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Category: Universities

  • MIL-OSI USA: Scott, Cassidy, Lead Colleagues in Reintroducing Bill to Expand School Choice, Educational Opportunity

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator for South Carolina Tim Scott
    WASHINGTON — U.S. Senators Tim Scott (R-S.C.), co-chair of the Congressional School Choice Caucus and member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, and Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-La.), chair of the Senate HELP Committee, led 16 Republican colleagues in introducing the Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA), bicameral legislation to expand education freedom and opportunity for students. Specifically, it provides a charitable donation incentive for individuals and businesses to fund scholarship awards for students to cover expenses related to K-12 public and private education.
    “When you give parents a choice, you give kids a better chance at achieving their dreams,” said Senator Scott. “By empowering families with more education resources and freedom, this bill will unlock opportunities that have been out of reach for students across America who deserve every chance to succeed and a schooling system that fosters their potential.”
    “Parents want to see their child succeed. Giving them the ability to make decisions over their child’s education puts that child’s needs first,” said Dr. Cassidy. “More freedom empowers parents and allows American children to thrive in school.”
    The Educational Choice for Children Act:
    Provides $10 billion in annual tax credits to be made available to taxpayers. Allotment of these credits to individuals would be administered by the Treasury Department.
    Sets a base amount for each state and then distributes the credits on a first-come, first-serve basis.
    Uses a limited government approach with respect to federalism, thus avoiding mandates on states, localities, and school districts.
    Includes provisions that govern Scholarship Granting Organizations (SGOs), as SGOs are given the ability to determine the individual amount of scholarship awards.
    An estimated two million students in any elementary or secondary education setting, including homeschool, are eligible to receive a scholarship. Eligible use of scholarships awards includes tuition, fees, book supplies, and equipment for the enrollment or attendance at an elementary or secondary school.
    Senators Scott and Cassidy were joined by U.S. Senators Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), John Thune (R-S.D.), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.), Ted Budd (R-N.C.), John Kennedy (R-La.), Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Jim Justice (R-W.Va.), Jim Risch (R-Idaho), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), and Todd Young (R-Ind.) in introducing the bill. 
    The Educational Choice for Children Act has received the endorsement from former U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos; former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Education Dr. Mick Zais; former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr; Louisiana State Superintendent of Education Dr. Cade Brumley; LA Kids Matter; Louisiana Family Forum; Louisiana State University Board of Supervisors; ACE Scholarships Louisiana Founder Eddie Rispone; ACE Scholarships; Invest in Education Coalition; ACSI Children’s Education Fund; America First Policy Institute; American Association of Christian Schools; American Federation for Children (AFC); American Principles Project; Americans for Tax Reform; Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI); Black Mothers Forum; U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB); Catholic Education Partners; CatholicVote; Center for Education Reform; Children’s Scholarship Fund; Club for Growth; Coalition for Jewish Values; Agudath Israel of America; Orthodox Union Advocacy; Republican Jewish Coalition; Concerned Women for America; Council for American Private Education (CAPE); Defense of Freedom Institute (DFI); Family Policy Alliance; Foundation for Excellence in Education (ExcelinEd); Freedom Foundation; Heartland Institute; Heritage Action for America; Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA); Independent Women’s Forum; Mountain States Policy Center; Parental Rights Foundation; Parents Defending Education Action; Partners in Mission; Project 21; Protect the First; 60Plus Association; Former Virginia & Florida Secretary of Education Gerard Robinson; and several other conservative leaders.

    MIL OSI USA News –

    January 30, 2025

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Defence Secretary speech at the ADS Annual Dinner: 28 January 2025

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments 3

    Defence Secretary John Healey addressed the ADS Annual Dinner on 28 January 2025.

    Good evening. Let me begin by thanking Kevin and his team at ADS for hosting this splendid event and for their work in promoting an industry that is the foundation for our way of life.

    ADS is going from strength to strength, with a double digit increase in your membership last year.

    You represent a commitment to innovation and excellence that are hallmarks of the British business spirit.

    Yours is an industry which proves that we are still – at heart – a nation of makers and inventors. I know recent times haven’t been easy. And as Defence Secretary, I am grateful to you all.

    This event brings us together from across the UK, across the industry and across the political divide.

    I welcome this because defence policy and procurement commitments reach beyond political cycles.

    I believe I’m the first Defence Secretary who’s spoken at this dinner, and tonight, you have two for the price of one with me as the warmup act for Penny Mourdant’s after dinner speech.

    Penny is someone with a lifelong connection and commitment to our armed forces, who rose to become the first woman ever to hold the role of Defence Secretary.

    I’ve had the privilege of six months in the role, part of a government taking on profound challenges in our economy, our public finances and our national security.

    Yet, as a new government, we’ve already:

    • Stepped up and speeded up support for Ukraine…
    • Increased defence spending by nearly £3 billion…
    • Launched a first of its kind Strategic Defence Review…
    • Given service personnel the largest pay rise in over 20 years… and still dealt with a multi-billion in-year deficit…
    • Signed the landmark Trinity House Agreement with Germany…
    • Secured a huge deal to buy back over 36,000 military homes to improve forces housing and save taxpayers billions…
    • Set new targets to tackle the recruitment crisis…
    • Begun a transformational MOD reform programme…
    • And got the Armed Forces Commissioner Bill through the House of Commons to improve service life.

    The point I want to make is that this is a new government that is delivering for defence.

    Something which I was able to underline last Friday at Rolls Royce, announcing a major new contract over 8 years, which will boost British jobs, business and national security.

    There’s incredible work being done there in Derby, by an incredible team, some of whom are here this evening.

    It’s a big investment, but behind the numbers are 200 apprentices a year who now feel they have a future.  

    And suppliers – 92 per cent of which are British based – who now feel like have certainty. 

    What really struck me – and it happens every time I visit a defence site – is the deep sense of pride and purpose.

    Defence workers are right to feel that way. Their efforts keep us all safe.

    And as an industry, you also invest huge sums in research and development. One of the great strengths of the defence industry is that you force us to reach for the future.

    Down the years, you’ve been responsible for some of the most significant innovations in history. Designed for times of war but which often produce lasting benefits for wider society well beyond the battlefield.

    As a nation, we’re good – and rightly so – at taking pride in the professionalism of our soldiers, sailors and aviators.

    But we know that that they are only as effective as the industry which equips them.

    We must be better at celebrating the role of the coders, programmers, scientists and engineers who provide our forces with the tools they need to protect us.

    It’s why I want us to not only change the way we work with the defence industry, but also change the way we see the defence industry.

    On the way we work with industry, I hope the last few months serve as a glimpse of type of partnership we want to forge.

    From industry involvement – for the first time ever – in our war gaming, to the creation of the new Defence Industrial Joint Council. 

    And on the way we see industry, we know we have much to do.

    Right now, there’s growing security concerns for defence firms at university careers, you attend to offer young people a route to a better life.

    You’re facing harassment and intimidation, forced to cancel events on campus. This is wrong.

    This attitude takes for granted the privileged position we enjoy in Britain – to live in freedom and security… security our defence industry guarantees. 

    So, today – alongside the Business and Education Secretaries – I’ve written to Universities UK for assurances about your safety on campuses. 

    We’re also seeing defence firms ranked alongside tobacco and gambling in Environmental, Social and Governance audits. And pension funds divest from you.

    I have no doubt the intentions are well-meaning. But they’re fundamentally flawed.

    We don’t stop wars by boycotting our defence industry.

    We stop wars by backing it.

    Let’s not forget that national security is a pre-condition for economic security, investor confidence and social stability. 

    I will always be a fierce advocate for you in the Department, to wider government, to the City, to the British public and to whoever needs to hear it.

    My challenge to you – as an industry – is to be louder and confident about your role.

    As my friend – Jonny Reynolds– said to the President’s Reception earlier:

    “You are exceptional in your importance… in helping to safeguard our national security and our way of life.

    “But you are also exceptional in your contribution to our economy. Nearly half a million well paid jobs are directly owed to aerospace, defence, security and space sectors.”

    To meet the challenges of this new era of threats, you’ve seen the direction we want to take with our Defence Industrial Strategy Statement of Intent.

    And let me thank everyone who’s shared their insights so far in submissions to both our industrial strategy, and SDR consultations. 

    I know – for some – our Statement of Intent may have been met with a degree of scepticism. You’ve been here before… I get that…

    New government, new ideas.

    But old habits die hard and entrenched interests dig in.

    Previous industrial strategies have produced policies – many of them good – but there wasn’t the plan, the structures and the relentless attention to reform needed to make change happen.

    So, why will this be different?

    First, it has to be different. 

    The war in Ukraine confronts us with the deep truth that when a country faces conflict or is forced to fight, its armed forces are only as strong as the industry which stands behind them…

    That innovation and production capacity is a major part of our nation’s – and our alliance’s – deterrence.

    And that industry’s constant purpose is to give the nation’s war fighters the advantage over our adversaries.

    The last Defence Industrial Strategy was published in 2021, a year before Putin shattered the peace in Europe.

    Ours will hardwire in these lessons and so too will the Strategic Defence Review.

    Second, I’m driving deep reform to defence.

    It doesn’t make news headlines, but it’s an essential foundation for implementing both the SDR and Defence Industrial Strategy.

    For industry, it means you’ll be brought in earlier to the conversation on how we should fight…

    We’ll ask you how you can help solve our problems rather than giving you a requirement to deliver.

    You’ll also see the creation of a new role, the National Armaments Director, soon-to-be one of the most senior roles in UK Defence, sitting alongside the Chief of the Defence Staff and Permanent Secretary.

    Their responsibilities will include:

    • Repairing a broken procurement system…
    • Ensuring our armed forces have what they need to fulfil their duty of protecting our nation…
    • And championing your industry at home and abroad.

    Third, defence is part of our bigger British drive for growth – the government’s number one mission.

    The Chancellor is speaking tomorrow about how we are going to meet this challenge.

    But the message I want to reinforce is that defence is an engine for driving economic growth.

    Fourth, we’ve proved we can do it by supporting Ukraine through Taskforce KINDRED and HIRST.

    From the onset, when it took 287 days after Putin invaded to sign contracts for new NLAWs…

    … to today, when we’ve created industrial bases for new capabilities – virtually from scratch…

    Supplying – at scale – one of the most effective drone systems in Ukraine.

    Restarted artillery barrel manufacturing in the UK to deliver hundreds to the front line.

    Enhancing our own capabilities through Stormer and Starstreak…while Gravehawk, Snapper and Wasp have all been developed with breathtaking speed.

    I don’t just want this to be the government’s new Defence Industrial Strategy, it needs to be a national endeavour… private and public… SMEs and primes… innovators and educators… trade associations and trade unions…

    All creating a defence industry which is better and more integrated…

    One that can keep our armed forces equipped… and innovating at wartime pace, ahead of our adversaries.

    The Shadow Defence Secretary is familiar with the challenges. 

    I know he will play his part in holding us to account.

    And I trust he – and his Party – will play their part in backing reforms that strengthen our country’s defence and its defence industry.

    This is new era of threats, demands a new era for defence.

    Change is essential, not optional.

    Our success rests on a new partnership with innovators, investors and industry.

    Our government is determined to meet the challenge, determined to deliver for defence.

    Together, we will make Britain secure at home and strong abroad.

    Thank you – enjoy your evening and I look forward to working with you over the coming years.

    Updates to this page

    Published 29 January 2025

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

    January 30, 2025

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why Village People’s YMCA is actually a great fit for team Trump

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By William Rees, PhD Candidate in Modern American History, University of Exeter

    It was a bizarre sight watching a huge gay 1970s disco hit being performed at Donald Trump’s 2025 pre-inauguration rally. Many prominent artists from Beyoncé to Bruce Springsteen prohibit Trump from using their music. So why do Village People – a band synonymous with the 1970s gay liberation movement – allow their music to be associated with a political movement that has fixed and repressive ideas about sexual identity and morality?

    Village People’s recent incarnation has had a complicated relationship with the “make America great again” movement (Maga). In 2020, their song YMCA began featuring at Maga anti-lockdown rallies and soon became a prominent song in Trump’s re-election campaign.

    At the time, the band asked Trump not to use its music and later supported Kamala Harris for the presidency in 2024. Since then Village People have dramatically changed tack.

    To be clear, of the group that performed at Trump’s pre-inauguration rally, only one of the original Village People remains. The band, put together by the gay producers Jacques Morali and Henri Belolo in 1978, was named after New York’s Greenwich Village gay scene.

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    In the 1970s, the group was mostly gay-fronted except the first recruit, lead singer and co-songwriter Victor Willis (sometimes the policeman, sometimes the admiral figure). Willis took control of the name and the hits in 2017 after an out-of-court settlement with co-owner Henri Belolo.

    Willis is now the only member of the original line up still performing under the official band name. Perhaps to ensure mainstream popularity, he has tried to move Village People away from its gay associations – the biography on the band’s website makes no mention of the act’s significance to queer audiences. He recently wrote on Facebook that he will sue every news organisation that suggests “YMCA is somehow a gay anthem”.

    Victor Willis, the last remaining original member of Village People in a 1978 video for Just A Gigolo.

    But it’s difficult to untangle Village People from queer history as it was the trendsetting gay community of underground disco culture that made them famous. Record companies selected the songs and artists to promote based on how DJs reported their popularity in the hottest clubs. Many of these clubs were gay dominated, and disco itself was tied up with the growing confidence of the gay liberation movement in America and the era of sexual liberalisation that followed the 1960s.

    Jacques Morali put together Village People knowing the band could offer influential gay clubbers something they had always been denied: cultural representation, and with it, acknowledgement of their existence.

    It worked. One self-proclaimed “disco doll” writing to LGBTQ+ newspaper The Advocate in 1978 recalled first hearing Village People: “The music was very hot … and the words were about us, about our scene. I couldn’t believe it.”

    Village People’s innuendos and knowing references to gay culture often went over the heads of many straight listeners. Songs like Macho Man and the group’s hypermasculine image epitomised the “clone” movement in 1970s gay culture.

    Queer men, long derided for being effeminate, would bulk up at the gym and dress in leathers like bikers, effectively becoming more of an embodiment of masculinity than straight men. Go West was a reference to San Francisco’s more liberal environment for gay men. The YMCA was a place to “hang out with all the boys”.

    But skyrocketing into the mainstream made Village People an awkward fit for gay disco culture. This vibrant community wanted their own scene that was not part of the mainstream. They felt betrayed by a band publicly denying their gayness as they juggled the hardcore homosexual audience that had made them famous alongside a family-friendly audience.

    The backlash was fierce. A 1978 letter to gay lib magazine The Body Politic declared: “The commercial exploiters are disguising it to gain the commercially lucrative straight audience”, describing Village People as “traitors of the worst kind”.

    But even if they became momentarily unpopular in the hottest gay clubs, for many LGBTQ+ people, Village People’s hits have endured as anthems played at queer nights and Pride events. In their sound, appearance and sheer 1970-ness, they are undeniably camp icons.

    Which of course leads many to question why people attending Trump’s rallies – hardly famous for their inclusivity – would embrace their music. One explanation is that Maga audiences simply do not care about past gay associations as the music is simple, catchy and positive.

    Another is that just like the 1970s, the queer messaging of Village People’s music still goes over the heads of straight Maga audiences. Perhaps despite its past gay associations, they are consciously trying to culturally repurpose disco for their own movement. Or they’re trying to be ironic.

    Most likely, though, the music might have a particular meaning to LGBTQ+ audiences, it has other meanings depending on the context in which it is played. To many, Village People are the epitome of a novelty, apolitical pop group. Their hits are associated with weddings, children’s parties and good-time disco. The prosaic truth may be that Trump fans just enjoy a really catchy tune.

    But for Trump’s team, the use of these songs is politically calculated toward their core supporters who have changed the lyrics of YMCA to “MAGA”. And don’t forget Village People were joined at the pre-inauguration rally by WWE wrestling’s Hulk Hogan. Both are nostalgic late 20th-century acts that revel in blatant performances of muscled masculinity.

    They seem to be the embodiment of that imagined past of American virility that Trump vaguely refers to when he promises to make the nation “great again”. It’s not difficult to work out what Trump’s message is, especially when he dances along to Macho Man at rallies.

    Both these acts are carnivalesque, like Trump himself. They indicate an era of politics as spectacle, but beneath the surface messages, we must carefully pay attention to what is actually being said and done.

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

    – ref. Why Village People’s YMCA is actually a great fit for team Trump – https://theconversation.com/why-village-peoples-ymca-is-actually-a-great-fit-for-team-trump-248457

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

    January 30, 2025

  • MIL-OSI Global: Philly Whole Foods store becomes first to unionize – a labor expert explains what’s next and how Trump could stall workers’ efforts

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Paul F. Clark, Professor of Labor and Employment Relations, Penn State

    Workers at a Whole Foods store in Philadelphia voted 130-100 to unionize. Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

    Whole Foods workers at the Philadelphia flagship store in the city’s Art Museum area voted to unionize on Jan. 27, 2025. They are the first store in the Amazon-owned grocery chain to do so.

    Paul Clark, a professor of labor and employment relations at Penn State University, talked to Kate Kilpatrick, The Conversation U.S. Philadelphia editor, about why this is happening – and why in Philly.

    The Whole Foods workers in Philadelphia voted 130-100 in favor of unionizing. What do we know about their grievances?

    From what I understand, these workers have felt that compensation, benefits and work conditions were not what they should be. Some are long-standing employees and say they struggle to afford their basic necessities.

    Why did the union drive effort succeed now, and in Philly?

    In the last five years, there has been a surge in union organizing. There are a number of reasons for this. First is the labor market. Low unemployment emboldens workers to take the risk of organizing a union. If workers feel their employer can’t replace them or that they can easily get a similar job, they are less fearful of angering the employer by trying to organize.

    The second reason is that the Biden administration was a labor-friendly administration – perhaps the most in history. The U.S. president appoints a majority of members to the National Labor Relations Board, which interprets and enforces the labor law that governs organizing. Under Biden, the NLRB regularly issued decisions that provided greater protection to workers and held employers accountable when they violated workers’ rights. During Republican administrations, the board’s decisions are generally pro-business and provide less protection to workers. So workers had the wind at their back in that regard.

    Also recent polling shows that 70% of Americans approve of unions, compared with less than half of Americans just 15 years ago. The generally favorable view of unions creates a more supportive environment for organizing.

    And the last factor is that Generation Z, the youngest group of workers, clearly wants more out of their work and employment than previous generations. So we see a lot of young workers across the country organizing at Starbucks, Trader Joe’s, Apple and now at Whole Foods and other stores.

    Why Philadelphia? Philadelphia is a relatively strong union town. The percentage of the workforce that is represented by a union is higher in Philadelphia than in most cities and areas of the country. So when workers express interest in organizing in Philadelphia they get a lot of support. Other unions might turn out members for their rallies, pressure the company to not oppose the organizing drive and offer other aid and assistance.

    The starting wage at the Philadelphia Whole Foods store is US$16 an hour. Is that considered low when the city’s minimum wage is just $7.25 an hour?

    The minimum wage in Philadelphia is $7.25 because that is the federal minimum wage. States can institute a higher minimum wage if they choose to, but Pennsylvania is one of the few Northeast states that hasn’t adopted a minimum wage higher than the federal minimum. The minimum wages in New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts, for example, are $15 or above.

    But the minimum wage in Pennsylvania is almost irrelevant because of today’s labor market. Unemployment is low, and many employers have to offer significantly more than the minimum wage to get workers.

    And the minimum wage is supposed to be a starting wage for workers with little experience or seniority. What workers want is a living wage. According to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, a single person in Philadelphia needs to earn around $24 per hour to cover the basic costs of living. And Whole Foods is a profitable business. It’s part of Amazon, one of the most profitable, largest companies in the world. I think workers at these companies believe that they play an important role in generating those profits because of the work they do. And they think they should get a fair share of those profits.

    How might the Whole Foods workers expect the company to fight back?

    When employees win an organizing election as the Whole Food workers have, they have won a battle but not the war. The purpose of forming a union is to improve wages and benefits and working conditions, and you do that by negotiating a contract with the company. That is the next step in the process. But the law only requires employers to bargain with employees – to meet at reasonable times and exchange proposals. It doesn’t compel them to agree to anything.

    The typical strategy of companies that aggressively oppose their workers having a union is to drag their feet in bargaining and not sign a contract. That is technically illegal, but labor law in the U.S. is relatively weak, and with good legal advice you can drag out bargaining for a very long time.

    We’ve seen this with the Starbucks campaign. The first Starbucks store unionized in 2021. Over 540 stores have organized since then. And Starbucks workers at those stores still do not have a contract.

    Could the new Trump administration have any impact on how this plays out in Philly?

    The fact that the Trump administration has taken over gives companies more confidence that the standard delay strategy will work.

    On Jan. 28, 2025, President Donald Trump fired Jennifer Abruzzo, the general counsel of the NLRB. The general counsel is the official at the board who basically enforces the National Labor Relations Act. Abruzzo was very aggressive in holding employers accountable if they violated the act and in protecting the rights of workers who tried to organize.

    Trump’s approach to labor law in his first four years in office was at the other extreme. He appointed as general counsel Peter Robb, who was seen as far less aggressive in protecting workers’ rights and his interpretations of the law were much more pro-business.

    Under the Biden administration, if a company was coming to the bargaining table month after month and not agreeing to anything, the NLRB would eventually step in and cite the employer for not bargaining in good faith. The NLRB could find the employer guilty of unfair labor practices and genuinely put pressure on it to bargain a contract.

    Based on the board’s actions during the first Trump administration, the board in the next few years will be more likely to allow companies to delay and delay in reaching a contract.

    What leverage do the Whole Foods employees have?

    They can go on strike. But Amazon has the resources to put up with a strike at one Whole Foods store forever.

    Other Whole Foods stores may be considering union drives. The more stores that organize, the more momentum the Philadelphia store will have. But for now, these workers in Philly are going to have their work cut out for them.

    That said, they won’t be alone. The Whole Foods workers organized with the UFCW Local 1776, which is basically a statewide union that’s been around for decades. It has a lot of resources and experienced and knowledgeable leaders, plus the resources of the national UFCW. So it’s going to lean into this fight, and these workers will also have a lot of support from the rest of the labor community in Philadelphia.

    Earlier this month, three Congressional representatives from Pennsylvania wrote a letter to Jason Buechel, the Whole Foods CEO, and to Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder, that expressed their concerns about efforts to suppress the union drive. Is that support typical?

    It’s not unusual. But there is no legal basis for elected officials to intervene in a labor-management dispute. I’d put that under the heading of community support.

    You have a lot of progressive elected officials in Philadelphia who are supportive of unions, and that’s true in Pennsylvania right up to the governor.

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

    – ref. Philly Whole Foods store becomes first to unionize – a labor expert explains what’s next and how Trump could stall workers’ efforts – https://theconversation.com/philly-whole-foods-store-becomes-first-to-unionize-a-labor-expert-explains-whats-next-and-how-trump-could-stall-workers-efforts-248513

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

    January 30, 2025

  • MIL-OSI Global: Will the US get to Mars quicker if it drops or delays plans to visit the Moon?

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Ian Whittaker, Senior Lecturer in Physics, Nottingham Trent University

    Esteban De Armas/Shutterstock

    The Artemis program has been Nasa’s best chance to get “boots on the Moon” again. But with the new US administration taking guidance from tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, who is focused on Mars colonisation, will they end up abandoning or pushing back lunar missions?

    For example, there’s been speculation that returning US president Donald Trump may cancel the Space Launch System rocket, which Nasa intended to use to get from the Moon to Mars. But is this approach likely to help them get to Mars quicker?

    The last human presence on the lunar surface was Apollo 17 in 1972. So you may imagine that it should be easy for the US to return. However there have been plans to once again send people there since 2004, which have changed name with each incoming president, until its current incarnation as the Artemis program.

    The 2022 Artemis-1 test flight was successful in its mission to send an unmanned satellite around the lunar orbit and return using the new SLS rocket system. But Artemis-2, which will carry crew, is not scheduled for launch until 2026. When we consider private companies and other nations, this is comparatively slow progress.

    Artemis mission.
    Nasa

    The first successful landing of a spacecraft on the Moon by the Indian Space Agency, Isro, took place in 2023 with Chaandrayan-3, which was an amazing achievement with a low budget. China landed in 2013 with Chang’e 3, and Chang’e 4 in 2019 on the dark side.

    Russia have previously had landers on the Moon. Their more recent attempt at a lunar landing with Luna-25 was unsuccessful though. There are also future lander missions planned by the European Space Agency with Argonaut, a private Israeli company and other private industries. Clearly, there is no shortage of potential competitors which could eventually develop to send humans too.

    Implications for Mars

    So would turning to Martian exploration be a sensible move instead of heading for the Moon? It would likely mean abandoning the Lunar Gateway project, a space station in orbit around the Moon where astronauts could live. But as this is not planned until 2027 at the earliest, this would seem acceptable.

    However the difference between going to the Moon and going to Mars is like the difference between walking to the end of your road compared to walking to another country.

    Besides the incredible difference in distance (the distance to travel to Mars is 833 times greater than that of the distance to the Moon), the time taken to get there is far longer as well. The optimal lunar launch conditions repeat once a month. And you could still launch at times that are not ideal.

    The optimal fuel route for Mars involves arriving when the two planets are roughly on opposite sides of the Sun. This launch window repeats every 18 months, and the journey time of nine months means any problems onboard will need to be fixed by the crew, with no rescue option. Faster routes can be achieved (roughly six months) but this then becomes very energy intensive.

    This is why the lunar gateway would come in handy, allowing astronauts to take off from the Moon, away from the Earth’s immense gravity, and head to Mars from there. Of course the material for the gateway would need to be sent to the lunar gateway first. But by splitting the energy requirements up it means slower but more efficient propulsion methods can be used for part of the Mars journey.

    There is no doubt that, with some work, SpaceX will be able to make a landing on Mars. But will they be able to safely take people there and get them back? As a company the idea of profit will be a strong factor, along with astronaut safety. We only have to look at some of the more recent Boeing problems (astronauts have been stuck on the International Space Station for seven months at time of writing) to see that private companies may want to slow down a bit when it comes to transporting people.

    This is unlikely to happen though, with the considerable influence of Musk on the White House administration, and the suggestion of fellow billionaire Jared Isaacman (a private astronaut) as the new head of Nasa.

    Critical decisions

    So two options for Nasa to choose from: either keep going with their Artemis program and abandon the Lunar Gateway, or aim for Mars and be primarily dependent on Musk.

    Funding both options will likely mean that neither ever happens. Of course, the Mars mission would be easier if the gateway was already present at the Moon.

    The timelines involved here are important. SpaceX states that it will send five uncrewed Starships to Mars next year with an aim to send humans to Mars in 2028. This seems ambitious, particularly as it involves refuelling in orbit, but if additional funds and material are put towards the project it could potentially be sooner than this.

    As the lunar gateway would be built at the earliest in 2027, then it’d be unlikely to be operational in 2028 anyway. So prioritising Mars exploration over the lunar gateway may indeed get us to Mars quicker – but it will be risky.

    If the US pulls out of plans to explore the Moon, other nations can expand their presence in those areas more easily – with the potential to have an easier route to launch to Mars. These are likely to be on much longer time scales though, but if Musk fails to get humans to Mars in the next few years, these countries may have an edge.

    The conditions on Mars are slightly more favourable for human presence, with at least some atmospheric pressure and the potential for mining water. But as many studies have shown, it has no potential for terraforming, the process of altering a planet to make it more habitable for humans.

    The increased distance from the Sun also means that solar panels are slightly less effective, and Mars is not rich in deposited solar Helium-3, which can be used as a fuel for nuclear fusion.

    Of course the challenge is what excites many people and it may be a risk worth taking. But this decision should be left with the experts in the field, rather than politicians and billionaires.

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

    – ref. Will the US get to Mars quicker if it drops or delays plans to visit the Moon? – https://theconversation.com/will-the-us-get-to-mars-quicker-if-it-drops-or-delays-plans-to-visit-the-moon-248046

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

    January 30, 2025

  • MIL-OSI Global: Tonsils can grow back after they’ve been removed – here’s which other body parts can regenerate

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Adam Taylor, Professor and Director of the Clinical Anatomy Learning Centre, Lancaster University

    The human body is composed of over 37 trillion cells, each with a limited lifespan. These cells are continuously replaced to maintain organ and system function. Yet over time, or as a result of damage, the number of functioning cells can decrease to a level that causes symptoms or even organ failure.

    Regeneration of organs and systems is a scientific holy grail that relies on stem cells, but due to their limited number and slow division rate, this isn’t a practical route to organ regeneration. It would take many years to repopulate all the cell types needed.

    However, some people see organs “reappear”, like Katy Golden who had her tonsils removed for a second time as an adult after they grew back over 40 years.

    One reason that tonsils may grow back is that one of the operations to remove them is a partial tonsillectomy. Only removing part of the tonsils leads to a quicker recovery and fewer complications, but around 6% of children may see regrowth, which may require further surgery in later life.

    Most people associate organ regrowth and regeneration with the liver. As little as 10% of the liver can regrow into a fully functioning liver. This is also how partial liver transplants allow the donor to “regrow” a normal sized and fully functioning liver.

    One organ that has a surprising capacity to regenerate is the spleen and sometimes it can regenerate without people realising.

    The spleen is a high-risk organ for injury and is the most commonly injured organ in blunt abdominal trauma during traffic collisions, sporting injuries or trivial activities such as bumping into furniture.

    The spleen is at high risk because it has lots of blood vessels and hence lots of blood, but is only surrounded by a thin capsule that can tear in trauma, allowing blood to leak out. This can result in death if not treated promptly.

    What may also happen is small pieces of the spleen – sometimes just a few cells – can become free in the abdomen and go on to “grow” where they settle – termed splenosis, going on to have similar functional activity to a mature, normally located spleen. This can be beneficial for those who have to have their spleen removed due to traumatic injury, with some reports suggesting regeneration in up to 66% of patients.

    In the last few years, our lungs have also been shown to have regenerative capacity. It is well known that smoking and other pollutants destroy the alveoli (tiny air sacs) where oxygen is passed to the blood. Stopping smoking has been shown to allow cells that have avoided damage from the cancer-causing chemicals in tobacco smoke to help regenerate and repopulate the lining of parts of the airways with healthy cells.

    Where a lung has been removed, the remaining lung has to adapt to support the tissues of the body and ensure enough oxygen gets to them. Studies have shown that the remaining lung increases the number of alveoli it has, rather than the remaining alveoli compensating by getting bigger to take up more oxygen.

    It isn’t just organs inside that regenerate. One organ that constantly does so on a humongous scale is the skin.

    As the largest organ, it has multiple barrier functions to keep things such as water in and germs out. With a surface area of almost 2m², the skin requires a significant amount of regeneration to replenish the 500,000,000 cells that are lost each day – that’s over 2g of skin cells per day.

    Tissue regeneration is much more common

    One of the most active regenerative tissues is the endometrial lining of the uterus which is shed every 28 days as part of the menstrual cycle and goes through about 450 cycles of this during a woman’s life.

    This layer varies between 0.5 and 18mm in thickness depending on the stage of the menstrual cycle, the functional cells that are lost along with the blood from vessels that support a fertilised egg if it implants.

    Men’s genitalia can also show regeneration. Vasectomy, which removes a piece of the tube (vas deferens) connecting the testes to the openings in the urethra, is used to reduce the chance of pregnancy by preventing sperm moving from the testes out of the penis.

    However, the cut ends of the ducts have shown regenerative capacity and reconnected. Some sections, where up to 5cm has been restricted or removed, have shown regeneration, even through scar tissue. This “recanalisation” can result in unexpected pregnancies.

    Bone is another tissue that can regenerate. If you’ve ever broken a bone, you’ll know that it repairs so that (eventually) you will regain function.

    This process of repairing the break takes six to eight weeks. But the process of regenerating the bone architecture and strength continues for months and years beyond this date.

    However, with increasing age and in post-menopausal woman, this process slows and the bone may not regenerate to its previous strength or structure.

    Where paired organs exist and one is lost, there is good evidence that the remaining organ can increase its functional ability to help the body cope with maintaining function. For example, when one kidney is removed, the remaining kidney enlarges to handle the extra workload, filtering blood and eliminating waste efficiently.

    Although organ regeneration is rare, it does happen and typically takes years to manifest because organs are complex structures. Work continues to try to understand how scientists can develop this knowledge to help with the shortage of donor organs. Thankfully, tissue regeneration happens much more often than many people might suppose, and it is a much-needed part of staying alive.

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

    – ref. Tonsils can grow back after they’ve been removed – here’s which other body parts can regenerate – https://theconversation.com/tonsils-can-grow-back-after-theyve-been-removed-heres-which-other-body-parts-can-regenerate-246653

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

    January 30, 2025

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why we should all try to eat like people in rural Papua New Guinea – new study

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jens Walter, Professor at the School of Microbiology, University College Cork

    Tanya Keisha/Shutterstock

    Western diets – high in processed foods and low in fibre – are associated with obesity, diabetes and heart disease. These diets don’t only harm our bodies, they also harm our gut microbiomes, the complex community of bacteria, fungi and viruses found in our intestinal tract that are important for our health.

    Scientists, including my colleagues and me, are actively searching for ways to create healthy microbiomes to prevent chronic diseases. And my search has taken me to Papua New Guinea.

    I have long been fascinated by this country, with its remote valleys almost untouched by the modern world until 1930, more than 800 languages, an ancient system of sustenance agriculture and entire communities living a non-industrialised lifestyle. This fascination kicked off a thrilling nine-year research project involving researchers from eight countries, which led to a paper published in the scientific journal Cell.

    In previous research, my team studied the gut microbiomes of rural Papua New Guineans. We discovered microbiomes that are more diverse than their westernised counterparts, enriched in bacteria that thrive on dietary fibre, and with lower levels of inflammation-causing bacteria that are typically found in people who eat highly processed foods.

    This information provided hints on how to perhaps redress the damage caused to our gut microbiomes.

    The traditional diet in rural Papua New Guinea is rich in unprocessed plant-based foods that are full of fibre but low in sugar and calories, something I was able to see for myself on a field trip to Papua New Guinea. Determined to create something everyone could use to benefit their health, our team took what we saw in Papua New Guinea and other non-industrialised societies to create a new diet we call the NiMe (non-industrialised microbiome restore) diet.

    What sets NiMe apart from other diets is that it is dominated by vegetables (such as leafy greens) and legumes (such as beans) and fruit. It only contains one small serving of animal protein per day (salmon, chicken or pork), and it avoids highly processed foods.

    Dairy, beef and wheat were excluded from the human trial because they are not part of the traditional diet in rural Papua New Guinea. The other characteristic distinction of the diet is a substantial dietary fibre content. In our trial, we went for around 45g of fibre a day, which exceeds the recommendations in dietary guidelines.

    One of my PhD students got creative in the kitchen designing recipes that would appeal to a person used to typical western dishes. These meals allowed us to develop a meal plan that could be tested in a strictly controlled study in healthy Canadian adults.

    Remarkable results

    We saw remarkable results including weight loss (although participants didn’t change their regular calorie intake), a drop in bad cholesterol by 17%, decreased blood sugar by 6%, and a 14% reduction in a marker for inflammation and heart disease called C-reactive protein. These benefits were directly linked to improvements in the participants’ gut microbiome, specifically, microbiome features damaged by industrialisation.

    On a western diet low in dietary fibre, the gut microbiome degrades the mucus layer in the gut, which leads to inflammation. The NiMe diet prevented this process, which was linked to a reduction in inflammation.

    The diet also increased beneficial bacterial metabolites (byproducts) in the gut, such as short-chain fatty acids, and in the blood, such as indole-3-propionic acid – a metabolite that has been shown to protect against type 2 diabetes and nerve damage.

    Research also shows that low dietary fibre leads to gut microbes ramping up protein fermentation, which generates harmful byproducts that may contribute to colon cancer.

    In fact, there is a worrying trend of increased colon cancer in younger people, which may be caused by recent trends towards high-protein diets or supplements. The NiMe diet increased carbohydrate fermentation at the expense of protein fermentation, and it reduced bacterial molecules in the participants’ blood that are linked to cancer.

    The findings from our research show that a dietary intervention targeted towards restoring the gut microbiome can improve health and reduce disease risk. The NiMe diet offers a practical roadmap to achieve this, by providing recipes that were used in our study. It allows anyone interested in healthy eating to improve their diet to feed their human cells and their microbiome.

    Jens Walter has received honoraria and/or paid consultancy from PrecisionBiotics/Novonesis A/S. NiMe is a trademark of Anissa M. Armet and Jens Walter.

    The research described in this article was supported by the Weston Family Microbiome Initiative, PrecisionBiotics Group Ltd., the “Hundred Talents Program” Research Start-up Fund of Zhejiang University, Alberta Innovates Postgraduate Fellowship, Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Scholarship, the Alberta Innovates Graduate Student Scholarship, the Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarship, the Walter H. Johns Graduate Fellowship, the University of Alberta Doctoral Recruitment Scholarship, the Campus Alberta Innovates Program, the Canada Research Chairs Program, the Science Foundation Ireland Centre grant to APC microbiome Ireland (APC/SFI/12/RC/2273_P2) and a Science Foundation Ireland Professorship (19/RP/6853).

    I would like to thank the people of Papua New Guinea whose way of life has been an inspriation for the development of the NiMe diet, and the participants of the human trial. I am deeply indepted to all the collaborators and the scientific institutions that have contributed to the research (please see author list and affiliations on publication). I would like to thank Prof. Andrew Greenhill (Federation University, Australia) and Prof William Pomat (Papua New Guinea Institute of Medical Research) for hosting me in Papua New Guina in 2019. I would further like to thank Jessica Stanisich and Tina Darb from the APC Microbiome Ireland for their help with this article.

    – ref. Why we should all try to eat like people in rural Papua New Guinea – new study – https://theconversation.com/why-we-should-all-try-to-eat-like-people-in-rural-papua-new-guinea-new-study-248064

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

    January 30, 2025

  • MIL-OSI USA: UConn, Wells Fargo Partnership Bringing Neurodiversity Workshop for Employers to Boston

    Source: US State of Connecticut

    Twenty-eight companies have already taken advantage of no-cost workshops held in New York City and Nashville to guide large employers in the design and implementation plan for neurodiversity initiatives within their organizations, offered through a partnership between UConn and Wells Fargo announced last year.

    Employers in the greater-Boston area will have the next opportunity to join in on the program, presented by the Wells Fargo Center for Neurodiversity and Inclusive Employment at UConn, during the center’s upcoming workshop scheduled for Feb. 5, 2025 in Boston.

    The workshop will be hosted by Loomis, Sayles & Company, the global asset manager headquartered at One Financial Center in Boston.

    “We can’t wait to bring this groundbreaking program to companies in Boston and the Northeast,” says Judy Reilly, the executive director of UConn’s center. “Companies that have been struggling to get traction with neurodiversity initiatives are now mid-launch with their first neurodiversity internship program, engaging in company-wide education about autism and neurodivergence, and securing executive sponsorship with their workshop-developed business cases. They tell us that without the workshop, they would not have had access to the information they needed to make this kind of progress.”

    “We’re delighted to host fellow Boston-area employers for this innovative workshop,” says Melissa Partridge, director of community investments at Loomis Sayles. “Learning how to create an environment that attracts and supports talented teams, including neurodivergent jobseekers and colleagues, enriches workplace culture by fostering diverse perspectives, creativity and problem-solving that drives success for everyone.”

    This series of one-day workshops – supported by a $3.75 million grant from Wells Fargo – aims to provide instruction to key leaders from Fortune 500 companies to help design neurodiversity initiatives end-to-end.

    The goal is to help leaders understand what neuroinclusion in the workplace looks like, and then apply that knowledge as they map out a plan for hiring and employment practice changes for their companies that enabled them to better support people who communicate, behave, think, and work differently.

    The workshops are relevant to any company that has 1,000 or more employees, according to the center. Participants can expect to develop a clear understanding of the barriers that many highly skilled autistic and neurodivergent individuals face in obtaining and keeping employment, to draft the business case to secure executive leadership support for this work, and to actually begin designing the components of their neurodiversity employment ecosystem within their organization.

    Established in 2021 with three initial industry partners – including Wells Fargo – the Center for Neurodiversity and Inclusive Employment at UConn quickly distinguished itself as a national leader on neuroinclusivity in employment. The center was renamed the Wells Fargo Center for Neurodiversity and Inclusive Employment at UConn in October 2024 in response to Wells Fargo’s shoulder-to-shoulder collaboration, expertise, and generous financial support.

    For neurodivergent jobseekers – people with autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and other cognitive differences – traditional hiring processes and a general lack of knowledge about neurodiversity on employers’ parts can create obstacles to demonstrating their talents. They often experience higher rates of unemployment and underemployment.

    The center’s overall focus is on improving career outcomes for neurodivergent individuals, providing innovative employer education, and fostering better connections between job seekers and companies.

    The center also leads a University and Community Council that helps other higher educational institutions support neurodivergent individuals and connects them with resources and tools to help support their employment goals as well as a Neuroinclusive Candidate Network that helps individuals connect with companies, mentors, peers, events, and resources to support their career journeys.

    “We have had overwhelmingly positive response from the companies that have participated in our workshops so far,” Reilly says. “These group workshops offer organizations across the country an actionable, no-cost pathway to design their own practices that tap into the strengths of current and future employees with cognitive differences. What’s really cool is that companies learn directly from the Wells Fargo team, whose award-winning neurodiversity program informs the workshop curriculum and whose lived experience provides invaluable insight and guidance to companies in a structured, sequential format they would not otherwise be able to access.”

    Additional employer workshops are currently being planned for later this spring, to be held in Houston, Texas; London; Washington, D.C.; St. Louis, Missouri; and Columbus, Ohio.

    Companies interested in participating in the upcoming Boston workshop are encouraged to email  neurodiversity.employment@uconn.edu.

    For more information about employer training and workshops and other opportunities available through the Wells Fargo Center for Neurodiversity and Inclusive Employment at UConn, please visit neurodiversity-employment.org.

    MIL OSI USA News –

    January 30, 2025

  • MIL-OSI USA: Online UConn Engineering Graduate Programs Ranked Best in the Nation

    Source: US State of Connecticut

    The University of Connecticut Master of Engineering program continues to be recognized as a valuable and empowering degree for engineers striving to be a driving force in the increasingly evolving world of engineering. 

    The U.S. News & World Report released on Jan. 21 once again places UConn’s online engineering graduate programs among the best in the country. 

    Of the 1,790 colleges and universities programs assessed by U.S. News, the Master of Engineering (M.Eng.) was ranked No. 36 in the nation, up from No. 37 in 2024. The rank is 26 spots higher than four years ago. 

    “Our degrees are designed to help working engineers balance their professional and personal commitments, empowering them to be a standout in the highly impactful, and competitive, world of engineering,” says Nora Sutton, director of the Center of Advanced Engineering Education.

    The degree is offered through the UConn College of Engineering and the Center for Advanced Engineering Education.

    With 14 concentrations offered, from biomedical engineering to digital design and manufacturing, students learn the skills in a flexible and accessible program to advance as engineers in their respective fields. 

    The rankings rely on faculty credentials and training, services and technology available to students, student engagement, and expert opinions on the academic quality of programs. Master’s degree programs are also ranked based on assessment of student excellence via undergraduate GPAs, acceptance rates, and work experience. 

    Online education remains a highly desirable option for working professionals, and for the employers invested in their future.  

    For the first time ever, UConn engineering online graduate programs ranked as a best choice for veterans. UConn’s M.Eng. degree ranked as the #1 choice for veterans in New England. 

    “Proudly, veteran tuition waivers have long since been applicable toward our programs, which offer engineering servicemen and women an opportunity to bridge the gap between active service and their professional careers,” says Sutton. 

    The U.S. News & World Report ranked the UConn M.Eng. degree No. 22 in the nation for veterans pursing graduate-level online engineering education. 

    “We have a group of incredibly talented faculty who are dedicated to dynamic online education, our academic mission, and our students,” says UConn Engineering Dean JC Zhao. “The recent rise in the U.S. News and World Report ranking is a testament to that dedication.” 

    Veteran tuition waivers can be applied towards M.Eng. courses. Military-affiliated students or prospective students can direct additional questions about applying benefits to UConn Veterans and Military Programs. 

    MIL OSI USA News –

    January 30, 2025

  • MIL-OSI: Moody Capital Solutions Consolidates Capitalyst Division into Moody, Enhancing Investment Banking Capabilities

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    ATLANTA, Jan. 29, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Moody Capital Solutions, Inc. (Moody Capital), a leading investment bank based in Atlanta, Georgia, is pleased to announce the consolidation of the Capitalyst Advisory Group division into its operations. This strategic move is aimed at expanding Moody Capital’s investment banking services and integrating Capitalyst’s expertise into its business.

    Richard Kreger, CEO of Moody Capital Solutions, welcomed Katherine Danielson and Todd Bertsch to the team: “We are thrilled to welcome the Capitalyst division into the Moody Capital family. This consolidation aligns with our commitment to providing top-tier investment banking services and strengthens our position in the market.”

    Katherine Danielson, joining Moody Capital Solutions as Managing Director, founded Capitalyst Advisory Group to integrate scalable business practices with a focus on fundraising and successful exits. Katherine brings extensive experience from her leadership roles at Citigroup and Nomura Securities, as well as a dynamic and diverse background. Prior to her career in investment banking, Katherine served for seven years in the U.S. Army as a broadcast journalist, honing her ability to tell compelling stories and communicate effectively under pressure. She also founded the food manufacturing company Zen Monkey Overnight Oatmeal, demonstrating her entrepreneurial acumen and deep understanding of business operations. Katherine holds a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations and Global Studies from the University of Texas and an MBA from Cambridge Judge Business School. On joining Moody Capital, she said: “This is a fantastic opportunity for our team and clients. We look forward to leveraging Moody Capital’s resources and expertise to deliver even greater value and innovative solutions.”

    Todd Bertsch, Managing Director of Capitalyst Advisory Group, brings over 25 years of expertise in investment banking, venture capital, and financial technology. A former leader at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Cowen Inc., and Weild & Co., Todd has overseen operations generating over $100 million in revenues, specializing in capital raising, M&A, and corporate finance.

    As co-founder of Gateway Financial Technologies, Todd revolutionized trading through direct market access via FIX protocols, positioning the firm as an industry leader. In venture capital, his role as a Venture Partner at VU Venture Partners has helped high-potential ventures secure funding and strategic partnerships.

    Todd’s ability to balance financial, operational, and strategic priorities makes him a trusted advisor to businesses navigating growth. At Capitalyst, he provides tailored fundraising and M&A strategies, helping clients unlock value and achieve sustainable success.

    The consolidation will enable Moody Capital to enhance its service offerings, particularly in the areas of capital raising, mergers and acquisitions, and other investment banking services. The integration of Capitalyst Advisory Group’s talented team will further solidify Moody Capital’s reputation as a premier investment banking firm.

    For more information, please contact: info@moodycapital.com

    About Moody Capital Solutions, Inc.:

    Moody Capital Solutions, Inc. is a leading investment bank providing capital raising, mergers and acquisitions, and other investment banking services. Founded in 2002, Moody Capital is dedicated to delivering exceptional financial solutions to its clients.

    About Capitalyst Advisory Group:

    Capitalyst Advisory Group specializes in providing strategic financial advice and investment banking services to clients across various industries. Known for its innovative approach and commitment to client success, Capitalyst integrates scalable business practices with fundraising and successful exits in mind. Learn more at www.capitalystadvisorygroup.com.

    Contact:
    Moody Capital Solutions, Inc.
    Richard H. Kreger
    (845)448-8857
    info@moodycapital.com

    The MIL Network –

    January 30, 2025

  • MIL-OSI Global: The scale of England’s special educational needs crisis

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jonathan Glazzard, Rosalind Hollis Professor of Education for Social Justice, University of Hull

    ESB Professional/Shutterstock

    A group of MPs has delivered a blistering verdict on the state special educational needs in England. In a new report, the public accounts committee call the system “unaffordable” and warn that the Department for Education (DfE) “risks a lost generation of children leaving school without receiving the help they need”.

    Special educational needs support is administered by local authorities, and they are struggling to cope.

    There has been a 140% increase in the number of children and young people with education, health and care (EHC) plans since 2015. EHC plans are reserved for those with complex needs.

    ECH plans are designed to ensure that children get the support they are entitled to to meet their special educational needs. This may include personal budgets, specialist educational provision, transport or support from specialist staff or teaching assistants.

    About 1.9 million children and young people have special educational needs and 576,000 have an EHC plan, which local authorities are required to fund. The rise in the number of children with EHC plans means that despite a rise in government funding, the amount given per plan has fallen.

    Most local authorities spend more than their allocated funding for pupils with high needs. This has resulted in financial deficits. Some local authorities are at risk of going bankrupt.

    Waiting times for special needs assessments to be carried out are lengthy, and in 2023, only half of children received an EHC plan within the 20-week target time. Parents often appeal when a local authority decides not to offer a child an EHC plan, and most of these appeals are upheld.

    Understanding demand

    The increase in the number of children with special educational needs in England is seen in other countries. One reason for the increase in numbers is that more people are seeking a diagnosis. In some cases, changing diagnostic criteria has also led to an increase in diagnoses.

    The Public Accounts Committee report makes several recommendations. These include the need to improve decision-making at local authority level, and understand more about why demand for special educational needs support is increasing. It recommends improving teacher training and continuing professional development, and improving earlier identification of special educational needs.

    Improving decision making in local authorities is an important step in the right direction, but lack of funding to meet demand will mean that local authorities will still need to prioritise how resources are allocated. Improving knowledge about the underlying factors that result in special educational needs will enable the government to focus on systemic interventions that target the root causes of special educational needs and disabilities.

    Teachers already working in classrooms will benefit from professional development that helps them to meet the specific needs of the pupils that they are teaching. It is also important to acknowledge that teachers have many competing demands on them, as they balance the needs of some children against those of others.

    Adding more special educational needs and disabilities content to the teacher training and early career framework is a reasonable response, but this needs to be done with care. Evidence suggests that 35 hours of professional development is a reasonable time to have an effect. One-off professional development events are likely to have less effect.

    More professional development and training for teachers may help, if it is done carefully.
    Matej Kastelic/Shutterstock

    New intensive training and practice opportunities in initial teacher training courses have been introduced to help new teachers put theory into practice. Focusing one or more of these on special educational needs seems to be a reasonable suggestion.

    The government also intends to introduce an 18-month professional leadership qualification for schools’ special educational needs coordinators. However, this is replacing a previous qualification, which was taught at universities. This suggests a move to a less intellectually rigorous programme of professional development, which undermines the credibility of the new professional leadership qualification.

    In 2024 the DfE committed to investing £21 million to train 400 more educational psychologists. This builds on 200 trainees whose training has already been funded. However, given the current demand, this figure is far too small and will probably result in minimal impact.

    Building on existing support

    There is no specific reference in the Public Affairs Committee report to the existing, and important, role of the Education Mental Health Practitioner (EMHP).

    EMHPs are employed by the NHS and provide vital and timely in-school clinical support for children and young people. They carry out assessments of pupils’ needs and work in schools to support pupils’ mental health. They also help schools to develop a whole school approach to mental health.

    However, most schools do not have access to an EMHP. The government has stated that in 2023, just over a third of pupils had access to an EMHP and there are plans to increase this to 50% by April 2025. This is not enough.

    Extending this service to all pupils would ensure that all pupils can receive rapid mental health support in their school, thus reducing the likelihood of mental health problems becoming more serious.

    What is clear from reading this report is that the current system is broken and has reached crisis point. Additional government funding is needed, but is unlikely to ever be enough to meet the demand.

    Collaboration between schools, local authorities, government and education experts is vital in finding solutions so that young people get the support they desperately need.

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

    – ref. The scale of England’s special educational needs crisis – https://theconversation.com/the-scale-of-englands-special-educational-needs-crisis-247494

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

    January 30, 2025

  • MIL-OSI Global: The global plant trade is spreading invasive species to Europe

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Amy Hinsley, Senior Research Fellow, Oxford Martin Programme on the Wildlife Trade, University of Oxford

    The Italian wall lizard likes to stowaway on olive trees. Qvist2000 / shutterstock

    Back in 2016, one of us (Silviu Petrovan) was asked to identify a live frog found in a shipment of roses in Sheffield, England. It certainly wasn’t any species found in Europe: Silviu thought he had been pranked.

    But with help from Ecuadorian and Colombian scientists, he was soon able to identify it as a North Andean tree frog. This species is found only in a few areas in the highlands of Colombia including, crucially, a region known for its flower-growing.

    This sudden realisation that cut flowers are being shipped from Colombia via Ecuador to Britain, potentially with hitchhiking animals in tow, sparked a collaborative project to investigate the complexities in this increasingly global trade.

    Initially, we explored the risks that invasive species will establish themselves. For instance, the recent fashion for old potted olive trees in restaurants, typically imported from farms in Italy and Spain, is a risk because these trees can serve as vehicles for species like the Italian wall lizard.

    Sometimes called the Italian ruin lizard (scientists call it Podarcis siculus), the lizard is spreading throughout Europe, with introductions often linked to the ornamental olive tree trade.

    Olive trees for sale (lizards included).
    Pingky_p / shutterstock

    But the global trade in cut flowers, pot plants, bulbs and foliage was worth around US$25 billion (£20 billion) in 2022, and it has many other environmental and social risks.

    As well as the spread of pests and invasive species, these include wild plants harvested illegally, and a range of effects on people including threats to food security or access to clean water. In our new paper, published in the journal Bioscience, we examined these risks and how we can mitigate them.

    We combined a review of published research on risks related to the ornamental plant trade with analysis of data on illegal trade and the prevalence of pests and hitchhiking vertebrates in plant shipments.

    That included two databases of customs interceptions of organisms such as insects, slugs and snails in imports into the UK and the Netherlands, and two databases of records of amphibians and reptiles linked to UK and Netherlands imports of ornamental plants.

    Despite repeated attempts and contacts, it was impossible to secure official data on contaminant interceptions from other major ornamental plant importer countries. Nonetheless, the available data provided an important snapshot of what might be occurring more widely.

    Growing and changing

    Our analysis shows that the ornamental plant trade is rapidly changing, doubling in value in recent decades. More and more cut flowers are being imported from tropical areas such as east Africa and South America, where the industry can play an essential economic role. Despite the risks we identify, these industries can and do bring significant benefits to people, and we are not calling for a halt to the trade.

    European tree frogs are often imported with flowers.
    University of Cambridge

    However, even with only two years of interception data it is clear that ornamental plant shipments contain considerable volumes of pests and potentially invasive organisms. Furthermore, while a range of species were found, taxonomic identification was not always possible, with around 20% of contaminants not being identified to species level.

    In some cases data named a contaminant only as “Coleoptera”, the scientific name for beetles and the largest insect group comprising over 300,000 species, or as “Lepidoptera” (butterflies and moths). These uncertainties make it harder to accurately assess invasive species risks.

    The reports of amphibians and reptiles imported into the UK and Netherlands are relatively small in number, dozens annually. But this is most likely a substantial underestimate given that these are not records systematically collected by authorities but rather mainly chance discoveries in airports, shops, depots and private homes, which then get collated because they are re-homed by specialist exotic wildlife centres.

    The problem is probably underreported

    The numbers of illegal plant seizures were generally small, even though there is likely to be a large illegal trade in plants such as orchids or cacti.

    This suggests that this is an underreported aspect of the illegal wildlife trade, due to less awareness and attention paid to plants. It’s hard for the layperson to tell a legal cactus from an endangered one, whereas it’s pretty obvious a rather colourful lizard found on a pot plant in Britain should not be there.

    Importantly, we also highlight growing concerns about the allocation of resources, in particular water and land, including the loss of Indigenous grazing land to ornamental plants.

    The use of pesticides for this non-essential crop type that has no nutritional value for people or livestock, in countries which might lack sufficient infrastructure to deal with the potential pollution, is also something that requires careful consideration.

    Ornamental plants are valuable products in global trade. Their trade is dynamic and shifting, yet while they are undoubtedly important in terms of their economic value, it is essential that the risks to people and the environment are not overlooked.

    Amy Hinsley is the co-chair of the IUCN SSC Orchid Specialist Group, an international network of volunteers working on orchid conservation.

    Silviu Petrovan is affiliated with People’s Trust for Endangered Species, a wildlife conservation NGO based in London. He is also a trustee at Froglife, a UK based amphibian and reptile conservation trust.

    – ref. The global plant trade is spreading invasive species to Europe – https://theconversation.com/the-global-plant-trade-is-spreading-invasive-species-to-europe-248274

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

    January 30, 2025

  • MIL-OSI Global: Workplace diversity schemes have a problem – but that doesn’t mean Trump is right to axe them

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Louise Ashley, Senior Lecturer in Sociology of Work, Queen Mary University of London

    Donald Trump’s inauguration was marked by a doubling down against programmes of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Among the executive orders he signed during his first days as US president, two were targeted at DEI. The focus was on federal government but the intention appears to be that this should also extend to other American workplaces. And it comes as Meta and Amazon are also retreating from diversity programmes.

    In Trump’s directive, DEI is said to undermine “traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement” in favour of an “identity-based spoils system”. But the move dismayed many workers. It doesn’t just seem regressive, but it also appears to make poor business sense – advocates argue that attention to diversity and inclusion can offer higher performance and profits.

    Trump appears to believe DEI offers unfair advantages on the basis, for example, of gender or ethnicity. But an alternative view could be that DEI is a necessary response to a situation where certain groups (often men, typically white, and generally from privileged backgrounds) have benefited from unearned advantages to maintain their grip on power.

    Here, DEI is a response to the idea that simply belonging to these traditionally advantaged groups can be perceived as “talent”. This comes at the expense of typically marginalised groups, who are subject to discrimination and unconscious bias. From this perspective, hostility to DEI might be seen as a way for the traditionally privileged groups to remain dominant.

    Both sides are apparently in favour of merit as the ultimate goal, although they have different views on what this means and how it is achieved. This suggests a paradox.

    But is there any reason to worry about the widespread use of DEI? Based on my research with firms in the City of London, I think the answer is yes (though for very different reasons than the president suggests).

    This raises the question of what (or whose) purpose corporate commitments to DEI actually serve. Common sense would suggest that a primary function is to ensure people can access positions that would previously have been closed off to them.

    Yet it is also worth remembering that where, for example, more women become corporate lawyers or senior financiers, this has no bearing on wider inequalities in society. In fact, in a further paradox, my research has found that some of the organisations most likely to express their commitment to DEI are also implicated in generating these inequalities.

    I researched diversity and inclusion practices in elite financial and professional service firms. These firms have played a key role in orchestrating a form of “rentier capitalism”, where small elites control the means of generating wealth. This system has much wider detrimental effects, as where wealth is increasingly concentrated towards the top, one consequence is stagnating incomes for the middle and working classes. This in turn drives insecurity and widens the wealth gap.

    Legitimising a broken system

    This, of course, is not the fault of people working in these firms. But overall this system desperately needs legitimacy. This is more difficult when senior jobs at the centre of this model of “financialised capitalism” are mostly taken by those from historically privileged groups. Put simply, it makes them look bad.

    One way they can ensure legitimacy is to shout about their commitment to DEI. This can help suggest that the system is merit-based, as access to these “top jobs” seems fairly distributed while rewards appear justly deserved. Most recently, these impressions have been generated by a vocal commitment among these organisations to promoting “social mobility”.

    Opening access to a wider demographic, while good for the organisation and individual staff, has no impact on underlying inequalities. Yet in practice, these measures lack some efficacy. In fact, by offering an impression of change in terms of who occupies the top jobs, DEI can help legitimise and sustain an unequal status quo.

    Diversity in the workplace can strengthen an organisation.
    PintoArt/Shutterstock

    This matters for everyone because the ramifications can spread beyond the workplace. As wealth trickles up and populations grow frustrated that systems are not becoming fairer, the messages of the populist right can hold more appeal.

    Trump’s objection to DEI is very different. For him, DEI is a convenient tool in the culture wars.

    Yet this leads to the current situation, where conservatives like Trump loudly reject what might be considered a conservative agenda (in that the old economic order remains unchanged). It can all start to feel like a disorientating hall of mirrors.

    I am not suggesting, as Trump is, that governments and employers should abandon DEI. This would certainly represent a backward move. But while measures to improve inclusivity in organisations remain important and worthwhile, this should not be seen as a substitute for much wider structural change.

    Perhaps the most urgent challenge for government is tackling wealth inequality as a source of legitimate grievance. This more radical change in direction might even make reactionary and potentially harmful policies – like Trump’s take on DEI – less alluring to voters.

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

    – ref. Workplace diversity schemes have a problem – but that doesn’t mean Trump is right to axe them – https://theconversation.com/workplace-diversity-schemes-have-a-problem-but-that-doesnt-mean-trump-is-right-to-axe-them-248381

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

    January 30, 2025

  • MIL-OSI Global: Trump’s method for repatriating migrants risks undermining US interests in Latin America

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Amalendu Misra, Professor of International Politics, Lancaster University

    Donald Trump’s mass deportation plan hit a brief stumbling block on January 26 when Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, refused to allow two US flights carrying deported Colombian migrants to land. Petro’s complaint was that the US government was treating the migrants like criminals by repatriating them in military planes.

    Around the same time, the US had also deported dozens of Brazilian migrants. These people arrived in the Amazonian city of Manaus handcuffed, with the Brazilian government expressing outrage over their “degrading treatment”. One of the migrants claimed they were not given any water during the six-hour flight nor were they allowed to use the bathroom.

    Petro’s pushback enraged Trump. In a post on his Truth Social media site, Trump wrote: “We will not allow the Colombian government to violate its legal obligations with regard to the acceptance and return of the criminals they forced into the US”. He then threatened Colombia with 25% tariffs and said his government would impose a travel ban on Colombian government officials.

    Petro responded by launching a scathing social media attack on Trump. He initially vowed retaliatory tariffs on US goods and also insisted he would not accept migrants who were not treated with “dignity and respect”. But, within a few hours, Petro had backed down.

    According to a White House statement released late that evening, Colombia had agreed to all of Trump’s terms. This included the “unrestricted acceptance of all illegal aliens from Colombia returned from the US, including on US military aircraft, without limitation or delay”.

    The White House hailed the agreement with Colombia as a victory for Trump’s hardline immigration strategy. In her statement, press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote: “Today’s events make clear to the world that America is respected again.” But Trump’s punishing tariff threats and foul rhetoric toward illegal immigrants may only damage the power and position of the US in the region.

    Setting a bad precedent

    As Petro’s row with Trump unfolded, Colombia’s former president Iván Duque accused his successor of engaging in “an act of tremendous irresponsibility”. He stressed that Colombia has a “moral duty” to take back the illegal migrants sent by the US, and highlighted the “enormous” toll sanctions and tariffs would have on the economy.

    However, in an interconnected international economic system, Trump’s unilateral threat of tariffs and sanctions can be a double-edged sword.

    Colombia is a relatively minor trading partner to the US. But if Petro’s government had refused to comply with Trump’s demands, it still would have meant higher prices for coffee, avocado and several other commodities. In 2022, the US imported US$24.8 billion (£20 billion) worth of goods from Colombia – nearly US$2 billion of which was coffee.

    Trump’s willingness to wage a trade war with countries in Latin America may also encourage other economies in the region to speed up their search for alternative trade partners. This could lead to more trade deals between Latin American nations themselves.

    In May 2023, under the leadership of Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, 12 South American nations gathered in Brazil’s capital, Brasília, to express their interest in reviving the Union of South American Nations with the explicit aim of bolstering regional trade and cooperation.

    The union effectively broke down in 2019 after major nations like Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Peru withdrew their membership amid concerns about Venezuela’s leadership. But the “Latin America is stronger together” slogan often quoted by political leaders in the region may now actually materialise, thanks to Trump.

    Latin American nations are looking further afield, too. The EU established a trade deal with Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia in December 2024, bringing 25 years of on-off negotiations to a close. Trump’s tariff threats could encourage other economies in the region to explore becoming a part of that agreement, potentially at the expense of the US.

    And it’s possible that more Latin American countries may eventually seek membership of the Brics bloc of emerging economies, which has repeatedly drawn Trump’s ire for eating into US power and influence. Bolivia and Cuba, alongside seven other countries, were announced as partner states to Brics in late 2024, and more could follow. While not officially part of the bloc, these partner states will get support from its members.

    Worse still, Trump’s threats could inadvertently push Latin American nations into the arms of China. During Trump’s first term, his administration coined the term “troika of tyranny” to describe Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. These countries are all led by dictators.

    Since then, Beijing has actively pursued a policy of closer cooperation with these countries by making them “strategic competitors” against the US in the region. A 2024 report by researchers at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, an American thinktank, even found evidence of suspected Chinese spy facilities in Cuba.

    Trump’s uncharitable rhetoric and less-than-civilised treatment of illegal immigrants are, at the very least, likely to fuel more anti-American sentiment in the region. This resentment towards the US may well manifest in building bridges with governments and ideologies that are inimical to US interests.

    Amalendu Misra is a recipient of British Academy and Nuffield Foundation grants.

    – ref. Trump’s method for repatriating migrants risks undermining US interests in Latin America – https://theconversation.com/trumps-method-for-repatriating-migrants-risks-undermining-us-interests-in-latin-america-248396

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

    January 30, 2025

  • MIL-OSI Global: The miscarriage of justice watchdog is failing at its only job – here’s how to fix it

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Brian Thornton, Senior Lecturer in Journalism, University of Winchester

    The body responsible for investigating miscarriages of justice in England, Wales and Northern Ireland has been plunged into crisis. The chair of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), Helen Pitcher, resigned this month following relentless criticism about the way the commission had handled recent cases.

    Most notably, the commission was criticised over the case of Andrew Malkinson, who was wrongly convicted for rape and spent 17 years in prison. The CCRC twice rejected Malkinson’s submissions that he was innocent, and he was only cleared thanks to work by his own lawyers to track down DNA evidence that proved his innocence.

    Malkinson said the CCRC “didn’t investigate and they didn’t believe me”.

    Pitcher said that she had been made a scapegoat for the failings on the Malkinson case: “A head had to roll and I was chosen for that role,” she said. Pitcher was not in her post as chair when the CCRC rejected Malkinson’s first appeal. She rejected the findings of an independent panel that concluded her decisions, including not apologising promptly to Malkinson, had eroded confidence in the CCRC.

    “I don’t know who or why anyone would want to take on the role, because you will be held accountable for previous miscarriages of justice,” Pitcher told the Times. “You will be expected to have known what was going on then. It’s just not possible.”

    Malkinson described the commission as “infected with a culture of denial”. And along with other critics, such as legal professionals, academics and campaigners, he believes the CCRC is no longer fit for purpose and should be dissolved.

    What is the CCRC?

    Once a prisoner, who claims to be innocent, has exhausted all legal avenues they have no choice but to look beyond the court system for redress.

    For most of the 20th century, the last chance saloon was located in the heart of government, in the Home Office. The home secretary had the power to send a case to the Court of Appeal “if he saw fit”.

    This arrangement was doomed from the start. It made referrals political affairs – particularly in the context of the Irish terrorism cases of the 1980s and 90s. It also put the home secretary in the firing line as investigative journalists uncovered miscarriages of justice.

    The relentless pressure for reform eventually came to a head in 1991, with the release of the Birmingham Six – six Irishmen who had been wrongly convicted of planting bombs in two Birmingham pubs in 1974 that killed 21 people and injured 182. Amid chaotic scenes outside the Old Bailey, Paddy Hill (who died last month), grabbed a microphone and unleashed a savage attack on the institutions that had taken his freedom:

    For 16 and a half years we have been used as political scapegoats. The police told us from the start they knew we hadn’t done it. They told us they didn’t care who had done it. They told us that we were selected and they were going to frame us. Justice? I don’t think the people in there [the judiciary] have got the intelligence nor the honestly to spell the word, never mind dispense it. They’re rotten.

    The growing crisis threatened the legitimacy of the entire criminal justice system and the government had no option but to act. A royal commission was set up, and from it sprung a new body – the CCRC.

    When it began work in 1997, the CCRC was the world’s first statutory, publicly-funded body responsible for investigating miscarriages of justice. The powers at its disposal were impressive.

    If a prisoner applied to the CCRC, claiming they were innocent, the commission could use these powers as part of a fresh investigation into the conviction. It could get information from the police and prosecutors, re-interview witnesses or find new ones, and order new DNA testing. If it found new evidence it could then refer a case back to the Court of Appeal.

    It has had some successes. The commission was widely praised for the investigation into the Sam Hallam case, where it uncovered fresh evidence that proved the young Londoner could not have committed the murder he was jailed for.

    But while demand for its services is soaring, these successes have become rarer.

    Last year the CCRC received a record-breaking 1,629 applications from people claiming they were innocent, and referred 25 to the Court of Appeal. Critics, describe it as chronically underfunded, reluctant to exercise its powers and subservient to the Court of Appeal.

    Prisoners and their lawyers say they are exasperated at the length of time the CCRC takes to look into their cases. But the real frustration is with the quality of the investigations themselves.

    Critics point to cases such as Victor Nealon, who spent an additional 10 years in prison because the CCRC refused to carry out DNA tests that would have proved his innocence. He applied to the CCRC twice but was rejected both times.

    The then chair of the CCRC, Richard Foster, told Nealon: “We are doing what we can to prevent anything similar happening in the future”. But as the Malkinson case shows, the CCRC hasn’t really learned its lesson.

    A crisis of legitimacy

    The body that was created to solve a crisis in public confidence is now facing its own crisis of legitimacy. The CCRC needs new leadership – and not another career bureaucrat. The new chair, who is appointed by the king, must be someone who will oversee a culture of change in the organisation – dispelling the insipid timidity and transforming the CCRC into an organisation that pursues justice without fear or favour.

    It must also be funded properly. The commission is now entirely incapable of properly investigating the huge number of cases it receives. The money involved is relatively small, but the impact on the wrongfully convicted and their families is immeasurable. A parliamentary inquiry found that the CCRC had suffered bigger cuts that any other part of the criminal justice system since 2010.

    And finally, a key structural flaw must be fixed. The “real possibility test” means that the CCRC will only refer a case if there is a real possibility that the Court of Appeal will quash the conviction.

    But because the Court of Appeal will only overturn convictions it believes to be “unsafe”, the CCRC only concerns itself with safety or unsafety rather than guilt or innocence. From the perspective of the Court of Appeal, a conviction is safe if all the legal procedures (the arrest adhered to the guidelines, there were the correct number of jurors at the trial) have been followed. It has nothing to do with the factual guilt of the defendant.

    This test must be scrapped. We cannot have a miscarriage of justice watchdog that cares more about procedure than innocence.

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

    – ref. The miscarriage of justice watchdog is failing at its only job – here’s how to fix it – https://theconversation.com/the-miscarriage-of-justice-watchdog-is-failing-at-its-only-job-heres-how-to-fix-it-247623

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

    January 30, 2025

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Alexander Novak visited the National Research University “MPEI”

    Translartion. Region: Russians Fedetion –

    Source: Government of the Russian Federation – An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.

    Alexander Novak visited the National Research University “MPEI”

    January 29, 2025

    Alexander Novak visited the National Research University “MPEI”

    January 29, 2025

    Alexander Novak visited the National Research University “MPEI”. Opening ceremony of a new flow lecture hall

    January 29, 2025

    Previous news Next news

    Alexander Novak visited the National Research University “MPEI”

    Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak visited the National Research University MPEI. During a meeting of the MPEI Board of Trustees, Alexander Novak was elected its chairman. The Deputy Prime Minister heard a report from the university’s rector Nikolai Rogalev on the results of MPEI’s work in 2023–2024 and the draft strategy for the university’s development until 2036, which combines the capabilities of science, education and industry and is aimed at creating a platform for scientific and technological progress in the fuel and energy complex.

    “Today, the fuel and energy sector is the basis of our foreign economic potential. Among the key tasks facing MPEI is training personnel for the energy sector. At the same time, within the framework of the university’s development strategy, participation in the implementation of national projects on the tasks set by the President of Russia is also of great importance. This includes the production of high-tech competitive Russian equipment in the energy sector. We hope that the university will take an active part in this work,” said Alexander Novak during his speech at a meeting of the MPEI Board of Trustees.

    Alexander Novak visited the Department of Theoretical Foundations of Electrical Engineering, one of the leading departments in the country in the relevant educational profile, where he took part in the opening ceremony of a new lecture hall. In recent years, as part of a comprehensive overhaul, the department has also updated its classrooms for classes with master’s and postgraduate students, and replaced its educational laboratory equipment.

    At the end of the event, the Deputy Prime Minister answered students’ questions about the MPEI development strategy and the challenges for power engineers in today’s economic conditions.

    Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education “National Research University “MPEI” (NRU “MPEI”) is a leading Russian university in the field of power engineering, electrical engineering, radio engineering, electronics and information technology.

    MPEI has an extensive material and technical base, including 12 institutes, more than 100 research laboratories, a specialized pilot plant, a unique educational thermal power plant, the largest scientific and technical library in the country, a cyber testing ground, a renewable energy testing ground, the MPEI Innovative Development Center, and five branches, including two foreign ones.

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

    MIL OSI Russia News –

    January 30, 2025

  • MIL-OSI USA: No Waste Left Behind: Insect Frass Can Improve Soil Fertility

    Source: US Agriculture Research Service

    No Waste Left Behind: Insect Frass Can Improve Soil Fertility

    Contact: Jessica Ryan
    Email: Jessica.Ryan@usda.gov

    January 29, 2025

    Insect droppings, commonly known as insect frass, may seem useless and downright disgusting, but scientists found that this waste can improve soil health when added as a fertilizer in farming.

    Insect frass is a mixture of excreta, feed, and molted skins. These droppings are a by-product of farming insects like yellow mealworms, banded crickets, and black soldier flies. Farmers raise and breed insects, also known as “mini-livestock,” to be an alternative protein source for animals and be a more sustainable practice in agriculture.

    Insect frass may also be used as fertilizer. Previous studies by this team led by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) show insect frass can have higher carbon and nitrogen content than fossil fuel-based fertilizers and fewer pathogens than other animal manures.

    These researchers, along with collaborators from the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, also studied insect frass’ potential as an organic fertilizer source when used as a soil amendment in farming.

    Insect frass. (Photo by Taylor Adams, ARS)

    In a two-year field study, researchers found that frass from yellow mealworm increased the amount of carbon by two times and nitrogen by three times in soils than other sources like poultry litter and ammonium nitrate. Furthermore, soils with frass addition produced crop yields and carbon dioxide emission rates similar to soils amended with poultry litter and ammonium nitrate.

    “Insect frass substantially improved soil fertility which showed its ability to be used as an alternative to inorganic fertilizers,” Amanda Ashworth, a soil scientist at the ARS Poultry Production and Product Safety Research Unit in Fayetteville, Arkansas, said. 

    Agricultural Science Research Technician Taylor Adams spreads insect frass during a field study. (Photo by Cailee Stone)

    “This is important since insect farming is on the rise and circular agricultural systems (agricultural by-products that are recycled back into production systems) can be sustainable avenues for growing foods in the future.”

    According to Meticulous Research’s Global Edible Insects Market Forecast to 2030 report, the insect farming industry is expanding in response to increasing demands for sustainable protein sources for animal feed. The industry is projected to grow 28% annually and have an estimated market value of $8 billion U.S. dollars by 2030.

    The study was recently published in Scientific Reports and done in collaboration with crop, soil and environmental science researchers with the Division of Agriculture’s Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station and the ARS Biological Control of Pests Research Unit in Stoneville, Mississippi.

    The Agricultural Research Service is the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s chief scientific in-house research agency. Daily, ARS focuses on solutions to agricultural problems affecting America. Each dollar invested in U.S. agricultural research results in $20 of economic impact.

    MIL OSI USA News –

    January 30, 2025

  • MIL-OSI: Elliott Broidy and Dr. Thomas Kaplan Co-Chair Fundraising Initiative to Convert Nazi Commandant’s Home Adjacent to Auschwitz into a New Global Center for Combating Antisemitism, Extremism, and Hate

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    Boca Raton, Jan. 29, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — On January 27th, International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, entrepreneurs, philanthropists, and co-chairs of The Fund to End Antisemitism, Extremism, and Hate, Elliott Broidy and Dr. Thomas Kaplan announced the launch of a major fundraising campaign to help fund the Auschwitz Research Center on Hate, Extremism, and Radicalization (ARCHER) at House 88.

    Spearheaded by the Counter Extremism Project (CEP), ARCHER aims to transform the former residence of Auschwitz Commandant Rudolf Höss in Oświęcim, Poland, from a center of hate to a center against hate in all forms. In addition to the residence, famed architect Daniel Libeskind has designed an extraordinary new building on the grounds of House 88 to house the organization’s research, education, and advocacy activities.

    “This historic initiative represents a crucial step in our fight against extremism,” said Ambassador Mark D. Wallace, CEO of the Counter Extremism Project. “ARCHER at House 88 will serve as a vital hub for research, education, and—crucially—action in countering hate, antisemitism, and extremism globally.”

    “The lessons of history demand that we do more than just remember—we must act,” said Dr. Thomas Kaplan. “ARCHER at House 88 is not just about preserving history; it is about changing the future. By transforming this house—once a symbol of unimaginable evil—into a center dedicated to combating extremism and hate, we are sending a powerful message. But we cannot do this alone.”

    Elliott Broidy added, “This is a call to action—our fundraising efforts are critical to ensuring that this initiative succeeds in its mission to create a world free from extremism. I am thrilled that leaders and philanthropists Aryeh Bourkoff, Senator Norm Coleman, Eric Herschmann, Kenneth B. Mehlman, George Schaeffer, Lenny Sands, Ambassador Mark D. Wallace, and Dr. Herbert Wertheim have all joined the Board of the Fund.” (Board In Formation)

    Senator Norm Coleman said, “I am honored to stand in support of ARCHER at House 88 and its mission to confront antisemitism and extremism head-on. Converting the former Auschwitz Commandant’s residence into a global center for education and advocacy sends a resounding message: antisemitism, extremism, and hate will never prevail, and we are committed to building a future defined by tolerance and understanding.”

    Businessman Kenneth B. Mehlman said, “Never Again must be more than a slogan. It requires active engagement, education, and vigilance. ARCHER at House 88 will honor Auschwitz’s victims by educating, engaging, and warning future generations about the evils of genocidal hatred.”

    The ARCHER initiative is now actively seeking additional support to expand its programs, including:

    • A fellowship program for leading scholars focused on extremism research
    • Educational programs for policymakers, educators, and the public
    • Policy advocacy implementing actionable strategies to combat hate

    To learn more about ARCHER at House 88 or to make a donation, visit https://www.counterextremism.com/donate.

    For media inquiries:
    Vlad Drazdovich – vlad@redbanyan.com
    (954) 773-9456

    For fundraising inquiries:
    Robert Benton – rbenton@counterextremism.com

    About Elliott Broidy
    Elliott Broidy is an entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist with a career spanning four decades. As Chairman and CEO of Broidy Capital Holdings, he has invested in over 160 companies across multiple industries. Since 9/11, his investments have focused on companies in the public safety and national security sectors. Through his philanthropic efforts, he has supported numerous organizations dedicated to countering hate and extremism, including The Simon Wiesenthal Center-Museum of Tolerance, The Counterterrorism Education Learning Lab (CELL), the George Washington University Program on Extremism, and StandWithUs.

    About Dr. Thomas Kaplan
    Dr. Thomas Kaplan is a philanthropist, entrepreneur, and advocate for global education, cultural preservation, and the fight against extremism. As the former President and Chairman of New York’s 92nd Street Y, a world-renowned Jewish community and cultural center in New York, Dr. Kaplan has long supported initiatives that promote Jewish history and cultural awareness. He is also the founder of the Recanati-Kaplan Intelligence Fellows Program at Harvard’s Belfer Center and co-creator of a similar program at Yale’s Jackson School of Global Affairs, furthering advancements in intelligence and geopolitical strategy. Through his philanthropic work, Dr. Kaplan is committed to fostering education, historical preservation, and impactful global change.

    About ARCHER at House 88
    ARCHER at House 88 is a global research and education center dedicated to combating extremism, antisemitism, and hate. Established by the Counter Extremism Project (CEP) in collaboration with the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum and UNESCO, the center serves as a hub for scholarly research, policy development, and public education.

    About the Counter Extremism Project (CEP)
    The Counter Extremism Project (CEP) is a nonprofit, non-partisan policy organization formed in 2014 to combat extremism by pressuring financial and material support networks; combating online recruitment and communications; and promoting progressive laws, policies, and, regulations.

    The MIL Network –

    January 30, 2025

  • MIL-OSI Global: AI can affect anonymous surveys. Here are some ways for researchers to mitigate its impact

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Christopher Dietzel, Postdoctoral fellow, the DIGS Lab, Concordia University

    Anonymous surveys protect participants from becoming targets of anti-2SLGBTQIA+ hate. However, researchers need to be careful about the potential for bad actors to spoil survey data. (Shutterstock)

    As 2SLGBTQIA+ people are increasingly under threat in Canada, and facing escalating dangers from the Donald Trump administration in the United States, more research is urgently needed to understand how to address issues of gender and sexual diversity moving forward.

    Unfortunately, researchers who aim to explore emerging issues impacting 2SLGBTQIA+ communities and develop interventions to support them are facing a new problem: what if our research participants aren’t actually real?

    Anonymous online surveys are a great way for marginalized groups, including 2SLGBTQIA+ communities, to contribute to research without significant time commitments. Anonymous surveys also protect participants from becoming targets of anti-2SLGBTQIA+ hate. However, researchers need to be careful about the potential of disingenuous participants to spoil survey data.

    The anonymous nature of online research makes it easy for someone to infiltrate research studies and submit false responses. This issue is not new, as researchers have dealt with this concern for years. Ineligible participants may participate in surveys to access honorariums or sabotage research on topics they disagree with.

    As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more advanced, this problem is magnified. And while AI detectors exist, they are not always accurate and cannot confront the issue of human respondents who are simply lying in their survey responses.

    Our team has conducted online research about digital hate targeting 2SLGBTQIA+ professionals and organizations in Canada through the Ontario Digital Literacy and Access Network. We encountered this problem with two surveys we administered in 2024. Researchers from the SHaG Lab at Dalhousie University and the DIGS Lab at Concordia University confronted similar issues when conducting online surveys about 2SLGBTQIA+ issues.

    This shared concern about participant authenticity and the potential infiltration of dishonest respondents — whether AI or not — has led us to identify issues that could have a negative impact on online research.

    Anonymous online surveys are a great way for marginalized groups, including 2SLGBTQIA+ communities, to contribute to research; however, ineligible participants and AI bots can undermine their accuracy.
    (Shutterstock)

    The challanges we encountered

    Location:
    Our most recent survey focused on Two Spirit, trans and non-binary professionals working at 2SLGBTQIA+ organizations in Canada. The narrow participant criteria made it easy to check IP addresses and spot ones that did not qualify. We could also identify and block IP addresses that submitted multiple responses.

    When reviewing the data, we found that many of the suspicious responses were linked to one IP address located in China. We also received a high volume of responses claiming to come from Prince Edward Island. This was suspect, not only because of contradictory IP addresses, but because the number of responses seemed disproportionately high for the population of the smallest Canadian province.

    Time:
    Our survey received 1,491 responses within three days, which was suspicious given the narrow eligibility criteria. Many responses were completed too quickly for a survey that included written responses. We also noticed that there were waves of responses, and those respondents completed the survey in roughly the same amount of time.

    Incentives:
    It is hard to know exactly why people complete surveys for which they are ineligible. Some people may may do it for the compensation on offer. Others many want to spoil the data. We noticed that false responses increased when some form of compensation was offered, whether it was cash or gift cards.



    Read more:
    Imposter participants challenge research integrity in the digital age

    Email addresses:
    Another pattern we noticed was the use of generic Outlook or Yahoo email addresses, which followed the formula of first name-last name-numbers. While many people might use this same format, this is also an easy and quick way to create email addresses en masse.

    Contradictions:
    When looking at the data, we found that many responses did not make sense for our target demographic group. There were a lot of “prefer not to answer” responses to prompts about pronouns, gender identity and sexual orientation.

    Many respondents also selected “yes” when asked if they were First Nations, Inuit or Métis, but then wrote “white” when asked about their race or ethnicity. Identities can be complex, and what appears to be a contradiction may in fact be an intersection that is poorly represented through demographic questionnaires. Flagging potentially fake responses based on how we assume respondents will identify themselves is a bad idea for research about 2SLGBTQIA+ people who inhabit non-normative gender and sexual identities.

    Some of these responses were also flagged because of other issues, including IP address and completion rate. However, there were others that were less suspicious, leaving us unsure about their validity.

    These responses may have been created by AI bots or by people using AI to generate responses and manually enter them. It could have been someone actively trying to misrepresent themselves or someone who earnestly wants to contribute but does not feel confident in their English-language skills or writing ability. For this reason, it is important to consider multiple factors when reviewing survey responses to determine whether data is usable.

    AI presents new opportunities and challenges for online research.
    (Shutterstock)

    Moving forward

    Technology like AI chatbots presents new opportunities and new challenges for online research that require specific interventions. The concerns we’ve outlined are potential red flags that can help alert researchers to suspicious data.

    Some solutions we found for these issues include IP tracking, requiring a password to access the survey, asking the same question twice to verify that the responses match, and having “attention check” or “trap” questions where respondents are asked to select a specific response.

    Researchers can also flag “speeder” respondents who take less than one-third of the median response time, and average respondents who select the same responses across the survey, like always choosing the first option. Some researchers may already be aware of these and other solutions, and we encourage anyone doing online research to be prepared to address dishonest participants and protect the integrity of their data.

    While these solutions may require additional time, labour and resources, it is important not to abandon online research. In-person methods are not always viable or accessible, particularly to reach 2SLGBTQIA+ people and other marginalized populations.

    Research in this area is vital. We encourage other researchers to share their experiences and solutions to these problems to raise awareness.

    Christopher Dietzel receives funding from Le Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture (FRQSC) and is the community research advisor of the Ontario Digital Literacy and Access Network (ODLAN).

    Evan Vipond is a research officer at the Ontario Digital Literacy and Access Network (ODLAN).

    Hannah Maitland is the co-founder and administrative coordinator of the Ontario Digital Literacy and Access Network (ODLAN).

    – ref. AI can affect anonymous surveys. Here are some ways for researchers to mitigate its impact – https://theconversation.com/ai-can-affect-anonymous-surveys-here-are-some-ways-for-researchers-to-mitigate-its-impact-247758

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

    January 30, 2025

  • MIL-OSI Global: AI is bad for the environment, and the problem is bigger than energy consumption

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Hamish van der Ven, Assistant Professor of Sustainable Business Management of Natural Resources, University of British Columbia

    The growing use of artificial intelligence has led to larger and more powerful data centres, with increased demands on the environment. (Shutterstock)

    Artificial intelligence technologies, like chatbots, are attracting growing scrutiny for their voracious energy demands. However, energy consumption is only one part of their broader environmental impact.

    Late last year, ChatGPT, the popular AI chatbot run by OpenAI, celebrated its second birthday. In its brief existence, the platform has amassed over 300 million weekly users who send roughly one billion messages to the chatbot per day.

    With US$6.6 billion raised in its last funding round, OpenAI has emerged as one of the most valuable private companies in the world.

    Soaring emissions

    Elsewhere in tech, other companies marked less savoury milestones. Alphabet — the parent company of Google — recently announced that its GHG emissions are up 48 per cent since 2019. At roughly the same time, Microsoft announced that its emissions are up 29 per cent since 2020.

    Both companies cite emissions associated with the need for more data centres to support AI workloads as a key factor in surging GHG emissions. AI is notoriously thirsty for energy — according to one researcher, one query to ChatGPT uses approximately as much electricity as one light bulb for 20 minutes.

    The collective energy demand of data centres in the United States is so high that Microsoft recently reached a deal to reopen Three Mile Island, the site of the worst nuclear accident in American history.

    The burgeoning AI industry needs so much electricity that plans to decommission several coal plants have been delayed. By some estimates, the collective demand of AI and other digital technologies will constitute 20 per cent of global electricity use by 2030.

    Insidious effects

    The energy use of AI is important, but it does not tell the whole story of AI’s environmental impacts. The social and political mediums through which AI affects the planet are far more insidious and, arguably, more consequential for the future of humanity.

    In the Business, Sustainability and Technology Lab at the University of British Columbia, we specialize in evaluating the social and political ways in which digital technologies affect the environment.

    In our recently published paper, “Does artificial intelligence bias perceptions of environmental challenges?,” my students and I argue that AI changes how humans perceive environmental challenges in ways that obscure the accountability of powerful entities, ignore marginalized communities and promote cautious and incremental solutions that are drastically out of sync with the timeline required to avert environmental crises.

    We asked four chatbots the same series of questions about the issues, causes, consequences and solutions to nine environmental challenges. We found evidence of systematic biases in their responses. Most notably, chatbots avoid mentioning radical solutions to environmental challenges. They are far more likely to propose combinations of soft economic, social or political changes, like greater deployment of sustainable technologies and broader public awareness and education.

    Chatbots by OpenAI and Anthropic exhibited a reluctance to discuss the broader social, cultural and economic issues that are entangled in environmental challenges. For example, the term “environmental justice” is absent from nearly all chatbot responses. Chatbots also avoided references to dismantling colonialism or rethinking infinite economic growth as solutions to these challenges.

    Chatbots may be programmed to avoid raising the broader social, cultural and economic issues that are entangled in environmental challenges.
    (Shutterstock)

    AI bias

    Biases also exist in who chatbots see as responsible or vulnerable to environmental challenges. The chatbots we studied were far more likely to blame governments for environmental challenges than businesses or financial organizations. Similarly, while the vulnerability of Indigenous groups to climate change and biodiversity loss was mentioned frequently, the susceptibility of Black people and women to these same challenges received scant attention.

    All of this is particularly worrisome given the increasingly widespread use of AI chatbots by educators, students, policymakers and business leaders to understand and respond to environmental challenges. Chatbots present information in an oracular way, usually as a single text box written in an authoritative manner and understood as a synthesis of all digitalized knowledge.

    If AI users treat this text uncritically, they risk arriving at conclusions that propagate biased conceptions of environmental challenges and reinforce ineffective efforts to avert ecological crises.

    In the near future, the problem of bias in AI looks to get even worse, as OpenAI and other AI companies consider incorporating advertising to generate the revenue needed to train newer and more complex large language models.

    While it remains unclear what advertising will look like when integrated into ChatGPT, it is not difficult to see a world in which a description of climate change and its attendant solutions will be brought to you by the good folks at ExxonMobil or Shell.

    Hamish van der Ven receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

    – ref. AI is bad for the environment, and the problem is bigger than energy consumption – https://theconversation.com/ai-is-bad-for-the-environment-and-the-problem-is-bigger-than-energy-consumption-247842

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

    January 30, 2025

  • MIL-OSI Global: Bennu asteroid reveals its contents to scientists − and clues to how the building blocks of life on Earth may have been seeded

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Timothy J McCoy, Supervisory Research Geologist, Smithsonian Institution

    This photo of asteroid Bennu is composed of 12 Polycam images collected on Dec. 2, 2024, by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. NASA

    A bright fireball streaked across the sky above mountains, glaciers and spruce forest near the town of Revelstoke in British Columbia, Canada, on the evening of March 31, 1965. Fragments of this meteorite, discovered by beaver trappers, fell over a lake. A layer of ice saved them from the depths and allowed scientists a peek into the birth of the solar system.

    Nearly 60 years later, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission returned from space with a sample of an asteroid named Bennu, similar to the one that rained rocks over Revelstoke. Our research team has published a chemical analysis of those samples, providing insight into how some of the ingredients for life may have first arrived on Earth.

    Born in the years bracketing the Revelstoke meteorite’s fall, the two of us have spent our careers in the meteorite collections of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and the Natural History Museum in London. We’ve dreamed of studying samples from a Revelstoke-like asteroid collected by a spacecraft.

    Then, nearly two decades ago, we began turning those dreams into reality. We joined NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission team, which aimed to send a spacecraft to collect and return an asteroid sample to Earth. After those samples arrived on Sept. 24, 2023, we got to dive into a tale of rock, ice and water that hints at how life could have formed on Earth.

    In this illustration, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft collects a sample from the asteroid Bennu.
    NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona

    The CI chondrites and asteroid Bennu

    To learn about an asteroid – a rocky or metallic object in orbit around the Sun – we started with a study of meteorites.

    Asteroids like Bennu are rocky or metallic objects in orbit around the Sun. Meteorites are the pieces of asteroids and other natural extraterrestrial objects that survive the fiery plunge to the Earth’s surface.

    We really wanted to study an asteroid similar to a set of meteorites called chondrites, whose components formed in a cloud of gas and dust at the dawn of the solar system billions of years ago.

    The Revelstoke meteorite is in a group called CI chondrites. Laboratory-measured compositions of CI chondrites are essentially identical, minus hydrogen and helium, to the composition of elements carried by convection from the interior of the Sun and measured in the outermost layer of the Sun. Since their components formed billions of years ago, they’re like chemically unchanged time capsules for the early solar system.

    So, geologists use the chemical compositions of CI chondrites as the ultimate reference standard for geochemistry. They can compare the compositions of everything from other chondrites to Earth rocks. Any differences from the CI chondrite composition would have happened through the same processes that formed asteroids and planets.

    CI chondrites are rich in clay and formed when ice melted in an ancient asteroid, altering the rock. They are also rich in prebiotic organic molecules. Some of these types of molecules are the building blocks for life.

    This combination of rock, water and organics is one reason OSIRIS-REx chose to sample the organic-rich asteroid Bennu, where water and organic compounds essential to the origin of life could be found.

    Evaporites − the legacy of an ancient brine

    Ever since the Bennu samples returned to Earth on Sept. 24, 2023, we and our colleagues on four continents have spent hundreds of hours studying them.

    The instruments on the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft made observations of reflected light that revealed the most abundant minerals and organics when it was near asteroid Bennu. Our analyses in the laboratory found that the compositions of these samples lined up with those observations.

    The samples are mostly water-rich clay, with sulfide, carbonate and iron oxide minerals. These are the same minerals found in CI chondrites like Revelstoke. The discovery of rare minerals within the Bennu samples, however, surprised both of us. Despite our decades of experience studying meteorites, we have never seen many of these minerals.

    We found minerals dominated by sodium, including carbonates, sulfates, chlorides and fluorides, as well as potassium chloride and magnesium phosphate. These minerals don’t form just when water and rock react. They form when water evaporates.

    We’ve never seen most of these sodium-rich minerals in meteorites, but they’re sometimes found in dried-up lake beds on Earth, like Searles Lake in California.

    Bennu’s rocks formed 4.5 billion years ago on a larger parent asteroid. That asteroid was wet and muddy. Under the surface, pockets of water perhaps only a few feet across were evaporating, leaving the evaporite minerals we found in the sample. That same evaporation process also formed the ancient lake beds we’ve seen these minerals in on Earth.

    Bennu’s parent asteroid likely broke apart 1 to 2 billion years ago, and some of the fragments came together to form the rubble pile we know as Bennu.

    These minerals are also found on icy bodies in the outer solar system. Bright deposits on the dwarf planet Ceres, the largest body in the asteroid belt, contain sodium carbonate. The Cassini mission measured the same mineral in plumes on Saturn’s moon Enceladus.

    We also learned that these minerals, formed when water evaporates, disappear when exposed to water once again – even with the tiny amount of water found in air. After studying some of the Bennu samples and their minerals, researchers stored the samples in air. That’s what we do with meteorites.

    Unfortunately, we lost these minerals as moisture in the air on Earth caused them to dissolve. But that explains why we can’t find these minerals in meteorites that have been on Earth for decades to centuries.

    Fortunately, most of the samples have been stored and transported in nitrogen, protected from traces of water in the air.

    Until scientists were able to conduct a controlled sample return with a spacecraft and carefully curate and store the samples in nitrogen, we had never seen this set of minerals in a meteorite.

    An unexpected discovery

    Before returning the samples, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft spent over two years making observations around Bennu. From that two years of work, researchers learned that the surface of the asteroid is covered in rocky boulders.

    We could see that the asteroid is rich in carbon and water-bearing clays, and we saw veins of white carbonate a few feet long deposited by ancient liquid water. But what we couldn’t see from these observations were the rarer minerals.

    We used an array of techniques to go through the returned sample one tiny grain at a time. These included CT scanning, electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction, each of which allowed us to look at the rock at a scale not possible on the asteroid.

    Cooking up the ingredients for life

    From the salts we identified, we could infer the composition of the briny water from which they formed and see how it changed over time, becoming more sodium-rich.

    This briny water would have been an ideal place for new chemical reactions to take place and for organic molecules to form.

    While our team characterized salts, our organic chemist colleagues were busy identifying the carbon-based molecules present in Bennu. They found unexpectedly high levels of ammonia, an essential building block of the amino acids that form proteins in living matter. They also found all five of the nucleobases that make up part of DNA and RNA.

    Based on these results, we’d venture to guess that these briny pods of fluid would have been the perfect environments for increasingly complicated organic molecules to form, such as the kinds that make up life on Earth.

    When asteroids like Bennu hit the young Earth, they could have provided a complete package of complex molecules and the ingredients essential to life, such as water, phosphate and ammonia. Together, these components could have seeded Earth’s initially barren landscape to produce a habitable world.

    Without this early bombardment, perhaps when the pieces of the Revelstoke meteorite landed several billion years later, these fragments from outer space would not have arrived into a landscape punctuated with glaciers and trees.

    Timothy J McCoy receives funding from NASA.

    Sara Russell receives funding from the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC).

    – ref. Bennu asteroid reveals its contents to scientists − and clues to how the building blocks of life on Earth may have been seeded – https://theconversation.com/bennu-asteroid-reveals-its-contents-to-scientists-and-clues-to-how-the-building-blocks-of-life-on-earth-may-have-been-seeded-248096

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

    January 30, 2025

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: AI world premiere helps to bang drum on air quality

    Source: City of Liverpool

    Liverpool has turned its famous musical talent to AI for a world premiere influenced by….air pollution!

    Liverpool City Council, the University of Liverpool and The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra have combined to create a piece of AI-written music to promote clean air policies in cities.

    Dr Jonny Higham from the University of Liverpool, in partnership with Liverpool City Council, has led the development of one of the UK’s largest city-wide air quality monitoring networks.

    This pioneering work has generated a unique dataset, transformed into a musical composition using cutting-edge AI technology.

    In a celebration of innovation and creativity, the Liverpool Philharmonic String Quartet has brought this data to life in an incredible performance, merging science and art in a truly unique way.

    The strong collaborations developed were showcased for Clean Air Night in a live performance of the piece by students from the University of Liverpool’s Music Department at the waterfront, where the buildings were lit up in blue to mark the occasion.

    Across the city region, air quality varies significantly throughout the year, with multiple breaches of the stringent 5 µg/m³ daily average recommended by the WHO, as is common in large urban areas. The musical composition is crafted to reflect this.

    The instruments come together harmoniously in some sections and transition to atonality to symbolise periods of increased pollution. The piece contains 365 notes, each representing a single day of 2024, capturing the region’s air quality journey over the year.

    The strong collaboration across the city was showcased in the Clean Air Night celebration, creating a powerful conversation piece that highlights Liverpool’s united efforts to lead the way in air quality research.

    The City of Liverpool is positioning itself as a leader in urban environmental action. 

    Liverpool City Council is committed to creating a cleaner, healthier, more sustainable city through a range of initiatives.

    This includes implementing 65 School Streets to reduce traffic near schools, supported by camera enforcement, and transitioning the Council’s vehicle fleet from diesel to electric, boosting both air quality and progress toward net-zero emissions.

    A comprehensive Clean Air Plan is also underway, outlining clear actions to reduce roadside nitrogen dioxide levels.

    Furthermore, the Council’s Active Travel Plan will enhance walking and cycling infrastructure across the city, with new routes, improved wayfinding, and additional bike parking, ensuring residents benefit from safer and more sustainable travel options.

    And residents across Liverpool will benefit from the Council’s Active Travel plan, which will support the introduction of more walking and cycling routes, wayfinding and an increase of parking for bikes.

    The full video of the performance can be watched here.

    Councillor Liam Robinson, Leader of Liverpool City Council, said: “The creation of music from air quality data is a really creative way of highlighting where we are in our plans to improve air quality throughout Liverpool.

    “The impact on residents’ health, particularly children, is important to remember. That’s why I’m proud of the work we are already doing as a council to reduce the pollutants in our atmosphere. These are projects that will benefit everyone in the city and ensure we have a city that is healthy and thriving.”

    Prof Ian Sinha, Consultant Respiratory Paediatrician at Alder Hey Hospital, said: “Air quality is the factor which affects children the most. In fact, the poorest children the hardest hit. So they will suffer the effects of the pollution that they breathe in as children – potentially for the rest of their life.”

    Dr Jonny Higham, from the University of Liverpool, said: “For the last five or six years I’ve been working to build an air quality network in collaboration with Liverpool City Council and Alder Hey Children’s Hospital.

    “Across the whole of the city so we’ve now got 55 air quality sensors and we analyse the air quality across the whole of the city.

    “Clean Air Night is to get us thinking a little bit about what we can do to reduce our pollution. Music that we’ve created from our data by converting it using artificial intelligence has been performed live and also we’ve had the Philharmonic string quartet perform it too.

    “It’s been brilliant project helping to communicate the importance of air quality.”

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

    January 30, 2025

  • MIL-OSI Africa: South African poetry has a new digital archive – what’s behind the project

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Tinashe Mushakavanhu, Research Associate, University of Oxford

    South African poetry, rich with history, has long been an underappreciated cornerstone of the country’s cultural landscape. But a new free-to-access digital archive is helping change that.

    Focused on the poets published by a small but important press in a town called Makhanda in the Eastern Cape province, the Deep South Books and Archive initiative seeks to elevate their voices by offering an archive of background information about their work and lives as well as extensive excerpts from their books. It’s a rare window into a vital but overlooked tradition of South African literature.

    Read more: Podcasts bring southern Africa’s liberation struggle to life – thanks to an innovative new audio archive

    Robert Berold, after spending a decade as editor for New Coin journal, set up Deep South in 1995. For decades he has had a quiet influence on the South African poetry scene. His impulse to publish emerged from a place of need and outrage that some of the talented young black poets he was publishing in New Coin couldn’t get their books published in the new, democratic South Africa.

    Deep South Books

    Many of these poets had been using their words to fight for freedom, while a new generation of young poets was emerging with democracy. Ever since, Deep South has been an important arena where South African poets and their poems could speak to one another.

    My work on African literary production shows the importance of small presses in creating local literary ecologies.

    For Berold, the mission was always:

    To publish what was considered to be innovative and risk-taking South African poetry, regardless of market limitations.

    His many endeavours as a publisher, editor and teacher have been linked by the effort to rescue from oblivion, to supply context, to indicate points of continuity while insisting on the diversity of the South African experience.

    Deep South Books

    After 30 years of publishing, Berold is now sharing a vast catalogue and archive that would otherwise remain unknown. Even though the African Poetry Digital Portal, hosted by the University of Nebraska in the US, was created as a resource for the study of the history of African poetry from antiquity to the present, it does not give direct reference to particular communities.

    In bringing this archive to the internet, Berold is revealing the process and method of how contemporary South African poetry has been shaped into being.

    Behind the poems

    Much of the archive material is what Berold accumulated in dealing with the poets – correspondence, manuscripts, reviews. This is also physically deposited at the Amazwi South African Museum of Literature. He explains:

    I got into correspondence with everyone who sent in poems, trying to give helpful criticism, recommending poets for them to read. There was a certain inappropriateness about this at times, and some arrogance too on my part, but mostly people appreciated the feedback.

    The “difficult miracle of Black poetry”, as US poet June Jordan once remarked, is that it persists, published or not, loved or unloved. In racially segregated South Africa during apartheid, publishing spaces were few and far between.

    Black poets were often censored, banned or exiled as their work confronted the injustices of a racist system. This digital archive recasts the story of South African poetry as insurgent, independent and driven to define a distinct aesthetic.

    Deep South Books

    Deep South has, furthermore, made a particular impression by fostering a unique aesthetic in South African poetry through its investments in typography and design. As a small, independent press situated away from culture capitals – Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg – it has had the freedom to experiment.

    Deep South Books and Archive is therefore a significant tribute to the persistence of South African poetry, despite many historical and structural inequalities. It is a catalogue and a digital archive that provides a unique entry point into modern South African poetry.

    Inside the archive

    The digital archive’s architecture is simple. The poets are indexed in alphabetical order. Some of the featured names are Vonani Bila, Mangaliso Buzani, Angifi Dladla, Mzwandile Matiwana, Isabella Motadinyane, Seitlhamo Motsapi, Khulile Nxumalo, Mxolisi Nyezwa, Lesego Rampolokeng, Mxolisi Dolla Sapeta, Dimakatso Sedite and Phillip Zhuwao.

    Clicking through the carousel of finely designed book covers leads one to excerpts, book reviews, interviews available as PDF files, as well as links to other multimedia resources.

    Deep South Books

    Rampolokeng’s work may be iconoclastic, experimental, unclassifiable but he found a home with this press. He has published several of his groundbreaking collections with them. Defying category, they bend and shift, and culminate into a remarkable linguistic virtuoso. His interviews are an extension of his art, reflexive, autobiographical, and works in themselves.

    Unrecognised poets

    Then there are poets like Motadinyane and Zhuwao who died far too early, leaving behind only single collections. Luckily, even if their portraits and writings are fragmentary, we’re at least witness to the poetic geniuses that might have been. This is the superpower of this archive, to serve as a memorial for a canon (or collection of literary texts) that wasn’t even close to being fully blossomed.

    Deep South Books

    Historically, canon construction is the work of the few, foremost among them academics who edit anthologies and design syllabuses. Most of these poets do not feature in scholarly journals. As a result they almost exist in the underground, unremarked. Berold, now in his 70s and approaching retirement, has decided to do something about that with a digital archive that surfaces the voices of lesser-known poets.

    The lack of recognition for these poets is bothersome for him:

    Why nobody in academe has registered the importance of these poets is beyond me. It really makes me wonder whether these professional literary people are able to read.

    This is mostly an indictment of systems that undervalue black expression.

    Read more: How women’s untold histories shaped South Africa’s national poet

    This project may be for preservation, but there is another lesson: African literature demands constant acts of recovery. In this case, the internet serves as a kind of rear view mirror, which allows us a backward glance at poets and their works that have been overlooked or underappreciated, forgotten or misunderstood.

    – South African poetry has a new digital archive – what’s behind the project
    – https://theconversation.com/south-african-poetry-has-a-new-digital-archive-whats-behind-the-project-247599

    MIL OSI Africa –

    January 30, 2025

  • MIL-OSI Africa: Femicide in Kenya: William Ruto has set up a task force – feminist scholar explains its flaws

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Awino Okech, Professor of Feminist and Security Studies, SOAS, University of London

    Gender-based violence is a major challenge in Kenya, which has recorded a significant rise in deaths of women and girls in recent years.

    In January 2024, a coalition of organisations across the east African nation organised multi-city public marches to call for government action against these deaths. A year later, President William Ruto established a 42-member taskforce to address gender-based violence. What is its potential to lead to real change for women and girls? Feminist and security studies professor Awino Okech explores the issue.

    What do you make of the Kenyan government’s response to gender-based violence?

    Language matters, in my view, so it is important to focus the attention on femicide, which is what triggered recent public conversation in Kenya and is the primary issue at hand.

    Femicide is the specific act of men killing women because they are women. Gender-based violence focuses on the gender power relations that create conditions for violence. This does not always result in loss of life. Gender-based violence includes men killed by other men because of their sexuality, widows disenfranchised by property laws, female genital mutilation and forced marriage.

    Unlike in the past, Kenya has seen increasing reports of women being murdered. The country doesn’t have a proper data management system for such incidences. Nevertheless, the numbers recorded by organisations such as Femicide Count show the scale of the problem. In 2023 it recorded 152 femicides based on cases reported in the media. Africa Uncensored, an investigative journalism media house, estimates that 500 women were killed between 2017 and 2024. Kenya’s law enforcement agencies recorded 97 cases of femicide between September and November 2024. Globally, UN Women reported that in 2023 alone, one woman was killed every 10 minutes in intimate partner and family-related murders.

    What is the likelihood of the presidential working group’s success?

    First, at face value, any public action taken by a government to illustrate that it is listening to its citizens is an important first step.

    Second, the fact that it is called a “technical working group on gender-based violence” illustrates the potential it has to lose focus on the issue that catalysed its creation – femicide.

    Third, there is a history in Kenya of setting up task forces with financial resources largely directed at remunerating members and conducting “consultations”, only to tell the country what was already known. Consultations are critical for legitimacy and a base for action. But there are more expedient ways to do this work.

    This includes analysing existing reports, statements and recommendations offered by women’s rights organisation over the decades, including a 2024 statement on ending femicide. An insistence on a large task force in the light of the government’s austerity drive only raises questions about where limited resources should be directed.

    Finally, I am concerned that some of the leading voices on femicide in the last 10 years are missing from this task force. It is the activism of the coalition of actors organising under EndFemicideKE that recentred the conversation on femicide with some of the organisations leading urgent response work in their communities. The task force must not ignore this expertise.

    What steps should Kenya be taking to address femicide?

    1. Invest in programmes that emphasise positive masculinities. This means raising a generation of men whose idea of manhood is not based on hatred of or violence against women. This work is an important counter measure to the growing “manosphere” in Kenya. The manosphere refers to websites, blogs and online forums focused on promoting misogyny and opposition to feminism. These online spaces have grown globally and are viewed as central to grooming men to commit femicide.

    2. Increase resources to programmes aimed at women who are at risk of violence. The signs of violence predate the act of violence and murder. Providing resources to create safe physical and online spaces – such as hotlines for women to get the support they need to secure their lives, or effective investigative services – is key. Central to this action is the role of the police service in taking seriously and investigating any claims of potential threats of violence. People need to feel safe going to the police to report threats of harm and have trust in their capacity to deliver justice. This action requires trust building between communities and the police service.

    3. Deal with the structural causes of femicide. At the heart of this targeted violence against women are the underlying patriarchal assumptions about how women should act relative to men in society. We cannot ignore the importance of building people’s consciousness about the deep biases they have been socialised to believe in. This work must be led by community champions who value the sanctity of human life.

    What needs to be done to hold institutions accountable?

    First, the relevant state institutions, such as public hospitals and clinics, the police and judiciary, need money and people with the right skills, so they can intervene in the root causes and symptoms of gender-based violence.

    Second, Kenya needs to create a national database on femicide. This would indicate where and how to deploy resources.

    Third, there needs to be an annual and public report on the state of gender-based violence that tracks where money has gone, and shows the relationship between actions and outcomes. An initial increase in cases might not indicate failure but rather heightened awareness. With the right interventions, numbers should drop over time.

    Fourth, build trust between citizens and state institutions. In December 2024, a peaceful march in Nairobi held during the global 16 days of activism against gender-based violence campaign was teargassed by police. This happened two weeks after the Kenyan president publicly committed to addressing femicide.

    The right to peaceful protest is enshrined in Kenya’s constitution. When the police respond with violence to peaceful women protesters talking about the murder of women, how can citizens trust officers’ ability to take dead women seriously?

    – Femicide in Kenya: William Ruto has set up a task force – feminist scholar explains its flaws
    – https://theconversation.com/femicide-in-kenya-william-ruto-has-set-up-a-task-force-feminist-scholar-explains-its-flaws-248313

    MIL OSI Africa –

    January 30, 2025

  • MIL-OSI Africa: Chad’s parliamentary election hands Mahamat Déby absolute control. Here’s why it’s dangerous

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Helga Dickow, Senior Researcher at the Arnold Bergstraesser Institut, Freiburg Germany, University of Freiburg

    Chad held parliamentary elections in late December 2024. The final results released on 21 January 2025 gave the well-established former ruling party, the Movement Patriotique du Salut (MPS), 124 seats out of 188.

    The election marked the end of a four-year transition in Chad following the death of former president Idriss Déby Itno in March 2021. Déby had ruled Chad since 1991. Mahamat Déby Itno assumed power on the death of his father.

    The result has meant that Mahamat Déby has given himself a degree of legitimacy as president through elections. He can comfortably remain in power for at least another five or even ten years.

    Read more: Chad’s election outcome already seems set: 4 things Mahamat Déby has done to stay in power

    I have been following Chad’s politics from inside and outside the country for more than 15 years. In my view, Mahamat Déby’s actions during the transition, with the help of the transitional authorities and his late father’s old teams, were aimed at keeping him in power. The December 2024 parliamentary elections were a formality. The poll was not won on polling day. It was clear from the run-up that, as was the case with the May 2024 presidential elections, every effort was being made to minimise the success of the opposition.

    Four factors stand out. They are the composition of the electoral authorities, lack of an up-to-date electoral register, violence against dissenting voices, and high costs of participation in the election.

    In my view Chadians’ trust in the democratic process has ceased completely. This bodes ill for a country that ranks as one of the poorest. It is also one of the most corrupt. The consolidation of Mahamat Déby’s power could widen the social divide and lead to violent conflict between different groups in Chad, which is highly stratified along ethnic and religious lines.

    Dissatisfaction with his decades of autocratic rule characterised Idriss Déby’s reign. Political-military movements challenged him regularly, and the last attack led to his death.

    This dissatisfaction will continue and could once again lead to violent conflicts.

    Read more: Chad: promises of a new chapter fade as junta strengthens its hold ahead of elections

    Corruption of the process

    Mahamat Déby and the Movement Patriotique du Salut took a number of steps to secure victory in the election.

    Firstly, the presidents of the electoral authority ANGE (Agence Nationale de Gestion des Élections) and of the constitutional court nominated by Mahamat Déby were responsible for organising and for validating elections (and will continue to be responsible until 2031). Having been loyal to Idriss Déby and now to his son, they cannot be trusted to be objective and independent in their pronouncements and final decisions.

    Secondly, the electoral register was last updated in August 2024. Therefore, young people who had just turned 18 could not vote. In Chad, the majority of the population is under 25. Young people in particular in the south support the opposition.

    Thirdly, the transitional regime’s violent crackdown on opposing voices played a role in the final outcome of the election.

    The transition was initially characterised by peace talks with the political-military movements and by expanding the security sector to secure its rule. In October 2022, several hundred mainly young people were killed by security forces while demonstrating against the extension of the transition and Mahamat Déby’s candidacy for presidency.

    In the intervening period the state took various steps against opposition figures.

    In February 2024 Yaya Dillo, a cousin of Mahamat Deby and a potential rival in the presidential elections, was shot dead by security forces.

    In May 2024, Mahamat Déby was elected president. In December 2024 he took on the title of marshal – previously held only by his father.

    The opposition was also hampered in participating in the poll for financial reasons. Taking part in the elections is expensive. Each candidate in the parliamentary election had to pay 500,000 CFA (US$785) to the treasury. Candidates for the provincial election paid 200,000 CFA (US$314). In poverty-stricken Chad, without regular funding for political parties, it was particularly difficult for smaller parties to meet these criteria.

    The situation was different for the ruling party, founded by Idriss Déby. For decades it has benefited from state resources. It is the only party with a nationwide presence. Other parties are mainly active in the regions of their founders.

    Read more: Chad’s Mahamat Deby doubles down on authoritarian rule in wake of election victory

    Resistance

    Opposition parties called for a boycott. The Groupe de Concertation des Acteurs Politiques, a coalition of nine parties, criticised the new electoral law and the lack of transparency of the count at the polling stations.

    Succès Masra, leader of Les Transformateurs, a former prime minister who came second in the 2024 presidential elections, also called for a boycott. He accused the government of falsifying the results of the parliamentary election beforehand and of having the final lists saved in a computer. His party did not participate in the poll.

    The results of the parliamentary elections presented on 11 January 2025 by Ahmed Barticheret, president of the electoral commission, and confirmed by the constitutional court on 21 January, therefore revealed no surprises.

    Alongside the huge victory of the Movement Patriotique du Salut, two other parties not really in opposition won 12 and 7 seats respectively. The other successful parties won just one seat each. Chad has over 300 political parties, of which 38 are represented in the new parliament.

    Read more: Chad presidential election: assassination of main opposition figure casts doubt on country’s return to democracy

    Consequences

    Movement Patriotique du Salut has an overwhelming majority in parliament. This means that there are no checks and balances. Like his father, Mahamat Déby can continue to rule without any parliamentary control.

    He is already used to that. Since 2021, he has appointed members of the transitional parliament by presidential decree. The few voices of individual members of parliament belonging to the “real” opposition have no influence.

    As the low turnout – put at 40% on election day – shows, the majority of voters did not expect the election result to change the political situation. On the other hand, supporters of the ruling party continue to benefit from proximity to power and state resources.

    As dissatisfaction continues, the possibility of renewed attacks by dissidents cannot be ruled out. If it is not a military attack, frustrated individuals might try to target the presidency or other symbols of the regime.

    In early January 2025 a group of unidentified young people reportedly attacked the presidency. The incident was played down by the government spokesman, leaving plenty of room for speculation.

    But it was a reminder that a peaceful future is not assured.

    – Chad’s parliamentary election hands Mahamat Déby absolute control. Here’s why it’s dangerous
    – https://theconversation.com/chads-parliamentary-election-hands-mahamat-deby-absolute-control-heres-why-its-dangerous-248342

    MIL OSI Africa –

    January 30, 2025

  • MIL-OSI Global: How 19th-century melodrama turned the sweet music of gothic into something dark and sinister

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Emma McEvoy, Senior Lecturer in English Literature, University of Westminster

    In 1764, Horace Walpole published the first gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto, set in a labyrinthine castle surrounded by woods. The novel features the supernatural, with a dark secret from the past at its core. Today, 260 years later, gothic is still with us in the form of “contemporary gothic” plays, fiction, films, music and computer games.

    Central to the popularity of gothic is the way it affects its audiences. It is supposed to unsettle, to make the flesh creep and provoke feelings of claustrophobia. Soundtracks for gothic films are integral to creating such effects, building suspense and unease while amplifying the visceral impact of sudden jump scares.

    Alejandro Amenábar’s soundtrack for The Others (2001), for example, weirds its listeners out. The hollow but reverberant timbre of brushed piano strings evokes the spaces of the house, conjuring up the old-fashioned alienness of the place. Action, set and music sympathetically resonate.

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

    The soundtrack for The Substance (2024) shrieks with the strings and sudden dissonances of The Nightmare and Dawn (taken from Bernard Herrmann’s score for Hitchcock’s 1958 masterpiece, Vertigo). Then, it deepens the sense of disquiet with the sinister incantations and medieval-sounding harmonies of Swedish composer Anna von Hausswolff‘s Ugly and Vengeful.

    Both soundtracks impressively succeed in doing what we expect gothic music to do: provoke unease, create suspense and drive home the horror elements.

    But has the music of the gothic always been called upon to unsettle and scare? Has it always sounded so, well, gothic? These are questions I explore in my new book The Music of the Gothic 1789–1820.

    Over the last few years, I’ve been rummaging through archives in London, Oxford and Dublin searching for settings of songs from novels and music associated with gothic plays such as The Mysteries of the Castle (1795). I uncovered many treasures, some of which probably haven’t been performed for a couple of centuries.

    Thanks to a grant from the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust, I was able to bring some of this music to audiences once more with the help of a group of wonderful musicians, headed by Seb Gillot, who performed the tracks you can hear in this article. You can see them performing live below.

    The gothic novels and plays of the 1790s were populated by sweet-singing heroines and heroes. Among the music I encountered was a song by the composer and singer Harriet Abrams (c. 1758-1821), in which a woman imprisoned in a madhouse sweetly pleads with her cold-hearted jailer.

    I also found music for gothic plays by the Northumbrian William Shield (1748-1829) and the Irish tenor Michael Kelly (1762-1826), who wrote songs about jolly mariners , comic poachers_ and young peasant girls on their way back from market.

    None of this material sounded remotely what we would now describe as gothic. Even the music accompanying the entrance of a blood-covered ghost in The Castle Spectre (1798) was warm and stately – and singularly unterrifying.

    I realised that none of the music from the 1790s – a period when gothic was phenomenally popular – was intended to scare. On the contrary, it was called upon to provide relief from the scare. In late 18th-century gothic plays such as The Italian Monk (1797), music was associated with romance, comedy and sublime religious experience, but not horror or terror.

    At what point then did the kind of gothic music we know today come into being? The evidence can be found in books such as Remick Folio of Moving Picture Music (1914) which contains music for silent film accompanists. With names like Mysterioso, or Forboding and Wind Storm, or Hurry, they were evidently designed for scenes of suspense and mystery.

    Such music is indebted to the music of Victorian melodrama, but what I wanted to know was when melodrama acquired its distinctive gothic sounds.

    Digging into the past of gothic

    Very often in research you discover that things happen gradually. There is trial and experiment, a series of influences, a slow accumulation of examples, and then a tipping point. But when it comes to gothic music, that is not the case. There is a definite date when a specific kind of music erupted onto the entertainment scene. The date was 1802, and the occasion a new dramatic production – a “melo-drame” or musical drama called A Tale of Mystery with music by Thomas Busby.

    Busby’s music was conceptualised very differently to the music of the 1790s. For a start it was intended to add to, not to provide relief from, the gothic elements of the play.

    Most crucially, it was not part of the imagined world of the drama. The fictional characters did not sing it – they did not even “hear” it: Busby’s music was directed at the audience. Instrumental music calculated to disturb, it was chaotic and unnerving, with lots of fast, disjointed short phrases, disturbing chords and cliffhanger endings.

    Instantly recognised as new and revolutionary, it caused a sensation. After audiences had a taste of the new gothic in A Tale of Mystery, music on the page and on the stage soon became something darker and more troubling.

    The older kind of music didn’t disappear overnight, of course, but melodrama took hold and the music of gothic was transformed. Not just on stage but also on the page. Gothic music was no longer uplifting but sinister.

    As seen in The Woman in Black (2012), there’s nothing like a music box in a deserted house to terrify audiences. And who doesn’t thrill to the sound of the diabolically thundering organ in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera?

    Emma McEvoy received a research grant from the British Academy and Leverhulme Trust for the project “The Music of Gothic Literature and Theatre 1790-1820”.

    – ref. How 19th-century melodrama turned the sweet music of gothic into something dark and sinister – https://theconversation.com/how-19th-century-melodrama-turned-the-sweet-music-of-gothic-into-something-dark-and-sinister-246797

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

    January 30, 2025

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Lean Manufacturing Technologies: GUU to Become Pilot Universities in Federal Project

    Translartion. Region: Russians Fedetion –

    Source: State University of Management – Official website of the State –

    The State University of Management held a meeting between the rector’s office and representatives of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation and the Federal Competence Center (FCC) to discuss the issue of including SUM in the list of pilot universities for the implementation of the lean manufacturing initiative.

    The State University of Management was represented by: Rector Vladimir Stroev, representatives of the rector’s office and other departments.

    The delegation of guests included: Head of the Monitoring and Statistics Department of the Department for Coordination of Activities of Educational Organizations of the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia Alena Petrenko and representatives of the Federal Center for Strategic Studies Vyacheslav Tikhomirov and Ekaterina Nikolenko.

    Rector of the State University of Management Vladimir Stroev spoke about the rich experience of interaction with ministries and implementation of joint projects.

    “GUU has a close-knit team, ready to implement solutions and maximally interested in the success of our university, especially in terms of development. We have a separate department for this issue. Moreover, many ministries are already implementing various solutions on our platform, so we are ready for this. Thus, for the Ministry of Economic Development we carry out many different tasks, including organizing foreign internships for graduates of the Presidential Program, we are also the operator of the competition “My Good Business” and much more,” shared Vladimir Vitalievich.

    Vice-Rector of the State University of Management Dmitry Bryukhanov outlined the issues proposed for discussion.

    “GUU has joined the pilot universities for the application of lean manufacturing ideology in educational institutions. Much is happening in the sphere of lean schooling, it is widely used in industry, and we are already seeing a positive effect from process optimization. For the first time, the experience of using lean technologies will be applied in university practice. The task of universities is to determine the main directions and goals for implementing this initiative,” Dmitry Yuryevich noted.

    Alena Petrenko spoke about what has already been done within the framework of the project and what plans there are for the implementation of lean technologies for this year.

    “The project will be implemented in close cooperation with the Federal Competence Center, the coordinator is the socio-center. Inter-ministerial cooperation between the Ministry of Education and Science and the Ministry of Economic Development will be implemented. The project passport and its roadmap have already been formed, pilot participating universities have been identified. By the end of the year, we must develop and implement solutions in five universities, and by the end of 2030, connect absolutely all higher education institutions subordinate to the Ministry of Education and Science to the lean manufacturing system. An important point is the rector’s interest and the university’s readiness for change,” said the head of the monitoring and statistics department of the Department for Coordination of Educational Organizations of the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia.

    Vyacheslav Tikhomirov shared details about the upcoming project.

    “The work will be carried out within the framework of the federal project “Labor Productivity”, in which a significant number of industrial enterprises are already participating, and now it will be expanded to the social sphere. How it is implemented: we examine and describe in detail the processes in the organization in order to identify losses based on lean manufacturing, i.e. those actions that take resources but do not produce an effect. Together with the university working group, we will find ways to solve them and improve the process. As a result, we will receive a collection of best practices of boxed solutions, on the basis of which all organizations will be able to find techniques to improve their own indicators,” explained the head of the department for the implementation of projects in the social sphere of the FCC.

    The participants studied the project presentation and discussed possible areas of work, after which they went on a tour of the university.

    At the end of the meeting, it was decided to create a working group to implement the project and continue interaction.

    Subscribe to the TG channel “Our GUU” Date of publication: 01/29/2025

    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.

    MIL OSI Russia News –

    January 30, 2025

  • MIL-OSI USA: Makeup of Charter School Governing Board Could Impact Whether They Offer Religious Education

    Source: US State of Connecticut

    While it may seem like a stretch almost as long as the Amtrak route from Chicago to California, a 1995 U.S. Supreme Court case involving the National Railroad Passenger Corp. could influence the future of charter schools and help answer the latest hot-topic question of whether they can offer religious education.

    With 7,800 charter schools serving 3.7 million students nationwide, the larger question of whether they must respect students’ constitutional rights like their public counterparts is one that affects families almost as much as whether the morning bus was on time.

    UConn’s Preston Green, the John and Maria Neag Professor of Urban Education and a professor of educational leadership and law, explains that courts since the early 2000s have found that charter schools are at once government entities and not, depending on the situation.

    Preston Green, the John and Maria Neag Professor of Urban Education and a professor of educational leadership and law (Peter Morenus/UConn Photo)

    The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held in 2010 that an Arizona charter school was not considered public when a teacher sued over false statements made about him related to his job.

    But the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2022 found that a North Carolina charter school was a public entity and must adhere to the Equal Protection Clause when it comes to a dress code – it couldn’t require female students to wear skirts simply because they are “fragile vessels.”

    “Charter schools were designed as a hybrid of public and private schools, where they would have the best of both worlds,” Green says. “They’re public in terms of how they’re funded, that they cannot charge tuition, and that they must proctor state exams. But they also get a lot of flexibility in how and what they teach and freedom from many of the rules and regulations that apply to public schools.”

    In Green’s latest law review, “All Aboard!: Making Charter School Boards All-Purpose State Actors Under the Supreme Court’s Amtrak Case,” published this winter in the Drake Law Review with Suzanne Eckes from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the problem with the public-private ambiguity becomes even more apparent when Oklahoma in 2023 approved the country’s first virtual religious charter school. The U.S. Supreme Court decided Jan. 24 to hear an appeal of the case.

    Green explains that when charter schools started popping up in the 1990s, people raised concerns about separation of church and state and questioned whether charter schools – which often designate areas of focus, like in the arts or STEM, to draw students – could do the same with religion.

    To mitigate this, charter schools were codified into law with the intent of defining them as public institutions, he says, therefore secular and unable to provide religious education, but over the years courts sometimes have disagreed.

    “Religion is important, but we’re also talking about search and seizure, due process, equal protections, freedom of speech,” Green says of the constitutional rights determined by the public-private question. “People are paying attention now because of the conversation around religion, but it’s not just religion.”

    He continues, “If a student is suspended or expelled, do they get due process in the same way a public-school student would? All these issues are in play when charter schools claim they operate as private schools, and I think states ought to be concerned about this and have been surprised to find that charter schools might be able to act in these ways.”

    The 1995 case Lebron v. National Railroad Passenger Corp. determined Amtrak was behaving as a governmental agency, in part because Amtrak serves certain governmental objectives, and its board comprises members appointed by the government.

    As a governmental agency, the Supreme Court found, it must abide by the First Amendment and allow the plaintiff, Michael A. Lebron, to purchase advertising space on the side of buses to display political messages.

    Green says courts have applied the Lebron case in other seemingly disparate situations, including one when the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children was found to be a governmental agency and therefore required to uphold the Fourth Amendment and its protection from search and seizure.

    The plaintiff in this case claimed the Center had no business searching his email, despite a message being flagged as child pornography, because it was a governmental entity. The court agreed.

    When applied to charter schools, Green says, the Lebron litmus test falls short. Sure, their governmental purpose is to educate children. But since most have independently appointed governing boards – bodies that don’t include members appointed by a mayor, town manager, or board of education, for instance – he contends any court would be justified in calling them private schools.

    That means religious education could conceivably begin to appear in publicly funded charter schools from sea to shining sea.

    “States need to be thinking about this and find ways to make sure these schools remain public in the way they were intended,” Green says.

    This is more than just a red state-blue state issue, he adds, one that’s only applicable in rural communities and not big cities. It’s a conversation that needs to be had in the 45 states with charter school legislation on the books.

    “Schools are about community, they’re the glue that keeps communities together,” Green says. “When you start losing schools as that glue, then it impacts the community. I’m not saying there can’t be school choice, but we must be very thoughtful about how that choice exists to balance a system that has a lot of competing issues.”

    MIL OSI USA News –

    January 30, 2025

  • MIL-OSI USA: Biology Associate Professor Awarded Nation’s Highest Honor for Early-Career Researchers

    Source: US State of Connecticut

    On Jan. 14, UConn ecology and evolutionary biology associate professor Jill Wegrzyn was among nearly 400 individuals honored by President Biden with the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). This is the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers who are in the early phases of their careers. UConn engineering professor Arash Zaghi also received this award. 

    Established by President Clinton in 1996, PECASE recognizes scientists and engineers who show exceptional potential for leadership early in their research careers. The award celebrates innovative and far-reaching developments in science and technology. 

    “This award recognizes Professor Wegrzyn’s exceptional contributions to computational and evolutionary biology, and I am immensely proud of her achievement,” says Ofer Harel, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. “Her innovative research pushes the boundaries of genome science and has significant implications for biodiversity conservation.” 

    A computational biologist, Wegrzyn develops computational applications for analyzing both single genomes and entire populations, aiming to understand how organisms adapt to their environment. 

    “I have always aspired to integrate computer programming and genetics within the broader context of the natural world,” Wegrzyn says.  

    This curiosity led to a precocious start to her research career: as an undergraduate at the University of California, Davis, she started to develop some of the university’s first courses in bioinformatics, the study of biological sequence data (like genetic codes). 

    Now at UConn, where she leads the Plant Computational Genomics lab, Wegrzyn has worked to develop reference genomes for various “non-model” plant species. In contrast to model organisms, whose genomes have been sequenced and studied extensively, non-model plant species are still genetic mysteries – and many of them are of conservation concern. What’s more, since some of their genomes can be nearly ten times as long as the human genome, effectively sequencing them is no easy task.  

    I’m very interested in finding ways to assemble genomes better, faster, and more efficiently, especially when they’re large and complex.

    Wegrzyn describes them as the “species that are a little bit harder to work on, and present new computational challenges” — the underdogs of the plant kingdom. 

    The lab also works to develop software that can help genomic researchers perform crucial tasks like assembling, analyzing, and annotating genomic data. 

    “A lot of the software currently available to tackle those issues has traditionally been very focused on human genetics or model species,” Wegrzyn says. “I’m very interested in finding ways to assemble genomes better, faster, and more efficiently, especially when they’re large and complex. How do we identify genes more efficiently? And how can we scale from working with a single genome to studying entire populations on the landscape, to understand how they’re adapting to a changing climate?” 

    This research is assisting conservation efforts for many tree species across the country, which are important for protecting biodiversity and ecosystem health, timber production, and even the nation’s annual Christmas tree crop. 

    For example, Wegrzyn says, her lab has identified regions of the genome (genes) that confer resistance to invasive pests or pathogens. Managers can then select for this resistance and plant hardier trees. In the world of forests, where generations are measured not in annual growing cycles but in decades, this could potentially save countless years. 

    “Trees can have generation times of 12 to 15 years or more before you can even determine how they’re going to respond to their current (or future) environment,” Wegrzyn says. “So the sooner we can predict how they’re going to perform in a particular environment, the more we can do.” 

    The lab is also responsible for creating and maintaining the international CartograPlant database and application, which empowers scientists of all backgrounds to explore how genetics, phenotypes (traits), and environmental factors combine to shape plant population responses. 

    Wegrzyn is one of the lead PIs of the NSF-funded Evolving Meta-Ecosystems (EVOME) institute, which seeks to understand how Arctic species (including birds, plants, fish, and insects) will respond, along with their ecosystems, to rapid climate change. 

    In addition to her teaching duties and lab research, Wegrzyn is also the Lead Bioinformatician in the Computational Biology Core within the Institute for Systems Genomics. She’s also a PI on UConn’s NSF-funded Research and Mentoring for Postbaccalaureates (RaMP) initiative. RaMP is geared toward recent college graduates who did not have the opportunity to pursue dedicated research as undergraduates, providing them with hands-on lab experience that can culminate in new graduate study or professional opportunities. 

    Most recently, RaMP scholars helped generate the first chromosome-level genome of the desert hairy scorpion; this year’s cohort is aiming to do the same with the threatened Everglades mink. 

    Wegrzyn became eligible for the PECASE after receiving the NSF’s prestigious CAREER Award in 2020. This award helped fund the development of her EASEL (Efficient, Accurate, Scalable Eukaryotic modeLs) software: an open-source genome annotation tool that leverages machine learning, RNA folding, and functional annotations to enhance gene prediction accuracy. 

    “Our software has been applied to everything from deep sea corals to desert invertebrates to high elevation conifers, which represent an incredible range of complexity,” Wegrzyn says. “Through our software, we aim to facilitate fundamental questions in evolution while also providing actionable targets for conservation and restoration programs. Receiving this prestigious award in the midst of climate change elevates the importance of this work and also inspires the students and trainees who contribute to its success.” 

     

    MIL OSI USA News –

    January 30, 2025

  • MIL-OSI Global: South African poetry has a new digital archive – what’s behind the project

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Tinashe Mushakavanhu, Research Associate, University of Oxford

    South African poetry, rich with history, has long been an underappreciated cornerstone of the country’s cultural landscape. But a new free-to-access digital archive is helping change that.

    Focused on the poets published by a small but important press in a town called Makhanda in the Eastern Cape province, the Deep South Books and Archive initiative seeks to elevate their voices by offering an archive of background information about their work and lives as well as extensive excerpts from their books. It’s a rare window into a vital but overlooked tradition of South African literature.



    Read more:
    Podcasts bring southern Africa’s liberation struggle to life – thanks to an innovative new audio archive

    Robert Berold, after spending a decade as editor for New Coin journal, set up Deep South in 1995. For decades he has had a quiet influence on the South African poetry scene. His impulse to publish emerged from a place of need and outrage that some of the talented young black poets he was publishing in New Coin couldn’t get their books published in the new, democratic South Africa.

    Many of these poets had been using their words to fight for freedom, while a new generation of young poets was emerging with democracy. Ever since, Deep South has been an important arena where South African poets and their poems could speak to one another.

    My work on African literary production shows the importance of small presses in creating local literary ecologies.

    For Berold, the mission was always:

    To publish what was considered to be innovative and risk-taking South African poetry, regardless of market limitations.

    His many endeavours as a publisher, editor and teacher have been linked by the effort to rescue from oblivion, to supply context, to indicate points of continuity while insisting on the diversity of the South African experience.

    After 30 years of publishing, Berold is now sharing a vast catalogue and archive that would otherwise remain unknown. Even though the African Poetry Digital Portal, hosted by the University of Nebraska in the US, was created as a resource for the study of the history of African poetry from antiquity to the present, it does not give direct reference to particular communities.

    In bringing this archive to the internet, Berold is revealing the process and method of how contemporary South African poetry has been shaped into being.

    Behind the poems

    Much of the archive material is what Berold accumulated in dealing with the poets – correspondence, manuscripts, reviews. This is also physically deposited at the Amazwi South African Museum of Literature. He explains:

    I got into correspondence with everyone who sent in poems, trying to give helpful criticism, recommending poets for them to read. There was a certain inappropriateness about this at times, and some arrogance too on my part, but mostly people appreciated the feedback.

    The “difficult miracle of Black poetry”, as US poet June Jordan once remarked, is that it persists, published or not, loved or unloved. In racially segregated South Africa during apartheid, publishing spaces were few and far between.

    Black poets were often censored, banned or exiled as their work confronted the injustices of a racist system. This digital archive recasts the story of South African poetry as insurgent, independent and driven to define a distinct aesthetic.

    Deep South has, furthermore, made a particular impression by fostering a unique aesthetic in South African poetry through its investments in typography and design. As a small, independent press situated away from culture capitals – Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg – it has had the freedom to experiment.

    Deep South Books and Archive is therefore a significant tribute to the persistence of South African poetry, despite many historical and structural inequalities. It is a catalogue and a digital archive that provides a unique entry point into modern South African poetry.

    Inside the archive

    The digital archive’s architecture is simple. The poets are indexed in alphabetical order. Some of the featured names are Vonani Bila, Mangaliso Buzani, Angifi Dladla, Mzwandile Matiwana, Isabella Motadinyane, Seitlhamo Motsapi, Khulile Nxumalo, Mxolisi Nyezwa, Lesego Rampolokeng, Mxolisi Dolla Sapeta, Dimakatso Sedite and Phillip Zhuwao.

    Clicking through the carousel of finely designed book covers leads one to excerpts, book reviews, interviews available as PDF files, as well as links to other multimedia resources.

    Rampolokeng’s work may be iconoclastic, experimental, unclassifiable but he found a home with this press. He has published several of his groundbreaking collections with them. Defying category, they bend and shift, and culminate into a remarkable linguistic virtuoso. His interviews are an extension of his art, reflexive, autobiographical, and works in themselves.

    Unrecognised poets

    Then there are poets like Motadinyane and Zhuwao who died far too early, leaving behind only single collections. Luckily, even if their portraits and writings are fragmentary, we’re at least witness to the poetic geniuses that might have been. This is the superpower of this archive, to serve as a memorial for a canon (or collection of literary texts) that wasn’t even close to being fully blossomed.

    Historically, canon construction is the work of the few, foremost among them academics who edit anthologies and design syllabuses. Most of these poets do not feature in scholarly journals. As a result they almost exist in the underground, unremarked. Berold, now in his 70s and approaching retirement, has decided to do something about that with a digital archive that surfaces the voices of lesser-known poets.

    The lack of recognition for these poets is bothersome for him:

    Why nobody in academe has registered the importance of these poets is beyond me. It really makes me wonder whether these professional literary people are able to read.

    This is mostly an indictment of systems that undervalue black expression.



    Read more:
    How women’s untold histories shaped South Africa’s national poet

    This project may be for preservation, but there is another lesson: African literature demands constant acts of recovery. In this case, the internet serves as a kind of rear view mirror, which allows us a backward glance at poets and their works that have been overlooked or underappreciated, forgotten or misunderstood.

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

    – ref. South African poetry has a new digital archive – what’s behind the project – https://theconversation.com/south-african-poetry-has-a-new-digital-archive-whats-behind-the-project-247599

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

    January 30, 2025
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