Category: The Conversation – USA

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Parker Bach, PhD Student in Media and Communication, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Though prediction markets have been legal in the U.S. for less than 18 months, they can’t stop making news and making money.

On prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket, users can stake real money on just about anything, from the winner of the 2028 U.S. presidential election to when Taylor Swift will get married.

But this isn’t simple entertainment: In theory, these wagers serve as a means of collecting the public’s insights into the future.

That’s why you may have seen CNN’s pundits casually mention Kalshi’s election odds for the 2026 primaries, or watched CBS offer real-time Polymarket projections of which actors would win awards during the Golden Globes.

Existing research on the principles and history of prediction markets suggests they can be a valuable way of pooling collective knowledge about the future.

But as researchers like me, journalists and legislators race to understand the impact these markets are having on society and politics, several questions have emerged about the regulation of these platforms and their forecasting abilities.

The what and why of prediction markets

In practice, prediction markets are quite simple.

Each market offers what are known as “event contracts” on whether some future outcome will occur. Each contract costs between 1 and 99 cents, paying out US$1 if the event occurs or nothing if it does not.

Similar to sports betting, purchasing a contract represents a wager. There are higher returns for positions on outcomes deemed less likely. Like in the stock market, a trader can buy and sell contracts over time, as odds – and thus prices – fluctuate.

At the time of writing, Kalshi traders put the odds of the passage of the SAVE Act, legislation centered on requiring proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote, at about 10%. So each contract for this outcome costs 10 cents. If I think the act is more likely to pass than that, I could purchase some “shares” and sell them at a higher price if the odds go up in the future. If I hold them and the bill ultimately becomes law, I would receive a return that’s 10 times what I originally paid.

Two theories support the idea that prediction markets should excel at forecasting: the wisdom of crowds and the efficient market hypothesis.

First described over a century ago, the wisdom of crowds refers to the idea that the median judgment of a large, diverse group of people operating independently is often more accurate than that of a single expert.

A related argument appears in the efficient market hypothesis, which emerged in the mid-20th century among economists who championed free markets. It holds that prices encode all available information, reflecting the collective judgments of profit-seeking sellers and deal-seeking buyers.

At their best, then, prediction markets aggregate collective intelligence to weigh the likelihood of future events.

Polling’s credibility crisis creates an opening

Gambling on the outcomes of the day’s events has a long history. In 16th-century Italy, gamblers could wager on the election of civic magistrates and the outcome of papal conclaves. And from the 1880s to 1930s, New York City was the hub of political wagering, which sometimes exceeded the stock market in daily volume.

Reporting on bets ahead of the 1924 presidential election, The New York Times observed, “It is an old axiom in the financial district that Wall Street betting odds are ‘never wrong.’”

However, the rise of scientific polling and legal crackdowns on political wagering forced prediction markets to fade to the background.

That changed in 2024.

One month before the U.S. elections, a federal court granted the prediction market startup Kalshi permission to legally operate prediction markets concerning U.S. election results.

Around the same time, Elon Musk posted on X about Donald Trump leading Kamala Harris in prediction market odds. Trump followed suit. Kalshi put up billboards with live election odds in Times Square. Users and dollars flowed in. By election day, a volume of over $500 million in presidential election bets had been traded on Kalshi alone. Polymarket featured over $3.6 billion more in volume.

Political polling, meanwhile, was facing a crisis of confidence. Response rates had been declining for decades, and Trump voters had been undercounted in 2016 and 2020.

The polls forecast the presidential election as a coin toss. The prediction market, meanwhile, favored Trump at roughly 60% odds to win.

After Trump won at the ballot box, prediction markets declared victory over polling as the new, trustworthy forecasters of public opinion.

The utility of the markets

Over the past 50 years, journalists have increasingly incorporated quantitative data in their reporting, and audiences have come to expect political forecasting as part of their news diet.

With polling experiencing a crisis of confidence, prediction markets have become an increasingly attractive way for journalists to offer a data-backed snapshot of public beliefs.

Prediction markets have other advantages over polls for journalists. They respond to events in real time, and they’re free to access. Polls, meanwhile, take time and money to administer. They provide forecasts for political outcomes that go beyond elections – such as Cabinet nominations and Supreme Court decisions – which are usually outside the purview of polling.

In recent months, Kalshi and Polymarket have inked several partnership deals with news outlets. There’s a symbiotic relationship at play: Prediction markets provide journalists with data to report and discuss. Journalists, in turn, legitimize prediction markets by citing them as a trusted source.

Prediction markets have historically performed well on elections. Whether they’re more accurate than polls on other kinds of questions is still up for debate.

If traders behave purely rationally, in the economic sense, they might flit between positions to maximize profit based on new information, personal biases aside.

But when wagering on elections, most traders have seemed to consistently buy and sell only one position, rather than switching between them. They may think they’re trading rationally while exhibiting a “wishful thinking” bias. Or, like many sports bettors, they may be wagering out of fandom or for entertainment.

All of these scenarios could undercut the accuracy of these markets.

The elephant in the room

Many journalists are embracing the data even as their news outlets run stories about concerns over insider trading in predictive markets. Because the outcome of events is often determined by human actors, those privy to certain plans – say, a looming ceasefire deal – would have access to information not available to the public and could profit handsomely off that information.

Two anonymous accounts made hundreds of thousands of dollars predicting the downfall of Nicolás Maduro and betting on the toppling of Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, with traders putting their money down just before the U.S. took military action. This timing has raised some eyebrows.

Kalshi prohibits insider trading, and in early 2026 it fined and suspended two high-profile traders who were using inside information.

Likely in response to bad press and statements from lawmakers seeking to regulate the platforms, Kalshi and Polymarket also announced new insider trading rules on March 23, 2026, centered on politics and sports.

The legal mechanisms for enforcing these rules, however, are less clear. SEC Rule 10b5-1 prohibits trading securities on the basis of material nonpublic information.

But event contracts are not governed by the SEC. They’re under the purview of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a much smaller agency. As things stand, the small agency has too few employees to regulate the legality of specific event contracts, which are governed by the Commodity Exchange Act. Kalshi and certain other prediction market platforms are instead given the latitude to self-certify the legality of each contract.

Any efforts to meaningfully regulate insider trading would, in my view, require clear rules and viable enforcement mechanisms.

From participation to profit

As I conduct my research, I often consider what the booming popularity of prediction markets says about American culture and politics in 2026.

In 1969, sociologist Erving Goffman theorized that Americans’ attraction to gambling stemmed from a need for “action” in an increasingly bureaucratized society. Similarly, studies have suggested that betting on sports makes fans feel like they’re participating, not just observing.

Congress is less productive than ever. Most Americans feel they have little influence over the workings of the government, with many looking on helplessly as democratic guardrails have been dismantled.

Who knows what will happen in the coming year. The filibuster might be weakened, or the U.S. could invade Cuba. Most Americans will have little say. But prediction markets at least offer the chance to make a buck off the action.

Parker Bach 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 polling failures, gambling legalization and political gridlock paved the way for the explosive rise of prediction markets – https://theconversation.com/how-polling-failures-gambling-legalization-and-political-gridlock-paved-the-way-for-the-explosive-rise-of-prediction-markets-278873

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Yuval Hadash, Postdoctoral Fellow in Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University

Imagine being asked to sit alone in a quiet room for 15 minutes with nothing to do – no phone, no music, no external distraction. In a well-known 2014 study, many participants found that task so challenging that they chose to press a button to give themselves an unpleasant electric shock instead of continuing to sit with their thoughts and sensations.

Because being with their own thoughts, emotions and bodily sensations can be so difficult, people often turn away from them. Smartphones offer constant distraction from boredom or stress, allowing users to disengage from their present-moment sensations and thoughts with a quick swipe or tap.

But avoiding unpleasant internal experience can backfire. Studies show that doing so is associated with a range of mental health problems, including anxiety and depression.

We are psychological scientists who study mindfulness and how it affects stress, health and well-being.

Mindfulness is a mental state that people can learn to cultivate through training. When people are mindful, they direct their attention toward their moment-to-moment bodily sensations, emotions and thoughts, and they meet those experiences with an attitude of curiosity and open acceptance.

Mindfulness can be cultivated through “mindful moments” in daily life, moments in which people intentionally stay present with what they do, hear, see or feel. However, formal mindfulness meditation involves sustained practice that systematically trains attention and acceptance. Our research shows that training acceptance during mindfulness meditation can substantially improve your emotional well-being.

Tuning into experience can be hard – and helpful

Popular culture often portrays mindfulness as a way of relaxing. But we’ve found that mindfulness practice can often feel surprisingly difficult. In one of our studies, participants who directed their attention to their thoughts and feelings during a 20-minute mindfulness meditation noticed six times more unpleasant experiences than pleasant ones.

This doesn’t mean they were doing it wrong. Turning your attention inward can feel challenging. Often, it brings you into contact with experiences that you normally try to push away, such as feeling bored, uncomfortable or agitated. However, we’ve also found that facing difficult experiences during mindfulness training can have positive effects.

In particular, adopting an accepting attitude toward your experiences seems to drive many of the positive effects of mindfulness. Our research shows that developing the capacity for acceptance through mindfulness meditation can reduce feelings of loneliness and increase positive emotions, such as happiness. It also reduces stress hormones and helps people notice more positive experiences during stressful situations.

In these studies, we have found that acceptance is the critical driver. When acceptance is removed from mindfulness training, these benefits largely disappear.

The power of learning to accept experience

A key part of mindfulness practice involves turning toward difficult experiences, such as like stress, boredom and pain, rather than seeking distractions or pushing those experiences away. It means noticing feelings and thoughts as they arise, sensing how they show up in the body, and approaching them with an attitude of acceptance rather than judgment or resistance.

A helpful way to think about this comes from the “two arrows” metaphor, which is rooted in East Asian Buddhist traditions. It teaches that there are two types of suffering, which can be likened to being struck by two arrows.

The first arrow is the unavoidable unpleasant experience that comes with being human – for example, feeling exhausted after a poor night’s sleep. The second arrow is how we react to that unpleasantness: tensing up, resisting it, replaying it in our mind, criticizing ourselves or trying to escape it. Often this second arrow adds more suffering than the original unpleasant experience.

In mindfulness practice, the goal is not to stop having unpleasant sensations and feelings. Instead, mindfulness helps people accept the unavoidable difficulties of that first arrow and to soften the second arrow by letting go of struggle with those experiences and reactions that make them worse.

For example, let yourself feel bored without immediately reaching for distraction. Acknowledge anxiety, sadness or grief with openness, instead of trying to suppress those feelings or fueling them with harsh self-criticism.

Practicing mindfulness in everyday life

One way to cultivate this attitude is to treat thoughts, emotions and sensations as guests in your inner landscape. Instead of fighting them or clinging to them, notice when they arise. Acknowledge and welcome them, and when they naturally change, let them go. Some people find it helpful to imagine holding a difficult feeling as they would a crying baby, with a touch that’s steady, supportive and kind.

If you want to try this in daily life, the next time you feel a challenging experience, pause and open to the experience for a moment. Notice what you are feeling. Where does it show up in your body – a tightness in the chest or heaviness in the stomach? Can you allow it to be there, even briefly, without trying to fix it or distract yourself from it?

Then observe what happens. Does the challenging experience change over time in any way? Do your reactions shift or soften with repeated practice? Remember that a brief practice is unlikely to produce instant relief, and expecting quick results can actually make it harder to stay open to your experience as it is.

Rather, our findings suggest that meaningful change comes through consistent, ongoing practice. Every small step matters. Over time, brief moments of responding to stress or discomfort with mindfulness can reshape how you relate to challenges and provide greater resilience and ease.

In the study where people chose electric shocks over sitting alone with their thoughts, being with their inner experience felt almost intolerable. Mindfulness offers a different path: not escaping that experience but learning to stay with it. In doing so, what once felt unbearable can become something you can meet with greater emotional balance and well-being.

Yuval Hadash received funding for his mindfulness meditation research from Yad Hanadiv Foundation and Mind & Life Institute.

J. David Creswell receives funding for his mindfulness meditation research from the National Institutes of Health. He is also the Chief of Science at Equa Health, Inc.

– ref. Benefits of mindfulness meditation go far beyond relaxation – here’s what it is and how to practice it – https://theconversation.com/benefits-of-mindfulness-meditation-go-far-beyond-relaxation-heres-what-it-is-and-how-to-practice-it-273700

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Danielle Tufts, Assistant Professor of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology and Immunology, University of Pittsburgh

As spring unfolds, new research highlights an issue for southwestern Pennsylvania residents: Most people know ticks are in their backyard, but few believe they’re actually at risk of contracting tick-borne illnesses.

Every year in the United States, an estimated 500,000 people are diagnosed with Lyme disease. The illness, caused by a bacterium called Borrelia burgdorferi, is transmitted to humans through the bite of an infected black-legged tick. A common early sign of Lyme disease is a distinctive “bull’s-eye” rash, occurring in 70% to 80% of infected people.

If not treated early, the infection can progress to more serious symptoms, such as joint swelling and arthritis, nerve pain, tingling or numbness, facial muscle weakness, heart inflammation and difficulties with memory or concentration.

Behind these infections is a complex ecological cycle that unfolds largely unnoticed in forests, parks and even backyards. Ticks acquire the bacterium when they take a blood meal from an infected animal. One of the most important hosts in this cycle is the white-footed mouse which are reservoirs for several tick-borne pathogens. Young ticks frequently feed on these mice and become infected. This allows them to transmit the bacteria later in life when they bite other animals or humans.

We are a disease ecologist and Ph.D. student at the University of Pittsburgh, where we study the ecology of ticks, wildlife hosts and tick-borne pathogens in western Pennsylvania. Our research examines how Lyme disease circulates in local environments and how communities interact with tick habitats in their everyday lives.

Understanding the biology of ticks is only part of the story. Effectively reducing disease risk also requires understanding how people perceive ticks and the pathogens they transmit, and what prevention strategies they are willing to use.

The cycle behind tick bites

Both black-legged ticks and white-footed mice are widespread across Pennsylvania. This creates conditions for Lyme disease bacteria transmission. As a result, Pennsylvania consistently ranks among the top three states in the country for reported Lyme disease cases each year.

During the summer of 2024, our team conducted a community survey in neighborhoods across Allegheny, Washington and Westmoreland counties. These areas were selected because they border parks and forested habitats where ticks are commonly found. Homeowners were invited to participate in a short questionnaire that explored their experiences with ticks and tick-borne diseases.

Fifty-two residents completed the 12-question survey. We asked participants whether they had observed ticks on their property, whether they believed tick-borne diseases posed a health risk and what personal or property-level precautions they used to prevent tick bites.

The results revealed a striking contrast between awareness of ticks and perception of risk.

Most people don’t fear ticks

Over 80% of respondents reported seeing ticks on their property at some point. Despite this widespread exposure, far fewer homeowners believed tick-borne diseases posed a major health threat. Only 32% considered diseases such as Lyme disease to be a significant health risk to themselves or their family. More than half of respondents believe tick-borne diseases represent only a minor health concern, and 14% said they posed no health risk at all.

The survey also revealed clear patterns in how people protect themselves from ticks. Nearly all participants reported taking at least some precautionary measures when spending time outdoors. The most common strategy was performing tick checks, a simple but effective method for reducing infection risk, as ticks typically need to be attached for 24 to 48 hours to transmit the bacteria. Other reported precautions include wearing protective clothing, showering after outdoor activities, or changing clothes once returning indoors.

Interestingly, most homeowners reported they did not use pest control treatments to reduce tick populations in their yards. When asked how they might respond if ticks were discovered on their property, most participants said they would simply increase their use of personal protective behaviors over treating their property or consulting a pest management company.

Prevention starts with people

These findings highlight an important challenge in tick-borne disease prevention. While many residents recognize that ticks are present in their nearby environment, they may underestimate the health risks associated with them. Some may also prefer prevention strategies that focus on individual behavior rather than environmental control.

From a public health perspective, understanding these attitudes is essential. Strategies designed to reduce tick populations, such as yard treatments or rodent-targeted tick control devices, which kill ticks on mice or other wildlife carriers, are effective if homeowners are willing to adopt them. Research that examines community perceptions can help scientists and public health officials design prevention programs that are both practical and acceptable to the people who live in tick-endemic areas. These are the regions where specific tick populations are permanently established, constantly present and actively transmitting diseases.

The study also represents one of the first efforts to examine tick-related perceptions specifically in western Pennsylvania. As climate change, expanding wildlife populations and changes in land use continue to influence tick distributions, understanding how communities experience and respond to ticks is increasingly important. Our team will continue exploring ways to reduce tick exposure that will benefit homeowners and affected communities. This includes field evaluations of rodent-targeted tick control strategies and studies of how ticks and pathogens circulate among wildlife hosts.

For homeowners living near wooded areas, the message remains simple but important: Ticks are common, and taking precautions – performing tick checks, using repellents and managing yard habitats – can help reduce the risk of tick-borne diseases.

As research continues, combining ecological science with community perspectives may prove to be one of the most effective ways to combat Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses.

Danielle Tufts receives funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Emily Bache 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. Ticks are the backyard threat southwestern Pennsylvania homeowners keep ignoring – https://theconversation.com/ticks-are-the-backyard-threat-southwestern-pennsylvania-homeowners-keep-ignoring-277594

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Shannon Fogg, Professor of History, Missouri University of Science and Technology

In 1945, an angry mob confronted Aba Mizreh and four of his sons outside their former home in Paris. The Jewish family had hidden in Lyon during World War II, only to learn that their apartment had been looted and rented in their absence. Despite an eviction notice, the new tenants refused to leave, leading to a street fight.

Following the violent confrontation, Mizreh wrote to the French government. “Don’t I have the right, after having suffered so much, to get my property back?” he asked. “Haven’t I really paid enough for this war?”

Mizreh, then 68, was just one of the 160,000 Holocaust survivors from Paris who struggled to rebuild their lives after the devastation of the Nazi occupation. Of his 11 children, five sons had fought for France and six of his children had been deported; at least two were murdered at Auschwitz. Now he simply wanted to return to the two-bedroom apartment that served as his home and furrier workshop in order to support his wife and orphaned grandchildren.

In my research on the looting and restitution of Jewish homes in Paris, I have discovered that property issues are often overlooked in Holocaust studies. But for ordinary Jews in France, attempts to reclaim their homes and furnishings were key to rebuilding their lives. What’s more, they are important for understanding the Holocaust’s lasting financial and emotional impact.

They also reveal the limits of the government’s attempts to repair the past. French laws related to recovering apartments, looted furniture and war damages promised equality to all war victims. Instead, they created bureaucratic barriers and favored non-Jewish war victims. For many who tried to reclaim their property, the answer to Mizreh’s question was “no.” They would continue to “pay” for the war for years to come.

Looting and return

Paris was the largest city under German occupation and home to the largest Jewish population in Western Europe. Tragically, around 75,000 Jews living in France were murdered during the Holocaust. For the 75% of the French Jewish population that survived, rebuilding their lives was a difficult and extended process.

With the aid of French citizens, the Nazis looted more than 38,000 private apartments in the capital, and as many as 25,000 empty apartments that had been home to Jewish families were rented to non-Jewish tenants. Social workers estimated that nearly 100,000 Parisian Jews had been evicted from their apartments during the war. For many surviving Jews, returning home was their first priority.

Memoirs and oral histories recount these first moments of return. As a girl, Rachel Jedinak survived the war by hiding under a false identity after her parents’ arrest. She remembered returning to her family home: “We tore the seals from the door and went in. There was nothing left – nothing. This empty apartment – without furniture, without belongings, without photos that would have allowed us to remember those who were gone, to reconnect us to our parents – made us cry. The loss of our memorabilia was even more painful than the loss of our material goods.”

Reclaiming and then furnishing these apartments was both practical and emotional. Their homes provided a bed to sleep on, as well as the last links to family members lost in the Holocaust. The scale of loss meant that rebuilding would require a coordinated governmental effort.

Restitution and reparations

Two orders issued on Nov. 14, 1944, addressed renters’ rights to return to their prewar homes. Another ordinance, published on April 11, 1945, was meant to help return recovered furniture to its original owners.

These measures largely failed to meet Jewish survivors’ needs, however. The housing laws included exceptions that favored the new, non-Jewish tenants, such as Allied bombing victims and former prisoners of war. Additionally, only about 2,000 pieces of furniture were returned to survivors or heirs.

As a result, many survivors would rely on financial compensation for their losses. Jews whose apartments had been looted could file a claim under the War Damages Law of Oct. 28, 1946. But this long-awaited law proved to be a further disappointment.

Enacted two years after the liberation of Paris, the War Damages Law provided only limited funds for personal items. Eligible victims could receive 90,000 francs – less than US$10,300 or 9,000 Euros today – per household for the total loss of furnishings, or half the insured value of their stolen goods.

Claimants had to file a four-page form and submit documents proving their nationality, family status, legal standing and property rights, as well as witness statements to verify the losses.

If the government approved a survivor’s claim, payment was not immediate. A sample of the 2,750 files held in the Paris Archives reveals that more than 85% of claimants wrote to the government asking for faster payments.

One survivor writing to officials in 1948 summarized the feelings of many looting victims: “I think that we have all paid our dues and suffered enough for you to compensate us for at least a part of what the Germans stole from us almost six years ago.”

But for many, the payment process associated with the War Damages Law dragged on into the 1960s, underlining the long-term economic impact of wartime looting.

Continued exclusion

Only French citizens or foreigners who had fought for France were eligible for payments under the War Damages Law. More than half the Jews living there during the Holocaust, however, were foreigners – including nearly 100,000 refugees who had recently fled Nazi violence.

Arthur Deutsch was born in Vienna to Polish parents and moved to Paris in 1922, where he married and had five children. In 1938, he filed a request for naturalization, but it was not finalized before war broke out. He tried to volunteer for military service but was not called up.

The family fled Paris ahead of the Nazi invasion, ending up in the central city of Limoges, where they were arrested in December 1940. They were eventually transferred to the Rivesaltes internment camp, where Deutsch was assigned to forced labor. When the family returned to Paris after its liberation, they found their apartment completely empty.

Deutsch filed a claim for war damages, which was rejected in 1952 due to his citizenship status. He contested his exclusion, writing: “If I am not French on paper, I am in my thoughts because one does not spend thirty years in Paris without being assimilated, and it is not four years of internment or the rejection of my furniture indemnity claim that will make me change my mind.”

As anthropologist Damiana Oţoiu notes, “the psychological damage caused by forced resettlement, seizure of property, and the loss of social and cultural capital cannot be compensated by the mere restitution of property years or decades after the crimes were perpetrated.”

But for Parisian Holocaust survivors, recovering or replacing stolen goods represented their ability to live with dignity and security. The struggle for compensation and for recognition of the persecution they faced continued for decades after the war’s end – and in some cases, continues today.

Funding for this research was provided through Seed Grant Funding for the Humanities, Social, and Behavioral Sciences by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation at Missouri University of Science & Technology.

– ref. Holocaust survivors in France came home to stolen apartments, looted furniture and bureaucratic hurdles – https://theconversation.com/holocaust-survivors-in-france-came-home-to-stolen-apartments-looted-furniture-and-bureaucratic-hurdles-276312

Source: The Conversation – USA – By John Femiani, Associate Professor of Computer Science and Software Engineering, Miami University

U.S. intelligence officials have assessed that Iranian forces have deployed a small number of mines in the Strait of Hormuz, a critical choke point for global shipping, according to reports. The move gives the Iranians a means, along with missiles and drones, of threatening ships.

The U.S. Navy recently decommissioned the minesweeping vessels that it had operating in the Persian Gulf region. However, it has other ships and aircraft for finding and destroying mines.

As a computer scientist who researches how to detect mines, I have been researching how artificial intelligence techniques, such as machine learning, can help navies detect modern sea mines. Here’s what I’ve learned about how the mines work and how they can be neutralized.

Types of mines

The mines most people picture, like those seen in films such as “Godzilla Minus One,” are floating spheres tethered to the seabed, with small protrusions called Hertz horns that trigger the mine when it makes contact with a ship. These are called moored mines.

In the film, characters use a small wooden boat to sweep mines without triggering them because the mines responded to a metal-hulled ship’s magnetic field. Detecting magnetic fields is characteristic of influence mines, which respond to a ship’s magnetic, acoustic or pressure signature, as opposed to simple contact mines that detonate when ships run into them.

Modern mines typically combine multiple sensing modes. Some are designed to detonate only after a certain number of ships have passed, allowing them to ignore smaller vessels or minesweeping attempts and target higher-value ships. Examples include the Iranian Maham 3, which uses both magnetic and acoustic sensors.

Not all mines float. Many modern mines instead sit on the seabed. These mines are most effective in shallow water, where ships pass closer to the seabed. Some bottom mines sit exposed on the seabed, while others are partially or completely buried in sediment. Examples include the Iranian Maham 7 and the Manta mine, a low-profile bottom mine used by Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War. These mines can be deployed by small vessels or laid from aircraft, making them relatively easy to place. They are triggered when they sense a ship passing overhead.

Many modern mines are cylindrical or torpedo-shaped, allowing them to be deployed from aircraft or submarines and descend in a controlled way before settling on the seabed. More advanced designs include so-called rising mines, which sit on the seabed and launch upward toward a target once it is detected.

Mine countermeasures

A key advantage of naval mines is not just the damage they can cause, but also the time and resources required to find and clear them. This is because it’s challenging to do so over large areas quickly and reliably.

Even the possibility of mines can disrupt shipping and force extensive and costly clearance operations. This has been demonstrated in practice: During the 1980s, Iran and Iraq deployed relatively small numbers of mines against each other in the so-called Tanker War in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea. This caused significant disruption to shipping and forced costly, time-consuming clearance operations, even when direct damage was limited.

Some countermeasures use uncrewed systems to trigger mines by mimicking the magnetic or acoustic signatures of ships, or to disable them with explosive charges. However, more targeted approaches require identifying individual mines, which motivates the need for reliable detection.

Mine hunting

Mine detection is best understood as a wide-area sonar search, which produces many contacts – essentially, anything unusual in the sonar data. Automatic target recognition algorithms then triage these contacts and classify them as either minelike objects or benign. Divers or camera systems then provide higher-confidence identification or confirmation to validate the result. This is known as a detect-classify-identify pipeline.

To collect data, an uncrewed surface vehicle – deployed from a larger ship – can tow a sonar platform at a fixed height above the seabed. The platform, called a towfish, resembles a small missile and carries multiple sensors, including port and starboard side-scan sonar. The British Royal Navy is also preparing to send this type of towed sonar array to the Persian Gulf region, according to a report.

These sonar devices use sound rather than light to form images. Unlike a photograph, a sonar image is built from one-dimensional measurements of returned sound energy as a function of distance from the sensor. As the platform moves, these slices are assembled to form a continuous image of the seabed. The center of the image corresponds to the water column directly beneath the sonar device and appears dark. The seabed appears as if illuminated from the sensor, with objects characterized by a bright highlight facing the sonar and a shadow extending away from it.

At the detection stage, researchers have developed a range of techniques to detect minelike objects in sonar imagery. Early methods segmented sonar imagery into regions that show as highlights paired with acoustic shadows. Other statistical approaches model seabeds and identify anomalies that deviate from it. Template-like matched filters are used to identify objects with known geometric characteristics.

More advanced approaches incorporate machine learning, using carefully selected features derived from texture, intensity and shadow geometry to classify objects.

More recently, researchers have applied deep learning methods directly to sonar imagery and have often shown improved performance, particularly in complex environments. But their effectiveness depends on the availability of representative training data.

Unlike the data for training many other computer vision systems, high-resolution side-scanning sonar data is particularly expensive to collect and label in large enough amounts to successfully train deep learning mine detection systems.

Perhaps, when it becomes safe to do so, navies can clear mines from the Strait of Hormuz and add to the limited supply of this data.

John Femiani receives U.S. Navy SBIR-funded research support related to underwater mine detection.

– ref. How sea mines threaten global trade, and how navies detect them – https://theconversation.com/how-sea-mines-threaten-global-trade-and-how-navies-detect-them-279305

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Daniel Thomas Potts, Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology and History, New York University

The British- and American-backed plot to overthrow Iran’s prime minister in 1953 laid the groundwork for the 1979 Iran hostage crisis and decades of hostility with the U.S. that have now culminated in a war launched on Iran by the U.S. and Israel.

Many Americans only know the anger and tension with Iran that has grown from those roots set down during the middle of the last century. But as an archaeologist who has spent over 50 years specializing in Iran, and from my research on Iranian history in the context of changes undergone by Iran’s nomadic population through time, I believe it is worth recalling the time when the two countries had a distinctly different relationship.

In the 1800s, American missionaries journeyed to what was then called Persia.

The missionaries helped build important institutions – schools, colleges, hospitals and medical schools – in Persia, many of which still exist.

Dr. Joseph Plumb Cochran, an American physician fluent in Persian, Turkish, Kurdish and Assyrian, founded a hospital in Urmia in 1879, as well as Iran’s first medical school. When Cochran died at Urmia in northwestern Iran in 1905, over 10,000 people attended his funeral.

This image clashes with most American stereotypes of Iran and its people, and is at odds with decades of anti-Iranian sentiment emanating from Washington.

Iran and the United States, in fact, have a deep history of mutual respect and friendship.

From 1834, when the first Protestant American mission was established in Urmia, until 1953, when the CIA’s involvement in Iran’s internal affairs set the United States on the road to conflict with Tehran, Americans were the good guys.

Imperial bad guys

For years, Americans have seen images of Iranians shouting “Death to America.” President Donald Trump returned the sentiment during his first term, vowing to bring Iran death and destruction. And on Feb. 28, 2026, after weeks of threats and military preparation, the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei; that war continues to this day.

But before all that happened, when Americans were the good guys, there were other countries who were instead manipulators and who exerted undue influence over Iran.

The bad guys, at whose hands Iran suffered most, were Russia and Great Britain. Those two nations – often at the invitation of Iran’s leaders – economically exploited Persia to further their own imperial ambitions, using sustained diplomatic, military and economic pressure.

After two ill-judged wars fought against Russia – the First (1804-1813) and Second Russo-Persian Wars (1826-1828) – Persia (the name Iran was officially adopted in 1935) lost large amounts of territory to the czar.

Much later, Russia found another means of exerting control over the Persian crown, loaning millions of rubles to its rulers, like Mozaffar ed-Din Shah, who reigned from 1896-1902 and needed capital to fund his lavish lifestyle.

With the exception of the Anglo-Persian War (1856-1857), Persian relations with Great Britain were less openly hostile. But what they lacked in martial vigor was more than compensated for by economic exploitation.

Toward the end of the 19th century, the shah granted exclusive concessions to the British for everything from telegraph lines to tobacco. Rights to Iran’s oil were given to the Anglo-Persian (later Anglo-Iranian) Oil Company.

So assured were Britain and Russia in their control of Persia that, in 1907, they signed the infamous Anglo-Russian Convention. That agreement divided the country – unbeknownst to its Parliament, let alone its inhabitants – into Russian, British and “neutral” spheres of influence. After it became public it provoked the outrage of ordinary Persians and the international community at large.

America the good

Iran’s relations with the United States were completely different.

The 19th- and early 20th-century history of British and Russian imperial ambitions and involvement in Iran put Iran in a dependent, exploited position at the hands of the governments of these two countries.

But the presence in Iran of American missionaries and, later, invited government technocrats, was of an entirely different quality. These were Americans offering aid, with no expectation of advantage to be gained officially for the United States government.

American Presbyterian missionary efforts in Iran began in 1834 and focused on education, with 117 schools established around Urmia by 1895. Efforts were also directed at medical and social welfare. These were nongovernmental missions. The U.S. government was conspicuous by its absence in Iran and Iranian affairs.

By the late 19th century, the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions had opened new stations in cities across northern Iran, from Tehran to Mashhad. American diplomatic relations with Persia were established in 1883. A decade later the American Presbyterian Hospital was founded in Tehran by John G. Wishard.

After the First World War, Presbyterian schools for both boys and girls proliferated, the most famous of which were the American College of Tehran for boys, established in 1925, and Iran Bethel School for girls.

In 1910, the Persian Parliament, aware that the country’s finances were in disarray, invited the U.S. to identify a “disinterested American expert as treasurer-general to reorganize and conduct collection and disbursement of revenue.”

Despite Russian attempts to block the initiative, W. Morgan Shuster, a distinguished career civil servant, was appointed by Persia in February 1911. He arrived in Tehran in May, bringing with him four other Americans.

The mission was a failure, lasting only eight months, and, unsurprisingly, was adroitly sabotaged by the combined efforts of British and Russian diplomats in Tehran.

The country’s financial situation after the First World War was still precarious. With none of the colonialist baggage associated with the two European superpowers, America was turned to, almost as a last resort, to fix what ailed Iran. Riza Shah, father of the last shah, appointed an American, Arthur C. Millspaugh, as the administrator-general of the finances of Persia.

When Millspaugh arrived in Tehran in 1922, a newspaper editorial addressed him with these words: “You are the last doctor called to the death-bed of a sick person. If you fail, the patient will die. If you succeed, the patient will live.”

Despite his often testy relations with foreigners, Riza Shah acknowledged Millspaugh’s American Financial Mission was “the last hope of Persia.” The fact that the mission was far from an unqualified success does not detract from its importance. Nor did it diminish America’s image as an honest broker in Iranian eyes, in contrast to that of Russia and Great Britain.

Of course, not every Iranian-American interaction during this period was positive. Robert Imbrie, the American consul in Tehran, was brutally murdered in 1924, allegedly because a fanatical religious leader accused him of being a Baha’i and poisoning a well.

Riza Shah used the episode to crack down on dissidents and impose strict controls on public gatherings.

America the bad

America’s benign image in Iran was forever shattered in 1953 when the CIA, working with Great Britain, engineered a coup against Mohammad Mossadegh, the democratically elected prime minister who had nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.

Even though the overthrow of Mossadegh damaged Iranian trust in America, the years just prior to Iranian revolution in 1979 saw the number of Iranian students in the United States steadily rise.

Over one-third of the approximately 100,000 Iranian students pursuing university degrees abroad in 1977 were in the U.S. By the time of the Islamic revolution two years later, that number had climbed to 51,310, making Iran by far the biggest single source of foreign students in America, with 17% of the total foreign student population. The next-largest contributor of foreign students, Nigeria, accounted for only 6%.

“Iranian students have been here for nearly a century … there are deep and abiding connections that reveal themselves when you look at the historical record,” researcher Steven Ditto, who wrote a report on Iranian students in the U.S., told The Washington Post in 2017.

The legacy of American goodwill, personal friendship and doing the right thing by Iran has not been completely lost, although the war now underway may make it seem as though America’s good relationship with Iran has been lost irretrievably.

Deep friendships dating back well over a century can withstand a great deal. A reservoir of goodwill and affection may lie dormant while political storms rage. Iran and America were good friends in the past, and for good reason. I believe that Americans would do well to remember that.

This is an updated version of an article originally published on Aug. 19, 2020.

Daniel Thomas Potts 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. Decades of hostility between Iran and the US were preceded by a little-remembered century-long friendship – https://theconversation.com/decades-of-hostility-between-iran-and-the-us-were-preceded-by-a-little-remembered-century-long-friendship-279636

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Mireya Mayor, Director of Exploration and Science Communication, Florida International University

Primatologist Birutė Galdikas died on March 24, 2026, and an era of science that began in the forests of Tanzania, Rwanda and Borneo studying humanity’s closest living relatives more than half a century ago is coming quietly to a close. Her passing marks more than the loss of a scientist – it’s the end of one of the most extraordinary chapters in modern science.

For more than half a century, primatology had three central figures: Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey and Galdikas — often called Leakey’s Angels, after their mentor — who transformed how we understand primates and, in many ways, how we understand ourselves.

They were sent into the field by paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey, who believed that if we understood other primates, we might better understand human evolution and human nature. It was a radical idea at the time, not only scientifically but culturally. Leakey did not send large research teams or established professors. Instead, three young women went into forests, often alone, for years at a time.

What they discovered changed science and the public imagination.

Seeing chimpanzees and apes as individuals

Before the scientists’ work, primates were often described as creatures of instinct, their behavior explained largely through simple drives for food and reproduction. After their work, people began to talk about individuals with personalities, alliances, rivalries, friendships and grief.

Goodall, Fossey and Galdikas showed that chimpanzees make tools and wage political struggles, that gorillas live in complex family groups, and that orangutans raise their young with a patience and investment that rivals that of humans. The line between humans and other primates did not disappear, but it became harder to draw cleanly.

They also changed who could be a scientist.

Three women living for years in remote forests in the 1960s and ‘70s was not normal. By succeeding, they quietly expanded the boundaries of who could lead expeditions, run field sites, publish major research and become the public face of science. Many primatologists of my generation entered a field that these women forced open.

Each of these extraordinary women shaped my life in different ways. I never met Fossey, who died in Rwanda in 1985. But watching “Gorillas in the Mist,” a movie about her work, changed the course of my life and sent me toward primatology instead of law school. Years later, as a young primatologist studying lemurs, I met Goodall at a conference; she later wrote the foreword to my book and became a mentor and friend as I navigated my own path in conservation science. I met Galdikas, a scientist at Canada’s Simon Fraser University, professionally and immediately recognized a kindred spirit – another woman who had devoted her life to the study and protection of humans’ closest animal relatives.

With their deaths – Goodall died in 2025 – it falls to those of us who were inspired by them to continue and evolve their work at a time when it has never been more difficult or more important.

But the field today’s primatologists inherited is not the same one they began.

The next generation and primates’ struggle for survival

The first generation of field primatologists went into forests full of animals to discover how primates lived. They were explorers as much as scientists, and their work had the feel of discovery in the classic sense – new behaviors, new social structures, new understandings of intelligence and culture in animals.

Their research helped reshape anthropology, psychology and evolutionary biology. They helped answer one of the oldest questions humans ask about themselves: What makes us different from other species?

By the time my generation began working in the field, many of those questions had already been answered. We knew primates used tools, formed political alliances, reconciled after fights and mourned their dead. We knew they had personalities and social strategies.

The question was no longer whether primates were like us, but whether they would survive us.

This is the quiet shift that defines modern primatology. My generation now goes into forests that are smaller, more fragmented and quieter, and the work is increasingly focused on making sure those animals are still there at all.

I have spent much of my career studying lemurs in Madagascar, where this shift is impossible to ignore. Lemurs are among the most endangered group of mammals on Earth, with more than 90% of species threatened with extinction. In many parts of Madagascar, forests now exist only as isolated fragments surrounded by agriculture and human settlement. Some lemur populations survive in forest patches so small that a single fire or logging operation could eliminate them entirely.

Conservation begins with caring

These primates that captured the world’s attention are also the species most like us. They have long childhoods, complex societies, intelligence, and emotional lives that feel familiar to us. Their similarity is what made people care. And that caring, in many cases, is what has kept them from disappearing entirely.

The great achievement of Leakey’s Angels was not only what they discovered, but that they made the world care about primates.

Before the three scientists’ work, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans were largely abstract animals to most people – zoo exhibits, textbook illustrations, evolutionary symbols. After their work, these creatures became individuals with names, families, histories and personalities. Each of the women’s work was celebrated in films and books, including the Morgan Freeman-narrated documentary “Born to Be Wild 3D” that followed Galdikas’ orangutan rescues.

Conservation begins with caring, and caring begins with stories. They gave the world those stories.

But caring is no longer enough. We are now in an era where the most important breakthroughs in primatology may not be new discoveries about behavior, but new ways to protect habitats, connect fragmented forests, preserve genetic diversity and help humans and primates survive on the same increasingly crowded landscapes.

The work has shifted from observation to intervention, from discovery to responsibility.

Every generation of scientists inherits a different world. The generation of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey and Birutė Galdikas inherited a world full of primates we did not yet understand. My generation has inherited a world where we understand primates very well, but are in danger of losing them anyway.

The forests are quieter now than when these three young women went into them more than half a century ago. The responsibility, however, has only grown louder.

The central question of primatology is no longer what makes us human. It is whether a species intelligent enough to understand extinction will choose to prevent it in our closest living relatives.

Mireya Mayor 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. Birutė Galdikas: The last of ‘Leakey’s Angels’ in primatology’s most extraordinary chapter – https://theconversation.com/birute-galdikas-the-last-of-leakeys-angels-in-primatologys-most-extraordinary-chapter-279398

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Nara Parameswaran, Senior Associate Dean for Research, College of Human Medicine, Michigan State University

Fielding frantic faculty emails and panicked texts was not how I had hoped my 2025 would begin. Little did I imagine that my role as a research dean at a medical school would be taken over by navigating chaotic grant terminations and delays of federal research funding, all justified in the name of scientific progress.

Under normal conditions, a major part of my job is reducing barriers for faculty, staff and students engaged in innovative research. For example, I make sure my faculty have enough human help to complete necessary administrative tasks so they can focus on their science while writing their grants. My overall goal is to remove roadblocks and foster an environment in which new discoveries are made that can improve people’s lives.

But none of us in research leadership positions around the country had ever faced anything like the Trump administration’s attacks on universities and science.

One of my first clues that we were no longer operating in business-as-usual mode was when the White House terminated U.S. Agency for International Development grants. Michigan State University was one of the institutions affected by this major blow to agricultural, food and other global research, but the medical school where I work wasn’t directly hit. Our turn came when DOGE – the Department of Government Efficiency, a Trump administration effort at eliminating bureaucratic waste – turned its attention to the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

As the White House took aim at higher education and the scientific research enterprise with its budgetary scalpels, my world was thrown into chaos.

The human costs of grant uncertainty

While interruptions to grant funding slow scientific progress, there is an immediate real-world human cost to the upheaval.

Consider the case of one of my junior faculty members. 2025 was a critical year for them: If they didn’t receive funding, they would lose their employment – it’s common in academia for scientists to need to raise money to support their own research and part of their salary. Their NIH program officer – the person who recommends whether a grant would be funded – had previously told them their proposal would likely be successful. But by February 2025, that NIH officer was DOGE’d – that is, fired – and so the fate of the grant remained in limbo.

The review of a second grant proposal that this MSU researcher had submitted to NIH was delayed by several months after NIH suspended the panels that assess the scientific merit of grant submissions.

By the time the faculty member received initial feedback on that grant and resubmitted it for reevaluation, the government had shut down and delayed the review again. By this point, nearly a year had passed and no grant had been awarded – or rejected, for that matter.

Without funding, this faculty member cannot conduct experiments, pay or train students and other lab members, or purchase essential supplies to do experiments. As a result, both scientific progress and their career advancement remain in jeopardy; they hang on by a thread while waiting for yet another grant to come through.

Sadly, this was not an unusual case. A number of faculty – at my school and across the country – had received funding, only to have the government cancel their grants mid-project for unknown or unclear reasons. Haphazard grant terminations or prolonged uncertainty create chaos not only for faculty, but also for students, research staff and all the families who depend on these positions for income.

Identifying new resources to help faculty continue their work became one of my top priorities. But finding spare money is not a trivial task. It meant working with the college and university leaders to identify resources, prioritizing some spending while holding back on other budget items, as well as raising money from the community for what we called “research rescue.”

A small group of medical school research deans from various universities started meeting on Sundays – the only day that worked for everyone. We share information, provide advice and support and try to think strategically about how to help faculty. We talk about any successes and commiserate about the depth of the chaos at our institutions. None of us were trained to deal with this kind of situation, and the support of this group has been critical for me personally.

In addition, the research deans from various colleges here at MSU discuss these issues regularly with each other and other university officials to strategize how to navigate these difficult times, sharing information among people with different roles.

A generation of scientists at risk

One of the most profound consequences of all this instability has been its impact on the next generation of scientists, especially Ph.D. students and postdoctoral scholars. Not only are these early-career researchers training to be the scientists of the future, but they are also essential contributors to performing grant-funded experiments, publishing in scientific journals and ensuring research program continuity.

By June 2025, several dozen Ph.D. students across my campus were affected by grant terminations or delays. With more than 100 faculty from my college concerned about funding, many postdoctoral scholars working under them faced uncertain futures. This wasn’t unique to our college or university – this was, and is, a national problem.

Anticipating deep cuts to funding for student stipends and training, institutions were forced to reduce or even cancel graduate student admissions for the year.

Additional widespread disruption stemmed from revoking F-1 visas, which had allowed international students to study in the U.S., and terminating related recordkeeping, placing international students in academic and personal limbo.

Recruitment and training were further complicated by a September 2025 proclamation calling for restrictions on H-1B visas. This further constrained universities’ ability to recruit postdoctoral scholars and faculty who aren’t American citizens.

Unsurprisingly, these conditions have profoundly shaped how students and trainees assess their future careers. In a 2025 survey of 824 trainees, 77% said that recent executive orders or federal policy changes influenced their career plans significantly or somewhat. The long-term implications of these barriers could be grim, especially because more than half of the country’s postdoc scholars in science, technology, engineering and math, and around a third of the country’s graduate students, are visa holders.

Recent data on who received grant funding revealed troubling trends, particularly for early-career investigators. As a research dean, my major worry is about the livelihoods of these scientists, especially because most of them have young families to provide for.

A new reality for scientists

Countless breakthroughs that have altered the course of human and animal health have been made possible by sustained federal research investment through agencies such as NIH. These discoveries are made by real people working in research labs or in the communities we serve, and this work requires real money.

Declines in support for these researchers, coupled with reduced graduate enrollment and ongoing visa challenges, risk erasing an entire generation of scientists, with consequences that will reverberate for many years.

All these unresolved challenges – grant terminations, potential reductions in funding for research infrastructure, federal workforce cuts, visa instability, lawsuits and threats to the next generation of the scientific workforce – have converged into a single reality: Uncertainty has become the norm. Each day brings new questions about who will be affected and how to respond in ways that protect faculty, staff and students so they can continue their important work.

Nara Parameswaran has received funding from National Institutes of Health, American Heart Association, Korean Ginseng Society and the California Prune industry.

– ref. Panicking scientists, canceled experiments – federal funding cuts turned my work as a research dean into crisis management – https://theconversation.com/panicking-scientists-canceled-experiments-federal-funding-cuts-turned-my-work-as-a-research-dean-into-crisis-management-277162

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Ari Berkowitz, Presidential Professor and Graduate Liaison for biology programs; Director, Cellular & Behavioral Neurobiology Graduate Program, University of Oklahoma

The International Olympic Committee announced a new policy on March 26, 2026, for women’s competitions: Every athlete must be tested for a gene called SRY, usually found on the Y chromosome. Males typically have a Y chromosome and females typically don’t, so the IOC says this requirement will exclude “biological males.” This announcement comes as planning for the 2028 Summer Olympics, hosted in Los Angeles, is underway.

But the IOC statement hides the complexity of biological sex and continues the organization’s century of what the record shows is inconsistent and biologically unsound sports policies.

I’m a biology professor and author of an upcoming book, “The Binary Delusion: How Biology Defies the Myth of Two Sexes.” While the impetus for the new policy seems to be exclusion of transgender women from women’s athletics, it will more likely exclude and draw unwelcome publicity to many more women who are not transgender.

Few elite athletes are transgender

Transgender people have faced mounting legal and political attacks in recent years.

President Donald Trump issued an executive order on Jan. 20, 2025, asserting that biological sex is simple and binary – that everyone is unambiguously female or male – and another executive order precluding “males” from women’s competitions.

At least 29 U.S. states have excluded transgender girls and women from girl’s and women’s athletic competitions. These laws are built on the idea that men on average are superior to women in many sports, so women need to be protected from unfair competition.

But elite transgender athletes are rare. In a 2024 hearing before the U.S. Senate, the president of the NCAA testified that of the 510,000 athletes in U.S. colleges at that time, he was aware of fewer than 10 transgender athletes – less than 0.002%.

Only one known transgender woman has ever participated in an Olympic women’s competition since the committee allowed women to compete in the Games beginning in 1900: Laurel Hubbard, a weightlifter who competed for New Zealand in 2021 but did not medal.

The rarity of transgender athletes in elite competition suggests their exclusion is a solution in search of a problem.

Biological sex is complicated

The genetic test the IOC is requiring is more likely to identify intersex women.

Intersex people have a combination of typically female and typically male biological sex traits. These include sex chromosomes, internal and external reproductive anatomy, sex hormones and hormone receptors.

There are many variations of intersex traits, but three may be the most relevant for women’s athletic competitions: androgen insensitivity, 5-alpha-reductase deficiency and genetic mosaicism.

People with androgen insensitivity don’t respond as much to androgens like testosterone. Some believe that having high levels of testosterone can give athletes a competitive advantage. Athletes with this condition gain little or no advantage like muscle growth from androgens. This also means their visible sex characteristics, including their genitals, appear mostly or entirely female. The new IOC policy has an exception for “complete” androgen insensitivity but doesn’t say how athletes would demonstrate this.

The policy also doesn’t mention partial androgen insensitivity, where androgen receptors respond to testosterone but probably not enough to gain a significant advantage in performance. Nevertheless, athletes with partial androgen insensitivity will presumably fail the test and be excluded from participating under the new policy.

People with 5-alpha-reductase deficiency make and respond to testosterone but make little or none of a more potent androgen called dihydrotestosterone, or DHT. If they have no DHT, their genitals appear more female and they gain less athletic advantage from androgens. People with this condition who have a Y chromosome will fail the new sex test and be excluded.

People with mosaicism are born with some cells that have a Y chromosome and some that do not. Women can develop mosaicism during pregnancy, when fetal cells with Y chromosomes cross the placenta into her body. The woman will have some cells with a Y chromosome, perhaps for the rest of her life. Such cells could cause a previously pregnant athlete to fail the new test.

History of sex testing in women’s athletics

The IOC and associated sports federations have a long history of sex testing, especially for track events. Sex testing has switched from genitals to genes to testosterone levels, and now back to genes. While the stated goal for these policies was to uncover males pretending to be female, they have never found any. Instead, they identified and excluded intersex women.

For much of the 20th century, sports administrators examined genitals if a competitor was suspected of being male. In the mid-1960s, they began examining the genitals of all women participating in International Amateur Athletics Federation competitions in what were called “nude parades.”

The nude parades embarrassed athletes and sports federations and were replaced by newly available chromosome or gene tests in the late 1960s. These tests were often done without informed consent – athletes were instead told they were being tested for performance-enhancing drugs. The test results were then often revealed publicly without the athlete’s consent.

For example, in 1967, the Polish sprinter Ewa Klobukowska, who had won three gold medals and set three world records, was designated “male” by a chromosome test, though she had typically female genitals. She was excluded from competition and forced to return her medals. But the following year, she gave birth – she apparently had genetic mosaicism.

In 1985, a Spanish hurdler, Maria José Martínez-Patiño, found out through a public announcement that she was designated “male” by a genetic test and excluded from competition. “I felt ashamed and embarrassed,” she has said in a personal account. “I lost friends, my fiancé, hope and energy. But I knew that I was a woman and that my genetic difference gave me no unfair physical advantage. I could hardly pretend to be a man; I have breasts and a vagina.” She has complete androgen insensitivity.

Genetic testing largely gave way to testing testosterone levels in recent decades, which also excluded many intersex athletes. The 2026 IOC announcement states that there is no overlap in the testosterone levels of female and male elite athletes, but published research examining hundreds of elite athletes contradicts this statement.

In 2021, the IOC announced a new policy stating that “Every person has the right to practise sport without discrimination and in a way that respects their health, safety and dignity.” But the committee left it to each sport’s federation to regulate their own competitions, leading to a confusing mix of criteria that may have paved the way for the organization’s simplified 2026 policy.

SRY gene test is misleading

The IOC’s 2026 policy hints at the complexity of biological sex, stating that sex includes “sex chromosomes, gonads and hormones.” But it’s odd that genitals didn’t make their list, considering that genitals – external sex organs like the vagina and penis – are how most ordinary people define female and male, how physicians assign sex at birth, and how the IOC itself defined sex for decades.

Sex testing through genital inspection, though embarrassing and traumatizing for many athletes, may have been a better indicator of athletic advantage from androgens like testosterone than the SRY gene. During prenatal development, androgens cause initially undefined body structures to become a penis and scrotum; in their absence, or with androgen insensitivity, these structures become a clitoris and labia instead. Thus, typically female genitals indicate low androgen levels or low sensitivity to androgens, which suggests an athlete’s physical performance was not enhanced by these hormones.

Unless the IOC takes scrupulous care to screen for these exceptions, its new genetic test will likely exclude athletes who have not gained an advantage from androgens. Their new policy, however, states that “the need for consistency and fairness across sports” will not allow for “case-by-case consideration.”

As a result, it’s likely that another generation of intersex women will be excluded from the Olympics.

Ari Berkowitz receives funding from the National Science Foundation.

– ref. Sex test used in IOC’s new transgender ban more likely to exclude from Olympics intersex women who were assigned female at birth – https://theconversation.com/sex-test-used-in-iocs-new-transgender-ban-more-likely-to-exclude-from-olympics-intersex-women-who-were-assigned-female-at-birth-279489

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Michelle L.D. Hanlon, Professor of Air and Space Law, University of Mississippi

The next U.S. trip to the Moon isn’t about planting a flag. It’s about learning how to live and work there.

NASA has just reset its Artemis program, marking a clear strategic shift: Space exploration is moving away from a race to achieve milestones and toward a system built on repeated operations, a sustained presence and lunar infrastructure that could become part of the technology networks we rely on here on Earth.

That shift is reflected in newly announced plans to invest billions of dollars in building a long-term lunar base, with habitats, power systems and surface infrastructure designed to support ongoing human activity. The message? Humans have already normalized travel to space. The next step is normalizing living beyond Earth.

Artemis is NASA’s plan to return people to the Moon with the goal of staying. Unlike the short Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s, it consists of increasingly complex missions: flying around the Moon, landing on its surface and eventually establishing a base near the lunar south pole. The program aims to create a reliable way for humans to live and work there, develop technologies useful on Earth and prepare for the journey to Mars.

Rather than moving straight from the upcoming Artemis II crewed lunar flyby to a surface landing, the new road map adds an intermediate mission in 2027. Astronauts will test docking, life-support systems and communications with commercial lunar landers from SpaceX and Blue Origin, but in low Earth orbit, the region roughly 100 to 1,200 miles (160 to 2,000 kilometers above Earth’s surface, where rescue remains possible.

The first landing near the lunar south pole is now targeted for 2028. This timeline may sound delayed, but in reality, it has been deliberately reset to prioritize building reliable systems that can operate long into the future over speed.

As a professor of air and space law, I’ve been watching these developments closely. The United States is still in a race – particularly with China – but it is choosing to compete on its own terms. Rather than chasing the fastest possible landing, NASA is focused on building a system that can support repeated missions and a lasting human presence.

From sprint to system

The original Artemis plan aimed to leap quickly from test flights to a crewed landing while simultaneously developing new rockets, spacecraft and landing systems. That approach carried risk. Artemis I, an uncrewed mission, flew successfully in 2022. After a few delays, Artemis II is now nearing launch, with windows planned for early April 2026. But the further jump to a safe and reliable landing remains significant.

NASA’s new road map slows the transition deliberately. Instead of stand-alone milestones, NASA is now building a sequence of repeatable steps to gain hands-on experience.

This change includes a substantial new investment, with a multiphase plan for a lunar base with habitats, power systems and the surface infrastructure needed for a long-term human presence on the Moon. Consistent launch cadence and repeatable operations are how teams develop the expertise needed for safe, reliable spaceflight and eventually for traveling to Mars.

This shift is reflected in the decision to pause the planned lunar Gateway station, a small space station intended to orbit the Moon, and prioritize infrastructure on the lunar surface itself, where astronauts will live, work and build over time.

The new changes also emphasize a shifting role for commercial companies.
SpaceX’s and Blue Origin’s lunar landers are integrated into the mission architecture.

The 2027 test mission, for example, will practice docking between crewed spacecraft and new commercial lunar landers in low Earth orbit. NASA is coordinating a network of public and private partners rather than running a single government-run Apollo-like program.

This method spreads risk across partners, lowers costs and speeds development, though success now depends on multiple players working reliably together.

Law follows activity

NASA’s road map is not just about lowering technical risk. It is also about shaping the future environment of lunar activity.

International space law, including the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, sets out broad principles to guide space activities, like avoiding harmful interference with others’ activities. But those rules only gain real meaning through repeated, coordinated activity, especially on the lunar surface, where desirable landing sites are limited.

Countries and companies that maintain a sustained presence on the Moon will shape the practical expectations everyone will share while living and working on the Moon. One-off demonstrations, like lunar landings, don’t shape lunar activity like continued operations would.

Why this matters – even if you never go to space

It would be easy to see these changes as purely technical, but they are not. The structure of a space program shapes what technologies are developed, how industries grow and which countries influence how space is used. Technologies developed for sustained lunar activity, including life-support systems, energy storage and advanced communications, have found applications on Earth, from medicine to disaster response.

There are economic effects as well. The Artemis program supports jobs across the United States and among its international partners. It helps build industries that extend far beyond NASA itself.

And there is a strategic dimension. As more countries and companies operate in space, the question is no longer just who arrives first, but who helps define how activity is carried out. Over time, that presence will likely become part of the infrastructure that supports daily life on Earth.

Communications, navigation, supply chains and scientific data already depend on space-based systems. As activity expands to the Moon, facilities there, from energy systems to communications relay systems that transmit data and signals back to Earth, will become integrated into those networks. What is built on the Moon will not sit apart from life on Earth, but increasingly function as an extension of it.

The Moon is becoming a place where infrastructure, industry and rules and expectations for how humans operate there are already beginning to take shape. NASA’s updated plan signals that the United States intends to be present there consistently.

The updates to the Artemis program are a statement about how the United States intends to engage in the next phase of space exploration. Rather than pursuing a single dramatic landing, the U.S. is committing to the steady, repeatable work of building a lasting foothold on the Moon, and redefining humanity’s relationship with space itself.

Michelle L.D. Hanlon 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. NASA wants to build a base on the Moon by the 2030s – how and why it plans to build up to a long-term lunar presence – https://theconversation.com/nasa-wants-to-build-a-base-on-the-moon-by-the-2030s-how-and-why-it-plans-to-build-up-to-a-long-term-lunar-presence-279166