NASA Probe to Drop Off Asteroid Samples After 7 Years in Deep Space

Sharon Adarlo
Tue, September 19, 2023 


Pay Dirt

After a monumental journey through outer space that took years and countless miles, NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is scheduled to release a "mini-fridge size capsule" over the Utah desert this week, according to the space agency.

The capsule contains truly precious cargo, about 8.8 ounces of rock and dust from asteroid Bennu tens of millions of miles away.

If carried off successfully, it could mark the first time NASA has nipped a sample of asteroid and taken it back to Earth in an extraordinary delivery. First-time honors in bringing an asteroid sample back to Earth belong to the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa, which had taken minute samples of the asteroid Itokawa back in 2010.

Many scientists are eager to study this asteroid sample from Bennu because they believe it contains materials that date back to the earliest days of the solar system, according to OSIRIS-REx deputy project manager Michael Moreau. It could also contain organic molecules that scientists think hitched rides on meteorites that slammed into Earth and helped seed life on our planet.

Touch and Go

OSIRIS-REx first embarked on its mission on September 8, 2016, and arrived two years later at Bennu, an asteroid that has a diameter of around 1,614 feet and orbits the Sun every six Earth years.

The asteroid is interesting because it's extraordinarily old, with material dating back to at least 4.5 billion years. Bennu is also relatively close to Earth compared to the solar system's many asteroids, which primarily reside in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, making it a tantalizing object of study.

When OSIRIS-REx first arrived at Bennu, it orbited the asteroid for two years, and then in 2020, it made a bold maneuver — a "Touch-And-Go" move — that saw the spacecraft land on the asteroid briefly, collect samples, and then used its on-board thrusters to launch itself off of the rock.

In 2021, after a last flyby around the asteroid, OSIRIS-REx finally started journeying back to Earth.

Even after it releases its return capsule over Earth in less than a week, NASA says OSIRIS-REx's job is not quite complete. When it makes its payload delivery, the spacecraft will not stop to land on our planet but will instead veer its path towards the asteroid Apophis, where it is scheduled to arrive in 2029.

More on OSIRIS-REx: Watch Nasa's Spacecraft Touch Down On A Tiny Asteroid

How asteroid Bennu caught NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft by surprise and nearly killed it along the way

Tereza Pultarova
Mon, September 18, 2023

 
A mass of gravel and dirt ejected from the surface of asteroid Bennu by the touchdown of NASA's OSIRIS-REx probe.


When the OSIRIS-REx probe arrived at asteroid Bennu, it found a body that looked and behaved quite differently from what scientists had expected.

When NASA started planning its first mission to snatch an asteroid sample, the space rock science community was abuzz with excitement over another asteroid mission — Japan's Hayabusa. In 2010, for the first time in history, that mission triumphantly delivered to Earth a fragment of an asteroid, a space rock called Itokawa. A few years earlier, Hayabusa, had mapped the whole of Itokawa, revealing a landscape strewn with boulders but also featuring smooth beach-like plains, or ponds, of gravel and sand.

It was these images of Itokawa that guided the design of NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission. But as it turned out, despite some superficial resemblance, the asteroid that OSIRIS-REx was to head for turned out to be completely different.

Related: Queen legend Brian May helped NASA ace its asteroid-sampling mission, new book reveals

"The strategy for planning with OSIRIS-REx was to take Itokawa and all of the observations of asteroid Bennu that we had made of it before," Kevin Walsh, a planetary scientist at Southwest Research Institute and lead scientist of the Regolith Development Working Group of the OSIRIS-REx mission, told Space.com. "So we would look at the different way [the two asteroids] reflect light and the different way they reflected radar, and every indication was that Bennu would have more ponds of fine grains than Itokawa."

It wasn't until OSIRIS-REx arrived at asteroid Bennu, two years after its 2016 launch from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida that the mission team discovered that their assumptions were "totally wrong," said Walsh. Instead of wide plains of sand and gravel interspersed with accumulations of boulders, the spacecraft's cameras revealed a "bouldery hellscape" that had none of the smooth open areas on which they envisioned OSIRIS-REx to touch down and collect its sample.

The mission's chief scientist Dante Lauretta told Space.com in an earlier interview that the team had concerns the sample collection might not be possible at all.

"When we designed the spacecraft, we had a design targeting accuracy [for the landing] of about 50 meters [164 feet]," Lauretta said. "The thermal properties, also the radar properties [of Bennu], really looked like a smooth surface. So when I first saw that [the surface was completely different], I really thought we might be in trouble there."

A stereoscopic image of a rocky outcrop on the surface of asteroid Bennu.

As the team grappled with the question whether their precious spacecraft could possibly safely touch down amid the towering boulders that rose against Bennu's feeble gravity into heights unseen on Earth, they received support from an unexpected source. Legendary guitarist of the rock band Queen and well-known astronomy aficionado Sir Brian May reached out to Lauretta to express his interest in the mission. May, who holds a PhD in astronomy, which he famously completed after a 30-year hiatus enforced by Queen's rise to fame in the 1970s, is also known for his interest in stereoscopic imaging. It was this skill he offered to the OSIRIS-REx team, which was at that time struggling to find a boulder-free-enough area to land the spacecraft on.

Stereoscopic imaging replicates the ability of human eyes to perceive surrounding space in three dimensions. Dedicated stereo cameras help Martian rovers navigate their exploration site. But the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft wasn't fitted with a stereo camera. May, however, knew his way around this issue by selecting images of various spots on Bennu taken from different angles and processing them for 3D viewing.

"Once you have a stereo image of that particular potential landing site, you can really make that instinctive judgment as to whether things are going to work out," May told Space.com in an earlier interview. "You see that there is this boulder, how much slope there is, how dangerous it is to get on and to get off."

With May's help, the OSIRIS-REx team eventually identified a sufficiently obstacle-free crater to attempt the sample collection. Still, the team had to remotely reprogram the spacecraft to accomplish the feat. Instead of the originally envisioned 164-foot-wide (50 m) landing side, the van-sized spacecraft had to squeeze into the merely 33-foot-wide (10 m) Nightingale Crater.


Asteroid Bennu turned out to be completely different from what scientists had expected.

"When we launched, we planned to use a laser altimeter for the guidance down to the asteroid because we were expecting these big smooth areas," Lauretta said. "We just thought that we would need to know that we were coming down at the right rate towards the surface. Instead, we had to completely change the strategy, using the onboard cameras and performing an extensive mapping campaign, sometimes mapping features as small as a couple of centimeters to put into the spacecraft's memory so that it could make real decisions and guide itself down to the safe location."

The descent was smooth. But when OSIRIS-REx's sample collection device pressed into the asteroid's surface, something unexpected happened. Contrary to expectations, the surface behaved almost like a swamp. Within a few seconds, the spacecraft sank 19 inches (50 cm) deep into Bennu. As the sample collection head sucked in the sample and the spacecraft's backaway thrusters fired, a huge wall of debris rose from the crater, engulfing the ascending spacecraft.

The OSIRIS-REx team only learned about what happened when images from on-board cameras reached Earth. The researchers later admitted that the stirred-up gravel could have damaged the retreating spacecraft.

Walsh described the touchdown as "scientifically interesting, although operationally challenging." Just like the team misjudged Bennu's surface, it turned out that they also misjudged its density. The surface layer was unexpectedly fluffy, behaving more like water than solid material, something the analysis of measurements from Bennu's orbit didn't indicate.

Related stories:

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"When we did our calculations, initially we were taking the density of all of Bennu, which is 1.1 grams per cubic centimeter," said Walsh. "But our models showed afterwards that to be able to compress the surface so much and drive the tag head so deep into the surface, the surface density would have to be like 0.4 grams per cubic centimeter. And so it was less than half as dense as the entire body."

Scientists still don't know why Bennu's surface has this waterlike quality. Walsh thinks that smaller sand-like particles may have filtered through the gaps between the bigger rock fragments into the asteroid's interior, leaving a lot of empty space in the asteroid surface layer. That would explain the unexpectedly low density of the surface, but also the overall density of the asteroid that appears to be much higher than that of the surface.

Despite the challenges, OSIRIS-REx collected much more of the asteroid material than the mission aimed for, and the spacecraft will drop off this cargo at Earth on Sunday, Sept. 24. Lauretta hopes to release the first scientific results from the sample analysis by the end of this year. And chances are that Bennu will surprise researchers again.

OSIRIS-REx: Purdue scientist will be one of the first to examine asteroid material

Noe Padilla, Lafayette Journal & Courier
Tue, September 19, 2023 

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — After more than a decade of work, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx asteroid-study project is scheduled to return to Earth on Sept. 24 landing in the Utah desert with pieces of the asteroid Bennu.

Once it lands, the spacecraft’s sample return capsule will be sent off to a clean lab at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, and while there, Michelle Thompson, an associate professor of earth, atmospheric, and planetary sciences at Purdue’s College of Science, will be one of the first six lead investigators from the science team to study the samples.

More: Purdue's 'Cradle of Astronauts': Now 28 Boilermakers who have traveled into space

“This is a truly once-in-a-lifetime — maybe a once-in-several-lifetime — experience,” Thompson said in a press release.

“OSIRIS-REx was selected in 2011, the year I started my PhD, and launched in 2016, the year I got my PhD. It reached Bennu in 2018, the year I came to Purdue. And now I am going to be one of the first humans to get to study it. Bennu is a treasure trove of information; this is literally the project of my career.”

Prior to NASA’s OSIRIS-REx’s return, there were two other missions with the goal of retrieving asteroid samples for scientists to study back on Earth, Hayabusa and Hayabusa2, which were both launched by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

Michelle Thompson, planetary scientist and expert in space weathering, will be one of the first six humans — and the first woman — to analyze samples of asteroid Bennu brought to Earth by OSIRIS-REx.

 (Purdue University photo/Rebecca Robiños)

Both missions returned with small amounts of samples, the first mission returned with less than a milligram of material, while the second one returned with 5.4 grams of material.

The OSIRIS-REx mission obtained potential return with more than 100 grams of material according to camera observations from Bennu, a carbonaceous asteroid that passes within 186,000 miles of Earth, closer than the moon.

After its arrival, Thompson and five other scientists will have 72 hours to analyze and evaluate the samplers to determine the initial characteristics of the asteroid materials.

Thompson's research focuses on the process called space weather or in other words, she analyzes the alteration of planetary materials after their formation, specifically the evolution of airless body surfaces.

She’s previously studied samples of moondust brought to Earth by the Apollo missions and spent months at Johnson Space Center preparing for the asteroid samples’ arrival.

By understanding the material's surface — the very top few millimeters of rock and dust, called regolith — Thompson hopes it will shed light on the composition of asteroids and how their properties change and reflect their makeup.

OSIRIS-REx’s name stands for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security — Regolith Explorer, which encapsulates the program’s goal. Scientists are hoping that the results of the mission and study will help give the scientific community insight into the origin of the planets and the earliest history of the solar system.

“Observing asteroids from spacecraft and telescopes is incredibly important, but nothing can replace analyzing samples in the laboratory,” Thompson said.

“Sample return missions are a cornerstone of planetary science, and this close-up look at Bennu material will give us details we couldn’t see from orbit and help us understand how to interpret what we’re seeing on other faraway asteroids. It makes our understanding more comprehensive, more three-dimensional.”

Beyond the notion of studying the asteroid’s material for the sake of science, by coming to understand what asteroids are made of, it could help future humans and explorers to discover if asteroids could contain materials to mine for future vehicles, missions and habitats.

Scientists are also hoping to gain a deeper understanding of asteroids’ physical chemistry and how their orbit is changing with time, particularly of asteroids like Bennu that come close to Earth.

“Asteroids are relics of the early solar system,” Thompson said. “They’re like time capsules. We can use them to examine the origin of our solar system and to open a window to the origin of life on Earth.”

Although scientists have examined materials from asteroids that have entered Earth’s atmosphere before, the material collected from this mission will be unlike anything those scientists have seen before.

Due to the friction from the atmosphere, asteroids that don’t burn up and are able to make it to the Earth’s surface no longer resemble the material floating in space.

By escorting the material in an insulated still-pristine condition, scientists will get to look at the asteroid as it was in its original environment, lending understanding to a wide range of planetary science.

“These samples have been on their way back to us for a couple of years,” Thompson said.

“We have had years to prepare for what we might find and how we might study the sample.

“Looking at the organic molecules from Bennu, we’re going to get an understanding of what kinds of molecules could have seeded life on early Earth.

“Information about what compounds, what elements are there, and in what proportions. We won’t find life itself, but we’re definitely looking at the building blocks that could have eventually evolved into life.”

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Purdue scientist will be one of the first to examine asteroid material


What if NASA's OSIRIS-REx asteroid-sample capsule crashes to Earth this weekend?

Elizabeth Howell
Tue, September 19, 2023 

A sample space capsule parachuting to Earth in a test.

After seven years flying through space, a spacecraft capsule carrying a precious asteroid sample will touch down on Earth under parachutes this weekend. But what if it crashes?

A crash of NASA's OSIRIS-REx descent capsule on Sept. 24 is "the stuff of my nightmares," the mission's principal investigator, Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona, said recently. (OSIRIS-REx stands for "Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer.")

"If that parachute doesn't open and we're in the 'hard landing' contingency, fortunately we have a backup team member who will help me with the emotional state and also, probably be the one I send out there to go deal with it," Lauretta said of the asteroid mission during a livestreamed press conference on NASA Television on Aug. 30. "We've got a great plan."

OSIRIS-REx made the first-ever visit to the near-Earth asteroid Bennu in 2020. In October of that year, the probe swooped down to snag samples in a touch-and go maneuver that almost saw the spacecraft swallowed up by the surprisingly spongy asteroid.

Related: Asteroid Bennu nearly swallowed up NASA's sampling spacecraft

OSIRIS-REx survived that sampling run and is now in the home stretch of its asteroid-delivery effort. If all goes to plan, the return capsule will touch down gently on Sunday morning under parachutes in the Utah desert.

But sometimes things don't go to plan. So the recovery team has been practicing for numerous other scenarios, to preserve as much of the sample as possible in the event of a landing anomaly. The OSIRIS-REx team wants to get as much scientific return as possible from the $1 billion mission no matter what happens on Sunday.

Lauretta said that, if a crash occurs, the team will take the sample into a clean room, which he called "a safe environment," to reduce contamination as much as possible. Contingency supplies will also be available on site if the recovery team needs them, he said.

"We practice beforehand to optimize accuracy and minimize the chances of mistakes during the capsule's Earth arrival," Sandra Freund, OSIRIS-REx program manager at the aerospace company Lockheed Martin, added in an Aug. 17 NASA blog post. "By simulating different scenarios, our team can anticipate challenges and work through contingency plans to effectively address them."

The recovery practice has been ongoing for years, and culminated with a series of simulations in Utah in the zone where the spacecraft should touch down. In April, a practice capsule was placed in the field in different positions to allow the team to practice retrieving it. Then the team ramped up the effort by using a truck in July, and then a helicopter in September, to simulate dropping off the capsule at higher and higher speeds.

The recovery professionals were then timed to see how quickly they could take out the sample and bring it back to a local lab in the first of a long series of processing steps. "The faster the better," Richard Witherspoon, OSIRIS-REx ground recovery lead at Lockheed Martin, wrote in another NASA blog post in May.

There have only been a few other spacecraft that have brought asteroid samples back to Earth, and each one of these missions gives us a little more information about how the early solar system was formed. NASA is taking lessons learned from its other missions that sent space samples to Earth, sometimes not entirely successfully.

Related: Dramatic sampling shows asteroid Bennu is nothing like scientists expected

side-by-side images showing a spacecraft's robotic arm about to contact a gravelly asteroid (left) and stirring up lots of dirt and rock after contact (right).

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Famously, the agency's Genesis capsule crashed in 2004 due to four switches being installed backward in its re-entry system. Fortunately, however, the ions (charged particles) of the solar wind that it snagged were still lodged deep within the capsule, underneath the damaged collector surfaces. Scientists were able to use the sample to reveal several insights about planetary formation — for example, the Genesis sample suggested that Earth lost some of its atmosphere early in its history, according to NASA.

Two years later, the Stardust spacecraft had more success landing in the Utah desert. Investigations of the samples it picked up from Comet Wild-2 in 2004 continue to yield intriguing insights. For instance: Aside from numerous comet bits, probable interstellar particle tracks were detected by a team led by principal investigator Don Brownlee, of the University of Washington.

Other robotic sample return missions over the decades include several Soviet Luna spacecraft that visited the moon, the Chinese Chang'e-5 lunar sample return mission, and the Hayabusa and Hayabusa2 missions from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. As always, NASA reviews the available documentation from such missions to form procedures and inform its own planning.

In whatever shape the descent capsule arrives, investigators on Earth will be kept busy for years — indeed, decades — with the samples returned by OSIRIS-REx. Meanwhile, the original spacecraft will go on to a new mission. Its next task will be to examine another near-Earth asteroid, Apophis, in 2029 under an extended mission known as OSIRIS-APEX.

Nasa ‘in final leg’ of mission to halt asteroid armageddon

Sarah Knapton
Sat, September 16, 2023

An Atlas V rocket carrying the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft lifts off from Cape Canaveral in 2016 on seven-year journey - the first US mission to sample an asteroid - Nasa

On 24 September 2182, there is a chance that an asteroid named Bennu will hit Earth with the force of 22 atom bombs.

The Empire State Building-sized space rock swings close to our planet every six years but will have its closest shave 159 years from now.

Although the odds of a catastrophic strike are 1 in 2,700, Nasa was concerned enough to launch a spacecraft to Bennu seven years ago to collect samples, in case an Armageddon-style deflection mission is required.

Asteroid samples from the OSIRIS-REx mission will finally reach Earth next week, touching down in the Utah desert on Sept 24 - the same date as the future apocalypse Nasa is seeking to avert.

“We are now in the final leg of this seven-year journey, and it feels very much like the last few miles of a marathon, with a confluence of emotions like pride and joy coexisting with a determined focus to complete the race well,” said Rich Burns, project manager for OSIRIS-REx at Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Bennu is about a third of a mile wide, so it is not big enough to cause a planet-wide extinction. For comparison, the asteroid which wiped out the dinosaurs was six miles wide.

However, Nasa estimates that it could cause a six-mile wide crater and wreak devastation over a 600-mile radius.

Overall there is a 1-in-1,750 chance that Bennu could collide with Earth between now and 2300.

This artist’s conception shows the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft extending its sampling arm as it moves in to make contact with the asteroid Bennu - This artist’s conception shows the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft extending its sampling arm as it moves in to make contact with the asteroid Bennu. 

Credits: NASA/GSFC

The space agency is taking the threat from space rocks seriously and last year carried out its first asteroid deflection test, showing it could alter the orbit of the small moonlet Dimorphos.

The samples, which are contained in a fridge-sized capsule, will be fired to Earth from the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft once it reaches a distance of 63,000 miles from the planet.

On board are an estimated 8.8 ounces, or 250 grams, of rocky material collected from the surface of Bennu in 2020. Although the Japanese Hayabusa mission has brought samples back from an asteroid before, it is Nasa’s first asteroid sample and the largest amount ever collected in space.

The capsule will enter Earth’s atmosphere at around 3.42 pm BST on September 24, traveling at nearly 28,000 mph, and reaching temperatures twice as hot as lava.

Parachutes will then deploy to slow the capsule down to 11 mph so it can land safely at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range southwest of Salt Lake City.

Recovery teams participate in field rehearsals in preparation for the retrieval of the sample return capsule from Nasa's OSIRIS-REx mission - Keegan Barber/Nasa

The recovery team must retrieve the capsule from the ground as quickly as possible to avoid contaminating the sample with Earth’s environment.

Once located, the capsule will be flown to a temporary clean room on the military range, where it will undergo initial processing in preparation for its journey to Nasa’s Johnson Space Center in Houston for study.

As well as helping protect the planet, samples from Bennu - named for the ancient Egyptian phoenix - could also hold secrets about the origin of life on Earth.

The spinning-top-shaped space rock is more than four and a half billion years old and is a leftover relic from the formation of the Solar System which has been perfectly preserved in the vacuum of space.

This Nov 16, 2018, image provide by Nasa shows the asteroid Bennu after a two-year chase - Nasa/Goddard/University of Arizona

Scientists have long suspected that the ingredients for life on Earth may have been delivered to our planet by asteroids, and so are keen to find out whether there are life-forming compounds in the samples.

Professor Dante Lauretta, leader of the OSIRIS-REx mission said: “The return of samples from Bennu is the culmination of over a decade of intense effort by thousands of people around the world.

“These samples will be analyzed by hundreds of researchers to unravel the history of our Solar System, the formation of the Earth, and, possibly, the nature of the building blocks of life.”

Bennu is thought to be rich in organic molecules, which are made of chains of carbon bonded with atoms of oxygen, hydrogen, and other elements in a chemical recipe that makes all known living things. Scientists expect it to also contain water and minerals and possibly precious metals.

Nicola Fox, associate administrator of Nasa’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington: “Pristine material from asteroid Bennu will help shed light on the formation of our Solar System 4.5 billion years ago and perhaps even on how life on Earth began.”

Twenty minutes after the capsule drop-off, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will fire its thrusters to divert past Earth to visit another asteroid Apophis under a new mission name OSIRIS-APEX.

Apophis was also predicted to get dangerously close to Earth in 2068, but experts have since revised their calculators and no longer see it as a risk.

Opinion: Men and the Roman Empire is more than a meme

Opinion by David M. Perry
Mon, September 18, 2023 

Editor’s Note: David M. Perry is a journalist, historian and co-author of “The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe.” He is the associate director of undergraduate studies in the history department of the University of Minnesota. Subscribe to his newsletter Modern Medieval. The views expressed here are those of the author. View more opinion on CNN.

A funny thing happened on the way to the online forum: people wouldn’t stop talking about the Roman Empire.

David M. Perry - David Perry

Over the past few days, a viral trend has swept through TikTok in which women asked their husbands and boyfriends how often they thought about the Roman Empire. A surprising number claimed to think about the ancient empire as often as “every day” or least every week or two. It became a meme (are you even in a relationship if she hasn’t asked you about the Roman Empire?), spread to other social media sites, then received serious news coverage in multiple outlets. Now it seems like it’s everywhere.

The whole experience has left me, a historian (I focus on medieval Europe, but like many professors have taught “from Plato to NATO”), a little bemused. There are any number of specific reasons why men might think a lot about the Roman Empire, to be sure, but in my experience, lots of people spend a lot of time thinking about history. People like history.

When it comes to the Roman Empire, there’s a gender bias here, and also a racial one. Lots of men in particular think Rome is cool, though it’s mostly just vibes combining mythic ideas around ancient Greece and Rome — about a thousand years’ worth of history! This popularity is evident in history classes, books, podcasts, TV shows, video games, movies and more, including Mike Duncan’s podcast, Mary Beard’s SPQR, or the TV show Rome, but also more lyrical pathways into the history such as Madeline Miller’s novels “Circe” and “Song of Achilles.”

There’s just a lot (in a fairly narrow band) of Greek and Roman history to easily consume. What’s more, a small selection of surviving primary sources for the late Roman Republic and early empire are fun to read, lurid in sex and violence and available in cheap paperback translations. Try Livy’s histories for the early stuff, or Tacitus’ Annals for a dose of political intrigue (and murder).

Pundits like to compare our present moment to a mostly false narrative about the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, arguing that history justifies taking aggressive action against their pet concerns. In 1979, for example, an economics professor blamed welfare for the fall of Rome. The comparison tends to produce bad history.

But the pundits and politicians are in good company. People have been trying to use using bad history to try to claim the mythic legacy of Rome for centuries. Just look at our government buildings that claim to be “neo-classical” with their gleaming white columns—even though Rome was actually very colorful, it’s just that paint doesn’t last. More dangerously, there is a subset of people who are more seriously obsessed with an imagined past that they think supports a White supremacist narrative of history. It’s a notion that actual scholars of the incredibly complex and diverse ancient Mediterranean are pushing back against, because it’s both harmful and nonsense.

But the specifics of the ancient Mediterranean aside, it’s not surprising to me that people spend a lot of time thinking about their favorite histories. History is enthralling, and while access to sources is unequal for many reasons (what survives, what gets translated, what gets published cheaply), you can find fascinating stories from any place, time or topic.

And people do. Every time a stranger finds out that I’m a historian, like on an airplane, or at a bar or even recently at a gas station while I was filling up a leaking tire, they start telling me about their favorite history. It can be a red flag, like the Battle of Thermopylae or any time a White person in the South wants to talk to me about the Civil War, but in the vast majority of cases, it’s just someone who likes to think about the past. And if you asked them about it on video, they’d probably say they think about it almost every day.

I also see this from my students, including the many retirees who take advantage of a $10-a-credit program for Minnesotans over 62 to voluntarily come back to school and get a history major. They take classes. They write papers and exams. They do the reading. They do it for fun. It’s because people like history.

I keep asserting people’s love of history because we’re in a moment of professional collapse for those of us in the business of making new knowledge about the past. Enrollments in history classes and majors have been falling for years, and while the job market for professors has stabilized, it’s heavily skewed towards temporary positions and nowhere near as large as it was even a decade ago. The news is even worse for historians of the premodern world; American men may be low-level obsessed with ancient Rome, but only 8% of all of last year’s jobs focused on the history from the origins of humanity to the year 1500, according to the American Historical Association.

Some of that has happened because of shifting resources from the teaching of premodern Europe and ancient Greece and Rome to include more of the world — a necessary shift, it turns out, because the rest of the world also has fascinating, knowable, premodern history. I’ve never cared if anyone studies the areas of the world I study, but I do want students steeped in the past.

What to make of this disconnect in society? People love history, but the studying and teaching of history at the university level is slowly vanishing (I’m sure you could say similar things about the love for art and art history, love for literature and shrinking English departments, but I’m going to stick to what I know best). Students are told not to follow their interests, but to go to college to find a career, and are never told that strong humanities majors make more money than average business majors, or that history majors do just as well financially as majors like criminology or psychology.

The issues here aren’t easily solvable, but they start by recognizing that history and historians don’t have to be on the defensive about our topics. People want to learn about the past. We should make it easier for them in every way possible, and we need the public to make their love of history clear. Go on TikTok! Ask your boyfriend or girlfriend about history and share their answers. Make more history everywhere and in every way. There’s work to be done, and like Rome, we’re not going to build it in a day.





The 'female version' of the male obsession with the Roman Empire is — to the surprise of no one — completely different

Maria Noyen
Updated Sat, September 16, 2023 


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Princess Diana, the Salem Witch Trials, and the Titanic are common answersAndrea Comi/Getty Images

This week the internet was shocked to discover that men are obsessed with the Roman Empire.


Some women found out their partners think of the Roman Empire as often as on a daily basis.


People are now discussing the "female version" of the trend.

Earlier this week, the internet was shocked to discover that men are obsessed with the Roman Empire — so much so that some even think of it on a daily basis.

The revelation came as a surprise to many partners, who have been sharing viral reactions to the men in their lives admitting how frequently they pondered the Roman Empire on TikTok and X, formerly known as Twitter.

The conversation took a new turn on Thursday when LA-based professional charcuterie artist Emmy Rener asked TikTokers to weigh in on a new question: what is the female version of the Roman Empire?

"What is something random that we all think about on a very regular basis that is female specific?" she said.

The answers Rener has received in comments and stitched videos on her TikTok revealed stark differences between men's and women's regular thoughts.
Kidnapping and violent crime are top of mind, some women say

Many of those responding to the TikTok said they would often think of serious subjects like being the victim of violence.

Danyelle Leyden, a TikToker who regularly shares content about her life and family, said being kidnapped was top of her mind in a response video.

"Definitely being kidnapped, or just in general somebody's gonna get me," Leyden said.

Speaking to Insider, Leyden said the number of women who have similar recurring thoughts to her is revealing societal differences.

"It speaks volumes for society that women are so cautious and have to feel on guard most of their lives," Leyden said. "I think unfortunately most women have had past experiences that led them to be this cautious."

"For me it also put into further perspective that as women we feel like prey subconsciously," she added.

Some people expressed similar views in the comment section of Leyden's TikTok. "Same," one user wrote in a comment that has over 6,500 likes. "I'm constantly thinking 'what if someone walks though my front door right now, what will I grab?'"

"I think it's being murdered, or assaulted," Melissa Urban said in a TikTok. She captioned the clip: "With a splash of did I leave the curling iron on."

In yet another stitch with Rener's original clip, "Awkward" star Greer Grammer expressed similar thoughts.

"Taylor Swift or getting kidnapped, I think about those two things every day. Every day," she said in her own post.
Princess Diana, the Salem Witch Trials, and the Titanic are common, too

Other common answers among women on TikTok included Princess Diana, Greek mythology, the Titanic, Helen Keller, and the Salem Witch Trials.

"I firmly believe that there are four," user @gertiethehippo said in a TikTok responding to Rener's question. "The six wives of Henry VIII, the Titanic, obviously, not the movie but the Titanic, the Romanov's, and, of course, Greek mythology."

Princess Diana.Tim Graham Photo Library/Getty Images

Further responses also included Taylor Swift and Stevie Nicks epic 1997 performance of "Silver Springs," which resurfaced and went viral earlier this year following the release of "Daisy Jones and The Six," Today reported.

Others said they also thought about the Roman Empire.

Carly Maris, a postdoctoral fellow at San Diego State University whose research interests including Rome, Persia, and Egypt, responded to the trend on TikTok, saying that for her "personally, the female version of the Roman Empire is the Roman Empire."

"Ladies, when they would do a good job at something they would get little leaf hats, they wore special dresses, their favorite color was purple," she added.

Emmy Renner, creator of the original female version of the Roman Empire TikTok, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.

Brexit bombshell: UK could rejoin EU as an ‘associate member’

Archie Mitchell and Kate Devlin
Tue, September 19, 2023 

France and Germany are pushing plans to offer Britain and other European countries “associate membership” of the EU in a move that could rebuild the UK’s ties with the bloc.

The two countries have tabled a blueprint that would create four new tiers, with the most aligned states forming an “inner circle”.

In what will be seen as an olive branch, a new outer tier of “associate membership” would be open to the UK, laying the ground for a closer economic relationship.

Senior Tories welcomed the proposal with former deputy prime minister Lord Heseltine telling The Independent that Britain must urgently explore the idea as the “overarching majority of people in Britain see Brexit as a mistake”.

“The dam is breaking and there is increasingly a move towards integrating with Europe,” he said.

But the move prompted a furious reaction from Brexiteers who accused EU countries of “desperation” in their bid to enlarge the bloc.

News of the plans came after Sir Keir Starmer held talks in Paris with French president Emmanuel Macron, the final leg of an international tour designed to show the Labour leader as a prime-minister-in-waiting.

But as both main parties walk a tightrope over Brexit in the run up to next year’s general election, Labour and No 10 ruled out any form of associate membership of the EU.

As he tries to appeal to both pro-remain businesses and Leave voters, Sir Keir at the weekend pledged to secure a "much better" Brexit deal if he wins the next election, but rejected re-joining the customs union or the single market.

In March the chairman of the government watchdog the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) warned the economic impact of Brexit was the same “magnitude” as the Covid pandemic and the energy price crisis.

Richard Hughes said Britain’s gross domestic product (GDP), a key measure of a country’s wealth, would be 4 per cent higher if the UK had stayed in the EU.

Under the plans the UK would be expected to contribute to the EU’s annual budget and be governed by the European Court of Justice in exchange for “participation” in the single market.

Associate members, who would form the bloc’s first “outer tier”, could include members of the single market who are not in the EU, such as Switzerland, or “even the UK”, a paper put forward by France and Germany stated.

They would not be bound to “ever closer union” and further integration, it said.

But they would have to commit to the “common principles and values” of the EU.

Although they would pay into the EU’s budget, costs would be lower than those paid by full members.

Sir Keir said his meeting with Macron began with an “exchange of gifts” and covered topics including “the relationship between our two countries” and future “prosperity and security”.

Sir Keir stressed plans to “build” on the relationship between France and Britain if Labour wins power.

A European diplomatic source told The Times the plan was designed with Labour in mind, despite Sir Keir having ruled out rejoining the EU’s single market.

“It is carefully balanced politically to be a potential place for Britain without the need to ever rejoin the EU or to hold a referendum,” the source said.

A party spokesperson said: “Labour will seek a better deal for Britain. This does not involve any form of membership.”

And the prime minister’s official spokesman, asked whether Rishi Sunak would countenance Britain becoming an associate member of the EU, said: “No.”

Associate membership would not include a customs union, allowing Britain to keep an independent trade policy.

Lord Heseltine told The Independent Britain “must urgently explore” France and Germany’s plan.

The Tory former deputy prime minister said: “The remorseless pressure of public opinion is changing the dynamic of politics.

“The dam is breaking and there is increasingly a move towards integrating with Europe. This is an opportunity offered by France and Germany which should be seized upon.

“The overarching majority of people in Britain see Brexit as a mistake, even those who still believe in it agree it has never been possible to implement it.

“The Tories have at least recognised change is needed, firstly with Northern Ireland and the Windsor Agreement and then with Horizon, allowing cooperation on sciences and technology.”He also suggested that political stances could shift after the next election.

“While the red wall may be insurmountable on this side of the general election, the pressure of events will push people of both main parties to dare to change and to make permanent links with Europe,” he said.

“This new plan between France and Germany must be explored urgently.”

In response to the plan, Tobias Ellwood, who has previously called for Britain to rejoin the EU's single market, said the UK needs a "pragmatic re-engagement with Europe".

"As our Brexit deal comes up for formal re-negotiation, we need to explore more avenues for economic advantage,” he added.

Asked about the potential to join a new outer tier of the EU, Tory former business secretary and arch-Brexiteer Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg said: “I like the outer tier that we are currently in.”

Former Brexit minister Lord Frost told The Independent Britain should “certainly not” consider associate membership.

Sir John Redwood, the Tory former trade minister, told The Independent that leaving the single market was “a crucial part of the Brexit case” and rejoining would do “huge damage” to British industry.

He said a “great win” of Brexit was no longer having to contribute to the bloc’s budget.

Tory MP Craig Mackinlay said the idea “smacks of desperation” at a time when many member states are wondering “what this democracy devouring beast is for”.

He told The Independent: “The country rejected this once and would do so again.”

Gina Miller, the anti-Brexit campaigner, told The Independent the UK should “see this move as an opportunity to start” the process to rejoin the EU.

“This ‘onion’ option, forming part of an outer layer of the EU, is an olive branch from our European neighbours, but we must negotiate cautiously to make sure that we regain at least some of the influence we lost under Brexiteer extremism,” she said.

And Best for Britain, which campaigns for closer ties with the EU, said the proposals were “encouraging”, although associate membership remains “some way off”.

Under the plans a second tier for outer members would not include any integration with EU law but would see an upgrade of the European Political Community (EPC), of which Britain is a part. It would include free trade agreements in certain areas such as energy or defence, and would focus on cooperation on important issues such as climate and security.

The paper has been written by an official ‘Franco-German working group on EU institutional reform’, made up of experts, academics and lawyers, set up by both the French and German governments earlier this year. The proposals are due to be presented at a monthly meeting of ministers of EU member states.

Starmer wants ‘closer trading relationship’ with EU if Labour wins power
Genevieve Holl-Allen
Mon, September 18, 2023 at 5:40 AM MDT·3 min read
0



Sir Keir Starmer said he had an ‘utter determination’ to make Brexit work - Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images

Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to seek a “closer trading relationship” with the European Union if Labour wins the next general election.

The Labour leader said he would seek to rewrite the existing Brexit deal when it is up for review in 2025.

Speaking at a conference of centre-Left political leaders in Montreal, he told the Financial Times: “Almost everyone recognises the deal [Boris] Johnson struck is not a good deal – it’s far too thin.

“As we go into 2025 we will attempt to get a much better deal for the UK. I do think we can have a closer trading relationship as well. That’s subject to further discussion.”

Sir Keir said he had an “utter determination” to make Brexit work and again stated Labour would not seek to take the UK back into the EU.

The Conservative Party seized on his comments, accusing him of wanting to take Britain “back to square one on Brexit”.

The Labour leader said his two children were among his motivations for rewriting the Brexit deal, adding: “I’ve got a 15-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl. I’m not going to let them grow up in a world where all I’ve got to say to them about their future is that it’s going to be worse than it might otherwise have been.”

Asked about Sir Keir’s comments on Monday, Downing Street said that the Brexit deal should not be renegotiated.

The Prime Minister’s spokesman told journalists: “We’re not looking to relitigate the past or reopen it in any way, shape or form. Obviously, there is a set statutory review period, but beyond that we’re very much focused on maximising the opportunities it presents for the public.

“We expect the [Trade and Cooperation Agreement] to remain the basis of our relationship with the EU and are focused on maximising opportunities it presents us with. It is the world’s largest zero tariffs, zero quotas deal. It’s the first time the EU has ever agreed to such access in a free trade agreement.”

Sir Keir said he saw the 2025 review of Brexit as an “important” moment to reset UK-EU relations. He will travel to Paris on Tuesday to meet Emmanuel Macron, the French president. They are expected to discuss post-Brexit relations and a possible migrant returns deal with Europe.

His indication last week that a Labour government could be prepared to do a deal under which the UK takes a quota of asylum seekers who arrive in the bloc in exchange for the ability to return migrants who illegally cross the Channel drew criticism from the Tories.

Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, claimed that the Labour leader would “make Britain the dumping ground” for EU migrants, with Labour accusing her of “embarrassing nonsense”.

David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, who will accompany Sir Keir to Paris, on Sunday proposed a broader reset of foreign policy with the EU under a future Labour government.

He told The Observer that relations with the EU were “the top priority” for the party, describing it as “bizarre” that the UK “does not currently under the Government have structured dialogue with the European Union in a constructive way”.

Britain's opposition leader Keir Starmer pledges new deal with EU under Labor

Paul Godfrey
Mon, September 18, 2023 

Labor Leader Sir Keir Starmer has promised to negotiate a "better" Brexit deal saying the agreement delivered by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson -- after years of delays -- was too narrow. 

File Photo by Tolga Akmen/EPA-EFE


Sept. 18 (UPI) -- Keir Starmer, leader of Britain's opposition Labor Party, pledged to renegotiate the deal struck by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson with Brussels that took the country out of the European Union at the end of 2020.

Speaking at the Global Progress Action Summit in Montreal on Sunday, Starmer said he would seek a far better deal when it is reviewed in 2025 as Johnson's Brexit agreement was "too thin," but ruled out rejoining or entering the customs union or the single market of the 27-country bloc.

"Almost everyone recognizes the deal Johnson struck is not a good deal -- it's too thin. As we go into 2025 we will attempt to get a much better deal for the U.K.," Starmer told the Financial Times.

"I do think we can have a closer trading relationship as well. That's subject to discussion."

Saying he was motivated by the futures of the younger generation, he said Britain had "to make it work."

"That's not a question of going back in, but I refuse to accept that we can't make it work," he said.

Johnson's EU-U.K. Trade and Co-operation Agreement signed in December 2020, has a clause mandating a joint review of its implementation every five years.

The ruling Conservatives accused Starmer of a U-turn after he had pledged not to try to reverse or amend Brexit.

"Three years ago he promised he wouldn't seek major changes to the U.K.'s new relationship with the EU, but now his latest short-term position is that he will," a spokesperson for the party said.

"What price would Keir Starmer be prepared to pay to the EU for renegotiating our relationship?"

In raising his international profile as a leader ahead of a general election that must be held before the end of 2024, Starmer has in recent weeks been increasingly vocal on the need to improve ties with Brussels.

His comments in Canada follow a visit to Europol in the Hague on Thursday for discussions on how to tackle the tens of thousands of asylum seekers arriving on Britain's shores in small boats -- more than 45,000 in 2022.

Starmer is due to travel to Paris on Tuesday to meet French President Emmanuel Macron for the second time in under 10 days with post-Brexit ties high on the agenda. The pair last met on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in New Delhi held 9-10 September.

Britain touted as future ‘associate member’ of EU
Joe Barnes
Tue, September 19, 2023

Britain could rejoin the European Union as an ‘associate member’


Britain could rejoin the European Union as an “associate member” under plans for the bloc’s expansion drawn up by France and Germany.

The UK would be expected to contribute to the EU’s annual budget and be governed by the European Court of Justice in exchange for “participation” in the bloc’s single market.

The plan will be officially unveiled on Tuesday afternoon as Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, meets Emmanuel Macron, the French president, in Paris.

Sir Keir has said he would prioritise getting “a much better deal for the UK” as part of a review of the post-Brexit trade deal, due in 2025, if he wins the next election.

Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron are holding talks in Paris - Laurent Blevennec/Presidence de la Republique France

Brussels is preparing to welcome Ukraine as a full member of the bloc in less than seven years as part of its biggest shake-up in decades.

Leading European officials have set a 2030 deadline for the expansion, which will also include the Western Balkans, and the largest reforms to the EU’s budget and voting system since the Lisbon treaty in 2007.

Paris and Berlin will present their vision for the bloc on the sidelines of a ministerial meeting in Brussels on Tuesday.

Laurence Boone and Anna Luhrmann, the Europe ministers of France and Germany, will propose a four-tiered structure to integrate countries that aren’t “willing and/or able to join the EU in the foreseeable future”.

Under the plan, Britain could be invited into the third tier as an “associate member” of the EU.

“Associate members would not be bound to ‘ever closer union’ and further integration, nor would they participate in deeper political integration in other policy areas such as justice and home affairs or EU citizenship,” a report commissioned by France and Germany says.

“The basic requirement would be the commitment to comply with the EU’s common principles and values, including democracy and rule of law,” the report reads. “The cost areas of participation would be the single market.”

The EU’s internal market is built around four key freedoms – movement of people, goods, capital and services.

Membership fees would be lower than usual contributions by full members but would result in “lower benefits”, such as no access to the EU’s common agricultural fund.

Associate members would be represented by speakers inside the European Commission and Parliament without any voting rights.

The Trade and Cooperation Agreement signed by Boris Johnson ended the European Court of Justice’s jurisdiction in Britain and ended the UK’s financial contributions to the bloc.

“Countries would join one or the other outer tier out of their own political will, either because they withdraw from the EU or because they have no intention of joining in the first place,” according to the Franco-German plan.

“Careful negotiations will be needed to find the right balance between a looser form of integration and institutional participation while retaining the highest benefits for full EU member states.”

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UK Labour leader Keir Starmer says he'll seek closer ties with the EU if he wins the next election

JILL LAWLESS
Mon, September 18, 2023 


Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer arriving with his shadow cabinet in central London for their first meeting, Tuesday Sept. 5, 2023. 

(Jordan Pettitt/PA via AP)

LONDON (AP) — British opposition leader Keir Starmer says he will seek a closer relationship with the European Union, but won’t reverse Brexit, if his Labour Party wins a national election that’s due by the end of next year.

Opinion polls put the left-of-center party as much as 20 points ahead of the governing Conservatives, who have been in power since 2010.

Starmer told the Financial Times in an interview that the U.K.-EU trade and cooperation agreement negotiated by the Conservatives is “far too thin.”

“We will attempt to get a much better deal for the U.K.,” he said, adding that the two sides “can have a closer trading relationship as well.”

Britain’s departure from the EU in 2020 remains a divisive political issue. Starmer campaigned to remain in the bloc during the 2016 referendum campaign that was won narrowly by the “leave” side.

Since becoming Labour leader in 2020 he has confirmed that the party will not seek to rejoin the 27-nation EU or try to re-enter the bloc’s single market and customs union, both of which would commit the U.K. to stick closely to EU rules. But he says he will seek to strengthen ties that became strained during testy divorce negotiations.

To an extent, Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has restored a U.K.-EU relationship that hit rock-bottom under his euroskeptic predecessors Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. He has struck a deal to resolve a dispute over Northern Ireland trade rules, and signed Britain up to the EU’s Horizon Europe science cooperation program. But Sunak is a committed Brexiteer who is wary of getting too close to the bloc.

The Brexit divorce agreement is up for review every five years, starting in 2025. Sunak’s spokesman, Max Blain, said Monday that the Conservative government did not plan to renegotiate the deal “in any way, shape or form.”

As Labour’s consistent poll lead raises the party’s hopes of a return to power, Starmer is making international visits aimed at boosting his profile and connections ahead of a general election in 2024.

He is due in Paris on Tuesday to meet French President Emmanuel Macron. Last week he travelled to The Hague to discuss the fight against people-smuggling gangs with EU police agency Europol and met Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at a center-left political gathering in Montreal.


Keir Starmer warned of tough choice over revisiting Brexit
Nicholas Cecil
Mon, September 18, 2023 

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer leaving Europol in The Hague, Netherlands

 (Stefan Rousseau/PA) (PA Wire)

Sir Keir Starmer would face difficult decisions when renegotiating Britain’s Brexit deal, experts warned on Monday.

The Labour leader is set to hold talks with French president Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Tuesday and meet business leaders. He wants to build a “closer trading relationship” with the European Union and strengthen the Brexit deal struck by Boris Johnson which he branded “far too thin”.

But experts stressed that without rejoining the single market or customs union, which Labour has ruled out, Sir Keir would have limited room to manoeuvre to reshape trade relations with Brussels if he became prime minister. Axing trade barriers with the European bloc, when the Trade and Cooperation Agreement is reviewed in 2025, may only be possible if Britain, to some degree, becomes more of a rule-follower, having been a joint rule-maker when in the EU.

On new Brexit arrangements, Quentin Peel, associate fellow on the Europe Programme at think tank Chatham House, said: “It’s by no means straightforward. The closer you are going to be, the more you will have to follow EU rules.”

On trade, he believes “more bits and pieces” could be improved such as veterinary regulations, while major progress could be made on better co-ordinating security and foreign policy, and getting access to the Erasmus scheme to study abroad.

John Springford, deputy director of the Centre for European Reform think tank, added: “‘Some bolt-ons to the EU-UK trade deal would help some sectors, like agriculture.

“But they wouldn’t change the problem: a free trade agreement is much less effective than a single market and customs union. Starmer says he wants a closer EU relationship to improve growth, but his red lines on the EU make it very hard to achieve that.”

Downing Street has said it will not seek to renegotiate the post-Brexit trade agreement with the European Union after Labour pledged to seek a "much better deal".

Asked whether the Government thinks the deal should be renegotiated in 2025, the Prime Minister's official spokesman said: "No, we expect the TCA (trade and co-operation agreement) to remain the basis of our relationship with the EU and are focused on maximising the opportunities it presents us with."

Asked if it can be improved, he said: "We are focused, as I say, on taking the TCA and using our Brexit freedoms to the benefit of the public already.

"We're not looking to relitigate the past or reopen it in any way, shape or form.

"Obviously there is a set statutory review period but beyond that we're very much focused on maximising the opportunities it presents for the public."

The Labour leader spent the weekend meeting fellow centre-left leaders in Montreal, Canada, including the country’s prime minister Justin Trudeau.

Meeting Mr Macron on Tuesday will be seen as another sign that world leaders believe Sir Keir may be Britain’s next prime minister.

Speaking to the Financial Times ahead of his French trip, Sir Keir said: “Almost everyone recognises the deal Johnson struck is not a good deal — it’s far too thin. We will attempt to get a much better deal for the UK.”

He added: “I do think we can have a closer trading relationship as well. That’s subject to further discussion.

“We have to make it work. That’s not a question of going back in. But I refuse to accept that we can’t make it work. I think about those future generations when I say that.

“I say that as a dad. I’ve got a 15-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl. I’m not going to let them grow up in a world where all I’ve got to say to them about their future is, ‘It’s going to be worse than it might otherwise have been’.”

But the Tories accused the Labour leader of flip-flopping on whether he would seek a major shake-up of the Brexit deal. Pensions minister Laura Trott said Sir Keir had changed his position on Brexit multiple times, including previously pushing for a second referendum.

“I think the question is, what price is he willing to pay to reopen that trade deal?

“And it’s something that I’m very concerned about,” she added.

The Bank of England has said Brexit has reduced the capacity of Britain’s economy to grow, weighing on investment and productivity.

Earlier this year, the BoE’s deputy governor Ben Broadbent said the impact of leaving the EU had fed through into the economy faster than the central bank had expected, although the effects had not been larger than anticipat

Doctors Thrilled as Pig Kidney Functions in Human Patient for Two Full Months

Victor Tangermann
Sun, September 17, 2023


A pig kidney has continued to function inside of a human body for roughly two months, the longest documented instance of such a procedure, known as a xenotransplant.

It's a promising sign that we could one day start relying on non-human donors for organ transplants, a possible answer to an ongoing organ shortage that has plagued the country for many years. Only around 20,000 people end up getting a new kidney a year in the US, despite there being around 100,000 people on the organ waitlist.

Researchers at NYU Langone performed the transplant on July 14. The recipient was a 58-year-old man who was "declared dead by neurologic criteria before the xenotransplant," according to a press release.

On September 13, or 61 days later, the experiment reached its previously agreed-upon end date, and the man was removed from the ventilator.

In other words, the man was not responsive after receiving the organ, but doctors received his family's consent. Now his remains are with his family.

While that may sound grisly, there are plenty of benefits to this kind of approach.

"In order to create a sustainable unlimited supply of organs, we need to know how to manage pig organs transplanted into humans," said team lead Robert Montgomery, professor and director of the NYU Langone Transplant Institute, in the statement. "Testing them in a decedent allows us to optimize the immunosuppression regimen and choice of gene edits without putting a living patient at risk."

Fortunately, the researchers are optimistic about the latest results.

"We have learned a great deal throughout these past two months of close observation and analysis, and there is great reason to be hopeful for the future," he added. "None of this would have been possible without the incredible support we received from the family of our deceased recipient. Thanks to them, we have been able to gain critical insight into xenotransplantation as a hopeful solution to the national organ shortage."

While it's the longest a pig kidney has survived inside the human body, it's far from the first attempt.

In September 2021, the same team conducted the first-ever xenotransplant of a genetically modified pig kidney to a human, an experiment that was followed up with a second attempt just two months later. Last summer alone, the team tried two more times.

The kidney used in the latest procedure came from an FDA-approved "GalSafe pig," which was engineered by Virginia-based gene-editing tech company Revivicor.

The gene responsible for rejecting pig organs was simply "knocked out," per the press release, allowing the recipient's body to accept the kidney. Additionally, the animal's thymus gland, which remained attached to the kidney, ensured the recipient's immune system didn't start attacking the new organ.

The latest procedure was actually a simplified attempt compared to previous experiments and only included a single gene modification instead of up to ten, according to the statement.

But it wasn't entirely smooth sailing. The man still required immunosuppression medication due to a "mild rejection process" that started one month into the experiment.

In short, plenty more research still needs to be done before we can determine if such a procedure will ever be safe enough for a conventional human patient.

The researchers are now gearing up for clinical trials, which will first require approval from the FDA.

"Why we’re doing this is because there are a lot of people that unfortunately die before having the opportunity of a second chance at life," NYU transplant immunologist Massimo Mangiola told the Associated Press. "And we need to do something about it."

More on kidney transplants: Scientists Intrigued by Bionic Kidney That Survives Inside Pig

Research team reports longest successful transplant of a pig kidney into a human

Deidre McPhillips, CNN
Thu, September 14, 2023 

Joe Carrotta for NYU Langone Health

A pig kidney successfully functioned in a human body for about two months, marking the longest documented case of a xenotransplant of its kind.

In July, researchers at NYU Langone Health transplanted a genetically modified pig kidney into the body of a 58-year-old man named Maurice Miller, known as Mo, who had a brain tumor and was experiencing brain death. The organ was removed on Wednesday, a predetermined date, after 61 days of study.

Now, the researchers will analyze their findings from this pre-clinical human research to assess the body’s response to the procedure and help prepare for clinical trials in living humans.

For example, tissue collected during the study showed some “novel cellular changes” that required additional immunosuppression medication to reverse a mild rejection, NYU Langone Health shared in a news release. But overall, the kidney was found to perform “optimally.”

“We have learned a great deal throughout these past two months of close observation and analysis, and there is great reason to be hopeful for the future,” said Dr. Robert Montgomery, director of the NYU Langone Transplant Institute and chair of the surgery department, who led the research.

“None of this would have been possible without the incredible support we received from the family of our deceased recipient. Thanks to them, we have been able to gain critical insight into xenotransplantation as a hopeful solution to the national organ shortage.”

In August, another research team published peer-reviewed research on new advancements in transplanting pig kidneys to humans.

Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Heersink School of Medicine found that transplanted kidneys not only produced urine; they provided the “life-sustaining kidney function” of filtering waste, according to a research letter published in the medical journal JAMA Surgery.

Both research teams used genetically modified pig kidneys that were transplanted into recipients experiencing brain death in what is considered pre-clinical human research. The NYU Langone team used just one genetic modification to “knockout” the alpha-gal biomolecule, which has been found to lead to rapid rejection of pig organs by humans. The pig’s thymus was also transplanted to help protect the kidneys from being attacked by the human immune system.

Researchers say that more work is needed, including studies in living human recipients, to establish whether pig kidney transplants could be a bridge or destination therapy for people with end-stage kidney disease, but they are hopeful about the progress being made.

“We’re gaining critical evidence about how well pig kidneys work in the human environment,” said Dr. Adam Griesemer, surgical director of the NYU Langone Pediatric Liver Transplant Program and the Living Donor Transplant Program, said at a news conference last month.

“Over the last 20 years, we’ve gained a lot of information about how pig kidneys work to replace the functions in primates. But the critical question – ‘Will those data be translated exactly to the human recipients?’ – was unknown. And for the first time, we’re being able to supply that information. So hopefully this also give some assurance to the FDA regarding the safety of initiating phase one clinical trials.”

The vast majority of people waiting for an organ transplant need a kidney. About 89,000 people are on the waiting list, according to data from the US Department of Health and Human Services’ Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network.

Partially formed human kidneys grown inside pigs for the first time

Sarah Knapton
September 7, 2023

A good host – the human kidneys were grown inside pigs - iStockphoto

Humanised kidneys have been grown in pigs for the first time in a breakthrough which could help solve the transplant crisis.

In groundbreaking experiments, Chinese scientists took pig embryos and knocked out two genes needed for kidney development, before inserting human stem cells which had been coaxed back to an embryonic state.

The chimeric human-pig embryos were implanted into surrogate pigs where they developed kidneys composed of 50-60 per cent human cells.

Although the experiment was stopped at 28 days, before the kidneys were fully developed, scientists said they looked structurally the same as normal kidneys, and had started to form tubes that connect to the bladder.

Scientists are hopeful that growing humanised kidneys in pigs could bring a ready supply of organs which would not be rejected by the body.

“We found that if you create a niche in the pig embryo, then the human cells naturally go into these spaces,” says senior author Zhen Dai, of Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health in Guangdong Province.

Latest figures from NHS Blood and Transplant show that at the start of September there were 7,228 people waiting for an organ in Britain, of which 5,564 required a kidney.

Pigs are anatomically very similar to humans and are considered the best-suited animal donor candidate. But previous attempts to integrate human cells in pig embryos have failed because pig cells tend to outcompete human cells.

To get round the problem, the scientists genetically-engineered the human cells to shut down natural cell death, so they would not self-destruct when they encountered the pig tissue.

The researchers transferred 1,820 embryos to 13 surrogate mothers. After either 25 or 28 days, they managed to collect five chimeric embryos for analysis, all of which had developed early kidneys.

Despite development, worries exist

Commenting on the research, Dusko Ilic, Professor of Stem Cell Sciences, at King’s College London, said the work was “pioneering” but warned there were still hurdles to overcome.

For example, in the experiments some of the human cells migrated to the brain and spinal cord of the pigs which could bring ethical problems if it caused the animals to develop anything resembling human-like consciousness.


What the embryonic humanised kidneys look like inside the pigs - Wang Xie

There are also animal rights issues of using pigs as ‘incubators’ to grow human organs.

“As the authors admitted, there are plenty of challenges. Will this approach prove to be the ultimate solution? Only time holds the answer”, said Prof Ilic.

“Nevertheless, this captivating strategy warrants further exploration.”

“Undoubtedly, tackling the complexities of [growing nerves] will pose the greatest technical hurdles, alongside the imperative task of preventing human cells from integrating into the animal’s brain.”
Challenges still stand in the way

Experts also warned that turning off human cell death could lead to cancer.

Dr Alena Pance, Senior Lecturer in Genetics, University of Hertfordshire, said: “The concerning issue is that the human pluripotent stem cells are engineered to overexpress two genes, one is a [cancer-causing gene] that maintains proliferation potential and the other is a survival gene that essentially prevents the cells from dying.

“While expression of these genes helps the human cells to survive in the pig embryo their long-term expression and effects on the cells are not described.

“It could perhaps explain why out of 1,820 embryos implanted only five normal ones were analysed.”

Several other labs are attempting to use pigs for organ transplants, and have tried to solve the rejection problem by deleting a gene which produces a molecule that is foreign to humans, but without long-term success.

Last January, US citizen David Bennett, who had terminal heart disease, was given the first heart transplant from a genetically modified pig. But Mr Bennett died two months after surgery.

The new research was published in the journal Cell Stem Cell.

Early medieval warrior found buried with his weapons in Germany

Tom Metcalfe
Mon, September 18, 2023


We see a large burial that's been excavated in a dirt area. There is a skeleton at the bottom.

Archaeologists in Germany have discovered the grave of a Frankish warrior who was buried with his weapons and shield more than 1,300 years ago.

The weapons include a spatha, a long sword based on cavalry swords of the late Roman Empire.

The deceased appears to be a man who died between the ages of 30 and 40, probably in the seventh century, the archaeologists found.

The warrior was also buried with a short sword for slashing, called a seax, with an iron blade and a bronze handle; a heavy iron knife; and a spear, of which only the iron point survived. The remains of a shield made mainly of wood were also found; only the metal "boss" at the center survived.


The team found the grave in June during a dig at an early medieval cemetery that archaeologists have been excavating since March. The site is in the town of Ingelheim, which lies beside the Rhine River and about 25 miles (40 kilometers) west of Frankfurt.

Related: French farmer finds rare coin featuring Charlemagne just before his death



The warrior was buried with four of his weapons, including a long iron sword known as a spatha, and a shield, of which only the metal central parts have survived.



The warrior was a man aged between 30 and 40 when he died. The bones will be radiocarbon-dated and examined for signs of battle injuries.



The archaeologists have found hundreds of graves at the cemetery since they started excavating it early this year. Many had been disturbed by grave-robbers.

Excavation manager Christoph Bassler, an archaeologist at Ingelheim's Kaiserpfalz Research Center, told Live Science that a cemetery there was used from roughly the fifth to the eighth centuries by nearby settlements and farmsteads.

Several of the nearby burials had been looted at a later time, but the thieves seemed to have missed the warrior's grave, he said.

While the individual was among the wealthier residents of his community, "he was by no means filthy rich," Bassler said; his weapons were of high quality, but there was no sign in the grave of the sought-after imported goods that only the most affluent could afford.

Frankish burial


The spatha was a standard warrior's weapon during Europe's early medieval period. It was based on cavalry swords of the late Roman Empire.


Fine silver wires inlaid into the iron buckle of the sword belt suggest this grave dates from the seventh century, when this ornamental craft was at its height.


Other items found in the graves include colorful glass beads, which were worn on long necklaces by many women at the time.

Image 4 of 4

The archaeologists have also found combs, coins, and fragments of finely woven textiles during their excavations of graves in the cemetery.

The archaeologists think the grave dates to the early Merovingian period, between about 500 and 750 — an early stage of the Germanic-speaking empire of the Franks, which after 768 was ruled by Charlemagne (Charles the Great) and his Carolingian descendants.

X-rays of the warrior's sword belt show that silver wires were inlaid in its iron buckle and fittings — a style that "experienced its zenith during the seventh century," Bassler said. He and his colleagues plan to radiocarbon-date the burial's organic remains and analyze the bones for evidence of battle wounds, to see if they can determine a cause of death.

The narrowed and slightly raised shoulders of the skeleton — known as "coffin posture" — show the warrior was buried in a coffin, although none of its wooden remains have survived.

Bassler said the spatha in the grave was the warrior's main weapon. The entire sword measures about 37 inches (93 centimeters) from its pommel to its tip, and the blade is about 30 inches (75 cm) long. Such swords were used by horse-mounted troops during the late Roman Empire, as they needed a sword longer than the Roman gladius to fight efficiently, Bassler said. These swords later became standard in warfare, and the term "spatha" — the origin of the English words "spatula" and "spade" — is now used for the typical double-edged, one-handed swords used throughout early medieval Europe, he said.

Ancient Ingelheim

The Frankish warrior seems to have fought on foot, because the grave did not contain any sign of spurs or other equipment for horses, Bassler said.

He added that the area was near the Rhine and the Roman-era settlement of Mogontiacum — now the city of Mainz — and that it was chosen as a site for one of Charlemagne's imperial palaces in the eighth century.

Evidence from the other graves in the cemetery revealed that the people buried there were expert crafters with a sense for art and ornamentation.

"Glass was commonly used for drinking vessels, even by the less prosperous, and made into ornate beads, which were worn by women in colorful necklaces," Bassler said. "Fabric was spun and woven at home, and often in extraordinarily fine weave."

She’s been at CA aquarium since before WWII. Now she’s world’s oldest aquarium fish

Daniella Segura
Mon, September 18, 2023 

About a year before the onset of World War II, an Australian lungfish was brought to a California aquarium — a place she has called home for nearly 85 years.

Now, through “cutting-edge DNA analysis,” researchers have estimated the Steinhart Aquarium fish, named Methuselah, to be 92 years old, plus or minus 9 years, the California Academy of Sciences said in a Sept. 18 news release.

More than her advanced age, though, the museum said Methuselah has garnered fame “for her charming personality and penchant for belly rubs.”

Her new age estimate, 8 years higher than her previous estimated age, makes her “the oldest living fish in an aquarium anywhere in the world,” according to the San Francisco museum.

“Although we know Methuselah came to us in the late 1930s, there was no method for determining her age at that time, so it’s incredibly exciting to get science-based information on her actual age,” Charles Delbeek, a curator of projects at the aquarium, said in the release.

Methuselah came to the Steinhart Aquarium in November 1938.

New ‘DNA age clock’

Researchers — led by Ben Mayne, who works with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, and David T. Robert of Seqwater — wanted to create “a catalog of living lungfish,” the museum said. To accomplish this, they studied Methuselah as well as dozens of lungfish from six other institutions in the U.S. and Australia.

Previously, methods to estimate the age of older fish proved to be “notoriously difficult and technically challenging,” as well as sometimes lethal for the fish in question, the museum said.

The team’s new method, which is expected to be published in a study later this year, uses a “tiny tissue sample from a fin clip,” a “harmless methodology,” according to the museum.

“For the first time since the Australian lungfish’s discovery in 1870, the DNA age clock we developed offers the ability to predict the maximum age of the species,” Mayne said in the release.

Knowing this “maximum age” can tell researchers “how long a species can survive and reproduce in the wild,” Mayne said.

This, in turn, can be used to model the species’ “viability and reproductive potential,” according to Mayne.

An ancient fish like Methuselah help researchers “understand maximum longevity of a species under ideal care conditions,” Mayne said.

In Methuselah’s case, her age was a bit “challenging to calculate,” Roberts said in the release.

“Her age is beyond the currently calibrated clock,” Roberts said. “This means her actual age could conceivably be over 100, placing her in the rare club of fish centenarians.”

An ancient fish like Methuselah help researchers “understand maximum longevity of a species under ideal care conditions,” Mayne said.

An ambassador for her species

Since her November 1938 arrival on a Navigation Company liner, the museum said Methuselah “has far outlived the 231 other fishes from Fiji and Australia that arrived with her.”

She has become an aquarium staple, as well as “an important ambassador for her species, helping to educate and stoke curiosity in visitors from all over the world,” according to Delbeek.

The museum has previously called the lungfish a “living fossil.”

“But her impact goes beyond delighting guests at the aquarium: Making our living collection available to researchers across the world helps further our understanding of biodiversity and what species need to survive and thrive,” Delbeek said.

Lungfish, a species native to “a handful of sluggish river systems in Queensland, Australia,” have been largely unchanged for millions of years, according to the museum. This ancient history has led some to call Methuselah a “living fossil” who offers “a fascinating glimpse into the prehistoric past.”

More than her advanced age, though, the museum said she has garnered fame “for her charming personality and penchant for belly rubs.”

The Hunter's Moon rises: How lunar phases impact deer movement, breeding

Oak Duke

Fri, September 15, 2023 

One of the most popular celestial events, the Harvest Moon, will occur in late September, on the 29th this year as a Super Moon, rising full one week after the Autumnal Equinox on Sept. 23, 2023.

A Super Moon is when the moon is closest to the earth when full in its monthly trip around the earth. Since the moon’s orbit is elliptical, sometimes it is further away and appears slightly smaller.

This year the moon will appear larger and therefore brighter as it hangs in the evening sky, rising just past sunset.

Whitetail deer and other animals, what researchers term "short day breeders" such as sheep and elk, and even chickens, turkeys and sea turtles, along with fish such as the Grunion, are all especially sensitive to changes in daylight.

Scientists call this phenomena photoperiodism.

Poets, songwriters, astrologers, dreamers, mystics, and lovers … not to mention scary story tellers down through the ages have waxed eloquent about the magical qualities of moonlight, calling light from the moon moonbeams, or light from the silvery moon.

Even the words lunacy or loony (comes from luna, meaning moon) are derived from perceived effects of basking in moonlight.

But science shows us that moonlight is simply reflected light from the sun as the moon acts like an immense mirror. The moon does not generate any light of its own.

The length of days determines the amount of light any specific location on the earth receives augmented by moonlight (reflected sunlight) at any given time.

Bachelor bucks, still in velvet, in early September.

Certain species of animals have their biorhythms more greatly affected by photoperiodism and more easily measured than others.

The Harvest Moon is particularly significant because it is always named as the Full Moon that is closest to the Autumn Equinox, one of two days each year when daylight and the darkness of nighttime are of equal length. The other is the Vernal Equinox, which occurs in the spring, in March.

The Harvest Moon acts like a "set trigger" on a gun, especially priming whitetails in the Northeast and the Midwest for the upcoming peak of the rut, or breeding time, about one month away.

This year, the rut is timed for its first major flurry just prior to Halloween, under the next Full Moon, Oct. 28 2023.

More: Here's when deer hunters can take advantage of the first rut this fall

Sheep breeders and deer farmers are very aware of the effect of melatonin on the timing of the breeding cycle of their respective animals.

For instance, in order to have all their ewes drop their lambs in the spring at the same time, melatonin implants are marketed and used as a manmade "set trigger" like the Harvest Moon is to wild deer.

Melatonin is a very complex hormone found in many animals and plants. It helps set the circadian rhythms, or life cycle responses such as reproduction, sleep, and blood flow. A small gland in the brain behind the optic nerve called the pineal gland generates melatonin which actually represses the breeding impulse in short-day breeders like deer and sheep.

When deer or sheep farmers withdraw the previously placed melatonin implants, the hormone dissipates from the ewe, or in the case of farm raised deer, doe.

Breeding can and then does take place.

The bright Harvest Moon acts in an analogous way as the melatonin implants or CIDRs (Controlled Internal Drug Release) used by the deer and sheep farmers, as light stimulates melatonin flow.

But as the moon begins to quickly wane, the short days and ever-increasing darkness help the dissipation of melatonin in wild whitetails, whose eyes have been shown by researchers to be 1,000 times more sensitive to light than ours.

A buck diligently digging up a scrape under August's Full Moon.

Much research is being done on another tiny but important hormone regulatory gland, the Suprachiasmatic Nucleus (perfectly positioned on the Optic nerve chiasm) that through the influence of light it governs the flow of melatonin created in the pineal gland.

Whitetails, to some degree, have their biological clocks set by this conjunction of the Harvest Moon and the Autumn equinox.

And one month later, the annual whitetail rut will kick into gear with the onset of the Hunter’s Moon.

Is it any wonder that the October full moon, just before Halloween this year, is called "The Hunter's Moon?"

— Oak Duke writes a weekly column.

This article originally appeared on The Evening Tribune: Lunar phases impact deer movement, breeding. What to expect this fall