Vast stretches of permafrost are melting as the Earth’s polar regions warm, thawing ancient viruses and bacteria that had remained frozen for tens of thousands of years. Behind the lurid headlines about “zombie viruses,” there’s some fascinating science -- and a warning. Last month, scientists announced they’d taken a sample of tundra from Siberia, extracted a virus that had been frozen for 50,000 years, and showed it was still capable of infecting its normal host

We can all rejoice at the news that Russia has freed basketball star Brittney Griner. Griner was detained at a Moscow airport in February, after officials found in her luggage 19 grams of hashish oil, for which she had a doctor’s note. She was later convicted of possession and smuggling, and sentenced to nine years in prison and sent to a penal colony. That she’s on the way home is wonderful, even if the price was the release of the egregious arms dealer Viktor Bout. Here are four

Central banks’ unwavering determination to increase interest rates is truly remarkable. In the name of taming inflation, they have deliberately set themselves on a path to cause a recession -- or to worsen it if it comes anyway. Moreover, they openly acknowledge the pain their policies will cause, even if they don’t emphasize that it is the poor and marginalized, not their friends on Wall Street, who will bear the brunt of it. And in the United States, this pain will disproportiona

The world seems like a calmer place after the G-20 meeting in Bali in mid-November. The question is why. We know that US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping held a three-hour in-person meeting that went well, despite their many policy differences and their countries’ growing antagonism. It was also helpful that Russian President Vladimir Putin didn’t show up, and that Russia’s war in Ukraine didn’t overshadow the Sino-American discussions. In fact, the

The United States and its allies in Europe have spent the last 10 months turning the screws on the Russian economy in retaliation for Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine. The Western coalition blocked Russia from accessing around half of its more than $600 billion in foreign reserves, disconnected multiple Russian banks from the global financial system, diversified away from Russian natural gas and banned the import of Russian coal. Now, Russian crude oil is being targeted. For the foreseeable

President Yoon Suk-yeol’s pushback against the news media is unproductive. Tough media questions accompany the job of leading a democratic state. State leaders cannot muzzle reporters or throw them in prison like a dictator. Nor should they think the silent treatment will work. Questions will only continue and likely sharpen the more a leader hunkers down. During and after his recent diplomatic trips, Yoon resorted to less access and information for the media. If that modus operandi cont

The anti-quarantine protests that erupted across China last month highlight the gulf between the Chinese people and Communist Party leaders regarding the necessity of the strict zero-COVID policy. Given the obvious disconnect, it is worth examining how and why the authorities and the public have grown so far apart in their assessment of the policy’s costs and benefits. One important difference seems to be the value that the two sides assign to liberty. While the public may prioritize fre

After more than a decade of US policy focused on preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, arms negotiations have been shoved off center stage. The long-running dispute over nuclear weapons has been displaced by a more immediate drama -- the rapidly spreading uprising against the Iranian regime. "Our focus every day, and the world's focus, is what's happening in the streets of Iran," Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said last week. "We support what Iranians a

These days, Korean pop culture, from K-pop, to K-film to K-food, enjoys fame and popularity all over the world. The Korean people are proud of the phenomenon and greatly elated when foreign columnists remark that the popularity of Korean pop culture seems to have replaced that of American and British pop culture, which enchanted the world in the past. Foreigners who live in South Korea also applaud K-medical service and K-speed. When you need medical treatment or even major surgery, you do not

Beneath the still-gleaming white dome, the US Capitol’s new generation of promising leaders are jockeying for position, staking their turf, marking their hydrants and swapping last-minute promises for next year’s power. Today we will mainly be speaking to just one category of our promising new leaders: The ones who want the American populace to know how proud they will be to lead the party of law-and-order. These new congressional leaders are proud to give strong, steadfast support t

Poland is home to about 2.7 million refugees from Ukraine: 1.2 million arrived after 2014, and a further 1.5 million arrived following Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24. By comparison, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reports that Germany has taken in 1 million Ukrainians, the Czech Republic 464,000, and several other countries 200,000 or less. As of mid-October, some 4.7 million Ukrainians had registered for temporary protection outside their country. For their part, Ukrainian

Buddhism was introduced to Korea through two paths: the ancient Korean kingdoms of Goguryeo and Baekje. In 372, the emperor of Former Qin, a Chinese dynasty, sent an envoy and monk to Goguryeo’s King Sosurim, with Buddhist statues and scriptures. Twelve years later in 384, the monk Marananta, born in Chota Lahore in north Pakistan, crossed the ocean to Baekje via Eastern Jin, another Chinese dynasty, to bring Buddhism to King Chimnyu of Baekje. It is said that when Marananta decided to lea

The video of "Chongqing Superman" has gone viral amidst the explosion of protests across China against the government's "zero COVID" policy. A man in a grey T-shirt with a Superman backpack stands on a street corner in the southwest Chinese city of Chongqing, ranting against the soaring price of carrots -- and the government's failed strategy to totally eliminate COVID. He fiercely denounces the "lack of freedom and (the) poverty" that have resulted from

In April 2022, the world’s richest person, Elon Musk, asked, “Is Twitter dying?” Five days later, he launched an apparently whimsical bid to buy the social media platform. It took months of legal wrangling to complete the deal, but on Oct. 27, Musk honored his $44 billion offer, acquiring a new toy: free speech. Financially, Musk’s acquisition of Twitter was an odd move. Despite its user base of some 200 million -- including politicians, journalists and celebrities -- Tw