The immense power of the new plutocracy: How billionaires like Musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg shape our lives and our democracies
Wealth is becoming increasingly concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. The world’s wealthiest individuals are transforming their money into political influence to shape society and the democratic system to their liking
On May 5, 1789, King Louis XVI of France inaugurated the Estates-General. The institution convened that year to address the problem of rampant inflation and the bankruptcy of the monarchy, which was deeply indebted due to a lack of revenue.Neither the nobility nor the clergy paid taxes. Not because they were short of money. Their reason for exemption was simpler and more absurd: it was their privilege.
The privilege was closely linked to the discontent of 98% of French citizens who suffered from food shortages and rising prices and who were neither members of the nobility nor the clergy — the so-called Third Estate. This discontent stemmed not only from the injustice of taxes that disproportionately burdened those with the fewest resources, but also from the political power imbalance that these privileges revealed.
More recently, on June 8, 2021, ProPublica published an investigation into the taxes of U.S. billionaires. After accessing their tax records, they found in several annual returns of Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, George Soros, and Warren Buffett that they had managed to pay absolutely no income tax without committing a single irregularity. They were the most notorious cases, but the average income tax rate paid by the 25 richest people in the country between 2014 and 2018 was also disconcerting: 15.8%. “That’s lower than the rate a single worker making $45,000 a year might pay,” ProPublica wrote. Although the difference is not as pronounced in Europe, the same rule applies in Belgium, Spain, Italy, France, and the Netherlands: the effective taxes paid by the wealthiest 1% are always lower than those of the average taxpayer.
Seen from today’s perspective, the privileges enjoyed by the pre-revolutionary Church and nobility seem almost trivial. Wasn’t it supposed that privileges reserved for certain social classes had ended centuries ago, precisely because of the progress achieved after the French Revolution? As Max Lawson, who leads Oxfam’s research on inequality, says, billionaires have minimized taxes and other regulations that limit their profits by using a series of tools that transformeconomic power into political power. Among the classic levers for achieving this are campaign and party funding, the threat of taking the money elsewhere, traditional lobbying, and the appropriation of public discourse through investments in media, social networks, and the hegemony of artificial intelligence.
Donald Trump’s 2025 inauguration was attended by leading technology magnates.Shawn Thew (Pool / CNP / Polaris / Europa Press / Contacto)
While middle-class parents in parts of the Western world find it increasingly difficult for their children to match their standard of living, the world’s billionaires have acquired new superpowers to manipulate politics. Some examples? The power to decide a country’s military fate by granting or denying access to its satellites (Musk’s Starlink is one such example); the power to contribute to or not the spread of disinformation that threatens democratic coexistence (the cases of Facebook and X, for instance); or the power to revolutionize the world of work and communication with AI, while many countries struggle to pass even minimal regulation.
That their voices are heard more than everyone else’s wouldn’t be so problematic if their interests were aligned. But the short-term incentives of billionaires, whose wealth derives from capital gains, don’t usually coincide with those of the majority of the population, whose income depends on wages. Greater regulation of financial markets, for example, protects society from cyclical crises, but reduces billionaires’ opportunities to inflate their fortunes. There are also conflicting interests on sensitive issues such as the future of public healthcare and education.
According to economist Branko Milanovic, breaking the link between economic and political power is difficult because those who wield it know how essential that influence is to maintaining their position. “But a savvy plutocrat would do the same thing capitalists did after World War II: faced with the possibility of communism, they accepted many of the demands for equality in order to preserve their power,” he explains. “If the major plutocrats don’t curb their appetites, and their ambition becomes too obvious, the backlash against them could end up undermining the very pillars on which they stand,” he warns.
“There is likely no historical precedent for the wealth inequality that exists today, and indeed, there is no precedent for the level of global wealth,” Milanovic continues.In his opinion, two of the reasons why billionaires seem to continue accumulating wealth without qualms have to do with the “lack of recent precedents in which their power was challenged,” and with the visibility afforded by social media. “Before, the names of billionaires weren’t widely known; now they’re in the news every day, everyone recognizes them. I don’t know if that also makes it harder for them to curb their appetites.”
The biggest fortunes on the planet
Figures in billions of dollars
Ranking
Name
Business
Sector
Country
Fortune
1
Elon Musk
Tesla / X / Space X
Automotive / Tech.
South Africa
627.5627.5627.5
2
Larry Page
Alphabet
Technology
U.S.
271.6271.6271.6
3
Jeff Bezos
Amazon
Technology
U.S.
258.6258.6258.6
4
Sergey Brin
Alphabet
Technology
U.S.
252.5252.5252.5
5
Mark Zuckerberg
Meta
Technology
U.S.
223223223
6
Larry Ellison
Oracle
Technology
U.S.
187.4187.4187.4
7
Bernard Arnault
LVMH
Luxury
France
162.3162.3162.3
8
Michael Dell
Dell
Technology
U.S.
159.6159.6159.6
9
Jensen Huang
Nvidia
Technology
Taiwan
156.2156.2156.2
10
Jim Walton
Walmart
Distribution
U.S.
150.9150.9150.9
11
Rob Walton
Walmart
Distribution
U.S.
147.9147.9147.9
12
Alice Walton
Walmart
Distribution
U.S.
147147147
13
Warren Buffett
Berkshire Hathaway
Finance
U.S.
143.2143.2143.2
14
Carlos Slim
Telmex
Teleco
Mexico
132.7132.7132.7
15
Steve Ballmer
Microsoft
Technology
U.S.
132.3132.3132.3
16
Amancio Ortega
Inditex
Textile
Spain
131.3131.3131.3
17
Bill Gates
Microsoft
Technology
U.S.
102102102
18
Mukesh Ambani
Reliance Industries
Enegía y materias primas
India
91.891.891.8
19
Françoise Bettencourt
L’Óreal
Cosmetics
France
90.890.890.8
20
Gautam Adani
Grupo Adani
Industry
India
87.187.187.1
Table: EL PAÍSSource: Bloomberg
Throughout 2025, the fortunes of the world’s billionaires grew at three times the annual rate they had recorded on average over the previous five years. “Actions of the Trump presidency, including the championing of deregulation and undermining agreements to increase corporate taxation, have benefitted the richest,” according to anOxfam report published in January.
Billionaires’ investments are further evidence of the transmission belt that transforms economic power into political power. In the 2024 U.S. elections, just 100 families contributed one $1 of every $6 spent by candidates, parties, and committees. They invested $2.6 billion that year, more than double the $1 billion they had invested during the 2020 elections, and 160 times what they invested before the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated limits on campaign financing in 2010. Something similar is happening with public discourse: more than half of the world’s leading media outlets are owned by billionaires, according to Oxfam’s calculations; eight of the 10 largest AI companies are run by billionaires, as are nine of the 10 largest social media platforms.
In December 2024, the journal of the National Academy of Sciences published research by Eli G. Rau and Susan Stokes on the pernicious effects of inequality: the likelihood of democratic backsliding was seven times greater in the most unequal countries, they concluded. According to Rebecca Gowland, who works in the U.K. as a spokesperson for Patriotic Millionaires (an organization of millionaires aware of the problem of inequality that campaigns for governments to raise their taxes), this backsliding ultimately delegitimizes the entire system.
“The problem is not only that billionaires are designing policies that affect us all to their own benefit, but that they are doing so in plain sight, and that also makes us lose faith in democracy,” she says. Billionaires themselves admit this in anonymous surveys. “In the last survey we conducted in January in the G-20 countries, we asked them if they believed that extreme wealth was used to buy political influence, and almost 80% responded that it was and that it shouldn’t be,” she explains.
Distribution of capital between the Global North and South
Total wealth (trillions of dollars)
% of wealth
Total population (billions)
% of population
South
155.8155.8155.8
32.5%
6.56.56.5
79.8%
North
322.6322.6322.6
67.3%
1.61.61.6
19.3%
World
479.5479.5479.5
8.28.28.2
According to the latest Oxfam data, the world’s 12 richest people collectively possess more wealth than over four billion people. The growth of billionaires’ fortunes is not solely due to the fact that taxes have little impact on their wealth. According to Francisco Ferreira, head of inequality studies at the London School of Economics, they have also benefited greatly from the weakening of regulations protecting free competition. He argues that the steel industry, or even the oil industry, faced far more competition than today’s tech giants, “which can operate with much larger margins and generate extraordinary profits.”
Antitrust laws
“We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both,” said U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis (1916–1939), a key figure in the fight against monopolies. His jurisprudence and the laws enacted at the beginning of the last century helped contain monopolistic tendencies until the 1980s, when a reinterpretation of antitrust law narrowed its scope to cases involving price increases or reduced output. This laid the groundwork for the creation of giants like Amazon, Meta, and Google, which charged their users little or nothing in exchange for market power that has allowed them to dictate the rules and neutralize their rivals.
Former U.S. president Joe Biden tried to revive the spirit of Brandeis by appointing Lina Khan to fight monopolies at the Federal Trade Commission, but Trump dismissed her as soon as he took office. “It’s not possible to reverse a trend toward concentration in just four years,” says Ferreira. “If Khan’s regulatory strategies had been maintained for 20 years, it would have made a difference; but mergers and acquisitions don’t happen every year.”
Although regulations aren’t perfect, the defense of free competition and campaign financing are better regulated in the European Union, says Belgian philosopher and economist Ingrid Robeyns, author of a book on the idea of limiting wealth — placing a cap on the maximum amount of wealth a person can accumulate. “In the media sector, for example, in Europe we have a whole series of agencies that must authorize companies’ growth operations, while in the United States we see how the Ellison family [owners of Oracle and now also Paramount] is acquiring all the major players; their latest purchase was CNN,” says Robeyns.
Harmful effects
Besides jeopardizing the functioning and legitimacy of the democratic system, the accumulation of wealth by billionaires has detrimental effects on the economy. If that wealth were more equitably distributed, it could boost economic activity and employment through increased consumption. Nor does the global excess of savings generated by this concentration of wealth help —what former Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke called the “global saving glut.” In search of returns, all that accumulated liquidity scans for new investment havens in sectors such as education, healthcare, and housing — basic rights that have gradually drifted further out of reach as they have been absorbed into market logic.
So much for the bad news. The good news is that this isn’t the first time humanity has experienced this drift toward the concentration of power, and we can learn from past solutions. As Guido Alfani, professor of economic history at Bocconi University, says, the ancient Greeks already warned us of the incompatibility between democracy and the concentration of wealth. “Aristotle wrote that in a context of great inequality, the super-rich would be like gods among men,” Alfani says. “The Republic of Venice is a clear example,” he explains. “In the 15th century, humanists said it was the perfect model for a stable republic because its structure prevented the wealthiest from gaining political control, and yet, by the beginning of the 17th century, the rich could buy a seat on the Great Council of Venice, and all their descendants could be part of the ruling family.” According to Alfani, the plutocratic drift usually coincides with the moment when elites perceive a worsening of the conditions that enabled their enrichment.
But perhaps the most useful historical parallel is also the closest: the so-called Gilded Age in the United States, spanning the last three decades of the 19th century. These were the years of the railroad and rapid industrialization, with the rise of gigantic fortunes like those of the Rockefellers, the Vanderbilts, the Carnegies, and the Morgans.“The Civil War had ended, and citizens were unprepared for what was coming,” explains Richard White, professor of economic history at Stanford. “They came from slavery, where plantation owners were also the wealthiest, and they expected to enter a world of small producers competing with one another: they failed to see the industrialization and the world of impoverished wage earners that was coming because none of that had existed before in the country.”
Just as Trump announced $500 billion in joint investments for AI a year ago, Gilded Age governments aided those early entrepreneurs with subsidies and tariffs, arguing that industrialization would be good for the entire country. “But who benefited from that industrialization?” White asks. “When you look at things like wages, life expectancy, and health, in that era, what you find is a decline for the vast majority of Americans,” he says. “Conditions deteriorated so much that there began to be all sorts of signs of an impending class war in the country, with protests in the streets and an overwhelming majority against monopolies, regardless of their political affiliation.”
“[US President William] McKinley was assassinated in 1901 by a socialist, and even conservative publications were saying that something had to be done to address the problem of monopoly power and the concentration of wealth,” explains Ray Madoff, a professor at Boston University School of Law. Madoff recalls how the tax system then shifted from tariffs to the introduction of a tax system that would lay the foundation for the current one.
The progressive income tax was introduced in 1913, followed by the wealth tax in 1917. These levies achieved an unprecedented redistribution of wealth and reduction of inequality for most of the 20th century. This period, in White’s words, coincides with “the most prosperous era in U.S. history.”
Although the structure of the two taxes remains the same today, Madoff says, they have been “secretly eroded” for the benefit of the wealthiest individuals over the past 40 years. He describes various techniques, such as personal trusts and foundations, used to circumvent wealth and inheritance taxes, among other tools. “What they do rests on the following principle: banks need to lend money, because that’s their business, and billionaires have a gigantic amount of wealth to secure those loans, so they live in debt, refinancing that debt over and over again,” Madoff explains.
The solution is technically simple, says Madoff. Ensure that wealth is taxed as soon as there is a transfer of ownership, regardless of who receives it, whether through sale, donation, or inheritance, with no exemptions other than those decided by a democratic majority. “Of course, there’s a desire to help children, especially now that inheritance has become the only way to help them maintain a middle-class lifestyle, but that can be solved by leaving the first million or two million dollars untaxed; whatever society decides democratically,” explains the professor. “But that has nothing to do with justifying the descendants of Zuckerberg or Musk not paying inheritance tax.”
According to analyses by French economist Gabriel Zucman, preventing billionaires from keeping the privilege of paying less tax than workers would simply require ensuring that fortunes above €100 million ($117 million) pay a minimum annual tax of 2%, regardless of the mechanisms used to reclassify or recategorize wealth
In Spain, researchers Olga Cantó and Francisco García-Rodríguez from the University of Alcalá de Henares concluded in a recent study that reforming the wealth tax to align it with proposals by economist Thomas Piketty — or with the existing wealth tax in Norway — would have exceptional revenue-raising power. It would be enough to fund a universal child benefit of more than €2,000 ($2,340) per child, achieving a 5% improvement in the Gini inequality index.
Another solution is to impose especially heavy taxes on activities that convert economic power into political power. This is what Branko Milanovic suggests for any billionaire who wants to finance political campaigns or get involved in media, social networks, and other attempts to shape public opinion. “I don’t know if it will sound a bit far-fetched, but it seems to me that the taxes on these activities should be confiscatory, so that if they want to own media outlets or contribute to political parties, they should pay 2% of their wealth in taxes, for example,” he concludes.
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“And suddenly one morning, we felt lost from one another.” This is how Mehrnoosh Shahhosseini, a 52-year-old fashion designer from Tehran, remembers the hours following Israel and the United States’s first aerial attacks on February 28, the same day that Iranian officials blocked internet access out of “security concerns.”
The blackout continues to this day, and it is forcing a country of more than 90 million people to find alternative ways to stay informed, stay in touch with loved ones, study, and keep their businesses afloat.The digital shutdown has meant that Google Maps isn’t working, that data and emails are lost, that paying a taxi driver through an app has become a real challenge.
Like many Iranians, Shahhosseini reinstalled an old satellite dish at home, since TV set-top boxes and smartphones were no longer helping her stay informed about the situation in Tehran.
“We needed to know where there had been a bombing and where the next could be!” she says, referring to the satellite television news programs that shared occasional warnings from Israel on future attack targets. At the same time, the sale of illegal VPN configurations has soared, as has a more costly service called Internet Pro, used by business owners, other professionals, and academics.
Shahhosseini wakes up in the middle of the night, when the VPN connection is less congested, and she can respond more quickly to clients. “I get up at dawn to respond to emails from people who also can’t connect during the day. If I’m late, I can lose those clients,” she says.
In her house, the internet blackout has had some positive collateral effects: one of her teen daughters is reading more, another has started a beginner’s sewing class, and is considering learning to play an instrument. “Because they can’t play video games anymore,” explains Shahhosseini.
“Before, I was always short on time, and now, my life goes at a tortoise’s pace, and I spend quality time with my family,” she adds. “But it is hard to keep up the spirits of two 14 and 16-year-old teenagers, with no internet and after the trauma caused by the war.”
Government differences
Amirhossein Jalali-Nadoushan, the spokesperson for the Iranian Psychiatric Association, believes that being deprived of the internet could have serious consequences for young people. “It could also gradually snuff out the voice of the Iranians, or make it so that other voices substitute those voices in the future who no longer represent the Iranian population,” he warned, as quoted by the ILNA news agency.
Since April 8, a ceasefire between the United States and Iran has been in place, but it is threatened almost daily by attacks from one side or by disagreements in the ongoing negotiations. Although government statements suggest the internet blackout will not last forever, differences of opinion among Iranian authorities are also evident. “What we are experiencing today, including the general disconnection of internet, is not acceptable, nor is it to the president’s liking,” Mehdi Tabatabaei, presidential adviser on public relations, said May 5, according to ISNA, a semi-official, state-supported news agency in Iran. “With the country’s return to normalcy, which is also coming soon, the internet will return to its normal state,” he said.
These remarks from President Masoud Pezeshkian’s adviser came after a conservative‑leaning member of parliament, Amirhossein Sabeti, said there was no such prospect in the near future. “If the internet is reconnected, there is a possibility that some of the mercenaries whose actions we witnessed on January 8 and 9 will organize gatherings through these social networks,” he said in recent days, according to the online newspaper Hamshahrionline.ir.
Sabeti was referring to the anti‑government protests in January, in which messaging apps like Telegram played a key role in organizing and mobilizing citizens. Iranians took to the streets to denounce the economic crisis, and the movement — which gained momentum and called for an end to the Islamic Republic — was crushed by a brutal crackdown that left at least 3,000 people dead, according to the official tally, though human‑rights organizations say the total number of victims is double that figure.
Ironically, the Tehran Electronic Commerce Association said in an IRNA statement in late April that the most serious cyberattacks to have taken place in Iran, including the hacking of several major banks, actually took place during periods of total internet shutdown.
Ruin for small businesses
The livelihood of more than 10 million Iranians depends on a stable internet connection, and the abrupt blackout has been a disaster for many small businesses. Alireza, 35, runs a kitchen and bathroom furniture company in the northeastern city of Mashhad. “I have been diligently promoting the business on Instagram since 2022. The result was clear in my annual earnings, which went from 15 billion rials [$11,380] four years ago to 40 billion [$30,500] in 2025-2026,” he says in a telephone interview.
But his last Instagram video was posted two days before the start of the war. “I have a showroom in the city center, but I don’t even have a sign on the door,” he says, explaining that her marketing strategy is based on social media.
Since the war began, he has used Iranian messaging apps to make up for his absence on Instagram. But “90% of our followers aren’t on them,” and he has yet to find a viable strategy to keep the business going. As a result, he has had to let go of 17 workers because he has no orders. “Some of the people who were let go have families to feed. At the same time, the price of our raw materials has nearly doubled. I don’t understand why they cut off the internet,” he says.
Iranian designer Mehrnoosh Shahhosseini organizes the shoes she stores in her home and has not been able to sell, due to a lack of internet connection.Aresu Eqbali
In Shahhosseini’s case, the image that best captures the impact of the internet blackout on her life as a small business owner is a room in her home filled with shoeboxes she has been unable to sell. Her income has fallen by two‑thirds because of the commercial isolation caused by the digital blackout. Like Alireza, her Instagram account was her storefront, and her more than 28,000 followers were her business card. “But if you don’t post anything new and you don’t respond, in a matter of days, the algorithm punishes you,” she explains.
Sabeti, the conservative lawmaker, laments that Iran’s existing digital infrastructure has been too weak to cushion the impact of the shutdown. “We should have prepared our national infrastructure previously, so that so many businesses wouldn’t collapse in moments like this one. Like in China, which has a very solid national network,” he said.
In Iran, things are different. For example, schools and universities are using intranet networks developed during the coronavirus pandemic. According to academics, this precarious setup is already degrading the quality of education.
And then there are the invisible harms this isolation inflicts on citizens. For example, Elham, 56, spends her days figuring out how she can speak with her son Taha, 23, who studies in Italy. She had planned to spend the Iranian New Year holidays with him, but the war derailed her plans. It also left her unable to communicate with him through video calls or WhatsApp messages, and she feared dying in a bombing without hearing his voice again. Distressed, she asked a friend who had managed to get a VPN connection whether they could send Taha a message from her home. “I went with my husband, and we were almost like people who had never used a telephone in their lives,” she jokes.
As the days passed, Elham learned through her son’s friends that there was a local messaging and video calling app that could be used between Iran and Italy. “At first it worked, then it started to fail. When we were online, Taha couldn’t get on. Other times, he was waiting, and we weren’t able to connect,” she sighs.
The internet blackout, the resilience of Iranians, and the struggle to use local apps have become a source of inspiration for some artists. In a music video that has racked up thousands of views, two Iranian rappers sing: “My Telegram works. The [Iranian] super app Bale is down… Even if I starve to death, I will buy a VPN. My content is on Insta, it’s to make my public laugh, because we really don’t deserve this. Every night, I see if you are able to connect again. Internet is your right in 2026.”
Peter McVerry Trust delivers first summer programme across family homeless services
This summer, Peter McVerry Trust delivered a summer activity programme across our 11 family homeless services in Dublin, Kildare, and Louth. Designed specifically for the families living in our supported temporary accommodation, the programme offered an opportunity for fun, creativity, and connection — experiences that can often be out of reach due to the challenges of homelessness.
Over eight weeks, between 40 and 88 children aged 1 to 17 participated weekly in a wide range of themed activities designed to support development, encourage social interaction, and provide meaningful engagement during the summer months.
Each week offered a new theme, from Nature Week with bug scavenger hunts and finger painting, to Sensory Week featuring slime-making and a beach party under the sun. Children explored culinary skills during Healthy Eating Week, crafted healthy fruit popsicles and enjoyed Bubble Week, and got active with outdoor games and musical statues during Active Week.
The programme also included Art & Craft Week, where children expressed themselves through painting and papier-mâché, and Puzzle Week, which encouraged problem-solving and perseverance. The summer concluded with a joyful Back to School Party, celebrating the children’s achievements and preparing them for the new school year with games, music and keepsake boxes filled with their summer creations.
Feedback from families highlighted the positive impact of the programme:
“It was overwhelming being in accommodation, but the summer camp gave our children something exciting to look forward to. They still talk about the pizza-making and the sand box.”
“My child is under 2, so it was great that some activities were adapted for him.”
“The weekly activities helped build routines and gave the children a much-needed break. The healthy snacks were a lovely touch.”
“The jigsaws, muffins, and party bags were a hit. The kids absolutely loved it.”
The programme reflects our commitment to providing safe, supportive environments for families experiencing homelessness, while also nurturing the wellbeing and development of children during a critical time in their lives.
Hilary Walsh, Head of Family Services at Peter McVerry Trust, said: “These activities are more than just fun, they’re a vital part of helping children feel safe, supported, and engaged. We’re incredibly proud of the creativity and care our teams brought to this programme, and grateful to the families who participated and shared their experiences.”
We hope to continue and expand this initiative in future years, ensuring that every child in its services can experience the joy and stability that summer activities can bring.
The rules neurons follow to make sense of what we see
Brain cells take in many signals through thousands of circuit connections. A new study in mice discerns the rules that turn what could be a cacophony of inputs into a functional arrangement for neurons that process vision
Even in the primary visual cortex, a brain region named for its specialized role in processing basic features of what the eyes see, not every neuron ends up answering the call to process properties of visual input. Maybe that’s because each neuron receives a wide variety of inputs via thousands of circuit connections, or “synapses,” and has to opt to respond to the visual information vs. something else. In a new study in mice, neuroscientists at The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT reveal how neurons that perform visual processing bring order to this input to get the job done.
Neuroscientists are keenly interested in what inputs, from among so many choices, will compel neurons to participate in the brain’s computations and functions, said senior author Mriganka Sur, Newton Professor of Neuroscience in The Picower Institute and MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. Neurons ultimately participate in brain circuits by “firing” an electrical action potential.
“The configuration of inputs, the kind of organization, the assembly of neurons that modulate each other to generate an action potential is the essence of how brain circuits process information,” Sur said. “These (visual cortex) cells are a microcosm of this very profound and big picture of neuroscience.”
In the study in iScience, led by postdoc Kyle Jenks, the research team achieved their findings by meticulously imaging how not only neurons’ cell bodies but also how their individual synapses, formed on protrusions known as dendritic spines, responded as mice viewed moving images. They did this imaging for not only visually responsive neurons, but also for unresponsive neurons that nevertheless have visually responsive spines. That allowed them to analyze many key properties that might influence where a particular synapse forms, and how it influences responses at the cell body.
A GIF made from a research video shows the moment when an electrical signal propagates from the cell body, or soma, back through a dendrite, reaching synapses on the dendrite’s spines.
“This pulls together a lot of things that have been looked at in isolation and looks at them in one collective paper,” Jenks said. “We can compare how the neuron and the spines on that neuron respond to the same stimuli, and we can do this for both visually responsive and unresponsive neurons.”
Revealing rules
In visual cortex layer 2/3, Jenks and the team genetically engineered neurons such that their individual dendritic spines would glow when surges of calcium indicated increased activity by the synapses on the spines. The scientists did the same for the cell body, or “soma,” to keep track of how the cell responded and even signaled its overall responses back out to the synapses. This way, as the mice watched black and white gratings at varying angles drift by their eyes in different directions, the scientists could keep track of each spine’s and each cell’s overall response to that patterned visual input.
In all, they tracked 11 neurons that responded to the visual input and 11 others that seemingly ignored it. That enabled them to find several rules:
Distance from the soma matters: On cells that responded to visual input, the responses of individual spines were much more likely to correlate with the activity of the soma the closer the spine was to the soma. In the same vein, the soma’s signal back out to spines, which is believed to influence the spines’ alignment with the soma’s preferences, was more likely to be detectable closer to the soma than farther away.
Local clustering: On neurons that responded to visual input, spines formed distinct little enclaves of correlated responses with each other. Specifically, spines within 5 microns (5 millionths of a meter) acted in concert. But then, right outside that 5-micron boundary, spines were less likely than chance to join in that activity. Sur speculates that these isolated pockets of activity sharpened the response from each enclave.
A GIF of research videos shows dendrite sections from multiple neurons flashing with moments of electrical activity
“Apical” vs. “basal”: The neurons the team studied have two distinct kinds of dendrites. Apical dendrites, which are very long and protrude from the top, or “apex,” of the neuron, tend to get a wide variety of inputs from across the cortex. Basal dendrites, which are shorter and extend out from the bottom, typically get more raw visual input. While basal dendrites indeed received more visual input than apical dendrites overall, Jenks found that apical dendrites on visually responsive neurons had significantly more visually responsive spines than those on non-responsive neurons. And both types of dendrites equally obeyed the rules above about distance from the soma.
Orientation selectivity matters most: Jenks, Sur and the team used statistical modeling to determine which of many factors (the stimulus selectivity, reliability of the response, a spine’s distance from the soma, apical vs. basal, etc.) most explained how correlated a spine’s responsiveness was with that of the soma. By a wide margin, how selective a spine was to the orientation of its preferred grating was the most important single factor.
“Our results reveal that synaptic inputs to excitatory layer 2/3 neurons in mouse (visual cortex) are not randomly arranged, but organized and distributed in a manner that correlates with multiple factors including somatic responsiveness, somatic tuning, branch type, distance from the soma, local correlations, and stimulus selectivity,” the researchers wrote.
The team’s findings can help advance studies of vision in the brain in multiple ways, Jenks and Sur said. Certain genetic mutations that affect how neurons connect in circuits can affect visual cortex neurons and vision, Sur said. Documenting these rules provides researchers with a baseline to compare against when examining the effects of such mutations. Jenks added that the findings could inform efforts to model how neurons integrate synaptic inputs in their computations.
In addition to Sur and Jenks, the paper’s other authors are Gregg Heller, Katya Tsimring, Kendyll Martin, Asrah Rizvi, and Jacque Pak Kan Ip.
The National Institutes of Health, the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative and the Freedom Together Foundation provided support for the study.
U.S. Marines with Maritime Raid Force, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, rappel out of an MH-60S Sea Hawk, assigned to Helicopter Sea Combat (HSC) Squadron 25, during helicopter and roping sustainment training aboard the forward-deployed amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli (LHA 7) in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, May 8, 2026.U.S. Marine Corps
Dire warnings about oil supplies are coming from everywhere lately as the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed while President Donald Trump’s trip to China failed to produce a breakthrough to reopen the critical waterway.
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While investors have been trading on hopes that the Iran ceasefire will remain intact, there is little sign that the oil trade will return to normal soon, forcing them to reckon with the reality of worsening shortages and an imminent tipping point ahead.
JPMorgan predicted that commercial oil inventories in the developed world could “approach operational stress levels” by early June. Saudi Aramco said global inventories of gasoline and jet fuel could reach “critically low levels” ahead of the summer.
The International Energy Agency warned the world is drawing down oil inventories at a record pace, with 164 million barrels released by governments and industry as of May 8.
“Rapidly shrinking buffers amid continued disruptions may herald future price spikes ahead,” IEA said in its lately monthly report.
The U.S. and Israel launched their war on Iran two and a half months ago, and analysts expected the Strait of Hormuz to reopen by the end of May or early June.
That’s looking less likely as Iran attacks ships in the Persian Gulf while the U.S. military is still enforcing a blockade on Iranian oil. Meanwhile, the Navy’s efforts to reopen the strait with warships is on hold.
An F-35B Lighting II, attached to Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 121, takes off from the flight deck of America-class amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli (LHA 7), May 13, 2026.
“But if the Strait remains effectively closed and commercial oil inventories in the OECD continue to be run down at the same pace as they were in April, oil stocks could reach critically low levels by the end of June,” Hamad Hussain, climate and commodities economist at Capital Economics, said in a note on Wednesday.
“That would be consistent with Brent crude prices reaching an all-time nominal peak, and could require more disorderly and economically damaging cuts to oil demand.”
He estimated oil prices could top $130-$140 a barrel next month if the strait remains closed and inventory depletion rates remain steady.
On Friday, Brent crude futures gained more than 3% to close at $109.26 a barrel as China offered no hints that it would lean on ally Iran to normalize tanker traffic.
For now, oil futures haven’t reached doomsday levels. That’s due to ample supplies at sea when the war started, record releases from strategic oil reserves, and a sharp drop in Chinese oil imports as it draws on its own stockpiles, according to Hussain.
More supplies from oil inventories could be released. But they cannot fall to zero as certain volumes are needed to maintain pressure within storage systems, and the daily flow of releases is limited.
In addition, 1 billion barrels of oil is estimated to have been lost already, dwarfing the IEA’s planned total release of 400 million barrels.
Efforts to clamp down on oil demand could intensify, and some countries in Asia have already imposed rationing measures.
“But given the extent of supply losses from the Middle East, the risk of a ‘non-linear’ adjustment in demand and prices will continue to grow for as long as the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed,” Hussain added.
In other words, rather than oil prices following a straight-line trajectory higher, they could instead go parabolic, looking more like the curved end of a hockey stick.
Similarly, analysts at UBS also said oil inventories are approaching record lows, warning that “buffers have now largely been exhausted.”
As stockpiles go even lower, UBS said oil prices could become more volatile and highlighted the “risk of panic buying if physical dislocation intensifies and the Strait of Hormuz remains closed.”
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