Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Bill Foster (11th District of Illinois)
Washington, DC – Today, U.S. Representative Bill Foster (D-IL-11) and U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) reintroduced the bicameral American Innovation Act, which would provide annual budget increases at a rate of five percent, indexed to inflation, for cutting-edge research at five federal agencies: the Department of Energy Office of Science; the National Science Foundation; the National Institute of Standards and Technology Scientific and Technical Research Services; the Department of Defense Science and Technology Programs; and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Science Directorate. The American Innovation Act would position the U.S. as a leader in development and discovery for decades to come by creating steady, sustained funding for breakthrough research at America’s top research agencies.
“I’m proud to work with Senator Durbin on this legislation to expand federal investment in scientific research,” said Foster. “Since World War II, investments in science and technology have helped expand our economy, create millions of jobs, and advance our national security. As we confront new and existing challenges, it’s critical that our scientists have the resources they need to ensure our nation remains at the forefront of research and innovation.”
“In its crusade to damage essential government infrastructure, the Trump Administration has failed to recognize that sustained support for basic scientific research has enabled the United States to put a man on the moon, build the internet, and produce a COVID-19 vaccine in record time. If we want to maintain our status as a world leader in research and technology, we must empower and fund our federal research agencies and retain their top talent,” said Durbin. “I’m introducing the American Innovation Act to ensure our nation’s scientists and researchers have access to critical funding to push our world forward while also creating jobs, growing our economy, and improving our national security.”
Basic science funding in the U.S. has lagged in recent decades. Since the 1970s, U.S. investment in basic science has decreased by tenfold to about 0.1 percent of GDP. Meanwhile, China’s research intensity (GDP expenditures on R&D) has increased by 500 percent since 1996. If this trend continues, China will soon surpass the U.S. in investment in science.
The American Innovation Act is cosponsored by U.S. Representatives Sean Casten (D-IL-06), Jill Tokuda (D-HI-02), and Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), and U.S. Senators Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), and Brian Schatz (D-HI).
The legislation has earned the endorsement of the American Mathematical Society; American Physical Society; American Society of Mechanical Engineers; American Society of Microbiology; Association of American Universities; Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities; Coalition for Academic Scientific Computation; Computing Research Association; Council on Undergraduate Research; Federation of American Scientists; Institute for Progress; the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; MIT Graduate Student Council; Society of Women Engineers; Taskforce for American Innovation; University of Illinois System; and the University of Chicago.
Source: State University of Management – Official website of the State –
On April 4, 1945, during the Bratislava-Brno operation, Soviet troops liberated Bratislava from the German invaders.
The offensive operation was carried out by the forces of the 2nd Ukrainian Front under the command of Marshal Rodion Malinovsky. They were confronted by the 200,000-strong Army Group “South” in convenient natural and well-fortified defensive positions.
The 1st Guards Cavalry-Mechanized Group under the command of Lieutenant General Issa Pliev especially distinguished itself in the battles on the approaches to the city. Its sudden and stunning raids on the enemy’s rear terrified the Germans and did not allow them to organize a defense on the borders of the Nitra, Vah, and Morava rivers.
By April 1, the Red Army had reached the city limits. The enemy had carefully prepared for defense, creating numerous reinforced concrete firing points, anti-tank ditches, and minefields. Barricades, anti-personnel and anti-tank obstacles were erected on the streets of Bratislava. The eastern outskirts were especially strongly fortified, since the northern part of the city was protected by the Little Carpathians, and the southern part by the Little Danube and the Danube. In order to avoid protracted battles and the destruction of the city, the command decided to attack with simultaneous strikes from the northeast and southeast. The Danube Flotilla was involved in the assault, its ships made a 75-kilometer dash from Komárno to Bratislava along a mined fairway, and the sailors took direct part in the city battles.
On April 2, Soviet troops broke through the enemy’s outer fortifications and stormed into the city. Fierce fighting for every house lasted for two days, assault groups systematically moved from street to street and by midday on April 4 they reached the center of Bratislava. The remnants of the German garrison fled toward Vienna.
During the Bratislava-Brno operation, the troops of the 2nd Ukrainian Front advanced 200 kilometers, occupied the Bratislava and Brno industrial districts, completed the liberation of Slovakia, and created conditions for a rapid advance on Prague. In honor of the capture of Bratislava, a ceremonial salute was given in Moscow – 24 volleys from 324 guns. For the heroism and military valor displayed during the liberation of Brno and Bratislava, 99 formations and units were awarded orders, and 15 received the honorary title of “Bratislava”.
On the territory of modern Slovakia there are about 160 graves of Soviet soldiers who died during the liberation of this country from fascism. More than 60 thousand Soviet soldiers are buried in military cemeteries. In memory of them, about 100 different monuments and memorial signs have been erected. Eternal memory to the heroic liberators!
The State University of Management congratulates on this memorable date and recalls our scientific regiment-employees who fought as part of the 2nd Ukrainian Front on the territory of Czechoslovakia:
-Hero of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gureev, artillery colonel, vice-rector and deputy director of the MIE-Miu-Gau-Guu for administrative work (1972-2008);
-Anatoly Petrov, head of the radio station of the 1st Guards Airborne Brigade, foreman, doctor of economic sciences, head of the planning department of the national economy of the MIEI MIU;
-Boris Rodionov, Major Engineer, graduate of MIE, Doctor of Economics, Head of the Department of Organization and Planning of Mechanical Engineering MIE-Miu.
#Scientific regiment
Subscribe to the TG channel “Our GUU” Date of publication: 04.04.2025
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: State University of Management – Official website of the State –
On April 2, a charity event of care, “Let’s Revive the Apple Orchard,” was held at the GUU campus.
Teachers and third-year students of the Institute of Marketing, under the leadership of Director Gennady Azoev, gathered in the central square of the State University of Management to tidy up the apple trees growing on the campus.
“Spring pruning and care are extremely important for the formation of the correct tree crown, as they allow the branches not to interfere with each other and let in more sunlight. In addition, removing unnecessary and frozen branches over the winter will allow the apple trees not to waste energy on their restoration and to properly distribute the nutritious juices,” said Gennady Lazarevich.
Now the trunks of the apple trees in the university garden are whitewashed, the cuts are treated with garden pitch, and the students have learned the secrets of caring for the trees.
In continuation of the “Let’s Revive the Apple Orchard” campaign, representatives of the Institute of Pear and Plum Trees are planning to plant them in the near future.
Subscribe to the TG channel “Our GUU” Date of publication: 04.04.2025
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.
For Malaysian Chinese Goh Ee Xuan, Qingming Festival has always pulsed with ancestral echoes and meant honoring ancestors through time-honored rituals like burning incense and offering symbolic paper gifts.
Even while living in the northern Chinese port city of Tianjin this year, she maintained the tradition through a heartfelt video call with relatives back home.
“Growing up in a Malaysian Chinese household, Qingming rituals like tomb-sweeping were part of my childhood fabric,” Goh explained. “My parents taught me to remember my roots.”
With a 2,500-year history, Qingming Festival, or the Festival of Pure Brightness, observed in early April, uniquely combines ancestral worship with the celebration of spring. Falling on the 15th day after the spring equinox, this ritual-rich observance reflects China’s enduring values of ancestral veneration and inspires deep introspection about what gives life meaning.
Qingming rituals persist with remarkable vitality in most Chinese communities across Southeast Asia, observed folk culture expert Ma Zhiyao, adding that this demonstrates the custom’s enduring cultural resonance.
Wang Yi, associated professor of cultural studies at Tianjin University, noted that as China’s cultural influence expands, traditional Chinese festivals like Qingming are gaining increasing global recognition.
“Their cultural depth speaks to universal human values – making them not just Chinese traditions, but shared touchstones of remembrance and renewal,” she said.
Qingming’s reflections on mortality, kinship and nature speak to all humanity, according to Wang. “As foreigners learn about and even participate in its rituals, they will see how deeply our cultures connect, and how much we can learn from each other.”
From Mexico’s Day of the Dead, brought to life by the 2017 Academy Award-winning animated film Coco, to the Obon Festival in Japan, cultures worldwide have their own takes on ancestral worship. Despite different traditions, all share a deep respect for life and the departed.
Cultural symbolism transcends borders. Both ancient Egyptians and Chinese traditions associate plants with rebirth. Egyptians adorned tombs with symbolic palms and lotuses, while Qingming’s willow branches, prized for their early spring vitality, represent nature’s enduring cycle of renewal.
Ahmed Mohamed Saleh, an Egyptian student in Tianjin, shared his cultural perspective.
“In Egypt, we prepare ritual offerings and special foods for tomb visits, and plant symbolic vegetation by the graveside to represent life’s cyclical nature,” he said. “Both cultures believe honoring the past helps us live better futures, rather than dwell in perpetual sorrow.”
Qingming Festival embodies a poignant duality of emotions, as solemn remembrance is intertwined with spring’s rejuvenating joy. This is beautifully captured in classical poetry.
Tang Dynasty poet Du Mu’s iconic “Qingming” paints the sorrow: A drizzling rain falls like tears on the Mourning Day; the mourner’s heart is going to break on his way.
Yet another poem reveals the season’s brighter essence: When pear blossoms ride the warm eastern winds, half the city empties as the hunt for spring begins.
International students in China follow Qingming traditions in their own ways. Shin Gisong from the Republic of Korea hiked through spring landscapes, while Comorian student Mroivili Faouzia visited cultural sites.
“Even though our customs might be different, the idea of honoring those who came before us is the same,” Faouzia said.
“I believe that a festival to remember our ancestors can touch people everywhere. It reminds us that family, history and respect for our roots are values shared by many cultures around the world,” she added.
Smartphones have the potential to aid depression detection through digital phenotyping and feature extraction by utilizing the massive data they collect, according to Chinese scientists at Lanzhou University.
This has particular significance and potential for modern people suffering from high stress as smartphones can timely sense people’s mental and physical conditions, according to their study newly published in the journal Proceedings of the IEEE.
The large amount of data generated by smartphones can continuously track users’ mental state, with multiple advantages such as universality and objectivity, according to Yang Minqiang, associate professor of the School of Information Science and Engineering of Lanzhou University.
“Smartphones can help realize the timely identification of psychological disorders such as depression and anxiety,” added Yang.
Smartphones contain a wealth of sensors, such as GPS, gyroscope, microphone, ambient light sensor and more. These sensors can help record people’s movement, social interactions, sleep, rhythm and other behavioral states, and can be used to identify and track psychological disorders.
Notably, smartphones have been widely used as portable data collectors for wearable and healthcare sensors that can passively collect data streams related to the environment, health status and behavior.
Recent research shows that the collected data can be used to monitor not only the physical states but also the mental health of individuals. However, extracting the features of digital phenotypes that characterize major depressive disorder (MDD) is technically challenging and may raise significant privacy concerns.
This study carried out a comprehensive analysis of several key issues related to ubiquitous sensing for use in detecting MDD, according to Yang.
Researchers specifically analyzed existing methodologies and feature extraction algorithms used to detect MDD through digital phenotyping from smartphone data.
They summarized and explained five types of features of smartphone data, namely, location, movement, rhythm, sleep, and social and device usage.
These data record the patterns of an individual’s daily activities, including social interactions and mobile phone usage. Despite its limitations, this study opens the door for further research and engineering exploration of smartphone data, according to Yang.
“Early identification could help early intervention on depression. We anticipate that smartphone manufacturers could realize smartphone-based mental health diagnosis and treatment, all while protecting user privacy,” Yang said.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Toby Murray, Professor of Cybersecurity, School of Computing and Information Systems, The University of Melbourne
Several of Australia’s biggest superannuation funds have suffered a suspected coordinated cyberattack, with scammers stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars of members’ retirement savings.
Superannuation funds including Rest, HostPlus, Insignia, Australian Retirement and AustralianSuper have all reportedly been targeted. However, so far AustralianSuper appears to be the worst affected.
It is Australia’s largest superannuation fund. It has roughly 3.5 million members and manages more than $365 billion in retirement savings. In this cyberattack, a handful of its members have lost about A$500,000 in combined savings.
AustralianSuper is reportedly assisting authorities recover the money. It has not yet confirmed if any remediation will occur.
It’s not yet clear whether the affected accounts had mandatory multi-factor authentication for login or money transfers. But this is a crucial measure to reduce the risk of a similar cyberattack happening in the future.
Strategic timing, stolen passwords
Details of the cyberattack are still sparse. But we do know that it began in the early hours of last weekend. This timing was likely strategic: account holders wouldn’t have noticed anything suspicious as they would have most likely been sleeping.
Cyber criminals are believed to have obtained stolen passwords – either from the dark web or other hacked websites. They then used these passwords to try to access people’s superannuation accounts.
In a statement, AustralianSuper’s Chief Member Officer Rose Kerlin said scammers had accessed up to 600 customer passwords to log into accounts.
So far only four accounts have actually been breached. In those cases, the scammers changed login details and transferred out lump sums of money.
Although members of other superannuation funds do not seem to have lost any money, their personal information may have been compromised.
Different to other attacks
There have been cases in the past of people being scammed out of their retirement savings.
For example, in 2020, Australian man Lee Braz lost all of his retirement savings, worth $180,000, to scammers. The scammers used fraudulent documents to trick his fund, Intrust Super (now owned by HostPlus), into authorising the transfer.
After a four-year legal battle with the fund, Braz retrieved one-third of the money he had lost. However, this amount didn’t cover his legal fees.
But this recent scam seems very different in nature. It didn’t involve scammers using any fraudulent documents or elaborate trickery. Instead, the perpetrators appear to have pulled it off simply by using stolen passwords to access accounts.
To ensure all of this money is properly protected, financial organisations should implement mandatory multi-factor authentication for user accounts. This would require people to prove who they are with something in addition to a password.
This could include, for example, using a one-time code or an authenticator app on their smartphone. This makes it much harder for criminals who obtain user passwords to take over their accounts.
Other financial organisations, including banks and some superannuation funds, already use multi-factor authentication. But it’s especially important for all superannuation funds to implement it, given many people don’t check their retirement savings for months at a time and are less likely to notice straight away if they’ve been hacked.
In the wake of this cyberattack, the Association of Superannuations Funds of Australia says it is working to improve security across the industry, but it is unclear exactly what this will involve.
Consumers also need to do their part by making sure they do not reuse passwords between websites. This is especially important for passwords used to protect accounts on financial organisations such as their super fund or online banking.
Using a password manager is a great way to make it easy to have unique passwords for each website you visit.
Finally, customers should be on the lookout for potential scams that may target them in the coming days. Scammers have been known to exploit fear and confusion in the wake of data breaches to try to lure victims into giving away personal information or money.
Anyone receiving messages purporting to be from their super fund and who wants to respond to them should call up their super provider directly, using a phone number from their website. Avoid clicking links or phoning numbers listed in messages that purport to be from your super fund.
Anyone receiving messages they suspect are scams can report them to Scamwatch.
Toby Murray receives funding from the Department of Defence and Google. He is Director of the Defence Science Institute, wich receives funding from the Commonwealth and State governments.
Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Peter Vale, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship, University of Pretoria., University of Pretoria
In a rare move, the Trump administration expelled Ebrahim Rasool, South Africa’s ambassador to Washington, in mid-March 2025. In a post on X, US secretary of state Marco Rubio accused Rasool of hating the US and President Donald Trump, and said the ambassador was “no longer welcome in our great country”. The expulsion came after comments Rasool had made during a webinar organised by a South African think-tank, the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Studies. Rasool had said he thought that Trump was “mobilising a supremacism” and trying to “project white victimhood as a dog whistle” as the white population faced becoming a minority in the US.
Relations between the two countries had reached a new low in the first weeks of the Trump administration. Trump had lashed out at South Africa for taking Israel to the International Court of Justice on accusations of genocide in Gaza; frozen all funding to South Africa; and offered asylum to white Afrikaners from South Africa, emboldening fringe far-right groups in the country. Peter Vale, regarded as an authority on South Africa’s place in the world, answers questions about the ambassador’s expulsion.
What was your initial reaction to the Rasool appointment?
I know and respect Ebrahim Rasool – we worked together at the University of the Western Cape 30 years ago – and I also thought he had done a fine job as ambassador to the US during the Obama years.
Remember, his appointment under the Trump administration was announced a week after the November poll. Preparations for this would have been months in the making. So, one question was, did the South African government think Joe Biden would win? If so, they were not following the polls very closely. South Africa’s relations with the US under Biden, although at times testy, were managable and Rasool was familiar with the individuals responsible for their making.
Never step into the same river twice, for it is not the same river, and he is not the same man.
Politics in the US has changed in paradigmatic proportions since Obama.
Then there was the fact that Rasool’s politics are rooted at the sharpest edge of the African National Congress: the United Democratic Front faction. Speaking plainly in the language of the country’s streets was the gift the United Democratic Front gave national politics. It was the most important internal anti-apartheid movement in the 1980s, bringing together youth, student and civic organisations.
Nevertheless, this, the language of the heart (as we might call it), has been eclipsed by the rise of techno-speak of the 2020s – a language that consists of buzzwords, esoteric language, or technical jargon and has become a kind of diplo-speak: diplomatic language in which the careful use of euphemism and noncontroversial language obscures points that might cause contention. Both bedevil South Africa’s domestic politics and mute the country’s foreign policy because racial justice, gender equality and compensation for colonialism seemingly have no place in everyday political discourse.
What happened at the Mapungubwe seminar?
The fracas arose during a virtual seminar organised by a leading South African think-tank which discussed the deepening tension in the relations between Pretoria and Washington.
I think that Rasool was confounded by the audience to which he spoke – was it local or was it local and foreign?
If there was deceit in the gathering itself, this was not to Rasool’s account. This points instead to a journalist looking to trip up any position South Africa took in the matter seemingly to advance his career. This is said to be the Breitbart journalist Joel Pollack, who made no secret of his desire to be the US ambassador in South Africa. He was registered as “Anonymous” on the webinar call. He did not disclose his name, or profession, when he asked Rasool a question.
In my opinion, disclosure is a professional responsibility.
Interestingly, there is no indication that the meeting was operating under the well-known Chatham House Rule by which
participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor any other participant, may be revealed.
Although not without its critics, myself included, this rule binds participants to non-disclosure by creating a safe space for candid and honest discussion.
Where does the responsibility of an ambassador lie?
The consensus among observers and commentators that’s emerged since the expulsion is that it was Rasool’s responsibility to hold his tongue – a kind of golden rule in diplomacy.
There is another way of thinking about this.
There have been many cases where the professional responsibility of diplomatic representation should follow a higher standard than that set by the incumbent government.
This choice faced diplomats in the country during apartheid. So, for instance, in 1986, the apartheid government expelled the Swedish ambassador following that country’s strong opposition to apartheid. There were other expulsions, too. These moves were part of the broader international pressure surrounding apartheid, where responsibility of the diplomats shifted from the minority incumbent government to the country’s people.
However, most famously, this understanding emerged in the writing of Thomas Paine, the American pamphleteer, that Benjamin Franklin (then the ambassador of the fledgling United States to Paris) was “not the diplomat of a Court, but (that the Ambassador) represented MAN (KIND)”.
This intervention is regarded as the first recognition that human – as opposed to state – rights enjoyed currency in international relations.
The age of turbulence through which we live has further muddied this water.
What do you make of the reaction to Rasool’s explusion?
A cacophony of voices, both within and without the country, have debated the pros and cons of the American decision.
Of concern to those with an ethical interest in international relations was that the trope “the national interest” appeared again and again and that, as it did so, the form it took was economic. So, it is in the national interest that South Africa “grow the economy”, “create jobs” and “fight HIV” with American money.
Nevertheless, le affaire Rasool has reminded South Africans that the country also has other “national interests” like fighting climate change and defending human rights worldwide.
Peter Vale 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.
Chinese researchers have used artificial intelligence (AI) to reduce unnecessary surgical resection in colorectal cancer patients after local excision, the South China University of Technology (SCUT), located in Guangdong Province in south China, said on Wednesday. The team developed and validated an AI prediction model to assess the risk of recurrence following local excision of colorectal cancer, using pathological images of endoscopically or transanal surgically resected T1 rectal cancer (RC) specimens. Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer worldwide, accounting for around 10 percent of all cancer cases. For patients with early-stage colorectal cancer, local resection serves as the primary treatment. However, some high-risk patients still require additional surgeries to prevent recurrence, which not only increases the physical burden but also significantly diminishes their quality of life. Researchers from the SCUT and Guangdong Provincial People’s Hospital developed an artificial neural network model to predict recurrence risk in T1 RC patients — thereby providing physicians and patients with guidance for post-excision decision-making. The AI-based prediction model has helped reduce unnecessary additional surgeries by about 34.9 percent in all enrolled patients, compared with the current U.S. guideline in this regard. The model not only aids physicians in decision-making but also demonstrates the remarkable performance and potential of histopathology image-based AI in predicting tumor behavior, researchers said. The study has been published in the European Journal of Surgical Oncology.
Whenever Chen Yun misses her father, she gazes at a photo from his 94th birthday celebration in the hospice ward of Jiangsu Province Hospital in east China. In the picture, her father, wearing a birthday hat, smiles as he enjoys longevity noodles, surrounded by dishes like ribs and tofu, and a birthday cake. In April 2024, Chen’s father was urgently hospitalized due to cancer-related pleural effusion. He was struggling to breathe and unable to lie down. The hospice team, including geriatrics, oncology and nutrition specialists, swiftly intervened with a thoracic puncture to drain the pleural effusion, restoring his ability to rest and sleep. They adjusted his chemotherapy dosage to suit his age and tolerance, focusing on symptom control and comfort rather than eliminating cancer cells. Paired with pain relief, this strategy stabilized his condition and eased the breathing difficulties. In hospital, nurses monitored his condition daily, offering comfort and guidance whenever he felt fearful or anxious, thus improving the health of the patient both emotionally and physically. He regained strength and began walking around the ward, while his appetite returned. After nine months, Chen’s father passed away peacefully in the ward. “We thought he had only days left after the diagnosis, but the hospice team gave us another precious nine months,” Chen said. “My father passed away painlessly in his sleep, leaving us with no regrets.” Hospice care, which provides comprehensive support for the terminally ill and elderly, aims to manage pain, improve quality of life, and ensure a decent, peaceful passing through multidisciplinary care. Driven by rising quality of life and education levels, more patients and families in China are seeking hospice services, with decisions by patients to forgo treatment being respected when their quality of life can no longer be guaranteed, according to Duan Yu, director of the geriatric medicine department at the hospital. To bolster its hospice care team, the hospital has gathered over 300 medical professionals from geriatrics, oncology, pain management and other fields to form an interdisciplinary clinical team. They also promote hospice care concepts across the hospital through consultations and referrals. Beyond clinical duties, Duan and her colleagues are committed to educating medical students on hospice care, thereby disseminating hospice concepts and knowledge to future medical workers. Yet, China’s aging society still faces a significant gap in terms of hospice care access, with less than 7 percent of patients having received such services by late 2023, noted Wang Yan, president of Xiamen Cardiovascular Hospital Xiamen University in east China. Since 2019, Jiangsu Province Hospital has partnered with more than 20 hospitals and community health centers to establish a two-way referral system, linking hospitals with communities and families. Through training, community medical teams can provide basic symptom control, such as pain relief, sedation and bronchodilation, as well as care services like feeding and cleaning. If patients opt for community or home care, doctors can refer them for transfer to nearby qualified facilities. A cancer patient, diagnosed at the provincial hospital, wished to spend his final days at home. The hospital collaborated with a community facility to develop a follow-up plan for the patient, including regular check-ups and medication adjustments. With a pain-relief pump in place, the patient returned home, celebrated his birthday with family, and later passed away peacefully. Since 2017, China’s National Health Commission has launched hospice care pilot programs in 185 cities and districts. Many local governments are prioritizing hospice infrastructure. The city of Nanning, south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, aims to have at least one hospice area per county or development zone by 2025, while Beijing plans to provide 1,800 hospice beds by the end of this year. The Third People’s Hospital of Zhenjiang in Jiangsu Province is set to open a new building with about 140 hospice beds this year. This beige structure will feature a brick walkway leading to a serene garden and lake with ducks swimming in it. Ge Chunhua, head nurse of this hospital’s hospice department, looks forward to the opening of the new building, because patients there will be able to immerse themselves in natural surroundings to gain comfort. “Patients often feel lonely and helpless at life’s end. Even a simple touch or conversation can bring them strength,” said Ge. “My job is really meaningful, as it can support patients through their final passage in peace and dignity.”
Jewish students at Columbia University chained themselves to a campus gate across from the graduate School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) this week, braving rain and cold to demand the school release information related to the targeting and ICE arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a former SIPA student.
Democracy Now! was at the protest and spoke to Jewish and Palestinian students calling on the school to reveal the extent of its involvement in Khalil’s arrest.
Transcript:
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
Here in New York City, Jewish students chained themselves to gates at Columbia University on Wednesday in support of Mahmoud Khalil, the former Columbia student protest leader now in an ICE jail in Louisiana.
On March 8, federal agents detained Khalil at his university-owned apartment building, even though he is a legal permanent resident of the United States. They revoked his green card.
I went up to Columbia yesterday and spoke to some of the students at the protest.
PROTESTERS: Release Mahmoud Khalil now! We want justice! You say, “How?” We want justice! You say, “How?” Release Mahmoud Khalil now!
CARLY: Hi. My name is Carly. I’m a Columbia SIPA graduate student, second year. And I’m chained to this gate today as a Jewish student and friend of Mahmoud Khalil’s, demanding answers on how his name got to DHS [Department of Homeland Security] and which trustee specifically handed over that information.
We believe that there is a high chance that our new president, Claire Shipman, handed over that information. And we, as Jewish students, demand transparency in that process.
Protesting Jewish students chain themselves to Columbia gates. Video: Democracy Now!
AMY GOODMAN: What makes you think that the new president, Shipman, gave over his [Khalil’s] information?
CARLY: There was a Forward article with that leak. And there has not been transparency from the Columbia administration to Jewish students, when they claim that they are doing all of this to protect Jewish students.
We would like to be consulted in that process, instead of being spoken for. You know, as Jewish students and to the Jewish people at large, being political pawns in a game is not a new occurrence, and that’s something that we very much are here to say, “Hey, you cannot weaponise antisemitism to harm our friends and peers.”
AMY GOODMAN: And talk about being chained. Are you willing to risk arrest or suspension or expulsion from Columbia?
CARLY: Yeah, I mean, just for speaking out for Palestine on Columbia’s campus, you know that you’re risking arrest and expulsion. That is the precedent they have set, and that is something that we all know at this point.
We are now in a situation where, for many of us, our good friend is in ICE detention. And as Jewish students, we feel we need to do more.
AMY GOODMAN: How did you know Mahmoud Khalil? You said you’re at SIPA. What are you studying there?
CARLY: Yeah, so, I’m a human rights student, and we were classmates. We were classmates and friends. And it’s been a deeply troubling few weeks. And, you know, everyone at SIPA, the students at SIPA, we really are just hoping for his safe return.
For me as a graduate in May, I truly hope we get to walk together at graduation.
AMY GOODMAN: Did he hear that you were out here? And did he send you a message?
CARLY: Yes. So, it has gotten back to Mahmoud that Jewish students are out here chained to the gate, and he did send a message that I read earlier that expressed his gratitude.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell me what he said?
CARLY: Yes, I can pull up the message. I don’t want to misquote him. OK.
“The news of students chaining themselves to the Columbia gates has reached Mahmoud in the detention center in Louisiana, where he’s currently being held. He knows what’s happening. He was very emotional when he heard about it, and he wanted to thank you all and let you know he sees you.”
SARAH BORUS: My name is Sarah Borus. I am a senior at Barnard College.
AMY GOODMAN: Why a Jewish action right now?
SARAH BORUS: So, the government, when they abducted Mahmoud, they literally put — Donald Trump put out a post that said, “Shalom, Mahmoud.”
They are saying that this is in the name of Jewish safety. But there is a reason that it is four white Jews that were on that fence or that were on that gate, and that’s because we are not the ones that are being targeted by the government.
It is Muslim students, Arab students, Palestinian students, immigrant students that are being targeted.
AMY GOODMAN: How do you respond to those who say the protests here are antisemitic?
SARAH BORUS: I have been involved in these protests for my last two years here. The community of Jewish students that I have found is one of the most wonderful in my life. To call these protests antisemitic, honestly, degrades the Jewish religion by making it about a nation-state instead of the actual religion itself.
SHEA: My name is Shea. I’m a junior at Columbia College. I am here for the same reason.
AMY GOODMAN: You’re wearing a keffiyeh and a yarmulke.
SHEA: Yes. That’s standard for me.
AMY GOODMAN: Are you willing to be expelled?
SHEA: If the university decides that that is what should happen to me for doing this, then that is on them. I would love to not be expelled, but I think that my peers would also have loved to not be expelled.
I think Mahmoud would love to not be in detention right now. This is — I obviously worked very hard to get here. So did Mahmoud. So did everyone else who has been facing consequences.
And, like, while I obviously would prefer to, you know, not get expelled, this is bigger than me. This is about something much more important. And it ultimately is in the hands of the university. If they want to expel me for standing up for my friend, for other students, then that is their choice.
PROTESTERS: ICE off our campus now! ICE off our campus now! We want justice! You say, “How?” We want justice! You say, “How?” Answer our demands now! Answer our demands now!
MARYAM ALWAN: My name is Maryam Alwan. I’m a senior at Columbia. I’m also Palestinian, and I’m friends with Mahmoud. I’m here in solidarity with my Jewish friends, who are in solidarity with all Palestinian students and Palestinians facing genocide in Gaza.
We are all here today because we miss our friend, and it’s inconceivable to us that the board of trustees are reported to have handed his name over to the federal government, and the fact that these board of trustees have now taken over the university.
Just yesterday, the University Senate at Columbia released an over 300-page report called the Sundial Report, which reveals that the board of trustees has completely endangered both Palestinian and anti-Zionist Jewish students in the name of quashing dissent and cracking down on protests like never before, eroding shared governance, academic freedom.
And so this has been a long-standing process over 1.5 years to get us to the point where we are today, where people are getting kidnapped from their own campuses. And we can’t just sit by and let the federal government do whatever they want to our own university without standing up against it.
So, whatever we can do.
AMY GOODMAN: And what does it mean to you that it’s Jewish students who have chained themselves to the gates?
MARYAM ALWAN: It means a lot to me, especially because of all of the rhetoric that surrounds these protests saying that we’re violent or threatening, when, from day one, I was part of Students for Justice in Palestine when it was suspended, and we were working alongside Jewish Voice for Peace from day one.
The media just completely twisted the narrative. So, the fact that my Jewish friends are still to this day fighting, no matter what the personal cost is to them — I’ve seen the way that the university has delegitimised their Jewish identity, put them through trials, saying that they’re antisemitic, when they are proud Jews, and they’ve taught me so much about Judaism.
So it just means a lot to see, like, the solidarity between us even almost two years later now.
AHARON DARDIK: My name’s Aharon Dardik. I’m a junior here at Columbia. And we’re here to protest the trustees putting students in danger and not taking accountability.
AMY GOODMAN: Why the chains on your wrists?
AHARON DARDIK: We, as Jewish students, chained ourselves earlier today to a gate on campus, and we said that we weren’t going to leave until the university named who it was among the trustees who collaborated with the fascist Trump administration to detain our classmate, Mahmoud Khalil, and try and deport him.
AMY GOODMAN: Where are you originally from?
AHARON DARDIK: I’m originally from California, but my family moved to Israel-Palestine.
AMY GOODMAN: And being from Israel-Palestine, your thoughts on what’s happening there?
AHARON DARDIK: There’s never a justification for killing innocent civilians and for war crimes and genocide that’s being committed now. And I know many, many other people there who are leftist Israeli activists who are doing their best to end the occupation, to end the war and the genocide and to end Israeli apartheid.
But they need more support from the international community, which currently sees supporting Israel as synonymous with supporting the fascist Israeli government that’s perpetrating this genocide, that’s continuing the occupation.
AMY GOODMAN: Voices from a protest on Wednesday when Jewish students at Columbia University chained themselves to university gates in support of Mahmoud Khalil, the former Columbia student protest leader now detained by ICE in a Louisiana jail.
Students continued their action into the early hours of yesterday morning through the rain, even after Columbia security and New York police arrived on the scene to cut the chains and forcibly remove protesters.
Special thanks to Laura Bustillos.
Republished from Democracy Now! under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States Licence.
Source: Novosibirsk State University – Novosibirsk State University –
The tenth conference of the Digital Industry of Industrial Russia (CIPR) will be held on June 3-6, 2025 – the main business event on the digital economy and technologies in Russia.
All events within the framework of the 10th anniversary of the conference will be held in Nizhny Novgorod on the territory of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair and the youth center “Vysota”. The halls of the Main Fair House will also be used for the business program sessions. The exhibition with Russian IT solutions will be located in mirror pavilions, and a separate pavilion will be built for international participants; negotiations are underway on the participation of foreign companies from China, India, and the Middle East. A large-scale festival for participants and city residents will unfold on the street territory of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair.
Since 2016, the topic of digital development has been on the periphery of the state and business agenda. At that time, interest in the digitalization of Russian industrial organizations was just emerging, and a platform was needed to unite representatives of government agencies, industry and IT – this is how the conference “Digital Industry of Industrial Russia” was born. Over 10 years, CIPR has grown from an industry project to an international event. The conference is attended by guests and market leaders from all regions of Russia and the countries of the EAEU, SCO and BRICS.
Since 2022, the CIPR has been hosting a large technology festival, CIPR Tech Week, for young people, the DECIPRALAND art exhibition with the participation of digital artists from all over the world, cyber championships and phygital games that combine real and virtual competitions, and on the last day of the event, the CIPR exhibition opens its doors to guests and residents of the city.
Today, CIPR is the main event on the digital economy in Russia, where strategically important government decisions are made, initiatives for the development of the IT industry are discussed, and ways to achieve the country’s technological sovereignty in systemically important areas of the economy are determined.
CIPR promotes the formation of a global digital business environment and opens up broad opportunities for finding partners in the Russian and foreign high-tech markets. Traditionally, CIPR hosts international agreements, investment deals, and an exhibition of digital solutions and high-tech equipment for key industries, where companies demonstrate innovations in AI, cloud technologies, cybersecurity, smart city technologies, etc. The conference also promotes export support for Russian technological solutions.
— For 10 years, CIPR has been creating a platform for effective dialogue between regulators and key market experts, and has also united the best intellectual IT resources of the country under its leadership. Now we have a responsible task – not only to present the anniversary conference as a reflection and systematization of valuable long-term experience in the digital environment, but also to form a vector for further development of the industry taking into account strategic initiatives and adaptation to changed scenarios of the global economic landscape, including ensuring dialogue with partner countries in the international market, — noted Olga Piven, director of the conference.
Employees Research Center in the Field of Artificial Intelligence of NSU will take part in the upcoming conference. They also took part in the conference last year. The center has existed since 2023. The main goal of the Center is to develop and prepare for implementation a set of “smart city” technologies using artificial intelligence that would improve the quality of life of citizens and the efficiency of urban economy.
The event is held with the support of the Government of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Nizhny Novgorod Region.
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: Novosibirsk State University – Novosibirsk State University – For almost a month, the sports complex’s game room hosted vivid battles at a football tournament dedicated to Nikolai Petrovich Dyakov, who created the NSU football club and trained a large number of athletes. The competition was included in the Spartakiad among the university’s faculties and institutes, and 10 teams divided into 2 subgroups took part in it.
In the final, FIT defeated the IFP team with a score of 6:0, and in the match for third place, the NSU SUNC won against the EF students by only 1 goal with a score of 4:3.
As usual, the following were singled out and awarded:
Best Goalkeeper – Fedor Brykin, FIT
Best defender – Alexander Chulzhanov, NSU SUNC
Best forward – Maxim Ermolaev, FIT
Best player – Mikhail Korotkov, FIT
As a result, the places in the Spartakiad were distributed as follows:
1st place – Faculty of Information Technology: Nikolay Balyasnikov, Ivan Sheldyakov, Sergey Netesov, Saveliy Trushkov, Mikhail Korotkov, Maksim Ermolaev, Dmitry Kravchuk and Fedor Brykin 2nd place – Institute of Philosophy and Law: Saveliy Nekhoroshev, Arseniy Tikhanchik, Ivan Polyakov, Sergey Budyakov, Vladislav Gerasimov, Nikita Pyatakov, Maksim Uporov and Ivan Ugrovatov 3rd place – SUNC NSU: Aleksandr Chulzhanov, Pavel Zinoviev, Aleksandr Plasteyev, Viktor Rudenko, Anton Kan, Artem Bakhetkin, Aleksandr Kornilov and Aleksandr Ruban 4th place – Faculty of Economics
5th place – Faculty of Geology and Geophysics
6th place – Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics
7th place – VKI
8th place – Faculty of Natural Sciences
9th place – Institute of Intelligent Robotics
10th place – Zelman Institute of Medicine and Psychology competitions
Congratulations to the winners and prize winners, thanks to all the teams for their participation, coach Sergei Mezentsev for organizing, and football veterans, NSU graduates, for helping to hold the tournament!
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.
If your child is struggling with certain everyday activities – such as playing with other kids, getting dressed or paying attention – you might want to get them assessed to see if they need additional support.
Currently, the way a child is assessed is often fragmented and time-consuming for families. If there’s a concern, you might be talking to your child’s school, have a referral to see a speech pathologist and be on a wait-list to see a psychiatrist.
We’ve developed a framework – in collaboration with 23 other community and professional organisations – to help make this approach more consistent for all Australian children aged 0–12 years.
The framework focuses on a child’s functional strengths (what they can do day-to-day) as well as their challenges and aspirations, to work out what support they might need.
This is useful for all children and it means support can start sooner, whether or not a child has a diagnosis now or might have one in the future.
Working out what support is needed
All children have support needs. But when these needs go beyond what might be expected for their age, or that the people around them can manage, they may need additional help.
Take communication, for example.
Parents use strategies to help their children learn to talk, such as by encouraging them and showing them how to do it.
But for about 3.2% of children, communication difficulties substantially impact their ability to participate in everyday activities. An older child who is struggling to talk will find it harder to play and make friends with other children at childcare.
Understanding each child’s need as well as their day-to-day functioning is the first step to getting appropriate support.
However, there are two main problems with how assessments are currently done.
The first problem is inconsistency. Doctors, teachers, childcare workers and allied health practitioners (such as physiotherapists or psychologists) all work hard to understand each child’s strengths and needs. But they tend to do assessments differently.
This is not surprising – they are focusing on different things.
But this means information can be sometimes duplicated or missed, making it harder to join the dots.
For example, let’s say a child with intellectual disability and minimal spoken language is avoiding eating most foods.
A psychologist may look at the child’s behaviour, a speech pathologist at their swallowing, and a doctor at their nutrition. But unless they work together, it may take longer to understand the underlying issue – in this case, that the child has strong sensory sensitivities.
Without a consistent approach, it is difficult to form a holistic picture of a child’s strengths and support needs across settings, let alone come up with a good plan for support.
Focusing on diagnosis, not function
The second problem is assessment often focuses too much on diagnosis and not enough on support.
Yet even children with the same diagnosis can have significantly different needs.
For example, among three autistic children, one may need 24-hour supervision and support to be safe.
The second may face challenges with a specific activity such as communicating at school, and benefit from targeted support from a speech pathologist.
The third child may not need any additional support at this point in time, beyond what is provided for all children.
Support needs also differ based on a range of personal and environmental factors, such as other health conditions, the quality of supports already in place (such as ramps for a wheelchair), or assistive technology (including mobility and communication aids).
What does the new framework recommend?
The framework focuses on what children can actually do and what they need help with, rather than a diagnosis.
It encourages each professional doing an assessment – whether an educator or health professional – to consider the child’s existing context, including what supports they already have, their strengths and challenges. And it should consider their aspirations (what is most important to them and their hopes for the future).
The framework recognises a child’s strengths and needs can change as they grow, and recommends follow-up assessments when there is a change, rather than following a set schedule.
We developed this framework by reviewing the evidence, looking at how assessments work in other countries, consulting widely with the disability community and yarning with Aboriginal parents and health professionals.
It outlines an approach that can be used consistently whenever a child is assessed across health, education, disability and community services.
What needs to happen next?
The framework is already available and is beginning to be used in practice.
But to make the approach consistent, we need to also provide training for professionals who assess children’s strengths and needs, and a tool to gather and share the information consistently across different settings.
We’re currently working on these. They will be ready by the end of the year, along with recommendations to government for supporting their roll-out across health, education, disability and community services.
If you’re a parent, you don’t need to wait for a diagnosis to start seeking support for your child. You can talk to a professional you trust, such as your family doctor or child’s teacher about your concerns.
David Trembath receives funding from the Autism Cooperative Research Centre (Autism CRC), the Commonwealth Government, and the Stan Perron Charitable Foundation. The research featured in this article was commissioned by the Autism Cooperative Research Centre with support from a federal government Department of Social Services Information, Linkages, and Capacity-Building grant.
Rachelle Wicks receives funding from the Autism Cooperative Research Centre, the Commonwealth Government, and the Stan Perron Charitable Foundation. She also receives a small quarterly honorarium as Chair of the Autism Queensland Advisory Committee.
As summer fades into autumn, most Australian states and territories will set their clocks back an hour as daylight saving time ends and standard time resumes.
About one-third of the world also adjust their clocks seasonally, moving forward in spring and back in autumn (remember: spring forward; fall back).
In spring, losing an hour of sleep can leave us feeling tired, groggy and out-of-sync, making it hard to shake off that lingering sleepiness in the following days.
Although getting an extra hour of sleep in autumn might sound great, it’s not entirely positive either, as biannual time shifts – whether you’re gaining or losing an hour – can disrupt our biological clock.
This is why sleep experts and scientists who study the body clock (chronobiologists) often oppose the biannual clock changes. They argue we should eliminate daylight saving time and stick to standard time year-round.
So why do we have daylight saving time in the first place? And why is it contentious?
What’s daylight saving time for?
Daylight saving time was first introduced during World War I as a wartime measure to conserve fuel.
However, modern research shows that daylight saving time does not meaningfully reduce overall energy use. It can even increase it: while Australians use less power for lighting during daylight saving time, we use more for air conditioning during hot weather.
These days, daylight saving is debated mainly for its potential economic and social benefits, such as extended evening daylight for recreation, shopping and traffic safety, as well as for its health implications.
What happens in our body?
Humans have a longstanding, evolutionary-conserved biological or circadian clock.
To keep everything running smoothly, the biological clock depends on natural daylight. Exposure at the right time is particularly important for sleep. Morning sunlight helps wake you up, while evening light signals your body to stay awake, meaning you stay up later and get up later in the morning.
When we adjust the time on our clocks by one hour, we shift our social schedules, such as work or school times and social activities, and the timing of light exposure. When we switch our clocks back to standard time, most people experience sunrise and sunset earlier relative to their biological clock.
Conversely, under daylight saving time, morning light is delayed, so we encounter sunlight later in relation to our internal clock. This “circadian misalignment” can throw our biological clock out of sync, adversely affecting bodily functions.
This is especially problematic for people who already experience a persistent circadian misalignment (social jetlag), such as shift workers and those who prefer to stay up late in the evening and wake up later in the morning (night owls).
How the ‘spring forward’ can affect your health
Most research on biannual clock changes has historically focused on the spring switch, the transition from standard time to daylight saving.
It’s also associated with a higher risk of cardiovascular and mental health problems, with studies reporting a 4–29% increase in heart attacks and a 6% increase in mental health crises and substance misuse. These are attributed to the acute disruptions in sleep and the body clock.
On standard time, mornings are bright and evenings are dark. But with daylight saving time, sunlight comes later, so you might stay up later and still need to wake up at the same time due to social obligations.
When that pattern persists, it can cause longer-term circadian misalignment. This “social jetlag” has been associated with poorer cognitive performance and mental health.
How the ‘fall back’ can affect your health
The autumn transition from daylight saving time back to standard time is often perceived as beneficial because of the extra hour of sleep gained.
However, some research shows the autumn transition from daylight saving time back to standard time can disrupt wellbeing too. It is linked with increased restlessness during the night that compromises sleep.
It has also been linked to a rise in depressive episodes in Denmark, up to ten weeks after the transition to standard time. This may be due to the sudden start of earlier sunsets, which signals the start of a long period of short days.
The EU’s proposal to end biannual clock changes was approved in principle and awaits final agreement by all members states.
The US Senate has passed the Sunshine Protection Act, which now needs additional approval to become law.
From a circadian health perspective, permanent standard time aligns better with our biological clocks than permanent daylight saving time.
But people do not have to sacrifice their lifestyle preferences to live in tune with their biological clocks. Daylight saving time doesn’t provide more sunlight, it only shifts the timing.
So simple lifestyle adaptions, such as flexible work hours, can let people start working earlier in summer months and enjoy longer evenings even without changing the clock twice a year.
Meltem Weger has received funding from the German Academic Scholarship Foundation (PhD fellowship; 2010-2012) and from the European Commission (Marie Curie Curie Postdoctoral fellowships; 2014-2016, 2017-2019).
Benjamin Weger receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council
and the Alzheimer’s Association.
Source: Novosibirsk State University – Novosibirsk State University –
Scientists from Novosibirsk State University, together with colleagues from the Research Institute of Clinical and Experimental Lymphology (NIIKEL, a branch of the Institute of Cytology and Genetics SB RAS, ICG SB RAS), the Institute of Cytology and Genetics SB RAS (ICG SB RAS) and the G. I. Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics (INP SB RAS) have established that terahertz radiation affects the energy metabolism of melanoma cells. To this end, they conducted experiments to study the effects of this type of electromagnetic radiation on human melanoma cells. This work is of a fundamental nature and expands our understanding of the biological effects of terahertz radiation, as well as cellular reactions to its effects. The results are published in the journal “Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) – Molecular and Cell Biology of Lipids”.
Terahertz radiation (THzI) is electromagnetic waves whose frequency lies between the infrared and ultra-high-frequency (UHF) ranges: from 100 GHz to 10 THz. Modern technologies based on the use of electromagnetic waves in the terahertz range are widely used in biomedical sciences. For example, terahertz spectroscopy can be relevant in medical practice for the diagnosis of oncological diseases. At the same time, the THz region has not been fully studied, so fundamental research into the radiation of this electromagnetic spectrum and, first of all, the study of its biological effects on living systems are relevant.
— Our work is devoted to studying the fundamental mechanisms of the impact of non-ionizing radiation on biological objects, in this case, on human melanoma cells. However, the purpose of the study is not to develop treatment methods using terahertz radiation. We chose a melanoma cell line as a model, since it is a stable and well-studied system. This allows us to minimize the impact of side factors and be sure that the observed changes are associated with the impact of THz radiation, and not with the features of the cells’ vital activity, — the first-year postgraduate student commented Faculty of Natural Sciences of NSU (major in biology), junior researcher at the laboratory of cell technologies at the Research Institute of Cellular and Electron Microbiology and Genetics, a branch of the Institute of Cytology and Genetics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Ekaterina Butikova.
These studies were conducted at the Novosibirsk Free Electron Laser (NFEL) of the Institute of Nuclear Physics SB RAS. Only this facility can generate radiation with the parameters required for these experiments: the frequency of the radiation used was 2.3 THz, and the average intensity was 0.05 W/cm2. The specialists exposed human melanoma cells grown in culture flasks to THzI. Irradiation at a radiation frequency of 2.3 THz was carried out at the user station of the Novosibirsk Free Electron Laser.
– The Novosibirsk LSE is a unique source of teragerz and infrared radiation. In terms of average power, it is many orders of magnitude exceeds any sources existing in the world, which allows you to conduct absolutely unique experiments in a very wide area of wavelengths with various biological objects. The fact is that biopolymers, such as proteins, have four spatial levels of organization. If the primary structure is determined by covalent bonds, then the secondary, tertiary and higher are determined by hydrogen bonds, the energy of which lies precisely in the area of TGC-radiation. Therefore, if we affect the TGCI on living systems, we can quite much affect the operation of their cells, on the processes that pass inside them. Such experiments are of interest from the point of view that no living organism has formed any protective mechanisms from TGC radiation, since it is completely absorbed by the atmosphere, which means that it affects the biological objects, it can be explored how they adapt, which protection mechanisms include. For such biological experiments, a special user station was created on NLSE, which implemented the technology for adjusting the average and peak radiation power, as well as the intensity of exposure. Since we work with living systems that feel comfortable in a very narrow temperature range, which was important for the purity of experiments to equip the station with a wiper and thermal imager – these devices support and control the desired temperature. Thanks to this, we understand that we get the reaction of the system precisely to the influence of irradiation, and not to the increase or decrease in temperature, ”explained Vasily Popik, senior researcher at the Physical and Mathematical Sciences of the Physical and Mathematics.
Three groups of cells participated in the experiment. One was irradiated with terahertz radiation, the second with infrared radiation (IR), and the third was a control group and was not affected in any way. The terahertz and IR groups were irradiated for 10 and 45 minutes. On the day of irradiation, specialists conducted cytotoxic tests on the cells. On the third day, they conducted metabolomic screening – an analysis of metabolites, or organic molecules involved in metabolism.
– Metabolites are small organic molecules that are involved in the metabolism in living organisms. They can be intermediate or final products of biochemical reactions, provide cells with energy, serve as a building material for cells or perform regulatory functions. In the course of complex biochemical transformations, some substances are synthesized, others are destroyed, ensuring the energy balance, biosynthesis and the regulation of cellular functions. To study the biochemical state of cells and tissues, one of the most effective tools is metabolo screening. It allows you to fix changes in the metabolic composition of the body associated with physiological processes, diseases or external influences. Analysis of a wide range of metabolites helps to look into the molecular world of the cell and understand how it functions. In our laboratory, we conduct metabolon screening by the method of highly effective liquid chromatography with tandem mass-spectrometric detection (VEZH-MS/MS). Two years ago, we developed an approach that allows you to analyze about 400 metabolites (including both polar compounds and lipids) in less than 30 minutes of analysis. This was made possible thanks to the use of a monolithic column for VEGH, created by the employees of the Catalysis Institute SB RAS Yu.S. Sotnikova and Yu.V. Patrushev, ”said the laboratory assistant of the laboratory of the molecular pathology of the Institute of Medicine and Medical Technology of NSU, junior researcher at the Laboratory of Physiologically active substances of the Novosibirsk Institute of Organic Chemistry named after N.N. Vorozhtsova SB RAS (Nioh SB RAS) Nikita Basov.
The scientists have previously applied their metabolomic screening approach to plasma and dried blood spots, but its use in cell culture studies remained unexplored. In this work, they developed and tested a cell sample preparation protocol, assessed its limitations, and combined it for the first time with an analytical method to study the effects of terahertz radiation on melanoma cells.
Using metabolomic screening data and bioinformatics tools, the team of scientists concluded that terahertz radiation primarily affects the cell’s energy metabolism. To do this, they used the ANDSystem tool, an automated system that combines data from numerous biological databases and scientific publications, allowing them to identify functional links between genes, proteins, and metabolic pathways.
— Our studies show that THz radiation caused changes in the content of 40 metabolites, mainly in the pathways of purine and pyrimidine metabolism, and it also affects the level of ceramides and phosphatidylcholines. Analysis of genetic networks conducted by our colleagues from the Laboratory of Computer Proteomics of the Institute of Cytology and Genetics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences identified mitochondrial membrane proteins as key regulators of the biosynthesis of these metabolites. In addition, THz radiation apparently disrupts the structure of lipid rafts, which affects mitochondrial transport, but does not affect the integrity of proteins. Metabolic effects were specific to THzI and differed from the thermal effects observed with infrared radiation, — added Ekaterina Butikova.
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.
“Samsung’s QLED technology played a crucial role in bringing quantum dots to the level of recognition needed for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.”
— Taeghwan Hyeon, Seoul National University
Quantum dots have been at the forefront of display innovation over the past decade, delivering some of the most accurate color reproduction among existing materials. In 2015, Samsung Electronics paved the way for the commercialization of quantum dots with the launch of SUHD TVs — a breakthrough that moved beyond the use of cadmium (Cd), a heavy metal traditionally utilized in quantum dot synthesis, by introducing the world’s first no-cadmium quantum dot technology.
The academic world took notice. The successful commercialization of cadmium-free quantum dot TVs not only set a new direction for research and development but also played a pivotal role in the awarding of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery and synthesis of quantum dots.
Following Part 1, Samsung Newsroom uncovers how Samsung has contributed to academia through groundbreaking advances in material innovation.
▲ (From left) Taeghwan Hyeon, Doh Chang Lee and Sanghyun Sohn
Why Cadmium Was the Starting Point for Quantum Dot Research
“I was truly impressed that Samsung succeeded in commercializing a no-cadmium quantum dot display product.”
— Taeghwan Hyeon, Seoul National University
Quantum dots began attracting scientific interest in the 1980s when Aleksey Yekimov, former Chief Scientist at Nanocrystals Technology Inc., and Louis E. Brus, a professor emeritus in the Department of Chemistry at Columbia University, each published their researches on the quantum confinement effect and the size-dependent optical properties of quantum dots.
Momentum accelerated in 1993 when Moungi Bawendi, a professor in the Department of Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), developed a reliable method for synthesizing quantum dots. In 2001, Taeghwan Hyeon, a distinguished professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Seoul National University (SNU), invented the “heat-up process” — a technique for producing uniform nanoparticles without the need for size-selective separation. In 2004, Hyeon published a scalable production method in the academic journal Nature Materials — a discovery widely regarded as a potential game changer in the industry.
▲ Taeghwan Hyeon
However, these efforts did not immediately lead to commercialization. At the time, quantum dots relied heavily on cadmium(Cd) as a core material — a substance known to be harmful to humans and designated as a restricted material under the European Union’s Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive.
“Currently, the only materials capable of reliably producing quantum dots are cadmium selenide (CdSe) and indium phosphide (InP),” explained Hyeon. “Cadmium selenide, the conventional quantum dot material, is a compound of group II and group VI elements, while indium phosphide is formed from group III and group V elements. Synthesizing quantum dots from group II and VI elements is relatively straightforward, but combining group III and V elements is chemically much more complex.”
▲ A comparison of cadmium-based quantum dots with ionic bonds and indium-based quantum dots with covalent bonds
Cadmium, an element with two valence electrons, forms strong ionic bonds1 with elements like selenium (Se), sulfur (S) and tellurium (Te) — each of which has six valence electrons. These combinations result in stable semiconductors, known as II–VI semiconductors, materials that have long been favored in research for their ability to produce high-quality nanocrystals even at relatively low temperatures. As a result, the use of cadmium in quantum dot synthesis was considered an academic standard for many years.
In contrast, indium (In) — an alternative to cadmium with three valence electrons — forms covalent bonds2 with elements such as phosphorus (P), which has five valence electrons. Covalent bonds are generally less stable than ionic bonds and have a directional nature, increasing the likelihood of defects during nanocrystal synthesis. These characteristics have made indium a challenging material to work with in both research and mass production.
“It is difficult to achieve high crystallinity in quantum dots made from indium phosphide,” Lee noted. “A complex and demanding synthesis process is required to meet the quality standards necessary for commercialization.”
No Compromise – From Breakthrough to Mass Production
“There is simply no room for compromise when it comes to consumer safety.”
— Sanghyun Sohn, Samsung Electronics
Samsung, however, took a different approach.
“We had been researching and developing quantum dot technology since 2001,” said Sanghyun Sohn, Head of Advanced Display Lab, Visual Display (VD) Business at Samsung Electronics. “But early on, we determined that cadmium — which is harmful to the human body — was not suitable for commercialization. While regulations in some countries technically allow up to 100 parts per million (ppm) of cadmium in electronic products, Samsung adopted a zero-cadmium policy from the start. No cadmium, no compromise — that was our strategy. There is simply no room for compromise when it comes to consumer safety.”
▲ Sanghyun Sohn
Samsung’s long-standing commitment to its principle of “No Compromise on Safety” came to the forefront in 2014 when the company successfully developed the world’s first no-cadmium quantum dot material. To ensure both durability and image quality, Samsung introduced a triple-layer protective coating technology that shields indium phosphide nanoparticles from external factors such as oxygen and light. The following year, Samsung launched the world’s first commercial SUHD TV with no-cadmium quantum dots — a paradigm shift in the display industry and the culmination of research efforts that began in the early 2000s.
“Indium phosphide-based quantum dots are inherently unstable and more difficult to synthesize compared to their cadmium-based counterparts, initially achieving only about 80% of the performance of cadmium-based quantum dots,” said Sohn. “However, through an intensive development process at the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT), we successfully raised performance to 100% and ensured reliability for more than 10 years.”
▲ The three components of quantum dots
Quantum dots found in Samsung QLEDs are composed of three key components — a core, where light is emitted; a shell, which protects the core and stabilizes its structure; and a ligand, a polymer coating that enhances oxidation stability outside the shell. The essence of quantum dot technology lies in the seamless integration of these three elements, an advanced industrial process that spans from material acquisition and synthesis to mass production and the filing of numerous patents.
“None of the three components — core, shell or ligand can be overlooked,” added Lee. “Samsung’s technology for indium phosphide synthesis is outstanding.”
“Developing a technology in the lab is a challenge in itself, but commercialization requires an entirely different level of effort to ensure product stability and consistent color quality,” said Hyeon. “I was truly impressed that Samsung succeeded in commercializing a no-cadmium quantum dot display product.”
Setting the Quantum Dot Standard
“Research trends in the academic community shifted noticeably before and after the release of Samsung’s quantum dot TVs.”
— Doh Chang Lee, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
The optical properties of quantum dots are being applied to a wide range of fields, including solar cells, medicine and quantum computing. However, the quantum dot display remains the most actively researched and widely commercialized application to date — with Samsung emerging as a pioneer.
Building on years of foundational research and the introduction of its SUHD TVs, Samsung launched its QLED TVs in 2017 and set a new standard for premium displays. In 2022, the company pushed innovation further with the debut of QD-OLED TVs — the world’s first display to combine quantum dots with an OLED structure.
▲ A comparison of LCD, QLED and QD-OLED structures
QD-OLED is a next-generation display technology that integrates quantum dots into the self-emissive structure of OLED. This approach enables faster response times, deeper blacks and higher contrast ratios. Samsung’s QD-OLED was awarded Display of the Year in 2023 by the Society for Information Display (SID), the world’s largest organization dedicated to display technologies.
“Samsung has not only led the market with its indium phosphide-based quantum dot TVs but also remains the only company to have successfully integrated and commercialized quantum dots in OLEDs,” said Sohn. “By leveraging our leadership in quantum dot technology, we will continue to lead the future of display innovation.”
▲ Doh Chang Lee
“Research trends in the academic community shifted noticeably before and after the release of Samsung’s quantum dot TVs,” said Doh Chang Lee, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). “Since its launch, discussions have increasingly focused on practical applications rather than the materials themselves, reflecting the potential for real-world implementation through display technologies.”
“There have been many attempts to apply quantum dots in various fields including photocatalysis,” he added. “But these efforts remain in the early stages compared to their use in displays.”
Hyeon also noted that the successful commercialization of Samsung’s quantum dot TVs helped pave the way for Bawendi, Brus and Yekimov to receive the 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
“One of the most important criteria for the Nobel Prize is the extent to which a technology has contributed to humanity through commercialization,” he said. “Samsung’s QLED represents one of the most significant achievements in nanotechnology. Without its commercialization, it would have been difficult for quantum dots to earn Nobel recognition.”
Samsung’s Vision for Tomorrow’s Displays
Since the launch of its QLED TVs, Samsung has accelerated the growth of quantum dot technology in both industry and academia. When asked about the future of quantum dot displays, the experts shared their insights on what lies ahead.
“As a next-generation technology, we are currently exploring self-emissive quantum dots,” said Sohn. “Until now, quantum dots have relied on external light source to express red and green. Going forward, we aim to develop quantum dots that emit light independently through electroluminescence — producing all three primary colors by injecting electrical energy. We are also working on the development of blue quantum dots.”
“As electroluminescent materials make it possible to reduce the size of device components, we’ll be able to achieve the high resolution, efficiency and brightness required for virtual and augmented reality applications,” said Lee, predicting a major transformation in the future of displays.
“A good display is one the viewer doesn’t even recognize as a display,” said Sohn. “The ultimate goal is to deliver an experience that feels indistinguishable from reality. As a leader in quantum dot display innovation, we will proudly continue to move forward.”
With its continued leadership and bold technological vision, Samsung is shaping the future of displays and rewriting what’s possible with quantum dots.
1 An ionic bond is a chemical bond formed when electrons are transferred between atoms, creating ions that are held together by electrical attraction.2 A covalent bond is a chemical bond in which two atoms share electrons.
“One of the reasons Samsung focused on quantum dots is their exceptionally narrow peaks of the emission spectrum.”
— Sanghyun Sohn, Samsung Electronics
In 2023, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded for the discovery and synthesis of quantum dots. The Nobel Committee recognized the groundbreaking achievements of scientists in the field — noting that quantum dots have already made significant contributions to the display and medical industries, with broader applications expected in electronics, quantum communications and solar cells.
Quantum dots — ultra-fine semiconductor particles — emit different colors of light depending on their size, producing exceptionally pure and vivid hues. Samsung Electronics, the world’s leading TV manufacturer, has embraced this cutting-edge material to enhance display performance.
Samsung Newsroom sat down with Taeghwan Hyeon, a distinguished professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Seoul National University (SNU); Doh Chang Lee, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST); and Sanghyun Sohn, Head of Advanced Display Lab, Visual Display (VD) Business at Samsung Electronics, to explore how quantum dots are ushering in a new era of display technology.
Understanding the Band Gap
Quantum Dots – The Smaller the Particle, the Larger the Band Gap
Engineering Behind Quantum Dot Films
Real QLED TVs Use Quantum Dots To Create Color
Understanding the Band Gap
“To understand quantum dots, one must first grasp the concept of the band gap.”
— Taeghwan Hyeon, Seoul National University
The movement of electrons causes electricity. Typically, the outermost electrons — known as valence electrons — are involved in this movement. The energy range where these electrons exist is called the valence band, while a higher, unoccupied energy range that can accept electrons is called the conduction band.
An electron can absorb energy to jump from the valence band to the conduction band. When the excited electron releases that energy, it falls back into the valence band. The energy difference between these two bands — the amount of energy an electron must gain or lose to move between them — is known as the band gap.
▲ A comparison of energy band structures in insulators, semiconductors and conductors
Insulators like rubber and glass have large band gaps, preventing electrons from moving freely between bands. In contrast, conductors like copper and silver have overlapping valence and conduction bands — allowing electrons to move freely for high electrical conductivity.
Semiconductors have a band gap that falls between those of insulators and conductors — limiting conductivity under normal conditions but allowing electrical conduction or light emission when electrons are stimulated by heat, light or electricity.
“To understand quantum dots, one must first grasp the concept of the band gap,” said Hyeon, emphasizing that a material’s energy band structure is crucial in determining its electrical properties.
Quantum Dots – The Smaller the Particle, the Larger the Band Gap
“As quantum dot particles become smaller, the wavelength of emitted light shifts from red to blue.”
— Doh Chang Lee, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
Quantum dots are nanoscale semiconductor crystals with unique electrical and optical properties. Measured in nanometers (nm) — or one-billionth of a meter — these particles are just a few thousandths the thickness of a human hair. When a semiconductor is reduced to the nanometer scale, its properties change significantly compared to its bulk state.
In bulk states, particles are sufficiently large so the electrons in the semiconductor material can move freely without being constrained by their own wavelength. This allows energy levels — the states that particles occupy when absorbing or releasing energy — to form a continuous spectrum, like a long slide with a gentle slope. In quantum dots, electron movement is restricted because the particle size is smaller than the electron’s wavelength.
▲ Size determines the band gap in quantum dots
Imagine scooping water (energy) from a large pot (bulk state) with a ladle (bandwidth corresponding to an electron’s wavelength). Using the ladle, one can adjust the amount of water in the pot freely from full to empty — this is the equivalent of continuous energy levels. However, when the pot shrinks to the size of a teacup — like a quantum dot — the ladle no longer fits. At that point, the cup can only be either full or empty. This illustrates the concept of quantized energy levels.
“When semiconductor particles are reduced to the nanometer scale, their energy levels become quantized — they can only exist in discontinuous steps,” said Hyeon. “This effect is called ‘quantum confinement.’ And at this scale, the band gap can be controlled by adjusting particle size.”
The number of molecules within the particle decreases as the size of the quantum dot decreases, resulting in weaker interactions of molecular orbitals. This strengthens the quantum confinement effect and increases the band gap.1 Because the band gap corresponds to the energy released through relaxation of an electron from the conduction band to the valence band, the color of the emitted light changes accordingly.
“As particles become smaller, the wavelength of emitted light shifts from red to blue,” said Lee. “In other words, the size of the quantum dot nanocrystal determines its color.”
Engineering Behind Quantum Dot Films
“Quantum dot film is at the core of QLED TVs — a testament to Samsung’s deep technical expertise.”
— Doh Chang Lee, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
Quantum dots have attracted attention across a variety of fields, including solar cells, photocatalysis, medicine and quantum computing. However, the display industry was the first to successfully commercialize the technology.
“One of the reasons Samsung focused on quantum dots is the exceptionally narrow peaks of their emission spectrum,” said Sohn. “Their narrow bandwidth and strong fluorescence make them ideal for accurately reproducing a wide spectrum of colors.”
▲ Quantum dots create ultra-pure red, green and blue (RGB) colors by controlling light at the nanoscale, producing narrow bandwidth and strong fluorescence.
To leverage quantum dots effectively in display technology, materials and structures must maintain high performance over time, under harsh conditions. Samsung QLED achieves this through the use of a quantum dot film.
“Accurate color reproduction in a display depends on how well the film utilizes the optical properties of quantum dots,” said Lee. “A quantum dot film must meet several key requirements for commercial use, such as efficient light conversion and translucence.”
▲ Sanghyun Sohn
The quantum dot film used in Samsung QLED displays is produced by adding a quantum dot solution to a polymer base heated to a very high-temperature, spreading it into a thin layer and then curing it. While this may sound simple, the actual manufacturing process is highly complex.
“It’s like trying to evenly mix cinnamon powder into sticky honey without making lumps — not an easy task,” said Sohn. “To evenly disperse quantum dots throughout the film, several factors such as materials, design and processing conditions must be carefully considered.”
Despite these challenges, Samsung pushed the boundaries of the technology. To ensure long-term durability in its displays, the company developed proprietary polymer materials specifically optimized for quantum dots.
“We’ve built extensive expertise in quantum dot technology by developing barrier films that block moisture and polymer materials capable of evenly dispersing quantum dots,” he added. “Through this, we not only achieved mass production but also reduced costs.”
Thanks to this advanced process, Samsung’s quantum dot film delivers precise color expression and outstanding luminous efficiency — all backed by industry-leading durability.
“Brightness is typically measured in nits, with one nit equivalent to the brightness of a single candle,” explained Sohn. “While conventional LEDs offer around 500 nits, our quantum dot displays can reach 2,000 nits or more — the equivalent of 2,000 candles — achieving a new level of image quality.”
▲ RGB gamut comparisons between visible light spectrum, sRGB and DCI-P3 in a CIE 1931 color space
* CIE 1930: A widely used color system announced in 1931 by the Commission internationale de l’éclairage
* sRGB (standard RGB): A color space created cooperatively by Microsoft and HP in 1996 for monitors and printers
* DCI-P3 (Digital Cinema Initiatives – Protocol 3): A color space widely used for digital HDR content, defined by Digital Cinema Initiatives for digital projectors
By leveraging quantum dots, Samsung has significantly enhanced both brightness and color expression — delivering a visual experience unlike anything seen before. In fact, Samsung QLED TVs achieve a color reproduction rate exceeding 90% of the DCI-P3 (Digital Cinema Initiatives – Protocol 3) color space, the benchmark for color accuracy in digital cinema.
“Even if you have made quantum dots, you need to ensure long-term stability for them to be useful,” said Lee. “Samsung’s industry-leading indium phosphide (InP)-based quantum dot synthesis and film production technologies are testament to Samsung’s deep technical expertise.”
Real QLED TVs Use Quantum Dots To Create Color
“The legitimacy of a quantum dot TV lies in whether or not it leverages the quantum confinement effect.”
— Taeghwan Hyeon, Seoul National University
As interest in quantum dots grows across the industry, a variety of products have entered the market. Nonetheless, not all quantum dot-labeled TVs are equal — quantum dots must sufficiently contribute to actual image quality.
▲ Taeghwan Hyeon
“The legitimacy of a quantum dot TV lies in whether or not it leverages the quantum confinement effect,” said Hyeon. “The first, fundamental requirement is to use quantum dots to create color.”
“To be considered a true quantum dot TV, quantum dots must serve as either the core light-converting or primary light-emitting material,” said Lee. “For light-converting quantum dots, the display must contain an adequate amount of quantum dots to absorb and convert blue light emitted by the backlight unit.”
▲ Doh Chang Lee
“Quantum dot film must contain a sufficient amount of quantum dots to perform effectively,” repeated Sohn, emphasizing the importance of quantum dot content. “Samsung QLED uses more than 3,000 parts per million (ppm) of quantum dot materials. 100% of the red and green colors are made through quantum dots.”
Samsung began developing quantum dot technology in 2001 and, in 2015, introduced the world’s first no-cadmium quantum dot TV — the SUHD TV. In 2017, the company launched its premium QLED lineup, further solidifying its leadership in the quantum dot display industry.
In the second part of this interview series, Samsung Newsroom takes a closer look at how Samsung not only commercialized quantum dot display technology but also developed a cadmium-free quantum dot material — an innovation recognized by Nobel Prize-winning researchers in chemistry.
1 When a semiconductor material is in its bulk state, the band gap remains fixed at a value characteristic of the material and does not depend on particle size.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Agriculture, Food and Ecosystem Sciences, The University of Melbourne
Street trees usually grow in appalling soils, have little space for their roots, are rarely watered and often get aggressively trimmed by road authorities or utility companies.
If they do get established, many street trees suffer damage from vehicles, have to live in wind tunnels or are forced to grow in the permanent shade of large buildings.
But despite everything we throw at them, many street trees don’t just survive, they thrive. So let’s meet one of these heroic species: the yellow gum, (Eucalyptus leucoxylon).
Pretty but tough
Yellow gum is widely planted across southeastern and eastern Australia as a street tree. In some suburbs and towns, it is so common that people think it is a native tree (in fact it is from South Australia, Victoria or southwest New South Wales).
It is not to be confused with yellow box (Eucalyptus melliodora), a different eucalypt altogether.
Yellow gum has been widely planted because it meets many of the demands we place on urban trees.
It’s called yellow gum in Victoria and parts of NSW, but is often known as blue gum in SA.
The common names can be confusing, but yellow gum refers to its pale yellow wood and bark patches, while blue gum refers to its leaves.
Many specimens develop dense, low, spreading canopies, which offer lovely shade and help cool our cities down.
And importantly, it doesn’t grow too big. It is typically a medium to small woodland tree, usually between 13 and 16 metres high (but it can grow higher in the wild).
Yellow gum has an attractive smooth trunk with yellow, blue-grey or cream patches. alybaba/Shutterstock
Different bird and insect species feed on the trees some feeding on flowers and fruits and others on the foliage.
Natural populations of yellow gum occur in coastal and inland SA, in the southwest corner of NSW and in the western half of Victoria from the Murray River to the coast.
There are several subspecies, too, and debate rages in botanical and horticultural circles about whether some of them deserve to be recognised as their own species.
Yellow gum is also tolerant of wind and salt spray, and can withstand waterlogged soils. They stood up to the millennium drought conditions well.
Many arborists think the yellow gum has the potential to do well in many parts of Australia as the climate changes. Research has shown, for example, that some individual yellow gum trees regulate their water use better (when compared to other individuals in the species, and when compared to other eucalypts).
Like many eucalypts, yellow gum possesses lots of dormant buds and a lignotuber (a swelling at the base of the trunk containing dormant buds and carbohydrate). This means it copes well with pruning and will respond especially well to targeted formative pruning when young.
This can help reduce the risk of problems such as what’s known as “co-dominant stems” (when two main stems grow from a single point of origin, instead of one tall, straight trunk) and rubbing or crossing branches.
Not everyone’s favourite
Not everybody likes the yellow gum, and for some good reasons.
Some yellow gums are multi-stemmed, while others have twisted and curving trunks; some have both. These are not the characteristics many local governments want in street trees; many want to see straight trunks and dense canopies.
Yellow gums often produce a lovely dense canopy. Gregory Moore
These problems can be so annoying that some council arborists no longer recommend planting yellow gums.
But these issues are due to poor tree selection and propagation. In the past, yellow gum seed was not carefully sourced from the best trees with the most suitable characteristics, and so inferior specimens have prospered.
With the right investment of time and money into tree selection, these problems can be overcome.
Ticking most of the boxes
All in all, yellow gum can be a very fine and useful urban tree.
The species grows well and if superior stock is used, the trees develop with straight and attractive trunks and wide, dense canopies.
They are typically medium-sized trees, do well in tough street conditions or in smaller domestic front and back yards.
They tick most, if not all, of the boxes for a good urban street tree.
Gregory Moore 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.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne
The federal election will be held in four weeks. A national YouGov poll, conducted March 28 to April 3 from a sample of 1,622, gave Labor a 51–49 lead, a one-point gain for Labor since the previous non-MRP YouGov poll taken March 14–19.
Primary votes were 35% Coalition (down two), 30% Labor (down one), 13% Greens (steady), 7% One Nation (steady), 2% Trumpet of Patriots (up one), 10% independents (up two) and 3% others (steady). YouGov is using respondent preferences from its last MRP poll. By 2022 election preference flows, Labor would lead by about 52–48.
Anthony Albanese’s net approval rose three points to -6, with 50% dissatisfied and 44% satisfied. Peter Dutton’s net approval slumped ten points to -15, his worst in YouGov’s polls and the first time he’s had a worse net approval than Albanese since June 2024. Albanese led as better PM by 45–38 (45–40 previously).
Since Sunday, we have had leaders’ ratings polls from Newspoll, Resolve, Freshwater, Essential and YouGov. A simple average of the net approval from these five polls has Albanese at net 7.8 and Dutton at net -12.
Here is the poll graph. Labor has led in four of the six polls taken since the budget, with the exceptions a 50–50 tie in Resolve and a Coalition lead by 51–49 in Freshwater. However, Labor’s lead is narrow, except in Morgan.
While the Coalition could regain the lead before the election, Donald Trump’s tariff announcement on Thursday may make it more difficult for the Coalition.
Essential poll: Labor takes slight lead
A national Essential poll, conducted March 26–30 from a sample of 1,144, gave Labor a 48–47 lead by respondent preferences including undecided (a 47–47 tie in mid-March). This was the first Labor lead in Essential since November, with the Coalition either leading narrowly or a tie since.
Primary votes were 34% Coalition (down one), 30% Labor (up one), 12% Greens (steady), 9% One Nation (up one), 2% Trumpet of Patriots (up one), 8% for all Others (down one) and 5% undecided (down one). By 2022 election flows, Labor would lead by about 51–49.
Albanese’s net approval was down three points to -2, with 46% disapproving and 44% approving. Dutton’s was down one point to -6. It’s Dutton’s worst net approval in Essential since October 2023.
By 52–32, voters thought Australia was on the wrong track (48–35 previously). Essential and Morgan have a big lead for wrong track, but Labor is ahead. Voters may be blaming Trump more than Labor.
By 61–29, voters did not think the federal budget would make a meaningful difference on cost of living (64–27 after the May 2024 budget). By 69–31, voters thought the government should prioritise the delivery of services, even if it means running a deficit, over prioritise running a surplus.
Voters were told the Trump administration wanted to pressure Australia into removing some policies using tariffs. By 65–15, voters supported the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and by 64–13 they supported making US companies pay tax on income generated in Australia.
Morgan poll: Labor retains solid lead
A national Morgan poll, conducted March 24–30 from a sample of 1,377, gave Labor a 53–47 lead by headline respondent preferences, unchanged from the March 17–23 poll.
Primary votes were 35% Coalition (down 0.5), 32% Labor (down 1.5), 13% Greens (up 0.5), 5.5% One Nation (up 1.5), 10.5% independents (up 0.5) and 4% others (down 0.5). By 2022 election flows, Labor led by 53.5–46.5, a 0.5-point gain for the Coalition.
By 51.5–32, voters thought Australia was going in the wrong direction (52.5–32.5 previously). Morgan’s consumer confidence index was up 1.1 points to 85.3.
This term, Morgan’s results in general haven’t skewed to Labor relative to other polls, and Labor was behind in Morgan’s polls from November until late February. But Trump’s initial imposition of steel and aluminium tariffs on Australia on March 12 has seen Morgan move much more to Labor than other polls.
Additional Resolve and Newspoll questions and a NSW federal poll
I covered the national Resolve poll for Nine newspapers on March 30. In additional questions, by 60–15 voters thought Trump’s election was bad for Australia (40% bad in November). On threats to Australia in the next few years, 31% thought China the greatest threat, 17% the US, 4% Russia and 38% all equally.
Newspoll has been asking the same questions on the budget since 1988. The Poll Bludger said on Wednesday the March 25 budget was the fourth worst perceived on economic impact (at net -10), but about the middle on personal impact (net -19). The nine-point lead for “no” on would the opposition have delivered a better budget was about par for a Labor government.
A federal DomosAU poll of New South Wales, conducted March 24–26 from a sample of 1,013, gave the Coalition a 51–49 lead (51.4–48.6 to Labor in NSW at the 2022 federal election). Primary votes were 38% Coalition, 30% Labor, 12% Greens, 9% One Nation and 11% for all Others.
Albanese led Dutton as preferred PM by 39–38. By 52–31, respondents did not think Australia was headed in the right direction.
Canadian election and US special elections
The Canadian federal election is on April 28. Polls continue to show the governing centre-left Liberals gaining ground, and they now lead the Conservatives by 43.4–37.6 in the CBC Poll Tracker.
US federal special elections occurred on Tuesday in two safe Republican seats. While Republicans easily retained, there were big swings to the Democrats from the 2024 presidential election results in those districts. A left-wing judge won an election to the Wisconsin state supreme court by 55–45. I covered the Canadian and US developments for The Poll Bludger.
WA election final lower house results
I previously covered Labor winning 46 of the 59 lower house seats at the March 8 Western Australian election. The ABC’s final two-party estimate was a Labor win by 57.2–42.8. While that’s way down from the record 69.7–30.3 in 2021, it’s up from 55.5–44.5 in 2017.
Final primary votes were 41.4% Labor (down 18.5% since 2021), 28.0% Liberals (up 6.7%), 5.2% Nationals (up 1.2%), 11.1% Greens (up 4.1%), 4.0% One Nation (up 2.8%), 3.2% Australian Christians (up 1.7%), 2.5% Legalise Cannabis (up 2.1%) and 3.3% independents (up 2.5%).
The upper house will be finalised next week. All above the line votes have been included, with only below the line votes to be added. Labor will win 15 of the 37 seats, the Liberals ten, the Nationals two, the Greens four and One Nation, Legalise Cannabis and the Christians one each. That leaves three unclear seats.
ABC election analyst Antony Green’s modelling of the effect of below the line votes suggests Labor’s 16th seat is in doubt and the Liberals won’t win an 11th seat. If this is correct, an independent group and Animal Justice will probably win two seats, with the final seat to be determined by preferences.
Adrian Beaumont 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.
Source: United States House of Representatives – Representative Ilhan Omar (DFL-MN)
WASHINGTON —Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN) released the following statement on the arrest of a University of Minnesota student by Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) officers:
“My office received a report that an international graduate student at the University of Minnesota was arrested by ICE officers on Thursday. We immediately contacted ICE to request information about the nature of this arrest. The University of Minnesota confirmed that they did not have any prior knowledge of or involvement in the arrest. My office is in communication with the individual’s counsel, the University of Minnesota, and other elected officials. I will provide updates as soon as I am able.”
Source: United States Senator for Virginia Tim Kaine
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine (both D-VA) today sent a letter to the White House recommending candidates for the U.S. Attorney vacancies in the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA) and the Western District of Virginia (WDVA). In their letter, the Senators recommended Michael Gill, Assistant General Counsel and Director of Investigations for Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII), and Erik Siebert, Eastern District of Virginia Interim United States Attorney, for the EDVA position. The Senators recommended Christopher “Todd” Gilbert, Minority Leader in the Virginia House of Delegates, and Robert Tracci, Senior Assistant Attorney General and Section Chief for Major Crimes and Emerging Threats in the Office of the Virginia Attorney General, for the WDVA position.
“Across the Commonwealth, well-respected attorneys interviewed several excellent candidates, including Mr. Gill, Mr. Siebert, Mr. Gilbert, and Mr. Tracci. After conducting our own interviews and reviewing these recommendations, we find these four candidates to be exceptionally qualified for the position of U.S. Attorney,” said the senators.
The White House will now nominate one individual for each vacancy to be considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee. The nominations are subject to confirmation by the full Senate.
A copy of the letter can be found here and below.
Dear Mr. President:
As you consider candidates to serve in the two U.S. Attorney positions in the Commonwealth of Virginia, we are pleased to recommend Michael Gill and Erik Siebert for the position of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA); and, Todd Gilbert and Robert Tracci for the position of the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Virginia (WDVA). Bipartisan panels of esteemed attorneys from across the Commonwealth interviewed Mr. Gill, Mr. Siebert, Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Tracci, along with many other excellent candidates. After considering the panels’ reviews and conducting our own interviews, we find these four candidates to be exceptionally qualified for the position of U.S. Attorney.
U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District
Michael Gill is Assistant General Counsel and Director of Investigations for Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) in Newport News, Virginia. Prior to joining HII, Mr. Gill served as a federal prosecutor for twenty years, fifteen of which were in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the EDVA. He last served the EDVA as the Chief of the Criminal Division from 2018 to 2023, supervising operations across the District’s four divisions. Mr. Gill received his Bachelor of Arts summa cum laude from Texas Christian University and his Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia School of Law.
Erik Siebert currently serves as the Interim United States Attorney for the EDVA. Mr. Siebert has worked as a line Assistant U.S. Attorney (AUSA) in the EDVA, handling violent crimes, possession and trafficking of illegal firearms, and narcotics, as well as the Deputy Criminal Supervisor in the EDVA Richmond Division, supervising AUSAs and partnering with federal, state, and local partners. Prior to joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the EDVA, Mr. Siebert was a police officer and an investigator with the Metropolitan Police Department of Washington D.C. Mr. Siebert received his Bachelor of Arts from the Virginia Military Institute and his Juris Doctor cum laude from the University of Richmond School of Law.
U.S. Attorney for the Western District
Christopher “Todd” Gilbert is the Minority Leader in the Virginia House of Delegates. During his twenty years representing parts of the Shenandoah Valley and the Blue Ridge Mountains, Mr. Gilbert also served as Speaker and Majority Leader of the Virginia House of Delegates. Mr. Gilbert has nearly fifteen years of experience prosecuting criminal and traffic cases in Shenandoah, Warren, and Frederick counties and the City of Lynchburg. He now operates his own firm representing criminal defendants. Mr. Gilbert earned his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Virginia and his Juris Doctor from the Southern Methodist University School of Law.
Robert Tracci is the Senior Assistant Attorney General and Section Chief for Major Crimes and Emerging Threats in the Office of the Virginia Attorney General. He previously served as the Commonwealth’s Attorney in Albemarle County. Mr. Tracci has also worked in the WDVA as a Special Assistant United States Attorney, where he assisted in the prosecution of complex financial services fraud, firearms and narcotics crimes, and child exploitation. Mr. Tracci also previously served in the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. House of Representatives. He received his Bachelor of Arts summa cum laude from the Ohio Wesleyan University and his Juris Doctor from the University of Illinois College of Law.
We believe that any of these candidates would make an excellent U.S. Attorney, and we are honored to be able to recommend them to you.
Tariffs are back in the headlines this week, with United States President Donald Trump introducing sweeping new tariffs of at least 10% on a vast range of goods imported to the US. For some countries and goods, the tariffs will be much higher.
Analysts have expressed shock and worry, warning the move could lead to inflation and possibly even recession for the US.
As someone who’s spent years researching the economy of Ancient Rome, it all feels a shade familiar.
In fact, tariffs were also used in Ancient Rome, and for some of the reasons that governments claim to be using them today.
Unfortunately for the Romans, however, these tariffs often led to higher prices, black markets and other economic problems.
Roman tariffs on luxury goods
As the Roman Empire expanded and became richer, its wealthy citizens demanded increasing amounts of luxury items, especially from Arabia, India and China. This included silk, pearls, pepper and incense.
There was so much demand for incense, for example, that growers in southern Arabia worked out how to harvest it twice a year. Pepper has been found on archaeological sites as far north as Roman Britain.
Around 70 CE the Roman writer Pliny – who later died in the eruption that buried Pompeii – complained that 100 million sesterces (a type of coin) drained from the empire every year due to luxury imports. About 50 million sesterces a year, he reckoned, was spent on trade from India alone.
In reality, however, the cost of these imports was even larger than Pliny thought.
An Egyptian document, known as the Muziris Papyrus, from about the same time Pliny wrote shows one boat load of imports from India was valued at 7 million sesterces.
Hundreds of boats laden with luxuries sailed from India to Egypt every year.
At Palmyra (an ancient city in what’s now Syria) in the second century CE, an inscription shows 90 million sesterces in goods were imported in just one month.
And in the first century BCE, Roman leader Julius Caesar gave his lover, Servilia (mother to his murderer Marcus Brutus), an imported black pearl worth 6 million sesterces. It’s often described as one of the most valuable pearls of all time.
Julius Caesar gave his lover, Servilia, an imported black pearl worth 6 million sesterces. AdelCorp/Shutterstock
So while there was a healthy level of trade in the other direction – with the Romans exporting plenty of metal wares, glass vessels and wine – demand for luxury imports was very high.
The Roman government charged a tariff of 25% (known as the tetarte) on imported goods.
The purpose of the tetarte was to raise revenue rather than protect local industry. These imports mostly could not be sourced in the Roman Empire. Many of them were in raw form and used in manufacturing items within the empire. Silk was mostly imported raw, as was cotton. Pearls and gemstones were used to manufacture jewellery.
With the volume and value of eastern imports at such high levels in imperial Rome, the tariffs collected were enormous.
One recent estimate suggests they could fund around one-third of the empire’s military budget.
Inflationary effects
Today, economic experts are warning Trump’s new tariffs – which he sees as a way to raise revenue and promote US-made goods – could end up hurting both the US and the broader global economy.
Today’s global economy has been deliberately engineered, while the global economy of antiquity was not. But warnings of the inflationary effects of tariffs are also echoed in ancient Rome too.
In modern economies, central banks fight inflation with higher interest rates, but this leads to reduced economic activity and, ultimately, less tax revenue. Reduced tax collection could cancel out increased tariff revenue.
It’s not clear if that happened in Rome, but we do know the emperors took inflation seriously because of its devastating impact on soldiers’ pay.
Black markets
Ancient traders soon became skilled at finding their way around paying tariffs to Roman authorities.
The empire’s borders were so long traders could sometimes avoid tariff check points, especially when travelling overland.
This helped strengthen black markets, which the Roman administration was still trying to deal with in the third century, when its economy hit the skids and inflation soared. This era became known as the Crisis of the Third Century.
I don’t subscribe to the view that you can draw a direct line between Rome’s high tariffs and the decline of the Roman Empire, but it’s certainly true that this inflation that tore through third century Rome weakened it considerably.
And just as it was for Rome, black markets loom as a potential challenge for the Trump administration too, given the length of its borders and the large volume of imports.
But the greatest danger of the new US tariffs is the resentment they will cause, especially among close allies such as Australia.
Rome’s tariffs were not directed at nations and were not tools of diplomatic revenge. Rome had other ways of achieving that.
Peter Edwell receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
As he looks to solidify his territorial gains in Ukraine in a potential ceasefire deal, Russian President Vladimir Putin has one eye trained on Russia’s southern border – and boosting Russian influence in Central Asia.
Following his 2024 re-election, Putin made Uzbekistan his third foreign visit after China and Belarus. The visit signalled the region’s continued importance to Moscow.
In response to Western sanctions on Moscow over the Ukraine war, trade and investment between Russia and Central Asian countries have grown significantly.
But as Russia tries to reaffirm its role in the region, China has also been quietly expanding its influence.
Could this growing competition over Central Asia affect Beijing and Moscow’s broader relationship?
Central Asia drifting apart from Moscow
The Central Asian region is home to approximately 79 million people spread across five nations. It was part of the Soviet Union until its collapse in 1991. Its strategic location between Russia and China, on the doorstep of the Middle East, has long made it a “grand chessboard” for great power politics.
While Russia has traditionally dominated the region, Central Asian leaders have made efforts to somewhat distance themselves from Moscow recently.
At the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) summit in October 2022, for example, Tajikistan’s president publicly challenged Russian President Vladimir Putin. He demanded respect for smaller states like his.
Similarly, during Putin’s 2023 visit to Kazakhstan, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev made a symbolic statement at the press conference by delivering his speech in Kazakh rather than Russian. This was a rare move that seemed to catch Putin’s delegation off guard.
In another striking moment, Tokayev declared at an economic forum in Russia in 2022 that Kazakhstan does not recognise Russia’s “quasi-states”, referring to its occupied territories of Ukraine.
Yet, all Central Asian states remain part of at least one Russia-led organisation, such as the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, or the Eurasian Economic Union.
Three states (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan) rely on Russian security guarantees through the Collective Security Treaty Organization.
And the region’s economic dependency on Russia remains significant. Of the 6.1 million migrants in Russia, the largest groups come from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. These countries depend heavily on remittances from these migrant workers.
China’s growing influence
With Russia preoccupied with Ukraine and constrained by Western sanctions, China has seized the opportunity to deepen its engagement in the region.
Beijing’s involvement in Central Asia has long been economic. In 2013, for instance, China unveiled its ambitious, global Belt and Road Initiative in Kazakhstan. And by 2024, it was China, not Russia, that was the largest trading partner of every Central Asian country except Tajikistan.
But in recent years, China has expanded its influence beyond economic ties, establishing itself as a key player in regional politics.
At the inaugural China-Central Asia Summit in 2023, for example, Chinese leader Xi Jinping pledged support for the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of the region. This is traditionally a role played by Russia.
Xi has also been making high-profile visits to Central Asian states, signalling Beijing’s growing strategic interests here.
Many Chinese-funded projects bring their own workers, limiting job opportunities for locals and fuelling resentment. There is also anxiety about potential “debt trap” diplomacy. Civil society groups have called for economic diversification to avoid over-reliance on Beijing.
Further complicating matters is Beijing’s treatment of the Muslim minority Uyghur population in the Xinjiang region of western China. This has reinforced suspicions in Muslim-majority Central Asia about China’s long-term intentions in the region.
Growing competition
The increasing competition raises questions about the potential impact on the broader, “no limits” relationship between Moscow and Beijing.
At a recent forum, Putin acknowledged Beijing’s growing economic role in the region. However, he insisted Russia still has “special ties” with Central Asian states, rooted in history. And he notably dismissed concerns about China’s expansionist aims, saying:
There is nothing about domination in the Chinese philosophy. They do not strive for domination.
On the ground, however, things aren’t so simple. So far, China and Russia have managed to avoid stepping on each other’s toes. How long that balance remains, however, is an open question.
Central Asian countries, meanwhile, are courting both sides – and diversifying their ties beyond the two powers.
Many of the region’s educated elite are increasingly looking toward Turkey – and pan-Turkic solidarity – as an alternative to both Russian and Chinese dominance.
Russia’s historical influence in the region remains strong. But the days of its unquestioned dominance appear to be over.
Russia may try to reassert its preeminent position, but China’s deepening economic presence is not going anywhere.
With both countries pushing their own regional agendas, it’s hard to ignore the overlap – and the potential for a future clash over competing interests.
Dilnoza Ubaydullaeva 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 genetic condition was a severe, albeit rare, form of retinal dystrophy. It causes severe sight impairment and can be caused by defects in many different genes.
In this case, the four young patients had mutations in the gene encoding AIPL1. This accounts for up to 5% of infants affected by this condition, and has no treatment.
The story of this incredible breakthrough actually begins 132 years ago. It highlights the importance of research done not for any clear application in the world – just curiosity. But around the world, this kind of research is under threat.
Understanding the world – just for the sake of it
Curiosity-driven research is exactly what it sounds like: research driven by the goal of understanding nature without regard for application. It has many aliases. “Blue-sky research”, “discovery science” and “basic science” are all terms commonly used to describe this approach.
This kind of research differs from “mission-directed research”, which focuses primarily on practical applications and whose goals are set by governments and industry.
The logic behind curiosity-driven research is that understanding how things work will inevitably lead to discoveries that will fuel innovation.
Historically, this has led to transformational discoveries. Another recent example is the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which was awarded to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman for discoveries that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID.
The recent study in The Lancet follows more than a century of curiosity-driven discoveries culminating in these four children receiving their life-changing injections.
Sketching the structure of the retina
The kind of medical intervention used on these patients is called a gene therapy.
In this case, the cause of the condition is a defect in a single gene. This defect leads to the malfunction of an individual protein in the eye that is required for vision. The approach essentially is to provide a working copy of that gene to the eye, to restore function. This requires not only the technology to deliver the therapy, but the underlying knowledge of how AIPL1 functions in normal vision.
In 1893, the pioneer of modern neuroscience Santiago Ramon y Cajal exquisitely sketched the structure of the retina. Santiago Ramon y Cajal/Wikipedia
This knowledge dates back to 1893, when the pioneer of modern neuroscience, Santiago Ramon y Cajal, exquisitely sketched the structure of the retina – the light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye.
In the 132 years since, our knowledge of how this tissue converts light into an electrical signal for our brain to interpret as vision has significantly advanced. We now understand a lot about how this works.
This foundational knowledge also means we know precisely why a dysfunctional AIPL1 gene leads to severe vision impairment. It also enables us to predict that providing a working version could improve vision. Armed with this knowledge, we have an engineering problem. How do we get a working copy into the eye?
In this case, the working copy of AIPL1 was delivered by an adeno-associated virus, or AAV. These were first discovered in the mid-1960s, and without realising their therapeutic potential, several research groups dedicated themselves to understanding their biology.
An AAV was first used in a human patient in 1995 for the treatment of cystic fibrosis. Without this curiosity-driven research they would not have been developed into a gene therapy platform. This is how most modern therapies have emerged.
Curiosity-driven research is driven by the goal of understanding nature without regard for application. Trust Katsande/Unsplash
Protecting curiosity-driven research
This is one of hundreds of therapies taking a similar approach. We will likely see many more stories like this in the coming decades. But I am certain we won’t see any examples where we don’t understand the underlying biology.
Curiosity-driven research, focused on understanding how biology works, is essential for the development of therapies to treat human disease. The history of medical advances shows us this time and time again.
Curiosity-driven breakthroughs include the discovery of X-rays as well as the antibiotic penicillin. The discovery of CRISPR/Cas9, an ancient bacterial defence, has enabled the editing of DNA with unprecedented precision. This has already led to an FDA-approved therapy to treat sickle cell disease.
Australia has punched above its weight in this arena for many years. But this is no longer the case.
Funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, our largest funder of medical research, has been falling since 2020. More broadly, this coincides with a decline in the proportion of basic research being funded in Australia and directly threatens our capacity for curiosity-driven innovation.
In Australia, and globally, we must protect curiosity-driven research at all costs and not underestimate the vital contribution it will make to our future.
Sean Coakley receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Australian Research Council.
Source: United States Senator for Illinois Dick Durbin
April 03, 2025
As the Trump Administration continues to ax critical research funding, Durbin and Foster introduce legislation that would bolster research funding at five federal research agencies
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) and U.S. Representative Bill Foster (D-IL-11) today reintroduced the bicameral American Innovation Act, which would provide annual budget increases at a rate of five percent, indexed to inflation, for cutting edge research at five federal agencies: the Department of Energy Office of Science; the National Science Foundation; the National Institute of Standards and Technology Scientific and Technical Research Services; the Department of Defense Science and Technology Programs; and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Science Directorate. The American Innovation Act would position the U.S. as a leader in development and discovery for decades to come by creating steady, sustained funding for breakthrough research at America’s top research agencies.
“In its crusade to damage essential government infrastructure, the Trump Administration has failed to recognize that sustained support for basic scientific research has enabled the United States to put a man on the moon, build the internet, and produce a COVID-19 vaccine in record time. If we want to maintain our status as a world leader in research and technology, we must empower and fund our federal research agencies and retain their top talent,” said Durbin. “I’m introducing the American Innovation Act to ensure our nation’s scientists and researchers have access to critical funding to push our world forward while also creating jobs, growing our economy, and improving our national security.”
“I’m proud to work with Senator Durbin on this legislation to expand federal investment in scientific research,” said Foster. “Since World War II, investments in science and technology have helped expand our economy, create millions of jobs, and advance our national security. As we confront new and existing challenges, it’s critical that our scientists have the resources they need to ensure our nation remains at the forefront of research and innovation.”
The introduction of the American Innovation Act comes as the Trump Administration continues to gut federal research agencies by slashing programs and firing scientists conducting critical research. These moves only harm the future of the U.S., as investments in scientific research have helped the nation lead the world in new technologies, create millions of jobs, grow the economy, and advance national security. Further, without serious federal investment in research, the U.S. could fall behind its competitors, particularly China.
Basic science funding in the U.S. has lagged in recent decades. Since the 1970’s, the United States investment in basic science has decreased by tenfold to about 0.1 percent of GDP. Meanwhile, China’s research intensity (GDP expenditures on R&D) has increased by 500 percent since 1996– if this trend continues, China will soon surpass the U.S. in investment in science.
The American Innovation Act is cosponsored by U.S. Senators Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), and Brian Schatz (D-HI).
The legislation has earned the endorsement of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers; Association of American Universities; American Mathematical Society; Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities; Council on Undergraduate Research, Institute for Progress; Coalition for Academic Scientific Computation; American Physical Society; Federation of American Scientists; American Geophysical Union; and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
Record £13.9 billion of R&D funding unveiled to boost innovation, jobs and growth
Funding outlined to support transformational R&D in areas like life sciences, green energy, engineering and beyond.
£13.9 billion for research and development to drive growth and innovation.
Almost £14 billion of R&D funding allocated to bolster life sciences, green energy, space and beyond to improve lives and grow the economy
Investing in public R&D essential to driving our Plan for Change by delivering better public services and opening up business opportunities
Blood tests for early dementia diagnosis and world’s most advanced testing facility for wind power among supported projects
More UK innovators like those developing treatment-transforming dementia tests or building world-leading testing facilities to power a greener planet are being backed through our record £13.9 billion in R&D funding to improve lives and drive our Plan for Change.
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) has set out today (Friday 4 April) how it will allocate £13.9 billion in funding for transformational research and development in the next year in areas like life sciences, green energy, engineering and beyond. UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) – the UK’s lead public research funder – will receive £8.8 billion over the next year.
This funding will drive forward research that could transform lives and help make our NHS fit for the future – like the work on blood tests to diagnose dementia earlier, a disease affecting more than 980,000 people in the UK. Researchers are exploring whether looking for proteins specific to many forms of dementia, alongside a quick and easy test of patients’ cognitive functions, could unlock a fast, cheaper and non-invasive way of diagnosing the disease.
Public investment in R&D is also central to progress that grows the economy through new jobs and commercial opportunities. Each pound of public R&D investment is also estimated to leverage double in private investment in the long run. Businesses that receive their first R&D grant funding also see jobs and turnover go up by over 20% in the following six years.
Public R&D funding delivered through UKRI is already supporting teams at the University of Plymouth to tackle the serious global issue of antimicrobial resistance, where bacteria evolve to resist medicines that once killed them – making infections harder to treat, increasing medicine costs for and pressure on our NHS and hitting the economy as more suffer ill health.
Their discovery of a new antibiotic, Epidermicin, is undergoing trials and has led to spinout company, Amprologix – potentially providing health professionals with a silver bullet in the battle against such bacterial infections, dubbed ‘superbugs’, whilst opening up new commercial opportunities in the UK.
Similarly, UKRI R&D funding has also proven vital in developing the technologies we need to help position the UK as a clean energy superpower, such as the £86 million in ongoing funding towards building the world’s most advanced wind turbine test facility in Blyth. It is supporting the growth of the wind turbine market, creating local jobs and encouraging investment in the sector.
Science and Technology Secretary, Peter Kyle, said:
Our £13.9 billion investment in R&D is ultimately an investment in the future of the UK.
R&D is essential to fulfilling this government’s Plan for Change – whether in improving lives across the UK and beyond through new life-saving drugs, helping us build a cleaner, greener future or in exploring beyond our planet to unlock new discoveries that keep us healthy, safe and prosperous and much more besides.
It is also central to creating highly paid jobs and opportunities to set up new businesses across the UK, which will drive the economic growth that is key to supporting our public services and enhancing our daily lives.
The government is also investing nearly £670 million in space, through the UK Space Agency to help develop the space industry in the UK – employing 50,000 people in the UK – and ensure British companies like Airbus are involved in exploration beyond our planet, putting Britain back into the space race and unlocking new opportunities for discovery that can benefit life on earth.
For example, up to £160 million of previous investment over the next four years will propel Britain’s position in the global satellite communications market, enhancing high-speed internet access to remote and underserved areas and in turn bridging the digital divide for citizens.
The Department’s investment in R&D to protect our planet also includes £310 million for the Met Office, which while most well-known for providing accurate weather forecasting for the UK also provides the UK’s most advance climate modelling, which is essential to understanding the extent and impacts of climate change and how it can and will affect all of our lives.
The allocation of this record £13.9 billion in funding follows the Chancellor’s announcement at the Budget that the government would protect record levels of R&D spending, with £20.4 billion being invested over the coming year across all government departments.
UKRI CEO, Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser, said:
Research and innovation play a crucial role in driving sustainable economic growth, creating jobs and improving public services for people across the UK.
This allocation safeguards the capability of the UK’s world class research and innovation ecosystem and enables investment to support the government’s five missions.
UKRI will use its unique position in the research and innovation system to make smart and strategic investment choices, delivering the best outcomes now and in the future, and making the most effective use of public money.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna Matheson, Associate Professor in Public Health and Policy, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington
Governments like to boast that “data-driven” policies are the best way to make fair, efficient decisions. They collect statistics, set targets and adjust strategies to suit.
But while data can be useful, it’s not neutral. There are biases and blind spots in the systems that produce the data. Worse, data often lacks the depth, context and responsiveness needed to drive real-world change.
The real questions are about who decides which data matter, how it’s interpreted – and what the change based on the data might look like.
Take the Social Investment Agency, for example. One of New Zealand’s best-known data-driven initiatives, it was established to improve the efficiency of social services using data and predictive analytics to identify individuals and families most at risk, directing funding accordingly.
The model is intended to guide early interventions and prevent long-term harm. And on paper, this appears to be a smart, targeted strategy. Yet it has also faced criticism over the risk of data-driven policies reducing individuals to measurable statistics, stripping away the complexity of lived experiences.
The result is that decision making remains centralised within government agencies rather than being shaped by the communities most affected.
What data can’t tell us
The Social Investment Agency also relies on Stats NZ’s Integrated Data Infrastructure, a database of anonymised administrative information. While a rich source for longitudinal research and policy development, this too has limitations.
It relies heavily on government-collected data, which may embed systemic bias and fail to represent communities accurately. Without accounting for context, some populations may be underrepresented or misrepresented, leading to skewed insights and misguided policy recommendations.
This kind of data is completely separate from the lived reality of the people the data describes. Māori in particular have been concerned about a lack community ownership and that the Integrated Data Infrastructure does not currently align with their own data sovereignty aspirations.
Given this greater likelihood of misrepresentation, Māori and Pasifika communities worry that data-driven funding models, on their own, fail to account for more holistic, whānau-centered approaches.
For instance, a predictive algorithm might flag a child as “at risk” based on socioeconomic indicators. But it would fail to also measure protective factors such as strong cultural connections, intergenerational knowledge and community leadership.
This is where the kaupapa Māori initiative Whānau Ora provides an alternative model. Instead of viewing individuals in isolation, it prioritises the needs of families to provide tailored housing, education, health and employment support.
A Whānau Ora COVID vaccination campaign in 2021 funded Māori health providers to reach at-risk communities in the North Island. Getty Images
Change from the ground up
Funded by Te Puni Kōkiri/Ministry of Māori Development, Whānau Ora has been criticised in the past for the lack of measurable outputs data-driven systems can offer. But research has also shown community-led models produce better long-term outcomes than traditional, top-down, data-driven welfare and service delivery models.
A 2018 review found Whānau Ora strengthened family resilience, improved employment outcomes and increased educational engagement – for example, through supporting whānau into their own businesses and off social assistance.
Whānau Ora’s work strengthening community networks and building self-determination migh be harder to measure using standard metrics, but it has long-term economic and social benefits.
Similarly, data-driven approaches to disease prevention can fall short. While governments might rely on obesity rates or physical activity levels to shape interventions, these blunt measurements fail to capture the deeper social and economic factors that affect health.
Too often, strategies target individual behaviours – calorie counting, exercise tracking – assuming better data leads to better choices. But we know local conditions, including what financial and community resources are available, matter much more.
An example of this in action is Health New Zealand/Te Whatu Ora’s Healthy Families NZ division. With teams in ten communities around the country, it works to create local change to improve health.
Instead of simply telling people to eat better and exercise more, it has supported community action to reshape local environments so healthier choices become easier to make.
In South Auckland, for example, Healthy Families NZ has worked with local businesses to improve access to fresh, affordable food. In Invercargill, it has helped transform urban planning policies to expand green spaces for physical activity.
Data in perspective
Such initiatives recognise health is about more than just individuals. It is a shared outcome that results from systemic processes. Data-driven approaches by themselves struggle to capture these less measurable pathways and relationships.
That is not to say government-led, data-driven methods don’t often diagnose the problem correctly – just that they frequently fail to provide solutions that empower communities to make lasting change.
Rather than over-relying on data analytics to dictate funding, or on national health targets to guide the system, cross-sector and place-based initiatives such as Whānau Ora and Healthy Families NZ can teach us a lot about what works in the real world.
Data will always have an important role to play in shaping policy, but this requires a broader perspective. Data offers a tool for communities, not a substitute for their leadership and voice. Real system change happens when we fundamentally rethink how change happens, and who leads that change in the first place.
Anna Matheson has been leading the evaluation of Healthy Families NZ which is funded by Health New Zealand.
Source: United States Senator for Maine Angus King
WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senator Angus King (I-ME), Co-Chair of the Senate Arctic Caucus, in a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, questioned General Christopher Cavoli, Commander of the United States European Command and Supreme Allied Commander Europe, about the United States’ position as an Arctic nation — and the importance of bolstering our nation’s presence in an emerging strategic hotspot amid rising tensions with Arctic adversaries. Senator King made the point that Russia and China are currently positioning themselves more strategically than the U.S. in the High North, through investments in military installations and icebreakers — which directly threatens American security. During the exchange, Senator King and General Cavoli agreed the U.S. needs to be paying closer attention to the Arctic as a new domain for potential conflict.
Senator King began,” Please discuss Russian and Chinese activities in the Arctic. Strikes me this is a looming threat area we should be addressing. The reason it is becoming so important is the melting of the arctic ice which has something to do with climate change. 70% of the Arctic ice has disappeared in the last 40 years. Talk to me about the strategic importance of the Arctic.”
“Absolutely, Senator. From the U.S. perspective, the most important thing to understand is the shortest distance from Russian airfields to the U.S. is over the polar cap,” responded General Cavoli.
“They are building up those airfields, are they not,” asked Senator King.
“They are. They were before the war at a fast-paced. It has slowed down a little bit during the war, but they are still opening airfields and repairing existing ones. The other thing that comes out of the arctic is the northern fleet in Murmansk comes up, sails down through the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom (GIUK) gap, and tries to break into the Atlantic from which they could hold key U.S. targets at risk with sub-launched cruise missiles among other weapons,” said General Cavoli.
“We should be paying particular attention to the arctic as a new domain of potential conflict,” questioned Senator King.
General Cavoli replied, “And I think we are. U.S. Northern Command has the primary U.S. responsibility for it. Of course, Strategic Command has activities up there. European Command also has activities up there because so much of the activity is in my area of responsibility (AOR). And the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), of course. Almost all the nations in the Arctic Council are NATO. The only one that is not is Russia. We have been sponsoring tabletop exercises to make sure we understand the details of command and control and coordination of operations there.”
As Co-Chair of the U.S. Senate Arctic Caucus, Senator King is an advocate for Maine and America’s interests in the North Atlantic and Arctic region — as Maine is the first port in the contiguous 48 states that will see increased traffic via activity in northern waters. Along with Caucus co-chair Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), King introduced the Arctic Commitment Act in 2022 to improve America’s posture and opportunities in the Arctic. He has been calling for the appointment of an Arctic Ambassador since 2015, and pushed for the confirmation of the first Arctic Ambassador last year. King also laid out the challenges and opportunities of a warming arctic in an article in the Wilson Quarterly, and in last year’s National Defense Authorization Act, he successfully secured the inclusion of provisions including funding authorizations for University of Maine to increase America’s activity and opportunities in the Far North.
Source: US Department of Health and Human Services – 2
News Release Thursday, April 3, 2025
NIH-supported clinical trial shows AI tool as effective as healthcare providers in generating referrals to addiction specialists. An artificial intelligence (AI)-driven screening tool, developed by a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded research team, successfully identified hospitalized adults at risk for opioid use disorder and recommended referral to inpatient addiction specialists. The AI-based method was just as effective as a health provider-only approach in initiating addiction specialist consultations and recommending monitoring of opioid withdrawal. Compared to patients who received provider-initiated consultations, patients with AI screening had 47% lower odds of being readmitted to the hospital within 30 days after their initial discharge. This reduction in readmissions translated to a total of nearly $109,000 in estimated healthcare savings during the study period. The study, published in Nature Medicine, reports the results of a completed clinical trial, demonstrating AI’s potential to affect patient outcomes in real-world healthcare settings. The study suggests investment in AI may be a promising strategy specifically for healthcare systems seeking to increase access to addiction treatment while improving efficiencies and saving costs. “Addiction care remains heavily underprioritized and can be easily overlooked, especially in overwhelmed hospital settings where it can be challenging to incorporate resource-intensive procedures such as screening,” said Nora D. Volkow, M.D., director of NIH’s National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). “AI has the potential to strengthen implementation of addiction treatment while optimizing hospital workflow and reducing healthcare costs.” In a clinical trial, researchers at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, compared physician-led addiction specialist consultations to the performance of their AI screening tool, which had been developed and validated in prior work. Researchers first measured the effectiveness of provider-led consultations at the University Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin, between March to October 2021 and March to October 2022, whereby healthcare providers conducted ad hoc addiction specialist consultations for opioid use disorder. They then implemented the AI screening tool between March to October 2023 to assist the healthcare providers and remind them throughout hospitalization of a patient’s need for an addiction specialist’s care. From start to finish, the trial screened 51,760 adult hospitalizations, with 66% occurring without deploying the AI screener and 34% with the AI screener deployed hospital-wide. A total of 727 addiction medicine consultations were completed during the study period. The AI screener was built to recognize patterns in data, like how our brains process visual information. It analyzed information within all the documentation available in the electronic health records in real time, such as clinical notes and medical history, to identify features and patterns associated with opioid use disorder. Upon identification, the system issued an alert to providers when they opened the patient’s medical chart with a recommendation to order addiction medicine consultation and to monitor and treat withdrawal symptoms. The trial found that AI-prompted consultation was just as effective as provider-initiated consultation, ensuring no decrease in quality while offering a more scalable and automated approach. Specifically, the study showed that 1.51% of hospitalized adults received an addiction medicine consultation when healthcare professionals used the AI screening tool, compared to 1.35% without the assistance of the AI tool. Additionally, the AI screener was associated with fewer 30-day readmissions, with approximately 8% of hospitalized adults in the AI screening group being readmitted to hospital, compared to 14% in the traditional provider-led group. The reduction in 30-day readmissions still held after accounting for patients’ age, sex, race and ethnicity, insurance status, and comorbidities, as calculated via an odds ratio. When analyzing the results using the odds ratio, the researchers estimated a decrease of 16 readmissions by employing the AI screener. A subsequent cost-effectiveness analysis indicated a net cost of $6,801 per readmission avoided for the patient, healthcare insurer, and/or the hospital. This amounted to an estimated total of $108,800 in healthcare savings for the eight-month study period in which the AI screener was used, even after accounting for the costs of maintaining the AI software. The average cost of a 30-day hospital readmission is currently estimated at $16,300. “AI holds promise in medical settings, but many AI-based screening models have remained in the development phase, without integration into real-world settings,” said Majid Afshar, M.D., lead author of the study and associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Our study represents one of the first demonstrations of an AI screening tool embedded into addiction medicine and hospital workflows, highlighting the pragmatism and real-world promise of this approach.” While the AI screener showed strong effectiveness, challenges remain, including potential alert fatigue among providers and the need for broader validation across different healthcare systems. The authors also note that while the various study periods – spanning multiple years – were seasonally matched, the evolving nature of the opioid crisis may have introduced residual biases. Future research will focus on optimizing the AI tool’s integration and assessing its longer-term impact on patient outcomes. The opioid crisis continues to strain healthcare systems in the U.S., with emergency department admissions for substance use increasing by nearly 6% between 2022 to 2023 to an estimated 7.6 million. Opioids are the second leading cause of these visits after alcohol, but screening for opioid use disorder in hospitals remains inconsistent. As a result, hospitalized patients with opioid use disorder frequently leave the hospital before seeing an addiction specialist, a factor linked to a tenfold increase in overdose rates. AI technology has emerged as a novel, scalable tool to potentially overcome these barriers and improve opportunities for early intervention and linkage to medications for opioid use disorder, but more research is needed to understand how AI can be used effectively in healthcare settings. If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. To learn how to get support for mental health, drug or alcohol conditions, visit FindSupport.gov. If you are ready to locate a treatment facility or provider, you can go directly to FindTreatment.gov or call 800-662-HELP (4357). About the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA): NIDA is a component of the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIDA supports most of the world’s research on the health aspects of drug use and addiction. The Institute carries out a large variety of programs to inform policy, improve practice, and advance addiction science. For more information about NIDA and its programs, visit www.nida.nih.gov. About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation’s medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov. NIH…Turning Discovery Into Health®
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho, April 03, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — In partnership with Operation Warm, Mountain America Credit Union donated over 300 brand-new pairs of shoes to students from Hawthorne Elementary on March 20, 2025. Held at the Mountain America Center, the event was a celebration of community spirit and compassion. Volunteers from Mountain America, Mountain America Center, and Idaho State University (ISU) athletics came together to personally fit each child with shoes in their favorite color—ensuring they step into the warmer months with confidence, comfort, and joy.
“We are so thankful for the support of Mountain America Credit Union and Mountain America Center, and what they have done for our students,” said Mark Morgan, principal of Hawthorne Elementary. “Being able to see the smiles and all the happiness as they put on their new shoes and take them home has been super exciting for them and for us. It’s great to know the love and support that our eastern Idaho community shows to all our students and educators.”
This initiative is part of Mountain America’s continued effort to support local communities through its donation programs in partnership with ISU athletics. Since 2016, Mountain America has contributed to selected nonprofits for every first down completed by the ISU football team and every three-pointer made by the men’s basketball team. For the 2024–2025 season, Operation Warm was selected to help provide new shoes to children in Eastern Idaho.
In Idaho, approximately 13% of children live below the poverty line, underscoring the critical importance of initiatives like these. Operation Warm’s mission is to provide warmth, confidence, and hope to children through basic need programs that connect under-resourced children to community resources they require to thrive. The provision of new shoes not only offers physical comfort but also enhances a child’s self-esteem and readiness to engage in learning.
“At Mountain America, our commitment to community shines brightest when we see the joy on children’s faces as they receive new shoes,” said Sterling Nielsen, president and CEO at Mountain America. “Partnering with Operation Warm allows us to provide not just footwear, but also warmth and hope to children in need.”
To learn more about Mountain America’s community involvement, visit macu.com/newsroom.
About Mountain America Credit Union With more than 1 million members and $20 billion in assets, Mountain America Credit Union helps its members define and achieve their financial dreams. Mountain America provides consumers and businesses with a variety of convenient, flexible products and services, as well as sound, timely advice. Members enjoy access to secure, cutting-edge mobile banking technology, over 100 branches across multiple states, and more than 50,000 surcharge-free ATMs. Mountain America—guiding you forward. Learn more at macu.com.
