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Tuesday, October 06, 2026

Trump White House Told DOJ to Wait Until After Midterms to Push for Abortion Pill Ban

“They’re trying to pull one over on voters,” said one reproductive rights advocate.

US Attorney General Todd Blanche checks his watch as he takes questions from reporters during a press briefing in the Rose Garden of the White House on September 15, 2026, in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
Oct 02, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

The Trump administration is intentionally slow-rolling efforts to restrict abortion pill access until after the midterms. Once they’re over, “the gloves will be off,” according to one anti-abortion advocate who spoke with The Washington Sun.

US Attorney General Todd Blanche said during his July confirmation hearing that rules allowing abortion pills to be shipped nationwide were “wrong” and that he’d seek to review them. He’s also reportedly assured faith leaders he would work to ban abortion “in every single state.”

But according to a Friday report from the Sun, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles has intervened to limit the potential political fallout of new sweeping restrictions on a method that accounts for nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the US.

Six in 10 Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, and 68% say they oppose the banning of medication abortion nationwide. According to senior White House officials, Wiles warned Blanche that an aggressive effort to ban the drug would further alienate voters in November, when Republicans are already predicted to take heavy losses.

“No one wants us taking any real action before the midterms,” one senior administration official told the Sun, passing on the message apparently being pushed by White House staff to the Justice Department.

The White House has denied that the meetings took place, saying the report was “completely false.”

But anti-abortion activists who have pressured the White House told the Sun they believe officials are just biding their time until, in their view, the opinion of voters no longer matters.

“Once the midterms are over and it’s truly lame-duck time, we’ve heard the gloves will be off,” one of them said. “We have heard we have friends [in the White House], and there are definitely people who are staunch pro-lifers.”

During President Donald Trump’s second term, the DOJ has asked federal courts to pause several state lawsuits challenging Food and Drug Administration (FDA) policies that allow mifepristone to be prescribed via telehealth and delivered by mail. But critically, it has not defended those FDA policies on the merits, but rather sought to slow litigation against them on procedural grounds.

But evidence also suggests the administration is laying the groundwork to restrict access once the political costs are neutralized. Despite multiple prior reviews reaffirming its safety and effectiveness, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has spearheaded an FDA “safety” review of mifepristone that could tighten prescription and delivery rules.

Blanche, meanwhile, has indicated openness to reviving the 1873 Comstock Act, which banned the shipment of “lewd” and “indecent” materials through the mail, including those related to abortion.

Amy Littlefield, The Nation’s abortion access correspondent, has described Comstock as a “zombie law from the Victorian era,” but said it could serve as a “nuclear option” for effectively banning abortion nationwide without any need for an act of Congress.

Since the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling overturned the national right to an abortion, anti-abortion groups have pushed for the act to be interpreted in the most expansive way possible.

“If abortion opponents are right in their reading of it, if the courts agree with their reading of it, it could essentially be revived as a de facto nationwide abortion ban that would apply even in blue states,” Littlefield told Democracy Now! “Broadly interpreted, it could apply to latex gloves that might be used in an abortion, or syringes... It could be broadly interpreted to shut down not just mail-order abortions, but also clinic-based care, depending on how it’s read.”

In 2022, the DOJ under the Biden administration published a legal opinion stating that Comstock does not prohibit the mailing of abortion drugs unless the sender intends to use them illegally. During his confirmation, Blanche said he would revisit that opinion and would use “every lawful action available” to enforce the law.

One unnamed anti-abortion activist told the Sun they’ve been assured that, under Blanche, the DOJ is “actively working on” plans to use Comstock to restrict abortion. Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, has previously told the Sun that she’s had “encouraging” meetings with a DOJ official and that plans to rescind the 2022 memo are in the works.

Kristi Hamrick, vice president of media and policy for Students for Life, however, said the DOJ had indicated that “everything but the election is pushed until after the elections.”

Trump has vowed to be the “most pro-life president in history” since returning to office. But while campaigning in 2024, he pledged explicitly that he would “not block” access to abortion drugs.

Katie O’Connor, the director of federal abortion policy at the National Women’s Law Center, told Common Dreams that “asking the DOJ to wait until midterm votes are counted to take action on abortion is an intentionally deceptive move that keeps voters from making their voices heard.”

“This isn’t a surprise if you’ve been paying attention to how this administration operates when it comes to abortion,” said Mini Timmaraju, the president and CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All, in a social media post.

“Abortion is extremely popular with voters. Trump knows that,” she said. “But he’s also under a ton of pressure from anti-abortion extremists to take away access to medication abortion, which is used in the majority of abortions in the US and has been a lifeline for access post-[Roe v. Wade].”

“They’re trying to pull one over on voters,” she said. “We’re not going to let that happen.”

The sex, money and evangelism scandal tainting Brazil’s RIGHT WING political elite

Adrian Blomfield
Sat, October 3, 2026
The Telegraph

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the Brazilian president, has been a target of voters' anger at a 'rotten system' - AP/Silvia Izquierdo

The man tearing Brazil's establishment apart came dressed as Dracula.

He was ostensibly a devout man. Before becoming the country's most notorious banker he had presented a gospel music show on an evangelical television station. His family had even helped fund, build and lead a 2,000-seat mega church.

But it was at Madame Satã's nightclub, with its crystal chandeliers and velvet chaises longues, that Daniel Vorcaro was alleged to have been in his element.

The guest list had been carefully selected. The women, 120 of them, were all beautiful and all paid. According to a police report leaked to Brazil's Piauí magazine, his instructions were specific: "Only young girls. Half from abroad."

Madame Sata's nightclub was the venue for a party where Brazil's elite mingled with beautiful women flown in from abroad, according to police reports

But it was the men at his São Paulo Halloween party that Mr Vorcaro really cared about. There were just 20 of them, but they represented the cream of Brazil's political, judicial and corporate elite.

From senior senators and supreme court justices to corporate heavyweights, everyone on the guest list held a key to what the arriviste banker wanted most: insider access and protection that gave him the cover to perpetrate what investigators say was the biggest banking fraud in Brazil's history.

Day after day for months, a remorseless drip-feed of allegations has implicated almost every political party and national institution in South America's largest country, shocking a society that has experienced so many scandals it thought itself inured to them.

It is against this backdrop that Brazilian adults, legally required to vote, will troop sullenly to the ballot box on Sunday.

The daily drip feed of scandal has taken the shine off election campaigning - Eduardo Soteras for The Telegraph

There are multiple names on the presidential ballot, but only two matter: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the 80-year-old incumbent known as Lula, and his right-wing challenger Flavio Bolsonaro, whose father Jair ruled Brazil from 2018 to 2022 but now languishes in prison.

Victory for the younger Bolsonaro would cap a near clean sweep for pro-Trump right-wing populists in South America's "blue wave".

Lula's campaign team has accused Mr Trump of meddling in the election to secure victory for his rival, yet most Brazilians care less about outside interference than the scandal that has tarnished both candidates.

Their anger perhaps explains why the raucousness of past elections has vanished. The campaign has been almost invisible, with few posters evident or rallies held, as though Brazil's politicians had slunk away in shame to hide themselves from their people.

As well they might.

Mr Vorcaro's alleged Banco Master fraud enriched an already privileged few, but the price was borne by those at the bottom of society.

The Ponzi scheme Mr Vorcaro is accused of constructing was built, campaigners and investigators say, on the misery of hundreds of thousands of poor pensioners and state employees who watched as money was syphoned from their accounts every month without their permission.

"I am the anarchy of the system," Mr Vorcaro boasted in a leaked WhatsApp message to his former fiancée Martha Graeff, a fitness influencer. In that, if on little else, a divided nation agrees.

A leak from Martha Graeff's WhatsApp revealed her former fiancé Mr Vorcaro boasting he was 'the anarchy of the system' - Getty/Rodrigo Varela

See no evil

The women he hired for his Halloween bash and other parties were allegedly forced to hand over their phones before entering. Mr Vorcaro's messages show he insisted on foreign women, often flown into Brazil on his fleet of private jets, because they could not understand the Portuguese used by the VIPs.

Mr Vorcaro could afford it. Paintings by Picasso and Basquiat hung on the walls of his properties, including a £64m waterfront villa in Miami, according to court documents submitted by Banco Master's liquidators.

Even by the standards of Faria Lima, São Paulo's Wall Street, his lifestyle stood out. His Halloween party at Madame Satã's cost £3.5m, the documents claim – yet that paled beside the £28m party featuring Coldplay, Andrea Bocelli and other A-listers in Taormina, Sicily.

As Mr Vorcaro splashed out, Banco Master's assets soared 23-fold to nearly £13bn in the six years after he bought it in 2019. Despite red flags raised by auditors and junior staff, no one in authority at Brazil's central bank, its security regulator or its state-backed deposit insurance fund – which has now paid out more than £8bn in compensation since the bank's collapse last year – asked any questions.

The collapse of Daniel Volcaro's bank has led to £8bn in compensation payments

In fact, the only people doing any real probing were Brazilian journalists, most notably Piauí's Consuelo Dieguez, who was tipped off in late 2024 about severe anomalies on Banco Master's balance sheet. Inspecting the bank's documents, she concluded it was completely insolvent, and that the deposit insurance fund faced losing a third of its holdings bailing it out.

"When I saw the documents, I said, 'my God, how can the central bank see this and not liquidate the bank?' It was obviously a risk to the system."

The more she dug, the more she realised the problem was more than just complacency. Police investigators later alleged central bank officials had turned a blind eye after receiving payments, gifts and holidays. The officials, who have since been suspended and remain under investigation, deny wrongdoing.

Yet Mr Vorcaro's influence-peddling net was cast far wider. Allegedly luring judges and politicians with lavish parties, monthly kickbacks and hefty contracts with family firms, he is claimed to have woven layers of official protection around his bank.

Even as he conjured up fantastical returns out of nothing for those duped into buying its instruments, no one in Brazil's establishment said anything.
Bolsonaro and the banker

As the scandal gathered momentum in the wake of Banco Master's closure in November, it was the Bolsonaro campaign that suffered most.

The alleged fraud took root when Jair Bolsonaro was president. Fabiano Zettel, Mr Vorcaro's brother-in-law and the man accused by police of being Banco Master's primary off-the-books financial operator, had been the single largest private donor to the senior Bolsonaro's failed re-election campaign in 2022. He denies the accusations.

More embarrassing disclosures were to come. In May, it emerged that Flavio Bolsonaro had sought and secured £8m from Mr Vorcaro to make a film portraying his father, serving a 27-year prison sentence for attempting to mount a coup after his 2022 defeat, as a persecuted hero.

Flavio Bolsonaro's campaign suffered most from the allegations at first, but disillusionment spread - Reuters/Alexandre Meneghini

Even after the Banco Master scandal broke, Flavio sent the disgraced banker messages of support, according to phone records unsealed by Brazil's supreme court.

He wrote: "Brother, I am and will always be with you." Until the messages were published, he had always denied personal links with Vorcaro. With months to go before the election, Lula opened up a commanding lead in the opinion polls.

However, it soon became clear that the rot was not confined to the right.

By June, Operation Compliance Zero, the police investigation into the scandal, had turned its attention to some of Lula's key allies, including Jaques Wagner, government leader in Brazil's senate, and Rui Costa, the president's chief of staff. Both men deny the allegations and Lula himself has not been implicated.
Blind justice

As the election has neared, the allegations have grown more damaging.

Brazil's supreme court had already been implicated in the scandal. Dias Toffoli, the justice overseeing the judicial side of the investigation, was forced to recuse himself after police alleged that funds linked to Banco Master had bought shares in a luxury resort owned by his brothers.

At least three of the court's 11 judges have been implicated in one way or another, all of whom deny the allegations, but the most startling revelations have centred on Alexandre de Moraes, who oversaw the case that led to Jair's conviction.

Alexandre de Moraes (centre) is one of three supreme court justices implicated in the case - Shutterstock/Andre Borges

Mr Moraes is revered on the Brazilian Left as the single most indispensable champion of the country's democracy. That Mr Trump imposed sanctions on him last year over the Bolsonaro trial only bolstered his reputation.

Yet documents unsealed last month by André Mendonça, the judge now overseeing the investigation, suggest an uncomfortably close relationship between Mr Vorcaro and Mr Moraes.

His wife, a lawyer, had a vague but expensive contract to represent Banco Master, a deal that included access to Mr Vorcaro's private jets and helicopters. She denies wrongdoing.

The judge kept up regular WhatsApp correspondence with the banker, the frequency of which increased shortly before Mr Vorcaro was arrested trying to flee the country in November, raising fears about what kind of advice Mr Moraes was giving.

Mr Moraes denies wrongdoing. His allies on the bench accuse Mr Mendonça, a right-wing evangelical appointed to the court by Jair, of pursuing a political vendetta against his fellow judges in order to sway the election.

"Mendonça's report about Moraes reads like a political pamphlet – like he is pursuing a political mission," Gilmar Mendes, a supreme court justice seen as close to Mr Moraes, told The Telegraph.

"His directions seem driven by the electoral process. The result is a very divided court, with consequences for its legitimacy. I have been here for 24 years and I have never seen anything like this."

A plague on all your houses

Whatever the truth, Brazilian anger against the Bolsonaro campaign is now equally directed at the president, whose lead in the polls has evaporated. With recent surveys showing a statistical dead heat, the momentum, if anything, is with Flavio.

"There's only one candidate clearly involved with the scandal, which is Flavio Bolsonaro, yet ironically the scandal is damaging Lula more," said Thiago Amâncio, an associate director at Control Risks, a consultancy. "In the eyes of voters, the system as a whole is rotten and so they want change."

Protesters at the Banco Master headquarters demand prison for Daniel Vorcaro, the banker at the heart of the scandal - ZUMA Press/Alamy/Oslaim Brito

Yet the election, whatever its outcome, is unlikely to be the end of the saga. While the headlines have focused on extravagant parties, establishment corruption and the behaviour of the political and judicial elite, the foundations of the alleged Ponzi scheme were built on money syphoned from the accounts of low-paid state workers and pensioners.

Exploiting regulatory loopholes and buying leaked databases of public workers, Banco Master is accused of generating unauthorised contracts with workers and pensioners holding so-called payroll loans, an instrument that allows banks to lend money to low-income earners and deduct payments directly from their wages.

Often without their knowledge, victims found that Banco Master, acting through intermediaries, had switched their existing loans into credit instruments carrying exorbitant interest rates with no fixed end-date, campaigners and investigators say.
Rob the poor, feed the rich

The human cost of this systemic drain is embodied by victims such as Suzana Rodrigues, a 65-year-old São Paulo pensioner. In 2024, while attempting to resolve a minor dispute over a loan with another bank, rogue brokers intercepted her data and fraudulently registered an unauthorised Banco Master contract in her name, she says.

Suddenly, her monthly repayments soared to £150, more than a sixth of her pension. At almost the same time, she was diagnosed with severe intestinal cancer. Drained of money for food and medication while enduring severe physical pain, she spent eight months fruitlessly appealing to police and consumer bodies before a lawyer secured a court injunction to halt the payments.

"I had to cut back on food just to survive," she said. "And in all that time, no one showed an ounce of mercy."

Ms Rodrigues is more fortunate than most. While richer Brazilians who bought Banco Master's high-interest instruments have largely been compensated by the deposit insurance fund, that has not been the case for those with payroll loans from the bank.

Many still continue to pay the instalments to its administrators, trapped in a cycle of debt not of their own making.

Suzana Rodrigues spent eight months fighting for compensation before a lawyer halted the payments draining her pension - Eduardo Soteras for The Telegraph

Worse may yet emerge. Both Susanne Schaefer, the lawyer representing Ms Rodrigues and 500 other victims, and Maria Paula Bertran, an academic at the University of São Paulo who has been investigating payroll scams, say illegal schemes were perpetrated by many other financial institutions, not just Banco Master.

That scandal is brewing but has yet to come fully to light. If the allegations prove true, Banco Master and other banks have systematically robbed many of Brazil's poorest people in order to benefit its richest.

It is a conclusion that sits at odds with Mr Vorcaro's loudly proclaimed Christian beliefs. Christ generally favoured giving succour to the poor rather than fleecing them.

Mr Vorcaro, who remains in custody with Mr Zettel and nine others linked to the bank, faces a slate of charges, all of which he denies, claiming he has been set up by competitors. There may be some truth in this, campaigners say, although so far there has been little appetite from authorities to investigate.

"Banco Master is only the most exuberant face of a more widespread problem," said Prof Bertran. "It's only the visible part of a much bigger iceberg."

Sunday, October 04, 2026

The popularity of the pill in France, once the most widely used method of contraception, has declined in recent years. © Unsplash / Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition

"What seemed to us to be a tremendous liberation – and which was a tremendous liberation – is clearly no longer seen in the same light."

At 79, gynaecologist Danielle Hassoun remembers a generation that started having sex at a time when abortion was still illegal. “So we didn’t weigh up the same factors,” she says.

Fully legalised in France in 1967, for decades the pill symbolised a major advance in women's health: the ability to separate sexuality from motherhood, and to choose when or whether to have a child.

For many women it became the norm, as part of an established contraceptive pathway: condoms at the start of one’s sex life, the pill once in a stable relationship and then an intrauterine device (IUD) – more commonly known as a coil – after having children.

Until recently, the pill was still the most common method of contraception for women in France.

Those days are gone. Whilst 55.8 percent of women aged 18 to 49 who used contraception were taking the pill in 2005, by 2023 this figure had fallen to 26.8 percent. The IUD has taken the lead, at 27.7 percent.

"This is a general trend," according to Caroline Moreau, a researcher at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm) and a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the United States.

In Germany, for example, 43 percent of women under the age of 22 were taking the pill in 2015 – compared with 22 percent in 2024. According to one survey, condoms are now the preferred method there.

This decline in popularity, notable since the mid-2000s, can be explained primarily by a generational shift, says Moreau. "Women have [now] grown up with the pill, so it is no longer seen as something liberating."

The pill: from symbol of women's liberation to subject of growing mistrust

Initially a symbol of liberation, the pill went on to become an almost inevitable part of a woman’s contraceptive journey. But today its use in France is in decline, the drop in popularity fuelled by health warnings, mistrust and a changing attitude towards contraception.

Issued on: 04/10/2026 - RFI

Balancing risk

For the first generation of users there were few alternatives, and the fear of an unwanted pregnancy loomed much larger at a time when abortion was by necessity clandestine. Since the advent of the pill the range of contraceptive options has widened, making side effects and constraints less acceptable to users.

The decline accelerated following a crisis surrounding third- and fourth-generation contraceptive pills in 2012, when media coverage of the increased risk of thrombosis led to a sharp drop in use. More broadly, this fuelled mistrust of hormonal contraception.

A new warning has recently added to the debate. On 10 September, the French National Agency for Medicines and Health Products Safety announced it would be sending a letter to users of desogestrel-based contraceptives to warn them of an increased risk of meningioma – tumours of the meninges, membranes that cover the brain and spinal cord.

While the absolute risk remains very low – approximately one additional case per 67,300 users of desogestrel- or etonogestrel-based contraceptives – Hassoun says: "It’s understandable that people don’t want to take risks for the sake of prevention. It’s not the same as taking medication as part of a course of treatment."

Jennifer Saint-Martin Denys works in Montpellier as a midwife – authorised to prescribe contraception in France since 2009 – and reports that since this latest warning, some women on hormonal contraception have come in saying they want to stop taking it.

In terms of the broader picture, she added: "Patients no longer want the pill."

Laure is in her forties and started taking the pill at the age of 14 to regulate her periods. She continued taking it for almost 15 years, "even during long periods when I wasn’t in a relationship and when I could undoubtedly have done things differently," she says.

"When I think about it now, it seems a bit strange to have carried on taking hormones every day when there were other solutions."

Moreau believes presenting the pill as "a given" rather than one of several options has also paradoxically contributed to declining use.

"We put people on the pill without asking any questions," she says. While she points out that the risk-benefit ratio of the pill remains favourable for many women, she adds: "But it is the woman’s choice, not the doctor's choice, and they must be informed of all the methods on offer."

'Reclaiming' the body

Social media posts too reflect a growing mistrust of hormonal contraception. In Germany, where the use of the contraceptive pill is declining sharply amongst young women, hashtags such as #pilleabsetzen ("stop taking the pill") and #hormonfrei ("hormone-free") have become common in recent years.

A study carried out in Germany and Denmark shows that shared testimonials are shifting the conversation beyond medical risks, with discussions increasingly centred on wellbeing, mood, libido and women's relationships with their bodies.

"The main priority for the majority of patients we see today is: I want to reduce my mental load," notes Saint-Martin Denys.

Free contraception extended to French women up to the age of 25

Clémence, aged 25, recalls that when she chose her first form of contraception at a family planning clinic at the age of 16, she was presented with several options: the pill, an IUD, an implant or a patch. At the time, the pill seemed the simplest solution to her – an IUD meant having to make an appointment with a gynaecologist.

But after two years on the pill, a few missed doses and the resulting pregnancy tests prompted her to make a change. A friend who had switched to an IUD – now the most widely used method of contraception in France – reassured her about the insertion, and she opted for a copper coil.

"I didn’t want the mental burden of the pill any more," she explains. "And I also wanted to avoid hormones and use something more natural."

Saint-Martin Denys is hearing this request from patients more and more. Some want to get their regular menstrual cycle back, track their ovulation or simply gain a better understanding of what is happening in their bodies.

"There is a real desire to reclaim [these things]," she explains.

Kiara, aged 34, used the pill, followed by a hormonal IUD and then a copper IUD, which she found uncomfortable.

Three years ago, she decided "to stop using contraception altogether". Single at the time, she used condoms. Now in a relationship, she tracks her cycle using an app and uses condoms during her fertile periods. She knows this strategy is less reliable but says she is willing to accept that level of pregnancy risk.

For a long time, taking control of one’s body meant being able to regulate one’s cycle using medication, explains Thomé. Today, for some women, this sense of control now comes more from "understanding and accepting the menstrual cycle".

Why menstruation is the next frontier for French feminists

'An extraordinary revolution'

The decline in the popularity of the pill does not discredit it, however, says Moreau, who is concerned that its benefits are sometimes overlooked in favour of focusing solely on its risks, and that the warning about desogestrel might trigger a new "pill crisis".

"The pill is an extraordinary revolution," she says emphatically.

Saint-Martin Denys highlighted that some hormonal contraceptives may offer medical benefits in addition to their contraceptive effect – particularly in cases of very heavy periods, adenomyosis and endometriosis.

Additionally, hormone-free methods are not suitable for everyone. A copper IUD, for example, may be suitable for a woman who wishes to avoid hormones but may not be recommended for another who suffers from very heavy periods.

For many though, the dilemma remains seemingly insurmountable. With a family history of thrombosis and menstrual problems, Émilie has been taking Optimizette, a contraceptive pill which contains desogestrel, for several years. The warning over the risk of meningioma worries her, but the alternatives are limited.

"I’m pretty much left with no choice but to take something that’s not great just to avoid other problems," she concludes.

Hassoun emphasises the individual nature of the risk-benefit ratio – and the importance as a result of healthcare professionals tailoring contraception to each woman.

Saint-Martin Denys too stresses the need to take the time to explain the benefits and risks of each option. "The best form of contraception is, after all, one a woman has chosen."

This article has been adapted from the original version in French by Aurore Lartigue.

Op-Ed: People Are the Powerbase of the Shipping Business

Decarbonisation, digitalisation, shifting patterns of global trade and an increasing level of influence from Asia are continuing to reshape the shipping, logistics and trading sectors. With this year’s WISTA International AGM and Conference taking place in Kuala Lumpur, the association’s president, Elpi Petraki, explains why there are important lessons to learn from the region as the challenges facing the industry demand more than new technologies and innovation.

As the world’s largest maritime market, Asia offers an extraordinary degree of maritime capabilities and specialities. It is home to the world’s leading shipbuilding nations, some of its largest ports, many major shipowners and a multitude of maritime service providers. Its financial centres are globally significant, while regional governments are powerhouse investors in decarbonisation, digitalisation and emerging technologies.

According to Clarkson’s Research and United Nations Trade and Development (UNCTAD), China, the Republic of Korea and Japan accounted for 91% of ships completed globally in 2025. Meanwhile, Singapore retained its position as the world’s leading maritime centre for the 13th year running in the 2026 Xinhua-Baltic International Shipping Centre Development Index (ISCDI). And the Philippines remains the world’s largest supplier of STCW-certified seafarers, with approximately 460,147 active Filipino seafarers according to the 2026 BIMCO and International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) Seafarer Workforce Report.

As such, Asia’s influence on international shipping is growing. Across the region, new technologies and operating models are being developed, tested and deployed, with innovation seen in digital twins, AI and autonomous vessels, and in alternative fuels and smart-port infrastructure.

China, Japan, South Korea, and hubs such as Singapore, are also providing real-world environments for developers to move from concept to reality. While Hong Kong, Malaysia and other maritime centres contribute critical expertise across finance, professional services, ports and logistics.

But the scale of maritime operations and willingness to invest in new technology offer only part of the explanation for Asia’s success. Across the region, governments, industry and educational institutions are also coming together to form highly integrated clusters that invest not only in technology and infrastructure, but also in people.

This year’s Maritime Singapore Master Plan, for example, identifies the development of a future-ready maritime workforce as one of four key strategies through which it will continue its long-running success story. Several other government programmes are running to support new career pathways, upskilling and leadership development whose content includes modules specifically designed to encourage people to consider and nurture a career in the industry.

Regionally, the maritime focus is far from unique. In India, targeted initiatives such as the government’s Saga Mein Samman programme aims to create a gender equitable workforce, improve women’s welfare and significantly increase their participation in the sector, as it looks to achieve a 12% increase in the number of women employed in technical maritime roles by 2030. Similarly, the IMO-Republic of Korea SMART-C Women’s Project, provides specialised training and leadership skills development for women in fields related to digitalisation and decarbonisation.

In a region encouraged by sustained growth across the maritime space, these investments and collaborations are opportunities to attract new and more diverse talents to industry. They demonstrate a clear understanding that a maturing industry cannot prepare for the future without investing in the renewal and revitalisation of its workforce.

People are at the heart of the industry’s transformation, and success will be reliant on recognising this and securing access to the widest possible talent pool. Because maritime’s greatest asset has always been its people, and research consistently shows that diverse teams are more effective.

From advocacy to action

However, as I have said many times during my tenure as WISTA International President, inclusion is not about replacing men with women. Rather, it is about working together to empower everyone and acknowledging that women have the skills and experience to lead effectively, make decisions and address the challenges facing the industry.

Over recent years, the conversation around diversity and inclusion in maritime has changed. There is greater awareness of the challenges women face, better data on representation and growing recognition of the link between inclusive leadership, a future ready workforce and a strong, resilient industry.

WISTA International has played a key role in changing the narrative surrounding gender equity and equality in maritime and has worked closely with its partners to enhance research, professional development, leadership and collaboration across the sector. The 2024 IMO-WISTA Women in Maritime Survey has provided important benchmarks for monitoring progress, and the IMO-WISTA-WMU Gender Inclusive Leadership and Empowerment Training Course, for example, addresses the need for a stronger, more sustainable leadership pipeline.

There have also been encouraging signs that the industry is moving from simply understanding the importance of inclusion to embedding it within policy and professional standards.

The 2024 Women in Maritime survey indicated a modest increase in the number of women in C-suite positions in multiple sectors and found that companies with women in leadership positions were also more likely to have policies in place that enhance diversity and inclusion.

Elsewhere, few can be unaware of the 2017 and 2021 surveys conducted by WISTA International, Anglo Eastern, the International Seafarers Welfare and Assistance Network and the International Chamber of Shipping, and the shocking levels of bullying, harassment and sexual assault women working on ships experience. Accordingly, STCW Code amendments which - from 1 January 2026 - made training to prevent and respond to violence and harassment mandatory for all seafarers are wholly welcome.

This represents an important shift. Now, creating a safe and respectful workplace is no longer simply a matter of individual commitment or corporate policy; it is recognised as part of the professional standards required for those working at sea.

But awareness alone is not enough. The challenge that remains is how to turn recognition into lasting change and create the conditions in which women and other under-represented groups can join and succeed in a maritime career. That means continuing to challenge assumptions, investing in skills and leadership development, and making inclusion integral in how organisations operate rather than something to be discussed separately.

Greater visibility and representation are important, but we must be careful not to confuse visibility with equality, or progress with completion.

The next chapter

The upcoming WISTA International AGM and Conference in Kuala Lumpur comes at an key moment for the shipping, logistics and trading sectors. Co-hosted by WISTA Hong Kong SAR China, WISTA Malaysia and WISTA Singapore, the conference reflects WISTA’s long-standing commitment to collaboration and will bring together perspectives from across the region to advance conversations around sustainability, technology and inclusive leadership.

The maritime industry is changing. We have more data, greater awareness and a better understanding of the important role diversity and inclusion play in shaping the future of the industry.

The global maritime industry can also learn a lot from Asia, where long-term investment, structured approaches and coherent responses to opportunities have played a profound role in shifting the centre of global economics.

But for WISTA, it has never been about just one president, one conference, or even one initiative. It has always been about working together to enhance diversity and inclusion, and to create an industry that empowers and respects everyone.

As my presidency comes to an end, I encourage the industry to continue to listen, to learn, to collaborate and remember that people are our greatest asset. For when our goals are clear and the frameworks supporting equity, equality and diversity are robust, we can create the conditions for meaningful and lasting change.

Elpi Petraki is President of WISTA International.

The opinions expressed herein are the author's and not necessarily those of The Maritime Executive.

SPACE/COSMOS

Europlanet Prize for Public Engagement 2026 awarded to CosmoAmautas

Europlanet

The 2026 Europlanet Prize for Public Engagement has been awarded to CosmoAmautas, a Peruvian non-profit association that uses planetary science and astronomy as a gateway to spark curiosity and bring scientific opportunities to children and young students across Peru.

Dr Gabriela Calistro Rivera received the prize on behalf of CosmoAmautas at the recent Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC2026) in The Hague and gave a public lecture about the work of the association. The prize is accompanied by a cash award of 1000 Euros.

Thibaut Roger, presenting the prize on behalf of Europlanet, said: “We are proud to honour CosmoAmautas through the Europlanet Prize for Public Engagement. This dynamic and innovative association has demonstrated how rural schools can be supported to become places where planetary science and astronomy are not only explained, but actively and sustainably practised, for example through the search for exoplanets using real data.”

Since 2021, CosmoAmautas has trained over 200 teachers across 21 out of 24 regions of Peru, supported more than 80 Astroclubs, and reached over 10,000 students through participating teachers. With a focus on inquiry-based learning, the team of researchers and educators has developed a range of resources, adapted to schools with limited infrastructure and linked to the Peruvian curriculum, that can be delivered to teachers through experiment boxes, printed guides and online materials. Activities covered include measuring the Earth’s rotation and dimensions, investigations with scale models of the Solar System and analysis of space mission data. Gender equality and inclusion are key values of the association and programmes are integrated with Andean ancestral astronomical traditions, showing that observing and interpreting the sky are deeply rooted in Peru’s cultural history.

The CosmoAmautas team is composed of Peruvian students and astronomy professionals living in Peru and all around the globe and working across all fields of astronomy and planetary sciences. In order to reach underserved communities, the initiatives developed by the team have occurred mainly online, but future plans include in-person events that will be partially supported by the Europlanet prize funding.

On receiving the prize, Gabriela Calistro Rivera said: “It is a great honour to receive the Europlanet Prize for Public Engagement on behalf of CosmoAmautas. ‘Amauta’ means teacher in the quechua language, and our programme is based on the principle that when a teacher is empowered, the future of an entire community can be transformed. This award recognises not only the CosmoAmautas team, but also our community of teachers and students across Peru. This is a great incentive to continue our efforts in bringing scientific education and access to astronomy to more regions and students in our country.”

Gabriela Calistro Rivera, on behalf of CosmoAmautas, accepting the Europlanet Prize for Public Engagement 2026 from Thibaut Roger, Chair of the Europlanet Outreach Working Group.

Credit

Europlanet

"Mom says a pink flight jacket is ok"

Women astronauts reframe STEMM, one post at a time. New Paper in JCOM

Sissa Medialab

Why can’t a flight jacket be pink or purple? That was the question a 6-year-old girl asked her mother, Kellie Gerardi, an astronaut, researcher and science communicator. When Gerardi later appeared on a TV interview wearing a bright pink flight jacket, her daughter pointed to her mom on the TV screen, smiling with delight. This exchange — which appeared in a post on Gerardi’s Instagram account — was a personal moment, skillfully presented through the language and visuals of social media. But it also conveys a clear message: femininity and scientific credibility are not mutually exclusive.

The video is one of 194 posts analysed in a new study published in the Journal of Science Communication (JCOM), which examined the Instagram activity of three women astronauts and science influencers: Kellie Gerardi, Shawna Pandya and Norah Patten. The research was conducted by Karen Shalev and Shannon Pappas, both graduate students, and Jocelyn Steinke, professor of communication at the University of Connecticut. It shows that science communication on social media involves more than explaining facts and concepts. Personal experiences, the communicator’s identity and platform-specific tools — from music and hashtags to humour and references to popular culture — all contribute to shaping the message.

“Our major finding was that these three science influencers were strategic in the way they framed messages on Instagram, not only to communicate scientific information, and hopefully to foster public interest and engagement in STEMM, but also to build their own personal brands and expand their audiences on Instagram,” Steinke explains.

What to look at, how to interpret it and where to focus

The study examined posts published on the influencers’ three Instagram accounts between 24 June and 24 November 2024, following the announcement of an upcoming Virgin Galactic research mission featuring Gerardi, Pandya, and Patten as an all-women, international crew. The researchers analysed all components of the posts, including photographs, videos, written text, audio, hashtags and emojis.
Their aim was to investigate three aspects of communication: what topics the influencers selected, how they framed them, and which communication tactics they used to attract attention. In other words, the researchers considered what influencers’ encouraged audiences to think about, how they guided audiences to interpret them, and where they directed audiences’ attention.

The analysis identified six broad topics, seven message frames and five types of communication tactics. Some of the topics the women selected focused on their research and training, explained scientific phenomena, and showed experiments conducted in microgravity. At the same time, they shared the personal journeys that had led them to STEMM — science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine — and spoke about the people who had encouraged them, the challenges they had faced and aspects of their everyday lives.

Gerardi, for example, has spoken publicly about motherhood, infertility and her experiences with in vitro fertilisation. Patten shared photographs from her first visit to the Kennedy Space Center with her father and brother when she was 15, while Pandya recalled experiences and mentors who contributed to her path to becoming an astronaut. These posts allow audiences to see not only the scientific work, but also the people carrying out this work and the rarely linear paths that brought them there.
“We can see that there’s definitely a strategic attempt here not only to share knowledge about STEMM and STEMM careers, but also to provide that insider perspective and to connect with audiences more personally, trying to foster authenticity, connection and engagement with very broad and diverse audiences,” Steinke says. “By sharing their experiences with their audiences, they can indeed serve as influential role models for future generations and inspire girls to consider potentially being an astronaut in the future.”

Science on in the language of Instagram

The posts analysed in the study adopt the forms and conventions of social media: short videos, photo carousels, text overlaid on images, hashtags, emojis, trending music and references to popular culture.

Taylor Swift, David Bowie and Charli xcx all are featured in some of the posts. Gerardi jokingly refers to herself as a “bratstronaut,” while footage of parabolic flights is accompanied by songs about space or weightlessness. The women also use humour, wordplay and immediately recognisable visual elements, including flight suits, models, clothes decorated with stars and planets, and footage recorded during training.

According to the authors, these elements are more than decorative additions. They help adapt the content to the platform, attract attention and connect science with forms of expression that are already familiar to Instagram users.

The personal dimension can also help challenge traditional ideas about the people who work in science. In their posts, the three women present themselves simultaneously as astronauts, researchers, doctors, mothers, daughters and women interested in fashion or music. By making these different identities visible, they show that there is no single way to look or behave in order to be credible in STEMM.

Useful insights

This is a qualitative analysis of messages shared by three highly visible STEMM figures on a single platform and over a limited period.The study did not establish whether every communication choice was consciously planned by the women, nor whether they manage their accounts with professional assistance. It also did not examine how audiences interpreted the posts or which content attracted the most attention and engagement.

Although future research should address these important issues, the influencers’ combined following of more than 1.5 million Instagram users at the time the study was conducted, highlights the potential reach of their content. The study findings about the science communication practices of three popular science influencers on Instagram also offer useful insights for the training of scientists and science communicators. Communicating strategically means considering not only what information to convey, but also how to present it, which parts of one’s experience to share, and how to adapt a message to the context in which audiences will encounter it.
“Women in STEMM are using social media as a way of gaining visibility and voice, advancing their goals as science communicators, changing perspectives on the role and contributions of women in STEMM, and inspiring younger generations to consider STEMM careers as a future option,” Steinke concludes.

Journal

Journal of Science Communication

DOI

10.22323/373620260614012713

Method of Research

Case study

Article Title

Framing science on social media: strategic science communication practices of women astronaut science influencers on Instagram

Article Publication Date

1-Oct-2026

Life on Saturn’s moon would be possible

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

The microorganism Methanothermococcus okinawensis — image:
The microorganism *Methanothermococcus okinawensis*, whose ability to survive on Saturn's moon Enceladus the researchers have tested.
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Credit: Chiara Morawetz & Reinhard Rachel (University of Regensburg)

Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus might be more supportive of life than was previously thought. An LMU study reveals that microorganisms could survive in its hidden ocean.

From a human perspective, Enceladus is anything but a comfortable place to live: Icy cold, hardly any oxygen, and – below its icy crust - a global subsurface ocean whose water is as corrosive as pipe cleaner. Despite this, Saturn’s moon is one of the few places in our solar system where the conditions for life to emerge could be present. A new study supervised by William Orsi, who is Professor of Geomicrobiology at LMU, now presents experiments showing in specific detail that certain microorganisms could survive there and how they are able to do so.

Orsi’s team recreated the conditions thought to exist on the seafloor of Enceladus in the laboratory and discovered that hydrogen-consuming, methane-producing archaea seem to be able to adapt to this environment previously considered to be deadly for anaerobe archaea.

This evidence could only be produced thanks to collaboration between different disciplines, including geomicrobiology, biochemistry, geochemistry, and planetary science. The study, which involved scientists from LMU as well as the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the University of Regensburg, and Freie Universität Berlin, was recently published in the science journal Science Advances.

“Enceladus is considered to be one of the most promising places to search for extraterrestrial life,” says Dr. Vanessa Helmbrecht, lead author of the study. “Our experiments show that its unique geochemistry could create conditions that are even more favorable for microbial life than we had previously thought.”

Simulating an extraterrestrial ocean floor

Beneath Enceladus’ thick ice shell lies an ocean of liquid water and a solid core. Data from NASA’s Cassini mission revealed that the moon’s water-rich plumes that regularly shoot up from the ice contain molecular hydrogen, methane, and dissolved minerals – this provides strong evidence of hydrothermal activity on the seabed, and water-rock geochemical reactions, where the rocky core meets the ocean.

The researchers used a special anoxic chamber to create similar deep-sea conditions with a very low level of oxygen– a kind of “Enceladus simulant.” The oxygen concentration was extremely low – roughly 10,000 times lower than the level of oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere. Under these conditions, the researchers used carbonate salts to simulate a hypersaline liquid that replicated both the moon’s alkaline soda ocean and its rocky ocean floor.

They then introduced Methanothermococcus okinawensis, a methane-producing archaeon that normally lives near deep-sea hydrothermal vents on Earth. The metabolic pathway used to by this organism to conserve energy requires only H2 and CO2 gases, and is considered to be one of the most ancestral metabolisms still retained by life on Earth today.

The results were striking: While the organism failed to grow in a conventional laboratory medium at a pH of 10 or 11, in the Enceladus simulant it continued to grow, producing methane using hydrogen generated by water-rock reactions.

How microbes overcome carbon scarcity

One of the biggest challenges for life to potentially exist on Enceladus is the extremely low concentration of carbon dioxide caused by the ocean’s high pH. The team was able to demonstrate that Methanothermococcus okinawensis could adjust to these conditions and use its unique metabolism to scavenge the tiny amounts of available CO₂ to continue growing.

“Our findings suggest that the chemistry of Enceladus itself can help overcome this major barrier to life,” says William Orsi. “The interaction between the rock and water not only produces hydrogen as a source of energy, but also creates conditions that allow microbes to keep accessing carbon, even though CO₂ is extremely scarce.”

Broader implications for the search for life in space

The findings expand the range of conditions under which scientists consider Enceladus to be potentially able to sustain life.

“Our study doesn’t prove that life exists on Enceladus,” says Orsi,“ but it does show that key geochemical features of its environment can support one of life’s most ancient metabolisms. This strengthens the scientific case for future missions to retrieve samples from the moon’s ocean-derived plumes.”

ESA has recently announced plans to do exactly that with its next major flagship space mission “L4”, currently foreseen to launch in 2042.

Journal

Science Advances

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.aei0167

Article Title

Enceladus-like geochemistry fuels methanogenesis under extreme CO2 limitation

Article Publication Date

25-Oct-2026

The microorganism Methanothermococcus okinawensis, whose ability to survive on Saturn's moon Enceladus the researchers have tested

The microorganism Methanothermococcus okinawensis, whose ability to survive on Saturn's moon Enceladus the researchers have tested.

Credit

Following ancient rain toward the origins of life on Mars

Ancient rain on Mars may have left a trail of formaldehyde across the planet. Following it could help future missions identify where to search for clues to the origins of life there

Tohoku University

image:
Modeled global distribution of annual atmospheric formaldehyde (H₂CO) delivery to the surface of early Mars, overlaid on present-day topography with rover landing sites. Darker colors indicate higher delivery.
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Credit: Shungo Koyama et al.

The Mars we know today is a cold, dry world of dust and rocks. However, around 3.8-3.6 billion years ago, it may have looked very different. Geological and mineral evidence suggests that, in its distant past, the planet experienced periods warm and wet enough for water to exist on its surface, potentially forming rivers, lakes, and even an ocean in the northern hemisphere.

Earlier research has also shown that formaldehyde (H₂CO) could have been produced in the atmosphere of warm early Mars. The importance of this substance is that once delivered to water, formaldehyde can serve as a starting material for chemical reactions that produce sugars, amino acids, and other complex organic molecules - compounds important to ultimately start life. Yet one major question remained unanswered: where on Mars would this formaldehyde have actually reached the surface?

To answer this question, a research team led by scientists from Tohoku University, the Earth-Life Science Institute, and the Institute of Science Tokyo created a global map showing where atmospheric H₂CO may have been delivered across the planet during its early history.

To build this visualization, the researchers simulated warm conditions around 3.8-3.6 billion years ago and examined how temperature, water vapor, pressure, and UV light affected the formation of H₂CO. Their research showed that water vapor was especially important for Martian formaldehyde production. UV light broke apart water molecules, releasing reactive hydrogen needed to form H₂CO in the atmosphere, while rainfall carried the formaldehyde down to the surface. As a result, water-rich regions were predicted to receive more formaldehyde than drier areas.

Because water influenced both the formation of H₂CO and its delivery to the surface, the researchers suggest that the Martian water cycle may have determined where this prebiotic molecule could accumulate. The map they created shows where these predicted hotspots lie in relation to the landing sites of Mars missions.

"By comparing our map with findings from rovers, we can begin to test whether places that received more H₂CO were also more favorable for early life-related chemistry," said Dr. Koyama. "If future observations confirm this relationship, our map could help identify promising targets for future Mars missions."

Some areas of Mars stood out clearly on the map. For example, the model predicted that mountainous regions such as Tharsis and Elysium received about ten times more H₂CO than the global average. However, these estimates show how much H₂CO may have reached the surface in the past, not how much remains there today.

This study may provide guidance toward potential landing sites for future Mars missions, which may help us better understand how organic chemistry developed on the planet billions of years ago, bringing us one step closer to unraveling the mysteries surrounding the origins of life there.

The findings were published in The Planetary Science Journal on September 30, 2026.

Journal

The Planetary Science Journal

DOI

10.3847/PSJ/ae9942

Article Title

Global distribution of atmospheric formaldehyde deposition correlated with water vapor on a warm early Mars

New study rekindles contested question: Earth and Mars had different origins

University of Copenhagen

Four and a half billion years ago, Earth and Mars were born in the rotating cloud of gas and dust that would eventually become our Solar System.

Yet exactly how the planets formed remains one of the most disputed questions in planetary science.

Now, researchers at the University of Copenhagen are adding new evidence to the debate. Using a novel approach, they have reconstructed the earliest stages of the planets’ formation by analysing their chemical composition.

And the results surprised them.

“The most surprising result was that Earth and Mars appear to have formed in different ways. You might have expected that two planets formed side by side in the same solar system would share a more similar formation history,” says Professor Anders Johansen, who studies planet formation at the Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen. He co-led the new study with Assistant Professor Haiyang Wang.

The birth of Mars and Earth

Today, researchers broadly agree that planets are formed primarily in one of two ways, or through a hybrid of both processes:

Planets either emerge when giant space rocks, known as planetesimals, collide, or when these large rocks accumulate smaller particles, a process known as pebble accretion.

Planetary scientists have not settled on which of the two processes or a combination thereof would best explain how rocky planets such as Earth and Mars formed.

The researchers behind the new study believe that their findings support the so-called hybrid model. However, the study takes one step further and offers a more explicit explanation of how Earth and Mars formed 4.5 billion years ago.

“At least 75 percent of Earth’s mass appears to originate from two young planets, known as protoplanets, that grew large by accreting pebbles, while planetesimals contributed up to 25 percent. In contrast, roughly three-quarters of Mars’ mass appears to come from planetesimals, with the remaining quarter originating from pebble accretion,” says Haiyang Wang.

Planetary chemistry reveals the past

To understand how planets formed billions of years ago, scientists must rely on traces that still exist today.

In the new study, the researchers closely examined specific elements in the outer layers of the planets: the crust and mantle. They focused particularly on so-called volatile elements, which evaporate relatively easily at high temperatures, such as sodium, zinc, and potassium.

According to the researchers, the presence, or absence, of these elements acts as a chemical fingerprint that reveals the processes planets underwent during their formation. Using advanced computer models, they can then determine which formation scenarios are the most likely explanations for the origins of Earth and Mars.

“It is a major detective job to figure out what happened back then when most of the evidence disappeared long ago. But even after 4.5 billion years, the compositions of Earth’s and Mars’ mantles remain the same. You can think of them as an imprint of the formation process,” says Anders Johansen.

The researchers emphasize that their computer models contain uncertainties. For example, the exact chemical composition of the original building blocks in our Solar System that eventually became Earth and Mars remains unknown.

As a result, the models rely on several assumptions. However, even when adjusting for those assumptions, the main conclusion remains unchanged.

“The exact percentages may vary somewhat, but our analyses consistently indicate that Earth and Mars formed in two different ways. Our method provides a more precise and direct way of understanding planet formation than the more widely used isotope-based approach, which can often be interpreted in multiple ways,” says Haiyang Wang.

Could help the search for habitable planets

The researchers also see applications beyond our own Solar System.

Several future space missions aim to discover and study Earth-like planets in other galaxies.

Understanding the chemical compositions of such planets is important for assessing whether they are potentially habitable, the researchers point out.

“If we understand how planets lose volatile elements during their formation, we can also become better at predicting how much water and other life-supporting substances they ultimately retain,” says Anders Johansen.

---

About the study

The study investigates how Earth and Mars formed 4.5 billion years ago by analysing specific elements in the crust and mantle of the two planets. The researchers used advanced statistical computer modeling to calculate the most likely formation processes.
According to the study, Earth and Mars formed in different ways: Mars formed primarily through collisions between massive rocks known as planetesimals. Earth, by contrast, began largely as two protoplanets that grew by gathering pebble-sized particles in a process called pebble accretion.
The findings support the so-called hybrid model, in which both mechanisms contributed to planetary formation.
The researchers stress that the results are based on statistical modeling and a number of assumptions regarding the composition of the building blocks present in the young Solar System that later would become the two planets. These include the assumption that the planetesimal building blocks of Earth and Mars were chemically similar to the asteroid Vesta, and that volatile elements are lost more efficiently during pebble accretion than during giant impacts.
The researchers used computer simulations to demonstrate that volatile elements are lost from pebbles as they travel toward a planet’s surface.
The study was published in the scientific journal Nature Astronomy.

Journal

Nature Astronomy

DOI

10.1038/s41550-026-02984-6

Article Title

Volatile depletion in rocky planets as a chemical fingerprint of hybrid accretion

Astronomers link mysterious cosmic flashes to collisions of dead stars

Observations led by a graduate student and his colleagues helped connect an X-ray flash lasting nearly ten minutes to a merger of neutron stars.

ERC BHianca

Astronomers capture powerful blast from a neutron star merger — image:
The bright glow of EP250704a is marked by white lines in this false-colour image (optical: blue/green; near-infrared: red) from ESO’s Very Large Telescope (top panel). Its spectrum, recorded with the X-shooter instrument (bottom panel), shows absorption features associated with iron (purple) and magnesium (red). The positions of these features revealed a redshift of 0.6610, establishing the explosion’s distance from Earth. These observations provided a crucial clue that helped connect the nearly ten-minute X-ray flash to a merger of neutron stars.

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Credit: Niccolò Passaleva, Eleonora Troja (ERC BHianca), ESO/VLT

For decades, astronomers have identified the collisions of two neutron stars through bursts of gamma rays that can disappear in less than two seconds. But some of these violent encounters may also reveal themselves through X-ray flashes lasting several minutes. A new study published in Science Bulletin provides compelling evidence for this connection, suggesting that merging neutron stars could be hiding among cosmic flashes whose origins have remained uncertain.

Since the launch of the Einstein Probe satellite in January 2024, astronomers have been discovering hundreds of bright flashes of X-rays from distant galaxies. Known as fast X-ray transients, some of these flashes have been linked to the deaths of massive stars, but others remain unexplained. Without knowing their distance and the energy they release, astronomers struggle to determine what produced them.

Researchers in Professor Eleonora Troja’s group, supported by a European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator grant, obtained observations crucial to identifying the source of one such X-ray transient. Following an alert from the Einstein Probe satellite, the team quickly arranged observations with other telescopes, including the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the Very Large Array, to study the explosion’s aftermath. They believe to have witnessed the birth of a magnetar produced by the collision (or merger) of two neutron stars.

An X-ray flash with a record-setting duration

Neutron stars are the ultra-dense stellar corpses left behind when massive stars reach the end of their lives. When two neutron stars collide, they send gravitational waves rippling through space. The light from these events offers a glimpse of what the collision leaves behind.

Gamma-ray bursts of short duration have long been the main signpost for these events. “However, if the remnant of the collision is a magnetar, it could keep bursting for longer” said Prof. Troja, who is part of the Einstein Probe European collaboration and co-corresponding author of the paper. “Magnetars are rapidly spinning neutron stars with huge magnetic fields. When they damp their magnetic power into the surroundings, they can make any explosion brighter and longer-lasting. When I saw the X-ray data from this new event, I realized something was up.”

The event, known as EP250704a/GRB 250704B, was discovered on 4 July 2025 by the SVOM, Insight-HXMT and Einstein Probe satellites. Its blast of gamma-rays lasted about half a second, while the Einstein Probe satellite recorded bright X-ray radiation for nearly ten minutes. “This is the longest lasting prompt X-ray flash ever observed from a neutron star merger,” said graduate student Niccolò Passaleva, who led the follow-up observations using the VLT in Chile. “It is an opportunity to have a front-row seat to the most extreme forces of the Universe and discover more of its secrets.”

A new window on stellar collisions

The team had been searching for a connection between fast X-ray transients and neutron star mergers for several years, but earlier candidates faded away before providing a decisive answer. This time, Passaleva reacted within minutes and began observing while the light from the explosion was still bright enough to study in detail. “I was traveling home by train,” recalls Passaleva, “and all of a sudden I was rushing against time to commandeer one of the largest telescopes in the world from my laptop.”

Using the VLT’s X-Shooter instrument, Passaleva and his colleagues separated the light into its components and identified clear absorption patterns, whose position revealed the burst’s distance from Earth, known as redshift. The measured redshift of z=0.6610 revealed that the explosion had occurred long before our Sun and its planets formed, and the burst's light had travelled for more than six billion years before reaching us.

The team then used deep images from the VLT’s FORS2 instrument to search for a bright supernova, the exploding star expected to accompany a long-lasting X-ray flash caused by the collapse of a massive star. None appeared. The distance measurement, the absence of a supernova and the properties of the burst together provided strong evidence for a neutron star merger.

“Finding more of these X-ray flashes could help reveal how often neutron star mergers create magnetars,” concludes Passaleva, “I am really excited for the next run of gravitational wave observations, when we could finally pair one of these X-ray flashes with a burst of gravitational waves from the same source.”

Additional Information

The research was carried out by an international collaboration of astronomers. Lead authors are: An Li (Beijing Normal University), Chen-Wei Wang (Chinese Academy of Sciences), Niccolò Passaleva (University of Rome Tor Vergata), Jie An (Chinese Academy of Sciences)

Corresponding authors are: Binbin Zhang (Nanjing University), Eleonora Troja (University of Rome Tor Vergata), Yi-Han Iris Yin (The University of Hong Kong), Jing-Wei Hu (Chinese Academy of Sciences), Hua-Li Li (Chinese Academy of Sciences)

The VLT observations used in this study were conducted as part of the large program 114.27LW (PI: Eleonora Troja) titled “QUEENB: a QUEst for Elusive Neutron star and Black hole mergers”

Journal

Science Bulletin

DOI

10.1016/j.scib.2026.08.021

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Minutes-long soft X-ray prompt emission from a compact object merger

Article Publication Date

30-Sep-2026

Study links 90+-day spaceflights to higher rates of hip fractures in astronauts

Findings in Mayo Clinic Proceedings open up a new area of research to safeguard astronauts’ skeletal health ahead of planned long-duration space missions

Elsevier

Increased Rates of Hip Fractures Associated With Longer Spaceflight Durations — image:
A study in *Mayo Clinic Proceedings* has found that astronauts who have been in space for more than 90 days had a higher rate of hip fractures when they returned to Earth compared to astronauts on shorter spaceflights and non-astronauts. The findings underscore the need for expanded assessment of long-term skeletal health in astronauts. This figure shows the classification of fracture counts and events. NSF = No-Spaceflight, NLD-SF = Non-Long-Duration Spaceflight, LD-SF = Long-Duration Spaceflight.
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Credit: Mayo Clinic Proceedings / Taylor et al.

October 1, 2026 – New research has found that the rate of hip fractures in astronauts back on Earth was greater in the time period after an astronaut has been in space for more than 90 days than in the time period following shorter spaceflights or in non-astronauts. The findings of the study in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, published by Elsevier, underscore the need for expanded assessment of long-term skeletal health in astronauts.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is planning multiple missions with durations of longer than six months in space, including commercial low Earth orbit activity, completing Artemis IV’s first human mission to the lunar south pole in 2028, and enabling sustainable surface capabilities for the moon in preparation for Mars. Increased human participation and time spent in extraterrestrial exploration could negatively affect the long-term skeletal health of astronauts selected for their physical fitness and optimal health.

Muscle and bone loss due to the microgravity environment of space is a common physiologic phenomenon among astronauts that suggests a risk for fragility due to an adaptive response to disuse.

Jean D. Sibonga, PhD, lead investigator of the study “Increased Rates of Hip Fractures Associated With Longer Spaceflight Durations” at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, noted that humans do not feel the effects of bone loss. After returning from space and feeling stable or recovered, they may resume physically demanding activities despite underlying skeletal changes caused by prolonged disuse. A better understanding of bone health after spaceflight could help astronauts, patients, and clinicians assess long-term health concerns, determine appropriate care, and reduce the risk of injury.

Co-author of the accompanying editorial “Bone Loss in Astronauts” Matthew T. Drake, MD, PhD, Endocrinology and Metabolic Bone Disease Service, Hospital for Special Surgery, New York, notes, “While data to date on bone loss associated with space flight are consistent, a major limitation is accuracy, as astronaut cohort sample sizes are small and spaceflights are rare.”

To overcome this statistical limitation, investigators surveyed a cohort of US-based astronauts for all fractures reported during annual clinical exams and analyzed these data using Bayesian probabilistic modeling. While they did not find a higher incidence rate for all fractures, the incidence rate for hip fractures in astronauts was increased after a long-duration spaceflight of more than 90 days.

This increased rate occurred at a younger age than would be expected in a non-astronaut terrestrial population, and at a greater hip fracture rate than the rate before a long-duration mission, or with no spaceflight exposure at all.

“Taken together, the finding of hip fracture occurrence at an age earlier than expected after long-duration spaceflight is clinical evidence that spaceflight-induced bone loss can lead to real long-term fracture consequences, which should be addressed accordingly,” says Moshe Gertzulin, MD, Endocrinology and Metabolic Bone Disease Service, Hospital for Special Surgery, New York, co-author of the accompanying editorial.

Dr. Sibonga emphasized the need to expand NASA’s current bone surveillance program beyond dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry measurements of bone mineral density to better evaluate astronauts’ long-term fracture risk. NASA has recently begun ordering quantitative computed tomography scans before and after spaceflight, which can provide more detailed information about different areas of the bone and whether astronauts have fully recovered. Without that insight, astronauts could risk placing too much strain on bones that have not yet regained their preflight condition.

To mitigate these risks, the investigators advocate for prophylactic countermeasures that would preserve the baseline, pre-flight skeletal health of the astronaut. A fuller characterization of spaceflight-induced changes to bone mass, density, structure, and microarchitecture will determine which interventions—whether drugs, exercise, or dietary adjustments—are most beneficial for long-term skeletal health in astronauts.

Journal

Mayo Clinic Proceedings

DOI

10.1016/j.mayocp.2026.06.025

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Increased Rates of Hip Fractures Associated With Longer Spaceflight Durations

Article Publication Date

1-Oct-2026