Category: Academic Reportage

Source: The Conversation – USA – By James F. Holden, Professor of Microbiology, UMass Amherst

People have long wondered what life was first like on Earth, and if there is life in our solar system beyond our planet. Scientists have reason to believe that some of the moons in our solar system – like Jupiter’s Europa and Saturn’s Enceladus – may contain deep, salty liquid oceans under an icy shell. Seafloor volcanoes could heat these moons’ oceans and provide the basic chemicals needed for life.

Similar deep-sea volcanoes found on Earth support microbial life that lives inside solid rock without sunlight and oxygen. Some of these microbes, called thermophiles, live at temperatures hot enough to boil water on the surface. They grow from the chemicals coming out of active volcanoes.

Because these microorganisms existed before there was photosynthesis or oxygen on Earth, scientists think these deep-sea volcanoes and microbes could resemble the earliest habitats and life on Earth, and beyond.

To determine if life could exist beyond Earth in these ocean worlds, NASA sent the Cassini spacecraft to orbit Saturn in 1997. The agency has also sent three spacecraft to orbit Jupiter: Galileo in 1989, Juno in 2011 and most recently Europa Clipper in 2024. These spacecraft flew and will fly close to Enceladus and Europa to measure their habitability for life using a suite of instruments.

However, for planetary scientists to interpret the data they collect, they need to first understand how similar habitats function and host life on Earth.

My microbiology laboratory at the University of Massachusetts Amherst studies thermophiles from hot springs at deep-sea volcanoes, also called hydrothermal vents.

Diving deep for samples of life

I grew up in Spokane, Washington, and had over an inch of volcanic ash land on my home when Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980. That event led to my fascination with volcanoes.

Several years later, while studying oceanography in college, I collected samples from Mount St. Helens’ hot springs and studied a thermophile from the site. I later collected samples at hydrothermal vents along an undersea volcanic mountain range hundreds of miles off the coast of Washington and Oregon. I have continued to study these hydrothermal vents and their microbes for nearly four decades.

Submarine pilots collect the samples my team uses from hydrothermal vents using human-occupied submarines or remotely operated submersibles. These vehicles are lowered into the ocean from research ships where scientists conduct research 24 hours a day, often for weeks at a time.

The samples collected include rocks and heated hydrothermal fluids that rise from cracks in the seafloor.

The submarines use mechanical arms to collect the rocks and special sampling pumps and bags to collect the hydrothermal fluids. The submarines usually remain on the seafloor for about a day before returning samples to the surface. They make multiple trips to the seafloor on each expedition.

Inside the solid rock of the seafloor, hydrothermal fluids as hot at 662 degrees Fahrenheit (350 Celsius) mix with cold seawater in cracks and pores of the rock. The mixture of hydrothermal fluid and seawater creates the ideal temperatures and chemical conditions that thermophiles need to live and grow.

When the submarines return to the ship, scientists – including my research team – begin analyzing the chemistry, minerals and organic material like DNA in the collected water and rock samples.

These samples contain live microbes that we can cultivate, so we grow the microbes we are interested in studying while on the ship. The samples provide a snapshot of how microbes live and grow in their natural environment.

Thermophiles in the lab

Back in my laboratory in Amherst, my research team isolates new microbes from the hydrothermal vent samples and grows them under conditions that mimic those they experience in nature. We feed them volcanic chemicals like hydrogen, carbon dioxide, sulfur and iron and measure their ability to produce compounds like methane, hydrogen sulfide and the magnetic mineral magnetite.

Oxygen is typically deadly for these organisms, so we grow them in synthetic hydrothermal fluid and in sealed tubes or in large bioreactors free of oxygen. This way, we can control the temperature and chemical conditions they need for growth.

From these experiments, we look for distinguishing chemical signals that these organisms produce which spacecraft or instruments that land on extraterrestrial surfaces could potentially detect.

We also create computer models that best describe how we think these microbes grow and compete with other organisms in hydrothermal vents. We can apply these models to conditions we think existed on early Earth or on ocean worlds to see how these microbes might fare under those conditions.

We then analyze the proteins from the thermophiles we collect to understand how these organisms function and adapt to changing environmental conditions. All this information guides our understanding of how life can exist in extreme environments on and beyond Earth.

Uses for thermophiles in biotechnology

In addition to providing helpful information to planetary scientists, research on thermophiles provides other benefits as well. Many of the proteins in thermophiles are new to science and useful for biotechnology.

The best example of this is an enzyme called DNA polymerase, which is used to artificially replicate DNA in the lab by the polymerase chain reaction. The DNA polymerase first used for polymerase chain reaction was purified from the thermophilic bacterium Thermus aquaticus in 1976. This enzyme needs to be heat resistant for the replication technique to work. Everything from genome sequencing to clinical diagnoses, crime solving, genealogy tests and genetic engineering uses DNA polymerase.

My lab and others are exploring how thermophiles can be used to degrade waste and produce commercially useful products. Some of these organisms grow on waste milk from dairy farms and brewery wastewater – materials that cause fish kills and dead zones in ponds and bays. The microbes then produce biohydrogen from the waste – a compound that can be used as an energy source.

Hydrothermal vents are among the most fascinating and unusual environments on Earth. With them, windows to the first life on Earth and beyond may lie at the bottom of our oceans.

James F. Holden receives funding from NASA.

– ref. Microbes in deep-sea volcanoes can help scientists learn about early life on Earth, or even life beyond our planet – https://theconversation.com/microbes-in-deep-sea-volcanoes-can-help-scientists-learn-about-early-life-on-earth-or-even-life-beyond-our-planet-260977

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Stephen Acabado, Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles

Bottles of tequila now command premium prices in trendy bars. On Instagram, celebrity-backed brands of the agave-based Mexican spirit jostle for attention. And debates over cultural appropriation and agave sustainability swirl alongside booming tourism in Jalisco, the western Mexican state that serves as the world’s tequila distillation hub.

But behind the spirit’s flash of marketing and growing popularity lies a rarely asked question: Where did the knowledge to distill agave come from in the first place?

In recent years, scholars studying how Indigenous communities responded to colonialism and global trade networks have begun to look more closely at the Pacific world. One key focus is the Manila-Acapulco galleon trade route, which linked Asia and the Americas for 250 years, from 1565 to 1815.

After Spain colonized the Philippines in 1565, Spanish galleons – towering, multidecked sailing ships – carried Chinese silk and Mexican silver across the ocean. But far more than goods traveled aboard those ships. They moved people, ideas and technologies.

Among them was the craft of distillation.

This overlooked connection may help explain how distilled agave spirits such as tequila came into being. While tequila is unmistakably a Mexican creation, the techniques used to produce it may owe something to Filipino sailors, who brought with them deep knowledge of transforming coconut sap into a potent spirit known as lambanog.

3 competing theories

For centuries, the rise of tequila has been credited to the Spanish. After the conquest of Mexico in the 16th century, colonizers introduced alembic stills, which are based on Moorish and Arabic technology. Unlike simple boiling, distillation requires managing heat and capturing purified vapor. These stills represented a major technological leap, allowing people to transform fermented drinks into distilled spirits.

Agave, long used to make the fermented drink pulque, soon became the base for something new: tequila and mezcal.

Colonial records, including the “Relaciones Geográficas,” a massive data-gathering project initiated by the Spanish Crown in the late 16th century, describe local Mesoamerican communities learning distillation from Spanish settlers. This version is well documented. But it assumes that technology moved in only one direction, from Europe to the Americas.

A second idea suggests that Mesoamerican communities already had some understanding of vapor condensation. Archaeologists have found ceramic vessels in western Mexico that may have been used to capture steam. While distillation requires additional steps, this prior knowledge may have primed Indigenous groups to more readily adopt new techniques.

As Mexican ethnobotanists Patricia Colunga-GarcíaMarín and Daniel Zizumbo-Villarreal have argued, “The adoption of distillation was likely not simply imposed, but creatively adapted to local knowledge systems.”

A third perspective, which other researchers and I are exploring, traces a potential Filipino influence. The galleon trade brought thousands of Filipino sailors and laborers to Mexico, particularly along the Pacific coast. In places such as Guerrero, Colima and Jalisco, Filipino migrants introduced methods for fermenting and distilling coconut sap into lambanog, the coconut-based spirit.

The stills they used, sometimes called Mongolian stills, were built with clay and bamboo and included a condensation bowl. Historian Pablo Guzman-Rivas has noted that these stills more closely resemble the earliest Mexican agave distillation setups than European alembics. He has also documented oral traditions in some coastal Mexican communities to link local distillation practices to their Filipino ancestors.

Beyond the bottle

Filipino influence extends beyond the distilling pot.

In Colima and other Pacific port towns, traces of the Manila galleon trade ripple through daily life – in kitchens, cantinas and even in architecture. The word “palapa,” used in Mexico and Central America today to describe rustic thatched roofs, is exactly the same as the term for coconut fronds that’s primarily used in the Bicol Region of the Philippines.

Filipino migrants in Mexico also shared knowledge of boatbuilding, fermentation and food preservation. Coconut vinegar, fish sauce and palm sugar-based condiments became part of Mexican cuisine. One of the most enduring legacies is tuba, the fermented coconut sap still popular in coastal areas of the Mexican state of Guerrero, where Filipino sailors once settled. Known locally by the same name, tuba is sold in markets and along roadsides, often enjoyed as a refreshing drink or as a cooking ingredient.

Exchange moved both ways. Filipino vessels carried corn, peanuts, sweet potatoes and cacao back across the Pacific, reshaping food in the Philippines. These exchanges took place under the shadow of colonialism and forced labor, but their legacies endure in language, in taste and even in the roofs over people’s heads.

Technical knowledge rarely travels through official channels alone. It moves with cooks in ship galleys, with carpenters below deck, with laborers who desert ships to settle in unfamiliar ports. Sometimes it was a way to build a roof or preserve a flavor. Other times, it was a method for turning a fermented plant into a spirit that could keep for long voyages. And by the early 1600s, new types of distilled agave spirits were being made in Mexico.

Tequila is unmistakably a product of Mexico. But it is also a product of movement. Whether Filipino migrants directly introduced distillation methods or whether they emerged from a mix of Indigenous experimentation and European tools, every time you sip tequila, you’re tasting an echo of those long ocean crossings from many centuries ago.

Stephen Acabado receives funding from the Henry Luce Foundation and the National Science Foundation.

– ref. Filipino sailors dock in Mexico … and help invent tequila? – https://theconversation.com/filipino-sailors-dock-in-mexico-and-help-invent-tequila-258166

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Sona Dimidjian, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder

For generations, women have relied on informal networks of friends, family and neighbors to navigate the complexities of birth and motherhood. Today, research is finally catching up to what generations of women have known: Peer support can be a lifeline.

Despite growing evidence, the unique wisdom and strength that arise when mothers help mothers has been surprisingly under‑explored in the scientific literature, but that’s beginning to change. Peer-delivered programs are beginning to bring together long-standing community traditions and structured, evidence-based approaches to support the mental health of new and expectant moms.

We are clinical psychologists at the University of Colorado Boulder Renée Crown Wellness Institute. Our work and research weaves together psychological science and the wisdom of mothers supporting mothers. Our program, Alma, supports women in restoring well-being in ways that are community-rooted, evidence-based and scalable.

Pressure on parents

Nearly 50% of parents report feeling overwhelmed by stress on most days. An even larger share, about 65%, experience feelings of loneliness, according to a 2024 report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. These feelings hit mothers especially hard, the report says.

In 2025, mothers in the United States continue to shoulder most of the caregiving of children while also managing work, personal health and household responsibilities. The transition to motherhood is often marked by emotional and psychological strain. In fact, 10% to 20% of women experience depression during pregnancy, the postpartum period or both. Depression is one of the most common complications of childbirth. A similar number of women also face significant anxiety.

In many communities, mental health resources are scarce and stigma around mental health issues persists; therefore, many mothers are left to navigate such challenges alone and in silence. Antidepressants are widely prescribed, but research suggests that many women stop using antidepressants during pregnancy – yet they don’t start therapy or an alternative treatment instead.

Psychotherapy is the most preferred care option among new and expectant mothers, but it is often inaccessible or nonexistent. This is due in part to a workforce shortage of mental health providers.

The shortage has contributed to long wait times, geographic disparities and cultural and language barriers between providers and patients. This is especially true for underserved populations. In fact, more than 75% of depressed mothers do not receive the care they need.

Science of peer support

The science of peer support is part of a larger field exploring community health workers as one way to address the shortage of mental health providers. Peer mentors are trusted individuals from the community who share common experiences or challenges with those they serve. Through specialized training, they are equipped to deliver education, offer mental health support and connect people with needed resources.

A study that analyzed 30 randomized clinical trials involving individuals with serious mental illness found that peer support was associated with significant improvements in clinical outcomes and personal recovery. Researchers have proposed that peer support creates space for learning and healing, especially when peers share lived experience, culture and language.

As clinical psychologists, we heard from mothers in our work and communities that wanted to help other moms recover from depression, navigate the challenges of motherhood and avoid feeling alone. This insight led us to co-create Alma, a peer-led mental health program based on behavioral activation.

Behavioral activation is a proven method for treating depression based on decades of randomized clinical trials, including in new and expectant mothers. It helps new and expectant mothers reengage in meaningful activities to improve mood and functioning.

The Alma program

Alma is based on the principle that depression must be understood in context and that changing what you do can change how you feel. One strategy we use is to help a mother identify an activity that brings a sense of accomplishment, connection or enjoyment – and then take small steps to schedule that activity. Mothers might also be guided on ways to ask for help and strengthen their support networks. Alma is offered in English and Spanish.

Peer mentors typically meet with moms once a week for six to eight sessions. Sessions can take place in person or virtually, allowing flexibility that honors each family’s needs. Traditionally, peer mentors have been recruited through long-standing relationships with trusted community organizations and word-of-mouth referrals. This approach has helped ensure that mentors are deeply rooted in the communities they serve. Alma peer mentors are compensated for their time, which recognizes the value of their lived expertise, their training and the work involved in providing peer mentoring and support.

“This was the first time I felt like someone understood me, without me having to explain everything,” shared one mother during a post-program interview that all participants complete after finishing Alma.

To date, more than 700 mothers in Colorado have participated in Alma. In one of our studies, we focused on 126 Spanish-speaking Latina mothers who often face significant barriers to care, such as language differences, cost and stigma. For nearly 2 out of 3 mothers, symptoms of depression decreased enough to be considered a true, measurable recovery — not just a small change.

Notably, most of the depression improvement occurred within the first three Alma meetings. We also observed that peer mentors delivered the Alma program consistently and as intended. This suggests the program could be reliably expanded and replicated in other settings with similar positive outcomes.

A second study, conducted through a national survey of Spanish-speaking Latina new and expectant mothers, found that peer-led mental health support was not only perceived as effective, but also highly acceptable and deeply valued. Mothers noted that they were interested in peer-led support because it met them where they were: with language, trust and cultural understanding.

Supporting mothers works

Supporting mothers’ mental health is essential because it directly benefits both mothers and their children. Those improvements foster healthier emotional, cognitive and social development in their children. This interconnected impact highlights why investing in maternal mental health yields lasting benefits for the entire family.

It also makes strong economic sense to address mood and anxiety disorders among new and expectant mothers, which cost an estimated US$32,000 for each mother and child from conception through five years postpartum. More than half of those costs occur within the first year, driven primarily by productivity losses, preterm births and increased maternal health care needs.

Beyond the impact on individual families, the broader economic toll of untreated mood and anxiety disorders among new and expectant mothers is substantial. For example, it’s estimated that $4.7 billion a year are lost to mothers who have to miss work or reduce their job performance because of symptoms like fatigue, anxiety and depression.

Together – as individuals, families, communities and institutions – we can cultivate a world where the challenges of parenting are met with comprehensive support, allowing the joy of parenting to be fully realized. Because no one should have to do this alone.

Read more of our stories about Colorado.

Sona Dimidjian reports funding from philanthropic foundations and the National Institute of Health, and founding and receiving revenue from Mindful Noggin, Inc. and Access Consulting, LLC.

Anahi Collado reports receiving funding from philanthropic foundations.

– ref. How mothers supporting mothers can help fill the health care worker shortage gap and other barriers to care – https://theconversation.com/how-mothers-supporting-mothers-can-help-fill-the-health-care-worker-shortage-gap-and-other-barriers-to-care-257520

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Kevin Morris, Research Professor of Social Work, University of Denver

In a 2022 survey of 3,000 U.S. adults, more than one-third of respondents reported that on most days, they feel “completely overwhelmed” by stress. At the same time, a growing body of research is documenting the negative health consequences of higher stress levels, which include increased rates of cancer, heart disease, autoimmune conditions and even dementia.

Assuming people’s daily lives are unlikely to get less stressful anytime soon, simple and effective ways to mitigate these effects are needed.

This is where dogs can help.

As researchers at the University of Denver’s Institute for Human-Animal Connection, we study the effects animal companions have on their humans.

Dozens of studies over the last 40 years have confirmed that pet dogs help humans feel more relaxed. This would explain the growing phenomenon of people relying on emotional support dogs to assist them in navigating everyday life. Dog owners have also been shown to have a 24% lower risk of death and a four times greater chance of surviving for at least a year after a heart attack.

Now, a new study that we conducted with a team of colleagues suggests that dogs might have a deeper and more biologically complex effect on humans than scientists previously believed. And this complexity may have profound implications for human health.

How stress works

The human response to stress is a finely tuned and coordinated set of various physiological pathways. Previous studies of the effects of dogs on human stress focused on just one pathway at a time. For our study, we zoomed out a bit and measured multiple biological indicators of the body’s state, or biomarkers, from both of the body’s major stress pathways. This allowed us to get a more complete picture of how a dog’s presence affects stress in the human body.

The stress pathways we measured are the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal, or HPA, axis and the sympathoadrenal medullary, or SAM, axis.

When a person experiences a stressful event, the SAM axis acts quickly, triggering a “fight or flight” response that includes a surge of adrenaline, leading to a burst of energy that helps us meet threats. This response can be measured through an enzyme called alpha-amylase.

At the same time, but a little more slowly, the HPA axis activates the adrenal glands to produce the hormone cortisol. This can help a person meet threats that might last for hours or even days. If everything goes well, when the danger ends, both axes settle down, and the body goes back to its calm state.

While stress can be an uncomfortable feeling, it has been important to human survival. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors had to respond effectively to acute stress events like an animal attack. In such instances, over-responding could be as ineffective as under-responding. Staying in an optimal stress response zone maximized humans’ chances of survival.

More to the story

After cortisol is released by the adrenal glands, it eventually makes its way into your saliva, making it an easily accessible biomarker to track responses. Because of this, most research on dogs and stress has focused on salivary cortisol alone.

For example, several studies have found that people exposed to a stressful situation have a lower cortisol response if they’re with a dog than if they’re alone – even lower than if they’re with a friend.

While these studies have shown that having a dog nearby can lower cortisol levels during a stressful event, suggesting the person is calmer, we suspected that was just part of the story.

What our study measured

For our study, we recruited about 40 dog owners to participate in a 15-minute gold standard laboratory stress test. This involves public speaking and oral math in front of a panel of expressionless people posing as behavioral specialists.

The participants were randomly assigned to bring their dogs to the lab with them or to leave their dogs at home. We measured cortisol in blood samples taken before, immediately after and about 45 minutes following the test as a biomarker of HPA axis activity. And unlike previous studies, we also measured the enzyme alpha-amylase in the same blood samples as a biomarker of the SAM axis.

As expected based on previous studies, the people who had their dog with them showed lower cortisol spikes. But we also found that people with their dog experienced a clear spike of alpha-amylase, while those without their dog showed almost no response.

No response may sound like a good thing, but in fact, a flat alpha-amylase response can be a sign of a dysregulated response to stress, often seen in people experiencing high stress responses, chronic stress or even PTSD. This lack of response is caused by chronic or overwhelming stress that can change how our nervous system responds to stressors.

In contrast, the participants with their dogs had a more balanced response: Their cortisol didn’t spike too high, but their alpha-amylase still activated. This shows that they were alert and engaged throughout the test, then able to return to normal within 45 minutes. That’s the sweet spot for handling stress effectively. Our research suggests that our canine companions keep us in a healthy zone of stress response.

Dogs and human health

This more nuanced understanding of the biological effects of dogs on the human stress response opens up exciting possibilities. Based on the results of our study, our team has begun a new study using thousands of biomarkers to delve deeper into the biology of how psychiatric service dogs reduce PTSD in military veterans.

But one thing is already clear: Dogs aren’t just good company. They might just be one of the most accessible and effective tools for staying healthy in a stressful world.

Kevin Morris receives funding for this research from the Morris Animal Foundation, the Human-Animal Bond Research Institute, and the University of Denver.

Jaci Gandenberger receives funding from the University of Denver to support this research.

– ref. Dogs are helping people regulate stress even more than expected, research shows – https://theconversation.com/dogs-are-helping-people-regulate-stress-even-more-than-expected-research-shows-254563

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Asher Kaufman, Professor of History and Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame

A fragile ceasefire was put in place in southern Syria on July 19, 2025, after days of violence between Druze militias and Bedouin tribes that drew in government forces and prompted Israeli strikes on the capital, Damascus, as a warning to pull back from Druze areas. The United States helped broker the latest agreement, fearing a spillover of violence to other parts of Syria.

The conflict’s quick escalation brings to the fore multiple layers of politics and identity in the region – particularly among the Druze, who form an important minority in several countries and make up about 2% of Israel’s population. As a historian of the Middle East, I have researched Druze cross-border communal ties and followed closely their predicaments since the start of the Syrian civil war in March 2011.

Cross-border brotherhood

The Druze are a monotheistic religious community that split from a branch of Shiite Islam in the 11th century. Today, they live mainly in three countries: Lebanon, Syria and Israel, with a small presence in northern Jordan.

Despite their geographical dispersion, they have managed to retain a strong sense of communal identity. One of the most important creeds of their faith is “protection of brothers of the faith.”

Another article of faith that helps to buttress shared communal solidarity is belief in reincarnation: that with physical death, the soul is transferred to the body of a newly born Druze.

Although Druze history shows that the community is not always united, the belief in and practice of cross-border solidarity is very strong. According to their popular saying, “the Druze are like a copper tray. Wherever you hit it, the whole tray reverberates.”

National identity

After World War I, the creation of the modern states in the Middle East divided the Druze community between Syria, Lebanon and the British mandate of Palestine, which is now Israel.

In Israel, they have largely integrated into the Jewish state. Like Jewish citizens, Druze men are required to serve in the military, and many have attained leadership positions in the security sector and politics.

A popular cliché has developed about their “blood oath” with the Jewish state. In a July 15 statement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz cited Israel’s “deep covenant of blood with our Druze citizens” and their connections to Druze in Syria.

Their integration has been marred by discrimination, a prime example of which is the 2018 law that defines Israel as the nation-state for Jews. Still, many retain a strong sense of Israeli identity that sets them apart from Arab Palestinian citizens of Israel.

An additional Druze community lives in the Golan Heights, territory that Israel seized from Syria in 1967 and has occupied since. Most Druze there declined to receive Israeli citizenship, and remained loyal to Syria until the outbreak of the civil war there. Since then, there has been a notable change in their relationship with Israel, marked by increased numbers who have acquired Israeli citizenship.

Druze communities elsewhere in the region have also adopted aspects of their countries’ culture, including Arab nationalism and Syrian or Lebanese national sentiments. Still, cross-border solidarity among Druze has remained strong – and often resurfaced in times of crisis.

War in Syria

When the Syrian civil war erupted in March 2011, Syrian Druze were targeted at times by both the Assad regime, which pressured them to support it, and by Islamist rebel groups that regarded them as infidels. The Druze straddled a fine line throughout the war, seeking, not always successfully, to be left on their own.

In 2015, that tension came to a boiling point. Druze regions throughout Syria became sites of military confrontations, involving Druze militias, the Syrian army and opposition fighters.

Israeli Druze organized mass rallies in support of their brothers in Syria and called on the Israeli government to intervene. Israel, in turn, protected Syrian Druze villages close to its border with Syria in the Golan Heights. The Israeli government covertly supported Druze areas deeper in Syria, and sent clear messages to combatants on all sides not to harm the Druze.

Since the fall of the Assad regime in Damascus in December 2024, Ahmad al-Sharaa, the new Syrian leader, has attempted to bring divided and ruined Syria together under his authority.

However, religious and ethnic minorities have been highly suspicious of the new government. Many of its members hail from al-Sharaa’s own militia during the civil war, Hayat Tahrir al Sham, which targeted religious minorities and enforced its own interpretation of Islam on the population under its control.

Spiraling crisis

The most recent violence took place in Mount Druze, a region in Sweida province that is home to most of the community in Syria. It was sparked by an incident where a local Bedouin band robbed and killed a Druze man. The incident quickly became a catalyst for major fighting between Druze, Bedouins and dispatched units of the Syrian army.

State security forces tried to impose their authority, but in the process killed scores of Druze. They also violated Druze cultural norms by filming the forced shaving of Druze men’s mustaches, including respected religious men, and posting the clips on social media. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, more than 1,100 people have been killed in the fighting.

The fragile agreement that the Sweida Druze signed with the new government in May, as part of the government’s efforts to solidify authority over the divided country, collapsed following these incidents.

Befitting the saying about the reverberation of the copper tray, Israeli Druze immediately mobilized, joined by Druze in the Golan Heights. Hundreds crossed the border to Syria. Many called on the government in Jerusalem to intervene, though others were opposed.

On July 16, the Israeli military targeted the Syrian army by striking Damascus – sending a clear threat to al-Sharaa. Israel also struck military targets in southern Syria.

Later that day, the Syrian government reached a ceasefire agreement with the Druze in Sweida, which collapsed soon after. On July 19, following more fighting and violence – and mediation by the United States, Turkey and Jordan – a new ceasefire was put in place, though new fighting has been reported.

A changing Middle East

Even before these recent incidents, Israel became a key player in post-Assad Syria by occupying areas close to their shared border. Now, Israel has deepened its involvement by defending the Druze population in the country – as many Israeli Druze had hoped it would since the start of the civil war in 2011.

Apart from supporting the Druze, Israel’s military actions are also tied to its efforts to project power amid the tectonic shifts in the Middle East since the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, 2023. In Syria, it seeks to guarantee its influence on the reshaping of the country after civil war. Domestically, Netanyahu is interested in prolonging Israel’s state of emergency, as it extends the survival of his far-right and unpopular government. Syria provides him with another front to maintain this state of emergency.

For many Israeli Druze, meanwhile, this still-unfolding episode constitutes another example in their history of seeking to protect their brothers in faith. Among Druze in the Middle East, they are uniquely positioned, with many serving in the region’s most powerful military.

On July 19, Israel’s public broadcaster, Kan news, reported that 2,000 Israeli Druze, including reserve soldiers, signed a petition that said: “we are getting ready to volunteer to fight alongside our brothers in Sweida. It is our time to defend our brothers, our land and our religion.”

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

– ref. Amid fragile ceasefire, violence in southern Syria brings Druze communities’ complex cross-border ties to the fore – https://theconversation.com/amid-fragile-ceasefire-violence-in-southern-syria-brings-druze-communities-complex-cross-border-ties-to-the-fore-261337

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Daniel H. Magilow, Professor of German, University of Tennessee

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz recently sparked controversy by comparing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to Nazi Germany’s notorious secret police, the Gestapo.

“Donald Trump’s modern-day Gestapo is scooping folks up off the streets,” Walz said during a May 2025 speech at the University of Minnesota Law School’s commencement ceremony.

“They’re in unmarked vans, wearing masks, being shipped off to foreign torture dungeons, no chance to mount a defense, not even a chance to kiss a loved one goodbye, just grabbed up by masked agents, shoved into those vans, and disappeared,” Walz added.

ICE, tasked with enforcing immigration policies, has dramatically increased the number of nationwide arrests of immigrants since President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025. ICE’s arrests of immigrants have more than doubled in 38 states since then.

In recent months, other Democratic politicians, including U.S Rep. Dan Goldman of New York, have also compared ICE to the Gestapo, or Adolf Hitler’s “secret police,” as Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts said in April.

But do ICE’s tactics actually resemble those of the Gestapo?

Because I am a scholar of modern Germany and the Holocaust, people regularly ask me if this analogy is accurate. The answer is complicated.

Understanding the Gestapo

The Nazi regime established the Gestapo, short for the German phrase Geheime Staatspolizei, meaning secret state police, soon after Hitler became chancellor of Germany in January 1933. Among other responsibilities, the Gestapo was tasked with investigating political crimes and monitoring opposition activity. It later enforced racial laws in Germany and across occupied Europe.

As part of its daily work, the Gestapo identified and monitored the regime’s political enemies. It arrested, interrogated, detained and tortured suspects and sent others to concentration camps. To identify suspects, it often relied on anonymous denunciations that came not only from zealous Nazis, but also from disgruntled neighbors or business competitors who tipped off the Gestapo to Jews and other people.

While the Gestapo was relatively small in terms of personnel, it projected an image of being, as one scholar wrote, “omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.”

It enforced the regime’s will and suppressed dissent not through sheer manpower but by creating a pervasive sense of fear. This aura of menace and terror has long outlived the Nazi regime itself.

ICE’s operations

ICE, with around 21,000 officers and staff operating in a country of more than 340 million, is smaller both in absolute terms and on a per capita basis. At its height between 1943 and 1945, the Gestapo had between 40,000 and 50,000 personnel in a country of 79 million.

ICE is set to expand its work in the next few years with an additional US$75 billion in funding that Congress appropriated in July as part of Trump’s tax and spending bill.

And while ICE focuses on immigration, the Gestapo had a more expansive role. It was responsible for suppressing all forms of political dissent, not just violations of immigration law.

ICE operates with vastly more advanced technologies that did not exist in the 1940s, including facial recognition and social media monitoring.

There is technically more transparency around ICE’s work than the Gestapo’s, since ICE is a federal agency that is subject to its work and information being reviewed by politicians and the public alike. But in June 2020, the first Trump administration reclassified ICE, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, as a “security/sensitive agency.” This designation makes it harder for people to request and receive information about ICE’s work through Freedom of Information Act records requests.

Like the Gestapo, ICE can seem performative in its work, like when it carried out a dramatic July raid of a cannabis farm in California in which balaclava-wearing officers used tear gas against protesters.

The Gestapo in today’s world

Since World War II and the fall of the Nazi regime, the term Gestapo has become shorthand in the United States to describe police repression.

Using the word Gestapo to describe the worst possible authoritarian oppression has been popularized in popular movies in everything from the 1943 film “Casablanca” and “The Black Gestapo” in 1975 to “Inglourious Basterds” in 2009 and “Jojo Rabbit” in 2019.

Walz’s remarks in May, though provocative, were also far from isolated in politics. Politicians from both sides of the aisle, as well as political observers, regularly use Gestapo and Nazi metaphors to attack their opponents.

In 2022, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia famously confused the term Gestapo with gazpacho soup in a gaffe that went viral. “Now we have Nancy Pelosi’s gazpacho police spying on members of Congress,” she said.

In 2024, Trump accused President Joe Biden of running a “Gestapo administration” as the Justice Department prosecuted Trump for attempting to overturn the 2020 election.

Overall, mentions of the word Gestapo in social media increased by 184% between 2017 and 2024, according to the nonprofit group Foundation to Combat Antisemitism.

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum is among the organizations that have condemned making comparisons to the Holocaust and the Nazis for many reasons, including their historical inaccuracy and because they are insulting to people whose families remain scarred by the Holocaust.

What historical comparisons really say

Analogies can be useful for clarifying complex ideas. But especially when they stretch across decades and vastly different political contexts, they risk oversimplifying and trivializing history.

I believe that comparing ICE to the Gestapo is less a historical judgment than a reflection of modern anxiety – a fear that the U.S. is veering toward authoritarianism reminiscent of 1930s Germany.

If politicians and other public figures are looking for historical comparisons to modern law enforcement agencies that use severe tactics, there is, unfortunately, no shortage of options: the Soviet Union’s secret police agencies NKVD and KGB, Iran’s former secret police and intelligence agency SAVAK or East Germany’s Stasi, to name just a few.
All of those organizations denied suspects due process and grossly violated human rights in order to protect political regimes – but they don’t necessarily easily compare to ICE, either.

Still, politicians and political observers alike most often turn to the Gestapo and other Nazi references instead.

Ultimately, the Gestapo, Nazi Germany and the Holocaust serve as a powerful, shared cultural reference point. The catastrophes of World War II epitomize the worst possible outcomes of evil left unchecked.

They have become the master moral paradigm and an ethical compass for the world today. In an age of polarization, World War II and the Holocaust remain the mirror in which Americans examine their present.

Daniel H. Magilow received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (although DOGE cancelled the grant in April 2025).

He serves as Co-Editor-in-Chief of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, the journal of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies

– ref. Comparing ICE to the Gestapo reveals people’s fears for the US – a Holocaust scholar explains why Nazi analogies remain common, yet risky – https://theconversation.com/comparing-ice-to-the-gestapo-reveals-peoples-fears-for-the-us-a-holocaust-scholar-explains-why-nazi-analogies-remain-common-yet-risky-260767