Ukrainian women face harsh reality of Poland’s abortion laws

Ukrainian women face harsh reality of Poland’s abortion laws

The Guardian reports: When the first Russian bombs fell on Ukraine, Myroslava Marchenko was a gynaecologist at a private clinic in Kyiv. The next day, one of her patients was due to have an abortion after prenatal tests showed a high chance of Down’s syndrome. Instead, like millions across the country, Marchenko and her patient fled to safety, crossing the border into Poland where abortions due to foetal abnormalities – or “on eugenic grounds” in the language of the country’s…

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Climate limit of 1.5C close to being broken, scientists warn

Climate limit of 1.5C close to being broken, scientists warn

The Guardian reports: The year the world breaches for the first time the 1.5C global heating limit set by international governments is fast approaching, a new forecast shows. The probability of one of the next five years surpassing the limit is now 50%, scientists led by the UK Met Office found. As recently as 2015, there was zero chance of this happening in the following five years. But this surged to 20% in 2020 and 40% in 2021. The global…

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How much does eating meat affect nations’ greenhouse gas emissions?

How much does eating meat affect nations’ greenhouse gas emissions?

Science News reports: The food we eat is responsible for an astounding one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activities, according to two comprehensive studies published in 2021. “When people talk about food systems, they always think about the cow in the field,” says statistician Francesco Tubiello, lead author of one of the reports, appearing in last June’s Environmental Research Letters. True, cows are a major source of methane, which, like other greenhouse gases, traps heat in the…

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Sinn Féin’s victory won’t bring a united Ireland right away – but it’s getting closer

Sinn Féin’s victory won’t bring a united Ireland right away – but it’s getting closer

Fintan O’Toole writes: In 2021, a hundred years after the creation of Northern Ireland, Boris Johnson tweeted: “Let me underline that, now & in the future, Northern Ireland’s place in the UK will be protected and strengthened.” Since the word “not” has to be inserted automatically into every positive statement Johnson makes, unionists ought to have taken this as fair warning: Year 101 of Northern Ireland’s existence would be its equivalent of George Orwell’s Room 101, where you are confronted…

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Why human brains were bigger 3,000 years ago

Why human brains were bigger 3,000 years ago

BBC Future reports: Your ancestors had bigger brains than you. Several thousand years ago, humans reached a milestone in their history – the first known complex civilisations began to emerge. The people walking around and meeting in the world’s earliest cities would have been familiar in many ways to modern urbanites today. But since then, human brains have actually shrunk slightly. The lost volume, on average, would be roughly equivalent to that of four ping pong balls, says Jeremy DeSilva,…

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Tiny channels discovered inside the human skull could be vital for the brain

Tiny channels discovered inside the human skull could be vital for the brain

Science Alert reports: A shortcut between the skull and the brain could be a possible way for the human immune system to bypass the blood-brain barrier. Researchers recently discovered a series of tiny channels in mice and human skulls, and in mice at least, these little pathways represent an unexpected source of brain immunity. Previously, scientists assumed that the immune system connects with the brain by slipping through a kind of neurological customs gate – a barrier separating blood channels…

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Ukraine is rebuilding cities as fast as Russia destroyed them

Ukraine is rebuilding cities as fast as Russia destroyed them

The Washington Post reports: The mere sight of a child here — wearing sunglasses, pulling a scooter, bugging his mother to buy him candy — was enough to impress Petro Trotsenko, a stall owner at a market in Bucha that reopened this past week. Just over a month ago, the market lay bare, looted of all its wares, cut up by shrapnel. The nearby glass factory where Trotsenko, 74, worked in his younger years was being used as a torture…

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For Putin, the sinister cult of victory is all that’s left

For Putin, the sinister cult of victory is all that’s left

Kirill Martynov writes: Vladimir Putin was born seven years after the end of the second world war, and raised on the Brezhnev-era myth of the great victory. A man of no great education, he loved to quote Soviet films and old stories. The history books portrayed the “great patriotic war” as a magical fable in which the hero – the Russian people – vanquishes a monster, to the envy of the whole world. In this myth there was no room…

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Biden signs Ukraine lend-lease act into law, expediting military aid

Biden signs Ukraine lend-lease act into law, expediting military aid

The Washington Post reports: President Biden signed into law Monday afternoon a bill that will expedite the process of sending military aid to Ukraine, as the Eastern European country presses into its third month of fighting off a Russian invasion. Flanked by Vice President Harris and members of Congress from both sides of the aisle, Biden vowed the United States would continue to support Ukraine “in their fight to defend their country and their democracy” against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s…

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What would Finland bring to the table for NATO?

What would Finland bring to the table for NATO?

Heljä Ossa and Tommi Koivula write: Finland doesn’t often make it into international headlines. When it does, it is usually because of the country’s world-renowned education system or for yet again being named the happiest country in the world. Even rarer are international discussions over Finnish security issues. That changed when Russia invaded Ukraine (again) and Europe’s security landscape transformed overnight. Suddenly, Finland and its possible NATO membership is a hot topic around the world. Finland will likely make a…

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What does Sinn Fein’s victory mean for Northern Ireland’s future?

What does Sinn Fein’s victory mean for Northern Ireland’s future?

Jonathan Powell writes: Twenty four years ago, after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, the Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble told me that he expected Northern Irish politics to become less sectarian and more normal with traditional left and right parties replacing the old Green and Orange parties. That has not happened yet, but this week’s elections in Northern Ireland might just mark the beginning of the normalisation of politics in the province. Sinn Fein’s victory, gaining the most…

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Lowly mushrooms may be key to ecosystem survival in a warming world

Lowly mushrooms may be key to ecosystem survival in a warming world

Elizabeth Pennisi writes: The red, orange, and spotted mushrooms that sprout up after it rains are doing more than adding color to the landscape. The fungi that produce them could be keeping the natural world productive and stable, according to a new study. Indeed, they may be critical to the health of Earth’s ecosystems, says Matthias Rillig, a soil ecologist at the Free University Berlin who was not involved with the work. There are 70,000 known kinds of fungi. These…

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Why your white matter matters

Why your white matter matters

The brain’s neural network, which includes both gray and white matter. Pasieka/Science Photo Library via Getty Images By Christopher Filley, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus Who has not contemplated how a memory is formed, a sentence generated, a sunset appreciated, a creative act performed or a heinous crime committed? The human brain is a three-pound organ that remains largely an enigma. But most people have heard of the brain’s gray matter, which is needed for cognitive functions such as…

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If Fox News’ owner was Russian, there would be no hesitation in applying sanctions

If Fox News’ owner was Russian, there would be no hesitation in applying sanctions

Nick Cohen writes: If the west could find the courage, it would order an immediate freeze of Rupert Murdoch’s assets. His Fox News presenters and Russia’s propagandists are so intermeshed that separating the two is as impossible as unbaking a cake. On Russian state news, as on Fox, bawling ideologues scream threats then whine about their victimhood as they incite anger and self-pity in equal measures. Its arguments range from the appropriation of anti-fascism by Greater Russian imperialists – the…

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