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Never underestimate what a single gopher can achieve in a day: one of the burrowing mammals helped boost soil fungi in an area blanketed by ash from the explosive eruption of Mount St Helens in Washington state

To get a good sense of a country's level of development, you need to look at the items people have in their homes, according to economists. Research on low- and middle-income countries often focuses on income, health or education, but that doesn't tell you the full story of a country's situation.

A new microscope is capable of live imaging of biological processes in such detail that moving protein complexes are visible.

Two quantum information theorists have solved a decades-old problem that will free up quantum computing power.

Two quantum information theorists have solved a decades-old problem that will free up quantum computing power.

A team develops high-speed rotational scanning PACT system for monitoring whole-body biodynamic.

The discovery, centred around controlling tiny hurricanes of light and electromagnetic fields, could revolutionise how much information we can deliver over cables.

The discovery, centred around controlling tiny hurricanes of light and electromagnetic fields, could revolutionise how much information we can deliver over cables.

Researchers have succeeded in developing a microbial strain that efficiently produces pseudoaromatic polyester monomer to replace polyethylene terephthalate (PET) using systems metabolic engineering.

Why is the expansion of our Universe accelerating? Twenty-five years after its discovery, this phenomenon remains one of the greatest scientific mysteries. Solving it involves testing the fundamental laws of physics, including Albert Einstein's general relativity. Researchers compared Einstein's predictions with data from the Dark Energy Survey. Scientists discovered a slight discrepancy that varies with different periods in cosmic history. These results challenge the validity of Einstein's theories for explaining phenomena beyond our solar system on a universal scale.

Why is the expansion of our Universe accelerating? Twenty-five years after its discovery, this phenomenon remains one of the greatest scientific mysteries. Solving it involves testing the fundamental laws of physics, including Albert Einstein's general relativity. Researchers compared Einstein's predictions with data from the Dark Energy Survey. Scientists discovered a slight discrepancy that varies with different periods in cosmic history. These results challenge the validity of Einstein's theories for explaining phenomena beyond our solar system on a universal scale.

Where does the periodic table of chemical elements end and which processes lead to the existence of heavy elements? Researchers report on experiments to come closer to an answer. They gained insight into the structure of atomic nuclei of fermium (element 100) with different numbers of neutrons. Using forefront laser spectroscopy techniques, they traced the evolution of the nuclear charge radius and found a steady increase as neutrons were added to the nuclei. This indicates that localized nuclear shell effects have a reduced influence on the nuclear charge radius in these heavy nuclei

A robot, trained for the first time by watching videos of seasoned surgeons, executed the same surgical procedures as skillfully as the human doctors, say researchers.

A robot, trained for the first time by watching videos of seasoned surgeons, executed the same surgical procedures as skillfully as the human doctors, say researchers.

Engineers have found a way to make stronger and crack-resistant concrete with scrap carpet fibers, rolling out the red carpet for sustainability in the construction sector.

Plastics are inescapable in our daily lives. The vast amounts of plastic garbage heaped in landfills and in the environment, however, are as problematic as the plastics are useful. A research team has now introduced a new method for recycling polystyrene waste. Their efficient electrochemical process uses an inexpensive iron catalyst, produces hydrogen as a byproduct, and can be powered by solar panels.

How well a catalyst works often depends on the surface it is placed on. For years, it has been known that carbon substrates work well with precious metal catalysts, but it could never be properly explained. Now scientists managed to get to the bottom of this phenomenon -- with remarkable results: Metal atoms which are placed directly next to carbon are two hundred times more effective as catalysts.

Researchers have developed a new photocatalyst that could render steam methane reforming entirely emissions-free and extend catalyst lifetimes.

Abigail Shrier is the author of two books that I’ve recommended, the first of which was predictably attacked by progressives:  Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters. Her second book was Bad Therapy: Why the Kids aren’t Growing Up.  You may remember that ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio broadcast that he wanted to get the first book banned (yes, an ACLU lawyer), as he considered it “transphobic”.  And you can find my review of Bad Therapy here.

Now Shrier, who is basically an investigative reporter, has written a long piece for the Free Press about how secondary-school teachers throughout America are secretly propagandizing kids to favor Palestine and hate Israel (and Jews) in the Gaza War. You can read the piece by clicking on the screenshot below, or find it archived here.

The propagandizing is ubiquitous, from California to New Jersey, and is fostered by often-“progressive” teachers unions.  Because it’s illegal to do this (as Shrier notes, “public school teachers have no First Amendment right to express their political views in the classroom”), teachers often do it in secret, even taking kids on field trips to anti-Israel events without broadcasting it. An example:

In August, the second largest teachers union chapter in the country—there are more than 35,000 members of United Teachers Los Angeles—met at the Bonaventure Hotel in L.A. to discuss, among other things, how to turn their K-12 students against Israel. In front of a PowerPoint that read, “How to be a teacher & an organizer. . . and NOT get fired,” history teacher Ron Gochez elaborated on stealth methods for indoctrinating students.

But how to transport busloads of kids to an anti-Israel rally, during the school day, without arousing suspicion?

“A lot of us that have been to those [protest] actions have brought our students. Now I don’t take the students in my personal car,” Gochez told the crowd. Then, referring to the Los Angeles Unified School District, he explained: “I have members of our organization who are not LAUSD employees. They take those students and I just happen to be at the same place and the same time with them.”

Gochez was just getting warmed up. “It’s like tomorrow I go to church and some of my students are at the church. ‘Oh, wow! Hey, how you doing?’ We just happen to be at the same place at the same time, and look! We just happen to be at a pro-Palestine action, same place, same time.”

The crowd burst into approving laughter.

Isn’t that hilarious? But of course, this kind of stuff eventually produces anti-Semitism in school, leading to the taunting and bullying of Jewish students (Shrier gives examples).

Worse than these one-time incidents, however, it he constant infusion of antisemitism in to the school curricula. It particularly infects “ethnic studies” classes, required for students in states like California.There we saw a huge fracas about antisemitic materials in the ethnic studies curriculum, a fracas that’s still going on. Here’s a summary of what Shrier found in her swing across America:

Four years ago, I was among the first journalists to expose the widespread incursion of gender ideology into our schools. Once-fringe beliefs about gender swiftly took over large swaths of society partly thanks to their inclusion in school curricula and lessons.

Today, extensive interviews with parents, teachers, and non-profit organizations that monitor the radicalism and indoctrination in schools convinced me that demonization of Israel in American primary and secondary schools is no passing fad. Nor is it confined to elite private schools serving hyper-progressive families. As one Catholic parent who exposes radicalism in schools nationwide on the Substack Undercover Mother said to me: “They’ve moved on from BLM to gender unicorn to the new thing: anti-Israel activism. Anti-Israel activism is the new gender ideology in the schools.”

Parents who watched in alarm as gender theory swept through schools will recognize the sudden, almost religious conversion to this newest ideology. And very few educators are standing against it.

Much of the anti-Israel vituperation slides into classrooms through a subject called ethnic studies. In 2021, California became the first state to adopt it as a requirement for receiving a high school diploma. Legislatures of more than a dozen states have already followed suit, incorporating ethnic studies into K–12 curricula.

Here’s an image shown to students at Lowell High School as part of their Ethnic Studies class. (From The Free Press)

In principle, these laws require schools to teach the histories and cultures of African Americans, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, Latinos, and Native Americans. In practice, they grant teachers license to incorporate lessons that often divide civilization into “oppressed” and “oppressor.” A primary fixation of ethnic studies is demonizing Israel.

Activist-led organizations readily supply instructional materials. Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC), Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA; creators of the Teach Palestine Project), Teaching While Muslim, Jewish Voice for Peace, Unión del Barrio, and the Zinn Education Project regularly furnish distorted histories with eliminationist rhetoric against Israel.

Especially in the year since the Hamas massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023, the anti-Israel materials have become pervasive. It’s not surprising that they are found in world history and current events lessons. But demonization of Israel is now taught in art, English, math, physics, and social-emotional learning classes.

At the teachers’ meeting described above, they pondered the question of how to teach this stuff “without getting fired”. They’re still doing it because although it’s forbidden to propagandize students in class, it’s up to the schools themselves to find out about it and control it, and they don’t seem much interested. Also, the parents have to KNOW that this stuff is going on and get involved, and parents are reluctant to do that. Further, schools, though required to release instructional material to parents, have fought such releases.  Finally, states can set school curricula, and if those curricula include anti-Israel tropes, as in California, then teachers are free to teach that material.

At any rate, here are a few anecdotes and some material that Shrier got with the help of the Free Press:

A Jewish ninth grader, “Sam,” attends a Bay Area high school where, after October 7 of last year, posters declaring, “Ceasefire Now!” and “Free Palestine” began appearing on the walls. Because Sam’s family considers itself very progressive, Sam was not bothered by the posters.

Then one of Sam’s friends sent him a long diatribe that read in part (spelling from the original), “I would just like to say that u are an ignorant ass white ass privileged boy u are so privileged to not b one of those children being killed rn in Gaza…solidarity and indigenous solidarity is something you could never understand as you have grown up your whole life with no culture and money and you been brainwashed by isreali and western media the world stands with Palestine and frankly it’s embarrassing to be anything different, when mostly all people of color stand with Palestine and you stand with ISREAL, that’s how yk ur in the wrong bud oppressed people stand with oppressed people in solidarity SOMETHING YOU COULDD NEVER UNDERSTAND.” The text concluded: “FREE PALESTINE TILL ITS BACKWARDS BITCH!!!!”

I spoke to Sam’s mother, and her perception was that the message didn’t sound like her son’s friend. The jargon and gist appeared to come from adults. Only the self-righteous fury and the message’s abusive conclusion belonged to the boy.

another:

I also spoke to the mother of “Dana,” a sixth-grade girl at a Bay Area elementary school. In a social studies unit on ancient civilizations last year, the teacher encouraged students to share their “feelings” about “Israel and Palestine.” Students shouted: “Fuck Israel!” and “Israel sucks!” Dana was the only Jewish child in the class.

Please, sir, can I have some more?:

One of Danny’s teachers posted a running tally, in the front of the classroom, of the number of Palestinians allegedly killed by the IDF. She says, “So every day, when my son came into class, it would say how many people Israel has killed today.” (The Free Press has confirmed this with photographic evidence.)

Danny, who is black, said to her, “If there was an image of a noose, we would not hear the end of it. There would be protests, people would be going crazy. But it’s always okay if it’s anything anti-Jewish.”

One more bowl of porridge:

At a Fort Lee, New Jersey, high school, world history teachers confiscated students’ cell phones before giving a lesson that presented Hamas as a “resistance movement” rather than an internationally designated terrorist organization. Teachers also showed a map of Israel that falsely presented Palestinians as the sole indigenous natives of Israel. (The Free Press has obtained a copy of the presentation. Click here to see it.)

Here are two slides from that lesson dealing with Hamas (“a resistance movement”) and October 7 of last year.

I’ll finish with an excerpt that has two more audiovisuals:

Kaplan says, “In math class, they can be studying charts and are told, ‘Look at this pie chart of the number of Palestinians murdered. This slice shows the number of Israelis that were killed.’ ”

That example was actually presented to elementary school students in New Haven Unified School District, California. The chart is labeled “People Killed Since September 29, 2000” divided into Palestinians and Israelis and asks: “What information is this pie graph showing us?” The obvious answer: Far more Palestinians have been killed than Israelis.

What “noticings do you have?” (Can’t these people even write?)

Image obtained by The Free Press.

Another mother sent me an example of an assignment used in a physics class at Cupertino High School, which asked students to consider the “Effect of Israel’s Bombing of Gaza” on climate change. (Arrow is mine)

Image obtained by The Free Press. At schools where anti-Israel propaganda is promulgated, schoolchildren are turning against their Jewish classmates. Dozens of interviews with parents, teachers, and people at nonprofits revealed that discussions of Israel quickly become personal, and American Jews—even children—are the inevitable targets.

All of this guarantees that America will become yet more antisemitic in the future as these kids grow up and assume positions of power—or become teachers themselves.

I’d like to point out one more thing: I am not aware of teachers spreading anti-Palestinian propaganda like this, so it’s not as if Shrier is just singling out “her side” (she’s Jewish) for support. This kind of brainwashing, and nearly all the riots on college campuses the past academic year, are anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian. It’s not hard to understand why when you realize that Jews are now regarded as white “settler colonialists”, and Palestinians as “oppressed people of color without agency:—a trope that has been instilled in both college and secondary-school students for a long time. This trope is spread by DEI organizations.

Most assessments of global warming use 1850-1900 as a baseline, but researchers have now established a new pre-industrial reference by using Antarctic ice cores to estimate the average temperature before 1700