Biological puzzles abound in an up-close look at a human brain

Biological puzzles abound in an up-close look at a human brain

Researchers have generated a nanoscale-resolution reconstruction of a millimeter-scale fragment of human cerebral cortex, giving an unprecedented view into the structural organization of brain tissue at the supracellular, cellular, and subcellular levels. https://t.co/AO946Lnsir pic.twitter.com/UeacNkEbym — Science Magazine (@ScienceMagazine) May 26, 2024 Science News reports: It’s a bit like seeing a world in a grain of sand. Except the view, in this case, is the exquisite detail inside a bit of human brain about half the size of a grain of…

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What really happened at Columbia? Bruce Robbins, a Jewish humanities professor, speaks out

What really happened at Columbia? Bruce Robbins, a Jewish humanities professor, speaks out

  “[Columbia] deserves a better administration than they’ve got right now” This week on Real Talk, we speak to Bruce Robbins, a Jewish professor at Columbia University, about what really happened during the recent student protests on campus, their demands for divestment from Israel, and the media coverage of it all. Filmed: 14 May 2024 Real Talk is a Middle East Eye interview show hosted by Mohamed Hashem that delves into the stories and experiences of a diverse range of…

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Suspected Israeli reservist in Gaza threatens mutiny

Suspected Israeli reservist in Gaza threatens mutiny

Middle East Eye reports: A suspected Israeli reservist has threatened mutiny if the war on Gaza ends before “complete victory”, saying he wants to annihilate Palestinians in the besieged enclave. The masked soldier, who has not been identified, said in a video posted on Friday he will not obey orders by Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. He said he and “100,000 reservists” reject plans to hand Gaza back to Palestinians, including the Palestinian Authority, Hamas or another “Arab entity”. “Yoav Gallant,…

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Inside India’s secret war on its American critics

Inside India’s secret war on its American critics

Zack Beauchamp writes: I met Raqib Naik, a journalist who had fled his native India, at a coffee shop in suburban Maryland. We sat at the same metal table where he once discussed the prospect of his assassination with FBI agents. Naik is a Muslim from Jammu and Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state. In August 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi revoked the state’s longstanding self-determination rights and temporarily imposed martial law. Indian officials arbitrarily detained thousands of Kashmiris, including many…

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What science forgets

What science forgets

Amanda Gefter writes: Science has been missing something. Something central to its very existence, and yet somehow just out of view. It is written out of papers, shooed away, shoved into laboratory closets. And yet, it’s always there, behind the scenes, making science possible. “Lived experience is both the point of departure and the point of return for science,” astrophysicist Adam Frank, physicist Marcelo Gleiser, and philosopher Evan Thompson write in their new book, The Blind Spot: Why Science Cannot…

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Electric ‘ripples’ in the resting brain tag memories for storage

Electric ‘ripples’ in the resting brain tag memories for storage

Yasemin Saplakoglu writes: György Buzsáki first started tinkering with waves when he was in high school. In his childhood home in Hungary, he built a radio receiver, tuned it to various electromagnetic frequencies and used a radio transmitter to chat with strangers from the Faroe Islands to Jordan. He remembers some of these conversations from his “ham radio” days better than others, just as you remember only some experiences from your past. Now, as a professor of neuroscience at New…

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Neanderthal-human baby-making was recent — and brief

Neanderthal-human baby-making was recent — and brief

Nature reports: Some 60,000 years ago, Neanderthals in western Eurasia acquired strange new neighbours: a wave of Homo sapiens migrants making their way out of Africa, en route to future global dominance. Now, a study of hundreds of ancient and modern genomes has pinpointed when the two species began pairing off — and has found that the genetic intermingling lasted for only a short time, at least on an evolutionary scale. The high-resolution analysis also allowed the authors to track…

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Biden’s vanishing red line: White House silent as top UN court orders Israel to halt Rafah attack

Biden’s vanishing red line: White House silent as top UN court orders Israel to halt Rafah attack

The Independent reports: Joe Biden said months ago that a major Israeli offensive in the city of Rafah, where more than a million displaced Palestinians have been sheltering from the war, would be a “red line” that would force him to reconsider US support for the longtime ally. Since then, more than 800,000 have fled Israeli bombardment in the southern Gaza city and aid agencies have compared the situation there to “hell on earth”. And yet, the president has shown…

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This Holocaust survivor (an American-Israeli lawyer and judge) recommended arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders

This Holocaust survivor (an American-Israeli lawyer and judge) recommended arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders

The Forward reports: By the age of 14, he had survived the Holocaust; by 44, he was an Israeli diplomat; now, at the age of 94, Theodor Meron recommended the International Criminal Court seek arrest warrants of Israeli and Hamas leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Meron, a New York University professor emeritus who has served as legal counsel for both the U.S. and Israeli governments, was one of eight legal and academic experts who were convened in…

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EU’s Borrell says some European countries are trying to intimidate ICC judges, while Israel slams Germany

EU’s Borrell says some European countries are trying to intimidate ICC judges, while Israel slams Germany

Reuters reports: European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Friday some European countries were trying to intimidate International Criminal Court judges over a case against Israeli leaders, and must stop “meddling” and respect the court. ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan announced on Monday that he had filed for arrest warrants against Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as three Hamas leaders. “The prosecutor has done nothing more than make an accusation and…

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Hundreds of Palestinian doctors disappeared into Israeli detention

Hundreds of Palestinian doctors disappeared into Israeli detention

The Intercept reports: It’s been two months since Osaid Alser has heard from his cousin, Khaled Al Serr, a surgeon at Nasser Hospital in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis. Before late March, they had been in regular contact — or as regular as the shredded communication infrastructure would allow. Al Serr had created a telemedicine WhatsApp group where he and Osaid, a surgical resident in the U.S., recruited doctors from stateside, the U.K., and Europe to give…

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Putin wants Ukraine ceasefire on current frontlines

Putin wants Ukraine ceasefire on current frontlines

Reuters reports: Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to halt the war in Ukraine with a negotiated ceasefire that recognises the current battlefield lines, four Russian sources told Reuters, saying he is prepared to fight on if Kyiv and the West do not respond. Three of the sources, familiar with discussions in Putin’s entourage, said the veteran Russian leader had expressed frustration to a small group of advisers about what he views as Western-backed attempts to stymie negotiations and Ukrainian…

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Texas’s pardon of the killer of a Black Lives Matter protester sends a chilling message

Texas’s pardon of the killer of a Black Lives Matter protester sends a chilling message

Tayo Bero writes: This month, the Texas state parole board unanimously recommended the pardon and release of convicted killer and former US army sergeant Daniel Perry, along with the restoration of his firearm rights. Perry had been working as an Uber driver in July 2020 when he shot and killed Garrett Foster, a white man who was attending a Black Lives Matter protest with his Black fiancee. Perry was later indicted for murder, tried, convicted and sentenced to 25 years…

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