Imagine you’re a fairywren living in a patch of scrub behind a schoolyard in the suburbs. It’s been pretty nice so far, but a recent increase in neighbourhood cats and the council’s insect control tactics mean it’s time to look for somewhere safer to live.

There’s a problem, though. You’re a small, bright blue bird that tends to make short flights from shrub to shrub, staying safe in the foliage. Beyond your little patch of habitat, there don’t seem to be any places you can easily access. On one side are wide-open sportsfields; on the other, a busy six-lane road. Where do you go?

It’s a bad situation for a fairywren, and for many other native species in cities. In ecology, we call this habitat fragmentation.

The map of suitable habitat for city-dwelling wildlife often looks like a scattering of islands in an inhospitable sea of other land uses. These species face threats or barriers such as roads, buildings, fences and feral predators. This poses several issues, such as barring access to feeding areas, increasing competition for nesting spaces within habitat patches and even reducing gene flow by making it hard to find mates.

Our newly published research shows how native species in our cities can benefit if we focus on creating strategically located green spaces to connect isolated patches of habitat.

Why We Should Care For Urban Species

Despite the myriad challenges facing plants, animals and insects in urban areas, cities are important places to take care of our native species. Urban areas still offer valuable nesting and feeding resources, especially for tree-dwelling mammals, canopy-feeding birds and water-adapted species.

In addition to their value for conservation, urban habitats are precious spaces for people to encounter nature in the places we live and work. Urban nature has been shown to be important in balancing out the stresses of city life, particularly in disadvantaged communities. It’s also good for our physical health and social connectedness – it even improves cognitive development in children.

Unsurprisingly, studies have shown people want more nature in their cities.

But actively supporting native species hasn’t generally been the norm in many cities. The practice of planning and design to deliberately bring nature back into urban areas is still developing. Our open-access research paper in Landscape and Urban Planning offers insights into how we can tackle one aspect of the problem: habitat fragmentation.

What Did The Study Look At?

We examined how greening projects could best connect up habitat for New Holland honeyeaters (Phylidonyris novaehollandiae), blue-banded bees (Amegilla spp) and mole crickets (Gryllotalpa spp) in Melbourne, Victoria. These are all species that occur locally but experience some degree of habitat fragmentation.

We have a lot of greening to do for climate adaptation and to create open space for new residents in our growing cities. What if we could also do this greening in a way that boosts habitat for non-human residents too?

We compared a scenario where a large number of small green spaces (formerly parking spaces) were created mainly for climate adaptation purposes, to a pair of scenarios where a smaller number of green spaces were created exclusively in areas that had been identified as key links between habitat fragments.

What Were The Findings?

In total, the benefit of each space in the targeted scenario was more than double that of the scenario where we placed green spaces for climate adaptation purposes, even with the same design of individual green spaces.

Here’s an image of the kind of green spaces we modelled in this study.

We found significant benefits for two of our three species when green spaces were located in a way that specifically targeted habitat connections.

Blue-banded bees and mole crickets did especially well. It is trickier for these small creatures to navigate the space between habitat patches. When these small green spaces provided “stepping stones” between bigger patches, they greatly increased the area of habitat a bee or cricket could reach.

Linking up habitats when we create new green spaces is one way to give native species a chance in our cities. It also gives us (and our kids) a better chance of having everyday nature experiences.

Of course, adding this “ecosystem connectivity” lens to our green space planning isn’t a biodiversity panacea. We’ll still need to deliver a lot of new greenery.

And we’ll have to design it carefully to support native animals while also providing cooling, reduced flood risk and recreational spaces. We also need to make sure we’re picking the right species to model our maps on, and then design our spaces for.

Still, if we get this right, that fairywren might just one day have small, green “stepping stones” to find their way around the city to a happy new home.

Thami Croeser, Research Officer, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University and Holly Kirk, Research Fellow, Interdisciplinary Conservation Science Research Group (ICON Science), RMIT University

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

In recent weeks, the Menzies Research Centre, the Liberal party-aligned think tank, has criticised the rise in “environmental lawfare”. National media outlets duly took up the mantle.

With an introduction by BHP Chief Executive David Hughes and nearly all the case studies involving the fossil fuel industry, its report tries to paint a picture of a “cashed-up” environmental movement. By extension, the report says, the use of the court system by environmental groups threatens democracy.

It attacked private donations, government funding, and charity status of public interest advocacy groups (such as the Environmental Defenders Office, a body Peter Dutton has pledged to defund). But these attacks disguise the David and Goliath battles that occur when environmental groups challenge large industries such as mining and fossil fuels.

Accusations that environmentalists are abusing our legal system, blocking progress, and costing the economy are not new, but they are getting louder. In reality, legal cases have long featured in this space because changing law is an important goal of any social change movement.

But it’s not just green groups turning to the courts. Large corporations, too, use the law to further their cause. Far from threatening democracy, this is democracy in action.

What Is ‘Green Lawfare’?

“Green lawfare” refers to the various ways individuals and organisations use legal action to achieve their goals, which might include stopping a new mine or changing government climate policy.

I’ve extensively researched the concept for my book. In it, I explore how activists, corporations and government have all turned to the courts to prosecute environmental cases. Notably, these strategies also involve communication strategies aimed at getting, or avoiding, media attention.

The battle to save Tasmania’s Franklin River blockade in the southern summer of 1982–83 is a great example. News and other media shared images of protest, arrests and jail time to the world as symbols of defiance. The battle was ultimately won in the High Court.

It is not a question of whether individuals and public interest groups should be able to use the courts. Instead, the current debate focuses our attention on the importance of access to the courts in any healthy democracy.

In contrast, the current attacks on justice systems, including personal attacks on judges, prosecutors, and lawyers and stopping participatory governance have become a hallmark of the swing to authoritarian and far-right governments.

Democracy In Action

These legal cases provide a window into the relationship between democracy and powerful economic interests. They also bind the legal system to environmental politics, which has long been fought out in the media.

For decades, the global environmental movement has campaigned, protested, and appealed to governments to mend the divide between human activity and the natural world on which we all depend.

These are exercises in democracy. Public participation and protest, alongside scientific and economic expertise, has created a large body of environmental law. This then spurred on the creation of the institutions that manage these laws, such as environmental departments.

In Australia, our environmental laws continue to evolve because Australians overwhelmingly want them to be stronger. The government is at least trying to heed that call, albeit not as urgently as many would like. It currently has an environmental protection bill before parliament.

Legislation inevitably sometimes lands parties in court. All stakeholders have – and should have – access to our legal system to ensure these laws are not ignored, broken or bent.

Prosecuting Opposition

What often goes unmentioned is the full extent of green lawfare in Australia by industry, which includes the rise in strategic litigation against public participation. This means environmentalists can be subject to expensive lawsuits designed to intimidate or silence their opposition.

Climate activists are already being targeted this way. Ben Pennings is being sued for millions of dollars by Gautam Adani, chairman of multinational conglomerate Adani.

Adani has little chance of recovering the $17 million he wants. But the legal harassment may be more the point. Adani has hired private investigators to photograph Pennings and his family and asked the courts to force him to hand over his electronic devices.

It’s not just individuals being sued this way, but governments. The fossil fuel industry leads the world in investor-state arbitration claims, which allow offshore companies to sue governments for millions, and often billions, of dollars. These claims have become a major obstacle to global climate action.

Climate In The Courtroom

Science has clearly told us that carbon emissions, pollution, and biodiversity loss caused by human activity are threatening global wellbeing. We only need to turn to the news to see the human suffering causes by a dangerous heatwaves, polluted waterways and spoiled habitats.

While science is diagnosing the cause of our troubles, addressing environmental problems is a social challenge for local communities and their governments. The courts are increasingly the chosen arena for all sides in the debate.

As a result, we are seeing increasingly novel approaches to what legal systems, especially the courts, are being asked to determine.

Landmark cases, including Sharma vs Minister for the Environment and Pabai Pabai vs Commonwealth of Australia have asked the courts to determine whether the Australian government has the duty to protect Australians from climate change.

Corporations, too, are using novel approaches. For instance, mining giant Santos is currently using the courts to uncover the financial backers behind a case that delayed their $5.4 billion Barossa gas project.

Green lawfare is on the rise because our knowledge and understanding of our environment, and what needs to be done to fix the mess we are in, tells us we need to change.

People are demanding our governments do more to address the problem. Public participation in our democratic processes includes access to our legal system. The turn to the courts is a sign that our legal system is working exactly as it should.

Dr Claire Konkes, Senior Lecturer in Media and Communication, University of Tasmania

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

The laws designed to protect the environment in New South Wales are completely ineffective, according to the scathing Henry Review in 2023.

In response, the state government this week announced a major overhaul of the Biodiversity Conservation Act, introduced in 2016. The Minns govermment has committed to introducing 49 of 58 recommendations made by the review, either in full or in part.

First up will be reform of biodiversity offsets – the easily gamed and largely ineffective requirement for developers to offset their destruction of vital habitat with gains elsewhere.

The state government is also promising to align reformed biodiversity laws with national and international goals, and set goals and targets to tackle threats, bring species back from the brink, and conserve landscapes at scale.

Good news? Certainly – especially given the federal government has delayed reforms to national biodiversity laws. But there are still big gaps – especially around how to actually stop land clearing, which is a major driver of species and ecosystem loss in the state.

These changes are essential, if we are to curb rapid and increasing rates of nature loss. Without them, around 500 species are predicted to become extinct in NSW over the next century and many nature-dependent industries – such as tourism, water supply and agriculture – will suffer.

How Do You Fix The Offset Problem?

Offsets are popular with governments because they offer the possibility of having your cake and eating it too. You want to develop a prime chunk of waterfront land, even though there are endangered koalas feeding in the trees? That’s fine, as long as you protect and improve koala habitat elsewhere to create an environmental gain equal to your destructive impact.

Well, that’s the theory. In reality, research has demonstrated offset projects rarely achieve their promise of enabling development with no net-loss of biodiversity.

Researchers have found biodiversity offsets in NSW are permitting major biodiversity losses to occur now in return for a “promise” of uncertain future gains.

The biodiversity value of 21,928 hectare of habitat already cleared under this policy in exchange for averting loss’ elsewhere is estimated to need 146 years to be regained.

The Minns government committed to reforming the biodiversity offsets scheme before winning the election. It will be the first nature law reform pushed through NSW parliament this year, while other reforms are not expected to reach state parliament until 2025.

So what are these proposed reforms? Key measures include:

• requiring developers to take genuine steps to avoid and minimise impacts on biodiversity, before moving to offset their impact

• making payments into a biodiversity conservation fund only as a last resort. At the moment, developers often just make a payment to the government fund to “balance” their impact

• closing a loophole where mining companies can claim a “discount” against their environmental impact if they have plans to rehabilitate the mine site in future

• increasing transparency through public reporting.

What Else Has The Government Promised?

Other important promises in the NSW government’s plan include:

• bringing the state’s Biodiversity Conservation Act in line with national and international biodiversity conservation goals

• introducing a new nature strategy with targets for tackling threats, recovering threatened species, conserving landscapes and working to restore and connect fragmented landscapes across public and private land

• reviewing conservation programs to boost restoration efforts and support the goal of no new extinctions

• increasing recognition of First Nations cultural values and connection to Country, including bringing traditional ecological knowledge into environmental assessment processes

• expanding private land conservation agreements to recognise and protect Aboriginal cultural values and traditional ecological knowledge.

What Was Missed?

While these measures are positive, there’s one big gap – the failure to take stronger action against native vegetation clearing.

The speed at which intact natural habitat is being destroyed in NSW has actually increased since the current biodiversity laws were introduced in 2016.

The NSW Government’s own data show almost 100,000 hectares of native vegetation was cleared every year after the act was introduced.

This is equivalent to a strip of land the entire length of the NSW coastline and almost 1 kilometre wide being cleared – every year.

The lion’s share (83%) of the clearing was done for farming, though infrastructure claimed 10,000 hectares and forestry claimed more than 6,000 hectares a year.

This week’s announcements included a commitment to review vegetation clearing codes. This is a welcome step but much more needs to be done to stop the large scale loss of habitat for native animals and plants in the state.

Stopping the routine clearing of native vegetation will require both carrots and sticks – incentives and regulations.

Clashing Laws

There’s another unresolved problem. The Henry Review found the effectiveness of the state’s biodiversity laws are being actively undermined by other state laws. When environmental conservation and economic growth clash, the economy usually wins.

While the environment minister can comment on major projects with environmental impact, such as mine sites, in many cases their concerns can be ignored by other ministers and the project can be approved even if the environment minister objects. This needs to change.

Genuinely protecting native species and ecosystems in NSW means the government has to elevate the environment as a priority with an equal seat at the table during decision making.

No-Go Zones For Development

The Minns government announced it would increase the consideration of biodiversity in planning by producing maps which identify areas of current and future high biodiversity value.

This is a step in the right direction. But the government did not take up the review’s recommendation to institute development no-go zones around natural places of particular value, such as vital Ramsar-listed wetlands and critical habitat of threatened species.

No-go zones would provide clarity for developers and protect the habitat of our most critically threatened native species.

Progress – From A Very Low Base

So how should we see these reforms? It’s progress, most certainly – but starting from a very low base.

The natural infrastructure (functioning ecosystems, habitats and species) that underpin the economy and wellbeing of NSW has been steadily eroding since European arrival. The health of 90% of Murray Darling Basin rivers is rated poor or worse. Some 78 species have been driven to extinction and at least 1,000 more risk the same fate.

Without major reform, half of these species are projected to go extinct over the next century, according to the Henry Review.

We often take biodiversity for granted. Trees, shrubs, mammals, birds, insects, fish – they’ll always be there. But the natural world can only take so much punishment. Humans are also part of the natural world. We rely much more on functioning ecosystems than we would like to think, to provide clean water and air, pollinate and grow our crops, and attract tourist dollars. 

Hugh Possingham, Professor of Conservation Biology, The University of Queensland; Carolyn Hogg, Deputy Director, Sydney Environment Institute; Co-Lead Australasian Wildlife Genomics Group, University of Sydney, and Jaana Dielenberg, University Fellow in Biodiversity, Charles Darwin University

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

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains an image of deceased people, which is used with permission from the Traditional Owners.

In May 2020, as part of a legally permitted expansion of an iron ore mine, Rio Tinto destroyed an ancient rockshelter at Juukan Gorge in Puutu Kunti Kurrama Country in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

Working with the Traditional Owners, we had excavated the shelter – known as Juukan 2 – in 2014, six years before its destruction. We found evidence Aboriginal people first used Juukan 2 around 47,000 years ago, likely throughout the last ice age, through to just a few decades before the cave was destroyed.

The site held thousands of significant objects including an ancient plait of human hair, tools and other artefacts, and animal remains. The results of the excavation led to last-minute efforts to stop the destruction of the site, but they were unsuccessful.

The full results of the excavation are published for the first time today in Quaternary Science Reviews.

Where Is Juukan And What Happened There?

Juukan is a gorge system with a series of caves in Puutu Kunti Kurrama Country, approximately 60 km north west of Tom Price, in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

The Juukan 2 rockshelter is one of the caves that make up this system. It was once part of a deep gorge featuring fresh water holes, large camping areas surrounded by massive ironstone mountains and a large river that flowed at some times of the year and was dry at others.

Today the area is part of a Rio Tinto iron ore mine. As widely reported in May 2020, the Juukan 2 rockshelter was destroyed during mine expansion activities. While Rio Tinto held ministerial consent to destroy the heritage site, the action was against the wishes of the Traditional Owners.

The destruction led to widespread global condemnation and shone a spotlight on Western Australia’s substandard heritage protection legislation.

What Is So Significant About Juukan?

Juukan Gorge is named after a Puutu Kunti Kurrama ancestor. It is extremely significant both for cultural and scientific reasons.

For the Puutu Kunti Kurrama, Juukan is a deeply spiritual place that contains deep-time evidence of their presence and association with the landscape in their Traditional Country.

In terms of the scientific significance of Juukan 2, the site is one of the oldest known locations of Aboriginal settlement of Australia. While there are some sites that have been found to be older, such as Madjedbebe in Kakadu in the Northern Territory and off the Western Australian coast, there are only a few places as old as Juukan in inland Australia.

Juukan is about 500 kilometres from the coast today. Up until approximately 10,000 years ago, when sea levels rose, it was almost 1,000 kilometres inland.

This means people living around Juukan were adept at living in the desert. This is also shown by the fact they were able to continue to use the cave even during the last ice age (from around 28,000 to 18,000 years ago). Archaeologists have found very little direct evidence from this period at any other sites.

Often just a handful of artefacts is regarded as enough evidence to show people used an archaeological site. However, at Juukan 2 we found thousands of artefacts, including many that featured resin from spinifex grass, which was likely used as a kind of glue to hold together the pieces of composite tools.

Juukan 2 also held amazing evidence of animals over the ages. We found broken bones from animals that had died naturally, and also bones associated with people cooking and eating kangaroos, emus, and even echidnas at the site.

Among this material was a plait of human hair dated to around 3,000 years old. The hair was DNA tested and the results told us it was likely related to the Traditional Owners who were part of the excavation team.

The material we found was extremely well preserved. We even found a bone point made from a kangaroo’s shinbone around 30,000 years old with ochre on its end. We don’t know what this was used for, but the ochre may indicate a ritual function.

What Now?

After the blast in 2020, we began to re-excavate the site. Over the past two years we have removed about 150 cubic metres of rubble that was once the roof and back wall of the cave. Beneath the debris we found traces of organic material, and then remnants of the cave floor.

Excavations have now reached the original floor level throughout most of the site, and we are carefully digging and finding more incredible materials. This includes more plaited hair, shell beads we think were brought from the coast, and fragments from the jaw of a Tasmanian devil, an animal which has been extinct on mainland Australia for over 3,000 years.

The publication of these results from 2014 is just the next chapter in the archaeology of Juukan 2, a place special to the Traditional Owners, but also of immense significance to science and our understanding of cultural heritage of Australia.

The Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura Aboriginal Corporation is a co-author of this article and the associated research, recognised collectively according to their cultural preference.

Michael Slack, Director, Scarp Archaelogy and Adjunct Associate Professor of Archaeology, James Cook University; Jordan Ralph, Adjunct Lecturer, Archaeology, Flinders University, and Wallace Boone Law, Postdoctoral Researcher, Geospatial Science and Archaeology, University of Adelaide

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

Access to nature is essential for our health and wellbeing. However, as our cities become increasingly crowded, it becomes more and more challenging to find ways to connect with nature in urban spaces.

We know urban parks are key places to engage with nature. However, our research suggests informal green spaces – despite being unplanned, untended and often overlooked – are equally important. We have found people use informal green spaces, such as vacant lots and vegetated areas along railway lines, to engage with nature just as much as in formal green spaces.

This raises the question: should we be doing more to embrace these neglected spaces?

Being Connected With Nature Is Good For Us

People living in cities are increasingly disconnected from nature. This has potentially far-reaching consequences.

Studies have shown regular interaction with nature can be important for mental and physical health. Time in nature reduces stress and encourages mental restoration. Access to the natural environment is important for children’s mental and social development.

People who do not interact regularly with nature have been shown to be less likely to engage with broader environmental issues. It’s a worrying trend, given the environmental crises we are facing.

Despite the known benefits, interacting with nature is becoming increasingly difficult for people in cities. Urban areas are becoming more densely populated, increasing pressure on accessible green spaces.

At the same time, the amount of green space in many cities is declining. This is due to rising urban density as well as changing housing trends. Traditional backyards are shrinking in countries such as Australia.

In light of this, there is a growing need to use the green space available to us more effectively.

The Neglected Value Of Informal Green Spaces

Informal green spaces are the overlooked areas of vegetation scattered throughout our cities and towns. Think of the tangle of greenery thriving along railway lines, flowers growing on vacant lots, or the unmown grassy patches under power lines. These areas are not usually recognised or managed as part of a city’s official green infrastructure, but provide a unique type of green space.

People report liking these spaces for their wild, unmanaged nature, in contrast to more neatly manicured parks. We know people use these spaces for a range of activities, from taking shortcuts or dog walking to creating community gardens. However, the extent to which people use informal green space to engage with nature has not been well understood until now.

Our recent study sheds light on the importance of informal green space for access to nature in urban areas. We analysed data from citizen science apps such as iNaturalist.

This enabled us to study how often people recorded sightings of animal and plant species in informal green spaces compared to their more formal counterparts, such as parks. It provided a measure of their interaction with nature. We found people use informal green spaces to engage with nature just as much as formal green spaces.

Areas along railway lines and utility corridors were most popular. This may be due to their fixed land tenure. It allows people to become familiar with them and gives nature a better chance to establish on these sites.

Street verges were also important. The data suggest they are as popular as private gardens for connecting with nature.

While parks remain crucial, these findings highlight the important role of informal green spaces in giving people access to nature in cities.

Rethinking How We Manage Green Space In Cities

Our works shows the need to expand our thinking about how to improve people’s connection to nature in cities. It’s important to start recognising informal green spaces as a legitimate part of urban green space networks.

We can then begin to consider how best to manage these spaces to support biodiversity while encouraging public use. This will present its own challenges. We’ll need to balance the needs of people with the need to leave enough quiet spaces for nature to thrive.

A majority of the world’s people already live in cities. As urban populations continue to grow, so will the need for accessible green space.

Formal parks will always be important to ensure people have regular, meaningful interactions with nature for the sake of their health and wellbeing. But we need to broaden our perspective to include a more diverse selection of green spaces. By valuing and integrating informal green spaces better into existing green space networks, we can ensure nature remains part of urban life.

Allowing urban residents to connect with nature will promote healthier, happier and more environmentally engaged communities.

Hugh Stanford, Researcher Associate, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University and Holly Kirk, Research Fellow, Interdisciplinary Conservation Science Research Group (ICON Science), RMIT University

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

The Great Barrier Reef is world famous – it’s the largest coral reef system in the world and home to tens of thousands of species. No wonder it is World Heritage listed.

But Australia has three lower profile reefs which are also World Heritage listed –  Ningaloo and Shark Bay in Western Australia, and Lord Howe Island, 600 kilometres off the New South Wales coast, the southernmost coral in the world. Ningaloo has 260km of coral reef, while the reefs of Shark Bay have less coral but are home to ancient stromatolites, vast seagrass beds and iconic species such as dugongs.

This month, the World Heritage Committee will meet in New Delhi. On the agenda will be how the world’s natural World Heritage sites are faring. The Australian government will be under increased scrutiny to prove it has upheld its international commitments to protecting these reefs.

Our new research has found all four of these reefs are in greater danger than we thought – even those in subtropical waters, such as Lord Howe Island. Our two Indian Ocean reefs at Shark Bay and Ningaloo actually face more species and function loss than the Great Barrier Reef.

At 1.5°C of warming, we are likely to lose about 20% of the 400-odd coral species which currently live across these four reefs (equating to about 70 extinctions). At 2°C warming, our modelling of species abundance and ecosystem functions predict an almost complete collapse in reef ecosystems – even for the subtropical reefs. This aligns with predictions by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the future of coral reefs.

We believe our work adds to the need to consider whether Australia’s four iconic reefs should be on the list of World Heritage sites in danger.

What Does It Mean When A Reef Is World Heritage Listed?

Declaring a natural or cultural site as World Heritage is done to encourage the preservation of locations of immense ecological and cultural value. Nations have to nominate sites they think are worthy of protection. Australia has 20 World Heritage sites, of which 12 are natural.

When sites are formally listed, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) requires the country’s government to look after it. If the site is degrading, it can be listed as in danger.

UNESCO has considered listing the Great Barrier Reef as in danger twice, in 2021 and again in June this year. For the reef to keep its World Heritage status, the government must prove its policies are sufficient to keep the reefs in good health.

In the debate over the Great Barrier Reef, two things have been missed – first, any mention of Australia’s other World Heritage reefs, and second, whether the federal government’s current policies to cut greenhouse gases are enough to protect the reefs into the future.

What Did We Find?

Our new results suggest all four reefs are in trouble. Given current warming trends, they will only deteriorate further in the future if we stay on this course.

While the Barrier Reef has drawn a great deal of attention, it’s actually the ecosystems at Ningaloo, Shark Bay and Lord Howe Island which are projected to warm the most. When standardised to park boundaries, temperatures here are projected to increase by up to 1.3°C by the end of the century. (This temperature estimate is for sea temperatures, not the overall surface temperature which we use as shorthand when we talk about 1.5°C or 2°C of warming).

While that might not sound like much, it will be enough to push many corals to potential extinction. Many coral species already exist within 1-2°C of the maximum temperature they can tolerate.

Our modelling shows Shark Bay and Ningaloo actually face a greater risk of species and function loss than the Barrier Reef. It also suggests the ability of our reefs to bounce back will be overcome when warming tips over 1.5°C globally.

While these models incorporate the baseline heat tolerance of coral species on these reefs, they don’t yet include their potential for genetic adaptation. The question of whether some corals could adapt to this rapid warming is still open. A lot is riding on their ability to do so.

Looming Danger

This year, the Great Barrier Reef and Lord Howe Island have suffered intense stress from high sea temperatures – the direct result of burning fossil fuels and producing heat-trapping greenhouse gases. This year is on track to again be the hottest year on record, overtaking the previous record holder of 2023.

Australia is already in the midst of an extinction crisis. Australia has one of the worst track records for extinctions. Since European colonisation, 34-38 mammal species have gone extinct compared to just one from the contiguous United States, which covers a similar area.

You might have read that coral cover – a measure of how much coral there is in an area – hit historic highs on the Great Barrier Reef last year.

Coral cover is a helpful and important metric, but it’s not perfect. For instance, fast-growing heat tolerant coral species might expand as less heat tolerant species die off. Importantly, relying on coral cover alone can mask significant changes in how the reef is functioning.

It’s hard to assess how species in our oceans are doing, given the difficulty of access and the large number of species, including many unknown to science. If warming continues unabated, we will likely start to lose species before we have even documented them.

Our results are based on “moderate” climate models of global surface temperature changes. Australia has committed to cutting emissions by 43% below 2005 levels by 2030. While that sounds good, it’s not enough – this decrease is compatible with hitting 3.2ºC by 2100. To limit warming to 1.5ºC or below by 2050, we would need to commit to much greater cuts in emissions – 90% below 2005 levels by 2030.

Our results clearly suggest Australia’s four World Heritage reefs will be dramatically affected by warming in the near future. They will no longer qualify as being maintained under “conditions of integrity”. It’s hard to see how they can avoid being added to the in danger list.

Kate Marie Quigley, DECRA Research Fellow in molecular ecology, James Cook University and Andrew Hamilton Baird, Professorial fellow in coral reef ecology, James Cook University

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

Australians have a love affair with household appliances. The national household appliance market is projected to reach A$13 billion in 2024 – a figure that grows each year.

On average, Australian homes have five large appliances and up to ten smaller ones such as hair clippers and irons – not to mention numerous other electronic gadgets not included in this count, such as those operated by batteries. As you might expect, the most common appliances are refrigerators and washing machines, with vacuum cleaners, microwaves and toasters close behind.

But what happens when these appliances break? Unfortunately, broken appliances are unlikely to be repaired. It doesn’t have to be this way, however.

And if we fail to keep up with legal developments in other parts of the world, Australia could soon become a dumping ground for cheap and nasty appliances.

They Don’t Make Them The Way They Used To

Just over a decade or so ago, when household appliances such as televisions or washing machines broke down, an appliance repair man could be called, spare parts obtained, and the problem fixed.

But getting large and small appliances repaired these days can be very challenging, if not impossible. Brands and retailers often discourage repair by offering replacement instead.

While it may be technically possible to repair modern white goods and appliances, it’s expensive. There are high call-out fees for service technicians, and spare parts are difficult to find.

And many appliances are designed in such a way that makes repairs impossible, or there are no spare parts available.

Most manufacturers, brands and retailers provide only a one- or two-year warranty. Often we are encouraged to pay extra for an extended warranty. But that shouldn’t be necessary, because consumer law requires the manufacturer or importer to provide spare parts and repair facilities for a reasonable time after purchase – longer than the manufacturer’s warranty.

Once the warranty has expired, Australian consumers with broken appliances can really only take the matter up with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission as a breach of their consumer rights. Even then, as consumer advocates have repeatedly highlighted, there are no penalties for manufacturers that refuse to comply with our consumer rights by failing to offer repair over replacement.

A Lack Of Consumer Protection

Australia’s consumer law means we technically have a right to repair, refund or replacement for defective goods. However, manufacturers are not required to provide spare parts or repair services – so there’s no guarantee consumers can have their broken appliance fixed.

In contrast, both the United Kingdom and European Union have passed laws to ensure manufacturers that sell their goods in those markets support their products for longer than one or two years. A UK Right to Repair law was passed in 2021. This law requires manufacturers to make spare parts available to consumers and third-party companies, effectively extending the life cycle of a range of devices and appliances by up to ten years.

Similarly, in the EU, the new Right to Repair directive will require manufacturers to not only provide spare parts but also provide these details on their website, as well as offering spare parts to independent repairers at reasonable prices.

Consumers in France, and soon the EU more broadly, are also better informed about the “repairability” of their appliance.

Labels on appliances and packaging at the point of sale will reflect the ability to have an appliance repaired, as well as the spare parts and service support available. A repairability label helps educate consumers and encourages manufacturers to better design their products for longevity and disassembly now that they have to disclose more information at the point of sale.

It seems obvious that manufacturers required to comply with the right to repair laws, labelling and other sustainability requirements in the UK and EU should have to adhere to the same conditions in Australia. However, without similar law, this is simply not the case.

This means Australia could become a dumping ground for endless streams of poorly designed, low-quality, cheap imports that have no regulatory support for repair. Global e-waste is growing five times faster than the rate of recycling, so most appliances will never be recycled.

Only Repair Cafes Are Helping Appliances Last Longer

Australians are increasingly taking their broken appliances to one of the nation’s 100 “Repair Cafes”. These are community-run events aimed at giving a new life to broken items that would otherwise be thrown away. Volunteer repairers help to fix broken items. They report commonly attending to small household electrical appliances such as stick vacuums, coffee machines, toasters, lights and kettles.

But these volunteer-run repair cafes cannot repair the thousands of broken appliances in our homes. The system must change.

Embracing The Benefits Of Repair

Repairing appliances reduces waste, and saves energy, materials and emissions involved in making replacements. It also saves the emissions and road congestion associated with transporting replacement appliances to stores.

But if Australia is to take repair seriously, we need the infrastructure to support repair activity at scale.

Almost two years ago, Assistant Minister for Competition Andrew Leigh opened the Australian Repair Summit in Canberra, saying:

There are opportunities to further reduce barriers to repair for products in some markets, and the Australian Government wants to pursue reforms that are evidence‑based and target sectors where it will be most beneficial.

But little has changed. Australia is still lacking policies to require manufacturers to provide better long-term support for the appliances they make. This means Australians will continually struggle to keep their appliances going.

Repairing household appliances to keep them in use for just a couple more years would significantly reduce the amount of electronic waste being generated.

As is often cited, the best kettle, toaster or washing machine is the one you already have. Australia must create laws and incentives to extend product life through durability and repairability.

Leanne Wiseman, Professor of Law, Griffith University, Griffith University

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

Before renewables came along, coal-fired power stations pumped out electricity (and carbon emissions) 24 hours a day. But now, this type of “always on” baseload power is no longer necessary or commercially viable.

This is one of many reasons why the Coalition’s proposed nuclear strategy is flawed. Even if nuclear power was cheap, which it isn’t, it would have to be the least appropriate energy source going around.

Why? Because the world has changed. The greening of the electricity grid means we need far more flexibility. Solar and wind can do the heavy lifting, provided we have enough storage (batteries, pumped hydro and other technologies) and something we can quickly switch on and off to fill the gaps, such as gas or (eventually) hydrogen.

The only way to make nuclear power work in Australia is to switch off cheap renewable energy. Stop exporting electricity from your rooftop solar system. Forget feed-in tarrifs. The system has to call on baseload nuclear power first, or the plan makes no sense whatsoever. And to make space for nuclear in 10-15 years, you’d have to somehow make coal financially viable now.

Comparing The Cost Of Electricity

The price we pay for electricity as customers is a function of the wholesale price retailers pay, to secure energy from generators, plus the cost of transporting it (transmission and distribution).

To compare the cost of nuclear power to other sources, we need to take a closer look at each generator’s capital and operating costs.

For capital costs, the market operator and most energy analysts turn to the CSIRO GenCost report. It finds conventional nuclear power stations cost 40% more to build than coal, 2.5 times more than onshore wind and 5 times more than large-scale solar.

Operating costs reflect both fixed costs (such as maintenance) and variable costs (such as fuel). The less time the plant operates, the higher the capital and operating costs per megawatt hour (MWh) of output.

Both coal and nuclear can operate around 90% of the time at full capacity, while both wind and solar only operate at full capacity some of the time. So it’s best to compare annual operating costs on the basis of the actual energy generated in a year. Even on this basis it costs less to operate onshore wind and solar than coal or gas, mainly because there is no fuel cost.

Nuclear plants are incredibly complex and cost about five times more to maintain and manage than onshore wind and large scale solar. And that’s not including the high cost of decommissioning the plant, or treating and disposing of used fuel and wastes during its use.

South Australia Offers A Glimpse Of The Future

So far this analysis assumes all of the power plants operate at their optimum capacity. But the real world is not like that.

The market operator is required to supply electricity according to customer demand, which they do by dispatching the cheapest form available at the time.

This is onshore wind and solar, when available. However, network demand for electricity is also heavily influenced by what customers are doing to meet their own demand with rooftop solar.

South Australia has lots of rooftop solar plus large-scale onshore wind and solar power plants. Just take a look at the hour-by-hour supply of electricity to SA customers on July 6 this year.

On this day in the middle of winter, private rooftop solar reduced demand by more than half in the middle of the day. Renewables (mainly wind) provided almost all the network electricity demand. A small amount of electricity was supplied by gas turbines (which are not baseload power generators) and batteries. No coal or gas generation was imported from other states.

About one third of SA homes have rooftop solar. As take-up inevitably grows, total network demand will continue to fall.

SA was the first state to see network demand fall below zero back in October 2021.

In the southwest of Western Australia the market operator is projecting network loads will become negative in coming years, something I predicted a decade ago.

As baseload generation is used less and less, it costs more and more per MWh and becomes less competitive and commercially viable. This is the main reason coal fired power stations are closing and baseload generation is becoming redundant.

SA is a predictor of the whole of Australia in coming years. If coal is not commercially viable into the future, then how can nuclear possibly be, when it is far more expensive?

Switching Off Solar And Propping Up Coal

According to analysis by the Smart Energy Council the Coalition’s proposed seven nuclear reactors would only provide 3.7% of Australia’s electricity demand by 2050.

However, even if nuclear was to be a significant component of the mix by 2040 (under a very optimistic scenario), it wouldn’t be compatible with renewables already on rooftops and in the network.

That’s because nuclear power stations have very limited flexibility to power up, or power down. So if they are always on, something else has to be switched off. The only solution would be to “curtail” (switch off) cheap renewable energy, including exports from your rooftop solar.

For nuclear to be a significant energy source in future, Australia would have to start making more room for baseload power generation now. Existing coal-fired generators would have to be made financially viable so they can continue to operate until they’re eventually replaced by nuclear.

Meanwhile renewable generators and rooftop solar exports would have to be either disallowed from supplying the network or financially undermined – by government subsidies for coal and gas plants. The result of either would of course be higher costs and higher emissions.

The market operator’s Integrated System Plan for the National Electricity Market aligns with my analysis of the WA network. That is, the optimum energy solution, from both a cost and emissions perspective, is a combination of:

• renewable generation (mainly wind and solar)
• storage in the form of pumped hydro and batteries
• small amounts of gas, eventually replaced by hydrogen, to fill in the gaps.

There is neither room, nor need, for nuclear energy in Australia.

Bill Grace, Adjunct Professor, Australian Urban Design Research Centre, The University of Western Australia

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

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s plan to build seven nuclear power plants in Australia has attracted plenty of critical attention. But there’s a striking feature which has received relatively little discussion or criticism: the nuclear plants would be publicly owned and operated, similar to the National Broadband Network (NBN).

On the contrary, it received enthusiastic endorsement from free-market advocates such as The Australian’s Judith Sloan, who observed: “It’s how the French nuclear plants were first constructed.” It is also the way Australia built its biggest single piece of energy infrastructure, the Snowy Mountains Scheme.

But there’s a fundamental problem here. Over the last three or four decades the federal public service has been hollowed out in the name of “new public management”. This became very clear during the COVID pandemic, when state governments – who have preserved their ability to act far better – ran most of the response. There is a very real question over whether we have the governmental capacity to achieve net zero.

From NBN To National Nuclear Network?

Dutton’s acknowledgement of the publicly owned NBN as a model worth using is a welcome advance on the view of Malcolm Turnbull, one of his predecessors as Liberal leader.

A decade ago, then-prime minister Turnbull embarked on a disastrous “mixed mode” redesign of the NBN. This reflected his belief – expressed publicly after leaving office – that a publicly owned broadband network should never have existed.

Labor is in no position to oppose Dutton’s calls for public ownership. State Labor governments in Victoria and New South Wales have re-established publicly owned electricity enterprises, while South Australia’s Labor government has floated the same idea.

Whatever technological choices we make, it is clear our days of relying on the private sector to provide vital infrastructure are coming to an end. The question now is whether the public sector can recover to take the lead.

The National Energy Market, for instance, was meant to promote competition and drive electricity prices down. It has failed to do so, resulting in a string of government interventions, some more successful than others.

Arguably the biggest failed intervention was the now-defunct Energy Security Board, a politically driven response to South Australia’s statewide blackout in 2016.

The board sought to patch up the National Energy Market with a capacity market, which was immediately dubbed “CoalKeeper” due to incentives for old coal plants to keep going, as well as new grid access charges, promptly dubbed “Solar Stopper” due to discouraging new investment in solar. Energy experts did not favour this approach.

What proved more successful as a response to South Australia’s big blackout was the decision by the state government to fund the Horndale big battery, which was, when built in 2017, the world’s largest utility-scale battery storage.

Should New Power Be Private Or Publicly Owned?

Both major parties are flagging more intervention. The federal government has stopped waiting for markets to provide clean energy in favour of seeking tenders for new renewables through a capacity investment scheme. The scheme received 40 gigawatts worth of bids from renewable developers, far beyond the goal of 6GW.

This shift has come in response to developments bogging down, hampered by inadequate regulation and local opposition driven by a combination of genuine concerns about environmental impacts and culture-war driven science denialism.

Labor’s current renewables-led strategy requires 10,000 kilometres of new publicly built transmission lines, to meet our net zero goals. We’d need even more transmission if we are to become a major exporter of clean energy, either as electricity or in products such as green hydrogen and ammonia.

On the Coalition side, no private firm is likely to accept the risks involved in creating a nuclear power industry from scratch. Government would have to lead.

As Nationals leader David Littleproud has now acknowledged in relation to finding sites for nuclear plants, the national need for clean energy is too important to allow “not in my backyard” opponents – some with only a tenuous connection to the area in question – to slow or stop government plans.

If Government Is To Lead, It Must Have The Capacity

What Dutton’s nuclear gambit shows us is that, surprisingly, Australia’s two major political parties are in strong alignment on the need to rebuild state capacity.

Whether it’s Labor working to get transmission lines and offshore wind up and running or the Coalition working to create a nuclear industry from scratch, it will take a strong government with the capacity to articulate a plan, and the legal, financial and human resources to make it a reality.

All of these requirements were met when we constructed the Snowy Mountains Scheme, a decades-long federal government initiative undertaken in cooperation with Victoria and NSW.

Are they still in place? Not yet. Government capacity to act has been eroded over decades of neoliberalism. Particularly at the national level, public service expertise has been hollowed out and replaced by reliance on private consulting firms.

To rebuild the federal government’s capacity to act will require recreating the public service as a career which attracts the best and brightest graduates – many of whom currently end up in the financial sector.

The private sector still plays a central role in the construction of infrastructure, as was the case with the Snowy Scheme. But it’s up to governments to take the lead in finance and planning.

This poses particular challenges for the Liberal Party, which has long favoured the interests of businesses small and large, and has been historically opposed to public ownership. But from the late 1990s until relatively recently, Labor was also keen on privatisation.

The French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau once observed that “war is too important to be left to generals”. As we are discovering to our cost, infrastructure investment is similarly too important to be left to private investors.

John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland

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

When Australia’s east coast is caught in the grip of a heatwave, relief can come in the form of abrupt, often gale-force wind changes known as “southerly busters”.

For Sydneysiders, the arrival of the southerly buster is a hot topic right up there with property prices. But in recent years, talk has turned to where southerly busters have gone. The feeling is, they’re not what they used to be.

Our new research shows southerly busters have become more frequent but less intense over the past 25 years. Global warming is to blame.

As the warming trend continues, we can expect more southerly busters to roll in. These winds can damage property, worsen bushfires, and endanger both aviation and marine activities. Unfortunately, we may witness more of these unwelcome effects in the future.

What Are Southerly Busters?

During the warmer months, from October to March, Australia’s southeastern seaboard can experience sudden wind changes known to locals as southerly busters. This is when a hot northwesterly wind turns southerly, with wind gusts exceeding 15 metres per second. A severe southerly buster has gusts of at least 21m/s.

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

Southerly busters can drop temperatures by up to 20°C within minutes, providing instant relief from oppressively hot days.

But they also produce severe thunderstorms, low cloud, fog and destructive winds. Consequently, they threaten human life and property.

Powerful near-surface wind gusts and associated turbulence disrupt the aviation industry. Takeoff and landing become particularly challenging, as southerly busters can create sudden increases or reductions in aircraft speed and drift.

Large waves and rough seas are hazardous for surfcraft, boats and rock fishers. Marine rescue organisations know and fear southerly busters as they respond to thousands of related emergency requests annually.

What We Did And What We Found

News reports suggest southerly busters have become far less frequent and weaker in recent decades. Some say southerly busters no longer pose the dangers they once did. But they have not disappeared entirely.

In our new research, we used observational data from 1970 to 2023 to analyse trends in southerly buster frequency and intensity. We were especially interested in the period of accelerated global warming from the early to mid-1990s.

Our statistical analysis considered changes from year to year, from 1970 through to 2023. Then we compared two consecutive time periods, 1970–96 and 1996–2023.

We looked at maximum wind gusts, frequencies of southerly busters compared to severe southerly busters, and the influence of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation.

We found severe southerly busters dominated from 1970 to 1995.

After that, both southerly busters and severe southerly busters gradually increased in number, but the lower wind speed southerly busters became more common overall. So the combined annual total of southerly busters and severe southerly busters increased over time.

From 1996 to 2023, the number of southerly busters each year approached or exceeded the number of severe southerly busters.

The annual frequency of southerly busters increased dramatically in 2017–18 and shot up further still in 2018–22, far exceeding severe southerly busters.

Changing Atmospheric Circulation Patterns

In the Southern Hemisphere, global warming has changed atmospheric pressure at the Earth’s surface just south of Australia. We suspect these changes in cold frontal systems affect both the number and strength of southerly busters and severe southerly busters.

Unusually high pressures just south of the continent push cold frontal systems away from Australia, but the persistent high pressure favours more frequent, though weaker, southerly winds along the NSW coast. That persistent Southern Hemisphere circulation feature has generated more southerly busters during 1996–2023, relative to 1970–95.

On weather charts, the typical sequence is for high pressures over the Tasman Sea to direct hot north-northwesterly winds over the southeast Australian coast, ahead of the Southern Ocean cold frontal system. At the leading edge of the front is the southerly buster, travelling northwards from the southern NSW coast.

Southerly Busters In A Future Warming Climate

Global warming-induced large-scale atmospheric circulation changes are responsible for the annual increases of southerly buster frequencies experienced to date.

However, assuming continued global warming, it is unclear how much southern busters will continue to increase. Known southeast Australian climate drivers (El Niño or La Niña) can amplify or reduce the effects of global warming, so any projection of future of southerly busters will benefit from climate modelling studies that focus on atmospheric circulation changes.

With maximum gust speeds significantly decreasing and becoming highly variable since 1996, it is possible southerly busters are becoming shallower. This means they are bringing smaller temperature drops following their passage along the NSW coast.

Implications Of More Southerly Busters

As more people flock to the beaches for relief in a warming climate, they will be increasingly exposed to southerly busters in dangerous surf. Having more frequent southerly busters also raises the risk of wind damage to property and coastal infrastructure.

Coastal airports will need to contend with increased danger to aircraft during take-off and landing. And sudden changes in wind strength and direction will increase bushfire fire danger.

Our research shows southeastern Australia is experiencing more, not less, southerly busters. So we need to prepare for the wide-ranging consequences.

Milton Speer, Visiting Fellow, School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, University of Technology Sydney and Lance M Leslie, Professor, School of Mathematical And Physical Sciences, University of Technology Sydney

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

Over the past few decades, animal sounds have seen a huge surge in research. Advances in recording equipment and analysis techniques have driven new insights into animal behaviour, population distribution, taxonomy and anatomy.

In a new study published in Ecology and Evolution, we show the limitations of one of the most common methods used to analyse animal sounds. These limitations may have caused disagreements about a whale song in the Indian Ocean, and about animal calls on land, too.

We demonstrate a new method that can overcome this problem. It reveals previously hidden details of animal calls, providing a basis for future advances in animal sound research.

The Importance Of Whale Song

More than a quarter of whale species are listed as vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered. Understanding whale behaviour, population distribution and the impact of human-made noise is key to successful conservation efforts.

For creatures that spend nearly all their time hidden in the vast open ocean, these are difficult things to study, but analysis of whale songs can give us vital clues.

However, we can’t just analyse whale songs by listening to them – we need ways to measure them in more detail than the human ear can provide.

For this reason, often a first step in studying an animal sound is to generate a visualisation called a spectrogram. It can give us a better idea of a sound’s character. Specifically, it shows when the energy in the sound occurs (temporal details), and at what frequency (spectral details).

We can learn about the sound’s structure in terms of time, frequency and intensity by carefully inspecting these spectrograms and measuring them with other algorithms, allowing for a deeper analysis. They are also key tools in communicating findings when we publish our work.

Why Spectrograms Have Limitations

The most common method for generating spectrograms is known as the STFT. It’s used in many fields, including mechanical engineering, biomedical engineering and experimental physics.

However, it’s acknowledged to have a fundamental limitation – it can’t accurately visualise all the sound’s temporal and spectral details at the same time. This means every STFT spectrogram sacrifices either some temporal or spectral information.

This problem is more pronounced at lower frequencies. So it’s especially problematic when analysing sounds made by animals like the pygmy blue whale, whose song is so low, it approaches the lower limit of human hearing.

Before my PhD, I worked in acoustics and audio signal processing, where I became all too familiar with the STFT spectrogram and its shortcomings.

But there are different methods for generating spectrograms. It occurred to me the STFTs used in whale song studies might be hiding some details, and there could be other methods more suited to the task.

In our study, my co-author Tracey Rogers and I compared the STFT to newer visualisation methods. We used made-up (synthetic) test signals, as well as recordings of pygmy blue whales, Asian elephants and other animals, such as cassowaries and American crocodiles.

The methods we tested included a new algorithm called the Superlet transform, which we adapted from its original use in brain wave analysis. We found this method produced visualisations of our synthetic test signal with up to 28% fewer errors than the others we tested.

A Better Way To Visualise Animal Sounds

This result was promising, but the Superlet revealed its full potential when we applied it to animal sounds.

Recently, there’s been some disagreement around the Chagos pygmy blue whale song: whether its first sound is “pulsed” or “tonal”. These two terms refer to having extra frequencies in the sound, but produced in two distinct ways.

STFT spectrograms can’t resolve this debate, because they can show this sound as either pulsed or tonal, depending on how they’re configured. Our Superlet visualisation shows the sound as pulsed and agrees with most studies that describe this song.

When visualising Asian elephant rumbles, the Superlet showed pulsing that was mentioned in the original description of this sound, but has been absent from all later descriptions. It’s also never been shown in a spectrogram.

Our Superlet visualisations of the southern cassowary call and the American crocodile roar both showed previously unreported temporal details that were not shown by the spectrograms in previous studies.

These are only preliminary findings, each based on a single recording. To confirm these observations, more sounds will need to be analysed. Even so, this is fertile ground for future work.

Ease of use may be Superlet’s greatest strength, even beyond improved accuracy. Many researchers using sound to study animals have backgrounds in ecology, biology and veterinary science. They learn audio signal analysis only as a means to an end.

To improve accessibility of the Superlet transform to these researchers, we implemented it in a free, easy to use, open-source software app. We look forward to seeing what new discoveries they might make using this exciting new method.

Benjamin A. Jancovich, PhD Candidate in Behavioural Ecology and Bioacoustics, Casual Academic, UNSW Sydney

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

Australian mining and energy giant Fortescue announced late on Wednesday that its ambitious green energy goal – to produce 15 million tonnes of renewable hydrogen annually by 2030 – will be placed on hold.

As part of a broader restructure, the company will also merge its mining and energy divisions, and slash 700 jobs across its business.

The news will disappoint those who’ve eagerly awaited the emergence of a green hydrogen sector in Australia. Fortescue’s executive chairman and founder, Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, has been an outspoken supporter of the technology.

But since the announcement, Forrest has been quick to reject claims the company is walking back from its green hydrogen dreams more broadly, telling Nine Radio in Perth on Thursday:

We just have to work out now how to produce it cheaply enough.

Fortescue’s announcement reinforces the fact that one company can’t do it alone – Australia needs a coordinated approach to supporting future green industries – including renewable hydrogen.

Developing renewable hydrogen at scale - like any industry - will require both national and global action to build demand, by supporting new technologies and lowering the risk of investing in early projects. Over time, this will bring prices down.

Hydrogen Has A Role To Play – If We Can Make It Cheaply

Green or renewable hydrogen is produced by “electrolysing” or splitting water into its component elements hydrogen and oxygen using renewable electricity.

This is in contrast to non-renewable “blue hydrogen” which is extracted from natural gas using steam in a process called “steam methane reforming”.

Renewable hydrogen’s current high cost of production has been a key element of the industry’s sluggish start.

At Climateworks Centre, we’ve modelled a range of different scenarios across the whole economy to work out how Australia can best reduce its emissions at the lowest cost.

Our modelling shows renewable hydrogen can indeed play a lead role in Australia’s energy future. It becomes particularly important for transitioning industries that can’t be electrified, such as ammonia and alumina production, and heavy transport. But only if it becomes commercially viable to produce.

Hydrogen production for domestic use in 1.5⁰C scenario

This is where the Future Made in Australia policy will serve as an important “net-zero” filter by setting out tests which must be passed to unlock targeted government investment.

The policy includes an economy-wide framework to determine which industries need government support to incentivise private investment at scale. But it acknowledges we can’t do everything, everywhere, all at once – we must prioritise our actions.

Renewable hydrogen has already been assessed by Treasury as an industry that requires support under the policy. This is because it meets two key net zero “tests” – it offers Australia a sustained comparative advantage in a future net zero global economy, and needs significant public investment to reduce emissions at an efficient cost.

This should come as no surprise. Australia has a clear comparative advantage in the production of renewable hydrogen, with a skilled workforce and abundant renewable resources and land.

Renewable hydrogen is also a foundational requirement for other products we can produce and export. Modelling by CSIRO and Climateworks for the Australian Industry Energy Transitions Initiative has explored these uses.

It found that in the short term, hydrogen could help decarbonise ammonia production (used for fertiliser and explosives), and potentially also mining haulage and alumina calcination – an important step in refining aluminium. Longer term, steelmaking and freight could also require significant volumes of hydrogen.

Slow Out The Gate

Despite this potential, the market for hydrogen has been slow to get started.

A number of factors have made private investment challenging. Limited data from current large scale green hydrogen projects means there’s some uncertainty on how quickly the cost of producing renewable hydrogen will come down.

Currently, there’s also limited access to the large amounts of low-cost renewable energy required to make hydrogen projects commercially viable.

Without established local and global demand, public investment is needed to kick start this industry at scale.

Fortescue’s announcement indicates it is likely experiencing some of these challenges. But the supports contained in the Future Made in Australia policy may eventually help alleviate some of these pressures on it and other companies in the emerging industry.

A$4 billion to bridge the cost of producing renewable hydrogen and the market price with a hydrogen production credit via Hydrogen Headstart, plus a $2 per kilo hydrogen production tax incentive both aim to improve the investment outlook for green hydrogen projects.

By providing some price certainty for each kilo of renewable hydrogen produced, the government will share the risk with potential investors, making the projects more bankable. Both of these supports will be paid over a ten-year period.

Fortescue’s Setbacks Reinforce The Need For Support

Getting to net zero is complex and will require ambitious, coordinated action from government, industry, and finance.

Bold action on climate isn’t a choice, it’s an imperative. To do challenging things quickly, each part of the economy must step up. If we get this right, generations of Australians can work in and benefit from a net-zero nation run on renewable energy, with a thriving renewable hydrogen industry.

Fortescue has long taken much-needed first mover risks to drive attention and action in the global and Australian renewable hydrogen market. This week’s news is a setback, but shouldn’t be seen as a death knell for the nascent industry or for the government’s bold ambitions.

Rather, it highlights the gap that government support aims to fill by coordinating and unlocking finance, and funnelling it in the right direction. 

Kylie Turner, System Lead, Sustainable Economies, Climateworks Centre and Luke Brown, Head of Policy and Engagement, Climateworks Centre

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

Anyone who’s lived in a sharehouse knows it only takes one person to send the household off the rails. Everyone’s life is affected when one housemate leaves out food, plays loud music all night or routinely uses all the hot water. Sharing a home with someone means you’re intimately impacted by their best and worst behaviour.

But what about when your housemate’s actions cause everyone to owe money, or even put everyone at risk of eviction? Sharehouse renters can be held equally responsible if their housemates cause damage, don’t pay rent, or breach the tenancy agreement in another way.

These rules were made in a context where households were generally assumed to be a family. Choosing who you live with is typical for couple or family households, but sharehousing can involve living with people you don’t know well.

Our new research, published in the International Journal of Housing Policy, reveals how existing laws and advice on renting often aren’t fair or appropriate for sharehouse situations.

Sharehousing is becoming more crucial as the rental crisis rages on, and not just for young people. It’s time to consider different approaches; here are three changes that could help.

The Risks Of Sharehousing

Our recent paper analysed government webpages that communicate rules, regulations and advice about sharehousing to private renters.

We looked for information from each state and territory government, as there are differences in tenancy law between jurisdictions.

Across the webpages we analysed (in 2022), we ended up identifying some key risks to renters in sharehouses. These included:

• financial risks (where renters risked losing money)

• eviction risks (where renters risked being evicted)

• dispute risks (relating to disagreements between housemates).

The problem is these risks (such as they apply to sharehouse renters) weren’t always acknowledged in existing laws and guidance.

Even when these dangers were identified, often renters were warned about these risks but not always told what to do about it.

For example, on the Consumer Affairs Victoria webpage about co-renting, it says:

When someone co-rents, they can be held responsible for the actions of the other co-renters who are listed on the rental agreement. […] If your housemate is late paying their share of the rent for a few months, both of you will be “in arrears”, and could be told to leave the apartment, even though you have been paying your share on time.

Sometimes the advice acknowledged the risk but advised renters there was no help available for people in this situation.

These risks aren’t trivial. Owing money to the landlord or being evicted can be expensive and distressing, and can also damage your rental history so it’s harder to secure your next place.

And disagreements between housemates can go beyond chores and noise, with bullying and abuse possibilities that aren’t really considered in these regulations.

What Changes Could Help?

Our research also identified three steps that would make housing policy fairer for people living in sharehouses. They are:

1. Create regulations that specifically address sharehousing. Recognising that sharehousing is different from family households – and the complications this can produce – is crucial. The ACT has started to do this.

It would be good if other jurisdictions followed, so regulations address the specific issues that can occur for sharehouses.

2. Have the option of being treated as individuals. Sharehouses can be communal and friendly. They can also be formed out of necessity by people who don’t actually want to share their lives. Housing policies that give people the option to have separate tenancy agreements – rather than one that holds them equally responsible – could increase fairness.

This is already possible in some places. In Western Australia, for example, sharehouse tenants are advised that separate tenancy agreements can “avoid common complications”. This could mean the other housemates wouldn’t be blamed if one tenant caused damage or didn’t pay rent.

Other states and territories could consider introducing similar provisions.

3. Take inspiration from rental laws concerning domestic and family violence for sharehouses. In some states of Australia, victim-survivors are not liable for property damage if it was caused through an act of domestic violence. Replicating this acknowledgement in a way that is relevant for sharehouses would help people who are being victimised by a housemate who is not their intimate partner.

It is worth considering whether other rental laws around domestic and family violence could be emulated for sharehouses too, to acknowledge that some sharehouses can be unsafe.

As more people are likely to move into sharehousing, and perhaps share for longer, rental laws can respond by making sharehousing less risky.

Regulations can never fix all the problems in a sharehouse. But they can potentially address some of the issues that impact people’s housing and financial security in their current and future tenancies.

Below are some of the current government webpages about sharehousing (we did our analysis in 2022, so some webpages we analysed have been changed or updated):

• ACT

• New South Wales

• Northern Territory

• Queensland

• South Australia

• Tasmania

• Victoria

• WA

Zoe Goodall, Research Associate, Centre for Urban Transitions, Swinburne University of Technology and Wendy Stone, Professor of Housing & Social Policy, Centre for Urban Transitions, Swinburne University of Technology

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

While most adults have nostalgic memories of being young, and the freedom, exploration and learning that entails, this will be less likely for the current generation of youth. Newly published research into and by young Australians presents disturbing findings that a high proportion of Australians feel as though they are missing out on being young.

Each year, The Monash Centre for Youth Policy and Education Practice (CYPEP) surveys a nationally representative over sample of 500 young people aged 18-24. Data collected for this Australian Youth Barometer was analysed by members of CYPEP’s Youth Reference Group to provide deeper insights into what it means to be young, and why young people feel they are missing out.

While the Youth Reference Group asked to examine the raw data from 2022, the figures have remained relatively stable across subsequent years.

In 2022, 45% of 505 Australians aged 18 to 24 said they felt they were missing out on being young. These feelings were associated with pressures in young people’s lives around finances, work, education, housing, and long-term planning. Of the 45% who felt this way,

• 69% often worried about not having enough to eat
• 60% often experienced financial difficulties
• 51% were unemployed.

Insufficient support was also associated with feelings of missing out. Our study found

• 56% said there was insufficient government support for mental health
• 55% reported there was insufficient government support for education
• 51% believed there was insufficient government support for employment.

Should Australians Have A Right To Be Young?

Recently, The Conversation published promising news about establishing a long overdue Human Rights Act in Australia. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights delivered its report to parliament, which included the introduction of legislation to establish a Human Rights Act.

The report includes a model Human Rights Act for use by the government as a draft bill. The model includes important fundamental rights, many of which are relevant to children and young people who are not well protected in Australia. Those include:

• protection of children
• right to education
• right to health
• right to adequate standard of living
• right to a healthy environment.

What Young People Told Us

While enshrining these rights is important, developing rights targeting young people is challenging, given differing perspectives of what it means to be young.

Andrew from our Youth Reference Group says that being young is “discovering the world and continually building and refining a sense of identity as more experiences are collected”.

Rebecca associates being young with “learning and unlearning – perhaps viewing how your world differs from your educational environment and social structures for the first time”.

Mark said it can “mean making mistakes while being supported to learn from them”.

The Youth Reference Group members also identified real challenges.

Steven wrote how young people can be “pressured to achieve things by a certain age”.

“Being independent is an important step for young people but the cost for moving out makes it less achievable,” observed Candice, proposing that the “government should take some intervention to control the house price and provide financial support for renting among young people”.

This points to the complexity in defining what it means to be young from research and legislative perspectives.

Defining What It Means To Be Young Is Tricky

Some define it as a life stage during which psychological and physical changes occur, generally from the ages of 13 to 24. It is also considered a life stage between childhood and adulthood. The United Nations, UN Habitat, UNICEF, WHO and the African Youth Charter all use different age brackets.

A biological view sees adolescence as a time of hormonal, physical, reproductive, and sexual changes during psychosocial development, including the development of identity and self direction.

Being young is also understood as a social process that can change according to time and place, class, ethnicity, religion, disability status, or other social variables. For example, in some parts of Africa, transition into adulthood is based on achieving financial independence or marriage, rather than reaching a certain age.

And as norms continue to change, young people today are arguably expected to achieve different goals, such as decision-making in education, training and employment.

Consequently, defining a right to be young would have to account for complex biological, social and cultural nuances.

But as researchers Paula Gerber and Melissa Castan argue, while

Having a national Human Rights Act will not fix every human rights problem […] it will create a more rights-respecting culture, in government decision-making and in the community broadly, which will contribute to a stronger society. Having a Human Rights Act will make government more attuned to respecting human rights and more accountable for the consequences if it acts contrary to human rights.

This includes those of young Australians.

We acknowledge the intellectual input of our Youth Reference Group: Andrew Leap, Candice Chuning Zheng, Mark Yin, Rebecca Walters and Steven Banh.

Lucas Walsh, Professor and Director of the Centre for Youth Policy and Education Practice, Monash University; Blake Cutler, Researcher and PhD Candidate in Education, Monash University; Thuc Bao Huynh, Research Fellow, Monash University, and Zihong Deng, Research Fellow, Monash University

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

This article is part of The Conversation’s “Business Basics” series where we ask experts to discuss key concepts in business, economics and finance.

It’s July, which means if they haven’t already, many Australians will be thinking about and filing their tax returns.

You’d be hard pressed to find someone who likes paying taxes, but they fund essential public services such as health care, education, infrastructure, defence spending and social services.

In Australia, we tax individuals under a progressive tax system – the tax rate increases as your income rises. Such a system is designed to ensure those who earn more contribute a larger percentage of their income towards the country’s revenue.

But this isn’t the only way to tax individuals’ income. Some countries including Estonia and Bolivia have a “flat” tax system that imposes the same income tax rate on everyone, no matter how much they earn.

So how does Australia’s tax system work for individuals – and how has it just been changed?

First, Working Out What You Earn

Each financial year, every taxpayer must either lodge a tax return – detailing their income and any deductions or offsets to which they are entitled – or submit a “non-lodgement advice” form.

To prepare a tax return, a taxpayer has to work out their taxable income, which the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) defines as “assessable income minus any allowable deductions”.

At one end of the scale, a person’s assessable income might just include their salary or wage payments made over the course of a financial year.

But for others with diverse income streams – which could include interest, investments, government payments and profits from owning a business – preparing a tax return will be more complicated. These income streams may face their own tax implications before being taxed progressively.

Taxpayers are often able to make deductions against their taxable income, including for certain work-related expenses, charitable donations and educational costs.

Depending on their income and level of private health cover, individuals may also have pay to a Medicare levy.

It’s important to note that our discussion here is only general in nature, and tax laws are always evolving. Consider seeking professional advice to manage your own tax return.

The More You Earn, The More You Pay

Once we’ve worked out how much someone has earned, we tax them on a progressive scale, where tax rates increase with income.

But you don’t pay a higher rate of tax on all of your income, only on your respective earnings above and within certain thresholds.

For example, under the tax brackets for the last financial year (2023–24), Australian residents faced marginal tax rates of:

Bracket Creep

But there’s a problem. Over time, inflation in an economy increases the general cost of goods and services, eroding the purchasing power of money. As a result, people demand higher wages so their living standards don’t decrease.

Over the years, these higher incomes amid high inflation can push people into new tax brackets, meaning they might pay higher rates of income tax without seeing any improvement in purchasing power. This is called “bracket creep” or “tax creep”.

As the Parliamentary Budget Office explains, even those who aren’t pushed into new tax brackets can still be impacted by bracket creep. This is because the design of our system means the more a taxpayer earns, the greater the proportion of their income will be paid in tax.

Put simply, they face a higher average tax rate – total tax calculated as a proportion of total taxable income – as their income increases, even if they stay in the same bracket (excluding those below the tax-free threshold).

Avoiding bracket creep was one of the key rationales for Australia’s recent income tax cuts, stage three of which came into effect on July 1. As you might remember, these cuts were changed from what was originally planned.

The previous Coalition government’s original plan was to eliminate the 37% tax rate, reduce the 32.5% bracket rate to 30% and expand it to cover earnings all the way up to $200,000, and apply the 45% tax rate to earnings over $200,000.

But the current Labor government ended up instead lowering the 19% rate to 16%, reducing the 32.5% rate to 30% for earnings up to $135,000, keeping the 37% rate above this higher threshold, and applying the 45% marginal tax rate to earnings above $190,000.

These changes mean that over the current financial year (2024–25), Australian residents will face the following new marginal rates of income tax:

The changes have reduced some of the tax savings for those on high incomes. For example, a worker earning $200,000 will see a tax saving this year of $4,529, down from $9,075 under the original plan.

Not The Only Way To Tax

It’s sometimes argued that an alternative system of flat taxes – applying the same tax rate to everyone no matter how much they earn – could increase simplicity and economic efficiency.

But like many other countries, Australia’s progressive tax system is designed to ensure that those who earn more contribute more accordingly. One of the biggest challenges is ensuring it stays fair over time.

Shumi Akhtar, Associate Professor, University of Sydney

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

This article is part of The Conversation’s “Business Basics” series where we ask experts to discuss key concepts in business, economics and finance.

Many of us associate trust funds with their depictions in popular culture – tools used by the mega-rich to distribute enormous family incomes among “trust-fund babies”.

Recently, they even went viral as the centrepiece of a TikTok audio by user @girl_on_couch, who was famously “looking for a man in finance. With a trust fund. 6'5. Blue eyes.”

But trusts – which allow assets to be managed by one party for the benefit of others – are more widespread than many people realise.

And they’re not just for the super wealthy. In 2020-21, more than a tenth of all Australians who lodged a tax return reported trust income.

Among the most common types of trust in Australia are family trusts, which are often designed to hold family assets or manage a family business. But their popularity has seen them regularly in the sights of government and the tax office.

So what exactly are family trusts, and why are they so controversial?

First, What’s A Trust?

A trust is a legal arrangement where a person nominated as a “trustee” manages assets for the benefit of another person or particular group of people. It isn’t a separate legal entity, but rather a kind of legal relationship.

A trust imposes what’s called an “equitable obligation” on its trustee to hold and manage trust assets according to specific conditions. These are set out in a “trust deed” for the explicit benefit of others, known as the trust’s “beneficiaries”.

The trustee acts as the legally appointed administrator of trust assets. But the beneficiaries still have what’s called “equitable interest” under the arrangement – certain rights to benefit from those assets.

Trustees can be individuals or companies. And many trusts include an “appointor” who has ultimate control. This appointor can appoint or remove the trustee at any time, and in many cases must consent to any changes in the trust deed.

What’s A Family Trust, And Why Do People Use Them?

In Australia, a family trust is a type of “discretionary trust”. Unlike a “fixed trust”, this means the trustee can make decisions about how assets and income are allocated among beneficiaries.

Family trusts are typically set up by a family member for the benefit of the family as a whole. A family trust deed can nominate multiple beneficiaries. These could include not only parents, children, grandchildren and other family members, but also other trusts and even companies.

Family trusts are often used to take advantage of their tax implications. This is because between years, trustees can vary the distribution of income among beneficiaries.

Any undistributed income left in the trust is taxed at the top marginal tax rate of 45%. But if distributed to beneficiaries with lower personal marginal tax rates, it is instead taxed at those rates, which can lower the total tax paid.

This explanation oversimplifies the picture, and there are a range of important caveats.

For example, if a beneficiary is non-resident of Australia for tax purposes, the trustee will be liable to pay tax on their behalf. And distributing trust income to beneficiaries aged under 18 can attract penalty taxes at the top marginal rate.

Why Are They Controversial?

Family trusts have attracted scrutiny from regulators and the public for a range of reasons – perhaps chief among them, this broad ability to lower taxation by splitting income.

The private nature of many trusts means there is often minimal public reporting, so it can be difficult to determine who in society is benefiting from trust income, and how. There are also concerns that they can be structured inappropriately to hide income.

Trusts can also help safeguard a family’s wealth by shielding a family’s assets from the liabilities of individual members. The beneficiaries of a discretionary trust generally have no legal entitlement to its assets.

This means that if the beneficiary goes bankrupt or gets divorced, the trust’s assets may often be protected from any claims.

In 2019, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) released the findings of an independent review into trusts and the tax system. Some key areas of concern include:

• income tax shuffles (individuals exploiting differences in income definitions between trust law and tax law to dodge higher marginal tax rates)
• using convoluted structures like circular trusts (two trusts that are beneficiaries of each other) to obscure trust income and who the ultimate beneficiaries are, and
• trusts failing to lodge tax returns.

The use of trusts as a business structure in Australia may yet require further review.

This should not only seek to examine the legislation underpinning trusts, but also improve education for accountants to better understand trust and tax law.

Jamie Thwin, PhD Student (Tax Law), Griffith University; Brett David Freudenberg, Professor of Taxation, Griffith University, and Melissa Belle Isle, Lecturer Taxation, Griffith University

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

Though the Bureau of Meteorology originally predicted temperatures would be higher than the average this winter, those living on Australia’s east coast may beg to differ.

Social media sites are increasingly attracting comments, images and videos featuring their users lamenting the frigid turn in the weather.

One notable strand of these posts typically presents a user more familiar with a northern European winter coming to terms with the fact that Australian houses and apartments aren’t insulated or heated as well as those in colder climates.

In an age before central heating, Europeans too suffered through the dilemma of how to keep warm in winter. People experienced the cold extremely differently depending on factors such as socio-economics or the region in which they lived and what materials were available there.

The greatest struggle with the cold often happened at night, and strategies for keeping warm in bed were varied and innovative.

Knowing some of the ways people in pre-industrialised Europe dealt with cold weather may provide comfort through this current bout of chilly weather – either practically, or by comparison with what often were much harsher experiences of the cold.

There Were Ten In The Bed

One of the simplest ways to stay warm for those of relatively modest means was to huddle together.

In Early Modern Europe and colonial America, the quality of bedding materials varied greatly and would likely not have been enough to keep the cold at bay in the depths of winter.

Historian Carole Shammas has revealed it was common for bedding to be made from straw, and even woollen flock was considered a luxury only available to the prosperous.

Fluffy plant downs, such as the seed heads of the thistle, cattail or bulrush were commonly used. But even such humble materials were costly.

As historian A. Roger Ekirch has shown, bedding was so expensive it might equate to up to a quarter of the value of a modest household, explaining why commodities like pillows were reserved for those with some great need, like women during childbirth. For most, some other form of bolster was used, like a log.

Recently, Holly Fletcher has outlined Early Modern attempts to regulate the bedding industry in order to secure comfort and health to a wider segment of society.

Yet, the cost and general quality of bedding meant that other strategies for keeping warm persisted.

It was typical for groups of people of different genders, ages and relationship statuses to sleep in the same bed together to keep one another warm. These groups may have even included employees and employers – though sleep may also have happened in shifts, so groupings were kept appropriate according to social and cultural mores.

Bedding Down

Finer quality bedding materials were available, but they came at a prohibitive financial cost and could be difficult to source.

In his diary entry of September 9 1665, the great English writer and naval official Samuel Pepys (1633–1703) wrote:

I lay the softest I ever did in my life, with a downe bed, after the Danish manner.

Various downs had been used in Europe since the 7th century, and a down mattress would often be laid over one of stiffer material – like straw – to provide more support and even better insulation.

The most coveted down came from the Eider duck, of which there are various species. Eider ducks live along the northern coasts of Europe, North America and Siberia. Eiderdown is the down a female Eider duck pulls from her body to make a nest and has very high insulating properties as well as lightness, cohesion and resilience.

In places like Iceland, the production and trade of this valuable down had been controlled and protected by law since at least the 13th century, indicating its great worth to the wider Icelandic economy.

Eiderdown only became available in places like England and France in the 17th century, such was its rarity. Its impact was pronounced, and it attracted devotees. Letters relaying the latest political news were interspersed with advice on how to best sew down into a coverlet.

But not all those encountering eiderdown for the first time found it compelling or even necessary.

Elizabeth Charlotte, duchesse d'Orléans (1652–1722), was the sister-in-law of king Louis XIV of France (1638–1715). Upon sleeping with eiderdown for the first time, she wrote to a relative to explain she much preferred her usual method of keeping warm in bed.

That is, as the mother of an assortment of small dogs, to whom she was devoted, she simply tucked them around herself in her bed, under her covers, and slept comfortably through the night, warmed by her furry companions.

Whether pursuing multiple sleeping companions, sewing quilted down duvets or snuggling with willing pets, managing cold weather was a common preoccupation in Early Modern Europe, one which required careful consideration by individuals, industry and state regulators, with varying degrees of success.

At least in the 21st century, logs no longer have a place at the head of a mattress – whatever comfort that knowledge may bring.

Mark De Vitis, Lecturer in Art History , University of Sydney

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

Every election, state and federal, we can expect to see plenty of politicians wearing sporting scarves, attending footy games and posing with elite athletes.

But why don’t we tend to see them attending performances, galleries and posing with our leading actors, musicians, dancers and artists?

Perhaps it is partly due to differences in the way governments fund and engage with the two sectors.

Sports policies in Australia focus on increasing participation at the grassroots, understanding the benefits for both amateur individuals and for elite sports in Australia. By contrast, arts policies in Australia tend to talk not so much about participation, but about audiences.

Planning For Australians In Sport

Sports funding in Australia is very focused upon participation, fostering the clubs and associations that engage millions.

Engagement and participation for everyone is at the fore in the Australian Sports Commission’s Corporate Plan 2023–27 with the goal “involve more Australians with sport at all levels”.

There are very specific targets, such as reaching the goal of 47% of children aged 5–14 years participating in “at least two hours per week of organised sport outside of school hours”.

The plan also links to Australia’s High Performance 2032+ Sports Strategy and the National Sports Participation Strategy, reflecting a system which connects sports in the community through to elite international sport.

The states also emphasise participation in sport.

The New South Wales Office for Sport has the goal “everyone in NSW [is] participating in sport and active recreation throughout their whole life”.

The top goal of Sport and Recreation Victoria is to ensure “greater access and opportunities for participation in sport and recreation by all Victorians”.

In Queensland, the blueprint for recreation and sport has “inclusion and lifelong participation” as a core theme.

In Western Australia the aspiration is “to increase the number of Western Australians playing sport and enjoying active recreation”.

These models of participation which government sports departments talk to are quite different to the goals of most government arts departments.

Arts Are About Audiences

Looking to the arts, the emphasis shifts from participation towards audience engagement. Creative Australia’s corporate plan 2023–27 states they “[enable] artists and cultural organisations to expand their reach to audiences”.

The section of the plan titled “removing barriers to equity and participation” speaks of Australians being able to “participate as audiences, as creators, as workers and as leaders”. The key goals give primacy to more broadly engaging and enriching audiences.

Audience engagement is also reflected one way or another in the strategies of the states.

In a number of the states there is a strong emphasis on supporting professional artists and organisations, for the benefit of audiences. Arts South Australia describes one of its key roles as being to “encourage cultural and creative industries to thrive by providing targeted financial support to artists, arts organisations and events”.

Create NSW describes its role as being to “grow and support the arts, screen and cultural sectors in NSW for everyone to enjoy”.

In WA and Victoria support for the arts and culture sectors is increasingly complemented by an emphasis on economic benefits derived from the arts.

In WA, the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries’ Strategic Plan 2024–29 talks of delivering an arts and culture strategy which “creates strong employment and economic growth in the creative industries”.

In a similar vein, Victoria’s Creative State 2025 “aims to engender stability, create opportunity and stimulate growth for Victoria’s creative workers, businesses and industries”.

Queensland’s arts policy, Creative Together, has a slightly broadened emphasis, noting:

Evidence […] shows the value of arts in developing skills in problem solving, risk taking, empathy, critical thinking and teamwork, especially in an education setting. Creative Together will support arts, cultural and creative engagement that drives positive change for Queenslanders and their communities.

Absent from most of these plans are explicit policies to foster the many arts and culture activities that community members participate in. Community theatre, choirs, bands, dance studios and local art classes operate under the radar and are little recognised in government bureaucracies. They are better known to local governments, which often provide cash or in kind support.

There are signs that this might be starting to change, with the latest state budget for SA going some way towards bridging this arts/sports gap: “sports vouchers” for young people to participate in extracurricular sports activities will now be expanded to include music lessons.

However, data over the crossover between community arts activities and the funded sector is in very short supply.

The community sector comprises a large grassroots cohort of potential arts advocates. Up to 44% of Australians say they “creatively participate” in the arts. This includes playing an instrument, writing creatively, engaging in visual arts and craft, and dancing, as well as being involved with community choirs and community theatre.

However, it is not clear how those data map onto the goals and strategies of Creative Australia or those of most of the states.

The sports sector has flourished under an organised system that connects data on sports participation through to its key goals and strategies, side by side with strong support for elite performance.

Is it time for the arts to do the same?

Margaret Seares, Emeritus Professor and Senior Honorary Research Fellow, The University of Western Australia

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

The most seductive culinary myths have murky origins, with a revolutionary discovery created by accident, or out of necessity.

For the Caesar salad, these classic ingredients are spiced up with a family food feud and a spontaneous recipe invention on the Fourth of July, across the border in Mexico, during Prohibition.

Our story is set during the era when America banned the production and sale of alcohol from 1919–1933.

Two brothers, Caesar (Cesare) and Alex (Alessandro) Cardini, moved to the United States from Italy. Caesar opened a restaurant in California in 1919. In the 1920s, he opened another in the Mexican border town of Tijuana, serving food and liquor to Americans looking to circumvent Prohibition.

Tijuana’s Main Street, packed with saloons, became a popular destination for southern Californians looking for drink. It claimed to have the “world’s longest bar” at the Ballena, 215 feet (66 metres) long with ten bartenders and 30 waitresses.

The story of the Caesar salad, allegedly 100 years old, is one of a cross-border national holiday Prohibition-era myth, a brotherly battle for the claim to fame and celebrity chef endorsements.

Necessity Is The Mother Of Invention

On July 4 1924, so the story goes, Caesar Cardini was hard at work in the kitchen of his restaurant, Caesar’s Place, packed with holiday crowds from across the border looking to celebrate with food and drink.

He was confronted with a chef’s worst nightmare: running out of ingredients in the middle of service.

As supplies for regular menu items dwindled, Caesar decided to improvise with what he had on hand.

He took ingredients in the pantry and cool room and combined the smaller leaves from hearts of cos lettuce with a dressing made from coddled (one-minute boiled) eggs, olive oil, black pepper, lemon juice, a little garlic and Parmesan cheese.

The novel combination was a huge success with the customers and became a regular menu item: the Caesar salad.

Et Tu, Alex?

There is another version of the origin of the famous salad, made by Caesar’s brother, Alex, at his restaurant in Tijuana.

Alex claims Caesar’s “inspiration” was actually a menu item at his place, the “aviator’s salad”, named because he made it as a morning-after pick-me-up for American pilots after a long night drinking.

His version had many of the same ingredients, but used lime juice, not lemon, and was served with large croutons covered with mashed anchovies.

When Caesar’s menu item later became famous, Alex asserted his claim as the true inventor of the salad, now named for his brother.

Enter The Celebrity Chefs

To add to the intrigue, two celebrity chefs championed the opposing sides of this feud. Julia Child backed Caesar, and Diana Kennedy (not nearly as famous, but known for her authentic Mexican cookbooks) supported Alex’s claim.

By entering the fray, each of these culinary heavyweights added credence to different elements of each story and made the variations more popular in the US.

While Child reached more viewers in print and on television, Kennedy had local influence, known for promoting regional Mexican cuisine.

While they chose different versions, the influence of major media figures contributed to the evolution of the Caesar salad beyond its origins.

The original had no croutons and no anchovies. As the recipe was codified into an “official” version, garlic was included in the form of an infused olive oil. Newer versions either mashed anchovies directly into the dressing or added Worcestershire sauce, which has anchovies in the mix.

Caesar’s daughter, Rosa, always maintained her father was the original inventor of the salad. She continued to market her father’s trademarked recipe after his death in 1954.

Ultimately she won the battle for her father’s claim as the creator of the dish, but elements from Alex’s recipe have become popular inclusions that deviate from the purist version, so his influence is present – even if his contribution is less visible.

No Forks Required – But A Bit Of A Performance

If this weren’t enough, there is also a tasty morsel that got lost along the way.

Caesar salad was originally meant to be eaten as finger food, with your hands, using the baby leaves as scoops for the delicious dressing ingredients.

For presentation in a restaurant, the salad was also created in front of the diners’ table, on a rolling cart, with some recommending a “true” Caesar salad was tossed only seven times, clockwise.

This extra level of drama, performance and prescribed ritual was usually limited to alcohol-doused flaming desserts.

To have a humble salad, invented in desperation, elevated to this kind of treatment made it a very special dish – even without any bacon.

Garritt C. Van Dyk, Lecturer in History, University of Newcastle

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

The savage purging of independent thought and creativity among Russian intellectuals since Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine continues apace.

In 2020 a play called Finist the Bright Falcon by Svetlana Petriychuk premiered in Moscow. The state-funded production was directed by Evgeniya Berkovich. The play won two awards at Russia’s prestigious Golden Mask theatre festival in 2022. Its title is drawn from a popular Russian folk tale. The tale describes the long and hazardous journey undertaken by a fair maiden in order to find true love with a young prince who had visited her in the guise of a bird with magnificent plumage.

Petriychuk’s play seeks to understand the naive decisions of young women who have been seduced online to go and become brides of Isis fighters, and who are charged with terrorism offences when they return to Russia. It was partly based on court transcripts.

This article is part of our State of the Arts series. These articles tackle the challenges of the arts and heritage industry – and celebrate the wins, too.

Several describe their dull lives in Russia and difficulties with Russian men. Their supposed future husbands tempt them to travel to Syria with fantastical and exotic narratives of life as a Muslim bride. None of the women express any awareness of terrorist violence. On the Golden Mask website Petriychuk explains:

We took an extremely complex theme, in which it was exceptionally difficult to connect with the protagonists, to understand them, to have empathy with them, and to understand what happened […] What does a person – a woman – lack, for her to gamble absolutely her entire life, and entrust herself not even to a man, but just to an image on a screen, and then dash off to some fairytale land in order to find her Finist?

In May 2023, two years after the play’s run had ended, the theatre world was stunned when Berkovich and Petriychuk were themselves arrested. They were charged with terrorism offences relating to Isis ideology propaganda. Petriychuk was accused of writing the play because of sympathies with Islamist extremism and director, Berkovich, was accused of conspiring with her. They could face five to seven years in prison if found guilty: the acquittal rate in Russian courts is less than 1%.

Both women were refused bail and have now been imprisoned for over a year in pre-trial detention, even though Berkovich is the mother of two adopted daughters with developmental issues. No pro-Islamic materials were found during searches of her apartment.

In spring 2024, a petition with 16,000 signatures supporting Berkovich and Petriychuk was published. Dozens of leading intellectual and cultural figures have vouched for their artistic and human credentials, but these pleas have been ignored. The pre-trial investigation has dragged on, even though the prosecution has offered only the flimsiest of evidence.

On May 20, this surreal case finally came to trial in a military court. The two defendants were brought to the hearings in handcuffs and confined to a glass cage during the proceedings. The charges were initially brought on the basis of a “destructological”, “expert analysis” of the play and its performance.

The expert, Roman Silantev, invented the “science” of destructology himself and claims it comprehensively examines extremist and terrorist organisations. Silantev argued that the play seemed to endorse Isis ideology while also promoting “an ideology of radical feminism” by depicting Russian men in a defamatory light. There are glaring contradictions in accusing the two women of simultaneously supporting radical Islam and radical feminism. But even the Ministry of Justice’s own admission that “destructology” is not an officially recognised science has not prevented these two themes from shaping the case against them.

Strikingly, most prosecution witnesses, such as the actresses from the production, have insisted that the play was intended precisely to work as a warning against Isis grooming strategies.

The trial has raised existential questions about the nature of an artistic product and the responsibility of a work’s creator for its content. As the exiled playwright Mikhail Durnenkov commented:

I can only agree with those who consider the ‘expert report’ on Finist the Bright Falcon to be one of the most ludicrous documents of our ludicrous epoch. The logic of the prosecution could easily have charged Dostoyevsky with justifying premeditated murder, Pushkin with promoting arson and robbery, or Tolstoy with instigating a war.

Berkovich has declared that she doesn’t even understand how the words of the charge can apply to her, since they are so absurd. The two women have responded with humour and great courage throughout, but by June 10, the strain on Berkovich made it necessary for her to receive emergency medical care in the courthouse.

On June 13 it was announced that all future sessions of the trial were to be held behind closed doors after the prosecution said witnesses were being threatened on social media. The defendants’ team has pointed out that there is scant evidence for any threats, and noted how “convenient” this step was, since it coincided with the start of evidence from the witnesses for the defence.

This case is the most shocking recent example of Putin’s purge of contemporary culture. It is the first time a playwright and director have been put on trial for a play in Russia. Doubts about the content of a play exploring the subject of radicalisation in the west are not unheard of. In 2015, the UK’s National Youth Theatre cancelled production of a play about youth radicalisation by Omar El-Khairy, just ten days before its first performance. This led to accusations of censorship. But at least El-Khairy and the director were not put on trial for their artistic work.

Why is this egregiously cruel injustice happening? Some have suggested that Berkovich’s anti-war poems may have attracted hostile attention to her. Why otherwise initiate this case in 2023 in relation to a play from 2020?

The exiled theatre and film director Kirill Serebrennikov has said of Berkovich (his “favourite pupil”) that: “We should be proud of you: in the culture of any normal country people like you would represent a rarity, a miracle, a source of pride. But in Russia at the moment everything is topsy-turvy.”

Thousands of people apprehensively await the verdict. For the moment it seems that theatre will only be allowed to survive as an instrument of patriotic discourse in Putin’s new Russia.

Julie Curtis, Professor of Russian Literature (Emerita), University of Oxford

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

There’s little else in the food world that brings about as much social turbulence as the durian. This so-called “king of all fruits” is considered a delicacy across its native Southeast Asia, where durian season is currently in full swing.

Global interest in the pungent food has also grown considerably in recent years. But despite this, the durian continues to be loathed as much as it is lauded. What’s behind its polarising nature?

Loved And Loathed In Equal Measure

The international market for durians grew 400% last year. This is mainly due to China, where demand has expanded 12-fold since 2017.

And although heavy rain and heatwaves have resulted in lower yields, the projected growth for 2024 looks promising.

But not everyone is a devotee. The durian often becomes a prickly topic in my conversations with friends in Southeast Asia – with family members clashing over its loud presence in the kitchen.

Durian is even banned in various hotels and public spaces across Southeast Asian countries. In 2018, a load of durian delayed the departure of an Indonesian flight after travellers insisted the stinky cargo be removed.

The fruit’s taste and smell are notoriously difficult to pinpoint. One article touting its benefits describes its odour as a rousing medley of “sulfur, sewage, fruit, honey, and roasted and rotting onions”.

Cultural And Historical Perspectives

Regardless of its divisive qualities, the durian has a central role in Southeast Asian cuisine and cultures. For centuries, Indigenous peoples across the region have sustainably grown diverse species of the fruit.

At Borobudur, a ninth-century Buddhist temple in Java, Indonesia, relief panels depict durian as a symbol of abundance.

In Malaysia, it’s common to find courtyards full of durian trees in people’s homes. These trees are cherished, as they provide generations of family members with food, medicine and shelter.

The durian also features in creation stories. In one myth from the Philippines, it’s said that a cave-dwelling recluse named Impit Purok concocted a special fruit to help an elderly king attract a bride. But when the king failed to invite him to the wedding party, the furious hermit cursed his creation with a potent stench.

In the West, the durian was first recorded and observed in the early 15th century by Italian merchant and explorer Niccolò de’ Conti. De’ Conti acknowledged the fruit’s esteem throughout the Malay archipelago, but considered its odour nauseating.

Early Western illustrations of the fruit can be found in Dutch spy and cartographer Jan Huygen van Linschoten’s book Itinerario (1596). The author remarks that the durian smells like rotten onions when first opened, but that with time one can acquire a taste for it.

Another scientific account comes from the 1741 book Ambonese Herbal, by German botanist Georg Eberhard Rumphius. Rumphius identified the fruit’s tough outer skin as the source of its pungency, noting how the people of Indonesia’s Ambon Island had a habit of disposing of the noxious rinds on the shoreline.

A Fruit Of Contradictions

In Southeast Asian film and literature, the durian exerts a powerful yet contradictory effect on the senses. Director Fruit Chan’s film Durian Durian (2000) homes in on these polarising tendencies.

Set in Hong Kong, the film traces the transformation of the characters’ attitudes towards the durian. While the fruit incites revulsion at first, it eventually becomes an object of affection among the family portrayed in the film.

This acceptance of the durian doubles as an analogy, reflecting the family’s acceptance of one of the main characters’ life as a sex worker.

In contrast, the Singaporean film Wet Season (2019) by Anthony Chen highlights various traditional views of the fruit. For example, the illicit affair between a teacher and her student calls attention to a persistent belief in the durian’s ability to arouse sexual desire and boost fertility (although any aphrodisiac benefits remain scientifically unproven).

A number of literary works also probe the durian’s cultural complexity. Singaporean poet Hsien Min Toh’s poem, Durians, opens by referring to the fruit’s “unmistakeable waft: like garbage and onions and liquid petroleum gas all mixed in one”.

At the same time it frames the durian tree as a canny being, as it never allows falling fruit to harm the vulnerable humans spreading its seeds on the ground below.

US poet Sally Wen Mao attends to the enigma in her poem Hurling A Durian. She notes how on one hand the fruit nurtures desire, while on the other it purges memory like a poison. Mesmerised by its perplexing allure, the poet inhales its penetrating scent and strokes its rind until her fingers bleed.

The Future And Conservation

Although 30 species of durian are known to science (and more continue to be identified), only one species, Durio zibethinus, dominates the global market. Unfortunately, the growing demand for this one type is causing harm by displacing native forests, flora and even Indigenous communities.

In Indonesian Borneo, or Kalimantan, oil palm plantations threaten durian diversity by leaving less room for diverse species of durian to be cultivated. This imperils the cultural practices and beliefs linked to the durian tree.

It also impacts all the other animals that rely on the fruit. Elephants, orangutans and many other endangered fauna relish the durian, while bats and other pollinators help sustain its diversity. As such, effective conservation efforts must engage meaningfully with local people and species.

Perhaps, if past depictions of the durian helped shape its reputation, then new depictions could help conserve this king among fruits.

John Charles Ryan, Adjunct Associate Professor, Faculty of Business, Law and Arts, Southern Cross University

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

Australia hands out the best part of A$1 billion per year in grants to businesses. Many of these come with no strings attached, meaning there is no need to evaluate whether the grants boost employment, help the recipients become more efficient, or benefit the nation.

To test what good these grants do, my team at the Institute of Public Accountants-Deakin University Small and Medium Enterprise Research Centre tracked the performance of the 141,800 firms that received a total of $4.2 billion in Commonwealth government grants in the five years from 2018 to 2022.

Our task was made easier by a requirement that from 2018 all grants from Commonwealth entities be published on the government’s GrantConnect website.

GrantConnect gave us information about each firm that received a grant, which we used to examine its finances and compare them to the finances of other firms of similar sizes in similar locations and industries.

The largest number of grants were to firms that specialised in innovation and R&D (9,086), especially in the manufacturing and professional, scientific and technical industries. Another 2,150 were for “business development” and 2,084 were aimed at “small business”.

As far as we know, ours is the first such study in Australia.

Multiple Recipients Performed Poorly

We find many of the grants generated no significant improvements in the performance of the firms that received them. In some cases they might have harmed them.

The firms that received repeated grants (almost two-thirds of the total) exhibited lower than normal efficiency and productivity. This suggests Australia’s system of grants might be propping up and sustaining an entire cohort of underperforming “subsidy businesses”.

This finding lends weight to predictions of global studies that have found receiving grants can lead to a “grant mentality” or “grant culture” within individual businesses.

These generally low-performing multiple grant recipients got $1.3 billion of the $4.2 billion total.

How Grants Are Awarded Matters

The average picture looked good. On average, the firms that received the grants boosted their employment, their business performance and their efficiency.

But the way in which the recipient was selected mattered a lot.

The firms that were simply awarded grants on the basis of being eligible rather than having to compete for them did badly. They suffered average declines in their returns on assets of 4.9% and declines in their turnover of 6.6%.

The overwhelming majority of grants (eight in ten) were awarded this way. Applicants merely had to meet eligibility criteria, without any assessment of their merits relative to other applicants or their obligations to taxpayers.

Older businesses gained more from grants than younger businesses. Recipients aged ten years and older increased their returns on assets by an average of 3.5% compared to startups, which increased their returns by an average of 2.7%.

For employment, things were the other way around. Startups recorded high average workforce gains of 5.1% compared to older firms, which recorded only 1.3%.

Opaque By Design

We found it hard to assess the outcomes of grants against criteria because the Commonwealth seldom provides criteria with which to assess grant outcomes.

Nor, typically, does it provide comprehensive information on the purposes of individual grants.

This suggests a worrying lack of rigour in the government’s grant selection processes. There’s little to stop public funds going to companies that fail to convert taxpayer support into positive results for themselves or for the nation.

The Australian National Audit Office has also found a broad and systemic lack of transparency throughout most Commonwealth government grants programs, as we did in an earlier report on the process by which grants are awarded in February.

Our report found that while competitive selection was rare for every category of business grants, it was especially rare for business development grants, small business grants and industry innovation grants.

Small business grants awarded via ministerial discretion had higher average values than grants awarded via formal processes.

Ministers handed out about half-a-billion dollars without formal processes between 2018 and 2022.

While small tweaks to the existing system might help, our report recommends a complete overhaul to make the processes merit-based with clear criteria and benchmarks for success as well as evaluations of success after the event.

Importantly, our recommendations would be relatively costless, both for grant administrators and applicants.

Our investigations are not complete. Later this year we will publish our findings about grants to non-business community organisations.

George A. Tanewski, Professor in Accounting, Deakin University

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

Australian celebrity cook Maggie Beer has long been an advocate for better quality meals in aged care. It led her to a four-month immersion in an aged care residence with the goal of transforming the meals and dining experiences there.

She and the producers of a three-part ABC documentary series, Maggie Beer’s Big Mission, which will premiere and stream from tonight, hope it will spark nationwide change.

The program was motivated by the high levels of neglect, malnutrition and social isolation identified by the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety and a new rights-based Aged Care Act, which is currently being drafted.

Our team of speech pathologists, occupational therapists, dietitians, and researchers had a behind-the-scenes view of this “social experiment”. We helped evaluate its impact for residents and staff, to understand how other centres could use the same evidence-based approach.

Turning Problems Into Solutions

The experiment took place in a section of Meath Care’s Dr Mary Surveyor Centre in Kingsley, Western Australia, home to 44 residents.

At the start of the experiment 78% of residents evaluated were at risk of malnutrition or malnourished and 46% experienced depression. These figures are confronting yet not unusual based on previous studies and the Royal Commission estimate that 68% of Australians in residential aged care are malnourished or at risk of becoming so.

Maggie, aged 79, and her team of experts worked alongside staff and residents to design and implement a new model of mealtime care. This included:

• making meals more nourishing, flavoursome and visually appealing, with increased protein and fresh ingredients
• giving residents variety, choice and independence with a buffet-style offering
• involving residents in mealtime roles such as setting tables and restocking supplies
• creating a calmer, more dignified and social mealtime experience.

These sound like simple changes, but they can be challenging given budget adjustments, physical renovations and staff training and support. Resident and staff responses revealed a pathway to better nutrition and socially engaging care.

Here’s what the experiment showed can work:

1. Influential Leadership

Maggie Beer has championed this issue, modelling humility and openness to learning. She fronted a team with a shared vision – “to make every mouthful count”.

She shows leaders can work alongside staff to understand the challenges and identify solutions, share accountability for change and celebrate success.

2. Questioning Habits And The Status Quo

Just because meals have always been prepared or served in a certain way, doesn’t mean it’s the best way. Standards of care can be re-imagined and the evidence translated into resident-centred care.

What the program shows is small changes (like making one’s own fresh toast, served hot) can make a difference to choice and mealtime enjoyment.

It also means being flexible enough for different needs and safety considerations. For example, texture modified diets – food textures that improve safety for residents with swallowing difficulties – can be hard to get right. But that doesn’t mean change can’t happen. As one senior staff member noted, there is dignity in having the same meal as others:

Traditionally, the aged care puree diet would be yesterday’s food or batch prepared and put in the freezer. Now, having the same food cooked out of the same oven and then modified, for me, I think that runs to dignity.

3. Experiencing Change

Maggie and her team provided more than 175 hours of training to staff. Topics included nutrition, swallowing, oral health, as well as leadership and person-centred care.

Coaching, mentorship and support in the kitchen and dining room was also provided.

Staff valued seeing, feeling and experiencing the benefits that flowed from new ways of facilitating residents’ choice and independence during meals. This built momentum and shifted mindsets. As one care worker said:

[…] you don’t realise how independent some people [residents] can be. They’ve never had the opportunity. They never cease to amaze me about what they can do if they’re given the opportunity.

4. Harnessing Mealtime Expertise

We know there is not enough access to allied health care in residential settings. This means residents don’t always get the support of occupational therapists, dietitians or speech pathologists when they need it.

The series shows bringing allied health expertise into the dining room can enhance residents’ health and wellbeing. Mealtime interventions – making therapeutic changes such as suitable eating implements, modified diets and textures or assistance with eating in a real-life context – helps care staff see the residents’ potential.

5. Keeping The Model Going

The program and the changes it brought were not without tension. But these were viewed as a positive sign of change.

As part of the recipe for change it is important to set staff up for success, providing the knowledge, tools (such as self-assessments and mealtime auditing) and ongoing support to sustain change and recognise if the quality of meals and dining experiences are slipping. As one team leader said:

I’m probably most proud of the way the staff have been able to adapt […] I’m proud of how they’ve stood up and said, oh, hang on a minute, we’ve all learned that this is not a really good way of doing it.

Will It Work On A Bigger Scale?

This real-life experiment successsfully improved residents’ appetite, mealtime satisfaction and mood, with full results being prepared for publication.

The standard of mealtime care was lifted with many residents enjoying increased choice and independence, as one resident said:

I can see what I’m getting, and I can get what I want.

It is a model that can be adopted nationwide if aged care organisations invest in the vision, training and ongoing support for staff to make the necessary change.

Tools have been created for other aged care organisations to replicate the model, considering self-service options for example.

We all have a role to play in supporting this mission and lifting the standard of care – ensuring residents are nourished, socially engaged and active partners in their care.

Jade Cartwright, Associate Professor, School of Health Sciences, University of Tasmania; Anne Whitworth, Professor, School of Health Sciences, University of Tasmania; Elizabeth Oliver, Sessional Academic, Occupational Therapy, Curtin University, and Lynette R. Goldberg, Associate Professor, Wicking Dementia Research Education Centre, University of Tasmania

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

Our ageing population brings a growing crisis: people over 65 are at greater risk of dual sensory impairment (also known as “deafblindness” or combined vision and hearing loss).

Some 66% of people over 60 have hearing loss and 33% of older Australians have low vision. Estimates suggest more than a quarter of Australians over 80 are living with dual sensory impairment.

Combined vision and hearing loss describes any degree of sight and hearing loss, so neither sense can compensate for the other. Dual sensory impairment can occur at any point in life but is increasingly common as people get older.

The experience can make older people feel isolated and unable to participate in important conversations, including about their health.

Causes And Conditions

Conditions related to hearing and vision impairment often increase as we age – but many of these changes are subtle.

Hearing loss can start as early as our 50s and often accompany other age-related visual changes, such as age-related macular degeneration.

Other age-related conditions are frequently prioritised by patients, doctors or carers, such as diabetes or heart disease. Vision and hearing changes can be easy to overlook or accept as a normal aspect of ageing. As an older person we interviewed for our research told us

I don’t see too good or hear too well. It’s just part of old age.

An Invisible Disability

Dual sensory impairment has a significant and negative impact in all aspects of a person’s life. It reduces access to information, mobility and orientation, impacts social activities and communication, making it difficult for older adults to manage.

It is underdiagnosed, underrecognised and sometimes misattributed (for example, to cognitive impairment or decline). However, there is also growing evidence of links between dementia and dual sensory loss. If left untreated or without appropriate support, dual sensory impairment diminishes the capacity of older people to live independently, feel happy and be safe.

A dearth of specific resources to educate and support older Australians with their dual sensory impairment means when older people do raise the issue, their GP or health professional may not understand its significance or where to refer them. One older person told us:

There’s another thing too about the GP, the sort of mentality ‘well what do you expect? You’re 95.’ Hearing and vision loss in old age is not seen as a disability, it’s seen as something else.

Isolated Yet More Dependent On Others

Global trends show a worrying conundrum. Older people with dual sensory impairment become more socially isolated, which impacts their mental health and wellbeing. At the same time they can become increasingly dependent on other people to help them navigate and manage day-to-day activities with limited sight and hearing.

One aspect of this is how effectively they can comprehend and communicate in a health-care setting. Recent research shows doctors and nurses in hospitals aren’t making themselves understood to most of their patients with dual sensory impairment. Good communication in the health context is about more than just “knowing what is going on”, researchers note. It facilitates:

• shorter hospital stays
• fewer re-admissions
• reduced emergency room visits
• better treatment adherence and medical follow up
• less unnecessary diagnostic testing
• improved health-care outcomes.

‘Too Hard’

Globally, there is a better understanding of how important it is to maintain active social lives as people age. But this is difficult for older adults with dual sensory loss. One person told us

I don’t particularly want to mix with people. Too hard, because they can’t understand. I can no longer now walk into that room, see nothing, find my seat and not recognise [or hear] people.

Again, these experiences increase reliance on family. But caring in this context is tough and largely hidden. Family members describe being the “eyes and ears” for their loved one. It’s a 24/7 role which can bring frustration, social isolation and depression for carers too. One spouse told us:

He doesn’t talk anymore much, because he doesn’t know whether [people are] talking to him, unless they use his name, he’s unaware they’re speaking to him, so he might ignore people and so on. And in the end, I noticed people weren’t even bothering him to talk, so now I refuse to go. Because I don’t think it’s fair.

So, What Can We Do?

Dual sensory impairment is a growing problem with potentially devastating impacts.

It should be considered a unique and distinct disability in all relevant protections and policies. This includes the right to dedicated diagnosis and support, accessibility provisions and specialised skill development for health and social professionals and carers.

We need to develop resources to help people with dual sensory impairment and their families and carers understand the condition, what it means and how everyone can be supported. This could include communication adaptation, such as social haptics (communicating using touch) and specialised support for older adults to navigate health care.

Increasing awareness and understanding of dual sensory impairment will also help those impacted with everyday engagement with the world around them – rather than the isolation many feel now.

Moira Dunsmore, Senior Lecturer, Sydney Nursing School, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney, University of Sydney; Annmaree Watharow, Lived Experience Research Fellow, Centre for Disability Research and Policy, University of Sydney, and Emily Kecman, Postdoctoral research fellow, Department of Linguistics, University of Sydney

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

Have you ever tried to bring back fond memories by eating or drinking something unique to that time and place?

It could be a Pina Colada that recalls an island holiday? Or a steaming bowl of pho just like the one you had in Vietnam? Perhaps eating a favourite dish reminds you of a lost loved one – like the sticky date pudding Nanna used to make?

If you have, you have tapped into food-evoked nostalgia.

As researchers, we are exploring how eating and drinking certain things from your past may be important for your mood and mental health.

Bittersweet Longing

First named in 1688 by Swiss medical student, Johannes Hoffer, nostalgia is that bittersweet, sentimental longing for the past. It is experienced universally across different cultures and lifespans from childhood into older age.

But nostalgia does not just involve positive or happy memories – we can also experience nostalgia for sad and unhappy moments in our lives.

In the short and long term, nostalgia can positively impact our health by improving mood and wellbeing, fostering social connection and increasing quality of life. It can also trigger feelings of loneliness or meaninglessness.

We can use nostalgia to turn around a negative mood or enhance our sense of self, meaning and positivity.

Research suggests nostalgia alters activity in the brain regions associated with reward processing – the same areas involved when we seek and receive things we like. This could explain the positive feelings it can bring.

Nostalgia can also increase feelings of loneliness and sadness, particularly if the memories highlight dissatisfaction, grieving, loss, or wistful feelings for the past. This is likely due to activation of brain areas such as the amygdala, responsible for processing emotions and the prefrontal cortex that helps us integrate feelings and memories and regulate emotion.

How To Get Back There

There are several ways we can trigger or tap into nostalgia.

Conversations with family and friends who have shared experiences, unique objects like photos, and smells can transport us back to old times or places. So can a favourite song or old TV show, reunions with former classmates, even social media posts and anniversaries.

What we eat and drink can trigger food-evoked nostalgia. For instance, when we think of something as “comfort food”, there are likely elements of nostalgia at play.

Foods you found comforting as a child can evoke memories of being cared for and nurtured by loved ones. The form of these foods and the stories we tell about them may have been handed down through generations.

Food-evoked nostalgia can be very powerful because it engages multiple senses: taste, smell, texture, sight and sound. The sense of smell is closely linked to the limbic system in the brain responsible for emotion and memory making food-related memories particularly vivid and emotionally charged.

But, food-evoked nostalgia can also give rise to negative memories, such as of being forced to eat a certain vegetable you disliked as a child, or a food eaten during a sad moment like a loved ones funeral. Understanding why these foods evoke negative memories could help us process and overcome some of our adult food aversions. Encountering these foods in a positive light may help us reframe the memory associated with them.

What People Told Us About Food And Nostalgia

Recently we interviewed eight Australians and asked them about their experiences with food-evoked nostalgia and the influence on their mood. We wanted to find out whether they experienced food-evoked nostalgia and if so, what foods triggered pleasant and unpleasant memories and feelings for them.

They reported they could use foods that were linked to times in their past to manipulate and influence their mood. Common foods they described as particularly nostalgia triggering were homemade meals, foods from school camp, cultural and ethnic foods, childhood favourites, comfort foods, special treats and snacks they were allowed as children, and holiday or celebration foods. One participant commented:

I guess part of this nostalgia is maybe […] The healing qualities that food has in mental wellbeing. I think food heals for us.

Another explained

I feel really happy, and I guess fortunate to have these kinds of foods that I can turn to, and they have these memories, and I love the feeling of nostalgia and reminiscing and things that remind me of good times.

Understanding food-evoked nostalgia is valuable because it provides us with an insight into how our sensory experiences and emotions intertwine with our memories and identity. While we know a lot about how food triggers nostalgic memories, there is still much to learn about the specific brain areas involved and the differences in food-evoked nostalgia in different cultures.

In the future we may be able to use the science behind food-evoked nostalgia to help people experiencing dementia to tap into lost memories or in psychological therapy to help people reframe negative experiences.

So, if you are ever feeling a little down and want to improve your mood, consider turning to one of your favourite comfort foods that remind you of home, your loved ones or a holiday long ago. Transporting yourself back to those times could help turn things around.

Megan Lee, Senior Teaching Fellow, Psychology, Bond University; Doug Angus, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Bond University, and Kate Simpson, Sessional academic, Bond University

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

Suppliers of food and other products have been complaining for years about their treatment at the hands of Woolworths, Coles and Australia’s other big supermarket chains, although rarely to the supermarkets themselves – perhaps, as suggested in a recent Four Corners program, because they feared retribution.

The final report of the independent review of the food and grocery code of conduct released today by economist and former government minister Craig Emerson finds they’ve had reason for complaint, and devotes an entire chapter to the “fear of retribution”.

Emerson rightly says the problem with the code is it has been voluntary and not backed by penalties.

He has recommended a mandatory code backed by hefty fines of up to A$10 million, or three times the benefit gained from the contravening conduct or 10% of turnover in the preceding 12 months, whichever is the greater.

The government has accepted his recommendations and Woolworths, Coles, ALDI and Metcash (which buys goods on behalf of IGA) have agreed in principle to be bound by a decision of a mediator to award compensation of up to $5 million for breaches of the code.

Retailers have always denied treating suppliers badly, but the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has found compelling evidence of exploitation and unconscionable conduct which has been accepted by the Federal Court.

The Code Has Been Voluntary

It is sometimes said that retailers have to be tough on suppliers in order to get consumers low prices. A former top US competition regulator once told me that “if retailers beat the s*** out of suppliers, customers will benefit”.

Of course, this is only true where there is strong competition among retailers. Emerson’s proposed mandatory code will work better if it is backed by stronger laws to enforce competition.

The existing voluntary code of behaviour has been ineffective. Emerson reports that farmers and other suppliers haven’t wanted to put buyers offside by using it.

His proposed solutions are a new anonymous complaints mechanism alongside fines of up to $10 million.

My experience tells me big sticks like this are often effective without even being used. Their mere existence will make Coles and Woolworths and Aldi and Metcash go out of their way to treat suppliers more carefully.

Emerson Should Have Gone Further

Oddly, Emerson asserts that under the Constitution a mandatory code cannot impose binding arbitration on a company.

He seems unaware codes already do this in industries including telecommunications and most recently in the news media bargaining code.

While Emerson recognises the importance of strengthening competition laws, he stops short of supporting giving the courts the power to force divestiture of supermarkets where supermarket chains abuse their positions, not mentioning that Labor (perhaps due to pressure from the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association) is the only political party not to support such a sanction.

Emerson’s report says forced divestiture of stores might not be credible because it might push these stores into the hands of other big chains or force them to close.

This repeats the standard assertions of Coles and Woolworths, and it fails to acknowledge that forced divestiture could be used effectively in other ways, by making supermarkets divest their petrol or liquor or other operations.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has experience with divestiture of supermarkets. In 2001 it ensured the Frankins group was broken up rather than taken over intact, with most of its stores going to Metcash and branded as IGAs.

Woolworths and Coles might not have been keen to mention this.

Personally, I believe that a general divestiture power should be introduced for all businesses. Retail would not be very high on my list of possible targets.

Regardless, the $10 million penalty and the other processes recommended by Emerson and adopted by the government are going to make a big difference. Supermarket chains are going to have to tread carefully from here on.

Allan Fels, Professorial Fellow, The University of Melbourne

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

We’re in the midst of a bad cold and flu season in Australia. Along with the usual viral suspects, such as influenza, RSV, and rhinoviruses (which cause the common cold), bacterial pathogens are also causing significant rates of illness, particularly in children. These include Bordatella pertussis (whooping cough) and Mycoplasma pneumoniae.

Meanwhile, SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID) is responsible for recurring waves of infection as it continues to evolve and mutate into new variants which keep it a step ahead of our immunity.

The latest variant is nicknamed “FLuQE”, and is reportedly gaining traction in Australia and other countries. So what is there to know about FLuQE?

From FLiRT To FLuQE

In recent months, you may have heard of the “FLiRT” subvariants. These are decedents of the Omicron variant JN.1, including KP.1.1, KP.2 and JN.1.7.

KP.2, in particular, significantly contributed to COVID infections in Australia and elsewhere around May.

The name FLiRT refers to the amino acid substitutions in the spike protein (F456L, V1104L and R346T). Amino acids are the molecular building blocks of proteins, and the spike protein is the protein on the surface of SARS-CoV-2 which allows it to attach to our cells. These changes in the spike protein arise from mutation – random changes in the genetic code of the virus.

SARS-CoV-2’s goal is to select mutations that produce a spike protein that binds strongly to our cells’ receptors to support efficient infection (sometimes called viral fitness) while avoiding neutralising antibodies in our immune system (immune pressure).

The FLiRT mutations seem to reduce the ability of neutralising antibodies to bind to the spike protein, potentially enabling the virus to better evade our immunity. But at the same time, it appears the immune pressure which has selected for these mutations may have affected the ability of the virus to bind to our cells.

These findings are yet to be peer-reviewed (independently verified by other researchers). However, they suggest the FLiRT variants may have traded in some ability to infect our cells for a spike protein that’s more resistant to our immune system.

According to experts in Australia and internationally, what appears to have occurred with FLuQE is an additional mutation has restored fitness that may have been lost with the FLiRT mutations.

FLuQE (KP.3) is a direct descendant of FLiRT, meaning it has inherited the same mutations as the FLiRT variants. But it has an additional amino acid change in the spike protein, Q493E (giving FLuQE its name).

This means the amino acid glutamine at position 493 has changed to glutamic acid (the spike protein is 1,273 amino acids long). Glutamine is a neutral amino acid, whereas glutamic acid has a negative charge, which changes the properties of the spike protein. This could improve the ability of the virus to infect our cells.

It’s still early days for FLuQE and we don’t have peer-reviewed research on this yet. But it appears we now have (another) immune evasive virus that is also well adapted to infecting our cells. It’s no surprise, then, that FLuQE seems to be becoming dominant in many countries.

What Next?

We would expect with widespread transmission of and infection with FLiRT and FLuQE variants, population immunity to these variants will mature, and in time, their dominance will be supplanted by the next immune-evasive variant.

The tug of war between our immune system and SARS-CoV-2 evolution continues. The issue we are dealing with now is vaccines don’t sufficiently protect from infection or suppress virus transmission. While they’re very good at protecting against severe disease, the virus still infects lots of people.

As well as the burden on people and health care, lots of infections means more opportunities for the virus to evolve. The more “rolls of the dice” the virus has to find a mutation that helps it evade our immune system and infect our cells, the more likely it is to do so.

Next-generation vaccines and therapies really need to boost immunity in the upper respiratory tract (nose and throat) to reduce infection and transmission. This is where infection initiates. A human challenge study, where volunteers are experimentally exposed to SARS-CoV-2, showed people who didn’t become infected had a robust anti-viral immune response in their upper respiratory tract.

To this end, there are immune-stimulating nasal sprays and nasal vaccines in clinical development. The hope is this approach will slow down the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 and the emergence of new subvariants that continue to drive waves of infection and disease.

Fortunately, so far these mutations have not generated a virus that is obviously more pathogenic (causes worse disease), but there are no guarantees this won’t happen in the future.

Nathan Bartlett, Professor, School of Biomedical Sciences and Pharmacy, University of Newcastle

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

As a mother, I know the dread of hearing a gastro bug is going around the daycare, school or netball team. Diarrhoea and vomiting can stun a healthy child for days and wreak havoc on a family for weeks.

As a paediatrician, with extensive research experience in acute gastroenteritis (gastro), I also understand the effects on the community, our hospitals and our most vulnerable patients.

In the past year, Australia has experienced a surge in gastro cases due to a bug called cryptosporidium, which particularly affects children.

Cryptosporidium is not the only cause of gastro, but its spread provides a timely reminder to think about what we can do to manage and prevent this nasty illness.

Symptoms And Causes

Gastro is characterised by the rapid onset of diarrhoea, or vomiting, or both, which lasts fewer than 14 days. These symptoms may be accompanied by tummy pain, nausea, appetite loss and fever.

Hundreds of strains of different pathogens may infect the gut to cause gastro. Worldwide, viral pathogens (such as rotavirus or norovirus) are the most common cause, but bacterial pathogens (such as Salmonella or E. coli) and parasites (such as Giardia and cryptosporidium) also cause gastro. Traveller’s diarrhoea may involve pathogens rarely seen in Australia, such as typhoid and cholera.

Gastro is usually transmitted from person to person, including through contact with saliva, vomit or faeces. It may also be acquired by ingesting contaminated water or food (food poisoning), swimming in contaminated water (in pools, dams, estuaries or water parks), or contact with farm animals.

What About Cryptosporidium?

Cryptosporidium is a relatively common cause of gastro, called cryptosporidiosis. It especially affects young children, but the elderly and people with suppressed immune systems are also vulnerable.

Cryptosporidium is spread by spores called oocysts excreted in the faeces of humans and animals.

People often become infected through ingestion of contaminated water or contact with contaminated water, including in swimming pools.

When the parasite escapes the gut, it may survive in pool or spa water, even if it’s chlorinated, for days. So outbreaks often occur in spring or summer months when children are more likely to be swimming.

We saw this over the summer in Australia, when outbreaks of cryptosporidiosis led to pool closures and general alerts in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland.

The infection can also be spread from person to person.

Cryptosporidium causes symptoms typical of gastro, notably watery diarrhoea and tummy pain. Fever and vomiting are less common. Symptoms usually begin a few days after infection but may come and go over a few weeks.

Children may be infectious for two weeks. People with poor immune function may carry and shed cryptosporidium (and therefore infect others) for longer.

An Upward Trend

Data from the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System confirms an upward trend in cryptosporidiosis cases across Australia this year. Some 11,860 cases have been recorded so far in 2024, compared with 3,716 during all of 2023.

From February to May, cases were more than ten times higher than the five-year average for that period. Cases have been particularly high in Queensland.

We don’t know the reason for this cryptosporidiosis epidemic, but it may be related to changing weather patterns and extreme weather events, perhaps reflecting climate change.

Rates may be higher in Queensland because more kids swim year-round in a warmer climate.

What To Do If Your Child Is Sick

The mainstay of managing gastro at home, including cryptosporidiosis, is to prevent and treat dehydration. This can best be achieved by offering frequent drinks of a commercial oral rehydration solution which is formulated to promote absorption of water and electrolytes by the gut and replace fluids lost through diarrhoea and vomiting.

If your child’s symptoms are severe or ongoing and you’re worried, contact a doctor, as it’s possible they may need hospital treatment.

Keep any child with diarrhoea or vomiting away from other children or vulnerable adults and home from daycare, pre-school or school until 24 hours after their symptoms have resolved. Parents, child-care workers and teachers are also at risk of infection and should isolate if symptomatic.

If your child has had cryptosporidiosis, they should not swim in a public pool for at least two weeks after the diarrhoea has stopped. Likewise, don’t share towels, linen or utensils with them during this period.

Simple Measures Can Go A Long Way

To prevent gastro generally, the approach is similar regardless of the pathogen. Some worthwhile precautions include:

• don’t drink untreated water from tanks, bores or wells

• don’t eat or drink unpasteurised milk or dairy products

• wash all fruit and vegetables before eating raw

• wash your hands with soap for at least 20 seconds, particularly after changing nappies, using the bathroom, gardening, before preparing food or drinks, or after contact with animals

• follow local advice and avoid swimming at beaches and in other waterways after heavy rain or flooding, as run-off and sewage overflow may result in contamination.

• make sure your child is vaccinated against rotavirus.

Gastro Is A Global Problem

Despite advances in diagnosis (improved identification of gut pathogens), prevention (notably rotavirus vaccination), and treatment (particularly use of oral rehydration therapy), gastro remains a major cause of illness and death in young children, particularly in developing countries.

According to the World Health Organization, each year there are nearly 1.7 billion cases of diarrhoeal disease in children globally.

It’s worth taking extra care when travelling, especially to low- and middle-income countries where food and water may be less safe. Take advice from your doctor regarding appropriate vaccination for specific destinations, such as for cholera or typhoid.

Elizabeth Jane Elliott, Professor of Paediatrics and Child Health, University of Sydney

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

Following the release of a review into the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) late last year, reform is on the cards for the scheme in 2024.

The first step, the proposed NDIS Amendment Bill, has, however, generated political controversy and significant concerns in the disability community.

The bill had been moving forward to a final vote, but the Opposition demanded more time to study the bill. It now faces a second senate inquiry.

So why has the bill generated concern? And what issues will the new inquiry examine?

From Concept To Detail

In December last year the NDIS review proposed key reforms to ensure the sustainability of the scheme and improve outcomes for people with disability.

It recommended NDIS plans should shift from arguing line by line over each requested support to an overall funding amount for each participant. That global budget would be based on a standardised assessment of defined categories of needs.

This would replace the current subjective rules centred on contestable ideas of what’s reasonable. Too often the operation of these has been marred by gruelling and complex bureaucracy for people claiming support.

The review also called for state and federal governments to cooperate in improving support across the lifecycle of disability. There would be greater focus on early intervention rather than letting people languish until they meet the NDIS entry criteria, for example.

In March, the federal government introduced a bill to implement a limited number of the review’s recommendations (the NDIS Amendment Bill). I would argue three dynamics in the bill have clouded the original vision of the NDIS review.

1. An Uncertain ‘Method’

The bill replaces the existing test for funding with an as yet unwritten “method” for calculating budgets for individual participants. This would occur after a transition period of up to five years.

The method will be created by rules which, unlike the current approach, can be passed without the consent of the states and territories. This provoked an outcry from state premiers. NDIS participants, meanwhile, have been left wondering if the co-operation needed for effective reform will eventuate. If not, this could lead to people going without the supports they need in areas like health and education.

Other elements of the bill also risked narrowing the supports available. For example, the original definition of NDIS support did not fully reflect Australia’s obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. That definition was removed from the bill after the Disability Discrimination Commissioner warned it risked the NDIS not being “holistically responsive” to individuals’ needs.

Further, the bill proposed using an unclear 2015 policy document – a series of bulletpoint tables – to set the interface between state and federal services. Fortunately, this was also removed from the bill as it risked disputes between governments over who was responsible for what.

Finally, the bill stated assessments would only fund needs resulting from “impairments” which meet the NDIS entry criteria. This deficit-focused language risked not fully addressing complex and overlapping disabilities and the barriers people face in society. In the past fortnight, the federal government has moved amendments to moderate this, but complexities remain.

The federal government was responsive on these issues, but only to a point. The bill does little to stop such flaws re-emerging as the rule-making process moves forward. So what protections apply at that point?

2. Ensuring Co-Design And Oversight

If a bill is passed, rules, or “legislative instruments”, are used to fill in the detail needed to implement chosen policy. In this case, such instruments will determine fundamental issues like what supports NDIS participants receive.

But rules made through legislative instruments are subject to much more limited parliamentary oversight than primary legislation (acts). They receive accelerated and condensed examination – which will mean far less opportunity for disability organisations to be heard.

Disability representative organisations have stressed co-design and transparency are absolute essentials in the making of future rules. Co-design requires government to work in partnership with people with disability when designing policies, programs and services.

This must be protected by the bill. But the government has only consented to inserting vague assurances of consultation, which lack mechanisms for enforcement. This contrasts sharply with other countries, which regularly subject bureaucrats to enforceable consultation requirements.

Responsible government should mean more than just promising standards of behaviour. It should mean holding people accountable to them. Otherwise, what will stop future governments abandoning today’s promises?

3. Bureaucratic Power

The bill comes replete with broad powers allowing the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) to regulate the supports people receive or impose administrative requirements upon them. In the hands of one government these might drive a vision of quality services. Under another they could lead to damaging forms of conditionality or administrative burden.

One key area is what happens when the NDIA believes a participant has spent money in a way that’s not compliant with their plan (debt raising). While public commentary has been awash with “rorts” rhetoric, the bill leaves vital duty of care questions under-addressed.

In reality, most “rorts” are cases of abuse involving the costly non-delivery of supports to people who need them. Yet the bill fails to spell out exactly when a debt will be raised against a third party versus a participant. It should do more to protect the person with a disability who acted under duress, was misled or was the victim of abusive practices.

Trust

This bill commences a long reform process that can only succeed if it’s based on clarity, accountability and transparency. The voices and experiences of NDIS participants and their representatives are key to delivering people-centred reform.

The question is whether Australia’s political class – federal and state – is capable of living up to the trust which this bill will place in them.

Darren O'Donovan, Senior Lecturer in Administrative Law, La Trobe University

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

At dawn on June 27, a journalist for Indonesia’s Tribrata TV, Rico Sempurna Pasaribu, was killed in a suspected arson attack at his home, along with his wife, son and grandchild.

Before his death, Rico investigated and reported on a gambling business in North Sumatra, which he alleged was backed by a member of the military. The police have arrested two suspects.

The incident is not the first suspected arson involving journalists in North Sumatra. On March 21, the house of Junaidi Marpaung, a journalist from Utama News, was also burned down by unknown individuals. Junaidi and his family narrowly escaped.

The attack happened after Junaidi reported on drug trafficking in the region and received several threats via social media.

Press freedom is increasingly under attack in Indonesia. The Indonesian Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) has recorded more than 1,000 cases of violence against journalists since 2006, with the single highest year coming in 2023 (87 incidents).

AJI’s 2023 report found that the journalists who were targeted largely reported on issues of public accountability, corruption, social and criminal issues, and environmental issues. And the attacks included verbal and physical threats (including torture, confinement and kidnappings), gender-based sexual harassment and assaults, terror and intimidation.

Police reports were only filed in 20 of the 87 incidents, and just seven cases were followed up. Two of those ended with convictions in a court, while four others led to arrests. One closed case was reopened for further investigation.

Given this, it should come as no surprise that Indonesia sits at a lowly number 111 out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders’ press freedom index this year.

Digital Attacks And Confiscated Devices

Beyond this disturbing rise in violence and intimidation, journalists are also frequently forced by the authorities or sometimes even angry members of the public to delete their interview recordings, photos and videos, particularly when covering a highly controversial story or case in court.

Computers and cameras are often confiscated or destroyed. And journalists are routinely kicked out of the scenes of breaking news, or denied entry to facilities to cover the news.

Digital attacks against journalists are on the rise in Indonesia, too.

Those reporting on extremely sensitive topics, such as Indonesia’s oligarchs, often experience doxing, online harassment and the hacking of their social media accounts and electronic devices.

Media outlets are similarly targeted with malware attacks. Their websites have been defaced and had articles disappear, and their social media accounts have been hacked.

Two of the most prominent investigative media outlets in Indonesia, Tempo and Tirto, for example, were subject to such attacks during the height of the COVID pandemic. On one day in 2020, Tempo’s homepage was replaced with a black screen and the word “hoax”.

Concerning Legal Restrictions

In addition, media outlets are increasingly being targeted through legal channels.

In 1999, Indonesia passed a Press Law at the start of the post-Suharto “Reformasi” era that guaranteed the protection of the media, as well as citizens’ right to information.

Press freedom advocates say, however, that this law has been disregarded as journalists have been targeted through other laws, namely the Electronic Information and Transactions Law (ITE Law) and the criminal code.

Both the criminal code and ITE Law contain provisions that have been used to bring journalists and media outlets to court to face allegations of blasphemy, defamation, hate speech or spreading fake news. The definitions of these offences under the laws are vague and ambiguous, making them easy to deploy against critics.

The website SemuaBisaKena.jaring.id (Anyone Can Be Targeted), a joint initiative of civil society organisations to push back against the ITE Law, recorded 27 cases of journalists being targeted through this law from 2013 to 2024. In the last five years alone, three journalists have been sentenced to jail time.

In addition, Indonesia’s parliament has been considering concerning revisions to the country’s Broadcast Law.

Not only has the revision process been hidden from the public, therefore lacking transparency and meaningful public participation, the draft bill also contains provisions that could be very damaging to press freedom if it passes.

Perhaps the most onerous one would be a ban on broadcasting exclusive investigative journalism, which the country’s Press Council chairman said would “result in our press not being free and independent”. Reporting on the LGBTQI+ community would also be restricted.

The revision process has been halted for the moment amid widespread media and public condemnation. However, this is not the first time legislators have attempted to weaken the press – and it certainly will not be the last.

Why This Matters

With democracy increasingly under threat in Indonesia, the role of an independent media has become even more crucial and pressing. Journalists are needed now more than ever to monitor a government that has adopted increasingly authoritarian practices, in addition to rising corruption and human rights violations.

And with the shrinking of civic space in Indonesia, the media is necessary as a platform to broadcast the voices of critics from civil society and academia.

Without them, the demise of Indonesian democracy would be imminent. As Nelson Mandela once said,

A critical, independent and investigative press is the lifeblood of any democracy […] It must enjoy the protection of the constitution, so that it can protect our rights as citizens.

Anita Wahid, PhD candidate, Australian National University

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

Judging by recent headlines and policy ideas, you might think screen time is the only lifestyle behaviour influencing teen wellbeing.

But with young people struggling to deal with mounting mental health issues, it’s crucial we don’t get tunnel vision and instead remember all the lifestyle levers that can play a role.

Our research, published today, tracked Australian high school students from 71 schools across New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia. Over time, improvements in sleep, fruit and vegetable intake, and exercise were associated with small but significant improvements in mental health.

The reverse was also true when it came to unhealthy behaviours like screen time, junk food, alcohol use and tobacco.

A Comprehensive Look At Adolescent Lifestyles

Our new study of more than 4,400 Australian high school students looks at a suite of lifestyle behaviours: sleep, moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, sedentary (inactive) recreational screen time, fruit and vegetable intake, consumption of junk food and sugary drinks, alcohol use and smoking.

Firstly, we asked year 7 (students aged 12–13) to report their levels of these lifestyle behaviours and to rate their psychological distress (a general indicator of mental ill-health) using a well-known measurement scale.

Then we examined how changes in each of the lifestyle behaviours between year 7 and year 10 (age 15–16) were linked to psychological distress levels in year 10. Importantly, we accounted for the level of psychological distress participants reported in year 7, as well as their lifestyle behaviours in year 7. This means we can see the average benefits associated with behaviour change, no matter where people started out.

Our research showed increases over time in healthy behaviours were associated with lower psychological distress. Conversely, increases in health risk behaviours were associated with higher psychological distress.

How Much Makes A Difference?

On average, when looking at the change between year 7 and 10, every one-hour increase in sleep per night was linked to a 9% reduction in psychological distress.

Each added day of 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per week was linked to a 3% reduction in psychological distress. Each added daily serve of fruit or vegetables was linked to 4% lower psychological distress.

By contrast, each added hour of screen time was linked to a 2% increase in psychological distress, as was each unit increase in junk food or sugary drinks.

Because drinking alcohol and smoking are less common in early adolescence, we only looked at whether they had or hadn’t drank alcohol or smoked in the past six months. We saw that switching from not drinking in year 7 to drinking in year 10 was associated with a 17% increase in psychological distress. Switching from not smoking to smoking was linked to a 36% increase in psychological distress.

It’s important to note our study can’t definitively say lifestyle behaviour change caused the change in distress. The study also can’t account for changes in a student’s circumstances such as in their home life or relationships. With the baseline survey done in 2019 and the year 10 survey done in 2022, there was also the potential impact of COVID.

But our longitudinal design (tracking the same subjects over an extended period) and the way we structured the analysis does help illustrate the relationship over time.

Our study didn’t measure vaping, but evidence shows that, like smoking, it has clear links with adolescent mental health.

What Does This Mean For Teens And Parents?

National guidelines for these behaviours set out aspirational targets based on optimum health goals. But movement guidelines and dietary guidelines might seem out of reach for many teens. Indeed, most participants in our study were not meeting guidelines for physical activity, sleep, screen time, and vegetable consumption in year 10.

What our research shows is that a healthy lifestyle change doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

Even relatively small changes – getting an extra hour of sleep each night, eating one extra serve of fruit or vegetables each day, cutting out one hour of screen time, or adding an extra day of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per week – are linked to improvements in mental health. And stacking changes in multiple areas is likely to stand you in even better stead.

Parents can play a major role in shaping lifestyle behaviours (even into the teenage years!). Expense and time can be barriers, but anything parents can do within their means is a step in the right direction.

For example, modelling healthy social media use, making affordable changes to your grocery shop to improve nutritional content, or even introducing set bedtimes. And parents can gather information so young people can make positive choices around alcohol, tobacco and other substance use including vaping.

The Bigger Picture

Lifestyle changes can support better adolescent mental health, but they’re only one piece of the puzzle. We can’t place the burden of addressing the youth mental health crisis solely on teen lifestyles. There is plenty to be done at a school, community, and policy level to create a society that supports youth mental health.

Young people who are struggling with their mental health may need professional support, which parents and carers can support them to access. Teenagers or young people can also contact ReachOut or Kids Helpline directly for resources and support.

Scarlett Smout, PhD Candidate (under examination) and Research Associate at The Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health & Substance Use and Australia's Mental Health Think Tank, University of Sydney; Katrina Champion, Senior Research Fellow & Sydney Horizon Fellow, The Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use and School of Public Health, University of Sydney, and Lauren Gardner, Senior Research Fellow & Program Lead of School-Based Health Interventions, University of Sydney

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

A 40-year-old private in the Australian army and her 62-year-old husband been arrested for allegedly spying for Russia.

Both Russian-born Australian citizens, they have been accused of obtaining Australian Defence Force material to share with Russian authorities.

The woman, Kira Korolev, has been employed in the Australian Defence Force for several years as an information systems technician. Her husband, Igor Korolev, is a self-employed labourer.

Each is charged with one count of preparing for an espionage offence, which carries a maximum penalty of 15 years jail. They were due to appear in court on Friday. This is the first time an espionage offence charge has been laid since new laws were introduced in 2018.

At a Friday news conference, the Australian Federal Police commissioner, Reece Kershaw, and the head of ASIO, Mike Burgess, announced the Thursday arrests of the pair at their Brisbane home.

Kershaw said the AFP alleged the couple worked together to access ADF material relating to national security.

“We allege the woman was undertaking non-declared travel to Russia, whilst she was on long term leave from the Australian Defence Force [since 2023],” he said.

“We allege that whilst she was in Russia, she instructed her husband, who remained in Australia, on how to log into her official work account from their Brisbane home.

"We allege her husband would access requested material and would send it to his wife in Russia.

"We allege they sought that information with the intention of providing it to Russian authorities.”

Whether the information was handed over is still being investigated, Kershaw said. Also being investigated is whether the woman joined the ADF intending to commit espionage.

Kershaw stressed that “no significant compromise has been identified”.

“Our Five Eyes partners and the Australian government can be confident that the robust partnerships within the counter foreign interference task force mean we will continue to identify and disrupt espionage and foreign interference activity.”

The pair have been in Australia more than ten years. The woman obtained Australian citizenship in 2016 and her husband became a citizen in 2020. They had Russian passports.

Burgess told the news conference the espionage threat was “real”.

“Multiple countries are seeking to steal Australia’s secrets,” he said.

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

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

Political donations would need to be disclosed in “real time” during elections under reform legislation that also would restrict spending on individual seat campaigns to an amount that will be less than $1 million per candidate.

The package, which Special Minister of State Don Farrell aims to introduce in the next parliamentary sitting fortnight beginning August 12, also includes a truth-in-advertising provision, and is expected to boost public funding for elections. Total election funding paid by the Australian Electoral Commission for the 2022 election was nearly $76 million.

All donations of $1000 and above would have to be disclosed, under the proposed measures. At present the disclosure threshold is more than $16,900. There would also be caps on donations.

Under the real-time disclosure provision, donations outside election periods would have to be made public within weeks. During an election campaign, they would need to be disclosed weekly, then daily as polling day approached.

Some details of the package are still being finalised. One major issue is the need to minimise the risk of a successful High Court challenge on the grounds of limiting the implied freedom of political communication.

The plan includes caps on parties’ campaign spending at a national and a state level (the latter covers campaigns for the Senate) as well as on spending at the seat level.

Parties, candidates and others involved in elections would be required to have dedicated Commonwealth campaign accounts for all donations and spending, which would be subject to audit by the Australian Electoral Commission.

Parties would receive some funding for their administration.

Farrell says his package will “address the growing threat of big money in politics”.

During Farrell’s extensive negotiations there has been blowback from some crossbenchers. Some “teal” MPs ran highly expensive campaigns which saw them elected in 2022.

Independent member for the Victorian seat of Goldstein, Zoe Daniel, one of the teals, said she supported a lower disclosure threshold for donations and real-time disclosure. “Above everything else, the priorities are transparency and accountability,” she said.

But she warned, “I remain suspicious that the major parties will dress up their proposals as electoral reform when their real goal is self interest. We must make sure they don’t collude to lock out newcomers and tilt the playing field in their own favour, in contrast to the demonstrated wishes of voters at large.”

The Coalition parties have been in negotiation with Farrell over the measures, but where they will land is unknown.

The package will have provisions covering “associated entities”, which are funding-raising arms for parties, and “significant third parties”, which spend on and raise money for elections. They include unions, advocacy groups such as Advance and organisations such as Climate 200. Details of the provisions covering them are not known.

Earlier consideration of increasing the number of senators from the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory (at present two each) has been abandoned.

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

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

You may have seen some new ways to describe when someone is autistic and also has attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The terms “AuDHD” or sometimes “AutiADHD” are being used on social media, with people describing what they experience or have seen as clinicians.

It might seem surprising these two conditions can co-occur, as some traits appear to be almost opposite. For example, autistic folks usually have fixed routines and prefer things to stay the same, whereas people with ADHD usually get bored with routines and like spontaneity and novelty.

But these two conditions frequently overlap and the combination of diagnoses can result in some unique needs. Here are five important things to know about AuDHD.

1. Having Both Wasn’t Possible A Decade Ago

Only in the past decade have autism and ADHD been able to be diagnosed together. Until 2013, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) – the reference used by health workers around the world for definitions of psychological diagnoses – did not allow for ADHD to be diagnosed in an autistic person.

The manual’s fifth edition was the first to allow for both diagnoses in the same person. So, folks diagnosed and treated prior to 2013, as well as much of the research, usually did not consider AuDHD. Instead, children and adults may have been “assigned” to whichever condition seemed most prominent or to be having the greater impact on everyday life.

2. AuDHD Is More Common Than You Might Think

Around 1% to 4% of the population are autistic.

They can find it difficult to navigate social situations and relationships, prefer consistent routines, find changes overwhelming and repetition soothing. They may have particular sensory sensitivities.

ADHD occurs in around 5–8% of children and adolescents and 2–6% of adults. Characteristics can include difficulties with focusing attention in a flexible way, resulting in procrastination, distraction and disorganisation. People with ADHD can have high levels of activity and impulsivity.

Studies suggest around 40% of those with ADHD also meet diagnostic criteria for autism and vice versa. The co-occurrence of having features or traits of one condition (but not meeting the full diagnostic criteria) when you have the other, is even more common and may be closer to around 80%. So a substantial proportion of those with autism or ADHD who don’t meet full criteria for the other condition, will likely have some traits.

3. Opposing Traits Can Be Distressing

Autistic people generally prefer order, while ADHDers often struggle to keep things organised. Autistic people usually prefer to do one thing at a time; people with ADHD are often multitasking and have many things on the go. When someone has both conditions, the conflicting traits can result in an internal struggle.

For example, it can be upsetting when you need your things organised in a particular way but ADHD traits result in difficulty consistently doing this. There can be periods of being organised (when autistic traits lead) followed by periods of disorganisation (when ADHD traits dominate) and feelings of distress at not being able to maintain organisation.

There can be eventual boredom with the same routines or activities, but upset and anxiety when attempting to transition to something new.

Autistic special interests (which are often all-consuming, longstanding and prioritised over social contact), may not last as long in AuDHD, or be more like those seen in ADHD (an intense deep dive into a new interest that can quickly burn out).

Autism can result in quickly being overstimulated by sensory input from the environment such as noises, lighting and smells. ADHD is linked with an understimulated brain, where intense pressure, novelty and excitement can be needed to function optimally.

For some people the conflicting traits may result in a balance where people can find a middle ground (for example, their house appears tidy but the cupboards are a little bit messy).

There isn’t much research yet into the lived experience of this “trait conflict” in AuDHD, but there are clinical observations.

4. Mental Health And Other Difficulties Are More Frequent

Our research on mental health in children with autism, ADHD or AuDHD shows children with AuDHD have higher levels of mental health difficulites than autism or ADHD alone.

This is a consistent finding with studies showing higher mental health difficulties such as depression and anxiety in AuDHD. There are also more difficulties with day-to-day functioning in AuDHD than either condition alone.

So there is an additive effect in AuDHD of having the executive foundation difficulties found in both autism and ADHD. These difficulties relate to how we plan and organise, pay attention and control impulses. When we struggle with these it can greatly impact daily life.

5. Getting The Right Treatment Is Important

ADHD medication treatments are evidence-based and effective. Studies suggest medication treatment for ADHD in autistic people similarly helps improve ADHD symptoms. But ADHD medications won’t reduce autistic traits and other support may be needed.

Non-pharmacological treatments such as psychological or occupational therapy are less researched in AuDHD but likely to be helpful. Evidence-based treatments include psychoeducation and psychological therapy. This might include understanding one’s strengths, how traits can impact the person, and learning what support and adjustments are needed to help them function at their best. Parents and carers also need support.

The combination and order of support will likely depend on the person’s current functioning and particular needs.

Do You Relate?

Studies suggest people may still not be identified with both conditions when they co-occur. A person in that situation might feel misunderstood or that they can’t fully relate to others with a singular autism and ADHD diagnosis and something else is going on for them.

It is important if you have autism or ADHD that the other is considered, so the right support can be provided.

If only one piece of the puzzle is known, the person will likely have unexplained difficulties despite treatment. If you have autism or ADHD and are unsure if you might have AuDHD consider discussing this with your health professional.

Tamara May, Psychologist and Research Associate in the Department of Paediatrics, Monash University

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

Our brain is an extremely complex and delicate organ. Our body fiercely protects it by holding onto things that help it and keeping harmful things out, such as bugs that can cause infection and toxins.

It does that though a protective layer called the blood-brain barrier. Here’s how it works, and what it means for drug design.

First, Let’s Look At The Circulatory System

Adults have roughly 30 trillion cells in their body. Every cell needs a variety of nutrients and oxygen, and they produce waste, which needs to be taken away.

Our circulatory system provides this service, delivering nutrients and removing waste.

Where the circulatory system meets your cells, it branches down to tiny tubes called capillaries. These tiny tubes, about one-tenth the width of a human hair, are also made of cells.

But in most capillaries, there are some special features (known as fenestrations) that allow relatively free exchange of nutrients and waste between the blood and the cells of your tissues.

It’s Kind Of Like Pizza Delivery

One way to think about the way the circulation works is like a pizza delivery person in a big city. On the really big roads (vessels) there are walls and you can’t walk up to the door of the house and pass someone the pizza.

But once you get down to the little suburban streets (capillaries), the design of the streets means you can stop, get off your scooter and walk up to the door to deliver the pizza (nutrients).

We often think of the brain as a spongy mass without much blood in it. In reality, the average brain has about 600 kilometres of blood vessels.

The difference between the capillaries in most of the brain and those elsewhere is that these capillaries are made of specialised cells that are very tightly joined together and limit the free exchange of anything dissolved in your blood. These are sometimes called continuous capillaries.

This is the blood brain barrier. It’s not so much a bag around your brain stopping things from getting in and out but more like walls on all the streets, even the very small ones.

The only way pizza can get in is through special slots and these are just the right shape for the pizza box.

The blood brain barrier is set up so there are specialised transporters (like pizza box slots) for all the required nutrients. So mostly, the only things that can get in are things that there are transporters for or things that look very similar (on a molecular scale).

The analogy does fall down a little bit because the pizza box slot applies to nutrients that dissolve in water. Things that are highly soluble in fat can often bypass the slots in the wall.

Why Do We Have A Blood-Brain Barrier?

The blood brain barrier is thought to exist for a few reasons.

First, it protects the brain from toxins you might eat (think chemicals that plants make) and viruses that often can infect the rest of your body but usually don’t make it to your brain.

It also provides protection by tightly regulating the movement of nutrients and waste in and out, providing a more stable environment than in the rest of the body.

Lastly, it serves to regulate passage of immune cells, preventing unnecessary inflammation which could damage cells in the brain.

What It Means For Medicines

One consequence of this tight regulation across the blood brain barrier is that if you want a medicine that gets to the brain, you need to consider how it will get in.

There are a few approaches. Highly fat-soluble molecules can often pass into the brain, so you might design your drug so it is a bit greasy.

Another option is to link your medicine to another molecule that is normally taken up into the brain so it can hitch a ride, or a “pro-drug”, which looks like a molecule that is normally transported.

Using It To Our Advantage

You can also take advantage of the blood brain barrier.

Opioids used for pain relief often cause constipation. They do this because their target (opioid receptors) are also present in the nervous system of the intestines, where they act to slow movement of the intestinal contents.

Imodium (Loperamide), which is used to treat diarrhoea, is actually an opioid, but it has been specifically designed so it can’t cross the blood brain barrier.

This design means it can act on opioid receptors in the gastrointestinal tract, slowing down the movement of contents, but does not act on brain opioid receptors.

In contrast to Imodium, Ozempic and Victoza (originally designed for type 2 diabetes, but now popular for weight-loss) both have a long fat attached, to improve the length of time they stay in the body.

A consequence of having this long fat attached is that they can cross the blood-brain barrier, where they act to suppress appetite. This is part of the reason they are so effective as weight-loss drugs.

So while the blood brain barrier is important for protecting the brain it presents both a challenge and an opportunity for development of new medicines.

Sebastian Furness, ARC Future Fellow, School of Biomedical Sciences, The University of Queensland

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

The 2024 Paris Olympics are fast approaching and we can imagine the elite athletes maintaining a strict and gruelling training regimen in order to give themselves every chance of standing on the podium with a gold medal.

Unrelenting discipline and structure. Blood, sweat, and tears. That’s what it takes to excel, right?

But what if that’s not the only way?

Thinking Outside The Box

Earlier this year, world champion Australian swimmer Cameron McEvoy spoke about the benefits of a new training schedule, which included a reduced training load:

I can do the Olympics, worlds, then have 12 months exploring other stuff and come back. And I’ve got tonnes of side quests I want to do […] train for 100m track sprinting and see how low I can go, the world street lifting competition.

McEvoy also suggested that exploring other interests has “extended the longevity of this career” and alleviated the “bad relationship” he has had with the sport – all while improving his performance.

McEvoy is not the only athlete sharing experiences of exploration. A 2021 study that interviewed runners soon after an exceptional performance found exploration played a key role in their highly positive experiences.

One interviewee stated:

By going somewhere different to run, [the route] was something different to look at; it was different when you turn the corner, and you go up a different path. I was less [thinking about] running and more about exploring.

And it’s not just elite athletes who are interested in exploration. Complementing their high-performance sports strategy – “win well” – the Australian Sports Commission recently published an inaugural national sport participation strategy – “play well”.

“Play well” is designed to ensure everyone has a place in sport, with a core focus being “to break down barriers and empower individuals to explore, create and connect through sport”.

So, what does it actually mean to explore in sport? And why might exploration be beneficial for all of us?

What Is Exploration?

Exploration is defined as “the activity of searching and finding out about something”.

Or, as astrophysist Neil deGrasse Tyson says:

exploration is what you do when you don’t know what you’re doing […] if a scientist already knew what they were doing, they wouldn’t be discovering anything.

At first glance, we might assume exploration is only for those who are embarking on epic journeys to unknown parts of the world or climbing mountains for the first time. In fact, it’s something we can all do on a daily basis.

For example, when we go to a new city and walk down the street to see what shops and cafes they’ve got, that’s exploring. And it’s good for us.

What Are The Benefits Of Exploration?

Psychologists believe we’re born with an innate desire to explore the world around us. And opportunities to do so lead to positive outcomes in sport.

For instance, similar to McEvoy’s exploration of other interests, researchers have noted the importance of participating in a variety of different sports rather than focusing on just one sport.

While this recommendation is typically directed toward young athletes, this flexible approach to sport was adopted by Norway – known as “joy of sport for all” – and has been credited with a huge increase in winter Olympic medals.

Researchers also suggest children should engage in less structured versions of sports, which can promote flexibility. As well, sports with informal rules – think backyard cricket – can maximise enjoyment and can lead to long-term participation.

Much of our own research indicates that exploratory experiences are at the heart of our most positive and memorable experiences in sport.

We’ve previously reported that exploration appears to be fundamental to the experience of “flow state”, where you become completely absorbed in what you are doing and you perform the task effortlessly.

Indeed, the founder of flow, Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, said the types of activities that promote flow “give participants a sense of discovery and exploration – in other words, a feeling of novelty and challenge”.

Lessons From Athletes On How To Explore

Exploration is certainly not limited to elite athletes but there are useful lessons we can take from them about how to incorporate exploration into our own sport participation.

Like McEvoy, you might consider varying your training routine or trying a new sport. Or like the Norwegians, you might play a modified version of your sport with fewer rules, less emphasis on competition and more focus on fun.

It could be as simple as taking a different route on a run or setting an open-ended goal (like “how far I can run in 25 minutes”?), which can help facilitate exploration and reduce pressure. Or if you’re playing football, you might try out a new position or tactic.

Sometimes, it’s okay to not have a plan. Without a specific plan (like which restaurant to eat in), we need to go exploring to find out the best option (like stumbling across a place you’ve never heard of that has a great menu).

So, as we anticipate the upcoming Olympics and marvel at the athletes’ achievements, let’s remember their success might not only be the result of relentless discipline but also the joy and benefits of exploration.

Whether we are elite athletes or weekend warriors, heading out with the intention to “search and find out about something” can enhance our engagement, performance, and enjoyment in sport.

Scott Goddard, Postdoctoral research fellow, Southern Cross University; Christian Swann, Associate Professor in Psychology, Southern Cross University, and Stewart Vella, Associate Professor, University of Wollongong

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

Think of the Olympic Games and for many of us it conjures images of the traditional marquee events: track and field, swimming, weightlifting, gymnastics. But the games are changing – and the Paris Olympics will take it to a new level.

As well as bringing back youth-oriented sports such as surfing, skateboarding, sport-climbing and BMX freestyle, these games will see breaking (or breakdancing) and kiteboarding introduced.

These programme changes have been on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) agenda for many years, part of an effort to reverse a decades-long decline in younger audience numbers, particularly in the key US consumer market.

But the new look is also part of a larger strategy designed to improve inclusivity and gender balance. In fact, Paris claims to be the first gender-balanced Olympics, with the new sports key to reaching that milestone.

None of this has been smooth, with the inclusion of new events a highly political process. On the one hand, traditionalists have resisted change. On the other, the countercultural origins of some of the new sports have seen them wary of being incorporated into the world’s largest and most powerful sporting establishment.

New Events, New Venues

Of the two newest entrants, breaking will probably surprise the most spectators. What began as an urban dance style within US hip hop culture in the 1970s has gone mainstream, successfully trialled at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires.

Breakdancing was always competitive, of course. In its Olympic format, teams of 16 (called B-boys and B-girls) will have one-on-one contests involving a range of spectacular acrobatic movements.

Athletes must improvise, adapting their style and routines to fit the beat of the DJ’s chosen tracks. The role of the DJ and MC during these “battles” will give the new sport a very different feel to other Olympic events.

Kiteboarding almost made it into the Olympic sailing programme at the 2016 Games in Rio Di Janeiro, in place of windsurfing. The International Sailing Federation eventually overturned that decision, but the dynamic event finally makes its debut. In Paris, kiteboarders will be using the latest foiling technologies, making it a showcase attraction.

These games will also see the IOC’s “urban park” concept finally realised. Originally planned for the Tokyo Olympics, COVID disrupted the vision of an X Games-style atmosphere of music, fun and athlete-fan interaction.

Rather than building expensive new venues, the host nation will use existing infrastructure combined with temporary facilities. Skateboarding, sport climbing, breaking, 3x3 basketball and BMX freestyle will all be hosted in a temporary park built in the iconic Place de la Concorde.

All these innovations are an expression of the IOC’s Agenda 2020 and Agenda 2020+5. These major policy reforms are focused on urban cultures, youth and sustainability.

Going Mainstream

Olympic climbing will also evolve in Paris. Introduced at the Tokyo Games, it initially combined three quite different climbing styles – speed, bouldering and leading (where climbers use ropes to ascend).

Many climbers were unhappy with this merger within a single medal event, and Paris will see it broken into two: a combined bouldering and leading event, and a speed event.

At Tokyo, skateboarding had the greatest media visibility of the new sports. In particular, global audiences and media were captivated by the joy and camaraderie of the women’s competition.

The average age on the women’s skateboarding medal podium was 14, and the young competitors were hailed as evidence of a truly inclusive Olympic spirit. This success might have also shifted perceptions of skateboarding being fringe or even antisocial, to being a legitimate and highly-skilled sport.

It has also opened new opportunities for women skaters in a previously male-dominated culture. There have been anecdotal reports of an increased willingness by parents to let their children learn skateboarding, with local councils building more facilities and reviewing rules around skating being a “nuisance” in public spaces.

Waves Of Change

Perhaps the most radical aspect of the Paris Olympics is the location of its surfing competition in Tahiti, 16,000 kilometres from the host city.

Using the legendary reef break at Teahupo’o will almost certainly overcome the wave quality problems at the Tokyo games. But the decision has also proved controversial, with local residents concerned about the event’s potential impact on the fragile ocean ecosystem and surrounding areas.

In particular, a new aluminium judging tower, involving drilling into the delicate coral reef, has prompted months of local and international protest.

In a sense, the surfing controversy is emblematic of the IOC’s overall struggle to modernise the games, and respond to a rapidly evolving sporting landscape, while not alienating traditional audiences.

The IOC has invested heavily in these new sports and events, and we will likely see more on the programme in Los Angeles in 2028 and Brisbane in 2032. There is also a push for their inclusion in the Paralympics.

Whether those elusive younger viewers are lured back, however, remains to be seen. Our research suggests the full impact of inclusion – on both the Olympics and the sports themselves – can take years to become evident. In the meantime, settle in and enjoy the show.

Holly Thorpe, Professor in Sociology of Sport and Gender, University of Waikato and Belinda Wheaton, Professor, School of Sport, Health and Human Performance, University of Waikato

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

Five eagerly anticipated events in the Paris Olympics will be the mens and womens 10 kilometre marathon swimming races, as well as the 1,500 metre swimming section of three triathlon events. Why? Because all will be held in the Seine River in the centre of Paris. The swimmers – including four Australians – will pass famous landmarks such as the Musee d'Orsay as they swim through the historic heart of the city. This will have enormous scenic appeal for spectators.

But will it be safe for swimmers? Rivers running through large cities are often polluted, whether from stormwater, chemical pollution or wastewater spills. As the marathon swimmers pass the Paris Sewer Museum, they may well wonder if they’re in clean water.

For more than 100 years, swimming in the Seine has actually been illegal, due to concerns over what the water could do to human health. Authorities have been working to clean up the water, spending A$2.2 billion (€1.3 billion) on improving water quality. The goal: cut bacterial contamination by 75% before the first swimmer touches the water. These measures are having an impact – but recent heavy rains have seen bacteria levels spike.

While officials have put on brave faces, there’s now a contingency plan in case the Seine isn’t safe.

Why Swim In The Seine At All?

Urban rivers have a questionable reputation. But this isn’t the first time the Seine River has been used for Olympic swimming.

In the 1900 Paris Olympics, seven swimming events were all held in the river. These games were the first modern Olympics where women could compete in some sports, but swimming was not one of those permitted.

The Australian swimmer who competed, Frederick Lane, had to swim under the United Kingdom’s flag as Australia did not have a flag until Federation the following year. He won two gold medals. One was for the 200 metre freestyle race, and the other for a bizarre race never held again: the 200m swimming obstacle race, where swimmers had to climb over poles and boats. These Olympics also saw the first and last underwater swimming race, which was also in the Seine.

Back then, the waters of the Seine were cleaner. That’s because there was a great demand for human waste on farms – and cities were the main source. Back then, “night soil” (human waste) had a real market value. No one would think of dumping it in rivers.

But as time went on, sewerage systems developed and other fertilisers such as guano and mineral fertilisers arrived. By the early 20th century, most of the city’s wastewater went into the Seine. In 1923, the swimming ban came into effect. A year later, Paris hosted the Olympics for its second time – and swimmers competed in 50 metre pools.

In recent years, many cities around the world have worked to clean up their urban waterways. River swimming is now common in cities such as Copenhagen, Berlin and Vienna, where river health has improved dramatically.

How Can You Clean A River Like The Seine?

Cleaning the Seine is a challenge. Paris is home to 11 million people, with plenty of industry. Urban rivers are almost inevitably polluted by waste from the surrounding city.

Leaking and overflowing sewage systems are a major source of pollution. In places like the UK, sewage spills into waterways have become a major political issue.

When wastewater spills into rivers, it carries pollutants and dangerous loads of disease-causing microorganisms, such as Escherichia coli (commonly known as E. coli). Untreated water can have viruses, bacteria and disease-causing protozoa.

In the lead-up to the Paris games, authorities have been working to improve water quality enough to bring some Olympic swimming back to the Seine. Stormwater – often contaminated by dog poo or sewage overflows – is being cleaned before it is released into the river.

Despite the money and effort, there are still real questions over whether it will be enough to guarantee swimmer safety. Bacterial levels hit risky levels most days in June due to unseasonally heavy rains, but the water has improved in July.

This week, French sports minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra swam a few metres in the Seine in an effort to douse concerns.

By contrast, the other Olympic swimming events will take place in a recently constructed 50 metre pool, which will have very good water quality. The pool water is filtered and treated with a disinfectant such as chlorine or bromine. It will be regularly tested to ensure optimal water quality.

At the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, triathletes had to swim in polluted Tokyo Bay. But similar concerns over sickness proved unfounded. The real challenge was the oppressive heat.

What’s At Risk?

The most likely outcome if races are held when bacterial levels are unsafe would be getting a gastrointestinal bug.

Officials have some control over this. Contamination is worst after heavy rain. Races could be delayed if need be.

Many swimmers – especially those who compete in open-water competitions – are familiar with swimming in water with some level of pollution. Some see it as worth the risk. Italian double world champion swimmer Gregorio Paltrinieri said in January:

Even if the water is dirty, I would rather swim in an electric atmosphere in the centre of Paris than in an anonymous stretch of water.

Paris 2024 organisers previously warned there was no plan B for the 10 km marathon races in the Seine if water quality testing is unsuitable. But this has now changed. If the river isn’t clean enough, open water swimming will be moved to the rowing venue.

The Olympic triathlon is planned around a swimming leg in the Seine. But triathletes have been told the swim leg could be skipped if the water is unsafe, which would turn the race into a running and cycling duathlon.

As the world’s attention turns to Paris, there will be many anxious officials behind the scenes hoping their hard work on making the Seine swimmable pays off.

Ian A. Wright, Associate Professor in Environmental Science, Western Sydney University

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