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As Ukraine's counter-offensive gathers steam, the city of Kharkiv is targeted by Putin's forces. Here's a view from up close, during heavy shelling that has sparked power and water outrages, even as the liberation of territory sets off scenes of joy and elation.

Russian shelling destroyed a residential building in Kharkiv in early September 2022.

KHARKIV — For several years, a woman has been sitting on the corner of my street selling flowers almost every day. On Sep. 9, our neighborhood was shelled for the first time – and have no doubt that an hour and a half after the missile hit our street, she was sitting right there in her usual place. People were cleaning up broken glass and cutting tree branches 50 meters from her. Some came to buy flowers.

In some way, this is all you need to know about life right now in Kharkiv.

Stay up-to-date with the latest on the Russia-Ukraine war, with our exclusive international coverage.

We are hostages of geography: the time it takes for the missile to reach Kharkiv from Belgorod, Russia, as air defense officers tell us, is 43 seconds. None of our existing defense systems are able to prevent their arrival in our neighborhood.

It was obvious that Russia would take revenge on the city of Kharkiv for the counteroffensive across the region. Just as it has been taking revenge for many months for the failure to establish a “people's republic” here in the spring of 2014.

Every day we sort out the rubble, remove the glass of broken windows and – buy asters, buy late-season strawberries, walk in parks. Life has a way of always seeking to defend itself, those little habits of which it consists.

Time for new habits On the same September day, in the St. John Theologian Church, Father Victor Marynchak was marrying a young couple: she is a civilian, he is a military man who took a few hours off. The shelling hit right in the middle of the ceremony. Heavy carpets took the brunt of broken glass. The half-ton locked door swung open and closed again. If this was a television series, it would be called too far-fetched. The daughter of the Orthodox priest, a poet named Natalka Marynchak, says that the soldier looked out the window, looked at his watch and said: “Well, let's continue, because I have to go back to the war in an hour.” Natalka looked at her father, who was hit by a fragment without a cut, and went to sweep the glass. The strike was ten meters from the porch. This is another scene that, if seen in a television series, would be called too far-fetched – there are many of them these days. I’m listening to Natalka near our favorite coffee shop. The next minute, we are rushing into the basement – this hit was somewhere quite close. In a few minutes, Natalka is going to pick up her father from the university (Father Victor is a professor of linguistics). I’m sitting down to work — and for the second time in a day, the electricity was cut off in the region. Well, I guess it’s time for new habits – in addition to the ones we’ve already had since February 24. Needless to say, we have been in intense euphoria for several days. Needless to say, that for us as for residents of Sloboda Ukraine (*the historical region in Ukraine), all the names of the localities liberated that appear in the news every few hours have a special meaning. So, my friend’s mother lives near Kupyansk, I go to Kremenets to cry and rejoice, we made a festival in Izium, my volunteering began from Hoptivka, and in Velykyi Burluk there lives a forecaster-better-than-Arestovych - the baibak Tymko. But the euphoria is accompanied by air-raid alarms. Already after the massive shelling of the center in broad daylight (around 2 p.m.) last Friday, it was clear that the Russians would actively take revenge - but how exactly? Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a surprise visit to Izium, in the Kharkiv region. Ukrainian Presidential Press Off/Planet Pix/ZUMALiving in the dark At 8:01 p.m., on the third day of the intoxicating delight of our counteroffensive, the entire region was suddenly blacked out. Information spread through telegram channels that five more regions were also affected: Donetsk, partly Zaporizhia, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, and Poltava. As it turned out later, also a part of Belgorod and Voronezh in Russia. When the lights went out, my first thought was: Yes, there are diesel generators in hospitals, I know this for sure. The National Health Service of Ukraine added generators to the list of requirements for contracted medical facilities on April 1, 2021, during COVID, along with oxygen lines. At that time, many hospitals were outraged, complaining about the additional costs. Well, now they have been justified.Communications resume (partially) The municipal services of the region worked wonders: I had electricity at 2 a.m., so I managed to take another hour's nap after sleeping through the midnight bombardment of the neighboring area. Through my sleep, I thought about the freezer: “I won’t forgive them my frozen strawberries.” In fact, the integrity of the stocks in the freezer for a person deprived of a permanent income (and there are way too many of us like this here) is very important. “Krasnograd! Lozova! Sakhnovshchyna! Babai!” – the roll call of districts with electricity looked as if an inspired geography teacher gave the class a new task – after yesterday's euphoric "IZIU-U-U-UM!" People, Vovchansk!!! Kozacha Lopan!!! Vanya, they are going to Burluk!!!" People who were in the subway during the blackout trudged through the tunnels on foot. The evening trolleybuses stopped. Trains were delayed. Some people started to receive SMS messages from unknown numbers: “Hi, do you have electricity?”. Law enforcement officers ask people not to respond to such messages from strangers, as these may be provocations, or scams. As of 9 a.m., electricity and water supply in Kharkiv and the region was restored to 80%. Ukrainian soldiers attend the flag raising ceremony in Izium. Ukraine Presidential Press Service/ZUMATolerating blackouts  On Monday, around 1 a.m., Kharkiv was again heavily shelled. The geography of air strikes is wide: In general, shelling in recent weeks resembles Russian roulette, and we are even joking that we are ready to move from the center to the countryside. The Internet was also gone, making it impossible to work; mobile communications lagged. The electric transport was not working, the ambulances were rushing with a siren — for the first time since the spring I had such an acute and disturbing feeling of war. In some areas, along with electricity, the water supply was cut off.What am I thinking about as I write these lines? I didn't dare to walk around the city: In recent weeks, fear has suddenly replaced the spring-summer frenzy of trips to different districts, and sometimes this fear blocks me. Friends who walked along the central streets say that people were sitting in the cafe, but shops and pharmacies were closed, cash registers did not work. Power was restored in most areas within a few hours. In some places, however, there is still no electricity or water. What am I thinking about as I write these lines, on the eve of the night that might also be full of “surprises”? To be honest, I am thinking about the ambulances: the one we bought that is now rushing back and forth to Kurakhove, and the one we still need to buy for a brigade in the Kherson region. By God, we will tolerate blackouts, and much more, just to get our towns and villages back. Let there be as little bloodshed as possible.

On the same September day, in the St. John Theologian Church, Father Victor Marynchak was marrying a young couple: she is a civilian, he is a military man who took a few hours off. The shelling hit right in the middle of the ceremony. Heavy carpets took the brunt of broken glass. The half-ton locked door swung open and closed again.

The daughter of the Orthodox priest, a poet named Natalka Marynchak, says that the soldier looked out the window, looked at his watch and said: “Well, let's continue, because I have to go back to the war in an hour.”

Natalka looked at her father, who was hit by a fragment without a cut, and went to sweep the glass. The strike was ten meters from the porch. This is another scene that, if seen in a television series, would be called too far-fetched – there are many of them these days.

I’m listening to Natalka near our favorite coffee shop. The next minute, we are rushing into the basement – this hit was somewhere quite close. In a few minutes, Natalka is going to pick up her father from the university (Father Victor is a professor of linguistics). I’m sitting down to work — and for the second time in a day, the electricity was cut off in the region.

Well, I guess it’s time for new habits – in addition to the ones we’ve already had since February 24.

Needless to say, we have been in intense euphoria for several days. Needless to say, that for us as for residents of Sloboda Ukraine (*the historical region in Ukraine), all the names of the localities liberated that appear in the news every few hours have a special meaning. So, my friend’s mother lives near Kupyansk, I go to Kremenets to cry and rejoice, we made a festival in Izium, my volunteering began from Hoptivka, and in Velykyi Burluk there lives a forecaster-better-than-Arestovych - the baibak Tymko.

But the euphoria is accompanied by air-raid alarms. Already after the massive shelling of the center in broad daylight (around 2 p.m.) last Friday, it was clear that the Russians would actively take revenge - but how exactly?

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a surprise visit to Izium, in the Kharkiv region.

Ukrainian Presidential Press Off/Planet Pix/ZUMA

At 8:01 p.m., on the third day of the intoxicating delight of our counteroffensive, the entire region was suddenly blacked out. Information spread through telegram channels that five more regions were also affected: Donetsk, partly Zaporizhia, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, and Poltava. As it turned out later, also a part of Belgorod and Voronezh in Russia.

When the lights went out, my first thought was: Yes, there are diesel generators in hospitals, I know this for sure. The National Health Service of Ukraine added generators to the list of requirements for contracted medical facilities on April 1, 2021, during COVID, along with oxygen lines. At that time, many hospitals were outraged, complaining about the additional costs. Well, now they have been justified.

The municipal services of the region worked wonders: I had electricity at 2 a.m., so I managed to take another hour's nap after sleeping through the midnight bombardment of the neighboring area. Through my sleep, I thought about the freezer: “I won’t forgive them my frozen strawberries.”

In fact, the integrity of the stocks in the freezer for a person deprived of a permanent income (and there are way too many of us like this here) is very important.

“Krasnograd! Lozova! Sakhnovshchyna! Babai!” – the roll call of districts with electricity looked as if an inspired geography teacher gave the class a new task – after yesterday's euphoric "IZIU-U-U-UM!" People, Vovchansk!!! Kozacha Lopan!!! Vanya, they are going to Burluk!!!"

People who were in the subway during the blackout trudged through the tunnels on foot. The evening trolleybuses stopped. Trains were delayed.

Some people started to receive SMS messages from unknown numbers: “Hi, do you have electricity?”. Law enforcement officers ask people not to respond to such messages from strangers, as these may be provocations, or scams.

As of 9 a.m., electricity and water supply in Kharkiv and the region was restored to 80%.

Ukrainian soldiers attend the flag raising ceremony in Izium.

Ukraine Presidential Press Service/ZUMA

On Monday, around 1 a.m., Kharkiv was again heavily shelled. The geography of air strikes is wide: In general, shelling in recent weeks resembles Russian roulette, and we are even joking that we are ready to move from the center to the countryside.

The Internet was also gone, making it impossible to work; mobile communications lagged. The electric transport was not working, the ambulances were rushing with a siren — for the first time since the spring I had such an acute and disturbing feeling of war. In some areas, along with electricity, the water supply was cut off.

I didn't dare to walk around the city: In recent weeks, fear has suddenly replaced the spring-summer frenzy of trips to different districts, and sometimes this fear blocks me. Friends who walked along the central streets say that people were sitting in the cafe, but shops and pharmacies were closed, cash registers did not work.

Power was restored in most areas within a few hours. In some places, however, there is still no electricity or water.

What am I thinking about as I write these lines, on the eve of the night that might also be full of “surprises”? To be honest, I am thinking about the ambulances: the one we bought that is now rushing back and forth to Kurakhove, and the one we still need to buy for a brigade in the Kherson region.

By God, we will tolerate blackouts, and much more, just to get our towns and villages back. Let there be as little bloodshed as possible.

As Ukraine's counter-offensive gathers steam, the city of Kharkiv is targeted by Putin's forces. Here's a view from up close, during heavy shelling that has sparked power and water outrages, even as the liberation of territory sets off scenes of joy and elation.

Russian shelling destroyed a residential building in Kharkiv in early September 2022.

KHARKIV — For several years, a woman has been sitting on the corner of my street selling flowers almost every day. On Sep. 9, our neighborhood was shelled for the first time – and have no doubt that an hour and a half after the missile hit our street, she was sitting right there in her usual place. People were cleaning up broken glass and cutting tree branches 50 meters from her. Some came to buy flowers.

In some way, this is all you need to know about life right now in Kharkiv.

Stay up-to-date with the latest on the Russia-Ukraine war, with our exclusive international coverage.

We are hostages of geography: the time it takes for the missile to reach Kharkiv from Belgorod, Russia, as air defense officers tell us, is 43 seconds. None of our existing defense systems are able to prevent their arrival in our neighborhood.

It was obvious that Russia would take revenge on the city of Kharkiv for the counteroffensive across the region. Just as it has been taking revenge for many months for the failure to establish a “people's republic” here in the spring of 2014.

Every day we sort out the rubble, remove the glass of broken windows and – buy asters, buy late-season strawberries, walk in parks. Life has a way of always seeking to defend itself, those little habits of which it consists.

Time for new habits On the same September day, in the St. John Theologian Church, Father Victor Marynchak was marrying a young couple: she is a civilian, he is a military man who took a few hours off. The shelling hit right in the middle of the ceremony. Heavy carpets took the brunt of broken glass. The half-ton locked door swung open and closed again. If this was a television series, it would be called too far-fetched. The daughter of the Orthodox priest, a poet named Natalka Marynchak, says that the soldier looked out the window, looked at his watch and said: “Well, let's continue, because I have to go back to the war in an hour.” Natalka looked at her father, who was hit by a fragment without a cut, and went to sweep the glass. The strike was ten meters from the porch. This is another scene that, if seen in a television series, would be called too far-fetched – there are many of them these days. I’m listening to Natalka near our favorite coffee shop. The next minute, we are rushing into the basement – this hit was somewhere quite close. In a few minutes, Natalka is going to pick up her father from the university (Father Victor is a professor of linguistics). I’m sitting down to work — and for the second time in a day, the electricity was cut off in the region. Well, I guess it’s time for new habits – in addition to the ones we’ve already had since February 24. Needless to say, we have been in intense euphoria for several days. Needless to say, that for us as for residents of Sloboda Ukraine (*the historical region in Ukraine), all the names of the localities liberated that appear in the news every few hours have a special meaning. So, my friend’s mother lives near Kupyansk, I go to Kremenets to cry and rejoice, we made a festival in Izium, my volunteering began from Hoptivka, and in Velykyi Burluk there lives a forecaster-better-than-Arestovych - the baibak Tymko. But the euphoria is accompanied by air-raid alarms. Already after the massive shelling of the center in broad daylight (around 2 p.m.) last Friday, it was clear that the Russians would actively take revenge - but how exactly? Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a surprise visit to Izium, in the Kharkiv region. Ukrainian Presidential Press Off/Planet Pix/ZUMALiving in the dark At 8:01 p.m., on the third day of the intoxicating delight of our counteroffensive, the entire region was suddenly blacked out. Information spread through telegram channels that five more regions were also affected: Donetsk, partly Zaporizhia, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, and Poltava. As it turned out later, also a part of Belgorod and Voronezh in Russia. When the lights went out, my first thought was: Yes, there are diesel generators in hospitals, I know this for sure. The National Health Service of Ukraine added generators to the list of requirements for contracted medical facilities on April 1, 2021, during COVID, along with oxygen lines. At that time, many hospitals were outraged, complaining about the additional costs. Well, now they have been justified.Communications resume (partially) The municipal services of the region worked wonders: I had electricity at 2 a.m., so I managed to take another hour's nap after sleeping through the midnight bombardment of the neighboring area. Through my sleep, I thought about the freezer: “I won’t forgive them my frozen strawberries.” In fact, the integrity of the stocks in the freezer for a person deprived of a permanent income (and there are way too many of us like this here) is very important. “Krasnograd! Lozova! Sakhnovshchyna! Babai!” – the roll call of districts with electricity looked as if an inspired geography teacher gave the class a new task – after yesterday's euphoric "IZIU-U-U-UM!" People, Vovchansk!!! Kozacha Lopan!!! Vanya, they are going to Burluk!!!" People who were in the subway during the blackout trudged through the tunnels on foot. The evening trolleybuses stopped. Trains were delayed. Some people started to receive SMS messages from unknown numbers: “Hi, do you have electricity?”. Law enforcement officers ask people not to respond to such messages from strangers, as these may be provocations, or scams. As of 9 a.m., electricity and water supply in Kharkiv and the region was restored to 80%. Ukrainian soldiers attend the flag raising ceremony in Izium. Ukraine Presidential Press Service/ZUMATolerating blackouts  On Monday, around 1 a.m., Kharkiv was again heavily shelled. The geography of air strikes is wide: In general, shelling in recent weeks resembles Russian roulette, and we are even joking that we are ready to move from the center to the countryside. The Internet was also gone, making it impossible to work; mobile communications lagged. The electric transport was not working, the ambulances were rushing with a siren — for the first time since the spring I had such an acute and disturbing feeling of war. In some areas, along with electricity, the water supply was cut off.What am I thinking about as I write these lines? I didn't dare to walk around the city: In recent weeks, fear has suddenly replaced the spring-summer frenzy of trips to different districts, and sometimes this fear blocks me. Friends who walked along the central streets say that people were sitting in the cafe, but shops and pharmacies were closed, cash registers did not work. Power was restored in most areas within a few hours. In some places, however, there is still no electricity or water. What am I thinking about as I write these lines, on the eve of the night that might also be full of “surprises”? To be honest, I am thinking about the ambulances: the one we bought that is now rushing back and forth to Kurakhove, and the one we still need to buy for a brigade in the Kherson region. By God, we will tolerate blackouts, and much more, just to get our towns and villages back. Let there be as little bloodshed as possible.

On the same September day, in the St. John Theologian Church, Father Victor Marynchak was marrying a young couple: she is a civilian, he is a military man who took a few hours off. The shelling hit right in the middle of the ceremony. Heavy carpets took the brunt of broken glass. The half-ton locked door swung open and closed again.

The daughter of the Orthodox priest, a poet named Natalka Marynchak, says that the soldier looked out the window, looked at his watch and said: “Well, let's continue, because I have to go back to the war in an hour.”

Natalka looked at her father, who was hit by a fragment without a cut, and went to sweep the glass. The strike was ten meters from the porch. This is another scene that, if seen in a television series, would be called too far-fetched – there are many of them these days.

I’m listening to Natalka near our favorite coffee shop. The next minute, we are rushing into the basement – this hit was somewhere quite close. In a few minutes, Natalka is going to pick up her father from the university (Father Victor is a professor of linguistics). I’m sitting down to work — and for the second time in a day, the electricity was cut off in the region.

Well, I guess it’s time for new habits – in addition to the ones we’ve already had since February 24.

Needless to say, we have been in intense euphoria for several days. Needless to say, that for us as for residents of Sloboda Ukraine (*the historical region in Ukraine), all the names of the localities liberated that appear in the news every few hours have a special meaning. So, my friend’s mother lives near Kupyansk, I go to Kremenets to cry and rejoice, we made a festival in Izium, my volunteering began from Hoptivka, and in Velykyi Burluk there lives a forecaster-better-than-Arestovych - the baibak Tymko.

But the euphoria is accompanied by air-raid alarms. Already after the massive shelling of the center in broad daylight (around 2 p.m.) last Friday, it was clear that the Russians would actively take revenge - but how exactly?

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a surprise visit to Izium, in the Kharkiv region.

Ukrainian Presidential Press Off/Planet Pix/ZUMA

At 8:01 p.m., on the third day of the intoxicating delight of our counteroffensive, the entire region was suddenly blacked out. Information spread through telegram channels that five more regions were also affected: Donetsk, partly Zaporizhia, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, and Poltava. As it turned out later, also a part of Belgorod and Voronezh in Russia.

When the lights went out, my first thought was: Yes, there are diesel generators in hospitals, I know this for sure. The National Health Service of Ukraine added generators to the list of requirements for contracted medical facilities on April 1, 2021, during COVID, along with oxygen lines. At that time, many hospitals were outraged, complaining about the additional costs. Well, now they have been justified.

The municipal services of the region worked wonders: I had electricity at 2 a.m., so I managed to take another hour's nap after sleeping through the midnight bombardment of the neighboring area. Through my sleep, I thought about the freezer: “I won’t forgive them my frozen strawberries.”

In fact, the integrity of the stocks in the freezer for a person deprived of a permanent income (and there are way too many of us like this here) is very important.

“Krasnograd! Lozova! Sakhnovshchyna! Babai!” – the roll call of districts with electricity looked as if an inspired geography teacher gave the class a new task – after yesterday's euphoric "IZIU-U-U-UM!" People, Vovchansk!!! Kozacha Lopan!!! Vanya, they are going to Burluk!!!"

People who were in the subway during the blackout trudged through the tunnels on foot. The evening trolleybuses stopped. Trains were delayed.

Some people started to receive SMS messages from unknown numbers: “Hi, do you have electricity?”. Law enforcement officers ask people not to respond to such messages from strangers, as these may be provocations, or scams.

As of 9 a.m., electricity and water supply in Kharkiv and the region was restored to 80%.

Ukrainian soldiers attend the flag raising ceremony in Izium.

Ukraine Presidential Press Service/ZUMA

On Monday, around 1 a.m., Kharkiv was again heavily shelled. The geography of air strikes is wide: In general, shelling in recent weeks resembles Russian roulette, and we are even joking that we are ready to move from the center to the countryside.

The Internet was also gone, making it impossible to work; mobile communications lagged. The electric transport was not working, the ambulances were rushing with a siren — for the first time since the spring I had such an acute and disturbing feeling of war. In some areas, along with electricity, the water supply was cut off.

I didn't dare to walk around the city: In recent weeks, fear has suddenly replaced the spring-summer frenzy of trips to different districts, and sometimes this fear blocks me. Friends who walked along the central streets say that people were sitting in the cafe, but shops and pharmacies were closed, cash registers did not work.

Power was restored in most areas within a few hours. In some places, however, there is still no electricity or water.

What am I thinking about as I write these lines, on the eve of the night that might also be full of “surprises”? To be honest, I am thinking about the ambulances: the one we bought that is now rushing back and forth to Kurakhove, and the one we still need to buy for a brigade in the Kherson region.

By God, we will tolerate blackouts, and much more, just to get our towns and villages back. Let there be as little bloodshed as possible.

The discovery that earned Japan's Shinya Yamanaka the 2012 Nobel Prize in Medicine has paved the way for new research proving that aging is a reversible process. Currently just being tested on lab mice, will the cellular reprogramming soon offer eternal youth?

A discovery about cellular reprogramming could help reverse aging.

PARIS — Barbra Streisand loved her dog Samantha, aka Sammy. The white and fluffy purebred Coton of Tulear was even present on the steps of the Elysée Palace, the French President’s official residence, when Streisand received the Legion of Honor in 2007.

As the singer and actress explained inThe New York Times in 2018, she loved Sammy so much that, unable to bring herself to see her pass away, she had the dog cloned by a Texas firm for the modest sum of 50,000 dollars just before she died in 2017, at the age of 14. And that's how Barbra Streisand became the happy owner of Miss Violet and Miss Scarlet, two puppies who are the spitting image of the deceased Samantha.

This may sound like a joke, but there is one deeply disturbing fact that Harvard Medical School genetics professor David A. Sinclair points out in his book Why We Age – And Why We Don’t Have To. It is that the cloning of an old dog has led to two young puppies.

This proves that DNA — ours as well as that of Sammy — has everything it takes to restore lost youth. This is a property that could be used to "reverse" aging without having to go through the problematic stage of cloning.

The idea rests on identifying the "reset" button of the organism. And aging specialists all have the same piece of good news to announce: this button has been found.

Its name sounds like a Japanese techno-thriller title: "The Yamanaka factors". But Shinya Yamanaka is not a fictional character. He is a scientist specialized in stem cell research who received the 2012 Nobel Prize in Medicine.

If all this sound a bit too science-fictional, you should know that the U.S. biotech company Altos Labs, which was just founded early this year, received a check of three billion dollars from billionaires Yuri Milner and Jeff Bezos. Not bad for a start-up. But this is a start-up with a very promising technology — cellular reprogramming, which is nothing more than the name given by biologists to the famous "reset" button.

In 2006-2007, Yamanaka announced to the scientific community that he had discovered a combination of four genes — Oct4, Klf4, Sox2 and c-Myc — which, when injected into a cell, induces it to go from being a differentiated cell (nerve, blood, and so on) to being a pluripotent stem cell, i.e., one that can subsequently redevelop into any cell type.

Keynote Speaker Dr. Shinya Yamanaka at the U.S-Japan council in 2013.

It didn't take long for Yamanaka's colleagues to take advantage of his amazing discovery. In 2011, French researcher Jean-Marc Lemaître, who worked at the Institute of Functional Genomics at the University of Montpellier (which never received the same financial support as American biotech company Altos Labs!) was the first to experimentally prove, on human tissues, that cellular aging was a reversible process. He and his team succeeded in transforming aging or senescent human skin cells back into young skin cells.

The process has since been improved, since it is no longer necessary to go through the stage of pluripotent cells — which can degenerate into cancerous cells — to reverse cellular aging. Interrupting the process before reaching this stage is enough to start the series of gene reactions that counter cellular aging.

But that's not all. Since Lemaître's pioneering work, biologists from both sides of the Atlantic have shown that what was possible at the level of the cell is also possible at the level of the organism as a whole. As is often the case, they used mice as guinea pigs. At the end of 2016, in a famous study published by the "Cell" magazine, a professor at the Salk Institute (San Diego, California) Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte revealed the more than promising results recorded on genetically modified rodents.

The rodents' genome had been enriched with the Yamanaka factors as well as a small piece of additional genetic code, corresponding to a sort of on-off switch. Controlling the activation of the four genes, this "promoter" was itself activated only if the mouse ingested an antibiotic — the doxycycline to be precise.

By prescribing this molecule (and thus activating the Yamanaka factors) two days a week throughout the life of the mice, Belmonte and his team increased their lifespan by 40%. "Aging is no longer a unidirectional process, as we thought. We can slow it down and even reverse it," he announced triumphantly. In a very similar experiment, Jean-Marc Lemaître has obtained a more modest lengthening, of 15%, but thanks to a single dose of doxycycline. And above all, insists the French researcher, this "extra" lifespan proved to be free of all age-related diseases: osteoporosis, arthritis, pulmonary or renal fibrosis, etc.

The genetic modification of mice is common practice in labs. But should we do the same with humans to get the same result? There was public outcry in 2018 when Chinese researcher He Jiankui “gave birth” to twins with tampered genomes — the first genetically modified children in history — with the objective of giving them resistance to HIV.

How we view "GMO babies" may change over the next few decades. But whether it changes or not, it will not be necessary to go that far to do cell reprogramming in humans. A simple vaccine will probably do the trick.

The Covid-19 pandemic made the public aware that a vaccine — whether RNA or DNA — could be used as a vector to introduce genetic material into the human body. BioNTech's and Moderna's messenger RNA vaccines do this, but many other "viral vectors" exist, such as adeno-associated viruses (AAVs), small, non-pathogenic DNA viruses commonly used in molecular biology to carry one or more "genes of interest”. On paper, there is nothing to prevent these genes of interest from being precisely those highlighted by Yamanaka.

And this is what our near future could look like. Around the age of 30, when we are — alas, only temporarily! — at the peak of our mental and physical fitness, we would receive one or more injections of this viral vector responsible for carrying Yamanaka's factors into us. Nothing would change in our body yet, as the Yamanaka factors have been programmed to remain silent until activated by the promoter. So we would continue to age normally. The passing of the years would no longer be irreparable!

Indeed, as soon as we would start to feel their first undesirable effects, let's say in our mid-forties, we would be prescribed a month's treatment with doxycycline. And then — but only then — would the youth therapy kick in. White hair disappearing, wounds healing faster, wrinkles fading, organs regenerating, glasses becoming useless... "Like Benjamin Button," writes David Sinclair, "you would experience the sensations of a 35-year-old. Then 30. Then 25. But unlike Benjamin Button, you would not go beyond that limit, because the statute of limitations would be interrupted... You would be about two decades younger biologically, physically and mentally, without having lost any of your knowledge, wisdom or memories."

Of course, such a possibility, if it becomes a reality and especially if it becomes widespread, will revolutionize large parts of society and will not be without its own tricky problems for a resource-limited planet. But who among us, once we reach a certain age, wouldn't dream of regaining our lost youth, while retaining the "benefits of experience"?

The discovery that earned Japan's Shinya Yamanaka the 2012 Nobel Prize in Medicine has paved the way for new research proving that aging is a reversible process. Currently just being tested on lab mice, will the cellular reprogramming soon offer eternal youth?

Not everyone in Britain is mourning the death of the Queen. There is increasing concern about how the monarch's death is being used to repress freedom of expression and protest.

Charity may begin at home, but for our Naples-based psychiatrist, it also begins behind the wheel.

Negotiate? Stall? Double down? The Russian leader suddenly finds himself in front of a situation that offers no obvious good choices. Doing nothing, however, is not an option.

Central to the tragic absurdity of this war is the question of language. Vladimir Putin has repeated that protecting ethnic Russians and the Russian-speaking populations of Ukraine was a driving motivation for his invasion.

Yet one month on, a quick look at the map shows that many of the worst-hit cities are those where Russian is the predominant language: Kharkiv, Odesa, Kherson.

Then there is Mariupol, under siege and symbol of Putin’s cruelty. In the largest city on the Azov Sea, with a population of half a million people, Ukrainians make up slightly less than half of the city's population, and Mariupol's second-largest national ethnicity is Russians. As of 2001, when the last census was conducted, 89.5% of the city's population identified Russian as their mother tongue.

Between 2018 and 2019, I spent several months in Mariupol. It is a rugged but beautiful city dotted with Soviet-era architecture, featuring wide avenues and hillside parks, and an extensive industrial zone stretching along the shoreline. There was a vibrant youth culture and art scene, with students developing projects to turn their city into a regional cultural center with an international photography festival.

There were also many offices of international NGOs and human rights organizations, a consequence of the fact that Mariupol was the last major city before entering the occupied zone of Donbas. Many natives of the contested regions of Luhansk and Donetsk had moved there, taking jobs in restaurants and hospitals. I had fond memories of the welcoming from locals who were quicker to smile than in some other parts of Ukraine. All of this is gone.

According to the latest data from the local authorities, 80% of the port city has been destroyed by Russian bombs, artillery fire and missile attacks, with particularly egregious targeting of civilians, including a maternity hospital, a theater where more than 1,000 people had taken shelter and a school where some 400 others were hiding.

The official civilian death toll of Mariupol is estimated at more than 3,000. There are no language or ethnic-based statistics of the victims, but it’s likely the majority were Russian speakers.

So let’s be clear, Putin is bombing the very people he has claimed to want to rescue.

Putin’s Public Enemy No. 1, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, is a mother-tongue Russian speaker who’d made a successful acting and comedy career in Russian-language broadcasting, having extensively toured Russian cities for years.

Rescuers carry a person injured during a shelling by Russian troops of Kharkiv, northeastern Ukraine.

Vyacheslav Madiyevskyy/Ukrinform via ZUMA Press Wire

Yes, the official language of Ukraine is Ukrainian, and a 2019 law aimed to ensure that it is used in public discourse, but no one has ever sought to abolish the Russian language in everyday life. In none of the cities that are now being bombed by the Russian army to supposedly liberate them has the Russian language been suppressed or have the Russian-speaking population been discriminated against.

Sociologist Mikhail Mishchenko explains that studies have found that the vast majority of Ukrainians don’t consider language a political issue. For reasons of history, culture and the similarities of the two languages, Ukraine is effectively a bilingual nation.

"The overwhelming majority of the population speaks both languages, Russian and Ukrainian,” Mishchenko explains. “Those who say they understand Russian poorly and have difficulty communicating in it are just over 4% percent. Approximately the same number of people say the same about Ukrainian.”

In general, there is no problem of communication and understanding. Often there will be conversations where one person speaks Ukrainian, and the other responds in Russian. Geographically, the Russian language is more dominant in the eastern and central parts of Ukraine, and Ukrainian in the west.

Like most central Ukrainians I am perfectly bilingual: for me, Ukrainian and Russian are both native languages that I have used since childhood in Kyiv. My generation grew up on Russian rock, post-Soviet cinema, and translations of foreign literature into Russian. I communicate in Russian with my sister, and with my mother and daughter in Ukrainian. I write professionally in three languages: Ukrainian, Russian and English, and can also speak Polish, French, and a bit Japanese. My mother taught me that the more languages I know the more human I am.

At the same time, I am not Russian — nor British or Polish. I am Ukrainian. Ours is a nation with a long history and culture of its own, which has always included a multi-ethnic population: Russians, Belarusians, Moldovans, Crimean Tatars, Bulgarians, Romanians, Hungarians, Poles, Jews, Greeks. We all, they all, have found our place on Ukrainian soil. We speak different languages, pray in different churches, we have different traditions, clothes, and cuisine.

Like in other countries, these differences have been the source of conflict in our past. But it is who we are and will always be, and real progress has been made over the past three decades to embrace our multitudes. Our Jewish, Russian-speaking president is the most visible proof of that — and is in fact part of what our soldiers are fighting for.

Many in Moscow were convinced that Russian troops would be welcomed in Ukraine as liberating heroes by Russian speakers. Instead, young soldiers are forced to shoot at people who scream in their native language.

Starving people ina street of Kharkiv in 1933, during the famine

Diocesan Archive of Vienna (Diözesanarchiv Wien)/BA Innitzer

Putin has tried to rally the troops by warning that in Ukraine a “genocide” of ethnic Russians is being carried out by a government that must be “de-nazified.”

These are, of course, words with specific definitions that carry the full weight of history. The Ukrainian people know what genocide is not from books. In my hometown of Kyiv, German soldiers massacred Jews en masse. My grandfather survived the Buchenwald concentration camp, liberated by the U.S. army. My great-grandmother, who died at the age of 95, survived the 1932-33 famine when the Red Army carried out the genocide of the Ukrainian middle class, and her sister disappeared in the camps of Siberia, convicted for defying rationing to try to feed her children during the famine.

On Tuesday, came a notable report of one of the latest civilian deaths in the besieged Russian-speaking city of Kharkiv: a 96-year-old had been killed when shelling hit his apartment building. The victim’s name was Boris Romanchenko; he had survived Buchenwald and two other Nazi concentration camps during World War II. As President Zelensky noted: Hitler didn’t manage to kill him, but Putin did.

Genocide has returned to Ukraine, from Kharkiv to Kherson to Mariupol, as Vladimir Putin had warned. But it is his own genocide against the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine.