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Editor's Note:

China's widely watched annual "two sessions" kicked off on Monday this year. The "two sessions" refers to the annual sessions of National People's Congress (NPC) and the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), which are known as the country's top legislature and national political advisory body respectively.

The two sessions is a grand occasion that gathers ideas and wisdom of people of all walks of life across the country. It is an important opportunity for the world to better understand China's whole-process people's democracy, in which the people engage in democratic elections, consultations, decision-making, management, and oversight according to the law. Such democracy is not only shown in the votes taking place at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, but also embodied in a motion submitted by a NPC deputy coming from a remote area, or a consultative meeting held among some residents living in a city suburb. It can be felt in many details of Chinese people's daily lives.

During this year's two sessions, the Global Times is launching a series of stories to illustrate the whole-process people's democracy from some of such details. The third story is about the work diary of an NPC deputy from Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. By following in her footsteps, we see how an NPC deputy truly brings the most grounded, warm, and vivid voices from the grassroots to the two sessions.
Over 60 years ago, Rukeyamu Maitisaidi's great-grandfather rode a donkey, wishing to see Beijing. Now, Rukeyamu takes a flight from her hometown to Beijing, serving as a deputy to the 14th NPC at the two sessions.

Departing from Yutian county in the Hotan prefecture of Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, it takes less than a day to reach Beijing nowadays.

Once a servicewoman on China's first aircraft carrier, Rukeyamu became an interpreter at the Kurban Tulum Memorial Hall in Yutian county after her military service.

In 2018, she was elected as a deputy to the 13th NPC, and since then, she has frequently visited fields and farmers' homes to communicate with the ordinary people to hear about their needs and wishes.

A week before the two sessions, the Global Times reporters followed Rukeyamu's steps, documenting a diary of how she performed her duties as an NPC deputy.

She expresses that although being a large responsibility, serving as an NPC deputy is an honor. She strives to act as a bridge between the people and the government, helping to convey their demands and address their difficulties, and also to share the happy stories of Xinjiang residents with the whole nation.

A solemn and sacred day

On the morning of March 5, Rukeyamu meticulously adjusts her hat for the last minute.

Dressed in a colorful Uygur long dress and a black coat, she walks into the Great Hall of the People at the heart of Beijing, hand in hand with other NPC deputies from Xinjiang region. They are ready to listen to the Government Work Report of the past year.

After the meeting, she wrote to the reporters, "The Premier mentioned in the report: 'Acting on the people-centered development philosophy, we will fulfill our responsibilities to meet people's basic needs and provide a cushion for those most in need and take more steps to deliver real benefits to the people to their satisfaction. We will make solid progress toward prosperity for all and promote social harmony and stability. By doing so, we will give our people a growing sense of fulfillment, happiness, and security.'"

"As a grass-roots NPC deputy," Rukeyamu told the Global Times, "I deeply resonate with the premier's words."

During the two sessions, the daily routine of NPC deputies is filled with frenetic work and responsibility.

"I will carefully listen to each deputy's report and sort out the beneficial policies to ensure that I can relay this information to the public at the earliest," Rukeyamu said. They adopt household visits or group meetings to ensure the spirit of the two sessions reach the people promptly.

Apart from regular meetings, NPC deputies also participate in discussions on motions and inter-provincial exchanges. "We are not only there to listen to others' speeches but also to prepare our own. It is part of our responsibility as NPC deputies," Rukeyamu emphasizes. She brings the hopes and needs of Hotan and Yutian residents to the two sessions, ensuring their voices are heard.

"In this process, our role as NPC deputies is crucial," she said. Through these actions, the deputies play an indispensable role in connecting the government with the people.

The Global Times learned that the Xinjiang delegation is composed of 60 deputies to the second session of the 14th NPC, representing 11 ethnic groups including Han, Uygur, Kazak, Hui, Tajik, Mongolian, Kirgiz , Xibe, Uzbek, Russian, and Tatar, from various sectors, embodying their region's broad representativeness.

To prepare for this session, the NPC deputies from Xinjiang engaged in intensive research on high-quality development, agricultural construction, rural revitalization, ecological protection, openness to the outside world, water resource utilization, and other important issues concerning economic and social development that the people care about before heading to Beijing.

As of March 4, the Xinjiang delegation had received six draft motions and 106 suggestions, mainly involving the formulation or amendment of laws such as the Employment Promotion Law and the Free Trade Pilot Zone Law. The suggestions mainly cover building a modern industrial system, strengthening green computing power construction, and forming a talent cultivation system, among other aspects.

Two sessions rush

On the eve of the two sessions, Rukeyamu Maitisaidi's workload became extraordinarily heavy. This was the final sprint before heading to Beijing.

With two days left before leaving Yutian, she was still discussing with local township-level representatives at 6 pm. This was the last of more than a dozen of discussions she had held over the past few days, covering residents from every township in Yutian.

The atmosphere in the meeting was fervent. Deputies raised issues they have noticed in their work, concerning livelihood, education, and healthcare, to which Rukeyamu thoughtfully responded.

Rukeyamu had discussions with other deputies in the Uygur language and took notes. Tonight, she would also discuss and study the opinions and feelings collected, refining the motions she would take to the two sessions.

When everything was concluded, everyone left the venue. But Rukeyamu's day was not over yet.

She immediately drove to Friendship village in Mugala town for household visits. Her father, Maitisaidi Aisa, a deputy to the people's congress of Yutian county, accompanied her.

Friendship village is located on the edge of Yutian county, with newly built houses lined up neatly, three-story buildings along the street, and single-story houses with courtyards elsewhere. On the straight village road, children snacking and singing walked home in pairs.
As an NPC deputy, Rukeyamu's household visits were unannounced. She walked straight into a resident's yard at the village head, telling them her purpose immediately.

Only the mistress Aminamu Wupur was at home that day. She was sweeping the yard and warmly invited her guests inside when she saw Rukeyamu.

Aminamu lived in a resettlement house in the village. Yutian, situated on the edge of the Taklamakan Desert, is prone to sandstorms, yet industrious Aminamu kept her home spotless. Her son's wedding photo was displayed prominently at the household's entrance.

From 2011 to 2020, Xinjiang implemented the construction of more than 2.67 million rural resettlement houses, and over 10 million people of various ethnicity have moved into new homes equipped with utilities and designed to be earthquake-resistant.

Aminamu grasped Rukeyamu's hand, telling her that she was very happy with her life and cannot think of many good suggestions, but she hoped Rukeyamu can convey her happiness and gratitude to the national two sessions.

Next, Rukeyamu randomly selected a family in an apartment building to visit. The mistress of the house, Hairulinishahan Aizezi, 42 years old, happily told Rukeyamu that at the end of last year, she, her husband, and their three children moved into this three-bedroom apartment, while their elderly relatives live in another unit opposite their own.

"Most of the money was subsidized by the government; we only had to pay a small part," said Hairulinishahan. They previously lived in an earthen house in the village and never imagined they could live in such a beautiful, modern home.

What excited her even more was that over the past few years, through local training classes, she had learned carpentry and plastering skills and can now work outside as well. With the boom in construction development in Yutian, she has also had many job opportunities.

In today's Mugala town, women have long since shed the old tradition of staying at home to tend to their husbands and teach their children. They step out of their homes to learn skills and find work.

"As an ordinary resident in Yutian, I hope you can convey our greetings and voices to the national two sessions, letting the whole nation know about our happy and fulfilling lives," she told Rukeyamu.

Mission with significance

"My great-grandfather was a deputy to the 4th NPC, and after so many years, in 2018, I was also elected as a deputy to the 13th NPC. I was really excited," said Rukeyamu. "Becoming an NPC deputy is not only an honor but also a responsibility. I feel that my mission is even more significant, and my sense of duty has been strengthened."

Her great-grandfather Kurban Tulum is known as Uncle Kurban. In the 1950s, after the establishment of new China and receiving his own land, the grateful Kurban wanted to "ride a donkey to Beijing" to see Chairman Mao Zedong. His story became widely known across the country and influenced Rukeyamu's upbringing.

In 2012, Rukeyamu joined the navy and was assigned to the aircraft carrier Liaoning in 2013. Despite encountering many difficulties, such as seasickness and language barriers, it was these experiences that made her braver and stronger.

After her military service, she returned to her hometown in Yutian county, Xinjiang and worked at local publicity department. After the opening of the Kurban Tulum Memorial Hall, she took on the responsibility of telling the story of Uncle Kurban.

However, being an NPC deputy is an important identity she holds.

In understanding the opinions and suggestions of the people, Rukeyamu found that many, due to infrequent contact with the news, found it difficult to express themselves on some issues. Therefore, she realized the importance of face-to-face communication.
"We first listen to their opinions and suggestions, and answer immediately if we can; if not, we will discuss with the relevant departments," she said.

Delegate Rukeyamu is well aware that the difficulties and demands of the public need to be resolved through the correct channels. "Some issues can be resolved by the township government, some need to be reported to the county, region, or city level. For those that cannot be resolved, we will bring up at the national two sessions."

For example, during her household visit, Rukeyamu found that the people complained about the high price of tap water. She raised this issue at the county two sessions and it was resolved quickly. "Because this is a work that the county government level can complete," Rukeyamu said.

She particularly mentioned the construction of Yutian Wanfang Airport, which given the large geographical scope of the Hotan region, locals hoped there would be room to build another airport in the region for the convenience of the public. "We reflected this wish at the national two sessions in 2018, and it was soon met with a response from the central government, and the airport was quickly built," she said.

On December 26, 2020, Yutian Wanfang Airport commenced operations. Now, people can take a plane and reach Urumqi, the capital city of Xinjiang, in one hour and 55 minutes.

Yutian county, located at the southern edge of the Taklamakan Desert, was once a national-level deeply impoverished county. It achieved poverty alleviation in 2020.

"With practical actions, I carry forward my family's oath of ethnic unity and the spirit of my great-grandfather 'to always follow the Party,'" Rukeyamu said.

Since 2017, her family has established a public welfare fund to reward and help students from families that have made outstanding contributions to maintaining social stability.

After the two sessions, Rukeyamu's work continues. "My wish is that the lives of Hotan residents get better day by day," she said.

As China announced the extension of its visa-free policy for 12 countries until the end of 2025, analysts noted that the measures will significantly boost inbound tourism, which also demonstrate China's commitment to fostering people-to-people exchanges and determination to opening up.

At a joint meeting with the press with French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday, Chinese President Xi Jinping said that China has decided to extend the short-stay visa exemption policy for citizens of 12 countries including France to the end of 2025.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said during a regular press conference on Tuesday that by December 31, 2025, citizens from the 12 countries will be able to visit China for business, sight-seeing, transit and other purposes for up to 15 days without having to apply for a visa.

The 12 countries are France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Malaysia, Switzerland, Ireland, Hungary, Austria, Belgium and Luxembourg. 

China's efforts to facilitate foreigners visiting the country has delivered positive initial results. According to the National Immigration Administration, trips by foreign nationals reached 13.1 million in the first quarter, a year-on-year increase of 305.2 percent. Among them, the number of visa-free foreigners entering China reached 1.98 million, up 266.1 percent compared to last year.

"The extension of the short-term visa-free policy until the end of 2025 will undoubtedly further boost confidence and enthusiasm for traveling to China, and will contribute to the growth of inbound tourism as well as aid in the prosperity of the industry," Dai Bin, President of the China Tourism Academy, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

The move also showcases China's unwavering commitment to openness and its strong belief in the potential of tourism development, Dai said, noting that the extension exemplifies the resilience and determination of China in embracing the world with open arms.

"We have witnessed a surge in travel bookings - about 40 percent - to China since the visa-free policy for French citizens was effective. With the extension of the visa-free policy, it is expected that more bookings will come," a manager surnamed Fang at a Paris-based travel agency, told the Global Times on Tuesday. Fang said that most bookings to China came from elderly people, but the extended visa policy would appeal to more young people to visit China.

"Meanwhile, as the Olympic Games approaches, bookings from Chinese tourists have also increased, especially travel products for small groups. We have launched products such as a two-day tour in Provence departing from Paris," said Fang.

In addition to extending the visa-free period, China is actively promoting the opening and resumption of international routes to facilitate the increased movement of people. According to media reports, direct flights between Shanghai and Marseille will officially open on July 2, providing the first direct air passage for the two sister cities.

Bahrain will also open direct flights to China starting from May 28, and direct flights between China and Mexico will resume on May 11. 

Dai noted that the expansion of air routes and transportation capacity not only enhances convenience for travelers but also lowers travel costs, thereby fostering the growth of inbound tourism. "More travel agencies are expected to intensify their efforts in promoting overseas tourism," he said.

China's increase in direct flights sends a clear message that we are willing to take all effective measures to facilitate international exchanges and also demonstrates the country's determination to welcome visitors from across the world, Dai said.

By implementing more open policies in areas such as visas, air routes, and payment convenience, China's efforts in inbound tourism will not only boost consumption and drive economic growth, but also foster cultural exchanges and interactions among people, helping to establish China's image as a confident, open and inclusive major country, analysts said. 

At the same time, with the increasing number of tourists visiting China, the foreign nationals will have the opportunity to develop a more thorough, comprehensive, and authentic understanding of the country, they said.

Looking ahead, with the upcoming China-US high-level dialogue on tourism, as well as the implementation of various activities under the Kazakhstan tourism year in China and the China-France Year of Culture and Tourism, it is anticipated that inbound and outbound tourism will rebound to the level of 2019 by the end of 2024 or early 2025, Dai noted.

Editor's Note:

The total number of Palestinian deaths in Gaza has surpassed 10,000 since the latest round of Hamas-Israel conflict started on October 7, 2023, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has urged for a humanitarian ceasefire amid the unfolding catastrophe in Gaza that grows more dire with each passing hour. Will a ceasefire be possible? How do external factors, such as unconditional US support of Israel, play into this conflict? What's the deadlock in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict? Global Times reporters Xie Wenting and Bai Yunyi (GT) spoke with Ex-Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy (Levy), the president of the US/Middle East Project and got answers to these pressing questions and more.
GT: Pentagon and some US officials have voiced that they do not support a ceasefire in the current Palestine-Israel conflict, saying that it only benefits Hamas. What's your take on it?

Levy: The US military and American politicians are in the same place on this, but the US is quite isolated in the world. In this regard, its allies in Europe and Israel have taken a similar position. However, when the United Nations voted for an immediate truce, only 14 countries, including Israel and the US, voted against this resolution.

Now, what is worrying is this statement that only Hamas would benefit from a ceasefire. It's a very curious statement. We think that approximately 10,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed in Gaza in less than 4 weeks. The accurate number seems to be about 4,000 children. For the Americans to say that only Hamas will benefit suggests that they place no value on Palestinian civilian lives. I believe many people are shocked, including those in the US by the fact that there is such a blatant and transparent position, which values one life differently from another. I think this is a very bad moment for the US on the international stage.

I understand the argument which sets forth that if there is a ceasefire, Israel will not be able to continue its military effort against Hamas. However, there are two things. First, we cannot conduct that military effort in violation of all international norms, laws, and conventions. There are rules even in war. Just like the resistance against an illegal occupation, which is legal, armed resistance is legal against an illegal occupation. But it has rules. So self-defense by Israel also has rules. You cannot pretend that these rules don't exist. Second, history tells us that if people are kept depressed like this, you cannot defeat them militarily. It's a very counterproductive and dangerous American position.

GT: Based on your analysis, what is likely to happen in the coming days? What's the worst scenario that you fear may happen?

Levy: It's an interesting question. In recent days, Israel has proceeded with its ground operation inside Gaza. ?The reason it is incredibly congested and densely populated with Palestinians in such a confined area is due to the fact that Israel forcefully relocated the Palestinians to this region between 1947 and 1949.

What is Israel aiming to achieve? They have surrounded Gaza City, dividing it. Israeli military officials have stated that they may need to remain in Gaza for three months to carry out military operations. Afterward, there would be a residual presence, with Israel potentially remaining in Gaza for another nine months. This suggests that the Israelis lack a clear plan.

We tend to think of the Israeli military as a very strategic and powerful force, which it certainly is. Israel is an undeclared nuclear power with nuclear arms, and it receives guaranteed support from the US for acquiring the most sophisticated weaponry. Israel also has its own arms industry.

However, it came as quite a shock that Israel's security doctrine is based on deterrence, which includes early warning and military preponderance for domination. This security doctrine is unlikely to succeed if they continue to try to maintain permanent control over another people, especially considering the opposition they face from much of the region. As a result, this security doctrine is bound to collapse. Although they may attempt to reassert it, it is destined to fail.

No one in Israel is providing an answer to the question you asked. Do they think they will stay there permanently? Will Palestinians allow for some outside force to come and take control? An outside force may want to intervene. Therefore, there is no real answer, suggesting a high level of dysfunction in Israeli strategic thinking. It seems their plan is to inflict as much damage as possible until the world intervenes, and then reassess the situation.

However, we must also acknowledge that the individuals currently leading this operation in Israel have been greatly discredited due to what happened on October 7. This significant failure and terrible incident have led to the assumption that there will be an inquiry into what occurred on that day. Consequently, many people may be forced out of their positions. These individuals are prolonging the war because once it ends, their personal careers will come to an end as well.

GT: Do you still see a possible ceasefire in the near future?

Levy: The pressure for a ceasefire might grow more quickly. Maybe Israel will manage to keep going for so long, but it's very risky because the longer it goes on in Gaza, the more likely there will be a regional explosion.

There have been exchanges between local militias and either American or Israeli forces. The US has positioned its warships off the coast, so the US could get dragged into this war. Iran could also get dragged into this war. The rest of the world is looking at this and saying we have quite a lot of crises.

Besides, there are other arguments as to why there may be a ceasefire sooner rather than later. First, things are deteriorating across the rest of the Palestinian arena in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Second, civilian casualties are reaching alarming levels. Third, this conflict is causing the US and the West to appear increasingly isolated. Fourth, the more destruction inflicted upon Gaza, the more challenging it will be to rebuild the region. Fifth, Israel lacks a plan for the aftermath of the conflict. Therefore, there are numerous reasons why a ceasefire is becoming more likely. Lastly, the longer the war persists, the less feasible it becomes to release the prisoners held in Gaza, increasing the likelihood of their death.

However, the US is not forcing Israel into a ceasefire at the moment. Israel remains angry, vengeful, and confused. It is not agreeing to a ceasefire, but I think this dynamic can shift. Many people are asking the question: How long can Israel maintain its reservists away from their employment? Much of the Israeli economy is at a standstill. Israel is beginning to lose soldiers in Gaza. The deaths of Israeli soldiers increase every day. These are the two tensions. There is a lot of criticism inside the US, within Biden's own party, that he is not pushing for a ceasefire. So it's possible that Israel will have several more weeks, but it's also very likely that the pressure will increase to end this sooner.

GT: You once were an Israeli peace negotiator. Over the years, the Israeli-Palestinian issue has been in a prolonged deadlock and even marginalized. What do you think are the reasons behind this?

Levy: There were basic parameters outlined for a deal, which would not be an ideal solution. Essentially, the idea was for Palestinians to accept a state in only 22 percent of the former mandate area, as Palestine had been colonized and Israel had established its own settler colony. The agreement entailed Israel's withdrawal, allowing for the creation of a Palestinian state. Due to the US' significant influence and strong relationship with Israel, it was expected that the US would ensure the achievement of this deal. However, this never materialized. Instead, Israel continued to place more and more illegal settlers in the land designated for the Palestinian state.

If you are occupying another territory, there are rules. There is international law. You are not allowed to move your civilian population into the territory. Israel violated this and many other international laws. So, instead of securing this deal, Israel continued to deepen the occupation. For the Palestinians, the main Palestinian faction, Fatah, which is the other party to Hamas, controlled the piano. The people who made the deal with Israel expected to get a state and stopped using armed struggle, negotiating instead. They became less and less credible in the eyes of their own people because things kept getting worse. So, Hamas kept getting stronger.

When we were negotiating, we understood some of these dynamics. We thought we could achieve a deal. To be honest, quite often we were negotiating with ourselves because there were different views on the Israeli side. You had a more pragmatic, realist Israeli position. You had a more ideological Israeli position or maximalist Israeli position. We never put forward a deal that would have led to peace, and the Americans, instead of ensuring it happened, actually made sure Israel was not held accountable when Israel refused to pursue the peaceful option. So, this is how it collapsed, but it has been collapsed now for a long time.

For a long time, there have been no serious peace efforts. What we hear are people saying "two states," but these words are meaningless. There is no accountability for Israel in preventing the establishment of two states. Furthermore, the situation on the ground has worsened. The collapse of the international architecture is evident, as the process has been monopolized by the US. Occasionally, the Quartet (comprising the UN, EU, Russia, and the US) has been involved, and sometimes Arab states have participated. However, the US and Israel have consistently worked to marginalize the Quartet, paralyze the UN Security Council, and improve Arab-Israeli relations without addressing the Palestinian issue.

All of these things were not serious. All of these things made peace less likely. All of those things were proof that we need a different international architecture. This can't be left just to the US.

GT: From your point of view, what is the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian issue?

Levy: There are four main points to consider. First, Palestinian politics is dysfunctional and not representative of its people. The opportunity to include Hamas within the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was hindered by the interference of countries like the US and Israel. Therefore, it is crucial to allow Palestinians to rebuild their political system and remove any obstacles. Friendly third countries should support and encourage this process, as the collapse of Palestinian politics has contributed to the current situation.

Second, if Israel believes it can act without consequences, it will continue to do so. The US' guarantee of Israeli impunity and lack of accountability has fostered a culture of war and excessive actions by Israel. This has led to strategic miscalculations, as Israel believed it could control millions of Palestinians without granting them rights or a state, which many consider to be an apartheid system.

Israel's confidence in its actions stems from the assurance provided by the US. So the second thing that needs to happen is for Israel to understand that there is a choice to be made and that there are costs for continuing to treat the Palestinians like this.

Third, we cannot leave this just to the US. We need this to be recognized as a major global crisis. The Israeli-Palestinian issue is part of the global crisis. This is not a marginal issue. We need other states, such as the G20 or the BRICS, parts of the Global South, and parts of the Arab world, to get more engaged so that there is some balance in how America manages this issue. We need a new contact group or a new architecture. This is true of many things in the world, but it is now particularly true of this crisis.

Finally, with the involved parties themselves, we need to clarify that the traditional position is for two states, but the international community is open to considering other ideas as long as they recognize the rights and equality of all people. We must encourage the parties to see each other as human beings and to acknowledge the reality of their situation.

Some may argue that Israel cannot negotiate until Hamas is destroyed, while others may question how Palestinians can negotiate with Israel when it has caused the deaths of thousands of children. However, this is the nature of conflict, and the path to stability lies in politics and negotiations. Instead of imposing a solution, we must emphasize that a situation through which one people live with rights and another people live without rights is unacceptable.

If Israel refuses to withdraw its settlements, perhaps a one-state solution could be considered. Similarly, if Palestinians insist on the return of refugees, maybe we can revisit the idea of two states. The key is to provide options and encourage the parties to engage in political discussions. These are my suggestions.

It’s hard not to compliment kids on certain things. When my little girls fancy themselves up in tutus, which is every single time we leave the house, people tell them how pretty they are. I know these folks’ intentions are good, but an abundance of compliments on clothes and looks sends messages I’d rather my girls didn’t absorb at ages 2 and 4. Or ever, for that matter.

Our words, often spoken casually and without much thought, can have a big influence on little kids’ views of themselves and their behaviors. That’s very clear from two new studies on children who were praised for being smart.

The studies, conducted in China on children ages 3 and 5, suggest that directly telling kids they’re smart, or that other people think they’re intelligent, makes them more likely to cheat to win a game.

In the first study, published September 12 in Psychological Science, 150 3-year-olds and 150 5-year-olds played a card guessing game. An experimenter hid a card behind a barrier and the children had to guess whether the card’s number was greater or less than six. In some early rounds of the game, a researcher told some of the children, “You are so smart.” Others were told, “You did very well this time.” Still others weren’t praised at all.

Just before the kids guessed the final card in the game, the experimenter left the room, but not before reminding the children not to peek. A video camera monitored the kids as they sat alone.

The children who had been praised for being smart were more likely to peek, either by walking around or leaning over the barrier, than the children in the other two groups, the researchers found. Among 3-year-olds who had been praised for their ability (“You did very well this time.”) or not praised at all, about 40 percent cheated. But the share of cheaters jumped to about 60 percent among the 3-year-olds who had been praised as smart. Similar, but slightly lower, numbers were seen for the 5-year-olds.

In another paper, published July 12 in Developmental Science, the same group of researchers tested whether having a reputation for smarts would have an effect on cheating. At the beginning of a similar card game played with 3- and 5-year-old Chinese children, researchers told some of the kids that they had a reputation for being smart. Other kids were told they had a reputation for cleanliness, while a third group was told nothing about their reputation. The same phenomenon emerged: Kids told they had a reputation for smarts were more likely than the other children to peek at the cards.
The kids who cheated probably felt more pressure to live up to their smart reputation, and that pressure may promote winning at any cost, says study coauthor Gail Heyman. She’s a psychologist at the University of California, San Diego and a visiting professor at Zhejiang Normal University in Jinhua, China. Other issues might be at play, too, she says, “such as giving children a feeling of superiority that gives them a sense that they are above the rules.”

Previous research has suggested that praising kids for their smarts can backfire in a different way: It might sap their motivation and performance.

Heyman was surprised to see that children as young as 3 shifted their behavior based on the researchers’ comments. “I didn’t think it was worth testing children this age, who have such a vague understanding of what it means to be smart,” she says. But even in these young children, words seemed to have a powerful effect.

The results, and other similar work, suggest that parents might want to curb the impulse to tell their children how smart they are. Instead, Heyman suggests, keep praise specific: “You did a nice job on the project,” or “I like the solution you came up with.” Likewise, comments that focus on the process are good choices: “How did you figure that out?” and “Isn’t it fun to struggle with a hard problem like that?”

It’s unrealistic to expect parents — and everyone else who comes into contact with children — to always come up with the “right” compliment. But I do think it’s worth paying attention to the way we talk with our kids, and what we want them to learn about themselves. These studies have been a good reminder for me that comments made to my kids — by anyone — matter, perhaps more than I know.

Once billed as “the most beautiful woman in the world,” actress Hedy Lamarr is often remembered for Golden Age Hollywood hits like Samson and Delilah. But Lamarr was gifted with more than just a face for film; she had a mind for science.

A new documentary, Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, spotlights Lamarr’s lesser-known legacy as an inventor. The film explores how the pretty veneer that Lamarr shrewdly used to advance her acting career ultimately trapped her in a life she found emotionally isolating and intellectually unfulfilling.
Lamarr, born in Vienna in 1914, first earned notoriety for a nude scene in a 1933 Czech-Austrian film. Determined to rise above that cinematic scarlet letter, Lamarr fled her unhappy first marriage and sailed to New York in 1937. En route, she charmed film mogul Louis B. Mayer into signing her. Stateside, she became a Hollywood icon by day and an inventor by night.
Lamarr’s interest in gadgetry began in childhood, though she never pursued an engineering education. Her most influential brainchild was a method of covert radio communication called frequency hopping, which involves sending a message over many different frequencies, jumping between channels in an order known only to the sender and receiver. So if an adversary tried to jam the signal on a certain channel, it would be intercepted for only a moment.

During World War II, Lamarr partnered with composer George Antheil to design a frequency-hopping device for steering antisubmarine torpedoes. The pair got a patent, but the U.S. Navy didn’t take the invention seriously. “The Navy basically told her, ‘You know, you’d be helping the war a lot more, little lady, if you got out and sold war bonds rather than sat around trying to invent,’ ” biographer Richard Rhodes says in the film. Ultimately, the film suggests, Lamarr’s bombshell image and the sexism of the day stifled her inventing ambitions. Yet, frequency hopping paved the way for some of today’s wireless technologies.

Throughout Bombshell, animated sketches illustrate Lamarr’s inventions, but the film doesn’t dig deep into the science. The primary focus is the tension between Lamarr’s love of invention and her Hollywood image. With commentary from family and historians, as well as old interviews with Lamarr, Bombshell paints a sympathetic portrait of a woman troubled by her superficial reputation and yearning for recognition of her scientific intellect.

It’s still too early to pack your bags for TRAPPIST-1. But two new studies probe the likely compositions of the seven Earth-sized worlds orbiting the cool, dim star, and some are looking better and better as places to live (SN: 3/18/17, p. 6).

New mass measurements suggest that the septet probably have rocky surfaces and possibly thin atmospheres, researchers report February 5 in Astronomy & Astrophysics. For at least three of the planets, those atmospheres don’t appear to be too hot for life, many of these same researchers conclude February 5 in Nature Astronomy.
TRAPPIST-1 is about 40 light-years from Earth, and four of its planets lie within or near the habitable zone, the range where temperatures can sustain liquid water. That makes these worlds tempting targets in the search for extraterrestrial life (SN: 12/23/17, p. 25)

One clue to potential habitability is a planet’s mass — something not precisely nailed down in previous measurements of the TRAPPIST-1 worlds. Mass helps determine a planet’s density, which in turn provides clues to its makeup. High density could indicate that a planet doesn’t have an atmosphere. Low density could indicate that a planet is shrouded in a puffy, hydrogen-rich atmosphere that would cause a runaway greenhouse effect.

Using a new computer technique that accounts for the planets’ gravitational tugs on each other, astronomer Simon Grimm of the University of Bern in Switzerland and his colleagues calculated the seven planets’ masses with five to eight times better precision than before. Those measurements suggest that the innermost planet probably has a thick, viscous atmosphere like Venus, Grimm says. The other six, which may be covered in ice or oceans, may have more life-friendly atmospheres. The fourth planet from the star has the same density as Earth and receives the same amount of radiation from its star as Earth, Grimm’s team reports in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

“This is really the cool thing: We have one planet which is very, very similar to the Earth,” Grimm says. “That’s really nice.”
Having an atmosphere could suggest habitability, but not if it’s too hot. So using the Hubble Space Telescope, MIT astronomer Julien de Wit and his colleagues, including some members from Grimm’s team, observed the four middle planets as they passed in front of the star. The team was looking for a signature in near-infrared wavelengths of light filtering through planets’ atmospheres. That would have indicated that the atmospheres were full of heat-trapping hydrogen.

In four different observations, Hubble saw no sign of hydrogen-rich atmospheres around three of the worlds, de Wit and colleagues report in Nature Astronomy. “We ruled out one of the scenarios in which it would have been uninhabitable,” de Wit says.

The new observations don’t necessarily mean the planets have atmospheres, much less ones that are good for life, says planetary scientist Stephen Kane of the University of California, Riverside. It’s still possible that the star’s radiation blew the planets’ atmospheres away earlier in their histories. “That’s something which is still on the table,” he says. “This is a really important piece of that puzzle, but there are many, many pieces.”

Finishing the puzzle may have to wait for the James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled to launch in 2019, which will be powerful enough to figure out all the components of the planets’ atmospheres — if they exist.

On an expedition to an icy island chain off the Antarctic Peninsula’s northern tip, researchers discovered a massive supercolony of more than 1.5 million Adélie penguins, according to a study published March 2 in Scientific Reports.

Scientists had known of an Adélie penguin colony (Pygoscelis adeliae) in these Danger Islands, but satellite images revealed more guano on the rocky islands than could be explained by the colony’s expected numbers.

Even though the tiny island chain is only about 10 kilometers across, researchers hadn’t realized the extent of the penguin population, says study coauthor Heather Lynch, an ecologist at Stony Brook University in New York. “In the Antarctic, distances are so vast, something major could be just around the corner and you wouldn’t know.”
The researchers did a preliminary head count, took drone images and collected mud cores during a 2015 expedition. The team then spent about a year using a computer algorithm to analyze the images to more fully count 751,527 penguin nests, Lynch says. For every nesting bird, the scientists assumed there was a partner penguin out at sea.
Next, the team hopes to analyze the guano content in the collected layers of mud to discover how long the penguins have been nesting in the Danger Islands.
The discovery is good news for fans of the flightless bird. Elsewhere in Antarctica where the climate is more volatile, penguin colonies are in decline. “I hope this provides impetus for a marine protected area in the Danger Islands with expanded borders from what has been proposed,” Lynch says.

Archaeopteryx was a flapper, not just a glider. The shape of the ancient bird’s wing bones suggests it was capable of short bursts of active, flapping flight, similar to how modern birds like pheasants and quails fly to escape predators, a new study finds.

One of the earliest birds, Archaeopteryx lived about 150 million years ago during the Jurassic Period, spanning the evolutionary gap between modern birds and feathered dinosaurs. Fossils of the primitive fowl have been instrumental in the recognition that birds are dinosaurs (SN Online: 7/31/14). But researchers have long wrangled over how well these ancient dino-birds could fly.
Archaeopteryx doesn’t have several features considered essential to flight in modern birds, such as a keeled breastbone to which several important flight muscles attach; a ball-and-socket arrangement that allows the wing to flap fully up over the back and down again; and a muscle pulley system that links chest and shoulder muscles, allowing the birds to swiftly alternate between powerful downstrokes and upstrokes. Previous researchers also have suggested that Archaeopteryx’s plumage was too delicate and might have snapped with vigorous flapping (SN: 6/5/10, p. 12). Based on these observations, the primitive bird was thought to merely glide from branch to branch, rather than flapping its wings to fly.

Paleontologist Dennis Voeten and colleagues decided to look for other features that might indicate the dino-birds flapped their wings while flying. The researchers used X-ray microtomography to examine two different wing bones — the humerus, or upper arm bone, and a lower arm bone called the ulna — in three Archaeopteryx fossils.

The team compared the thickness of the bones’ walls and their resistance to torsion — a twisting force that birds’ wings withstand during flapping flight — with similar bones from several dinosaurs, flying reptiles called pterosaurs and modern birds. Archaeopteryx had wing bone structures most similar to pheasants and quails, birds that are capable of small bursts of active flapping flight, the researchers report March 13 in Nature Communications.

In examining the shape of the wing bones, the study takes a novel approach to the question of whether Archaeopteryx could fly, says ornithologist Gerald Mayr of the Senckenberg Research Institute Frankfurt, who was not involved in the research.
But the study doesn’t answer whether Archaeopteryx could launch itself from the ground into the air. “Their results convincingly show that it could do active flight” once it was already airborne, Mayr says. “What they do not explain is how it would have been possible to produce strong flapping flight to take off from the ground.” Other early birds might have used a combination of wing and leg strength to launch into the air, but this hasn’t been shown for Archaeopteryx (SN: 11/26/16, p. 9).

To understand whether and how Achaeopteryx actually flew, researchers would need to reconstruct the animal’s full range of motion — a challenging prospect given that muscles don’t fossilize, says Voeten, of Palacký University Olomouc in the Czech Republic.

The primitive birds, without flight adaptations such as the muscle pulley system, wouldn’t have been capable of the full range of flapping motion birds today use. Instead, other parts of its anatomy indicate Archaeopteryx may have thrown its wings upward and forward, similar to a swimmer’s butterfly stroke, Voeten says. “Dedicated studies would need to show if it would work that way.”

When the 2017 Great American Eclipse hit totality and the sky went dark, bees noticed.

Microphones in flower patches at 11 sites in the path of the eclipse picked up the buzzing sounds of bees flying among blooms before and after totality. But those sounds were noticeably absent during the full solar blackout, a new study finds.

Dimming light and some summer cooling during the onset of the eclipse didn’t appear to make a difference to the bees. But the deeper darkness of totality did, researchers report October 10 in the Annals of the Entomological Society of America. At the time of totality, the change in buzzing was abrupt, says study coauthor and ecologist Candace Galen of the University of Missouri in Columbia.
The recordings come from citizen scientists, mostly school classes, setting out small microphones at two spots in Oregon, one in Idaho and eight in Missouri. Often when bees went silent at the peak of the eclipse, Galen says, “you can hear the people in the background going ‘ooo,’ ‘ahh’ or clapping.”
There’s no entirely reliable way (yet) of telling what kinds of bees were doing the buzzing, based only on their sounds, Galen says. She estimates that the Missouri sites had a lot of bumblebees, while the western sites had more of the tinier, temperature-fussy Megachile bees.
More western samples, with the fussier bees, might have let researchers see an effect on the insects of temperatures dropping by at least 10 degrees Celsius during the eclipse. The temperature plunge in the Missouri summer just “made things feel a little more comfortable,” Galen says.

This study of buzz recordings gives the first formal data published on bees during a solar eclipse, as far as Galen knows. “Insects are remarkably neglected,” she says. “Everybody wants to know what their dog and cat are doing during the eclipse, but they don’t think about the flea.”

Vinita Surukan knew the mosquitoes were trouble. They attacked her in swarms, biting through her clothes as she worked to collect rubber tree sap near her village in Sabah, the northern state of Malaysia. The 30-year-old woman described the situation as nearly unbearable. But she needed the job.

There were few alternatives in her village surrounded by fragments of forest reserves and larger swaths of farms, oil palm plantations and rubber tree estates. So she endured until a week of high fever and vomiting forced her to stop.
The night of July 23, Surukan was trying to sleep off her fever when the clinic she visited earlier in the day called with results: Her blood was teeming with malaria parasites, about a million in each drop. Her family rushed her to the town hospital where she received intravenous antimalarial drugs before being transferred to a city hospital equipped to treat severe malaria. The drugs cleared most of the parasites, and the lucky woman was smiling by morning.

Malaria has terrorized humans for millennia, its fevers carved into our earliest writing on ancient Sumerian clay tablets from Mesopotamia. In 2016, four species of human malaria parasites, which are spread by mosquito from person to person, infected more than 210 million people worldwide, killing almost 450,000. The deadliest species, Plasmodium falciparum, causes most of the infections.

But Surukan’s malaria was different. Hers was not a human malaria parasite. She had P. knowlesi, which infects several monkey species. The same parasite had recently infected two other people in Surukan’s village — a man who hunts in the forest and a teenager. Surukan suspects that her parasites came from the monkeys that live in the forest bordering the rubber tree estate where she worked. Some villagers quit working there after hearing of Surukan’s illness.

Monkey malaria, discovered in the early 1900s, became a public health concern only in the last 15 years. Before that, scientists thought it was extremely rare for monkey malaria parasites, of which there are at least 30 species, to infect humans.
Yet since 2008, Malaysia has reported more than 15,000 cases of P. knowlesi infection and about 50 deaths. Infections in 2017 alone hit 3,600.
People infected with monkey malaria are found across Southeast Asia near forests with wild monkeys. In 2017, another species of monkey malaria parasite, P. cynomolgi, was found in five Malaysians and 13 Cambodians. And by 2018, at least 19 travelers to the region, mostly Europeans, had brought monkey malaria back to their home countries.

The rise of monkey malaria in Malaysia is closely tied to rapid deforestation, says Kimberly Fornace, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. After testing blood samples of nearly 2,000 people from areas in Sabah with various levels of deforestation, she found that people staying or working near cut forests were more likely than people living away from forests to have P. knowlesi infections, she and colleagues reported in June in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. Stepping over felled trees, humans move closer to the monkeys and the parasite-carrying mosquitoes that thrive in cleared forests.
It’s out there
There’s no feasible way to treat wild monkeys for an infection that they show no signs of. “That’s the problem with P. knowlesi,” says Singapore-based infectious disease specialist Fe Espino, a director of the Asia Pacific Malaria Elimination Network.

In 2015, the World Health Organization set a goal for 2030: to stop malaria transmission in at least 35 of the 91 malaria-endemic countries. WHO targets the four human malaria parasites: P. falciparum, P. vivax, P. malariae and P. ovale. Monkey malaria is excluded from the campaign because the agency regards it as an animal disease that has not been shown to transmit among humans.

But as countries reduce human malaria, they will eventually have to deal with monkey malaria, Espino says, echoing an opinion widely shared by monkey malaria scientists.

“Something nasty” could emerge from the pool of malaria parasites in monkeys, says malariologist Richard Culleton of Nagasaki University in Japan. Culleton studies the genetics of human and monkey malaria. Malaria parasites can mutate quickly — possibly into new types that can more easily infect humans (SN: 9/6/14, p. 9). To Culleton, the monkey malaria reservoir “is like a black box. Things come flying out of it occasionally and you don’t know what’s coming next.”
Malaysia is very close to reaching the WHO target of human malaria elimination. In 2017, only 85 people there were infected with human malaria. But that success feels hollow as monkey malaria gains a foothold. And while monkey malaria has swelled into a public health threat only in Malaysia, the same could happen in other parts of Southeast Asia and beyond. Even in southeastern Brazil, where human malaria was eliminated 50 years ago, the P. simium malaria parasite that resides in howler monkeys caused outbreaks in humans in 2015 and 2016.

From tool to threat
In the late 1800s, scientists discovered the Plasmodium parasite and its Anopheles mosquito carriers. Humans retaliated by draining marshes to stop mosquito breeding and spraying insecticides over whole communities. Governments and militaries pursued antimalarial drugs as the disease claimed countless soldiers during the two World Wars.

Scientists soon found malaria parasites in birds, rodents, apes and monkeys. To the researchers, the parasites found in monkeys were a tool for testing antimalarial drugs, not a threat. An accident, however, showed otherwise.
In 1960, biologist Don Eyles had been studying the monkey malaria P. cynomolgi at a National Institutes of Health lab in Memphis, Tenn., when he fell ill with malarial fevers. He had been infected with the parasites found in his research monkeys. His team quickly confirmed that the malaria parasites in his monkeys could be carried by mosquitoes to humans. Suddenly, monkey malaria was not just a tool; it was an animal disease that could naturally infect humans.
The news shook WHO, McWilson Warren said in a 2005 interview recorded by the Office of NIH History. Warren, a parasitologist, had been Eyles’ colleague. Five years before Eyles became infected, WHO had launched the Global Malaria Eradication Programme. Banking on insecticides and antimalarial drugs, the agency had aimed to end all malaria transmissions outside of Africa. A monkey malaria that easily infects humans would sink the program because there would be no way to treat all the monkeys.

A team of American scientists, including Eyles and Warren, traveled to Malaysia — then the Federation of Malaya — where the P. cynomolgi parasites that infected Eyles came from. Funded by NIH, the scientists worked with colleagues from the Institute of Medical Research in Kuala Lumpur, established in 1900 by the British to study tropical diseases.

From 1961 to 1965, the researchers discovered five new species of monkey malaria parasites and about two dozen mosquito species that carry the parasites. But the researchers did not find any human infections. Then, in 1965, an American surveyor became infected with P. knowlesi after spending several nights camping on a hill about 160 kilometers inland from Kuala Lumpur.

Warren surveyed the forested area where the infected American had camped. The hill sat beside a meandering river. Monkeys and gibbons, a type of ape, lived on the hill and in adjacent forests. The closest house was about two kilometers away. Warren sampled the blood of four monkeys and more than 1,100 villagers around the hill; he collected mosquitoes too.

He found P. knowlesi parasites in the monkeys, but none among the villagers. Only one mosquito species, A. maculatus, appeared capable of transmitting malaria between monkeys and humans, but Warren deemed its numbers too low to matter. He concluded that monkey malaria stayed in the forests and rarely ever spilled into humans.

With those results, NIH ended the monkey malaria project, Warren said, and the Institute of Medical Research in Kuala Lumpur returned to its primary focus: human malaria, dengue and other mosquito-borne diseases. Monkey malaria was struck off the list of public health concerns.

Wake-up call
P. knowlesi landed back in the spotlight in 2004, with a report in the Lancet by malariologist Balbir Singh and his team. The group had found 120 people infected over two years in southern Malaysian Borneo. The patients were mostly indigenous people who lived near forests. Clinicians initially had checked the patients’ blood samples under microscopes — the standard test — and diagnosed the parasites as human malaria. But when Singh, of Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, applied molecular tools that identify parasite species by their DNA, he revealed that all the samples were P. knowlesi. Monkey malaria was breaking out of the diminishing forests.

By 2018, P. knowlesi had infected humans in all Southeast Asian countries except for East Timor. Singapore, declared malaria free in 1982, reported that six soldiers were infected with P. knowlesi from wild monkeys in a forest reserve. The parasite also turned up in almost 380 out of 3,700 visitors to health clinics in North Sumatra, Indonesia, an area that is close to being deemed free of human malaria.
Many scientists now recognize P. knowlesi as the fifth malaria parasite species that can naturally infect humans. It is also the only one to multiply in the blood every 24 hours, and it can kill if treatment is delayed. People pick up P. knowlesi parasites from long-tailed macaques, pig-tailed macaques and Mitred leaf monkeys. These monkeys range across Southeast Asia. So far, malaria parasites have been found in monkeys near or in forests, but rarely in monkeys in towns or cities.

Scientists propose several reasons for the recent rise in monkey malaria infections, but two stand out: improvement in malaria detection and forest loss.

Malaysia, for instance, finds more monkey malaria cases than other Southeast Asian countries because it added molecular diagnostic tools in 2009. Other countries use only microscopy for detection, says Rose Nani Mudin, who heads the vectorborne disease sector at Malaysia’s Ministry of Health. Since 2008, annual monkey malaria cases in Malaysia have climbed tenfold, even as human malaria cases have plummeted. “Maybe there is a genuine increase in [monkey malaria] cases. But with strengthening of surveillance, of course you would detect more cases,” she says.

Data collected by Malaysia’s malaria surveillance system have also revealed strong links between infection risk and deforestation. Fornace, the epidemiologist, examined the underlying drivers of monkey malaria in Surukan’s home state of Sabah. Fornace mapped monkey malaria cases in 405 villages, based on patient records from 2008 to 2012. Satellite data showed changes in forested areas around those villages. The villages most likely to report monkey malaria infections were those that had cut more than 8 percent of their surrounding forests within the last five years, she and colleagues reported in 2016 in Emerging Infectious Diseases.
Fornace’s team went into the field for a follow-up study, published in June in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. The team collected blood samples from almost 2,000 people in two areas in Sabah and checked for current and past malaria infection. People who farmed or worked in plantations near forests had at least a 63 percent higher risk of P. knowlesi infection, and — like in the 2016 study — forests and cleared areas escalated risk of infection.

“It feels almost like P. knowlesi follows deforestation,” Fornace says. Several years after a forest is cut back, nearby communities “get a peak of P. knowlesi.”

Today, the hill where the American surveyor camped in 1965 is a small island in a sea of oil palm estates. From 2000 to 2012, Malaysia cleared a total amount of forest equaling 14.4 percent of its land area, more than any other country, according to a study published in 2013 in Science. A study in 2013 in PLOS ONE used satellite images to show that in 2009, only one-fifth of Malaysian Borneo was intact forest. Almost one-fourth of all forest there had been logged, regrown and logged many times over.

Since 2008, oil palm acreage in Malaysian Borneo has increased from 2.08 million hectares to 3.1 million, according to the Malaysian Palm Oil Board. In Malaysia, the four states hit hardest by deforestation — Sabah, Sarawak, Kelantan and Pahang — report 95 percent of the country’s P. knowlesi cases.
Fornace thinks deforestation and the ecological changes that come with it are the main drivers of monkey malaria’s rise in Malaysia. She has seen long-tailed macaques spend more time in farms and near houses after their home forests were being logged. Macaques thrive near human communities where food is abundant and predators stay out. Parasite-carrying mosquitoes breed in puddles made by farming and logging vehicles.

Where monkeys go, mosquitoes follow. Indra Vythilingam, a parasitologist at University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, studied human malaria in indigenous communities in the early 1990s. Back then, she rarely found A. cracens, the mosquito species that carries monkey malaria in Peninsular Malaysia. But in 2007, that species made up over 60 percent of mosquitoes collected at forest edges and in orchards, she reported in 2012 in Malaria Journal. “It’s so much easier to find them” now, she says.

As Fornace points out, “P. knowlesi is a really good example of how a disease can emerge and change” as land use changes. She recommends that when big projects are evaluated for their impact on the economy and the environment, human health should be considered as well.

What to expect
While P. knowlesi cases are climbing in Malaysia, scientists have found no evidence that P. knowlesi transmits directly from human to mosquito to human (though many suspect it happens, albeit inefficiently).
Following a review by experts in 2017, WHO continues to exclude P. knowlesi from its malaria elimination efforts. Rabindra Abeyasinghe, a tropical medicine specialist who coordinates WHO malaria control in the western Pacific region, says the agency will reconsider P. knowlesi as human malaria if there is new evidence to show that the parasite transmits within human communities.

In Malaysia last year, only one person died from human malaria, but P. knowlesi killed 11. “We don’t want that to happen, which is why [P. knowlesi] is our priority even though it is not in the elimination program,” says Rose Nani Mudin from the country’s Ministry of Health.

Unable to do much with the monkeys in the trees, Malaysian health officers focus on the people most likely to be infected with P. knowlesi. Programs raise awareness of monkey malaria and aim to reduce mosquitoes around houses. New mosquito-control methods are needed, however, because conventional methods like insecticide-treated bed nets do not work for monkey malaria mosquitoes that bite outdoors around dusk.

Fighting malaria is like playing chess against an opponent that counters every good move we make, says Culleton in Japan. Malaria parasites can mutate quickly and “go away and hide in places and come out again.” Against malaria, he says, “we can never let our guard down.”

This article appears in the November 10, 2018 Science News with the headline, “The Next Malaria Menace: Deforestation brings monkeys and humans close enough to share an age-old disease.”

Editor’s note: This story was updated on November 6, 2018 to correct the WHO’s position on monkey malaria. The agency excludes monkey malaria parasites from its malaria eradication goals, not because those particular parasites rarely infect humans, but because the parasites have not been shown to transmit among humans.