Category: The Conversation – USA

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Ben Pettis, Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Communication Studies, University of Richmond

“Chuck Norris doesn’t do push-ups. He simply pushes the world down.”

“Chuck Norris counted to infinity – twice.”

“Chuck Norris once strangled someone – with a cordless phone”

In the late 2000s and early 2010s, Chuck Norris, the 1980s action star, became a tongue-in-cheek model of toughness and masculinity in viral internet memes known as “Chuck Norris Facts.”

Although these memes waned in popularity, they never fully fizzled out. One Facebook group has over 400,000 members, many of whom regularly contribute new jokes about the “Walker, Texas Ranger” star.

But when news of Norris’ death broke on March 19, 2026, those memes returned, and memories resurfaced of their glory days.

In fact, they almost overshadowed remembrances of the movie star’s life.

What does it mean that many memories of Norris are more connected to a meme than his actual life and career? What gets left behind when a person becomes a digital object that we send over the internet? And what can memes tell us about how everyday people relate to celebrities – and to one another?

In the case of Norris, the actor and martial artist’s death forced some people to reconcile the memes with the man.

Macho man

Memes aren’t just memes. They might seem like trivial jokes, but my research has shown that they can shape how people understand and debate bigger cultural questions.

For example, Chuck Norris memes gave people a way to critique over-the-top ideas of masculinity and the pressure to live up to them. Whether it was memes crowing about his ability to slam a revolving door or kill two stones with one bird, only Norris, who stood at the apex of manliness, could pull off such impossible feats.

Other times, Norris’ “memeified” macho persona was deployed to advance misogyny: “Chuck Norris told a woman to CALM DOWN, and she did.” (As internet scholar Whitney Phillips explains, memes and humor have always been close relatives of the more toxic parts of online culture.)

Of course, Norris is hardly the only celebrity to have become memeified, and other celebrity memes routinely tap into the cultural zeitgeist.

When pop star Miley Cyrus released the music video for her song “Wrecking Ball” in 2013, it was quickly parodied and become the subject of countless memes. Many parodied her overt sexuality by swapping her out for someone decidedly less sexy on the wrecking ball. Or they spoofed her performance by playing the song over videos of other forms of destruction.

The man, the myth, the legend

Missing from all the meme nostalgia: Who was the real Chuck Norris?

After Norris’ death, social media users pointed to his past homophobic comments, in which he condemned the Boy Scouts of America’s – now Scouting America – inclusion of gay youth and leaders. There were his right-wing politics, including his friendships with Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush and his 2017 endorsement of Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore – who, as the state’s chief judge, had ordered Alabama probate judges not to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples even after same-sex marriage had been legalized nationwide.

If those views and actions conflict with your own values, can you still laugh at Chuck Norris memes?

I certainly think so. Memes are special because there isn’t ever one fixed definition of what they mean, and the humor of a Chuck Norris meme can land even if you know nothing about his real life and career.

At the same time, in life and in death, the meme of Norris will always be connected to the person. The past few weeks have certainly brought these two versions of Norris into contact with one another. It’s up to everyone else to decide which version they remember most.

Democratizing stardom

For me, one of the most interesting aspects of memes is that stardom can happen from the ground up. Regular people decide what a meme is. Fame is no longer largely determined by film studios and mainstream media outlets.

The “Numa Numa Guy” – Gary Brolsma – became a meme after his 2003 video went viral. The “Success Kid” – Sammy Griner – turned into a meme thanks to a photo of him as a toddler clenching his fist in a display of satisfaction.

Why did these people become memes, but countless other YouTubers or kids making funny poses failed to launch? That’s just the unpredictability of the internet and the messiness of online culture.

Memes of existing celebrities also reflect this broader shift in control. No matter how much a studio tries to manage a star’s image, a meme can be created that takes on a life of its own.

Take, for example, Keanu Reeves, who was memeified after a photo of the actor sullenly eating a sandwich went viral. The meme began as a paparazzi photo but took off when everyday people photoshopped Reeves into ridiculous scenarios.

But whether they’re everyday people or famous celebrities, there’s a darker side to reducing people to pixelated, repurposed images: Over time, it can be incredibly difficult to separate the real person from the meme.

Laina Morris, for instance, has tried to move on from the image of her grinning, bug-eyed face that became a popular meme portraying her as an overly protective and clingy girlfriend.

People magazine profiled Morris for an article headlined “Overly Attached Girlfriend Gets Honest About Becoming a Meme,” which explored what it’s like to be constantly recognized as “that girl from that meme.”

Yet the fact that the publication still used “Overly Attached Girlfriend” in its headline shows just how difficult – or even impossible – it is to sever oneself from internet fame.

Chuck Norris, perhaps more than anyone, knew that all too well.

Ben Pettis 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 two lives of Chuck Norris – https://theconversation.com/the-two-lives-of-chuck-norris-279430

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, Amherst College

After President Donald Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi on April 2, 2026, news reports suggested that she fell from grace, not for being too independent, but for not being effective enough at defending him and prosecuting his political enemies.

As The New York Times reported the previous day, Trump was disappointed with “Ms. Bondi’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, which has become a political liability for Mr. Trump among his supporters. He has also complained about her shortcomings as a communicator and vented about what he sees as the Department of Justice’s lack of aggressiveness in going after his foes.”

The president has long indicated that whoever served as attorney general in his administration should see themselves as his lawyer rather than as someone representing the U.S. government.

During his first presidential term, Trump was gravely disappointed with Jeff Sessions, his first attorney general, who recused himself from the investigation into alleged political interference in the 2016 election. He replaced Sessions with William Barr, who abandoned Trump when the president did not accept the results of the 2020 election.

Having learned from those mistakes, Trump set out to find a political ally and loyalist to take the helm at the Justice Department in his second administration.

As a scholar of law and politics, and someone who has written about the role of the attorney general, I think Trump’s desire has a familiar ring to it. It is not unusual for presidents to put people who share their views and policy preferences into the role. But Trump has gone far beyond what is usually done.

Bondi’s ascent

Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz was Trump’s first choice for attorney general during the president’s second term. Many commentators viewed Gaetz as a firebrand who was temperamentally unsuited for that position. Some criticized him for calling the president an “inspirational leader of a loving and patriotic movement” in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. In the face of growing opposition generated in part by allegations of his misconduct, Gaetz withdrew.

Trump turned to Bondi a few hours later. She had served as Florida’s attorney general and drawn praise from across the political spectrum for her professionalism.

A bipartisan group of former state attorneys general wrote a letter attesting to their “firsthand knowledge of her fitness for the office” and her “wealth of prosecutorial experience and commitment to public service.”

In addition, as PBS noted at the time of her appointment, Bondi was “a longtime Trump ally and was one of his lawyers during his first impeachment trial, when he was accused — but not convicted — of abusing his power as he tried to condition U.S. military assistance to Ukraine on that country investigating then-former Vice President Joe Biden.”

She also showed her loyalty by attending Trump’s New York trial for paying hush money to porn actor Stormy Daniels, with whom he allegedly had an affair.

At the time of her nomination, Bondi seemed to have the attributes of an attorney general. She had the credentials to take on the job of running the DOJ and the confidence of the president who appointed her.

From confirmation to downfall

During her confirmation hearings, Bondi promised to safeguard the Justice Department’s independence and bolster its transparency. She also vowed to not serve as the president’s personal attorney.

And in response to a question from Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, she pledged in January 2025 that “there will never be an enemies list within the Department of Justice.”

But she also showed her willingness to joust with Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee. She hewed to the MAGA script by refusing to say that the president had lost the 2020 election. And she mounted a spirited attack on the Biden Justice Department, which she claimed had been “weaponized for years and years and years.”

Once in office, Bondi took on the difficult task of leading the Justice Department while also pleasing the president. She stood by when Trump used an appearance at the department to give, according to The New York Times, a “grievance-filled attack on the very people who have worked in the building and others like them.” The Times added: “He appeared to offer his own vision of justice in America, one defined by personal vengeance rather than by institutional principles.”

Bondi apparently did not do enough to deliver on that version of justice.

Last year, Trump had to urge Bondi to take action against his political enemies, including former FBI Director James Comey, California Senator Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Leticia James.

“They’re all guilty as hell,” Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, “but nothing is going to be done. “We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” he added. “They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”

Bondi took her marching orders and launched investigations of those the president named. However, she was not able to secure any convictions. NBC News quoted a former official in the Trump White House who said that failing to secure indictments “is a problem for job security with the president.”

If that wasn’t enough, Trump was also reportedly frustrated with the way Bondi had handled the release of the Epstein files, first promising full disclosure and then botching the rollout of the files.

Contending visions of the attorney general’s job

Bondi’s tenure illustrates the conflicting visions of what an attorney general should do that animate today’s American politics.

The questions Democrats asked her during her confirmation were designed to get her to commit to their view of what the attorney general should do. Those questions signaled their belief that anyone occupying that office should maintain their distance from the president and uphold the Justice Department’s independence.

But right from the start of the republic, presidents have chosen close political allies to serve as attorney general.

It’s common for presidents to appoint their friends and supporters to be attorneys general. Since Franklin D. Roosevelt, many presidents have chosen their campaign manager or their party’s national chairperson to be attorney general of the United States.

But even compared with this history, Trump and his allies have a radically different vision, seeing the attorney general as just another Cabinet member whose responsibility is to carry out the president’s policies and implement his directions. As Trump put it in a 2017 interview with The New York Times, he has the “absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department.”

In the end, it seems that Bondi was fired for her failure to be effective in the political role assigned to her. It is likely that the president will want to replace her with someone even more political than she was, who promises to deliver more of the results he wants.

Austin Sarat 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. Pam Bondi’s extreme political loyalty to Trump wasn’t enough to save her job – https://theconversation.com/pam-bondis-extreme-political-loyalty-to-trump-wasnt-enough-to-save-her-job-279926

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Andrew Urbaczewski, Professor of Business Information and Analytics, University of Denver

With all the talk of busted brackets, game-winning shots, point spreads and Cinderellas, it was easy to miss the eye-popping offer University of Michigan star forward Yaxel Lendeborg claimed to have received during the first weekend of March Madness.

Lendeborg told The Associated Press that the University of Kentucky had dangled between US$7 million and $9 million to entice him to transfer there in 2025.

Though University of Kentucky head coach Mark Pope called it “100% false” in a subsequent interview, the numbers being thrown around show just how big a business college sports have become. CBS and Turner are paying the NCAA about $1.1 billion annually through 2032 to air March Madness games. Recent court decisions, settlements and NCAA policy changes have opened the door for top college athletes like Lendeborg to earn millions of dollars.

Yet athletic departments are still operating as tax-exempt nonprofits, even as a growing chorus of voices, from academia to politics, is wondering whether this designation should be reevaluated.

The nonprofit mission

Most private universities operate as 501(c)(3) organizations under the tax code. This IRS designation means it is a nonprofit that serves a public or charitable mission. These nonprofits don’t have to pay federal taxes and can receive tax-deductible donations.

Because public universities are already government entities, they don’t need to apply for 501(c)(3) status. However, their affiliated fundraising arms – including those supporting athletics – are set up as separate nonprofit foundations and typically need to apply for and receive that designation.

According to the IRS, nonprofits can receive this tax-exempt status if they advance the following missions: “religious, educational, charitable, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering national or international amateur sports competition (as long as it doesn’t provide athletic facilities or equipment), or the prevention of cruelty to children or animals.”

This designation means that universities will reinvest any leftover funds after expenses – they don’t use the word “profit” – into programs that advance the university’s mission. These include facilities, research, academic departments and scholarships.

Donors to a university are able to receive tax deductions for their support. They can usually direct their donations toward funding a specific mission – perhaps in memory of a favorite professor, supporting cancer research or to support extracurricular activities such as sports.

In March 2025, for example, philanthropists Maurice and Carolyn Cunniffe gave $100 million to Fordham University to support STEM education, and in December 2025, Acrisure CEO Greg Williams and his wife, Dawn, gave $401 million to Michigan State University, designating over 70% of their historic donation to Michigan State athletics.

A windfall for some college athletes

I want to return to one phrase from the IRS’ requirements for being designated as a tax-exempt nonprofit: “fostering national or international amateur sports competition.”

In 2026, there’s very little about college basketball and football – and, increasingly, sports such as golf and ice hockey – that could be considered “amateur,” which technically means that athletes are not paid salaries or wages for playing and do not compete as their primary profession.

In recent years, the NCAA has allowed athletes to earn money through endorsements and sponsorships. Meanwhile, the recently approved settlement in House v. NCAA allows schools to share roughly 20% to 22% of its revenue from licensing, media rights and ticket sales directly with athletes, further complicating the traditional definition of amateurism.

The compensation college athletes can receive happens on top of a five-year scholarship that covers the full cost of attendance for some athletes. At the University of Denver, where I teach, five years of attendance is valued at over $435,000.

Schools argue that athletics are part of their educational mission, with revenue from football and basketball funding sports that make far less money, such as swimming and gymnastics.

But it’s gotten to the point where playing certain college sports can be as lucrative – if not more so – than being a professional athlete.

Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams reportedly had to take a pay cut as a rookie after leaving the University of Southern California.

Former Notre Dame women’s basketball standout Olivia Miles passed up likely being the second pick in the WNBA draft and instead transferred to Texas Christian University, where, according to a recent ESPN E60 report, she is earning over 10 times what she would have been paid in the WNBA, through a mix of sponsorships and direct payments.

Eligibility extensions

Some college athletes, such as quarterback Diego Pavia, who most recently played for Vanderbilt University, have sued the NCAA to extend their eligibility beyond the current limit of four seasons and five calendar years. It isn’t unheard of for a player to get seventh, eighth and ninth years of eligibility.

Meanwhile, student athletes are routinely playing for two, three or four different schools during their collegiate years. The so-called “transfer portal” – a period when college athletes make it known that they are willing to switch schools – operates like a free agent market in pro sports leagues.

This is a far cry from college sports in the 1970s and ’80s, when student athletes were expected to earn their degrees in four years. Until 1968 – and 1972 for football and basketball – freshmen weren’t even allowed to play at the varsity level. The thinking went that they needed a year of adjustment to get a handle on their coursework.

For some of today’s college athletes, school isn’t in the picture. Before the 2026 College Football Playoff national championship, a reporter asked University of Miami quarterback Carson Beck, a transfer from Georgia, whether he had to worry about class that week.

His response?

“No class. I graduated two years ago.”

A business separate from the university?

This isn’t to say college athletes definitely don’t deserve to be compensated beyond the value of their scholarships. Perhaps they do. But the idea that athletic departments and their associated fundraising arms should be classified as tax-exempt nonprofits promoting education and amateur sports strains credulity.

In November 2025, U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell submitted a letter to the chief of staff for the U.S. Congress Joint Committee on Taxation.

“Given the evolving market dynamics of college sports,” she wrote, “legitimate questions have been raised about whether it is time to rethink the tax-exempt regime under which college sports currently operates.”

At this point, college sports strike me as a business only loosely tied to the university. Education scholar John R. Thelin has pointed out how athletics can function like a separate corporation, tied to the university only through scholarships, logo licensing and marketing.

So what might happen if athletic departments lost their tax-exempt, charitable status?

For one, the government would treat them as businesses, and businesses pay taxes. And their donors and boosters would no longer be eligible to receive tax deductions for gifting money to a program, just like a regular customer at a restaurant doesn’t receive a tax break for regularly dining there.

This isn’t unheard of: Some universities already have taxable, for-profit arms, whether it’s in real estate development, hospitality or startup incubators.

To some donors, their love for their alma mater may outweigh any tax benefit. But others may find themselves more willing to fund other causes – in or outside a university – that more closely align with the nonprofit mission.

Andrew Urbaczewski 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 his academic appointment.

– ref. The nonprofit status of NCAA athletic departments is starting to raise questions – https://theconversation.com/the-nonprofit-status-of-ncaa-athletic-departments-is-starting-to-raise-questions-278184

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Andrew Kolodny, Medical Director of Opioid Policy Research, Brandeis University

Proposals to ban or regulate kratom, a plant-based substance sold in gas stations, convenience stores and vape shops, are making headlines in local newspapers across the United States. But as lawmakers debate whether to regulate or ban kratom, public health problems associated with the drug continue to rise.

In late March 2026, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that hospitalizations and poisonings involving kratom have increased by more than 1,200% over the past decade.

At legislative hearings, families share tragic stories of lives cut short by kratom overdoses and addiction.

On the opposing side, lawmakers are also hearing from lobbyists representing the kratom industry and kratom users who insist that it is a safe, natural substance that boosts mood and energy, relieves pain and even helps people overcome opioid addiction.

As a physician who treats opioid addiction and studies the opioid crisis, I have followed this debate closely.

Scientific evidence shows that kratom carries real risks that are often downplayed or misunderstood. Kratom’s rising use over the past decade coincided with the opioid crisis, as people searched for alternatives to prescription opioids. Because kratom comes from a plant and is marketed as “natural,” many people wrongly assumed it was safe. That belief helped fuel its use. Today, about 1.7 million Americans report using kratom each year.

How kratom works

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has warned consumers for more than a decade that kratom can cause serious problems, including liver disease, seizures, addiction and death.

According to the FDA, research and adverse event reports make clear that “compounds in kratom make it so it isn’t just a plant – it’s an opioid.”

Kratom comes from the plant Mitragyna speciosa, a tropical evergreen tree native to Southeast Asia.

People use kratom to experience the opioid effects, including pain relief and improved mood. But with daily use, tolerance to these effects results in a need for higher doses, and users experience withdrawal symptoms when they try to stop.

Kratom’s effects come from compounds in its leaves, including mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine, often called 7OH. After kratom is consumed, some of the mitragynine is changed in the body into 7OH. This matters because mitragynine is a weak opioid, while 7OH is a much stronger opioid, which can increase the intensity of the opioid effects and lead to overdose. Both compounds bind to opioid receptors in the brain, which triggers chemical changes that, with regular use, can lead to dependence and withdrawal symptoms similar to those caused by oxycodone or heroin.

Some in the kratom industry argue that only newer products with boosted levels of 7OH are dangerous. But the evidence does not support that claim. Deaths linked to kratom were already rising before the newer 7OH products appeared on the market in late 2023.

Kratom is not a treatment for opioid addiction

Another claim often made in legislative hearings is that kratom can treat opioid addiction. The American Kratom Association, a lobby group that represents the kratom industry and its consumers has even promoted kratom as a solution to the opioid crisis. One of the group’s videos claims that kratom can eliminate opioid addiction altogether.

That incorrect claim is based on a partial truth. If someone in opioid withdrawal uses kratom, their withdrawal symptoms may temporarily improve. But the same effect occurs with any opioid. A person dependent on heroin can relieve withdrawal by taking oxycodone, and a person dependent on oxycodone can relieve withdrawal by taking heroin.

But relief of withdrawal symptoms does not make a drug a treatment for opioid use disorder; it simply shows that the drug is an opioid. Effective, evidence-based treatments already exist, including medications such as buprenorphine and methadone, which have been shown to reduce cravings, prevent withdrawal and lower the risk of overdose. These medications also allow patients to feel and function normally.

When it comes to kratom, the FDA has been clear: It is not approved for any medical use and should not be used to treat opioid addiction.

Using kratom exposes people to risks that are not well understood. Some research suggests its primary compound may cause dangerous heart problems, including sudden death. Kratom has also been found to contain high levels of lead, which can damage the brain and other organs. For women of childbearing age, kratom may pose a risk to the fetus if pregnancy occurs. And using kratom during pregnancy may lead to infants experiencing opioid withdrawal at birth.

Bold claims, limited evidence

Some advocates argue that keeping kratom available could help states reduce deaths from fentanyl and other opioids. But the available evidence does not support this idea.

If kratom were helping reduce fentanyl overdose deaths, states that banned kratom might be expected to have a higher rate of fentanyl deaths. That has not been the case. For example, Vermont, one of the first states to ban kratom, has not fared worse than other states. In fact, Vermont has seen one of the largest declines in opioid overdose deaths in the country.

Kratom supporters often point to personal stories from users who say it helps them. These experiences should not be dismissed, but personal stories are not the same as scientific evidence.

With opioids, cycles of withdrawal followed by relief when a dose is taken can make a drug seem helpful, even when it is causing harm. That is why controlled studies, which can reliably distinguish true benefits from the relief of withdrawal symptoms, would be needed to prove that kratom’s benefits outweigh its risks. But those studies have not been done.

For now, the evidence shows that kratom is an opioid with real risks – not a harmless supplement.

Andrew Kolodny is president of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing, a nonprofit organization that advocates for more cautious use of prescription opioids and served as an expert witness on behalf of state and local governments in the national opioid litigation.

– ref. Kratom poisonings surged 1,200% over the past decade, and regulators are struggling to keep up with the dangers – https://theconversation.com/kratom-poisonings-surged-1-200-over-the-past-decade-and-regulators-are-struggling-to-keep-up-with-the-dangers-277161

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Scott Solomon, Teaching Professor of BioSciences, Rice University

The central premise of the blockbuster film “Project Hail Mary” is a long-shot mission with a familiar goal: Save humanity from extinction. While the details of the threat facing humanity are new to this story, moviegoers are used to bingeing on popcorn while watching a heroic quest to save the Earth from certain doom. And like so many popular movies of this genre, from “Armageddon” to “Interstellar,” the hero’s journey involves a seemingly impossible mission into space.

The film’s release is well timed for the new era of space exploration. NASA’s Artemis II mission, which launched on April 1, 2026, is sending four astronauts around the Moon on a path that will take them deeper into space than any humans have ever traveled.

The flyby mission is primarily about testing equipment for a lunar landing in 2028. But the broader plan was outlined in detail in March 2026 by NASA officials: to establish a permanent base on the Moon.

NASA is not alone in its lunar ambitions. Private space companies SpaceX and Blue Origin are developing next-generation spacecraft, rovers and drones to facilitate the American Moon base. And other nations, notably China, are working toward their own lunar outposts.

These nations and corporations see the Moon as a stepping stone toward more ambitious goals: a major human migration into deep space, including Mars.

Given the moment, it’s worth reflecting on what those investing billions in human space exploration, whether tax dollars or private funds, are trying to accomplish. As a biologist, I recognize the limitations of humans as space explorers. As I explain in my book, “Becoming Martian: How Living in Space Will Change Our Bodies and Minds,” while biologists have learned a lot about how the conditions of space affect the human body and mind, sending people on longer missions deeper into space will expose people to unknown health risks.

Boldly going

Plans to send people to the Moon and beyond are accelerating. NASA’s new administrator, Jared Isaacman, has argued that beating China to the Moon is a matter of national security, calling the Moon “the ultimate high ground.” He has also promoted the economic benefits of establishing a space economy that includes mining and manufacturing on the Moon.

Subcommittees in both the House and Senate have passed bills to codify these initiatives into law – making the goal of creating a permanent base on the Moon official U.S. policy. They appear to have bipartisan support, and votes in both houses of Congress are expected soon.

The United States and China are targeting landing humans on Mars in the 2030s, with the intention of building infrastructure that enables long-term habitation.

In March 2026, NASA also announced that the agency intends to test nuclear propulsion during an uncrewed flight to Mars in 2028. Nuclear-powered rockets have the potential to substantially reduce the time it takes to reach Mars, which would make crewed flight to the red planet more feasible.

Humans or robots?

But why do people need to go to Mars? As with the Moon, the purported motivations for both the U.S. and China establishing a human presence on Mars are scientific, economic and geopolitical. Yet these are distinct objectives that are often conflated.

In terms of science, NASA has had dramatic success with its Mars rovers, including the discovery last year of a potential biosignature that could be the best evidence yet that the planet was once home to microbial life.

Robotic missions also have a lower price tag and a higher acceptable risk margin than human missions. While Isaacman remains publicly committed to the Artemis program and its human spaceflight goals, the agency’s plan also includes a suite of robotic missions to the Moon’s surface it hopes to develop in partnership with companies, universities and international partners.

Likewise, some economic objectives, such as establishing mining and manufacturing facilities, could be accomplished using AI-equipped robots, such as those Tesla is developing. Robots are a long way from being able to accomplish the full range of tasks that a human can do, but prioritizing robotic activities could lower the exposure that people have to the hazards of space.

If having people on the Moon and Mars is indeed necessary to achieve these objectives, let’s be clear about the risks that the people undertaking these missions will be assuming.

Space and the human body

While scientists have learned a lot about how space affects the body during the six decades of human spaceflight, there are still significant blind spots. Among them are the effects of deep-space radiation.

The 24 Apollo astronauts who traveled to the Moon are the only people who have ever been past the Van Allen radiation belts, an area of space surrounding our planet formed by Earth’s magnetic field.

By trapping radiation from the Sun and from deep space, our planet’s magnetic field is part of what makes Earth habitable for us and other life forms. The Moon and Mars lack magnetic fields, so radiation levels on their surfaces are substantial. NASA researchers are now conducting experiments on rodents using simulated galactic cosmic rays, which are largely blocked by Earth’s magnetic fields. Preliminary results suggest that this type of radiation may impair cognitive abilities, but the actual effects on people are unknown.

Similarly, while medical researchers know that floating in a zero-g environment causes muscle atrophy and bone density loss during long stays on the International Space Station, they know relatively little about how partial gravity affects muscles and bones. The Moon has one-sixth the gravity of Earth, and Mars has a little over one-third.

Pilots on Earth can simulate partial gravity for up to 30 seconds at a time during parabolic flights, but only the 12 Apollo astronauts who walked on the Moon have ever experienced it for longer than that. The longest they stayed was about three days. Scientists can only speculate about whether prolonged exposure to the partial gravity of the Moon or Mars would have consequential health effects.

Human interest

Sending robots to space avoids having to deal with risks to human health. But there are downsides. Not only do robotic space missions have fewer capabilities than crewed missions, they often fail to capture interest and imagination and demonstrate national prestige in the same way that human missions can.

The four members of the Artemis crew will captivate people worldwide watching their daring mission around the Moon, much like moviegoers root for Ryan Gosling’s character in “Project Hail Mary” as he boldly seeks to save humanity from certain doom on the big screen.

That human interest is the common link that ties together public and private space ambitions worldwide. While robotic missions are more practical and cost effective, they simply don’t inspire the masses the way a human crew can. Beyond achieving any economic, political or scientific goals, space exploration is ultimately about people doing difficult things.

This article was updated with news of the launch of Artemis II.

I am the author of the book Becoming Martian published by MIT Press

– ref. From Artemis II to ‘Project Hail Mary’, spaceflight captures audiences when it centers on people because human space travel is hazardous – https://theconversation.com/from-artemis-ii-to-project-hail-mary-spaceflight-captures-audiences-when-it-centers-on-people-because-human-space-travel-is-hazardous-279147

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Marcia Zug, Professor of Family Law, University of South Carolina

The first parents convicted of involuntary manslaughter for a mass school shooting committed by their child were Jennifer and James Crumbley. The Crumbleys were convicted in 2024, after their 15-year-old son Ethan killed four students at Oxford High School in Michigan in 2021.

In March 2026, Colin Gray became the first parent convicted of murder for a mass shooting carried out by his child. His son, Colt, 14, killed two students and two teachers in 2024 at Apalachee High School in Georgia.

Critics of the Crumbley and Gray decisions worry that holding parents responsible for school shootings may lead to parental accountability for a broad range of children’s actions.

This is possible, but I believe it is unlikely.

That’s because parents already have long been held liable for the actions of their children, as Baylor law professor Dyllan Taxman notes. The previous failure to find parental liability for gun dangers was the exception.

But even if the Crumbley and Gray convictions do not portend the beginning of parental convictions for a new and wide-ranging category of parental actions, they do suggest a growing belief that parents who allow their children easy access to guns are dangerous and unfit.

As a family law scholar, I think this changing view about parental gun ownership may have significant ramifications for parents in other legal contexts, most notably custody determinations.

Guns and best interests

Child custody decisions in the U.S. are based on a court’s determination regarding the “best interest of the child.” Irresponsible gun ownership can be a factor in such conclusions, but historically such considerations have been rare.

This absence is shocking given the well-documented dangers that unsecured firearms pose. Since 2020, firearms have been the leading cause of death for children between the ages of 1 and 19. The statistic includes accidental shootings as well as homicides and suicides. The vast majority of child gun deaths occur at home. And more than 4.6 million children live in a home with at least one unlocked and loaded firearm.

The failure to routinely consider parental gun practices, including gun storage and children’s access, in custody determinations is notable – not just because unsecured guns pose a significant danger to children, but because other less substantial risks regularly factor into custody decisions.

Perceived moral dangers, such as a child’s exposure to profanity or a parent’s nonmarital relationship, are common factors in custody determinations. Similarly, exposure to secondhand smoke or a child’s obesity are also frequent considerations.

Consequently, while the consideration of parental gun behaviors is not entirely absent from custody decisions, its relative rarity suggests a deliberate unwillingness to link them with parental fitness considerations.

The Crumbley and Gray convictions suggest this reluctance may be waning.

Loss of custody as a deterrent

School shootings are relatively rare, but custody disputes are not.

Consequently, if irresponsible gun ownership becomes a common consideration in custody decisions, the implications for gun safety could be substantial. That’s because this approach avoids the pitfalls of previous gun control attempts.

Unlike other gun safety measures, the consideration of gun ownership in custody cases largely avoids Second Amendment concerns regarding the constitutional right to bear arms. As William & Mary law professor James Dwyer notes, in child custody cases the state operates “outside the bounds of the (Constitution) … to the extent of being freed from the restrictions ordinarily generated by the constitutional rights of others.”

The result is that constitutionally protected behaviors are frequently considered in custody decisions.

In the 2011 South Carolina case Purser v. Owens, for instance, the family court considered the mother’s abortion in its best-interest analysis and held that having an abortion demonstrated the mother was irresponsible and thus unfit.

In the 2003 Virginia case Roberts v. Roberts, a father lost custody for his statements that women cannot do what men do.

And in the 1985 Colorado case In re Marriage of Short, a court affirmed parents’ religious beliefs are a relevant factor in custody determinations.

As these cases demonstrate, the fact that some harmful parental behaviors are also constitutional rights doesn’t mean they’re excluded from custody determinations.

A second benefit of raising gun ownership in a custody dispute is that the parent raising this issue does not need to be a gun control advocate. They don’t need to dislike guns, and they can even be a gun owner themselves.

For gun ownership to become relevant, a parent simply needs to argue that the other parent’s gun practices are irresponsible compared to their own. If this increases a parent’s custody prospects, it can be assumed many parents will make this argument.

Parents are paying attention

For parents facing accusations of irresponsible gun practices, the potential loss of custody should provide a strong incentive for modifying their gun behavior.

Case law demonstrates that parents routinely refrain from behaviors that could hurt their custody case. And there is every reason to expect the same result with gun ownership.

Importantly, the Gray case already proved that parents are paying attention to these trends. During his trial, it was revealed that about a week before the September 2024 shooting, Gray’s estranged wife – and Colin Gray’s mother – Marcee Gray, did an internet search for “school shooter parents charged with manslaughter.”

Then, after reading articles about the Crumbley cases’ convictions, she called Colin and asked him to secure his guns. Although Colin ignored his wife’s warning, the next parent might listen, especially when the warning is coming from a divorce attorney.

Should irresponsible gun ownership become a common factor in custody disputes, parents will be advised to secure their guns, and many will heed this advice, I believe. The Crumbley conviction almost prevented Colt Gray’s access to firearms.

Marcia Zug 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. Irresponsible parental gun ownership could become a factor in custody disputes – https://theconversation.com/irresponsible-parental-gun-ownership-could-become-a-factor-in-custody-disputes-278251

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Jonathan Entin, Professor Emeritus of Law and Adjunct Professor of Political Science, Case Western Reserve University

The 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence isn’t the only important anniversary in 2026. This year also marks the 75th anniversary of an extraordinary case of student activism that helped lead to the Supreme Court’s decision outlawing segregated schools.

In April 1951, 16-year-old Barbara Rose Johns organized a student strike to protest the shabby conditions and inadequate education at her segregated Black high school in Prince Edward County, Virginia.

Prince Edward County is located about 65 miles southwest of Richmond and around 30 miles east of Appomattox, or 48 kilometers, in a part of Virginia known as Southside. African Americans constituted almost half the population, but they were largely prevented from voting before passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 and could not eat in local restaurants before passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The public schools were segregated, and for decades there was no Black high school at all.

In 1939, following years of pressure by Black residents, the white authorities opened a high school for African Americans. That segregated institution was named for Robert Roosa Moton, who had been raised in Prince Edward County and served as an administrator at Hampton Institute in Virginia before being appointed as the second head of Tuskegee Institute following the death of Booker T. Washington.

The new building became severely overcrowded almost immediately. Although it was designed for a maximum enrollment of 180, attendance reached 219 the year after it opened and 377 in 1947.

The following year, the school board put up three temporary outbuildings to accommodate the overflow. Many Black residents scorned these buildings as “tar paper shacks” because of their covering and dilapidated condition. They had inefficient wood stoves that provided limited heating, and their thin walls often leaked when rain fell.

The shabbiness of these interim structures became a source of continuing tension, as negotiations between the Black community and white authorities for a more permanent facility dragged on inconclusively into early 1951.

Johns makes her move

As an 11th grader at Moton High School, Johns began talking with some of her fellow students about taking action to protest the shacks and improve their education.

On April 23, 1951, someone lured Moton’s principal, Boyd Jones, out of the building on the pretext that two students were in trouble elsewhere in town. After Jones left, Johns summoned the student body to the auditorium, where she exhorted her peers to walk out to protest the deplorable condition of their school.

Johns also sent a letter to Oliver W. Hill and Spottswood W. Robinson III, two Richmond civil rights lawyers who worked closely with the NAACP, asking for their legal assistance.

The strike went on for two weeks. During that time, Hill and Robinson met twice with hundreds of students and parents. The meetings grew out of the lawyers’ initial skepticism about litigating over school conditions in rural Prince Edward County, where they feared that plaintiffs would be subject to severe physical and economic retaliation.

Those meetings persuaded Hill and Robinson that the Black community broadly supported an effort to obtain desegregation rather than mere improvements in the separate Black schools. The lawyers therefore filed their lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on behalf of scores of Black students and parents, alleging that segregated schools violated the 14th Amendment.

Victory – and messy history

Johns’ initiative had both short- and long-term consequences.

In the immediate aftermath of the strike, the all-white school board fired Jones, whom they regarded as having put the students up to their activism despite his – and the students’ – insistence that the whole affair was a student initiative.

The lawsuit – and other similar suits filed in South Carolina, Delaware and Kansas – failed in the lower court. The plaintiffs appealed to the Supreme Court, which reversed those judgments and ruled in the consolidated case called Brown v. Board of Education that segregated public schools were unconstitutional.

Meanwhile, in the wake of the student strike at Moton, Johns’ family feared that she would be in physical danger if she remained in Prince Edward County for her senior year. They sent her to live with her uncle Vernon Johns, a minister and outspoken civil rights advocate, in Montgomery, Alabama.

Johns graduated from Drexel University and worked for many years as a public school librarian in Philadelphia before her death in 1991.

The post-Brown history of Prince Edward County is very complicated. White authorities closed the public schools for five years to avoid desegregation. For a long time afterward, virtually all the white children went to a private academy that opened when the public schools closed.

But that messy history cannot detract from the courage and impact of Barbara Johns.

In December 2025, her statue replaced that of Robert E. Lee as one of the two Virginians displayed in the U.S. Capitol. Johns is there – along with George Washington.

Jonathan Entin 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. 75 years after she led a student strike that helped end school segregation, Barbara Rose Johns now stands in the US Capitol where Robert E. Lee once did – https://theconversation.com/75-years-after-she-led-a-student-strike-that-helped-end-school-segregation-barbara-rose-johns-now-stands-in-the-us-capitol-where-robert-e-lee-once-did-273531

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Christine Keiner, Chair of the Department of Science, Technology, and Society, Rochester Institute of Technology

With the world struggling to get oil supplies moving from the Middle East, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich raised eyebrows with a social media post highlighting a radical idea: Use nuclear bombs to cut a new channel along a route that would avoid Iranian threats in the Strait of Hormuz.

Gingrich’s March 15, 2026, post linked to an article that labeled itself as satire. Gingrich has not clarified whether his endorsement was serious. But he is old enough to remember when ideas like this were not only taken seriously but actually pursued by the U.S. and Soviet governments.

As I discuss in my book, “Deep Cut: Science, Power, and the Unbuilt Interoceanic Canal,” the U.S. version of this project ended in 1977. At the time, Gingrich was launching his political career after working as a history and environmental studies professor.

Improving global trade and geopolitical influence

The idea for a new canal to move oil from the Middle East had emerged two decades earlier, in the context of another Middle East conflict, the Suez crisis. In 1956, Egypt seized the Suez Canal from British and French control. The canal’s prolonged closure caused the price of oil, tea and other commodities to spike for European consumers, who depended on the shipping shortcut for goods from Asia.

But what if nuclear energy could be harnessed to cut an alternative canal through “friendly territory”? That was the question asked by Edward Teller, the principal architect of the hydrogen bomb, and his fellow physicists at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory in Livermore, California.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s administration had already begun promoting atomic energy to generate electricity and to power submarines. After the Suez crisis, the U.S. government expanded plans to harness “atoms for peace.”

Project Plowshare advocates, led by Teller, sought to use what they called “peaceful nuclear explosions” to reduce the costs of large-scale earthmoving projects and to promote national security. They envisioned a world in which nuclear explosives could help extract natural gas from underground reservoirs and build new canals, harbors and mountainside roads, with minimal radioactive effects.

To kick-start the program, Teller wanted to create an instant harbor by burying, and then detonating, five thermonuclear bombs in an Indigenous village in coastal northwestern Alaska. The plan, known as Project Chariot, generated intense debate, as well as a pioneering environmental study of Arctic food webs.

Teller and the Livermore physicists also worked with the Army Corps of Engineers to study the possibility of using nuclear explosions to build another waterway in Panama. Fearing that the aging Panama Canal and its narrow locks would soon be rendered obsolete, U.S. officials had called for building a wider, deeper channel that wouldn’t require any locks to raise and lower the ships along its route.

A sea-level canal would not only fit bigger vessels; it would also be simpler to operate than the lock-based system, which required thousands of employees. Since the early 1900s, U.S. canal workers and their families had lived in the Canal Zone, a large strip of land surrounding the waterway. Panamanians increasingly resented having their country split in two by the racially segregated, colony-like zone.

Crossing Central America

Nuclear explosions appeared to make a new sea-level canal financially feasible. The greatest impetus for the so-called Panatomic Canal occurred in January 1964, when violent anti-U.S. protests erupted in Panama. President Lyndon B. Johnson responded to the crisis by agreeing to negotiate new political agreements with Panama.

Johnson appointed the Atlantic-Pacific Interoceanic Canal Study Commission to determine the best site to use nuclear explosions to blast a seaway between the two oceans. Funded by a $17.5 million congressional appropriation – the equivalent of around $185 million today – the five civilian commissioners focused on two routes: one in eastern Panama and the other in western Colombia.

The Panamanian route spanned forested river valleys of the Darién isthmus and reached 1,100 feet above sea level. To excavate this landscape, engineers proposed setting off 294 nuclear explosives along the route, in 14 separate detonations, using the explosive equivalent of 166.4 million tons of TNT.

This was a mind-blowing amount of energy: The most powerful nuclear weapon ever tested, the Soviet “Tsar Bomba” blast in 1961, released the energy equivalent to 50 million tons of TNT.

To avoid the radioactivity and ground shocks, planners estimated that approximately 30,000 people, half of them Indigenous, would have to be evacuated and resettled. The canal commission considered this a formidable but not impossible obstacle, writing in its final report, “The problems of public acceptance of nuclear canal excavation probably could be solved through diplomacy, public education, and compensating payments.”

A not-so-hot idea, in retrospect

As explored in my book, marine and evolutionary biologists of the late 1960s sought to study the project’s less obvious environmental effects. Among other potential catastrophes, scientists warned that a sea-level canal could unleash “mutual invasions of Atlantic and Pacific organisms” by joining the oceans on either side of the isthmus for the first time in 3 million years.

Plans for the nuclear waterway ended by the early 1970s, not over concerns about marine invasive species but rather due to other complex issues. These included the difficulties of testing nuclear explosions for peaceful purposes without violating the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963 and the huge budget deficits caused by the Vietnam War.

Despite the geopolitical and financial constraints, the sea-level canal studies employed hundreds of researchers who increased knowledge of the isthmus and its human and nonhuman inhabitants. Ironically, the studies revealed that wet clay shale rocks along the Darién route meant nuclear explosives might not work well there.

But for Project Plowshare’s biggest proponents, atomic excavation remained a worthwhile goal. In 1970, in their final report, the canal commissioners predicted that “someday nuclear explosions will be used in a wide variety of massive earth-moving projects.” Teller shared their commitment, as he explained near the end of his life in the 2000 documentary “Nuclear Dynamite.”

Today, given widespread awareness of the severe environmental and health effects of radioactive fallout, it is hard to envision a time when using nuclear bombs to build canals seemed reasonable. Even before Gingrich’s post sparked ridicule, press accounts described Project Plowshare using words like “wacky,” “insane” and “crazy.”

However, as societies struggle with disruptive new technologies such as generative AI and cryptocurrency, it is worth remembering that many ideas that ended up discredited once seemed not only sensible but inevitable.

As historians of science and technology point out, technological and scientific developments cannot be separated from their cultural contexts. Moreover, the technologies that become part of people’s daily lives often do so not because they are inherently superior, but because powerful interests champion them.

It makes me wonder: Which of the high-tech trends being promoted by influencers today will amuse, shock and horrify our descendants?

Christine Keiner received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation, and Eisenhower Foundation for the initial stages of this research.

– ref. Bypass the Strait of Hormuz with nuclear explosives? The US studied that in Panama and Colombia in the 1960s – https://theconversation.com/bypass-the-strait-of-hormuz-with-nuclear-explosives-the-us-studied-that-in-panama-and-colombia-in-the-1960s-278851

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Eve Bohnett, Assistant Research Scholar, Center for Landscape Conservation Planning, University of Florida

Florida is home to a host of diverse wildlife you can’t find anywhere else. Most people know of manatees and Florida panthers. But you might never have heard of the Big Cypress fox squirrel, a subspecies found only in southwest Florida.

At up to 2 feet, 3 inches (68.5 centimeters) long, including its tail, and weighing roughly 3 pounds (1.36 kilograms), the Big Cypress fox squirrel is a heavyweight compared with its cousin, the eastern gray squirrel. But while gray squirrels can thrive across much of the eastern U.S. and Canada, the Big Cypress fox squirrel’s habitat is limited to five Florida counties south of the Caloosahatchee River.

This means every new road, canal and subdivision takes a bigger bite out of its world.

Because this squirrel is so shy and hard to spot, no one knows how many remain, which is one reason the state of Florida lists it as threatened. Historically, it moved through cypress swamps, pine savannas and hardwood forests. But these days, it often navigates a patchwork of golf courses, parks and low-density neighborhoods, crossing open lawns and scattered tree canopies to reach safe cover.

As the links between habitable areas disappear, Big Cypress fox squirrels are funneled into a few risky travel routes. This can cause their populations to become isolated from each other and more vulnerable to decline.

As a landscape conservation researcher, I study how wildlife moves through changing environments and how urban design can support that movement. My most recent research, in collaboration with colleagues from the University of Florida and Florida State University, focused on the Big Cypress fox squirrel. Our team asked one practical question: How can city planning and landscape design support wildlife movement as the region grows?

A new approach

What’s new about our work is that we paired connectivity modeling – a method that maps how easily animals can move across a landscape – with an approach to urban design that organizes landscapes along a gradient from dense urban areas to natural habitats. This approach helps planners match conservation strategies to each setting, or transect zone – urban, suburban, seminatural, such as parks and golf courses, and core habitat, or undisturbed areas.

Our method is unique because it integrates wildlife connectivity data directly into actionable design solutions for each zone, rather than proposing a single corridor. This allows planners to design landscapes that support wildlife movement in ways that can be replicated anywhere. In suburban neighborhoods, for example, wildlife crossings and native plants provide safer movement options.

Importantly, this approach is not specific to preserving just this species of squirrel. Planners and conservationists can use it to maintain wildlife movement alongside development across Florida and beyond. This includes other priority areas along the Florida Wildlife Corridor where development constrains animal movement.

To develop our approach, we used habitat suitability models developed by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission using detailed land-cover data and verified squirrel observation records kept by Florida Natural Areas Inventory and universities in Florida and Arizona. Then we converted this data into what landscape conservationists call a resistance map, which shows how difficult it is for a Big Cypress fox squirrel to move across the landscape.

We applied the model across the squirrel’s known range in southwest Florida, with a focus on rapidly developing areas around Fort Myers and Naples. We then identified where movement is concentrated and where it gets squeezed into narrow pathways.

Squeezing through ‘pinch points’

Our model showed that the squirrel’s best habitat persists in a network of pinch points, bottlenecks where development and infrastructure funnel movement into a limited set of pathways.

In the broader southwestern Florida region, those bottlenecks show up near urbanizing areas such as Naples, Fort Myers and Bonita Springs. In Fort Myers, for example, squirrel movement was funneled into just a few narrow routes, such as urban parks in highly developed areas and less developed spaces such as golf courses and residential neighborhoods with tree cover. Movement was more diffuse near wetlands and along the Caloosahatchee River.

This means that even in built-up areas, a few connected strips of trees, water edges and open space make a big difference, because they may be the only workable routes left.

We also found that many important habitat patches and connections fall outside protected areas. Rather, they lie on private and intensively managed lands, such as residential yards, golf courses, agriculture and landscaped spaces that are regularly maintained. In fast-growing southwestern Florida, that means long-term conservation depends not only on preserves but also on how neighborhoods, road projects, parks, golf courses and vacant lots are planned and maintained.

From wildlife science to real-world design

Instead of creating just one wildlife corridor, we design solutions for different types of landscapes along a city-to-nature gradient. From dense urban areas to natural habitats, this lets us keep the landscape connected using a network of green infrastructure while matching conservation actions to how the land is used and how squirrels are likely to move through it.

In urban and suburban areas, squirrels are using the remaining open spaces, such as parks and low-density residential areas, but these landscapes can function as ecological traps as well as population “sinks,” where risks such as vehicle collisions are higher.

Roads, highways and railroad tracks are major sources of habitat fragmentation and wildlife mortality, so one priority is to make it safer for wildlife to cross.

Our study proposes canopy bridges and other wildlife crossings. Other helpful measures include traffic-calming strategies, signage and “green street” design, which integrates vegetation, stormwater management and safer road layouts to reduce risks for both wildlife and people.

We also propose retrofitting existing infrastructure in urban areas with elements such as green roofs, living walls, bioswales – channels that help keep stormwater clean – rain gardens and permeable pavement. These features add vegetation, absorb stormwater and reduce heat, while also making urban areas easier for wildlife to navigate.

In suburban areas, priorities include planting native vegetation in yards, parks and roadside buffers and improving road crossings where animals are most at risk.

In seminatural areas such as golf courses, opportunities include restoring native vegetation and maintaining “stepping stone” habitats. These are small patches, such as tree clusters and bushes, that animals can use as safe stopovers while moving across developed landscapes.

This kind of green infrastructure can reduce flooding, improve water quality, lower urban temperatures and create recreational spaces – benefits that support both wildlife and the people who live alongside them.

Eve Bohnett 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. Better urban design could help save Florida’s threatened Big Cypress fox squirrel – https://theconversation.com/better-urban-design-could-help-save-floridas-threatened-big-cypress-fox-squirrel-276827

Source: The Conversation – USA – By William Akoto, Assistant Professor of Global Security, American University

Michigan may be more than 6,000 miles away from the war in Iran, but, virtually speaking, it’s well within striking distance.

An Iran-linked group calling itself Handala claimed responsibility for a cyberattack on Portage, Michigan-based medical device maker Stryker Corp., carried out on March 11, 2026. Handala said the attack was in retaliation for events related to the conflict in Iran.

The cyberattack affected Stryker’s internal Microsoft software system, disrupting the company’s order processing, manufacturing and shipping.

As a scholar who researches cyber conflict, I’ve found that in periods of geopolitical tension such as the current U.S./Israel-Iran war, cyber operations often sit right next to missiles and airstrikes as a tool that states and state-linked groups use to inflict damage, probe weaknesses and signal resolve to their enemies.

The Stryker case is notable because it shows how quickly a regional conflict can translate into disruption for organizations far from the battlefield. It also illustrates the vulnerabilities of U.S. organizations, including those involved in critical infrastructure.

Modern critical infrastructure does not only involve the obvious big targets like power plants or water utilities. It also relies on suppliers and service providers that sit one or two links upstream – such as managed information technology providers, cloud and data center operators and specialized parts suppliers – that keep everything from hospitals to transit systems running.

This is one reason U.S. officials emphasize critical infrastructure as a whole-of-society problem, not a niche government issue. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s “Shields Up” guidance is written for exactly this reality: a world where geopolitical shocks can threaten organizations that did not think they were part of the battlefield.

Cyber operations are often about options

When people imagine cyber warfare, many often picture dramatic outcomes. The lights go out. The water turns toxic. The trains stop. Those scenarios are real risks. But they are not the only objective, and often not the main one. The real strategic value is access.

Cyber access is like a set of keys. If you can get into a network quietly, stay there and learn how it works, you create options for later. You can steal information, map dependencies and position yourself to cause disruption. You can keep the option to strike in your pocket, so that in a crisis, you can cause or credibly threaten to cause harm.

That is why U.S. agencies took the China-linked Volt Typhoon group’s hacking activity so seriously. In joint advisories, U.S. officials described a campaign that compromised the information technology systems of organizations across multiple critical infrastructure sectors and used so-called living-off-the-land techniques that can blend into normal administrative activity.

This is an important point. A lot of state-linked cyber activity is not designed to create immediate, visible chaos. It is designed to build leverage.

How state-sponsored cyberattacks typically work

Most state-backed cyber operations, including those carried out by the United States, follow a common sequence.

First, the attackers gain initial access through techniques such as phishing, exploiting known vulnerabilities or abusing weak remote access. Once inside, attackers try to learn where the valuable data and sensitive systems are. They seek higher privileges and move laterally, often using legitimate administrative tools to blend in.

That stealthy maneuvering is one reason campaigns like Volt Typhoon raised alarms. Defenders can have a hard time distinguishing an intruder from a normal administrator in a busy environment, especially when the intruder is deliberately trying to make their actions look like ordinary activity.

The attackers then establish persistence, meaning they can sustain their access. If the goal is leverage, the attackers want to survive defenders’ cleanup efforts after they discover they’ve been hacked. That can mean gaining multiple footholds, altering authentication settings or gaining access via third parties.

Finally, they choose the effects they want to have. Consider the “Shamoon” attack in 2012 in Saudi Arabia. After gaining access, the attackers used malware to wipe data on thousands of computers at oil giant Saudi Aramco, disrupting business operations.

But not every intrusion ends in destruction. Sometimes it ends with data theft, where the prize is information rather than causing downtime. An example is the 2015 breach of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, in which attackers stole sensitive personnel data. Other times, the point is disruption designed to send a message such as the cyberattack on Sony Pictures in 2014, when hackers sought to keep the company from releasing the comedy film “The Interview.”

What defenses does the US have?

The U.S. has a growing defense ecosystem, but it is not a single shield you can switch on. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency encourages organizations to heighten their cybersecurity vigilance during periods of elevated geopolitical risk. The agency, along with the FBI, the National Security Agency and international partners, also publishes advisories with indicators and recommended mitigations when they see active campaigns.

Because critical infrastructure is mostly privately owned, federal defense also depends on partnership. For instance, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative is designed to support coordinated public-private planning and information sharing around major cyber risks.

Congress has also pushed the private sector toward reporting incidents more quickly. The Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act of 2022 sets reporting timelines that include reporting cyber incidents within 72 hours and ransomware payments within 24 hours after payment. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has been implementing these requirements through ongoing rulemaking.

These are meaningful steps, but they do not erase the basic constraints: uneven resources, uneven incentives and the reality that many targets sit outside direct federal control.

Lessons from the Stryker hack

The Stryker episode is a reminder that cyber operations are now a routine tool that state-linked actors can use to project power during international crises. They can aim at theft, disruption or signaling. Sometimes they hit government networks, and other times they hit private companies that sit inside essential supply chains.

Either way, the consequences can be felt far from the conflict itself.

In cyber conflict, the quiet part – gaining access, establishing persistence and preparing for deployment – typically comes first. The visible disruption often gets headlines, but it is the hidden positioning that sets the stage for offensive cyber operations in a crisis.

Wars today are not only fought with missiles and airstrikes you can see in the sky. They are also fought with what you cannot see moving through computer networks.

William Akoto 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 Iranian hackers pose a threat to US critical infrastructure – https://theconversation.com/how-iranian-hackers-pose-a-threat-to-us-critical-infrastructure-278377