What happened
Scientists at the University of Minnesota yesterday announced that they created synthetic cells from non-living chemicals that can perform many of the functions of living cells, like feeding, growing, dividing and replicating their genetic material. Lead researcher Kate Adamala said she named them SpudCells after Sputnik but also “because I’m mostly made of potatoes.” Her team said they are the “first synthetic cell with a complete cell cycle.” 

Who said what
The SpudCell is a “major step” toward “discovering the alchemy by which chemicals can be turned into life,” The New York Times said. With just 36 genes, it’s a “limited and fragile prototype,” CNN said, “but it could help scientists better understand the origins of life” and potentially solve “human problems” like “new cancer treatments and novel ways to capture carbon or manufacture chemicals.” The SpudCell could also “challenge our preconceived notions of what’s considered ‘life,’” said Futurism. 

“We’re going to remember this moment,” said computational cell biologist Roseanna Zia, who wasn’t involved in the research. The “shake-the-ground accomplishment here” was the ability of SpudCells to compete with each other, leading to more sophisticated progeny.

What next?
While Adamala’s research undergoes peer review, she and three colleagues created a public-benefit institution to disseminate the SpudCell “recipe” and collaborate with scientists worldwide to improve and utilize the breakthrough. 

What happened
Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group “committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing” during its 2024-25 campaign to capture the city of el-Fasher in North Darfur, Amnesty International said in a report yesterday. “The RSF’s crimes included murder, forcible transfer, imprisonment, torture, rape, sexual slavery, other forms of sexual violence, enslavement, extermination and persecution.”

Who said what
Amnesty analyzed video and documentary evidence and interviewed 246 people for its report, including 208 survivors, 39 of whom were children. The report “accused the RSF of deliberately targeting children,” The Guardian said. 

The public was “warned of the horrors that civilians in el-Fasher confronted as the RSF laid siege to the city,” said Amnesty International Secretary-General Agnès Callamard. The resulting atrocities are a “stain on the conscience of humanity.” A United Nations fact-finding mission said in February the RSF’s el-Fasher siege bore the “hallmarks of genocide” against non-Arab communities.

What next?
Sudan’s “ongoing civil war” between the army and RSF has “killed hundreds of thousands of people” and displaced more than 14 million, the BBC said. A “nationwide ceasefire” is “immediately needed” in Sudan, said Amnesty. There must also be an “independent and adequately resourced international force” assigned to “protect civilians against crimes by all parties to the conflict.”

A crisis is brewing on the small Caribbean island of St Lucia. For “more than a decade,” residents have lived with an “intermittent water supply,” said The Guardian. But a recent emergency-level shortage has upended day-to-day life for thousands, turning everything from “normal hygiene” practices to “food preparation” into a struggle. And “millions of dollars of investment,” including $80 million from World Bank financing, have merely “scratched the surface” when it comes to tackling the water supply issues pushing islanders “to the brink.”

Water supply is among St Lucia’s “most politically contentious issues,” with the two major political parties, the Labour Party and United Workers Party, “routinely trading accusations” that resources have been “mismanaged,” said The Guardian. The island’s one water company, the Water and Sewerage Company (WASCO), has a monopoly on supply.

WASCO’s provision of water to homes and businesses is hampered by service issues including leaks, blockages and damage to key transmission lines,” said the St. Lucia Times. But there’s also a “complex mix of challenges” at play, ranging from climate change to the island’s “aging infrastructure.” Rainfall patterns are now far “less predictable,” and the island grapples with “drier years alternating with wetter ones.”

As a temporary solution, citizens are urged to “engage in rainwater harvesting,” said the St. Lucia Times. In the longer term, the government has promised “significant investment” and a “dedicated committee” to examine WASCO’s future. The supplier’s slogan declares that “water is life,” and with that vital liquid hard to come by, the company and its systems are “gravely ailing.”