Century-old call for equality resonates today

10 June 2023


One of the world’s most celebrated poets is also one of the closest to the heart of the UN. Kahlil Gibran wrote The Prophet a century ago, and this milestone was marked at a special exhibit at the UN, which is also celebrating 75 years since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Both share an emphasis on the rights and freedoms of all people.

Kahlil Gibran Museum

The exhibit Kahlil Gibran Returns to New York After 100 Years was on display at UN Headquarters in April 2023 to celebrate the Lebanese poet and artist.

“The Universal Declaration stated that we are all born equal, and this is exactly what Gibran wrote,” observed Shirin Yaseen, an associate spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General.

The Universal Declaration opens with the provision that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”

“Gibran emphasizes that we should all treat each other as brothers,” Ms. Yassen pointed out.

The Lebanese poet, whose works have been translated into more than 100 languages, vividly expressed the spirit of equality in the first person, writing: “I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit.”

UN Headquarters in New York drew artists, diplomats, and members of the local community to a celebration marking the centenary. In April, an exhibit, Kahlil Gibran Returns to New York After 100 years, showcased paintings, notebooks, manuscripts, and the first edition of The Prophet.Opens in new window

“We are at the United Nations because Kahlil Gibran believed in peace, in human rights, in diversity and the dialogue between civilizations,” explained Joseph Geagea, Director of the Gibran Museum in Lebanon. “He believed that as human beings, there are no differences among us; we should walk on the same level to reach the same point: a better future for all.”

Ms. Yassen said family, women, love, and nature were all very important aspects of the poet’s work.

“It left an impression for successive generations,” she said. “Gibran spoke about people without any discrimination based on their race or religion or colour, and these are things that are embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human RightsOpens in new window. That is the importance of this person’s work and how much it means at the United Nations.”

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/58585

3 US lawmakers reintroduce 'Combating Global Islamophobia Bill'

Bill aims to address rise of Islamophobic incidents worldwide and in US

10/06/2023 Saturday
AA

Three Democratic lawmakers have reintroduced the "Combating International Islamophobia Bill" legislation to US Congress to address the staggering rise in incidents of Islamophobia worldwide.

Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker and Illinois Representative Jan Schakowsky signed the bill, according to a statement Friday.

The bill presented to Congress requires the State Department to create a Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Islamophobia.

It will also establish a comprehensive strategy for establishing US leadership in combatting Islamophobia worldwide, the statement said.

The bill is supported by 21 members of Congress.

“Disturbing incidents of Islamophobic rhetoric and attacks continue to threaten the safety and well-being of the Muslim community at home and around the world,” said Senator Booker in the statement.

The Uyghurs in China, the Rohingya in Myanmar, and Muslim communities in India and Sri Lanka, which are exposed to Islamophobia, were cited as examples.

The white supremacy advocates in New Zealand and Canada also targeted Muslims, it added.

Booker and Omar first submitted an anti-Islamophobia bill to Congress on Dec. 14, 2021. It was approved by 219 votes to 212 in the House of Representatives, but was rejected by the Senate.

UK

Carol Vorderman says the Tories are corrupt- and the media is complicit

"They are taking from the poor and they are giving to the already rich."

by Jack Peat
2023-06-09 


Carol Vorderman has labelled the Conservative Party corrupt as she urges Brits to vote tactically at the next election and consign them to the history books.

Speaking to PoliticsJOE, Carol Vorderman pointed to the raft of crony contracts handed out during the Covid-19 pandemic through so-called ‘VIP lanes’.

In April 2021, campaign group Transparency International found that a fifth of UK government contracts awarded to respond to the covid-19 pandemic last year contained red flag indicators of possible corruption

They identified 73 “questionable contracts” worth more than £3.7 billion in total that warranted further investigation. Most of these (65), worth £2.9 billion, were for personal protective equipment.

“Never, ever in my lifetime have I seen what is patently a corrupt government like this one”, Vorderman said, adding that it is astonishing that there haven’t been more media headlines about it.

“They are taking from the poor and they are giving to the already rich.”

Watch the clip in full below:

HOMOPHOBIC FEMICIDE

Arab Druze teenager killed in Israel over 'sexual orientation'

The New Arab Staff
London
10 June, 2023

An 18-year-old woman was shot multiple times in northern Israel. Media report that her 'sexual orientation' may have played a role in her murder.

Sarit Ahmed was rushed to hospital after being shot multiple times but her young life could not be saved [Getty]

An eighteen-year-old Arab Druze was shot and killed on Friday near the village of Yarka, in a murder allegedly motivated by the teenager’s sexual orientation, sources told The New Arab.

Sarit Ahmed was found lying in the street with multiple gunshot wounds to her upper body, according to Israeli emergency services. She was then rushed to the Galilee Medical Centre in Israel’s Northern District, where she was later pronounced dead.

Ahmed, a resident of the nearby predominantly Druze village of Kisra-Sumei, had previously received death threats from her brothers allegedly due to her sexual orientation and had stayed at a shelter for a couple of months, according to Haaretz.

 
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Diana Alghoul

In 2020, Ahmed filed a complaint against two of her brothers claiming they had threatened her life, leading them to be indicted.

The indictment suggested that Ahmed “established contact with someone whom the brothers disapproved of”, leading them to make explicit threats against her life, according to a report by Haaretz.

The brothers were jailed for three and four months, while Ahmed was placed in a shelter for girls and underwent a family reconciliation process overseen by the police and welfare services.

Ahmed then returned to the family home but soon complained of receiving threats against her life again.

She was again removed from her home and placed in a shelter as a high-risk case. Ahmed then left the facility to live with her sister in another village.

Last month, Ahmed made a final complaint against her brothers for threatening her life. After briefly returning to the shelter, she went back to live with her sister. It was at this point that her murder took place, according to Haaretz.

No one had yet been arrested for Ahmed’s murder and no formal suspects were publicly identified.

The murder came amid a wave of unrelated violence across Israel, including the killing of five people in an alleged gang-related crime in the village of Yafia near Nazareth.

Palestinian citizens of Israel have long complained of discrimination and police inaction against violence and crime that disproportionately affects their communities. This year alone has seen 96 Arab citizens of Israel killed in homicides, including 7 women.

FLASHBACK

Gay Issues, Schools, and The Right-wing Backlash

By Eric Rofes

RETHINKING SCHOOLS

Volume 11, No.3

Spring 1997

Chasnoff and Cohen aren’t satisfied with the liberal compromise which kept gay issues pigeon-holed as the purview of high school teachers and health classes. They show that gay issues are ubiquitous in the lives of children from television talk shows and movies aimed at children, to playground slurs and hallway graffiti. They insist that the reality of children’s lives be confronted in classroom pedagogy.

Yet most educators gay, lesbian, bisexual, or heterosexual who are grappling with these issue do not teach in the large urban centers (New York and San Francisco) or liberal college towns (Cambridge or Madison) featured in It’s Elementary. They work in places like Salt Lake City, Utah, Elizabethtown, Penn., or Colorado Springs, Colo. Lesbian and gay issues play out very differently in these locations than they do in San Francisco or Madison. Consider:

In response to the formation of a gay-straight alliance to provide peer support to lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth at Salt Lake City’s East High School, the school board banned all student clubs and associations not formally tied to school curricula. Banished are groups ranging from hockey and mountain bike clubs, to Native American and Polynesian associations, to the school’s Key Club.

Inspired by a “pro-family” resolution drafted by Beverly LeHaye, president of Concerned Women of America, the school board of Elizabethtown, Penn., adopted a resolution condemning various family forms including single-parent families, extended families, and lesbian and gay families. Despite student walkouts and community-wide protests, the board has refused to reconsider its position. It recently proposed an expanded anti-gay policy stating that “the curriculum will not promote or encourage same-sex sexual relationships or orientation.” The board has received support from both Concerned Women of America and the Rutherford Institute, a far-right legal advocacy group.

In October, 1996, the Palmer High School newspaper included two student-initiated articles about gay issues, a front-page story on the trials facing lesbian and gay youth in a hostile culture, and an editorial supporting same-sex marriage. Immediately after publication, the local Christian right mounted a campaign demanding tighter controls on student publications. Colorado for Family Values, the group which initiated the state’s controversial anti-gay initiative (later declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court), jumped into the fray. Their effort is focused on getting school boards to “promote abstinence, affirm traditional marriage, and discourage promiscuity … in every aspect of student life.”

Gay Issues, Schools, and The Right-wing Backlash - Rethinking Schools

MAGA COUNTER REFORMATION
As conservative adults target schools, LGBTQ+ kids and students of color feel less safe

#JIMCROW2.0 INCLUDES LGBTQ+


By —
Annie Ma, Associated Press
Claudia Lauer, Associated Press
Adriana Gomez Licon, Associated Press

Education 

Jun 7, 2023 

NOLENSVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The first encounter with racism that Harmony Kennedy can remember came in elementary school. On a playground, a girl picked up a leaf and said she wanted to “clean the dirt” from Harmony’s skin.

In sixth grade, a boy dropped trash on the floor and told her to pick it up, “because you’re a slave.” She was stunned — no one had ever said anything like that to her before.

As protests for racial justice broke out in 2020, white students at her Tennessee high school kneeled in the hallways and chanted, “Black lives matter!” in mocking tones. As she saw the students receive light punishments, she grew increasingly frustrated.

So when Tennessee began passing legislation that could limit the discussion and teaching of Black history, gender identity and race in the classroom, to Harmony, it felt like a gut punch — as if the adults were signaling this kind of ignorant behavior was acceptable. The law was broad, but to her, the potential impact was crushing.

WATCH: 41 percent of surveyed LGBTQ+ youth considered suicide in the past year

“When I heard they were removing African American history, banning LGBTQ, I almost started crying,” said Harmony, 16. “We’re not doing anything to anybody. Why do they care what we personally prefer, or what we look like?”

As conservative politicians and activists push for limits on discussions of race, gender and sexuality, some students say the measures targeting aspects of their identity have made them less welcome in American schools — the one place all kids are supposed to feel safe.

Some of the new restrictions have been championed by conservative state leaders and legislatures, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who say they are necessary to counter liberal influence in schools. Others have been pushed by local activists or school boards arguing teachers need more oversight to ensure classroom materials are appropriate.

Books have been pulled from libraries. Some schools have insisted on using the names transgender students had before they transitioned. And teachers wary of breaking new rules have shied from discussions related to race, gender and other politically sensitive topics, even as students say they desperately need to see their lived experiences reflected in the classroom.

Among them are a transgender student at a Pennsylvania school where teachers are directed to use students’ birth names, a bisexual student in Florida who sensed a withdrawal of adult support, and Harmony, a Black student outside Nashville alarmed by efforts to restrict lessons on Black history.

For these and other students of color and LGBTQ+ kids, it can feel like their very existence is being rejected.

‘Neutrality’ policy makes school feel less safe

In late 2020, during the pandemic school closures, Leo Burchell started using different pronouns, trying on new clothes and shorter hair. The changes felt right.

At school outside Philadelphia, Leo started telling teachers about using a different name and they/them pronouns, and the teachers were immediately accepting. A shift to using he/him pronouns followed.

“I changed my name to Leo, and for a while it was tough,” he said. “I told some of my friends. I told the people close to me, but I wasn’t ready to come out to everybody yet … and I had the space to do that in my own time.”

To tell his parents, Leo shared a poem he had written about his transition. He worried it would be hard for them, as parents who had always identified as “girl parents” to three daughters. His mom, dad, older and twin sister were all supportive.

Then, over the last year, the Central Bucks School District’s board barred staff from using students’ chosen names or pronouns without parental permission.

WATCH: How Lorraine Hansberry inspired countless Black and LGBTQ+ writers

The board passed what it called a “neutrality” policy that bars social and political advocacy in classrooms — a measure opponents have seen as targeting Pride flags and other symbols teachers use to signal support for LGBTQ+ students. Reviews of the appropriateness of books have mostly targeted LGBTQ+ literature.

Each step felt like chipping away at the spaces that made Leo feel safe enough to explore his gender identity.

Across the district, parents and students told the board stories of slurs, hate speech and sometimes violence directed toward transgender children. But other adults pressed forward in their effort to restrict inclusion. During one board meeting when a transgender student was speaking, rather than listening, a group of parents whispered to each other. One adult audibly asked: “Is that a girl?”

One man told the school board transgender people posed a risk of violence in bathrooms. Leo expected another adult in the room to interrupt what felt to him like hate speech. No one did.

So at the next board meeting, Leo spoke up. “Attacking students based on who they are or who they love is wrong,” he said. Leo has spoken regularly at meetings since.

Leo worries about what school will be like for younger transgender students.

“I don’t want my friends to be misgendered and deadnamed every single day just because they don’t want to come out to their parents,” Leo said. “It really just breaks my heart to know that some of my friends, you know, might not want to go to school anymore.”

New Florida laws ‘took the air out of me’

Jack Fitzgerald, a high school student in Broward County, Florida, came out to friends by accident at first.

At a book club meeting, he blurted out: “I don’t really like romance books unless they’re gay.” He hadn’t told anyone he was bisexual, but it came out easily in a place where he felt comfortable and safe.

Later, he would come out to his mother while watching television.

“So, I am bi,” he told her.

“And why are you telling me this?” she said. A lifelong conservative, his mother told him she had long known about his sexuality. It was not a problem.

The confidence and relief he felt led Jack to start his school’s gender and sexuality alliance club. Last year, as a junior, he led a school walkout to protest a new law that banned instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity for kindergarten to third grade. The law, part of the anti-LGBTQ+ legislation pushed by DeSantis, was dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by critics and recently expanded to encompass all grades.

Jack was surprised by two things. Most students initially knew little about the bill. And once they learned about it, support for the walkout was overwhelming.

READ MORE: Most state bans on gender-affirming care for trans youth still allow controversial intersex surgery

Teachers have been more cautious.

Jack remembers talking to his debate teacher about covering some controversial topics. “You have to realize, … teachers have families,” he told Jack, who took it as a comment on teachers worried about losing their jobs.

In another class, Jack recalls an environmental teacher told the class she could not answer a question during a discussion on climate change or she would be seen as “too woke.”

There also was a school board member, Debra Hixon, who won Jack’s admiration when she spoke last year at a town hall event for teens. Hixon, who became widely known after her husband was killed in the 2018 Parkland school shooting, expressed support for LGBTQ+ students.

“I think I even told my mom. I was like, ‘Oh, we’ve got to vote for her next time because she seems so impassioned, and she genuinely came across like she cared,’” he said.

When Jack asked her in April how the school district would react to the new laws, Hixon said they were going to comply with the law.

The response shocked Jack. He thought back to how the district had stood up to the DeSantis administration over COVID-19 policies like mask mandates. When it came to protecting LGBTQ+ students, it seemed, there was no appetite for defiance.

“They didn’t even try to act like they were going to try, you know?” he said. “And it was so disappointing. It really took the air out of me.”

Hixon said she felt badly that Jack had the impression she was not defending LGBTQ+ students.

“We have a lot of new laws to navigate, and I am still processing what they mean for our district, so I don’t want to overstep and say something that is incorrect or inappropriate,” she said. “I am more guarded with my responses, but I promise I will continue to defend our students to ensure they feel safe and welcome in our schools.”
After speaking up, some students face backlash

In Harmony’s freshman-year English class, a boy started playing with his mask and joked, “I can’t breathe, just like George Floyd,” Harmony recalled.

“I was really upset. And I called him out on it. And I was like, ‘Are you kidding me? Someone died,'” she said.

She told her teacher, who said she was sorry it happened but there was not much she could do. Nothing happened to the boy, Harmony said.

To be a Black student in this environment, and to see efforts to minimize the teaching of Black history, Harmony said, is a reminder of why it’s important that a full version of history is taught. A law passed by Tennessee in 2021 banned schools from teaching several concepts on race and racism, leading many teachers to avoid discussions related to race.

“If people are taking this out of schools, it’s making the ignorance go on, because they’re not understanding the pain and agony we have to go through,” she said.

The incident led Harmony to join the Forward Club, which works to promote cultural and racial inclusion at her predominantly white high school. The club’s members come from a diverse array of backgrounds — including the children of some adults who have disparaged the group.

At times, students who speak out against new policies have been targeted for harassment. In Williamson County, Tennessee, where Harmony goes to school, a political action committee accused another high school’s Black student union of promoting segregation. The PAC posted the time and place of the student group’s meeting on social media. Elsewhere, trans and nonbinary students who have spoken up about bullying have faced only more insults on social media.

For some, the hostility can be exhausting. Milana Kumar, a rising senior in Collierville, Tennessee, who is genderqueer, is comfortable with their identity among friends. But it’s not a conversation they bring up at school, where they said teachers and other students often do not respect chosen pronouns.

WATCH: As LGBTQ book challenges rise, some Louisiana librarians are scared to go to work

“I’ve never tried to navigate that, I think just as a response to save myself from a lot of hurt that would happen,” Milana said.

Recently, Tennessee passed a bill that would protect teachers from discipline or other consequences if they misgender their students. At the time, Milana was at the Capitol testifying on other legislation. She thought about how routine a day it was.

“Taking away a whole group of people’s right to be who they are, that’s just like, this is a typical day. I think I was more scared that that was a reality than I was sad about the bill itself.”

Attending predominantly white schools means Harmony has had to go out of her way to learn about Black culture and history — often outside of school. That has shaped where she wants to go next. She’d like to attend a historically Black college and pledge a Black sorority.

What Harmony wants, ultimately, is to be able to go to school like any other teenager and focus on learning. To go to a football game without hearing racial slurs. To stand up for herself without being seen as an aggressor.

Meantime, it’s something she’ll continue to speak up for.

“My sister is going to be an incoming freshman this year, and I want her to have a safe learning environment where she doesn’t have to really deal with all the ignorance and things,” she said. “I want her to be able to enjoy high school.”

MAGA OUTLIER

Mat-Su school board approves policy changes for sex-ed, pronoun usage

By

 Tim Rockey, Alaska Public Media - Anchorage

 -

June 9, 2023

Gage Saxton testifies to the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School Board on board policies. (Screenshot)

The Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District School Board on Wednesday passed a pair of board policies aimed at transgender students and sex education by a 6-1 vote without much discussion among board members. 

The policies require written parental permission before students can change their name or pronouns at school, require parents to opt their students into sex-ed classes and require school board approval of sex-ed curriculum.

The policies are similar to what was contained in Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s House Bill 105, called the parental rights in education bill. Melissa Wilkins has three children in the district and said she supports the policy revisions. 

“We need to divorce health care from education so children have the best chance at economic equity,” Wilkins said. “To do that they need an education, not an ideology being pushed upon them.”

Most people who spoke to the school board, however, were against the parent permission policy which was introduced two weeks ago, but not discussed at all by the board.

Gage Saxton has two students in the district, and called out board members who supported the policies. 

“We do not throw away established principles just because a small group of people call for the denial of other people’s rights when your job is to protect the rights and well-being for all those you serve,” Saxton said. 

Ted Swanson was the lone board member to cast a “no” vote. 

“I didn’t take an oath to defend the constitution of the United States of America, and serve in the military for five years to sit on a board, a local governing board, to limit the First Amendment rights, the Bill of Rights, the constitutional rights, of any individual,” Swanson said. 

The Mat-Su was the first district to ban trans students using bathrooms and playing on sports teams that match their gender identity. It remains the only district in the state with such bans, but the Alaska Board of Education and Early Development recently approved a public comment period for a ban on trans athletes competing on sports teams that match their gender identity.

At Wednesday’s meeting the Mat-Su board also passed policies prohibiting activism from teachers and limiting school counselors to discussing academic matters only with students, except in the case of child abuse. 

The next Mat-Su school board meeting is June 21, where the board will vote on a policy change that removes language describing libraries as safe, equitable and inclusive spaces. 

"Elixir Of Life": Single Amino Acid Could Boost Lifespan By 10 Percent

The results are just in animals for now, but they are promising.

JACK DUNHILL
Social Media Coordinator and Staff Writer
June 9, 2023

It's certainly better than the alternatives.
Image credit: Master1305/Shutterstock.com

Taurine could be an inexpensive “elixir of life” by boosting lifespan by up to 10 percent, according to new results in animal models. The amino acid is typically found in meat and fish and declines with age, but keeping it topped up in our bodies cold have a life-extending impact if the results translate to humans.

Who Were The Real Aryans Before The Name GotCo-Opted By Racists?

It’s very in vogue to create anti-aging drugs and treatments, with options ranging from genetic therapies to the blood of the youth (that one is super weird and only for rich Silicon Valley people). Early experiments have seen varying levels of success at extending the lifespan of aging animal models, but whether they actually work in humans is yet to be seen.

Towards the pursuit of a longer life, scientists looked towards the semi-essential nutrient taurine. Taurine is an amino acid (a building block of proteins) that is synthesized naturally in the human body but often needs to come from our diet too, particularly when we’re very young or much older. To be quite honest, scientists don’t really know what it does – all they know is that it’s important.

Previous research suggests that taurine deficiency drives aging, and in animals that produce very little taurine naturally, a lack of it promotes a number of health defects. When humans have been given taurine supplements in small trials, it appeared to help metabolic and inflammatory diseases, suggesting it could have health benefits.

The most recent piece of research took a set of 14-month-old mice (equivalent to age 45 in humans) and gave them a dose of taurine every day, before comparing their lifespan to a control group of mice. On average, the taurine mice had an increased lifespan of between 10-12 percent, results that were confirmed in nematode worms too. While these models are certainly not human, they are standard model organisms and allow scientists to test drugs at a far accelerated rate.

The mice also demonstrated some memory and health benefits when they took taurine, suggesting it could improve quality of life as well as lifespan.

"Whatever we checked, taurine-supplemented mice were healthier and appeared younger," said Dr Vijay Yadav, co-author of the paper, in a statement reported by the BBC.

"They were leaner, had an increased energy expenditure, increased bone density, improved memory and a younger-looking immune system."

When the team looked at 12,000 humans, they found that people with more taurine typically had better overall health, though this is only observational and no causation has been found just yet.

Unfortunately for vegetarians and vegans, this is one amino acid that essentially only comes from meat. Luckily, it’s also really easy to get as a supplement, but there’s not enough data to run about and buy up bundles of taurine. Clinical trials need to be run and, ideally, scientists need to actually understand how taurine helps, if at all.

Still, it’s probably better than transfusing the blood of younger people into your veins. Just a thought.

The study is published in the journal Science.

Florida’s ‘Dr Deep’ resurfaces after a record 100 days living underwater

AP
9 Jun, 2023 

Diving explorer and medical researcher Dr Joseph Dituri basks in the sun after completing a 100-day underwater mission in the Jules' Undersea Lodge marine habitat at the bottom of a lagoon. Photo / AP

A university professor who spent 100 days living underwater at a Florida Keys lodge for scuba divers resurfaced on Friday and raised his face to the sun for the first time since March 1.

Dr Joseph Dituri set a new record for the longest time living underwater without depressurisation during his stay at Jules’ Undersea Lodge, submerged beneath 9.14 metres of water in a Key Largo lagoon.

The diving explorer and medical researcher shattered the previous mark of 73 days, two hours and 34 minutes set by two Tennessee professors at the same lodge in 2014.

Dr Joseph Dituri points to his watch indicating that it is time to surface after spending 100 days in the Jules' Undersea Lodge marine habitat. Photo / AP

“It was never about the record,” Dituri said. “It was about extending human tolerance for the underwater world and for an isolated, confined, extreme environment.”

Dituri, who also goes by the moniker “Dr Deep Sea,” is a University of South Florida educator who holds a doctorate in biomedical engineering and is a retired US Naval officer.

Guinness World Records listed Dituri as the record holder on its website after his 74th day underwater last month. The Marine Resources Development Foundation, which owns the lodge, will ask Guinness to certify Dituri’s 100-day mark, according to foundation head Ian Koblick.

Dr Joseph Dituri surfaces after living for 100 days in the Jules' Undersea Lodge marine habitat at the bottom of a lagoon. Photo / 

Dituri’s undertaking, dubbed Project Neptune 100, was organised by the foundation. Unlike a submarine, which uses technology to keep the inside pressure about the same as at the surface, the lodge’s interior is set to match the higher pressure found underwater.

The project aimed to learn more about how the human body and mind respond to extended exposure to extreme pressure and an isolated environment and was designed to benefit ocean researchers and astronauts on future long-term missions.

During the three months and nine days he spent underwater, Dituri conducted daily experiments and measurements to monitor how his body responded to the increase in pressure over time.

He also met online with several thousand students from 12 countries, taught a USF course and welcomed more than 60 visitors to the habitat.

Dituri broke the previous 73-day record for underwater human habitation at ambient pressure, undertook medical and marine science research and interacted online with almost 5000 students during his Project Neptune 100 mission. Photo / AP

“The most gratifying part about this is the interaction with almost 5000 students and having them care about preserving, protecting and rejuvenating our marine environment,” Dituri said.

He plans to present findings from Project Neptune 100 at November’s World Extreme Medicine Conference in Scotland.

1st mission to 'touch' the sun discovers a mysterious source of solar wind

By Ben Turner

 published about 18 hours ago

NASA's Parker Solar Probe plunged into the sun's atmosphere to capture the granular details of how its solar wind is made.

An artist's illustration of the Parker Solar Probe spacecraft approaching the sun. (Image credit: NASA)

A NASA spacecraft has skimmed through the sun's hellish atmosphere to discover a mysterious source of solar wind.

Away from the sun, the solar wind is a sloshing spray of energetic plasma. But get closer — as NASA's Parker Solar Probe recently did by diving within 13 million miles (21 million kilometers) of the sun's surface — and individual particle streams can be seen, and some of them are being steered by magnetic fields as they emerge from gigantic holes in the sun's surface.

The solar wind — a stream of charged protons, electrons and alpha particles — can be broken up into two broad categories of "fast" and "slow." The fast solar wind bursts out from around holes in the sun's atmosphere and can travel at peak speeds of 497 miles per second (800 kilometers per second) — twice the top speed of the slow wind. 

Solar physicists have long wondered what makes one type of solar wind almost twice as fast as the other. Now the daredevil probe may have found the answer: The faster flows come from sudden whip-cracking bursts of energy released during the rapid realignment of magnetic fields. The researchers published their findings June 7 in the journal Nature.

Related: Puzzle of the sun's mysterious 'heartbeat' signals finally solved

"Winds carry lots of information from the sun to Earth, so understanding the mechanism behind the sun's wind is important for practical reasons on Earth," study co-author James Drake, a professor of physics at the University of Maryland, said in a statement. "That's going to affect our ability to understand how the sun releases energy and drives geomagnetic storms, which are a threat to our communication networks."

Because strong solar winds can cause geomagnetic storms that are powerful enough to send satellites tumbling to Earth or even cripple the internet, scientists are keen to figure out how they're made. Data from the Parker Solar Probe revealed that coronal holes — darker, cooler regions that open in the sun's outer atmosphere — are shaped like "showerheads" made up of mostly evenly spaced funnels of material up to 18,000 miles (29,000 km) wide. These funnels can either loop back into or beam completely out of the sun, depending on whether the magnetic-field lines that guide them are open or closed. 

"The photosphere [the lowest layer of the sun's atmosphere] is covered by convection cells, like in a boiling pot of water, and the larger scale convection flow is called supergranulation," lead author Stuart Bale, a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, said in the statement. "Where these supergranulation cells meet and go downward, they drag the magnetic field in their path into this downward kind of funnel," he added. "The magnetic field becomes very intensified there because it's just jammed." 

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By detecting the speeds at which fast solar wind flows — sometimes recording readings of particles moving 10 to 100 times faster than the average for the solar wind — the researchers concluded that the only possible mechanism for launching fast solar wind is "magnetic switchbacks."

Switchbacks occur when closed magnetic-field loops close to the sun's surface link to open field lines stretching out of the sun, causing a whip-crack-like burst of energy as the field lines untangle to launch solar wind straight at Earth. When switchbacks are newly formed, their kinks are sharper, meaning that solar material is flung from them at much higher speeds than it is from older, smoother switchbacks, the researchers said.

"The big conclusion is that it's magnetic reconnection within these funnel structures that's providing the energy source of the fast solar wind," Bale said. "It doesn't just come from everywhere in a coronal hole. … It comes from these little bundles of magnetic energy that are associated with the convection flows."

To confirm their results, the researchers will continue to study data from the solar probe as it spirals ever closer to the sun, reaching a final destination of 4 million miles (6.4 million km) above its surface, where its instruments are expected to fry under the intense heat of the sun.

SpaceX Starship problems likely to delay Artemis 3 moon mission to 2026, NASA says

By Mike Wall

 published about 14 hours ago

'They have a significant number of launches to go, and that of course, gives me concern about the December of 2025 date.'

Artist's illustration of SpaceX's Starship vehicle on the moon. (Image credit: SpaceX)

NASA is worried that SpaceX's giant new Starship vehicle won't be ready to carry astronauts to the surface of the moon in late 2025, as currently planned.

In 2021, the agency selected Starship — the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built — to be the first crewed lunar lander for its Artemis program of moon exploration. 

Starship will put astronauts down near the ice-rich lunar south pole on the Artemis 3 mission, in humanity's first return to the moon since the Apollo program ended in 1972. Artemis 3 is currently targeted to lift off in December 2025, but it's unlikely Starship will be able to meet that timeline, NASA officials said.

December 2025 "is our current manifest date, but with the difficulties that SpaceX has had, I think that's really, really concerning," Jim Free, NASA's associate administrator for exploration systems development, said on Wednesday (June 7) during a joint meeting of the U.S. National Academies' Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board and its Space Studies Board.

"So, you can think about that slipping probably into '26," he added.

 Related: NASA's Artemis 3 mission: Landing humans on the moon

A fully stacked Starship launched for the first time ever in April, soaring high into the skies above South Texas on an epic, highly anticipated test mission. 

The flight aimed to send Starship's upper stage most of the way around Earth, wrapping up with an ocean splashdown near Hawaii. But the vehicle's two stages failed to separate as planned, and SpaceX ordered Starship's destruction over the Gulf of Mexico less than four minutes after liftoff.

It's unclear when Starship will fly again; several boxes must be checked first. For example, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is still investigating the launch mishap, with SpaceX's help. And a coalition of environmental groups is suing the FAA, claiming the agency didn't properly assess the damage Starship launches could inflict on the surrounding ecosystem.  

A relatively quick return to flight would be necessary for Artemis 3 to have any chance of meeting the 2025 target, for, as Free noted, SpaceX must conduct a number of Starship launches before the vehicle starts carrying Artemis astronauts.

Each Starship that heads for the moon, for instance, must be fueled in a "depot" in Earth orbit by several other Starship tanker vehicles. And SpaceX will send an uncrewed Starship to the lunar surface and back ahead of Artemis 3, to demonstrate the craft's safety and readiness for crewed flight.

"If you figure they need a number of launches to do their depot for our crewed flight, they need a number of launches to do the demo, they need a number of launches just to get flying — they have a significant number of launches to go, and that of course gives me concern about the December of 2025 date," Free said.

The Artemis program aims to establish a permanent, sustainable human presence on and around the moon by the end of the 2020s. NASA believes the skills and knowledge gained by achieving this will help the agency send astronauts to Mars in the late 2030s or early 2040s.

One Artemis mission has lifted off to date — Artemis 1, which sent an uncrewed Orion capsule to lunar orbit and back last fall. Artemis 2 is slated to launch astronauts around the moon in late 2024, again using Orion and NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket, the latter of which debuted on Artemis 1. (Orion had flown once before, on a test flight to Earth orbit in 2014.)

SLS and Orion will be involved in Artemis 3 as well. The duo will carry four astronauts off Earth; two of those spaceflyers will then board Starship for the trip to the lunar surface and back.

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An Artemis 3 delay to 2026 would hardly be surprising; the mission is ambitious, after all, and will employ newly developed and highly complex pieces of space hardware.

Indeed, the December 2025 date is already a slip from the original target: In March 2019, the Trump administration instructed NASA to put astronauts on the moon by the end of 2024. This timeline was widely viewed as overly aggressive, as a November 2021 report by the NASA Office of Inspector General (OIG) noted.

"NASA's goal to land astronauts on the moon's south pole in late 2024 faces multiple significant challenges including major technical risks, an unrealistic development schedule and lower-than-requested funding levels. As a result, the 2024 date will likely slip to 2026 at the earliest," wrote the authors of the OIG report.

You can read that report, titled "NASA's Management of the Artemis Missions," here.

Starship isn't the only private vehicle that NASA plans to use as a crewed moon lander, by the way. Last month, the agency announced that it had selected Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos' spaceflight company, to provide a second Artemis human landing system.