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Where do clowns come from? In popular culture, they may come from alien worlds, such as Killer Klowns from Outer Space, peer out from drains like Pennywise from Stephen King’s It, or emerge from a vat of chemicals or a lab accident, like The Joker in DC comics.

In real life, however, they often come from clown schools, theatre institutes or universities.

Clown education is often long, rigorous and very physically demanding. Many clown courses are quite hard to get into.

So, how are they trained and what are some of the main institutions?

We’ve always had clowns

The clown is an anthropological constant, a phenomenon that exists across cultures and time.

From “ritual clowns” in indigenous cultures, to the “court bufoons” that traditionally entertained Pacific chiefs and royal jesters in medieval Europe, there are many different types of clowns. And they serve different purposes in society.

Clowns are often afforded special privilege to say or do what would be unthinkable for most of us. As one research paper notes:

The earliest record of clowns or jesters appear to date back to Ancient Egypt over 4,000 years ago, where a ‘Danga’ is recorded as a fool at the court of the Pharaoh Dadkeri-Assi […] his activities, dances and diversions were treated not only with tolerance but also with privilege.

Clowns also appear in the literature on ancient Greece and ancient Rome, again enjoying positions of relative privilege at the time.

The stock characters and themes explored in the Commedia dell'arte – a theatre tradition that flourished between the 16th and 18th centuries in Europe – became the source of many Harlequins and Pierrots, Punches and Judies.

In the 18th century, with the rise of the modern circus and pantomime, the mischievous clown became popular. This was most famously personified by English clown Joseph Grimaldi, who wore white face paint and is described by one report as having “invented the creepy clown” with his unsettling acts of mischief.

Since then, many more whiteface clowns and mimes (such as clowning legend, Lindsay Kemp, who studied mime with France’s Marcel Marceau and worked with David Bowie and Kate Bush), Auguste clowns (who wear red noses and are often in grotesquely mismatched costumes), character clowns (such as The Three Stooges or The Marx Brothers), tramps (such as Charlie Chaplin) and many other clown incarnations have populated our cultural imagination.

Today’s clowns may be entertainers, political activists, boundary-pushers, or even medical clowns performing to relieve people’s physical and emotional pain in hospitals or aged care settings.

All of these require different skills and training.

How are clowns trained?

The methods, techniques and schools of clowning are as diverse as the cultural history of clowns itself.

Not surprisingly, many circuses train clowns.

Among the well-known schools in the United States was Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College, which educated clowns until it closed in 1997 (one famous graduate is Penn Jillette from the magic-performing duo Penn and Teller).

Theatre schools often train clowns, too. One example is Accademia Dimitri in Switzerland, founded by Swiss clown Dimitri, his wife Gunda, and Czech-born actor and mime Richard Weber. The program they designed focuses on teaching students pantomime, dance, theatrical improvisation, acrobatics and other skills.

Universities also train clowns. The University of Alberta in Canada, for example, has a Movement, Dance and Clowning stream.

In fact, there are clown and physical theatre hubs all around the world that train clowns.

The Budapest Circus Arts and Contemporary Dance College, for example, offers a three-year clown training programme. Students learn skills in “preparing the body, the mind and the spirit for creation”, improvisation techniques, circus studies, juggling, clowning technique and acrobatics.

There’s also the famous École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in France. One well-known graduate is Australian actor Geoffrey Rush, who studied mime and movement there.

There’s Sydney’s Clown Institute, which describes itself as a “fun-tastic outlet to ditch stress”.

Then there are also mentoring-based approaches to clown training that tap into literature and art (see, for example, the International School for Acting And Creativity).

All of these approaches help future clowns develop their artistic and expressive pathways by combining technical skills with personal artistic sensibilities.

But it is the clown’s purpose that shapes the direction of the training.

How purpose shapes training

If you want to become a professional mime (with or without whiteface), you will likely learn the techniques developed by groundbreaking artists such as France’s Marcel Marceau and Étienne Decroux, who spearheaded a type of physically demanding performance known as corporeal mime.

A mime may also study improvisation, ballet, modern dance, acrobatics and fencing.

If you want to become a circus clown, your training may include classical acting techniques, interdisciplinary circus arts and dance, physical comedy, acrobatics, yoga, stage combat, juggling and storytelling.

Clown doctors often undertake specialist training in performing arts such as physical theatre, pantomime or puppetry, as well as learning practical skills in nursing, hospital practices and procedures. They must adapt their clowning to a therapeutic profession in a medical setting.

One medical clowning organisation, Dream Doctors, says that after inital training, their graduates undertake about 200 hours of ongoing professional development seminars, courses and workshops every year.

Clowns master the body as a storyteller

Trained clowns create engaging experiences for audiences, generate memorable moments and harness the power of creativity for wellbeing and social change.

Through institutionalised programmes, mentoring by senior colleagues and the study of routines they admire, future clown performers must discover and unfold their own inner clown.

Trained clowns master the body as a storyteller, fostering new artistic creation and stimulating creative intelligence.

Anna-Sophie Jürgens, Senior Lecturer in Science Communication (Pop Culture Studies), Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

“Honestly, I can’t wait to have grandkids and spoil them — but I don’t want to be called ‘Granny’” (overheard on the No. 96 tram in Melbourne)

“I love it. It’s not the word that needs to change, it’s our culture” (Deborah, proud granny)

What’s wrong with “granny”?

From its debut in the early 1600s, “granny” has been more than an affectionate term for grandma — and a cursory glance at its history tells a depressingly familiar story.

First, the instability and decline of words associated with women. “Granny” joins a long list of words, particularly for older women, that that have acquired negative meanings — spinsters were originally spinners; sluts were untidy people; slags and shrews were rogues; scolds were poets; bimbos were men, and so on. Many started life referring to men, but quickly narrowed to female application — and with this sexual specification came further decline.

Right from the start, grannies were also people engaged in trivial (often self-serving) chatter; in other words, grannies were gossips, tell-tales and nosy parkers. In the 1700s, more negative meanings piled on — grannies became fussy, indecisive or unenterprising persons, and in many places stupid as well.

The online crowdsourced Urban Dictionary now has a flourishing of additional disparaging senses for “granny” that have yet to make it into more mainstream collections.

In sport, grannies refer to those who perform poorly, or they’re a kind of dead leg injury (which leaves you “hobbling around like an old granny for the rest of the day”).

“Don’t be a granny”!

Tellingly, the negative uses of granny have never been restricted to women — one 19th-century dictionary defines “granny” as “a simpleton: used of both sexes”. It’s another telling asymmetry in our lexicon. Terms for women are insulting when used of men (“Dad, don’t be such a granny”), but terms designating men when used of women have little or no affront. If you were to call a women a grampa or an old man, there’s really no abuse — it just seems odd.

Unflattering “granny” compounds are plentiful in English: a “granny knot” is one that’s inexpertly tied, while “granny gear” is an extremely low first gear. New ones are arriving all the time: “granny weed” is low-quality marijuana that is old or dried out; “granny shot” is said of a basketballer with little skill; “granny mode” in video games is a slower speed than normal, “granny pants” (like other “granny-like” items) are naff “old lady” styles (in the fashion world, the phrase ‘not your granny’s’ describes edgy or trendy clothes — not fashion choices made or worn by grandmothers). The Oxford English Dictionary gives 29 “granny” compounds, but provides not a single compound with “grandpa”, “grampa” or “gramps”.

These terms for one’s grandfather have also been remarkably stable over time. This dictionary gives a single definition: “One’s grandfather. Also used as a familiar form of address to one’s grandfather or to an elderly man”. Even Urban Dictionary, not known for its politeness, has little in the way of slangy senses for “grandpa” or “gramps” — the closest are playful entries referring to older men or grandfathers. You might compare “codger” or “geezer” — sure, they’re not exactly flattering, but they don’t pack anywhere near same punch as do “crone”, “hag”, “battle-axe”, “old bat”, “old bag” and so on.

Granny goodness and greedy granny

Current films, comics and games reveal another way words for women evolve. To set the scene, consider the fate of “witch”, now a slur for older women. Originally, witches could be male sorcerers, but when used of women they became something very nasty — witches were females who had dealings with the devil. Our jokey image of witches these days can’t capture the potency of this word in early times, but it has never completely shed its connotations of evil. We still retain abusive epithets like “(old) witch” and also expressions like “witches’ cauldron” to describe sinister situations. And now here’s granny in the very same cauldron.

Granny Goodness is one of the most well-known evil grannies in entertainment. Known for her cruelty and manipulation, this super villain hides under a façade of grandmotherly affection. Granny is a survival video game where the main antagonist, Granny, is a hideously sadistic serial killer who locks people in her house and taunts them for days before brutally killing them.

Then there’s Granny Rags, a mad, decrepit old woman whose vulnerable and destitute appearance conceals a very dark nature underneath. Of course, there are sometimes dark older male figures too, but they’re not explicitly grandfathers (for example, Emperor Palpatine in Star Wars or Dr Wily, an older, mad scientist who creates robotic menaces to achieve world domination). And they’re not in the same league as those decrepit, old, malicious women — the “witches” of pop culture.

And now there’s the Greedy Granny toy for the little ones. The aim is to steal from this grasping grandma and get away with it.

Words make worlds

Words are declarations of social attitudes and belief systems. Through the way we speak, the words we use and our interactions, the language reveals and reinforces psychological and social roles — status, power dynamics and relationships. Here is some context for grannies:

• older women are the lowest income earning family group

• 34% of single older women live in poverty

• 60% of older women leave paid work with no super and women with super have 28% less than men

• 60% of older women rely entirely on the old age pension

• 40% increase in homelessness for older women

• older women are more likely to experience workplace discrimination

• 23% of women aged 60 years+ have experienced intimate partner violence.

Don a granny cardy

Negative senses of expressions have a saliency that will dominate and eventually expel other senses. This transformation has a name: Gresham’s Law of Semantic Change (“bad meanings drive out good”).

So what can be done to help drag “granny” out of this semantic abyss?

Many older women are giving themselves the term and doing this playfully or as a way to reclaim power (for example the Pasta Grannies and the Granny Grommets). Reframing expressions in this way may not neutralise them, but it can make us more aware of the lurking prejudices.

And why not slip into a cardigan? September 22 marks the world’s first Cardigan Pride Festival. Australians around the country will don cardigans in a call to combat the inequalities older women face — and to show they’ve got older women’s backs (and shoulders) covered.

Kate Burridge, Professor of Linguistics, Monash University and Catherine Barrett, Director, Celebrate Ageing Ltd, La Trobe University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

During September, many Australian universities start making early offers to Year 12 students for a place next year. This is ahead of the main rounds of offers, due in January.

These early entry schemes have been around for many years. But offers soared during COVID, with more than 40,000 school-leavers estimated to have received an early offer in 2021 and again in 2022.

These numbers saw early entry schemes slammed for lacking the “transparency” of the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR), being an aggressive recruitment strategy by universities, and encouraging students to “slacken off” in their final exams.

In February, federal Education Minister Jason Clare announced early offers could not be issued before September. He said a national approach to early entry should be developed in time for 2027 enrolments, based on recommendations from the Universities Accord review.

Despite these criticisms, there has been no comprehensive research into early entry schemes. But my new study shows they can be a significant help to students from disadvantaged backgrounds hoping to go to university.

What are early entry schemes?

In Australia, most domestic students gain admission to an undergraduate degree via an ATAR. This is calculated to reflect a Year 12 student’s rank against other students in their state, taking into account their overall subject results.

Increasingly, young people are gaining access to university through early entry. These programs target Year 12 students who can receive an offer to study at university based on criteria other than (or in addition to) their ATAR.

Admission criteria differ across universities, but often include one or more Year 11 results, a recommendation from the student’s school, a personal statement demonstrating skills such as collaboration, resilience, or empathy, and extracurricular achievements.

Offers are released before students get their ATAR – and in many cases, before final exams, which generally begin in October. However, students still need to complete Year 12 and sometimes still need to meet a minimum ATAR.

My research

In 2023, I interviewed 24 current university students who had gained admission via early entry. I also interviewed a small number of their parents/carers to shed light on the broader impacts of early entry on families.

I focused on students from regional and remote locations, students who were the first in their family to go to uni, Indigenous Australians, and people with a disability, as they are most disadvantaged in mainstream schooling and in their access to higher education.

Some researchers have suggested early entry schemes favour students with personal or socioeconomic advantages due to parent and principal advocacy in recommendation letters and better access to career guidance.

But I found these schemes can benefit students most in need.

Early entry can help address disadvantage

Many of the students I spoke to experienced complex home lives, physical and/or mental ill-health, and multiple forms of disadvantage. As a result, university had often felt out of reach.

This meant an early offer was a huge boost to a student’s confidence. As Paris* told me:

I don’t believe I would have gotten into university if it wasn’t for the early entry. I didn’t think university was an option for me, ever, because of the town that I grew up in, my family’s low economic status and especially going through homelessness in Year 11 and 12 and then COVID on top of that – everything just kept piling on. So, going through this early entry scheme 100% gave me the confidence to be able to pursue [my] career and be able to do life in general.

Securing an early place at university also gave families more time to plan for this significant life event. As Angela, a parent, said:

It helped ease the pressure and the stress of trying to work out […] accommodation up there. And then organise finances and things like that because I’m a single parent […] I had to get loans to help [my daughter], to help her do what she wants to do in life.

Early entry can reduce stress

Students who experienced stress, anxiety, physical and/or mental ill-health in Year 12 felt early entry helped them manage their wellbeing as they moved from school to university. As Deirdre, a student, told me:

I applied in Year 12 for early entry before I sat my [final exams]. I had a lot of personal factors that year. I struggle with nine chronic illnesses at the current moment. It was more like six in Year 12. Early entry really just gave me an opportunity to not have to fret over the HSC [Higher School Certificate] if I was sick. It gave me a really healthy and positive pathway into university.

Students don’t ‘slacken off’

Media reports have suggested early entry students stop trying in their final exams if they know they have already got a university place. But this wasn’t the case among those interviewed.

Students wanted to demonstrate their offer was warranted. As Gavran said:

I really wanted [my HSC] to reflect how well I could do to show that I deserved the early entry offer.

Broader notions of success

Ultimately, students valued the way early entry schemes could broaden how their capabilities were assessed.

They said it allowed their potential to shine through, accepting them based on who they are as a person rather than what they can achieve in an exam. As Alicia said:

Early entry ultimately accepts a student for more than just that number and for more than just the culmination of 13 years of schooling. It accepts a person, a young adult, for more than just one incredibly stressful point in life.

Where to next?

My research also found schools don’t always give senior students clear information about different pathways to university and focus on the ATAR route instead.

So students need to be given information about the full range of ways to get to university. Schools must be supported to stay on top of all the available options in an increasingly complex admissions landscape.

As we move towards a national approach to early entry, we need to consider the perspectives of students and their families who have not traditionally gone to university.

This is important if we want to support students from diverse backgrounds to go to uni – and move beyond the narrow portrayal of early entry schemes in the media.

*names have been changed.

Sally Patfield, Lecturer, Teachers and Teaching Research Centre, School of Education, University of Newcastle

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

All Gen Z slang might sound like “skibidi” to older generations, but every era has had its own confusing slang. For every “gyatt” today (originally a variation of “god damn”, now referring to a curvy woman) there was a “dog my cats” or “od’s fish” in the Victorian era (both also meant something like “god damn”).

Today’s “cake” (buttocks) was the “behindativeness” of that period. In fact, from the bizarre sense of humour apparent in their Christmas cards – depicting murderous frogs, mice riding lobsters, and even waltzing beetles – to the off-beat slang they used, the Victorians defy their stuffy reputation. There’s an absurdism in their language and witticisms that feels surprisingly modern.

The funny and irreverent “got the morbs” (feeling down, temporary sadness, from a shortening of “morbid”) again demonstrates that the Victorians were more like us than we might like to believe. They even had a term for fake news (“evening wheezes”, referring to the tabloid papers sold at night). Many of these words and phrases can be found in Passing English of the Victorian Era: a Dictionary of Heterodox English, Slang and Phrase, by James Redding Ware (1909).

Here are some more great ones that you could incorporate into your daily speech:

1. ‘Acknowledge the corn’ or ‘confess the corn’

No one is sure where this phrase initially came from, but it was used to mean admitting to wrongdoing (“yes, I acknowledge the corn, I messed up”). Later in the Victorian period, it was also used to admit to a minor infraction to distract from a major one (“I acknowledge the corn, I texted that girl, but nothing else happened.”).

Here, the etymology points to a case of horse-theft in the wild west. A man accused of stealing four horses and four feeds of corn said: “I acknowledge the corn, but do not admit to the horses.”

2. ‘Dree your weird’

The word “weird” is suddenly all over the US news, after the Democrat VP nominee Tim Walz lobbed the insult at the Republican candidates Donald Trump and J.D. Vance.

But in the Victorian phrase “dree your weird”, the word doesn’t mean strange but rather fate or destiny, while “dree” means to suffer or endure. This phrase, then, means to surrender to fate.

Taken from the Scots, this phrase was popularised by the writer Sir Walter Scott. If you “dree your weird”, you accept things as they are, or accept the consequences of your actions. With the cadence of “match my freak” (be equally as weird) and the incomprehensibility of “skibidi”, this phrase is ripe for incorporation into today’s vocabulary. I suggest you use it when scolding the friend that won’t accept that actions have consequences.

3. ‘Establish a funk’

In the 19th century, “funk” was used to refer to the panicked state of schoolboys facing difficult exams or coursework. To “establish a funk” is to deliberately create a panic or stir up agitation. This phrase became common enough that it was used in parliament in 1920, with the MP Francis Dyke Acland suggesting a need to “establish a funk” in the government accounting departments, stirring up some panic over their expenditures and bookkeeping.

Modern media could be accused of establishing a funk in the public. Your friend who likes to stir things up for the sake of drama is also guilty of such behaviour.

4. ‘Podsnappery’

Taken from the character Mr Podsnap in Charles Dickens’ 1865 novel, Our Mutual Friend, podsnappery is the belief that everything you do is right, while everything everyone else does is wrong. You are refusing to admit to the problems in the world or your own privilege.

Dickens tells us that:

Mr Podsnap was well to do, and stood very high in Mr Podsnap’s opinion … He never could make out why everybody was not quite satisfied, and he felt conscious that he set a brilliant social example in being particularly well satisfied with most things, and, above all other things, with himself.

A nepo baby (a person who has benefited from nepotism) who won’t admit their advantage in life might be said to be practising some podsnappery.

5. ‘Ugsome’

This word sounds close to the exclamation “ugh” and the word “loathsome”, which together translate to today’s “gave me the ick” (meaning when a previous source of affection takes on a gross or loathsome quality). However, the Victorians used “ugsome” to mean something frightening in addition to loathsome, with its root in the Old Norse “ugga” meaning “to dread”.

A bad part of town could be ugsome, but it could also be applied to the more mundane things we dread in modern times. For many a millennial or gen Z, making phones calls is also ugsome; people should just text instead.

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Jordan Kistler, Lecturer in Victorian literature, School of Humanities, University of Strathclyde

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The largest known black hole jets, 23 million light years across, have been discovered in the distant universe. This pair of particle beams launched by a supermassive black hole is over a hundred times larger than our galaxy, the Milky Way.

In 2022, we announced the discovery of one of the largest black hole jets in the night sky, launched from a (relatively) nearby galaxy called NGC2663. Using CSIRO’s Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) in Western Australia, we confirmed that NGC2663’s jet is one of the largest in the sky. In other words, it appears to be the largest when viewed from Earth.

The new jet, announced in the journal Nature, has been dubbed “Porphyrion” (a giant in Greek mythology) by its discoverers at the California Institute of Technology in the United States. It dwarfs NGC2663’s jet in actual size and is over 20 times larger – a true colossus.

Porphyrion can tell us more about the great ecosystem of matter flowing inside and outside of galaxies. But this jet also has us scratching our heads: how can something 23 million light years across be almost perfectly straight?

Seeing invisible light

Porphyrion was discovered by astronomers using the International LOFAR Telescope, a network of radio sensors centred in the Netherlands, and stretching from Sweden to Bulgaria, and from Ireland to Latvia. Radio telescopes like ASKAP and LOFAR can see light that is invisible to our eyes: radio waves.

What launches the jet in the first place? At the centre of the jet, researchers see a galaxy, and at the centre of the galaxy, they find evidence of a supermassive black hole.

As matter is pulled towards the black hole, various fates await. Some matter is eaten entirely. Some orbits around the black hole, forming a disk. And some of it becomes twisted and tangled in intense magnetic fields, until it is released into two opposing jets, blasting at almost the speed of light.

We’ve seen black hole jets before, even ones that stretch many millions of light years. What’s striking about Porphyrion is that it looks almost perfectly straight. There are plenty of curvy, angled jets out there, including one seen by ASKAP that was dubbed “The Dancing Ghosts”.

Puzzlingly straight

Many processes can add a kink to a jet: an obstacle such as a dense cloud, a change in the orientation of the black hole, strong magnetic fields, intergalactic “wind” as the host galaxy falls into a larger cosmic structure.

Porphyrion, by contrast, seems to have been happily powering its way through the cosmos for about 2 billion years, unperturbed.

This is puzzling for two reasons. First, it isn’t from around here. Its light has travelled for about 7 billion years to arrive on Earth. We’re seeing Porphyrion as it was about 6 billion years after the Big Bang.

As with all astronomical objects, we’re seeing it in the past, when the universe was more dense (remember: the universe is expanding). But a busy environment is the enemy of a straight jet.

Second, a jet that maintains consistent power for 2 billion years requires a steady stream of food. But that implies a rich local environment, full of goodies (interstellar gas) ready to eat. This presents a paradox, because – again – a busy environment is the enemy of a straight jet.

As the researchers conclude, “how jets can retain such long-lived coherence is unknown at present”. Maybe Porphyrion got lucky, threading its jet through a quiet alley of intergalactic space.

Maybe there’s something about this jet that helps it maintain its focus. We don’t know. But we can think of ways to find out. Observers will explore the environment of this jet with further observations across the spectrum.

Radio astronomers are using telescopes like ASKAP and LOFAR to find more jets, so we can distinguish the typical from the flukey. Meanwhile, astrophysicists are using supercomputer simulations of jets to figure out what launches them, what can bend them, and under what conditions.

Objects like Porphyrion aren’t mere cosmic oddities. They are integral to the ecosystem of matter that shapes our cosmic environment. Intergalactic matter feeds into galaxies, galaxies make stars, some galaxies even make black holes, black holes create a jet, the jet affects the intergalactic matter, and around we go.

We’re slowly untangling the clues to our place in the cosmos.

Luke Barnes, Lecturer in Physics, Western Sydney University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Dog hair comes in many varieties, from shaggy to short, curly to straight. If you live with a dog, you live with their hair – on your couch, in your clothes, it’s everywhere!

Beyond colour, have you ever wondered what’s behind the differences in coat type?

We actually know quite a lot about why dogs have different coats, and it comes down to their genes.

What are the main coat types in dogs?

The three main features of dog coats are how long the hairs are, whether they are curly or straight, and whether they have extra flourishes. The flourishes are called “furnishings”, and can include a hairy moustache and shaggy eyebrows.

Combinations of these three features result in seven different coat types in dogs: short, wire, wire and curly, long, long with furnishings, curly, and curly with furnishings.

We know from a study of more than 1,000 dogs with varying coats that differences in only three genes are responsible for this variety.

The gene responsible for long hair (called FGF5) is recessive, meaning dogs must have two copies of the mutated gene to have long hair. In humans, the same gene has been identified in families with excessively long eyelashes.

Curly coats in dogs are related to a gene called KRT71, which affects keratin, a protein involved in hair formation. Mutations in this gene in cats result in hairless (Sphynx) or curly-haired (Devon Rex) breeds.

The gene responsible for furnishings (RSPO2) is involved in establishing hair follicles. Hair follicles are small pockets in the skin that grow hair.

Variations in these three genes could explain the coat type in most (but not all!) of the dogs tested. For example, the long coat of the Afghan hound is not explained by these three genes. Further study is needed to identify less common mutations and genes controlling the coat in these dogs.

The earliest dog breeds would have been short-haired, as a result of the “wild-type” genes. Later changes would have arisen through mutation and deliberate selection through modern breeding practices.

If all three mutations are present, the dog has a long, curly coat with furnishings. An example is the Bichon Frisé.

What else varies in dog coats?

Dog coat types can also be single or double. In a double-coated breed such as a Labrador, there is a longer coarse layer of hairs and a softer and shorter undercoat. Wolves and ancestral dogs are single-coated, and the double coat is a result of a mutation in chromosome 28.

In the Labrador, the mutation was probably selected for as they were bred to retrieve fishing nets in Canada. The double coat is a great insulator and helps them to stay warm, even in icy water.

Why does it matter what kind of coat a dog has?

We know with climate change our world is going to get hotter. Dogs with a double coat are less able to tolerate heat stress, as their hair prevents heat loss.

In a study of dogs suffering heat-related illness, most of the 15 breeds at higher risk had double coats. The death rate in these dogs was 23%. We can only imagine how it must feel going out on a 40 degree day wearing a thick fur coat.

Dogs with a double coat shed more hair than dogs with a single coat. This means even short-haired breeds, like the Labrador retriever, can shed an astonishing amount of hair. If you can’t tolerate dog hair, then a dog with a double-coat may not suit you.

When we think of wool we think of sheep, but in the past woolly dogs were kept for their wool that was woven by Indigenous groups and used to make blankets.

A dog’s coat also affects how much time and effort is needed for grooming. Dogs with long or curly hair with furnishings are likely to need more time invested in their care, or visits to a professional groomer.

Designer dogs (cross-bred dogs often crossed with a poodle, such as groodles), are likely to be curly with furnishings. In a US study, people with designer dogs reported meeting their dogs’ maintenance and grooming requirements was much harder than they expected.

It’s not just bank balances and the time needed that can suffer. If people are unable to cope with the demands of grooming long-haired dogs, lack of grooming can cause welfare problems. A study of animal cruelty cases in New York found 13% involved hair matting, with some hair mats causing strangulation wounds and 93% of affected dogs having long hair.

How can you prevent problems?

If you have a curly- or long-haired breed of dog, it will help to train them to like being brushed from an early age. You can do this by counter-conditioning so they have a positive emotional response to being groomed, rather than feeling anxious. First show the brush or lightly brush them, then give them a treat. They learn to associate being brushed with something positive.

If you take your dog to the groomer, it’s very important their first experience is positive. A scary or painful incident will make it much more difficult for future grooming.

Is your dog difficult to groom or hard to get out of the car at the groomers? It’s likely grooming is scary for them. Consulting a dog trainer or animal behaviourist who focuses on positive training methods can help a lot.

Keeping your dog well groomed, no matter their hair type, will keep them comfortable. More important than looking great, feeling good is an essential part of dogs living their best lives with us.

Susan Hazel, Associate Professor, School of Animal and Veterinary Science, University of Adelaide and Mia Cobb, Research Fellow, Animal Welfare Science Centre, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Coelacanths are deep-sea fish that live off the coasts of southern Africa and Indonesia and can reach up to two metres in length. For a long time, scientists believed they were extinct.

In new research published in Nature Communications, we reveal the best-preserved coelacanth fossil ever found from the ancient period hundreds of millions of years ago when these ancient sea-dwellers first evolved. The fossil comes from the Gogo Formation on Gooniyandi Country in northern Western Australia.

We also studied the evolution of all the hundreds of coelacanth species we know from the fossil record to find out what drove the creation of new species across the aeons.

The answer came as a surprise: the greatest influence on coelacanth evolution was not ocean temperature or oxygen levels but tectonic activity. When the vast plates of Earth’s crust were moving around more, new species were more likely to appear.

‘Living fossils’

Coelacanths are “lobe-finned” fish, which means they have robust bones in their fins a bit like the bones in our arms. Scientists believe they are more closely related to tetrapods (animals with backbones and four limbs, such as frogs, emus and humans) than to most other fishes.

Coelacanths have been around for a long time. The oldest known fossils are more than 410 million years old. But because these fossils are mostly fragments, we don’t know a lot about what the earliest coelacanths were like.

Later, during the age of dinosaurs which began around 250 million years ago, coelacanths became more diverse. In total, we have found traces of more than 175 fossil species from all over the globe.

Finally, at the end of the Cretaceous period, 66 million years ago, all signs of coelacanths mysteriously vanished from the fossil record. For a long time, scientists assumed the coelacanths were casualties of the massive asteroid impact that also signed the death warrant of the dinosaurs (along with around three-quarters of all life on Earth).

All that changed in 1938, when fisherpeople in South Africa pulled a large, enigmatic fish from the ocean depths that was like nothing they had seen before. A local museum employee with a keen interest in the natural sciences, Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, immediately knew the fish was special.

Courtenay-Latimer enlisted her friend J. L. B. Smith, a renowned South African chemist with an interest in ichthyology (the study of fish). Smith identified and named Latimeria, the first living coelacanth known to science.

Discovering this “Lazarus fish” was like stumbling across a live Triceratops dinosaur still roaming the forests of North America today. Even today, coelacanths are often described as “living fossils”.

A new fossil coelacanth

Our team from Flinders University, together with other colleagues from Australia, Canada and Europe, discovered a new species of fossil coelacanth on Gooniyandi Country in northern WA. Around 380 million years ago, the site was a tropical reef teeming with more than 50 species of fish.

Ngamugawi wirngarri, the new fossil coelacanth, is the first fish found in the area to bear a name given to us from the Gooniyandi language. The name means “ancient fish in honour of Wirngarri”, a respected elder of the community.

Ngamugawi is the best three-dimensionally preserved coelacanth from the Devonian Period (359 million to 419 million years ago). This fossil provides a great insight into the early anatomy of this lineage.

Plate tectonics drive coelacanth evolution

Our study of the new species led us to analyse the evolutionary history of all known coelacanths. In doing so, we calculated the rates of evolution across their 410 million year history.

We found that coelacanths have generally evolved slowly, with a few intriguing exceptions.

Furthermore, we analysed a series of environmental factors that we considered potential candidates for influencing coelacanth evolutionary rates. These included tectonic plate activity, ocean temperatures, water oxygen levels, and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

Of all the variables we looked at, the one with the greatest influence on the rate of coelacanth evolution was tectonic plate activity. New species of coelacanth were more likely to evolve during periods of heightened tectonic activity, as seismic movement transformed habitats.

Are coelacanths still evolving?

Along with our analysis of all fossil coelacanths, we also had a close look at the two living species, Latimeria chalumnae and Latimeria menadoensis.

At first glance, these fish look almost identical to some of their counterparts from hundreds of millions of years ago. However, on closer analysis we could see they were in fact distinct from their extinct relatives.

While Latimeria has essentially ceased evolving new features, the proportions of its body and the details of its DNA are still changing a little. So perhaps it’s not a “living fossil” after all.

Alice Clement, Research Associate in the College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University and John Long, Strategic Professor in Palaeontology, Flinders University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

It’s the next global sporting event on a busy 2024 calendar – the 10th FIFA Futsal World Cup is underway in Uzbekistan.

While the indoor soccer variant might be on your radar as a fun kids’ sport, or a high-energy weeknight hobby, proponents like Football Australia say the FIFA-governed game is actually one of the world’s fastest-growing sports.

Here’s a few reasons why it’s gaining players and fans – and might even be breeding our next Socceroo or Matilda.

What is futsal?

Futsal is a relatively modern sport. It was invented in Uruguay in the early 1930s with the name deriving from the Spanish words fútbol (football) and sala (hall) – indicating the sport is played indoors.

With two teams of five players (one goalkeeper and four outfield players), a game is two halves of 20 minutes of effective playing time (the clock stops every time the ball is out of play).

The fast pace is heightened by rolling player substitutions and no throw-ins or offside – key features of traditional soccer.

It is estimated that 12 million players are registered worldwide in official competitions and many more involved in amateur/social leagues.

It is growing healthily in Australia, too. In 2023, participation grew to 64,000, up 11% on 2022. This followed huge growth pre-pandemic – in 2019, the jump was 36% up on the previous year.

These statistics would place futsal in the top three activities by growth from 2022 to 2023 (note: futsal participation data is extracted from a different survey compared to the government’s official participation dataset).

The world at their feet

The pinnacle of the sport is the FIFA Futsal World Cup, with 24 nations competing.

The men’s World Cup commenced in 1989 in the Netherlands, while the inaugural women’s World Cup will be contested in 2025.

The Australian men’s national team, the Futsalroos, took part in the inaugural men’s World Cup, with six more appearances since but they have not qualified for the 2024 competition.

Interestingly, France, one of the world’s top soccer countries, is participating for the first time at the 2024 Futsal World Cup.

Futsal has also been part of the Olympic conversation for many years.

Advocates say the sport has all the necessary characteristics for inclusion in the summer Olympics program – excitement, grassroots popularity and growth potential.

While the Olympic sports roster is already crowded – 30 sports across 42 disciplines at Paris – a positive step forward was futsal joining the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires and scheduled for the Dakar 2026 event.

The Olympics have, in recent years, experimented with new sports and sport variants like 3x3 basketball (2020), which gives a template for futsal to be considered for the games without impacting the soccer competition.

A powerful breeding ground

Futsal is also emerging as a powerful developmental step for outdoor soccer.

Many world-class soccer players have credited futsal for their skill development.

Brazilian household names Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and Neymar Jr, Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo, and former Barcelona midfielders Xavi and Iniesta have all attributed their exceptional ball control and passing skills to playing futsal as kids.

Christiano Ronaldo said:

During my childhood in Portugal, all we played was futsal. The small playing area helped me improve my close control, and whenever I played futsal I felt free.

In Australia, Matildas forward Mary Fowler started in futsal as child in Cairns (where the indoor game can avoid weather extremes), while recently retired Socceroo and Celtic midfielder Tom Rogic also represented Australia in futsal.

How futsal skills are linked to soccer

Research supports the anecdotal evidence for futsal’s development potential.

My colleagues and I investigated whether the characteristics of the futsal ball (less bounce) and the gameplay (more touches for competitors), makes it easier for players to control the ball. This, in turn, may enhance other technical skills (like passing) and tactical awareness.

We tested whether the difference in ball characteristics could explain differences in passing skill.

In our study, 24 adult novices were asked to perform the same passing skill either with a futsal or soccer ball over three sessions, and we assessed their accuracy as well as their gaze behaviour (how the eyes track objects and space).

Those who practised with a futsal ball showed more improvement with their passing performance and had larger changes in their gaze behaviour.

Applying the same idea to elite young soccer and futsal players during a standardised 6 v 6 game, we again found futsal players had higher scanning behaviour while receiving and controlling, while soccer players mainly scanned the environment when not in ball possession.

But can skills transfer from futsal to soccer?

In another study, we asked elite young futsal and soccer players to perform separate tasks – one similar to futsal, and the other similar to soccer.

The results showed the futsal group improved their passing accuracy from the futsal-like to the soccer-like task; they were also more accurate than soccer players.

The soccer group’s passing accuracy remained stable across the two tasks.

Your new favourite niche sport?

Futsal offers physical intensity, can be played on any indoor surface and in any weather conditions and those features can facilitate faster skill development than many traditional sports.

No wonder its popularity is on the rise.

If that’s what you’re looking for, maybe the Futsal World Cup can add some inspiration.

Fabio Serpiello, Professor and Director of Sport Strategy, CQUniversity Australia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

When it comes to our experience of the internet, “the times, they are a-changin’”, as Bob Dylan would say. You can’t quite recall how, but the internet certainly feels different these days.

To some, it is “less fun and less informative” than it used to be. To others, online searches are made up of “cookie cutter” pages that drown out useful information and are saturated with scams, spam and content generated by artificial intelligence (AI).

Your social media feeds are full of eye-catching, provocative, hyper-targeted, or anger-inducing content, from bizarre AI-generated imagery to robot-like comments. You’re lucky if your video feeds are not solely made up of exhortations to “subscribe”.

How did we get here? And can we claw our way back?

Commercial interests rule

One major factor contributing to the current state of the internet is its over-commercialisation: financial motives drive much of the content. This has arguably led to the prevalence of sensationalism, prioritising virality over information quality.

Covert and deceptive advertising is widespread, blurring the line between commercial and non-commercial content to attract more attention and engagement.

Another driving force is the dominance of tech giants like Google, Meta and Amazon. They reach billions worldwide and wield immense power over the content we consume.

Their platforms use advanced tracking technologies and opaque algorithms to generate hyper-targeted media content, powered by extensive user data. This creates filter bubbles, where users are exposed to limited content that reinforces their existing beliefs and biases, and echo chambers where other viewpoints are actively discredited.

Bad actors like cyber criminals and scammers have been an enduring problem online. However, evolving technology like generative AI has further empowered them, enabling them to create highly realistic fake images, deepfake videos and voice cloning.

AI’s ability to automate content creation has also flooded the internet with low-quality, misleading and harmful material at an unprecedented scale.

In sum, the accelerated commercialisation of the internet, the dominance of media tech giants and the presence of bad actors have infiltrated content on the internet. The rise of AI further intensifies this, making the internet more chaotic than ever.

Some of the ‘good’ internet remains

So, what was the “good internet” some of us long for with nostalgia?

At the outset, the internet was meant to be a free egalitarian space people were meant to “surf” and “browse”. Knowledge was meant to be shared: sites such as Wikipedia and The Internet Archive are continuing bastions of knowledge.

Before the advent of filter bubbles, the internet was a creative playground where people explored different ideas, discussed varying perspectives, and collaborated with individuals from “outgroups” – those outside their social circles who may hold opposing views.

Early social media platforms were built on the ethos of reconnecting with long-lost classmates and family members. Many of us have community groups, acquaintances and family we reach out to via the internet. The “connection” aspect of the internet remains as important as ever – as we all saw during the COVID pandemic.

What else do we want to preserve? Privacy. A New Yorker cartoon joke in 1993 stated that “on the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog”. Now everyone – especially advertisers – wants to know who you are. To quote the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, one of the tenets of privacy is “to be able to control who can see or use information about you”.

At the very least, we want to control what big tech knows about us, especially if they could stand to profit from it.

Can we ever go back?

We can’t control “a changin’” times, but we can keep as much of the good parts as we can.

For starters, we can vote with our feet. Users can enact change and bring awareness to problems on existing platforms. In recent times, we have seen this with the exodus of users from X (formerly Twitter) to other platforms, and the platform-wide protest against Reddit for changing its third-party data access policies.

However, voting with our feet is only possible when there’s competition. In the case of X, various other platforms – from Mastodon to Threads to Bluesky – enable users to pick one that aligns with their preferences, values and social circles. Search engines have alternatives, too, such as DuckDuckGo or Ecosia.

But competition can only be created by moving to decentralised systems and removing monopolies. This actually happened in the early days of the internet during the 1990s “browser wars”, when Microsoft was eventually accused of illegally monopolising the web browser market in a landmark court case.

As users of technology, all of us must remain vigilant about threats to our privacy and knowledge. With cheap and ubiquitous generative AI, misleading content and scams are more realistic as ever.

We must exercise healthy scepticism and ensure those most at risk from online threats – such as children and older people – are educated about potential harms.

Remember, the internet is not optimised for your best interests. It’s up to you to decide how much power you give to the tech giants who are fuelling theirs.

Marc Cheong, Senior Lecturer of Information Systems, School of Computing and Information Systems; and (Honorary) Senior Fellow, Melbourne Law School, The University of Melbourne and Wonsun Shin, Associate Professor in Media and Communications, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

In the early days of the internet, famously, no one knew if you were a dog. The internet was a place where you could be anyone.

More importantly, it was also a place where you could find anything: that rare book, or the perfect pair of neon-pink tights, or a community for your unusual health condition. The underlying model of the internet was that it was decentralised, and everyone had the right to have a voice – even dogs.

Marketers realised they could use the internet to make money, but no one had figured out how yet. The original search engine included an index of all the pages on the web: you could literally browse the whole web if you were so inclined.

For those of us who were there, it was like the coolest club going, only everyone there was an oddball, nerd or another kind of outcast. Like all the best clubs, though, the internet didn’t stay exclusive. Marketers did work out how to use it to sell things (mostly pornography in the early days), and the internet became a fact of life rather than a niche interest.

From consolidation to ‘enshittification’

In the early 2000s, we saw another phenomenon: consolidation.

Facebook, through its links to the US college experience, became the place to connect with friends. Amazon, through its distribution network, became the place to buy … well, everything. Google was the source of information, and used this position to become the default source of information in browsers and mobile phones.

Initially, this consolidation happened because these tools were great for the people who used them. Then the tools became less great for end users, and instead became great for the people who sold things on them (advertisers, mostly).

However, people kept using the tools because the cost of switching was high, or there was no viable alternative.

Finally, these products have become great for people who own them, and not great for anyone else. The competition has also been squeezed out. The most fitting term for this process is “enshittification”, coined by author and digital rights activist Cory Doctorow. It is rife across digital products as diverse as ridesharing, streaming services and search engines.

So now, instead of connecting with friends, finding unique products or having the information of the world at your fingertips, the internet is a shopping mall advertising the same poor-quality products everywhere.

The alternative world exists

So, what was the alternative? It’s been there all along. In fact, lots of the internet still runs on it.

It’s called the free and open source software movement.

In the dawn of the tech era – 1950s and 60s – most of the people involved in tech and programming were hobbyists and tinkerers, who shared code to help each other build stuff, grow and learn.

This became a social movement centred around the ethics of distributing software, and it had four underlying principles:

1. software should be free to use for any purpose
2. software, and the code that underlies it, should be available for study and modification
3. you should be free to share software with others, and
4. you should be free to share software you have modified.

For many people in the movement, it was unethical to make software proprietary, or work with companies that did: this became the free software movement.

The open-source software movement is an alternative that’s more amenable to proprietary software, but still believes people should have access to the code.

This approach has much in common with the modern “right-to-repair movement” – it’s fine for a company to sell you a product, but you should be able to take it apart and fix it if it isn’t working.

Open-source software is baked into the internet. Over 95% of the top million web servers – the computers that send web content to your laptop or browser – run Linux, an open-source operating system (instead of Windows or iOS).

Netscape, an early web browser, was released open source, and the Firefox browser is still open source today.

A right to repair the internet

So, how different would the internet look if the open source movement had been even more dominant?

It is instructive to look at what happens when for-profit tech giants release code and documentation, either deliberately (like Twitter) or accidentally (like Google).

In both cases, analysis of the code or documents discovered quirks that benefit either the companies or their founders, which company representatives said or implied weren’t happening.

In these cases, the openness has meant people could understand what was happening in a way that wasn’t possible before.

Understanding is one thing. Even better would be if people could use what has been released to get their own data, so the cost of switching to an alternative service – be that a social media network, search engine or shopping provider – is lower.

Imagine if you could write a post and choose which social media platform it went to, or have a single app to keep up with all your friends. Open-source code and such behaviour being allowed would almost certainly mean this was a reality.

And that reality is still possible. The recent antitrust judgement against Google has shown tech giants that the consolidation required to enshittify user and seller experience – and enrich tech company owners – is on notice.

Without consolidation, tech companies have to compete for users by providing better services, and that’s good for everyone.

The right-to-repair movement is taking off, too. Perhaps one day, we will have the right to understand – and repair – the technology we use on the internet. That would be a future worth fighting for.

Dana McKay, Associate Dean, Interaction, Technology and Information, RMIT University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Parents sometimes ask: what’s the point of drama class? Many want their children to choose elective subjects, especially in Year 12, that parents think will help them get into university and establish a career.

This is despite the fact work possibilities are wide open for the average 17 year-old, who is likely to have a range of jobs and careers over their lifetime.

So why study drama? As scholars who have researched drama and learning for 30 years, it’s clear studying drama can enhance your teenager’s present and contribute to their future. Drama teaches skills for life, learning and employability.

Teamwork, project management, public speaking and more

Many employers want staff who can work well in a team, manage a complicated project from inception to final delivery and speak well in public or to clients.

They want employees who can problem-solve creatively and effectively, can think flexibly, adapt to changing circumstances and see others’ point of view.

Now consider the skills kids learn in drama class. These include:

Teamwork: There is nothing like collaborating with your classmates as an ensemble to devise a script or pull off a show. There is excitement and a heightened sense of purpose in having to work together to present a performance for an audience. Relationships of trust and cooperation are formed through teamwork in drama class. These are valuable skills kids can use throughout their lives.

Public speaking: Drama develops communication and presentation skills that boost your confidence to speak in public. You learn how to use space, gesture, posture and to vary your pace, tone and volume to successfully communicate with and convince your audience. This is a skill set your child will use at university, in job interviews and at work.

Speedy problem-solving: In drama class, you learn to improvise. The skill of quick and creative thinking on your feet is valuable to many employers.

Creative and critical thinking: Drama is critical thinking in action, a way to look at issues from multiple points of view and understand nuance. Untangling this complexity in drama class is equipping students with the ability to cope with complexity in other parts of their life – now and in the future. It allows kids to exercise creativity, imagine alternate futures, and experiment and test radical ideas in a safe space. Creativity and imagination are essential skills for jobs of the future.

Make a compelling argument: When students have something important to say, a drama performance can be a powerful way to practice using their voice, express concerns and call others to action. Going to see live theatre with peers, studying plays and analysing theatre means engaging with and discussing big, complex and global ideas. Knowing how to formulate your point and articulate it in a compelling way is a valuable workplace skill.

Artistic and design skills: Students learn artistic, performance and theatre design skills when studying drama, which can lead to employment in a wide range of creative industries jobs.

Examining the evidence

There is a great deal of evidence on the impact of drama education on young people’s lives and employability skills.

Research shows drama develops empathy, social skills, well-being and confidence.

Studies involving drama students also report young people derive a sense of fellowship and fun from studying drama. They also report theatre helped them develop a sense of self and important life competencies.

Research has also shown drama can be an effective part of teacher education.

Consider the value drama adds to your child’s life now

Of course, school isn’t really about turning your child into an obedient and helpful worker bee. It’s their life now. Just as having a positive workplace can make a world of difference to your quality of life, having an enjoyable school experience is crucial to a teen’s mental health.

So if your child enjoys drama, ask them why. You might be surprised by the depth of the answer you receive.

Drama creates a strong sense of belonging and can reduce loneliness, as demonstrated in this recent ABC story:

Drama class can help your child feel connected to others in school and to their community. It can help them develop empathy, relate to others in the real world (outside of social media) and encourage self-reflection.

It can allow them to engage with, and learn about, the big things in life: love, betrayal, friendship, ambition, power, envy, duty and more.

In the senior school years, when exam pressure and competitiveness can be overwhelming, a drama class and the community it provides can be a welcome relief.

And lastly: let’s not underestimate the sheer joy that comes of being creative, of expressing yourself, and the thrill of presenting to an audience.

Jo Raphael, Senior lecturer in drama education, Deakin University and Joanne O'Mara, Associate Professor in Education, Deakin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

TikTok, Facebook and other social media platforms are being flooded with uncanny and bizarre content generated with artificial intelligence (AI), from fake videos of the US government capturing vampires to images of shrimp Jesus.

Given its outlandish nature and tenuous relationship with reality, you might think this so-called “AI slop” would quickly disappear. However, it shows no sign of abating.

In fact, our research suggests this kind of low-quality AI-generated content is becoming a lucrative venture for the people who make it, the platforms that host it, and even a growing industry of middlemen teaching others how to get in on the AI gold rush.

When generative AI meets profiteers and platforms

The short explanation for the prevalence of these baffling videos and images is that savvy creators on social media platforms have worked out how to use generative AI tools to earn a quick buck.

But the full story is more complex. Platforms have created incentive programs for content that goes viral, and a whole ecosystem of content creators has arisen using generative AI to exploit these programs.

Much of the conversation around generative AI tools focuses on how they enable ordinary people to “create”. Many earlier digital technologies have also made it easier to participate in creative activities, such as how smartphones made photography ubiquitous.

But generative AI takes this a step further, as it can generate tailored images or videos from a simple text prompt. It makes content creation more accessible – and also opens the floodgates to mass production on social media.

To take just one example: if you search “pet dance motorcycle” on TikTok, you will find hundreds of AI-generated videos of animals doing the “motorbike dance”, all animated using the same AI template. Some accounts post dozens of videos like this every day.

Creators and platforms are making money

You may wonder why such repetitive, unimaginative content can go viral on TikTok. The answer lies in the platform’s own advice to aspiring creators: if you want your videos to be promoted, you should “continuously share fresh and diverse content” that “doesn’t require a big production budget”.

You may also wonder why some platforms don’t ban AI accounts for polluting the platform’s content stream. Other platforms such as Spotify and YouTube, which police intellectual property rights more aggressively than TikTok, invest considerable resources to identify and remove AI-generated content.

TikTok’s community guidelines do ban “inaccurate, misleading, or false content that may cause significant harm”, but AI-generated content – at least for now – does not qualify as causing “significant harm”.

Instead, this kind of content has become important for platforms. Many of those “pet dance motorcycle” videos, for example, have been viewed tens of millions of times. As long as users are scrolling through videos, they are getting exposed to the ads that are the platforms’ primary source of income.

Inside the AI ‘gold rush’

There is also a growing industry of people teaching others how to make money using cheap AI content.

Take Xiaonan, a social media entrepreneur we interviewed who runs six different TikTok accounts, each with more than 100,000 followers. As he revealed in a live-streaming tutorial with more than 1,000 viewers, Xiaonan earned more than US$5,500 from TikTok in July alone.

Xiaonan also hosts an exclusive chatting group where, for a fee, he reveals his most effective AI prompts, video headlines and hashtags tailored for different platforms including YouTube and Instagram. Xiaonan also reveals tricks for standing out in the platforms’ recommendation game and avoiding platform regulations.

Xiaonan says he established his “AI side job” after being laid off by an internet company. He now works with two partners selling classes and tutorials on making AI-generated videos and other types of spam for profit.

Creators posting AI content may not be the kind of people we expect. As Xiaonan told us, many of the people taking his AI tutorial – entitled “Side job, self-employed, high-paid” – are housewives, unemployed people and college students.

“Some of us also do Uber driving or street vending,” one creator told us. AI-generated content has become the latest trend for earning side income.

The rise of AI has coincided with global unemployment trends and the growth of the gig economy in the post-pandemic era.

Making AI-generated content is more pleasant work than driving passengers or delivering food, according to a creator who is also a stay-at-home mother. It’s easy to learn, almost zero cost, and can be done any time at home with just a phone.

As Xiaonan says, his method is to use AI to “earn from productivity gap” – that is, by producing far more content than people who don’t use AI .

The global AI-generated content factory

Our observations indicate many of these creators are from non-Western countries, such as India, Vietnam and China.

As one Chinese social media influencer told us:

China’s short video market is nearing saturation, which means you need to seek data traffic [viewers] on overseas platforms.

For these entrepreneurs, AI is the secret sauce not only for creating viral content but also for circulating already-viral videos across different countries and platforms.

An effective strategy mentioned by one creator is a kind of platform arbitrage involving popular videos from Douyin, the counterpart of TikTok in mainland China.

A creator will take one of these videos, add AI-generated translation, and post the result on TikTok. Despite clunky AI dubbing and error-riddled subtitles, many of these videos garner hundreds of thousands or even millions of views.

Creators often mute the original video and add AI-generated narration, translating the content into various languages, including French, Spanish, Portuguese, Indonesian and Swedish. These creators often manage several or even dozens of accounts, targeting viewers in different countries in a strategy known as an “account matrix”.

This is only the beginning

We are only at the dawn of mainstream AI-generated content culture. We will soon face a situation in which content is effectively infinite, but human attention is still limited.

For platforms, the challenge will be balancing the engagement these AI-driven trends bring with the need to maintain trust and authenticity.

Social media platforms will soon respond. But before that, AI-generated content will continue to grow wildly – at least for a while.

Jiaru Tang, PhD student, Digital Media Research Centre, Queensland University of Technology and Patrik Wikström, Professor of Computational Communication, Queensland University of Technology

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

After months of negotiations between the major parties, the government has announced it will implement the Aged Care Taskforce recommendations.

The government already signalled back in March that it wouldn’t impose a new tax or aged care levy.

Today’s announcement focuses on how wealthier people will contribute in future to the overall cost of their residential aged care and home care services.

While some people won’t be happy about paying for more, these changes are critical to ensuring the aged care system’s long-term sustainability.

What’s changing for residential care?

In December, the Taskforce made 23 recommendations to support:

an aged care system that is sustainable, fair and facilitates greater innovation in the sector.

In accepting these recommendations, the government committed to maintaining its funding support for the clinical care needs of all residents and providing safety-net funding for residents with low financial means.

The three key proposals relating to residential care are:

1. Means-testing the ‘hotelling supplement’.

Currently, taxpayers subsidise the cost of everyday living for all residents, regardless of their means. Everyday services include catering, cleaning and laundry.

Going forward, people with significant financial means (with more than A$238,000 in assets, more than $95,400 in income or a combination of the two) will no longer receive this subsidy and will need to pay an additional amount to cover these costs.

2. Introducing a deferred rental payment.

This is a rental payment for people who pay for their accommodation using a refundable lump-sum deposit. That payment would be taken from their refund, rather than become an additional charge.

This would help overcome a longstanding problem where many providers have been making a loss on the cost of accommodation.

3. Abolishing the means-tested care fee.

Instead, a new means-tested non-clinical care contribution would be introduced. This will cover non-clinical care costs such as bathing, mobility assistance and provision of lifestyle activities.

What impact will these changes have on older people?

Many people will be unaffected by the changes. Under the “no worse off” principle, people who already live in aged care homes will continue to pay as they do under their current arrangements.

Likewise, people with low financial means, typically full pensioners without major assets, will be unaffected. The government will continue to fully cover the costs of their clinical care, non-clinical care and accommodation, and continue to top up their everyday living costs via the hotelling supplement.

Pensioners will continue using their age pension to pay for their everyday living expenses, capped at 85% of the age pension (equivalent to $445 per week).

At the other end of the scale, those with significant means, such as self-funded retirees, will pay an additional means-tested hotelling fee to meet the full cost of their food, laundry, cleaning and utilities. This fee (up to $88 per week, or an extra $4,581 per year), would bring their total contribution to their everyday living services to $533 per week.

Also, while the government will cover self-funded retirees’ clinical care costs, they would be expected to contribute towards the costs of non-care services via a means-tested non-clinical care contribution. This contribution is capped at $101.16 per day (or $708 per week), which a resident would stop paying when either they reach a lifetime limit of $130,000 or four years (whichever is sooner).

Within the new means-testing arrangements there will be no change to the treatment of the family home. The value of the family home included in the means test would remain capped at $206,039 (indexed), even though this arrangement ignores the wealth of people with homes above this limit.

Finally, part-pensioners and self-funded retirees who pay for their accommodation via a refundable lump-sum deposit will pay a new annual deferred rental charge equal to 2% of their deposit per year.

A room priced at $550,000 would attract a rental charge of $212 per week ($11,000 per year), which would be deducted from the $550,000 deposit when it is returned to the resident or their estate at the end of their stay.

For context, if someone wanted to pay for the same room using the daily payment method, it currently costs them $882 per week.

Currently, each resident’s daily payments are fixed at the price when they enter residential care. However, going forward residents’ payments will be indexed twice a year.

The focus is on improving the equity and sustainability

It will take some time to analyse the full implications of today’s announcement, which also included important changes to the Support at Home program and the new Aged Care Act.

Nonetheless, the proposed changes are likely to improve the sustainability and equity of Australia’s residential aged care system.

More than half of all aged care homes are operating at a loss and in the last four years the homes have accumulated losses of $5.6 billion. This is not sustainable, and every home that closes means less chance older people have of getting the residential care and support they need.

The proposed changes, particularly around accommodation, will help ensure providers have sufficient revenue to cover the costs of the services they deliver.

Introducing more means-testing arrangements for everyday living and non-clinical care costs will allow taxpayer funding to better target support to residents with few financial means.

Perhaps most importantly, the increase in contributions from older people who can afford to do so will improve intergenerational equity by taking some of the pressure off income taxpayers who are meeting the rising cost of providing subsidised aged care.

Nicole Sutton, Associate Professor of Accounting, University of Technology Sydney and Michael Woods, Professor of Health Economics, University of Technology Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Many of us try to eat more fruits and vegetables and less ultra-processed food. But why is sticking to your goals so hard?

High-fat, sugar-rich and salty foods are simply so enjoyable to eat. And it’s not just you – we’ve evolved that way. These foods activate the brain’s reward system because in the past they were rare.

Now, they’re all around us. In wealthy modern societies we are bombarded by advertising which intentionally reminds us about the sight, smell and taste of calorie-dense foods. And in response to these powerful cues, our brains respond just as they’re designed to, triggering an intense urge to eat them.

Here’s how food cravings work and what you can do if you find yourself hunting for sweet or salty foods.

What causes cravings?

A food craving is an intense desire or urge to eat something, often focused on a particular food.

We are programmed to learn how good a food tastes and smells and where we can find it again, especially if it’s high in fat, sugar or salt.

Something that reminds us of enjoying a certain food, such as an eye-catching ad or delicious smell, can cause us to crave it.

The cue triggers a physical response, increasing saliva production and gastric activity. These responses are relatively automatic and difficult to control.

What else influences our choices?

While the effect of cues on our physical response is relatively automatic, what we do next is influenced by complex factors.
Whether or not you eat the food might depend on things like cost, whether it’s easily available, and if eating it would align with your health goals.

But it’s usually hard to keep healthy eating in mind. This is because we tend to prioritise a more immediate reward, like the pleasure of eating, over one that’s delayed or abstract – including health goals that will make us feel good in the long term.

Stress can also make us eat more. When hungry, we choose larger portions, underestimate calories and find eating more rewarding.

Looking for something salty or sweet

So what if a cue prompts us to look for a certain food, but it’s not available?

Previous research suggested you would then look for anything that makes you feel good. So if you saw someone eating a doughnut but there were none around, you might eat chips or even drink alcohol.

But our new research has confirmed something you probably knew: it’s more specific than that.

If an ad for chips makes you look for food, it’s likely a slice of cake won’t cut it – you’ll be looking for something salty. Cues in our environment don’t just make us crave food generally, they prompt us to look for certain food “categories”, such as salty, sweet or creamy.

Food cues and mindless eating

Your eating history and genetics can also make it harder to suppress food cravings. But don’t beat yourself up – relying on willpower alone is hard for almost everyone.

Food cues are so powerful they can prompt us to seek out a certain food, even if we’re not overcome by a particularly strong urge to eat it. The effect is more intense if the food is easily available.

This helps explain why we can eat an entire large bag of chips that’s in front of us, even though our pleasure decreases as we eat. Sometimes we use finishing the packet as the signal to stop eating rather than hunger or desire.

Is there anything I can do to resist cravings?

We largely don’t have control over cues in our environment and the cravings they trigger. But there are some ways you can try and control the situations you make food choices in.

• Acknowledge your craving and think about a healthier way to satisfy it. For example, if you’re craving chips, could you have lightly-salted nuts instead? If you want something sweet, you could try fruit.

• Avoid shopping when you’re hungry, and make a list beforehand. Making the most of supermarket “click and collect” or delivery options can also help avoid ads and impulse buys in the aisle.

• At home, have fruit and vegetables easily available – and easy to see. Also have other nutrient dense, fibre-rich and unprocessed foods on hand such as nuts or plain yoghurt. If you can, remove high-fat, sugar-rich and salty foods from your environment.

• Make sure your goals for eating are SMART. This means they are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.

• Be kind to yourself. Don’t beat yourself up if you eat something that doesn’t meet your health goals. Just keep on trying.

Gabrielle Weidemann, Associate Professor in Psychological Science, Western Sydney University and Justin Mahlberg, Research Fellow, Pyschology, Monash University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

“Honestly, I can’t wait to have grandkids and spoil them — but I don’t want to be called ‘Granny’” (overheard on the No. 96 tram in Melbourne)

“I love it. It’s not the word that needs to change, it’s our culture” (Deborah, proud granny)

What’s wrong with “granny”?

From its debut in the early 1600s, “granny” has been more than an affectionate term for grandma — and a cursory glance at its history tells a depressingly familiar story.

First, the instability and decline of words associated with women. “Granny” joins a long list of words, particularly for older women, that that have acquired negative meanings — spinsters were originally spinners; sluts were untidy people; slags and shrews were rogues; scolds were poets; bimbos were men, and so on. Many started life referring to men, but quickly narrowed to female application — and with this sexual specification came further decline.

Right from the start, grannies were also people engaged in trivial (often self-serving) chatter; in other words, grannies were gossips, tell-tales and nosy parkers. In the 1700s, more negative meanings piled on — grannies became fussy, indecisive or unenterprising persons, and in many places stupid as well.

The online crowdsourced Urban Dictionary now has a flourishing of additional disparaging senses for “granny” that have yet to make it into more mainstream collections.

In sport, grannies refer to those who perform poorly, or they’re a kind of dead leg injury (which leaves you “hobbling around like an old granny for the rest of the day”).

“Don’t be a granny”!

Tellingly, the negative uses of granny have never been restricted to women — one 19th-century dictionary defines “granny” as “a simpleton: used of both sexes”. It’s another telling asymmetry in our lexicon. Terms for women are insulting when used of men (“Dad, don’t be such a granny”), but terms designating men when used of women have little or no affront. If you were to call a women a grampa or an old man, there’s really no abuse — it just seems odd.

Unflattering “granny” compounds are plentiful in English: a “granny knot” is one that’s inexpertly tied, while “granny gear” is an extremely low first gear. New ones are arriving all the time: “granny weed” is low-quality marijuana that is old or dried out; “granny shot” is said of a basketballer with little skill; “granny mode” in video games is a slower speed than normal, “granny pants” (like other “granny-like” items) are naff “old lady” styles (in the fashion world, the phrase ‘not your granny’s’ describes edgy or trendy clothes — not fashion choices made or worn by grandmothers). The Oxford English Dictionary gives 29 “granny” compounds, but provides not a single compound with “grandpa”, “grampa” or “gramps”.

These terms for one’s grandfather have also been remarkably stable over time. This dictionary gives a single definition: “One’s grandfather. Also used as a familiar form of address to one’s grandfather or to an elderly man”. Even Urban Dictionary, not known for its politeness, has little in the way of slangy senses for “grandpa” or “gramps” — the closest are playful entries referring to older men or grandfathers. You might compare “codger” or “geezer” — sure, they’re not exactly flattering, but they don’t pack anywhere near same punch as do “crone”, “hag”, “battle-axe”, “old bat”, “old bag” and so on.

Granny goodness and greedy granny

Current films, comics and games reveal another way words for women evolve. To set the scene, consider the fate of “witch”, now a slur for older women. Originally, witches could be male sorcerers, but when used of women they became something very nasty — witches were females who had dealings with the devil. Our jokey image of witches these days can’t capture the potency of this word in early times, but it has never completely shed its connotations of evil. We still retain abusive epithets like “(old) witch” and also expressions like “witches’ cauldron” to describe sinister situations. And now here’s granny in the very same cauldron.

Granny Goodness is one of the most well-known evil grannies in entertainment. Known for her cruelty and manipulation, this super villain hides under a façade of grandmotherly affection. Granny is a survival video game where the main antagonist, Granny, is a hideously sadistic serial killer who locks people in her house and taunts them for days before brutally killing them.

Then there’s Granny Rags, a mad, decrepit old woman whose vulnerable and destitute appearance conceals a very dark nature underneath. Of course, there are sometimes dark older male figures too, but they’re not explicitly grandfathers (for example, Emperor Palpatine in Star Wars or Dr Wily, an older, mad scientist who creates robotic menaces to achieve world domination). And they’re not in the same league as those decrepit, old, malicious women — the “witches” of pop culture.

And now there’s the Greedy Granny toy for the little ones. The aim is to steal from this grasping grandma and get away with it.

Words make worlds

Words are declarations of social attitudes and belief systems. Through the way we speak, the words we use and our interactions, the language reveals and reinforces psychological and social roles — status, power dynamics and relationships. Here is some context for grannies:

• older women are the lowest income earning family group

• 34% of single older women live in poverty

• 60% of older women leave paid work with no super and women with super have 28% less than men

• 60% of older women rely entirely on the old age pension

• 40% increase in homelessness for older women

• older women are more likely to experience workplace discrimination

• 23% of women aged 60 years+ have experienced intimate partner violence.

Don a granny cardy

Negative senses of expressions have a saliency that will dominate and eventually expel other senses. This transformation has a name: Gresham’s Law of Semantic Change (“bad meanings drive out good”).

So what can be done to help drag “granny” out of this semantic abyss?

Many older women are giving themselves the term and doing this playfully or as a way to reclaim power (for example the Pasta Grannies and the Granny Grommets). Reframing expressions in this way may not neutralise them, but it can make us more aware of the lurking prejudices.

And why not slip into a cardigan? September 22 marks the world’s first Cardigan Pride Festival. Australians around the country will don cardigans in a call to combat the inequalities older women face — and to show they’ve got older women’s backs (and shoulders) covered.

Kate Burridge, Professor of Linguistics, Monash University and Catherine Barrett, Director, Celebrate Ageing Ltd, La Trobe University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

When young Annie Shearer (Lilly LaTorre) meets a stray dog named Runt (Squid) the two become inseparable.

They live in the dry Western Australian town of Upson Downs where rain hasn’t fallen in over a year. All the water in the district has been stolen upriver and stored in a dam constructed by Earl Robert-Barren (Jack Thompson) on his property, and he has made it his business to buy up every property in the district as they go broke from drought.

Every property, that is, except the Shearer’s.

Directed by John Sheedy and adapted from the book of the same name by Craig Silvey, Runt is a gentle, beautifully shot, and warmly humorous small town Australian story that will appeal to older children and young adolescents – and engage any unsuspecting parents they manage to convince to take them along in the process.

Understanding who you are

Runt is a David and Goliath tale. In their quest to save the farm – and prevail in the struggle that ensues – we travel across the world, where Annie and Runt qualify to compete in the Agility Course Championship at the prestigious Krumpets Dog Show in London.

Under the mentorship of Bernadette Box (Deborah Mailman), a once renowned show dog trainer, and funded by the generosity of the district, their efforts in London could see the farm saved.

Along the way, we see right pitted against wrong, watch evil confronted and, ultimately, see Annie developing an understanding of who she is and what she stands for.

Annie comes from a long line of inventors on her father’s side. Her grandfather – now passed away, and dearly missed by her grandmother Dolly Shearer (Genevieve Lemon) – was a prolific inventor with journals that detailed numerous contraptions.

One in particular, a rainmaker, becomes central as Annie follows her grandfather’s drawings to build the contraption save the family farm from drought.

Annie’s father, Bryan (Jai Courtney), is something of an inventor too. His talents lie in botany.

Creative talents extend also to Annie’s mother Susie Shearer (Celeste Barber) as a seamstress and clothes designer. Her culinary skills are particularly well known throughout the district.

There are some limitations

Despite its appeal, the film is not without its limitations.

It opens with an encounter between Runt, the local butcher shop owner, and a string of sausages.

This encounter is worthy of Lynley Dodd’s Hairy McCleary from Donaldson’s Dairy, however, the opening scenes feel underplayed and the opportunity to establish key characters feels rushed.

This is particularly true of the introduction between Annie and Runt, and also in the early appearance of Constable Duncan Bayleaf (Joel Jackson), whose character fails to develop.

There is obvious advantage in driving a narrative intended for younger viewers by dialogue. But the opportunity to develop these relationships in visual and emotional terms is engaged only to a limited extent. This is unfortunate, as these early scenes are fundamental in establishing the story.

At times the film may engage in concepts that are unfamiliar to its child audiences. One character speaks of being “defiled” after a dog urinates on him. The dating app Dolly uses ends with an all too brief allusion to attraction between her and Bernadette. Concepts such as these may be beyond the comprehension of some younger viewers.

A story about compassion

There are some beautiful cinematic moments in Runt. The placement of Dolly Shearer’s small solo caravan under a lonesome tree on the Shearer’s property functions beautifully as a metaphor for her life, now alone, following the death of her beloved husband.

Similarly, several men comically manoeuvre a blanket to catch Annie’s brother Max Shearer (Jack La Torre), following his parachuted jump from atop the chopping pole at the district fair. This scene reflects on one of the central themes of the book and the film: the tenuous nature of identity and the risks that present themselves in the process of working out who we are and what we stand for.

A few limitations notwithstanding, the film is a success because, ultimately, its central themes prevail. While a story of David and Goliath proportions, it is not one in which David necessarily prevails against Goliath. This is part of its charm.

This is a story about compassion for one’s self and for others, in spite of – or perhaps because of – our quirks. It explores and justifies “kind lies”. It presents the strength of “humble pie”, and values relationships, family and the things “we have under this roof”.

It is a story about a girl who fixes things, and learns that she can’t fix everything. And it’s a story of a dog who finds love – despite its unlikely yet understandable idiosyncrasies.

Runt is in cinemas from tomorrow.

John McAloon, Senior Lecturer, Graduate School of Health, University of Technology Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Albanese government has this week announced it will introduce one of the largest reforms to Australia’s aged-care sector to date.

The package includes a A$4.3 billion investment in home care, now called “Support at Home”, to come into effect from July 2025. This reflects both the desire of many people to remain living at home as they age, and the government’s desire to reduce the costs of residential aged care.

So what changes is the government making to home care packages? And what will these changes mean for ageing Australians?

Reducing waiting times

One of the major complaints about the current home care system is the long waiting times. Estimates suggest there’s a 6–to-12-month wait for the higher level 3 and 4 home care packages. For people with the highest needs, this is far too long.

As of March this year, around 45,000 people were waiting for any level of home care. An additional 14,000 were already receiving a package, but on a lower level of home care than they were entitled to.

With additional funding, the new system will support more participants. It aims to shorten wait times to an average of three months from July 2027.

Changes to services

The new system will replace the current four levels of home care packages with eight classifications of funding for services. When participants are assessed, they will be assigned the most suitable category. There’s currently very limited information on what these classifications are, but the idea is they will provide more targeted services.

A number of short-term supports will also be available. These include assistive technology (such as mobility aids) and home modifications. Some people will be able to access 12 weeks of restorative care – a more intensive program designed to build function after injury or illness – as well as palliative care support.

The way different types of services are subsidised is also changing. Previously, the same means-tested co-contribution applied regardless of the type of service.

Under the new system, services are categorised into clinical care (for example, physiotherapy or wound care), independence (such as help with bathing or cooking) and everyday living (for example, gardening or home maintenance). The new reforms fully subsidise clinical services regardless of income, whereas independence and everyday living services will attract co-contributions based on means testing.

For example, a self-funded retiree would pay nothing out of pocket for physiotherapy, but would pay 50% for help with showering and 80% towards gardening costs. A full pensioner would also pay nothing for physiotherapy, but pay 5% for help with showering and 17.5% of the cost of gardening.

This is a positive change. Our research has previously highlighted a tendency for people with home care packages to choose everyday living services such as gardening and cleaning and refuse clinical care such as allied health and nursing as these types of services were more expensive.

These changes should make older people more likely to choose allied health and clinical care services, which will help them maintain their function and stay fitter for longer.

Some challenges

For the government’s reforms to deliver faster and better support at home, a number of issues need to be addressed.

As people stay at home for longer, we also see that these people are frailer and have more health conditions than in the past. This requires a different and more highly skilled home care workforce.

The current home care workforce consists largely of personal care and domestic support workers alongside a much smaller skilled workforce of registered nurses and allied health professionals.

But with the changing profile of people receiving care at home, there will need to be a greater focus on maintaining functional capacity. This might mean more allied health input will be required, such as from physiotherapists and occupational therapists.

It’s difficult to source an appropriately skilled workforce across the sector, and almost impossible in rural and remote areas. Alternative models, such as training personal care workers to act as allied health assistants, and effectively using technology such as telehealth, will be necessary to meet demand without compromising on quality of care.

One example of the need for upskilling in specific areas relates to caring for people with dementia. The majority of people who are living with dementia at home receive care from family carers, supported by home care workers. It’s vital that these care workers have adequate knowledge and skills specific to dementia.

However, research has shown the home care workforce may lack the knowledge and skills to provide best-practice care for people living with dementia. Specialised dementia training for home care workers is effective in improving knowledge, attitudes and sense of competence in providing care. It should be rolled out across the sector.

What about unpaid care at home?

Unpaid carers, such as family members, provide significant amounts of care for older people. The value of this unpaid care is estimated to be in the billions. As older people stay at home for longer, this is set to increase even further.

However, carers with high care burdens are particularly vulnerable to poor physical and mental health. Without adequate support, we may find extra caring pressures lead to a breakdown in caring relationships and an increase in other health-care costs for both the carer and care recipient.

So we need to ensure carers have adequate financial, psychological and practical support. But the currently available detail on the reforms doesn’t indicate this has been adequately addressed.

With careful implementation and ongoing evaluation, these reforms have the potential to significantly enhance the home care system. However, their success will depend on addressing workforce challenges, ensuring adequate support for unpaid carers, and maintaining a focus on the holistic needs of older Australians.

More information about Support at Home is available online.

Tracy Comans, Executive Director, National Ageing Research Institute; Professor, Centre for Health Services Research, The University of Queensland and Frances Batchelor, Director Clinical Gerontology & Senior Principal Research Fellow, National Ageing Research Institute, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

We live in a society that glorifies dieting, with around 42% of adults globally having tried to lose weight. Messages about dieting and weight loss are amplified on social media, with a never-ending cycle of weight loss fads and diet trends.

Amid often conflicting messages and misinformation, if you’re looking for diet advice online, it’s easy to become confused and overwhelmed.

So before diving into the latest weight loss trend or extreme diet, consider these four questions to help you make a more informed decision.

1. Is the diet realistic?

Have you considered the financial cost of maintaining the diet or lifestyle, and the time and resources that would be required? For example, do you need to purchase specific products, supplements, or follow a rigid meal plan?

If the diet is coming from someone who is trying to sell you something – such as a particular weight-loss product you need in order to follow the diet – this could be a particular red flag.

Many extreme diet recommendations come from a place of privilege and overlook food access, affordability, cooking skills, where you live, or even your culture and ethics.

If the diet has these sorts of issues it can lead to frustration, stress, stigmatisation and feelings of failure for the person trying to adhere to the diet. But the problem may be with the diet itself – not with you.

2. Is there evidence to support this diet?

Self-proclaimed “experts” online will often make claims focused on specific groups, known as target populations. This might be 30- to 50-year-old men with diabetes, for example.

In some cases, evidence for claims made may come from animal studies, which might not be applicable to humans at all.

So be aware that if research findings are for a group that doesn’t match your profile, then the results might not be relevant to you.

It takes time and a lot of high-quality studies to tell us a “diet” is safe and effective, not just one study. Ask yourself, is it supported by multiple studies in humans? Be critical and question the claims before you accept them.

For accurate information look for government websites, or ask your GP or dietitian.

3. How will this diet affect my life?

Food is much more than calories and nutrients. It plays many roles in our lives, and likewise diets can influence our lives in ways we often overlook.

Socially and culturally, food can be a point of connection and celebration. It can be a source of enjoyment, a source of comfort, or even a way to explore new parts of the world.

So when you’re considering a new diet, think about how it might affect meaningful moments for you. For example, if you’re going travelling, will your diet influence the food choices you make? Will you feel that you can’t sample the local cuisine? Or would you be deterred from going out for dinner with friends because of their choice of restaurant?

4. Will this diet make me feel guilty or affect my mental health?

What is your favourite meal? Does this diet “allow” you to eat it? Imagine visiting your mum who has prepared your favourite childhood meal. How will the diet affect your feelings about these special foods? Will it cause you to feel stressed or guilty about enjoying a birthday cake or a meal cooked by a loved one?

Studies have shown that dieting can negatively impact our mental health, and skipping meals can increase symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Many diets fail to consider the psychological aspects of eating, even though our mental health is just as important as physical health. Eating should not make you feel stressed, anxious, or guilty.

So before starting another diet, consider how it might affect your mental health.

Moving away from a dieting mindset

We’re frequently told that weight loss is the path to better health. Whereas, we can prioritise our health without focusing on our weight. Constant messages about the need to lose weight can also be harmful to mental health, and not necessarily helpful for physical health.

Our research has found eating in a way that prioritises health over weight loss is linked to a range of positive outcomes for our health and wellbeing. These include a more positive relationship with food, and less guilt and stress.

Our research also indicates mindful and intuitive eating practices – which focus on internal cues, body trust, and being present and mindful when eating – are related to lower levels of depression and stress, and greater body image and self-compassion.

But like anything, it takes practice and time to build a positive relationship with food. Be kind to yourself, seek out weight-inclusive health-care professionals, and the changes will come. Finally, remember you’re allowed to find joy in food.

Melissa Eaton, Accredited Practising Dietitian; PhD Candidate, University of Wollongong; Verena Vaiciurgis, Accredited Practising Dietitian; PhD Candidate, University of Wollongong, and Yasmine Probst, Associate Professor, School of Medical, Indigenous and Health Sciences, University of Wollongong

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Year 12 students are less than two months away from sitting their final exams. We know this can be a stressful time for students.

How can parents best help their children navigate exam season? Research suggests “autonomy-supportive parenting” is key. This involves including teens in reasoning and decision-making about their lives.

Understanding the brain and learning

When it comes to studying, it is helpful to know how the brain works.

One common misconception is multitasking can help students do more in less time. In fact, this can drain our capacity to pay attention. You may think you are multitasking but what you are really doing is switching from one task to the next. Each switch has a “cost” for performance, in that it slows you down.

To combat this, try and get your student to focus on one thing at a time – helped by a calm, quiet study environment.

A second misconception is studying according to one’s “learning style” (for example, as a visual, auditory or kinesthetic learner) will promote better learning.

But these learning styles have been shown to be a a myth. If students study using only one mode – such as via videos for those who believe themselves to be visual learners – they are likely to harm their own learning. This is because they will limit their access to the most relevant study resources (those that best present the knowledge).

Parents can help their teens prepare for exams by focusing on the content rather than the mode of delivery.

Sleep is so important

Sleep is an important component of study and exam preparation.

This is because sleep is crucial for “memory consolidation”, where newly laid memory pathways are strengthened and reinforced. Sleep deprivation interrupts this consolidation process and hinders learning the next day. It means there is less activation in parts of the brain involved with memory, self-regulation and attention.

Research shows up to half of Australian teenagers do not get enough sleep, with common disruptors including screen time, studying and socialising. In the lead-up to Year 12 exams, the temptation to stay up late to study – perhaps buoyed by energy drinks – may be particularly strong.

Parents can help their teens by working out a consistent sleep schedule together. They can also help their teens understand the connection between sleep and learning and the importance of reducing screen time before bed.

Maximising study quality

The nature of Year 12 exams means students must study for multiple subjects at the same time.

This means the quality of study is especially important. Students should select study strategies that actively support memory and learning.

Many students report using less effective strategies, such as rereading and highlighting. These strategies are passive, meaning the brain does not need to do anything with the content.

Active strategies, such as doing practice tests (a version of “retrieval practice”), are effective because they require the brain to actively draw knowledge from long-term memory. The relevant knowledge must then be arranged into a response. This strengthens the memory pathway and the knowledge becomes easier to recall in future.

You can help your teen to study by encouraging different types of retrieval practice. This can include practice tests, but can also mean asking them to explain new concepts or to put arguments into their own words.

You could also encourage your teen to design a study schedule that includes a little of each subject, multiple times per week, rather than cramming on the final day.

While teens may be inclined to cram before the exam, studies have shown stronger learning outcomes when the same amount of study is spread out over a longer period. This pattern, called “spaced learning”, gives the brain more opportunities to retrieve the relevant knowledge from memory.

A useful amount of stress?

Stress has a “curvilinear” relationship with performance (sometimes known as the Yerkes-Dodson bell curve).

A little bit of stress is useful at exam time because it motivates study. But too much stress can impair students’ performance by inhibiting learning pathways and brain function.

Up to one in four Australian teens experience clinical levels of stress and anxiety in the lead-up to final-year exams. Perfectionism, female gender and parental pressure are risk factors.

When the consequences of not doing well are emphasised (“if you fail your exams you won’t get a good job”), it’s not helpful for teens. It is important to keep things in perspective.

The Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) has long been the primary selection tool used by universities, yet many also offer early entry places and alternative entry pathways. This means students who do not achieve the ATAR they were expecting still have plenty of opportunities to pursue their chosen career.

Parents can support their teens by talking with them about taking time to connect with friends and family, emphasising the importance of calm and consistent study, and by not catastrophising about their teen’s future. Parents who stay calm about exams will have teens who are more likely to do the same. 

Penny Van Bergen, Head of School of Education and Professor of Educational Psychology, University of Wollongong and Erin Mackenzie, Senior Lecturer in Educational Psychology and STEM, Western Sydney University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Earlier this week, the federal government announced it is going to introduce a social media ban for children.

It hasn’t nominated a minimum age yet, but the focus of political and media debates has been on teenagers. What about younger users of social media?

According to a 2022 Australian report, 22% of children aged eight to ten and 46% of children aged 11–13 visit social media sites. This suggests parents are involved in setting up and supporting children’s access.

We also know schools use social media, such as Facebook and Instagram, to share activities that involve children and young people.

In our as yet unpublished research on Australian parents’ approaches to social media, parents said they saw social media as part of the world we live in. The study spoke to 44 parents of school-aged children across three states, who said their children need to learn to engage with it in healthy ways – as well as be protected by governments and schools.

There are several things parents of younger children can do to protect their kids on social media and prepare them to participate safely.

1. Be aware of what social media your children are using

Much of the focus by government and media is on social media sites used by teens such as TikTok, Instagram or Snapchat.

But social media also includes apps such as Messenger, Messenger Kids and YouTube. Even if younger children do not have their own accounts, they may be using a family member’s account.

Children’s use of social media can be positive – it can be a way for them to connect with others, learn and access information. But for younger children, as with any new activity, it should always be under the watchful guidance of a parent or caregiver who can support them to build independence.

When you use technology together, you can have conversations with your child to help them learn and create a habit of open communication. For example, point out persuasive design features (such as features that encourage them to click or keep scrolling), or talk about privacy.

Parents can also negotiate shared rules with their children, such as not using devices in bedrooms.

2. Model healthy social media use

Be mindful about your own use of social media and the ways you manage and balance this. What you do is visible to your children and sends a powerful message. For example, do you have breaks and keep your device away from you when you’re talking to people or eating?

Do your posts feature information about your children, or images and videos of them? Conversations about consent and respectful use of others’ images can start at a young age.

As parents, we can also advocate for others to respect children in their social media use, such as schools, sports clubs and community groups. You can ask that your child’s image and personal information is not shared on social media.

3. Learn about social media

Understanding the risks and harms associated with social media is an important step in helping children and young people to be informed and critical in their use (or future use) of these platforms.

These harms and risks include privacy and safety settings, “recommender systems” that dictate what kind of content is directed to your feed, data privacy and profiling, and the limitations of social media content moderation and reporting systems.

Parents can find helpful resources and sign up to a newsletter from the eSafety Commissioner. Ironically, following the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child on social media can be a convenient way to stay up to date. This is a government-funded research centre that provides evidence-informed resources for parents, educators and policy-makers.

4. Demand improvements to social media design

In addition to current government plans, we need to ensure technology companies redesign their platforms with stronger privacy for children by default.

Many of the risks and harms we are talking about are associated with the design of social media that prioritises profit over user safety. Australian researchers have been calling for a “Children’s Code” or Age-Appropriate Design Code, which have improved platforms in the United Kingdom. The federal government’s plan announced on Thursday to require technology companies to redesign their services to better protect children, is a step in the right direction.

Importantly, we can all start talking about the type of digital environments we want for our children and share these ideas with politicians and policy-makers. This includes the concept of a “Children’s Internet” – a set of principles to reimagine the web as a safer and more appropriate digital environment for our children.

Karley Beckman, Senior Lecturer in Digital Technologies for Learning, University of Wollongong; Claire Rogerson, Research Fellow for the Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child, University of Wollongong, and Tiffani Apps, Senior Lecturer in Digital Technologies for Learning, University of Wollongong

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Meta has announced third-party augmented reality (AR) filters will no longer be available on its apps as of January 2025. This means more than two million user-made filters offered across WhatsApp, Facebook and, most notably, Instagram will disappear.

Filters have become a mainstay feature on Instagram. The most viral of these – which often involve beautifying the user’s appearance – are created by users themselves via the Meta Spark Studio.

But the use of beautifying AR filters has long been connected to worsened mental health and body image problems in young women.

In theory, the removal of the vast majority of Instagram filters should signal a turning point for unrealistic beauty standards. However, the removal comes far too late, and the move is more likely to instead push filter use underground.

Much like the newly announced teen accounts for Instagram, retracting and altering technologies years after the use has been encouraged offers little more than a band-aid approach.

Filters are popular – so why remove them?

Meta rarely volunteers information about technologies and business practises beyond what is absolutely necessary. This case is no different. Meta has previously demonstrated it is unmotivated by user harm, even when its own leaked internal research indicates the use of Instagram and filters contributes to worse mental health for young women.

So, why wait until now to remove a popular (but controversial) technology?

Officially, Meta states it intends to “prioritise investments in other company priorities”.

Most likely, AR filters are yet another casualty of the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. In April, Meta pledged to invest between US$35–40 billion in the technology, and is pulling AR technology in-house.

Filters will not be going away altogether on Instagram. First-party filters created by Meta will continue to be available. The offering of filters available on Instagram’s official account (140 at present) is insignificant compared to the library of millions of filters created by third-parties.

Instagram’s official filters also offer less diverse types of AR experiences, and its account does not feature any beautifying filters.

The end of beauty filters? Not quite

Meta removed filters once before in 2019, though the ban only applied to “surgery” filters and was reversed at Mark Zuckerburg’s request after a fleeting implementation.

Informally named for their ability to mimic the effects of cosmetic surgery, surgery filters are the most popular type of Instagram filter.

They are also the most controversial, with users seeking surgery and “tweakments” to mimic their filtered image. In my research, I found when analysing the design of the beautifying Instagram filters, 87% of the filters sampled shrank the user’s nose and 90% made the user’s lips larger.

The removal of third party filters will see these types of sophisticated and realistic beautifying filters gone from Meta platforms.

However, this is hardly cause for celebration. When analysing the media coverage of the first filter ban, we found users were upset with surgery filters being removed and intended to find ways to access them regardless.

Now, after having access to AR filters on Instagram for seven years, users are even more habituated to their presence. They also have many more alternatives to access a version of the technology inside another app. This is of concern for a few reasons.

Watermarking and photo literacy

When posting with a filter on Instagram, a watermark that links to the filter and its creator appears on the image.

This watermark is important to assist users in determining whether someone’s appearance is altered or not. Some users get around the watermarking by downloading their filtered photo, and re-uploading it so their filtered appearance is more difficult to detect.

By removing popular beauty filters from Instagram, this “covert” practice will become the default way for users to post with these filters on the platform.

Forcing users into covert filter use adds another thorn to the already prickly case of visual literacy.

Young women and girls feel inadequate compared to edited and filtered images online (including their own).

Some newer TikTok filters, such as the viral “Bold Glamour” filter, use AI technology (AI-AR) which merges the user’s face with the beauty filter, trained on a database of “ideal” images.

By contrast, standard AR filters overlay a set design (akin to a mask) and contort the user’s features to match. The result of these new AI-AR filters is a hyper-realistic, and yet totally unachievable beauty standard.

The removal of beauty filters on Instagram will not stop their use. Instead, it will drive users to other platforms to access filters. Like Bold Glamour, these filters will be more sophisticated and harder to detect when they are re-posted cross platform, without the benefit of having the watermark indicator.

Only 34% of Australian adults feel confident in their media literacy skills. Those with less developed digital visual literacies increasingly find it difficult to ascertain the difference between edited and unedited images. Add to this the rapid increase in generative AI images, and we are entering unprecedented territory.

While the removal of beautifying filters at a more pivotal time may have been meaningful, the genie is out of the bottle. By Instagram removing its already hugely popular beautifying filters now (and the watermarking that goes along with it), the problems associated with filter use on Instagram will not go away, but simply become harder to manage.

Lauren A. Miller, PhD Student in AR filters and digital beauty cultures on social media, Swinburne University of Technology

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

As Australia and other countries debate the merits of banning kids under 14 from social media, Meta has announced a significant “reimagining” of teenagers’ experience of Instagram.

These new “Teen Accounts” will be set to private by default, have the maximum content and messaging restrictions possible, pause notifications at night, and add new ways for teens to indicate their content preferences.

Importantly, for kids under the age of 16, changing these default settings will now require parental permission.

The move, touted as giving “peace of mind” for parents, is a welcome step – but parents and guardians should use it to talk to their kids about online spaces.

What’s different about Teen Accounts?

Teen Accounts are a combination of new features and a repackaging of a number of tools that have already been in place, but haven’t had the visibility or uptake Meta would have preferred.

Bringing these incremental changes together under the umbrella of Teen Accounts should make these changes more visible to teens and caregivers.

Among the the main features:

• under-18s will have accounts set to private by default, and under-16s will only be able to change that setting with parental permission

• teens will only be able to receive messages from people they are already following or are connected to

• content restrictions and the blocking of offensive words in comments and messages will be set to the maximum setting possible

• notifications from Instagram will be turned off between 10pm and 7am

• teens will be reminded to leave Instagram after 60 minutes of use on any given day.

Some of these tools are more useful than others. A reminder to leave Instagram after 60 minutes that teens can just click past sets a fairly low bar in terms of time management.

But default account settings matter. They can really shape a user’s experience of a platform. Teens having private accounts by default, with protections around content and messaging set to their strongest settings, will significantly shape their time on Instagram.

Stopping under-16s from changing these settings without parental or guardian consent is the biggest change, and really does differentiate the teen experience of Instagram from the adult one.

Most of these changes focus on safety and age-appropriate experiences. But it is a positive step for Meta to also include new ways for teens to indicate the content they actually prefer, instead of just relying on algorithms to infer these preferences.

Do parents and guardians have to do anything?

In promoting Teen Accounts, head of Instagram Adam Mosseri emphasised the change is aimed at giving parents “peace of mind”. It doesn’t require explicit intervention from parents for these changes to occur.

“I’m a dad, and this is a significant change to Instagram and one that I’m personally very proud of,” noted Mosseri. This is part of a longer-term strategy of positioning Mosseri as a prominent parental voice to increase his perceived credibility in this domain.

Parents or guardians will need to use their own accounts for “supervision” if they want to know what teens are doing on Instagram, or have access to more granular controls. These include setting personalised time limits, seeing an overview of a teen’s activity, or allowing any of the default settings to change.

The real opportunity for parents here is to take these changes as a chance to discuss with their children how they’re using Instagram and other social media platforms.

No matter what safety measures are in place, it’s vital for parents to build and maintain a sense of openness and trust so young people can turn to them with questions, and share difficulties and challenges they encounter online.

Meta has said the shift to Teen Accounts will reduce the level of inappropriate content teens might encounter, but that can never be absolute.

These changes minimise the risks, but don’t remove them. Ensuring young people have someone to turn to if they see, hear, or experience something that’s inappropriate or makes them uncomfortable will always be incredibly important. That’s real peace of mind.

Can’t teens still lie about their age?

Initially, Teen Accounts will apply to new teens who sign up. The changes will also roll out for existing teen users whose birth date Instagram already has on file.

Over time, Mosseri and Antigone Davis, Meta’s global head of safety, have both said Instagram is rolling out new tools that will identify teenagers using Instagram even if they didn’t enter an accurate birth date. These tools are not active yet, but are supposed to be coming next year.

This is a welcome change if it proves accurate. However, the effectiveness of inferring or estimating age is yet to be proven.

The bigger picture

Teen Accounts are launching in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States this week, taking up to 60 days to reach all users in those countries. Users in the rest of the world are scheduled to get Teen Accounts in January 2025.

For a long time, Instagram hasn’t done enough to look after the interests of younger users. Child rights advocates have mostly endorsed Teen Accounts as a significant positive change in young people’s experiences and safety on Instagram.

Yet it remains to be seen whether Meta has done enough to address the push in Australia and elsewhere to ban young people (whether under-14s or under-16s, depending on the proposal) from all social media.

Teen Accounts are clearly a meaningful step in the right direction, but it’s worth remembering it took Instagram 14 years to get to this point. That’s too long.

Ultimately, these changes should serve as a prompt for any platform open to kids or teens to ensure they provide age-appropriate experiences. Young users can gain a lot from being online, but we must minimise the risks.

In the meantime, if these changes open the door for parents and guardians to talk to young people about their experiences online, that’s a win.

Tama Leaver, Professor of Internet Studies, Curtin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Today’s news that an extra 47,500 Australians found work in August while the unemployment rate held steady at 4.2% is a sign of success for both the government and Reserve Bank.

It’s a sign of success in dealing with the difficult task of bringing inflation down without too much economic damage.

Then Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe, in a speech shortly before he handed over the reins to Michele Bullock, said that success in this task would require navigating a narrow path.

To keep to the narrow path would mean

• inflation returns to the target band within a reasonable timeframe

• the economy continues to grow

• we hold on to as many of the gains in the labour market as we can.

Well, so far we’ve stayed on the narrow path - and that is a considerable achievement.

The main reason we’ve been able to stay on the path, up until now, is good decision-making by both the government in its handling of spending and taxation (so-called fiscal policy) and the Reserve Bank in its handling of interest rates (monetary policy).

This might seem a wild claim to make, and it is certainly contrary to the sorts of claims that are generally made.

But here are three key facts about policies and economic outcomes in Australia compared to the United States, United Kingdom and Canada that back it up.

Australia was less aggressive in raising rates

The first fact is that policymakers in Australia have been less aggressive in using interest rate increases to constrain activity in order to bring down inflation.

Australia started raising interest rates when inflation reached about the same level as the other countries, but increased them by much less, by 4.25 percentage points, compared for example to 5.25 points in the United States.

The second fact is that Australia’s more gentle approach to tightening does not seem to have led to an outsize increase in inflation after the tightening began.

Nor does it appear to have slowed the subsequent decrease in inflation.

The rate of inflation has fallen an average of 0.7 of a percentage point per quarter from its peak in Australia, 0.7 in Canada, 0.8 in the United States and 1.0 percentage point in the United Kingdom.

Australia’s approach kept unemployment low

The third fact is that, largely as a result, Australia has done better in preventing the rate of unemployment from climbing.

Australia’s unemployment rate has increased only 0.6 of a percentage point since interest rates were first hiked, whereas unemployment has risen 0.8 of a percentage point in the United States and 1.6 percentage points in Canada.

This achievement is made even more impressive by the fact many more Australians are making themselves available to work.

Australia’s so-called participation rate has climbed 0.7 percentage points since unemployment began rising, compared to 0.3 points in the United States and a fall of 0.2 points in the United Kingdom.

Of course it would have been better had unemployment not increased at all.

But the large rise in inflation in 2022 required a response. Deciding to head it off by increasing interest rates at the cost of some jobs was a reasonable call to make at the time.

Whether that is still the case is a different matter. Inflation has now fallen back below 4%. And when the inflation rate for the year to August is released next week, it may well be closer again to the Reserve Bank’s target band.

Our jobs market is weaker than it seems

Although the unemployment rate has so far only climbed from 3.5% to 4.2%, there are reasons to worry it will soon climb higher.

The average number of hours worked per month has climbed 24 million over the past year, an increase of 1.3%.

But much of this has been the result of an extraordinary boost in immigration boosting population growth.

In the year before COVID hit, the population grew by an average of just over 20,000 per month. Over the year to August, it grew 50,000 per month. This can’t be expected to continue, and the government’s proposed cap on international students is one of the measures that will slow it down.

Many new jobs are government-funded

As well, many of the extra hours worked are in largely government-funded jobs, in the industries the Bureau of Statistics calls education and training, health care and social assistance, and public administration and safety.

The number of people employed in childcare increased by 53,000 over the past two years and residential aged care by 47,000. In the “other social assistance” category (which includes disability care) employment has increased by 83,000.

Like high immigration, this can’t be expected to go on forever.

This graph shows the portion of the monthly change in hours worked that is accounted for by education, health care, social assistance, and public administration and safety jobs.

In recent months, they have accounted for more than 40% of the extra hours worked.

As the boost in largely government-funded jobs fades and the immigration rate slows, Australia’s labour market is likely to start to look worse.

Now is the time to start worrying about it. Jobs need again to come to the fore in setting monetary policy.

Not to do that risks undoing the good work so far, and pushing us off the narrow path, with a much larger labour market downturn than is desirable or necessary.

Jeff Borland, Professor of Economics, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

This piece is part of a series on the Future of Australian media. You can read the rest of the series here.

When the Australian newspaper celebrated its 60th anniversary this year, its founder, Rupert Murdoch, foreshadowed the death of print newspapers within 15 years.

“Fifteen years, with a lot of luck,” declared the media mogul and chairman emeritus of News Corp in a Sky interview, much to the chagrin of his employees.

It’s an uncomfortable prediction for those in an already struggling industry. In the past month, Australia’s newsrooms have continued to shrink. Big-name journalists have been taking redundancies across metropolitan and regional mastheads.

Workplace discontent is also high, with job cuts following hundreds of Nine journalists striking over pay during the Paris Olympics.

Social media grab the headlines – and the eyeballs

Global trends also show worrying signs for legacy media. In Britain, recent data released by media regulator Ofcom showed a generational shift, with more people getting their news online than from TV for the first time since the 1960s (with the exception of election coverage). The annual survey also showed social media dominating audience share over news publisher websites.

The University of Oxford’s Reuters Institute annual digital news report, released in June, paints the same picture. It found that, across 47 countries, news use was fragmenting across platforms and outlets.

Even social media are disrupted. A wave of new online platforms is taking greater audience share from what are now termed “legacy” social media sites. For example, the relatively new kid on the block, TikTok, has overtaken the rebranded Twitter, now X, for news use for the first time.

Meanwhile, the proportion of news consumers (22%) whose main news source is news websites has fallen 10% since 2018. Instead, digital short-form videos and online “news explainers” from influencers are increasingly popular, especially with younger audiences. TikTok and YouTube news use is also increasing, as they are ideal mediums for video content.

In some instances, social media influencers have greater audience trust levels than established mastheads. Media news trust varies by brand, but in a world troubled with misinformation, overall trust in Australia media sits at a worrying 40%.

Ask anyone under 30 when they last read a printed newspaper? For generation Z (18 to 26 years old) two-thirds rely on social media as their main news source. Meta’s Instagram is their preferred platform. For other age groups, one in two (49%) of Australians say they use social media for news, a fraction behind TV (56%).

Newspapers show signs of adapting

Yet, despite the doom and gloom facing newspapers, there are signs they are adapting to a volatile news market and finding ways to profit in the process. Legacy outlets have built followings on TikTok, Instagram and other social media platforms. They are also earning advertising revenue on YouTube.

During the 2023 Voice referendum, for example, Murdoch’s Sky Australia posted about 490 Voice-related YouTube videos. These postings earned 9 million views, providing the outlet with influence over public opinion – most were anti-Voice stories – and a new revenue model. Media rival the Guardian Australia posted about 110 Voice videos, attracting about 1.6 million views. As a digital native, the Guardian’s future has never been in print.

Most surviving newspapers have diversified their revenue streams, drawing on a mix of:

• print, digital and native advertising
• paywall or voluntary subscriptions
• donations
• philanthropy
• hosting events
• selling data
• grants from digital platforms and governments
• News Media Bargaining Code payments
• taxpayer funding for the public broadcasters (ABC, SBS).
  

Crisis narratives around newspapers have been constant since advertising shifted to online competitors from the early 2000s. But there have also been funding innovations, most recently the world-first News Media Bargaining Code.

Introduced in 2021, the NMBC was initially regarded as a breakthrough model to sustain journalism. Operating as a voluntary code, it resulted in more than $200 million a year flowing from Google and Facebook to news outlets.

But after three years, Facebook has turned its back on the code, and the government, so far, has resisted using its powers to force Facebook back to negotiate.

A decade earlier, the latest innovation was digital paywalls to build subscription revenue. The tipping point in Australia was 2012, when the majority of daily mastheads introduced some form of paywall. But paywalls can be a difficult balancing act and success stories such as that of the New York Times – with 10 million subscribers and digital subscription revenue outstripping advertising – are hard to emulate because most papers do not have similar global brand appeal.

Also, profits are higher from selling print advertising compared to selling digital ads. Papers like America’s Salt Lake Tribune are disbanding their paywall in favour of a nonprofit business model.

But, with only 21% of Australians prepared to pay for news, paywalls better suit large metropolitan papers that have loyal audiences and established brands. For start-ups and tabloid-style publications that depend on social media referrals or clickbait to draw in readers and advertisers, paywalls can be an obstacle. Murdoch’s news.com.au is a case in point: it’s free and Australia’s most popular online news site.

AI is the latest innovation. News Corp, Reuters, Time Magazine, Financial Times, Le Monde, Prisa Media and other news outlets have entered into lucrative contracts with generative AI companies to allow their news content to train AI models. In the newsroom, News Corp is reportedly using AI to help produce over 3,000 stories a week.

While the future of printed Australian newspapers is uncertain, it doesn’t spell the end of newspapers – or of a Murdoch’s influence on the news.

Andrea Carson, 2024 Oxford University visiting research fellow RIJS; Professor of Political Communication., La Trobe University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Reserve Bank Governor Michele Bullock might need her flak jacket when she fronts the media next Tuesday after the bank’s two-day board meeting.

This week’s United States Federal Reserve interest rate cut of a hefty half a percentage point (defying most more modest predictions) will put a lot of public pressure on the RBA, which is expected to hold Australia’s official rate at 4.35%.

Bullock (who must surely abandon musings about a rate hike) can argue Australia’s situation is different – that inflation remains too high and unless that’s dealt with, we’ll all end up worse off.

Also, US rates are still above ours, and it has healthy productivity growth, unlike Australia. Moreover, economists say the sheer size of the US cut is sending mixed messages, boosting confidence because rates are being cut, but harming confidence because they are a sign that the outlook is weak.

Thursday’s strong Australian employment numbers again showed the paradox of a buoyant labour market in an economy that’s barely breathing.

Regardless of the debate about rates among the experts, the big US move will certainly make the RBA’s stance harder to explain to families having trouble paying their mortgages costs and living expenses.

Bullock recently acknowledged the position of those really badly off in an analysis inevitably carrying the cold edge of financial reality.

“For owner-occupiers with variable-rate loans […] we estimate that around 5% are in a particularly challenging situation,” she said.

“Although this group is fairly small overall, those in it have had to make quite painful adjustments to avoid falling behind on their mortgage repayments. This includes things like cutting back on their spending to the more essential items, trading down to lower quality goods and services, dipping into their savings or working extra hours. Some may ultimately make the difficult decision to sell their homes.

"A really important point to note here, is that lower income borrowers are over-represented in the group of people who are really struggling,” she said.

The person faced with selling their home doesn’t take comfort from being in a small minority.

Whether or not the Reserve Bank’s expected Tuesday stance not to reduce rates is correct policy, it could face even more criticism on Wednesday, when the monthly inflation figures come out.

Westpac, in its regular CPI preview, expects these to show inflation falling 0.2% in August, to be at 2.7% annually. That would put the annual rate within the 2-3% band, where the RBA wants it. Moderating inflation in August was the effect of the budget’s energy cost rebate.

The monthly CPI figures are less reliable than the quarterly ones. But if the August numbers are good, many voters are likely to be angered by the bank having sat on its hands.

That’s especially when they recall Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ observation about high interest rates “smashing” the economy. Reports of differences between the bank and the government will likely be back in the news.

Chalmers, meanwhile, is highlighting Friday’s start of the budget’s increase in rent assistance, as well as the latest indexation increases in various payments kicking in. He’s seeking to frame the economic debate as between Labor’s cost-of-living cushions and the opposition’s search for cuts in government spending.

Peter Dutton’s strategy of holding back until closer to the election most details of what a Coalition government would do has tactical advantages and drawbacks. Put out the measures and they are open to attack, or theft, by the government. Keep them under wraps and they’re even more vulnerable to scare campaigns.

The government has two scares already on the go: that the Liberals would rip away the bag of workers’ rights the Albanese government has introduced, and that they would take a knife to spending in essential areas.

Labor jumped on opposition finance spokeswoman Jane Hume saying on the ABC at the weekend: “The government has spent an additional $315 billion since coming to government that the Coalition would not have committed to and didn’t commit to back at the last election”.

The government is making a giant meal of this, regardless of Hume insisting “we will not be cutting essential services”.

Albanese told a Thursday news conference: “The Coalition are promising $315 billion of cuts. They see the indexing of aged pensions, they see the increased support for child care and aged care, they see the increased investment in social housing, they see the increased investment in a Future Made in Australia, including the National Reconstruction Fund – they see all that as being waste”.

Chalmers documented all the indexation increases that are in the $315 billion.

The Liberals will have to spell out their proposed cuts ahead of the election. But past experience tells us whatever a party says beforehand, the later reality is often different. This goes for both sides of politics.

The government is presently under more pressure than at any point in its term. The prime minister is not popular. Time is running out with many initiatives still undelivered. The government is hugely frustrated that the Senate, which earlier gave it an easy run, is blocking bills, on housing in particular, thanks to an unholy alliance of Coalition and Greens (the government hasn’t quite got to the point of invoking Paul Keating’s description of the Senate as “unrepresentative swill”).

The conventional wisdom, on the basis of the polls, is Labor appears headed for minority government. A Freshwater poll this week had the Coalition leading Labor on a two-party basis 52-48%, which if translated to an election would give the Coalition a chance of forming minority government.

The polling is primarily reflecting an adverse judgement on the government. To the extent it can keep that as the lens, the Coalition maximises its chances of taking a lot of skin off Labor. Labor, for its part, needs to swing the battle from a referendum on it to a choice – between a government, however flawed, that people know, and an alternative that would be something of a leap in the dark.

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Last month, the Taliban passed a new “vice and virtue” law, making it illegal for women to speak in public. Under the law, women can also be punished if they are heard singing or reading aloud from within their homes.

It was approved by the Taliban’s supreme leader, Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, and will be enforced by the Ministry for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice.

Ahead of an international conference on the future of Afghanistan in Doha, Qatar, earlier this year, the United Nations’ mission head for Afghanistan, Roza Otunbayeva, said it would “take time” for the Taliban to accept women. The Taliban specifically mandated no women attend the conference, which the UN agreed to.

But as gender experts have been saying for years, Taliban leaders have not – and will not – change. Three years after they regained control of Afghanistan, the Taliban’s efforts to publicly erase women from Afghan society have reached a new low.

Gender apartheid

The Taliban’s burgeoning body of laws and practices restricting the rights of women and girls is a clear case of gender apartheid. Gender apartheid is defined as a regime of systematic gender-based oppression and domination.

Because there is no conventional legal framework in place in Afghanistan, the country is ruled by an increasingly tightly woven patchwork of decrees, policies and systematised practices, some written, others verbal.

Since returning to power in 2021, the Taliban has enacted more than 100 edicts, orders and directives restricting the rights of women and girls. These apply in a range of jurisdictions – nationally, provincially and in specific districts.

The most significant of these edicts prevent women and girls from attending school beyond grade six, working in many organisations, and travelling a certain distance to seek health care.

Restricting girls’ education

The ban on education for Afghan girls has had a dire effect on their wellbeing. Modelling from UN Women shows this has correlated with a 25% increase in child marriage and 45% increase in early childbirth. The loss of hope for young women has been profound.

Civil society groups in Afghanistan and around the world have clapped back at the Taliban’s ban on girl’s education with the hashtag “Let Afghan Girls Learn”.

Myriad small organisations are also running underground schools to continue girls’ education. Sometimes these schools operate under the guise of embroidery classes, or something else the Taliban finds acceptable.

But the ongoing lack of funding to women-led organisations has been a serious barrier to these kinds of programs, despite the fact they are primarily Afghan-led.

A range of internationally certified online programs have also been established, providing important educational and employment opportunities for smaller numbers of Afghan women and girls.

But these online options remain limited, and not just by funding. Data shows only 6% of Afghan women have internet access, and the Taliban is making it increasingly difficult for Afghans to access SIM cards for mobile phones.

Hurting women and children’s health

Women’s health has also suffered due to the brain drain of highly-skilled workers fleeing the country and the sharp reduction in international technical and financial assistance to Afghanistan’s public health system.

Human Rights Watch reports “women and girls have been disproportionately affected by the healthcare crisis” in the country, particularly because of the Taliban’s abuses of women’s rights.

For example, restrictions on women’s movement has meant that maternal and infant mortality rates have skyrocketed in recent years as women are prevented from reaching health facilities.

Data published in the British Medical Journal shows that eight in ten women in urban areas have reported symptoms of depression and/or anxiety living under the Taliban.

Fighting against the silence

Over the past year, the Taliban have also increasingly targeted women’s human rights defenders. Activists have been “disappeared”, arbitrarily detained, and egregiously abused in prison.

The Guardian recently published evidence of a woman being raped in prison.

In my own work, I’ve documented a pattern of Talibs using sexual torture against imprisoned women’s human rights defenders in a bid to shame them out of their activism and isolate them from familial and community support.

Yet, Afghan women continue to push back against the draconian authorities ruling the country.

In response to the latest “vice and virtue” law, for example, women all over the country have taken to social media posting videos of themselves singing and reciting poetry to show they cannot be silenced.

Some recite the Quran. Many wear traditional Afghan dress, while others wear the Taliban’s required burka. But they sing to prove they exist. To show they are Afghan, and that they are not impure, regardless of what the Talibs say.

Activists are also continuing to push for the international recognition of gender apartheid as a crime against humanity, and the International Criminal Court continues its investigations into alleged crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Taliban.

But Afghan women cannot be left alone in their struggle. The international community must follow through on its commitments to protect Afghan women’s rights defenders. It must also maintain long-term support, including through funding pathways, for women-led organisations helping women in Afghanistan.

Susan Hutchinson, PhD Candidate, International Relations, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

In the movie Inside Out 2, 13-year-old Riley, who has recently started puberty, has a panic attack during a hockey game timeout.

Anxiety (the emotion responsible for the panic attack) becomes completely frenzied and there is a sense Riley is losing control. After a while, Anxiety calms down and Riley’s panic attack subsides.

The movie does a great job of conveying the experience of having a panic attack. But panic attacks (and anxiety) don’t just arise in teenagers – younger children can also have them.

Being aware of what to look out for and how to respond to anxiety or panic is important to help you and your child better manage these scary symptoms.

What does a panic attack look like in a child?

A panic attack is a sudden, intense feeling of fear or discomfort associated with four or more of the following:

• feeling very hot or cold
• racing heart
• shortness of breath
• tightness in the throat or chest
• sweating
• tingling sensations
• light-headedness.

Panic attacks in children can last from a few minutes to 30 minutes.

Some children describe a panic attack as feeling like they are trapped or in danger, that something terrible is happening to them, they are losing control of their body, having a heart attack, or even dying.

Often, a child is unaware their symptoms are related to anxiety. This experience can be very scary for children and others around them who don’t know what is happening.

How common are panic attacks and at what age might they start?

There is a common myth that panic attacks only occur in teenagers or adults, but research shows this is not the case.

Although less frequent than in teenagers, panic attacks also occur in children. Studies indicate around 3–5% of children experience panic attacks.

They can begin at any age, although they typically first occur in children and adolescents between the ages of five and 18.

What causes a panic attack?

For some children, panic attacks can happen unexpectedly and without cause. These are known as “uncued” panic attacks.

For other children, panic attacks may be cued. This means they occur in specific situations that are anxiety-provoking, such as separating from a caregiver or doing a speech in class.

Cued panic attacks tend to be more common in children than uncued panic attacks.

Sometimes a panic attack can occur when a child’s physical symptoms (from feeling anxious) become the centre of their attention. For example, if a child notices a physical symptom (such as shortness of breath) and becomes worried about it, this can make them feel anxious, leading to more anxiety or a panic attack.

If children realise their physical symptoms are signs of anxiety and not a serious physical health problem, they might learn to not give too much attention to these symptoms and stop a vicious cycle occurring.

What can parents do in the moment to support their child?

If your child is breathing very quickly or hyperventilating, try to remain calm and encourage them to breathe normally.

Tell your child these feelings are temporary and not dangerous. Focusing your child’s attention on their rapid breathing or other symptoms can sometimes make things worse.

Try to help your child focus on something else, using the 3-3-3 rule: “Tell me three things you can hear, three things you can see, and three things you can touch”. Ask them to say these out loud.

If your child complains about bodily symptoms – but is not experiencing a full-blown panic attack – try to understand and acknowledge the symptoms they are experiencing.

Once you are satisfied their symptoms are not a physical health problem, tell them it will be okay and then move on to something else. This will help to shift their attention to something else and stop the anxiety and symptoms from escalating.

What about afterwards?

When your child’s panic attack is over, you can teach them about panic attacks. Explain that panic attacks are common and aren’t dangerous, even though they can feel scary and uncomfortable, and are a temporary sensation.

An effective strategy for panic attacks is a technique from cognitive behavioural therapy called “exposure”, which encourages children to face their fears. For panic attacks, this could be facing certain situations or objects that trigger the panic attack, or exposure to the actual physical symptoms.

Exposure is typically done with the support of a therapist, but increasingly there are programs available which support parents to deliver exposure-based treatment with their child.

Does having a panic attack mean my child has an anxiety disorder?

If your child has a panic attack, it does not mean they have an anxiety disorder. Panic attacks can occur in all children with or without anxiety disorders or mental health conditions.

However, panic attacks often occur in children with anxiety disorders or other mental disorders, such as depression or post-traumatic stress disorder.

Panic disorder is a particular type of anxiety disorder in which panic attacks are a core feature. Panic disorder is not common in children, and occurs in less than 1% pre-adolescent children. It typically emerges in adolescence or adulthood.

If your child is having panic attacks often and unexpectedly, has persistent worry (for at least a month) about additional panic attacks, or avoids situations that may trigger panic attacks, it may indicate they have panic disorder.

If your child is having panic attacks in response to specific situations or fears, such as separating from a caregiver, and their fears are interfering in everyday life, it may indicate an anxiety disorder.

Where can I look for help?

If you are concerned your child has an anxiety disorder, speak to your GP or a psychologist about it.

You don’t need a GP referral to see a psychologist, but a GP can create a mental health treatment plan which allows you to claim a Medicare rebate for up to ten sessions.

There are also a range of online resources.

Gemma Sicouri, Senior Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Clinical Psychologist, Black Dog Institute, UNSW Sydney; Annabel Songco, Senior Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Child Mental Health, Black Dog Institute, UNSW Sydney; Chloe Lim, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Child Mental Health, Black Dog Institute, UNSW Sydney, and Jennie Hudson, Professor of Clinical Psychology, UNSW Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

A new COVID variant is spreading rapidly and could soon become the dominant variant around the globe. The variant, called XEC, was first detected in Germany in August and appears to have a growth advantage over other circulating variants – but it is not a radically different variant.

XEC is what’s known as a “recombinant variant”. Recombinants can occur naturally when a person is simultaneously infected with two different COVID variants.

XEC is the product of a recombination (exchanged pieces of genetic material between two variants) between the KS.1.1 variant and the KP.3.3 variant. These two parent variants are closely related, having both evolved from JN.1, which was the dominant variant around the world at the start of 2024.

XEC was first reported in early August 2024 in Germany and a few other European countries but has since continued to spread, with over 600 cases identified in 27 countries across Europe, North America and Asia.

Scientists identify XEC cases using a public database called Gisaid, to which genetic sequences of viruses are uploaded for analysis. It is here that mutations in SARS-CoV-2 are spotted (SARS-CoV-2 being the virus that causes COVID).

But it’s a bit like a drunk looking for his lost keys under the street lamp because that’s where the light is best. In other words, more cases of new variants are spotted in those countries that typically sequence more COVID samples through routine surveillance programmes.

Countries with the highest number of identified XEC cases as of September 18 are the US (118), Germany (92), UK (82), Canada (77) and Denmark (61). Of course, these numbers could be higher in countries that don’t routinely sequence COVID samples.

Currently, the dominant variant in Europe and North America is KP.3.1.1, while the closely related KP.3.3 dominates in Asia.

XEC is a minority variant and its prevalence is highest in Germany, where around 13% of sequences are potentially XEC. In the UK, prevalence is around 7%, while in the US it is below 5%. However, XEC appears to have a growth advantage and is spreading faster than other circulating variants, suggesting it will become the dominant variant globally in the next few months.

XEC has very similar genetic material to both its parent variants as well other circulating variants, which are mostly derived from JN.1.

One reason for XEC’s advantage could be the relatively rare T22N mutation (inherited from KS.1.1) combined with Q493E (from KP.3.3) in the spike protein. The spike protein is a critical part of the virus that binds to human cells, enabling the virus to gain entry and start replicating. However, little is known about the effects of the T22N mutation on how well the virus can replicate or spread between people.

But does it cause worse disease?

We don’t have data yet from patients or laboratory experiments to tell us what kind of illness XEC is likely to cause – although this data is expected soon. However, this new variant will probably be similar to other COVID variants in terms of the disease caused, given its similar genetic information. So symptoms such as a high temperature, sore throat with a cough, headaches and body aches along with tiredness are to be expected.

Hospitalisations usually increase in winter as a consequence of colder temperatures and increased spreading of viruses (due to people being indoors more). So these increases, when they come should not necessarily be associated with the new variant.

The campaign for autumn booster in the UK will start in October with an updated vaccine targeting the JN.1 variant, which XEC derives from, assuring a good level of protection against severe illness.

XEC is the latest in a long list of past and current COVID variants being monitored as the virus naturally evolves. Recombinant variants themselves are nothing new, as COVID cases in 2023 were dominated by the XBB recombinant variant.

Several other closely related variants are being monitored, such as the MV.1 variant, which like XEC also has the T22N mutation in the spike protein. MV.1 was originally reported in India in late June and has also spread rapidly to other countries, making it one to monitor in the future.

XEC may well become the dominant global variant, but it could be outcompeted before then or replaced quickly afterwards by a different but closely related variant.

Richard Orton, Bioinformatics Research Associate, University of Glasgow and Wilhelm Furnon, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Virology, University of Glasgow

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Each year, the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre at UNSW Sydney surveys hundreds of people who regularly use drugs in Australia to understand trends in substance use around the country.

Today, we’ve released the 2024 report, which canvassed 740 people from Australian capital cities who regularly use ecstasy or other illicit stimulants.

While the focus of this research is largely on illegal drugs and markets, we also monitor trends in the use of pharmaceutical stimulants, such as ADHD drugs, without a prescription.

This year, 54% of the people we spoke to had used pharmaceutical stimulants in the previous six months when it was not prescribed to them. This was the highest percentage we’ve seen since we started asking people about this type of drug use in 2007.

What are pharmaceutical stimulants?

Pharmaceutical stimulants include the drug methylphenidate (brand names Concerta and Ritalin), as well as dexamphetamine and lisdexamfetamine (Vyvanse).

These medicines are commonly prescribed to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and narcolepsy, a chronic neurological disorder that causes excessive sleepiness and sudden bouts of sleep during the day.

These medications work in different ways depending on the type. But they treat ADHD by increasing the levels of important chemicals (neurotransmitters) in the brain, including dopamine and noradrenaline.

However, as with many pharmaceutical substances, people also use these stimulants when they’re not prescribed them. There are a range of reasons someone might choose to use these medicines without a prescription.

Studies of university students have shown these substances are often used to increase alertness, concentration and memory. Studies among broader populations have shown they may also be used to experiment, or to get high.

Worldwide, including in Australia, there have been notable increases in the prescribing of ADHD medications in recent years, likely due to increasing identification and diagnosis of ADHD. As prescriptions increase, there is increased potential for these substances to be diverted to illicit drug markets.

What we found

Non-prescribed use of pharmaceutical stimulants has tripled since monitoring began, from 17% of those surveyed in 2007 to 54% in 2024. It has been similarly high in recent years (52% in 2022 and 47% in 2023).

Frequency of use has remained relatively low. Respondents have typically reported using non-prescribed pharmaceutical stimulants monthly or less frequently.

In this survey, participants most commonly reported using dexamphetamine, followed by methylphenidate and lisdexamfetamine. Most (79%) reported it was “easy” or “very easy” to obtain these substances, similar to 2022 and 2023.

Of course, given our research looks at people who regularly use drugs, the use of pharmaceutical stimulants without a prescription doesn’t reflect use in the general population.

In the 2022–23 National Drug Strategy Household Survey, a general population survey of Australians aged 14 years and older, 2.1% of the population (equating to roughly 400,000 people) reported having used pharmaceutical stimulants for non‑medical purposes in the previous year. This was similar to the percentage of people reporting ecstasy use.

What are the risks?

Pharmaceutical stimulants are considered to have a relatively safe toxicity profile. However, as with all stimulants, these substances increase activity of the sympathetic nervous system, which controls various functions in the body during times of stress. This in turn increases heart rate, blood pressure and breathing rate.

These changes can cause acute cardiac events (such as arrhythmias, or irregular heartbeat) and, with repeated use of high doses, chronic changes in the heart’s functioning.

Recent Australian studies have documented an increase in poisonings involving these substances, although a notable proportion of these appear to be intentional poisoning. Of poisonings that only involved pharmaceutical stimulants, the drugs were mostly taken orally, with a median dose more than ten times a typical prescribed dose. The most common symptoms were hypertension (high blood pressure), tachycardia (increased heart rate) and agitation.

In our survey, those who had used pharmaceutical stimulants most commonly swallowed them in tablet form and generally took a dose slightly higher than what’s typically prescribed.

However, about one in four reported snorting as a route of administration. This can result in physical harms such as damage to the sinuses, and can heighten potential risks from the drug because it may take effect more quickly in the body.

Some pharmaceutical stimulants are “long-acting”, released into the body over a day. So there may also be a risk of premature re-dosing if people unknowingly use these formulations more than once a day. That is, if people don’t experience the desired effects within the expected time frame, they may take another dose, which can increase the risk of adverse effects.

Finally, non-prescribed pharmaceutical stimulants may have adverse effects when taken alongside other drugs. This can include a “masking effect” (for example, the stimulant may mask the signs of alcohol intoxication).

So what should we do?

Pharmaceutical stimulants are an important medicine to treat ADHD and narcolepsy, and when used as prescribed are relatively safe. However, there are additional risks when people use these substances without a prescription.

Harm reduction campaigns highlighting these risks, including differences across formulations, may be useful. Continual monitoring, alongside more in-depth investigation of associated harms, is also crucial.

You can access free and confidential advice about alcohol and other drugs by calling the National Alcohol and Other Drug Hotline on 1800 250 015.

Rachel Sutherland, Research Fellow, National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, UNSW Sydney; Amy Peacock, Senior Research Fellow, National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, UNSW Sydney; Caroline Salom, Research Social Scientist, Institute for Social Science Research, The University of Queensland; Jodie Grigg, Research Associate at the National Drug Research Institute, Curtin University, and Raimondo Bruno, Associate Professor, School of Psychological Sciences, University of Tasmania

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

One of the most common feelings associated with persisting pain is fatigue and this fatigue can become overwhelming. People with chronic pain can report being drained of energy and motivation to engage with others or the world around them.

In fact, a study from the United Kingdom on people with long-term health conditions found pain and fatigue are the two biggest barriers to an active and meaningful life.

But why is long-term pain so exhausting? One clue is the nature of pain and its powerful effect on our thoughts and behaviours.

Short-term pain can protect you

Modern ways of thinking about pain emphasise its protective effect – the way it grabs your attention and compels you to change your behaviour to keep a body part safe.

Try this. Slowly pinch your skin. As you increase the pressure, you’ll notice the feeling changes until, at some point, it becomes painful. It is the pain that stops you squeezing harder, right? In this way, pain protects us.

When we are injured, tissue damage or inflammation makes our pain system become more sensitive. This pain stops us from mechanically loading the damaged tissue while it heals. For instance, the pain of a broken leg or a cut under our foot means we avoid walking on it.

The concept that “pain protects us and promotes healing” is one of the most important things people who were in chronic pain tell us they learned that helped them recover.

But long-term pain can overprotect you

In the short term, pain does a terrific job of protecting us and the longer our pain system is active, the more protective it becomes.

But persistent pain can overprotect us and prevent recovery. People in pain have called this “pain system hypersensitivity”. Think of this as your pain system being on red alert. And this is where exhaustion comes in.

When pain becomes a daily experience, triggered or amplified by a widening range of activities, contexts and cues, it becomes a constant drain on one’s resources. Going about life with pain requires substantial and constant effort, and this makes us fatigued.

About 80% of us are lucky enough to not know what it is like to have pain, day in day out, for months or years. But take a moment to imagine what it would be like.

Imagine having to concentrate hard, to muster energy and use distraction techniques, just to go about your everyday tasks, let alone to complete work, caring or other duties.

Whenever you are in pain, you are faced with a choice of whether, and how, to act on it. Constantly making this choice requires thought, effort and strategy.

Mentioning your pain, or explaining its impact on each moment, task or activity, is also tiring and difficult to get across when no-one else can see or feel your pain. For those who do listen, it can become tedious, draining or worrying.

No wonder pain is exhausting

In chronic pain, it’s not just the pain system on red alert. Increased inflammation throughout the body (the immune system on red alert), disrupted output of the hormone cortisol (the endocrine system on red alert), and stiff and guarded movements (the motor system on red alert) also go hand in hand with chronic pain.

Each of these adds to fatigue and exhaustion. So learning how to manage and resolve chronic pain often includes learning how to best manage the over-activation of these systems.

Loss of sleep is also a factor in both fatigue and pain. Pain causes disruptions to sleep, and loss of sleep contributes to pain.

In other words, chronic pain is seldom “just” pain. No wonder being in long-term pain can become all-consuming and exhausting.

What actually works?

People with chronic pain are stigmatised, dismissed and misunderstood, which can lead to them not getting the care they need. Ongoing pain may prevent people working, limit their socialising and impact their relationships. This can lead to a descending spiral of social, personal and economic disadvantage.

So we need better access to evidence-based care, with high-quality education for people with chronic pain.

There is good news here though. Modern care for chronic pain, which is grounded in first gaining a modern understanding of the underlying biology of chronic pain, helps.

The key seems to be recognising, and accepting, that a hypersensitive pain system is a key player in chronic pain. This makes a quick fix highly unlikely but a program of gradual change – perhaps over months or even years – promising.

Understanding how pain works, how persisting pain becomes overprotective, how our brains and bodies adapt to training, and then learning new skills and strategies to gradually retrain both brain and body, offers scientifically based hope; there’s strong supportive evidence from clinical trials.

Every bit of support helps

The best treatments we have for chronic pain take effort, patience, persistence, courage and often a good coach. All that is a pretty overwhelming proposition for someone already exhausted.

So, if you are in the 80% of the population without chronic pain, spare a thought for what’s required and support your colleague, friend, partner, child or parent as they take on the journey.

More information about chronic pain is available from Pain Revolution.

Michael Henry, Physiotherapist and PhD candidate, Body in Mind Research Group, University of South Australia and Lorimer Moseley, Professor of Clinical Neurosciences and Foundation Chair in Physiotherapy, University of South Australia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Pacific Islands may evoke images of sprawling coastlines and picturesque scenery. But while this part of the world might look like paradise, many local residents are grappling with a serious public health issue.

Across Pacific nations, almost half a million people are living in informal urban settlements with a lack of proper sanitation, which can include difficult access to working toilets.

This affects health, wellbeing, education and livelihoods, especially for women, children, older people, and people with disabilities.

Our new study, published in the Nature journal NPJ Clean Water, examined the state of sanitation in several informal urban settlements in two Pacific countries – Fiji and Vanuatu. Our findings show this is an issue which needs urgent attention.

Research on the ground

We partnered with researchers from the University of the South Pacific to survey households and inspect sanitation infrastructure. Our team examined 393 households in nine informal urban settlements in the capital cities of Fiji (Suva) and Vanuatu (Port Vila).

These settlements develop when people settle on unoccupied land that has not been planned for housing, generally due to a lack of affordable housing options. Informal urban settlements often lack access to essential services and infrastructure such as sewerage systems, power, sealed roads and rubbish collection.

We identified that although piped water is available, most households (from 56% to 100% of the households in each settlement) still rely on unsafe sanitation to manage human waste. Many use poorly built dry pits – for example, a pedestal above a hole in the ground – or cesspits. In these toilets, there’s no plumbing and no running water is used to flush. All are onsite (in the house or adjacent to it), meaning the waste, treated or untreated, stays in the settlement.

On top of everyday challenges, we found one in every three households loses access to functioning toilets during heavy rain, cyclones, or floods. Dry pit systems face four to eight times higher odds of damage during climate events than water-based systems in the same settlements.

We also found safe waste management, particularly from septic tanks and pits, poses significant challenges for residents. Even when toilets are available and working well, there is often no safe and sustainable way to manage the waste that builds up in pits and tanks.

In many cases, the sludge is dumped either on open spaces in the settlement, into local rivers, or seeps into the ground. This can pollute water sources and create serious environmental and public health risks.

Further, we found cyclones and heavy rains damage sanitation systems, causing waste to overflow and contaminate water supplies.

Vulnerable communities

Melanesian countries, including Vanuatu and Fiji, are particularly susceptible to severe climate hazards, making it crucial that sanitation infrastructure in informal urban settlements can withstand these environmental threats.

Poor sanitation in these areas leads to the spread of diseases such as diarrhoea, intestinal worms and trachoma. Studies show that improving water and sanitation systems significantly reduces the chances of childhood deaths and deaths from diarrhoea specifically.

Estimates from the World Health Organization and UNICEF indicate that less than 3% of urban populations in Fiji and Vanuatu use unimproved or unsafe sanitation – that is, sanitation that does not safely contain, treat and dispose of human waste.

That figure contrasts sharply with our finding that most households in informal urban settlements rely on unsafe sanitation. This highlights the need for improved monitoring strategies which distinguish informal settlements from formally planned areas.

How can we address this problem?

Toilets alone won’t solve the problem. Communities need a comprehensive approach that addresses sanitation management at every stage. This will involve creating a complete service chain that ensures reliable waste removal, treatment, and disposal, and which is resilient to disasters.

This means enhancing local expertise, supporting local service providers, ensuring systems are well maintained, and fostering community ownership of these systems to guarantee long-term sustainability.

In informal settlements, providing these services is much more challenging than in formal urban areas, largely because of insecure land ownership and limited access to adequate infrastructure, which adds complexity for service providers.

However, with a significant portion of the Pacific urban populations living in informal settlements, finding effective ways to safely manage sanitation in these communities is essential.

The sixth sustainable development goal aims to provide clean water and sanitation for all. Solving the sanitation crisis in the Pacific Islands is about protecting health, restoring dignity, supporting livelihoods, and building resilience at the level of households and communities, who are at the frontline of an increasingly uncertain future.

Benny Zuse Rousso, Research Fellow, International Water Centre, Griffith University and Regina Souter, Associate Professor & Director, International WaterCentre, Griffith University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

About 2,890 kilometres beneath our feet lies a gigantic ball of liquid metal: our planet’s core. Scientists like me use the seismic waves created by earthquakes as a kind of ultrasound to “see” the shape and structure of the core.

Using a new way of studying these waves, my colleague Xiaolong Ma and I have made a surprising discovery: there is a large donut-shaped region of the core around the Equator, a few hundred kilometres thick, where seismic waves travel about 2% slower than in the rest of the core.

We think this region contains more lighter elements such as silicon and oxygen, and may play a crucial role in the vast currents of liquid metal running through the core that generate Earth’s magnetic field. Our results are published today in Science Advances.

The ‘coda-correlation wavefield’

Most studies of the seismic waves created by earthquakes look at the big, initial wavefronts that travel around the world in the hour or so after the quake.

We realised we could learn something new by looking at the later, fainter part of these waves, known as the coda – the section that brings a piece of music to its end. In particular, we looked at how similar the coda recorded at different seismic detectors were, several hours after they began.

In mathematical terms, this similarity is measured by something called correlation. Together, we call these similarities in the late parts of earthquake waves the “coda-correlation wavefield”.

By looking at the coda-correlation wavefield, we detected tiny signals stemming from multiple reverberating waves we wouldn’t otherwise see. By understanding the paths these reverberating waves had taken and matching them with signals in the coda-correlation wavefield, we worked out how long they had taken to travel through the planet.

We then compared what we saw in seismic detectors closer to the poles with results from nearer the Equator. Overall, the waves detected closer to the poles were travelling faster than those near the Equator.

We tried out many computer models and simulations of what conditions in the core could create these results. In the end, we found there must be a torus – a donut-shaped region – in the outer core around the Equator, where waves travel more slowly.

Seismologists have not detected this region before. However, using the coda-correlation wavefield lets us “see” the outer core in more detail, and more evenly.

Previous studies concluded that waves moved more slowly everywhere around the “ceiling” of the outer core. However, we have shown in this study that the low-velocity region is only near the Equator.

The outer core and the geodynamo

Earth’s outer core has a radius of around 3,480km, which makes it slightly bigger than the planet Mars. It consists mainly of iron and nickel, with some traces of lighter elements such as silicon, oxygen, sulfur, hydrogen and carbon.

The bottom of the outer core is hotter than the top, and the temperature difference makes the liquid metal move like water in a pot boiling on the stove. This process is called thermal convection, and we think the constant movement should mean all the material in the outer core is quite well mixed and uniform.

But if everywhere in the outer core is full of the same material, seismic waves should travel at about the same speed everywhere, too. So why do these waves slow down in the donut-shaped region we found?

We think there must be a higher concentration of light elements in this region. These may be released from Earth’s solid inner core into the outer core, where their buoyancy creates more convection.

Why do the lighter elements build up more in the equatorial donut region? Scientists think this could be explained if more heat is transferred from the outer core to the rocky mantle above it in this region.

There is also another planetary-scale process at work in the outer core. Earth’s rotation and the small solid inner core make the liquid of the outer core organise itself in long vertical vortices running in a north–south direction, like giant waterspouts.

The turbulent movement of liquid metal in these vortices creates the “geodynamo” responsible for creating and maintaining Earth’s magnetic field. This magnetic field shields the planet from harmful solar wind and radiation, making life possible on the surface.

A more detailed view of the makeup of the outer core – including the new-found donut of lighter elements – will help us better understand Earth’s magnetic field. In particular, how the field changes its intensity and direction in time is crucial for life on Earth and the potential habitability of planets and exoplanets.

Hrvoje Tkalčić, Professor, Head of Geophysics, Director of Warramunga Array, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Imagine a group of young men gathered at a picturesque college campus in New England, in the United States, during the northern summer of 1956.

It’s a small casual gathering. But the men are not here for campfires and nature hikes in the surrounding mountains and woods. Instead, these pioneers are about to embark on an experimental journey that will spark countless debates for decades to come and change not just the course of technology – but the course of humanity.

Welcome to the Dartmouth Conference – the birthplace of artificial intelligence (AI) as we know it today.

What transpired here would ultimately lead to ChatGPT and the many other kinds of AI which now help us diagnose disease, detect fraud, put together playlists and write articles (well, not this one). But it would also create some of the many problems the field is still trying to overcome. Perhaps by looking back, we can find a better way forward.

The summer that changed everything

In the mid 1950s, rock’n’roll was taking the world by storm. Elvis’s Heartbreak Hotel was topping the charts, and teenagers started embracing James Dean’s rebellious legacy.

But in 1956, in a quiet corner of New Hampshire, a different kind of revolution was happening.

The Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence, often remembered as the Dartmouth Conference, kicked off on June 18 and lasted for about eight weeks. It was the brainchild of four American computer scientists – John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, Nathaniel Rochester and Claude Shannon – and brought together some of the brightest minds in computer science, mathematics and cognitive psychology at the time.

These scientists, along with some of the 47 people they invited, set out to tackle an ambitious goal: to make intelligent machines.

As McCarthy put it in the conference proposal, they aimed to find out “how to make machines use language, form abstractions and concepts, solve kinds of problems now reserved for humans”.

The birth of a field – and a problematic name

The Dartmouth Conference didn’t just coin the term “artificial intelligence”; it coalesced an entire field of study. It’s like a mythical Big Bang of AI – everything we know about machine learning, neural networks and deep learning now traces its origins back to that summer in New Hampshire.

But the legacy of that summer is complicated.

Artificial intelligence won out as a name over others proposed or in use at the time. Shannon preferred the term “automata studies”, while two other conference participants (and the soon-to-be creators of the first AI program), Allen Newell and Herbert Simon, continued to use “complex information processing” for a few years still.

But here’s the thing: having settled on AI, no matter how much we try, today we can’t seem to get away from comparing AI to human intelligence.

This comparison is both a blessing and a curse.

On the one hand, it drives us to create AI systems that can match or exceed human performance in specific tasks. We celebrate when AI outperforms humans in games such as chess or Go, or when it can detect cancer in medical images with greater accuracy than human doctors.

On the other hand, this constant comparison leads to misconceptions.

When a computer beats a human at Go, it is easy to jump to the conclusion that machines are now smarter than us in all aspects – or that we are at least well on our way to creating such intelligence. But AlphaGo is no closer to writing poetry than a calculator.

And when a large language model sounds human, we start wondering if it is sentient.

But ChatGPT is no more alive than a talking ventriloquist’s dummy.

The overconfidence trap

The scientists at the Dartmouth Conference were incredibly optimistic about the future of AI. They were convinced they could solve the problem of machine intelligence in a single summer.

This overconfidence has been a recurring theme in AI development, and it has led to several cycles of hype and disappointment.

Simon stated in 1965 that “machines will be capable, within 20 years, of doing any work a man can do”. Minsky predicted in 1967 that “within a generation […] the problem of creating ‘artificial intelligence’ will substantially be solved”.

Popular futurist Ray Kurzweil now predicts it’s only five years away: “we’re not quite there, but we will be there, and by 2029 it will match any person”.

Reframing our thinking: new lessons from Dartmouth

So, how can AI researchers, AI users, governments, employers and the broader public move forward in a more balanced way?

A key step is embracing the difference and utility of machine systems. Instead of focusing on the race to “artificial general intelligence”, we can focus on the unique strengths of the systems we have built – for example, the enormous creative capacity of image models.

Shifting the conversation from automation to augmentation is also important. Rather than pitting humans against machines, let’s focus on how AI can assist and augment human capabilities.

Let’s also emphasise ethical considerations. The Dartmouth participants didn’t spend much time discussing the ethical implications of AI. Today, we know better, and must do better.

We must also refocus research directions. Let’s emphasise research into AI interpretability and robustness, interdisciplinary AI research and explore new paradigms of intelligence that aren’t modelled on human cognition.

Finally, we must manage our expectations about AI. Sure, we can be excited about its potential. But we must also have realistic expectations, so that we can avoid the disappointment cycles of the past.

As we look back at that summer camp 68 years ago, we can celebrate the vision and ambition of the Dartmouth Conference participants. Their work laid the foundation for the AI revolution we’re experiencing today.

By reframing our approach to AI – emphasising utility, augmentation, ethics and realistic expectations – we can honour the legacy of Dartmouth while charting a more balanced and beneficial course for the future of AI.

After all, the real intelligence lies not just in creating smart machines, but in how wisely we choose to use and develop them.

Sandra Peter, Director of Sydney Executive Plus, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com.

Why are some people able to visualize scenarios in their minds, with colors and details, and some people are not? – Luiza, age 14, Goiânia, Brazil

Imagine you are in a soccer match, and it’s tied. Each team will begin taking penalty kicks. The crowd is roaring, and whether or not your team wins the game depends on your ability to hit the shot. As you imagine this scene, are you able to picture the scenario with colors and details?

Scientists are hard at work trying to understand why some people can visualize these kinds of scenarios more easily than others can. Even the same person can be better or worse at picturing things in their mind at different times.

As neuroscientists in the fields of physical therapy and psychology, we think about the ways people use mental imagery. Here is what researchers do know so far.

The brain and mental imagery

Mental imagery is the ability to visualize things and scenarios in your mind, without actual physical input.

For example, when you think about your best friends, you may automatically picture their faces in your head without actually seeing them in front of you. When you daydream about an upcoming vacation, you may see yourself on the sunny beach.

People who dream about taking a penalty kick could visualize themselves like they are watching a video of it in their mind. They may even experience the smell of the turf or hear the sounds that fans would make.

Scientists believe your primary visual cortex, located in the back of your brain, is involved in internal visualization. This is the same part of the brain that processes visual information from the eyes and that lets you see the world around you.

Another brain region, located in the very front of the brain, also contributes to mental imagery. This structure, called the prefrontal cortex, is in charge of executive functions – a group of high-level mental skills that allow you to concentrate, plan, organize and reason.

Scientists have found such skills to be, at least to some extent, related to one’s mental imagery ability. If someone is good at holding and manipulating large amounts of information in mind, this person can play with things like numbers or images in their mind on the go.

Experiencing and remembering

Most of the same brain areas are active both while you’re actually experiencing an event and also when you’re visualizing it from a memory in your head. For example, when you behold the beauty of the Grand Canyon, your brain creates a memory of the image. But that memory is not simply stored in a single place in the brain. It’s created when thousands of brain cells across different parts of the brain fire together. Later, when a sound, smell or image triggers the memory, this network of brain cells fires together again, and you may picture the Grand Canyon in your head as clearly as if it were in front of you.

Benefits of mental imagery

The ability to mentally visualize can be helpful.

Notice the look of concentration on a gymnast’s face before competition. The athlete is likely visualizing themselves executing a perfect rings routine in their mind. This visualization activates the same brain regions as when they physically perform on the rings, building their confidence and priming their brain for better success.

Athletes can use visualization to help them acquire skills more quickly and with less wear and tear on their bodies. Engineers and mechanics can use visualization to help them fix or design things.

Mental visualization can also help people relearn how to move their bodies after a brain injury. However, with additional practice, those who do not use visualization will eventually catch up.

Nature-nurture interactions

All is not lost if you have difficulty visualizing. It is possible that the ability to visualize in your mind is a combined effect of both how your individual brain works and your life experiences.

For example, taxi drivers in London need to navigate very complicated streets and, scientists found, experience changes to their brain structures over the course of their careers. In particular, they develop larger hippocampuses, a brain structure related to memory. Scientists believe that the training the taxi drivers went through – having to visualize a map of complex streets across London in daily driving – made them better at mental imagery via changes in their hippocampus.

And watching someone else do a physical action activates the same brain areas as creating your own internal mental imagery. If you want to be able to do something, watching a video of someone else doing it can be just as helpful as visualizing yourself doing it in your head. So even if you struggle with mental visualization, there are still ways to reap its benefits.

Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.

And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.

Lynne Gauthier, Associate Professor of Physical Therapy and Kinesiology, UMass Lowell and Jiabin Shen, Assistant Professor of Psychology, UMass Lowell

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

In August many Australian universities have open days as Year 12 students make up their minds about what they want to study next year.

There will be lots of things for prospective students to think about – including what course they want to study and what career they want to pursue.

Beyond questions about study content, there are five other important aspects to investigate about university life. These can have an impact on how much you enjoy your studies and how much you are supported to succeed.

1. Academic supports

Studying at university is different from school. You need to be more independent and there is less time “in class” (lectures or tutorials). This can be an adjustment for some students.

Check out what kinds of support are available to help students meet academic expectations. Some questions you could ask include:

• what academic writing resources and supports are available?

• can I get help to understand the expectations of essay writing and other forms of assessment?

• can the library support me with database searches and referencing?

• are there peer-supported study groups for my course?

• what online learning platform is used and do we get an orientation?

• can I use ChatGPT for assignments and what is the university’s approach to the use of AI?

2. Health and wellbeing services

Study at university can coincide with health and wellbeing challenges for students. You may be worried about study deadlines or cost-of-living, or there may be other things going on in your life you need help with. Some questions you could ask include:

• what resources are available to help manage my health and wellbeing?

• are there counsellors or mental health professionals?

• is there a general practice or health clinic on campus?

• is there a pharmacy?

• are urgent mental health services accessible at all times?

• what supports are available if I need help with access and inclusion?

3. Work-life-study balance

Many students need to work part-time to support themselves and have family or other life commitments. This can be challenging if deadlines all come at once or your schedule is very full.

Ask your university about how healthy work-life-study balance can be supported. This is of particular concern if your course has mandatory work experience placements. You could ask:

• are there flexible study options?

• can I start or switch to part-time study during my course or term?

• how and when can I take a study break or leave of absence?

• is there an option to complete part of my degree remotely?

4. Living costs

Being a student is typically a time of life when money is tight. But this is made even more difficult during cost-of-living and housing crises.

Ask about the full costs of study. Along with course fees or loans, check out the associated costs (such as equipment or textbooks) as well as potential supports. Specifically you could ask:

• does the university offer emergency financial assistance?

• is there financial counselling?

• are there grants and scholarships and help to apply for these?

• what materials do I need to buy for my course?

• are there student discounts at local businesses to help reduce living expenses?

Also, don’t forget there are government payments available for eligible students.

5. Social supports and community

A significant part of enjoying university will be feeling as if you belong. So consider universities that foster inclusive environments and offer supportive networks. Some questions to ask include:

• how does the university ensure students from diverse backgrounds are included and represented in campus activities and decision-making?

• are there specific programs to support First Nations students?

• what resources and support services are available for LGBTQIA+ students?

• what supports can I access if I have disability?

Choosing a university isn’t just about the course or the degree – it’s finding your fit in a place that will help you realise your study and life goals. So, keep asking questions – academics, university staff and students at open days are there to help.

Christopher Patterson, Associate Professor, School of Nursing, University of Wollongong and Catherine Stephen, Lecturer, School of Nursing,, University of Wollongong

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

It is the season of university open days and study decisions for Year 12 students.

As an academic, the question I get asked most by students and parents is, “will this degree lead to a job?”.

It is understandable. However, it isn’t necessarily the right question to ask as young people consider what course will suit them best.

Focusing solely on immediate job prospects (“degree equals job”) can limit the understanding of what university courses actually provide.

What is a degree for?

A degree isn’t merely a gateway to employment, it’s the foundation for a life of professional and personal development.

Students often begin a university course with a specific career path in mind, only to discover new interests that lead them in unexpected directions.

For example, a student might start a design degree dreaming of becoming a fashion designer, only to find the demands of the industry clash with their introverted nature. Instead, they might discover a passion for sustainable textiles, a field requiring meticulous material research.

Their design degree didn’t lead to one end point, but gave them the opportunities to learn what they were really suited to, and the skills to pursue this.

Not about becoming an expert in one thing

University education is also not just about mastering a subject, it’s about acquiring transferable skills, such as problem solving, communication and the ability to work in diverse situations with diverse people.

It is also about developing critical thinking and the ability to assess evidence. These skills can then be applied to many ideas and issues.

In today’s unpredictable, technology-driven world, new jobs emerge quickly, while others fade away. A university degree should equip students with the adaptability to navigate these changes, rather than simply slotting into existing job categories.

So, instead of asking whether a degree will directly lead to a job, consider these following five questions.

1. What skills will I develop in this program?

Creative degrees, for example, encourage critical thinking, creativity, technical skills, and the ability to articulate and present ideas, skills that are highly valued across many fields.

An arts or health sciences degree may also encourage valuable critical thinking and research skills.

2. Are there opportunities for practical experience?

Look for courses that offer internships, industry projects and practical workshops. These experiences help students build professional networks and gain insights about what they really like (and don’t like) about different types of work.

3. Will the course expose me to diverse cultural contexts?

Consider programs that offer international exchange opportunities. These experiences can be transformative, broadening students’ cultural perspectives and enhancing their sensitivity and awareness to diverse cultural environments. They also cultivate maturity and independence by challenging students to navigate unfamiliar environments with their peers.

4. How does this course encourage resilience and lifelong learning?

Seek out courses that emphasise creativity, experimentation, independent thinking and teach in hands-on learning environments.

Such courses teach students to cope with change – a skill they will need in fast-evolving workplaces. It also prepare students for a lifetime of continuous learning, which is essential for sustained career growth and personal development.

5. What have recent graduates done with this degree?

Exploring the diverse paths of graduates can provide a realistic view of a degree’s possibilities.

On open days, seek out workshops and current students and staff. Ask about further study options – do students in a certain course often need (or want) to do postgraduate study?

And remember

Whatever students choose to study it’s important they do something they are truly interested in. Education can and should be enjoyable. 

Cherine Fahd, Associate Head of School, School of Design, University of Technology Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

OK, tell me if you’ve heard this one: what did the percussionist say when they landed their first job?

“Would you like fries with that?”

It’s just a joke, right? Unfortunately for many aspiring percussionists even getting a foot in the door to complete a university qualification yet alone secure full time, paid and ongoing work as a professional musician is not too far from this reality.

While there are endless percussionist jokes to make – and there are thousands – I think we seriously underestimate the expertise, musicianship and teamwork percussionists bring to the orchestra and our favourite music. Not to mention the years of practice, heavy lifting, early set-ups, late pack downs, counting endless bars of rest, waiting for the vital moment in a symphony, and the mastery required to play the many instruments demanded of both “classical” and contemporary orchestral repertoire.

Let’s take a moment to appreciate the humble percussionist, what it takes to train as a professional drummer, and their sometimes less-than-obvious valuable contributions to the music we love.

A difficult road

Most large university Bachelor of Music programs will offer an average of 40 positions per year. Few accepted will be pianists and percussionists.

A quick internet search of the nine professional orchestras in Australia reveals there is an average of 2.8 percussionists (including timpanists, who specialise in only the timpani, or kettledrums, rather than playing the wide variety of other instruments) per orchestra, out of a total of over 500 professional positions within Australian orchestras.

Permanent paid and full-time orchestral jobs are extremely competitive. This is especially true in Australia, as we have so few professional symphony orchestras compared to around the world. Like other artists in Australia, percussionists face higher rates of under- or unemployment, and lower incomes than others with similar levels of training.

The precarious work of contract artists also involve high hidden costs and unremunerated self-development costs. For many percussionists, making a living is extremely difficult.

Juggling many balls

Orchestral percussionists must be true multi-instrumentalists.

Except for timpani, which tend to be a speciality within itself, percussionists must navigate and master an ever-growing world of instruments in addition to the traditional orchestral percussion to meet the modern repertoire demands spanning far past “classical music”.

Everything from a giant hammer (I’m looking at you Mahler!), to African talking drums, the Indonesian gamelan and thunder sheets. Then there is the myriad of tuned percussion – instruments that can play melodies, for example the xylophone, marimba, tubular bells and glockenspiel – all the way to the humble triangle.

Each instrument comes with its own playing technique, cultural history and significance, mechanism of sound production and instrument maintenance requirements. Not to mention choosing the correct mallet or beater to make the timbre (sound quality) required of the music, expected by the composer, and what the conductor wants.

In addition to counting endless bars of rest and being masters of rhythm, the percussionist faces a unique challenge that no other instrument in the orchestra has to battle. Once the instrument is struck, shaken or scraped there is nothing the musician can do to change the quality of the sound.

A violinist or flautist can alter the movement of their bow or expression of air. However, can you imagine the pressure to produce perfection every time while being completely assured you are playing at the exact vital moment in a symphony?

And there’s no one else to copy because, you’re it!

To add to this, percussionists within an orchestral concert will be responsible for multiple parts and instruments. That requires some serious organisation and knowledge of the repertoire being played. Consider frequently performed works such as Holst’s Planets requiring not one but two timpanists on two sets of timpani to seamlessly manage our favourite melodies in Jupiter: The Bringer of Jollity.

Perhaps not such a jolly time for the percussionists.

A mainstay of culture

Can we really imagine our favourite car-sing-along song without that driving rhythm that gets our heart pumping and fingers tapping? The timpani in a much-loved symphony or suite? How about the famous Hedwig’s theme from Harry Potter without the celeste (a piano-like instrument with chime bards instead of strings) bringing a certain magic and mystery? Or Bluey without the textures, timbres and narratives captured through percussion instruments?

With perhaps the exception of the human voice, percussion instruments were the first attempts of music used by our cave dwelling ancestors. Music may have evolved, but percussion endures.

Around the world, percussion is universal. Without these diverse sounds we would be all the poorer. We cannot imagine a world without the rich tapestry of timbres percussion instruments and their musicians offer. Not only in terms of music, but also when it comes to ritual, celebration, entertainment and culture beyond the concert hall.

Even as audiences we use percussion to express our delight and gratitude through applause.

So next time you see someone at the back of the orchestra with their many varied percussion instruments, take a moment to reflect on and thank these masters of rhythm and timbre as part of the music you love.

Claire Nicholls, Lecturer in Music Education, University of Southern Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

About one-third of the global population, around 3 billion people, don’t have access to the internet or have poor connections because of infrastructure limitations, economic disparities and geographic isolation.

Today’s satellites and ground-based networks leave communications gaps where, because of geography, setting up traditional ground-based communications equipment would be too expensive.

High-altitude platform stations – telecommunications equipment positioned high in the air, on uncrewed balloons, airships, gliders and airplanes – could increase social and economic equality by filling internet connectivity gaps in ground and satellite coverage. This could allow more people to participate fully in the digital age.

One of us, Mohamed-Slim Alouini, is an electrical engineer who contributed to an experiment that showed it is possible to provide high data rates and ubiquitous 5G coverage from the stratosphere. The stratosphere is the second lowest layer of the atmosphere, ranging from 4 to 30 miles above the Earth. Commercial planes usually fly in the lower part of the stratosphere. The experiment measured signals between platform stations and users on the ground in three scenarios: a person staying in one place, a person driving a car and a person operating a boat.

My colleagues measured how strong the signal is in relation to interference and background noise levels. This is one of the measures of network reliability. The results showed that the platform stations can support high-data-rate applications such as streaming 4K resolution videos and can cover 15 to 20 times the area of standard terrestrial towers.

Early attempts by Facebook and Google to commercially deploy platform stations were unsuccessful. But recent investments, technological improvements and interest from traditional aviation companies and specialized aerospace startups may change the equation.

The goal is global connectivity, a cause that brought the platform stations idea recognition in the World Economic Forum’s 2024 Top 10 Emerging Technologies report. The international industry initiative HAPS Alliance, which includes academic partners, is also pushing toward that goal.

Fast, cost effective, flexible

Platform stations would be faster, more cost effective and more flexible than satellite-based systems.

Because they keep communications equipment closer to Earth than satellites, the stations could offer stronger, higher-capacity signals. This would enable real-time communications speedy enough to communicate with standard smartphones, high-resolution capabilities for imaging tasks and greater sensitivity for sensing applications. They transmit data via free-space optics, or light beams, and large-scale antenna array systems, which can send large amounts of data quickly.

Satellites can be vulnerable to eavesdropping or jamming when their orbits bring them over adversarial countries. But platform stations remain within the airspace of a single country, which reduces that risk.

High-altitude platform stations are also easier to put in place than satellites, which have high launch and maintenance costs. And the regulatory requirements and compliance procedures required to secure spots in the stratosphere are likely to be simpler than the complex international laws governing satellite orbits. Platform stations are also easier to upgrade, so improvements could be deployed more quickly.

Platform stations are also potentially less polluting than satellite mega-constellations because satellites burn up upon reentry and can release harmful metals into the atmosphere, while platform stations can be powered by clean energy sources such as solar and green hydrogen.

The key challenges to practical platform stations are increasing the amount of time they can stay aloft to months at a time, boosting green onboard power and improving reliability – especially during automated takeoff and landing through the lower turbulent layers of the atmosphere.

Beyond satellites

Platform stations could play a critical role in emergency and humanitarian situations by supporting relief efforts when ground-based networks are damaged or inoperative.

The stations could also connect Internet of Things (IoT) devices and sensors in remote settings to better monitor the environment and manage resources.

In agriculture, the stations could use imaging and sensing technologies to help farmers monitor crop health, soil conditions and water resources.

Their capability for high-resolution imaging could also support navigation and mapping activities crucial for cartography, urban planning and disaster response.

The stations could also do double duty by carrying instruments for atmospheric monitoring, climate studies and remote sensing of Earth’s surface features, vegetation and oceans.

From balloons to airplanes

Platform stations could be based on different types of aircraft.

Balloons offer stable, long-duration operation at high altitudes and can be tethered or free-floating. Airships, also known as dirigibles or blimps, use lighter-than-air gases and are larger and more maneuverable than balloons. They’re especially well suited for surveillance, communications and research.

Gliders and powered aircraft can be controlled more precisely than balloons, which are sensitive to variations in wind speed. In addition, powered aircraft, which include drones and fixed-wing airplanes, can provide electricity to communication equipment, sensors and cameras.

Next-generation power

Platform stations could make use of diverse power sources, including increasingly lightweight and efficient solar cells, high-energy-density batteries, green hydrogen internal combustion engines, green hydrogen fuel cells, which are now at the testing stage, and eventually, laser beam powering from ground- or space-based solar stations.

The evolution of lightweight aircraft designs coupled with advancements in high-efficiency motors and propellers enable planes to fly longer and carry heavier payloads. These cutting-edge lightweight planes could lead to platform stations capable of maneuvering in the stratosphere for extended periods.

Meanwhile, improvements in stratospheric weather models and atmospheric models make it easier to predict and simulate the conditions under which the platform stations would operate.

Bridging the global digital divide

Commerical deployment of platform stations, at least for post-disaster or emergency situations, could be in place by the end of the decade. For instance, a consortium in Japan, a country with remote mountainous and island communities, has earmarked US$100 million for solar-powered, high-altitude platform stations.

Platform stations could bridge the digital divide by increasing access to critical services such as education and health care, providing new economic opportunities and improving emergency response and environmental monitoring. As advances in technology continue to drive their evolution, platform stations are set to play a crucial role in a more inclusive and resilient digital future.

Mohamed-Slim Alouini, Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology and Mariette DiChristina, Dean and Professor of the Practice in Journalism, College of Communication, Boston University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Polaris Dawn mission has been attracting lots of attention because it will feature the first ever spacewalk by commercial space travellers. There are many reasons why this is a landmark mission. But, with its ambition comes a degree of risk.

The mission is backed by Elon Musk’s company SpaceX and there are no professional astronauts among the crew. Flying aboard the mission is a businessman, a fighter pilot and two SpaceX employees. The mission represents an emerging parallel track in orbital spaceflight which is privately funded compared to the upcoming government-backed US Artemis missions to return humans to the Moon.

The four crew members of Polaris Dawn are currently scheduled to launch in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday, August 28. During the five day mission, they will travel further from Earth than any humans have been since the Apollo missions, heading up to 1,400 km in altitude.

In addition to the spacewalk, the crew will travel through portions of the Van Allen radiation belts – zones of energetic charged particles around Earth. This will allow them to carry out tests aimed at understanding the effects of space radiation on human health.

Other experiments include one related to how the eyes and vision system respond in microgravity. The crew will also test a laser-based communication system in space. This will provide data for future space communications systems that could be used on missions to the Moon and Mars.

The spacecraft’s commander is Jared Isaacman, an American businessman who is flying on a commercial SpaceX mission for the second time. The retired US Air force lieutenant colonel Scott Poteet will serve as the mission’s pilot. Sarah Gillis, is a mission specialist, and is the lead space operations engineer at SpaceX.

Gillis is scheduled to perform the spacewalk, known formally as an extravehicular activity (EVA), together with Isaacman. Finally, Anna Menon is a mission specialist and medical officer on the flight. Like Gillis, she is a SpaceX employee who leads space operations and is a mission director at the company.

The spacewalk will be somewhat different to the type we’ve become used to seeing from International Space Station (ISS), where two astronauts will usually go outside while the rest of the crew stays inside the pressurised station.

The Dragon capsule has a hatch rather than an airlock. This means that the spacecraft’s whole interior will have to be depressurised and exposed to the vacuum of space when Isaacman and Gillis exit through the hatch to carry out their spacewalk 435 miles (700km) above Earth. All four crew members will therefore be receiving their life support through spacesuits while the EVA is underway.

The crew are wearing EVA suits designed by SpaceX that will be used for the first time on this flight. These are considerably more streamlined than those used by Nasa astronauts aboard the ISS. The design of the older Nasa suit, called the Extravehicular Mobility Unit, has stayed much the same for more than 40 years.

However, the bulkiness of Nasa’s suits is in part because they have a life support system incorporated into a backpack. By contrast, during the spacewalk, Isaacman and Gillis will receive life support to their suits through long tubes called umbilicals which are attached to the capsule.

Ambitious objectives

The significance of the Polaris Dawn EVA can’t be understated. Spacewalks have been reserved for government-backed space travellers since Alexei Leonov became the first human to step outside a space capsule on the Soviet Voskhod 2 mission in 1965. The first spacewalk by an all-commercial crew is a key moment in the history of spaceflight.

The ambitious objectives of this mission, however, do also make it somewhat dangerous. While all the crew members are extremely capable and have been well trained for this mission, there are no professional astronauts aboard to advise. It is also the first spaceflight for three of the four crew members.

Having said all this, Polaris Dawn is an inspiring endeavour. It’s common these days to hear criticism of spaceflight along the lines of: “instead of going to space, why don’t rich people give away some of their money to those in need on Earth?”

During Inspiration4, Jared Isaacman’s first spaceflight, aboard a Crew Dragon capsule, the businessman raised more than US$240 million (£181 million) for the St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. For this mission, he is planning to replicate that success.

The Polaris Dawn website allows internet users to donate to the St Jude Children’s Research Hospital, with the goal of improving the detection and treatment of childhood cancer around the globe. The crew members will also conduct several health-related experiments during the mission, with the aim of advancing medical research.

This is the first of three missions in a privately-funded Polaris Program. As more commercial missions take place, the cost of access to orbit will come down. This will help democratise spaceflight, opening it up to those who are not professional astronauts or super-rich.

Hopefully, it will also inspire the younger generation to see space not as the final frontier, but as a natural expansion of humans beyond the limits of Earth.

The mission will use the Dragon spacecraft named Resilience, which is the vehicle flown in 2020 for the first full mission to launch US astronauts from American soil following the retirement of the Nasa space shuttle a decade earlier.

The connection between the achievements of the past and the amazing results of the present is the most intriguing part of the story here. At least that’s how I see it as a child of the Apollo era, and apparently now, as a member of the Artemis generation.

Simonetta Di Pippo, Director of the Space Economy Evolution Lab, Bocconi University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

In 1534, King Henry VIII infamously broke away from the Catholic Church, becoming the head of the Church of England. Following this, two lesser-known acts were passed, the Suppression of Religious Houses Act 1535 and the Suppression of Religious Houses Act 1539 (also known as the “two Acts of Dissolution”).

These acts were the legal instruments of what is now known as the dissolution of the monasteries, a long process throughout which the hundreds of priories, convents, friaries, and other religious houses which fell under the English monarch’s rule saw their holdings confiscated by the Crown. In doing so, Henry unwittingly set in motion a series of events that would forever change how scholars of English history would access the primary sources used in research.

Because monasteries had served various roles throughout history, the dissolution had wide-ranging consequences. It changed the landscape of England, with religious buildings slowly entering private hands – but it also changed the scholarly landscape.

Many of Britain’s early historians came from monasteries (often in the form of chroniclers), including Gerald of Wales, Bede the Venerable and Roger Bacon. As record-keepers, they also preserved the primary sources that continue to be studied by researchers today.

Manuscripts, like the religious houses’ other possessions, slowly changed hands in the decades following the dissolution. The king took several manuscripts for himself and more were taken and hidden by former members of the orders, or local inhabitants. Likely thousands disappeared.

The extent of the loss, while difficult to estimate, was extensively researched by Anglo-Saxonist and palaeographer (handwriting analysis expert) Neil Ripley Ker in his book, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain which was first published in 1941. This research is now available as a continually updated database through the combined efforts of current scholars.

Where did the manuscripts go?

Over the past decades, bibliographical research has shown that some were gathered by local, and often little-known, collectors. As for the rest, the writings of contemporary antiquaries (the people interested in the material remains of the past) provide precious information on what existed before the dissolution took place, how much disappeared, and how.

From 1533, English poet and antiquary John Leland undertook the arduous task of inventorying the most important manuscripts from the monastic houses, listing his work to date in a then-unpublished address commonly known as the Newe Yeares Gyfte, in 1546. Meanwhile, Leland’s associate John Bale compiled a Summary of the Famous Writers of Great Britain, founded upon Leland’s work and first published in Latin in 1548, for which the preparatory notes survive in Oxford’s Bodleian Library.

Bale’s preface to the Newe Yeares Gyfte tells us that many of the manuscripts ended up cut up for use as candlesticks or boot polishing cloth, some were sold to foreign nations, and many to book binders.

Such recycling had already taken place in the past. The membrane (treated animal skin, also known as parchment or vellum) from which most manuscripts were made could be reused to make new books, notably as binding material, and also had less obvious but not less useful afterlives. It would continue for many years to come, too. Notably, one of the copies of the Magna Carta allegedly had to be rescued from a tailor’s shop in 1629.

The Magna Carta in question found its way into the collection of antiquary Sir Robert Cotton. Like other collectors before him, Cotton sought to preserve the witnesses of British history, in particular, the now-dispersed monastic manuscripts. His collection still survives today, as the Cotton manuscripts became one of the foundational collections of the British Library.

The dissolution itself came at a turning point in historical methods. The 16th century saw the spreading through England of a new intellectual movement coming from Italy, where it had begun over a century earlier: humanism. Renaissance humanism was concerned (at first) with the study of the classical world, eventually producing a new culture of learning involving the re-evaluation of historical sources (including the aforementioned manuscripts).

On the continent, this often involved consulting the texts in the monasteries themselves. In England, where the monasteries no longer existed, these sources found their ways into the hands of the scholar-collectors who wished to use them, like Matthew Parker and Cotton.

Neither Parker nor Cotton limited themselves to gathering these documents. Their libraries were the centre of research circles, which used, edited, and sometimes published original manuscripts using another continental creation – the printing press. While antiquaries were not necessarily historians, and have generally been considered more interdisciplinary, their work facilitated historical research through both the preservation and the dissemination of primary sources.

Historical research has evolved a lot since the 16th century. The sources saved from destruction or dispersion at the time of the dissolution have been read, re-read, translated, studied, and contextualised in many ways since the days of the early antiquaries.

Henry VIII may have never intended to endanger these manuscripts. However, it is indisputable that the dissolution had a profound effect on English and indeed British scholarship, marking the minds of budding humanistic historians, and giving them unprecedented access to original documents.

Besides its impact on the historiography of its time, the dissolution could have drastically changed the sources we continue to use. Without the preservationist impulse of collectors, the surviving manuscripts may have well disappeared into tailor and cobbler shops, never to be seen again.

More than just a story of loss and destruction, the dissolution is also the story of efforts, both big and small, collective and individual, to preserve a country’s heritage in a time of great change and uncertainty.

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Raphaëlle Goyeau, PhD Student, University of East Anglia, School of Literature, Drama, and Creative Writing (LDC)., University of East Anglia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Last week, quantum computers were added to Australia’s Defence and Strategic Goods List of controlled items facing export restrictions. That’s because quantum technologies – which may soon provide huge advances in computing, communication and sensing – are rapidly growing in strategic importance.

The AUKUS partnership between Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom includes arrangements for sharing quantum technologies. Last year, Australia and the UK agreed to cooperate on quantum by sharing research and expertise and encouraging investment. A similar arrangement was signed with the US in 2021.

Governments and businesses are jostling for economic, strategic and defensive advantage. Nobody knows which approaches to the technology will prove successful, nor which countries will come out ahead.

Despite this uncertainty, Australia needs to make decisions about investment and regulation or risk being left behind. We think the best way to do this is by creating an accord between government, private industry, tech workers and researchers to create consensus on the best way forward.

A controversial investment

In April, the federal and Queensland governments invested A$466 million each in a US company called PsiQuantum, which is aiming to build “the world’s first useful quantum computer”. The deal was widely criticised for a lack of transparency and for bypassing Australian companies.

Investing in quantum technology is highly uncertain and complex. Researchers around the globe are making rapid progress, and calls for countries to develop their own sovereign capability are growing louder. At the same time, there is no shortage of hype from companies and researchers promoting their own work.

Giant companies such as Google, IBM, Microsoft and AWS are sometimes seen as “leaders” in quantum tech, but there are many other players in the field.

Several are based in Australia. These include research institutions as well as companies such as Quintessence Labs, Diraq, Quantum Brilliance, Silicon Quantum Computing and Nomad Atomics.

Last year, our government published a national quantum strategy, but it’s unclear how it should be implemented in the current messy environment, even with CSIRO’s roadmap.

In April, the University of Sydney was awarded A$18.4 million to set up Quantum Australia to be the “single front door” for quantum in Australia. Quantum Australia is in its infancy and it’s still unclear what its governance capacity will be.

More broadly, tech policy researchers have called for a more coordinated and regulated national approach to technology policy.

Is it time for a national accord on quantum?

Other countries are taking a much stronger approach to quantum coordination and cooperation.

In Europe, the Quantum Flagship establishes a working agreement between industry, governments and academia. In the US, QED-C established a consortium of stakeholders from government, academia, and industry to “identify gaps in technology, standards, and workforce and to address those gaps through collaboration”. In the UK, the National Quantum Computing Centre brings together businesses, the research community and government to enable the UK to secure a competitive position in the quantum industry.

What might this kind of coordination look like in Australia? We think it might look like an accord: a structured and formal mechanism for articulating a range of different agendas.

Our research looked at quantum tech arrangements in Australia, the UK, the US, India and the EU. We found examples of inclusive, structured, formal arrangements that feature government, private industry, industry leaders, academic bodies and academic researchers.

Europe has the most complex and far-reaching governance structure with its Quantum Flagship. We think an Australian accord needs to include representatives of the tech workforce too.

In the 1980s, Australia’s Prices and Incomes Accord famously forged a “working partnership” between government, employers and unions. It came at a time of economic uncertainty in Australia as market liberalism was sweeping through the English-speaking world.

Could a quantum accord achieve a similar consensus today?

Why an accord?

Technological innovation and sovereign capability are key pillars of the government’s Future Made in Australia funding and reform package. This ambitious agenda will require commitment, coordination and leadership.

At present, government, local companies and local researchers are divided on the best way forward for quantum tech in Australia. A quantum tech accord could help address these conflicts. It could also help soothe tensions between the short-term interests of individuals and organisations and the long-term interests of the nation.

An accord could be a structured and consensus-building way to approach contested ideas about innovation, ethics, sovereignty, competitive advantage, regulation and skills. It could also help the Australian public better understand quantum technologies and the importance of domestic investment in these technologies, given there is little current understanding.

A practical mechanism for facing uncertainty

It is not easy to govern in the face of uncertain technological advancements and innovation. There may be no “right answers” to many decisions.

The advantage of a quantum tech accord is that it represents a practical mechanism pursued within economic, geopolitical and security constraints. It could provide an overarching governance structure and framework for coordinated policy and regulatory decision-making that favours consensus over seeming big-dog-eat-little-dog deals.

A quantum tech accord could embed Australia’s democratic values and governance into its purpose, terms and frameworks. This would also serve to establish a foundation for the ethical and responsible use of quantum technologies in the future.

Successive governments have committed billions to growing Australian quantum technology and fostering innovation. As a result of decades of sustained investment and funding of research and education, Australia’s growing quantum industry is up there with the best in the world.

Science and Industry minister Ed Husic has said the government does not want to repeat the mistakes of the past and miss the quantum wave. Maybe a quantum tech accord is an option to find a practical way forward.

The authors would like to thank UNSW Allens Hub Scholar Sally Song and UNSW Allens Hub Research Officer Jennifer Westmorland for their research assistance.

Susanne Lloyd-Jones, Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre Post Doctoral Fellow, UNSW Sydney and Kayleen Manwaring, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law & Justice, UNSW Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Ecology has always fascinated Australian artists. Think of landscape painters like Arthur Boyd (1920–99), who was inspired by nature and committed his career and legacy to protecting it.

Boyd spent the latter part of his life painting the Shoalhaven River at Bundanon, New South Wales. The use of the land along the river for agriculture was causing erosion, disturbing soil, plant and animal life. With increased tourism and intensified use of the river, Boyd feared further destruction, and so Boyd and his wife bought land along the river during the 1970s – gifting it to the Australian people in 1993.

Since scientific studies began showing the undeniable human impacts on the climate, ecology and art have been brought together in new and urgent ways.

Ecological art can communicate the results of scientific studies, create opportunities for community-based interventions, and can even function in their own right as restorations of ecological systems.

Ecology and art

If you have ever enjoyed Sydney Park you were visiting the integrated environmental artwork Water Falls by Jennifer Turpin and Michaelie Crawford.

Water Falls consists of two sets of terracotta troughs, arranged in dramatic zig-zagging lines. As part of a constructed wetland ecosystem, the artwork harvests stormwater from the surrounding streets, preventing flooding and providing habitat for native animals. It is experienced as the rhythmic sight and sound of falling water. Ecology as art.

Ecological artists deal with the politics, language, culture, economics, ethics and aesthetics of ecology in ways that scientists sometimes fall short.

In 2012 and 2021, Tega Brain engineered an artificial wetland system which could also wash dirty clothes. Coin Operated Wetland shows how water, although often made invisible by the urban life it sustains, is always circulating and part of us and our cities.

Many First Nations artists have pointed out the entanglements of language and Country with ecological knowledge.

Quandamooka Artist Megan Cope makes sculptural installations that engage with local ecological systems. In her work Kinyingarra Guwinyanba (“a place of oysters”, 2022), she plants sea gardens with oysters to create “a living, generative land and sea artwork that demonstrates how art can physically heal country”.

Ecological art brings scientific language into the gallery and into our conversations. Using language in different ways can be a way of rethinking human relationships to land, water and atmosphere.

Topographies

There are currently two exhibitions in Sydney showcasing interdisciplinary research on climate change communicated in artistic ways.

Topographies at the Sydney College of the Arts engages with topography: the study of the forms and features of land surface. Curator Vicky Browne describes topographies here as “the process of marking out the shape of the world”.

Magnetic Topographies, an artist collective who are featured in the exhibition were in residence in Bundanon in 2023. They extend topographic research to “avian navigations”, “earthly togetherness” and “repellent terrain”.

Biljana Novakovic’s Listen for the Beginning (2024) is an enormous piece of light blue fabric is embroidered with coloured words and phrases layered over one another, an interpretation of Gooliyari, known as Cooks River, Sydney, and sometimes as Australia’s sickest urban river.

Ben Denham’s work A Topography of Air (2024) is a collection of multisensory ecological communications and interventions. Custom electronics, barometric pressure sensors, modular synthesisers and wooden boxes are combined with dried native grasses and “the atmosphere”. We feel as though we are in a laboratory – but we are not quite sure of the experiment, or what is being measured.

Alongside this work is another piece by Denham. Generalised Diagram (2024) employs the visual language of science in the form of a flow chart, black lines on a white page, pinned to the wall, showing feedback loops between oscillators, amplifiers, bodies, politics and the atmosphere.

Denham’s sculpture and flow chart work together to explain how to understand features on maps, in graphs, and in the terrain in sensory ways. “We see the visual form on a map, we feel pressure gradients on our skin,” Denham explains.

Living Water

At the University of New South Wales Library, Living Water celebrates 75 years of water research from faculties and institutions across NSW.

The River Ends at the Ocean is a collaborative project engaging with diverse knowledge about Gooliyari.

In 2021, Aunty Rhonda Dixon-Grovenor, Astrida Neimanis and Clare Britton led a group of approximately 60 walkers along the concreted banks, restored edges, and straightened channels of the estuary, following the tide out to Kyeemagh Beach.

At the entrance to the exhibition, a film of the walk by Aunty Rhonda Dixon-Grovenor layers over a flowing sketch by Britton of the Cooks River and its tributaries.

The drawing is based on the Cooks River Environment Survey and Landscape Design: Report of the Cooks River Project (1976) and helps us understand how the river catchment, and ecological knowledge about it, has changed over time.

Another collaborative creative work, Rippon Lea Water Story, (2023) explores waters, memory, plant and animal life, and infrastructure at Rippon Lea, a colonial estate in Melbourne on Boon Wurrung Country.

In the dark space of the gallery, we are asked to listen deeply to the sounds of Melbourne’s subterranean waterways, recorded with specialist microphones called hydrophones. These underwater microphones were developed by scientists to record biotic, abiotic and anthropogenic sounds in marine environments.

Here, these recordings allow us to hear the sounds of water flowing underneath the concrete surfaces of the city.

Moving forward with art and science

Visual artists synthesise and represent different types of knowledge and language.

The exhibitions are bringing new audiences to ecological science and developing understandings needed to convince people and organisations to take action on climate change.

Alexandra Crosby, Associate Professor, School of Design, University of Technology Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The internet has been buzzing with rumours of a possible Oasis reunion, with the release of a cryptic post on the band’s X account that features only the date of of August 27 2024 at 8am, in the band’s iconic logo font.

It was announced today the band will be reuniting for performances throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland in 2025.

Oasis were one of the biggest English rock bands in the 1990s and into the 2000s, essential to the Britpop movement, alongside bands such as Blur, Pulp, Supergrass and Suede. England’s answer to the grunge scene coming out of America at the time, Britpop was a brighter take on the rock genre, with catchy tunes and lyrics that often critiqued British culture.

Oasis were known for hit singles, with 1995’s Wonderwall perhaps their most enduring. The band has sold more than 70 million records, had 22 top 10 hits in the United Kingdom, and were one of the only Britpop bands to crack the United States.

But alongside their music, they were just as well known for drama between the two brothers, lead singer Liam Gallagher and lead guitarist Noel Gallagher.

The band haven’t played together since 2009. Like many moments in the band’s history, their last performance – or lack of one – was particularly dramatic.

The band was scheduled to play at V Festival, in the English city of Chelmsford, which was cancelled due to Liam’s bout of laryngitis.

Later, Noel claimed Liam was actually just hungover, prompting a defamation lawsuit between the brothers that was eventually dropped.

Their final show was to be at the 2009 Rock en Seine festival in Paris. But before the band played, they cancelled the performance.

Noel then made the infamous post on the band’s website that confirmed the breakup of the group:

It’s with some sadness and great relief to tell you that I quit Oasis tonight. People will write and say what they like but I simply could not go on working with Liam a day longer.

The two brothers then pursued other projects – Liam’s band Beady Eye, and Noel’s High-Flying Birds – and there has been a long-running, very public animosity between the pair, who have repeatedly said the band was never getting back together.

But fans still held out hope the brothers would find a way to reconcile and reform Oasis. Now, 15 years after they broke up, fans will get the chance to see them perform together again.

If you’ve only heard Wonderwall and are curious what the fuss is all about, here are a few Oasis singles (and B-sides) from their discography that Definitely Maybe might make you a fan, in no particular order.

Supersonic

Supersonic, Oasis’ first single, peaked at 33 on the UK singles chart. Technically only supposed to be a demo and apparently written by Noel in around half an hour, Supersonic shows the band’s ability to rock from the first buzzy guitar slide.

Roll With It

Roll With It was an important song not just for the band, but for Britpop.

Blur and Oasis released singles on the same day in 1995. Dubbed “the battle of Britpop” by the press, Oasis lost the number-one spot to Blur’s Country House. But Roll With It is still a really catchy song that combines glam with the melodic and harmonic influence of the Beatles.

Don’t Look Back in Anger

A UK number-one single, Don’t Look Back in Anger is one of Oasis’ most beautiful songs. They wear their love of the Beatles on their sleeve here with the opening chords sounding like John Lennon’s Imagine and the video clip with their mop tops and coloured glasses.

It’s not just a pastiche. Oasis put their own spin on classic 1960s pop, with chiming guitars, a winding chord progression, a classic, melodic guitar solo, and some surprisingly charming lyrics.

Whatever

Whatever was a stopgap single to tide the band over between albums. It is an overlooked gem, and one of their very best Beatles-esque tunes, with a gorgeous string quartet and a lyric insisting we should all be free to be ourselves.

The Masterplan

A B-side to Wonderwall – a tough act to follow! – The Masterplan really showed what the band was capable of, both instrumentally and harmonically.

The use of dynamics works so well in this song. It starts out very small, and becomes a swell of textures with big horns, lush strings, keyboards, guitars and more.

Stop Crying Your Heart Out

Stop Crying your Heart Out is a surprisingly sweet ballad about resilience and hope for the future.

Oasis lyrics could be abstract, or at other times incredibly simple, succinct and clear. This is an example of the latter. The grain of Liam’s voice and the grandeur of the lush arrangement makes for a beautiful track.

Half the World Away

Half the World Away was a B-side to Whatever, and is in contrast with the lush arrangement of strings and keys on the A-side. Sung by Noel, the song is quiet, acoustic and surprisingly poignant.

Lyla

Lyla is a later-era single. It combines the pop catchiness of a love song with psychedelic touches that really work.

Perhaps the cleverest moment is the changing of time signature during the chorus – it might make it hard to dance in time, but it really works as a fun musical moment that doesn’t happen often in Oasis songs.

Who Feels Love

Who Feels Love is Oasis at their dreamy and psychedelic best – a groovy half-time beat, lots of backwards swirling guitars, and a drone that really makes you want to sway. A modern take on 1960s rock.

Live Forever

The early single Live Forever has become one of Oasis’ most iconic songs.

Written in contrast to the grunge and alternative movements in the US at the time, the song acknowledges the bad times (“Did you ever feel the pain, in the morning rain, as it soaks you to the bone?”), but also has a sense of hope: “We see things they’ll never see – you and I are gonna live forever”.

Jadey O'Regan, Lecturer in Contemporary Music, Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Co-author of "Hooks in Popular Music" (2022), University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

He lived and died more than 2,000 years ago but Hannibal is remembered as one of history’s most formidable military commanders and as “Rome’s greatest enemy”.

His daring crossing of the Alps, with an army that included war elephants, shines as evidence to his tactical brilliance.

The Carthaginian general’s innovative military strategies in his struggle against Rome give us a glimpse into why his fame endures.

An early hostility toward Rome

Hannibal Barca was born in 247 BCE in Carthage, an ancient city in Northern Africa, in what is now Tunisia.

His father is credited with instilling in Hannibal a hostility towards Rome, a deep-seated drive that would shape much of his military career.

Hannibal’s leadership qualities and the understanding of military tactics were honed through his experiences in the Carthaginian army.

Hannibal first came into prominence in 219 BCE when the Carthaginian army under his command attacked the city of Saguntum (in modern Spain), triggering the Second Punic War with Rome.

Then came his cunning stratagem that brought his army into Italy all the way from Spain. Hannibal led his troops through the Alps in 218 BCE, catching the Romans off guard.

What’s more, he brought a contingent of war elephants ready for battle.

These elephants were trained to instil fear in the enemy during combat.

In the series of battles with the Romans, Hannibal proved he was capable of undertaking seemingly impossible feats to achieve strategic advantages.

In the Battle of the Trebia (218 BCE) Hannibal lured the Romans into an ambush on the Trebia River.

More victories soon followed. In both the Battle of Lake Trasimene and the Battle of Cannae Hannibal’s army inflicted devastating casualties on the significantly larger Roman forces.

Hannibal’s threat to Rome stemmed from his innovative tactics, psychological warfare, and his ability to exploit Roman leadership’s overconfidence, their rigid adherence to established war tactics, and their initial tendency to underestimate the power and speed of Hannibal’s cavalry.

Hannibal forced Rome to rethink its military strategies and adapt in ways that would ultimately shape the future of the Roman Empire.

Master of strategy

Hannibal’s tactical acumen was unparalleled. He consistently outmanoeuvred Roman armies, employing strategies that took advantage of the terrain and the element of surprise.

His victory at the Battle of Cannae (216 BCE) is illustrative of his tactical genius.

By executing a double envelopment manoeuvre, Hannibal managed to encircle and annihilate the Romans. Hannibal’s clever use of the cavalry allowed him to outflank the Roman infantry.

A year later, he adapted his strategy to a different terrain and used the fog at the Battle of Lake Trasimene to conceal his troops. The effect was a devastating ambush of the Romans.

The news of massive casualties delivered a profound psychological blow to Rome.

Psychological warfare

Hannibal understood the power of psychological warfare.

He knew fear undermined the confidence of Roman soldiers and their leaders.

The phrase “Hannibal is at the gates” became a Roman proverb, reflecting the pervasive horror he instilled in his opponents.

Hannibal’s use of psychological strategies extended to his own troops as well.

To maintain high morale and discipline he ensured his soldiers were well fed and shared in their hardships, sleeping on the ground wrapped in a blanket.

His leadership proved inspirational.

Exploiting Roman weaknesses

Hannibal was adept at identifying the weaknesses in Roman military and political structures. The Roman practice of alternating command between two consuls proved to be a vulnerability that Hannibal exploited.

On several occasions, he timed his attacks to coincide with the consulship of less experienced in command, leading to disastrous defeats for Rome.

Hannibal employed spies and gathered intelligence paid for by silver from Carthaginian-controlled mines in Spain. The information allowed him to anticipate Roman movements and counter their strategies.

Hannibal’s campaigns had lasting effects on Rome. His prolonged presence in Italy, despite never capturing Rome itself, forced the Romans to adapt their military strategies and organisation of their armies.

The Roman military became more flexible and began to place greater emphasis on cavalry and intelligence gathering. They learned from the very tactics that had caused them so much trouble. This led to Rome’s eventual victory in the Second Punic War.

Hannibal’s legacy

Hannibal’s legacy extends beyond his immediate impact on Rome. His military strategies and tactics continue to be studied in military academies around the world.

His ability to conduct successful campaigns with limited resources and his innovative use of terrain and psychological warfare remain relevant for military leaders today.

Commanders such as Julius Caesar, Napoleon, and George S. Patton drew inspiration from Hannibal’s methods, demonstrating the timeless nature of his military genius.

Hannibal’s downfall

Despite his victories against the Romans, Hannibal did not conquer the city of Rome, allowing the Romans to regroup. His position was weakened because his troops lacked reinforcements and supplies from Carthage.

When the Romans adopted a strategy of attrition, avoiding large-scale battles with the Carthaginian general, Hannibal’s army was cut off from supply lines.

At the Battle of Zama in modern-day Tunisia (in 202 BCE) Hannibal was defeated by the young Roman general Scipio Africanus. Scipio used Hannibal’s own tactics against him, marking the end of the Second Punic War.

Hannibal’s career never recovered. Hannibal took his own life in 183 BCE to avoid capture by the Romans.

A long legacy

Hannibal remains a towering figure in military history, not only for his bold campaigns and tactical brilliance but also for his ability to challenge and adapt to the formidable Roman war machine.

His fame as a master strategist continues to captivate and inspire today.

Darius von Guttner Sporzynski, Historian, Australian Catholic University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Wine is the most popular alcoholic drink in Australia. We have more than 2,100 local wineries, as well as copious amounts of imported wines. With so much to choose from – and prices ranging from less than $5 to more than $1,000 – even wine aficionados can sometimes struggle to pick a bottle.

Is a $1,000 bottle of wine 200 times “better” than a $5 bottle? Ultimately, our enjoyment of wine is based on our personal taste (literally). But unless you have the opportunity to taste before you buy, you have to look for other quality cues.

A consumer making a wine purchase may consider a number of factors such as brand reputation, reviews/ratings (including recommendations from friends), taste (such as grape variety, flavour and sweetness preference), occasion, price, and the appeal of the label, packaging or name.

Alongside this, wineries and liquor retailers also proactively market their wines by displaying high scores from wine reviews and wine show results. But how valuable are these reviews and results, really?

The (many) ways of reviewing wine

First, what qualifies someone to be a wine reviewer? Although there are no specific qualifications, reviewers will typically have extensive training and experience in wine appreciation and/or winemaking.

Importantly, wine is generally rated based on its quality relative to other wines of the same grape variety and growing region. This means it is problematic to directly compare ratings across different wine varieties and regions.

Robert Parker, one of the world’s top wine critics, developed a 100-point rating system for wine. While variants exist, the 100-point scale typically starts at 50, with points awarded for colour (5 points max), aroma/bouquet (15 points), flavour/finish (20 points) and overall quality (10 points).

In Australia, James Halliday is a legend of the wine industry and founder of the Halliday Wine Companion, which provides tasting notes, ratings based on Halliday’s own version of the 100-point system, winery ratings and annual awards.

Similarly, the internationally acclaimed Huon Hooke and Bob Campbell (one of few to hold the prestigious Master of Wine qualification) provide The Real Review, which offers wine reviews, ratings, an annual “top wineries” ranking and a “wine classification” system for Australian and New Zealand wines.

Wineries can submit wines to Wine Companion and The Real Review to be reviewed for free. However, the wineries don’t automatically own these reviews, and any subsequent usage by wineries of those reviews for marketing requires a Wine Companion or The Real Review winery membership.

Another Australian-based wine reviewing organisation is Wine Pilot, founded by Angus Hughson. Wine Pilot charges $70 (plus GST) for an individual review, after which the winery can use the review for marketing for free. Similarly, Sam Kim’s New Zealand-based Wine Orbit charges $30 per bottle to review Australian wine, after which the review can be used for marketing.

There are differing views as to whether an upfront fee for a wine review is appropriate – as well as how this compares to offering free reviews and then subsequently charging wineries annual memberships for their use.

So, are wine reviews ‘independent’?

This is a question readers will need to judge for themselves.

Stories abound regarding the independence of reviewers and whether they have a vested financial interest in giving high reviews. If a reviewer gives a winery poor reviews, that winery may no longer come to them (and no longer pay them). At the same time the reviewer has their own integrity to consider.

The Conversation reached out to Sam Kim, who said his $30 flat fee helped in running his small business – and that doing the work for free simply wasn’t viable.

As to whether this affected his impartiality, he said: “I would like to say ‘no’, but it’s not up to me to judge. Consumers will ultimately decide that. And given I have been around a while, perhaps I’m doing okay much of the time.”

Wine Pilot’s Angus Hughson said there was “potential for a number of factors to influence reviews by wine communicators”, including close personal relationships developed with wine makers as a result of their work.

He said wine reviewing ultimately comes down to personal integrity, and that writers who inflated scores to be more widely quoted and/or recognised risked damaging their brand, thereby “eroding their influence in the long term.”

Halliday Managing Director Jacinta Hardie-Grant said Wine Companion’s subscription model for marketing did not influence the impartiality of reviews and that the various tasters do not know whether the winery behind a tasting submission has a subscription or not.

The Real Review did not respond before deadline.

Not an exact science

Let’s now consider wine shows and awards. There are some prestigious wine shows such as the London-based Decanter Awards, as well as various smaller shows.

Show operators typically charge wineries to enter their wines, so you really do “have to be in it to win it”. Some wineries choose not to enter, while others are renowned for repeat entries.

But there is a potential problem with the wine show process. Ideally, a rigid, scientific method would be used to determine the winners – but this is not always possible, or indeed practical.

Wine is judged “blind”, whereby judges are unaware of the brand. This is a positive. However, the judges will typically judge numerous wines, so the order of judging can affect the results, which is a negative.

Wine show results and awards also often compare across wine varieties and regions, or have a “Winery of the Year” award. These results and awards have their own sets of judging criteria and are often viewed with a level of scepticism.

Consumers should remember these results and awards, while they do have some science behind them, are subjective.

Trust your taste buds

Wine reviewers regularly release results of their wine review activities. My inbox subsequently gets bombarded by wineries promoting their winning wines, referring to reviews and award results.

But these reviews and results remain subjective. Just because one person likes a wine, that doesn’t mean someone else (you) will definitely like it!

Try before you buy is the ideal. On this front, your best options are to attend tastings offered at wine shops, visit winery cellar-doors, or buy wines by the glass at restaurants.

The next time you buy a bottle, you may still wish to refer to the reviews or award labels – but don’t break your bank over them.

Paul Chad, Lecturer, Faculty of Business and Law, School of Business, University of Wollongong, University of Wollongong

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Aging is a biological process that no one can avoid. Ideally, growing old should be a time to relax and enjoy the fruits of your labor. Aging also has a darker side, however, often linked to disease.

Every second, your cells perform billions of biochemical reactions that fuel essential functions for life, forming a highly interconnected metabolic network. This network enables cells to grow, proliferate and repair themselves, and its disruption can drive the aging process.

But does aging cause metabolic decline, or does metabolic disruption accelerate aging? Or both?

To address this chicken-or-egg question, you first need to understand how metabolic processes break down during aging and disease. I am a scientist and researcher, and my lab focuses on exploring the complex relationship between metabolism, stress and aging. Ultimately, we hope this work will provide strategies to promote healthier aging and more vibrant lives.

Link between metabolism and aging

Aging is the most significant risk factor for many of society’s most common diseases, including diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease and neurodegenerative disorders. A key factor behind the onset of these health issues is the disruption of cellular and metabolic homeostasis, or balance. Disrupting homeostasis destabilizes the body’s internal environment, leading to imbalances that can trigger a cascade of health issues, including metabolic disorders, chronic diseases and impaired cellular functions that contribute to aging and other serious conditions.

Disrupted metabolism is linked to many hallmarks of aging cells, such as telomere shortening, which is damage to the protective ends of chromosomes, and genomic instability, the tendency to form genetic mutations.

A dysfunctional metabolism is also linked to poorly functioning mitochondria; cellular senescence, or when cells stop dividing; imbalances in gut microbes; and cells’ reduced ability to detect and respond to different nutrients.

Neurological disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease, are prime examples of age-related conditions with a strong link between dysregulated metabolism and functional decline. For example, my research team previously discovered that in aging mice, the ability of bone marrow cells to produce, store and use energy is suppressed due to increased activity from a protein that modulates inflammation. This energy-deficient state leads to an increase in inflammation that’s worsened by these aging cells’ reliance on glucose as their main fuel source.

Experimentally inhibiting this protein in the bone marrow cells of aging mice, however, revitalizes the cells’ ability to produce energy, reduces inflammation and improves plasticity of an area of the brain involved in memory. This finding suggests that some cognitive aging could be reversed by reprogramming the glucose metabolism of bone marrow cells to restore immune functions.

Repurposing drugs to treat Alzheimer’s

In our newly published research, my team and I discovered a new connection between disrupted glucose metabolism and neurodegenerative disease. This led us to identify a drug originally designed for cancer that could potentially be used to treat Alzheimer’s.

We focused on an enzyme called IDO1 that plays a critical role in the first step of breaking down amino acid tryptophan. This pathway produces a key compound called kynurenine, which fuels additional energy pathways and inflammatory responses. However, excessive kynurenine can have detrimental effects, including increasing the risk of developing Alzheimer’s.

We found that inhibiting IDO1 can recover memory and brain function in a range of preclinical models, including in cell cultures and mice. To understand why, we looked at the metabolism of brain cells. The brain is one of the most glucose-dependent tissues in the body. An inability to properly use glucose to fuel critical brain processes can lead to metabolic and cognitive decline.

High levels of IDO1 reduce glucose metabolism by producing excess kynurenine. So IDO1 inhibitors – originally designed to treat cancers such as melanoma, leukemia and breast cancer – could be repurposed to reduce kynurenine and improve brain function.

Using a range of lab models, including mice and cells from Alzheimer’s patients, we also found that IDO1 inhibitors can restore glucose metabolism in brain cells. Furthermore, we were able to restore glucose metabolism in mice with both amyloid and tau accumulation – abnormal proteins involved in many neurodegenerative disorders – by blocking IDO1. We believe repurposing these inhibitors could be beneficial across various neurodegenerative disorders.

Promoting healthier cognitive aging

The effects of neurological disorders and metabolic decline weigh heavily on individuals, families and the economy.

While many scientists have focused on targeting the downstream effects of these diseases, such as managing symptoms and slowing progression, treating these diseases earlier can improve cognition with aging. Our findings suggest that targeting metabolism has the potential to not only slow neurological decline but also to reverse the progression of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and dementia.

Discovering new insights at the intersection of stress, metabolism and aging can pave the way for healthier aging. More research can improve our understanding of how metabolism affects stress responses and cellular balance throughout life.

Melanie R. McReynolds, Assistant Professor of Biochemistry, Penn State

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Eating the seaweed Ecklonia cava may be able to slow down or prevent Parkinson’s disease, according to a 2024 study.

Researchers found that antioxidants in the seaweed – which is often used in soups and salads in Asian cuisine – may protect our neurons from free radicals to prevent this debilitating disease.

Parkinson’s is a condition that affects the nervous system, causing symptoms like shaking, stiffness and difficulty moving. It happens when neurons that produce dopamine – a chemical that helps control movement – start to die off in the brain. While Parkinson’s is not itself fatal, it causes serious complications that can lead to death. Unfortunately, there is no cure yet.

But researchers have previously found links between dietary antioxidants and Parkinson’s prevention. For example, research has found that resveratrol – which is in many plants and fruits including red grapes, berries and peanuts – protected the neurons producing dopamine in the brain from death in several mouse models of Parkinson’s disease.

Ellagic acid, α-lipoic acid and myrtenal all improved learning and memory performance as well as neuromuscular coordination in mouse models of Parkinson’s. Ellagic acid is found in many fruits and vegetables including grapes, pomegranates, berries and nuts.

Myrtenal is found in various plants, such as hyssop and sage. And α-lipoic acid is found in red meat, spinach and broccoli.

Several studies have suggested that drinking tea can help prevent Parkinson’s disease. Although we don’t really know how it works, some research suggests it is due to the antioxidants that tea contains.

Fighting free radicals

Our body produces harmful free radicals in response to environmental insults such as ultraviolet rays and air pollution. Free radicals are also a natural byproduct of normal processes in cells.

Antioxidants are like bodyguards, protecting cells from the damage caused by free radicals. Our body naturally produces antioxidants but some foods, like Ecklonia cava, are rich in antioxidants and can supplement our naturally produced antioxidants to help our bodies battle free radical damage.

For the most recent study, based in Japan, researchers induced Parkinson’s disease in mice using the pesticide rotenone. Rotenone kills the neurons that produce dopamine in the brain, which causes the mice to develop a disease that looks like Parkinson’s, with similar symptoms, such as slower movement and impaired gastrointestinal motility (when there are problems moving food and waste through the digestive tract).

Once the researchers induced Parkinson’s in the mice, they fed some with antioxidants from Ecklonia cava and some with a regular diet. They found that the neurons producing dopamine in the brain of the mice fed with antioxidants seemed to be protected. Also, those mice had fewer Parkinson’s symptoms than the mice fed with the regular diet.

The researchers also looked at the effect of antioxidants in cells grown in a dish and exposed to rotenone. Rotenone increases the production of free radicals, killing the cells.

The researchers found that antioxidants decreased the production of free radicals induced by rotenone in the cells, preventing cell death. This research opens up the possibility of using Ecklonia cava polyphenols – plant compounds with antioxidant properties – to develop new treatments and prevention methods for Parkinson’s.

Lost in translation?

Unfortunately, results from studies on animal models and cells are not always translatable to humans. For example, despite the protective action of another antioxidant, vitamin C, found in cells and animal models to protect against Parkinson’s, it does not seem to have the same effect in humans.

This is because animal and cell models do not completely mimic Parkinson’s disease in humans. Animals have different brain structures and functions compared to humans, which means the way the disease develops and progresses can be different. On the other hand, cell models, even if researchers use human cells, lack complexity.

Swimming, sailing, even just building a sandcastle - the ocean benefits our physical and mental wellbeing. Curious about how a strong coastal connection helps drive marine conservation, scientists are diving in to investigate the power of blue health.

This article is part of a series, Vitamin Sea, exploring how the ocean can be enhanced by our interaction with it.

Parkinson’s disease affects the entire brain and body, involving many different types of cells and interactions. Cell models usually focus on a single type of cell, missing out on this complexity.

Parkinson’s disease develops over many years, with symptoms changing over time. Cell and animal models cannot easily replicate this long-term progression. For example, the maximum lifespan of most laboratory mice is two years, whereas Parkinson’s is thought to develop over decades.

In conclusion, robust large-scale clinical trials are needed to validate the efficacy of Ecklonia cava in preventing or slowing down Parkinson’s. However, because Ecklonia cava is already available in food supplements, it probably does no harm to take it on a regular basis.

Will it prevent you from getting Parkinson’s? Maybe, but so does regular exercise.

Marine Krzisch, Lecturer in Neuroscience, University of Leeds

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The federal government has committed to a national plan to ban children from social media.

Details are still scarce. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has acknowledged that “no government is going to be able to protect every child from every threat, but we have to do all we can”.

But banning children from social media isn’t going to fix the problem of online harms faced by young people – it’s only going to put the problem on pause. That’s because when children reach an age when they can use social media, they are still going to face many of the same issues.

The best way to help young people safely navigate social media is by improving their social media literacy.

What is social media literacy?

Social media literacy is about understanding and critically thinking about the content you see on social media – and why it’s there.

It’s about understanding that the images and videos which appear in your social media feed are not there by chance. They are there because of algorithms which use your personal data to better understand your interests and what kind of content you are more likely to engage with.

This is why everyone’s social media feeds are different.

We don’t know exactly how these algorithms work, because social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok keep them secret. However, some researchers are working to change this.

At the moment digital media literacy is sorely lacking around the world – even among younger generations who were born into the internet age and are prolific social media users.

I have witnessed this lack of knowledge at first hand. I recently gave a talk about social media to around 300 university students in Australia. Most of them had never heard about the algorithms that decide what they see on social media.

A message of empowerment

The lack of social media literacy reflects the broad lack of education in this space.

The minimal social media literacy education that is offered now is also quite negative and defensive. When I talk to young people, they say adults tell them all of the things they’re not supposed to do. For example, “don’t spend too long on social media, turn off your phone”.

This is reminiscent of how young people were once taught about sex. But that has started to change, and now there is more of a focus on teaching young people how to have sex safely and with consent.

A similar, more positive approach is needed to help young people use social media safely, manage the risks it entails and experience the benefits it offers.

This approach must be free of any judgement. It must treat technology in a much more multifaceted way which acknowledges both its pros and cons. And it must be grounded in a commitment to empower young people with the skills they need to participate safely in a digital world and better understand what’s happening behind their social media feeds.

Dedicated classes for children – and parents

There are some key steps schools can take to improve social media literacy among young people.

The complexity and size of the topic means specific classes should be dedicated to it. If it is integrated into the content of other subjects such as English or maths, it can easily get lost or be forgotten.

These classes should begin around the later primary school years, when most children are just about to get a phone. Their use of technology really changes around this period, and we need to train them up in social media literacy before they establish behaviours that will follow them into adulthood.

Alongside these classes for children, schools can also run social media literacy classes for parents, who often feel completely overwhelmed and disempowered when it comes to helping their children navigate social media.

Many schools already offer cyber safety talks for parents once a year. However, the content is quite repetitive and focused on the dangers of the internet. This is unhelpful for parents as well. When I speak to them, they tell me they often walk away from these classes feeling like the problem is too hard to fix.

Better educating parents about social media literacy and the positive uses of social media will help them help their children. Social media and the way we use it has many layers and therefore this education for parents needs to be informed by specialists from these many layers – such as data scientists, sociologists, marketers, videographers and human behaviour researchers.

But schools cannot do this important work alone. If the government really wants to do everything it can to keep kids safe online, it needs to do more than just ban them from social media.

It needs to help develop and fund better social media literacy programs.

Joanne Orlando, Researcher: Digital Literacy and Digital Wellbeing, Western Sydney University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

If you’ve ever opened the door to your child’s room only to be greeted by a sea of clothes, toys and who knows what else, you’re not alone.

Among countless reminders, pleading and threats, parents often find themselves in battle with their children when it comes to tidying up. For so many of us, it is an endless cycle of “try and let it go” and then “triggered and explode”. The ongoing conflict this creates can be stressful for everyone.

But you are not doomed to live with piles of Lego, collected sticks and stones – or rooms full of old food and unwashed dishes until your children leave home. There is a different way to approach this.

Why are children and teens messy?

There are developmental reasons for children being messy.

Children and teens don’t fully develop the part of their brain needed for high-level organisation until adulthood, and can be easily overwhelmed by a tidying job.

This should not get them off the hook, though. Practising organisation skills is great for the brain. Research shows helping with tidying up from as early as 18 months is associated with improved prosocial skills (the ability to work with others).

It can also be hard to keep a room tidy if children have too many toys in their room. This means they have to riffle through things or tip out toy baskets to find a toy. Too much choice can also lead children to quickly move from one toy or activity to the next.

Why you shouldn’t just clear it up yourself

As a parent we can get caught in a cycle of feeling overwhelmed and frustrated and become disconnected from our child’s perspective. For younger children, play is work – much of their learning happens as they play.

When we interrupt their play and tidy up their masterpiece, or throw out a special object, it can break trust and feel devastating for them.

For teenagers (and even younger children), having personal space is important to develop a healthy identity and sense of control in their world.

So when parents barge into their room and move their things, this can feel like a violation.

How can make tidying up easier?

• Make time to talk to your child about tidying up at a calm moment (when you’re not asking them to clean anything). Don’t make it a lecture – acknowledge how hard it is to keep their room tidy, ask for their ideas on what might help and decide together on a regular routine (perhaps they always give their room a quick tidy before TV, or it’s a job on a certain day). Discuss what could get in the way and how you will work together.

• Have fewer toys in your child’s room and a special place for these. This can make the room more appealing and organised, inspire play and creativity, and make tidying up easier.

• Notice moments when your children are doing any kind of cleaning up and acknowledge their efforts. Children love to feel noticed – we all do!

• Break the task down into smaller parts for older kids. For example, you could suggest, “what about packing all the Lego into that box” rather than just saying “clean up your room”.

• Be playful with younger children. Cleaning up can be a time for connection. Get them to find all the red toys first, then see how fast they can bring you any socks that need washing.

• Notice the emotions your child feels when you are asking them to tidy up. See these emotions as an opportunity for connection and guidance. For example, “It’s hard to clean up this amazing fort, you worked so hard on this. I love how cosy it is”. And name emotions as you go. For example, “It’s overwhelming when there is so much to clean. Are you worried about where to start?” Or problem solve together: “What could we clean up first?”

• With teenagers, use single word reminders, starting with just one thing that needs cleaning (for example, “washing?” Or “plates?”). Single word reminders allow a teen to save face and prevent battles. Watch your tone of voice and body language – try to stay warm, firm and kind.

Elizabeth Westrupp, Associate Professor in Psychology, Deakin University; Christiane Kehoe, Research manager and program specialist Tuning in to Kids, The University of Melbourne, and Gabriella King, Associate Research Fellow, School of Psychology, Deakin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Top economists are unanimous in believing Australia’s housing market is in crisis.

Offered a choice of 14 measures identified by the Economic Society of Australia as likely to restrain prices for buyers and renters, none of the 49 leading economists polled picked: “do nothing, the market will determine appropriate prices”.

The economists chosen for the poll are from a panel of about 70 experts in fields including macroeconomics, economic modelling, housing and labour markets, maintained by the society since 2015.

Among them are former heads of government agencies, a former Reserve Bank board member, and former Treasury, International Monetary Fund and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development officials.

Two-thirds back public housing, planning reform

About two-thirds of the experts polled picked “ease planning restrictions” as one of the most important fixes. Almost as many picked “provide more public housing”.

About one-third wanted to “tighten negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions”, which was a policy Labor took to the 2019 election. Another third wanted to “replace stamp duty with land tax applying to family homes”.

Also popular were removing barriers to building prefabricated homes (31%), fast-tracking the training of home builders (18%) and fast-tracking the immigration of home builders (14%).

Ten per cent of those surveyed wanted to include the family home in the age pension assets test, 8% wanted to remove first homeowner grants and concessions, and 6% wanted to apply capital gains tax to family homes, the same proportion that wanted to restrain immigration.

Only one of the panellists surveyed wanted to provide more direct assistance to first homebuyers, and only one wanted to allow first homebuyers to access their superannuation savings.

Australia’s median house-price-to-income ratio has soared in the past two decades, climbing from about five years of gross household income to eight.

At the same time, the median time taken to save for a deposit has climbed from about seven years to ten.

Rents have also been soaring, although only in the past few years. Rental vacancy rates have fallen to all-time lows.

Asked whether it was more important to restrain rents or home prices, a majority of those surveyed (58%) backed action to restrain rents, although several said action to restrain prices would flow through to rents.

Tax empty homes to boost supply

Thirty-two of the 48 experts wanted planning restrictions relaxed in order to make it easier to build more new homes where people needed them, some mentioning the “excessive power” of NIMBYs – residents who say “not in my backyard” when confronted with plans to build in their neighbourhoods.

Several acknowledged this wouldn’t be enough without the ability to build homes quickly. The Australian National University’s Alison Booth said the building industry was old-fashioned and resistant to prefabricated construction.

Others wanted to boost supply by making more existing homes available. University of Canberra economist Uwe Dulleck suggested taxing empty homes.

He said several European cities more heavily taxed apartments and apartments that were not used as permanent residences. The tax could boost supply and affordability.

Former Productivity Commission economist Jenny Gordon said a tax on the unimproved value of land could have a similar effect, and would also encourage downsizers to sell and subdivide large blocks.

Former OECD official Adrian Blundell-Wignall proposed severe limits on the letting out of homes through Airbnb-style arrangements, although he doubted governments would have the courage.

More to it than supply?

Housing specialist Peter Abelson sounded a note of caution about the prevailing wisdom that houses haven’t been built quickly enough, noting that between 2003 and 2022 Australia’s housing stock climbed by 4% more than its population.

Julie Toth, chief economist at the online property settlement firm PEXA, said while 11 million homes for 27 million Australians sounded enough, there had been a long-term decline in average household size even as the homes themselves grew bigger.

One hundred years ago, the average Australian home housed 4.5 people; 30 years ago it housed 2.8, and in 2024 just 2.45.

Reserve Bank calculations suggested that if we reverted to 2.8 Australians per home we would require 1.2 million fewer homes.

No grants, no concessions for buyers

With the exception of measures to help low-income renters, the panel was overwhelmingly against subsidies for Australians trying to get into housing.

John Freebairn from The University of Melbourne said accommodation was “just one of life’s necessities, along with food and clothing”.

Sensibly, there were no or minimal subsidies for food and clothing, and that should be the case for housing. The best way to help Australians who needed help was by boosting their income.

Selective support for home buyers helped those who got it, but pushed up prices for everyone else.

Reboot public housing

Macquarie University economist Lisa Magnani says the proportion of households forced to rent rather than buy has climbed from 26% to 31% over the past 30 years, with many unable to easily afford the rent.

Whereas global cities – including Seattle, New York and Singapore – were attempting to aggressively lift the supply of low-income housing, Australia’s supply of affordable and public housing had been shrinking for decades.

Several panellists suggested the funds raised by restricting negative gearing and capital gains tax breaks be directed toward expanding public housing.

One, Ben Phillips of the Australian National University, cautioned that a massive public housing building program would come at the expense of private building. He said an alternative was to turn existing homes into public housing.

It was also important to boost payments such as JobSeeker and Youth Allowance to at least a basic level of adequacy. Government decisions over the past two budgets to boost rent assistance for welfare recipients by 25% were a good start.

Individual responses. Click to open:

Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Each year, temperature records are broken and extreme weather events strike. July 22, 2024 now marks the hottest day on record, surpassing the previous heat records set in 2023.

Extreme weather events are impacting many tourism hotspots, such as the recent Jasper wildfire, the April 2024 flooding of Dubai airport and the 2023 Maui wildfires. Yet tourism continues to grow, and travel levels are expected to surpass pre-pandemic levels shortly.

Climate change is an inseparable aspect of modern tourism. On the one hand, the key components of tourism — transportation, aviation in particular, as well as accommodation — are major contributors to carbon emissions. Aviation emissions alone account for an estimated eight to 10 per cent of overall greenhouse gas emissions.

But, in turn, climate change also poses increasing and severe risks to tourism businesses. Beach holidays are threatened by rising sea levels, ski resorts can no longer depend on snowfall and some tourism businesses risk becoming uninsurable.

Until recently, the response to the climate crisis has focused largely on climate action. This includes addressing the impacts of carbon emissions through mitigation (using technologies to prevent emissions) and adaptation (adjusting to climate change) in impacted areas.

However, our new report from The Travel Foundation argues the tourism industry needs to consider climate justice before undertaking any climate actions. We conducted in-depth interviews with a wide range of tourism experts to determine how the industry can play a role in a just transition.

Climate justice

The tourism industry’s engagement with climate justice is well overdue. The concept of climate justice first gained international recognition in 2000 when the first climate justice summit was held alongside COP 6 at the Hague.

Climate justice is an inclusive approach to climate action that centres the voices and needs of communities most impacted by climate change. Indigenous, Black and other marginalized communities are particularly vulnerable to the severe impacts of climate change.

As, Daniela Subtil, the network co-ordinator for Stay Grounded, a network of organizations promoting alternatives to aviation to address climate change, said:

“The impacts of the climate crisis that aviation contributes to are being felt… by marginalised, historically and systematically marginalised peoples. Yet there is a very tiny percentage of the world’s population flying.”

Climate justice recognizes that these communities often lack the resources needed to deal with the impacts of climate extremes. Despite contributing the least to the climate crisis, both historically and in the present, many of these communities — particularly across the Global South — are bearing the brunt of its consequences.

Our report highlights that low-income countries account for less than one per cent of travel and tourism emissions, but will suffer the most from climate change. Tourism emissions are disproportionately caused by a small percentage of the population that are primarily in the Global North.

A 2020 study, for instance, found that a small group of “super-emitters” — just one per cent of the population — were responsible for half of aviation’s carbon emissions in 2018.

A better approach to travel

Demands for climate justice are just as relevant to travellers as they are to the tourism industry. Whether it’s the need to better prepare for climate disasters at destinations or the potential increase in levies that the industry will pass onto consumers, travellers are not shielded from the effects of climate change.

Our report encourages a responsible approach to travel planning that urges travellers to take into account not only their carbon footprints, but also their broader impact on social justice.

This begins with recognizing the communities and environments impacted by tourists’ travel choices. Tourists should be aware that their presence may not be welcomed in communities dealing with climate change-related disasters.

A climate justice approach also normalizes the idea that tourism businesses can act as first responders in climate emergencies, bringing their skills and resources into action.

Climate justice tourism

There are already existing examples of tourism that better aligns with the principles of climate justice. Often it is Indigenous communities leading the way, from Traditional Owner communities in Australia to Indian Country in the United States.

For instance, Dreamtime Dive and Snorkel in Australia educates about the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage site, the impacts it faces from climate change and the Traditional Owners connected to the site.

Canada is also fortunate to be home to some unique examples of this type of tourism in action, including the Haida Gwaii archipelago off of the coast of British Columbia, which has always been home to the Haida Nation.

Given the islands’ distinctive natural and cultural beauties, Haida Gwaii has become a popular tourist destination. In an attempt to assert control over tourism to their homelands and ensure visitors are following a path of responsible tourism, the citizens of Haida Gwaii have initiated the Haida Gwaii Pledge.

The pledge asks tourists to understand the responsibility of care that Haida have for their place and people. It invites visitors to join them in this care and be respectful guests during their visit. This is one example of transforming tourism relations for justice. It will become increasingly needed as climate change impacts hit harder and harder.

Ultimately, climate justice is a critical issue for all of us. Recent events prompt us all to commit to climate action with concern for more just outcomes. This may also transform tourism for the better.

Jeremy Smith, a climate specialist for The Travel Foundation, co-authored this article.

Bobbie Chew Bigby, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Recreation and Leisure Studies, University of Waterloo and Freya Higgins-Desbiolles, Adjunct Professor / Adjunct Senior Lecturer in Tourism Management/, University of South Australia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Just three weeks ago, Reserve Bank Governor Michele Bullock declared interest rate cuts unlikely in the next six months. But if there was any doubt about what’s going to happen to global interest rates, the US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell removed it on Saturday.

Before an audience of central bankers from around the world (including the deputy governor of Australia’s Reserve Bank Andrew Hauser), Powell declared the long-awaited US rate cuts were about to begin.

“The time has come for policy to adjust,” Powell said, with a refreshing clarity that left no room for ambiguity.

“The direction of travel is clear, and the timing and pace of rate cuts will depend on incoming data, the evolving outlook, and the balance of risks.”

Rate cuts by the US Fed and other central banks will create a near-irresistible pressure for Australia’s Reserve Bank to follow.

My tip? Australians are likely to get a rate cut as soon as Melbourne Cup Day, Tuesday November 5. Here’s why.

What happens in the US will happen in Australia

When the US Fed’s rate-setting committee next meets on September 17 and 18, it looks certain to cut the US Federal Funds rate for the first time since it began lifting it in 2022.

The US would join the United Kingdom, China, Canada, New Zealand, Switzerland, Denmark, the European Union, and a host of other jurisdictions in cutting rates – some of them repeatedly – to shore up their economies.

Financial markets are pricing in the equivalent of four ordinary-size rate cuts in the US by the end of the year. Given the US Fed has only three meetings left this year, this implies they are expecting at least one cut to be a double.

Australia and the US aren’t that different

The US story, as Powell told it over the weekend, is also the Australian story.

Describing what he called the rise and fall of inflation in his speech, Powell explained inflation took off when consumer spending surged after the end of COVID restrictions.

The supply of goods was unable to keep pace at first, and consumers switched their spending to services.

Then Russia invaded Ukraine, ramping up energy and food prices and making high inflation a truly “global phenomenon”.

What brought inflation down from late 2022 was a return to normal in the supply of goods and food and energy, and restraint in consumer spending brought about by a series of aggressive interest rate hikes.

‘Anchored’ expectations of inflation

What has kept inflation falling without (so far) much damage to employment in the US has been surprisingly restrained inflation expectations.

If workers’ expectations about future inflation remain “anchored” to a figure that’s low, rather than soaring with actual inflation, they are likely to be modest in their wage demands and be more likely to keep their jobs.

But Powell said it had been “far from assured that the inflation anchor would hold”.

In Australia – as in the US, the UK, Canada and most of the rest of the world – inflation has trended down since late 2022. So just as in the US, our expectations have remained anchored.

Australians expect further falls

Each month, the Melbourne Institute surveys Australians about the inflation they expect in the year ahead. On two of the measures, the expectations are ultra-low.

One is the so-called weighted mean, which ignores answers of greater than 5% and less than zero (on the grounds they are unrealistic) and averages the rest.

It suggests we expect an inflation rate of 2.6%: right in the middle of the Reserve Bank’s target band and not outsized in any way whatsoever.

Another measure is called the non-rounded inflation expectation. This excludes round numbers greater than 10 on the theory that if someone gives an answer of 15% they are not serious, but if someone gives an answer of 14.9% they are.

This measure suggests an inflation rate of 3.1%: almost exactly at the top of the bank’s 2-3% target band, and again nothing to get alarmed about.

Room to cut rates

With US inflation well-anchored, Powell said the US Fed can safely cut interest rates to support the labour market, which is beginning to weaken, as ours is here in Australia, although more slowly.

Those are the parallels, and they are strong. So the arguments for cutting interest rates in the US apply here as well, even if the timing is different. Australia moved later than the US on the way up and will move later on the way down.

And there’s another reason to believe that the cuts about to be unleashed in the US will flow through to cuts here, probably quickly.

The Australian dollar jumped after Powell’s speech. When Powell actually cuts rates, the Australian dollar is likely to climb further.

This is because cuts in the US make the US a relatively less attractive place to hold money and Australia a relatively more attractive place.

Cuts in one country flow through to cuts in another

The more the Australian dollar climbs relative to the US dollar, the cheaper the imports that are priced in US dollars become – which is another way of saying the lower Australian inflation becomes.

It’s the same for other countries. Merely by cutting their own rates, the US and other countries will be easing inflation in Australia. The more they do it, the more Australian inflation will ease, building up a stronger and stronger case for our Reserve Bank to cut rates.

It’s why central banks tend to move rates together (albeit with delays). It’s why on Monday, Australian financial markets were pricing one interest rate cut by Christmas and a total of three by May.

Traders don’t believe Australia’s Reserve Bank Governor Michele Bullock when she said interest rate cuts were unlikely in the coming months. They think what happens overseas will happen here too.

Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were meant to go to the International Space Station (ISS) on a roughly ten-day mission. Instead, they have been “stuck” there since June, as the reliability of their spacecraft – Boeing Starliner – has not met NASA’s strict standards for crewed flight.

After two months of testing, NASA has now made the call that Starliner will return to Earth in September without astronauts aboard.

This will enable both NASA and Boeing to monitor the craft carefully as it separates from the ISS and makes its way home. Because human life is part of the equation, the data gathered from this flight will inform required changes for Starliner to be certified for crewed flight.

As for Wilmore and Williams, they will remain aboard the ISS until February 2025, replacing two of the upcoming Crew 9 astronauts.

With the ISS only operating for another 5–6 years, Boeing’s role in the program now remains unclear.

What is Starliner?

Boeing has been in partnership with NASA going all the way back to the beginning. From Mariner 10, to the Shuttle program, and the critical Saturn V rocket that took people to the Moon, the aerospace company has been a reliable and innovative player in the space sector.

So it’s no surprise that when NASA was looking for a small reusable spacecraft, Boeing’s Starliner design was an easy pick.

Over ten years, Starliner has faced issues getting off the ground. Setbacks are normal when developing new technology to meet NASA’s standards. However, software defects caused the first orbital test in 2019 to end without the uncrewed craft docking with the ISS.

It was deemed a partial success by Boeing, as the spacecraft was able to make a soft landing back on Earth. But the issues would have ultimately caused the destruction of the vehicle if they had not been caught and corrected.

A clear plan to address the issues was laid out, and another uncrewed test planned for 2020. However, the pandemic and even more problems, including a launch cancellation, pushed completion of this milestone to 2022.

Back to June 5 2024. After setbacks, mishaps and a launch delay, the Boeing Starliner Crewed Flight test finally launched aboard the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.

But as the spacecraft neared the moment of docking with the ISS, some of its thrusters were not performing as expected, and there were leaks in its helium system. Helium gas is critical to push propellant to the thrusters, so this was a concerning development.

The spacecraft was ultimately able to dock with the ISS and the astronauts safely disembarked.

The end of an era

When NASA decided to end the Space Shuttle program in 2011 due to the increasing resources required, it became dependent on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft to send astronauts to space.

While there were many factors that drove NASA to partner with private companies and commercial space organisations, the motivation for the commercial crew program was clear. NASA needed reliable transportation to continue to send astronauts to space from North America at a price it could afford.

This led to the Commercial Crew Program, with more than US$8 billion invested to develop, test and certify new transport vehicles.

While NASA has always used commercial contractors to build space technology, the agency has then gone on to operate it. What makes the commercial program different is that now companies are being trusted to operate the services as well.

Enter SpaceX Dragon and Boeing Starliner. Since 2010, each company has been awarded funding in different rounds to develop crew vehicles. In 2014, the largest amount of funding was split between the two companies, with Boeing receiving almost US$2 billion more than SpaceX.

The latter is now about to send their ninth crewed mission to the ISS (ten if you include the private flight), not including the numerous uncrewed resupply missions they have completed.

Where do we go from here?

While the future of Boeing’s Starliner remains unclear, one thing is certain. NASA is going all in to see human spaceflight go further than ever before.

Apart from SpaceX, companies like Blue Origin, Axiom Space, Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost and Voyager Space (just to name a few) have all received contracts from NASA to support the Artemis program, which aims to see humans walk on the Moon again by 2026 and to replace the International Space Station in 2030.

However, no matter how much money is invested, space is still hard. While NASA continues its ambitions for human space flight, we are still a long way from being an interplanetary species.

Rebecca Allen, Co Director Space Technology and Industry Institute, Swinburne University of Technology

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Most of the matter in the universe is missing. Scientists believe around 85% of the matter in the cosmos is made of invisible dark matter, which has only been detected indirectly by its gravitational effects on its surroundings.

My colleagues and I – a team of some 250 scientists from around the world working on a dark matter experiment called LUX-ZEPLIN (or LZ) – today report our latest findings from the long quest to discover exactly what this dark matter is made of.

We have not yet found the elusive particles we believe dark matter consists of, but we have set the tightest limits yet on their properties. We have also shown our detector is working as expected – and should produce even better results in the future.

Our results are reported today at the TeV Particle Astrophysics 2024 conference in Chicago and the LIDINE 2024 conference in São Paulo, Brazil. A journal paper will be submitted for peer review in the coming weeks.

What is dark matter?

When astronomers look at the universe, they see evidence that the visible matter of stars, gas and galaxies is not all there is. Many phenomena, such as how fast galaxies spin and the pattern of the residual glow of the Big Bang, can only be explained by the presence of large amounts of some invisible substance – dark matter.

So what is this dark matter made of? We currently don’t know of any kind of particle that could explain these astronomical observations.

There are dozens of theories that aim to explain dark matter observations, ranging from exotic unknown particles to tiny black holes or fundamental changes to our theory of gravity. However, none of them has yet been proven correct.

One of the most popular theories suggests dark matter is made up of so-called “weakly interacting massive particles” (or WIMPs). These relatively heavy particles could cause the observed gravitational effects and also – very rarely – interact with ordinary matter.

How would we know if this theory is correct? Well, we think these particles must be streaming through Earth all the time. For the most part, they will pass through without interacting with anything, but every so often a WIMP might crash directly into the nucleus of an atom – and these collisions are what we are trying to spot.

A big cold tank of liquid xenon

The LZ experiment is located in an old goldmine about 1,500 metres below ground in South Dakota in the US. Placing the experiment deep underground helps to cut out as much background radiation as possible.

The experiment consists of a large double-walled tank filled with seven tonnes of liquid xenon, a noble gas chilled down to a temperature of 175 kelvin (–98°C).

If a dark matter particle smacks into a xenon nucleus, it should give off a tiny flash of light. Our detector has 494 light sensors to detect these flashes.

Of course, dark matter particles aren’t the only things that can create these flashes. There is still some background radiation from the surroundings and even the materials of the tank and detectors themselves.

A big part of figuring out whether we are seeing signs of dark matter is disentangling this background radiation from anything more exotic. To do this, we make detailed simulations of the results we would expect to see with and without dark matter.

These simulations have been the focus of much of my part in the experiment, which began when I started my PhD in 2015. I also developed detector monitoring sensors and was responsible for the integration and commissioning of the central detector underground, which began collecting data in 2021.

Drawing the net tighter

Our latest results show no signs of dark matter. However, they let us rule out a lot of possibilities.

We found no traces of particles with masses above 1.6 × 10–26 kilograms, which is about ten times as heavy as a proton.

These results are based on 280 days’ worth of observations from the detector. Eventually, we aim to collect 1,000 days’ worth – which will let us search for even more elusive potential dark matter particles.

If we’re lucky, we might find dark matter turns up in the new data. If not, we have already begun to make plans for a next generation dark matter experiment. The XLZD (XENON-LUX-ZEPLIN-DARWIN) consortium is aiming to build a detector almost ten times bigger that would allow us to trawl through even more of the space where these ubiquitous yet elusive particles may be hiding.

Theresa Fruth, Lecturer in Physics, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

On Friday 23 August, a magnitude 4.8 earthquake near Muswellbrook, New South Wales, shook the state. The earthquake caused local damage and Geoscience Australia received more than 3,600 felt reports, including from Sydney and Canberra, up to 360 kilometres away.

Since then, there have been numerous aftershocks, including one of magnitude 4.6 at the weekend. The earthquake sequence is directly under the operational Mount Arthur coal mine, so at face value these earthquakes appear to be associated with local mining. But correlation does not imply causation. Let’s take a look at what we know.

What causes earthquakes?

Earthquakes typically happen when stress builds up in the planet’s crust as a result of tectonic forces. Once sufficient stress has built up, pre-existing weak zones or “faults” in the crust will slide – this is an earthquake. The stress is released as seismic energy waves.

Human activities that produce changes to the stress in Earth’s crust can also cause earthquakes. These are called “induced” earthquakes: without human activity, they wouldn’t have occurred.

“Triggered” earthquakes happen on existing fault structures, but have been brought forward in time by human activity: they would have happened anyway, but the introduced stress made them happen a little sooner.

Human activities that can produce induced and triggered earthquakes include fracking, wastewater injection, the filling of human-made reservoirs, and mining.

In open-cut coal mining, removing large volumes of rock from the surface may change the stresses locally and potentially result in earthquakes.

At the Mount Arthur Coal mine, earthquake monitoring has been ongoing since the 1990s. While a smaller mine was operational prior to that time, satellite images on Google Earth show a significant expansion – more than double the original mine size – began in 2002.

Seismic activity in the region increased from about 2014. This appears to indicate that the crust has been responding to stress changes due to mining at the site.

What has been happening recently at Muswellbrook?

Since Friday’s magnitude 4.8 earthquake, there have been a further 20 events larger than magnitude 2.5. All of these earthquakes have been within 5km of the surface. This is considered “shallow” and may indicate the quakes happened because the removal of coal at the surface changed the stress in the crust.

So, the shallow depth and the possible seismic activity increase since the mine was expanded may indicate these recent Muswellbrook earthquakes were mining-related. But there’s also evidence to suggest otherwise.

A recent study indicates that even large open pit mines do not appreciably change the stress along faults in the near-surface (within 5km depth) to trigger moderate-sized earthquakes. Calculations show faults would need to be already tectonically stressed almost to the point of failure for mining to affect the timing of earthquakes.

However, shallow induced earthquakes are possible. These generally are very small events – less than magnitude 2 – and most occur within a few hundred metres of the mining.

The region had earthquakes before mining

Some earthquakes in the Muswellbrook region may be occurring simply because of the local geology.

Muswellbrook is on the eastern margin of the Sydney Basin, which holds sediments from 200 million to 300 million years ago. These include the organic matter that turned into the coal now being mined. The eastern margin of this basin is the Hunter-Mooki Fault, a complex fault system that spans more than 400km.

North of Muswellbrook, a related fault appears to show evidence of earthquakes in the recent geological past, long before any mining in the area.

The southern extent of the Hunter-Mooki Fault is near Newcastle. Australia’s most damaging known earthquake happened here in 1989, claiming 13 lives. It had a magnitude of 5.4.

If some segments of this fault system have produced earthquakes previously, it’s feasible other faults along this boundary could produce earthquakes too, without any associated mining.

Earthquake clusters are not uncommon in Australia. Between 1886 and 1949, four moderate earthquakes between magnitude 5.3 and 5.6 happened at Dalton-Gunning, NSW, as part of a lengthy seismic sequence. The region still hosts earthquakes to this day. This and many other earthquake sequences are not near mining sites.

Overall, the available evidence for the recent earthquakes near Muswellbrook does not allow us to say unequivocally whether they are related to mining.

Earthquakes can and do happen anywhere in Australia. While mining can induce seismic activity locally, most of these earthquakes will be minor, and are rarely felt. Tectonic forces are still the main cause of moderate earthquakes in Australia.

Dee Ninis, Earthquake Scientist, Monash University and Dion Weatherley, Senior Research Fellow, Julius Kruttschnitt Mineral Research Centre, The University of Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

A suite of recent troubling events have once again shone a spotlight on extremist violence, especially the kind involving online radicalisation of young people.

Austrian authorities recently cancelled three Taylor Swift Eras tour concerts after learning of a 19-year-old’s suspected plot to attack attendees at a Vienna stadium.

ASIO Chief Mike Burgess has warned more young people are radicalising online and that we are seeing an acceleration of internet-fuelled violent extremism. “The internet can grab people quickly and hurt young brains which are not fully formed,” he said. “You can fall down a rabbit hole of hate quickly.”

So, why is this happening and what can we do to curb it?

How are young people radicalised online?

Contemporary online environments enable extremism. Big tech digital platforms are designed for profit, rather than democracy. Engagement creates revenue and extreme content tends to increase engagement.

The speed with which we can generate and share disinformation makes it harder than ever to distinguish fact from fiction.

This means extremist recruiters have never been more empowered in their ability to quickly target vulnerable individuals.

But exposure to extreme content does not guarantee radicalisation. Extremist messaging is most effective when it taps into real and perceived grievances young people may be experiencing.

Potentially violent online radicalisation is most likely to happen when young people’s needs are unmet.

This can occur when a person is “red-pilled” through encountering far-right messaging. Or, they may be “black-pilled” while dwelling in an incel forum. Incel stands for “involuntary celibate” and represents a culture of men who, by being unsuccessful so far in attracting a woman, have grown hostile toward women as a whole.

Young men, for example, are increasingly targeted with misogynist content online. Often this content is designed to monetise their insecurities and provide “solutions” to them.

So-called “manosphere” content may influence men to believe feminism is to blame for their struggles. It may increase the likelihood of male violence against women.

Young people seek belonging, dignity and purpose. We know they are more likely to be resilient to violent radicalisation when they feel connected to like-minded others, and to people who think differently to them. It is also important they feel they can trust institutions and engage in civic participation.

Most young people who are recruited by extremist groups are led to believe they are mobilising for a “just cause” that seeks to uphold human dignity.

We should remember the internet can also enable positive forms of radicalisation. For example, people can be radicalised to engage in democracy. We can see this happening in a “coconut-pilled” resistance to the far-right movement linked to US presidential candidate Donald Trump.

What can we do to intervene?

Research I undertook as part of the Building Resilience Against Violent Extremism and Polarisation project reveals that grassroots arts-based work can support people to disengage from online extremism.

Such interventions are relatable and steer people toward positive social action.

Take, for example, online gaming. While often associated with recruitment into hate-based ideologies, online gaming cultures can also be used to educate young people about extremism.

Loulu is one such initiative.

Designed by German organisation Onlinetheater.live in collaboration with HAU Hebbel am Ufer Performance art theatre, Loulu is a digital, interactive game. It cleverly educates players about the manipulation tactics of the far right.

The caption on the Instagram post above, in English, says:

Loulu - an interactive fiction about far-right and anti-feminist networks on the internet […] Together with @kulturstiftungdesbundes and supported by @hauberlin we have developed an app [that] reflects the manipulation strategies of right-wing and anti-feminist networks.

This award-winning free smartphone app is designed to educate about online radicalisation pathways via a fictional influencer called Loulu.

The game is set in a fictional city in Germany where a far-right terrorist attack has just occurred.

Taking an interactive format, Loulu presents a true-to-life scenario in a visually appealing and sophisticated design. The game helps build players’ critical thinking skills and bolster their resilience to the recruitment efforts of violent online extremist groups.

Alternative narrative strategies

Memes by feminist artist influencer Lily O’Farrell (@vulgadrawings) are another example of a successful communications intervention.

The artist began to engage with the nuances of the manosphere in 2021 after she started talking to young men trolling her on Instagram.

These men had become aware of her account after it was shared in a men’s rights subreddit group.

Concerned the group was made up of young men predominantly aged 16-23, O’Farrell decided to investigate the movement by joining incel subreddit groups.

Following these investigations, the cartoonist produced a series of drawings titled Everything I’ve learned about incels. This series illuminated the incelosphere for her mostly feminist 319,000 followers.

Instead of demonising incels, her drawings provide an anatomy of the movement that gives viewers insight into its black-pilled logic.

O’Farrell acknowledges the real and perceived grievances of young men in these groups.

These include loneliness, body-image insecurities and a lack of mental health support, all blamed by incels on women.

The artist’s cartoons expose the root causes of these grievances as being tied to the structures of patriarchy.

This helps young male viewers on the incel spectrum to see that women are not responsible for, but are instead also victims of, such structures.

The artist’s drawings are an excellent example of an alternative narrative strategy that can help disrupt violent radicalisation through critically empathetic engagement.

Vivian Gerrand, Research Fellow in the Centre for Resilient and Inclusive Societies, Deakin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

This is an edited extract of a presentation by Gareth Evans, Distinguished Honorary Professor at ANU and former Australian foreign minister, to the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia Conference.

Politics played a significant part in the birth of AUKUS in Australia, and politics both here and in the United States will play a crucial role in determining whether it lives or dies. That is so at least for its core submarine component. The second pillar of the agreement, relating to technical cooperation on multiple new fronts, is both much less clear in its scope and less obviously politically fraught.

On the Australian side, partisan political opportunism was a factor in the initiation of the submarine deal, bipartisan political support was a condition of US agreement to it, and maintenance of that bipartisan support into the future presumably will be a precondition of its continuance, at least when it comes to highly sensitive elements like the handover of three Virginia class submarines.

On the American side, it was perception of US strategic advantage that drove Washington’s agreement to the deal, rather than any domestic political considerations. But strong cross-party support in Congress will remain necessary for its complete delivery. And, at the even more critical executive level, it cannot be assumed the deal is now Trump-proof.

It is only in the United Kingdom that we can reasonably regard domestic politics to be irrelevant to AUKUS’s future. The deal is so obviously a gift to the national Treasury, and has so little impact on national defence and security interests, that no one on any side of politics is ever likely to find it unpalatable.

In Australia, domestic politics have been a factor from the outset. While for the Morrison government the primary driver of the AUKUS decision was, no doubt, the ideological passion of senior Coalition ministers for all things American, it is hard to deny political opportunism came a close second.

Morrison was deeply conscious of the opportunity the deal presented to wedge the Labor opposition in the defence and security space, where the Labor Party has long been perceived, rightly or wrongly, as electorally vulnerable. That the nuclear dimension of the deal was bound to ruffle some feathers in Labor ranks was an added political attraction.

I was not critical at the time, and nor am I now, of the opposition’s initial response in September 2021 when told at the last minute by Morrison of the imminent announcement of the deal he had struck with the US and UK, premised on Labor’s support.

The political imperative was clear: had Labor been at all equivocal, 2022 would have been a khaki election, with Albanese depicted as undermining the alliance and undermining US commitment to the region. Moreover, the deal was at least prima facie defensible intellectually, with nuclear propulsion clearly superior in terms of speed, endurance and (for now, at least) detectability. Concerns about nuclear proliferation and waste concerns were also being reasonably met.

But the Morrison Government was roundly to be criticised for comprehensively mishandling its breakup with the French, and there were very real questions still to be answered before the submarine deal was finally bedded down. Of particular concern was whether the force configuration proposed was really fully fit for Australia’s strategic purposes, and the implications of much greater enmeshment with the US military for the reality of our sovereign agency. But there would be plenty of time when Labor came into government for review, negotiation and readjustment.

What I am now critical of, is that when Labor did come into office in May 2022, it is clear no such serious review of the whole AUKUS deal ever took place. Crucial questions were never seriously addressed; clearly articulated answers to them have never been given by the prime minister, defence minister or anyone else. The answers that are in fact emerging as further time passes are deeply troubling.

If a genuinely comprehensive and genuinely objective review were now to be initiated by the Albanese government, it would, I believe, have no choice but to make these major findings.

One, there is zero certainty of the timely delivery of the eight AUKUS boats. We now know that both the US and UK have explicit opt-out rights. And even in the wholly unlikely event that everything falls smoothly into place in the whole vastly complex enterprise, we will be waiting 40 years for the last boat to arrive, posing real capability gap issues.

Two, even acknowledging the superior capability of the submarines, the final fleet size - if its purpose really is the defence of Australia – appears hardly fit for that purpose. Just how much intelligence gathering, or archipelagic chokepoint protection, or sea-lane protection, or even just “deterrence at a distance”, will be possible given usual operating constraints – which would here mean having only two boats deployable at any one time?

Three, the eye-watering cost of the AUKUS submarine program, up to $368 billion, will make it very difficult, short of a dramatic increase in the defence share of GDP, to acquire the other capabilities we will need if we are to have any kind of self-reliant capacity in meeting an invasion threat. Those capabilities include, in particular, state-of-the-art missiles, aircraft and drones, that are arguably even more critical than submarines for our defence in the event of such a crisis.

Four, the price now being demanded by the US for giving us access to its nuclear propulsion technology is extraordinarily high. Not only the now open-ended expansion of Tindal as a US B52 base; not only the conversion of Stirling into a major base for a US Indian Ocean fleet, making Perth now join Pine Gap and the North West Cape – and increasingly likely, Tindal – as a nuclear target; not only the demand for what is now described not as the interoperability but the “interchangeability” of our submarine fleets. But also now the ever-clearer expectation on the US side that “integrated deterrence” means Australia will have no choice but to join the US in fighting any future war in which it chooses to engage anywhere in the Indo-Pacific, including in defence of Taiwan.

It defies credibility to think that, in the absence of that last understanding, the Virginia transfers will ever proceed. The notion that we will retain any kind of sovereign agency in determining how all these assets are used, should serious tensions erupt, is a joke in bad taste. I have had personal ministerial experience of being a junior allied partner of the US in a hot conflict situation – the first Gulf War in 1991 — and my recollections are not pretty.

Five, the purchase price we are now paying, for all its exorbitance, will never be enough to guarantee the absolute protective insurance that supporters of AUKUS think they are buying. ANZUS, it cannot be said too often, does not bind the US to defend us, even in the event of existential attack. And extended nuclear deterrence is as illusory for us as for ever other ally or partner believing itself to be sheltering under a US nuclear umbrella. The notion that the US would ever be prepared to run the risk of sacrificing Los Angeles for Tokyo or Seoul, let alone Perth, is and always has been nonsense.

We can rely on military support if the US sees it in its own national interest to offer it, but not otherwise. Washington will no doubt shake a deterrent fist, and threaten and deliver retaliation, if its own assets on Australian soil are threatened or attacked, but that’s as far as our expectations should extend.

The bottom line in all of this was very presciently stated by Jean-Yves Le Drian, the then French foreign minister, in reacting to the Morrison decision in 2021:

The Australians place themselves entirely at the mercy of developments in American policy. I wish our Australian partner, who made the choice of security – justified by the escalation of tensions with China – to the detriment of sovereignty, will not discover later that it has sacrificed both.

In the event that some of this political light did start to dawn on the Albanese government and it did start to explore a Plan B, it would not be impossibly late to change course yet again. Then the most attractive option would probably be – if Paris ever felt able to trust us again – the revival of the French contract.

This provided for the delivery of 12 conventionally powered, but very capable boats, at a reasonable cost and within a reasonable time frame. It also explicitly allowed for a nuclear option to be pursued should we so desire. That change would involve more time and expense, and some new and serious complications in working out how to manage the nuclear refuelling and maintenance needs of an LEU (Low Uranium Enriched) system, but overall would involve much less baggage for us than continuing with the AUKUS program.

All that said, it has to be acknowledged that the odds of any fundamental change of course are now very long indeed. The only external event that could completely derail the AUKUS program and force such change would be the US making it clear that it was not going to give up any of its Virginias, because of the pressures on its own replacement program. But it’s hard to imagine even a Trump administration doing that, given the extraordinary favourability of the deal the US has wrung out of Australia – not only financially, but because for all practical purposes the Americans will be able to treat these boats as an extension of their own fleet.

The prospects of a political change of heart in Australia are even more problematic. On the part of the Coalition, in the absence of the reincarnation of Malcolm Turnbull, they are non-existent. And on the part of the ALP they are not much better. The prime minister is still preoccupied with avoiding being wedged as weak on security, has never given great attention to the complexities of foreign and defence policy, and seems unlikely to change.

All this is rather depressing for those of us who have long nurtured the belief that Australia is a fiercely independent nation, ever more conscious of the need to engage constructively, creatively and sensitively with with our own Indo-Pacific neighbourhood, and with a vibrant multicultural society ever more representative of the world around us.

A country that had come to terms at last with the reality that in the new century, our geography matters much more than our Anglophone history. And a country that had put behind us the “fear of abandonment” which had been so central to our defence and diplomacy for so much of the last century: recognising, as Paul Keating continues to put it so articulately, that we need to find our security in Asia, not from Asia.

Australia’s no-holds-barred embrace of AUKUS is more likely than not to prove one of the worst defence and foreign policy decisions our country has made, not only putting at profound risk our sovereign independence, but generating more risk than reward for the very national security it promises to protect. I cannot imagine this decision being made by any of the Hawke-Keating governments of which I was part. Times have changed.

This article has been corrected. It originally said the cost of AUKUS was $386 billion. In fact it is $368 billion.

Gareth Evans, Distinguished Honorary Professor, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

An “aviation industry ombuds scheme” and improved assistance for passengers with a disability will be among measures the federal government will announce on Monday to force airlines to address the extensive public discontent with their services.

A new aviation customer rights charter will set out “fair and reasonable” conduct by airlines and airports, including when flights are delayed or cancelled.

It will cover customers’ entitlements to refunds, and when these must be provided in cash rather than with travel vouchers.

This follows class actions against both Qantas and Jetstar that allege they have failed to provide timely cash refunds for cancelled flights, despite being legally obliged to do so.

Both airlines issued vouchers instead of cash refunds, initially with expiry dates.

The class action against Qantas has entered mediation. That against Jetstar was launched last week.

The customer rights charter will also address “unreasonable” lengths of delays and timely communication with passengers.

Transport Minister Catherine King will release the government’s white paper on aviation, with legislation planned for next year, after further consultations. In the meantime an interim ombudsperson will be appointed from her department.

King said too many people had been “left out to dry when flights are cancelled or disrupted and it’s impossibly complex to get a refund or even contact a company representative.

"Customers deserve to get their money back if they are owed. Full stop,” she said.

The ombuds scheme will have an external dispute resolution service, and direct airlines and airports to provide remedies to consumers. It will provide reports on conduct, and refer instances of misconduct for investigation.

Barriers presently faced by people with a disability include unreasonable wait times for checking in, refusals to carry assistance animals, and limits on wheelchair and other access.

The government will create specific disability standards for the industry and review compliance with them.

It will improve remedies for damage to wheelchairs and other equipment, and require airport development plans to set out how they will enable access for people with a disability.

“Through our consultations we have heard clearly that the treatment of people with disability by the airlines and airports is not good enough,” King said.

“People have been left stranded on planes, forced to return to their departure port or had to put up with poor treatment due to a lack of access to appropriate facilities at their destination.”

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Albanese government faces a likely High Court challenge to its installation of an administrator into the construction division of the CFMEU.

As thousands of the union’s members held rallies in cities across the country, its former Queensland secretary Michael Ravbar – who’s been dismissed together with almost all other officials – said he would launch a challenge against the legislation passed last week to put the union into administration. An administrator was immediately installed.

Ravbar told the Brisbane rally: “This is going to be the biggest challenge and the biggest fight that we’ve ever had, but we’re all up for it. You’ve got to get control of our union back.”

Ravbar urged members to vote against Labor at the October state election and next year’s federal election, and attacked Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who he said had “always been anti-union”.

The High Court action is likely to argue the Commonwealth lacked the authority to take over a democratically organised union and sack nearly 300 officials, who had not been convicted of any offence. No court was involved in the action. Earlier court proceedings that were underway, brought by the Fair Work Commission’s general manager, are set to be discontinued after the government’s action.

The government said late Tuesday it was not aware of any CFMEU challenge.

On Tuesday Prime Minister Anthony Albanese denied the claim by the union’s former Victorian secretary John Setka that the government had made “a deal” with the union that there would be no move for an administrator if he resigned his position.

Setka claimed on Channel 7 at the weekend that after Nine sent allegations of malfeasance to the union, he had offered to “pull the pin today” so the union would avoid administrators being sent into the Victorian branch. He had conveyed this to the union’s national secretary Zach Smith.

He claimed there had been talks between Smith, then Workplace Relations minister Tony Burke and ACTU national secretary Sally McManus.

“At twenty to six the call came through, [saying] yes, there’s a deal. Now when you do a deal with the government you expect them to honour it,” Setka said.

“I think Tony Burke has betrayed construction workers in Australia.”

Nine published a series of devastating allegations of criminal infiltration of the union, bullying and bribery. The government immediately made it clear publicly Setka’s resignation and other actions by the union to try to ward off intervention were not enough.

Albanese told a news conference: “Obviously we didn’t make a deal. The evidence is in what’s happened”. The PM said he “not quite sure why people gave [Setka] some more oxygen. But John Setka is someone who will always look for publicity.”

Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather, addressing the Brisbane rally, said: “Labor has used these untested allegations to attack an entire union”.

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The selection of Abigail Bradshaw as the new head of Australia’s cyber spy agency, the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), sends a strong message.

It confirms the government’s increasing intelligence focus on domestic cybersecurity, both to disrupt foreign influence operations and to promote better protection of our national cyber systems.

The ASD is so far succeeding in its monitoring of foreign influence operations, but struggling when it comes to domestic cybersecurity.

ASD’s evolving mission

The initial remit of the ASD’s predecessor agencies was to operate as an arm of the Department of Defence by collecting intelligence through the interception of international communications (or “signals” in traditional military parlance).

The aim was to collect information relevant to the national defence of Australia, its diplomacy and foreign military activities.

As early as 2010, however, the distinction between the agency’s foreign and domestic operations started to blur.

Today, foreign intelligence collection and support of the armed forces are only two of ASD’s five missions. Domestic cybersecurity is now a chief priority – and a starkly ambitious one at that. As the agency frames it in its strategic objectives:

Make Australia the safest place to connect to the online world. Foster national cybersecurity resilience.

This is a substantial mission for the ASD, and in large part justifies the massive new spending for the agency announced by the Coalition government in March 2022 under Project Redspice – an additional A$10 billion over ten years. The government described it as the biggest investment plan for the agency in its history.

The agency also has two other domestic missions oriented towards threats inside Australia – countering cyber-enabled crime (including terrorist use of the internet) and supporting law enforcement.

Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil made clear this new focus on domestic threats during a speech in parliament in June 2023:

About a year before our election, our national security agencies informed the Australian people that, for the first time, the biggest national security challenges that we face as a country are espionage and foreign interference.

It is largely for this reason that when Labor came into power in 2022, O’Neil, the new home affairs minister, was given a secondary role as a sworn minister for defence. This practice has continued with the ministerial reshuffle last month when Tony Burke was named the new minister for home affairs and cybersecurity – and sworn in as a minister for defence.

Bradshaw’s domestic security background

Like her predecessors, Rachel Noble and Mike Burgess, Bradshaw brings a more diverse range of domestic security experience outside the defence world than would have been the case for a leader of the ASD a decade or two ago.

She previously served as the deputy commander of the Maritime Border Command, deputy coordinator of the National Bushfire Recovery Agency, and head of the ASD’s domestically focused Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC). She held the role as deputy director of the ASD itself beginning in 2020.

Bradshaw’s fellow deputy director appointed to ASD at the time was the government’s former counter-terrorism coordinator, Linda Geddes. These two appointments confirmed the direction the agency was moving, with a very strong emphasis on domestic security.

Challenges ahead

Recent speeches by Burgess, now director-general of ASIO, confirm that both ASIO and ASD have largely succeeded in their domestic and international monitoring of foreign influence operations in recent years.

However, improving our domestic cybersecurity presents a much bigger challenge.

Australia is arguably one of the ten safest countries when it comes to cybersecurity. And as a cyber power, the International Institute for Strategic Studies assessed that Australia sits in the same tier as the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Israel, China and Russia – behind the United States, and ahead of Japan and India.

On the other hand, there has been a string of sensational cyber breaches in the country since 2022 in which the personal details of millions of Australians have been revealed. This includes the attacks on Medibank Private, Optus and Latitude.

Australia is only gradually expanding its cybersecurity workforce and bringing private sector firms and even its own government departments into conformity with modest, mid-level indicators of security readiness. The new investments under Project Redspice will improve this.

But Bradshaw will have to be even more enterprising than her predecessors to bring Australia close to being the most cyber-secure country in the world – and the most resilient.

Greg Austin, Adjunct Professor, Australia-China Relations Institute, University of Technology Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, whose final term in office ends on October 20, has presided over ten years of democratic regression in Indonesia.

This has been marked by attacks on – and direct interventions in – the Anti-corruption Commission and the Constitutional Court. Both were formerly key government watchdog institutions. It has also involved intimidating and weakening the civil society organisations that helped deliver democratisation to Indonesia after the fall of former dictator Soeharto in 1998.

Despite this, Jokowi’s popularity has remained at over 70%. In recent years, supporters have even proposed constitutional amendments to allow him to run for a third term. While these did not go anywhere, Jokowi remains determined to maintain power and influence after he leaves office.

This has led to the building of a new alliance with his former rival and the incoming president, Prabowo Subianto, and attempts to create a family political dynasty by helping his sons win office.

Jokowi’s son, the new vice president

These efforts started earlier this year in the lead-up to Indonesia’s presidential election.

Abandoning the party that had backed his rise to power, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), Jokowi threw his weight behind Prabowo by offering up his son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, as Prabowo’s vice presidential candidate.

To achieve this, Jokowi had to rely on his brother-in-law, Anwar Usman, who was chief justice of the Constitutional Court. In a blatantly nepotistic decision, a majority of the court helped Gibran bypass the 40-year minimum age limit for vice presidential candidates.

Usman was removed as chief justice for unethical conduct, but the decision stood. Prabowo and Gibran won in a landslide.

Jokowi and Prabowo’s new alliance, the Advance Indonesia Coalition or KIM, soon became known as KIM-Plus as former political opponents quickly moved to secure a place in the new administration.

Jokowi also seems to have secured a new political base to replace PDI-P. In what some have likened to a “coup”, Airlangga Hartarto, leader of the second-biggest party, Golkar, was accused of corruption and resigned last week. He was swiftly replaced by a Jokowi loyalist, Bahlil Lahadalia.

Another son and ally running for governor

In recent weeks, Jokowi’s ambitions to maintain influence have focused on the regional elections on November 27 and the opportunity to install two KIM-Plus candidates in key gubernatorial positions.

The first is Jokowi ally Ridwan Kamil, former governor of West Java. Jokowi backed him to become Jakarta’s next governor, anticipating this would prevent the re-election of Anies Baswaden, one of Jokowi’s political enemies and critics.

The second is Jokowi’s youngest son, Kaesang Pangarep, who Jokowi was backing to be the next governor of Central Java.

Like his brother Gibran, however, the 29-year-old Kaesang faced an age-based roadblock. Kaeseng was barred from running due to an election law that requires gubernatorial candidates to be at least 30.

But once again, a favourable (but questionable) judicial decision – this time from the Supreme Court – seemed to clear the path for him.

The Supreme Court decided in May that candidates must be 30 at the time of inauguration. This enabled Kaesang to run, given that, if elected, his inauguration would occur after his 30th birthday.

The Constitutional Court weighs in

And then things suddenly came unstuck. The Constitutional Court, which many feel has become cowed and compliant under Jokowi’s rule, handed down two decisions on August 20 that blew up his plans.

In a unanimous decision, the court emphasised the minimum age for gubernatorial candidates applied at the time of nomination as candidate, not the time of inauguration. The court also suggested it might invalidate an election in which an underage candidate ran for office.

In another decision, the court drastically reduced the so-called nomination threshold parties require to put forward candidates for gubernatorial elections.

Under the current electoral law, a political party – whether itself or in coalition with other parties – needed to have either 20% of seats or 25% of total votes in a provincial parliament to field a candidate for governor.

The court reduced this threshold for parties to that of independent candidates. The result is that a party will only need 7.5% of the votes to nominate in Jakarta.

This change matters a lot. It will allow the PDI-P, headed by former President Megawati Soekarnoputri, to nominate a candidate for governor of Jakarta to run against Jokowi’s pick, Ridwan.

And she had been expected to back Jokowi’s rival, Anies.

A proposed law sparks street protests

These decisions led to a quick response. The national legislature (DPR), dominated by Jokowi’s coalition and led by a Jokowi loyalist, Deputy Speaker Sufmi Dasco Ahmad, defiantly announced last week it would immediately pass a new electoral law.

This would have reversed the effect of the Constitutional Court decisions in two ways:

• it would reset the nomination threshold to 20% (which would have blocked PDI-P from nominating a candidate against Ridwan)
• it would set a new age limit of 25 for gubernatorial candidates (which would have enabled Kaesang to run).
  

The legislature planned to do this, even though Constitutional Court decisions are, by law, “final and binding”.

This contemptuous treatment of the court and Jokowi’s blatant dynastic ambitions triggered a massive response from civil society, which, like the court, had seemed weakened in recent years.

Protesters in Jakarta besieged the DPR, eventually tearing off gates to the legislative complex. Demonstrators holding banners that read “Emergency Warning” and “Democratic Emergency” soon erupted in other cities.

There have certainly been bigger demonstrations in the past against the Jokowi administration’s policies, but, critically, these were enough to stop lawmakers from entering the DPR and forming a quorum.

Dasco eventually announced the new law would be abandoned (for now). Kaesang then announced he would not run for governor of Central Java.

As expected, it was soon reported the PDI-P would nominate a candidate for governor of Jakarta. It still unclear at the time of writing if Megawati will choose Anies or a member of her own party, but either way, Jokowi now can’t be sure his candidate, Ridwan, will win.

What happens next?

Jokowi has suffered a setback in his efforts to consolidate his power – and public humiliation, as well. But he remains a formidable political force and, when the time is right, he will want to respond to these challenges.

A likely target is the Constitutional Court itself. It acted with integrity and courage last week to defy the dominant political elite. But for years, it has been the target of an incremental campaign to undermine its independence through pressure on judges and legislative amendments.

The DPR now has before it a bill to amend the Constitutional Court law. It would not be surprising if this bill makes it easier for the government to remove judges, undermining its independence even further.

Moreover, while civil society groups rallied so effectively last week to stymie Jokowi’s dynastic ambitions, past experience suggests they are unlikely to maintain the momentum necessary to prevent the bill’s passage.

If that happens, last week’s dramatic decisions may well be the court’s last gasp.

Tim Lindsey, Malcolm Smith Professor of Asian Law and Director of the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society, The University of Melbourne and Simon Butt, Professor of Indonesian Law, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Iron deficiency is common and can be debilitating. It mainly affects women. One in three premenopausal women are low in iron compared to just 5% of Australian men. Iron deficiency particularly affects teenage girls, women who do a lot of exercise and those who are pregnant.

The body needs iron to make new red blood cells, and to support energy production, the immune system and cognitive function. If you’re low, you may experience a range of symptoms including fatigue, weakness, shortness of breath, headache, irregular heartbeat and reduced concentration.

If a blood test shows you’re iron deficient, your doctor may recommend you start taking an oral iron supplement. But should you take a tablet or a liquid? With food or not? And when is the best time of day?

Here are some tips to help you work out how, when and what iron supplement to take.

How do I pick the right iron supplement?

The iron in your body is called “elemental iron”. Choosing the right oral supplement and dose will depend on how much elemental iron it has – your doctor will advise exactly how much you need.

The sweet spot is between 60-120 mg of elemental iron. Any less and the supplement won’t be effective in topping up your iron levels. Any higher and you risk gastrointestinal symptoms such as diarrhoea, cramping and stomach pain.

In Australia, iron salts are the most common oral supplements because they are cheap, effective and come in different delivery methods (tablets, capsules, liquid formulas). The iron salts you are most likely to find in your local chemist are ferrous sulfate (~20% elemental iron), ferrous gluconate (~12%) and ferrous fumarate (~33%).

These formulations all work similarly, so your choice should come down to dose and cost.

Many multivitamins may look like an iron supplement, but it’s important to note they usually have too little iron – usually less than 20 mg – to correct an iron deficiency.

Should I take tablets or liquid formulas?

Iron contained within a tablet is just as well absorbed as iron found in a liquid supplement. Choosing the right one usually comes down to personal preference.

The main difference is that liquid formulas tend to contain less iron than tablets. That means you might need to take more of the product to get the right dose, so using a liquid supplement could work out to be more expensive in the long term.

What should I eat with my iron supplement?

Research has shown you will absorb more of the iron in your supplement if you take it on an empty stomach. But this can cause more gastrointestinal issues, so might not be practical for everyone.

If you do take your supplement with meals, it’s important to think about what types of food will boost – rather than limit – iron absorption. For example, taking the supplement alongside vitamin C improves your body’s ability to absorb it.

Some supplements already contain vitamin C. Otherwise you could take the supplement along with a glass of orange juice, or other vitamin C-rich foods.

On the other hand, tea, coffee and calcium all decrease the body’s ability to absorb iron. So you should try to limit these close to the time you take your supplement.

Should I take my supplement in the morning or evening?

The best time of day to take your supplement is in the morning. The body can absorb significantly more iron earlier in the day, when concentrations of hepcidin (the main hormone that regulates iron) are at their lowest.

Exercise also affects the hormone that regulates iron. That means taking your iron supplement after exercising can limit your ability to absorb it. Taking your supplement in the hours following exercise will mean significantly poorer absorption, especially if you take it between two and five hours after you stop.

Our research has shown if you exercise every day, the best time to take your supplement is in the morning before training, or immediately after (within 30 minutes).

My supplements are upsetting my stomach. What should I do?

If you experience gastrointestinal side effects such as diarrhoea or cramps when you take iron supplements, you may want to consider taking your supplement every second day, rather than daily.

Taking a supplement every day is still the fastest way to restore your iron levels. But a recent study has shown taking the same total dose can be just as effective when it’s taken on alternate days. For example, taking a supplement every day for three months works as well as every second day for six months. This results in fewer side effects.

Oral iron supplements can be a cheap and easy way to correct an iron deficiency. But ensuring you are taking the right product, under the right conditions, is crucial for their success.

It’s also important to check your iron levels prior to commencing iron supplementation and do so only under medical advice. In large amounts, iron can be toxic, so you don’t want to be consuming additional iron if your body doesn’t need it.

If you think you may be low on iron, talk to your GP to find out your best options.

Alannah McKay, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Sports Nutrition, Australian Catholic University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

While you’re likely familiar with type 1 and type 2 diabetes, you’ve probably heard less about type 1.5 diabetes.

Also known as latent autoimmune diabetes in adults (LADA), type 1.5 diabetes has features of both type 1 and type 2 diabetes.

More people became aware of this condition after Lance Bass, best known for his role in the iconic American pop band NSYNC, recently revealed he has it.

So, what is type 1.5 diabetes? And how is it diagnosed and treated?

There are several types of diabetes

Diabetes mellitus is a group of conditions that arise when the levels of glucose (sugar) in our blood are higher than normal. There are actually more than ten types of diabetes, but the most common are type 1 and type 2.

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune condition where the body’s immune system attacks and destroys the cells in the pancreas that make the hormone insulin. This leads to very little or no insulin production.