by AHSAN WASHINGTON

Celebrating women’s history first came into effect with humble beginnings as one week in March 1978. The week has since evolved and, in 1987, became a monthlong, nationally recognized celebration in the United States that champions gender equality and the achievements of women throughout history. To kick off Women’s History Month, BLACK ENTERPRISE is spotlighting 20 influential Black women and acknowledging their extraordinary journey and the barriers they’ve broken along the way. These women have left their mark in a host of areas, from business and politics to the arts and activism. Their legacies have shaped society and inspired progress.

Black Enterprise for more

by LUIZ INACIO LULA Da SILVA, CYRIL RAMAPHOSA, & PEDRO SANCHEZ

Amid creeping unilateralism, the world must reinforce multilateral action to tackle global threats, such as climate change and inequality.

The year 2025 will be pivotal for multilateralism. The challenges before us — rising inequalities, climate change, and the financing gap for sustainable development — are urgent and interconnected. Addressing them requires bold, coordinated action — not a retreat into isolation, unilateral actions, or disruption.

Three major global gatherings offer a unique opportunity to chart a path towards a more just, inclusive and sustainable world: the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) in Seville (Spain), the 30th Conference of the Parties (COP30) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Belém (Brazil) and the G20 Summit in Johannesburg (South Africa). These meetings must not be business as usual: they must deliver real progress.

A multilateral moment we cannot waste

Trust in multilateral institutions is under strain, yet the need for dialogue and global cooperation has never been greater. We must reaffirm that multilateralism, when ambitious and action-oriented, remains the most effective vehicle for addressing shared challenges and advancing common interests.

We must build on the successes of multilateralism, in particular the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement. The FfD4, COP30 and G20 must serve as milestones in a renewed commitment to inclusiveness, sustainable development, and shared prosperity. This will require strong political will, the full participation of all relevant stakeholders, a creative mindset and the ability to understand the constraints and priorities of all economies.

Tackling inequality through a renewed financial architecture

Income inequality is widening—both within and between nations. Many developing countries struggle under unsustainable debt burdens, constrained fiscal space, and barriers to fair access to capital. Basic services such as health or education must compete with growing interest rates.

This is not just a moral failing; it is an economic risk for all. The global financial architecture must be reformed to provide countries in the Global South with greater voice and representation and fairer and more predictable access to resources.

Al Jazeera for more

by ARSHAD AWAN

A finely crafted jar offers a glimpse into the daily life & craftsmanship of the Indus Valley Civilisation

The Perforated Jar of Harappa is a remarkable artefact that offers insight into the cultural advancements of its time. A baffling yet fascinating discovery, it unveils another layer of mystery — this time related to an unusual aspect of diet culture. This terracotta jar, dating back to approximately 2500 BCE, was found in Harappa, Punjab, Pakistan. Measuring 15.9 cm in height and 6.9 cm in width, it is currently displayed at the National Museum in New Delhi, India.

The mouth of the perforated cylindrical jar is partially shattered, likely due to wear and tear over time. Its base is flat, with a single hole in the centre. Harappan pottery was predominantly made from fired clay, known for its durability and intricate designs. Typically adorned with black motifs over a vibrant crimson slip, these pottery pieces ranged from simple horizontal lines to complex geometric patterns, pictorial embellishments, and even perforations, showcasing the artistic and technical sophistication of the Harappan civilisation.

Dr. J.M. Kenoyer, one of the world’s foremost experts on the ancient Indus civilisation and Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has been excavating at Harappa since 1986. In his well-known book Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilisation, he writes “this shape of perforated jar may have been used as a strainer at the end of a hollow straw, similar to those used in Mesopotamia for drilling beer from a large jar filled with some kind of mash. Larger perforated jars at Harappa and other sites were set inside jars, possibly for making beer or for processing milk to make cheese. Wheel thrown and holes punched through from the outside.”

Further research of Dr. Kenoyer suggests that the perforated cylindrical jar maybe wrapped in cloth and used as a strainer for the fermentation of liquids. “These vessels have been discovered with burial offerings in the Harappan cemetery, where they are vertically inside big open-mouthed vessels most likely filled with fermenting mash, most likely barley.” The many openings in the cloth on the outside would let the liquor strain through and gather in the central hollow space, then be expelled using long straws or a dipper.

While investigations of the sediments within these perforated vessels have not revealed the type of beverage being brewed, Dr. Kenoyer notes that continuous research of the porous pottery itself may recover some remnants of organic components to assist identify the contents of the jar.

Dr. Akshyeta Narayanan is currently a Gerald Averay Wainwright Postdoctoral Fellow (2023–2026) at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Oxford, though she is based at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research in Cambridge. Her research focuses on archaeological vessel use, foodways and exchange networks, with a particular interest in the subsistence strategies and interaction networks of the Indus Valley Civilisation. While analysing a larger sample of perforated jar fragments, she has found evidence suggesting that these jars may have served multiple purposes.

Kalyan Sekhar Chakraborty et. al, Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto, Mississauga, ON, Canada in the recent study on analysis of one fragmentary perforated jar suggests possible use for dairy processing.

The Express Tribune for more

by AMIR SUHAIL WANI

The Urdu poet was born on February 13, 1911 in Sialkot of undivided India.

Exclusion, ostracism, imprisonment and other variations of imaginable/unimaginable infliction seem to be the universal fate of great minds and souls and those who stand for truth. History has been unkind to its heroes and has chased them to death. As we trace this trajectory, we see Socrates holding his hemlock, Jesus carrying his cross, Hallaj fleshed alive, Meera tortured, Sarmad beheaded. Their truth displeased their contemporaries and upset the societies they lived in. “Truth is an explosive, in whose presence everything is in danger”, remarked Nietzsche. No wonder that power and societies have always been afraid of truth and pushed it to margins, lest it usurp the tyranny and brings down “the earthly Gods” from their raised pedestals. The phenomenon that Faiz would depict as:

“When, from the seat of the Almighty
every pedestal will lie displaced…”— translated by Victor Kiernan

Art and truth have been eternal twins and art has been seen as the expression of truth in its most unalloyed form. That is why artists have been haunted by the power and made to suffer on one pretext or the other. Poetry, the sublime artistic expression is the most potent and radical way of articulating the truth. Poets have mostly stood on the wrong side of the power and took upon themselves the task of making the truth known. Faiz Ahmad Faiz is a poet of this family, the family of which Persian poet Nazeeri Nishapuri said, “The one who is not killed is not from our tribe”.

Poetry of passion

Faiz, born to a well-to-do and literature-loving family had a knack for poetry and had devoured a vast share of Persian, Urdu and English classics while he was still a teenager. Teachers like Moulvi Mir Hassan and Sufi Ghulam Mustafa Tabasum had tuned his poetic strings while he was a student at Government College Lahore. However, his revolutionary spirit was asleep and the poetry of defiance, which later characterised his style, was yet to flow from his pen. Besides his evolving poetic sensitivities, his mind and soul were open to the developments taking place at home and in the world and he was deeply disturbed by events such as the growing economic disparity among people, the rapid spread of fascism and the systemic intrusion of capitalism into the lives of masses world over.

However, this was just a feeling at this stage and had not assumed the character of a well-found ideology in Faiz’s mindscape.

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by BAHATA ANSUMALI MUKHOPADHYAY

Abstract

Ever since the discovery of Indus valley civilization, scholars have debated the linguistic identities of its people. This study analyzes numerous archaeological, linguistic, archaeogenetic and historical evidences to claim that the words used for elephant (like, ‘p?ri’, ‘p?ru’) in Bronze Age Mesopotamia, the elephant-word used in the Hurrian part of an Amarna letter of ca. 1400 BC, and the ivory-word (‘pîruš’) recorded in certain sixth century BC Old Persian documents, were all originally borrowed from ‘p?lu’, a Proto-Dravidian elephant-word, which was prevalent in the Indus valley civilization, and was etymologically related to the Proto-Dravidian tooth-word ‘*pal’ and its alternate forms (‘*p?l’/‘*pi?’/‘*pel’). This paper argues that there is sufficient morphophonemic evidence of an ancient Dravidian ‘*pi?’/‘*p?l’-based root, which meant ‘splitting/crushing’, and was semantically related to the meanings ‘tooth/tusk’. This paper further observes that ‘p?lu’ is among the most ancient and common phytonyms of the toothbrush tree Salvadora persica, which is a characteristic flora of Indus valley, and whose roots and twigs have been widely used as toothbrush in IVC regions since antiquity. This study claims that this phytonym ‘p?lu’ had also originated from the same Proto-Dravidian tooth-word, and argues that since IVC people had named their toothbrush trees and tuskers (elephants) using a Proto-Dravidian tooth-word, and since these names were widely used across IVC regions, a significant population of Indus valley civilization must have used that Proto-Dravidian tooth-word in their daily communication. Since ‘tooth’ belongs to the core non-borrowable ultraconserved vocabulary of a speech community, its corollary is that a significant population of IVC spoke certain ancestral Dravidian languages. Important insights from recent archaeogenetic studies regarding possible migration of Proto-Dravidian speakers from Indus valley to South India also corroborate the findings of this paper.

Introduction

Indus valley civilization (IVC) and its linguistic diversity

IVC, stretching across almost one million square kilometres of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the North-Western part of India (Kenoyer, 2010), was the most expansive of chalcolithic civilizations. Right from the discovery of IVC and its enigmatic script, several scholars have tried to trace the types of languages spoken in IVC. Types of languages presently spoken in the IVC regions are: Indo-Aryan (e.g., Punjabi in Punjab with dialects Siraiki and Lahnda, Sindhi in Sindh, Hindi, Marwari, Gujarati in eastern parts of Greater Indus Valley); Dardic (e.g., Shina, Khowar, Kohistani); Iranian (e.g., Baluchi, Dari, Pashto, and Wakhi in western parts of Greater Indus Valley); Nuristani in northeastern Afghanistan; Dravidian; Brahui (spoken in Baluchistan and Sindh); and Burushaski (a language isolate) spoken in northernmost Pakistan close to the Chinese border (Parpola, 2015, pp. 163–164).

Since the ancient world was generally more multilinguistic (12,000–20,000 languages existed before spread of agriculture, compared to some 7000 human languages of present times) (Pagel, 2009), ancient IVC too arguably hosted more languages than today. This makes it unlikely that all the languages spoken in its 1,00,0000 square-kilometre expanse belonged to only one linguistic group, whether Proto-Indo-Aryan, Proto-Dravidian or Proto-Austroasiatic. Languages of various groups, including some presently extinct languages (Masica, 1979), might have coexisted in IVC for ages, influencing and shaping one another.

The perennial puzzle regarding IVC languages: how archaeologists, linguists, historians and genetic anthropologists approach the problem

Arguments from archaeology and linguistics

Incommoded by the absence of any deciphered written record composed in IVC (Indus script is still undeciphered), scholars hold vastly different opinions regarding types of languages spoken in IVC. Once an advocate of the idea of a ‘Para-Munda’ (not ‘Proto-Munda’) speaking IVC (Witzel, 1999, 2000, 2009), Witzel, presently prefers keeping the question of ‘original’ Indian language(s) ‘open’, till better reconstructions of Dravidian and Munda languages, and investigation of substrate words of ancient indigenous languages present in North-Indian Indo-Aryan languages are done (Witzel, 2019). While many linguists (Parpola, 2015; Driem, 1999; Osada, 2006) have opposed the Austroasiatic-related hypotheses regarding IVC’s languages, Southworth (2004, pp. 325–328) shares Witzel’s ‘Para-Munda’ theory, despite vigorously advancing the idea of prehistoric Dravidian influence on various languages presently spoken in IVC regions (e.g., Sindh, Gujarat, Maharashtra). Although some scholars claim that IVC language(s) belonged to some Proto-Indo-Aryan/Early-Indo-European language group (Renfrew, 1987, pp. 185–208; Rao, 1982), many others (e.g., Krishnamurti, 2003, p. 501; Parpola, 1994) defend a Proto-Dravidian speaking IVC. Parpola (1988, 1994, 2015) proposes Proto-Dravidian etymologies of suspect substrate words (e.g., kiy?mbu, ?aka?am, o?, kinnara) present in Vedic texts, and certain suspect Indic words found in Mesopotamian texts (the ‘magilum’ boats of Meluhha); suggests that some of the fish-like signs of Indus script represented the Dravidian fish-word ‘mina’, to spell out certain Dravidian theophoric astral names prevalent in IVC; and adduces additional anthropological and ethnographic proofs of Dravidian influence, including Dravidian kinship and cross-cousin marriage rules practiced in the presently Indo-Aryan speaking societies of IVC regions (e.g. Gujarat). Though the prehistoric existence of ‘Language X’, an unknown primordial language not of proto-Indo-Aryan, Proto-Dravidian, or Proto-Munda type, was suggested by Masica’s (1979) analysis of various agricultural terms prevalent in some North-Indian languages, Masica (1991, p. 40) has later commented that the Dravidian stock is “a strong but as yet unproven contender for the languages of the Harappans”.

Nature for more

by MOHAMAD HASAN SWEIDAN

Taking advantage of the chaos following Damascus’s fall, Israel’s seizure of Syria’s Al-Mantara Dam showcases the long-standing Zionist strategy to secure regional water dominance, exacerbating tensions across an already parched West Asia.

At the beginning of January, less than a month after rebel forces seized Damascus and toppled the Syrian government, Israeli occupation forces launched an unchallenged advance extending to the vicinity of the Al-Mantara Dam – a critical water source for Deraa and the largest dam in the region, located in the western countryside of Quneitra. 

Reports indicate that Israeli tanks and troops established military outposts, erected earth mounds, and imposed stringent restrictions on local movement, allowing access only during specific, pre-determined times. 

Geopolitics of water

Natural resources have always played a pivotal role in shaping geopolitics, and among them, freshwater sources have become increasingly contested. While oil and gas dominate global headlines, the indispensable role of water in agriculture, industry, and daily life makes it an equally critical factor in global stability. 

As freshwater resources grow scarcer, the risk of conflict over this precious resource escalates, threatening economic development and social stability.

Historically, nations have vied for control over water-rich territories to secure trade routes, forge alliances, and drive technological advances. Ancient civilizations in the Cradle of Civilization, like the Sumerians and Babylonians, flourished by harnessing the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. In contrast, resource-poor regions often lagged in development, limiting their political and technological progress.

Today, water scarcity continues to shape regional political strategies. The Nile River Basin serves as a notable example, where Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia are locked in a dispute over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). 

This project, Africa’s largest hydropower initiative, has heightened diplomatic tensions with Egypt, which relies on the Nile for 90 percent of its fresh water. 

The West Asia and North Africa (WANA) region faces unparalleled water scarcity, with 83 percent of its population under extreme water stress. According to the World Resources Institute, 12 of the 17 most water-stressed countries globally are located in this region, with Qatar, Israel, and Lebanon ranking as the top three. 

Additionally, about 40 percent of the global population depends on rivers that cross international borders, making transboundary water management a critical geopolitical challenge. The recent Israeli incursion at the Al-Mantara Dam starkly illustrates this reality.

Global water demand is projected to rise by 20–25 percent by 2050, placing immense pressure on regions like WANA. By mid-century, 100 percent of the region’s population could face extreme water stress, further destabilizing political relationships and heightening the risk of inter-state conflicts over shared water resources. 

Such tensions are already apparent in Israel and Syria, where control over vital water sources has become a flashpoint.

The Cradle for more

by B. R. GOWANI

Meta’s Zuckerberg is mesmerized by the founder of the Roman Empire

Emperor Augustus Caesar (also Octavian) (63 BCE–14 CE) (27 BCE-14 CE)

Mark Zuckerberg & his wife Chan went to Rome for their honeymoon

“My wife was making fun of me, saying she thought there were three people on the honeymoon: me, her, and Augustus. All the photos were different sculptures of Augustus.”

(they have named their daughter August)

talking to Evan Osnos of The New Yorker, Facebook’s Zuckerberg said

“You have all these good and bad and complex figures. I think Augustus is one of the most fascinating. Basically, through a really harsh approach, he established two hundred years of world peace.”

this is Fuckerbergian shit coming from the Meta world’s authoritarian

founder of empire can never be equated with any good

the empire is founded on annexed, conquered, stolen, … territories

the wars to start or to expand an empire always involve

death, destruction, torture, rapes, enslavement, widows, orphans, injured …

The Cambridge Ancient History consists of 26 volumes

the volume “The Imperial Peace” covers the years CE 70–192

“but peace is not what one finds in its pages” writes author Walter Goffart

Zuckerberg, worth $209 billion, is a dangerous man

he has destroyed many many lives …

through hooking them up on Facebook and his other social media sites

now Zuckerberg has joined Donald Trump to save his social media empire

the US capitalist system allows rich to silence, buy, or legally shut people up

a mansion across his house could have interfered with his privacy

Zuckerberg bought all the houses surrounding his at the cost of $44 million

for several years, he ended Facebook meetings with the word “Domination!”

later on, he stopped using that word

once he played scrabble with a friend’s daughter, a high school-er

she won the game; Zuckerberg won the second game — by cheating

the people taking sides said: “Team Human and Team Machine”

but Zuckerberg is a dangerous machine

Twitter’s ex CEO Dick Costolo on Zuckerberg

“He’s a ruthless execution machine, and if he has decided to come after you, you’re going to take a beating.”

last year, at a conference Zuckerberg wore a tee shirt with a Latin phrase

“Aut Zuck aut nihil” which means “Either Zuck[erberg] or nothing”

ruthless Catholic cardinal Cesare Borgia’s (1475–1507) motto was:

Aut Caesar, aut nihil (“Either Caesar or Nothing”)

that is, I want to be at the top, all alone, or else, I am insignificant

Borgia was son of Catholic Pope Alexander VI and Vannozza Catanei

Vannozza Catanei was the most famous of Pope’s many mistresses

Niccolò Machiavelli‘s famous work The Prince was based on Borgia

this year, Lantian* “Jay” Graber, wore a T-shirt at SXSW 2025 with words

“Mundus sine caesaribus,” that is, “A world without Caesars”

such appropriate words in a world full of Caesars:

Trump, (Biden’s gone), Musk, Bezos, Pichai, Modi, Netanyahu, and so many

we really want a world without Caesars

(Graber’s shirt is being sold at worldwithoutcaesars.com for $40

all proceeds will go to fund the AT Protocol)

*(Lantian in Chinese means “blue sky“)

B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com

BLACK AGENDA REPORT

James Baldwin on white madness–and Black resistance.

In An Open Letter to My Sister Angela Y. Davis , James Baldwin gave us a haunting vision of fascism’s creeping death march. Published in the New York Review of Books in January 1971, the letter was written on November 18, 1970, about a month after Davis was captured by the FBI. The letter was Baldwin’s disturbed response, in part, to a photograph of Davis on the cover of Newsweek following her capture: she appeared handcuffed and manacled, chained. It was an image that brought Baldwin back to an earlier period in US history, a period that Baldwin realized was still very much alive in the present – especially for United States whites.

Indeed, Baldwin’s letter castigates US whites for taking “refuge in their whiteness,” and allowing their leaders to imprison thousands and slaughter millions on the way to all-out race war. Baldwin’s present is our own. We are living through an intensified wave of white madness and now, as then, many white folk have chosen silence, or active class collaboration in the name of the white race. Yet the white supremacist chickens will come home to roost: Baldwin warned that the “fate intended for you, Sister Angela…is a fate which is about to engulf them, too,” and that these whites “will perish…in their delusions.”

But Baldwin’s letter is also a public offering of solidarity for a younger generation of US Blacks – like Davis, like George and Jonathan Jackson, like many others – attempting to carry forward the struggles of older generations against white supremacist savagery.

As an elder, Baldwin offered these words of support: “we must fight for your life as though it were our own — which it is — and render impassable with our bodies the corridor to the gas chamber. For, if they take you in the morning, they will be coming for us that night.”

Baldwin’s ultimate message, Black people, is this: “We cannot awaken this sleeper, and God knows we have tried. We must do what we can do, and fortify and save each other…”

We reprint Baldwin’s letter below.

An Open Letter to My Sister, Miss Angela Y. Davis

James Baldwin

Dear Sister:

One might have hoped that, by this hour, the very sight of chains on Black flesh, or the very sight of chains, would be so intolerable a sight for the American people, and so unbearable a memory, that they would themselves spontaneously rise up and strike off the manacles. But, no, they appear to glory in their chains; now, more than ever, they appear to measure their safety in chains and corpses. And so, Newsweek, civilized defender of the indefensible, attempts to drown you in a sea of crocodile tears (“it remained to be seen what sort of personal liberation she had achieved”) and puts you on its cover, chained.

You look exceedingly alone—as alone, say, as the Jewish housewife in the boxcar headed for Dachau, or as any one of our ancestors, chained together in the name of Jesus, headed for a Christian land.

Well. Since we live in an age which silence is not only criminal but suicidal, I have been making as much noise as I can, here in Europe, on radio and television—in fact, have just returned from a land, Germany, which was made notorious by a silent majority not so very long ago. I was asked to speak on the case of Miss Angela Davis, and did so. Very probably an exerciser in futility, but one must let no opportunity slide.

I am something like twenty years older than you, of that generation, therefore, of which George Jackson ventures that “there are no healthy brothers—none at all.” I am in no way equipped to dispute this speculation (not, anyway, without descending into what, at the moment, would be irrelevant subtleties) for I know too well what he means. My own state of health is certainly precarious enough. In considering you, and Huey, and George and (especially) Jonathan Jackson, I began to apprehend what you may have had in mind when you spoke of the uses to which we could put the experience of the slave. What has happened, it seems to me, and to put it far too simply, is that a whole new generation of people have assessed and absorbed their history, and, in that tremendous action, have freed themselves of it and will never be victims again. This may seem an odd, indefensibly pertinent and insensitive thing to say to a sister in prison, battling for her life—for all our lives. Yet, I dare to say it, for I think you will perhaps not misunderstand me, and I do not say it, after all, from the position of spectator.

I am trying to suggest that you—for example—do not appear to be your father’s daughter in the same way that I am my father’s son. At bottom, my father’s expectations and mine were the same, the expectations of his generation and mine were the same; and neither the immense difference in our ages nor the move from the South to the North could alter these expectations or make our lives more viable. For, in fact, to use the brutal parlance of that hour, the interior language of despair, he was just a n—–—a n—– laborer preacher, and so was I. I jumped the track but that’s of no more importance here, in itself, than the fact that some poor Spaniards become rich bull fighters, or that some poor Black boys become rich—boxers, for example. That’s rarely, if ever, afforded the people more than a great emotional catharsis, though I don’t mean to be condescending about that, either. But when Cassius Clay became Muhammad Ali and refused to put on that uniform (and sacrificed all that money!) a very different impact was made on the people and a very different kind of instruction had begun.

The American triumph—in which the American tragedy has always been implicit—was to make Black people despise themselves. When I was little I despised myself; I did not know any better. And this meant, albeit unconsciously, or against my will, or in great pain, that I also despised my father. And my mother. And my brothers. And my sisters. Black people were killing each other every Saturday night out on Lenox Avenue, when I was growing up; and no one explained to them, or to me, that it was intended that they should; that they were penned where they were, like animals, in order that they should consider themselves no better than animals. Everything supported this sense of reality, nothing denied it: and so one was ready, when it came time to go to work, to be treated as a slave. So one was ready, when human terrors came, to bow before a white God and beg Jesus for salvation—this same white God who was unable to raise a finger to do so little as to help you pay your rent, unable to be awakened in time to help you save your child!

There is always, of course, more to any picture than can speedily be perceived and in all of this—groaning and moaning, watching, calculating, clowning, surviving, and outwitting, some tremendous strength was nevertheless being forged, which is part of our legacy today. But that particular aspect of our journey now begins to be behind us. The secret is out: we are men!

 But the blunt, open articulation of this secret has frightened the nation to death.

Black Agenda Report for more

by ALLISON PARSHALL

The overly sterile environment of the International Space Station is missing important microbes, a new detailed map shows. If we want to live off Earth, we may need to take more of our bacterial friends with us

For almost a quarter-century, humans have continuously occupied what is arguably our most isolated habitat ever: the International Space Station, or ISS. Perched in the near vacuum of low-Earth orbit, it’s been home to some 270 people and a variety of animal guests—plus the microbes that hitched a ride to space on the bodies of those residents.

There these uninvited microbial guests have been evolving. Bacteria adapt to cosmic radiation with new ways to repair their DNA. Some become resistant to antibiotics and sterilizing agents or develop other changes that make them more likely to cause disease.

“This is such an extreme environment,” says Rodolfo Salido, a bioengineer at the University of California, San Diego. And the microbes that inhabit it can directly affect astronaut health. To map the space station’s microbial world, Salido and his colleagues sent swabs up to space, where astronauts sampled hundreds of surfaces. Their resulting three-dimensional map of the ISS’s microbial diversity, published on Thursday in the journal Cell, shows that this orbital habitat lacks many types of bacterial life that humans normally encounter and that may be important for our well-being. To stay healthy on future long-term off-world forays, the researchers suggest, we may need a little more help from our microbial friends.

“To take care of us humans, we have to take care of our human microbes. And that’s going to be a very interesting challenge” in space travel, says Martin Blaser, a microbiologist at Rutgers University, who was not involved in the new study.

In December 2020 Salido and his colleagues collaborated with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to launch about 1,000 sterilized sampling devices to the ISS. The team had redesigned the devices to work in space: as an Earth-bound scientist, Salido had learned a lot from a visit to a replica of the ISS in Houston, where astronaut Michael Barratt pointed out that the researchers’ normal sampling swabs were far too large and flammable to fly.

Scientific American for more