by the wind.
Certain birds that nest on land and fish at sea are also helpful. In early morning, one assumes they’re flying from the island; in late afternoon, they’re likely returning to their nesting spots.
Navigators sometimes recognize a greenish tint to the sky above a not-yet-visible island. Clouds may gather over a volcanic peak.
And sailors in the Solomon Islands’ Vaeakau-Taumako region report underwater streaks of light known as te lapa, which they say point toward distant islands. One well-known researcher has expressed confidence in te lapa’s existence and utility. Some scholars have suggested that it could be a bioluminescent or electromagnetic phenomenon. On the other hand, despite a year of concerted effort, I was unable to confirm its presence.
Estimating one’s position at sea is another challenge. Stars move along a given parallel and indicate one’s latitude. To gauge longitude, by contrast, requires dead reckoning. Navigators calculate their position by keeping track of their starting point, direction, speed and time at sea.
Some Micronesian navigators estimate their progress through a system known as etak. They visualize the angle between their canoe, pictured as stationary, and a reference island that is off to one side and represented as moving. Western researchers have speculated on how etak works, but there is no consensus yet.
For millennia, Pacific voyagers have relied on techniques such as these to reach thousands of islands, strewn throughout our planet’s largest ocean. They did so without Western instruments. Instead, they held sophisticated knowledge and shared understandings, passed by word of mouth, through countless generations.
Richard (Rick) Feinberg has, in the past, received research funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Institute for Mental Health, and Kent State University. He is a member of the American Anthropological Association, the Association of Senior Anthropologists, and the Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania. He has maintained connections with people of the islands on which he has conducted research.
How reports Moscow City Duma (MCD) website, On May 13, the A.S. Pushkin Library and Reading Room hosted an awards ceremony for the participants of the Second Student Research Paper Competition. The competition was held as part of the V annual scientific and practical conference “History of Moscow: Methodology, Source Studies, Historiography, Popularization.” The initiator and main organizer was the Moscow City Duma. The winners included a postgraduate student Faculty of Humanities HSE University Elizaveta Novokreshchenova.
Deputy Chairman of the Moscow City Duma, head of the working group on Moscow studies and development of the Parliamentary Library of the Moscow City Duma Stepan Orlov (United Russia faction) shared his impressions of the competition with the Moscow City Duma website. “The history of Moscow is very important for the formation of a true patriot, a citizen,” he emphasized. “Of course, we want our students, and even better, schoolchildren, to be interested in the history of their hometown. You can’t be a patriot and a citizen if you don’t know and don’t love the history of the place where you were born and where you live.”
This time, 12 higher education institutions of Moscow took part in the competition — these are the best capital universities; 51 works were submitted to the competition, Stepan Orlov told the Moscow City Duma website. “We had a very authoritative jury. And here in the old building, in the A.S. Pushkin Library and Reading Room, which was created before the revolution, we awarded the best of the best, the students who took prize places. But I believe that everyone is a winner,” he said. The students did not just write some papers, but prepared real scientific works, the Deputy Chairman of the Moscow City Duma emphasized.
On May 15, the winners of the competition will be able to present their work at a scientific and practical conference at the Museum of Moscow together with academics, professors, teachers of leading Moscow universities and research fellows. The reports of the winners of the student work competition will also be included in the conference collection of scientific papers.
In an interview with the Moscow City Duma website, member of the expert council of the competition, candidate of historical sciences Elena Maksimenko, noted that the competition is not simply engaged in historical research and the preservation of historical traditions of universities. “We are engaged in the preservation of historical memory – the memory of those people who lived in Moscow, of those places that they created for us and that exist to this day, having a long history. They left us the beauty of Moscow, its history, and we support this memory and this tradition,” she said.
“I am very happy to take part in the award ceremony, which is taking place in the beautiful mansion of the A.S. Pushkin Library and Reading Room,” HSE Vice-Rector Irina Martusevich shared with the Moscow City Duma website. “I sincerely love Moscow architecture and I want to note that in addition to the fact that we walk with you every day along the most diverse streets of the capital, the city speaks to us in different languages – the languages of the names of its districts and streets. That is, we talk with architecture too. It is great that you are full participants in this dialogue and understand what is happening in our home city. Even if we become Muscovites for the time of our studies at university or graduate school, it is especially pleasant when the city becomes a part of us. We become friends for many years.
Therefore, I sincerely support this competition. I hope that we will expand and multiply this initiative. And of course, I congratulate the participants of the competition, who, in conditions of such high competition, were able to reach the final and become winners.”
The winner of the first place, postgraduate student of the Faculty of Humanities at the Higher School of Economics Elizaveta Novokreshchenova, participated in the competition for the first time. She presented a work entitled “The polisher of the Kremlin Palace Yegor Borisov – an attempt to reconstruct his biography.” An appeal to the documents of the Moscow Palace Fund of the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts showed that it is possible to study the biography of this representative of the palace servants using the lists of palace servants, meeting logs, and inventories of destroyed files, Elizaveta noted in an interview with the Moscow City Duma website. “Thus, as part of the study, I was able to establish the names of his wife and children, the date of death, and trace his career path – from a freelance to a full-time polisher,” says the HSE postgraduate student. “The research conducted shows that the Moscow Palace Fund contains a sufficient number of documents to trace the life path of the lowest rank of palace servants, which, in turn, makes it possible to study their social portrait and further scientific generalizations. I am happy with the first place in the competition, but I think that I still have something to strive for with this scientific work. I cannot help but mention the venue of the award ceremony – a beautiful mansion. It was nice that they arranged a real celebration for us with a concert. This victory is very significant for me.”
Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
Source: Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering – Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering – From left to right: Anastasia Gancheva, Daria Antipina, Anastasia Perlina
Director of the historical and information center of SPbGASU Elena Klimenko explained the relevance of the competition: the museum funds contain the “Book of Glory”, it was prepared for the 40th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War. The creation of this book was preceded by long-term work on searching and collecting information about students, teachers, and employees of the university who went to the front and did not return from the war.
“Our archive contains two thick folders with responses to letters that were sent to different parts of the country by university employees in search of relatives, fellow soldiers, friends who had at least some information about the deceased. The result of this painstaking work was the “Book of Glory”, which contains a brief biographical note about each soldier. It was planned to place it on the balustrade next to the memorial plaques to show it to guests, students and the university staff. We want to make it accessible and at the same time protect it as a museum exhibit, while thinking about the possibility of demonstrating the pages of the book,” said Elena Klimenko.
High level projects
Presenting diplomas and gifts, Vice-Rector for Youth Policy at SPbGASU Marina Malyutina emphasized that it was difficult to determine the best projects, since each one was completed at a high level and had its own unique idea.
“We want to bring the best project to life, so one of the main evaluation criteria was the possibility of implementation, and in a fairly short time. This requires the ability to design well not only a beautiful unique project, but also one that meets the requirements and wishes of the customer. Such experience is necessary in professional activities: understanding the customer’s goal, the ability to talk to him, to hear him determine the success of the architect. Therefore, next year we intend to actively develop student project activities taking into account implementation,” said Marina Malyutina.
Dean of the Faculty of Architecture of SPbGASU Ekaterina Voznyak confirmed the high level of the competition entries, emphasizing that until recently the Department of Architectural Environment Design had hardly designed interiors, but today professional design projects were presented here.
Head of the Department of Architectural Environment Design at SPbGASU Maria Granstrem agreed with the high assessment of the works.
“The competition task was quite difficult even for a practicing architect, since it was necessary to solve the problem of updating the interior in the context of the style of the historical university building, but with modern means, breathing new life into the memorial space. The guys approached the project creatively, the competition significantly raised their level of preparation, and we believe that third-year students now have a solid foundation for designing any interior solution,” noted Maria Granstrem.
Winners reveal secret of success
The winners were Daria Antipina, Anastasia Gancheva and Anastasia Perlina. “While searching for an idea for the project, we came up with the image of wheat: a symbol of life, war, siege bread… We began to convey this image throughout our project. Despite the fact that the Corner of Military Glory is located quite far from the museum, we chose a single style for these spaces. One of the most important points is modularity: everything is tied to cubes, they can be moved, assembled into structures. Modularity is reflected not only in the furniture, but also in the lighting. Therefore, both rooms can be used in different scenarios. We took into account the customer’s wishes and are glad that we succeeded,” shared Daria Antipina.
Anastasia Perlina added that the accent in the project is the signature brick-red color of SPbGASU, with the help of which the authors placed accents. In addition, a unified lighting system has been developed, which “descends” from the ceiling to the walls to illuminate the stands. All this creates a unified composition.
“In the process of work, we developed several ideas, analyzed them in detail and chose the best one. In addition, we studied the experience of professionals. For example, we visited a community center built in the fifties of the last century, where the floor is made of stone slabs, and between them – colored metal inserts. We decided to borrow this interesting experience and placed such inserts in red color,” explained Anastasia Perlina.
The authors of the winning project admit that the success of their working group is also due to the fact that they are friends and it was easy for them to find a common language. And working together on the project was a useful experience.
Second place went to Arina Avidzba and Ulyana Sivachenko. Third place went to Aslan Osmanov, Polina Tambova and Sergey Klechkovsky.
Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
CHICAGO, May 14, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Chicago-based title insurance underwriter Advocus National Title Insurance Company (Advocus) announced today that the company has named Mike Moore SVP of Illinois Operations, underscoring Advocus’ commitment to service excellence and regional leadership in attorney agent escrow services.
With more than three decades of experience in real estate and business operations, Moore brings a strategic mindset and a proven track record of operational leadership. In his new role, he will oversee all aspects of Illinois escrow operations, implementing scalable processes that align with Advocus’s long-term growth strategy while ensuring superior customer service and agent satisfaction.
“Mike’s appointment reflects both his outstanding contributions to our organization and his deep understanding of the Illinois market,” said Lynne Crotty, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Advocus. “He combines data-driven operational insight with a people-first leadership style that inspires trust across our teams and agency partners.”
Moore has been part of Advocus (formerly ATG) for more than thirty years, and most recently served as Vice President of Special Markets, where he led initiatives tailored to unique customer segments and supported both operational and sales teams. Prior to joining Advocus, he served for over a decade as President of NLT Title, a division of Attorneys’ Title Guaranty Fund, Inc., where he successfully modernized systems and enhanced performance across departments.
A graduate of National Louis University, Moore is actively involved in the Illinois Land Title Association and holds the ITP and IEP professional designations, reflecting his ongoing commitment to industry best practices and professional development.
“I’m honored to step into this expanded role and continue supporting the incredible work of our Illinois team,” said Moore. “At Advocus, we believe in combining legal expertise with streamlined processes to deliver unmatched value to our clients, and I look forward to building on that foundation.”
To learn more about Advocus and its attorney-centered approach to title insurance, visit advocus.com.
About Advocus Advocus is a national provider of title insurance and settlement services dedicated to preserving the role of lawyers in real estate transactions. Founded in 1964 on the belief that every consumer deserves legal representation and advocacy, Advocus is dedicated to preserving the attorney’s role in real estate transactions and offering attorney-led underwriting expertise. With a growing presence in markets across the United States, Advocus continues to set the standard for excellence in the title insurance industry. For more information, visit www.advocus.com.
WARSAW, Ind., May 14, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Lakeland Financial Corporation (Nasdaq Global Select/LKFN) and Lake City Bank announced today that Dan Starr and Mindy Creighton Truex have been appointed to their respective Boards of Directors.
“Our boards represent the foundational building blocks of stable corporate governance, leadership and engagement in our Indiana communities and provide balanced and thoughtful feedback to our leadership team. The addition of Dan and Mindy brings two proven business and community leaders to the table,” said David M. Findlay, Chairman and CEO. “Our boards are an extension of the bank in our Indiana markets and are active partners in the focus to drive long-term shareholder value. Both Dan and Mindy share a strong commitment to building long-term relationships within their industries and communities, which fits perfectly with Lake City Bank’s community banking philosophy.”
Starr is CEO of Do it Best Corp., a Fort Wayne-based member-owned hardware, lumber and building materials buying cooperative in the home improvement industry with thousands of member-owned locations across the United States and in more than 60 countries. He has been with Do it Best Corp. for two decades and held several leadership roles prior to becoming President and CEO in 2016. Before joining Do it Best Corp., Starr was a partner with Barnes & Thornburg LLP and served as the firm’s Business, Tax & Real Estate departmental administrator in Fort Wayne.
“Lake City Bank plays a vital role in many communities across our state and joining the board is an exciting opportunity,” said Starr. “I look forward to contributing to the continued growth and momentum of the bank.”
Starr has a juris doctor degree magna cum laude from the Indiana University School of Law. He has served in numerous board leadership roles within the greater Fort Wayne community, including the Northeast Indiana Innovation Center, St. Francis Family Business Center and Fort Wayne Ballet. He currently serves as chairman of the Parkview Health Board of Directors, as well as on the Manchester University Board of Trustees Outreach Committee and the Do it Best Foundation.
Mindy Creighton Truex is President of Creighton Brothers Farms LLC, a Warsaw-based family-owned farm founded in 1925. With extensive experience in the agricultural sector, she has been instrumental in developing innovative initiatives with Creighton Brothers Farms, including educational and farm-to-table experiences. She has served in leadership roles with national and local agricultural advocacy organizations, including the American Egg Board, United Egg Producers, Indiana State Poultry Association and Purdue University Animal Science Department Dean’s Advisory Committee.
“As a sixth generation Kosciusko County farmer, I’m honored to join the Lake City Bank and Lakeland Financial Corporation boards,” said Creighton Truex. “Lake City Bank has been a part of the fabric of our community since 1872 and I’m excited to help the bank continue to grow.”
Creighton Truex has a bachelor’s degree in agribusiness management from Purdue University. She has served on the boards of many nonprofit organizations that impact her local community, including the Kosciusko County Visitor’s Bureau, Kosciusko County Community Foundation, Kosciusko County Leadership Academy, Purdue University’s Kosciusko County Agricultural Extension, Kosciusko County Farm Bureau, and United Way of Kosciusko County.
Lakeland Financial Corporation (Nasdaq Global Select/LKFN) is a $6.9 billion bank holding company headquartered in Warsaw, Indiana. Lake City Bank, its single bank subsidiary, was founded in 1872 and serves Central and Northern Indiana communities with 54 branch offices and a robust digital banking platform. Lake City Bank’s community banking model prioritizes building in‐market long‐term customer relationships while delivering technology‐forward solutions for retail and commercial clients. For more information visit www.lakecitybank.com.
Contact Luke Weick Marketing Manager 574 267-9198, x47279 office 260 431-7061 mobile luke.weick@lakecitybank.com
Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Peter Draper, Professor, and Executive Director: Institute for International Trade, and Jean Monnet Chair of Trade and Environment, University of Adelaide
Defying expectations, the United States and China have announced an important agreement to de-escalate bilateral trade tensions after talks in Geneva, Switzerland.
The good, the bad and the ugly
The good news is their recent tariff increases will be slashed. The US has cut tariffs on Chinese imports from 145% to 30%, while China has reduced levies on US imports from 125% to 10%. This greatly eases major bilateral trade tensions, and explains why financial markets rallied.
The bad news is twofold. First, the remaining tariffs are still high by modern standards. The US average trade-weighted tariff rate was 2.2% on January 1 2025, while it is now estimated to be up to 17.8%. This makes it the highest tariff wall since the 1930s.
Overall, it is very likely a new baseline has been set. Bilateral tariff-free trade belongs to a bygone era.
Second, these tariff reductions will be in place for 90 days, while negotiations continue. Talks will likely include a long list of difficult-to-resolve issues. China’s currency management policy and industrial subsidies system dominated by state-owned enterprises will be on the table. So will the many non-tariff barriers Beijing can turn on and off like a tap.
China is offering to purchase unspecified quantities of US goods – in a repeat of a US-China “Phase 1 deal” from Trump’s first presidency that was not implemented. On his first day in office in January, amid a blizzard of executive orders, Trump ordered a review of that deal’s implementation. The review found China didn’t follow through on the agriculture, finance and intellectual property protection commitments it had made.
Unless the US has now decided to capitulate to Beijing’s retaliatory actions, it is difficult to see the US being duped again.
Failure to agree on these points would reveal the ugly truth that both countries continue to impose bilateral export controls on goods deemed sensitive, such as semiconductors (from the US to China) and processed critical minerals (from China to the US).
Moreover, in its so-called “reciprocal” negotiations with other countries, the US is pressing trading partners to cut certain sensitive China-sourced goods from their exports destined for US markets. China is deeply unhappy about these US demands and has threatened to retaliate against trading partners that adopt them.
A temporary truce
Overall, the announcement is best viewed as a truce that does not shift the underlying structural reality that the US and China are locked into a long-term cycle of escalating strategic competition.
That cycle will have its ups (the latest announcement) and downs (the tariff wars that preceded it). For now, both sides have agreed to announce victory and focus on other matters.
For the US, this means ensuring there will be consumer goods on the shelves in time for Halloween and Christmas, albeit at inflated prices. For China, it means restoring some export market access to take pressure off its increasingly ailing economy.
As neither side can vanquish the other, the likely long-term result is a frozen conflict. This will be punctuated by attempts to achieve “escalation dominance”, as that will determine who emerges with better terms. Observers’ opinions on where the balance currently lies are divided.
Along the way, and to use a quote widely attributed to Winston Churchill, to “jaw-jaw is better than to war-war”. Fasten your seat belts, there is more turbulence to come.
Where does this leave the rest of us?
Significantly, the US has not (so far) changed its basic goals for all its bilateral trade deals.
Its overarching aim is to cut the goods trade deficit by reducing goods imports and eliminating non-tariff barriers it says are “unfairly” prohibiting US exports. The US also wants to remove barriers to digital trade and investments by tech giants and “derisk” certain imports that it deems sensitive for national security reasons.
The agreement between the US and UK last week clearly reflects these goals in operation. While the UK received some concessions, the remaining tariffs are higher, at 10% overall, than on April 2 and subject to US-imposed import quotas. Furthermore, the UK must open its market for certain goods while removing China-originating content from steel and pharmaceutical products destined for the US.
For Washington’s Pacific defence treaty allies, including Australia, nothing has changed. Potentially difficult negotiations with the Trump administration lie ahead, particularly if the US decides to use our security dependencies as leverage to wring concessions in trade. Japan has already disavowed linking security and trade, and their progress should be closely watched.
The US has previously paused high tariffs on manufacturing nations in South-East Asia, particularly those used by other nations as export platforms to avoid China tariffs. Vietnam, Cambodia and others will face sustained uncertainty and increasingly difficult balancing acts. The economic stakes are higher for them.
They, like the Japanese, are long-practised in the subtle arts of balancing the two giants. Still, juggling ties with both Washington and Beijing will become the act of an increasingly high-wire trapeze artist.
The authors 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.
The more than 2 million people who attended Lady Gaga’s free concert on Copacabana Beach on May 3, 2025, had no idea of a plot that, if successful, would have turned the event into a tragedy fueled by hate. Just hours before a sea of admirers waved fans in sync with the singer during the event, the Rio de Janeiro Civil Police thwarted a planned attack involving Molotov cocktails and improvised bombs – and targeting the American singer’s LGBTQ following.
Two people have since been arrested over the plot, which was organized by users of digital platforms such as Discord. The intent, authorities say, was radicalizing and recruiting teenagers to carry out the planned attack.
Those responsible hoped to entice these young people into actions that would gain online notoriety.
Although authorities were able to prevent the attack, the incident stands as a stark warning about the growth of hate networks among youth − and how platforms fuel the radicalization of teenagers, especially boys and young men.
As experts in the anthropology of technologyand information science, we see something deeply generational about this phenomenon. The recent Netflix series “Adolescence” broke viewership records by portraying an environment in which young people live in hyperconnected online spheres, absent of state oversight and parental supervision. In these spheres, bullying toxic masculinity permeates, and violence – often targeted at women and sexual minorities – is normalized.
The show was set in the U.K., but it holds up a mirror to the world. Data from polling company Gallup reveals a growing ideological divide between young men and women in Gen Z across the globe. Too often, that divide, in which young men and boys are turning against progressive values, is being expressed through actions associated with the “manosphere,” such as misogyny and incel behavior.
This polarization is emerging just as online platforms such as Discord, TikTok and Reddit have become formative spaces of identity.
Instead of promoting diversity, however, many of these platforms have been used as machines for producing and spreading hate. The 2021 study Mapping Discord’s Darkside, published in the journal New Media & Society, shows that despite marketing efforts to distance itself from the far right, Discord hosts thousands of servers associated with neo-Nazi, misogynistic, racist, transphobic and conspiratorial discourse. Researchers identified 2,741 such servers − with more than 850,000 active members.
These networks end up functioning as recruitment hubs, where young people − especially boys − are lured in by edgy memes, promises of belonging and identity games based on excluding others. Discord’s structure, which prioritizes privacy and decentralization, has become fertile ground for the emergence of what scholar Adrienne Massanari calls “toxic technocultures.”
Services such as Disboard − an informal search engine for Discord servers − are used to recruit teens into communities that glorify Nazism, encourage hatred toward women and people from the LGBTQ+ community, and even offer “services” for coordinated attacks on other servers. And this appears to be the case in the thwarted attack on the Lady Gaga concert.
Presenting a challenge
A significant factor in the success of these radicalizing environments is gamification − the use of gamelike elements such as challenges, rewards and leaderboards in nongame contexts. When applied to social networks and extremist forums, gamification turns engagement into competition and hate speech into a playful challenge.
This practice makes the entrance into extremism more palatable for young, impressionable people by masking violence behind seemingly harmless mechanics. As noted in the European Commission’s 2021 report Gamification and Online Hate Speech, gamification has become a powerful tool for normalizing and spreading hate, particularly among young people seeking recognition and belonging.
This process, known as “bottom-up gamification,” occurs when users create the rules, symbolic rewards and challenges. For example, by turning hate speech into “challenges” that involve humiliating women or people from the LGBTQ+ community online, the dehumanization of targets is presented in playful, viral ways.
Turning hate into entertainment
The investigation into the foiled attack on Lady Gaga’s Copacabana concert revealed exactly this mechanism: The attack was treated as a “collective challenge,” with youths recruited to build Molotov cocktails and explosive backpacks in order to gain notoriety on social media.
The logic of gamification also creates a structure of “achievement” and “scoring” that fosters competition and reinforces radical ideology. As shown in the 2022 study by criminologists Suraj Lakhani and Susann Wiedlitzka, attacks such as the 2019 mosque attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, in which 51 people were killed, were planned and executed with strong inspiration from gaming, including live broadcasts similar to “Let’s Play” sessions, in which people offer live commentary during walk-throughs of games, typically first-person shooting games, and viewer comments that treat the number of deaths as a “score.”
This aestheticization of violence serves as a bonding element among young men in digital spaces, especially those who already feel marginalized or frustrated and who find in these games of hate a sense of belonging and affirmation. In this way, gamification transforms hate into entertainment, strengthening ties in toxic communities and making it harder to recognize the behavior as extremism.
Turning a generation off hate
Society is, we believe, facing a dual challenge: the need for moderation of platforms and for support for measures preventing men and boys from being drawn into toxic digital spaces.
The gender divide within Gen Z is no small matter, too. It reflects, in broad terms, a rift between a generation of young women who, empowered by #MeToo and other feminist movements, have embraced progressive causes, and a generation of men who, threatened by their perceived diminished power in this new environment, are being co-opted by far-right and misogynistic discourse in digital spaces.
This gap has real consequences in personal relationships, in schools and for democracy at large. But it also reveals something that we believe must be stated clearly: Platform regulation is not just a technical issue. The future of a generation cannot be built on algorithms that reward hate and radicalization.
This article is a translated and adapted version of a story that was originally published by The Conversation Brazil on May 8, 2025.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
If the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, meet in Istanbul on May 15, territory – and who controls it – will be high on their agenda.
Putin offered to start direct talks between Russia and Ukraine at a press conference on May 11. Donald Trump pushed Zelensky to accept this offer in a social media post, saying that “Ukraine should agree to this, IMMEDIATELY.”
The Ukrainian president, still buoyed by a meeting with the British, French, German and Polish leaders that called for an unconditional 30-day ceasefire, agreed shortly afterwards.
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.
These 2022 negotiations focused on Ukraine becoming a permanently neutral state and on which nations would provide security guarantees for any deal. They also relegated discussions over Crimea to separate negotiations with a ten-to-15-year timeframe.
Russia uses the phrase “the current situation on the ground” as thinly disguised code for territorial questions that have become more contentious over the past three years. This relates to Russian gains on the battlefield and the illegal annexation of four Ukrainian regions in September 2022 (in addition to Crimea, which Russia also illegally annexed in 2014).
Russia’s position, as articulated recently by the country’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, is that “the international recognition of Crimea, Sevastopol, the DPR, the LPR, the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions as part of Russia is … imperative”.
This is clearly a non-starter for Ukraine, as repeatedly stated by Zelensky. There could, however, be some flexibility on accepting that some parts of sovereign Ukrainian territory are under temporary Russian control. This has been suggested by both Trump’s Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, and Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko.
Institute for the Study of War.
Black Sea’s strategic value
The territories that Russia currently occupies, and claims, in Ukraine have varying strategic, economic and symbolic value for Moscow and Kyiv. The areas with the greatest strategic value include Crimea and the territories on the shores of the Azov Sea, which provide Russia with a land corridor to Crimea.
The international recognition of Crimea as part of Russia, as apparently suggested under the terms of an agreement hashed out by Putin and Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff, could expand the areas of the Black Sea that Russia can claim to legally control.
This could then be used by the Kremlin as a launchpad for renewed attacks on Ukraine and to threaten Nato’s eastern maritime flank in Romania and Bulgaria. Any permanent recognition of Russia’s control of these territories is, therefore, unacceptable to Ukraine and its European partners.
Donetsk and Luhansk are of lower strategic value, compared with Crimea and the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. However, they do have economic value because of the substantial resources located there. These include some of the mineral and other resources that were the subject of a separate deal which the US and Ukraine concluded on April 30.
They also include Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia and a large labour force among their estimated population of between 4.5 million to 5.5 million people who will be critical to Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction.
Beyond the strategic and economic value of the illegally occupied territories, the symbolism that both sides attach to their control is the most significant obstacle to any deal, given how irreconcilable Moscow’s and Kyiv’s positions are. For both sides, control of these territories, or loss thereof, is what defines victory or defeat in the war.
Putin may be able to claim that some territorial gains in Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022 are a victory for Russia. But even for him any compromise that would see Russia give up territory that it has conquered – often at exceptionally high cost – would be a risky gamble for the stability of his regime.
Anything less than the complete restoration of the country’s territorial integrity in its 1991 borders would imply recognition of defeat in the war for Ukraine. This would critically threaten the stability of the Zelensky government, whose political programme rests on exactly the premise of a return to the 1991 borders.
Long-term consequences
As a result, the Ukrainian leadership has become hostage to its own information strategy, which has placed the “return of all territories” at the top of the criteria for victory. This is a goal widely shared among Ukrainians, according to a poll conducted by the Razumkov Center in March 2025. But it will be hard to achieve.
Apart from the potential domestic fall-out from any territorial compromises that Ukraine may be forced to make, there is another reason why the territorial question has become so intractable.
Beyond any strategic, economic and symbolic value that the occupied Ukrainian territories hold from the Kremlin’s perspective, control over territory has always been an instrument for Russia to pursue its broader geopolitical agenda of exercising influence over its neighbours – from Moldova, to Georgia, Armenia and Ukraine.
It is also important to remember that Russia’s territorial claims in Ukraine have gradually expanded since 2014. Until September 2022, when it annexed the other four regions, Russia laid claim to Crimea only.
There is no guarantee that any territorial concession from Kyiv now would put a permanent end to Moscow’s territorial expansionism. It is therefore worrying that Trump envoy Witkoff, in an interview with the Breitbart news website, reiterated the US view that the two sides need to find compromises on who controls which territories.
Russia’s aggression against Ukraine was not a war over territory as such, but was part of Moscow’s agenda to restore the sphere of influence that it lost at the end of the cold war. This agenda is far from finished.
The strategy of both Moscow and Washington to focus on territorial consequences may lead to a ceasefire. But it will not address the fundamental issue of how to deal with a vengeful and revisionist autocracy on Europe’s doorsteps.
Stefan Wolff is a past recipient of grant funding from the Natural Environment Research Council of the UK, the United States Institute of Peace, the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK, the British Academy, the NATO Science for Peace Programme, the EU Framework Programmes 6 and 7 and Horizon 2020, as well as the EU’s Jean Monnet Programme. He is a Trustee and Honorary Treasurer of the Political Studies Association of the UK and a Senior Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Centre in London.
Tetyana Malyarenko 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.
The first-ever study to examine food and nutrition in preschools in Essex has uncovered significant challenges in providing healthy meals to under-5s.
Led by Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) and commissioned by Essex County Council Public Health, the Nourishing Our Future (NOF) preschools report identified food costs and managing food preferences – including an increasing reluctance to try new foods – as the two biggest obstacles to healthy eating in the county.
Essex has extremes of health and wealth within its population of 1.5 million and the 2023-24 National Child Measurement Programme found that 21% of reception-age children (4-5 years old) in Essex are living with obesity or are overweight, underlining the need for targeted local interventions.
Of Essex’s 298 preschools, 67 took part in the Nourishing Our Future study, which set out to understand the current food environment and identify possible improvements.
The study involved workshops, an online survey, menu and photo analysis and parent interviews, and is published on the same day that report authors Dr Kay Aaronricks and the NOF team at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), along with Emily Fallon and Susie Threadgold of Essex County Council, are presenting findings to MPs at an event held by the Food Foundation at the House of Commons.
When it comes to barriers to providing nutritious meals, 59% of preschools in Essex consider the cost of food to be the greatest challenge, with children’s food preferences and allergies the second biggest factor.
The majority of preschools in the county (57%) only have basic food preparation facilities, such as a microwave, and over two thirds (69%) of children in Essex bring their own food to preschool in the form of parent-provided lunchboxes.
The study identified that these lunchboxes often contained high levels of processed food and had greater nutritional variability than meals provided by the preschools. It also found many lunchboxes of two to four-year-olds included pouches of baby food.
In contrast, meals provided by preschools more consistently adhered to nutritional guidelines, featuring higher protein content, more fruits and vegetables, and less processed food.
One preschool said: “We face a significant challenge with promoting healthy eating to families. Our children’s lunchboxes consist of a lot of processed, unhealthy foods that are high in sugar and additives.”
Another said: “Children are sometimes not used to being encouraged to try anything new! This is evident in some lunch boxes, where the contents never vary.”
One preschool adopts “family mealtimes” to encourage children to try different food. They said: “A lot of children have never eaten the type of food we serve such as soup or pulses and only consume fruit from pouches… It is an increasing challenge to encourage children to try new foods but our family mealtimes where they can watch other children and staff eating and drinking really helps.”
An analysis of 414 photographs of meals (87% home-packed food and 13% provided by the preschool) studied nutritional content. While starchy carbohydrates were well-aligned with portion size guidelines and fruit and vegetables slightly exceeded the target, dairy provision was slightly below and protein was significantly below guidelines.
When it comes to promoting healthier lunchboxes, 75% of communication with parents is carried out at drop off or pick up times Preschools also said they would appreciate support on how to better advise and engage parents in healthier food choices.
The rising cost of food was the single greatest challenge to healthy eating identified by the study. As a recent report by the Food Foundation set out, healthier foods are more than twice as expensive per calorie than less healthy foods. For preschools that provide lunches, delivering high-quality, nutritious meals is becoming increasingly difficult.
Preschools, along with childminders and day nurseries, are not permitted to charge a compulsory fee for food, meaning the cost is borne by the early years settings themselves or through a voluntary contribution from parents.
Practitioners consistently highlighted the financial strain, with one preschool noting, “Fresh food is increasing in price all the time; food purchasing in general has risen significantly over the last two years.”
Trying to provide food on a budget, while also catering to children’s individual food preferences and allergies, adds to the difficulty. One preschool said: “We really try to accommodate food allergies, but more and more children are showing [as] intolerant and [have an] allergy and it is really increasing our spending on food.”
Policy recommendations set out in the Nourishing Our Future report include a nationally funded early years food scheme to support both preschool and parent-provided meals, ensuring affordability and respecting parental choice, establishing public health support for parents on healthy eating, including nutrition advice, and developing targeted programmes to help children build positive relationships around food preferences.
“Our study involved preschools from across Essex, as well as parents, which is important as parents’ voices are often missing from healthy food policy development.
“The report shows that although there is a great deal of excellent work being done by preschools across Essex, there is a need for action to improve the nutritional landscape for young children, including improving children’s relationship with food.
“We would like to see appropriate national funding for preschools to allow them to provide healthy food for all children. However, simply replacing lunchboxes with setting-provided food for one meal a day won’t solve the wider issues for the child or their family, such as what will they eat at the weekend or during the holidays.
“We must support all families in being able to access affordable, healthy food alongside appropriate nutritional advice, because healthy food should be available to all. Of course, there are much wider societal issues around the prevalence of convenience, ultra processed food and the targeted marketing of foods that are high in fat salt and sugar, and tackling this also needs to be a priority.”
Dr Kay Aaronricks, Head of the School of Education at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU)
Scientists comment on reports of an EU ‘reset’ which could mean the precision breeding act is dropped from UK legislation.
Dr Penny Hundleby, Senior Scientist at the John Innes Centre, said:
“As a scientist with over thirty years in genetic technologies, I’ve seen how innovation can transform agriculture. The UK now has a rare opportunity to lead globally in precision breeding — with the legislation passed and the science ready.
“To delay this progress in order to align with slower EU processes would undermine our ability to deliver resilient, sustainable crops at a time when food security and climate resilience are more urgent than ever. We risk forfeiting a clear post-Brexit advantage grounded in science, safety, and evidence.”
Prof Huw Jones, Chair in Translational Genomics for Plant Breeding, Aberystwyth University, said:
“Closer ties with the EU are a good thing but let’s not lose the logical regulatory progress we have made this side of the Channel. Simple gene editing is a speedier and more reliable breeding method to develop the crops we need in a changing world. It’s illogical to regulate these crops as GMOs and it is the EU that has been slow to follow the broad consensus on this. If there are no foreign genes, and the changes could have been generated by conventional breeding, they need regulation – but not as GMOs.”
Prof Neil Hall, Director of the Earlham Institute, said:
“Given the pressures on global food security, driven by climate change, the growing population and new diseases, it’s important that we harness all of the technical innovations at our disposal to ensure the sustainability of our agricultural systems.
“Over the past three years, including these last few months, Parliament has demonstrated important and legitimate leadership by passing the primary and secondary legislation to enable precision breeding in plants. It’s time to enable science research to help farmers adapt to our changing world.”
Prof Jonathan Jones FRS, Group Leader at The Sainsbury Laboratory, said:
“The Precision Breeding Act (PBA) provides an opportunity to protect our crops from pests and disease with biology rather than chemistry, and also enables new routes to more nutritious food, and I applaud this government and its predecessor for taking the legislation through to final approval and implementation. It is to my mind the sole Brexit dividend.
“However, it takes a long time between producing an improved plant in a lab and creating and obtaining approval for a variety that farmers can plant. I think it’s highly likely that by the time any precision bred varieties in the UK are ready to plant (likely at least 5 years from now) the EU will have approved its own version of the PBA.
“So, the government should stick to its guns on the PBA but quietly point out to the EU that, although there are no scientifically credible safety concerns with using these methods, the timelines in this industry are such that it will be a long time before any products are authorized in the UK and thus before any potential problems might arise.”
Prof Sarah Gurr, Chair in Food Security at Exeter University, said:
“It is sad to realise that whilst we embraced the need for GM vaccines during the recent COVID epidemic and we seem reticent to embrace gene edited crops. The need for climate proofed and disease resilient gene edited crops is paramount in our quest for sustainable agriculture.”
Jonathan Jones “is a senior investigator at The Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich, and uses molecular and genetic approaches to study disease resistance in plants. Jones co-founded Norfolk Plant Sciences in 2007 with Prof Cathie Martin of JIC, with the goal of bringing flavonoid-enriched tomatoes to market (www.norfolkplantsciences.com). Jones is on the board of www.isaaa.org, the science advisory board of the 2Blades foundation (www.2blades.org) and the board of NIAB Cambridge University Farm. Jones has isolated and is deploying new resistance genes against potato late blight from wild relatives of potato, and conducting field trials to evaluate how well they work to protect the crop in the field and to generate improved varieties of potato (see http://www.tsl.ac.uk/news/blight-resistant-maris-piper/). See also http://www.tsl.ac.uk/groups/jones-group/.”
Penny Hundleby “is part of the Crop Transformation Group at the John Innes Centre and using genetic technologies to better understand the role of plant genes. The group provides gene editing resources to the UK and international research community and have been working with gene editing technologies in crops since 2014.”
Huw Jones: “I am speaking as a researcher at Aberystwyth University and not representing other organisations that I am affiliated with. I am a member of the FSA ACNFP and Defra ACRE. My declarations of interest are listed on the websites of those Depts.”
For all other experts, no reply to our request for DOIs was received.
Source: Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering – Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering – Evgeny Zhuk
A graduate of LISI (now SPbGASU) Evgeny Zhuk recalls what the institute was like 60 years ago, how he passed exams and studied. At the same time, he emphasizes that he is one of many ordinary graduates of our university. In fact, Evgeny Pavlovich is quite modest. He was awarded the medal “Veteran of Labor”, the badge “Honorary Builder of Russia”, the badge “Builder of St. Petersburg” 2nd degree, the silver and gold medals of the Holy Supreme Apostle Peter, the badge “Construction Glory”, the Order “For Merit in Construction”, the badge “Labor Valor”, the honorary title “Honored Builder of the Russian Federation”, the title “Honored Builder of St. Petersburg”, the badge of the Holy Martyr Veniamin, Metropolitan of Petrograd and Gdov, for services to the St. Petersburg Metropolitanate. During his many years of work, he built objects “for three Leningrads”.
At 81, Evgeny Pavlovich works as the chief specialist of the construction control department of general education facilities of the Educational Facilities Construction Department of the St. Petersburg State Institution “Capital Construction and Reconstruction Fund”, subordinate to the St. Petersburg Construction Committee. We talk to him about how to succeed in the profession and remain in demand, despite the situation in the country and age.
– Evgeny Pavlovich, how can one choose a profession for life in one’s youth?
– I continued the family dynasty: my father and grandfather were builders, my mother also received an education in the construction industry, my uncle was an architect. Their example and advice became the determining factor in choosing a profession. I studied well at school, I had excellent math and physics teachers, so there were no problems with entering civil and industrial construction. At that time, applicants also had to successfully pass the swimming test, which is quite fair: a builder must be ready to navigate any situation, for example, during the construction of bridges over water obstacles.
The state system helped me stay in the profession. My first two years of study went like this: students who entered the daytime department right after school studied according to the evening education program, that is, on Mondays we studied during the day, worked on the construction site the rest of the weekdays, and on Wednesdays and Fridays we also went to classes in the evenings. Therefore, already in the second year, we were awarded the qualification of a first-category transport worker, then a concrete worker and a carpenter of the second and third categories. I completed my industrial practice as a backup foreman. Graduates were immediately employed, as they say now, with a good social package – with the provision of a room first in a dormitory, then in an apartment, and then – separate housing, the area of which depended on the family status and the number of children. In addition, there was a mentoring system and career advancement. Therefore, the profession was popular with young people.
– How did you start your career and what successes have you achieved?
– I worked at the Design Institute for the first two years after graduating, and then moved to Glavleningradstroy, a powerful organization with 70,000 employees, and its boss was at the ministerial level. It was interesting to work there because the workers were highly qualified, they were trained in vocational schools and construction colleges. Many of the foremen then became heads of departments, that is, the personnel were trained on the spot. But higher education was required for career growth. I always say that I was lucky to work with good mentors and managers. I always share my professional successes with them. They taught me a lot, and these skills came in handy at all stages of professional growth, starting from a foreman, a site manager, a senior foreman, a site manager to a chief engineer and a department manager.
What buildings have I participated in the construction of? 22-story buildings on Moskovsky Prospekt from the airport side, buildings at the entrance to Sestroretsk, buildings in Kupchino and Kolpino. Modern buildings include the Buff Theater, the Church of the Holy Apostle Peter in Stroiteley Park, the Triumph of the Russian Fleet monument near the cathedral in Kronstadt, the Boris Eifman Children’s Dance Theater, the first block of the oncology hospital in Pesochny, the swimming pool on Khlopina Street, and the building of the Botkin Clinical Hospital on Piskarevsky. Over the past few years, I have participated in the construction of a dozen schools in different areas of the city, for example, the 777th school for almost 2,000 students in the Primorsky District, the 147th in the Krasnogvardeisky District, the 219th school for 1,375 students in the Krasnoselsky District, and the Church of All Saints Who Shone in the Land of St. Petersburg at the Levashovskoye Memorial Cemetery in St. Petersburg.
– Before your eyes, the construction industry and the country have experienced dramatic changes: the Soviet system was replaced by difficult years after the collapse of the USSR, and the new history brings its own events. How did you manage to stay in the industry?
– In Soviet times, the personnel training system worked effectively. All trusts had dormitories for employees. All social issues were resolved in an elementary way: places in kindergartens, vouchers for health resorts, benefits. And suddenly the system that had been established over decades collapsed. Hard times came. In the nineties of the last century, I worked as the chief engineer of the construction department. There were orders, but there was also a time when, in order to feed the workers, we negotiated with collective farms about the supply of sugar and food. But the thought of leaving the profession never occurred to me. This is the work of my whole life, an activity that I know well and love. Times are changing, but construction will always be a popular, developing industry. Previously, concrete was transported in dump trucks, now – in mixers, modern technology, high-tech machines and materials have appeared. We rarely used the technology of monolithic housing construction, but now a lot is built in monolith. Knowledge of your profession, development in it helps to adapt to any situation.
– How can today’s graduates become successful specialists in the industry?
– I am sure that after receiving a diploma, you need to work on a construction site to gain experience, master specialties and learn to personally understand all construction processes. Dreaming of immediately becoming a boss is a mistake. It is much more correct to rise to a management position from the lowest rung of the career ladder. Then you will become a highly qualified manager, thoroughly understanding all work processes and able to effectively communicate with employees at all levels.
In addition, I was always wary when a job applicant assured that he could do everything. But if a person honestly admitted that he was a carpenter but did not know carpentry, it inspired respect. I understood that this person understood the meaning of his profession, because a carpenter is one profession, a joiner is a completely different one. Today, new in-demand professions are emerging, but the essence of success for specialists does not change: it is important to find a specific area of activity and develop in it, and not try to learn everything, but little by little. It is good that there are smart young guys who move from construction to office work: there is more trust in such managers, because they know the real state of affairs in the industry. And, of course, the main guarantee of success is to love your business, like your girlfriend or wife.
– You have maintained contact with our university for a long time and even provided sponsorship.
– In 2022, I donated about a hundred copies of educational literature on construction production, collected over the years of work in the industry, to the library of our university. At that time, the position of rector was occupied by Yuri Pavlovich Panibratov. He sent a letter of thanks to the construction corporation where I worked as chief engineer, emphasizing my participation in the events held at LISI. In response, I was thanked and awarded a certificate of the corporation. It is nice, but I donated the educational kits from the bottom of my heart, I wanted to help my native institute.
Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
Genealogist Jari Honora broke the story of the pope’s ancestors’ connection to the Creole of color community in New Orleans. A family historian at the Historic New Orleans Collection’s Williams Research Center, Honora has given research presentations to my graduate students and consulted with me on my own work. In his research on Leo’s lineage, he was also able to find several official documents that list Haiti as the birthplace of his maternal grandfather, Joseph Norval Martinez.
The pope’s Creole lineage in Louisiana is interesting enough. But many commentators have strained to make sense of the link to Haiti, if they mention it at all.
As an expert in 19th-century Haiti, I study the period during which Leo’s ancestors likely traveled between Haiti and New Orleans before migrating to Chicago. Their story is part of a broader American story of race, citizenship and migration.
A grandfather born in Haiti
It’s worth noting that Leo’s genealogy is not entirely straightforward.
At least one record indicates Joseph Norval as having been born in Louisiana. And a 1910 census seems to reinvent the family lineage: Martinez is now “Martina,” Joseph’s birthplace is “S. Domingo,” and he is supposedly Maltese.
Nevertheless, far more documents – numerous census records as well as his marriage certificate – identify Martinez’s place of birth as Haiti. An 1866 passenger list for a ship bound for New Orleans from Haiti, despite some inconsistencies, does indeed appear to list members of the Martinez family, including his father and three siblings.
Just because Leo’s grandfather was born in Haiti, it didn’t mean he was Haitian. Instead, he belonged to a class of people in New Orleans known as Creoles of color.
The descriptor “Creole of color” is somewhat anachronistic; it emerges at the end of the 19th century in Louisiana to categorize the descendants of a historically subordinate class known as free people of color, or “gens de couleur libres” in French.
It has its origins in the tripartite racial order of the French and Spanish colonial periods in the Americas, when authorities created a hierarchy of legal classes: enslaved people, free people of African descent, and white people.
In theory, free people of color encompassed a range of people. It could describe formerly enslaved people; people who had never been enslaved; people born in Africa; or people with extended, mixed-race American families.
In 19th-century Louisiana, the term generally referred to people of mixed racial ancestry who were born with free status, though at varying degrees of removal from slavery. They generally spoke French and were Catholic.
Though they were subject to repressive laws and could never become citizens and gain the right to vote, free people of color could own, inherit and sell property, including enslaved people. Most worked as artisans and shopkeepers, and a handful became quite wealthy through trade and real estate.
The Martinez family fits squarely within this community.
Census records from 1850 list Jacques Martinez – Joseph Norval Martinez’s father and Leo’s maternal great-grandfather – as a tailor and modest property owner in New Orleans. They were never enslaved but do not appear to have been enslavers, either.
Life gets worse for people of color
So why was Joseph Norval Martinez born in Haiti?
At some point, his parents probably felt they had to leave New Orleans.
Despite their relative prosperity, free people of color in Louisiana and throughout the United States were being subjected to increasing legal restrictions, repression and violence in the years leading up to the Civil War.
This situation worsened in the 1840s and ‘50s, as white Southerners worked to further restrict citizenship and rights along hard racial lines. The 1857 Dred Scott Supreme Court decision affirmed that any people descended from Africa, including free people of color, had no right to citizenship.
For those who remained in the South, the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 would have made life even more difficult.
In the first half of the 19th century, many free people of color in Louisiana emigrated to France. But the two main options in the 1860s were Haiti and Mexico.
However, at the time of the Martinez family’s departure, Mexico was embroiled in conflict with France. Haiti, meanwhile, was crafting an ambitious plan to attract immigrants.
Indeed, Haiti long promoted itself as a free soil republic: Any person with African descent would enjoy freedom and, eventually, Haitian citizenship. Several Haitian presidents staged immigration campaigns to attract enslaved and formerly enslaved laborers from the United States.
In response to worsening conditions for people of color in the U.S., Haitian President Fabre Geffrard launched a particularly ambitious campaign, setting up Haitian Emigration bureaus and staffing them with agents in New York, Boston, New Orleans and other major cities. Louisiana newspapers advertised Geffrard’s immigration plan, which included land concessions for families and individuals. Geffrard’s focus was on attracting agricultural laborers – not the kind of work the Martinez family would likely be enticed to take on. Still, skilled artisans were welcomed as immigrants.
It was within this context that the Martinez family probably departed New Orleans for Haiti. At present there is scant information about their voyage, but the journey would have echoed many family histories of migration from Louisiana to Haiti in the 1860s.
Based on my study of census and notarial archives, it appears the Martinez family left sometime after the birth of daughter Adele in New Orleans in December 1861 and before the birth of Joseph Norval in Haiti in 1864.
The promise of Reconstruction crumbles
The Martinez family didn’t stay in Haiti long.
According to the passenger list, they returned to New Orleans in February 1866.
As was the experience for many émigrés to Haiti, they may have found the conditions difficult. It’s also possible that the successes of wartime Reconstruction in Louisiana encouraged them to reestablish their lives in New Orleans.
They returned to a state transformed by the abolition of slavery. Free people of color were at the forefront of the fight for civil rights and key architects behind a progressive, egalitarian state constitution that called for equal access to education for all citizens.
The Martinez children likely benefited – albeit briefly – from that provision. The 1870 census records show them all enrolled in school: Michel (14), Girard (12), Adele (9) and young Joseph Norval (6).
They would also witness the violent backlash to Reconstruction, which was especially intense in Louisiana. In 1866, a white mob laid siege to those attempting to amend the state’s constitution to enfranchise Black voters, in what became known as the Mechanics Institute Massacre. In the ensuing years, the state was gripped by ever more violence.
Joseph Norval Martinez married Louise Baquié in 1887, and they went on to have six children, all girls, in New Orleans. He worked as a cigar maker – a common enterprise for free men of color during the period – and later as a clerk.
The family was subjected to increasing segregation with the Separate Car Act, an 1890 Louisiana statute that separated train cars by race. The Supreme Court went on to uphold the Louisiana statute in 1896, enshrining the “separate but equal” doctrine throughout the South.
An American tale
Martinez and Baquié remained in New Orleans until 1910, at which point they joined the millions of other Black Americans who migrated from the South to the North and the West in the early decades of the 20th century, in what became known as the Great Migration. A significant portion, including Martinez and Baquié, ended up in Chicago.
Joseph Norval Martinez’s census records tell a complex story about the history of race in the U.S. Prior to 1900, he is listed as “m” for “mulatto.” In the 1900 census, he is listed as Black. And then in the 1910 census, he is listed as white.
The Martinez family could not dictate the racial descriptors assigned to them in the census, but they had some claim over birthplace and lineage. Against the backdrop of segregation, disenfranchisement and violence, Martinez appears to have claimed a lineage – Maltese – that the 1910 census categorized as white.
It is this – and so much more – that makes theirs a truly American story.
One thing we do know: Martinez reverted back to his original lineage after he and his family settled in Chicago. The 1920 census lists Martinez’s birthplace of record as Haiti.
Chelsea Stieber does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The review process is careful for a reason – and perhaps the only real method of speeding it up is the one Zeldin has proposed: reassigning staff so there are more people to share the work.
The EPA, which regulates pesticides in the U.S., defines a pesticide as any substance or mixture of substances intended to prevent, destroy, repel or mitigate any pest, such as weeds, insects and organisms, that attack plants.
Pesticides are often referred to as toxins when found in food, water bodies or other places where they are not intended. But just because something is detected doesn’t mean it’s harmful to humans or wildlife. Toxicity depends on how much of the substance a person or animal is exposed to, how they are exposed to it – such as breathing it, or getting it on their skin – and for how long.
In 1970, the newly formed EPA took over responsibility for pesticides. It shifted its focus to the safety of consumers, farmworkers and the environment after the Federal Environmental Pesticide Control Act took effect in 1972.
The EPA determines whether the risks to people, animals or the environment are too high for the benefits the pesticide provides and whether any of those risks can be reduced. Sometimes a chemical’s risk can be lessened by recommending mitigation strategies such as wearing protective clothing, reducing environmental spread by barring the use of pesticides near the edges of a property, or decreasing the amount of a pesticide that’s legal to use.
The EPA uses all the available data on a pesticide to evaluate the dose that would be toxic to a range of organisms, as well as what residues the pesticide may leave on plants, in the soil and in water. The data is incorporated into computer models that estimate the potential amount of the chemical that may come in contact with humans, animals and the environment. Those models’ results are then combined with toxicity data to determine risk.
The models used by EPA scientists are very conservative. They often use significant overestimates of exposure, which means that when the models determine the risk of a pesticide is below a particular level, they are evaluating the risk posed by far higher quantities of the chemical than will ever actually be used. The risk from the amount actually used, therefore, is even less likely to cause harm.
If a pesticide is found to potentially be dangerous to a protected species or its habitat, the EPA will discuss those findings with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service, which enforce the Endangered Species Act, and determine what to do to ensure the species aren’t harmed.
The law’s requirement to reevaluate each pesticide every 15 years is based on the fact that science evolves and information becomes more precise. New data can shed light on potential risks and benefits, and even lead to pesticides being banned or more closely restricted.
Until recently, for instance, pesticide residues on plants, food and in the environment were measured in parts per million. Newer equipment can measure even smaller amounts, determining parts per billion, which is as precise as identifying one single second in 32 years. Some chemicals can even be measured in parts per trillion, equivalent to one drop of water in 20 Olympic-size swimming pools. That means exposures can be more accurately measured. While some chemicals can be toxic in very small concentrations, most pesticides can be detected at levels that do not pose a biological risk.
Allowing a pesticide to be used
If the EPA determines that a pesticide’s risks outweigh its benefits, then its staff will conduct additional analyses to determine how to mitigate the risks enough to justify using it. If that’s not possible, the EPA will reject the application and not allow the pesticide to be used in the U.S.
If the agency determines that the benefits outweigh the risks, the EPA approves the pesticide for sale and use in the U.S. The law requires the pesticide come with a label providing a strict set of guidelines for how, when and where to use the pesticide.
The guidelines define amounts and timing for applying the pesticide safely, and specific restrictions or protection strategies to control the target pests while eliminating or minimizing harm to the environment, workers and the public.
Jeffrey Gore receives funding from the USDA-ARS and has received funding from various state and national commodity boards, and chemical and biotechnology companies in the past.
Jeffrey Gore served on the EPA’s Farm, Ranch and Rural Communities Committee from 2019 to 2024.
Here are three strategies that could help Detroit’s next mayor build a just and resilient city by focusing on transitional neighborhoods:
Stabilize housing and prevent displacement
Stable housing is the foundation of thriving communities.
Yet, housing instability in Detroit is both widespread and deeply entrenched. Before the pandemic, roughly 13% of Detroiters, or about 88,000 people, had been evicted or forced to move within the previous year. Families with children faced the highest risk.
Many Detroiters had little choice but to remain in deteriorating housing, crowd into shared living arrangements or relocate elsewhere because of an estimated shortfall of 24,000 habitable housing units.
While building more housing is essential, preventing displacement requires more than new construction. It also demands policies that preserve affordability and protect tenants. Researchers have found that household stabilization policies, such as legal representation in eviction court, rent control and property tax relief, have the most immediate impact.
In Detroit, addressing the wave of expiring Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, or LIHTC, units remains an urgent priority. When units reach the end of their compliance period in this federal program, typically 15 years, owners are no longer required to maintain affordable rents and can raise prices. This “conversion to market rate” often results in the loss of affordable housing for low-income residents.
Despite the city’s efforts, a 2023 analysis found that a substantial affordability gap persists, with many households unable to comfortably afford market-rate housing without spending more than 30% of their income, which is the standard set by the Department of Housing and Urban Development for affordability.
Stabilizing Detroit’s housing market means ensuring that those who stayed during the hardest times are not pushed out as reinvestment takes hold. To achieve this, the next mayor could expand rental assistance and support tenant organizing efforts. This is particularly needed in transitional neighborhoods where renters come together to fight unfair evictions, improve housing conditions and push for more stable rents.
Reclaim and reimagine vacant land for community benefit
Many view Detroit’s vast tracks of vacant land, estimated in the hundreds of thousands of parcels, as blight. But they could also be seen as a public asset and a generational opportunity if brought together with the right public strategies.
Land trusts can turn empty lots into valuable neighborhood spaces. A land trust is a nonprofit that holds land for the community and keeps housing affordable over the long term, a key to preventing displacement.
Research also shows that greening strategies can improve community health, cohesion and equity. Cities like Philadelphia and Cleveland have launched urban greening initiatives that transform vacant lots into community gardens, small parks and tree-filled spaces. Research shows that these projects can help stabilize property values and strengthen neighborhoods by reducing blight, encouraging investment and creating safer, more attractive environments.
By collaborating with residents to cocreate a land use vision, the next mayor could prioritize community ownership and ecological restoration instead of speculative redevelopment.
Invest in social infrastructure
Neighborhood strength is about more than buildings — it’s about people.
Detroit’s neighborhoods have long faced a lack of investment in schools, recreation centers and social services. This leaves families vulnerable and fuels cycles of poverty and criminalization. Under these conditions, young people, especially Black and brown youth, are more likely to be policed, punished and pushed into the criminal justice system.
A 2021 study found that the Detroit Public Schools Community District reported 2% of its students experienced homelessness, despite 16% of households with children reporting recent eviction or forced moves. This gap reveals major service and awareness gaps. And when families fall through those gaps, it’s often children who suffer the most.
Addressing these gaps requires investing in mental health services, youth development programs and violence prevention, rather than relying solely on policing or incarceration. These approaches recognize that true public safety comes from access to stable jobs, quality education and supportive services that meet people’s health, housing and social needs. Some of the most effective strategies include restorative justice in schools and outreach to older adults and residents experiencing homelessness.
The next mayor has the chance to shift the narrative by centering housing justice, reclaiming land for public good and investing in the people who make Detroit a city worth fighting for.
Deyanira Nevárez Martínez is a trustee of the Lansing School District Board of Education and is currently a candidate for the Lansing City Council Ward 2.
Sitting in my doctor’s examination room, I was surprised when she told me, “Genetics don’t really matter for chronic disease.” Rather, she continued, “A person’s lifestyle, what they eat, and how much they exercise, determine whether they get heart disease.”
As a researcher who studies the genetics of disease, I don’t fully disagree – lifestyle factors play a large role in determining who gets a disease and who doesn’t. But they are far from the entire story. Since scientists mapped out the human genome in 2003, researchers have learned that genetics also play a large role in a person’s disease risk.
Studies that focus on estimating disease heritability – that is, how much genetic differences explain differences in disease risk – usually attribute a substantial fraction of disease variation to genetics. Mutations across the entire genome seem to play a role in diseases such as Type 2 diabetes, which is about 17% heritable, and schizophrenia, which is about 80% heritable. In contrast to diseases such as Tay-Sachs or cystic fibrosis, where mutations in a single gene cause a disease, chronic diseases tend to be polygenic, meaning they’re influenced by multiple mutations at many genes across the whole genome.
Every complex disease has both genetic and environmental risk factors. Most researchers study these factors separately because of technical challenges and a lack of large, uniform datasets. Although some have devised techniques to overcome these challenges, they haven’t yet been applied to a comprehensive set of diseases and environmental exposures.
In our recently published research, my colleague Alkes Priceand I developed tools to leverage newly available datasets to quantify the joint effects that genetic and environmental risk factors have on the biology underlying disease.
Aspirin, genetics and colon cancer
To illustrate the effect gene-environment interactions have on disease, let’s consider the example of aspirin use and colon cancer.
In 2001, researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center were studying how regularly taking aspirin decreased the risk of colon cancer. They wondered whether genetic mutations that slowed down how quickly the body broke down aspirin – meaning aspirin levels in the body would stay high longer – might increase the drug’s protective effect against colon cancer. They were right: Only patients with slow aspirin metabolism had a decreased risk of colon cancer, indicating that the effectiveness of a drug can depend on a person’s genetics.
This raises the question of how genetics and different combinations of environmental exposures, such as the medications a patient is taking, can affect a person’s disease risk and how effective a treatment will be for them. How many cases of genetic variations directly influencing a drug’s effectiveness are there?
Rather than ‘nature versus nurture,’ a more accurate way of describing gene-environment interactions is ‘nature through nurture.’
The gene-environment interaction of colon cancer and aspirin is unusual. It involves a mutation at a single location in the genome that has a big effect on colon cancer risk. The past 25 years of human genetics have shown researchers that these sorts of large-effect mutations are rare.
For example, an analysis found that the median effect of a genetic variant on height is only 0.14 millimeters. Instead, there are usually hundreds of variations that each have small but cumulative effects on a person’s disease risk, making them hard to find.
How could researchers detect these small gene-environment interactions across hundreds of spots in the genome?
Polygenic gene-environment interactions
We started by looking for cases where genetic variants across the genome showed different effects on a person’s biology in different environments. Rather than trying to detect the small effects of each genetic variant one at a time, we aggregated data across the entire genome to turn these small individual effects into a large, genome-wide effect.
Using data from the UK Biobank – a large database containing genetic and health data from about 500,000 people – we estimated the influence of millions of genetic variants on 33 complex traits and diseases, such as height and asthma. We grouped people based on environmental exposures such as air pollution, cigarette smoking and dietary patterns. Finally, we developed statistical tests to study how the effects of genetics on disease risk and biomarker levels varied with these exposures.
We found three types of gene-environment interactions.
First, we found 19 pairs of complex traits and environmental exposures that are influenced by genetic variants across the genome. For example, the effect of genetics on white blood cell levels in the body differed between smokers and nonsmokers. When we compared the effects of genetic mutations between the two groups, the strength of gene-environment interaction suggested that smoking changes the way genetics influence white blood cell counts.
Second, we looked for cases where the heritability of a trait varies depending on the environment. In other words, rather than some genetic variants having different effects in different environments, all of them are made stronger in some environments. For example, we found that the heritability of body mass index – the ratio of weight to height – increased by 5% for the most active people. This means genetics plays a larger role in BMI the more active you are. We found 28 such trait-environment pairs, including HDL cholesterol levels and alcohol consumption, as well as neuroticism and self-reported sleeplessness.
Third, we looked for a type of gene-environment interaction called proportional or joint amplification. Here, genetic effects grow with increased environmental exposures, and vice versa. This results in a relatively equal balance of genetic and environmental effects on a trait. For example, as self-reported time spent watching television increased, both genetic and environmental variance increased for a person’s waist-to-hip ratio. This likely reflects the influence of other behaviors related to time spent watching television, such as decreased physical exercise. We found 15 such trait-environment pairs, including lung capacity and smoking, and glucose levels and alcohol consumption.
Environmental factors, such as cigarette smoke and the medications you take, can interact with your genes in unexpected ways. jaouad.K/iStock via Getty Images Plus
We also looked for cases where biological sex, instead of environmental exposures, influenced interactions with genes. Previous work had shown evidence of these gene-by-sexinteractions, and we found additional examples of the effects of biological sex on all three types of gene-environment interactions. For example, we found that neuroticism had genetic effects that varied across sex.
Finally, we also found that multiple types of gene-environment interactions can affect the same trait. For example, the effects of genetics on systolic blood pressure varied by sex, indicating that some genetic variants have different effects in men and women.
New gene-environment models
How do we make sense of these distinct types of gene-environment interactions? We argue that they can help researchers better understand the underlying biological mechanisms that lead from genetic and environmental risks to disease, and how genetic variation leads to differences in disease risk between people.
Genes related to the same function work together in a unit called a pathway. For example, we can say that genes involved in making heme – the component of red blood cells that carries oxygen – are collectively part of the heme synthesis pathway. The resulting amounts of heme circulating in the body influence other biological processes, including ones that could lead to the development of anemia and cancer. Our model suggests that environmental exposures modify different parts of these pathways, which may explain why we saw different types of gene-environment interactions.
In the future, these findings could lead to treatments that are more personalized based on a person’s genome. For example, clinicians might one day be able to tell whether someone is more likely to decrease their risk of heart disease by taking weight loss drugs or by exercising.
Our results show how studying gene-environment interactions can tell researchers not only about which genetic and environmental factors increase your risk of disease, but also what goes wrong in the body where.
Arun Durvasula has received funding from the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Science.
High-performance computing, or HPC for short, might sound like something only scientists use in secret labs, but it’s actually one of the most important technologies in the world today. From predicting the weather to finding new medicines and even training artificial intelligence, high-performance computing systems help solve problems that are too hard or too big for regular computers.
This technology has helped make huge discoveries in science and engineering over the past 40 years. But now, high-performance computing is at a turning point, and the choices the government, researchers and the technology industry make today could affect the future of innovation, national security and global leadership.
High-performance computing systems are basically superpowerful computers made up of thousands or even millions of processors working together at the same time. They also use advanced memory and storage systems to move and save huge amounts of data quickly.
With all this power, high-performance computing systems can run extremely detailed simulations and calculations. For example, they can simulate how a new drug interacts with the human body, or how a hurricane might move across the ocean. They’re also used in fields such as automotive design, energy production and space exploration.
Lately, high-performance computing has become even more important because of artificial intelligence. AI models, especially the ones used for things such as voice recognition and self-driving cars, require enormous amounts of computing power to train. High-performance computing systems are well suited for this job. As a result, AI and high-performance computing are now working closely together, pushing each other forward.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s supercomputer El Capitan is currently the world’s fastest.
I’m a computer scientist with a long career working in high-performance computing. I’ve observed that high-performance computing systems are under more pressure than ever, with higher demands on the systems for speed, data and energy. At the same time, I see that high-performance computing faces some serious technical problems.
Technical challenges
One big challenge for high-performance computing is the gap between how fast processors are and how well memory systems can keep up with the processors’ output. Imagine having a superfast car but being stuck in traffic – it doesn’t help to have speed if the road can’t handle it. In the same way, high-performance computing processors often have to wait around because memory systems can’t send data quickly enough. This makes the whole system less efficient.
Another problem is energy use. Today’s supercomputers use a huge amount of electricity, sometimes as much as a small town. That’s expensive and not very good for the environment. In the past, as computer parts got smaller, they also used less power. But that trend, called Dennard scaling, stopped in the mid-2000s. Now, making computers more powerful usually means they use more energy too. To fix this, researchers are looking for new ways to design both the hardware and the software of high-performance computing systems.
There’s also a problem with the kinds of chips being made. The chip industry is mainly focused on AI, which works fine with lower-precision math like 16-bit or 8-bit numbers. But many scientific applications still need 64-bit precision to be accurate. The greater the bit count, the more digits to the right of the decimal point a chip can process, hence the greater precision. If chip companies stop making the parts that scientists need, then it could become harder to do important research.
This report discusses how trends in semiconductor manufacturing and commercial priorities may diverge from the needs of the scientific computing community, and how a lack of tailored hardware could hinder progress in research.
One solution might be to build custom chips for high-performance computing, but that’s expensive and complicated. Still, researchers are exploring new designs, including chiplets – small chips that can be combined like Lego bricks – to make high-precision processors more affordable.
A global race
Globally, many countries are investing heavily in high-performance computing. Europe has the EuroHPC program, which is building supercomputers in places such as Finland and Italy. Their goal is to reduce dependence on foreign technology and take the lead in areas such as climate modeling and personalized medicine. Japan built the Fugaku supercomputer, which supports both academic research and industrial work. China has also made major advances, using homegrown technology to build some of the world’s fastest computers. All of these countries’ governments understand that high-performance computing is key to their national security, economic strength and scientific leadership.
The U.S.-China supercomputer rivalry explained.
The United States, which has been a leader in high-performance computing for decades, recently completed the Department of Energy’s Exascale Computing Project. This project created computers that can perform a billion billion operations per second. That’s an incredible achievement. But even with that success, the U.S. still doesn’t have a clear, long-term plan for what comes next. Other countries are moving quickly, and without a national strategy, the U.S. risks falling behind.
I believe that a U.S. national strategy should include funding new machines and training for people to use them. It would also include partnerships with universities, national labs and private companies. Most importantly, the plan would focus not just on hardware but also on the software and algorithms that make high-performance computing useful.
Hopeful signs
One exciting area for the future is quantum computing. This is a completely new way of doing computation based on the laws of physics at the atomic level. Quantum computers could someday solve problems that are impossible for regular computers. But they are still in the early stages and are likely to complement rather than replace traditional high-performance computing systems. That’s why it’s important to keep investing in both kinds of computing.
The good news is that some steps have already been taken. The CHIPS and Science Act, passed in 2022, provides funding to expand chip manufacturing in the U.S. It also created an office to help turn scientific research into real-world products. The task force Vision for American Science and Technology, launched on Feb. 25, 2025, and led by American Association for the Advancement of Science CEO Sudip Parikh, aims to marshal nonprofits, academia and industry to help guide the government’s decisions. Private companies are also spending billions of dollars on data centers and AI infrastructure.
All of these are positive signs, but they don’t fully solve the problem of how to support high-performance computing in the long run. In addition to short-term funding and infrastructure investments, this means:
Long-term federal investment in high-performance computing R&D, including advanced hardware, software and energy-efficient architectures.
Procurement and deployment of leadership-class computing systems at national labs and universities.
Workforce development, including training in parallel programming, numerical methods and AI-HPC integration.
Hardware road map alignment, ensuring commercial chip development remains compatible with the needs of scientific and engineering applications.
Sustainable funding models that prevent boom-and-bust cycles tied to one-off milestones or geopolitical urgency.
Public-private collaboration to bridge gaps between academic research, industry innovation and national security needs.
High-performance computing is more than just fast computers. It’s the foundation of scientific discovery, economic growth and national security. With other countries pushing forward, the U.S. is under pressure to come up with a clear, coordinated plan. That means investing in new hardware, developing smarter software, training a skilled workforce and building partnerships between government, industry and academia. If the U.S. does that, the country can make sure high-performance computing continues to power innovation for decades to come.
Jack Dongarra receives funding from the NSF and the DOE.
