*
THE LAUGHTER OF GOD
At first they held hands
and strolled for hours,
gaping at the beaky birds,
adding their innocent vowels
to the hosannas of the flowers.
But the woman was growing restless.
You see, there were no verbs.
Paradise ia pure description.
No subjunctive sighs and regrets,
no frolicking future tense.
When time like a ruddy fruit
hung ripe from the perfect trees,
I hissed the truth to the woman
with the two-way tongue of a snake.
All those fluent ribs, opalescent
scales! It was Me undulating
in the subtle snake.
Oh, let them be as the gods!
And learn the price of that.
I laughed for joy when I saw
the woman bite into the tart flesh
of the forbidden fruit.
The multitudes of Me
whirled a wild polka across the galaxies.
At last! At last! I managed to create
a being that could disobey Me.
I blessed them.
To the woman I said,
“You are the Tree of Life.”
To the man,
“Love her — she’ll be
your strength.”
Yes I knew suffering
would happen. Yes,
because I love stories.
~ Oriana
*
THE SUCCESS OF ARTEMIS: "THE REALLY HARD PART LIES AHEAD"
Nasa's Artemis II mission has successfully sent four astronauts sweeping around the far side of the Moon and landed them safely back home.
The Orion spacecraft performed admirably and the images the astronauts captured have delighted a whole new generation about the possibilities of space travel.
But does this mean that the children enthralled by the mission will be able to live and work on the Moon in their lifetimes? Perhaps even go to Mars, as the Artemis program promises?
It seems churlish to say, but looping the Moon was relatively easy. The really hard part lies ahead, so the answer is "maybe, maybe not".
A lunar lander from the Apollo era was tiny compared to what is planned for the next Moon landing.
When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to land on the Moon in July 1969, many assumed it was only the beginning and that people would soon be living and working in space.
That didn't happen because the Apollo program was born not from a love of exploration, but from the Cold War, to demonstrate US superiority over the Soviet Union. That feat was achieved by Armstrong's "one small step" off his lunar lander — job done.
Just a few years after he planted the American flag on the lunar surface, the TV audience figures for subsequent missions plummeted and future Apollo missions were scrapped.
This time, Nasa's stated ambition is different. Administrator Jared Isaacman has set out plans for one crewed lunar landing per year, beginning in 2028, with the fifth Artemis mission — planned for later that same year — marking the start of what the agency calls its Moon base.
It sounds like science fiction, but here are the words of a serious space player dealing in science fact: "The Moon economy will develop," Josef Aschbacher, Director General of the European Space Agency (ESA), tells me.
"It will take time to set up the various elements, but it will develop."But as the commander of Apollo 13 famously said when his spacecraft malfunctioned on the way to the Moon: "Houston, we've had a problem..."
The lander problem
To get boots on the lunar surface, Nasa needs a lander. The US space agency has contracted two private companies to build them: Elon Musk's SpaceX, whose lunar version of its Starship rocket will stand 35 meters tall, and Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin, whose Blue Moon Mark 2 craft is more compact but just as ambitious.
Both are well behind schedule.
Nasa's own Office of Inspector General laid out the picture starkly in a report published on 10 March. SpaceX's lunar Starship is at least two years behind its original delivery date, with further delays expected. Blue Origin's Blue Moon is at least eight months late, with nearly half the issues flagged at a 2024 design review still unresolved more than a year later.
These landers are very different from the compact Eagle module that carried Armstrong and Aldrin to the surface in 1969 and which was just big enough to transport two men to collect some rocks and return.
The new landers must carry very significant amounts of infrastructure — equipment, pressurized rovers, the early components of a base. And carrying that amount of mass requires enormous amounts of propellant, far more than can be launched in a single rocket.
Also behind schedule is Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin's Blue Moon
The Artemis program intends to store all this propellant in a depot, which will orbit around the Earth and will be topped up by more than 10 separate tanker flights, all launched at regular intervals over months. The plan looks elegant but is fiendishly difficult.
Keeping super-cold liquid oxygen and methane stable in the vacuum of space, then transferring them between spacecraft, is one of the most demanding engineering challenges in the program.
"From a physics point of view it makes sense," says Dr Simeon Barber, a space scientist from the Open University. But he points out that the launch of Artemis II was delayed twice this year, before it eventually took off because of fueling issues.
"If it's difficult to do in the launch pad, it's going to be much more difficult to do in orbit," he says.
The next Artemis mission, Artemis III, is designed to test how the Orion crew capsule docks in Earth orbit with one or both landers. It is scheduled for mid-2027. Given that Starship has not yet completed a successful orbital flight and Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket has managed just two launches, this target looks, as Barber puts it, "a very steep ask".
The new space race
Nasa has kept its 2028 target for a first Artemis Moon landing in part for political reasons — it now aligns with President Trump's renewed space policy, which calls for Americans to be back on the lunar surface by 2028 – a deadline that falls within his current term of office, due to end that year.
Independent analysts don't believe the target is realistic. But Congress has backed the date with billions of dollars of taxpayers' money, partly because there is a new competitor on the horizon.
China's emergence this century as an economic and military superpower has also seen its space capabilities accelerate rapidly, and it now has a stated aim of landing an astronaut on the Moon by around 2030.
If the Artemis timetable slips, as many experts believe it will, China could get to the Moon first. Its approach is simpler. It uses two rockets, a separate crew module and lander, and avoids the in-orbit refueling complexity of the American plan.
Mars — the distant dream
Beyond the Moon lies Mars.
Musk has spoken of getting humans to the Red Planet before the end of this decade.
Many experts believe it is far more likely to be the 2040s at the earliest. The journey alone — seven to nine months, through intense radiation, and with no possibility of rescue — presents challenges that dwarf anything involved in getting to the Moon.
Mars's thin atmosphere makes landing a full-sized, crewed spacecraft — and then launching it again — a problem of staggering complexity.
Mars awaits, but is it a step too far for human exploration?
Artemis II has put human spaceflight back on the agenda. Private companies are building rockets and landers with genuine urgency. Europe is actively debating how deeply to engage.
As I drove around the Kennedy Space Center after the launch of the Artemis mission, I was struck by the new buildings put up by Blue Origin and others in construction by SpaceX: private sector infrastructure nestling close to a government agency that once sent astronauts to the Moon.
Even if the timetables slip, this new partnership feels like something special is happening on the Florida coast — and Nasa has already got some of its old mojo back.
ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst once told Aschbacher, after returning from the International Space Station, that the view from space changes everything.
Gerst told the ESA boss that he wishes all eight billion people on Earth could go to space just once and see what he saw — a small, fragile, beautiful planet, cared for not nearly well enough by the species lucky enough to live on it.
"That," says Aschbacher, "would create a very different life on planet Earth.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj0v119zp19o
Oriana:
I wonder how Putin, and Russians in general, feel about this new “space race.” I remember the stupendous surprise of Sputnik, and the voice of Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space. And now Russia isn’t even being mentioned. And that silence, like the dark side of the Moon, is also a part of the Artemis project.
*
WHAT HAPPENS TO THE ASTRONAUTS NOW?
The Artemis II crew have safely returned home after re-entering Earth's atmosphere at 25,000mph (40,000km/h), splashing down off the coast of California.
They have travelled deeper into space than any humans before them - just over 4,000 miles more than the record of 248,655 set by Apollo 13 in 1970.
Astronauts are highly trained to cope with the physical and mental strain of space.Although it might seem like it would be a difficult experience to endure, astronauts talk about being in space as the highlight of their lives and say they would return in an instant.
In a press conference before landing, Christina Koch said the inconveniences, such as freeze-dried food or a toilet without much privacy, were worth it.
Nasa does not release details about the crew members' health or private lives, but here's what's likely to happen to Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch, Victor Glover and Jeremy Hansen now they're back.
They'll immediately be seen by doctors
On arrival they will be immediately examined by doctors on the US warship sent to retrieve them. Then they will be flown ashore by helicopter before being taken by plane to Nasa's Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Spending time in space will have been physically grueling for the Artemis II crew.
Without the tug of gravity, muscle and bone mass shrinks in space. The most affected muscles are those that help maintain posture in the back, neck and calves.
Speaking to BBC Newsnight ahead of the Artemis II splashdown in the Pacific, former UK astronaut Tim Peake said the gravity tug was "quite punishing".
"It will feel to begin with like a small push in your back but it will gradually build up," he said.
"Anybody who has been on a rollercoaster ride, you may have experienced 4G but probably for less than a second, so when you feel it for minutes at a time it's quite punishing."
Astronauts have strict exercise requirements but it can't stop all wastage. After just two weeks, muscle mass can fall by as much as 20%.
But remember, around 700 people have been into space before, including low Earth orbit. The time the Artemis II crew have spent up there will be amongst the shortest.
During the space shuttle era in 1981 to 2011, astronauts spent two to three weeks in space. A typical stay on the International Space Station is now five to six months.
So the impacts on the Artemis II astronauts' health is likely to be minimal compared with their predecessors.
*
Koch has already said she will miss the "teamwork and camaraderie" and the "common sense of purpose on the mission".
Many astronauts talk about a profound appreciation of the uniqueness of Earth and that all humans share the planet together.
Seeing our planet surrounded by the blackness of space "truly emphasized how alike we are, how the same thing keeps every single person on planet Earth alive," Koch said from space.
Most astronauts, including the first British astronaut Helen Sharman, have described how they don't want to come home because the work in space is so exciting.
Reunited with their families
The Artemis crew will of course be excited to be reunited with their families.
Commander Reid Wiseman, who lost his wife to cancer in 2020 and has raised their two teenage daughters alone, talked to them before the mission about what would happen if he died and showed them where his will was kept.
Splashdown is a dangerous moment for the crew, so the families are delighted to see them home safe.
Dr Catherine Hansen, who is married to astronaut Jeremy Hansen, told BBC World Service's Newsday program that their two daughters and son were "so, so excited to see their dad living his dream".
"We certainly will have a celebration... When Jeremy is back safely, we will absolutely come together. First just the five of us in a quiet environment to hear some of those private stories, and then we will absolutely celebrate with the world," she said.
Though "being an ambassador for space" is part of the job of being an astronaut, Tim Peake told the BBC he didn't think the team would "quite appreciate just how many people have been captivated by this mission".
"There'll certainly be a period of adjustment," he said. "Yes they'll want to see their friends and family straight away but I tell you the scientific community will want them first."
"Their time will be split between work and a little bit of family time too.”
A trip to the White House
Nasa won't release details about what the astronauts will be doing when they get back to Earth.
The three Nasa astronauts remain on the agency's books. There are more Artemis spaceflights to come: Artemis III is billed for 2027 and Artemis IV for 2028.
That will be the big one. It aims to land humans on the Moon again, although the date is likely to slip.
We don't yet know who will fly those missions. All members of Nasa's astronaut corps, including the four on Artemis II, are eligible.
But one big engagement is in the cards.
US President Donald Trump, who established the Artemis program during his first presidency in 2017, called the crew while in space to invite them to the White House for an Oval Office reception.
"I'll ask for your autograph, because I don't really ask for autographs much, but you deserve that," he told them.
He promised to give them "a big salute on behalf of the American people and beyond that”.
It is not clear if Hansen, who's Canadian, will join the trip.
Post-Moon, the biggest change these astronauts can probably expect is fame.
Round-the-clock news coverage and viral memes mean they are coming back to Earth significantly more famous than they were when they left. That will likely require some adjustment.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpwjvgv2d4no
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WHY THE ISLAMIC WORLD FELL BEHIND THE WEST (repost)
2. Some Islamic rulers antagonized the Mongols by killing their ambassadors or trade representatives as spies. The Mongols retaliated in force, destroying the Khwarezmian Empire and later most of Baghdad, slaughtering many hundreds of thousands, destroying libraries, and devastating Islamic lands and infrastructure.
3. Europe was continually fighting wars in Europe, honing their military skills and prompting improvements in metallurgy, naval technology, and weapons. The early Caliphates and Ottoman Empire dominated the core Islamic regions and did not devolve into discreet nations with defensible borders or permit the evolution of governments within the Ottoman Empire.
4. Western kingdoms and empires colonized throughout the world, gaining valuable trade opportunities and building navies. Western commerce gave birth to industrialization.
5. Portugal found a sea route to bypass most of the Islamic world and establish direct ties to India, Southern Asia, and the Pacific islands. Other European powers followed Portugal in this direction. Muslim and Ottoman reduction of the Eastern Roman Empire was the conquest of a decaying power.
6. Islamic countries rarely established colonies or had much presence in the New World. The Islamic world looked inward after the initial vigorous Muslim conquests, while the Western world often looked outward.
7. The West was more advanced in the creation of universities. Although Islamic countries led in science before 1300 A.D., many Islamic scholars studied the Koran, in Arabic, not scientific literature written in many different languages.
Western cultures eventually encouraged printing presses and widespread literacy. Islam was often limited to Arabic, more difficult to print, whereas Europe had many languages. Books other than the Koran and in non-Arabic languages were relatively rare in the Islamic world. The Ottoman Empire banned the printing press except for printing the Koran.
8. The Ottoman Empire and previous Caliphates stifled the development of nationalism and legal and banking systems, which European nations promoted, producing greater commercial, political, and military competition among Western nation-states.
9. European nations developed more mature political and governmental institutions and systems, including constitutional monarchies and the election of representatives. They were balanced by the Church, a separate institution, unlike most of Islam, which did not have a hierarchical structure or defined priesthood.
10. The more temperate climates of the West were usually more conducive to economic development than the more sub-tropical and desert climates of the Islamic world. Europe possesses many harbors and long coastlines. Europe fronted the Atlantic Ocean, Baltic, and Mediterranean, while Islam was centered on the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean. The Fertile Crescent conquered by Islam suffered from salinization of the soil after millennia of irrigation.
11. Islamic countries always did a much better job of reducing or eliminating alcoholism, alcohol use, and theft offenses than did the West. This enforced moral superiority allowed Muslims to continue thinking of themselves as generally superior to the West.
12. Advancing Western powers developed the inclusive rule of law, which the Islamic world never did. Islamic women were tightly constrained and not free to fully participate in public, commercial, educational, and civic activities.
13. By the time most Muslims figured out that the Islamic world was behind the West in many aspects of science, technology, naval architecture, weaponry, government, and nationalism, it was too late to catch up quickly. Then, the pace of technological change increased exponentially, and it was virtually impossible to make up the difference. To this day, the Islamic world has very few research scientists compared to the West, Japan, and China. ~ John Dewar Gleissner, Quora
Marc Clamage:
The Mongols not only destroyed Baghdad, including the ancient library known as the House of Wisdom (they say the Tigris first ran red with the blood of 800,000 slaughtered civilians, then black with ink from the House of Wisdom); they also sabotaged key elements in the irrigation system which kept the Fertile Crescent fertile. That, along with the lack of people to maintain the canals due to depopulation, permanently ended the agricultural basis for any expansive Arab civilization. What was once among the most productive farmland on the planet was reduced to today's wasteland of scrub and desert.
The Mongol invasion of 1258 was an existential disaster from which the Arabs have never recovered. Many historical accounts detailed the cruelties of the Mongol conquerors. Baghdad was a depopulated, ruined city for several decades and only gradually recovered some of its former glory. Contemporary accounts state Mongol soldiers looted and then destroyed mosques, palaces, libraries, and hospitals. Priceless books from Baghdad's thirty-six public libraries were torn apart, the looters using their leather covers as sandals.
Grand buildings that had been the work of generations were burned to the ground. The House of Wisdom (the Grand Library of Baghdad), containing countless precious historical documents and books on subjects ranging from medicine to astronomy, was destroyed. Claims have been made that the Tigris ran red from the blood of the scientists and philosophers killed.
Images of violence toward books appear in the 14th century; the tale of the destruction of books – tossed into the Tigris such that the water turned black from the ink – seems to originate from the 16th century. Michal Biran argues that this story was likely a literary trope to demonstrate Mongol barbarity.
Citizens attempted to flee, but were intercepted by Mongol soldiers who killed in abundance, sparing no one, not even children. Martin Sicker writes that close to 90,000 people may have died. The Mongols in 1262 boasted to king Louis IX of France that they had killed two million in Baghdad, certainly an exaggeration.
The caliph Al-Musta'sim was captured and forced to watch as his citizens were murdered and his treasury plundered. According to most accounts, the caliph was killed by trampling. The Mongols rolled the caliph up in a rug, and rode their horses over him, as they believed that the earth would be offended if it were touched by royal blood. Hulagu had to move his camp upwind of the city, due to the stench of decay from the ruined city.
The historian David Morgan has quoted Wassaf (who himself was born in 1265, seven years after the razing of the city) describing the destruction: "They swept through the city like hungry falcons attacking a flight of doves, or like raging wolves attacking sheep, with loose reins and shameless faces, murdering and spreading terror...beds and cushions made of gold and encrusted with jewels were cut to pieces with knives and torn to shreds. Those hiding behind the veils of the great Harem were dragged...through the streets and alleys, each of them becoming a plaything...as the population died at the hands of the invaders.
” Some modern historians have cast doubt on the vehemently anti-Mongol medieval sources. George Lane (SOAS), for example, doubts the Grand Library was destroyed, as the learned members of the Mongol command such as Nasir al-Din Tusi would not have allowed it, and that disease was the major cause of death. Primary sources state that Tusi saved thousands of volumes and installed them into a building in Marāgheh.
Initially, the fall of Baghdad came as a shock to the whole Muslim world. But after many years of utter devastation, the city gradually became an economic center where international trade, the minting of coins and religious affairs flourished under the succeeding Ilkhanate. The Mongol chief Darughachi was thereafter stationed in the city.
Andy McNish:
The Ottomans didn't permit the printing press to be used for much else than printing copies of the Koran. This severely limited the spread of new ideas and knowledge throughout the Empire.
There is also the larger matter of Islam’s rejection of secularity. All aspects of society are subordinate and subject to religious doctrine. And, certainly post golden age, this fed into the idea that all knowledge someone needed was to be found in the Koran. Not likely to be the most fertile ground for intellectual curiosity and embracing of the Scientific Revolution.
Janos:
There’s an answer on Quora arguing for the importance of glasses. Europeans mastered lenses while Arabs did not; therefore an Arab scientist with worsening eyesight (=most middle-aged) more or less became irrelevant, while an European just had glasses made and continued reading and writing (=working). Some scientists, of course, manage to go on even completely blind, but for the bulk of learned men and therefore general progress, it’s a serious obstacle.
Cyrus di Leon:
Which is fascinating considering that a Muslim named Ibn Al Haythem invented the Science of Optics.
Derek Egan:
To put the emphasis on Holy Scripture or the Quaran leads to stagnation. Science has rewarded us with a standard of living that nudges religion to a less than meaningful role in life.
Tom Sigado:
It's a generalization, and an unsupported hunch, but tribalism seems to be a limiting factor to growth and advancement. It seems that when Nations are formed, civilization moves forward, while tribal culture stagnates. North and South America come to mind before Europeans arrived. Feudal Europe before the Renaissance, Africa, Afghanistan.
Competing nations had to pull resources from different groups and backgrounds, where tribal culture was more inward. The religious aspect, Islam and Mayan culture for example, more or less formed a massive tribe instead of a diverse population.
Paul Wellingslongmore:
I agree that an obsession with the Koran has cost the Muslim world dearly. Their overriding priority has clearly been to learn their bible and abide by its teachings as best they can. Perhaps they have sacrificed their scientific and industrial potential, because in their view submission to Allah is always the highest priority.
Over the past 400 years some have seen the military, economic and industrial downside to this approach and sought to correct the balance. The Ottomans spent their last 100 years frantically trying, without success, to make amends — socially, culturally, scientifically. But it was too little too late.
Many Muslims today console themselves (perhaps delude themselves) that modern science is not antithetical to the teachings of The Prophet, and that the Koran contains all the science one needs, including much contemporary empirical knowledge about cosmology and embryology, only recently discovered in the West.
Islam was spared the horrors that accompanied the Reformation, but in a sense has ever since suffered as a result.
Alpel Karaka:
After reaching prosperity European populations grew very fast while Ottomans suffered from population decline. This ultimately reflected on their military power as they had to fight much bigger armies they used to encountering. This reflected their war revenues as well. As a result they couldn’t fund the technologies requiring big sums of money. That was the turning point. Yet they were still in the status of a super power up until to the mid 18th century until to the death of Sultan Mahmud I.
Saul Martino:
Islam’s absolutist and tyrannical religious authority overrides everything in favor of a religion that refuses to change as Muhammad himself had identified that updates and changes had been made to Christianity and to Judaism in the New Testament and in the transcribing of the Torah and other parts of the Jewish religion.
This unwillingness to bend, compromise, or rationalize anything was important in maintaining and stopping loss through apostasy or changing from the fundamentalist view of Islam which has its benefits but one of those negative parts of the trade-off is that they are unable to change as a society.
This continues to this day where they cannot compromise they cannot change because the religion is too dominant over there entire lifestyle and it suffers no discussion or commentary or criticism whatsoever and will quash any dissenting voices violently. This also usually attracts huge levels of mob violence pretty quickly. It's very hard to innovate under these conditions.
Susanna Viljanen:
14. Women. Westerners treated women like human beings. Muslims treated (and still treat them) like something in-between domestic animals and furniture. Such society can never produce healthy families, which are the basis of the civil society, but will remain as a tribal culture.
Abdihakim Jama:
States in the Middle East generally do not have a lot of legitimacy. They were drawn up by imperial powers and the states generally use a lot of their money and manpower trying to control their populations who feel no loyalty to the state.
The Gulf states have largely circumvented this problem by bribing their populations with oil. If they did not have oil, they would have been thrown into civil war long ago.
Another reason for the lack of development is oil itself. That resource makes it feasible for states to exist without harnessing their populations. 2 out of 3 Saudi Arabians are employed by the government. According to civil service minister Khaled Alaraj, many Saudi government employees are really only working for an hour each day.
Saudi Arabians have really wasted their potential and are not employed in any meaningful capacity. Almost half (45%) of the government budget of Saudi Arabia is spent on paying salaries for all the people they employ on cushy but ultimately worthless jobs.
I assume that this is the same for basically all oil states in the Middle East.
There are good reasons for the lack of development of Arab/Islamic states but I think your argument is very low on the list. After all, nothing is actually stopping religious societies from becoming successful. Much of Europe was religious and yet they became so successful that they dominated the world pretty much.
Arab societies have always been religious and they were the dominant power on the globe for many centuries.
Gregory N:
Western scientific and technological progress frequently happened in spite of opposition from the Church authorities. The entire concept of scientific PROOF is anathema to religions that are founded on belief and faith where there is no proof. If the Koran states that there are 300 joints in the human body and medical science says that is wrong, what will be taught in Islamic madrassas?
Oriana:
Another geographical factor was that, not having to sail across the Atlantic Ocean, rougher by far than the Indian Ocean. The Muslim world did not develop heavy-duty ships capable of crossing the Atlantic or the Pacific. European ship designers faced the challenged of building ships strong enough to survive a storm in the Atlantic. This also taught them to design big armored military ships that proved useful for colonial conquest.
Indicus:
I believe the Muslim world was on its own path to a Renaissance/rational awakening similar to Europe which was cut short by the Mongol invasion. The outcome is clear for all the world to see.
Some of the most brutal Islamic invasions and cultural devastations of non-Muslims occurred after the Mongols retreated. Political Islam in the modern era probably is a byproduct of the cultural shift in the post-Mongol era that occurred centuries ago.
Abdihakim Yama:
Why the Arabic World Turned Away from Science — The New Atlantis — The most significant factor was physical and geopolitical. As early as the tenth or eleventh century, the Abbasid empire began to factionalize and fragment due to increased provincial autonomy and frequent uprisings. By 1258, the little that was left of the Abbasid state was swept away by the Mongol invasion. And in Spain, Christians reconquered Córdoba in 1236 and Seville in 1248.
But the Islamic turn away from scholarship actually preceded the civilization’s geopolitical decline — it can be traced back to the rise of the anti-philosophical Ash’arism school among Sunni Muslims, who comprise the vast majority of the Muslim world.
The dome of the mosque in Cordoba
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IS RUSSIA ON ITS WAY TO BECOME AN ISLAMIC REPUBLIC?
~ According to official demographic results for 2023, only 1.264 million babies were born in Russia. In 2024, 1.222 million babies were born, the lowest number since 1999. The first quarter of 2025 saw just 288,000 births, setting a new record for the lowest number of births since the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Fewer babies were born only in 1999 after the severe economic crises of the previous year — 1.214 million children. This was the absolute minimum since the Great Patriotic War (WW2) that caused deaths of thirty million Soviets. (Oriana: This is the highest estimate yet; I remember when it was 20 million dead, then 27 million.)
However, this number hides the unrecognized truth — Russian women give birth to one child per lifetime while wives of migrant workers from Central Asian have three children on average.
There are now more Muslims in Yekaterinburg, a large regional center in the Urals, than in Marseilles.
This is the result of the record low number of babies in 1999 who grew up and twenty four years later still haven’t had that many children because the average age of marriage is 28 trending towards 30. You just can’t win in this game of musical chairs.
Therefore, without migrants from Central Asian “stan” republics, whose menial labor keeps Russian economy afloat, the dire situation for the native population is comparable to mass famines and political purges of the 1930s.
Putin is actively making matters worse in the best Stalinist tradition and has already killed approximately more than 200,000 Russian men [Oriana: updated estimates are much higher] in Ukraine and caused a million people to leave the country.
Putin keeps asking Russians to have more babies but they as usual do exactly the opposite. He should have asked Russians to STOP having babies and then they would have more babies than migrant women to punish kleptocrats for wishing to genocide them because in Russia, birthrates rate YOU.
The silver lining is six hundred thousand conscripts born last year ready to fight Nazis in 2041, on the 100th anniversary of Great Patriotic War.
However, by the that time weaponry will be considerably more lethal and the next Putin will quickly run through the available biofuel and belatedly realize that there are no Russians left. They had all been expended by generations of Russians commanders with their meat attack tactics.
When Russian population is reduced to about 20 million, the authorities will recognize that the true value is not natural resources under the ground but infinitely resourceful human beings who live on the surface. ~ Misha Firer, Quora
Muslim praying in the streets of Moscow
Philippe S:
Don’t forget the 1 000 000+ young and usually bright Russians that fled the country since 2022 probably to never come back.
James G:
Again, the parallels with modern day America, each time I read one of these is, is nothing short of amazing. 1.2m births in a population of 144m in Russia (.8%)
In America, it’s 3.66m births in a population of 350m (1%)
So while technically America gives birth to more children than Russia, only by a very very small margin per capita — and 2023 was a banner year for childbirth in America — the first year in almost a decade with such high birth rates. Conversely, thanks to the Ukraine war, Russia’s population has declined.
Additionally, like Russia, at least 800,000 births in America come from legal/illegal immigrants. Our native population is being replaced.
One last point I would like to make. The West will never die. However, all of the western leftists would love nothing more than to convert us from our current constitutional republic into something very much resembling Soviet Russia.
Rich Ens:
Slightly more boys than girls are born each year. However, in the age 65 and up cohort, there are 225 women for every 100 men.
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GENERATIONS: THE HISTORY OF AMERICA’S FUTURE
~ Every generation is influenced by unique cultural events.
The resulting ideological differences lead to recurring crises, conflicts, and reconstructions.
It’s a compelling and marketable idea, but not without its flaws.
Ever heard of the phrase, “Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times”? Chances are you have. This catchy warning about the cyclical nature of history can be found in the most unlikely of places: internet memes, inspirational posters, and even embroidered onto sets of Etsy cushions.
Although generally attributed to author G. Michael Hopf’s post-apocalyptic novel Those Who Remain, the underlying idea probably originated with a 1991 book called Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584 to 2069. Written by William Strauss, a playwright, and Neil Howe, a historian and senior associate for the Global Aging Initiative’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, Generations argues the development of human civilization is heavily affected by and even mirrors the transition between different generations of human beings. According to the so-called Strauss-Howe hypothesis, as their train of thought is now known, history can be roughly divided into periods of 80 to 100 years. In each period, four generations compete for power, resulting in a crisis moment followed by radical social and political reconstruction.
In the case of the U.S., such crisis points include the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and the Second World War.
Aside from having at least some precedent in the field of sociology, the Strauss-Howe hypothesis or simply generational theory also appeals to common sense. Each generation is shaped by unique events and challenges, so it follows that their values would influence the events of their day. At the same time, the theory has drawn its fair share of criticism, with many claiming it’s more science fiction than science.
WEIGHT OF ANCESTORS
Although the topic has only attracted attention from scholars in recent decades, people have been talking about the importance of generations since the days of ancient Greece. When, in Homer’s Iliad, the Greek warrior Diomedes asks his Trojan foe Glaucus who he is, the latter doesn’t mention his age, sex, profession, or place of origin — instead, he gives a comprehensive overview of his entire family tree.
“Greathearted son of Tydeus,” he tells the Greek:
“Why do you question my lineage? / As is the generation of leaves, so too of men: / At one time the wind shakes the leaves to the ground,/ But then the flourishing woods / Give birth, and the season of spring comes into existence; / So it is of the generations of men, which come forth and pass away.”
Compared to the Christian Europe of medieval times, which emphasized the individual’s responsibility to live a morally upright life and enter heaven, the Homeric Greeks saw themselves first and foremost as the product of their forefathers, the fruits of their ancestry evident in their very person.
Even if they don’t accept every tenet of the Strauss-Howe hypothesis, many sociologists accept generation as one of the key factors explaining sociocultural change. In doing so, they follow the example of Karl Mannheim, a Hungarian scholar who argued generations are defined not by birthdays, but shared experiences that influence one’s values. Mannheim also argued that, for a generation to manifest, its members needed to actively acknowledge the experiences that influenced them — through books, news reporting, and other means of cultural production.
It’s the same with self-fulfilling prophecies, really; only when a group recognizes itself as a group does it begin to act as one.
Of course, it’s one thing to say generations are shaped by history, and another to say they shape history in turn. And while academics are happy to admit that first part, they continue to have strong doubts about the second.
PROBLEMS WITH THE STRAUSS-HOWE HYPOTHESIS
To some, generational theory is no more than pseudo-historicism blown out of proportion by the media, no more reliable than, say, the Phantom Time hypothesis, which makes the outrageous claim that Holy Roman Emperor Otto III added three centuries to the Gregorian calendar to make his own reign coincide with the year 1000 AD. (That’s another story, though.)
One of the biggest problems with the Strauss-Howe hypothesis is that generations are a subjective measurement, one that requires researchers to make gross generalizations about the individuals they study. It also operates on the questionable assumption, as the Forbes journalist Jessica Kriegel puts it, “that cultural events determine personality more than life experience and circumstance,” a claim many sociologists readily debate.
Strauss and Howe’s notably unacademic backgrounds should also ring some alarm bells. Bestselling writers first and scholars second, the duo has arguably masked their lack of expertise behind language compelling and marketable enough to turn Generations into a kind of media empire: the ninth book in the series, The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End, was released last year.
There are other problems. Generational theory holds that people’s worldview and behavior — decided by the era in which they were born — remain static throughout their lives. This is, of course, not the case, with numerous studies showing that things like religion, political beliefs, sexual preference, and even personality can change over a person’s lifetime. Furthermore, Strauss and Howe’s aspiration to apply their hypothesis on a global scale ignores the undeniable fact that generations — if there even is such a thing as a generation — form at different times in different countries and cultures, making it impossible to summarize world history by lining up randomly selected grandsons, sons, fathers, and grandfathers.
The fourth turning
The terms of the Strauss-Howe hypothesis are vague enough to the point that anyone can cherrypick evidence and create a persuasive narrative around them. That said, Strauss and Howe’s is pretty persuasive. Their assessment of the four generations that make up American society (Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, and the Baby Boomers), for instance, goes as follows:
The Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, grew up in a time of nearly uninterrupted economic growth, making them both optimistic and idealistic.
Gen X (1965-1980), raised during the hardships of the oil crisis, turned against the capitalist-consumerist culture their parents embraced, forming countercultures.
Gen Y (that is, Millennials, 1982-1994) was born during another period of financial security, one that coincided with the advent of the digital world. The comfortable, sheltered environment in which they grew up, Howe says in The Fourth Turning — an environment of Apple computers, Power Rangers cartoons, and a collapsing Soviet hegemony — made them self-assured, attention-seeking, and perfectionistic — qualities that, in the far less secure world we call home today, manifest as stress, burnout, and generalized anxiety disorder.
According to Howe, Millennials will soon upend the conservative order put in place by the Baby Boomers, transforming the country in much the same way as the Revolutionary War or Civil War have done before.
Time will tell if Strauss and Howe are right.
https://bigthink.com/the-past/strauss-howe-generational-theory-revolution-america/
Oriana:
The way that young people seem glued to their iPhones, I can hardly seem them engaging in political action. And then there is the enormous cloud of ignorance and misinformation suffocating the country. Still, technology marches on. I suspect it's technology (including the Internet) that is the critical factor. There is the need for new competencies, and the young are more adept at acquiring those competencies.
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PROJECT HAIL MARY: SURPRISINGLY DISAPPOINTING
With “Project Hail Mary,” the directing duo of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, working with the star power of Ryan Gosling, have made what could be described as TV-dinner sci-fi. There is a slight warmth to their reheated meal that elicits a few tears, even with a hint of overcooked cellophane.
An adaptation of The Martian author Andy Weir’s same-titled novel, “Project Hail Mary” follows Dr. Ryland Grace (Gosling) as he travels through space alone toward a distant star that he hopes holds the key to saving life on Earth. Along the way, however, he meets a surprising extraterrestrial being whose world is under threat as well. Their journey makes the expected visual nods to sci-fi classics and attempts to offer some blockbuster spectacle. But the harder the film tries, the more one feels pulled along rather than effortlessly transported.
Indeed, in a dimmer star’s hands, you could more acutely discern that former sensation. But Gosling, through his wit and charm (not to mention his attuned sense of physical comedy), keeps things moving, even when this sappy film not only narratively retraces its steps but also tells viewers exactly what they should be feeling at every millisecond.
That cueing, mostly through Daniel Pemberton’s splashy score, is only somewhat understandable. This is a non-linear story that opens quite abruptly with an unkempt Grace awakening from a deep sleep. His muscles are limp, and his brain is foggy; he squirms, crawls, and climbs—as though he were being reborn—through his ship, where he discovers the bodies of his two dead comrades. He doesn’t quite remember their names, how he knows them, or even how he ended up aboard this spacecraft.
Consequently, much of this film oscillates between Grace’s realization of the purpose of his mission and the earthly events that led to this moment. For the latter arc, we learn that Grace, a disgraced scientist turned schoolteacher, has been recruited [Oriana: "coerced" is a more accurate word] by Eva Stratt (Sandra Hüller) to save the world. Grace, along with many other scientists, has been told that an infection affecting the sun is causing the celestial body to die. In the next few decades, life on the planet will cease to exist.
I’ll save the how of Grace getting on the ship for your viewing pleasure, but for now, it’s worth noting that these flashback scenes are the strongest in the film. Despite his movie star resume, Gosling, in my opinion, isn’t necessarily the kind of lead you want solely shouldering the load of a blockbuster film. He plays so well off other actors (there’s a reason his biggest hits are often opposite co-stars capable of conjuring deeper meaning and greater spontaneity from him) that he often comes off as limited when he’s alone.
In “Project Hail Mary,” therefore, he accrues entertaining mileage playing with Lionel Boyce, who plays the initially intimidating government officer Carl. Even when a head-scratching needle-drop of Miriam Makeba’s “Pata Pata” happens during a carefree shopping trip to a hardware store, they maintain an endearing comedic rapport. The same goes for Gosling and Hüller. The German actress’s coy, deadpan deliveries are particularly inviting. In a film so intent on telegraphing everything, her keen withholding allows for the kind of mystery that permits a sci-fi film’s emotionality to hit with greater force. There’s a wonderful scene, for instance, where Hüller does a karaoke cover of “Sign of the Times”; this soars not just because of her vulnerable vocals, but because her dour expressions earlier in the film make this spark of life shine brighter.
Ironically, the film finds less to work with during its space sequences. To be clear, these sections aren’t lacking because of the high level of disbelief they must maintain. After all, during Grace’s interstellar travels, he encounters an alien ship whose sole survivor is a golem he affectionately names Rocky (voiced by James Ortiz). Despite their language barrier, the two eventually become friends, inspiring the movie to turn into the kind of unlikely buddy comedy that recalls Lord and Miller’s work on both “Jump Street” movies. Gosling is a fantastic scene partner, granting us pathos for a faceless alien character by virtue of his unique ability to offer everything of himself to land his partner’s set-up.
The film, instead, struggles when it departs from these grounded moments of an unassuming man becoming an unlikely hero to reach for grandeur. Lord and Miller believe they’ve made a transcendent, visually spellbinding film. It’s a belief they hope we share. And we would, if they would allow us the space to do so. Every scene in outer space—like the moment Grace and Rocky come to their destination—is rendered with an overwrought sensibility.
Lord and Miller immerse us in sweeping jets of green vapor, as Pemberton’s score is pushed up to piercing levels. In these moments, the directing pair is saying, “See! Look what we’ve created,” as though they’re trying to show why, visually, their film stands up to the many sci-fi classics they make reference to, ranging from “2001: A Space Odyssey” to “Interstellar.” Similarly, the film’s ending, which stretches on for far too long, can’t help but grasp for a betraying neatness.
Now, to be fair to Lord and Miller, they haven’t changed the film’s ending from the book. But part of adaptation is deciding what components to keep, drop, or morph, and what translates from page to screen. The kind of ending in a book where wishes are fulfilled and explanations are offered can still retain some magic precisely because it is not a film.
The presence of sound and movement in a film can make false endings more apparent, unnaturally pulling the audience from one emotion to another and causing each potential ending to only serve an obvious, singular purpose. The magic is lost.
There’s an overwhelming, heartwarming moment toward the end, when Lord and Miller have us in the palm of their hands. But then the film hurdles past that, making the last fifteen minutes a series of uplifting conclusions whose every beat forces that incredible emotion to recede. It’s an enjoyable, yet overly familiar, excursion. By disavowing narrative and aesthetic boundaries, “Project Hail Mary” struggles to become boundless.
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/project-hail-mary-ryan-gosling-movie-review-2026
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In Project Hail Mary, only the fate of the world is at stake. The Sun is dying because of mysterious black dots sucking the juice out of it. Enter everyone’s favourite science instructor, Dr. Grace (Ryan Gosling at his weepiest and most adorable), who’s currently teaching a Benetton ad’s menagerie of adorable STEM middle-schoolers to flout convention in his best approximation of Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society. See? He’s brilliant! And approachable. Suddenly, stoic, adorably autistic government spook Stratt (Sandra Hüller) shows up to spirit Dr. Grace away to a top-secret facility.
Dr. Grace is evidently a genius with a big mouth who was fired from his previous, prestigious non-teaching position, and that’s exactly the sort of rebel Stratt needs for her Project Hail Mary. What’s that you say? A last-ditch attempt to send a team to Armageddon the shit out of this problem? That’s right. Humanity, led by NASA (haha), is desperately building an interstellar vehicle with which they hope to visit nearby star Tau Ceti after a relatively short, near-lightspeed jaunt of 13 years–which, for Dr. Grace, should be no time at all, except that he’s placed in a coma and has a huge beard when he’s awakened at his destination, meaning that time does pass for him.
Which, if he’s traveling at near-lightspeed, shouldn’t be the case. I don’t really understand Relativity, I guess. Neither does Rocky (voiced by James Ortiz), a sentient rock monster straight out of Galaxy Quest who’s also on a trip to save his sun from the same space menace. Since traveling at lightspeed is impossible for a being with mass, Dr. Grace has potentially traveled enough below it that, like, a year or two passed for him within the 13 he spent in flight, maybe? I’m shooting around in the dark here.
Dr. Grace and Rocky, the last survivors of their planets’ Hail Marys, join forces to try to save their respective civilizations. It’s not entirely clear to me why the Eridians (Rocky’s people) don’t send a backup vehicle to Tau Ceti, given that they don’t appear to have the same fuel limitations the Earthling does, but, hey, this isn’t the “look under the hood” kind of sci-fi.
More Harry Harrison than Hal Clement, savvy? Working together involves montages where Dr. Grace programs his laptop to act as a universal translator, the exchange of detailed models to “puppet show” complicated stratagems (ostensibly to each other but actually for the popular audience Project Hail Mary hopes to (and did) attract), and the evolution of a deep and abiding friendship.
It seems Eridians watch one another sleep as an evolved protective response. Isn’t that sweet? And as we learn more about Grace, we realize he’s not the courageous type required of what is designed to be a suicide mission as much as he’s a flawed human who must behave like the hero Rocky thinks Grace is. Suffice it to say, the middle of the film is the gooey center of a decadent confection that, despite the nutrition label promising some good-for-you sciencing-the-hell-out-of-it competency porn, is awfully saccharine. At least there’s no eating of poop potatoes this time [Oriana: An allusion to The Martian, a better-by-far survivalist movie}.
Instead, find a few ginormous action sequences, lots of companionable patter packed with amiable mondegreens and more-than-generally acceptable scenes of two bros hanging out and watching the ocean. As a cartoon for children, Project Hail Mary is both really fun and a painful reminder of what these guys could’ve done with Solo: A Star Wars Story had they been allowed to mess around in that sandbox. Deep space isn’t the only thing weightless about it, though, unless you need a reminder that friends are important and Earth is dying under the weight of a handful of assholes.
In the final calculus, I have the same complaint about this film as I do about Hoppers: they’re just so Pollyannaish about our chances. The assumptions they make about adequately functioning systems and human cooperation are curiously out of tune with everything we’ve seen in the past six years. Try watching Outbreak in 2026 without breaking into a nihilistic smirk at its portrayal of a government that cares about you and an operational Center for Disease Control. As if, you guys, we can’t even all agree to wear a mask to protect other human beings.
Build a spaceship to Tau Ceti? First convince me you could persuade this government and its citizens that the Rapture is a bad thing and science is real. I wouldn’t say that Hoppers and Project Hail Mary are toxic in their optimism, but their optimism does feel like propaganda. It’s good for kids to believe there are smart people in charge, I guess. But sell your crazy elsewhere, as the man once said. We’re all full up here.
https://filmfreakcentral.net/2026/03/hoppers-2026-project-hail-mary-2026/
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SHORT ON SCIENCE, LONG ON HUMANITY
Ryan Gosling, embodying a Tom Hanks-style good guy vibe, gives a brilliant performance, along with a puppet, in a space opera that is short on science but long on humanity.
Gosling plays science teacher Ryland Grace, who is Shanghaied by desperate scientists trying to save life on earth. He is put into an induced coma against his will and wakes up on a spaceship in interstellar space far from earth.
At first, he can't remember why he is there, but his memory gradually returns. He is there to solve a mystery which threatens all life on earth.
Grace is an expert on an interstellar organism called astrophage which is sucking the life out of the sun. The earth is cooling off and will gradually freeze unless he can find out how to stop the astrophage on a distant world he calls Adrian. Adrian and its sun, Tau Ceti are the only solar system in this part of the galaxy are unaffected by astrophage.
Grace is not the only spaceman headed for Adrian. An alien ship from 40 Eridani intercepts Grace's ship. It turns out the ship, run by a mechanic that Grace calls Rocky (the aforementioned puppet) because of his rock-like appearance, is on the same kind of mission that Grace is on — to find out how to stop the astrophage from destroying his world. Both Grace and Rocky are in the same boat, so to speak, because they are on their own after their respective crews have died on the trip to Adrian.
Grace and Rocky discover how to communicate with each other and decide to help each other solve the riddle of the the astrophage. They figure out a way to sample the atmosphere of Adrian, which may hold the secret they both need to discover to save their worlds.
The mission is very difficult and there are many dangers. Grace and Rocky both have to make very difficult decisions if they are going to complete their missions. Through it all Grace and Rocky become close friends, even though they cannot touch each other because the atmospheres they breathe are completely incompatible.
The science of this mission makes no sense, but the friendship between Grace and Rocky is a beautiful thing. Grace represents the best of humanity, and Rocky is equally admirable. Positive role models like these are much needed now, when some very bad people are causing so much pain, suffering and death in the world. I can see why this movie is so popular. It makes the audience proud to be human beings.
The pacing of the movie is pretty slow, but patience is rewarded by this movie's positive message. This movie rates a B.
http://www.lariat.org/AtTheMovies/new/hailmary.html
Oriana:
This is a buddy movie. The science fiction part of it is only a background that requires a heavy suspension of disbelief. Bacteria eating the stars, including the Earth’s Sun? But never mind. Ultimately this movie rides not on “science,” but on charm. It’s a buddy movie first, save the universe movie later. It teaches us that nothing is more precious than love.
The viewers also learn about the tremendous importance of predators. It’s ultimately a microbial predator that saves our Sun, humanity, and basically the universe.
Gosling plays a charming-enough unwilling astronaut, his unwillingness brought to us in flashbacks, as if we didn’t get it the first time. One saving grace (no pun intended) of it is that we get to see the stern female director of the mission, whose stern aloofness of a domineering mother in the guise of professionalism is perhaps a one-note trick, but it is impressive nonetheless. This unwomanly woman won’t take No for an answer, and with the survival of humanity at stake, the end justifies the means. One can even imagine her as the iron-willed, unsmiling savior-astronaut — not that Gosling’s performance is inadequate in any way. It’s just fine, and we are of course charmed by his growing attachment to the somewhat spider-like alien he names Rocky.
Rocky is indeed rock-like. A friend described him as a “refreshing-looking alien.” No huge heads with oversize eyes in this movie. No undersize stick-like bodies. Only, as humans might put it, a big heart.
The man-meet-alien theme, now that boy-meets-girl movies seem so previous-millennium, is still reasonably exciting, though it’s no longer a virgin territory. It’s Rocky that turns out to be a caring mother, very protective of our unwilling human savior. The cheering alien children are my favorite scene in the movie, a minor masterpiece in itself. It’s so heart-warming that for that one charming moment I was willing to forgive the movie its duller stretches and distracting flash-backs.
“Project Hail Mary” didn’t turn out to be a spectacular science fiction movie I expected, given its popularity — but then who doesn’t love the positive emotions of a true bromance? Forget science, forget logic — it’s the message of true friendship that is particularly welcome in our hostility-riven times.
Here is a fun explanation of the Eridians:
https://mashable.com/article/project-hail-mary-ending-book-vs-movie#:~:text=You%20May%20Also%20Like,trusted%20news%20source%20in%20Google.
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SMALL PLEASURES CAN PROVIDE MOMENTS OF RAPTURE
~ Rapture is a delight that turns us both towards the object of attention and towards oneself, resulting in a sense of freedom.
One day last week, I woke having slept well. The whole day ahead was free, giving me the sense that its time stretched infinitely before me. It was cold outside, but an intense winter sun streamed through the bedroom windows when I opened the curtains. I had, for obscure reasons, or perhaps for no reason at all, an urgent need to listen to some music and so, having made myself some coffee, I put on Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E-flat major, Op 44.
And then, wanting something less exuberant, I listened to Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, which then led me back to the poem by Mallarmé, ‘L’après-midi d’un faune’ (1876), that had inspired Debussy’s piece. The poem, like much of Mallarmé’s work, depends heavily on the sounds, the touch, the taste in the mouth, of the French language, and evokes a deep sense of sensuality – a sensuality that is also the poem’s main theme. I spent many hours that day lingering over Mallarmé’s poem, allowing, as best I could, the words to seep into me – and that really was the sensation I had, as if the words were entering into my flesh.
The hours I spent that morning I would describe as moments of rapture. They revolved around an engagement with some wonderful works of art, but I certainly would not wish to claim that it is only in such engagement that we can experience moments of rapture. There are many ways in which we can, and a great deal of these concern an attention to the small things of life – such as, for example, the wonderful winter light pouring through my windows on the morning in question, which was certainly part of my feeling then.
And there are no doubt many ways of understanding the notion of rapture, as there are of any complex human experience. But, as I would like to understand it, at least as a point of departure for reflection, rapture is a particular kind of pleasure or delight that turns us in two directions at the same time: towards the object of attention, in which we are wholly absorbed, and towards oneself in a heightened state of consciousness. And with this comes a sense of freedom or liberation.
The key example of this is the kind of abandonment we can experience in sexual love, the deepest of our pleasures: in the act of sex, one is wholly absorbed in the other person, lost in the delight and excitement of being with them; yet, at the same time, one is acutely conscious of oneself as delighting in this, of oneself as experiencing all this. In his wonderful novel G. (1972), John Berger brings this out beautifully when he writes of G making love with Beatrice:
Her difference from him acts like a mirror. Whatever he notices or dwells upon in her, increases his consciousness of himself, without his attention shifting from her. It is perhaps this extraordinary combination of attention to the other that is also attention to oneself that helps us understand the peculiar absorption we feel in sex. This is why, as Berger also writes, ‘the only poem to be written about sex [is] – here, here, here, here – now.’
The sense of rapture I experienced that morning with the music and the words of Mallarmé, though it may seem very far from sexual experience – and it is, of course, in many ways – is nonetheless characterized by the same sense of turning entirely towards the object, as I was lost in the music and poetry, my attention wholly absorbed by them, together with a heightened sense of myself as experiencing this, as delighting in the sounds.
And, as I suggested, crucial in these experiences of rapture is a sense of freedom or liberation: in such moments, we are freed from the travails of the self, its anxieties and worries, its woundedness and vulnerability, its foolishness – which is just our own particular version of the distressing and illimitable foolishness of human beings. We feel freed too from what Virginia Woolf called the ‘cotton wool’ of life – the banal activities with which most of life is filled. Moments of rapture are what Woolf thought of as ‘moments of being’, moments that light up our otherwise largely flat quotidian existence and release us into a kind of plenitude.
Woolf is right, of course. Most of life for those of us who are fortunate enough to live in parts of the world where we enjoy basic political and social stability – a precious rarity in human affairs – is taken up with such things, in Woolf’s words, as this: “One walks, eats, sees things, deals with what has to be done; the broken vacuum cleaner; ordering dinner; writing orders to Mabel; washing; cooking dinner; bookbinding.”
At best, we simply forget these tedious practicalities; at worst, they leave us enervated, grinding us down. It is one of the dispiriting ironies of our contemporary bourgeois condition, of our ‘administered society’ as Theodor Adorno put it, that our lives are in so many ways drained of significance, lacking any kind of axiological destination or summation. This is the problem of the disenchanted, modern self that has been largely stripped of all transcendence and construed in naturalistic terms – at least for those of us who can no longer believe in the promises of the old religions.
Hence, in my view, the problems Western societies have with the endless forms of addiction that we have at our disposal – from drugs and pornography to the internet, smartphones and the reality TV that reflects back to us our own banality – as we go in search of release in moments of rapture from the flatness of our lives. But we know that these forms of escape are degraded forms of what we really long for, and leave us only more distressed than before. Even the appalling sight of catastrophic species depletion and the realities of global warming hardly touch us. As the philosopher Michael McGhee put it in Spirituality for the Godless (2021):
“It is no accident that the image of the house on fire is a climate emergency trope. And we are all inside: most of us in the Western world pacified, controlled, and absorbed in our games and diversions.”
As McGhee says, change, if there is to be any, must come largely from the inside because, as he puts it: ‘There is no one outside with more attractive options.’ In this, he aligns himself with many of the noblest spirits of modernity, those in rebellion against our modern condition and who offer us hope for moments of rapture that are not degraded. One of these is most certainly Woolf, who herself possessed a kind of rapturously mystical vision of the oneness of all things behind local appearances, expressed in many of her novels – perhaps particularly The Waves (1931) – and from which we might learn to look again at the world with fresh eyes.
I think here too of the highwire walker, juggler, pickpocket, magician, unicyclist, woodworker, horserider and writer Philippe Petit, most famous for his highwire walk between the twin towers of the World Trade Center on 7 August 1974. Interviewed for the documentary Man on Wire (2008), Petit said: To me it’s really so simple that life should be lived on the edge of life. You have to exercise rebellion. To refuse to tape yourself to rules. To refuse your own success. To refuse to repeat yourself. To see every day, every year, every idea as a true challenge. And then you are going to live your life on a tightrope.
Petit shows us how rapture can be connected with danger, in his case, extreme danger: he makes of that danger his rapturous delight and joy. But the point is not, of course, that this is what we should do – though we might. Rapture can be calm and meditative, as in my experience that morning, as well as found in experiences such as Petit’s. It is not a matter of seeking to imitate Petit. It is a question, rather, of trying to catch something in our own lives of the spirit of rapture in which Petit lives, making space for moments of rapture and, perhaps, turning ourselves around a little from the inside and living more in that spirit.
So perhaps there is some help from the outside after all. This is how I like to think of Petit, in any case: he awakens us to something better in ourselves, an openness to the rapture of life. In this, he is at one with some others – Woolf, but also Friedrich Nietzsche, Albert Camus, D H Lawrence and George Orwell among others. ‘We ought to dance with rapture that we should be alive and in the flesh, and part of the living, incarnate cosmos,’ wrote Lawrence in Apocalypse (1931). In a similar spirit, Orwell, speaking of Shakespeare, in 1947 wrote: “Shakespeare was not a philosopher or a scientist, but he did have curiosity, he loved the surface of the earth and the process of life – which … is not the same thing as wanting to have a good time and stay alive as long as possible.”
Orwell was a very different man from Lawrence, but they shared a love of ‘the surface of the earth and the process of life’. Inflected in different ways, they offer us a sense of the rapture we can find simply in being alive, if only we can open ourselves to it.
There is in these individuals, and no doubt many others, an openness to the force and energy of life that is exemplary – and rapturous. This is not because they were always in a state of rapture; it would obviously be silly to suppose that, as we see from their lives. In any case, to be in such a state permanently, even supposing that this were possible, would surely be utterly exhausting and enervating: here, as elsewhere, we need variety in life. It is rather that they lead their life in a spirit of rapture; their life is colored through and through by such an idea. Be that as it may, it would be a mistake if we were to look at these thinkers and then go in pursuit of rapturous moments. Just as pursuing happiness is most likely to make it flee from our grasp, so the same is true with rapture. The point is that of being open to the relevant possibilities. This is no doubt largely a matter of cultivating a certain kind of sensibility.
Nietzsche, who spoke of himself as being like dynamite, and whose name is generally associated with the spirit of ‘philosophizing with a hammer’, in fact gave a great deal of attention to what he called ‘small things’: the moments of everyday life that can make life for us a source of joy – or a vale of tears.
He recommends that we start each day by asking ourselves what we can do to make the day agreeable, and suggests that this depends greatly on how we approach and organize the small things of life – what and when to eat and drink, when to rest, what to read, when to take a walk and so on. He is counseling us to slow down, notice things, pay attention. He is certainly right that most of us rush through life and miss the gentle rapture that can come from such attention to the world and ourselves.
Human beings are, in general, very bad at seeing clearly what is good for them and acting in accord with that. I am probably no better than anyone else at doing it, but I hear Nietzsche’s voice and that of those others I have mentioned and many more – Michel de Montaigne, for example – gently pulling me back to my better thoughts and feelings. They recall us to the sources of delight in life – to its rapturous possibilities. ~
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“The most valuable thing we can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of room, not try to be or do anything whatever. ~ May Sarton
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The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones. ~ William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
Julius Gaius Caesar (he was a macrocephalic, meaning he had an unusually large head)
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EUROPE’S LOST FRONTIERS : DOGGERLAND
~ About 9,000 years ago Britain was connected to continental Europe by an area of land called Doggerland, which is now submerged beneath the southern North Sea.
Doggerland was a mix of marshes, swamps, wooded valleys and hills, and was most likely inhabited by humans during the Mesolithic period (10,000 to 8,000 BCE). It was teeming with migrating wildlife and served as a seasonal hunting ground for humans.
However, as ice melted at the end of the last glacial period, sea levels rose and Doggerland eventually became submerged, cutting off the British peninsula from the European continent by around 7,000 BC.
Dogger Bank briefly remained an island before submerging underwater. The area today is known among fishermen to be a productive fishing bank and is very shallow at only about 50 to 120 ft (15 - 36 m) deep.
Over the years fishermen from the North Sea have dredged up hand-made bone artifacts, textile fragments, paddles, dug-out canoes, fish traps, a 13,000-year-old human remain, a woolly mammoth skull and a skull fragment of a 40,000-year-old Neanderthal. ~ Shiv Tandon, Quora
The only lands on Earth that have not been explored in any depth by science are those that have been lost to the oceans. Global warming at the end of the last Ice Age led to the inundation of vast landscapes that had once been home to thousands of people. These lost lands hold a unique and largely unexplored record of settlement and colonization linked to climate change over millennia. Amongst the most significant is Doggerland.
Occupying much of the North Sea basin between continental Europe and Britain it would have been a heartland of human occupation and central to the process of re-settlement and colonization of north Western Europe during the Mesolithic and the Neolithic.
Within this submerged landscape lies fragmentary yet valuable evidence for the lifestyles of its inhabitants including the changes resulting from both the encroaching sea and the introduction of Neolithic technologies. This inundated landscape cannot be explored conventionally; however, pioneering work by members of this project has led to the rediscovery of Doggerland through the creation of the first detailed topographic maps relating to human occupation in the Early Holocene.
(The Holocene is the current geological epoch, beginning approximately 11,700 years ago. It follows the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene together form the Quaternary period. Wikipedia)
Within the Europe’s Lost Frontiers project, world-leading innovators in the fields of archaeo-geophysics, molecular biology and computer simulation are developing a ground-breaking new paradigm for the study of past environments, ecological change and the transition between hunter gathering societies and farming in north west Europe.
https://www.bradford.ac.uk/archaeological-forensic-sciences/research/europes-lost-frontiers/
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ONCE MORE: CONSUME MORE FIBER FOR BETTER COGNITIVE FUNCTION
1) Fiber feeds beneficial microbes in the gut, improving the integrity of the gut lining.
2) A healthy gut prevents systemic inflammation
3) Tamping down inflammation helps to optimize the brain, both for mood and cognition.
“It’s paradoxical that the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn’t appeal to anyone.” ~ Andy Rooney
A new study has found that a simple prebiotic could boost beneficial bacteria in the gut and improve scores on a cognitive test in people over 65. This could be fantastic news to those worried about the seemingly inevitable descent into dementia as we age. The study, conducted by Clare Steves, Mary Ní Lochlainn, Kevin Whelan, and colleagues at King’s College, London, found that the people taking a prebiotic fiber had significantly better scores on a test called the paired associates learning test. This visual-memory test is often used to detect early signs of Alzheimer’s.
One of the authors, Mary Ní Lochlainn, said, “Those who received the prebiotic had half the number of errors on this test compared with the group that received a placebo.” She noted that the changes brought about by the prebiotic happened quickly. “We are excited to see these changes in just 12 weeks. This holds huge promise for enhancing brain health and memory in our aging population,” she said.
The researchers found that the prebiotic fiber boosted specific healthy bacteria, including Bifidobacteria. This is among the first bacteria we acquire as babies when we get milk. Mother’s milk contains Bifidobacteria, and gives us a jump start.
Bifidobacteria produces short-chain fatty acids that both nourish and heal the cells lining the gut. Keeping your gut in the pink of health prevents bacteria and toxins from seeping into the bloodstream, where they get pumped to every organ in the body, potentially causing widespread inflammation.
Some of these fatty acids also make it to the brain, where they encourage the growth and repair of brain cells. As we age and consume less milk, our levels of Bifidobacteria slowly decline. But the standard American diet (SAD) also contains precious little fiber, which also reduces the amount of Bifidobacteria even more. By the time we’re 65, we have very little Bifidobacteria left, and its absence is felt in a thousand little ways from stiff knees to diabetes, high blood pressure, depression, and cognitive difficulties.
Studies like this often have a lot of noise, particularly because people are so variable, both genetically and microbially. But King’s College has a large group of twins they can tap for research, this cleans up the signal considerably, eliminating the genetic difference between subjects. Twins also have gut microbiomes that are more similar to each other, as compared with unrelated people. By giving one twin the prebiotic and the other a placebo, researchers were able to get clean results.
This wasn’t a large study, but the study of twins gives it some extra power.
The study also comports with several other studies showing that consuming fiber—dietary and supplemental—is associated with better cognitive performance.
If a simple supplement such as fiber can help prevent cognitive loss, it points to a hopeful future for dementia and Alzheimer's. It also implies that we could benefit from foods with higher fiber. This includes veggies like asparagus, Jerusalem artichokes, lentils, onions, and garlic. To satisfy the sweet tooth, raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries are good sources of fiber as well.
Food manufacturers are still trying to learn this lesson, but for now, most processed foods are extremely low in fiber. And sadly, most Americans get over half of their calories from fast or processed food.
Knowledge is power, and now that you know how your gut microbes can keep your cognition at an optimal level, what are you waiting for? Eat a veggie. Maybe even try a fiber supplement. Today is a good day to start.
Bifidobacterium longum
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mood-by-microbe/202403/can-fiber-improve-cognition-in-the-elderly
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WEIGHT LOSS DRUGS MAY HELP TREAT ADDICTION
As drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic have become popular weight loss tools, some doctors and patients are also seeing a surprising side effect: diminished cravings for alcohol.
Megan Johnston started taking semaglutide, the active ingredient in several brands of weight loss drugs, last year to try to lose weight. The 38-year-old Arlington, Virginia, real estate agent said she gained 30 pounds during the pandemic, and was drinking more too. "At my check-up last year I remember telling my doctor I was drinking upwards of 15 drinks a week," Johnston told CBS News.
She's severely cut back since then. "Some weeks, none," she said of her drinking habits these days. "Last week was one. Maybe average three.”
Johnston is among many patients who've reported fewer cravings for alcohol while taking semaglutide for weight loss.
"If it turns out that this medication is safe and effective for treating addiction, just by dint of how many people are already taking these medications for other purposes, this would become really the largest and most widely used pharmacotherapy for addiction medicine that's ever been developed," said Kyle Simmons, the director of Oklahoma State University's Biomedical Imaging Center and a professor of pharmacology and physiology.
Simmons is running one of several clinical trials currently underway to examine whether semaglutide reduces cravings for alcohol.
He says the drug affects the brain and appears to remove the pleasure received from drinking alcohol. But he also made it clear, "We just don't know yet whether or not the medication is safe and effective for the treatment of alcohol use disorder.”
As with most medications, Wegovy and Ozempic also come with the risk of side effects. The most common, according to Ozempic's website, are nausea, stomach pain, constipation, diarrhea and vomiting.
"Chronic abdominal pain and unpredictable digestive symptoms such as nausea, diarrhea, fullness or constipation can take a significant toll on your mood and energy levels," Laurie A. Keefer, an academic health psychologist and the Director for Psychobehavioral Research at Mount Sinai's Division of Gastroenterology, previously told CBS News.
Rarer but more serious side effects of Ozempic may include thyroid tumors, pancreatitis, changes in vision, hypoglycemia, gallbladder issues, kidney failure and cancer.
It's also unclear how these drugs might affect people after long-term use.
The drugs are also not cheap. In 2023, Wegovy was in short supply and cost around $1,300 a month. [Oriana: the price has already come down, and is expected to keep dropping. At present, Costco offers the best price.]
Johnston, however, has been happy with the results.
"I went into it optimistic. Low expectations, and it certainly panned out for me," she said. Johnston said she lost 45 pounds over seven months and cut her drinking by 75%.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ozempic-wegovy-alcohol-addiction-treatment/
Oriana:
These findings are not surprising. The new weight loss drugs are appetite suppressants; perhaps craving for cupcakes isn't so different from craving for alcohol.
Tea and coffee are natural appetite suppressants.
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EATING YOGURT MAY LOWER DIABETES RISK
The FDA said that it will not object to the use of a qualified health claim that eating yogurt is associated with a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes, the the agency announced. One study, published in BMC Medicine in 2014, which supported this claim, showed that every one serving of yogurt per day was incrementally linked with a 17% lower risk for development of type 2 diabetes (HR 0.83, 95% CI 0.75-0.92). The same study failed to find a significant association between total dairy consumption and type 2 diabetes risk.
Of note, the association between yogurt intake and reduced risk of type 2 diabetes is based on yogurt itself as a food and not a particular nutrient or compound in yogurt, regardless of fat or sugar content.
"We know that a growing body of research suggests regular yogurt consumption could reduce your risk of developing one of the most significant and rapidly rising health ailments in the United States," said Miguel Freitas, PhD, Danone North America's vice president of Health and Scientific Affairs, in a company press release. "That's why we decided to submit a petition for this first-of-its-kind qualified health claim. Our hope is that this announcement will empower consumers with simple, actionable information they can use to help lower their risk of developing type 2 diabetes through a realistic, easy-to-make dietary modification.”
The FDA considers 2 cups, or 3 servings, per week of yogurt to be the minimum amount to make this qualified health claim, so yogurt companies can word claims like the following: "Eating yogurt regularly, at least 2 cups (3 servings) per week, may reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes. FDA has concluded that there is limited information supporting this claim.”
Oriana:
The frequent objection here is that those who eat yogurt also tend to consume a good diet overall.
Not everyone enjoys yogurt, or can consume it without experiencing bloating. I fall into the latter category. Fortunately, those of us who can't tolerate yogurt or simply don't like the taste, there is BERBERINE. When it comes to blood sugar in particular, I am fascinated by the ability of berberine to lower fasting blood glucose. Add to this berberine's ability to produce an amazing blood lipid profile, and you have a super-supplement that arguably outperforms metformin.
WHAT KIND OF YOGURT IS BEST?
Naturally present milk sugars (lactose) contribute to yogurt's carbohydrate count, which means it's impossible to have a zero-carb yogurt. If you have diabetes, look for Greek yogurt or Icelandic yogurt (also called skyr).
During the preparation of these types of yogurt, some of the whey is removed, leaving behind a thick, protein-rich product with fewer carbs than other types of yogurt. They also have lower levels of lactose than other yogurts. This makes them easier to digest, especially for people with lactose intolerance.
Greek yogurt has about 25% fewer carbs than plain yogurt. That difference doesn't take into consideration added fruit, flavoring, or sugars. Sticking to the lower-carb yogurt and keeping toppings to a minimum will allow you to build a snack that has between 10 and 15 grams of carbohydrates, which is ideal if you have diabetes.
Non-dairy yogurts such as those made with almond, coconut, or soy milk are available in low-carb varieties. Check labels carefully, though, since thickeners and sugar are often added to these plant-based yogurts to make them rich and thick.
Greek yogurt is generally the highest in protein. In fact, Greek yogurt has about 16 grams of protein per 6-ounce container. Most conventional yogurts, including those made from plant milk, have between 0 and 9 grams of protein per 6-ounce serving.
Protein and fat help slow the rate at which glucose enters the bloodstream.
Yogurt contains a mix of live bacteria and yeasts. They provide a range of health benefits, but they're considered especially helpful with digestive health.
A 2017 study reported that people with type 2 diabetes who consumed three 100-gram portions (3.5 ounces) of probiotic yogurt per day had lower blood glucose, cholesterol, and diastolic blood pressure than a matched set of individuals who didn't consume yogurt.
A 2021 review concluded that probiotics may have a glucose-lowering effect in people with type 2 diabetes. The effect appeared to be stronger in participants with poorly controlled diabetes and those not taking insulin.
For people with diabetes, plain Greek or Icelandic yogurt made from cow milk is ideal, but those crafted from the milk of goats and sheep are also great options. They tend to be lower in lactose and some research shows goat and sheep milk are less inflammatory than cow milk thanks to their different fatty acid profile. Goat milk is also higher in calcium than cow milk.
Yogurt (whether Greek or regular) has been found to reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes by 14% if consumed daily, according to a 2017 review of studies published in the Journal of Nutrition.
https://www.verywellhealth.com/greek-yogurt-nutrition-1087149
Oriana:
If unsweetened plain yogurt doesn’t appeal to you, consider using a sweetener called ALLULOSE. Research suggests that allulose has anti-inflammatory properties and may help prevent obesity and reduce the risk of chronic disease. ( https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/allulose)
Personally I can tolerate only a small amount of yogurt. A regular portion makes me feel bloated. Since yogurt is widely touted as a superfood, I tried to consume it in spite of my symptoms — until I finally listened to my body, and the sick, weak, bloated feeling I experienced after eating it vanished. I no longer needed to lie down after breakfast.
(Oddly enough it wasn't just abdominal ache that I experienced after eating yogurt; it was the loss of energy that I found particularly disturbing, since I like the morning hours for the sense of "fresh mind" they typically give me.)
Another "superfood" I learned to avoid is oatmeal. It turns out that the protein in oatmeal is similar to gluten. I can eat bread, but not oatmeal. Each body has its eccentricities. Lesson: listen to your body, not to the "nutrition experts."
(Even though I can eat bread without later paying for it with a sickly feeling, I stopped eating bread after talking with a CDC expert who told me that gluten causes inflammation in everyone; it's just that some individuals experience particularly severe inflammation.)
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ALLULOSE MAY TURN OUT TO BE A POWERFUL TOOL FOR MANAGING DIABETES
Several animal studies have found that the sweetener allulose may lower blood sugar, increase insulin sensitivity, and decrease the risk of type 2 diabetes by protecting the insulin-producing beta cells of the pancreas.
In a study comparing the effects of consuming allulose, cellulose, and a commercial diet in rats with insulin resistance, the allulose group had improved insulin sensitivity after 7 weeks.
Some research suggests that allulose may help increase the loss of fat, including unhealthy belly fat. This type of fat is strongly linked to heart disease and several other health conditions.
In a study of 121 Korean adults, participants took 4 g or 7 g of allulose or a placebo twice per day for 12 weeks. The group taking the larger amount of allulose showed a significant decrease in body fat percentage and mass, including abdominal fat.
Another small study of 13 healthy adults found that taking 5 g of allulose before a meal appeared to lead to improved energy metabolism after they ate, which could help manage body weight.
Studies in rats and mice have found that, in addition to preventing weight gain, allulose seems to reduce fat storage in the liver.
Hepatic steatosis, more commonly known as fatty liver, is strongly linked to insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.
At the same time as allulose may promote fat loss in the liver and body, it may protect against muscle loss.
Allulose naturally occurs in small amounts in foods such as figs, molasses, and raisins. ~
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/allulose#manage-blood-sugar
Oriana:
I’ve been using allulose for about two years now, and I could never go back to sugar. Allulose is sweet without a bitter aftertaste. Try it: you won’t miss sugar one bit.
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GLP-1 DRUGS LIKE OZEMPIC LINKED TO LOWER COLORECTAL CANCER DEATH RISK
GLP-1s were linked to a lower death risk in colon cancer in a recent study
Researchers have been examining other potential health benefits from GLP-1 agonist medications outside of type 2 diabetes management and weight loss.
Recent studies have found that GLP-1 medications may be linked to a decreased risk for certain cancers, including colorectal cancer.
A new study found GLP-1 medications may help lower mortality risk for people who have colon cancer.
As glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) agonist medications have been gaining in popularity, researchers have been examining other potential health benefits from these drugs outside of type 2 diabetes management and weight loss.
For example, recent studies have found that GLP-1 medications may be linked to improved heart health, kidney health, and brain health.
Previous research has also associated GLP-1 drugs to a decreased risk for certain cancers, including endometrial cancer, ovarian cancer, and colorectal cancer.
“GLP‑1 receptor agonists are biologically pleiotropic,” Raphael Cuomo, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Anesthesiology at UC San Diego School of Medicine, told Medical News Today.
“This means that, “in addition to lowering blood sugar and weight, they modulate inflammation, cardiovascular physiology, gastric emptying, and potentially tumor biology,“ Cuomo explained.
“As their clinical use accelerates across populations with high cardiometabolic risk, understanding nonglycemic effects becomes a public‑health imperative, particularly where mechanisms plausibly intersect with cancer progression and survival,” he said.
Adding to what we know about GLP-1 medications and colorectal cancer risk, Cuomo is the lead author of a new study recently published in the journal Cancer Investigation, which found that GLP-1 medications may help lower mortality risk for people who have colon cancer, a type of colorectal cancer.
Cuomo explained: “Colon cancer outcomes are tightly coupled to metabolic dysregulation and obesity. GLP‑1 Receptor Agonists act precisely on those pathways. Clinical evidence on cancer endpoints has been limited and heterogeneous, creating a clear knowledge gap despite strong biologic plausibility. Leveraging the University of California Health Data Warehouse enabled a real‑world analysis of 6,871 patients with primary colon cancer and rigorous adjustment strategies to probe whether GLP‑1 RA exposure relates to five‑year mortality.
GLP-1 RAs like Ozempic work by increasing insulin secretion, slowing down stomach emptying, and signaling the brain to feel full, which helps control blood sugar and appetite. At the end of the study, researchers found that participants with colon cancer taking GLP-1 medications had a 15.5% mortality risk within 5 years, compared to 37.1% in participants not taking the drugs.
At the same time, effects were concentrated among patients with BMI ≥35 in several different types of statistical modeling, indicating that the benefit may be driven by attenuation of the adverse physiology associated with excess adiposity,” he added. “These patterns position the result as a biologically coherent signal that warrants prospective testing.”
“GLP‑1 RAs improve insulin sensitivity, reduce systemic inflammation, and may modulate the tumor microenvironment,” he told us. “These mechanisms are linked to slowed proliferation and enhanced apoptosis in preclinical studies. They also reduce cardiovascular events that compete with cancer‑specific risks, suggesting a dual pathway to improved survival,” Cuomo said.
As for the next steps of this research, Cuomo said first is a randomized, controlled evaluation of GLP‑1 RAs as an adjunct to standard colon cancer therapy, stratified by body mass index (BMI) and timed relative to surgery and systemic therapy.
Increasing evidence of GLP-1s’ potential anticancer effect
MNT had the opportunity to speak with Anton Bilchik, MD, PhD, a surgical oncologist, chief of medicine and director of the Gastrointestinal and Hepatobiliary Program at Providence Saint John’s Cancer Institute in Santa Monica, CA, about this study.
Bilchik, who was not involved in this research, commented it is extremely important because it shows that not only do GLP-1 agonists have an effect on weight loss, but there is a potential anticancer effect.
“Now, the anticancer effect could be a consequence of weight loss and some of the other manifestations of these GLP-1 agonist drugs,” Bilchik suggested. “Or these GLP-1 agonist drugs may have a direct anti-cancer effect by impacting the immune microenvironment, the microbiome, and may be anti-inflammatory. All of these have been hypothesized as possible causes of cancers such as colon cancer.”
“I think the most intriguing concept of these GLP-1 agonist drugs is that they were originally described as weight-loss drugs,” he continued. “Now we’re seeing them as being drugs that could be important in cardiovascular disease, drugs that may be important in cancer treatment.”
“So the question therefore arises as to whether there is a possibility that these drugs should be part of the treatment for cancer patients, if in fact there is a direct anti-cancer mechanism within these drugs,” Bilchik added. “[Thus,] the scope of these drugs and the potential benefit of these drugs is likely to be much broader than what was originally described.”
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/glp-1-drugs-like-ozempic-linked-to-lower-colorectal-cancer-death-risk?utm_source=ReadNext#Increasing-evidence-of-GLP-1s-potential-anticancer-effect
Oriana:
High blood sugar and high insulin seem to be the major drivers of cancer. Hence it’s no surprise that drugs and supplements that lower blood sugar also lower the risk of cancer. Yes, metformin reduces cancer risk and increases life expectancy; berberine appears to work even better, though we badly need human studies to see if the excellent results obtained in animal studies also apply to humans.
At this point, you need to be diabetic before your doctor will prescribe metformin and enjoy its life-extending and anti-cancer benefits. (Yes, diabetics who take metformin tend to live longer than non-diabetics who don't take metformin!) Fortunately you don't need a prescription for berberine, which has a wider range of benefits and fewer side effects.
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EVEN A LITTLE DAILY MOVEMENT HELPS REDUCE YOUR RISK OF DEMENTIA
~ You’ve probably heard it over and over: It’s recommended that you do about 150 minutes of physical activity each week to lower your risk of health conditions like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. And if you, like me, read one-hundred-and-fifty minutes and immediately check out, never fear. Moving just a little every day can have a big impact over time, especially when it comes to your brain. Even short bursts of exercise—like scheduling a walking meeting or gardening during your lunch break—can go a long way when it comes to protecting your cognitive health as you age.
Movement, in any amount and at any intensity level, sends blood and oxygen to your brain, fights widespread inflammation (a precursor to many chronic conditions), and keeps your brain activity sharp and snappy. In the short term, that means better focus and memory, and in the seemingly far-off future, regularly moving your body can result in stronger cognitive function, and, ultimately, a lower risk of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease.
Laura Baker, PhD, a professor of gerontology and geriatric medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in North Carolina, tells SELF that when it comes to your health, staying active is just as important as eating and sleeping well—and it’s one of the best things you can do to protect your brain. “It really doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you’re moving your body. Just move,” Dr. Baker says.
Why your brain loves physical activity
Studies consistently find that regular physical activity is closely linked to a lower risk of dementia. While there’s not yet a proven reason why movement reduces the chance of cognitive decline—a term that refers to memory loss and confusion that can be some of the first signs of dementia—scientists have narrowed down a few potential explanations for the association, Heather Snyder, PhD, the vice president of medical and scientific relations at the Alzheimer’s Association, tells SELF.
The first is that exercise promotes blood flow throughout the body, including the brain. Research has found that reduced blood flow to the brain and stiffer blood vessels that carry blood to the brain are closely linked to a greater risk of dementia. On the flip side, when blood (and the oxygen it carries) readily and freely travels to the brain, it functions better. “Simply stated, the brain is fueled by oxygen and so increasing oxygen (think: aerobic exercise in moderation) has been shown to help maximize mental acuity,” says Tamar Gefen, PhD, a clinical neuropsychologist and an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine.
Another leading theory is that physical activity promotes brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which is a molecule that helps you learn and retain information. Higher levels of BDNF appear to help improve and protect cognition and cut your risk of dementia, says Dr. Snyder.
Finally, exercise can help reduce inflammation in the body, and experts believe this immune response is a major risk factor for dementia.
Numerous studies have found that people with cognitive decline or neurodegenerative disorders, like Parkinson’s disease, have higher-than-normal levels of sustained inflammation in their brains. So, the less inflammation there is in your body, especially your brain, the more protected you may be against dementia.
How to move a bit more each day (and make the most of it)
There’s no precise formula for how long and frequently you need to exercise each day to lower your risk of cognitive decline and dementia. Some evidence suggests that doing just 10 minutes of physical activity daily can majorly improve your health. Ongoing research is exploring the question of the exact amount of movement that might benefit your brain most, Dr. Snyder says, but, for now, the key is to “do more than you are doing today.”
There are so many ways to go about this (ideas dropping in a few!), and if high-intensity workouts aren’t your thing, don’t sweat it. “It doesn’t have to be killing yourself at the gym,” says Dr. Baker. Her research team has done studies to back that up: In clinical trials, they found that all types of movement—including (but not at all limited to) stretching and balancing exercises, cycling, and working out on an elliptical—combat cognitive decline, says Dr. Baker.
If you prefer cardio, have a quick dance session in your office or do a speedy HIIT workout in your bedroom. If you like to take things slowly, squeeze in some yoga, gardening, or a short stroll (as few as 3,826 steps a day can make a big difference, research suggests). Even bowling made the list in one study connecting regular physical activity to a lower risk of dementia, as did household chores in another report.
If you’re tight on time, get creative. Park your car further away so you can walk a little longer to the grocery store, Dr. Snyder suggests, or take the stairs instead of the elevator, if you can. Dr. Baker recommends moving 20 to 30 minutes three to four times a week, but don’t put too much pressure on yourself if that feels daunting. Start slow and short, she says, and build up if and when you’re ready.
One way to level up your activity is to do it with someone else. “In addition to increased aerobic exercise, socializing has been shown to be correlated with lowered dementia risk,” says Dr. Gefen. Research shows that connecting with others (and even connecting with nature) is a powerful risk reducer when it comes to cognitive decline. Plus, if you make plans with another person, you’re more likely to follow through and stick with it (science says so!).
Find a strategy that works for you, Dr. Snyder says. Ideally, you want to enjoy it. If you pick up jogging and find it painful, or give stretching a shot and dread it the next time around, experiment with other activities until you find something that clicks. If you find a practice you dig but eventually get bored, mix it up. “It’s gotta be something you like doing,” says Dr. Baker.
Just move a little here and there—not only will you feel sharper, calmer, and energized, but your brain, however many years from now, may thank you for it then too.
https://www.self.com/story/dementia-and-exercise
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Ending on beauty:
WHEATCHILD
When I was so new I was let
run naked, I’d step
into wheat. The stalks closed
above my head.
such a golden drowning.
It sways above me still:
the soul has no past tense.
Laughing I step out,
a child clothed with the sun,
into the arms of the world.
~ Oriana
When I was a child wheat stalks were tall. Dwarf wheat wasn’t cultivated yet.
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