Media ArticlesExcerpts of Key Media Articles in Major Media
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Nine years ago, Cecilia Llusco was one of 11 Indigenous women who made it to the summit of the 6,088 metre-high Huayna PotosĂ in Bolivia. They called themselves the cholitas escaladoras (the climbing cholitas) and went on to scale many more peaks in Bolivia and across South America. Llusco takes enormous pride in being an Indigenous woman and always goes up mountains wearing her pollera, a voluminous traditional floral skirt. Her belief in the strength of others, particularly women, is steadfast and reassuring. Though he cannot speak or hear, Asom Khan has so much to say. When I arrived at his shelter in a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh, he was quick to dig out his art books so I could see his drawings, to show me the photos he takes with his phone, and to tell me his story through the makeshift sign language he has developed. Photography has allowed Asom to communicate to the world what it is like to live in a refugee camp, where he has now spent almost half of his life. [Human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh's] determination to stand up for victims of injustice in Iran is resolute. For decades she has fought for justice, defending children on death row, child victims of domestic abuse and prominent activists. The government has been relentless in its efforts to crush her spirit, but Sotoudeh refuses to give up hope. Some question how, as a wife and mother, she could risk imprisonment, after she was sentenced to 38 years and 148 lashes for her human rights work in 2019. But her husband and children's support is unwavering: "People say life is precious, don't sacrifice your family life, but human rights and freedom are also valuable and precious."
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For 4.4 billion people, the only water available is unsafe to drink. In the early 1990s, I was working as a physicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory ("Berkeley Lab") when I heard about a devastating cholera outbreak in my home country. I started to study waterborne pathogens with the aim to develop a new way to make water drinkable that would be affordable and effective in rural areas of low income countries. In a short few years, and later on with funding support from the Energy Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, I came up with an invention – the UV Waterworks – that met all my goals. It was inexpensive, efficient, portable and effective. Roughly the size of a microwave, the device sanitizes water using UV light to kill harmful bacteria, viruses and molds. It can purify approximately four gallons of water per minute and provide a year's worth of potable drinking water for just seven cents per person. The University of California, which runs the lab, filed the initial patent. I helped found WaterHealth International, which exclusively licensed the UV Waterworks technology from the university in 1996. In the time since, the invention has benefited tens of million people across India and Africa. Roughly 80% of our customers live below the poverty line in their home countries.
Note: Read about the ecologist who used sunlight, plants, and pond life to turn toxic sewage into clean drinking water–proving that nature can heal what industry has broken. Explore more positive stories like this on technology for good.
Campaigners have accused Facebook parent Meta of inflicting "potentially lifelong trauma" on hundreds of content moderators in Kenya, after more than 140 were diagnosed with PTSD and other mental health conditions. The diagnoses were made by Dr. Ian Kanyanya, the head of mental health services at Kenyatta National hospital in Kenya's capital Nairobi, and filed with the city's employment and labor relations court on December 4. Content moderators help tech companies weed out disturbing content on their platforms and are routinely managed by third party firms, often in developing countries. For years, critics have voiced concerns about the impact this work can have on moderators' mental well-being. Kanyanya said the moderators he assessed encountered "extremely graphic content on a daily basis which included videos of gruesome murders, self-harm, suicides, attempted suicides, sexual violence, explicit sexual content, child physical and sexual abuse ... just to name a few." Of the 144 content moderators who volunteered to undergo psychological assessments – out of 185 involved in the legal claim – 81% were classed as suffering from "severe" PTSD, according to Kanyanya. The class action grew out of a previous suit launched in 2022 by a former Facebook moderator, which alleged that the employee was unlawfully fired by Samasource Kenya after organizing protests against unfair working conditions.
Note: Watch our new video on the risks and promises of emerging technologies. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Tech and mental health.
A British woman has said a stroke left her with an Italian accent and the ability to speak the language, despite having never visited the country. Althia Bryden, 58, was found unresponsive by her husband Winston one evening after suffering a stroke. Mr Bryden described finding his wife "staring and unable to talk" as "terrifying" and said he immediately called an ambulance. The grandmother of two remained in hospital for nine days. On July 30, Mrs Althia was admitted back into hospital for surgery ... and, after three months being unable to speak, awoke with an Italian accent and the ability to say words in the language. It is thought that she has foreign accent syndrome, which is a rare medical condition that causes a person's speech to sound as though they have a foreign accent, even if they have not acquired it. Mrs Althia ... said: "I spent three months after my stroke thinking I'd never be able to talk again... I felt like a shell of the person I once was. "A nurse came to my hospital bed do a routine check and completely out of the blue, I just started speaking. She looked as shocked as I did. "Firstly, I couldn't believe it was me talking, but I also didn't recognise the sound of my voice. To my amazement, I'm also able to speak Italian... a language I've never learnt or spoke ever before. "Without realising, I will say an Italian word mid-conversation, which is the Italian word for what I'm trying to say in English. "I have no idea I'm about to do it – my brain just converts the English word into Italian."
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on the mysterious nature of reality.
Juan Guillermo GarcĂ©s remembers coming face to face with death at age 17. GarcĂ©s and his brother started the fire that nearly killed them to clear a large stretch of land. The brothers survived, but the fire destroyed the little remaining patch of virgin forest on the family's 2,500-hectare (6,200-acre) ranch, nestled along Colombia's Magdalena River. In an attempt to undo the damage he caused in his youth, the 74-year-old created the Rio Claro nature reserve, a 3,000-hectare (7,400-acre) oasis teeming with wildlife. Today, GarcĂ©s's reserve marks him as one of Colombia's most successful environmental protectors. The Rio Claro basin is home to almost 850 species of fauna and more than 3,000 of flora. "More than 100 new species have been discovered in Rio Claro … and counting," says SaĂşl E Hoyos-GĂłmez, a botanical biologist. "It is a very special place – one of the few where you can find this level of biodiversity." His method is simple. He buys plots of land from peasant farmers, often deforested pastures, and then lets them rest. Recovery in the region's hot and humid climate is fast. Left alone, pasture reverts to jungle within decades. About 80% of GarcĂ©s' reserve consists of land reforested in this way. To build his reserve, GarcĂ©s has had to navigate complex relationships with peasant farmers, the government and armed groups. Growing numbers of Colombian landowners are following GarcĂ©s's lead, turning pastures into reserves.
Note: Learn about the logger who fell in love with trees. Explore more positive stories on healing the Earth.
Too many people are being prescribed antidepressants to deal with stressful life events or social problems, according to a growing chorus of doctors and researchers. More than 14% of Australians are currently taking antidepressants, one of the highest rates in the world. Dr Matt Fisher, who researches wellbeing and the impact of stress, says while he has heard health workers talk about this "as a good thing, because it means more people are getting access to help", he doesn't see it as a success story. Fisher ... is concerned Australia's high use of antidepressants "constitutes a failed attempt to medicate away what are, in fact, social problems". He says while "antidepressants may be of benefit to some people suffering persistent psychosocial distress," they should not be the default, first response. Chronic stress, where people are exposed to an ongoing, recurrent stressor without any easy or accessible way to resolve it – increasing the risk of isolation, exclusion, humiliation and harm – is a significant driver of mental distress in Australia. The common causes of chronic stress include things such as being in debt, having a low income, poor working conditions, or being exposed to racism or domestic violence. "Governments evade the problem by persisting with individualised, medicalised, drug-based strategies," he says. "These strategies aren't reducing high rates of mental distress, sometimes do harm, and marginalise attention on social causes."
Note: The UK's medicines regulator is launching a review of over 30 commonly prescribed antidepressants, including Prozac, amid rising concerns about links to suicide, self-harm, and long-term side effects like persistent sexual dysfunction–especially in children. Our latest Substack, Lonely World, Failing Systems: Inspiring Stories Reveal What Sustains Us, dives into the loneliness crisis exacerbated by the digital world and polarizing media narratives, along with inspiring solutions and remedies that remind us of the true democratic values that bring us all together.
U.S. and Chinese government officials knew as early as February 2020 that the emerging novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 had already been well-adapted to humans – an early signal not only that it would spread efficiently, but also that it may not have emerged at the Wuhan wet market. Recently released chat messages indicate that former National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci was informed by early February 2020 by then-China Center for Disease for Disease Control and Prevention Director George Gao that the emerging novel coronavirus had already "adapted to human hosts well." It was not until approximately three months later, on May 21, 2020, that this alarming characteristic of the novel coronavirus, starkly different than the SARS virus that circulated from 2002-2004, first generated widespread discussion and debate in the U.S. Critics included authors of an earlier March 2020 publication in Nature Medicine titled "The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2." While this paper acknowledged the virus was well adapted to humans, it described this feature as assuredly natural. The paper was viewed millions of times within days and made the authors go-to experts in the media on the novel coronavirus. It wasn't until Freedom of Information Act requests and lawsuits revealed Fauci's emails that the public became aware of his involvement with the conception of that paper. "It is indeed striking that this virus is so closely related to SARS yet is behaving so differently. It seems to have been preadapted for human spread since the get go," coauthor University of Sydney virologist Eddie Holmes said in a message on February 10, 2020.
Note: Watch our Mindful News Brief on the cover-up of COVID origins. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on biotech dangers.
Since their liberation from a dictatorship Dec. 8, Syrians have been in a cheering mood. People in the capital gave a hero's welcome to a grassroots rescue organization widely seen as the country's most selfless, trusted, and impartial group: the Syrian Civil Defense, otherwise known as The White Helmets. This band of some 3,000 unarmed and local volunteers, who wear white headgear, has saved more than 129,000 people during 13 years of civil war. They have rushed to bombed-out buildings to search for survivors – whether they be children, terrorists, or soldiers of the regime. After they served as first responders, they would then clear rubble, rebuild homes, and restore communities. Even though some 10% of them have been killed, the volunteers hold fast to their motto (a verse in the Quran): "Whoever saves one life, it is as if they have saved all of humanity." Its leader, Raed Al Saleh, says the group's neutrality and independence have been an important shield. "We existed before all these armed groups and we continue to exist based on the power of the people," he told Berkeley News in October. Now The White Helmets wants to help Syrians "shake off the dust of war," he said in a video on the social platform X. That effort includes their help in freeing political prisoners, clearing land mines, and preserving documents of the regime's abuses. "The Syria of peace and civilization will return to you," said Mr. Saleh.
Note: Check out our video on transforming the war machine, highlighting the stories of courageous individuals and groups who channel their skills into service and solidarity. Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive healing the war machine.
The United States prepared a rebel force to join the offensive that overthrew the regime of Bashar al-Assad, fighters have claimed. British and American-trained fighters in the Revolutionary Commando Army (RCA), a group aligned against Islamic State, were told "this is your moment" in a briefing by US Special Forces before Assad was ousted. The RCA revealed it had been told to scale-up its forces and "be ready" for an attack that could lead to the end of the Assad regime. Having worked with the RCA to dismantle the Islamic State's Syrian caliphate, the US still pays its fighters a salary to prevent the terror group's resurgence. Syria's 13-year civil war ... threw up a bewildering array of militias and alliances, most of them backed by foreign powers. It would therefore be only one of many ironies if the US has been in an effective alliance with a group like HTS, which was al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria until it broke away in 2017. It is equally ironic that rebel factions supported by the US are co-operating with those backed by Turkey in places like Palmyra, while fighting against each other elsewhere in the country. While Turkey opposed the US-supported Kurds in Syria, it was in full agreement about the threat posed by Isis. In recent days, the US has carried out dozens of air strikes on Isis positions even as its Kurdish allies have come under sustained attack from Syrian factions supported by Turkey.
Note: Watch former CIA director John Brennan suggest that the Syrian rebels we previously supported now pose more of a threat to Syrians and American interests. As recently as 2016, Syrian militias armed by the Pentagon were fighting with Syrian militias armed by the CIA. Learn more about war failures and lies in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center.
American officials are apoplectic about alleged mystery drones flying over the United States. Last Thursday, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy sent a letter to President Joe Biden, expressing "growing concern" about the drones and seeking federal help "to fully understand what is behind this activity." After beginning in New Jersey, drone hysteria is spreading like wildfire. The widespread anxiety ... about living beneath potentially malign mystery drones is striking, given America's proclivity for employing drones to spy on people across the world without their consent – and, in many cases, kill them. "After decades of the U.S. government flying armed military drones over cities and villages around the world, Americans are finally seeing how uncomfortable it is to have unknown aircraft buzzing overhead," said Erik Sperling of Just Foreign Policy, an advocacy group. "Even when drones are not killing people, it shouldn't be hard to imagine that having an unknown aircraft hovering above your head is not something most people are comfortable with." Populations subjected to constant drone activity report "exaggerated startle responses, fleeing indoors and hiding when seeing or hearing drones, fainting, poor appetite, psychosomatic symptoms, insomnia, and startled awakening at night with hallucinations about drones," according to a 2017 study. The psychological toll exists even when the perceived threat is merely aerial surveillance from on high.
Note: Read more about the tragic consequences of US drone warfare. A former US general once said that drones create more terrorists than they kill. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on UFOs.
Imagine. You heard the on-the-hour radio news bulletin while you got dressed that morning. You glanced at headlines on your phone on the way to work. You read the paper while you waited for your coffee in a cafe. Each encounter was, typically for the mainstream news, filled with death and doom. But after each snippet, you also heard or read a warning: â€Too much negative news may cause a distorted view of reality and harm your mental health.' Since the mandatory health warnings for majority-bad news media outlets were introduced, you've been much more aware of balancing your media intake so that you get a wider perspective on problems and progress. For the first time, you've really thought about it. Less doomscrolling, and more conscious solution-seeking. You're surprised at how much you accepted negative news to be normal, and how much better your mental health has felt as a result of the shift. This is the vision of Seán Wood, CEO of Positive News. The news media amounts to, he points out, an overarching shared story of how the world is. "The impact of that is obviously significant," says Wood. "While it's important to highlight problems so that society can course-correct ... Positive News shows that there can be a more balanced way of understanding the world, that keeps us informed, but allows people to engage more because we see a bigger picture, we see potential solutions and opportunities to contribute, we see the human potential."
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on technology for good.
In 2017, the drug industry middleman Express Scripts announced that it was taking decisive steps to curb abuse of the prescription painkillers that had fueled America's overdose crisis. Why hadn't the middlemen, known as pharmacy benefit managers, acted sooner to address a crisis that had been building for decades? One reason, a New York Times investigation found: Drugmakers had been paying them not to. For years, the benefit managers, or P.B.M.s, took payments from opioid manufacturers, including Purdue Pharma, in return for not restricting the flow of pills. As tens of thousands of Americans overdosed and died from prescription painkillers, the middlemen collected billions of dollars in payments. The P.B.M.s exert extraordinary control over what drugs people can receive and at what price. The three dominant companies – Express Scripts, CVS Caremark and Optum Rx – oversee prescriptions for more than 200 million. The P.B.M.s are hired by insurers and employers to control their drug costs by negotiating discounts with pharmaceutical manufacturers. They often pursue their own financial interests in ways that increase costs for patients, employers and government programs, while driving independent pharmacies out of business. Regulators have accused the largest P.B.M.s of anticompetitive practices. In addition ... P.B.M.s sometimes collaborated with opioid manufacturers to persuade insurers not to restrict access to their drugs.
Note: A former DEA agent has said that Congress helped drug companies create the opioid epidemic. Read how pharmacy benefit managers inflate the price of medications behind the scenes. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Pharma corruption.
MANNA [is a] nonprofit that provides free, medically-tailored meals (MTMs) and education about how nutrition affects health conditions to Philadelphians who need it. Last month, the journal BMC Nutrition released research ... showing that its clients achieved a "significant decrease in malnutrition risk" and meaningful changes in conditions like diabetes and hypertension. "This is the first of its kind," explains Jule Anne Henstenburg, PhD, director of The MANNA Institute. "There has never been research involving an in-depth evaluation of a functioning medically tailored meal program." Of the clients at risk for malnutrition when starting the program, 56 percent experienced a clinically significant reduction in malnutrition risk by program finish; 62 percent of clients with hypertension reduced their blood pressure by five or more units; among clients with diabetes, median hemoglobin A1C dropped from 8.3 percent to 7.7 percent, indicating improved blood sugar control. Body mass index (BMI) remained stable or decreased for 88 percent of clients who started the program with obesity. Clients can be referred to MANNA either by their medical care provider or through their health insurance plan. The majority of MANNA's clients are low-income, a population that often lives in food deserts, where healthy food is already hard to come by, and health literacy (the kind of insight needed to understand medically complex diets) can be low. "I see MANNA as the pharmacy for your prescription diet," [Chief executive officer of MANNA Sue] Daugherty says. "Imagine getting a prescription for your high blood pressure medicine and not having a pharmacy to fill it – that's what happens every day when folks are discharged with complex diets." The top five illnesses MANNA serves are heart disease, cancer, diabetes, HIV / AIDS and congestive heart failure. Originally created in 1990 to provide comfort foods to patients with AIDS, MANNA overhauled its menu and began expanding its reach to anyone with a life-threatening illness 10 years later.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing our bodies.
When Bank of America alerted financial regulators in 2020 to potentially suspicious payments from Leon Black, the billionaire investor, to Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier, the bank was following a routine practice. The bank filed two "suspicious activity reports," or SARs, which are meant to alert law enforcement to potential criminal activities like money laundering, terrorism financing or sex trafficking. One was filed in February 2020 and the other eight months later, according to a congressional memorandum. SARs are expected to be filed within 60 days of a bank spotting a questionable transaction. But the warnings in this case ... were not filed until several years after the payments, totaling $170 million, had been made. By the time of the first filing, Mr. Epstein had already been dead for six months. The delayed filings have led congressional investigators to question if Bank of America violated federal laws against money laundering. Bank of America is not the only big bank to have been questioned about suspicious transactions involving Mr. Epstein. In litigation involving hundreds of Mr. Epstein's sexual abuse victims, it was disclosed that JPMorgan Chase had filed several SARs after the bank kicked him out as a client in 2013. Deutsche Bank, which subsequently became Mr. Epstein's primary banker, paid a $150 million fine to New York bank regulators, in part because of its due diligence failures in monitoring Mr. Epstein's financial affairs.
Note: Read about the connection between Epstein's child sex trafficking ring and intelligence agency sexual blackmail operations. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on financial industry corruption and Jeffrey Epstein's trafficking and blackmail ring.
Earlier this year, officials at US Space Command released a list of priorities and needs, and among the routine recitation of things like cyber defense, communications, and surveillance was a relatively new term: "integrated space fires." Essentially, "fires" are offensive or defensive actions against an adversary. The Army defines fires as "the use of weapon systems to create specific lethal and nonlethal effects on a target." The inclusion of this term in a Space Command planning document was another signal that Pentagon leaders, long hesitant to even mention the possibility of putting offensive weapons in space for fear of stirring up a cosmic arms race, see the taboo of talking about space warfare as a thing of the past. Wartime scenarios in space range from a one-off cyberattack against a satellite system ... to a destructive nuclear detonation in Earth orbit. The Pentagon is also concerned with the ability of potential adversaries, particularly China, to use their satellites to bolster their land, air, and naval forces, similar to the way the US military leans on its space-based capabilities. One concept proposed by some government and industry officials is to launch roving "defender" satellites into orbit, with the sole purpose of guarding high-value US satellites against an attack. [Space Force General Chance] Saltzman said the service is already thinking about what to do to maintain what the Pentagon now calls "space superiority"–a twist on the term air superiority.
Note: Learn more about emerging warfare technology in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. Read more about the arms race in space. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on military corruption.
The fall of Syria this week is the culmination of the Israel-U.S. campaign against Syria that goes back to 1996 with Netanyahu's arrival to office as Prime Minister. In [Netanyahu's] 1996 book Fighting Terrorism, Israel would not fight the terrorists; it would fight the states that support the terrorists. More accurately, it would get the US to do Israel's fighting for it. This was confirmed to General Wesley Clark after 9/11. He was told ... that "we're going to attack and destroy the governments in seven countries in five years–we're going to start with Iraq, and then we're going to move to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran." Since 2011, the Israel-U.S. perpetual war on Syria, including bombing, jihadists, economic sanctions, U.S. seizure of Syria's oil fields, and more, has sunk the Syrian people into misery. The Israel-U.S. war on Syria escalated in 2011 and 2012, when Barack Obama covertly tasked the CIA with the overthrow of the Syrian Government in Operation Timber Sycamore. That effort finally came to "fruition" this week, after more than 300,000 deaths in the Syrian war since 2011. The U.S. has by now led or sponsored wars against Iraq (invasion in 2003), Lebanon (U.S. funding and arming Israel), Libya (NATO bombing in 2011), Syria (CIA operation during 2010's), Sudan (supporting rebels to break Sudan apart in 2011), and Somalia (backing Ethiopia's invasion in 2006). A prospective U.S. war with Iran, ardently sought by Israel, is still pending. Strange as it might seem, the CIA has repeatedly backed Islamist Jihadists to fight these wars, and jihadists have just toppled the Syrian regime. The CIA, after all, helped to create al-Qaeda in the first place by training, arming, and financing the Mujahideen in Afghanistan from the late 1970s onward.
Note: Remember when Syrian militias armed by the Pentagon fought with Syrian militias armed by the CIA? Learn more about how war is a tool for hidden agendas in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on intelligence agency corruption.
Corporate media is heralding the fall of Bashar al-Assad and the emergence of Abu Mohammed al-Jolani as the new leader of Syria, despite his deep ties to both al-Qaeda and ISIS. CNN portrayed him as a "blazer-wearing revolutionary." In 2013, [CNN] labeled him one of "the world's 10 most dangerous terrorists," known for abducting, torturing and slaughtering racial and religious minorities. Western governments consider Jolani's new organization, HayĘĽat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), as one and the same as Al-Qaeda/Al-Nusra. Jolani – whose real name is Ahmed Hussein al-Shar'a ... was captured by the U.S. military and spent over five years in prison, including a stint at the notorious Abu Ghraib torture center. While in Iraq, Jolani fought with ISIS and was even a deputy to its founder. Immediately upon release in 2011, ISIS sent him to Syria with a rumored $1 billion to found the Syrian wing of al-Qaeda. While both journalists and politicians in the U.S. are scrambling to change their opinions on Jolani and HTS, the reality is that, for much of its existence, Washington has enjoyed a very close relationship with al-Qaeda. The organization was born in Afghanistan in the 1980s, thanks in no small part to the CIA. Between 1979 and 1992, the CIA spent billions of dollars funding, arming, and training Afghan Mujahideen militiamen (like Osama bin Laden) in an attempt to bleed the Soviet occupation dry. The Bush administration would use [the 9/11] attacks as a pretext to invade both Afghanistan and Iraq, claiming that America could never be safe if al-Qaeda were not thoroughly destroyed. And yet, by the 2010s, even as the U.S. was ostensibly at war with al-Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan, it was secretly working with [al-Qaeda] in Syria on a plan to overthrow Assad. The CIA spent around $1 billion per year training and arming a wide network of rebel groups to this end. As National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a leaked 2012 email, "AQ [al-Qaeda] is on our side in Syria."
Note: As recently as 2016, Syrian militias armed by the Pentagon were fighting with Syrian militias armed by the CIA. Read more about how radicalized Iraqis were swept into US military detention at Camp Bucca–a notorious facility often called a "terrorist university"–where they forged alliances that directly led to the rise of ISIS.
World-leading scientists have called for a halt on research to create "mirror life" microbes amid concerns that the synthetic organisms would present an "unprecedented risk" to life on Earth. The international group of Nobel laureates and other experts warn that mirror bacteria, constructed from mirror images of molecules found in nature, could become established in the environment and slip past the immune defences of natural organisms, putting humans, animals and plants at risk of lethal infections. Many molecules for life can exist in two distinct forms, each the mirror image of the other. The DNA of all living organisms is made from "right-handed" nucleotides, while proteins, the building blocks of cells, are made from "left-handed" amino acids. Why nature works this way is unclear: life could have chosen left-handed DNA and right-handed proteins instead. Scientists have already manufactured large, functional mirror molecules to study them more closely. Some have even taken baby steps towards building mirror microbes, though constructing a whole organism from mirror molecules is beyond today's know-how. The fresh concerns over the technology are revealed in a 299-page report and a commentary in the journal Science. Beyond causing lethal infections, the researchers doubt the microbes could be safely contained or kept in check by natural competitors and predators. Existing antibiotics are unlikely to be effective, either.
Note: COVID-19 probably came from a lab. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on corruption in science and weapons of mass destruction.
A new study of children living through the war in Gaza has found that 96% of them feel that their death is imminent and almost half want to die as a result of the trauma they have been through. A needs assessment, carried out by a Gaza-based NGO sponsored by the War Child Alliance charity, also found that 92% of the children in the survey were "not accepting of reality", 79% suffer from nightmares and 73% exhibit symptoms of aggression. "This report lays bare that Gaza is one of the most horrifying places in the world to be a child," Helen Pattinson, chief executive of War Child UK, said. "Alongside the levelling of hospitals, schools and homes, a trail of psychological destruction has caused wounds unseen but no less destructive on children who hold no responsibility for this war." The estimated death toll in Gaza is more than 44,000 and a recent assessment by the UN Human Rights Office found that 44% of the fatalities it was able to verify were children. About 1.9 million Palestinians in Gaza, approximately 90% of the territory's total population, have been displaced, many several times. Half of that number are children who have lost their home and been forced to flee their neighbourhoods. More than 60% of the surveyed children reported having experienced traumatic events during the war and some had been exposed to multiple traumatic events. An estimated 17,000 children in Gaza are unaccompanied, separated from their parents.
Note: American companies are profiting from the war in Gaza. Learn more about human rights abuses during wartime in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center.
Portugal has a life expectancy nearly four years longer than the U.S. despite spending 20% of what the U.S. does on health care per person. According to the 2021 Global Security Index, which measures the ability to respond to pandemics, Portugal ranked third out of 195 countries in providing access to affordable health care. The United States ranked 183rd. Portugal has a national health care system, entitling every resident to free or very low-cost health care. It embraces innovative programs such as "social prescribing" that expand the boundaries of what is considered health care, while progressive laws on drug use and treatment have been credited with driving down overdose deaths, even as they rose in the U.S. In the 1990s, Portugal had one of the highest rates of heroin use and fatal overdoses anywhere. In 2001, the country not only decriminalized the use and possession of drugs, but also, in partnership with several non-governmental organizations such as Crescer, created a network of mostly free inpatient and outpatient treatment centers and mobile street teams that seek out drug users to provide medical care, clean needles, and support to enter addiction programs. Two decades later, drug overdose deaths have fallen sharply, from one per day to about 70 to 80 per year. New Jersey, with a smaller population than Portugal, sees 3,000 a year. HIV infection rates have dropped dramatically, too.
Note: Read our Substack to learn about social prescribing and other inspiring remedies to the chronic illness crisis ravaging the world. Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division and healing our bodies.
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