New path to prevent influenza

“Accidental” discovery lays foundation for novel flu treatment strategies

University of Vermont

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Emily Bruce, Ph.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at Larner College of Medicine (far right), works with study authors Allyson Turner and Sara Jaffrani in the Bruce Laboratory at the University of Vermont (UVM).

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Credit: David Seaver/Larner College of Medicine at The University of Vermont

Scientists investigating how influenza viruses replicate within cells “accidentally” discovered that different flu viruses use distinct strategies to infiltrate cells in the first place. They also found that it is possible to target specific molecules to prevent the viruses from entering new cells, thereby stopping their replication. This discovery, published in The Journal ofVirology on June 2, 2026, provides fundamental insights into how seasonal influenza viruses infect people and illuminates a path for developing better medications to prevent infections in the future.

“The hope is that fundamental, curiosity-based research like this helps to pave the way for novel strategies to treat and prevent influenza infections,” says principal investigator Emily Bruce, Ph.D., assistant professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at the at the Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont.

A variety of different flu strains can cause illness, with H1N1 and H3N2 influenza A viruses being the most common. Current flu tests do not differentiate between the two viruses, and clinical treatments are the same for both. While flu vaccines can help prevent infection, and antiviral drugs can shorten the illness and prevent complications in high-risk individuals, there is a dire need for better medications to prevent flu viruses from replicating and infiltrating new cells in the human body.

Bruce’s research team examined H1N1 and H3N2 viruses isolated from the nasal passages of people who tested positive for the flu in 2022. This study initially aimed to learn how viral proteins move within cells and enable viruses to replicate themselves, which is what causes people to become ill.

“You don’t get sick when a virus is in one cell. You get sick because a virus replicates itself and goes into many more cells,” explains Bruce. “We were looking at how influenza virus RNA segments are transported within cells to the right place at the right time to make new virus particles.”

During this investigation, Bruce’s team unexpectedly discovered a cellular pathway that blocked the viruses from entering lung cells. The data revealed that H3N2, but not H1N1 viruses, failed to enter human lung cells when a particular protein called Rab11B was depleted. Using reverse genetics, the team mapped this Rab11B-dependent defect and found a novel and H3N2-specific role for Rab11B during viral entry into a lung cell. This fortuitous discovery suggests that H1N1 and H3N2 viruses enter lung cells via different routes, and it can inform therapeutic targets to prevent viral entry.

“Viruses are like pirates from different countries hijacking someone’s ship. Different viruses, like different types of pirates, use different methods to get onboard,” Bruce says. “We had previously thought that all flu viruses used the same way to get into a cell, but we discovered that this is not true. H1N1 and H3N2 need different proteins to get in, and if you get rid of the right protein, a specific virus can’t get in.”

This discovery can help scientists think about new ways to prevent distinct flu viruses from entering cells. The next steps will seek to determine whether Rab11B-dependency is a fundamental property of H3N2 that no one realized previously, or whether it is new to currently circulating H3N2, in addition to understanding the precise Rab11B is playing during H3N2 viral infection at the molecular level.

Abstract available upon request.

Media Contacts:

Janet Franz | 802-238-8182 | Janet.L.Franz@med.uvm.edu

Stephanie Knific | 281-744-4096 | Stephanie.Knific@med.uvm.edu

Read the study, "Rab11B is required for binding and entry of recent H3N2, but not H1N1, influenza A isolates,” in The Journal of Virology. [embargoed until June 2 at 9:00 a.m. EST]

Read more about the Bruce Lab at the Larner College of Medicine.

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A human lung cell infected with influenza. The viral nucleoprotein is in red, a cellular protein highjacked by influenza is in green, and the cell’s nucleus is in blue.

Credit

Emily Bruce, Ph.D. Lab at the Larner College of Medicine

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Journal

The Journal of Virology

DOI

10.1128/jvi.02111-25 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Cells

Article Title

The Journal of Virology

Article Publication Date

2-Jun-2026

Strait of Hormuz Is As Ancient As The Hills – OpEd

 Strait of Hormuz. Credit: VOA

 June 1, 2026

By M.K. Bhadrakumar

Control of vital sea lanes and narrow chokepoints has been an underpinning of the United States’ foreign policy strategy since the Second World War. It is basically anchored on the so-called Rimland Theory expounded in 1942 by the Dutch-American political geographer Nicholas Spykman, which itself was a riposte to the Heartland Theory formulated in 1904 by the British political geographer Halford Mackinder that had advanced the view that the Eurasian core (read Russia) which he named as ‘pivot area’ or ‘Heartland’ and inaccessible to sea power but possessed the vast capacity of becoming the seat of a great world power, would be able to dominate the whole world. 

Mackinder divided the world and called Europe, Asia and Africa as ‘World Island’ comprising two-third of the world land and seven-eighths of the world population. But that was before the US ‘crossed’ the Atlantic during the First World War and steadily acquired the gravitas to become a transatlantic power, and eventually the global power and even fancied for a brief spell as the world’s sole superpower or ‘hyperpower’. 

Since WW 2, Mackinder’s Heartland Theory continued to haunt American strategists. Zbigniew Brzezinski’s classic work The Grand Chessboard (1997) directly adapted Mackinder’s Heartland Theory, re-contextualising its classical Eurasian focus to fit a unipolar, post-Cold War world where the US emerged as the sole global superpower. Of course, that was before China upended both Mackinder and Brzezinski.

According to Brzezinski, to maintain global preeminence, the US must dominate the Eurasian landmass to prevent any single rival challenger from rising. Mackinder sought to prevent the rise of a land-sea power alliance that could penetrate the Heartland, which Brzezinski found attractive —  preventing coalitions between rival powers like Russia, China, and Iran. 

Brzezinski expanded Mackinder’s mostly geographical model into a specific playbook. It is amazing how US strategists still navigate their way mostly using Brzezinski’s compass. Suffice to say, the US officials such as state secretary Marco Rubio are indulging in sheer sophistry when they propagate  that what is unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz today is ‘precedent-setting’.  

Actually, the struggle to secure waterways is as ancient as the hills. A fascinating article by FT which appeared in the weekend titled The power struggle in the world’s narrow seas begins like this: “In 405BC, the Spartans under Lysander targeted the narrow passage now known as the Dardanelles (present-day Turkey), cutting off Athens from its major source of grain. The resulting starvation forced the surrender of an empire. 

“Such narrow chokepoints are a key vulnerability for global seaborne trade: as mariners navigate the tight waterways, they face risks from pirates to militants and major powers vying for control.

“Now those vulnerabilities are being laid bare in the Strait of Hormuz… After the US and Israel attacked Iran in February, Tehran announced that it had taken control of the strait. Washington has responded with its own blockade of Iranian ports.”

The FT flags that “Even before the Hormuz stand-off, disruptions at maritime chokepoints affected about $190bn of trade each year.” It quotes the CEO of Maersk, the world’s second-largest container shipping line, that “Some of these trade routes have been weaponised to an extent that we have not seen before.” 

By the way, President Trump who threatened to take control of the Panama Canal, has since acted on his threat by blocking China from using the waterway for its trade with the Western Hemisphere. And Beijing is reportedly toying with the idea to “rekindle building a Nicaragua Canal” to neutralise US’ control of the Panama Canal. 

Chatham House estimates the Indian Ocean as a pressure point between the US, China and Russia, as evident in the joint Russian-Chinese naval exercise (chokepoint power play) off South Africa’s Indian Ocean coast in January. The Northern Route, which Russia is developing through the icy Arctic, is not just about reducing journey times to Europe, but also would “circumvent five or six major chokepoints”, including, paradoxically, the narrow Bering Strait between Russia and the US! 

The recent defence pact between the US and Indonesia with an eye on Malacca Strait, directly impacts ‘freedom of navigation’ in the South China Sea. The reported American plan to establish a military base in Bangladesh also is a related development. 

Suffice to say, the the geopolitical reality is that the contestations over waterways will only intensify going forward. And, in turn, the search for alternatives to chokepoints may only create new dependencies. As the US’s stature and clout as a global hegemon keeps diminishing, other power centres are flexing muscles.

It is in war conditions that the control of sea lanes and waterways becomes crucial. Iran felt compelled to ‘weaponise’ the Strait of Hormuz only after a war was imposed on it by the US and Israel. 

On the other hand, there is no question that the decade-long Syrian war was a geopolitical struggle to gain strategic ascendance in the East Mediterranean. The Russian bases in Syria, a close ally of the former Soviet Union, were an eyesore for the West in its post-cold war bid to transform the Mediterranean as an exclusive NATO preserve, weaken Russia’s pre-eminence in the Black Sea and make it harder for Moscow to be an influencer in Libya and the Sahel region (and further eastward in the adjacent region to the Horn of Africa.) 

Interestingly, Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa chose the venue of a panel discussion at Chatham House in London to  announce that Russian bases in Syria will be converted into training centers for the Syrian army.

The raging war in Sudan testifies to the fierce rivalry to control the Red Sea. China built its first (and only) overseas military base in Djibouti in 2017 at a cost of $ 600 million. The Russian proposal to establish a submarine base in Port Sudan was languishing on the back burner for almost a decade due to persisting American pressure. 

According to reports, the Sudanese government recently proposed a 25-year deal with Moscow to host up to 300 troops and four warships, including nuclear-powered vessels, in exchange for air defence systems and other weapons to be used in the civil war that has plagued the country since 2023. The base marking Moscow’s first naval foothold on the African continent, provides Russia with persistent access to a vital global maritime corridor—handling 12% of worldwide trade—linking the Suez Canal to the Indian Ocean. 

Without doubt, one of the considerations in Trump’s planned annexation of Greenland is also that it will put the US in a commanding position to control the sea lane from the Arctic, which is sure to be a strategic sea lane once the permafrost melts and the Northern Route, which Russia is developing, becomes fully operational. Denmark Strait, the 480 km long waterway which connects Arctic Ocean’s Greenland Sea to the Atlantic Ocean’s Irminger Sea, is only 290 km wide at its narrowest point between Greenland and Iceland. 

The international community should learn to live with the struggle for control of waterways as a fact of life. If Iran and Oman choose to charge a fee for rendering services to vessels using their territorial waters, so be it. The US is indulging in an irrationally self-destructive act.

• This article was published at Indian Punchline

Tree-Killers Are Sick, the Nation is Sick, Forests Are Not

Steve Kelly

 May 29, 2026

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Clearcut in the Oregon Coast Range. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

As Americans celebrate the 250^th year of this young nation’s existence, perhaps we could take a moment to reflect upon where and what we were in 1776, and what we have become.  This is a good time to critique how we’ve treated this great continent that nurtures us and mourn the many ‘disappeared’ lifeforms that once roamed the plains, forests, and waters of the United States.

The wild mountainous ecosystems surrounding Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks are being liquidated, habitat turned to wasteland as the resident sentient beings of these territories are mercilessly killed off.

As an activist advocating for wilderness, forests and habitat for native wildlife and fish, the combination of natural and man-caused catastrophes is reaching unfathomable proportions.  Rather than take some responsibility for our mistakes, denial and indifference has gripped our hearts, minds, and souls.

Shouldn’t ‘good,’ and powerful Puritans, Zionists, and Techno-fascist billionaires (oligarchs) begin to have regrets at some point before every acre of wild land has been bulldozed, clearcut, overgrazed, and set on fire? Before all the songbirds and hummingbirds have vanished from the countryside, original art, poetry, and music has been extinguished, along with human imagination, visions, and dreams, we must find ways to stop the plunder.

Modern society’s ruling elite can’t seem to constrain its infantile desire to meddle with the great mysteries of the Universe that creates and restores beauty and magic in our untrammeled remnant territories. Worst of all, these ruling class pirates employ their machines and common slaves to control one another, registering, tracking, and policing each other in a meaningless system of mutually un-beneficial depravity.

Can everyone see clearly now?  Money and power are relative, the supreme goal of an oligarch’s worth (his/her/its salt) is enslaving everyone else to objectify and exploit Nature and overproduce man-made things, and then produce more things, all to end up in the local dump.  There is no aim.  

Before Christian colonization and mechanization many species shared, cooperated, competed, adapted, and survived through a complex, asymmetrical multi-layered system of interrelationships that encouraged species diversity and persistence through challenging natural and man-made events. When these myriad processes and relationships are broken down the remote backcountry dies.  It is all becoming too much for human discernment to handle.

Self-criticism is consistently the piece missing and point at which hubris begins to obscure understanding natural limits that press against the current ‘unreality.’ Distraction and denial prevent our looking beyond, to see the abyss at the end of the path we’re on.

The U.S. Forest Service (USDA) and Bureau of Land Management (USDI) are a great example of what ills America today.  Rather than heal their own internal sickness first, these disgruntled slaves push deadly misdiagnoses and ‘treatments.’  They shamelessly promote dangerous narratives to cover up their heinous crimes against Nature.  Computer programs crank out fear campaigns that scream of unacceptable risk of wildfire, insect epidemic and disease.

There is no rational reason to explain how, or why, clearcutting and deliberately burning millions of acres of healthy public forests can “save” them.  The USFS and BLM have transformed into massive, senseless hospital operations.

Wild backcountry is being disposed of without a thought to the cost of treating misdiagnosed, fake forest health issues. Billions of tax dollars are wasted annually on unnecessary treatments which are converting healthy forests into deserts and failed tree plantations. It’s the boondoggle that keeps on giving.

Our national forests are not sick!

Public forests and grasslands are perpetually healing themselves without man’s meddling.  It’s nature’s way, and a whole lot less expensive.

Cheer up.  These useless federal agencies are facing down their own Death Clock. I hear it ticking.

Exceptionally scrappy, reliable grassroots forces have been fighting for decades to keep our public lands and human sensibilities from being murdered and hauled off to the landfill.  A small gift can make a big difference.

Check out my top two favorites at:

1) allianceforthewildrockies.org

and

2) counterppunch.org

Steve Kelly is a an artist and environmental activist. He lives in Bozeman, Montana.  

manifesto-library.espivblogshttps://manifesto-library.espivblogs.net  › files  › 2018  › 10  › Ursula-K.-Le-Guin-Word-for-World-is-Forest-1984-Berkley.pdf

The Word for World is Forest By Ursula K. Le Guin

down, and the top, so far, is humans. We're here, now; and so this world's going to go ... Quarter-sphere. And all those flecks and blobs of land...

 

UN Tribunal Awards $14M in Compensation for 2022 Seizure of VLCC off Africa

Crew of the Heroic Idun was held for 92 days in Equatorial Guinea and later in Nigeria (All India Seafarers' Union)

Published May 27, 2026 3:39 PM by The Maritime Executive

The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, a UN body for settling international maritime disputes, read out its verdict in the 2022 case of the seizure of the crude oil tanker Heroic Idun, awarding just over $14 million in compensation. A five-judge panel, including a representative from the Marshall Islands and Equatorial Guinea, ruled that Equatorial Guinea had violated multiple principles of the Convention of the Seas and the right to free navigation when it seized the vessel and held the crew before later turning them over to Nigeria for prosecution.

The incident had begun in August 2022 when the tanker was waiting to load crude at an offshore Nigerian platform. When it was approached by a small boat claiming to be the Nigerian Navy, the crew panicked, thinking it could be pirates. They decided to depart while the Nigerians asserted the ship did not have proper papers and was attempting to illegally load oil.

Nigeria was unable to stop the vessel as it headed south off the west coast of Africa. While it was in the EEZ of São Tomé and Principe, the navy of Equatorial Guinea intercepted the Heroic Idun. The crew asserted they were threatened by the navy vessel, saying it would use force to stop the ship. They relented and were directed into anchorage in Equatorial Guinea, arriving on August 13, 2022. The crew and the tanker were detained for more than three months, with part of the crew removed from the tanker and taken to Malabo. 

The Marshall Islands, as the flag state of the tanker, joined with others in protesting the detention and seeking to have the crew released. Despite the protests, the crew and the tanker were handed over to Nigeria in November to face charges of piracy. The crew was finally released in May 2023.

The Marshall Islands filed the complaint against Equatorial Guinea for the illegal detention of the vessel and, in April 2023, agreed to the terms of the tribunal. 

Reading out its verdict, the court said Equatorial Guinea had attempted to justify its actions due to the threat of piracy in the region and a regional anti-piracy crackdown. The tribunal, however, said, “There was no credible basis of the contention” and that the evidence from Equatorial Guinea failed to provide adequate grounds to justify the seizure on the suspicion of piracy. It said that anti-piracy operations still have legal limits and “cannot be used as a blanket justification for stopping and seizing foreign commercial ships.”

The Tribunal found that the interception and apprehension of the tanker was a violation, as was the levying of a fine. In addition, it said the treatment of the crew was another violation. It also said that Nigeria was not an indispensable third party to the proceedings.

The Marshall Islands had sought nearly $55 million in damages plus the return of the $2 million fine imposed on the captain while the ship was in Equatorial Guinea. The total amount of the award is $14 million, including the repayment of the fine. 

Among the elements that were awarded to the Marshall Islands in its complaint were the medical costs for the crew during the 92-days they were detained in Equatorial Guinea, as well as the crew’s pay, travel costs, bunker expenses for the tanker, agency and port fees, and an increase in war risk premium and lost income while the vessel was unavailable for hire. They also awarded the costs of putting in place a replacement crew and the costs for drydocking and repairs to the tanker. The only cost the Tribunal did not reimburse was the expense incurred for security escort services in Nigerian waters.

Compensation for the 26 crewmembers being held for 92 days was figured at $1,750 per day per person. That totaled $4,186,000. 

The Tribunal released a 206-page report. Established by the UN in the 1990s, the rules of the Tribunal are that all judgments are final. There are no provisions for an appeal.