Books The Wheel of Time Reading The Wheel of Time: Rand and Lan Defeat Their Enemies, But Lose to a Roof in Winter’s Heart (Part 21) We’re getting close to the end of Winter’s Heart… By Sylas K Barrett | Published on June 11, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share This week in Reading The Wheel of Time, Rand decides to give up his hunt for the renegade Asha’man and move on, hopefully with Cadsuane at his side. And of course, that is exactly when he finally gets a lead on where they are—and this time, being ta’veren may have nothing to do with it. Rand waits in the common room of an inn, hoping to catch sight of a patron whose description somewhat matches Torval’s. Listening to the merchants, he hears gossip about the world. There is mention of a body found blackened and swollen, allegedly burned by the Counsel, and one merchant claims that the Stone of Tear is under siege. Rand is confident that Merana and Rafela can deal with the Tairens. It has been a week since Rand killed Rochaid and Kisman. In Rand’s head, Lews Therin moans that they should leave, or at least ride out beyond the boundary to feel the Source again. Nynaeve and Alivia have been doing so from time to time, accompanied by Min, but Rand has never gone with them. He tells himself he can and must endure the absence of the Source a little longer, so that he can kill the men who tried to kill him. That is not the reason! Lews Therin shouted, forcing past Rand’s efforts to shut him up. You are afraid! If the sickness takes you while you are trying to use the access ter’angreal, it could kill you, or worse! It could kill us all! he moaned. Rand refuses to admit that he is afraid, and repeats to himself that he is here to kill the men who tried to kill him. If the sickness passes by the time he leaves, that would be nice. The man Rand is waiting for does not turn out to be Torval, and he makes his way out into the street. He doesn’t try any other inns, only pausing when he encounters a short woman coming down the street towards him and realizes that it’s Verin. Verin mentions that Cadsuane is out riding with Nynaeve and the others, then tells Rand that there is news: The Seanchan have crossed the border into Illian, and are building camps and fortifications along the coast and inland. Rand feels sick, thinking of how many men died for nothing. He asks Verin if she thinks Cadsuane would listen to him if he came to her. Verin remarks that Cadsuane doesn’t suffer fools, but if Rand can show her that he is not a fool, Cadsuane will listen. Rand asks Verin to relay a message asking Cadsuane to be his advisor, agreeing to her terms and apologizing for his behavior in Cairhien. She gives him instructions to come to the Barsalla palace that evening, and remarks that Rand could hardly do better for an advisor. As she leaves, Lews Therin murmurs that Verin frightens him, and Rand agrees. Back in the Counsel’s Head, Rand tells Lan of his intention to leave the next day, as he can’t keep waiting forever to find them; there is too much going on in the rest of the world that he doesn’t know about because he is here instead. Lan points out that you can never know everything. When questioned, Lan admits that Nynaeve and Alivia have asked Cadsuane to teach them, and that Min hoped they could catch Cadsuane’s interest themselves on Rand’s behalf. Lan believes that Cadsuane treats Nynaeve like a novice or an Accepted rather than a full sister, and hopes that Rand will understand what a sacrifice Nynaeve has made for him. Rand replies that Cadsuane treats everyone as if they were novices. When Min, Alivia, and Nynaeve join them, Rand tells them he knows about Cadsuane. He thanks Nynaeve for whatever she has gone through on his behalf, promising she won’t have to anymore. They discuss Cadsuane a little, and Rand is a little disturbed by the women’s feelings on the matter. Rand exchanged glances with Lan, who shrugged slightly and took another drink. Rand exhaled slowly. Nynaeve had differences with Cadsuane she could work out with time, Min saw a strict aunt in the woman, and Alivia a strict teacher. The first would cause sparks to fly until it was worked out, if he knew Nynaeve, and the last two he did not want. But he was stuck with them. He took another swallow of wine himself. Nynaeve tells Rand that Cadsuane explained to her what her ter’angreal can do. Her belt is actually a well that she can fill with saidar to be used whenever she wishes, even inside Far Madding. Rand is alarmed to learn that Cadsuane’s hair charms are ter’angreal, too, and that probably one of them is a well like Nynaeve’s. He doesn’t like knowing that Cadsuane is able to channel here. The innkeeper brings Min a note that was left for her “husband,” and reads it before Rand can. She tries to destroy the letter before Rand can read it, but he intercepts it. I know who you are, and I wish you well, but I also wish you gone from Far Madding. The Dragon Reborn leaves death and destruction where he steps. I now know why you are here, too. You killed Rochaid, and Kisman also is dead. Torval and Gedwyn have taken the top floor above a bootmaker named Zeram on Blue Carp Street, just above the Illian Gate. Kill them and go, and leave Far Madding in peace. Later, in their room, Min tries to point out that the note is obviously a trap, but Rand only argues that a trap isn’t really a trap if you know that it is a trap. Still, he promises not to go near it unless he can figure out how to spring the trap without getting caught. Min demands why Nynaeve isn’t stopping this, and Nynaeve responds that sometimes you have to trust your Warder’s judgment. When the others have left, Min tells Alivia that men don’t always think with their brains, and that she is going to go find Cadsuane. Alivia agrees to go with her. In Carp street, Rand catches sight of his quarry entering the shop, despite their attempts to keep their face covered. Rand asks Nynaeve to use the Power to lift them up to the rooftop, and Nynaeve is reluctant, complaining that she thought she would be going with them. Then she realizes that this is not going to be a great adventure, but rather an execution, and she grows thoughtful and serious. She uses saidar to lift first Rand, then Lan up onto the tiled rooftop. Once Nynaeve has gone, they slip inside via a trapdoor and down into the building. They pass through the attic and down into the top floor where Rand is shocked to find Torval and Gedwyn lying dead, their faces horribly swollen and blackened, and Rand realizes instantly that Fain is the one who sent the letter. They hurry into the next room and are immediately drawn into combat with Fain and Toram Riatin. Rand’s wounds suddenly burn with fire and cold, and it takes all his strength to concentrate on the fight. Fain flees out into the stairway, and Rand follows. Arguing with himself, Fain uses some power to conjure up an image of Torval and Gedwyn to confuse Rand, but Rand attacks with his sword, cutting Fain’s face and making the illusion disappear. Fain flees, and Lan appears in time to stop Rand from chasing him. He warns Rand that the street is filling up with Guards. They leave the way they came, heading up to the roof with the intent of crossing from rooftop to rooftop until they reach one low enough to jump to the street from. But when they reach the tiled roof Lan slips, and as Rand catches his hand they are both dragged towards, and over, the edge. Rand is left clinging to the roof with one hand and Lan dangling from the other. “Let go,” Lan said quietly. He looked up at Rand, his eyes cold and hard, no expression on his face. “Let go.”“When the sun turns green,” Rand told him. If he could just pull the other man up a little, enough to catch the eave…Whatever his fingers had caught broke with a sharp snap, and the alley rushed up to meet them. A trap isn’t really a trap if you know it’s a trap? Rand. Buddy. Did you learn nothing from Sammael? He broke his promise to Min, as well: He didn’t even try to see what kind of trap might be waiting for him and just went right in. If Rand truly believed that the letter was a trap, then he must have assumed that it was sent by Torval, Gedwyn and Kisman themselves, hoping to lure him within their reach. After all, they have all come to Far Madding to kill him, and although the letter states that Kisman is dead, Rand might well have assumed this was a ruse and part of the trap. He only connects the bloated corpse he heard the merchants talking about with Kisman once he sees that Fain has murdered the other two, and who else would be setting a trap for him, if not the men who chased him here to kill him? Well, there’s other guy who chased him here to kill him. And the other, other guy, who Rand doesn’t know about yet. The bloated corpse of Kisman also should have tipped me off that Fain was in town. For that matter, the way Kisman’s hand and arm blackened after he was slashed should have. But since Isam-Luc has also been using a poison dagger, and since he’s also in Far Madding and feeling possessive over killing Rand, I think my confusion was somewhat understandable. When he was stabbed, Kisman thought that he might be able to be Healed if he could get out of Far Madding fast enough, which could have been true if the assassin had been Luc-Isam. But not with Mordeth-Fain’s attack. The Shadar Logoth dagger deals a death far beyond any channeler’s ability to Heal; Flinn was only able to stop the wound from killing Rand because the wound from Ishamael was already there, and because he was somehow able to seal the wound off from the rest of Rand. Stabilization, but not healing. There is something very interesting about the entrance of Luc-Isam into the narrative, giving us yet another character who is two people in one body. Having him and Fain and Rand all in one place really draws attention to their similarities. I think I’d like to explore this theme in a separate essay, so stand by for that in the coming weeks. For now, I’ll just note that it feels significant that both Fain and Luc are here, now, as Rand grapples with the question of revenge and whether or not it truly matters to him. Rand has been telling himself that his focus on killing the renegade Asha’man was only for practical reasons, that he wasn’t motivated by emotion or a desire for revenge, but that clearly wasn’t true. Rand takes the Asha’man’s failings as seriously as he takes his own, because he is treating them the same way that he treats himself. He demands that they become weapons, wants only for them to know how to kill and how to be as cold and hard as he believes he himself must be. I can imagine that, in addition to all the dangers a renegade Asha’man poses to Rand and to the world, Rand also takes their failure to live up to those standards very personally. How dare they fail in a way that he himself cannot afford to?  I imagine, too, that Rand’s fear that he cannot trust any of the Asha’man could easily turn to anger when it’s proven true. I was also wondering if he wanted revenge because of the danger Min was put in during the attack on the Sun Palace. However, that can’t have been very much on his mind or it would have been weighed against Fain’s actions. Instead, Rand is reminded what things are truly personal. When compared with Fain’s attacks on the Two Rivers and the wound he dealt Rand, these Asha’man are just other darkfriends, and Rand is able to actually see them as the impersonal problems he has been claiming to himself they are. It is Lews Therin who sees the other truth Rand is denying to himself—that Rand hopes to stay in Far Madding long enough for his sickness to abate. He told himself he needed to kill the Asha’man so that they won’t interfere with his attempts to cleanse saidin, but they are no more a threat than the other darkfriends and Forsaken who might (as we will see next week) try to stop him, and they are probably less of a threat than Rand making a mistake as he performs this dangerous, entirely theoretical form of channeling.  I guess Nynaeve doesn’t know about Far Madding’s special ter’angreal that knows when and where people channel nearby, so I suppose she can’t be blamed for not realizing there would be consequences for using the saidar from her well in a place where channeling shouldn’t be possible. It’s a bit ironic, though, given how much she has just learned about her own ter’angreal. The belt is a well where she can store saidar, which is very practical and useful. The bracelet covers the wearer in armor—power-wrought armor, presumably. But there is also the ring that can detect someone channeling saidar or saidin, just as the large ovals will have detected her channeling the moment she picked Rand up to put him on that roof. And oh boy, the foreshadowing of Rand slipping a little as he was set down. The second I read that, I knew someone was going to fall. I wasn’t sure if it would be one of our heroes or one of the bad guys, but I knew it was going to be someone. And oh, Rand loves Lan so much. Lan has always been there for him, even in the beginning when Rand was still learning to trust him and Moiraine. He taught Rand to use a sword, a skill which Rand values as much as he values being able to channel, I think. Lan also gave him advice on how to speak to and carry himself before the Amyrlin Seat, and advice on how to manage his relationships and what it means to be a man like they are. Granted, I personally don’t think the latter piece of advice was as helpful or good for Rand as the others, but Rand values it very much, and he knows that Lan’s intention was to guide and protect him. I think Rand has always felt that Lan is on his side, and even now, he seems to more or less implicitly trust Lan’s intentions. Even after Lan was initially on his guard around Rand, they seem to have settled back into a comfortable understanding together. Rand seems to trust Lan’s intentions as well as anyone’s, perhaps almost as much as he trusts Min, Elayne or Aviendha. And for all that he has tried to make himself hard, the instincts towards that coldness aren’t actually there yet. It doesn’t even cross his mind that his death by falling off the roof would spell doom for the world. It doesn’t seem to occur to him at all to weigh those consequences against the much smaller consequences of Lan’s death. Let me go, Lan says, and Rand responds that he will do so when the sun turns green. It’s a really moving moment, especially since Rand has upped his internal narrative about how hard he needs to be. He tells himself he must be as cold as a winter’s heart, but he is letting people in, here and there. The bond with Elayne, Aviendha, and Min allows him to feel their love and care for him, to feel their emotions. I imagine that in many ways that might serve as a tether, of sorts—a reminder of human emotion and feeling. Rand can never truly be alone, now, especially if one or more of them is near to him. All this won’t stop him from trying to harden himself further, of course, as we will see next week. And maybe, too, he sees that ice in Lan and recognizes the two of them as being the same, just as Min recognizes the same coldness in both of their eyes, further strengthening the bond between them. Speaking of bonds, I enjoyed seeing Min’s reaction to Nynaeve calling Lan her Warder. There is a strange interplay here, for those who both love and are bonded to someone. Min’s reaction is defensive over what she has, as she remarks to herself that Lan and Nynaeve aren’t actually bonded to each other—Lan isn’t Nynaeve’s Warder, for all that he is behaving as one, and they don’t share the kind of connection Min has with Rand. Nynaeve, having never bonded anyone before, can’t even know what such an experience is like, so it makes sense that Min would be a little protective over the thing she shares with Rand—a thing that is wonderful and rare and also very new to her. At the same time, she is jealous of what Nynaeve has with Lan that Min does not. Nynaeve and Lan are married, despite Lan’s death wish and despite the fact that he is bonded to someone else. Min is right that she may never be able to marry Rand. She could probably have an Aiel wedding, but I don’t think there are any other nations which would allow Rand to marry more than one of his women. Perhaps an Aiel marriage would content, but it might not feel the same as a marriage by laws and customs from her own culture. Min may also be aware that Nynaeve is likely to receive Lan’s bond some day, to be his Aes Sedai and to have him as her Warder. Min, on the other hand, isn’t an Aes Sedai, and she only has this bond because someone else created it for her. And after all, Rand and Lan only took Nynaeve with them because she is Aes Sedai; Min may ultimately have been more helpful to them both, but she had to do that from a distance and turn to yet another Aes Sedai for help. It’s so funny watching everyone try to attract Cadsuane’s attention, knowing that they are all falling for her trick. Making Rand come to her is such a smart move, and I’m impressed how effortlessly she pivoted once she learned of Min’s viewing. She was clearly interested in Rand before that: He knew well enough that she wasn’t just coming to the Palace every day to hang out and visit other Aes Sedai—yet all it took was a little bit of acting on her part and Alanna’s insistence that Cadsuane doesn’t care about him to shift Rand from practically believing Cadsuane was after him to believing he somehow had to chase her down. Probably the most effective part of Cadsuane’s ruse was making Alanna believe that she wasn’t interested. I don’t know how she managed that, exactly, but having Alanna say so in flat terms seems to have had a strong effect on Rand—so much so that Cadsuane doesn’t seem to make him much more nervous than any other strong Aes Sedai would. Verin, on the other hand, frightens him. This was an interesting revelation, especially because I myself am so suspicious of Verin and her true motives and allegiances. It’s possible that Rand is picking up on Verin’s act, on the subterfuge she uses to disguise what she is really doing and how much she really knows. Even if it was only subconsciously, noticing this would certainly give Rand bad vibes. In addition, Lews Therin is picking up on them as well. I always wonder how many of Lews Therin’s feelings and opinions are his own, and how many are influenced by Rand. There certainly seems to be an interplay and exchange between the two personalities and their feelings. Lews Therin’s guilt over Ilyena’s death appears to influence how Rand feels when women die at his hand or in his service, or even in manners that aren’t his fault but couldn’t prevent. Also, his anger and Rand’s anger often seem to echo and build upon each other. Perhaps he is suspicious of Verin because Rand is; perhaps his suspicion of Aes Sedai is fed by Rand’s own, too. Next week we’ll see that Lews Therin has been affected by Rand’s time at the hands of Galina and the others: He suffers from the same claustrophobic PTSD that Rand does. Perhaps this is because he experiences the same physical realities as Rand—he often refers to Rand as the madman in his head, which implies that he at least believes that he is mostly in control of the body they both inhibit—or perhaps his mind is absorbing Rand’s trauma just as Rand’s is absorbing his. They are the same soul, after all. It makes sense. I like Cadsuane very much, even though her treatment of Rand makes me want to defend him. I’ll be very interested to see how her training Nynaeve goes. It feels very relevant that Nynaeve isn’t more openly angry at having to deal with Cadsuane’s treatment. I think it speaks to real growth on the part of the former Wisdom, ass does her realization about how serious and unromantic the hunt for Torval and Gedwyn actually is. I’d love to see Nynaeve learn just a little bit of Aes Sedai poise and self confidence, and I think Cadsuane is the perfect person to teach it to her. Alivia is quickly becoming a fascinating character. It’s interesting to see how her perspective on things differs from the rest of the group. She may hate the Seanchan for enslaving her, but some of her sensibilities are still bound to be shaped by that culture. The way she noticed that Nynaeve was satisfied when Cadsuane didn’t know everything about one of the ter’angreal and couldn’t understand how Nynaeve could be satisfied with ignorance is one great example. It reminded me a lot of the cultural confusion Aviendha has around Nynaeve’s behavior. Alivia was a slave for many years; her sense if pride and identity will of course be shaped by that. The Seanchan already value competence to a very high degree; for the damane, it is one of the few ways they can distinguish themselves as individuals. Alivia would never understand how Nynaeve might be satisfied or comforted by the fact that Cadsuane isn’t all-knowing; one damane’s ignorance of failure would never elevate another. Indeed, Alivia seems largely ignorant of the complexities of human emotion, which makes sense, given how much humanity has been denied her. She would understand the basics, but psychology would of course elude her—and Nynaeve’s psyche is a bit twisted to follow for most people, to be fair. Next week is the big grand finale, with Cadsuane rescuing Lan and Rand from imprisonment and Rand and Nynaeve tackling the most important action of the Age. And of course, no big endeavor would be complete without a battle, which proved to be very interesting in a number of ways. In the meantime, I will try not to think about the fact that every room in the Counsel’s Head has a bdsm whip in it. Min can act like it’s just a normal strap for “normal” punishment, but I know better. Just… wow.[end-mark] The post Reading The Wheel of Time: Rand and Lan Defeat Their Enemies, But Lose to a Roof in <i>Winter’s Heart</i> (Part 21) appeared first on Reactor.

In the summer of 2020, America was in flames as Antifa and BLM set fire to city after city—Seattle, Minneapolis, Portland, New York, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and so many more. Police stations were torched and dozens of officers were injured as all manner of projectiles, from rocks to Molotov cocktails, were hurled at them. Dozens of people died. The damage was estimated at over $1.2 billion, the highest in history.  In January of 2021, the Biden administration came to town. With 35,000 FBI agents and support personnel at his disposal, and armed with an annual $10.8 billion budget, President Joe Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, had everything he needed to bring the criminals to bear. But there was no outrage from the Justice Department. Instead, with a lonely exception here and there, there was silence. Tens of thousands—perhaps hundreds of thousands—of crimes across the country never have been nor ever will be prosecuted. New York City is paying rioters $13 million in reparations for arresting them. Many other cities across the U.S. are negotiating similar settlements. Perhaps it’s because Biden’s Justice Department had other priorities. It has been obsessed with putting in prison anyone and everyone who participated in the “insurrection” of Jan. 6. My son does not belong to any political group. His only organized involvement during the 2020 elections was with a local church group that met daily to pray the rosary for America. But like tens of millions of other Americans, my son believed the 2020 presidential election had been stolen. So, on Jan. 6 he traveled to Washington and joined with over 100,000 other patriots to show their support for the man they believed had won and deserved to be certified. But then things went wrong, and he was part of it. He entered the Capitol after breaking two windows. Ultimately, he was arrested and charged. He accepted responsibility for these felony offenses as well as other ancillary misconduct. But when he would not plead guilty to the felony charge of obstructing an official proceeding—as unconstitutional a charge as there ever was, and one which is about to be tossed out by the Supreme Court—the Biden Justice Department unloaded.  Without the obstruction charge, the Jan. 6 “insurrection” narrative would be vaporized. The vast majority of protesters would be no guiltier than the hundreds of pro-Hamas protesters who stormed the Capitol last October; or Code Pink protesters who regularly disrupt congressional hearings; or even Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., who tripped a fire alarm (and lied about it) to prevent a House vote. All who committed those infractions were charged with misdemeanors and paid meaningless fines. Were justice equally distributed, my son would be similarly guilty, with an additional punishment for breaking two windows. One could project probation and financial restitution. But this is Joe Biden’s Justice Department, and we knew that would not be enough. Two and a half years after he was charged, and on the eve of his trial, the hammer dropped. Suddenly the Justice Department found he’d assaulted—“barreled into,” they said—a police officer. The footage provided as evidence was so grainy and from such a distance that the judge himself acknowledged it was impossible to determine conclusively if my son had even touched the officer. Later, the judge would state emphatically that he wanted it understood that my son never attacked this or any other officer that day. But this is when the layman learns that “assault” does not necessarily mean attack. It also means “impede” or “interfere,” and since my son went forward towardan officer when pushed from behind by the now-unruly mob—guilty. But my son did interact with the police that day.  The prosecution had access to and had watched other video footage from that day. One clip showed my son bringing water to an officer suffering from tear gas. A second video showed my son successfully commanding a menacing rioter to sheath his baseball bat after he’d ignored similar demands from an endangered police officer. There exists also footage showing my son helping yet another police officer to his feet after being knocked over.  This meant nothing to the “Justice” Department. It wanted a felony conviction, and when it got it, this out-of-control federal agency went for more—far more. As the sentencing date approached, it pinned yet another charge: terrorism enhancement. The Biden administration now wanted the court to equate my son, whose most serious crime ever was a traffic offense, to Osama bin Laden. They argued the applicable sentencing range was 22-27 years in prison. The presiding judge would have none of it and declined to accept the enhancement. He sentenced my son to 45 months instead. But during the sentencing, this judge declared he’d found something everyone had missed. Hidden in a footnote buried in their report, the prosecutors had provided the replacement cost for one broken window—$847. That amount made the offense a misdemeanor, not a felony. The prosecution knew this all along. The Justice Department deliberately had invented a felony charge. Why did they go to such extremes against my son, to include inventing crimes and wanting him declared a terrorist? This was not a pursuit of justice by a prosecution governed by principle. In Biden’s America, justice has no home for those who challenge it. This was a political prosecution using the full force of the federal government because my son, Leo Brent Bozell IV, carries his father’s name, and his father has influence and is supporting President Donald Trump in 2024. Ends justify means, and they will stop at nothing. A criminal investigation into this corrupt Justice Department is long overdue. Those who have corrupted it know that in a new Trump administration, their days are numbered. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Crime and Punishment in Joe Biden’s America appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada have united to probe a significant data breach at genetic testing giant 23andMe. The breach compromised the genetic and ancestral information of 6.9 million users—half of its user database. Initially unnoticed by the company, the breach occurred between April and September 2023, with the company becoming aware only in October after the compromised data surfaced on an unofficial subreddit and a notorious hacking forum. The scope of the stolen data is extensive, including sensitive details such as the users’ names, birth years, familial connections, DNA shared with relatives, ancestry reports, and self-reported locations. Hackers executed the breach by employing a technique known as password spraying, reusing passwords exposed in previous breaches to access around 14,000 customer accounts. Through an opt-in feature designed to connect distant relatives, dubbed DNA Relatives, the attackers could scrape the information of millions from these breached accounts. In a climate where digital privacy concerns are escalating, ICO Commissioner John Edwards emphasized the necessity for trust in organizations that handle sensitive information. Edwards said, “This data breach had an international impact, and we look forward to collaborating with our Canadian counterparts to ensure the personal information of people in the UK is protected.” The investigation aims to ascertain the breadth of the exposed data, assess the potential harm inflicted on the affected users, and evaluate whether 23andMe had sufficient security measures to protect user data and properly notify the appropriate regulatory bodies. 23andMe’s spokesperson, Andy Kill, acknowledged the investigation, stating, “23andMe acknowledges the joint investigation announced by the Privacy Commissioner of Canada and the UK Information Commissioner today. We intend to cooperate with these regulators’ reasonable requests relating to the credential stuffing attack discovered in October 2023.” The significant data breach at 23andMe underscores the profound privacy and security risks associated with entrusting sensitive information to centralized companies, especially when it involves genetic data and biometrics. This incident demonstrates how vulnerable such data is to cyberattacks. The hackers’ ability to infiltrate the system using password spraying techniques and exploit features like DNA Relatives highlights the potential for extensive misuse and exploitation of personal data. When genetic information—an immutable and deeply personal identifier—is compromised, the ramifications can be far-reaching, affecting not only the individuals involved but also their relatives, given the interconnected nature of genetic data. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post UK and Canada Probe DNA Company 23andMe’s Data Breach appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

It Looked Like Biden Froze During Early Juneteenth Celebration at the White House

With their large, dark eyes, elusive nature, and unusual sounding calls, it’s no wonder European nightjars (Caprimulgus europaeus) are steeped in folklore. While they’re probably not as supernatural as they seem, there’s still an air of mystery surrounding them – so what do we actually know about the nightjar?Masters of camouflageWe would argue that they’re quite pretty, but there’s no denying that nightjars are at least a bit odd-looking. Though often compared to kestrels in terms of shape, their tiny beaks and wide mouths look somewhat out of proportion with the rest of them. Nightjars are, however, masters of camouflage. Their feathers are a mottled gray-brown that resembles tree bark, allowing them to blend in with their surroundings during the day. Couple that with the fact that they’re nocturnal and have silent flight, and the chances of spotting one become fairly slim.Seeing is hearingThough they’re called European nightjars, these birds actually spend most of the year in Africa, primarily in the grasslands of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Then, in late April and May, they make their way to Europe, where they settle on open land like heaths, moors, and woodland clearings.Within those regions, the best bet at catching a glimpse of a nightjar first involves using your ears. Get yourself on a heath at dusk, when they start to become active, and you may well hear male nightjars churring. If you think this unique trilling doesn’t sound like it comes from a bird, you’re not the only one; it was once believed the male nightjar’s call was actually the sound of witches hiding in bushes.  IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.Mom of the yearOn their arrival in Europe, nightjars get busy. Between late May and August, they usually hatch two broods, each consisting of two eggs. Forgoing a nest, a female nightjar lays their eggs on the ground. Though that might seem a tad risky, the eggs are bark-colored, which helps to camouflage them.Normally, young nightjars fly the nest around two weeks after they hatch, but something quite unexpected happened to a nightjar chick on the UK TV series Springwatch in June last year. The program had been following a female nightjar and her recently hatched chicks. During some night vision footage captured the previous evening, it appeared as though the mother bird had returned to her nest to feed the chicks, with her head shown to be bobbing up and down.But then she turned around and as presenter Chris Packham described: “She’s eating her own chick alive, and she swallows it whole.”Whilst chowing down on your offspring, known as filial cannibalism, isn’t exactly uncommon in the animal world, this doesn’t seem to be typical behavior for nightjars. As Packham explained to viewers, the program’s team had spoken to experts on the matter and gone through scientific reports, and couldn’t find another example of a female nightjar eating their young.It’s not the only atypical food source that’s been associated with nightjars either. Their genus name, Caprimulgus, means “goatsucker” in Latin. That’s because some used to think that nightjars drank directly from goats’ udders and stopped them from producing milk. In all likelihood, they were actually just snacking on the insects surrounding the goats.Justice for the nightjar, we say.

Finland may be about to become the first country in the world to start dishing out preventative bird flu vaccines to some citizens. It’s being reported that the first shipments of vaccine secured by the European Union (EU) will be heading there, so that those most at risk of exposure to the virus can be offered some protection.Reuters reports that the EU is due to sign a contract with vaccine manufacturer CSL Seqirus to secure 665,000 doses of a preventative avian influenza vaccine on behalf of 15 nations within the EU and European Economic Area (EEA). Similar efforts are underway in the US, Canada, and UK, but with the EU’s deal slated for completion on June 11, 2024, it’s looking likely the first nation to begin its vaccination efforts will be Finland.The Zoonotic Influenza Vaccine Seqirus, which was authorized for use by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in October 2023, was developed against a strain of bird flu in the H5N8 classification.This is slightly different from the bird flu that’s recently been hitting the headlines with outbreaks on dairy farms in several US states – that’s an H5N1 virus. However, since the vaccine’s main target is the hemagglutinin surface protein on the virus – the “H” part, which is common to both H5N8 and H5N1 – it’s hoped that it will still offer some protection against H5N1.So far, three farm workers in the US are known to have contracted the virus after exposure to infected cows, and there’s no evidence of transmission between people. While the risk is generally considered low, those whose occupations bring them into close contact with animals will be the proverbial “canaries in the coal mine” if this virus starts to make more frequent jumps to humans.The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is recommending that anyone spending time around dairy cows or raw milk practice good hand hygiene and wear personal protective equipment, including gloves, respirators, and safety goggles. It’s hoped a vaccine, even against a slightly different avian flu virus, will offer another layer of protection.No EU/EEA countries have yet reported a human case of H5N1. “The risk of zoonotic influenza transmission to the general public in EU/EEA countries is considered to be low,” said the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control in its weekly report for June 1-7.That said, Finland saw a number of outbreaks of highly pathogenic H5N1 in 2023, in wild birds and among mammals on a number of the country’s over 500 fur farms, which resulted in large-scale culling. Animals that are farmed for fur, like mink, are known to be susceptible to avian flu, but outbreaks on fur farms, as well as the ongoing situation with dairy cows in the US, are particularly concerning to epidemiologists as they raise the specter of sustained transmission between mammals, which itself increases the chance of a virus making the jump to humans.“Last year the situation looked very alarming,” said Hanna Nohynek, chief physician with the Infectious Diseases Control and Vaccines Unit at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, according to Euractiv. “This year has been more calm, but we know from the US that the virus is still around, so we want to protect those who are working with animals that might be affected.”To that end, STAT News reports that Finnish authorities are planning to start delivering doses to poultry farmers, fur farm workers, vets, and scientists studying the virus “as soon as the vaccines are in the country.”

Jesus of Nazareth, the principal figure of Christianity, is both an incredibly influential figure and an obscure one. Although he probably existed (proof outside of biblical texts is limited to a few references), historians and theologians know very little about him, especially his early life.There are apocryphal accounts, such as the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, that discuss young Jesus’s miraculous childhood activities, but such tales are not accepted as canon. Now, however, a newly discovered fragment of papyrus offers an even older version of this text.Before discussing the new papyrus fragment, it is worth clearing up some details about the history of the Bible. Although this religious anthology is said to represent the canon of the Christian faith and is God’s indelible word, it has undergone significant changes over the centuries. The 66 books that make up the Bible were written by over 40 authors and across a wide period of time.In addition, there are many other accounts known as Apocrypha, which are stories that are not accepted as Scripture, even though some may have once been considered as such.One such piece of apocryphal literature has been sitting unnoticed for decades at the Hamburg Carl von Ossietzky State and University Library, a fragment of papyrus inventoried as “P.Hamb.Graec. 1011”.According to papyrologists Dr Lajos Berkes from the Institute for Christianity and Antiquity at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU) and Prof Gabriel Nocchi Macedo from the University of Liège, Belgium, the fragment belongs to the earliest known example of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.Until now, the earliest known example of this text belonged to a codex from the 11th century CE, but this new piece was probably written sometime between the 4th and 5th century CE. This is obviously much closer to when the Infancy Gospel of Thomas was originally written – probably in the 2nd century CE.As such, the papyrus provides new insights into the apocryphal stories that tried to depict the early life of Jesus as a supposedly miraculous figure. It also helps us understand how these stories were then transmitted over the centuries.“The fragment is of extraordinary interest for research,” Dr Berkes said in a statement. “On the one hand, because we were able to date it to the 4th to 5th century, making it the earliest known copy. On the other hand, because we were able to gain new insights into the transmission of the text.”“Our findings on this late antique Greek copy of the work confirm the current assessment that the Infancy Gospel according to Thomas was originally written in Greek,” added Dr Nocchi Macedo.The fragment measures around 11 centimeters by 5 centimeters (4 inches by 2 inches) and contains 13 Greek lines, with about 10 letters per line.It lay unnoticed for so long because scholars did not think it was relevant.“It was thought to be part of an everyday document, such as a private letter or a shopping list, because the handwriting seems so clumsy,” Berkes explained.“We first noticed the word Jesus in the text. Then, by comparing it with numerous other digitised papyri, we deciphered it letter by letter and quickly realised that it could not be an everyday document.”By analyzing and comparing the use of words like “crowing” and “branch”, which appear in the text, the researchers were able to match it to the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.“From the comparison with already known manuscripts of this Gospel, we know that our text is the earliest. It follows the original text, which according to current state of research was written in the 2nd century AD.”Specifically, they connected it to a story known as the “vivification of the sparrows” and was probably created as a writing exercise in a monastery – which explains the poor handwriting.  The story itself explains the “second miracle” of Christ where the child Jesus was playing at a river fort where he made sparrows out of clay. When rebuked by his father, Joseph, for doing such a thing on the Sabbath, the child clapped his hands and brought the mud figures to life.The study is published in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik.

Dog whisperers can now join the list of professionals whose jobs are at risk of being stolen by artificial intelligence (AI), as it may have just entered the world of animal communication. Using machine learning software, researchers were able to successfully decode the meaning of dogs’ vocalizations, paving the way for new technologies that may help us better understand our four-legged companions.The authors of the as yet un-peer reviewed study recorded the barks, growls, howls and whimpers of 74 pet dogs as they were exposed to a variety of scenarios designed to trigger certain responses. These included everything from playing with their favorite toys to witnessing the researchers pretending to attack the dogs’ owners.From these recordings, the study authors identified 14 different types of dog vocalization, such as “positive squeals” during gameplay, “sadness/anxiety barking” and “very aggressive barking at a stranger.” An AI model called Wav2Vec2 - which was originally designed for human speech recognition - was then trained on these hound sounds before being put through its paces with a number of challenges. The first of these involved picking out individual dogs based on their vocalizations. Funnily enough, when the AI was pre-trained on human speech before being introduced to pooch talk, it was able to successfully identify specific dogs in 50 percent of trials, while models trained only on canine sounds achieved a 24 percent success rate.This is pretty significant, as it suggests that familiarity with human speech can help an AI to get to grips with the complexities of non-human communication, which means we don’t have to start from scratch when it comes to building a model for talking to animals. "Our results show that the sounds and patterns derived from human speech can serve as a foundation for analyzing and understanding the acoustic patterns of other sounds, such as animal vocalizations," explained study author Rada Mihalcea in a statement.For its next trick, the model was able to distinguish between different dog breeds with varying levels of success. More than half of the dogs in the study were chihuahuas, and the software was able to correctly identify these lap dogs from their bark on around 75 percent of occasions.Finally, the model was challenged to interpret the meaning of the animals’ vocalizations by matching them to one of the 14 types of dog sound listed by the researchers. When pre-trained on human speech, the AI achieved a success rate of 62.2 percent, although certain categories of sound were more easy to decipher than others.For instance, the model was able to correctly identify 90.7 percent of negative grunts but only 45.26 percent of negative squeals. "There is so much we don't yet know about the animals that share this world with us. Advances in AI can be used to revolutionize our understanding of animal communication, and our findings suggest that we may not have to start from scratch," said Mihalcea."By using speech processing models initially trained on human speech, our research opens a new window into how we can leverage what we built so far in speech processing to start understanding the nuances of dog barks," she said.The study study is currently awaiting peer review and is available as a preprint on arXiv.

Given that they’re, y’know, dead, it’s hard to discern much about the life of extinct creatures like the little bush moa, a turkey-sized emu lookalike that strutted around New Zealand until the 13th century. But using the 21st century power to study ancient DNA, a new study has provided more clues about how the bush moa lived than we might get from fossils alone.“With extinct species, we have very little information except what their bones looked like and in some cases what they ate,” said Scott V. Edwards, senior study author and a professor of organismic and evolutionary biology at Harvard University, in a statement. “DNA provides a really exciting window into the natural history of extinct species like the little bush moa.”And so, Edwards and a team of fellow researchers set to producing a genome sequence – the entirety of an organism’s DNA – for the bush moa.They did this using a method similar to that used to produce genome sequences for other extinct animals, like the woolly mammoth. DNA was extracted from a single bush moa toe bone and sequenced in short snippets.The next step was to piece the snippets together into their correct positions. This was made slightly simpler by using the emu genome as a guide; not only is the emu related to the bush moa, but it also has a particularly well-characterized genome.It should be noted that the resulting genetic map is a draft, meaning that there may well be inaccuracies, or bits missing that the researchers don’t know about. Nonetheless, it’s pointed to some interesting features of what the bush moa’s sensory experience may have been like.Genetic evidence suggests that, like many birds, they had four types of cone photoreceptors – proteins in the retina that are light-sensitive and convert it into an electrical signal. The particular receptors present mean that, despite having fairly small eyes, they could see both color and ultraviolet.And if you’ve ever wondered whether extinct birds might enjoy kimchi, the answer could be yes; the genome sequence suggests that bush moa had the full set of taste receptors, meaning they’d be able to pick up on umami.It’s hoped that continuing to study the genome might also explain how flightless birds evolved; the bones found in birds with wings are completely absent in moa.Bush moa, alongside the other eight species of moa, are thought to have gone extinct around 800 years ago, following the arrival of Polynesian human settlers in New Zealand – though some people have claimed that the giant moa was still kicking about in the early 1990s.With a genome sequence in hand, could the bush moa be brought back from the grave? People are certainly trying with other extinct birds.   But that’s not the purpose of the current research, as Edwards explained. “To me, this work is all about fleshing out the natural history of this amazing species,” the researcher concluded.The study is published in Science Advances.