Despite a tumultuous childhood and a first marriage at age 15 (to Canning Woodhull, a 28-year-old doctor with whom she had two children), Woodhull went on to carve her path in history by embracing unconventional beliefs, including spiritualism and free love, while advocating for the rights of women, laborers, and the poor. Her journey from her rural Ohio home to Wall Street and beyond is as unexpected as it is interesting. Here are five facts about America’s first female presidential candidate.

She Supported the Free Love Movement

After divorcing Canning Woodhull, who was an alcoholic and a neglectful husband, Victoria Woodhull kept her married name and became a supporter of the free love movement. She endorsed the idea that decisions about romance and sexuality should be left to the individual, and that women should be able to choose when, or if, to marry. The movement also supported destigmatizing divorce in order to make it easier for women to leave abusive marriages, a goal that aligned with Woodhull’s desire to escape her own difficult first marriage. In 1871, Woodhull gave a speech at New York City’s Steinway Hall called “The Truth Shall Set You Free.” In it, she said, “I have an inalienable, constitutional, and natural right to love whom I may, to love as long or as short a period as I can; to change that love every day if I please, and with that right neither you nor any law you can frame have any right to interfere.”

She Worked as a Clairvoyant

Though she led a highly accomplished life, Woodhull received very little formal education as a child. Her father was a con man and the family made a living as traveling performers, selling homemade remedies and medicines and telling fortunes. During her marriage, Woodhull needed to earn money to supplement the household income and, in addition to more traditional jobs, she took work as a clairvoyant healer, claiming to be able to cure illness through a variety of natural and psychic remedies. It’s hard to know for sure how much of the business was an act and how much she really believed in her abilities; ever since childhood, Woodhull had claimed to be able to connect with dead spirits.

After her divorce, Woodhull continued to earn money telling fortunes and offering “magnetic healing,” often working and traveling with her sister Tennie. It was through her work as a healer during the Civil War that Woodhull met her second husband, James Harvey Blood, a Union Army veteran. While her marriage to Blood lasted only a few short years — “The grandest woman in the world went back on me,” Blood said after their divorce — another connection she made through her work as a clairvoyant, with railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, yielded a literal treasure.

First Woman Stockbroker on Wall Street

Thanks to valuable stock tips from Vanderbilt, Woodhull and her sister were able to amass more than $700,000 (around $16 million today), which they used to start their brokerage firm, Woodhull, Claflin, and Company, in 1870. As the first financial firm on Wall Street owned and operated by women, the company was a shocking novelty, and the press took to calling the sisters the “Bewitching Brokers” and “Queens of Finance.” The sisters went on to found a newspaper, Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly, which gave Woodhull another platform to support her causes of free love, political reform, and women’s rights. The paper also published the first English translation of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto.

Her Presidential Candidacy Boosted the Cause of Women’s Rights

Woodhull’s run for President in 1872, 50 years before women gained the right to vote, may have seemed like a publicity stunt to many. Lacking the financing to mount a proper campaign, she forged ahead anyway, running on the Equal Rights Party ticket. She campaigned on a platform of women’s suffrage, an eight-hour workday, welfare for the poor, the nationalization of railroads, the regulation of monopolies, and other reforms.

It was, in the end, a symbolic campaign more than anything. Woodhull’s chosen running mate, civil rights activist Frederick Douglass, never even acknowledged the nomination. Though Woodhull’s loss was all but a certainty, the fact that she hadn’t reached the minimum age of 35 required to run for President would have rendered her ineligible even if she had achieved a majority of the votes. Ultimately, the Woodhull-Douglass ticket received a negligible number of votes, and the race resulted in the reelection of incumbent President Ulysses S. Grant.

She Spent the Last Half of Her Life in England

Even though she was technically ineligible to be elected President, Woodhull stands as the first woman to declare her interest in running for the highest office in the United States. But by the time the 1872 election ended, her radical beliefs and brash actions had started to impact her political reputation. Despite their initial support of Woodhull, women’s suffrage leaders, including Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, began to distance themselves from her, signaling the end of Woodhull’s political aspirations. Twice-divorced and facing bankruptcy, Woodhull expatriated to England with her sister in 1877. The move may have been encouraged by the heirs of Cornelius Vanderbilt, who died the previous year. Woodhull built a new life for herself in England, where she married her third husband, banker John Biddulph Martin, and was generally welcomed into aristocratic society.

Woodhull spent the remainder of her life continuing to advocate for suffrage and women’s rights, but she distanced herself from spiritualism and the free love movement. From 1892 to 1901, she and her daughter, Zula, published the journal Humanitarian, which featured a progressive agenda that offered commentary on literature, culture, science, spirituality, and politics. Woodhull also promoted the popular Victorian-era idea of eugenics, selective reproduction designed to eliminate disabilities, diseases, and other traits in the human species. Her interest in what was then called “stirpiculture” likely came from the fact that her son, Byron, had profound developmental disabilities that she attributed to her husband’s alcoholism and her own age and inexperience.

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The following is a comprehensive list of retailers and brands that have exited the Canadian market during and after the pandemic:

1. Nordstrom and Nordstrom Rack – Closed all Canadian stores in March 2023. They struggled with high operating costs, an inventory glut, and lackluster sales exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Their rapid expansion and failure to adapt to Canadian consumer preferences led to their downfall.

2. Bed Bath & Beyond – Exited the Canadian market, leaving significant vacant retail space. Faced financial difficulties due to higher costs than revenue, cultural differences in consumer preferences, and a focus on larger living spaces that did not align with Canadian shopping habits. The pandemic further strained their operations, leading to bankruptcy and store closures.

3. SoulCycle – Exited Canada amid rent disagreements and a shift towards at-home fitness options during the pandemic, losing market share to competitors like Peloton.

4. Target – Pulled out of Canada due to operational challenges. The withdrawal was marked by poor customer service, a lack of product selection, bad presentation, and pricing that did not meet customer expectations. The aggressive expansion plan and incomplete supply and pricing strategies resulted in an unpleasant shopping experience for Canadian consumers, leading to the retailer’s eventual exit.

5. Lowe’s – Exited the market for various reasons. It faced similar challenges, struggling to compete with established Canadian home improvement retailers. The company’s inability to effectively manage inventory and align its product offerings with local preferences led to its closing stores in Canada.

6. GameStop – Closed operations between 2020 and 2021. Faced financial difficulties and changing consumer behaviors, particularly the shift towards online shopping.

7. Gymboree – Exited in January 2019.

8. hmv – Closed in 2017, the music and entertainment retailer struggled to compete with the rise of digital streaming services, leading to its closure in Canada.

9. Delissio, Stouffer’s, Lean Cuisine, and Life Cuisine – Gradually pulled out post-pandemic.

10. Skippy Peanut Butter – Recently announced exit.

11. Bonus: Kleenex – Recently announced exit in 2024

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Equipment & Costs

Initial costs can vary widely depending on whether you buy new, high-end gear or rent/buy used, entry-level equipment. Renting is a great option for beginners to try different styles before committing to a purchase.

• Skis: Skis are typically chosen based on your weight and skill level to ensure proper flex and grip. Beginners often use waxless (fish-scale or skin-based) skis for convenience.

• Boots & Bindings: Boots should be comfortable and provide adequate ankle support, with bindings compatible with the boots.

• Poles: Poles provide propulsion and support and should be sized correctly.

• Clothing: The key is to wear moisture-wicking layers, as cross-country skiing is an endurance sport that causes you to heat up and cool down.

Trail Fees & Availability

Cross-country ski trails are widely available in many regions that receive sufficient snowfall, including dedicated Nordic centers, public parks, and golf courses.

• Groomed Trails (Paid Access): Many managed areas offer professionally groomed and maintained trails that require a trail pass.

  • Day Passes: Typically range from $10 to $40 CAD for adults, with discounts for youth, children (often free), and seniors.

  • Season Passes: Can be purchased for frequent use, costing anywhere from $70 CAD to several hundred dollars, depending on the facility.

• Ungroomed Trails (Often Free Access): Many city parks, conservation areas, and remote natural spaces offer free access to ungroomed trails. Local ski clubs often maintain these trails through volunteer efforts or donations.

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Older snowmobile brands included big names like Arctic Cat, Polaris, Ski-Doo, Yamaha, John Deere, Mercury, Sno-Jet, Rupp, Scorpion, Moto-Ski, alongside numerous smaller brands like Boa Ski, Chaparral, Evinrude, Harley-Davidson, Johnson, Skiroule, Sears, Alouette, Ariens, Hus-Ski, and Viking, with hundreds of manufacturers emerging during the “golden age” (1960s-1970s) before consolidation.

Key Brands:

• Ski-Doo (BRP): Canadian manufacturer known for cutting-edge tech, powerful engines (like Rotax), and versatile models for deep snow (Summit) and trails (MXZ).

• Polaris: A leading American brand with iconic lines like the RMK (mountain) and Indy (trail/crossover), focusing on rider-centric design and innovation.

• Arctic Cat: Known for high-performance and durability, offering strong mountain sleds (Alpha One) and trail machines, often using Yamaha engines in newer models.

• Yamaha: A Japanese brand celebrated for quality and reliability, though they stopped producing their own snowmobiles, they still partner with Arctic Cat, providing engines.

Popular Models/Series for Winter Sports:

• For Deep Snow/Mountain: Polaris RMK, Ski-Doo Summit, Arctic Cat Alpha.

• For Trails/Crossover: Polaris Indy, Ski-Doo MXZ, Arctic Cat ZR/Riot.

These brands cater to all levels, from beginners to expert backcountry riders, offering models built for speed, agility, and exploring vast winter landscapes.

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Major Digital Brands (Mirrorless/DSLR Focus)

• Canon: Strong in mirrorless (EOS R series) and DSLRs (for now).

• Sony: Leading innovation in mirrorless, high-speed sensors, and video.

• Nikon: Still a major force in mirrorless (Z series) and DSLRs.

• Fujifilm: Known for unique colors, retro designs, and X-series mirrorless.

• Panasonic (Lumix): Excellent for hybrid photo/video cameras.

• OM System (formerly Olympus): Strong in Micro Four Thirds mirrorless.

Specialty & High-End Brands

• Leica: Premium rangefinders and mirrorless cameras.

• Hasselblad & Phase One: High-end medium format digital cameras.

• Blackmagic Design & Z CAM: Digital cinema cameras.

Film & Niche Digital

• Pentax: Continues to offer DSLRs and some film models (like the 110 format).

• Ricoh: Offers compacts and GR series.

• GoPro & Insta360: Leaders in action and 360-degree cameras.

• Polaroid: Instant cameras.

• New Film Makers: Intrepid (large format), Lomography (35mm, medium format), and smaller companies still produce new film cameras.

What’s Changing

While DSLRs are phasing out for most, mirrorless is the dominant digital format, with major companies investing heavily in this space, while film cameras are seeing a resurgence with new, small-batch manufacturers.

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Over 200 of our 3000+ subscribers responded telling us how much they liked what we are doing and over 50 had questions on AdForceX and AdPlacer layout software which we were happy to respond to. Several asked us if we had pricing and we responded with the pricing we were given and provided the contact information for direct contact. Prices are available if you would like and the contact we have for that article is: alan@adworksapp.com

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Key factors contributing to the movement’s growth include:

• Economic Distress and Financial Promises: The movement tends to boom during economic downturns, such as the 2008 global financial crisis and the 1980s farm crisis. Adherents, often facing foreclosure or severe debt, are drawn to “gurus” who promise a way to eliminate debts, avoid taxes, and even access secret government funds through pseudo-legal tactics.

• Anti-Government Sentiment and Conspiracy Theories: Adherents share a core belief that the current government is an illegitimate corporation that subverted an original, lawful government. This sentiment attracts people who feel disenfranchised, angry, or anxious about social and political changes, as well as those who are skeptical of institutions.

• Appeal of Pseudo-Law and “Magical Thinking”: The movement uses complex, legal-sounding jargon and rituals (referred to as “truth language” or “pseudo-law”) which they believe can legally exempt them from laws, taxes, and court orders. This offers a powerful, yet entirely false, sense of control and empowerment to individuals who feel powerless in their lives.

• Influence of Current Events and Overlapping Ideologies: Recent events, notably the COVID-19 pandemic and related public health measures (which many viewed as government overreach), have helped accelerate the movement’s spread. The movement also overlaps and draws new recruits from other conspiracy theory and far-right groups, such as QAnon adherents and anti-vaccine movements.

• Internet and Social Media Dissemination: The advent of the internet and social media has facilitated the rapid spread of sovereign citizen ideology, instructional videos, and pseudo-legal documents across the U.S. and internationally.

• Recruitment in Jails and Prisons: The ideology also spreads effectively within correctional facilities, where inmates with limited options are susceptible to claims that promise solutions to their legal and financial problems.

The movement has expanded over time beyond its original white supremacist roots to include people of diverse backgrounds, such as Moorish sovereign citizens, which has further broadened its reach.

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Your commitment to truth, accuracy, and storytelling often comes with long nights, tight deadlines, and immense responsibility. Yet, you continue to deliver with passion and professionalism, ensuring that readers everywhere have access to the information they need.

This Thanksgiving, we pause to recognize and celebrate you. May you and your families enjoy a holiday filled with warmth, gratitude, and joy. Know that your efforts are seen, respected, and deeply appreciated. Thank you for being the voices that guide us, the eyes that witness history, and the hearts that keep our communities connected.

Wishing you a wonderful Thanksgiving surrounded by love, laughter, and well‑deserved rest.

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Article by Joshua Hoffman - Nov.15.2025

There is a particular kind of ideological possession sweeping through the West. It has claimed professors, students, politicians, and influencers.

And last Thanksgiving, I learned that it claimed my littlest sister. Not all at once. Not with a dramatic declaration. But in the casual confidence with which she said something she would’ve condemned in anyone else, unaware that she was speaking a language she didn’t create and defending a worldview she was brainwashed to choose.

I don’t speak with her anymore. That unraveling began last November. The moment still feels surreal. The kitchen was warm, the table half-set at our mother’s house. And then suddenly her boyfriend was in my face, raising his voice, trying to dominate the space with sheer aggression.

The spark for this absurd encounter? A conversation about Denver. They had just come from visiting there and were deciding whether to stay in New York City or move to Colorado. My sister said they didn’t like it in Denver, and someone asked why. My sister shrugged and said, “There’s no culture there.”

I asked, completely surprised by her statement, what she meant by that. So she added, “There’s too many white people there.” I remember pausing — not offended, just startled by the casual arrogance of it, by a white person herself making such a statement. “So white people don’t have culture?” I asked.

She doubled down, annoyed that I dared to question what had become an article of faith in her ideological universe. In their framework, saying something blatantly racist about white people isn’t racist at all; it’s righteous. It’s punching “up.” It’s “progressive.” And if you question it, you’re the problem.

My question wasn’t even confrontational; it was a simple request for clarification. But the moment the words left my mouth, her face changed. Not because I’d said anything wrong, but because she suddenly realized — in a room filled mostly with white people — what she had just said sounded exactly like the thing she claims to oppose.

So she did what people do when they’ve absorbed a worldview that can’t withstand its own reflection: She fled. She got up abruptly and ran to the bathroom, shut the door, and started crying. Not the tears of someone truly hurt, but the panicked, self-protective tears of someone who has realized they violated their own ideology’s rules and doesn’t know how to recover. She wasn’t crying because of me; she was crying because she’d been caught. She’d made a blatantly racist statement and, for the first time, didn’t have an approved script to hide behind.

She knew her boyfriend couldn’t rescue her with one of his canned lectures about power dynamics. She knew she couldn’t claim victimhood. She couldn’t brand me a bigot. She couldn’t twist the meaning of her own words into something noble or “anti-racist.” Not in front of a table of white Jewish family members who were just staring at her, confused, waiting for her to explain why what she said wasn’t what it obviously was.

What she felt in that bathroom wasn’t guilt; it was exposure. Exposure to herself, to her own hypocrisy, to the years of being molded by her black boyfriend that there’s something “wrong” with being “white.”

A few minutes later, he said to me, in front of everyone, “Josh, you can’t talk to your sister like that.” Like what? Like asking her to explain her own words? Like holding her to the same standard she pretends to hold everyone else to? I can’t call out racism in whatever form it may be?

The irony was almost too thick to swallow. Here was a man who treats race like a weapon he’s entitled to swing at anyone he wants, trying to scold me for pointing out an obviously racist statement made at a family dinner table that he’s a guest at.

According to him, and apparently now according to her, racism isn’t about what you say; it’s about who says it. Saying something derogatory about white people is somehow “speaking truth to power.” If my sister had said it in safe company, it would’ve been “calling out white privilege.” But because she said it in front of actual white people — people who weren’t going to nod along like trained seals — suddenly I was the villain for noticing.

In his mind, I was supposed to absorb her contradiction silently. Pretend it wasn’t racist because her “I have a black boyfriend” credentials rendered her incapable of bigotry. Pretend identity grants immunity. Pretend the moral universe revolves around whatever script he’s memorized from Instagram or the latest “anti-racism” workshop.

The way he said it, too — “You can’t talk to your sister like that” — as if I’d raised my voice, insulted her, demeaned her. As if pointing out hypocrisy is a form of verbal assault. His tone carried that smug implication that he alone knows how family dynamics should work, that he’s the enlightened one, and the rest of us are dangerously behind on the latest ideological software updates.

He wanted me to bow to a reality where accountability is oppression and calling someone’s bluff is abuse. Where truth is optional, but feelings — selective, curated feelings — are sacred. Where my sister, an adult capable of voting, theorizing, moralizing, and debating, must suddenly be treated like a fragile child the moment her own logic collapses.

What he was really saying wasn’t: “You can’t talk to your sister like that.” It was: “You’re not allowed to disrupt the narrative we rely on.”

And that, more than anything, revealed the hollowness of the ideology they share. A worldview that can’t survive a single clarifying question isn’t a worldview; it’s a costume. And he, standing there puffed-up and aggrieved, was its most loyal enforcer.

That’s when I told him, “If my sister doesn’t like the way I talk to her, she can tell me herself.” You’d think I slapped him. He did not like that one bit.

His posture shifted. His voice tightened. And then — and this part was almost surreal — he turned on his Nigerian accent. Not his regular way of speaking, not the voice he’d been using all dinner and in every previous conversation I’ve had with him in the seven years they’ve been together. No. He reached for that deep, heavy, “authoritative” version of it that he clearly used as a tool. A show of force. A way to signal dominance, intimidation, superiority — all wrapped in cultural performance.

It was jarring. A minute earlier he sounded like any other American guy. Suddenly he was doing a whole different character, as if an accent could be a weapon.

And in that moment I realized something I hadn’t fully put words to before: He wasn’t defending my sister. He wasn’t even engaging with the actual conversation. He was trying to assert power — his power — in a room where he assumed he could win automatic moral high ground simply by being the black man calling out the “white” guy. It was identity politics distilled down into a single, awkward dinner table standoff.

Except it didn’t land. And he could feel it. And that made him even angrier.

I later wondered what would have happened if I had said the exact mirror image of her sentence: “I visited New York City and didn’t like it because there’s too many black people and no culture.” Her boyfriend would have exploded — which, to be clear, would be understandable. But somehow, when the sentence is flipped, when the target is “white,” many people now believe it’s acceptable, even enlightened.

Two days later, I heard that my sister retold the story to our step-sister (another white person), and that’s when the real break happened. My sister said to our step-sister, “Can you believe that Josh actually thinks white people have culture?”

The sentence wasn’t just ignorant; it was evidence of a worldview that eats away at basic human connection. This is the intellectual decay that passes for sophistication among many Zohran Mamdani voters: a worldview where education means indoctrination, where intelligence is measured by fluency in fashionable resentments, where moral virtue is earned through loud allegiance to the “right” causes.

My sister went to one of the top universities in America, and yet she has absorbed ideas that collapse under the slightest pressure. But maybe that’s the point. Ideology gives people like her something intoxicating: fake certainty without real responsibility. A hollow script. A wannabe tribe. An identity filled with contradiction and hypocrisy.

And for many young Jews, this ideology comes with an additional twist, what I’d call weaponized guilt. To be a young, “progressive” Jew today often means proving you are not “one of those Zionist Jews,” that you’ve shed your own people’s history to align with the “real oppressed.” Supporting politicians like Zohran Mamdani becomes a way of laundering identity, of signaling purity, of winning social approval. It’s a way of stepping outside the crosshairs of a culture that treats Jews as honorary oppressors unless they loudly renounce their own people.

This is why she didn’t vote for Mamdani because of policy. She voted for him because, in her ideological ecosystem, “that’s what good people do.” Voting is no longer about the real world; it’s about belonging to “the tribe.” About showing loyalty to a narrative. About displaying the correct moral posture.

There is a psychological reward structure to it: the rush of feeling righteous, the relief of outsourcing complexity to prepackaged slogans, the addictive comfort of being part of a cause that requires no introspection. In this framework, contradictions don’t matter. Double standards are not bugs; they’re features. Racism is redefined not by content, but by direction. People are not individuals; they’re categories. Responsibility is optional, while victimhood is currency.

Try challenging any of this and watch the transformation: The person you once knew becomes an ideological avatar, speaking in borrowed phrases, reacting not as themselves, but as a representative of a worldview that has colonized their mind. It’s frightening. It’s sad. It’s happening everywhere.

This is why I’m not entirely convinced that Mamdani voters were driven by “economic anxiety.” You’ve heard the script: “New York City is too expensive, rent is too high, people are struggling, that’s why they voted for change.” That might be true for some people, but I know it’s not true for my sister and her boyfriend, both of whom work in tech and make at least $200,000 per year. And I read somewhere that post-election polling showed the majority of Mamdani voters earn over $100,000 per year.

So I’m telling you what it seems few people want to say out loud: A huge chunk of Mamdani supporters didn’t vote for him because of policy, or competence, or even a coherent vision for the city. They voted for him because he’s “a person of color.” Full stop. That was the whole metric. That was the qualification. A box checked. An identity-slot machine pulled for moral points.

It’s the most shallow, least imaginative, intellectually laziest reason to vote for someone — but in certain circles, it gets framed as deep, righteous, enlightened, “progressive.” It’s not. It’s cartoon politics. It’s the equivalent of choosing a book because you liked the cover and then pretending you studied the contents.

This is the mental universe so many people like my sister and her boyfriend inhabit: ideology first, reality and logic … maybe never.

I didn’t lose my sister to New York City, or to her boyfriend’s warped view of the world, or even to a political argument. I lost her to a belief system that promises moral trophies, that teaches people their families are relics, their histories burdens, their identities negotiable, their ancestors embarrassments. It’s a belief system that tells Jews that the only acceptable way to be Jewish is to be quiet about it, or to be “anti-Zionist.”

Can you imagine telling black people to be quiet about being black, or to be anti-Africa? Half of the United States would be engulfed in flames by end of day tomorrow.

If my sister ever steps out of the bubble that taught her to see herself as a villain and her boyfriend as the moral compass of every room, I’ll be here. I’m not unreachable. I’m simply unwilling to be around people who think whiteness is a cardinal sin and self-respect is rebranded as oppression.

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Yet, despite decades of searching, the cosmos remains eerily silent. This contradiction is known as the Fermi Paradox, first proposed by physicist Enrico Fermi in 1950.

Was the Fermi Paradox solved?

Humanity has been around for just 200,000 years, and we’ve been listening for possible radio signals from E.T. just since 1960. So the odds that we will overlap in time and space with a detectable alien civilization don’t seem great. There is probably no single solution to the Fermi Paradox

What is the great silence theory?

The “great silence” is the idea that there is no evidence of extraterrestrial civilizations and that we are truly alone in the universe; it is also known as the Fermi Paradox.

Is the dark forest theory true?

While some intelligent extraterrestrial civilizations might choose to remain hidden, as suggested by the dark forest theory, it’s unlikely that every single one would adopt the same fear-driven strategy.

The numbers are staggering. Our Milky Way alone contains an estimated 100 to 400 billion stars, many of them hosting planets in the habitable zone. If even a tiny fraction of these planets develop life, and a fraction of those develop intelligence and technology, the galaxy should be buzzing with signals, megastructures, or even interstellar visitors. But so far, we’ve found nothing.

“Fermi grasped that any civilization with a modest amount of rocket technology and an immodest amount of imperial incentive could rapidly colonize the entire galaxy,” representatives of the Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute in Mountain View, California, wrote in a Fermi Paradox explainer. “Within a few tens of millions of years, every star system could be brought under the wing of empire. Tens of millions of years may sound like a long project, but in fact it’s quite short compared to the age of the galaxy, which is roughly a thousand times more.”

There are numerous hypotheses attempting to resolve the paradox, ranging from the optimistic to the ominous:

1. They’re out there, but we haven’t found them yet

Radio Silence: We might not be listening at the right frequencies or in the right way. Civilizations could communicate using methods we haven’t discovered yet, like neutrino beams or quantum entanglement.

The Cosmic Timescale: Humanity has only been scanning the skies for a few decades — an eye blink in cosmic history. Advanced civilizations could rise and fall in cycles, missing each other in time.

2. They don’t want to be found

The Zoo Hypothesis: Aliens could be observing us like we observe animals in a nature reserve, choosing not to interfere.

The Dark Forest Theory: Inspired by Liu Cixin’s sci-fi novel The Dark Forest, this idea suggests that intelligent species stay silent to avoid detection by potentially hostile civilizations.

3. Something prevents their expansion

The Great Filter: This theory suggests that there is a nearly insurmountable barrier preventing civilizations from advancing. This could be at the stage of life’s emergence, intelligent life’s development, or a self-destructive phase like nuclear war or environmental collapse.

Self-Limiting Civilizations: Advanced societies may become so technologically sophisticated that they lose interest in space expansion, opting for virtual realities or inward development.

Understanding the Fermi Paradox is more than just an intellectual exercise — it has real implications for our future. If the Great Filter lies behind us (e.g., life itself is incredibly rare), then we may be one of the first intelligent civilizations. If the filter is ahead (e.g., technological civilizations inevitably destroy themselves), then our survival is far from guaranteed.

Our search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) continues, with new projects like the James Webb Space Telescope analyzing exoplanet atmospheres and advanced AI scanning for signals. Whether we find aliens or confirm our solitude, the answer to the Fermi Paradox will profoundly shape our understanding of our place in the universe.

The “great silence” of the cosmos may be unsettling, but it also presents one of the greatest mysteries of our time. Are we alone, or is something preventing us from hearing the others? Until we find an answer, the question remains open.

Do modern researchers tend to accept the premise of the Fermi Paradox — that is, if intelligent life outside our planet exists, then it’s likely that they would have contacted or reached Earth by now?

I can’t speak for everyone else, but no I do not believe in the premise. Because the Earth is the only planet where we know that life exists, we can only make guesses based on how life here has evolved.

The Earth formed about 4.6 billion years ago. Life on Earth began at least 3.5 billion years ago, since fossils of this age have been found, but simpler cells are expected to have formed earlier than that. Possibly, life on Earth started very quickly after conditions allowed for liquid water to be commonly available. On the other hand, life that had more than one cell took until about 1 billion years ago, and humans did not evolve in 0.2 billion years ago. As far as we know, humans are the only life form on the Earth that thinks about what is going on in the Universe, and could potentially communicate with other life. The first telescopes were invented about 400 years ago, and the first space probes were launched less than 100 years ago.

What I take away from this is that simple life (like one celled organisms) might be easy to create, but complex life is harder, and life that tries to communicate with life elsewhere in the Universe could be extremely rare. While the technology to find and communicate with extraterrestrial life, once started, appears to develop extremely fast on the timeline of the Universe, we do not know how long modern humans will survive as a species.

Is there a commonly accepted way to resolve the Fermi Paradox?

I doubt there is a commonly accepted way to resolve the Fermi Paradox, other than to point to the fact that we have very little information about highly evolved intelligent life. We don’t know how rare it is, how long a civilization lasts, how likely it would or would not want to communicate with us, how likely it would spread through the Galaxy, or how we would recognize and understand each other. In the absence of any real information to figure any of this out, it just seems like there are many possibilities to solve it.

In evaluating the Fermi Paradox, it is important to think about the vast distances of space in the Milky Way. The time for light to travel to the nearest star is more than four years. If a rocket ship travels 20,000 miles per hour, then it would take more than 33,000 years to get there. The light travel time from the Sun to the center of our galaxy is 30,000 years. The rocket travel time is a 170 million years. It is completely unclear whether life will want to, or be able to, travel over these sorts of distances to populate the Galaxy. If it is attempted, it is not clear whether there are suitable places for it to land and thrive. Spreading life throughout the galaxy might be much more difficult than Fermi supposed.

Do researchers studying exoplanets, particularly potentially habitable ones, usually consider the Fermi Paradox?

Modern researchers looking for potentially habitable planets usually use the Seager Equation when they are thinking about the likelihood of finding life. This is an update of the Drake Equation which was a summary of what people were looking for in 1961. Note that one of the key differences is that the Seager Equation asks how many planets we can find with life that transformed the atmosphere (for example by photosynthesis), while the Drake Equation calculates the number of civilizations that are sending out detectable radio waves. In the 20th century, the SETI program looked for these civilizations and found no signals of such civilizations.

So you can see that the conversation has changed to the search for life that is not necessarily intelligent — something that the Earth’s history would tell us is much more likely to find. I occasionally teach an Exoplanets and Life class, and the textbook I use does not talk about the Fermi Paradox. My expectation is that most researchers are not currently thinking about it. The current search is for exoplanets, habitable exoplanets with liquid water, and signs of life that is not necessarily intelligent.

What are some ways current research might eventually resolve the Fermi Paradox?

As we learn more about exoplanets, it becomes more possible to make statistical statements about the likelihood of life, and the possibility for it to spread. The basis of the paradox lies in the idea that there are hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way, and with so many there must be other intelligent life on one of them. But we don’t really have a way to assess whether that is true.

In six tons of sand, there are hundreds of billions of grains of sand. So, it might seems reasonable to think that there must be at least one of them that is made of uranium. But we don’t look for uranium on the beach because if it was there, it would be dissolved in the water and wash away. Just having a large number of objects doesn’t mean that every possibility for what those objects are must therefore exist.

Current experiments are teaching us how many exoplanets there are, what the conditions are on those planets, how common it is for exoplanets to have surface temperatures that allow for liquid water, and possibly how many exoplanets exhibit atmospheric abundances that favor the existence of life. We are working towards actually finding other life of any kind that is on another planet. This information would give us some basis for then extrapolating to the probability that technological civilizations from elsewhere, and would tell us how far they might have to travel to find the nearest habitable planet where they could establish a colony.

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In a letter to the corporation Trump’s legal team demands the BBC “immediately retract” a Panorama program which edited a speech he made calling it “false and defamatory”.

It comes as BBC chair Samir Shah apologized for an “error of judgement” over the edit, and said the BBC was considering how to respond to Trump.

BBC director general Tim Davie and CEO of BBC news Deborah Turness resigned on Sunday night, after a leaked memo criticized a 2024 Panorama program about the US president.

The third-party production company that made the film spliced together three quotes from two sections of the 2021 speech, delivered almost an hour apart, into what appeared to be one quote in which Trump urged supporters to march with him and “fight like hell.” Among the parts cut out was a section where Trump said he wanted supporters to demonstrate peacefully.

A lawsuit in England is unlikely because the one-year deadline to bring one expired two weeks ago, experts said. If successful in overcoming that barrier, libel awards in the High Court rarely exceed 100,000 pounds ($132,000), experts said.

Trump could still bring a defamation claim in several U.S. states, and his lawyer cited Florida law in a letter to the BBC.

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The technology appears to build upon groundbreaking work similar to what Austrian firm AVL Racetech developed in partnership with Hungary's HUMDA laboratory, where engineers successfully created a high-performance hydrogen internal combustion engine enhanced with water injection capabilities. This technological breakthrough comes amid a global surge in hydrogen energy investments, with Wood Mackenzie data showing hydrogen-related projects reached a production capacity of 11.1 million tons annually by the end of 2022.

Spain alone accounted for 20% of the world's new hydrogen projects completed in the first quarter of 2022, demonstrating the momentum behind hydrogen as a powerful energy investment. What makes Tesla's approach different is how it leverages hydrogen's benefits while addressing its typical performance limitations through the innovative water injection system. The result is a power output that reportedly shatters previous records for hydrogen propulsion systems, potentially making it a viable alternative to both traditional electric vehicles and conventional internal combustion engines.

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However, the Massachusetts Democrat herself raked in roughly $5 million from the health industry during her presidential bid in 2020.

"Will you commit that when you leave this job, you will not accept compensation from a drug company, a medical device company, a hospital system, or a health insurer for at least four years, including as a lobbyist or a board member?" Warren asked Kennedy during his hearing before the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday.

'OVERDOSE EPIDEMIC': BIPARTISAN SENATORS TARGET FENTANYL CLASSIFICATION AS LAPSE APPROACHES

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., questioned Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about taking money from drug companies or lawsuits. (Reuters)

"I'm happy to commit to that," President Trump's nominee for secretary of HHS told her. "I don't think any of them want to give me money, by the way."

Warren continued, asking Kennedy to promise he would not "take any compensation from any lawsuits against drug companies while you are secretary and for four years afterward" either.

"You won't go to work for a drug company after you leave HHS, but you and I both know there's another way to make money," the senator told him.

TENSION BUILDS AROUND TULSI GABBARD’S CONFIRMATION WITH KEY GOP SENATORS UNDECIDED

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump's nominee for secretary of Health and Human Services, returns to his seat following a break during his Senate Finance Committee confirmation hearing at the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images / Getty Images)

Kennedy pushed back on this, suggesting, "You're asking me to not sue drug companies," which he said he would not agree to.

Despite requesting these assurances from Trump's HHS nominee, Warren notably received about $5 million from the healthcare sector and associated industries during her failed presidential bid.

SCOOP: KEY GOP SENATOR WHO HESITATED ON PETE HEGSETH PUSHES KASH PATEL FOR FBI

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he did not think drug companies would want to give him money. (IStock / iStock)

She was given $2,366,613 by health professionals, $1,600,888 by hospitals and nursing homes, $644,499 from miscellaneous health industries and $625,580 from the pharmaceuticals and health products industry, according to OpenSecrets.

Her office did not provide comment to Fox News Digital in time for publication.

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