Drinking coffee and tea may protect the brain against dementia, study finds

Copyright Cleared/Canva

By Marta Iraola Iribarren

Published on 10/02/2026 - EURONEWS

Moderate daily consumption of caffeine is associated with a lower risk of dementia and slower cognitive decline, according to a new study.

Drinking coffee or tea daily could help protect the brain’s healthy ageing, new research shows.

Moderate caffeine consumption, two to three cups of caffeinated coffee or one to two cups of tea daily, may lower the risk of dementia, slow cognitive decline, and preserve cognitive function.

“When searching for possible dementia prevention tools, we thought something as prevalent as coffee may be a promising dietary intervention,” said senior author Daniel Wang, associate scientist at Mass General Brigham Department of Medicine and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School.

The results, published in JAMA, found that moderate caffeine consumption was associated with up to an 18 percent lower risk of dementia.

The benefits were most pronounced among participants who consumed caffeine in moderate amounts.

However, higher caffeine intake did not lead to negative effects and appeared to offer similar neuroprotective benefits to moderate consumption.

Coffee and tea contain bioactive ingredients such as polyphenols and caffeine, which could act as neuroprotective factors by reducing inflammation and cellular damage while supporting cognitive health.

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How was the study done?

The study looked at more than 130,000 participants who underwent dietary, dementia, and cognitive assessments. They were followed for up to 43 years, allowing researchers to examine how caffeinated coffee, tea, and decaffeinated coffee affected dementia risk and cognitive health over time.

During the follow-up period, 11,033 participants developed dementia.

In both men and women, the highest caffeine intake had an 18 percent lower risk of dementia compared with those who drank little or none.

Coffee drinkers also reported lower symptoms of subjective cognitive decline, the self-perceived experience of memory loss or confusion, at 7.8 percent versus 9.5 percent.

Previous studies have linked caffeine to improved insulin sensitivity and vascular function, which may contribute to its protective effects against cognitive decline.

The authors caution that, as an observational study, the results cannot establish direct causality. It also did not account for differences in tea or coffee types, or in how they were consumed, such as roast level, product origin, or brewing technique.

Related

• Does coffee fight ageing? What the science really shows about it being good for your health

The challenge of tackling dementia

Early prevention remains key in dementia, as current treatments offer limited benefits once symptoms appear, the study said.

Focusing on prevention has led researchers to investigate the role that lifestyle factors, such as diet, play in dementia development.

Dementia typically develops along a continuum, from subjective cognitive decline to mild cognitive impairment, and eventually to clinical dementia

The researchers noted that, while the results are encouraging, it is important to remember that the effect size is small and that there are multiple ways to protect cognitive function as we age.

“Our study suggests that caffeinated coffee or tea consumption can be one piece of that puzzle,” Wang said.

 

Sex in space: Human reproduction beyond Earth policy must be urgently addressed, experts say

Copyright Credit: Pexels

By Theo Farrant

Published on 09/02/2026 - EURONEWS

A new international study warns that reproductive health in space is no longer a theoretical concern and that questions about fertility and pregnancy should be pressing concerns.

As commercial spaceflight edges closer to reality, astronauts spend more time orbiting Earth, and as we look to one day settle on Mars, questions about sex and reproductive health in space need to be urgently addressed, experts say.

Published in the peer-reviewed journal Reproductive Biomedicine Online, a new international report brings together experts in reproductive medicine, aerospace science and bioethics to warn that the rapid expansion of human activity in space is outpacing policies designed to protect reproductive health.

More than 50 years ago, "two scientific breakthroughs reshaped what was thought biologically and physically possible - the first Moon landing and the first proof of human fertilisation in vitro," said clinical embryologist Giles Palmer from the International IVF Initiative.

"Now, more than half a century later, we argue in this report that these once-separate revolutions are colliding in a practical and underexplored reality: space is becoming a workplace and a destination, while assisted reproductive technologies have become highly advanced, increasingly automated and widely accessible," he added.

The complications of reproduction in spaceDespite advances in assisted reproductive technologies (ART), such as IVF and ICSI, there are still no widely accepted, industry-wide standards for managing reproductive health risks in space.

Risks include inadvertent early pregnancy during missions, the effects of radiation and microgravity on fertility, and the ethical boundaries around any future reproduction-related research.

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Evidence from lab studies and limited human data suggests that space - described in the report as "an increasingly routine workplace" - is nevertheless "a hostile environment" for human biology.

"Microgravity, cosmic radiation, circadian disruption, pressure differentials, and extreme temperatures found in orbit" are all factors known to interfere with healthy reproductive processes in both men and women.

Animal studies indicate that short-term radiation exposure can disrupt menstrual cycles and increase cancer risk. However, the review highlights a lack of reliable long-term data from male and female astronauts after extended missions.

Reproductive tissues are especially vulnerable to DNA damage, the study notes, and the impact of cumulative radiation exposure on male fertility during long missions remains what the authors call a "critical knowledge gap."

Could IVF work in space?

So far, no human has ever conceived or given birth in space and pregnancy is still a strict contraindication for those travelling beyond Earth.

Yet the study notes that automated fertilisation and cryopreservation technologies may "align with the operational demands of space-based reproductive research and practice".

"Developments in assisted reproductive technologies often arise from extreme or marginal conditions but quickly extend beyond them," said Palmer.

"ART is highly transferable because it addresses situations where reproduction is biologically possible yet structurally constrained by environment, health, timing, or social circumstance, constraints that already exist widely on Earth."

The authors of the report argue that ethical questions surrounding human reproduction in space can no longer be deferred.

“As human presence in space expands, reproductive health can no longer remain a policy blind spot,” said Dr Fathi Karouia, a senior author of the study and a research scientist at NASA.

"International collaboration is urgently needed to close critical knowledge gaps and establish ethical guidelines that protect both professional and private astronauts - and ultimately safeguard humanity as we move toward a sustained presence beyond Earth."

Dogs And Cats Help Spread An Invasive Flatworm Species

February 11, 2026 
By Eurasia Review


A study published in the journal PeerJ, conducted by a researcher from the Institute of Systematics, Evolution and Biodiversity (ISYEB) at the French National Museum of Natural History, in collaboration with a researcher from James Cook University in Australia, reveals that domestic animals are involved in the transport of an invasive flatworm species in France.

Terrestrial flatworms (Platyhelminthes) are invasive species that primarily spread through the transport of plants, largely driven by human activities. However, one question remained unanswered: how do these very slow-moving animals manage to colonize neighboring gardens?

By analyzing more than twelve years of reports collected through citizen science initiatives in France, the researchers uncovered a previously unsuspected role played by domestic animals. Flatworms were indeed found attached to the fur of dogs and cats.

Surprisingly, among the roughly ten flatworm species that have invaded France, only one appears to be involved: Caenoplana variegata. Its particularly sticky mucus, associated with its arthropod-predator diet, as well as its ability to reproduce without a partner, facilitate its dispersal.

Given the considerable distances traveled each year by domestic animals, this mode of transport may significantly contribute to the global spread of certain invasive flatworm species.

Planting Tree Belts On Wet Farmland Comes With An Overlooked Trade-Off

February 11, 2026 
By Eurasia Review



A research team has conducted a study to examine how shelterbelts influence bird species diversity and composition in an agricultural wetland landscape on the western coast of central Japan. They determined that shelterbelts, trees planted to protect the land from wind, in farmlands are not automatically beneficial for bird diversity.

Their research is published in the Journal of Environmental Management.

Many agri-environmental policies promote planting trees and hedgerows in farmland to enhance biodiversity. These woody features, called shelterbelts, are widely assumed to be beneficial. However, most of the evidence supporting their benefits comes from croplands and grasslands in Europe and North America. Much less is known about how these shelterbelts affect wet-farmed landscapes, such as rice paddies, that are common across Asia and support wildlife dependent on wetland habitats, which are now declining globally.

“The central question of our study is, ‘Do shelterbelts and other woody linear features benefit all farmland birds equally in agricultural wetland landscapes, or do they create trade-offs by disadvantaging species that depend on open habitats?’” said corresponding author Masumi Hisano, assistant professor at Hiroshima University’s Graduate School of Advanced Science and Engineering.

This question is important because agricultural wetlands are not only food-producing systems but also serve as surrogate wetlands for many bird species, including migratory species along major flyways. If these shelterbelts unintentionally reduce habitat suitability for grassland and wetland birds, the conservation actions could undermine the biodiversity they aim to protect.


Small tweaks, big consequences

The team focused their study on the fields around Lake Kahokugata in central Japan. The lands there consist of mostly rice paddies, but also lotus fields, cultivated croplands, and pastures. The Lake Kahokugata area experiences strong winds and storms during the winter. Shelterbelts are planted along agricultural fields there to protect croplands from wind damage.

This area is an important stopover site for migratory birds along the East Asian-Australasian Flyway. Wintering birds spend the cold months there and breeding species use the area during the summer. Almost 300 different bird species have been recorded in the area. The team conducted their bird surveys in February and March 2021 and June 2023. They used a point-count method to collect the bird data.

The bird surveys showed that in wet-farmed landscapes, shelterbelts create a clear trade-off. They support bush- and edge-associated birds, but at the same time they strongly reduce the abundance of grassland species and diversity of wetland species that require large, open spaces.

“We found that the abundance of grassland birds was more than 70 percent lower at sites next to shelterbelts compared with open sites located about one kilometre away,” said Hisano. This shows that even narrow, linear tree features can dramatically alter what birds can live in a landscape.

“A useful way to think about this is that shelterbelts act like ecological walls,” said Hisano. The shelterbelts create habitat for some species, but for others, particularly birds that nest and forage in open ground, they shrink the usable landscape and increase exposure to predators. “Our study provides clear, quantitative evidence that small-scale landscape features can have large ecological consequences, directly relevant to land-use planning and environmental management,” said Hisano.
Spatial design guides outcomes

The team explains that rather than asking whether woody vegetation is “good” or “bad,” their study shows that the spatial design and placement of trees matter. “Biodiversity-friendly farmland management must balance structural complexity with the ecological needs of open-habitat species, especially in landscapes where wetlands have already been heavily modified by humans,” said Hisano. The team considers their management-focused message to be crucial because many current agri-environmental schemes promote tree planting without considering how it reshapes entire bird communities.

Looking ahead, the team notes that future research needs to examine how different shelterbelt designs, such as width, height, spacing, and configuration, and tree species composition and diversity, affect wildlife across seasons and regions. They also want to better understand how birds respond indirectly through changes in predator activity and habitat connectivity.

“Ultimately, our goal is to help design evidence-based agri-environmental policies that work in wet-farmed landscapes worldwide. Rather than promoting a single solution, such as planting more trees everywhere, we aim to support landscape-level planning that combines open habitats and woody features in ways that sustain diverse bird communities and the ecosystem functions they provide. By doing so, agricultural wetlands can remain productive for people while continuing to serve as vital habitats for wildlife in a rapidly changing world,” said Hisano.

Half Of The World’s Coral Reefs Suffered Major Bleaching During 2014–2017 Global Heatwave

February 11, 2026
By Eurasia Review

Benefits to society from coral reefs, including fisheries, tourism, coastal protection, pharmaceutical discovery and more, are estimated at about $9.8 trillion per year. For the first time, an international team led by Smithsonian researchers estimated the extent of coral bleaching worldwide during a global marine heatwave, finding that half of the world’s reefs experienced significant damage. Another heatwave began in 2023 and is ongoing. The analysis was published in Nature Communications.

It takes two partners to make a coral: a tiny animal related to a jellyfish that secretes the hard coral structure and an even tinier algae that turn sunlight into the energy the animal partner needs to live. Bleaching occurs under heat stress, when the partnership breaks down, and the coral loses its algal symbionts—its source of energy—and turns white. Bleaching leads to reduced growth, less reproduction and even death when it is especially severe or sustained.

To obtain their estimate of the extent of reef damage from the “Third Global Coral Bleaching Event” (2014–2017), an international team from dozens of countries worldwide, led by researchers at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), James Cook University in Australia and the former director of Coral Reef Watch at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), combined satellite images of ocean water temperature from the Coral Reef Watch system with reef observations from in the water and aerial surveys around the world.

“This is the most geographically extensive analysis of coral bleaching surveys ever done,” said Sean Connolly, a senior scientist at the Smithsonian. “Nearly 200 co-authors from 143 institutions in 41 countries and territories contributed data.”

Across more than 15,000 reef surveys, 80 percent of reefs experienced moderate or greater bleaching, and 35 percent of reefs experienced moderate or greater mortality. After calibrating the relationship between heat stress and coral damage at the surveyed sites, the team used satellite-derived heat stress measures to estimate how much bleaching occurred on reefs all around the world, including those that were not surveyed. The team estimated that more than 50% of coral reefs worldwide suffered significant bleaching and 15% experienced significant mortality. Global decline of coral reefs affects many services reefs provide, like tourism and food supply.

“Levels of heat stress were so extreme during this event that Coral Reef Watch had to create new, higher bleaching alert levels that were not needed during prior events,” said first author C. Mark Eakin, former director of Coral Reef Watch and chief scientific advisor for the Netflix film Chasing Coral.

“Around half of reef locations affected by bleaching-level heat stress were exposed twice or more during the three-year event—often with devastating consequences,” said Scott Heron, professor of physics at James Cook University. “That included back-to-back events on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Three more bleaching events have happened there since. We are seeing that reefs don’t have time to recover properly before the next bleaching event occurs.”

In the past 30 years, Earth has lost 50% of its corals because the oceans absorb most of the heat people create when they burn fossil fuels. If the oceans did not absorb the heat, air temperatures would be around 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit). Data from around the world shows that the Earth is now in a Fourth Global Coral Bleaching Event.

“Our results show that the Third Global Coral Bleaching Event was by far the most severe and widespread coral bleaching event on record,” Connolly said. “And yet, reefs are currently experiencing an even more severe Fourth Event, which started in early 2023.”

“Local, regional and global economies rely heavily on the health of natural systems, such as coral reefs, but we often take them for granted,” said Joshua Tewksbury, the director of STRI. “It is vital that science communities come together, like this global team has done, to track how these critical systems are changing. Doing this well, and at scale, requires connecting geographies and combining technologies—from Earth observation satellites to in-the-water surveys that calibrate observations from space and show us the extent of the damage.”

China’s Cautious Calculus On Trump’s Board Of Peace – Analysis

US President Donald Trump formally launches the first charter of the Gaza “Board of Peace” in a signing ceremony during the annual 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos. Photo Credit: White House video screenshot


February 11, 2026 

Observer Research Foundation
By Antara Ghosal Singh

United States President Donald Trump launched the Board of Peace (BoP) at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January 2026. This prompted a measured response from China, with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) spokesperson Guo Jiakun merely acknowledging that China received an invitation to join the board.

However, Chinese analysts, citing international concerns, questioned whether the so-called ‘Peace Commission’ would become a “mechanism for the US to seize power”, using it to replace the United Nations and undermine the international order based on international law. Others dismissed the initiative, calling it an imperial project, a “small clique of Trump’s cronies”, a colonial solution, and a mechanism for “plundering” and “extortion”, as well as Trump’s retirement plan. Although the discourse in Beijing may sound similar in other global capitals, China’s concerns about Trump’s Board of Peace run deeper than many would imagine.

China’s Multilateral Vision in the Shadow of Trump’s Peace Initiative

Although Chinese scholars have been particularly critical of President Trump’s Board of Peace, the fact remains that Chinese President Xi Jinping has been a pioneer in shaping global governance and multilateral diplomacy as per China’s terms. China under Xi has strongly reinforced multilateralism with Chinese characteristics and launched a series of programmes and initiatives in the past decade—from the Belt and Road Initiative to the ‘Three Major Global Initiatives’: Global Development Initiative (GDI), Global Security Initiative (GSI), and Global Civilization Initiative (GCI)—aimed at providing “Chinese solution for building a more just and equitable global governance system and injected Chinese momentum into revitalising the core position and leading role of the United Nations”. Notably, China has leveraged its growing influence in the United Nations (UN) creatively to launch, legitimise, and popularise some of its private initiatives.

For example, China claims that BRI has already received endorsement from more than 150 countries and 30-plus international organisations, including the UN. Beijing further argues that the GDI has also secured support from various countries and international organisations, with the UN among participating bodies. Similarly, GSI, under which China is taking measures on various global hotspot issues shaping the UN system—from Ukraine to Afghanistan, the Israel-Palestine conflict, and the Iran-Saudi rapprochement—is reportedly supported by the China-UN Peace and Development Fund.

President Xi recently introduced the Global Governance Initiative (GGI) and its five core concepts—sovereign equality, international rule of law, multilateralism, a people-centred approach, and taking real actions. To implement GGI, China has launched the ‘Group of Friends of Global Governance’ at the UN headquarters, comprising 43 countries, including Kazakhstan, Malaysia, the Maldives, Mongolia, and Pakistan, among others, who are mandated with collectively upholding the post-World War II international order, through a reformed and improved global governance system.

China also launched the International Organization for Mediation (IOMed) in 2025 to rival established international bodies such as the International Court of Justice (ICJ). IOMed, headquartered in Hong Kong, is designed to mediate disputes between states, between states and foreign investors, and over international commercial disputes. China asserts that IOMed is based on Article 33 of the UN Charter, which prioritises mediation as one of the first means for seeking peaceful solutions to international disputes.

Trump’s Encroachment on China’s Strategic Partners

The other concern for China is that the members of Trump’s Board are all countries with strategic ties to China through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). During the signing ceremony, Trump was accompanied not by the usual US allies—Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and South Korea—but by countries long aligned with China, including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Uzbekistan, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan. Pakistan forms the core of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), with China investing hundreds of billions to help it build roads and ports; Saudi Arabia and China have signed numerous energy agreements, with RMB settlement for oil transactions becoming commonplace; Indonesia’s Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway and nickel mines are all substantial Chinese investments. Uzbekistan is an active member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), and controls key transportation routes in Central Asia; Mongolia has increasingly close ties with China in railway and mining cooperation. Chinese observers wondered why these countries are willing to align with the US despite having close ties with China, considering whether this reflects coerced cooperation, quietly shifting allegiance, or a part of their shrewd hedging strategy in major power competition. Shifting loyalties of traditional SCO allies and partners is a new reality facing China, particularly under Trump 2.0.

China’s Middle East Strategy in the Shadow of US Influence

Chinese observers further noted that the list of participants in Trump’s Board of Peace not only included the most influential core countries in the Arab world but also major Islamic powers such as Indonesia, Turkey, and Pakistan. Long influential in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, these countries’ collective joining of the newly established US-led ‘Peace Commission’ constitutes a strong political statement.

The participating countries—including regional rivals such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, dominant countries from different sectarian groups and aligned along different geopolitical axes such as Turkey and Egypt—demonstrate a willingness among these nations to set aside internal disputes and join the ‘Peace Committee’. For them, joining the Board does not necessarily mean they will accept all of the US’s proposals; they aim to influence the process from within, ensuring that the resulting outcome does not deviate completely from their core interests. This adds to China’s dilemma, as not joining Trump’s BoP could cost China an important leverage point in the Middle East. However, joining could pose new challenges, from being asked to deploy personnel for the international stabilisation force under Israeli coordination to having Trump directly intervening in all global hotspots from Ukraine to the South China Sea.

Overall, China’s attitude towards Trump’s BoP remains particularly cautious. First, as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) with veto power, China has little rationale for participating in an organisation dominated entirely by Trump. Secondly, China under Xi has prioritised providing ‘Chinese solutions’ to global problems, seeking to offer an alternative to US-led solutions and expand its influence in global governance. China has achieved notable success, initially through BRICS and the SCO, and later via initiatives such as the BRI, GSI, and GDI.

Given the trend, China’s joining President Trump’s Board looks rather counterintuitive. However, China is unlikely to counter Trump publicly on this issue, given that doing so might impact its ongoing trade negotiations with the Trump administration. China, therefore, is taking a wait-and-watch approach, quietly biding its time and hiding its disapproval behind global scepticism around Trump’s Board of Peace.

About the author: Antara Ghosal Singh is a Fellow at the Strategic Studies Programme at the Observer Research Foundation.

Source: This article was published by the Observer Research Foundation.


Observer Research Foundation

ORF was established on 5 September 1990 as a private, not for profit, ’think tank’ to influence public policy formulation. The Foundation brought together, for the first time, leading Indian economists and policymakers to present An Agenda for Economic Reforms in India. The idea was to help develop a consensus in favour of economic reforms.

Football-Sized Fossil Creature May Have Been One Of The First Land Animals To Eat Its Veggies

A reconstruction of Tyrannoroter heberti, eating a fern. Illustration by Hannah Fredd

 February 11, 2026 

By Eurasia Review

Life on Earth started in the oceans. Sometime around 475 million years ago, plants began making their way from the water onto the land, and it took another 100 million years for the first animals with backbones to join them. But for tens of millions of years, these early land-dwelling creatures only ate their fellow animals, rather than grazing on greenery. In a new paper in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, scientists describe the 307-million-year-old fossil of one of the earliest known land vertebrates that evolved the ability to eat plants.

“This is one of the oldest known four-legged animals to eat its veggies,” says Arjan Mann, assistant curator of fossil fishes and early tetrapods at the Field Museum in Chicago and co-lead author of the study. “It shows that experimentation with herbivory goes all the way back to the earliest terrestrial tetrapods—the ancient relatives of all land vertebrates, including us.”

“The specimen is the first of its group to receive a detailed 3D reconstruction, which allowed us to look inside its skull and reveal its specialized teeth, helping us to trace the origin of terrestrial herbivory,” says Zifang Xiong, a PhD student at the University of Toronto and co-lead author of the paper.

The researchers named the new species Tyrannoroter heberti, meaning Hebert’s tyrant digger, in honor of its discoverer, Brian Hebert. The animal’s skull is the only part that scientists have found, but based on the size of its head and the more complete skeletons of its relatives, Tyrannoroter was probably a stocky four-legged creature about a foot long. “It was roughly the size and shape of an American football,” says Mann. By modern standards, that’s not terribly large, but it was one of the largest land-dwelling animals of its time. Tyrannoroter probably looked a little like a lizard, but it lived before the ancestors of reptiles and mammals split off from each other, so it technically wasn’t a reptile.

The team found Tyrannoroter on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, under harsh fieldwork conditions. “Nova Scotia has the highest tides in the world—when we’re working there, we’re racing against the tide, when the ocean comes back in,” says Mann. “It’s very rocky, and the fossils are in cliffs on the shore. Paleontologists hate excavating in cliffs, because the cliff could come down on you.”

Brian Hebert, an avocational paleontologist from Nova Scotia, discovered the small skull in a fossilized tree stump during a field season led by Hillary Maddin, a professor of paleontology at Carleton University. “The skull was wide and heart-shaped, really narrow at the snout but really wide at the back,” says Mann. “Within five seconds of looking at it, I was like, ‘Oh, that’s a pantylid microsaur.’”

The pantylids are a fairly early chapter in the story of vertebrate animals living on land. When lobe-finned fish first evolved limbs that let them scoot onto the land, they still depended largely on their watery homes. “The pantylids are from the second phase of terrestriality, when animals became permanently adapted to life on dry land,” says Mann. They’re what scientists call stem amniotes—animals closely related to the group of tetrapods that evolved eggs that could stay dry outside of water. In later years, these stem amniotes would split into reptiles and the early ancestors of mammals.

Mann prepared the specimen by carefully chipping away rock from the fossilized bone, but the skull had fossilized with its mouth closed, and internal structures like its brain case remained hidden. To see inside the skull, the researchers CT scanned it, producing a series of stackable X-ray images to generate a 3D picture.

“We were most excited to see what was hidden inside the mouth of this animal once it was scanned—a mouth jam-packed with a whole additional set of teeth for crushing and grinding food, like plants,” says Maddin, the study’s senior author. These teeth, including ones on the roof of its mouth, hint that our stem amniote tetrapod relatives were eating plants sooner than scientists had previously thought.

“Tyrannoroter heberti is of great interest because it was long thought that herbivory was restricted to amniotes. It is a stem amniote but has a specialized dentition that could be used for processing plant fodder,” says Hans Sues, senior research geologist and curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and co-author of the study.

That’s not to say that Tyrannoroter ate only plants. “When Hans Sues was my advisor during my post-doctoral fellowship at the Smithsonian, he would always say that just about all herbivores alive today consume at least some animal protein, and that herbivory is best seen as a gradient,” says Mann. Tyrannoroter probably ate smaller animals, including insects, in addition to vegetation, and the insect exoskeletons in early tetrapods’ diets may have paved the way for stem amniotes like Tyrannoroter to be able to crush and process tough plant materials. What’s more, digesting the bodies of plant-eating insects may have given early tetrapods the gut flora and microbes they would need to process plants.

In addition to shedding light on the origins of herbivory, the research could also provide insights into what happens when plant-eating animals are faced with the destruction of those plants. Tyrannoroter lived near the end of the Carboniferous Period, when the planet underwent a period of climate change, the last icehouse-to-greenhouse transition since the one we’re currently in. “At the end of the Carboniferous, the rainforest ecosystems collapsed, and we had a period of global warming,” says Mann. “The lineage of animals that Tyrannoroter belongs to didn’t do very well. This could be a data point in the bigger picture of what happens to plant-eating animals when climate change rapidly alters their ecosystems and the plants that can grow there.”

A LITTLE GOOD NEWS

Public Notice Error Forces Delay In Federal Oil Lease Sale In Arctic Alaska

File photo of lakes and connecting streams in the northeastern part of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. (Photo by Bob Wick/U.S. Bureau of Land Management)

February 11, 2026 
Alaska Beacon
By Yereth Rosen

(Alaska Beacon) — A federal oil and gas lease sale in Alaska that was to have been held in early March has now been postponed for nine days because of public notice mistakes.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management said Tuesday it has rescheduled its planned lease sale for 5.5 million acres in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. The sale would have been on March 9, but will now be held on March 18, the BLM said.

A legally required Federal Register notice failed to publish as scheduled last week. The BLM has reissued the notice and said it is now scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on Wednesday.

Federal law requires such published notices at least 30 days before lease sales.

This is the first of five NPR-A lease sales mandated under the sweeping budget and tax bill called the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” The act, passed and signed into law last summer, requires at least five NPR-A lease sales, each offering at least 4 million acres, to be held by 2035.

It is also the first NPR-A lease sale scheduled since 2019, under the first Trump administration, and the first conducted under a new Trump administration management plan that opened long-protected areas of the reserve to leasing.

The Trump plan makes 82% of the 23-million-acre reserve available for leasing, including areas in and around Teshekpuk Lake, the largest North Slope lake and habitat for migratory birds, a caribou herd and other Arctic wildlife. Under an Obama administration plan that was in place until now, about half of the reserve was available for leasing and the Teshekpuk Lake area was among five designated “special areas” protected from development.

A new lawsuit is pending over the Trump administration’s decision to strip protections for the Teshekpuk Caribou Herd and its habitat. That lawsuit was filed by an organization in Nuiqsut, the Inupiat village closest to existing NPR-A development. The organization, representing Nuiqsut’s city and tribal governments and for-profit village corporation, had negotiated a conservation agreement that was signed by the Biden administration in late 2024; in December, the Trump administration canceled the agreement.

Exactly what acreage will be auctioned off in the March 19 lease sale was not clear as of Tuesday morning. Details of the sale have not yet been posted on the BLM’s NPR-A website as of then.


Alaska Beacon

Alaska Beacon is an independent, nonpartisan news organization focused on connecting Alaskans to their state government. Alaska, like many states, has seen a decline in the coverage of state news. We aim to reverse that.

The Austrian School Economic Origins Of Cryptocurrencies – OpEd

February 11, 202
FEE
By Deborah Palma

The launch of Bitcoin in 2009 represents one of the most disruptive phenomena in financial history, establishing a unique link between computer science and an economic tradition opposed to the mainstream. To understand Bitcoin’s importance, it is not sufficient to analyze its cryptographic architecture alone; it is essential to delve into the intellectual roots that shaped its existence, primarily found in the Austrian School of Economics.

The conceptual origins of Bitcoin date back to 1871, with the publication of Principles of Economics by Carl Menger. Menger is known for resolving the paradox of value (also known as the diamond–water paradox), demonstrating that value is neither intrinsic to goods nor derived from the labor required to produce them, but rather a subjective attribution based on marginal utility. This analytical framework is the foundation of Austrian monetary theory: money is not a creation of the state, but the product of the gradual development of the market.

Menger demonstrated that money emerges through a spontaneous process when individuals in a barter economy encounter the difficulty of achieving a double coincidence of wants. To facilitate exchange, market participants begin to adopt goods with higher liquidity. Throughout history, tradable goods such as salt, cattle, and precious metals were evaluated, until gold and silver prevailed as the most functional media of exchange due to their physical attributes of durability, divisibility, and scarcity. Bitcoin is the digital representation of this economic evolution, emerging not by government decree, but as a voluntary choice by individuals seeking an asset with superior monetary properties.

Menger’s conceptual framework is further developed through the study of marginal utility as applied to money. The value attributed to an additional unit of currency declines as an individual’s cash balance increases, which affects the demand for money holdings and, consequently, the purchasing power of money in the market. Bitcoin, characterized by an inelastic and programmatically fixed supply, enables individuals to plan over the long term, counteracting the loss of value caused by inflation, as occurs with government-issued fiat currencies.

In 1976, Friedrich Hayek published The Denationalization of Money, in which he argued that the state monopoly over money issuance should be abolished in favor of free competition among private issuers. Hayek believed that the market would naturally select the most stable and reliable currencies, punishing inflationary issuers.

Bitcoin represents a technological advancement that governments cannot prevent, and that offers a global financial infrastructure alongside the traditional financial system. Unlike Hayek’s original proposal, which involved private banks issuing competing currencies, Bitcoin removes even the private issuer, consisting instead of an open-source protocol with decentralized governance. This architecture prevents Bitcoin from suffering the same abuses of power that Hayek observed in central banks throughout the 20th century.

The technical implementation of Bitcoin is a product of the cypherpunk movement of the 1980s and 1990s. This group advocated strong cryptography as a means of protecting individual privacy and resisting state surveillance. Projects such as David Chaum’s e-cash and Wei Dai’s b-money attempted to create digital money but faced challenges such as centralization or the double-spending problem—that is, the use of the same bitcoins in multiple transactions.

The decisive catalyst for Bitcoin’s launch was the 2008 financial crisis. Austrian Business Cycle Theory (ABCT) explains that economic crises are caused by artificial credit expansion and low interest rates, which lead to malinvestments and asset bubbles. When these bubbles burst, governments typically resort to quantitative easing (the creation of new money) and bank bailouts, harming savers while benefiting insolvent institutions.

Bitcoin’s volatility is repeatedly misinterpreted as a flaw, when in fact it is the necessary price-discovery mechanism of an asset evolving from a technological hobby into a global store of value.

Unlike stocks, Bitcoin does not generate cash flows or dividends to anchor its fundamental value. Its price is derived purely from its marginal utility as a medium of exchange and a scarce store of value. Because its supply is fixed and absolutely limited, all adjustments to changes in demand must occur through price.

The maxim “Not your keys, not your coins” is the cornerstone of individual sovereignty within the Bitcoin ecosystem. Leaving bitcoins on a centralized exchange under third-party custody undermines the original purpose of the technology: the elimination of counterparty risk.

Financial software

Jesús Huerta de Soto, in his analysis of the banking system, identifies fractional reserve banking as inherently fraudulent and the primary cause of economic instability. When an exchange retains only a fraction of its clients’ deposits and lends out the remainder, or uses them for proprietary investments, it creates artificial credit expansion.

The collapse of FTX in 2022 is the definitive example. The exchange used customer funds to finance the operations of Alameda Research, creating a multibillion-dollar deficit. Centralized exchanges behave like the deposit banks that failed in the past, operating without the transparency that the Bitcoin protocol itself provides.

The possession of private keys allows individuals to exercise full control over their wealth, without the permission of governments or financial institutions. This aligns with Murray Rothbard’s view of self-ownership and absolute private property rights as the foundation of liberty. In Bitcoin, security is guaranteed by mathematics and cryptography, not by trust in individuals or regulators.

Bitcoin represents the culmination of humanity’s pursuit of sound money, free from the distortions caused by central planners. Its significance lies in the restoration of individual sovereignty and in promoting an economy based on savings and real capital, as opposed to the uncontrolled consumption and debt encouraged by the fiat monetary system.

Bitcoin offers a response to the dilemma of inflation and economic cycles. Volatility is the price of a truly free market in the process of maturation, and self-custody is the only way to ensure that the benefits of this institutional disruption remain in the hands of individuals. As Satoshi Nakamoto signaled in the genesis block, Bitcoin is the necessary alternative to a banking system perpetually dependent on bailouts, serving as the foundation of a new monetary paradigm based on transparency and individual responsibility.

In light of the above, the transition to a “Bitcoin Standard” is not merely a technological transformation, but a shift in the economic model that favors long-term orientation, productive investment, and civilizational liberty. A commitment to private custody and a clear understanding of Bitcoin’s principles are essential for anyone seeking to participate in the Bitcoin ecosystem in a secure and consistent manner.

About the author: Deborah Palma is a Brazilian writer who holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from UNINASSAU. She has published articles with Instituto Millenium, Boletim da Liberdade, and IFL Brazil, and writes for the Damas de Ferro Institute.

Source: This article was published by FEE

The Foundation for Economic Education's (FEE) mission is to inspire, educate, and connect future leaders with the economic, ethical, and legal principles of a free society. These principles include: individual liberty, free-market economics, entrepreneurship, private property, high moral character, and limited government. FEE is a tax-exempt, 501(c)3 educational foundation

Contextualising Russian Responses To US Military Action In Venezuela – Analysis

February 11, 2026 
Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA)
By Anshu Kumar

Russia, as a militarily diminished power, watched US forces abduct Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a quick military operation. While highlighting the UN principles of ‘sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs’, Russia showed ‘full support’ to Venezuela when the US forces blockaded its oil tankers.[1]

America’s military operation in Venezuela has brought to the fore the legal and moral grounds that the US and its allies themselves have invoked while excoriating the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The US has charged Maduro with corruption, illegitimate hold of power and narco-terrorism.[2] While initiating the Special Military Operations (SMOs) in Ukraine, Russia, apart from citing security concerns, had given the justification of deposing the ‘illegitimate’, ‘neo-Nazi’ Ukrainian leaders.

The fear of ‘colour revolutions’ and the associated regime change has been a cornerstone concern in Russian military and foreign policy thinking. Russia’s Foreign Policy Concepts, Military Doctrines, National Security Concepts, and official statements are replete with matters related to alleged West-engineered regime change. The Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation (2014) mentions concerns akin to the unfavourable regime established as a consequence of ‘overthrow of legitimate state authorities’.[3]

In the so-called Gerasimov Doctrine, Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov warned that the ‘rules of war’ have changed, with non-military means (including regime change) exceeding the effectiveness of weapons.[4] It is no wonder that Russia has kept the ‘post-Soviet space’ as its top priority in the Foreign Policy Concept (2023).[5] Not only a regime change in Russia but also social and political changes in the neighbourhood are seen as threatening Russia’s overall security and survival.

The removal of Maduro by the US in Operation Absolute Resolve reifies Russian concerns associated with mass protests and regime change. It would only strengthen the concept of ‘sovereign democracy’, which argues that Russia has a right to choose its own form of ‘democracy’ suited to its culture, history and national interests, rather than a liberal democracy, within Russia.[6]

Although Trump justified this military operation in Venezuela on the grounds of holding accountable and getting Maduro under trial for the ‘narco-terrorism’, he soon switched to the issue of fixing Venezuela’s ‘badly broken’ oil infrastructure and ‘start making money for the country’.[7] With approximately 300 million barrels, Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves. Trump wants to ‘run’ the country and pile up profits for American companies by tapping the oil reserves.

At an emergency UN Security Council meeting, Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia stated that Moscow was appalled by the unparalleled cynicism on the part of Washington, which does not even attempt to conceal the true objectives of its criminal operation, namely the establishment of unlimited control over Venezuela’s natural resources.[8]

Such concerns about resource plundering are reflected in several statements from Russian officials. In the past, the former secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, publicly accused the US of trying to ‘dismember’ Russia and capture its natural resources.[9] After the Ukraine war started in 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin, too, reiterated such perturbation. He argued that the West wanted to turn Russia into a ‘weak dependent country’, ‘violate its territorial integrity’, and ‘dismember Russia in a way that suits them’.[10]

Though Russia, too, has disregarded the UN principles in the conduct of its military operations against Ukraine, Russia’s belief that only military might would keep a country safe in an anarchical condition has been stonified with the recent happenings in Venezuela. Russia at the UN Security Council emergency meeting highlighted the ‘recklessness and selectivity in matters related to respect for international law’.[11] Ambassador Nebenzia argued that attempts to avoid principled assessments by those who in other situations foamed at the mouth demanding that others comply with the UN charter, seem particularly hypocritical and unseemly today.[12]

This event could be a regnant catalyst in beefing up Russia’s belief that the UN is helpless in rescuing weaker states. Since the 1990s, Russia has complained about how the US and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have bypassed the UN Security Council to carry out several military operations against sovereign countries. Russia had been particularly unhappy about these operations against Yugoslavia, Iraq, Syria and Libya. At the 2007 Munich Security Conference, Putin stressed that the ‘uncontained hyper use of force’ was intended to maintain a unipolar world and argued that only the UN Charter should be the basis for the use of force.[13]

While Russia has consistently complained that the West does not stick to international law, Putin has invoked the principles of ‘equal and indivisible security’ in the context of Ukraine.[14] The principle of equal and indivisible security supplants the ‘non-intervention principle’ in his eyes. He argues that states’ security is interconnected, and that no state’s security should be enhanced at the expense of another.[15]

Since the late 1990s, Russians have been concerned about their conventional weakness relative to NATO. Consequently, to ensure comprehensive security, Russia has put all its eggs in the nuclear deterrence basket. Russia shifted from a ‘no first use’ nuclear policy to employing nuclear weapons against even conventional military threats. Since the 2000 National Security Concept, Russia has lowered the threshold of its nuclear weapons to deter several non-nuclear military threats. Later, the fear of ‘conventional prompt global strike’, a US military concept that aims to deliver thousands of conventional precision strikes anywhere on Earth within one hour, has made Russia hold the grip on nuclear deterrence even tighter.

Former Russian President and present Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, argued that the ‘operation in Caracas has become the best proof of the fact that any state needs to strengthen its armed forces … only a nuclear arsenal can provide maximum strengthening, guaranteeing that the country will be reliably protected’.[16] He exclaimed, ‘Long live nuclear weapons!’[17]

The extent to which nuclear deterrence can compensate for conventional weaknesses is questionable. The credibility of using nukes in response to attempts at regime change or sub-threshold military actions is, too, seen with scepticism. However, the Russian ruling elites’ obsession with nukes as the ultimate guarantor of the Russian Federation’s security has only gone up in recent years. Such a belief has been reified with the recent Venezuelan event.

Source: This article was published by the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA)

[1] “Russia Pledges ‘Full Support’ for Venezuela Against U.S. ‘Hostilities’”, The Moscow Times, 22 December 2025.

[2] Nicholas McEntyre and Katherine Donlevy, “Trump Says Venezuelan Leader Nicolás Maduro, Wife ‘Captured’ After Large-scale Strikes”, AOL, 3 January 2026.

[3] “Voyennaya doktrina Rossiyskoy Federatsii [Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation]”, Sovet Bezopasnosti Rossiyskoy Federatsii, 14 December 2014.

[4] V. Morris, “Grading Gerasimov: Evaluating Russian Nonlinear War Through Modern Chinese Doctrine”, Small Wars Journal, 17 September 2015. Also, see Mark Galeotti, “I’m Sorry for Creating the ‘Gerasimov Doctrine’”, Foreign Policy, 5 March 2018.

[5] “The Concept of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation”, The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, 31 March 2023.

[6] Andrey Okara, “Sovereign Democracy: A New Russian Idea or a PR Project?”, Russia in Global Affairs, 8 August 2007.

[7] Archie Mitchell and Natalie Sherman, “Trump Wants Venezuela’s Oil. Will His Plan Work?”, BBC, 5 January 2026.

[8] “Statement by Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia at a UNSC Briefing on Venezuela”, Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations, 5 January 2026.

[9] Simon Saradzhyan, “From Mutually Assured Destruction to Mutually Assured Delusion (and Back?)”, Russia Matters, 12 March 2018.

[10] “Putin Says Russia Will Achieve Ukraine Goals, Decries Sanctions”, Al Jazeera, 16 March 2022.

[11] “Statement by Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia at a UNSC Briefing on Venezuela”, no. 8.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Ted Galen Carpenter, “Did Putin’s 2007 Munich Speech Predict the Ukraine Crisis?”, CATO Institute, 24 January 2022.

[14] “Address by the President of the Russian Federation”, President of Russia, 24 February 2022.

[15] Ibid.

[16] “‘Only a Nuclear Arsenal’ Provides Sufficient Security: Russia’s Medvedev Warns U.S. Attack on Venezuela Makes Deterrence Vital”, Military Watch Magazine, 4 January 2026.

[17] Ibid.


About the author: Anshu Kumar is pursuing his PhD at the Centre for Russian & Central Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.


Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA)

The Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA), is a non-partisan, autonomous body dedicated to objective research and policy relevant studies on all aspects of defence and security. Its mission is to promote national and international security through the generation and dissemination of knowledge on defence and security-related issues. The Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA) was formerly named The Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA).