Dinosaur teeth give glimpse of early Earth’s climate

New method reconstructs carbon dioxide levels and photosynthesis from fossilized tooth enamel

University of Göttingen

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Tooth of a Europasaurus, a dinosaur similar to Diplodocus, in limestone, found in the Langenberg quarry in the Harz Mountains which was also analysed in the study.

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Credit: Thomas Tütken

A previously untapped source of data sheds new light on the climate of the early Earth: fossilized dinosaur teeth show that the atmosphere during the Mesozoic era, between 252 and 66 million years ago, contained far more carbon dioxide than it does today. An international research team at the Universities of Göttingen, Mainz and Bochum made this discovery by analysing oxygen isotopes in tooth enamel. They used a newly developed method that opens up opportunities for research into the Earth's climate history. In addition, the researchers found that total photosynthesis from plants around the world was twice as high as it is today. This probably contributed to the dynamic climate during the time of the dinosaurs. The results were published in the journal PNAS.

 

The research team analysed the enamel of dinosaur teeth found in North America, Africa and Europe dating from the late Jurassic and late Cretaceous periods. Enamel is one of the most stable biological materials. It records different isotopes of oxygen that the dinosaurs inhaled with every breath that they took. The ratio of isotopes in oxygen is affected by changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide and photosynthesis by plants. This correlation allows researchers to draw conclusions about the climate and vegetation during the age of the dinosaurs.

 

In the late Jurassic period, around 150 million years ago, the air contained around four times as much carbon dioxide as it did before industrialization – that is, before humans started emitting large quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. And in the late Cretaceous period, around 73 to 66 million years ago, the level was three times as high as today. Individual teeth from two dinosaurs – Tyrannosaurus rex and another known as Kaatedocus siberi which is related to Diplodocus – contained a strikingly unusual composition of oxygen isotopes. This points to CO₂ spikes that could be linked to major events such as volcanic eruptions – for example, the massive eruptions of the Deccan Traps in what is now India, which happened at the end of the Cretaceous period. The fact that plants on land and in water around the world were carrying out more photosynthesis at that time was probably associated with CO₂ levels and higher average annual temperatures.

 

This study marks a milestone for paleoclimatology: until now, carbonates in the soil and “marine proxies” were the main tools used to reconstruct the climate of the past. Marine proxies are indicators, such as fossils or chemical signatures in sediments, that help scientists understand environmental conditions in the sea in the past. However, these methods are subject to uncertainty. By analysing oxygen isotopes in tooth fossils, the researchers have now developed the first method that focuses on vertebrates on land. “Our method gives us a completely new view of the Earth's past,” explains lead author Dr Dingsu Feng at the University of Göttingen’s Department of Geochemistry. “It opens up the possibility of using fossilized tooth enamel to investigate the composition of the early Earth's atmosphere and the productivity of plants at that time. This is crucial for understanding long-term climate dynamics.” Dinosaurs could be the new climate scientists, according to Feng: “Long ago their teeth recorded the climate for a period of over 150 million years – finally we are getting the message.”

 

The study was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and by the VeWA consortium as part of the LOEWE programme of the Hessisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung, Kunst und Kultur.

 

Original publication: Dingsu Feng, Thomas Tütken, Eva Maria Griebeler, Daniel Herwartz & Andreas Pack. Mesozoic atmospheric CO2 concentrations reconstructed from dinosaur tooth enamel. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) (2025). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2504324122

  

Tooth of a Tyrannosaurus rex – like the teeth analysed in this study – found in Alberta, Canada

Credit

Thomas Tütken

Teeth of a Camarasaurus, found in the Morrison Formation, USA, which were also analyzed in the research.

Credit

Sauriermuseum Aathal

Journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2504324122 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Mesozoic atmospheric CO2 concentrations reconstructed from dinosaur tooth enamel.

Article Publication Date

24-Aug-2025

Rising deep-ocean oxygen levels opened up new marine habitats, spurred speciation

Duke University

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An artist’s rendering of a prehistoric jawed fish from the Late Devonian called Dunkleosteus. These sorts of large, active vertebrates evolved shortly after the deep ocean became well-oxygenated. © 2008 N. Tamura/CC-BY-SA

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Credit: © 2008 N. Tamura/CC-BY-SA

Some 390 million years ago in the ancient ocean, marine animals began colonizing depths previously uninhabited. New research indicates this underwater migration occurred in response to a permanent increase in deep-ocean oxygen, driven by the aboveground spread of woody plants — precursors to Earth’s first forests. 

That rise in oxygen coincided with a period of remarkable diversification among fish with jaws — the ancestors of most vertebrates alive today. The finding suggests that oxygenation might have shaped evolutionary patterns among prehistoric species.

“It’s known that oxygen is a necessary condition for animal evolution, but the extent to which it is the sufficient condition that can explain trends in animal diversification has been difficult to pin down,” said co-lead author Michael Kipp, assistant professor of earth and climate sciences in the Duke University Nicholas School of the Environment. “This study gives a strong vote that oxygen dictated the timing of early animal evolution, at least for the appearance of jawed vertebrates in deep-ocean habitats.”

For a time, researchers thought that deep-ocean oxygenation occurred once at the beginning of the Paleozoic Era, some 540 million years ago. But more recent studies have suggested that oxygenation occurred in phases, with nearshore waters first becoming livable to breathing organisms, followed by deeper environments.

Kipp and colleagues homed in on the timing of those phases by studying sedimentary rocks that formed under deep seawater. Specifically, they analyzed the rocks for selenium, an element that can be used to determine whether oxygen existed at life-sustaining levels in ancient seas. 

In the marine environment, selenium occurs in different forms called isotopes that vary by weight. Where oxygen levels are high enough to support animal life, the ratio of heavy to light selenium isotopes varies widely. But at oxygen levels prohibitive to most animal life, that ratio is relatively consistent. By determining the ratio of selenium isotopes in marine sediments, researchers can infer whether oxygen levels were sufficient to support animals that breathe underwater.

Working with research repositories around the world, the team assembled 97 rock samples dating back 252 to 541 million years ago. The rocks had been excavated from areas across five continents that, hundreds of millions of years ago, were located along the outermost continental shelves — the edges of continents as they protrude underwater, just before giving way to steep drop-offs.

After a series of steps that entailed pulverizing the rocks, dissolving the resulting powder and purifying selenium, the team analyzed the ratio of selenium isotopes that occurred in each sample.

Their data indicated that two oxygenation events occurred in the deeper waters of the outer continental shelves: a transient episode around 540 million years ago, during a Paleozoic period known as the Cambrian, and an episode that began 393-382 million years ago, during an interval called the Middle Devonian, that has continued to this day. During the intervening millennia, oxygen dropped to levels inhospitable to most animals. The team published their findings in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in August.

“The selenium data tell us that the second oxygenation event was permanent. It began in the Middle Devonian and persisted in our younger rock samples,” said co-lead author Kunmanee “Mac” Bubphamanee, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Washington.

That event coincided with numerous changes in oceanic evolution and ecosystems — what some researchers refer to as the “mid-Paleozoic marine revolution.” As oxygen became a permanent feature in deeper settings, jawed fish, called gnathostomes, and other animals began invading and diversifying in such habitats, according to the fossil record. Animals also got bigger, perhaps because oxygen supported their growth.

The Middle Devonian oxygenation event also overlapped with the spread of plants with hard stems of wood.

“Our thinking is that, as these woody plants increased in number, they released more oxygen into the air, which led to more oxygen in deeper ocean environments,” said Kipp, who began this research as a Ph.D. student at the University of Washington.

The cause of the first, temporary oxygenation event during the Cambrian is more enigmatic.

“What seems clear is that the drop in oxygen after that initial pulse hindered the spread and diversification of marine animals into those deeper environments of the outer continental shelves,” Kipp said.

Though the team’s focus was on ancient ocean conditions, their findings are relevant now.

“Today, there’s abundant ocean oxygen in equilibrium with the atmosphere. But in some locations, ocean oxygen can drop to undetectable levels. Some of these zones occur through natural processes. But in many cases, they’re driven by nutrients draining off continents from fertilizers and industrial activity that fuel plankton blooms that suck up oxygen when they decay,” Kipp said.

“This work shows very clearly the link between oxygen and animal life in the ocean. This was a balance struck about 400 million years ago, and it would be a shame to disrupt it today in a matter of decades.”

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Funding: MAK was supported by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and Agouron Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship. Additional support was provided by the NASA Astrobiology Institute’s Virtual Planetary Laboratory.

Citation: “Mid-Devonian ocean oxygenation enabled the expansion of animals into deeper-water habitats,” Bubphamanee K., Kipp M., Meixnerová J., Stüeken E., Ivany L, Bartholomew A., Algeo T., Brocks J., Dahl T., Kinsley J., Tissot F., Buick R. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, August 2025, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2501342122

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Journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2501342122 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Mid-Devonian ocean oxygenation enabled the expansion of animals into deeper-water habitats

 

Flamingos reveal their secret to ageing

Tour du Valat

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Colony of flamingos with their chicks on the Fangassier pond, Camargue, France.

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Credit: Colonie poussins : © C.Perrot / Tour du Valat

Flamingos reveal their secret to ageing

Is ageing inevitable? While most living beings age, some do so more slowly than others. A new scientific study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) addresses a fascinating question: what if migration influences the way we age?

To explore this mystery, scientists turned their attention to the pink flamingo (Phoenicopterus roseus), a graceful migratory bird that is emblematic of the Camargue region of France. Birds that do not all age in the same way Thanks to a flamingo tagging and tracking program conducted for over 40 years by the Tour du Valat research institute, scientists have discovered a surprising phenomenon: migratory flamingos age more slowly than resident flamingos. In this species, some birds remain in the Camargue for their entire lives (they are called ‘residents’), while others travel every year along the shores of the Mediterranean (these are the ‘migrants’). At the beginning of their adult life, resident flamingos fare better: well established in the lagoons of the French Mediterranean coast during the winter, they survive and reproduce more than migrants. But at what cost? As they age, residents decline more rapidly. With 40% greater ageing, their ability to reproduce decreases and the risk of death increases faster than among migratory flamingos.  On the contrary, migratory flamingos, those that leave to spend the winter in Italy, Spain or North Africa, pay a high price for these seasonal journeys early in life (higher mortality and lower reproduction rates) but seem to compensate for this by slower ageing at an advanced age. Thus, the onset of the ageing process occurs earlier in residents (20.4 years on average) than in migrants (21.9 years).

Migration: An Animal Behavior That Influences Ageing

This study shows that seasonal migration – a behavior exhibited by billions of animals – can influence the rate of ageing. In flamingos, deciding not to migrate offers advantages early in life that are associated with accelerated senescence at an advanced age. ‘This is probably linked to a compromise between performance when young and health in old age,’ explains Sébastien Roques, researcher at the CNRS and co-author of the study. ‘Residents live intensely at first, but pay for this pace later on. Migrants, on the other hand, seem to age more slowly.’ With their long lifespan (some live to be over 50 years old!) and behavioral diversity, flamingos are more than just an iconic animal of the Camargue. They also provide an ideal model for understanding ageing in animals. ‘That's the whole point of having continued this study over the long term. Initiated in 1977 in the Camargue by tagging flamingos with rings that can be read from a distance with a telescope, this program still allows us to observe flamingos tagged that year,’ explain Arnaud Béchet and Jocelyn Champagnon, research directors at the Tour du Valat and co-authors of the study. ‘This is a unique dataset that is proving invaluable for understanding the mechanisms of ageing in animal populations.’

Unravelling the secrets of ageing, a scientific and existential quest

This discovery is part of an exciting field of research: senescence, or biological ageing. Hugo Cayuela, one of the study's co-authors and a researcher at the University of Oxford, comments: ‘Understanding the causes of changes in the rate of ageing is a problem that has obsessed researchers and polymath philosophers since ancient times.’ He continues ‘For a long time, we thought that these variations occurred mainly between species. But recently, our perception of the problem has changed. We are accumulating evidence showing that, within the same species, individuals often do not age at the same rate due to genetic, behavioral and environmental variations.’ By studying how certain animals are born, reproduce and die, scientists hope to unlock the secrets of ageing... In doing so, they are attempting to answer one of the most existential and central questions in biology: why and how do we die?

About the Tour du Valat

The Tour du Valat is a research institute for the conservation of Mediterranean wetlands, based in Camargue (France), with the status of a private foundation recognized as being of public interest. Founded in 1954 by Luc Hoffmann, the Tour du Valat has since developed its research activities with one constant concern: to better understand these environments - wetlands are the most abundant and most threatened ecosystem on the planet - to manage them better. Convinced that Mediterranean wetlands can only be preserved if human activities and the protection of natural heritage go hand in hand, the Tour du Valat has been developing research and integrated management programs for many years that promote exchanges between users and scientists, mobilize a community of stakeholders and promote the benefits of wetlands to decision-makers.

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Journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2422882122 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Flamingos reveal their secret to ageing

 

New discovery of wild cereal foraging – a precursor to agriculture – far from the fertile crescent

Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology

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The 2019 excavations in Toda Cave

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Credit: Robert Spengler

The dawn of agriculture in the Neolithic was a major development in the evolution of modern human culture. Although scientists agree that farming developed independently several times around the world, including in Africa, the Americas, and eastern Asia, the origins of many key crops, such as wheat, barley, and legumes have been traced to the Fertile Crescent and the harvesting of wild grains by a people known as the Natufians, roughly 10,000 years ago.

Now, a new study by an interdisciplinary research team shows that, by at least 9,200 years ago, people as far north and east as southern Uzbekistan were harvesting wild barley using sickle blades as well. The study shows that the cultural developments which served as stepping stones on the way to agriculture were more widespread than previously realized, challenging arguments that cultivation began as one group’s response to population pressure or climate change.

The research was conducted by an international team of scholars, led by Xinying Zhou of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing and under the supervision of the director of the Institute of Archaeology in Samarkand, Farhad Maksudov. During their excavations of Toda Cave in the Surkandarya Valley of southern Uzbekistan, the team recovered stone tools, charcoal, and plant remains from the cave’s oldest layers.

Archaeobotanical investigations led by Robert Spengler of the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology revealed that the people of Toda Cave were collecting wild barley from the surrounding valleys. Other plant remains included wild pistachio shells and apple seeds. Use-wear analysis of the stone tools – blades and flakes mostly made from limestone – indicates they were used to cut grass or plant material, similar to finds from sites where agriculture is known to have been practiced.

“This discovery should change the way that scientists think about the transition from foraging to farming, as it shows how widespread the transitional behaviors were,” says Xinying.

“These ancient hunters and foragers were already tied into the cultural practices that would lead to the origins of agriculture,” Spengler adds. “A growing body of research suggests that domestication occurred without deliberate human intent, and the finding that people continually developed the behaviors which lead to agriculture supports this view.”

The research team will continue to investigate how commonplace these behaviors were in Central Asia during this time period. Additionally, the team is further exploring the possibility that these grains represent an early example of cultivation using morphologically wild barley. If the grains were cultivated, it could mean that a sperate origin of farming was being experimented with or that the tradition form the Fertile Crescent spread eastward much earlier than previously recognized. In either case, future research is likely to fill in many gaps in our understanding of the human narrative. 

The view of the Surkhandarya Valley where Toda Cave is located in southern Uzbekistan

A modern specimen of wild barley with the individual grains naturally shattering off as they become ripe.

Fertile Crescent

The Fertile Crescent is a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East, spanning modern-day Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria, together with northern Kuwait, south-eastern Turkey, and western Iran. Some authors also include Cyprus and northern Egypt.

Wikipedia

Credit

Robert Spengler

Journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2424093122 

Article Title

9,000-year-old barley consumption from hill flank of Central Asia

Article Publication Date

25-Aug-2025

VCs backed Black founders after BLM – but it didn’t last

“The rise and fall of VCs’ interest in Black startups represented tokenism designed to burnish the VCs’ reputations,” 

Cornell University

Five years ago, in the aftermath of the George Floyd murder, Black-founded startups had “a moment” when venture capitalists (VCs) were eager to invest. In the two years after Floyd’s death, the share of VC dollars that went to Black businesses jumped by 43%.

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Unfortunately for those fledgling companies, and the ones that have followed, that interest and those dollars were short-lived, according to new Cornell research.

“The main increase in funding was among those investors who, before May 25, 2020, had never invested in a single Black entrepreneur. That’s where you see the big change,” said Matt Marx, the Bruce F. Failing, Sr. Chair in Entrepreneurship and professor of management and organizations in the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, in the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business.

“It’s not so much that the investors who had Black entrepreneurs in their portfolios doubled down,” Marx said. “It’s more so that those who had basically nothing to say before were suddenly on the scene.”

“The rise and fall of VCs’ interest in Black startups represented tokenism designed to burnish the VCs’ reputations,” said Qian Wang, M.S. ’21, a doctoral candidate in management and organizations, and co-author of “Minimum Viable Signal: Venture Funding, Social Movements, and Race,” which published Aug. 19 in Management Science (MS).

Marx is also an author of “Funding Black High-Growth Startups,” forthcoming in the Journal of Finance (JF). In that study, the researchers found that Black-owned startups raised only about a third as much funding in the first five years after starting their firms as startups without any Black founders, even when comparing similar startups in the same industry, year and state.

Emmanuel Yimfor, assistant professor of finance at Columbia Business School, is a co-author on both papers. Lisa D. Cook, professor of economics at Michigan State University and member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, is a co-author of the JF paper.

For both studies, Marx and his team analyzed data from PitchBook, a repository for information on public and private capital markets, including venture capital, private equity and mergers-and-acquisitions transactions. The team used machine-learning algorithms to classify photos, combined with manual review, to classify the race of 150,000 founders and 30,000 investors from 2000-23 for the two papers.

One challenge, said Marx, was that with a few exceptions, it’s difficult to ascertain race solely from a person’s name. So the tedious work of reviewing founders’ LinkedIn and other profiles was necessary.

In entrepreneurship, a “minimum viable product” is a company’s first foray into the market with an item that has just enough features to be useful to consumers, and not so much investment that, should the product fail, the principals aren’t out a ton of money.

Marx, formerly an engineer and entrepreneur whose research focuses on reducing barriers to the commercialization of science and technology, borrowed that phrase to characterize the fleeting interest in funding Black startups.

“The title of our paper is just a play on words, and a bit cynical,” he said, “because ‘minimum viable signal’ is saying you’re doing the least you can to make people think that you’re serious.”

The other key finding was that the most VCs who started investing in Black entrepreneurs after May 2020 were unlikely to invest in more than one Black business, and were less likely to engage more actively in the company – i.e., taking a seat on the startup’s board of directors, not uncommon among VCs.

In the JF paper, Marx and his team refer to “screening discrimination” – the idea that an employer or VC will make decisions based on perceived group differences, even if those differences don’t reflect abilities. It is through this lens that Marx found that Black startups founded by Black VCs tend to do better than those backed by non-Black VCs.

“When you have in-group applicants and evaluators, they have more information about each other, and they’re going to be able to make better evaluations, even when they’re not trying to be biased,” he said.

Another key finding: The gap in funding between Black and non-Black startups is much smaller when looking at businesses spawned through accelerators, such as Techstars and Y Combinator (the latter co-founded by Paul Graham ’86). In venture capital, it’s not always what you know –sometimes, it’s who you know.

“It’s not that Black entrepreneurs are overrepresented at the accelerators,” he said. “But by comparison to venture capital, the gap is way lower, and I attribute that in part to the fact that you can apply; you don’t have to know somebody. By contrast, many VCs say that ‘you need to figure out how to get a meeting with me.’ But if you’re not in the club, that’s hard to pull off.”

Marx wants to make clear, however, that he doesn’t see VCs as racist.

“We looked for evidence of what economists call ‘taste-based discrimination’ – another way of saying racism,” he said. “Because if you thought that venture capitalists didn’t want to invest in Black founders, you’d think that when they do, it must be an exceptionally strong startup, and so the IPO rate for Black-owned startups that do get funded by non-Black VCs would be higher.

“But we found the opposite: Black startups outperform when they are backed by Black VCs,” he said. “Again, that points to overlap in networks and shared understanding of markets that Black entrepreneurs are uniquely qualified to exploit.”

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Journal

Management Science

DOI

10.1287/mnsc.2024.06410 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Minimum Viable Signal: Venture Funding, Social Movements, and Race

Article Publication Date

19-Aug-2025

Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre wrote a memoir. Months after her death, it's coming out

HILLEL ITALIE
Sun 24 August 2025 

AP


This cover image released by Knopf shows "Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice" by Virginia Roberts Giuffre. (Knopf via AP)


NEW YORK (AP) — A posthumous and “unsparing” memoir by one of Jeffrey Epstein's most prominent accusers, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, will be published this fall, publishing house Alfred A. Knopf said Sunday.

“Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice” is scheduled for release Oct. 21, the publisher confirmed to The Associated Press. Giuffre, who died by suicide in April at age 41, had been working on “Nobody's Girl” with author-journalist Amy Wallace and had completed the manuscript for the 400-page book, according to Knopf. The publisher's statement includes an email from Giuffre to Wallace a few weeks before her death, saying that it was her “heartfelt wish” the memoir be released “regardless” of her circumstances.

“The content of this book is crucial, as it aims to shed light on the systemic failures that allow the trafficking of vulnerable individuals across borders,” the email reads. “It is imperative that the truth is understood and that the issues surrounding this topic are addressed, both for the sake of justice and awareness.”

Giuffre had been hospitalized following a serious accident March 24, Knopf said, and sent the email April 1. She died April 25.

“In the event of my passing, I would like to ensure that NOBODY’S GIRL is still released. I believe it has the potential to impact many lives and foster necessary discussions about these grave injustices,” she wrote to Wallace.

In 2023, the New York Post had reported that Giuffre had reached a deal “believed to be worth millions” with an undisclosed publisher. Knopf spokesperson Todd Doughty said that she initially agreed to a seven-figure contract with Penguin Press, but moved with acquiring editor Emily Cunningham after Knopf hired Cunningham as executive editor last year.

Giuffre had stated often that, in the early 2000s, when she was a teenager, she was caught up in Epstein's sex-trafficking ring and exploited by Britain's Prince Andrew and other influential men. Epstein was found dead in a New York City jail cell in 2019 in what investigators described as a suicide. His former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, was convicted in late 2021 on sex trafficking and other charges.

Andrew had denied Giuffre's allegations. In 2022, Giuffre and Andrew reached an out-of-court settlement after she had sued him for sexual assault. A representative for Andrew did not immediately return the AP's request for comment.

“Nobody’s Girl” is distinct from Giuffre’s unpublished memoir, “The Billionaire’s Playboy Club,” referenced in previous court filings and initially unsealed in 2019. Through Doughty, Wallace says she began working with Giuffre on a new memoir in spring 2021.

Giuffre's name has continued to appear in headlines, even after her death. In July, President Donald Trump told reporters that Epstein had “stolen” Giuffre from Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Florida where she once worked. She had alleged being approached by Maxwell and hired as a masseuse for Epstein. Maxwell has denied Giuffre's allegations.

Doughty declined to provide details about the Epstein associates featured in “Nobody's Girl,” but confirmed that Giuffre made “no allegations of abuse against Donald Trump,” who continues to face questions about Epstein, the disgraced financier and his former friend.

Knopf's statement says the book contains “intimate, disturbing, and heartbreaking new details about her time with Epstein, Maxwell and their many well-known friends, including Prince Andrew, about whom she speaks publicly for the first time since their out-of-court settlement in 2022.” Knopf Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Jordan Pavlin, in a statement, called “Nobody's Girl” a “raw and shocking” journey and “the story of a fierce spirit struggling to break free.”

Giuffre's time with Epstein is well documented, although her accounts have been challenged. She had acknowledged getting details wrong, errors she attributed to trying to recall events from years ago. In 2022, she dropped allegations against Alan Dershowitz, saying in a statement at the time that she may “have made a mistake in identifying” the famed attorney as an abuser.

“'Nobody's Girl' was both vigorously fact-checked and legally vetted,” a Knopf statement reads.

Giuffre's co-author on her memoir, Wallace, is an award-winning magazine and newspaper reporter whose work has appeared in The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, among other publications. She has also collaborated on two previous books, Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull’s “Creativity, Inc.” and former General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt’s “Hot Seat.”


Duke of York faces fresh Epstein revelations in book by accuser

Gwyn Wright
Sun 24 August 2025 

THE TELEGRAPH

Virginia Giuffre pictured in 2020, when she was suing the Duke of York

 in a New York court - PA Media

Virginia Giuffre, the sex trafficking victim who accused the Duke of York of sex crimes, has reportedly written an autobiography which will be published posthumously later this year.

Ms Giuffre, who claimed she was forced to have sex with the Duke when she was 17, is said to have finished her memoir more than a year ago.

She died by suicide at the age of 41 in April, with her family calling her a “fierce warrior” who “will always be remembered for her incredible courage”.


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Her book, called Nobody’s Girl, will now be published in the US on October 21.

Virginia Giuffre holds a photograph of herself as a teenager, when she claimed she was raped by the Duke of York - Emily Michot/via Getty Images

The memoir, which is expected to detail Ms Giuffre’s experience at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, will place further pressure on the Duke, who made a multimillion-pound out-of-court settlement with his accuser.

The claims – of sexual abuse and rape – have never been tested in a court of law, and the Duke has vehemently and repeatedly denied them.

The Duke has already stepped back from public duty as a result of the fallout of his friendship with Epstein, and a television interview in which he denied meeting Ms Giuffre.

On the night she said she had met him, he said he had been at Pizza Express in Woking with one of his daughters. His allies have claimed that a photograph of the Duke and Ms Giuffre together in London was falsified.

Ms Giuffre was one of the most high-profile victims of paedophile financier Epstein, who died by suicide in prison in 2019, and Maxwell, a British socialite who is serving a 20-year prison sentence in the US for recruiting under-age girls.

The mother of three’s memoir will be published by Penguin Random House, which also published the Duke of Sussex’s memoir Spare, according to The Sun.

Sources told the newspaper publication was initially held back because of her health issues.

A spokesman for Knopf, a division of Random House, confirmed they would be publishing the book despite Ms Giuffre previously having a seven-figure contract with Penguin Press.

Ms Giuffre was pictured as a teenager with the Duke of York, with Ghislaine Maxwell looking on. Prince Andrew has said he has no recollection of the photo being taken - US Department of Justice

The book is reported to feature more revelations about her time with Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and their friends, including the Duke of York.

Ted Doughty, from the publishing house, did not give details of which Epstein associates feature in the book, but did say Ms Giuffre made no allegations of abuse against Donald Trump.

Jordan Pavlin, the editor-in-chief of Knopf, described the memoir as a “raw and shocking journey and the story of a fierce spirit struggling to break free”.

A US source said: “Virginia’s family have seen her maligned in life and in death, and they feel very strongly that her whole story should be told.”

The Duke has already stepped back from public life, no longer retaining royal patronages or honorary military roles, and appearing only on what the palace now describes as “family occasions”.

On Sunday, he did not attend church at Balmoral with the Royal family. The King, Queen, Prince and Princess of Wales and their children, the Princess Royal and Duke of Edinburgh all attended Crathie Kirk during the family’s annual summer holiday.

The Duke of York, who has been staying with his ex-wife Sarah, Duchess of York, at Craigowan Lodge on the estate, was seen driving elsewhere.

The Duke and Duchess have come under significant pressure this summer, after an explosive biography by Andrew Lownie revisited details of their complicated finances and sexual exploits.

The new memoir, by Ms Giuffre, may cause further embarrassment for the Duke, despite the details of her allegations against him already being in the public domain.

A recent poll found that two thirds of Britons would like Prince Andrew stripped of his titles.

Maxwell pictured with Epstein - US District Court for the Southern District of New York

On Friday, the US Justice Department released transcripts of an interview it carried out with Maxwell in prison.

In the interview, Maxwell claimed Sarah, Duchess of York, tried to “put the moves” on Epstein.

She said: “I thought that Sarah was trying to put the moves on Jeffrey, if I’m being honest, and I thought the whole thing was annoying and I was p----d off.

“I think Sarah is the one that pushed that. And they met and hung out, I want to say two or three times that had nothing to do with me.

“I wasn’t communicating with Andrew, I wasn’t in touch with him. And I know this because I was annoyed and I felt left out, and I felt disrespected and I was like, this is weird. I couldn’t even imagine Epstein and Andrew together.”

Spokesmen for the Duke and Duchess of York have not commented.

Epstein Survivor’s Family Blasts DOJ for Allowing Maxwell to ‘Rewrite History’

Jack Revell
Sun 24 August 2025 

Richard Corkery/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images

The family of one of Jeffrey Epstein’s most outspoken survivors is “outraged” by the Justice Department’s decision to release the transcripts of Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s interview with convicted Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.

Virginia Giuffre, who repeatedly alleged that she was abused at the hands of Epstein, Maxwell, and high-profile alleged associates including Prince Andrew, died by suicide, age 41, in Australia earlier this year.

Her immediate family has said the DOJ’s decision to release hundreds of pages and hours of audio from the interview on Friday has given Maxwell a “platform to rewrite history.”

Donald Trump and Ghislaine Maxwell’s social lives overlapped for years. / Patrick McMullan/Getty Images

“The content of these transcripts is in direct contradiction with felon Ghislaine Maxwell’s conviction for child sex trafficking,” the family said via a spokesperson in a statement.

“During DAG Todd Blanche’s bizarre interview, she is never challenged about her court-proven lies, providing her a platform to rewrite history.”

Maxwell, who was sentenced to 20 years in jail for the sex trafficking of minors in 2022, was moved to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas following her cooperation with Blanche in what was widely seen as part of a sweetheart deal.

Giuffre’s family said the decision to move Maxwell “sends a disturbing message that child sex trafficking is acceptable and will be rewarded.”

In the documents released by the DOJ, Maxwell describes President Donald Trump as “a gentleman in all respects” and only “friendly in social settings” with the man accused of creating a “vast network of underage victims… to sexually exploit.”

Ghislaine Maxwell outside her E. 65th St. Manhattan townhouse in 2015. / New York Daily News via Getty

Trump and his administration have repeatedly attempted to distract from the renewed interest in the release of documents pertaining to Epstein and his associates.

“This travesty of justice entirely invalidates the experiences of the many brave survivors who put their safety, security, and lives on the line to ensure her conviction, including our sister,” the Giuffre family continued in their statement.

Maxwell’s lawyers have said they would welcome a presidential pardon for her crimes. Trump has said that, while he is “allowed” to do so, it’s not something he has thought about.

“The Department of Justice serves the people of the United States. We continue to call upon the DOJ to do its job by investigating and holding accountable the many rich and powerful people who enabled Ghislaine Maxwell’s and Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes,” Giuffre’s family said.

NOT DEAD YET

Composer John Williams says he ‘never liked film music very much’

the 93-year-old believes that, as an art form, film music pales in comparison to history’s great works.

Dalya Alberge
Sun 24 August 2025 

THE GUARDIAN


John Williams (right) with Steven Spielberg in 1998. The composer says he has had a ‘very special collaboration’ with the film director.Photograph: Boston Globe/Getty Images


As one of the greatest composers in film, John Williams has written some of the most memorable music in cinema for masterpieces such as Jaws, Jurassic Park and Star Wars.

But despite winning five Oscars, the 93-year-old believes that, as an art form, film music pales in comparison to history’s great works.

“I never liked film music very much,” he confessed in a rare interview for a forthcoming biography.

He added: “Film music, however good it can be – and it usually isn’t, other than maybe an eight-minute stretch here and there … I just think the music isn’t there. That, what we think of as this precious great film music is … we’re remembering it in some kind of nostalgic way …

“Just the idea that film music has the same place in the concert hall as the best music in the canon is a mistaken notion, I think.”

He added: “A lot of [film music] is ephemeral. It’s certainly fragmentary and, until somebody reconstructs it, it isn’t anything that we can even consider as a concert piece.”

Among the more than 100 movies he has scored are the Indiana Jones films, ET, Schindler’s List and the first three Harry Potter films.

He is the world’s most nominated living Oscar recipient, with a record 54 nominations, recognising that his music has played a crucial role in enhancing and heightening a film’s emotion and atmosphere.

With two haunting notes, he captured the chilling threat of the Great White Shark in Jaws, while his mournful Jewish lament in Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List conveyed the heartbreak of the Holocaust.

He was interviewed by Tim Greiving for a biography, John Williams: A Composer’s Life, to be published by Oxford University Press in September.

Greiving was taken aback by Williams’s dismissal of film music: “His comments are sort of shocking, and they are not false modesty. He is genuinely self-deprecating, and deprecating of ‘film music’ in general.”

He said Williams referred to his film-scoring assignments, including the high-profile and much-lauded ones, as “just a job”. He added: “But I also don’t think we should necessarily take his words at face value. He clearly took the job of composing music for films as seriously as anyone in history ever has.

“He has this internalised prejudice against film music. It’s a functional type of music, which is funny because I consider his film music to be kind of sublime art at its best. That’s not modesty. He’s just saying it’s a lesser art form. Typically that is true, though. It is written much quicker and much more economically. But I do think his music defies that. He perfected the art of film scoring. He took it to its greatest heights. He elevated film music to a high art form.”

Despite the acclaim, Williams is self-critical, telling Greiving: “If I had it all to do over again, I would have made a cleaner job of it – of having the film music and the concert music all being more me, whatever that is, or more unified in some way. But none of it ever happened that way. The film thing was a job to do, or an opportunity to accept.”

In the book, he also talks about working with Spielberg, for whom he scored Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Saving Private Ryan, among other movies.

Williams was frustrated early in his career by directors who did not understand music, a typical complaint among film composers.

With Spielberg, he has had a “very special collaboration”, he said. “He’s more … musically educated than most of the directors that I’ve worked with. He grew up with his mother who played … Clementi and Bach and Chopin and so on. And she took him to concerts … He played a little clarinet. And he is very musical.”

Away from film, Williams has composed dozens of concerti, fanfare and other concert works. He was music director of the Boston Pops for more than a decade, inspiring countless children to pursue a career in the orchestra and winning the respect of the classical community worldwide, Greiving said.

Williams has personally approved a new concert performance of his most famous scores, including Star Wars and Schindler’s List.

Titled John Williams Reimagined and featuring new arrangements for flute, cello and piano, it will take place at Cadogan Hall in London on 27 October, with an accompanying album.

Williams said: “Pianist Simone Pedroni, flutist Sara Andon and cellist Cécilia Tsan have enhanced and elevated my music and that brings me great joy.”


John Williams: To say film music is the best is a mistake

Dalya Alberge
Sun 24 August 2025 

THE TELEGRAPH



John Williams is best known for his film soundtrack compositions but thinks some movie scores are ‘ephemeral, fragmentary’ - Lawrence K. Ho/via Getty Images

He is arguably cinema’s greatest composer of film music, but John Williams has admitted to not enjoying the genre.

Although he created the soundtracks to masterpieces such as Jaws and Jurassic Park, Star Wars and Saving Private Ryan, the 93-year-old composer, who has won five Oscars, believes that, as an art form, film music cannot compare with history’s great works.

The revelation comes in a series of interviews conducted by Tim Greiving for a major forthcoming biography, titled John Williams: A Composer’s Life, to be published by Oxford University Press in September.

Such is the power of Williams’s music that it is his repetitive use of two notes in Jaws, conveying the ominous threat of the approaching great white shark, that first comes to mind when audiences think of Steven Spielberg’s masterpiece.

But Williams told Greiving: “A lot of [film music] is ephemeral. It’s certainly fragmentary and, until somebody reconstructs it, it isn’t anything that we can even consider as a concert piece…

“Just the idea that film music has the same place in the concert hall as the best music in the canon is a mistaken notion, I think.”

Williams recalled that during his years of working at the Boston Pops, he would be asked to “play some great film music”.

“Well, I go, here, this was a great score, and I’d look at it – and there’s no score there. There’s a couple of cues that have to be put together. Something over here doesn’t play because it’s two and a half minutes long, and it wasn’t good to begin with...

“Film music, however good it can be – and it usually isn’t, other than maybe an eight-minute stretch here and there... I just think the music isn’t there. That, what we think of as this precious great film music is... we’re remembering it in some kind of nostalgic way.”

Williams with Star Wars droid C3P0 in 1980 - Boston Globe

Greiving described Williams’s dismissal of film music as “sort of shocking”, but said it was “not false modesty” and that he was “genuinely self-deprecating, and deprecating of ‘film music’ in general”.

He added: “He clearly took the job of composing music for films as seriously as anyone in history ever has… He perfected the art of film scoring. He took it to its greatest heights. He elevated film music to a high art form.”

With his soft, unassuming demeanour, Williams told Greiving: “If I had it all to do over again, I would have made a cleaner job of it – of having the film music and the concert music all being more me, whatever that is, or more unified in some way. But none of it ever happened that way. The film thing was a job to do, or an opportunity to accept.”

He also spoke of his long-standing collaboration with Spielberg, for whom he scored Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T., among other movies. He described Spielberg as “very musical”, in contrast to “most of the directors that I’ve worked with”.

He said: “My career with Steven began to develop, one film by another. No plan. He didn’t have one either, and we were just going ahead and doing what we thought we should do next.”

Williams added: “I think a lot of things [films] I didn’t do because people thought – and they were right – that I was chronically and consistently busy with Steven. I’ve had people say that to me: ‘Well, we thought you were married to Steven.’ Which I suppose, in many ways, I was, or have been, or still am.”

Beyond his film work, Williams has composed dozens of concerti, fanfare and other concert works.

He has welcomed new concert arrangements of some of his most famous film scores, including Star Wars, Schindler’s List, E.T., Memoirs of a Geisha and Harry Potter.