Category: Analysis

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How the arts strengthen newcomer settlement in Canada

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Jeremie Molho, Senior Research Associate, Canada Excellence Chair in Migration and Integration Program, Toronto Metropolitan University

Settling in a new country is often imagined as a sequential process, built on a supposed hierarchy of needs. You accomplish one priority, then another, and another and then you’re integrated into the country and economy.

Material and essential matters — housing, employment, language classes — come first. Cultural or spiritual matters — a sense of belonging, community connections, civic participation — come second.

The recently released research I conducted with Toronto Arts Council (TAC) on its Program for Newcomers and Refugees (PNR), however, suggests this logic needs to be challenged.

What does art have to do with settlement?

Founded in 1974, TAC is an independent funding organization that operates at arm’s length from the City of Toronto. Its mission is to enrich the quality of life in the city by supporting the arts. The decision to create a program specifically for newcomers was driven by research highlighting the barriers newcomer artists faced in finding work and navigating the Canadian arts landscape.

The PNR launched in 2017 and has allocated about $2.92 million between its inception and 2023. Forty organizations received support through the Newcomer and Refugee Arts Engagement stream, while 176 individual artists received Newcomer and Refugee Artist Mentorship grants.

Two years ago, along with TAC, I began researching to learn about who benefited from this support and how. We held focus groups with newcomer artists, arts managers and settlement organizations, analyzed program data and produced film portraits of two artists.

Our goal was to understand what the arts contribute to integration and what challenges newcomer artists face. Our findings show that the divide between settlement and the arts should be reconsidered.

Instead of being treated as separate domains, they can complement each other in ways that strengthen integration.

The arts as holistic settlement support

The Newcomer and Refugee Arts Engagement stream provides grants to organizations — including settlement agencies, community arts organizations and artistic institutions — with experience serving newcomers through artistic activities. Beneficiaries of the engagement stream showed that arts projects are not cosmetic add-ons.

Community arts professionals work hand in hand with settlement workers to address practical barriers from the outset.

Child care is arranged so mothers can attend. Interpreters support multilingual workshops. Programs offer snacks and Toronto Transit Commission fare. Schedules are adapted to hospitality and shift-work hours. These small design choices make participation possible.

The outcomes are multidimensional. Arts programs support language learning in low-pressure, confidence-building settings. They open pathways to employment through the acquisition of digital skills, production experience and access to professional networks. They reduce isolation and support mental health by creating safe, culturally sensitive spaces.

Newcomers Dance Too!, a free dance class for refugee-background women and girls in Flemington Park run by dancers from Fusion Cardio Toronto — which was promoted in Arabic, Urdu, Punjabi and other languages — is one example.

StoryCentre Canada, a non-profit that empowers short multimedia first-person narratives, set up digital storytelling workshops that taught photography and video editing while letting participants share their stories in the language of their choice, building both technical and communication skills. Hinprov, a collective of South Asian improvisers, created spaces where expression was possible even for those still learning English.

Six women surround a table where they work on multimedia projects.
Participants working on their projects for the digital storytelling workshop at StoryCentre Canada.
StoryCentre Canada, CC BY

Arts projects also spark civic conversations. At Matthew House, which offers transitional housing settlement assistance, a mural led by a refugee artist-in-residence prompted neighbours to ask questions about refugees, opening dialogue that challenged stereotypes. Another PNR project collaborated with LGBTQ+ newcomers, using photography and film to counter stigma and create networks of care.

These initiatives show how the arts allow creative newcomers to assert their voices and identities on their own terms, positioning them not simply as guests but as active shapers of the cultural fabric of their new country.

Newcomer artists face systemic barriers

Newcomer artists design and deliver effective arts-based projects. Their ability to contribute, however, is limited by systemic obstacles.

General settlement services rarely provide tailored guidance for creative careers. Newcomer artists are directed toward generic job markets or told to pursue “Canadian credentials,” with little information about arts funding, networks or sector norms.

Discrimination compounds these hurdles: accents and linguistic differences become barriers to casting and collaboration; racial bias and expectations about “ethnic” content narrow opportunities; western-centrism and unfamiliarity with certain artistic traditions from outside the West devalue skills gained abroad. For instance, an Indian musician criticized the tendency to classify Indian classical music as “world music” rather than recognizing it as a classical form, limiting its appropriate recognition and funding.

Administrative rules add further exclusions. Temporary residents may be ineligible for public arts funding. Artists living in the Toronto area but outside the city proper can be excluded by residency requirements, even when they exhibit and perform in Toronto. These policies limit access to precisely the resources that help artists integrate into local scenes.

As part of our project, we worked with filmmaker Ogo Eze to produce two short portraits of newcomer artists: Iranian artist Aitak Sorahitalab and Palestinian-Syrian musician Tarek Ghriri.

Both stories illustrate how, despite formidable challenges, newcomers can become community leaders, using their art to support other newcomers while enriching Toronto’s cultural scene. Their stories show resilience but also underline how much potential is lost when systemic barriers remain in place.

“Strings of Resilience” portrays Syrian musician Tarek Ghriri’s journey of resettlement in Canada. Through music, he navigates displacement, fosters community connections and challenges stereotypes about refugees.
“Clay of Freedom” follows Iranian artist Aitak Sorahitalab as she rebuilds her artistic career in Toronto. The film highlights both the challenges faced by newcomer artists and the creative ways they support their communities through art.

Mending the arts and settlement divide

We have too often treated settlement and the arts as separate and incompatible worlds. Bridging them requires a shift on both sides.

On the settlement side, we must move away from sequential-needs thinking that relegates the arts to the bottom of the priority list or treats cultural activities as communications window dressing. This underestimates the concrete, multifaceted support community arts professionals can provide and sidelines newcomer artists.

On the arts side, TAC’s program is a promising template. By offering targeted support to newcomers, the PNR acknowledges the particular challenges they face when starting out, while avoiding the trap of permanently labelling them as “migrant artists.”

Given that only two per cent of Canadian arts funders offer targeted support for newcomers, lessons from this program can guide similar initiatives across Canada and beyond.

The Conversation

Jeremie Molho received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Partnership Engage Grant for the project Fostering Integration through the Arts: Learning from Toronto Arts Council’s Program for Newcomers and Refugees’, conducted in partnership with Toronto Arts Council

– ref. How the arts strengthen newcomer settlement in Canada – https://theconversation.com/how-the-arts-strengthen-newcomer-settlement-in-canada-265462

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Sex-motivated violence should be treated as a hate crime

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Debra M Haak, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, Queen’s University, Ontario

Canada recently introduced the Combatting Hate Act, legislation that will create three new criminal offences intended to strengthen protections against hate.

The first new offence targets hate crimes directly for the first time in Canada. The second targets intimidation and obstruction. The third expands an existing criminal law targeting wilful promotion of hatred.

Canada’s hate crime laws apply to acts of hatred towards identifiable groups, those distinguished by colour, race, religion, national or ethnic origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or mental or physical disability.

Hate crimes are under-reported, under-recorded and under-prosecuted in most jurisdictions where legislation exists.

Data from Statistics Canada shows that in 2019, nearly 250,000 people reported they were victims of hate-motivated incidents, but fewer than one per cent were investigated as hate crimes.

Sex-motivated violence is common

Acts of hatred towards women and girls regularly occur in Canada. Some involve violence. Femicide is defined as the killing of women and girls because of their sex or gender. However, sex-motivated violence is rarely treated as hate crime.

The Montréal Massacre is the best known example of sex-motivated killing in Canada. On Dec. 6, 1989, a lone white male, armed with a gun, entered École Polytechnique at the Université of Montréal and killed 14 women. He killed them because they were women and, in his view, feminists, towards whom he expressed hatred.



Read more:
Montréal Massacre anniversary: The media must play a key role in fighting femicide

This mass femicide has never been officially recognized as a hate-motivated crime in Canada.

Other mass killings of women also reveal sex-motivated hatred. The Toronto van attack in 2018 was perpetrated by a male who admitted he drew inspiration from the so-called incel online subculture of men united by sexual frustration and a hatred of women.

The fact that the attack was motivated by hatred towards women does not appear to have been considered at sentencing.



Read more:
Toronto van attack: Guilty verdict, but Canada still needs to tackle ideological violence

Hatred based on sex

In June 2022, the Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario held an inquest into one of the worst instances of intimate partner femicide in Canadian history. It involved the killings of three women by one man in eastern Ontario in 2015.

In that case, the sentencing judge said the perpetrator was “a violent, vindictive, calculating abuser of women” who “took his hatred to its ultimate climax and committed triple murders.”

Sex-motivated violence is not limited to mass killings. A woman or girl is killed every other day in Canada. A significant number of these deaths are also motivated by hatred based on sex.

In many cases, violence against women and girls is not only sex-motivated. It is well-documented that many of the disappearances and deaths of Indigenous women and girls also involve racially motivated hatred as well as systemic misogyny and racism, particularly by police.

Sex-motivated violence not treated as hate

Yet our research has revealed that violence motivated by hatred of women and girls is relatively invisible in crime reporting data, sentencing and public discourse.

Sex-motivated violence against women and girls is seldom recorded as hate crime. Sex has never comprised more than three per cent of police-reported hate crime in Canada, despite self-reported data showing at least 22 per cent of Canadians — mostly women — have experienced hate.

Sex-motivated hate, in fact, was the most under-reported category of hate crime when comparing self-reported data to police data.

Neither is sex-motivated violence sentenced as a hate crime, despite the fact that the Criminal Code already provides for increased sentences when there is evidence an offence was motivated by hate.

Canada’s Department of Justice has found that sex-motivated hatred was one of the least commonly addressed grounds when applying hate as an aggravating factor at sentencing. Based on a review of more than 40 years of case law up to 2020, only seven cases were found to focus on sex. Two of these cases were unsuccessful.

Male violence against women, girls is hate

Hate-motivated crime is significant in Canada. In 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, overall hate crimes reported to police increased by 37 per cent compared to 2019.

The first pillar of Canada’s Action Plan on Combatting Hate is empowering communities to identify hate. That currently does not happen in cases of male violence against women, even though sex is an identified group in Canadian criminal laws targeting hate.

Here are three ways it could happen:

  • Canada should enhance monitoring of hate-motivated gender-based violence.
  • To increase responsiveness to sex-motivated violence, existing and proposed laws targeting sex-motivated hate must be implemented and enforced.
  • Canada should promote an understanding of male violence against women and girls as a form of hate. The new laws and the focus they bring to this issue could help.

For hate crime legislation to be more than symbolic, crimes motivated by hatred must be reported, recorded, prosecuted and sentenced as hate crimes for all identifiable groups — not just some of them.

The Conversation

Debra M Haak receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Canadian Bar Association Law for the Future Fund.

Myrna Dawson received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and British Columbia’s Office of the Human Rights Commissioner.

– ref. Sex-motivated violence should be treated as a hate crime – https://theconversation.com/sex-motivated-violence-should-be-treated-as-a-hate-crime-265927

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Comment un médicament valant un milliard de dollars a été découvert dans le sol de l’Île de Pâques (et pourquoi scientifiques et industrie pharmaceutique ont une dette envers les peuples autochtones)

Source: The Conversation – in French – By Ted Powers, Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of California, Davis

Le peuple Rapa Nui est pratiquement absent de l’histoire de la découverte de la rapamycine telle qu’elle est généralement racontée. Posnov/Moment/Getty

La découverte en 1964, sur l’île de Pâques, de la rapamycine, un nouvel antibiotique, a marqué le début d’une success story pharmaceutique à plusieurs milliards de dollars. Pourtant, l’histoire a complètement occulté les individus et les dynamiques politiques qui ont rendu possible l’identification de ce « médicament miracle ».

Baptisé du nom autochtone de l’île, Rapa Nui, la rapamycine a initialement été employée comme immunosuppresseur, afin de prévenir le rejet des greffes d’organes et d’améliorer le taux de succès de l’implantation de stents, de petits treillis métalliques destinés à étayer les artères dans le cadre de la lutte contre la maladie coronarienne (laquelle se traduit par rétrécissement progressif des artères qui nourrissent le cœur, ndlr).

Son usage s’est depuis étendu au traitement de divers types de cancers, et les chercheurs explorent aujourd’hui son potentiel dans le contexte de la prise en charge du diabète,

des maladies neurodégénératives, voire de la lutte contre les méfaits du vieillissement. Ainsi, des études mettant en évidence la capacité de la rapamycine à prolonger la durée de vie ou à combattre les maladies liées à l’âge semblent paraître presque quotidiennement depuis quelque temps… Une requête sur PubMed, le moteur de recherche recense plus de 59 000 articles mentionnant la rapamycine. Il s’agit de l’un des médicaments qui fait le plus parler de lui dans le domaine médical.

Cependant, bien que la rapamycine soit omniprésente en science et en médecine, la façon dont elle a été découverte demeure largement méconnue du public. En tant que scientifique ayant consacré sa carrière à l’étude de ses effets sur les cellules, j’ai ressenti le besoin de mieux comprendre son histoire.

À ce titre, les travaux de l’historienne Jacalyn Duffin portant sur la Medical Expedition to Easter Island (METEI), une expédition scientifique mise sur pied dans les années 1960, ont complètement changé la manière dont nombre de mes collègues et moi-même envisageons désormais notre domaine de recherche.

La découverte du complexe héritage de la rapamycine soulève en effet d’importantes questions sur les biais systémiques qui existent dans le secteur de la recherche biomédicale, ainsi que sur la dette des entreprises pharmaceutiques envers les territoires autochtones d’où elles extraient leurs molécules phares.

Pourquoi un tel intérêt pour la rapamycine ?

L’action de la rapamycine s’explique par sa capacité à inhiber une protéine appelée target of rapamycin kinase, ou TOR. Cette dernière est l’un des principaux régulateurs de la croissance et du métabolisme cellulaires. De concert avec d’autres protéines partenaires, TOR contrôle la manière dont les cellules répondent aux nutriments, au stress et aux signaux environnementaux, influençant ainsi des processus majeurs tels que la synthèse protéique et la fonction immunitaire.

Compte tenu de son rôle central dans ces activités cellulaires fondamentales, il n’est guère surprenant qu’un dysfonctionnement de TOR puisse se traduire par la survenue de cancers, de troubles métaboliques ou de maladies liées à l’âge.

Structure chimique de la rapamycine
Structure chimique de la rapamycine.
Fvasconcellos/Wikimedia

Un grand nombre des spécialistes du domaine savent que cette molécule a été isolée au milieu des années 1970 par des scientifiques travaillant au sein du laboratoire pharmaceutique Ayerst Research Laboratories, à partir d’un échantillon de sol contenant la bactérie Streptomyces hydroscopicus. Ce que l’on sait moins, c’est que cet échantillon a été prélevé dans le cadre d’une mission canadienne appelée Medical Expedition to Easter Island, ou METEI, menée à Rapa Nui – l’Île de Pâques – en 1964.

Histoire de la METEI

L’idée de la Medical Expedition to Easter Island (METEI) a germé au sein d’une équipe de scientifiques canadiens composée du chirurgien Stanley Skoryna et du bactériologiste Georges Nogrady. Leur objectif était de comprendre comment une population isolée s’adaptait au stress environnemental. Ils estimaient que la prévision de la construction d’un aéroport international sur l’île de Pâques offrait une occasion unique d’éclairer cette question. Selon eux, en accroissant les contacts de la population de l’île avec l’extérieur, l’aéroport risquait d’entraîner des changements dans sa santé et son bien-être.

Financée par l’Organisation mondiale de la santé, et soutenue logistiquement par la Marine royale canadienne, la METEI arriva à Rapa Nui en décembre 1964. Durant trois mois, l’équipe fit passer à la quasi-totalité des 1 000 habitants de l’île toute une batterie d’examens médicaux, collectant des échantillons biologiques et procédant à un inventaire systématique de la flore et de la faune insulaires.

Dans le cadre de ces travaux, Georges Nogrady recueillit plus de 200 échantillons de sol, dont l’un s’est avéré contenir la souche de bactéries Streptomyces productrice de rapamycine.

Affiche du mot METEI écrit verticalement entre l’arrière de deux têtes de moaï, avec l’inscription « 1964-1965 RAPA NUI INA KA HOA (N’abandonnez pas le navire) »
Logo du METEI.
Georges Nogrady, CC BY-NC-ND

Il est important de comprendre que l’objectif premier de l’expédition était d’étudier le peuple de Rapa Nui, dans un contexte qui était vu comme celui d’un laboratoire à ciel ouvert. Pour encourager les habitants à participer, les chercheurs n’ont pas hésité à recourir à la corruption, leur offrant des cadeaux, de la nourriture et diverses fournitures. Ils ont également eu recours à la coercition : à cet effet, ils se sont assuré les services d’un prêtre franciscain en poste de longue date sur l’île pour les aider au recrutement. Si leurs intentions étaient peut-être honorables, il s’agit néanmoins là d’un exemple de colonialisme scientifique dans lequel une équipe d’enquêteurs blancs choisit d’étudier un groupe majoritairement non blanc sans son concours, ce qui crée un déséquilibre de pouvoir. Un biais inhérent à l’expédition existait donc dès la conception de la METEI.

Par ailleurs, plusieurs des hypothèses de départ avaient été formulées sur des bases erronées. D’une part, les chercheurs supposaient que les habitants de Rapa Nui avaient été relativement isolés du reste du monde, alors qu’il existait en réalité une longue histoire d’interactions avec des pays extérieurs, comme en témoignaient divers récits dont les plus anciens remontaient au début du XVIIIe siècle, et dont les publications s’étalaient jusqu’à la fin du XIXe siècle.

D’autre part, les organisateurs de la METEI partaient du postulat que le bagage génétique de la population de Rapa Nui était homogène, sans tenir compte de la complexe histoire de l’île en matière de migrations, d’esclavage et de maladies (certains habitants étaient en effet les descendants de survivants de la traite des esclaves africains qui furent renvoyés sur l’île et y apportèrent certaines maladies, dont la variole). La population moderne de Rapa Nui est en réalité métissée, issue à la fois d’ancêtres polynésiens, sud-américains, voire africains.

Cette erreur d’appréciation a sapé l’un des objectifs clés du METEI : évaluer l’influence de la génétique sur le risque de maladie. Si l’équipe a publié un certain nombre d’études décrivant la faune associée à Rapa Nui, son incapacité à établir une base de référence est probablement l’une des raisons pour lesquelles aucune étude de suivi n’a été menée après l’achèvement de l’aéroport de l’île de Pâques en 1967.

Rendre crédit à qui de droit

Les omissions qui existent dans les récits sur les origines de la rapamycine sont le reflet d’angles morts éthiques fréquemment présents dans la manière dont on se souvient des découvertes scientifiques.

Georges Nogrady rapporta de Rapa Nui des échantillons de sol, dont l’un parvint à Ayerst Research Laboratories. Là, Surendra Sehgal et son équipe isolèrent ce qui fut nommé rapamycine, qu’ils finirent par commercialiser à la fin des années 1990 en tant qu’immunosuppresseur, sous le nom Rapamune. Si l’on connaît bien l’obstination de Sehgal, qui fut déterminante pour mener à bien le projet en dépit des bouleversements qui agitaient à cette époque la société pharmaceutique pour laquelle il travaillait – il alla même jusqu’à dissimuler une culture de bactéries chez lui – ni Nogrady ni la METEI ne furent jamais crédités dans les principaux articles scientifiques qu’il publia.

Bien que la rapamycine ait généré des milliards de dollars de revenus, le peuple de Rapa Nui n’en a tiré aucun bénéfice financier à ce jour. Cela soulève des questions sur les droits des peuples autochtones ainsi que sur la biopiraterie (qui peut être définie comme « l’appropriation illégitime par un sujet, notamment par voie de propriété intellectuelle, parfois de façon illicite, de ressources naturelles, et/ou éventuellement de ressources culturelles en lien avec elles, au détriment d’un autre sujet », ndlr), autrement dit dans ce contexte la commercialisation de connaissances autochtones sans contrepartie.

Des accords tels que la Convention des Nations unies de 1992 sur la diversité biologique et la Déclaration de 2007 sur les droits des peuples autochtones visent à protéger les revendications autochtones sur les ressources biologiques, en incitant tous les pays à obtenir le consentement et la participation des populations concernées, et à prévoir des réparations pour les préjudices potentiels avant d’entreprendre des projets.

Ces principes n’étaient cependant pas en vigueur à l’époque du METEI.

Gros plans de visages alignés portant des couronnes de fleurs dans une pièce sombre
Les habitants de Rapa Nui n’ont reçu que peu ou pas de reconnaissance pour leur rôle dans la découverte de la rapamycine.
Esteban Felix/AP Photo

Certaines personnes soutiennent que, puisque la bactérie productrice de rapamycine a été trouvée ailleurs que dans le sol de l’île de Pâques, ce dernier n’était ni unique ni essentiel à la découverte du médicament. D’autres avancent aussi qu’étant donné que les insulaires n’utilisaient pas la rapamycine et n’en connaissaient pas l’existence sur leur île, cette molécule ne constituait pas une ressource susceptible d’être « volée ».

Cependant, la découverte de la rapamycine à Rapa Nui a jeté les bases de l’ensemble des recherches et de la commercialisation ultérieures autour de cette molécule. Cela n’a été possible que parce que la population a été l’objet de l’étude montée par l’équipe canadienne. La reconnaissance formelle du rôle essentiel joué par les habitants de Rapa Nui dans la découverte de la rapamycine, ainsi que la sensibilisation du public à ce sujet, sont essentielles pour les indemniser à hauteur de leur contribution.

Ces dernières années, l’industrie pharmaceutique a commencé à reconnaître l’importance d’indemniser équitablement les contributions autochtones. Certaines sociétés se sont engagées à réinvestir dans les communautés d’où proviennent les précieux produits naturels qu’elles exploitent.

Toutefois, s’agissant des Rapa Nui, les entreprises qui ont directement tiré profit de la rapamycine n’ont pas encore fait un tel geste.

Si la découverte de la rapamycine a sans conteste transformé la médecine, il est plus complexe d’évaluer les conséquences pour le peuple de Rapa Nui de l’expédition METEI. En définitive, son histoire est à la fois celle d’un triomphe scientifique et d’ambiguïtés sociales.

Je suis convaincu que les questions qu’elle soulève (consentement biomédical, colonialisme scientifique et occultation de certaines contributions) doivent nous faire prendre conscience qu’il est nécessaire d’examiner de façon plus critique qu’ils ne l’ont été jusqu’à présent les héritages des découvertes scientifiques majeures.

The Conversation

Ted Powers ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

– ref. Comment un médicament valant un milliard de dollars a été découvert dans le sol de l’Île de Pâques (et pourquoi scientifiques et industrie pharmaceutique ont une dette envers les peuples autochtones) – https://theconversation.com/comment-un-medicament-valant-un-milliard-de-dollars-a-ete-decouvert-dans-le-sol-de-lile-de-paques-et-pourquoi-scientifiques-et-industrie-pharmaceutique-ont-une-dette-envers-les-peuples-autochtones-266381

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En 2030, la NASA dira adieu à la station spatiale internationale et entrera dans l’ère des stations commerciales

Source: The Conversation – in French – By John M. Horack, Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, The Ohio State University

La Station spatiale internationale sera désorbitée en 2030. NASA via AP

La Station spatiale internationale vit ses dernières années : en 2030, elle sera désorbitée. Vingt-cinq ans d’occupation continue laisseront alors place à une nouvelle ère, celle des stations spatiales commerciales.

Depuis novembre 2000, la NASA et ses partenaires internationaux assurent sans interruption une présence humaine en orbite basse, avec toujours au moins un Américain à bord. Une continuité qui fêtera bientôt ses 25 ans.

Dans l’histoire de l’exploration spatiale, la Station spatiale internationale apparaît sans doute comme l’une des plus grandes réalisations de l’humanité, un exemple éclatant de coopération dans l’espace entre les États-Unis, l’Europe, le Canada, le Japon et la Russie. Mais même les plus belles aventures ont une fin.

Un emblème représentant une photo de la Station spatiale internationale, entourée d’un anneau où figurent les drapeaux des pays partenaires
L’emblème de la Station spatiale internationale arbore les drapeaux des États signataires d’origine.
CSA/ESA/JAXA/NASA/ROSCOSMOS

En 2030, la Station spatiale internationale sera désorbitée : elle sera dirigée vers une zone isolée du Pacifique.

Je suis ingénieur en aérospatiale et j’ai contribué à la conception de nombreux équipements et expériences pour l’ISS. Membre de la communauté spatiale depuis plus de trente ans, dont dix-sept au sein de la NASA, il me sera difficile d’assister à la fin de cette aventure.

Depuis le lancement des premiers modules en 1998, la Station spatiale internationale a été le théâtre d’avancées scientifiques majeures dans des domaines tels que la science des matériaux, la biotechnologie, l’astronomie et l’astrophysique, les sciences de la Terre, la combustion et bien d’autres encore.

Les recherches menées par les astronautes à bord de la station et les expériences scientifiques installées sur sa structure extérieure ont donné lieu à de nombreuses publications dans des revues à comité de lecture. Certaines ont permis de mieux comprendre les orages, d’améliorer les procédés de cristallisation de médicaments essentiels contre le cancer, de préciser comment développer des rétines artificielles en apesanteur, d’explorer la production de fibres optiques ultrapures et d’expliquer comment séquencer l’ADN en orbite.

Vue de dessus d’un scientifique en blouse de laboratoire et portant des gants, manipulant une pipette sur un plan de travail à bord de l’ISS
L’environnement en microgravité de l’ISS en fait un cadre idéal pour une grande variété de projets de recherche scientifique.
NASA, CC BY

Au total, plus de 4 000 expériences ont été menées à bord de l’ISS, donnant lieu à plus de 4 400 publications scientifiques destinées à améliorer la vie sur Terre et à tracer la voie de futures activités d’exploration spatiale.

La station a démontré toute la valeur de la recherche conduite dans l’environnement unique des vols spatiaux – marqué par une très faible gravité, le vide, des cycles extrêmes de température et des radiations – pour faire progresser la compréhension d’une large gamme de processus physiques, chimiques et biologiques.

Maintenir une présence en orbite

Avec le retrait annoncé de la station, la NASA et ses partenaires internationaux n’abandonnent pas pour autant leur avant-poste en orbite terrestre basse. Ils cherchent au contraire des alternatives pour continuer à exploiter le potentiel de ce laboratoire de recherche unique et prolonger la présence humaine ininterrompue maintenue depuis 25 ans à quelque 402 kilomètres au-dessus de la Terre.

En décembre 2021, la NASA a annoncé trois contrats visant à soutenir le développement de stations spatiales privées et commerciales en orbite basse. Depuis plusieurs années, l’agence confie déjà le ravitaillement de l’ISS à des partenaires privés. Plus récemment, elle a adopté un dispositif similaire avec SpaceX et Boeing pour le transport d’astronautes à bord respectivement de la capsule Dragon et du vaisseau Starliner.

Un vaisseau spatial blanc de forme conique avec deux panneaux solaires rectangulaires en orbite, la Terre en arrière-plan
La capsule Dragon de SpaceX s’amarre à l’ISS.
NASA TV via AP

Fort de ces succès, la NASA a investi plus de 400 millions de dollars pour stimuler le développement de stations spatiales commerciales, avec l’espoir de les voir opérationnelles avant la mise hors service de l’ISS.

L’aube des stations spatiales commerciales

En septembre 2025, la NASA a publié un projet d’appel à propositions pour la phase 2 des partenariats concernant les stations spatiales commerciales. Les entreprises retenues recevront des financements pour réaliser les revues critiques de conception et démontrer le bon fonctionnement de stations capables d’accueillir quatre personnes en orbite pendant au moins 30 jours.

La NASA procédera ensuite à une validation et une certification formelles afin de garantir que ces stations répondent à ses normes de sécurité les plus strictes. Cela permettra ensuite à l’agence d’acheter des missions et des services à bord de ces stations sur une base commerciale – de la même manière qu’elle le fait déjà pour le transport de fret et d’équipages vers l’ISS. Reste à savoir quelles entreprises réussiront ce pari, et selon quel calendrier.

Pendant que ces stations verront le jour, les astronautes chinois continueront à vivre et à travailler à bord de leur station Tiangong, un complexe orbital habité en permanence par trois personnes, évoluant à environ 400 kilomètres au-dessus de la Terre. Si la continuité habitée de l’ISS venait à s’interrompre, la Chine et Tiangong prendraient ainsi le relais comme station spatiale habitée sans discontinuité la plus ancienne en activité. Tiangong est occupée depuis environ quatre ans.

Photos et vidéos de l’ISS permettant d’observer la Terre depuis l’orbite.

En attendant, levons les yeux

Il faudra encore plusieurs années avant que les nouvelles stations spatiales commerciales n’encerclent la Terre à environ 28 000 kilomètres par heure et avant que l’ISS ne soit désorbitée en 2030.

D’ici là, il suffit de lever les yeux pour profiter du spectacle. Lors de ses passages, l’ISS apparaît la plupart des nuits comme un point bleu-blanc éclatant, souvent l’objet le plus brillant du ciel, traçant silencieusement une courbe gracieuse à travers la voûte étoilée. Nos ancêtres n’auraient sans doute jamais imaginé qu’un jour, l’un des objets les plus lumineux du ciel nocturne serait conçu par l’esprit humain et assemblé par la main de l’homme.

The Conversation

John M. Horack a reçu des financements de recherche externes de la NASA, de Voyager Technologies et d’autres organismes liés au domaine spatial, dans le cadre de son travail de professeur à l’Université d’État de l’Ohio.

– ref. En 2030, la NASA dira adieu à la station spatiale internationale et entrera dans l’ère des stations commerciales – https://theconversation.com/en-2030-la-nasa-dira-adieu-a-la-station-spatiale-internationale-et-entrera-dans-lere-des-stations-commerciales-266506

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Palm trees in Africa are in decline: these botanists made a plan to do something about it

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Fred Stauffer, Curator, Conservatoire et Jardin botaniques de Genève (CJBG)

Palm trees grace the landscape across Africa, thriving in environments as diverse as deserts and rainforests. Central Africa holds the richest variety, home to 52 species, while west Africa has 38 and east Africa 18. They form part of a global family of 2,600 palm species.

Africa is home to relatively few palm species when compared with other tropical regions of the world. However, palms play a central role in the social and economic life of the continent’s people. They’re consumed as food and beverages for people and animals, used in healthcare and medicine and fashioned into construction material. They have spiritual and cultural importance too.



Read more:
The loss of Madagascar’s unique palm trees will devastate ecosystems

Several botanical studies have placed the palm family, along with the grass and legume families, among the most economically and culturally important plant groups in many rural parts of the continent.

We are a group of botanists from Benin, Côte d’Ivoire and Switzerland who collectively have decades of knowledge about Africa’s native palm diversity. Our research aims to come up with suitable strategies for conserving the palms, and ways for communities to use them sustainably.

At a recent African flora conference in Ghana, we launched a new pan-African network for palm specialists from the continent to study and protect palms. Researchers from Guinea, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Gabon, Congo, Ethiopia and Tanzania signed up for projects related to palm biology, uses and conservation.

We officially called this new network the African Network of Palm Scientists.



Read more:
Red gold: the rise and fall of West Africa’s palm oil empire

The network places palms at the centre of conservation projects. This is important because African palms are disappearing due to deforestation, overexplotation, and human-induced habitat loss. Some, such as Hyphaene guineensis or Sclerosperma profizianum, are rare. Their extinction would harm not only ecosystems but also the people who rely on them.

The African Network of Palm Scientists therefore also aims to pool expertise, document traditional knowledge about palms, and train the next generation of palm experts.

The slow life cycle of a threatened tree

Although only a few palm species in Africa currently face extinction, most palm species across the continent are now in decline. Ghana hosts the Sclerosperma profizianum, and Sierra Leone and Liberia host several species of Eremospatha that are among the most threatened.

The oil palm (Elaeis guineensis), date palm (Phoenix dactylifera) and coconut (Cocos nucifera) are farmed, but other species that are harvested are mostly wild.



Read more:
Africa’s tropical forests could be next in line as global food demand grows

Even under undisturbed conditions, the natural regeneration of palms is slow. Seeds can take months or even years to germinate, and the young plants also grow very slowly. They need very specific conditions to grow, such as high temperature and elevated humidity. Some – rattan palms, for example – need decades before they reach the necessary size to be harvested.

This is one of the main goals of our research: to find out exactly how much time it takes for palms to germinate and be ready for sustainable harvesting.

Missing pieces in the palms’ puzzle

Elaeis guineensis (African oil palm), Cocos nucifera (coconut palm) and Phoenix dactylifera (date palm) have been widely studied because they are used a lot in food and cosmetics.

However, other African palm species such as Borassus aethiopum (African fan palm), Raphia hookeri (raffia palm), Hyphaene compressa (doum palm), or the group of rattan palms (Laccosperma, Eremospatha, Calamus), remain poorly documented. This is despite their uses for starch, fibre, wine extraction and building materials, and in local cultures. The fruits of Borassus aethiopum, for example, are edible and this palm is tapped for wine, but unsustainable tapping techniques could endanger it.



Read more:
Africa’s plants: a database project has recorded 65,000 species – and is still growing

Overall, scientists still do not fully understand how diverse African palms are, how they are spread across different landscapes, or how well they can cope with environmental changes. This means we have not yet been able to figure out how best to manage them in a sustainable way.

As climate change progresses, it is likely that some palms won’t be able to adapt. Extremely high temperatures will reduce water availability and increase the levels of salt content in the soil beyond what the palms can tolerate.

What needs to happen next

First, the African Network of Palm Scientists will evaluate the threats that some palms face. We’ll then propose measures adapted to local realities to promote palm conservation.

Second, classifying all African palm species and listing where they are found is crucial. We estimate that at least 15% of native African palms are incompletely documented (no flowers or fruits that are potentially useful for humans or animals have ever been seen and collected from those palms).

Botanists in Africa also need to conduct more research into how African palms reproduce, what’s needed for their seeds to germinate, and their genetic diversity, so that they know the best ways to conserve the trees.



Read more:
Burkina Faso and Mali’s fabulous flora: new plant life record released

Third, more research is needed to see how the palms could contribute to food security, climate adaptation and biodiversity conservation. Palms are not only important for humans, but also for many herbivores (mammals, birds) that strongly rely on palm leaves and fruits for their daily feeding.

Fourth, a domestication plan is needed. Domestication means planting and promoting the growth of palms in a controlled way that provides economic benefits. This can be done in farm plots. However, we also propose it should happen in semi-controlled conditions in the forest. This could reduce the harvesting pressure on wild palms, boost the livelihoods of rural people and bring palms into agroforestry (growing trees with crops).



Read more:
Mistletoes, locust bean trees and birds work together in Nigeria’s forest ecology

Although the new African Network of Palm Scientists only concentrates on African palm diversity, the conservation strategies we develop will be useful for conserving other plants. Biodiversity loss disrupts the delicate balance of ecosystems worldwide. Protecting Africa’s palms could be vital for the survival of both people and wildlife.

The Conversation

Fred Stauffer receives funding from the Conservatory and Botanic Garden of Geneva for his research activities and field missions. He is affiliated to this institution, as well as the University of Geneva, where he is lecturer in botany

Doudjo Noufou Ouattara receives funding from Fondation Audemars Piguet pour les arbres. He is affiliated with Université Nangui ABROGOUA and Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques en Côted’Ivoire.

Kifouli Adéoti receives funding from Fondation Audemars Piguet pour les arbres. He is affiliated with Université d’Abomey-Calavi in Benin’ Republic.

– ref. Palm trees in Africa are in decline: these botanists made a plan to do something about it – https://theconversation.com/palm-trees-in-africa-are-in-decline-these-botanists-made-a-plan-to-do-something-about-it-264705

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Israel’s interception of the Gaza aid flotilla is a clear violation of international law

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Donald Rothwell, Professor of International Law, Australian National University

The Israel Defence Force has intercepted a flotilla of humanitarian vessels seeking to deliver aid to Gaza, taking control of multiple vessels and arresting activists, including Greta Thunberg.

The interceptions took place in the Mediterranean Sea between 70-80 nautical miles off the Gazan coast. These are international waters where international law recognises high seas freedom of navigation for all vessels.

Israel has countered by arguing it has a maritime blockade which prohibits entry to Gaza by foreign vessels. Israel has also suggested the flotilla was supported by Hamas – an assertion the flotilla organisers have rejected.

Gaza humanitarian aid flotillas

The Global Sumud Flotilla was comprised of more than 40 boats carrying humanitarian aid (food, medical supplies and other essential items), along with several hundred parliamentarians, lawyers and activists from dozens of countries.

The flotilla departed Spain in late August and has been making its way eastwards across the sea, with stops in Tunisia, Italy and Greece. Along the way, the Italian and Greek governments deployed naval escorts to ensure their safe passage.

Passengers on the boats alleged they had been harassed by drones at mulitple points in the voyage.

This flotilla campaign is the latest iteration of a movement that has existed for over 15 years to challenge Israel’s long-running blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Earlier this year, a ship called the Conscience carrying activists and aid bound for Gaza was hit by explosions off the coast of Malta.

Israel then intercepted the Madleen, with Thunberg and other activists on board, in June, and the Handala in July.

And in 2010, a flotilla tried to reach Gaza carrying humanitarian relief and hundreds of activists. Israeli commandos boarded the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara, leading to a violent confrontation that resulted in the deaths of ten activists. The deaths drew widespread condemnation and strained Israeli-Turkish ties for years.



Read more:
There are clear laws on enforcing blockades – Israel’s interception of the Madleen raises serious questions

The legality of Gaza’s naval blockade

The international law related to the actions of the flotilla vessels and Israel’s capacity to intervene is complex.

Israel has imposed blockades of Gaza in various forms for nearly 20 years.

The legal basis for the blockades and their consistency with international law, particularly the law of the sea, has been contentious, which was highlighted during a UN inquiry that followed the Mavi Marmara incident.

While Israel’s legal relationship with Gaza has varied during this time, Israel is now considered an occupying power in Gaza under international law.

The roles of occupying powers were codified in the Fourth Geneva Convention in 1949 and built upon the legal obligations that Allied powers assumed in Germany and Japan at the end of the second world war. The Geneva Convention outlines the clear legal framework for occupying powers.

In recent decades, Israel has been both a de jure (recognised under the law) and de facto occupying power in Palestine.

In 2024, the International Court of Justice ruled Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories was illegal under international law.

As an occupying power, Israel controls all access to Gaza whether by land, air or sea. Aid trucks are only permitted to enter Gaza under strict controls. Foreign air force aid drops that have occurred in recent months have only been permitted under strict Israeli control, as well.

Very little aid has arrived by sea since the war began because Israel has severely restricted maritime access to Gaza. The United States built a floating pier off the coast to deliver aid in 2024, but this was soon abandoned because of weather, security and technical issues.

This clearly indicated, however, that Israel was prepared to permit the flow of maritime aid from its closest ally, the US. This exception to the blockade was not applied to other humanitarian actors.

Intercepting ships in international waters

While delivery of aid by sea is legally problematic at the moment, there are limits to Israel’s ability to disrupt flotillas. The freedom of navigation is central to the law of the sea. As such, the flotilla is entitled to sail unimpeded in the Mediterranean Sea.

Any harassment or stopping of the flotilla within the Mediterranean’s international waters is therefore a clear violation of international law.

Crucial to this is the actual location where Israeli forces intercept and board flotilla vessels.

Israel can certainly exercise control over the 12 nautical mile territorial sea off Gaza’s shores. Its closure of the territorial sea to foreign vessels would be justified under international law as a security measure, as well as to ensure the safety of neutral vessels due to the ongoing war.

Flotilla organisers said their ships were intercepted between 70 to 80 nautical miles from shore, well beyond Gaza’s territorial sea.

No doubt this was done for operational reasons. The closer the flotilla came to the Gazan coast, the more difficult it would be for the Israel Defence Force to successfully intercept each ship, raising the possibility that at least one vessel may make landfall.

Scores of activists onboard the ships have reportedly been detained and will be taken into custody in the Israeli port of Ashdod. They will then likely be quickly deported.

The activists have protections under international human rights law, as well, including access to foreign diplomats exercising consular protection for their citizens.

The Conversation

Donald Rothwell receives funding from Australian Research Council.

– ref. Israel’s interception of the Gaza aid flotilla is a clear violation of international law – https://theconversation.com/israels-interception-of-the-gaza-aid-flotilla-is-a-clear-violation-of-international-law-266254

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Venezuela and US edge toward war footing − but domestic concerns, international risks may hold Washington back

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Robert Muggah, Richard von Weizsäcker Fellow na Bosch Academy e Co-fundador, Instituto Igarapé

U.S. Marines park a Lockheed Martin F-35B fighter aircraft at Naval Station Roosevelt Roads in Puerto Rico on Sept 13, 2025. Kendall Torres Cortés/picture alliance via Getty Images

For many in Venezuela, the question is no longer whether tensions with Washington will reach a boiling point – they already have. Rather, the big unknown now is whether the U.S. will follow up on threats and the sinking of drug boats with something more drastic: direct military engagement or even regime change.

Certainly, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is preparing for all eventualities. On Sept. 29, 2025, the leftist leader signed a decree granting him additional powers. The following day, Maduro threatened a “state of emergency.” Already, Caracas has carried out military drills amid talk of being a “republic in arms.”

It follows a month in which Washington has positioned warships, an attack submarine and aircraft in the Caribbean and destroyed at least four suspected “go-fast” drug boats. At the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 23, U.S. President Donald Trump warned of more to come, vowing to blow drug traffickers “out of existence” while repeating his assertion that Maduro was behind the trafficking networks.

Maduro and his generals deny that charge. Nonetheless, Washington has set a US$50 million dollar bounty on Maduro’s arrest and has rejected Venezuela’s appeals for talks.

As an expert on international security and U.S.-Latin American relations, I believe the U.S. position appears to be inching toward regime change from a prior position of ambiguity that has fallen short of an outright pledge to remove Maduro.

But Washington will be aware that any direct military engagement in Venezuela will be a messy affair. Despite increasing international isolation, Maduro still has friends in Moscow and Beijing, as well as closer to home in Havana. And such factors may force the Trump administration to continue to walk a fine line between maximum pressure on the Maduro government without full commitment to armed conflict.

US ramps up pressure

Recent deployments by the U.S. Southern Command demonstrate a shift in posture by the U.S. administration.

The USS Stockdale became the ninth U.S. Navy vessel and third destroyer – alongside USS Gravely and USS Jason Dunham – to join the USS Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group maneuvering between Puerto Rico and the Lesser and Leeward Antilles, and the waters north of Venezuela. In all, at least 4,500 Marines and sailors are positioned in the area.

Meanwhile, at least 10 F-35 fighters and multiple MQ-9 drones are reportedly operating from Aguadilla and Ceiba airports in Puerto Rico, offering the capacity for persistent surveillance and strike options.

These forces are more powerful than the entire Venezuelan navy but reportedly fall short of the forces needed for a full-scale invasion.

For the moment, SouthCom is framing the campaign as enhanced counternarcotics operations, rather than a prelude to a blockade or invasion. Statements have highlighted joint patrols and interdiction efforts with the Royal Netherlands Navy, Canada, the Dominican Republic and the United Kingdom, and the humanitarian or information-sharing nature of missions.

SouthCom has described its position as one of readiness, not war. But this could change, especially with the much-anticipated 2025 national defense review expected to prioritize countering the perceived threat of Chinese interference in the Western Hemisphere.

And it is worth recalling that the U.S. has long maintained a light but steady military footprint in the region.

Caracas pushes back

Caracas has staged military displays of its own.

Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López announced on Sept. 15 three days of drills involving naval units, aircraft air-defense assets and militia participation. Maduro has declared “maximum preparedness” and threatened to mobilize a “republic in arms” if attacked.

If enacted, the state of emergency would be effective for 90 days and centralize military control in the office of the president. The aim is clear: to project resolve and raise the cost for Washington of any further escalation.

Venezuela’s military is not negligible, but readiness has been eroded by decades of economic crisis, sanctions and maintenance shortfalls. It is no match for U.S. military dominance at sea or in the air, although it could inflict damage through asymmetric tactics and militia mobilization.

On the U.S. side, the means for coercion through targeted strikes, interdictions, cyberattacks and sanctions are already at hand. Further escalation may, however, hinge on a catalyzing event, such as an attack resulting in the killing of Venezuelan or U.S. military personnel.

Adversaries and allies

Regionally, most governments have avoided taking sides. One exception is Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who at the United Nations General Assembly called for “criminal proceedings” over the recent U.S. strikes.

In the Caribbean, there is little appetite for hosting a U.S. invasion force. The president of Dominica noted in her speech at the General Assembly that “there is no place in the Caribbean for war.” One exception is Guyana, which is locked in a territorial dispute with Venezuala over the oil-rich Essequibo region and has welcomed U.S. security cooperation.

Yet, an attack on Venezuela or an attempt at regime change risks rallying the country’s allies.

First among them in the region is Cuba. Cuban intelligence and security advisers have long been embedded across Venezuela’s military and security services. This gives Maduro some resilience against internal coups and complicates U.S. efforts to precipitate elite defections from Maduro’s inner circle.

While expressing political support for Maduro, it is highly unlikely that Cuba would ever be in a position to supplement any Venezuelan combat forces given Havana’s own weak position, struggling economy and relatively modest military capabilities.

And despite fresh affirmations of solidarity and the continued presence of Russian “military experts,” Moscow also lacks the political military bandwidth for large, new deployments. Still, long-standing military and technical ties such as training, maintenance, weapons sales and selective systems support offer Maduro a modest but valuable hedge against external pressure.

Even a token port call or bomber overflight could add political friction – and pause for thought in Washington. Russia has sent nuclear-capable bombers to Venezuela in the past, and its navy made a publicized visit to La Guaira in July 2024.

A man in army fatigues speaks and gestures in front of a large photo of another man.
Venezuela’s Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez speaks in Caracas on Sept. 23, 2025.
Federico Parra/AFP via Getty Images

Oil in the balance

One much more consequential factor could be the position of China.

Beijing plays a consequential role as a buyer of Venezuelan oil. As Western sanctions have set in, a growing share of Venezuelan hydrocarbon exports is now funneled through “shadow fleet” tankers and complex rerouting schemes, allowing crude to reach Chinese refineries despite sanctions and export restrictions.

Any U.S. campaign that disrupts these flows would hit Chinese refiners first. This would likely prompt Beijing to push back diplomatically and commercially.

In late September, China stressed that it “opposes the use of force” and decried external interference in Venezuela’s internal affairs – a clear rebuke of the U.S. military buildup.

The Chinese ambassador in Caracas has also conveyed solidarity to his host, emphasizing that Beijing will “firmly support Venezuela in safeguarding sovereignty, national dignity and social stability.”

China is offering diplomatic support but has stopped short of any pledge of force.

For now, America’s most likely path is, I believe, coastal policing and military pressure. At sea, this means the U.S. continuing to lead counternarcotics operations, but with Navy cover close at hand. The U.S. buildup could well boost underground opposition networks in Venezuela, increasing pressure on the Maduro regime from within.

This will be paired with increased financial pressure in the form of sanctions aimed at further squeezing Venezuela’s state oil industry, but calibrated to avoid a global energy shock. Measures also include restricting dollar-clearing and maritime insurance, blacklisting intermediaries and dark fleet tankers, and targeting front companies.

Pressure short of war

Nonetheless, expectations of a military clash are edging upward. Several forecasters now put the odds of some form of U.S. strike against Venezuela before year’s end at roughly 1 in 3, with the chances rising further into 2026.

Yet the prospect of an outright invasion remains, I believe, remote. U.S. domestic politics may act as a brake: Opinion polls show most Americans oppose military action to topple Maduro, and an even larger majority reject the idea of a full-scale invasion.

Even so, three factors could shape if and when Washington steps up its action: a deadly incident at sea involving civilians or U.S. personnel; hard evidence that Venezuelan officials are directly tied to large-scale trafficking to the U.S.; and regional governments lining up behind stronger action.

While the odds of a strike and even regime change are rising, Washington’s strategy in the very near term appears to remain one of pressure without full commitment, using shows of force, sanctions and selective strikes to weaken Caracas while avoiding being dragged into a messy war or sparking an oil shock.

The Conversation

Dr. Robert Muggah is affiliated with the Igarapé Institute and SecDev.

– ref. Venezuela and US edge toward war footing − but domestic concerns, international risks may hold Washington back – https://theconversation.com/venezuela-and-us-edge-toward-war-footing-but-domestic-concerns-international-risks-may-hold-washington-back-266509

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Meet Irene Curie, the Nobel-winning atomic physicist who changed the course of modern cancer treatment

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Artemis Spyrou, Professor of Nuclear Physics, Michigan State University

Irene and Frederic Joliot-Curie shared the Nobel Prize in 1935. Bettmann/Contributor via Getty Images

The adage goes “like mother like daughter,” and in the case of Irene Joliot-Curie, truer words were never spoken. She was the daughter of two Nobel Prize laureates, Marie Curie and Pierre Curie, and was herself awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1935 together with her husband, Frederic Joliot.

While her parents received the prize for the discovery of natural radioactivity, Irene’s prize was for the synthesis of artificial radioactivity. This discovery changed many fields of science and many aspects of our everyday lives. Artificial radioactivity is used today in medicine, agriculture, energy production, food sterilization, industrial quality control and more.

Two portraits, one on the left of a man with dark hair wearing a suit, Frederic Joliot, and on the right, of Irene Joliot-Curie, who has ear-length hair.
Frederic Joliot and Irene Joliot-Curie.
Wellcome Collection, CC BY

We are two nuclear physicists who perform experiments at different accelerator facilities around the world. Irene’s discovery laid the foundation for our experimental studies, which use artificial radioactivity to understand questions related to astrophysics, energy, medicine and more.

Early years and battlefield training

Irene Curie was born in Paris, France, in 1897. In an unusual schooling setup, Irene was one of a group of children taught by their academic parents, including her own by then famous mother, Marie Curie.

Marie Curie sits at a table with scientific equipment on it. Irene Curie stands next to her, fiddling with the equipment.
Marie Curie and her daughter Irene were both scientists studying radioactivity.
Wellcome Collection, CC BY

World War I started in 1914, when Irene was only 17, and she interrupted her studies to help her mother find fragments of bombs in wounded soldiers using portable X-ray machines. She soon became an expert in these wartime radiology techniques, and on top of performing the measurements herself, she also spent time training nurses to use the X-ray machines.

After the war, Irene went back to her studies in her mother’s lab at the Radium Institute. This is where she met fellow researcher Frederic Joliot, whom she later married. The two worked together on many projects, which led them to their major breakthrough in 1934.

A radioactive discovery

Isotopes are variations of a particular element that have the same number of protons – positively charged particles – and different numbers of neutrons, which are particles with no charge. While some isotopes are stable, the majority are radioactive and called radioisotopes. These radioisotopes spontaneously transform into different elements and release radiation – energetic particles or light – in a process called radioactive decay.

At the time of Irene and Frederic’s discovery, the only known radioactive isotopes came from natural ores, through a costly and extremely time-consuming process. Marie and Pierre Curie had spent years studying the natural radioactivity in tons of uranium ores.

In Irene and Frederic’s experiments, they bombarded aluminum samples with alpha particles, which consist of two protons and two neutrons bound together – they are atomic nuclei of the isotope helium-4.

In previous studies, they had observed the different types of radiation their samples emitted while being bombarded. The radiation would cease when they took away the source of alpha particles. In the aluminum experiment, however, they noticed that even after they removed the alpha source, they could still detect radiation.

The amount of radiation decreased by half every three minutes, and they concluded that the radiation came from the decay of a radioisotope of the element phosphorus. Phosphorus has two additional protons compared to aluminum and was formed when the alpha particles fused with the aluminum nuclei. This was the first identification of an artificially made radioisotope, phosphorus-30. Because phosphorus-30 was created after bombarding aluminum with alpha particles – rather than occurring in its natural state – Irene and Frederic induced the radioactivity. So, it is called artificial radioactivity.

A diagram showing an atom of 27-aluminum next to an alpha which is made of two neutrons and two protons. Next to it is an arrow to a lone neutron and an atom of 30-phosphorus with an arrow labeled 'positron' coming off it.
In Irene and Frederic’s experiments, an isotope of aluminum was hit with an alpha particle (two neutrons and two protons bound together). The collision resulted in two protons and a neutron from the alpha particle binding to the aluminum, making it an isotope of phosphorus, which decayed, releasing a particle called a positron.
Artemis Spyrou

After her major discovery, Irene stayed active not only in research but in activism and politics as well. In 1936, almost a decade before women gained the right to vote in France, she was appointed under secretary of state for scientific research. In this position, she laid the foundations for what would become the National Centre for Scientific Research, which is the French equivalent of the U.S. National Science Foundation or National Institutes of Health.

She co-created the French Atomic Energy Commission in 1945 and held a six-year term, promoting nuclear research and development of the first French nuclear reactor. She later became director of the Curie Laboratory at the Radium Institute and a professor at the Faculty of Science in Paris.

Medical uses of artificial radioactivity

The Joliot-Curie discovery opened the road to the extensive use of radioisotopes in medical applications. Today, radioactive iodine is used regularly to treat thyroid diseases. Radioisotopes that emit positrons – the positive equivalent of the electron – are used in medical PET scans to image and diagnose cancer, and others are used for cancer therapy.

To diagnose cancer, practitioners can inject a small amount of the radioisotope into the body, where it accumulates at specific organs. Specialized devices such as a PET scanner can then detect the radioactivity from the outside. This way, doctors can visualize how these organs are working without the need for surgery.

To then treat cancer, practitioners use large amounts of radiation to kill the cancer cells. They try to localize the application of the radioisotope to just where the cancer is so that they’re only minimally affecting healthy tissue.

An enduring legacy

In the 90 years since the Joliot-Curie discovery of the first artificial radioisotope, the field of nuclear science has expanded its reach to roughly 3,000 artificial radioisotopes, from hydrogen to the heaviest known element, oganesson. However, nuclear theories predict that up to 7,000 artificial radioisotopes are possible.

As physicists, we work with data from a new facility at Michigan State University, the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, which is expected to discover up to 1,000 new radioisotopes.

A graph showing protons on the Y axis and neutrons on the X axis, with an upwards trend line labeled 'stable isotopes' and a cloud of data points surrounding it labeled 'radioisotopes produced in experiments' and 'radioisotopes predicted to exist'
Scientists graph the known isotopes in the chart of nuclei. They have discovered roughly 3,000 radioisotopes (shown with cyan boxes) and predict the existence of another 4,000 radioisotopes (shown with gray boxes).
Facility for Rare Isotope Beams

While the Joliot-Curies were bombarding their samples with alpha particles at relatively low speeds, the Michigan State facility can accelerate stable isotopes up to half the speed of light and smash them on a target to produce new radioisotopes. Scientists using the facility have already discovered five new radioisotopes since it began operating in 2022, and the search continues.

Each of the thousands of available radioisotopes has a different set of properties. They live for different amounts of time and emit different types of radiation and amounts of energy. This variability allows scientists to choose the right isotope for the right application.

Iodine, for example, has more than 40 known radioisotopes. A main characteristic of radioisotopes is their half-life, meaning the amount of time it takes for half of the isotopes in the sample to transform into a new element. Iodine radioisotopes have half-lives that span from a tenth of a second to 16 million years. But not all of them are useful, practical or safe for thyroid treatment.

A diagram showing an atom of 131-Iodine, with an arrow to an atom of 131-Xenon, representing decay. Coming off the Xenon is an arrow denoting an electron, and a wavy arrow denoting radiation.
The iodine radioisotope used in cancer therapy has a half-life of eight days. Eight days is long enough to kill cancer cells in the body, but not so long that the radioactivity poses a long-term threat to the patient and those around them.
Artemis Spyrou

Radioisotopes that live for a few seconds don’t exist long enough to perform medical procedures, and radioisotopes that live for years would harm the patient and their family. Because it lives for a few days, iodine-131 is the preferred medical radioisotope.

Artificial radioactivity can also help scientists study the universe’s mysteries. For example, stars are fueled by nuclear reactions and radioactive decay in their cores. In violent stellar events, such as when a star explodes at the end of its life, they produce thousands of different radioisotopes that can drive the explosion. For this reason, scientists, including the two of us. produce and study in the lab the radioisotopes found in stars.

With the advent of the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams and other accelerator facilities, the search for new radioisotopes will continue opening doors to a world of possibilities.

The Conversation

Artemis Spyrou receives funding from the National Science Foundation.

Andrea Richard receives funding from the Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration.

– ref. Meet Irene Curie, the Nobel-winning atomic physicist who changed the course of modern cancer treatment – https://theconversation.com/meet-irene-curie-the-nobel-winning-atomic-physicist-who-changed-the-course-of-modern-cancer-treatment-264840

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How VR and AI could help the next generation grow kinder and more connected

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Ekaterina Muravevskaia, Assistant Professor of Human-Centered Computing, Indiana University

Technology can be isolating, but it can also help kids learn emotional connection. Dusan Stankovic/E+ via Getty Images

Empathy is not just a “nice-to-have” soft skill – it is a foundation of how children and adults regulate emotions, build friendships and learn from one another.

Between the ages of 6 and 9, children begin shifting from being self-centered to noticing the emotions and perspectives of others. This makes early childhood one of the most important periods for developing empathy and other social-emotional skills.

Traditionally, pretend play has been a natural way to practice empathy. Many adults can remember acting out scenes as doctor and patient, or using sticks and leaves as imaginary currency. Those playful moments were not just entertainment – they were early lessons in empathy and taking someone else’s perspective.

But as children spend more time with technology and less in pretend play, these opportunities are shrinking. Some educators worry that technology is hindering social-emotional learning. Yet research in affective computing – digital systems that recognize emotions, simulate them or both – suggests that technology can also become part of the solution.

Virtual reality, in particular, can create immersive environments where children interact with characters who display emotions as vividly as real humans. I’m a human-computer interaction scientist who studies social-emotional learning in the context of how people use technology. Used thoughtfully, the combination of VR and artificial intelligence could help reshape social-emotional learning practices and serve as a new kind of “empathy classroom” or “emotional regulation simulator.”

Game of emotions

As a part of my doctoral studies at the University of Florida, in 2017 I began developing a VR Empathy Game framework that combines insights from developmental psychology, affective computing and participatory design with children. At the Human-Computer Interaction Lab at the University of Maryland, I worked with their KidsTeam program, where children of 7-11 served as design partners, helping us to imagine what an empathy-focused VR game should feel like.

In 2018, 15 master’s students at the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy at the University of Central Florida and I created the first game prototype, Why Did Baba Yaga Take My Brother? This game is based on a Russian folktale and introduces four characters, each representing a core emotion: Baba Yaga embodies anger, Goose represents fear, the Older Sister shows happiness and the Younger Sister expresses sadness.

The VR game Why Did Baba Yaga Take My Brother? is designed to help kids develop empathy.

Unlike most games, it does not reward players with points or badges. Instead, children can progress in the game only by getting to know the characters, listening to their stories and practicing empathic actions. For example, they can look at the game’s world through a character’s glasses, revisit their memories or even hug Baba Yaga to comfort her. This design choice reflects a core idea of social-emotional learning: Empathy is not about external rewards but about pausing, reflecting and responding to the needs of others.

My colleagues and I have been refining the game since then and using it to study children and empathy.

Different paths to empathy

We tested the game with elementary school children individually. After asking general questions and giving an empathy survey, we invited children to play the game. We observed their behavior while they were playing and discussed their experience afterward.

Our most important discovery was that children interacted with the VR characters following the main empathic patterns humans usually follow while interacting with each other. Some children displayed cognitive empathy, meaning they had an understanding of the characters’ emotional states. They listened thoughtfully to characters, tapped their shoulders to get their attention, and attempted to help them. At the same time, they were not completely absorbed in the VR characters’ feelings.

cartoon image a woman with horns smiling and holding her arms out theo her sides
Characters in the researchers’ VR game express a range of emotions.
Ekaterina Muravevskaia

Others expressed emotional contagion, directly mirroring characters’ emotions, sometimes becoming so distressed by fear or sadness that it made them stop the game. In addition, a few other children did not connect with the characters at all, focusing mainly on exploring the virtual environment. All three behaviors can happen in real life as well when children interact with their peers.

These findings highlight both the promise and the challenge. VR can indeed evoke powerful empathic responses, but it also raises questions about how to design experiences that support children with different temperaments – some need more stimulation, and others need gentler pacing.

AI eye on emotions

The current big question for us is how to effectively incorporate this type of empathy game into everyday life. In classrooms, VR will not replace real conversations or traditional role-play, but it can enrich them. A teacher might use a short VR scenario to spark discussion, encouraging students to reflect on what they felt and how it connects to their real friendships. In this way, VR becomes a springboard for dialogue, not a stand-alone tool.

We are also exploring adaptive VR systems that respond to a child’s emotional state in real time. A headset might detect if a child is anxious or scared – through facial expressions, heart rate or gaze – and adjust the experience by scaling down the characters’ expressiveness or offering supportive prompts. Such a responsive “empathy classroom” could give children safe opportunities to gradually strengthen their emotional regulation skills.

This is where AI becomes essential. AI systems can make sense of the data collected by VR headsets such as eye gaze, facial expressions, heart rate or body movement and use it to adjust the experience in real time. For example, if a child looks anxious or avoids eye contact with a sad character, the AI could gently slow down the story, provide encouraging prompts or reduce the emotional intensity of the scene. On the other hand, if the child appears calm and engaged, the AI might introduce a more complex scenario to deepen their learning.

In our current research, we are investigating how AI can measure empathy itself – tracking moment-to-moment emotional responses during gameplay to provide educators with better insight into how empathy develops.

Future work and collaboration

As promising as I believe this work is, it raises big questions. Should VR characters express emotions at full intensity, or should we tone them down for sensitive children? If children treat VR characters as real, how do we make sure those lessons carry to the playground or dinner table? And with headsets still costly, how do we ensure empathy technology doesn’t widen digital divides?

These are not just research puzzles but ethical responsibilities. This vision requires collaboration among educators, researchers, designers, parents and children themselves. Computer scientists design the technology, psychologists ensure the experiences are emotionally healthy, teachers adapt them for curriculum, and children co-create the games to make them engaging and meaningful.

Together, we can shape technologies that not only entertain but also nurture empathy, emotional regulation and deeper connection in the next generation.

The Conversation

Ekaterina Muravevskaia 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. How VR and AI could help the next generation grow kinder and more connected – https://theconversation.com/how-vr-and-ai-could-help-the-next-generation-grow-kinder-and-more-connected-263181

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Shutdowns are as American as apple pie − in the UK and elsewhere, they just aren’t baked into the process

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Garret Martin, Hurst Senior Professorial Lecturer, Co-Director Transatlantic Policy Center, American University School of International Service

The obligatory showing of the red briefcase containing budget details is as exciting as it gets in the U.K. Justin Tallis – WPA Pool/Getty Images

When it comes to shutdowns, the U.S. is very much an exception rather than the rule.

On Oct. 1, 2025, hundreds of thousands of federal employees were furloughed as the business of government ground to a halt. With negotiations in Congress seemingly deadlocked over a funding deal, many political watchers are predicting a lengthy period of government closure.

According to the nonpartisan nonprofit Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the latest shutdown represents the 20th such funding gap since 1976.

But it doesn’t have to be like this – and in most countries, it isn’t. Other Western democracies experience polarization and political turmoil, too, yet do not experience this problem. Take for example the U.K., traditionally one of Washington’s closest allies and home to the “mother of parliaments.”

In the British system, government shutdowns just don’t happen – in fact, there has never been one and likely never will be.

A sign reads 'The US Capitol Visitors Center is closed due to a lapse in appropriations.'
The U.S. Capitol Visitors Center is closed to visitors during the federal government shutdown on Oct. 01, 2025.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

So why do they occur in Washington but not London? Essentially, it comes down to four factors: the relative power of the legislature; how easy it is to pass a budget; the political stakes at play; and distinctive appropriation rules.

1. Legislative power

There are significant differences in how the legislatures of the U.K. and U.S. shape the budgetary process.

In the U.K., only the executive branch – the party or coalition in power – has the authority to propose spending plans. Parliament, which consists of members from all political parties, maintains an oversight and approval role, but it has very limited power over the budgetary timeline or to amend spending plans. This is a stark contrast with the U.S., where Congress – which may be split or controlled by a party different to the executive – plays a far more consequential role.

The U.S. president starts the budget process by laying out the administration’s funding priorities. Yet, the Constitution grants Congress the power of the purse – that is, the power to tax and spend.

Moreover, past legislation has bolstered congressional control. The 1974 Congressional Budget Act helped curtail presidential involvement in the budgeting process, giving Congress more authority over the timeline. That gave Congress more power but also offered it more opportunities to bicker and derail the budgetary process.

2. Thresholds to pass a budget

Congress and the U.K. Parliament also differ when it comes to their voting rules. Passing the U.S. budget is inherently more complicated, as it requires the support of both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

In Parliament, however, the two houses – the elected House of Commons and unelected House of Lords – are not equally involved. The two Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949 limited the power of the House of Lords, preventing it from amending or blocking laws relating to budgeting.

Additionally, approving the budget in Westminster requires only an absolute majority of votes in the House of Commons. That tends to be quite a straightforward hurdle to overcome in the U.K. The party in power will typically also command a majority of votes in the chamber or be able to muster one up with the support of smaller parties. It is not, however, so easy in Congress. While a simple majority suffices in the House of Representatives, the Senate still has a 60-vote requirement to close debates before proceeding with a majority vote to pass a bill.

3. Political stakes

U.S. and U.K. politicians do not face the same high stakes over budget approval. Members of Congress may eventually pay a political price for how they vote on the budget, but there is no immediate threat to their jobs. That is not so in the U.K.

Indeed, the party or coalition in power in the U.K. must maintain the “confidence” of the House of Commons to stay in office. In other words, they need to command the support of the majority for key votes. U.K. governments can actually fall – be forced to resign or call for new elections – if they lose formal votes of confidence. Since confidence is also implied in other major votes, such as over the annual budget proposals, this raises the stakes for members of Parliament. They have tended to think twice before voting against a budget, for fear of triggering a dissolution of Parliament and new elections.

4. Distinctive appropriation rules

Finally, rules about appropriation also set the U.S. apart. For many decades, federal agencies could still operate despite funding bills not being passed. That, however, changed with a ruling by then-Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti in 1980. He determined that it would be illegal for governments to spend money without congressional approval.

That decision has had the effect of making shutdowns more severe. But it is not a problem that the U.K. experiences because of its distinct rules on appropriation. So-called “votes on account” allow the U.K. government “to obtain an advance on the money they need for the next financial year.”

This is an updated version of an article that was first published by The Conversation U.S. on Sept. 28, 2023.

The Conversation

Garret Martin receives funding from the European Union for the Transatlantic Policy Center, which he co-directs.

– ref. Shutdowns are as American as apple pie − in the UK and elsewhere, they just aren’t baked into the process – https://theconversation.com/shutdowns-are-as-american-as-apple-pie-in-the-uk-and-elsewhere-they-just-arent-baked-into-the-process-266553