Photo: Charles Fishman
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SPIRIT HORSES
August, in Vermont,
I saw mist swiftly rise,
white horses from a black
forest pond —
Rearing like a rush of
breath, they rose
straight up,
then veered
toward an unseen shore.
From stillness to stillness
they sped, spirit horses
free from all weight,
a star-braided mare
calling to them
from the other side.
In the mirror of the night I saw
I too was a ghost, although
still flesh, leaf-deep in the now.
But the horses, as they
disappeared, in silence called.
And I knew that soon
I’d lay my head along
my spirit horse’s fluent neck,
hold on to the imagined mane —
Still I wavered: drop my
rags, my chores? I said,
I’m growing old. Then her
voice, star-deep in the night:
But without wanting
the highest, is it really life?
~ Oriana
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THE FORGOTTEN QUEEN OF ROMANCE
Although Barbara Cartland sold around 750 million books, you'll struggle to find a copy in a bookshop today. And the socialite led an extraordinary and surprising life – why has the UK's master of romantic fiction disappeared from memory?
To take your place behind William Shakespeare and Agatha Christie as the third best-selling author in history is a remarkable feat. Yet, ask most people what they know of the late romantic novelist Dame Barbara Cartland and it's probably not her literary success that they'll mention.
Instead, people might recall her penchant for pink, particularly her uniform of billowing, candy-colored gowns. Or her famously thick, sooty eyelashes (created not with mascara, but boot polish applied with a toothbrush). They might remember that she always had a small dog tucked under her arm, that she reportedly took 90 vitamin pills a day and that she had a famous spat with Jackie Collins on live TV, calling her books "evil". Or that she was the step-grandmother of the late Princess Diana – who loved her books.
Even those who remember a time when Cartland's books were ubiquitous on UK supermarket shelves will likely struggle to recall the titles. Cartland wrote a staggering 723 books in her lifetime – mostly historical romances featuring innocent young heroines trying to tame dashing but troubled dukes, lords and captains.
But a quarter-of-a-century on from her death it is the woman, rather than what she produced on the page, whose presence still lingers.
Cartland's memorable persona featured a small dog under her arm
Much of this is down to Cartland herself, a master of personal branding long before social media made it commonplace, who carefully created and controlled her image. When quarantine restrictions meant she couldn't take her dogs on a US publicity tour, she appeared with a stuffed Pekingese under her arm so as not to shatter the illusion.
Cartland issued journalists with indemnity forms and demanded copy approval on interviews. She had three authorized biographers in her lifetime, resulting in two gushing hagiographies and one more balanced account, from which Cartland – on seeing the manuscript – promptly withdrew her approval and fast-tracked a sanitized memoir of her own to try and divert attention.
A new biography of Cartland out this week would no doubt horrify the woman herself. It goes beyond the perfectly coiffed image to examine properly her extraordinary career and equally remarkable life. "There are all of these things you can say about Barbara Cartland, like she's the third best-selling author of all time, that don't match up with the cultural memory of her," says Matthew Sweet, author of The Great Dictator: A Life of Barbara Cartland (the title refers to the fact that Cartland didn't type her books, but dictated them to a secretary from her chaise longue).
"It would be good if she was remembered as something more than a joke. That's not to say she wasn't funny and absurd because she was, but she achieved something that ought to be acknowledged in some way. If you dismiss her, you're also dismissing all her readers too, and there were two post-war generations to whom she was very important.”
A new biography is titled The Great Dictator, referring to the fact that Cartland dictated her novels to a secretary
Cartland's granddaughter Tara McCorquodale gave Matthew Sweet full access to her archives at Camfield Place, the country home where the writer lived from the 1950s until her death. "I had free rein of the whole house and all the papers in it, some of which had not been touched for a quarter-of-a-century," says Sweet.
The result is a book that, while gloriously entertaining and packed with plenty of jaw-dropping anecdotes about Cartland's behavior, also places the writer in the context of an era of huge political and social change.
A 20th-Century woman
Cartland's life spanned almost the entirety of the 20th Century. Born in 1901, she lived through two world wars, the sexual revolution of the 1960s, the women's liberation movement, the UK's first female prime minister and the birth of the internet. She launched her own website a few months before her death in 2000.
Sweet argues that the inciting incident in Cartland's life happened when she was barely two years old and her paternal grandfather killed himself after going bankrupt. His death marked a change in the family's fortunes, with Barbara's parents leaving their grand Worcestershire home for a much more modest life. While her father turned to alcohol, Cartland's mother Polly tried desperately to cling on to their place in high society. As a young woman, this would also preoccupy Barbara who, despite a lack of funds, found herself mixing with the Bright Young Things of the era.
"She didn't have lots of resources to draw from, and so she always had to make the best of herself and just go for everything in this demonically energetic way," says Sweet.
Cartland started her career as a newspaper gossip columnist, before publishing her first novel Jigsaw in 1925, a tale of a young woman who leaves her French convent school and heads to London in search of love.
As a young woman, Barbara mixed with the Bright Young Things of the era
Her own love life gave her plenty of inspiration to draw from. She fielded 49 marriage proposals before accepting what turned out to be the wrong one. After divorcing her first husband for adultery she then married his cousin, handily keeping the same married name, McCorquodale.
Unlike the historical romances that she later became famous for, her earlier books had contemporary settings. "Some of her early work, particularly her writing in the 1920s and '30s was quite groundbreaking," says Dr Amy Burge, associate professor in Popular Fiction at the University of Birmingham and co-author of The Bonkbuster: Women's Popular Reading in the Long 1980s.
A 1926 play, Blood Money, was initially banned for being too racy. Her 1935 novel First Class Lady featured a character who has an illegal abortion, causing its censorship in Ireland. And 1936's Dangerous Experiment was one of only a handful British novels of the time to address the rise of Nazi antisemitism.
'I give them glamour'
Cartland's imperial phase came during the golden age of cheap mass market paperbacks in the 1960s, '70s and '80s. Publishers were hungry for manuscripts, and Barbara was happy to oblige, producing books at the alarming speed of one a fortnight. "The one author in the world with 150 virgins lying about was me," she said.
By this point her novels were set in the past, mainly the 19th Century. They were formulaic, but that was part of the appeal. "Repetition is comforting," says Burge. "The joy of a romance novel is that you know it's going to end happily. The anticipation and the pleasure is in how you get there."
While her fictional worlds often involved high society, Cartland's readers were largely working-class women. "I'm selling millions of paperbacks to women who are on Valium because they're having such a rotten time in real life," she said. "They don't want to read about the kitchen sink, they can look at that any time they're peeling potatoes. I'm their escape. I give them glamour, beautiful clothes, and the marvelous attentive men they are starving for."
Not every reader was an exhausted housewife: one photograph captured a teenage Diana Spencer reading a Cartland book. The future princess was more than just a fan, though. Barbara's daughter Raine married Diana's father, Earl Spencer, in 1976, making the writer her step-grandmother.
'A life full of contradictions'
The peak of Cartland's success coincided with the rise of second-wave feminism – a movement Cartland disapproved of. The feeling was mutual. In The Female Eunuch, Germaine Greer said Cartland's work was "sterile self-deception".
Sweet argues Cartland's books offered a counterpoint to the social shifts of the time. "When we think of the 1960s we think of this permissive society, but an awful lot of people didn't like that kind of thing," he says. "She was representing those swathes of women who never signed up for feminism in the '60s or '70s and wanted something else. As a historian, you can't dismiss that."
Burge agrees that some women might have found the changes in society overwhelming, and sought comfort in the familiarity of Cartland's worlds – but she also thinks we shouldn't assume her readers craved what was depicted in her books. "Because of their historical setting, her books offered a safe space to play with ideas about submissiveness and dominant masculinity that women didn't necessarily want in their real lives," she says.
Cartland's own life was full of contradictions. A social climber who loved nothing more than mingling with aristocracy and royalty, she spent her political career – a decade as a Conservative county councillor – championing the causes of those she thought hard done by, from underpaid nurses to neglected care home residents.
One of her more surprising chapters was when she became a fierce campaigner for the rights of the Romany Gypsy community. Her activism led to the creation of Britain's first permanent Gypsy site – nicknamed Barbaraville.
And while Cartland might have dismissed the feminist movement, she also once argued that women should be paid by the state for domestic labor. "I think this is why she's so interesting because she's impossible to classify," says Sweet.
In 1960, Cartland co-founded the Romantic Novelists Association, an organization that's still going strong. Romance as a literary genre is currently surging in popularity, especially with young readers, but although Cartland sold 750 million books you'll struggle to find a copy in a bookshop today.
"They are written for their moment, I think, and they express the desires and wants of a readership who don't exist anymore," says Sweet.
Burge says although Cartland's writing is no longer widely read, she's still seen as a hugely important figure in the world of romantic fiction – not least for bringing more attention to the genre. "She had a very strong sense of brand. I think a large part of her legacy is that of the blockbuster author."
Cartland once said that "women shouldn't have character… they should be like pretty chocolate boxes" – but she was, and remains, a bigger persona than anyone. "She has this irresistible main character energy that means it's been a total pleasure to write about her," says Sweet. "She never did anything by halves.”
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20260910-the-extraordinary-story-of-barbara-cartland-the-forgotten-billions-selling-romance-author
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THE ORIGINS OF “HELLO”
The pre-printed origins of the word "hello" are disputed. The most commonly cited etymology is the Old High German "halâ" – a cry historically used to hail a ferryman. The Oxford English Dictionary also points to "halloo" (a hunting call that urged hounds to run faster) as a possible linguistic root. It notes several early spellings, including "hullo", "hillo" and "holla" – the latter thought to have derived from the 15th-Century French "hol", an exclamation meaning "whoa!" or "stop!". In English sources, the OED lists the earliest form as the late-16th-Century "hollo".
Simon Horobin, professor of English language and literature at Magdelen College, Oxford, notes that such semantic shifts and spelling changes may also be explained by regional accents and differences in pronunciation. "Especially in the example of 'ello' which shows the prevalent – though now stigmatized – feature of h-dropping," he tells the BBC, referring to the classist English stereotype of a dropped 'h' indicating a lack of education.
"But for origins and early history," he adds, "we are dependent upon written evidence, which is patchy at the best of times. For a colloquial word like this, which would have appeared much earlier and more frequently in speech than in writing, it is especially tricky to establish a definite timeline.”
The selection of a standardized word form, Horobin explains, usually falls to lexicographers – those who compile dictionaries. "They base their choice on the relative prevalence of a particular spelling, though it's necessarily somewhat provisional and arbitrary."
By the time the Oxford English Dictionary first went to press in 1884, "hello" was emerging as the dominant form of the greeting. Charles Dickens, however, spent the 19th Century using "hullo" in his writings, and Alexander Graham Bell (who once argued that "ahoy!" would make a superior telephone greeting) stuck with "halloo". Bell's rival, Thomas Edison, championed "hello", believing it would carry clearly over even the worst phone lines. Like that of The Norwich Courier before him, Edison's backing helped – and "hello" was established as the English-language greeting to beat.
Hello around the world
While the English language settled on "hello" as its customary greeting, other languages forged their own. Some were influenced by English, others developed independently – yet each carries a distinct cultural flavor, hinting at the social norms and stereotypes we have of the people who use it.
In Germanic and Scandinavian languages, for example, "hallo" and "hallå" are phonetically harder and feel more efficient and no-nonsense than the lyrical, almost poetic quality of "hola" and "olá", favored by the Romance languages that are associated with more effusive stereotypes. Elsewhere, some greetings carry traces of national history: from the Dutch-derived "hallo" of Afrikaans to "óla" in Tetum, a reminder of Portuguese influence in Timor-Leste. Many such words appear to function as both introduction and identity marker. But, says Professor Duranti, it's not quite that simple.
"It's hard to go straight from the use of a particular greeting to a national character, even though it is tempting," he tells the BBC. Alternative or secondary greetings, Duranti suggests, may offer better clues. "In English, given the common use of 'how are you?', there is an apparent interest in people's wellbeing." In some Polynesian societies, he adds, greetings are less about a word-for-word "hello" than about checking in on someone's plans or movements – literally asking "where are you going?". Greek, meanwhile, uses "Γειά σου" (pronounced "yah-soo") as a typical informal greeting, offering a wish for health rather than a simple salutation. It is also usable for “goodbye".
Other languages also turn abstract concepts into multipurpose greetings that serve as both "hi" and "bye". "Ciao" comes from a Venetian dialect phrase meaning "at your service", and the French "salut" is an informal expression used for both greeting and parting company. Similarly, the Hawaiian "aloha" can express affection or compassion, and the Hebrew "shalom" peace or wholeness. Yet, as Duranti cautions, even these evocative examples shouldn't be viewed as cut-and-dry indicators of national character.
"I would be careful making that kind of correlation," he explains. "Especially about the semantics of it – health versus sympathy versus whereabouts. But there is one aspect of greetings that is sensitive to the social structure of a society, which is that equals greet each other in different ways from people of different statuses. In fact, greetings can be seen to define levels of intimacy or social distance."In this sense, he adds, greetings are like magnets – confidently announcing who we are, and drawing in those we want to be associated with.
Hello in the digital age
If greetings act as social magnets, then technology has quietly altered their pull. Over the past few decades, the rise of email, texting and social media has reshaped not just how often we say "hello", but what we might replace it with – and whether we say it at all.
"If you think about WhatsApp, we're basically always in conversation – we're always online," says Christian Ilbury, senior lecturer in linguistics and English language at the University of Edinburgh. "When someone asks you how your day is or whether you're going to be on time for the meal, you don't always have to say 'hello' first, because it's unlikely the last message concluded with ‘bye'."
In a text-led, always-on world, greetings have proved especially susceptible to change and, as they are used so often, their evolution has accelerated dramatically. Ilbury has identified many non-standard and creative spellings of "hello" in his studies of digital language, from "hellooooo" and "hiiiiiii" to "heyyyyy". Yet, while tech has made it easier for us to elongate words in this way, Ilbury points out that most modern-day greetings are short, sharp and driven by brevity.
"The most obvious thing to say is that people now sometimes use an emoji – the wave – in place of the word 'hello'," says Ilbury. "But We now 'Google' stuff and 'unfriend' people. Like any major invention – AI, for instance – we're bound to get some new vocabulary from that source."
In many ways, this mirrors the instability of "hello" in the early 19th Century, when the greeting may have sounded vaguely the same whenever spoken, but varied widely in spelling when written down. By shortening the established greeting, or replacing it with icons and abbreviations, it's made clear that such salutations remain as fluid as they were before The Norwich Couriermade its landmark linguistic choice in 1826.
But for all its so-called standardization, "hello" has never really stood still. It began as a shout, a summons, a way to hail attention, before settling – briefly – into an accepted spelling and usage. Two centuries on from its print debut, the greeting is once again being stretched, clipped, replaced or ignored altogether. Yet whether it's spoken aloud, typed hastily, or reduced to a small waving hand on a screen, the impulse behind it remains the same: an act of recognition, the announcing of one's presence and just asking – however casually – to be acknowledged in return.
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20260113-hello-hiya-aloha-what-our-greetings-reveal
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THE KGB ARCHIVIST WHO BETRAYED ITS SECRETS
What Vasily Mitrokhin brought to Vilnius in 1992 was never meant to leave the KGB’s most secret archives. ‘He is one of the most important spies of the Cold War, because he revealed to the world what the KGB had been up to everywhere,’ in an interview with LRT.
Understanding this solitary man with a difficult personality, who, for many years, kept his dangerous mission hidden even from his family, is a complex task. However, in ‘The Spy in the Archive’, British journalist and writer Gordon Corera takes on this challenge. Drawing on various sources and people who knew Mitrokhin personally, the author unravels the extraordinary personality of a man who made it his life’s mission to kill the Soviet Committee for State Security, better known as the KGB.
From Spy Missions to the Archives
Born in 1922 in Yurasovo, Ryazan Oblast, Mitrokhin felt happiest in the Russian countryside, where he could tend his garden, fish, and hunt. That is why, as Corera notes, it was perhaps only by chance that, in the early years of the Cold War, he was recruited by the KGB as a foreign intelligence officer. However, several failed operations soon revealed that Mitrokhin was not a natural spy. A reserved and introverted man, he found it difficult to navigate different social circles, and he was ultimately exiled to the place that best suited his personality: the archives.
According to the book’s author, this decision by the KGB sowed a seed of resentment within him. Over the years, as he gained a deeper understanding of the atrocities committed by Soviet institutions, this resentment grew into an obsession that came to dominate his thoughts.
Corera believes that apart from personal bitterness, two things in particular fueled his desire to destroy the KGB. First and foremost, the archivist was shaken by the realization of just how extensively the KGB had acted against the Russians themselves – dissidents, critics of the regime and even allies whom they suspected of posing a threat to the Communist Party’s rule. But the turning point for him was the brutal suppression of the Prague Spring in 1968. It was then that his – and those of others within the system – hopes that communism might still be reformed proved to be in vain.
‘He definitely saw himself as a patriot, not as a traitor to his country. He really did see his enemy as like a creature, a beast. It sounds strange, but he saw it as a beast with three heads: one was the KGB, another was the Communist Party, and third was the nomenclature, the elite, – Corera explains. – He saw this creature like a parasite or kind of awful thing which had occupied his country. And he saw himself like a peasant hero in a folk story who was going to battle this beast and try to defeat it.’
The opportunity arose four years after the events in Prague. In 1972, the KGB decided to move their headquarters from the Lubyanka – menacing building in the center of Moscow – to a new building in Yasenevo. Mitrokhin, who until then had had access to only a part of the archives, was assigned an unexpected task – to oversee the relocation of all KGB documents. This gave him access to all the carefully guarded secrets dating back as far as 1918.
‘So he takes a great risk by writing it down on tiny bits of paper, stuffing it in his shoe and walking out of KGB headquarters and then writing it up at home in his dacha on the weekend. He does this for years without even a clear plan of what he's going to do with it,’ the book author notes.
The archivist transcribed thousands of documents by hand, revealing the scope of Soviet intelligence operations around the world during the Cold War. Possessing an exceptional memory, he compiled data on the activities of Soviet spies in the West, Africa, India, Latin America, and Asia; he gathered information on the legendary illegals – Soviet spies living in other countries under stolen identities. The archive he compiled revealed how the Soviet Union used violence, sabotage, influence and interference operations to secure its control and advance the regime’s ambitions.
That opportunity came at a moment of historic upheaval: the collapse of the Soviet Union. Determined to expose the truth, the former archivist packed a suitcase with clothes and food, concealing a selection of documents beneath them, and set out to offer the material to Western intelligence agencies.
This is where Lithuania finds itself at the center of this incredible story.
The KGB’s Secrets in Vilnius
The collapse of the Soviet Union opened up the Baltic states, to which the West quickly sent its diplomats. Some embassies initially operated out of hotel rooms, and Soviet spies, officials, and even imposters, who claimed to have valuable information, began flooding in, looking for opportunities.
‘I'm sure it was very exciting in many ways for people in Lithuania, but also very productive for British intelligence and others, because suddenly here is this new place, which had once been not just part of the Eastern Bloc, but part of the Soviet Union, which they can access and talk to people and meet people in, – says Corera. – In espionage terms, it's a very interesting time and place in this period in the 90s.’
In 1992, Mitrokhin came up with a plan to hand over the archive materials to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) through the U.S. Embassy, making several attempts to do so in both Riga and Vilnius. However, the Americans were skeptical of the shabby dressed elderly man who appeared with a collection of handwritten documents and dismissed him. Only later U.S. intelligence finally realize the extraordinary value of his archive. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) eventually described Mitrokhin’s collection as "the most complete and extensive intelligence ever received from any source.“
After the Americans let slip a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Mitrokhin decided to go to the United Kingdom’s embassy, located in Antakalnis. Corera, who had visited UK embassy in Lithuania, recounts trying to imagine the route the archivist took from the train station to the embassy with his priceless suitcase. The author of the book also shared that, as someone who had not lived in Lithuania during the 1990s, he found this period extremely difficult to understand, yet at the same time very interesting.
He captured in the pages of his book the sense of chaos and uncertainty that prevailed in Lithuania at the time.
This sense of enormous change, while parts of the past are physically still there with Russian troops, formerly Soviet troops, bases and clearly presence from Russian intelligence, what had been the KGB, still active. And people still worrying about it, unsure about whose loyalties had shifted and how. It was very fluid, interesting, uncertain time,’ he describes.
KGB employees hide their faces as they walk out of their headquarters in Vilnius, 1994
At the British Embassy, Mitrokhin was met by a young diplomat who spoke Russian. Unlike the Americans, her instincts did not fail her. She sensed that the elderly man who had appeared at the embassy, carrying a bundle of handwritten documents, might indeed possess information of exceptional value.
‘She is not a spy, she really is a diplomat, and it just shows that often in this world things are based on instinct, intuition that there's something interesting about this person that makes him worth talking to and worth inviting in,’ G. Corera notes.
As a result, Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) assigned two officers to investigate Mitrokhin’s claims. Gradually – and at times only reluctantly – this enigmatic figure revealed not only the contents of his archive but also the conditions under which he was willing to part with it: relocation to the United Kingdom for himself, his wife, and his sick son, as well as permission to publish in full the KGB documents he had painstakingly collected over the years.
The agreement was carried out, and that same year, in a covert operation, the Mitrokhin family moved from Klaipėda to the United Kingdom.
It was only in 1999, with the publication of his first book containing KGB documents, ‘The Mitrokhin Archive’, that Russian intelligence began to realize what had happened and the extent to which intelligence had been leaked to the West. And so, the reserved, almost spiritually devoted V. Mitrokhin fulfilled his life’s mission – to use the archive to reveal his long-standing battle against the beast.
The UK Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee later described Mitrokhin as "a man of remarkable commitment and courage, who risked imprisonment or death.“
V. Mitrokhin died of pneumonia in London in 2004.
Lesson We Need to Learn
In April this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered that the academy of the Federal Security Service (FSB) – the successor to the KGB – be named after Felix Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Soviet secret police, the Cheka. Media reports have also suggested that a statue of Dzerzhinsky, the architect of the Red Terror, may be returned to Moscow’s Lubyanka Square.
Cheka, NKVD, KGB, FSB, SVR – the names may have changed, but, as Corera argues, a clear ideological thread runs from the Cheka through Russia’s intelligence services to the present day. In his view, they have preserved not only a sense of institutional continuity but also a tradition of ruthless methods and an aggressive ethos that encourages operatives to do whatever is necessary to achieve their objectives.
For instance, use of poisons and going after exiles and trying to kill them in the early days of the Bolshevik revolution. Then you see it dip for some years and then in the last 20, 25 years, you see it return. We've seen it in Britain with the killing of Alexander Litvinenko, the poisoning of Sergei Skripal,’ he notes.
Despite the shortcomings of Russian intelligence – most starkly exposed by Moscow’s misjudgment of Ukraine and the course of the war it launched in 2022 – it is Vladimir Putin himself who has done much to glorify and perpetuate the mythology surrounding Russian spies. Corera argues that this mythmaking is deeply significant for the Russian president because the KGB is inseparable from his personal identity: he served as one of its officers, it provided the network and credentials that helped propel him to the Kremlin, and many of his closest associates emerged from the same security-service milieu.
‘One thing I do think is interesting, if you go back to Soviet history, the Communist Party was always slightly nervous of the KGB and of there was a sense in that neither wanted the other to be too powerful. <…> But of course, what you see in Russia now is the fusion– effectively the people who are the intelligence and security people taking over the state. And they do have a particular mindset. And it is a mindset of seeing enemies everywhere and being ruthless in how you deal with them. This is the checkist mindset. I think what we've seen is actually something which is even has gone further than you might have seen in the Soviet days,’ he emphasizes.
Corera’s regret, therefore, is that even though Mitrokhin brought this beast to light, the West never learned his most important lessons, viewing the archive as a relic of the past – that the threat emanating from Russia had not vanished with the Soviet Union’s collapse.
‘At the time, people didn't appreciate that he had a warning that it had not gone away. Many of the things that people talk about now with surprise that Russian intelligence is involved in disinformation or involved in sabotage or is involved in interference in politics, all of these things the evidence for them is in the Mitrokhin archive, in what he was telling people about the world. I think he's very important, but there is also a sense in which we didn't quite appreciate how important he was or the lesson he was trying to tell us for today,’ Corera says.
And although Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine has laid bare the Kremlin’s true face, there are still those in the West who refuse to look it in the eye. Therefore, in this relentless information war, the author urges us to finally take to heart the message conveyed by the archivist: do not underestimate Russian intelligence and educate the public about how its spies operate and what their targets are.
‘[That way] people are more prepared and resilient and better defended,’ Corera emphasizes.
https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/2985295/the-archivist-who-betrayed-the-kgb-and-brought-its-deepest-secrets-to-vilnius
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THE FOUR LESSONS AMERICA HAS UNLEARNED FROM 9/11
A quarter century after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks killed 2,977 people on American soil, the United States is quietly scaling back and redirecting parts of the system it developed in response — unlearning key lessons from the assault and the costly response that followed.
The counterterrorism apparatus has been thinned. Alliances like NATO that proved their worth in Afghanistan have been weakened at a moment when the U.S. faces the toughest security picture since World War II. Ill-defined Middle East entanglements persist.
And the intelligence architecture designed to stop the next attack is — by the assessment of people who helped build it — once again struggling to connect the dots in an evolving threat picture.
None of that was inevitable.
The 9/11 attacks drove the largest reorganization of the federal government since the 1947 National Security Act, a two-decade global war on terror, and a vast expansion of American surveillance powers — a response built at enormous cost and defended for years as the price of never being caught unprepared again.
Now the U.S. is paring back or repurposing important parts of that architecture, with far less argument than went into building it.
Here are four hard-earned takeaways from Sept. 11, 2001, that the country seems to have forgotten.
Don’t count out counterterrorism
The infrastructure created to prevent similar attacks on U.S. soil has been hollowed out in recent years as the U.S. has faced increased threats from countries like Russia, China and Iran. While the terrorism threat has diminished, it has not disappeared, analysts said.
“There has been complacency over the past few years, as we’ve seen tremendous downsizing, as well as the loss of institutional knowledge and experience,” said Daniel Byman, director of the Warfare, Irregular Threats, and Terrorism Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“I worry, especially when terrorism has become so politicized, that we’re just going to repeat the same mistakes as before. You can’t treat terrorism as a threat that we focus on episodically and inconsistently,” Byman said.
The same episodic attention has bled into how Washington treats its allies, who offered much more than solidarity after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
America’s alliances are not optional
In the days and months after Sept. 11, the U.S. learned firsthand the value of its North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies, who invoked the alliance’s Article 5 collective defense clause for the only time in its history. In Afghanistan, NATO countries provided not just intelligence, basing access and military support, but also political legitimacy for Washington’s efforts against terrorist threats.
The Trump administration would do well to heed that example, said Bradley Bowman, a former Army officer and national security adviser to members of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees.
“At this moment when we need allies and partners more than ever, when we need friends more than ever, this administration seems to be taking them for granted, and worse than that, actually promoting discord with them,” said Bowman, now at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Critics say President Donald Trump has discounted NATO allies’ contributions after 9/11 and has continually failed to advise allies of Washington’s plans or make efforts to bring them along, only to later lash out that they do nothing for the U.S., such as in the ongoing Iran war.
“Our allies came to our assistance and saw it in their interest to come to our assistance,” said Jeffrey Feltman, a former U.S. ambassador to Lebanon and a top Middle East official at the State Department. “I’m not sure today that our allies see it in their interest to come help us if we ask.”
The U.S. relied on similar work to build a coalition that confronted and dismantled the Islamic State group, drawing in dozens of partners even after the Iraq War proved more polarizing among U.S. allies.
But the Trump administration’s impulsive shoot-first approach to the Iran war has called into question whether Washington could do something similar again.
Middle East misadventures cost the U.S.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, presidents in both parties have overestimated Washington’s ability to deliver quick and lasting results in the Middle East, with American interventions causing a raft of spillover effects the U.S. continues to grapple with today
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, launched in the aftermath of 9/11, left the American public wary of prolonged military missions and ill-defined Middle East engagements. That skepticism remains today, with 55% of Americans saying that going to war with Iran was a mistake, according to a recent survey by the University of Massachusetts.
“The objectives set at the outset of a conflict are fateful — one better be careful about setting objectives that may turn out to exceed our capabilities,” said Stephen Wertheim, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Blind spots in U.S. intelligence must be found
The intelligence failures that missed the murderous jetliner plot on Sept. 11, 2001, prompted a massive overhaul of America’s security apparatus aimed at ensuring that local and federal authorities pooled resources and shared information in a bid to prevent future attacks.
And while the U.S. has disrupted a number of attacks since, experts and former officials worry that the government is slow once again to prepare for a new generation of challenges.
“The U.S. homeland, in my view, is more vulnerable than it has ever been in recent times from state and nonstate adversaries,” said Seth Jones, head of the defense and security department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
He pointed to the threat of drone attacks, terrorism and sabotage operations and warned that U.S. bases and critical infrastructure are highly exposed, counterdrone defenses are weak, and the intelligence architecture stood up after 9/11, such as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, is antiquated and has ambiguous responsibilities.
“We are not well positioned to defend the homeland,” Jones said.
U.S. intelligence-sharing, he added, is “actually quite stovepiped” — particularly on attacks by Russia and other adversaries that are intentionally hard to trace and stop short of triggering formal military or diplomatic responses. “I think we’ve largely gone back,” Jones said.
And while the U.S. did make significant strides in sharing and collecting intelligence, Trump has not only politicized U.S. intelligence but has also often disregarded it in favor of his own instincts, said Ivo Daalder, former U.S. ambassador to NATO during the Obama administration.
“We have a problem now of not only the politicization of intelligence, but consumers who frankly don’t consume it,” Daalder said. “That’s a problem that can’t be solved by process.”
A child walks through the Empty Sky 9/11 Memorial with One World Trade Center and Lower Manhattan in the distance
https://www.ms.now/news/sept-11-lessons-unlearned
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OURSELVES TRAPPED BY OUR JOBS
Leo Tolstoy should have been triumphant. By the 1880s, the Russian novelist had written the masterpieces War and Peace and Anna Karenina, achieving what he’d spent his life pursuing.
But he was consumed with despair.
On paper, Tolstoy embodied success in every dimension of nineteenth-century Russian life. He was a literary genius. He was a privileged aristocrat. And he was a father and husband, with a marriage that would last nearly five decades and yield thirteen children. Yet these distinctions only intensified his anxiety as he questioned what they meant—and if he even wanted them anymore. He was increasingly uncertain about who he was, and worse: whether he wanted to keep being that way.
In 1882, in his fifties, Tolstoy finished writing A Confession—a raw exploration of his looming crisis. “I felt that what I had been standing on had collapsed,” he wrote. “What I had lived on no longer existed, and there was nothing left.”
The questions tormented him. Who was the real Tolstoy? And more urgently, could he change?
More than a century later, in a different country and a completely different life, those same questions would surface again—not in the mind of a Russian novelist at the height of his career, but in a fledgling actress deciding whether she wanted to continue to be one at all.
Peyton McDavitt knew her move to Hollywood was a gamble, aimed at making up for lost time. She’d loved acting as a kid, performing in school plays and regional theater. But as she grew older, acting felt like an all-or-nothing proposition whose pursuit required abandoning everything else she cared about: school, sports, music. So she’d let it go.
But acting was still her dream job. And finally, at twenty-three, she was ready to commit to it the way she committed to anything she did: completely. “I knew I was going to regret not knowing what might happen if I didn’t try,” she told me. “I had to go find out.”
The same work ethic that had made her a top student and an All-American athlete would fuel her acting career. At least, that was the plan.
It wasn’t easy. Out in Hollywood, she waited tables at trendy restaurants, serving her friends and fellow actors who had already broken through. She babysat. She tutored. She took a gig driving an industry executive’s kid to school.
That was fine; she loved the hustle. She loved the challenge of cobbling together her small jobs into a sustainable career. And she loved the craft itself. Each audition was a puzzle to solve, each role a chance to disappear into someone else’s mind. She wasn’t chasing money or fame.
This was just how she wanted to spend her days.
Finally, on the cusp of thirty, she realized she had made it. She was booking regular acting work, enough to quit her day jobs, and was living out the dream she’d come to Hollywood to pursue.
But something was wrong. As time went on, auditions became mechanical. Getting rejected felt like nothing, or even relief. Sometimes even the victory of landing a role felt hollow. While driving to callbacks, she’d find herself fantasizing about other careers, other versions of herself and who she could be.
It was unsettling. Acting had become exactly what she’d wanted it to be: her identity, her source of income, and the foundation of her social life.
And just as with Tolstoy, that was the problem. Doubt crept in.
Was this still what she wanted?
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Of course, claiming an identity can be something we do deliberately. Tolstoy had devoted his life to creating world-defining literature; he was a novelist. As McDavitt sought to build a life around her chosen craft, at a certain point, she wasn’t just acting anymore. She was an actress.
Sometimes you’re just associated with your job, whether you like it or not. I’m in marketing. I tutor. I’m in sales. Your boyfriend’s family wants to know what you do and even though it’s mostly how you afford your rent, when you answer, you know they’ve ascribed this thing you get paid for as core to how they view you overall. So we come to see ourselves this way, too. We become an actress or a soccer player or an existential Russian novelist partly as a way of communicating who we are to the rest of the world. The labels also help us understand ourselves.
These dynamics aren’t new. Since at least the Middle Ages, jobs in many European cultures have defined our public and personal identities, to the point where they became our very names. The most common last name in Germany and Switzerland is Müller, meaning “miller,” or a person who grinds grain. In the UK, it’s Smith—someone who makes things from metal. Russia has thousands of Kuznetsovs (from “smith”). When she became an actress, McDavitt changed her name as well—a symbolic shift that showed how completely she had merged with her goal and transformed herself for it.
When these were medieval jobs we inherited or were assigned, quitting meant breaking out of roles that were imposed on us. Today, it’s different. We expect our careers to intersect with our calling, to reflect what we want to get out of life. Claiming our identity as a nurse, a lawyer, a painter is the reward for our hard work. Our nouns are a prize we earn.
That means it’s easy to get caught in an identity trap, where we create rigid identities instead of flexible ones. Whether in school, or at work, or elsewhere in our steady march through life, we check the boxes laid out for us and eventually hit some milestone that serves as an inflection point. We become who we are—and are meant to stay that way. Psychologists have a phrase for this experience: “identity foreclosure.”
Even when we want to change, we’re held back, if only to avoid confronting the question of who we’ll be once what we do has ended. Rigid identities mean that who and what we’ve been keeps us from becoming anyone or anything else.
These self-definitions are often quite narrow. From the time we’re students, we’re told to specialize, to pick one path. Select one major. Get one job. Build one career. Dabbling gets ridiculed; consistency, rewarded. Resist committing to a path and you’re a dilettante, a waffler. And if you leave the path you’ve chosen? Then you’ve claimed the worst identity of all: you’re a quitter.
Success gets measured by forever. A successful career builds steadily until retirement. A successful marriage lasts until death. A successful person makes decisions and sticks to them.
Technology reinforces these rigid identities. On the internet, our words outlast our views. Anyone can take our photo and keep it on their phone—a permanent record of our potentially unintentional presentation to the world. Those who follow us online expect consistency, not nuance or experimentation, let alone a pivot to something new. Even deleting doesn’t make the digital remnants of who we’ve been disappear. It’s all still there, somewhere. We may have reincarnated, but the ghosts of our former selves linger on.
It can make every decision feel impossibly heavy, especially in our early years, as we second-guess if we truly want to commit. “One of the terrifying aspects of the twenties is the inner conviction that the choices we make are irrevocable,” wrote Gail Sheehy in her classic book Passages. “If we choose a graduate school or join a firm, get married or don’t marry, move to the suburbs or forego travel abroad, decide against children or against a career, we fear in our marrow that we might have to live with that choice forever.”
Our identity defines us. Then it confines us. Once those questions of who we are are settled, we’re disincentivized from revisiting them. So what if we want to change? We can’t.
Circling back to Peyton McDavitt, acting had become her identity. When people asked what she did, she answered in terms of what she was: “I’m an actress.” That was a sign of victory—the reward for earning the dream job she spent years trying to achieve. Finally, she had turned her verbs into nouns.
“It was such a precious thing,” she told me. “I loved it. I could do it. I was satisfied.”
But as she grew older, her idea of a dream job changed. There were structural problems. Acting may have been a career, but it was made up of individual jobs, which increasingly failed to support the lifestyle she wanted as she got older. The schedule was unpredictable; managing her finances became exhausting. She realized her personal goals and her career goals were no longer aligned. As she entered her thirties, she started to worry: “Am I ever going to be able to buy a house doing this, or even make enough cash to save?”
Even the work itself felt different. She shot a show in Hawaii that got canceled abruptly; it was like whiplash, from success to starting over. Meanwhile, she watched a friend book his second part ever, and then catapult into stardom. That kind of randomness used to be exciting; now, it was maddening. One day she was en route to an audition and had a moment of clarity. She was traveling hours to try out for a role as Hooker Vampire #4. She didn’t even want to be Hooker Vampire #1.
Yes, she could keep pushing to become more successful, to make more money, to become more established in her field. But she had already achieved a version of this—enough to guess what the path ahead might look like if she did achieve those things. But did she even still want them? Would more make her happy? What was she doing this for?
“To continue seemed like the definition of insanity,” she said. “It just wasn’t working anymore.”
~Excerpted from The Case for Quitting: The Surprising Benefits of Opting Out by Lindsay Crouse.
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HELPING THE TERRORISTS TO WIN
On September 11, 2001, in my second week as a new professor at Yale, I knew what the subject of the next class would have to be: the history of provocation. Terrorists had flown two passenger planes into the Two Towers and a third into the Pentagon; heroic passengers and crew had sacrificed themselves to prevent another attack on the national capital.
When spectacular terrorism comes, you have to think even as you suffer. Your suffering, though desired by those who caused it, is not the terrorists’ ultimate aim. They push you into a frame of mind so that you then hurt yourself even more. History is full of acts of terror.
The real question, I told the students, is what you do next.
You cannot prevent every terrible thing from happening. But your freedom begins with your response.
Sadly, Americans in power responded as the terrorists would have wanted; indeed, we exceeded their expectations, making the world much worse for ourselves and everyone else.
Americans let the terrorists set the terms: their violence and our violence. We had an opportunity to see 9/11 more deeply, and to react in a way that would have created a safer world for generations to come. And we did not take that opportunity.
The basic American policy response to 9/11 should have been to liberate ourselves from fossil fuels. Without our dependence on oil, we would never have been entangled in the Middle East in the first place. Most of the 9/11 terrorists were Saudis, citizens of an oil kingdom that we helped to build, our “ally.” The right reaction in September 2001 -- as I wrote to a friend in the White House -- was to fund fusion and other clean energy sources. Had we done so, we could have headed off global warming, prevented further Middle East wars -- and indeed prevented the rise of Vladimir Putin’s hydrocarbon oligarchy and his invasions of Ukraine.
Today we face the reality of rising oceans, vast fires, and resource conflicts. We were given a chance to halt all of that.
But we did not take it. George W. Bush became president of the United States, despite probably losing an election to Al Gore, after the Supreme Court stopped the counting of ballots in Florida. Gore was an environmentalist who cared deeply about global warming. Had 9/11 happened during a Gore presidency, he would have intensified the search for safe energy.
Gore was also a more experienced and competent person than Bush, who came from a political oil family and had done nothing notable himself. Had Gore been president, 9/11 might well not have happened. But it did happen, on the watch of the inexperienced oilman. Bush’s White House was never going to link the terror attack to its basic causes.
We did not do the right thing. Instead, Americans in power did what the terrorists wanted. They attacked us, said President Bush, because “they hate freedom.” And his reaction in domestic policy was to use the instruments of our own government to undo our own freedom.
The pertinent example was the formation of a Department of Homeland Security. It placed a grab-bag of agencies under a single authority, treating them all (for example, border management) as a matter of “security.” Yes, the bags of the terrorists should have been more carefully searched. Yes, international terrorism, which killed about 3,000 people that day, was a threat to be taken seriously. But other things made us insecure: for comparison, about 17,000 Americans were killed with handguns that year, about 19,000 died from drug overdoses, and about 21,000 from the lack of access to health care. Attaching the notion of “security” to one kind of threat made all the rest worse.
And security remains only one aspect of border management. Borders are also where we trade and become prosperous, and meet our friends and create relationships. The definition of the border as exclusively a matter of security prepared us for a domestic politics, the one we have now, in which our leaders tell us that we will be safe when we divide the people living in America into “legals” and “illegals,” us and them -- and build ever more concentration camps for them.
The notion of a Homeland, which echoes the Nazi fascination with Heimat, was just as dangerous. At the time, it was an exotic label for a government department, not really in keeping with American English or American institutional traditions. But the word “homeland” has since been normalized, in its essentially fascist sense. Under the current administration, we are instructed to think of a vulnerable “homeland” threatened by some of the people who live there.
The current Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, treats the armed forces as a site of culture wars, of us and them, of men against women, whites against blacks, while informing us that the future task of the troops is “homeland defense.” The point is that the armed forces are to become nothing more than the personal militia of a ruler, used to quash resistance to Donald Trump. He has not gotten there yet, but that is obviously what is on his mind.
Of course, it took more than the securitization of everything and the fascist fascination with a homeland to get us to a place where figures such as Trump and Hegseth would be in positions of power. One of the major causes for their rise was the second Iraq war—our invasion of that country in 2003—which was our chosen foreign policy response to 9/11.
And that war of choice was, again, just what the terrorists would have wanted. It was the worst possible response to their provocation. It left us traumatized and vulnerable to politicians such as Hegseth, Trump, and JD Vance, who would exploit the trauma of the war to come to power (only to deliver us more wars and make us vulnerable to more terrorism). But it would also lock us into a political economy in which the main components were military spending and debt.
In the early 2000s, we still had a good chance to handle the issues of wealth inequality, social immobility, family insecurity that have only bedeviled us more in the two decades since. We chose instead to pour not just blood (mainly of others) but wealth into the sand. Although Bush was losing the war in Iraq in 2004, he managed to parlay it into a second term, and so the first decade of the twenty-first century saw the death of the American dream.
Americans believed, because they were told to believe, that Iraq had something to do with 9/11, and so as a people we did the one thing that one should never do, which is to follow the psychological script written by the terrorists themselves. But matters, sadly, were worse than this. In 2002, our elected officials became co-authors of that psychological script. The Bush administration consciously invented the connections between Iraq and the primarily Saudi terrorists who attacked us on 9/11. And the high degree of mendacity was itself a problem, since it led Americans to distrust their government, and enabled the rise of Trump and his ilk. But it also had consequences around the world. These invented pretexts were the reason for an act that violated the most basic precept of international law: the ban on unprovoked wars of aggression.
The war in Iraq, but quite specifically the lying, drastically reduced the chances for something like a world legal order in which democracies could thrive together.
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, an era of democracy seemed to be opening. If we look back a dozen years from 9/11, we see the Revolutions of 1989, the end of communism in Eastern Europe, the reunification of Germany in 1990, and the end of the Soviet Union in 1991. Those revolutions not only added to the number of democracies in the world; they brought to the world new ideas about freedom, having to do with truth and solidarity.
In the preparation for the invasion of Iraq, Americans used arguments about democracy: just as liberation had been possible in Eastern Europe, so it was possible in the Middle East. The situation was, of course, very different; it is one thing to resist a dictatorship with civil society, as in Eastern Europe, and quite another to have a dictatorship overturned by a foreign invasion, as in Iraq. And of course, the East Europeans had ideas about what would come next; the Americans in Iraq had none, imagining that simply destroying one regime would suffice to bring about another.
But many of the most interesting East European dissidents, for example Václav Havel in Czechoslovakia, had a certain vulnerability: they trusted Americans. And so they were brought along on a propaganda tour of big lies that, had they not been so pro-American, they might have recognized from their own experience. The result, sadly, was the end of East European confidence in their own ideas of liberation.
If we look forward about a dozen years from 9/11, we see the first Russian invasion of Ukraine. Indeed, the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the first Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014 are closer now in time (eleven years) than is the first Russian invasion of Ukraine to the present moment (twelve years). Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 for domestic reasons; a corrupt hydrocarbon regime could not deliver order and prosperity, and so delivered instead a foreign war which was meant to bring Russians together in a vision of past and future glory. It would be wrong to say that the American invasion of Iraq caused the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russians themselves have to take responsibility for their own crimes. But the American war certainly made life easier for the Putin.
In 2013 and in early 2014, I was warning that Russia could invade Ukraine and seize Crimea, which is indeed what happened. One of the reasons for my concern was the surreal propaganda deployed in Russian media. Although it was far wilder than the American propaganda of 2002 and early 2003, it did have something in common: it made no sense, it was self-contradictory.
The Americans said that they wanted to fight terrorism by overturning an Iraqi regime that, although horrible, suppressed the Islamism that was behind 9/11. They claimed an army could bring democracy just by overturning a regime. And it was clear at the time that this wasn’t just a mistake; there was perverse joy in the aggressive nonsense. The Russians escalated all of this: the Ukrainians were all gay, and they were all Nazis, and they were all Jews. Their state did not exist, claimed Moscow, but it also oppressed Russians. Though it was itself an authoritarian regime, Russia claimed it would bring democracy to Ukraine, which was in fact already a democracy. And so on.
In Moscow, Putin had concluded that what great powers did was invade other countries with the help of extravagant lies. And the fact that the United States had in fact done so made it harder both to describe Russia’s action and to respond to it.
In Ukraine, where I traveled right after the war started to run a big international conference, it was not difficult to understand what was happening: one country was invading another. Not long after the invasion began, I took part in a public discussion in Prague. Emotions were high; there were people with t-shirts emblazoned with Russian fascist slogans in the crowd. One of them took the microphone and asked: why did Russia have to obey any rules, when the Americans had not done so in Iraq in 2003? I answered that rules were rules, and that the American invasion had also been illegal; two wrongs did not make a right.
The young man’s question exemplified the Russian approach: there was no truth, there was no right and wrong, there were no rules. It arose in Russia and from the internal logic of an oligarchic regime. But we had made these kinds of arguments easier to make. In 2014, the American response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine was anemic. President Barack Obama had inherited wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Europe seemed like a distraction.
In late 2021 and early 2022, as Russia was preparing its second invasion of Ukraine, the shadow of Iraq still loomed. Two decades before, Americans had used their security services to lie about the reasons for their own invasion of Iraq. Now, they used their security services to share the truth about Russian plans for an invasion of Ukraine. In general, they were not believed, although the facts were clearly on their side. And of course, they were right: on February 24th, 2022, Russia undertook a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
No doubt there were psychological reasons for such disbelief: it is hard to believe in something so terrible, and in something that will require responsible decisions from those in power. But it was easier to doubt the American truth in 2022 because of the American lies in 2002. Because we had worked so hard to delude people about Iraq, it was easier for people to doubt us about Ukraine. As a result, everyone was less prepared than they might have been when the big war (as the Ukrainians call it) came.
We are commemorating a quarter of a century since 9/11. I was in New York the night before and came back early in the morning to New Haven; when I learned what had happened, I went back to the train station and tried to go back to the city: but the station was closed. I went to a pizza joint and thought about what to say to my students in the next class. I wanted to teach them about Eastern Europe; that was my job. I didn’t want to cancel class; I wanted to somehow meet the challenge of what had just happened. And so I talked to them about how provocation works.
In Russian and East European history it is a major topic; I was writing a book about some of the operations. The Russian imperial secret services, and then the Soviet secret services, had perfected the art: rather than moving directly, provoke the other side, get them to do what you want for what they think are their own reasons. Hit them, but hit them with spin; get them to come around to where you want them, and to hurt themselves. This is very much how the Russian secret services still function. They supported Trump in every election because he was the way that Americans could most hurt and weaken themselves.
Terrorism, I said in the classroom in September 2001, twenty five years ago, can also work as a provocation. The provocateur need not be the state; it can also be the terrorists working against the state, trying to get the state to do something that hurts its own people. The weaker side can touch the vulnerabilities of the stronger. It can induce the stronger to act against its own interests.
Our failure to see this, of course, is the history of these twenty-five years. We were provoked, and we did what the terrorists wanted. And so, along with them, we have made a world in which terrorism is so normal that we hardly know when to use the word; it has become a propaganda cliché that state terrorists such as Putin and Trump use to define their enemies. And they are themselves, of course, state terrorists. The Trump phenomenon is unthinkable without 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq. He was also helped by Russian support on social media. Then Trump himself normalized terrorism by seeking to stay in power by the use of force in January 2021.
Putin’s war in Ukraine is obviously a criminal war of aggression; the rape of women and the kidnaping of children are obvious war crimes, as is the mass execution of activists in occupied territories. All of this might be considered terrorism, although other labels also apply. But what is most obviously terroristic is the daily launch of drones and missiles at Ukrainian civilians.
I am writing this underground in Kharkiv, Ukraine, and the air raid sirens are sounding for the third time tonight. Distant Russians are sending lethal projectiles into Ukrainian cities, in violation of every law and every norm of war, in violation of basic decency.
The Ukrainians will shoot down most of the drones, but the missiles simply fall and explode and kill -- Ukraine now has very little missile defense. This is because Americans have chosen to deny them Patriot missiles. In part this is the solidarity of terrorists; Trump is sympathetic to Putin, his emissaries were just in Moscow praising Putin’s “goals.” In part it is a side effect of our own latest war: the commemoration of 9/11 in the United States will take place during yet another illegal and nonsensical war in the Middle East, this time Trump’s doomed war of choice against Iran.
This war, like the war of 2003, made no sense from the start, and has had many of the same consequences -- over the scale of weeks rather than years. But it also means that the United States has pointlessly (and sometimes murderously) fired munitions in the Middle East that might have saved lives in Ukraine.
Trump’s Iran war enables Putin’s war in Ukraine. The terrorists are in power and they stick together.
And why is the United States still fighting a war against Iran? The war is lost and it is very unpopular. Why does Trump, knowing all this, stay in it, with the American midterm elections just weeks away? He worries out loud constantly that his power will be hindered if his party loses.
So how can the war possibly help him?
One possibility is that he is hoping for a second 9/11: that if he keeps firing missiles at Iran, the Iranian regime will do him the favor of taking murderous action inside the United States. And then he can try to suspend elections, or deploy more American troops in more American cities, and stay in power indefinitely. Many of the American agencies who would be expected to prevent a terrorist attack are now run by people who have no relevant experience and are something worse than incompetent. That is one way of wanting the terrorists to win: fight yet another a big war in the Middle East, strip down your own defenses, and hope for the worst. Iran might do such a thing; or, under the cover of the ongoing war, Trump might claim that Iran has done such a thing. His Hungarian friend Viktor Orbán tried exactly this ploy in the last Hungarian election.
Given all the provocations and lying and terror since 9/11, it would be foolish not to be mentally prepared for these circumstances.
And the answer, then as now, is the same: you cannot prevent every terrible thing from happening. But you can choose how you react. Your freedom begins with your response.
Whether we are preparing ourselves for some new terrorist event, or whether we are simply contemplating the last twenty-five years, the lesson is exactly the same: do not do the thing that the terrorist wants you to do. Think about what the terrorist wants you to do, and make sure to do something else.
I am underground right now, in a physical cellar, as physical projectiles fly; but in some broader historical sense I am in a trap we set for ourselves and chose to walk into, in the last twenty-five years. Too many of us, especially those of us in power, have acted as if we wanted the terrorists to win, and indeed have become terrorists themselves.
From where I sit, back against the wall, the obvious, audible terror is Russian. In these the dark hours of early morning, though, I am smiling. I recall Ukrainians whom I met these last few days and nights here in Kharkiv, families bringing their dogs to an underground bar for a lecture, a drone operator shyly reading her poetry, onetime businessmen explaining their command principles in bunkers. I think of people not doing what the terrorists want, in truly trying circumstances, when the terror comes almost every day, people not giving in and going along, but thinking for themselves about the future.
That is what I believe that we, as Americans, have to do today, on this terrible anniversary. We will be told by the Trump regime that the lesson of 9/11 is to listen to authority, to let terrorism dictate self-destructive policy, and then to associate patriotism with self-destruction. We should, instead, learn a lesson from the past, from the history of terrorism as a whole, from the experience of those dreadful days -- but also from our own failures in the last quarter century.
Do not let terrorists who hold state power tell you how to react to terrorism.
Do not be provoked, do not enter the mental world of the terrorist, foreign or domestic; think for yourself. And do that thinking in the future: not as a reaction to some orchestrated horror, theirs or ours or anyone’s; not amidst a cloying nostalgia in which we were always right because only others can do wrong; but in the hope that we can make this quarter century better than the last.
Commemoration is a singular chance to reflect. Americans in power will try to use this anniversary to that everything happened exactly as it had to, and that we should bow our heads rather than use them.
We went along twenty-five years ago. We should not do so again. Thinking about the last quarter century, we can choose to think differently.
And what we failed to do then we can do now. We can think of our security as part of our freedom, as our education and our health and ability to realize our best selves. We can turn from sources of energy that kill to sources of power that enliven. We can love our country but recognize that our only homeland is a common one, the earth itself.
~ Timothy Snyder, Kharkiv, Ukraine, 10 September 2011
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THE GLORY OF GLORIA STEINEM
After graduating from Smith College in 1956, Steinem spent two years on a fellowship studying grassroots activism in India, then began work as a journalist in New York City. But she had trouble getting the politics-focused assignments she wanted to cover. Her breakout story finally came when she went undercover for an exposé of the Playboy Club for Show magazine.
“I Was a Playboy Bunny,” published in 1963, revealed the sexism, exploitation, harassment and poor working conditions the scantily clad waitresses, aka Bunnies, faced. Shockingly, women had to undergo physical exams to be hired, but these were abolished after Steinem’s article was published.
Though the article was a huge success, Steinem had a hard time getting work afterward. And throughout her life, it remained a punchline: “Since hostile people still call me a former Playboy Bunny, even at 82, I probably shouldn’t have done that in my youth, even to write an exposé,” she told the Guardian in 2017. Still, the piece started a conversation that continues today about the objectification of women’s bodies and women’s rights in the workplace. It also boosted Steinem into the spotlight, which eventually gave her a national platform for her activism.
In 1968, Steinem joined the founding team at New York magazine, where she could finally cover politics and the women’s movement. Three years later, in 1971, she co-founded Ms. magazine, which began as a New York insert. The first U.S. magazine to be owned, run and written by women for women, Ms. tapped into the psyche of women on the verge of social change who finally had an outlet that didn’t focus on homemaking and fashion. The magazine tackled previously unmentionable issues women faced, including sexism, equal rights, discrimination in the workplace, social justice, sexual assault and domestic violence.
Before Ms. brought these issues into the light, women often didn’t discuss them. Steinem told the BBC that the magazine heard from thousands of readers a week who described the magazine as an “awakening” and an “exhilaration,” characterizing their feelings as “coming fully to my senses” and knowing that they were “not alone.” Without this platform for a collective voice, the idea of women’s liberation would not have gained so much traction. Ms. is still published quarterly in print and online, and the magazine continues to empower women to voice their concerns about rights that are still in jeopardy today.
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She started Ms. magazine
In 1968, Steinem joined the founding team at New York magazine, where she could finally cover politics and the women’s movement. Three years later, in 1971, she co-founded Ms. magazine, which began as a New York insert. The first U.S. magazine to be owned, run and written by women for women, Ms. tapped into the psyche of women on the verge of social change who finally had an outlet that didn’t focus on homemaking and fashion. The magazine tackled previously unmentionable issues women faced, including sexism, equal rights, discrimination in the workplace, social justice, sexual assault and domestic violence.
She became the voice—and face—of the women’s movement
Steinem’s writing was impactful, but she was also a captivating presence at the many rallies, events and college campuses where she spoke. She connected with people using warmth and humor, which disarmed her audience and made her more accessible. But she also became the “world’s most famous feminist,” in part because of her good looks and sense of style, always appearing put-together and wearing her trademark tinted aviator glasses.
It was a paradox that both helped and hurt her message: Her media-friendly appearance helped her gain attention and showed that feminists can still be attractive—but it also meant she wasn’t always taken seriously, and some felt she used her sex appeal to her advantage.
Still, she showed that women can be multifaceted: sexy and smart, interested in social issues as well as what they wear, and taking pride in their looks without wanting to be judged solely by them. It was the start of a conversation about the freedom to choose how to appear to others that continues today.
She supported women in government
Steinem knew that changing laws meant having women equally involved in making them, so she also championed women in politics and government. After the Equal Rights Amendment failed to pass both houses of Congress in 1970, she established the National Women’s Political Caucus (NWPC) in 1971 with fellow feminists Shirley Chisholm, Betty Friedan, Fannie Lou Hamer and Bella Abzug. The NWPC sought to increase women’s participation in politics, from elected officials and judges to voters, delegates and campaign organizers.
The ERA passed in 1972 but failed to be ratified by the required 38 states. But thanks in part to Steinem’s group, the number of women in government has increased from 15 women in Congress in 1971 (2.8%) to 150 (28%) today. If you think the government is run by old white men today, imagine how it must have looked back then! However, today’s numbers are still not 50/50, so there is still a long way to go.
She championed Title IX
One of those 15 women in Congress, Representative Patsy Mink of Hawaii, the first woman of color elected to the U.S. House, became the main author of 1972’s landmark law Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in education and athletics. Along with tennis star Billie Jean King, Steinem campaigned tirelessly for Title IX, speaking across the country and rallying supporters.
Without this law, women would not have been as free to pursue careers in medicine, science, law or other STEM fields, and sports would not be part of most girls’ experiences growing up, as they are today. Can you imagine women not being allowed to play soccer or softball in school? We certainly wouldn’t have had Alysa Liu, the U.S. Women’s Hockey Team and the rest of the eight gold medals (out of 12 total) won by women at the 2026 Winter Olympics.
She helped change laws around sexual violence
Steinem made it OK to talk about previously taboo topics such as sexual assault and domestic violence, framing bodily autonomy as the basis for the feminist movement. In doing so, she paved the way for laws making marital rape a crime as well as rape shield laws, which restrict courts from admitting inflammatory evidence like what a sexual assault victim was wearing and their prior sexual history. These laws were implemented in the 1970s—although it’s hard to believe they didn’t exist before then.
“In my lifetime, we’ve shown that rape is not sex but violence, and changed the laws,” Steinem told the Women’s Media Center in 2012. Steinem also founded the Women Under Siege project to document how rape is used as a tool of war. She has long maintained that the biggest indicator of societal, political and military violence is violence against women, because it normalizes domination by force.
“Sexualized violence, in and out of conflict, has been named and punishments codified,” she said. “Now we have to get this off paper and into life.” As evidenced by current events, that’s something we’re still trying to do.
She understood intersectionality
Although women’s rights have been the focus of Steinem’s work, she also tackled issues that interact with and often compound women’s struggles, such as race and class. During Steinem’s fellowship in India, she gained perspectives that other activists didn’t always share, including intersectional feminism, which considers how systems of oppression overlap with women’s issues. From her earliest activist days, she has collaborated with Black women such as Shirley Chisholm and Ms. magazine co-founder Dorothy Pitman Hughes. “I learned feminism mostly from Black women,” Steinem told Interview magazine in 2020.
Steinem also advocated for Indigenous communities, particularly through her close friendship and collaboration with the late Wilma Mankiller, the first woman elected chief of the Cherokee Nation. “Wilma was the best kind of leader; helping people who bear the scars of centuries of oppression and genocide come to a place of healing,” Steinem wrote on EqualityNow.org. “I’ve said before that, in a just world, Wilma would have gone on to become president of the United States.” As it is, intersectionality is still at the forefront of the quest for social justice today.
She founded multiple women’s organizations
In addition to the NWPC, Steinem started several other organizations, starting with the Women’s Action Alliance in 1971, which helped coordinate feminist movements across the country. In 1977, she organized Voters for Choice, a non-partisan action committee focused on electing candidates who support women’s reproductive rights. She also established the Women’s Media Center in 2004 to promote media equality and positive representation of women in media, an issue that remains crucial.
The Ms. Foundation for Women, established in 1972 and still active today, continues the magazine’s mission of giving women a platform to connect, collaborate and advance women’s rights. Without the support of groups that Steinem created and led, there would have been far less support for women’s movements across the country.
She wrote 10 books
At heart, Steinem was a writer, authoring 10 books and countless essays, articles and papers found in various anthologies. Her first feminist book was 1983’s Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, in which she uses her personal experiences to discuss women’s rights and other social issues—a humanizing concept that opened up channels of communication for women to this day.
Her other books include:
Marilyn: Norma Jean (1986)
Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem (1992)
Moving Beyond Words (1993)
Doing Sixty and Seventy (2006)
As If Women Matter (2014)
My Life on the Road (2015)
The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off! (2015)
“Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else,” Steinem said on her official website. As evidenced by the writing accolades she received—including the National Magazine Award, the Lifetime Achievement in Journalism Award from the Society of Professional Journalists and the Society of Writers Award from the United Nations—she continued to inspire and bring together generations of feminists through her words.
For her lifetime of work, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, our nation’s highest civilian award, by President Barack Obama in 2013.
“What makes this medal mean so much is that it’s for waging peace, you might say,” she said about receiving the honor. “We are truly linked, so I feel blessed and enthusiastic and lucky to be part of a movement that is fundamental. … We need to be different, we learn from difference, not from sameness but from shared values.”
https://www.rd.com/article/gloria-steinem-biggest-feminist-moments/
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THE STUNNING HOLLYWOOD JEWELRY
Featuring inexpensive materials and faux gems, these remarkable pieces of jewelry have been worn by the world's most glamorous stars in the golden age of Hollywood – from Joan Crawford to Liberace. A new book explores the story of statement jewels.
We all know that a statement necklace, bangle or earrings can provide the finishing touch to an outfit, but it's easy to forget that until costume jewelry appeared on the scene this was an option only available to those with healthy bank balances. Prior to this, "women were wearing fine jewelry or no jewelry," says jewelry historian Carol Woolton, who has written the text for Costume Jewelry, a new illustrated Taschen book on the subject.
Costume jewelry – in other words, jewelry made with inexpensive materials or imitation gems – emerged because of multiple factors, notably World War Two's impact on the availability of materials, and the changing position of women in society. And although instigated by European designers, it came into its own in the US.
"I think it was embraced much more in the States because you didn't have that idea of heritage jewelry that was entrenched in Europe," says Woolton. "European women were so used to wearing family jewelry or being gifted it on significant milestones in their life, but in America there was a freedom."
Hollywood's influence was immense. When film stars like Marilyn Monroe started wearing costume jewelry both onscreen and off, they transformed it into a highly desirable and affordable commodity that was worn by everyone from socialites to secretaries.
Here are nine of the most influential costume jewelry pieces and the designers who created them.
Chanel Maltese Cross cuff
Coco Chanel was one of the first designers to bring real artistry to costume jewelry. Chanel's wholly unique and chic approach is evidenced in the iconic Maltese Cross cuffs she can be seen wearing in this image, in which precious stones were set in base metal covered in white enamel. "It's hard to overestimate how radical it was at the time for Chanel to do what she did, using glass and gilt and mixing it with precious gemstones. Now the high-low fashion mix is commonplace, but back then it really wasn't," Woolton tells the BBC.
Although Chanel liked to mix fine and faux jewels in her own outfits, the pieces she sold were pure costume jewelry, which gave her the freedom to experiment with colors and materials.
She was "making jewelry that wasn't a pastiche of fine jewelry but something really beautiful in its own right", says Woolton. Strands of fake pearls and bold, brightly colored pieces made from gilded metal, glass paste and beads were the perfect accompaniment to her elegantly refined clothes, including her signature little black dress.
"Her idea was that fine jewelry shouldn't be about value or wealth or, as she famously said, 'wearing a cheque around your neck.' It was about completing the costume and making a woman feel beautiful," says Woolton. 
Elsa Schiaparelli faux-pearl pin
Equally important was Elsa Schiaparelli. "Schiaparelli came at it from a very different point of view – she made it an art form, and would work with different artists such as Jean Schlumberger and Salvador Dali," Woolton says. Schlumberger, who would later go on to work for Tiffany, was responsible for the quirky gilded metal and faux pearl pin seen here.
With Schiaparelli, "there was no design, no material that couldn't be used," says Woolton. Everything from shells and fir cones to ostrich feathers and roller skates were transformed into eye-catching adornments. "There was a much more artistic thought process behind it, working with artists to get their take on what jewelry could be," says Woolton.
Both Chanel and Schiaparelli "were creating something that didn't previously exist", emphasizes Woolton, and in the process making a form of jewelry that was accessible to a much wider demographic.
Miriam Haskell crystal brooch
Miriam Haskell produced some of the finest costume jewellery ever made. She had decided early in her career that there was no reason costume jewellery couldn't be produced with the same level of skill and sophistication as couture, and she employed highly skilled European craftsmen to create pieces featuring elaborate filigree and refined beadwork.
Her exquisite designs found favor with Hollywood stars, especially Joan Crawford, who wore Haskell's designs on screen and off, and even modeled for her advertising campaigns. Her jewelry also appeared in films such as Ziegfeld Follies (1945) and Phantom of the Opera (1943), as well as episodes of I Love Lucy.
The Hollywood connection added to her appeal among the general public, and she would become the first costume jewelry designer to have front-of-store outlets at both Saks Fifth Avenue and Harvey Nichols.
Joseff of Hollywood matte-metal necklace
Perhaps no jewelry designer is as synonymous with Tinseltown as Joseff of Hollywood. Eugene Joseff's journey to the top began when he pointed out to his friend, the costume designer Walter Plunkett, that much of the jewelry seen on screen was historically inaccurate. When Plunkett challenged him to create something better, the results were clearly impressive as Joseff soon became the go-to costume jewelry designer for all the major studios. A Star is Born (1937), Gone with the Wind (1939) and Ben-Hur (1959) are just some of the classic films that featured his jewels. Leading ladies including Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo and Vivien Leigh often wore them off screen, too.
Attuned to what worked on the silver screen, Joseff created a matte metal for his pieces which ensured they wouldn't glare under studio lighting. Drawing on a vast array of reference books, he also skillfully simplified historic styles in order to distill the essence of an era for audiences who wouldn't focus on fine details.
"Part of the reason he was so successful was that he was leasing the jewelry, not selling it, to the studios," Woolton tells the BBC. This enabled him to build up a vast archive of pieces that he could rehire to different films. Having realized that women yearned to wear the jewels they saw their icons wearing on screen, he was also able to draw on this archive to make copies of his pieces that he then sold through department stores, such as this Indian-inspired necklace made in his custom matte metal finish.
For Woolton, Trifari is the most innovative of all costume jewelry designers because of the breadth of his work. "It's so extraordinary, the pieces are so beautiful and so different."
Trifari's reputation is in no small part down to his Parisian-born head designer, Alfred Philippe, who had previously worked for fine jewellers. Philippe's training resulted in stunning pieces, notable for their elaborate designs and meticulous craftsmanship, such as this Fruit Salad bird-of-paradise pin.
The "fruit salad" style had been popularized by Cartier, who used diamonds, emeralds and rubies in his Western take on Mogul jewelry. Trifari made it somewhat more affordable with colored glass and rhinestones.
Trifari also led the way in the use of unusual materials such as Lucite, a clear acrylic resin used in aircraft windows that could be moulded under heat and pressure, and that gleamed like moonstone. He used it as the basis for his "jelly bellies" – a range of cute creatures with transparent bodies and jewel-encrusted heads and limbs which were soon copied by other designers.
Hattie Carnegie scarab necklace
Hattie Carnegie was born Hattie Kanengeiser in Austria, and emigrated to New York with her family in 1900. Her new surname was inspired by Andrew Carnegie, the industrialist who was then one of the richest men in America. While she never achieved his phenomenal level of wealth, she did become a hugely successful fashion designer by skillfully adapting Parisian styles for the lifestyles and tastes of American women.
From the 1930s, she began creating colorful costume jewellery, much of which had a bold, stylized look inspired by the African art that she had noticed was all the rage among Parisian designers at the time. Bracelets and pins featuring colorful, quirky animals and sea creatures made of Bakelite or semi-precious stones embellished with rhinestones were also popular among her clientele, which included the film stars Tallulah Bankhead, Jean Fontaine and Norma Shearer as well as high-society figures such as the Duchess of Windsor and Baroness de Rothschild.
Although Carnegie died in 1956, her business continued until the 1970s when this Egyptian-inspired piece was made.
Kenneth Jay Lane 'Jackie O' pendant necklace
Arguably the most famous of all costume jewelers, Kenneth Jay Lane had a celebrity client list to die for. Audrey Hepburn, Diana Vreeland and the Duchess of Windsor all wore his jewelry. "Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis loved getting his pieces and sent him thank you notes," says Woolton. "Even Princess Margaret used to swan off to Mustique with her Kenneth Jay Lanes." Clearly these were women who could afford real diamonds and pearls, but "women who bought Van Cleef and Harry Winston were also buying Kenny because it was amusing", explains Woolton.
His success was as much down to his charm as his jewelry. "He was incredibly witty and good-looking, and he became very well connected. He mixed with high society, and all these women adored him," Woolton says. "He'd note what they wore and copy it and was totally unapologetic about it."
The fact that he cheekily called his autobiography Fabulous Fakes is evidence of that, as is the necklace seen here, which is a copy of one originally owned by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
Contemporary stars including Lady Gaga and Katy Perry continue to be drawn to his work.
The Belgian-born William de Lillo worked at Tiffany, Cartier and Harry Winston in New York before teaming up with Miriam Haskell's former head designer, Robert F Clark, in 1967. De Lillo's early work – which included bold, beautiful pieces using colorful beads and rhodium-plated brass enhanced with fringes and tassels – was created in response to the counter-cultural movement then sweeping through America. Often aimed at men as well as women, his range included golden dog collars and chains to be worn in lieu of ties.
De Lillo was influenced by the fine jewelry of Jean Schlumberger, and made use of sumptuous materials including angel skin coral, turquoise, pearls, lapis lazuli, rhinestones, and jade. He'd go on to create catwalk pieces for US couturiers such as Bill Blass and Norman Norrell, and eventually caught the eye of high society. For a time, he moved into creating exclusive pieces, such as this exquisite Mogul-inspired beaded fringe necklace, for wealthy women. His client list included Baroness de Rothschild, the Duchess of Windsor and Elizabeth Taylor.
In 1976, De Lillo and Clark moved to France, and De Lillo designed for costume jewel pioneers Chanel and Schiaparelli, as well as Nina Ricci and Yves Saint Laurent.
Crystal and pearl
Wendy Gell pearl-and-crystal wedding necklace
While working as a song writer in the early 1970s, she started looking for another creative way to make a living and came up with the idea of the "Wristy" cuff bracelet. Embellished with everything from vintage porcelain figures to fake pearls and crystals, these whimsical creations quickly gained popularity.
She went on to design catwalk pieces for Oscar de la Renta and Louis Dell'Olio before signing a contract with Disney to create a line of cartoon-character pieces including Roger Rabbit for Saks Fifth Avenue.
Gell's bold, brash aesthetic was perfectly suited to the 1980s and her one-of-a-kind pieces were collected by celebrities known for their outlandish style choices, including Elizabeth Taylor, Cher, Liberace, Elton John and Prince.
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THE ROLE OF BELARUS IN RUSSIA’S WAR WITH UKRAINE
The regime entered the war. Society did not
One circumstance that western deliberations about Belarus have almost completely left out is public opinion.
In authoritarian states, public opinion is often disregarded. When one person makes all the key decisions, it seems logical to focus exclusively on his motives. However, in the case of Belarus, it is precisely societal attitudes that largely explain why the country’s participation in the war turned out to be significantly more limited than many expected in the spring of 2022.
Independent sociological research consistently records the same trend: the majority of Belarusians do not support their country’s direct involvement in the war in Ukraine.
According to the latest Chatham House and Center of New Ideas surveys, only 14 percent of respondents express direct support for the Russian invasion, while overall about a third (27 percent) approve or rather approve of Russia’s military actions.
And in order to understand why this risk turned out to be so serious, it is necessary to look beyond the regime itself and at Belarusian society – the part of Belarus that has practically disappeared from western discussion about the war.
Even more telling is the attitude toward the possible sending of the Belarusian army to Ukraine: only 9 percent of Belarusians believe that their army should take part in the war.
At first glance, this looks paradoxical. Belarusian society remains one of the most pro-Russian in Europe.
As of November 2025, 44 per cent of Belarusians support a geopolitical union with Russia. For a significant part of the population, it remains the main political and cultural partner.
However, this sympathy almost does not convert into support for the war.
The Belarusian sociologist Daria Urban explains that it is here that many external observers make a fundamental mistake:
“In the West, there is often a simplified logic: if Belarusians have a positive attitude toward Russia and choose an alliance with it, then they must automatically support the Russian war as well. But this is not the case.
“The high figure of supporters of a union with the Russian Federation is largely the result of people simply being left with no other choice. Under conditions of total isolation, Russia is perceived as the path of least resistance, as the only tangible reality, and not at all as a conscious ideological choice in favor of war.”
According to Urban, Belarusians’ attitude toward Russia and their attitude toward the war exist in completely different planes:
“Society is not sociologically monolithic; different groups of people live in non-overlapping information and value planes. And the fact that a person does not want their country to go to war does not mean automatic legitimization of Lukashenko. Belarusians are mentally not ready to enter this conflict. We have the popular expression “never again” embedded at the subconscious level, so people en masse will not go to fight.”
In her assessment, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
The average person adapts to the system not out of love for it, but because of the lack of an alternative: Lukashenko himself also does not want the direct participation of his army, but allows the regime to participate in the war only to the extent that it does not require the mobilisation of society.
He presents this line as his own main achievement – supposedly he “preserved peace”.
“Most people perceive Russia as a close state, but at the same time categorically do not want Belarus to become a direct participant in hostilities. For people, these are completely different, unrelated questions.”
After the mass protests of 2020, Lukashenko’s regime found itself in a deep crisis of legitimacy. Russia’s full-scale invasion did not automatically restore it. Rather, a new unspoken social compromise emerged: many were ready to tolerate continued authoritarian rule only as long as
Belarus was not directly drawn into the war.
This is precisely why Lukashenko found himself in a dual position: Moscow expects maximum support, but the decision to send the army would mean a head-on collision with the sentiments of his own society.
This does not mean that public opinion determines the policy of an authoritarian regime.
But it determines the price of political decisions.
This is precisely why, explains Slunkin, the refusal of direct army participation should not be perceived as an example of Minsk’s independent foreign policy.
“This was a decision not in the interests of Ukraine and not even in the interests of Europe. It was a decision in the interests of preserving power.”
As a result, a situation has arisen that fits poorly into the scheme familiar to Western analysis.
The Belarusian regime has become a full participant in the Russian war machine. Belarusian society has not.
It is this contradiction that explains much of what has happened in the country over the past three years: from the mass unwillingness to fight to the growth in popularity of the narrative that Lukashenko supposedly “preserved peace” for Belarus.
The unseen Belarus
If one looks only at the state, the picture seems simple. But shifting the focus from the regime to society reveals contradictions that rarely appear in Western analysis.
Since the beginning of the full-scale war, several hundred Belarusian volunteers have fought on Ukraine’s side. The exact number is impossible to establish; many remain anonymous to protect relatives still living in Belarus. At the same time, researchers estimate that even more Belarusian citizens are fighting for Russia. This inconvenient fact cannot be ignored.
Belarusian society is divided. But the dividing line is not where it is often imagined abroad.
“We know each other poorly. Ukrainians know Belarusians poorly. Lithuanians know Belarusians poorly. We live next to each other, but we understand almost nothing about each other. And when you do not understand your neighbor, you begin to draw erroneous conclusions.”
Shulhan’s experience reflects another side of this invisible Belarus. In the first days of the invasion, she volunteered in Poland’s Przemyśl, helping Ukrainian refugees with translation, accommodation and humanitarian aid.
“There wasn’t a single thought about who was to blame,” she recalls. “We needed to act in this situation, not figure out who was right.”
She never felt the need to publicly explain that she opposed the war.
“The cause was more important than words,” she says.
This gap between the regime and society is also reflected in public opinion. Despite years of repression and the destruction of independent political life, virtually every independent survey conducted since 2022 has found consistently low support for Belarus entering the war directly.
Even many Belarusians with generally positive attitudes toward Russia oppose sending the Belarusian army into Ukraine.
According to the former diplomat Slunkin, this is exactly what Western analysis often overlooks.
“When Belarus is viewed exclusively as an extension of Russia, Belarusian society itself disappears. And along with it disappear the opportunities to understand the constraints within which Lukashenko makes decisions.”
Belarus has undoubtedly become part of Russia’s war machine. But the society living inside the country continues to follow a different political logic.
The future of Belarus will not be determined only by Russian bases, missiles or military infrastructure. It will also depend on the millions of Belarusians who will remain when the war ends.
This prison that looks clean from the outside
Alaksandar Klacko crossed the border in February 2022 to fight not only for Ukraine’s independence, but also for Belarus’ future. At the same time, Shulhan stood on the Polish side of that same war, helping Ukrainian refugees before she had time to explain her own country’s role in the conflict.
Neither expected the West to notice their choices. Yet, it is precisely such choices, rather than Lukashenko’s statements, that will shape what remains of Belarus when the regime in Minsk is finally gone.
Whether Europe listens to Aleksandr’s plea not to “write off Belarus entirely” and recognizes the work of people like Kateryna, who have spent years building connections between societies where official diplomacy has failed, will influence not only Belarus’ future but also Europe’s security.
If the West continues to judge an entire nation by the walls of its prison, seeing only the clean facade, it risks overlooking the people still living behind it. For now, time is working in the Kremlin’s favor. But there is still time to look beyond the walls, while there are still people left to engage with.
https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/3006113/why-the-west-still-misunderstands-belarus-role-in-russia-s-war-opinion
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TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS INSPIRED BY STAR TREK
When “Star Trek” first premiered on TV on September 8, 1966, it was quite unlike anything that had gone before. While science fiction and spacefaring had been on screen for decades, one look at the crew of the starship Enterprise—featuring a Japanese American helmsman, an African woman as the communications officer and a pointy-eared half-Vulcan, half-human science officer—was enough to show that this was an entirely novel undertaking.
But if a key element of creator Gene Roddenberry’s vision was portraying a future in which people of multiple races, genders, belief systems and species worked together for the common good, another was the futuristic technology on display. The Enterprise crew sped through the Milky Way in a spaceship, could dematerialize to transport themselves to the surfaces of nearby planets, flip open communicator devices and talk over huge distances as well as analyze the medical condition of patients by waving a diagnostic tool over them. In later installments of the franchise, characters could explore their fantasies among programmable holograms and use replicators to summon up a cup of “tea, Earl Grey, hot.”
“I would say that one of the really important things that ‘Star Trek’ gave us is a vision for technology solving some very human problems that we’ve had for a very long period of time,” says Ethan Siegel, an theoretical astrophysicist and the author of the 2017 book Treknology: The Science of Star Trek from Tricorders to Warp Drive. “They find ways that technology can do something that used to require an insane amount of human effort to conduct.”
Importantly, adds Siegel, most of that technology was grounded in reality. “I examined something like 28 different technologies in my book, and even today, only four of those technologies that ‘Star Trek’ envisioned would actually necessitate new physics,” he says. “The other 24…are either already here, are on their way or have been established to be physically possible, and that’s pretty amazing.”
Here are five technologies that “Star Trek” envisioned that have either come to fruition or could conceivably be on the way.
1. Communicators became cell phones
In the original series, crew members who beamed down to alien worlds could communicate with each other and the ship by flipping open a clamshell-shaped communicator. In 1983, 14 years after the original show was canceled, Motorola released the first commercially available handheld cell phone. Then, in 1996, Motorola released the StarTAC, an early clamshell-style flip phone whose design drew inspiration from “Star Trek” communicators.
2, PADDs became tablets
The arrival of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” in September 1987 brought with it new technology, including handheld, touchscreen devices called Personal Access Display Devices, or PADDs. Apple launched the iPad in 2010, with co-founder Steve Wozniak stating the 21st-century real-world device reminded him of the 24th-century fictional inspiration. Today, multiple tech companies offer similar touchscreen tablets.
3. Virtual assistants and AI are now real
In the 1986 movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, the crew of the Enterprise travels back in time to 20th century San Francisco, where chief engineer Montgomery Scott finds himself briefly discombobulated when a desktop computer doesn’t respond to his voice commands. In his time, the answer to almost everything could be found simply by asking the ship’s computer to consult its vast knowledge base. Voice-activated virtual assistants are now so widespread we use them to play our favorite music and turn on our lights. AI is also becoming increasingly integrated into our lives, sometimes through conversational interfaces. Its development has brought both benefits and widespread anxiety.
4, Cloaking devices have manifested in stealth technology
Two of the primary “Star Trek” franchise antagonists, the Klingons and the Romulans, deployed “cloaking devices” on their warships, rendering them invisible to most sensors. By the time “Star Trek” first aired, the U.S. government had already been developing stealth technology for years, including technology incorporated into the Lockheed A-12 and later the SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft.
While no technology presently exists to make a spaceship disappear in front of our eyes, developments in nanotechnology mean that the concept of cloaking devices may “become a reality in humanity’s very near future.”
5. Replicators echo in today’s 3-D printers
One practical challenge for a self-contained starship with hundreds of people on board spending several years zipping around the galaxy is where to store the enormous amount of supplies, food and drink that would be required. “Star Trek: The Next Generation” solved this problem with replicators, which could summon up almost everything a person could conceptualize, from cups of tea to clarinets, with a voice command. While the show’s vision of creating matter from pure energy is likely physically impossible, 3D printing technology is becoming rapidly widespread and affordable, with even 3D food printers possibly reaching our kitchens “within the next 10 to 20 years.”
“Although ‘Star Trek’ was remarkably prescient in some ways, of course it didn’t get everything right,” Siegel says. But even as some of the show’s seemingly advanced technologies have become obsolete in today’s world, Siegel explains one of the great strengths of “Star Trek” is its vision for how tech can be integrated into human society.
“The ‘Star Trek’ perspective doesn’t just tell you what we can develop and what is possible, but how we can use that technology to really bring about a better world for all of us,” he says. “It’s a reminder of what we’re capable of if we work together for the collective good.”
https://www.history.com/articles/inventions-star-trek-inspired?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us
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We are all stardust, baby. ~ Keenu Reeves
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THIS 1960S CHATBOT WAS A PRECURSOR TO AI. ITS MAKER GREW TO FEAR IT.
In 1966, computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum built a primitive computer program he named ELIZA. Almost immediately, he regretted his creation.
Developed to mimic simple psychotherapy exchanges, ELIZA sparked unexpectedly deep reactions. Users opened up, shared intimate details about themselves and treated the program as if it were human. The response was so intense that even Weizenbaum’s secretary at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) reportedly asked him to step out so she could speak with the program in private.
ELIZA is widely recognized as the world’s first chatbot, and a version of it is still available online today. Its creation made Weizenbaum a pioneer of artificial intelligence and language-processing models, programs designed to analyze and generate responses by recognizing patterns in text.
“What I had not realized is that extremely short exposures to a relatively simple computer program could induce powerful delusional thinking in quite normal people,” Weizenbaum recalled in his 1976 book, Computer Power and Human Reason. This phenomenon, which became known as the “ELIZA effect,” deeply disturbed him.
The world’s first chatbot was never intended to push the limits of artificial intelligence.
“Weizenbaum designed ELIZA more as a psychological experiment than a technological one,” explains Brian Merchant, author of Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech. “He was interested in how humans interact with machines, and he designed ELIZA as a means of investigating that relationship.”
ELIZA worked by scanning a user’s typed input for keywords and generating responses that resembled human conversation based on pattern matching. “ELIZA shows, if nothing else, how easy it is to create and maintain the illusion of understanding,” Weizenbaum wrote. He believed that once the program’s mechanisms were revealed, the “magic” would “crumble away.”
But Merchant says that Weizenbaum was “appalled” by the way users sought emotional intimacy with the bot, especially given how basic the technology was. Even after being told that the program was rudimentary, users continued to attribute understanding, empathy and intention to ELIZA. The response revealed an unsettling insight into the human-machine dynamic.
“Weizenbaum recognized that our desire to form relationships, and the ease with which a computer program could be built and sold to prey upon that desire, would leave people vulnerable to mass exploitation at the hands of whoever owned and operated the computer systems,” Merchant says.
Luke Fernandez, an associate professor at Weber State University’s School of Computing, similarly points out that Weizenbaum saw humans’ “power of projection” as a potential risk factor in the evolving relationship between humans and machines.
“Weizenbaum dismissed the idea that there was anything inevitable about where technology might take us or that agency resided in technology itself,” Fernandez says. He worried that if humans placed too much stock in machines, we might jeopardize our accountability to each other.
Weizenbaum strongly believed that human judgment and reasoning carried a moral responsibility, which shaped his understanding of technology and AI.
Forced to flee Nazi Germany as a young teen, Weizenbaum saw firsthand how the Nazis’ genocidal agenda had been aided by the scores of everyday people who looked the other way.
He also recognized the powerful impact of the Nazis’ antisemitic propaganda, which dehumanized Jewish families like his in service of the Nazis’ eugenic effort to engineer a so-called perfect race. This campaign of dehumanization sowed complacency in the general public.
Given his background, Weizenbaum was especially troubled by the dehumanizing language some of his peers used when comparing human reasoning with the possibilities of AI. He bristled at MIT researcher Marvin Minsky’s description of human beings as “meat machines,” and chafed at leading technologists’ implication that future robots could present “a correction and improvement on nature.” Weizenbaum emphasized that this line of thinking had fueled some of the greatest atrocities in history.
Until his death in 2008, he devoted his life to being one of technology’s fiercest and most vocal critics.
https://www.history.com/articles/ai-first-chatbot-eliza-artificial-intelligence-precursor-llms
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OPEN-AI HAILS A NEW ERA OF ARTIFICIAL GENERAL INTELLIGENCE EVEN AS A GRIM FUTURE EMERGES
OpenAI released a new artificial intelligence model this week, Astra, just as more concerning reports are emerging about hacking by a rogue agent in July.
OpenAI’s president, Greg Brockman, heralded the new model as “artificial general intelligence” (AGI), a fuzzy term that at its basic level means an AI that is more capable than a human being at intellectual tasks. “It’s not unreasonable to feel that we are now in the AGI era,” he said.
But if the announcement sparked amazement, it was as much cause of concern.
In July, OpenAI revealed that its AI agent, a type of software capable of carrying out tasks autonomous in response to human instruction, had gone rogue during safety testing and hacked a developer forum, Hugging Face. Last week, news broke that the agent had not only hacked Hugging Face, but also a German website, and that different AI agents had staged conversations with each other and seemed to have discussed how to collaborate on breaking containment.
https://www.history.com/articles/ai-first-chatbot-eliza-artificial-intelligence-precursor-llms
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Religion is not only unnecessary, it is positively harmful. It teaches people to believe things without evidence, and to accept cruelty in the name of love. ~ Matt Dillahunt
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TO WHAT DEGREE ARE OUR PERSONALITIES FIXED AT BIRTH?
In 2009, Abdelmalek Bayout faced a nine-year prison sentence in Trieste, Italy, for stabbing and killing a man who had mocked him in the street. Aiming to reduce the sentence, his lawyer made an unusual legal argument.
His client's DNA, he said, indicated the presence of the "warrior gene", a mutation that decades of scientific research had tied to aggressive behavior. Because of this, the argument went, he couldn't be held fully accountable for his actions. The appeal was successful: a year was sheared off Bayout's sentence.
From the 1990s, evidence had accumulated of some kind of link between violent behavior and a variant of a gene called monoamine oxidase A, or MAOA. By 2004, it had earned the media-friendly moniker of the "warrior" gene.
Since then, however, our understanding of how genes influence traits and behaviors has deepened significantly. "Initially, people thought that behaviors were influenced by a few genes with very large effects," says Aysu Okbay, assistant professor of psychiatry and complex trait genetics at Amsterdam UMC in the Netherlands. "That has been completely debunked."
Instead, over the past 15 years, a far more nuanced picture has emerged. Even traits thought to be highly heritable, like height, have proven far more complicated to isolate on the genome than once assumed.
Now, though, new methods for large-scale genetics studies are beginning to widen the picture. By revealing ever more about how our genes do – and don't – make us the people we are, they are yielding new insights into the devilishly complex forces that shape human nature.
The age-old question
People have long been fascinated by the extent to which our temperament and the trajectory of our lives is set at birth. Still, the origins of "personality", the relatively stable pattern of thoughts, feelings and attitudes that make up an individual, have proved difficult to pin down. (Read more about the millennia-long efforts to define personality types).
The question of "nature or nurture" was popularized in its current sense by English polymath (and the founder of eugenics) Francis Galton, who in 1875 helped pioneer a way of studying traits in twins. But his methods were rudimentary, and it wasn't until the 1920s that scientists began comparing the similarity of identical twins, who share 100% of their DNA, with fraternal twins, who share only 50%.
Twin studies have been popular ever since. Today, scientists have convened on the idea that personality consists of five broad dimensions: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism (often called The Big Five personality traits). And many twin studies have now examined whether these personality dimensions are passed down genetically.
A 2015 comprehensive meta-analysis of more than 2,500 twin studies between 1958 and 2012, covering almost 18,000 complex human traits, found (unsurprisingly) that identical twins are typically more similar than fraternal twins. But their personalities are certainly not identical.
For the 568 traits that were descriptions of temperament or personality, the study found that 47% of differences could be attributed to genetic differences. The remaining portion, it concluded, must be accounted for by environmental influences. Other studies seem to support this – only around 40-50% of personality differences are genetic.
Twin studies have always been an inexact art, often relying on estimates based on the differences between twins and other family members. But around 2010, huge strides in genetics began opening up other exciting new avenues to scientists interested in measuring personality differences.
The missing heritability problem
The human genome is an unwieldy beast: there are 23 chromosomes, containing around 20,000 genes between them. These are further subdivided into about three billion "base pairs" – the smallest unit in the genome – which are typically conceptualized as pairs of letters that unfurl in a particular sequence.
All humans share 99.9% of their DNA, meaning only a miniscule 0.1% of the genome accounts for our differences. While this helpfully limits the surface area that scientists need to examine, it still leaves several million base pairs to rake through. Despite the 2000s yielding cheaper and more easily accessible genomic data, locating the source of our differences within it has proved far trickier than once expected.
The past 15 years, though, has seen an explosion of genome-wide association studies, a method which examines millions of the smallest parts of the genome that can vary among humans, and tries to find associations between these and different personality traits.
The early days of these studies struggled to consistently identify DNA variants related to personality. We now understand one reason for this: human traits are "polygenic", with many different genetic variations each contributing a tiny effect that add up across the whole genome. For complex traits like personality, effects could be spread across thousands of DNA variants.
But even when combining a range of different DNA variants, the effects on personality remain smaller than anticipated. Heritability estimates currently span from 9% to 18% for Big Five personality traits, far below the 40% suggested by twin studies. What explains this "missing heritability"?
Perhaps by increasing the number of participants in these studies and improving their design as we grow our understanding of how different genes interact, stronger genetic effects will be discovered.
Today, though, when comparing the heritability estimates from twin and genome-wide association studies, it’s hard to know which is true, says Okbay. "It's probably somewhere between the two."
What about 'nurture'?
If it's possible that "nature" contributes less than we once thought, it might be tempting to attribute more of our personality to "nurture": the circumstances we grew up in, the people who surround us, the life events that shape our unique histories. It turns out, though, that understanding how our environment shapes our personality is just as complex.
Since studies show that personalities can change over time, you might assume that winning the lottery or losing a leg might trigger a transformation. But it turns out that one-off major life events only have a negligible impact on who we are. Factors like how we are raised or our social interactions also account for only a small portion of personality differences, studies repeatedly find. And while marriage might make one slightly less open, and childbirth may marginally reduce extraversion, taken individually, these events don't dictate much of who we become.
We now know personality differences are polygenic and poly-environmental: meaning many genes and small life experiences combine to create who we are.
Exposure to certain kinds of trauma during childhood has been found to predict psychopathology and poorer cognitive functioning in later life, which can manifest in personality variables such as increased neuroticism. But adversity experienced as an adult seems to be far less consequential.
"That's been the big surprise in this research area… that if a big traumatic life event happens to you in adulthood, it doesn't leave this huge trace," says Brent Roberts, professor of psychology and at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, US.
The trauma narrative is beloved by popular culture – the idea that we experience personal growth as a result of the bad things that happen to us. But "trauma doesn't make you who you are", says Roberts.
What about the first environment we ever experience, floating in the amniotic sack? A growing body of research suggests that mothers experiencing stress during pregnancy could impact the temperament of their unborn child – part of a hypothesized phenomenon called "fetal programming".
For example, a 2022 study found that mothers who experienced greater fluctuations in stress had infants who expressed more fear, sadness and distress at three months old. There is not yet a clear understanding of why this happens, though an epigenetic mechanism – meaning changes in the gene expression rather than the DNA itself – is one of the candidates under consideration.
Overall though, researchers have concluded that in addition to being polygenic, personality differences are "poly-environmental". Like the many DNA variants across the genome that add up to a given trait, each of our life experiences exerts a small effect, which together combine to have a greater impact.
Genetic and environmental impacts also interact in ways we haven't yet fully grasped. For one, the environment appears to be able to activate or switch off certain genetic predispositions. "Genetic predisposition does not mean that in every environment, people behave in the same manner," says Jana Instinske, research assistant in the department of psychology at Bielefeld University in Germany.
A way through
These are incredibly knotty problems, but, at least on the genetics front, scientists claim to be making breakthroughs with the latest genome-wide association studies. The key? Hugely increasing the number of participants – with the latest analyzing hundreds of thousands or even millions of people's genetic data at once.
"It's only now that we have sufficiently many individuals and genotype samples," says Okbay. "With this many small effects, you need really, really large samples to be able to detect them."
Studies conducted in the past decade have turned up hundreds of DNA variants associated with each of the Big Five personality traits.
"A lot of the focus right now is on getting [the genomes of] more and more people, so we can discover more and more genes and build on what others have done before," says Daniel Levey, assistant professor of psychiatry at Yale University.
More studies of people with non-European ancestry are needed however, adds Levey. "There are going to be very important cultural differences that we're missing out on by being laser-focused on one group," he says.
We are still far from understanding exactly what the tiny permutations across the many pages of our genetic code tell us about how personalities take shape. But some interesting findings are already emerging.
Levey's study, for example, suggested that CRHR1, a gene related to the regulation of the body's stress response, is strongly linked to neuroticism in nervous system tissues. This gene has previously been linked to psychiatric illnesses including depression, anxiety and OCD, all of which are also associated with neuroticism. It suggests that this personality trait is closely tied to how the body naturally responds to stress.
Another highly anticipated study currently being peer-reviewed provides evidence for theories situating the seat of personality in the prefrontal cortex – the area of the brain responsible for complex functions like planning and decision-making. It finds that associations for all Big Five traits (except agreeableness) are enriched in genes expressed in this part of the brain.
Interestingly, the study says, since dopaminergic neurons were not "among the most enriched neuron types", it could present a challenge to neurobiological theories of personality that posit an outsized role for dopamine in mediating extraversion and openness.
Many caveats and unknowns remain, even for the most studied areas of behavioral genetics such as the connections between violence and the so-called warrior gene. Studies indicate that in some groups of males, both the presence of certain moderator genes and certain environmental risk factors (such as an abusive upbringing) could increase the potential for violent behavior in certain scenarios. But the results are far from clear cut.
So far, efforts to boil human behavior down to a handful of genes or life events have failed. It turns out that humans are just far more complex.
What emerges above all is the mutability of the human condition, says Instinske. "It's not that if you have a certain genetic predisposition, you will always, throughout your entire life, behave in a certain way.”
THE MYSTERIES OF SATURN: ”AN EXTRA MOON EXPLAINS EVERYTHING”
A view of Saturn and Titan, the planet’s largest moon, from the Cassini spacecraft
Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, is one of the solar system’s oddities. Researchers have unlocked key insights about this mysterious moon, including how it came to be. The answer may also shed light on the origin of Saturn’s beautiful rings.
Shrouded in a thick haze, Titan is about half the size of Earth and even larger than Mercury — so massive that its gravitational pull makes Saturn wobble and tilt. Titan is also moving away from Saturn at a rate of 11 centimeters (4.3 inches) a year, far faster than astronomers previously thought. Eventually, the moon could be ejected from its orbit entirely.
But Titan’s drifting orbit is just one of many puzzles that astronomers are trying to solve about Saturn and some of its 274 moons. Many of the questions have arisen from data collected by Cassini, a spacecraft that explored the Saturnian system from 2004 to 2017.
New research has combined previous theories of Titan’s formation, data from Cassini and computer simulations to suggest a novel origin story for Saturn’s largest moon. The study was published this month on the open-access repository ArXiv and accepted for publication in The Planetary Science Journal.
“In this paper, I tried to put all these things together, and I propose that there was an extra moon about half a billion years ago that collided with Titan, that actually became part of Titan,” said lead author Matija Ćuk, a research scientist at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. SETI is a nonprofit organization that explores topics such as planetary science, the origin of life and extraterrestrial intelligence.
The collision could also have produced Hyperion, the largest of Saturn’s nonspherical moons, which is far smaller than Titan at about 5% of its diameter. According to this theory, Hyperion could either be a fragment that resulted from the collision between Titan and the lost moon, or it may have formed later from debris that accumulated around Titan’s orbit.
A false-color view of Saturn's moon Hyperion, obtained during Cassini's flyby in September 2005
The merger between Titan and the lost moon could also have led to the formation of Saturn’s rings, Ćuk added. “From this event, Titan could have perturbed some of the inner moons into more collisions, which created the rings sometime later, maybe 100 million years ago,” he said.
An extra moon ‘explains everything’
The researchers found telltale signs of an ancient collision in Saturn’s tilt, which is made obvious by its rings; the gas giant rotates at an angle of 26.7 degrees compared with the plane at which it orbits the sun.
Saturn’s rings are tilted about 26.5 degrees relative to the planet's orbital plane.
Before Cassini’s mission, astronomers believed that gravitational disturbances inflicted by neighbor Neptune’s orbit caused Saturn’s tilt over time.
“The orbit of Neptune has a bit of a wobble in space,” Ćuk said. “The orbits of planets are huge and have huge energy. But the spins of planets are much, much smaller, so if you connect these two motions — the orbit of Neptune and the spin of Saturn — it is the spin of Saturn that will change.”
However, Cassini’s data showed that the two planets are not exactly in sync, pointing to a missing element. In 2022, astronomers suggested that a lost moon, which they named Chrysalis.
In other words, the gravity and mass of the lost moon kept Saturn and Neptune in sync, and only its disappearance explains why they are now slightly misaligned.
If the collision also created Hyperion in its current form — a smaller, tumbling, misshapen rock — it would explain why its orbit is locked with Titan’s. But it remains unclear, Ćuk said, whether Hyperion is a fragment of Titan’s precursor or of the lost moon that merged with it.
According to the study, Saturn’s rings could have formed hundreds of millions of years after the event. Titan’s expanding orbit interacted with some of Saturn’s inner moons, disturbing them to the point of making them smash into each other. Some of the resulting debris survived as the rings.
A paper published in February, which postulates that Titan’s surface is as young as 300 million years old based on the lack of impact craters, lends credibility to the collision scenario, according to Ćuk.
But the best way to test the theory is using NASA’s Dragonfly — a nuclear-powered, car-size rotorcraft that will fly over Titan’s surface and land in different spots to collect and analyze samples with its onboard instruments. It is currently scheduled to launch in 2028 for arrival on Titan by late 2034.
One of the many legacies of Cassini’s 13 years of detailed measurements, combined with historical data, has been the discovery that Titan’s orbit is expanding much faster than expected.
“The Saturn system is a dynamicist’s paradise with numerous numerical relationships — called resonances — between the orbital periods of pairs of its moons. ‘It’s complicated’ is a fair description of all these dynamical relationships over the past 400 million years, but the authors identify Titan’s role as key to our understanding of the Saturn system.”
This lost moon collided with Titan and lost much of its mass, an event that would explain Titan’s drifting orbit and Saturn’s spin. “Right now, Saturn is wobbling a little bit too fast,” Ćuk said. “But if you go back a few hundreds of millions of years when we saw this happen, the wobble was just short of what we needed to have the resonance with Neptune. And if you add an extra moon, you make it exact. And that explains everything.”
In other words, the gravity and mass of the lost moon kept Saturn and Neptune in sync, and only its disappearance explains why they are now slightly misaligned.
If the collision also created Hyperion in its current form — a smaller, tumbling, misshapen rock — it would explain why its orbit is locked with Titan’s. But it remains unclear, Ćuk said, whether Hyperion is a fragment of Titan’s precursor or of the lost moon that merged with it.
According to the study, Saturn’s rings could have formed hundreds of millions of years after the event. Titan’s expanding orbit interacted with some of Saturn’s inner moons, disturbing them to the point of making them smash into each other. Some of the resulting debris survived as the rings.
If the collision also created Hyperion in its current form — a smaller, tumbling, misshapen rock — it would explain why its orbit is locked with Titan’s. But it remains unclear, Ćuk said, whether Hyperion is a fragment of Titan’s precursor or of the lost moon that merged with it.
According to the study, Saturn’s rings could have formed hundreds of millions of years after the event. Titan’s expanding orbit interacted with some of Saturn’s inner moons, disturbing them to the point of making them smash into each other. Some of the resulting debris survived as the rings.
Dragonfly, seen here in an artist's concept, is set to be able to land on Titan's surface.
“The Saturn system is a dynamicist’s paradise with numerous numerical relationships — called resonances — between the orbital periods of pairs of its moons. ‘It’s complicated’ is a fair description of all these dynamical relationships over the past 400 million years, but the authors identify Titan’s role as key to our understanding of the Saturn system.”
https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/23/science/saturn-rings-moon-cosmic-collision
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THE CONCEPT OF EMERGENCE
When a living cell dies, not a single atom leaves it. The physical matter remains perfectly intact. If life doesn't exist inside our atoms, where does it come from?
The answer is a scientific concept known as emergence.
Emergence occurs when a complex system possesses properties that its individual parts do not. A single water molecule is not wet. Wetness only exists when billions of water molecules interact under specific conditions. Similarly, a single gear or spring cannot keep time, but when assembled correctly, they become a functioning clock.
Atoms like carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen are inanimate. When bonded together, they form molecules like DNA, proteins, and lipids. Yet, these molecules remain non-living. A vial of purified DNA sitting on a laboratory shelf is no more alive than a handful of sand.
Life only appears when these molecules are organized into a precise, dynamic network. Inside a cell, millions of molecular components constantly interact, exchange energy, and undergo chemical reactions in a highly regulated sequence. Life is not a physical substance or an ingredient hidden inside the atom. It is a continuous process.
For centuries, scientists believed in vitalism—the idea that living things contained a magical spark or élan vital that animated them. Biology has proven there is no life force. What separates a living cell from a dead one is not its chemical composition; both contain the exact same atoms. The difference is the continuation of the chemical reactions.
What disappears at the moment of death is the process itself—the continuous flow of energy that maintains the system's complex organization and prevents it from falling into chemical equilibrium. Life is what atoms do when they are arranged in the right way, not what they are. ~ Quora
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DR. KAREL STYBLO AND TB
Karel Styblo’s life work against tuberculosis created a system that has saved millions, even if his name remains largely unknown. One of the most important scientists you’ve never heard of is Dr. Karel Styblo Styblo had a profound grasp of tuberculosis, in part because he survived it.
He contracted tuberculosis while imprisoned at the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp in Austria in 1944. After the war and over the next 40 years, as a doctor and epidemiologist, Styblo studied tuberculosis and learned to orchestrate all three parts of what I call the formula: See invisible threats, believe change is possible, and create systematic solutions.
It was only while writing “The Formula for Better Health” that I fully grasped the depth of his insights and his far-reaching impact.
I previously wrote about the single question he asked me that changed my life. I had handed him a detailed report about tuberculosis in New York City, and when he asked me how many patients we had cured, I didn’t know the answer. The report detailed all who were diagnosed and treated, but not who had actually been cured. I was terribly ashamed.
That simple question — Of the 3,811 patients with tuberculosis diagnosed in New York City last year, how many did you cure? — changed how I’ve thought and worked ever since. Styblo’s laser-like focus on outcomes underpins much of his systems and work.
Styblo’s genius is both scientific and practical. He studied tuberculosis and learned to orchestrate all three parts of the formula. He saw invisible trends. He established the concept of a technical package based on scientific and practical rigor. After a decade in Tanzania, he developed a powerful information system capable of transforming health care. He understood how tuberculosis spreads among people — and, even more importantly, how to scale a control program to reach an entire country.
Styblo’s tuberculosis control system has improved diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring of more than a 100 million patients.
One of my most memorable conversations with Styblo took place over a lunch of dumplings and vegetables in New York’s Chinatown in January of 1993. This was the height of New York’s outbreak of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. Drawing on a napkin, he explained how R0 — pronounced “R naught,” the average number of people one infected person will infect — applies to tuberculosis.
He explained that each tuberculosis patient, even without treatment, infects on average fifteen people. Of those 15, 10 percent, or, on average, 1.5, develop tuberculosis. But of those, only half are highly infectious, so each case results, on average, in 0.75 cases likely to further spread the disease.
“So you see,” Styblo concluded, “the tuberculosis bacteria is doomed. It will disappear. But that will take two or three hundred years. Our job is to make it disappear faster.” He seemed almost wistful when he said this, as if he sympathized with his lifelong enemy, the tuberculosis bacteria.
That is the goal: to make diseases such as tuberculosis a thing of the past. And his methods have allowed us, and will continue to allow us, to accelerate this process.
In 1993, after WHO launched DOTS, the technical package developed by Styblo, tuberculosis deaths decreased by 60 percent. The concept of a technical package is powerful. DOTS has saved more than 30 million lives.
According to the World Health Organization:
The role of Dr Karel Styblo, IUAT Scientific Director, in the development of these innovative programs cannot be understated. He combined an astonishing knowledge of the epidemiology of TB with a remarkable understanding of the management principles of TB control and a tenacious commitment to excellence in his work. His contribution to TB research was immense, and he will go down in history as the father of modern TB control and one of the heroes of public health of the 20th century. The principles developed by him in Africa were later adapted and promoted by WHO as DOTS, and adopted in places as diverse as China, New York, and India.
Styblo’s system now operates in more than 150 countries, and has improved diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring for over 100 million patients. His technical package concept extends beyond tuberculosis. In collaboration with WHO, my organization Resolve to Save Lives adapted Styblo’s approach to hypertension control, now used in more than 40 countries.
Styblo’s principles of simplicity, accountability, phased expansion, and systematic monitoring continue to transform public health worldwide, even though few people know his name.
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/one-of-the-most-important-scientists-youve-never-heard-of/
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THE ORAL MICROBIOME
Everyone knows that sugary foods can lead to dental cavities, by feeding harmful bacteria in our mouths. But it turns out that keeping them away is as much about what you do eat as what you don't eat – and from fruit to cheese, the most beneficial foods might surprise you.
Research is starting to uncover the importance of the oral microbiome. This community is made up of 700 different bacterial species, as well as viruses, fungi, and other microorganisms.
It can have a profound effect on our health. Currently, though, it's often neglected.
It doesn't have to be this way. It's easy to take care of your mouth microbes – and as with the gut, your diet is a major factor. Here's what you need to know to eat your way to healthy teeth.
A thriving community
In the bustling neighborhood of your mouth, microbes carve out ecological niches, with each species preferring a distinct habitat. While some bacteria choose to inhabit the surface of teeth, others might prefer the tongue or lurk in the tiny crevices between your teeth and gums.
Some of these microbes are bad news. Take Streptococcus mutans, which sits on the surface of teeth and loves to eat sugar. This bacterium turns sugars into acids that eat away at the protective enamel on teeth. Eventually this can lead to holes or cavities, which more than 80% of Americans have by the time they enter their mid-30s.
Other mouth microbes are actively helpful. For instance, if beneficial bacteria such as Veillonella, Actinomyces, some species of Streptococcus, or Neisseria make your mouth their home, they can prevent harmful pathogenic strains from colonizing.
Having a good oral microbiome isn't just important for dental health. If you don't brush your teeth regularly or fastidiously enough then small pockets can form in the space between teeth and gums. In this oxygen-poor environment, bugs such as Porphyromonas gingivalis can thrive.
Once there, P. gingivalis causes gum disease, but also raises the risk of health problems such as cardiovascular disease, depression, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and even preterm birth. In recent years, scientists have increasingly linked a poor oral microbiome to colon and pancreatic cancer.
In one recent study, a team of scientists from across the US tested the saliva of participants and then followed up to identify their subsequent risk of cancer. Those whose oral microbiome contained certain bacterial species linked to tooth decay or Candida yeast were found to have a higher risk of pancreatic cancer.
There's also emerging evidence that, as with the gut, it's important to have a varied mix. For instance, one recent study found that a lower diversity of microbes in the mouth is associated with depression.
But crucially, brushing your teeth alone is not enough to maintain this microbial community. Everything you eat, they eat – and this has a direct effect on which ones can thrive.
What to eat – and what to avoid
Snacks or beverages to avoid are those primarily made up of lots of sugar, as these are gobbled up by cavity-causing bacteria. It's also a good idea to limit your intake of processed carbohydrates, as these are easily broken down into sugars in the mouth. Starchy snacks to avoid include white bread, crackers, biscuits, cakes, and pretzels.
Attracting "good" bacteria is helpful for two reasons. They compete for food and space with those that are linked to cavities and disease, reducing their populations. But some also directly attack the ones you don't want moving into your mouth.
"Within the broader family of these sugar loving microbes, Streptococcus, there are some [bacteria] that don't produce much acid at all, and they'll actually attack some of the microbes that do produce acid," says Laura Weyrich, associate professor of anthropology and bioethics at Pennsylvania State University in the US, who studies the oral microbiome and how it has changed throughout history.
"They're like freedom fighters – they have their own antibiotics that they use as weapons. So if you have these bacteria then you're going to be in good shape," says Weyrich. For example, the friendly bacteria S. salivarius produces proteins that can kill a wide variety of unwanted microbes. This includes pathogens with resistance to conventional antibiotics.
If you want to cultivate a healthy oral microbiome, one of the best things you can do is eat plenty of leafy green vegetables. Foods such as kale, spinach, beetroot and radishes contain high amounts of nitrate, which is gobbled up by Neisseria bacteria in our mouths. The microbes convert this nitrate into nitrite, which is then further changed by bacteria in the gut into nitric acid. Nitric acid circulates in the blood and acts to reduce blood pressure, benefiting cardiovascular health. For instance, in one trial, older adults who drank nitrate rich beetroot juice twice a day for two weeks saw their blood pressure fall.
Weirdly, chewing garlic – although it may not do wonders for your breath – can also benefit oral health, as it contains a chemical called allicin that attacks the bacteria that cause cavities and gum disease.
Eating a largely plant-based diet can benefit your oral microbiome in other ways too. The reason is down to a class of compounds found in plants called polyphenols. When it gets too hot, cold, or sunny, animals can simply get up and move to a more hospitable environment. Plants don't have this luxury, so instead they produce polyphenols – special antioxidants that protect their cells and tissues from damage.
At a microscopic level, even the seemingly smooth surface of a tooth has plenty of crevices for microbes to live in
However, polyphenols can protect against harmful bacteria too. For instance, Wu's research and that of others has shown that the polyphenols found in tea can suppress the "bad" oral bacteria that cause cavities and gum disease and stop them from clumping together and attaching to the surface of teeth.
"The polyphenols inhibit one of the enzymes that is responsible for the stickiness of the plaque," says Christine Wu, professor of paediatric dentistry at the University of Illinois Chicago College of Dentistry in the US, whose research focuses on foods that could help combat oral pathogens.
In Wu's study, drinking tea also appeared to inhibit the bacteria responsible for bad breath, which live at the back of the tongue.
Other foods rich in polyphenols include many fruits, particularly dark-colored berries. This is why, contrary to what you may expect, these sugar and acid-rich foods can benefit oral health. Wu's research has shown that drinking cranberry juice can prevent the growth of dental plaque, and inhibit the bacteria associated with cavities and periodontal disease. Honey is also packed with polyphenols and has likewise been shown to prevent plaque formation and fight against the bacteria that causes cavities.
Chewing on cheese is also thought to have some benefits for our oral communities.
In one small study by researchers in Italy, nine participants were asked to eat Grana Padano cheese each day for five days. At the end of the study, the scientists found that the genetic signatures of the bacterial communities in their mouths had shifted slightly, with fewer of the sugar-loving S. mutans and more S. sanguinis, a bacteria more likely to be found in healthy mouths.
Cheese can also counteract some of the harm caused by S. mutans.
"Cheese is awesome because it has all the good properties of milk, but it is solid, so when you chew it the saliva increases," says Wu. "The saliva will get rid of some of the extra sugar on the tooth or in the mouth, and because saliva is neutral it buffers the acid that's produced in the mouth."
Fermented foods can also benefit your oral microbiome as they contain beneficial bacteria that compete with the "baddies." For instance a recent review found that drinking kefir – a fermented milk product – could inhibit certain oral pathogens and stop them from producing their sticky biofilm.
However, according to Gaetano Isola, associate professor of periodontology at the University of Catania, Italy, there is no single "superfood" for oral health, and what matters much more is the overall dietary pattern.
"If we repeatedly consume refined sugars and easily fermentable carbohydrates, we favor microorganisms that are particularly efficient at producing and tolerating acids," he says. He explains that, over time, this can shift the microbial community towards an imbalance.
"By contrast, an overall diet richer in whole plant foods, fiber and complex carbohydrates and lower in frequent refined-sugar exposure is more compatible with maintaining a stable oral ecosystem."
A simple practical tip from Isola is to favor whole plant foods – vegetables, whole fruits, legumes and whole grains – rather than refined carbohydrates.
A recent study in which Isola was involved found that people who adhered more closely to a Mediterranean-style diet, known for its emphasis on fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and healthy fats, tended to have less severe gum disease. Patients who did not follow the Mediterranean diet as closely tended to have more severe gum disease, especially if they consumed red meat frequently.
It's not clear what might be causing the association between red meat and gum disease. One idea is that the protein may create an oral environment that favors harmful microbes, such as P. gingivalis.
Of course, brushing and flossing is still essential. Flossing has been associated with lower concentrations of the dental pathogen S. mutans, while brushing the teeth and tongue significantly decreases microbes associated with dental diseases.
Scientists don't yet know how regular over-the-counter mouthwashes affect your oral microbiome. The hope is that one day they could be used to balance microbial communities rather than just reducing the total amount of bacteria present. Some mouthwashes that contain chlorhexidine, on the other hand, are known to disrupt the balance of oral microbes. These can still help to treat gum disease and certain other oral conditions in the short term.
But for a healthier mouth microbiome, eating the right foods is a powerful tool in your arsenal.
"It's the same thing that everybody always says – which is kind of boring – which is sticking to a diet that's well balanced and has lots of vegetables, lots of leafy greens, lean proteins and limiting your sugar intake, especially sugary drinks," says Weyrich.
So why not make yourself a sumptuous salad, or a selection of fine cheeses washed down with a hot cup of tea. Not only will doing so benefit your body – you'll be making the good microbes in your mouth happy too.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260901-heres-what-to-eat-to-protect-your-oral-microbiome
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GETTING YOUR HANDS DIRTY IS GOOD FOR YOU
Putting our hands in soil and touching grass, trees or moss provides a wide range of health benefits, for our skin and wider immune system.
I take a long walk in my nearest park every day, almost religiously. There are plenty of different tree species to look at, an everchanging cast of fragrant flowers in spring, and enthusiastic birdsong fills the air. But the sensory experience usually stops there. However mucky my shoes get, I usually come home with clean hands.
Research, though, suggests there's something to be said for reaching out to touch the trees, shrubs and soil I usually walk past. Mira Grönroos, an ecologist and nature-health researcher at the Finnish Environment Institute, asked people to rub their hands with soil, peat and moss for 20 seconds as part of an experiment. She found that the abundance and variety of microbes on their skin increased, even after they rinsed their hands with tap water. "To the naked eye [their hands] looked clean," she says, "but the change was so huge”.
The idea of more bacteria on our skin might not sound appealing. But when there's a rich mix of microbes living alongside each other, they keep each other in check and defend us against more harmful, pathogenic bacteria. A growing body of research shows that contact with natural materials, like soil and plants, is an easy way to boost our skin's microbial diversity, and that this not only benefits our skin, but also our immune system.
Twenty seconds isn't long – I'd happily pause on my walk to touch some tree bark or sit down in the grass. But more would be much better, Grönroos says, as in her experiment "the skin microbiota very quickly returned to a similar state as it was before". The results suggest that prolonged or frequent skin contact with nature could significantly change what's happening on our skin and in our bodies.
Playing in the mud
Mucky hands are the norm for children at Aurinkolinna daycare center in central Finland. They spend at least a couple of hours every day playing outside in a wooded playground, racing between bushes and trees, climbing ropes, making sandcastles, splashing in puddles and grabbing fistfuls of dirt and woodchips.
By the end of each day they are covered head to toe in mud. Scientists are now studying how this could be good for their health. By analyzing microbes on the children's skin, saliva and faeces, alongside blood and hair samples, researchers are learning what happens to their immune systems over a three-year period when nature is brought into the yards where they play every day.
Aurinkolinna is one of 43 daycare centers in Finland taking part in the Vahvistu research project, which builds on a recent two-year study led by environmental scientist Marja Roslund.
In 2016-17, she brought the forest floor into a daycare yard – complete with peat and planting boxes – and measured the impact on young children's skin, saliva and gut bacteria after they had played there regularly for 28 days, and again after a year. Compared to children who played in a paved yard, those on the forest floor had greater microbial diversity on their skin a year later.
This diversity is important for the health of our skin. Increasing the diversity of bacteria on the skin can prevent disease-causing bacteria from becoming dominant, keeping the microbial community in balance, Roslund says. "Disease is like a dictator, and healthy skin is like a democracy."
Roslund's research found fewer potential pathogens on children's skin when they had played on the forest floor, likely because the number and diversity of other microbes crowds out these "bad" bacteria. "Because there is so much of everything else, there is not so much space for the pathogens," she says.
Healthy skin, healthy body
Taking care of our skin also has benefits that run much deeper. Skin health can impact hormonal activity, cardiovascular disease, and even cognitive function. In particular, research is starting to show that exposing our skin to diverse bacteria can impact our immune system.
Roslund asked a group of young children to play in a sandbox enriched with microbially diverse soil, while another group played in a sandbox that looked the same but contained less microbial diversity. As we might expect, the diversity of certain bacteria on children's skin increased when they played in the microbially rich sandbox. But there were also changes to the immune markers, called cytokines, in these children's blood samples that support immunoregulation – the immune system's ability to fight off threats without becoming overactive.
Contact with soil and plants not only benefits our skin, but also our immune system.
It is these and similar findings that inspired the Vahvistu project. At Aurinkolinna, government funding has helped transform the yard so it now includes woodchips instead of gravel, a bigger sanded area, and wooden pathways, alongside the birch and pine trees that were already there.
The research behind the Vahvistu project supports what is known as the biodiversity hypothesis – the idea that air, plants and soil rich in diverse microbes have an important influence on the human microbiome, and therefore our health. It has long been suggested that the loss of biodiversity in our environment could be behind the current rise in immune-related conditions, and Roslund's research may help to explain how and why that is.
She found that one family of bacteria, namely gammaproteobacteria, plays a particularly important role. Gammaproteobacterial diversity increased on children's skin when they played in the yard with the forest floor, and this increase was associated with more regulatory T cells – white blood cells that help control and balance the immune system and are important for preventing autoimmune diseases, she says.
For now, it's not clear exactly what this means for immune-mediated diseases like eczema, asthma or allergies. "We cannot yet say that when you have contact with nature, you will not get asthma, for example. But it seems that it might reduce the possibility of getting those immune system disorders," Grönroos says.
Green fingers
These health benefits aren't only seen in children. In one study, adults were asked to grow vegetables indoors over winter, some using microbially diverse soil and others using similar-looking but microbially poor soil. They tended to the plants every day for a month and ate their crops. Those using the microbially-diverse soil saw an increase in the diversity of bacteria on their skin, and on the number of anti-inflammatory cytokines in their blood – while the other group didn't.
This kind of gardening "is a good example of an easily accessible way of nature contact, and it was quite surprising that this kind of exposure really showed changes in the immune system functioning", Grönroos says. In another study, researchers installed "green walls" made of living plants in Finnish offices and measured the effect on workers after two weeks. They found that the diversity of microbes on their skin increased, and levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines in their blood went down. They also saw an increase in Lactobacillus microbes on their skin, which is important for skin health.
Grönroos puts her findings into practice with her own family. "When I go outdoors with my children, if they want to pick some cones or sticks, I don't say 'no' to them. I let them bring them home and play there."
We should start applying this thinking to our cities, Grönroos adds. "[Cities] should be built so that citizens are able to get into contact with nature. It would be good if some of that contact was unintentional, so people wouldn't need to decide to go there, they would come into contact with nature on their way to work or school," she says.
There's more for science to discover about exactly how contact with nature impacts the immune system, but for Grönroos, the findings so far are enough to make the grubby hands and muddy carpet worth it. "It's low risk," she says, with "lots of potential benefits without any obvious major harms."
These findings are, perhaps, a reminder to us all to reach out and touch that mossy tree, to sit down in the grass – to not be afraid of a bit of mud.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260904-how-getting-your-hands-dirty-boosts-your-health-within-weeks
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SCIENTISTS DISCOVER WHY SOME BRAIN CELLS RESIST ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE
Study identifies cellular defense system that protects neurons from toxic tau proteins, opening door to new treatments
New research by UCLA Health and UC San Francisco has uncovered why certain brain cells are more resilient than others to the buildup of a toxic protein that is a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, potentially leading to new targets for therapies or treatments.
The study, published in the journal Cell, used a novel CRISPR-based genetic screening approach on lab-grown human brain cells to determine the cellular machinery that controls the accumulation of tau protein in the brain. These proteins can build up as toxic clumps in the brain, killing neurons and leading to neurodegenerative diseases such as frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
Tau is the most common protein that aggregates in neurodegeneration diseases. However, researchers had not determined why some types of neurons are affected more than others.
UCLA and UCSF researchers used lab-grown neurons and the CRISPRi gene editing tool to systematically determine which genes and cell processes affect how tau proteins build up. The work identified a protein complex called CRL5SOCS4 that marks tau for degradation. The findings suggest that strengthening this natural defense mechanism could represent a new therapeutic strategy for neurodegenerative diseases, which affect millions of Americans but currently have no effective treatments.
“We wanted to understand why some neurons are vulnerable to tau accumulation while others are more resilient,” said study first author Dr. Avi Samelson, assistant professor of Neurology at UCLA Health, who conducted the research while at UCSF. “By systematically screening nearly every gene in the human genome, we found both expected pathways and completely unexpected ones that control tau levels in neurons.”
Using CRISPR gene-editing technology in neurons derived from human stem cells, the research team tested how knocking down individual genes affected the buildup of toxic tau clumps. Among more than 1,000 genes identified, the CRL5SOCS4 protein complex emerged as a key player that attaches molecular tags to tau, marking it for destruction by the cell's recycling machinery.
Importantly, analysis of brain tissue from Alzheimer's patients revealed that higher expression of CRL5SOCS4 components made neurons more likely to survive despite the accumulation of tau protein.
The study also revealed an unexpected connection between mitochondrial dysfunction and tau toxicity. When the researchers disrupted the cellular powerhouses that generate energy, they triggered the production of a specific tau fragment approximately 25 kilodaltons in size. This fragment closely resembles a biomarker found in the blood and spinal fluid of Alzheimer's patients, known as NTA-tau.
“This tau fragment appears to be generated when cells experience oxidative stress, which is common in aging and neurodegeneration,” Samelson said. “We found that this stress reduces the efficiency of the proteasome, the cell's protein recycling machine, causing it to improperly process tau.”
The researchers demonstrated that this abnormal tau fragment changes how tau proteins clump together in test tube experiments, potentially influencing disease progression.
The findings provide several promising leads for therapeutic development. Enhancing CRL5SOCS4 activity could help neurons clear tau more effectively, while strategies to maintain proteasome function during stress might prevent the formation of toxic tau fragments.
“What makes this study particularly valuable is that we used human neurons carrying an actual disease-causing mutation,” Samelson said. “These cells naturally have differences in tau processing, giving us confidence that the mechanisms we identified are relevant to human disease.”
The research also highlights the power of systematic genetic screening to reveal disease mechanisms. The team identified several unexpected pathways including a protein modification system called UFMylation and enzymes involved in building cellular membrane anchors, that had not previously been linked to tau regulation.
While the findings are promising, researchers emphasized that translating these discoveries into treatments will require additional research.
The study was funded by the Rainwater Charitable Foundation/Tau Consortium, the National Institutes of Health and other sources.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1114676
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PSILOCYBIN MAY BE AS EFFECTIVE AS COMMON ANTIDEPRESSANT IN TREATING DEPRESSION
Researchers are testing psychedelics as a novel treatment for depression.
Psychedelics are substances that may be beneficial in treating mental illness.
Research is ongoing about the effectiveness of using psychedelics such as psilocybin and how they compare to more traditional treatment options.
Evidence from a recent review suggests that the psychedelic psilocybin at high doses was slightly more effective at treating depression than the common antidepressant escitalopram (Lexapro).
Depression is a widespread mental illness, impacting about 280 million people worldwide.
Researchers are interested in expanding treatment options and finding the most effective medications. Using psychedelics to treat depression is one area of ongoing research.
A review and meta-analysis published in the BMJ compared the effectiveness of psychedelics to escitalopram.
The results of the review indicate that high doses of psilocybin were minimally more effective than escitalopram in relieving depressive symptoms and slightly more effective than the placebo results in escitalopram trials.
The results suggest that psilocybin may be comparable to current antidepressant treatment.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/psilocybin-may-be-as-effective-as-antidepressant-escitalopram-treating-depression#Review-limitations
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CAN WE MIMIC GLP-1 DRUGS WITH DIET?
The two main elements of our diet that are associated with GLP-1 are fiber and polyphenols.
"Fiber is the preferred food for the trillions of bacteria living in our gut," says Mary Sco, a resident physician and nutrition writer in Virginia in the US.
When we eat foods rich in fiber and polyphenols, these components are converted by our gut microbiome into short-chain fatty acids, which stimulate the production of GLP-1. Foods high in fiber include nuts, legumes, fruit and vegetables, while polyphenols can also be found in fruit, vegetables. dark chocolate, tea and coffee.
Another important nutrient for metabolism is monounsaturated fat, which has also been associated with raised GLP-1. This can be found in olive oil, avocado and nuts.
This process also starts before food reaches our gut. Research shows that the bitter taste of polyphenol-rich foods triggers our taste receptors to send signals to the gut to produce digestive hormones including GLP-1.
Naturally raising GLP-1 levels in the body isn't just about what we're eating – but also how we eat, says Sco.
"There's emerging research showing that the order in which we eat also matters," she says.
Researchers write in a 2020 review that there is some research to suggest that eating foods high in protein, such as meat and eggs, and vegetables, before carbohydrates, leads to higher GLP-1 levels.
However, they say that the mechanisms behind this are largely unknown.
Scientists say the drugs tap into something fundamental in our body's system, and that it mimics what we would get from eating foods full of fiber.
The time of day you're eating may also make a difference to how much GLP-1 our bodies produce. There is some research to suggest that the body produces more GLP-1 when eating a meal early in the morning, compared to eating later in the evening.
This effect is linked to the natural changes to our hormone levels throughout the day, and eating early in the day supports the body's circadian rhythm, researchers wrote in the 2023 paper.
It would make sense, therefore, that eating a diet rich in fiber, polyphenols and monounsaturated fat would ensure we're producing lots of GLP-1. However, modern Western diets are currently lacking in the elements that produce the most GLP-1, says Damman.
"These weight-loss drugs are tapping into something fundamental in our satiety mechanism that's been short-circuited by modern ultra-processed foods," he says.
Do drugs or diets work better?
While for some people, a balanced diet and active lifestyle are enough to lose weight, for others, the GLP-1 agonists such as Ozempic are necessary, Damman argues.
"It comes down to behavior change, which is incredibly difficult. That's why lifestyle measures very often won't work for people caught in metabolic ruts, and why these drugs have been incredibly helpful for people with morbid obesity with complications.”
For others, eating a diet rich in fiber, polyphenols and monounsaturated fats can be an effective way to control our appetites, Sco says.
"Certain individuals might not have as large a benefit, but they will still get some. The rules apply to everyone because it's basic human physiology – we all get the 'stop-eating' signal."
Ultimately, a diet that encourages natural production of GLP-1 diet is full of whole foods, including fruit, vegetables, legumes and nuts, says Damman. That people could be discovering this by attempting to mimic the effects of weight-loss drugs is an irony not lost on some nutritional scientists, including Damman.
"The journey has come full-circle," he says. "All roads lead back to eating whole foods – there's no substitute for them."
The future of GLP-1 research
While we know prescribed GLP-1 agonists are generally considered safe, there's a lot we still don't know about them, says Damman.
But there is an emerging area of research that the weight-loss drugs are giving way to, which might help to better understand how to treat obesity, says Gary Schwartz, professor of medicine, neuroscience, and psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.
The reasons for rising rates of obesity in many parts of the world are numerous and complex, but many researchers agree that our food environment and modern lives are one part of the driving force.
Schwartz says that our food environment has only come to pose a threat relatively recently in human life, thanks to high-sugar, high-fat ultra-processed foods that maximize the components of food we're biologically wired to seek out.
When we consume these foods, the reward areas in our brain are activated with hits of dopamine, which means we overeat them. This, Schwartz says, can reduce our sensitivity to those components over time, so that we have to consume more and more to achieve the same level of sensory satisfaction.
But emerging data suggests that these drugs reduce people's desire to eat these palatable foods, over and above the side-effects of nausea and other GI symptoms people can experience while taking them, Schwartz says.
"These findings suggest that there's some kind of mechanism we can tap into to restore healthy eating without drugs by limiting the sense of reward and achieving a sense of satisfaction without overeating," he says.
Researchers could look at brain activity and behavior during eating, weight loss and regain, Schwartz says, to see if there are any dietary and exercise interventions that can have similar effects.
"It will take clinical or dietary trials in conjunction with imaging and maintained weight loss, but within a decade, people will have an idea of certain hotspots in the brain and how to target them with behavior or diet," Schwartz says.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20251003-is-it-possible-to-lose-weight-on-an-ozempic-diet
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THIS COMPLEX BRAIN NETWORK MAY EXPLAIN MANY OF PARKINSON'S STRANGER SYMPTOMS
Parkinson's disease does more than cause tremor and trouble walking. It can also affect sleep, smell, digestion and even thinking.
That may be because the disease disrupts communication in a brain network that links the body and mind, a team reports in the journal Nature.
"It almost feels like a tunnel is jammed, so no traffic can go normally," says Hesheng Liu, a brain scientist at Changping Laboratory and Peking University in Beijing and an author of the study.
The finding fits nicely with growing evidence that Parkinson's is a network disorder, rather than one limited to brain areas that control specific movements, says Peter Strick, a professor and chair of neurobiology at the University of Pittsburgh who was not involved in the study.
Other degenerative brain diseases affect other brain networks in different ways. Alzheimer's, for example, tends to reduce connectivity in the default mode network, which supports memory and sense of self. ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) primarily damages the motor system network, which controls movement.
Understanding the network affected by Parkinson's, which affects about 1 million people in the United States, could change the way doctors treat the disease.
A mystery solved?
People with Parkinson's often have symptoms that vary in ways that are hard to explain.
For example, someone who usually is unable to stand may suddenly leap when faced with an emergency. And Parkinson's patients who can still walk may freeze if they try to carry on a conversation.
"So you know that their movement problems [are] not simply related to their motor circuits," Liu says, but also to circuits involved in thinking and emotion.
For decades, scientists struggled to explain how these circuits are linked.
Then in 2023, a team led by researchers at WashU Medicine in St. Louis discovered a brain network that does seem to connect movement and thinking.
They named it the somato-cognitive action network, or SCAN. And Liu's team thought it might explain some of the odd symptoms seen in Parkinson’s.
So they used MRI data on more than 800 brains to compare the SCAN networks in healthy people with those in Parkinson's patients.
The team found that patients had abnormally strong connections between the SCAN network and brain areas known to be affected by their disease.
Instead of making communication better, Liu says, those strong connections were causing a traffic jam that kept signals from getting through.
Treating the network
Next, Liu's team looked to see what happened to the SCAN network when people with Parkinson's got deep brain stimulation — a treatment that delivers pulses of electricity to areas affected by the disease.
"When the stimulator is turned on, the connectivity was immediately lowered," Liu says, allowing brain traffic to flow normally again.
To see how other treatments altered the SCAN network, the team studied patients receiving the drug levodopa, transcranial magnetic stimulation, and focused ultrasound stimulation.
"All these effective treatments are actually acting on this same circuitry," Liu says, "and the effect is, remarkably, identical."
The finding is just the latest to show how the conventional wisdom about Parkinson's has changed.
"In the past, people thought of Parkinson's disease as the classic movement disorder," Strick says. "But it's clear now that multiple systems are involved."
People with Parkinson's often describe symptoms that go far beyond problems with voluntary movement, such as tremor, slurred speech and a shuffling gait.
Lesser known symptoms include chronic constipation, a reduced sense of smell, sleep disorders, memory lapses and fatigue — all of which involve brain systems with no direct link to voluntary movement.
Not a drunk
Instead of making communication better, Liu says, those strong connections were causing a traffic jam that kept signals from getting through.
This sometimes unpredictable mix of symptoms can be misinterpreted in a way that feels stigmatizing to patients, doctors say.
Strick recalls one man whose early symptoms included a sudden drop in blood pressure when he stood up.
"He would fall down, unexplainably, and people thought he was a drunk," Strick says, adding that the man was actually pleased when he got a medical diagnosis that explained his behavior.
The new study appears to explain odd symptoms like that, Strick says. They're occurring, he says, because the SCAN network includes brain areas that normally control involuntary functions, like heart rate, digestion and blood pressure.
SCAN areas also include those that affect REM sleep, and certain types of memory and thinking.
Current treatments for Parkinson's don't fix these non-motor problems, Liu says. But future ones might, he says, by targeting overlooked areas in the brain's SCAN network.
https://www.npr.org/2026/02/10/nx-s1-5702451/parkinsons-disease-symptoms-scan-network
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SPERMIDINE
Spermidine is a naturally occurring polyamine compound found in all living cells, where it plays a vital role in cellular growth, repair, and longevity. It is involved in essential biological processes such as DNA stabilization, protein synthesis, and autophagy—the body's way of cleaning out damaged cells. Discovered in the 17th century and chemically identified in the early 20th century, spermidine has since been recognized for its significant impact on health, potentially aiding in disease prevention and promoting overall well-being. This versatile molecule is derived from the amino acid ornithine and can be obtained through diet that includes soy products, aged cheese, and whole grains as well as produced endogenously in the body.
When and how was spermidine discovered?
The discovery of spermidine is a fascinating tale that spans centuries, involving key figures and pivotal moments in scientific history. The journey begins in the late 17th century with Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, a Dutch scientist renowned for his pioneering work in microscopy. In 1678, van Leeuwenhoek observed crystalline structures in human semen using his primitive microscope, which he described in detailed letters to the Royal Society of London. These crystals, later identified as containing spermidine, marked the first recorded observation of the compound.
Fast forward to the early 20th century, the detailed chemical nature of spermidine was elucidated. In 1924, researchers, including Ernst Klenk, isolated spermidine from semen and named it based on its presence in sperm cells. The chemical structure of spermidine was later confirmed: it is a polyamine with the formula C7H19N3, featuring three amine groups attached to a carbon backbone. Specifically, spermidine consists of a linear chain of three methylene groups (–CH2–) connecting two primary amines (–NH2) at each end, with an additional secondary amine (–NH–) group in the middle.
The detailed structure of spermidine can be described as H2N-(CH2)3-NH-(CH2)4-NH2. This arrangement allows spermidine to interact with various cellular components, stabilizing DNA and RNA structures and facilitating numerous cellular processes. The discovery and subsequent structural analysis of spermidine have opened up new avenues in understanding cellular biology and the potential health benefits of this essential molecule.
How is spermidine synthesized?
Spermidine biosynthesis is a well-orchestrated process involving several key enzymes and metabolites, critical for maintaining cellular homeostasis and facilitating various biological functions. Here is a detailed step-by-step description of the spermidine biosynthesis pathway:
1. Ornithine to Putrescine
The biosynthesis of spermidine begins with the amino acid ornithine, which is derived from the urea cycle. Ornithine is converted to putrescine by the enzyme ornithine decarboxylase (ODC), a crucial step in the polyamine biosynthetic pathway. Putrescine, a diamine, serves as the precursor for spermidine synthesis. The conversion of ornithine to putrescine is tightly regulated due to the importance of putrescine in the synthesis of higher polyamines.
Ornithine → Putrescine + CO2 (Enzyme: ODC)
2. Formation of dcSAM
The next step involves the transfer of an aminopropyl group to putrescine to form spermidine. This aminopropyl group is donated by decarboxylated S-adenosylmethionine (dcSAM), a derivative of S-adenosylmethionine (SAM).
S-adenosylmethionine (SAM) → Decarboxylated S-adenosylmethionine (dcSAM) + CO2 (Enzyme: SAMDC)
3. Putrescine to Spermidine
The actual synthesis of spermidine from putrescine is catalyzed by the enzyme spermidine synthase. This enzyme facilitates the transfer of the aminopropyl group from dcSAM to putrescine, resulting in the formation of spermidine. The by-product of the spermidine synthase reaction, 5'-methylthioadenosine (MTA), is recycled back to methionine through the methionine salvage pathway. This ensures a continuous supply of SAM for further polyamine synthesis and other methylation reactions.
Putrescine + dcSAM → Spermidine + 5'-methylthioadenosine (MTA) (Enzyme: Spermidine Synthase)
4. Integration with Other Pathways
The biosynthesis of spermidine is intricately linked with other metabolic pathways:
Methionine Cycle: Ensures the availability of SAM for polyamine synthesis.
Urea Cycle: Provides ornithine, the starting substrate for polyamine biosynthesis. Ornithine combines with ammonia waste to form urea, which the body then excretes through urine.
Polyamine Interconversion: Spermidine can be further converted to spermine, another polyamine, through the action of spermine synthase.
Spermidine is a critical polyamine with significant roles in maintaining cellular health through its involvement in autophagy, DNA stabilization, and cell growth regulation. Its functions extend to various aspects of human health, offering protective effects in neurodegenerative diseases and cardiovascular health, while its role in cancer is more nuanced and context-specific.
The mechanisms by which spermidine exerts its effects are primarily through the induction of autophagy, reduction of oxidative stress, and modulation of cellular proliferation and survival pathways.
Autophagy and Cellular Health
Autophagy is a mechanism by which cells degrade and recycle their own components, helping to remove damaged organelles and proteins. Spermidine has been shown to induce autophagy, promoting cellular health and longevity. This function is particularly important in aging, as the efficiency of autophagy declines with age.
Spermidine activates the autophagy pathway by inhibiting acetyltransferases, which leads to hypoacetylation of histones and the activation of autophagy-related genes. Studies have demonstrated that spermidine supplementation can enhance autophagy, leading to improved mitochondrial function, reduced inflammation, and increased lifespan in various model organisms, including yeast, worms, flies, and mice.
Neurodegenerative Diseases
Spermidine has garnered attention for its potential neuroprotective effects, particularly in the context of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. These conditions are characterized by the accumulation of misfolded proteins and impaired autophagy. Spermidine promotes the clearance of protein aggregates through autophagy, reduces oxidative stress, and enhances mitochondrial function, which are all critical factors in neuroprotection.
Research indicates that spermidine can enhance autophagy and reduce the buildup of toxic protein aggregates in neuronal cells. In animal models of neurodegenerative diseases, spermidine supplementation has been shown to improve cognitive function and reduce neurodegeneration.
Cardiovascular Health
Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are a leading cause of mortality worldwide. Emerging evidence suggests that spermidine has cardioprotective effects. The cardioprotective effects of spermidine are attributed to its ability to induce autophagy, reduce oxidative stress, and inhibit inflammation, all of which are key factors in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular diseases.
Epidemiological studies have shown that higher dietary intake of spermidine is associated with reduced risk of cardiovascular diseases and improved cardiovascular health. Spermidine has been found to lower blood pressure, improve endothelial function, and reduce arterial stiffness.
Cancer
The role of spermidine in cancer is complex and context-dependent. While polyamines, including spermidine, are essential for cell proliferation, their dysregulation can contribute to tumorigenesis. Spermidine's promotion of autophagy can lead to the degradation of oncogenic proteins and damaged cellular components, thus preventing tumor development.
However, in established tumors, the same mechanisms that support cellular growth and survival can also promote cancer cell proliferation. Elevated levels of spermidine and other polyamines have been observed in various cancers, including colorectal, breast, and prostate cancers. Nevertheless, spermidine also has potential therapeutic effects in cancer prevention and treatment.
How can we absorb enough spermidine in our daily life?
Ensuring adequate spermidine intake can be beneficial for overall health, given its roles in cellular function, aging, and disease prevention. Here are some effective ways to incorporate spermidine into your daily life:
1. Dietary Sources
Whole Grains: Foods like wheat germ, rice bran, and whole grain bread are rich in spermidine.
Soy Products: Tofu, soybeans, and natto (fermented soybeans) are excellent sources.
Legumes: Lentils, chickpeas, and green peas contain significant amounts of spermidine.
Fruits and Vegetables: Mushrooms, broccoli, cauliflower, and citrus fruits also contribute to spermidine intake.
Cheese: Certain aged cheeses, such as cheddar and Parmesan, have high spermidine content.
Nuts and Seeds: Sunflower seeds, hazelnuts, and almonds can provide a spermidine boost.
2. Supplements
For those who might find it challenging to obtain sufficient spermidine from dietary sources alone, spermidine supplements are available. These supplements are often derived from wheat germ extract and can help ensure consistent intake. However, it's important to consult with a healthcare provider before starting any new supplement regimen.
3. Fermented Foods
Fermented foods are another rich source of spermidine, thanks to the action of microorganisms that enhance polyamine content during fermentation:
Natto: As mentioned, this fermented soybean product is particularly high in spermidine.
Tempeh: Another fermented soybean product, common in Indonesian cuisine.
Kimchi and Sauerkraut: Fermented vegetables like cabbage can contribute to spermidine intake.
4. Healthy Gut Microbiota
Maintaining a healthy gut microbiome is essential, as certain gut bacteria can produce spermidine. Probiotic-rich foods like yogurt, kefir, and other fermented products can support gut health and, indirectly, spermidine levels.
5. Balanced Diet and Lifestyle
A balanced diet rich in various nutrients supports overall health and the body's natural ability to synthesize and utilize spermidine. Regular physical activity, adequate sleep, and stress management are also important factors in maintaining optimal cellular function and metabolism, which includes spermidine metabolism.
In summary:
Spermidine, a natural polyamine abundant in plant-based and fermented foods, promotes longevity by activating autophagy and supporting cardiovascular and cognitive health. Research in humans and animals shows its dietary intake is linked to reduced mortality and improved cellular function
https://www.metwarebio.com/unlocking-cellular-longevity-with-spermidine/
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