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In the quiet backwaters of Yunnan, Dong Meihua – though her followers know her by the public alias Dianxi Xiaoge – has done something remarkable: She’s taken the pastoral simplicity of rural China and made it irresistible to millions. In her hands, a village kitchen becomes a stage, and the rhythms of farm life become a story as compelling as any novel. She is one of many rural influencers returning to their roots.

In a digital revolution turning established narratives on their head, China’s countryside is emerging as an unlikely epicenter of viral content. Xiaoge is one of thousands of influencers redefining through social media how the countryside is perceived.

Upending preconceptions of rural China as a hinterland of poverty and stagnation, this new breed of social media mavens is serving up a feast of bucolic bliss to millions of urbanites. It is a narrative shift encouraged by authorities; the Chinese government has given its blessing to influencers promoting picturesque rural images. Doing so helps downplay urban-rural chasms and stoke national pride. It also fits nicely with Beijing’s rural revitalization strategy.

Hardship to revival

To fully appreciate any phenomenon, it’s necessary to first consider the historical context. For decades, China’s countryside was synonymous with hardship and backwardness. The Great Leap Forward of the late 1950s and early 1960s – Communist China’s revered founder Mao Zedong’s disastrous attempt to industrialize a largely agrarian country – devastated rural communities and led to widespread famine that saw tens of millions die.

The subsequent Cultural Revolution, in which Mao strengthened his grip on power through a broad purge of the nation’s intelligentsia, further disrupted customary rural life as educated youth were sent to the countryside for “reeducation.” These traumatic events inflicted deep scars on the rural psyche and economy.

Meanwhile, the “hukou” system, which since the late 1950s has tied social benefits to a person’s birthplace and divided citizens into “agricultural ” and “nonagricultural” residency status, has created a stark divide between urban and rural citizens.

The reform era of Mao’s successor, Deng Xiaoping, beginning in 1978, brought new challenges. As China’s cities boomed, the countryside lagged behind.

Millions of rural Chinese have migrated to cities for better opportunities, abandoning aging populations and hollowed-out communities. In 1980, 19% of China’s population lived in urban areas. By 2023, that figure had risen to 66%.

Government policies have since developed extensively toward rural areas. The abolition of agricultural taxes in 2006 heralded a major milestone, demonstrating a renewed commitment to rural prosperity. Most recently, President Xi Jinping’s “rural revitalization” has put countryside development at the forefront of national policy. The launch of the Internet Plus Agriculture initiative and investment in rural e-commerce platforms such as Taobao Villages allow isolated farming communities to connect to urban markets.

Notwithstanding these efforts, China’s urban-rural income gap remains substantial, with the average annual per capita disposable income of rural households standing at 21,691 yuan (about US$3,100), approximately 40% of the amount for urban households.

Enter the ‘new farmer’

Digital-savvy farmers and countryside dwellers have used nostalgia and authenticity to win over Chinese social media. Stars such as Li Ziqi and Dianxi Xiaoge have racked up huge numbers of followers as they paint rural China as both an idyllic escape and a thriving cultural hub.

The Chinese term for this social media phenomenon is “new farmer.” This encapsulates the rise of rural celebrities who use platforms such as Douyin and Weibo to document and commercialize their way of life. Take Sister Yu: With over 23 million followers, she showcases the rustic charm of northeast China as she pickles vegetables and cooks hearty meals. Or Peng Chuanming: a farmer in Fujian whose videos on crafting traditional teas and restoring his home have captivated millions.

Since 2016, these platforms have turned rural life into digital gold. What began as simple documentation has evolved into a phenomenon commanding enormous audiences, fueled not just by nostalgia but also economic necessity. China’s post-COVID-19 economic downturn, marked by soaring youth unemployment and diminishing urban opportunities, has driven some to seek livelihoods in the countryside.

In China’s megacities, where the air is thick with pollution and opportunity, there’s clearly a hunger for something real – something that doesn’t come shrink-wrapped or with a QR code. And rural influencers serve slices of a life many thought lost to China’s breakneck development.

Compared with their urban counterparts, rural influencers carve out a unique niche in China’s vast social media landscape. Although fashion bloggers, gaming streamers and lifestyle gurus dominate platforms such as Weibo and Douyin, the Chinese TikTok, rural content creators tap into a different cultural romanticism and a yearning for connection to nature. In addition, their content capitalizes on the rising popularity of short video platforms such as Kuaishou and Pinduoduo, augmenting their reach across a wide demographic, from nostalgic retirees to eco-conscious millennials.

But this is not simply digital escapism for the masses. Tourism is booming in once-forgotten villages. Traditional crafts are finding new markets. In 2020 alone, Taobao Villages reported a staggering 1.2 trillion yuan (around $169.36 billion) in sales.

The Chinese government, never one to miss a PR opportunity, has spotted potential. Rural revitalization is now the buzzword among government officials. It’s a win-win: Villagers net economic opportunities, and the state polishes its reputation as a champion of traditional values. Government officials have leveraged platforms such as X to showcase China’s rural revitalization efforts to international audiences.

Authenticity or illusion?

As with all algorithms, there’s a catch to the new farmer movement. The more popular rural influencers become, the more pressure they face to perform “authenticity.” Or put another way: The more real it looks, the less real it might actually be.

It raises another question: Who truly benefits? Are we witnessing rural empowerment or a commodification of rural life for urban consumption? With corporate sponsors and government initiatives piling in, the line between genuine representation and curated fantasy blurs.

Local governments, recognizing the economic potential, have begun offering subsidies to rural content creators, causing skepticism about whether this content is truly grassroots or part of a bigger, state-led campaign to sanitize the countryside’s image.

Yet, for all the conceivable pitfalls, the new farmer trend is an opportunity to challenge the urban-centric narrative that has dominated China’s development story for decades and rethink whether progress always means high-rises and highways, or if there’s value in preserving ways of life that have sustained communities for centuries.

More importantly, it’s narrowing the cultural disconnect that has long separated China’s rural and urban populations. In a country where your hukou can determine your destiny, these viral videos foster understanding in ways that no government program ever could.

Mitchell Gallagher, Ph.D Candidate in Political Science, Wayne State University

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

In the beginning, there was just one, unnamed, muse. The blind bard Homer (a poet born around around 850BC) invoked her with the words “Sing, daughter of Zeus” in the first lines of his epic poem, the Odyssey.

Then there were said to be three: Melete (practice), Mneme (memory) and Aoede (song), perhaps embodying the basic creative process of early humanity. Eventually, nine muses were identified, covering every branch of the arts, in the ancient Greek poet Hesiod’s introduction to Theogony, his epic poem about mythical stories and characters (circa 730–700BC). Hesiod, formerly an illiterate shepherd, claimed that he was inspired to write the poem when a beautiful goddess whispered the story in his ear.

There were muses specifically for comedy, tragedy and even erotica. The oldest was Calliope, mother of the legendary musician Orpheus. Euterpe was the muse of music. Urania guided the scientists. Terpsichore taught dance.

The muses promised fame and fortune to artists who followed them, but are rarely mentioned by name in the prologues and prefaces of artworks today.

A timeline of the muses

Originally characterised as singing and dancing goddesses guarding a sacred spring, evidence for the muses is found in writing by some of the earliest known authors.

Yet, the muses existed long before reading and writing. It was only later that they were conscripted as the mascots of writers, with some ancient mosaics showing pens and parchment superimposed on their original images. Following their assimilation from the oral tradition into cheerleaders of literacy, the muses are seen waving pens and quills, scrolls and manuscripts in ancient artworks.

Written storytelling about the muses started in the matriarchal period of prehistory, shifting to patriarchy in approximately 3,000BC, in Ovid’s story of the god Apollo fashioning himself the first laurel wreath. This crown of leaves, which supposedly signified his genius, is seen in the myth of Daphne, who turned into a laurel tree to escape Apollo’s unwanted advances.

Written by Ovid in Metamorphoses, this picturesque tale may have been a metaphor for the switch from female to male authority. Legend has it that Apollo prevented his muse priestess from brewing, imbibing or smoking laurel leaves, which have a mild narcotic property.

It wasn’t just fanciful poets in the muse’s congregation – philosophers kept the faith too. In approximately 370BC, Socrates classed “possession” by the muses as a form of divine madness like drunkenness, eroticism or dreaming: “He who, having no touch of the muses’ madness in his soul, thinks that he will get into the temple by the help of art – he, I say, and his poetry are not admitted.”

English poet and soldier Robert Graves (1895-1985) agreed, writing in 1948 that his:

‘Inspiration’ was the breathing-in by the poet of fumes from an intoxicating cauldron, the Awen of the cauldron of Cerridwen, containing probably a mash of barley, acorns, honey, bull’s blood and such sacred herbs as ivy, hellebore and laurel as at Delphi.

Changing times

These original practices of using drink or drugs to inspire art are still in use around the world today. The muses may hold a pen in one hand and a smoke, or steaming mug, in the other – herbal remedies continue to be efficacious for writer’s block.

In the Elizabethan period, when a poet’s relationship with the muses was perceived as directly proportionate to their success in romance, loving attention was paid to their invocation in rhythm and rhyme. But post-Enlightenment, it was no longer considered right for writers to invoke a supernatural mentor for literary endeavours. Modern men were influenced by reason and rationality, rather than a deity. Then it was more likely that a dead bard or scene from nature was deemed an appropriate source of inspiration.

Though writing remained a ritualistic practice, and its mechanisms sometimes mystical, the desk no longer doubled as an altar at which the author worshipped.

Yet writers still often claim “the muse is with me” at moments when the words flow magically. Her voice can be heard in the modern Interval with Erato by Scott Cairns (2015), which name checks the ancient overseer of love poetry:

That’s what I like best about you, Erato sighed in bed, that’s why you’ve become one of my favourites and why you will always be so.

For the most part, the muses are missed off the agenda by both the microscope-gazers and the navel-gazers, these days. However, Plato did insist in his dialogue Phaedrus (370BC) that most people are eu amousoi (εὖ ἄμουσοι) an ancient Greek expression that means “happily without the muses”.

Contemporary theories of creativity do not often mention divine inspiration. We no longer like the idea that the best stories are given to a few fated writers by God, that great plots and characters are bestowed on favoured authors by goddesses. But the answer to that common question all writers are asked – “where do you get your ideas from?” – still seems more mystic, less mathematic and as much supernatural as subconscious.

Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.

Alison Habens, Head of Creative Writing, University of Portsmouth

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

Listening to music can enhance our lives in all kinds of ways – many of us use it during exercise, to regulate our mood, or in the workplace.

But can listening to background music while you work really make you more productive?

It’s a controversial topic. Some people swear by it, others find it painfully distracting. The research agrees there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to this question.

The best way to use music in the workplace depends on several factors, including your personality traits, what you’re doing, and what kind of music you’re listening to.

Here’s how to find out what works best for you.

Who you are

Your personality has a key influence on whether background music can boost productivity or be distracting in the workplace, which relates to your unique optimal level of arousal.

Arousal in this context relates to mental alertness, and the readiness of the brain to process new information. Background music can increase it.

Research suggests that being at an optimal level of arousal facilitates a state of “flow”, enhancing performance and productivity.

Introverts already have a high baseline level of internal arousal.

Adding background music might push them over their optimal level, likely reducing productivity.

Extroverts, on the other hand, have lower baseline levels of internal arousal, so need more external stimulation to perform at their optimal level.

This is why introverts may perform worse than extroverts with background music, especially when the music is highly arousing.

What you’re doing

Research has shown the nature of the task you’re doing can also have an important effect.

Because of connections between music and language in the brain, trying to read and write at the same time as listening to complex music – especially music with lyrics – can be particularly difficult.

However, if you’re doing a simple or repetitive task such as data entry or a manual task, having music on in the background can help with performance – particularly upbeat and complex music.

These findings could be related to music’s effects on motivation and maintaining attention, as well as activating reward networks in the brain.

The type of music itself

One important and often overlooked influence is what kind of music you choose to listen to.

Research has shown that fast and loud music can be more detrimental to complex tasks, such as reading comprehension, than soft and slow music.

Other research found that listening to calming music can have benefits for memory, while aggressive and unpleasant music can have the opposite effect.

However, these effects also depend on your personality, your familiarity with the music, and your musical preferences, so the type of music that works best will be different for everyone.

Music can be very rewarding and can benefit attention, mood and motivation.

Choosing music that is meaningful, rewarding and makes you feel good will likely help boost your performance, especially when performing simple tasks.

What about complex tasks?

It largely seems that the more complex or demanding the task is, the more distracting background music can be.

One way to harness the motivational and mood-boosting effects of music to help with your workplace productivity is to play music before doing your work.

Using music to boost your mood and enhance attention before starting a work task could help you be more productive in that task.

Playing music before a demanding task has been shown to boost language abilities in particular.

So if you’re about to do a cognitively demanding task involving reading and writing, and you feel that music might distract you if played at the same time, try listening to it just before doing the task.

Find what works for you

Music can be both helpful and detrimental for workplace productivity – the best advice is to experiment with different tasks and different types of music, to find out what works best for you.

Try to experiment with your favourite music first, while doing a simple task.

Does the music help you engage with the task? Or do you get distracted and start to become more absorbed in the music? Listening to music without lyrics and with a strong beat might help you focus on the task at hand.

If you find music is distracting to your work, try scheduling in some music breaks throughout the day. Listening to music during breaks could boost your mood and increase your motivation, thereby enhancing productivity.

Moving along with music is suggested to increase reward processing, especially in social situations.

Dancing has the added bonus of getting you out of your chair and moving along in time, so bonus points if you are able to make it a dance break! 

Anna Fiveash, ARC DECRA Fellow (Researcher), Western Sydney University

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

Qantas is being taken to Australia’s consumer regulator over its claim it is committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2050.

The Environmental Defenders Office and the advocacy group Climate Integrity say the claim is “not backed up by credible targets or substantiating strategies” making it potentially misleading and in breach of the Australian Consumer Law.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has yet to decide whether to investigate the complaint. Qantas says it has offered to work closely with Climate Integrity and has reached out to the Commission.

The complaint follows a ruling by a Dutch Court earlier this year that the airline KLM had misled consumers by creating the false impression it was sustainable.

The win has spurred the European Commission to write to 20 airlines identifying potentially misleading claims and inviting them to bring their practices in line.

Of most concern to the European regulators are claims the carbon emissions caused by flights can be offset by climate projects and the use of sustainable fuels, to which the consumers can contribute by paying additional fees.

Carbon assurance assesses claims ahead of time

These kinds of complaints would be much easier for airlines (and other compnies) to deal with if they had submitted themselves to a process known as carbon assurance ahead of time.

Usually entered into voluntarily, and conducted by an independent assessor in accordance with an international standard, the process verifies the accuracy, transparency, and credibility of an organisation’s carbon emissions claims.

My own research with Linh Nguyen, just published in Finance Research Letters, finds firms with high carbon assurance scores are more likely to obtain more trade credit from their suppliers.

Europe and Australia are moving towards making carbon assurance mandatory for large corporations.

Few firms submit themselves to it

A survey by KPMG International finds that while nearly all of the world’s 250 largest firms report on the sustainability of their operations, only two-thirds submit themselves to carbon assurance.

Another survey of 5,183 companies from 42 countries that publish emissions data finds half don’t engage a carbon assuror.

This could be because they are afraid of what the assuror will find.

An international survey of 750 companies that sought some level of external assurance found just 14% received a reasonable assurance.

Many firms aren’t ready

Assurors, and the skills within the organisation to handle the process are hard to find. While international standards are in place, there isn’t yet a professional or regulatory body to certify assurors.

The Australian government intends to make assurance reports for the Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions of large firms mandatory from July 2026.

Scope 1 and scope 2 emissions are the direct and indirect emissions of the corporation itself.

The government intends to make Scope 3 emissions (those in other parts of the corporation’s supply and distribution chain) mandatory from July 2030.

It will be important to get the systems in place.

While what the firms report will matter a lot, what will matter almost as much is an assurance we can believe what they report.

Md Safiullah (Safi), Senior Lecturer in Finance, RMIT University

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

In a move that could reshape how Australians pay for everyday purchases, the federal government is preparing to ban businesses from slapping surcharges on debit card transactions.

This plan, pending a review by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), promises to put money back into consumers’ pockets.

The RBA, which is accepting submissions until December, released its first consultation paper on Tuesday to coincide with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ joint announcement.

But as with any significant policy shift, it’s worth taking a closer look to see what it really means for all of us.

How much are we really saving?

Based on RBA data, the potential savings are huge – up to $500 million a year if surcharges on debit cards are banned.

And if the government goes one step further and includes credit card transaction fees in the ban, those savings could hit a massive $1 billion annually.

While these figures sound impressive, when you break it down, the savings per cardholder would amount to around $140 annually.

It’s not a life-changing amount, but for frequent shoppers or anyone making larger purchases, it could add up.

Of course, not everyone will benefit equally. Those who shop less might not notice the difference.

How does Australia stack up globally?

RBA data shows Australians are paying more in merchant service fees than people in Europe, but less than consumers in the United States.

These fees are what businesses pay to accept card payments, and they get passed on to us in the form of surcharges.

The proposed ban on debit card surcharges occupies a middle ground in the global regulatory landscape. The European Union, United Kingdom and Malaysia have implemented comprehensive bans on surcharges for most debit and credit card transactions.

But in the US and Canada, businesses can still charge you for using a credit card, though debit card surcharges aren’t allowed.

The merchant’s perspective

While the surcharge ban seems like a clear win for consumers, it’s essential to consider the impact on merchants, especially small businesses. The reality is not all merchants are created equal when it comes to card payment fees.

In Australia, there’s a significant disparity between the fees paid by large and small merchants. In fact, RBA data shows small businesses pay fees about three times higher than what larger businesses pay.

It all comes down to bargaining power. Bigger businesses can negotiate better deals on fees. This difference is primarily driven by the ability of larger merchants to thrash out favourable wholesale fees for processing card transactions.

For small businesses, the cost of accepting cards can range from under 1% to more than 2% of the transaction value, which can eat into profits, especially for those working with tight margins.

While the ban may sound like good news for consumers, there’s still a need to fix the bigger issues in the payment system. Innovations like “least-cost routing”, which allows businesses to process transactions at the lowest possible cost, could potentially help level the playing field.

How businesses might exploit the loopholes?

If payment costs are entirely passed on to merchants, they might find ways to recover those expenses through other means. We’ve seen this happen in other countries that abolished surcharges. Some potential strategies include

• slightly raising overall prices to cover lost surcharge revenue
• implementing or increasing minimum purchase requirements for card payments
• introducing new “service” or “convenience” fees for all transactions, or increasing weekend and holiday surcharges.

Most of these tactics have been around for a while. The challenge for regulators will be to monitor and address any new practices that emerge in response to the new rules.

Credit cards: the elephant in the room

While the ban on debit card surcharges is a step in the right direction, it raises an obvious question: why not extend it to credit cards?

The option to ban credit card surcharges along with debit cards is proposed in the RBA’s review consultation paper. The answer lies in the complex web of interchange fees and merchant costs associated with credit card transactions.

Credit card transactions cost merchants more to process because of additional services and rewards programs offered by credit card issuers.

Banning surcharges on these could potentially lead to merchants increasing their base prices to cover these costs. This could effectively result in users of lower-cost payment methods subsidising those opting for premium cards.

The absence of surcharges could also reduce the competitive pressure on card networks to keep their fees in check, potentially leading to higher costs in the long run.

Some countries have managed to ban surcharges on credit cards, but they usually have stricter regulations around interchange fees than we do in Australia.

As policymakers grapple with this complex issue, they must weigh the benefits of consumer simplicity against the risk of distorting market signals and potentially increasing costs for both merchants and consumers alike.

Angel Zhong, Associate Professor of Finance, RMIT University

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

The third section of the Uluru Statement from the Heart is Truth. Without knowing the truth of the history of Australia’s Indigenous people, and how the European invasion continues to impact on them, it is hard to understand the pain behind the loss of The Voice referendum and the ongoing need for treaties.

Marcia Langton and Judith Ryan are truth tellers. Their book 65,000 years: A Short History of Australian Art, should be in every library in the country. The truths they tell are compelling, enticing – sometimes appalling – and unless they are known, the country cannot heal.

Review: 65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art, edited by Marcia Langton and Judith Ryan (Thames & Hudson)

For much of the 20th century, there was tension between anthropologists and art curators on the status of what we now call Indigenous art. While anthropologists focused on what they saw as visual evidence for culture and custom, art curators and historians marvelled at what the first history of Australian art, William Moore’s The Story of Australian Art (1934), called a “fine sense of design”. It took many years for all concerned to see that both are true.

A visual embodiment of knowledge

65,000 Years includes essays by anthropologists, art historians, art curators, artists, astronomers and historians. As one of the contributors, astronomer Duane Hamacher writes, “Art is often focused on aesthetics, but more importantly it is a visual embodiment of knowledge.”

The book is focused on the University of Melbourne for two reasons. The first, and most obvious, is that it is published to support an exhibition of the same name, which will open the university’s Ian Potter Museum of Art next year. The second, more potent reason is that this university was both a participant in some of the more shocking crimes against Indigenous Australians and the keeper of works that tell the slow tale of redemption.

As Langton writes, artists “have a special relationship with the world. They can tell the truth where others cannot or will not because they can represent the truth visually.”

Historian Ross L. Jones’s documentation of the great crime of the university’s medical faculty is harrowing reading. Over many years, bodies were “harvested” en masse – sacrificed, as he writes, “to the Western gods of progress and learning”. “Racial anatomy”, supporting theories of eugenics, became a specialty of the School of Anatomy.

Judith Ryan, former senior curator of Indigenous Art at the National Gallery of Victoria, notes that pastoralist George Murray Black plundered many sacred burial sites for human remains, which were placed “numbered but unconsidered in metal storage boxes”. Artist Brook Andrew’s response to the abuse of the remains of 52 Tasmanians led to him honouring the dead in Vox beyond Tasmania (2013).

Abuse of Indigenous Australians for “research” was not confined to Victoria. Kokatha and Nukunu artist Yhonnie Scarce has produced Weak in Colour but Strong in Blood, a chilling but exquisite installation of blown glass that critiques the activities of anthropologist and ethnologist Norman Tindale and the South Australian Museum. Scarce’s own relatives were among those whose details were recorded by Tindale.

Waanyi artist Judy Watson’s A Preponderance of Aboriginal Blood, a book of 15 etchings showing bloodstained facsimiles of official communications, is heartbreaking. She demonstrates the pettiness of the cruel administration of laws passed by the Queensland government to deny the humanity of Indigenous Australians.

One of the strengths of 65,000 Years is the way it interlaces Indigenous art with work by some of the early European visitors and settlers. Empathetic portraits by artists on the crew of French explorer Nicolas Baudin’s expedition to southern Australia are contrasted with less sympathetic portraits by artists from Britain.

As art curator Alisa Bunbury notes in her essay, “the French travelled with an expansive philosophical belief”. The British were more concerned with property. The disconnect between Indigenous cultures and those of the newcomers is seen in convict artist Charles Rodius’s lithographs of ten “Aboriginal Kings and Queens”. The colonists did not have the language to describe a non-feudal culture.

Approximately two centuries after the arrival of the Europeans, a new generation of Indigenous artists began to incorporate elements of early colonial works in a critique of the arrogance and cruelty of the invaders.

Some of the most effective of these works are by Gordon Bennett, an artist of Anglo-Celtic and Indigenous descent who often adopted the persona “John Citizen” to confront the rhetoric of identity and the politics of categorisation.

His 1993 Death of the Ahistorical Subject (Up Rode the Troopers, ABC), is a riff on an 1850s lithograph that celebrated a massacre. His Big Romantic Painting (Apotheosis of Captain Cook) shows Cook ascending into the clouds after causing destruction throughout the land.

European cultural limitations

The cultural limitations of the Europeans who claimed to have discovered Australia is evident from the explorer Sir George Grey’s response in 1838, when he came to Western Australia and saw the great rock art galleries and their paintings of Wanjina.

Almost a century later, when he wrote his history of Australian art, William Moore accepted as truth Grey’s opinion that such beautiful and powerful works could not be painted by Indigenous Australians, so assumed they had been painted by visitors to the land.

If the newcomers had looked and listened, they would have discovered the complexity and variety of Indigenous cultures that surrounded them. If they were less arrogant, they would also have discovered that many Indigenous people were attempting to educate them. Those few who listened, like explorer Matthew Flinders, benefited.

Bungaree, a Darug man who accompanied Flinders on his first circumnavigation of the continent, was able to mediate to prevent disputes when Flinders’ crew landed to take on water. This was despite him not sharing the language of the many different people whose lands they visited. My favourite painting of Bungaree, by Augustus Earle, shows him resplendent in a red coat, waving his hat as though welcoming visitors to his land.

Nineteenth-century drawings by Tommy McRae, Wurundjeri artist William Barak and Dhurga artist Mickey of Ulladulla created records using an amalgam of Indigenous traditions and western visual tools.

Oscar of Cooktown, an Aboriginal man who was kidnapped as a child and sent to work on a station in the distant Barkly Tableland, made a sketchbook record of the harsh life of men conscripted to join the native police. It took many years for his works to be properly valued.

Works by William Barak both record the traditions that were under attack by the newcomers to Narrm (Melbourne), and serve as a document to advocate for the rights of those displaced.

Sharing knowledge and culture

One advantage the people of northern Australia had over those living in the far south is that they were long aware of the existence of other cultures, other races and the need to interpret. Long before the arrival of the Europeans, they had traded with the Macassans from what we now call Indonesia.

Yolŋu people shared knowledge and culture with the outside world. They taught the Methodist missionaries, who told them different stories in return, and also taught anthropologists what they were permitted to know.

Body paintings were put onto bark for the benefit of anthropologists from down south, including Donald Thomson from the University of Melbourne. Because of their intellectual generosity, Yolŋu art and artefacts are in collections around the world, dominating what many think of as Australian Indigenous art.

The first European Australian to fully appreciate the beauty of Indigenous art was another anthropologist, Sir Baldwin Spencer. In the early years of the 20th century, he also collected paintings by Australian Impressionists. As “chief protector of Aborigines”, he so admired the drawings made on rock and bark shelters that he commissioned Bininj artists to paint work on portable bark, which he later donated to the Museum of Victoria.

Many years later, in 1972, Yolŋu people gave Justice Edward Woodward of the Aboriginal Land Rights Royal Commission paintings that proved their connections to country.

The iconography of each artist showed their personal ancestral connection to the land from time immemorial. It was one of the reasons for The Aboriginal Land Rights Act of 1976. These works are now in the University of Melbourne Art Collection.

Activist artists effecting change

Not all campaigns end well. In 1971, the Yolŋu people lost a case in the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory when they tried to stop bauxite mining at Nhulunbuy. The saddest thing I have ever heard is a recording of the didgeridoo lament on the destruction of the sacred lands.

People involved in both that case and the earlier Yirrkala Bark Petitions later became well known as artists and national leaders, leading the movement that saw international recognition of Australian Indigenous visual culture.

In May 1973, the Whitlam Government created the Aboriginal Arts Board of the Australia Council. All the members were Indigenous. The board had full control of its budget and as a result, made the unusual decision not to award grants to individual artists, but rather to buy completed works of art. It was this art, exhibited both in Australia and internationally, that lifted the profile of Indigenous artists.

Thanks to their efforts, Indigenous art, especially paintings from Papunya, soon became better known in Europe and America than it was in Australia. Purchases by the Aboriginal Arts Board led to the Art Gallery of South Australia buying Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri’s Man’s Love Story in 1980, the first acquisition of a Papunya painting by a public collection.

The following year, Bernice Murphy included paintings by Papunya artists in the groundbreaking Australian Perspecta exhibition of new Australian art. A minor criticism of the book is that there is only a passing reference to the significance of support by the Australia Council.

Urban art activism

The complex landscape of Indigenous art is typified by Koori Art ‘84, the first exhibition to include emerging urban Aboriginal artists, which took place in Sydney’s Artspace.

Its many participants included students from Redfern’s Eora Centre and Tranby at Glebe. But it also brought together Indigenous artists from around the country, including Yolŋu artist Banduk Marika, Yorta Yorta artist Lin Onus and Ngarrindjeri artist Trevor Nickolls.

They found common cause with the Sydney artists Tracey Moffatt, Michael Riley, Fiona Foley and many more.

Ryan notes the connection between this exhibition, when many of these artists discovered each other for the first time, and the flowering of urban Indigenous art.

One of the collaborations that occurred in the aftermath of this exhibition was Boomalli, which opened in Redfern in 1987, but is still going strong today in Leichhardt. Waanyi artist Gordon Hookey, who saw Boomalli’s opening exhibition when he was a student at UNSW’s College of Fine Arts, later moved to Brisbane. There, he found a similar community at ProppaNOW, founded by Richard Bell, Jennifer Herd and Vernon Ah Kee.

Bell is best known for his cynical commentary on racism in contemporary Australia and the exploiters of the industry now surrounding Indigenous art.

While they have a common purpose, this generation of activist artists did not share a common aesthetic. As Ryan notes, what they did have is “a similar sense of outrage at the politics of colonialism and their experiences of institutionalised racism and intergenerational trauma”.

But the art they have made is remarkable. Trevor Nickolls’ Deaths in Custody, Gordon Hookey’s King Hit for Queen and Country, Robert Campbell Jnr’s Roped Off at the Picture Show II all express justifiable rage at ongoing discrimination.

‘Amazing women’ in the zeitgeist

Coby Edgar, a Larrakia, Jingili and Anglo curator, notes in her essay, titled “Turn to the river”, that for many years, most of the anthropologists who researched Australian Indigenous culture were men. Their own cultural blindness, as well as not being privy to women’s lore, led to them seeing it as being of less importance.

She asks: “Why are there so many amazing female artists in our current art market?” Her answer? It’s the “zeitgeist”. This is true, but I wish she had named some of the agents abetting that spirit of the times.

In 1991, Arrernte and Kalkadoon curator and writer Hetti Perkins, then curator at Boomalli, persuaded the Art Gallery of New South Wales to mount the Aboriginal Women Artists Exhibition.

That exhibition included work by many of the women artists who came to prominence in the following years. In 1997, Perkins, along with Gurindji/Malngin/Mudburra curator and artist Brenda L. Croft and Victoria Lynn, mounted fluent, an exhibition of three Indigenous women artists at the Australian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.

Emily Kam Kngwarray, Yvonne Koolmatrie and Judy Watson were thrust into the limelight as a result – and there they stayed.

Dominating Australian culture

In this 21st century, Indigenous art has come to dominate perceptions of Australian culture.

Crimes of the past are painted in heartrending detail by Badimaya artist and activist Julie Dowling. Joyous abstract paintings by the late Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori are yet another reminder that wise old women have much to say.

Torres Strait Islander artist Brian Robinson’s intricate linocut prints map the magic of the night sky. And Yankunytjatjara artist Kaylene Whisky brings joy, synthesising popular culture icons like Cher and Dolly Parton with her daily life in Indulkana, roughly 1,200 kilometres northwest of Adelaide.

All these artists and more are discussed in 65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art. Read it. Buy it. It is one for the pool room.

Joanna Mendelssohn, Honorary Senior Fellow, School of Culture and Communication. Editor in chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne

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

For Deaf people, train travel can be a gamble. On an average day, nothing goes wrong: they catch their train to their destination and carry on with their business.

But when something out of the ordinary happens, the situation can quickly get scary, because most updates are only delivered by audio announcements. A Deaf traveller may miss their train because it was moved to a different platform, or watch as their station whizzes by because the train isn’t stopping there today. They may also remain on a train carriage in an emergency after everyone else has evacuated, and have to be rescued by station staff.

Every single one of these examples has been drawn from the real life experiences of Deaf people in Sydney. But my colleagues and I are working with Sydney Trains and members of the Australian Deaf community to develop an advanced, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered signing avatar which can automatically translate audio announcements into Auslan.

Our work on the avatar also builds towards the next step: developing AI systems which can “understand” Auslan.

Journeys don’t always go to plan

Earlier this year, my colleagues and I ran a pilot study with three Deaf train travellers in Sydney. As well as the stories they shared about what can go wrong during train travel, we learned they use tried and tested strategies for making their journeys go smoothly.

Their strategies might be familiar to regular commuters. For example, they would plan their journeys with an app, arrive early and look for signage to let them know if anything had changed.

But they also said they felt they needed to stand near information screens to watch for updates, and ask station staff or other passengers for information when the situation had changed. They also reported being hypervigilant while on the train, watching to make sure they don’t miss their stop.

But these strategies didn’t always ensure Deaf travellers received important information, including about emergencies. For example, while usually helpful, station staff were sometimes too busy to assist.

The greatest frustration came in situations where other passengers weren’t willing or able to provide information, leaving our Deaf travellers to just “follow the crowd”. This often meant ending up in the wrong place.

Developing a signing avatar

Speech-to-text software might seem like an easy solution to some of these problems. But for many Deaf people, English is not their native language and Auslan can be processed far more easily and quickly.

Our Deaf travellers told us that, in a perfect world, they would want live interpreters. However, automatic, AI-powered translation using a signing avatar displayed on a platform or train screen which could identify key words in an audio announcement, generate a sentence with correct Auslan grammar, and stitch together the corresponding signs from our vocabulary library was appealing for a number of reasons.

First, it allows for real-time translation of announcements that use known vocabulary – which is relevant in the trains-and-stations context, where many announcements cover similar topics.

Second, an avatar and its signing can be customised to the needs of a given situation, such as using information about screen location to ensure the avatar signs in the right direction while pointing out exits or other platforms.

Third, multiple signers can contribute signs to an avatar’s vocabulary, which can then be smoothly stitched together to make a sentence.

And importantly, an avatar means no real person has to be the “face” of an organisation’s automatically generated announcements. This is particularly important because the Australian Deaf community is small and close knit, and if something goes wrong with the translation, nobody suffers any reputational damage.

From a technical point of view, an avatar also allows us to ensure a minimum quality threshold for signing. We’re using motion capture to make sure each sign in our vocabulary library is accurate, and movements are clear.

It also helps us avoid the “uncanny valley” – an effect where something human-like but subtly wrong is unsettling. We don’t want any of the many-fingered monstrosities you may have seen recently generated by AI.

AI for everyone

This work is one step in our broader aim of creating an AI system which can understand Auslan. This AI could be used to help Deaf and hearing station staff converse, or to create “chatbot booths” or app-based assistants that would allow Deaf people to get information on demand in Auslan about their train journeys or other daily tasks.

Sign languages and Deaf cultures around the world have nuances and complexities that hearing researchers and developers of AI may not be aware of. These nuances and complexities must be embedded in new technologies, and researchers and developers must take a language-first approach to AI data collection and design with – not just for – Deaf people.

Only then will AI meet Deaf people’s real needs: to ensure their safety and independence in every aspect of daily life.

Jessica Korte, Senior Lecturer, School of Computer Science, Queensland University of Technology

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

On October 16 1843, the Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton had an epiphany during a walk alongside Dublin’s Royal Canal. He was so excited he took out his penknife and carved his discovery right then and there on Broome Bridge.

It is the most famous graffiti in mathematical history, but it looks rather unassuming:

Yet Hamilton’s revelation changed the way mathematicians represent information. And this, in turn, made myriad technical applications simpler – from calculating forces when designing a bridge, an MRI machine or a wind turbine, to programming search engines and orienting a rover on Mars. So, what does this famous graffiti mean?

Rotating objects

The mathematical problem Hamilton was trying to solve was how to represent the relationship between different directions in three-dimensional space. Direction is important in describing forces and velocities, but Hamilton was also interested in 3D rotations.

Mathematicians already knew how to represent the position of an object with coordinates such as x, y and z, but figuring out what happened to these coordinates when you rotated the object required complicated spherical geometry. Hamilton wanted a simpler method.

He was inspired by a remarkable way of representing two-dimensional rotations. The trick was to use what are called “complex numbers”, which have a “real” part and an “imaginary” part. The imaginary part is a multiple of the number i, “the square root of minus one”, which is defined by the equation i ² = –1.

By the early 1800s several mathematicians, including Jean Argand and John Warren, had discovered that a complex number can be represented by a point on a plane. Warren had also shown it was mathematically quite simple to rotate a line through 90° in this new complex plane, like turning a clock hand back from 12.15pm to 12 noon. For this is what happens when you multiply a number by i.

Hamilton was mightily impressed by this connection between complex numbers and geometry, and set about trying to do it in three dimensions. He imagined a 3D complex plane, with a second imaginary axis in the direction of a second imaginary number j, perpendicular to the other two axes.

It took him many arduous months to realise that if he wanted to extend the 2D rotational wizardry of multiplication by i he needed four-dimensional complex numbers, with a third imaginary number, k.

In this 4D mathematical space, the k-axis would be perpendicular to the other three. Not only would k be defined by k ² = –1, its definition also needed k = ij = –ji. (Combining these two equations for k gives ijk = –1.)

Putting all this together gives i ² = j ² = k ² = ijk = –1, the revelation that hit Hamilton like a bolt of lightning at Broome Bridge.

Quaternions and vectors

Hamilton called his 4D numbers “quaternions”, and he used them to calculate geometrical rotations in 3D space. This is the kind of rotation used today to move a robot, say, or orient a satellite.

But most of the practical magic comes into it when you consider just the imaginary part of a quaternion. For this is what Hamilton named a “vector”.

A vector encodes two kinds of information at once, most famously the magnitude and direction of a spatial quantity such as force, velocity or relative position. For instance, to represent an object’s position (x, y, z) relative to the “origin” (the zero point of the position axes), Hamilton visualised an arrow pointing from the origin to the object’s location. The arrow represents the “position vector” x i + y j + z k.

This vector’s “components” are the numbers x, y and z – the distance the arrow extends along each of the three axes. (Other vectors would have different components, depending on their magnitudes and units.)

Half a century later, the eccentric English telegrapher Oliver Heaviside helped inaugurate modern vector analysis by replacing Hamilton’s imaginary framework i, j, k with real unit vectors, i, j, k. But either way, the vector’s components stay the same – and therefore the arrow, and the basic rules for multiplying vectors, remain the same, too.

Hamilton defined two ways to multiply vectors together. One produces a number (this is today called the scalar or dot product), and the other produces a vector (known as the vector or cross product). These multiplications crop up today in a multitude of applications, such as the formula for the electromagnetic force that underpins all our electronic devices.

A single mathematical object

Unbeknown to Hamilton, the French mathematician Olinde Rodrigues had come up with a version of these products just three years earlier, in his own work on rotations. But to call Rodrigues’ multiplications the products of vectors is hindsight. It is Hamilton who linked the separate components into a single quantity, the vector.

Everyone else, from Isaac Newton to Rodrigues, had no concept of a single mathematical object unifying the components of a position or a force. (Actually, there was one person who had a similar idea: a self-taught German mathematician named Hermann Grassmann, who independently invented a less transparent vectorial system at the same time as Hamilton.)

Hamilton also developed a compact notation to make his equations concise and elegant. He used a Greek letter to denote a quaternion or vector, but today, following Heaviside, it is common to use a boldface Latin letter.

This compact notation changed the way mathematicians represent physical quantities in 3D space.

Take, for example, one of Maxwell’s equations relating the electric and magnetic fields:

With just a handful of symbols (we won’t get into the physical meanings of ∂/∂t and ∇ ×), this shows how an electric field vector (E) spreads through space in response to changes in a magnetic field vector (B).

Without vector notation, this would be written as three separate equations (one for each component of B and E) – each one a tangle of coordinates, multiplications and subtractions.

The power of perseverance

I chose one of Maxwell’s equations as an example because the quirky Scot James Clerk Maxwell was the first major physicist to recognise the power of compact vector symbolism. Unfortunately, Hamilton didn’t live to see Maxwell’s endorsement. But he never gave up his belief in his new way of representing physical quantities.

Hamilton’s perseverance in the face of mainstream rejection really moved me, when I was researching my book on vectors. He hoped that one day – “never mind when” – he might be thanked for his discovery, but this was not vanity. It was excitement at the possible applications he envisaged.

He would be over the moon that vectors are so widely used today, and that they can represent digital as well as physical information. But he’d be especially pleased that in programming rotations, quaternions are still often the best choice – as NASA and computer graphics programmers know.

In recognition of Hamilton’s achievements, maths buffs retrace his famous walk every October 16 to celebrate Hamilton Day. But we all use the technological fruits of that unassuming graffiti every single day.

Robyn Arianrhod, Affiliate, School of Mathematics, Monash University

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

The sight of a fireball streaking across the sky brings wonder and excitement to children and adults alike. It’s a reminder that Earth is part of a much larger and incredibly dynamic system.

Each year, roughly 17,000 of these fireballs not only enter Earth’s atmosphere, but survive the perilous journey to the surface. This gives scientists a valuable chance to study these rocky visitors from outer space.

Scientists know that while some of these meteorites come from the Moon and Mars, the majority come from asteroids. But two separate studies published in Nature today have gone a step further. The research was led by Miroslav Brož from Charles University in the Czech Republic, and Michaël Marsset from the European Southern Observatory in Chile.

The papers trace the origin of most meteorites to just a handful of asteroid breakup events – and possibly even individual asteroids. In turn, they build our understanding of the events that shaped the history of the Earth – and the entire solar system.

What is a meteorite?

Only when a fireball reaches Earth’s surface is it called a meteorite. They are commonly designated as three types: stony meteorites, iron meteorites, and stony-iron meteorites.

Stony meteorites come in two types.

The most common are the chondrites, which have round objects inside that appear to have formed as melt droplets. These comprise 85% of all meteorites found on Earth.

Most are known as “ordinary chondrites”. They are then divided into three broad classes – H, L and LL – based on the iron content of the meteorites and the distribution of iron and magnesium in the major minerals olivine and pyroxene. These silicate minerals are the mineral building blocks of our Solar System and are common on Earth, being present in basalt.

“Carbonaceous chondrites” are a distinct group. They contain high amounts of water in clay minerals, and organic materials such as amino acids. Chondrites have never been melted and are direct samples of the dust that originally formed the solar system.

The less common of the two types of stony meteorites are the so-called “achondrites”. These do not have the distinctive round particles of chondrites, because they experienced melting on planetary bodies.

The asteroid belt

Asteroids are the primary sources of meteorites.

Most asteroids reside in a dense belt between Mars and Jupiter. The asteroid belt itself consists of millions of asteroids swept around and marshalled by the gravitational force of Jupiter.

The interactions with Jupiter can perturb asteroid orbits and cause collisions. This results in debris, which can aggregate into rubble pile asteroids. These then take on lives of their own.

It is asteroids of this type which the recent Hayabusa and Osiris-REx missions visited and returned samples from. These missions established the connection between distinct asteroid types and the meteorites that fall to Earth.

S-class asteroids (akin to stony meteorites) are found on the inner regions of the belt, while C-class carbonaceous asteroids (akin to carbonaceous chondrites) are more commonly found in the outer regions of the belt.

But, as the two Nature studies show, we can relate a specific meteorite type to its specific source asteroid in the main belt.

One family of asteroids

The two new studies place the sources of ordinary chondrite types into specific asteroid families – and most likely specific asteroids. This work requires painstaking back-tracking of meteoroid trajectories, observations of individual asteroids, and detailed modelling of the orbital evolution of parent bodies.

The study led by Miroslav Brož reports that ordinary chondrites originate from collisions between asteroids larger than 30 kilometres in diameter that occurred less than 30 million years ago.

The Koronis and Massalia asteroid families provide appropriate body sizes and are in a position that leads to material falling to Earth, based on detailed computer modelling. Of these families, asteroids Koronis and Karin are likely the dominant sources of H chondrites. Massalia (L) and Flora (LL) families are by far the main sources of L- and LL-like meteorites.

The study led by Michaël Marsset further documents the origin of L chondrite meteorites from Massalia.

It compiled spectroscopic data – that is, characteristic light intensities which can be fingerprints of different molecules – of asteroids in the belt between Mars and Jupiter. This showed that the composition of L chondrite meteorites on Earth is very similar to that of the Massalia family of asteroids.

The scientists then used computer modelling to show an asteroid collision that occurred roughly 470 million years ago formed the Massalia family. Serendipitously, this collision also resulted in abundant fossil meteorites in Ordovician limestones in Sweden.

In determining the source asteroid body, these reports provide the foundations for missions to visit the asteroids responsible for the most common outerspace visitors to Earth. In understanding these source asteroids, we can view the events that shaped our planetary system.

Trevor Ireland, Professor, School of the Environment, The University of Queensland

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

A century ago, French writer André Breton published a manifesto that would go on to become one of the most influential artistic texts of the 20th century. Breton’s Manifesto of Surrealism launched a movement that transformed not only visual art, but also literature, theatre and film.

Surrealism drew on developments in psychology to herald a revolutionary new way of doing, seeing and being. It is, as art critic Jonathan Jones once noted, “the only modern movement that changed the way we talk and think about life”.

Surrealism also fundamentally changed the way we make art. Its cultural impact and legacy can be felt in, to pluck three random examples, the cinematic dreamscapes of David Lynch, the lyrical cut-ups of Bob Dylan and the monumental sculptures of Louise Bourgeois.

The term itself has entered our everyday lexicon. By the same token, some question its significance and aesthetic merits. Moreover, to borrow a couple of rhetorical questions posed by Mark Polizzotti in a book marking the movement’s centenary: “Does Surrealism still matter? Has it ever mattered?”

These questions are hardly new. They’ve been around since the movement’s inception – and continue to be asked in our historical moment of catastrophe. As Polizzotti writes:

young people of the 21st century could hardly be faulted for wondering what a bunch of eccentric writers and artists showing off their dream states could have to do with such pressing concerns as social and racial injustice, a faltering job market, gross economic inequities, the decimation of our civil liberties, questions of gender identity and equality, environmental devastation, education reform, or, once again […] the spectre of world war.

The answer, Polizzotti points out, is simple: “Surrealism engaged with all of these crises.”

While Surrealism started as a literary movement, it quickly evolved into a formidable platform for critiquing dominant sociopolitical inequalities and systems of oppression.

In both word and deed, the surrealists opposed warmongering and colonial expansion. They railed against religious dogma and championed the freedom of sexual expression.

Breton perhaps put it best in 1935. “From where we stand,” he said, while tipping his hat to Karl Marx, “we maintain that the activity of interpreting the world must continue to be linked with the activity of changing the world.”

WWI and meeting Jacques Vaché

Born in Normandy in 1896, André Breton was the only child of a policeman and a seamstress.

While studying medicine, Breton developed an interest in mental illness. He also had a passion for poetry. At an early age, he started exchanging letters with the prominent avant-gardist Guillaume Apollinaire, who coined the term “surrealism” in 1917.

Breton’s interests were disrupted when he was conscripted into the French army in 1914. During World War I, he served as a stretcher bearer, dealing firsthand with shellshocked soldiers. He also worked as a nurse in Nantes, France, where he met a wounded Jacques Vaché.

According to art historian Susan Laxton, the dandyish Vaché was in equal measure “disdainful and deeply cynical”, seeming to live “in a perpetual state of insubordination”. His unconventional approach to life and creativity had a profound impact on Breton’s thinking about Surrealism.

Vaché had little patience for most writers and artists. He was, however, a big fan of Alfred Jarry – best known for his scandalous drama Ubu Roi (1896). Jarry is frequently cited as an influence on Dadaism, an anarchic art movement that was developed in Europe in 1915 and led by Tristan Tzara.

The Dadaists thumbed their noses at convention and embraced chaos, irrationality and spontaneity. As Tzara explained, Dadaism was vehemently opposed to “greasy objectivity, and harmony, the science that finds everything in order”.

Breton was impressed. Keen to establish his credentials as an artist, he set out to build his own avant-garde coalition.

The rise of automatism

Enlisting Louis Aragon and Philippe Soupault, Breton set up Littérature. Running from 1919 to 1924, this review published many key surrealist works, including excerpts of Breton and Soupault’s book The Magnetic Fields (1920).

Drawing on Sigmund Freud’s concept of the unconscious, this groundbreaking collaboration marked the first sustained use of a practice called surrealist automatism.

The Magnetic Fields was written in secret over the course of a single spring week in 1919. The guidelines Breton and Soupault established for themselves were simple. They would engage in writing sessions that could last for several hours at a time – often inducing a state of shared euphoria – without any chance for reflection or correction.

The aim was to bypass rational modes of thinking and tap directly into the imagination, thereby producing a revolutionary new kind of poetry. In the words of art historian David Hopkins, this practice “was predicated on the conviction that the speed of writing is equivalent to the speed of thought”.

Following this breakthrough, Breton and the surrealists continued to refine the technique, pushing it further into new, untrammelled realms of creative possibility. With the subsequent publication of the Manifesto of Surrealism, Breton solidified the movement’s core principles. In it, he offers a definition:

Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of previously neglected associations, in the omnipotence of dreams, in the disinterested play of thought. It tends to ruin once and for all all other psychic mechanisms and to substitute itself for them in solving all the principle problems of life.

In other words, Surrealism was not just an artistic endeavour, but a philosophical stance that sought to radically rethink experience and existence.

Elsewhere in the manifesto, Breton introduces the key surrealist concept of “the marvellous”. For the surrealists, the marvellous could be found in poems, paintings, photographs and everyday objects. It was experienced as a shock or jolt, a moment of recognition that allowed one to transcend the ordinary and glimpse the sublime hidden within the apparently mundane.

By rejecting traditional modes of understanding and embracing the unconscious, the surrealists attempted to upend the established order of things. They viewed automatism and the marvellous as ways to access deeper truths, free from the constraints of rationality which they believed had long dominated Western thought.

A movement transcending borders

The events that followed the publication of Breton’s Manifesto of Surrealism supported his claim, made during a 1934 lecture, that the movement had “spread like wildfire, on pursuing its course, not only in art but in life”.

Surrealism’s public profile expanded internationally, along with its adherents. Luis Buñuel, Frida Kahlo, Aimé Césaire, Lee Miller, Salvador Dalí and Leonor Fini are just some of the important figures who embraced the movement.

And as the raft of high-profile exhibitions currently taking place confirms, the surrealist spirit lives on, decades after the movement wound down. Unabated, the search for the marvellous continues.

Alexander Howard, Senior Lecturer, Discipline of English and Writing, University of Sydney

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

The Australian government has introduced its first-ever standalone cyber security act. Along with two other cyber security bills, it’s currently being reviewed by a parliamentary committee.

Among the act’s many provisions are mandatory “minimum cyber security standards for smart devices”.

This marks a crucial step in defending the digital lives of Australians. So what devices would it apply to? And what can you do right now to protect your smart devices from cyber criminals?

Smart devices are everywhere

The new legislation aims to cover a wide range of smart devices – products that can connect to the internet in some way.

This includes “internet-connectable” products – think smartphones, laptops, tablets, smart TVs and gaming consoles. It also includes indirect “network-connectable” products, which can send and receive data. This means things like smart home devices and appliances, wearables (smart watches, fitness trackers), smart vacuums and many more.

Simple electronic devices that don’t connect to the internet or can’t store or process sensitive data are not included.

According to one study, 7.6 million Australian households – more than 70% – had at least one smart home device by the end of 2023, and 3 million of those households had more than five.

To work as well as they do, smart devices typically collect, store and share data. This can include sensitive personal information, health data and geo-location data, making them attractive targets for cyber criminals.

A notorious example is the Mirai botnet in 2016, when cyber criminals infected more than 600,000 devices such as cameras, home routers, and video players globally to use them in massively disruptive network attacks, known as a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS).

Even implantable medical devices, such as pacemakers and insulin pumps, can have security flaws that could be exploited.

Just last week, the ABC reported that one of the world’s largest home robotics companies has failed to address security issues in its robot vacuums despite warnings from the previous year.

The consequences of such vulnerabilities can be even more dangerous when smart devices are part of critical infrastructure. As these devices become more interconnected, a breach in one can compromise entire networks, amplifying the security risks.

What will be the ‘minimum’ security standards?

The new cyber security act provides for “mandatory security standards” for smart devices. It establishes the legal framework for enforcing these standards, but doesn’t explicitly outline the technical details smart devices must meet. In the past the Department of Home Affairs has suggested that Australia consider adopting an international security standard, such as ETSI EN 303 645.

The bill’s focus is on securing connected devices to protect users from internet-based threats, vulnerabilities and risks.

In practice, this means manufacturers will have to ensure their products meet these minimum security standards and provide a statement of compliance. And suppliers will have to include statements of compliance with the product, and will be forbidden from selling non-compliant products.

All this will be enforced through the Secretary of Home Affairs, who can issue compliance, stop, or recall notices for violations of these rules.

You can do your bit to stay safe

The proposed cyber security act is a significant step forward in protecting Australians from the growing threat of cyber attacks on smart devices.

But this may only apply to new devices or ones still receiving updates from manufacturers. Exact details on how the legislation will apply to existing devices will be determined by the government agency responsible for its implementation.

“Legacy” devices with outdated software – older products that are no longer supported and don’t receive the latest security patches – are particularly vulnerable to cyber attacks.

While the government works on introducing the new cyber security laws, there are several things you can do to protect your smart devices:

• set up a strong wifi password to prevent unauthorised access to your home network
• create a dedicated, more secure wifi network for smart home devices
• always install security patches and updates promptly
• create unique and complex passwords for each account
• where possible, use two-factor authentication to add an extra layer of security
• disable unnecessary features or permissions, and be mindful of the information you share with apps and devices
• make sure you understand how your data is collected and used by apps and devices.

By mandating minimum cyber security standards and providing for effective enforcement mechanisms, Australia’s new cyber security act will help keep consumer devices safer.

However, it’s important to note that as technology continues to evolve rapidly, the cyber crime ecosystem is also expanding. The global cost of cyber crime is projected to reach US$9.5 trillion in 2024.

Given the dynamic nature of cyber threats, relying solely on standards may not be sufficient to address all potential risks. New vulnerabilities are discovered regularly, and it’s essential for every one of us to remain vigilant and practice good cyber hygiene by following the tips above.

Abu Barkat ullah, Associate Professor of Cyber Security, University of Canberra

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

In July 2023, after the release of the damning Robodebt Royal Commission report, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese declared:

it was wrong, it was illegal, it should never have happened and it should never happen again.

A major finding was some senior public servants were overly responsive to the wishes of ministers, to the detriment of the general public. The report describes an environment that was:

fraught […] characterised by a powerful drive for savings, strongly expressed ministerial policy positions […] and intense pressure experienced by public servants.

Investigating the scheme, which ran under the Morrison government, Commissioner Catherine Holmes was disturbed by “the lengths to which public servants were prepared to go to oblige ministers”, undermining the concept of impartiality and frank and fearless advice.

The release of Rick Morton’s new book Mean Streak brings a renewed focus on the lessons from Robodebt. To learn from such a serious crisis, organisations need to openly confront what happened, discuss and understand what the failure means. What were the systemic causes? What cultural failings did it expose? How can we ensure a similar disaster does not happen again?

Our research found little evidence these questions were being asked by many public service leaders immediately after the royal commission.

In the six months after the royal commission report’s release, almost half of the heads of Australian Public Service (APS) agencies apparently decided they didn’t need to communicate with their staff about Robodebt and explain what it meant for them.

What did department leaders do?

Learning from the failure of Robodebt will take time. In 2024, the public service is investigating and punishing some of those involved and implementing a new integrity plan.

Our research focuses on the six months after the release of the royal commission report: July to December 2023. Research shows the immediate post-crisis period is crucial to effective learning.

But before organisations can respond, they have to interpret and understand the meaning of the failure.

Just as the public turns to political leaders in a crisis, employees look to management. Leaders’ communication, whether by email, an all staff video, or a town hall meeting, is crucial.

These messages set the organisational narrative that explains what happened and why, what the repercussions are, how it can be resolved, and what lessons (if any) should be drawn from the crisis.

Three days after the royal commission report was released, the secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Glyn Davis, and Australian Public Service Commissioner Gordon de Brouwer, emailed all public service employees saying:

we are committed to working through the findings in an open and constructive way with you — the APS — and with the Australian public.

Our focus, however, is on how leaders of individual departments and agencies responded. Using Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, we asked how leaders communicated with staff in the crucial period straight after the commission reported.

Departments are where policy development occurs and they often work closely with ministers.

But only half of all public servants work for departments. The rest work across the 100 or so agencies.

While most department heads communicated with their staff about Robodebt, only 54% of agencies’ leaders did.

The 50 agencies that did not communicate with their staff about the meaning of Robodebt in the months following the report employ more than 45,000 people, more than 25% of the public service.

Not my problem mentality

Three large departments told us that “no documents were identified” or “the Department does not hold documents […] that meet the terms of the request”. This indicates they did not communicate with staff in the first six months after the Robodebt report was handed down. The departments were:

• defence

• home affairs

• infrastructure, transport, regional development, communications and the arts.

It is not clear why those secretaries decided not to write to their staff directly about Robodebt, but the absence of communication sends a message.

This was explicit in some responses. For example, in declining our request, we were told that the Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority:

[…] is not an outwardly facing organisation and as such does not provide payments to individual recipients. Consequently, it is not required to respond to the Royal Commission and there are no documents that are relevant to your request.

Even when there was some communication, agencies were not necessarily addressing the cultural issues. For example, the Clean Energy Regulator was focused on public perception:

there is a heightened sense of scrutiny on regulators […] please be vigilant if you are approached by anybody working for a media outlet.

In such circumstances, it is unlikely cultural change will occur.

Some positive signs

On the positive side, there were examples of agencies that addressed the serious implications of Robodebt for their work, which is likely to improve their organisational culture.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) identified a number of recommendations “albeit directed at other agencies […] that ASIC should act on”. They noted that “given most of our people come from the private sector”, there was a need to improve training on “our obligations as public servants”.

Similarly, Australian statistician David Gruen emphasised creating a culture where “people feel supported if and when they seek to raise difficult issues with their colleagues or superiors”. Similar discussions were had at AUSTRAC.

Departments are closest to ministers, so we hoped their communications would address problems in the relationships between senior public servants and ministers, a key issue exposed in the Robodebt case.

Unfortunately, only four departments discussed over-responsiveness with their staff or in executive meetings, in the period studied.

The department of industry and science was the most comprehensive. Secretary Meghan Quinn wrote to staff several times, reflecting that the “findings go to the heart of leadership and culture and this should be our focus going forward”. The department’s integrity branch wrote to staff:

public servants [must] […] provide the government with advice that is frank and honest. If you ever feel pressured to do or sign something you are not comfortable with, it’s important you speak with your supervisors […] you have the Executive’s backing not to put your name to anything that is not true or not in the public interest.

However, this was one of the few departments where senior staff confronted these core issues directly in the early months after the royal commission reported. Most departments did not name or discuss the underlying cause of the failures: over-responsiveness to ministers at the expense of protecting the public.

While many of the errors of Robodebt can be solved through new procedures and rules, changing public service culture is a bigger learning project.

It requires a shift in norms and reweighting the competing duties of public servants. They must serve elected ministers, but equally, they must serve the public by ensuring probity, fairness and legality.

Robodebt illustrated the harm that occurs when the balance tips too far towards ministers and away from the public interest.

That this was rarely part of the communication from public service leaders to their staff in the immediate aftermath of the royal commission does not bode well for lessons being learnt from the crisis.

Daniel Casey, Lecturer, School of Politics and International Relations, Australian National University and Maria Maley, Senior Lecturer in Politics, School of Politics and International Relations, Australian National University

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

The 2024 hurricane season has been especially disastrous, and the casualties and widespread damage from flooding and high winds in towns like Cedar Key, Florida, call to mind another historic hurricane, the Labor Day hurricane of 1935.

As one of the editors of “The Letters of Ernest Hemingway Volume 6 (1934-1936),” with Sandra Spanier and Miriam B. Mandel, I am reminded of the eyewitness account that the writer, then a resident of Key West, Florida, gave of the catastrophic storm that leveled Upper Matecumbe Key and Lower Matecumbe Key and took the lives of more than 400 people, many of them World War I veterans.

Then, as now, the aftermath of a natural disaster included political finger-pointing.

Today the debates center around how resources from the Federal Emergency Management Agency are allocated or how climate change contributes to the intensity of the storms.

Back then, Hemingway had a different beef with the government, blaming the deaths of hundreds of World War I veterans on the failure to evacuate Upper Matecumbe Key and Lower Matecumbe Key ahead of the storm.

The calm before the storm

Hemingway was no stranger to hurricanes.

A serious deep-sea angler who fished the waters off Florida, he kept an eye on weather patterns. Hurricane season was an anticipated, if dreaded, annual event.

“Now the lousy hurricanes are starting,” he wrote his friends Jane and Grant Mason in June 1934. “Wish we would get lots of east wind and current … and then have a fine july and august without hurricanes.” Knowing that these conditions were unlikely, he jokingly asked the Masons “and what do you want for xmas Mr. and Mrs. Mason yourselves?”

In a Sept. 30, 1934, letter, he wrote friends Gerald and Sara Murphy with hopes that he would get through the rest of hurricane season without incident: “no hurricanes yet […] if we get through the next 20 [days] are all right,” and he was glad that he “can fish without having to tie [the boat] up somewhere up some creek.”

The next day, he wrote to fellow novelist John Dos Passos, “Hurricane months if you dont get a hurricane are fine.”

‘Not a building of any sort standing’

But the following year, when the hurricanes did come, it was not fine.

Over Sept. 2-3, 1935, a hurricane made landfall in the Florida Keys. Occurring in the days before storms were given names, the Labor Day hurricane, as it is commonly known, was the first recorded Category 5 hurricane in the U.S.

It remains the third-most intense storm on record in the Atlantic basin, with a barometric pressure drop to 892 millibars and wind gusts exceeding 200 mph. Much of its damage was caused by the storm surge, and the Overseas Railroad, which had been completed in 1912 and connected the Florida Keys to the mainland, was destroyed and would not be rebuilt.

After the storm, Hemingway wrote to his editor, Maxwell Perkins, describing its aftermath.

Though communications were down and the island was cut off from the mainland, Key West had sustained relatively little damage.

Upper Matecumbe Key and Lower Matecumbe Key, however, were a different story.

“Imagine you have read about it in the papers but nothing could give an idea of the destruction,” Hemingway writes. “The foliage absolutely stripped as though by fire for forty miles and the land looking like the abandoned bed of a river. Not a building of any sort standing. Over thirty miles of railway washed and blown away.”

Worse yet were the human casualties: He notes that the last time he witnessed so many dead in one place was in Europe during World War I as a Red Cross ambulance driver, adding, “We made five trips with provisions for survivors to different places and nothing but dead men to eat the grub.”

Many of the victims were veterans, employed by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration to work on the Overseas Highway construction project. Outraged by the federal government’s failure to send a train to evacuate the workers in time, Hemingway tells Perkins that the veterans “were practically murdered.”

Federal administrators, he adds, “had all day Sunday and all day monday to get those vets out and never did it. If they had taken half the precautions with them that we took with our boat not a one would have been lost.”

The letter contains graphic descriptions of the hundreds of dead bodies, rapidly decomposing in the Florida sun as they awaited transport to Arlington, Virginia, to be buried.

‘That smell you thought you’d never smell again’

Hemingway would repeat many of these same details in an article published in the Sept. 17, 1935, issue of the leftist magazine The New Masses.

The article, which Hemingway titled “Who Killed These Men?,” and which was re-titled by the editors as “Who Murdered the Vets?,” criticized the federal government for not evacuating the workers.

“Who sent nearly a thousand war veterans … to live in frame shacks on the Florida Keys in hurricane months?” Hemingway asks.

Hemingway, no stranger to the sight and smell of the dead from his experiences during World War I, was disgusted not merely by the bodies “swollen and stinking” but by what brought the veterans to the work camps to begin with.

Skeptical of the various government programs of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, Hemingway saw the Federal Emergency Relief Administration work camps as a way for Washington to conveniently rid itself of hundreds of down-on-their-luck veterans, many of whom were experiencing what we would now call post-traumatic stress disorder.

“I would like to make whoever sent them there carry just one out through the mangroves, or turn one over that lay in the sun along the fill, or tie five together so they won’t float out, or smell that smell you thought you’d never smell again, with luck,” Hemingway writes.

This impassioned response to the disaster in 1935 still resonates. Hemingway recognized that while storms are inevitable, mass casualties do not have to be. The government can’t control the weather, but it can fulfill an obligation to protect the most vulnerable in the path of the storm.

Verna Kale, Associate Editor, The Letters of Ernest Hemingway and Associate Research Professor of English, Penn State

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

As people who research ageing like to quip: the best thing you can do to increase how long you live is to pick good parents. After all, it has long been recognised that longer-lived people tend to have longer-lived parents and grandparents, suggesting that genetics influence longevity.

Complicating the picture, however, is that we know that the sum of your lifestyle, specifically diet and exercise, also significantly influences your health into older age and how long you live. What contribution lifestyle versus genetics makes is an open question that a recent study in Nature has shed new light on.

Scientists have long known that reducing calorie intake can make animals live longer. In the 1930s, it was noted that rats fed reduced calories lived longer than rats who could eat as much as they wanted. Similarly, people who are more physically active tend to live longer. But specifically linking single genes to longevity was until recently a controversial one.

While studying the lifespan of the tiny worm C elegans at the University of California, San Francisco, Cynthia Kenyon found that small changes to the gene that controls the way that cells detect and respond to nutrients around them led to the worms doubling their lifespan. This raises new questions: if we know that genetics and lifestyle affect how long you live, which one is more important? And how do they interact?

To try to tease out the effects of genetics versus lifestyle, the new study in Nature examined different models of caloric restriction in 960 mice. The researchers specifically looked at classical experimental models of caloric restriction (either 20% or 40% fewer calories than control mice), or intermittent fasting of one or two days without food (as intermittent fasting is popular in people looking to see the positive benefits of caloric restriction).

Because we now know that small genetic variations affect ageing, the researchers specifically used genetically diverse mice. This is important for two reasons. First, as laboratory studies on mice are normally performed on genetically very (very!) similar mice, this allowed the researchers to tease out the effects of both diet and genetic variables would have on longevity.

Second, humans are highly diverse, meaning that studies on genetically near-identical mice don’t often translate into humanity’s high genetic diversity.

The headline finding was that genetics appeared to play a larger role in lifespan than any of the dietary restriction interventions. Long-lived types of mice were still longer lived despite dietary changes.

Diet counts, but genes count more

And while shorter-lived mice did show improvements as a result of dietary restrictions, they didn’t catch up to their longer-lived peers. This suggests that there’s truth to the “pick good parents” joke.

Caloric restriction models still increased lifespans across all the types of mice, with the 40% restriction group having improved average and maximum lifespans compared with the 20% group.

And the 20% group showed improvements in both group average and maximum length of lives compared with the control group. It’s just the effects of genetics were larger than the effect of the dietary interventions.

While all the caloric restriction models resulted in increased lifespan in the mice on average, in the most extreme caloric restriction model tested (40% less group) changes that could be seen as physical harms were observed. These included reduced immune function and losses in muscle mass, which outside of a predator- and germ-free laboratory environment could affect health and longevity.

There are some important caveats in studies like this. First, it’s not known if these results apply to humans.

As with most caloric restriction research in mice, the restricted feeding groups were fed 20% or 40% less than a control group who ate as much as they wanted. In humans, that’d be like assuming people eating every meal every day at a bottomless buffet is “normal”. And people who do not eat from limitless trays of food are “restricted feeding”. That’s not an exact parallel to how humans live and eat.

Second, although exercise wasn’t controlled in any way in this study, most groups did similar amounts of running in their in-cage running wheels except the 40% caloric restriction group who ran significantly more.

The researchers suggested that this extra exercise in the 40% group was the mice constantly hunting for more food. But as this group did so much more exercise than the others, it could also mean that positive effects of increased exercise were also seen in this group alongside their caloric restriction.

So, while we can’t pick our parents or change the genes we inherit from them, it is interesting to know that specific genetic variations play a significant role in the maximum age we can aspire to.

The genetic cards we’re dealt dictate how long we can expect to live. Just as important in this study, however, lifestyle interventions such as diet and exercise that aim to improve lifespan should be effective regardless of the genes we have.

Bradley Elliott, Senior Lecturer in Physiology, University of Westminster

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

On October 21 1964, the iconic and much-celebrated film My Fair Lady premiered in Hollywood. Sixty years later, the film remains an enjoyable rollick full of catchy songs, but is not a wholly accurate depiction of what linguists do – certainly not nowadays at least.

Linguists are far from the academics who are most frequently depicted in films. It’s normally the white-coat, work-in-a-lab, scientist-of-some-nondescript-sort professors who get to give stark warnings or unsettling research insights to the maverick protagonist. But My Fair Lady is a film all about linguistics (and also class, love and terrible Cockney accents – more on that later).

In the film, Professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison), takes under his wing a Cockney flower seller called Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn). He wagers with his friend and fellow haughty linguist, Colonel Pickering, that he can teach her to speak “properly”.

It seems at first there is no hope but – hoorah! – Eliza finally grasps it, suddenly blurting out “the rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain” in a perfect imitation of Queen’s English.

Doolittle then dazzles at an embassy ball, the perfect replica of an upstanding posh woman – or, as the film’s title suggests, a “lady” (itself a problematic word which encodes sexist tropes about what should be aspirational and respectable for women).

She even fools a man who has made a name for himself by identifying imposters based on their accent. Though, you may also wonder if she evades detection by barely speaking at the ball, converted into a demure and unforthcoming shadow of her previously forthright, unapologetic and garrulous self.

Professor Higgins: not your typical linguist

My Fair Lady avoids the common pitfall of assuming that the primary endeavour of the linguist is to learn as many different languages as they can, collecting them like stamps (the film Arrival can take note). But it still doesn’t get our job quite right.

I, for one, have never groomed a young, destitute woman to speak “correctly” while moulding her into a “respectable”, posh woman (if only modern academia granted the breathing space for such folly).

Linguists love, celebrate and are constantly itching to understand, study and explore the diverse tapestry of accents, dialects and languages that exist in the UK and around the world. We have no interest in reinforcing any societal ideal for a supposedly “correct” accent, or throwing a grammar rule book at unwitting members of the public.

By contrast, Higgins is repulsed by any accent that is not Queen’s English (which, by a wonderful turn of luck, is also his accent). In the opening number, he has a pop at the dialects of Yorkshire, Cornwall, America, Scotland and Ireland.

But he is particularly dismayed and repulsed that Doolittle, despite being from London, has a strong London accent (or she is meant to at least – I can only imagine Hepburn was instructed to open her mouth as wide as possible for all vowels and caw like a crow if all else fails).

Higgins makes various proclamations which will have you shouting at the telly, “Steady on, Professor!”. In his words:

Look at her, a prisoner of the gutter / Condemned by every syllable she ever utters / By right, she should be taken out and hung for the cold-blooded murder of the English tongue.

Best not tell him “hanged” is the past tense of “hang” when referring to capital punishment, else he walk himself straight to the gallows.

With a little bit of accent prejudice

The real beast in disguise at the embassy ball is not young, Cockney, Eliza Doolittle. It is misogyny and contempt for the working class that hides behind a mask of maintaining good standards and protecting the English language.

It is no coincidence that women and working-class people (and Cockneys who are often seen as emblematic of the working class) often bear the brunt of accent prejudice.

Accent prejudice is a smokescreen for broader societal prejudice. My Fair Lady seems antiquated and quaint in many ways – like Higgins using a gramophone to play back recordings of Doolittle – but accent prejudice is alive and well.

Women in the UK such as Alex Scott, Angela Rayner and Priti Patel still routinely face criticism, commentary and contempt for their regional accents.

You might think that the film’s lesson is for Doolittle to take on the world with her freshly mastered “standard” accent. After all, she consented to being ridiculed and paraded around like a show dog as she felt her accent prevented her from getting a job in a flower shop. Now, nothing stands in her way.

But people should not have to change their accent to get along – and it is not always possible or even a guaranteed ticket out of discrimination. If we take the accent out of accent prejudice, we are still left with the prejudice – let’s remove the prejudice and be left with the accent.

We need more unapologetically working-class women with regional accents at the embassy ball, but also in politics, academia, in the media and in all walks of life.

In the film, Doolittle ultimately feels she has been used and disrespected, leading her to sour on Higgins. After she leaves, he grows to miss her and wistfully plays back recordings of her voice.

And this is the real lesson for viewers today. Higgins has gotten to know Doolittle as a person and now sees beyond her accent and his own prejudice. The more we hear people with regional accents, the more normal and uneventful it becomes, and the more we will focus on what they say and not how they say it.

Amanda Cole, Lecturer in Department of Language and Linguistics, University of Essex

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

Essential workers such as teachers, health workers and community safety staff play a vital role in ensuring our society works well. Yet soaring housing costs in cities like Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane are squeezing essential workers out of the communities they serve.

The issue is reaching crisis point across Australia. Anglicare Australia yesterday released a special edition of its Rental Affordability Snapshot focused on essential workers in full-time work. Housing costs under 30% of household income are considered affordable. In a survey of 45,115 rental listings, it found:

• 3.7% were affordable for a teacher
• 2.2% were affordable for an ambulance worker
• 1.5% were affordable for an aged care worker
• 1.4% were affordable for a nurse
• 0.9% were affordable for an early childhood educator
• 0.8% were affordable for a hospitality worker.

This trend is creating unsustainable patterns of urban sprawl and long commutes. It erodes workers’ quality of life. It also undermines public service delivery by making it harder to recruit and retain these workers in high-cost areas.

International experience, particularly in the UK where I have advised on similar policies, shows there are solutions to this crisis. These global lessons fall into four categories.

1. Define essential worker housing

Essential worker housing typically targets front-line public sector workers on low to middle incomes. Yet eligibility should extend to support roles, such as ambulance drivers, porters and medical receptionists, who play a vital part in enabling front-line services. They too struggle to find affordable housing near their workplaces.

Conditions of eligibility should also include a cap on household earnings.

The UK experience highlights the importance of providing both rental and ownership options. To keep key worker housing affordable and accessible over time, both types need to be priced appropriately.

Australian cities could adopt similar approaches, by requiring housing developers and community housing providers to allocate affordable housing for essential workers. Prices would be below market rates for both rentals and home ownership for the long term, and not revert to market rates. This ensures stability for public service workers.

2. Financial innovations focused on long-term affordability

Innovative financial models, such as shared equity schemes, have succeeded in the UK. These allow workers to gradually buy into their homes, creating long-term stability.

Shared equity involves the government or another investor covering some of the cost of buying the home in exchange for an equivalent share in the property. Australia could explore similar schemes to provide immediate relief while ensuring sustained affordability for future essential workers.

This approach could build on the Commonwealth’s proposed Help to Buy scheme, currently before the Senate, and existing state and territory shared equity programs. These may need refinement to better serve essential workers by, for example, adjusting income thresholds and eligibility criteria to ensure they qualify. These schemes also need to expand to cover all urban areas where housing affordability is most strained.

3. Leverage planning systems

Countries like the UK have leveraged their planning systems to deliver affordable housing for key workers. In England, planning authorities use mechanisms such as Section 106 agreements to ensure a portion of new developments is reserved for key worker housing as a condition of planning approval.

Australian states could adapt this model, setting targets within existing planning frameworks. For example, they could use Voluntary Planning Agreements to prioritise essential worker housing.

Yet essential worker housing should not displace housing for other people in urgent need. They include people who are homeless, low-income families, people with disabilities, the elderly, those at risk of domestic violence, veterans and youth leaving foster care.

4. Use public land for housing development

The use of surplus public land for essential worker housing has proven successful in several cities, including London, Amsterdam and San Francisco.

Earmarking land owned by the public sector, such as hospital or education sites, is a strategic way to deliver affordable housing near key public sector employers. It also allows staff to travel to work nearby using sustainable transport instead of cars.

Affordable housing has profound benefits

Without action, essential workers are likely to be forced into lower-quality, high-cost housing, shared accommodation, or long commutes from more affordable areas. Over time, these patterns of job-housing imbalances and urban sprawl are unsustainable. These issues are the focus of my current research, particularly in Western Sydney.

The New South Wales government has set up a parliamentary select committee to inquire into options for essential worker housing. It’s bringing much-needed attention to the housing crisis affecting key public sector roles.

Tackling these issues through targeted housing solutions has many benefits. It can help create more sustainable communities, reduce recruitment and retention difficulties for employers and ease the strain on infrastructure and services.

The key takeaway from the UK and other countries is the importance of long-term, sustainable solutions that do not shift the focus away from those most in need of housing. Australia has the opportunity to strike this balance. We need to ensure essential workers can afford to live near their workplaces while not sidelining everyone else in need of affordable housing.

Nicky Morrison, Professor of Planning and Director of Urban Transformations Research Centre, Western Sydney University

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

Health and physical education is one of the key subjects students learn at school. In Australia it is mandatory for students from the first year of school to Year 10.

It involves theory and practical components to help students manage their health and wellbeing. This includes healthy eating habits, sexual health, cyber safety and mental health. It also incorporates fundamental movement skills (such as throwing and catching), sports (such as swimming, gymnastics and football) and team-building.

Because it is a core, compulsory part of the curriculum it is supposed to be free for students at government schools. But our research shows some students are being asked to pay – and those who cannot are missing out.

Our research

In our recent study, we looked at the staffing and delivery of health and physical education in New South Wales government schools.

We surveyed 556 schools, which make up about 30% of public schools in the state. This included primary and high schools with a mix of locations and levels of advantage.

We used an online survey, which was completed by the teacher in charge of health and physical education.

Many schools are outsourcing lessons

We asked survey respondents who was teaching health and physical education to students at their schools. Some schools were using more than one option.

• For all schools: 67% were using external provider, 44.5% were using a specialist teacher and 55.4% were using another teacher.

• For primary schools: 78.4% were using an external provider, 17.9% were using a specialist teacher and 48% were using another teacher.

• For high schools: 44.8% were using an external provider, 95.9% were using a specialist teacher and 69.2% were using another teacher.

Previous research has shown how schools outsource to external providers to “fill the gap” of teachers lacking confidence and competence to provide quality health and physical education lessons.

This study did not measure how frequent outsourcing was, however, comments from respondents suggests it is regular. For example, one teacher said: “a typical [outsourced] class would have one lesson a week for a term”.

Another teacher similarly said

one 40 min[ute] lesson per week. Company comes in with equipment and young university students to run different activities. They also assess our students for us.

Another teacher told us:

We use [company name], they offer different sports/programs that run for one lesson a week per term.

Families are being asked to pay

Of the schools who were outsourcing lessons, 78% of the schools outsourcing lessons said they were asking parents to help pay for these lessons.

One respondent told us, the costs were “A$45 for one term, $80 for two”.

Of this group, 64% reported students who did not pay did other school work (either for health and physical education or another core subject). About one fifth of schools said students that don’t pay just had to “sit and watch”.

This suggests some students are missing out on basic learning opportunities at school for financial reasons. As one teacher told us:

the school uses some off-campus sporting/gaming facilities that students can choose to pay extra for instead of free on-campus teacher run [activities].

Why is this a problem?

The outsourcing of health and physical education lessons comes in the middle of an ongoing teacher shortage in Australia and around the world.

A 2024 UN report estimates a global shortage of more than 44 million teachers, with many teachers teaching outside of their areas of expertise.

Specific shortages of health and physical education teachers have been noted for more than a decade.

However, outsourcing lessons away from qualified teachers, is a significant concern. Little is known about the external providers’ qualifications or quality. Unlike teachers, they are not subject to registration requirements or professional standards.

Even more concerning is some students are missing out on lessons or some components of lessons because their families have not been able to pay.

This links to wider concerns about unequal access to sport in the school system. This includes some private schools with new Olympic pools and boat ramps when other public schools don’t have access to council playing fields.

More research is needed

Our study suggests more research is needed. We need further information on staffing, outsourcing and lesson delivery in other areas of the country and in other subjects.

We need to be sure all students are being taught the core curriculum, free of charge and by qualified teachers – ideally specialists.

Jessica Amy Sears, Lecturer, School of Education, Charles Sturt University and Rachel Wilson, Professor of Social Impact, University of Technology Sydney

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

Vitamin D is essential for bone health, immune function and overall wellbeing. And it becomes even more crucial as we age.

New guidelines from the international Endocrine Society recommend people aged 75 and over should consider taking vitamin D supplements.

But why is vitamin D so important for older adults? And how much should they take?

Young people get most vitamin D from the sun

In Australia, it is possible for most people under 75 to get enough vitamin D from the sun throughout the year. For those who live in the top half of Australia – and for all of us during summer – we only need to have skin exposed to the sun for a few minutes on most days.

The body can only produce a certain amount of vitamin D at a time. So staying in the sun any longer than needed is not going to help increase your vitamin D levels, while it will increase your risk of skin cancer.

But it’s difficult for people aged over 75 to get enough vitamin D from a few minutes of sunshine, so the Endocrine Society recommends people get 800 IU (international units) of vitamin D a day from food or supplements.

Why you need more as you age

This is higher than the recommendation for younger adults, reflecting the increased needs and reduced ability of older bodies to produce and absorb vitamin D.

Overall, older adults also tend to have less exposure to sunlight, which is the primary source of natural vitamin D production. Older adults may spend more time indoors and wear more clothing when outdoors.

As we age, our skin also becomes less efficient at synthesising vitamin D from sunlight.

The kidneys and the liver, which help convert vitamin D into its active form, also lose some of their efficiency with age. This makes it harder for the body to maintain adequate levels of the vitamin.

All of this combined means older adults need more vitamin D.

Deficiency is common in older adults

Despite their higher needs for vitamin D, people over 75 may not get enough of it.

Studies have shown one in five older adults in Australia have vitamin D deficiency.

In higher-latitude parts of the world, such as the United Kingdom, almost half don’t reach sufficient levels.

This increased risk of deficiency is partly due to lifestyle factors, such as spending less time outdoors and insufficient dietary intakes of vitamin D.

It’s difficult to get enough vitamin D from food alone. Oily fish, eggs and some mushrooms are good sources of vitamin D, but few other foods contain much of the vitamin. While foods can be fortified with the vitamin D (margarine, some milk and cereals), these may not be readily available or be consumed in sufficient amounts to make a difference.

In some countries such as the United States, most of the dietary vitamin D comes from fortified products. However, in Australia, dietary intakes of vitamin D are typically very low because only a few foods are fortified with it.

Why vitamin D is so important as we age

Vitamin D helps the body absorb calcium, which is essential for maintaining bone density and strength. As we age, our bones become more fragile, increasing the risk of fractures and conditions like osteoporosis.

Keeping bones healthy is crucial. Studies have shown older people hospitalised with hip fractures are 3.5 times more likely to die in the next 12 months compared to people who aren’t injured.

Vitamin D may also help lower the risk of respiratory infections, which can be more serious in this age group.

There is also emerging evidence for other potential benefits, including better brain health. However, this requires more research.

According to the society’s systematic review, which summarises evidence from randomised controlled trials of vitamin D supplementation in humans, there is moderate evidence to suggest vitamin D supplementation can lower the risk of premature death.

The society estimates supplements can prevent six deaths per 1,000 people. When considering the uncertainty in the available evidence, the actual number could range from as many as 11 fewer deaths to no benefit at all.

Should we get our vitamin D levels tested?

The Endocrine Society’s guidelines suggest routine blood tests to measure vitamin D levels are not necessary for most healthy people over 75.

There is no clear evidence that regular testing provides significant benefits, unless the person has a specific medical condition that affects vitamin D metabolism, such as kidney disease or certain bone disorders.

Routine testing can also be expensive and inconvenient.

In most cases, the recommended approach to over-75s is to consider a daily supplement, without the need for testing.

You can also try to boost your vitamin D by adding fortified foods to your diet, which might lower the dose you need from supplementation.

Even if you’re getting a few minutes of sunlight a day, a daily vitamin D is still recommended.

Elina Hypponen, Professor of Nutritional and Genetic Epidemiology, University of South Australia and Joshua Sutherland, PhD Candidate - Nutrition and Genetic Epidemiology, University of South Australia

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

The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) has brought both benefits and risk.

One concerning trend is the misuse of voice cloning. In seconds, scammers can clone a voice and trick people into thinking a friend or a family member urgently needs money.

News outlets, including CNN, warn these types of scams have the potential to impact millions of people.

As technology makes it easier for criminals to invade our personal spaces, staying cautious about its use is more important than ever.

What is voice cloning?

The rise of AI has created possibilities for image, text, voice generation and machine learning.

While AI offers many benefits, it also provides fraudsters new methods to exploit individuals for money.

You may have heard of “deepfakes,” where AI is used to create fake images, videos and even audio, often involving celebrities or politicians.

Voice cloning, a type of deepfake technology, creates a digital replica of a person’s voice by capturing their speech patterns, accent and breathing from brief audio samples.

Once the speech pattern is captured, an AI voice generator can convert text input into highly realistic speech resembling the targeted person’s voice.

With advancing technology, voice cloning can be accomplished with just a three-second audio sample.

While a simple phrase like “hello, is anyone there?” can lead to a voice cloning scam, a longer conversation helps scammers capture more vocal details. It is therefore best to keep calls brief until you are sure of the caller’s identity.

Voice cloning has valuable applications in entertainment and health care – enabling remote voice work for artists (even posthumously) and assisting people with speech disabilities.

However, it raises serious privacy and security concerns, underscoring the need for safeguards.

How it’s being exploited by criminals

Cybercriminals exploit voice cloning technology to impersonate celebrities, authorities or ordinary people for fraud.

They create urgency, gain the victim’s trust and request money via gift cards, wire transfers or cryptocurrency.

The process begins by collecting audio samples from sources like YouTube and TikTok.

Next, the technology analyses the audio to generate new recordings.

Once the voice is cloned, it can be used in deceptive communications, often accompanied by spoofing Caller ID to appear trustworthy.

Many voice cloning scam cases have made headlines.

For example, criminals cloned the voice of a company director in the United Arab Emirates to orchestrate a $A51 million heist.

A businessman in Mumbai fell victim to a voice cloning scam involving a fake call from the Indian Embassy in Dubai.

In Australia recently, scammers employed a voice clone of Queensland Premier Steven Miles to attempt to trick people to invest in Bitcoin.

Teenagers and children are also targeted. In a kidnapping scam in the United States, a teenager’s voice was cloned and her parents manipulated into complying with demands.

How widespread is it?

Recent research shows 28% of adults in the United Kingdom faced voice cloning scams last year, with 46% unaware of the existence of this type of scam.

It highlights a significant knowledge gap, leaving millions at risk of fraud.

In 2022, almost 240,000 Australians reported being victims of voice cloning scams, leading to a financial loss of $A568 million.

How people and organisations can safeguard against it

The risks posed by voice cloning require a multidisciplinary response.

People and organisations can implement several measures to safeguard against the misuse of voice cloning technology.

First, public awareness campaigns and education can help protect people and organisations and mitigate these types of fraud.

Public-private collaboration can provide clear information and consent options for voice cloning.

Second, people and organisations should look to use biometric security with liveness detection, which is new technology that can recognise and verify a live voice as opposed to a fake. And organisations using voice recognition should consider adopting multi-factor authentication.

Third, enhancing investigative capability against voice cloning is another crucial measure for law enforcement.

Finally, accurate and updated regulations for countries are needed for managing associated risks.

Australian law enforcement recognises the potential benefits of AI.

Yet, concerns about the “dark side” of this technology have prompted calls for research into the criminal use of “artificial intelligence for victim targeting.”

There are also calls for possible intervention strategies that law enforcement could use to combat this problem.

Such efforts should connect with the overall National Plan to Combat Cybercrime, which focuses on proactive, reactive and restorative strategies.

That national plan stipulates a duty of care for service providers, reflected in the Australian government’s new legislation to safeguard the public and small businesses.

The legislation aims for new obligations to prevent, detect, report and disrupt scams.

This will apply to regulated organisations such as telcos, banks and digital platform providers. The goal is to protect customers by preventing, detecting, reporting, and disrupting cyber scams involving deception.

Reducing the risk

As cybercrime costs the Australian economy an estimated A$42 billion, public awareness and strong safeguards are essential.

Countries like Australia are recognising the growing risk. The effectiveness of measures against voice cloning and other frauds depends on their adaptability, cost, feasibility and regulatory compliance.

All stakeholders — government, citizens, and law enforcement — must stay vigilant and raise public awareness to reduce the risk of victimisation.

Leo S.F. Lin, Senior Lecturer in Policing Studies, Charles Sturt University; Duane Aslett, Senior Lecturer in Policing Studies, Charles Sturt University; Geberew Tulu Mekonnen, Lecturer, School of Policing Studies, Charles Sturt University, and Mladen Zecevic, Lecturer at the School of Policing Studies, Charles Sturt University

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

Taking photographs used to be a careful, conscious act. Photos were selective, frozen moments in time carefully archived in albums and frames. Now, taking a photograph is almost as effortless and common as breathing – it’s something that people do all the time in the age of smartphone cameras with seemingly endless digital film.

But the downside to capturing every moment is that it creates a mountain of those moments to save for the future. Those photos can be easily lost if they’re not archived properly. All it can take is one accidental dip in the toilet for your phone, and all that data is lost forever.

So what’s a practical backup strategy for the average person? Here are a few ways to make sure memories are never lost:

Cloud storage

The simplest way to archive your photos is cloud storage. For Apple users, there’s iCloud, which starts at US$0.99 per month for 50 gigabytes all the way to $59.99 per month for 12 terabytes with various tiers in between. With an average iPhone photo clocking in at 3 megabytes, that’s a little over 16,000 photos for the cheap plan and 4 million or so for the largest plan. Google’s Google One cloud storage is most cost effective for yearly plans, with 2TB going for $99.99 per year and 5TB going for $249.99 per year.

The actual amount you can store in that space does vary greatly with how a file is shot. Video has larger file sizes than photos. HEIF files, a newer format on Apple phones, compresses files into smaller packages, but long-term compatibility is unknown since the format hasn’t been in use for as long as the standard JPG file, which has been around since 1992.

While cloud services from big providers generally provide the easiest way for most average folks to back up their photos, and operate with little to no intervention via apps that are already on the phone constantly uploading every photo taken, there are risks involved.

Big companies often change their policies about how photos are saved. For instance, depending on what phone and when it was bought, Google’s cloud storage may have saved photos in a “storage saver” format that lowers the quality of images by sizing them down or compressing them differently. This affects your ability to make high-quality prints or view the photos on high-resolution screens down the road. Unless someone is astute enough to notice small text here and there that mentions it, most users won’t even realize it’s happening.

And what happens to cloud services when things go badly wrong? Users of photo backup service Digital Railroad found out the hard way. In 2008, the company abruptly shut down and gave its users 24 hours to download everything before the servers were shut down. Photographers rushed for the exits, trying to grab their photos on the way out, only to strain the servers to the point where few were able to recover anything at all. If this was the only way photos were backed up, it’s a lost cause.

So while the cloud is easy, costs can add up and terms of service can change at a moment’s notice. What are some ways for photographers to control their own fate?

Hard drives and network-attached storage

Manually taking photos off a phone may take some extra time, but the approach offers peace of mind that cloud services can’t necessarily match.

Almost all phones can plug into a computer’s USB port and use the built-in photos app on both Windows or MacOS to download photos to a computer. Apple users can use a method called AirDrop to send photos wirelessly to other Apple devices as well, including laptop and desktop computers.

Now loading photos onto a local hard drive built into the machine can fill it up quickly, but there is a cost-effective way to get around that – namely, external hard drives. Theses are storage devices that you can plug into your computer as needed. They can be of the older and less expensive type with spinning platters or more modern solid-state drives that can survive a drop and greater temperature changes than the older drives can.

These are different than flash drives, more commonly known as thumb drives because of their small size, that are designed as temporary storage to shuffle photos from one place to another.

It’s easy to buy more than one hard drive to have duplicate backups in case of failure or catastrophe, but the downside is that there’s no easy access from the internet to your photos, and backup is generally a process that users must remember to do.

Network-attached storage is one way to solve the cloud storage problem while retaining the ability to access photos from the internet. These are essentially hard drives – sometimes multiple hard drives linked together for even greater or faster storage – that are connected to a router that allows for access to the internet through specialized software.

While not as easy as most third-party cloud storage services, once it’s set up, a network-attached storage unit is a flexible way to store your photos safely and accessibly. There are even companies that specialize in fireproof and waterproof units for extra insurance in case of disaster.

Printing photos

If cloud storage and hard drives seem too complicated, there’s always the old-fashioned approach of printing. There’s still something magical about seeing a photo on a wall or in an album, and thankfully there are ways to print professional-quality archival prints without having to go to a drugstore.

The easiest and most cost-efficient types of printers are dedicated 4x6 printers using a technology similar to professional labs called dye-sublimation. These yield high-quality, waterproof prints that cost about the same as what one would pay for drugstore developing. HP makes its popular Sprocket line of printers, though those require a phone and an app to print from, which makes plugging in a memory card from a professional camera out of the question. However, Canon’s Selphy lineup includes many models with screens and a card slot to make that possible.

The rabbit hole goes very deep, and there are many professional printers that can print even larger sizes. Canon and Epson dominate this space, marketing a range of pigment- and dye-based printers that can emphasize archival needs or color saturation, respectively.

Another option is ordering a photo book, which, as the name suggests, is a physical bound book of your photos. However, photo books are probably more appropriate for memorializing an event – trip, wedding, project – than general archiving, given the typical costs and number of photos involved.

There’s little reason to not make some sort of backups of photos in 2024, whether that’s on printed media, hard drives or in the cloud. The important thing is not which method to use, but to do it at all.

Wasim Ahmad, Assistant Teaching Professor of Journalism, Quinnipiac University

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

Mech Dara, an award-winning Cambodian journalist and one of the kingdom’s last remaining independent media voices, was arrested on Monday, September 30. He has been detained over a social media post for “incitement to disturb social security”, and faces up to two years in jail.

The news of Dara’s arrest has saddened and disturbed many within Cambodia and elsewhere. But it will have shocked few. Dara’s courageous journalism has made him a persistent thorn in the side of Cambodia’s ruling class.

No stranger to harassment and intimidation by Cambodia’s increasingly repressive state apparatus, Dara had told me when we last met that he was considering applying for political asylum abroad. Life had become impossible in Cambodia.

From humble beginnings, Dara built his reputation on a dogged commitment to justice, whose work includes exposing human rights abuse, illegal logging, land grabs and labour struggles in his homeland. These are rife in a notoriously corrupt state that ranks 141 out of 142 countries worldwide on the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index.

Most recently, however, Dara’s investigations have focused on uncovering abuse in Cambodia’s cyberscam industry. Dara’s reporting, which in 2023 earned him a “Hero” commendation by the US State Department, revealed how the industry often involves cyberscam compounds staffed by victims of human trafficking.

His investigations have disclosed how these people are compelled under the threat of physical torture and financial extortion to perform acts of deception and fraud on targets across China, the US, Europe and beyond, through fake romances or cryptocurrency schemes.

The UN estimates that at least 100,000 people have been tricked into participating in this criminal industry, which is now said to be worth more than US$12 billion (£9.1 billion) per year in Cambodia.

Dara has turned to identifying the political and business elites in Cambodia whose complicity enables the criminal syndicates who run the compounds to flourish with impunity.

Some of his best-known work linked the LYP Group, which is owned by prominent Cambodian businessman and state senator, Ly Yong Phat, to the operation of scam compounds in Cambodia’s Koh Kong province. Ly Yong Phat continues to deny any involvement.

The timing of Dara’s arrest may be no coincidence. He was detained 18 days after the US treasury department sanctioned Ly Yong Phat for his role in serious human rights abuse related to the treatment of trafficked workers.

Dara’s arrest is believed by some to be an act of retaliation intended to send a chilling message to those who challenge the vested interests of Cambodia’s incumbent kleptocracy: be silent or you will be silenced.

It continues a pattern of the Cambodian oligarchy’s waging of “lawfare” against members of civil society, using the court system to intimidate and muzzle critics. It is the surest sign yet that Cambodia’s new prime minister, Hun Manet, intends to follow his predecessor’s pathway into intensifying authoritarianism.

The son rises

Cambodia’s self-proclaimed “strongman” leader, Hun Sen, stepped down as prime minster in August 2023 after nearly 40 years in power. He chose Manet, his oldest son, as his successor.

A dynastic succession does not typically indicate a democratic transfer of power. Yet hopes were raised that Manet might reverse the increasingly authoritarian trajectory of his father’s rule.

Where Hun Sen came of age fighting on the frontlines of Cambodia’s civil war, Hun Manet has had a more worldly upbringing. He was educated in the US and UK, and obtained a PhD in economics from the University of Bristol.

Some observers believed that the softly spoken and sharp-suited Manet might possess a more liberal worldview than that of his father, ushering a new era of renewed democracy.

Hun Sen’s reign in Cambodia was characterised by an increasing reliance on what researcher Neil Loughlin terms the “politics of coercion” to cement his hold on power. The Hun family are at the centre of a network of tightly entwined business and state elites that exert a stranglehold over Cambodia’s politics and economy.

This kleptocratic coalition is accused of asset-stripping the kingdom of its once-abundant natural resources, enriching themselves at the cost of impoverishing the many. As a result, popular dissent has grown.

To quell any threat to its longevity, the ruling Cambodian People’s party (CPP) has led a concerted crackdown on freedoms of association, assembly and expression. Over the past decade, this has included the shuttering of almost all independent news outlets, the dissolution of the opposition Cambodian National Rescue party, and the detention of its leader, Kem Sokha, under house arrest.

As the architect of the Paris Peace Accords that brokered the end to Cambodia’s civil war, the old guard of the party has sought to legitimise its heavyhanded approach by stressing the continued need to preserve order and stability to prevent descent into further unrest.

A false dawn

Manet has been keen to present himself as part of a new guard, ready to reengage with major powers such as the US and EU. Both the US and EU had cooled relations with Cambodia following the democratic deficits unleashed during Hun Sen’s premiership.

Yet the cyberscam story and its growing repercussions have embarrassed Cambodia on the international stage. By apparently censoring Mech Dara for uncovering the scandal, rather than seeking to control party elements responsible for the cyberscam scourge, Manet appears to be showing where his true loyalties and sentiments lie.

Dara is but one of a long line of dissenters charged with “incitement” by the CPP-controlled courts. With its explicit reference to the conjured threat of renewed social chaos, it harks to the CPP’s past as custodian of order and stability.

The heavyhanded nature of the arrest itself, where Dara was apprehended by a convoy of six military vehicles while on vacation with his family, is also straight out of the CPP’s historic playbook. Persecution not by stealth but by flourish, it sends a wider message to civil society to deter any would-be imitators.

More crucially, it signals a forceful intent to preserve the power, plunder and impunity of Cambodia’s elites, and a commitment to the continued silencing of dissenting voices who threaten their supremacy.

Sabina Lawreniuk, Principal Research Fellow, University of Nottingham

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

What do you imagine a good night’s sleep to be?

Often when people come into our sleep clinic seeking treatment, they share ideas about healthy sleep.

Many think when their head hits the pillow, they should fall into a deep and restorative sleep, and emerge after about eight hours feeling refreshed. They’re in good company – many Australians hold the same belief.

In reality, healthy sleep is cyclic across the night, as you move in and out of the different stages of sleep, often waking up several times. Some people remember one or more of these awakenings, others do not. Let’s consider what a healthy night’s sleep looks like.

Sleep cycles are a roller-coaster

As an adult, our sleep moves through different cycles and brief awakenings during the night. Sleep cycles last roughly 90 minutes each.

We typically start the night with lighter sleep, before moving into deeper sleep stages, and rising again into rapid eye movement (REM) sleep – the stage of sleep often linked to vivid dreaming.

If sleeping well, we get most of our deep sleep in the first half of the night, with REM sleep more common in the second half of the night.

Adults usually move through five or six sleep cycles in a night, and it is entirely normal to wake up briefly at the end of each one. That means we might be waking up five times during the night. This can increase with older age and still be healthy. If you’re not remembering these awakenings that’s OK – they can be quite brief.

What does getting a ‘good’ sleep actually mean?

You’ll often hear that adults need between seven and nine hours of sleep per night. But good sleep is about more than the number of hours – it’s also about the quality.

For most people, sleeping well means being able to fall asleep soon after getting into bed (within around 30 minutes), sleeping without waking up for long periods, and waking feeling rested and ready for the day.

You shouldn’t be feeling excessively sleepy during the day, especially if you’re regularly getting at least seven hours of refreshing sleep a night (this is a rough rule of thumb).

But are you noticing you’re feeling physically tired, needing to nap regularly and still not feeling refreshed? It may be worthwhile touching base with your general practitioner, as there a range of possible reasons.

Common issues

Sleep disorders are common. Up to 25% of adults have insomnia, a sleep disorder where it may be hard to fall or stay asleep, or you may wake earlier in the morning than you’d like.

Rates of common sleep disorders such as insomnia and sleep apnoea – where your breathing can partially or completely stop many times during the night – also increase with age, affecting 20% of early adults and 40% of people in middle age. There are effective treatments, so asking for help is important.

Beyond sleep disorders, our sleep can also be disrupted by chronic health conditions – such as pain – and by certain medications.

There can also be other reasons we’re not sleeping well. Some of us are woken by children, pets or traffic noise during the night. These “forced awakenings” mean we may find it harder to get up in the morning, take longer to leave bed and feel less satisfied with our sleep. For some people, night awakenings may have no clear cause.

A good way to tell if these awakenings are a problem for you is by thinking about how they affect you. When they cause feelings of frustration or worry, or are impacting how we feel and function during the day, it might be a sign to seek some help.

We also may struggle to get up in the morning. This could be for a range of reasons, including not sleeping long enough, going to bed or waking up at irregular times – or even your own internal clock, which can influence the time your body prefers to sleep.

If you’re regularly struggling to get up for work or family needs, it can be an indication you may need to seek help. Some of these factors can be explored with a sleep psychologist if they are causing concern.

Can my smart watch help?

It is important to remember sleep-tracking devices can vary in accuracy for looking at the different sleep stages. While they can give a rough estimate, they are not a perfect measure.

In-laboratory polysomnography, or PSG, is the best standard measure to examine your sleep stages. A PSG examines breathing, oxygen saturation, brain waves and heart rate during sleep.

Rather than closely examining nightly data (including sleep stages) from a sleep tracker, it may be more helpful to look at the patterns of your sleep (bed and wake times) over time.

Understanding your sleep patterns may help identify and adjust behaviours that negatively impact your sleep, such as your bedtime routine and sleeping environment.

And if you find viewing your sleep data is making you feel worried about your sleep, this may not be useful for you. Most importantly, if you are concerned it is important to discuss it with your GP who can refer you to the appropriate specialist sleep health provider.

Amy Reynolds, Associate Professor in Clinical Sleep Health, Flinders University; Claire Dunbar, Research Associate, Sleep Health, Flinders University; Gorica Micic, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Clinical Psychologist, Flinders University; Hannah Scott, Research Fellow in Sleep Health, Flinders University, and Nicole Lovato, Associate Professor, Adelaide Institute for Sleep Health, Flinders University

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

Australia loves dogs. We have one of the highest rates of pet ownership in the world, and one in two households has at least one dog.

But are they good for our health?

Mental health is the second-most common reason cited for getting a dog, after companionship. And many of us say we “feel healthier” for having a dog – and let them sleep in our bedroom.

Here’s what it means for our physical and mental health to share our homes (and doonas) with our canine companions.

Are there physical health benefits to having a dog?

Having a dog is linked to lower risk of death over the long term. In 2019, a systematic review gathered evidence published over 70 years, involving nearly four million individual medical cases. It found people who owned a dog had a 24% lower risk of dying from any cause compared to those who did not own a dog.

Dog ownership was linked to increased physical activity. This lowered blood pressure and helped reduce the risk of stroke and heart disease.

The review found for those with previous heart-related medical issues (such as heart attack), living with a dog reduced their subsequent risk of dying by 35%, compared to people with the same history but no dog.

Another recent UK study found adult dog owners were almost four times as likely to meet daily physical activity targets as non-owners. Children in households with a dog were also more active and engaged in more unstructured play, compared to children whose family didn’t have a dog.

Exposure to dirt and microbes carried in from outdoors may also strengthen immune systems and lead to less use of antibiotics in young children who grow up with dogs.

Health risks

However, dogs can also pose risks to our physical health. One of the most common health issues for pet owners is allergies.

Dogs’ saliva, urine and dander (the skin cells they shed) can trigger allergic reactions resulting in a range of symptoms, from itchy eyes and runny nose to breathing difficulties.

A recent meta-analysis pooled data from nearly two million children. Findings suggested early exposure to dogs may increase the risk of developing asthma (although not quite as much as having a cat does). The child’s age, how much contact they have with the dog and their individual risk all play a part.

Slips, trips and falls are another risk – more people fall over due to dogs than cats.

Having a dog can also expose you to bites and scratches which may become infected and pose a risk for those with compromised immune systems. And they can introduce zoonotic diseases into your home, including ring worm and Campylobacter, a disease that causes diarrhoea.

For those sharing the bed there is an elevated the risk of allergies and picking up ringworm. It may result in lost sleep, as dogs move around at night.

On the other hand some owners report feeling more secure while co-sleeping with their dogs, with the emotional benefit outweighing the possibility of sleep disturbance or waking up with flea bites.

Proper veterinary care and hygiene practices are essential to minimise these risks.

What about mental health?

Many people know the benefits of having a dog are not only physical.

As companions, dogs can provide significant emotional support helping to alleviate symptoms of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress. Their presence may offer comfort and a sense of purpose to individuals facing mental health challenges.

Loneliness is a significant and growing public health issue in Australia.

In the dog park and your neighbourhood, dogs can make it easier to strike up conversations with strangers and make new friends. These social interactions can help build a sense of community belonging and reduce feelings of social isolation.

For older adults, dog walking can be a valuable loneliness intervention that encourages social interaction with neighbours, while also combating declining physical activity.

However, if you’re experiencing chronic loneliness, it may be hard to engage with other people during walks. An Australian study found simply getting a dog was linked to decreased loneliness. People reported an improved mood – possibly due to the benefits of strengthening bonds with their dog.

What are the drawbacks?

While dogs can bring immense joy and numerous health benefits, there are also downsides and challenges. The responsibility of caring for a dog, especially one with behavioural issues or health problems, can be overwhelming and create financial stress.

Dogs have shorter lifespans than humans, and the loss of a beloved companion can lead to depression or exacerbate existing mental health conditions.

Lifestyle compatibility and housing conditions also play a significant role in whether having a dog is a good fit.

The so-called pet effect suggests that pets, often dogs, improve human physical and mental health in all situations and for all people. The reality is more nuanced. For some, having a pet may be more stressful than beneficial.

Importantly, the animals that share our homes are not just “tools” for human health. Owners and dogs can mutually benefit when the welfare and wellbeing of both are maintained.

Tania Signal, Professor of Psychology, School of Health, Medical and Applied Sciences, CQUniversity Australia

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

Think of your favorite fantasy or science fiction novel. You’ll know the author and title, of course. But can you think of its editor or publisher?

In publishing, the people who work behind the scenes rarely get their due. But on Oct. 1, 2024, at least, one industry pioneer got the limelight. On that day, PBS aired “Judy-Lynn del Rey: The Galaxy Gal,” the first episode of its new documentary series “Renegades,” which highlights little-known historical figures with disabilities.

A woman with dwarfism, Judy-Lynn del Rey was best known for founding Del Rey Books, a science fiction and fantasy imprint that turned fantasy in particular into a major publishing category.

As a scholar of fantasy literature, I had the good fortune to serve as research consultant for the PBS project. Due to time constraints, however, the episode could tell only half of del Rey’s story, passing over how she affected science fiction and fantasy themselves.

Judy-Lynn del Rey, you see, had very clear notions on what kind of stories people wanted to buy. For some critics, she also committed the unforgivable sin of being right.

The Mama of ‘Star Wars’

Over the course of her career, del Rey earned a reputation as a superstar editor among her authors. Arthur C. Clarke, who co-wrote the screenplay for “2001: A Space Odyssey,” called her the “most brilliant editor I ever encountered,” and Philip K. Dick said she was the “greatest editor since Maxwell Perkins,” the legendary editor of Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

She got her start, though, working as an editorial assistant – in truth, a “gofer” – for the most lauded science fiction magazine of the 1960s, Galaxy. There she learned the basics of publishing and rose rapidly through the editorial ranks until Ballantine Books lured her away in 1973.

Soon thereafter, Ballantine was acquired by publishing giant Random House, which then named del Rey senior editor. Yet her first big move was a risky one – cutting ties with Ballantine author John Norman, whose highly popular “Gor” novels were widely panned for their misogyny.

Nonetheless, del Rey’s mission was to develop a strong backlist of science fiction novels that could hook new generations of younger readers, not to mention adults. One early success was her “Star Trek Log” series, a sequence of 10 novels based on episodes of “Star Trek: The Animated Series.”

But del Rey landed an even bigger success by snagging the novelization rights to a science fiction film that, at the time, few Hollywood executives believed would do well: “Star Wars.”

This savvy gamble led to years of lucrative tie-in products for Ballantine such as calendars, art books, sketchbooks, the Star Wars Intergalactic Passport and, of course, more novels set in the Star Wars universe – so many different tie-ins, in fact, that del Rey dubbed herself the “Mama of Star Wars.”

Afterward, she became someone who, as reporter Jennifer Crighton put it, radiated “with the shameless glee of one of the Rebel forces, an upstart who won.”

A big player in big fiction

Del Rey’s tendencies as an editor were sometimes criticized – often by competitors who could not match her line’s success – for focusing too much on Ballantine’s bottom line. But she also chose to work within the publishing landscape as it actually existed in the 1970s, rather than the one she only wished existed.

In his book “Big Fiction,” publishing industry scholar Dan Sinykin calls this period the “Conglomerate Era,” a time when publishing houses – usually small and family run – were being consolidated into larger corporations.

One benefit of this shift, however, was greater corporate investment in the industry, which boosted print runs, marketing budgets, author advances and salaries for personnel.

Ballantine’s parent company, Random House, was also known as an industry leader in free speech, thanks to the efforts of legendary CEOs Bennett Cerf and Robert L. Bernstein.

Accordingly, Random House gave their publishing divisions, including Ballantine, immense creative autonomy.

And when del Rey was finally given her own imprint in 1977, she took her biggest risk of all: fantasy.

The Del Rey era

In prior decades, fantasy had a reputation for being unsellable – unless, of course, your name was J.R.R. Tolkien, or you wrote Conan-style barbarian fiction. Whereas the top science fiction magazines often had distinguished runs, fantasy magazines often folded due to lack of sales.

In 1975, though, del Rey hired her husband, Lester del Rey, to develop a fantasy line, and when Del Rey Books launched two years later, it landed major successes with bestsellers such as Terry Brooks’ “The Sword of Shannara” and Stephen R. Donaldson’s “The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever.” Yet even though Lester edited the fantasy authors, Judy-Lynn oversaw the imprint and the marketing.

One lesser-known example of her prowess is “The Princess Bride.”

Today, most people know the 1987 film, but the movie originated as a much earlier novel by William Goldman. The original 1973 edition, however, sold poorly. It might have faded into obscurity had del Rey not been determined to revive Ballantine’s backlist.

She reissued “The Princess Bride” in 1977 with a dazzling, gate-folded die-cut cover and a new promotional campaign, without which the novel – and the film – might never have found its later success.

Accolades accumulate

Thanks to these efforts, Del Rey Books dominated genre publishing, producing more bestselling titles through 1990 than every other science fiction and fantasy publisher combined. Yet despite complaints that the imprint prioritized commercial success over literary merit, Del Rey authors earned their fair share of literary accolades.

The prestigious Locus Poll Award for best science fiction novel went to Del Rey authors Julian May and Isaac Asimov in 1982 and 1983. Other Locus awardees include Patricia A. McKillip, Robert A. Heinlein, Larry Niven, Marion Zimmer Bradley and Barbara Hambly.

Barry Hughart’s “Bridge of Birds” was one of two winners for the World Fantasy Award in 1985 and won the Mythopoeic Society Award in 1986. Even more impressively, Del Rey ran away with the Science Fiction Book Club Award during that prize’s first nine years of existence, winning seven of them. The imprint’s titles also won three consecutive August Derleth Fantasy Awards – now called the British Fantasy Award – from 1977 through 1979.

Yet despite these accolades, Del Rey’s reputation continued to suffer from its own commercial success. Notably, Judy-Lynn del Rey was never nominated for a Hugo Award for best professional editor. When she died in 1986, the Hugo committee belatedly tried granting her a posthumous award, but her husband, Lester, refused to accept it, saying that it came too late.

Although the current narrative continues to be that Del Rey Books published mainly formulaic mass-market fiction in its science fiction and fantasy lines, the time may be ripe to celebrate the foresight and iconoclasm of a publisher who expanded speculative fiction beyond the borders of a small genre fandom.

Dennis Wilson Wise, Professor of Practice in English Literature, University of Arizona

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

The Nobel prizes may be one of the most famous and prestigious awards in the world – but who was the man behind them? As I explain in my lectures about Alfred Nobel, the inventor and entrepreneur has left a lasting legacy with the annual prizes he established in 1901 for physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace (the Nobel prize for economic sciences was established much later, in 1968).

But life wasn’t always so illustrious for Alfred Nobel.

According to Ingrid Carlberg’s biography of Nobel, he had a tough childhood in Stockholm. Not only was he poor but the boy who would become an esteemed scientist – holding 355 patents in his lifetime – was placed in a class for children with learning difficulties at school. Innovation may have run in the Nobel blood, however. Alfred’s father, Immanuel, was also an inventor, albeit less successful than his son would become.

Among Immanuel’s early creations was a backpack made from foul-smelling rubber that could also serve as a floating device for soldiers who needed to cross a river – and as a pillow on which to sit comfortably. But Immanuel’s inventions racked up huge debts and he fled from his creditors to Saint Petersburg in Russia – a place that would play an important role in his son Alfred’s later life.

Things improved for Alfred when the Nobel family moved to Russia, where he began working on developing explosives.

Explosive interests

Unfortunately, in Russia, Immanuel faced bankruptcy once again and returned to Sweden. Alfred and his father, alongside the Nobel family’s youngest son Emil, experimented with nitroglycerin in Stockholm.

The findings of these experiments made momentous contributions to industrialisation and medicine. However, there were many tragic events before Alfred found a way to make nitroglycerin safer to use by inventing dynamite in 1867.

In 1864, for example, Alfred’s younger brother Emil was killed in a nitroglycerin explosion at the family laboratory near Stockholm – after which the manufacture of nitroglycerin was banned in the city.

But this family tragedy didn’t distract Alfred from his goal. He continued to manufacture explosives – now at an industrial scale – at a factory in Vinterviken, Sweden. That factory was destroyed several times in accidents caused by the instability of nitroglycerin – killing numerous workers.

Although Nobel’s factory was undoubtedly a dangerous place to work, it also helped uncover the benefits of nitroglycerin as a cardiac drug.

Factory workers experienced changes to their health from exposure to nitroglycerin. The chemical has substantial physiological effects as a vasodilator that relaxes blood vessels to increase blood flow and oxygen to the heart.

In 1998, The Nobel prize in physiology or medicine 1998 was awarded jointly to Robert F. Furchgott, Louis J. Ignarro and Ferid Murad “for their discoveries concerning nitric oxide as a signalling molecule in the cardiovascular system”. This may have surprised Alfred Nobel, who reportedly refused to take nitroglycerin when doctors prescribed it for his angina attacks.

From Nobel’s work followed the prizes in chemistry and physics, but more surprising – given Nobel’s significant contribution to the development of weapons of warfare – is the peace prize.

One of Nobel’s closest friends was pacifist Bertha von Suttner, who wrote the bestselling anti-war novel Lay Down Your Arms. It is believed that she wanted Alfred Nobel to donate his money to the peace movement, but Alfred chose to fund a prize instead. In 1905, von Suttner became the first woman to be awarded the Nobel peace prize and the second female Nobel laureate, after Marie Curie.

Courting controversy

Several aspects of the prizes were highly controversial.

That women could receive the prizes was seen as a folly, not to mention that the Nobel peace prize would be delivered by a committee in Norway. But to Alfred, Oslo must have been seen as a natural place for one of the prizes. At the time of Alfred’s death, Sweden and Norway were in a union, and Alfred spent a lot of time hanging out with friends at the Swedish-Norwegian Association in Paris.

Swedes were upset that the prizes could be awarded to anyone, and were not limited to Swedish citizens. In the 19th century, most prizes were national, but Alfred must have been an internationalist. He spent his childhood in Sweden, his formative years in Russia, most of his later life in France and had a vacation home in San Remo, Italy. The authorities in San Remo continue to send flowers to decorate the annual Nobel prize award ceremony and banquet in Stockholm each year.

However, the fiercest attack against the Nobel prizes did not come from Swedish nationalists, but from Nobel’s own family who was disowned of their inheritance after Alfred’s death. The family noticed that there were several wills – and they received less and less money with each will – until the final version, which left the largest amount to the prizes.

One cannot overestimate the importance of Alfred Nobel’s assistant and will executor, Ragnar Sohlman, who lobbied intensely for the prizes.

In the end, courts from France and Sweden came to fight it out. This was when the Swedes may have made their master stroke, suggesting that the will should be settled by a small court in Karlskoga, a minor city in the middle of Sweden where Alfred had his home at the end of his life – and where, most importantly, Alfred kept his horses.

Ultimately, it was decided that where a man has his horses is also where he belongs. And so the small court of Karlskoga, Sweden, was selected to interpret Alfred Nobel’s will, and the Nobel Prizes were born.

Jonas F. Ludvigsson, Professor, Dept of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet

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

We all want to get the most out of our holidays, which is why we so often turn to online “top things to see” lists, or TikTok recommendations of a destination’s best sights and eateries.

But as useful as these strategies can be, using the internet to plan every detail of your travel omits the essence of discovery – the very thing that made pre-internet travel journalism so thrilling to read.

These six tips explain how you can explore a new place like an old-school travel journalist or an explorer from a bygone era. They’ll enable you to look up from your phone, and discover your destination with intuition and curiosity.

No one’s 20s and 30s look the same. You might be saving for a mortgage or just struggling to pay rent. You could be swiping dating apps, or trying to understand childcare. No matter your current challenges, our Quarter Life series has articles to share in the group chat, or just to remind you that you’re not alone.

Read more from Quarter Life:

• Youth hostels face tough times – but they are perfect for authentic, spontaneous experiences

• We are living in a ‘digital dark age’ – here’s how to protect your photos, videos and other data

• Five outdoor summer activities from British folklore to try with your friends

1. Discard the itinerary and trust your gut

Before smartphones, travel journalists such as Freya Stark and Bruce Chatwin depended on serendipity. They didn’t have TripAdvisor or Google Maps to guide them. Rather, they listened to their instincts and locals’ advice about how to shape their journey.

A famous example is Chatwin walking through Patagonia after conversations with locals advised him of his next stop.

Try this on your next adventure: walk without a plan. Follow your instincts towards any of the local cafes, quiet parks, or bustling markets. And if all else fails and you are not quite sure where to start, just stop and ask someone near you what it is that they love about the area. Many times, people’s stories will take you to places you would never have found online.

2. Use analogue maps and guides

Before GPS, maps weren’t just functional – they were part of the adventure. Travel writers like Jan Morris and Paul Theroux (father of documentary presenter, Louis) wrote about how their unfolding maps forced them to interact with the landscape in a tactile way.

Pick up a local map in a bookshop or visitor centre and unfold it in a cafe. Mark where you have been and circle the areas you are curious about.

In their early editions, guidebooks like The Rough Guide and Lonely Planet didn’t give a thorough list, but instead pushed cultural immersion travel, which is concerned with authentic activities. Think local traditions, history, language and customs of the place you’re visiting. Cultural immersion travel involves mingling with the residents to get an in-depth feel of how they live.

Although carrying a printed guidebook seems vintage, this act plunges you back to the time when the discovery of hidden corners of a city was about turning pages, not scrolling.

3. Speak to local people

Pre-smartphone travellers had one irreplaceable resource at their disposal – people. On his long walks across Europe, for example, travel writer Patrick Leigh Fermor relied on the people he met for insight into local customs, history and hidden gems.

Do exactly the same thing. Go to a typical bar, a bazaar, a local event, or attend a course on the language or the cooking of the place. Engage a bartender, shop owner, or street vendor in a chat. These tips will steer you off the beaten path of algorithms.

4. Immerse yourself in slow travel

Travel journalists of the past were in no hurry. Rather than zipping from one attraction to the next, they stayed put for long enough to pull back the layers of a place. Writer Rebecca West’s trek through the Balkans (which she described in her 1941 book, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon) took months. Her long stays in villages allowed her to really get to know the place and its complexities.

You should slow down on your next trip, too. Stay on in a small town or neighbourhood a little longer than you planned to. Stroll its streets and soak in the rhythms of daily life.

5. Read travel literature

The writers of travel history books, be it Robert Byron’s travels among the architecture and culture of Persia, or Isabella Bird entering unknown 19th-century Japan, articulate how their predecessors perceived the lands they visited.

Read books written by local authors to get deeper into the cultural context of the place you’re visiting. You’ll find their reflections on their hometown or region often give you a more insightful, nuanced perspective than any modern day “top ten” list could.

6. Research the history of every place you visit

Writers like Colin Thubron included historical and cultural details to make their travel stories richer and more meaningful.

Whether you find yourself at a local museum, reading up on the past of a place, or simply walking its streets with an eye for historical markers, learning the background of where you are can infuse your visit with added meaning.

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Masood Khodadadi, Reader (Associate Professor) in Tourism, Culture and Society, University of the West of Scotland

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

Emily, a finance manager, has been working 60-hour weeks for several months to meet deadlines. She starts feeling constantly exhausted, both physically and mentally. Work that she once found engaging now seems overwhelming, and she’s easily irritated with her colleagues. Despite putting in more hours, her productivity declines. Eventually, she starts calling in sick frequently and considers quitting her job, feeling like she just can’t keep going any more.

Emily is a victim of burnout. For 2024, World Mental Health Day is focused on workplace health, with the aim of helping people like Emily recognise when work is affecting their wellbeing, so that they can take steps to address it.

Burnout happens when the demands of a job are high for a long time, and are not offset by sufficient mental and physical resources. In this situation, people are no longer able to recover from their demanding job. Their energy is gradually drained, resulting in a state of mental exhaustion, a cynical and negative attitude towards their work, as well as a declining performance.

In other words, people affected by burnout are neither able nor willing to fully function in their job. Burnout can occur in any job, but is most likely in workplaces where demands are high and resources low. It is a widespread phenomenon.

A report by the charity Mental Health UK asserts that the country is on the verge of becoming a burnt-out nation, with 91% of the working adults surveyed reporting high or extreme levels of pressure and stress at some point in the past year.

According to the same report, 20% of workers in the UK even took time off work due to poor mental health caused by stress last year.

Research has consistently shown that the primary causes of burnout are excessive and prolonged job demands. This includes, for example, high workloads, job insecurity, role ambiguity, conflict, stress or stressful events, and work pressure.

Burnout has severe consequences, most of all for people affected by it. Burnout impacts people differently, but even mild cases – which could linger for several years – can lead to a multitude of negative health outcomes. This includes work-related anxiety and depression, increased risk of cardiovascular diseases, Type 2 diabetes, insomnia, headaches and perhaps most alarmingly, increased mortality.

People with mild cases of burnout are also at risk of developing more severe burnout that will keep them off work sick for long periods.

Burnout is also worrying for organisations as it has a negative impact on creativity, leads to higher employee turnover, increased absenteeism and poor job performance.

The symptoms of burnout differ from one person to another, and sometimes people might not even fully realise they’re burnt out until they are no longer just tired but too exhausted to function.

People who experience burnout are drained of energy and may be overwhelmed even by small tasks. They distance themselves from their work, struggle with self doubt and develop cynical, negative attitudes regarding their job or the people they work for.

When looking for symptoms of burnout, it might help to ask yourself questions like: Do you mostly talk about your work in a negative way? Do you tend to think less about your work and do your job almost mechanically? Do you sometimes feel sickened by your work tasks? Are there days when you feel tired before you arrive at work? Do you often feel emotionally drained during your work? Do you usually feel worn out and weary after your work?

Burnout recovery and prevention needs to help minimise the job demands which cause exhaustion and disengagement. For example, reducing workload and work pressure, and establishing clear boundaries between life and work can help to reduce stressful job demands.

Job resources can also help to mitigate the impact of job demands. This includes things like job control, having a variety of tasks, social support, performance feedback, opportunities for professional development and the quality of a worker’s relationship with their supervisor.

When people have an abundance of these resources, the link between the demands of the job and burnout is greatly reduced because they help workers to cope better.

Recovery is possible

Opportunities for recovery from work-related stress are an especially important job resource in this context. Recovery means that employees have non-work time where they can relax and detach themselves from work. This may include leisure activities that allow people to simply experience pleasure without competitive pressures.

Research has also shown that job crafting is an effective burnout intervention. Job crafting means that employees make small adjustments to both their job demands and resources. Employees can decrease their job demands by taking steps to minimise the emotionally, mentally or physically demanding job aspects or by reducing their workload.

For example, this might involve looking for a calmer place to work. They can also increase job resources by engaging in professional development, gaining more autonomy at work and by asking others for support, feedback and advice. Over time, engaging in job crafting will lead to lower burnout.

Organisations also need to play their part to reduce burnout. A range of intervention strategies such as stress management training, mindfulness-based approaches or policies that allow employees to disconnect from work outside of normal working hours are useful tools for combating burnout in an organisation.

Michael Koch, Reader in Human Resource Management & Organisational Behaviour, Brunel University London and Sarah Park, Professor in International Business, University of Leicester

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

The multiverse has become an essential part of pop culture. The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) brought this shared universe style of storytelling to global prominence with Iron Man (2008), where a post-credit scene hinted at a larger interconnected universe.

Over time, this expanded into a cinematic multiverse, particularly with the 2016 film Doctor Strange. Films like Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) and Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness (2022) introduced audiences to parallel universes where different versions of the same character coexist. The multiverse has also been embraced by other films, like Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022), which won multiple Academy Awards and Stree 2, which became the highest-grossing Bollywood film of all time in September 2024.

This style of storytelling has deep literary roots. I believe the first person to master the fictional multiverse was the 19th-century French novelist, Honoré de Balzac, in his monumental work La Comédie Humaine (The Human Comedy, 1829-1847).

In the 1920s, German physicist Werner Heisenberg challenged Newtonian physics, positing that particles can simultaneously occupy multiple states – he called this the Uncertainty Principle. Later, in the 1950s, American physicist Hugh Everett proposed the Many Worlds Interpretation, suggesting that all possible outcomes of a quantum event occur, each in a separate parallel universe.

While this theory was developed in physics, the term “multiverse” was introduced into literature by British science fiction writer Michael Moorcock. In The Eternal Champion (1970), he envisioned characters existing in parallel worlds with multiple avatars.

However, Balzac’s La Comédie Humaine, written over a century earlier, already contained the seeds of multiverse storytelling. Comprising nearly 100 novels and short stories, it features thousands of characters who reappear across different works, creating a shared universe that allows for complex narrative interconnections.

Balzac’s innovation was not merely in these recurring characters, but in the thematic and conceptual unity he established across his fictional universe.

This cohesion is built through his “typology” of characters. Balzac’s “types” are characters who embody universal traits while retaining their individual personalities – making them instantly recognisable across different stories.

In his preface to Une Ténébreuse Affaire (An Historical Mystery, 1841), Balzac defends his use of types: “A type … is a character who summarises in himself certain characteristic traits of all those who more or less resemble him; he is the model of the genre.”

Hungarian philosopher Georg Lukács expanded on this idea, stating that Balzac’s types represent a synthesis of the individual and the universal. These characters are universal enough to represent broader societal forces, while remaining distinct individuals within their own narratives.

This balance between the universal and individual is a cornerstone of multiverse storytelling. For instance, the climax of Spider-Man: No Way Home highlights the interplay between the universal and individual aspects of characters, as seen when three versions of Spider-Man (Toby Maguire, Andrew Garfield, Tom Holland) from parallel universes unite. Garfield’s Spider-Man finds redemption by saving MJ (Holland’s Spider-Man’s love interest), a moment that mirrors his own tragic loss of Gwen – emphasising both their shared trauma and divergent fates.

In much the same way, Balzac’s recurring characters evolve across La Comédie Humaine, reflecting different facets of their personalities and situations. Although not planned as a shared universe from the beginning – Balzac retrofitted earlier works to fit this framework – the coherence of his fictional world is remarkable.

Mobilising the multiverse

The French philosopher Alain wrote that Balzac’s literary universe can sometimes feel like a “crossroads where characters from La Comédie Humaine meet, greet each other, and pass”. This creates a sense of disjointedness, due to its lack of strict chronological order, allowing readers to enter Balzac’s universe from any of the nearly 100 novels or short stories.

Balzac addressed these concerns in his prefaces. He engaged in a meta-discourse similar to the post-credit scenes in modern Marvel films, where future plot-lines and character arcs are hinted at.

Balzac’s use of prefaces as a space to preempt criticism and engage with his readers anticipates the dialogue between creators and fans in the MCU. Just as Marvel balances creative vision with fan demands, Balzac used his prefaces to address concerns from his readers about the trajectories of beloved characters.

One of many such instances occurs in the preface to Pierrette (1840), where Balzac reveals that Maxime de Trailles, a notorious bachelor who ruins many women’s lives in La Comédie Humaine, is finally getting married. Despite criticisms from readers who wanted De Trailles to meet a tragic and painful end, Balzac defends his decision, humorously remarking: “What do you want me to do? That devil Maxime is in good health.”

Both Balzac and Marvel deal with the challenge of catering to a wide and diverse audience. The multiverse model, however, offers a solution to the limitations of a shared universe. While Balzac struggled with the impossibility of creating a completely coherent world – La Comédie Humaine was unfinished at his death – the multiverse allows modern creators to explore multiple realities and satisfy diverse audience expectations without making irreversible narrative choices.

In 2019, Marvel faced a backlash to the film Captain Marvel from conservative fans, for casting a female actor in a lead role – and then, in 2022, another backlash for casting a Muslim Pakistani actress as Ms. Marvel. Rather than directly addressing the criticism, which could have alienated both conservative and liberal audiences, Marvel used the multiverse to cater to a wide range of expectations.

Across the Spider-Verse (2023) is a prime example. This animated film features over 600 versions of Spider-Man, from the “traditional” white Spider-Man to black, Indian and even animal versions of the character (notably Peter “Porker”, the Spider-Pig). In doing so, Marvel catered to diverse global markets without committing to a single interpretation.

Balzac’s La Comédie Humaine laid the groundwork for modern multiverse storytelling. This approach allowed him to explore different dimensions of his characters across various stories. His visionary storytelling anticipated the fluidity and complexity found in today’s shared cinematic universes, demonstrating his enduring influence on narrative structures.

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Harsh Trivedi, Associate Teacher, School of Languages and Cultures, University of Sheffield

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

When director James Cameron’s The Terminator hit cinemas in 1984, it forever altered the landscape of science fiction.

Released 40 years ago, the plot unfolds against the backdrop of a post-apocalyptic future where an artificial intelligence (AI) defence network, Skynet, has turned against humanity. It triggers a nuclear holocaust and creates a dystopian world where machines hunt down the last remnants of human life.

Desperate to avoid defeat by the human resistance, Skynet sends a Terminator back in time. This lifelike android is almost indistinguishable from a person, but superior in strength, agility and intelligence. Its mission – eliminate Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), the mother of the future human resistance leader. The Terminator, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, is relentless in its pursuit and a near unstoppable force.

Meanwhile, Sarah’s son, John, sends back a lone warrior, Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), from the future to protect his mother. Though human and vulnerable, through his determination and resourcefulness, Sarah is able to defeat the Terminator. In so doing, Reese impregnates Sarah and fathers his son, John, the very man who will send him back in time.

The movie explores themes of fate and free will. It’s underpinned by the potential consequences of unchecked technological advancement in the era of the presidency of Ronald Reagan and his strategic defense initiative. “Star wars”, as it was popularly known, was conceived to defend the US from attack from Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles.

I have been teaching The Terminator to students since the early 2000s, initially as part of degrees related to modern US history, and since 2006 as part of the film studies degree programme at Bangor University. This has allowed me to appreciate the film and study it in depth. It has made a deep and lasting impression on me as not only one of the best science fiction films of the 1980s but as one of the best sci-fi films ever made.

Inspiration

James Cameron has said he initially conceived the idea for the film during post-production of the monster horror, Piranha II: The Spawning (1982). He wrote a 45-page treatment, which he intended to direct, with his future wife Gale Anne Hurd as producer. When several studios showed interest, the couple became concerned about losing control of the project. Cameron hired Schwarzenegger for the title role in late April 1983, to ensure their continued involvement.

Filming began in February 1984 on a budget of US$6.5 million (£5.2 million). After 15 weeks of shooting and post production, a rough edit was assembled. It opened on October 26 1984 in 1,012 cinemas across the US. While the critical reviews were mixed, audiences responded enthusiastically, earning the picture more than $9.7 million in its first ten days.

The Terminator was part of a new sub-genre in science fiction known as “tech noir”, taking its name from the nightclub in the movie. It presents technology as a destructive force. Other films of this genre include THX 1138 (1970), Westworld (1973), Logan’s Run (1976), and Blade Runner (1982).

Influenced by the murderous supercomputer HAL-9000 in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), The Terminator feeds into fears generated by the revolution in computerisation since the 1970s. It is no coincidence that the cyborg’s eyes are red like HAL’s. While reflecting on the implications of technology and manifesting a fascination with hi-tech industry, computer technology, the rise of multinational corporations and genetic engineering, it projected a dystopian, pessimistic view of the future.

Schwarzenegger first appeared on screen as the iconic T-800 at the age of 37. He would go on to the play the machine until age 72. Schwarzenegger’s distinctive bodybuilder’s physique played into the invincibility of the machine. But it also dovetailed with what have been called the “hardbodied” politics of the Reagan era that favoured such tough and hyper-masculine action heroes as Sylvester Stallone and Chuck Norris.

The Terminator’s innovative storyline, pacing, special effects and music helped to establish James Cameron as a major force in Hollywood. Before it, he had only helmed one movie. Thereafter, he went on to direct some of the biggest blockbusters of the 1980s and 1990s, including Aliens (1986), The Abyss (1989), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), True Lies (1994) and Avatar (2009).

‘I’ll be back’

The film’s legacy in pop culture is enduring. Cameron’s dark vision of the future created a cultural shock that continues to resonate to this day. “I’ll be back,” remains one of the most iconic one-liners in movie history.

What started as a film has now become a multimedia universe consisting of sequels, a television series, web series, comics, video games, board games, novels and even theme park rides. The franchise is also frequently cited in debates related to multinational corporations, robotics, biopolitics, transhumanism, AI and nuclear apocalypse.

This is because the film’s message on technology and the future is even more relevant today than it was 40 years ago, as Gale Anne Hurd explained earlier this year: “We considered the film to have a cautionary perspective on the future of technology, if we don’t pay attention. Jim and I knew that AI and robotics were going to be developed. There was no question in anybody’s mind and we wanted people to consider the consequences. Once you open Pandora’s box, you can’t put everything back in again.”

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Nathan Abrams, Professor of Film Studies, Bangor University

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

Capitalism without insolvency is like Christianity without Hell.

Those were the words of former Apollo 8 commander Frank Borman, speaking as chairman of Eastern Airlines in the United States in the early 1980s.

That company later entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy itself, in an attempt to deal with a staggering amount of debt.

We all know what it means to run out of money, but what exactly is bankruptcy? It’s certainly been in the news a lot.

Tupperware filed for it last month. Two Australian airlines have become insolvent this year, and other Australian businesses have been going under at record rates.

So how do companies go bankrupt – and what is bankruptcy protection under the law? What’s the famous Chapter 11? And is bankruptcy the end of the road?

What exactly is bankruptcy?

Sometimes, a person or company can’t pay all of their debts as they arise. In legal terms, we call this being “insolvent”.

Receiving a large bill (such as a large tax bill) that you can’t pay on the day doesn’t necessarily make you insolvent. The law allows for a reasonable time to pay bills after receiving an invoice.

But if large numbers of bills remain unpaid weeks or months after their due dates, it begins to suggest a person or business isn’t paying them because they actually can’t.

Being unable to pay all of your debts makes you an insolvent debtor. Bankruptcy is the legal process that allows insolvent debtors to fairly resolve these debts.

In Australia, insolvent individuals can file a bankruptcy petition with the Official Receiver in bankruptcy, a statutory office that is part of the Australian Financial Security Authority.

A creditor who is owed at least $10,000 can also force another person into bankruptcy, by suing them in court and obtaining an order to make them bankrupt.

For companies that can’t pay their debts, there are several options, including liquidation, voluntary administration and restructuring. More on these later.

We let an expert take control

When a person or company goes bankrupt, an independent external expert (or team of experts) is appointed to manage their assets and debt.

For individuals, we call this person a registered bankruptcy trustee. In the case of corporate bankruptcies, we call them a registered liquidator.

In both cases, the expert will take control of the debtor’s assets and affairs. They’ll be looking closely at why the debtor needed to declare bankruptcy in the first place, and whether anything can be sold to generate cash so at least some of the debt can be repaid.

When a person goes bankrupt, not everything is up for grabs. The law allows them to retain some basic essentials, such as clothes, furniture, tools of their trade, and a car valued at less than $9,400.

Some categories of assets can also be exempt, such as superannuation and compensation for personal injuries.

There are no similar extensions for corporate insolvency. All of a company’s assets are on the table.

However, both types of debtor typically enter bankruptcy with few or no assets. In more than 80% of individual and corporate bankruptcy cases, there are no payments to the creditors they owe.

Why seek bankruptcy protection?

One key feature of formally filing for bankruptcy is that it imposes a “stay” on enforcement action against the debtor. This is a court order that gives the party owing money time to organise its affairs in an orderly way – such as by selling assets to raise cash.

In corporate insolvency, there are formal procedures under Australia’s Corporations Act that aim to give a company the opportunity to negotiate a deal with its creditors.

That might include formulating a plan to restructure, allowing it to exit insolvency and keep trading. But it could also include selling the business to a new owner so it can continue.

Some large Australian companies, including Virgin Australia and Channel Ten, have previously used “voluntary administration” to save their businesses.

Voluntary administration can give a company a chance to reduce its debts through a statutory compromise with creditors called a “deed of company arrangement”.

This involves the majority of a company’s creditors approving a deal – usually, to compromise on some of their debt in exchange for a promise of future payments.

The funds to make these payments might come from selling assets, or be a percentage of promised future profits.

If successful, this can allow a company to keep operating and minimise job losses that would otherwise occur if it were simply shut down and its assets sold off – known as being “liquidated”.

Once liquidated, a company will be deregistered by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission – that is, it will cease to exist as a separate company.

What is Chapter 11 bankruptcy?

You’ll often hear or read about companies filing for “Chapter 11” bankruptcy. This is because in the US, there is one law – the Bankruptcy Code 1978 – that covers both individuals and companies.

Just like we’ve discussed in the Australian context, Chapter 11 of that law is specifically aimed at giving debtor companies a chance to enter into a deal with their creditors – to reduce their debts, sell some or all of the assets and hopefully allow at least part of the business to continue operating.

This is what Tupperware did last month, following years of financial pressure.

Where the law differs between Australia and the US is in the fact that Chapter 11 allows the debtor company’s management to remain in charge of the bankruptcy process. We call this “debtor-in-possession”.

In Australia, in contrast, the liquidator – which acts as the administrator in a voluntary administration – remains in control of the company.

Filing for bankruptcy can signal the end of a company’s operations, but not always. It may be possible for an external administrator to try to save the business or sell some or all of it to a new owner, paying down debt and preserving jobs.

This article is part of The Conversation’s “Business Basics” series where we ask experts to discuss key concepts in business, economics and finance.

Jason Harris, Professor of Corporate Law, University of Sydney

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

Many Year 12 students are preparing for final exams throughout October and November.

What happens if something unexpected happens that makes final preparations or performance on the day more difficult?

This is where special consideration or special provisions can help.

How might you be eligible?

Students who experience something unexpected during the exam period may be eligible for special consideration. This can minimise the impact on a student’s overall marks.

To be eligible, incidents must be beyond the student’s control. For example, a serious illness, an accident, a family crisis or an interruption during the exam. It does not include family holidays, a teacher being away or mixing up exam dates.

A student suffering a flare up of pain and fatigue because of glandular fever is likely to be eligible as long as they have a medical diagnosis and recent documentation such as a letter from their GP. Other unexpected illnesses might include gastro, flu or COVID.

Unexpected mishaps or misadventure such as your home being flooded or a sporting accident that puts you into hospital can prevent you from participating in your exam. In cases like these you will need to provide evidence.

A death of a close relative can also mean a student is considered eligible for special arrangements. Other family crises may also be included depending on the circumstances and how they affect you. It’s best to consult with your school to find out if you might be eligible.

Students with disabilities and chronic illnesses can also apply for special consideration. This is something that must be organised earlier in the year through your school and helps teachers make adjustments that enable students to participate equitably.

There are also a range of entry processes for university and other post-school training and education pathways. Check with the institution you are interested in for more information.

What do you need to do to apply?

The process of applying for special consideration for exams differs slightly depending which state or territory you live in. However, the same principles apply:

• you will need documentary evidence – such as letters from your doctor, police reports, statutory declarations or a death certificate

• it must be clear how the unexpected situation impacts your performance, such as being too sick to study or too unwell to attend the exam.

Your school will then manage the process on your behalf and where relevant, submit the application to the local exam board.

Make sure you let your school know as soon as possible if you think something has happened that will have an impact on your exams.

What happens next?

Special consideration aims to ensure a student’s final result is an accurate reflection of their expected achievement. Depending on what has happened, and when it happened, a student may be able to have:

• additional reading or writing time

• do their exam in another room

• extensions to due dates

• rest breaks, or

• time to attend to medical needs without loss of test or exam time.

If a student can’t do their exam or their participation was significantly impaired, a moderated school result or predicted mark will be used. This is a result based on performance during the year.

This might happen in situations where a whole class is affected. For example, a fire alarm went off half way through an exam.

Unexpected things happen to all of us at some stage in our lives. If something goes wrong in your life around exam time, talk to your school and gather your documentation. And be informed about how you can be supported to be graded fairly.

For more state-specific information, you can go to your state’s exam board:

• South Australia and Northern Territory (SACE)

• Queensland (QCAA)

• New South Wales (HSC)

• Tasmania (TASC)

• Western Australia (WACE)

• Victoria (VCE)

• Australian Capital Territory (BSSS).

Jill Colton, Program Director: Secondary Programs and Senior Lecturer: English and Literacy Education, University of South Australia

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

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s recent decision to join TikTok marks a big shift in his approach to political campaigning. He previously criticised the platform over security concerns, but now he is embracing it.

Dutton’s reversal reflects a broader trend of Australian politicians using the platform. This is especially the case in 2024, a year marked by pivotal elections worldwide.

TikTok offers a unique form of engagement and allows politicians to reach a wide range of voters in ways traditional platforms don’t.

Dutton’s conservative first post does contrast with TikTok’s casual and engaging style, but signals a willingness to adapt to modern political communication. While his initial concerns about TikTok’s data privacy remain valid, his shift to actively using the platform emphasises its importance in political campaigns today.

TikTok’s rise as a political tool

The political landscape is changing. Politicians worldwide who once criticised TikTok are now joining it.

This shift not only marks evolving campaign strategies but also raises broader questions about the role of social media in democracy.

Major political figures, such as US presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, continue to use TikTok despite proposed bans in the United States. These bans are currently being contested in court, but are due to commence in January 2025.

The continued use of TikTok by both candidates underlines the platform’s undeniable significance in shaping political communication.

TikTok’s popularity stems from its ability to deliver accessible and engaging content. Voters are drawn to TikTok as a source of political news and information because of its easy-to-consume format.

TikTok allows politicians to bypass the formalities of traditional political communication and present their messages in a relatable way.

For instance, Senator Fatima Payman’s viral “skibidi” speech is a clear example of how effectively TikTok can amplify political content. She delivered this speech in the Australian Senate, using only TikTok slang.

It resonated with a younger demographic, and so far has more than eight million views.

As a result, her account now has more than 100,000 followers and continues to receive significant views on all posts.

However, when leaning into slang, trends and other visibility strategies, politician walk a fine line where content could be considered “cringe”. This cringe factor can arise if the trend being used is losing relevance or when the content seems out of place or forced (Dutton himself copped some flack for belatedly jumping on the “demure” trend).

The role of authenticity

One of the key factors behind successful political engagement on TikTok is authenticity. The platform thrives on genuine, relatable content. Politicians who can showcase a more human side tend to resonate with voters.

Payman’s use of TikTok slang in her speech connected her with younger audiences, demonstrating the power of speaking the language of the platform’s primary users. Authenticity plays a significant role in TikTok’s algorithm, making it essential for politicians to come across as sincere.

Because TikTok’s advertising policy bans political ads, politicians must rely on organic content to engage users. Authenticity is therefore an entry requirement.

Dutton’s presence on TikTok will be closely scrutinised to see how he balances the platform’s demand for authenticity with his public persona. Voters are more likely to engage with politicians they find relatable, so Dutton’s ability to reveal his “ordinary” side without making people cringe may determine how well he is received on TikTok.

Electioneering on TikTok

TikTok’s impact on elections has already been demonstrated in several countries.

In the 2022 Australian federal election, the Labor Party’s use of the app was linked to its success. UK Labour’s similar strategy in 2024 mirrored this result.

Elections are won and lost for many reasons. There is also no direct data linking TikTok content to voter decisions. But there is a clear correlation between effective use of the platform and electoral victories.

As Australia approaches its next federal election, TikTok will play a central role in how parties reach voters. For politicians like Dutton, mastering the balance between authenticity and policy will be key to successfully engaging and informing voters on this rapidly evolving platform.

Challenges ahead

TikTok’s short video format poses a challenge for conveying complex policy ideas, often leading to oversimplification. Politicians like Dutton must find ways to deepen engagement outside the platform to ensure voters understand their positions.

Another challenge is the legal issues TikTok faces, particularly in the US. If the platform is banned or restricted in what is a major market, it could affect its use globally, including in Australia. This could disrupt political outreach and engagement strategies, particularly for those who have cultivated a strong presence.

Dutton’s engagement with TikTok may also spark debate about balancing the benefits of reaching voters through a platform with concerns about data security and misinformation.

Susan Grantham, Lecturer in Communication, Griffith University

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

On October 10, NASA is launching a hotly anticipated new mission to Jupiter’s fourth-largest moon, Europa.

Called Europa Clipper, the spacecraft will conduct a detailed study of the moon, looking for potential places where Europa might host alien life.

It’s the largest planetary exploration spacecraft NASA has ever made: as wide as a basketball court when its solar sails are unfolded. It has a mass of about 6,000 kilograms – the weight of a large African elephant.

But why are we sending a hulking spacecraft all the way to Europa?

Looking for life away from Earth

The search for life in places other than Earth usually focuses on our neighbour Mars, a planet that’s technically in the “habitable zone” of our Solar System. But Mars is not an attractive place to live, due to its lack of atmosphere and high levels of radiation. However, it’s close to Earth, making it relatively easy to send missions to explore it.

But there are other places in the Solar System that could support life – some of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Why? They have liquid water.

Here on Earth, water is the solvent of life: water dissolves salts and sugars, and facilitates the chemical reactions needed for life on Earth to proceed. It’s possible life forms exist elsewhere that rely on liquid methane or carbon dioxide or something else, but life as we know it uses water.

The reason there’s liquid water so far out in the Solar System is because Jupiter and Saturn, the gas giants, wield immense gravitational power over their moons.

Saturn’s moons, Titan and Enceladus, are stretched and compressed by gravity as they go around their host planet. This movement results in vast underground oceans with a surface of solid ice, with plumes of water vapour exploding 9,600 kilometres from the surface.

It is strongly suspected that Europa is the same. While we know a lot about Europa from more than four centuries of observation, we have not confirmed it has an under-ice liquid ocean like Titan and Enceladus.

But all clues point to yes. Europa has a smooth surface despite being hit by many meteors, suggesting the surface is young, recently replaced. Ice volcanoes raining down water over the surface would make sense.

It also has a magnetic field, suggesting that like Earth, Europa has a liquid layer inside (on Earth, this liquid is molten rock).

What will Europa Clipper do?

At the surface, Europa is bombarded by high levels of space radiation, concentrated by Jupiter. But deeper down, the thick ice sheet could be protecting life in the liquid subsurface ocean.

This means it would be difficult for us to find concrete evidence for life without drilling down deep. But where to look? Through flybys of the icy moon, Europa Clipper will be looking at areas where life could be dwelling under the icy shell.

To achieve this, Europa Clipper has nine scientific instruments. These include a wide-angle camera to study geologic activity and a thermal imaging system to measure surface texture and detect warmer regions on the surface.

There’s also a spectrometer for looking at the chemical composition of the gases and surface of Europa, and for any explosive plumes of water from the surface. The mission also has tools for mapping the moon’s surface.

Other instruments will measure the depth and salt levels of the moon’s ocean and the thickness of its ice shell, and also how Europa flexes within the strong gravitational pull of Jupiter.

Excitingly, a mass spectrometer will analyse the gases of the moon’s faint atmosphere and potential plumes of water. By examining the material ejected from the plumes, we can understand what is hidden within the under-ice oceans of Europa.

A dust analyser will also look at matter that has been ejected from Europa’s surface by tiny meteorites or released from the plumes.

Unfortunately, we will have to wait a while for any discoveries. Europa Clipper will take more than five years to reach Jupiter. And the mission is only equipped to look for the potential of life, not life itself. If we see evidence that might point towards life, we will need future missions to return and explore Europa in depth.

So we must be patient. But this is an exciting opportunity for humanity to get one step closer to find life beyond our own home planet.

James Lloyd, Research Fellow, ARC CoE Plants for Space, School of Molecular Sciences, The University of Western Australia

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

The Albanese government today introduced long-awaited legislation to parliament which is set to revolutionise Australia’s cyber security preparedness.

The legislation, if passed, will be Australia’s first standalone cyber security act. It’s aimed at protecting businesses and consumers from the rising tide of cyber crime.

So what are the key provisions, and will it be enough?

What’s in the new laws?

The new laws have a strong focus on victims of “ransomware” – malicious software cyber criminals use to block access to crucial files or data until a ransom has been paid.

People who pay a ransom do not always regain lost data. The payments also sustain the hacker’s business model.

Under the new law, victims of ransomware attacks who make payments must report the payment to authorities. This will help the government track cyber criminal activities and understand how much money is being lost to ransomware.

The laws also involve new obligations for the National Cyber Security Coordinator and Australian Signals Directorate. These obligations restrict how these two bodies can use information provided to them by businesses and industry about cyber security incidents. The government hopes this will encourage organisations to more openly share information knowing it will be safeguarded.

Separately, organisations in critical infrastructure – such as energy, transport, communications, health and finance – will be required to strengthen programs used to secure individuals’ private data.

The new legislation will also upgrade the investigative powers of the Cyber Incident Review Board. The board will conduct “no-fault” investigations after significant cyber attacks. The board will then share insights to promote improvements in cyber security practices more generally. These insights will be anonymised to ensure the identities of victims of cyber attacks aren’t publicly revealed.

The legislation will also introduce new minimum cyber security standards for all smart devices, such as watches, televisions, speakers and doorbells.

These standards will establish a baseline level of security for consumers. They will include secure default settings, unique device passwords, regular security updates and encryption of sensitive data.

This is a welcome step that will ensure everyday devices meet minimum security criteria before they can be sold in Australia.

A long-overdue step

Cyber security incidents have surged by 23% in the past financial year, to more than 94,000 reported cases. This is equivalent to one attack every six minutes.

This dramatic increase underscores the growing sophistication and frequency of cyber attacks targeting Australian businesses and individuals. It also highlights the urgent need for a comprehensive national response.

High-profile cyber attacks have further emphasised the need to strengthen Australia’s cyber security framework. The 2022 Optus data breach is perhaps the most prominent example. The breach compromised the personal information of more than 11 million Australians, alarming both the government and the public, not to mention Optus.

Cyber Security Minister Tony Burke says the Cyber Security Act is a “long-overdue step” that reflects the government’s concern about these threats.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has also acknowledged recent high-profile attacks as a “wake-up call” for businesses, emphasising the need for a unified approach to cyber security.

The Australian government wants to establish Australia as a world leader in cyber security by 2030. This goal reflects the government’s acknowledgement that cyber security is fundamental to national security, economic prosperity and social well being.

Broader implications

The proposed laws will enhance national security. But they could also present challenges.

For example, even though the laws place limitations on how the National Cyber Security Coordinator and Australian Signals Directorate can use information, some businesses might still be unwilling to share confidential data because they are worried about damage to their reputation.

Businesses, especially smaller ones, will also face a substantial compliance burden as they adapt to new reporting requirements. They will also potentially need to invest more heavily in cyber security measures. This could lead to increased costs, which might ultimately be passed on to consumers.

The proposed legislation will require careful implementation to balance the needs of national security, business operations and individual privacy rights.

David Tuffley, Senior Lecturer in Applied Ethics & CyberSecurity, Griffith University

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

Many of us care for animals and feel empathy when they suffer. At the same time, many of us also accept their suffering and death when it happens in the name of science.

How do people manage this tension? Our latest research shows we do it by pretending lab animals have no inner lives or complex mental capacities.

Justified suffering?

More than 190 million animals are used in laboratory experiments around the world each year, according to one estimate. These animals undergo experiments we do not want to perform on humans, whose lives are more important to us.

Some experiments involve simple things such as eating various foods and taking blood samples. Others are more extreme, such as simulating drowning to test antidepressants, or inducing painful tumours to study cancer.

Despite efforts to encourage alternatives to animal experimentation, many still see it as necessary. This view is common not only among scientists, but also members of the public. Many perceive animal suffering as justified by hoped-for benefits to human health.

Mixed feelings

At the same time, numerous polls show the public is increasingly opposed to animal exploitation, particularly of animals most like us.

So people don’t want animals to suffer, but may perceive animal suffering as necessary to benefit humans. How do we resolve these mixed feelings?

Animal experimentation disturbs us because the animals used in laboratories have mental capacities. They can experience suffering. If you ask people to imagine the emotional activity of a lobster, they are more opposed to it being mistreated.

There are several ways of silencing our empathy for laboratory animals to legitimise animal experimentation. One common method is to understate animals’ mental capacities.

A dog or an ‘experimental animal’?

So if people see a creature as a lab animal, will they have a lower opinion of its cognitive abilities? This is the question we examined in our latest study, published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

We showed pictures of different animals (rabbits, hamsters, dogs, macaques) to 3,455 participants, accompanied by descriptions. One group of participants read descriptions of characteristics such as size and fur colour, while the other group had the animal presented as a laboratory subject.

All participants were asked to rate the extent to which the animals presented possessed 15 mental abilities, such as hunger, joy, fear, pride, suffering or planning ability.

For example, the control group saw the image above left with the caption: “This animal is a dog and more specifically a beagle. It is a four-legged animal, and the colour of its coat can be composed of several colours such as white, brown or black. The beagle is a diurnal animal, which means that it is active during the day and rests at night.”

The experimental group saw the image above right with the caption: “This hamster lives in a laboratory to be used as an experimental animal for medical, personal care and household products. For scientific purposes, it will be subjected to tests and suffer organ failure, bleeding and irritation. At the end of the experiment, the hamster will be euthanised.”

Objectifying animals

We found participants systematically attributed fewer mental and cognitive abilities to animals described in a laboratory context than to animals presented through their physical characteristics. We found this effect was replicated through different studies and despite experimental variations.

The results were similar when presented with pictures of different animals (a hamster, a mouse or even a beagle), or in different situations (a laboratory animal in pain, or a laboratory animal not in pain).

Scientists often objectify lab animals, using euphemisms such as “sacrifice” instead of “kill” and avoiding giving animals names. Our new research shows we are also motivated to deny the cognitive abilities of animals as soon as they are labelled as test subjects.

The use of euphemisms, not naming the animals, and the reduction of their cognitive abilities, ultimately serve the same function: to reduce the animals to the status of test tubes.

Our study supports the idea that categorising laboratory animals as nothing more than “hairy test tubes” lacking cognitive capacity facilitates psychological detachment.

This makes it easier to justify their use in scientific experiments, and quell any inner moral conflict. If animal experimentation upsets us, it is psychologically more comfortable to objectify test animals and not to recognise their mental capacity.

Legitimising animal sacrifice

Our results are in keeping with earlier work showing people will perform a similar manoeuvre if they are told an animal is destined for the butcher. They will lower their estimate of the animal’s cognitive abilities to justify meat consumption.

Of course, people hold a range of views towards animal experimentation. These are influenced by many factors, such as gender and interest in science.

However, our research is the first to demonstrate that the simple fact of categorising an animal as a test subject will lead to the denigration of its mental capacities.

Beyond animal experiments

The benefits of experimenting on animals are much debated. A survey of 20 vast systematic reviews of various kinds of biomedical animal experiments found only two concluded that animal experimentation was useful.

One of the limitations of animal experiments is the poor reproducibility of research. This lack of stability in scientific results is extremely costly for society. The development of alternatives to animal testing is progressing.

Opponents of animal testing often focus on the three Rs: replace, reduce, refine. These are widely accepted in Europe, the United States and elsewhere.

However, moving away from animal experiments may prove difficult. As we have seen, the mere presence of animals in laboratories can be enough to make us believe that their sacrifice is no sacrifice at all.

Kevin Vezirian, Maître de conférences, Université Savoie Mont Blanc; Brock Bastian, Professor, Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne, and Laurent Bègue-Shankland, Professeur de psychologie sociale, membre honoraire de l’Institut universitaire de France (IUF), directeur de la MSH Alpes (CNRS/UGA), Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA)

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

Two scientists, Victor Ambros (UMASS Chan Medical School in the US) and Gary Ruvkun (Harvard Medical School in the US), have won the 2024 Nobel prize in medicine or physiology.

They received the prestigious award for discovering tiny molecules in our cells called microRNAs. This discovery has not only changed our understanding of how our bodies work, but opens up a whole new area of science as well. It even extends into new treatments.

These molecules, microRNAs, can be simply thought of as tiny controllers inside our cells, the building blocks of our bodies. They help decide which parts of our DNA, our own genetic material, should be active and which should be quiet.

Think of them as volume knobs for our genes, turning them up or down as needed. All our cells contain the same number of DNA letters called bases – there’s about 3 billion. These tiny little molecules themselves, in fact, help control which of those letters are on or off, how loud that volume switch is and, in doing so, how our own genes behave.

This is called gene regulation and is so important, helping cells decide what type of cell they should be. They also have lots of roles in hard-to-treat diseases such as cancer and neurological diseases such Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

MicroRNAs play crucial roles in our bodies throughout our lives. They guide our development from a single cell into a fully formed person with various organs and tissues.

As we grow and age, these tiny molecules continue to keep us healthy by fine-tuning our genes’ activity as needed. When microRNAs malfunction, it can lead to diseases such as cancer, which is why scientists are studying them to develop new treatments.

Interestingly, microRNAs also help explain why different parts of our body look and function differently, despite all our cells containing the same DNA letters. This makes them essential for both our overall health and our individual uniqueness.

Much of my own research has focused on microRNAs and we now know there are thousands of these in our cells, all of them different. Teams I have led have shown their importance across many different cancer types, and how they control different cellular processes, such as growth, division, but also spread, which can occur in cancer. We’ve even found they’re key to waking up stem cells in cancer, rare populations that can seed a whole new tumour.

Ambros and Ruvkun found these microRNAs while studying tiny worms. They realised that these molecules could control how the worms grew.

The fact that microRNAs are found across many species suggests they’ve been important throughout evolutionary history, and across biology in general. Later, scientists found that humans and other animals have microRNAs, too.

Understanding microRNAs could lead to new ways to diagnose diseases earlier and overall a deeper understanding of how our bodies work.

Scientists are exploring ways to use microRNAs or molecules that target them as treatments for various diseases. We’ve found that some microRNAs are in fact very good at turning off cancer cells so they might even be useful as treatments in themselves.

In basic terms, the discovery of microRNAs is like finding a new set of tools that our bodies use to stay healthy. This knowledge gives scientists and doctors new ways to help people when things go wrong with their health.

The Nobel prize recognises how important this discovery is for medicine and our understanding of life. Their pioneering work on tiny worms led to the discovery of a fundamental biological mechanism that’s crucial for life as we know it.

Their Nobel prize recognises how this discovery has transformed our understanding of gene regulation and opened up new avenues for medical research and treatment. It shows that even tiny things in our cells can have a huge impact on our overall health and wellbeing.

Justin Stebbing, Professor of Biomedical Sciences, Anglia Ruskin University

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

The 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to scientists John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton “for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks”.

Inspired by ideas from physics and biology, Hopfield and Hinton developed computer systems that can memorise and learn from patterns in data. Despite never directly collaborating, they built on each other’s work to develop the foundations of the current boom in machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI).

What are neural networks? (And what do they have to do with physics?)

Artificial neural networks are behind much of the AI technology we use today.

In the same way your brain has neuronal cells linked by synapses, artificial neural networks have digital neurons connected in various configurations. Each individual neuron doesn’t do much. Instead, the magic lies in the pattern and strength of the connections between them.

Neurons in an artificial neural network are “activated” by input signals. These activations cascade from one neuron to the next in ways that can transform and process the input information. As a result, the network can carry out computational tasks such as classification, prediction and making decisions.

Most of the history of machine learning has been about finding ever more sophisticated ways to form and update these connections between artificial neurons.

While the foundational idea of linking together systems of nodes to store and process information came from biology, the mathematics used to form and update these links came from physics.

Networks that can remember

John Hopfield (born 1933) is a US theoretical physicist who made important contributions over his career in the field of biological physics. However, the Nobel Physics prize was for his work developing Hopfield networks in 1982.

Hopfield networks were one of the earliest kinds of artificial neural networks. Inspired by principles from neurobiology and molecular physics, these systems demonstrated for the first time how a computer could use a “network” of nodes to remember and recall information.

The networks Hopfield developed could memorise data (such as a collection of black and white images). These images could be “recalled” by association when the network is prompted with a similar image.

Although of limited practical use, Hopfield networks demonstrated that this type of ANN could store and retrieve data in new ways. They laid the foundation for later work by Hinton.

Machines that can learn

Geoff Hinton (born 1947), sometimes called one of the “godfathers of AI”, is a British-Canadian computer scientist who has made a number of important contributions to the field. In 2018, along with Yoshua Bengio and Yann LeCun, he was awarded the Turing Award (the highest honour in computer science) for his efforts to advance machine learning generally, and specifically a branch of it called deep learning.

The Nobel Prize in Physics, however, is specifically for his work with Terrence Sejnowski and other colleagues in 1984, developing Boltzmann machines.

These are an extension of the Hopfield network that demonstrated the idea of machine learning – a system that lets a computer learn not from a programmer, but from examples of data. Drawing from ideas in the energy dynamics of statistical physics, Hinton showed how this early generative computer model could learn to store data over time by being shown examples of things to remember.

The Boltzmann machine, like the Hopfield network before it, did not have immediate practical applications. However, a modified form (called the restricted Boltzmann machine) was useful in some applied problems.

More important was the conceptual breakthrough that an artificial neural network could learn from data. Hinton continued to develop this idea. He later published influential papers on backpropagation (the learning process used in modern machine learning systems) and convolutional neural networks (the main type of neural network used today for AI systems that work with image and video data).

Why this prize, now?

Hopfield networks and Boltzmann machines seem whimsical compared to today’s feats of AI. Hopfield’s network contained only 30 neurons (he tried to make one with 100 nodes, but it was too much for the computing resources of the time), whereas modern systems such as ChatGPT can have millions. However, today’s Nobel prize underscores just how important these early contributions were to the field.

While recent rapid progress in AI – familiar to most of us from generative AI systems such as ChatGPT – might seem like vindication for the early proponents of neural networks, Hinton at least has expressed concern. In 2023, after quitting a decade-long stint at Google’s AI branch, he said he was scared by the rate of development and joined the growing throng of voices calling for more proactive AI regulation.

After receiving the Nobel prize, Hinton said AI will be “like the Industrial Revolution but instead of our physical capabilities, it’s going to exceed our intellectual capabilities”. He also said he still worries that the consequences of his work might be “systems that are more intelligent than us that might eventually take control”.

Aaron J. Snoswell, Research Fellow in AI Accountability, Queensland University of Technology

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

The Australian construction industry has long been facing a crisis of serious defects in apartment buildings. In the past, alarming incidents such as the Sydney Opal Tower evacuation and the Melbourne Lacrosse fire signalled systemic problems in construction.

The same problem persists today. One recent report shows serious defects in apartment buildings in New South Wales have more than doubled between 2021 and 2023.

As the Albanese government fast-tracks its five-year plan to build 1.2 million dwellings, this number will likely worsen.

We’ve researched the pressures the construction industry feels and how that can result in unsafe apartments, and what can be done to make housing like this better for everyone.

Why are we in this situation?

Serious defects endanger lives, cost building and insurance firms millions of dollars, and put pressure on regulators. Typical responses involve increased regulation, but the lack of change in apartment quality shows increased regulation is not enough. Behavioural and cultural changes are needed.

We found the poor quality of apartment buildings is often the result of deeply entrenched patterns of unprofessional behaviour across the industry. These often arise as professionals face pressures to cut costs in an industry notorious for its low profit margin.

We also found this pressure is exacerbated by aggressive competition, work overload, exploitation and a toxic culture.

As pressures mount, professionals’ decision-making becomes increasingly fraught. For example, many professionals we interviewed largely believe they must choose between profit and quality.

There are no simple answers to this age-old conundrum. However, our study shows a way forward.

What did we find?

Our three-year study funded by the Australian Research Council is the first in Australia to extensively investigate 12 building professions struggling to navigate and resolve this perceived dilemma.

Teams from four Australian universities conducted desktop reviews, analysed professional codes of conduct, interviewed 53 professionals and conducted six focus group discussions. After two years of analysis and model development, we published our industry technical report and presented our findings to practitioners in NSW and Queensland.

We have empirical evidence that shows profitability and quality do not have to be mutually exclusive. We have uncovered powerful, innovative but ad hoc strategies showing businesses can reconcile both.

One builder we profiled, a multinational company and a market leader in apartment construction, took a pioneering approach to this dilemma.

For many years, the company’s strategy was to build as quickly and cheaply as possible to save money. However, these savings were ultimately lost because they found they had “[…] made some money at the time, but we basically spent it all fixing things that we didn’t build that well”.

The company re-examined its business model and developed a new strategy that reconciled profitability, quality and professional behaviours.

The company analysed where the majority of their defects arose from and there were five key areas including:

• balcony waterproofing

• shower construction and waterproofing

• fire wall installations

• penetrations through fire walls

• brick masonry construction.

They then built prototypes of high quality construction for each of these typical building elements. They found their prototypes addressed defects while also integrating different technical standards.

The company then informed their clients, subcontractors and suppliers that “this is how we will build from now on”. Over time, it became apparent their strategy supported skills training while also improving long-term financial sustainability.

These prototypes are now showcased at a centre in NSW. Subcontractors, architects, engineers, designers, professional associations and other supply-chain actors regularly visit.

The company now conducts training for quality based on these prototypes and reports that since the establishment of this strategy, defects have been reduced by 85%.

Our empirical evidence shows these strategies drive quality and long-term financial sustainability.

Safer homes nationwide

This strategy does not have to be limited to a few large companies.

In our report, we provide a plan to ensure safer, more financially sustainable building practices can be rolled out across the industry. It relies on collaboration across sectors.

Best-practice companies in each state, like the one in NSW, would come under a national umbrella. Commonwealth and state governments would initiate the effort by identifying the best examples in different states. Together, they could focus on design, construction quality and on innovative materials, standards and ways to build safely and cost-effectively.

With positive role models to follow, other companies can improve. This would instil a mindset and culture of leadership, accountability and responsibility across the sector. More coherent standards would be embedded across the industry would ensure workers at all levels are no longer siloed.

Education and training organisations would progressively incorporate these new standards. Over time, the workforce would rebuild knowledge and skills that are perceived to have largely disappeared.

It’s important to ensure clients help drive this too. By mandating or incentivising companies with safer supply chains, there’s a commercial imperative to do better.

Professional associations also have a role to play. They can support these efforts further by creating resources and advocating for best practice.

Making apartments safer requires a shift in the thinking of the entire construction industry. There are inventive ways to align quality with profitability. We must challenge the assumption that they are always irreconcilable.

Kerry London, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research, Torrens University Australia; Barbara Bok, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Healthy and Sustainable Development, Torrens University Australia, and Zelinna Pablo, Senior Research Fellow, Torrens University Australia

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

Australians’ ability to protest has again been in the news this week. Against the background of an armed conflict in the Middle East and rallies nationwide, the government has suggested Australia should establish a permit system for all protests.

Minister for the NDIS and Government Services Bill Shorten made the suggestion on television this week:

how the permit system works is it doesn’t stop people protesting, but the purpose of is to look at the circumstances […] I don’t necessarily think it should apply to industrial relations, but for some of these protests we’ve seen week in, week out, I do think that having a permit system would at least straighten it up.

So what are protest laws like around the country? Do any states or territories have this permit system, and should they? And importantly, what effect to these laws have on the right to protest?

What are the laws like nationally?

A permit system to allow protest organisers to hold an “authorised public assembly” operates in most states and territories in Australia. These systems allow police to “authorise” a particular protest and require a written application to police and/or the relevant local council.

For instance, in New South Wales, people who wish to hold an authorised protest must lodge a “notice of intention to hold a public assembly” with the NSW Police Commissioner.

Similar provisions also exist in Queensland, where organisers wishing to obtain authorisation for a protest must send a “Notice of Intention to Hold a Public Assembly” form to Queensland Police Service and the local council.

In Western Australia, organisers may apply for a permit to hold a public meeting and/or procession under the Public Order in Streets Act.

However, there a significant differences in the detail of these laws. In most states, the permit system simply allows the protest to be “authorised”. This means that while it is not a criminal offence to hold a protest without a permit, it provides a level of protection to protesters from certain criminal charges such as obstructing traffic.

Victoria does not have a permit system like NSW. Instead, it has laws that enable police to move people on, or to arrest someone for violent or anti-social behaviour.

However, in Tasmania, a section of the Police Offences Act makes it an offence for a person to organise or conduct a demonstration without a permit if it is to be held, wholly or partly, on a public street. It’s punishable by a fine.

The period of notification also varies widely. In most states and territories, the lead time is anywhere from five days to two weeks.

However, in Tasmania, protest organisers are advised to lodge an application with police 12 weeks before the demonstration.

Finally, the grounds for rejection of a permit can be overly broad. For instance, in South Australia, police and other authorities may reject a permit on the ground that “it would, if effectuated, unduly prejudice any public interest”. The legislation does not set out any criteria for that test.

Which laws are the best?

In terms of how these laws compare with one another and which approach is the most preferable, we need to consider two factors: the practicalities of a permit system, and whether allowing government authorities to control protests is advisable.

In terms of practicalities, the paperwork burden, cost and uncertainty of a mandatory permit system may be unworkable. There could also be ensuing litigation to consider.

This was starkly demonstrated in 2020 when planned protests against Indigenous deaths in custody were litigated in the NSW Supreme Court.

In NSW, which has a permit system, the “Stop All Black Deaths in Custody” protest was initially rejected by the NSW Supreme Court but was then declared an authorised public assembly by the NSW Court of Appeal only minutes before the protest was scheduled to start.

In deciding on the best approach to permits, we must also consider whether it is wise to allow government agencies to give the green light to some protests and disallow others. Will this put too much power into the hands of police and individual judges?

The human right of protesting

Here it is relevant to consider Australia’s international human rights treaty obligations, which protect the right to assemble peacefully. United Nations guidance on this right recognises that states can set up notification provisions for protests, but they cannot establish authorisation requirements.

This means Australia can set up a notification system to allow police to facilitate the smooth conduct of a protest in advance (such as by organising road closures).

However, this cannot require people to get permission from the police before undertaking a protest. In fact, this international human rights guidance states that having to apply for permission to protest undermines its status as a basic human right.

More generally, it should be remembered that protests can be spontaneous and should be allowed to be so.

This is best illustrated by one of the most important acts of protest in Australian history: the Aboriginal Tent Embassy. This was set up spontaneously on January 26 1972 when four Indigenous men set up a beach umbrella on the lawns opposite Parliament House in Canberra as a protest against the government’s approach to Indigenous land rights.

It stands to this day and is a visual reminder of the power of spontaneous protest, carried out without police permission, and a sober reminder of the importance of protest in our democratic system.

Maria O'Sullivan, Associate Professor of Law, Member of Law as Protection Centre, Deakin Law School, Deakin University

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

The Albanese government on Wednesday will introduce legislation to ensure the NBN remains in government ownership.

The move is designed to set up a test for the Coalition, putting pressure on the opposition ahead of the election to declare whether it would try to privatise the NBN.

The government said in a statement from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Finance Minister Katy Gallagher and Communications Minister Michelle Rowland: “The Coalition rushed to declare the NBN ‘complete’ so they could put it on the block for sale – selling out Australian consumers and regional communities.

"The Albanese government won’t let that happen. This legislation will ensure the NBN is owned by who it belongs to – the Australian people.”

The upgrades the government had undertaken “are already making a real difference in the lives of Australians through faster, more reliable internet access. Keeping the NBN in public hands will lock in affordable and accessible high speed internet for all Australians for generations to come.”

Albanese said:“The Coalition made a mess of the NBN – my government is getting on with the job of fixing it and making sure it stays in public hands, where it belongs.”

Rowland said: “Australians don’t trust the Coalition not to flog off the NBN just like they did with Telstra, resulting in higher prices and poorer services, especially in the regions.”

Downgraded

The Rudd Labor government announced what was to be a predominantly fibre-to-the-home wholesale network in 2009, promising it would cost $43 billion and later be privatised to claw back the expense.

In 2010 Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said Labor “remained firmly committed to selling its stake in NBN Co after the network was fully built and operational, subject to market conditions and security considerations”.

By 2020 the government was estimated to have spent $51 billion on a scaled-down version of the project completed using a mix of technologies.

In June that year a review by the Parliamentary Budget Office put its fair value at $8.7 billion.

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

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

Building a home can come with hidden costs. Unfortunately, many people don’t think about these costs until it’s too late.

Some buyers succumb to the tricks marketers use to attract them, with upgrades and add-ons blowing out the cost.

Other costs relate to risks of delay, changes in borrowing conditions, unexpected taxes and fees, insurance, compliance with local development standards and even exit fees in some cases.

So let’s explore the sales tactics buyers need to beware of, as well as the five hidden costs of building new homes.

How marketers persuade us to build a home

Marketers of home-building packages use various strategies to attract buyers.

Attractive pricing and promotions

Marketers often attract first-time home buyers and young families by advertising low prices and showing off modern designs.

They will then offer an upgrade or value package. The most common examples we see are deals with, for example, a $30,000 credit on upgrading, $45,000 cashback, or an amazingly cheap house and land package.

Our research found consumers are likely to feel more surprised by higher levels of discounts in the case of high-involvement products such as a buying a house.

The marketers make it seem like you’re getting a great deal, with options to customise the house just the way you like. What they don’t always tell you is the advertised prices usually apply to the most basic version of the home.

Any upgrades, such as granite countertops or hardwood floors, cost more. Often, the base price does not include essential features such as curtains, ceiling fans or air conditioning.

These upgrades quickly add up to more than that $30,000 credit for upgrading or that $45,000 cashback offer. Buyers can end up paying much more than they planned.

Keep in mind most home-building companies act as middlemen who buy and outsource products. They are likely to add charges for most upgrades or fixtures you order through them.

A $200 price tag for a kitchen light bought directly from a retailer such as Beacon Lighting can cost you $300 from the builder. Costs like this add up for a whole house.

What can you do? Note down the code or name of the item and buy it directly. See if the builders can install fittings for a lower cost if you supply them.

Social media and influencers

Influencers can make the process look easy and fun. Our research on influencer marketing and human influencers and virtual influencers shows trusting followers are more likely to follow influencers’ suggestions.

An influencer might, for example, share a video of their “perfect day” in their new home, focusing on the perks without mentioning the hidden costs.

Special deals and time-limited offers like cashbacks are used to make buyers feel they have to act fast, without taking the time to think about the financial commitment. This strategy exploits the fear of missing out, or FOMO.

The goal is to get customers to quickly sign up with a $1,000–$5,000 deposit. That increases customer commitment and stops them backing out.

Carefully check the conditions of the deposit, as you can most likely back out with a full refund if you are not happy with the final price before the final contract is signed, or during a cooling-off period after signing.

What are the 5 hidden costs?

1. Changing interest rates over 30 years

Many home buyers think about interest rates when they get a mortgage, but they often do not consider how rates can change over the years. Even a small increase can mean paying thousands more over the life of the loan.

When buying a home, people hope for lower interest rates, though they cannot predict future economic conditions. The theory of optimism bias could explain why many of us have expectations about a future that’s more favourable to us.

What should temper this optimism is the fact that even seemingly small interest rate changes make a big difference over time. For example, a $700,000 loan over 30 years at 3.5% interest has a monthly repayment of $3,143.31. At 4.5% interest, the repayment becomes $3,546.80. That’s an extra $4,841.88 a year.

Understanding this can help families budget for possible changes and avoid financial stress later on.

2. Delay costs

Delays can happen due to weather, problems getting materials, or other unexpected issues. Timber shortages have affected home building since 2020.

The costs of delay can include having to rent a place to live while waiting for the home to be finished. Renting for three months, for instance, at the national average of $600 a week will cost more than $7,000.

3. Unexpected costs

Apart from predictable costs, such as the down payment and tax or transfer (stamp) duty, other smaller, unexpected costs can add up.

These include bank fees, solicitor fees, building and pest inspections, moving costs, utility connections and home and contents insurance.

These are all essential to ensure the home is safe and secure. But the cost can easily top $5,000.

4. Standardised costs

Many new housing developments have rules about what owners can and cannot do with their property.

These rules might specify paint colours, fence types or landscaping choices, such as planting a set number of large trees.

A development might require home owners to use certain types of trees or materials for driveways, costing an extra $2,000.

More often than not, the land developer will require a refundable deposit of about $1,000–$5,000 when you buy the land for your home. It’s only refunded once the developer has confirmed you have met all the conditions. If you don’t, you won’t get your money back.

Before buying an apartment, first find out how much you have to pay in strata fees and other fixed or ongoing costs.

5. Exit costs

In rare cases, selling the property might attract exit fees. For example, if an owner sells their house within five years, they might face a $5,000 penalty fee for selling early.

This can be an unpleasant surprise and cause problems for families who need to move quickly due to a job change or other life events.

Make sure you read all the conditions of sale before signing.

A market in need of greater transparency

Knowing about these hidden costs of building a home helps avoid unexpected expenses and makes the process less stressful.

For policymakers and advocates, these costs highlight the need for fair marketing practices and rules that protect buyers from financial surprises.

Ensuring more transparency in this market can help make home ownership more affordable and accessible for everyone.

Park Thaichon, Associate Professor of Marketing, University of Southern Queensland and Sara Quach, Senior Lecturer in Marketing, Griffith University

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

Senator Fatima Payman, launching her new political party Australia’s Voice, is pitching strongly at the large number of voters who are disillusioned with the big parties.

“Australians are fed up with the major parties having a duopoly, a stranglehold over our democracy. If we need to drag the two major parties kicking and screaming to do what needs to be done, we will.”

Payman, who stresses she is not forming a Muslim party, quoted both Gough Whitlam and Robert Menzies in introducing the new group.

She said the party was “for the disenfranchised, the unheard, and those yearning for real change”. But she was short on any detail, saying policies and candidates would come later.

Payman quit the Labor party to join the crossbench after disciplinary action that followed her crossing the floor over Gaza. A senator from Western Australia, she doesn’t face the voters until the election after next.

It has previously been flagged the party intends to field Senate candidates as well as run in some lower house seats. Its strategist is so-called preference whisperer Glenn Druery, who works for Payman. Druery had success in promoting micro-party candidates running for upper houses in the past, but tightened federal electoral rules mean it will be an uphill battle to get a senator elected for the new party.
Payman told a news conference on Wednesday: “This is more a movement than a party. It’s a movement for a fairer, more inclusive, Australia. Together we will hold our leaders accountable and ensure that your voice – Australia’s Voice – is never silenced.”

Payman invoked “the great Gough Whitlam” when he said, “There are some people who are so frightened to put a foot wrong that they won’t put a foot forward”.

“This comment made in 1985 applies so much to the current Labor Party who has lost its way,” Payman said.

Looking also to the other side of politics she said: “Australia’s Voice believes in a system where people come first, where your concerns are not just heard but acted upon. We reject the status quo that serves the powerful and ignores the rest, the forgotten people as Robert Menzies put it.”

She said after spending countless hours listening to Australians, the message she’d heard had been “a growing frustration”.

“A feeling of being left behind, of shouting into a void, only for their concerns to fall on deaf ears.

"So many of you have told me, with emotion in your hearts. ‘We need something different We need a voice’.

"It is this cry for change that has brought us here today. Because we can no longer sit by while our voices are drowned out by the same old politics. It’s time to stand up, to rise together, and to take control of our future.”

Underlining the party would be inclusive, Payman said, “This is a party for all Australians. We’re going to ensure that everyone is represented, whether it’s the mums and dads who are trying to make ends meet, or the young students out there, or whether it’s the grandparents who want to have dignity and respect as they age.”

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

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

The budget surplus for last financial year has come in at $15.8 billion, well exceeding the $9.3 billion that was forecast in the May budget.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers, just back from talks in Beijing on China’s economic outlook, will announce the result on Monday.

The government says the better-than-forecast outcome has been driven entirely by lower spending. Revenue was also lower than the budget anticipated. Areas of savings included the National Disability Insurance Scheme, payments to the states, and various grant programs that don’t exist anymore.

This is the government’s second consecutive surplus. The May budget has predicted deficits for the coming years.

Across 2022-23 and 2023-24 the budget position has improved by a cumulative $172.3 billion, compared with what was forecast in the official Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Outlook, released immediately before the 2022 election.

The government says it has made $77.4 billion in savings, including $12.2 billion in 2023-24.

Payments were 25.2% of GDP in 2023-24. This compared to the PEFO forecast of 27.1%

Chalmers said this was the “first government to post back-to-back surpluses in nearly two decades”. The surpluses hadn’t come at the expense of cost-of-living relief, he said in a statement.

Speaking in Beijing on Friday Chalmers said it remained to be seen whether China’s just-announced stimulus measures would work.

“But we’ve seen on earlier occasions when the authorities here, the administration here, steps in to support activity in the economy that is typically a good thing for Australia – good for our businesses and workers, our industries, our investors, and good for the global economy as well.

"Like a lot of people around the world, we have been concerned about the softer conditions here in the Chinese economy. Subject to the details [of measures] that will be made public in good time, any efforts to boost growth and support activity here is a welcome one around the world and especially at home in Australia.”

Chalmers on Monday is likely to face further questions on the Treasury’s work on negative gearing, news of which leaked out last week.

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

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

Deki, a 23-year-old resident of the remote town of Armidale, NSW, has been sleepless with excitement since the Bhutanese embassy in Canberra announced an upcoming visit from Bhutan’s fifth monarch, King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck.

King Jigme Khesar will be visiting from October 10 to 16. It will be his first time in Australia, as well as the first ever visit from a Bhutanese head of state.

According to Bhutan’s ministry of foreign affairs and external trade, the king will meet with Australian government officials, business leaders and the Bhutanese community during his trip. Audiences with the king are scheduled in Sydney on October 12, Canberra on October 13, and Perth on October 16.

Deki will be travelling to Sydney by train on October 11 with about 60 people from Armidale’s Bhutanese community. The journey will take more than eight hours. Some residents will fly on the morning of October 12.

The Armidale residents have practised dances to present to the royal entourage. Their enthusiasm is palpable. With more than 35,000 Bhutanese people living in Australia, the embassy received an overwhelming number of registrations for the royal audience.

Chhimi Dorji, president of the Association of Bhutanese in Perth, said many Bhutanese residents applied for leave the moment the royal visit was announced. He said the community’s overwhelming excitement signifies a deep love and respect for the king.

A deep reverence for the king

Devotion to the king is ingrained in Bhutanese society; he is even considered a sacred figure. This love and respect stems from a view of the monarchy as a symbol of pride and unity.

My ongoing research on language and politics in Bhutan – as well as the many years I spent working there as a journalist – has revealed a genuine admiration for the king among the public. Research participants in rural Bhutan told me politicians should learn from the king in order to serve their people.

In 2008, King Jigme Khesar facilitated Bhutan’s transition from an absolute monarchy to a democratic constitutional monarchy. As party politics fragmented the small nation and divided people along party lines, the monarchy was seen as a beacon of hope.

The Bhutanese public’s devotion to its king defies theories which claim that the concept of the monarchy more broadly is becoming obsolete.

Serving the people

One reason King Jigme Khesar is so revered is because of his role in helping to build and advance Bhutan. During the pandemic, he was hailed for implementing pandemic response strategies and for visiting every nook and corner of the country to comfort citizens.

He has also implemented programs that provide important public services. For instance, Desuung, a volunteer training program that started in 2011, delivers volunteers for a variety of projects such as disaster operations and charity events. Another national service program, Gyalsung, was started this year.

Currently, the king is planning to develop the world’s first mindfulness city in Gelephu – a southern plain in Bhutan spanning more than 1,000 square kilometres – with hopes to attract foreign investment and encourage emigrated Bhutanese people to return.

Ahead of the royal visit, Sydney resident Tshering Palden said he and his children were clearly excited to greet King Jigme Khesar.

Besides other things, I am excited to hear about the developments around Gelephu Mindfulness City and how Bhutanese living abroad like me can be part of His Majesty’s brain child and the long-term nation building […]

Foreigners are also intrigued and very interested to know about the project and ask us a lot about it.

The Australian dream

As a landlocked country that really only made itself known to the world in 1999 (after internet and television were finally introduced), Bhutan is something of an enigma.

It is touted as the world’s happiest country, largely due to its uptake of a unique metric called “gross national happiness” in the 1970s. In 1972, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck (King Jigme Khesar’s father) proclaimed the country’s gross national happiness was an even more important measure of progress than gross domestic product (GDP).

Today, however, the tiny Himalayan country of about 800,000 people faces an existential crisis due to widespread unemployment and huge numbers of youth and young professionals moving overseas for a better future.

Australia remains a top destination for Bhutanese residents – and currently has more Bhutanese diaspora than any country in the world. Bhutan is also said to be Australia’s 14th largest source country for international students.

But despite living so far away, Bhutanese diaspora in Australia remain deeply rooted to their identity, culture and devotion to the monarchy. Most of them still celebrate the king’s birthday on February 21 each year, as well as Bhutan’s National Day on December 17.

Meanwhile, Deki – who has portraits of Jigme Khesar in her home in central Bhutan – says being able to meet the king will be a “dream come true”.

Tashi Dema, PhD Candidate in Language and Politics, University of New England

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

In January 2023, a new comet was discovered. Comets are found regularly, but astronomers quickly realised this one, called C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS), had the potential to be quite bright.

Some hyperbolic reports have suggested it might be the “comet of the century”, but any astronomer will tell you the brightness of comets is notoriously hard to predict. As I explained last year, we’d have to wait until it arrived to be sure how bright it would become.

Now, the time has come. Comet C/2023 A3 is currently visible with the naked eye in the morning sky in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, with its best yet to come in the next few weeks. And it does look promising. It’s unlikely to be the comet of the decade (never mind the comet of the century), but it will almost certainly become the best comet of the year.

So where, and when, should you look to get your best views of this celestial visitor?

A show in the morning, before sunrise

At the moment, comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) is a morning object, rising around an hour and a half before sunrise. It is visible to the naked eye, but not yet spectacular. However, with binoculars you can easily see the comet’s dusty tail pointing away from the Sun.

The comet will remain at about the same altitude in the morning sky until around September 30. It will then get closer to the horizon on each consecutive morning until it’s lost in the glare of the approaching dawn by October 6 or 7.

If you want to spot the comet in the morning sky, look east. The sliders below will help you orient yourself and choose the best time to look, depending on your latitude.

During this period, the comet should slowly brighten. It reaches its closest approach to the Sun (perihelion) on September 27, when it will be 58 million kilometres from our star.

As it swings around the Sun, it will continue to approach Earth, and so should continue to brighten. The best show in the morning sky will likely be during the last couple of days of September and the first few days in October, before the comet is lost to view.

A potential daylight comet

Thanks to pure good fortune, comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) will then pass almost directly between Earth and the Sun on October 9 and 10.

This could cause a spectacular brightening of the comet, thanks to “forward scattering” caused by its dust. Imagine looking towards a bright light source through a cloud of dust grains. The grains nearest to the light source will scatter light from the source back towards you.

As the comet swings between Earth and the Sun, it will be perfectly placed for this forward scattering process to occur. If the comet is particularly dusty, this could cause its apparent brightness to increase by up to 100 times.

If it does, there’s a small chance the comet could briefly become visible in the daylight sky on October 9 and 10.

However, it will be very close to the Sun in the sky, and incredibly hard to spot. Only the most experienced observers may be able to detect the comet at this time, and it requires a special technique. Do not try to stare at the Sun to see it.

The best show could be after October 12

After swinging between Earth and the Sun, the comet will appear in the evening sky. It will rapidly climb in the western sky, and should be a bright, naked-eye object for a few days from October 12. The sliders below will give you a sense of where to look.

For the first few days of this period, the comet will still benefit from the forward scattering of sunlight, but this will decrease as it moves away.

What about the tail?

The positioning of the comet, Earth and the Sun in the Solar System means the comet’s tail will be streaming outwards, past our planet. This means it could grow to prodigious lengths in the night sky.

The bulk of that tail will likely be too dim to see easily with the naked eye, but it could be a fantastic spectacle for photographers. Expect to see a wealth of comet images flooding the internet around the middle of October.

As the days pass and the comet climbs higher, it will fade quite rapidly. It will likely become too faint to see with the naked eye, even for seasoned and experienced observers, before the end of October.

At that point, the show will be over. Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) will continue to flee the inner Solar System, moving into the icy depths of space, never to return.

How reliable are the predictions?

At the moment, the comet is already bright enough to consider it the “comet of the year”, outshining comet 12P/Pons-Brooks from earlier this year.

But remember the classic saying – comets are like cats. They have tails and will often surprise us. For now, comet C/2023 A3 is behaving itself. It’s brightening predictably, and putting on a good show.

But comets that approach this closely to the Sun often fragment. This is impossible to predict, and far from guaranteed. If the comet did break up, it could become even more spectacular because of all the dust and gas it would release.

The opposite could still happen, too. The comet could fail to brighten as much as we expect, although that seems unlikely at this stage.

Whatever happens, we’re in for a fascinating few weeks of comet watching. Hopefully, a real spectacle awaits us.

Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland

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

The days are getting longer and in Australia, the switch to daylight saving time is almost upon us (for about 70% of the population, anyway).

But why do we have longer days in summer and shorter days in winter?

It’s all about the tilt

Earth goes around the Sun in an almost circular orbit. But not everything is lined up perfectly. Earth’s axis is tilted by 23.44 degrees relative to its orbit around the Sun.

Imagine Earth’s orbit as a flat frisbee with the Sun in the middle and Earth as a ball on a stick going around the edge.

If Earth’s axis wasn’t tilted (if its tilt was zero degrees) the stick would be exactly perpendicular to the frisbee. If you grab that perpendicular stick and tip it 23.44 degrees sideways, that’s what Earth’s tilt looks like now.

As Earth orbits the Sun, the tilt of the stick does not rotate relative to the Sun. If you were in outer space looking at the Sun and you watched from the exact same position for a whole year, you would see Earth go around the Sun while the stick stayed tilted the same direction.

In other words, if the top of the stick was pointing to the right when you started watching Earth go around the Sun, it would stay pointing to the right the whole way around.

This tilt gives us longer days in summer and shorter days in winter. Let’s set up the scenario so the Northern Hemisphere is the top of the planet and the Southern Hemisphere is the bottom of the planet.

When Earth is on one side of the Sun, the top of the stick is pointed towards the Sun. This is summer in the Northern Hemisphere and winter in the Southern Hemisphere. Six months later, when Earth is on the other side of the Sun, the bottom of the stick is pointed towards the Sun – and the seasons are reversed.

Solstices and equinoxes

Those two points, when the top of the stick is pointing directly towards the Sun or directly away from the Sun, are the solstices. They are the longest and shortest days of the year, depending on your hemisphere.

The shortest day of 2024 in Australia was June 21. Looking forward to sunnier times, the longest day of the year in 2024 will be December 21.

In between the summer and winter solstice, we have the equinoxes – when days and nights are almost exactly the same length. Those are the days when the stick through Earth is “side-on” to the Sun. The equinox is also the day when the Sun passes directly over Earth’s equator. In 2024 this happened on March 20 at 2:06pm AEDT and September 22 at 10:43pm AEST.

That means that since September 22, days have been getting longer than nights in the Southern Hemisphere.

What does daylight saving do?

Earth’s tilt means the Sun both rises earlier and sets later as we head towards summer. When the clocks (in some states) switch to daylight saving time, people in these states all get one hour less of sleep. However, the total length of the day doesn’t change just because we changed our clocks.

For me, daylight saving means I need an extra cup of coffee in the morning for about a week before I adjust to the daylight saving-lag (like jet lag, but without the fun of travel).

What it really gives us is more daylight in the evening, instead of more daylight in the morning. If you’re already a morning person, this isn’t the way to go. But if you prefer to have a long dinner in the summer sun it’s ideal.

Has it always been this way?

Earth’s axis hasn’t always been tilted at 23.44 degrees. It cycles from a minimum 22.1 degree tilt to a maximum 24.5 degree tilt and back again once every approximately 41,000 years.

Earth’s axis also “precesses”, where the stick through it draws a circle once every approximately 26,000 years. You can see this in the animation below.

The length of a day on Earth hasn’t always been the same, either.

At the moment, the length of a day is nearly exactly 24 hours. But it’s shifting all the time by tiny amounts. This is tracked very closely by a system of telescopes and satellites. These systems measure “Earth orientation parameters” that describe Earth’s exact orientation compared to the position of stars in the sky.

These are important to astronomers because the exact location of our telescopes is important for creating accurate maps of the sky. On top of all of this, the gravitational drag from the Moon causes days to become longer by around 2.3 milliseconds every 100 years. A few billion years ago, Earth’s day was a lot shorter – only 19 hours long.

Even though some of us are losing an hour of sleep this weekend, at least we get to enjoy 2.3 milliseconds longer every day than our great – and great-great – grandparents did.

Laura Nicole Driessen, Postdoctoral researcher in radio astronomy, University of Sydney

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

For almost a decade, researchers have been gathering evidence that the social media platform Facebook disproportionately amplifies low-quality content and misinformation.

So it was something of a surprise when in 2023 the journal Science published a study that found Facebook’s algorithms were not major drivers of misinformation during the 2020 United States election.

This study was funded by Facebook’s parent company, Meta. Several Meta employees were also part of the authorship team. It attracted extensive media coverage. It was also celebrated by Meta’s president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, who said it showed the company’s algorithms have “no detectable impact on polarisation, political attitudes or beliefs”.

But the findings have recently been thrown into doubt by a team of researchers led by Chhandak Bagch from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. In an eLetter also published in Science, they argue the results were likely due to Facebook tinkering with the algorithm while the study was being conducted.

In a response eLetter, the authors of the original study acknowledge their results “might have been different” if Facebook had changed its algorithm in a different way. But they insist their results still hold true.

The whole debacle highlights the problems caused by big tech funding and facilitating research into their own products. It also highlights the crucial need for greater independent oversight of social media platforms.

Merchants of doubt

Big tech has started investing heavily in academic research into its products. It has also been investing heavily in universities more generally. For example, Meta and its chief Mark Zuckerberg have collectively donated hundreds of millions of dollars to more than 100 colleges and universities across the United States.

This is similar to what big tobacco once did.

In the mid-1950s, cigarette companies launched a coordinated campaign to manufacture doubt about the growing body of evidence which linked smoking with a number of serious health issues, such as cancer. It was not about falsifying or manipulating research explicitly, but selectively funding studies and bringing to attention inconclusive results.

This helped foster a narrative that there was no definitive proof smoking causes cancer. In turn, this enabled tobacco companies to keep up a public image of responsibility and “goodwill” well into the 1990s.

A positive spin

The Meta-funded study published in Science in 2023 claimed Facebook’s news feed algorithm reduced user exposure to untrustworthy news content. The authors said “Meta did not have the right to prepublication approval”, but acknowledged that The Facebook Open Research and Transparency team “provided substantial support in executing the overall project”.

The study used an experimental design where participants – Facebook users – were randomly allocated into a control group or treatment group.

The control group continued to use Facebook’s algorithmic news feed, while the treatment group was given a news feed with content presented in reverse chronological order. The study sought to compare the effects of these two types of news feeds on users’ exposure to potentially false and misleading information from untrustworthy news sources.

The experiment was robust and well designed. But during the short time it was conducted, Meta changed its news feed algorithm to boost more reliable news content. In doing so, it changed the control condition of the experiment.

The reduction in exposure to misinformation reported in the original study was likely due to the algorithmic changes. But these changes were temporary: a few months later in March 2021, Meta reverted the news feed algorithm back to the original.

In a statement to Science about the controversy, Meta said it made the changes clear to researchers at the time, and that it stands by Clegg’s statements about the findings in the paper.

Unprecedented power

In downplaying the role of algorithmic content curation for issues such as misinformation and political polarisation, the study became a beacon for sowing doubt and uncertainty about the harmful influence of social media algorithms.

To be clear, I am not suggesting the researchers who conducted the original 2023 study misled the public. The real problem is that social media companies not only control researchers’ access to data, but can also manipulate their systems in a way that affects the findings of the studies they fund.

What’s more, social media companies have the power to promote certain studies on the very platform the studies are about. In turn, this helps shape public opinion. It can create a scenario where scepticism and doubt about the impacts of algorithms can become normalised – or where people simply start to tune out.

This kind of power is unprecedented. Even big tobacco could not control the public’s perception of itself so directly.

All of this underscores why platforms should be mandated to provide both large-scale data access and real-time updates about changes to their algorithmic systems.

When platforms control access to the “product”, they also control the science around its impacts. Ultimately, these self-research funding models allow platforms to put profit before people – and divert attention away from the need for more transparency and independent oversight.

Timothy Graham, Associate Professor in Digital Media, Queensland University of Technology

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

Almost one-sixth of Earth’s land surface is covered in otherworldly landscapes with a name that may also be unfamiliar: karst. These landscapes are like natural sculpture parks, with dramatic terrain dotted with caves and towers of bedrock slowly sculpted by water over thousands of years.

Karst landscapes are beautiful and ecologically important. They also represent a record of Earth’s past temperature and moisture levels.

However, it can be quite challenging to figure out exactly when karst landscapes formed. In our new work published today in Science Advances, we show a new way to find the age of these enigmatic landscapes, which will help us understand our planet’s past in more detail.

The challenge

Karst is defined by the removal of material. The rock towers and caves we see today are what is left after water dissolved the rest during wet periods of the past.

This is what makes their age hard to determine. How do you date the disappearance of something?

Traditionally, scientists have loosely bracketed the age of a karst surface by dating the material above and beneath. However, this approach blurs our understanding of ancient climate events and how ecosystems responded.

Geological clocks

In our study, we found a way to measure the age of pebble-sized iron nodules that formed at the same time as a karst landscape.

This method has the technical name of (U/Th)-He geochronology. In it, we measure how much helium is produced by the natural radioactive decay of tiny amounts of the elements uranium and thorium in the iron nodules. By comparing the amounts of uranium, thorium and helium in a sample, we can very accurately calculate the age of the nodules.

We dated microscopic fragments of iron-rich nodules from the iconic Pinnacles Desert in Nambung National Park, Western Australia.

This world-famous site is renowned for its otherworldly karst landscape of acres of limestone pillars towering metres above a sandy desert plain. The Pinnacles form part of the most extensive belt of wind-blown carbonate rock in the world, stretching more than 1,000km along coastal southwestern WA.

We examined multiple microscopic shards of iron nodules that were removed from the surface of limestone pinnacles. These nodules formed in the soil that lay on top of the limestone during the period of intense weathering that created the karst. As a result, they serve as time capsules of the environmental conditions that shaped the area.

The big wet

We consistently found an age of around 100,000 years for the growth of the iron nodules. This date is supported by known ages from the rocks above and beneath the karst surface, proving the reliability of our new approach.

At the same time as chemical reactions caused growth of the iron-rich nodules within the ancient soil, limestone bedrock was rapidly and extensively dissolved to leave only remnant limestone pinnacles seen today.

From examining the entire rock sequence in the area, we think this period of intensive weathering was the wettest time in this part of WA over at least the past half a million years.

We don’t know what drove this increased rainfall. It may have been changes to atmospheric circulation patterns, or the greater influence of the ancient Leeuwin Current that runs along the shore.

Such a humid interval is in dramatic contrast to the recent droughts and increasingly dry climate of the region today.

Implications for our past

Iron-rich nodules are not unique to the Nambung Pinnacles. They have recently been used to track dramatic past environmental change elsewhere in Australia.

Dating these iron nodules will help to better document the dramatic fluctuations in Earth’s climate over the past three million years as ice sheets have grown and shrunk.

Understanding the timing and environmental context of karst formation throughout this time offers profound insights into past climate conditions, environments and the landscapes in which ancient creatures lived.

Climate changes and resulting environmental shifts have been crucial in shaping ecosystems. In particular, they have had a profound influence on our ancient hominin and human ancestors.

By linking karst formation to specific climatic intervals, we can better understand how these environmental changes may have affected early human populations.

Looking forward

The more we know about the conditions that led to the formation of past landscapes and the flora and fauna that inhabited them, the better we can appreciate the evolutionary pressures that shaped the ecosystems we see today. This in turn offers valuable information for preparing for future changes.

As human-driven climate change accelerates, learning about past climate variability and biosphere responses equips us with knowledge to anticipate and mitigate future impacts.

The ability to date karst features with greater precision may seem like a small thing – but it will help us understand how today’s landscapes and ecosystems might respond to ongoing and future climate changes.

Milo Barham, Associate Professor, Earth and Planetary Sciences, Curtin University; Andrej Šmuc, Professor of Geology, University of Ljubljana; John Allan Webb, Associate professor, La Trobe University; Kenneth McNamara, Emeritus Fellow, Downing College, University of Cambridge; Martin Danisik, Curtin Research Fellow, Curtin University, and Matej Lipar, Research Associate, Physical Geography, ZRC SAZU

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

You know we’ve reached peak interest in artificial intelligence (AI) when Oprah Winfrey hosts a television special about it. AI is truly everywhere. And we will all have a relationship with it – whether using it, building it, governing it or even befriending it.

But what exactly is AI? While most people won’t need to know exactly how it works under the hood, we will all need to understand what it can do. In our conversations with global leaders across business, government and the arts, one thing stood out – you can’t fake it anymore. AI fluency that is.

AI isn’t just about chatbots. To help understand what it is about, we’ve developed a framework which explains the broad broad range of capabilities it offers. We call this the “capabilities stack”.

We see AI systems as having seven basic kinds of capability, each building on the ones below it in the stack. From least complex to most, these are: recognition, classification, prediction, recommendation, automation, generation and interaction.

Recognition

At its core, the kind of AI we are seeing in consumer products today identifies patterns. Unlike traditional coding, where developers explicitly program how a system works, AI “learns” these patterns from vast datasets, enabling it to perform tasks. This “learning” is essentially just advanced mathematics that turns patterns into complex probabilistic models – encoded in so-called artificial neural networks.

Once learned, patterns can be recognised – such as your face, when you open your phone, or when you clear customs at the airport.

Pattern recognition is all around us – whether it’s license plate recognition when you park your car at the mall, or when the police scan your registration. It’s used in manufacturing for quality control to detect defective parts, in health care to identify cancer in MRI scans, or to identify potholes by using buses equipped with cameras that monitor the roads in Sydney.

Classification

Once an AI system can recognise patterns, we can train it to detect subtle variations and categorise them. This is how your photo app neatly organises albums by family members, or how apps identify and label different kinds of skin lesions. AI classification is also at work behind the scenes when phone companies and banks identify spam and fraud calls.

In New Zealand, non-profit organisation Te Hiku developed an AI language model to classify thousands of hours of recordings to help revitalise Te Reo Māori, the local indigenous language.

Prediction

When AI is trained on past data, it can be used to predict future outcomes. For example, airlines use AI to predict the estimated arrival times of incoming flights and to assign gates on time so you don’t end up waiting on the tarmac.

Similarly, Google Flights uses AI to predict flight delays even before airlines announce them.

In Hong Kong, an AI prediction model saves taxpayer money by predicting when a project needs early intervention to prevent it overrunning its budget and completion date. And when you buy stuff on Amazon, the ecommerce giant uses AI to predict demand and optimise delivery routes, so you get your packages within hours, not just days.

Recommendation

Once we predict, we can make recommendations for what to do next.

If you went to Taylor Swift’s Eras tour concert at Sydney’s Accor stadium, you were kept safe thanks to AI recommendations. A system funded by the New South Wales government used data from multiple sources to analyse the movement and mood of the 80,000 strong crowd, providing real-time recommendations to ensure everyone’s safety.

AI-based recommendations are everywhere. Social media, streaming platforms, delivery services and shopping apps all use past behaviour patterns to present you with their “for you” pages. Even pig farms use pig facial recognition and tracking to alert farmers to any issues and recommend particular interventions.

Automation

It’s a small step from prediction and recommendation to full automation.

In Germany, large wind turbines use AI to keep the lesser spotted eagle safe. An AI algorithm detects approaching birds and automatically slows down the turbines allowing them to pass unharmed.

Closer to home, Melbourne Water uses AI to autonomously regulate its pump control system to reduce energy costs by around 20% per year. In Western Sydney, local buses on key routes are AI-enabled: if a bus is running late, the system predicts its arrival at the next intersection and automatically green-lights its journey.

Generation

Once we can encode complex patterns into neural networks, we can also use these patterns to generate new, similar ones. This works with all kinds of data – images, text, audio and video.

Image generation is now built into many new phones. Don’t like the look on someone’s face? Change into a smile. Want a boat on that lake? Just add it in. And it doesn’t stop there.

Tools such as Runway let you manipulate videos or create new ones with just a text prompt. ElevenLabs allows you to generate synthetic voices or digitise existing ones from short recordings. These can be used to narrate audiobooks, but also carry risks such as deepfake impersonation.

And we haven’t even mentioned large language models such as ChatGPT, which are transforming how we work with text and how we develop computer code. Research by McKinsey found that these models can cut the time required for complex coding tasks by up to 50%.

Interaction

Finally, generative AI also makes it possible to mimic human-like interactions.

Soon, virtual assistants, companions and digital humans will be everywhere. They will attend your Zoom meeting to take notes and schedule follow-up meetings.

Interactive AI assistants, such as IBM’s AskHR bot, will answer your HR questions. And when you get home, your AI friend app will entertain you, while digital humans on social media are ready to sell you anything, any time. And with voice mode activated, even ChatGPT gets in on the inter-action.

Amid the excitement around generative AI, it is important to remember that AI is more than chatbots. It impacts many things beyond the flashy conversational tools – often in ways that quietly improve everyday processes.

Sandra Peter, Director of Sydney Executive Plus, University of Sydney and Kai Riemer, Professor of Information Technology and Organisation, University of Sydney

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

Any runner will tell you there’s nothing better than slipping on a brand new pair of shoes. But how regularly should runners fork out hundreds of dollars on their next pair?

Conventional wisdom tells us the average lifespan of a running shoe is around 500 to 800 kilometres. But where did this advice come from, and is it based on science?

Some evidence comes from impact testing with machines designed to simulate the shoe repeatedly contacting the ground during running. Other evidence comes from monitoring runners who have used shoes in the real world for long periods.

This research is often focused on shoe materials and structure. But we think more compelling markers for the runner are shoe comfort, performance benefit and injury risk.

Rather than seeking a “one-size-fits-all” answer to how many kilometres your shoes should be limited to, it’s also better to consider individual signs based on your shoe type and its purpose.

The three signs to watch for

Runners tend to replace their shoes for three main reasons:

1. they believe their performance is being negatively impacted
2. their shoes are leading to some bodily discomfort which may cause (or has already caused) an injury
3. the shoes are no longer comfortable or “feel” as good as they used to.

So what does the evidence say about these factors?

Performance

Some shoe material properties do contribute to enhanced running efficiency. Degrading these materials by racking up the kilometres may hinder peak performance on race day.

This is most clearly seen in carbon fibre plate shoes used by modern elite runners to achieve rapid road race times. The design features thought to drive this are the combination of highly compliant and resilient midsole foam and a stiff embedded carbon fibre plate, which support energy storage and return.

Runners will typically “save” these shoes for race day and replace them after fewer kilometres, compared to conventional running shoes.

The available research does support the performance benefits of these shoes. However, it’s not known how long the benefits last relative to kilometres of wear.

To our best knowledge, there’s only one study on running performance and shoe wear, but unfortunately it did not involve carbon fibre plate shoes. A University of Connecticut 2020 master’s thesis investigated eight college-level runners over 400 miles (643km) of Nike Pegasus shoe use.

Large reductions in running economy were reported at 240km, and this was statistically significant at 320km. No reduction was observed at 160km.

So, if you’re chasing personal best times, the evidence above suggests that for peak performance, shoes should be replaced somewhere between 160 and 240km (although this is not directly based on carbon fibre plate shoe research).

It appears that minimising training kilometres for your favourite racing shoes – keeping them “fresh” – could contribute to peak performance on race day, compared to racing in a pair of old shoes.

Injury or discomfort

The link between shoe wear and injury is unclear, and based on minimal and often conflicting evidence.

One study did find that runners who alternate their running shoes have a lower risk of injury than runners who run only in the same pair of shoes over a 22-week period. Runners who alternated shoes throughout the study period would have accumulated less wear in each shoe.

This provides some support for the notion that accumulating too many kilometres in your shoes may increase risk of injury. Unfortunately, the exact age of running shoes was not reported in this study.

However, based on the running characteristics reported, the single-shoe pair users completed an average of 320km in their shoes (after adjusting for a small fraction who had to replace shoes during the study).

This was compared to the multi-shoe pair users who used an average of 3.6 pairs of shoes, ran more total kilometres, but accumulated an average of only 200km per shoe pair.

Comfort

Comfort and fit are the two most important factors to runners when selecting running shoes. Evidence linking improved shoe comfort to reduced injury rates or improved running economy is mixed, but reducing harms from poorly fitting and uncomfortable shoes is clearly a priority for runners.

Most runners land on their heel. The repeated compression of the midsole causes the material to harden, possibly after as little as 160km, according to one study from 2017. However, there was virtually no change in the amount of cushioning runners perceived under their heel after 160km. Even after using the shoes for 640km, they felt little difference – about 3%.

While at first this might seem like runners are not very good at judging when shoes lose their cushioning, it also tells us changes in perceived shoe cushioning are very gradual and may not be important for runners until they reach a certain threshold.

This amount will differ from person to person, and from shoe to shoe, but research suggests it’s not until perceived cushioning reaches about a 10% change that runners consider it meaningful.

We must be careful when applying these findings to the latest running shoes which use newer materials.

But you can use it as a rule of thumb – once you notice a drop in comfort, it’s time to get a new pair.

When to choose new shoes

Ultimately, there’s no one simple answer for when you should get new running shoes. You may also not keep close track of how many kilometres your favourite pair has racked up.

Overall, we believe the most practical advice is to keep your racing shoes “fresh” (under 240km), alternate a couple of other pairs during regular training, and replace them when you detect a notable drop in comfort.

John Arnold, Senior lecturer, Sport & Exercise Biomechanics, University of South Australia and Joel Fuller, Senior Lecturer, Department of Health Sciences, Macquarie University

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

P.J. Hogan’s classic Australian film Muriel’s Wedding is 30 and it plays as well today as it did when it had its world premiere. Muriel might have been “terrible” – but the film was a great success.

Australians love to laugh at themselves, and everyone loves an underdog. Muriel’s Wedding took more than A$15 million at the box office in Australia — making it one of the highest-grossing Australian feature films of all time.

As fun as the film is with its kitsch aesthetic, bold colour palette and garish costumes, it has a unique mix of comedy and serious drama. It slips from the absurd to painful realism, with more depth than your average comedy and a twist in the plot that made it an original take on the genre.

While Australians generally have received it as hilarious, audiences elsewhere were more attuned to the tragedy, such as Muriel’s mother Betty’s suicide following relentless bullying, and Rhonda’s illness and disability. But it worked for audiences everywhere who warmed to the representation of friendship, its emotional compassion and critique of the narrow mindedness of small-town communities.

‘We’re all Muriel’

Sometimes it is the stars who can bring in an audience and make a film successful. However, although there were a lot of experienced actors in Muriel’s Wedding, Toni Collette (Muriel) and Rachel Griffiths (Rhonda) – whose performances were exceptional – were both playing lead and supporting roles for the first time in a feature film.

It was also Hogan’s first feature, so it is unlikely star power drew in audiences (although all of them were to become stars, and Hogan later directed My Best Friend’s Wedding with Julia Roberts, one of the top romantic comedies of all time).

It did, however, have a wonderful trailer.

I asked Rachel Griffiths what she thought was the key to the film’s success and she identified its universality: it translated for an array of audiences and enabled broad identification.

She described the film as having one foot in the grotesque and the other in Ridley Scott’s 1991 getaway heist Thelma & Louise – another film about female friendship, independence and individual growth.

Griffiths gave the example of going with the film to New York on its release and discovering it was wildly meaningful to the LGBTQIA+ community. In conversation with a gay man in his late 20s, he described it as a parable for AIDS, which at that time was in full-blown crisis.

According to Griffiths, he said: “We’re all Muriel. We don’t fit in.”

Growing up in small towns where they are “the freak”, with closet musical tastes, he said:

We’re the outcasts in our family. Our fathers belittle us for being feminine. We escape to the big smoke with the promise of becoming ourselves and following our own journey. We replace our families who have rejected us with our chosen family who celebrate us.

And when one of their own is struck suddenly by this terrible affliction, like Rhonda, they are sent home in humiliation, to be looked after, which is their worst fear. The aspiration is to be rescued by the adopted family and taken back to the big city and shown unconditional love.

Griffiths says:

That’s the ending and the survival story of both Rhonda and Muriel, you go back to that kind of pride moment, to be proud of who you are.

For Griffiths, Rhonda and Muriel have “a kind of blood-sister friendship, a bond that can’t be broken”.

We all long for that deep acceptance. It is a parable of inclusion, where Muriel and Rhonda truly see and accept each other and themselves.

A feminist film

I asked Griffiths if Muriel’s Wedding was received as feminist when it was released. She replied it wasn’t at the time it was made, but more recently this has come up.

Her explanation of why this wasn’t considered 30 years ago is informative regarding film criticism. She elaborated that the critics at the time were 90% male and their take on feminism expected powerful female lead characters who pursue their goals and achieve in the face of competition.

In this story, there is a girl escaping patriarchal control. Muriel’s father, Bill Heslop (Bill Hunter), is a bully and narcissist who blames everyone else – especially the women – for his failures.

Griffiths aligns Muriel to the Cinderella myth because in the beginning she sees her value will only be ascribed to her once she marries. The film, Griffiths said, is “a fundamental kind of feminist journey”.

The central focus is Muriel’s personal growth in rejecting ideology that promotes romantic coupling as the pinnacle of happiness for women. Instead Muriel embraces her own worth and her friendship with Rhonda. Marriage is portrayed as a patriarchal structure that ideologically binds women – the marriages are variously fraudulent, starting with Tanya and Chook, then Muriel and, ultimately, her mother.

There are many elements that make Muriel’s Wedding an Australian classic, from the universal themes and relatability to how the story is able to extend beyond national borders. The film leaves us with admiration for resilience in the face of adversity, signalled by Muriel and Rhonda grinning assuredly at each other in the final scene.

It is a unique and very real comedy/drama with a highly engaging aesthetic and a feminist message. It is an opportunity to laugh at ourselves, despite quite a lot of tragedy and adversity — which is a very Australian thing to do!

The author wishes to thank Rachel Griffiths who was interviewed in Melbourne on August 17 2020.

Lisa French, Professor & Dean, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University

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

Social media is full of questionable advice. But one of the latest skincare hacks some users are sharing online is seriously worrying. Some content creators on TikTok are claiming that getting a sunburn or spending time in a tanning bed will help get rid of acne.

While natural sunlight and UV radiation have long been used to treat skin conditions, the evidence shows these techniques aren’t effective when it comes to treating acne. Not to mention that the risks of excess UV exposure far outweigh any benefits you might see in the appearance of your skin.

Phototherapy is a medical treatment that involves exposing the skin to sunlight or UV radiation in a controlled environment. It’s widely used to treat psoriasis and eczema in cases where other treatments haven’t worked or if other treatments aren’t compatible for a patient. Research shows phototherapy can help reduce inflammation and suppress the skin’s immune response – both key factors in the development of these conditions.

It’s important to note, however, that this procedure is done in a clinical setting where the doses of radiation used on the skin are controlled precisely to minimise the harmful effects of UV radiation exposure. Pre-treatment tests are also performed to reduce the risk of burning.

But in the case of acne, there’s little evidence that UV exposure is beneficial.

One 2023 retrospective cohort study of 19,939 participants, which looked at their previous six years of UV exposure prior to enrolment, did find that long-term exposure to relatively low-levels of UVB (a type of invisible radiation that’s emitted by the sun) each day (around one hour) was associated with a decreased risk of moderate to severe acne in young adults.

But there were many limitations to the study. The precise doses of UV the participants were exposed to was not directly measured. Instead, it was based on calculations done using location and weather data to understand how much sunlight participants were exposed to. This study also did not consider the negative implications of exposure.

Studies in human skin cells have also shown some potential benefits from UVB rays – including killing Propionibacterium acnes, the bacterium thought to be responsible for acne. But these benefits have only been shown in cells and have never been replicated in human studies. Most of these studies also concluded that any beneficial effect was probably minimal and not sufficient for therapeutic use – especially considering the negative side-effects of UV radiation.

A 2023 narrative review of all the studies conducted on sun exposure and acne between 1992 and 2022 has found that exposure to UV radiation is unlikely to improve acne symptoms. And, in some cases, it may actually worsen acne. This may be because exposure to UVB radiation can activate immune cells which worsen the inflammation acne causes and increase sebum production – a known risk factor for acne.

Sunburn risks

Not only is there no evidence that the sun can treat acne, there are also many well-studied downsides from sun exposure – such as a significantly increased risk of skin cancer.

Studies show that even just one incidence of a blistering sunburn in childhood or adolescence can double the chances of developing skin cancer later in life. The risk of developing skin cancer increases the more often you get sunburned. This is due to the fact that UV exposure causes significant DNA damage in our skin cells.

UV exposure is also a significant contributor to premature skin ageing. This is because it damages the collagen and elastin in the skin which can then lead to sagging and wrinkles.

When going out into the sun, it’s important to:

1. Use broad-spectrum sunscreen with at least SPF 30 – reapplying every two hours or after swimming or sweating.
2. Seek shade, especially during peak sun hours (typically 10am to 4pm).
3. Wear protective clothing, including wide-brimmed hats and UV-blocking sunglasses.

At the moment, the most effective acne treatments are those which can be purchased at the pharmacy or prescribed by your doctor.

Severe acne can be treated with oral antibiotics that have an anti-inflammatory effect. Isotretinoin may also be prescribed. This is a synthetic derivitive of vitamin A. It reduces oils in the skin (sebum), skin bumps and the amount of acne-causing bacteria in the skin. Isotretinoin is highly effective in clearing acne lesions (by 85% in one study after four months of use). Only around one-quarter of patients who use it require a second course of treatment.

While these treatments are effective, concerns about the drug’s side-effects (namely mood changes) may be why some acne sufferers are seeking out alternative treatments. But a recent study of over 30,000 isotretinoin patients found no association with isotretinoin and mood changes, suggesting this side-effect is extremely rare.

It’s important to note that anyone prescribed acne medication should be careful when going out into the sun. Isotretinoin and tetracyclines (a class of antibiotics) can act as photosensitisers, causing even greater damage when the skin is exposed to the sun. One study reported that between 20-40% of acne patients taking a common type of tetracycline experienced photosensitivity.

This is why it’s important to wear sunscreen when going outside on sunny days. Not only will it protect your skin and lower your risk of skin cancer, some evidence also shows sunscreen use can benefit people with acne by reducing inflammation in the skin’s cells and reducing photosensitivity.

Overall, several effective, safe options to treat acne already exist. If you’re considering using the sun or a tanning bed to treat it because you feel your current treatment isn’t working, it’s important to speak with your doctor instead of putting yourself at risk of complications.

Karl Lawrence, Research fellow, King's College London and Wisam Alwan, Clinical Research Fellow in Dermatology at King's College London/Consultant Dermatologist Guy's and St. Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, King's College London

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

We recently asked subscribers to our arts and culture newsletter, Something Good, to name their favourite cover song. We received a range of replies, from Beyoncé’s reimagining of the Dolly Parton classic, Jolene, to Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged recording of The Man Who Sold the World by David Bowie. Here’s how seven of our academic experts responded when we asked them the same question.

1. Heaven, by DJ Sammy (2001)

The late 1990s and early 2000s saw a glut of Euro-dance songs troubling the higher reaches of the UK charts, as artists like Alice Deejay, Fragma and Sash (all aliases for male DJs fronted by female guest vocalists) married heavy trance beats with catchy melodies. But above all others stood 2001’s Heaven, by DJ Sammy. A shining example of the energetic but straightforward approach to music that characterised the era, it had a generation of club-goers running for the dancefloor.

Heaven saw Spanish producer Sammy turn a mawkish 1983 Bryan Adams track into the ultimate dance track for all seasons, complete with a relentless beat, hypnotic synth riff, and earworm-of-all-earworm choruses delivered by Dutch singer Dominique Rijpma van Hulst (stage name Do). It’s fun, unapologetically simple, yet somehow seems to encompass every emotion going. An era-defining track that needs to be played loud and proud.

Glenn Fosbraey

2. Me and the Devil Blues, by Gil Scott-Heron (2014)

A great cover is more than a different version of a song – it re-articulates the track and injects it with new meaning. Some do this by radically changing the genre, others by making the song so intensely personal that it is difficult to imagine anyone else singing it. But Gil Scott-Heron’s cover of Robert Johnson’s Me and the Devil Blues (1938), on Scott-Heron’s final album, accomplishes an even rarer feat.

It layers the pain and anguish of a modern black life lived in the heavy bootprint of the fight for civil rights, de-industrialisation and the “war on drugs”, over the legend of original singer Robert Johnson’s daring and tragic story in the Jim Crow south.

Scott-Heron’s cover is an opaque homage that ruminates on living in the echoes of an American music legend’s ruins. It’s a reminder of the continuing horrors of racism, and the enduring artistry of resistance and resilience.

Justin Patch

3. Helter Skelter, by Siouxsie and the Banshees (1978)

As a young artist from Liverpool who was newly signed to Deltasonic Records in the early 2000s, I was keen to find inspiration from artists other than our beloved Beatles. Little did I expect that much of this inspiration would circle back to Paul, John, George and Ringo when I discovered Siouxsie and the Banshees’ album The Scream (1978).

Their cover of Helter Skelter from The Beatles’ White Album (1968) blew me away. Personally, I think this is the best cover of a Beatles song ever, performed by a woman who wasn’t afraid to take control of it.

Eva Petersen

4. Wild is the Wind, by David Bowie

David Bowie frequently supplemented his original material with thematically connected cover songs. There are covers on Hunky Dory (1971), The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust (1972) and Aladdin Sane (1973). These moments are often the weakest spots on Bowie’s records – with one major exception.

Bowie’s 1976 album Station To Station closes with his take on Wild Is The Wind, reworking Johnny Mathis’s two-minute original from 1957 into a soaring and theatrical six-minute showstopper. Bowie’s band dutifully rises to the occasion, decorating the track with elegant lead guitar work and one of the most exquisite drum performances ever committed to tape.

Never one to underplay, Bowie gives the vocal performance of a lifetime, culminating in a soaring climax guaranteed to leave goosebumps on any listener with a pulse.

Daniel Ash

5. Against All Odds, by The Postal Service (2004)

A good cover version needs to find ways to reinvent the texture and structure of the original. Beyond The Postal Service’s iconic 2003 album Give Up, the indie-tronica outfit have a tiny repertoire. For my money, their cover of Phil Collins’s Against All Odds (1984) was the only bright spot in the horrendous Josh Hartnett movie, Wicker Park (2004).

The familiar texture and soundscape of Give Up is heard in the distant and crackly vocal, reverse delays and keyboard of the opening verse and chorus. This gives way to a middle section which is cleaner and more purposeful than the first, with a brighter tempo. A final outro section repeats the lyrical hook – “take a look at me now” – with gentle guitar bringing the song to a close.

With this cover, The Postal Service manage to remake an emotional love ballad into a more angsty and complex work with their own musical stamp.

Conor Caldwell

6. Shipbuilding, by Suede

I always tell students to look at their hero’s heroes and find the covers they chose to do. It is often the case that we discover a classic song from a cover.

The 1995 charity album HELP featured 20 songs (many of them cover versions) by 20 artists in support of children displaced by the Bosnian War.

Suede’s cover of Shipbuilding (written by Elvis Costello and Clive Langer in 1982) was the first version of the song I heard. Such is the power of the piece, I suspect it was not difficult to convey the message. Written during the Falklands war, it concerned the resurgence of the shipyards caused by the necessity to replace ships lost in the conflict.

This led me to discover the definitive 1982 version sung by Robert Wyatt and featuring Costello, which has superb brushed drums and double bass. A masterpiece.

Howard Monk

7. Such Great Heights, by Iron and Wine

In this cover, Sam Beam of Iron and Wine strips what could be potentially considered the calling card of The Postal Service’s small but perfectly formed oeuvre to its bare bones. Featuring nothing more than a hushed voice, gently plucked acoustic guitar and subtle flourish of mandolin, the yearning romanticism of the lyrics is endearingly exposed.

Curiously, The Postal Service chose to include this wonderfully considered cover version as a b-side to their own single release of the song in 2003. This may have prompted its use in the divisive indie movie Garden State (2004), elevating Iron and Wine to deservedly greater heights in the process.

Steve Ryan

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Glenn Fosbraey, Associate Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Winchester; Conor Caldwell, Assistant Professor in Irish Traditional Music, University of Limerick; Daniel Ash, Visiting music lecturer, University of Winchester; Eva Petersen, Lecturer in music, Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts; Howard Monk, Senior Teaching Fellow, Music Management, University of Southampton; Justin Patch, Associate Professor and Chair of Music, Vassar College, and Stephen Ryan, Course Director, MA in Songwriting, University of Limerick

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

OpenAI, the company that made ChatGPT, has launched a new artificial intelligence (AI) system called Strawberry. It is designed not just to provide quick responses to questions, like ChatGPT, but to think or “reason”.

This raises several major concerns. If Strawberry really is capable of some form of reasoning, could this AI system cheat and deceive humans?

OpenAI can program the AI in ways that mitigate its ability to manipulate humans. But the company’s own evaluations rate it as a “medium risk” for its ability to assist experts in the “operational planning of reproducing a known biological threat” – in other words, a biological weapon. It was also rated as a medium risk for its ability to persuade humans to change their thinking.

It remains to be seen how such a system might be used by those with bad intentions, such as con artists or hackers. Nevertheless, OpenAI’s evaluation states that medium-risk systems can be released for wider use – a position I believe is misguided.

Strawberry is not one AI “model”, or program, but several – known collectively as o1. These models are intended to answer complex questions and solve intricate maths problems. They are also capable of writing computer code – to help you make your own website or app, for example.

An apparent ability to reason might come as a surprise to some, since this is generally considered a precursor to judgment and decision making – something that has often seemed a distant goal for AI. So, on the surface at least, it would seem to move artificial intelligence a step closer to human-like intelligence.

When things look too good to be true, there’s often a catch. Well, this set of new AI models is designed to maximise their goals. What does this mean in practice? To achieve its desired objective, the path or the strategy chosen by AI may not always necessarily be fair, or align with human values.

True intentions

For example, if you were to play chess against Strawberry, in theory, could its reasoning allow it to hack the scoring system rather than figure out the best strategies for winning the game?

The AI might also be able to lie to humans about its true intentions and capabilities, which would pose a serious safety concern if it were to be deployed widely. For example, if the AI knew it was infected with malware, could it “choose” to conceal this fact in the knowledge that a human operator might opt to disable the whole system if they knew?

These would be classic examples of unethical AI behaviour, where cheating or deceiving is acceptable if it leads to a desired goal. It would also be quicker for the AI, as it wouldn’t have to waste any time figuring out the next best move. It may not necessarily be morally correct, however.

This leads to a rather interesting yet worrying discussion. What level of reasoning is Strawberry capable of and what could its unintended consequences be? A powerful AI system that’s capable of cheating humans could pose serious ethical, legal and financial risks to us.

Such risks become grave in critical situations, such as designing weapons of mass destruction. OpenAI rates its own Strawberry models as “medium risk” for their potential to assist scientists in developing chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons.

OpenAI says: “Our evaluations found that o1-preview and o1-mini can help experts with the operational planning of reproducing a known biological threat.” But it goes on to say that experts already have significant expertise in these areas, so the risk would be limited in practice. It adds: “The models do not enable non-experts to create biological threats, because creating such a threat requires hands-on laboratory skills that the models cannot replace.”

Powers of persuasion

OpenAI’s evaluation of Strawberry also investigated the risk that it could persuade humans to change their beliefs. The new o1 models were found to be more persuasive and more manipulative than ChatGPT.

OpenAI also tested a mitigation system that was able to reduce the manipulative capabilities of the AI system. Overall, Strawberry was labelled a medium risk for “persuasion” in Open AI’s tests.

Strawberry was rated low risk for its ability to operate autonomously and on cybersecurity.

Open AI’s policy states that “medium risk” models can be released for wide use. In my view, this underestimates the threat. The deployment of such models could be catastrophic, especially if bad actors manipulate the technology for their own pursuits.

This calls for strong checks and balances that will only be possible through AI regulation and legal frameworks, such as penalising incorrect risk assessments and the misuse of AI.

The UK government stressed the need for “safety, security and robustness” in their 2023 AI white paper, but that’s not nearly enough. There is an urgent need to prioritise human safety and devise rigid scrutiny protocols for AI models such as Strawberry.

Shweta Singh, Assistant Professor, Information Systems and Management, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick

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

Have you noticed certain words and phrases popping up everywhere lately?

Phrases such as “delve into” and “navigate the landscape” seem to feature in everything from social media posts to news articles and academic publications. They may sound fancy, but their overuse can make a text feel monotonous and repetitive.

This trend may be linked to the increasing use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT and other large language models (LLMs). These tools are designed to make writing easier by offering suggestions based on patterns in the text they were trained on.

However, these patterns can lead to the overuse of certain stylistic words and phrases, resulting in works that don’t closely resemble genuine human writing.

The rise of stylistic language

Generative AI tools are trained on vast amounts of text from various sources. As such, they tend to favour the most common words and phrases in their outputs.

Since ChatGPT’s release, the use of words such as “delves”, “showcasing”, “underscores”, “pivotal”, “realm” and “meticulous” has surged in academic writing.

And although most of the research has looked specifically at academic writing, the stylistic language trend has appeared in various other forms of writing, including student essays and school applications. As one editor told Forbes, “tapestry” is a particularly common offending term in cases where AI was used to write a draft:

I no longer believe there’s a way to innocently use the word ‘tapestry’ in an essay; if the word ‘tapestry’ appears, it was generated by ChatGPT.

Why it’s a problem

The overuse of certain words and phrases leads to writing losing its personal touch. It becomes harder to distinguish between individual voices and perspectives and everything takes on a robotic undertone.

Also, words such as “revolutionise” or “intriguing” – while they might seem like they’re giving you a more polished product – can actually make writing harder to understand.

Stylish and/or flowery language doesn’t communicate ideas as effectively as clear and straightforward language. Beyond this, one study found simple and precise words not only enhance comprehension, but also make the writer appear more intelligent.

Lastly, the overuse of stylistic words can make writing boring. Writing should be engaging and varied; relying on a few buzzwords will lead to readers tuning out.

There’s currently no research that can give us an exact list of the most common stylistic words used by ChatGPT; this would require an exhaustive analysis of every output ever generated. That said, here’s what ChatGPT itself presented when asked the question.

Possible solutions

So how can we fix this? Here are some ideas:

1. Be aware of repetition

If you’re using a tool such as ChatGPT, pay attention to how often certain words or phrases come up. If you notice the same terms appearing again and again, try switching them out for simpler and/or more original language. Instead of saying “delve into” you could just say “explore”, or “look at it closely”.

2. Ask for clear language

Much of what you get out of ChatGPT will come down to the specific prompt you give it. If you don’t want complex language, try asking it to “write clearly, without using complex words”.

3. Edit your work

ChatGPT can be a helpful starting point for writing many different types of text, but editing its outputs remains important. By reviewing and changing certain words and phrases, you can still add your own voice to the output.

Being creative with synonyms is one way to do this. You could use a thesaurus, or think more carefully about what you’re trying to communicate in your text – and how you might do this in a new way.

4. Customise AI settings

Many AI tools such as ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot and Claude allow you to adjust the writing style through settings or tailored prompts. For example, you can prioritise clarity and simplicity, or create an exclusion list to avoid certain words.

By being more mindful of how we use generative AI and making an effort to write with clarity and originality, we can avoid falling into the AI style trap.

In the end, writing should be about expressing your ideas in your own way. While ChatGPT can help, it’s up to each of us to make sure we’re saying what we really want to – and not what an AI tool tells us to. 

Ritesh Chugh, Associate Professor - Information and Communications Technology, CQUniversity Australia

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

This article is part of a series on the great internet letdown. Read the rest of the series.

Ever found yourself unable to resist checking out a social media notification? Or sending a random picture just to keep a Snapchat “streak” going? Or simply getting stuck staring at YouTube because it auto-played yet another cute cat video?

If so, you’re far from alone. And if we adults can’t resist such digital temptations, how can we expect children to do any better?

Many digital environments are not designed with the best interest of users in mind – and this is especially true of games, apps and platforms commonly used by kids and teens.

Designers use persuasive design techniques to make users spend more time on apps or platforms, so they can make more money selling ads. Below, we explain some of the most common design tricks used in popular games, social media and apps.

Decision-making made easy 🔀

Social media and streaming platforms strive to provide “seamless” user experiences. This makes it easy to stay engaged without needing to click anything very often, which also minimises any obvious opportunities where we might disengage.

These seamless experiences include things such as auto-play when streaming videos, or “infinite scrolling” on social media. When algorithms present us with a steady flow of content, shaped by what we have liked or engaged with in the past, we must put in extra effort to stop watching. Unsurprisingly, we often decide to stay put.

Rewards and dopamine hits 🧠

Another way to keep children engaged is by using rewards, such as stars, diamonds, stickers, badges or other “points” in children’s apps. “Likes” on social media are no different.

Rewards trigger the release of a chemical in our brains – dopamine – which not only makes us feel good but also leaves us wanting more.

Rewards can be used to promote good behaviour, but not always. In some children’s apps, rewards are doubled if users watch advertisements.

Loot boxes and ‘gambling’ 💰

Variable rewards have been found to be especially effective. When you do not know when you will get a certain reward or desired item, you are more likely to keep going.

In games, variable rewards can often be found (or purchased) in the form of “loot boxes”. Loot boxes might be chests, treasures, or stacks of cards containing a random reward. Because of the unpredictable reward, some researchers have described loot boxes as akin to gambling, even though the games do not always involve real money.

Sometimes in-game currency (fake game money) can be bought with real money and used to “gamble” for rare characters and special items. This is very tempting for young people.

In one of our (as yet unpublished) studies, a 12-year-old student admitted to spending several hundred dollars to obtain a desired character in the popular game Genshin Impact.

The lure of streaks 🔥

Another problematic way of using rewards in design is negative reinforcement. For instance, when you are at risk of a negative outcome (like losing something good), you feel compelled to continue a particular behaviour.

“Streaks” work like this. If you do not do the same task for several days in a row, you will not get the extra rewards promised. Language learning app DuoLingo uses streaks, but so does Snapchat, a popular social media app. Research has shown a correlation between Snapchat streaks and problematic smartphone use among teens.

Streaks can also make money for apps directly. If you miss a day and lose your streak, you can often pay to restore it.

Loss of reputation 👎

Reputation is important on social media. Think of the number of Facebook friends you have, or the number of likes your post receives.

Sometimes designers build on our fear of losing our reputation. For instance, they can do this by adding a leaderboard that ranks users based on their score.

While you may have heard of the use of leaderboards in games, they are also common in popular educational apps such as Kahoot! or Education Perfect. Leaderboards introduce an element of competition that many students enjoy.

However, for some this competition has negative consequences – especially for those languishing low in the ranks.

Similarly, Snapchat has a SnapScore where reputational loss is still at play. You do not want a lower score than your friends! This makes you want to keep using the app.

Exploiting feelings of connection 🥰

Another tool in the designers’ bag of tricks is capitalising on the emotional ties or connections users form with influencers or celebrities on social media, or favourite media characters (such as Elmo or Peppa pig) for younger children.

While these connections can foster a sense of belonging, they can also be exploited for commercial gain, such as when influencers promote commercial products, or characters urge in-app purchases.

What can parents do? 🤷

Persuasive design isn’t inherently bad. Users want apps and games to be engaging, like we do for movies or TV shows. However, some design “tricks” simply serve commercial interests, often at the expense of users’ wellbeing.

It is not all bleak, though. Here are a few steps parents can take to help kids stay on top of the apps:

• have early and ongoing discussions with children about ideas such as the underlying commercial intent of what they are engaging with

• model good digital choices of not giving in to persuasive design, such as by avoiding digital distractions yourself

• use trustworthy resources to help in digital decision-making, such as Common Sense Media and Dark Pattern Games.

For the moment, the responsibility for managing children’s interactions with the digital realm falls largely on individuals and families.

Some governments are beginning to take action, but measures such as blanket age-based bans on social media or other platforms will only shield children temporarily. A better approach for governments and regulators would be to focus on safety by design: the idea that the safety and rights of users should be the starting point of any app, product or service, rather than an afterthought.

Chris Zomer, Associate Research Fellow at the Centre of the Digital Child, Deakin University and Sumudu Mallawaarachchi, Research Fellow, ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child, University of Wollongong

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

It’s almost two years since ChatGPT burst onto the scene in late 2022. Since then, educators worldwide have been grappling with what generative artificial intelligence might mean for classrooms and learning.

ChatGPT has been met with both anxiety and a sense of optimism. While there has been a lot of discussion about what is happening in universities, there has been less attention given to schools.

We have been looking at trials of AI in schools in South Australia. Here’s what we found.

What has happened so far in Australia?

Most Australian states initially banned ChatGPT and other generative AI tools in government schools (many private schools have been using the technology).

In a different approach, the SA government began a trial of AI in schools in 2023 with its own tool, EdChat.

Other jurisdictions have since reconsidered their stance. For example, at the start of 2024, New South Wales began trialling its own AI tool.

In November 2023, the federal government also published a framework for generative AI in schools, which said AI has “great potential” to help teachers and students, and to reduce administrative workloads.

Last month, a federal parliamentary inquiry recommended generative AI in schools should be a “national priority”, finding the benefits of AI outweigh its significant risks and challenges.

What happened in South Australia?

EdChat is a generative AI tool owned by the SA Department for Education, which was designed with Microsoft. It can be used in classrooms and at home. According to the department, it has “extra safety features” to protect students’ privacy and stop them accessing inappropriate content.

In the first phase of the trial, EdChat was used in eight SA government high schools for eight weeks. In the second phase, a further eight schools were included.

We have been evaluating the trial using survey data from about 90 teachers and 700 students. A journal article on this work is currently under review. In this article, we speak about our results from teachers.

‘It reduces time pressure’

Teachers told us they felt safer using EdChat than other tools such as ChatGPT, because student data is not being used to train generative AI models.

However, teachers still wanted to know more about how the student data is stored and who can access EdChat records.

Teachers also reported significant benefits of the tool. They said it helped save time developing lesson plans and learning materials – allowing for more time with students in the classroom.

One teacher told us how the tool had been adopted by the class.

We nicknamed it Eddy as a class and Eddy is now embedded as part of our class culture.

Teachers also used EdChat to provide personalised learning activities to students and “reduce time pressure and brain power required to create [teaching examples] and plan fun activities”. EdChat also allowed students to get personalised feedback or support when teachers were not around.

‘We need to be careful’

Teachers noted issues with hallucinations (when the AI comes up with nonsense) and incorrect information. This means students need to have the skills to recognise this.

As one teacher told us:

I think we need to be careful since students can treat AI like how they treat anything on the internet, without any critical thinking and taking it at face value.

They also said students need to learn to write better prompts and develop their critical thinking skills for working with AI.

They said content filters could also be challenging. While designed to keep students safe, they sometimes interfered with learning, especially for sensitive topics such as history, reproductive health or politics. For example, one history teacher said the “censorship was difficult to get around”.

Teachers also said it was more difficult to work out whether students’ work was plagiarised or not.

What happens now?

The SA government is looking at ways to expand the use of EdChat in schools.

Our research suggests we need to do more work in several areas.

The first is specific education for students around how to use AI critically and effectively.

We also need more research now about how AI is being used in different schools. There are no large-scale studies yet in Australia but there is growing evidence from other parts of the world, such as Estonia, the United States and United Kingdom, which show AI is significantly changing the way teachers are teaching. This includes spending more time on students’ critical thinking skills and using AI to generate ideas.

We also need to make sure all students can gain access to AI (not just those who can afford the technology) and that the AI itself it not biased against minorities.

Meanwhile, teachers need more support and professional development, and schools need help to plan and make changes. This includes a wider community awareness of the profound effects these new technologies are having and will have on the teaching profession and student learning.

Vitomir Kovanovic, Associate Professor and Associate Director of the Centre for Change and Complexity in Learning (C3L), Education Futures, University of South Australia; Maarten de Laat, Professor of Augmented and Networked Learning, Director Centre for Change and Complexity in Learning (C3L), Academic Lead AI for LIFE CRC bid development, Education Futures, University of South Australia, and Rebecca Marrone, Lecturer Learning Sciences and Development, The Centre for Change and Complexity in Learning (C3L), Education Futures, University of South Australia

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

A new study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution lifts the veil on what happens when octopuses and fish hunt together. As it turns out, this cross-species relationship is more complex than anyone expected.

Animals of the same species often cooperate – work together to reach some kind of goal. But it’s relatively rare to find cooperation between individuals from different species.

A classic example you’ll be familiar with is the close relationship between dogs and humans, whether in the context of herding sheep or hunting. In these situations, the dog and the human work together to achieve a goal.

That’s mammals. But underwater species also sometimes cooperate. A nice example is the joint hunting behaviour of moray eels and grouper. The grouper approaches the moray and signals that it wishes to hunt. The eel responds in kind, and off they go.

During these hunting forays, the grouper uses signals to indicate where prey may be hidden in the coral matrix. It’s a synergy made in heaven: the eel can scare the prey fish from hiding places among the coral, while the grouper patrols over the top. There is literally no place for prey to hide.

For the eels and grouper, the chances of catching their dinner are greatly improved when hunting together compared to hunting on their own.

Who’s in charge here?

While researchers have described these behaviours before, one question remains unanswered. Who, exactly, is in charge of these cross-species interactions?

Who decides what they are going to do, where and when? Are the different players “democratic”, in that they come to some form of compromise, or does one species take the lead and the other simply follows (that is, they are “despotic”)?

In an international collaboration, biologist Eduardo Sampaio and colleagues have investigated cross-species interactions between the usually solitary day octopus (Octopus cyanea) and several fish species, such as goatfish and groupers.

The fish and the octopus share a common goal – to increase their hunting efficiency. The traditional view of octopus-fish hunting groups assumed that the octopus is the producer, and the fish simply follow along and opportunistically pick up the scraps.

With its long, flexible arms, the octopus explores all the nooks and crannies of the hunting ground, flushing out prey the fish can then take advantage of. In this scenario, the octopus would be solely in charge of decisions and the fish just follow (that is, it’s an exploitative, despotic relationship).

However, when researchers took a closer look, it appeared perhaps this relationship is not as simplistic as previously believed. But without fine-scale analysis providing hard evidence, it is difficult to work out the precise details of how this cooperation works.

What did the new study find?

Using sophisticated behavioural analyses of 3D videos captured from 120 hours of diving, Sampaio and team found that each partner in the interaction plays a specific role. There was, in fact, no true leader – they are democratic.

The fish were responsible for exploring the environment and deciding where to move, while the octopus would decide if and when to move. Interestingly, controlled experiments showed the octopuses were guided by social information provided by the fishes.

When partnered with blue goatfish, the octopus foraging tactics where more focused and efficient. When partnered with blacktip groupers, they were less so. So, the nature of the hunting relationship varied depending on who’s involved.

The researchers concluded that, overall, success rates for capturing prey were higher for the octopus when foraging with fishy partners.

The details revealed by this study suggest this relationship is far more sophisticated than other cross-species hunting associations examined to date.

Despite the huge evolutionary gap between these animals (the equivalent of about 550 million years), both fish and octopus show clear signs of social competence and advanced cognition.

Culum Brown, Professor, Macquarie University

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

In the trailer for Ridley Scott’s hotly anticipated sequel to Gladiator (2000), a new gladiator (played by Paul Mescal) goes to battle in “the greatest temple Rome ever built – the Colosseum”.

He comes up against naval warfare, a cutthroat promoter (Denzel Washington) and a stampeding rhino. But how much of this really took place in Roman times? As always with films based in the past, pedantic historians will jump in to assess the degree of cinematic licence and historical misinterpretation. So it is with the forthcoming Gladiator II.

Did gladiators fight rhinos?

One thing that certainly did not happen was a warrior mounted on a rhinoceros (even a non-computer-generated one) charging at a group of gladiators. However, there is a record of a rhino at the inauguration of the Colosseum in 80BC. It didn’t fight men, but a bull, bear, buffalo, bison, lion and two steers. The other rare mentions of rhinos in Rome are of those in menageries, to be admired as exotic creatures.

This Roman interest in foreign, wild animals was the basis of the initial beast spectacles which began in 275BC with an exhibition of captured war elephants. Such non-violent displays of animals continued into the imperial era, but in 186BC the first staged animal hunt (venatio), featuring both lions and leopards, took place and by 169BC beast hunts had become an official part of republican state festivals.

Later, under the emperors, collecting and transporting beasts, especially unusual and foreign ones, to be displayed – but more often killed – demonstrated imperial power, territorial control and the vastness of the empire. Thousands of animals were brought from Africa and elsewhere to Roman arenas to be slaughtered for entertainment and the meat from the dead animals was given away to the spectators (it was easier than trying to dispose of the many carcasses).

Those who fought the beasts were not gladiators but specially trained hunters (venatores) armed with spears. The venatio could also feature fights between animals, as with the Colosseum rhinoceros, but most often the contest consisted of bulls against an elephant or bear. Animal hunts outlasted gladiatorial combats as a source of spectator entertainment, but as both the size of the empire and imperial funds diminished, greater reliance was placed on domestically reared “wild” animals.

Were there sea battles in the Colosseum?

More credence in historical terms can be given to the film’s staged sea battle (naumachia) in the flooded Colosseum. Such spectacles were expensive to stage and were reserved for special occasions.

The first one recorded was for Emperor Augustus in 2BC. Held on an artificial lake, it featured 30 large ships carrying some 3,000 marines plus an unspecified number of rowers. Participants in a naumachia, typically either convicted criminals or prisoners of war, were expected to kill each other or drown, though, the demonstration of fighting ability and courage could gain them a pardon.

The grandest sea battle was provided by Emperor Claudius on Lake Fucinus, a spectacle involving 100 ships and some 19,000 marines and oarsmen. It was at this event that the fighting men reportedly said “hail, emperor, we who are about to die salute you”, mistakenly assigned to gladiators in so many films, including the first Gladiator.

Literary sources (not always to be trusted in antiquity as they were often written well after alleged events) claim that the Colosseum was flooded for a sea battle at its inauguration. After some debate, historians now accept that the engineering mechanisms were in place so that, at least in its early days, the Colosseum could have accommodated a naumachia.

Did a thumbs down really mean death for a gladiator?

Gladiator II also showcases the misconstrued sporting legacy of the thumbs up signal to spare a defeated gladiator who requested mercy or the converse of a thumbs down from those who wished him to die.

The arena was a large, noisy place and hand signals were often used as a means of communication. Indeed, rather than verbally requesting mercy, the defeated warrior himself would raise the index finger of his right hand, or even the hand itself, both of which were recognised pleas for clemency.

When the crowd opted for the death of a fighter they indicated this by means of pollice verso, literally a turned thumb, with no direction specified. When the hand was waved the sign indicated that the gladiator’s throat should be cut by his conqueror. Those who wished to save the vanquished, but courageous, fighter gave the sign pollice compresso, a compressed thumb but one often hidden from sight so as not to cause visual confusion.

Gladiators were valuable assets. Promoters, who had paid a hiring fee (typically 10-20% of their value) for them to fight, were reluctant to incur the full asset value demanded as compensation should they die. Especially when, at the crowd’s insistence, they could have a choice in the matter.

In many instances the event had been promoted to curry favour with the spectators so to go against their wishes would be counterproductive. However, whether the ultimate decision-maker gave a thumbs up or thumbs down is debatable. The idea that this occurred seems to have developed around 1872 with the popularity of a painting by French artist, Jean-Léon Gérôme. In it he depicts vestal virgins giving the dreaded sign. Although titled Pollice Verso, it became conventionally referred to as “the thumbs down painting”.

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Wray Vamplew, Emeritus Professor of Sport, University of Stirling

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

In our Guide to the Classics series, experts explain key works of literature.

This month marks the 250th anniversary of the publication of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s celebrated and controversial novel Die Leiden des Jungen Werther. Commonly known in English as The Sorrows of Young Werther, it has endured in the popular imagination.

Goethe wrote the semi-autobiographical novel as a young, idealistic man, spurred by his infatuation with the engaged Charlotte Buff. Later in life, cutting a more sober figure, Goethe would look back uneasily on the frenzied product of his youth and “the pathological condition from which it sprang”.

Werther, he said, haunted him from the imaginary grave like a vengeful ghost.

Storm and stress

In essence, The Sorrows of Young Werther is a maudlin tale of unrequited love. It is an epistolary novel, presented as a collection of letters written by Werther to his friend Wilhelm. The letters reveal Werther’s sensitive and artistic soul, as well as his passionate temperament.

Werther meets and falls in love with Charlotte (or Lotte), a beautiful young woman who has been left in charge of her younger siblings after their parents‘ death. Charlotte is already engaged to a respectable and amiable older man, Albert. Caught in her orbit in the idyllic village of Wahlheim, Werther writes letters that are part romantic rhapsodies on the restorative beauty of nature and the simplicity of rural life, and part jaded tirades on the artificiality of polite society and courtly politics.

As the novel progresses, Werther’s weltschmertz – his world-weariness – takes hold, as does the torture of unfulfilled love. One night, in Albert’s absence, Werther is unable to contain his passion. He confesses his love to Charlotte, only to be rebuked for his wilfully self-destructive delusions.

Werther’s letters come to an end; it is left to the cold, officious voice of the “Editor” to put together the pieces of his last hours. The flash of gunpowder and the sound of gunshot at midnight fails to arouse alarm. Werther is found the next morning on the bloodied floor of his study. The following night he is buried in his favourite spot, with neither Charlotte nor Albert, nor any clergymen, in attendance.

Goethe’s novel is very much a product of its times. It is a key example of the German proto-Romantic movement known as Sturm und Drang – or “storm and stress” – which valourised individualism, inspiration and passion over the rational tenets of classicism and the Enlightenment. It is also a turning point in the history of the cult of “sensibility”, an 18th-century term used to describe a refined capacity to feel.

The Sorrows of Young Werther certainly tugged at the heartstrings of its readers. As a novel of letters, it seemingly offered unfettered access to Werther’s spontaneous effusions of the heart. It also sentimentalised his suicide, an act still frequently condemned in the late 18th century as sinful, criminal and cowardly.

With Werther’s death, sensibility transformed from a laudable virtue to a pathological hypersensitivity to the world, or in Charlotte’s words a “too warm sympathy with everything”. For this reason, Goethe’s man of feeling attracted as much scorn as he did sympathy.

Werthermania!

The Sorrows of Young Werther became a worldwide bestseller. It was translated into French in 1775 and English in 1779 – where it gained especial notoriety. It soon travelled across the Atlantic to America.

The novel attracted an enormous variety of responses. Novelists, playwrights, poets, illustrators and composers were drawn to reimagine Werther’s fate. In English alone, Werther would be invoked as a cultural reference point in many a Romantic novel, including those of Charlotte Smith, Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

William Godwin’s poorly judged memoir of his late wife and Mary Shelley’s mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, led to her being described as a “female Werther” for her suicide attempts.

Even Napoleon was a fan. When the French emperor met Goethe in Erfut in 1808, he confessed he had read the novel seven times.

More immediately, though, Werthermania would gain its hold on the popular imagination through material and visual culture. Young men of fashion would parade in Werther’s trademark yellow waistcoat, blue jacket and high boots – the very outfit worn by Goethe’s friend Karl Wilhelm Jerusalem, whose 1772 suicide served as a model for Werther’s. This ensemble became visual shorthand for suicidal sensibilities, whether for sentimental or politically satirical purposes.

Images of Werther and Charlotte were reproduced on fashion accessories, including fans, gloves, jewellery and expensive porcelain and china mementos. Women could wear the perfume “Eau de Werther” (although one is puzzled by what that fragrance might have been).

Cheap sentimental prints depicting various scenes from the novel also circulated widely across Europe. Most popular were illustrations of a young and beautiful Charlotte mourning at Werther’s grave – a pathetic scene that never occurs in the novel.

Such images remind us of how the novel took on a life of its own, beyond the bounds of its fictional narrative. Other images, conversely, went to great lengths to satirically undercut such pathos by exposing the grubby commercialism of this mawkish sentimentalism.

The playful slippage between fiction and reality fuelled the novel’s vibrant popular reception. The same capacity would give rise to concerns over its potentially harmful influence.

Goethe feared the novel’s possible effect on impressionable readers from the outset. In recognition of this, he added a final italicised line to the novel’s second 1775 edition: “Be a man, and do not follow me.” The novel was substantially reworked by Goethe in 1787, as further implicit acknowledgement of its potentially deleterious impact on forlorn lovers.

As Charles Moore lamented in his attack on fictional portrayals of suicide in Full Inquiry in the Subject of Suicide (1790), Werther was often read “not as a fictitious, but a real character”. A true story, he observed, “more engages the attention and increases the mischief”.

Mischief indeed! Popular opinion would have it that Europe was in the grip of Werthermania, with copycats emulating his suicide across Britain and the continent. The truth is likely to be less dramatic, but newspapers from several countries did report people committing suicide wearing Werther’s trademark outfit with a copy of Goethe’s novel nearby.

Some authorities responded decisively: both the novel and Werther’s style of dress were banned in Leipzig – where the novel was first published – as early as 1775. The novel was also banned in Denmark and Italy in an effort to stop the spread of suicidal contagion. This perceived mania caused novelist Madame De Staël to quip, many years later in 1813, that Werther had “caused more suicides than the most beautiful woman in the world”.

The novel’s infamous reputation had been secured.

The Werther effect

By the late 20th century, the novel’s reputation for prompting copycat suicides had solidified into a sociological paradigm.

In 1974 – 200 years after the novel’s publication – US sociologist David P. Phillips coined the term “Werther effect” to describe the negative influence of media portrayal of suicides, having observed increased numbers of suicides in response to reporting in the New York Times.

In subsequent decades, the Werther effect has prompted bodies such as the World Health Organization and Mindframe to craft carefully considered guidelines on how to report and discuss suicide in the press to minimise harmful effects (guidelines by which this piece abides).

Despite these concerns, Goethe’s Werther lives on in the creative and popular imagination. Cinephiles will recognise Werther in Tom Hansen, the romantic lead in Marc Webb’s 500 Days of Summer (2009), whose melancholy is fed by the music of The Smiths rather than the poems of Ossian. More recently, Young Werther – a Canadian romantic comedy written and directed by José Lourenço – premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival to promising reviews.

And is it any wonder? For all the ink spilled debating the merits of Werther’s death, his story is equally a meditation on the joyous and painful yearnings that young love brings. In Goethe’s novel, what we have is a delightfully harrowing, timeless rendition of an eternal theme.

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

Eric Parisot, Lecturer in English, Flinders University

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