The Coolest Database System Companies Of The 2025 Big Data 100  CRN Magazine

The Coolest Data Analytics Companies Of The 2025 Big Data 100  CRN Magazine

The epidermis (skin) is the body’s largest organ, so it would make sense that toxins found in fabrics that sit on the skin’s surface could be absorbed by the skin and make their way into the bloodstream. And polyester has been considered a particularly suspect fabric because it’s made from a chemical called polyethylene terephthalate, a plastic polymer used in various products.One study published in 1993 followed 24 dogs who were divided into two equal groups, one group wore cotton underpants and the other polyester. At the end of the study period, there was a significant decrease in sperm count and an increase in sperm abnormalities in the dogs who wore the polyester pants. But that said, this study is three decades old, done on dogs, and has had little additional research to show for it since.So, the jury is certainly still out as to whether fabrics decrease fertility, but there are some things that we do know. Chemicals Found in PolyesterAccording to Audrey Gaskins, an associate professor of environmental health at Emory University, most studies are focused on specific chemicals that might be found in fabrics rather than the fabrics themselves, and those chemicals are usually measured in blood or urine. But fabrics like polyester can contain a number of chemicals that might impact fertility. PFAS, short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a group of chemicals found in thousands of products, and they’re difficult for the body to eliminate.“PFAS are commonly found in water-resistant clothing,” says Gaskins. However, drinking water is likely the most common avenue of exposure, as well as non-stick cookware, and many others.Research has shown that PFAS can reduce fertility in women by some 40 percent. According to NIH’s National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences, high levels of PFAS found in the blood were linked to a reduced chance of pregnancy and live birth. Other research has shown that PFAS are linked to increased instances of endometriosis and polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), both of which reduce fertility.Poor Pregnancy OutcomesPolyester (when combined with spandex) may also contain bisphenol A (BPA), another chemical compound that has been shown to potentially impact fertility. A December 2022 study published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine found a higher prevalence of PCOS in women with high amounts of BPA in their blood.Finally, polyester can contain phthalates, a chemical commonly used in things like sports bras and other pieces of clothing. These, too, have been shown to have a negative impact on fertility. A study published in the September 2021 issue of the journal Best Practice & Research Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism found that higher concentrations of the chemical have been associated with decreased rates of pregnancy, increased incidences of miscarriage, and other pregnancy complications.“We’ve found suggestive associations between higher concentrations of bisphenol and phthalate metabolites and worse markers of reproductive health like poor success with IVF,” says Gaskins. “What we don’t know is where the source of exposure is coming from.”Exposure to Fertility-Decreasing ChemicalsStill, the obvious implication if you’re trying to get pregnant is to try to decrease your exposure to any of these chemicals through any route possible, especially when you have control over exposure. If we know there are chemicals in these fabrics, decreasing use of them would be more achievable for many people compared to, say, changing your drinking water, says Gaskins.There’s definitely no downside to decreasing your exposure to these chemicals, and while clothing is likely not the largest means of exposure to things like PFAs, phthalates, and BPA, if you’re trying to get pregnant, they’re certainly a good place to start.This article is not offering medical advice and should be used for informational purposes only.Article SourcesOur writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. PFAS Exposure Linked to Reduced Fertility in Women Center for Environmental Health. What You Need to Know About BPA in ClothingJournal of Clinical Medicine. Bisphenol-A and Female Fertility: An Update of Existing Epidemiological StudiesBest Practice & Research Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. Phthalates, ovarian function and fertility in adulthoodSara Novak is a science journalist based in South Carolina. In addition to writing for Discover, her work appears in Scientific American, Popular Science, New Scientist, Sierra Magazine, Astronomy Magazine, and many more. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the Grady School of Journalism at the University of Georgia. She's also a candidate for a master’s degree in science writing from Johns Hopkins University (expected graduation 2023).

On November 4, 2003, a doctor gave Jon Gluck some of the worst news imaginable: He had cancer — one that later tests would reveal as multiple myeloma, a severe blood and bone marrow cancer. Jon was told he might have as little as 18 months to live. He was 38, a thriving magazine editor in New York with a 7-month-old daughter whose third birthday, he suddenly realized, he might never see.“The moment after I was told I had cancer, I just said ‘no, no, no,’” Jon told me in an interview just last week. “This cannot be true.”Living in remissionThe fact that Jon is still here, talking to me in 2025, tells you that things didn’t go the way the medical data would have predicted on that November morning. He has lived with his cancer, through waves of remission and recurrence, for more than 20 years, an experience he chronicles with grace and wit in his new book An Exercise in Uncertainty. That 7-month-old daughter is now in college.RelatedWhy do so many young people suddenly have cancer?You could say Jon has beaten the odds, and he’s well aware that chance played some role in his survival. (“Did you know that ‘Glück’ is German for ‘luck’?” he writes in the book, noting his good fortune that a random spill on the ice is what sent him to the doctor in the first place, enabling them to catch his cancer early.) Cancer is still a terrible health threat, one that is responsible for 1 in 6 deaths around the world, killing nearly 10 million people a year globally and over 600,000 people a year in the US. But Jon’s story and his survival demonstrate something that is too often missed: We’ve turned the tide in the war against cancer. The age-adjusted death rate in the US for cancer has declined by about a third since 1991, meaning people of a given age have about a third lower risk of dying from cancer than people of the same age more than three decades ago. That adds up to over 4 million fewer cancer deaths over that time period. Thanks to breakthroughs in treatments like autologous stem-cell harvesting and CAR-T therapy — breakthroughs Jon himself benefited from, often just in time — cancer isn’t the death sentence it once was.Our World in DataGetting better all the timeThere’s no doubt that just as the rise of smoking in the 20th century led to a major increase in cancer deaths, the equally sharp decline of tobacco use eventually led to a delayed decrease. Smoking is one of the most potent carcinogens in the world, and at the peak in the early 1960s, around 12 cigarettes were being sold per adult per day in the US. Take away the cigarettes and — after a delay of a couple of decades — lung cancer deaths drop in turn along with other non-cancer smoking-related deaths.But as Saloni Dattani wrote in a great piece earlier this year, even before the decline of smoking, death rates from non-lung cancers in the stomach and colon had begun to fall. Just as notably, death rates for childhood cancers — which for obvious reasons are not connected to smoking and tend to be caused by genetic mutations — have fallen significantly as well, declining sixfold since 1950. In the 1960s, for example, only around 10 percent of children diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia survived more than five years. Today it’s more than 90 percent. And the five-year survival rate for all cancers has risen from 49 percent in the mid-1970s to 69 percent in 2019. We’ve made strikes against the toughest of cancers, like Jon’s multiple myeloma. Around when Jon was diagnosed, the five-year survival rate was just 34 percent. Today it’s as high as 62 percent, and more and more people like Jon are living for decades. “There has been a revolution in cancer survival,” Jon told me. “Some illnesses now have far more successful therapies than others, but the gains are real.”Three cancer revolutions The dramatic bend in the curve of cancer deaths didn’t happen by accident — it’s the compound interest of three revolutions.While anti-smoking policy has been the single biggest lifesaver, other interventions have helped reduce people’s cancer risk. One of the biggest successes is the HPV vaccine. A study last year found that death rates of cervical cancer — which can be caused by HPV infections — in US women ages 20–39 had dropped 62 percent from 2012 to 2021, thanks largely to the spread of the vaccine. Other cancers have been linked to infections, and there is strong research indicating that vaccination can have positive effects on reducing cancer incidence. The next revolution is better and earlier screening. It’s generally true that the earlier cancer is caught, the better the chances of survival, as Jon’s own story shows. According to one study, incidences of late-stage colorectal cancer in Americans over 50 declined by a third between 2000 and 2010 in large part because rates of colonoscopies almost tripled in that same time period. And newer screening methods, often employing AI or using blood-based tests, could make preliminary screening simpler, less invasive and therefore more readily available. If 20th-century screening was about finding physical evidence of something wrong — the lump in the breast — 21st-century screening aims to find cancer before symptoms even arise.Most exciting of all are frontier developments in treating cancer, much of which can be tracked through Jon’s own experience. From drugs like lenalidomide and bortezomib in the 2000s, which helped double median myeloma survival, to the spread of monoclonal antibodies, real breakthroughs in treatments have meaningfully extended people’s lives — not just by months, but years.Perhaps the most promising development is CAR-T therapy, a form of immunotherapy. Rather than attempting to kill the cancer directly, immunotherapies turn a patient’s own T-cells into guided missiles. In a recent study of 97 patients with multiple myeloma, many of whom were facing hospice care, a third of those who received CAR-T therapy had no detectable cancer five years later. It was the kind of result that doctors rarely see. “CAR-T is mind-blowing — very science-fiction futuristic,” Jon told me. He underwent his own course of treatment with it in mid-2023 and writes that the experience, which put his cancer into a remission he’s still in, left him feeling “physically and metaphysically new.”A welcome uncertaintyWhile there are still more battles to be won in the war on cancer, and there are certain areas — like the rising rates of gastrointestinal cancers among younger people — where the story isn’t getting better, the future of cancer treatment is improving. For cancer patients like Jon, that can mean a new challenge — enduring the essential uncertainty that comes with living under a disease that’s controllable but which could always come back. But it sure beats the alternative.“I’ve come to trust so completely in my doctors and in these new developments,” he said. “I try to remain cautiously optimistic that my future will be much like the last 20 years.” And that’s more than he or anyone else could have hoped for nearly 22 years ago. A version of this story originally appeared in the Good News newsletter. Sign up here!See More: Health

html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd" The 2025 Serpentine Pavilion has opened to the public today, on 6 June, in London's Kensington Gardens. Named A Capsule in Time, the pavilion, designed by Bangladeshi architect and educator Marina Tabassum and her firm, Marina Tabassum Architects (MTA), the design discusses the permanent and ephemeral aspects of the commission. The Serpentine Pavilion will be on view in London's Kensington Gardens from June 6th to October 26th, 2025.The pavilion, which runs along the park's north-south axis, has a center court that lines up with Serpentine South's bell tower and an elongated capsule-like shape. The building, which consists of four wooden sculptures with a translucent façade that diffuses and dapples light as it enters the room, was inspired by summer park visitors and arched garden canopies that filter warm daylight through verdant greenery. A kinetic component that allows one of the capsule forms to move, link, and change the Pavilion into a new area is essential to Tabassum's design.Drawing inspiration from the history and architectural heritage of South Asian Shamiyana tents or awnings, Tabassum's design emphasizes the sensory and spiritual possibilities of architecture through scale and the interaction of light and shadow. Made of cloth and held up by bamboo poles, these structures serve a similar dynamic purpose and are frequently set up for outdoor events and festivities. The potential to bring people together through dialogue, networking, live events, and public gatherings is welcomed by Tabassum's Pavilion's openness.In keeping with Dame Zaha Hadid's philosophy of pushing the limits of architecture, Tabassum's Pavilion will commemorate the 25th anniversary of this groundbreaking project.Like many of Tabassum's earlier projects, the Pavilion is built around a semi-mature Ginkgo tree, a climate-resilient tree species that dates back to the early Jurassic Period. It takes into account the threshold between inside and outside, the tactility of material, lightness and darkness, height and volume. The leaves of the Gingko tree will gradually change from green to a brilliant gold-yellow color during the summer and into the fall. The choice of a gingko was motivated by the species' demonstrated climate change resistance and its contribution to Kensington Gardens' varied treescape. After the Pavilion closes in October, the species—which is immune to many modern pests and diseases—will be transplanted in the park.Tabassum elaborates on her idea for the Pavilion to serve as a multipurpose area where guests can congregate and bond via dialogue and information exchange in an age of growing censorship. The books that Tabassum and her colleagues at MTA have put together honor the diversity of Bangladesh, Bengali literature, poetry, ecology, and culture. It is housed on shelves that are integrated into the building and references the Pavilion's afterlife, which is a library that is accessible to everyone and is no longer located on Serpentine's lawn.“The Serpentine Pavilion celebrates the London summer—a time to be outdoors, connecting with friends and family in Kensington Gardens. We want to celebrate the tradition of park-going. "On a sunny day, the play of filtered daylight through the translucent facade draws on the memory of being under a Shamiyana at a Bengali wedding. Built from bamboo and decorated cloth, Shamiyanas convene hundreds of guests on any occasion," said Marina Tabassum, Architect, Marina Tabassum Architects (MTA). The Serpentine Pavilion offers a unique platform under the summer sun to unite as people rich in diversity. How can we transcend our differences and connect as humans?.""The Serpentine Pavilion offers a place where people of diverse backgrounds, ages and cultures can come together under one roof and call for action, facilitating dialogues that expand our boundaries of tolerance and respect," Tabassum added."We are thrilled to be working with Marina and her team on this year's Pavilion. The project, with its tight timescales and unique engineering challenges, is always particularly rewarding for our team of engineers and project managers," said Jon Leach, Director of AECOM. "Celebrating our thirteenth year on the Pavilion, it is fantastic to work with the Serpentine and the entire team once again to bring this year's design to life," Leach added.In 2024, architect, researcher and educator Marina Tabassum was named as the world's most influential architects in the 2024 TIME100 Next List by TIME Magazine. In 20216, Tabassum was awarded the Aga Khan Award for Architecture with Bait Ur Rouf Mosque, Dhaka, Bangladesh.Founded in 2005 after Tabassum's ten-year partnership with URBANA, Marina Tabassum Architects has created environmentally, politically, and socially concerned architectural designs. MTA carries out research on environmental deterioration in Bangladesh, a country particularly susceptible to the effects of climate change, in addition to buildings situated in Dhaka, the surrounding areas, and other regions of the country.All images © Iwan Baan, courtesy of Serpentine.> via Serpentine Galleries 

“I want to make a big announcement,” said Faryar Shirzad, the chief policy officer of Coinbase, to a nearly empty room. His words echoed across the massive hall at the Bitcoin Conference, deep in the caverns of The Venetian Expo in Las Vegas, and it wasn’t apparent how many people were watching on the livestream. Then again, somebody out there may have been interested in the panelists he was interviewing, one of whom was unusual by Bitcoin Conference standards: Chris LaCivita, the political consultant who’d co-chaired Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. “I am super proud to say it on this stage,” Shirzad continued, addressing the dozens of people scattered across 5,000 chairs. “We have just become a major sponsor of the America250 effort.” My jaw dropped. Coinbase, the world’s largest crypto exchange, the owner of 12 percent of the world’s Bitcoin supply, and listed on the S&P 500, was paying for Trump to hold a military parade.No wonder they made the announcement in an empty room. Today was “Code and Country”: an entire day of MAGA-themed panels on the Nakamoto Main Stage, full of Republican legislators, White House officials, and political operatives, all of whom praised Trump as the savior of the crypto world. But Code and Country was part of Industry Day, which was VIP only and closed to General Admission holders — the people with the $199 tickets, who flocked to the conference seeking wisdom from brilliant technologists and fabulously wealthy crypto moguls, who believed that decentralized currency on a blockchain could not be controlled by government authoritarians. They’d have drowned Shirzad in boos if they saw him give money to Donald Trump’s campaign manager, and they would have stormed the Nakamoto stage if they knew the purpose of America250. America250 is a nonprofit established by Congress during Barack Obama’s presidency with a mundane mission: to plan the nationwide festivities for July 4th, 2026, the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. “Who remembers the Bicentennial in 1976?” the co-chair, former U.S. Treasurer Rosie Rios, asked the crowd. “I remember it like it was yesterday, and this one is going to be bigger and better.” But then Trump got re-elected, appointed LaCivita as co-chair, and suddenly, the party was starting earlier. The week before the conference, America250 announced that it would host a “Grand Military Parade” on June 14th to celebrate the U.S. Army’s 250th birthday, releasing tickets for prime seats along the parade route and near the Washington Monument on their website, hosting other festivities on the National Mall, and credentialing the press covering the event. (Their celebrations and events are a different operation from the U.S. Army, which had never planned for a parade to celebrate its 250th birthday, much less a military parade, but is now spending up to $45 million in taxpayer dollars to make the parade happen.) According to the most recent statements from Army officials, the parade will include hundreds of cannons, dozens of Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters, fighter jets, bombers, and 150 military vehicles, including Bradley Fighting Vehicles, Stryker Fighting Vehicles, Humvees, and if the logistics work out, 25 (or more) M1 Abrams tanks. Trump had spent years trying to get the government to throw a military parade — primarily because he’d attended a Bastille Day parade in France and became jealous — and now that he was back in office, he’d finally eliminated everyone in the government who previously told him that the budget didn’t exist for such a parade, that the tank treads would ruin the streets and collapse the bridges, that the optics of tanks, guns and soldiers marching down Constitution Avenue were too authoritarian and fascist. June 14th also happens to be Donald Trump’s birthday.And Coinbase, whose CEO once told his employees to stop bringing politics into the workplace, was now footing the bill — if not for this military parade watch party, then for the one inevitably happening next year, when America actually turns 250, or any other festivities between now and then that may or may not fall on Trump’s birthday. (This wasn’t the first party they helped fund, though. Earlier this year, Coinbase wrote a $1 million check to Trump’s inauguration committee. One month later, the SEC announced that it was dropping an investigation into Coinbase.) I had to keep reminding myself that I was at the Bitcoin Conference. I’d been desperately looking for the goofy, degenerate party vibes that my coworkers who’d covered previous crypto conferences told me about: inflated swans with QR codes. Multimillionaires strolling around the Nakamoto Stage in shiba inu pajamas. Folks who communicated in memes and acronyms. Celebrity athletes who were actual celebrities. “Bitcoin yoga,” whatever that was. Afterparties with drugs, lots of drugs, and probably the mind-bending designer kind. And hey, Las Vegas was the global capital of goofy, degenerate partying. But no, I was stuck in a prolonged flashback to every single Republican event I’ve covered over the past ten years – Trump rallies, conservative conferences, GOP conventions, and MAGA fundraisers, with Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” playing on an endless loop. There was an emcee endlessly praising Trump, encouraging the audience to clap for Trump, and reminding everyone about how great it was that Trump spoke at the Conference last year, which all sounds even stranger when said in an Australian accent. In addition to LaCivita, there were four GOP Congressmen, four GOP Senators, one Trump-appointed SEC Commissioner, one Treasury Official, two senior White House officials (including David Sacks, the White House crypto and A.I. czar), and two of Trump’s sons. All of them, too, spent time praising Trump as the first “crypto president.” (Vice President J.D. Vance would be speaking the next day to the general admission crowd, but he was probably going to praise Trump, too.) The titles of the panels seemed to be run through some sort of MAGA generative AI system: The Next Golden Age of America. The American Super Grid. Making America the Global Bitcoin Superpower. The New Declaration of Independence: Bitcoin and the Path Out of the U.S. National Debt Crisis. (Speaker: Vivek Ramaswamy.) Uncancleable: Bitcoin, Rumble & Free Speech Technology. (Speaker: Donald Trump Jr.) The only difference was that this MAGA conference was funded by crypto. And if crypto was paying for a MAGA conference, and they had to play “God Bless the USA,” they were bringing in a string quartet.Annoyed that I had not yet seen a single Shiba Inu — no, Jim Justice’s celebrity bulldog was not the same thing — I left Nakamoto and went back to the press area. It hadn’t turned into Fox News yet, but I could see MAGA’s presence seeping into the world of podcasters and vloggers. A Newsmax reporter (great blowout, jewel-toned sheath dress, heels to the heavens, very camera-ready) was interviewing White House official Bo Hines (clean-cut, former Yale football player and GOP congressional candidate, nice suit), right before he was hustled onstage for a panel with a member of the U.S. Treasury. Soon, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) was doing an interview gauntlet while his senior aides stood by, one wearing a pink plaid blazer that could have easily been Brooks Brothers. Over on the Genesis Stage, the CEO of PragerU, a right wing media company that attacks higher education, was interviewing the CEO of the 1792 Exchange, a right-wing nonprofit that attacks companies for engaging in “woke business practices” such as diversity initiatives. (Leveraging Bitcoin’s Values to Shift the Culture in America.) I walked into the main expo center, past a crypto podcaster in a sequined bomber jacket talking to a Wall Street Journal reporter. For some reason, his presence was a relief. Even though he was clearly a Trump supporter — his jacket said TRUMP: THE GOLDEN AGE on the back — there was something more janky and homegrown, less corporate, about him. But the moment I looked up and saw a massive sign that said STEAKTOSHI, the unease returned. A ghoulish-looking group of executives from Steak ‘n Shake, the fast food company with over 450 locations across the globe, had gathered under the sign in a replica of the restaurant. They were selling jars of beef tallow, with a choice of grass-fed or Wagyu, and giving out a MAKE FRYING OIL TALLOW AGAIN hat with every purchase an overt embrace of the right-wing conspiracy that cooking with regular seed oils would lower one’s testosterone. (Relevant to the conference: they were also advertising that their restaurants now accepted Bitcoin.)Andrew Gordon, the head of Main Street Crypto PAC, had been to five previous Bitcoin Conferences and worked on crypto tax policy since 2014. He’d seen Trump speak at the last conference in Nashville during the election, and the audience – not typically unquestioning MAGA superfans – had melted into adoring goo in Trump’s presence. But now that Trump was using his presidential powers to establish a Bitcoin reserve, roll back federal investigations into crypto companies, and order massive changes to financial regulatory policies — in short, changing the entire market on crypto’s behalf with the stroke of a pen — Gordon clocked a notable vibe shift this year. “There are people wearing suits at a Bitcoin conference,” he told me wryly back in the press lounge. (He, too, was wearing a suit). The change wasn’t due to a new breed of Suit People flooding in. It was the Bitcoin veterans the ones who’d been coming to the conference for years, dressed in loud Versace jackets or old holey t-shirts – who were now in business attire. “They’re now recognizing the level of formality and how serious it is.”According to the Bitcoin Conference organizers, out of the 35,000-plus attendees in Vegas this year, 17.1 percent of them were categorized as “institutional and corporate decision-makers” — a vague way to describe politicians, corporate executives, and the rest of the C-suite world. Whenever they weren’t speaking onstage, they were conducting interviews with outlets hand-selected from dozens of media requests that had been filtered through the conference organizers, or in Q&A sessions with people who’d bought the $21,000 Whale Pass and could access the VIP Lounge. (Yes, the industry-only day of the conference had an even more exclusive tier.) They were sidebarring with crypto CEOs outside the conference for round tables, privately meeting Senators for lunch and White House officials for dinner. Gordon himself had just held a private breakfast for industry insiders, with GOP Senators Marsha Blackburn and Cynthia Lummis as special guests. And for the very, very wealthy, MAGA Inc., Trump’s primary super PAC, was holding a fundraising dinner in Vegas that night, with Vance, Don Jr., and Eric Trump in attendance. That ticket, according to The Washington Post, cost $1 million per person.It was the kind of amoral, backroom behavior that would have sent the General Admission attendees into a rage — and they did the next day, when the convention opened to them. During one extremely packed talk at the Genesis Stage called Are Bitcoiners Becoming Sycophants of the State?, a moderator asked the four panelists what they’d like to say to Vance and Sacks and all the politicians who’d been there yesterday. And Erik Cason erupted.“‘What you’re doing is actually immoral and bad. You hurt people. You actively want to use the state to implement violence against others.’ 
That’s like, fucked up and wrong,” said Cason, the author of “Cryptosovereignty,” to a crowd of hundreds. “If you personally wanna like, go to Yemen and try to stab those people, that’s on you. But asking other people to go do that – it is a fucked up and terrible thing.” He grew more heated. “And also fuck you. You’re not, like, a king. You’re supposed to be liable to the law, too. 
And I don’t appreciate you trying to think that that you just get to advance the state however the fuck you want, because you have power.”“These are the violent thugs who killed hundreds of millions of people over the last century,” agreed Bruce Fenton of Chainstone Labs. “They have nothing on us. All we wanna do is run some code and trade it around our nerd money. Leave us alone.”The audience burst into cheers and applause. Bitcoin was the promise of freedom from the government, who’d murdered and stolen and tried to control their lives, and now that their wealth was on the blockchain, no one could take their sovereignty. “Personally, I don’t really care what they [the politicians] think,” said American HODL, whose title on the conference site was “guy with 6.15 bitcoin,” the derision clear in his voice. “They are employees who work for us, so their thoughts and opinions on the matter are irrelevant. Do what the fuck we tell you to do.
 I don’t work for you. I’m not underneath you. You’re underneath me.” But the politicians weren’t going to listen to them, much less talk to them. The politicians spent the conference surrounded by aides and security who stopped people from approaching – I’m sorry, the Senator has to leave for an engagement now – or safely inside the VIP rooms with the $21,000-dollar Whale Pass holders and the million-dollar donors. By the time American HODL said that the politicians worked for him, they were on flights out of Vegas, having gotten what they wanted from Code and Country, an event that was closed to General Admission pass holders.Coinbase’s executives were at Code and Country, however. Coinbase held over 984,000 Bitcoin, more coins than American HODL could mine in a lifetime. And Coinbase was now a sponsor of Donald Trump’s birthday military parade. The Nakamoto Stage during Code + Country at the Bitcoin Conference.After David Sacks and the Winklevoss twins finished explaining how Trump had saved the crypto industry from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (or as one Winklevoss called her, “Pocahontas”), I was jonesing for a drink. A few other reporters on the ground had told me about “Code, Country and Cocktails,” the America250 afterparty held at the Ayu Dayclub at Resort World, and I signed up immediately. Reporters at past Bitcoin Conferences had promised legendary side-event depravity, and I hoped I would find it there. As I entered the lush, tropical nightclub, I saw two white-gloved hands sticking out the side of the wall, each holding a glass of champagne at crotch level. I reached out for a flute, thinking it was maybe just a fucked-up piece of art, and gasped as the hand let go of the stem, disappeared into the hole, and emerged seconds later with another full champagne glass. Past the champagne glory hole wall — there was really no other way to describe it — was a massive outdoor swimming pool, surrounded by chefs serving up endless portions of steak frites, unguarded magnums of Moët casually stacked in ice buckets, the professional Beautiful Women of Las Vegas draped around Peter Schiff, the famous economist/podcaster/Bitcoin skeptic. When not booked for private events, the crescent-shaped pool at Ayu would be filled with drunk people in swim suits, dancing to DJ Kaskade. No one was in the pool tonight. Depravity was not happening here. In fact, there was more networking going on than partying, and it was somehow more engaging than Bone Thugs-N-Harmony suddenly appearing onstage to perform. And it was distinctly not just about making money in crypto. A good percentage of this crowd wore some derivative of a MAGA hat, and anyone who could show off their photos of them with Trump did so. This, I realized, was how crypto bros did politics — a new game for them, where success and influence was not necessarily quantifiable. “Crypto got Trump elected,” Greg Grseziak, an agent who manages crypto influencers, told me, showing me his Trump photo opp. “In four years, this is going to be the biggest event in the presidential race.”Grzesiak walked off to do more networking, I finished my glory hole champagne, and in the meantime, Bone Thugs had started performing “East 1999”. A fellow reporter leaned over. “Who do you think those guys are?” he asked, pointing to a group of extremely tall white men in suits and lanyards, standing behind a velvet rope to the left of the stage.I walked over to investigate. They looked like the group of Steak ‘n Shake executives I met at the Expo Hall — the ones with the beef tallow jars and derivative MAGA hats — and they were lurking next to the stage, watching the rappers like vultures but barely moving to the music. This scene was too preposterous to actually be real: Steak ‘n Shake executives, at the Bitcoin Conference, attending a party for America250, in the VIP section, during a Bone Thugs-n-Harmony set? “Shout out to Steak ‘n Shake for being the first fast food restaurant to accept Bitcoin!” announced one of the Bones. The company logo appeared on a screen above his head.No flashy Vegas magic (or dancers in cow costumes, now shimmying onstage with Steak ‘n Shake signs) could mask what I just saw. This party was co-sponsored by a MAGA-branded fast-food chain owned by Sardar Biglari, a businessman who had purchased Maxim, became its editor-in-chief, and used the smutty magazine to endorse Trump in 2024. So was Frax, the stablecoin exchange, and Exodus, one of the biggest crypto wallet companies in the market. Bitcoin Magazine’s logo flashed across the stage at one point, as editor-in-chief David Bailey, in his own derivative MAGA hat, tried to hype up the crowd for J.D. Vance’s speech the next day. (“You only get to live history once,” he said, to faint cheers.)For some unknown reason, these companies were all putting their money into America250, and as I had to keep reminding myself, America250 — the government nonprofit in charge of planning the country’s celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration’s signing — was currently working to get tanks in the streets of Washington DC for Donald Trump’s birthday. I went for one last champagne flute from the glory hole, just for the novelty, and as the hand disappeared back into the wall, I caught something I’d missed earlier: above the hole was a logo for TRON, the blockchain exchange run by billionaire Justin Sun. He had faced several fraud investigations from the SEC that magically disappeared after he invested $75 million in a Trump family crypto company, and seemed more than happy to keep throwing crypto money at Trump. Recently, he won the $TRUMP meme coin dinner, spending over $16 million on the token in exchange for a private and controversial dinner with the president.TRON was also cosponsoring the America250 party.Earlier, I’d run into the Australian emcee in the elevator of The Palazzo. She’d spent the day teetering across the Nakamoto Stage in dainty kitten heels, a pinstriped blazer and miniskirt suit set, and given the gratuitous Trump praising and the fact she was blonde, I had stereotyped her as MAGA to the core. But the program was over and she was holding her heels by their ankle straps, barefoot and sighing in relief. This was not her usual style, she told an attendee. She’d take a pair of sneakers over heels if she could. But the conference organizers had told her to dress up because there were senators in attendance. “Tomorrow, the real Bitcoiners are coming,” she said, and she’d get to wear flat shoes. And the next morning, on the day of Vance’s speech, I found myself stuck outside the conference with the “real Bitcoiners.” In spite of all the emails that the conference had sent me reminding me of how strict security measures would be, possibly to overcorrect from last year’s utter shitshow around Trump’s appearance, I’d woken up too late, eaten my bagel too leisurely, got sidetracked by a police officer-turned-Bitcoin investor excited I was wearing orange (whoops), and barely missed the cutoff for the Secret Service to let me in. But the conference had set up televisions with a live feed of Vance’s speech, and the rest of the general admission attendees were remarkably chill about it, opting to mingle in the hallways until the Secret Service left. I found myself in a smaller crowd near the expo hall door, next to a young man carrying a live miniature Shiba Inu (“It’s a tiny doge!” he said proudly), and the podcaster I’d seen earlier in the sequined bomber jacket. He introduced himself as Action CEO, and with nothing else to do but wait — “You can watch the [Vance] replay,” he reassured me, “these events are mainly about networking” — we got to talking. “I’m actually excited that Trump isn’t even here, I’ll be honest with you,” he said, speaking with a rapid cadence. Trump was ultimately just one guy, and the fact that he sent his underlings and political allies — the ones who could actually implement his grand promises for the crypto industry — proved he hadn’t just been paying lip service. That said, it had come with some uncomfortable changes, including the re-emergence of Justin Sun. “It’s a little bit concerning when you say, All right, we don’t care what you did in the past. Come on out, clean slate,” he continued. “That’s the concern right now for most people. Seeing people that did wrong by the space coming back and acting like nothing happened? That’s a little concerning.” And not just that: Sun was back in the United States, having dinner with Trump, and giving him millions of dollars. “If you’re sitting in a room and having a conversation, people are literally gonna go, yeah, it’s kind of sketch that this guy is back here after everything that’s happened. You’re not gonna see it published, because it’s not a popular opinion, but we’re all definitely talking about it.” If Action’s friends weren’t comfortable talking about it openly, that fraudsters with enough money were suddenly back in the mix, it was certainly not the kind of conversation the CEOs were going to have in front of the General Admission crowd. (Though it did mean that the emcee, looking much happier than she did the day before, got to wear low-heeled boots and shorts.) But behind closed doors — or at least at the Code and Country panels, where the base pass attendees couldn’t boo them — they gave a sense of what their backroom conversations with the Trump administration did look like.“I was actually at a dinner last night and one of the things that someone from the admin said was, What if we give you guys everything you want and then you guys forget? Because there’s midterms in 2026, and hopefully 2028, and beyond,” said Sam Kazemian, the founder and CEO of Frax, which had sponsored the America250 party. “But one of the things I said was: We as an industry are very, very loyal. The crypto community has a very, very, very strong memory. And once this industry is legalized, is transparent, is safe, all of the big players understand that this wasn’t possible without this administration, this Congress, this Senate. We’re lifelong, career-long allies.”“Loyalty” is a dangerous concept with this president, who’s cheated on his three wives, stopped paying the legal fees for employees who’d taken the fall for him, ended the careers of sympathetic MAGA Republicans for insufficiently coddling him, withdrew security for government employees experiencing death threats for the sin of contradicting him in public by citing facts. It was only weeks ago that he and Vance were publicly screaming at Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, who was at the White House to request more aid in the war against Russia, for not saying “thank you” in front of the cameras. It would be less than a week before he began threatening to cancel all of Elon Musk’s government contracts when the billionaire criticized the size of Trump’s budget, even though Musk had given him millions and helped him purge the government. And if you were to find a photo of any political leader, billionaire or CEO standing vacant-eyed next to Trump and shaking his hand, the circumstances are practically a given: they had recently made him unhappy, either for criticizing him, making an imagined slight, or simply asserting themselves. The only way they could avoid public humiliation, or their businesses being crushed via executive order, was to go to Mar-a-Lago, tell the world that the president was wonderful, and underwrite a giant party for his birthday military parade. Maybe Kazemian knew he was being tested, or maybe the 32-year old Ron Paul superfan had no idea what the administration was asking of him. Either way, he responded correctly. At least one person at the conference was thinking about ways that the government could betray the Bitcoin community. As the panel on Bitcoiners becoming sycophants of the state wrapped up, and the other panelists finished telling the government pigs to go fuck themselves and keep their hands off their nerd money, the moderator turned to Casey Rodarmor, a software engineer-turned-crypto influencer, for the last question: “Tell everyone here why Bitcoin wins, regardless of what happens.”“Oh, man, I don’t know if Bitcoin wins, regardless of what happens,” he responded, frowning. He had already gamed out one feasible situation where Bitcoin lost: “If we all of a sudden saw a very rapid inflation in a lot of fiat currencies, and there was a plausible scapegoat in Bitcoin all over the world, and they were able to make a sort of marketing claim that Bitcoin is causing this — Bitcoin is making your savings go to zero, it’s causing this carnage to the economy — 
If that happens worldwide, I think that’s really scary.” The moderator froze, the crowd murmured nervously, and I thought about the number of times Trump had blamed a group of people for problems they’d never caused. An awful lot of them were now being deported. “I take that seriously,” Rodarmor continued. “I don’t know that Bitcoin will succeed. I think that Bitcoin is incredibly strong, it’s incredibly difficult to fuck up. But in that case… man, I don’t know.” I had asked Action CEO earlier if Kazemian, the Frax CEO, was right — if the crypto world was unquestioningly loyal to Trump, if their support of him was unconditional. “Oh, it’s definitely conditional,” he said without hesitation, as his Trump jacket glittered under the fluorescent lights. “It’s a matter of, are you going to be doing the right things by us, by the people who are here?” We walked down the expo hall, past booths promising life-changing technological marvels, alongside thousands of people flooding into Nakamoto Hall, ready to learn how to become unfathomably rich, who paid $199 to be there.The audience of “Are Bitcoiners Becoming Sychophants of the State?”, Day Two of the Bitcoin ConferenceSee More:

The right-wing media ecosystem seems to not know what to make of the Elon Musk-Donald Trump spat—but some of the president's loyalists have made their feelings known in plain terms.

Where others have become obsessed with speed and trends, Sergio Membrillas has built a career on slowing down and staying true to his craft. Over 13 years as a professional illustrator, he's evolved a distinct style – bold, graphic, and quietly playful – that feels both timeless and entirely his own. But this evolution, as he's quick to point out, wasn't something he forced. "I believe evolution is essential for every artist," Sergio reflects. "Change is not something I resist; it's something I enjoy and welcome as part of the creative journey." His work, initially influenced by a love of Mid-Century graphic design, has gradually absorbed references as diverse as Etruscan art, Mesopotamian motifs, and early 20th-century traditional tattoos. It's a portfolio built on curiosity, not conformity. Despite his stylistic clarity, Sergio's process remains refreshingly analogue at its core. He still begins each project with pencil and paper, leaning into the tactility of drawing by hand. "I've always valued having a physical relationship with art," he says. "There's something essential about feeling the wood of the pencil, manually erasing mistakes, rather than simply double-tapping a screen." His philosophy of working slowly, attentively, and with purpose shows in the balanced compositions and confident use of negative space that has become his signature. Sergio credits his background in graphic design for this instinctive sense of structure. "There has always been a strong graphic sensibility within me," he says, noting that the discipline of design continues to inform his illustration practice, particularly in editorial and poster work where clarity and storytelling must co-exist. Yet, like many creative careers, his path into illustration wasn't plotted from the start. Initially, Sergio imagined illustration would complement his design projects, not become the main event. "At first, I thought I would incorporate my illustrations into my graphic design projects – but in the end, it turned out to be the other way around." A commission for EasyJet's in-flight magazine marked a pivotal moment that reframed illustration from a hobby to a profession. "It made me realize that being an illustrator is a real profession, just like any other." Fast-forward to today, and Sergio's client list reads like a who's who of publishing and design, from The New Yorker to Pentagram. While the calibre of collaborators has changed, what matters most remains the same: trust. "When a client trusts your work and approaches projects with an open mind, collaboration flourishes," he says. It's in these open, trusting relationships that Sergio finds the space to experiment and further develop his ideas. Unsurprisingly, editorial work holds a special place for him. "Editorial projects offer wider creative margins, allowing for greater flexibility and innovation," he explains. Compared to the tighter confines of advertising, editorial illustration offers the opportunity to tell nuanced stories, and Sergio is clear that he views every assignment, regardless of format, as a collaborative effort. If one thing is clear, though, it's that he's not that he's afraid to say no when needed. Maintaining a strong personal voice is non-negotiable. "I always strive to stay true to myself and ensure that every project I undertake reflects a clear personal signature," he says. For Sergio, authenticity isn't just a matter of artistic pride; it's what differentiates an illustrator in a saturated, increasingly automated industry. Valencia is home for Sergio, a city he credits with much of his creative energy. "Oh, Valencia! It's a beautiful city that inspires me and brings me joy," he says, describing it as a European cousin to Los Angeles with its sun-soaked streets and vibrant cultural scene. The blend of tradition and modernity fuels his practice, offering constant inspiration without the sensory overload that often accompanies larger creative hubs. Given the pressure many creatives feel to keep pace with shifting trends, Sergio's approach feels almost radical. "I'm not particularly interested in trends," he says. "What truly matters to me is the feeling of having done something meaningful and fulfilling by the end of the day." Instead of chasing what's fashionable, he draws inspiration from a surprisingly eclectic bookshelf, mixing everything from Wim Crouwel's graphic design classics to studies on Scandinavian tattoos and Alec Soth's photography. It's a reminder that fresh ideas rarely come from looking where everyone else is looking. In the era of AI and content overload, the role of the illustrator is changing, but Sergio remains optimistic. While machine learning might churn out images at record speed, it can't replicate the nuance and emotional intelligence that underpin great illustration. "Illustrators can tell stories, evoke emotions, and create meaningful connections that machines simply cannot replicate," he says. "Our role is shifting, but the value of authentic, thoughtful illustration remains indispensable." That insistence on authenticity carries through to the advice he offers younger illustrators navigating a commercial landscape. "Create work that makes you happy when you go to sleep at night," Sergio advises. "It's important to find projects that align with your values and passions so your artistic voice remains authentic." It's an ethos that has carried him through more than a decade of creative highs and industry shifts. Perhaps it's the real secret behind the clarity of his practice, which he has built not on chasing trends or algorithms but on careful craft, deliberate evolution, and the simple, enduring joy of a well-made pencil and a blank piece of paper.

Image of the Archbishop of Canterbury's letters to the Bishop of Winchester on the subject of Ela Fitzpayne, from the register of John de Stratford. Reproduced with permission of Hampshire Archives and Hampshire County Council. (Image Credit: Register of John de Stratford. Reproduced with permission of Hampshire Archives and Hampshire County Council.)NewsletterSign up for our email newsletter for the latest science newsEspionage, sex, public humiliation, murder — these may sound like tropes straight out of Game of Thrones, but they’re actually all elements of a nearly 700-year-old cold case in England. After analyzing Medieval letters and records, a research team from the Cambridge University Institute of Criminology’s Medieval Murder Maps project may have found the killer of a priest. However, this priest may not have been so innocent. A new paper published in Criminal Law Forum takes a deeper look at this 14th-century cold case.Tracing a Medieval MurderThe Medieval Murder Maps project uses interactive maps of three English cities, London, Oxford, and York, during the Medieval period. Throughout the cities are the locations of various deaths and murders. Each location has a story associated with it, directly from written records and coroners' reports at the time. Some of these stories are full of intriguing twists and turns.The Cambridge research team analyzed over 100 murders from texts, translated from Latin, from that period, and used a coding method to separate the deaths into different categories, including time (day, week, month), motivation, weapon used, victim, and location. From this information, one of the deaths the team found most interesting was the murder of John Forde in 1337.A Medieval Lover to Murderer From the letters and texts the team analyzed, they pieced together the events that led up to Forde’s death. Forde was a priest living in London when he was murdered on a busy street. But what possible reason would someone have to want to murder a priest? The motive, according to the research team, was likely revenge. According to Manuel Eisner, one of the study’s authors, the murder may have been an act of revenge by noblewoman Ela Fitzpayne. According to the records, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Simon Mepham, had enacted penance on Fitzpayne after it was discovered that Forde had been her lover. A letter written by Archbishop Mepham accused Fitzpayne of adultery with Forde and possibly others. Her penance was to take a barefoot walk of shame across Salisbury Cathedral. Eisner also found a document that suggested Fitzpayne, her husband, and John Forde sent a gang to rob a church priory and took the livestock for ransom. It’s possible that during this time, Forde found himself in bed with Fitzpayne, before betraying her to the Archbishop Mepham. Commissioned Murder Possibly betrayed by her former lover and sentenced to walks of shame that were to take place once a year for seven years,  Fitzpayne would have none of it. On an early evening on a busy London street, near St. Paul’s Cathedral, three men attacked Forde. One slit his throat while the others stabbed him in the gut. Witnesses claim that the murderers were Fitzpayne’s brother and two of her former servants. “We are looking at a murder commissioned by a leading figure of the English aristocracy. It is planned and cold-blooded, with a family member and close associates carrying it out, all of which suggests a revenge motive,” said Eisner in a press release.Cold Case RevealedAccording to letters from Archbishop Mepham, Fitzpayne was led by the devil and a “spirit of pride.”“The archbishop imposed heavy, shameful public penance on Ela, which she seems not to have complied with, but may have sparked a thirst for vengeance,” said Eisner in a press release. “Not least as John Forde appears to have escaped punishment by the church.” When Archbishop Mepham died in 1333, Fitzpayne waited four years before enacting her revenge, and in 1337, Forde was killed. Article SourcesOur writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:A graduate of UW-Whitewater, Monica Cull wrote for several organizations, including one that focused on bees and the natural world, before coming to Discover Magazine. Her current work also appears on her travel blog and Common State Magazine. Her love of science came from watching PBS shows as a kid with her mom and spending too much time binging Doctor Who.1 free article leftWant More? Get unlimited access for as low as $1.99/monthSubscribeAlready a subscriber?Register or Log In1 free articleSubscribeWant more?Keep reading for as low as $1.99!SubscribeAlready a subscriber?Register or Log In