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Tracking Human Migration on a Micro Scale  


By Drs. David Niesel and Norbert Herzog

We have featured several episodes about the Iceman, Ötzi who lived 5300 years ago, but whose remains were found by hikers in the Italian Alps in 1991. Studies of his mummified remains have revealed much about his life during the Copper Age, between 3500 and 2300 BCE. Now we report not on Ötzi himself, but on his stomach bacteria, which tells us about his life and the history of human geography.

Heliobacter pylori or H. pylori found in Ötzi's stomach infects two thirds of the world's population. This bacterium is thought to have become associated with humans at least 100,000 years ago. As humans spread to different locations around the world, and often formed isolated communities, different strains of H. pylori arose. By analyzing the genetic information of these bacteria in different human populations, scientists gain insight into how these ancient humans might have traveled and intermingled. These bacteria are only passed between people through intimate contact therefore its distribution is limited to the isolated population. So looking at the genome of Ötzi's H. Pylori, we can get an idea of the people he had interacted with.

It was a difficult task to separate out the genetic information from a single type of bacteria among all the genetic information in the Iceman's body. Scientists managed to pull out his H. pylori DNA bit by bit and compared its sequences to those of modern strains. The modern European H. pylori strain is actually a combination of an Asian and an African strain meaning that sometime in the past, those two populations came together but where and when is unknown. So Ötzi's H. pylori could tell us which strains existed in Europeans during the Copper Age.

The DNA sequence of Ötzi's H. pylori revealed that it was almost purely Asia in origin despite his never having left Southern Europe. Only 6.5% of its genetic information was of African origin suggesting it was likely in Europe for quite some time. This data suggests that there were not waves of migration from Africa but it is unclear who brought the bacteria from Africa into Europe. It is theorized that the mixing to create the modern stain of H. pylori had to have occurred after the Copper Age which is much later than previously estimated. The speculation is that the African strain came to Europe via the Middle East but earlier than 9,000 years ago. It may have been the first farmers who brought the agricultural revolution from the Middle East to Europe and brought their strain of H. pylori as well.

Of course, these are conclusions based on the sequence of H. pylori obtained from a single individual. Scientists will need sequences from many more ancient peoples to understand how they moved around and intermingled. Our ability to isolate and sequence the DNA of ancient mummies and their microbiomes from around the world will provide much more insight into the human populations and how they migrated. Who would have thought that we could use a bacterium to further our understanding of ancient human migration.

Medical Discovery News is a weekly radio and print broadcast highlighting medical and scientific breakthroughs hosted by professor emeritus, Norbert Herzog, and professor, David Niesel, biomedical scientists at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. Learn more at www.medicaldiscoverynews.com.

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A Comprehensive And Fair Solution To The Price Of Medicines  
After a long dry spell, the pharmaceutical research industry has brought to market a spate of innovative treatments that can extend life and often have fewer side effects than older treatments. But these medicines are not affordable to most of the people who need them. Recent treatments for hepatitis C and cancer - both widespread conditions globally - can cost from $50,000 annually to well over $150,000.

At the other end of the spectrum, the generic pharmaceutical industry is losing interest in manufacturing older, off-patent medicines because the market price has been slashed to a level that it no longer provides an incentive to produce them. The result is either low-quality medicines, or no medicines at all. Two clear examples of this phenomenon are Benzathine penicillin, the antibiotic of choice for certain bacterial infections, and methotrexate, used to treat arthritis, psoriasis, and certain cancers. These products, still needed and often prescribed, are frequently unavailable in health systems.

These recent trends represent a two-fold setback: on the one hand, new medicines are out of reach of even the wealthiest countries, on the other, older medicines are in great shortage.

A study published in PLOS Medicine at the end of May shows that the prices of two new medicines for treating hepatitis C vary greatly between countries worldwide, raising serious concerns about the viability of reducing the global hepatitis C burden. After adjusting for average 2015 exchange rates and purchasing power, the study reveals that the cost of treating the entire hepatitis C infected population in each of the 30 countries examined would range from 10.5% of total pharmaceutical expenditure in the Netherlands to 190.5% in Poland.

Some governments have found national solutions to high prices, like Australia, where the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme is the single negotiator and purchaser of drugs for the country and makes medicines available at fixed prices.

Others are seeking solutions for specific medicines, like Colombia's recent plan to allow a generic copy of the cancer drug Imatinib. The current price of the branded medicine for one year of treatment per patient is more than double the nation's per-capita income.

Others still have put in place mechanisms to address drug shortages. In the United States, which has been experiencing increasing drug stock-outs, the Food and Drug Regulatory Authority has established a fast-track review process for medicines in short supply to incentivise companies to keep producing them.

But from the point of view of global public health the way forward must be comprehensive and sustainable if we are to eradicate treatable infectious illnesses, effectively address the upsurge of non-communicable and chronic diseases and care for our aging populations.

Amid public outcry, political battles and media articles, no one seems to understand how, exactly, medicines prices are set. For years, pharmaceutical research companies have cited the large investment of time and resources that go into bringing a drug to market. More recently, they argue that their medicines are actually saving money by preventing expensive medical interventions like surgery and hospitalization.

But whatever the argument used, the price setting mechanisms for commodities that are inextricably linked to people's health and survival must be made more transparent so that we can, as a global community, devise effective solutions.

To that end, the World Health Organization is planning to convene governments, patient groups and industry stakeholders to develop a fair pricing model that can affordably deliver the medicines needed by patients while keeping companies interested in developing new and better treatments and producing generic treatments. That model will need to hinge on greater transparency in industry's research and development and marketing approaches; it will also need to understand what the inputs are into price setting, as well as the barriers companies face in bringing new products to market.

In late 2015 we entered the era of sustainable development, with universal health coverage at the center of global health efforts. That means that by 2030, the deadline for the Sustainable Development Goals, all countries must be able to provide full coverage for quality health services to their entire populations. The only way we can reach that objective is to enter a social contract between the public and private spheres so that innovation and generic production can respond effectively to global public health needs - both in the quality and effectiveness of the treatments, their availability, and their affordability.

Marie-Paule Kieny,
Assistant Director-General, Health Systems and Innovation
World Health Organization
kienym@who.int

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We Must Not Accept an Algorithmic Account of Human Life  
One remarkable development of twentieth century science is the discovery that both physical structures and the communication of ideas can be assembled on the basis of algorithms that make use of codes. The genetic code helps living organisms assemble the basics of other living organisms and guide their development. Verbal languages provide us with alphabets (with which we can assemble an infinity of words that name an infinity of objects, actions, relationships and events) and with grammatical rules that govern the sequencing of the words so as to construct sentences and stories that narrate events or explain ideas.

Many aspects of the assembly of natural organisms and of communication depend on algorithms and on coding, as do all aspects of computation as well as the enterprises of artificial intelligence and robotics. These solid and interesting facts, however, have given rise to the sweeping notion that natural organisms would be reducible to algorithms or fully explainable by algorithms.

The worlds of artificial intelligence, biology and even neuroscience are inebriated with this notion. The thoughtful historian Yuval Harari echoed it in a recent interview published in the The WorldPost. Asked to pick one idea that would prove most influential in the next 50 years, Harari responded, "It's definitely the algorithm" and added that current biology can be summarized in three words: "Organisms are algorithms." Not only that, biology and computer science are converging because the "basic insight that unites the biological with the electronic is that bodies and brains are also algorithms." The fact that "we can write algorithms artificially" enables the convergence.

Needless to say, I am not blaming Harari for voicing ideas that have gained currency in technology and science circles. I am only interested in the merit of the ideas and because ideas do matter, this is an opportunity to consider if they conform to scientific fact and how they fare in human terms. From my perspective, they are not scientifically sound, and they suggest a problematic account of humanity. Why so?

Saying that living organisms are algorithms is, in the very least, misleading and in strict terms, false.

Saying that living organisms are algorithms is, in the very least, misleading and in strict terms, false. Algorithms are formulas, recipes, enumerations of steps in the construction of a predicted result. As noted, living organisms, including human organisms, use code-dependent algorithms such as the genetic machinery. But while, to a certain extent, living organisms are constructed according to algorithms, they are not algorithms themselves. They are consequences of the engagement of algorithms. The critical issue, however, is that living organisms are collections of tissues, organs and systems within which every component cell is a vulnerable living entity made of proteins, lipids and sugars. They are not lines of code.

The idea that living organisms are algorithms helps perpetuate the false notion that the substrates of organism construction are not relevant. This is because embedded within the label "algorithm" is a notion of context and substrate-independence. Applying the same algorithm to new contexts, using different substrates, is presumed to achieve similar results. But this is simply not so. Substrates count. The substrate of life is organized chemistry, a servant to thermodynamics and the imperative of homeostasis, and to the best of our current knowledge, that substrate is essential to explain who we are. Why so?






First, because the particular chemical substrate of life is necessary for the phenomena of feeling, and, in humans, reflection and elaboration on the experience of feelings is the basis for much that we hold as humanly distinctive and admirable, including moral and aesthetic judgments as well as the experience and notions of being and transcendence. While there is plenty of evidence that artificial organisms can be designed so as to operate intelligently and even surpass the intelligence of human organisms, there is no evidence to date that such artificial organisms can generate feelings without an actual living substrate (I note that the counterhypothesis, i.e. that certain designs might allow artificial organisms to simulate feelings, is well worth investigating).

In brief, there is no evidence that pure intellectual processes, which lend themselves well to an algorithmic account and which do not appear to be as sensitive to the substrate, can form the basis for what makes us distinctly human. Throw away the chemical substrate and you throw away feelings along with the values that humanistic cultures, from the axial ages forward, have been celebrating in the form of arts, religious beliefs, justice and fair governance. Once we remove suffering and flourishing, for example, there is no natural grounding for the logical conclusion that human beings deserve dignity. Of note, none of this implies that the higher functions of living organisms are not amenable to scientific investigation. They certainly are, provided the investigations take into account the living substrate and the complexity of the processes.

The implication of these distinctions is not trivial as we contemplate a new era of medicine in which the extension of human life will be possible by means of genetic engineering and the creation of human-artificial hybrids.

There is no evidence that pure intellectual processes can form the basis for what makes us distinctly human.

Second, the abundant presence of conscious feeling and creative intelligence in humans guarantees that the execution of the native algorithms can be thwarted. Our freedom to run against the impulses that the good or bad angels of our natures attempt to impose on us, is limited; but the fact remains that we can act against such impulses. The history of human cultures is in good part a narrative of our resistance to native algorithms by means of inventions not predicted by those algorithms. One can argue that all of these departures from native algorithms are in turn open to an algorithmic account. The scope of an algorithm may be expanded to capture a system at an arbitrary level of detail, but by then, what are the advantages of using the term algorithm?

Third, accepting an algorithmic account of humanity is the sort of reductionist position that often leads good souls to dismiss science and technology as demeaning and bemoan the passing of an age in which philosophy, complete with aesthetic sensibility and a religious response to suffering and death, made humans soar above the species on whose biological shoulders they were riding. But of course, denying the value of science as a reaction to problematic accounts of humanity is not acceptable either.

Science and philosophical inquiry can proceed side by side, not always in synchrony but often feeding off each other. Science needs to continue, in spite of the enthusiasts who reduce the sublime power of life to engineering and entrepreneurial successes, and in spite of the nervous Jeremiahs who are afraid that science will not honor the humanist traditions of the past. Both science, as honest knowledge-seeking, and philosophy, as serious debate and love of honest scientific knowledge, will not only endure but prevail.



Earlier on WorldPost:

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Relativistic codes reveal a clumpy universe  
Computer codes simulate the universe using Einstein's full theory for the first time  
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Knocking Out ALL  


By Drs. David Niesel and Norbert Herzog

Every now and then things go right, really, really right. In an immunotherapy clinical trial, 27 of the 29 leukemia patients went into sustained remissions, which is a whopping 93 percent success rate!

Acute lymphocytic leukemia, or ALL, is a cancer that arises in the bone marrow, the soft center of flat bones. In the bone marrow, blood stem cells give rise to all blood cells. ALL arises from the cells that become lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell. Acute in the name means that it can progress quickly and if not treated can be fatal within a few months. If the ALL cancer cells occupy more than 25% of the bone marrow, the disease is called leukemia.

Lymphocytes are a major part of the immune system found in lymphoid tissues as well as circulating in the blood. Lymphocytes come from immature cells called lymphoblasts and mature into 2 main types of cells, B cells and T cells. T cells serve a variety of functions, from orchestrating the immune response to an invader, to killing infected cells or killing microbes directly.

ALL does not form masses, but rather takes over the bone marrow and spreads to the lymph nodes, spleen and liver. The prognosis for ALL depends on age - the younger you are, the better. Prognosis also depends on the numbers of cancer cells, abnormalities the tumor DNA, and how quickly the leukemia responds to treatment. Treatment usually involves chemotherapy, targeted therapy or stem cell transplants and can last about 2 years. About 80-90 percent of adult patients have complete remissions, but about half relapse giving an overall cure rate of about 40 percent.

The study with the 93 percent response rate involved patients whose other treatments had failed and they had only a few months to live. Scientists isolated what are called killer T-cells from the patients. These cells can attack and kill cancers cells. The researchers engineered these T cells to target the patients ALL cells. They genetically engineered the T cells with synthetic molecules called chimeric antigen receptors, or CARs, that enable them to target and destroy tumor cells. Cells were expanded and then infused into the patients. More than ninety percent of the patients achieved remission of their cancers within 30-60 days however, 7 developed a severe immune response that required time in intensive care and an additional 2 patients died. Adjusting T cell dosages infused eliminated these unwanted effects. Unlike other treatments, the T cells will continue to grow and provide ongoing protection. These results from patients with such advanced stages of ALL is impressive.

This is a relatively new type of approach called immunotherapy by which our body's own immune system is programmed to attack a cancer. An advantage of this type of therapy is that it is likely to have fewer side effects and would have long lasting cancer-killing abilities should cancer cells arise later. For those patients that relapse or for whom conventional treatments fail, this approach provides new hope. So stay tuned, we will undoubtedly be hearing much more about immunotherapy in the future and the future looks pretty good already.

Medical Discovery News is a weekly radio and print broadcast highlighting medical and scientific breakthroughs hosted by professor emeritus, Norbert Herzog, and professor, David Niesel, biomedical scientists at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. Learn more at www.medicaldiscoverynews.com

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From Cannoli in South Philly to Brain Mapping in Geneva  
As a scientific conference approaches, I always think back to my first science fair: I stood next to my homemade presentation of graphs and tables glued to a poster board positioned next to hundreds of others made by fellow elementary school students. An overweight Paisan from rural New Jersey, I was more looking forward to my post-presentation reward of cannoli from my favorite bakery in South Philly than I was to standing for hours on end answering questions from the judges.

Conferences these days are pretty similar to the science fairs from decades ago, just on a grander scale with better technology. For example, every year the Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM) brings together thousands of scientists who work with brain imaging data from around the world to share hot off the press findings that they just published or are preparing to publish. This year, 4,391 presentations will be on hand in Geneva for our annual conference. While there, thousands of us will stand next to posters as I did so many years ago, and a few lucky ones will be given the opportunity to present their work in front of a larger audience.

Most of these presentations are 12-15 minute bite-sized versions of a neuroimaging research project, which could easily be expanded to a 45-60 minute lecture. At the OHBM conferences, we have longer lectures too. Our Program Committee chooses outstanding speakers to summarize their own work in the context of the diverse field of brain mapping. This diversity is reflected in the wide range of topics at the conference spanning spatial scales (from single neurons to entire systems), behaviors (our senses, decision making, aging, consciousness, development, etc.), populations (healthy typical humans, populations with different clinical or psychiatric disorders, etc.) and of course, applications (computational models, artificial intelligence, etc).


Brain mappers looking at posters this afternoon during this year's Organization for Human Brain Mapping meeting in Geneva.

For me, I'm a huge fan of the fusiform gyrus - so much so that at 33, I've already spent a third of my life staring and measuring this spindle-shaped brain structure. It's probably unsurprising then that I'm looking forward to learning about new ways to measure and quantify the fusiform in the living human brain at this year's meeting. The fusiform is interesting because it's involved in human-specific aspects of cognition such as reading and functional and structural abnormalities of the fusiform have been linked to disorders like autism.

The fusiform aside, conferences aren't all about being bombarded with data. Instead, they are also about re-connecting with people from the field who you know and setting foundations for new collaborations over a coffee or a pint or even a hike. Discussions of future collaborations also happen between organizations. For example, as Geneva is the home base for the World Health Organization (WHO), both organizations took the opportunity to set up a jointly held symposium between OHBM and WHO. Representatives from the major international brain initiatives will speak to raise awareness about current research projects that impact the staggering burden of brain disorders, and what we all might be able to do to reduce these burdens in the future. After all, understanding how the brain works is a team effort - no one can do it alone.


This is a cortical surface reconstruction of a right hemisphere averaged across 39 adults. This image is from FreeSurfer, which is an open source software package that you can download here. You are looking at the underside of the brain, which is rotated so the back is in the left of the image and the front in the right of the image. The fusiform gyrus (FG) is outlined in red. Fusiform is latin for spindle-shaped. Emil Huschke labeled this structure in 1854 because it is wider in the middle and tapers off at the ends like a spindle.

We also can't expect every single researcher at the meeting to blog about their presentations. And that's where Kat, Tzipi, Brendan, Emma, and I come in. As members of the OHBM Communications Committee, our boots (or for me, flip flops) are on the ground as we listen to the poster presentations. Our butts are in the chairs as we listen to the lectures. All the while, our fingers - the same ones that write the code to analyze our own data and that write our own empirical papers - will be typing away to come back and report to you what happened at the OHBM conference and at the meetings between OHBM and WHO.

And it's not just the five of us. There's a whole team of us. For example, we have already begun to post interviews with a subset of this year's speakers on our blog with more to come. Additionally, content from this year's meeting will soon be uploaded to our main site, which already contains lectures and courses from past meetings.

We are energized by the science and the thrill of discovery, and we love sharing these discoveries with all of you. And that's the main reason why we write and blog - to provide you with foundational information and up-to-date findings about the brain at the click of a button. We hope our posts give you insight into how your brain works and how to become informed consumers of neuroimaging news.

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Out of this world cuisine  
g-ASTROMOMY merges cosmology with fine dining  
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The Freakonomics Of Gun Control  
At 11 AM on the morning of June 15, Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut began a filibuster on the Senate floor in the wake of the Orlando mass shooting that claimed 49 lives. The objective of Senator Murphy's marathon speech was to secure Senate votes on two gun control measures: a ban on gun sales to suspected terrorists -- the so-called "No fly, no buy" measure, as well as an expansion of background checks to include gun shows and Internet sales.

By the time Senator Murphy ended his filibuster 15 hours later, an additional 12 Americans had been shot to death.

There was no national media coverage of those 12 victims, so the circumstances of their deaths are not widely known. Were they:

A: Murdered by Islamic jihadists
B: Shot by assault rifles
C: Killed in mass shootings
D: None of the above

The correct answer is "D: None of the above."

Though mass shootings like Orlando are shocking and grab headlines, the reality is that a very small percentage of American victims of gun violence die in mass shootings. Though the 49 who died in Orlando have the country's full attention, it is the actually 12 who died during Senator Murphy's 15-hour filibuster that hold the skeleton key to gun violence in America.

Depending on their political stripes, most Americans' short list of solutions to gun violence includes either: a) a ban on assault weapons, b) expanded background checks, or c) an end to the radical Islamic threat.

None of these solutions speak to directly to the causes that enabled those 12 people to die.

If a magic wand could instantly rid the U.S. of all assault rifles, Islamic terrorists and mass shootings, it would scarcely move the needle on the gauge of American gun homicides -- a trifling 7 percent of the more than 11,000 people who are shot to death every year in this country:



The majority of American gun homicide victims share the following in common:

• They are killed by handguns, not assault rifles
• They are killed by fellow Americans
• Their killers were not the gun owners of record

It is this last item that is the key to solving gun violence in America.

All guns used to kill people in the U.S. were purchased legally at some time, though few of those guns are in the possession of their original owners at the time they kill. The problem that dwarfs the issues of assault rifles and terrorists is that all firearms may be transferred in America without detection or accountability.

Though the sale of an automobile in America requires an official transfer of title, the sale of a firearm does not. Many, if not most, guns used to kill people in America are acquired through straw purchases -- purchases made on behalf of another person.

Herein lies the elegant solution to gun violence in America: simply hold the owner of record accountable for crimes committed with their guns -- that's it.

If gun owners are forced to assume responsibility for their guns, they will be far less likely to sell their guns without a formal title transfer. They will be more likely to secure their guns in a gun safe. And they may be less eager to carry their guns when they dine out at their local Pizza Hut.

Not surprisingly, the NRA is hostile to the concept of a national gun registry -- this despite the fact it in no way infringes on 2nd Amendment rights. Though the Constitution may allow you to own a gun, it doesn't say anything about prohibiting the government from knowing that you own a gun. If this seems like a scary notion to those who await the federal invasion of Texas scheduled for any day now, well, perhaps paranoia should count as one of the mental defects that disqualifies people from owning firearms.

Making gun owners accountable for their guns instantly freezes the supply of fresh arms into criminal hands. For the 300 million-plus guns already in circulation, buy back programs, such as those implemented in Australia, would siphon many of these off the streets, reducing supply and driving up the price of illegal guns.

The pushback excuses on a gun registry include: "what if my gun is stolen?" My recommendation is this: if you can demonstrate that thieves got your gun by blowing the hinges off your steel gun safe that was bolted to the foundation of your house, then you should get a pass. However, if your gun was taken out of a glove compartment or a glass display case, well, you're screwed. If that seems unfair, perhaps you can complain to the loved ones of the victim that was killed with your gun.

This simple solution speaks directly to the fundamental problem of guns in America: it is the victims, not the gun owners, that bear the full responsibility for gun violence -- this despite the fact that victims don't have a say regarding the choices gun owners make with their guns that result in innocent people becoming victims. Victims don't ask gun owners to sell their guns to killers and they certainly don't ask to die. Though some believe the rights conferred by the Constitution regarding gun ownership are boundless, this is false. The notion that the deaths of innocent Americans are simply an unfortunate byproduct of the unlimited privilege afforded to gun owners to be reckless and irresponsible with their guns is as far outside the Constitution as it is obscene.

In the time it took me to write this article, seven more Americans were shot to death.

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Domenico Fontana Scientist of the Day Domenica Fontana,...  

Domenico Fontana Scientist of the Day

Domenica Fontana, an Italian engineer, died June 28, 1607, at about age 64.  

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Sharing your work cubicle with robots may not be such a bad thing  

New report by Forrester shows AI will create jobs in the future

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Blanco Telescope silhouetted against night sky  

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Pictured here, the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory's (CTIO) 4-meter Blanco Telescope is a silhouette against the Magellanic Clouds (at left) and the Milky Way, as seen from Cerro Tololo, Chile. CTIO provides qualified scientists with telescopes and related facilities for astronomical research in the Southern Hemisphere. CTIO has offices, labs and living quarters in the coastal city of La Serena, 482-kilometers north of Santiago. The observing facilities are on Cerro Tololo, a 2,194-meter mountain on the western slopes of the Andes Mountains, 64-kilometers inland from La Serena.

Image credit: Roger Smith/NOAO/AURA/NSF

 
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3-D printing produces cartilage from strands of bioink  

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Strands of cow cartilage substitute for ink in a 3D bioprinting process that may one day create cartilage patches for worn out joints, according to a team of engineers. Cartilage is a good tissue to target for scale-up bioprinting because it is made up of only one cell type and has no blood vessels within the tissue. It is also a tissue that cannot repair itself. Once cartilage is damaged, it remains damaged.

Image credit: Ibrahim Ozbolat, Penn State University

 
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KM3NeT neutrino sea-scope takes shape  
Collaboration unveils detailed plans for world's largest neutrino array  
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Juno, Jupiter And The Battery Dude  
** HOO-RAY! JUNO ARRIVING AT JUPITER ON JULY 4th !!! **

What's all the jubilation about? Well, for one of the last people who touched the little spaceship's battery before it left the earth in 2011, it's a time for joyous celebration. That would be Mike Surline, a guy who knows batteries. He makes, breaks and tests them. Batteries are the power that makes rocket science go. Without the best-tested batteries, space vehicles would not be able to sustain long missions, like Juno's.



Arthur C. Clarke (author of 2001: A Space Odyssey) said: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Well, what is a battery? People may not consider the skills and time it takes to create one, or they may think of a battery as a vague, magic box. If the latter, Clarke might have likened Mike to a magician.

He performs his magic in a giant laboratory of the highest hi-tech nature. It's got all the bells & whistles and electronic gadgets that any battery guy or gal could wish for, including environmental test chambers, cabling, coolers, and crane operations. For Mike, it's like Christmas every day, opening up his boxes of tinker-toy tricks.

On Independence Day while Americans are enjoying barbecues and fireworks, Juno - the spacecraft designed by NASA and Lockheed Martin Corporation - will insert itself into polar orbit to study the composition, gravity and magnetic field of the solar system's largest planet. Juno's purpose is to uncover secrets about Jupiter's formation, including whether it has a rocky core, the amount of water present in the atmosphere, how its mass is distributed, and its ferocious winds. Mike and his band of battery experts will be looking forward to celebrating Juno as another success story in their team's long list.

A multi-million dollar spacecraft without battery power is simply several hundred pounds of junk. Today's interplanetary spacecraft require between roughly 300 watts and 2.5 kW of electrical power to supply all the computers, radio transmitters and receivers, motors, valves, thrusters, data storage devices, instruments, hosts of sensors and other devices. The batteries must weigh as little as possible and be able to sustain varying temperature extremes. So they're packed in boxes made of beryllium, a lightweight metal used in cell phones and aircraft.

Juno, on its 5-year cruise to Jupiter, will travel nearly two billion miles. "Mike's battery" will power the orbit insertion burn, on July 4th, to slow the spacecraft enough to allow capture into the planet's gravity. It will do two 53-day orbits before a subsequent burn in October that will lower it into a 14-day polar orbit.

In the polar orbit, the battery will power the infrared and microwave instrumentation to measure thermal radiation emanating from Jupiter's atmosphere. From this data, combined with that from previous missions, will come insight into the mysteries of the planet's origins.

Because Jupiter lacks a solid surface, Juno won't end up there, to live for eternity like a flag planted on the moon. It will be de-orbited and burned up in Jupiter's outer atmosphere to avoid any contamination, or impact with one of Jupiter's moons. However, Mike did admit that one of his batteries - he wouldn't say which - is now (or will be) out there in space somewhere, forever, with this message carved inside the box: "MIKE WAS HERE". How utterly cool is that?



In addition to Juno, Mike has worked on the Mars Odyssey, Phoenix, Orion, Space-Based Infrared Radar, Joint Strike Fighter Raptor, Advanced High-Frequency and other military satellite programs. Although Juno was one of his most challenging, he said his favorite was the Odyssey - a Mars lander, one of the first to test for water on the Red Planet. In 2001 he worked on its power sequencer board, wiring components every day for nine months - and it worked, the very first time. Amazing!

Mike isn't the only rocket scientist in his family, a bunch of space cadets. His father worked as a manager on Titan rocket programs, the Space Shuttle, and before that, the first Mars lander, the Viking. His mother worked on satellite programs, warfighter tactical communications and space defense studies. Mike's step-father was a computer engineer on the first Apollo mission to the moon, as well as Venus Radar Mapper, and other rocketry and planetary science projects, including Viking. His uncle developed Orion rocket propulsion hardware and parts of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. His brother-in-law supported enterprise data systems. Maybe the whole family is extra-terrestrial and they're trying to 'go home'.

Mike's mom said he started young in electronics, always tinkering in his room with wires and tiny radio or flashlight batteries. She would wake up in the night and see his light on and knew he was trying out some new experiment. Mom wished he would sleep more, like other boys, but didn't think much about his obsession - until he came home from high school one day saying a fellow student in auto mechanics had blown off a finger and lost an eye in an exploding battery accident. Because of that, she doesn't worry much about him now that he works with more complex batteries. He learned great appreciation and respect for battery safety.

Mike configures and tests all kinds, but primarily lithium batteries. I asked him why lithium ion batteries are so ubiquitous now. He said: "They're lighter, low maintenance, small, with high-energy density power that delivers more payload." Yes, we all need to deliver more payload - in our rockets, planes, cars, phones, computers, drones and personal robots!

Batteries were invented in 1800, and they're still a bit mysterious. They have their own "charisma" and eccentricities. Building these magic boxes of energy requires a person with a passion for detail and a brave soul, one who understands them. The payoff? That person will be thrilled to gaze into outer space and know their work is there, helping discover answers about our Last Frontier. Mike is all these things, including being a single parent of two boys for much of his demanding career. His mother is very proud of him, The Battery Dude.

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Big Pharma's trying to kill us, says man with literally millions to lose  

Nowt wrong with Theranos, except, you know, everything

Despite having lost its biggest customer, being forced to invalidate thousands of test results, being placed under investigation by the US government for fraud, facing sanctions, having had a testing facility shut down, and having had its CEO's worth cut from $4.5bn to $0, "nothing's gone wrong with Theranos."…

 
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Let's grow a baby universe in a supercomputer, watch black holes collide  

Good idea, LIGO. Definitely better than throwing cans at cars from the overpass

Physicists have created simulations that predict the rate at which gravitational waves from the collision of monstrous supermassive black holes may be detected.…

 
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A sea slug changed my life  

This underwater photo of a sea slug was captured with a close-up lens in Monterrey, Calif., by my first SCUBA instructor, Thomas Chapin circa 1985.



At 8 p.m. after a long day of work in the Houston humidity, Derek Rutavic, manager of the NASA Gulfstream-III that will head back to Greenland this fall, and I were in the back of the plane singing One Direction's "Drag Me Down" over the high frequency radio system. It was stifling hot, getting dark and we were tired and hungry.

But Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG) Principal Investigator Josh Willis and Project Manager Steve Dinardo, too busy to take off their sweaty fire retardant flight suits, were troubleshooting electronics at two racks of computers, and they'd asked Rutavic to get on the headset to find out if the headset noise was interfering with the high radio frequency data signal the ocean science probes were sending back to the plane. Rutavic sat on an empty science probe container, while I lounged on one of the sofas singing along in awe of the amount of hard work this team was putting in.

We'd been up early, flown multiple test flights, worked through lunch. And all of this after days and days of maintenance, and weather delays, and more hard work after more hard work. Earlier in the day, NASA T-38 supersonic jet pilot Bill Rieke flew mind-bogglingly close to the G-III to photograph the science probe deployment and determine if the technique of launching the probes through a hole in the bottom of the plane would succeed. And yes, it did. But that success merely signaled the OMG team to continue working.

And I understood exactly why this team kept going, kept moving, kept pushing on into the evening, regardless of being tired and hot and hungry. I knew exactly why they decided to keep working on the challenge. They chose to push through because they'd found something to care about, and that's always more important than our difficulties and problems. When we focus on what we really care about, we get busy doing something, even in the face of trouble. And that's how science works.

Lessons from a sea slug

I first learned to care about the natural world around me during my junior year in college. I was in an oceanography course and we were studying sea slugs. (Yes, sea slugs.) A sea slug changed my life. Before then, I'd been, like many people, disengaged and uninterested in science. In third grade, someone came to our classroom and told us we could be the first female astronaut, and I remember thinking, "No, I couldn't, not me."

And now? Even though I have a job at NASA, I still feel like I don't belong in the world of science. I feel more comfortable around athletes and artists than I do with a bunch of Ph.D.s. Maybe it's some poorly defined stereotype that I've somehow bought into or some preconceived notion of how someone who does science is supposed to behave.

But those sea slugs taught me that I cared more about the natural world than I cared about the struggle of not fitting in or the challenge of the work. They appeared so delicate, small and defenseless, and I identified with that. They helped me feel connected. Noticing them forced me to wonder what else I'd start to notice if I slowed down enough to pay attention. And that connection to the natural world helped me stay committed to science, even when it was hard, even when there were problems, even when I felt like running away.

Sure, scientific experimentation, just like much of real life, includes problems, troubles, obstacles and difficulties almost every day. And while it's true that someone, somewhere has to troubleshoot something every step of the way, we can also be excited about the effort. The OMG team understands that problems and hard work are not the exception, they are the norm. They are part of accomplishment. And it's totally possible to thrive on these difficulties and challenges.

Look, we could be setting the world on fire right now, not by burning fossil fuels, but by our burning desire to understand our environment. Because the whole point of this experimental mission is to find out how quickly the warmer waters around Greenland are melting the second-largest ice sheet on the planet. It's major; it's dire; it's intense. It's one of the most important issues of our time.

And sitting there in the back of that plane made me think about how we, as individuals and as a society, have to find something in this world to care about. We have to find something in this world that is more important than our challenges and problems.

And you? I hope you decide to find something to care about. I hope you find something that's important enough that you're willing to push through your struggles, your fears and your problems to just do the work.

Find out more about Oceans Melting Greenland.

View and download OMG animations and graphics.

Thank you,
Laura

Oceans Melting Greenland is part of NASA Earth Expeditions, a six-month field research campaign to study regions of critical change around the world.

This post originally appeared on NASA's Earth Right Now blog.

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Why Every Society Needs a Cartman  
South Park is on the threshold of its 20th season: what is the source of its staying power? As with most universal human behaviors, satire can be productively understood in light of the adaptive problems faced by our ancestors--in this case, the challenges presented by cooperation. One thing that distinguishes humans as a species is the degree to which we help each other. Our ancestors didn't just hunt and gather wild foods, they brought them back to camp and shared them. This behavior ensured that a person who had a run of bad hunting luck or couldn't go foraging due to sickness or injury would still get something to eat. Our ancestors also cooperated to build shelters, raise children, provide health care, engage in trade, arrange marriages, form political alliances, and share information. By pooling their labor, they reduced their risk of dying from hunger, illness, injury, exposure, and predation. In short, humans are designed to make a living by cooperating: our survival depends on being part of a society.

Thus, it's in everyone's interest to maintain harmony among their group members. Conflict jeopardizes group cohesion because, when two members fight, others take sides, and the group may fission. Fissioning reduces the size of the cooperative network, which in turn increases risk: the smaller your cooperative network, the fewer people you can call on in time of need. In ancestral environments, smaller groups would have been more vulnerable to starvation, predation, and attack. Alas, cooperation is difficult to sustain. Inevitably, someone will put their own interests before those of others, which incites anger and fighting. Our ancestors thus needed effective means of mitigating conflict.

Enter storytelling. In modern hunter-gatherer societies and, presumably, ancient human groups, storytelling is used as a means of discouraging antisocial behavior and consequent conflict. The Trickster character is a prime example: across forager cultures, he is widely regarded as a model of bad behavior. Lazy, stingy, and gluttonous, he always wants something for nothing. He thus uses deception rather than cooperation to accomplish his ends: he fools people into to helping him, but never returns the favor. Impulsive and irresponsible, he doesn't think about the possible consequences of his actions, which often end up hurting him and others. He is also callous and incorrigible: he never learns from his mistakes, never heeds warnings, and when others suffer as a result of his rash behavior, he doesn't care. Unscrupulous and exploitative to the point of being a sociopath, he uses people and will do anything to get what he wants. In short, Trickster is unremittingly selfish: he always puts his needs before those of others, and holds himself above the rules. In so doing, he perpetually jeopardizes the security of his fellow group members, thereby destabilizing the cooperative network. He is the embodiment of behaviors that tick people off and lead to conflict.

If this sounds familiar to South Park fans, it should: Eric Cartman is a modern incarnation of the trickster. Greedy, lazy, unscrupulous, and manipulative, Cartman cares only about himself and will stop at nothing to get what he wants. So why have we tuned in for twenty years to watch him?

The answer is social sanctioning. Trickster stories discourage antisocial behaviors by vividly modeling the bad things that happen to people who engage in them. Trickster is sanctioned using a variety of tactics, chief of which is ridicule: his tricks typically backfire on him, making him an object of scorn. Although seemingly mild, this punishment packs a big punch, because in forager societies people dread public disapproval. For example, as anthropologist Frederica de Laguna notes, the Dena people "are very sensitive to what others may say . . . [and] the unwritten laws of the people are enforced through the strength of public opinion." Shaming works because it's a veiled threat: it hints that, if the behavior doesn't stop, more forceful sanctions will follow. Sterner sanctioning takes the form of ostracism: when people discover that Trickster has been free riding, they punish him by refusing to cooperate with him anymore. In extreme cases, he's kicked out of the group. Because the sanctioning tactics used against Trickster mirror those used in real life, the genre serves as a means of moral strong-arming: "straighten up and fly right, or what happened to Trickster will happen to you." In hunter-gatherer societies, expulsion from the group is a death sentence. In modern environments, it bodes a friendless existence. No one likes Cartman: he survives socially by bullying people into associating with him.

Trickster stories--and satire in general--are an important means of policing society. If the audience bears in mind the consequences of Trickster's antisocial behavior, they will be less inclined to behave inappropriately themselves. Storytelling is thus used proactively to discourage proscribed behavior and lessen the risk of conflict. It's also used post hoc to discipline those who stray. Punishing transgressors is tricky because a person confronted with his/her crime may become angry and aggressive. Storytelling enables discipline to be effected non-confrontationally by making a character rather than the wrongdoer the target of judgement. A pointed story told in a public forum enables people to criticize the transgression without revealing the identity of the transgressor, which reduces the risk of conflict. David Sedaris uses this tactic in Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk. As he explains: "There was something liberating about writing a story about a squirrel and a chipmunk because I didn't have to worry about the chipmunk coming to me and saying, 'Thanks a lot for telling the world about me and that squirrel.'" The key to satire's effectiveness as a policing tactic is humor: Trickster's schemes typically backfire on him in comical fashion. His humiliation is thus served with a heaping helping of laughter, making the pill of shame easier to swallow for the target of the story, and reminding the rest of the audience to keep their inner Cartman in check, or they too might find themselves the butt of society's joke.

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THE SINGAPORE RESEARCH STORY  
THE SINGAPORE RESEARCH STORY: edited by Hang Chang Chieh, Low Teck Seng, and Raj Thampuran; World Scientific Publishing, Inc. 2016

Reviewed by Don C. Reed

Disclaimer: World Scientific published one of my books, "STEM CELL BATTLES: Proposition 71 and Beyond", so I am perhaps biased on their behalf.

Question: could a small island nation, endowed with few natural resources or financial backing-- become a world leader in biomedical research?

Answer: "In little more than a decade, Singapore established a thriving biomedical industry from scratch...In 2000, it started to invest in a Biomedical Sciences initiative... by 2012, this industry had grown to more than...$24 billion (US) dollars ...."

"Many leading ...companies (including Pfizer, Abbott, GlaxoSmithKline, Lonza, MSD, Novartis, and Sanofi-Aventis) have made Singapore their global manufacturing base..."

When Singapore became independent in 1965, it was a third world country with few advantages. It could easily have been a country with cheap labor as its only edge, taken advantage of by other nations. Instead, it became a prosperous country whose population is well-educated, and with an economy based on information, science--and jobs.

Today, Singapore's unemployment rate is less than 2%.

In a series of densely-packed chapters, we see the transformation of a nation.

A key policy was a willingness to seek out information from outside experts first, and then adapt their suggestions to fit Singapore.

For instance, in 1970, an Israeli scientist, Dr. Meir Ben Zvi, offered a detailed plan to develop Singapore's "qualified scientific... personnel" by sending students overseas to study.

A civil servant, Philip Yeo, developed that concept, which he called "guppies and whales", sending out "guppies", students to learn, and bringing in "whales", international experts.

Yeo worked closely with the visionary Finance Minister Goh Keng Swee, who gave him considerable leeway.

Look anywhere in Singapore's research world, and you will see both men's fingerprints. Yeo brought change, the Finance Minister backed him up. If anyone complained, Goh Keng Swee would say "What can I do? That's Philip!"

A small but telling example: Yeo changed the name of Singapore's biomedical division, from something people could not remember, the National Science and Technology Board (NSTB) to Agency for Science, Technology and Research-- A*STAR-- because A*STAR is the top grade every student can achieve in a Singapore school.

One tragic but inspirational story concerned a brilliant young scientist, Tsao Chieh, who developed a life-threatening disease. Yeo arranged for therapy from outside Singapore to be brought in--but Tsao had an immunity to the cure itself, and died.

"Here I was, watching a young life die before my eyes," said Philip Yeo, "And there was nothing I could do..."

In 1983, Nobel laureate Dr. Sydney Brenner gave a hugely influential series of lectures about biomedicine. Goh Keng Swee arranged for those lectures, and worked to make their message become real. Working with Dr. Brenner, Philip Yeo made a list of 100 top scientists and tried to bring them to Singapore.

"The first top scientist he attracted to Singapore to be Genome Institute of Singapore's founding executive director was Dr. Edison Liu...

Remember the bird flu epidemic? Called SARS, the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, "It was a global epidemic...controlling the spread of this highly communicable disease became paramount."

Dr. Liu mobilized the scientists.

"I am calling on everyone to drop what they are doing to work on this problem.... In the morning we met with the team leaders and said, 'Okay, what are you going to do today?' At the end of the day, we met with the team leaders again and said, 'What happened today?' The gene sequencing team worked 24/7. I mean, they slept in the hallway."

Singapore developed a testing kit for SARS, and was "cited by the World Health Organization as an exemplary country in its response.

"...that experience made it obvious to all the decision-makers that their investment in the biomedical sciences was not just to get cash return in the stock market, it was (also) for national security..."
Hepatitis B? Thanks to Singaporean efforts, that condition can now be diagnosed in two days instead of two weeks.
Another biomed champion is A*STAR Chairman Lim Chuan Poh, formerly a Lieutenant General in the Singapore military.

At the agency's 20th anniversary, he said:

"...In the biomedical effort, we (built) capabilities for one big industry cluster. This was a new approach, a new strategy. That was how the research landscape changed...conceptually."

The visual reality of the "one big industry cluster" was a series of 13 incredible buildings, Biopolis and Fusionopolis, designed by one of the world's greatest architects, the late Iraqi-Brit designer Zaha Hadid.



Two million square feet of shining steel, seeming to touch the sky, but designed to both meet the needs of science and to be inviting as a living space; so that scientists could get up in the morning, have breakfast, kiss the family goodbye--and be at work in 30 minutes!

Like Biopolis, "The Singapore Research Story" is both practical and visionary: it belongs on the shelves of college, governmental, and public libraries, wherever students want to know: what can happen to a country, when science is respected.

Don C. Reed is the author of "STEM CELL BATTLES: Proposition 71 and Beyond: How Ordinary People Can Fight Back Against the Crushing Burden of Chronic Disease--with a Posthumous Foreword by Christopher Reeve".

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SETI, Imagining Extraterrestrial Civilizations, and War  
I've often thought it interesting that when SETI scientists imagine extraterrestrial civilizations, they usually think in terms of unified worlds that have one civilization. The image is very much unlike our world, in which we have multiple civilizations that are fractured and in conflict with other societies. The Brexit event of the past couple of days is a good example of just how fractured our world is as well as representing some solid data not in support of the idea that humans are becoming increasingly unified.

When we imagine other worlds, we tend to take a distant view and create images that reflect a fictionalized, romanticized representation of life right here on Earth. Rather than fractured worlds with many civilizations like the one on which we actually live, many SETI scientists think in terms of what I call the Star Trek Imaginary, in which each world forms a civilization equivalent to a geopolitical unit on Earth. In other words, we think of alien worlds as unified political states or countries.

There is a good chance that this is an inaccurate view of civilizations on other planets, but it still may be a useful way to think about extraterrestrial intelligence if only to deconstruct our assumptions about life on other worlds. Indeed, one way to use this image is to turn it around and think about Earth from the perspective of an alien world. This makes for an interesting thought experiment.

Suppose ET planted some sort of observational device near Earth, say, 6,000 years ago. Somehow, they had noticed that there seemed to be an emerging civilization and thought it would be interesting to study how things evolved. ET doesn't have a lot of time to spend on watching Earth and the observational device isn't sensitive enough to show all the nuances of political machinations throughout human history. So the data are limited in detail. The result is a wide-angle picture of Earth throughout history that gives a general sense of what cultural evolution on Earth is like. ET will have learned quite a bit, actually, about how humans evolve and form societies over time, but a lot of the detail will be left out. They probably won't get the nitty-gritties about the Brexit.

So what would such a device tell ET? As I thought about this, I realized there would be one overwhelming image ET would get about Earth. And it's an image we here--with our close-up picture of our own history--don't usually associate with civilization on this planet.

I think what ET might conclude is that Earth has been at war for about 5,000 years--pretty much non-stop. The first war in recorded history seems to have been in Mesopotamia around 2,700 BCE between Sumer and Elam, and from the outside it might look like it never stopped. Since that time, if one were to stand back a bit from Earth, there is a pretty good chance that warfare would be the dominant feature of human civilization. There is always war going on somewhere on Earth. It ebbs and flows in intensity. Sometimes it's regional; sometimes it covers most of the planet. But it is always there and it might look like one long war from an outside perch. If you didn't know all of the political and historical details, there would be no reason to assume that our history had been an endless string of wars rather than simply one really long one.

From our perspective, this would not be a very accurate picture. Different societies have had on-and-off periods of war and peace. And we don't tend to think about our civilization(s) as being characterized by a single war lasting 5,000 years, because we understand the geopolitical details in which there have been lots of wars over that time, not just one war. But if you look at Earth from the outside and treat human societies as a civilization, then it's probably a reasonable conclusion about us. From the external--or in anthropology what we would call etic--perspective, human civilization might appear to be based on and characterized by a single war that has spanned almost 5,000 years.

This raises the importance of seeing the difference between proximate and distant perspectives and the difficulties in imagining intelligent life and civilizations on other worlds when we don't have a lot of data to work with (or in our current situation, without any data at all). SETI scientists often tend to impose their own assumptions about intelligence and civilization on imagined extraterrestrial worlds and those assumptions are shaped by ideas about the way our world is that: 1) may not be empirically accurate, and 2) are unlikely to reflect how we would look to outsiders.

The devil is in the details, and we don't have any of those, since we have no evidence of alien intelligence. But even if we do get evidence sometime, we probably won't have much detail and we will need to be very careful to avoid imposing the Star Trek Imaginary--or any other set of assumptions--on what little data we receive. Standing back and trying to imagine what our world would look like to distant outsiders is a useful way of trying to control this tendency to imagine alien others in terms of romanticized images of ourselves.

Perspective is important. It may well be that characterizing our world as being at war for 5,000 years is accurate, but it isn't how we see ourselves and that, too, is an important piece of data about humans. Recognizing the potential disjuncture between how we see ourselves and how others might see us is a key component of trying to deflect, to the extent possible, our tendencies to infuse assumptions about intelligence and civilization drawn from our proximate understanding of and imagination about life on Earth into our speculations about intelligent life on other worlds.

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Weekend Roundup: When Politics Fails, Look to Unifiers Like Pope Francis and Yo-Yo Ma  
When politics divides instead of unites, walls off instead of embraces, what, or who, can bind fractured societies? Spiritual authority and the arts step into the breach when political leaders fail.

Pope Francis has become, in effect, the planet's pastor and reconciler-in-chief, washing the feet of the poor and incarcerated, taking in refugees at the Vatican, meeting with Muslim clerics, venerating China's long civilizational heritage and declaring that climate change and inequality are moral issues. Above all, his humility challenges the example of power through the power of example, exhibiting a reverence for human dignity in all its diversity. 

The cellist Yo-Yo Ma is the pope's spiritual cousin in this cause, sounding the healing chord of fellowship instead of enmity. More than a musician, he, too, is a guiding spirit who rises to the challenge of a world unraveling. His Silk Road Project, started in 1998, brings "the music of strangers" -- also the title of his just-released documentary -- together to show the common humanity of diverse traditions from around the globe.

The film is about art for life's sake, as Yo-Yo Ma likes to say. It doesn't shy away from political turmoil -- the Syrian civil war and refugee camps, the Iranian Revolution, China's Cultural Revolution -- that turns the lives of musicians, like everyone else, upside down, but shows how the human spirit perseveres in the face of tribulation. As one of the musicians says in "The Music of Strangers," the Silk Road Ensemble reveals the possibility of a profound correspondence behind differences -- and where there is possibility, there is hope.

There could be no more urgent message today than this. And no one puts it better than Yo-Yo Ma himself. "To be able to put oneself in another's shoes without prejudgment is an essential skill," he once told The WorldPost. "Empathy comes when you understand something deeply through arts and literature and can thus make unexpected connections. These parallels bring you closer to things that would otherwise seem far away. Empathy is the ultimate quality that acknowledges our identity as members of one human family." 

The historic rupture of the Brexit vote this week, in which the "leave" camp closely defeated the "remain" camp, typifies the split societies we see today across Europe as well as in the U.S. and elsewhere. WorldPost Fellow Jesselyn Cook outlines how immigration and the fear of losing control of borders is a core concern of British voters, a reminder that empathy is just a starting point that is only a meaningful value when matched with a realistic capacity to integrate newcomers. World Reporter Charlotte Alfred outlines what's next for the U.K. after Brexit.

Writing from Paris, Geoffroy Clavel describes how the French National Front sees the Brexit vote as proof that the European Union will, and should, "disintegrate." And, indeed, as Anne Sinclair also writes from Paris, the Brexit is likely only the first in a series of defections from the European Union. Writing from Germany, Konstantin Kuhle argues that the EU must immediately take steps to reassure voters on the continent, including moving toward direct election of the EU Commission president. Howard Fineman worries that the Brexit vote presages the victory of Trump populism in the United States. In a losing appeal to voters ahead of the referendum, Richard Branson, the Virgin entrepreneur who is in many ways the face of a globally-oriented Britain, warned that jobs and investment opportunities that depend on the link with Europe would be at risk if the U.K. left the EU.

Turning to another instance of political paralysis in another divided country, Guillermo Rodriguez reflects on the situation in Spain ahead of elections Sunday. "Spanish people are drained," he writes from Madrid. "It feels like Spain is the main character in the movie Groundhog Day: Everything starts fresh with each new round of elections."

Writing from Beirut, former MI6 agent Alastair Crooke sees all the hopeful agreements of recent months among Russia, the U.S. and Iran unwinding, particularly with respect to the Syrian cease-fire, which he now sees as having "failed." In a special series launched this week on female journalists in Afghanistan -- "Sahar Speaks" -- we profile 12 women and the challenges they've faced in that country's male-dominated culture. Writing from Bisada, Uttar Pradesh in India, Betwa Sharma chronicles the breakdown of decades of conviviality between Hindus and Muslims after a villager was lynched for allegedly slaughtering a cow.

Writing from Cape Town, South Africa, gay imam Muhsin Hendricks says that, after the Orlando massacre, it is time for Muslims to reassess their stance on sexual orientation: "The orthodox belief that homosexuality is a sin -- based on the story of Sodom and Gomorrah -- is what leads to the nuances of homophobia around the massacre in Orlando."

Writing from Vladivostok, Artyom Lukin and Rens Lee argue that Russia can play a key role alongside the U.S. and China in helping curb North Korea's nuclear program. A ruling is due soon from a tribunal under the aegis of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea on a territorial dispute over islands between the Philippines and China. China's high profile ambassador to the United Kingdom, Liu Xiaoming, argues the court has no proper jurisdiction, the issue should be resolved bilaterally and that China has no intention of "ruling the waves." Writing from Manila, Richard Javad Heydarian calls the case before the tribunal the "trial of the century." "What is at stake here," he says, "is no less than protecting global commons under the auspices of international law. The alternative is the tragedy of great power politics and the rule of the jungle in high seas."

Tensions also mounted further in the South China Sea this week when the U.S. sent two aircraft carriers to patrol the zone between China and the Philippines. Just when it is most needed, the region has lost one of its leading voices for restraint and reconciliation. Wu Jianmin, among China's most prominent senior diplomats and a partner in the Berggruen Institute's "Understanding China" dialogues, was killed this week in a car accident near Wuhan, sparking a debate over the direction of China's foreign policy.






"Recently, nationalism and populism have been expanding around the world, becoming a global phenomenon," Wu said in a speech on June 6. "....Nationalism has two connotations. First, love for your own country, which is not wrong. Second, exclusion of others and pushing the blame for your country's problems onto other countries. I am good, others are bad. This is problematic. ... Nationalism and populism are also very dangerous in China. Nationalism often flies under the banner of 'patriotism,' which is innocent. Populism can dress up as 'appealing on behalf of the people.' But both are very deceptive. We need to see that the essence of populism goes against reform, and the essence of nationalism goes against opening up."

Eric Olander and Cobus van Staden ask whether China's heavy investment in South Sudan is "naked imperialism in pursuit of the country's vast oil reserves or a genuine effort to bring peace to help end a brutal conflict." This amazing video was taken by a drone flying around inside a Byzantine-era church in France. These dazzling photos display the diversity of Mexico's indigenous cultures.

Writing from Tambopata, Peru, Next Gen Scientist's Aaron Pomerantz discovers a remarkable collaboration between ants and butterflies in bamboo stalks in the remote Amazon jungle. In a separate video post, he also explains something we've all wondered about: how do butterflies create color in their wings? Finally, our Singularity series this week explores how understanding human learning can make artificial intelligence smarter.

WHO WE ARE


EDITORS: Nathan Gardels, Co-Founder and Executive Advisor to the Berggruen Institute, is the Editor-in-Chief of The WorldPost. Kathleen Miles is the Executive Editor of The WorldPost. Farah Mohamed is the Managing Editor of The WorldPost. Alex Gardels and Peter Mellgard are the Associate Editors of The WorldPost. Katie Nelson is the National Editor at the Huffington Post, overseeing The WorldPost and HuffPost's editorial coverage. Charlotte Alfred and Nick Robins-Early are World Reporters. Rowaida Abdelaziz is Social Media Editor.


CORRESPONDENTS: Sophia Jones in Istanbul


EDITORIAL BOARD: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Arianna Huffington, Eric Schmidt (Google Inc.), Pierre Omidyar (First Look Media) Juan Luis Cebrian (El Pais/PRISA), Walter Isaacson (Aspen Institute/TIME-CNN), John Elkann (Corriere della Sera, La Stampa), Wadah Khanfar (Al Jazeera), Dileep Padgaonkar (Times of India) and Yoichi Funabashi (Asahi Shimbun).


VICE PRESIDENT OF OPERATIONS: Dawn Nakagawa.


CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: Moises Naim (former editor of Foreign Policy), Nayan Chanda (Yale/Global; Far Eastern Economic Review) and Katherine Keating (One-On-One). Sergio Munoz Bata and Parag Khanna are Contributing Editors-At-Large.


The Asia Society and its ChinaFile, edited by Orville Schell, is our primary partner on Asia coverage. Eric X. Li and the Chunqiu Institute/Fudan University in Shanghai and Guancha.cn also provide first person voices from China. We also draw on the content of China Digital Times. Seung-yoon Lee is The WorldPost link in South Korea.


Jared Cohen of Google Ideas provides regular commentary from young thinkers, leaders and activists around the globe. Bruce Mau provides regular columns from MassiveChangeNetwork.com on the "whole mind" way of thinking. Patrick Soon-Shiong is Contributing Editor for Health and Medicine.


ADVISORY COUNCIL: Members of the Berggruen Institute's 21st Century Council and Council for the Future of Europe serve as the Advisory Council -- as well as regular contributors -- to the site. These include, Jacques Attali, Shaukat Aziz, Gordon Brown, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Juan Luis Cebrian, Jack Dorsey, Mohamed El-Erian, Francis Fukuyama, Felipe Gonzalez, John Gray, Reid Hoffman, Fred Hu, Mo Ibrahim, Alexei Kudrin, Pascal Lamy, Kishore Mahbubani, Alain Minc, Dambisa Moyo, Laura Tyson, Elon Musk, Pierre Omidyar, Raghuram Rajan, Nouriel Roubini, Nicolas Sarkozy, Eric Schmidt, Gerhard Schroeder, Peter Schwartz, Amartya Sen, Jeff Skoll, Michael Spence, Joe Stiglitz, Larry Summers, Wu Jianmin, George Yeo, Fareed Zakaria, Ernesto Zedillo, Ahmed Zewail, and Zheng Bijian.


From the Europe group, these include: Marek Belka, Tony Blair, Jacques Delors, Niall Ferguson, Anthony Giddens, Otmar Issing, Mario Monti, Robert Mundell, Peter Sutherland and Guy Verhofstadt.

MISSION STATEMENT

The WorldPost is a global media bridge that seeks to connect the world and connect the dots. Gathering together top editors and first person contributors from all corners of the planet, we aspire to be the one publication where the whole world meets.

We not only deliver breaking news from the best sources with original reportage on the ground and user-generated content; we bring the best minds and most authoritative as well as fresh and new voices together to make sense of events from a global perspective looking around, not a national perspective looking out.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
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