Spy agencies brief people in power. We brief you. Each week we’ll bring you one story that matters, plus a few that don’t!
Your Brief for October 10, 2024: The Lion of Venice, Fat Bear Week, the Hera spacecraft, regenerating neurons and more!
News
Google Breakup
The U.S. Department of Justice is proposing Google be broken up, advising that parts of the business be sold off. The proposal comes after a recent ruling that found Google holds an unlawful monopoly over online search and text advertising. If forced to split, Google warns that services for billions of users could be disrupted. Judge Amit Mehta is set to decide on the outcome by August 2025, with one major focus being Google’s practice of paying technology manufacturers, like Apple, more than $20 billion each year to make its search engine the default option. In addition to the search monopoly, Google faces another DOJ antitrust case involving its ad business, with closing arguments expected in November.
Image Credit: Shutterstock/mundissima
True Spies
The Queen Of Cuba
Who was the ‘Queen of Cuba,’ and how did she evade U.S. intelligence for nearly two decades?
Meet Ana Belén Montes, one of the most notorious double agents in the history of US intelligence. Until her arrest in 2001, Montes used her position at the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) to funnel classified documents to Cuba - drunk on a potent cocktail of arrogance, intelligence, and ideological fervor!
Born on a German military base, her father was an army psychiatrist. As a child, the family often moved around due to the nature of his work. But by her teens, the Montez clan had settled in Rockville, Maryland, where Ana would live until leaving for college in 1975, attending the University of Virginia. Fast forward some years and Ana was pushing herself to the limit on a mission to undermine the American government. Transformed into a spy so effective, she operated with impunity for 17 years! But that was all about to change…
FBI Special Agent Pete Lapp first heard the name Ana Montez in 2000. By then she’d risen through the ranks at the DIA to become one of the government's most well-respected Cuba analysts. But he would soon find out there was more to her story than meets the eye and embark on a career-defining journey to bring her to justice.
What led to her downfall? Join Special Agent Lapp in this week's podcast selection, ‘The Queen of Cuba’, to follow the trail of breadcrumbs and find out!
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Nature
Fat Bear Week
Did you hear about the bear who reigned supreme?
For the second year in a row, a mother bear named 128 "Grazer" has taken home the crown in the Fat Bear Week competition at Alaska's Katmai National Park. Launched in 2014, the annual contest highlights conservation efforts by showcasing before-and-after photos of brown bears bulking up for winter, with the public voting on their favorites.
Grazer's win is especially remarkable given her added challenges this year. She has been caring for a young cub and coping with the recent loss of another offspring. Despite this, her transformation during hyperphagia ( when bears consume enormous amounts of food to prepare for hibernation) impressed voters the most. During this period, bears can eat dozens of salmon daily to gain weight before retreating to hibernate for winter.
Image Credit: Shutterstock/ErikMandre
History
Ghost Ship
What happened to the “Ghost Ship of the Pacific”?
The wreck of the USS Stewart (DD-224), a Clemson-class destroyer, has been discovered off the coast of California, putting to rest an 82-year-old mystery! Resting nearly 3,500 feet beneath the ocean's surface, the 314-foot vessel was found remarkably intact. The ship holds a unique spot in history as the only U.S. Navy destroyer captured by Japanese forces during World War II. Initially sunk near Java, Indonesia, in 1942, the ship was later salvaged and repurposed by the Japanese to escort naval convoys. After the war, the U.S. Navy recommissioned the ship - ultimately sinking it during target practice in 1946. Researchers used advanced robotic sonar technology and underwater drones to discover the vessel, surveying 50 square miles of ocean floor in just one day!
Image Credit: Ocean Infinity
Technology
The Hera Spacecraft
Is Earth prepared for future asteroid threats?
On Monday, SpaceX successfully launched the European Space Agency's Hera spacecraft from Florida, marking another step in the collaborative mission to protect our planet from potentially hazardous asteroids. Hera will explore the aftermath of NASA's 2022 Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), which slammed into Dimorphos, a moonlet orbiting the larger asteroid Didymos, in a pioneering effort to test asteroid deflection techniques.
The craft will spend two years journeying to the Didymos-Dimorphos system, where it will gather data about the crater left by the impact and analyze the asteroid's internal structure, composition, gravity, and mass. Before reaching its destination about 121 million miles from Earth in late 2026, Hera will test its scientific instruments by observing Earth and the moon and perform a gravity-assist flyby of Mars in March.
With over 36,000 near-Earth asteroids identified, missions like Hera may provide Earth a fighting chance against future cosmic threats.
Image Credit: European Space Agency
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For centuries the Lion of Venice has stood tall over the city, its origins long believed to be Anatolian. New research has sparked an unexpected twist - suggesting the iconic bronze sculpture may have come from China.
A multidisciplinary team of scientists from the University of Padua, in collaboration with the International Association of Mediterranean and Eastern Studies and Ca’ Foscari University, recently studied the lion’s origins. By analyzing lead isotopes, they traced the bronze used in the statue back to copper mines in China, particularly the lower Yangtze River basin - shifting the story of the lion’s origins much farther east than previously believed.
Adding to the intrigue, the statue bears stylistic similarities to Chinese zhènmùshòu, guardian figures often found outside tombs during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 C.E.) - and possibly has links to the famous Venetian explorer, Marco Polo.
The true journey of the Lion of Venice remains a mystery. Might it have traveled with Marco Polo, whose storied expeditions linked Venice and China?
Science
Regenerating Neurons
What if aging brains could regenerate neurons?
Researchers have identified a gene that helps explain why mouse brains lose the ability to regenerate neurons as they age, offering hope for treatments that could slow or even stop certain forms of neurodegeneration in humans. The process, known as neurogenesis, relies on specialized neural stem cells to produce new neurons. As we age, these stem cells can become inactive, leading to cognitive decline and hindering recovery from events like strokes. Scientists used CRISPR gene editing to search through roughly 23,000 mice genes, narrowing down their focus to one: Slc2a4, which plays a role in glucose metabolism. Their findings suggest that the presence of glucose around aging neural stem cells may contribute to their inactivity, adding a new layer to our understanding of the link between metabolism and age-related cognitive decline.
Image Credit: Shutterstock/sutadimages
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