This is a deeply fascinating history.
There are many articles on this subject and it is one that I will return to from time to time.
But for today I want to just show a seven-minute video from YouTube.
Amazing!
Category: Education
Beautiful silence!
For the mind, body and soul!
Four days ago I sent in a comment to Magic and Beauty. This is what I wrote:
My darling wife has Parkinson’s (PD). She has had it for many years. As a consequence we are awake early, usually between 4am and 5am. As soon as it is sufficiently light to see the trees I go and feed the wild deer, usually three or four of them but some mornings ten, twelve or a few more.
Then I return to our deck that faces East and just pause for five minutes just looking at Mount Sexton and the tree line nearby. It is a very beautiful sight and is my way of doing nothing!
Im (that should be I’m) 81 in November and want to stat (that should be stay) as healthy as possible for as long as possible.and this was replied by ‘Age45’.
Dear Paul, Many thanks for your comment and sharing with us the way of your life which is helpful (since all life experience is meaningful and significant). Wish your darling wife and yourself all the best.
Now to today’s post which is a republication of her article.
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Silence hides a space where thoughts can calm down. Silence helps a person reset and prepare for the challenges that a new day brings
- Silence therapy is always useful because nothing happens in silence and it is then that a person hears their own fears and repressed emotions, i.e. in silence. Silence is a rarity today in a world where various sounds are a constant part of everyday life. Silence can be unpleasant and sometimes frightening because it confronts a person with their own being.
- Silence is not an empty space but a space for breathing, connecting and regeneration, psychotherapists and psychologists explain. Silence is healing in partner relationships only if it is conscious and shared. If a person needs a little time to calm down and calm down their emotions and then return to the conversation, then silence is just a space for processing and not an obstacle to contacts.
- Silence therapy can be practiced in everyday life by taking micro-breaks, i.e. just 5 minutes a day without a phone, without music and sounds, i.e. just breathing. Or a conscientious walk without headphones with light steps and listening to sounds from the environment but deep breathing.
- Morning silence is part of silence therapy, ie take 10 minutes without speaking without a screen, because this kind of morning silence can positively change the entire course of the day.
- Silence during the conversation is also advised, i.e. you should not rush to answer because a pause between sentences can open up space for deeper contact. Healthy relationships do not run away from silence, but wisely use the silences to take a breath and not be silent about a painful topic. Research shows that just 2 minutes of silence can have a powerful relaxing effect from your favorite music.
- Medicinal silence lowers blood pressure, slows breathing and calms the mind. Regularly practicing silence is a gentle and powerful treatment and form of self-regulation. Silence is often understood as a loss or something that needs to be filled in today’s modern culture of hyperproduction and constant stimulation. But silence shows its function precisely in that discomfort. Silence exposes what we normally cover with noise. In silence, fears, unspoken thoughts, repressed emotions are heard. That is why people run away from silence and that is why people need silence.
- In silence, we listen to our own being and others because presence is born. Many therapeutic processes rely on the power of sharing silence, i.e. moments in which words are neither necessary nor sufficient. Silence becomes a bridge that connects in therapy and in interpersonal relationships, not an obstacle.
- Silence can also become a form of distancing, punishment, and control in interpersonal relationships (although it is a powerful tool for connection and presence).
- There is a difference between healing silence and silence that hurts. Passive aggression, withdrawal without explanation, silence that hangs in space after a conflict – these are situations in which silence becomes a wall and ceases to be space. The treatment of silence is a term used in psychology to explain this form of silence. Silence does not strengthen contact, but sabotages contact. Silent treatment is a form of emotional manipulation in which other people are punished by denying communication. Then silence is used like a weapon in communication.
- Silence is unhealthy in a relationship if silence is used as a means of punishment or manipulation. If a person feels discomfort, confusion and tension and does not know the reason. If there is no open communication after the conflict or the silence lasts too long and does not lead to clarification, it deepens the distance.
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Powerful words from her!
And a photograph from me that spells out peace and silence.
More about Jane Goodall
An article published by The Conversation is offered today.
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Jane Goodall, the gentle disrupter whose research on chimpanzees redefined what it meant to be human
Charles Sykes/Invision/AP
Mireya Mayor, Florida International University
Anyone proposing to offer a master class on changing the world for the better, without becoming negative, cynical, angry or narrow-minded in the process, could model their advice on the life and work of pioneering animal behavior scholar Jane Goodall.
Goodall’s life journey stretches from marveling at the somewhat unremarkable creatures – though she would never call them that – in her English backyard as a wide-eyed little girl in the 1930s to challenging the very definition of what it means to be human through her research on chimpanzees in Tanzania. From there, she went on to become a global icon and a United Nations Messenger of Peace.
Until her death on Oct. 1, 2025 at age 91, Goodall retained a charm, open-mindedness, optimism and wide-eyed wonder that are more typical of children. I know this because I have been fortunate to spend time with her and to share insights from my own scientific career. To the public, she was a world-renowned scientist and icon. To me, she was Jane – my inspiring mentor and friend.
Despite the massive changes Goodall wrought in the world of science, upending the study of animal behavior, she was always cheerful, encouraging and inspiring. I think of her as a gentle disrupter. One of her greatest gifts was her ability to make everyone, at any age, feel that they have the power to change the world. https://www.youtube.com/embed/rcL4jnGTL1U?wmode=transparent&start=0 Jane Goodall documented that chimpanzees not only used tools but make them – an insight that altered thinking about animals and humans.
Discovering tool use in animals
In her pioneering studies in the lush rainforest of Tanzania’s Gombe Stream Game Reserve, now a national park, Goodall noted that the most successful chimp leaders were gentle, caring and familial. Males that tried to rule by asserting their dominance through violence, tyranny and threat did not last.
I also am a primatologist, and Goodall’s groundbreaking observations of chimpanzees at Gombe were part of my preliminary studies. She famously recorded chimps taking long pieces of grass and inserting them into termite nests to “fish” for the insects to eat, something no one else had previously observed.
It was the first time an animal had been seen using a tool, a discovery that altered how scientists differentiated between humanity and the rest of the animal kingdom.
Renowned anthropologist Louis Leakey chose Goodall to do this work precisely because she was not formally trained. When she turned up in Leakey’s office in Tanzania in 1957, at age 23, Leakey initially hired her as his secretary, but he soon spotted her potential and encouraged her to study chimpanzees. Leakey wanted someone with a completely open mind, something he believed most scientists lost over the course of their formal training.
Because chimps are humans’ closest living relatives, Leakey hoped that understanding the animals would provide insights into early humans. In a predominantly male field, he also thought a woman would be more patient and insightful than a male observer. He wasn’t wrong.
Six months in, when Goodall wrote up her observations of chimps using tools, Leakey wrote, “Now we must redefine tool, redefine Man, or accept chimpanzees as human.”
Goodall spoke of animals as having emotions and cultures, and in the case of chimps, communities that were almost tribal. She also named the chimps she observed, an unheard-of practice at the time, garnering ridicule from scientists who had traditionally numbered their research subjects.
One of her most remarkable observations became known as the Gombe Chimp War. It was a four-year-long conflict in which eight adult males from one community killed all six males of another community, taking over their territory, only to lose it to another, bigger community with even more males.
Confidence in her path
Goodall was persuasive, powerful and determined, and she often advised me not to succumb to people’s criticisms. Her path to groundbreaking discoveries did not involve stepping on people or elbowing competitors aside.
Rather, her journey to Africa was motivated by her wonder, her love of animals and a powerful imagination. As a little girl, she was entranced by Edgar Rice Burroughs’ 1912 story “Tarzan of the Apes,” and she loved to joke that Tarzan married the wrong Jane.
When I was a 23-year-old former NFL cheerleader, with no scientific background at that time, and looked at Goodall’s work, I imagined that I, too, could be like her. In large part because of her, I became a primatologist, co-discovered a new species of lemur in Madagascar and have had an amazing life and career, in science and on TV, as a National Geographic explorer.
When it came time to write my own story, I asked Goodall to contribute the introduction. She wrote:
“Mireya Mayor reminds me a little of myself. Like me she loved being with animals when she was a child. And like me she followed her dream until it became a reality.”
In a 2023 interview, Jane Goodall answers TV host Jimmy Kimmel’s questions about chimpanzee behavior.
Storyteller and teacher
Goodall was an incredible storyteller and saw it as the most successful way to help people understand the true nature of animals. With compelling imagery, she shared extraordinary stories about the intelligence of animals, from apes and dolphins to rats and birds, and, of course, the octopus. She inspired me to become a wildlife correspondent for National Geographic so that I could share the stories and plights of endangered animals around the world.
Goodall inspired and advised world leaders, celebrities, scientists and conservationists. She also touched the lives of millions of children.
Through the Jane Goodall Institute, which works to engage people around the world in conservation, she launched Roots & Shoots, a global youth program that operates in more than 60 countries. The program teaches children about connections between people, animals and the environment, and ways to engage locally to help all three.
Along with Goodall’s warmth, friendship and wonderful stories, I treasure this comment from her: “The greatest danger to our future is our apathy. Each one of us must take responsibility for our own lives, and above all, show respect and love for living things around us, especially each other.”
It’s a radical notion from a one-of-a-kind scientist.
This article has been updated to add the date of Goodall’s death.
Mireya Mayor, Director of Exploration and Science Communication, Florida International University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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That comment by Jane that was treasured by Mireya is so important. “The greatest danger to our future is our apathy. Each one of us must take responsibility for our own lives, and above all, show respect and love for living things around us, especially each other.”
In memory of Jane Goodall
May she be remembered for a very long time!
There is much information on the web and elsewhere so all I want to do is to share a video of Jane.
For persons who would want to know more about Jane’s life there is an excellent piece on Wikipedia. Here it is!
Identifying tracks.
Living in a rural area has a bonus!
Every morning I go outside to feed the wild deer, as I have said before. However this morning, the 1st October, the rain had softened the ground and I saw animal footprints close to where I put out the COB for the deer.
Here’s a photograph albeit it is almost impossible to distinguish.
Anyway, to the post.
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How to identify animal tracks, burrows and other signs of wildlife in your neighborhood
Steven Sullivan, Miami University
Your neighborhood is home to all sorts of amazing animals, from racoons, squirrels and skunks to birds, bugs and snails. Even if you don’t see them, most of these creatures are leaving evidence of their activities all around you.
Paw prints in different shapes and sizes are clues to the visitors who pass through. The shapes of tunnels and mounds in your yard carry the mark of their builders.
Even the stuff animals leave behind, whether poop or skeletons, tells you something about the wilder side of the neighborhood.
I’m a zoologist and director of the Hefner Museum of Natural History at Miami University of Ohio, where we work with all kinds of wildlife specimens. With a little practice, you’ll soon notice a lot more evidence of your neighborhood friends when you step outside.
What makes those animal tracks?
You can learn a lot from a nice, crisp paw print.
The dog family, including coyotes and foxes, can be differentiated from the cat family by the shape of their palm pads — triangular for dogs, two lobes at the peak for cats.
Both opossums and raccoons leave prints that look like those of a tiny human, but the opossum thumb is held at nearly right angles to the rest of the fingers.
Not all prints are so clear, however.
Invasive rats and native squirrels have prints that often look pretty similar to each other. Water erosion of a skunk print left in mud might connect the toe tips to the palm, making it look more like a raccoon. And prints left in winter slush by the smallest dog in the neighborhood can grow through freezing and thawing to proportions that make people wonder whether wolves have returned to their former haunts.
There are good reference books where you can learn more about track analysis, and it can be fun to go down the rabbit hole of collecting and studying prints.
Clues from holes and other animal excavations
Often, it’s easiest to figure out which animal left a paw print by correlating its tracks with other evidence.
If what look like squirrel prints lead to a hole in the ground, then it wasn’t a tree squirrel. Stuff a handful of leaves or newspaper in the hole. If it gets pushed out during the day, the hole is probably inhabited by a ground squirrel, such as a chipmunk. But if the plug is pushed out at night, you probably have a rat.
I once noticed a faint trail in the soil near my porch. Using the hole-stuffing method, I determined that something spent most days under the wooden stairs that people constantly, and often loudly, traversed. When I was pretty sure my newly discovered neighbor was home, I used a mirror and flashlight to investigate the opening without exposing myself to a protective resident. Sure enough, there was a cute little skunk staring back at me. https://www.youtube.com/embed/6fCFy29aHbY?wmode=transparent&start=0 Animals that excavate in search of food or to create shelter leave different types of holes. Gardening Latest.
Skunks, and many other local animals, often leave obvious excavations in lawns.
Lawns are biological deserts where few species can live, but those that can survive there often reach high numbers. Lawn grubs – the milk-white, C-shaped caterpillars of a few beetle species – particularly love the lack of competition found in a carpet of grass. Polka dots of dead thatch are one sign of these grubs, but if you have a biodiverse neighborhood, many animals will consume this high-calorie treat before you ever notice them.
Skunks and raccoons will dig up each grub individually, leaving a small hole that healthy grass can refill quickly. Moles – fist-size insectivores more closely related to bats than rodents – live underground where they virtually swim through soil, leaving slightly raised trails visible in mowed lawns. In spring and fall, moles make volcano-shaped mounds with no visible opening.
Gophers, on the other hand, are herbivorous rodents – they eat plants rather than grubs. They also leave tunnels and mounds, but the tunnels are usually very visible and their mounds are crescent-shaped, often with a visible opening.
Voles, not to be confused with moles, are also herbivorous rodents. They’re mouse-size, with tiny, furry ears and short tails. They may dig small holes, but more obviously they leave thatch-lined runways on the surface.
Even the cicadas singing loudly in the trees in my yard this summer left pinky-size holes in the ground as they emerged 17 years after hatching. The boom-bust cycle of cicadas has brought more moles, squirrels and birds to my neighborhood this year to munch on the nutrient-rich insects.
The evidence left behind, including poop
Where there is food, there is poop. Though the subject of feces is taboo among polite human society, it’s a fundamental, though understudied, communication method for many mammals.
Think about a dog marking its territory. Sometimes it seems they can’t go for more than a few feet before reading the pee-mail left on every prominent post. Urine, feces and gland oil act like social media posts, conveying each individual’s identity, health, height and reproductive status, the availability and quality of prey, and the extent of their territory. https://www.youtube.com/embed/-3JU_y-uI5E?wmode=transparent&start=0 Different types of animal feces from around the world.
Though most of the smell communication is lost on humans, the contents of the feces can tell a lot about the inhabitants of a neighborhood.
Domestic dog poop is usually just a big, homogeneous lump because they eat processed food, but wild canid feces is often full of bones and fur. Coyote feces is usually lumpy and larger than fox feces, which has pointy ends. Once it has weathered a bit, it’s easy to break open to find identifiable remains such as vole, rat and rabbit. Use care when inspecting feces, since it may transmit parasites.
Depending on time of year, the contents and shape of feces can vary considerably. Raccoon feces lacks the pointy ends and is often filled with seeds, but wild canids may eat lots of seeds, too. Deer feces is usually small, fibrous pellets, but those pellets may form clumps.
If you are lucky, you might find a pellet of bone and fur regurgitated by an owl near the base of a tree. Carefully break it apart and there’s a good chance you’ll find the skull of a vole or rat.
Look closely at living and dead trees to find evidence of even smaller neighbors. A fine, uniform, granular sawdust pushed from tiny holes in bark can indicate beetle larvae feces, or “frass.” A large mass of frass at the base of a tree likely indicates carpenter ants.
In contrast to dusty frass, aphids slurp sap so rich in sugar that their feces coats surrounding surfaces in, essentially, maple syrup.
All of these insects attract many species of birds. Woodpeckers are hard to miss as they loudly hammer holes into trees. But don’t blame them for tree decline – they eat the things that are killing the tree.
Look for dead trees
Dead trees are a key feature of wildlife habitat, like a bus stop, and host different occupants throughout the day and over the year.
For example, a tree buzzing with cicadas in my yard this summer is quite healthy but has one big, dead branch that has been an important way station for wildlife over the past 20 years.
A decayed cavity at the base of the branch is polished smooth with the activity of generations of squirrels, while the tip is a favorite perch of all the neighborhood birds. By night, it is visited by a great horned owl, who, I somewhat sadly note, may be scanning for my porch skunk.
Decomposers: The neighborhood cleaning crew
This brings us to the decomposers. Animal carcasses are evidence of the neighborhood’s wild population, too, but they typically don’t last long. Insects make quick work of dead animals, often consuming the soft parts of a carcass before it is even noticed by humans.
Long after most activity around the carcass has ceased, exoskeletons left behind by the decomposers will remain in the soil. Dermestids, including the carpet beetles often found in our homes, leave fuzzy larval exoskeletons. Fly pupae look like brown pills. And sometimes adult carrion beetles keep a home underneath partially buried bones for years.
Earthworms, feasting on nutrient-soaked soil, may leave a squirt of mud like a string of hot glue, while ants will leave piles of uniformly sorted sand. Snails will visit carcasses periodically to eat the bones, leaving trails that sparkle like thin, impossibly long ribbons in the morning sun.
From snails to skunks, squirrels to cicadas, most of our neighbors are quiet and seldom interact with us, but they play important roles in the world.
As we get to know them better, through their digging, eating and decomposing, and sometimes by watching them in action, we can better understand the animals that make our own lives possible and, maybe, understand ourselves a little better, too.
Steven Sullivan, Director of the Hefner Museum of Natural History, Miami University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Another super article from The Conversation.
Steven Sullivan in that last paragraph poses an interesting question “….. and sometimes by watching them in action, we can better understand the animals that make our own lives possible and, maybe, understand ourselves a little better, too.“
I wish, I wish, I wish!
Yet more about Mindfulness
I am returning to this subject.
Simply because it is so important to us humans. For the world we live in has changed, and changed drastically. Now we are ‘wired up’ and that means less time to do nothing.
In 2010 I presented a book review Mindfulness by Ellen Janger.
Now I want to share an article presented by The Conversation.
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Mindfulness won’t burn calories, but it might help you stick with your health goals
Masha Remskar, Arizona State University
Most people know roughly what kind of lifestyle they should be living to stay healthy.
Think regular exercise, a balanced diet and sufficient sleep. Yet, despite all the hacks, trackers and motivational quotes, many of us still struggle to stick with our health goals.
Meanwhile, people worldwide are experiencing more lifestyle-associated chronic disease than ever before.
But what if the missing piece in your health journey wasn’t more discipline – but more stillness?
Research shows that mindfulness meditation can help facilitate this pursuit of health goals through stillness, and that getting started is easier than you might think – no Buddhist monk robes or silent retreats required.
Given how ubiquitous and accessible mindfulness resources are these days, I have been surprised to see mindfulness discussed and studied only as a mental health tool, stopping short of exploring its usefulness for a whole range of lifestyle choices.
I am a psychologist and behavioral scientist researching ways to help people live healthier lives, especially by moving more and regulating stress more efficiently.
My team’s work and that of other researchers suggests that mindfulness could play a pivotal role in paving the way for a healthier society, one mindful breath at a time.
Mindfulness unpacked
Mindfulness has become a buzzword of late, with initiatives now present in schools, boardrooms and even among first responders. But what is it, really?
Mindfulness refers to the practice or instance of paying careful attention to one’s present-moment experience – such as their thoughts, breath, bodily sensations and the environment – and doing so nonjudgmentally. Its origins are in Buddhist traditions, where it plays a crucial role in connecting communities and promoting selflessness.
Over the past 50 years, however, mindfulness-based practice has been Westernized into structured therapeutic programs and stress-management tools, which have been widely studied for their benefits to mental and physical health.
Research has shown that mindfulness offers wide-ranging benefits to the mind, the body and productivity.
Mindfulness-based programs, both in person and digitally delivered, can effectively treat depression and anxiety, protect from burnout, improve sleep and reduce pain.
The impacts extend beyond subjective experience too. Studies find that experienced meditators – that is, people who have been meditating for at least one year – have lower markers of inflammation, which means that their bodies are better able to fight off infections and regulate stress. They also showed improved cognitive abilities and even altered brain structure.
But I find the potential for mindfulness to support a healthy lifestyle most exciting of all.
How can mindfulness help you build healthy habits?
My team’s research suggests that mindfulness equips people with the psychological skills required to successfully change behavior. Knowing what to do to achieve healthy habits is rarely what stands in people’s way. But knowing how to stay motivated and keep showing up in the face of everyday obstacles such as lack of time, illness or competing priorities is the most common reason people fall off the wagon – and therefore need the most support. This is where mindfulness comes in.
Multiple studies have found that people who meditate regularly for at least two months become more inherently motivated to look after their health, which is a hallmark of those who adhere to a balanced diet and exercise regularly.
A 2024 study with over 1,200 participants that I led found more positive attitudes toward healthy habits and stronger intentions to put them into practice in meditators who practiced mindfulness for 10 minutes daily alongside a mobile app, compared with nonmeditators. This may happen because mindfulness encourages self-reflection and helps people feel more in tune with their bodies, making it easier to remember why being healthier is important to us.
Another key way mindfulness helps keep momentum with healthy habits is by restructuring one’s response to pain, discomfort and failure. This is not to say that meditators feel no pain, nor that pain during exercise is encouraged – it is not!
Mild discomfort, however, is a very common experience of novice exercisers. For example, you may feel out of breath or muscle fatigue when initially taking up a new activity, which is when people are most likely to give up. Mindfulness teaches you to notice these sensations but see them as transient and with minimal judgment, making them less disruptive to habit-building.
Putting mindfulness into practice
A classic mindfulness exercise includes observing the breath and counting inhales up to 10 at a time. This is surprisingly difficult to do without getting distracted, and a core part of the exercise is noticing the distraction and returning to the counting. In other words, mindfulness involves the practice of failure in small, inconsequential ways, making real-world perceived failure – such as a missed exercise session or a one-off indulgent meal – feel more manageable. This strengthens your ability to stay consistent in pursuit of health goals.
Finally, paying mindful attention to our bodies and the environment makes us more observant, resulting in a more varied and enjoyable exercising or eating experience. Participants in another study we conducted reported noticing the seasons changing, a greater connection to their surroundings and being better able to detect their own progress when exercising mindfully. This made them more likely to keep going in their habits.
Luckily, there are plenty of tools available to get started with mindfulness practice these days, many of them free. Mobile applications, such as Headspace or Calm, are popular and effective starting points, providing audio-guided sessions to follow along. Some are as short as five minutes. Research suggests that doing a mindfulness session first thing in the morning is the easiest to maintain, and after a month or so you may start to see the skills from your meditative practice reverberating beyond the sessions themselves.
Based on our research on mindfulness and exercise, I collaborated with the nonprofit Medito Foundation to create the first mindfulness program dedicated to moving more. When we tested the program in a research study, participants who meditated alongside these sessions for one month reported doing much more exercise than before the study and having stronger intentions to keep moving compared with participants who did not meditate. Increasingly, the mobile applications mentioned above are offering mindful movement meditations too.
If the idea of a seated practice does not sound appealing, you can instead choose an activity to dedicate your full attention to. This can be your next walk outdoors, where you notice as much about your experience and surroundings as possible. Feeling your feet on the ground and the sensations on your skin are a great place to start.
For people with even less time available, short bursts of mindfulness can be incorporated into even the busiest of routines. Try taking a few mindful, nondistracted breaths while your coffee is brewing, during a restroom break or while riding the elevator. It may just be the grounding moment you need to feel and perform better for the rest of the day.
Masha Remskar, Psychologist and Postdoctoral Researcher in Behavioral Science, Arizona State University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Moments of rest are essential, grounding moments as written in the article. The article is great and has great motivation to abide by the recommendations.
Please read carefully the article and change your ways.
Looking for No Man’s Land
Looking closely at our planet!
An amazing radio programme from the BBC.
Here is the link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002jscf/episodes/player
More information: http://www.parkrangerdoug.com/cave-formations
The series, broadcast on BBC Radio 4, is whether there is any spot, or place, that has not been subject to man’s effects. The series consist of five fifteen-minute programmes that were broadcast last Monday to Friday.
They are still available on BBC Sounds and if you can please listen to them.
Technology, and Scamming
The title says it all!
We live in a world that is rapidly becoming more and more digital. But we also live in a world where the criminals are becoming better at carrying out their crimes. So a recent article in The Conversation seemed appropriate to republish.
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Scams and frauds: Here are the tactics criminals use on you in the age of AI and cryptocurrencies
Rahul Telang, Carnegie Mellon University
Scams are nothing new – fraud has existed as long as human greed. What changes are the tools.
Scammers thrive on exploiting vulnerable, uninformed users, and they adapt to whatever technologies or trends dominate the moment. In 2025, that means AI, cryptocurrencies and stolen personal data are their weapons of choice.
And, as always, the duty, fear and hope of their targets provide openings. Today, duty often means following instructions from bosses or co-workers, who scammers can impersonate. Fear is that a loved one, who scammers also can impersonate, is in danger. And hope is often for an investment scheme or job opportunity to pay off.
AI-powered scams and deepfakes
Artificial intelligence is no longer niche – it’s cheap, accessible and effective. While businesses use AI for advertising and customer support, scammers exploit the same tools to mimic reality, with disturbing precision.
Deepfake scams use high-tech tools and old-fashioned emotional manipulation.
Criminals are using AI-generated audio or video to impersonate CEOs, managers or even family members in distress. Employees have been tricked into transferring money or leaking sensitive data. Over 105,000 such deepfake attacks were recorded in the U.S. in 2024, costing more than US$200 million in the first quarter of 2025 alone. Victims often cannot distinguish synthetic voices or faces from real ones.
Fraudsters are also using emotional manipulation. The scammers make phone calls or send convincing AI-written texts posing as relatives or friends in distress. Elderly victims in particular fall prey when they believe a grandchild or other family member is in urgent trouble. The Federal Trade Commission has outlined how scammers use fake emergencies to pose as relatives.
Cryptocurrency scams
Crypto remains the Wild West of finance — fast, unregulated and ripe for exploitation.
Pump-and-dump scammers artificially inflate the price of a cryptocurrency through hype on social media to lure investors with promises of huge returns – the pump – and then sell off their holdings – the dump – leaving victims with worthless tokens.
Pig butchering is a hybrid of romance scams and crypto fraud. Scammers build trust over weeks or months before persuading victims to invest in fake crypto platforms. Once the scammers have extracted enough money from the victim, they vanish.
Pig-butchering scams lure people into fake online relationships, often with devastating consequences.
Scammers also use cryptocurrencies as a means of extracting money from people in impersonation scams and other forms of fraud. For example, scammers direct victims to bitcoin ATMs to deposit large sums of cash and convert it to the untraceable cryptocurrency as payment for fictitious fines.
Phishing, smishing, tech support and jobs
Old scams don’t die; they evolve.
Phishing and smishing have been around for years. Victims are tricked into clicking links in emails or text messages, leading to malware downloads, credential theft or ransomware attacks. AI has made these lures eerily realistic, mimicking corporate tone, grammar and even video content.
Tech support scams often start with pop-ups on computer screens that warn of viruses or identity theft, urging users to call a number. Sometimes they begin with a direct cold call to the victim. Once the victim is on a call with the fake tech support, the scammers convince victims to grant remote access to their supposedly compromised computers. Once inside, scammers install malware, steal data, demand payment or all three.
Fake websites and listings are another current type of scam. Fraudulent sites impersonating universities or ticket sellers trick victims into paying for fake admissions, concerts or goods.
One example is when a website for “Southeastern Michigan University” came online and started offering details about admission. There is no such university. Eastern Michigan University filed a complaint that Southeastern Michigan University was copying its website and defrauding unsuspecting victims.
The rise of remote and gig work has opened new fraud avenues.
Victims are offered fake jobs with promises of high pay and flexible hours. In reality, scammers extract “placement fees” or harvest sensitive personal data such as Social Security numbers and bank details, which are later used for identity theft.
How you can protect yourself
Technology has changed, but the basic principles remain the same: Never click on suspicious links or download attachments from unknown senders, and enter personal information only if you are sure that the website is legitimate. Avoid using third-party apps or links. Legitimate businesses have apps or real websites of their own.
Enable two-factor authentication wherever possible. It provides security against stolen passwords. Keep software updated to patch security holes. Most software allows for automatic update or warns about applying a patch.
Remember that a legitimate business will never ask for personal information or a money transfer. Such requests are a red flag.
Relationships are a trickier matter. The state of California provides details on how people can avoid being victims of pig butchering.
Technology has supercharged age-old fraud. AI makes deception virtually indistinguishable from reality, crypto enables anonymous theft, and the remote-work era expands opportunities to trick people. The constant: Scammers prey on trust, urgency and ignorance. Awareness and skepticism remain your best defense.
Rahul Telang, Professor of Information Systems, Carnegie Mellon University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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That last paragraph really spells out how it is in the modern world. I repeat that last sentence: “Awareness and skepticism remain your best defense.“
Picture Parade Four Hundred and Eighty-Seven
A return to Unsplash. (And this time not dogs!)
Oregon Landscapes
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These are mainly mountain views but endorse the beauty of the State of Oregon.
Life on other planets
A fascinating article from The Conversation.
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Earth-size stars and alien oceans – an astronomer explains the case for life around white dwarfs
Juliette Becker, University of Wisconsin-Madison
The Sun will someday die. This will happen when it runs out of hydrogen fuel in its core and can no longer produce energy through nuclear fusion as it does now. The death of the Sun is often thought of as the end of the solar system. But in reality, it may be the beginning of a new phase of life for all the objects living in the solar system.
When stars like the Sun die, they go through a phase of rapid expansion called the Red Giant phase: The radius of the star gets bigger, and its color gets redder. Once the gravity on the star’s surface is no longer strong enough for it to hold on to its outer layers, a large fraction – up to about half – of its mass escapes into space, leaving behind a remnant called a white dwarf.
I am a professor of astronomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 2020, my colleagues and I discovered the first intact planet orbiting around a white dwarf. Since then, I’ve been fascinated by the prospect of life on planets around these, tiny, dense white dwarfs.
Researchers search for signs of life in the universe by waiting until a planet passes between a star and their telescope’s line of sight. With light from the star illuminating the planet from behind, they can use some simple physics principles to determine the types of molecules present in the planet’s atmosphere.
In 2020, researchers realized they could use this technique for planets orbiting white dwarfs. If such a planet had molecules created by living organisms in its atmosphere, the James Webb Space Telescope would probably be able to spot them when the planet passed in front of its star.
In June 2025, I published a paper answering a question that first started bothering me in 2021: Could an ocean – likely needed to sustain life – even survive on a planet orbiting close to a dead star?
A universe full of white dwarfs
A white dwarf has about half the mass of the Sun, but that mass is compressed into a volume roughly the size of Earth, with its electrons pressed as close together as the laws of physics will allow. The Sun has a radius 109 times the size of Earth’s – this size difference means that an Earth-like planet orbiting a white dwarf could be about the same size as the star itself.
White dwarfs are extremely common: An estimated 10 billion of them exist in our galaxy. And since every low-mass star is destined to eventually become a white dwarf, countless more have yet to form. If it turns out that life can exist on planets orbiting white dwarfs, these stellar remnants could become promising and plentiful targets in the search for life beyond Earth.
But can life even exist on a planet orbiting a white dwarf? Astronomers have known since 2011 that the habitable zone is extremely close to the white dwarf. This zone is the location in a planetary system where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface. It can’t be too close to the star that the water would boil, nor so far away that it would freeze.
The habitable zone around a white dwarf would be 10 to 100 times closer to the white dwarf than our own habitable zone is to our Sun, since white dwarfs are so much fainter.
The challenge of tidal heating
Being so close to the surface of the white dwarf would bring new challenges to emerging life that more distant planets, like Earth, do not face. One of these is tidal heating.
Tidal forces – the differences in gravitational forces that objects in space exert on different parts of a nearby second object – deform a planet, and the friction causes the material being deformed to heat up. An example of this can be seen on Jupiter’s moon Io.
The forces of gravity exerted by Jupiter’s other moons tug on Io’s orbit, deforming its interior and heating it up, resulting in hundreds of volcanoes erupting constantly across its surface. As a result, no surface water can exist on Io because its surface is too hot.
In contrast, the adjacent moon Europa is also subject to tidal heating, but to a lesser degree, since it’s farther from Jupiter. The heat generated from tidal forces has caused Europa’s ice shell to partially melt, resulting in a subsurface ocean.
Planets in the habitable zone of a white dwarf would have orbits close enough to the star to experience tidal heating, similar to how Io and Europa are heated from their proximity to Jupiter.
This proximity itself can pose a challenge to habitability. If a system has more than one planet, tidal forces from nearby planets could cause the planet’s atmosphere to trap heat until it becomes hotter and hotter, making the planet too hot to have liquid water.
Enduring the red giant phase
Even if there is only one planet in the system, it may not retain its water.
In the process of becoming a white dwarf, a star will expand to 10 to 100 times its original radius during the red giant phase. During that time, anything within that expanded radius will be engulfed and destroyed. In our own solar system, Mercury, Venus and Earth will be destroyed when the Sun eventually becomes a red giant before transitioning into a white dwarf.
For a planet to survive this process, it would have to start out much farther from the star — perhaps at the distance of Jupiter or even beyond.
If a planet starts out that far away, it would need to migrate inward after the white dwarf has formed in order to become habitable. Computer simulations show that this kind of migration is possible, but the process could cause extreme tidal heating that may boil off surface water – similar to how tidal heating causes Io’s volcanism. If the migration generates enough heat, then the planet could lose all its surface water by the time it finally reaches a habitable orbit.
However, if the migration occurs late enough in the white dwarf’s lifetime – after it has cooled and is no longer a hot, bright, newly formed white dwarf – then surface water may not evaporate away.
Under the right conditions, planets orbiting white dwarfs could sustain liquid water and potentially support life.
Search for life on planets orbiting white dwarfs
Astronomers haven’t yet found any Earth-like, habitable exoplanets around white dwarfs. But these planets are difficult to detect.
Traditional detection methods like the transit technique are less effective because white dwarfs are much smaller than typical planet-hosting stars. In the transit technique, astronomers watch for the dips in light that occur when a planet passes in front of its host star from our line of sight. Because white dwarfs are so small, you would have to be very lucky to see a planet passing in front of one.
The transit technique for detecting exoplanets requires watching for the dip in brightness when a planet passes in front of its host star.
Nevertheless, researchers are exploring new strategies to detect and characterize these elusive worlds using advanced telescopes such as the Webb telescope.
If habitable planets are found to exist around white dwarfs, it would significantly broaden the range of environments where life might persist, demonstrating that planetary systems may remain viable hosts for life even long after the death of their host star.
Juliette Becker, Assistant Professor of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin-Madison
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
ooOOoo
I take my hats off to the researchers that are looking for life elsewhere.
Learning from Dogs 
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