Why Should We Be Concerned About the China-India Border Conflict Long-standing border tensions risk dangerous escalation as rivalry between these nuclear powers heats up. The conflict between Chinese and Indian troops over the two nations' 2,100-mile-long contentious border, known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC), in December 2022, demonstrates a concerning "one step forward, two steps back" tendency. This brawl was the bloodiest in the Galwan Valley since 2020, when violence killed 20 Indian and at least four Chinese soldiers. Although these skirmishes are frequently followed by talk ..read more

Iran is planning a rapid boost in oil output, according to a senior oil ministry official, as discussions between Tehran and six major nations continue to eliminate US sanctions that have kept the country producing significantly below capacity since 2018. Iran and the six nations have been in discussions since April to resurrect a 2015 nuclear agreement that was terminated three years ago by former US President Donald Trump, reimposing sanctions. Most of the country's crude output would be restored within a month if sanctions are eased, according to Farokh Alikhani, production manager of the ..read more

  Scholars argued that China's actions in connection with COVID-19 (and the novel SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus), especially with the responsibilities of timing and information communication set out in Articles 6 and 7, violated the International Health Regulations (see, for example, here and here). If China had fulfilled these commitments, today's case of COVID-19 would possibly be exponentially less. This leads another scholar to declare, "China can and must be sued for the massive losses it has caused to the world, and to alert China of the arrival of the lawyers. Nevertheless, all these au ..read more

  In 1973, sunflowers grew in my father's vegetable garden. They appeared to sprout spontaneously in a few rows he'd lent to new California neighbors that year. At the moment, just six years old, these garish plants first set me off. Such odd and colorful flowers seemed out of place amid the respectable beans, peppers, spinach, and other vegetables that we've all grown. Yet eventually, sunflowers' beauty won me over. Their fiery halos relieved the lush monotonous garden dominated by late summer. I marveled at birds clinging to shaggy, gold balls, wings fluttering, seed plundering. That ..read more

  Soil: its nature and needs Soil is the basic element in plant cultivation, but soilless water growth, with or without gravel or sand, enriched with suitable chemicals (hydroponics) can be quite effective. Soil consists of particles, primarily calcium, extracted from rock dissolution along with organic matter. In particle pore spaces, all water (containing dissolved salts) and air circulate. The atmosphere contains more carbon dioxide and less oxygen. Minute living organisms are also found in immense quantities of soil , making it viable. Plants must cross this area to access most of t ..read more

  A researcher puts stickers on a lazy Susan under some plastic cups, then offers a whirl. A preschooler must find hidden stickers when the spinning ends. Some kids remember where the stickers are, but some have to search each cup. The game measures working memory, one of the group of behavioral abilities known as executive control that can be compromised in early-life trauma-facing adolescents. Adversity wreaks havoc, and from there you have a mechanism that reacts differently, says Megan Gunnar, a developmental psychobiologist at Minnesota University in Minneapolis who spent two decade ..read more

At a recent conference held on the evolution of infectious diseases, pathologist Nissi Varki, University of California, San Diego (UCSD), observed that humans suffer from a long list of fatal diseases — including typhoid fever, cholera, mumps, whooping cough, measles, smallpox, polio, and gonorrhea — that don't bother chimpanzees and most other mammals. Both these bacteria follow the same mechanism to get into our cells: they target sugar molecules called sialic acids. Hundreds of millions of these sugars study the outer surface of any cell in the human body — and human sialic acids differ fr ..read more

China named a hard-line figure to lead Hong Kong 's newsecurity agency. Zheng Yanxiong is best known for his role in dealing with a land dispute protest in Wukan, southern China. The new organization, responding directly to Beijing, is set up in Hong Kong this week to implement a draconian security law. Regulation critics claim it erodes territorial freedoms. With up to life in prison, the law opposes secession, subversion and terrorism. Many leading pro-democracy activists have abandoned their positions and one of them, once student leader and local legislator Nathan Law, has fled the regio ..read more

Although infinite foods, nutrients, and methods for meal-replacement claim to ensure rapid weight loss, most lack empirical evidence. However, science-backed solutions affect weight management. Such techniques include exercise, keeping track of calorie consumption, extended fasting, and reducing dietary carbohydrates. In this article, we find nine useful weight-loss methods. Scientific-backed weight-loss Weight loss methods supporting scientific research include:       1.   Fasting intermittently2.    Tracking and exercising3.    Eat a ..read more

For more than three decades, China's ruling Communist Party experienced one of the greatest political crises. A rapidly spreading outbreak of the new coronavirus was a "huge danger and threat" to social stability, Chinese President Xi Jinping cautioned top party officials in a later publicly-published internal address. Yet with new domestic infections near zero, China declared victory over a virus that is still struggling to curb. Newly optimistic and prone to criticism that it initially covered up the outbreak, China's leadership is now trying to recast the pandemic as a political victory b ..read more