Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mike Calver, Associate Professor in Biological Sciences, Murdoch University

Warning: some readers might find images in this article disturbing

We all know cats represent a major threat to native animals and birds. Australia’s 5.3 million domestic cats kill a total of 546 million animals each year in Australia. What’s less well known is allowing your domestic cat to roam outside exposes them to considerable danger – and the risk of a short life.

About two-thirds of all Australian cat owners have had a cat die while out roaming. The top risks are road traffic accidents, fighting and falls.

Our recent research review found keeping your cat at home at all times isn’t just good for wildlife – it’s much safer for your cat.

Losing a cat is tragic. But there are other risks too. Many owners rack up large veterinary bills while their cats are left with lifelong health conditions. Our review also found this situation is not unique to Australia, but reflects the global risk faced by free-roaming cats.

What are the risks?

Cameras mounted on collars provide a cat’s-eye view of the hazards roaming cats face. In one study of 55 free-roaming felines in the United States, 25% risked poisoning by eating or drinking while away from home – any substance could be hazardous. Nearly half (45%) crossed roads, 25% encountered other cats, 20% crawled under houses and 20% explored storm drains.

This isn’t just American feline bravado. When cameras were fitted to 37 cats in New Zealand, 59% drank away from home, 40% ate away from home, 32% crossed roads and 21% risked falling by climbing onto roofs.

Australian cats are no exception. In one study, 428 radio-tracked cats averaged 4.8 road crossings per day.

What are the outcomes?

If you’re a fan of The Simpsons you might recall the fate of their family cats: Snowball I and Snowball II died on the road, Snowball III drowned, Coltrane (AKA Snowball IV) fell to his death, and Snowball V is still with us. The reality is uncomfortably similar. Our review found that trauma – mainly road traffic accidents, fighting and falls – kills or injures many free-roaming cats globally.

In a recent UK study, road traffic accidents were the leading cause of death for cats aged less than one year old all the way to eight-year-old cats.

This aligns with European estimates, which suggest 18–24% of cats are struck by a car during their lifetime, with around 70% of those incidents proving fatal. Victims are often under five years old and predominantly male. Risks are higher for those not desexed, as they tend to roam wider and more frequently.

Love and status offer no protection. Former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s cat, Paddles, colloquially known as New Zealand’s first cat, died after being hit by a car in 2017.

The dangers extend well beyond road accidents. Roaming pet cats face serious infectious diseases, such as Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV), and frequently engage in fights, often developing abscesses that can kill and require expensive veterinary treatment.

While it’s hard to quantify the instances of deliberate human cruelty to cats, there is global evidence for deliberate poisoning and injury to roaming cats, many of which die before receiving medical intervention.

In one study tracking 55 roaming cats in Western Australia over just eight months, two were poisoned, one lost a front leg in a traffic accident, one fractured two canine teeth in a fall, and two required veterinary treatment for fight-related injuries.

Drawing all these factors together, we estimated outdoor pet cats have lives at least 2–3 years shorter than the population of contained pet cats. Those that survive accidents or disease may have lifelong disabilities.

How can you reduce the risks?

The simplest way to protect your cats is to contain them on your property, just as Australians do with other domestic animals. Extensive advice is available on how to keep cats happy and healthy while contained.

Importantly, containment doesn’t mean keeping your cat indoors at all times. Backyards can be modified with fence-top rollers to prevent escape. Some owners enclose part of the yard to create a “catio” – an outdoor cat enclosure – allowing their cats to enjoy fresh air and sunshine while remaining secure.

Many cats can also be trained to walk on a harness or leash, making it possible to take them for supervised outings. A recent report from Norway found providing controlled outdoor access is often important for maintaining cat wellbeing.

Cats need to be entertained when in the house. They enjoy outside views, toys, scratching surfaces, above-ground climbing and sitting spaces, and opportunities for play. They are naturally solitary animals, so places to hide are useful.

If cats can’t go outside to toilet, they will need two indoor litter trays. Because cats are fastidious, trays must be cleaned frequently. In multi-cat households, provide one litter tray per cat, plus an extra. Place the trays in separate, quiet locations, and never beside the food bowl.

Responsible cat ownership

Australians love their cats. In 2019, roughly a quarter of Australian households owned a cat. By 2025, that figure had risen to a third. Over the same period, households reporting they kept their cats indoors rose from 36% to 48%.

Perhaps we are finally valuing our cats as we do our dogs and listening to Aussie songwriter and singer Eric Bogle’s sage advice:

Oh you who love your pussy be sure to keep him in. Don’t let him argue with a truck, the truck is bound to win. And upon the busy road don’t let him play or frolic. If you do I’m warning you it could be CAT-astrophic.

– ref. Your cat is likely to live longer if you don’t let them roam – new study – https://theconversation.com/your-cat-is-likely-to-live-longer-if-you-dont-let-them-roam-new-study-276282

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Cook, Senior Research Fellow, Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne

When English author J.R.R. Tolkien crafted his fantasy world Middle-earth, he argued storytellers are essentially “sub-creators” – they build fictional realms with internally consistent laws.

For a world to be truly immersive and believable, readers apply what is known as the “principle of minimal departure”. This assumes anything not explicitly magical, such as a planet’s weather or gravity, must adhere to the laws of the real world.

In this spirit of rigorous worldbuilding, we just published a new study where we merged the disparate disciplines of literary worldbuilding and climate modelling.

We used complex computer programs – the same ones used to forecast Earth’s future warming scenarios – to simulate the climates of famous fantasy settings such as Tolkien’s Middle-earth, the continents of Westeros in the Game of Thrones, and the far-future Earth in The Wheel of Time series. We also built a model for a fictional world developed by one of us.

It’s a seemingly whimsical exercise, but it serves serious purposes.

For starters, it provides new details on fictional worlds beyond what the author shared, “filling the gaps” with science.

More importantly, it offers a new way for us to communicate the fundamental physics of climate science to a broad, general audience. And exploring climate model behaviour under fantastical settings helps our understanding of model physics.

Why the Misty Mountains are so misty

Tolkien, the author of The Lord of the Rings, was known for his extraordinary attention to detail. He meticulously calculated distances, times, and even phenomena such as the direction of the wind at every step along the characters’ journey.

Working from Tolkien’s own detailed maps, we fed Middle-earth’s topography (land height) and bathymetry (ocean depth) into an advanced climate model.

Since Tolkien intended Middle-earth to be our own Earth at a distant point in the past, we assumed its physical parameters – such as the planetary radius, rotation rate, and distance from the Sun – were identical to ours. We then simulated the world’s climate.

The results were a remarkable confirmation of Tolkien’s intuitive worldbuilding.

The model predicted a climate similar to Western Europe and North Africa – unsurprising, given Tolkien’s geographical inspiration.

The highest precipitation fell on and to the west of the Misty Mountains, with a drier “rain-shadow” effect to the east. This effect is caused by prevailing westerly winds forcing moist air to rise and cool over the mountains, condensing water vapour into rain or snow before it reaches the eastern side.

The model’s prediction of extensive forest cover across much of Middle-earth was consistent with Elrond’s claim that in the past, squirrels could travel from the Shire to Dunland without touching the ground.

Climate scientist Dan Lunt first released this climate simulation in a fictional paper in 2013, and it became an unexpected success in the classroom. Educators used the exotic setting of Middle-earth to explain complex concepts underpinning weather and climate. They were able to relate this to the physical laws that govern why climate changes in the real world.

The unstable seasons of Westeros

One of the defining features of George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones is the unpredictable and prolonged seasons of Westeros. This unique climatic feature is not just backstory. It’s a crucial plot device, allowing the White Walkers to move southward across an ice-covered world.

Astrophysicists and climatologists have long nerded out over the possible cause. Theories have ranged from binary star systems to volcanic activity, but all have struggled to create a viable, habitable world.

We focused on the idea of a chaotically-varying axial tilt. On Earth, the stable tilt of our axis is what gives us regular seasons. We used a real-world climate model where the planet’s axis “tumbled” throughout the year, like a wobbly spinning top.

The result was striking: if the planet tumbled exactly once per orbit, one hemisphere would constantly face the sun in a fixed season, creating a permanent summer or winter.

But what causes the season to suddenly flip from a long summer to a long winter? The tilt of our planet’s axis is stabilised by the gravitational influence of its moon.

Martin’s world has only one moon, but legend says it once had two, until the second moon “wandered too close to the sun and it cracked from the heat”. The loss of a second moon may have caused the planet’s axis to become unstable, providing a plausible, physics-based explanation for the world’s greatest mysteries.

Building new worlds with climate science

The benefits of climate modelling are not limited to just filling gaps in classic stories.

Our models can also inform the worldbuilding of new fantasy realms. The work now published in our new paper started when climate communicator John Cook was developing an allegorical, speculative story exploring the denialist response to environmental damage.

He worked with climate scientists to simulate the climate of his fantasy world, Terrios. The subsequent model output provided concrete details such as temperature, precipitation, and wind conditions at every step along the characters’ journey through a variety of biomes.

This ensured the world was internally consistent and richly detailed, enhancing verisimilitude and creating a more immersive experience for the reader.

Ultimately, applying physics to fictional lands provides an engaging way to connect general audiences with complex environmental science.

By using climate models, scientists honour Tolkien’s demand that even the most fantastical worlds must maintain a credible, finely-tuned balance between the familiar laws of realism and the fantastic.

The enduring legacy of these simulated worlds proves that when science and art collide, the resulting discoveries can be just as compelling as the stories themselves.

– ref. Do Middle-earth and Westeros make sense? Climate scientists modelled them to find out – https://theconversation.com/do-middle-earth-and-westeros-make-sense-climate-scientists-modelled-them-to-find-out-277232

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna Marie Brennan, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Waikato

When the United States and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury against Iran nearly two weeks ago, the first confirmation didn’t come from governments. It came from commercial satellites.

Images from US companies Planet Labs and Vantor captured smoke billowing over central Tehran and ships burning at the coastal city of Konarak – evidence of strikes on naval bases, airfields and missile sites that global media confirmed within hours.

But space-based technology was not just observing the conflict, it was also a target. US officials said early strikes hit “Iran’s equivalent of Space Command”, undermining Tehran’s ability to coordinate via satellite.

Iran has also used extensive “spoofing” to create false GPS signals to mislead receivers about their true location.

Simultaneously, US Space Command and Cyber Command launched operations to jam, hack and disrupt Iranian software systems, known as “non-kinetic” attacks in the jargon of modern warfare.

Such operations are a kind of “silent sabotage”, disabling communications or corrupting GPS signals without blowing anything up with conventional “kinetic” attacks.

This combination of advanced battlefield tactics and the rapid commercialisation of space technology, as well as the erosion of the old rules-based order in general, means international law is now falling well behind.

Blurred lines of accountability

Non-kinetic tactics have quickly spilled into civilian life. In January, amid anti-government protests, and later during the first wave of strikes, Iran used GPS jamming and spoofing to disrupt Starlink terminals, which civilians and protesters depended on to stay online and share information during internet blackouts.

At the same time, commercial satellite imagery became part of the conflict itself. After Planet Lab’s images revealed Iranian retaliatory strikes on US and US-linked sites in the Persian Gulf, the company delayed releasing new imagery to avoid aiding real‑time damage assessment by Iranian forces.

On March 10, Planet Labs extended the delay time to two weeks for non-government users, but the US military still receives immediate access.

Modern warfare depends heavily on these kinds of commercial, dual-use space systems. The same satellites that time financial transactions, support hospitals and manage global logistics also guide military operations.

This blurs the traditional legal boundary between civilian and military objects and activities. The International Committee of the Red Cross has warned repeatedly that interference with satellites can harm civilians by disrupting power grids, navigation, emergency services and humanitarian operations.

Outer space is not a legal vacuum. The United Nations’ Outer Space Treaty, the UN Charter itself, and international humanitarian law all apply to warfare in orbit. But the Iran war shows how real‑world practice is advancing faster than these legal frameworks.

A proper treaty is unlikely

Dual-use satellites providing both civilian broadband and military communications also complicate decisions about what constitutes a lawful target.

Legal experts say satellites providing essential civilian services should be presumed to be non-military unless direct military use is demonstrated. But this precept is tested daily over Iran.

Another challenge is political neutrality. If a private company based in a neutral state provides data that can assist military operations elsewhere, the neutral state may face serious questions and diplomatic pressure from other governments about whether it should be held responsible.

The law has not caught up with these commercial realities. Planet Lab’s imagery delays show how companies are having to improvise policy themselves during armed conflict.

And because cyber-attacks can disable military systems without causing physical destruction, they can fall short of “armed attack” thresholds under international law. States can exploit this legal grey zone to gain strategic advantage.

New legal norms may eventually evolve out of the behaviour of governments and commercial operators rather than through formal agreements and treaties. Indeed, geopolitical tensions make a new treaty on military space operations highly unlikely.

This leaves companies, regulators and militaries to define the boundaries of acceptable conduct through their real‑time responses. The result is a battlefield where satellites shape strategy faster than lawmakers can respond.

– ref. Commercial space technology is shaping the Iran war – the law can’t keep up – https://theconversation.com/commercial-space-technology-is-shaping-the-iran-war-the-law-cant-keep-up-277940

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sophie Andrews, Associate Professor and Lead, Healthy Brain Ageing Research Program, Thompson Institute, University of the Sunshine Coast

We’ve all been there. Whether it’s at a crucial moment of an exam, walking into a room for a specific purpose, or making an impromptu speech, your mind goes blank.

It can be frustrating, stressful or worrying.

But what’s really going on in your brain? And when should you go to your GP for a check-up?

What is mind blanking?

One of the earliest observations in psychology is that our thoughts usually produce a stream of consciousness, flowing almost constantly.

Often our attention and thoughts are focused. Other times, our mind wanders.

But less often (perhaps about 15% of the time) our mind goes completely blank. So in recent years, researchers have begun trying to find out why.

Mind blanking can happen when we intend to retrieve a memory, and find it gone. This could be completely forgetting the answers to questions in an exam, or forgetting why we walked into a room.

It can also happen when we are not aware of thinking at all. Someone might ask us a question, and we realise we had “zoned out”.

Sometimes this zoning out is due to our mind wandering, and we are aware of our thoughts. However, at other times, when we’re not sure where our mind went, this is mind blanking.

Some people are much more likely than others to say their mind goes blank. These include people with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) or anxiety.

Mind blanking is also more common in certain kinds of dementia, such as Lewy body dementia, and in people who are sleep deprived, or after intense physical exercise.

Let’s start with the brain

To understand what causes our mind to go blank, we need to start with how our brain usually pays attention and learns new memories.

A key brain network involved in these processes is the executive attention network. This is a network of interconnected brain regions that’s important for being alert, paying attention and feeling motivated.

These brain areas are connected to regions in the outer layer of the brain, the frontal and parietal cortex, which support our planning, decision-making and sensory integration.

This executive attention network is used both for passing information to our memory systems for storage, and then later retrieving those memories when we need them.

One of the key brain chemicals that supports this network is noradrenaline, also known as norepinephrine. This controls our alertness and readiness for action.

So what happens when our mind goes blank?

Disruption in any part of the executive attention network can impact the brain’s ability to pay attention and retrieve memories, leading to a blank mind.

When we’re sleep-deprived

Fatigue caused by sleep deprivation or sleep disorders can impact the alerting part of the network.

When we are very tired, we can experience “local sleep”. This is where the activity in parts of our brains is sleep-like even if we are awake. This can cause the attention system to temporarily shut off, which researchers think may lead to mind blanks.

Neuroimaging research shows parts of the executive attention network are “deactivated” during mind blanking.

This likely explains what causes the “zoning out” kind of mind blank.

When we’re stressed

High levels of stress or anxiety, such as what we might experience in an exam room, can result in high levels of noradrenaline. This puts the body in “fight or flight mode”.

This focuses our attention on immediate threats, reducing its ability to retrieve what it sees as non-essential memories, such as information you’ve been revising the day before.

When we’re multi-tasking

If the executive attention network doesn’t encode a memory efficiently in the first place – because for example, we were multi-tasking or distracted – then it might not be easily retrieved later on. This can also lead to a mind blank.

When is it time to see your GP?

While mind blanking is common and usually no cause for concern, frequent mind blanking can be a sign of a medical condition.

Some conditions that affect these attention network systems, include depression, anxiety, dementia or stroke. A condition that affects the memory systems themselves, such as Alzheimer’s disease, can also look like mind blanking, as can some kinds of seizures.

So, generally speaking, if you’ve noticed mind blanking becoming more common, if there has been a sudden onset of symptoms, or if your friends or family have raised concerns, see your GP for a check-up.

If you’ve noticed any changes to your ability to undertake your daily activities, or you find yourself confused or disorientated, you should also see your GP.

If you go to your GP for a check-up, they may take a medical history, and ask you some questions to assess your thinking and memory skills.

They may also refer you for neuropsychological or neurological assessment, or request a brain scan (like a CT or MRI scan) to check for any brain changes caused by stroke or dementia.

– ref. My mind keeps on going blank. How worried should I be? – https://theconversation.com/my-mind-keeps-on-going-blank-how-worried-should-i-be-276381

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tamer Morris, Senior Lecturer, International Law, University of Sydney

Since the United States and Israel launched their war against Iran, most international law experts appear to be speaking with one voice on the legality of the attacks.

Legal experts have said the attacks violated Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, which prohibits the use of force against states. The US and Israel have not produced any evidence that Iran posed an imminent threat to either of them. And neither has brought the matter to the UN Security Council. As such, this was a clear breach of international law.

But even though most scholars agree the strikes were unlawful, the public and political debate has shifted somewhere else entirely.

Instead of wrestling with the legal questions, many politicians, commentators, and everyday observers are counterbalancing the illegality with arguments about legitimacy.

Both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump have cast the war as a “necessary” fight between good and evil. Netanyahu said:

I know the cost of war. But I know sometimes that war is necessary to protect us from the people who will destroy us. […] We have to understand that we’re fighting here the bad guys. We’re the good guys. These people massacred their own people.

Canada and Australia, two of the US’ closest allies, have both used strikingly similar language in their statements about the war, saying they supported the US:

acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent its regime from further threatening international peace and security.

This idea of legitimacy – that is, what is “right”, “necessary”, or “just” – is now being thrown around in almost every conversation about the war.

Two arguments for a ‘just’ war

These arguments echo centuries‑old thinking about “just” wars.

Christian philosophers such as St Augustine (4th–5th century) and St Thomas Aquinas (13th century), for example, were early proponents of what is known as the “just war theory”. Basically, this means you may violate the moral rule against violence if the cause is “just”.

In modern debates, arguments about the legitimacy of wars tend to fall into two categories.

The first claims attacks like the ones launched by the US and Israel are morally just and therefore ought to be permitted, regardless of what international law says.

This line of reasoning goes something like this: “So what if the action breaches international law? We removed an evil dictator.” Or: “Do we really want Iran developing nuclear weapons or long-range missiles?”

The statements by Netanyahu and Trump frame the use of force as morally necessary, implying that if an action feels righteous, legality should not be a hindrance.

The second argument dismisses international law altogether as ineffective or irrelevant.

The strand of legitimacy reasoning is also becoming common. It’s reflected in statements like: “Where was international law when people were being killed on the streets in Iran?” or “How can international law matter if Iran is constantly threatening western states and funding a proxy war?”

The conclusion drawn here is simple: if the law fails to prevent harm, it must be irrelevant. And if international law is irrelevant, then the US-Israeli strikes on Iran are legitimate.

Both of these lines of reasoning carry their own risks, not least the danger of allowing subjective morality to replace objective legal constraints.

Can a morally just war be deemed illegal?

The first argument hinges on the notion that the US and Israel strikes on Iran are just, given the brutal, repressive nature of the Iranian regime and the fact it is pursuing nuclear weapons. And international law should allow just actions.

But who decides what is just?

For the US and some of its allies, this is a binary moral equation: Iran is bad, we are good.

But this argument can also be made from Iran’s perspective: Israel and the US are bad. Therefore, we need nuclear weapons to protect ourselves.

Once states are permitted to act on their own sense of morality and justice, the international system goes down an extremely dangerous road. Every state can consider itself the “good” actor in its own story. If we allow individual morality to override the law, moral chaos follows.

Historically, moral arguments about “civilisation”, “enlightenment”, or “improvement” were also used to justify colonisation and slavery.

This is still happening in different contexts today: one group assumes its moral compass is universal, superior and mandatory for all others. If the world returns to that mode of thinking, the strongest states will once again become the arbiters of what counts as “good”.

International law must therefore remain objective, free from claims of moral exceptionalism.

Does international law still have relevance?

The second argument is even stranger: where was international law when a state like Iran committed atrocities?

This requires a clearer understanding of the role of international law. If we disregard international law because someone violates it, it’s like rejecting the rule book while still using its language to call out a foul.

Without it, there would be no norms to appeal to, no expectation of protection, no shared belief that certain harms are prohibited.

This argument also doesn’t follow logic. Murders still happen in countries like Australia. Should we therefore abandon domestic laws that prevent them?

Of course, there are double standards in international law. Powerful states have greater impunity and weaker states face more scrutiny.

But double standards also exist in domestic legal systems – wealthier people generally receive better outcomes than those with less means.

The existence of inequality in international law, then, shows the need for reform, not the abandonment of the law altogether.

Why this matters

The Iran war reveals a dangerous shift in the way states justify their actions: a growing preference for moral storytelling over legal reasoning.

Once the narrative of a “just war” replaces the rule of law, there is little left to restrain the powerful states from dominating the weaker ones.

The purpose of international law is not to determine who is morally good; it is to maintain order in a world where every state believes it is waging the “good” fight.

– ref. ‘We’re the good guys’: why moral storytelling doesn’t make the war on Iran necessary or legal – https://theconversation.com/were-the-good-guys-why-moral-storytelling-doesnt-make-the-war-on-iran-necessary-or-legal-277952

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cristina Luz Wilkins, PhD Candidate, Department of Environmental Studies, University of New England

In 1974, philosopher Thomas Nagel posed a deceptively simple question: “what is it like to be a bat?”. His point wasn’t really about bats. He was offering a provocative challenge about the limits of understanding another mind: no matter how much we try, we cannot access what it feels like to experience the world as another.

This might seem like an abstract philosophical puzzle. But it’s crucial when we consider the billions of animals in our care – whether in farms, laboratories, homes or zoos. We make daily decisions about their lives, from their environment, to separation from companions, to whether they are suffering. Still, we face Nagel’s problem. We cannot directly access their experience. We can only infer it.

For decades, animal welfare science has grappled with this challenge. But in a recent paper published in the journal Frontiers in Animal Science, we’ve developed a framework called the “teleonome” that provides a way forward – not by transcending the limits Nagel identified, but by understanding each species on its own evolutionary terms.

It’s hard to see the whole

Currently, when we assess animal welfare, we’re like mechanics checking individual car parts without understanding how the engine works.

Physiologists measure stress hormones. Behaviourists count how often animals move or vocalise. And veterinarians check for disease.

Each specialist produces valuable data. But what’s missing is a way to evaluate these data from the animals’ lived experience.

A horse might have normal cortisol concentrations, show no abnormal repetitive behaviour, and appear physically healthy. But it might still be chronically distressed by separation from its companions.

A chicken in a cage might produce eggs efficiently. But she might be suffering chronic frustration because she cannot scratch, bathe in dust, flap her wings, explore and nest – behaviours the cage makes impossible.

Enter the ‘teleonome’

The teleonome is an animal’s integrated system of perceptual, physiological, behavioural and emotional capabilities. It is shaped by evolution to enable adaptation, survival and reproduction.

Back to the bat. Its DNA doesn’t “contain” echolocation like a blueprint contains a house plan. What exists is an integrated auditory-brain-body-behaviour system that only emerges when genes encounter the right environmental conditions.

That’s the bat’s teleonome: not just the genetic potential, but the living, functioning survival system.

The teleonome operates through a continuous four-step process. It detects change, evaluates whether it’s a threat or opportunity, forecasts the best response and, finally, acts.

This isn’t conscious deliberation but an embodied system guiding physiology and behaviour across timescales from milliseconds to months.

Emotions are central to the teleonome. An animal’s feelings of fear, frustration, contentment, or curiosity are evolved mechanisms for prioritising what matters, guiding learning and coordinating adaptive responses. These emotions reflect welfare and also actively maintain it. Negative experiences stimulate animals to resolve problems; positive experiences prompt them to carry on their activities.

Of course, the behaviour of individual animals of the same species will vary. This can be explained by the “expressed teleonome”: genes provide biological potential, but lifetime experiences, current stress load, and environmental context shape expression.

The teleonome also recognises that animals need environments that offer what their bodies and brains evolved to anticipate, use and learn. A hen doesn’t just prefer to dust-bathe; she does so to keep her feathers and skin in good condition. Remove that opportunity and you disrupt the process, creating ongoing biological stress – even if the bird appears healthy.

Why this matters

The teleonome provides welfare science with a biological north star.

Instead of arguing whether enrichment is “necessary” or debating which behaviours matter most, we can ask: does this behaviour support the animal’s evolved way of functioning, and does the environment enable it?

This has immediate practical applications.

For separation anxiety in dogs, we can identify and even rank the events and contexts which, in combination, trigger distress. We can then design interventions that fully support, rather than override, evolved social systems.

For farm animals, it explains why productivity doesn’t equal welfare. Domestication creates animals that are highly productive, producing a lot of milk, eggs or meat, but that also suffer chronic stress because we’ve disrupted animal-environment relationships that evolved over millions of years.

Perhaps most importantly, the teleonome transforms the ethics debate.

Treating animals as “ends in themselves” isn’t just philosophy. Rather it means recognising what matters to them based on how they have evolved.

The teleonome provides the biological foundation for making welfare decisions grounded in the animal’s perspective, rather than human preferences or industry convenience.

We may never solve Nagel’s philosophical puzzle. But animals are not black boxes either. Understanding their teleonome gives us a practical guide for care: not just to keep them alive and productive, but to enable the lives their biology prepared them for.

– ref. What’s it like to be a bat? Scientists develop new solution to the puzzle of animal minds – https://theconversation.com/whats-it-like-to-be-a-bat-scientists-develop-new-solution-to-the-puzzle-of-animal-minds-276385

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mike Armour, Associate Professor at NICM Health Research Institute, Western Sydney University

Having your period can be a painful experience.

Period pain, also known as dysmenorrhea, is a very common condition with around nine in ten young women aged 13 to 25 in Australia having regular period pain.

For many women, period pain can make exercise seem like an impossible task.

So should you avoid exercise if you have period pain? Or could exercising actually help?

What causes period pain?

There are two main types of period pain.

The most common is primary dysmenorrhea. This usually means painful cramps in the lower abdomen.

Research suggests this kind of period pain is caused by an increased number of prostaglandins. The body releases these hormone-like molecules when the lining of the uterus breaks down during the period. Prostaglandins can cause many different symptoms including period cramps, back or leg pain and loose bowels, also known as period poops.

The other type of period pain is secondary dysmenorrhea, which refers to pain caused by physical changes in the pelvis. One of the most common causes is endometriosis, a condition where tissue resembling uterine tissue grows in other parts of the body, leading to severe pain and fertility problems.

Read more: Period pain and heavy bleeding cost the Australian economy billions every year in lost productivity: study

Can exercise reduce period pain?

Unfortunately, period pain is often difficult to treat. Many women don’t respond well to standard period pain treatments. These include non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications such as ibuprofen or mefenamic acid, also known as Ponstan.

This has led researchers to examine exercise as a way to reduce period pain symptoms. And there is some evidence suggesting that regular physical activity can reduce how severe period pain is, and how long it lasts.

Imagine you have a period pain scale from zero to ten, where zero means no pain and ten indicates the worst pain. Research from 2019 suggests exercise can reduce the severity of period pain by an average of 2.5 points. This makes exercise more effective than other self-treatment methods, such as using a heat pack.

However, we have only one 2017 study which directly compares the effects of exercise and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications on period pain. This means it’s hard to make any clear recommendations. But this study suggests regular exercise is at least as helpful as taking mefenamic acid.

Exercise may also reduce how long period pain lasts. One study from 2025 found aerobic exercise, which aims to increase your breathing and heart rate, can shorten the duration of period pain by more than 12 hours.

Many women experience the worst pain in the first 48 hours of their period, so a potential 25% cut in the duration of period pain is significant.

What kinds of exercise are best?

Most of the evidence examining exercise and period pain focuses on aerobic exercise. This includes cycling, swimming and jogging. A handful of studies look at strength training, yoga and relaxation exercises such as gentle stretching.

There is some evidence to suggest strength training relieves period pain more than other kinds of exercise. However, researchers generally study a specific kind of strength training known as isometric exercises. These involve holding muscles in a static position, such as doing a plank.

Other studies show exercises such as progressive muscle relaxation, which involves tensing and then relaxing particular muscles, can also be very effective. A 2024 study found women who did relaxation-based exercises, combined with self-massage, experienced the greatest reduction in pain. And because they’re simple to do, participants were more likely to stick with relaxation-based exercises compared to other kinds of physical activity.

But most of this research focuses on primary dysmenorrhea. So for those whose period pain may be caused by an underlying condition, it may be best to start with gentler forms of exercise such as yoga. You can also speak to an exercise physiologist to get personalised advice. This is because we don’t fully understand if more intense exercise has the same effect on period pain caused by other conditions, such as endometriosis.

When and how often should I exercise?

There isn’t much research looking at the effects of exercising specifically during the period. But a 2025 review of existing studies suggests exercising two to three times a week can reduce period pain.

This review found participants who did strength training for at least 30 minutes at a time, over a minimum of eight weeks, experienced the greatest reduction in pain. However, existing research suggests you may start seeing some improvements in both pain intensity and duration in as few as four weeks.

The research is less clear when it comes to aerobic exercise. A 2025 review suggests shorter and less intense sessions of aerobic exercise may be most effective for managing period pain.

So doing at least 90 minutes of exercise a week, for at least eight weeks, may be the best exercise-based way to reduce period pain. This seems to be the case whether you exercise during your period or not. But if you experience any negative symptoms after exercising, such as pain below your belly button when you’re not menstruating, it’s best to speak to a doctor.

The bottom line

Overall, exercise is one way women can manage period pain. Current research suggests any kind of exercise, ranging from yoga to more intense aerobic workouts, can reduce the severity and duration of period pain. So everyone can benefit from exercise, regardless what time of the month it is.

– ref. Can exercise reduce period pain? And what kind is best? – https://theconversation.com/can-exercise-reduce-period-pain-and-what-kind-is-best-275076

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ari Mattes, Lecturer in Communications and Media, University of Notre Dame Australia

Film critics – myself included – love to bemoan the death of high-quality cinema in the age of streaming, pointing to mediocre Best Picture Oscar nominees as evidence that the production of great (or even good) films is on the wane.

But perhaps things are changing. Are people sick of being inundated with short videos on TikTok and Youtube, and once again hankering for a cinematic experience? The quality of this year’s nominees suggests they are.

For the first time in a while, most of the nominated films are excellent – and nearly all of them are watchable.

Read more: The Oscars aren’t a meritocracy – there’s a complex formula for winning

My top pick: Sentimental Value

Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value is my pick for the Best Picture Oscar. It’s the kind of meticulously crafted film in which the naturalism seems effortless.

The narrative follows acclaimed filmmaker Gustav Borg (Stellan Skarsgård), a quintessential Euro-auteur, who comes back into the lives of his estranged daughters Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) following their mother’s death.

Gustav is making a new film, and wants his daughter Nora – an acclaimed theatre actress who has her own demons to battle (stage fright among them) – to star in it.

Nora assumes it’s a cynical manoeuvre for funding on her father’s part and refuses. So Gustav casts American star Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning) instead, who is immediately out of her depth.

The drama unfolds around the family home in Oslo, interweaving narratives of the home’s history across generations with the tensions plaguing its current inhabitants.

Sentimental Value has a strikingly lyrical quality. Some may say it’s overdone, but every element is so perfectly executed that it doesn’t come across as pretentious or laboured. It is, in many respects, thoroughly sentimental – yet never feels like it’s performing this as some kind of effect.

Despite its considerable formal and narrative complexity, it plays in a starkly simple fashion, thanks to the light touch of Trier, coupled with stunning cinematography by Kasper Tuxen Andersen.

The lead performances by Reinsve, Lilleaas and Skarsgård are extraordinarily convincing and, perhaps more surprisingly, Fanning is awesome as the uncomfortable American trying to please the European artiste.

Sentimental Value brilliantly weaves a sense of European social and cultural history with carefully observed character moments, becoming, by the end, a kind of treatise on the affirmative potential of art to transcend and transform interpersonal barriers.

Despite the difficulties of life, the detritus of broken promises and hearts, and the disappointments minor and not so minor, we can still come together – beautifully and wholeheartedly – through the practice of that abstract dream that is called art.

Other excellent contenders

There are a few other strong contenders – films which, any other year, would have stood out above the pack.

Bugonia

Yorgos Lanthimos is one of the most acclaimed filmmakers of the past decade, and yet his films have been hit and miss. After his last great film, the 2015 black comedy The Lobster, Bugonia marks a return to form.

The film follows bumbling paranoiac conspiracy nut Teddy (Jesse Plemons) as he and his half-witted cousin Don (Aidan Delbis) kidnap Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone), the CEO of pharmaceutical company Auxolith.

Fuller is the kind of ruthless business leader who appears on the cover of Forbes magazine with the caption “Breaking Barriers” and who spouts endless nonsense about diversity while her company wreaks havoc on the planet and the people around them.

According to Teddy, she is also an “Andromedon” alien sent to Earth to enslave and exploit the human population, bringing death to humans as it has been brought to the bees.

The brilliance of the film largely revolves around its manipulation of our identification with the two leads. At times Teddy seems like a lunatic serial killer, and Fuller a heroic victim. At times we empathise with Teddy, while Fuller looks like a manipulative, cold-hearted sociopath.

The whole thing builds up to an immensely satisfying resolution, suitably nihilistic and absurd in equal measure.

As is often the case with Lanthimos’ films, the figures are caricaturish, but the comedic timing – and the oscillation between humour and discomfort for the viewer – is spot on, so it works.

Sinners

Ryan Coogler’s Sinners is a great yarn: a well-executed rock ‘n’ roll fable slash vampire siege, full of electrifying music.

It’s 1932. Twin gangster brothers Smoke and Stack (a dual role played by Michael B. Jordan) return from working for Al Capone in Chicago to Clarksdale, Mississippi, to open up a juke joint.

Their cousin Sammie (Miles Caton), a cotton picker and bluesman – with Charley Patton’s guitar – steals the show at the hugely successful opening night, fulfilling the legend of a musician who can play so well the barriers between the living and the dead come down. Everything seems to be going well – until some redneck vampires decide to assail the venue.

The whole thing is rather gaudy and silly. But like its forebear From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) – it’s so energetically (and pleasurably) handled that it doesn’t matter.

Michael B. Jordan is brilliant in the two roles, and the end result is a muscular, satisfying film that feels like a good pulp novel or comic book – capped off with a Buddy Guy jam session in the final moments.

Sinners is a delicious dream. It’s unlikely to win Best Picture; there was a time, not so long ago, when this kind of genre film wouldn’t have made it into the mix. But it’s well worth its more than two-hour runtime.

Marty Supreme

It would be hard to think of a stupider premise for a movie. In the 1950s, fast-talking entrepreneurial New York hustler Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) has to raise money so he can make it to Japan to beat world number one Koto Endo (Koto Kawaguchi) in the table tennis showdown of the century.

Yet, director/co-writer Josh Safdie treats the premise with enough seriousness that we end up with a high octane sports film to rival Rocky IV. This is helped by the stunning cinematography by Darius Khondji. Shot on 35mm film, the images have a rich colour and texture rarely matched in digital cinematography.

There’s also a dynamite score from Daniel Lopatin, and an anachronistic soundtrack featuring several stellar 1980s pop tunes from the likes of Public Image Limited, New Order and Tears for Fears, to name a few.

Despite Marty’s arrogance, sweet-talking, womanising, con-artistry and generally bad behaviour, Chalamet invests the character with enough pathos and humour that he comes across as a thoroughly loveable – or at least likeable – rogue.

He is a crackpot whose self-belief and willingness to do anything to achieve his dream tricks the viewer into becoming equally invested in his absurd quest as he (and the film) bounce around New York and the world like a bright ping pong ball.

Marty Supreme is an odd – and oddly arresting – film capturing something of the madness at the heart of the American dream. Mauser does whatever he can to make it to Japan. And after several escapades – and some downright brutal scenes featuring cult director Abel Ferrara as an ageing gangster – he does make it.

The rest

Unusually for the Oscars, the pack of 2026 nominees is rounded out by several other good films.

Although not as good as some of his other films, such as Neighbouring Sounds (2012) and Bacurau (2019), Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent is a rollicking political thriller. Set in the 1970s, it features a standout performance by Wagner Moura as a dissident academic evading persecution from a brutal dictatorship.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another is a wacky comedy occasionally masquerading as a serious political action thriller. It follows the burnt out leftist Pat Calhoun (Leonardo DiCaprio) as, with his daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti), he evades capture by police and a militia led by the moronic Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn). The whole thing is pretty silly, but like its inspiration – Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel Vineland – it is fun nonetheless.

F1 is likewise good. This finely wrought racing flick follows all of the delightfully dumb cliches of the genre. Hard-boiled and burnt-out old timer Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) makes it to Formula One for the first time, and contends with a new era of racing epitomised by his nemesis, the brash young gun Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris).

It’s hard to imagine such a film being nominated for Best Picture in any other era; Tony Scott’s Days of Thunder (1990) is equally stupid, but better made, and has been universally lampooned by critics. But people seem to be craving (and appreciating) big screen popcorn films in an era where streaming and second-screen viewing has all but destroyed commercial narrative cinema.

Only three nominees stick out as dreary

Clint Bentley’s Train Dreams is an earnest but visually unappealing Netflix film, following a ho-hum period love story about class, racism and the American Dream. Joel Edgerton is solid as usual, and the film is watchable enough, but the whole thing seems rather tired. And the digital video look really doesn’t work with the kinds of exterior, panoramic images that dominate the film.

In Frankenstein, director Guillermo del Toro takes one of the duller, more proselytising novels in the Gothic canon and gives it a suitably ponderous treatment. Oscar Isaac hams it up in full actor mode as Dr Frankenstein. Jacob Elordi is ridiculous as the monster. And Christoph Waltz as Harlander delivers such humdingers as “Can you contain your fire, Prometheus, or are you going to burn your hands before delivering it?” (in case you didn’t know, the novel’s subtitle is The Modern Prometheus).

Made for Netflix, Frankenstein tries hard to look sumptuous with period décor, but it can’t mask the sterility of its digital images. While the novel, at least, has a simple elegance to it, del Toro’s version is meandering, gaudy and cheap-looking.

It is difficult to treat Hamnet – the unbearably pretentious latest film from director Chloe Zhao – seriously, because the filmmakers do it for you. Though there are some things to like – Paul Mescal, for instance, is nice to watch, the cast are generally proficient, and the score is fine – this self-satisfied nonsense plays more like an Instagram video performing its own seriousness than a genuinely engaging feature film.

7 hits out of 10

As usual, the best films of 2025 haven’t been nominated for Best Picture (where’s Sirât, Redux Redux, or Harvest?). Nonetheless, most of this year’s nominees are films that warrant watching more than once for a variety of reasons: pleasure, complexity, nuance.

Perhaps Hollywood is starting to make good films again after decades of superhero trash. Or, at least, the Academy has started to recognise them.

– ref. The Oscars are usually a mess, but this year’s Best Picture nominees are strong. Here’s who should win – https://theconversation.com/the-oscars-are-usually-a-mess-but-this-years-best-picture-nominees-are-strong-heres-who-should-win-274431