Green & indigenous News

This month, health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins unveiled updated national dietary guidelines in a surprising new visual: an inverted food pyramid, with the widest section teetering at the top. At the very bottom, a tiny amount of whole grains are represented. The rest of the new food pyramid is split in two, with protein, dairy, and “healthy fats” dominating the left side, and vegetables and fruits taking the right.

The gist of the new guidelines, which have been brandished as part of the Make America Healthy Again campaign led by Kennedy, is to prioritize nutrient-dense whole foods, avoid highly processed foods, and eat more protein. Fairly uncontroversial guidance under the tagline “Eat real food,” like avoiding added sugars, salt, and chemical additives, has been received positively by nutrition experts.

But protein appears to occupy a vexing space within the new guidelines. Kennedy and the committee of nutritional experts who consulted on the guidelines — at least four of whom have ties to meat and dairy industry groups — have been roundly criticized for encouraging Americans to eat more protein and dairy. Organizations like the American Heart Association say that consuming too much saturated fat, which is found in animal protein sources like beef and full-fat dairy, can be linked to cardiovascular problems.

In addition to the health concerns related to a meat-heavy diet, the imperative to eat more meat and dairy comes with heavy environmental and climate considerations. There is simply no way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough to reach targets set by the Paris climate agreement without also lowering emissions from the food system, which is driven by livestock and seafood production.

Sam Kass, a former chef and nutrition advisor to President and First Lady Obama, spoke to Grist about the new inverted food pyramid, which he calls an “ecological disaster,” and what conscientious eaters can do about it. Kass is also the author of The Last Supper: How to Overcome the Coming Food Crisis and currently a partner at Acre, a venture capital firm with a focus on food systems. The following interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Q. I wanted to start by asking your initial reactions to the updated dietary guidelines. What stood out to you when you first heard the news?

A.I think that these guidelines represent a really troubling pattern from the secretary of Health and Human Services in the way that the agency is making policies that affect the lives of hundreds of millions of Americans. Like other things they do, there are some superficial good things in the dietary guidelines, like “Eat real food,” which is a nice slogan. It may not really mean much to an average person. But I support that sentiment, in the spirit of Michael Pollan — although he would go on to say, “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” I also think some of the dietary guideline’s language around avoiding ultra-processed foods is positive.

One less important part that I found distasteful was the narrative that, for the first time in history, the government has said you shouldn’t eat processed foods, which is just demonstrably false. It was as if HHS was responding to the food pyramid of the 1990s and pretending that the last 20 years hadn’t happened.

The reality is they made two substantive changes. First, they got rid of My Plate, which is a real mistake. It was a fundamentally better symbol and tool to help people actually visualize what their plates should look like. The only other change when you actually get underneath it is that it is ideology- and influencer-led policy-making as opposed to science-based. Four out of nine members on the panel of experts brought in to consult on the new dietary guidelines have ties to the meat and dairy industries. The new food pyramid is promoting meat and cooking with butter and beef tallow, but the guidance itself is unchanged.

HHS maintains that saturated fat should be no more than 10 percent of your daily calories. So what they’re promoting and what the guidance is are in direct contradiction. If you’re keeping your calories at 10 percent from saturated fat, and you’re cooking your eggs in butter, then how are you going to fit in the steak and the cheese and the beef tallow? It doesn’t make any sense.

Q. What are the climate implications of encouraging people to eat more meat and dairy?

A. From a climate and sustainability standpoint, this inverted pyramid is an ecological disaster. They’re trying to drive consumption of the part of the food ecosystem that is by far and away the number one driver of environmental degradation and emissions from the food and agricultural systems. And that’s true both here in the U.S. and around the world. Beef is the number one driver of deforestation and land use change in the world. And it’s just downright irresponsible to not be taking into account our ability to feed ourselves in the future when it comes to the guidelines we’re putting out today.

This administration, talking about making America healthy, has systematically undone every piece of climate rule and policy that they possibly can. They’ve withdrawn all investment in resiliency and adaptation and decarbonizing our food system. It’s clear when you look at the data that the number one threat to human health is climate change. The idea that somehow you can proclaim to make America healthy again, and totally gut our ability to mitigate the worst of climate change is just as deep a contradiction as there is.

Q. What do you think is missing from the administration’s embrace of eating “real food”?

A. I think that part on its face is generally fine. If they were promoting that as the cornerstone of your diet, then it would be fine. The problem is the meat agenda. The U.S. is continually top 10 in global per capita consumption of an animal based protein.

But the message to eat less processed food is good. We were giving the same messages in a slightly different way during the Obama administration, and things have evolved a lot in 15 years.

Posters line the seats ahead of a Health and Human Services policy announcement on January 8 in Washington, D.C.
Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images

Q. I wonder if you could talk more about your work during the Obama administration. Why do you think MyPlate.gov (which now redirects to more information on the new guidelines) was a better visual tool to communicate the nation’s dietary guidelines than the new inverted food pyramid?

A. We undertook a very serious process to overhaul the way that these guidelines were communicated and the symbol that we used to try to help people make better choices. You need to give some people tools in a way that meets them where they are. It’s fine to tell everybody to eat a bunch of steak and salmon and fruits and vegetables, but for so many Americans, those literally don’t exist around them or they can’t afford it. So the reality is a lot of what they’re eating is coming in a package.

How do you navigate that? We worked very hard with design firms to come up with different symbols and ways to communicate this information that would help be a guide. And the plate came out as by far and away the most useful symbol. People would visualize: When I’m making my plate, half of it should be fruits and vegetables, a quarter of it should be whole grains and then a quarter should be protein. At any given moment, the inverted food pyramid doesn’t help you decide what a balanced meal looks like.

Q. What’s one thing consumers could do differently to mitigate our impact on the environment and climate?

A. The thing that’s by far the most impactful thing to do from a climate standpoint is eat less meat. I mean not even close, there’s nothing else close. That is still the best thing you can do.

Q. Your book, The Last Supper, revolves around the question: How do we grow more food while minimizing our environmental impact? And this whole conversation I’ve been thinking about beans. Do you think legumes and other plant-based sources of protein have a fighting chance with consumers?

A. I sure hope so. Beans are kind of the magic food. They’re as nutrient-dense a food as you can eat. They are super cheap. They’re so delicious. And they’re great for the environment, so they check every box. I think people are working on how to make beans sexy; it’s something I’ve done a lot on over the years. We’ve just got to put some more love into it.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The climate contradictions in MAHA’s new food pyramid on Jan 23, 2026.

From Grist via This RSS Feed.

A team from Würzburg has fundamentally changed our understanding of platelet biology. The researchers demonstrate that the surface protein integrin αIIbβ3 is not only a key molecule in blood clotting, but can also act as a pro-inflammatory effector during severe disease processes. Under these conditions, αIIbβ3 switches function and becomes a structural component of a previously unknown organelle: PITT (platelet-derived integrin- and tetraspanin-rich tether).

From Biology News - Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology via This RSS Feed.

An unusually brutal winter storm is set to pummel more than 160 million Americans from Friday, as a stretched "polar vortex" sends a devastating blast of Arctic air, bringing heavy snows and freezing rains.

From Earth News - Earth Science News, Earth Science, Climate Change via This RSS Feed.

The 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA), released on January 7 by the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Agriculture (USDA), immediately provoked deep concern among nutrition experts and public health groups, including our organization, the Center for Science in the Public Interest. Among the key issues raised were conflicts of interest, internal contradictions, and the negative climate and budget impacts of the new, meat-heavy food pyramid.

Our chief concern: Many of the recommendations in the new DGA sound good at face value, but aren’t actually supported by science. We need a coherent resource, grounded in science, guiding the nutrition policies that affect tens of millions of Americans through federal food assistance programs, including the National School Lunch and breakfast programs, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), and the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP).

That’s why we are advocating that all Americans follow an evidence-based set of recommendations built on decades of scientific research: the Uncompromised Dietary Guidelines.

The Typical, Rigorous Dietary Guidelines Process

The DGA are legally mandated by the National Nutrition Monitoring and Related Research Act of 1990 (NNMRRA) to reflect the “preponderance of the scientific and medical knowledge current at the time.” Their creation requires an exacting evidence review, process transparency, and a willingness to follow the data—even when it conflicts with intuition or ideology. Checks and balances are established to ensure that decisions are not governed by personal preferences or biases.

Many of the recommendations in the new DGA sound good at face value, but aren’t actually supported by science.

One such mechanism is an independent body called the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC), comprised of 20 nationally recognized nutrition and health experts representing a range of research specialties. These experts receive research questions to review from HHS and USDA (“the Departments”) and produce a report using a transparent, methodologically rigorous process aligned with the scientific method. They refine the list of questions, systematically review the evidence, analyze data, and make conclusions based on what the data showed. This review is carried out over two years, with multiple public meetings and opportunities for public comment.

Upon concluding its work, the DGAC submits a scientific report to both HHS and USDA, which then write the final guidelines.

What Happened This Time

After receiving the 2025 DGAC report in December 2024, HHS and USDA initially indicated they would release the DGA by the end of summer 2025, but instead quietly commissioned a new “Scientific Foundation” panel in August 2025. This panel, in just a few months, conducted a new set of reviews to inform the DGA, ultimately presenting conclusions that aligned with the administration’s (and conveniently, industry’s) preferred outcomes.

The resulting report rejected more than half of the 2025 DGAC’s evidence-based recommendations (compared to just two major divergences in the 2020 process) due to unfounded claims of bias based on the incorporation of a health equity lens in the DGAC’s process.

The 2025 DGAC used a health-equity lens to create more inclusive and applicable dietary guidance for all Americans; it allowed the committee to understand the influences of people’s food “environments, financial circumstances, and cultural backgrounds on diet and health relationships.” In its place, the new Scientific Foundation promised dietary guidance “free from ideological bias, institutional conflicts, or predetermined conclusions.”

The administration did not deliver on any of these promises. Seven of the nine authors of the Scientific Foundation report had clear conflicts of interest related to the beef, pork, dairy, and supplement industries.

For example, the two authors of the scientific foundation’s review on protein collectively have financial relationships with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the National Pork Board, and the National Dairy Council, and one of them founded a protein supplement company; unsurprisingly, the review found that Americans should be eating more protein, including red meat.

And, unlike the DGAC, the administration reversed the scientific process by starting with a predetermined conclusion. In their own words: “This edition is organized around a simple principle: minimally processed, naturally nutrient-dense foods are the reference point for dietary guidance.”

This is unsurprising, given HHS Secretary Kennedy’s obsession with all things “natural.” In other words, the agencies decided that all minimally processed foods were inherently healthy and then selected evidence to support their beliefs—disregarding decades of strong evidence showing that many of these foods (e.g., steak, beef tallow) increase our risk of disease.

Pitfalls of the New Guidelines

The result is a mixed bag; there is, after all, often a morsel of truth in misinformation. For example, many nutrient-dense, minimally processed foods are beneficial for health. Decades of nutrition advice from past Guidelines have also said to eat whole grains, fruits, and vegetables, and limit saturated fat—guidance that was maintained in the new DGA.

Some new additions—such as limiting “highly processed” foods and eliminating added sugars—sound sensible but are difficult for most people to follow. To make healthier choices more possible, we need systemic changes to agricultural subsidies and policies that support healthier retail options, restrictions on marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages, and increased funding for school kitchen infrastructure.

The new Guidelines also include several unscientific and potentially harmful changes. These include increasing recommended protein servings (especially from animal sources); promoting red meat, full-fat dairy, butter, and other sources of saturated fat instead of sources of polyunsaturated fats such as vegetable oils, despite strong evidence that this is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease; and removing key details about vegetable subgroups and specific alcohol limits.

Implementation Challenges

One of the main issues with applying the new DGA will be its contradictions, like the recommendation to maintain the saturated fat limit at 10 percent of daily calories while promoting food choices and serving suggestions that could easily lead someone to eat double or triple that amount.

Also, there is a looming question of how the new DGA recommendations will be incorporated into current programs, since many are still in the process of implementing recommendations from the 2020 DGA. For example, USDA’s current added-sugar updates for school meals, which were based on findings in the 2020 DGA and will not be fully implemented until 2027, are now in conflict with the 2025 DGA’s stricter added-sugar recommendations.

To make healthier choices more possible, we need systemic changes to agricultural subsidies and policies that support healthier retail options, restrictions on marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages, and increased funding for school kitchen infrastructure.

Perhaps the most important contradiction, however, is not within the DGA, but between the actions of the administration and their expressed guidance to “eat real food.”

Fresh, real food is often expensive and preparing it requires skills, time, and resources. For institutional food-service providers, scratch cooking relies on kitchen infrastructure, culinary training, and funds that the administration has not prioritized.

If the administration is serious about improving access to real food, it would support the Plant Powered School Meals Pilot Act, which would provide voluntary grants for schools to incorporate more plant-based food options, while covering costs for training, menu development, and kitchen equipment.

On a consumer level, following the new recommendations for doubling protein intake, emphasizing animal proteins, and choosing higher-fat dairy would likely increase consumer spending and impact family budgets (beans and lentils would be a cheaper way to increase protein, but prioritizing plant-based proteins was one of the many rejected DGAC recommendations).

Even when carefully selecting the cheapest foods that still meet the daily serving requirements of the new DGA, one food economist and dietitian found that daily food costs were at least $5 (not the $3 a day touted by USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins) and didn’t provide sufficient calories.

Furthermore, whole foods that are nutritious and cheap (like dry beans or raw poultry) often take more time to prepare, which can be a stumbling block for busy working parents. Prioritizing whole foods and home cooking sounds like a great choice, but is not within reach for many families when grocery prices are high and the administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act has made the largest cuts in history to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

By disregarding the scientific process in favor of pushing Kennedy’s personal beliefs and industry interests, the 2025–2030 DGA undermine the scientific integrity of federal nutrition policy. They steer Americans toward dietary patterns that are liable to increase, rather than reduce, chronic disease.

A Better Alternative: The Uncompromised DGA

CSPI followed the DGA update process closely, contributing to the public nomination process for DGAC members, commenting on the publicly posted research protocols and scientific questions, following all seven public meetings of the DGAC where preliminary results were shared, and participating in the public comment period for the final DGAC Scientific Report.

As speculation grew that the administration would largely reject the DGAC report, we asked ourselves: What would the DGA look like if they actually followed the science? The Uncompromised Dietary Guidelines for Americans is our answer.

The Uncompromised DGA updates the 2020 DGA with the 2025 DGAC’s recommendations. It is endorsed by over 20 organizations, including the National Association of Nutrition & Aging Services Programs (which runs programs for older adults, like Meals on Wheels) and the National WIC Association, and 17 past DGAC members.

It also includes a supplemental guideline, authored by CSPI and the Center for Biological Diversity, that acknowledges the connection between climate change and our food system.

The purpose of releasing the document was to create a coherent set of overarching guidelines for healthy dietary patterns, offering a reliable, science-backed, thoroughly vetted resource for policymakers, health professionals, advocates, and the public. In contrast to the 2025 DGA, the Uncompromised DGA outlines the following key directives:

1. Integrate transparent, rigorous science: The Uncompromised DGA synthesizes the 2025 DGAC’s science-based recommendations and directly updates the 2020 DGA, reducing ambiguity for program implementers.
2. Prioritize plant-based proteins for health: Increase beans, peas, lentils, nuts, seeds, and soy, and reduce red and processed meats within calorie and nutrient limits.
3. Consistently limit sodium and saturated fat: Limit sodium to <2,300 mg and saturated fat to <10 percent of daily calories, and limit foods high in these overconsumed nutrients.
4. Contain clear vegetable and protein subgroups: Follow the Eat Healthy Your Way dietary pattern, which lists servings for specific vegetables (like dark green and starchy) and proteins (like beans, peas, lentils and seafood) so program implementers can ensure consumers meet nutrient needs.

Where the official 2025–2030 DGA trade clarity and consistency for ambiguous visuals and contradictory messages, the Uncompromised DGA provides policymakers, consumers, and program implementers with a clear, science-based benchmark to evaluate—and challenge—where the administration’s DGA depart from the evidence.

A Clear Choice for a Healthy Diet That Can Actually Be Used

Contradictory guidance corresponding to conflicts of interest in the 2025-2030 DGA poses a serious implementation challenge for everyone affected by the guidelines: federal agencies, nutrition professionals tasked with aligning meal standards and educational materials with the DGA, the 1 in 4 people in the U.S. who rely on federal nutrition assistance programs, dietitians and doctors providing nutrition advice, and, ultimately, everyone in the country.

The choice is clear: The new DGA are difficult, confusing, and expensive to implement. The Uncompromised DGA are clear, science-aligned, and implementable. Join us in prioritizing evidence over ideology.

The post Op-Ed: The Government Wants You to Follow Their Food Pyramid. We Have a Better Alternative. appeared first on Civil Eats.

From Civil Eats via This RSS Feed.

KATHMANDU — A cable car line is being built to serve the mountaintop temple of Pathibhara Devi, a popular pilgrimage destination for Hindus in eastern Nepal. But the area is also revered by the region’s Indigenous Yakthung (or Limbu) people, many of whom have objected to the clearing of trees that they say will weaken the spiritual power that the site holds according to their beliefs. The World Bank Group’s Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman (CAO) says it is looking into a complaint filed by the Yakthung people against the International Finance Corporation (IFC) — the private sector investment arm of the World Bank Group — for providing advisory support to a controversial cable car project in their ancestral land. The CAO recently confirmed to Mongabay that it had received the complaint filed in August 2025 and it meets the ombudsman’s criteria for formal registration. “As the Nepal cable car complaint met these criteria, it is now in the assessment phase of the CAO process,” Emily Horgan, communications and outreach lead at CAO, told Mongabay via email referring to the ombudsman’s policy of accepting a complaint if it concerns an IFC or MIGA (Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency) project. Horgan said that the Pathibhara issue also falls within the CAO’s mandate to address potential environmental and social impacts of projects. The CAO’s registry states that the complaint was accepted for review on Dec. 12, 2025. Project developer Pathibhara Devi Darshan Cable Car Pvt. Ltd., part of the IME Group led by prominent Nepali tycoon…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via This RSS Feed.

The North Atlantic Ocean is warming up. Higher temperatures and increased human activity in the region can trigger abrupt changes in marine ecosystems, for example, how species are distributed and what they eat.

From Biology News - Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology via This RSS Feed.

This story was originally published by Colorado Newsline.

Sara Wilson
Colorado Newsline

Leaders of the two federally-recognized tribes in Colorado spoke to the Legislature on Jan. 16 about the relationship between state and tribal governments, as well as a desire to further confer on policy proposals at the Capitol.

“In many places, state and tribal relations remain strained. But here in Colorado, we have chosen a different path,” said Southern Ute Indian Tribe Chairman Melvin Baker. “It is one rooted in collaboration, consultation and trust.”

Leaders of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe and Ute Mountain Ute Tribe address the Legislature at the beginning of the session every year about their priorities, successes and challenges. The Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute reservations sit next to each other in the southwest corner of the state and have about 3,600 enrolled members combined.

Ute Mountain Tribe Councilmember Marilynn House said that she would like for tribes to formally meet with legislators more often. Tribal consultation is usually honored, she said, but is not always consistent.

“Open communication is what all tribes in this country should have and be entitled to, as the government has broken many promises and treaties,” she said. “A way to move forward from the past would be to always consult the tribes.”

House highlighted recently-passed legislation related to tribes, such as last year’s Colorado Voting Rights Act, which enables members to use their tribal identification cards for voter registration and requires drop boxes on reservation land if the tribe requests one.

“This allowed more access to voting for our tribal membership and provided the tribe with an opportunity to be involved in their state’s elections and have proper representation,” she said.

She also praised a law passed last year that gives tribal members free access to state parks. That law is the center of a lawsuit from the Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation in Utah, which alleges they also have longstanding rights to hunt, fish and access the lands now considered state parks in Colorado.

Baker used a portion of his speech to call on the state to help more with cleanup efforts from a major gasoline spill on the reservation over a year ago. An estimated 97,000 gallons of gasoline spilled from a ruptured pipeline owned by Texas-based Enterprise Products in December 2024. It is the largest spill in the state since 2016.

“This presence of gasoline contamination in the groundwater raises serious concerns for public health, environmental safety and long-term impacts to the Animas River, our wildlife, our reservation, our cultural resources and those who live downstream,” he said.

He said the spill is a reminder of the risk posed by aging infrastructure and weak oversight, and the state has not allocated “appropriate” resources to the cleanup, he said. Late last year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it would work with the tribe and the state to implement a corrective action plan.

“We believe that if a similar spill occurred on the Front Range, the response would be immediate and direct,” he said.

Baker also said the tribe has entered into mediation with the state over the tribe’s ability to launch an online sportsbook without being subject to a 10 percent tax, which the tribe said is not allowed under the state’s gaming compact with the tribes. Colorado voters legalized sports betting in 2019. The tribe sued the state over the issue in 2024 — the Ute Mountain Ute tribe joined the lawsuit later — but a federal judge ruled that the state is immune to the lawsuit late last year.

“Our relationship depends on cooperation,” he said. “We need to enter into agreements with the state and trust that they will be respected.”

The post Colorado tribal leaders ask Legislature for more collaboration in policymaking appeared first on ICT.

From ICT via This RSS Feed.

Research on using Marchantia polymorpha, commonly known as liverwort, a plant closely related to moss, for food and as an ingredient in medicine and supplements is being conducted at Kobe University.

From Biology News - Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology via This RSS Feed.

A new study combines drone data, satellite observations, and ground-based flux measurements to examine methane emissions from ruminants in Kenya. The research represents a pioneering effort to quantify methane (CH₄) emissions from livestock using drones in sub-Saharan Africa. It is also among the first field studies to measure methane emissions from camels, a largely understudied source.

From Biology News - Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology via This RSS Feed.

Colorado will not release more wolves this winter to supplement its reintroduction program after federal officials stopped the planned relocation of wolves from Canada.

From Biology News - Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology via This RSS Feed.

Worldwide, it ranks among the cities with the highest levels of air pollution—and it's located in the heart of Europe: Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Previously, the spatial distribution of air pollutants here was largely unknown, as were their sources. Now the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI, using its mobile laboratory, has provided the first reliable data—and found the causes of the high level of pollution.

From Earth News - Earth Science News, Earth Science, Climate Change via This RSS Feed.

Amelia Schafer
ICT

If you know anything about Minnesota history, then you know about Fort Snelling, said Robert Rice, the owner of Powwow Grounds Coffee Shop.

Fort Snelling was a concentration camp used by the United States during the Dakota Indian Wars to imprison thousands of Dakota and Ho-Chunk people in abysmal conditions.

In early 2026, the Bishop Henry Whipple Building, located in Fort Snelling, Minnesota, emerged as a major center for immigration enforcement detainment processing, but the site has a much longer and more complex history.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration Enforcement Control programs have long used the Whipple building as a headquarters for its operations in the Twin Cities.

A plaque stands in Fort Snelling State Park Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2020, near Minneapolis, at a memorial at the site of what was a concentration camp where some 1,600 Dakota people were imprisoned in the aftermath of the 1862 U.S. – Dakota Conflict. Jacobs belongs to a Wisconsin-based Mohican tribe but was born in Minnesota and is well-versed in the grim chapters of its history regarding Native Americans. It is one of the historic sites in the Twin Cities area where he take social-justice groups on tours. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)

In 2019 local residents first raised awareness over concerns regarding its use for detainment.

As historic immigration raids emerged in the city in early 2026, the building has once again become a center for the processing of detained immigrants and in at least two confirmed cases, detained Indigenous people.

Jose Ramirez, Red Lake descendant, said he was held at the site for six hours following a confrontation with immigration officials resulting in his detainment.

Most recently, a Dakota woman was held at the site, council members from the Oglala Sioux Tribe told ICT. Reports have surfaced that four Lakota men were detained and held in Fort Snelling, though the tribe has been working to verify the information.

But prior to the building’s existence in 1965, the Fort Snelling area has long been the site of both creation and genocide for Indigenous people, said Kate Beane, executive director at the Minnesota Museum of American Art.

Bdóte, the place where the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers meet, is a creation site for the Dakota people, said Beane, a Mdewakanton Dakota citizen of the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe and a Muscogee descendant.

A young Dakota woman incarcerated at the Fort Snelling concentration camp is photographed in 1862. Survivors of the camp were sent via steamboat to the Crow Creek Reservation in South Dakota and the Santee Reservation in Nebraska. (Courtesy Minnesota Historical Society)

But in 1862, during the Dakota Indian Wars, that site was also where the United States constructed Fort Snelling, a concentration camp used to house Dakota and Ho-Chunk people before they were shipped to reservations in South Dakota and Nebraska.

The Whipple building, a federal administrative building in Fort Snelling where United States immigration agents have been holding individuals for processing and detainment, sits on that former site, Beane said.

The building was named after Bishop Henry Whipple, a vocal opponent of Dakota removal and genocide and religious leader during the 1800s.

“I’ve been in a different state of consciousness,” Beane said. “This is a space that’s so important for us. This is a place of love and beauty and our very makeup of who we are as humans, as people. Our grandparents were murdered there, we were imprisoned there, and now we’re worried about our family members being imprisoned there again.”

Beane grew up hearing about how her great-great-grandfather, Cloud Man, or Maȟpíya Wičhášta, was killed at Fort Snelling. Cloud Man, a significant Mdewakanton Dakota chief, died during the winter of 1862-1863 from the conditions at Fort Snelling.

“We don’t know where his remains are,” she said. “The place is literally scattered with graves.”

On the ground in Minneapolis: ‘The fuel of the resistance’

Today, Fort Snelling houses the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, Fort Snelling State Park, several federal buildings including the Whipple building and the recreation of the historic Fort Snelling. The Whipple building is less than a mile from the Historic Fort Snelling complex.

The physical fort was built by the United States in 1805 in an effort to “stop fighting” between the Dakota and Ojibwe people, but that wasn’t the truth, Beane said.

“What we know today is that that military fort was put there to steal our lands,” Beane said. “It was put there as a place to assert power and to essentially have a central operation of a space to exert power. It was put there as a place to assert power and to essentially have a central operations of a space to exert power, dominate, and inflict genocide amongst Dakota people.”

Just under 60 years later, thousands of Indigenous people would be imprisoned at the site.

Famine, disease and malnutrition killed approximately 300 Dakota prisoners, a majority of which were women and children.

“What’s interesting is that what we’re seeing is history repeat,” Beane said. “And we know that history is a series of patterns. We as Dakota people know what this site has stood for since time began. We also know what it represents to the American government.”

Beane said she felt as if a blanket were dropped over her, covering her senses, when she first heard that Fort Snelling was being used as a detention facility. She felt numb. And she’s not alone.

“That’s what they did with our ancestors, put them in that concentration camp,” Rice said, who is White Earth Ojibwe. “And they’re sending people there now. There’s just nothing you can say about that. It’s terrible. It’s inhumane.”

‘Full Circle’: AIM patrols back on Minneapolis streets as tensions rise

The past few weeks have been traumatic for the community, Beane said. Aside from the knowledge that the former Fort Snelling grounds once again were being used to imprison Indigenous people, Beane said there’s an added sense that Native people in the Twin Cities are being hunted.

“We’re constantly on alert,” she said. “We have to carry documentation. We don’t know what’s going to happen. Our people are targeted. And for us as Indigenous people, the immigrants who are being detained within that space are our neighbors. Those are our relatives.”

For Indigenous people, the land is a moving living being, Beane described. Dakota people have been in the Minneapolis area for thousands of years, it’s one of their sites of creation, but that site isn’t exclusive to just the Pike Island area where the two rivers meet, she said. The whole area has been the site of Dakota life since time immemorial.

“That’s [detainment] not the integrity of this site,” she said. “The land is hurting, the land itself. She is who we were put here to protect. And as Dakota people, we’re never going to stop doing that no matter what.”

The post Former Native American concentration camp lies beneath current immigration detention center appeared first on ICT.

From ICT via This RSS Feed.

During pregnancy, maternal and fetal cells migrate back and forth across the placenta, with fetal cells entering the mother's bloodstream and tissues. They can settle in maternal organs such as the thyroid, liver, lungs, brain and heart—and can persist there for decades. Conversely, maternal cells can enter the fetus and be passed down to future generations, essentially creating a lifelong connection between mothers, their offspring and their descendants.

From Biology News - Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology via This RSS Feed.

There's no question that being in nature is good for well-being. Research shows that experiencing nature and listening to natural sounds can relax us.

From Biology News - Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology via This RSS Feed.

New University of Hawaiʻi research confirms that "Sharktober" is real, revealing a statistically significant spike in shark bite incidents in Hawaiian waters every October. The study, which analyzed 30 years of data (1995–2024), found that about 20% of all recorded bites occurred in that single month, a frequency far exceeding any other time of the year.

From Biology News - Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology via This RSS Feed.

For decades, researchers thought that an October 1843 earthquake on the small Greek island of Chalke caused a powerful tsunami and led to the deaths of as many as 600 people. But a new analysis of primary accounts of the event by Ioanna Triantafyllou at Hellenic Mediterranean University suggests the truth was much less dramatic and destructive.

From Earth News - Earth Science News, Earth Science, Climate Change via This RSS Feed.

According to a new study by the University of Würzburg, Bavarian meadows are the most monotonous insect habitats. Surprisingly, fields and settlements often offer more diversity than grassland.

From Biology News - Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology via This RSS Feed.

Whether in the human body or on surfaces, bacteria protect themselves from outside attackers using biofilms. Physicist Eleonora Secchi is researching how these slime-like protective films are formed, with the aim of making it easier to remove pathogenic bacteria.

From Biology News - Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology via This RSS Feed.

Flowers emit scented chemicals to attract pollinators, but this perfume—and how pollinators interact with the plant—can go through profound changes as a crop becomes domesticated.

From Biology News - Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology via This RSS Feed.

A recently identified tree species in Queensland has been given the name "zombie" by scientists who say ambitious assistance is needed to reverse its "living dead" status.

From Biology News - Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology via This RSS Feed.

Harnessing the power of artificial intelligence to study plant microbiomes—communities of microbes living in and around plants—could help improve soil health, boost crop yields, and restore degraded lands. But there's a catch: AI needs massive amounts of reliable data to learn from, and that kind of consistent information about plant-microbe interactions has been hard to come by.

From Biology News - Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology via This RSS Feed.

Greenland, which has been prominently in the news in recent days, hosts a vast ice sheet. If it melts, it will become one of the largest contributors to global sea-level rise. Under a high-emissions scenario, the Greenland Ice Sheet is expected to largely disappear over time, with far-reaching consequences. This is the conclusion of a new study by Chloë Paice and colleagues, published in The Cryosphere. The Greenland Ice Sheet contains enough ice to raise global sea levels by approximately 7.4 meters and has been losing mass at an accelerating rate since the 1990s. Roughly half of this loss is due to surface melt, while the other half results from ice calving where the ice sheet meets the ocean.

From Earth News - Earth Science News, Earth Science, Climate Change via This RSS Feed.

Using robotic fins, researchers at the University of California, Riverside have learned how stingrays are able to swim with impressive control. These insights could help underwater vehicles avoid disastrous ground collisions.

From Biology News - Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology via This RSS Feed.

A research team at the University of Arizona College of Medicine–Tucson is developing a drug that works in combination with copper to kill bacteria, including those that cause MRSA, a type of staph infection that is resistant to usual treatments. The team's research is published in the journal mSphere.

From Biology News - Evolution, Cell theory, Gene theory, Microbiology, Biotechnology via This RSS Feed.

China's rising demand for cooling doesn't have to drive rising temperatures. A recent study shows how rapid shifts to cleaner refrigerants and high-efficiency technologies could cut cooling-related climate impacts to near zero by mid-century. The work is published in the journal npj Climate and Atmospheric Science.

From Earth News - Earth Science News, Earth Science, Climate Change via This RSS Feed.