Last week, OpenAI unveiled ChatGPT Atlas, a web browser that promises to revolutionise how we interact with the internet. The company’s CEO, Sam Altman, described it as a “once-a-decade opportunity” to rethink how we browse the web.

The promise is compelling: imagine an artificial intelligence (AI) assistant that follows you across every website, remembers your preferences, summarises articles, and handles tedious tasks such as booking flights or ordering groceries on your behalf.

But beneath the glossy marketing lies a more troubling reality. Atlas is designed to be “agentic”, able to autonomously navigate websites and take actions in your logged-in accounts. This introduces security and privacy vulnerabilities that most users are unprepared to manage.

While OpenAI touts innovation, it’s quietly shifting the burden of safety onto unsuspecting consumers who are being asked to trust an AI with their most sensitive digital decisions.

What makes agent mode different

At the heart of Atlas’s appeal is “agent mode”.

Unlike traditional web browsers where you manually navigate the internet, agent mode allows ChatGPT to operate your browser semi-autonomously. For example, when prompted to “find a cocktail bar near you and book a table”, it will search, evaluate options, and attempt to make a reservation.

The technology works by giving ChatGPT access to your browsing context. It can see every open tab, interact with forms, click buttons and navigate between pages just as you would.

Combined with Atlas’s “browser memories” feature, which logs websites you visit and your activities on them, the AI builds an increasingly detailed understanding of your digital life.

This contextual awareness is what enables agent mode to work. But it’s also what makes it dangerously vulnerable.

A perfect storm of security risks

The risks inherent in this design go beyond conventional browser security concerns.

Consider prompt injection attacks, where malicious websites embed hidden commands that manipulate the AI’s behaviour.

Imagine visiting what appears to be a legitimate shopping site. The page, however, contains invisible instructions directing ChatGPT to scrape personal data from all open tabs, such as an active medical portal or a draft email, and then extract the sensitive details without ever needing to access a password.

Similarly, malicious code on one website could potentially influence the AI’s behaviour across multiple tabs. For example, a script on a shopping site could trick the AI agent into switching to your open banking tab and submitting a transfer form.

Atlas’s autofill capabilities and form interaction features can become attack vectors. This is especially the case when an AI is making split-second decisions about what information to enter and where to submit it.

The personalisation features compound these risks. Atlas’s browser memories create comprehensive profiles of your behavior: websites you visit, what you search for, what you purchase, and content you read.

While OpenAI promises this data won’t train its models by default, Atlas is still storing more highly personal data in one place. This consolidated trove of information represents a honeypot for hackers.

Should OpenAI’s business model evolve, it could also become a gold mine for highly targeted advertising.

OpenAI says it has tried to protect users’ security and has run thousands of hours of focused simulated attacks. It also says it has “added safeguards to address new risks that can come from access to logged-in sites and browsing history while taking actions on your behalf”.

However, the company still acknowledges “agents are susceptible to hidden malicious instructions, [which] could lead to stealing data from sites you’re logged into or taking actions you didn’t intend”.

A downgrade in browser security

This marks a major escalation in browser security risks.

For example, sandboxing is a security approach designed to keep websites isolated and prevent malicious code from accessing data from other tabs. The modern web depends on this separation.

But in Atlas, the AI agent isn’t malicious code – it’s a trusted user with permission to see and act across all sites. This undermines the core principle of browser isolation.

And while most AI safety concerns have focused on the technology producing inaccurate information, prompt injection is more dangerous. It’s not the AI making a mistake; it’s the AI following a hostile command hidden in the environment.

Atlas is especially vulnerable because it gives human-level control to an intelligence layer that can be manipulated by reading a single malicious line of text on an untrusted site.

Think twice before using

Before agentic browsing becomes mainstream, we need rigorous third-party security audits from independent researchers who can stress-test Atlas’s defenses against these risks. We need clearer regulatory frameworks that define liability when AI agents make mistakes or get manipulated. And we need OpenAI to prove, not simply promise, that its safeguards can withstand determined attackers.

For people who are considering downloading Atlas, the advice is straightforward: extreme caution.

If you do use Atlas, think twice before you enable agent mode on websites where you handle sensitive information. Treat browser memories as a security liability and disable them unless you have a compelling reason to share your complete browsing history with an AI. Use Atlas’s incognito mode as your default, and remember that every convenience feature is simultaneously a potential vulnerability.

The future of AI-powered browsing may indeed be inevitable, but it shouldn’t arrive at the expense of user security. OpenAI’s Atlas asks us to trust that innovation will outpace exploitation. History suggests we shouldn’t be so optimistic.

Uri Gal, Professor in Business Information Systems, University of Sydney

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

Right now, more than 311,000 Australian Facebook users can apply for a slice of a A$50 million compensation fund from tech giant Meta – the largest ever payment for a breach of Australians’ privacy.

But the clock is ticking. Even if you’re eligible, you only have until December 31 2025 to make your claim. Similar payouts have already begun in the United States.

From who’s eligible, to how to make a claim, to how much the eventual payout might be: here’s what you need to know.

Why so many Australians can apply

The landmark settlement arose from Meta’s involvement in the Cambridge Analytica scandal: a massive data breach in the 2010s, when a British data firm harvested private information from 87 million Facebook profiles worldwide.

It led to a record-breaking US$5 billion penalty (about $A7.7 billion today) in the US against Meta as Facebook’s parent company, and the creation of a US$725 million (A$1.1 billion) compensation scheme for affected Americans.

Here in Australia, an investigation by the national privacy regulator – the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner – found Cambridge Analytica used the This Is Your Digital Life personality quiz app to extract personal information.

That investigation found just 53 Australian Facebook users installed the app. But another 311,074 Australian Facebook users were friends of those 53 people, meaning the app could have requested their information too.

In December 2024, the Information Commissioner announced she had settled a court case with Meta in return for an “enforceable undertaking”, including a record A$50 million payment program.

Claims opened on June 30 this year and close on December 31.

Who can apply?

You can apply if you:

• held a Facebook account between 2 November 2013 and 17 December 2015 (the eligibility period)

• were in Australia for more than 30 days during that period, and

• either installed the Life app or were Facebook friends with someone who did.

How to apply – but watch for scams

The Facebook Payment Program is being administered by consultants KPMG. (Meta has to pay KPMG to run it; that doesn’t come out of the $50 million fund.)

That website is where to go with questions or to lodge a claim.

Meta has sent all Australians it knows may be eligible this “token” notification within Facebook:

You may be entitled to receive payment from litigation recently settled in Australia. Learn more.

Try this link to see if the company has records of you or your friends logging into the Digital Life app. If there are, you should be able to use the “fast track” application.

If you didn’t get that notification but you think you were affected, you can make a claim using the standard process by proving:

• your identity, such as with a passport or driver’s licence
• you held a Facebook account and were located in Australia during the eligibility period.

But watch out for scammers pretending to be from Facebook or to be helping with claims.

Which payout could you be eligible for?

You need to choose to apply for compensation under one of two “classes”, requiring different types of proof.

Class 1: the harder option, expected to get higher payouts

To claim for “specific loss or damage”, you’ll need to provide documented evidence of economic and/or non-economic loss or damages. For example, this could include out-of-pocket medical or counselling costs, or having to move if your personal details were made public.

You’ll also need to show that damage was caused by the Cambridge Analytica data breach. For many people, proving extensive loss or damage may be difficult.

Class 1 claims will be decided first. There are no predetermined payout amounts; each will be decided individually.

If your class 1 claim is unsuccessful, but you’re otherwise eligible for a payout, you will be able to get a class 2 payout instead.

Class 2: the easier option, likely to get smaller payouts

Alternatively, you can choose to claim only for loss or damage based on “a generalised concern or embarrassment” caused by the data breach.

It’s a much easier process – but also likely to be a much smaller payment.

All class 2 claimants will receive the same amount, after the class 1 payouts.

These claimants only need to provide a statutory declaration that they have a genuine belief the breach caused them concern or embarrassment.

In Meta’s enforceable undertaking with the Information Commissioner, it states KPMG is able to apply a cap on payments to claimants. It also says if there is money left after all the payouts, KPMG will pay that amount to the Australian government’s Consolidated Revenue Fund.

Meta told The Conversation:

There is not a pre-determined cap on payments. The appropriate time to determine whether any cap should apply to payments made to claimants is following the end of the registration period [December 31].

So it’s not yet clear how much of the $50 million fund will go to Australian claimants versus how much could end up going to the federal government.

Payments are expected to be made from around August 2026.

How much are payouts likely to be?

Payouts from similar settlements by Meta elsewhere have been very small. For example, US Facebook users eligible for their US$725 million compensation scheme have expressed surprise at the size of their payouts. One report suggests the average US payment is around US$30 (A$45) each.

Here in Australia, a lot will depend on how many people bother to register between now and December 31.

Graham Greenleaf, Honorary Professor, Macquarie Law School, Macquarie University and Katharine Kemp, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law & Justice; Lead, UNSW Public Interest Law & Tech Initiative, UNSW Sydney

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

You call your teen’s name, but they don’t respond. They’re staring past you. You call again, louder this time. Nothing – how rude.

But what if they’re zoning out?

For some teens, this can be a sign of dissociation, a temporary disconnection from thoughts, feelings, body or surroundings. It’s the brain’s way of protecting itself from overwhelming stress or emotion.

Dissociation is often linked to trauma – experiences that feel deeply distressing or life-threatening.

But because dissociation is quiet and invisible, it often goes unnoticed. A withdrawn or “spacey” teen draws less attention than one who’s anxious or acting out. Misunderstanding this response can lead to frustration and strained relationships.

In two recent studies, we interviewed teens who dissociate, as well as their parents and clinicians. We wanted to understand better what it feels like when it happens – and what would help.

What is dissociation?

Dissociation is the brain’s safety switch. When emotions or memories feel too intense, the brain creates distance, like mentally stepping out of the room.

It’s common to experience mild forms of dissociation, such as zoning out during a boring meeting. But for teens who’ve experienced trauma, it can feel more intense and be more disruptive.

Many people underestimate how common trauma is for young people.

Worldwide, almost three in four teens have experienced at least one traumatic event, such as violence, serious accidents, or the death of a loved one. In Western countries, this may be closer to one in two.

Distressing content is also streamed directly to teens’ devices. Violent videos, cyberbullying or hate-based online abuse can all trigger overwhelmed feelings.

When feelings become too much to handle, dissociation offers immediate relief. But over-use of dissociation to cope can disrupt learning, relationships and daily life.

Surveys suggest this clinical form of dissociation affects 7–11% of high school students, making it as common as anxiety disorders.

Yet dissociation in young people is still not well understood, even by professionals.

What we wanted to find out

To better understand dissociation, our research team spoke with dissociating teens about what the experience feels like, what triggers it and what helps.

Seven teenagers who had experienced significant trauma and were receiving care at a Western Australian mental health service shared their experiences. Given dissociation can affect memory and awareness, we also interviewed each teen’s parent and primary clinician.

While our study involved a small number of teens, their reflections gave us powerful insight into the lived experience of dissociation in adolescence.

What teens told us

Teens described dissociation as feeling disconnected from their body or as though reality had gone blurry.

Lisa* (age 17) said:

I could look in the mirror and not feel like it was me […] I knew it was me, but I didn’t feel like it was me.

Verity* (age 14) explained:

I’m zoned out and don’t notice what’s going on around me. […] People could be calling my name or waving in my face, and like, I don’t notice.

Parents told us their teens could sometimes become completely unresponsive – unable to move or talk – or have emotional outbursts they later couldn’t remember.

Dissociation was most likely when teens felt strong emotions triggered by reminders of trauma, conflict or peer rejection.

What helps

Many teens said the most helpful thing was knowing a trusted person was nearby. They often didn’t want advice or questions – just reassurance someone would stay close.

Lisa said:

I like having company because I don’t cope on my own […] it’s helpful to have someone just wait with me until it’s over.

Sometimes, they wanted more active help with strategies.

Amy* (age 16) said calming techniques can help:

if someone else is there and they’re telling me what to do […] I can’t really do it on my own when I’m like that [dissociating].

Others said retreating to quiet spaces helped them come back to the present.

But when they didn’t feel able to reach out for support, some teens turned to less helpful strategies, like disappearing into fantasy worlds for hours.

Our research suggests that to reduce the chances of this, it’s important for teens to know you’re there.

What parents can do

Bullying, rejection or failure can all feel catastrophic to a developing mind. Teens may also experience traumas adults don’t know about.

If a teen seems distant or unresponsive, stay curious rather than frustrated. Ask yourself what might be happening beneath the surface.

When dissociation happens, stay physically present and calm. Offer to help them with activities like going for a walk, breathing slowly, or doing something sensory, such as holding a warm drink.

If dissociation happens frequently or severely, consider reaching out to a mental health professional or GP for support.

Why it matters

Dissociation isn’t bad behaviour – it’s a coping response to trauma and stress, and can be a sign a teen is overwhelmed. When adults recognise this, they can respond with empathy instead of frustration.

We’d like to see trauma-informed approaches in homes and schools. This means building safety and trust with young people and supporting collaboration.

Offering choice (for example, taking a short break or choosing where they sit in the classroom) can empower them to have some control over their environment. Calm, sensory-friendly spaces can also help kids feel safe and ready to learn.

Recognising dissociation and responding with patience and compassion can help your teen and strengthen your relationship in the process.

*Names have been changed to protect privacy.

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Kids Helpline (ages 5–25 and parents) on 1800 55 1800.

Bronwyn Milkins, Postdoctoral Researcher in Youth Trauma and Dissociation, The Kids Research Institute Australia and Helen Milroy, Professor & Director, Centre for Aboriginal Medical and Dental Health (CAMDH), The University of Western Australia

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

Social media and lifestyle magazines have turned gluten – a protein in wheat, rye and barley – into a dietary villain.

Athletes and celebrities have promoted gluten-free eating as the secret to better health and performance.

But our review in The Lancet published today challenges that idea.

By examining decades of research, we found that for most people who think they react to gluten, gluten itself is rarely the cause.

Symptoms but not coeliac

Coeliac disease is when the body’s immune system attacks itself when someone eats gluten, leading to inflammation and damage to the gut.

But people with gut or other symptoms after eating foods containing gluten can test negative for coeliac disease or wheat allergy. They are said to have non-coeliac gluten sensitivity.

We wanted to understand whether gluten itself, or other factors, truly cause their symptoms.

What we did and what we found

Our study combined more than 58 studies covering symptom changes and possible ways they could arise. These included studying the immune system, gut barrier, microbes in the gut, and psychological explanations.

Across studies, gluten-specific reactions were uncommon and, when they occurred, changes in symptoms were usually small. Many participants who believed they were “gluten sensitive” reacted equally – or more strongly – to a placebo.

One landmark trial looked at the role of fermentable carbohydrates (known as FODMAPs) in people who said they were sensitive to gluten (but didn’t have coeliac disease). When people ate a low-FODMAP diet – avoiding foods such as certain fruits, vegetables, legumes and cereals – their symptoms improved, even when gluten was reintroduced.

Another showed fructans – a type of FODMAP in wheat, onion, garlic and other foods – caused more bloating and discomfort than gluten itself.

This suggests most people who feel unwell after eating gluten are sensitive to something else. This could be FODMAPs such as fructans, or other wheat proteins. Another explanation could be that symptoms reflect a disorder in how the gut interacts with the brain, similar to irritable bowel syndrome.

Some people may be truly sensitive to gluten. However, current evidence suggests this is uncommon.

People expected symptoms

A consistent finding is how expecting to have symptoms profoundly shapes people’s symptoms.

In blinded trials, when people unknowingly ate gluten or placebo, symptom differences almost vanished.

Some who expected gluten to make them unwell developed identical discomfort when exposed to a placebo.

This nocebo effect – the negative counterpart of placebo – shows that belief and prior experience influence how the brain processes signals from the gut.

Brain-imaging research supports this, showing that expectation and emotion activate brain regions involved in pain and how we perceive threats. This can heighten sensitivity to normal gut sensations.

These are real physiological responses. What the evidence is telling us is that focusing attention on the gut, coupled with anxiety about symptoms or repeated negative experiences with food, has real effects. This can sensitise how the gut interacts with the brain (known as the gut–brain axis) so normal digestive sensations are felt as pain or urgency.

Recognising this psychological contribution doesn’t mean symptoms are imagined. When the brain predicts a meal may cause harm, gut sensory pathways amplify every cramp or sensation of discomfort, creating genuine distress.

This helps explain why people remain convinced gluten is to blame even when blinded studies show otherwise. Symptoms are real, but the mechanism is often driven by expectation rather than gluten.

So what else could explain why some people feel better after going gluten-free? Such a change in the diet also reduces high-FODMAP foods and ultra-processed products, encourages mindful eating and offers a sense of control. All these can improve our wellbeing.

People also tend to eat more naturally gluten-free, nutrient-dense foods such as fruits, vegetables, legumes and nuts, which may further support gut health.

The cost of going gluten-free

For the approximately 1% of the population with coeliac disease, avoiding gluten for life is essential.

But for most who feel better gluten-free, gluten is unlikely to be the true problem.

There’s also a cost to going gluten-free unnecessarily. Gluten-free foods are, on average, 139% more expensive than standard ones. They are also often lower in fibre and key nutrients.

Avoiding gluten long term can also reduce diversity in your diet, alter your gut microbes and reinforce anxiety about eating.

Is it worth getting tested?

Unlike coeliac disease or a wheat allergy, non-coeliac gluten sensitivity has no biomarker – there’s no blood test or tissue marker that can confirm it.

Diagnosis instead relies on excluding other conditions and structured dietary testing.

Based on our review, we recommend clinicians:

• rule out coeliac disease and wheat allergy first

• optimise the quality of someone’s overall diet

• trial a low-FODMAP diet if symptoms persist

• only then, consider a four to six-week dietitian-supervised gluten-free trial, followed by a structured re-introduction of gluten-containing foods to see whether gluten truly causes symptoms.

This approach keeps restriction targeted and temporary, avoiding unnecessary long-term exclusion of gluten.

If gluten doesn’t explain someone’s symptoms, combining dietary guidance with psychological support often works best. That’s because expectation, stress and emotion influence our symptoms. Cognitive-behavioural or exposure-based therapies can reduce food-related fear and help people safely reintroduce foods they once avoided.

This integrated model moves beyond the simplistic “gluten is bad” narrative toward personalised, evidence-based gut–brain care.

Jessica Biesiekierski, Associate Professor of Human Nutrition, The University of Melbourne

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

Unlike in the United States and New Zealand, it’s illegal in Australia to advertise prescription medicines directly to the public.

The main idea is to avoid demand for a drug that may not be appropriate, but which doctors may feel under pressure to prescribe.

But drug companies can get around this restriction by running “awareness” ads that indirectly promote their products.

For instance, we’re currently seeing ads raising awareness about weight loss that don’t mention the names of specific Ozempic-style drugs. Instead, these ads recommend you speak to your doctor about your weight.

The main argument for such awareness ads is they encourage people to seek help from their doctor, rather than suffer from symptoms they might have been embarrassed about, or have not been able to address themselves.

For instance, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly – which make weight-loss drugs – told the ABC recently their campaigns were trying to raise awareness of obesity as a chronic disease.

The main counterargument is that awareness ads act as drug promotion in disguise.

So, should pharmaceutical companies be allowed to run awareness ads for diseases or conditions their drugs treat?

We asked five experts. Four out of five said no. Here are their detailed answers.

Barbara Mintzes, Professor in Pharmaceutical Policy, School of Pharmacy and Charles Perkins Centre, University of Sydney; David Menkes, Associate Professor in Psychological Medicine, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau; Fiona Willer, Lecturer, Dietitian and Bioethicist, Queensland University of Technology; Jennifer Power, Principal Research Fellow, Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University, and Ray Moynihan, Senior Research Manager, University of Sydney and Honorary Assistant Professor, Bond University

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

A year ago, the Commonwealth government established a policy requiring most federal agencies to publish “AI transparency statements” on their websites by February 2025. These statements were meant to explain how agencies use artificial intelligence (AI), in what domains and with what safeguards.

The stated goal was to build public trust in government use of AI – without resorting to legislation. Six months after the deadline, early results from our research (to be published in full later this year) suggest this policy is not working.

We looked at 224 agencies and found only 29 had easily identifiable AI transparency statements. A deeper search found 101 links to statements.

That adds up to a compliance rate of around 45%, although for some agencies (such as defence, intelligence and corporate agencies) publishing a statement is recommended rather than required, and it is possible some agencies could share the same statement. Still, these tentative early findings raise serious questions about the effectiveness of Australia’s “soft-touch” approach to AI governance in the public sector.

Why AI transparency matters

Public trust in AI in Australia is already low. The Commonwealth’s reluctance to legislate rules and safeguards for the use of automated decision making in the public sector – identified as a shortcoming by the Robodebt royal commission – makes transparency all the more critical.

The public expects government to be an exemplar of responsible AI use. Yet the very policy designed to ensure transparency seems to be ignored by many agencies.

With the government also signalling a reluctance to pass economy-wide AI rules, good practice in government could also encourage action from a disoriented private sector. A recent study found 78% of corporations are “aware” of responsible AI practices, but only 29% have actually “implemented” them.

Transparency statements

The transparency statement requirement is the key binding obligation under the Digital Transformation Agency’s policy for the responsible use of AI in government.

Agencies must also appoint an “accountable [AI] official” who is meant to be responsible for AI use. The transparency statements are supposed to be clear, consistent, and easy to find – ideally linked from the agency’s homepage.

In our research, conducted in collaboration with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, we sought to identify these statements, using a combination of automated combing through websites, targeted Google searches, and manual inspection of the list of federal entities facilitated by the information commissioner. This included both agencies and departments strictly bound by the policy and those invited to comply voluntarily.

But we found only a few statements were accessible from the agency’s landing page. Many were buried deep in subdomains or required complex manual searching. Among agencies for which publishing a statement was recommended, rather than required, we struggled to find any.

More concerningly, there were many for which we could not find the statement even where it was required. This may just be a technical failure, but given the effort we put in, it suggests a policy failure.

A toothless requirement

The transparency statement requirement is binding in theory but toothless in practice. There are no penalties for agencies that fail to comply. There is also no open central register to track who has or has not published a statement.

The result is a fragmented, inconsistent landscape that undermines the very trust the policy was meant to build. And the public has no way to understand – or challenge – how AI is being used in decisions that affect their lives.

How other countries do it

In the United Kingdom, the government established a mandatory AI register. But as the Guardian reported in late 2024, many departments failed to list their AI use, despite the legal requirement to do so.

The situation seems to have slightly improved this year, but still many high-risk AI systems identified by UK civil society groups are still not published on the UK government’s own register.

The United States has taken a firmer stance. Despite anti-regulation rhetoric from the White House, the government has so far maintained its binding commitments to AI transparency and mitigation of risk.

Federal agencies are required to assess and publicly register their AI systems. If they fail to do so, the rules say they must stop using them.

Towards responsible use of AI

In the next phase of our research, we will analyse the content of the transparency statements we did find.

Are they meaningful? Do they disclose risks, safeguards and governance structures? Or are they vague and perfunctory? Early indications suggest wide variation in quality.

If governments are serious about responsible AI, they must enforce their own policies. If determined university researchers cannot easily find the statements – even assuming they are somewhere deep on the website – that cannot be called transparency.

The authors wish to thank Shuxuan (Annie) Luo for her contribution to this research.

José-Miguel Bello y Villarino, Senior Research Fellow, Sydney Law School, University of Sydney; Alexandra Sinclair, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Sydney Law School, University of Sydney, and Kimberlee Weatherall, Professor of Law, University of Sydney

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

Children’s screams echo off concrete walls as they navigate bright-painted monkey bars. Families huddle around a sausage sizzle. Teenagers lounge on borrowed towels near a palm grove. Washing machines hum quietly in the corner.

But we are inside the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Mike Hewson’s The Key’s Under the Mat is one of the most ambitious and intelligent works of public art created in Australia in recent years.

What makes this work so remarkable is how completely it succeeds on multiple registers simultaneously. It’s a functioning neighbourhood park, a sculptural tour de force, and a sophisticated meditation on what we mean by “public space”.

Hewson has thought through every detail with extraordinary care. Inside the gallery’s cavernous underground tank gallery, brass spoons are hammered into custom concrete pavers. Steel rails are hand-painted rather than powder-coated, giving them a casual, approachable quality. Trinkets and tiles are embedded throughout like hidden treasures. Look down at the ground and the pavers read like abstract paintings.

The craft is exquisite – but it doesn’t announce itself. Instead, it creates an environment where people feel genuinely welcome to cook, play, do laundry and linger.

And they do. Watching families engage with this space – not in hushed gallery tones but with the comfortable ease of a neighbourhood park – reveals the work’s most radical achievement: most people using it (primarily children under 12, on the day I visit) have no idea they’re in an artwork.

‘Hopeful embellishment’

The work emerged from the artist’s experience of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. Witnessing the collapse of structures that had seemed permanent, Hewson became fascinated by provisional repair, improvised solutions, and the community-building gestures that emerge from disaster.

Hewson’s subsequent projects have celebrated what curator Justin Paton calls “defiant repair and hopeful embellishment”: the beauty of making-do with care and resourcefulness.

The Key’s Under the Mat brings this ethos into dialogue with institutional space in ways that are both generous and thought-provoking.

The vast tank at the Art Gallery of NSW was built urgently in 1942 to hold fuel for the war effort, then abandoned for decades before being drained, cleaned and opened to the public in 2022. Here, it becomes the perfect container for Hewson’s vision of repurposed, reimagined public infrastructure.

The work’s intelligence lies not just in what it provides, but in what it reveals about the nature of “public” space itself. The gallery is a public institution, and entry is free. Yet accessing the tank still requires certain conditions: geographic proximity, availability during gallery hours, cultural confidence to enter a major art institution, and the knowledge that this remarkable space exists at all.

By creating functioning public amenities – laundromat, barbecue, playground – Hewson makes visible something we often overlook: “public” always comes with conditions. Laundromats require proximity, mobility and often money. Park barbecues require time, transport and sometimes booking systems. No public space is universally accessible, even when it’s genuinely free and open.

The project illuminates this with remarkable clarity. In trying to create the most welcoming, functional and generous public space possible within a gallery, Hewson reveals both what institutions can achieve and where their reach inevitably stops. It’s a paradox the work holds lightly but meaningfully.

Institutional critique; joyful amenity

There’s something profound about how the work operates for different audiences.

Children climb and play without needing to understand they’re experiencing art. Art-literate visitors notice the handmade pavers, the embedded spoons, the deliberate aesthetic choices.

Both experiences are valid; both are intended. The work makes room for multiple ways of engaging – from pure use to deep analysis.

This multiplicity extends to a question Hewson leaves deliberately open: should there be more interpretive signage explaining the work’s intentions and extraordinary craft? The current approach lets the art disappear into life, functioning without demanding recognition. But it also means the labour and thought remain visible primarily to those already versed in contemporary art’s vocabularies. There’s no single right answer – and the work’s refusal to choose feels intentional.

Hewson has described children as his “first ambassadors and interpreters” for this work. Watching kids genuinely inhabit the space confirms his instinct. They don’t need permission or explanation – they simply use what’s there.

The Key’s Under the Mat achieves something rare: it is simultaneously a sophisticated institutional critique and a genuinely joyful public amenity.

The work’s title captures its spirit perfectly. It is an invitation, a gesture of trust and openness. That the mat sits within an institution with its own forms of access doesn’t negate the generosity of the gesture – it contextualises it. Hewson has created the most open, welcoming, thoughtfully crafted public space he can within the given parameters, and in doing so, has made us think more carefully about what “public” means in all contexts.

The Key’s Under the Mat doesn’t solve the contradictions inherent in institutional public space. It doesn’t need to. Its achievement is making those contradictions visible, tangible and surprisingly joyful to experience. In a cultural landscape often divided between art that’s critically sophisticated and art that’s genuinely popular, Hewson has created something that brilliantly refuses to choose.

The Key’s Under the Mat is now open at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Sanné Mestrom, Senior Lecturer, DECRA Fellow, Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney

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

When we think of spies, we may go to images of people in trench coats and dark glasses, trying to steal government papers. Or someone trying to tap the phone of a senior official.

The reality of course can be much more sophisticated. One emerging area of concern is how countries protect their university research from foreign interference. And how we safely do research with other countries – a vital way to ensure Australia’s work is cutting edge.

This week, research security experts including myself will meet in Brussels to talk about how to conduct free and open research in the face of growing security risks around the world.

What does Australia need to do to better protect its university research?

What is research security?

Research security means protecting research and development (R&D) from foreign government interference or unauthorised access. It is especially important in our universities, where the freedom to publish, collaborate, and work together is seen as a virtue.

Australia’s universities face escalating, deliberate efforts to steal commercially or militarily valuable research, repress views critical of foreign regimes, and database hacking.

As my July 2025 report found, adversaries are no longer just stealing data or cultivating informal relationships. We’re seeing deliberate efforts to insert malicious insiders, target researchers and exploit data and cyber vulnerabilities.

ASIO head Mike Burgess has stressed there is an incredible danger facing our academic community from spies and secret agents.

In 2024, Burgess warned of an “A-team” of spies targeting academia:

leading Australian academics and political figures were invited to a conference in an overseas country, with the organisers covering all expenses […]. A few weeks after the conference wrapped up, one of the academics started giving the A-team information about Australia’s national security and defence priorities.

But Australia can’t just stop collaborating with foreign nations. Some are far more scientifically advanced than we are, and we risk cutting ourselves off from developments in the latest technology.

In other cases, we might be unfairly discriminating against researchers from other countries.

The international research landscape is changing

Since January, US President Donald Trump has slashed university funding, banned foreign students and orchestrated a campaign of lawsuits and investigations into campus activities.

This has a huge flow-on effect to Australia, as we have tied ourselves strongly to the US for science and technology funding.

So Australia is looking to the EU as a more reliable and sustainable funding partner.

It has reactivated talks to join the €100 billion (A$179 billion) Horizon Europe fund. Australia abandoned its original attempt in 2023 citing “potential cost of contributions to projects”.

Horizon Europe isn’t just a massive pot of money for Australian researchers. It’s also a way to bring Australia closer to the EU on other initiatives, like the EU Science Diplomacy Alliance, which ensures scientific developments are pursued for the safety, security and benefits for all people.

Yet if Australia wants to join Horizon Europe, it will need to prove it takes research security as seriously as other EU nations. In April 2024, Australia and the EU agreed to strengthen research security and

measures to protect critical technology and to counter foreign interference in research and innovation.

Australia does not have an adequate policy

But Australia does not have a proper national policy on research security. It also does not have a proper guide for our 43 universities in how they should approach it or what the minimum standards are.

The guidelines we have for “countering foreign interference” are entirely voluntary, and not centrally monitored for compliance in any way.

A 2022 federal parliamentary report detailed a litany of attempts by foreign agents to get access to our universities. It made 27 recommendations about improving that situation. To date, the federal government has not yet acted on about three quarters of these.

These included a recommendation to ban involvement in “talent recruitment programs”, where academics are offered vast sums of money or other benefits to duplicate their research in countries like China.

The EU approach

Australia’s approach is in stark contrast to the EU, which has made research security a priority.

In May 2024, the European Commission directed all 27 member states to adopt laws and policies to “work together to safeguard sensitive knowledge from being misused”.

Germany has since adopted “security ethics committees” – modelled on human and animal ethics committees – to scrutinise potential projects for dangerous or high-risk research.

The Netherlands, Denmark and United Kingdom all set up government contact points to help academics answer questions about research security practices.

It will take more than just policies

Australia needs clearer, stronger national policies for research security. But if we are going to take this seriously, we need more than just policy guidance.

To properly scrutinise and set up research, universities need time, support and information. This also means they need more funding.

In some universities there might be one person responsible for research security, and this may not be their sole job.

So we also need funding to give academics a way to identify and manage risks in research and support information sharing across institutions.

Through these measures we will be able to demonstrate to the world we are doing research securely – and it is safe to fund and work with Australia.

Brendan Walker-Munro, Senior Lecturer (Law), Southern Cross University

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

Between the end of a summer that had been going on too long and the beginning of a too-warm autumn that would crank up my climate change anxiety to ten, I joined a tai chi class.

I had noticed a sign when I was out walking. Immediately, I went online, paid some money and put my name down for the first available session. Looking back, I wonder why I thought this evening class, held in a suburban community centre, might soothe the assorted anxieties I was carrying. Signing up was an impulsive act, prompted by some deep, yet inarticulate knowing that the way I was feeling would not be eased by words; something different was needed, something physical.

I’d had two big bereavements: first my mother, then a beloved aunt. They had been the two most important women in my life, and suddenly they were gone. Meanwhile, I was under ongoing surveillance following surgery for cancer, caught in that uneasy post-treatment period that tests one’s nerve – because there is nothing to be done but wait.

At certain moments, usually in the middle of the night, a niggling voice would whisper that the cancer might be gone but it could return, that even as I lay there in the dark trying to sleep, some small, festering body part might be plotting treason. Sometimes the voice was that of the naturopath I’d consulted, who’d warned since my body had made a cancer, I needed to avoid the conditions that had allowed that to happen. Which, of course, I would – if only I knew what they may have been.

It was a time when at least once a day I would find myself on the verge of crying; sometimes, inconveniently, the tears broke through. It could happen anywhere – when I was out walking, or in the supermarket; sometimes it happened when I was driving, and I’d have to pull over until I was able to quieten my thoughts enough to drive on.

Inconvenient weeping

I’d almost progressed to feeling tearful about being tearful, when I came across the first of Deborah Levy’s trilogy of autobiographical writings, Things I Don’t Want to Know. In it, Levy documents her bouts of inconvenient weeping. It was riding on escalators at train stations that set off Levy’s tears, especially the upward escalator. She writes: “By the time I got to the top and felt the wind rushing in, it took all my effort to stop myself from sobbing.”

I recognised that effortful feeling of trying to control the sobs. Like Levy, I also knew something had to change. Her solution had been to book a flight to Palma, Majorca, where she was met at the airport by a taxi driver with white clouds floating in both his eyes. On arrival, Levy had bought Spanish cigarettes with the intention of taking up smoking again and when the driver abandoned her on the road to her hotel, she sat on a rock and lit the first cigarette.

It was also somewhat comforting to read, in Joan Didion’s essay Goodbye to All That, how as a young woman in New York, she had found herself crying in elevators and taxis and Chinese laundries. There were certain parts of the city she had to avoid, including Times Square in the afternoons, or the New York Public Library at any time, for any reason.

Her solution was to get married. But I was sorry to learn her crying continued even after her marriage to fellow writer John Gregory Dunne. Didion cried, she writes, “until I was not even aware when I was crying and when I was not”. It was a year in which, she tells us, she understood the meaning of the word “despair”. A doctor expressed the opinion she appeared to be depressed. He wrote down the name and number of a psychiatrist for her, but Didion did not go.

A friend had given me the name of a psychologist who she said had helped her, but I had given up on psychology. Or at least, the psychologists I had consulted when things had been going badly in the past had left me poorer without improving matters.

Now, everything was conspiring to cast me low, including that ever since the cancer surgery, my hair had been shedding – hair I had patiently nurtured through the transition from chemical dyes to natural health, hair I had joyously grown halfway down my back for the first time since childhood. My hair was everywhere in the house and in the car; it even migrated into our food. I knew I had been fortunate to have avoided chemotherapy, with its side serve of hair loss, but now it appeared I was to lose it anyway, albeit more slowly.

I read that both surgery and stress can contribute to thinning hair, and concluded although I had been anaesthetised when surgeons re-sectioned my colon, my body had been present and remained deeply shocked.

In signing up for the tai chi class, I was throwing myself upon the mercy of the universe.

A kind of poetry

The only time I had ever actually seen tai chi involved one of those surreal moments that occasionally occur in life. About five years earlier, I had been driving along the southern terrace that borders Adelaide’s parklands and the car radio was playing a piece of classical music by a Japanese composer.

The sound was spare and melancholy, and when I glanced across to the park I saw a tai chi class in progress. That was not in itself unusual – people use the parklands all the time for various fitness activities. What made time swerve to a halt was that the slow movements of the tai chi people were perfectly in time with the music coming out of my radio.

I had stopped the car to watch. The group practising tai chi couldn’t hear the music, of course, but the synchronicity of movement and sound produced a kind of poetry. Perhaps, then, when I saw the sign advertising “tai chi for health and wellbeing” outside my local community centre, it was this memory of the unexpected beauty I’d witnessed that had nudged me over the hump of my inertia to join.

Tai chi is a form of mind-body exercise that originated in China. Its history is somewhat shadowy, with contributions attributed to various monks and masters reaching back as far as the 12th century, and possibly beyond. In T’ai Chi Ch’uan and I Ching: a choreography of body and mind, Da Liu, a tai chi master, credits the most complete foundations of tai chi to a famous Taoist, Chang San-feng, an ardent follower of Confucius who was known as “The Immortal”.

Da Liu writes that Chang San-feng famously observed a fight between a crane and a snake, and from the way the two animals moved he realised “the value of yielding in the face of strength”. He studied the behaviour of wild animals, clouds, water and trees moving in the wind and “codified these natural movements into a system of exercise”. Da Liu concedes: “We owe the present forms of T’ai Chi to numerous masters […] over many centuries.”

Tai chi has been influenced by Confucian thought, and by traditional Chinese medicine, but its roots lie deep in the ancient Chinese philosophy of Taoism, which emphasises the natural balance in all things. In Taoist thinking, everything is composed of two opposite but complementary elements: yin and yang. The Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu wrote eloquently of the principles of yin and yang in his famous work the Tao Te Ching.

In tai chi, the polarities of yin and yang are expressed through the form’s shifts of weight and balance, through hardness yielding to softness, tension releasing to relaxation, and moving the body in ways that expand and contract. Gentler and more meditative than the Chinese martial arts it evolved from, its slow, dance-like postures flow into one another, combining concentration, physical balance, stretching and relaxation, with natural, peaceful breathing.

There are different schools of tai chi. Chen, Yang, Wu and Sun styles are named after the Chinese families who developed them, and the skills are passed orally through the generations.

The form I was learning had been developed by a Taoist monk, Master Moy Lin Shin. The tai chi he brought to the West is a modified version of Yang style’s 108-move set. Its elements are borrowed from the Chinese internal arts of XingYi (a bare-handed fighting form), Bagua (a complex system of eight trigrams, which in tai chi relate to movement and body parts), and Liuhebafa, or “water boxing”, a form characterised by its flowing, fluid movements.

Taoist tai chi has been criticised for these modifications, which are sometimes seen as a dilution of classical tai chi. Criticism focuses on the fact Master Moy removed the “fighting” aspects from his form in favour of emphasising its health benefits. His decision was most likely influenced by the health difficulties of his own early years, as well as by the needs of the people he trained after he emigrated to Canada.

Lou Reed, legendary musician, songwriter and founding member of rock band the Velvet Underground, credits tai chi with saving him after years of self-destructive substance abuse. Reed began a martial arts practice in the 1980s; he came to love the fighting aspect of Chen style, but he was also in awe of tai chi’s power to heal. In a letter published by The New York Times in 2010, Reed wrote:

I wish I could convince you to change your life and save your body and soul. I know it sounds too good. But truly: Tai Chi – why not?“

A lesson in humility

My first class was a lesson in humility. Never a sporty type, never even an adequate dancer, awkward hardly does justice to the feeling of finding myself in the centre of a group of people who, at the instructor’s command, began a series of complex moves they seemed to know by heart. Later, I would learn ushering beginners into the middle is a kindness; it means when they turn, there is someone they can follow.

At the halfway point of that first class, Chinese pu’erh tea was served in tiny porcelain cups. Brewed from the leaves of a variety of tea plant native to Yunnan Province, pu’erh tea goes through a complex fermentation process and is reputed to have many health benefits. After the tea break, it was back to the centre of the floor for more repetitions of the move we’d been working on.

That night, we were practising move 18: Carry Tiger to Mountain. It evolves out of move 17, Cross Hands, which even I could manage. The body turns with the arms bent as if cradling a heavy bundle. Yes, I thought, this sorrow and anxiety I’d been holding was my tiger; a creature burning bright with memories that had become too painful, a body darkly striped with grief.

It felt as wild and dangerous in its way as a real live tiger, but if I could only master the correct way to carry it to the mountain, perhaps I would be able to leave it there and move on.

Tai chi requires complete focus, making it almost impossible to think about anything else. So when I came across American beat poet Alan Ginsberg’s poem about tai chi, it struck me as a somewhat inaccurate portrayal of what happens during tai chi practice. Ginsberg is in his kitchen in New York, the only place in his apartment with enough space to do tai chi, but his moves are interspersed with domestic concerns:

the Crane spreads its wings have I paid the electric bill?

White Crane Spreads its Wings is one of tai chi’s most subtly exhilarating moves. It involves a simultaneous rising and turning, a spine-expanding stretch that, for me, somehow generates a feeling of hope. What it doesn’t do is allow any room for thoughts of "the electric bill”. What was Ginsberg up to, I wonder, as his white crane spread its wings in his kitchen? I can only conclude his electricity bill was a pressing matter in his life at that particular moment.

Studies have shown tai chi can modulate the regions and networks in the brain associated with depression, with mood regulation and processing emotions, and with stress and distress.

A focus on life force

Of the Chinese martial arts, tai chi belongs to the internal arts known collectively as neijia. The focus is on mental, spiritual and “qi” (chi) – or life-force – aspects, rather than the physiological nature of the external martial arts.

The Eight Methods are qi, bone, shape, follow, rise, return, retain, conceal. At this early stage of my study of tai chi, they remain a mystery. But the principles of the Six Harmonies are evident in a muted way in the class teachings, where emphasis is placed on movement with intent, and on developing an awareness of what one is feeling during the moves – internally as well as externally.

For those of us who lose touch with what our bodies are doing and feeling, neglecting to pay attention until they threaten our wellbeing, or even our lives, this fusing of mind and body, spirit and movement, intent and qi, feels like an important survival skill.

For example, every year almost 7,000 women in Australia are diagnosed with a gynaecological cancer. These cancers are characterised by low survival rates and are notoriously difficult to detect. Something like ovarian cancer can show up in many different ways and spread quite widely before being correctly diagnosed.

Increased awareness of our bodies could help us bring the information to our doctors that might assist in earlier diagnoses and better outcomes for these and many other conditions.

In 2020, tai chi was added to UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list. There have been claims for the practice’s beneficial effects on people living with Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis: conditions that come with a debilitating loss of coordination and balance.

One year-long study of women with MS, carried out between 2019 and 2020, showed measurable improvements in the areas of their balance, gait, mood, cognition – and also in their quality of life.

Cancer as betrayal

My experience of cancer has been that it feels like a betrayal. For decades, my body has carried me through every kind of weather, both actual and emotional. It has reliably bounced back from every health breakdown. No words can adequately describe the sense of loss engendered by a cancer diagnosis, even one that is not yet deemed terminal.

I was fortunate to be diagnosed early, but I was still blindsided by my body’s deceitfulness, its silent treachery; even after surgery, it was a shock to realise the bounce-back appeared provisional. Was this payback for all the times I’d wished for a different physiology – longer legs, straighter hair, slimmer hips? Or for the times I’d just plain hated the way I looked, hated my own clumsiness in the world so much I’d mistreated my closest ally?

Tai chi asks us to turn our awareness to the body with gentleness and precision; to become better at hearing what it has to say. I have felt let down, so when tai chi’s difficult “separations” sequence requires the whole of my weight to be supported by one ankle, one foot, five toes, I ask my body: Will you hold me? Will you keep me from falling? Can I count on you effortlessly as I once did, as a child, as a young woman?

And each time I do not wobble, or have to save myself from falling, it feels like a baby step in a gradual rebuilding of trust, perhaps even of finding forgiveness for the betrayal, a re-bonding with the self at a profound level.

The Taoist Tai Chi logo is the circular yin and yang symbol, with the light and dark sections reversed. It is said to symbolise tai chi’s ability to reverse bad habits and the ageing process, and thus to promote good health. During practice, I hope to reverse the conditions, whatever they may have been, that prompted my body to turn against itself.

But I understand it is a gradual process, as slow and continuous as the movement and pace of tai chi itself, sometimes compared to pulling a silk thread from a cocoon. Pull it too quickly and it breaks; pull it too slowly and it won’t unwind. Slow and gentle doesn’t equate to “weak” or “ineffectual”. Fundamental to tai chi is the concept of “effortless effort”, in which relaxation enables the important inner work to take place.

Less inclined to tears

For me, two months into the practice, my emotions felt more under control; I was less inclined to tears. Week by week, I was discovering that grief and loss are not only held in the heart and mind, but also in the body; muscles and tendons, all the complex systems of nerves and blood and lymph that circulate our distress, are open to being soothed by the language of movement.

As winter set in, I began taking extra classes, going two or three times a week. Pitching up at draughty memorial halls in outlying townships where huge stages were framed by crimson curtains, and where in one case, rows of two-bar electric heaters high up on the walls appeared to be the only heating.

Physically, I found the constant shifting of weight, the expansion and contraction of parts of the body, the striving for a sense of flow, the need to focus, all generated a tangible feeling of wellbeing – though I still felt like an awkward beginner.

In Taoist Tai Chi’s 108-move “set”, some moves – like White Crane Spreads Wings, and Hands Like Clouds – occur multiple times. Learning involves sharpening one’s observational skills, as each move is demonstrated three times by the instructor.

Another subtle aspect of the art is being helped by following those around you who are more skilled, and by their patience in “treading water” for a time while beginners settle in. In this way, tai chi becomes both an individual and a communal endeavour: expressing, through effortless effort, the Taoist ideal of service to others.

To practise the set outside class, the moves must be memorised. It requires patience, persistence and possibly years-long commitment, but studies show the benefits are well worth the effort, especially as we age. Even a tai chi practice of only 24 weeks has demonstrated improved cognitive function in older adults with mild cognitive impairment.

‘I don’t want to seem mystical …’

Lou Reed’s book The Art of the Straight Line: My Tai Chi, edited by his wife, artist Laurie Anderson, was published after Reed’s death. It contains his writings on tai chi and conversations with fellow musicians, artists and tai chi practitioners.

“I have often thought of tai chi as some kind of physical unity to the universe itself, some strange ancient methodology that could link us to the basic energy wave of existence,” he writes. “I don’t want to seem mystical, but something does happen to you when you practice this ancient art.”

Reed became a devotee of Master Ren Guangyi, practising Chen style tai chi for up to two hours a day, and for six or seven days a week. He took Ren on a world tour with him, eventually putting him on stage to do a tai chi set while improvising music to complement the form. The two performed together and engaged in tai chi with the public at Sydney’s 2010 Vivid Festival, which was curated by Reed and Anderson.

In The Art of the Straight Line, in a transcribed conversation between Laurie Anderson and Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche (with whom Reed had studied meditation), Anderson movingly recounts how

as Lou died, he was completely conscious. And he was doing Cloud Hands, a tai chi movement, while he died.

Reed had had cancer of the liver and hepatitis, and had undergone a liver transplant six months earlier.

In Things I Do Not Want to Know, Deborah Levy concludes it was the past, specifically her childhood in Africa, that had returned to her when she was sobbing on escalators. After weighing things up in Majorca, she settles down to write. In Goodbye to All That, Joan Didion leaves New York and returns to California. After a time, the moon over the Pacific Ocean and the pervasive scent of jasmine make her tears in New York seem “a long time ago”.

Even so, after the death of her mother, Didion wrote: “There is no real way to deal with everything we lose.” For a long time I had shared that view, but now, as I progressed with tai chi, I was beginning to think there might be ways.

For me, grief for the past has been as much a factor in my tears as my anxiety about the future. Helplessly poised between the two, I found in tai chi a way to manage this position – not by looking back, nor forward, but expanding and contracting into the present moment, shutting out the world’s noise and finding peace within myself through movement and mindfulness. If this sounds too mystical, I can only agree with Lou Reed: “Something does happen to you when you practice this ancient art.”

What is the “something” that happens? It’s difficult to define, and I suspect you feel it almost immediately if you’re going to feel it at all. I’ve noticed that people who’ve never done tai chi come to a first class and they either never return or, like me, embrace it with the zeal of missionaries. In searching for a way to explain the “something”, I can’t find a better place to start than the opening move.

‘I’m confident it’s happening’

The opening to tai chi appears the simplest of movements. The hands, from hanging at the sides with the palms open, rise in front of the body and then slowly float down. It’s the motion one uses when flinging a sheet over a mattress to make a bed, but so much slower. With the upward lifting of the hands, the body contracts; as the hands descend, the body expands and rises.

It is surprising how soothing this motion can be, how almost at once the mind and body calm. The upward lift is driven by pushing up from the floor, with the hands rising as if on puppet strings, but the downward drift comes from dropping the elbows. They are such subtle adjustments, yet the body responds with a palpable quietening.

There is a sense of return in this move, even though it is a beginning. It’s the feeling I get at the end of a long walk when I open the gate from the street and step into our garden. Or when I close the front door behind me and breathe in: home.

In The Art of the Straight Line, Anderson writes that after more than 25 years of practising tai chi, Lou Reed “could actually feel chi. He could pinpoint it, describe it, and trace the way it moved through his body”. She describes how Reed would demonstrate chi by passing one hand over the other.

When I felt that for the first time, I was electrified. I was holding a ball of unbelievably powerful energy and realizing that it could move through me and that this is also what I was made of.

I have not felt the chi moving through me, but it is early days yet. Eight months in, I remember to straighten my spine as I go about my day; I am calmer and have better balance. While I can’t actually see the new neural pathways forming in my brain, I’m confident it is happening.

I continue each week to carry my tiger to the mountain. In the kitchen, while I wait for the kettle or the oven, my white crane spreads its wings. At night, visualising the first 17 moves sends me to sleep. When I practice the difficult cloud hands, I am reminded of Lou Reed: the way he brought his art and his capacity for devotion to tai chi, and was rewarded.

I approach each class with beginner’s mind, and am hopeful of one day experiencing chi’s electrifying energy.

Carol Lefevre, Visiting Research Fellow, Department of English and Creative Writing, University of Adelaide

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

“Hubble bubble toil and trouble” is a quote from Shakespeare’s Macbeth that conjures images of evil witches making potions in giant cauldrons. But the truth was that women persecuted as witches were probably legitimate healers of the time.

Prior to the 14th century, women healers were generally tolerated throughout Europe, offering one of the only kinds of medicine available at the time. But from the 14th to the mid-18th century, with the rise of university education, coupled with the increasing power of the church, women healers were often demonised.

University graduates were favoured instead. Women folk healers were now commonly labelled as “witches” and subjected to torture and execution.

Valuable medicinal knowledge may have gotten lost along the way. To rediscover this ancient knowledge, researchers are looking in more detail at some of the major ingredients used in these medicines and assess their scientific worth through a modern lens.

Some of the most famous potions documented in records of medieval treatments were said to contain exotic ingredients such as eye of newt, toe of frog, wool of bat, tongue of dog and adder’s fork. But these were actually synonyms for plants and not animal parts.

Although, animal parts such as frogs and toads were indeed also used in other recipes used by the healers of the time, often for their psychoactive properties.

The majority of the plants folk healers used were native to Europe. But there were also some exotic ingredients, obtained through the spice trade, which began as early as the fifth century.

Eye of newt is mustard seed, most likely the European species Sinapis alba. Modern research has shown it has anti-cough, anti-asthma, anti-inflammatory, anti-nerve damage, anti-androgenic, cardioprotective and anti-tumour effects.

The classical formulations containing dried mustard seed, handed down from ancient medical books or ethnic medical experience, are now widely used in herbal clinics.

Wool of bat is common holly leaves, and has been shown to reduce high levels of fats in the blood, including high cholesterol. It also contains some compounds that are toxic and so self-medication isn’t recommended.

Tongue of dog is actually a plant known as hound’s tongue, attributed to the long leaf shape. It has a history of use across the world for a variety of ailments including malaria, hepatitis and tuberculosis.

The presence of group of natural compounds called pyrrolizidine alkaloids render it highly toxic to the liver. This means that any research showing medicinal promise has to be viewed with some caution.

Adder’s fork refers most likely to the fern, English adder’s tongue, primarily used in folk medicine for wound healing and for promoting healthy blood circulation. It has also been exploited for its skin-enhancing properties by the cosmetic industry.

Witches’ brews

Witchcraft and folk healing are two different arts. However, medieval folk healing did involve elements of superstition, astrological lore and even pagan ritual and so the line between compassionate healer and witch could easily be misrepresented by those in power.

Flight ointments, sleep potions and love potions are often mentioned both in historical records and fictional literature. Commonly containing a potent class of chemical compounds called tropane alkaloids (a class that also includes cocaine), these concoctions would have had some interesting effects.

Flight ointments were applied to a broomstick and to parts of the body with blood vessels close to the surface to aid absorption. There has been much colourful debate as to the exact parts of the body that these ointments were applied to, but the extremities are most frequently mentioned.

This could be viewed as an early form of transdermal application, now found in the delivery of some drugs such as nicotine patches.

These alkaloids, derived from plants of the Solanaceae (potato) family, including deadly nightshade and henbane have intoxicating psychoactive effects, including feelings of lightness, delirium and hallucinations. These effects could easily be experienced as feelings of flying.

Sleep potions often used extracts from foxglove and extracts from the plant Indian snakeroot, containing the drug reserpine, the world’s first drug treatment for high blood pressure. It was reportedly rediscovered after the founder of the Indian herbal medicine company, Himalaya, observed its calming effects on restless elephants during a trip to Burma in the 1930s, hundreds of years after its use in medieval times.

Together these plants and their compounds produce symptoms such as reduced heartbeat, inhibition of adrenaline release and drowsiness, all things that might aid in a restful night’s sleep.

Love potion recipes called for ingredients such as the mandrake plant Mandragora officinalis. The root is a rich source of the same alkaloids found in the sleep potions.

This may appear counter-intuitive but higher doses of these compounds are known to produce increased heartbeat, palpitations and sweating rather than drowsiness. Other plants such as Ephedra sinica (containing a stimulant called ephedrine) and psychoactive Areca catechu (betel nut) have stimulant and euphoric effects linked to increases in adrenaline and serotonin.

A sleep potion can be transformed into a love potion, and should love turn to hate, a further increase in dosage would transform these plants into poisons. So it’s unsurprising that accusations associated with poisoning and witchcraft were more commonplace during the heightened witch hunts of the 16th and 17th centuries as a means to prosecute women healers under the law.

Prosecutions for witchcraft didn’t come to an end in England until the early 18th century when the 1736 witchcraft act repealed earlier legislation and made it a crime to either pretend to be a witch or to accuse someone of practising witchcraft.

Following the 1736 act, the witches (and folk healers) were left alone for a while although still encountered difficulties from the church and establishment at times. Nonetheless the act of prescribing potions continued.

The practice of prescribing herbal pills, potions and salves as a herbal medicine practitioner eventually became a legitimate occupation. It’s one still dominated by women to this day.

Anthony Booker, Reader in Ethnopharmacology, University of Westminster

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