Category: Uncategorized

by BENJY BARNETT

It took centuries for people to embrace the zero. Now it’s helping neuroscientists understand how the brain perceives absences

When I’m birdwatching, I have a particular experience all too frequently. Fellow birders will point to the tree canopy and ask if I can see a bird hidden among the leaves. I scan the treetops with binoculars but, to everyone’s annoyance, I see only the absence of a bird.

Our mental worlds are lively with such experiences of absence, yet it’s a mystery how the mind performs the trick of seeing nothing. How can the brain perceive something when there is no something to perceive?

For a neuroscientist interested in consciousness, this is an alluring question. Studying the neural basis of ‘nothing’ does, however, pose obvious challenges. Fortunately, there are other – more tangible – kinds of absences that help us get a handle on the hazy issue of nothingness in the brain. That’s why I spent much of my PhD studying how we perceive the number zero.

Zero has played an intriguing role in the development of our societies. Throughout human history, it has floundered in civilisations fearful of nothingness, and flourished in those that embraced it. But that’s not the only reason it’s so beguiling. In striking similarity to the perception of absence, zero’s representation as a number in the brain also remains unclear. If my brain has specialised mechanisms that have evolved to count the owls perched on a branch, how does this system abstract away from what’s visible, and signal that there are no owls to count?

The mystery shared between the perception of absences and the conception of zero may not be coincidental. When your brain recognises zero, it may be recruiting fundamental sensory mechanisms that govern when you can – and cannot – see something. If this is the case, theories of consciousness that emphasise the experience of absence may find a new use for zero, as a tool with which to explore the nature of consciousness itself.

Aeon for more

by PRANAY SOMAYAJULA

At the dawn of a second Trump era, American Hindu supremacists are increasingly aligning themselves with the MAGA far right.

On the evening of January 19, 2025, the American Hindu Coalition — a pro–Donald Trump group whose stated mission is to “build a stronger America through Hindu Enlightenment Principles” — joined forces with several right-wing Latino organizations to host a joint Hindu-Latino inaugural ball in downtown Washington, DC. Among those who gathered in the ballroom of the swanky Mayflower Hotel, rubbing shoulders with Argentina’s far-right president Javier Milei, was Rajiv Pandit, who serves on the Board of Directors of the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) — a Washington, DC–based advocacy group that proudly professes to be the “largest and oldest education and advocacy organization and the pre-eminent voice for Hindu Americans.”

A video uploaded to YouTube by the Indian diaspora-focused news outlet India Abroad shows Pandit, alongside several other attendees, being interviewed by a bearded man in a white blazer. This man, whom Pandit addresses in the interview with the honorific “Krishnaji,” is none other than Krishna Gudipati — a local leader in the Hindu supremacist Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America (VHPA), who infamously waved an Indian flag among the crowd of rioters during the January 6 insurrection.

At first glance, this may seem surprising. As a damning 2024 report by the Savera: United Against Supremacy coalition and Political Research Associates details, HAF maintains extensive ties to the broader Hindutva (Hindu nationalist or supremacist) ecosystem in the United States. HAF’s founding leaders all cut their teeth in Hindu supremacist groups like the VHPA, and the organization continues to share key funding sources with other right-wing Hindu groups. However, as the report also highlights, HAF has historically sought to obscure these reactionary links by presenting an ostensibly “respectable” public face, couching its advocacy in the language of civil rights and multiculturalism and taking mainstream center-left positions on issues like climate change, reproductive justice, and LGBTQ rights. Given this ostensibly liberal positioning, the fact that a senior HAF leader appeared alongside a January 6 insurrectionist at Trump’s inaugural ball to enthusiastically declare that “we as Hindu Americans are very excited about the Trump 2.0 administration” may, on its face, strike many as incongruous.

Closer examination of the facts, however, reveals that the Hindutva movement and the MAGA movement are hardly strange bedfellows. In fact, Pandit’s appearance at Trump’s inaugural ball is the natural culmination of a yearslong process of convergence between the Hindu supremacist ecosystem in the United States (of which HAF is one key node) and the broader American far right — a convergence that has intensified in recent years — particularly in the run-up to and aftermath of the 2024 US presidential election, as Hindu supremacist groups have grown increasingly vocal in championing Trump as an ostensibly reliable ally of so-called “Hindu interests.”

Jacobin for more

by CECI GARCIA & SUSI MARESCA

A massive march took the streets Saturday in the city of Buenos Aires for the Federal Anti-Fascist and Anti-Racist LGBTQIA+ Pride March. The protest is part of a rising tide that began in Buenos Aires and echoed throughout Argentina and beyond. 

The action downtown Buenos Aires got going around 4 o’clock. It was over 30 degrees outside, but the atmosphere was energetic, protest organizers said millions attended throughout the country. Entire families pulled out their hand-painted signs and hugged each other on street corners. People came together without fear: artists wheatpasting posters, others arriving covered in glitter, or wearing green handkerchiefs, spreading a sense of collective performativity through the heart of the city. 

There have been two key protests that have mobilized across social sectors since Javier Milei took office a year and two months ago.* The first was the March in Defense of Public University, which took place in October, and the second was on Saturday.

Organizing against Milei’s hate

The massive march last weekend was diverse and intersectional. It was led by members of a collective of travesti-trans and non-binary people, mothers and grandmothers of the disappeared, Black-anti-racist activists, racialized and Indigenous peoples, migrants, differently abled folks, elders and children. Behind them came the Antifascist Assembly, followed by trade union organizations, with members of political parties bringing up the rear.

The spark of resistance turned into fire after a speech given by Javier Milei at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on January 23. Milei linked homosexuality with child abuse, argued that feminism distorts equality, and called “wokeism” an epidemic that must be excised like a cancer. His comments had the effect of fanning the fire.

Ojala for more

by VICTOR GROSSMAN

For good people these are times to weep, rage and, above all, to fight back! But sometimes we may allow ourselves a laugh. Such a time arrived this past weekend in Brussels and at the Security Conference in Munich. Though the big shots present were in no laughing mood—but in shock!

The reason for an all too rare happy moment for some like me was strangely due to the words of two men I have absolutely no love for, JD Vance and his colleague, for whom probably nobody has any love, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Nor do I have a grain of affection for their fearsome boss back home—or should I say two bosses?

How could one stop grinding teeth—and laugh? Despite many complexities, one thing has been clear in recent years; the main ruling powers in Europe, most menacingly its strongest, Germany, have shown a greed, indeed a craving, for military adventurism, for spending ever more euro-billions on armaments, frightful air power, naval maneuvers in all surrounding waters, Baltic outposts. All are based on eastward expansion, with one declared enemy, whose ruler is denounced, derided, and demonized daily in most of the media. Hardly a page or newscast fails to warn that Russia, if it wins out in the Ukraine, is an awful threat not only to Poland, the Baltic countries, all its neighbors but even to “our Germany” which, though without a common border, seems to somehow want to feel equally threatened. The result: calls for a new military draft, even for women, for air-raid shelters, school air-raid drills and for strengthened bridges and highways if leading eastwards. Almost audible is the hand-rubbing and heel-clicking among the generals, nationalists, and imperialists generally. Hardly less audible; the clinking of champagne glasses at offices of armament firms like Rheinmetall, which are already raking in armament billions like never before, all paid for with money stolen from the living standards of most German and European civilians. And they want more!

This “readiness for war” demanded by Germany’s bloodthirsty Defense Minister Boris Pistorius and backed by the equally belligerent Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (whose declared aim is to “ruin Russia”) was carried out under the aegis of the USA, the great protector of “rule-based international order”, democracy and anti-authoritarianism (also called anti-totalitarianism). Therefore: weapons for Zelenskyy, bigger, stronger, further-reaching missiles, the Ukrainians must be aided until all territories are regained (or all Ukrainians dead). And Washington demanded 2% more of the budget, then 3.5%, maybe 5%.

Then suddenly an unloved vice-president and even more repugnant Secretary of Defense came to Europe with the news that Trump had telephoned with Putin and the two wanted to negotiate on peace in the Ukraine. The greatest danger to Europe, they were told, was not Russia, not China, but the “danger from within.”

The shock was visible in their faces. What? Peace? Has the USA gone completely off its rocker? How can we justify our build-up? Our strategies? Our maneuvers? To make matters worse, Vance not only threatened with peace, but criticized the European countries for repressing oppositional ideas. True, the object of his concern and support was the far-rightist Alternative for Germany (AfD), with whom Musk has become so chummy. For its own reasons, the AfD also supports a swift end to the Ukraine war. Though Musk chose a nasty object for his affection (and open intervention in a foreign election campaign), it is true that many German leaders do want to get the AfD verboten—not because of its antagonism toward all “foreigners,” which they increasingly echo, but because it is polling in second place, at over 20%. There is indeed increasing repression of dissent in Germany and Europe. It is directed against any criticism of Netanyahu’s Israel and its fearful annihilation in Gaza, killing up to a hundred thousand Palestinians. No, Vance wasn’t against that! But thus far mention of any form of repression in “our freedom-loving Germany” has been mostly leftist, hence taboo. But now suddenly from our Big Brother! Unheard of! That is why those who want peace above all, from whatever quarter, could laugh at those stony faces and enjoy their consternation when their bellicosity and hypocrisy were so suddenly exposed, like never before. Our joy fits the word “Schadenfreude”!

Of course, they hastened to shape up a counter-attack! In Paris the worried leaders of Europe sought ways to put a spoke in the peace wheel. “No negotiations without us!” they cried. “We must also be involved! Oh yes, with Zelenskyy too of course!”, they recalled.

Monthly Review Online for more

The BBC’s withdrawal of the powerful documentary, ‘Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone’, epitomises how much the UK’s national broadcaster is beholden to the Israel lobby.

The corporation’s longstanding systematic protection of Israel, considered an ‘apartheid regime’ by major human rights organisations, has been particularly glaring since the country launched its genocidal attacks on Gaza in October 2023. We have all seen the repetition and amplification of the Israeli narrative above the Palestinian perspective, omission of ‘Israel’ from headlines about its latest war crimes committed in Gaza, and even the dismissive treatment by senior BBC management of serious concerns about bias raised by their own journalists.

The documentary focused on the experiences of several children trying to survive in Gaza under brutal attack by Israeli forces armed to the hilt with weaponry and intelligence from the US, the UK and other western nations. It transpired that the film’s narrator, 13-year-old Abdullah al-Yazuri, is the son of Ayman al-Yazuri, a deputy minister of agriculture in Gaza’s government which is administered by Hamas.

Mr al-Yazuri previously worked for the United Arab Emirates’ education ministry and studied at British universities, obtaining a PhD in chemistry from the University of Huddersfield. Middle East Eye (MEE), an independently-funded online news organisation covering stories from the Middle East and North Africa, described him as ‘a technocrat with a scientific rather than political background’, pointing out that ministers, bureaucrats and civil servants in Gaza are appointed by Hamas.

Indeed, as MEE explained:

‘Many Palestinians in Gaza have family or other connections to Hamas, which runs the government. This means that anyone working in an official capacity must also work with Hamas.’

A campaign was launched by pro-Israel voices, including Tzipi Hotovely, Israel’s ambassador to the UK, and Danny Cohen, a former director of BBC television, to pressure the BBC to drop the documentary from iPlayer, soon after it was broadcast on BBC Two on 17 February.

Despite a countercampaign by over 1,000 media and film professionals objecting to the ‘racist’ and ‘dehumanising’ targeting of the documentary by supporters of Israel, the BBC quickly caved in, apologising for ‘mistakes’ that they deemed ‘significant and damaging’. Notably, however, the BBC did not point to any errors or inaccuracies in the actual editorial content of the programme. 

Media Lens for more

by HAMID DABASHI

The powerful words of Shaul Magid, Peter Beinart, Ta-Nehisi Coates and Pankaj Mishra are at the forefront of the global battle against colonial deceit

The publication in recent months of four books on the Israel–Palestine conflict has given the world a solid moral platform to begin holding genocidal Zionism accountable for the mass killing and annihilation that has unfolded in Gaza. 

These books could prove even more important than the judgements of international courts.

While they are preceded by countless publications on the subject by Palestinian thinkers in multiple languages and on multiple platforms, these four books have two particular features in common: none were written by a Palestinian, Arab or Muslim, and all were published in the shadow of the Gaza genocide. 

To be sure, Palestinians themselves remain the principal spokespeople for their cause, providing the most eloquent case against the historic savageries they have endured for generations. 

Middle East Eye for more

by DANIEL WILLIAMS

It’s part of a twenty year trend in persecutions in the Middle East

Violent attacks in Syria against a pair of religious minorities highlight the persistence of sectarian persecution in the Middle East during the past two decades.

In the Mediterranean coastal city of Latakia earlier this month, marauding Sunni Muslim militias killed more than a thousand Alawites, a population that belongs to a religious sect related to Islam. A small number of Christians, whose presence in the country dates back two millennia, were also attacked and at least four were killed.

Guilt by association is attributed to Alawites and Christian due to their relations with the regime of Bashar al-Assad, who was ousted from power in December after a long civil war. He had declared himself a protector of both sects.

Such protection carries a cost, possibly tarring minority citizens as favored by the ruler. In times of peace, minorities are expected to at least show obedience, and even express admiration, in return for protection from potential harm from majorities. When the dictator is overthrown, wrath falls on the minority populations considered lackeys of an evil regime.

Attacks from within the mainstream Sunni Islam sect have also been fueled by the emergence among radical Sunni groups of the view that minorities such as Alawites and Christians are not only heretics but pariahs who must be cast away. Similar attacks on minority religious and ethnic minority groups have taken place in Egypt and Iraq.

Asia Times for more

by CORRYN WETZEL

A new study is heating up the debate over gas-powered stovetops

If you live in one of the 40 million American households with a gas stove, it could be leaking even when it’s turned off.

According to a new study from Stanford scientists, many stoves are constantly emitting gasses that can warm the planet and pose serious health risks when inhaled. The research, which appeared in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, found methane emissions from gas stoves across the United States are roughly equivalent to the carbon dioxide released by half a million gas-powered cars in a year.

“The mere existence of the stoves is really what’s driving those methane emissions,” says study author Eric Lebel, a research scientist with PSE Healthy Energy, to Danielle Renwick for Nexus Media News. “We found that over three-quarters of the methane emissions from stoves are emitted while the stove is off. So these little tiny leaks from the stoves, they really do add up.”

While leaky natural gas pipelines have been studied extensively, scientists know less about the climate and health impacts of gas-burning stoves. More than a third of Americans cook with gas, and some get additional exposure from space and water heaters. All of these natural gas-burning appliances can emit gasses that can trigger asthma, coughing, and potentially increase susceptibility to respiratory infections.

To guage the impact of these emissions, researchers measured three key gasses from stoves in 53 homes across seven California counties. The team chose two gasses—methane and carbon dioxide—because of their contribution to climate change, and selected nitrogen oxides because of their known risk to human health. The scientists set up plastic partitions between the kitchens and other rooms and used instruments that measure wavelengths of light to determine the concentration of certain gases.

To their surprise, they found that more than three-quarters of the methane emissions happened when both old and new gas stoves were turned off. 

The most significant health risks happen when the stove is lit, the authors note, because the process creates nitrogen dioxide as a byproduct. Increasing airflow by using a range hood can help reduce the personal health risk of natural gas-burning appliances, but most individuals report rarely using their ventilation system.

In a small kitchen, it only took a few minutes of unventilated stove use to generate emissions levels above national health standards. According to a meta-analysis from 2013, children living in homes with gas stoves were 42 percent more likely to experience symptoms associated with asthma, and 24 percent more likely to be diagnosed with lifetime asthma.

Smithsonian Magazine for more

by JOSEPH DAHER

Joseph Daher discusses regional and multipolar imperialism, the limits of Iranian resistance, and the international path toward Palestinian liberation.

The ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel, which had conducted a genocidal war on Palestinians in Gaza for over a year, poses strategic questions for the Palestinian liberation struggle and those in solidarity with it. Up till now, the dominant strategy has been to cultivate an alliance with Iran’s so-called “Axis of Resistance” to back military assaults on Israel, but that network has suffered devastating setbacks from the combined might of Israel and the U.S.

Israel’s repeated assassination of Iranian leaders and direct attacks on Iran itself have exposed the weaknesses and challenges Iran faces in the region. Tel Aviv’s brutal war on Lebanon significantly damaged Hezbollah, the jewel in the crown of Iran’s Axis, and collectively punished the Lebanese people, particularly Hezbollah’s base in the country’s Shia population. The fall of Iran’s other close regional ally, Bashar al-Assad, has further undermined the Axis. Only the Houthis in Yemen have survived the onslaught relatively intact.

Of course, Israel did not accomplish its main goals in Gaza of destroying Hamas and ethnically cleansing the population, and it has been discredited and delegitimized globally as a genocidal, settler-colonial, apartheid state. Nevertheless, the strategy of military resistance to Israel based on support from the Axis has shown its limitations if not its inability to win liberation. So, what have we learned about the Axis? What is its future? What do the region’s masses think of the Axis? What is the alternative to the military strategy against Israel? How should the international Left position itself in these strategic debates?

Origins and development of Iran’s so-called “Axis of Resistance”

In the 2000s, the Iranian regime expanded its influence in the Middle East, primarily through The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)). It took advantage of the defeat suffered by the U.S. and its allies in their so-called War on Terror in the Middle East and Central Asia. George Bush’s ambition for regional regime change was blocked by resistance to the U.S. occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran secured allies with Iraq’s various Shia Islamic fundamentalist parties and militias and their representatives in state institutions, becoming the most influential regional power in the country.

Z Network for more