Category: English

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Maurizio Valsania, Professor of American History, Università di Torino

Foreign policy is usually discussed as a matter of national interests – oil flows, borders, treaties, fleets. But there is a problem: “national interest” is an inherently ambiguous phrase. Although it is often presented as an expression of sheer force, its effectiveness ultimately rests on something softer – the manner in which a government performs moral authority and projects credibility to the world.

The style of that performance is part of the substance, not just its packaging. On Jan. 4, 2026, on ABC’s This Week, that style shifted abruptly for the U.S.

Anchor George Stephanopoulos pressed Secretary of State Marco Rubio to explain President Donald Trump’s declaration that “the United States is going to run Venezuela.” Under what authority, Stephanopoulos asked, could such a claim possibly stand?

Rubio dodged the question. He just said that the United States would enact “a quarantine on their oil.” Venezuela’s economy would remain frozen, unable “to move forward until the conditions that are in the national interest of the United States and the interests of the Venezuelan people are met.”

Rubio’s point presumed authority rather than pausing to justify it. It was a diplomacy of dominance – coercion dressed up as concern. The unspoken assumption was pure wishful thinking: that “national interest” would immediately prevail, flowing smoothly in all directions.

As a historian of the early republic and the author of a biography of George Washington, I’ve been reminded these days of how Washington – amid harsh storms unlike anything the country faces today – forged a vision that treated restraint, not self-justifying unilateralism, as the truest measure of American national interest.

Acknowledging burdens and consequences

In the 1790s, the United States faced a world ruled by corsairs and kings. The Atlantic was not yet an American lake. Spain blocked its western river, the Mississippi. Britain still held forts on U.S. soil. Revolutionary France tried to recruit American passions for European wars. And in North Africa, petty “Regencies,” as Europe politely called them, seized American ships at will.

The young nation was humiliated before it was strong. George Washington understood that humiliation intimately. Independence had freed America from Britain, but not from the world.

“Would to Heaven we had a navy,” he confessed to the Marquis de Lafayette in 1786, longing for ships “to reform those enemies to mankind, or crush them into nonexistence.” But such a fierce wish never became Washington’s foreign policy. Visibility invited peril; peril required composure.

In 1785, two American merchant vessels – the Maria of Boston and the Dauphin of Philadelphia – were captured by Algerian cruisers. Twenty-one sailors were chained, stripped and sold into slavery. Their families begged the government to pay ransom. Negotiators proposed paying tribute, a kind of protection-in-advance payment system. The price kept rising.

President Washington refused to be rushed by either pity or anger. Paying the extravagant sum, he warned his cabinet in 1789, “might establish a precedent which would always operate and be very burthensome if yielded to.”

Precedent mattered to Washington. A republic must measure not only what it can afford, but what it will be forced to feel tomorrow because of what it pays today.

The Trump administration’s approach to Venezuela demonstrates the opposite instinct. It represents a readiness to take unprecedented steps without pausing to acknowledge their burden and consequences.

Washington feared that habit of nearsightedness in foreign affairs precisely because he believed it corrupted empires – and could corrupt republics as well.

Neutrality as ‘emotional discipline’

The storms soon multiplied.

By 1793, Europe was already “pregnant with great events,” Washington wrote to Lafayette. The French Revolution, welcomed at first as a triumph of “The Rights of Man,” slid into terror and general war.

Citizen Genet, the French envoy to the United States, landed in Charleston, South Carolina, and proceeded to enlist American citizens’ help in France’s war with Britain by commissioning privateers in U.S. ports to prey on British ships. Genet did not request permission to do this from Washington.

Gratitude to France – indispensable ally during the Revolution, provider of fleets, soldiers and hard-to-forget loans – clashed with alarm at her new demands. A single misstep could have dragged the United States into another catastrophic conflict.

And yet, Washington responded to Genet not with rashness and bravado but with restraint made public law.

The 1793 Proclamation of Neutrality insisted that the “duty and interest of the United States” required “a conduct friendly and impartial toward the belligerent powers.” Neutrality was an emotional discipline – the only source of authority.

Friendliness: strategy, not concession

President Washington knew that the road to successful pursuit of national interests was paved with international credibility.

Washington wanted America “to be little heard of in the great world of Politics,” preferring instead “to exchange Commodities & live in peace & amity with all the inhabitants of the earth.”

The first president pitched the republic’s voice toward ordinary people rather than rival powers. He spoke of “inhabitants,” not foreign enemies. He treated restraint – not self-justifying unilateralism – as the truest measure of national interest.

Even when insulted or thwarted – by Spanish intrigues on the Florida frontier, by British seizures in the Caribbean, by pamphleteers accusing him of being a monarch in disguise – Washington’s tone remained measured.

On March 4, 1797, he would leave the presidency. His final creed was simple and devout: “My policy has been, and will continue … to be upon friendly terms with, but independent of, all the nations of the earth.”

For Washington, friendliness was a strategy, not a concession. The republic would treat other nations with civility precisely in order to remain independent of their appetites and quarrels.

Foreign policy as civic mirror

The statements from the Trump administration about Venezuela revive habits Washington once deplored: sovereignty managed through fear, pressure enforced by economic asphyxiation, domination smoothed over with promises of kindness. In this performance, U.S. interests function as a blank check, and restraint appears obsolete.

Yet foreign policy has never been only a ledger of advantage. It is also a civic mirror: the emotional register of a government that tells citizens what kind of nation is acting in their name, and whether it tries to balance national interest with responsibilities to others.

Washington believed America’s legitimacy abroad depended on patience and respect for the autonomy of others. The current approach to Caracas announces a different imagination: a power that boasts of quarantines, sets conditions – and calls the result partnership.

A republic must still defend its interests. But I believe it should also defend the temperament that made those interests compatible with independence in the first place. Washington’s America learned to stand among stronger powers without demanding to run them.

The question asked on “This Week,” then, is only the beginning.

The deeper question remains whether the United States will continue to perform power with the discipline of a constitutional republic – or surrender that discipline to the easy allure of what only seems to serve national interest, but fails to build credibility or relationships that endure.

Maurizio Valsania 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. George Washington’s foreign policy was built on respect for other nations and patient consideration of future burdens – https://theconversation.com/george-washingtons-foreign-policy-was-built-on-respect-for-other-nations-and-patient-consideration-of-future-burdens-272934

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Rebekah Willett, Professor in the Information School, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Many adults are breathing a sigh of relief as the 6-7 meme fades away as one of the biggest kid-led global fads of 2025.

In case you managed to miss it, 6-7 is a slang term – spoken aloud as “six seven” – accompanied by an arm gesture that mimics someone weighing something in their hands.

It has no real meaning, but it spawned countless videos across various platforms and infiltrated schools and homes across the globe. Shouts of “6-7” disrupted classrooms and rained down at sporting events. Think pieces proliferated.

For the most part, adults responded with mild annoyance and confusion.

But as media scholars who study children’s culture, we didn’t view the meme with bewilderment or exasperation. Instead, we thought back to our own childhoods on three different continents – and all the secret languages we spoke.

There was Pig Latin. The cool “S” doodled on countless worksheets and bathroom stalls. Forming an L-shape with our thumb and index finger to insult someone. Remixing the words of hand-clapping games from previous generations.

6-7 is only the latest example of these long-standing practices – and though the gesture might not mean much to adults, it says a lot about children’s play, their social lives and their desire for power.

The irresistible allure of 6-7

You can see this longing for power in classic play like spying on adults and in games like “king of the hill.”

A typical school day involves a tight schedule of adult-directed activities; kids have little time or space for agency.

But during those in-between times when children are able to stealthily evade adult surveillance – on playgrounds, on the internet and even when stuck at home during the pandemic – children’s culture can thrive. In these spaces, they can make the rules. They set the terms. And if it confuses adults, all the better.

As 6-7 went viral, teachers complained that random outbursts by their students were interrupting their lessons. Some started avoiding asking any kind of question that might result in an answer of 67. The trend migrated from schools to sports arenas and restaurants: In-N-Out Burger ended up banning the number 67 from their ticket ordering system.

The meaninglessness of 6-7 made it easy to create a sense of inclusion and exclusion – and to annoy adults, who strained to decipher hidden meanings. In the U.S., siblings and friends dressed as the numbers 6-7 for Halloween. And in Australia, it was rumored that houses with 6-7 in their address were going for astronomical prices.

Remixing games and rhymes

Since before World War I, historians have documented children’s use of secret languages like “back slang,” which happens when words are phonetically spoken backwards. And nonsense words and phrases have long proliferated in children’s culture: Recent examples include “booyah,” “skibidi” and “talk to the hand.”

6-7 also coincides with a long history of children revising, adapting and remixing games and rhymes.

For example, in our three countries – the U.S., Australia and South Korea – we’ve encountered endless variations of the game of “tag.” Sometimes the chasers pretend to be the dementors from Harry Potter. Other times the chasers have pretended to be the COVID-19 virus. Or we’ll see them incorporate their immediate surroundings, like designating playground equipment as “home” or “safe.”

Similar games can spread among children around the world. In South Korea, “Mugunghwa kkochi pieotseumnida” – which roughly translates to “The rose of Sharon has bloomed,” a reference to South Korea’s national flower – is similar to the game “Red Light, Green Light” in English-speaking countries. In the game “Hwang-ma!,” South Korean children in the early aughts shouted the word and playfully struck a peer upon seeing a rare, gold-colored car, a game similar to “Punch Buggy” and “Slug Bug” in the U.S. and Australia.

Historically, children have reworked rhymes and clapping games to draw on popular culture of the day. “Georgie Best, Superstar,” sung to the tune of “Jesus Christ Superstar,” was a popular chant on U.K. playgrounds in the 1970s that celebrated the legendary soccer player George Best. And a variation of the clapping game “I went to a Chinese Restaurant” included the lyrics “My name is, Elvis Presley, girls are sexy, Sitting on the back seat, drinking Pepsi.”

Making space for children’s culture

One reason 6-7 became so popular is the low barrier to entry: Saying “6-7” and doing the accompanying hand movement is easy to pick up and translate into different cultural contexts. The simplicity of the meme allowed young Korean children to repeat the phrase in English. And deaf children have participated by signing the meme.

Because the social worlds of children now exist across a range of online spaces, 6-7 has been able to seamlessly spread and evolve. On the gaming platform Roblox, for example, children can create avatars that resemble 6-7 and play games that feature the numbers.

The strange words, nonsensical games and creative play of your childhood might seem ridiculous today. But there’s real value in these hidden worlds.

With or without access to the internet, children will continue to transform language and games to suit their needs – which, yes, includes getting under the skin of adults.

A great deal of attention is given to the omnipresence of digital technologies in children’s lives, but we think it’s worth taking a moment to appreciate the way children are using these technologies to innovate and connect in ways both creative and mundane.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The 6-7 craze offered a brief window into the hidden world of children – https://theconversation.com/the-6-7-craze-offered-a-brief-window-into-the-hidden-world-of-children-272327

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Peter C. Mancall, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

The U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall Collection contains 100 sculptures: two luminaries from each state. They include many familiar figures, such as Helen Keller, Johnny Cash, Ronald Reagan and Amelia Earhart. There are a few from the Colonial era, including founders such as Samuel Adams and George Washington.

Some will also be represented in the Garden of American Heroes that the Trump administration plans to build. The monument will eventually have 250 statues, and the administration has proposed a list of names. Among the figures in the Capitol who did not make the cut is Po’pay, a 17th-century Native American leader from what is now New Mexico. The inscription on his statue in the Capitol identifies him as “Holy Man – Farmer – Defender.”

As a historian of early America, I see Po’pay’s absence in the to-be-built shrine as unfortunate – but not surprising. After all, he led the Pueblo Revolt of 1680: the most successful Indigenous rebellion against colonization in the history of what became the United States. He and his followers sought political independence and religious freedom, issues central to Americans’ sense of themselves.

Spanish conquest of New Mexico

Religious movements and figures played a central role in early American history. For example, as I have frequently written, Thanksgiving is linked to Protestant religious dissenters we call Pilgrims and Puritans. American myth tells us that those hearty souls braved an ocean crossing and a contest with the “wilderness,” in the words of the Plymouth colony’s governor, William Bradford. They did so, according to our legends, to pursue their faith – though the historical record reveals that economics also drove their decision to migrate.

Po’pay, a Tewa religious leader born around 1630, did not have to cross an ocean to prove his commitment to his faith. Instead, in the face of oppression, he wanted to restore the traditions and practices of his homeland: Ohkay Owingeh, which Spanish colonizers renamed San Juan Pueblo, in what is now New Mexico. The Tewa are one of many Pueblo peoples living in the Southwest.

Pueblo lands had witnessed spasms of brutal violence since Spanish colonizers arrived at the end of the 16th century. In 1598, a group of Spanish soldiers arrived in Acoma, a famous Pueblo city known to the Spanish through earlier reports from the explorer Francisco Coronado. The oldest settlement within the territorial boundaries of the United States, Acoma has been occupied almost continuously since the 12th century.

At the end of the 16th century, conflict erupted when residents of Acoma refused the soldiers’ demands for food. Locals killed the commander and around a dozen others. In response, the provincial governor, Juan de Oñate, consulted with Franciscan priests and then ordered a counterattack.

The Spanish killed at least 800 residents – 300 women and children and 500 men – and perhaps as many as 1,500. In a subsequent trial, the colonizers ruled that the people of Acoma had violated their “obligations” to the Spanish king. Judges sold almost 600 survivors into slavery and amputated one foot from each man 25 or over.

In the years that followed, Spanish soldiers captured Indigenous people across the Southwest and sold them into slavery, too. For Pueblos and other Indigenous peoples, the intertwined military, political and spiritual invasions threatened seemingly every aspect of their lives.

For crown and cross

The violence at Acoma did not dissuade Spaniards eager to migrate. Around 1608, horse- and oxen-drawn carriages traveled into the territory to build a new capital, which the Spanish called Santa Fe. In addition to ferrying soldiers and farming families, those wagons also carried Franciscan friars, crucifixes, Bibles and other items the brothers needed to promote Catholicism among those they deemed to be heathens.

Over the ensuing decades, periodic conflicts pitted Indigenous peoples of various pueblos against the colonizers. Nevertheless, Spaniards erected churches in Native communities, and Franciscans often claimed that many Indigenous people welcomed their presence.

Like other Christian missionaries in the Western Hemisphere, Franciscans of the day argued that Indigenous peoples needed to abandon their traditional religions as part of the process of conversion. But many in New Mexico retained older ways. They continued to pray in chambers known as “kivas” and communicate with their deities: Pos’e yemu, for example, whom Tewas believed had the power to bring rain.

In 1675, colonial authorities accused Indigenous religious leaders of killing Franciscans with sorcery. They rounded up suspects, executed three and beat others. They also destroyed kivas. Among those imprisoned and then released was Po’pay.

Pueblo Revolt

The sting of the lash scarred more than human flesh in Pueblo communities. It fed resentment against colonists. Many of the Pueblos focused their animosity on the clerical authorities who justified the brutality of the Spanish conquest.

As the decade came to a close, the region was gripped in a drought that reduced supplies of food and water, pushing Indigenous communities’ frustrations to a tipping point. Po’pay led a rebellion that reached across Pueblo communities, saying that he was following guidance from Pos’e yemu.

On Aug. 11, 1680, Po’pay and his followers unleashed a reign of terror against Spanish soldiers, colonial farmers and Catholic churches. They systematically destroyed religious buildings, whipped statues and crucifixes, abused priests before killing them, and rendered mission bells silent by removing their clappers or drowning them in water. Far outnumbering their opponents, the Pueblos chased the colonizers to Santa Fe and then drove them out of the region.

Po’pay, according to a Native witness named Josephe, reveled in the moment, saying, “Now the God of the Spaniards, who was their father, is dead.” Historians believe that the attack killed at least 400 colonists and soldiers, or about 1 in 6 Spaniards in New Mexico. There had been 33 friars in the province before the uprising. Only 12 survived.

Against kings and coercion

In the aftermath of the Pueblos’ military victory, Po’pay led an effort to eradicate the last vestiges of Catholicism in New Mexico. He ordered that Natives who had converted needed to scrub themselves with yucca branches to remove the stain of baptism. While some churches survived, including San Estevan del Rey Mission Church at Acoma, most of the Spanish friars who had led services in them lay dead.

From 1675 to 1680, the European colonial project came under dire threat across North America. In New England, Metacom’s, or King Philip’s, War – waged between Indigenous groups and English settlers – destroyed scores of communities in one of the most destructive conflicts, measured on a per capita basis, in American history. In Virginia, a dissident hinterland landowner named Nathaniel Bacon led a revolt by aggrieved Colonists that torched the English provincial capital at Jamestown.

In this violent era, as I describe in a forthcoming book, Po’pay became one of the most consequential figures on the continent – and the embodiment of the American idea that people should be free from oppressive rulers and free, too, to practice their faith as they see fit.

Po’pay died in 1688. Four years later, Spanish colonizers returned to New Mexico and once again set out to bring the vast desert and its determined residents back under their control.

But they never erased the legacy of Po’pay, who remains a cultural hero for his defiant stand against king and cross.

Peter C. Mancall 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. The 17th-century Pueblo leader who fought for independence from colonial rule – long before the American Revolution – https://theconversation.com/the-17th-century-pueblo-leader-who-fought-for-independence-from-colonial-rule-long-before-the-american-revolution-270361

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Victor Pickard, C. Edwin Baker Professor of Media Policy and Political Economy, University of Pennsylvania

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette announced on Jan. 7, 2026, that it will cease all operations effective May 3. The daily newspaper, founded in 1786, has been the city’s paper of record for nearly a century and is one of the oldest newspapers in the country.

Block Communications, the company that owns the Post-Gazette, says the paper has lost “hundreds of millions of dollars” during the past two decades. The shuttering of the Post-Gazette comes after a three-year strike by newspaper employees who were asking management for better wages and working conditions. The strike ended in November 2025 after an appellate court ruled in favor of the union workers. The Post-Gazette was found to have violated federal labor law by cutting health care benefits and failing to bargain in good faith. Then, on Jan. 7, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the paper, stating that the Post-Gazette was required to adjust its health insurance coverage for union members. Hours later, Block Communications announced that the paper would shut down.

Victor Pickard, an expert on the U.S. media and its role in democracy, was born and raised just outside Pittsburgh. He talked to Cassandra Stone, The Conversation U.S. Pittsburgh editor, about what the closing means for local journalism and democracy.

Newspapers have been in decline for decades. How significant is this closure?

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has long been a vital part of the local community throughout western Pennsylvania. This would be the first major metropolitan newspaper closing since the Tampa Tribune shut its doors in 2016, and it’s a devastating blow to residents in that entire area of the state. Block Communications also closed down the Pittsburgh City Paper, which is an alt-weekly newspaper in Pittsburgh, in January 2026. The loss of the Post-Gazette will likely create a major gap in local news coverage.

How much did the labor strike from 2022-2025 affect the newspaper’s profitability?

I wouldn’t pin the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s loss of profitability on the strike – which was legitimate and did have a profound impact – as much as on the structural forces affecting nearly all local newspapers at this time.

Throughout the country, local journalism increasingly is no longer a profitable enterprise. The core business model of being reliant on advertising revenue has irreparably collapsed, and subscriptions rarely generate enough financial support.

Since the early 2000s, the U.S. has lost about 40% of its local newspapers and about 75% of the jobs in newspaper journalism, according to a 2025 report from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. A study published last year by Rebuild Local News and Muck Rack shows that in 2002, there were roughly 40 journalists per 100,000 people in the United States. Today, it’s down to about eight journalists.

This evisceration of local journalism leads to ever-expanding news deserts across the country, where tens of millions of Americans are living in areas with little or no local news media whatsoever.

How might this affect local civic engagement and democracy in Pittsburgh?

Democracy requires a free and functional press system. When a local newspaper closes, fewer people vote and get involved in local politics, and corruption and polarization increase.

Without local news outlets, people often turn to national news or even “pink slime” news sites. These sites masquerade as official local media institutions but in fact are often propagandistic outlets that amplify misinformation and disinformation.

With the retreat of newspapers, people are receiving less high-quality news and information. This means that people living in these areas are less knowledgeable about politics. They often don’t know who’s running for office in their communities, or what their political platforms are, and there’s just less civic engagement in general.

Most Americans have 24/7 access to unlimited news and information through their social media feeds, including local news influencers. Does this counteract the loss of local reporting?

I think an important distinction needs to be made between carefully reported and fact-checked articles and what seems like a glut of information at our fingertips at all times. Beyond the surface-level appearance of countless news sites, social media reports offer relatively few new facts that have been borne out of rigorous reporting.

You could say that Americans are living in a new golden age of political discourse, where we constantly see a churn of social media-based forms of expression. But that’s not necessarily journalism.

When we’re talking about the collapse of newspapers and fewer newspaper journalists working their beats, it would be an entirely different story if that journalism were being replaced by other institutions, by influencers, by podcasters. But many of those outlets are amplifying opinion-based commentary and punditry.

That’s not the same thing as reporting that adheres to journalistic norms and introduces new information into the world. Losing this kind of knowledge production hurts communities everywhere – from small towns and rural areas to major cities like Pittsburgh.

Victor Pickard 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. Why the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s closure exposes a growing threat to democracy – https://theconversation.com/why-the-pittsburgh-post-gazettes-closure-exposes-a-growing-threat-to-democracy-272992

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Martin Elvis, Senior Astrophysicist, Smithsonian Institution

After a string of dramatic failures, the huge Starship rocket from SpaceX had a fully successful test on Oct. 13, 2025. A couple more test flights, and SpaceX plans to launch it into orbit.

A month later, a rival rocket company, Blue Origin, flew its almost-as-large New Glenn rocket all the way to orbit and sent spacecraft on their way to Mars.

While these successful flights are exciting news for future missions to the Moon as well as other planets, I’ve argued for several years that these superheavy-lift rockets can also boost research in my own specialty, astronomy – the study of stars and galaxies far beyond our solar system – to new heights.

Taking the broad view

Why do I say that? Astronomy needs space. Getting above the atmosphere allows telescopes to detect vastly more of the electromagnetic spectrum than visible light alone. At these heights, telescopes can detect light at much longer and shorter wavelengths, which are otherwise blocked by Earth’s atmosphere.

To get an idea of how that has enriched astronomy, imagine listening to someone play the piano, but only in one octave. The music would sound much richer if they used the full keyboard.

With the broader spectrum in view, astronomers can see objects in the sky that are much colder than stars, but also objects that are far hotter.

How much cooler and hotter? The hottest stars you can see in visible light are about 10 times hotter than the coolest. With the whole infrared-to-X-ray spectrum, the temperatures that come into view can be 1,000 times colder or 1,000 times hotter than regular stars.

Scientists have had nearly 50 years of access to the full light spectrum with sets of increasingly powerful telescopes. Alas, this access has come at an ever-increasing cost, too. The newest telescope is the spectacular James Webb Space Telescope, which cost about US$10 billion and detects a portion of the infrared spectrum. At that forbidding price, NASA can’t afford to match Webb across the spectrum by building its full infrared and X-ray siblings.

We’ll have to wait a long time even for one more. The estimated date to launch the next “Great Observatory” is a distant 2045 and may be later. The range of notes astronomers can play will shrink, along with our views of the universe.

Escaping the trap with heavy-lift vehicles

These new rockets give us a chance to escape this trap. For the same cost, they can send about 10 times more mass to orbit, and they have bodies about twice as wide, compared with the rockets that have been in use for decades.

Mass matters because telescopes contain heavy mirrors, and the bigger the mirror, the better they work. For example, building Webb’s large mirror meant finding a way to make a superb mirror that was 10 times lighter in weight per square meter than the already lightweight Hubble mirror. The engineers found a solution that was technically sweet but financially costly.

Similarly, the size of the rocket’s body matters because to fit Webb’s 21-foot-diameter mirror (6.5 meters) into the 13-foot-diameter body (4 meters) of its ride, the Ariane V rocket, it had to fold up like origami for launch. Normally, space missions try to avoid any moving parts, but for Webb they had no choice.

Again, the result was a technical triumph, but the complexity introduced over 300 places where one mistake could have ended the mission. Each one of the over 300 locations had to be 300 times less likely to fail than if there had been only one, pumping up the design, manufacturing and testing requirements – and inflating the cost.

The larger, wider Starship and New Glenn rockets mean that building a Webb-like space telescope today could be done with none of the origami-like folding and unfolding, with their attendant risks, and so be much cheaper.

New ideas

This opportunity is being seized by at least three teams. First, a proposed deep infrared telescope called Origins would take advantage of superheavy lift. Scientists at Caltech are studying a potential smaller version called Prima.

Second, an X-ray telescope that can take pictures as sharp as Webb – with a sensitivity to match – would likely use thicker and heavier mirrors than imagined just a few years ago.

And third, a study published in 2025 proposes a very low-frequency radio telescope, GO-LoW, that also takes advantage of using more mass. GO-LoW would be made of 100,000 tiny telescopes, so mass production savings kick in too.

All three of these telescopes would be easily 100 times more sensitive than their predecessors and at least comparable to Webb in their own bands of the spectrum.

It would be ideal if engineers could get these telescopes down to half the cost of a large observatory like Webb. Then, for the same price, NASA could fly two new Great Observatories instead of resigning itself to building one. If it could get the cost down to a third, it could potentially fly a full spectrum-spanning set.

Big challenges, big payoff

Of course, a lot could go wrong. For one thing, these rockets may not perform as advertised, either in capability or cost. Still, investing in a few starting studies won’t cost much and will likely have a big payoff.

For another, like the poet Goethe on his deathbed, we astronomers will always be asking for “more light.” But if we call for yet bigger and more complex telescopes than the already awesome Great Observatories recommended by the National Academies 2020 Astronomy Survey, then we will bring back all the costly issues faced by the Webb designers.

Space agencies have the challenge of keeping the astronomers’ endless desires under strict control – building to cost must come first.

But if agencies can keep astronomers’ ambitions from becoming too astronomical, while taking full advantage of the new design space opened up by the superheavy-lift rockets, then our understanding of the universe could advance beyond imagination in just a decade or so.

Martin Elvis 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. Superheavy-lift rockets like SpaceX’s Starship could transform astronomy by making space telescopes cheaper – https://theconversation.com/superheavy-lift-rockets-like-spacexs-starship-could-transform-astronomy-by-making-space-telescopes-cheaper-270001

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Habibeh Khoshbouei, Professor of Neuroscience, University of Florida

Methamphetamine doesn’t just spike levels of the pleasure-inducing hormone dopamine in the reward pathways of the brain – it also provokes damaging brain inflammation through similar mechanisms.

Meth is addictive because it increases dopamine levels in the brain. While researchers know that meth triggers brain inflammation, whether the immune system also affects the brain’s reward system during drug use has been unclear.

Our work focuses on how dopamine is regulated in the body and the reward pathways of the brain. Dopamine shapes motivation, movement, learning and cognition, and its disruption is linked to a range of neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders, including substance use disorders, ADHD, autism and Parkinson’s disease.

By identifying that meth elevates levels of a key immune molecule that drives both neuroinflammation and dopamine release, our recent findings offer a potential target to treat meth addiction and reduce relapse.

Dopamine and inflammation

To study how meth and the immune system interact and regulate dopamine levels, we measured the electrical and chemical activity of dopamine neurons in mouse brain specimens treated with either meth or an immune molecule called TNF-α. This molecule is known to induce inflammation in the body.

We found that meth and TNF‑α converge in a part of the brain called the ventral tegmental area, a key reward hub that produces dopamine. In this area of the mouse brain, TNF‑α increased dopamine levels and neuronal activity in similar ways as meth.

These effects depended on two proteins that act as gatekeepers to control the activity of dopamine neurons and dopamine levels. Blocking these gatekeepers disrupted the effects of TNF-α and meth on dopamine neurons.

Our team’s 2025 review of the research on this field adds broader context to our findings: Meth elevates TNF‑α in the brain and the body, and TNF‑α is known to weaken the blood‑brain barrier that regulates which substances can access the brain. If TNF‑α loosens the blood-brain barrier, inflammatory molecules from the blood – as well as disease-causing pathogens – may have increased access to the reward circuitry of the brain, potentially worsening neuronal damage and dysfunction over time.

Importantly, we found that blocking TNF‑α can reduce dopamine release and blunt meth’s effects on dopamine neurons.

Improving treatments for addiction

There is currently no medication for meth addiction that is approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Our findings highlight the role of the immune system in the brain’s reward circuitry, pointing to new drug targets that could potentially lead to better treatments.

This direction of research is especially compelling because multiple therapies targeting TNF‑α are already FDA‑approved for use to treat inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s disease. But these drugs can have serious side effects and require careful study before they can be repurposed for addiction.

It’s unclear whether modulating TNF-α levels can change drug-seeking, craving and relapse‑like behaviors. Further research on the molecular mechanisms behind how TNF-α affects dopamine and the immune system can offer new treatment strategies for meth addiction.

Habibeh Khoshbouei receives funding from NIH grants.

Marcelo Febo receives funding from NIH.

– ref. Meth inflames and stimulates your brain through similar pathways – new research offers potential avenue to treat meth addiction – https://theconversation.com/meth-inflames-and-stimulates-your-brain-through-similar-pathways-new-research-offers-potential-avenue-to-treat-meth-addiction-272484